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Opramoas and the anonymous benefactor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

J. J. Coulton
J. J. Coulton
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Extract

Opramoas of Rhodiapolis in Eastern Lycia is one of the best known benefactors in the Greek half of the Roman Empire because the decrees and other documents inscribed on his tomb allow us to trace the extent and sequence of his benefactions and the honours he received. Two inscriptions from the Letoon near Xanthos, recently published by A. Balland, seem to extend this picture of generosity, one of them virtually doubling the previous total of Opramoas' benefactions. The first, Balland no. 66, is a statue base recording that Opramoas gave to the Lycian League land to finance a distribution to the koinobouloi of the league; the second, Balland no. 67, is a stele listing a much longer series of benefactions, to the league, to Xanthos and to other Lycian cities, but it does not, and never did, include the benefactor's name. Balland argues that the second inscription also refers to Opramoas, and this has been generally accepted; but it is argued here that its subject is not Opramoas but an anonymous contemporary, so that Opramoas loses his unique position among Lycian benefactors, and we can compare the nature, extent and distribution of his gifts with those of the Anonymous Benefactor and others.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 107 , November 1987 , pp. 171 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 Discussions of Opramoas: Broughton, T. R. S. in Frank, T. (ed.), An economic survey of ancient Rome iv (Baltimore 1938) 779–80Google Scholar: Veyne, P., Le pain et le cirque (Paris 1976) 295–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; his mausoleum inscription: TAM ii 905 = IGR iii 739. Heberdey, R., Opramoas (Vienna 1897)Google Scholar discusses the reconstruction of the inscribed walls and the chronology of the various documents recorded, and his numbering of the documents, retained in IGR and TAM, will be used here.

2 Balland, A., Fouilles de Xanthos vii. Inscriptions d'époque impériale du Létoon (Paris 1981Google Scholar), cited below as Balland. The inscriptions discussed here, Balland nos. 66, 67 = SEG xxx (1980) 1534–5Google Scholar, are discussed at length by Balland 173–224.

3 Balland 186–7. The identification was proposed in a preliminary paper by Balland, in Actes du Colloque sur la Lycie antique (Paris 1980) 89–93Google Scholar, and adopted by Metzger, H., TAD xxv (1980) 192–3Google Scholar. It has been generally accepted by reviewers e.g. SEC xxx (1980) 1534–5Google Scholar; Moretti, G., ArchClass xxxiii (1981) 423–4Google Scholar; J., and Robert, L., REG xcv (1982) 396–8Google Scholar.

4 My attention was drawn to this problem by A. Farrington, and I owe much to discussion with him of the architectural epigraphy of Roman Lycia. I am also grateful to A. S. Hall, S. Jameson, and S. R. F. Price for advice in the preparation of this paper, although they are not, of course, responsible for the errors and weaknesses that remain.

5 A gift by Opramoas for a comparable but a smaller foundation at Tlos (see below p. 174 and n. 12) is also specified as land, and valued only in terms of its annual income.

6 Mausoleum Documents 59 and 63 note Opramoas's connection with Aelia Platonis (who was presumably the daughter of a sister of Opramoas who married an Aelius), while IGR iii 500.II.69–73 records her husband's relationship to Claudia Helena. See also below p. 175 and n. 19.

7 For the Anonymous Benefactor see Balland no. 67; for Opramoas see Mausoleum Document 63, Balland no. 66, and TAM ii, 578–9.

8 The sign for 50,000, quite clear, is followed by a puzzling letter. Balland, transcribing it ξ, interprets it without comment (p. 193) as giving a total of 56,000 den. Xi should mean 60 or 60,000, not 6,000, but 60 denarii seems too small a sum for mention in this context, and 60,000 too large. The letter does not match the xi in lines 19 and 26, nor the lunate sigmas elsewhere in the text.

