10
Sulla's Settlement of the East
The course of the First Mithridatic War can be followed in a variety of excellent accounts. We need not do more than summarize a few essentials here.[1] The substantial time that any Roman reaction to Mithridates' invasion of Asia would in any case have required was of course much lengthened by the civil strife of 88. By the time Sulla crossed the Adriatic in early 87, Mithridates not only held Asia Minor but had sent an army to Greece and won over Athens,[2] Euboea, and most of Boeotia. The gains in Greece, however, were lost surprisingly quickly to Sulla's superior generalship and tenacious soldiery: on 1 March 86 Athens fell to the Romans, and the Pontic forces (recently strongly reinforced by another army which marched through Macedonia and Thessaly) lost two disastrous battles at Chaeronea and Orchomenus in the course of the year.[3]
Meanwhile Mithridates found himself, with depleted resources, fighting for his survival in Asia against a separate Roman army commanded by Sulla's enemy C. Flavius Fimbria. Sulla could not allow Fimbria to win the credit of eliminating Mithridates after he had himself done so much of the bloody work, and he therefore entered into negotiations with the Pontic king which occupied much of 85, as the imperator marched through Macedonia and toward the Hellespont. Terms of peace were agreed upon
[1] See especially, among recent treatments, Sherwin-White, RFPE , 121-48; McGing, FPME , 89-131; and Keaveney, Sulla , 78-127. Magie, RRAM , 210-31, 1100-1110, and Reinach, Mithradates , 115-205, are still to be consulted for details. Bernhardt, PrH , 33-64, is a useful study of the behavior of the Greek cities in the crisis.
[2] For Athens's path toward adherence to Mithridates' cause, see chap. 8.
[3] One of Sulla's two trophies for the victory at Chaeronea has now been discovered: below, n. 79.
at Dardanus in the Troad late in that year.[4] Mithridates was forced to give up all but the kingdom of Pontus (hence Paphlagonia, Galatia, Cappadocia), to hand over all prisoners and deserters, to pay an indemnity variously reported as 2,000 or 3,000 talents, and to give up seventy or eighty ships; in return, he was to be confirmed in his possession of Pontus and to be voted again an ally of Rome.[5] Memnon mentions an additional pledge by Sulla, promptly broken, not to conduct reprisals against the Greek cities that joined Mithridates.[6]
Uncertainty about the precise provisions of the Dardanus pact is not surprising in view of its subsequent history, which, anticipating somewhat, it may be useful to review at this point. It was regarded as shameful by Sulla's soldiery, who doubtless hoped to plunder the king's domains; and Sulla, it seems, was careful not to publicize its terms at the time, which later gave his legate L. Licinius Murena a pretext for renewing hostilities.[7] At first, immediately following Sulla's departure, Mithridates returned to his old tricks by failing to evacuate Cappadocia entirely before Ariobarzanes: the king, we are told, had decided that his agent Archelaus had given up too much in negotiation.[8] Such behavior was not appropriate for an
[4] Date: Magie, RRAM , 1110 n. 58. Previous meetings: Plut. Sull . 22; App. Mith . 54-56; Licinianus 35.71-77 (cf. 79) Criniti; Memnon, FGrH 434 F25.1; Eutr. 5.6.3; Oros. 6.2.9. Cf. Magie, p. 1107 n.46.
[5] App. Mith . 55 (cf. 58); Plut. Sull . 22.5 (cf. 24.3); Licinianus 35.74-78 Criniti; and Memnon, FGrH 434 F25.2 are the main sources; cf. also Livy Per . 83; Vell. Pat. 2.23.6; Flor. 1.40.12. Licinianus adds the surrender of Archelaus's fleet as well as seventy ships to be given to the socii (35.74, 77). Licinianus also adds an obligation for Mithridates to provide frumenturn, vestem, stipendium (35.77); in fact these burdens seem to have fallen upon the dries of Asia. Plutarch alone mentions a pledge to restore Mithridates' prewar status as a Roman ally.
[6] Accepted by Reinach, Mithradates , 190; Magie, RRAM , 229, 240. But see Sherwin-White, RFPE , 143 n. 48.
allegedly conquered enemy. Murena thus attempted to force Mithridates to relinquish all of Cappadocia and so to adhere fully to the terms of the agreement, initiating the "Second Mithridatic War" in 83. Murena's attack is universally condemned by moderns as an irresponsible provocation; on the contrary, it may have represented the best hope of saving face for his commander and of forcing Mithridates to adhere to the agreement that he was undermining. Hence the point of Murena's response to Mithridates' complaint that he was violating the treaty: he saw no treaty.[9] But Mithridates revealed that he still had plenty of fight left in him. Murena was repelled. Yet Sulla required a triumph over Mithridates, which was hardly possible while war continued, and therefore sent A. Gabinius to stop Murena and to arrange a settlement between Mithridates and Ariobarzanes. In 81 Gabinius arranged a meeting between the two kings at which Mithridates' four-year-old daughter was betrothed to Ariobarzanes, but this proved to be only a pretext under which Mithridates seized more of Cappadocia.[10] Still, the end of hostilities allowed Sulla to triumph over Mithridates on 27-28 January 81, although the king's refusal to be cowed or even to adhere fully to the pact, and indeed a second triumph celebrated over him in the very same year by Murena, did not cast the best light on the claim that Sulla had pacified him.[11] Not surprisingly, then, despite his unique position of power once in control of Rome, Sulla did not take the step of having the less-than-honorable terms agreed at Dardanus formally ratified by the Senate and instead let the matter drop as quietly as possible, while at the same time, since he could not of course afford to have another war with Mithridates on his hands, he saw to it that in practice the terms were observed. Significantly, once Sulla was dead the consuls of 78 refused even to consider the matter further.[12] The Pact of Dardanus, useful at the time it was concluded, became an embarrassment for the imperator once
[10] The chief sources are App. Mith . 64-66; Livy Per . 86; Memnon, FGrH 434 F26; Cic. Leg. Man . 8, Mur . 11-12, 15; Licinianus 36.5 Criniti (condemned as a gloss by Flemisch). Appian's account of a heavy Roman defeat, hostile as it is to Murena, should perhaps not be preferred a priori to Memnon's. On the "Second Mithridatic War," see Münzer, RE 13 (1926) 444-46, no. 122; Magie, RRAM , 243-45, 1124 nn. 35-40; Keaveney, Klio 65 (1983) 185-87; Sherwin-White, RFPE , 149-52; Bulin, "Untersuchungen," 73-80; Glew, Chiron 11 (1981) 109-30; McGing, FPME , 132-35.
[11] Sources for the triumphs in Greenidge and Clay, pp. 210, 223.
he was free of the constraints—Fimbria and the uncertainty of his future in Rome—that had made it attractive.[13]
Sulla's Arrangements in Asia Minor and Greece
We return, then, to the immediate aftermath of the settlement at Dardanus in 85. Sulla's hands were now free for the elimination of Fimbria.[14] That accomplished, Sulla restored Nicomedes to Bithynia, and Paphlagonia was added to his kingdom; Galatia was left to its local dynasts.[15] Ariobarzanes was restored to Cappadocia, but as we saw, Mithridates did not entirely relinquish the disputed region, which had been one of the precipitating causes of the war. Sulla's failure to insist on Mithridates' withdrawal while his army was still in Asia Minor clearly indicates how distracted he was from the task of restoring fully the Roman imperium throughout the peninsula.
It remained for Sulla to restore Rome's supremacy in the Greek cities of Asia provincia , and not incidentally to appease his army, which was disgruntled that the wealth of Mithridates was denied them (Plut. Sull . 24.4), by means of an alternative source of loot. The army, it must be noted, was no doubt badly in arrears of pay, for Sulla, having been declared a public enemy, had clearly been reduced to living off the land.[16] According to Appian, Sulla "left free, and enrolled as friends of the Roman people, the Ilians, Chians, Lycians, Rhodians, Magnesians, and some others, either in return for their military assistance or for what they had suffered for their support for him"[17] —or for what they paid him, for we learn from
[13] The argument of Sherwin-White, RFPE , 145-48, that the pact was not merely a convenient means for Sulla of extricating himself from his formal assignment in order to free himself for action against his Roman enemies, and that its terms reveal that Sulla's (limited) "imperialism was that of his generation" (p. 148), fail to carry conviction. For his main argument from chronology, see n. 30 below.
