147 The stated meetings in Delphi and at Thermopylae continued (Pausanias, vii. 24, 3; Philostratus, Vita Apoll. iv. 23), and of course also the carrying out of the Pythian games, along with the conferring of the prizes by the collegium of the Amphictiones (Philostratus, Vitae Soph. ii. 27); the same body has the administration of the “interest and revenues” of the temple (inscription of Delphi, Rhein. Mus. N. F. ii. 111), and fits up from it, for example at Delphi, a library (Lebas, ii. 845) or puts up statues there.
148 The members of the college of the Ἀμφικτίονες, or, as they were called at this epoch, Ἀμφικτύονες, were appointed by the several towns in the way previously described, sometimes from time to time (iteration: C. I. Gr. 1058), sometimes for life (Plutarch, An seni, 10), which probably depended on whether the vote was constant or alternating (Wilamowitz). Its president was termed in earlier times ἐπιμελητὴς τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων (Delphic inscriptions, Rhein. Mus. N. F. ii. 111; C. I. Gr. 1713), subsequently Ἑλλαδάρχης τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων (C. I. Gr. 1124).
149 The original bounds of the province are indicated by Strabo, xvii. 3, 25, p. 840, in the enumeration of the senatorial provinces: Ἀχαία μέχρι Θετταλίας καὶ Αἰτωλῶν καὶ Ἀκαρνάνων καὶ τινων Ἠπειρωτικῶν ἐθνῶν ὅσα τῇ Μακεδονίᾳ προσώριστο, in which case the remaining part of Epirus appears to be assigned to the province of Illyricum (reckoned here by Strabo—erroneously as regards his time—among the senatorial). To take μέχρι inclusively is—apart from considerations of fact—unsuitable for this very reason, because according to the closing words the regions previously named “are assigned to Macedonia.” Subsequently we find the Aetolians annexed to Achaia (Ptolem. iii. 14). That Epirus also for a time belonged to it, is possible, not so much on account of the statement in Dio, liii. 12, which cannot be defended either for Augustus’s time or for that of Dio, but because Tacitus on the year 17 (Ann. ii. 53) reckons Nicopolis to Achaia. But at least from the time of Trajan Epirus with Acarnania forms a procuratorial province of its own (Ptolem. iii. 13; C. I. L. iii. 536; Marquardt, Staatsalth. v. I, 331). Thessaly and all the country northward of Oeta constantly remained with Macedonia.
150 Nothing gives a clearer idea of the position of the Greeks in the last century of the Roman republic than the letter of one of these governors to the Achaean community of Dyme (C. I. Gr. 1543). Because this community had given to itself laws that ran counter to the freedom granted in general to the Greeks (ἡ ἀποδεδομένη κατὰ κοινὸν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐλευθερία) and to the organisation given by the Romans to the Achaeans (ἡ ἀποδοθεῖσα τοῖς Ἀχαιοῖς ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων πολιτεία; probably with the co–operation of Polybius, Pausan. viii. 30, 9), whereupon at all events tumults had arisen, the governor informs the community that he had caused the two ringleaders to be executed, and that a less guilty third person was exiled to Rome.
151 Comp. iii. 312, 316.iii. 297, 300 The Delian excavations of recent years have furnished the proofs that the island, after the Romans had once given it to Athens (ii. 329)ii. 309, remained constantly Athenian, and constituted itself, doubtless in consequence of the defection of the Athenians from Rome, as a community of the “Delians” (Eph. epig. v. p. 604), but already six years after the capitulation of Athens was again Athenian (Eph. epig. v. 184 f.; Homolle, Bull. de corr. Hell. viii. p. 142).
152 Whether the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, which naturally does not occur in the republican period proper, was reconstituted already at the end of it or not till after the introduction of the imperial provincial organisation, is doubtful. Inscriptions like the Olympian one of the proquaestor Q. Ancharius Q. f. (Arch. Zeitung, 1878, p. 38, n. 114) speak rather in favour of the former supposition; yet it cannot with certainty be designated as pre–Augustan. The oldest sure evidence for the existence of this union is the inscription set up by it to Augustus in Olympia (Arch. Zeitung, 1877, p. 36, n. 33). Perhaps these were arrangements of the dictator Caesar, and in connection with the governor of “Greece,”—probably the Achaia of the imperial period—to be met with under him (Cicero, Ad fam. vi. 6, 10).—We may add that certainly also under the republic, according to the discretion of each governor for the time being, several communities might meet for a definite object by deputies and adopt resolutions; as the κοινόν of the Siceliots thus decreed a statue to Verres (Cicero, Verr. i. 2, 46, 114), similar things must have occurred in Greece also under the republic. But the regular provincial diets with their fixed officers and priests were an institution of the imperial period.