9 For the Tlos foundation see p. 174 and n. 12. The calculation can only be approximate. Broughton (n. 1) 780 arrives at a figure of 604,000 den., with a rather low estimate for Myra, and (of course) no knowledge of Balland no. 66; Balland 221 suggests 750,000 den. for the mausoleum records. There are many unquantifiable benefactions such as the office of agonothete at Myra and Patara and the gymnasiarchies at Korydalla.

10 There is no question that space was lacking on the mausoleum, for half of the east wall and the whole of the north wall remained uninscribed.

11 For instance, the work at Myra was promised in AD 142, itemised in AD 149; the work on the stoa at Patara was promised by AD 145, but still unfinished in AD 149.

12 TAM ii 578 ( = IGR iii 679, wrongly attributed to Patara) and 579. Van Bremen, R. in Cameron, A., Kuhrt, A. (ed.), Images of women in antiquity (London and Canberra 1983) 229Google Scholar, takes κατά διαθήκην as referring to Opramoas's inheritance of the land from his mother, but although, being in Korydalla, the land probably was inherited, the words in this context imply a bequest by him.

13 If the 40,000 den. in Balland no. 67 is taken as an appropriate sum for building a double stoa, Patara would have received 60,000 den. for buildings from Opramoas, the same as Tlos.

14 The increasing benefactions are as follows:

The figure of 100,000 den. restored for Choma in Document 59 is a puzzle. Document 63 gives a more expected figure of 7,000 den., so that not only is the initial figure grossly out of keeping with Opramoas's normal practice, but it would also involve a drastic, and surely intolerable, reduction in generosity.

15 Thus when Opramoas gave money for ‘a bath’ at Oinoanda, there was probably another bath already at the city.

16 Documents 53 (XIII 50–4), 55 (XV 16–25), 63 (XIX 9–21); IGR iii 704. IIA.

17 For the baths and agora at Tlos see W. Wurster, AA (1976) 34–6; for the agora at Xanthos see RE ixA (1967) 1404–5 and fig. on 1397–8.

18 So Balland 187. An alternative is that Helena dedicated the statue; but this does not seriously affect the argument.

19 For the connections of Claudia Helena see IGR iii 500.II.60–73, III.15–23, Jameson, S., AS xvi (1966) 125–30Google Scholar, and here Table 11. Balland 187 n. 101 suggests the possibility of some closer connection between Opramoas and Claudia Helena; it is conceivable that another sister of Opramoas might have been the mother of Claudius Titianus, the husband of Claudia Helena; but his mother may well be Vilia Procula of Patara (see n. 22 below), and in any case this connection should have been mentioned on the mausoleum, like that with Aelia Platonis. No closer connection is possible.

20 On the date of Arruntius's promotion see Dabrowa, E., L'Asie Mineure sous les Flaviens (Cracow 1980) 65–6Google Scholar, Halfmann, H., Senatoren aus detit östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum (Göttingen 1979) 125Google Scholar, no. 28; he gave a bath building to Xanthos at some stage (TAM ii 361; Balland 143–4, 154–5).

21 TAM ii 495 = IGR iii 603 = Balland no. 65. His career is further detailed in inscriptions from Patara (TAM ii 422–5). H. Halfmann (n. 20) 165 and Balland 168 suggest that this Claudius Agrippinus was closely related to the brother of Claudia Helena.

22 TAM ii 408 = IGR iii 664. For the family see Jameson, S., AS xvi (1966) 130–7Google Scholar, H. Halfmann (n. 20) 184, and Balland 68 n. 202. Here again there may be a connection with Claudia Helena, for Halfmann and Balland identify Ti. Claudius Flavianus Titianus, son of Vilia Procula, with Claudius Titianus, husband of Helena; Jameson, however, is sceptical.

