The Greek City in the Roman Period pressed their complex relationships to the new line of individual rulers is one
of the central aspects of what ‘‘the Greek city’’ of the imperial period was.
In a wider sense, however, the expression ‘‘the Roman period,’’ as regards
the history of Greek cities, covers a far larger time scale, which begins cen-
turies earlier and continues several centuries later than the High Empire.
The Greek expansion into Italy, Sicily, and the coasts of Gaul and Spain in
the archaic period had meant that from the very beginning Rome belonged
on the fringes of the Greek world. Caere (Agylla), a few kilometres from
Rome, was adopting the custom of the Greekagōn(contest), as a form of ex-
piation, in the middle of the sixth century.^3 At the end of that century, as
a detailed Greek narrative preserved by Dionysius of Halicarnassus records,
the tyrant of Cumae, Aristodemus, played an important role at the time of
the expulsion of Roman kings and in conflicts with the Etruscans.^4 Similarly,
Roman contacts with Massilia go back at least to the early fourth century,
when spoils from the Gauls were deposited by the Romans in the Massaliote
treasury at Delphi, and when Justin claims that there was already a treaty be-
tween Massilia and Rome.^5 Already in the next couple of centuries, Greek
cities were presented with the problem of how to construe the identity of
the Romans, the significance of their claimed descent from Aeneas, and thus
the nature of their relationship to themselves. These questions are, of course,
already explicit in the famous inscription of the s..from Lampsacus,
describing an embassy to Massilia and then to Rome, to claim protection
(against Antiochus III) on the basis of a mythical common descent.^6 Other
elements of the mythical identity of Rome are reflected in a more recently
found inscription of about the same date from Chios, recording the creation
there of a monument representing ‘‘the founder of Rome, Romulus, and his
brother Remus.’’^7
By that time of course all the Greek cites of Italy had becomesocii navales
(allies providing Rome with warships) of Rome, while one, Posidonia, had
Subject: The Impact of Monarchy,’’ in F. Millar and E. Segal, eds.,Caesar Augustus: Seven
Aspects(), – ( chapter of F. Millar,Rome, the Greek World, and the EastI:The
Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution), which owes much to S. R. F. Price,Rituals and
Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor().
. Herodotus , .
. Dionysius,Ant. Rom. , –.
. Plutarch,Camillus; Justin , , .
.Syll.^3 no. . English translation in M. M. Austin,TheHellenisticWorldfromAlexander
to the Roman Conquest(), no. .
. See P. S. Derow and W. G. Forrest, ‘‘An Inscription from Chios,’’ABSA ():
SEGXXXI, no. . See O. Hansen,Eranos (): .