Politics of the past

Abstract

This chapter examines some aspects of the attitudes of the last two Antonine emperors toward the illustrious past of Achaea. Selected epigraphic and literary testimonies from cities such as Athens, Eleusis, and Sparta reveal the political behavior of these emperors in relation to the past of the province. Especially remarkable is the fact that Commodus was enrolled in an Athenian tribe and took up ancient offices in Athens, while Marcus Aurelius resolved an old territorial dispute in Sparta and conceived important constitutional reforms in Athens, all actions closely connected with the remote past of these cities. Several questions are addressed; first, what did the Greek past mean to these emperors and how did they choose to interact with it? Did they have certain role models in mind concerning their promotion of the Greek past, and, if so, who were they? Did the “philhellene” emperor Nero or the prominent intellectuals Philopappus and Herodes Atticus serve as examples? How did Hadrian influence the attitude of Marcus Aurelius, and he that of his son, Commodus? Finally, what was the impact of imperial actions on the illustrious provincials of the Graeco-Roman East? The answers to these queries will reveal the power of the local and imperial past in 2nd century “old Greece”. This chapter argues that the promotion of the past in the cities of Achaea was not only an expected conduct in an age of collective historical nostalgia, but also a response to the actions of contemporary and pepaideumenoi emperors, who were conceived of as exempla.