SOURCE: Edwards, Douglas R. “Surviving the Web of Roman Power: Religion and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, Josephus, and Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe.” In Images of Empire, edited by Loveday Alexander, pp. 179-201. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.

[In the following essay, Edwards analyzes Chariton's use of Aphrodite in Chaereas and Callirhoe, focasing on what it reveals about the relationship between religious and political power in antiquity.]

By the second century ce, the Greek East had dealt with Roman power for at least three hundred years and with imperial power for over one hundred years. Response to Roman power ranged from turbulence and violence to general acquiescence and assimilation. The type of response depended on an array of factors, including an individual or group's status, local and regional history, and location within the empire.¹ The Greek East promoted hellenic culture, with local and regional variations, and for the most part the Romans made no attempt to undermine or replace it. Indeed cities that were expanded or built in the Greek East during the Imperial period of Rome generally did so using Hellenic not Roman culture.² Nevertheless, members of the Greek East, especially the aspiring élite classes or their representatives, had to respond to Roman power if they wished to participate in the ‘web of power’³ that linked localities, regions, and groups with Rome.

Local ruling classes and their representatives in the Greek East sometimes found themselves between two powerful and sometimes competing forces: the rule of the outside political power, Rome, and the peculiar values, traditions, and culture of their group or region.⁴ To maintain or acquire status and power they often promoted both widespread and local traditions. Because Roman rule was often passive, though sporadically reactive, as Fergus Millar has persuasively argued,⁵ such efforts helped shape the nature of the web of power.⁶

Religion played an important role in the Greek East's response to Roman power. By the second century ce, as Peter Brown notes, ‘the public worship of the traditional gods still activated strong collective images of concord and parity …’⁷ Even deities or religions that had no future salvific significance for their adherents played a powerful role in the social, cultural, and even political identities of persons and groups in the Greek East. S.R.F. Price correctly criticizes the ‘Christianizing theory of religion’ that stresses only the role of religion as a guide through the personal crises of life and as a means to salvation.⁸ More appropriately, religion systematically constructs power. In other words, religion helps define strategic power relationships (both real and perceived) between different parties.⁹ As Peter Brown argues, ‘the cultural and religious aspects of the public life’ in the towns of the Roman empire were no ‘mere trappings which the urban élites could or could not afford …’¹⁰

Groups that wished to maintain power, encourage believers, or attract adherents, especially those who participated in and benefitted from Rome's ‘web of power’ (including Roman citizens, freedmen, and even slaves),¹¹ had to make clear that their movement or group operated within the bounds of lawful society. Important also would be the antiquity and the widespread influence of the group's traditions.¹² Thus, according to Tacitus, Ephesus received approval from the Romans for its cult of Artemis to serve as a site for asylum based on ancient myths (Annals 3.60-61). It helped also if a movement could exhibit the universal significance of its deity if it wished to appeal to persons who co-operated with the ‘web of power’. Allegiance or support came more readily to movements or groups whose religion or deity made sense of a world grown large and under the rule of a distant power.

The Christian author Luke,¹³ the Jewish historian Josephus, and the Greek novelist Chariton provide important clues as to how some associated with the elite class in the Greek East incorporated the language of religion and myth to bolster their own sense of power. Several features highlight the respective authors' expression of this process: (1) the antiquity of the worship of the deity;¹⁴ (2) the power and presence of the deity across the οικουμένη (the Roman world); (3) the legitimate social customs of the author's group amid the legal system, customs acknowledged (but not always practised) in the narrative by powerful regional and international political figures; and (4) the deity's activity behind the scenes influencing the narrative events. Each author draws on religious and mythic traditions to display for the reader that the major source of power within a more broadly defined all-pervasive ‘web of power’, comes from the group's (or writer's) deity.

