The volume belongs to a direction of study increasingly taken up in recent years, concerned with the impact and consequences of Roman rule in the provinces of the Greek east. Its editors are well known for their work on Greece under Roman rule, especially regarding social structures, prosopography and onomastics. The book purports to examine social dynamics in Greece and Macedonia in a variety of contexts and against various backgrounds under the all-encompassing umbrella of Roman rule.
A.D. Rizakis gives a comprehensive survey on social mobility in the Greek provinces during the Empire. His aim is to show that the silence of the sources conveys the wrong impression of social immobility: discontinuities and renewal of the elites are often encountered. Greek cities transformed into Roman colonies experienced a brutal upheaval of their social structures, which was, however, followed by scant social mobility, while in other cities changes were much more gradual. Such was the case of Athens, while in places such as Messenia or Sparta social hierarchy was entirely recomposed. Instances of spectacular social ascent were often followed by downfall or disappearance, such instances being found more often in the case of new families than of the old established ones.
E. Stavrianopoulou, addressing the modes of social mobility in the Roman Cyclades, examines the relation between social mobility and the role and place of women in society. She examines three case studies: the use of adoption as a method of manipulating the rules governing the access to priestly functions; marriage into old families to facilitate the advancement of new ones; and new methods of display (new magistracies, public banquets) as avenues of mobility. Despite various modes of representation of the elites, the social mobility of these women of the elite brought no major change to traditional gender divisions.
C. Müller tackles groups and phenomena of social recomposition in the Athenian ‘colony’ of Delos after 167 bc. Delian society was made up of a multitude of hard-to-classify groups; the main lines of division were drawn between residents, short-term residents and passers-through. The discontinuation of Athenian honorary decrees signifies neither the disappearance of the community nor its commingling with others; it just means the habit of engraving decrees was abandoned in favour of statues and dedications, which agrees with the enhanced competition for display and prestige among the various social groups.
C. Hasenohr raises the question of the emporion of Delos as a melting pot of social mobility and examines it on the basis of Italic slaves and freedmen (second–first century bc). They enjoyed on Delos a favourable status and displayed some conduct comparable to that of the freeborn; however, distinctions were clearly maintained. As there are generally few persons who occur more than once in inscriptions, there are also few examples attesting a change of status for slaves and none for freedmen.
M. Zarmakoupi's paper examines social mobility on Delos considering material culture, namely the dwellings of Italic merchants, and epigraphic documents occurring in them. Italic merchants exhibited paintings of the Lares Compitales, which established their ethnic identity; the interior furnishings answered to concrete needs as well as to demonstrating social status. The examination of the exact location within houses where inscriptions or graffiti were placed and of their impact upon the viewer allows Zarmakoupi to discuss the way in which the inhabitants of these houses connected economic activities to efforts of enhancing their social status. This is the one paper that could have done with more editing regarding the French and proofreading.
A.D. Rizakis and S. Zoumbaki discuss the local elites and social mobility in Greece under the Empire on the basis of the cases of Athens and Sparta, namely the way in which a traditional polis nobility transformed into a provincial aristocracy. There was change at the very top of the civic elite, where newly powerful families ascended to take their place among the old established ones. Social mobility at the top was facilitated by a number of strategies for reaching or maintaining elite status, such as Roman citizenship, wealth, distinguished ancestors, matrimonial alliances, real and enhanced social visibility, connections to Roman potentates and to members of other regional and local Greek elites.
B.W. Millis gives a very clear and persuasive examination of the freedman magistrates of Corinth and their position in Roman Greece. The Roman colony of Corinth having been founded in order to further the interests of Roman merchants, the freedmen in the initial phase of the colony were connected to powerful and influential Roman families. Thus, the unusual occurrence of freedmen in the ordo of a Roman city signifies neither lack of hierarchy nor relaxed rules, but, on the contrary, a strict control over who is allowed access to the elites. After the first generation, the admission of new such magistrates is much restricted and by the end of the first century bc, freedman magistrates disappear from the records. Their presence there speaks more of the power of their patrons’ families than it does of real social mobility, especially when measured against those who are socially above and below them. The freedman magistrates were not present with benefactions or office in the larger area outside Corinth, which would be a real measure of mobility. This is the most visible difference between them and the elites of the old Greek cities: not legal, but social barriers kept them from ascending further.
