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The Seleucids and the Greek Cities of Western Asia Minor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

K.M.T. Atkinson
K.M.T. Atkinson*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

The most vivid general impression which results from reading the inscriptions of the Greek cities within this part of the Seleucid dominions—of the Koina into which these cities still grouped themselves for half-religious, half-political purposes, and texts of the royal letters and decrees addressed to these recipients–is that all these cities were in a constant ferment of anxiety and activity concerning the retention of their much-prized ‘autonomy’. To seek fresh promises and guarantees on this score was perhaps the main purpose of their frequent and costly embassies to the king during the Seleucid period, and the embassies always seem to have involved the bestowal of ‘crowns’ (that is, gold wreaths) in addition to the numerous complimentary titles and honours–divine and otherwise, temples, monthly (sic) royal birthdays and the like–which they constantly begged him to accept.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 2 , 1968 , pp. 32 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1996

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References

1 OGIS 222. Reference in the inscription to the co-regency of Antiochus with his son Antiochus dates it between 266–261 B.C. (Dittenberger).

2 L.14.

3 Apparently referring (since Antiochus I was only the second king) to ancestors on the female side also, which would include Antigonus and Demetrius.

4 According to Dittenberger (OGIS 223) and Welles, C.B. (RC=Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period [New Haven, 1934], No. 15).Google Scholar

5 For the site, see the authorities quoted by Hansen, E.V.The Attalids of Pergamon (Ithaca, 1947), p. 17, n. 16.Google Scholar

6 OGIS 219. For the date, see further below at n. 73.

7 Aristodicides of Assos, OGIS 221 (Welles, RC, No. 10), further discussed below.

8 Welles, RC, Nos 10–13.

9 Ibid., No. 12, 11.10 f.: The whole system is no doubt a survival of the Persian royal rewards to ‘Benefactors’ () of the king. Gf. Herod, viii 85, where the reward to one of these ‘Benefactors’ is a large grant of land.

10 See below, at n. 139.

11 Welles, RC, Nos 18–20.

12 Welles, RC, No. 18.

13 Welles, RC, No. 13.

14 Cf. above, n. 9.

15 Above, at n. 6.

16 Cf. the inscriptions cited below, nn. 60–62, and for other examples, M. Rostovtzeff, in Buckler, W.H. (ed.), Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Ramsay (Manchester, 1923), p. 363, n. 5.Google Scholar

17 Cf. above, n. 9.

18 Cf. OGIS 225, p. 358, n. 11.

19 Below, at n. 61.

20 OGIS 227 (Welles, No. 22), 9.

21 Ath. Mitt. xliv (1919), 25, No. 13 (honours conferred by Samos upon Bulagoras, a rich citizen who had acted as envoy to Antiochus II in connection with this affair, and had conferred many other benefits in the form of liturgies upon the city).

22 Above, at. n. 12.

23 See further below, at nn. 103 ff.

24 Welles, No. 18, 11. 11 f.; OGIS 225.4 ff

25 The same word is also applied to separate parts of the estate granted to Laodice (Welles, No. 18, 1. 7) and to the estate of Mnesimachus at Sardis (cf. below, n. 36), and may be used in a technical sense of the local divisions of a royal domain in this period.

26. Welles, No. 11 (OGIS 221). In actual fact Petra was never conveyed to Aristodicides, since before the king’s letter arrived the satrap had already conveyed this place to ‘Athenaeus the commander of the naval base’ (presumably the port of Sigeum).

27 See further below, at nn. 37 ff.

28 Welles, p. 96; cf. Rostovtzeff, CAH vii, p. 183, Tarn, W.W.Hellenistic Civilization, p. 124,Google ScholarCAH vi, p. 360.

29 Welles, ibid.

30 Ibid., Appendix, s.v. Paroikoi are attested in Asia Minor or off its coasts at Ephesus, Teos, Ilium, Rhodes, Carpathus, and Pergamum (cf. OGIS 338, p. 534, n. 11).

