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The Women of Akmoneia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2010

P. Thonemann
P. Thonemann
Affiliation:
Wadham College, Oxford, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article is the first publication of a Greek inscription from Akmoneia in Phrygia, dated to a.d. 6/7. The monument is an honorific stele for a priestess by the name of Tatia, and was voted by a body of ‘Greek and Roman women’. As a document of collective political activity by a female corporate group, the inscription has no real parallels in either the Greek or Roman world. The monument is set in the context of the Roman mercantile presence in central Phrygia in the late Republican and early Imperial periods, and some proposals are offered concerning the identity and significance of the honouring body.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 100 , November 2010 , pp. 163 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

I INTRODUCTION

In the late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial periods, wealthy élite women played an increasingly prominent part in the public life of the cities of peninsular Greece, the Aegean islands and western Asia Minor.Footnote 1 In the fifth and fourth centuries b.c., the involvement of women in the public life of Greek cities had been almost entirely restricted to the religious sphere: individually, to the tenure of priesthoods of female deities, and collectively, to the administration of a small number of women-only festivals.Footnote 2 In the course of the Hellenistic period, the magistracies of Greek civic communities gradually took on a liturgical character; from the third century onwards, priestesses, like other civic officials, were increasingly expected to finance their own office and pay for the upkeep of their sanctuaries out of their own pockets.Footnote 3 By the late second century b.c., the public services performed by female members of the civic élite had expanded outwards from the religious sphere into other fields of public life, and women are increasingly found holding civic magistracies, performing secular liturgies, and bestowing generous benefactions on the wider citizen and non-citizen body.Footnote 4

This transformation in the political and economic behaviour sanctioned to a small class of élite women is best explained as a consequence of deep structural changes in the social hierarchy of Greek civic communities. In the course of the second and early first century b.c., many Greek cities saw the emergence of a new stratum of super-rich landowners, whose relationship with the rest of the civic body was quite different from that enjoyed by civic élites in the Classical and early Hellenistic periods.Footnote 5 The dramatically increased economic inequality between this uppermost stratum and the wider demos was echoed on the political plane in a general depoliticization of public life. The influence exercised by this newly dominant class was largely extra-political: their services to their communities — embassies, military leadership, negotiations with Roman governors and generals, large-scale provision of grain or oil, gifts and loans of cash to the city — were undertaken in a private capacity, not in the context of tenure of civic office.Footnote 6 The bypassing of traditional, men-only civic political institutions facilitated the entry of women into public life. With influence increasingly exercised outside the council-chamber and assembly by autonomous citizen-benefactors, the traditional institutional barriers to female participation in public life simply ceased to apply. The ‘privatization’ of civic government rendered gender less significant than wealth.Footnote 7

The growing prominence of individual élite women in the public life of Greek cities in the late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial periods can be traced thanks to a large number of honorific decrees and statue-bases for individual priestesses, female magistrates and civic benefactors. However, the new public rôles available for female members of the civic élite in the last two centuries b.c. did not, on the whole, include any corporate activities or organization.Footnote 8 This is as we should expect: members of the late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial dominant class exercised their economic power and social hegemony as individuals, not as a corporate body.

A new inscription from the eastern part of the Roman province of Asia, published here for the first time, requires an unexpected modification of this picture. This monument was recorded in 1955 by the late Michael Ballance at the village of İslâmköy, 30 km east of modern Uşak in western Turkey. The inscription can be confidently attributed to the ancient polis of Akmoneia, a small central-Phrygian city situated on a lofty ridge above the modern village of Ahat, c. 10 km south of İslâmköy.Footnote 9

Ballance archive no. 1955/109 (İslâmköy). White Dokimeian marble stele with pilasters at sides and tenon below. Broken above and at sides of base. Ht 2.12+ m (including base and tenon); width 0.66 m (pilasters 0.14 m; tenon 0.35 m); thickness 0.19–0.21 m (base and tenon 0.28 m); letters 0.018–0.025 m. Date: a.d. 6/7 (Year 91 of Sullan era). Figs 1–2.

FIG. 1. Honorific stele for Tatia, daughter of Menokritos (İslâmköy: Akmoneia).

FIG. 2. Honorific stele for Tatia, daughter of Menokritos (İslâmköy: Akmoneia): squeeze.

The monument is an honorific stele for a certain Tatia, daughter of Menokritos, who has acted as high-priestess (archiereia ) of a civic cult or group of cults at Akmoneia; her office may, but need not necessarily, have been the civic priesthood of the Imperial cult.Footnote 10 In most respects, this inscription is of an entirely standard type for the period: a stone stele erected to honour a female member of the local élite, in recognition of various unspecified benefactions. Hundreds of comparable monuments celebrating the personal merits and euergetic activities of élite women are known from the cities of the Greek East in the last two centuries b.c. and the first three centuries a.d. What gives this particular text its extraordinary interest is the corporate body responsible for honouring Tatia, described in lines 1–2 as [γυ]ναῖκες Ἑλληνίδες τε καὶ Ῥωμαῖαι, ‘the wives, both Greek and Roman’. To the best of my knowledge, the phenomenon attested in the İslâmköy inscription, of a corporate body of women passing a decree in honour of a female benefactor, is entirely without parallel in the Greek world. An undeterminable number of lines are missing at the top of the stele, and hence it is unclear whether this body of women was the only group to honour Tatia. We could restore a ‘short’ prescript, assuming that only a single line has been lost from the top of the inscription, with the women as the sole honouring body:

Alternatively, we could restore a ‘long’ prescript, with the Greek and Roman wives as the last of a number of corporate groups honouring Tatia:

Although I see no way of deciding for certain which reconstruction is correct (either would be compatible with the way the stone has broken), I shall offer some arguments below in favour of the ‘short’ prescript.

I shall divide my discussion of the İslâmköy inscription into three parts: (II) date and prosopography; (III) the phrase ‘both Greek and Roman’; and (IV) the character and wider significance of the corporate body of women responsible for passing the decree in Tatia's honour.

II DATE AND PROSOPOGRAPHY

The inscription is dated ‘Year 91’ (line 23). Since the Sullan era (from autumn 85 b.c.) was in use at Akmoneia, our text can be firmly dated to the year A.D. 6/7.Footnote 11 Corroboration is provided by the fact that two of the individuals mentioned in this inscription also appear on the contemporary coinage of Akmoneia. Krates son of Menokritos (lines 16–17), one of the three men responsible for the erection of the monument (and possibly Tatia's brother), is attested as a mint-magistrate at Akmoneia in the latter years of the reign of Augustus, and Menodotos Sillon (lines 6–8), Tatia's husband, minted one of the last issues of ‘autonomous’ brass coinage of Akmoneia (bust of Athena in Corinthian helmet and aegis/eagle alighting on thunderbolt, between two stars).Footnote 12 The precise dating of the autonomous bronze and brass coinage of Akmoneia has hitherto been uncertain (late second/first century b.c.); this prosopographical connection now allows us to say with confidence that the end of the series immediately precedes, or even overlaps with, the earliest Roman provincial coinage of Akmoneia, around the turn of the era.

