PORTRAIT OF A POLIS: LATO PROS KAMARA (CRETE) IN THE LATE SECOND CENTURY B.C. T HE TWO LATOAN EPIGRAMSrecently published in this journal1are a chance find that not only adds to the corpus of Cretan metricalinscriptions but also promptsa review of our knowledgeof politically powerful individuals,families, and clans in the flour- ishing city of Lato pros Kamara at the end of the 2nd century.2The present article first addressesthe information that inscriptions and other sources provide about civic life and public organizationthere. Attention is then focused on the individualswho participatedin public life at Lato and their families and finally on the clans to which the leading families of the polis belonged. It is in this context that the significanceof the two epigramsrecently published can best be assessed. For Kletonymos,son of Mnastokles, now known from his gravestoneas well as from the official dedicationsin 10 and 11, was a magistratewho went on to serve on a post- magistral advisorycouncil and whose sons held lower magistraciesat the time of his death. Kletonymos is representative of many men, individual members of aristocratic families which in turn belonged to the ruling clans of Lato. And Thiodotos son of Thiodotos, grandson of Biannos, great-grandsonof Euagoros, was the scion of an otherwise obscure family, descendednevertheless from magistratescontemporary with Kletonymos.His sig- nificance lies in his belonging to a family which, in and out of public office, can be traced over six generations,from a burial at the early upland metropolisof Lato to the later mari- time city. At Lato, with its extensive set of official inscriptions,there is an unusual opportunityto study the families and clans that held public office year after year. There is also a rare chance to examine in detail some of the family lines that comprisedthe ruling clans of the polis. The inscriptionspermit the reconstructionof the yearly administrationof Lato and its territory,not only by the city's chief magistratesbut also by officialsof lower rank and those I Baldwin Bowsky, "Epigrams"(see footnote2 below). 2 I wish to thank ProfessorHenri van Effenterrefor readingpreliminary versions of the presentarticle. All dates are B.C. unless otherwise indicated, and texts are cited by their number in the Appendix. In the gen- ealogical charts, broken lines indicate hypothetical lines of descent; names in brackets are likewise hypo- thetical;text numbers appear beside attestedlines of descent. Works frequently cited are abbreviatedas follows: Baldwin Bowsky, "Epigrams" = M. W. Baldwin Bowsky, "Epigramsto an Elder Statesman and a Young Noble from Lato pros Kamara (Crete),"Hesperia 58, 1989, pp. 115- 129 Guarducci, 1947 = M. Guarducci,"Appunti di cronologiacretese: la guerra del 114 av. Cr. fra Lato e Olunte,"Epigraphica 9, 1947, pp. 32-35 Van Effenterre, 1943 = H. van Effenterre,"Documents edilitaires de Lato,"REA 45, 1943, pp. 27- 39 Van Effenterreand Bougrat = H. van Effenterre and M. Bougrat, "Les frontieres de Lato," Kp?7-LKa' XpOVLKa' 21, 1969, pp. 9-53 Willetts = R. F. Willetts, Aristocratic Society in Ancient Crete, London 1955 American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org 332 MARTHA W. BALDWIN BOWSKY who held special appointments.The larger context for the individuals, families, and clans here discussedis Lato itself, a polis in transitionfrom the turbulenceof 2nd-centuryCrete to stability and prosperityat the end of the century.This happy state of affairs was apparently to continuethroughout Rome's "provincialization"of the island and the establishmentof the pax Romana, which could only benefit a polis by the sea. The names of a remarkablenumber of Lato's magistratesare preservedfrom the last quarter of the 2nd century. Seventeendifferent boards of kosmoiare named in inscriptions that attest their activities in Lato and in the various sanctuariesof Lato and her territory.3 Kosmotwere the chief magistratesof the polis and served on annual boards filled by mem- bers chosen from certain ruling clans.4Clans, in turn, were composedof households (oikoi) which includedfour generationstraced through the male line back to a founder.5The result of such a household-clanstructure under which only some clans were privileged to govern was the monopolizationof the kosmate, the chief magistracy,by an aristocraticelite com- posed of a few exclusive clans. This select group governedthrough clan chiefs and their col- leagues, who were themselvesclan elders.6As the most senior of these clan elders on any one board of kosmoi, the clan chief is acknowledgedin the preserved texts as the one "with whom" other kosmoi served (1-4, 10-15, 26, and 27) or else simply appears as the first named in a list of kosmoi (8, 9, 16-21, and 25). Another standardterm in the literatureon this magistry is protokosmos. Restrictiveas this kinship-basedprocess was in determiningthe kosmoiof any one year, the magistrates were