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Introduction
Introduction.1 The inscriptions of Aphrodisias in Caria (southwest Turkey) have long been recognized as being of great interest and importance (for an outline of the history of their discovery, see History and Bibliography of the Inscriptions). Legible inscriptions have survived at the site in considerable quantities; this is partly because of the excellent quality of the marble on which they were inscribed, and largely because the site was never again extensively developed after about AD 600. By contrast, there are relatively few mentions of the city in literary sources; this is particularly true of the Roman imperial period (as I shall describe the period from the reign of Augustus to the late third century AD). In the late Roman period (in my terminology, the period from the Tetrarchy to the end of the sixth century) two contemporary literary sources, one pagan and one Christian, describe events in the city in the late fifth century AD; otherwise it is the subject only of passing references. In the Byzantine period (from the seventh century until the area passed to the Turks in the thirteenth century) there are references to the archiepiscopal see of Caria (see the List of Bishops.) but very few to the city (see VII.9, VII.27). Because of the limited nature of the evidence, the historical importance of Aphrodisias has been slow to emerge; but during the twentieth century. and especially after the beginning of the current excavations in 1960, the importance of the historical information provided by the inscriptions at Aphrodisias became increasingly clear. 1 Introduction.2 Aphrodisias is by no means the only city in Asia Minor which is known to us chiefly through its inscriptions. It is unusual, however, for the particularly large number of significant inscriptions that survive from the late Roman period; these are presented here together with all the known inscriptions of the Byzantine period, although the latter are not particularly abundant at the site. The large number of late Roman inscriptions is paralleled by the survival of an unusual number of portrait statues from the same period, many of which will have been accompanied by the honorific inscriptions published here. 2 This remarkable body of material requires separate discussion from the bulk of the inscriptions of the earlier period: and the mid third century seemed the most appropriate point at which to divide the earlier from the later texts. This is partly because the status of Aphrodisias appears to have undergone a major change in or around 250, when the city became part of a new province of Caria and Phrygia, and perhaps its capital (see I.2): it is also because this is the period of a major change in the nature and function of inscriptions in the Roman world. Inscriptions after 250Introduction.3 The vast majority of formal, public inscriptions found in Asia Minor were inscribed in the second or the early third centuries AD; at this period, formal inscriptions were put up at a large number of cities where no earlier or later inscribed material survives. Aphrodisias is one of a far smaller group of cities in Asia Minor where epigraphic and sculptural activity continues well into the late Roman period, at least until the middle years of the sixth century; Ephesus is another outstanding example. While our knowledge is uneven, and dependent on the chances of excavation, such continued activity is most likely to be found at cities which served as provincial capitals in the late Roman period. Introduction.4 It is important, however, to place this abundance of late Roman material in perspective. This collection contains the 250 or so inscriptions which can reasonably be dated after AD. 250, chiefly in the three hundred years from AD 250 to 550. From the period before 250 — effectively another 300 years, since very little epigraphic material datable to before 20 BC has been found at the site — we have all or part of perhaps 1,500 inscriptions. This reflects the fundamental change in the nature and function of inscriptions that took place in the later third century: the number of texts which were inscribed dropped dramatically. This is true of all kinds of inscribed texts, but more particularly of formal, public inscriptions, honouring rulers or benefactors, recording decrees, or dedicating buildings. It is crucially important to remember this change, which creates a profound difference between the kinds of information we have for the Roman imperial and the late Roman periods. It is, for example, often tempting to assume that a particular institution ceased to exist at the end of the third century; in many cases, however, all that can safely be said is that the necessary information was no longer preserved in the durable form of inscriptions. The converse is also true; for example, the appearance of public acclamations in inscriptions does not necessarily mean that the custom of acclaiming is new, or even more common, but only that acclamations are now thought appropriate for inscriptions. 