No fewer than three out of the five individuals mentioned in this inscription carried an additional name (ὁ καί/ἡ καί). Many such additional names probably originated as nicknames, as is explicit in an inscription from Kelenderis in Kilikia: ‘Here lies the son of Synegdemos, 18 years old; his mother and father named him Synegdemos, but everyone else called him Billos’; the name Βίλλος is an obscene nickname meaning ‘Balls’, ‘Ballsy’.Footnote 13 The additional name Σίλλων (here, line 8) is likely to be a nickname of exactly this type, meaning ‘Squint-eyed’ (<σιλλός).Footnote 14 The female name Τρυφῶσα (line 5) seems to have been widespread as a nickname (‘Dainty’).Footnote 15

Publius Petronius Epigenes (lines 19–20) seems not to be attested elsewhere. Given his Greek cognomen, it is likely that Epigenes (or his father) had gained the Roman citizenship by manumission through a member of the gens Petronia . The most likely candidate is perhaps Publius Petronius, an Italian negotiator on Delos in the early first century b.c.Footnote 16 Other Petronii continued to be prominent in the region of Akmoneia down to the third century a.d.: at neighbouring Diokleia, a certain Q. Petronius Capito Egnatianus was jointly responsible for the erection of a statue of the emperor Septimius Severus (a.d. 96/7), and at the village of Dioskome, on the territory of Sebaste, a Publius Petronius was jointly responsible for setting up a monument dedicated to the emperor Philip I (a.d. 248).Footnote 17

III GREEKS AND ROMANS AT AKMONEIA

The specification ‘both Greek and Roman’ appears on a handful of inscriptions from central Phrygia and eastern Lydia in the early Imperial period. In a dedicatory inscription from the reign of the emperor Tiberius, the inhabitants of a village on the territory of Akmoneia are described as τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν ἐν Πριζει Ῥωμαίοις καὶ Ἕλλησιν, ‘those living at Preizos (?), both Romans and Greeks’.Footnote 18 A dedication to the emperor Domitian from the vicinity of Blaundos, dated to a.d. 88, was set up by οἱ ἐν Ναει κατοικοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοί τε καὶ [Ἕλληνες], ‘those living at Naos (?), both Romans and Greeks’.Footnote 19 Finally, an honorific inscription of the late first century b.c. or early first century a.d. from the territory of Hyrkanis in eastern Lydia was set up by ὁ δῆμος [ὁ Λα?]σζεδδίων Ἕλληνέ[ς] κα [Ῥ]μαῖοι, ‘the demos of the Laszeddioi, both Greeks and Romans’.Footnote 20 The phraseology of this last monument is particularly significant, implying as it does that the demos of the Laszeddioi was entirely composed of ‘Greeks and Romans’; that is to say, the term Ἕλληνες was used to refer to all those in the community who were not Romans, not merely to the ethnically ‘Greek’ inhabitants of the village (as opposed to its indigenous Lydian population). At Akmoneia, therefore, the phrase ‘Greek wives’ (αἱ γυναῖκες Ἑλληνίδες) is best understood as a way of referring to the wives of all male Akmoneian citizens, whatever their ‘real’ ethnic origin. The corporate body of ‘the Greek and Roman wives’ (αἱ γυναῖκες Ἑλληνίδες τε καὶ Ῥωμαῖαι) thus corresponds precisely to the male decision-making body of the city, ‘the boule and the demos (of the Akmoneians) and the resident Romans’ (ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος [ὁ Ἀκμονέων] καὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι).Footnote 21

Groups of ‘resident Romans’ (οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι) are known at numerous cities of inland Asia Minor in the late Republican and early Imperial period, often organized into formal ‘associations of Roman citizens’ (conventus civium Romanorum ). In a handful of instances, these associations are explicitly described as consisting of businessmen (conventus civium Romanorum qui … negotiantur ).Footnote 22 Very little is known about the rôle played by these communities in the civic government of their host cities. At Apameia-Kelainai in southern Phrygia, public decisions seem regularly to have been made in the name of ‘the boule, the demos, and the resident Romans’ well into the latter half of the second century a.d.Footnote 23 From the mid-first century a.d. onwards, members of these immigrant communities are occasionally attested holding civic office at the cities in which they resided. An inscription from Apameia dated to a.d. 45/6 commemorates the first occasion on which Roman citizens held all five posts in the Apameian civic archon -college; four of these five posts were held by expatriate Italians.Footnote 24

The involvement of the resident Romans in the civic affairs of Akmoneia is neatly illustrated by the career of M. Iunius M.f. Sab. Lupus, an Italian domiciled at Akmoneia during the reign of Nero. Iunius’ name appears on two Greek public inscriptions of Akmoneia, one dated to a.d. 64, in which he appears as one of the city's three dogmatographoi, the other dated to a.d. 68, in which he appears as one of the city's three archontes, holding that office for the second time.Footnote 25 In each case, Iunius is the sole Roman citizen mentioned in the text; the other two dogmatographoi (Artemon son of Artemon, Patron son of Demades, grandson of Asklepiades) and the other two archontes (Menekrates son of Kokos, Glykon son of Menophantos) all have good Greek names. By a happy coincidence, Iunius Lupus’ tombstone was discovered by Michael Ballance in 1956 at the village of Susuz, c. 5 km west of Ahat.

Ballance archive no. 1956/61 (Susuz). White marble block with tabula ansata, apparently complete. Ht. 0.65 m; W. 0.73 m; Th. –; letters 0.022–0.028 m. Date: late first century a.d.Fig. 3.

While still living, L(ucius) Aelius Venustus, son of L(ucius), of the tribe Fab(ia), for his wife, Tyrannia Veneria, and himself; and M(arcus) Iunius Lupus, son of M(arcus), of the tribe Sabatina, for his wife, Aelia Marcella, daughter of L(ucius), and himself.

FIG. 3. Funerary monument of L. Aelius Venustus, Tyrannia Veneria, M. Iunius Lupus and Aelia Marcella (Susuz: Akmoneia).

This tombstone appears to be the only monolingual Latin inscription from Akmoneia.Footnote 26 The fact that a single tombstone was used for both couples is best explained on the assumption that Aelia L.f. Marcella, the wife of M. Iunius Lupus, was the daughter of the other couple named in the inscription, L. Aelius L.f. Venustus and Tyrannia Veneria. We have already seen that Iunius Lupus was a prominent figure in the civic government and public life of Akmoneia, holding local office alongside native Akmoneians who did not possess the Roman citizenship. As we learn from his tombstone, Iunius chose to marry the daughter of another Italian expatriate at Akmoneia, L. Aelius Venustus; when preparing their funerary monument, the two men chose to have it inscribed in Latin, not in Greek. To judge from Iunius Lupus’ behaviour, as late as the 60s a.d., Akmoneia remained a culturally and linguistically ‘bilingual’ community, in which even those resident Romans who were best integrated into the local civic government still chose, in the private sphere, to privilege their Latin, non-Akmoneian origins.

The prominent Roman presence at Akmoneia in the early Imperial period is best explained in relation to the town's geographical position, controlling one of the two major west–east routes across the Asia Minor peninsula. This road begins at Sardeis in the lower Hermos valley, and climbs east-north-east through the gentle hill-country of the upper Hermos river (the modern Gediz Çayı) as far as the ancient town of Temenouthyrai (modern Uşak). Here the road skirts the southern flank of the imposing massif of Mt Dindymos (Murat Dağı), running north-east through the fertile Plain of Doias (the Banaz ovası), before reaching the fringe of the Anatolian plateau at modern Afyon Karahisar.Footnote 27 The site of Akmoneia overlooks this road from the south, at the point where it passes through a narrow bottleneck along the valley of the Banaz Suyu (the ancient river Sindros), between the Murat Dağı and Çatma Dağı mountain ranges. Akmoneia was thus particularly well situated to control the commercial traffic between the lowlands of western Asia Minor and the Anatolian plateau to the east.Footnote 28

FIG. 4. Map of Central and Southern Phrygia.

