The RomanColoniaeof the Near East bilingual inscription, in Greek on the left and Palmyrene on the right, as
follows:
ΜᾶρκοςἸούλιος/Μάξιμος/Ἀριστείδης,/κόλων/Βηρύτιος,/
πατὴρΛου/κίλλης γυ/ναικὸςΠερ/τίνακος
MRQWS YWLYWS MKSMWS / ’RSṬYDS QWLWN / BRTY’
’B(W)H DY / LWQL’ ’TT PRṬNKS
The Latin wordcolonushas thus become a pseudo-Greek word,κόλων,and
from there has been transliterated into Palmyrene as an intelligible form of
identification of a person from thecoloniaof Berytus. Similar transliterated
forms were already in use for the institutions of Palmyra itself, or very soon
would be, as we will see (text to nn. –). But, as we will also see, allu-
sions to cities ascoloniaeand to their inhabitants as preserving the relevant
status are very rare after the third century; it remains unclear whether this is
because such statuses had genuinely ceased to be relevant; or because the city
coinages of the Greek East had ceased in the second half of the third cen-
tury,^8 or because the ‘‘epigraphic habit,’’ though it had not ceased, had greatly
declined. Moreover, Palmyrene, a language which is known only through in-
scriptions, and whose vocabulary is exceptionally rich in loan-words, ceased
to be inscribed soon after the reconquest by Aurelian.^9
It is therefore all the more striking that even in the late fifth century, in a
period when to all appearances the status ofcoloniahad long ceased to be of
any importance, we still find preserved in the Babylonian Talmud a reflec-
tion of the possibility which had existed in the early Empire, of asking the
emperor to grant the rank ofcoloniato a city. For the treatiseAvodah Zara(on
pagan worship) contains a tale of an emperor called ‘‘Antoninus’’ (conceiv-
ably Caracalla) saying to ‘‘Rabbi’’ that he wishes ‘‘to make Tiberias acolonia’’—
TT‘BYD ṬBRY’ QLNY’.^10 This elevation, so far as we know, did not in fact
. See the useful presentation of these coinages, and their disappearance, by K. Harl,
Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East,..–().
. For this point, see Millar (n. ), . Note, however, the two Palmyrene inscriptions
published and discussed by M. Gawlikowski,Syria (): –, andLe temple palmyré-
nien(), , nos. –, of which one dates to , while its companion (of ?) seems
to refer to Aurelian—[’W]RLYNWS QSR. Note also the pair of Greek and Palmyrene in-
scriptions of../, M. Gawlikowski,Ann. Arch. Ar. Syr. – (–): , no. .
.Bab.Talmud,Avodah Zara, a. Note that inTiberias: From the Foundation to the Moslem
Conquest(), – (Hebrew), Y. Meshorer claims to read COL on coins of the city under
Elagabal. I owe this reference to Alla Stein.