Roman onomastics in the Greek East: social and political aspects ...

At the end of the 1st century AD, Rome found
herself at the head of an empire that covered all of
the Mediterranean world. While in the West the
prevailing language, or at least the ruling language
was Latin, in the East it was Greek that remained
the main language of communication and culture.
Moreover, the hellenophone regions were the heirs
of the traditions of the Classical and Hellenistic
cities, as well as those of the royal descendants of
the ancient empire of Alexander. But the conquest
reversed the traditional balance among regions or
inside the cities themselves. It established new
social, political and economic relations. Far from
being a static world, the Roman-dominated East
was in fact a zone that underwent deep mutations.
The epigraphic material dating to this period is
very important but —in many aspects— underexploited.
The Greek peninsula in particular, on
a political and economic margin of the Roman
world, has remained in the margin of research for
along time. Fortunately, this situation has known
a change in the last few years. Articles and books
concerned with the various aspects of romanitas
have multiplied. Onomastics is naturally an aspect
of greco-roman society and a means by which we
can understand it. This colloquium allowed the
participating scholars to give account of recent
work and to define the perspective of future studies.
The colloquium was the result of combined work
of the Institute for Greek and Roman Antiquity
(KERA) and the Finnish Institute of Athens 1 and
I take this occasion to express my respect to the
former directors of these two institutions,
Professors M. Sakellariou and J. Frozen, who did
everything possible for its success, as well as to
the directors of the Swedish Institute and the French
School of Athens for their assistance. But we also
owe the success of this scholarly gathering to the
efficiency and dedication of M. Leiwo, the then
secretary of the Finnish School of Athens, and to
my colleagues in KERA, S. Zoumbaki, L. Mendoni
and M. Kantirea.
The proceedings present 23 communications
that are concerned with various aspects of Roman
onomastics. Since the studies are all based on solid
INTRODUCTION
epigraphical documentation —at times new—, so
the authors work from a direct knowledge of the
evidence. This new documentation will be welcomed
by specialists of the Roman world in their
studies of the Eastern world and its particuliarities.
This first meeting will be repeated in a few years,
when each scholar will have progressed in their
work, and the following reunions will be more
directly orientated to a particular theme.
In a collective work, written in five different
languages, it is not possible to follow completely
the reference modes and the typographic practices
in every national tradition. I have tried to introduce
a certain uniformity in the citations of ancient and
modern works, in order to facilitate the readers'
work. The index of nomina has been compiled by
S. Zoumbaki, under my guidance. This book has
been published with the help of the Liliane Boudouris
Foundation and I would like to express here
my thanks to my friend M. Hatzopoulos for
including it in ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ.
In conclusion, I have the pleasant task of expressing
my gratitude both to the participants of
the colloquium and to those who, although unable
to attend, willingly sent their contributions. I would
like to thank all those who made the publication
of these proceedings possible: M. Leiwo who helped
read the first proofs, M. Kantirea and Y. Rizakis
who aided in various phases and in particular S.
Zoumbaki whose assistance is greatly appreciated.
Finally I would like to thank H. Solin and our friends
of the Institutum Classicum of Helsinki, for their
help and collaboration on the research of Roman
anthroponymics, afieldin which the Finnish School
opened the way to modern scholarship on more
than a few occasions.
A.R.
1 .The programme of research on the Roman onomastics
of the East has been running for some years within the
framework of a bilateral franco-hellenic agreement (the
"Platon" programme). This agreement was the work of the
teams of KERA of Athens, directed by A. Rizakis, of the
Pierre Paris Centre of Michel de Montaigne (Bordeaux
III), directed by Alain Bresson, and of the Année
Épigraphique, directed by M. Corbier and S. Follet.
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