The earliest evidence for Akmoneia's development as a commercial centre dates to the period of the Mithradatic wars.Footnote 29 In the late 70s or early 60s b.c. a slave-market (statarion) was established at the city. The statarion was paid for by C. Sornatius C.f. Barba of Picenum, Lucullus’ legate in Asia Minor during his campaigns against Mithradates; the original function of this slave-market may well have been to process the vast numbers of war-captives from Lucullus’ Asiatic campaigns.Footnote 30 This slave-market was still in existence in a.d. 68, when a certain Demades son of Dionysogenes set up a statue of Hermes and other dedications ‘at the statarion’.Footnote 31 The Akmoneians had a patron at Rome in the late Republican period, Q. Decimius Q.f., about whom nothing is known.Footnote 32 By the late 60s b.c., Akmoneia was a wealthy place. In the course of his governorship of Asia in 62/1 b.c., L. Valerius Flaccus was said to have extorted 206,000 drachmae from the city of Akmoneia; this enormous sum, which was supposedly paid by an individual citizen of Akmoneia, a certain Asklepiades, is some indication of the prosperity of Akmoneia during this period.Footnote 33 It may have been around this time that Akmoneia began minting its own bronze and brass coinage, on the same denominational structure and with similar types to the much larger coinage of Apameia-Kelainai, 75 km south-east of Akmoneia.Footnote 34

The large number of Italian businessmen resident at Akmoneia in the late Republican and early Imperial period can be inferred from the unusually wide variety of non-imperial gentilicians attested at Akmoneia in the first three centuries a.d. Some of these gentilicians were relatively common in the Greek world (Atilius, Aufidius, Calvisius, Clodius, Furius, Naevius, Papirius, Vibius); others were distinctly rare, or even unique (Afranius, Catilius, Clutorius, Mevius, Musetius, Pacilius, Titedius, Trollius, Turronius).Footnote 35 Most of these families were presumably the descendants of freedmen of Italians in business at Akmoneia in the last century of the Republic and the early years of the Principate.

In one instance, it may be possible to trace the origins of a prominent family at Akmoneia to the activities of one specific late Republican businessman. In the course of the second and early third centuries a.d., several individuals with the gentilician Egnatius appear at Akmoneia. The earliest attested member of the family seems to be L. Egnatius L.f. Teretina Quartus, who pursued an equestrian military career in the first half of the second century a.d.Footnote 36 Quartus was a native of Akmoneia, where he was honoured as ‘founder and benefactor of his homeland’.Footnote 37 An Egnatius Rapo and an Egnatius Vitellianus are also attested at Akmoneia, and four Egnatii appear on an inscription from the village of Dioskome, close to the south-western borders of Akmoneian territory.Footnote 38 An inscription from neighbouring Diokleia dated to a.d. 196/7 mentions a certain Q. Petronius Capito Egnatianus and his son Marcus; the cognomen Egnatianus should derive from his mother's nomen Egnatia.Footnote 39

The tribal affiliation of L. Egnatius L.f. Teretina Quartus provides us with a clue to the origins of the Akmoneian Egnatii. A haruspex and magistrate by the name of L. Egnatius L.f. T[er.] Mamaecianus is attested at Venafrum in the first century b.c., but there is no reason to suspect that he had any connection with the province of Asia.Footnote 40 A more interesting possibility is that the Akmoneian Egnatii might ultimately be connected to the equestrian financier L. Egnatius Rufus, whom Cicero could describe as ‘the closest to me of all Roman equites’.Footnote 41 It is very likely that Egnatius Rufus belonged to the tribe Teretina, since he is probably identical with the Egnatius Sidicinus (i.e. a native of Teanum Sidicinum) with whom Cicero had financial dealings in early 50 b.c.Footnote 42 Between 51 and 46 b.c., Cicero wrote several letters recommending Rufus to various Roman officials in the provinces of Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia-Pontus. He urged the governor of Cilicia to look favourably on the activities of Egnatius’ local agent in the region, a certain Q. Oppius, who was based at Philomelion in Phrygia Paroreios. In the province of Asia, Egnatius’ interests were represented by his slave Anchialos, whom Cicero recommended to the provincial quaestor.Footnote 43 Given L. Egnatius Rufus’ business activities in the province of Asia (and the neighbouring part of Cilicia, Phrygia Paroreios), it is very attractive to suppose that the Egnatii of Akmoneia might be descended from one of Rufus’ freedmen.

IV THE WOMEN OF AKMONEIA

As we have seen, the chief point of interest in the inscription is the honouring body in lines 1–3 of the text, ‘the Greek and Roman wives’. The existence of a corporate body of this type is not in itself unprecedented. In the small towns of Italy and the Greek world in the late Republican and Roman Imperial periods, ‘the wives of the citizens’ could, in certain contexts, be conceptualized as a separate corporate group within civic communities. A number of inscriptions from the sanctuaries of Lagina and Panamara on the territory of Stratonikeia in Karia refer to a πολίτευμα τῶν γυναικῶν, a ‘civic body of adult women/wives’.Footnote 44 Similarly, at Lanuvium in Latium, at an uncertain date in the Roman Imperial period, a curia mulierum is attested as receiving an epulum duplum; the term curia here, like politeuma in the inscriptions from Lagina and Panamara, probably marks the status of the women as wives of the male members of a curia at Lanuvium.Footnote 45 At Stratonikeia, the politeuma of women seems to have existed solely for the purpose of receiving cash-distributions and participating in banquets; in one inscription, a priest at Panamara is said to have ‘summoned the politeuma of wives, and given to each of them, along with the customary things, one denarius per head; and likewise to those local [i.e. non-citizen] and foreign wives who come up to the sanctuary with their husbands…’.Footnote 46 A comparable distinction between different classes of female recipients of cash-distributions appears in an inscription from Carsulae in Umbria of the late second or third century A.D., in which a distribution of one denarius per head is offered to the mulieribus matron(is) et libertin(is). Footnote 47

What is so surprising about the new Akmoneian inscription is not the existence of a corporate body of ‘wives of the citizens’ per se ; the extraordinary element lies in the women's behaviour as active political agents. Even though the collective body of ‘citizen wives’ could be conceptualized as possessing a political personality, as suggested by the use of terms such as politeuma or curia to describe them, the rôle played in civic life by these women was, under most circumstances, a purely passive one.Footnote 48 ‘At this stage in their lives, women, as a civic category, clearly have no formal role to play any more beyond that of recipients of distributions or participants en groupe in processions and in civic and religious banquets’.Footnote 49 To this generalization, the decree of the citizen wives of Akmoneia for the high-priestess Tatia stands out as a lonely and baffling exception.

