Honorific Inscriptions Research Articles

Četiri do sada neobavljena epigrafska spomenika

Hundreds of epigraphic monuments, that were found by now in Bosnia and Herzegovina, make authentic evidence about political, cultural and social heritage of the people of that time in the province of Dalmatia (Dalmatia) and two parts of Pannonia (Pannonia Superior and Pannonia Inferior). Although systematic research is unknown, the number of newly discovered epigraphic monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina has increased significantly and four more epigraphic monuments will be added to the body of epigraphic material. Two of them were found in the wider area of Trebinje, while the rest were found in Crkvina near Makljenovac (Doboj). All four monuments belong to different types of epigraphic inscriptions. A milestone and a fragment of a cippus was found in Trebinje. The milestone dates from the III century and can be put in year 236 during the reign of the emperor Maximinus Thrax (Imperator Caesar Caius Iulius Verus Maximinus Augustus 235–238) and his son Maximus (Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Princeps Iuventutis). There is a posibility that the monument was a part of communication network that was passing through the Nevesinje field to Sarajevo field or to the municipal unit Aque. This milestone is today exposed in the Museum of Herzegovina.In the body of epigraphic material from the area of Epidaurus (Ager Epidauritanus) should also be added epigraphic tombstone found in 1999 in Trebinje. Only three partial lines of text have been preserved. As on the majority of sepulcher monuments from the area of Trebinje, a person mentioned in it’s inscription has nomen Aelius. Based on the gentile nomen it can be concluded that terminus ante quem of the monument’s origin is the first half of the II century AD.The third epigraphic finding that has been analyzed in this work is a seal on the brick found in the locality of Makljenovac near Doboj. Inscription on the brick from Crkvina near Makljenovac is rather unusual for the Western Balkans area. Its analysis required comparison to textually similar inscriptions from the other parts of the Roman Empire. This type of text is mostly present on public (tituli publici) or private inscriptions from the buildings (tituli privati), and it has the purpose of honorary inscriptions and is rarely used as a seal on the objects that are used (instrumentum). The seal shows that the brick dates from the period of reign of the emperor Septimius Severus (Caesar Lucius Septimius Severus Eusebes Pertinax Augustus 193–211). Terminus ante quem of the brick’s manufacture is year 202, while terminus post quem is year 2011. Word cesar should be read in plural because all monuments that have abbreviation CVC are referring to principes Septimius Severus and his sons and successors Caracalla and Geta. Possibility of workshop’s existence shouldn’t be denied, because it would exist over a relatively short period of time and closely related to internal purposes of building a castrum. These workshops were not obligated to put a seal on a material that was produced for internal purposes, that didn’t include masive production for export, or they would put it on a smaller number of produced items. However, great dislocation of epigraphic material with abbreviation CVC would mostly point to import than to domestic production.In Crkvina near Makljenovac was found another ancient epigraphic monument that wasn’t published by now. This is a votive ara dedicated to supreme Roman god Jupiter. From all epigraphic monuments mentioned in this work, maybe it would be pretentious to say that this votive ara is the most valuable, although its analysis can give some guidelines regarding specifying interprovincial borderline for Dalmatia and Pannonia. Historical value of this monument is not in votive formula or onomastic structure of dedicant’s name, but in the name of cohort that appears on it. In the third line of text can be seen what’s left of a word Delmatis – a dative of the word Dalmatarum that was official name for cohort. In the fifth line, a formula is preserved that specifies this was the case of Cohors prima Delmatarum milliaria equitata. This is first material evidence for the existence of this cohort in Doboj. Cohort, whose name appears on epigraphic monument from Doboj, probably dates from ‘80s of the first century AD, after withdrawal of the Roman legions from the province of Dalmatia. This cohort is considered the one that was de facto for entire principate stationed in its „native“ province of Dalmatia and that it represents one of the indigenous cohorts, conditionally speaking. Confirmation that Cohors prima Delmatarum milliaria equitata was stationed in castrum on Makljenovac is a good indicator that Romans took care of interprovincial borderlines, not only limes.

Claudia Iasonis, eine Asiarchin aus Lykien

The Lycian elite were heavily ethnos-oriented in their political activities and marriage policy. Social relations with members of the elite in other provinces were seldom established. The two siblings Claudia Iasonis and Tib. Claudius Agrippinus of Patara are an exception in this respect. Agrippinus acted as benefactor beyond the borders of his province and received honours by the koinon of Asia. His sister Claudia Iasonis married a man from Asia and attained the post of Asiarch. Social contact with the provincial elite of Asia appears to have been established via the Pergamenian Iulius Quadratus, legate of Lycia-Pamphylia in ca. 90-92 A. D. About two decades later Claudia Iasonis seems to have persuaded the Pergamenian magnate to support Heliodoros of Lydai in obtaining the Roman citizenship. An honorary inscription from the agora of Lydai published here in first edition is so far the only testament to this woman’s activities.

