8
Rome and Athens from the Achaean War to Sulla
Because of the great epigraphic harvest from Athens, the many visits of Roman senators, and Athens's fateful alliance with Pontus in the Mithridatic War, we have more information about this city around the turn of the second century than about any other, and it is possible to trace, albeit sketchily, its relationship with Rome over a significant period of time. Athens was, of course, a special case, a cultural capital that enjoyed excellent relations with Rome during the age of confrontation with Macedon, Aetolia, and Antiochus. But even in the case of Athens, which, in contrast to much of the rest of Greece, has never in recent history been thought to have been subject to the control of the Roman proconsul in Macedonia, many influential scholars have seen frequent and forceful intervention by Rome in the city's internal affairs. That might be difficult to reconcile with the interpretation presented in chapters 2 and 3 of the absence of a direct Roman military, administrative, or fiscal presence in Greece, and of Rome's general indifference to the local affairs of the mainland. An examination of the relationship between Athens and Rome between the war with Andriscus and Sulla's settlement of Athens during the First Mithridatic War will not only test the thesis presented above but will also cast light on Rome's attitude or policy toward the privileged "free" cities under its de facto domination, that is, sub imperio populi Romani .
Between Mummius and Mithridates
Early in this century W. S. Ferguson developed a picture of Athens under Roman domination in the late second and early first century that has remained influential.[1] In Ferguson's interpretation, though Athens was out-
[1] See, in addition to Hellenistic Athens , esp. 365-68, 379-84, 415-59, his preliminary studies in Klio 4 (1904) 1-17, and 9 (1909) 323-30, and later considerations in Tribal Cycles , 147-55.
wardly independent, in fact the Roman yoke bore heavily upon it, with a constant stream of Roman officials to be flattered and entertained and repeated intervention in Athenian affairs by the proconsul of Macedonia.[2] A clique of Athenian "nouveaux riches" with Delian commercial connections, propped up by the "notorious" "partiality of the Romans for an aristocratic government in their dependencies,"[3] seized control of the government in an "oligarchical revolution" toward the end of the second century. The "democratic party" remained disaffected, and the state was divided into pro- and anti-Roman parties. With the ascendancy of Mithridates, the anti-Roman party gained the upper hand and threw in its lot with the Pontic king. Athens made its bid "to rid the world of the pascha rule of the proconsuls and the shameless avarice of the Roman corporations."[4] When the war was lost, Sulla imposed a new "oligarchic" constitution on Athens. And indeed Ferguson discerned, through subtle changes in epigraphic formulae and administrative procedures described in inscriptions, further constitutional crises and "revolutions" throughout the first century as Athens swung between "oligarchy" and its traditional democracy, upheavals in which one might "detect the will, if not the hand, of Rome."[5]
Ferguson's thrilling account was so compelling that it began only relatively recently to be challenged in basic points. Badian's "honorable burial" of Ferguson's oligarchic revolution of 103/102 "amid the graves of its relatives among nineteenth-century interpretations," and his interpretation of the crisis of the 90s and 80s as a conflict among aristocrats in which attitudes toward Rome played only a secondary role, constitute a fundamental reorientation whose full implications have probably not yet been entirely worked out.[6] S. V. Tracy's analysis of the Athenian political scene around the turn of the second century, too, has discouraged easy generalizations about democratic collapse.[7] But other aspects of Ferguson's interpretation, such as the "Sullan constitution" and the constitutional upheavals of the first century, remain more or less unchallenged.[8] It is time
[2] Klio 4 (1904) 12; cf. Hellenistic Athens , 417-18.
[3] Hellenistic Athens , 427.
[4] Hellenistic Athens , 457.
[5] Tribal Cycles , 153.
[6] AJAH 1 (1976) 105-28; the quotation is from p. 106. Cf. also Candiloro, StudClassOrient 14 (1965) 142-45.
[7] HSCP 83 (1979) 213-35.
[8] Cf., for example, quite in Ferguson's tradition, Geagan, ANRW II.7.1 (1979) 374-76, and Athenian Constitution , passim. On the "Sullan constitution," cf. the authors cited below in n. 85.
for a broad reassessment. Were, in fact, Athenian politics toward the end of the second century and beginning of the first determined by attitudes toward Rome? Did Rome meddle in Athenian affairs directly or indirectly? Were Romans responsible, directly or indirectly, for revolutions or constitutional alterations?
A brief survey of the scarce evidence regarding Athens's relationship with Rome since the Third Macedonian War will help to set the stage. Athens was a major beneficiary of the Roman war with Perseus; in response to its request, the Senate granted Athens control of Haliartus, Delos, and Lemnos.[9] In the aftermath of Rome's grant of Delos to Athens, the Senate twice derided in favor of Delian appellants against apparently harsh or arbitrary actions of the Athenian authorities.[10] But Roman involvement in these cases, if somewhat deleterious to Athenian sovereignty, was hardly gratuitous, inasmuch as in both cases an earlier senatus consultum , perhaps the original decree that gave Delos to Athens, was at issue.[11] In any case, the diplomatic norms proper to independent states were observed: the Senate decreed that as far as it was concerned Demetrius of Rhenea should continue to care for the Serapium. That alone did not settle the matter for the Athenians, however, for the matter was extensively discussed in the council before the Roman request was accepted.[12] Early in the 150s, Athens's aggression against its tiny but important neighbor Oropus led to arbitration by Sicyon and a large fine of 500 talents. Disinclined to pay, Athens resorted to the Roman Senate, which in response to a spectacular Athenian embassy composed of the heads of the great philosophical schools lowered the fine to the manageable figure of 100 talents.[13] Two other arbitration cases that the Senate probably passed
[9] Polyb. 30.20. Athens probably received Imbros and Scyros at the same time: see Walbank, HCP , 3:443. Haliartus had been stormed and destroyed by C. Lucretius in 171 (Livy 42.63.3-11; Strabo 9.2.30, C411). The Senate may have felt justified in determining the fate of Delos (and conceivably the other islands as well) because it had served as a Macedonian base (P. Meloni, Perseo e la fine della monarchia macedone [Rome 1953] 353 n. 2).