Tatia herself is a figure of a familiar type. The banquets and cash-distributions from which these corporate bodies of women benefited were often provided at the expense of (or at least in the name of) individual female benefactors.Footnote 50 A statue-base from Veii in Etruria honours Caesia Sabina for having provided a banquet for ‘the mothers of the centumviri, and their sisters and daughters, and the wives of the municipes of every ordo ’.Footnote 51 In an honorific decree of the mid-first century a.d., the local benefactor Epameinondas of Akraiphia in Boiotia is said to have provided a midday meal for the entire citizen population of Akraiphia, along with their male children and slaves, over a ten-day festival period; his wife Kotila similarly provided a midday meal for ‘the wives of the citizens and the unmarried girls and the female slaves’.Footnote 52 A statue-base from Herakleia under Salbake in Karia describes the offices held and benefactions performed by Ammia, daughter of Charmides, wife of C. Aburnius Eutychianus, ‘having also herself provided distributions for all the wives of the bouleutai and citizens’.Footnote 53 The phraseology (δοῦσαν καὶ αὐτὴν διανομάς) makes it clear that Ammia's cash distributions to the women of Herakleia are mirroring distributions made by her husband to the male bouleutai and citizens of Herakleia.Footnote 54

Such ‘mirrored’ husband-and-wife benefactions may provide some help in explaining the context of the honours voted by the Greek and Roman wives of Akmoneia for Tatia. In lines 6–8 of our inscription, Tatia is situated in relation to her husband Menodotos Sillon, who (as we have seen) was a prominent member of the civic élite of Akmoneia around the turn of the era. In the Roman Imperial period, husband and wife (or mother and son) pairs who had held office together, particularly as priest and priestess, were frequently honoured with twin statues and twin honorific inscriptions.Footnote 55 It is possible that the surviving monument is one of a pair of honorific stelai, set up simultaneously for Tatia and her husband Menodotos. If this were the case, it would be attractive to suppose that Menodotos might have been honoured by the men of Akmoneia (ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος ὁ Ἀκμονέων καὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι) for his benefactions to them, while Tatia was honoured by the women (αἱ γυναῖκες Ἑλληνίδες τε καὶ Ῥωμαῖαι).

Nevertheless, none of this renders the honorific inscription for Tatia from Akmoneia any less remarkable. As we have seen, for a corporate body of women to take either sole responsibility or joint responsibility with the male members of their community for a public monument of this kind is entirely unprecedented in the cities of the Greek world under the Principate. The best parallels for the Akmoneian monument come from Italy in the Roman Imperial period, where a handful of monuments show corporate bodies of women dedicating statues of benefactors, both male and female. At Trebula Mutuesca in Latium in the mid-second century a.d., the mulieres Trebulanae dedicated a statue of Laberia Hostilia, and at Carsulae in Umbria in the late second or early third century, the mulieres matronae et libertin(ae) dedicated a statue of C. Tifanus Agricola.Footnote 56 At Tuficum, also in Umbria, a statue of Camurena C.f. Celerina was dedicated by the municipes et incol(ae) Tuf(icani) utriusque sexus, and at Surrentum, the matronae dedicated a statue of a priestess of Venus.Footnote 57 From the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the only remotely parallel case is a bilingual private monument of the Severan period from Colonia Iulia Augusta Diensis in Macedonia, in which ‘the wives of the coloni and incolae ’ honour a female benefactor (Anthestia P.l. Iucunda) with a statue.Footnote 58 However, the stele for Tatia from Akmoneia is not a private, but a public monument, as lines 15–23 (concerning the erection of the monument by civic officials) make clear; the women of Akmoneia are acting, with male approval and support, as a public body in their own right.

It is at least possible that the explanation for this unique document of collective activity by the corporate body of women at Akmoneia might lie in the specific circumstances of the time at which the monument was erected. As we have seen, the inscription is dated to the year a.d. 6/7. The reign of Caesar Augustus had seen significant changes in the rôles played by women in Roman public life. In particular, the institutionalization of the family of Augustus as the central organ of the Roman state had brought with it an increasingly prominent public rôle for his wife Livia as princeps femina, ‘first lady’ among Roman women.Footnote 59 This symbolic status was reflected in numerous public acts and benefactions by Livia on behalf of the women of Rome. On the occasion of Tiberius’ triumph over the Germans in 7 b.c., Dio informs us that Tiberius offered a feast for the Senate on the Capitol, while Livia feasted ‘the women’ (presumably the senators’ wives) on her own account (ἰδίᾳ).Footnote 60 Many years later, when the widowed Livia planned to invite the senators and equestrians and their wives to a banquet to mark the dedication of an imago of Augustus, Tiberius issued the invitations to the male guests in his own name; Livia, as princeps femina, could appropriately offer a banquet only to the wives of the Roman élite.Footnote 61

It would be surprising if this new way of conceptualizing the position of women in the Roman state — as symbolically organized into an ordo matronarum, with a single woman at its head — had no influence on the behaviour of the local élites in the Roman provinces. Indeed, in one instance, we can see the influence of Augustus’ promotion of Livia as princeps femina on the behaviour of the civic élites of Asia Minor very clearly. At Eumeneia in southern Phrygia, a small bronze coinage was minted during the reign of Augustus with the portrait and name of Livia on the obverse; the mint-magistrate, whose name appears on the reverse within a wreath, was a woman, Kastoris ‘sotira’.Footnote 62 This is, to all appearances, the earliest instance of a coinage minted by a female magistrate anywhere in the Greek world. In the Phrygian Pentapolis, east of Eumeneia, a bronze coinage was minted after Augustus’ death with the portrait and name of ‘Augusta’ (Σεβαστή, i.e. Livia) on the obverse, and the name of another woman, Apphia ‘hierea’ (‘priestess’) on the reverse.Footnote 63 A generation later, during the reign of Nero, a brass and bronze coinage was minted at Eumeneia with the names and portraits of Nero and Agrippina II; the coins in the name of Nero were minted by Iulius Kleon ‘the high-priest of Asia’, while those in the name of Agrippina were minted by Kleon's wife Bassa ‘the high-priestess’.Footnote 64 Kleon's coins carried on the reverse an image of the deity Apollo Propylaios with his characteristic attribute, a double-axe, while Bassa's coins depicted the goddess Kybele and her attributes, a tympanon and lion's head; no doubt Kleon and Bassa had at some point served as high-priest and high-priestess of the Eumeneian civic cults of Apollo and Kybele respectively. Similar examples of ‘paired’ coinages minted by men and women in the name of emperors and empresses continue in later periods.Footnote 65

The decree of the women of Akmoneia in honour of their benefactor Tatia could be interpreted as another kind of local response to the new Augustan ideological programme. At Rome, Livia had been placed in an unprecedented and highly visible position as the princeps of a nominal ordo of women, the female equivalent of the male populus Romanus at whose head the princeps Augustus now sat. For the Akmoneian ordo matronarum to pass a decree in honour of their own local princeps femina, the high-priestess Tatia, may have seemed like an appropriate way of reflecting this ideological system at the civic level. In fact, at Rome, Livia's ideological prominence was not accompanied by any real auctoritas or political power, since the Roman ordo matronarum of the early Principate remained an entirely passive body, devoid of autonomy and existing solely for the purpose of receiving benefactions from their female princeps; indeed, it is possible to interpret Livia's sharply and restrictively defined public rôle as ‘really the reverse of a movement towards a serious change in the social role of women, and so … no exception to the repressive stabilizing intended by Augustus’ programme as a whole’.Footnote 66 For a collective body of women to be licensed to engage in active, quasi-political behaviour of the kind attested in the Akmoneian decree for Tatia was not part of the new Augustan gender ideology at all.