[14] App. Mith . 59; Plut. Sull . 25.1; Vell. Pat. 2.24.1; Oros. 6.2.11; Vir. ill . 70.
[15] Nicomedes: App. Mith . 60; Licinianus 35.83 Criniti. The Galatian Deiotarus was praised in the Senate by Murena after his return to Rome: Cic. Phil . 11.33 (see Magie, RRAM , 1124 n. 36).
[16] Cf. his confiscation of temple treasures at Delphi, Olympia, and Epidaurus to finance the siege of Athens: Plut. Sull . 12.3-9; App. Mith . 54; Paus. 9.7.4-6.
Cicero that some communities bought their "freedom" from Sulla.[18] He then sent his army round to the rest of the cities, many of which were held by Mithridates' partisans and still offered resistance, particularly after he had repealed the manumissions the Pontic king had ordered. These cities were captured and suffered harsh treatment, especially Ephesus.[19] Appian is frustratingly vague here about precisely which cities received rewards or punishment, leaving details forever uncertain, and hardly recovered in the extensive scholarly discussion of these matters.[20] We may forego consideration of whether the Magnesia Appian says was "freed" is the town on Mt. Sipylus or the one on the Maeander, or whether Smyrna lost "freedom" at this time.[21] What must be emphasized for our purposes is that the freedom from tribute and direct Roman interference that many, perhaps most, Greek cities of Asia had enjoyed since 129 now came to an end except in a very few cases. This inference has textual support in a passage from Appian's final assessment of the Mithridatic wars: "They [sc. the Romans] recovered quickly the areas of which Mithridates had deprived them: Paphlagonia, Galatia, Phrygia and its neighbor Mysia; in addition to these Lydia, Carla, Ionia and the rest of Asia around Pergamum; also old Greece and Macedonia. And they imposed tribute upon the majority of these peoples, who had not yet been tributary to them."[22] It is regrettable that we have so little specific information on the basis of which to assess more accurately the extent of territory now made subject to tribute; but in view of the conclusion reached earlier (chap. 4) that relatively few cities became tributary after the war with Aristonicus, it appears probable that the subjection of most of the Greek cities of Asia to
[18] Off . 3.87. Note also Appian's reference (BC 1.102) to the levying of cash from "free" communities.
[19] App. Mith . 61. Perhaps Sulla also formally overturned Mithridates' debt cancellation and enfranchisement of metics (48), though this is not stated.
[20] See especially Magie, RRAM , 233-38, with 1111-18 nn. 3-19; Bernhardt, "Imperium und Eleutheria," 114-32; Keaveney, Sulla , 230-33.
this most concrete manifestation of Roman supremacy, which, as we have seen, by its nature inevitably brought with it the frequent intervention of Roman officials in the local affairs of the cities, is to be dated to the settlement of the Mithridatic War. It would be rash to extrapolate the massive exploitation of Asia and complex financial links with Rome that Cicero describes in his speech for the Manilian law of 66 back to the later second century, without pausing to consider the work of Sulla.[23]
More painful in the short run was the punishment immediately meted out to the Greek cities for their adherence to Mithridates in the war. The most noxious partisans of Mithridates and those most closely associated with the massacre of the Italians were put to death at Ephesus; Appian notes, however, that the Ephesians were singled out for their destruction of Roman statues and dedications, signaling their early enthusiasm for Mithridates' cause, not as we might expect for their special zeal in obeying Mithridates' order to kill all Italians.[24] Sulla then called to Ephesus the leaders of "the cities" (presumably only those that merited punishment, but they would very likely have been the vast majority of Asian cities, so that Appian's sweeping references are not grossly misleading)[25] and distributed equally among them a massive fine, which amounted, according to Plutarch, to about 20,000 talents, or some 120 million denarii. This was clearly spent in large part on the troops, who probably received a handsome bonus as well.[26] A further bonus for the troops—and an additional, highly unpleasant burden for the cities—was their relatively luxurious urban billeting for the winter of 85-84.[27] Licinianus tells us that Mithridates had
[23] So, for example, Badian, Publicans , 63-64. It is clear enough that the great influx of Italian and Roman negotiatores in the East belongs after the First Mithridatic War: see Hatzfeld, Trafiquants , 52-147; Broughton, in ESAR , 4:543-53; Wilson, Emigration , 127-51.
[24] Licinianus 35.82 Criniti; cf. App. Mith . 61; cf. also Mithridates' informers: App. Mith . 48.
[26] pp. Mith . 62-63; Plut. Sull . 25.2, Luc . 4.1, 20.4; cf. also Cassiod. Chron . 484/a.u.c. 670 (Asia divided into forty-four regiones ), and Cic. Flac . 32, QFr . 1.1.33 (quod [sc. vectigal ] iis aequaliter Sulla descripserat ). Plut. Sull . 25.2 strongly suggests the connection of the fine with payment of soldiers; note too its immediate conversion into coinage (Luc . 4.1). The pay rates Plutarch mentions are surely impossible (some forty times the norm, amounting alone to some 20,000 talents, according to the calculations of Broughton, in ESAR , 4:517-18); Sulla needed some cash for a war fund and presumably intended to have some left over. On the arrangements for the collection of the fine, see especially Magie, RRAM , 1116-18 n. 17, and Brunt, Latomus 15 (1956) 17-25.
[27] Plut. Sull . 25.2; Tac. Ann . 4.56.2 (see above, n. 21). Sail. Cat . 11.5-6 for the "luxury" of the army's posting. For resentment of this practice and measures to control it, cf. Cic. Leg. Man . 38-39, Prov. cons . 5-6, Att . 5.21.7; ILS 38, II, lines 6-13.
been obliged by the terms of the Peace of Dardanus to provide supplies of grain, clothing, and pay for Sulla's army (35.77 Criniti). Possibly Mithridates had reneged on this promise as well and Sulla, declining to force him to fulfill it, obliged the Greek cities of Asia, the only remaining convenient source of supplies, to meet alone the full demands of the Roman army in its midst.
After the conclusion of the fighting in Asia Minor, Sulla, still formally a public enemy, had written to the Senate recounting his services to the res publica , particularly stressing his recent victories against Mithridates and the recovery for Rome of the territory the Pontic king had seized, and raising the issue of the exiles from the Cinnan regime and his own civil status.[28] The report on the campaign against Mithridates should be seen in the context of other such reports of victorious commanders to the Senate, which normally resulted in the immediate dispatch of a commission of ten to see to the details of the settlement in concert with the commander in the field.[29] It is possible that Sulla's account of the Mithridatic campaign was intended to give the Senate the option of sending such a senatorial commission, which would of course implicitly involve recognition of his status as Rome's imperator . The Senate, moved by a speech by its princeps , L. Valerius Flaccus, did indeed send legati to Sulla, but their discussions with the rebellious proconsul seem not to have gone beyond the question of his status and impunity for the Cinnans.[30] Thus the terms of the agreement reached at Dardanus remained without full legal force, while Sulla's
[29] The regularity of the pattern of the sending of a decemviral commission immediately following the commander's announcement of victory can be observed in 197 (Livy 33.24.3-7; cf. Polyb. 18.42), in 189 (Livy 37.52.1-2, 55.1-56.6; cf. Polyb. 21.24.2-9), in 168-167 (Livy 44.45.3; 45.1.1-11, 3.1-2, 13.9, 17.1-4); implicit in 146 (Paus. 7.16.9, with 16.2-8) and in 129 (Strabo 14.1.38, C646). See in general Schleußner, Legaten , 9-94 (pp. 78-79 on Sulla in Asia). Eckstein, Senate and General , esp. 264-66, 294-303, demonstrates that these commissions had hardly served to exert strong senatorial control over commanders in the field.
