Greece and the Proconsul in Macedonia
The traditional view of the status of Greece after 146 therefore has no great claim to our credence. Old notions of "provincialization" and talk of
[26] Tac. Ann . 14.21.2, adduced by Baronowski, in S YNEISF OPA McGill, 127.
[27] Vir. ill . 73.6, also brought into this connection by Baronowski (in S YNEISF OPA McGill, 127), is quite irrelevant. The colony apparently planned by Saturninus in "Achaia" will have been on the confiscated land of Corinth, now ager publicus . That would have no bearing on the question of provincialization.
[28] Schwertfeger, Der achaiische Bund , 72, rightly dissociates tribute from provincial status. But against his view that the commander in Macedonia nevertheless had a formal fight and responsibility to oversee Greece, Ferrary rightly objects: "C'est négliger les réalités institutionnelles romaines" (Philhellénisme et impérialisme , 205). On Judaea, see Sherwin-White, RFPE , 214-18, and Braund, RFK , 65.
"annexation" have obscured rather than illuminated historical realities. The apparent contradiction between official freedom and Roman intervention derives simply from the clumsy tools of analysis we have been taught to wield. A new view that assumes less a priori and ventures less widely beyond the limits of our evidence may be considered. We have already had reason to doubt that the presence of a Roman commander in his provincia was typically founded upon a new legal structure, imposed at a specific time of "annexation," and I hope to have shown that there is no good reason to believe that Macedonia provincia was legally defined as a formal entity in the 140s. That conclusion opens up a new approach to the question of the "status" of Greece. The signs of the "conversion" of part of Greece into a "province" have been lacking for the same reason that they have been absent in so many other areas to which Rome's power spread. The question of the "status" of Greece is a nonquestion. Romans of the second century did not think in those terms. As we have already seen, Rome's supremacy was much less clearly defined than has been thought; the reality of the situation was, as usual, complex, and perhaps not always consistent or perfectly clear.
To start with a certainty, it is clear that Graecia or Achaia was not assigned regularly as a provincia until 27 B.C. (with the exception of a brief period ca. 81, and another possible exception in 46-44). Therefore, as has long been known, Pausanias's and Strabo's belief that governors were henceforth sent out to Greece is a gross anachronism.[29] Officially Greece was again "freed" in 146 as it had been in 196.[30] The debate over what precisely the nature of this "freedom" was seems tiresome and fruitless:[31] it was a useful slogan precisely because of its flexibility. It is clear that the Roman commander in Macedonia was the most convenient representative for Greeks to approach when Rome's intervention in some Greek affair was desired;[32] likewise, he was the Senate's administrative deputy, carrying
[29] Against assignment of Graecia/Achaia, see Plut. Cim . 2.1; cf. MRR . Graecia was assigned exceptionally ca. 81 (see pp. 273-74), and perhaps 46-44 (Cic. Fam . 6.6.10; 7.30.3). During this last period the two men commonly regarded as "governors" may have been only legati of Caesar, without the formal assignment of a provincia . It is certainly artificial to assume an otherwise unattested "organization" of Greece as a province in 46-44 (so Schwertfeger, Der achaiische Bund, 77; Gruen, HWCR , 524). Contra: Paus. 7.16.10; Strabo 8.6.23, C381; so too Festus Brev . 7.
[30] See texts quoted in n. 23. Diod. 32.26.2 and x Macc. 8:10 present (in a highly rhetorical tone) not the official terminology or status but what they regard as the real situation.
[31] Bernhardt, Historia 26 (1977) 62-73. On Ferrary's recent interpretation, see n. 23 above.
