Fig. 1. Map of Asia Minor.

Chapter 1

Geographical and historical introduction

The location of Antioch

The site of Antioch lies about one kilometre north-east of the modern town of Yalvaç, an ilçe (county town) in the province of Isparta (Fig. 2). It stands on a hill which rises to a height of 1,236 metres on the north side of the Yalvaç Çay, the ancient river Anthius, which appears on coins of the colony¹ and runs south-west towards Gelendost and lake Eǧirdir (PLATE 1). On the north and east the mountain massif of the Sultan Daǧlari, which form an imposing wall running north-west from the vicinity of Konya to the modern town of Çay, cuts Antioch off from the central Anatolian steppe (PLATE 2). The city accordingly looks west and south towards lake Eǧirdir and beyond it to the mountains of Pisidia (PLATE 3). The Sultan Daǧlari are the key to Antioch’s agricultural prosperity, continued by the thriving town of Yalvaç today. Like the other mountain ranges which encircle the Anatolian PLATESau, they attract most of the precipitation brought by prevailing winds, which often blow from the north or north-west.² This has two consequences. Firstly, there is higher rainfall in the areas adjoining the mountains, that is at Antioch and in its territory, than further east in the steppic country of the interior. A rainfall map shows average precipitation of 600–1,000 mm peryear on the mountain range itself, and 500–600 mm on its flanks.³ Secondly, the winter snow and rain that fall on the mountains feed springs in the foothills, like those that were tapped to provide Antioch’s piped water supply in the Roman period. Both on the north-east and the south-west side, the lower slopes of Sultan Daǧ are richly fertile areas, which nourished a string of thriving settlements in Antiquity: Antioch and Neapolis to the west, and Laodicea Catacecaumene, Tyriaeum and Philomelium to the east of the mountain range.⁴ All these places were settled before Roman times, Antioch and Laodicea by the Seleucids, probably in the third century BC. Tyriaeum was known to Xenophon in the fourth century BC,⁵ while Philomelium, like Docimium to the north and Lysias and Derbe to the south, was a Macedonian colony.⁶ These had been founded around the perimeter of the central basin, and the first two took their names from their Macedonian founders. Neapolis ‘of Phrygia’ is known from a Rhodian inscription to have existed at least as early as the second century BC.⁷ It is clear that the favourable climate and terrain had attracted outsiders to this part of Anatolia long before Antioch was chosen as a Roman colony.

The most important part of Antioch’s territory is clearly visible to anyone who climbs up to the site of the temple of Mên Askaênos, south-east of the settlement, and looks out westwards (PLATE 4). On either side of the Yalvaç Çay there is agreat patchwork of intensively cultivated arable land, broken by the wooded valleys of its tributary streams, and extending on the west to the mountains at the east side of lake Hoyran (Çirişli Daǧ) and on the south to the foothills of Anamas Daǧ, the range which separates lake Eǧirdir from lake Beysehir. Epigraphic evidence of the Roman imperial period suggests that the villages as far as Gelendost in the south-east and Saǧir in the north-east belonged to Antioch, and the surface area of the city’s territory has been calculated at 540 square miles. The Turkish census of 1950 lists about forty villages in this area, with a total population close to 50,000. It is likely that population level in the Roman Imperial period was considerably higher than this.⁸

Fig. 2. Pisidian Antioch. Territory and neighbours.

Cereals are overwhelmingly the most important crop produced by the area today, as they were in antiquity, but the terrain and climate are also very favourable to fruit growing, and in the season the local market is bursting with apples, peaches, apricots and cherries, for which Yalvaç is famous. A detailed analysis of the agricultural potential of the region today and in antiquity would be superfluous here, and in any case would require extensive field work in the territory of Antioch which we did not undertake, but it is clear even without further examination that a colony could expect to thrive and prosper. The distribution of Latin gravestones, many of Augustan or early imperial date, in villages throughout Antioch’s territory demonstrates the nature of the colonial settlement. The veterans and their families, originally from the poorer regions of rural Italy, were to form a new yeoman population. Their farms were to be the engine of economic growth and the basis of the urban wealth which was advertised by the city’s fine buildings.⁹

1. The site of Antioch from the north-east (Kelsey archive 7. 1369).

Antioch was distant from the hellenised coastal regions of southern and western Asia Minor, but it was not inaccessible ( Fig. 1). The main overland route through hellenistic Anatolia, known as the koine hodos or common roAD, ran from Ephesus up the Maeander valley to the important emporium of Apamea. ¹⁰ There was a crucial intersection of north–south and east–west routes immediately east of Apamea, one running from Phrygia into Pisidia, the other from the Maeander valley towards Lycaonia and Cilicia. ¹¹ The latter is marked in the pre-Roman period by a string of Seleucid foundations, Laodicea on the Lycus, Apamea, Apollonia, and Antioch itself, whose origins are discussed in the next section. The importance of this route across the northern flank of Pisidia may be seen from Polybius’ account of the expedition of Achaeus against Antiochus II in 220 BC.¹² When central Asia Minor became a directly governed part of the Roman Empire after the creation of the province of Galatia in 25 BC, new roads were built from the coast to the interior, above all the Augustan via Sebaste. Antioch was the caput viae of this road system, whose eastern branch continued to Iconium and Lystra in Lycaonia, and which ran first west and then south from Antioch through Apollonia and Comama, across the Taurus mountains at the Döşeme Boǧazi, to Perge in Pamphylia. This was a major highway, suitable for carriages and wheeled traffic as well as pack animals, whose course may still be traced on the ground today.¹³ The accessibility of Antioch, through this long-distance network of communications, was one of the vital factors which enabled the city to become the impressive centre revealed by its buildings. It did not prevent the city, like other land-locked centres, from suffering severe food-shortage when its own crops failed and the high cost of transporting bulky goods overland made it difficult to bring in supplies from elsewhere.¹⁴

