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A Coan Domain in Cyprus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
Coan possession of chora in Cyprus is attested, in the Imperial period, by a dedication in honour of a Roman governor of Cyprus, who had retrieved for the Coans their land. The text of the inscription was first made known by R. Herzog in 1928, and was later published, without commentary, by G. Patriarca in 1932. It is one of a number of documents in which Roman authority is exercised in settlement of a controversia agrorum in Greek provincial cities. It merits further attention because of the startling revelation of Coan ownership of land in Cyprus. For convenience the text is reproduced here:
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1975
References
1 I should like to thank Mr P. M. Fraser and Dr H. W. Pleket for helpful criticism at various stages. I use the following abbreviations in addition to the usual ones:
PH = Paton, and Hicks, , Inscriptions of Cos, Oxford, 1891Google Scholar.
HG = Herzog, R., Heilige Gesetze von Kos, Berl. Abh., 1928Google Scholar.
2 Herzog, R., HG p. 45Google Scholar; cf. Patriarca, G., Bull. Com. Rom. lx (1932)Google ScholarAppendice, Bull. del Museo dell' Impero Romano iii (1933) 6 no. 3 (A. Ep. 1934, 23 no. 86). The inscription at present stands in the Coan Asclepieion.
3 See Ducrey, P., BCH xciii (1969) 346–52Google Scholar, for comparative material from Crete.
4 For parallels of (сυν)αντιλαμβάνομαι + gen. see e.g. Robert, L., Coll. Froehner (Paris 1936) 93Google Scholar. For instances of the phrase τὰ δίκαια τῆс πολέωс see idem, R.Ph. xxxii (1958) 29–30.
5 Dio Cassius, liv 4, 1. On Augustus' re-annexation of Cyprus after it had been granted, by Caesar, to Arsinoe and Ptolemy the Younger and by Antony to Cleopatra, see Vessberg, O. and Westholm, A., Swedish Cyprus Expedition IV 3 (Lund 1956) 237–9Google Scholar; Jones, A. H. M., Cities of the East Roman Provinces (Oxford 1971) 369Google Scholar.
6 PIR (2) III no. 70 (Aulus Didius Gallus); PIR (2) III no. 72 (Aulus Didius Postumus).
7 The unnecessary repetition of the article in this phrase suggests that the land was technically of two different kinds. On the two categories of sacred and public land see Finley, M. I., Land and Credit in Ancien Athens (New Brunswick 1951) 285–6 n. 45Google Scholar.
8 For cases of private appropriation of sacred land see Robert, L., Sanctuaire de Sinuri (Paris 1945) 35 no. 11Google Scholar, 6–10, and (in Crete) P. Ducrey, op. cit. 848.
9 There is little evidence of casual contact between Cos and Cyprus. For a study of foreign settlement in Cyprus, in the Hellenistic period, based on the incidence of ethnics in inscriptions, see Michaelidori-Nicolaou, I., Kypriakai Spoudai xxxi (1967) 15–36Google Scholar. No Coan is attested. There is no sign of, for example, the settlement in Cyprus of a Coan cleruchy. As for the evidence of settlement from Cyprus in Cos see the funerary inscriptions of Imperial date (PH 182; 247). No Coan coins have as yet been found in Cyprus. Coan wine was exported to the East as finds of Coan amphora handles in many sites of the near East (including Cyprus) and in Alexandria attest. Much of this trade, which went via Cyprus, was no doubt of indirect character.
10 Herzog, R., HG p. 45Google Scholar; Rostovtzeff, M., Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford2nd ed. 1953), III, 1375Google Scholar.
11 See Fraser, P. M., BSA Alex. xl (1953) 61 n. 3Google Scholar, for a summary of the evidence of Ptolemaic relations with Cos in the third century B.C.
12 See HG 9 (PH 43; SIG 3 1028; Sokolowski, , Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris 1969) no. 165) A, 12–14Google Scholar, a Coan procession for a King Ptolemy whose identification as Ptolemy VI Philometor follows from the date of the calendar (156–145 B.C.: cf. Herzog, R., HG p. 27)Google Scholar; PH 73 (OGIS 141);? PH 8 (cf. Launey, M., Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques II (Paris (1950) 855)Google Scholar; Appian, , Mithrid., 23, 115–17Google Scholar (cf. Josephus, , Antiq., xiii, 13, 1Google Scholar; xiv, 7, 2).