[32] See, for instance, Sherk 43, lines 4-6 (Dyme); Sherk 15, lines 32-38, 59-60 (cf. Syll 704, F, lines 7-8; 704, I) (Dionysiac artists); Plut. Cim . 2 (Orchomenus vs. Chaeronea).
out its instructions in matters involving mainland Greeks, and settling the minor aspects of matters whose crucial issues were resolved in the Senate.[33] Finally, the commander in Macedonia might be expected to face any serious threat to Roman interests that appeared in Greece itself, as did Metellus at the outbreak of the Achaean War and C. Sentius at the time of Mithridates' invasion of Greece,[34] and it is dear that Romans assigned Macedonia provincia were in no way legally excluded from operating in Greece.[35] As before, Greeks could be formally free, and at the same time sporadically appeal and defer to the authority of the Roman commanders who happened to be near. The greater frequency of Roman magisterial intervention in Greece after 148 is due to the simple fact that whereas previously Roman commanders had been present for relatively short periods of time during the prosecution of the various wars, now one was continuously no farther away than Macedonia. Rome's sheer power made its representative and agent, the proconsul of Macedonia, the most authoritative and powerful figure in the vicinity, to whom difficult disputes would naturally be referred. It is not formal structures that account for this but pragmatic calculations of interest. So, about 135, when the city of Cyzicus in northwest Asia Minor wanted Roman help against some enemy, presumably Thracians, it turned to the proconsul of Macedonia (IGRR IV. 134). But no one has yet argued that northwest Asia Minor was actually part of the province of Macedonia; rather, M. Cosconius was dearly the man to see about this problem because he might be able to help.
It is normally supposed that, whatever the formal structures or lack of them, successive Roman commanders assigned Macedonia provincia "oversaw" Greece in addition to their duties in Macedonia itself. But did Greeks in fact conduct their affairs "under the watchful eye of the proconsul of Macedonia"?[36]
[34] For the latter, cf. Plut. Sull . 11.4; App. Mith . 29. For the specific assignment of military responsibilities in Greece in addition to Macedonia provincia , cf. Cic. Phil . 10.26: utique Q. Caepio Brutus pro consule provinciam Macedoniam, Illyricum cunctamque Graeciam tueatur .
[35] See above, n. 20. So, too, in southern Illyria: besides the later evidence of Cic. Pis . 83, 86, 96, note that for Livy a Roman commander assigned Macedonia provincia entered his province simply by crossing the Strait of Otranto (23.38.11; 30.42.5 [cf. 31.3.4-6]; 31.3.2, 14.2; 32.3.2; 35.23.5; 36.1.8; 42.27.4, 32.5, 34-5, 36.2-8.
[36] Larsen, Greek Federal States , 499. The Macedonian proconsul's "brief" for Greece is generally accepted, despite varying points of view on the structures involved: e.g., Dahlheim, Gewalt und Herrschaft , 127-28; Schwertfeger, Der achaiische Bund , 72; Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme , 207; Derow, CAH (1989) 323. For more detail in the cases involving some form of proconsular jurisdiction, cf. chap. 5.
We ought first to note how little evidence we have for even the presence of the proconsul of Macedonia in Greece during the period under our purview. We cannot presume that the presence of Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus in the Peloponnese, overseeing the Mummian settlement ca. 144,[37] was anything but extraordinary, as was the situation. He is, however, the last Roman magistrate (other than those passing to and from Asia Minor) whose presence in Greece is explicitly documented before the Mithridatic War, nearly six decades later. Other evidence that might be adduced for the presence of the proconsul of Macedonia is negligible. An inscription from Messenia that reveals a Roman praetor (?
[37] See chap. 3 and my forthcoming "Q. Fabius Maximus and the Dyme Affair," CQ 45 (1995). Whether Fabius was formally assigned Macedonia or Graecia (Achaia?) or both is uncertain and matters little for our purposes.
[38] IG V.1.1432/33, dated by Wilhelm, JÖAI 17 (1914) 71-103, toward the end of the second century B.C. but almost certainly to be placed considerably later. See appendix E.
[39] IG II 4100 (Syll 701), 4201. It is sometimes supposed on this evidence alone that Pompeius Strabo was proconsul of Macedonia: Papazoglou, ANRW II.7.1 (1979) 310; Broughton, MRR , 3:166. Note the absence of official titulature. On Pompey's visits to Athens, see Plut. Pomp . 27.3, 42.5-6. For another such "family monument," cf. Tuchelt, Frühe Denkmäler , 154. The letter-forms of Sextus's inscription hardly look as if they belong to the last quarter of the second century.
