civiltà mediterraneo
CIVILTÀ DEL
MEDITERRANEO
DICEMBRE 2016
27
Diogene Edizioni
CIVILTÀ DEL
MEDITERRANEO
27/2016
Diogene Edizioni
Nuova Serie - Anno XV (XX), n. 27/2016 Registrazione presso il Tribunale di Napoli n. 5288 r.s. ISSN 1120-9860 – ISBN 978-88-6647-166-0 (ebook) Direttore responsabile: Ermanno Corsi Direzione scientifica: Fabrizio Lomonaco e Fulvio Tessitore Consiglio direttivo: Valeria Fiorani Piacentini, Alessandro Gori, Elda Morlicchio, Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Rosario Sommella, Lida Viganoni Consiglio scientifico: Giovanni Cannata, Giuseppe Cantillo, Enrico Iachello, Giancarlo Magnano San Lio, Elisa Novi Chavarria, Paola Volpe Cacciatore Redazione: Marcello Gisondi, Armando Mascolo, Giovanni Morrone, Salvatore Principe, Pierluigi Venuta (Segretario e coordinatore della Redazione) © Consorzio Interuniversitario ‘Civiltà del Mediterraneo’ via Porta di Massa 1, 80133 Napoli tel. 081 253 55 88 / 86 / 97 - 081 253 55 07 - fax 081 253 55 83 Un fascicolo annuale € 40,00 Abbonamento: biennale € 70,00 – quinquennale € 160,00 Le richieste di prenotazioni, abbonamenti e arretrati vanno indirizzate a: Diogene Edizioni – Piazza della Vittoria 5, 86100 Campobasso (CB) www.diogeneedizioni.it - e-mail: [email protected] La pubblicazione di questo numero è frutto della collaborazione dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II con la Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg Questa Rivista è l’organo del Consorzio ‘Civiltà del Mediterraneo’, con sede in Napoli, via Porta di Massa 1, 80133 (www.filosofia.unina.it/civilta-delmediterraneo). Per tutto ciò che concerne l’attività redazionale, è possibile comunicare all’indirizzo: [email protected]. I manoscritti inviati in visione saranno esaminati da un Comitato di Lettura (procedura di «blind peer review»), composto da studiosi italiani e stranieri, che comunicherà agli autori l’esito della valutazione; in ogni caso, non si restituiscono i contributi pervenuti. I collaboratori sono invitati ad attenersi alle norme editoriali riportate in fondo alla Rivista. Le tesi sostenute negli scritti pubblicati rispecchiano, ovviamente, solo il pensiero di ciascun autore.
SOMMARIO
LEONARDO GREGORATTI Contributions to the History of Rome in the East: Building a Province, Becoming an Empire
5
GIUSEPPINA BELLOISI Custodire le antichità. Indirizzi legislativi dei Borbone in materia di conservazione del patrimonio artistico
21
FLAVIA CAVALIERE Traduzioni e tradizioni
45
GIUSEPPE LISSA Etica, ambiente, acqua
63
AUROSA ALISON La Méditerranée di Le Corbusier: una lezione sull’Armonia
111
ROCCO PITITTO Sguardi e visioni del Mediterraneo: un viaggio di formazione
131
Norme per i collaboratori
183
Indici dei fascicoli (1991-2015)
189
LEONARDO GREGORATTI CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE1 Abstract: After the defeat of the allied kingdoms of Pontus and Armenia, the enemies of Rome in the East, Pompeius, found himself in the condition to face the difficult situation of the territories west of the Euphrates, which once belonged to the Seleucid kingdom. The methods he employed in order to restore a form of political authority in those areas will characterize and influence the following presence of Rome in the Near East. This paper wants to provide a general outline of this presence pointing out the most relevant topics and problems in order to provide the students with a clear starting point to deepen the study of this vast and complicated topic. Keywords: Rome, History, Province, Empire.
In 64 BC Gn. Pompeius, charged by the Senate with the responsibility to conduct Rome’s foreign policy in the Near East, put an end to the Seleucid kingdom, which ruled those regions since Alexander’s time, reducing what remained of that once vast and powerful state to a Roman province. In such geographical contest, perhaps more clearly than everywhere else, Rome found itself compelled to face a new and difficult challenge, a trial of a strictly political kind, in order to deal with, the power of her armies would prove only marginally useful. Since the end of the II century BC the gradual and progressive disintegration of the Seleucid authority determined a condition 1
This contribution, whose nature is on purpose more didactic than investigative, arose from my teaching experience and in particular from the many seminars and discussions I had in the recent years with my Italian and British students. The Roman Near East is a complicated and vast field of studies which is only occasionally touched in the more general Roman history modules the students usually take. It would be useful for them to be able to read a short outline of the Roman presence in the east which includes some of the most important themes and fundamental bibliographic references before dealing more in depth with the topic.
6
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
of spread political and institutional anarchy which interested the whole near eastern region2. This situation rendered extremely difficult the establishing of a new supreme and supranational authority, but also almost impossible maintaining a real control of the territory. For the first time Rome extended her rule over lands where since millennia complex and fully structured civilizations had followed one after the other, a region where different cultural traditions and government structures stratified and amalgamated themselves through the centuries generating a variety of cosmopolite and multicultural socio-political entities. The political choices through which Rome managed to achieve the control of such a complex and problematic region deserve to be taken into consideration and analysed in detail. The building of a consolidated Roman power in the East represented a testing ground which forced the Roman leadership to conceive new systems of territorial control. It was during this period that the late republican provincial structures underwent a series of major changes towards those more evolved forms of territorial control which will later become characteristic of the universal empire of Rome of the following centuries. The overall strategy the Roman leadership adopted in the East in order to establish and consolidate ita control on the land, privileged the idea of progressively introducing the typical structures of the Roman provincial administration into local contexts exclusively once these had proved mature enough to receive them. At the very beginning the Roman warlords thus decided to maintain to the power the social and political subjects they encountered the moment they undertook the conquest of the East. They distinguished nonetheless between those entities which could easily find a place in Rome’s conceived new order from those which would possibly become a cause of trouble and instability3. M. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie: Histoire du Levant antique, IVe siècle avant Jésus-Christ - IIIe siècle après Jésus-Christ, Paris, Fayard, 2001, 2
pp. 380-428. 3 Ibidem, pp. 449-451.