acta regarding individual communities in the aftermath of the campaigns remained without the sanction of a senatorial commission, and the legal status of such grants, conferred by a formally proclaimed public enemy, was open to doubt. The communities of the East were therefore left in a state of considerable uncertainty about the formal status of the Sullan grants until the proconsul himself was safely ensconced back in Rome. Indeed, as noted above, it was known that some of them had paid Sulla good money for his conferral of "freedom",[31] all the more reason to protect their investment by pressing immediately for senatorial ratification. Hence it is no wonder that in 81 and 80 a veritable flock of embassies from the East beat a path to Rome to obtain validation of Sulla's arrangements. We know, mainly from the random evidence of preserved inscriptions, of embassies sent in these two years to confirm grants of territory, revenues, and various guarantees, from Stratonicea, Rhodes, the guild of Dionysiac artists of Ionia and the Hellespont, Tabae, Thasos, Oropus, Chios, and Cormi.[32]
We do not hear of ratification by the Senate of Sulla's Eastern arrangements en bloc. The lex Valeria of 82, which conferred upon him the dictatorship, gave impunity and legal force to his future acts during his tenure of the office; but, contrary to one influential interpretation, we should not suppose that it formally ratified all of Sulla's acta as proconsul.[33] Appian,
[31] Above, n. 18.
[33] The main sources are App. BC 1.98-99; Plut. Sull . 33; Cic. Verr . 2.3.82, Leg. agr . 3.5, Leg . 1.42. Broughton (MRR , 2:66) implies that the lex Valeria ratified retroactively Sulla's acta as consul and proconsul. This view cannot be sustained by the evidence for the lex Valeria that Broughton himself rites (the pluperfect tense of fecisset in Leg. agr . 3.5 indicates priority to the verb of the jussive noun-clause in which it is imbedded [essent ], not to the main verb [tulit ]); the more common view that the lex Valeria governed solely Sulla's subsequent powers as dictator is surely correct (cf. Keaveney, Sulla , 161-62). On Plutarch's conflation of the lex Valeria with a grant of immunity for Sulla's past acts, see below, n. 36.
it is true, says that previously, in the period between Sulla's capture of Rome and his formal election as dictator, his acts as consul and proconsul were voted to be secure and legal.[34] But it is hard to reconcile this with more specific evidence concerning Sulla's Eastern arrangements. A quotation of the lex locationis imbedded in a senatorial decree for Oropus implies the contrary when it notes that exemptions made by Sulla for territory possessed by temples and religious sanctuaries needed subsequent senatorial confirmation to be valid.[35] Certainly, as we have seen, the peace with Mithridates was never regarded as formally ratified, as it should have been had all of Sulla's acta been regarded as legally binding. Perhaps the evidence only appears to be contradictory. Appian's focus at this point is very much on Rome's internal strife; the decree to which he refers may well have been concerned with the immediately pressing question of legal immunity for Sulla himself and his actions in the civil wars since 88. We may compare Plutarch's version, which speaks explicitly of a grant of immunity (
In addition to the assurance that formal confirmation by the Senate would provide there is sufficient evidence in the texts of the decrees that much remained still to be put into practice, and that a visit to Rome was partly intended to spur movement in that direction. Only as a result of the embassy of the Stratoniceans in 81 did Sulla get around to determining just how much the cities he had assigned to Stratonicea were to pay it in taxes.[37] Nor, it seems, had he done more in the case of Thasos than confer benefits on paper. In 80, seven years after a Thraco-Pontic army had swept
[36] Plut. Sull . 33.1, where this is mistakenly made a provision of the lex Valeria . See Gabba, Appiani liber primus , 263; Keaveney, Sulla , 167 n. 23.
[37] Sherk 18, lines 103-9.
through Macedonia, the Thasians had still not got back the land that had been seized from them by Thracians, or taken over Peparethos and Sciathos, both of which had been given to them by Sulla; in that year or the next, the proconsul Cn. Cornelius Dolabella bestirred himself to begin a letter-writing campaign on their behalf.[38] Plutarch remarks on the stream of embassies that met Sulla as he marched through Boeotia in 87;[39] this pattern doubtless recurred wherever Sulla went during his campaign. On such occasions he will rarely have clone more than write letters conferring certain benefits in rather broad terms;[40] it remained to the parties directly involved subsequently to approach the Senate and ensure that the grants were given full formal recognition and actually enacted. For obvious reasons, that could not be done until Sulla was in control of Rome.
These embassies also, naturally, had an eye to the future of their relationship with the ruling power. This explains one striking feature attested among the requests of at least two of the embassies, which doubtless came up more often than appears in our lacunose evidence. Both Stratonicea and Chios asked, in addition to confirmation of the Sullan grants by the Senate, for explicit recognition of the continued validity of their own traditional laws; Stratonicea also asked for confirmation of decrees passed "on account of the war that they declared on King Mithridates," while Chios apparently wanted explicit recognition of the principles that the Romans among them must obey Chian law, and that the city was not to be formally bound by any edict of a Roman magistrate.[41] The requests for explicit recognition of rights that would seem to be implicit in the status of a "free" Roman "friend and ally" call for comment. At first glance it would seem to imply an extraordinary degree of Roman interference in local affairs and unprecedented precariousness of local legal autonomy if
[38] Sherk 20, E, lines 13-16, F-G; Sherk 21, lines 14-27, II, 4-9.
[39] Sull . 12.1; cf. App. Mith . 30 and Paus. 9.7.4.
[40] For an extant example of such a letter, see Sherk 49 B: confirmation, in wholly traditional manner, of the privileges of the Ionian-Hellespontine Dionysiac artists.
one enjoyed the fight to "use one's own laws" (suis legibus uti ) only with Rome's explicit approval; thus, according to Pliny and the emperor Trajan, in Pontus of the early second century A.D. a community without the privilege suis legibus uti was "bound by Roman law" (Romano iure obstrictum ).[42] But we are still nearly two centuries from Pliny and Trajan, and better explanations lie ready to hand for these requests than a general debasement of "freedom" at the time of the Mithridatic War.[43] The need for confirmation of the local legal autonomy of Chios emerged directly from the peculiar historical circumstances following the recent, catastrophic war.[44] The population of the city had been deported by Mithridates, all rights of possession had been thrown into confusion, and it is very likely that Romans, whom we know to have held considerable property on the island, had attempted to make use of Roman officials in the province for the purpose of reclaiming their property. Explicit confirmation of the primacy of Chian law and the principle of legal autonomy did not alter Chios's legal status vis-à-vis Rome but simply made it more difficult in practice for Roman officials to intervene; this case should be compared with the continuous struggle of Colophon, revealed in the honorific decrees for Menippus and Ptolemaeus, for full enjoyment of its autonomy.[45] The same applies to the Stratoniceans' request for confirmation of their legal autonomy. Here the impetus for reiterating this principle may have been the danger that Roman officials might be induced, perhaps by Roman citizens, to tamper with the decrees, mentioned in the same breath, that were passed "for the sake of the war." The parallel for such decrees that comes to mind is that of the emergency measures of Ephesus of 86/85 alleviating debts and enfranchising noncitizens,[46] which may well have annoyed men who had the ear of Roman officials. The problem of proconsular interference in the affairs of "free" cities was, we have seen, nothing new, but it gained particular urgency in the immediate aftermath of the Mithridatic War as Romans returned to Asia Minor and attempted to regain their
[42] Pliny Ep . 10.92-93. On local autonomy as the norm in the Republican imperium , cf. Bernhardt, "Imperium und Eleutheria," 26-30, and Kienast, ZSS 85 (1968) 350, 360-61. On the nature of guarantees of "freedom," see Bernhardt, Historia 29 (1980) 190-207.
[43] So Magie, RRAM , 235-36; Keaveney, Sulla , 113-14.
[44] Marshall, GRBS 10 (1969) 262-66.