153 This is the κοινὸν Βοιωτῶν Εὐβοέων Λοκρῶν Φωκέων Δωριέων of the remarkable inscription probably set up shortly before the battle of Actium (C. I. Att. iii. 568). We cannot possibly with Dittenberger (Arch. Zeitung, 1876, p. 220) refer to this league the notice of Pausanias (vii. 16, 10), that the Romans “not many years” after the destruction of Corinth had compassion on the Hellenes, and had again allowed them the provincial unions (συνέδρια κατὰ ἔθνος ἑκάστοις τὰ ἀρχαῖα); this applies to the minor individual leagues.
154 To it belonged not merely the neighbouring Amyclae, but also Cardamyle (by gift of Augustus, Pausan. iii. 26, 7), Pherae (Pausan. iv. 30, 2), Thuria (ib. iv. 31, 1), and for a time also Corone (C. I. Gr. 1258; comp. Lebas–Foucart, ii. 305) on the Messenian gulf; and further the island of Cythera (Dio, liv. 7).
155 In the republican period this district appears as τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων (Foucart on Lebas, ii. p. 110); Pausanias (iii. 21, 6) is therefore wrong when he makes it only released from Sparta by Augustus. But they term themselves Ἐλευθερολάκωνες only from the time of Augustus, and the bestowal of their freedom is therefore justly traced to him.
156 There are coins of this city with the legend c[olonia] I[ulia] D[ume] and the head of Caesar, others with the legend c[olonia] I[ulia] A[ugusta] Dum[e] and the head of Augustus along with that of Tiberius (Imhoof–Blumer, Monnaies grecques, p. 165). That Augustus assigned Dyme to the colony of Patrae, is probably an error of Pausanias (vii. 17, 5); it remains indeed possible that Augustus in his later years ordained this union.
157 This is shown, at least for the time of Pius, by the African inscription C. I. L. viii. 7059 (comp. Plutarch, Arist. 21). The accounts of authors as to the freed communities give no guarantee at all for the completeness of the list. Probably Elis also belonged to them, which was not affected by the catastrophe of the Achaeans, and even subsequently dated still by Olympiads, not by the era of the province; besides, it is incredible that the town of the Olympic festival should not have had the best of legal rights.
158 This is pointedly expressed by Aristides in the panegyric on Rome p. 224 Jebb: διατελεῖτε τῶν μὲν Ἑλλήνων ὥσπερ τροφέων ἐπιμελόμενοι … τοὺς μὲν ἀρίστους καὶ πάλαι ἡγεμόνας (Athens and Sparta) ἐλευθέρους καὶ αὐτονόμους ἀφεικότες αὐτῶν, τῶν δ’ ἄλλων μετρίως … ἐξηγούμενοι, τοὺς δὲ βαρβάρους πρὸς τὴν ἑκάστοις αὐτῶν οὖσαν φύσιν παιδεύοντες.
159 But the Hellenic literati remained grateful to their colleague and patron. In the Apollonius–romance (v. 41) the great sage from Cappadocia refuses Vespasian the honour of his company, because he had made the Hellenes slaves, just as they were on the point of again speaking Ionic or Doric, and writes to him various billets of delectable coarseness. A man of Soloi, who broke his neck and then became alive again, and on this occasion saw all that Dante beheld, reported that he had met with Nero’s soul, into which the agents of the world–judgment had driven flaming nails, and were employed in turning it into a viper; but a heavenly voice had interposed, and ordered them to transform the man—on account of his Philhellenism when on earth—into a less repulsive animal (Plutarch, De sera num. vind., at the end).
160 At least in the ordinance of Hadrian regarding the deliveries of oil to the community incumbent on the Athenian landowners (C. I. A. iii. 18), the decision was indeed given to the Boule and the Ekklesia, but appeal to the emperor or the proconsul was allowed.
