initial builders would be received by a wide audience of varied elites, who
furthered and modified that reception with their own dedications.^11
The building that seems to have determined the area’s bilingual future
was the South Gate of the Agora, often called the ‘‘Gate of Mazaeus and
Mithridates.’’ Figure 4.2 shows what the area might have looked like after
this gate was added, at the start of the first centuryC.E., though this and
the following reconstructions are necessarily speculative, meant to give an
impression of the topography as a whole rather than be archaeologically
precise for each structure. The Gate’s inscription was originally set with
large bronze letters, making it quite legible even from a distance.
12
In
Latin, the two exotically named freedmen honor their patrons, Augustus
and Agrippa, each with his wife. One reads the three-line Latin inscrip-
tion on the attic of the left arch (Augustus’s) first, then its counterpart on
the right arch (Agrippa’s), then, below them, the single Latin line of the
two dedicators across both the protruding arches. The two-line Greek
dedication, on the attic of the recessed arch in the center, was probably
meant to be read last. It was written in the characteristic Greek style of
evenly spaced letters, whereas the Latin inscription lengthened its ‘‘I’’s
and separated words with points, and sometimes with wider spaces.^13
As a gravestone found elsewhere specifies that Mithradates [sic] was
the freedman of Agrippa, Mazaeus must have been the freedman of
Augustus.^14 Indeed, each freedman’s name stands on the part of the
gate dedicated to his own patron, and the two parts of the gate were
- For the variety of elites in Asia, Campanile 2004b; for the semiotics of bilingualism
on public monuments, for example, Adams 2002; for the siting of inscriptions and gradual
specialization of certain sites, Corbier 2006, esp. 35 9. Halfmann 2001, 93 106, is
provocative but has some crucial errors.
12.IvE3006: Imp. Caesari Divi f. Augusto pontifici / maximo, cos. XII, tribunic. potest.
XX et / Liviae Caesaris Augusti
M. Agrippae L. f. cos. tert. imb. [sic] tribunic. / potest. VI et / Iuliae Caesaris Augusti fil.
Mazaeus et Mithridates patronis.
ÌÆǽÆEïò ŒÆd ÌØŁæØäÜôÅò=½ôïEòðܽôæøóØ ŒÆd ôHØ äÞ½ìøØ.
On bronze letters as an Augustan innovation, Rose 2005, 29, 55. Kearsley (2001, 124 5
no. 121, 154) assumes that Mithridates passed into the familia of Augustus, but see infra
n. 14. On the use ofcognominaonly, Chantraine 1967, 53 4, 103 n. 14; Weaver 1972, 37 8.
The Persianized names lead Halfmann (2001, 29 31) to see the men’s origins in eastern
Anatolia or Syria, though slaves’ names were given by the master and did not necessarily
reflect reality; cf. Dench 2005, 73, 296. - Few publications of bilingual building inscriptions consider whether the Latin and
Greek portions were cut by the same person or workshop, or what artistic effect the contrast
(or any induced similarity) in writing styles between the two languages might have had. One
certain example of a single artist, or at least workshop, cutting both Greek and Latin is an
advertisement for monumental inscriptions in both languages from Sicily,IG14.297/CIL
10.7296; Ireland 1983, 221 2.
14.IvE851; Kearsley 2001, 15 16 no. 19. The difference in spelling makes P. Scherrer’s
theory that the gate enclosed gravesites for Mazaeus and Mithridates in its wings (cited in
Thu ̈r 1997, 73 5; Scherrer 2000, 138; Cormack 2004, 225) less likely. On the other hand,
the Latin inscription gives Agrippa the misspelled title Imb(erator), though Augustus’s title
is correctly abbreviated on his half of the gate.
72 Situating Literacies