[46] Syll 742.
losses or to exploit favorable conditions for their individual interest. Those communities therefore that had managed to preserve good relations with Rome wisely lost no time in obtaining from the Senate explicit acknowledgment of their rights of local judicial autonomy.
Not only were some, perhaps many, of the privileges Sulla had granted yet to be put into practice at the end of the 80s, but much remained unsettled concerning the revenues to be taken in from communities newly reduced to tributary status for their behavior in the war. I have argued (above, pp. 59-65, 264-66) that in the aftermath of the First Mithridatic War there was an enormous increase in the area subject to Roman taxation, which probably now included most of the Greek cities of western Asia Minor, as well as much of central Greece, namely, Boeotia, Phocis, and Euboea. How many of these crucial decisions are to be attributed to Sulla's actions on the spot, and how many to subsequent senatorial decisions, may be questioned. Certainly we have direct testimony of Sulla's grants of "freedom" to a number of cities and communities in Asia Minor and the extraction of a fine from the others; however, we know from a reference in Cicero that the Senate subsequently (presumably soon after Sulla's death in 78) annulled some of the exemptions on the grounds that they had been bought.[47] This may suggest that a senatorial review of the new Eastern revenues took place in the early 70s and expanded considerably the area made tributary by Sulla.[48] Remarkably, it was not until 74 (probably following upon a sale of contracts in 75) that the question of whether Oropus was subject to Roman revenues was raised: Sulla had merely consigned its revenues to the Amphiareum, without any mention, as is clear from the dispute itself, of Roman taxation.[49] This may suggest that at the time of the grant (presumably 86-85) he did not assume that Roman tribute would be levied on Boeotia, and that this was done at some subsequent date. The evidence does not suggest that Sulla did more in the field than grant exemptions on his somewhat dubious authority (which could, as we have seen, yield cash and presumably more active assistance) and levy his great fine; the details could all be worked out at a later stage through the
[47] Off . 3.87. The proposal was made by the princeps senatus , L. Marcius Philippus: Sail. H . 1.77.20 Maurenbrecher. Subsequent senatorial rescinding of some of Sulla's decisions is also implied in the quotation from the lex locationis imbedded in the decree on Oropian taxation: Sherk 23, lines 41-42.
[48] Sail. H . 2.47.7 Maurenbrecher for grave financial difficulties in 75.
[49] Sherk 23, lines 43-54, for a quotation of the grant and reference to the confirmation by the Senate, which must have been equally silent about Roman tribute. Date of initiation of the case: lines 3-4. Cf. also Cic. ND 3-49.
Senate once the wars were won and enshrined in a lex locationis .[50] In any case, as we have seen, the Senate was not entirely bound even by the arrangements Sulla had made.
Asia Minor and Greece in the Aftermath of the Mithridatic War
Much was, therefore, still in flux even in 80. This applies even more to the position "on the ground" in the southern Balkans and Asia Minor. It does not seem to be sufficiently recognized that Sulla had left the East in a state very dose to chaos. Sulla and his legate L. Hortensius had undertaken punitive campaigns against the Illyrians and Thracians in 85 but evidently effected nothing more than to shore up temporarily the northern frontier, which had collapsed in the Pontic invasion of 87.[51] When Sulla left for Italy in 83, he virtually stripped Macedonia and Greece of their defenders, taking with him not only the five legions he had brought from Italy but several thousand Macedonian and Peloponnesian auxiliaries; the two Fimbrian legions stayed with L. Licinius Murena in Asia.[52] A disastrous invasion of Greece by the Maedi followed; the Thracians raided and plundered as deep as Delphi.[53] In the face of the Maedic attack Macedonia must have been temporarily lost once again; as it happens, the senatorial decree for the Stratoniceans in 81 seems to imply that in that year Greece, rather than Macedonia, was assigned as a provincia .[54]
[51] For the invasion of Arcathias/Ariarathes and Taxilles in 87, see Paus. 1.20.6, 10.34.4; App. Mith . 35, 41; Plut. Sull . 11.2, 15.1; Memnon, FGrH 434 F22.12-13. Dio F101.2, which mentions an irruption of Thracians into Epirus as far as Dodona, may belong here. For Hortensius and Sulla, Plut. Sull . 23.5; Licinianus 35.79-81 Criniti; App. Mith . 55 (cf. 58); Livy Per . 83; Vir. ill . 75.7. For the date of the Pontic invasion see Sherwin-White, RFPE , 132-37 (87), and McGing, FPME , 124 with n. 161 (88?).
[52] App. Mith . 30, 64; BC 1.79 for a total of 40,000 men, including 5 legions and 6,000 horse. Greek naval contingents accompanied Sulla as well: Sherk 22. Badian suggested that P. Gabinius, accused of extortion by "Achaei" and condemned toward 70 (Alexander, Trials , no. 174), may have been sent out with Sulla to be governor of Macedonia, perhaps remaining until succeeded by Cn. Dolabella in 80 (Studies , 74-80). The hypothesis seems strained.
Meanwhile the imperium in Asia Minor looked only a little more secure. Sulla had left behind Murena "to complete the settlement of Asian affairs."[55] The wording is an indication of how incomplete the Sullan dispensation remained at the rime of his departure. Murena's intervention in Cibyra in the southern corner of Phrygia, deposing its traditional dynasty and awarding two dries of the Tetrapolis to the Lycians, Rome's loyal allies in the war, is probably to be related to his task of consolidating the settlement.[56] We have already noted Murena's unsuccessful attempt to intimidate Mithridates into full compliance with the terms of the Dardanus agreement. Meanwhile, Mytilene managed to drag out its bitter resistance until 81 or 80, while pirates ravaged the coasts, even capturing Iasus, Samos, and Clazomenae, and Murena's countermeasures, for which he raised a fleet from among the Greek dries of the coast, availed little in the long run, however helpful they may have seemed at the time.[57] According to
Cicero, Murena credited the cost of the ships against the cities' tribute; a benevolent, or perhaps only realistic, measure, in view of their financial condition at this time.[58]
The huge fine levied by Sulla had been a crushing penalty after what the cities had already suffered in the war. The cities had to mortgage their buildings and properties heavily in order to come up with the amount required, at interest rates so unfavorable that (according to Plutarch) in a little over a decade the original debt had grown sixfold to 120,000 talents, though the principal had been paid twice over.[59] The money was probably lent initially not by Roman publicani , who will not yet have been present with sufficient resources in the winter of 85-84, but by local magnates or temples. It will not have taken long, however, for the shortage of capital in Asia and consequent extraordinary rates of interest to attract the publicani and other Roman financiers, who presumably provided secondary loans to cover the interest on the original debt.[60]
On the other end of the scale, many, if not most, of the cities "freed" by Sulla had suffered much in the war. Fimbria had destroyed Ilium after it had committed the crime of surrendering to Sulla rather than to him; the Chians had finally been expelled from their island by Mithridates; Magnesia, Stratonicea, and Tabae had no doubt suffered under Pontic occupation after their initial resistance; and the tenacity of the Rhodians and Lycians had surely been a considerable strain.[61] Even those who chose
[58] Murena's fleet: Cic. Verr . 2.1.89, noting that Miletus supplied ten ships.
[59] Mortgages: App. Mith . 63. Growth of debt: Plut. Luc . 20.4. See Magie, RRAM , 250-52, with 1127 n. 46; Broughton, in ESAR , 4:544-45.
[60] Cf. Sherwin-White, RFPE , 247-48; Brunt, Latomus 15 (1956) 17-25; Broughton, in ESAR , 4:545. For loans from the fund of Athena Ilias, see OGIS 444. Romans: Plut. Luc . 20; Cic. QFr . 1.1.33. Cf. Atticus in Athens: Nep. Att . 2.4-5.