2. View north from Antioch to Toprak Tepe (2,531 m), Sultan Daǧlari.

The historical setting

Pisidian Antioch was founded in the third century BC. It is one of several cities in Asia Minor which take their name from members of the Seleucid dynasty, or are otherwise known to have been Seleucid foundations. Laodicea on the Lycus, founded later than the 270s and before 253 BC by Antiochus II and named after his sister Laodice,¹⁵ its neighbour, Hierapolis,¹⁶ Antioch on the Maeander, also probably created by Antiochus II,¹⁷ and Apamea, the former Celaenae but renamed after the wife of Seleucus I,¹⁸ all lay in the upper basin of the Maeander river and its tributary the Lycus, in southern Phrygia. Hellenistic inscriptions show them to have been civic communities with regular constitutions, although no monumental remains of the hellenistic period survive on their sites.¹⁹ Further east there was Apollonia, where a cult of Seleucus I Nicator surely indicates that he was the city’s founder,²⁰ and Seleucia, later called Seleucia Sidera, on the northern confines of Pisidia, while Pisidian Antioch itself and Laodicea Catacecaumene occupied sites on either side of Sultan Daǧ in Phrygia Paroreius. These cities occupied a middle stretch in the chain of Seleucid foundations which extended from the Aegean coast to Syria. Eastwards the routes that crossed the Taurus mountains led to Seleucia, modern Silifke, on the Calycadnus, or through the Cilician Gates to the Cilician plain, which also received Seleucid foundations in the third century BC, Tarsus, known as Antiochia on the Cydnus,²¹ and Magarsus, Antiochia on the Pyramus.²²

It is useful to place the foundation of Pisidian Antioch in this broader context of third-century Seleucid activity in Anatolia, but it is difficult to offer any more substantial information about it. Although it is no doubt correct to assume that these cities fulfilled a strategic function, and ensured Seleucid control over the most direct land route between Syria and western Asia Minor, the argument depends entirely on geographical inference and is based on no specific ancient evidence. Indeed there is nothing to show that soldiers, or citizens with specific military obligations to the Seleucids, formed the core of the settlers. At all events, the cities, while they may have provided a protected corridor for traffic between the Levant and the Aegean, were in no position to exercise control or guarantee security over much of the Anatolian hinterland. Elementary practical considerations set clear limits to the extent of Seleucid power in Asia Minor.

3. View south-west from Antioch to lake Eǧirdir. Çiriş;li Daǧ in the background beyond Yalvaç.

The original settlers of Antioch came from Magnesia on the Maeander.²³ This bare observation, made by Strabo, can be fleshed out by adducing the terms of acivic decree of another Seleucid city, Antiochia in Persis, whose settlers also included a body of Magnesians. The Antiochians of Persia recalled that ‘when formerly Antiochus I Sôtêr had conceived the ambition of increasing our city, which was named after him, and had consulted the Magnesians on the matter of despatching a colony, these had passed fair and splendid decrees, made vows and sacrifices, and sent men, sufficient in number and distinguished for their courage, in their eagerness to share in the increase of the people of Antioch.’²⁴ If the colonisation of Pisidian Antioch followed the same pattern, the original initiative will have come from the king, whether Antiochus I or II, and he will have approached the Magnesians with the invitation to send a colony. The decision to do so, however, will have been taken by the Magnesians themselves.

In 221/20 there had been a famous epiphany of the goddess Artemis at Magnesia, and in response to this a new international festival of Artemis Leucophryene was instituted, at the latest by 207/6 BC. Invitations to participate were sent to the monarchs and cities of the hellenistic world.²⁵ The decrees of the communities which responded positively were carved on the walls of the west stoa of the civic agora, and they include three from cities called Antioch. One was certainly Antioch on the Maeander,²⁶ and since one of the other decrees makes a reference to kinship (syngeneia) between the guest city and Magnesia, it should probably be attributed to Pisidian Antioch.²⁷ If this is correct it supplies formal proof that the relationship between the mother city and its colony was maintained into the second century BC when the decree was inscribed. Moreover, the text shows that Antioch had an orthodox Greek civic constitution, with a boule, demos, strategoi, and grammateis.

4. The territory of Antioch viewed from the sanctuary of Mên Askaênos.

No inscriptions of hellenistic date have been reliably recorded at Antioch, where the Augustan colony has almost completely overlaid earlier remains.²⁸ However, the nearby sanctuary of Mên Askaênos certainly dates back to the second century BC. Indeed there are points of comparison between the ground plans of the two temples at the Mên sanctuary and those of Artemis Leucophryene and Zeus Sosipolis at Magnesia, which could be the result of direct Magnesian inspiration or influence (see pp. 66–7 below). Strabo tells us that before the time of Augustus there was a priesthood of Mên Askaeus at Pisidian Antioch, and that it controlled a large number of sacred slaves and sacred lands.²⁹ There are many well known parallels for such temple organisations. Cappadocian Comana was ruled by a priest, second in rank to the king of Cappadocia. The temple of Enyo or Ma at that place owned an extensive territory and six thousand slaves.³⁰ At Venasa the temple of Zeus was also endowed with a fertile territory and three thousand slaves, and administered by a priest, who held office for life.³¹ At Pontic Comana Pompeius appointed his own nominee as high-priest, adding new territory to the sacred land which already existed; here too the temple slaves numbered six thousand.³² At Zela there was an important temple of the Persian goddess Anaitis, with sacred slaves inhabiting the territory, governed by a priest,³³ and at Cabira the sacred land and slaves belonged to the same god, Mên, as was worshipped at Antioch.³⁴ Closer to Antioch on the western confines of Galatia was Pessinus, which was also originally governed by the priests of the mother goddess.³⁵

