Roman Citizens in the Legal Economy of a Greek Polis: The Case of Private Donations to Public Bodies

Abstract

Private donations to public bodies contributed substantially to the income of Greek poleis in the Hellenistic and Roman periods but have received relatively little attention from a legal point of view. Inscriptions recording private donations of property or capital to civic institutions often prescribed the specific use to which the accruing revenues could be put and stipulated penalty clauses against non-compliance. This chapter studies the variable conditions and penalty clauses attached to such donations, examining the underlying mechanisms that allowed their imposition, and asking whether they should be seen as purely dissuasive or as reflecting local socio-economic and legal realities. The author demonstrates the continuation of Hellenistic practices into the Roman period, and highlights how individual agency and private concerns could influence and shape Roman provincial legal practice. The author goes on to argue that occasional resort of either beneficiaries or donors themselves to Roman provincial or central authorities with a view to secure these transactions is indicative of a desire for an additional layer of protection rather than a movement toward Roman law. In the case of public revenues, financial transactions between private donors and civic or public bodies were remarkably flexible and local legal frameworks highly accommodating. The inscriptions not only demonstrate how Hellenistic practices continued into the Roman period but also how public benefactors—mostly Roman citizens of local origin—successfully negotiated their way between local and Roman legal frameworks. Penalty clauses, as well, were neither standardised nor fossilised. While some donation deeds prescribed fines payable to sanctuaries or the imperial fiscus, others provided for transfer to a new beneficiary or the donor’s heirs; others yet introduced voluntary prosecution to engage the entire beneficiary community in protecting the terms of the donation. Epigraphic publication of the donation deeds served as an additional insurance. In this way, individual agency and personal concerns impacted on provincial legal developments because local civic institutions had to formally accept proposed donations to public bodies. Such official acceptance gave the terms attached to these gifts legal force, even when those terms modified local legal rules. This continued until deep into the Roman period providing an inroad for Roman law into local legal practice.