161 What Strabo reports (xiv. 3, 3, p. 665) of the Lycian cities–league, in his time autonomous—that it had not the right of war and peace and that of alliance, except when the Romans allowed it or it operated for their advantage—may probably be, without ceremony, held to relate also to Athens.
162 At all events the hitherto known presidents of the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, whose home is made out, are from Argos, Messene, Corone in Messenia (Foucart–Lebas, ii. 305), and there have been hitherto found among them not merely no citizens of the freed communities, such as Athens and Sparta, but also none of those belonging to the confederation of the Boeotians and allies (p. 259). Perhaps this κοινόν was legally restricted to the territory, which the Romans called the republic of Achaia—that is, that of the Achaean league at its overthrow—and the Boeotians and allies were united with the κοινόν proper of the Achaeans into that wider league, whose existence and diets in Argos are vouched for by the inscriptions of Acraephia mentioned in the next note. We may add that alongside of this κοινόν of the Achaeans there subsisted a still narrower one of the district of Achaia in the proper sense, whose representatives met in Aegium (Pausanias, vii. 24, 4), just as the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀρκάδων (Arch. Zeit. 1879, p. 139, n. 274), and numerous others. If, according to Pausanias, v. 12, 6, οἱ πάντες Ἕλληνες set up statues in Olympia to Trajan, and αἱ ἐς τὸ Ἀχαικὸν τελοῦσαι πόλεις to Hadrian, and no misunderstanding has here crept in, the latter dedication must have taken place at the diet of Aegium.
163 So (only that the Dorians are wanting; comp. p. 259, note 2) the union is termed on the inscription of Acraephia (Keil, Syll. Inscr. Boeot. n. 31). But this very document, along with the contemporary one, C. I. Gr. 1625, furnishes a proof that the union under the emperor Gaius, instead of this doubtless strictly official appellation, designated itself also on the one hand as union of the Achaeans, on the other as τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Πανελλήνων, or ἡ σύνοδος τῶν Ἑλλήνων, also τὸ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν καὶ Πανελλήνων συνέδριον. This grandiloquence is nowhere so glaringly prominent as in those Boeotian petty country–towns; but even in Olympia, where the union especially set up its memorials, it names itself for the most part no doubt τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, but shows often enough the same tendency; e.g. when τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν Π. Αἴλιον Ἀρίστωνα … σύνπαντες οἱ Ἕλληνες ἀνέστησαν (Arch. Zeit. 1880, p. 86, n. 344). So too in Sparta, οἱ Ἕλληνες set up a statue to Caesar Marcus ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν (C. I. Gr. 1318).
164 In Asia, Bithynia, lower Moesia, the president of the Greek towns belonging to the province is also called Ἑλλαδάρχης, without more being thereby expressed than the contrast with the non–Greeks. But, as the name of Hellenes is employed in Greece in a certain contrast to the strictly correct one of Achaeans, this is certainly suggested by the same tendency which was most clearly marked in the Panhellenes of Argos. Thus we find στρατηγὸς τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν καὶ προστάτης διὰ βίου τῶν Ἑλλήνων (Arch. Zeit. 1877, p. 192, n. 98), or on another document of the same man προστάτης διὰ βίου τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν (Lebas–Foucart, n. 305); an ἄρξας τοῖς Ἕλλησιν σύνπασιν (Arch. Zeit. p. 195, n. 106) στρατηγὸς ἀσυνκρίτως ἄρξας τῆς Ἑλλάδος (ib. 1877, p. 40, n. 42) στρατηγὸς καὶ Ἑλλαδάρχης (ib. 1876, n. 8, p. 226), all likewise on inscriptions of the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν. That in this κοινόν, though it may perhaps be deemed to refer merely to the Peloponnesus (p. 264, note), the Panhellenic tendency none the less asserted itself, may well be conceived.
