The Hellenistic World and Rome
with features which made it not entirely typical of the ‘‘provincial’’koinon
familiar from other areas; nothing of significance can yet be added to the
study of these by J. Deininger.^42
As regards individualpoleis, it is beyond question that, while the formal
constitution found almost universally was that of magistrates (archontes),
council (boulē), and people (dēmos), the council was normally now a body
whose members retained their position for life, and represented the upper
class of the community; it is also noticeable, as we have seen, that it was as-
sumed that the prospective council (curia) of Tymandus would be responsible
for electing magistrates. A tendency towards oligarchic regimes determined
by class and wealth is thus undeniable, without its being demonstrable, ex-
cept in the case of Pontus and Bithynia, that such a non-democratic regime
was actually instituted by Roman regulation.^43 Thequestionofforhowlong
the assembly of the people (ekklēsia)ofatypicalpoliscontinuedtomeet,and
what real powers it will have exercised, would deserve further examination.
What is in any case certain about the Greek, or Graeco-Roman, city of the
imperial period is the central place occupied by the council (boulē). That
essential role is mirrored by the vast range of archaeological evidence for city
council houses (bouleuteriaorcuriae), collected and assessed for the first time
by Jean-Charles Balty.^44
In any case the broad themes of the political functioning of the Greek
cities, treated in the great work of A. H. M. Jones, have more recently been
re-examined, as regards the period between Augustus and Severus Alexan-
der, in a masterly study by Maurice Sartre.^45 It is particularly valuable that
Sartre has been able to place the ‘‘Greek city’’ of this period within the frame-
work both of the geographical and administrative evolution of the Empire
on the one hand, including the role and progressive disappearance of ‘‘client
kingdoms,’’ and of a series of regional studies on the other. The areas treated
are Greece and Macedonia; Thrace and Moesia Inferior; Asia Minor; Syria
and Arabia; Judaea (and the Jewish diaspora); and Egypt. The Greek cities of
. J. Deininger,Die Provinziallandtage der römischen Kaiserzeit(). For the Lycian
koinon, ff.
. For a very careful collection of the evidence, see G. E. M. de Ste Croix,The Class
Struggle in the Ancient Greek World(), app. IV: ‘‘The Destruction of Greek Democracy
in the Roman Period.’’
. J.-M. Ch. Balty,CuriaOrdinis:recherchesd’architectureetd’urbanismeantiquessurlescuries
provinciales du monde romain().
. A.H.M.Jones,The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian(); M. Sartre,L’Orient
romain: provinces et sociétés provinciales en Méditerranée orientale d’Auguste aux Sévères ( avant
J.-C.– après J.-C.)().