The present volume gathers nineteen papers (eleven English, eight French) on civic honorific culture in the Roman imperial East, originating from colloquia held at Paris, Tours, Athens and Groningen between 2012 and 2014. The introduction overviews the history and historiography of Greek euergetism, arguing that honorific exchange was consistently ‘the outcome of tense negotiations between cities and elites’ (9), and thus offers a language for discussing the political culture of the polis beyond debates about its post-classical ‘oligarchisation’. The imperial period added the complication of honorific exchange between empire and cities.
The first eight papers, over two parts, deal primarily with honorific exchange between communities and their elites. Part One (‘The Economy of Honour: Financial and Symbolic Exchanges’) begins with O. Gengler distinguishing praise as speech-act from praise as honour (31–58); this latter meaning is elaborated in Roman-era encomiastic production. A. Gangloff (59–80) delineates ideas of honorific hierarchy and appropriateness in Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch, while H. Fernoux (81–108) sets Dio's Rhodian Oration within the context of Rhodes’ uneven relationship with Rome under Claudius and Nero; it would have been interesting to know if its rhetorical presentation of honorific ideals was a consciously conservative reaction to a situation where statue re-use was not in fact as ignominious as Dio would suggest (cf. e.g. C. Bailey, ICS 40.1 (2015), 45–62). F. Camia finds (109–46) that honorific statues in mainland Greece were mainly sponsored by civic institutions, although Spartan elites were keener to indicate private sponsorship, perhaps owing to ancestral traditions of public frugality (e.g. Plut. Mor. 210d).
The four essays in Part Two (‘Honorific Communities: Competition and Negotiation’) consider elite authority. S. Lalanne (149–81) studies honorific procedures in Chariton's Callirhoe (of first-century Aphrodisian provenance), noting the prominence of family power and assembly acclamations. A. Zuiderhoek (182–98) examines euergetic acts for non-citizens, whose increasing frequency in the late Hellenistic and imperial periods reflects a broadening of elite honorific networks; one might have expected more discussion of intra-civic associations. C. Kuhn (199–219) argues that instances of notables rejecting the highest civic honours (Kyme, Aphrodisias, Kaunos), which were even inscribed, show how such acts could be politicised through inter-elite competition. Finally, N. Giannakopoulos (220–42) explores the unique honour of granting lifetime or hereditary tenure of a priesthood at Gytheion, Megalopolis and Chalkis; this seems to suggest the adaptation of civic reciprocal mechanisms to elite power by encouraging long-term, continuing benefaction.
The next eleven papers, spread over Parts Three (‘The Impact of Rome: Integration and Domination’) and Four (‘Cities and Empire: Honours between Local and Global’), examine the impact of Roman imperial power and office-holding on honorific culture. Those in Part Three contain useful assemblages of epigraphic material on various themes: S. Zoumbaki (245–71) examines links between Romans and Greeks in mainland Greece through honorific monuments by cities and resident Roman groups, while G. Frija (272–90) notices that honours for family members of Roman governors in Asia congregate in the late republican and early imperial eras of crisis; É. Guerber (291–316) finds that the honour of being a curator/λογιστής was well integrated into local euergetic hierarchies; O. Ventroux (339–69) collects the large dossier of honorific inscriptions relating to G. Antius Aulus Iulius Quadratus of Pergamon. A. Kuhn (317–38) suggests that honours for Greek equestrians and senators were characterised by their duality (engagement in Greek and Roman honorific systems), exclusivity (monopolisation of the highest honours and titles) and ubiquity (sheer statue multiplicity), hence reflecting the ideological effects of imperial connections.
The papers of Part Four are more eclectic in their definition of imperial impact. C. Kokkinia (373–85) and K. Buraselis (386–96) study epigraphic rhetoric, in letters of imperial authorities approving local honours, and the hyperbolisation of imperial power in decrees. J.-B. Yon (496–526) offers a stimulating survey of the statue-habit in the Roman Near East, at Palymra, Hatra and Edessa, where the dedication of statues of individuals on behalf of gods or rulers, for example, reflects regional idiosyncrasy. The three intervening papers align less well with the question of imperial impact: V. Di Napoli (397–431) observes diversity in statue ensembles of theatres in Greece; C. Dickenson (432–54) argues that the agora was not only a museum-like repository of statue display, but still a live arena for status where generic conventions were elided and intersected with the power of families; and M. Szewczyk (455–95) relates the iconography of honorific statues to evolving philosophies of moral restraint (e.g. the enveloping-cloak type).
While there is occasional misalignment between the papers and themes of the four parts, the volume is, overall, a welcome contribution to our understanding of the relationship between local honorific transactions and the changing political culture of the Roman-era Greek polis. Many of the papers are broadly consonant with recent revisionist scholarship emphasising the continuing vitality of civic institutions in the imperial period, as is implicit in the emphasis on honorific transactions as negotiated moments. It is less consistently clear, however, whether civic honour in the Roman East forms merely an end-point in the post-classical history of the polis, or if the phenomena explored here point to distinct features of honorific culture, specific to the Roman Mediterranean, from the first to third centuries c.e. Here, the definition of ‘honour’ adopted, essentially the Mediterranean anthropological honour of Campbell and Peristiany (4), tends to emphasise its conservative function: honour becomes metonymic for post-classical continuity, whether in the financing of statues (Camia), evocation of Hellenistic pasts (Ventroux), or the persistence of the agora and theatre as sites of honorific visibility (Dickenson, Di Napoli). Some contributions certainly do focus on innovations in the textual representation of honorific culture, in the rhetoric for emperors (Buraselis), significance of imperial correspondence as ‘honorific’ documents (Kokkinia), or the relationship of honorific monuments to elitist connoisseurship and funerary monumental culture (Dickenson, Szewczyk). There is an overarching interest in honorific rhetoric as public symbolic reward (3) — an important approach, affording some relief from debates (mainly derived from institutional historiography) about the ‘oligarchisation’ of the polis — and the contributions study this with nuance. More clarification of the relationship between honorific rhetoric per se and euergetic phenomena might have offered a better sense of historical distinctiveness; as Giannakopoulos shows, the lines between benefaction and honour could be increasingly blurred in the imperial period.
Less explicitly clear also are geographical and chronological limits. The ‘Greek cities’ studied are primarily those of Greece and Asia Minor, Yon's paper aside. It might be worth asking if a study of honorific culture might be conducted on other congregations of polis-style polities — Syria, Egypt, or Cyrenaica come to mind (cf. POxy 5202). Secondly, chronology. The introduction does not overtly define the ‘imperial period’, although this is in practice generally taken to cover the first three centuries c.e. A study of honorific culture in the Roman east ought to consider why its visibility diminishes dramatically from the late third century: this has implications for whether we see civic honour, ultimately, as a stabilising or de-stabilising factor. A leitmotif of the volume is the integrative role that honour had in aligning local and global power; an interest in tracing the way honour may have also led to violence and rupture, as Fernoux's Rhodian case-study suggests, is largely absent.
These thoughts hopefully serve to evoke something of the sensitivity and richness of the papers offered in this volume, which will doubtless serve as an essential starting-point for further reflection on the historical contingency of honorific culture in the Roman East.