3 While inscriptions are the chief source of information for our understanding of the structure of civic life in the Roman imperial period, their place is taken in the late Roman period by the law codes; there is an unavoidable shift in emphasis, therefore, when, instead of using documents which honour local benefactors for their generosity, we come to work with documents largely concerned with compelling the performance of certain duties. Introduction.5 Changes in nomenclature also limit the kind of information provided by inscriptions for the late Roman period. In those of the earlier period at Aphrodisias, it is common, although not invariable, for the people named, and especially for those being honoured, to be described by the names of their fathers, and often of several generations of ancestors; this custom makes it possible to establish the prosopography and interrelationships of several leading families in the city, and to observe the continuity of the ruling elite. 4 It is a remarkable feature of late Roman prosopography that, in formal inscriptions at least, the name of a man's father or other relations is hardly ever given; thus at Aphrodisias in our period only two benefactors give a patronymic (66 and 67). Such relationships appear more often in funerary inscriptions, where it is often a relative who is responsible for the inscription, but still not abundantly (147, 148, 149, 150, 156, 160, 164, 169, 170). At the same time, there is a definite tendency from the early third century onwards to use more new names. Over the period, new names come to predominate and are not limited to specifically Christian names. Moreover, from the early fourth century at Aphrodisias, as everywhere in the Empire, Flavius displaces all other nomina among people of any prominence (see II.21). The combined effect is to make it impossible to draw any conclusions about the social origins of the ruling class at Aphrodisias in the late Roman period. It may be that the families that had been powerful and prominent in the imperial period continued to dominate public life, but if the benefactors of Aphrodisias in the late Roman period were of such descent, they chose not to mention it (for a solitary reference to descent from civic benefactors, see the acclamations for Albinus, 83. xvii). There is no way to determine whether this is simply a fashion, or evidence of a new élite that does not claim links with the past because it has no such links to claim. Introduction.6 Such a change in nomenclature is in fact in keeping with a general shift in the nature of formal, public inscriptions in this period away from simple documents of record to something more complex and less informative. It was Louis Robert who, in a fundamental series of articles published in 1948 as Hellenica 4, identified and analysed the development of the inscribed honorific epigram in the late Roman period. 5 Inscribed epigrams in honour of benefactors and men of excellence are fairly common in the Hellenistic period; but in the Roman imperial period, secular officials and benefactors are normally honoured in prose, while verse is reserved for religious contexts, and, by extension, sometimes for athletes. 6 In all periods verse is used for funerary inscriptions (so 54, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 250) . From the later third century, however, honours for imperial officers and civic benefactors are expressed in verse at least as often as in prose. Aphrodisias has produced a striking series of such texts (8, 16, 24, 31, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 47, 53, 56, 58, 63, 64, 73, 74, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88), several of which were published and analysed by Robert in his original study. The formulae of such verses are remarkably consistent and widespread, reflecting a common literary culture. Sometimes a particular poet might be invited in to compose the epigram; although the reference to such a poet in 38 perhaps suggests that this was fairly unusual, some must have been composed by professionals, such as the ποιητὴς καὶ ἐπειγραματογράφος from Terenouthis. 7 But, as Robert pointed out, many such poems are likely to have been composed by members of the local élite themselves, men of the cultivated class who, increasingly, had more in common with each other than with the inhabitants of their own cities, and who chose to honour each other in terms that other men of culture would appreciate, rather than in the standard prose of an honorific decree. The men who composed the poems of this kind which are included in the Cycle of Agathias are simply successful representatives of this class, whose success characteristically took them away from their cities to Constantinople; it may be that some such person, from Aphrodisias, was responsible for the epigrams from the city found in the Anthology (53, 63, 250). The use of verse for church inscriptions seems to have been a little later; certainly the examples found here are later (99, 100, 108, 110). Introduction.7 Many of these texts, therefore, provide little internal evidence for dating; and a further obstacle is the script. Here again the epigraphy of the late Roman period is substantially different from that of preceding centuries. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the script of most groups of contemporaneous public inscriptions from the same site is homogeneous. At Aphrodisias from Hellenistic times, the script used for public texts was based on square letterforms. By the second century AD it had become fully standardized as a highly characteristic and elegant script, still based on a square; and this hand continued to be standard until the middle or late third century. 8 The latest datable example is 7, apparently put up under the Tetrarchy. Concurrently, less formal scripts were in use for private and semi-private texts; the most striking example of the latter, apparently dating to the early third century, but incorporating many 'informal' features not found in public inscriptions until much later, is provided by the Jewish text, which I, with the original editors, am still inclined to date to the third century. 9 Introduction.8 A similar pattern is to be found in many other cities; but wherever later material survives, there is a striking change in the epigraphic style of public inscriptions in the late third century or, as apparently at Aphrodisias, in the fourth. The essential change is the abandonment of the tendency towards uniformity, which had so dominated the preceding centuries. From the early fourth until the sixth century, inscriptions are cut, sometimes quite carefully, on a series of widely differing principles. One characteristic is the elongation of letters, which may reflect the influence of Latin script (II.16). Simultaneously, however, rounded, 'cursive' scripts come into formal use, similar to that of the Jewish text mentioned above; yet others are aggressively angular. The classical forms of sigma and omega disappear (both last attested in 7 and 9, early fourth century; but note the attempt at an early omega in 33, perhaps mid to late fourth century); but the cursive forms which replace them differ widely, some composed of a series of straight lines and some curved, with differing forms sometimes found in one and the same text (for examples, see the acclamations for Albinus, 83). Letterforms are discussed in greater detail below, Introduction.25; but it is remarkably difficult to date texts securely on the basis of their script. Introduction.9 Despite these difficulties. I have suggested dates for as many texts as possible, in the belief that this provides a more useful framework. Some of these are likely to be challenged, and I would stress that a question-mark before a date indicates real uncertainty; nevertheless, I feel that it is preferable to run this risk than to offer the description fourth to sixth century so frequently attached to material of this period. In assigning dates I have tended to associate texts in which the script appears similar, but it is clearly not possible to disassociate merely on the grounds of scripts that appear to differ. This is illustrated in several groups of texts which honour the same man, such as those for Helladius (16, 17, 18), ?first half of the fourth century, Asclepiodotus (53, 54) and Pytheas (55, 56, 57, 58), both late fifth century or Rhodopaeus (85, 86, 87) ?first half of the sixth century. In all these groups the scripts of closely contemporary texts differ widely, not simply in details of execution, but in their basic design. Introduction.10 One explanation may lie in the reduction of epigraphic activity mentioned above. If professional epigraphic stonecutters could perhaps no longer earn a livelihood, inscriptions may have been cut by sculptors whenever necessary, and the tradition of cutting inscriptions thus lost. But as well as this organizational change, it seems likely that there was also a change in taste, whereby uniformity no longer seemed particularly desirable. Such a change would be consistent with the trend, identified above, away from the concept of an inscription as a formal civic document of public record. The public inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods were of a consistent level of legibility (whether or not they were ever actually read) and provided information in fairly standardized forms; the inscriptions of the late Roman period often convey little formal or official information, but offer idiosyncratic honours to individuals. Introduction.11 One characteristic product of this shift is the use of monograms which, while elegant, often effectively conceal the names they represent. 101, 102, 103 and 219 are all monograms found on architectural features; all are prominently marked with crosses, and almost certainly originated in churches. 101 and 102 are both 'box' monograms based on a square letter: this was the standard form of monogram until the middle or late sixth century. The two texts of 103 and the roughly drawn 219 are 'cross' monograms; this form of design first appeared in the mid-sixth century, and soon became standard. 