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
7
This concept which constituted the cornerstone of the whole political reorganization of the East seems evident since the time Pompeius put into action the primitive arrangements regarding the new province. In the near eastern region whose composite socio-political fabric was the result of the different contributions and the different cultural influences (Semitic, Iranic, Greek etc.) experienced along his history, Rome preferred to build its power on those element both cultural and political that the Greek domination had introduced in Western Asia in the centuries following Alexander the Great’s conquest. The victory achieved in November 333 BC on the plain of Issus by Alexander on the army of Darius III Codomanos, the Persian king, opened the way to the Macedonian domination of Syria. The integrity of the vast empire subdued by the famous conqueror survived only few years after his death in 322 BC at Babylon. The policy he undertook was carried on for what concerned the oriental satrapies of his immense reign, by his successors, in particular by the house of the Seleucids, the most important continuators of Alexander’s projects for the East. Thousands of Greeks moved to Syria bringing with themselves their habits and their culture4. This gave impulse to a process of Hellenization, as the spreading of the Greek culture among the population of the Near East has been called. In short time, as Isocrates, a famous Greek orator, had conjectured almost a century before, began to be considered as Greeks, or Hellenes, not only those who could claim a Greek ascendency, but even all the many who spoke Greek, adopted Greek fashion, worshipped Greek divinities or took part to Greek sport or artistic competitions5. In other words anybody who adopted part or all the typical elements of the culture of the new rulers was eligible to be considered Greek. The Hellenistic monarchs also promoted the foundation of several new cities which were supposed to receive the Macedonian immigrates. In this period cities like Antiochia, Seleucia Pieria, Seleucia on the Tigris, Apamea, Laodicea, the centres of 4 5
Ibidem, pp. 141-143. Isocr., Pan., 50.
8
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
the Tetrapolis and of the Decapolis were founded and grew in importance, politically organized according to the model of the classical Greek polis, a model soon imitated also by the main towns of Semitic origin as Damascus or Amman. The cities soon became the centres from where the Hellenistic culture spread all over the country, in opposition with the scarcely urbanized areas where the Semitic culture and the use of the Aramaic dialects remained predominant6. The urban centres of the Near East, prosperous due to their manufacturing activities and the importance they played in the long distance trade with India, China, Arabia and the western Mediterranean, were the political entities that most suffered from the state of anarchy which occurred at the beginning of the I century BC, when the Seleucid authority was no more able to exercise an effective power7. The dynastic struggles, the appearance of new and autonomous local political entities within the already weaken kingdom, such as the Nabatean state8 or the kingdoms of Edessa9 and Commagene10, or in open rebellion against it, like See the still fundamental V. Tcherikover, Die hellenistischen Städtegründungen von Alexander der Grosse bis auf die Römerzeit , «Philologus», Suppl. XIX, Leipzig, Dietrich, 1927; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 6
111-152. 7 8
Ibidem, pp. 381-383.
The Nabatean kingdom was state based mainly on commerce lying on nowadays Jordan, Sinai and northern Saudi Arabia. Since its beginnings it was characterized by a rapid territorial expansion towards the north and the Mediterranean coast (Gaza, Negev). The capital city was Petra, terminal of the trade routes from the Arabian peninsula. For a general approach see R. D. Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100-30 BC, TorontoBuffalo, University of Toronto Press, 1990, pp. 72-75 and 208-213; and the recent The World of the Nabataeans, Volume 2 of the International Con-
ference, The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans held at the British Museum, 17-19 April 2001, ed. by K. D. Politis, Stuttgart, Steiner Verlag,
2007. 9 This state was grown around the city of Edessa, actually in southern Turkey, where from the 132 BC an Arabian dynasty took the power. See J. B. Segal, Edessa, the ‘Blessed City’, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970; H. J. W. Drijvers, Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II, 8, ed. by H. Temporini and W. Haase, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1977, p. 867; S. K. Ross, Roman Edessa, Politics and
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
9
the Hasmonean kingdom in Judea11, and the external threats from the rival kingdom of the Ptolemaids, from the Parthians and from Rome itself were the main causes which brought to the rapid disintegration of the Seleucid empire. The first attempts to replace the Seleucids were made by the ruling councils of the Syrian cities, exposed to the risk of raids and robberies from nomadic chiefs or neighbouring local lords. They sought help from the most powerful foreign kings. Damascus, threatened by the Itureans, a nomadic population from the Beqaa valley12, called for help from Aretas III, the Nabatean king (84 BC). The following year the citizens of Antiochia, the Seleucid capital, addressed to Tigranes the Great13, the powerful king of Armenia, who exploited the situation to take the control of the entire northern Syria, which he maintained until he was forced to leave, in the 69 BC, when the Romans invaded his own kingdom. The solution conceived by the city ruling councils thus proved itself to be short-lasting apart from being extremely hazardous for the cities’ independence. For the abovementioned monarchs’ plans in fact the rich urban centres repreCulture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE, London, Routledge, 2001. 10 A kingdom whose capital was Samosata on the high course of the Euphrates. It had a prominent strategic position watching Seleucia on the Euphrates (or Zeugma), the main crossing point on the high river course. See R. D. Sullivan, The Dynasty of Commagene, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, pp. 732-798; Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty, pp. 59-62 and 195-198; M. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene ellenistico-romana, Pisa, Giardini, 2006. 11 The Hasmonean kingdom was created in the middle of the II century BC when the Maccabeans revolted in Jerusalem against the Greek authorities and the Hellenized Jews. The leader of the revolt, Judas Maccabaeus managed in short time to drive out the Seleucid troops and acquire the control of the whole Judea. Later Alexander Janneus started an aggressive policy aimed at reaching the borders of the ancient biblical kingdom of Israel. The attacks were directed mainly towards southern Levant and Transjordan. This provoked a conflict with the Nabatean kings destabilizing the whole region. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 384-411. 12 Strab., XVI, 2. 18. 13 Just, XL, 1; Strab., XI, 14. 15; App. Syr., 48.
10
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
sented little more than an appealing opportunity to significantly increase their income. With Tigranes of Armenia vanishing from the scene, the vacuum of power which followed put forward again the problem concerning the political settlement of the East. A first attempt to reinstate the Seleucid dynasty with the support of Rome operated by the Roman general Lucullus failed. The population of Antioch soon rebelled against the chosen king Antiochus XIII14, who was backed by Sampsigeranos, king of Emesa, appointing on his place Philippus II, a candidate supported by Azizos, arabarchos of northern Syria15. It was clear that at that time the Seleucid dynasts were unable to exert the power independently and were forced to please those local lords who wielded the real power. Pompeius’ policy marked a difference with that of his rival and predecessor. After reaching the capital Antioch in 64 BC, he forced the Seleucid pretenders to renounce to their claims to the royal dignity causing in fact the end of the Seleucid dynasty. According to Plutarch, Pompeius’ behaviour was justified by the fact that Syria at that time «had no legitimate heirs»16. In reality as above pointed out, there was no shortage of legitimate pretenders. What lacked was a strong central power endowed of the capacity of exerting a strict control over the territory in order to assure the political stability in the region. Setting a monarch unable even to maintain himself on the throne would have meant allowing the «Arabs and Jews» to detain the power17. The rivalry between several political subjects, in other words, would have perpetuated the situation of chronic instability in Western Asia with its long-lasting effects on the whole eastern Mediterranean and the new created Roman provinces of western Anatolia. An instability which had already largely endangered the Roman commercial enterprises in the East18.