Nonetheless, there is no reason to expect that the normative purpose of the Augustan social programme would necessarily have been instantly and accurately understood and assimilated in a small town at the opposite end of the Roman Empire. It seems to me at least possible that the male inhabitants of Akmoneia, in licensing this unparalleled outbreak of female political action, were attempting to replicate social developments in the metropolis in their own small provincial community. If this interpretation is broadly correct, the assembly of the Greek and Roman women of Akmoneia is perhaps best read as a short-lived misunderstanding of what was going on in Augustan Rome. At any rate, better counsels soon prevailed; the ‘Greek and Roman wives’ are not heard of again, either at Akmoneia or anywhere else.

References

1 van Bremen, R., The Limits of Participation: Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (1996)Google Scholar; Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-Th., ‘Les activités publiques des femmes sénatoriales et équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain’, in Eck, W. and Heil, M. (eds), Senatores populi Romani (2005), 169–212Google Scholar, at 189–203.

2 Management of women-only religious festivals by corporate groups of women: I.Mylasa 303, IG II2 1184, both fourth century b.c.

3 Quass, F.Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens (1993), 270–303Google Scholar; van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 1), 19–25. For a particularly well-attested case, the sale of priesthoods in the third and second centuries b.c., see Wiemer, H.-U., ‘Käufliche Priestertümer im hellenistischen Kos’, Chiron 33 (2003), 263–310Google Scholar.

4 See for example the honorific decrees for the great civic benefactor Archippe of Kyme (mid-second century b.c.): SEG 33, 1035–41, with Savalli-Lestrade, I., ‘Archippe de Kyme, la bienfaitrice’, in Loraux, N. (ed.), La Grèce au feminin (2003), 247–95Google Scholar; van Bremen, R., ‘The date and context of the Kymaian decrees for Archippe’, REA 110/2 (2008), 357–82Google Scholar. At 1039.8–10, 44–5, Archippe is granted aleitourgesia, implying habitual liturgical obligations; compare the grant of ateleia to a priestess in LSCG 120 (Chios).

5 de Ste Croix, G. E. M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981), 300–26, 518–37Google Scholar; Gauthier, P., Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (1985), 7–75Google Scholar; Debord, P., ‘Stratifications sociales en Asie Mineure occidentale à l’époque hellénistique’, in Frézouls, E. (ed.), Sociétés urbaines, sociétés rurales dans l’Asie Mineure et la Syrie hellénistiques et romaines (1987), 29–40Google Scholar; Fröhlich, P. and Müller, C. (eds), Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique (2005)Google Scholar. For thoughts on the economic basis of this development, see Thonemann, P., The Maeander (forthcoming, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 7.

6 Gauthier, op. cit. (n. 5), 72–3; women, 74–5.

7 In the second and first centuries b.c., Roman Italy saw a comparable (and causally connected) growth of economic inequality between the uppermost social stratum and the masses. However, the socio-political consequences in Italy were quite different; no depoliticization of public life followed. On the contrary, the public sphere was increasingly characterized by destabilizing internecine competition within the dominant class. As a result, unlike in the Greek East, wealthy women in late Republican Rome remained effectively excluded from public life. I intend to study the whole phenomenon elsewhere.

8 Exceptions are confined to religious contexts. In IG V 2, 266 (Mantineia: mid-first century b.c.), an association of priestesses of Demeter is found passing an honorific decree for a female benefactor, Phaena. In Segre, M., Iscrizioni di Cos (1993)Google Scholar, ED 178B (early second century b.c.), financial contributions for the completion of a precinct of Aphrodite come from women only: see further Parker, R. and Obbink, D., ‘Aus der Arbeit der “Inscriptiones Graecae” VI. Sales of priesthoods on Cos I’, Chiron 30 (2000), 415–49Google Scholar, at 429–31.

9 On the situation and territory of Akmoneia, see Hamilton, W. J., Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia (1842), I, 113–19Google Scholar; Ramsay, W. M., The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. I Pt. II: West and West-Central Phrygia (1897), 621–5Google Scholar; Robert, L., ‘Nonnos et les monnaies d’Akmonia de Phrygie’, JSav (1975), 153–92Google Scholar, reprinted in Opera Minora Selecta VII (1990), 185–224; Drew-Bear, T. and Naour, Chr., ‘Divinités de Phrygie’, ANRW II.18.3 (1990), 1907–2044Google Scholar, at 1933. İslâmköy (now renamed Banaz) was identified (on exiguous evidence) with ancient Alia by Ramsay, op. cit., 592–5; Drew-Bear, T., ‘Problèmes de la géographie historique en Phrygie: l’example d’Alia’, ANRW II.7.2 (1980), 932–52Google Scholar, at 942–4, correctly argued that the village must have formed part of the territory of Akmoneia. See further Waelkens, M., Die kleinasiatischen Türsteine (1986), 175–6Google Scholar.

10 For the orthography ἀρχιιέρηαν (line 9) with double iota, cf. e.g. IGR IV 882 (Themisonion); TAM II 41c (Telmessos), 287 (Xanthos), 420 (Patara). For the civic priesthood of the Imperial cult at Akmoneia, see MAMA VI 263 (Julia Severa, ἀρχιέρειαν κ[ὶ] ἀγωνοθέτιν τοῦ ύνπαντος τῶν [θ]εῶν Σεβαστῶν [οἴ]ου; cf. IGR IV 656), and cf. Price, S., Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (1984), 78–100Google Scholar.

11 Leschhorn, W.Antike Ären (1993), 263–5Google Scholar.

12 Krates son of Menokritos: RPC I 3168. Menodotos Sillon: BMC Phrygia p. 6, nos 15–16; SNG Von Aulock 3366; GM Winterthur 4011; SNG München (Phrygien) 56; SNG Cop. (Phrygia) 15; CNG Triton 5 (2002) 500. For the late Republican coinage of Akmoneia, see further below, n. 34.

13 ἐνθάδε κεῖτε παῖς Συνεγδήμου, ηι΄ ἐτῶν, ᾧ ἔθοντο οὔνομα μήτηρ ἠδ’ ὁ πατὴρ Συνέγδημον, οἱ δ’ ἄλλοι πάντες ἐπωνό<μ>ασαν Βίλλον (LBW 1388, with Robert, L., Noms indigènes dans l’Asie Mineure gréco-romaine (1963), 16–22Google Scholar). On nicknames of this kind, see Lambertz, M., ‘Zur Ausbreitung des Supernomen oder Signum im römischen Reiche, II’, Glotta 5 (1914), 99–170, at 116 n. 2, 133–43Google Scholar.

14 Bechtel, F., Historische Personennamen des Griechischen (1917), 505Google Scholar; Zgusta, L., Kleinasiatische Personennamen (1964), 464 n. 73Google Scholar; Masson, O., Onomastica Graeca Selecta I (1990), 280Google Scholar. The name Σείλων and its derivative Σειλωνιανός are also attested at Akmoneia (MAMA VI 312; Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 644, no. 545), but these are more likely to derive from the Latin cognomen Silo : Masson, O., Onomastica Graeca Selecta III (1990), 212Google Scholar.

15 e.g. Manganaro, G., ‘Le iscrizioni delle isole milesie’, ASAA N.S. 25–6 (1963–4), 293–349Google Scholar, at 344, no. 47C (Patmos: Ἀλέξανδρα … ἡ καλουμένη Τρυφῶσα); SEG 30, 1286 (Didyma: Πλαταινὶς … ἡ καλουμένη Τρυφῶσα).