Honor and Profit. Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, 415–307 b.c.e (review)

Reviewed by: Honor and Profit. Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, 415–307b.c.e Thomas Figueira Darel Tai Engen. Honor and Profit. Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, 415–307 B.C.E. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. Pp. x, 400. $85.00 (pb.). ISBN 978-0-472-11634-8. This work opens with a well-wrought prospectus, touching on evidence, chronology, and methodology, and highlighting placement of trade policy within debates between primitivists/modernists or formalists/substantivists over the ancient economy. This portrait of earlier analysis, continued into the next chapter, is fundamentally sound, although somewhat defensive toward ideologized primitivism, such as that of Karl Polanyi and his admirers; see my discussion in Anc. World 10 (1984) 15–30. To speak of Polanyi’s “conceptual tools” (24) magnifies sociological impressionism to absurdity (see 136, where Engen interprets more astutely). Engen also recognizes the limitations of M. I. Finley’s “model,” although I doubt the work of this brilliant critic reached quite that level of synthesis. Engen sensibly espouses sociocultural construction of economic systems against their status as products of fixed human nature. An important theme is struck by emphasizing that awards for trade-related services possessed honorific and practical value. According to Engen, this mixture is peculiarly fourth-century, designed to couch traditionally disesteemed commercial activity, now disembedded, in conventional terms. Beyond my criticisms of the factual confusions and ideologization of the primitivists, I have offered an interpretation of aspects of Attic trade policy in “Sitopolai and Sitophulakes in Lysias’ ‘Oration Against the Graindealers’: Governmental Intervention in the Athenian Economy,” Phoenix 40 (1986) 149–71, where my systematic divergences with this work are notable. Chapter 3 offers historical context for Attic decrees for trade-related services. The best discussion here was unsurprisingly devoted to the factors surrounding their emergence in the early fourth century, when they were exclusively devoted to foreign benefactors, and an early Hellenistic shift to include citizen benefactors. This policy is consistently examined with an eye toward earlier personal xenia. The wider context is not so deftly portrayed; e.g., in an excessive attribution of fifth-century success in assuring adequate foreign grain supplies to Athens’ superior ability to wield coercion. Well-conceived research can be undermined by its encapsulation within simplistic interpretative frameworks, sometimes conceived to gratify extra-disciplinary arbiters lacking expertise for evaluation. Here an exaggerated confrontation between mass and elite subverts our understanding of the wider social context, and mitigation of φιλοτιμία becomes an overworked leitmotif. Moreover, an antipathy to βαναυσία, “menial vocations” is too casually invoked, failing to distinguish between personal internalization and arm’s-length endorsement. The heart and strength of this work begins with chapter 4, which surveys the services provided by honorands. These included goods, mainly grain, but twice [End Page 144] timber and once fish, supplied in various modes from conventional sale through gift. Chapter 5 organizes data about the honorands by legal status, with a difficult determination between metics and xenoi, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, where documentation of wealthy traders is stressed. Chapter 6 discusses laudatory language: ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός, χρήσιμος, ἀρετή, εὔνοια/εὔνους, and φιλοτιμία. The same semantic system in other honorific inscriptions is assessed. Interpretative keys are an early inhibition against applying this diction to citizens to preclude threatening democratic values by stimulating elite φιλοτιμία, legitimization of market-structured trade, and projection of Greek values onto foreign benefactors. Next, a thorough analysis is made of “honors” awarded benefactors (grants primarily symbolic rather than economically valuable), encompassing commendation, προξενία, recognition of εὐεργεσία, gold crowns, bronze statues, ξενία in the prytaneion, theater seats, and inscription of the decree. These built on fifth-century practices to reward political/military services, although gold crowns and bronze statues (albeit rare) were fourth-century phenomena. Chapter 8 deals with “privileges,” political rights conveying functional benefits: ἀσυλία, ἀτέλεια, ἔγκτησις, military and eisphoric obligation on parity with citizens. ἀσυλία had both practical and honorific value. Engen emphasizes protection against piracy, but protection against Athenian officials was probably equally relevant. ἀτέλεια could be relief from the metoikion or general immunity and was extended (mid-fourth century) to professional traders. Granting ἔγκτησις (right of property ownership) may have been influenced by Xenophon’s advice in the Poroi. The treatment of citizenship grants is...

Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome: the so-called ‘Villa Claudia’ at Anguillara Sabazia

This article re-considers the architecture of the Roman villa site at Anguillara Sabazia (Lazio (RM), Italy). It is argued that the villa should be dated to the Augustan period, rather than the late Republic, and that its elaborate ornamental water features, including fountains arranged in an elliptical curve, were supplied by the Augustan aqueduct, the Aqua Alsietina, also known as the Aqua Augusta, either directly, or through a subsidiary branch off the main conduit. Its particular elliptical form, unique in Roman villa architecture at that time, may be explained as a small-scale version of the imperial pool (Stagnum) created in 2 bc for the Emperor Augustus’s recreation of sea-battles (Naumachia Augusti) in the modern district of Trastevere, which was the eventual destination of the aqueduct. There is no firm evidence for the owner of the villa, but a fragment of an honorific inscription from the site suggests a high-ranking ex-consul from the family of the Cornelii, possibly connected with the water administration (Cura Aquarum) in Rome.

Tausend Jahre epigraphische Kultur im römischen Hispanien: Inschriften, Selbstdarstellung und Sozialordnung

Tausend Jahre epigraphische Kultur im römischen Hispanien: Inschriften, Selbstdarstellung und Sozialordnung

German

Edition of three inscriptions found 2005 in the northern wall of the theatre of Ephesos: 1. Dedication of a statue of Hygieia by Fulvius Publicianus (1st half 2nd cent.); 2. Base of a statue with honorary inscription of T. Flavius Vedius Damianus (1st half 2nd cent.); 3. Fragment of a base of a statue of C. Antius Iulius Aulus Quadratus (beginning 2nd cent.)

The Brothers as the “Glory of Christ” (2 Cor 8:23) Paul’s Doxa Terminology in Its Ancient Benefaction Context

AbstractStudies on Paul’s Doxa terminology in the Corinthian epistles have either focused on the apostle’s allusion to the Moses “glory” tradition in 2 Corinthians 3:4-4:6 or on how the diverse “glory” traditions of the LXX and Second Temple Judaism informed his Christology (1 Cor 2:8). However, Paul’s description of the brothers accompanying the Jerusalem collection as the “Doxa of Christ” (2 Cor 8:23) has commanded little attention. Where the phrase has been discussed, it has been understood against the backdrop of the Isaianic “servant” songs (Isa 42, 49, 52-53) and prophecy (60, 62). Alternatively, the text is explained contextually in terms of the brothers promoting Christ’s glory (2 Cor 3:18; 8:19).This article proposes that the honorific inscriptions, Dio Chrysostom’s Rhodian oration, and the imperial context of “glory” allow us to appreciate better why Paul described his colleagues as the “Doxa of Christ.” In employing the phrase, Paul works within the honorific rhetorical conventions, but upends their eulogistic rationale and imperial focus.

L’elogium dans les inscriptions honorifiques de Narbonnaise

The corpus of honorary inscriptions from Gallia Narbonensis includes but a few number of elogia. In other Western provinces, such elogia became rather common in latin epigraphy from the IInd century AD onwards. One may wonder why such a common figure of latin epigraphy is lacking in this particular province. It may be but a case, but evidence driven from ten inscriptions, where something like an elogium does appear, seem to indicate that elogia were not entirely unknown in this province, but found little local echo, and probably under external influences.

L’inscription en l’honneur de M. Vlpius Carminius Claudianus à Aphrodisias (CIG, 2782)

The inscription CIG, 2782 reveals the remarkable action of M. Vlpius Carminius Claudianus in Aphrodisias and his responsibilities in Asia. The rank of his in-laws - his wife’s brother was a Roman senator - is already well known. The study of the monuments he built, which were concentrated in the centre of Aphrodisias, and of the ambitious display of his euergetism through distributions and the way the honorific inscription is shown, reveals its outstanding position over its contemporaries in the free city. It leads to reassess the meaning of its function of curator in Cyzicus and "argyrotamias" of Asia. Through the comparison of this inscription with other epigraphical sources from Aphrodisias, Attouda (MAMA, VI, 74 and 75) as well as numismatic evidence from that city, we wish to propose a revised chronology of his life. The acme of his action in Aphrodisias, Attouda and the province spans from the 130s to the very beginning of the 160s.