[61] Ilium: App. Mith . 53. Chios: App. Mith . 46-47; Memnon, FGrH 434 F23; Nicolaus and Posidonius ap. Ath. 6.266e = FGrH 87 F38 and 90 F95; Sherk 70, lines 13-14. Magnesia: above, n. 21. Stratonicea: Sherk 18, lines 6-9, 36-48, 75-86. Tabae: Sherk 17 = GRBS 15 (1974) 290 (best text), lines 1-3. Rhodes and Lycia: App. Mith . 24-27.
the winning side in this conflict had not been able to escape paying a heavy price. Where we have evidence, it seems that Sulla as a rule rewarded these communities with grants of territory whose revenues will have assisted the cities' recovery: Rhodes received Caunus, and perhaps other territory on the mainland; Stratonicea received certain forts, villages, and harbors.[62] Nevertheless, it seems tolerably dear that in this war there were few winners among the Asian Greek communities. The fighting of 89-88 and 86-85, together with the punitive and repressive measures taken by both Mithridates and Sulla,[63] ensured that the consequences of this conflict for western Asia Minor were much graver than those of any other in the previous century since the expulsion of Antiochus III.
Plutarch's description in the Lucullus (20) of the wretched condition into which the cities of Asia subsequently sank is rhetorical and doubtless overdrawn, but perhaps not for all that entirely misleading. The first Pergamene decree in honor of Diodorus Pasparus and a recently published decree of the Koinon of Asia from Aphrodisias, if, as it appears, it belongs at this time, convey the same general impression of shattered civic finances and a miserable existence subject to the publican's rapacity.[64] There is scattered evidence of the lapse of certain festivals and sacrifices after the war.[65]
[62] Rhodes: Cic. QFr . 1.1.33 (cf. Brut . 312 mentioning an embassy to Rome de praemiis ). On Rhodian rewards see Magie, RRAM , 1111 n.3. Stratonicea: Sherk 18, lines 53-56, 95-99, 103-9. Sherk restores in the senatus consultum for Tabae a similar grant, but cf. Crawford and Reynolds, GRBS 15 (1974) 292-93, and above, n.41. Cf. Sulla's grant to Thasos of cities, forts, lands, and revenues (including Sciathos and Peparethos): Sherk 20, lines 13-17; Sherk 21, lines 15-27 (where it is dear that some of the territory concerned had been Thasian before the war).
[63] For Mithridates' maltreatment of the Asian cities, see especially App. Mith . 46-48, 62.
[65] Cf. the material collected by Robert, BCH 54 (1930) 338 nn. 1-2, Etudes , 426-28, and CRAI 1969, 62-63. The war mentioned in IGRR IV. 300, line 5, may have been the war with Aristonicus: see most recently Habicht, Altertümer von Pergamon 8.3: Die Inschriften des Asklepieions (Berlin 1969), p. 27. The honorary decrees of Priene for A. Aemilius Sex.f. Zosimus are often cited for the poor condition of civic life after the Mithridatic War (IPr 113, lines 41-42, 60-61; 114, lines 17-18, 24-25; cf. Magie, RRAM , 239, 1119 n. 23, Sherwin-White, RFPE , 249), but this inscription probably belongs much later than it was dated by Hiller: see n. 73 below.
Evidence that seems to point in a contrary direction, however, serves to remind us of the inherent weakness of sweeping generalizations. Stratonicea took the opportunity in 81 to ask Roman acceptance of
[68] Broughton, in ESAR , 4:555-57, and Magie, RRAM , 238-39, for the old view. Regling, Frankfurter Münzzeitung n.F. 3 (1932) 506-10, showed, on the basis of the Karacabey hoard (IGCH 1358), that Tralles continued cistophoric coinage after Sulla, inaugurating a new era in 85/84. Pergamum continues its massive volume of cistophori after Sulla: see Kleiner, ANSMN 23 (1978) 77-105. Cf. Kleiner, ANSMN 18 (1972) 17-32, on the cistophori of Ephesus. The behavior of other cistophoric mints such as Apamea, Smyrna, and Sardis remains less clear, but it would be no surprise to find that they continued to coin after Sulla as well. The noncistophoric silver coinage of Asia is too little studied for us to draw firm conclusions. Deppert-Lippitz, Münzprägung Milets , 117, 119, gives no new insight, merely assuming an end of Milesian coinage in 86/85 through its loss of "autonomy."
[69] IGRR IV. 292, lines 24-25.
extracted in Asia Minor in the 50s, about which we know a good deal from Cicero's correspondence.[70]
While it would be wrong, then, to conclude that civic life in the Greek cities of Asia Minor had been swept away, it is clear enough that their Hellenistic splendor was now largely past. They still had great orators to exhibit, of course, to young Romans on their grand tour such as Cicero in 79-77 (Cic. Brut . 315-16). But the contraction of their horizons in comparison with the prewar period is unmistakable. The honorary inscriptions on the North Hall at Priene give evidence of a still-vigorous diplomatic life around the turn of the second century: Prienean embassies rove the eastern Mediterranean and exchange courtesies with Seleucid and Cap-padocian kings. The construction of North Hall itself seems to have been linked with the name of an Ariarathes.[71] Rome's imperium and official presence in Asia Minor since 131 had not had an overwhelming impact upon Priene's international standing and participation in an old Hellenistic diplomatic tradition. Further evidence before the Mithridatic wars of such diplomatic vigor among the Greek cities of Asia Minor can be adduced.[72] Nothing similar appears in the epigraphic evidence of the generation following the First Mithridatic War. At Priene, the next honorary inscriptions to appear on the wall of the North Hall, probably late in the century, tell only of local civic affairs.[73]
Mainland Greece, at least, was spared the Sullan fine. Outside of Athens, whose case we have considered in chapter 8, and a few other cities
[70] See Badian, Publicans , 113-14.
[71] See p. 137 n. 43; IPr 204, with p. 311.
ravaged in the fighting, such as Anthedon, Larymna, and Halae (Plut. Sull . 26.7), the most significant change brought by the First Mithridatic War to Greece was certainly that large portions of it, very likely most of Boeotia, Euboea, and perhaps Phocis, were now made subject to Roman taxes, to be collected, in the case of Boeotia at least and probably of the others as well, by the publicani , who now at last made their debut in Greece.[74] The presence of publicani inevitably brought closer involvement of the proconsul of Macedonia, and so it is no surprise that in the 70s we at last hear of a rash of extortion accusations brought by Greeks of the mainland against Roman officials.[75] The larger role that the proconsul of Macedonia might now be required to play in Greece is indicated, for example, in the decree of the Senate of 78 B.C. awarding privileges, including tax exemption, to three Greek ship captains, including one from Greece, Polystratus of Carystus on Euboea. The proconsul of Macedonia was to ensure that Polystratus's immunity was secure, including exemption from any public debts; Polystratus might also, at his own discretion, resort to the proconsul's court.[76]
Still, such provisions for the settlement of difficulties do not imply that the proconsul was often required to act upon them, and a most interesting account of a series of incidents in Chaeronea about this time, which happens to be preserved only because Plutarch was a native of the place, suggests that in fact the proconsul of Macedonia was by no means a constant and oppressive presence in central Greece. The affair, minor in itself, deserves to be considered at some length because of the light it sheds on our subject.
[74] There is no earlier evidence for activities of publicani in Greece; nor is there clear evidence from our period for their involvement in the collection of the revenues of Macedonia other than portoria (Cic. Pis . 87). See chap. 3 on the date of the introduction of Roman tribute in Greece.
[75] Cf. the trial in 77 of the proconsul of Macedonia of 80-78, Cn. Dolabella (chief sources in Greenidge and Clay, p. 238; cf. Alexander, Trials , no. 140; Plut. Caes . 4.1 for testimony by Greeks), and that of C. Antonius Hybrida in 76 (Asc. 84 C; Q. Cicero [?] Comment. pet . 2.8; Plut. Caes . 4.2 [badly confused]: see Alexander, Trials , no. 141, and B. A. Marshall, A Historical Commentary on Asconius [Columbia, 1985] 293-94, who considers the question of whether the case was strictly one of res repetundae ). On the political context of these trials see Gruen, AJP 87 (1966) 385-89. P. Gabinius was tried later in the 70s with Achaei as plaintiffs (Cic. Div. Caec . 64; Alexander, Trials , no. 174). On Gabinius, see n. 52 above. Antonius may have been left behind in Greece by Sulla in 83, if Asconius's statement that his misdeeds took place during the civil wars (84 C; cf. 88, 92) is to be taken strictly. Note Asconius's strange phrase nactus de exercitu Sullano equitum turmas .