[10] Sherk 5. Polyb. 32.7, with Walbank, HCP , 3:525-26.
[11] Sherk 5, lines 35-37; Walbank, HCP , 3:526.
[13] Paus. 7.11.4-8; cf. Syll 675. For the famous embassy of the philosophers of 156/155, see Plut. Cat. mai . 22; Polyb. 33.2; other sources in Walbank, HCP , 3:543-44, who also gives a concise review of the dispute at 532.
on to be heard by Athens are further signs of favor.[14] A treaty of alliance between Athens and Rome probably belongs in the second century—but whether before or after 146 is quite unknown.[15]
Athens played no role in the Achaean War of 146. Appian, however, believed that Rome had imposed laws or regulations on Athens "when the Romans previously [i.e., before Sulla] captured Greece."[16] This certainly did not happen in 196, for we have relatively copious evidence on the Roman settlement of the Macedonian War.[17] The only other time when Rome could be said to have "captured Greece" was in the Achaean War.[18] Pausanias, of course, claimed quite sweepingly that Mummius "was putting down democracies" when the senatorial commission arrived (7.16.9), and this might be adduced in support. But as we have seen (in chap. 3), that passage is too problematic to lend support to another equally problematic passage; and for Mummius to have intervened to alter the laws of a city that had remained friendly before and during the war lacks a parallel and is so out of keeping with normal Roman practice that we would need better evidence to accept it than Appian's isolated and vague allusions here. Nor is Appian corroborated by the attempt to extract from archon lists or tribal cycles an alteration in the constitution in 146/145, the evidence for which is so poor that it cannot sustain itself, much less support Appian.[19]
In Appian's context (Sulla's punishment of Athenian "rebels," and the restoration of the status quo) it is not altogether surprising that the notion has crept in that Aristion and his followers had breached certain specific
[14] Thronium vs. Scarphea, and Delphi vs. Ambryssus and the Phlygones: see chap. 6.
[15] Tac, Ann . 2.53. See Bernhardt, "Imperium und Eleutheria," 86, 102-3 (ca. 167); Baronowski, "Treaties," 303-4 (146-88?); Gruen, HWCR , 24 with n. 61, 738 n. 40 (non liquet ). Athens was formally recognized as "free" before 88: see below, n. 109; cf. Pliny HN 4.24.
[17] Cf. Polyb. 18.44-48; Livy 33.30-35.
[18] This fact is decisive against Ferguson's attempt to relate the reference to his "oligarchic revolution" in Athens near the end of the century (Klio 4 [1904] 16-17; Hellenistic Athens , 428 n.2; Tribal Cycles , 150-54). For the alleged "oligarchic revolution," see below.
[19] Dinsmoor, AAHA , 233-34. The evidence is the conjectured beginning terminus of an archon list inscribed under the Principate (Syll 733), and a supposed interruption and recommencement of the tribal cycle of prytany secretaries in 145/ 144. Contra: already Ferguson, Tribal Cycles , 154-55.
terms regulating their relationship with Rome, which simply had to be reinstated. Such a notion would have helped to justify Sulla's punishment of the more conspicuous of Aristion's followers, who could thus be branded as lawbreakers, and also would have provided a convenient precedent for his own settlement. This may therefore be no more than a tendentious fabrication—by Sulla himself, perhaps, or by others who had no sympathy with the regime of Aristion, such as Posidonius.[20] Certainly if Appian is indeed thinking of a prior Roman settlement of Athenian affairs, his view simply cannot be accepted in the current state of the evidence.[21] It is of course vaguely possible that the reference is to the alliance, whose date we have seen is controversial or even to the less rigid obligations of amicitia ; but that might have been very simply stated, without periphrasis. Perhaps indeed "the terms laid down by the Romans when they conquered Greece" simply refers to "freedom" granted the Greeks, a breach of which could be and was alleged by Romans when the beneficiaries acted in ways they did not like.[22]
Ferguson once argued that in the wake of the Delian slave insurrection ca. 130 the Italians of Delos unilaterally dissolved the Athenian cleruchy and instituted a cosmopolitan community in which they enjoyed full rights; but this is now long since a dead issue.[23] The Roman governor of Macedonia has, however, been a harder specter to exorcise. Ferguson de-dared that "again and again the Macedonian governor and the Roman senate had been called upon in the last half of the second century to settle Athenian affairs,"[24] but the only example he rites is Roman arbitration of the dispute between the Isthmian-Nemean and Athenian
[20] Sulla's memoirs: Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 116. Appian's relationship to Posidonius: Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 59, 327.
[21] Bertrand, in RCMM , 2:802; Bernhardt, PrH , 42.
[23] Klio 7 (1907) 234-40; Hellenistic Athens , 379-83. See Hatzfeld, BCH 36 (1912) 190-96; cp. Laidlaw, History of Delos , 190-95; Wilson, Emigration , 113-15.
[24] Klio 4 (1904) 12.
[25] See above, pp. 150-52.
Athenian affairs" but very much for their own purposes: to vindicate their rights against the alleged misconduct of the Isthmian-Nemean guild. When Sisenna's arbitral decision in their favor proved to be ineffectual, the Athenian state took an interest in the case for reasons of prestige and took the matter to the highest level. Having won a favorable decree from the Roman Senate on behalf of the Athenian guild, the Athenians proudly published it on the south wall of their treasury at Delphi astride the Sacred Way.[26] Roman intervention, such as it was here, was entirely in Athens's favor.
