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Balbilla, the Euryclids and Memorials for a Greek Magnate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

A. J. S. Spawforth
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Extract

This paper, which is in two parts, re-employs published evidence to shed new light on the Spartan senator C. Iulius Eurycles Herculanus L. Vibullius Pius. The first part presents a re-edition of the dedication from the heröon of Herculanus, the improved text revealing evidence for a link of kinship between the later Euryclids of Sparta and the dynasty of Commagene. The second part restudies two inscriptions from Mantineia and Corinth which, it is proposed, were originally part of posthumous memorials to Herculanus erected in those two cities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 73 , November 1978 , pp. 249 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1978

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References

1 For Herculanus see Groag, A., RE x. i (1917) cols 580–5 no. 221Google Scholar; PIR 1 I. 302. On the Euryclids in general: Bowersock, G., JRS li (1961) 112–18.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Groag, loc. cit.; PIR, loc. cit.

3 BSA xii (1905–6) 461–2 no. 14.

4 Cf. the plan in BSA, loc. cit. pl. viii fig. 3; the relevant square is K13.

5 This photograph was kindly taken for me by Robin Barber from a print (the original negative is lost) of the photograph which first appeared in BSA, loc. cit. (n. 3) 422 fig. 7. The original photograph was taken by the British excavators in 1906, following the partial exposure of the wall's foundations, and reappears here with the permission of the British School at Athens.

6 BSA, ibid.

7 RA i (1844) 636–7 no. 4.

8 Ibid.

9 BSA, loc. cit. (n. 3) 432–4.

10 Cf., e.g., the Athenian burials of Philopappus on the Museum hill (Santangelo, M., ASAA N.S. iii–v [1941–1943] 153–253Google Scholar) and of Herodes Atticus in the stadium (Philostr., VS 566); also that of Ti. Iulius Celsus Polemaeanus underneath his library in the centre of Ephesus, (Forschungen in Ephesos v. 1 [Vienna, 1953]).Google Scholar

11 IG v. 2. 281 = SIG 3 841.

12 Sparta Museum, inventory no. 6474.

13 Cf. the in SEG xi. 494, 2.3.

14 The island had been a gift from Augustus to Eurycles: Str., viii. 5, 1 with Dio Cass., liv. 7.

15 Nicephorus: SEG, ibid. (n. 13). Meniscus: IG v. 1. 59 = SEG xi. 521, 1–4.

16 IG, loc. cit. (n. 15) 8, 9, 10.

17 IG v. 1. 971.

18 IG v. 1. 37 (= SEG xi. 481) 5, 6.

19 Bernand, A. and Bernand, E., Les inscriptions grecques et latines du Colosse de Memnon (Paris, 1960) 80–98Google Scholar nos. 28–31 (cf. West, M., ZPE xxv [1977] 120Google Scholar).

20 For her ancestry cf. Bernand, loc. cit. (n. 19) 90–2; PIR 2 C 813 and 1086, I 650; Gagé, J., Basileia (Paris, 1968) 80–5Google Scholar. Her maternal grandfather ‘Balbillus the wise’ was almost certainly the Neronian prefect of Egypt, Ti. Claudius Balbillus. For Philopappus see PIR 2 I 151. A new study of the dynasty of Commagene by Sullivan, R. is appear in Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischer Welt ii. 8, 73 98Google Scholar (forthcoming at the time of writing). I am grateful Professor Sullivan for sending me a copy of his study advance of its publication.

21 He had been born before 38, probably, since he was likely to have been older than an erstwhile fiancée who has been born in that year (cf. PIR 2 D 195).

22 So Bernand, loc. cit. (n. 19) 92.

23 His date of birth was most recently placed c. 70: PL I 302. He had been eponymous patronomos at Sparta 115/16 or 116/17 (IG v. 1. 380), some twenty years before his death.