LUKE: THE WRITER AND HIS WORLD

From the birth of Jesus to Paul's final speech in Rome, Luke makes clear that the activities of the Christian movement did not take place in a corner (Acts 26.26).¹⁵ Luke's consummate artistry¹⁶ communicates a plethora of social, political, economic and religious information pertinent for an audience concerned with two sets of issues. First and most immediate were the individual and community concerns internal to the group itself. Why should one join? What should one believe? How should one act? What is one's relation to Jesus, to the early apostles, to God? Equally significant for Luke was the relation of the movement to external factors, most particularly the ‘web of power’ that bound in varying degrees Roman authority and power with most social, economic, political, and religious facets of life. How were individual members and the movement as a whole to engage this ‘web of power’?

HUMAN AGENTS, DIVINE IMPLICATIONS

Luke depicts the constancy and foreknowledge of God who employs human agents to accomplish his designs. Power terminology permeates Luke's narrative.¹⁷ Jesus in Acts 1.8 clarifies the nature and result of the movement's power: ‘you will receive power … when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will bear witness for me in Jerusalem, and all over Judea and Samaria, and away to the ends of the earth’.

In addition, the narrative has the divine plan revealed to the participants. As D. Tiede argues, ‘Perhaps no New Testament author is more concerned than Luke to testify to the accomplishment of the will of God in history or so caught up in the language of the divine plan and predetermined intention, purpose, and necessity’.¹⁸ Luke's attachment of προ- prefixes to verbs indicates God's preordained work in the lives of those involved.¹⁹ The frequent use of δει²⁰ also becomes the author's way of stressing God's ever-active role, and functions much as the Greek notion of πρόνοια.²¹ Peter's inaugural speech, replete with allusions to God standing behind the action, offers a typical example. Jesus' signs and wonders, Peter claims, exhibit God's activity (Acts 2.22) and even Jesus' death fits the plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2.23). God has sworn to David that one of his descendants should be put on his throne (2.30). God has foretold all these events through the prophets (Acts 3.15-26), has raised Jesus from the dead (4.10), and created the universe—‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them …’ (Acts 4.24). Even Herod Antipas, a member of the local aristocratic class, Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel did what God had ordained (… Acts 4.28).

God's power extends over the cosmos and through history. Paul's speech before the people of Lystra, who have just associated him with the god Hermes, makes this clear.

Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful season, satisfying your hearts with good and gladness

(Acts 14.15-18).

The author redefines for his audience the web in which acts of miraculous and political power must be perceived. Nations and the cosmos itself function at the behest of the Christian God.

Travel, which forms a constituent part of the structure of Luke-Acts, emphasizes the universal scope and power of Luke's God who creates and rules over all aspects of society.²² In the course of their travel across the οικουμένη, the promulgators of the religion refer repeatedly to Jewish scriptures and themes, highlighting the movement's ancient roots. Speeches by Peter, James, Stephen, and Paul make direct links with Christ and the covenant begun with Abraham and continued through Moses. The constant retelling of the Jesus story in light of Old Testament prophets and scriptures²³ situates the ‘new’ Christian movement amid the ancient and venerable Jewish tradition, a tradition widely recognized throughout the Roman empire.²⁴ In addition, the repeated mention of synagogues throughout the journeys of the major characters stresses the spread of the Jewish faith throughout the οικουμένη, and effectively associates the Christian movement with an acknowledged ancient religion.²⁵ The proper interpreters of the venerable Jewish tradition, however, were followers of Jesus.

Luke shows the importance of his movement within the political and social fabric of Graeco-Roman society. Unlike Chariton of Aphrodisias, however, who wrote from a city in the Greek East with clear legitimate ties to Rome, or Josephus, who struggled with the aftermath of the Jewish revolt under the patronage of the Flavian emperors, Luke had to depict the Christian movement as offering no immediate threat to the political and social fabric of the Roman empire. Thus, at the end of Luke's gospel, a Roman procurator, a Jewish king, a thief, and a centurion, persons intimately connected with Roman justice, in rapid succession absolve Jesus of complicity in any illegal or subversive activities. Indeed, Luke argues instead that the Jewish leadership circumvents proper judicial channels and Roman authority. Pilate ‘released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, whom they asked for; but Jesus he delivered up to their will’ (Lk. 23.25). The onus for Jesus' death falls on certain misguided Jews, not on subversive activity on the part of Jesus.²⁶