However, it would be mistaken to press too far the parallel between the temple at Antioch and the temple-states of central and eastern Anatolia. Sacred slaves and sacred land were a feature of Greek as well as of oriental temple organisation, and there is no reason to believe that a priestly state existed alongside and in competition with the Greek polis at Antioch. In the hellenised environment of hellenistic and Roman Pisidia the city at Kaynar Kale, west of lake Kestel (probably the ancient Codrula), had a temple of Pluto and Kore with numerous sacred slaves attached to it, some of which had been dedicated to temple service by Roman colonists from nearby Comama.³⁶ In addition, as will be seen, the actual remains of the sanctuary at Antioch are Greek in character and provide no architectural evidence for an ‘eastern’ or ‘Anatolian’ cult. It is an interesting paradox that the remains of the sanctuary, dedicated to an Anatolian god, provide the clearest evidence for the hellenised culture of the Seleucid settlement.

In 25 BC, at the same time as Rome annexed most of central Asia Minor to create the province of Galatia, Antioch was refounded as a Roman colony, Colonia Caesarea Antiochia, and it received a new settlement of Roman veterans, drawn from legions V and VII.³⁷ Although no legionary camp has been located, epigraphic evidence suggests that the seventh legion may have been stationed as a garrison force in the vicinity of Antioch for most of the reign of Augustus before it was transferred to the Balkans around AD 7.³⁸

The history of the colony at Antioch, principally reconstructed from its inscriptions, has been studied in detail, initially by W.M. Ramsay and his associates, whose names are linked with many of the most important discoveries on the site (see chapter 2), and more recently by Barbara Levick.³⁹ Accordingly, only some salient features need be picked out in this survey. Antioch possessed the typical organisation of a Roman colony. The colonists made up an assembly, whose richer members constituted the ordo, the Roman equivalent of a Greek boule. Later inscriptions, dating to the period when Antioch’s Roman features were influenced by the prevailing Greek civic institutions of Asia Minor, regularly refer to this and to its members as the boule and the bouleutai.⁴⁰ The attested magistrates include duoviri, duoviri quinquennales, aediles and quaestors, but also an admixture of Greek officials, such as grammateis, gymnasiarchs, and agonothetae. The population was made up of coloni, full Roman citizens who were enrolled in the tribe Sergia, and incolae of lower status.⁴¹ We have no information about the relative numbers or importance of the two groups. Although the legionary veterans and their families dominated the affairs of the colony throughout the imperial period, and many rose to high positions in the imperial administration, Pisidian Antioch must have remained a complex ethnic mixture. Not only will there have been surviving families from the Seleucid settlement, but there was also an indigenous Anatolian population, itself of mixed Phrygian and Pisidian extraction, with distinctive nomenclature, cults, funerary traditions, and language.⁴² Phrygian doorstones were one of the commonest forms of funerary monument at Antioch itself.⁴³ Many uninscribed examples, which have not been published, can be seen built into the houses of modern Yalvaç (PLATES 5 and 6). Indigenous cults are well represented in the epigraphy of the territory of Antioch.

The city itself was divided physically into wards, vici, whose names show not simply generalised Roman influence but direct inspiration from the city of Rome itself. The vici known as Venerius, Velabrus, Tuscus, Cermalus, and Salutaris all took their names from landmarks in Roman topography, while the Aedilicius and Patricius are no less obviously Roman in origin.⁴⁴ It does not seem to be possible to identify any of these wards with actual areas of the site at Antioch, since none of their inscriptions, all set up in honour of prominent citizens, has been discovered in situ. A further inscription was set up by a tribus Romana, the only indication that the city had local tribes as well as wards.⁴⁵ The name perhaps indicates that tribes were created to distinguish the various ethnic groups found at Antioch, but there can be no certainty when the evidence is confined to this single text. The best parallel for tribal divisions within one of Rome’s Asia Minor colonies is to be found at Iconium, where there was a tribus Augusta, a tribus Hadriana Herculana, and a tribe of Athena Polias. These could have contained, respectively, the earliest Augustan colonists, the new colonists resulting from the Hadrianic refoundation of Iconium, and the Greek inhabitants of the city, which had functioned separately from the colony in the first century AD.⁴⁶

A high proportion of the inhabitants of Antioch possessed Roman family names, which show that they could trace their origins, by descent or manumission, back to the original Augustan group of veteran settlers. Despite the symbolic links between the colony and the city of Rome, advertised by the names of the vici, the great majority of the families whose origins may be established came from the poorer rural parts of Italy, especially Etruria, reflecting, of course, the pattern of Roman military recruitment in the late Republican period.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, perhaps the very act of occupying and creating a community in this distant part of Asia Minor made the settlers more aware of their Romanness, and it was natural for them to cultivate this sense of ethnic identity. As Levick puts it, Antioch was designed to be a new Rome on the borders of Phrygia and Pisidia, the names of whose seven wards may have evoked the seven hills of the capital.⁴⁸

