Welles, Hellenistic Tarsus (1962)

MELANGES DE L'UNIVERSITE SAINT JOSEPH TOME XXXVIII (o(fert au Pere RE.NE. MOUTE.RDE.)

C. BRADFORD WELLES

HELLENISTIC TARSUS

BEYROUTH IMPRIMERIE CATHOLIQUE

1962

FASC. 2

HELLENISTIC TARSUS

BY

C. BRADFORD WELLES

The cities of the Hellenistic East are known to us, for the most part, from inscriptions and from coins alone or mainly. For the first three cen-turies after Alexander, while these might still have a foreign policy, we learn something of their political history from their communications with the kings or with each other or from their resolutions in honor of their benefactors, but for the first two or three centuries of the Roman Empire our sources of this non-literary nature, while more plentiful than ever, become rather dry. We learn names of persons in great quantities; we hear of offices and other constitutional features, buildings, festivals, and cults. Now ~nd again we are informed ofliterary, philosophical, or religious activities, and of imperial titles and dignities won or forfeited. We cannot be ungrateful for this evidence, and it has contributed generously to all attempts to reconstruct the internal history of the Empire. Marquardt and Mommsen drew upon it for their Staatsverwaltung and Staatsrecht; Liebenam, Abbott and Johnson, and Jones for their studies of the cities and towns; Dill, Ramsay, and Rostovtzeff for an understanding of economic and social developments ( 1). Without this epigraphical and numismatic material,

(1) Th. Mommsen,J. Marquardt, Handbuch der romischen Alterthiimer, 2nd ed., 1881-1887; W. Liebenam, Stiidteverwaltung im romischen Kaiserreiche, 1900; F.F. Abbott, A.C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire, 1926; A.H.M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1937, and The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian, 1940; S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to M arcus Aurelius, 1905; Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Social Basis of Roman Power in Asia Minor, 1941 (and numerous earlier works); M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 1926.

44 MELANGES DE L 1UNIVERSITE SAINT JOSEPH [4

our information about most of antiquity would be poorer and much less reliable. It is, nevertheless, very welcome when now and then this drab and statistical picture is enlivened by flashes of bright if sometimes bizarre light thrown by an historian, a novelist, a writer of letters, a Christian apologist or martyrologist, or a declaimer of the so-called Second Sophistic: Dio Cocceianus, Aelius Aristeides, or Lucian of Samosata. Of these last, Dio of Prusa, the friend of Trajan, has received rather less attention than he deserves. Sophist, Cynic, Stoic, rhetorician, political counselor, he was a prominent figure when he made a tour of the eastern cities for or at least with the knowledge and blessing ofthe Emperor about the years 105-110 (1). In a number of these, he delivered orations which have been preserved, whether as they were actually delivered or as they were prepared subse-quently for publication. They have, in either case, an aspect of immediacy. They were certainly popular, and so they must have been in some sense reasonable and intelligible to the literate public of the cities. Whether or not we should take them literally and in what degree are problems for us to solve, or at least to recognize; but there is no question that they reflect the mentality, the interests, and the life of the cities to which they relate. Each one is something of a puzzle, probably an insoluble puzzle, but as an illus-tration of the nature of the evidence and of the information which it may yield I shall discuss, at least superficially, the two orations of Dio addressed to the people of Tarsus. It is my feeling that, properly understood, these

( 1) The standard treatment is that of H. von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa, 1898; cf. also Wm. Schmid, Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretem, I, 1887, 72-191; Christ-Schmid-Stlihlin, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur, 11, 1, 1920, 361-367. There is a summary account of Dio's career and political views by E. D. Phillips, Classica et Me-diaevalia, XVIII (1957), 102-119. From the literature cited from the last fifty years in Marouzeau-Ernst, Annie Philologique, I may cite the following: V. Valdenberg, La Philosophie politique de Dion Chrysostome, Bull. Acad. Scien. USSR, 1926 et La theorie monarchique de Dion Chrysostome, REG, XL, 1927, 142-162; Y. Saintes, L'Activite Politique de Dion Chrysostome d' apres les discours bithyniques, Diss. Louvain, 1938; N. Lewis, Dio Chrysostom's 'Tyrant of Syria', Classical Philology, XLIV, 1949, 32 f.;]. Day, The value of Dio Chrysostom's Euboean Discourse for the Economic Historian, Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of A. C. Johnson, 1951, 209-235.

5] HELLENISTIC TARSUS 45

throw an interesting and new light on conditions in this and the other cities of Cilicia, matters which have concerned Pere Mouterde, the great epigra-phist to whom we do honor with this volume, since 1921, when he published in the second volume of the journal Syria Les inscriptions grecques et latines du Musee d'Adana (1).

There is no need to tell again the well-known history of Tarsus, the origins of which go back to early times. There is no reason to doubt that it was the Tarshish of Genesis, and the city appears in the Assyrian annals from the reign of Shalmaneser down (2). Greek traditions record the set-tlement of Cilician towns by Argives and others under such legendary heroes as Mopsus as far back as the Bronze Age, and both early and strong Hellenic influence is likely in view of the Greek position in Cyprus. By the fifth century, Tarsus was the capital of the native satraps of Cilicia (3), and by that time, at least, we may expect the essential features of its economic position to have been established. The city lay on the crossing of the clear and cold river Cydnus at the western edge of the plain, where the foothills of Cilicia Trachea begin, but its importance as a site was due to engineering. To the north, a road through the pass known as the Cilician Gates was constructed, and to the south, a small lake had been dredged and fitted with docks to provide a port, the only good port along the Cilician coast. Since the river was navigable as far as Tarsus ( 4) and since the road to the Gates ran through up-land suburbs which provided merchants and travel-lers with safe places to stop over-night ( 5) as well as furnishing the citizens

(1) Syria, II, 1921, 207-220 and 280-294. (2) In the year 832, cf. Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, 2nd ed., II, 2, 1931, 408.

The fullest treatment of Tarsus is that of Sir W.M. Ramsay, The Cities of St. Paul, 1908, 85-244; cf. Ruge in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopiidie, 8 A, 1932, 2413-2439; Hetty Goldman, Excavations at Gozlii Kule, Tarsus, 1: The Hellenistic and Roman Periods, 1950. References to Tarsus otherwise are cited as far as they are relevant in subsequent notes.

(3) Xenophon, Anabasis, 1, 2, 21-24. (4) Cleopatra, for example, could sail up to the city when summoned by Antony

(Plutarch, AntoT!)I, 26). (5) Xenophon, Anabasis, 1, 2, 23, gives the distance as four days march, twenty-

46 MELANGES DE L'UNIVERSITE SAINT JOSEPH [6

with cool and healthy summer residences, it was natural that Tarsus should be the southern terminus of routes from western and especially northern Asia Minor. Xenophon found the city flourishing and so did Alexander, although the river did not accord him its usual healing qualities (1), and under the first or second Antiochus it received a dynastic name, Antioch on the Cydnus, which remained in use for over a hundred years, perhaps, although the evidence is uncertain: Delphian inscriptions carry the name back to the early years of Antiochus II (2), but the local currency with this designation belongs to the second century, perhaps to the reign of Antio-chus IV (3).

