The RomanColoniaeof the Near East But the process of colonisation, or of the conferment of the titlecolonia,
was also one of many forms of intervention by Rome in the social struc-
tures and communal identities of a region long since Hellenised, but where
a variety of other ethnic identities, most of them extremely difficult for us
to characterise without distortion, were still very important factors.^2 Roman
colonisation naturally introduced a new element into this already complex
scene, and in this sense it can be perceived from a quite different angle, not
as part of the history of Rome but as an element in the cultural history of the
Fertile Crescent. Of all the Romancoloniaeof this region, only one, Berytus,
with its hinterland which was later separated off as thecoloniaof Heliopolis,^3
represented a substantial island of Romanisation, of Latin language and cul-
ture, and of Roman law, which was to last into the late Empire. But this
coloniatoo was established in the context of an already-existing Greek, or
Graeco-Phoenician, city, and inevitably took on many of the roles and forms
of public life associated with a Greek city. The same wasa fortioritrue of the
others, all of which, with one exception, show a profound continuity with
the Greek cities which preceded them. The exception is Aelia Capitolina,
founded by Hadrian on the ruins of Jerusalem, destroyed as a Jewish city in
the great revolt of.., and now recreated as a pagan city after the Bar
Kochba war of..–. But even Aelia, like the othercoloniaeof this re-
gion, and unlike almost all those of Italy, Africa, and Europe, continued to
mint coins until the mid-third century.^4 For minting was a normal, if not
universal, characteristic of cities in this region, and nearly everycolonia,real
or titular, acted likewise. The rank ofcoloniawas to become, among other
things, simply another status, like that ofmetropolis, to which a city might
aspire. In contemporary literature or documents, depending on the context,
the titlecoloniamight deserve mention, or might not. The latter, for instance,
was the case when a boxer put up an inscription at Aphrodisias in Caria in
about.. to record his world-wide victories. When he lists the places
in the Syrian region where his victories had been won, his words represent
a wholly Greek world, in which Roman colonisation is invisible, just as is
. For a sketch of some of the issues, see F. Millar, ‘‘Empire, Community and Culture
in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs,’’JournalofJewishStudies ():
; see also F. Millar,The Roman Near East().
. This formulation presupposes the validity of a particular view of the earlier history
and status of Heliopolis, discussed more fully below.
. Thecoloniaeof Spain, Africa, and Gaul ceased to mint, as did other towns in these
regions, in the Julio-Claudian period. The one remarkable exception to the rule thatcolo-
niaein the Latin-speaking provinces did not mint after the mid-first century is provided
by Viminacium, which minted between the reigns of Gordian and Gallienus.