165 The Hadrianic Panhellenes name themselves τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων τῶν εἰς Πλατηὰς συνιόντων (Thebes: Keil, Syll. Inscr. Boeot. n. 31, comp. Plutarch, Arist. 19, 21); κοινὸν τῆς Ἑλλάδος (C. I. Gr. 5852); τὸ Πανελλήνιον (ib.). Its president is termed ὁ ἄρχων τῶν Πανελλήνων (C. I. A. iii. 681, 682; C. I. Gr. 3832, comp. C. I. A. iii. 10: ἀ[ντ]άρχων τοῦ ἱερωτάτου ἀ[γῶνος τοῦ Π]αν[ελ]ληνίου), the individual deputy Πανέλλην (e.g. C. I. A. iii. 534; C. I. Gr. 1124). Alongside of these in the period subsequent to Hadrian the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν and its στρατηγός or Ἑλλαδάρχης still occur, who are probably to be distinguished from those just mentioned, although the latter now sets up his honorary decrees not merely in Olympia, but also in Athens (C. I. A. 18; second example in Olympia, Arch. Zeit. 1879, p. 52).
166 That the remark of Dio of Prusa, Or. xxxviii. p. 148 R., as to the dispute of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians ὑπὲρ τῆς προπομπείας, refers to the festival at Plataeae, is evident from (Lucian) Ἔρωτες 18, ὡς περὶ προπομπείας ἀγωνιούμενοι Πλαταιᾶσιν. The sophist Irenaeus also wrote περὶ τῆς Αθηναίων προπομπείας (Suidas, s. v.), and Hermogenes, de ideis, ii. p. 373. Walz gives as the topic spoken of Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι περὶ τῆς προπομπείας κατὰ τὰ Μηδικὰ (communication from Wilamowitz).
167 Two of these are preserved, for Cibyra in Phrygia (C. I. Gr. 5882), issued from the κοινὸν τῆς Ἑλλάδος by a δόγμα τοῦ Πανελληνίου; and for Magnesia on the Maeander (C. I. Att. iii. 16). In both the good Hellenic descent of the corporations concerned is brought out along with their other services to the Hellenes. Characteristic are also the letters of recommendation, with which these Panhellenes furnish a man who had merited well of their commonwealth to the community of his home Aezani in Phrygia, to the emperor Pius, and to the Hellenes in Asia generally (C. I. Gr. 3832, 3833, 3834).
168 Beyond doubt Plutarch in these words (de defectu orac. 8) does not mean to say that Greece was not able at all to furnish 3000 men capable of arms, but that, if burgess–armies of the old sort were to be formed, they would not be in a position to set on foot 3000 “hoplites.” In this sense the expression may well be correct, so far as correctness can be expected at all in the case of general complaints of this sort. The number of communities of the province amounted nearly to a hundred.
169 [Dio, Orat. xxi. 501 R.]
170 This is told to us by Herodian, iv. 8, 3, c. 9, 4, and we have the inscriptions of two of these Spartiates, Nicocles, ἐστρατευμένος δὶς κατὰ Περσῶν (C. I. Gr. 1253), and Dioscoras, ἀπελθὼν εἰς τὴν εὐτυχεστάτην συμμαχίαν (= expeditio) τὴν κατὰ Περσῶν (C. I. Gr. 1495).
171 The φρούριον (C. I. A. iii. 826) cannot well be understood otherwise.
172 “You have no want of means,” says Dio (Or. xxxi. p. 566), “and there are thousands upon thousands here, for whom it would be advantageous to be less rich;” and further on (p. 620), “you are richer than any one else in Hellas. Your ancestors possessed not more than you do. The island has not become worse; you draw the profit of Caria and a part of Lycia; a number of towns are tributary to you; the city is always receiving rich gifts from numerous citizens.” He further states that new expenses had not been added, but the earlier outlays for army and fleet had almost fallen into abeyance; they had to supply annually at Corinth (and so to the Roman fleet) but one or two small vessels.
173[Dio, Orat. xxxi. 649, 650.]
174 At the popular festivals, which in Tiberius’s time a rich man gave at Acraephia in Boeotia, he invited the grown–up slaves, and his wife the female slaves, as guests along with the free (C. I. Gr. 1625). In an endowment for the distribution of oil at the fencing–institute (γυμνάσιον) of Gytheion in Laconia it is ordained that on six days in the year the slaves should also partake in it (Lebas–Foucart n. 243a). Similar largesses occur in Argos (C. I. Gr. 1122, 1123).