The effort and imagination which had gone into its foundation, its remoteness from the rest of the Latin-speaking world, and its strategic and political significance in Augustus’ schemes for the security of the new province of Galatia,⁴⁹ are all evidence that Antioch was a place of considerable importance. Furthermore the early colonists obtained opportunities to play much more conspicuous roles in public life than they could have hoped for had they simply returned to their native towns and villages on disbandment. In the early Julio–Claudian period several members of the family of the ruling dynasty and of the Roman military elite were elected to honorary magistracies in the colony: Drusus, Augustus’ stepson and brother of the future emperor Tiberius,⁵⁰ Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, husband of the younger Agrippina and father of the emperor Nero,⁵¹ L. Cornelius Sulla Felix, the son-in-law of Germanicus,⁵² P. Sulpicius Quirinius and M. Servilius,⁵³ the last two both leading Augustan generals. The actual offices to which they had been appointed were discharged by praefecti, drawn from the leading colonial families, P. Anicius Maximus for Domitius Ahenobarbus,⁵⁴ a certain Auspicatus for Sulla Felix, and C. Caristanius Fronto Caesianus Iulius for Quirinius Sulpicius and Servilius. Syme has remarked that despite their military background no colonist from Antioch is attested as a legionary recruit in the first century AD. The reason is that they aspired to officer status as military tribunes and commanders of auxiliary units. Seven Antiochenes are known to have entered the militia equestris by AD 69.⁵⁵ Anicius Maximus was to pursue a highly successful career as an equestrian officer in Britain, where he fought alongside the future emperor Vespasian, and in Egypt. Caristanius, who was the first citizen of Antioch to be honoured with a public statue, went on to become military tribune of legio XII Fulminata and prefect of the cohors Bosporanorum.⁵⁶ His son or grandson, C. Caristanius Fronto, commanded the same auxiliary regiment, became a senator and achieved a suffect consulship in AD 90.⁵⁷ Another early link between Antioch and the imperial house was forged by the Crepereii. C. Crepereius Gallus, an imperial procurator, was also an intimate of Agrippina the younger, and died with her in the notorious yachting accident of AD 62.⁵⁸ C. Caristanius Fronto married Calpurnia Paulla, a member of another prominent local family. Possibly related to her was L. Sergius Paullus, who became suffect consul in AD 70. He was, as far as we know, the first person of eastern origin to reach that rank.⁵⁹ The Sergii continued to provide senators in the middle of the second century, by which time they were joined by other Antiochian families, the Flavonii, Novii, and Anicii, the last doubtless connected with P. Anicius Maximus.⁶⁰

5. Doorstone seen in Yalvaç (Müderis mahalle; ht. 0.73, w. 0.41).

6. Doorstone seen in Yalvaç (Müderis mahalle; ht. 0.73, w. 0.38).

This concentration of talent and power can be matched by no other eastern colony and by few cities elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Patronage by members of the imperial household during the principates of Augustus and Tiberius is surely the clue to the rapid advancement of Antioch’s veterans to high office. There were certainly other benefits to be derived from local magistracies held by members of the Imperial family and the Roman governing elite. This was achannel by which imperial funds could have been brought to the colony to pay for the splendid public building programme which was carried out during and after Augustus’ lifetime. There is clear evidence from elsewhere that the holding of honorary local offices by emperors or their associates was the occasion for them to make specific benefactions to the cities of the empire, as it would have been if a wealthy local man held an important magistracy. We may reasonably suppose that this happened at Antioch, where the new building is on an unparalleled scale for this part of Asia Minor during the Augustan period.⁶¹ It is entirely apt that the colony should have been adorned with splendid and extravagant monuments to the imperial cult at precisely the period when members of the imperial family were associated with its administration. Julio–Claudian Antioch, in the fullest sense of the adjective, was an imperial city.

In the second century AD there was a relative, but surely not an absolute decline. As other cities of Asia Minor entered their most prosperous period, Antioch ceased to stand out. Ancyra, the other leading city of the province of Galatia, became more prominent, thanks especially to its strategic importance in the road system of northern and central Asia Minor, at the hub of the great Flavio–Trajanic double province of Galatia and Cappadocia. Ancyra retained its importance through the second and third centuries, while Antioch, which lay off the main military routes, was less in the public eye.⁶² While this may have deprived Antioch’s leading citizens of chances to make close contact with prominent figures in the Roman military hierarchy, and thus enhance their personal prestige and status, it probably did no damage to the prosperity of the colony, which depended above all on the local resources at its command. Certainly Antioch will have avoided most of the heavy demands that passing military traffic could inflict on civilian communities. At the beginning of the third century in the reign of Septimius Severus, Antioch adopted the title socia Romanorum, abbreviated to SR, on its coins. The terminology, which rendered in Latin the title σύμμαχος Pωμαίων used by several Greek cities of Asia Minor, embodied the notion of Antioch’s status as an independent city with continued loyalty to Rome during a century of increasing military pressure on the empire. In material terms this loyalty was expressed by sending recruits, provisions and equipment to the armies of the eastern frontier.⁶³