16 I.Delos 2612, II 9: catalogue of subscribers for the Agora of the Italians.

17 Diokleia: Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 660, no. 615 (IGR IV 664); see further below, n. 39. Dioskome: see below, n. 38.

18 Drew-Bear, T., Nouvelles inscriptions de Phrygie (1978), 12–14Google Scholar (SEG 28, 1080): Ahat.

19 Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 610, no. 511 (IGR IV 713). Ramsay restored the final word as Ῥωμαῖοί τε καὶ [ξένοι?]; I would prefer [Ἕλληνες].

20 TAM V 2, 1322.

21 Directly attested only by Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 641, no. 533 (IGR IV 632): [ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος] κ[α]ὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντ[ες Ῥω]μαῖοι ἐτείμησαν Τιβέριον Κλαύδιον Θεμισταγόρου [υἱ]ὸν Κυρείνα Ἀσκληπι[άδη]ν κτλ. This inscription, like the honorific stele for Tatia, derives from the village of İslâmköy, wrongly identified with Alia by Ramsay (above, n. 9); the incorrect attribution is perpetuated by Canali de Rossi, F., Filius Publicus. Υἱὸςτῆςπόλεως e titoli affini in iscrizioni greche di età imperiale (2007), 118–19, no. 87Google Scholar.

22 Delplace, C., ‘Publicains, trafiquants et financiers dans les provinces d’Asie Mineure sous la République’, Ktema 2 (1977), 233–52Google Scholar; Kirbihler, F., ‘Die Italiker in Kleinasien’, in Meyer, M. (ed.), Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zu Rezeption und Integration römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (2007), 19–35Google Scholar. For the correspondence of the Greek phrase οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι with the Latin conuentus c. R. (qui … negotiantur ), see e.g. IGR IV 675 (SEG 36, 1200; Kearsley, R. A., Greeks and Romans in Imperial Asia. IGSK 59 (2001)Google Scholar, no. 135: Prymnessos); Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor (1950), II, 1051–3Google Scholar.

23 MAMA VI 177 (under Vespasian); IGR IV 779, 790 (c. a.d. 128); MAMA VI 180 (first half of second century a.d.); IGR IV 785 (probably second half of second century a.d.); MAMA VI 183 (under Marcus Aurelius); IGR IV 786, 791, 793–4 (uncertain). The persistence of this particular conventus civium Romanorum into the second century a.d. is, however, highly exceptional (Kirbihler, op. cit. (n. 22), 20 n. 10, 24 n. 39).

24 IGR IV 792: L. Munatius L.f. Camilia Tertius, L. Atilius L.f. Palatina Proclus, P. Carvilius M.f. Collina Pollio, M. Viccius M.f. Terentina Rufus, and M. Porcius Onesimion. The first four of these are certainly expatriate Italians; M. Porcius Onesimion, who lacks filiation and tribus, is more likely to be a native Apameian who had achieved Roman citizenship through manumission.

25 Μᾶρκος Ἰούνιος Μάρκου Σαβατείνα Λοῦπος δογματογράφω, AE 2006, 1427.7, 16–17; Μᾶρκος Ἰούνιος Μάρκου Σαβατείνα Λοῦπος ἄρχων τὸ β΄ ἰσηνγέλαμεν, AE 2006, 1426.26–7.

26 Three separate fragments survive of a bilingual (Greek and Latin) dedicatory inscription from the architrave of a monumental building at Akmoneia: (1) Ahat: LBW III 753 (CIG 3860 k 2; CIL III 360; Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 644, no. 542; CIL III 13658; IGR IV 662; Kearsley, op. cit. (n. 22), no. 167a ), to be republished with a photo in MAMA XI; (2) Şaban: Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 644, no. 542 (CIL III 7049; CIL III 13658; IGR IV 662; Kearsley, op. cit. (n. 22), no. 167b ); (3) Kaylı: MAMA VI 333. This third fragment was not associated with the first two by its editors (Buckler and Calder), but the style and size of the lettering are identical to those of the Ahat fragment. The date of the inscription is uncertain.

27 Drew-Bear, T., ‘The city of Temenouthyrai in Phrygia’, Chiron 9 (1979), 275–302Google Scholar, at 275–9; Belke, K. and Mersich, N., Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7: Phrygien und Pisidien (1990), 150–2Google Scholar; French, D., Roman Roads and Milestones of Asia Minor 2: An Interim Catalogue of Milestones (1998)Google Scholar, nos 704, 966–8.

28 Apameia-Kelainai controlled a similar bottleneck on the more southerly route across the peninsula; the city is described by the Augustan geographer Strabo (12.8.15) as ‘a great emporion of Asia, second only to Ephesos, serving as a common entrepot for merchandise from both Italy and Greece’. See further Thonemann, P., The Maeander (forthcoming, 2011), ch. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Nothing is known of the history of Akmoneia in the Hellenistic period: Cohen, G. M., The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor (1995), 277Google Scholar. MAMA VI 259 is an honorific inscription of the early Roman Imperial period for Menophilos son of Apollonios, ‘Macedonian’ (Μηνόφιλο Ἀπολλωνίου Μακεδόνα), and the personal name Μακεδών is attested at Akmoneia (Varinlioğlu, E. ‘Five inscriptions from Acmonia’, REA 108 (2006), 355–73Google Scholar, at 360, no. 2 a36); it is conceivable that this reflects a Macedonian settlement (Seleukid or Attalid) at Akmoneia. Akmoneia was home to a substantial Jewish diaspora community, who may be descended from the Jewish military colonists settled in Phrygia by Antiochos III in the late third century b.c. (Josephus, AJ 12.148–53): Trebilco, P., Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (1991), 58–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rajak, T., The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (2001), 463–78Google Scholar; Ameling, W., Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis II: Kleinasien (2004), 345–79Google Scholar.

30 MAMA VI 260, with Syme, R., Roman Papers II (1979), 601–2Google Scholar: Γάιος Σωρνά[τιος Γαίου] υἱὸς Οὐελίνα [άρβας τὸ] στατάριον … κατεσκεύασεν. Sornatius was also honoured at Pergamon: IvP II 431 (IGR IV 437). Bosworth, A. B., ‘Vespasian and the slave trade’, CQ 52 (2002), 350–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 354–5, suggests that the slave-market was built specifically in order to dispose of slaves captured by Sornatius at Prusa and Nicaea in 72 b.c., but this makes little geographical sense. On Sornatius, see further Guidobaldi, M. P., ‘C. Sornatius C. f. Vel. Barba: una breve nota sul legato di Lucullo in Asia’, CCG 7 (1996), 263–8Google Scholar.

31 AE 2006, 1426.10–13: ἐπί τε τοῦ στατα[ρ]ίου τὰ νῦν πρὸς τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀναθήμασιν καὶ Ἑρμοῦ κάλλιστον ἀνδρειάντα ἀνέθηκεν. Phrygia as a major source of slaves in the late Republican and early Imperial periods: Harris, W. V., ‘Towards a study of the Roman slave trade’, MAAR 36 (1980), 117–40Google Scholar, at 122–3, 127–8.