10 185, 186 are box monograms with a secular function, and several more of these have been found on seats in the Theatre and Stadium (PPA 45 and 46). The names concealed in these monograms cannot all be resolved with certainty; for the difficulty which even contemporaries found in interpreting monograms see the delightful quotation from Symmachus cited by W. Fink in a useful discussion of the subject. 11 When these are formally inscribed in a building it is likely that those named are benefactors who had contributed towards, or been wholly responsible for, the buildings in which these elements originated, just as the monograms of Justinian and Theodora are to be found in their church of Hagia Sophia; and this kind of inscription seems to have been absorbed into the decoration of the building. Introduction.12 This shift in the function of inscriptions anticipates the development of epigraphy in the Byzantine period. Already by the sixth century, inscriptions in churches with very little information to convey are taking on an essentially decorative function; an excellent example is provided by the inscribed frieze which runs around the walls of Justinian's church of SS Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. While inscriptions continue to be seen as an appropriate element in an important building, their symbolic and decorative aspects have become more overt. This development intensifies in the Byzantine period; after the end of the sixth century, public inscriptions are very rare, but those that survive — which at Aphrodisias are all church inscriptions — seem to be conceived as decorations, with increasingly elaborate lettering (see 99, 110). The same trend can be observed in the protocols of late Roman papyri, 12 and also in inscriptions and elsewhere in the Muslim world. 13 As formal inscriptions become more decorative, they also become more amenable to dating, since they increasingly reflect the fashion of a particular period. Thus a pattern for dating inscriptions of the Byzantine period is steadily emerging, chiefly from the work of Professors Mango and Sevcenko on the establishment of a corpus of dated Byzantine inscriptions. There is a striking contrast with the late Roman period, where closer analysis of the material has brought out only more clearly, as described above, the difficulties in dating different scripts. 14 Aphrodisias after 250Introduction.13 Against this background, it remains to consider the use of inscriptions for the study of the history of Aphrodisias. Apart from the scanty literary evidence the only other information is that emerging from the archaeological analysis of the site. 15 There is thus an obvious danger, in using the material presented here, of attributing excessive importance to a chance survival, and of ignoring accidental bias in the information. It is particularly important to remember that none of the city's cemeteries has yet been extensively excavated. A great deal of Roman funerary material has survived, particularly through re-use in the fourth-century city wall; but remarkably few funerary texts from the late Roman and Byzantine periods have been found (see Section IX), and we are thereby deprived of a particular source of economic and social information. Although there may be other less obvious forms of bias in the inscriptional evidence, it is still worthwhile to set out some conclusions, and risk their subversion by later discoveries. Introduction.14 The excavations at Aphrodisias have revealed a city which developed from a settlement round the shrine of Aphrodite, and first achieved prominence and prosperity in the first century BC. The city was at the edge of a fertile plain which only required peaceful conditions to permit its exploitation; under the Roman empire it clearly prospered, and its wealth must have been consolidated by its special status, granted in the first century BC, as a free city not subject to Roman laws or Roman taxes. The documents recorded on the Archive Wall show how much the city appreciated and asserted that status (see A&R, 107-10). There is some evidence for the activity of imperial officials at Aphrodisias, but only occasionally, and at the invitation of the city itself. The distancing effects of free status were reinforced by the city's relative remoteness, since it did not lie on any major route; there is a striking contrast, for example, with Ephesus, a provincial capital and a major port, which received a stream of visitors (including several of the apostles) and where imperial officials were resident and active. Nevertheless, Aphrodisias was both a centre of artistic excellence — the fundamental work is still Squarciapino (1939) — and also a place of intellectual activity; the novelist Chariton was an Aphrodisian, as were at least two philosophers, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the lesser known Adrastus, who wrote on the Ethics of Theophrastus and of Aristotle in the second century AD. (Athenaeus 15.637e). There is no evidence of any substantial change in the fortunes and prosperity of Aphrodisias until at least the mid-third century, unless perhaps there is an increase in the prosperity of individuals outside the old élite, as witnessed by their appearance in inscriptions. It