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Romanization in Syria-Palestine in the Late Republic and Early Empire

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Romanization in Syria-Palestine in the Late Republic and Early Empire ROMANIZATION IN SYRIA-PALESTINE IN THE LATE REPUBLIC AND EARLY EMPIRE. Robyn Tracey B.A. (Hons.) (Syd.), M.A. (Hons. (Macquarie VOLUME II NOTES, ADDENDUM, BIBLIOGRAPHY. Thesis submitted to the School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.. October, 1935 Plate 1 ( liii/iili'im r ilf lii im ir mu! CL J r Notes on Plate: a) Type capital from the South Court of the Sanctuary of Baalshamin at Palmyra (Baalshannn II, PI.LXXXIII.6). b) Capital from al-Bhara (Musil, Palmyrena, p.142, fig.39, detail). c) Type B£ capital from the South Court of the Sanctuary of Baalshamin at Palmyra (Baalshannn II, PI.LXXXIII.2). Ivii. INTRODUCTION: NOTES 1. Glen W. Bowersock, Augustus and the Greek World, Oxford, 1964, p.66. In fairness it should be pointed out that Bowersock himself, in later works, "City Development in Syria under Vespasian", Vestigia 17, 1973 (Sixth International Congress for Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Munich 1972), pp.123-129, and "Syria under Vespasian", JRS LXIII, 1973, pp.133- 140, has taken a more liberal approach to the subject. Based on the substance, rather than the language of the relevant inscriptions, together with pertinent archaeological and textual evidence, these studies endeavour to determine the impact on the cities of Syria and Arabia in terms of expansion, of the policy implemented by Vespasian's legate, Traianus. Although Bowersock himself does not use the word 'Romanization', such a programme can hardly be other than one of Romanization in effect, even if this is not its primary aim. 2. Barbara Levick, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor, Oxford, 1967, pp.184 ff. 3. Augustus and the Greek World, pp.66, 69-72. 4. M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2nd edition, revised by P.M. Fraser, Oxford, 1957 (hereafter 5.E.H.R.E.?), pp.272-3. 5- Ibid., pp.270-272. A rather substantial exception. 6. Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2nd edition, revised by Michael Avi-Yonah, George Bean, Michael Gough, T.B. Mitford, George Mihailov, Joyce Reynolds, Henri Seyrig, J. David Thomas and David Wilson, Oxford, 1971 (hereafter C.E.R.P.^), pp.293-4. 7. Theodor Fyfe, Hellenistic Architecture. An Introductory Study, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1936, pp.3-4, for the explicit statement upon which the book is based. 8. In Axel Boethius and J.B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, The Pelican History of Art, Penguin Books, 1970, Part III, Ch.18, "The Architecture of the Roman East." Since this is the most recent English compendium of Syrian architecture of the Roman period, it constitutes a major reference work and will henceforth be cited as "Ward-Perkins, op. cit.11; for the sake of contradistinction, reference to the remainder of the book will take the form of, "Boethius - Ward-Perkins, op. cit.", with the actual author of the passage in question specified where necessary. The plates pertaining to Ch.18 will similarly be cited as, "Ward-Perkins, op. cit., Pi. ..." 9. Ibid., p.431. 10. Ibid., p.425. 11. Kathleen M. Kenyon, Digging up Jerusalem, Ernest Benn Ltd., INTRODUCTION: Notes lviii. London and Tonbridge, 1974, p.206. 12. Stewart Perowne, The Life and Times of Herod the Great, Hodder and Stoughton, London and Southampton, first published 1956, 2nd impression 1957, p.108. 13. Ibid., p.178. 14. Religion in Ancient History, Studies in Ideas, Men and Events, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1973, pp.219-20. 15. "La Presence de Rome en Israel", Latomus XIX, 1960, pp.708-723, especially pp.708-710. 16. "The Foundation of Tiberias", IEJ I, 1950-1951, pp.160-169, especially p.160. 17. For a fuller discussion of the stances of these various scholars, see my previous work, "Preliminary Study for an Investigation of Romanizat­ ion in Syria-Palestine: The Problems of Methodology and Evidence", a thesis submitted to the School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with Honours, March 1981 (hereafter M.A.), pp.2-3. 18. M.A. pp.3-6. 19. Kenyon, op. cit., p.199 (cf. M.A. Note 20). 20. The distinction between policy and effect was drawn briefly by Duval in the discussion of the paper given to the Sixth International Congress for Greek and Latin Epigraphy, 1972, by H.-G. Pflaum, "La Romanisation de l'Afrique", Vestigia 17, 1973, pp.55-72, ref. p.70. My own appraisal of the problem was, however, independent. 21. For example, he takes no account of the situation in Palmyrene, see below, Ch. VI, pp. 260-273. 