Introduction: Rock, Paper, Scissors

Epigram: EPI-GRAMMA, a text written or incised upon something. ‘Inscription’ is one obvious translation of the root meaning, and epigram began with inscriptions: texts carved in stone to fix cultural memory. Epigram and epigraphy, the modern study of inscriptions, are two sides of the same linguistic coin. The classical Greek epigraphic habit manifested itself across many different contexts. Inscriptions broadcast the laws and decrees of the city-state, the polis, and secured the meaning of monuments and tombs against a forgetful future. Cut into trophies and statues, they celebrated victory in war and sport. Inscriptions were unavoidably costly in skilled labour, and competed for the attention of the passer-by with many others of their kind. Official decrees and honorific inscriptions were as long as their elaborate phrasing dictated, but for more personal messages these factors could combine to create a pressure to keep the text short and to the point. A small minority of these inscriptions were in verse.

La carriera di un cittadino di Hierapolis di Frigia : G. Memmios Eutychos

Oggetto di questo studio è un’ iscrizione onoraria da Hierapolis di Frigia, databile al regno di Caracalla. Il documento permette di appurare la data della concessione di un tempio provinciale del culto imperiale a questa città e contiene inoltre la menzione di una lunga serie di funzioni pubbliche svolte dal personaggio onorato, G. Memmios Eutychos, una parte delle quali non era finora documentata a Hierapolis. Fra le parti più interessanti dell’iscrizione possiamo menzionare la carica di alitarca, che era qui collegata agli agoni pitici, e non, come di solito, alle feste olimpiche. Memmios Eutychos era stato presidente del Consiglio municipale e dell’associazione dei cittadini romani residenti nella città ; apprendiamo anche che egli aveva inviato a proprie spese un soldato all’imperatore e che più volte aveva svolto compiti relativi all’annona imperiale.

From Capital to Colony: Five New Inscriptions from Roman Crete

This article present and contextualises five new inscriptions from central Crete: one from the hinterland of Gortyn, two from Knossos, and two more in all likelihood from Knossos. Internal geographical mobility from Gortyn to Knossos is illustrated by a Greek inscription from the hinterland of Gortyn. The Knossian inscriptions add new evidence for the local affairs of the Roman colony. A funerary or honorary inscription and two religious dedications – all three in Latin – give rise to new points concerning the well-attested link between Knossos and Campania. The colony's population included people, many of Campanian origin, who were already established in Crete, as well as families displaced from southern Italy in the great post-Actium settlement. The two religious dedications shed light on the city's religious practice, including a newly revealed cult of Castor, and further evidence for worship of the Egyptian gods. Oddest of all, a Greek inscription on a Doric epistyle names Trajan or Hadrian. These four inscriptions are then set into the context of linguistic choice at the colony. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence for the use of Latin and Greek in the life of the colony is analyzed on the basis of the available inscriptions, listed by category and date in an appendix.

La colonia di Auximum (Picenum) e la gestione dello spazio pubblico : l’apporto della documentazione epigrafica

Il contributo analizza, grazie all’esame dettagliato di un corposo dossier epigrafico, l’organizzazione da parte degli organi di governo di Auximum del forum cittadino, dove l’esposizione pubblica di iscrizioni onorarie e dediche statuarie rispondeva a finalità commemorative delle glorie civiche locali e a propositi ideologico-propagandistici legati alla celebrazione del potere imperiale. Nella gestione dello spazio cittadino di Auximum rientrava anche lo sfruttamento economico a fini agricoli degli agri publici municipales, individuabili e direttamente localizzabili sul territorio (in loc. Regnano), grazie allo studio congiunto di fonti epigrafiche e toponomastiche.

Il controllo dei decurioni sullo spazio pubblico in due città della regio secunda Augustea

This paper puts together the epigraphic evidence on public places control by decuriones in two cities of the regio secunda Augustea, Aeclanum and Herdonia. Even if the epigraphic evidence is fortuitous, this study tries to highlight that, expecially in II and III centuries A. D., the municipal elites had exclusive use of public places, assigned by decuriones, for inscriptions celebrating themselves. We can, indeed, observe absence, in public places, of honorary inscriptions for those people that could be expression of social dynamics, as, for exemple, the Augustales.

An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (323 B.C.-A.D. 337)

Greek inscriptions form a valuable resource for the study of every aspect of life and death in the Greco-Roman world. They are primary witnesses to society's laws and institutions; social structures; public cults and private associations; and, of course, language. An to Greek Epigraphy provides students and classicists with the tools to take advantage of the social and historical weight of these treasures.The book begins by examining letter forms, ancient names, and ancient calendars, knowledge of which is essential in reading inscriptions of all kinds. B. H. McLean discusses the classification of inscriptions into their various categories and analyzes particular types of inscriptions, including decrees, honorary inscriptions, dedications, funerary inscriptions, and manumission inscriptions. Finally, McLean includes special topics that bear upon the interpretation of specific features of inscriptions, such as Greek and Roman administrative titles and functions.Well-organized and clear as well as insightful and original, McLean's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy is an excellent source for beginners, nonspecialists, and specialists alike. The volume will be useful to students and scholars studying epigraphy and to those who study politics, governmental organization, archaeology, and ancient history or culture.B. H. McLean is Professor of New Testament, Knox College, University of Toronto.