Other evidence gives no indication of any special interest taken by Roman officials in the internal affairs of Athens. We have noted already the absence of good evidence even for the presence of the proconsuls of Macedonia in Greece between the Achaean and Mithridatic wars. The only trace they have left in Athens in this period is a statue of Sex. Pompeius which was erected at some point on the Acropolis (IG II2 .4100). It has been asserted that the statue belongs to the time of Pompeius's proconsulship ca. 119,[27] but it may have been erected two generations later, along with the statue of Sextus's son Cn. Pompeius Strabo, to honor their grandson and son respectively, Pompey the Great.[28] Athens was far away from the northern frontier where the proconsuls of Macedonia spent most of their time, and their comings and goings will have been along the via Egnatia to Dyrrachium or Apollonia. Of course, the proconsuls assigned to Asia and Cilicia typically passed through Athens, for sight-seeing initiation into the Mysteries, edifying conversation, or merely to await better weather for the crossing to Asia.[29] Antonius's legate Hirrus put the fleet into winter quarters there in 102.[30] The Athenians were eager to show due honor to the stream of Roman officials—their
[26] Sherk 15.
[27] Groebe, MDAI(A) 34 (1909) 403-6, whose date is followed by the editors of Syll and IG II . For his death in Macedonia, attested by the inscription from Lete, above, p. 38.
[28] Above, p. 52 with n. 39.
[29] Cf. Scaevola the Augur ca. 120 (Cic. Fin . 1.8-9); Antonius ca. 102 (Cic. De or . 1.82, 2.3); the orator Crassus (Cic. De or . 1.45, 3.75) in the last decade of the second century; L. Gellius in 93 (Cic. Leg . 1.53). So too Cicero later: Att . 5.10-11, Fam . 2.8 (cf. Tusc . 5.22). Sulla returned through Athens: Nep. Art . 4.2; Plut. Sull . 26; Pompey stopped there twice (see p. 52, n. 39).
[30] ILLRP 342, lines 5-6. For the date, below, p. 229, n. 27.
cially constructed for the Roman
Ferguson's Roman-backed "oligarchic revolution" in the last decade of the second century, supposedly sparked or encouraged by the opportune presence of M. Antonius on his way to Cilicia, has by now been effectively cleared away.[38] The main premise of Ferguson's view—that the archonship
[32] Ath. 5.212f = Posidonius, FGrH 87 F36, p. 245, lines 16-17 = F253 Edelstein-Kidd, lines 64-65.
[33] H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora , vol. 14, The Agora of Athens (Princeton 1972) 51-52.
[35] Cic. Leg . 1.53; see Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 126 n. 46; Broughton, MRR , 3:99.
[36] Alleged, naturally, against Verres: Cic. Verr . 2.1.45.
[37] Plut. Sull . 14.5; Memnon, FGrH 434 F22.11. See below, n. 77.
[38] Ferguson, Klio 4 (1904) 1-17; full sketch of socioeconomic background in Hellenistic Athens , 418-27; refinements in Tribal Cycles , 147-55. After the article of 1904 Ferguson allowed a broader interval for the date (Hellenistic Athens , 427 n. 4 [still associating it, however, with Antonius's visit]; Tribal Cycles , 147-50). Refutation from Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 105-6; Tracy, HSCP 83 (1979) 220-25. Cf. also Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 86-87 with n. 1.
became elective and reiterated tenure tolerated—eventually evoked doubts in its own creator.[39] A careful recent study by Tracy concludes that the Athenian government around 100 was working smoothly in the traditional way. Although the Delian connections of the leading men of Athens at this time are clear, Tracy concludes that "the prosperity accruing from the commerce on Delos seems to have been fairly widespread and not limited to only a few very wealthy families."[40] However that may be, the hypothesis of Roman intervention in the internal concerns of Athens at this time is quite without foundation in the evidence. We do know a little about M. Antonius's visit to Athens ca. 102: he passed many days there in polite conversation about matters of philosophical and rhetorical import while the sea was too rough for the crossing to Cilicia; while the fleet remained for the winter, Antonius did not lose more time and moved on to Side.[41] One scholar's notion that Antonius took the time to suppress an Attic slave war is fanciful.[42] All our information about Antonius's military operations refers to the southern coast of Asia Minor, and in any case the slave revolt probably belongs somewhat later.[43]
The Path to Conflict
Against this background of Roman noninterference in Athenian affairs (or the absence of evidence for such interference) the steps toward conflict between Athens and Rome at the beginning of the Mithridatic War stand out as an aberration rather than the culmination of a long process. In view of the attention that Athens's political crisis at the end of the 90s has recently received there is no need for me to rehearse well-known facts.[44]
[39] Cf. especially Tribal Cycles , 147, where, however, the "revolution" remains a "crisis" of ca. 103 (p. 152); and AJP 59 (1938) 234.
[40] HSCP 83 (1979) 230; cf. 219-20, 229-31.
[41] Cic. De or . 1.82: tamen cum pro consule in Ciliciam proficiscens venissem Athenas, compluris tum ibi dies sum propter navigandi difficultatem commoratus; sed, cum cotidie mecum haberem homines doctissimos . . . pro se quisque ut poterat de officio et de ratione oratoris disputabat. ILLRP 342, lines 5-6.
[42] Lauffer, Bergwerksklaven , 239.
[43] See p. 55 with nn. 45-47.
[44] Cf. Accame, Dominio romano , 165-70; Deininger, Widerstand , 248-55; Candiloro, StudClassOrient 14 (1965) 134-76; Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 105-28; Habicht, Chiron 6 (1976) 127-42; Bernhardt, PrH , 39-49; Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 340-59. See also Desideri, Athenaeum 51 (1973) 249-54.
For our purposes the chief issue is the extent to which Rome directly, by intervention, or indirectly, as a potential ally or enemy of certain factions, played a role in the troubles of the Athenian state around the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 80s.
