The fortunes of the roman conventus of Chalcidice, Loukopoulou Louiza

8/13/2019 The fortunes of the roman conventus of Chalcidice, Loukopoulou Louiza

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TH E FORTUNES OF TH E ROMA N CONVENTUS OFCHALCIDICE'LouisaD . Loukopoulou

ABSTRA CT: The paper discusses recently published evidence of the Roman presence in Anthem ous and M ygdoniafrom the Undc.B.C. to the Undc.A.D. and attem pts to elucidate the possible links of theconventus c Romanorumof Acantho s with the emergen ce of a Rom an city in Apo llonia of My gdonia.

The influx of RomannegotiatoresinMacedoniain the wakeoftheestablishment of Roman rule iswell attested2. M oreover, epigraphic documentstestify to the formation of aconventus civiumRomanorum in morethanonecityasearlyasthemiddle ofthe1st c. B.C.: Beroia, Akanthos, Ido-menai, S tyberra, Edessa and Thessalonica. Thepresence ofsuchcommunitiesisequally assumedfor othercitiesH erakleiainLyncestis for one,and Stobi on thebasisof the evidence for numerouspersons bearingtheRomantrianomina.TheRoman element was soon invigorated by thesettlement of veterancolonistsand the foundationof severalcolonies onM acedonian soil:atCassan-dreia and Dium in 43 or 42 B .C. by Brutus, inPhilippi by Marc Anthony in 42 B.C., in Pella,before 30 B.C.(?),to be reinforced all too soonby Augustushimself.In all of the above cases thestrategic importance of their location on majorcommunications arteries or ports seems to havebeen the main attraction or the reason for the site'sselection at a time when recurrent barbaric invasions took advantage of the devastation of thecountry to dispute the Roman rule and occupation.

The recent publication of inscriptions fromAnthemous and M ygdonia testifies to the earlypresence of Roman negotiatoresin ChalcidiceduringtheUnd century B.C.,wellbefore the foundation of the Roman colonyatCassandreia3. Theirinstallation in what appears t o be the back-watersof Chalcidice can only be associated with the exploitation of the resources of a region rich in agriculturalproducts and, most im portantly, in timber andminerals indeed gold and silver4 where it would

seem plausible to assume the existence of extendedpublic Roman formerly royal Macedoniandomains. Forthishowever, thereisno evidence.It would also seem plausible to assume that theyrepresent thenucleusof theconventus c.R.which

1. ABBREVIATIONS:Papazoglou,AN RW=F.Papazoglou inANR Wl. 2.1,302-369.Papazoglou,Macedonia=F.Papazoglou in ,

4 000 ( ' . . 1982).Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, Two Studies = . .Hatzopoulos-L.D.Loukopoulou,T wo Studies in AncientMacedonian Topography( 2 ;Athens1992).Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, Recherches 1= . .Hatzopoulos-L. D. Loukopoulou,Recherches sur lesmar-ches orientales desTmnides.1rePartie( 15 ;Athens 1992).Hammond, Macedonia11= N.G.L. Hammond dansN.G.L. HammondetG.T.Griffith,A History of Macedonia,vol. II (Oxford 1979).Papazoglou,ViIIes=F. Papazoglou,Les villes deMac-doine l poqueromaine BCHSuppl.XVI Athnes1988).2.On the presence ofnegotiatoresin Macedonia, see

the studiesofF.Papazoglou,ANR W356-57andPapazoglou,Macedonia196and539 , nn.23and24.3.Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,Recherches51-52, no.A6 : . (Anthemous);83-83, no.K4: ( Kalindoia); cf. thereference to domiciliated foreigners in a fragmentaryhono rary decree from Anthemous dated to the late40softhe1stc.B.C.(op.cit 44-48,no. A2,line 10).4.In the area of Stratoniki, between Stagira and Akanthos (Hammond,MacedoniaII70).