D. Baldassara examines the family of the Aristomenai of Messene, discussing the epigraphic evidence for its members, careers and family connections. Additionally, she examines two other, unconnected families where the name also occurs.
R. Bouchon and N. Kyriakidis study the priesthood of Apollo at Delphi as an observatory of social dynamics in Greece under Roman rule (second century bc–second century ad). This is a well-documented period for a highly prestigious office held for life by two of the citizens of Delphi; this allows the authors to tackle such questions as: was the priesthood the motor or the reward of social mobility? Was it a guarantee against social descent? And was there a connection between social and geographic mobility? The authors discuss these issues over four chronological stages.
R. Bouchon examines the Cocceii family of Larissa. Bouchon tentatively suggests an ancestor from the Hellenistic era before the granting of the franchise; this ancestor belonged to a family which was part of the city elite, but not of its first ranks, and which held no Thessalian federal office. By the second century ad the Cocceii are documented through manumission deeds and theatre seats, which allow Bouchon to follow up its descent, ramifications and matrimonial alliances.
J. Bartels discusses methodological questions in search of social mobility within the poleis of Roman Macedonia. In literary sources generally, and in sources concerned specifically with Macedonia, the factors that confer social prestige are birth and wealth to a certain extent, but first and foremost benefactions and public office, to which education may be added. Failing direct contemporary statements on social mobility in Macedonia and given the limitations of epigraphic sources, any changes in society are hardly visible except on the intergenerational level and can be grasped almost only in the holding of public office.
The short paper by P. Nigdelis corrects the author's own previous restoration of the gentilicium of the owner of the villa rustica in the Mavrouda region from Aelius to Iulius and identifies him with a member of a prominent family of Macedonia that held high office over three generations.
E. Sverkos, in the longest contribution of the volume, discusses families of notables and the issue of the civitas Romana in the province of Macedonia. Sverkos examines relevant cases, from the first triumvirate to the third century, concentrating on families belonging to the urban or provincial elite for whom there is information on how they were granted the franchise and on their relations to Roman potentates.
F. Camia is in search of a social perspective concerning the priests in Roman Greece. Usually, people being granted priestly office already belonged to the social elite. The public image of priests, including their virtues (handled generically, with no specific connection to their office) and their benefactions, appears more important than the office itself. There is hardly any social ascent to be gleaned, as priesthoods were mainly the crowning of an already extant status and career. On the other hand, not even priesthoods of the Imperial cult appear to have led anyone on to a career higher than the provincial level.
P.N. Doukellis discusses Philostratus’ Lives of the sophists and the sophists’ role in social mobility, power networks and fictive power, as they were part of the local elite and involved in activities as citizens and benefactors. The increase of the sophists’ capacity to act took two main, quantitative aspects: geographical mobility and the number and ethnic provenance of their disciples. But as much as they strove to serve the ideological power, their real political power was very restricted, as it belonged to a by now defunct political tradition, the Greek polis.
L. Gagliardi's study on the paroikoi in Greece and Macedonia in the Hellenistic and early Roman period discusses the various categories of inhabitants of a polis. He shows that, while in Asia Minor the term paroikos is the equivalent of the laoi of the ge basilike, in Greece and Macedonia it is one of the notions used to describe the resident foreigners.
S. Ramgopal examines the associations of Roman citizens in Greece, discussing the interactions between the associations of Roman citizens and their Greek social and cultural milieu. The elites of the Greek cities took part in this network by acting as benefactors for such associations, which lets the latter sometimes appear as stand-ins for Rome herself.
Overall, the individual papers are of uneven scope and depth, some handling broader themes and some concentrating on single issues of local relevance, thus contributing to the volume's aim of presenting a multifaceted approach to the issue of social dynamics in Roman Greece and Macedonia. If there is more emphasis on the elites than other social strata, and more on important centres such as Athens, Sparta or Delos, this is mainly attributable to the nature of our sources. This is a valuable and insightful contribution to the wider issue of continuity and transition of social structures under Roman rule.