By the end of the 90s, it is apparent, Athens was experiencing grave political difficulties. From 91/90 to 89/88 Medeus held an unprecedented succession of three eponymous archonships.[45] Some further information is added by the long fragment of Posidonius referring to the Athenian envoy Athenion's embassy to Mithridates' court and his reception in Athens upon his return in 88. Athenion wrote back from Mithridates' court in 89-88 that he had gained such influence over the king that the Athenians would be able "not only to live in harmony, once freed from the debts that were accumulating, but also to restore the democracy and obtain great gifts, both private and public."[46] When he returned in 88 he exhorted the Athenians "not to put up with the anarchia that the Roman Senate had made to prevail until it should deride how we ought to be governed."[47] and spoke of dosed sanctuaries, "parched" gymnasia (i.e., without oil), no assembly in the theater, silent law courts, and the Pnyx "taken" from the demos: even the voice of Dionysus was absent, the Eleusinian temple (
The triple archonship of Medeus is intriguing; but it is not dear why, if he was a kind of tyrant, as is often supposed,[48] he should have chosen as his instrument the eponymous archonship—hardly the most powerful office—rather than the hoplite generalship, as would Athenion, or even the position of herald of the Areopagus, an office already gaining in importance by the end of the second century.[49] Athenion, in his list of civic problems, nowhere complains of a tyranny, Medeus's or anyone else's.
[45] IG II .1713, lines 9-11.
[48] Esp. Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 107-8, 113; Bernhardt, PrH , 40; Keaveney, Sulla , 79; cf. Ferguson, Klio 4 (1904) 13.
[49] On the herald of the Areopagus, cf. Tracy, HSCP 83 (1979) 227-28; Ferguson, Kilo 4 (1904) 7-8, and Hellenistic Athens , 429 n. 2, 455-56; Geagan, Athenian Constitution , 57-60.
And if Medeus had been tyrant in 89/88, how did Athenion manage to be sent to Mithridates—with public authority, it appears[50] —or to be welcomed back with such enthusiasm?[51]
The debts that were accumulating are represented as preventing civic concord (
What we hear most about, however, is anarchia , which appears to describe a virtual paralysis of political life and civic amenities. This is not, of course, anarchia merely in the technical sense of the lack of an eponymous archon, although there do not seem to have been any incumbent officials at the time of Athenion's return, since he does not have to turn anyone out of office when he and his associates are elected.[55] Perhaps officials were simply not being elected any more (anarchia in a very broad sense). Medeus's repeated tenure of the eponymous archonship may represent a pre-liminary stage in this breakdown: possibly he remained in office because no successor was chosen. In this context, Athenion's expression of hope
[50] Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 110.
[51] Badian evades the difficulty by postulating Medeus's removal before Athenion's departure (AJAH 1 [1976] 108, 110).
[53] Ath. 5.212d = Posidonius, FGrH 87 F 36, pp. 244-45 = F 253 Edelstein-Kidd, lines 50-51. Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 107-8, rejects the simplistic notion of "a broad mass of Athenians hopelessly indebted to a small upper class." Bernhardt, PrH , 44-45, concurs but still gives too much weight to what may be only a caricature, based on the conventions of rhetorical invective (on which see Kidd, Posidonius , 865-66, 870).
[54] So Ferguson, Klio 4 (1904) 14 n. 2.
for reinstating (
Rome's role in all of this is, unfortunately, quite obscure. The talk of parched gymnasia, dosed temples, and the abeyance of the Mysteries—matters with which Rome can have had little to do—suggests troubles far beyond the narrowly constitutional. The only evidence that links Rome to Athens's political troubles is Athenion's complaint that the Roman Senate was maintaining the anarchia until it could decide how the Athenians should be governed. This may mean no more than that the Athenians had
[56] It is hard to credit therefore Kidd's view, accepting Posidonius far too literally, that "national religious processions and celebrations like the Eleusinian mysteries, and freedom of speech and criticism were banned" (Posidonius , 877). Athenion's hysterical rantings need not be more than Posidonian slander.
[58] For a similar view, see Candiloro, StudClassOrient 14 (1965) 148-49, who nevertheless sees Roman intervention behind the "dosed temples" and "parched gymnasia" (pp. 153-54, 170). See Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 106-8, 112-14, for a vigorous assault on the simplistic view, heavily influenced by Posidonius's hostile rhetoric, that Athenion led a party of "radical democrats."
appealed to the Roman Senate for settlement of a political crisis,[59] and that typical Roman dilatoriness in considering the matter, aggravated by the distractions of more important matters such as the Italian war, created a strong popular consensus for taking the matter out of the hands of the Romans and offering it to the solicitous king of Pontus. There is no suggestion that this might provoke Roman reprisals. Athens was not entirely in the shadow of Rome; as a "free city" it was certainly capable of taking its own political decisions.
The popular reception of Athenion's rhetoric, and his election as hoplite general, might easily be supposed to have constituted a sharp break with Rome. Clearly this was the impression Posidonius attempted to convey.[60] But we should think twice. Early in 88, before Pontic forces had put in an appearance not only in Greece or Macedonia but even in the Cyclades, was a most curious time to provoke war. Even Posidonius does not make Athenion call for War against Rome on his return from Mithridates but only dwell with relish on the collapse of Roman power in Asia and the ascendancy of Mithridates.[61] This, on the face of it, is not so much a call to arms as an argument for turning away from Rome and toward the Pontic king for the resolution of Athens's political problems. Scholars have noted with surprise how favorably Athenion was welcomed in 88 by the Dionysiac artists, the beneficiaries of Roman decisions: a sign, therefore, of the depth and breadth of Athenian hostility to Rome by this time?[62] —or perhaps an indication that Athenion had not come to represent hostility to Rome. Posidonius indeed admits that Athenion professed to favor Rome in repeated assemblies; but for Posidonius it was all, of course, a pretense.[63] It is most probable that Athenion was temporizing.[64] Having done nothing
[59] Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 108, compares the appeal of Halaesa in Sicily a little earlier (Cic. Verr . 2.2.129). Sicily, perhaps, had a greater claim to Rome's attention. The Saguntine request for Roman arbitration of internal stasis before the Hannibalic War may be a more distant parallel (Polyb. 3.30.2).
