6 - Claiming Roman Origins

Summary

Unlike in the West where the Roman municipal model was almost uniformly spread over the various provinces, Greek cities in the East during the Imperial period were very proud of their own centuries-old political traditions and consequently were reluctant to adopt Roman institutions. However, many cities celebrated the emperor as their ‘founder’ or were renamed after a Roman emperor, such as, for example, ‘Kaisareia’. Other cities deliberately chose pictures referring to Roman foundation practices to appear on their coins (e.g. the plowing scene) or took—formally or informally—the title of ‘koloneia’, normally reserved for communities which were part of the Roman State. This chapter aims at examining which cities were ready to comply with the Roman colonial model, why they did so, to what extent, and what the meaning of their claim for Roman origins was. It argues that the issue of the compliance of Greek cities with the Roman constitutional model of a colony was a way for them to negotiate their position within the Roman empire and was an aspect of cultural interaction.