This collective volume offers a series of case studies about Roman citizens in Greek communities in the second century ce. The interesting book contains well-written and thoughtfully coordinated contributions gathered from a conference held in Paris in 2018, whose topic was ‘Being a Roman citizen in Asia Minor in the 2nd century ce’. Most chapters share a common methodological approach: as individual names reflect legal status, prosopography derived from inscriptions can be used to track social groups, families and individual practices regarding different aspects of citizenship. Some of these issues concern: Roman citizenship's effects on balances of power; which individuals were granted Roman citizenship and who was not (and why); what was the impact of the Roman presence on the local life of Greek communities; and what are the implications of becoming Roman not only at a symbolic level but at a more pragmatic one as well, be it legal, political or identity related.
Frija's introduction provides a powerful and efficient problematisation that considers every chapter of the book within its most recent historiographical trends. She gives a great overview of the book's content and underlines how the second century ce and the province of Asia Minor offer a valuable focal point for studying sociological and legal evolutions, at a stage in history when Roman citizenship was widespread and legal relationships well defined, but before the Antonine Constitution made Roman citizen status universal. The reader tends to forget that this is only the introduction of the book and not a full-scale article.
In the volume's first part the chapters by A. Dalla Rosa and A. Raggi study grants of Roman citizenship. Dalla Rosa's chapter lucidly outlines the sociological and legal consequences of Roman citizenship, with its rights and obligations. He focuses on difficult questions regarding Roman freedmen: their identification through onomastic practices and their legal status, using two case studies on Nakoleia and Blaundus. He underscores that Roman private law could be quite constraining regarding status, matrimonial and succession matters, but that there was a peculiar diversity of practices. In the same vein, Raggi provides a careful analysis of inscriptions from Asia Minor where new Roman citizens appear. He points out that there are more such individuals in cities of conventus, showing the important role of the proconsuls in spreading citizenship.
In the second part, dealing with regional variations, G. Labarre's chapter is a shining example of how onomastic analysis can illuminate the history of a region where other sources are absent, as in the case of remote Eastern Pisidia. With regions lacking attestations of Roman citizens, one might legitimately ask if the non-homogeneous distribution of Roman citizenship throughout the region is due to a phenomenon of resistance. However, together with D. Reitzenstein's chapter, these studies show that quantitative work provides a different impression than qualitative ones. Reitzenstein's focus on Lycia and Pamphylia reveals how local, social representational practices might complicate the matter. G. Kantor completes Reitzenstein's approach on qualitative representation of identity rather than quantification through prosopography. He also questions the influential view of A.N. Sherwin-White that Lycian inscriptions show unique features. The importance of the formula ‘Ρωμαιος καί’ should thus not be overstated, and the relative rarity of Roman citizenship in this region is less conspicuous when weighed against other cases. However, Kantor points to the influence of the Lycian federal institutions (koinon) and the celebration of multiple local citizenship, creating a ‘distinct pattern of representing Roman citizenship’. Finally, F. Kirbihler's chapter focuses on legal aspects of matrimonial strategies. He clearly explains the technicalities of a Roman adrogatio, a complex form of adoption, used by the Italic family of the Vedii in Ephesus to associate themselves with local families that had also obtained Roman citizenship.
In the third part, focused on the Roman colonies, E. Guerber explores the case of the Roman colony of Heraclea Pontica, where some magistrates seem to be Roman while others seem to have remained Greek. He underlines that the two groups appear to remain segregated. One regrets that the legalities that may have discouraged exogamous marriage are not taken into consideration in this study, although they appear in other contributions in the book. H. Fernoux's chapter deals with two Roman colonies from the Troad region (Parium and Alexandreia), where many Greeks were still living. He tracks down social advancement and marriage strategy, using onomastic and legal rules, showing that Italic families seem to trust the highest honours. Both case studies display the same blended proportion of the two population groups, a process that accelerated in the first century ce.
In the last part C. Müller underlines the importance of studying the second century ce by an overview of the most important historiography on Roman citizenship in the Greek-speaking world. She then takes on the case of Thisbe (Boeotia) and the family of the Ulpii Brachas, with a family tree and an onomastic analysis of these important individuals, their marriage with other Romanised families and their political careers. The last chapter, by J. Fournier, deals with the city of Thasos, as a case study of a middle-sized city. Fournier also details some of the consequences of Roman citizenship grants and shows how it was a sine qua non for provincial careers but was not necessarily attractive for local elites as it could be an ‘obstacle to social fluidity’. He highlights the fact that it was sometimes difficult to conclude a Roman legal marriage and that Roman citizenship could then be lost by families, with descendants granted ‘the worst condition’ of the two parents.
A. Heller concludes with methodological remarks about onomastic analysis and its interest for qualitative study. She also gives a synthesis showing how quantitative studies carry huge discrepancies between different regions, with Roman citizenship not equally granted throughout the provinces. Finally, she underscores how variable the situation could be at personal level, how the social and legal interactions could be dictated by local interests.
This definitively interesting book offers lucid glimpses into social and legal questions in a world where individuals lived in shared communities with varied individual status. It, of course, shows the usual defects inherent to the genre of collected volumes, but its highly focused cases studies are held together by a constant concern for its general research question and methodology. It is a welcome set of contributions to the ongoing effort of studying the second century ce, and the impact of the Roman presence and Roman citizenship on various local communities.