[60] Kidd, Posidonius , 879-80—too ready, however, to accept Posidonius's slanted presentation. So too Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 351.
[61] Ath. 5.213 a-d = Posidonius, FGrH 87 F36, pp. 245-46 = F253 Edelstein-Kidd, lines 72-103.
[62] Kidd, Posidonius , 872; Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 348.
irremediable against Rome, but keeping his options open with regard to Mithridates, Athenion probably hoped to emerge on good, or at least passable, terms with whoever prevailed in the extraordinary contest developing in the Aegean world.
A direct collision with Romans came about only when a certain Apellicon was sent out to take over the treasures of Apollo at Delos, perhaps in order above all to finance the restocking of Athens's dwindling grain reserves.[65] That Apellicon had actually expected to encounter hostile action from Romans seems unlikely in view of his failure to take basic military precautions (unless that is only more Posidonian invective). The Athenian authorities had a plausible claim to the Delian treasures and may have had no reason to expect Roman interference; Delos resisted, however, and Apellicon was forced to lay siege. While the large number of Italian resident negotiatores is not to be forgotten, we should also recall that Athenion had made and expelled enemies. Not all of them will have fled to Rome, and those with important Delian connections may have sought to defend them.[66]
Even after the disaster Apellicon suffered at the hands of a Roman prefect, Athens's position in the larger struggle seems to have remained for a time uncertain.[67] Athenion now drops out of sight;[68] it may be that
[66] Athenion's exiles: Ath. 5.214a-d = Posidonius, FGrH 87 F36, p. 247 = F253 Edelstein-Kidd lines 117-45. Flight of Athenian "optimates " to Rome: Cic. Brut . 306.
the failure of Apellicon and the shock of the sudden armed dash with Rome brought about his downfall. Next we hear that Mithridates' general Archelaus, having conquered Delos and other strongholds, handed them over to the Athenians and by this act brought them over to side with the king.[69] This alone shows that the city had not yet openly sided with Mithridates. But both Pausanias and Plutarch go farther: Pausanias says that Aristion, whom Archelaus had sent on to Athens with 2,000 Pontic soldiers and the sacred treasures of Delos, was the one who "persuaded" the Athenians to choose Mithridates over Rome, while Plutarch goes so far as to say that Aristion as tyrant "forced" them to do so.[70] At any rate, it was only with the arrival of Aristion and his Pontic troops that Athens committed itself irreversibly to Mithridates and against Rome.[71] Even in 87, after Aristion's arrival in Athens, Piraeus seems to have been briefly open to the Roman legate Braetius Sura.[72]
The most probable conclusion therefore is that it was the imbalance of power brought about by the crumbling of Rome's position in the East and Mithridates' continued success, not to mention the appearance of Pontic troops while Romans were nowhere to be found, that induced the Athenians finally to make a firm choice, not surprisingly for what seemed at the time the stronger side. But that choice, late as it was, ought not to obscure the signs that Athenian politics were not dominated in 88 by a radical faction bent upon war with Rome in alliance with Mithridates. Athenion and his friends were fishing in dangerous waters, it is true. They played upon resentment at the arrogance of Roman power and popular wonder at the unexpected reversal of fortune it had suffered, and struck a
[68] Whether Athenion and Aristion are one or two persons has recently again become a matter of controversy: Kidd, Posidonius , 884-87, and Bugh, Phoenix 46 (1992) 108-23, seem to me correct to distinguish them, against Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 341-43, and Baslez, in Delo e l'Italia , 57, on their identity. Bugh argues plausibly, however, that the Posidonius extract in Athenaeus conflates the two at points.
[69] App. Mith . 28.
[71] Bernhardt, PrH , 47-48.
[72] Piraeus: App. Mith . 29. But see Janke, "Untersuchungen," 53-54, and Badian, "Lucius Sulla," 70 n. 46, who argue plausibly that Appian is mistaken.
sufficiently favorable attitude toward Mithridates to allow Athens to emerge unscathed if the Pontic king proved victorious. But that was nothing new and hardly committed them to an anti-Roman course.[73] Even in 88 Athenian politics were not dominated by attitudes toward Rome but by the traditional imperative of the polis to preserve its independence and freedom of action.[74]
The Treatment of Athens After Its Fall
We need not concern ourselves with the military operations during the siege of Athens and Piraeus,[75] and so can move on to Sulla's treatment of the vanquished city.
When Athens was taken, around midnight on 1 March 86, the soldiers were given license to slaughter and plunder according to the usual Roman manner of treating recalcitrant cities.[76] The immense slaughter was halted the next day in response to the supplications of a Medias (Medeus?) and Calliphon, along with "the senators" in Sulla's entourage.[77] The free adult males who survived were then left their freedom (i.e., not enslaved) but lost the right to vote in legislation or elections (App. Mith . 38): the city, then, was to be left in the hands of the exiles from Athenion and Aristion, now restored.[78] Interestingly, Appian explicitly tells us that the disability of the "rebels" was not transferred to their children—as would be those of Sulla's enemies in Rome.[79] Sulla then left C. Scribonius Curio to blockade the Acropolis, where Aristion and his accomplices had taken refuge, while he himself returned to attack the Piraeus and then moved on to Boeotia for the Chaeronea campaign. Around the same time as Sulla's victory at Chaeronea, Aristion and his men gave themselves up to Curio;
[73] For popular enthusiasm for the underdog, cp. Polyb. 27.9-10 on the Greek reaction to King Perseus's victory at Callinicus in 171.