31 Welles, No. 8 (=Hicks, IBM III [1886], 410; Hiller v. Gaertringen, Inschr. v. Prime [1906], 16). The text of A reads as follows:

32 According to Rostovtzeff, (Anatolian Studies … Ramsay [Manchester, 1923], pp. 375 f.;Google Scholar cf. also Kornemann, RE Suppl. IV, s.v. Domänen, 236; followed also by Welles, RC, p. 96) the Attalid kings adopted the policy of resuming land hitherto assigned to cities or temples, and exploiting it as royal latifundia, with the aid of serf labour. ‘Large tracts of Aeolis’ are said to have been managed in this way.

R. cites as evidence: 1) the passage in the Will of Attalus III discussed above, but on the assumption that means ‘confiscated’ (by the king); 2) Demetr. Seeps, ap. Athen. xv 697 d, concerning the appointment in the Troad of an Athenian poet as (but should it be as adopting Meineke’s more probable reading? A ‘royal judge’ would be more likely as a survival from the Persian and Seleucid periods); and 3) the frequent mention of large quantities of grain given to various cities by the Attalids. As to the last argument, how are we to know where this was grown or purchased ?

But even if the reasons given for the theory could be considered adequate, how can it be reconciled with the undoubted fact that one of the later Pergamene kings, having made a present of horses to Ilium, found himself compelled to buy land ([a) in order to be able to present it to the city for the purpose of maintaining these horses ? (cf. Welles, No. 62; BCH liv [1930], 348–51).

33 Welles, No. 18,11. 11 f.

34 See below, at n. 115.

35 Cf. OGIS 221 (Welles, No. 12), 59 f., cited above, n. g. The case of Philetaerus (see below, at nn. 66 ff.) was clearly similar.

36 Text in AJA xvi (1912), 12 ff. The date there proposed (about 300 B.C.) is certainly too early. Cf. CAH vii (1954), p. 171, n. 1.

37 AJA xvi (1912), 13 (Col. I, 11. II f.):

38 Cf. OGIS 225:

39 On the estate of Mnesimachus near Sardis the serfs had their own houses (AJA, ibid., 11. 14 f.).

40 Laws vi 776 c.

41 On the Mariandynoi, see the authorities cited by Magie, D.Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Vol. 2 (Princeton, 1950), p. 1192,Google Scholar n. 24, including Ruge in RE XIV 1747 f., Rostovtzeff, SEHHW (Oxford, 1941), p. 591, Jacoby, FGrHist. ii, p. 227=Posidonius, fr. 16 (Müller) = fr. 8 (Jacoby).

42 Strabo xii 3.4 (542), citing apparently Posidonius (cf. Athen. vi 84.263 d): ‘the Milesians (sic) when they first founded Heraclea,

43 Jones, A.H.M.Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Oxford, 1937), p. 149,Google Scholar contrasts other Greek cities on the south coast of Black Sea with Heraclea: ‘Its position apparently was quite exceptional among the Pontic cities.... the story of the Anabasis shows that the Greek cities were islets in a barbarian ocean.’

44 Xen. Anab. vii 8.8 ff.

45 Ephorus and Apollodorus ap. Strabo xiv 678; cf. vii 295, viii 345, xii 542.

46 Cf. Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. ‘Nymphis’ (Tarn).

47 IBM III.i.CCCCXV, 11. I f.; cf. App. Syr. 59 init., 61–2; Plut. Dem. 38.

48 Statues both of Seleucus and of Antiochus have been (or are immediately to be) set up.

49 Welles, No. 45. Cf. Syria xiii (1932), 255–8, and see further below, at n. 143.

50 Cf. above, n. 35.

51 Arr. Anab. iii 6.

52 Anab. iii 11.

53 Diod. xvii 81.4, 83.6; Curt, vii 4.34 ff.

54 Cf. Diod. xviii 3, 39, 43; App. Syr. 52 (263 Roos); Mithr. 9 (27), all describing him as ‘of Mytilene’. Hicks (IBM, ibid.) in suggesting him as the father of the Larichus of the inscription has overlooked this difficulty, and also the fact of his submission first to Ptolemy then to Antigonus.