The first century had seen members of the colonial elite of Antioch embedding themselves, by means of intermarriage and the acquisition of property, into the aristocratic world of the eastern Roman Empire.⁶⁴ In the second century individual Antiochians participated in the high literary culture of the Greek East. The colony produced sophists and philosophers: Ti. Claudius Paullinus, philosopher, was one of the cosmopolitan intellectual set that frequented the Asclepieium of Pergamum,⁶⁵ while a certain Marcellus studied with the sophist Sôtêr at Ephesus.⁶⁶ There is also evidence for Greek intellectual pursuits within the colony, which are attested at least until the fourth century.⁶⁷ These cultural interests, which might involve speculative philosophy, fitted comfortably with developments in religious thought and practice. There is a trace of this process at Antioch in one famous incident. Antioch was the first city in the Roman world where Christian missionaries chose to evangelise the gentile as well as the Jewish community. The full story and ramifications of Paul’s mission to Antioch cannot be told here,⁶⁸ but such evidence as there is for the social context in which Paul’s activities took place suggests that this was the upper-class milieu of top colonial families. On his first journey Paul travelled directly to Antioch from Paphus in Cyprus, where he had converted the Roman proconsul Sergius Paullus. This was the very man whose home was Pisidian Antioch and who was to become consul at Rome around AD 70 (see above). It is an elementary inference that he advised or encouraged Paul to make the trip up-country into Asia Minor, following the via Sebaste from Perge, where Paul and Barnabas docked, to Antioch. Then, as Paul began to make an impression in the synagogue and stirred up the resentment of the established Jewish community, its leaders looked for support against him among the women of leading families who were themselves Jewish sympathisers. From all that is known about the upper class of Antioch around the middle of the first century AD, these women must have been members of the colonial families, provincial equivalents of the aristocratic Jewish sympathisers to be found in Rome itself.⁶⁹ Paul’s earliest mission to Asia Minor was not aimed at low-status Anatolian natives, still less at ‘foolish Galatians’, but at the Romanised provincial elite.⁷⁰

There is no evidence that Christianity took root at Antioch before the wide-spread conversion of Anatolian communities in the later third and fourth centuries. Under Diocletian the colony became the metropolis of the newly formed province of Pisidia. One of the early governors, Valerius Diogenes, was not only prominent in supervising much new building that took place during this period, especially around the theatre, but is also known to have been an active persecutor, probably under Maximinus in 311–12.⁷¹ There is little to be said about Antioch’s history during the rest of the fourth century. There are dedications to emperors and governors of the period,⁷² and a mosaic inscription in the basilica church by the city wall mentions that its donor was bishop Optimus, a correspondent of Basil of Caesarea and an upholder of Orthodoxy.⁷³ Two other verse inscriptions imply that the city water supply was refurbished, perhaps in the fifth century.⁷⁴

One proposal concerning Antioch in the early fourth century needs to be dismissed. W.M. Ramsay, publishing the documents of the rural religious organisation known as the xenoi tekmoreioi, whose headquarters were on the territory of Antioch, suggested that it functioned as a centre for a pagan revival in the face of nascent Christianity in the third century.⁷⁵ Pursuing this theory, J.G.C. Anderson argued that a series of agonistic inscriptions found at the sanctuary of Mên Askaênos showed that the cult and the games associated with it flourished particularly in the early fourth century as part of an imperial attempt to foster paganism around the time of the great persecution.⁷⁶

These inscriptions name a series of agonothetae: C. Ulpius Baebianus, who was augur and priest for life of Mên and Demeter;⁷⁷ C. Caesennius Proculus Staianus, augur and patron of the colony, who shared the role with C. Flavius Baebianus, a Roman eques, both being high priests of Mên for life;⁷⁸ and the last named on his own, described as pontifex, Roman eques, patron of the colony, and life-long high-priest of Mên.⁷⁹ C. Ulpius Baebianus and C. Flavius Baebianus also appear in larger but fragmentary inscriptions, the first of which is the record in Greek of a civic decree, incorporating Latin acclamations and references to members of the imperial family, described as Caesares.⁸⁰ The games at which they presided were known as the Maximianeia and Anderson argued that these had derived their name from the emperor Maximianus, not Diocletian’s colleague between 293 and 305, but rather Galerius, after he had taken the name Maximianus on Diocletian’s abdication in 305.⁸¹ If the argument were sound it would provide evidence for an almost unparalleled phenomenon, the maintenance in a fourth century provincial city of one of the pagan competitive festivals which were such an important part of Greek city life in the second and third centuries.⁸² However, the arguments for the date are not convincing. The Caesars mentioned in the civic decree are dated by Anderson to the tetrarchic period, not earlier than 295, but there are many other possibilities. There is no reason at all why they should not be identified with any of the Caesars of the second or third century. Anderson also suggested that the Maximianeia must be an imperial, not a private foundation, but the argument adduced in favour of this is groundless.⁸³ On the contrary, it is far more likely that these games, which did not have the high status of the famous ‘sacred’ or ‘iselastic’ competitions of the cities of the Greek East, were privately established and named after their original founder. They may conceivably be connected with a certain Maximianus, commemorated in a Latin inscription of Antioch which Anderson also published, who had provided gladiatorial shows while he held the office of duovir, and who had also left money in his will for some other unknown purpose.⁸⁴ This money might have been set aside for the funding of games, as was certainly the case with the will of an aedile, C. Albucius Firmus, which provided for the creation of a certamen gymnicum during the festival of the Moon god.⁸⁵ The Maximianeia, then, almost certainly took their name from a private citizen, not from an emperor. We cannot say when they were first celebrated, but we can put an approximate date to the activities of C. Ulpius Baebianus, who, according to Anderson, was the earliest of the attested agonothetae. One of the discoveries made by Ramsay’s 1912 excavation in the Mên sanctuary was a life-size female statue, depicting a certain Cornelia Antonia. A Latin inscription, reported by Anderson but not fully published, shows her to have been the sister of Ulpius Baebianus. The statue, which is now in the Konya Museum, is made of Docimian marble and is almost certainly a product of the Docimian school of sculptors which was active through the second and third centuries.⁸⁶ It can be dated on stylistic grounds to the middle Antonine period, around the middle of the second century AD.⁸⁷ The career of C. Ulpius Baebianus, therefore, can be firmly placed in the second century and all the documents from Antioch relating to the Maximianeia belong approximately to this period. They cannot be used as evidence for a pagan revival in the early fourth century.

