The RomanColoniaeof the Near East phant creation of a Romancoloniaon the site, with a Roman constitution and
Roman gods. But the nature and evolution of that change escapes us entirely.
The Reign of Septimius Severus
With the ascent to the throne of Septimius Severus in.. a quite new
phase opens in the nature of Romancoloniaein the Near East. As we will see,
it is not beyond possibility that his origins in Tripolitania, a Latin-speaking
area whose Punic sub-culture was a distant product of Phoenician colonisa-
tion, had some effect on this change. Equally, it may be relevant that his wife,
Iulia Domna, came from the city of Emesa in Syria, a place which contem-
poraries tended to characterise as ‘‘Phoenician,’’ even though it was situated
not on the coast but on the middle Orontes. Once again, the most difficult
problems of ethnic identity present themselves.
Two more obvious influences on the scale and nature of the formation of
newcoloniaein this period were the civil war fought between Severus and
Pescennius Niger, thelegatusof Syria, and the extension of the Roman fron-
tier from the Euphrates to the Tigris. The title ofcoloniawastobeconferred
on a whole series of places, mostly very little known or understood, in the
new provinces of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene. One place which received it
subsequently is, however, rather better known, namely Edessa/Orhai, which
until / was the capital of the small kingdom of Abgar.
The most clearly attested factor in this new phase was the use of the rank
or title ofcoloniaas part of the repertoire of imperial rewards (with corre-
sponding punishments), meted out to cities in respect of the attitude they
had taken in the civil war of –.^110 Once again rabbinic literature hap-
pens to offer a remarkably vivid and apposite reflection of just this situation:
the people of a city are recorded as asking a king (emperor) to make their
city acolonia(QLWNY’), because they think it a good moment, as two of his
enemies have just been defeated.^111
Contemporary sources make the connection between civil war and grants
of colonial status quite explicit, and in one case a combination of evidence
provides a precise date. Herodian records that there were local hostilities be-
tween Laodicea and Antioch and between Berytus and Tyre, and that Lao-
. For these processes, see R. Ziegler, ‘‘Antiochia, Laodicea und Sidon in der Politik
der Severer,’’Chiron (): .
.Sifre Deut. , , in the edition by L. Finkelstein (; repr. ). I owed the
reference to M. Goodman,State and Society in Roman Galilee,..–(), , who
duly observes (in his n. ) the relevance of this to the civil war period.