[74] Cf. Bernhardt, PrH , 45-49.
[75] Cf. especially App. Mith . 30-40; Plut. Sull . 13-14.
[76] App. Mith . 38; Plut. Sull . 14.3-4; for the date, 14.6.
[78] Exiles: n. 66. One may compare Marcellus's settlement of Syracuse in 211: see the recent discussion by Eckstein, Senate and General , 163-64.
[79] Cf., from nearly a century before, the disabilities imposed on those who had not remained in the Roman friendship at Thisbae, valid for the limited term of ten years: Sherk 2, lines 20-24.
Sulla then returned to Athens to mete out punishment to the ringleaders of the rebellion and to attend to the final settlement.[80]
The principes seditionis et noxios Sulla immediately put to death, according to Licinianus (35.61 Criniti); this group is specified by Appian as Aristion, his bodyguards, and "those who had held office, or had done anything whatsoever, contrary to the regulations set down for them previously, when Greece was conquered by the Romans."[81] This should not mean that all who had held office during the period of Athens's revolt were executed.[82] At least the pretense was maintained that those punished were those who were culpable for the "revolt."
Following his description of the punishment of the "rebels," Appian tells us that Sulla imposed laws for the Athenians that were similar to those that the Romans had previously defined for them.[83] This statement is almost certainly to be linked with that which comes immediately before it, referring to an earlier Roman settlement at the time of the Roman "conquest of Greece"; if so, it must be regarded as part of the same corrupt tradition which sought to aggravate the Athenians' offense and to enlist the sanction of tradition for Sulla's arrangements.[84] However that may be, the central question for us is that of the nature of the Sullan regulations of Athenian affairs and especially of the degree to which they represent a marked alteration in the character of Athenian institutions. Unfortunately, here even recent scholarship has been most reluctant to give up the old approach of Ferguson, which traces every perceived alteration in Athenian institutions in this period to the usually invisible hand of Rome. Appian's brief and not terribly informative statement that Sulla "gave laws" (
[80] Plut. Sull . 14.7; App. Mith . 39; Licinianus 35.61 Criniti; Paus. 1.20.6 (confusing the capture of the Acropolis with the fall of Athens).
[82] Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 114.
[83] Mith . 39. Greek text in n.16 above.
from bare epigraphic formulae to haunt us in the pages of the standard works.[85] But on closer scrutiny it becomes a very shadowy thing indeed.
The "Sullan constitution" depends on the supposed character and the conjectured dates of two inscriptions: one that recounts the honors voted for the ephebes and the
But the dates alone of these inscriptions are far from secure; and in the absence of any explicit connection with Sulla, chronology is crucial. The first inscription (IG II2 .1039) is regularly set in 79/78: games called Sylleia are mentioned (line 57), which are thought to have ceased after Sulla's death in 78, and since a fragmentary archon list excludes the years 86/85 to 81/80 for the archon named in the decree (Apollodorus), he is placed in 80/79, with the honors voted, therefore, in the following year.[88] But the assumption that Athens could not have celebrated Sylleia after Sulla's death is an insecure foundation for weighty conclusions.[89] While the prec-
[85] Cf. Ferguson, Klio 9 (1909) 323-30, and Hellenistic Athens , 455-57; Geagan, Athenian Constitution , passim: "Sulla's new constitution" (p. 1), "the reforms of Sulla" (p. 61; cf. 90), "the abrupt change when Sulla imposed his new constitution on Athens" (p. 17) (cf. also ANRW II.7.1 [1979] 373-74). Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 115-16, Meritt and Traill, Athenian Councillors , 16-17, and Mellor, Goddess Roma , 103, are all willing to follow in Ferguson's and Geagan's tracks here. Reinmuth, AJP 90 (1969) 475-78, rightly takes Geagan to task for the notion of "abruptness." See also the cautious remarks of Rawson, Athenaeum 63 (1985) 59-63. Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 89-96 (cf. 100-101), without disputing the evidence adduced, denies concrete institutional changes. (But note that an inscription Touloumakos uses against the traditional view, IG II .1036 [p. 94], is now regularly dated in 108/107 [cf. Dinsmoor, AAHA , 243-44; Meritt, Historia 26 (1977) 187], not ca. 80, as given in IG II .)
[86] IG II .1039; M. Mitsos's improved text in SEG XXII.110.
[87] ASAtene 3-5[2] (1941-43) 84.
[88] Notopoulos, Hesperia 18 (1949) 24. The archon list: Hesperia suppl. 8 (1949) 117.
[89] The assumption is made by, among others, W. Gurlitt, Über Pausanias (Graz 1890) 245; Kirchner, ad IG II . 1039; Ferguson, Klio 9 (1909) 323; Accame, Dominio romano , 172; Raubitschek, in Studies Johnson , 49-50; Pelekides, L'ephébie attique , 236-39. So also Dinsmoor, AAHA , 291, citing Nep. Att . 4.2, which mentions only Sulla's return trip through Athens in 84 (the munera that Sulla transferred to Atticus are hardly games). Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 93, is rightly skeptical, though without questioning the traditional date of the inscription. Since Raubitschek's work appeared in 1951 another inscription mentioning the Sylleia has appeared: SEG XIII.279.
edent of Corinth was before the eyes of Athens and all Hellas, Sulla had stopped short of destroying the dry. The Athenians set up a statue in his honor.[90] Are we to imagine that it would have been cast down, or the Sylleia cancelled or renamed, while Sulla's henchmen (including, for example, C. Scribonius Curio himself, cos. 76) were very much in control in Rome and passing through Athens continually? Setting aside the Sylleia, we should note that IG II2 .1039 resembles closely IG II2 .1043, a decree of the boule honoring the ephebes of 38/37, according to which the hoplite general and the herald of the Areopagus were to announce the crown (lines 54-55). Even if, on grounds of letterforms,[91] one would not want to move IG II2 .1039 to such a late date, the lacunae in our archon lists would allow a date for Apollodorus as late as 65/64 or even 64/63.[92] Indeed, it has recently been plausibly argued that we should identify the Cappadocian princes who appear on the inscription (IG II2 .1039, lines 99-100) with the known sons of Ariobarzanes II who bore the same names: that would favor a late date for the inscription, since Ariobarzanes II acceded to the throne no earlier than 64.[93]
That leaves the honors voted to the
[91] Cf. photographs in ArchEph , 1964, pls. 9-12.