32 MAMA VI 258: early first century b.c.

33 Cic., Flacc. 34–8.

34 Three types are known, minted by four magistrates: (1) Zeus with oak-wreath/Asklepios with serpent-staff; (2) city Tyche/Artemis with stag; (3) Athena in crested Corinthian helmet/eagle alighting on thunderbolt, between two stars. Magistrates: Theodotos son of Hierokles, Timotheos son of Metrodoros, Timotheos son of Menelaos, Menodotos Sillon. See e.g., BMC Phrygia pp. 4–6, nos 1–16; SNG Von Aulock 3365–8, 8310; GM Winterthur 4011–13; SNG München (Phrygien) 52–6; SNG Cop. (Phrygia) 8–16. For the Republican bronze and brass coinage of Apameia, see BMC Phrygia pp. 74–88, nos 33–109. The Apameian series seems to have been introduced in or shortly before 89/88 b.c.: Smekalova, T. N., ‘The earliest application of brass and “pure” copper in the Hellenistic coinages of Asia Minor and the northern Black Sea coast’, in Højte, J. M. (ed.), Mithridates VI and the Pontic Kingdom (2009), 233–48Google Scholar (confirmed by the chronology of the late Apameian cistophoroi, to be discussed in the forthcoming study of the Republican coinage of Apameia by R. Ashton and M. Byrne). The beginning of the Akmoneian series cannot be dated precisely; the last issues (mint-magistrate Μηνόδοτος Σίλλων) date to the reign of Augustus (see above).

35 Full references and bibliography in MAMA XI, introduction, ‘Akmoneia’.

36 PME I 342, E3; IV 1547–8, E3; Ott, J., ‘Die Kommandeure der norischen Hilfstruppen’, Tyche 10 (1995), 107–38Google Scholar, at 119–21.

37 IGR IV 642; for a further honorific inscription for Quartus from Akmoneia, see now AE 2006, 1425. Quartus was also honoured as ‘founder and lover of his homeland’ by an association of fullers in an inscription discovered at Uşak, the ancient Temenouthyrai (SEG 6, 167; AE 1977, 802). However, this inscription is also likely to derive from Akmoneia, since numerous stones are known to have travelled from Ahat to Uşak: see MAMA VI 149, *167; Robert, op. cit. (n. 9), 156 n. 7; Drew-Bear, op. cit. (n. 28), 284–5.

38 Egnatius Rapo and Egnatius Vitellianus: MAMA VI 295–6. Egnatii at Dioskome: Ramsay, W. M., ‘The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia’, JHS 4 (1883), 370–436CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 414–15, no. 29 (Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 608, no. 498; IGR IV 635; SEG 42, 1203). An improved text of the latter inscription will appear in MAMA XI. In line 5, the correct reading is [ἔ]τους τλ´ [μη(νὸς)] δεκάτου, Year 332 Month 10 of the Sullan era = A.D. 248; in lines 12–13, where Ramsay's text reads [Λ. (?) Ἐγνα]τια|[ν]οῦ Πετρων[ια]νοῦ, the name should be read as Ποπλ[ί]|ου Πετρω[ίου . c. 3 . .]ου.

39 Ramsay, op. cit. (n. 9), 660, no. 615 (IGR IV 664); on maternal cognomina of this kind, see Salomies, O.Adoptive and Polyonymous Nomenclature in the Roman Empire (1992)Google Scholar, 61 n. 2.

40 CIL I2 3116a, with Wikander, Ö., ‘Senators and equites IV. The case of the Egnatii’, ORom 18 (1990), 207–11Google Scholar, at 210 n. 45 (suggesting that he might be an ancestor of Quartus).

41 Nicolet, C., L’ordre équestre a l’époque républicaine (312–43 av. J.-C.) (1966–74), II, 866–8Google Scholar, no. 134; Andreau, J., La vie financière dans le monde romain (1987), 700–1Google Scholar. For Cicero's financial dealings with Egnatius in the early 40s b.c., see Cic., Att. 7.18.4, 10.15.4, 11.3.3, 12.18.3, 12.30.1, 12.31.3.

42 Cic., Att. 6.1.23. For the attribution of Teanum Sidicinum to the tribe Teretina, see ILS 9389; Taylor, L. R., Voting Districts of the Roman Republic: the Thirty-Five Urban and Rural Tribes (1960), 97 n. 55Google Scholar.

43 Syme, R., Roman Papers I (1979), 126–40Google Scholar. The addressees are P. Silius, proconsul in Bithynia and Pontus in 51/0 b.c. (Fam. 13.47); Q. Marcius Philippus, proconsul in Cilicia in 47/6 b.c. (Fam. 13.73–4), and Q. Gallius, his quaestor or legate (Fam. 13.43–4); Appuleius, quaestor in Asia in 47 b.c., proquaestor in 46 b.c. (Fam. 13.45). Subsequent Oppii and Egnatii at Ikonion in Lykaonia may be the descendants of freedmen of Q. Oppius and Egnatius Rufus: Mitchell, S., ‘Iconium and Ninica’, Historia 28 (1979), 409–38Google Scholar, at 421–2.

44 I.Stratonikeia 149, 174, 352 (Panamara); 666 (Lagina). On this use of the term πολίτευμα, see Ruppel, W., ‘Politeuma: Bedeutungsgeschichte eines staatsrechtlichen Terminus’, Philologus 82 (1927), 268–312Google Scholar and 433–54, at 449–52.

45 CIL XIV 2120, with G. Amodio, ‘Alcune osservazioni sulle curie municipali nelle città dell’Occidente romano’, ZPE 120 (1998), 233–49, at 239 n. 50; Pasqualini, A., ‘CIL XIV 2120, la curia mulierum di Lanuvio e l’ “associazionismo” delle donne romane’, in Buonopane, A. and Cenerini, F. (eds), Donna e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica (2005), 259–74Google Scholar (overinterpreting the text).

46 I.Strat. 352: [κ]αλέσας τὸ πολεί[τευ]μα τῶν γυναικῶν, [δοὺς δὲ] ἑκάστῃ μετὰ τῶν λ[οι]ῶν τῶν ἐξ ἔθους [ἀ]νὰ * αʹ, ὁμοίως καὶ τ[αῖς] σὺν ἀνδράσιν ἀν[βᾶσι γυ]ν[ιξ]ὶν ἐντοπίο[ις καὶ ξέναις]. The citizen wives of Stratonikeia were often listed alongside ‘resident foreign women’ (αἱ πάροικοι) and ‘female slaves’ (αἱ δοῦλαι) as recipients of distributions: e.g. I.Strat. 663.6–8, [ὑπὲρ? τῶ]ν γυναικῶν καὶ τῶν παροίκω[ν κ]αὶ δουλῶν, μ[ετὰ τῆς εὐωχ]ίας ἧς π[αρέσχ]ετο αὐταῖς ἔδωκεν καὶ ἑ[κά]σστηι ἀνὰ δρα[χμὰς τρεῖς] (‘on behalf of the [citizen] wives and resident foreign women and female slaves, after the banquet which she provided for them she gave to each woman three denarii per head’); cf. I.Strat. 666.

