Reviews of Pisidian Antioch,
by Stephen Mitchell and Marc Waelkens
Review 1.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 10.07.1999
Review by C. Brian Rose, University of Cincinnati
Pisidian Antioch has attracted the attention of historians
and archaeologists since the early nineteenth century. A copy
of the Res Gestae was found here, and the town contained a well-preserved
sanctuary of the cult of Men as well as one of the largest early
Christian basilicas in Asia Minor. Articles on various aspects
of the site have appeared sporadically during the twentieth
century, but there had never been a comprehensive investigation
of the city's topography and extant buildings. Stephen Mitchell
and Marc Waelkens have attempted to remedy this gap in scholarship
with this copiously illustrated guide to the site. The material
in the book is largely drawn from the authors' site survey in
1983 and 1984, but they have supplemented their investigation
with a wealth of archival material which is summarized in an
appendix.
The first two chapters deal with the geography and history
of the site as well as earlier attempts at excavation and survey.
These are followed by chapters on the Sanctuary of Men, the
theater and city plan (including walls, gates, and streets),
the Imperial cult complex, the water systems (aqueduct, nymphaeum,
and bath), and three early Christian churches. An appendix surveys
the epigraphic and numismatic evidence for the civic and religious
buildings at Antioch, most of which have been partly excavated.
The site is bordered by the mountains of the Sultan Daglar
at the north and east, which resulted in a closer interaction
with the cities at the south and west. Antioch was founded in
the third centuy B.C. as a colony of Magnesia, and there is
enough epigraphic and architectural evidence to indicate that
the relationship between the two cities continued throughout
the Hellenistic period. Funds for construction may also have
been supplied by the Attalid kings as part of an effort to hellenize
the area.
A Roman colony was established here in 25 B.C., with the settlers
consisting primarily of veterans from northern and central Italy.
As at other cities and colonies in Asia Minor, Antioch experienced
a building boom during the Augustan and Julio-Claudian periods.
Fewer buildings can be dated to the Flavian, Antonine, and Severan
periods, during which Ancyra became more prominent, but Diocletian
made Antioch the capital of the new province of Pisidia and
this resulted in the enlargement of the theater and the building
of a new porticoed agora next to it.
The site began to be explored and published in the first half
of the nineteenth century, largely due to the fact that Paul
had preached here; but excavation did not begin until the early
twentieth century, with a team that included W. M. Ramsay, F.
W. Kelsey of the University of Michigan, and D. M. Robinson
of Johns Hopkins. Their work lasted only a short time, from
1924 to 1927, and during the subsequent sixty years the site
was used as a stone quarry by the residents of the nearby town
of Yalvac. Excavation resumed in 1991 and has been conducted
annually since then by Mehmet Taslalan, Director of the Yalvac
Museum.
The most prominent religious complex in Antioch was the extra-mural
Sanctuary of Men Askaenos, which appears to have been in operation
from the second century B.C. through the third century A.D.
The Sanctuary consists of a rectangular temenos enclosure that
frames a hexastyle Ionic peripteral temple. In the vicinity
were a second temple, approximately one-half the size of the
first, a stadium, and a series of small buildings. The authors
compare the design of the two temples with those of Artemis
Leukophryene and Zeus Sozopolis at Magnesia and suggest that
some of the small buildings were intended for cult meals or
banquets. Games in honor of Men took place in the small stadium,
and statues of the victors stood within the temenos. Stone aediculae
carved with the symbols of Men decorated the exterior and interior
of the precinct, although many were defaced or destroyed during
the early Christian period. The large tracts of land that belonged
to the Sanctuary were probably divided and distributed to the
colonists during the Augustan period.
The large sanctuary on the eastern side of the city is not
well-preserved, and it has been assigned at various times to
Men, Cybele, Jupiter, and Augustus. A Corinthian podium temple
was framed by a semicircular two-storeyed portico (Doric below,
Ionic above), while the porticoed square in front of the temple
was entered through a triple-arched propylon. The temple apparently
contained no dedicatory inscription, but the dedication of the
propylon occurred in 211 B.C., and it was here that the Res
Gestae were exhibited. The gate featured an elaborate sculptural
program that would have complemented the statements in the Res
Gestae: reliefs referred to Augustus, his conquests on land
and sea, and the peaceful and prosperous conditions that resulted
from those conquests. The authors argue persuasively that the
complex was dedicated to the Imperial cult, and they propose
that its form and decoration were at least partly influenced
by the Forum of Augustus in Rome.