22. Cf. M.A. pp.6-8. 23. For example, the bulk of the pottery and sculptures and certain architectural types under certain conditions, and the "small finds", matters dealt with in detail in my previous work. See also below. 24. See now J.-P. Rey-Coquais, "Syrie romaine de Pomp^e a DioclStien", JRS LXVIII, p.1978, pp.44-73, ref. pp.44-53. Pompey's Syria included what was later known as Syria Phoenice, that is to say the Mediterranean coastal strip west of the Libanus mountains, and spreading inland south of the range - though Josephus assigns the latter to Coele- syria (see H. Bietenhard, "Die Decapolis von Pompeius bis Trajan", ZDPV LXXIX, 1963, pp.24-58, ref. p.32) -, Coelesyria, based on the Beqa1, the long valley cut off by the Libanus and Anti-Libanus mountains, and Syria Palaestina, but with a motley collection of small domains of various type and various sizes, held by a variety of different types of local ruler, particularly to the south and north-east (see e.g. E.S. Bouchier, Syria as a Roman Province, Oxford, 1916), Commagene, Emesa, Palmyra, Jerusalem INTRODUCTION: NOTES (temporarily assigned to Hyrcanus), and so forth. After a complicated series of vicissitudes, alarums and excursions, principally Herodian, virtually all of the independent states were included in the province, most by the end of the first century A.D.; Commagene in 72/3 (BJ VII.vii.1 ff., widely cited, e.g. by Bowersock, JRS 1973, p.135, cf. Suetonius, Vesp. VII.4) after an earlier brief inclusion under Tiberius (Rey-Coquais, loc. cit., p.49); Emesa between A.D. 72 and A.D. 78 (Bowersock, loc. cit., citing a tomb inscription of A.D. 78, which shows that'the family of Sampsigeramus, though still in existence, had ceased to rule; he refers to Schlumberger, Seyrig and Rey-Coquais for support in this rejection of the previously credited Domitianic date). Chalcis, too, was probably incorpor­ ated into the province at around the same time; Jones notes that its era on coins begins in the year A.D. 92 (C.E.R.P.2, p.262). He suggests that this display of autonomy indicates that it was "freed" from a dynast, perhaps in return for acknowledgement of Roman suzerainty, cf. Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest, Princeton University Press, 1§61 (hereafter HistAnt.), p.145, on Pompey's granting of libertas to Antioch. Rey-Coquais, 1oc.~cit., p.50 and n. 71, also favours this date. However, coin eras can be ambiguous. Jones himself leaves open the question of the date of the incorporation of Emesa into the province, although it, too, issued its first coins under Domitian (op. cit., pp.266-7) - presumably the basis for the older theory - perhaps advisedly, since Antioch, for example, dated its municipal coinage by the Pompeian era between 54 and 51 B.C. (Downey, HistAnt., p.149), but circumspectly changed to the Caesarean era in 48 B.C. (ibid., pp.153-4). Another example of doubt attaching to the significance of eras would be that of Capitolias: it begins its era in A.D.97/8, but precisely what this commemorates is uncertain. It may be its incorporation into the province of Syria, its incorporation into the Decapolis - it was absent from Pliny's list of cities belonging to the Decapolis but included in Ptolemy's list of cities belonging to the Decapolis and Coelesyria (see Bietenhard, loc. cit., p.24 for the comparative lists from Pliny, NH V.16, 74 and Ptolemy, V.7.14- 17, p.26 for the era of Capitolias) - or perKas a real, more substantial re-foundation under Nerva or Trajan, rather than simply a change in political status. Dura Europos, however, was annexed only under Marcus Aurelius, during Verus' Parthian campaign (M. Rostovtzeff, Caravan Cities, translat. D. and T. Talbot Rice, Oxford, 1932, p.104), while the date of Palmyra's formal inclusion in the province is debatable. Pliny states that it was privata sorte inter duo imperia summa Romanorum Parthorumque (NH V.21,88), but this statement has been questioned by modern scholars. The consensus of modern opinion is that the passage on Palmyra is an anachronism, stemming from the indiscriminate reproduction of Pliny of an earlier source, a source which must date from a time before Germanicus' Syrian mission, since it was then that Palmyra officially became part of the empire. However, the evidence they adduce for this theory does not seem completely irrefutable (see M.A. pp.34-40, Notes 69-87, cf. now also the reservations expressed by Rey-Coquais, loc. cit., p.51). The only thing which is completely certain is that Palmyra was a Roman possession in the time of Hadrian; he declared the "freedom" of the city (e.g. Jean Starcky, "Les grandes heures de l'histoire de Ix.
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