interpreted Roman rule as an agent of the divine sphere, and at the beginning of
his career as an essayist he even wrote a piece called On the Fortune of the Romans,
exploring the part played by Fortune and Virtue in Rome’s ascent to world dom-
ination. Though never showing any clear sign of exasperation with the fact that his
beloved world of Greek cities was now under the rule of Rome, Plutarch tended to
minimize the empire’s role (and also that of the leading citizens of the cities on whom
Rome depended for the indirect manner of governing that empire, for that matter)
when talking about the natural order, in favor of an interpretation which placed that
order in the lap of the gods.Religious Life in Dura-Europos
Returning from the intellectual level to what actually happened with regard to local
cults, it must be emphasized that the framework of Roman rule of course didhave
an undeniable significance for the way in which the religious landscape, or rather
landscapes, of the east could develop in the first three centuriesad. To illustrate
this, we will finally, having come toward the end of this chapter, return to the fortress
town of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates, since this site provides – thanks to the
important archaeological findings which by far exceed its position in the ancient world
- what is potentially our best case study for religious life in a normal small town
under the empire. This “Pompey of the Syrian desert” was founded by one of
Alexander’s successors in the early Hellenistic period as a Macedonian colony,
Europos, on a plateau overlooking the river, at a site called Dura. Toward the end
of the second centurybcthe town came to be part of the Parthian empire. Only in
ad 165 did it pass under Roman control, and remained so until the neo-Persian
conquest and destruction inad 256. Although there are some material remains that
relate to the earlier periods, it is from the last ninety years of its history, when it
belonged to the Roman empire, that most of our sources date.
In this Roman phase, Dura-Europos had a wide, kaleidoscopic spectrum of cults
(Welles 1969). Some of these went back to the days when Europos was founded
as a colony. Unfortunately, there is hardly any firm archaeological evidence for this
earliest period, since the gridiron plan which is so characteristic of the map of the
city, and in which most of the temples and other religious buildings were embedded,
was implemented only later, toward the end of the second centurybc. But an early
Hellenistic origin can nonetheless be assumed for some cults. A parchment fromad
180 lists four men who during that year occupied the priesthoods of, respectively,
Zeus (under the name of Zeus Olympios the main god for the Seleucids), Apollo
(a patron deity for them), the Progonoior ancestors (probably of a Seleucid king),
and Seleucus Nicator (one of Alexander’s generals and the founder of his own dynasty)
(Welles et al. 1959: no. 25). Since byad 180 Dura-Europos had been under Roman
control for 15 years, it may evoke some surprise that these cults, which can all be
linked with religious attitudes of the time of the city’s foundation, would have sur-
vived the centuries of Parthian control into the period of Roman rule. It would be
possible, however, to interpret these cults not so much as fossils of the early
454 Ted Kaizer