[40] Syll 710 A, C. We have, however, explicit evidence only for the presence of his brother: Syll 710 D (cf. Frontin. Str . 2.4.3). For Paulus, Livy 45.27.5-28.11; Polyb. 30.10-12. Cf. pp. 224-25 for Minucius's Thracian offensive.
Paulus's visit to the south, however, Minucius's putative tour would have had an exceptional symbolic and propagandistic purpose and should not be taken to illustrate the norm for proconsuls in Macedonia. And that is all.
Two known cases corroborate the argument from silence. In 118, the complaint of the Athenian guild of Dionysiac artists about their brethren of the Isthmian-Nemean group had to be presented to the proconsul Cn. Cornelius Sisenna at Pella in Macedonia, and there too the parties were subsequently summoned for his mediation. The agreement reached there quickly fell apart upon the return to Greece of the representatives of the two parties, but the commanders in Macedonia played no further role until the matter was finally brought before the Senate in 112. The Scordiscan wars, which began in earnest in 114, make such neglect easily understandable from that point, but the previous history of the case strongly implies that the Roman imperator was not expected to stir from Macedonia for assizes. By contrast, in the law on the praetorian provinces of ca. 100, future proconsuls are ordered to spend no less than sixty days a year in the part of Thrace recently conquered and now made one of their responsibilities.[41] The implication of Plutarch's reference to a hearing before the proconsul of Macedonia concerning a charge against his home city of Chaeronea, probably in the 70s, is the same: "The trial was held before the commander of Macedonia; for the Romans did not yet send out commanders to Greece."[42] Plutarch surely is not making a rather trivial point about the titulature of the Roman official; the contemporary reader, at a time when the proconsuls of Macedonia certainly did not have jurisdiction in Greece, by then another province altogether, will have understood him to mean that the hearing was in Macedonia itself. Since Plutarch is dearly being careful about details here and is uniquely well informed, as the story is about his home polis, we can exclude the possibility that he is fuddled or unintentionally ambiguous, and draw the obvious conclusion, which accords with all our other evidence, that the Roman commander in Macedonia stayed there as a rule.
It is possible, to be sure, to intervene at a distance. But the evidence we have of his involvement in Greek matters does not imply that the procon-
[41] On the artists' dispute, see pp. 150-52. Law on the praetorian provinces: JRS 64 (1974) 204, IV, lines 18-21.
sul kept a very dose watch over Greece—that is, after the departure of Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, whose presence ca. 144 is explained (as noted above) by the extraordinary situation. In numerous cases, some of which have already been mentioned, proconsular arbitration or mediation was requested by one of the parties in a dispute between Greeks, but we cannot suppose that these cases were normally of any great interest in themselves to Rome. The proconsul Sisenna, and after him the Senate itself, need not have been particularly eager to hear the tedious and convoluted story of the squabble between the Athenian and the Isthmian-Nemean guilds of Dionysiac artists—unless for comic relief. The dispute lasted years, and we have no guarantee that the senatorial decree of 112 B.C. preserved for us even brought the sorry affair to its conclusion. Even when (in the other case referred to above) Chaeronea was accused before the proconsul of Macedonia of conniving at the murder of a Roman officer, it was only because Chaeronea's neighbor Orchomenus had hired a Roman lawyer to reopen the case that L. Lucullus, while passing through, had previously satisfied himself was dosed.[43] It appears that the proconsul of Macedonia acted as something of a magnet for Greeks who sought to outmaneuver their opponents by enlisting the prestige and power of Rome on their side. Not that he played the game as vigorously as was hoped: Sisenna allowed the settlement he had negotiated of the artists' dispute to be flouted, and the proconsul before whom Chaeronea was denounced dismissed the case brought by Orchomenus's hired patronus after corresponding directly with Lucullus.