The date of construction of the city wall cannot be fixed with
certainty, although the western city gate, which had been placed
in the Severan period, can now be securely assigned to the reign
of Hadrian. It featured the same kind of triumphal iconography
as the propylon in the Imperial cult center. The large aqueduct
and an associated nymphaeum were probably set up during the
early days of the colony, and possibly the theater as well.
The descriptions of the monuments are concise and lucid, and
the discussion of the Imperial cult center is especially valuable.
The plates and plans are of a high quality, and it is relatively
easy to navigate from one section to another. The appearance
of this volume is therefore a welcome addition to the Antioch
bibliography, and the authors should be congratulated for having
presented the material so clearly and comprehensively. What
we need now is a synthetic overview of life at Antioch during
the Hellenistic and Roman periods. One currently has to turn
to Mitchell and Waelkens for the monuments, to Barbara Levick's
Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (1967) for the history
and inscriptions, to Eugene Lane's Corpus Monumentorum Religionis
Dei Menis (1971) for the finds within the Men Sanctuary, and
to Mehmet Taslalan's annual reports in the Müze Kurtarma
Kazlar Semineri series for the latest discoveries. Some of these
sources are difficult to find even in good research libraries,
and there are still outstanding questions concerning the switch
from Hellenistic town to Roman colony. One wonders to what extent
the inauguration of the colony prompted a change in diet and
ceramic imports, as well as farming techniques and types of
sacrifice. This was a site where duovirs, aediles, and quaestors
lived side by side with gymnasiarchs and agonothetes, and it
is therefore an ideal place to examine the process of cultural
assimilation during the early empire. In the meantime, Mitchell
and Waelkens have provided us with a valuable framework for
future discussions of Pisidian Antioch. One hopes that questions
regarding the society and economy of the site will be answered
in part by the continuing excavations of Mehmet Taslalan.
Review 2.
Scholia Reviews ns 9 (2000) 6
Review by Marc Kleijwegt, University of South Africa
The city of Antioch in Pisidia presents a fascinating framework
for a study of the interaction between indigenous, Greek, and
Roman cultures. Antioch was founded in the third century BC
by one of the Seleucid kings, either Antiochus I or II (p. 6),
and was settled with people from Magnesia on the Maeander. There
is a strong impression that the Attalid kings, nominal rulers
of the region since 189 BC (pp. 67f.), undertook an intense
campaign of Hellenization. Unfortunately, no Hellenistic inscriptions
have been found due to the fact that the Augustan colony has
almost completely overlaid earlier remains. Mehmet Tashalan,
the energetic director of the museum at Yalvaç, has during
recent excavation work discovered part of the Hellenistic street
system (p. 99, plate 59). The sanctuary of Mên Askaênos
dates back to the second century BC and the authors clearly
demonstrate that the model on which the temple was based must
be sought in the city from which the Greek settlers originated.
The actual remains are Greek in character and provide no architectural
evidence for an eastern or Anatolian cult (p. 7). Antioch was
refounded as a Roman colony in 25 BC, renamed Colonia Caesarea
Antiochia and received a new settlement of Roman veterans drawn
from legions V and VII. According to Barbara Levick, Antioch
was designed to be a new Rome on the borders of Phrygia and
Pisidia.[[1]] This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that
the city was divided into seven wards (vici), which took their
names from landmarks in Rome's topography (p. 8). Although the
new settlers and their descendants dominated the affairs of
the city throughout the imperial period, the inscriptions from
the site and its territory show a mixed set of Greek and Roman
political institutions. Mitchell observes that the city must
have remained a complex ethnic mixture (p. 8). There might have
existed specific tensions between the various cultural strands,
or at least a division into superior and inferior cultural expressions.
