Sardis/Rome, 26 CE: An Imperial Cult Temple in the Province of Asia

In 23 CE, emperor Tiberius gave permission to the cities in the province of Asia (modern western Türkiye) for the construction of a temple for himself, his mother Livia and the Senate. As the emperor was the most important figure of the empire, and not many cities possessed such a temple at the time, the city chosen would be singled out for an exceptional honour and one that would emphasise its importance to the Romans and in the provincial hierarchy. The cities in the province, however, could not decide which of them would receive such a temple. A few years later, therefore, the cities sent their embassies to Rome to plead their case to the emperor and the Senate.

 

When it comes to the cities in the eastern half of the Roman Empire and their self-presentation, the focus of modern scholarship has mostly been on ‘Greek’ culture (what is ‘Greek’, ‘how Greek’ were communities, how did ‘Greek’ culture relate to longer-existing ‘indigenous’ cultural traditions, etc.). For the cities of Asia, at least, the picture is more diverse. Coming face-to-face with the empire and its personifications – the emperor and the Senate – the way they presented themselves focused on their relationship with the emperor, both at that time and in the past. Negotiations over status within the empire through the expression of historical prominence or relationships proved to be of central importance for the urban communities in the province of Asia.

 

The Senate meeting of 26 CE, at which the cities advertised themselves as ideal sites for the temple, provides a glimpse into these negotiations and the cities’ understanding and uses of their past. The Senate meeting is known in detail because of an account by the Roman historian Tacitus, who detailed the arguments provided by the cities’ embassies based on transcripts of the Senate meetings:

But Caesar […] gave an audience of several days to the embassies of the cities in Asia on the question in which city the temple should be built. Eleven cities, equal in their zeal but with different levels of vigour, competed for the temple. And with little variation among them, they recalled the antiquity of their people, their devotion towards the Roman people in their wars against the Persians and against Aristonicus and against other kings. But in truth the people of Hypaepa, Tralleis, Laodicea and Magnesia were at the same time passed over as of insufficient status; even the Ilians, although they referred to Troy as the ancestor of the city of Rome, only prevailed in the fame of their antiquity. There was little doubt about the Halicarnassians, as they affirmed that their homes had not been shaken by an earthquake for twelve hundred years and that the foundations of the temple would be on a living rock. The Pergamenes (although they relied on this very thing) had acquired enough with the temple of Augustus that was granted to them. The Ephesians and the Milesians had, the former for Apollo, the latter for Diana, entirely furnished their cities for their worship, it seemed. Thus, the consideration was between the Sardians and the Smyrnaeans. The Sardians recited a decree of Etruria in order to claim consanguinity: For Tyrrhenus and Lydus, sons of king Atys, divided the people because of their great number; Lydus remained in the ancestral lands, whereas Tyrrhenus was given the assignment to establish new settlements; and from the names of the leaders were attached to those in Asia, and those in Italy; and the abundance of the Lydians was yet augmented because of the peoples which moved into that part of Greece which soon carried a name after Pelops. They also recalled letters from the generals and treaties signed with us during the war against the Macedonians and the richness of their rivers, their climate and rich lands around their city. (Tac., Ann. 4.55. Transl. R. van der Heijden)

 

As Tacitus’ account shows, every city took a slightly different approach to its status within the empire and to reflections on its civic history and identity. However, they all demonstrated the need these cities felt to frame their history, identity and worthiness in ways that aligned them with Rome. The implications and longevity of their narratives went beyond this particular Senate meeting. Sardis (modern-day Sart, province Manisa) may serve as an example. Making its case to the Senate, the embassy from Sardis attempted to claim a shared history and ancestry with Rome and the emperor in the hope that this would qualify them to build and take care of the temple for the imperial cult. They tried to establish a connection between their own history and that of the Romans: although they were originally not Etruscan (another word for Tyrrhenian) themselves, three of seven Roman kings had been Etruscan and some historical traditions argued that Rome’s founders, Romulus and Remus, had been of Etruscan descent. The Etruscan cities continued to have a significant influence on Roman culture, politics and religion and in many cases, traditions were taken over or adapted for Roman use. The Sardians themselves possessed an illustrious history as well. In the seventh and first half of the sixth century CE, the Lydian kings conquered half of Anatolia and formed a world power on the rise. The growth and existence of their empire was cut short as they were conquered themselves by the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The memory of their rising empire, their powerful kings and their mythological riches, however, remained a fixed feature in Greco-Roman literature and culture. According to Herodotus, writing a century after the fall of the Lydian Empire, the war between the Persians and the Lydians formed one of the causes of the conflict between the Persians and the Greeks that coloured the fifth century BCE. Stories about the wealth of the Lydians continued to denote needless decadence even hundreds of years later.