We do well also to note occasions when the failure of the commander in Macedonia to play a role in Greek affairs is conspicuous. When Q. Caecilius Metellus, aedile designate, traveled to Thessaly probably around 130 to arrange for a large shipment of grain to Rome, it was a personal matter—a reward for the beneficia conferred by his family—in which the Roman proconsul of Macedonia is not even mentioned.[44] That the Roman
[43] See chap. 10 for the case of Chaeronea; chap. 5 for others.
commander in Macedonia filled no police function in Greece is shown by the Attic slave revolts ca. 130 and ca. 100 (if indeed there were two).[45] The "first" was put down by local Athenian forces (Oros. 5.9.5). In Posidonius's account of the "second" revolt, we are told that many thousands of slaves (
[45] Neither Orosius nor Posidonius says that there were two Attic revolts. This may be a doublet, therefore, the confusion arising from the two Sicilian revolts, with one of which each source gives a synchronism. S. V. Tracy's date for the "second" revolt, ca. 100/99 (HSCP 83 [1979] 232-35), is more convincing than the traditional date, 104-100 (on which cf. Lauffer, Bergwerksklaven , 227-47), which assumes too much precision from Athenaeus's rough synchronism.
[46] Posidonius ap. Ath. 6.272e-f = FGrH 87 F 35 = Edelstein and Kidd F 262 = Greenidge and Clay, 90.
[47] Lauffer speculated that M. Antonius helped to put down the slaves at some point on his campaign against the Cilician pirates in 102-100 (Bergwerksklaven , 227-47). There is no evidence or reason to support this hypothesis. Depending on the chronology, Antonius may not even have been in eastern waters any longer. In any case his military activities concentrated on Pamphylia and Cilicia (Livy Per . 68; Jul. Obs. 44, where Cilicia is obviously to be read for Sicilia ), and regarding Athens, we know only that Antonius stayed in Athens for some days' respite from the weather (Cic. De or . 1.82), then went on directly to Side while his legate Hirrus rested the fleet at Athens "because of the season" (ILLRP 342).
[48] See chap. 8 for the argument that Athenion, despite rhetoric sympathetic to Mithridates, did not openly break with Rome or side with the Pontic king.
Finally, it is noteworthy that we hear of no charge of extortion brought by mainland Greeks until immediately after the First Mithridatic War.[50] It is hardly likely that it took seventy years of magisterial intrusion in their affairs for Greeks to make use of this tool. The absence of Greek extortion charges is a further sign to be set beside others that the proconsul in Macedonia did not make a habit of meddling in Greece.
It is, therefore, improbable that the proconsul in Macedonia kept a close eye on Greece. He was a far-off and unfamiliar figure for the inhabitants of the Greek mainland—at least for those who did not have anything to gain by traveling to Macedonia in order to call his attention to some flagrant injustice being perpetrated by their fellow Greeks. His job was to see to the defense of Macedonia, and to judge from our evidence—in which heavy Roman defeats appear nearly as often as victories[51] —this task will have kept him and his legion more than busy enough without having to keep Greece under heel as well. Indeed, as Braetius Sura's late arrival with inadequate forces in 87 shows, if Greeks decided to cause trouble for Rome, there was little the commander in Macedonia, with the Balkan tribes on his flank and back, could do. The Roman commander in Macedonia did not enforce quietude in Greece but presumed it.
The solution presented here to the old puzzle of the status of Greece is quite simple. There was no change of formal status. Traditionally Roman commanders assigned Macedonia provincia had been free to take action in or affecting Illyria and Greece; this was no different after 148, or 146. This freedom had not involved, nor did it now involve, the official subordination of any Greek community to the Macedonian proconsul's imperium ; the idea of "provincialization" or "annexation" of Greece is even less apt than it is for Macedonia. The Roman commander in Macedonia, preoccupied with protecting the northern frontier of his provincia , did not control police, or supervise Greece; his occasional involvement in Hellenic affairs, as a rule without stirring from Macedonia and in response to Greek appeals, is simply a development of a phenomenon well established before 146.
[50] The trial of Cn. Dolabella in 77: Alexander, Trials , no. 140. The accusers of D. Iunius Silanus Manlianus in 140 were evidently Macedonians (legati Macedonum : Livy Per . 54; Alexander, Trials , no. 7). The identity of the plaintiffs against C. Porcius Cato in 113 (Alexander, no. 45) is unknown.
[51] Cf. chap. 1.