[76] Sherk 22, lines 8, 11 (Latin), 19, 23 (Greek).
Probably early in 87 the commander of a cohort wintering in Chaeronea was murdered, together with some of his men, by a band of local youths led by one Damon, who had rejected his sexual advances.[77] The gang fled, and the city council of Chaeronea passed sentence of death upon them; but one evening, according to Plutarch, Damon and his men returned, murdered a number of magistrates in the
This story bears closer scrutiny. It is worth stressing that Chaeronea itself, not a Roman imperator , originally judged Damon guilty of murder and sentenced him to death for the killing of the Romans.[78] Capital crimes against Romans were not, it seems, according to some explicitly enunciated legal principle the sole preserve of Roman authorities, although of course had Lucullus not found Chaeronea's handling of the case satisfactory we
[77] Plut. Cim . 1.2-2.1. Date: 88-87, 81-80, and 75-74 have also been proposed: see Reinach, Mithradates , 149 with n. 1; Holleaux, REG 32 (1919) 331; Gelzer, RE 13 (1926) 380-81; Accame, Dominio romano , 200; van Ooteghem, L. Lucullus , 37 with n. 3; Fossey, ANRW II.7.1 (1979) 580. Lucullus's march into Boeotia in advance of Sulla in 87 appears at Plut. Sull . 11.5. On the other hand, Lucullus is unlikely to have marched through Boeotia on his way—as quickly as possible—to Asia Minor in 74 (McGing, Phoenix 38 [1984] 15 n. 15), and the wintering of a Roman cohort in Chaeronea fits far better the context of 87 than any other proposed date. Keaveney, Lucullus , 212 n. 11, also dates the episode early in 87 on different grounds. An honorific inscription from Chaeronea shows that a Thracian commander of auxiliaries wintered there probably in 88-87 (REG 32 [1919] 320).
[78] Bernhardt, PrH , 229.
might well expect some Roman intervention, as in the case we have noted of a Colophonian murder suspect summoned to Rome from Asia in the second century (see pp. 128-29). The case came formally before the proconsul, of course, only when it reemerged as a result of a curious reversal in Chaeronea. When the city lifted the ban against Damon and even went on to honor him with the gymnasiarchy, it opened itself to the suspicion that it sanctioned the murder of the Romans. Even so, of course, it was not a Roman who revived the case but the neighboring, hostile city of Orchomenus (
Behind this unseemly conflict between Boeotian neighbors lie, very likely, varying fortunes in the recent fighting in Greece and at the hands of Sulla. Chaeroneans had been instrumental in turning the flank of the Pontic position in the battle of 86, and Sulla had paid them a great compliment by having the names of the leaders of this operation, Homoloechus and Anaxidamus, inscribed in Greek on the trophy he posted at the point where they had broken through. The trophy, amazingly, has recently been discovered, with the inscription "Homoloechus and Anaxidamus, Heroes."[79] The monument itself stood as a powerful reminder that Chaeronea was in Sulla's, and Rome's, good graces. It would be surprising if Chaeronea was not declared "free" for its service in the war, as had been nearby Elatea (Paus. 10.34.2). Very likely, beyond the possibility of punishment for a few individuals, the city now stood to lose that privilege if it were shown to have connived at the murder of the Romans. Orchomenus, whose treatment by Sulla is uncertain but which had been on the wrong side of the battle lines at least once in 86, now perhaps saw an opportunity to raise itself in the estimation of the conqueror at the expense of its neighbor.
It is revealing that the Chaeroneans considered themselves in a position to recall from exile and honor a convicted murderer of Romans, that this occurred without complaint by Roman authorities, and that the case was finally initiated not by Roman authorities but by Orchomenus, which hired a Roman advocate and demanded justice at the tribunal of the proconsul of Macedonia, almost certainly in Macedonia itself, for as Plutarch notes, "the Romans did not yet send out commanders to Greece" (Cim . 2.1).[80] These facts reveal how little able the proconsul of Macedonia was to exercise directly or indirectly, through his subordinates, dose supervision of local affairs in Greece even in the aftermath of the First Mithridatic
[79] Plut. Sull . 17.5-.18.1, 19.5; Camp, Ierardi, McInerney, Morgan, and Umholtz, AJA 96 (1992) 443-55.
War, given his chief duty of seeing to the security of the northern frontier—a perennial problem that was now particularly severe. While the extension of Roman taxation into central Greece inevitably involved Roman officials and publicani much more closely than before in local Greek affairs, the degree to which in practice local autonomy persisted should not be underestimated.
The First Mithridatic War and the Imperium Populi Romani
Mithridates and the Greeks who had sympathized with him had delivered a rather heavy shock to the imperium populi Romani in the East. Inevitably the acceptance of that imperium and loyalty to it were now thrown into question in a way they had not been before. This new tension emerges quite dearly even in our, on the face of it, rather austere epigraphic evidence.
Constant emphasis in the texts of this period on the demonstration of loyalty to Rome, expressed in the most obsequious terms, is most striking. The recurrence in these years of the phrase "those who have preserved the Roman friendship" is surely significant.[81] Cities that had received from Sulla grants of rights or territory naturally inscribed and conspicuously displayed the senatorial decrees that confirmed them on temples or in the marketplace.[82] These texts, prominently displayed, thus by their very nature served to attest to loyal service to Rome, and to its due recognition. In addition, however, they reproduced in abbreviated form the lengthy disquisitions presented in the Senate by the cities' ambassadors on their valiant efforts and sufferings in the Roman cause, and often contained some explicit senatorial acknowledgment of the veracity of these claims. So the embassy of the Stratoniceans speaks at length of their friendship toward Rome in peace and in the recent war, of their alacrity in resisting Mithridates, and of their torments at his hands; the Senate responds by assuring them that it has received word of their faithful assistance from commanders in Asia and Greece, and Sulla in his cover letter adds more
[81] Sherk 18, lines 36-37 (restored), 78-80; 21, II, line 3 (cf. 20, line 5); Sherk 22, lines 8-9 (Latin), 19-20 (Greek); Sherk 23, lines 50-51. The only earlier appearance of the phrase seems to be in the lex agraria of 111, FIRA 8, line 75, referring to the Third Punic War.
[82] The senatus consulta for Tabae and Stratonicea were inscribed on temples (Sherk, RDGE , pp. 100, 105); the senatus consultum for Thasos was inscribed prominently on a long, monumental wall: Dunant and Pouilloux, Etudes thasiennes , 5: 37-39.
remarks of the same nature.[83] Some of the phrases used are indeed remarkable: the Stratoniceans declare that their city had "managed its own affairs according to their [sc. the Romans'] policy"; the Senate that it knows they had "most eagerly protected the Roman public interest with soldiers, grain [?], and great expenditures [?]"; and Sulla adds that they had "accepted eagerly many and various dangers for the sake of our public interest."[84] The Thasian embassy elaborated on the theme: "they had sworn oaths among themselves to kill their children and wives and to meet the forces of the enemy in battle, and to die for our [sc. the Roman] public interest in a time of need, rather than to appear in a crisis to have abandoned the friendship of the Roman people"; hence they underwent a siege, full of hardships and dangers.[85] We may imagine that the senatus consultum for Chios of 80 expressed like sentiments: it expounded the services the islanders had performed for Rome against Mithridates, and what they had suffered in consequence.[86]
A similar point was made in dossiers published by some cities after the war that advertised their loyalty or that of their prominent citizens. Nysa in Caria published a series of documents—one letter of the proconsul C. Cassius and two written by Mithridates—that attested to the great services performed by their citizen Chaeremon for the Romans when the tide of war was against them, and to his hostility toward the Pontic king.[87] A similar dossier has been found at Aphrodisias attesting to the city's dutiful assistance and that of its citizen Artemidorus during the Roman defeat.[88] Although the preserved texts were inscribed in the second century A.D ., they are likely to have been copied from an earlier monument for Arte-
[83] Sherk 18, lines 36-48, 75-86, 3-14.