175 In answer to one of the numerous complaints, with which the towns of Asia Minor plagued the government on account of their disputes as to titles and rank, Pius tells the Ephesians (Waddington, Aristide, p. 51), that he was glad to hear that the Pergamenes had given to them the new title; that the Smyrnaeans had doubtless merely by accident omitted it, and would certainly in future be ready to do what was correct, if they—the Ephesians—would accord to them their right titles. To a small Lycian town, which applied to the proconsul for the confirmation of a resolution adopted by it, the latter replied (Benndorf, Lykische Reise, i. 71), that excellent ordinances require only praise, not confirmation; the latter is implied in the case. The rhetorical schools of this epoch furnished also the draughtsmen for the imperial chancery; but this alone mattered little. It belonged to the essence of the principate not to accentuate outwardly the subject–relation, and especially not against the Greeks.
176 A formal alteration of the tax–organisation does not follow of itself from this change, and is not hinted at in Tacitus, Ann. i. 76; if the arrangement was made because the provincials complained of the pressure of taxation (onera deprecantes), better governors might help the provinces by suitable redistribution, and eventually by procuring remission. That the furtherance of the imperial postal service was felt specially in this province as an oppressive burden is shown by the edict of Claudius from Tegea (Ephem. ep. v. p. 69).
177 The Athenian insurrection under Augustus is certainly attested by the notice derived from Africanus in Eusebius, ad ann. Abr. 2025 (whence Orosius, vi. 22, 2). The riots against the strategoi are often mentioned; Plutarch, Q. sympos. viii. 3, init.; (Lucian), Demonax, 11, 64; Philostratus, Vit. soph. i. 23, ii. 8, 11.
178 The magistrate even of culture, that is the freethinker, is advised to attach the largesses which he makes to the religious festivals; for the multitude is strengthened in its faith, when it sees that the men of rank in the city lay some stress on the worship of the gods, and can expend something upon it (Plutarch, Praec. ger. reip. 30).
179 A model sample is the inscription (Lebas–Foucart, ii. p. 142 n., 162 j.) of Μ[ᾶρκορ] Αὐρ[ήλιορ] Ζεύξιππορ ὁ καὶ Κλέανδρορ Φιλομούσω, a contemporary therefore of Pius and Marcus, who was ἱερεὺς Λευκιππίδων καὶ Τινδαριδᾶν, of the Dioscuri and their wives, the daughters of Leukippos, but—in order that with the old the new might not be wanting—also ἀρχιερέος τῶ Σεβαστῶ καὶ τῶν θείων προγόνων ὠτῶ. He had in his youth, moreover, been βουαγὸρ μικκιχιδδομένων, literally herd–leader of the little ones, namely, director of three–year–old boys—the “herds” of boys of Lycurgus began with the seventh year, but his successors had overtaken what was wanting, and embraced in the “herd” and provided with “leaders” all from one year old onward. This same man was victorious (νεικάαρ = νικήσας) κασσηρατοριν, μωαν καὶ λωαν: what this means, may be known perhaps to Lycurgus.
180 “Inland Attica,” says an inhabitant of it in Philostratus, Vitae Soph. ii. 7, “is a good school for one who would learn to speak; the inhabitants of the city of Athens on the other hand, who hire out lodgings to the young people flocking thither from Thrace and Pontus and other barbarian regions, allow their language to be corrupted by these more than they impart to them good speaking. But in the interior, whose inhabitants are not mixed with barbarians, the pronunciation and language are good.”
181 Karl Keil (Pauly, Realencycl. 1² p. 2100) points to τινός for ἧς τινός and τὰ χωρία γέγοναν in the inscription of the wife of Herodes (C. I. L. vi. 1342).
182 Dittenberger, Hermes, i. 414. Here, too, may be adduced what the stupid champion of Apollonius makes his hero write to the Alexandrian professors (Ep. 34), that he has left Argos, Sicyon, Megara, Phocis, Locris, in order that he might not, by staying longer in Hellas, become utterly a barbarian.
183 Tacitus (on the year 62, Ann. xv. 20) characterises one of these rich and influential provincials, Claudius Timarchides from Crete, who is all powerful in his sphere (ut solent praevalidi provincialium et opibus nimiis ad iniurias minorum elati), and has at his disposal the diet and consequently also the decree of thanks—a due accompaniment very desirable for the departing proconsul in view of possible actions of reckoning (in sua potestate situm an proconsulibus, qui Cretam obtinuissent, grates agerentur). The opposition proposes that this decree of thanks be refused, but does not succeed in bringing the proposal to a vote. From another side Plutarch (Praec. ger. reip. c. 19, 3) depicts these Greeks of rank.