Tarsus was occupied briefly by Ptolemy Ill about 246 (4) but was otherwise under the Seleucid kings until late in the history of the dynasty. All the kings minted in Tarsus, except those between Seleucus IV and Deme-trius II (5). The evidence for this period is numismatic. A. R. Bellinger (6), who has studied the coins most intensively, believes it possible to follow the struggle for possession of the city between Antiochus VIII Grypus and his brother, Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, down to the former's death in 96, after

five parasangs. See further Curtius, Alexander, 3, 4, 8; Strabo, 14, 5, 12, 673; D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, 1950, 270-277.

(I) Curtius, Alexander, 3, 5, l-4;Justin, 11, 8, 3-4; Plutarch, Alexander, 19, 1; Arrian, Anabasis cif Alexander, 2, 4, 7; for the beneficent effect of the water cf. Strabo, 14, 5, 12, 673.

(2) Fouilles de Delphes, Ill, 2, 208 (archonship of Dion); H. Collitz, Sammlung grie-chischer Dialektinschriften, 11, 2734 (archonship of Aristion). For the dates cf. R. Flaceliere, Les Aetoliens a Delphes, 1937, 501 f.

(3) Miss D. H. Cox in Goldman, Tarsus, I, 48-50, dates the Autonomous Series I to 190-160, but without detailed discussion; and this includes also the earliest of the TIXpaeoov series.

(4) This is etablished by the coins, cf. E.T. Newell, The Coinage of the Western Seleucid Mints from Seleucus I to Antiochus 11/ (Numismatic Studies, No. 4, 1941), 222 f., but had seemed likely on general grounds, although the city is not named in the chronicles of Ptolemy Ill (U. Wilcken, Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, 1914, 1).

(5) No Seleucid king minted in Tarsus after Antiochus Ill until Antiochus VII, as Miss Margaret Thompson kindly informs me.

(6) A. R. Bellinger, The End of the Seleucids (Transactions of the Connecticut Acade"!Y of Arts and Sciences, 38), 1949, 51-102.


which the latter held the city for another year. Thereafter there are no more royal coins, although it may be that Cilicia was for a time loyal to Cyzicenus' line. His son Antiochus X Eusebes sailed over to Aradus ( 1) (does this indicate some connection of the two cities at this time?) to continue the war on his cousins, the sons of Grypus, and the eldest of these, Seleucus VI, forced his way into Mopsuestia and was killed in an uprising of the inha-bitants (2). Eusebes died soon afterwards in battle with the Parthians, and a punitive expedition of Seleucus' brothers against Mopsuestia does not seem to have resulted in a firm control. In 83 Cilicia, along with Syria, fell to Tigranes, but he ruled it through a general Magadates and drew upon it for the inhabitants of his name city Tigranocerta (3). Roman occupa-tion of eastern Cilicia may have waited for Pompey ( 4), although a province called by this name which included Tracheia and the mountaneous coast to the west existed at least since 84 (5).

Little is known of the internal history of Tarsus under the Seleucids, but there is enough evidence to permit some speculation. Whatever may have been the ancestry of the inhabitants at the time of Alexander's cam-paigns, the city can have been very little Hellenic in speech and institutions. There may have been a Greek commercial colony there about which we know nothing, but language and administration must have been oriental, Cilician or Persian. Probably, because Tarsus was the most important city of the region, a garrison was installed by Alexander and maintained by the Successors, and while the site was not strong enough to provide security for a treasury (this was at Cyinda, the unknown location of which must be looked for somewhere in the hills) (6), Tarsus must have been the residence

(1) Bellinger, op. cit., 73. (2) Bellinger, op. cit., 74. (3) Bellinger, op. cit., 80-82. (4) Cicero, De Provinciis Consularibus, 31; Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, 375 f. (5) Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, I, 379-390; cf. T.R.S. Broughton, The

Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 11, 1952, 61, 80. (6) Strabo, 14, 5, 10, 672, places it inland from Anchiale, and so in the upland

west of Tarsus at a distance of perhaps thirty miles.


of the satrap, who would have occupied the old palace of the native rulers known by the name or title of Syennesis (1). Additional Greek or Hel-lenized settlers must have been provided when the city became an Antioch. The two known 'Avnoxs1'.; &r.o K6'8vou of the third century have Greek names, Stasianax the son of Aristippus and Athenodotus the son of Theo-dotus(2). Stasianax,in a year which no one has dated later than 243/2(3) was granted by Delphi ~?o~sviotv, ~?o:J.otV.,.;LC(V, ~pos'8p:xv, ~po'l>ntLC(\1 1 cXO"IJALC(\1 1 ch&-AsLxv miv.,wv xxt .. &nx 80"C( xxt ..a1'~ &).A.oL


example, by Pergamum, Celaenae, and Sardes (1). These were existing native cities, important as centers of administration, which became Helle-nized through the introduction of garrison troops, officials, and business men, and so were ~6AsL~ They sometimes received new names taken from the dynasty and sometimes did not, but their constitutions remained differ-ent, not only from the older Greek cities but even from such completely new foundations as Alexandria and Antioch near Daphne, which lacked any native tradition: different also from the later phenomenon, native cities like Jerusalem and Babylon which Hellenized on their own, without any Greek population of consequence. While Antioch on the Cydnus was un-doubtedly autonomous in principle, it must have remained under the close supervision and direction of the resident satrap. No proper civic life was possible so long as the Greeks were few and the natives proud of their cen-turies-old importance. What civic officials existed, and we may legitimately think of the prytanis and the damiorgos, both known under the Empire (2), these would have been elected by a handful of citizens, or even appoin-ted by the satrap with the approval of the king (3).

It is possible, therefore, to understand two events of the city's history in the second century which would other)Yise be hard to explain. The first is the story in Second Maccabees (4) that riots occurred about 170 in Tarsus and Mallus, because these cities had been given lv '8wps~ by Antiochus IV 'Av-no;x:'8 L -;~ ~~AJ..~x,~ nu ~~cn:Aew~, and the second is the brief use of the dynastic name, 'Av-;Lo;x:&wv -;wv ~po~ -;wL Ku'8vwL on the city's autonomous coinage in the second century followed shortly by the permanent re-introduction of the old name, T~pcr&wv (5).

(1) Jones, Greek City, 43, 49. (2) Ruge, R-E, op. cit., 2431 f. (3) It is possible to think of such an ~mcr-r&'t"l)


Stephen of Byzantium ( 1) transmits a report that Tarsus was named Antioch by Antiochus IV, but this has been dismissed as an error ever since the discovery of 'Av-noxs'1.'~ &"o K6'8vou in the two Delphian inscriptions of the third century. It is suggested that Stephen was confused between Tarsus (Antioch on the Cydnus) and Mallus (Antioch on the Pyramus) (2). This is possible, but on the other hand there is no reason to suppose that a king could not refound an existing city even if it already bore the same dynastic name as he would give it, and the introduction of the autonomous coinage means that something happened to Tarsus which may well be credited to Epiphanes. While exact dating seems to be impossible, all numis-matists place the beginning of the coinage in the first part of the second century, and it then continues without interruption down to and on into the Empire. Miss D. H. Cox, the most recent scholar to occupy herself with the coins of Tarsus, suggests that the coinage may have been a concession granted to the city by Antiochus Ill at the very end of his reign, but the suggestion has no support other than in the sequence of the coin types and the estimated length of time required for them (3).