[92] Cf. now Meritt's list (rather optimistic about the extent of our knowledge) in Historia 26 (1977) 189-90. Oinophilos (64/63) is hardly secure.
[93] Mattingly, Chiron 9 (1979) 166-67, who persuasively argues for dating the accession of Ariobarzanes II in spring 64. Mattingly's date for the inscription is 64/63. On the sons of Ariobarzanes II, see Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty , 177-82. Contra Mattingly, however, see Baslez, in Delo e l'Italia , 65 n. 107.
[94] Dinsmoor, AAHA , 248-50. Cf. Dow, in Studies Shear , 125; Meritt, Historia 26 (1977) 189. Cf. Geagan, ANRW II.7.1 (1979) 376.
selected, and the apparent succession of tribes is a jumble. But, working from the premise that the tribal sequence was followed in the first century for priests of Asclepius,[95] and from the further hypothesis that a break in the cycle took place in 87/86—necessitated by apparently contradictory evidence in the very same inscription![96] —Menandrus of Erechtheis (I), priest in the archonship of Aeschines (and thus in the year of the inscription whose date concerns us), would date to 75/74. But this seems only a tissue of seductive suppositions; the date of honors to the
We cannot, then, be more precise about these inscriptions' dates than that they belong very roughly to the middle of the first century, probably in the second quarter; but this rather weakens the link with Sulla. Of what significance then is the apparent fact that the boule is able around mid-century to vote certain honors on its own initiative? Must this imply Sullan constitutional tinkering, or the ascendancy of an "oligarchy" without actual institutional changes?[97] It might be only symptomatic of a flux in honorific practices and therefore offer no evidence for constitutional revisions. The degree of inconsistency of honorary practices in the first century is indeed noteworthy but need not be taken as evidence for abrupt swings between "democracy" and "oligarchy."[98] One interpreter of these documents rightly acknowledges that "the necessity for and the exact nature of the approval or disapproval of the non-decreeing corporation or corporations remains elusive," and notes, for example, that the demos
[96] Cf. Dinsmoor, AAHA , 249-50. The only "evidence" for this break is the suggestive coincidence that if a regular tribal sequence is supposed for the first century, the year of the fall of Athens coincides with the tenure of a priest from tribe I (Erechtheis).
[97] So Reinmuth, AJP 90 (1969) 475-77; Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 94, 100-101, who employs the dangerous phrase (after Cic. Brut . 306, presumably) "die Herrschaft der Optimaten."
[98] Note the brief return of the generals and treasurer as publishing authorities for ephebic honors in the 40s: IG II .1040-42. IG II .1040 has been redated to ca. 43/42 (Reinmuth, Hesperia 34 [1964] 255-72); 1041 to 45/44 (Stamires, Hesperia 26 [1957] 251 and n. 66, with Dinsmoor, AAHA , 292). Geagan carries on the tradition of Ferguson, regarding this revival as evidence of "an important alteration in the Athenian constitution" (Athenian Constitution , 21) in a "reactionary period" (p. 85).
bestowed a crown upon the ephebes'
The prominence of the hoplite general and the herald of the Areopagus in our first document (IG II2 .1039) is often noted, but the importance of these officials is evident well before Sulla, and they need not be characteristically "oligarchical."[103] Athenion made himself hoplite general, and the herald of the Areopagus was apparently a prominent official under his regime in 88/87,[104] but no one has suggested that Athenion instituted an "oligarchical" regime.
The "Sullan constitution" is an elaborate modern construction that needs more support than our evidence offers. Rather than emerging from
[99] Reinmuth, AJP 90 (1969) 476-77; see IG II .1039 = SEG XXII.110, lines 70-72, col. II. Cf. Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 94.
[100] Cf. Dow, Prytaneis , esp. 25-27; Geagan, Athenian Constitution , 92-103; Meritt and Traill, Athenian Councillors , 16-17.
[101] Prytaneis , 25.
[102] Cf. IG II .1040-43 (see above, n. 98), 1960-61, and the later lists, 1962-2291. Cf. Pelekides, L'ephébie attique , 279-81, and for the ephebic decrees of the first century in general, pp. 197-209.
[103] Ferguson, Kilo 4 (1904) 7-8; Tracy, HSCP 83 (1979) 227-28; Touloumakos, "Einfluß," 82, 84.
[104] Ath. 5.213e-f = Posidonius, FGrH 87 F36 = F253 Edelstein-Kidd; IG II .1714 (dated to 88/87 by Dow, Hesperia 3 [1934] 144-45). See further p. 206 n. 49.
the evidence, it has been forcibly extracted by scholars guided by a conception of Athenian political history in the first century as a series of repeated oligarchic and democratic revolutions, each one fostered or overthrown by Romans. That view, already weakened elsewhere, especially in the decades before the Mithridatic War, does not deserve such allegiance.
The Sulla imposed certain regulations upon Athens as part of a settlement is of course dear enough from Appian's statement that he "imposed laws (or terms)" (
Sulla's regulations included the renewal of Athens's "freedom and autonomy."[109] Presumably it will not therefore have paid a tribute to Rome, and we hear nothing of an indemnity. Formally, Athens's relationship with Rome had not changed. Of Athens's island possessions, Delos remained under its control as well, apparently, as Scyros, Lemnos, and Imbros;[110]
[107] HSCP 83 (1979) 219.
