Rome and the East
Σεπτίμ(ιον)Ὀδίναθον τὸνλαμπρότατ(ον),Σεπτιμίακολ(ωνία)Τύροςἡ
μητρόπολις. The date should be the later s or earlier s, and the per-
son concerned is the famous Odenathus of Palmyra, already a senator but
apparently not yetὑπατικός.^132 A Roman citizen and senator, Odenathus
came from a city which itself had been a Romancoloniafor some decades (see
below). Tyre, however, in erecting this statue as an honour from the city, has
reverted to the use of Greek; and after the coinage ceases there is almost no
evidence either for the public use of Latin there or for its status as acolonia
being given emphasis, or even remembered. In the extensive writings of a
major third-century writer from Tyre, Porphyry, and in the biographical in-
formation about him, this status is nowhere alluded to: to Eunapius in the
later fourth century, he came from ‘‘Tyre, the foremost city of the ancient
Phoenicians’’ (Vit. Soph.).Thetitlemetropolis, on the other hand, was still
in dispute between Tyre and Berytus in..– (CJ, , ). It is clear
why it should have been that title which was in dispute, sincemetropolisim-
plied a predominance over other cities whichcoloniadid not. None the less,
there is an element of paradox in the appearance of this and notcoloniain a
legal document of..–. For exactly in those years we know that the
status of Tyre as acoloniacould still be recorded: in the Acts of the Council of
Chalcedon, in a section relating to proceedings in , Tyre appears in this
guise:ἐν κολωνίᾳΤύρῳλαμπροτάτῃμητροπόλειὑπατικῇ.^133 It had surely
been long since a mere title, which reflected nothing about the social and
cultural character of the city.^134
By contrast, almost nothing is known of Septimius Severus’ transfor-
mation of Sebaste in Samaria into acoloniabeyond Ulpian’s bare statement
(Dig.,,,):Divus quoque Severus in Sebastenam civitatem coloniam de-
duxit. The latter expression is surely nominal, not implying that actual settlers
were brought there. Excavations there have provided evidence of signifi-
. For the inscription, see M. Chéhab, ‘‘Tyr a l’époque romaine,’’Mél.Univ. St. Joseph
(): , on –. For Septimius Odenathus, see M. Gawlikowski, ‘‘Les princes de
Palmyre,’’Syria (): .
.Acta Conc. Chalcedon. . Concilium Universale ChalcedonenseI, , ed. E. Schwartz
(), .
. I would have argued that the fact that Eusebius describes his Greek text of the let-
ter of Maximinus to Tyre as a translation from the Latin (HE, , –) is evidence for
the public use of Latin there in.., but for the publication by S. Mitchell, ‘‘Maximi-
nus and the Christians in..: A New Latin Inscription,’’JRS (): , of a partial
text of the same proclamation, in Latin and addressed to the Colbassenses in the province
of Lycia and Pamphylia. The use of Latin is therefore not, in this context, distinctive of
colonial status.