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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
A stone built into the church at Kokkinórachi near Sparta carries part of a first-century AD text containing one or more imperial rescripts to Sparta. The author of one section admonishes the Spartans after civil unrest, probably during the lifetime of the dynast Eurykles, his son Lakon, or his grandson Spartiatikos. Epigraphic parallels, and the text's appeal to historic traditions, suggest that the author is Claudius. The document may indicate that communication between cities and emperors by ‘petition and response’ was more widespread now than in the post-Hadrianic era, when cities are thought generally to have addressed the emperor by letter.
1 The stone was assigned for publication to GS, who photographed, measured, and transcribed it in situ. AS thanks GS and the directors of the Laconia Survey, W. G. Cavanagh and J. H. Crouwel, for an invitation to share in its study; both authors are grateful to them for permission to publish this article in advance of the survey volume. WGC and JHC are grateful to various funding bodies, who will be acknowledged fully in the final publication. For assistance in his own work GS thanks the Craven Committee, University of Oxford; Balliol College, Oxford; St Catharine's College, Cambridge; the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; the British Academy; and the University of Leicester. GS thanks Deborah Miles (School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester) for her care in printing the photographs.
The authors thank for their helpful comments the participants at seminars in Oxford, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Liverpool at which the text has been presented, and Michael Crawford for comments by letter. Useful suggestions were made at an early stage by Peter Fraser, George Forrest, and especially Oswyn Murray. We owe an incalculable debt to David Thomas, who not only saved us from grave error but made many suggestions and improvements (over and above those specifically acknowledged in the rest of this article) at earlier stages. We stress that the end result is our sole responsibility. Both authors are in agreement with what follows, although AS is chiefly culpable for the final interpretation offered.
Special abbreviations:
Oliver = Oliver, J. H., Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors (Philadelphia, 1989)Google Scholar
Williams i = Williams, W., ‘The libellus procedure and the Severan papyri’, JRS 64 (1974), 86–103Google Scholar
Williams ii = Williams, W., ‘Epigraphic texts of imperial subscripts: a survey’, ZPE 66 (1986), 181–207Google Scholar
2 All measurements are in metres unless otherwise stated.
3 Kennell, N., ‘IG V 1, 16 and the gerousia of Roman Sparta’, Hesp. 61 (1992), 193–202, esp. 196–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; inscription no. 7 in the forthcoming Laconia Survey volume.
4 Oliver, no. 7, line 27; no. 19, lines 24–5 and 33; no. 29, lines 8–10.
5 Oliver, 21–4; Haensch, R., ZPE 100 (1994), 48 nn. 4–6Google Scholar (fairly full bibliography).
6 Oliver, nos. 1 (Augustus to the Samians) and 38 (Vespasian on doctors); the latter O. identifies as a subscript rather than an edict (the alternative view). A 2nd-cent. communication from Hadrian on a papyrus may be a subscript: below, n. 11.
7 See preceding note.
8 Williams i. 87.
9 Oliver, no. 38 (above, n. 6).
10 ‘I, Imperator [Caesar Vespa]sianus, have signed this and ordered it [to be published on a] whitened board’.
11 See Łukaszewicz, A. in Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Papyrology (New York, 1981), 357–61Google Scholar = SB xvi. 12509.
12 We have been very much guided in our view of this text by David Thomas, who first drew it to our attention and points out that the interpretation assumed by Łukaszewicz (n. 11) is not certain, especially as the diplomatic form used in the text is without parallel. We note here, finally, that the subscript of Augustus to the Samians, as inscribed by the city of Aphrodisias over two centuries later, opens with the words Αὐτοϰράτωρ Καῖσαρ . . . Σαμίοις ὑπὸ ἀξίωμα ὑπέγραψεν, ‘Imperator Caesar … wrote to the Samians below their petition’ (so the translation of Reynolds, J., Aphrodisias and Rome (London, 1982), 104Google Scholar; cf. Oliver, no. 1). But this heading is not the verbatim opening of the transcription in the city archive, but a 3rd-cent. adaptation. ὑπέγραψεν, moreover, is not meant here in the sense of ‘signed’ but ‘subscribed’: subscriptio, likewise, has these two senses, as clarified by Turpin, W., JRS 81 (1991), 103.Google Scholar
13 IGRR i. 145, with discussion at Williams ii. 190–4.
14 LSJ s.v. χρεία II.b.
15 e.g. IGRR i. 674 (Gordian III), the Scaptopara inscription, restudied by Hallof, K., Chiron, 24 (1994), 405–29, at lines 77–9Google Scholar: τούτου χάριν δόμεθά σου, ἀνίϰητε Σεβαστέ. See generally, on the avoidance of the ‘plural of majesty’ under the principate, Jones, C. P., Chiron, 12 (1982), 138–9.Google Scholar
16 e.g. IGRR iv. 1397 = FIRA i2 82.
17 See the remarks of Williams ii. 192.
18 On signavi see now Hallof (n. 15), 428–9.
19 See Cartledge, P. and Spawforth, A., Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities (London, 1989), 97–104Google Scholar; Kennell (n. 3).
20 Levick, B., Claudius (London, 1990), 43 ff.Google Scholar
21 This is the broad context to which Marcus Aurelius's concern for the old ‘renown’ (δόξα) of the Athenians belongs: Oliver, no. 184, lines 57 ff.
22 Cf. Levick (n. 20), 18–20.
23 Oliver, no. 19.
24 See Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles, 2nd edn (corrected reprint, Oxford, 1959), 213 (s.v. δήποτε).Google Scholar
25 Oliver, no. 19, lines 100–3.
26 Cartledge and Spawforth (n. 19), 102–4 (career of Lakon).
27 But speculation about the exact circumstance of our petition would be unwise, not least because, as Fergus Millar has pointed out to us, the text could originally have formed part of a whole series of inscribed subscripts (i.e. not just two or three organically related ones).
28 Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), 242–3.Google Scholar