The testimonies of indigenous cults mostly come from the territory
of Antioch (p. 8). Several of the city's features merit attention:
the rural sanctuary of the god Mên; the temple dedicated
to the imperial cult at the centre of the site; a Latin version
of Augustus' Res Gestae, commonly known as the Monumentum Antiochenum;
the water-supply (the remaining arches of the aqueduct provide
the most powerful visual image from the site). Antioch could
boast of a rich intellectual and cultural life which produced
sophists, philosophers, and physicians. Moreover, it was in
Antioch that the Christians first started to convert pagans
(cf. Acts 13.50), and their prestige is adequately demonstrated
in the size of the basilica church which was one of the largest
in early Christian Asia Minor. The site has received scholarly
interest from the nineteenth century onwards, with a clear peak
in the first two decades of the twentieth century, but accounts
of its history, the study of its economic, religious and cultural
life are spread out over a range of publications. Mitchell and
Waelkens have produced an accessible survey of the building
history of Pisidian Antioch which fully succeeds in its main
objective, to place the monuments in their proper historical
and cultural contexts. It is not the synthetic history of Antioch
that interested scholars have been eagerly awaiting, but it
serves as an eminently useful foundation to a further study
of the city.
In addition to two successive seasons of archaeological observations
in 1982 and 1983, Mitchell and Waelkens have used various other
means to collect information on the site. Waelkens traced architectural
and other material discovered by the Ramsay excavations of 1912-1914
and the one led by Robinson in 1924 in the museums of Istanbul,
Afyon and Konya. They have also made use of unpublished material
stored in the archives of the Kelsey Museum at Ann Arbor. By
sheer coincidence they came into the possession of the unpublished
drawings made by the architect of the Michigan expedition of
1924. For specific parts of the book they have relied on the
findings and conclusions of a number of contributors: Jean Öztürk
on the churches; Maurice Byrne on the archives and the inscriptions;
Jean Burdy and Mehmet Tashalan on the aqueduct. This diversity
of sources of information produces a fruitful dialogue between
past and present interpretations of the site and results in
an enhanced understanding of its building history.
The surface area of the city's territory has been calculated
to be 540 square miles, and must have included a substantial
number of villages. Mitchell refers to the Turkish census of
1950 which lists about forty villages in the area, with a total
population of close to 50,000. He considers it likely, although
it is not said on what evidence, that the population level in
the Roman imperial period was considerably (my italics) higher
than this (p. 3). The population of the city may have expanded
very little during the early imperial period, for the city gate,
erected in AD 129 and dedicated to Hadrian and Sabina, remained
well within the space of the colonial walls (p. 91). No traces
of houses have been discovered outside the walls so far, but
recently a stadium has been identified in the area near the
western city wall (pp. 33, 91); another stadium has been found
near the sanctuary of Mên (pp. 37, 72, plate 46). The
late antique city experienced considerable refurbishing on a
grander scale due to the elevation of the city to the status
of metropolis of the newly formed (under Diocletian) province
of Pisidia. This led to an increase in building activities which
included the enlargement of the theatre which, in truly unique
fashion, was built above the existing decumanus maximus, which
ran beneath it in a tunnel about 54 metres long (p. 106). The
entrance to the tunnel was crowned by a monumental arch of white
limestone which was dedicated to the emperors Maximinus, Constantine
and Licinius (c. AD 311-313). To the west of the theatre was
constructed a large square area surrounded by porticos which
may have been a forum or an agora (p. 109; note the uncertainty
of the attribution). These activities were obviously intended
to provide the city with buildings appropriate to its new rank.
The authors conclude from this that the population of the city
was greater in the fourth century than at any earlier period
of its history. Another clue for this is provided by the large
basilica or church of St. Paul (p. 217).
The first chapter, 'Geographical and Historical Introduction'
(pp. 1-19), written by Mitchell, sketches the historical and
geographical outlines of the city. The chapter competently addresses
the main issues, but it is disappointingly brief and only touches
upon certain aspects that might have called for more elaborate
treatment (for instance the economy of the city and the social
and intellectual life). Interested scholars will have to turn
to p. 3 for brief observations on the agricultural potential
of the city's territory, most of which concern modern Yalvaç.
The second chapter, 'The discovery of Antioch: travellers, epigraphers
and archaeologists' (pp. 19-37), also by Mitchell, tells the
story of the modern discovery of the site. The Michigan expeditions,
whose published and unpublished material has proved so fruitful
to the authors, are dominated by the personality of William
Ramsay. He was a prolific writer on Pisidian Antioch, but, as
is demonstrated throughout the pages of this book, not always
reliable in his archaeological and historical observations.