184 Herodes was ἐξ ὑπάτων (Philostratus, Vit. Soph. i. 25, 5, p. 526), ἐτέλει ἐκ πατέρων ἐς τοὺς δισυπάτους (ib. ii. init. p. 545). Otherwise nothing is known of consulships of his ancestors; but certainly his grandfather Hipparchus was not a senator. Possibly the question is even only as to cognate ascendants. The family did not receive the Roman franchise under the Julii (comp. C. I. A. iii. 489), but only under the Claudii.
185 The first Roman Olympionices, of whom we know, is Ti. Claudius Ti. f. Nero, beyond doubt the subsequent emperor, with the four–in–hand (Arch. Zeit. 1880, p. 53); this victory falls probably in Ol. 195 (A.D. 1), not in Ol. 99 (A.D. 17), as the list of Africanus states (Euseb. i. p. 214, Schöne). In this year the conqueror was rather his son Germanicus, likewise with the four–in–hand (Arch. Zeit. 1879, p. 36). Among the eponymous Olympionicae, the victors in the stadium, no Roman is found; this wounding of the Greek national feeling seems to have been avoided.
186 An agonistic institute thus privileged is termed ἀγὼν ἱερός, certamen sacrum (that is, with pensioning: Dio, li. 1), or ἀγὼν εἰσελαστικός, certamen iselasticum (comp. among others, Plin. ad Trai. 118, 119; C. I. L. x. 515). The Xystarchia too is, at least in certain cases, conferred by the emperor (Dittenberger, Hermes, xii. 17 f.). Not without warrant these institutes called themselves “world–games” (ἀγὼν οἰκουμενικός).
187 The emperor Gaius declines, in his letter to the diet of Achaia, the “great number” of statues adjudged to him, and contents himself with the four of Olympia, Nemea, Delphi, and the Isthmus (Keil, Inscr. Boeot. n. 31). The same diet resolves to set up a statue to the emperor Hadrian in each of its towns, of which the base of that set up at Abea in Messenia has been preserved (C. I. Gr. 1307). Imperial authorisation for such erections was required from the first.
188 At the revision of the town–accounts of Byzantium, Pliny found that annually 12,000 sesterces (£125) were set down for the conveyance of new–year’s good wishes by a special deputation to the emperor, and 3000 sesterces (£32) for the same to the governor of Moesia. Pliny instructs the authorities to send these congratulations thenceforth only in writing, which Trajan approves (Ep. ad Trai. 43, 44).
189 That the land–routes of Greece were specially unsafe, we do not learn; as to what was the nature of the insurrection in Achaia under Pius (Vita, 5, 4), we are quite in the dark. If the robber–chief generally—and not precisely the Greek one—plays a prominent part in the light literature of the epoch, this vehicle is common to the bad romance–writers of all ages. The Euboean desert of the more polished Dio was not a robber’s nest, but it was the wreck of a great landed estate, whose possessor had been condemned on account of his wealth by the emperor, and which thenceforth lay waste. Moreover it is here apparent—as indeed needs no proof, at least for those who are non–scholars—that this history is just as true as most which begin by stating that the narrator himself had it from the person concerned; if the confiscation were historical, the possession would have come to the exchequer, not to the town, which the narrator accordingly takes good care not to name.
190 The naive description of Achaia by an Egyptian merchant of Constantius’s time may find a place here:—“The land of Achaia, Greece, and Laconia has much of learning, but is inadequate for other things needful; for it is a small and mountainous province, and cannot furnish much corn, but produces some oil and the Attic honey, and can be praised more on account of the schools and eloquence, but not so in most other respects. Of towns it has Corinth and Athens. Corinth has much commerce, and a fine building, the amphitheatre; but Athens has old pictures (historias antiquas), and a work worth mentioning, the citadel, where many statues stand and wonderfully set forth the war–deeds of the forefathers (ubi multis statuis stantibus mirabile est videre dicendum antiquorum bellum). Laconia is said alone to have the marble of Croceae to show, which people call the Lacedaemonian.” The barbarism of expression is to be set down to the account, not of the writer, but of the much later translator.
Anthol. Gr. ix. 553.