Paul's activity in Acts often parallels Jesus' activities in the Gospel of Luke,²⁷ including the stress on the innocence of the Christian movement. In a series of confrontations with Jews and Greeks, Paul reiterates the Christian movement's non-subversive character. A tribune rescues Paul from a mob in Jerusalem (Acts 21.31-40). When Paul speaks in Greek, the tribune thinks he may be the Egyptian who stirred up a revolt and led four thousand assassins to the wilderness (Acts 21.38). He takes Paul back to the barracks (Acts 22.24) in order to scourge him, but stops when he finds that Paul is a Roman citizen. The tribune presents Paul to the judicial branch of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, but once again the Jewish leadership circumvents Roman order and justice. The tribune, fearing violence, has to take Paul by force from the Jewish council and return him to the barracks (Acts 23.2-10). Luke contrasts such subversive activities by the Jews and revolutionary acts of the Egyptian with the ‘model’ citizen Paul. The readership knows the truth: Paul has done nothing to warrant the charges against him.

Paul's hearing before Felix, the Roman procurator, provides an additional opportunity for the Jewish leadership to charge sedition and for Roman officials to find nothing wrong (Acts 24.1-27). The innocence of Paul (and by implication the Christian movement) finds explicit support in Paul's trial before Festus (Acts 25.1-26.30). Paul argues that he has offended neither law, temple, nor Caesar (25.8). Paul's appeal to Caesar (25.11) circumvents a trial by Jewish law and closes the trial by Festus. Festus finds no serious charges against Paul and concludes that the Jews have ‘certain points of dispute with him about their own superstition and about one Jesus, who was dead, but whom Paul asserted to be alive’ (Acts 25.19). As Haenchen suggests, Luke depicts some Roman officials who plainly do not understand the theological dimensions of the debate.²⁸ However, Sergius Paulus, senatorial proconsul of Cyprus, and Cornelius, the centurion, remain important exceptions. Certain local elites also come off somewhat better.²⁹

From Acts 21.27 through 26.32, Luke charts how the charges by Jewish leaders that Jesus, Paul, and (by implication) the Christian movement of Luke's day disrupted the social order, perverted Roman law, and threatened Rome's political authority, have no foundation. With no exceptions, the Roman authorities find the Christian representatives completely innocent of any activities against the state.³⁰

Some still view this as Luke's effort to write an apologetic on behalf of the Christian movement to Roman officials. They argue that the effort to incorporate Jewish tradition, mission, and outlook associates Christianity with a legitimate and accepted religion, Judaism, in the Graeco-Roman government, a religio licita. Evidence remains sparse for Roman authorities in Jesus' or Luke's day having any interest in Luke's theological argument or in sorting out pro-Roman statements. C.K. Barrett's classic remark still has merit: ‘No Roman official would ever have sifted through so much that in his view was theological and ecclesiastical rubbish in order to gain so small a grain of relevant apology’.³¹ Nor, as P. Esler astutely points out, would the Christian movement wish to associate itself too closely with Judaism, especially when its members (which included Gentiles) would be expected to pay the Jewish tax to the Roman state.³² In addition, the kingly titles given to Jesus at birth would hardly appeal to Roman officials. And Luke's directive that church members pay their taxes would have little significance to a Roman official who would not assume that they would do otherwise.³³ Luke does not show the close ties between Christianity and Judaism and the universal significance of the movement in order to plug Christianity into a legally recognized religion for the sake of Roman officials.³⁴ Luke makes clear that Pilate, Herod, the people of Israel, and the Gentiles conspired against Jesus and played an active role in his death (Acts 4.27). Roman justice (and the justice of local elites in the Greek East) has its limits.