23 Aspendos: IGR iii 804; Philadelphia: IGR iv 1632; Sillyon: IGR iii 800–82; Kibyra: IGR iv 915; Selge: Lanckoronski, K., Siädie Pamphyliens und Pisidiens ii (Vienna 1892)Google Scholar no. 250. Non-imperial gifts rarely exceeded 250,000 den. in the western empire, (see Duncan-Jones, R., PBSR xxx [1962] 47–115Google Scholar (Africa) and PBSR xxxiii [1965] 189–306Google Scholar (Italy)). But those of Pliny the Younger to Comum totalled over 1,000,000 den. (ILS 2927, Duncan-Jones, R., PBSR xxxiii (1965 184–8Google Scholar).

24 Philostratos Vitae Soph. (ed. Kayser) p. 56; Börker, C. et al. Die Inschriften von Ephesos ii, IK xii (Bonn 1979) 424Google Scholar.

25 An earlier benefactor with wide-ranging connnections (mainly in the Xanthos valley, west Lycia, and Caria, but perhaps also including Kyaneai and Korydalla) is honoured in TAM ii 508.

26 The question of Opramoas's children turns on whether Aglais Aristokila (honoured in TAM ii 916) was his mother or wife. If his wife, then he definitely had three children, even though they do not appear on the mausoleum except in one uncertain restored phrase (TAM ii 905. XVIII.77–8). However, the phraseology of TAM ii 916 is very similar to that of TAM ii 915, in honour of Apollonios, who certainly was Opramoas's father, and it also seems unlikely that Opramoas (who set up both these inscriptions) should have lived long enough to see his wife's, and so his own, great grandchildren become senators, and if he did, it is surprising that more is not made of them in the mausoleum inscription. On the other hand Άγ〈λ〉∣ίδος τῆς Έρ∣μ∣αί∣ου seems reasonably compatible with the indications recorded for the name of Opramoas's mother on the mausoleum (TAM ii 905.VIII.46), given the other examples of doubtful readings and misspellings in the mausoleum inscription; and if Aglais was Opramoas's mother, the senatorial great-grandchildren of Apollonios and Aglais (TAM ii 915–16) would then be not unrecorded descendants of Opramoas, but the family of the Aelia Platonis, whose daughter married a senator (IGR iii 500) and whose son apparently became one (PIR ii C859); see Table 2. Since there is now no certain mention of Opramoas's own children, they probably never existed.

27 IGR iii 704.IA.

28 IGR iii 706.14–16 lists decrees of AD 141 from Xanthos and Rhodiapolis, as well as Patara, but does not specify whether they were in honour of lason or Mausolos his son. The context favours the latter, for the inscription is primarily concerned with him, and since his honours had already been listed in AD 146 (IGR iii 704.IA.21–2), the early date is no obstacle. Thus although this inscription shows that the connections of Iason's family extended also to Xanthos and Rhodiapolis, the honours need not have been for benefits from lason himself, and so they are ignored in the discussion below and on the map (Fig. 11).

29 von Aulock, H., Die Münzprägung des Gordian III und der Tranquillina in Lykien, IstMitt Beiheft xi (Tübingen 1974)Google Scholar, esp. 23. He does not comment on the geographical restriction of the issues; they were not produced by any city in, or west of, the Xanthos valley, except for Patara and Tlos.

30 For Apollonia see W. Wurster, AA (1976) 43; for Simena, see Texier, C., Description de l'Asie Mineure (Paris 1849) iii, 204, 233Google Scholar, pl. 207–8; also Bean, G. E., Lycian Turkey (London and New York 1978) 104, 116–17Google Scholar, Bayburtluoğlu, C., Lycie (Ankara 1981?) 52–4Google Scholar.

31 Ptolemy Geog. v. 3.5, Hierocles Synecdemus 685.2. An important Hellenistic inscription from Araxa is published by Bean, G. E., JHS lxviii (1948) 46–56Google Scholar; see also Robert, J. and Robert, L., REG lxiii (1950) 185.97Google Scholar. But only eight Imperial inscriptions from the site are listed in TAM ii 701–8. For the visible remains see G. E. Bean (n. 30) 70–2.

32 Ptolemy Geog. v, 3.5, Hierocles Synecdemus 684.12. For the remains see G. E. Bean (n. 30) 158–9.