13 It is worth noting here the evidence of Coans who served as Ptolemaic officials in Cyprus. It has been tentatively suggested that Lochus, the general of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (145–116 B.C.) and sometime governor of Cyprus (cf. T. B. Mitford, Op. Ath. i (1953) 159–63; BSA lvi (1961) 28–9, nos. 75, 76), may have been Coan: cf. Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria II (Oxford 1972) 150–1 n. 121Google Scholar. Lochus' ethnic is not attested, but the name is not common. Fraser, P. M. cited Grace, V., Excavations at Nessana I (London 1962) 121Google Scholar, who pointed out that the name Lochus occurs frequently on Coan handles. Reference was also made to Coan coins which bear the name (PH pp. 314–15, nos. 154, 163). To this collection of material may be added the name's occurrence in the Coan list of new members of the gymnasium: cf. Carratelli, G. Pugliese, apud Synteleia: Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz II (Naples 1964) 816–19Google Scholar, lines 30–1, Νυνφόδοτο⊂Λόχου (reign of Claudius). For Aristus, son of Timodemus, the Coan ἐπὶ τῆ⊂ πόλεω⊂ of Carpasia, see T. B. Mitford, Op. Ath. i (1953) 154. It is conceivable that the Coan estate in Cyprus may have derived from a Ptolemaic gift to a Coan official. This hypothesis, however, entails a series of unsubstantiated assumptions and should probably be dismissed; only if the Ptolemaic dorea was not revocable but was granted on terms of absolute ownership (cf. e.g. the Seleucid grants of OGIS 221, 225) does the beneficiary gain the right of free disposal of his domain, and only if he (or one of his descendants) chose to dispose of it not to his family but to the Coan polis, could the Coans have secured tenure of their Cypriot land from such a source.
14 Cf. Rehm, A., Milet 1 (3) 123, 38Google Scholar.
15 Dion. Byz. 41 (ed. Güngerich), μικρὸν δὲ ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ νεὼ⊂ Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Φιλαδέλφου · τοῦτον ἐτίμα⊂αν ἷ⊂α θεῷ Βυζάντιοι, μεγαλοφρο⊂ύνη⊂ τ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ τιμῆ⊂ τῆ⊂ περὶ τὴν πίλιν ἀπολαύ⊂αντε⊂ · καὶ γὰρ χώραν ἐπὶ τῆ⊂ Ἀσία⊂ δωρε῁ται καὶ ⊂ίτου πολλὰ⊂ μυριάδα⊂ καὶ βέλη καὶ χρήματα.
16 For Byzantine territory in ‘Mysia’ in the reign of Prusias I (c. 230–182 B.C.) see Polybius iv 52. For epigraphic evidence from the Gulf of Nicomedia of the Byzantians' possessions in Bithynia see Robert, L., Hellenica vii (Paris 1949) 30–44Google Scholar. On Byzantine territory at Dascylium see Strabo xii 576. It is uncertain what, if any, of this territory is to be identified with the gift of Philadelphus.
17 Cf. Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (Yale 1934) 74 (with bibliography)Google Scholar.
18 Herzog, R., Riv. Fil. NS xx (1942) 5, no. 2Google Scholar (Segre, M., ASAA NS vi–vii (1944–1945) XII (Plate II)Google Scholar; Schmitt, H. H., Die Staatsverträge des Altertums III (Munich 1969) no. 545)Google Scholar.
19 Ad Fam. viii 9, 4.
20 Cf. Ducrey, P., BCH xciii (1969) 846–52Google Scholar, for the literary and epigraphic evidence (including new material) of Campanian territory at Cnossus.
21 For the awards, which were made after the First Mithridatic War, see OGIS 441 (Stratoniceia); Strabo, xii 576 (Cyzicus). On Roman gifts of territory to Greek states cf. Broughton, T. R. S., apud Frank, T., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, IV (Baltimore, The John Hopkins Press, 1938) 798–9Google Scholar. The Coan land is assumed, without discussion, to have resulted from a Roman gift.