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Copyright by Ann Marie Morgan 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Ann Marie Morgan Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Family Matters in Roman Asia Minor: Elite Identity, Community Dynamics and Competition in the Honorific Inscriptions of Imperial Aphrodisias. Committee: Rabun Taylor, Supervisor Jennifer Gates-Foster, Co-Supervisor Paula Perlman Steven Friesen Esen Öğüş Family Matters in Roman Asia Minor: Elite Identity, Community Dynamics and Competition in the Honorific Inscriptions of Imperial Aphrodisias. by Ann Marie Morgan, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2014 To Jean, Boots, and Bill Sr. Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of eight years of graduate training in the department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin, and I would like to offer my gratitude first to this department for the support it has bestowed upon me over the years. I met my co- supervisors, Jennifer Gates-Foster and Rabun Taylor, in the spring of 2007 and immediately knew that these were the professors with whom I wanted to work most closely. Over the next several years, Professor Gates-Foster became my mentor and advisor. She taught me the importance of context when approaching archaeological remains and she introduced me to anthropological theories that helped me reshape my own thinking about the ancient world. Professor Taylor was my constant instructor on the art and architecture of the Roman world. Through it all, both professors were generous with their time and their encouragement. For their kindness, guidance, and availability, I am forever grateful. Professor Paula Perlman and Professor Steve Friesen both joined this project at its early stages. The perspectives they offered from their fields of Greek history and religious studies, respectively, helped refine and nuance my own approach to the evidence. They were patient participants and knowledgeable and kind critics in the process. I am thankful to have had their input and expertise. Professor Esen Öğüş kindly agreed to join the project as it was already in progress and has proved to be an invaluable resource for all things relating to Aphrodisias and Asia Minor more broadly. Not only did Professor Öğüş provide instructive feedback on my chapters (through multiple drafts), but she also arranged for me to visit the site for a few days in the summer of 2012, when excavations were taking place. For her constant assistance, advice and enthusiasm, Professor Öğüş has my endless gratitude. v My visit to Aphrodisias in the summer of 2012 was also made possible by the approval and hospitality of Professor R.R.R Smith, the site’s current director. It was during this stay that I was able to photograph many of the inscriptions and gain a better understanding of the ancient city as a whole. I also learned about current research pursuits through conversations with the incredible project team. Most helpful, however, was the time that Professor Smith took, during a busy excavation season, to discuss my project with me, offering advice and encouragement. For this and for his extensive and informative publications of Aphrodisian material, I am greatly indebted and I thank him immensely. My dissertation research was also made possible by the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Koç University) in Istanbul, where I was a junior research fellow in the 2011-2012 school year. The disparate interests and backgrounds of my colleagues at the center led to stimulating conversations and encouraged me to consider new approaches for my own research. The completion of my project was immensely aided by support from my department and by Professor Jennifer Ebbeler, who became a mentor in my own professional development. My gratitude goes out to her and other encouraging professors and colleagues, including Adam Rabinowitz, Christopher Ratté, Diana Ng, Douglas Boin, and Lawrence Kim for their interests and conversations. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends whose support made reaching the doctoral goal possible, especially my endlessly kind parents, who were so supportive they voluntarily sat through my defense on ancient Greek inscriptions. Thank you also to my dear, close friends Abbey, Miriam, Julia, and Shawn for understanding my deadlines and helping me get through them, to my incredible roommate, Leah, for patiently looking after my cat and the house on my long days at the office, and to my partner, Travis, for listening to me vent and reassuring me that it’s going to be great. This dissertation was possible only because I had such an amazing network of support. Thank you to everyone. vi Family Matters in Roman Asia Minor: Elite Identity, Community Dynamics and Competition in the Honorific Inscriptions of Imperial Aphrodisias. Ann Marie Morgan, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisors: Jennifer Gates-Foster and Rabun Taylor In the city centers of Roman Asia Minor, honorific monuments, which consisted of a portrait sculpture and biographical inscription, filled the agoras, aedicular facades, and colonnaded avenues. While some monuments were for Roman emperors and magistrates, the majority celebrated and memorialized the most important members of the local community, male and female, individuals who held public offices, sponsored festivals, and funded large scale construction projects. Honorific monuments were collaborative productions that involved civic institutions, the honored benefactor, and the family or friends of the honorand. Because of the multiplicity of actors involved in the honorific process, an examination of honorific inscriptions allows for a discussion of identity construction at different scales from the individual honorand and his or her family to an entire civic community. In a city in Asia Minor during the empire, the identities conveyed included Roman imperial allegiances, Greek cultural values, and ties to the local community, often combined in compositions that justified claims of status or fulfilled political ambitions. vii This dissertation investigates the honorific inscriptions from one city in Asia Minor, Aphrodisias, from the mid-1st century BCE to the mid-3rd century CE, which consists of 206 instances of honor for 183 local Aphrodisians. The analysis examines developments in elite self-fashioning and the evolution of the reciprocal relationship between a community and its benefactors, with particular focus on references to ancestry and familial connections in the language of the inscriptions. The evidence indicates that the Aphrodisian elite deployed epigraphic formulations that mention family background and Roman connections in order to construct composite cultural identities and to affirm their place among the city’s aristocratic factions. The contextualization of these texts in an historical and archaeological framework demonstrates that the observed epigraphic changes responded both to internal factors, such as demographic shifts, and external ones, such as the spread of Roman citizenship. This analysis highlights the internally-stratified and competitive aristocratic order that functioned in Imperial Aphrodisias and articulates how the elite employed references to ancestral background, local ties, and Roman familial connections strategically in ways that had tangible impacts on the landscape of the city. viii Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................... xiii Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Identity, Ancestry, and the Motivations for Euergetism .................................2 Honorific Monuments ..................................................................................11 A Review of the Scholarship on Aphrodisias and its Inscriptions ...............19 Chapter 1: The "Co-Founding" Families in a Competitive Community ..............23 The Monumentalization of Imperial Aphrodisias .........................................29 The Honorific Inscriptions of the 1st Centuries BCE and CE ......................40 The "Co-Founding" Families and a Competitive Response ........................57 Conclusions ..................................................................................................68 Chapter 2: Local Pasts, Intramural Burials, and Collective Identities ..................70 The Mythological Foundations of the Civil Basilica Reliefs........................73 The Intramural Burial of Adrastos ...............................................................86 The Intramural Burial of Tatia Attalis .........................................................95 Conclusions ................................................................................................103 Chapter 3: Loss and Change in the Community of the 2nd Century CE .............106 Consolation Decrees and the Commemoration of Children ......................108 New Honorands: Athletes, Performers, and Sophists ................................117 Titus Sallustius Flavius Athenagoras: