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Romans and pirates in a late Hellenistic oracle from Pamphylia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Philip De Souza
Philip De Souza
Affiliation:
St Mary's University College
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Extract

In the publication of their second journal of archaeological travels in Cilicia, Bean and Mitford included the text of an unusual inscription from the site of ancient Syedra. The text has previously been discussed by Louis Robert, by the Hungarian historian of piracy Egon Maróti, and also by H. W. Parke. Although all four made suggestions about the date and interpretation of the inscription, no firm conclusions were reached.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 477 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1 Bean, G. E. and Mitford, T. B.,Journeys in Rough Cilicia in 1962 and 1963(Vienna,1965),21–23Google Scholar; Robert, L.,Documents de la Asie Mineure meridionale(Geneva/Paris,1966),91–100Google Scholar; Maróti, E.,AAA Hung. XIV (1968),233–238Google Scholar (in English) and Gymnasium 98 (1991), 177–8 (in German); Parke, H. W.,The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor(London, 1985),157–159.Google Scholar

2 ponos is clearly used here in its Homeric sense of ‘battle’, rather than merely ‘toil’; see LSJ,

3 I am very grateful to my colleague Dr Stephen Instone for his suggestions regarding this translation. I have not discussed all the details of the vocabulary and grammar of this inscription, having nothing of significance to add to the observations of earlier commentators

4 Robert, op. cit., p. 92, based on //. 12.422.

5 Op. cit., pp. 96–100. On the ritual context of the inscription and the statue group see C. A. Faraone, Cl. Ant. 10 (1991), 168–70.Google Scholar

6 Od. 3.73,9.254, 16.426, 17.425

7 The sense of urgency which seems to have prompted the Syedrans to obtain this oracle also implies that their problem is greater than mere banditry, which was typically a local phenomenon, more easily dealt with than piracy; see Dio Cass. 36.20.3–4.

8 Str. 14.3.2. Note also 14.5.7 on the extent of the territory which the ‘pirate’ Zeniketos controlled prior to his defeat by Servilius Isauricus (Korykos, Phaselis, and parts of Pamphylia). Cicero II Verr. 4.21 emphasizes Phaselis' connections with pirates.

9 Op. cit., pp. 22–3. Their suggestion that Syedra did not exist at all before the mid-first century B.C. is based on a lack of conclusive evidence and cannot be used to determine the date of the oracle. Parke's second century A.D. date is similarly inappropriate: op. cit., p. 158.

10 Revised text in /G-S/T Knidos, vol. 1; also in Crawford, M.,Roman Statutes(London,1996),231–270Google Scholar.The Syedrans' fear of Rome is also invoked in the discussion of the oracle by F. Sokolowski, BCH92 (1968), 519–22.Google Scholar

11 lex de provinciis praetoriis Knidos copy col. II, lines 2–4 and col. Ill, lines 28–37.

12 Lucan 8.260. Strabo does not mention Syedra. See further Bean and Mitford, op. cit., pp. 22–3.

13 Plut. Pomp. 28.1; Veil. Pat. 2.32.4

14 Op. cit., p. 22.

15 ILLRP 342,11. 4–6. A. N. Sherwin-White, JRS 66 (1976), 1–14 argues that this inscription refers to the campaign of his son, Marcus Antonius Creticus, but there is no evidence to suggest that he ever went further east than the Aegean.Google Scholar

16 It has recently been argued that Cilician piracy was an economic and political response to Roman occupation and exploitation of Southern Anatolia, byPohl, H., Die romische Politik und die Pimterie im ostlichen Mittelmeer vom 3. bis zum 1. Jh. v. Chr.(Berlin,1993), but see CR 45 (1995), 99–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 See Parke, op. cit., pp. 219–24.

18 Compare the Lycian inscription discussed below.

19 For example, Ormerod, H. A.,Piracy in the Ancient World(Liverpool,1924),205–213. A similar view is implicit in Pohl, op. citGoogle Scholar

20 Plut. Pomp. 25; App. Mith. 92; Dio Cass. 36.21–2.

21 Str. 14.3.2. He describes them as politikos kai sophronos, which is clearly intended as a contrast with the politically unsophisticated (and piratically inclined) Pamphylians and Cilicians

22 Str. 14.5.7. Phaselis is one of the last suitable harbours east of Cape Gelidonya, and certainly the best equipped. It would not be surprising that pirates made frequent landfalls there

23 OGIS552, 553, 554. The date of the entire group is deduced from the lettering and the lack of any indication of direct Rhodian or Roman control. For obvious reasons I am inclined to date the inscriptions and the events they record to the early first century B.C.

24 OGIS553:

25 See above n. 8. The duration of Zeniketos' hegemony is indeterminable. In spite of the triumphal tone of the inscriptions, there is no need to assume that Aichmon's victories were conclusive

26 SeeSherwin-White, A. N., Roman Foreign Policy in the East(London,1984), chsV–VII, for narrative and analysisGoogle Scholar

27 For the long tradition in the ancient Mediterranean of categorizing political opponents as pirates, see P. de Souza, ‘Greek Piracy’, inPowell, ,The Greek World(London,1995),179.–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Str. 14.1.27; Tac. Ann. 2.54; Paus. 7.1.3. Parke, op. cit., chs 8 and 9.Google Scholar

29 Robert, op. cit., pp. 97–8;Hill, G. F.,A Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia and Cilicia in the British Museum(London),159.Google Scholar

30 I would like to thank Paul Millett and the anonymous referee for their helpful and perceptive comments on the text of this article, and Debra Birch for her moral and technical support