The RomanColoniaeof the Near East it he explains that the ambition which had first led him to the Syrian region
had been a desire to pursue the study of Roman law, and for that he and his
brother had set out for Berytus, ‘‘a city somewhat more Roman, and consid-
ered a place of instruction in those laws.’’^42 The reference is not to a ‘‘school,’’
but to Berytus itself as a place of Roman culture, including legal culture. By
the end of the century we find Diocletian and Maximian replying to students
from the province of Arabia who are engaged onliberalia studia, and espe-
cially theprofessio iuris, and hence are livingin civitate Berytensium provinciae
Phoenices, to say that they may have exemption frommunerauntil age twenty-
four (CJ, , ). The view that students from the Greek East could find in
Berytus a ‘‘Roman’’ or Latin culture of which legal studies were a prominent
part is strikingly confirmed by the verse epitaph from the fourth century
of a young man from Colybrassus in Cilicia: ‘‘When I journeyed from here
to the distinguished city of Berytus for the sake of the Roman Muse and
thelaws...’’^43
We need not pursue the story further, or repeat the well-known allusions
by Libanius to the attraction of students of Roman law to Berytus.^44 Enough
has been said to show that Roman culture was a very distinctive feature of
the city into the fourth century. That is not to say, however, that Berytus was
ever a zone of purely Roman culture. Franz Cumont’s description of Bery-
tus, Heliopolis, and Ptolemais as ‘‘Latin islands in the Semitic ocean’’^45 was
indeed both overstated and misleading in a variety of different ways. For at
start there is no reason to suppose that the Greek-speaking population of Au-
gustan Berytus was not incorporated in thecolonia. As a symbol (if no more)
of that continuity, Poseidon, the chief deity of Hellenistic Berytus, reappears
in the second and third centuries on the coins of thecolonia.^46 It is also inter-
esting that the Greek writer Hermippus, an antiquarian from Berytus of the
early second century, who wrote among other things a work ‘‘On Slaves Who
Distinguished Themselves in Paideia,’’ is described by the Suda as originating
‘‘from an inland village.’’^47 For the possession of an extensive hinterland em-
bracing parts of two mountain ranges and the Bekaa valley is an important
. H. Crouzel,Grégoire leThaumaturge remerciement à Origène(Sources Chrétiennes ,
), /:ἡτῶνΒηρυτίωνπόλιςἡδὲοὐμακρὰνἀπέχουσατῶνἐνταῦθα[Syria Palae-
stina]πόλιςῬωμαϊκωτέραπως,καὶτῶννόμωντούτωνεἶναιπιστευθεῖσαπαιδευτήριον.
.SEGXXVI, , with references to the literature.
. For the later history, see P. Collinet,Histoire de l’école de droit de Béryte().
.CAHXI^1 (), , quoted by Vittinghoff (n. ), .
.BMCPhoenicia, lxvi–ixi. A dolphin-and-trident type had, however, appeared under
Augustus (no. ).
. Suda, ed. Adler II, , s.v.Ἕρμιππος,Βηρύτιος,ἀπὸκώμης μεσογαίου.