The Greek City in the Roman Period the one in Pisidia), Alexander, ‘‘one of the first of the Antiochenes,’’ lays hold
of her. But she resists, tearing his cloak and dashing from his head a golden
crown with an image of the emperor.^84
TheActsof PaulandTheclarepresents only one of a series of Christian por-
trayals of the life of the Greek city, of the crisis caused in it by the preaching
of Christianity, and of the profound transformations which then came about.
One of the most striking is theLifeof Gregorius Thaumaturgus by Gregory
of Nyssa. Written in the s, this novelistic portrayal of Christian preach-
ing in the mid-third century vividly evokes the public buildings and popular
festivals of cities in Pontus, and seems to be unique in explicitly portraying
the establishment of a calendar of Christian martyr festivals as a conscious
device to create a new ‘‘rhythm’’ of city life (the term used is very signifi-
cant:metarrythmizōn).^85 That the communal structures and the pagan calen-
dar, or ‘‘rhythm,’’ of the Graeco-Roman city did in fact, over a period of not
much more than a century, succumb to the new Christian world of bishops,
churches, shrines of martyrs, and a new calendar of feasts is of course certain.
Julian’s short-lived attempt to revive it met with only a limited response. His
last letter, written as his army marched east from Antioch in , might be
taken as the epitaph of the pagan city:
From Litarbae I proceeded to Beroea, and there Zeus by showing a
manifest sign from heaven declared all things to be auspicious. I stayed
there for a day and saw the Acropolis and sacrificed to Zeus in imperial
fashion a white bull. Also I conversed briefly with the senate about the
worship of the gods. But though they all applauded my arguments very
few were converted by them, and these few were men who even be-
fore I spoke seemed to me to hold sound views. But they were cautious
and would not strip off and lay aside their modest reserve, as though
afraid of too frank speech.^86Looking at the pagan Graeco-Roman city of the fourth century, we might,
as Oswyn Murray has suggested to me, wish to emphasise the extraordinary
stability, or ossification, of culture and values which bound it to the classical
Greek city of some seven centuries earlier. On this view it succumbed be-
cause it did not change, and could not. On the other hand, we might rather
.Acts of Paul and Thecla– (Syriac text) quoted from Price (n. ), .
. Gregory of Nyssa,Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi,PGXLVI, cols. –. Forμεταρ-
ρυθμίζων, see col. . See R. Van Dam, ‘‘Hagiography and History: The Life of Gregory
Thaumaturgus,’’Classical Antiquity (): .
. Julian,Ep. , Loeb trans.; Bidez-Cumont,Ep..