In this masterful monograph J. uses the province of Asia as a case study to examine the ‘establishment of Roman power in a provincial context’ (p. 5) during the last two centuries of the Republic and the Augustan Principate. In the introduction the scholarly overview of previous treatments provides a methodological framework for J.’s approach to the subject, which builds on a detailed analysis of epigraphic sources, further supported by literary, archaeological and numismatic evidence.
The book consists of two parts, each one subdivided into four chapters. Part 1, ‘The Institutions of Roman Government’, addresses the evolution of the Roman provincial administrative system chronologically by highlighting four distinct phases in this process, each treated in a separate chapter. Complementarily, Part 2, ‘Roman Hegemony, Power, and Local Agency’, addresses the impact of official Roman statements within the province’s limited administrative framework.
Chapter 1, ‘From the Attalids to Proconsular Administration, 133–88 bce’, discusses the steps taken by the Roman administration for the initiation of the Asian province within the institutional and economic frame of the former Attalid kingdom. This first phase ends with the beginning of the First Mithridatic War. Chapter 2, ‘The Government of Asia during the Late Republic, 81–49 bce’, is devoted to the reorganisation of the province of Asia in the aftermath of the Peace of Dardanus and highlights the absence of longer-term administrative planning behind Sulla’s, Lucullus’ and Pompey’s actions, which were instead dictated by political and military needs that led to the province’s financial demise. In Chapter 3, ‘Change in a Time of Civil War, 49–30 bce’, J. analyses the ‘critical juncture’ for institutional development represented by the civil wars, highlighting how the presence of powerful imperatores of the likes of Caesar or the triumvirs enabled swifter – if unstable – innovations in provincial administration and communication style between Roman power and civic elites. Chapter 4, ‘Provincia Asia and the Advent of the Principate, 30 bce –14 ce’, focuses on the institutional changes that took place under Augustus, especially concerning the role of the procurators, the evolution of the Asian koinon and the direct intervention of the princeps in provincial matters.
Chapter 5, ‘Hegemony and the Discourse(s) of Power in Roman Asia’, explores how Roman power reshaped communication in Roman Asia. Existing local systems for interacting with rulers were disrupted by Roman practices, necessitating the development of a new framework. This chapter traces the shift towards emphasising personal favours from powerful Romans and the central role of Augustus in establishing new norms for Roman governance.
The last three chapters shift focus to provincial agency, examining how local communities actively responded to Roman power. Chapter 6, ‘The “Politics of Honour”: Learning a New Set of Rules’, examines the function of civic decrees in shaping the interaction between local communities and the Roman state. It argues that honorific decrees, by integrating Greek and Roman customs, played a key role in navigating the relationship between cities and Rome. Chapter 7, ‘Speaking to Roman Power: Diplomacy and Civic Privilege’, focuses on the efforts of individual communities to establish new norms of behaviour and interaction with the Roman state through diplomatic contact. Finally, Chapter 8, ‘Local Displays of Imperial Documents’, analyses the display of Roman official documents in civic contexts, arguing that the most plausible explanation of this phenomenon during the period of study is that local agents inscribed these documents for their own reasons.
The monograph has the merit of combining different classes of evidence within a methodological framework of power relations, more specifically, the so-called ‘speech act’ theory deriving from a ‘petition and response model’, previously applied by J. Ma (Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor [1999]) and C. Ando (Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire [2000]) on studies addressing Antiochus III’s relationships with cities in Asia Minor and the provinces of the Roman Principate, respectively. While fruitfully employed throughout the book, this model proves mostly effective in Part 2, where the concept of ‘speech act’ provides a heuristic tool to conceptualise the changes in interactions between Roman magistrates and local communities, offering a unified yet flexible framework.
The incorporation of numismatic sources within the study of the evolution of the Roman provincial administrative system and its relationship with civic institutions is another significant achievement of the monograph (for a similar treatment of numismatic evidence for the Attalid kingdom, see N. Kaye, The Attalids of Pergamon and Anatolia: Money, Culture, and State Power [2022]). In Part 1 four sections are devoted to the monetary system of the Asian province: ‘Republican cistophori in Post-Attalid Asia’(pp. 44–7), ‘A Coin for Asia?: The Decline and Revival of the cistophorus’ (pp. 64–7), ‘The Coinage of provincia Asia during the Civil Wars’ (pp. 102–3), ‘The Coinage of Asia under Augustus’ (pp. 116–20). A few minor imprecisions (e.g. the later Republican cistophorus did not maintain ‘the same weight standard as Attalid and post-Attalid cistophori’ [p. 66], on this see A. Meadows ‘The Penetration of the Denarius and Quinarius Standards into Asia Minor in the 1st Century bc’, in: R.H.J. Ashton and N. Badoud [edd.], Graecia Capta? Rome et les monnayages du monde égéen (II e–I er s. av. J.-C.) [2021], pp. 127–85, at pp. 148–55; the ATPA cistophori are likely not dated to the 40s bce [p. 67], a dating around the 60s bce is advocated by M. Amandry, ‘L’emprise romaine en Asie à la fin de la République’, RN 176 [2019], pp. 385–9, and L. Carbone et al., Local Coinages in a Roman World [2024], p. 270) do not lessen the importance of including these data within the dialogue of power between the Roman administration and civic elites, especially in the context of the heightened personal power of the imperatores first and, then, of Augustus.
The tables in the volume provide an essential complement to the text, particularly regarding the changing titles of Roman magistrates on inscriptions (Table 6.1). The exhaustive analysis of these titles might have benefited from a closer comparison with the list of numismatic portraits of Roman magistrates included in A. Burnett (‘The Augustan Revolution Seen from the Mints of the Provinces’, JRS 101 [2011], 1–30), promised at p. 119 n. 90, but not included in the final text. Very few typos are noticeable in this well-produced volume, with none affecting its scholarly quality.
Despite the minor flaws outlined, J.’s erudite analysis succeeds in providing a chronological and conceptual framework for the development of the administrative organisation of the province as well as for the process of mutual adaptation of civic communities and Roman authorities in Asia.