is important to remember that much material not included here because it cannot be dated with any certainty may well have originated in the second half of the third century. Introduction.15 The first major change for Aphrodisias for some 300 years came in the 250s, with the setting up of the province of Caria and Phrygia, apparently with Aphrodisias as capital (see Section I). There is very little evidence from which to assess the effects of this; what there is stresses the city's gratification at its new eminence. It must, however, at the very least, have undermined the city's carefully preserved autonomy. The other element in the city's free status, freedom from taxation, may have been lost at the same time; if not, it will have been eliminated when the tax system was revised by Diocletian. 16 Such a change, in conjunction with the general economic upheaval and inflation of the later third century, may have been a considerable blow to the city's prosperity. Introduction.16 Nevertheless, there is no direct evidence for the effects of any of these changes. There is a substantial falling-off in the number of inscriptions in the later third century, but, as has been shown above, this is an empire-wide phenomenon. What is striking is that of all the public inscriptions at Aphrodisias which can be safely assigned to the fourth century (those presented in Sections II and III) almost all are concerned with imperial officials, whether honouring them or recording work done by them. The only private benefactors in this period appear to be three sculptors, who put up examples of their own work (11, 12, 13, 252); a benefactor, possibly Jewish, contributing to (?) a sacred building (10); and one possible contributor to a portico (30). By contrast, in the mid-fourth century governors were responsible for work in the Hadrianic Baths (17, 18) for remodelling the area east of the Theatre (20), for flooring the basilica (235) for work in the North Agora (29) and for building the city walls (19, 22). The extensive re-use of material in building the city walls also suggests that the city had several structures which were in disrepair, and could be dismantled to provide building materials. Whether this was the result of a specific disaster, such as an earthquake, 17 or of several decades of general decay, the significant point is the failure of the civic authorities, and local benefactors to repair such damage from their own resources, as they had frequently done during the Roman imperial period. 18 Introduction.17 All of this indicates that by the fourth century the city may have experienced a sharp decline from its earlier prosperity. There are also two specific references in the inscriptions to difficulties, apparently financial: an official is thanked, probably in the 380s, for lightening the city's tax burden (24); and at the turn of the century, the Praetorian Prefect, Anthemius, is described as having saved the Carians from destruction (36). In the early fifth century the governor Tatianus also hints at having dealt with major problems (37). Introduction.18 None of this is perhaps particularly remarkable; the late Roman period is commonly seen as a time when civic life was in decline. But what is striking is the contrast with what follows. From apparently the middle years of the fifth century to the middle of the sixth we have an abundant series of inscriptions (see sections IV, V and VI). These attest, firstly, the activity of a new official, the Father of the City (see List of Local Officials) whose primary function was apparently to undertake public works with civic funds. 19 . Such funds, therefore, appear to be in good supply at this period, even if, in at least one case, the Father of the City apparently undertakes work in cooperation with the governor (38, 39, 41). Secondly, a range of inscriptions honour, or record work by, private benefactors. The contributions of such donors vary in extent and quality: for example, Albinus (82 and 83) seems to have restored the entire west portico of the Agora to a high standard, whereas Philip (66) simply contributed the roofing for two intercolumnations of the south portico. One donor, Hermias, is said to have made a gift of money (74), and this is borne out by a reference in legislation of 529 to significant endowments at Aphrodisias (Just., Nov. 160, cited at VI.3). There are also two mentions of public works undertaken by bishops (60, 90), but it cannot be determined whether these were secular or ecclesiastical buildings. At least some of these donors must, by virtue of their rank or their office, have been exempt from curial obligations (see V.6); so their benefactions were presumably fully voluntary. The existence of a group of 'partisans' supporting one of these benefactors (59) is one indication that there was still real rivalry for local eminence between members of the élite. The atmosphere thus resembles that of the Roman imperial period, albeit on a much reduced scale, but the purpose of such activities at this period may have been less to impress the local citizens than to catch the attention of the imperial authorities. 