[109] Plut. Comp. Sull. Lys . 5; Strabo 9.1.20, C398; Livy Per . 81.
[110] Cf. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens , 454 n. 2 (the inscriptions he rites, however, are not securely dated); for Delos, see Ferrary, in Insula sacra , 39-44. The lex Gabinia Calpurnia de insula Delo of 58 (IDel 1511) reveals that Roman vectigalia had by then been levied on Delos (lines 21-23), perhaps, though not certainly, by Sulla. (See Accame, Dominio romano , 184; Nicolet, in Insula sacra , 81-100, and CRAI , 1980, 266-67, citing lines 27-29; Dahlheim, Gewalt und Herrschaft , 306 n. 44, on the other hand, believes the innovation was a consequence of the pirate wars but preceded Pompey.) The vectigalia were, likely enough, various duties on transportation of goods, including, surely, the portorium : Accame, Dominio romano , 183-85; Moreau, in Delo e l'Italia , 95-97. Nicolet would now associate the custodia frumenti publici (line 23) with the portorium: BCH 115 (1991) 473-80; cf. CRAI , 1980, 260-87.
Salamis, however, may have been made independent.[111] Athens's "new style" silver coinage continued, probably without interruption.[112] The formal settlement of the war, in contrast to the hideous slaughter that marked the city's capture, was extraordinarily lenient.
I have argued that Rome took no special interest in Athenian internal political affairs through the period covered in this survey, that is, from the Achaean War through the immediate aftermath of Sulla's capture of the city. The attempt to extract dramatic changes in Athens's constitution from often dubious evidence, and to trace each supposed alteration thus discerned to Rome or a pro-Roman party, has at least properly been rejected for the period before the Mithridatic War; the still-prevailing tendency to do the same for the period after Aristion deserves equal skepticism. When Sulla captured Athens, he demonstrated the usual Roman barbarity toward resolute enemies, and, in the subsequent settlement, the equally typical Roman concern to punish individuals on whom blame for hostilities could be fixed. But there is no reliable evidence that he attempted, by constitutional tinkering, to change the nature of Athens's political system.
Athens, like a host of other great Greek poleis in the Aegean world, was caught up in the maelstrom of war and indeed made its own contribution to the development of the crisis. At least from the time of the
[111] So Graindor, Athènes , 8-10. But Graindor's inferences that Salamis was returned to Athens in the time of Augustus (Strabo 9.1.10, C394; Dio Chrys. Or . 31.116 does not stand independently), and thus that it was taken from Athens by Sulla, are hardly compelling. I can only suppose that Day's odd notion that in 86 the Athenians had to sell Salamis (Economic History , 127, 149, 178, citing Graindor and Strabo), repeated recently by Geagan (ANRW II.7.1 [1979] 374), is a kind of transposition of Dio's (perhaps only rhetorical) assertion that Julius Nicanor bought Salamis for the Athenians. For opposing views on Nicanor's date and Salamis's fate, see Jones, Phoenix 32 (1978) 222-28, and Kapetanopoulos, Hellenika 33 (1981) 217-37.
[112] I accept Lewis's "low" chronology for the "new style" coinage (NC 2 [1962] 276-300) against Thompson (New Style Coinage , passim, and NC 2 [1962] 301-33). An important recent discussion (with Thompson's imprimatur) proposes a "compromise" theory, accepting Lewis's bottom terminus: Mørkholm, ANSMN 29 (1984) 29-42. Habicht, Chiron 6 (1976) 137-38, argues against a break in the sequence of issues for a few years after Sulla.
ascendancy of Aristion, a declared enemy of Rome, it inevitably attracted Roman attention in consequence. But before this stage was reached Rome lay very much in the background, a presence directly manifested only in the parade of Roman officials, many of them with intellectual pretensions, on their way to other points east. The Senate showed Athens conspicuous honor in its decisions, especially, for example, in the decree of 112 in favor of the Athenian guild of Dionysiac artists, which was seen worthy of publication on the side of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi. Thracian and Macedonian wars were only distant rumblings far to the north; the proconsuls of Macedonia are not known to have set foot in Athens in this period. Whatever was the nature of the Senate's involvement in Athens's internal crisis directly preceding the Mithridatic War, it hardly suffices to alter the picture greatly. To be sure, Athenian politics were a minor matter in comparison with the Italian revolt or the restoration of the kings of Bithynia and Cappadocia. The Republic simply did not possess the necessary administrative capacity to maintain dose control of the internal affairs of communities around the Mediterranean.
Athens, of course, was a special case within Rome's Eastern imperium , as a "free city" but also a revered cultural capital. It would be absurd to extrapolate from Athens's case to that of other communities, even other "free cities" of considerable prestige, such as those on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. Even so, Athens's treatment by Rome prompts reflection. On the traditional view, Rome's ostensibly meddling and domineering behavior toward Athens could be viewed as particularly noteworthy precisely in view of this polis's clearly privileged position. Now it appears that, on the whole, Rome's hand lay remarkably lightly on Athens—in striking contrast to the behavior of the Hellenistic kings, whose regard for the "freedom and autonomy" of the Greek cities was generally more rhetorical than real. The political life of the Athenian polis does not appear to have been dominated or determined by attitudes toward Rome except when war supervened, making a derision between Rome and its enemy necessary; and at that point the deriding factor seems to have been nothing more profound than the presence of a strong Pontic army and fleet under Archelaus. The persistence of traditional principles of local self-interest and political autonomy even at this stage in the life of the Greek polis is indeed striking.[113] The establishment of a permanent Roman presence in the Greek East should not conceal the abiding continuities of Hellenistic political behavior.
[113] Cf. Bernhardt, PrH , esp. 124-39, 267-84.