I am inclined rather to accept the statement of Stephen of Byzantium and to believe that the autonomous coinage began with the refounding of the city under Antiochus IV. The grant of the city as a gift estate to Antio-chis is in no way inconsistent with this. In the first place, we have not to take literally her designation as a "cx).)..cx;t"t] . The author of Second Mac-cabees was not inclined to write kindly about the Icing who had profaned the temple, and if Antiochis was a close relative of Antiochus, a sister or a niece, she might well have seemed to him a concubine even if she were the actual queen. The latter relationship was not regarded as incestuous in

(1) S. v. Tapcroc; i:>CA~67l 8& xal 'Av't't6xe:ta u~o 'Av't't6xou 't'ou 'Emqlavouc; cf. ]ones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 436, note 13.

(2) Ruge, R.-E., op. cit., 2419 f. (3) Above, p. 46, n. (3). The absence of coinage under Seleucus IV is, of course, a

strong support for Miss Cox's dating, and the question cannot be finally decided without further evidence. Cf. also G. F. Hill, British Museum, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, lsauria and Cilicia, 1900, 177 f.


antiquity but the former was, although both Seleucids and Ptolemies prac-ticed brother-and-sister marriage ( 1). The point cannot be pressed, since we do not know whom Antiochus married or who this Antiochis was, but the name occurs so often in the royal family that it sets up a presumption of royal status in this case also. Antiochus' sister Antiochis was married to Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia, but returned to Syria after a time bringing a daughter with her, whose name is unknown. They came to Antioch where both were later put to death by the regent Lysias; in 163 Ariarathes V sent an embassy to recover their bodies (2). It may well be that Antiochis the ~OGAAIX'X.~ who received Tarsus f.v ~oops/ about 170 was actually :this sister of Antiochus, married as a second wife, or conceivably her daughter of the same name. The rioting in Tarsus and Mallus need not have been caused by indignation at having been assigned to the king's ~IXAAIX'X.~.

The cause may well have been financial. Whatever the assignment lv ~oops/ meant otherwise, it clearly meant that the cities involved were to make payments in money or in goods to the holder of the grant. This is, of course, the familiar Persian institution. Xenophon mentions Syrian vil-lages which had been given as a clothing allowance ( s~' ~WVY)V) to the queen Parysatis (3), and three Greek cities had been given to Themis-tocles by Artaxerxes I for his maintenance (4). Probably, in a similar way, the city of Telmessus was given to Ptolemy, son of Lysimachus, by his uncle Ptolemy Ill, although the inscription mentions only that he took it over (~1Xp1XAIX~wv) (5). This is the only instance known of the gift

(1) H. Thierfelder, Die Geschwisterehe im hellenistisch-romischen Agypten, 1960, men-tions the practice of the Seleucid dynasty only incidentally. Identification of actual cases of brother-and-sister marriage is made difficult because of the courtly use of the title &.8e:A


of a city by a Seleucid, and it shows clearly that Tarsus did not become the property of Antiochis; it was and remained autonomous. Probably it simply paid to her account the taxes which it formerly had paid to the crown. While the tax situation of the cities within the territory of the Seleucids is not well known, certainly many of them much of the time paid a tribute ( rp6po~), as well as occasional or emergency sums of money known as crowns ( 1). Tarsus was no exception, and its discontent with the new arrangement would be more easily explained by an increase in the pay-ments demanded than by reluctance to make payments to a princess in-stead of to the king. It is likely that the city's payments were actually still made to the same officials and in the same way as previously, for Antiochis would not have set up an administration of her own (2). Perhaps she may have had the right to increase taxes, as Ptolemy Lysimachus' son had the right to lower them (3), but that is speculation. There is no reason to suppose that any change occurred in the city's constitution.

It is unknown when Tarsus fell into Roman hands, whether in the last years of the proconsulship of Lucullus or in the first ones of Pompey; but the inclusion of Cilicia Pedias in the Roman province of Cilicia is cer-tainly due to Pompey (4). Thereafter Tarsus was one of the assize cities of the province and one of the official residences of the governor ( 5). Its difficulties and those of the other cities are vividly portrayed in Cicero's correspondence, wherein he may well exaggerate the oppressions of other proconsuls in contrast with his own consideration, but he gives very little information about the life and government of Tarsus itself. Since Salamis

(1) E. Bikerman, Institutions des Seleucides, 1938, 106-115. (2) The situation of Laodice, divorced queen of Antiochus II, with her Anatolian

estates, was quite different. These were managed for her by her own otxov6[J.m (Royal Correspondence, 102 f., no. 20).

(3) OGIS 55, 13: c:bpe:i:xe:v &:Te:Ae:i:


on Cyprus had a curia (i.e., ~ou/..1)) (1), presumably Tarsus did also, as it did later under the Empire. The troubles of the cities were mainly financial. The Republic collected taxes in addition to the tributum (2), and the rapa-ciousness of the publicani is illustrated by the use of cavalry against the senate of Salamis by one Scaptius to force payment of a debt with usury owed to Marcus Brutus; five of the senators died of starvation before their siege was relieved (3). Another heavy expense was the entertainment of Roman officials and their honoring with statues, shrines, and so on, and at least to some extent the local courts were suspended or restricted (4). Cicero writes that he allowed the cities to use suis legibus et iuGiciis , so that they felt that they had won ot~Tovop..(otv (5). He writes also that he found many of the cities' own magistrates guilty of embezzlement (6), and compelled these to repay the moneys which they had taken illegally. All these excellences of Cicero's administration have provoked admiration, or on occasion, skepticism (7); and the element of truth in his statements cannot be easily determined. My concern is with the magistrates whom he mentions. Their assumed ability to rob their citjes indicates that they were of the same type as I have assumed earlier. They constituted a relative

&vu,..sueuvo~ &px.~ (8) because, while changing annually or more often, they were appointed or selected from and by a small group, so that a Greek political scientist might have regarded Tarsus and the rest as rather monar-chical in form than democratic.

This is the picture which we get also from the coins of the late Republic

(1) Cicero, Ad Atticum, 6, 1, 2. (2) Cicero, Ad Fam., 3, 8, 5: tributorum et illam acerbissimam exactionem ...

capitum et ostiorum. (3) Cicero, Ad Atticum, 6, I, 2. (4) Cicero, Ad Atticum, 5, 21. (5) Cicero, Ad Atticum, 6, 2. (6) Ibid. (7) J. Carcopino, Cicero, The Secrets of his Correspondence, 1951, 119-125, whose sus-

picions are so extreme as to rouse countersuspicions in the reader. (8) Plato, Laws, 761 E, 875 B.


and the references to Tarsus under Augustus in contemporary and later Greek writers. Strabo writes from personal observation during the reign of Augustus, perhaps about 10 B. C. (I). He describes the flourishing literary and philosophical life of the city, and then mentions the career of a certain Boethus, a poet and a specialist in that kind of rhetorical improvisation which the Tarsians prize most highly (2). He was a favorite of Antony who in general favored Tarsus, whether because this was where Cleopatra had come to meet him in 41, or less romantically, because the city had supported Caesar and opposed Cassius. At some point Antony made Tarsus into a civitas libera et immunis, and liberated such of its citizens as had been enslaved during the Civil Wars (3). Antony's interest in Boethus may have been purely literary, but he is reported to have sold positions of authority

('l>uvcta-rslct~) in the cities ( 4) and Strabo's account has a curious aspect. Antony had promised the people of Tarsus that he would assume the gym-nasiarchy but gave them Boethus as a kind of pro-gymnasiarch: xcti. '8~ xcti. yup.vctO'LctpXIctv 6"oax6p.svo~ TctpasiJaL 't'ou;ov &v;i. yup.vxaLiipxou XIX't'eO''t'YJO'S (some manuscripts gives the interesting variant reading &v>Lyup.vctalctp-xov)(5). The expenditure of money for this purpose was entrusted to him; since the position involved expense, the money in this case must have come from Antony. He was accused by the citizens of withholding, nota-bly, the cost of the oil, but Antony supported him and he remained plun-dering the city (&ywv xcti. rpipwv 't'~V "6ALv) until after Actium, when Au-gustus made other arrangements.