Les patrimoines fonciers des sénateurs dans l’Italie républicaine : l’apport des sources épigraphiques

The studies devoted to senatorial property during the Republic have shown, on the basis of the litterary sources, the creation of a gap between two fortune levels in the 1st century BC. The epigraphic documentation confirms this evolution. It is possible to identify senatorial properties through five criteria: the name of the fundus; a local magistrature (the Tarent law requires from a magistrate to be proprietor in the city); an epitaph located on a rural estate; an honorific inscription brought to light in a city where a senator was proprietor; slaves or freedmen who give the cognomen of their senatorial owner. The catalogue of Republican senatorial properties reveals that the senators who held provincial commands possessed fundi in Latium and Campania. On the contrary, recent senators were proprietors in peripherical zones. These senators were introduced into the curia by the imperatores, and some of them made profit on the Sullanian proscriptions. Few were able to escape the Civil Wars, and to hand down their properties to their heirs.

New Inscriptions from Aphrodisias (1995–2001)

This article presents 33 Greek inscriptions found at Aphrodisias between 1995 and 2001. They include an honorary decree, honorary inscriptions of other types, statue bases, dedications, building inscriptions, epitaphs, and a sundial. The most important new text is an honorary inscription on a statue base set up by the prominent philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias for his father (4). An unusually early inscription is a posthumous honorary decree for a prominent local citizen (1), which records his achievements probably during the wars and diplomatic exchanges of the first century B.C. The other new texts provide information about cults (Thea Eleutheria: 8; Zeus Nineudios: 11; Hephaistos: 15), the date of the Civil Basilica (14; under Domitian?), gladiatorial competitions (21–22), the prosopography of the city, occupations (11: a bronze-smith; 28: an agent of Fulvia Cervidia Vestina, member of a senatorial family, who probably owned land near Aphrodisias), and the relations between Aphrodisias and the Roman provincial administration (23 and 26).

Inscriptions from Pednelissus

AbstractThe site of Pednelissus in Pisidia, southern Turkey, was first visited by an Italian expedition in 1914. Fieldwork was resumed by a joint project of L. Vandeput (University of Cologne) and H. Bandt (University of Bamberg) in 2001. This article presents the results of the first epigraphical campaign in 2002, which led to the revision of 21 texts as well as the discovery of five new inscriptions. The majority of these texts are building and honorary inscriptions, and, with one possibly Hellenistic exception, they date from Roman imperial times (first to early third centuries).

One Form of Social Exchange or Two? “Euergetism,” Patronage, and Testament Studies

Researchers usually understand ancient Roman patronage and Greek “euegetism” as one and the same social exchange relationship, the difference being one of form rather of substance. In view of a brief investigation of primary historical data, ranging from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, to honorary inscriptions, to Seneca's De beneficiis, the present scholarly status quo is challenged in this essay. A more nuanced view of ancient Mediterranean reciprocity in general, and “euergetism” and patronage in general, is presented. Finally, some implications of these findings are spelled out in terms of the interpretation of the Second Testament.

Ehrungen spätantiker Statthalter

More than 300 tituli honorarii for provincial governors have come down to us from late antiquity. The vast majority was erected in provincial municipalities toward the end of the honoree's term of office and, at least in the 4th through the first half of the 5th century, most of them were also paid for by the cities and towns. Generally honorific inscriptions were written on bases upon which larger than life-size marble statues (togati or chlamydati) were placed, resulting in a monument some 3-3.5m high. The small number of honors received from the provincial concilia demonstrates the exclusivity of such a distinction. By comparison, the small number of honors received from individual persons and groups clearly points to a social change in late antique society, characterized as it was by roles and hierarchies. Nevertheless, the content and form of all such tituli honorarii bestowed upon provincial governors reflect especially well the self-image of late antique senators, an ideal which governors, who were ranked as perfectissimi, aspired to achieve. Both the mention of ancestors who held public office and the listing of the public offices which the honoree occupied were often confined to honorific inscriptions at Rome and in cities in which the senators owned property. In the 5th century, acclamations, inscriptions on buildings, in mosaics and under painted portraits seem to have been considered increasingly as an alternative to statuary honours, a shift possibly linked with a constitution from 444 AD requiring honoree to finance themselves statues erected in their honor.