harbor and crossroads for trade; there was an organization of resident
Romans at Ephesos by the first centuryB.C.E.^4 Augustus himself designated
it as the Asian center where Romans were to worship the deified Caesar
and Roma.^5 It was the chief headquarters of the proconsul of Asia; by
the third century, governors were required to make their first landfall at
Ephesos.^6
A recent study of bilingual Greek and Latin inscriptions from all over
the province shows that Ephesos has revealed far more such inscriptions
than any other city.^7 In fact, when one looks at public civic inscriptions,
Ephesos has more bilinguals than all the other cities of Asia (which
ancient tradition numbered at 500, perhaps actually over 300) combined:
nineteen honorific bases, whereas the rest of the province has a total of
six; fifteen public dedications, whereas the rest of the province has ten.
8
And among building inscriptions, the greatest concentration of bilinguals
in the city of Ephesos was at one particular locus, the plaza just south of
the great Hellenistic Agora (figure 4.1).
Plainly this was an important crossroads. Three roads met here: one
from the harbor and the central city, at the north; one from the Magnesian
gate to the east; and one from the west, perhaps leading from Ortygia,
birthplace and festival site of Ephesos’s patron god Artemis. It is natural
that important people wished to place their buildings and monuments
where they would be seen, and Ephesos was a place whose builders
and benefactors were not just locals, but the elite citizens of other
cities, Roman officials, and even emperors.^9 Of course, one cannot say
who or how many actually stood before these dedications to read their
inscriptions, or gaze at the statues.^10 Most no doubt gave them a hurried
glance, with the literate subconsciously reading a word or two, and getting
a vague impression of the rest. What is important is that the dedicators
built as if their gifts would be seen, and their messages received as
intended. Also, it is likely that those who commissioned further buildings
to stand in this space paid close attention to what was already there, and
what it said. In the metropolis of Ephesos, the desires and decisions of
4.IvE658, supplemented by Knibbe, Engelmann, and I_plikc ̧ioglu 1989, 235 6.- Burrell 2004, 59.
- Ulpian,Digest1.16.4.5, by ruling of Caracalla.
- Figures taken from Kearsley 2001, though I consider the Library of Celsus a public
dedication more than a sepulchral inscription. Note that Ephesos provides almost a third
(34) of the 109 listed bilingual epitaphs. - Reynolds 1995; Sartre 1995, 212.
- Winter 1996, 233 4.
- On varied receptions of statuary, Edwards 2003; on reading inscriptions, Corbier
2006, 47, 87. Thanks to Peter Bing (2002) for his thoughts on epigram reading, though
I believe that epigram inscriptions were occasionally read despite the dearth of descriptions
of this process in classical literature. Ancient inscriptions’ effects may have been largely
subliminal, like modern billboards; this does not stop advertisers from putting up billboards.
70 Situating Literacies