14
Diod., XL, 1a-1b. Flav. Joseph., AJ, XIII, 384. 16 Plut., Pomp., 39. 3. 17 Just., XL, 2. 3-4. 18 The situation of political anarchy in the Levant favored the activity of 15
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
11
Under many aspects what happened at Antioch in 64 BC marked a turning point in the history of the Near East. It constituted the formal act through which Rome took over the legal right to exert the power and control the land where until that moment the Seleucid king was acknowledged as the supreme authority. In the Seleucid capital city, about to became the seat of the government of Rome in the region, Pompeius laid the foundations for the Roman presence in Syria presenting the new conquerors as the legitimate heirs and the political continuators of the Hellenistic monarchs and, through them, of the greatest leader of all times: Alexander the Great. The Roman province of Syria was thus established as an ideal prosecution of the exhaust Seleucid kingdom, a sort of historical continuation, the last evolution stage of the universal empire which Alexander was able to create. Once he had arranged the things from a legal point of view, assuring to himself, as Rome’s representative, the right to intervene in the political situation of the East, Pompeius began to operate on the territory to set order and assure the governability among the various political entities struggling with each other. Pompeius charged by the senate with full power on the lands subdued, once he took over on behalf of Rome the role of supreme authority in western Asia, acting as both a new Seleucus and a new Alexander, got ready to create a new order in the East, Rome’s order. Before discussing the strategy the Roman general adopted, the general situation of the Roman state at that time must briefly be taken into consideration. The expansionistic efforts the Republic achieved during the years preceding Tigranes’
18
The situation of political anarchy in the Levant favored the activity of the eastern Mediterranean pirates. Following the devastation operated in 88 BC by Mithridates VI of Pontus and again in 69 BC by the pirates the important trade emporium of Delos ceased to exist. It cannot be excluded that from that moment onwards the lobby of the Roman negotiatores began to exert a strong pressure on the republican leadership for the extension of a direct political control on the Near East. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie , p. 444.
12
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
defeat was remarkable. Three new provinces were organized in Asia minor: Bithynia, Cilicia and Pontus. The roman leaders soon realized that hardly in these conditions they would have been able to found an affective administration in the East relying exclusively on their agents. Another problem was represented by the government structures and the administrative practises belonging to the Seleucid organization which could not be abruptly substituted by Roman ones from one day to another. The only practicable solution consisted in maintaining and exploiting those local structures of control, Greek or not, which could prove useful to the Roman authority in order to control the land. In 63 BC Pompeius was in Damascus, the southern metropolis of Syria, one of the centres most exposed to the threat coming from the overwhelming power of the local nomad lords. There Pompeius prepared himself to exercise the ruling rights achieved in Antioch, presenting himself as the judge of disputes and rivalries among local lords19. Deciding to accept or refuse the homages paid by kings and Arab lords, Pompeius was making in concrete terms a choice: he was determining which political subjects had the opportunity to play a role in the new Roman organization and which ones were destined instead to succumb. The geopolitical setting on which the Roman general was supposed to work on was extremely various. The Greek governed cities which had previously constituted the backbone of the Seleucid rule were included directly in the new system. Now put under the direct protection of the Romans, the system of self government and the control they were able to exert on their respective territories constituted the basis of the Roman domination. The city leading classes became the main allies of Rome in the East, their ruling councils were the foundations on which the new province of Syria was laid20.
Ibidem, pp. 444-447 and pp. 449-451; K. Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near East, London, Getty Publications, 2003, pp. 19-23. 19
20
An example of this policy is offered by the Decapolis towns. Pompeius forced the last of the Hasmoneans to give back the conquered cities that
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
13
Supported financially by the Republic, the Greek centres from that moment onwards began to prosper, urban centres were rebuilt and the economy flourished. Most of the local kings, like Abgar II of Edessa or Antiochus from Commagene, some of which had obtained the royal dignity from the Seleucid monarchs themselves, were maintained on their thrones as “friends and allies of the Roman people”21. Among the not so consolidated and defined political realities Pompeius operated a selection. Some local lords and marauder chiefs, as Silas the Judean, ruler of Lysias22 and Dionysios of Tripolis, were simply wiped out. Others, usually the most powerful, Ptolemy of Chalcis and Sampsigeramos of Emesa23, were offered the chance to submit to Pompeius after paying a tribute. Only the lords who demonstrated to be ready and in the condition to abandon robbery activities, the most endemic cause of instability in the region, were permitted to survive. Even many tribe chiefs whose rule stretched itself on peripheral lands far from the main traffic routes or from the most important towns, areas which Rome had no interest to control directly, were offered an agreement with the provincial authorities. As a result of this policy Rome found herself in the condition of experimenting new forms of territorial control in which provincial communities belonging to Roman state coexisted side by side with different political subjects lying outside the Roman borders and characterized by various degrees of institutional evolution and autonomy. As seen, the guidelines for the inclusion of the Near East within the Roman sphere of influence were already established few years after the arrival of the first military contingents of roman legionaries. Nonetheless, a systematic policy aimed at consolidating the province of Syria and strengthening the Rowere immediately annexed to the new Syrian province. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 449-451. 21 Cass. Dio., XL, 20; App., Mithrid., 114; Strab., XVI, 2. 3. 22 Strab., XI, 14. 15; Flav. Joseph., AJ, XIV, 38-40. 23 Cic., Ad Att., II, 14. 1; 16. 2; 17. 2; 23. 2.
14
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
man presence in the East took place only after the civil wars when the princeps Augustus decided a profound reformation of the entire provincial organization of the Empire. Pompeius’ initiatives have granted political stability while the vanishing of all subjects involved in robbery activities assured to the country a period of generalized prosperity. Nonetheless the iterated Parthian invasions during the civil war period highlighted an important weakness of the provincial administration: the incapacity of the Syrian province to face an international threat. This fact constituted a not secondary problem for the Roman authority in charge of the province especially in a period during which the relations between the two superpowers, since the failed invasion of Parthia led by Crassus which ended in the 53 BC with the disastrous defeat of Charrae, were faster evolving towards a decisive military confrontation. The solution indicated by Augustus in 27 BC disposed the improvement of the military presence in the area. Syria as an imperial province was committed to a governor of consular rank supported for what concerned the financial questions, by a procurator, chosen from equestrian officers belonging to the high class of ducenarii. During the Julio-Claudian period five legions were quartered in the provincial territory: the III Gallica in north Syria24, the VI Ferrata at Laodicea, on the coast, the XII Fulminata and the X Fretensis on the inland nearby, at Raphanea25 and Cyrrhos26. In 56 AD a fifth unit, the IV Scythica was located in Seleucia Zeugma, the most important crossing point of the Euphrates, south from the Taurus mountains27. Tac., Ann., XIII, 38, 40; XV, 6, 26; L. Keppie, Legions in the East From Augustus to Trajan, in The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, ed. by P. Freeman and D. Kennedy, Oxford, B.A.R., 1986, pp. 41424
415.