192 When Tacitus, Ann. v. 10, names Nicopolis a colonia Romana, the statement is one liable to be misunderstood, but not exactly incorrect; but that of Pliny (H. N. iv. 1, 5), colonia Augusti Actium cum … civitate libera Nicopolitana, is erroneous, as Actium was as little a town as Olympia.
193 Ὁ ἀγὼν Ὀλύμπιος τὰ Ἄκτια, Strabo, vii. 7, 6, p. 325; Ἀκτιάς Josephus, Bell. Jud. i. 20, 4; Ἀκτιονίκης oftener. As the four great Greek national festivals are, as is well known, termed ἡ περίοδος, and the victor crowned in all four περιοδονίκης, so in C. I. Gr. 4472 τῆς περιόδου is appended also to the games of Nicopolis, and the former περιόδος is designated as the ancient (ἀρχαία). As competitive games are frequently called ἰσολύμπια, so we find also ἀγὼν ἰσάκτιος (C. I. Gr. 4472), or certamen ad exemplar Actiacae religionis (Tacitus, Ann. xv. 23).
194 Thus a Nicopolite terms himself ἄρχων τῆς ἱερᾶς Ἀκτιακῆς βουλῆς (Delphi, Rhein. Mus. N. F. ii. 111), as in Elis the expression is used: ἡ πόλις Ἠλείων καὶ ἡ Ὀλυμπικὴ βουλή (Arch. Zeit. 1876, p. 57; similarly ibid. 1877, pp. 40, 41 elsewhere). Moreover the Spartans, as the only Hellenes that took part in the victory at Actium, obtained the conduct (ἐπιμέλεια) of the Actian games (Strabo, vii. 7, 6 p. 325): their relation to the βουλὴ Ἀκτιακή of Nicopolis we do not know.
195 The description of its decay in the time of Constantius (Paneg. 11, 9) is an evidence to the opposite effect for the earlier times of the empire.
196 The excavations at Dodona have confirmed this; all the articles found belong to the pre–Roman period except some coins. Certainly a restoration of the building took place, the time of which cannot be determined; perhaps it was quite late. When Hadrian, who is named Ζεὺς Δωδοναῖος (C. I. Gr. 1822), visited Dodona (Dürr, Reisen Hadrians, p. 56) he did so as an archaeologist. A consultation of the oracle during the imperial period is only reported—and that not after the most trustworthy manner—in the case of the emperor Julian (Theodoretus, Hist. Eccl. iii. 21).
197 The ordinance of Caesar is attested by Appian, B. C. ii. 88, and Plutarch, Caes. 48, and it very well accords with his own account, B. C. iii. 80; whereas Pliny, H. N. iv. 8, 29, names only Pharsalus as a free town. In Augustus’ time a Thessalian of note, Petraeos (probably the partisan of Caesar, B. C. iii. 35), was burnt alive (Plutarch, Praec. ger. reip. 19), doubtless not by a private crime, but according to resolution of the diet, and so the Thessalians were brought before the tribunal of the emperor (Suetonius, Tib. 8). Presumably the two incidents and likewise the loss of freedom stand connected.
198 In the time of the republic Scodra seems to have belonged to Macedonia (iii. 181)iii. 173.; in the imperial period this and Lissus are Dalmatian towns, and the mouth of the Drin forms the boundary on the west.
199 The towns founded in these regions outside of Macedonia proper bear quite the character of colonies proper; e.g. that of Philippi in the Thracian land, and especially that of Derriopus in Paeonia (Liv. xxxix. 53), for which latter place also the distinctively Macedonian politarchs have epigraphic attestation (inscription of the year 197 A.D., τῶν περὶ Ἀλέξανδρον Φιλίππου ἐν Δερριόπῳ πολιταρχῶν, Duchesne and Bayet, Mission au mont Athos, p. 103).
200 That for Lysimachus the Danube was the boundary of the empire, is evident from Pausanias, i. 9, 6.
201 Calybe near Byzantium arose according to Strabo (vii. 6, 2, p. 320) φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου τοὺς πονηροτάτους ἐνταῦθα ἱδρύσαντος. Philippopolis is alleged even according to the account of Theopompus (fr. 122 Müller) to have been founded as Πονηρόπολις, and to have received colonists corresponding with that description. However little these reports deserve trust, they yet in their coincidence express the Botany–Bay character of these foundations.