Whatever we may suppose his position to have been during this time he was succeeded in it by a Stoic of high reputation named Athenodorus, who had been a tutor and confidant of Augustus (6). Strabo, who may

(1) 14, 5, 13-15, 673-675. (2) Cf. also Dio, Or. 33, 4. (3) Appian, Bellum Cicvile, 5, 7. (4) Dio Cassius, 48, 24, l. (5) Strabo, 14, 5, 14, 674. Cf. L. RoBERT, Revue des Etudes Anciennes, LXII (1961),

p. 295, note l. (6) Fr. Susemih1, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, II, 1892,

348-350.


have known him personally, says that Athenodorus for a time (-.ew~) tried to induce Boethus and his faction to amend their conduct, and failing in this made use of the authority (l~oua(cx;) given him by Augustus and condemned them to exile ( xx-.~Xyvou~ cpuy~v) ( 1). He adds that the action was effected by an accusation in the popular assembly (xcx;-.Y)yopwv lv hxAY)O'LCf), which presumably sat as a court. Dio Chrysostom speaks of Athenodorus as a prytanis (2), but this elective office, the term of which was only six months (3), cannot have been the source of his l~oua(cx; either before or after the expulsion of Boethus. It is interesting to see this evidence for de-mocracy at Tarsus. Strabo states that Boethus had based his position on the people's favor ('8Y)p.oxa'I':Lcx;L~), and Lucian later reports that Athenodorus was honored as a hero after his death by the '8'/jp.o~ (4); that may well imply that his cult was voted by the popular assembly. Perhaps this democ-ratization was effected through the new constitution given Tarsus by Antony, for a civitas libera could not be such an authoritarian city as I have posited for Tarsus under the early Seleucids. Certainly this means also that the city had become integrated, Greeks and Cilicians assimilated into a Hel-lenistic amalgam, with the Greek language spoken and understood by all. It is not impossible, nevertheless, that the position of Boethus and Atheno-dorus, and of the latter's successor the Stoic Nestor (5) was patterned upon or influenced by the old Seleucid l7tLa-.&-.YJ~ (6), the king's representative who gave orders to the city's administrative agencies, although Strabo refers to them as Aristotle refers to the 7tpoa-.cbcx;L -.oiJ '8~p.ou at Athens (7). There are curious features in the tradition about Athenodorus. From Strabo, we should assume that he was active in Tarsus from the defeat of Antony

(1) 14, 5, 14, 674; Strabo seems to mean something more than would be included in auctoritas.

(2) Or. 33, 48. (3) Or. 34, 35. (4) Macrobioi, 21. (5) 14, 5, 14, 675. (6) Above, p. 49, n. (3). (7) Cf. Atheniensium Respublica, 23, 3; 28, 1-3.


to his death, perhaps some twenty years later; he died at the age of eighty-two, as Lucian informs us, adding that he secured for Tarsus from Augustus the immunitas which it had enjoyed from Antony ( 1). But Suetonius quotes a letter of Augustus which refers to an Athenodorus, apparently this one, as the tutor of the youthful Emperor Claudius, who was born only in 10 B. C. (2). And while Lucian calls him TctpO"e:u,, as he doubtless was, Strabo refers to him as a Canaanite (Kctvctvi"YJ'), an ethnic clearly taken from Canaan, Phcenicia, and not from some unknown Cilician village Cana (3). There is evidence, as has been and will be seen (4), for a close connection between Tarsus and Aradus, and Strabo's ethnic is probably a nickname. The father's name is always given as Sandon (5), which is the name of the local god worshipped in Tarsus. It is an open question whether this is an indication that Athenodorus' family was Cilician, but it suggests the possibility that he bore originally the name Son of Sandon (in Aramaic this would be something like Bar-Sandon ), and that this was re-interpreted by error or jest as meaning that his earthly father was a man called Sandon. It is unnecessary to point out that these Son-of-a-God names are very common among Semitic peoples.

If we have, then, three certain cases of the domination of the city by an individual in the period ea. 40-10 B.C., we have some basis for under-standing the story told by Athenaeus about an Epicurean philosopher at Tarsus named Lysias, who became a tyrant (hupxVVYJO"s) (6). Chosen

(I) Lucian, Macrobioi, 21. (2) Suetonius, Divus Claudius, 4, 5. (3) Strabo remarks (14, 5, 14, 674): KocvocvLTI)~ &:n;o XWfL'IJ~ m6~ The ethnic

does not appear elsewhere in this form. Its New Testament equivalent is Kocvocvoc'io~; where, however, it probably means rather Zealot.

(4) Strabo, 16, I, 15, 754, refers to the close relationship between Aradus and Cilicia in expressing surprise that the city had not followed its northern friends into piracy. It may well be that cleruchs from Aradus were sent to Tarsus in connection with one its of Hellenistic foundings.

(5) Strabo, 14, 5, 14, 674; Lucian, Macrobioi, 21. (6) Athenaeus, 5, 215 B. C.


(OG(ps9e:k, i.e. elected) by his city as stephanephore, which means priest of Heracles (1), he did not lay down his office but changed his himation for gorgeous clothing, distributed the goods of the rich to the poor, and murdered those who opposed him. Here, as in the case of Boethus, the emphasis on democratic process is remarkable and Athenaeus is thinking of the typical Greek tyrant of the early period, but Strabo, who knew the situation, did not call Boethus a tyrant, and nothing that is told of Lysias requires us to think that he was. Like Boethus, he assumed one of the great offices of the city, and the gorgeous garments are not those of a tyrant but of a priest. Building on the popularity acquired through his magnificent conduct of the festival of Heracles, which must have included donations and festivities as well as the burning of the pyre (7C1Jpa) which numis-matists recognize on the city's coinage (2), he became influential or do-minant in the assembly or even perhaps recognized by the Roman admi-nistration as a kind of bLO"TtXTYJ~, and like Athenodorus in the case of Boethus, used the assembly as a court to secure condemnation of his oppo-nents and the confiscations of their properties. If one is inclined to doubt that the conservative Romans, with their suspicion of all except the rich, would have tolerated or supported a man with such a policy, we have only to remember Antony's support of Boethus, and we shall see presently the power of the assembly later under the Empire.