55 IBM, ibid.

56 Apparently the temple at Ionian Priene; cf. Strabo viii 7.2.

57 IBM III.i.CCCCXV: See further below, at nn. 109 ff.

58 Ibid. [KOV].

59 For oikos in this sense cf. the Mnesimachus inscription (above, at n. 36), col. I, 1. 4, ‘these are the (details) of the villages in the oikos.’

60 SIG 3 278, 9–11: (i.e. ‘but not for the benefit of his lands’?),

61 Ibid., 6–9. Cf. OGIS 9.4 (Ephesus, 302 B.C.); 10.13 (Ephesus, 299 B.C.) where in both cases is combined with the grant of

62 IBM III.i.CCCCXV, I.: Comparison suggests itself between here and the known in the Pergamene kingdom under Eumenes II (cf. Welles, No. 47) and in Egypt (Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka, Vol. i [Leipzig, 1899], 286).

63 Westermann, (The Slave-Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity, Mem. Amer. Philos. Soc. 40 [1955]),Google Scholar who does not discuss the Mariandynoi, and may be referring in his discussion of the use of the word soma only to the Greek states of the pre-Alexander era, cites (p. 5) Pollux iii 78: and remarks ‘Soma alone was not sufficiently explicit for legal use, although it sometimes appears singly with the meaning of “slave” in the loose usage of the classical authors’ (citing Xen. Cyrop. vii 5.73). In the Priene text discussed above the meaning of is certainly however ‘strictly legal’, but differs from the usual Greek meaning of or

64 Above, at nn. 22 f.

65 Cf. OGIS 11=Welles, No. 6.

66 Apollonis, the queen of Attalus I, was the daughter of a Cyzicene (Strabo xiii 4.2 [624]).

67 Paus. x 23.14. Segré (Athenaeum viii [1930], 488 ff.) therefore moves back the whole list by two years, as compared with the dates proposed in OGIS 748. This earlier dating is also followed by Otto, Abh. Bayer. Akad. 34.i (1928), 23,Google Scholar and by Welles, RC, p. 81.

68 Cf. CAH viii, 98, n. (Cuneiform texts date Seleucus’ death between November 281 and March 280 B.C.).

69 Strabo xiii 4.1 (623).

70 Ibid.

71 Rehm, in Th. Wiegand, Milet i 3, pp. 236 ff.Google Scholar The month-names at Cyzicus are the usual Ionian ones: cf. Hasluck, F.W.Cyzicus (1910), pp. 252 f.Google Scholar

72 Cf. n. 68.

73 OGIS 219.1–6. He possibly took with him the remains of Seleucus, bought from Ptolemy Ceraunus and presented to Antiochus by Philetaerus (App. Syr. 63).

74 Justin xxv 2.11: cf. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Vol. 1, pp. 309 f.Google Scholar

75 Segré (op. cit., 494) notes that the war between Antiochus and Antigonus Gonatas at this time was fought in Asia (Trogus xxiv).

76 Cf. above, at n. 6.

77 Cf. Lysias xxi 1–11. Within the period 411–405 B.C., four times as much was expended in liturgies by one single citizen than the law required (§5), covering miscellaneous trierarchies, choruses and other festival productions.

78 (as also in Year 3).

79 See n. 88.

80 The whole entry (OGIS 748,1.6) is as follows:

81 Cf. the dedication to Heracles in the year of Phoenix, Ath. Mitt. x (1885), 201, n. 29, referred to below.

82 See preceding note.

83 Cf. Newell, E.T.Coinage of the Western Seleucid Mints (New York, 1947), p. 387,Google Scholar and examples struck at Phocaea (pp. 300, 302) and Cyme (p. 310).