Flav. Joseph., BJ, VII, 18. Tac., Ann., II, 57. 27 Millar, The Roman Near East, pp. 66-69 and 82-83; M. A. Speidel, Legio IIII Scythica, its Movements and Men , in The Twin Towns of Zeugma on the Euphrates, ed. by D. Kennedy, Portsmouth (RI), Journal of 25 26
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
15
At the same time the imperial leaders started the building of a road network conceived to permit troops to intervene quickly everywhere in the province the military force was required 28. It was the work of road building, which implied the creation of an effective service and communication system under imperial responsibility, even more than the stationing of military units, that constituted the act through which imperial authorities took the actual control of the conquered land. Like elsewhere within Roman domains it was the military power along to the unrestricted capacity of intervention granted by the route network, that shaped Rome’s occupancy of the land. From the Julio-Claudian reorganization of the province onwards, the military presence and the communication system were two strictly connected elements destined to develop synergically through the time. At the beginning of the imperial reorganization of the province, as it has been stated, most of the military units were located mainly on the coast or in central Syria. They worked as a sort of occupation force, protecting the harbours and the cities of northern Levant and central Syria, such as Emesa and Apamea, where large part of the provincial richness was concentrated29. This seemed at that time a much more vital task than watching the Roman borders. Also the original structure of the road network reflected this strategic choice. It was in fact developed starting from the main coastal route between Antioch and the town of Ptolemais, the gate of Judaea, built in
Roman Archaeology, 1998, pp. 163-203; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 480-486; Butcher, Roman Syria, pp. 405-407. 28 On this topic see the old but still fundamental P. Thomsen, Die römischen Meilensteine der Provinzen Syria, Arabia, und Palaestina , «Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins», XL (1917), pp. 1-103; R. P. A. Poidebard, La trace de Rome dans le desert de Syrie, le limes de Trajan a la conquète arabe, recherches aériennes (1925-1932), Paris, P. Geuthner, 1934; Millar, The Roman Near East, p. 69; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 486-488. 29 B. Isaac, The Limits of the Empire. The Roman Army in the East, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990.
16
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
56 AD by Nero following the course of a previous royal road30. This situation underwent some major changes after the conclusion of the war against the Parthians for the possession of the Armenian kingdom (58-66 AD) and after the immediately following Great Jewish Rebellion (66-70 AD). Both these political crisis involved a wide and quick mobilization of military forces, compelling the emperor Vespasian, the first member of the Flavian dynasty which replaced the Julio-Claudians in 69 AD, to reconsider the conditions of the entire Roman presence in the East. By the end of the sixties of the I century AD several major changes in the organization of the Roman power in the region can be spot. All were a direct consequence of the radical changes in the strategy the Romans had adopted in the East, a series of chances which articulated themselves around three directives. The accession of Vespasian sat the definitive abandoning of the system based on the control of territories through vassal kings established by Pompeius. After more than a century of Roman influence the territories and, in a particular, the cities subjected to the rule of the allied kings had become in fact undistinguishable from the provincial domains. The vassal monarchs, normally brought up in Rome and anxious to please or show their gratitude towards the emperor, used to rule over their subjects not dissimilarly from what the Roman provincial leaders were doing within the imperial borders. Large part of their political decisions furthermore were usually deeply influenced by the opinion of the imperial provincial governors. Under these circumstances it seemed clear to Vespasian that the situation had sufficiently evolved to proceed to the annexation of the client kings’ domains31. This decision would have R. G. Goodchild, The Coast Road of Phoenicia and its Milestones, «Berytus», IX (1949), pp. 91-127. 31 G. W. Bowersock, Syria under Vespasian, «Journal of Roman Studies», LXIII (1973), pp. 133-140; A. B. Bosworth, Vespasian’s Reorganization of the North-East Frontier, «Antichthon», X (1976), pp. 6378; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 497-527; Millar, The Roman Near East, pp. 80-90. 30
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
17
allowed the imperial finances to avoid sustaining any longer the costs for maintaining the expensive royal courts. In addition taking on direct rule on those lands would neutralize the risks connected with the fact that the dynastic system of succession didn’t allow Rome to appoint the most proficient ad suitable rulers for a specific kingdom. The incapacity and the government inefficiency of some monarchs were made evident by the recent political emergencies. In the span of few years the kingdoms of Commagene (72 AD) and Emesa (between 72 and 79 AD) were annexed. In the southern Levant the Herodid tetrarchies and kingdoms32 were absorbed in the new province of Judaea. With the exception of the Nabatean kingdom bordering the Arabian desert, all minor client states disappeared and the Roman domains by the end of the 70s were unified under the direct rule of the emperor. This development of the geopolitical situation allowed the Romans to modify the dislocation of the military units. The employment of the legions was now conceived and directed mainly to defend the provincial territory from external military threats. The legion III Gallica moved to Samosata, capital of the former kingdom of Commagene, the new recruited XVI Flavia Firma moved to Satala and the XII Fulminata to Melitene in Cappadocia. The IV Scythica which remained at Seleucia now became the fourth legion located on the Euphrates, the eastern border of the province. The VI Ferrata left his quarters on the coast to replace the XII Fulminata in central Syria while the X Fretensis, after the glorious feats during the Great Jewish Revolt, remained in Judea to garrison Jerusalem33. Also the number of auxiliary units increased in this period as attested by the several diplomas available34. These were 32
A various group of states extending mostly on Judea and nearby territories normally ruled by descendants of the King Herodes the Great since its death occurred in 4 BC. 33 Flav. Joseph., BJ, VII, 17-18. 34 A diploma dated to 54 AD, before the Jewish revolt, mentions for the Syria province 7 alae, cavalry units, 7 cohortes, infantry units, referring at least to 7000 men. Three other diplomas from 88 and 91 AD record an almost double number of units, 12 alae and 22 cohortes, about 18500 sol-