It is inevitable that this Lysias should be generally recognized as the man whose name appears in the genitive case on a small bronze coin of the first century B. C. belonging to what Miss Cox calls Tarsus Autonomous, Series VI , and dates ea. 60 B. C. to the reign of Augustus (3). The same coin appears also with the same dating and suscription in the British Museum Catalogue (4). Other coins of this group contain abbreviated

( 1) Athenaeus, loc. cit. : crnacp


names and one complete one in the nominative, 'A7eo'A'Awv~"1)~ (1). Hill did not express himself as to the position of these persons whose names are all Greek except for M&:~~(p.o~) N~xoM;(ou) (2), who may have acquired a Latin name from service in the Roman army. Miss Cox regards them as moneyers (3), the same officials whose identity was indicated earlier by monograms. This is possible, in fact even probable, but the occurrence of Lysias' name raises at least a question whether some or all of them may not have held the same kind of eminence, l~oucrct, in the city as was enjoyed by Lysias, Boethus, Athenodorus, and Nestor. Unfortunately I cannot recognize the names of the last three on the coins, but it is at least possible that the M Y)'t'po7e6'Asw~ coinage of the Empire begins as early as Antony ( 4) (would this title not have befitted a civitas libera et immunis ?), and with that, there were no further names: that is to say the dates of Autonomous Series VI would be ea. 60-40. At all events, I suspect that the Epicurean tyrant Lysias preceded Boethus and the rest, rather than following them.

This, I believe, was Tarsus at the beginning of the Empire, an oriental city proudly maintaining its ancient name and its ancient god but Hellenized in all important respects. It had adopted not only the Greek language and Greek culture as represented in the philosophical and rhetorical schools praised by Strabo but also Greek political concepts. The hypothetical but probable authoritarian government of the king's representative and a small Hellenic aristocracy had given way to a democracy of sorts, with a popular assembly which elected (doubtless from the wealthy group only) magistrates and council (~ou'A~ or curia) and which had judicial compe-tence in cases of high treason or malfeasance involving confiscation of property, exile, or death. This would be a specific instance of the process of democratization of the Hellenistic cities for which J ones has argued on

(1) Hill, op. cit., 182, no. 120; R. MtiNSTERBERG, Numismatische Zeitschrift, XLV (1912), p. 67.

(2) Hill, op. cit., 183, nos. 123-125. (3) Cox, op. cit., 59. (4) Hill, op. cit., 183. Miss Cox, op. cit., 61, would postpone the beginning of this

series to the time of Hadrian.


much more general grounds (1). Much of the oriental remained, but much of this, and especially the associations with the Semitic world of Phoenicia, could serve locally and without offense as a subject for jest.

For the next century of the city's history there exists only one piece of evidence of any significance for this investigation, and that is the Tarsian citizenship of the Apostle Paul. This is twice mentioned in Acts (2), and has never been called into doubt. That there were extensive settlements of Jews in Asia Minor as well as elsewhere in the Hellenistic and Roman world is well known, although the evidence for Tarsus itself is rather slight(3), Ramsay's theory that Jews were settled as citizens in the city by Antiochus IV, along with Greeks from Argos (4), rested on very dubious hypotheses, and has in that form properly been rejected by Ruge. Ramsay thought that the Jews constituted one of the tribes of the city and the Greeks another, so that each tribe might have its own separ


to him: I am a Jewish person, a Tarsian, a citizen of the not undistin-guished city of Cilicia ( eyw &v6?W7CO' p.ev s~p.L 'lou'8xio,' TctpiJ"sU'' 't''ij' KLALY..~IX, OO'lt &:o-~p.ou 1e6Asw' 7eoAkfl') (1 ). The sequence is significant. He had been accused of being Egyptian, and in reply he stated first his natio, then his origo and civitas. This is quite natural in the Hellenistic world, where citizenship and nationality were not necessarily, and often clearly could not be iden-tical. Being allowed to address the Jews, Paul explains further: < am a Jewish man, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but reared in this city at the feet of Gamaliel: eyw s~p.L &:v~p 'lou'8ocio'' ysysV'IYjp.t\10, ev Tcxpo-IJ> 't''ij' KLAL'lt~IX,, &:VIX't'S6p1X;J.p.evo, '8& ev 't'~ 7COA6L 't'IXU't"f], 7C1Xp~ 't'OU' 7C0'81X, r1Xp.1XA,~A (2). So he was not only a Tarsian by citizenship, but by birth. Brought into the camp to be interrogated under torture, Paul volunteered another piece of information about himself in the form of a question:


cohortis, the highest Roman military or civil official in the Jewish capital, that he had purchased his citizenship at a high price, can hardly be liter-ally true. Granted that this was clearly an auxiliary cohort, wherein the soldiers were peregrini, the officers, centurions and especially the tribune commanding, were unquestionably Roman, as well as old and experienced soldiers. On the tribune, particularly, fell the critical and difficult task of keeping order in the city, a task which called for both firmness and a high degree of political acumen. The officer chosen for such a position would not have been a new citizen but an experienced Roman career officer, who had begun his service under Tiberius if not under Augustus, and neither of these was inclined to give preferment to other than Romans, especially in the military service. And in addition to these probabilities, what possible means was there, legally or practically, under the Empire, for anyone to buy the civitas? It might always be possible to bribe officials, but citizenship was granted only by the Emperor ( 1).

Nevertheless I believe that Paul's claims can be accepted as literally true, and not only because his Roman citizenship served in the Christian tradition as the occasion of his coming to Rome. In the first place, Paul was a Tarsian from birth, and since the great period of the Jewish diaspora was the third century B. C., there is no difficulty in supposing that his family had been resident in Tarsus for two or three centuries. Even if they had been Pharisees in recent generations, they need not, indeed, cannot have been Pharisees from the beginning (2). In Tarsus they would have lived as the other non-Greeks did, and when the community developed gradually into a "6AL' and finally into a civitas libera, the Jewish inhabitants became "oAhiXL, cives, just as did the other orientals, Cilician and Phrenician, who

(1) The possibility is not even considered by A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship, 1939. Greek cities notoriously sold their citizenship in the Hellenistic and Roman periods; so also did Tarsus (see below). This narrative of the tribune and St. Paul has a strongly rhetorical tone.

(2) Pharisaism does not come into history until the mid-second century B. C.; cf. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization, 253-265, and bibliography, and J. Goldin in L. Fin-kelstein, The Jews, 1960, 117 f.

62 MELANGES DE L'UNIVERSITE SAINT JOSEPH [22 lived there. It is entirely unproven that the citizens were divided up, in strict Greek fashion, into demes and tribes, each bound together in a ficti-tious relationship based on descent from an eponymous hero, whose cult they tended, nor would neglect of such a cult by devout Jews necessarily have led to the withdrawal of citizenship from Jews already formally enrolled. In any case, the reality of Paul's Tarsian citizenship is inextri-cably linked with his Roman citizenship. This may have been acquired under Caesar, Antony, or Augustus, with the probability favoring the first; but Roman citizenship was granted in the East only to citizens of Greek cities ( 1). In the list of known Tarsians prepared by Ruge, there are only two certain cases of Roman citizenship (2). The history of II. T!X"C'"C'LO~

Pourpo~ Tr:t?aeu~ ypocp.p.oc"C'nt6~ who was buried in the Zelatis in Pontus is obscure, because Tat(t)ius is a very rare nomen (3), but the other is r. 'IouA.(Lo~) Eu~xCp .. wv Toc?asu~ xopxuA.YJ~, a flautist honored by Delphi in A. D. 119 (4). The chances are that St. Paul was C. Iulius Paulus, who had taken a Roman cognomen which resembled in sound his Hebrew name Saul. If he was born about the beginning of the Christian era, we may think of the civitas as having been conferred upon his grandfather, certainly a wealthy man, who had entertained or supplied the forces of the Dictator fifty years before.