84 Above, at n. 6.

85 Anatolian Studies … Ramsay (Manchester, 1923), p. 363.

86 Nn. 57, 60.

87 Similarly in the Milesian pact with Heraclea (C. II B.C.), SIG 3 633, 1. 68.

88 Cf. Liddell & Scott, s.v. In Egypt, clearly has this meaning; cf. also Edgerton, in AJP 46 (1925), 177 f.,Google Scholar whose interpretation is accepted by Hansen (1947), p. 19.

89 Cf. Liddell & Scott, s.v. (mually in med., since the packing-up and removal is usually for the sole benefit of the removers. The examples cited in nn. 86 and 87 above conform to this usage; by contrast, the Cyzicene inscription uses the act. voice).

90 Cf. above, at n. 79.

91 Cf. Hasluck, F.W.Cyzicus (1910), p. 255 (evidence of inscriptions of the Hellenistic period).Google Scholar

92 Cf. the Athenian action in sending cattle from Attica over to Euboea in 431 B.C. (Thuc. ii 14).

93 Hasluck, pp. 2 f.

94 Cf. above, n. 62 (Priene, same general date).

95 Ibid.

96 R. himself seems not to have made up his mind whether the cattle etc. were transported ‘into’ Philetaerus’ land (Anat. Studies, p. 363, text), ‘through’ (ibid., n. 5) or simply bought ‘in the Pergamene territory without paying the taxes’ (ibid., p. 376). Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamum, p. 19,Google Scholar allows for exportation only by the Cyzicenes, but does not attempt an explanation of the passage.

97 Cf. Anatolian Studies … Ramsay (1923), pp. 374 f.

98 Cf. above, at n. 85. A further objection to this hypothesis is that the grant of Seleucid royal land to Laodice in 254 B.C. is shown by the specification of its boundaries (Welles, No. 20) to have lain immediately to the south of Cyzicus. Later research has tended to the rejection of Rostovtzeff’s views on the wide extent of the territory of Philetaerus: cf. Newell, op. cit., 306.

99 Cf. SIG 3 305, 106 f., and note.

100 Ibid.

101 Cf. ibid. (Dittenberger).

102 Cf. SIG 3 491 (232 B.C.), IG 11.5.373a 20 (C. III B.C.), 513h (); cf. Dem. xviii 171, xxi 161; and on epidosis in general, L. & S., s.v., III.2.

103 Cf. above, n. 35; and as a further example, Welles, No. 45 (discussed below, at n. 143): the king’s letter says that he wishes Seleuceia to honour Aristolochus, since he has demonstrated his value to the régime with all ‘both to our father and our brother and ourselves, even in the most difficult times’.

104 Above, nn. 37–39.

105 Above, n. 42.

106 Herod. vii 72.

107 Herod, ix 28.2; 29.1 (seven to each Spartan).

108 Thuc. vii 58 (Helots and neodamodeis only in Sicily); cf. v 34: Helots who had served with Brasidas were later given the free status of neodamodeis and used to garrison Lepreon.

109 Above, n. 57.

110 Cf. SIG 3 1017.14: (Sinope, C.III B.C.). For other evidence in support of the interpretation of and comparable expressions as ‘military service’ see my article in Studies in Ancient Society and Institutions presented to Victor Ehrenberg (Oxford, 1966), pp. 28 ff.

111 Above, n. 62.

112 One or two later indications may be mentioned of survival of the same system in the Roman period; cf. Suet. Aug. 25: eosqut servos adhuc viris feminisque pecuniosioribus indictos ac sine mora manu missos sub prion (?) vexillo habuit neque aid commixtos cum ingenuis aut eodem modo armatos. There is no reason to suppose that Suetonius is here referring to the exceptional levy of freedmen in Rome in A.D. 10 (Tac. Ann. i 31.4 and Suet, ibid.): he seems rather to be referring to a general policy, wherever latifundia existed, and to a special policy of keeping such specially manumitted slaves in separate detachments. The slaves recruited by Hadrian from private owners in Cappadocia for service in the camps (Spart. Vit. Hadr. 13.7) may also be similar in kind.