then asked to be multi-purpose officials in accordancewith Jones' principle of "generalapplicability" whereby an existing administrativeapparatus such as the kosmate could be "employedacross the whole range of governmentalactivity-legis- lation, the judiciary, financial administration,the armed forces, and so on."7The kosmoiof Lato pros Kamara were indeed called upon to be competentin foreign policy (1-4, 23, 24, 26); to preside over the inductionof new citizens into their own body politic and to witness, through their preigistos, the swearing in of new citizens of Olous (4); and to oversee archi- tectural projects(8-10, 1-2-17, 19-21, and 27). There is, however, evidencethat Lato's kosmate was not quite a self-sufficientadmin- istrative body. The sepulchral epigram for Kletonymos8indicates that Kletonymos' sons servedas oikonomoi,managers or administrators(almost certainlyfinancial) secondin rank to the kosmoi of Lato, as they were to those of Arkades and Chersonesos.912 names an 3 1-4, IC 1 16.22, 8-27. 4 Willetts, p. 29, citing Aristotle, Ath.Pol., I272a. I Willetts, p. 59. 6 Willetts, p. 113. 7N. F. Jones, Public Organizationin Ancient Greece:A DocumentaryStudy, Philadelphia 1987, p. 1. 8 Baldwin Bowsky, "Epigrams,"pp. 118-123. 9 P. Ducrey and H. van Effenterre, "Un reglement d'epoque romaine sur les bains d'Arcades,"Kp2TLK?a XpOVLKa'25, 1973, pp. 281-290; IC I 7.5. Cf. D. M. Pippidi, "Notes de lecture," StClas 21, 1983 (pp. 103-114), pp. 108-109 for Histrian oikonomoi,second in rank to meristai. PORTRAIT OF A POLIS: LATO PROS KAMARA 333 individualwho defrayedthe cost (choragesas)of an architecturalproject at the Aphrodision, in Lato's territory. In this same period, moreover,there appears to have been one delicate task for which annual boards of kosmoiwere either not suitable or not acceptable.Three panels of Euno- miotai, membersof a venerablecollege of magistratescalled the Eunomia after their meet- ing place, are known to have fulfilled their predominantlyreligious function by building temples (5-7). This panel, composed of mature statesmen with the authority of age and position, also had a nominal head referredto as the one "withwhom" other membersserved (again, 5-7). This special panel, perhaps called into existence by the terms of the Lato- Olous treaty of 4, concerned itself with public order and with investigating and judging questions related to religion and morals, and particularlyto laws of hospitality.10Its pur- view was specificallythe provision of a conciliatingand mediating authority to ensure or- derly process between Latoans and such citizens of otherpoleis as might find themselvesin Lato's territory.'11This seems to have been a particularlyacute concernfor citizens of Olous when at or on their way to Lato's shrines, many of which lay in the disputed territory between Olous and Lato. The inscriptionsset up by Latoan boardsof kosmoi,normally composedof five to seven magistratesand often naming their secretaryas well, provide us with the names or partial names of some seventy-two kosmoi and secretaries,as well as the names of many of their fathers, and in one case the name of the kosmos'grandfather. Panels of Eunomiotai, num- bering six to nine, set up inscriptionsthat recordthe names of another sixteen individuals and their fathers, and again the name of one grandfather.These documentsalmost provide a census of two generations,or in some cases three, of the political elite of Lato. The individuals named in the texts presented in the Appendix below can now be in- serted into their proper family and social context. The magistral inscriptionsof Lato not only attest a large number of individualnames but also preserveinformation about the fam- ilies and clans to which these men belonged. It is not just that kosmoiwere the clan chiefs and elders of any given year and group. There were at times brothers who served on the same board of kosmoi (8, 16, and 27), and kosmoihad at their disposal a secretarywho was chosen from the clan, sometimeseven a brotheror son of one of them (10, 11, 19-21). 12The fact that the five to seven men on any one board belonged to the same clan increases sig- nificantlythe likelihoodthat they were related, sometimesquite closely. Homonymy, in cir- cumstances so controlled by the ties of kinship and the brevity of the period in question, becomesan aid to prosopographicalresearch rather than an obstacle. At Lato, with its double set of inscriptions(one from the site of the temples and statues which the kosmoidedicated or rededicatedand one from the headquartersof the kosmoiin 10M. Guarducci,"Eunomia," Historia 7, 1933 (pp. 199-205), pp. 204-205. I Ibid., p. 204, and eadem, comments ad IC 1 16.5, lines 34-38. See also H. van Effenterre, "Querelles cretoises,"REA 44, 1942 (pp. 31-51), p. 46. 12 Willetts, pp. 141-142. 334 MARTHA W. BALDWIN BOWSKY Lato'3) there is an unusual opportunity to study the families and clans that held public office.