It is now possible to look at the Tarsus ofDio Chrysostom, at the begin-ning of the second century of our era. The evidence is that ofthe two Tarsian orations, nos. 33 and 34 in the collection. Neither has invited much study. Von Arnim was concerned only with the date and rhetorical aspect, and did not discuss the contents, and the -editor in the Loeb Classical Library,

(1) No exceptions are known to this rule, and Pliny, Ep. X, 5-7, tells strongly in its favor. I have discussed the question with full bibliography in a paper on P. Giessen, 40 I, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Etudes de Papyrologie. (IX, 1962. 1-20).

(2) R.-E., op. cit., 2433 f. (3) J. G. C. Anderson, Fr. Cumont, H. Gregoire, Studia Pontica, Ill, 1910, 248 f.,

no. 276. The Prosopographia Imperii Romani knows only one Tattius, who had a modest milit-ary career in the mid-second century.

(4) BCH, XIX (1895), 548.


H. Lamar Crosby, did not entirely understand them (1). The difficulty is greatest with no. 33, the First Tarsian Oration.

The dramatic and presumably also the actual situation is that of a speaker, who need and in fact can be none other than Dio himself, addre-ssing an audience referred to as you (up.;t,) and on one occasion as gentlemen (&v'l>ps,) (2) in a city which is identified as Tarsus by name as well as by reference to the Cydnus river and the mixed origin of the people who stem both from Argos and from Aradus (3). The speaker presents himself as one with ragged, dry, unkempt hair (xuxp.YJp6,), huddled in his cloak (cruvscr.,OG/..p.evo,), solitary; one who wishes perhaps to do good unobtrusively, but if stirred up to speak will prove ill-tempered (Mcrx.o/..o,) and rough (&yp~o,). His language will be harsh and compressed ("PIXY. si' n x.OG~ anpsou' /..6you' ( 4) and it will sting like the honey which, in Aesop's story, the eyes insisted on sharing with the mouth (5). He will prove to be like Archilochus rather than Homer, like Socrates and the poets of the Old Comedy, Aristophanes, Cratinus, and Plato (6). He will engage in abuse (/..o~'l>opstv) and will make manifest foolishness (&~shspx) and wickedness ("o"Y)px) (7). His poverty is obvious and ostentatious; clearly they had not invited him to the platform in the hope that he would give them money (8). They will expect from him no flattery or deception, none of that tactful and bland speech ( "ov 'l>s~Lov lx.stvov x.x~ "POa'Y)Vlj /..6yov) which it is proper to address to assemblies('l>~p.ou,) and sa traps and tyrants(9). This is the place where the people vote and the jurymen cast their ballots

(1) Cf. particularly his apologetic explanation of Or. 33, page 273. (2) Or. 33, Sect. 17. (3) Sect. 1, 41. (4) Sect. 14-15. (5) Sect. 16. (6) Sect. 9-12, (7) Sect. 11. (8) Sect. 3. (9) Sect. 14.


(x&v 6 Mjp..o~ xe~?OTQV/1)11~, x&v o[ '8~XIXI1T1Xi. -.~v ~ljrpov rpepwcr~) (1). It is clear that the speaker appears in the role of a Cynic philosopher and that he is on the speakers' platform of the Tarsian popular assembly, where candidates for office, prospective benefactors (that is, persons willing or desirous to undertake the expensive liturgies of the city), and plaintiffs and defendants in important law suits were accustomed to appear in a very different manner. Dio's comparison of the '8ljp..o~ with a satrap or a tyrant lets his audience know promptly what to expect from him, but it assures us that the kind of democracy which we have suspected previously was still a real one, real enough to joke about.

Is it possible that Dio, at a time when he was travelling in the East enjoying the confidence of the Emperor Trajan, if not actually his special representative, would actually have addressed the assembly at Tarsus in the dress and manner of a Cynic? I am not sure that the oration may not be literary rather than actual, intended to circulate among literary and rhetorical groups rather than to have been heard once by the Tarsian general public. But its testimony is equally useful for our purpose.

The actual theme of the oration is less important to us than its form and setting, but it does throw some light on the mentality of Tarsus at the height of the Empire. The author begins, in the approved manner, with a demons-tration of his familiarity with the encomiastic materials which he refuses to employ, Perseus and Heracles, Greeks and Argives, heroes and demigods, mountains and the Cydnus (2). He then disclaims interest or competence in the field of natural science, earth, heavens, gods; nor can he play the favorite Tarsian game of instant improvisation on any desired subject (3). Nor is he an itinerant physician impressing the ignorant with his knowledge of physiology. He would speak not even about all their situation ("&v-;oc -;IX "Pol16v-;x) but only of one or two matters; perhaps it is better for people

(1) Sect. 37. (2) Sect. 1-2. (3) Sect. 4-5.


( To1'~ 1tol.l.o1'~) to let him keep silent ( 1). Consider how the Athenians treated Socrates; but yet Apollo upheld Archilochus against Homer (2). Your city is great and your land fertile. Tarsus is the metropolis of Cilicia. And yet rivers and baths and fountains and porticoes and houses and terri-tory do not make a city happy (3). The important thing is that it should be wisely governed (crwcpp6vw~ ohtoup.eY"tJY) (4). Tray was great, but Odysseus from a little island captured it (5). As Archilochus wrote, one does not want a general who shaves his legs but one who is bandy-legged, stands firmly, and has hairy shins (6). With all of this, Dio has succeeded both in confusing his audience and in rousing their curiosity, and has estab-lished a relation between hirsuteness, wisdom, and virtue.

For a moment it seems as ifDio were going to advance on a broad front. The gods, he continues, no longer love men who are wanton and senseless and unrestrained and inclined toward insolence and laziness and luxury. Therefore, rely not on these speakers of yours and do not accept their words of congratulation and admiration ... rather welcome the man who will point out to you some of your faults (7). But a general denun-ciation of all the real or imaginary sins of the Tarsians would be rather dull listening, and if a Cynic was supposed to bite, he was also supposed to laugh and to provide laughter. If he was even fancifully to dicere verum, he must show himself ridentem (8).

So he draws hastily back. The sins of the Tarsians are too numerous. There would be no place to start to deal with them as a whole, and people would not understand; but there is a curious phenomenon in the city which

(1) Sect. 7-8. (2) Sect. 12. (3) Sect. 28. (4) Sect. 18. (5) Sect. 19-22. (6) Sect. 17. (7) Sect. 23. (8) Horace, Satires, 1, 1, 24.

Mel., t. XXXVIII - 5


he would like to mention ( 1), and so he proceeds to go to work on a monstrous jest, the point of which he conceals to the very end of his dis-course.

