even produced by different teams of sculptors.^15 Augustus’s titulature
dates the monument precisely to 4/3B.C.E., though at that time Agrippa
had been dead for nine years. As Julia, his widow, was currently married
to Tiberius, the inscription delicately calls her ‘‘daughter of Augustus.’’
Statues of the imperial personages, and later of their descendants Lucius
and likely Gaius Caesar, stood above.^16 In the central part, the briefer
Greek inscription states that Mazaeus and Mithridates dedicate the build-
ing to theDemosof Ephesos as well as to their patrons.
There are further bicultural aspects to this monument. For one thing, it
is a Roman triumphal arch, or rather, a pair of arches, a design completely
new to this city, resembling the arch of Susa in Italy, built only a short time
before.
17
When removed from Roman traditions of commemoration, such
arches have little function except to support and glorify statues of imperial
personages, as these in fact do. In plan, however, the Ephesos Gate is a
typical Greek propylon, its U-shape and triple passageway tracing its
ancestry back to Mnesikles’ Propylaia on the Athenian akropolis.
18
It is
architecturally as well as textually bilingual. The meld of the two is very
smoothly done for being so novel, but we should remember that Rome
derived its basic architectural forms from Greece in any case.^19
How did Mazaeus and Mithridates want viewers to read this monu-
ment? They put their Very Important Patrons to the fore, in a monumen-
tal format proper to them as Roman rulers, whereas the freedmen
dedicators’ names are without qualification or titulature, and their
Greek inscription is central, but recessed.^20 Glorifying their patrons
gives the freedmen a place where ordinarily they would have had none.
Mazaeus and Mithridates are not known to have held any imperial,
provincial, or civic office, and freedmen, even wealthy ones, would have
had a hard time among the freeborn elites of Ephesos were it not for their
imperial connections.^21
- Rose 1997, 172 4 no. 112.
16.IvE3007, Latin inscription for base of statue of Lucius Caesar. - Kader 1996, 259 60; the arch at Susa is dated 9/8B.C.E. For Roman traditions of arch
building, Beard 2007, 45 6, 101. - Alzinger 1974, 9 16; Ortac ̧ 2002, 175 7, 179 81.
- Colledge (1987) discusses the gradual progress by which truly foreign architectural
styles may be absorbed and domesticated. Note that the architectural influences are not
limited to Roman or Greek, as the decor of the side niches of the gate may derive from the
‘‘Syrian pediment’’ (Hornbostel Hu ̈ttner 1979, 200; infra, n. 45). - The dedication to the imperial personages is a Hellenic formula, rather than being in
the Roman tradition, in which triumphant generals erected their own arches. At Rome, arch
dedications were changing from Roman to Hellenic style at just this time: Wallace Hadrill
- On imperial freedmen in Asia Minor, and their rise specifically in early Augustan
times, Smith 1993, 8 10; Reynolds 1995, 398 9. Kearsley (2001, 154, 156) may paint too
rosy a picture.
74 Situating Literacies