[87] Sherk 48 (Cassius's letter only) = Syll 741 (both Cassius's and Mithridates' letters).
[88] Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome , 2-3.
midorus,[89] and it seems probable that Aphrodisias, like Nysa, did not let pass the opportunity to advertise its support for Rome in the immediate aftermath of the First Mithridatic War. One of the texts, a decree of the city passed in 89, reminded its readers of how, in response to an urgent request from Q. Oppius for military assistance, the Aphrodisians wished him to be informed immediately through Artemidorus "that the whole population was prepared to risk their lives, together with their wives, children, and property, for Quintus and the Roman interest, and that we do not even choose to live without the hegemony of the Romans."[90] A later letter of Oppius, written after his release from captivity probably in 84, was also published. In it Oppius recognized Aphrodisias's services to himself and to the Roman state: when he had requested soldiers from them they had sent them promptly, thus doing "what was incumbent upon good allies and friends of the Roman people to do."[91] In return Oppius, who now accepts their plea for him to become their patronus , will look to their interests in the future and will ensure that the Roman Senate and people know of Aphrodisias's services.[92]
Not surprisingly, the Chaeremon and Artemidorus dossiers stress assistance to Rome precisely at the moment when Roman fortunes were at their lowest ebb: aid offered during the collapse of Asia's defenses in 89-88 gave no impression of timeserving. But even those cities that had taken the lead in declaring allegiance to Mithridates sought now to proclaim their unwavering loyalty to Rome. The Ephesians, who had lost no time in declaring for Mithridates through the symbolic act of overthrowing Roman dedications in their city, and whose slaughter of Italians in the Artemision was one of the most notorious local manifestations of the massacre ordered by the Pontic king, now insisted rather lamely, in the
[89] Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome , xv, 11, 17. The earlier phase of the theater "was built for the most part in the second half of the first century B.C ." (p. xv).
[92] Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome , no. 3, lines 34-57. For the pledge to inform the Senate and people, cf. the Chaeremon monument, Sherk 48, lines 12-13.
prescript to a document that dates to 86 or 85 and is clearly intended as much for subsequent Roman readers as for citizens of Ephesus, that
while the people [?] was preserving its long-established [?] goodwill toward the Romans, the common saviors [?] of all, and was enthusiastically receptive [?] to all demands, Mithridates, king of Cappadocia, violated the agreement with the Romans; and, having collected his forces, he attempted to become master of land that in no way belonged to him. After first seizing the cities in front of ours, he captured our city too by treachery [?], overwhelming us by his superiority in numbers and the suddenness of his attack. But our people, preserving from the first its goodwill toward the Romans, has now found an opportunity to help in the common project and has derided to declare war against Mithridates for the sake of the supremacy [hegemonia ] of the Romans and the freedom of all, all the citizens having offered themselves with one accord to the struggle for these goals.[93]
At Ephesus, however, the decision came too late to serve as a convincing gesture; as we saw, Sulla punished the city despite its professions of loyalty. For us the significant point is that the Greek cities of Asia Minor, however spotty their record in the war, took such pains to stress in their published documents their loyalty to Rome in the recent terrible circumstances. None of Rome's previous Eastern wars had elicited such a highly publicized outpouring of ostensible goodwill; the First Mithridatic War would appear to have been a crisis of allegiance on an altogether novel scale.
Particularly noteworthy is the sudden readiness of both Greek and Roman authorities to speak frankly in official documents of a Roman hegemonia . If Polybius is representative, Greeks had, of course, spoken of Rome's hegemonia for as much as a century,[94] but the appearance of the word as part of the formal diplomatic vocabulary, openly declared and inscribed in public records, is nevertheless an important step toward the full acknowledgment of the Roman imperium . As we have just seen, the Aphrodisians declare that "they do not even wish to live without the Roman hegemonia "; while sacrifices were offered, under Sulla's dispensation, at the Amphiareum at Oropus "for the victory and hegemonia of the Roman people."[95] The Ephesians present their decision to declare war against Mithridates as one taken "for the sake of the Roman hegemonia
[93] Syll 742, lines 1-15.
[94] Gruen, HWCR , 278-81, 325-51.
and the freedom of all."[96] This sharp juxtaposition of Rome's supremacy with Greek freedom, implying the complete compatibility of the two, is striking and may well have been meant to be so; if we take into account the circumstances of the decree, already noted above, we recognize the distinct possibility that the Ephesians are expressing their hopes more than any realistic expectation. And yet, although the Ephesians for their own rhetorical purposes gave especially sharp expression to the idea that Rome's hegemonia did not preclude their own enjoyment of freedom, the same idea is probably implicit in the Aphrodisians' insistence that life itself was unthinkable without Rome's supremacy, and in the similar phrases we have surveyed above, from the lips of Stratonicean and Thasian ambassadors, about the priority of Roman interests—or rather, the identity of Roman with Greek interests.
Nor did Romans entirely shy away from frank acknowledgment of their hegemonia or, as they will have put it, imperium in the East. Sulla uses the word in his cover letter to the Stratoniceans: "I am quite aware that for generations you have performed all your obligations toward our hegemonia."[97] According to a convincing restoration of an epigraphic lacuna,[98] the Stratoniceans in 81 B.C. offered sacrifice on the Capitol not merely in thanks for Rome's victory, as was by now rather traditional,[99] but also, for the first time in our evidence, for "the hegemonia of the Roman people." If the restoration is correct, we have further evidence of a significant evolution in the terms in which the imperium was expressed in Rome itself, at the Capitolium, the focus of Roman public pageantry. As it happens, these signs of the full consciousness and the open profession of the existence of a Roman imperium in the East coincide chronologically with what, as Gruen rightly emphasizes, is "the first unequivocal assertion by a Roman that his state holds imperium orbis terrae " in the extant
[98] Sherk 18, lines 32-33, restored on the example of Sherk 23, line 49 (quoted above, n. 95).
[99] Second-century examples appear both in Livy (36.35.12; 43.6.6; 44.14.3; 45.13.17) and in preserved senatus consulta (Sherk 16, line 11; 26, b, lines 17, 21; Sherk 22, lines 12-13 [Latin] for the Latin formula). Livy 36.35.12 and 45.13.17, referring to events of 191 and 168, make dear that the formal nature of the sacrifice was normally a thanksgiving for Rome's victory.
evidence.[100] Perhaps the coincidence of evidence is fortuitous. But we may, on the other hand, justifiably suppose that emergence from the crisis in Italy and successful, if not glorious, confrontation of the first real challenge to the established Roman presence in the East gave a more concrete and more self-conscious conception of Roman world rule than had been expressed hitherto.
More evidence on this point comes once again from the Capitolium, on which was built precisely in these years, on the most probable view, a striking new monument to Roman power in the East.[101] On it were inscribed a number of texts, in many cases copied from earlier originals, dedicated on the Capitol by at least fifteen kings and peoples of Asia Minor, attesting to the benefits and security conferred on them by Rome.[102] The selection of these dedicatory tablets exclusively from Asia Minor and their publication on a single monument of some grandeur—its perimeter has been estimated at some twenty meters, and some relief sculpture has been attributed to it (though perhaps rashly)[103] —can hardly have been a random act just now, after Rome had for a brief period actually lost, then reestablished, its imperium on the Anatolian peninsula. Particularly interesting is the republication on the monument of some rather old dedications, a
[100] HWCR , 281 (cf. pp. 278-81): Ad Herenn . 4.13: imperium orbis terrae, cui imperio omnes gentes, reges, nationes partim vi, partim voluntate consenserunt, cum aut armis aut liberalitate a populo Romano superati essent . Cf. Werner, ANRW I.1 (1972) 531-33.