113 The supplied by Philetaerus at Cyzicus (above, under Year 5 of the table of doreai) may well have come from his own estate.

114 See n. 112 above.

115 Cf. Welles, p. 68.

116 OGIS 229.

117 Cf. above, at n. 20.

118 LI. 92 f. In 11. 70 f. the katoikoi ‘in Magnesia’ are further subdivided into cavalry and infantry.

119 LI. 94 f.

120 I.e. Antiochus I.

121 implying a concession at the king’s pleasure, not ownership of the land so granted. The estate of Mnesimachus near Sardis (above, n. 36) would be of this kind.

122 apparently those who held kleroi there before that city (now restored to Seleucid allegiance) had revolted to Ptolemy.

123 The usual technical term: see above, at n. 8.

124 I.e. the katoikoi now restored to their kleroi in and around Magnesia.

125 I.e. the allocation to individual members of this group was three kleroi.

126 Perhaps, but not necessarily, implied by the statement that the lots are to be held as dorea and free from tribute.

127 Applying apparently to Palaemagnesia, which was the fortress dominating the whole area (ibid., 1. 94); so that a situation comparable to that near Ilium and Petra (above, at n. 26) appears to be indicated.

128 Some guide to their size is provided by the Pergamene inscription, Welles, RC, No. 51 = Inschr. v. Pergamon i 158. The kleroi assigned by this royal letter (probably of the second century B.C.) vary in size from 50+5 to 125+12½ plethra (the first figure representing ‘cleared land’ and the second vineyard) as against the 8,000 plethra of Aristodicides’ grant at Ilium.

129 Above, at n. 110.

130 As in the case of Laodice: above, at n. 12.

131 As in the case of Larichus: above, at n. 57.

132 Anatolian Studies … Ramsay (1923), pp. 375 f.

133 =Inschr. v. Pergamon 245 C. For further commentary on this inscription see Fraenkel, , ibid., 1 151;Google ScholarKolbe, Ath. Mitt. 27 (1902), 45;Google ScholarRobert, BCH (1925), 219–21;CrossRefGoogle Scholar (1926), 469, n. 1.

134 Cf. Hansen, op. cit., p. 19.

135 The ‘Plain’ () is perhaps used of any territory cultivated by Pedieis (i.e. laoi?) and lying under a fortified stronghold; cf. Xen. Anab. vii 8.8, also the Pedieis used by Magnesia against Priene (OGIS 11, reign of Lysimachus).

136 Cf. above, at n. 13.

137 Welles, No. 12.

138 Welles, p. 64.

139 Above, at n. 84 f., and cf. n. 75.

140 Welles, RC, No. 11.

141 Ibid., No. 12.

142 Ibid., No. 18.

143 Welles, No. 45. Cf. Syria xiii (1932), 255–8; BCH lvi (1933), 6–67.

144 Above, at nn. 66 ff.

145 Above, at n. 135.

146 Above, at nn. 47 ff.

147 Above, at n. 21.

148 Above, at nn. 128 ff.

149 Cf. above, n. 9.

150 Xen. Anab. vii 8.8 ff. The raid is fully described by Rostovtzeff, , Anatolian Studies … Ramsay (1923), pp. 372 f.Google Scholar

151 The estate of Mnesimachus at Sardis (cf. above, at n. 36) could not become the permanent property of the temple to which he attached it, since the tenure of Mnesimachus himself remained only a terminable lease from the king.

152 For arguments against Rostovtzeff’s theory to the contrary see above, n. 32.