He had heard of this occurring elsewhere, but now it is in Tarsus. It is hard to explain. Credible or not, most of the Tarsians are asleep, like rabbits, even when their eyes are open. Emotionally they are in a dream state, experiencing joy and sorrow, courage and timidity; they are enthu-siastic, they desire the impossible, they confuse the real and the unreal. So, of course, do those who are awake also, but the real proof of their con-dition is, that they snore (peyx.ouaLv). It is true that not all sleepers snore, but everyone at Tarsus does, young and old (2). Dio, by now, must have got his audience firmly in hand. What on earth could he be talking about?

He was in no hurry to enlighten them. No one can endure, he conti-nues, the endless repetition of any single sound, especially not an evil one

(3uaqrtJp.~) (3); This is a sound of shamelessness and extreme licentious-ness, and it starts at daybreak. You think that it does not matter, so long as you are prosperous, but what would you say of a city which had odd peculiarities of gesture and of dress (4)? What of one where the males all have female voices? The Tarsian sound (~xo,) is not even that, but suggests persons of mixed sex (&v3p6yuvoL), and it is a peculiarity of their own. What would a visitor think who heard this sound from afar? Would he think you descendants of Argives or of Aradians, Greeks or the most wanton of Phcenicians? A wise man will plug his ears with wax, rather than listen to this new Aradian mode. A new race of men has the gift of music in its noses, and soon it will be used for choral performances (5).

(1) Or. 33, Sect. 31. (2) Sect. 32-34. (3) Sect. 35. Except for the Loeb editors, no recent scholar has commented on

this alleged sound, except C. Bonner (Harvard Theological Review, XXXV, 1942, 1-8), who takes it literally and as ill-omened; as indeed it surely would have been, had it existed.

(4) Sect. 37-39. (5) Sect. 39-43.


Surely you would not want to have a woman in your family who was so afflicted, and yet your city is a mother-city (p.:tj-.-p6?Coi..L,). What will Heracles and Perseus think when they come to their festivals ( 1) ? In the days of Athenodorus, your city was renowned for orderliness and sobriety, and your women are still veiled (2), but they can hear wantonness (&ael..ysLcx) even if they cannot see it, at any rate with more than one eye at a time. It is a nasal afflliction (-.-o -.-~v pLv~v) (3), if not limited to the noses, and this betrays a man's nature. A learned Tarsian (others say Cleanthes) once spotted a catamite (xvcxL~o,) although he was, among other roughnesses, shaggy from head to foot, as soon as he sneezed ( 4). The sound is hard to describe. It is not a chirping or a smacking or a whistling (o~n xl..ooap.o' o~n ?CO?C?CUO"p.o' o~n aupLyp.6,) (5). Be like the Spartans who would tolerate no new rhythm or melody, and banish this peculiar unnecessary sound ( -.-ov ?CepL-.--.-ov cp6oyy6v) (6). Leave it to Circe's victims to take on the voices of animals, while their minds, unlike yours, remained uncorrup-ted (7).

It is a madness (p.cxvcx), a plague of impropriety and shamelessness

(1) Sect. 45-47. (2) Sect. 48-49. Ramsay pointed to these veiled women of Tarsus to explain St.

Paul's well-known attitude toward women's keeping their heads covered (Cities of St. Paul, 202-205). The point is well taken, but supposes that we have here to take Dio's statement literally; and that too, when he is engaged in a monstrous hoax. All Greek women might cover their heads, and the Tarsian ladies would have been a strange sight on the streets of a Greek city if they went about veiled like conservative Muslim women today. Ramsay pointed to the popularity of athletics at Tarsus and St. Paul's fondness for metaphors taken from the palaestra. There is also a curious verbal parallel between Dio's metaphor in Or. 34, 36: oc1t'o8uecr6oc1 xoct 7\'


(v6


partly because we have misunderstood it. Seen in this light, it fits very closely with the Second Tarsian Oration, wherein Dio discusses clearly and directly the political problems of the city and the importance of its having philosophers as '8YJp.CGywyo. And yet I hear that at the present moment you have a special grievance against philosophers, and indeed that you uttered curses against them ( 1). This is at the beginning, and at the end he explains further: < am not unaware that the philosophers are believed by many to be engaged in relaxing everything and in slackening the serious pursuit of practical affairs, and on that account in working more harm than good (2). What lies back of these statements- specifically we have no way of knowing. Tarsus certainly had not closed the schools. There may, however, have been a reaction against the situation in the days of Augustus when the public life of the city was dominated by scholars and literary men, perhaps partly because they enjoyed the favor of the emperor. As Tarsus continued to increase its democracy under the Empire, other leaders with a wider appeal may have come into prominence, and it is against these and in favor of the older order that Dio speaks, first in jest and then seriously. His attitude is very similar to that of his contemporary, Plutarch, who also argues that statescraft and philosophy should go to-gether (3).

Who, then, are the city's advisors, the '8YJp.CGywyo those who come forward to speak (o[ 7C'CGpL6vn~) (4)? Dio has many answers, but the interesting point is that he can ask the question. Political life was somewhat restricted under the Empire, it is true. Plutarch in his Precepts of State-craft lists five good things which a state needs: peace, liberty, prosperity, a large population, and harmony, and points out that the first two of these were pre-empted or limited by the imperial government, while the

(I) Or. 34, Sect. 3. (2) Sect. 52. (3) Cf. especially his fragmentary essay, That a Philosopher ought to Converse

Especially with Men in Power (Moralia, 776 B - 779 C). (4) Sect. 38, 26.


remaining three remain as spheres of activity for the civic leaders ( 1), but Dio is here concerned with these two also. There was, clearly, competi-tion both for high office in Tarsus and for the people's support in public policy. Men, recommended by chance (uxYJ), by their wealth, or their birth (2) compete on the bema not for the best interest of the city but to win crowns, preseance, and purple robes, the insignia of the priest of Heracles (stephanephore) and of the gymnasiarch (3). It is those who have performed such liturgies or will do so some day who win a hearing ( 4), and Dio admits that as the people share in the wealth of these men, so it is right that they should share also in their wisdom, but still feels that it is the philosopher, the man of probity and wisdom, really devoted to his own city and thinking and speaking the truth, whose influence would insure better management (5).

The speech is addressed by Dio in the guise of a Cynic to the assembly of Tarsus, whom he calls &v'8ps~ TetpO"s!~ (6). It is concerned with specific problems and is an appeal to the city to show magnanimity and tolerance combined with firmness in its relations both to its own members and to the external elements with which it was in contact, the neighboring cities of Cilicia and the representatives of the imperial government.The problem of internal harmony occupied the central portion of the speech ( 16-23), and the other topics are treated twice each, once in the first half of the speech and once in the second. These are, the city's advisors( 1-7, 26-37), the favor of the emperor ( 7-8, 24-25), relations with the provincial admi-nistration ( 9, 40-42), relations with an official called O"'t'pet't'Y)y6~ ( 15, 27, 38-39), and relations with the neighboring cities ( 10-14, 27, 43-51).