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appears established before the endofthe 1st centuryB.C. in A kanthos, the natural maritime outlet ofthe areaand,moreimportantly,thesafest portofcall for ships linkingtheEast totheWest,at a timewhen land transportations where plagued bybarbarian raids and Philippi, with its port ofNeapolis, were not yet under Roman control5.The situationwasdrastically remedied under thepeace of Augustus. With Thrace under Romancontrol and, later, under direct Roman rule, withthe establishment and fast development of theRoman colony at Philippiandthat of Apri to theNorth oftheThracian Chersonese some decadeslater6, the safety of the land transports was guaranteed. The importance of Akanthos seems to havedeclined, her role being taken over by Neapolis,andnothing more is heard of itsconventusc Roma-norum.Was it absorbed in the colony of Cassandreia?The assumption would havebeen plausible wereitnot forsomeunexpected evidence testifying tothe persistence of domiciliated Romans inMygdonia, at least to the end of the 1st centuryA.D. No less than21ephebes out of a tota l of180, indeed11%infour different ephebic listsfrom the city of Kalindoia (modern Kalamoton)carry the Roman citizenship or use Roman nomina(or derivatives of such nomina) in an otherwiseGreek type of nomenclature7. To judge by their

cognomina, three of them appear to belong to neo-Romans of non Italic origin, owing their en-franchisment to emperors of the Julio-Claudianand Flavian dynasties: . 8, T. 9, - 10; five others are of Italic origin on the evidenceof their latin cognomina, enfranchised probablyunder the triumvirate or by some Julian emperor1'.Furtherm ore, eight ephebes, also ofItalicorigin,descend probably from families ofnegotiatoresn.The names of five other Romangeritesi,are deduced from various forms of nomenclature bo rneby non-Roman citizens, as are the names of thePublicumand theVentuleni15attestedinepitaphsof laterdatefromthesame area. Itisnoteworthythat no ne of these non imperialgentesisattestedin the relatively scanty prosopography of theRoman colony of Cassandreia16.

Archaeological andepigraphic discoveries fromKalindoia indicate a majorriseoftheimportance

of the city under Augustus; there is evidence forthe instauration in the city ofthe cultof Rome andAugustus with monthly sacrifices, athleticcontests and other festivities and for the dedication of a statue of Cesar Augustus funded by awealthy citizen, Apolloniossonof Apollonios sonof Kertimm as17.Wasit the influx in Kalindoiaofthe Romannegotiatoresof the area and the establishment oftheconventus c. Romanorumwhichaccrued the city's importance and wealth, bringing

5.Cicero's laments o ver the loss of control over theessentially imp ortant military East-West axis illustrate thesituation which prevailed in the prov ince; cf. the analysisproposed in Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,T wo Studies62-100.6.On theColoniaClaudiaAprensis,seeL. Loukopoulou,' C olo nia C lau diaA prensis', , . , ,9-11 1986 (Thessalonikel990) 701-715.7.The listsare published in H atzopoulos-L oukopo ulou,Recherches187-94, nos. K9-K12.8. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,Recherches 190,no .K9lineDlOO.9. H atzopoulos-Loukopoulou, RecherchesI91 ,n o. 11A1-2. Cf.op .cit 84, no.K 6: .10.Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, RecherchesI 90 , no.K 9 D 9 5 .11. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, RecherchesI 89 (K9C70: . ' ); I 89 (K9 C69: ); I 88 ( 9 24: . ); 188 (no 9 25: . , );90( 9 D97: ) .12.Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, RecherchesI 89 ( 56 :Caecilii);193 11 D61 :Cottii);193( 11D65:MaesiiorMessii);194 12.21 :Statuii);189 (K9C68:Sulpicii,[cf.ibidem,no .K 9 D 90 : ] ) ; 1 94 (K 1 2. 14 : Terentii);192 (Kl l B21-.Tessidii).13.Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,RecherchesI 92 (Kl1C45:Bruttif);I 92 (Kl1 17:Herennii); I 92 (Kl1 B20:Rennif);I 92 (K12. 12:Rhodii);I 92 (K9 C63:Scanii).14. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,Recherchesl59-60,no.A14 (Anthmonte).15. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,Recherches160-61, no.A15 1-3 et9-11(Anthmonte).16.D. Samsaris, - , 16(1987) 353-433.17. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou, Recherches1, 77-80,no. 2; on the statue of Cesar, seeibidem,with platesXXXIII-XXXV.