MEDITERRANEO
DICEMBRE 2016
27
Diogene Edizioni
CIVILTÀ DEL
MEDITERRANEO
27/2016
Diogene Edizioni
Nuova Serie - Anno XV (XX), n. 27/2016 Registrazione presso il Tribunale di Napoli n. 5288 r.s. ISSN 1120-9860 – ISBN 978-88-6647-166-0 (ebook) Direttore responsabile: Ermanno Corsi Direzione scientifica: Fabrizio Lomonaco e Fulvio Tessitore Consiglio direttivo: Valeria Fiorani Piacentini, Alessandro Gori, Elda Morlicchio, Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Rosario Sommella, Lida Viganoni Consiglio scientifico: Giovanni Cannata, Giuseppe Cantillo, Enrico Iachello, Giancarlo Magnano San Lio, Elisa Novi Chavarria, Paola Volpe Cacciatore Redazione: Marcello Gisondi, Armando Mascolo, Giovanni Morrone, Salvatore Principe, Pierluigi Venuta (Segretario e coordinatore della Redazione) © Consorzio Interuniversitario ‘Civiltà del Mediterraneo’ via Porta di Massa 1, 80133 Napoli tel. 081 253 55 88 / 86 / 97 - 081 253 55 07 - fax 081 253 55 83 Un fascicolo annuale € 40,00 Abbonamento: biennale € 70,00 – quinquennale € 160,00 Le richieste di prenotazioni, abbonamenti e arretrati vanno indirizzate a: Diogene Edizioni – Piazza della Vittoria 5, 86100 Campobasso (CB) www.diogeneedizioni.it - e-mail: [email protected] La pubblicazione di questo numero è frutto della collaborazione dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II con la Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg Questa Rivista è l’organo del Consorzio ‘Civiltà del Mediterraneo’, con sede in Napoli, via Porta di Massa 1, 80133 (www.filosofia.unina.it/civilta-delmediterraneo). Per tutto ciò che concerne l’attività redazionale, è possibile comunicare all’indirizzo: [email protected]. I manoscritti inviati in visione saranno esaminati da un Comitato di Lettura (procedura di «blind peer review»), composto da studiosi italiani e stranieri, che comunicherà agli autori l’esito della valutazione; in ogni caso, non si restituiscono i contributi pervenuti. I collaboratori sono invitati ad attenersi alle norme editoriali riportate in fondo alla Rivista. Le tesi sostenute negli scritti pubblicati rispecchiano, ovviamente, solo il pensiero di ciascun autore.
SOMMARIO
LEONARDO GREGORATTI Contributions to the History of Rome in the East: Building a Province, Becoming an Empire
5
GIUSEPPINA BELLOISI Custodire le antichità. Indirizzi legislativi dei Borbone in materia di conservazione del patrimonio artistico
21
FLAVIA CAVALIERE Traduzioni e tradizioni
45
GIUSEPPE LISSA Etica, ambiente, acqua
63
AUROSA ALISON La Méditerranée di Le Corbusier: una lezione sull’Armonia
111
ROCCO PITITTO Sguardi e visioni del Mediterraneo: un viaggio di formazione
131
Norme per i collaboratori
183
Indici dei fascicoli (1991-2015)
189
LEONARDO GREGORATTI CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE1 Abstract: After the defeat of the allied kingdoms of Pontus and Armenia, the enemies of Rome in the East, Pompeius, found himself in the condition to face the difficult situation of the territories west of the Euphrates, which once belonged to the Seleucid kingdom. The methods he employed in order to restore a form of political authority in those areas will characterize and influence the following presence of Rome in the Near East. This paper wants to provide a general outline of this presence pointing out the most relevant topics and problems in order to provide the students with a clear starting point to deepen the study of this vast and complicated topic. Keywords: Rome, History, Province, Empire.
In 64 BC Gn. Pompeius, charged by the Senate with the responsibility to conduct Rome’s foreign policy in the Near East, put an end to the Seleucid kingdom, which ruled those regions since Alexander’s time, reducing what remained of that once vast and powerful state to a Roman province. In such geographical contest, perhaps more clearly than everywhere else, Rome found itself compelled to face a new and difficult challenge, a trial of a strictly political kind, in order to deal with, the power of her armies would prove only marginally useful. Since the end of the II century BC the gradual and progressive disintegration of the Seleucid authority determined a condition 1
This contribution, whose nature is on purpose more didactic than investigative, arose from my teaching experience and in particular from the many seminars and discussions I had in the recent years with my Italian and British students. The Roman Near East is a complicated and vast field of studies which is only occasionally touched in the more general Roman history modules the students usually take. It would be useful for them to be able to read a short outline of the Roman presence in the east which includes some of the most important themes and fundamental bibliographic references before dealing more in depth with the topic.
6
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
of spread political and institutional anarchy which interested the whole near eastern region2. This situation rendered extremely difficult the establishing of a new supreme and supranational authority, but also almost impossible maintaining a real control of the territory. For the first time Rome extended her rule over lands where since millennia complex and fully structured civilizations had followed one after the other, a region where different cultural traditions and government structures stratified and amalgamated themselves through the centuries generating a variety of cosmopolite and multicultural socio-political entities. The political choices through which Rome managed to achieve the control of such a complex and problematic region deserve to be taken into consideration and analysed in detail. The building of a consolidated Roman power in the East represented a testing ground which forced the Roman leadership to conceive new systems of territorial control. It was during this period that the late republican provincial structures underwent a series of major changes towards those more evolved forms of territorial control which will later become characteristic of the universal empire of Rome of the following centuries. The overall strategy the Roman leadership adopted in the East in order to establish and consolidate ita control on the land, privileged the idea of progressively introducing the typical structures of the Roman provincial administration into local contexts exclusively once these had proved mature enough to receive them. At the very beginning the Roman warlords thus decided to maintain to the power the social and political subjects they encountered the moment they undertook the conquest of the East. They distinguished nonetheless between those entities which could easily find a place in Rome’s conceived new order from those which would possibly become a cause of trouble and instability3. M. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie: Histoire du Levant antique, IVe siècle avant Jésus-Christ - IIIe siècle après Jésus-Christ, Paris, Fayard, 2001, 2
pp. 380-428. 3 Ibidem, pp. 449-451.
