Change in Civic Epigraphy of Phoenicia at the Arrival of Rome: Some Preliminary Remarks on Public Documents and Their Display

The paper discusses certain aspects of the development of Phoenician communities and their epigraphic culture during the Hellenistic and Roman times in terms of public documents, i.e. inscriptions issued on behalf of the state or some of its agents and other texts of state importance like imperial correspondence etc. It is proposed that tracing the evolution of local public documents might contribute to our understanding of the change taking place in Phoenicia throughout the ages on the socio-political level. Several preliminary observations can be formulated. Despite a considerable transformation Phoenician communities underwent during the Hellenistic times, with the linguistic shift to Greek in state practices, the appearance of collective agency in documents, and the emergence of honorific culture, the activity of civic authorities is not attested epigraphically. Public documents are mainly honorific and cultic dedications made to Hellenistic rulers both by locals and imperial agents. In that respect, Phoenicia served as a space for displaying imperial allegiances. Although it continued to play that role also later, during the Roman era Phoenicia produced much more inscriptions issued in the name of civic authorities. These texts were tituli honorarii dedicated mostly to Roman emperors and imperial officials. The fact that most of them are also in Latin just highlights the importance of the Roman element in the public life of Phoenicia and possibly implies a certain degree of breakup with older indigenous attitudes, co-occurring with the establishment of Roman settlements. The scarcity of public documents within the epigraphic evidence is another problem and perhaps should make us think about the possibility that some text could be carved in bronze that did not come down to our times.