Roman power and the memorial turn in civic honourability in western Asia Minor, c. 85 BCE – 14 CE

Journal article

The honours granted by Hellenistic poleis to their benefactors long formed a means of creating ideological distance, integrating the power of kings and powerful outsiders, while maintaining civic agency and autonomy. Did this change under the rule of Rome? This article suggests that the civic honours for Roman officials, and later for the emperor, contributed over the 1st century BCE to a gradual development in mindset towards the honouring of local citizens in western Asia Minor, by which the traditional aims of exemplarity and social replication came to be overshadowed, if never replaced, by that of individual commemoration. It argues that this happened over two main phases in the period 85 BCE to 14 CE. In the first, the benefactions and honours of Roman officials as representatives of civic interests intruded upon those of civic notables, resulting in an elevation in the honorific status of the latter, and a tendency to emphasise the memorability of their achievements. The subsequent onset of the principate and imperial cult imposed a limit to local honorific status, and encouraged the articulation of internal honorific hierarchies among civic notables through honorific titles and claims to familial primacy, accentuating interest in representing individuality, to the diminution of imitability.

Authors: Chin, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Presses Universitaires Franc-Comtoises
• Journal: Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne
• Volume: 2023
• Issue: S26
• Pages: 201-224
• Publication date: 2023-05-26
• Acceptance date: 2021-01-11
• DOI: 10.3917/dha.hs26.0201
• ISSN: 0755-7256
• Language: English
• Keywords: memory; Hellenistic; FFR; imperial cult; ambassadors; Euergetism; civic honours; exemplarity; western Asia Minor; Rome; honorific titles