The photographs made on these occasions and those made by Michael
Ballance during a visit in 1962 provide excellent illustrative
material throughout. The remaining chapters deal with the main
monuments of the site: 'The sanctuary of Mên Askaênos'
(pp. 37-90); 'The plan and development of the colony: walls,
gates, streets and the theatre' (pp. 91-112); 'The Augustan
imperial sanctuary' (pp. 113-73); 'The aqueduct, nymphaeum and
bath house' (pp. 175-200); 'Three churches at Antioch' (pp.
201- 19). It is impossible to discuss everything in relation
to these monuments in the limited space of a review. In the
remainder I shall concentrate on the two main religious monuments
the site has produced, one with indigenous roots but firmly
embedded in Hellenistic forms of architecture, the other Roman
and imperial.
The temple of Mên was situated on a hill three and a
half kilometres to the south-east of Antioch. The cult is identified
from the many dedications (in Greek) built into the walls of
the temenos. The sanctuary was destroyed in late antiquity by
the Christians, since some of the material, such as the decorations,
were ostensibly removed and perhaps buried on the spot, while
other material was used in the construction of the Byzantine
church. The smaller structures on the hill are identified as
houses for the purpose of celebrating communal meals or for
accommodating important visitors. Mitchell and Waelkens regard
them as the permanent equivalent of the skênai which were
erected at sacred sites during festivals. This is a bit misleading,
because skênai is used to denote booths where itinerant
traders came to install themselves at the times of the big festivals.[[2]]
Direct evidence in support of the idea that the buildings were
used as places where cult associations celebrated banquets in
honour of the god is provided by the large quantities of animal
bone found on the floor of House 3 (p. 79). In the same building
there was found a stone seat carrying an inscription with the
name of Menelaus, son of Atteus, who offered a vow to the god.
The authors identify the seat as the 'regular seat of one of
the devotees of the god, who used the room as a banqueting-
or meeting-house', although they admit that a dedication to
Mên does not support this idea (p. 79). Mitchell and Waelken's
argument does not convince. Epigraphic evidence indicates that
buildings near a sanctuary could be used as store- houses (oikoi).[[3]]
It is not impossible that House 3 was such a store-house where
dedications were taken when the temple had become too full.
Since the dedicator did not possess Roman citizenship, the inscription
may date back to the Hellenistic period. It is worth noting
in conclusion that the colony's élite took a significant
interest in the cult of Mên. Several of its members are
recorded in inscriptions as priests of the cult and as agonothetae
of the festivals in honour of the god (pp. 12f.).
The longest chapter in the book, 'The Augustan Imperial Sanctuary'
(pp. 113-73), is devoted to a discussion of the ruins connected
with the semicircular rock-cut area at the centre of the site.
The building is universally recognized as a temple, although
its attribution to the imperial cult has occasionally been disputed.
The discussion here leaves no further reason for doubt. The
sanctuary was dedicated to Augustus and completed during his
lifetime. The authors take us through various aspects connected
with the building and its location: the temple itself, including
a long list of all the architectural remains discovered so far;
the porticos and the Tiberia platea; the propylon; and the tholos--a
construction of later date which was dedicated to Caracalla.
Subsequently the sanctuary is the subject of detailed analysis
with regard to the date of its construction and its possible
Roman model. Of essential importance for a dating of the sanctuary
are the six fragments belonging to the dedicatory inscription
of the propylon which was discovered during the excavations
led by D. M. Robinson. Careful examination of the text by Thomas
Drew-Bear and Maurice Byrne has established that the building
was dedicated to Augustus soon after he had received the title
of pater patriae on 5 February 2 BC (p. 147). Since the propylon
and the temple formed part of a single architectural design,
the authors suggest that 2/1 BC is the most likely date for
the completion of the entire complex.
The iconographic design of the propylon confirms the idea of
a dedication to Augustus. Depictions of naked barbarians, symbols
of fertility and peace, and allusions to Augustus' naval victories
decorated the building. The link to the first emperor is clinched
by a block which depicts the emperor's birth sign, the Capricorn
(p. 163, plate 115). On top of the roof larger than life-size
statues had been placed. Unfortunately all the heads and faces
have been lost, but it is likely that they represented leading
members of Augustus' family (pp. 163f.). At the four points
which projected above the three-quarter columns of the façade,
there appear to have been portraits of divinities with their
familiar attributes. Demeter/Ceres and Poseidon (a reference
to Augustus' naval victories is suggested by the authors on
p. 160) can be definitely assigned to this arrangement. Tuchelt
strongly argued in favour of assigning a block which is in Konya
Museum to the same monument, an identification supported by
the authors (p. 162);[[4]] it is traditionally taken to represent
the god Mên in a youthful guise. The fourth sculpture
has not been recovered. In view of the presence of Mên,
it may therefore have been the case that the architects of the
propylon were aiming at doing justice to the cultural and religious
expressions of pre-colonial Antioch. In vivid contrast to the
propylon, the temple itself was not as explicitly decorated.