The building history of the colony matches the pattern of the historical and documentary evidence. The great age of Antioch was the Julio–Claudian period. This saw the creation of a magnificent complex of public buildings, especially the temple and sanctuary designed to promote the imperial cult. In scale and splendour they match the well-known recent discoveries at Aphrodisias, and in quality they outdo them. The imperial temple in its spectacular colonnaded setting, the propylon and the avenue of Tiberius were a permanent, architectural expression of the special relationship between Antioch and the first imperial dynasty. Additions to the colony’s repertoire of public buildings in the later first and second centuries were more random. The best surviving example is the city gate, built in the Hadrianic period, which is in many respects modelled on the Augustan propylon but cannot match the quality of the archetype (PLATE 7).⁸⁸ No new buildings have been identified belonging to the general period of civic decline in the second half of the third century, but there was a major outburst of activity under the tetrarchy, when the area of the theatre was completely remodelled, marking the promotion of Antioch to become metropolis of Pisidia. The construction of a large basilica close to the city wall in the late fourth century, and of a central church perhaps in the early fifth century, are the only important additions of the later empire, graphically illustrating the transformation and conversion of the community from paganism to Christianity. Whether this represents a further upsurge in civic prosperity, or a redistribution of resources towards church foundations, it is impossible to say.

7. Pilaster capital from the Hadrianic city gate, in Yalvaç street.

Notes

¹The name has been restored in a verse epitaph from the city by W.M. Calder, JRS 2 (1912) 90 no. 10; cf. also W.M. Ramsay, Historical Commentary on Galatians (1897) 201.

²Yeni Türkiye Atlasi (1977), maps of seasonal wind directions; W.-D. Hütteroth, Türkei, Wissenschaftliche Länderkunden Bd. 21 (1982) 97 Fig. 27.

³Hütteroth, Türkei, 109 Fig. 35.

⁴H. Wenzel, Sultandagh und Akschehir Ova: eine landeskundliche Untersuchung in Inneranatolien (1932).

⁵Xenophon, anab. I.2.13; see Magie II, 1313.

⁶A. Wilhelm, Neue Beiträge, Sitzb. Ak. Wien 166 (1910) 48–54; M. Holleaux, Études historiques et philologiques III, xxiv; L. Robert, Villes d’Asie Mineure², 155–7; A travers l’Asie Mineure (1980) 240–4.

⁷L. Robert, Études épigraphiques et philologiques (1938) 260 ff.

⁸Levick, Roman Colonies, 44–5; 95 n. 1. She follows the estimate of T.R.S. Broughton, Roman Asia Minor, 812–16, that the population density in Roman times may have reached 94 persons per square mile (i.e. 36 per square kilometre). The 1950 census figures imply 29 persons per square kilometre in the modern ilçe of Yalvaç. In RE Suppl. XI, 56 she estimated a population of 37,000–40,000 for the territory of Antioch in addition to 7,500–10,000 who might have lived in the city itself. While the latter figures look plausible, recent survey work in southern Pisidia and in the territory of Sagalassus (see M. Waelkens, Sagalassos IV (1997) 11–102), although not yet at Antioch itself, suggests amuch higher density of settlement in the Roman period than today.

⁹See T. Drew-Bear, XIV Araş., forthcoming.

¹⁰ Strabo XIV.2.29, 663. See R. Syme, Anatolica. Studies in Strabo (1995) 15–23.

¹¹ For the Roman road system at this point, where there was a Roman guard post in the Severan period, see M. Christol and T. Drew-Bear, Un castellum romain près d’Apamée de Phrygie (1987).

¹² Polybius V. 57.5–8; cf. S. Mitchell, AS 44 (1994) 132 n. 8.

¹³ See Syme, Anatolica, 227–9; Levick, Roman Colonies, 38 ff.; Mitchell, Anatolia I, 70 and map 3 opp. p. 78.

¹⁴ See the famous edict of L. Antistius Rusticus of AD 93 (McCrum and Woodhead, Select Documents of the Flavian Emperors no. 464). For its interpretation, see H.-U. Wiemer, ‘Das Edikt des L. Antistius Rusticus. Eine Preisregulierung als Antwort auf eine überregionale Versorgungskrise?’, AS 47 (1997) 195–215.

¹⁵ Magie II, 986 n. 23; J. Gagnières, Laodicée du Lycos: le nymphée (1969) 2; and M. Wörrle, Chiron 5 (1975) 59–89 who publishes an inscription of 267 BC which predates the foundation of Laodicea. For its significance in the third century BC see Mitchell, AS 44 (1994) 132.

¹⁶ The Seleucid origin of Hierapolis is revealed by the names of the city tribes. F. Kolb, ZPE 15 (1976) 255–70, suggests Antiochus I as the most likely founder. Cf. J. and L. Robert, Bull. ép. 1976, 668; L. Robert, BCH 107 (1983) 514–15; T. Ritti, Hierapolis. Scavi e ricerche I (1985) 118–22.

¹⁷ Magie II, 988–9 n. 26.

¹⁸ Apame was of Bactrian origin and the settlement at Apamea included an important Iranian community; cf. L. Robert, Noms indigènes dans l’Asie Mineure gréco-romaine (1963) 348–9; BCH 108 (1984) 467–72.

¹⁹ Hellenistic decrees of Laodicea: O. Kern, Die Inschriften von Magnesia no. 59a; F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Die Inschriften von Priene no. 59; MAMA VI no. 5; L. Robert in J. Gagnières, Laodicée du Lycos, 248–54; Antioch on the Maeander: Die Inschriften von Magnesia no. 59b, l. 26; C.P. Jones, Chiron 13 (1983) 369–80 with bibliography p. 380 n. 62; compare C. Habicht, Ath. Mitt. 72 (1957) 242 ff. no. 65. Apamea: MAMA VI no. 173, cf. Bull. ép. 1939, 440; L. Robert, Hellenica XI/XII (1960) 124, Noms indigènes, 350, a decree of the time of Eumenes II. Other evidence for Greek civic organisation in hellenistic Phrygia includes decrees from Pelta and Prymnessus, C. Michel, Recueil des inscriptions grecques nos. 542 and 545.