20 Introduction.19 We also find Aphrodisias acting as a centre of intellectual activity at this period; and this, perhaps more than anything else, raises the question of continuity. We know that Aphrodisias had an active cultural life in the Roman imperial period; then in the later fifth century we find Asclepiodotus, an important Alexandrian teacher, choosing Aphrodisias as the centre for his activities (see V.8 following). It is difficult to believe that Asclepiodotus would have settled, and have hoped to attract students, in a city which had no previous tradition of higher education; it is therefore likely that some such education had been available at Aphrodisias throughout the fourth and fifth centuries (V.5). If correctly dated to the later fourth century the inscription honouring Eupeithius (33) may indeed refer to such activity. Introduction.20 Given the limited evidence, therefore, the developments in the fifth century do not necessarily indicate a radical departure from the state of affairs in the fourth century. Yet there does seem to be an increase from the mid fifth century in the contribution made by the city and its citizens to its own maintenance and prosperity, compared with that made by the imperial administration and the governors. This seems to reflect partly growth in local prosperity, which is also reflected in the major conversion of the Temple of Aphrodite into a church in the late fifth century (see VII.4): but also perhaps a reduction in the role of provincial governors. The complex reforms of the provincial administration undertaken by Justinian can be seen as an attempt to remedy the steady decline in its effective authority. Introduction.21 There is at least an apparent contrast revealed by the inscriptions between conditions at Aphrodisias in the fourth century (sections II and III) and those in the fifth and early sixth (sections IV, V and VI). Yet there is a far more dramatic contrast with what follows: the disappearance, by the end of the sixth century or the very early years of the seventh, of formal public secular inscriptions. With the exception of 91, and perhaps 61, there are no such texts so far found at Aphrodisias which definitely need to be dated later than the first half of the sixth century, and there are none which can be dated later than the early seventh. All the material surviving at the site from later periods consists of church inscriptions (section VII) and private, mostly funerary, texts (in sections VIII, IX and XI); and the total number is very small. Introduction.22 Like the change 300 years earlier in the late third century, this is an empire-wide phenomenon, and it coincides with the effective disappearance of city life on the antique model. 21 The pattern of events preceding this collapse, however, seems to vary from city to city. Some communities, especially in Syria and Palestine, seem to have flourished up until the Arab Conquest and beyond it. Many others started to decline in the fourth or fifth century. While the epigraphic evidence from Aphrodisias becomes very sparse for the sixth century, the archaeological evidence now suggests a relatively stable continuity until the early seventh century. 22 In the early seventh century, when buildings had fallen, perhaps through earthquake damage, the community appears to have been incapable of undertaking any sort of restoration; the materials from the débris were eventually used — in the early seventh century or later, to build a fortification wall round the Acropolis and the Theatre. I have tried to assess some of the factors in this collapse below (section VI); but to understand it fully we shall need to increase our understanding of the history of the empire as a whole in the sixth century. Introduction.23 The later history of the site is only fitfully illuminated by the surviving inscriptions. Although, as at other cities, there are some traces of revival in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the location of Aphrodisias meant that it was never again of any great importance. Its prosperity had been built on the peace, economic stability and good communications which the Roman Empire provided; it had continued into the later Roman period by virtue of the city's function as an administrative centre. When, with the disappearance of the system of provincial administration at the end of the sixth century, it lost that role, its only residual importance was as the metropolitan see of the diocese of Caria, a function reflected in the important collection of seals found at the site. 23 Introduction.24 For the period of its prosperity — some 600 years, from c. 30 BC to AD. 550/600 — the volume of surviving epigraphic material gives us a series of remarkable insights into the city's life. The texts presented here should be seen as a series of snapshots, each conveying a particular image, and caution is necessary in building up an overall picture; but, within these limits, I have attempted to use them to present as full an account as possible of the development of Aphrodisias after 250.
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