Proconsular Supervision of Local Affairs
A kind of "police function" exercised by Roman proconsuls in the East is easy to presume, but here too some caution against sweeping conclusions is necessary. As we have just seen, at least ca. 100 the proconsul of Macedonia held an explicit brief to defend the rights and boundaries of Rome's "friends and allies" of the newly conquered region of the Caenic Chersonese, and perhaps this can be extended over the entire area of his assignment or provincia . But this must have applied above all to Macedonia itself, and as we saw (chaps. 1-3), we should not suppose that he performed such a function in Greece itself, occupied as he was with the defense of the Balkan frontier. The only evidence for the exercise of such a function by the proconsul of Macedonia—the intervention of Q. Fabius Maximus at Dyme—involves an outbreak of stasis during the settlement immediately after the Achaean War and cannot be considered to be representative of a norm; on the other hand, the Attic slave wars, one of them quite severe,
[84] Cf. Sherk 23, lines 1-6. For long solicitation of individual senators before a senatorial hearing, cf. Syll 656, lines 19-27; FD III.4.43, lines 7-10.
[85] IPr 121, lines 21-24; Seleucus: line 32. For the date of these commanders' tenure of Asia, see p. 121 n. 101.
were contained (so it appears from our evidence) without Roman intervention. A proconsul's involvement in such matters was perhaps dependent above all upon his proximity: thus, in the Dyme incident, the councillors led by Cyllanius readily appealed to Fabius because he happened to be nearby at Patrae;[86] similarly, presumably, the regular presence of the proconsul of Asia in the Greek cities of the Aegean coast led the Senate, upon appeal from Colophon, to give him and his successors the responsibility of suppressing armed raids upon part of that city's agricultural land.[87] Despite the presence of a Roman magistrate in Asia Minor, open friction between or within the "free" cities was then evidently not entirely at an end, as a few other such instances also show, in particular a conflict, seemingly violent, between Sardis and Ephesus mediated by a Roman proconsul not far from the turn of the century.[88]
This case is an important example of an attempt at mediation by a Roman proconsul, and the diplomatic forms he employs are particularly worthy of note. Had he intervened too forcefully he might have received a rebuke from the Senate, as appears to have happened to the proconsul who meddled in the quarrel between Colophon and Metropolis somewhat earlier.[89] Instead, expressing his concern over the animosity between the two cities, he sent a Greek—indeed, an Athenian—to invite each side to accept the proconsul's offer to help bring about a settlement.[90] Both cities
[86] Sherk 43, lines 4-11.
[88] OGIS 437 (Sherk 47), lines 34-37 and esp. 66-73, prohibiting future warfare or hostile action between the cities. Note also that the agreement itself (lines 58-96) does not refer to any specific matter under dispute (e.g., territory) but takes the form of a treaty laying down rules for future relations between the two cities. Compare the secession of Heracleotis from Ephesus around the turn of the second century (Strabo 14.1.26, C642); as recently as the 140s there had been fighting between Priene and Magnesia (Syll 679, IV, lines 65-90) and as late as the middle of the first century Caunus seceded from Rhodes (Strabo 14.2.3, C652; Cic. QFr . 1.1.33; see Bernhardt, PrH , 200-202). The specific prohibition of warfare between Sardis and Ephesus in their treaty noted above ought therefore not to be seen as "more a concession to old treaty formulas than a statement of possibility" (Sherk, p. 259; similarly, Dittenberger, OGIS 437 n. 19; Bernhardt, PrH , 212). Rigsby, TAPA 118 (1988) 141-44, may be right to dissociate this treaty from Q. Scaevola Pontifex, but, as he concedes, it is hard to accept an Attalid date in view of the mention of priests of Roma at the two cities.
[89] Claros 1, Menippus, I, lines 50-54, and II, lines 1-7, which seem to belong together. Cf. Robert and Robert, pp. 88-91; but my understanding of this affair differs somewhat from theirs.
accepted the initiative and sent ambassadors to negotiate; from that point on, however, the proconsul fades into the background, because it appears to have been not he but Pergamum, a third city of appropriate status for such an honor, that actually mediated the treaty.[91] It would seem that the proconsul referred the matter to Pergamum and confined himself to informing the Sardians and Ephesians by letter of the eventual results.[92] The provisions laid down in the treaty for arbitration of future alleged breaches leave no place for either the Senate or Rome's proconsul: rather, within thirty days of any complaint both cities are to send envoys to Pergamum; within five more days Pergamum would conduct a lottery to determine the actual arbitrating city, from among those agreed upon by both parties; and within sixty further days both cities would send representatives to the arbitrating city, which would judge them.[93] The compact is entirely Hellenic in character and bears no mark of any basic alteration in political structures since the coming of the Romans; the delicacy with which the proconsul dealt with the Sardian-Ephesian conflict, and his apparent respect for the forms of international diplomacy among autonomous states, are striking.[94]
Another example of mediation, this time from Macedonia and Greece, illustrates further the limits of proconsular involvement in international disputes. In 118 the Athenian "guild" of Dionysian artists went to Macedonia to complain to the proconsul Cn. Cornelius Sisenna of their treatment at the hands of their Isthmian-Nemean colleagues.[95] Representatives
[91] OGIS 437 (Sherk 47), lines 75-76 (cf. 79, 83), for a third city as "mediator of the treaty"; that this was Pergamum is almost certain from the publication there of our text, the third copy of the treaty demanded in line 88.
[93] OGIS 437 (Sherk 47), lines 73-84.
[94] By contrast, compare Eumenes II's rather imperious intervention in the dispute between Teos and the Dionysian artists: Welles, 53, with Allen, Attalid Kingdom , 103-4.
of the Isthmian-Nemeans were not present, so Sisenna wrote to the Isthmian-Nemean
[96] Sherk 25, lines 32-38, 58-60; cf. the fragmentary copies of the settlement (Syll 704 I ). The date emerges from Syll 704K , with Daux, Delphes , 363. A roughly contemporary composite document containing decrees of the Delphic Amphictyony, of the Athenian demos, and a letter from the former to the latter (IG II .1134; cf. FD III.2.69), alludes to the affair several times but provides no concrete information, despite Klaffenbach's unwarranted restoration in lines 70-71 of an explicit reference to the meeting with Sisenna. It does, however, show that the Athenian state was already involved peripherally in the dispute ca. 120. The best discussion of the intricate affair is Daux, Delphes , 356-72; cf. the summary in Sherk, pp. 90-93. The attempt of Klaffenbach, Hermes 51 (1916) 475-77, and Pomtow, Syll 704K , nn. 43-44, to create a second hearing before Fabius Maximus is based entirely on their mistaken assumption that the Macedonian era began in 146 and the old, now untenable view that Fabius Maximus Eburnus was the proconsul named in Sherk 43.
[98] Sherk 15, line 38.
much trouble for the Isthmian-Nemeans.[99] In short, the agreement mediated by Sisenna was immediately repudiated by the Isthmian-Nemean "guild" and subsequently ignored for nearly six years, until the Athenian state became involved and took up the matter with the Senate. Far from illustrating the "subject status" of certain Greeks,[100] this affair dearly illustrates the minimal interest the proconsul of Macedonia took in "ruling" Greeks: Sisenna accepted the Attic group's request to mediate, but neither he nor his successors cared to play the role of enforcer not only of an agreement over which he presided but even of senatorial decisions. As we shall see in the next chapter, the forms of international diplomacy continued to be maintained by the practice of reserving disputes between communities for the Senate's attention.