47 AE 2000, 531. Cash distributions to women (mulieribus ) are frequently attested in Italy: e.g. ILS 6271 (Ferentinum: mulierib(us) nuptis ); CIL X 5849 (Ferentinum: uxoribus ); CIL X 415 (Volcei: uxoribus ); AE 1976, 176 (Blanda Iulia); CIL IX 3171 (Corfinium); AE 1997, 432 (Fagifulae); see further Mrozek, S.Les distributions d’argent et de nourriture dans les villes italiennes du Haut-Empire romain (1987)Google Scholar, 86, 98–9. In CIL XIV 2408 (ILS 5196: Bovillae, a.d. 169), the female recipients of a cash-distribution are specifically described as ‘the wives of the honorati ’ (mulier(ibus) honor(atorum) ). In the testament of L. Veturius Nepos at Feltria (CIL V 2072), in which sums of money are set aside for various funerary rites to be performed by the Ciarne(nses), Hercl(anenses) and mulieres, it is not clear whether the mulieres constitute a separate collegium or are simply the wives of the members of the first two collegia. Cf. the collegium mulierum of CIL VI 10423.

48 See Levick, B., ‘Roman women in a corporate state?’, Ktema 19 (1994), 259–67Google Scholar, emphasizing the strong restrictions imposed on female ‘corporate’ behaviour under the Principate.

49 Van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 1), 148. On women as participants in public banquets in the Greek world, see further Schmitt Pantel, P., La cité au banquet: Histoire des repas publiques dans les cités grecques (1992), 397–9Google Scholar.

50 Women who offered distributions and banquets to the city's women need not always have paid for the festivities from their own resources. In Classical Athens, we are explicitly told that men possessing a three-talent fortune were required to offer a meal in their wife's name to her fellow-demeswomen at the women-only festival of the Thesmophoria: Isaeus 3.80, with Schmitt Pantel, op. cit. (n. 49), 132–5.

51 CIL XI 3811: ‘haec sola omnium feminarum matribus c(entum) uir(orum) et sororibus et filiab(us) et omnis ordinis mulieribus municipib(us) epulum dedit’. The statue was set up by the sorores piissimae, but it is not at all clear to whom this refers: D. Pupillo, ‘L’iscrizione di Caesia Sabina da Veio (CIL, XI, 3811)’, in Buonopane and Cenerini, op. cit. (n. 45), 233–40, at 239.

52 Oliver, J. H., ‘Epaminondas of Acraephia’, GRBS 12 (1971), 221–37Google Scholar, at 228, lines 69–71: τάς τε γυναῖκας τῶν πολειτῶν ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ Κωτίλα ἠρίστισεν καὶ παρθένους καὶ δούλας ἐνηλίκους.

53 , L. and Robert, J., La Carie II: le plateau de Tabai et ses environs (1954), 173, no. 66Google Scholar, with van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 1), 166–7, 293–4.

54 On ‘joint’ and ‘mirrored’ benefactions, see van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 1), 273–96.

55 e.g. the near-identical statue-bases from Ephesos of M. Iulius Aquila and his mother Aelia Ammia, high-priest and priestess of Asia: I.Ephesos 686 and 689, with Wörrle, M., ‘Neue Inschriftenfunde aus Aizanoi I’, Chiron 22 (1992), 337–76Google Scholar, at 368–70; see further van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 1), 117–36.

56 Trebula: AE 1964, 106; PIR 2 L 15; Andermahr, A. M., Totus in praediis: Senatorischer Grundbesitz in Italien in der frühen und hohen Kaiserzeit (1998), 312–14Google Scholar. Carsulae: AE 2000, 533.

57 CIL XI 5711; CIL X 688. In a dedication from Interamna Praetuttiorum (AE 1998, 416), the priestess Numisia Secunda Sabina is honoured with a statue in the following words: ‘ob munificentia[m] huic primae omni[um] pleps Praetuttian[a] mulierum aere coll[ato] statu[am] posuit’. F. Cenerini, ‘Le madri delle città’, in Buonopane and Cenerini, op. cit. (n. 45), 481–9, at 487, takes this to mean that the plebs Praetuttiana set up the statue from ‘denaro raccolto dalle donne’; Buonocore, M., ‘Un’inedita testimonianza di munificentia femminile a Teramo’, Athenaeum 86 (1998), 463–8Google Scholar, at 464, apparently understands the honouring body to be the plebs Praetuttiana mulierum. Neither hypothesis is at all likely. I should prefer to take the word mulierum with omnium, ‘first of all women’, i.e. ‘huic primae omnium mulierum // plebs Praetuttiana aere collato statuam posuit’. For the phraseology, cf. CIL XI 3811 (Veii), ‘sola omnium feminarum’.

58 SEG 34, 631 (AE 1998, 1210): ‘colonarum (sic) et incolarum coniuges Anthestiae P.l. Iucundae honoris causa’ / κολώνων καὶ παροίκων αἱ γυναῖκες Ἀνθεστίαι Ποπλίου ἀπελευθέραι Ἰουκούνδαι ἀρετῆς ἕνεκεν.

59 Purcell, N., ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome’, PCPS 32 (1986), 78–105Google Scholar; Kunst, C., ‘Zur sozialen Funktion der Domus’, in Kneissl, P. and Losemann, V. (eds), Imperium Romanum: Festschrift für Karl Christ (1998), 450–71Google Scholar.

60 Dio 55.8.2, with Vössing, K., Mensa regia. Das Bankett beim hellenistischen König und beim römischen Kaiser (2004), 277CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similarly, at Tiberius’ ovatio in 9 b.c., Tiberius feasted the Roman men ‘on the Capitol and elsewhere’, while Livia and Julia provided a banquet for ‘the women’: Dio 55.2.4.

61 Dio 57.12.5. On this social convention (which was not new: cf. e.g. Cic., Att. 5.1), see Stein-Hölkeskamp, E., Das römische Gastmahl: eine Kulturgeschichte (2005), 73–86Google Scholar.

62 RPC I 3143.

63 RPC I 3160; in place of an ethnic, the reverse carries the adjective Εὐκαρπιτικοῦ (sc. πεδίου), suggesting that the inhabitants of the plain were not yet organized into civic communities.

64 RPC I 3149–52.

65 Laodikeia: RPC I 2920–5 (Iulius Andronikos and Iulia Zenonis, for Nero and Poppaea respectively; Andronikos’ coins depict Zeus, while Zenonis’ depict Aphrodite); Iulia Ipsos: RPC I 3193 (Pomponia, for Agrippina II); Eumeneia: RPC II 1386–9, with Weiss, P., ‘Euergesie oder römische Prägegenehmigung?’, Chiron 30 (2000), 235–54Google Scholar, at 236–9 (M. Cl. Valerianus, high-priest of Asia, and Cl. Terentulla, high-priestess, for Domitian and Domitia respectively; Valerianus’ coins depict Apollo Propylaios, while Terentulla's depict Kybele). At Akmoneia itself, by contrast, we find the local dignitaries L. Servenius Capito and Iulia Severa acting together as joint mint-magistrates on coinages in the name of Nero, Agrippina II and Poppaea: RPC I 3170–7. See further A. L. Morelli, ‘Epigrafia monetale: uno spazio femminile?’, in Buonopane and Cenerini, op. cit. (n. 45), 119–33.

66 Purcell, op. cit. (n. 59), 86.

Figure 0

FIG. 1. Honorific stele for Tatia, daughter of Menokritos (İslâmköy: Akmoneia).

Figure 1

FIG. 2. Honorific stele for Tatia, daughter of Menokritos (İslâmköy: Akmoneia): squeeze.

Figure 2

FIG. 3. Funerary monument of L. Aelius Venustus, Tyrannia Veneria, M. Iunius Lupus and Aelia Marcella (Susuz: Akmoneia).

Figure 3

FIG. 4. Map of Central and Southern Phrygia.