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
7
This concept which constituted the cornerstone of the whole political reorganization of the East seems evident since the time Pompeius put into action the primitive arrangements regarding the new province. In the near eastern region whose composite socio-political fabric was the result of the different contributions and the different cultural influences (Semitic, Iranic, Greek etc.) experienced along his history, Rome preferred to build its power on those element both cultural and political that the Greek domination had introduced in Western Asia in the centuries following Alexander the Great’s conquest. The victory achieved in November 333 BC on the plain of Issus by Alexander on the army of Darius III Codomanos, the Persian king, opened the way to the Macedonian domination of Syria. The integrity of the vast empire subdued by the famous conqueror survived only few years after his death in 322 BC at Babylon. The policy he undertook was carried on for what concerned the oriental satrapies of his immense reign, by his successors, in particular by the house of the Seleucids, the most important continuators of Alexander’s projects for the East. Thousands of Greeks moved to Syria bringing with themselves their habits and their culture4. This gave impulse to a process of Hellenization, as the spreading of the Greek culture among the population of the Near East has been called. In short time, as Isocrates, a famous Greek orator, had conjectured almost a century before, began to be considered as Greeks, or Hellenes, not only those who could claim a Greek ascendency, but even all the many who spoke Greek, adopted Greek fashion, worshipped Greek divinities or took part to Greek sport or artistic competitions5. In other words anybody who adopted part or all the typical elements of the culture of the new rulers was eligible to be considered Greek. The Hellenistic monarchs also promoted the foundation of several new cities which were supposed to receive the Macedonian immigrates. In this period cities like Antiochia, Seleucia Pieria, Seleucia on the Tigris, Apamea, Laodicea, the centres of 4 5
Ibidem, pp. 141-143. Isocr., Pan., 50.
8
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
the Tetrapolis and of the Decapolis were founded and grew in importance, politically organized according to the model of the classical Greek polis, a model soon imitated also by the main towns of Semitic origin as Damascus or Amman. The cities soon became the centres from where the Hellenistic culture spread all over the country, in opposition with the scarcely urbanized areas where the Semitic culture and the use of the Aramaic dialects remained predominant6. The urban centres of the Near East, prosperous due to their manufacturing activities and the importance they played in the long distance trade with India, China, Arabia and the western Mediterranean, were the political entities that most suffered from the state of anarchy which occurred at the beginning of the I century BC, when the Seleucid authority was no more able to exercise an effective power7. The dynastic struggles, the appearance of new and autonomous local political entities within the already weaken kingdom, such as the Nabatean state8 or the kingdoms of Edessa9 and Commagene10, or in open rebellion against it, like See the still fundamental V. Tcherikover, Die hellenistischen Städtegründungen von Alexander der Grosse bis auf die Römerzeit , «Philologus», Suppl. XIX, Leipzig, Dietrich, 1927; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 6
111-152. 7 8
Ibidem, pp. 381-383.
The Nabatean kingdom was state based mainly on commerce lying on nowadays Jordan, Sinai and northern Saudi Arabia. Since its beginnings it was characterized by a rapid territorial expansion towards the north and the Mediterranean coast (Gaza, Negev). The capital city was Petra, terminal of the trade routes from the Arabian peninsula. For a general approach see R. D. Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100-30 BC, TorontoBuffalo, University of Toronto Press, 1990, pp. 72-75 and 208-213; and the recent The World of the Nabataeans, Volume 2 of the International Con-
ference, The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans held at the British Museum, 17-19 April 2001, ed. by K. D. Politis, Stuttgart, Steiner Verlag,
2007. 9 This state was grown around the city of Edessa, actually in southern Turkey, where from the 132 BC an Arabian dynasty took the power. See J. B. Segal, Edessa, the ‘Blessed City’, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970; H. J. W. Drijvers, Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II, 8, ed. by H. Temporini and W. Haase, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1977, p. 867; S. K. Ross, Roman Edessa, Politics and
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
9
the Hasmonean kingdom in Judea11, and the external threats from the rival kingdom of the Ptolemaids, from the Parthians and from Rome itself were the main causes which brought to the rapid disintegration of the Seleucid empire. The first attempts to replace the Seleucids were made by the ruling councils of the Syrian cities, exposed to the risk of raids and robberies from nomadic chiefs or neighbouring local lords. They sought help from the most powerful foreign kings. Damascus, threatened by the Itureans, a nomadic population from the Beqaa valley12, called for help from Aretas III, the Nabatean king (84 BC). The following year the citizens of Antiochia, the Seleucid capital, addressed to Tigranes the Great13, the powerful king of Armenia, who exploited the situation to take the control of the entire northern Syria, which he maintained until he was forced to leave, in the 69 BC, when the Romans invaded his own kingdom. The solution conceived by the city ruling councils thus proved itself to be short-lasting apart from being extremely hazardous for the cities’ independence. For the abovementioned monarchs’ plans in fact the rich urban centres repreCulture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE, London, Routledge, 2001. 10 A kingdom whose capital was Samosata on the high course of the Euphrates. It had a prominent strategic position watching Seleucia on the Euphrates (or Zeugma), the main crossing point on the high river course. See R. D. Sullivan, The Dynasty of Commagene, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, pp. 732-798; Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty, pp. 59-62 and 195-198; M. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene ellenistico-romana, Pisa, Giardini, 2006. 11 The Hasmonean kingdom was created in the middle of the II century BC when the Maccabeans revolted in Jerusalem against the Greek authorities and the Hellenized Jews. The leader of the revolt, Judas Maccabaeus managed in short time to drive out the Seleucid troops and acquire the control of the whole Judea. Later Alexander Janneus started an aggressive policy aimed at reaching the borders of the ancient biblical kingdom of Israel. The attacks were directed mainly towards southern Levant and Transjordan. This provoked a conflict with the Nabatean kings destabilizing the whole region. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 384-411. 12 Strab., XVI, 2. 18. 13 Just, XL, 1; Strab., XI, 14. 15; App. Syr., 48.
10
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
sented little more than an appealing opportunity to significantly increase their income. With Tigranes of Armenia vanishing from the scene, the vacuum of power which followed put forward again the problem concerning the political settlement of the East. A first attempt to reinstate the Seleucid dynasty with the support of Rome operated by the Roman general Lucullus failed. The population of Antioch soon rebelled against the chosen king Antiochus XIII14, who was backed by Sampsigeranos, king of Emesa, appointing on his place Philippus II, a candidate supported by Azizos, arabarchos of northern Syria15. It was clear that at that time the Seleucid dynasts were unable to exert the power independently and were forced to please those local lords who wielded the real power. Pompeius’ policy marked a difference with that of his rival and predecessor. After reaching the capital Antioch in 64 BC, he forced the Seleucid pretenders to renounce to their claims to the royal dignity causing in fact the end of the Seleucid dynasty. According to Plutarch, Pompeius’ behaviour was justified by the fact that Syria at that time «had no legitimate heirs»16. In reality as above pointed out, there was no shortage of legitimate pretenders. What lacked was a strong central power endowed of the capacity of exerting a strict control over the territory in order to assure the political stability in the region. Setting a monarch unable even to maintain himself on the throne would have meant allowing the «Arabs and Jews» to detain the power17. The rivalry between several political subjects, in other words, would have perpetuated the situation of chronic instability in Western Asia with its long-lasting effects on the whole eastern Mediterranean and the new created Roman provinces of western Anatolia. An instability which had already largely endangered the Roman commercial enterprises in the East18.