[101] A Sullan date for the monument was first championed by Mommsen and supported by Degrassi in his important republication of the texts (BCAR 74 [1951-52] 19-47). The apparent conflict between a first-century date and some internal evidence from the texts that points toward the second century has been persuasively resolved by Mellor, Chiron 8 (1978) 319-30 (cf. also Goddess Roma , 203-6): the fire that destroyed the Temple of Jupiter in 83 provided the impetus for collecting a number of older dedications and reinscribing them on the new monument. Lintott, ZPE 30 (1978) 137-44, writing before the full publication of Mellor's argument, would date the monument toward the turn of the second century and supposes that some texts were added to it; but at the conclusion of the paper (pp. 143-44) he concedes the elegance of Mellor's solution.
[102] CIL I , 725-31 (see VI, 372-74, 30922-27); ILLRP 174-81a; cf. Moretti, IGUR 5-6, 9-10; see especially Degrassi, BCAR 74 (1951-52) 19-47, whose enumeration is followed in references below. The most important texts are reproduced by Mellor, Chiron 8 (1978) 321-28. Cf. CIL I , 2.4, add. pp. 941-43, for recent work, including Badian, JRS 58 (1968) 247.
[103] Sculpture: Bertoldi, in Studi di topografia romana , 39-53; but cf. Giuliani, in Studi di topografia romana , 55-61. Size: Degrassi, BCAR 74 (1951-52) 38-39. Mellor, Chiron 8 (1978) 330, supposes that the monument was surmounted by the statues of Roma and the Roman people to which some of the texts refer, although perhaps not all will have survived to this date.
few of which seem heavily ironical in view of the same parties' behavior in the recent war. A Lycian dedication that was probably nearly a century old will have harmonized well with that people's resistance to Mithridates in the war; more awkward, however, were a text advertising the "friendship and alliance" that obtained between Mithridates Eupator's grandfather (Mithridates IV) and Rome, and a commemoration by the Ephesians of the "freedom" established for them by the Romans, surely in 133-129.[104] The monument reminded Roman viewers of the power and authority their maiores had wielded in Asia Minor, set the recent victory in the context of an abiding tradition—and underscored the treachery of some dedicators' unworthy descendants.
It is further noteworthy that no Roman prescript or superscript has been discovered that might have served as an official commentary on the texts. Instead, the monument speaks, as it were, entirely in the words of non-Romans, the exterae gentes , and makes no explicit claims beyond what was directly and ostensibly spontaneously acknowledged by those subject to Rome's power. The recurring themes of the monument are Rome's high moral character (virtus or
[104] Lycians: Degrassi, BCAR 74 (2952-52) 19, no. 1 (ILLRP 174). For the date of 167, first proposed by Larsen, CP 51 (1956) 158, see now Mellor, pp. 322-23; also Lintott, ZPE 30 (1978) 140-41. Mithridates IV: Degrassi, pp. 25-26, no. 8 (ILLRP 180). Identification as Mithridates IV: Reinach, L'histoire , 127-29; Magie, RRAM , 1090 n. 48; Olshausen, RE suppl. 15 (1978) 415-16; Mellor, pp. 326-27. Lintott, pp. 141-43, is less convincing. For the date of the Ephesian dedication, cf. Mellor, pp. 324-25; Lintott, p. 140. Errington, Chiron 17 (1987) 106-7, now dates the Tabaean dedication to the 160s.
[105] Mellor, Chiron 8 (1978) 329. For the temple, see F. Coarelli, Roma (Rome 1980) 31; L. Richardson, Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore 1992) 151. Note that the Temple of Fides is mentioned in the senatus consultum for the Thasians of 80 B.C. precisely where we should expect reference to a dedication: Sherk 20, E, line 7.
[106] 2.26-27, quoted below, p. 335.
was subject to Roman hegemony, that is, the imperium of the Roman people. Like those texts, which proclaimed in Greeks' words their enthusiasm for the Roman hegemonia , this monument signals, likewise from the testimony of Greeks, that this is all to the good of the weaker parties, for whom the Roman people is the source of benefits, security, and freedom.
It should be noted, of course, that this "official version" of the character of Rome's imperium is a construction on which Greeks and Romans collaborated; indeed, in our documents, the message is even now loudest and most direct in the voices of Greek rather than Roman speakers. But Cicero shows how well these sentiments fit into traditional Roman categories of patronage, while Sulla's cover letter cited above, the drafting of senatorial decrees that stressed the language of loyalty and the imperium , and the construction in the focal point of Rome itself of the Capitoline monument of Asian peoples and kings all conspire to demonstrate dearly enough that Greeks were saying what they knew was expected or desired of them.
The First Mithridatic War and its conclusion are an epochal moment in the history of Rome's Eastern imperium . The Romans came very dose to being expelled from the Greek East altogether. Mithridates had badly shaken the tradition according to which the imperium populi Romani could be upheld without committing more than one or two legions east of the Adriatic on a regular basis and might be reasserted against potential challenges on rare occasions by a consular army or diplomatic bluster. For the moment, Sulla had to leave Eastern affairs in considerable disarray; there was little time for a comprehensive settlement. There can be little question here of the imposition of a grand new design upon the Eastern imperium ; Sulla, the Senate, and the various affected communities muddled through a messy process of ad hoc, piecemeal revisions of the previous status quo. And yet the new emphasis on loyalty to the imperium populi Romani stressed in Greek documents, senatorial decrees, and the monument on the Capitol give a clear sense of the changed atmosphere: a novel consciousness of, or frankness about, Roman domination and the duties on both sides implicit in it. In reality Sulla had not managed to reassert fully the Roman imperium in the East. A convincing response to the disaster of 89-87 came only in the next decade, in the form of an unremitting military offensive on a number of fronts as Sulla's successors attempted to revive Roman power in the East and face down all challengers.
In the meantime, however, one crucial change of wide-ranging importance had been at least initiated by Sulla, if the details remained to be
sorted out in the Senate house over the next few years. If arguments presented in this and earlier chapters are sound, the settlement of the First Mithridatic War vastly increased the area that paid revenues to the Roman people, imposing for the first time vectigalia on the mass of the Greek cities of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor and even on a number of Mithridates' onetime allies in central Greece. Magisterial intrusion would naturally increase in step with financial exploitation, as the spread of the harvest of Roman revenues demanded a wider sphere of supervision by proconsuls, who presided over the settlement of tax contracts (pactiones ) between publicani and individual communities and might act to restrain the gatherers' excesses.[107] The increased demands of the Roman state, especially Sulla's harsh fine on the Asian cities, required an infusion of capital ultimately supplied, sometimes at extortionate rates of interest, by an army of Roman financiers and businessmen, who, attracted by the investment opportunities, moved East in far greater numbers than before.[108] In the future, mediation between debtor states and Roman creditors would become an increasingly important part of the duties of officials, especially in Asia Minor; eventually, in 60, a senatorial decree had to be passed barring Roman magistrates from intervening in such affairs involving free cities.[109] The decisions taken by Sulla and by the Senate immediately following the First Mithridatic War, then, not only created something of a Roman bonanza in Asia both for the res publica and individuals but unconsciously set in motion a process that would greatly increase the administrative burden of Roman officials in the Eastern provinces and bring an intrusive Roman presence to a considerably wider area than before. Roman rule, such as it emerges from the pages of Cicero, is largely the product of the First Mithridatic War.
[107] On the system of pactiones , see Badian, Publicans , 79-80; Jonkers, SEC , 5; Magie, RRAM , 164, 1054 n. 17.
[108] P. 266 n. 23. The link between Roman state demands and provincial debt is nicely made by Syll 748 from Gytheum as well as by the more famous story of Lucullus's measures for debt relief in Asia, Plut. Luc . 20. Already in 88 Roman negotiatores had a considerable fortune invested in Asia, as Cicero relates in Leg. Man . 19.
[109] Cic. Att . 1.19.9, Prov. cons. 7.