The akroterion statue of a female figure holding a shield (fig.
26, plate 95) still defies identification (the authors mention
that it could be either Fortuna or Nike, but in the end prefer
to see it as a 'Rankenfigur' [p. 159], which may be too unspecific
for such an important building). The other decorations contain
allusions to abundance and security (pp. 165f.).
It is suggested that the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome, completed
in 2 BC, may have provided the main inspiration for the architectural
design of the sanctuary. Why this temple was chosen as a model,
as happened also in other provincial towns such as Pola and
Nîmes, is not discussed. The other significant item pertaining
to Augustus, the fragments of a Latin version of the Res Gestae,
first discovered by Ramsay in 1914, was probably inscribed on
the inner faces of the two central piers of the triple archway
(pp. 146, 164). When exactly the text was inscribed is uncertain
and ultimately remains dependent on which date is preferred
for the redaction and publication of the original. Scholars
generally accept that the document was completed in 2 BC, with
minor additions being made in AD 13, and that it was inscribed
in AD 14 after Augustus' death. The authors do not discuss the
problem in connection with the redaction of the text and its
subsequent publication in Antioch in much detail. They seem
to prefer a date contemporaneous with the completion of the
sanctuary and the propylon for the inscribing of the text in
Antioch, somewhat later than 2 BC. The inscription of the text,
however, may have been done under Tiberius. In any event, the
building of the temple and propylon must have taken place in
close cooperation with the central authorities in Rome, which
testifies to the importance the local authorities and the emperor
himself attached to the project. As a final comment, it is worth
noting that the version of the Res Gestae displayed in Antioch
is in Latin only, whereas the more famous one from Ancyra is
bilingual and the version from Apollonia (also in Pisidia) is
in Greek. All three versions come from the province of Galatia,
and should probably be attributed to a zealous governor or to
a zealous provincial koinon. The shattered condition of the
Antioch text suggests that it was deliberately destroyed in
antiquity (p. 149).
The work concludes with two useful appendices, the one listing
the epigraphic and numismatic material that pertains to the
building history of the city (pp. 219-30), the other presenting
a list of archival material relating to the excavations (pp.
231-33). Relevant inscriptions are used throughout the chapters
and the most important ones are the subject of careful reexamination
and reinterpretation by Maurice Byrne and Thomas Drew-Bear.
A corpus containing all the Greek and Latin inscriptions remains
a desideratum, though. In conclusion, Mitchell and Waelkens
have produced up-to-date interpretations of Antioch's main buildings
and their work will undoubtedly provide a major stimulus to
scholarly interest into the city's history and its socio-economic
and cultural contexts. An international conference to discuss
the city and site was held at Yalvaç in 1997 and it is
to be hoped that the proceedings of this conference will be
published in the not too distant future. The volume is lavishly
produced, with many excellent plates and clear figures.[[5]]
NOTES:
[[1]] Barbara Levick, Roman Colonies in Asia Minor (Oxford
1967) 78.
[[2]] This is most clearly indicated in Pausanias 10.32.13.
Cf. L. Soverini, `Il commercio nel tempio: osservazioni dei
kapèloi a Samo (SEG XXVII, 545), Opus IX-X (1990-1991)
88f.; L. de Ligt, Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire (Amsterdam
1993) 67f.
[[3]] cf. Soverini, above [1] 89-91.
[[4]] K. Tuchelt, 'Bemerkungen zum Tempelbezirk von Antiochia
ad Pisidam', in Beitraege zur Altertumskunde Kleinasiens. Festschrift
K. Bittel (Mainz 1983) 501-22.
[[5]] I have noted very few misprints (Anazarbus should be read
instead of Anabarzus on p. 217; L. Calpurnius Longus instead
of L. Calpurnius Pallus in note 59 on p. 17). A more serious
error occurs on p. 10, where C. Crepereius Gallus is stated
to have died together with Agrippina in the notorius yachting
accident of AD 62.
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