It is remarkable how much freedom the city had in dealing with the

(1) Plutarch, Precepts of Statescraft >> (Moralia, 824 C). (2) Sect. 26. Cf. also Plutarch, On Exile (Moralia 602F -603E). (3) Sect. 29. (4) Sect. 1, 31. (5) Sect. 30. (6) Sect. 1-2.


imperial officials. These are called ~ysp.6vs' ( 1), a word which commonly means the provincial governors, but since Dio uses it always in the plural, while speaking of the O"'t'p1X"~"tJY6' in the singular, it may be that the latter is the provincial governor and the former the staff of procurators, advocati, and so on. And actually the governor of Cilicia was an &v't'LO"TpX't'YJj'O,, a pro-praetor (2). There had been a quarrel with the O"'t'p1XTYJY6' and angry words exchanged, but relations were improving, and Dio advises the city to follow a middle course: not to refuse obedience altogether but not to submit to any demand which went far in insolence and greed (5~pL' and

"'-sovs~1X) (3), fairly strong language for one so close to the emperor as Dio. Against the ~ye:p.6vs' it was possible to proceed at law, apparently in Tarsus itself; for Dio cites the warning of the Ionians who voted to allow no suits at all (p.YJ~svo' &"'Alii' x.:X't'Y)j'Ops'Lv) (4) as a warning against making too many complaints. One of the Tarsians had successfully prosecuted ~uoiv ~ysp.6vwv in succession (5), and Dio is afraid that this may go to his head and that of others. If oL "o'A'Ao try to do the same, the city will get a bad reputation as contumacious, but we are a long way from seeing here defenceless provincials grovelling at the feet of their masters. It is true that Tarsus was large and rich and eqjoyed the favor of the em-perors, a favor which Dio thinks could be lost (6), but even the lesser cities, Tarsus' neighbors, conducted a fairly active 'foreign' policy. And Dio never refers to the well-known procedure of provincial cities sending complaints to the emperor against governors and others. To him they seemed quite capable of taking care of themselves.

Tarsus was the metropolis, the seat of the provincial assizes, the Ciliciarchate, and of the provincial games presided over by the high priest

(1) Sect. 9, 40, 42. (2) Marquardt, loc. cit., (above, p. 47, n. (5)). (3) Sect. 38. (4) Sect. 39. (5) Sect. 42. (6) Sect. 25.


or stephanephore, and Dio points out that Mallus comes there to sacrifice and conduct its litigation ( 1), Ad.ana and Aegae come to offer sacrifice. Soloi and Adana were subject (6,.ocx.oueav) (2). Nevertheless Aegae disputed with Tarsus over &,.oypotcpoc, tax-lists perhaps (3), and Mallus had actually seized a strip of land down by the lagune which was Tarsus' harbor. Tarsus was prepared toresorttoforce (x.oc..-occpsuysLV bl. ..-~v ~~oua(OGv) but Dio warns against it: send an embassy and protest instead (4). It is true that Mallus' action was like sacking cities and starting a war (,.op6s1'v ..-IX~ ,.6AsL~ x.ocl. &,.oa..-liasw~ &p:;(SLV x.oct ,.oJ..&p.ou) (5), but Tarsus' purpose should be '8Lx.otLoO"UV't), &ps..-'1), cpLAoc, and 6p.6voLIX : to be unduly excited and to feel insulted is the part of p.Lx.po,.oAi.''t'otL . It is significant in any case that Tarsus is not advised to go to the governor with complaints. The cities were expected and allowed to settle their differences them-selves, one hoped with methods short of war. This was foreign policy of a sort, and it called for, and exercised, at least modest talents on the part of local statesmen.

Dio elsewhere reduces his objectives to three, s~voLot, &ps..-'1), and cpLAotv6pw,.oc (6), two of which have a long tradition in Greek political science. Plato had called for freedom, harmony, and wisdom, and he was followed by the early Stoics (7), but under the Empire, as Plutarch remarked, the first of these depended very little on the local statesman (8). The degree of freedom allowed a city depended rather on the extent to which its wisdom and moderation could encourage good will on the part of the emperor. Harmony and wisdom in the city's internal affairs, however,

(1) Sect. 47. (2) Sect. 14. (3) Sect. 10. (4) Sect. 43-46. (5) Sect. 11. (6) Sect. 45. (7) Plato, Laws, 701 D; for Zeno of Citium cf. Diogenes Laertius, 7, 33. (8) Above, p. 70, n. (1).


did lie specifically in the hands of the citizens and their leaders, and this is the area to which the central portion of the oration is devoted.

Dio did not like what he saw. A day or two ago the assembly took one course and the council another and the elders stuck to their own position, each pursuing its own advantage (x6e~ xoci. ~Pcf>'1lv xoopi.~ ~v b

'8-ijp.o~ 'X.oci. xoopi.~ ~ ~ OUA ~ 'X.Xi. vuv hL 'X.X6' oc6TOU~ OL y&povn~' l'80f 1:'0 a-up.tp&pov h!Xa-Toov '8-ij'Aov 5TL a-xo~ouv;oov (1). Nor were the members of the council and assembly themselves in agreement, and the elders were at odds also with the youths (v&oL) (2). We might question whether the harmony which Dio sought was really desirable, if it nieant that Tarsus should exist without a healthy difference of opinion. He may, of course, not have meant this, and only felt that all groups of the population should profess to pursue the advantage of the whole rather than of their own section; and yet it was a basic concept of Greek philosophy that there was one absolute truth and right in any given situation, which could be dis-covered by the use of human reason. But at all events, it is interesting from our point of view that there were active differences of opinion and of objective flourishing at Tarsus, and that domestic politics and policies were lively and interesting. We could wish only that Dio had explained what were the issues involved in these differences and what was the position of each of the groups. Elders and youths constituted what seem to -have been primarily social groups, differing by definition in the ages of their members (3). The council presumably was made up of the rich and the assembly at least dominated by the poor, and financial policies might well bring out differing attitudes of the two bodies. But it is significant

(1) Sect. 16. U. von Wilamowitz-Mtellendorff, Hermes, LXIII, 1928, 369 ff., rightly rejected Bendorf's suggestion to restore a reference to the vtoL in this passage.

(2) Sect. 21. (3) Cf. C. A. Forbes, NtoL, A Contribution to the Study of Greek Associations, 1933;

J. H. Oliver, The Sacred Gerousia (Hesperia, Supplement VI, 1941); and the R.-E. articles of J. Miller (VII, 1912, 1206-1208, s. v. Gerontes ) and F. Poland (32, 1935, 2401-2409, S. V. \ltOL.


that the council did not dominate the assembly. Tarsus in Dio's time was a very real democracy, even if there were limits on the powers of the Mjp.o~.

Scholars have been interested and puzzled by another element in the city's population which Dio now proceeds to discuss. This was the group of no small size which is, as it were, outside the constitution

(,.J..'ij9o~ oux 3J..yov wcr7tsp ~~w9sv -."ij~ ,.OAL't'sL:x~). These some are accus-tomed to call linen-workers -.o6-.ou~ ~e s~w9


would seem to allow them the privilege of voting. Their position was evidently clear to Dio and to his audience, although it must remain obscure to us. Dio speaks of them as a Cynic, to whom all men were of value, rather than from the point of view of the aristocratically minded Stoics. Thanks to him, we may see that even the little people, even those who were in some sense ~~

Welles, Hellenistic Tarsus (1962)

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