24 On this élite see Habicht, C., Istanbuler Mitteilungen ix (1959–1960) 122 ff.Google Scholar; Levick, B., Roman Colonies in southern As Minor (Oxford, 1967) 104 ff.Google Scholar

25 BJ vii, 234.

26 Loc. cit., 240.

27 Ibid.

28 IG v. 2. 541–2.

29 So Gossage, A., BSA xlix (1954) 54–5.Google Scholar

30 Das wirtschaftliche Gesicht Griechenlands in der Kaiserzeit (Berne, 1954) 138.

31 IG v. 2. 524.

32 So PIR 2 I 151.

33 Procurator: West, A., Corinth VIII. 2. Latin Inscriptions 1896–1926 (Cambridge, Mass., 1931)Google Scholar no. 68. Exile: Muson. apud Stob., Floril. xl. 9 (Teubner). Whatever modification to Euryclid rule at Sparta the title of procurator, borne by both Spartiaticus and his father Laco, may have implied, Pflaum, H.-G., Les carrières procuratoriennes. … i (Paris, 1960) 64Google Scholar, is surely wrong to see Sparta, a free city, as the ‘propriété privée de Claude’ and his successor. Nor is Bowersock, loc. cit. (n. 1) 117 convincing in his attempt to separate the procurator Laco from the dynast. With regard to Laco's nomenclature, C. lulius C. f. Laco is no more than the correct Latin form of his name, while the Greek preference for the paternal cognomen as a patronymic, rather than the praenomen, is well known (cf. most recently Daux, G. in Onomasticon, ed. Duval, N. [Paris, 1977] 405 ff.Google Scholar).

34 IG v. i. 971; 1172. But cf. Bowersock loc. cit. (n. 1) contra.

35 Cf. IG v. 1. 280–1; 480. 13, 14. All three texts appear to date from the Flavian period.

36 Above, p. 253.

37 Cf. Sullivan's stemma, loc. cit. (n. 20) 742.

38 Philopappus (above p. *) and C. lulius Alexander Berenicianus, cos. suff. 116 (PIR 2 I 141). Cf. the stemma below, p. 253.

39 Cf. IGRR iii. 173 and the unpublished link between Alexander and the Plancii of Perge to which Sullivan refers, loc. cit. (n. 20) 795 with n. 261.

40 RE, loc. cit. (n. 1) col. 584.

41 Above, p. 252.

42 Ibid.

43 Below, p. 255.

44 This explanation of Falco's Euryclid names, put forward long ago by Groag, loc. cit. (n. 1) col. 585, still seems preferable to the view that they were acquired at second hand, by either marriage (Syme, R., Historia xvii [1968] 100–1Google Scholar) or inheritance from a relation (Jones, C. P., JRS lx [1970] 103Google Scholar; McDermott, W., AncSoc vii [1976] 244–5 n. 51Google Scholar). The names are attested only in CIL x. 6321 = ILS 1035, a text which belongs to Falco's later years and can easily bear a date in the period 136–8 (although no later, as Hadrian is not divus). The link between Falco and Herculanus, who were of much the same age, probably went back to the Spartan ties of Falco's father-in-law Q. Sosius Senecio (cf. Jones, ibid.), who may well have known Laco, the father of Herculanus.

45 There is no evidence to suggest that the bouagos Iulius Eurycles, C. (IG v. 1. 287; 288 = SEG xi. 712)Google Scholar, the junior of Herculanus by about two generations, was among his heirs. Some light on the complex problem of his relationship to Herculanus is shed by an inscription in the Sparta Museum, which Mr. G. Steinhauer is to publish.

46 Fougères, G., Mantinée et l' Arcadie orientale (Paris, 1898) 184–5Google Scholar, cf. 180 fig. 44.

47 Fougères, op. cit. 185.

48 Pace Groag, loc. cit. (n. 1) col. 584.

49 Kahrstedt, op. cit. (n. 30) 134. Euryclid interests in the eastern Arcadian plain may also be echoed in the link (IG v. 2. 151) between Tegea and M. Pompeius Macrinus neos Theophanes, a contemporary and distant connection of Herculanus; the link may have been based on the ownership of property in Tegea passed down to Macrinus from the marriage of Pompeia Macrina to the Euryclid Argolicus (PIR 1 I 174). (For the suggestion that Macrinus descended from Macrina, see Hanslik, R., RE xxi. 2 [1952] col. 2278 no. 94.Google Scholar)