14
Diod., XL, 1a-1b. Flav. Joseph., AJ, XIII, 384. 16 Plut., Pomp., 39. 3. 17 Just., XL, 2. 3-4. 18 The situation of political anarchy in the Levant favored the activity of 15
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
11
Under many aspects what happened at Antioch in 64 BC marked a turning point in the history of the Near East. It constituted the formal act through which Rome took over the legal right to exert the power and control the land where until that moment the Seleucid king was acknowledged as the supreme authority. In the Seleucid capital city, about to became the seat of the government of Rome in the region, Pompeius laid the foundations for the Roman presence in Syria presenting the new conquerors as the legitimate heirs and the political continuators of the Hellenistic monarchs and, through them, of the greatest leader of all times: Alexander the Great. The Roman province of Syria was thus established as an ideal prosecution of the exhaust Seleucid kingdom, a sort of historical continuation, the last evolution stage of the universal empire which Alexander was able to create. Once he had arranged the things from a legal point of view, assuring to himself, as Rome’s representative, the right to intervene in the political situation of the East, Pompeius began to operate on the territory to set order and assure the governability among the various political entities struggling with each other. Pompeius charged by the senate with full power on the lands subdued, once he took over on behalf of Rome the role of supreme authority in western Asia, acting as both a new Seleucus and a new Alexander, got ready to create a new order in the East, Rome’s order. Before discussing the strategy the Roman general adopted, the general situation of the Roman state at that time must briefly be taken into consideration. The expansionistic efforts the Republic achieved during the years preceding Tigranes’
18
The situation of political anarchy in the Levant favored the activity of the eastern Mediterranean pirates. Following the devastation operated in 88 BC by Mithridates VI of Pontus and again in 69 BC by the pirates the important trade emporium of Delos ceased to exist. It cannot be excluded that from that moment onwards the lobby of the Roman negotiatores began to exert a strong pressure on the republican leadership for the extension of a direct political control on the Near East. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie , p. 444.
12
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
defeat was remarkable. Three new provinces were organized in Asia minor: Bithynia, Cilicia and Pontus. The roman leaders soon realized that hardly in these conditions they would have been able to found an affective administration in the East relying exclusively on their agents. Another problem was represented by the government structures and the administrative practises belonging to the Seleucid organization which could not be abruptly substituted by Roman ones from one day to another. The only practicable solution consisted in maintaining and exploiting those local structures of control, Greek or not, which could prove useful to the Roman authority in order to control the land. In 63 BC Pompeius was in Damascus, the southern metropolis of Syria, one of the centres most exposed to the threat coming from the overwhelming power of the local nomad lords. There Pompeius prepared himself to exercise the ruling rights achieved in Antioch, presenting himself as the judge of disputes and rivalries among local lords19. Deciding to accept or refuse the homages paid by kings and Arab lords, Pompeius was making in concrete terms a choice: he was determining which political subjects had the opportunity to play a role in the new Roman organization and which ones were destined instead to succumb. The geopolitical setting on which the Roman general was supposed to work on was extremely various. The Greek governed cities which had previously constituted the backbone of the Seleucid rule were included directly in the new system. Now put under the direct protection of the Romans, the system of self government and the control they were able to exert on their respective territories constituted the basis of the Roman domination. The city leading classes became the main allies of Rome in the East, their ruling councils were the foundations on which the new province of Syria was laid20.
Ibidem, pp. 444-447 and pp. 449-451; K. Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near East, London, Getty Publications, 2003, pp. 19-23. 19
20
An example of this policy is offered by the Decapolis towns. Pompeius forced the last of the Hasmoneans to give back the conquered cities that
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
13
Supported financially by the Republic, the Greek centres from that moment onwards began to prosper, urban centres were rebuilt and the economy flourished. Most of the local kings, like Abgar II of Edessa or Antiochus from Commagene, some of which had obtained the royal dignity from the Seleucid monarchs themselves, were maintained on their thrones as “friends and allies of the Roman people”21. Among the not so consolidated and defined political realities Pompeius operated a selection. Some local lords and marauder chiefs, as Silas the Judean, ruler of Lysias22 and Dionysios of Tripolis, were simply wiped out. Others, usually the most powerful, Ptolemy of Chalcis and Sampsigeramos of Emesa23, were offered the chance to submit to Pompeius after paying a tribute. Only the lords who demonstrated to be ready and in the condition to abandon robbery activities, the most endemic cause of instability in the region, were permitted to survive. Even many tribe chiefs whose rule stretched itself on peripheral lands far from the main traffic routes or from the most important towns, areas which Rome had no interest to control directly, were offered an agreement with the provincial authorities. As a result of this policy Rome found herself in the condition of experimenting new forms of territorial control in which provincial communities belonging to Roman state coexisted side by side with different political subjects lying outside the Roman borders and characterized by various degrees of institutional evolution and autonomy. As seen, the guidelines for the inclusion of the Near East within the Roman sphere of influence were already established few years after the arrival of the first military contingents of roman legionaries. Nonetheless, a systematic policy aimed at consolidating the province of Syria and strengthening the Rowere immediately annexed to the new Syrian province. Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 449-451. 21 Cass. Dio., XL, 20; App., Mithrid., 114; Strab., XVI, 2. 3. 22 Strab., XI, 14. 15; Flav. Joseph., AJ, XIV, 38-40. 23 Cic., Ad Att., II, 14. 1; 16. 2; 17. 2; 23. 2.
14
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
man presence in the East took place only after the civil wars when the princeps Augustus decided a profound reformation of the entire provincial organization of the Empire. Pompeius’ initiatives have granted political stability while the vanishing of all subjects involved in robbery activities assured to the country a period of generalized prosperity. Nonetheless the iterated Parthian invasions during the civil war period highlighted an important weakness of the provincial administration: the incapacity of the Syrian province to face an international threat. This fact constituted a not secondary problem for the Roman authority in charge of the province especially in a period during which the relations between the two superpowers, since the failed invasion of Parthia led by Crassus which ended in the 53 BC with the disastrous defeat of Charrae, were faster evolving towards a decisive military confrontation. The solution indicated by Augustus in 27 BC disposed the improvement of the military presence in the area. Syria as an imperial province was committed to a governor of consular rank supported for what concerned the financial questions, by a procurator, chosen from equestrian officers belonging to the high class of ducenarii. During the Julio-Claudian period five legions were quartered in the provincial territory: the III Gallica in north Syria24, the VI Ferrata at Laodicea, on the coast, the XII Fulminata and the X Fretensis on the inland nearby, at Raphanea25 and Cyrrhos26. In 56 AD a fifth unit, the IV Scythica was located in Seleucia Zeugma, the most important crossing point of the Euphrates, south from the Taurus mountains27. Tac., Ann., XIII, 38, 40; XV, 6, 26; L. Keppie, Legions in the East From Augustus to Trajan, in The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, ed. by P. Freeman and D. Kennedy, Oxford, B.A.R., 1986, pp. 41424
415.