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about the astonishing demographic bloom attestedby the large numbersof ephebes yearly attendingthe local gymnasium in the second half ofthe1stcentury A.D.? Indeed the two complete ephebiclistsof Kalindoia18contain thenamesof 90 and 65ephebes respectively. This development wouldseem quite plausible if, as supported in a com munication recently presented by our colleagueMiltiadesB.Hatzopoulos19, theplainof Kalindoiawas by no means some cut-off area, but formedpart of theoldroute of theviaEgnatia,asindeedof its pre de ce sso rs , th e of th eMacedonian kings and, before that, that of thePersian occupation20. W ith the pacification of theland communications under Augustus, our Mygdo-nian city was best suited and well located to becomethe epicentre of business and commercial undertakings in the area and, as inferred in the honorarydecree for Apollonios son of Apollonios21, it didits best to grasp and take advantage of the spiritof the times.However, the boom of Kalindoiadoesnot appear to o utlivetheend ofthecentury.Theeconomic,culturaland demographic blossoming illustrated by documents of the early imperial period,appears to wither awayasearly as the turning ofthe Und century A.D., as does the presence ofRomans. To trust the archaeological evidence, theoldprosperity dissolvedintoobscurity.The key to the mystery both of the disappearanceof the Roman consistentesand of Kalind oia'sdecline maybesoughtinyet another unexpectedepigraphicdiscovery,originating from a borderingregion.Afragmentary latin imperial letter datedto the year137A.D. was recently discovered onthe southern bank ofLakeBolbe. Adressed by theempe ror Hadrianto theHviriand thedecurionesof theApollonienses,it reveals a fact hithertounattested:thattheMygdonian city of Apollonia,Kalindoia's neighbour totheN orth, had acquiredsome kind of Roman civic status. The equallyfragmentary text of a second imperial letter engravedon the same slaband evidently anterior tothe former letter mentions the construction of astabulimifor the convenience of through travellersand the provision for the city's water supply,entrusted to the care of the imperial p rocuratorby an emperor, whose name does no t survive22.

This extraordinary discovery was bound tointrigue. Our sources do not list Apollonia ofChalcidice amongtherare colonies of the Balkanpeninsula:in the late Roman itineraries Apolloniais qualified asmansio,neither ascivitasnor ascolonia23 .M oreover, the re is no evidence of Latindocuments anterior to the Undc.A.D. from thearea.Ina communication presented in1992at the2nd Congress of Thracian Studies in Kom otini24wetried to identify certain analogies believed toexist in the evolvement of the presence of theRoman element in the Thracian Chersonese onone hand andinM ygdonia on theother:the Romannegotiatorescame to eastern Chalcidice on themorrow of the Romanconquest,as they did in theChersonese; they settled probably in Akanthos,themainoutlet of therichmineral oreof the regionandofthe localagricultural products, butalsothestarting point of an important maritime routeleading totheHellenistic East, as they didinKoila,atatimewhentheprincipal land road, the famousvia militarisconstructed by the proconsul Caius

18. Hatzopoulos-Loukopoulou,fiec/jerc/jesI 87-93,nos.K9and 11(Museum of Thessalonike Cat.nos.2668 and2667).19.M.B. Hatzopoulos, The V ia Egnatia from Thessalonike to Apollonia ,Acts of the InternationalCongressin Honour of N.G.L. Ham mond HistoricalTopographyof Macedonia and Thrace ,Pentalophos nomeof Kozani),May 1993 (forthcoming).20. Seer ece ntly L . L ou ko po ulo u, ' ,Actsofthe International CongressinH onour ofN.G L HammondHistorical Topography of Macedonia and Thrace ,Pentalophos (nome of Koz ani), May1993(forthcoming).21 .Supra,n.17.22.The documents were presented at theVth InternationalSymposium on Ancient Macedonia,in November1990(andinearly1991 in a conference at Athens) by ourcolleague Professor G eorgeSouris,to whom I extend mysincere thanks for the information cited above.23 .For a discussion of the testimonia and epigraphicevidence, see Papazoglou,Villes218-22.24 . L.D. Loukopoulou, , lid International SymposiumofThracianStudies, Komotini, September 1992 (forthcoming).