50 Cf. RE xiv. 2 (1930) col. 1333 no. 12.

51 Corinth VIII. 3. The inscriptions 1926–1350 (Princeton, 1966 124–5 no. 314 and pl. 27 nos. 314a–e.

52 Ancient Sparta (Manchester, 1949) 196–200, 204 (stemma).

53 SIG 3 788; cf. also PIR 2 I 290.

54 For a stemma of this family see Kolbe's (badly in need of revision) in IG v. I, p. 117.

55 Cf. Groag, , RE x. i (1917) col. 578 no. 208.Google Scholar

56 Op. cit. (n. 52) 197 nn. 3–4.

57 A diviner attested in the same year (IG v. 1. 211. 48) at Sparta had won the boy's stadion at Oropus c. 65–60 B.C. (IG vii. 420. 41, 42; for the date cf. Gossage, A., BSA lxx [1975] 116 ff.Google Scholar), while the boy (IG v. 1. 141. 25; cf. SEG xi 619) became a proxenos of Delphi c. A.D. 25 (Fouilles de Delphes iii. 2. 187–8 no. 160).

58 Rightly PIR 2 I 290.

59 They were probably first cousins. I hope to examine elsewhere the complex genealogy of the P. Memmii and especially the family's links with the Euryclids.

60 Apud Kolbe in IG.

61 Chrimes, ibid. (n. 56).

62 Cf. Daux, loc. cit. (n. 33).

63 Ibid.; Box, H., JRS xxii (1932) 180 i.Google Scholar

64 Op. cit. (n. 52) 199–200.

65 IG v. i. 94. 11; 265. In the former Kolbe's majuscule text misleadingly prints Η[..]ΚΛΑΝΟΥ. In fact, the stone reads Η[..]ΚΛ[---]: such was the reading of its original publishers (cf. AM ii [1877] 436–7 no. 10), of M. Tod, A Catalogue of the Sparta Museum (Oxford, 1906) 73 no. 612, and of myself after examination of the stone in June 1977. Immediately after lambda the stone's original surface is lost, following its cutting down in a Byzantine reworking; hence no additional letters can ever have been seen in modern times. Kolbe may have been misled by Woodward, A., BSA xv (1908–1909) 99Google Scholar (cf. BSA xiv [1907–8] 84 no. 75), or by an unpublished transcription of J. von Prott.

66 Sparta Museum, inventory no. 6511. The letter forms of this text would suit a date in die first century B.C.

67 West, op. cit. (n. 33) nos. 67–8. Both had held the Isthmian agonothesia, while the erga coloniam nostr(am) munificentia of Spartiaticus is specifically mentioned in his dedication.

68 Cf. IG v. 1. 380. Pius: Kent, op. cit. (n. 51) no. 212; another heir of Pius may have been P. Coelius Balbinus Vibullius Pius, cos. ord. 137 (PIR 2 C 241). For the Corinthian Vibullii cf. Robert, L., Hellenica ii 9–10Google Scholar (where for ‘L. Vibullius Proculus’ read ‘L. Vibullius Saturninus’); the family had been settled at Corinth at least since die time of Augustus and perhaps was connected with the late republican senator L. Vibullius Rufus (descendants of one of his freedmen?). Another member of the family, evidently, was (L.) Vibullius Rufus, maternal grandfather of Herodes Atticus (Inschriften von Olympia no. 621) and a contemporary (brother/first cousin?) of Pius: see the stemma, below p. 261. For a probable freedman of the family at Thespiae cf. AD 21 (1966) 213.

69 Paus. ii. 3, 5—cf. Groag, loc. cit. (n. 1) col. 582.

70 Kent, op. cit. (n. 51) p. 18.

71 West, op. cit. (n. 33) no. 67.

72 Loc. cit., no. 58.

73 Kent, op. cit. (n. 51) nos. 111—12.

74 Loc. cit., no. 111.

75 Kindly supplied by Mr. C. K. Williams, Director of the American excavations at Corinth.

76 PIR 2 C 801.

77 Cf. above, n. 68 and the stemma opposite.

78 Asopus: IG v. 1. 971; SEG xxii. 310 (this should probably be referred to Herculanus rather than the Augustan Eurycles). Gythium: IG v. 1. 1172. Megalopolis: above, p. 253. Tegea: IG v. 2. 311 (its editor suggested— unnecessarily, I believe—that the stone originally came from Mantineia. Cf. above, n. 49).