Flav. Joseph., BJ, VII, 18. Tac., Ann., II, 57. 27 Millar, The Roman Near East, pp. 66-69 and 82-83; M. A. Speidel, Legio IIII Scythica, its Movements and Men , in The Twin Towns of Zeugma on the Euphrates, ed. by D. Kennedy, Portsmouth (RI), Journal of 25 26
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
15
At the same time the imperial leaders started the building of a road network conceived to permit troops to intervene quickly everywhere in the province the military force was required 28. It was the work of road building, which implied the creation of an effective service and communication system under imperial responsibility, even more than the stationing of military units, that constituted the act through which imperial authorities took the actual control of the conquered land. Like elsewhere within Roman domains it was the military power along to the unrestricted capacity of intervention granted by the route network, that shaped Rome’s occupancy of the land. From the Julio-Claudian reorganization of the province onwards, the military presence and the communication system were two strictly connected elements destined to develop synergically through the time. At the beginning of the imperial reorganization of the province, as it has been stated, most of the military units were located mainly on the coast or in central Syria. They worked as a sort of occupation force, protecting the harbours and the cities of northern Levant and central Syria, such as Emesa and Apamea, where large part of the provincial richness was concentrated29. This seemed at that time a much more vital task than watching the Roman borders. Also the original structure of the road network reflected this strategic choice. It was in fact developed starting from the main coastal route between Antioch and the town of Ptolemais, the gate of Judaea, built in
Roman Archaeology, 1998, pp. 163-203; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 480-486; Butcher, Roman Syria, pp. 405-407. 28 On this topic see the old but still fundamental P. Thomsen, Die römischen Meilensteine der Provinzen Syria, Arabia, und Palaestina , «Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins», XL (1917), pp. 1-103; R. P. A. Poidebard, La trace de Rome dans le desert de Syrie, le limes de Trajan a la conquète arabe, recherches aériennes (1925-1932), Paris, P. Geuthner, 1934; Millar, The Roman Near East, p. 69; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 486-488. 29 B. Isaac, The Limits of the Empire. The Roman Army in the East, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990.
16
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF ROME IN THE EAST: BUILDING A PROVINCE, BECOMING AN EMPIRE
56 AD by Nero following the course of a previous royal road30. This situation underwent some major changes after the conclusion of the war against the Parthians for the possession of the Armenian kingdom (58-66 AD) and after the immediately following Great Jewish Rebellion (66-70 AD). Both these political crisis involved a wide and quick mobilization of military forces, compelling the emperor Vespasian, the first member of the Flavian dynasty which replaced the Julio-Claudians in 69 AD, to reconsider the conditions of the entire Roman presence in the East. By the end of the sixties of the I century AD several major changes in the organization of the Roman power in the region can be spot. All were a direct consequence of the radical changes in the strategy the Romans had adopted in the East, a series of chances which articulated themselves around three directives. The accession of Vespasian sat the definitive abandoning of the system based on the control of territories through vassal kings established by Pompeius. After more than a century of Roman influence the territories and, in a particular, the cities subjected to the rule of the allied kings had become in fact undistinguishable from the provincial domains. The vassal monarchs, normally brought up in Rome and anxious to please or show their gratitude towards the emperor, used to rule over their subjects not dissimilarly from what the Roman provincial leaders were doing within the imperial borders. Large part of their political decisions furthermore were usually deeply influenced by the opinion of the imperial provincial governors. Under these circumstances it seemed clear to Vespasian that the situation had sufficiently evolved to proceed to the annexation of the client kings’ domains31. This decision would have R. G. Goodchild, The Coast Road of Phoenicia and its Milestones, «Berytus», IX (1949), pp. 91-127. 31 G. W. Bowersock, Syria under Vespasian, «Journal of Roman Studies», LXIII (1973), pp. 133-140; A. B. Bosworth, Vespasian’s Reorganization of the North-East Frontier, «Antichthon», X (1976), pp. 6378; Sartre, D'Alexandre à Zénobie, pp. 497-527; Millar, The Roman Near East, pp. 80-90. 30
LEONARDO GREGORATTI
17
allowed the imperial finances to avoid sustaining any longer the costs for maintaining the expensive royal courts. In addition taking on direct rule on those lands would neutralize the risks connected with the fact that the dynastic system of succession didn’t allow Rome to appoint the most proficient ad suitable rulers for a specific kingdom. The incapacity and the government inefficiency of some monarchs were made evident by the recent political emergencies. In the span of few years the kingdoms of Commagene (72 AD) and Emesa (between 72 and 79 AD) were annexed. In the southern Levant the Herodid tetrarchies and kingdoms32 were absorbed in the new province of Judaea. With the exception of the Nabatean kingdom bordering the Arabian desert, all minor client states disappeared and the Roman domains by the end of the 70s were unified under the direct rule of the emperor. This development of the geopolitical situation allowed the Romans to modify the dislocation of the military units. The employment of the legions was now conceived and directed mainly to defend the provincial territory from external military threats. The legion III Gallica moved to Samosata, capital of the former kingdom of Commagene, the new recruited XVI Flavia Firma moved to Satala and the XII Fulminata to Melitene in Cappadocia. The IV Scythica which remained at Seleucia now became the fourth legion located on the Euphrates, the eastern border of the province. The VI Ferrata left his quarters on the coast to replace the XII Fulminata in central Syria while the X Fretensis, after the glorious feats during the Great Jewish Revolt, remained in Judea to garrison Jerusalem33. Also the number of auxiliary units increased in this period as attested by the several diplomas available34. These were 32
A various group of states extending mostly on Judea and nearby territories normally ruled by descendants of the King Herodes the Great since its death occurred in 4 BC. 33 Flav. Joseph., BJ, VII, 17-18. 34 A diploma dated to 54 AD, before the Jewish revolt, mentions for the Syria province 7 alae, cavalry units, 7 cohortes, infantry units, referring at least to 7000 men. Three other diplomas from 88 and 91 AD record an almost double number of units, 12 alae and 22 cohortes, about 18500 sol-
