The Hellenistic World and Rome
tivals, the ‘‘Actia.’’ It seems to be as early as the s..that we have the first
reflection of this new element, in the inscription from Pergamon record-
ing the victories of Glycon at the Olympian, Pythian, Actian, and Nemean
games.^33 But in spite of its name, and its new role among Greek cities, it can
be argued that Nicopolis was a double community, both a Greek city and a
Roman colony, not physically distinct.^34
If it were really so, it was a rare case. More commonly, both emperors and
kings spread over the map of the Greek world an ever-denser network of
Greek cities, whose Greek names incorporated Latin, that is, (almost always)
imperial, personal names. It is superfluous to give more than examples, since
the process was detailed with remorseless care by A. H. M. Jones: Sebastē,
Caesarea, Tiberias, Germanicia, Claudiopolis, Flaviopolis, Flavia Neapolis,
Traianopolis, Marcianopolis, Hadrianopolis and Hadrianoutherae, and so on
to Philippolis and two places called Maximianopolis, a Diocletianopolis, and
of course Constantinopolis itself.^35 The real nature of such re-foundations
cannot be pursued further here, for only very detailed local examination
would serve to make clear how far in each case urbanisation, in various forms,
had preceded the creation of the ‘‘new’’ city, and how radical the changes in
local social structures were. We cannot always distinguish a new foundation,
and the creation of a new urban structure, from the mere acquisition of a new
imperial name, as when Palmyra became ‘‘Hadrianē Palmyra’’; or be certain
as to how much new building accompanied any such transformation, or what
role was played by imperial initiative and benefaction.^36 What is clear in two
well-known cases is that an imperial decision to grant the status of city to
an existing community could be a response to initiative from below. Hence
the letter, in Latin, addressed to a governor by an emperor whose name is
lost, agreeing that Tymandus in Pisidia has fulfilled the criteria for achieving
city status; in this case the availability of sufficient persons (fifty, initially) to
act asdecuriones(members of a local senate), pass decrees, and elect magis-
. See E. Chrysos, ed.,NicopolisI:ProceedingsoftheFirstInternationalSymposiumonNicopo-
lis(). For the inscription from Pergamon, see L. Moretti,Iscrizioni agonistiche greche
(), no. .
. For this view see N. Purcell, ‘‘The Nicopolitan Synoicism and Roman Urban Policy,’’
in Chrysos (n. ), .
. A.H.M.Jones,The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces^2 ().
. See esp. S. Mitchell, ‘‘Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces,’’HSCPh
(): , with a shorter version in S. Macready and F. H. Thompson, eds.,Roman Ar-
chitecture in the Greek World(), , a valuable series of studies on the influence of Rome
on the physical character of imperial Greek cities.