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Egnatius indeed her eastern part offered noguarantees of security. In A kanthos as in Koilathey formed aconventus.Eventually, the securityof communications was established through thepa xRomanaand guaranteed henceforth by thepresence of a Roman colony, Philippi, in easternMacedonia, and, soon thereafter, by a secondcolony, Apros, in south-eastern Thrace. The newlycreated situation drove the Italics to relocate inproximity of the principal East-West communications ax is. Kalindoia, situated at short distancefrom thevia Egnatiaif not on its older courseitself as suggested above25 welcomed a largepart of themembersof theconventusof Akanthosand exploited dynamically this favourable reverseof fortunes, as attested by the decree honouringApollonios son of Apollonios andby theephebiclists of the second half of the 1st century A.D.

The decline of Kalindoia just after the turn ofthe century could not be independent ofthedevelopments registered in her bounds: the emergenceof Apolloniaasa city of Romanstatus inthe earlyUndcentury.Indeed the attribution of the Romancivic status to Apollonia can n ot possibly anteda tethe end ofthe1st c. A .D. For it wouldbehard tobelieve that Kalindoia would attract the domiciliation of the Italics oftheregion and that theywould participatein thecultural and religious lifeof the Greek city, if a Roman colony orm unicipiumhad already been established a few miles from there ,indeed on the principal communications artery ofthe area.Did Apollonia's transformation then concidewith theim portantworksannouncedin theletteroftheunidentified emperor, which,ontheir part,imply measures forthe amelioration of the m ilitaryartery (construction of a stabulum water alimentation)? O ne could notmiss theconnotationwith the extensive repairworksof thevia Egnatiaundertaken by Trajan26, which probably culminatedin the reinforcement of the Roman presence alongitsaxis,asevidenced by the foundationin areas ofcrucial imp ortance of yet further civic centers,such asUlpiaTopeiros on the crossing of the rive rNestos,and ofTraianopolisnear that of the riverHebros27 . Seen from that angle, we propose toview the transformation of Apollonia as being partof this reshaping28 , aiming at relocating and

attracting thither themembersof the neighbouringconventusc.Romanorum which was upgraded,indeed promoted, to a m unicipium folllowing amodel applied in more than one cases by theemperors of the Aelian house in dealing with similarsituations.Kalindoia, deprived of her role of epicentre ofthe Roman presence and of the economic boomwhich the latter brought about, and bypassed bythe course of the great m ilitary and commercialroad, witheredawayeventually for good.L.D .LoukopoulouCentre for GreekandRoman Studies

National Hellenic Research FoundationUniversity of Cyprus

25 .Supra n.19.26 .P. Collait, Une rfection de la 'via Egnatia' sousTrajan ,BCH59 1935)395-415;cf.eiusdem/'LesmilliairesdelaVia Egnatia , BCH 100(1 976) 177-200.27 . . , , : ,ByzantinischeForschungen14 .1 (1989), 577-99.28. A reshaping probably associated withtherelocationoftheMygdonian part of the road, which was henceforthreinforced to cross thelessstablesoilsof the southern coastof the two lakes, aswasrecently suggestedbyour colleagueM.B. H atzopoulos(supran.19).

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TH E FORTUNES OF TH E ROMAN CONVENTUS OF CHAL CIDICE

ROMAN NOMINA ATTESTED INANTHEMOUS AND KALINDOIA

AntoniiAureliiBruttiiCaeciliiCassiiCottiiClaudFerramiFlava

Herenniilulii

Maes vel Messa)OliiPublicaRenniiRhodiiScaniiStatiniSulpicii

TerentiiTessidiiValeriiVentuleni

. ' 8 persons . . . . ' . ' . ' , ' ' . . . . . . . ( )

K 9 C 7 0

K11C 45 9 5 6K 9 C 6 9K11D61K 9 D 1 0 0 4K U 1-2 6 1 1 1 7 9 2 4 9 2 5K 9 D 9 5K 9 D 9 7K 1 1 D 6 5 6 14 1 1 2 0 1 2 12K 9 C 6 3 1 22 1K 9 C 6 8K 9 D 9 0 1 2 14 1 1 2 1K 1 1 D 6 5 1 5 1-3 1 5 9 -11

* References are to Hatzopoulos-Loukopo ulou, Recherches I.

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The fortunes of the roman conventus of Chalcidice, Loukopoulou Louiza

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