Proconsular Supervision of Local Affairs
A kind of "police function" exercised by Roman proconsuls in the East is easy to presume, but here too some caution against sweeping conclusions is necessary. As we have just seen, at least ca. 100 the proconsul of Macedonia held an explicit brief to defend the rights and boundaries of Rome's "friends and allies" of the newly conquered region of the Caenic Chersonese, and perhaps this can be extended over the entire area of his assignment or provincia . But this must have applied above all to Macedonia itself, and as we saw (chaps. 1-3), we should not suppose that he performed such a function in Greece itself, occupied as he was with the defense of the Balkan frontier. The only evidence for the exercise of such a function by the proconsul of Macedonia—the intervention of Q. Fabius Maximus at Dyme—involves an outbreak of stasis during the settlement immediately after the Achaean War and cannot be considered to be representative of a norm; on the other hand, the Attic slave wars, one of them quite severe,
were contained (so it appears from our evidence) without Roman intervention. A proconsul's involvement in such matters was perhaps dependent above all upon his proximity: thus, in the Dyme incident, the councillors led by Cyllanius readily appealed to Fabius because he happened to be nearby at Patrae;[86] similarly, presumably, the regular presence of the proconsul of Asia in the Greek cities of the Aegean coast led the Senate, upon appeal from Colophon, to give him and his successors the responsibility of suppressing armed raids upon part of that city's agricultural land.[87] Despite the presence of a Roman magistrate in Asia Minor, open friction between or within the "free" cities was then evidently not entirely at an end, as a few other such instances also show, in particular a conflict, seemingly violent, between Sardis and Ephesus mediated by a Roman proconsul not far from the turn of the century.[88]
This case is an important example of an attempt at mediation by a Roman proconsul, and the diplomatic forms he employs are particularly worthy of note. Had he intervened too forcefully he might have received a rebuke from the Senate, as appears to have happened to the proconsul who meddled in the quarrel between Colophon and Metropolis somewhat earlier.[89] Instead, expressing his concern over the animosity between the two cities, he sent a Greek—indeed, an Athenian—to invite each side to accept the proconsul's offer to help bring about a settlement.[90] Both cities
accepted the initiative and sent ambassadors to negotiate; from that point on, however, the proconsul fades into the background, because it appears to have been not he but Pergamum, a third city of appropriate status for such an honor, that actually mediated the treaty.[91] It would seem that the proconsul referred the matter to Pergamum and confined himself to informing the Sardians and Ephesians by letter of the eventual results.[92] The provisions laid down in the treaty for arbitration of future alleged breaches leave no place for either the Senate or Rome's proconsul: rather, within thirty days of any complaint both cities are to send envoys to Pergamum; within five more days Pergamum would conduct a lottery to determine the actual arbitrating city, from among those agreed upon by both parties; and within sixty further days both cities would send representatives to the arbitrating city, which would judge them.[93] The compact is entirely Hellenic in character and bears no mark of any basic alteration in political structures since the coming of the Romans; the delicacy with which the proconsul dealt with the Sardian-Ephesian conflict, and his apparent respect for the forms of international diplomacy among autonomous states, are striking.[94]
Another example of mediation, this time from Macedonia and Greece, illustrates further the limits of proconsular involvement in international disputes. In 118 the Athenian "guild" of Dionysian artists went to Macedonia to complain to the proconsul Cn. Cornelius Sisenna of their treatment at the hands of their Isthmian-Nemean colleagues.[95] Representatives
of the Isthmian-Nemeans were not present, so Sisenna wrote to the Isthmian-Nemean
requesting that they send envoys to him at Pella within a stated period of days to defend their group against the Athenian charges. These envoys accepted a settlement late in 118 with the Athenians which called for the Isthmian-Nemeans to pay a fine of ten talents.[96] It is important to note that the pact is referred to as an "agreement" () rather than as a "decision" or "ruling" () laid down by binding arbitration;[97] Sisenna appears to have mediated rather than imposed the settlement, which included a "fine" of ten talents (perhaps compensation for damages).[98] The subsequent history of the affair deserves attention: the Isthmian-Nemean "guild," outraged at the concessions made by their representatives, condemned them at a meeting at Thebes for exceeding their instructions; the rebuked envoys then led a secession movement to Sicyon, taking with them not only some of the artists of Thebes and Boeotia but also some of the common funds, votives, sacred crowns, and records of the "guild," and proceeded to make
much trouble for the Isthmian-Nemeans.[99] In short, the agreement mediated by Sisenna was immediately repudiated by the Isthmian-Nemean "guild" and subsequently ignored for nearly six years, until the Athenian state became involved and took up the matter with the Senate. Far from illustrating the "subject status" of certain Greeks,[100] this affair dearly illustrates the minimal interest the proconsul of Macedonia took in "ruling" Greeks: Sisenna accepted the Attic group's request to mediate, but neither he nor his successors cared to play the role of enforcer not only of an agreement over which he presided but even of senatorial decisions. As we shall see in the next chapter, the forms of international diplomacy continued to be maintained by the practice of reserving disputes between communities for the Senate's attention.