²⁰ SEG VI 592, with Levick, Roman Colonies, 17 n. 6 against Magie II, 1315 n. 20. Compare the cult at Bithynium, later Claudiopolis, for its founder Prusias I (F.K. Dörner, Bericht über eine Reise in Bithynien, D. Ak. Wien 75. 1 (1952) no. 81, restored and interpreted by L. Robert, A travers l’Asie Mineure (1980) 129–32) and the cult of Seleucus I himself at Thyatira (OGIS 211; TAM V.2, 901). There is a civic decree of Apollonia dating to 242 BC, MAMA VI no. 154. M. Wörrle, Fremde Zeiten. Festschrift Borchhardt (Vienna 1996) 160 n. 52, does not exclude the possibility that Apollonia was an Attalid foundation.

²¹ Magie II, 1146–7 n. 2; the Seleucid name is first attested in 243/2 BC.

²² Magie II, 1150 n. 32 citing third-century BC inscriptions. The other Seleucid cities of Cilicia, Antiochia on the Sarus (Adana) and Seleucia on the Pyramus (Mopsuhestia) seem to have been founded in the second century BC.

²³ Strabo XII.8.14, 577.

²⁴ Die Inschriften von Magnesia no.61 = OGIS 233:

²⁵ The primary evidence is summarised by Magie II, 941–2 n. 38.

²⁶ Die Inschriften von Magnesia no. 59.

²⁷ Die Inschriften von Magnesia nos. 79 and 80, which were shown to be parts of the same inscription by L. Robert, Rev. phil. 1 (1927) 116–17 (OMS II, 1071–2). The third decree issued by an Antioch is no. 81. See the discussion of L. Robert, in J. Gagnières, Laodicée du Lycos, 330 n. 4 and Magie II, 1315–16 n. 21.

²⁸ D.M. Robinson, TAPA 57 (1926) 233 no. 66 published a fragmentary inscription found at the south side of the Tiberia platea, which he claimed was hellenistic. His restorations were rightly rejected by W.M. Ramsay, JHS 50 (1930) 274–5, although his own suggestions are equally unacceptable. To judge from the lettering shown by the photograph in TAPA the inscription is certainly Roman. Ramsay also reported that he had copied an inscription which recorded the names of Thracians, derived from an early settlement of Thracian origin at Antioch (JRS 12 (1922) 186). This was never published and no trace of it has come to light since, either at Antioch or in Ramsay’s notebooks. See further L. Robert, Noms indigènes, 360 and Monnaies grecques (1967) 35–7, where he publishes a coin of Antioch issued by a magistrate with a Thracian name. For a possible section of hellenistic wall on the site, see below p. 99.

²⁹ Strabo XII.8.14, 577: 

These passages have been discussed by R. Syme, Anatolica, 344–7, arguing that the text of the former should be emended to refer to Mên Askaeus not Arcaeus, and that the latter passage may have been corrupted by the addition of a gloss on Strabo’s text (indicated by the brackets), erroneously implying that there were two sanctuaries of the god in the territory of Antioch. These suggestions are attractive.

³⁰ Strabo XII.2.3, 535.

³¹ Strabo XII.2.6, 537.

³² Strabo XII.3.34, 558.

³³ Strabo XII.3.37, 559.

³⁴ Strabo XII.3.31, 557; see n. 29.

³⁵ Strabo XII.5.3, 567.

³⁶ G.E. Bean, AS 10 (1960) 48–50 no. 96 and unpublished inscriptions from the site (cf. S. Mitchell, Anatolian Archaeology 1 (1995) 16).

³⁷ Levick, Roman Colonies, 29–41; RE Suppl. X (1968) 49–50.

³⁸ S. Mitchell, CQ 26 (1976) 298–308; Anatolia I, 73; cf. Syme, Anatolica, 253–5.

³⁹ Roman Colonies, with full earlier bibliography; RE Suppl. X, 49–61.

⁴⁰ Levick, Roman Colonies, 68–91.

⁴¹ They are distinguished in Antistius Rusticus’ edict to prevent grain hoarding; see n. 14.

⁴² For neo-Phrygian inscriptions from the territory of Antioch, see S. Mitchell, ANRW II.7.2 (1981) 1062.

⁴³ See M. Waelkens, Die kleinasiatischen Türsteine (1986) 271–2.

⁴⁴ Levick, Roman Colonies, 76–7.

⁴⁵ B. Levick, AS 15 (1965) 53 f.; Roman Colonies, 78.

⁴⁶ S. Mitchell, Historia 28 (1979) 414–15.

⁴⁷ Levick, Roman Colonies, 56–67.

⁴⁸ Levick, Roman Colonies, 78.

⁴⁹ Cf. Mitchell, CQ 26 (1976) 298–308; Anatolia I, 74. Apart from legio VII an auxiliary unit, the ala Augusta Germaniciana, was stationed at Antioch in the Julio–Claudian period; see CIL III 6822; AÉ 1914 no. 128, cf. 1966 no. 472; CIL III 6821 and 6831; AÉ 1973 no. 539; Die Inschriften von Ephesos III no. 837; see Syme, Anatolica, 231 n. 49.

⁵⁰ ILS 7201; Drusus also received one of the earliest inscribed dedications found at Antioch. See W.M. Calder, JRS 2 (1912) 100 no. 32, who suggests that the ala Augusta Germaniciana may have owed its last name to him.

⁵¹ ILS 2696.

⁵² D.M. Robinson, TAPA 57 (1926) 225 no. 51; AÉ 1927, 172.

⁵³ ILS 9502.

⁵⁴ See T.P. Wiseman, Titus Flavius and the Indivisible Subject, Exeter University Inaugural Lecture 1978, 15 and 18 pl. 2.

⁵⁵ Syme, Anatolica, 233 with n. 61.

⁵⁶ ILS 9502, 9503; see Syme, Anatolica, 233.

⁵⁷ ILS 9485. See H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren aus dem östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum bis zum Ende des 2. Jh. n. Chr. (1979) 109 no. 13.

⁵⁸ B. Levick and S. Jameson, ‘C. Crepereius Gallus and his gens’, JRS 54 (1964) 98 ff.; cf. S. Jameson, RE Suppl. XII (1970) 114 and 119 s.v. Attalia.

⁵⁹ T. Drew-Bear, in a lecture at the July 1997 conference on Pisidian Antioch, showed that Caristanius’ wife was not, as previously thought, Sergia Paulla (for whom see Halfmann, Senatoren, 101 no. 4 with Mitchell, Anatolia II, 6–7). The cognomen Paulla, however, may be an argument for a more distant connection with the family of the Sergii Paulli. More immediately she was probably linked with L. Calpurnius Paullus, who put on the first gladiatorial show at Antioch; see below appendix 1 no. 7.

⁶⁰ Levick, Roman Colonies, 111–3.

⁶¹ For this suggestion, although he does not apply it to the Antioch evidence, see D. Kienast, Augustus. Princeps und Monarch (1982) 344–5. See also S. Mitchell, HSCP 101 (1987) 362–3.

⁶² For the overall provincial developments, see R.K. Sherk, ANRW II.7.2 (1981) 954– 1052.

⁶³ J. Nollé, ‘Colonia und Socia der Römer. Ein neuer Vorschlag zur Auflösung der Buchstaben “SR” auf den Münzen von Antiocheia bei Pisidien’, in Rom und der Griechische Osten. Festschrift für Hatto H. Schmitt (1995) 350–70.

⁶⁴ Levick, Roman Colonies, 103–20; C. Habicht, Ist. Mitt. 9/10 (1960) 109 ff.; Halfmann, Senatoren, 28–51; Mitchell, ANRW II.7.2, 1073–4; Anatolia I, 149–58.

⁶⁵ ILS 7777; C. Habicht, Altertümer von Pergamon VIII.3 (1969) 74 no. 32 cf. 113 no. 78. For other connections between Antioch and Pergamum, see Levick, Roman Colonies, 124–6.

⁶⁶ J. Keil, JÖAI 40 (1953) 15 ff., with Levick, Roman Colonies, 126–7.

⁶⁷ C.P. Jones, ‘A family of Pisidian Antioch’, Phoenix 36 (1982) 126–7.

⁶⁸ Acts XIII.50; cf. Mitchell, Anatolia II, 3–10.

⁶⁹ For instance Nero’s wife Poppaea; see M.H. Williams, Journal of Theological Studies 1988, 97–111.

⁷⁰ or the social origins of Paul’s early converts, see W. Meeks, The First Urban Christians (1982). His deliberate decision to discount most of the evidence of Acts in favour of that of the Pauline epistles leads him to underestimate the degree to which Paul attempted to proselytise among the civic aristocracy.

⁷¹ See appendix 1 for the inscriptions of Diogenes at Antioch. His role in persecution is attested by MAMA I no. 170 (cf. Mitchell, JRS 78 (1988) 105–24 for the circumstances).

⁷² Levick, AS 8 (1958).

⁷³ Robinson, TAPA 57 (1926) 234 ff. The mosaic floor itself is described by E. Kitzinger, Mélanges Mansel I (1974) 384–95; see below pp. 210–17 for the building. Basil, ep. 260 was addressed to Optimus, and he is mentioned also by Socrates, HE VII.36 and Theodoret, HE V. 18.

⁷⁴ Appendix 1 no. 11.

⁷⁵ For the bibliography, see chapter 2 n. 16

⁷⁶ JRS 3 (1913) 267 ff.

⁷⁷ JRS 3 (1913) 267 ff. nos. 12–14; CMRDM I no.s 164–6.

⁷⁸ JRS 3 (1913) 267 ff. nos. 17–19; CMRDM I no.s 168–70.

⁷⁹ JRS 3 (1913) 267 ff. nos. 20–23; CMRDM I no.s 171–4.

⁸⁰ JRS 3 (1913) 284 no. 11 and 295 no. 24.

⁸¹ This dating was accepted by Levick, Roman Colonies, 86–7.

⁸² See Mitchell, Anatolia I, 217–25 with further bibliography.

⁸³ Namely that the celebrations (themides) of these games were numbered in a fresh series beginning with each new agonothete.

⁸⁴ Anderson, JRS 3 (1913) 296 no. 16.

⁸⁵ CIL III 6829; ILS 5070.

⁸⁶ M. Waelkens, AJA 89 (1985) 652 n. 7; further bibliography in III Araş;. (1986) 195 n. 19.

⁸⁷ J. Inan and E. Alföldi-Rosenbaum, Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor (1966) 208–9 no. 287. K. Fittchen and P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen der Stadt Rom I (1985) 21–2 date the sculpture a little later, to the time of M. Aurelius.

⁸⁸ See Maurice Byrne, forthcoming.