Luke's narrative recognizes, and for the most part remains sympathetic with, Roman power exercised in proper fashion. His audience probably included Roman citizens, as Esler notes.³⁵ For that reason religion and politics intertwine readily in Acts. Luke portrays an unstoppable, non-subversive religion. Those who disrupt society are the Jewish leadership who have misappropriated Jewish tradition or magistrates or the hoi polloi, who for economic gain, or political expediency, or misguided religious allegiance, circumvent the norms and laws of the empire and of God. Luke reaffirms that Christians from the beginning have been innocent bystanders. Persecutors in Acts consistently go out of the bounds of normal society and proper law.

Luke appears to address Christians and possibly non-Christians who participate and benefit in some fashion from the ‘web of power’ binding the Roman empire. Such persons could identify with characters like Cornelius the centurion, Lydia the maker of purple dyes, Levi the tax collector, and those wealthy enough to own homes (Jason of Thessalonica; Mnason of Cyprus; Simon the tanner), the type of persons in Graeco-Roman society who sought power and a sense of control.

Yet Luke does not write an apologia pro imperio: that is, he does not paint a picture of the Roman empire that plays down Roman culpability in the persecution of Jesus and the early church.³⁶ Roman leadership, with a few exceptions, has its warts. Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times but nevertheless allows an outside group, the Jewish leaders, to dictate the death sentence. Felix seeks bribes. Festus can only call Paul mad. Magistrates of the Roman colony Philippi beat Paul, a Roman citizen (16.12-39). Such portraits do not make representatives of the Roman power structure look very attractive. Further, even though the Lukan writer has no problem acknowledging legitimate Roman power as practised by Roman leaders such as Sergius Paulus, the tribune, or Cornelius the Centurion or, on a regional and local level, by the Asiarchs (19.31) and the town clerk … of Ephesus (19.35), such power always works within the context of the Christian God's purposes. The power of Roman and local elite groups remains an interim operation from the writer's perspective. Those who join the Christian movement, including apparently members of the Roman apparatus who carry out the wishes of the Roman empire, participate in an ancient and much larger order, the present and future Kingdom of God.

Luke presents a universally significant, morally upright movement with ancient roots that has spread across the οεκουμένη, a movement that promises its adherents future power as well as present stability. The ultimate power broker within this expanded web of power remains for Luke the Christian ancestral God.³⁷

JOSEPHUS: THE WRITER AND HIS WORLD

The Jewish War of Josephus, a first-century aristocrat from Judaea, reflects a man whose world has undergone a radical, if not traumatic, change. Josephus even asks the readers' indulgence as they read his history of momentous events: ‘I cannot conceal my private sentiments, nor refuse to give my personal sympathies scope to bewail my country's misfortunes’ (War 1.9). Josephus, more urgently than either Luke or Chariton, must respond to Roman power. The Jewish Wars were still fresh in Greek, Roman, and Jewish minds. Indeed, Josephus's own benefactors, the Flavians, continued to make political capital of the wars, as is evident from the Judaea Capta coin series and the building of Titus's arch by Domitian in Rome.³⁸ Josephus had to legitimate the relation of the Jewish people within the Graeco-Roman world, especially in response to what he saw as scurrilous attacks and false histories written by Greek historians (Ant. 1.5; War 1.7-8).

More to the point, Josephus had to address for himself and the Jewish people how one made sense of the disastrous defeat, which included the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, a central symbol for many Jews (and especially Josephus). In particular, what role did Rome play in the scenario? How should Jews have responded to Roman power and presence? Josephus's answer to those questions shows some remarkable similarities to Luke, although substantive differences exist as well. Josephus, like Luke, addresses the Jewish relation to Roman power by placing it within the context of Jewish (and, as T. Rajak has shown, Greek) tradition.³⁹ Josephus stresses the antiquity (and thus the legitimacy) of the Jewish movement, its presence across the οικουμένη, and the fact that in many political and historical events impacting on the Jewish nation, the Jewish God stands behind the scenes (including the Roman victory). Like Luke, he also contrasts agents of Rome who govern appropriately (and therefore on behalf of the Jewish deity) with those who govern inappropriately (and therefore against the norms set forth by their own government). In short, both Josephus and Luke reinterpret the Roman web of power drawing on their Jewish tradition and religious symbol system.

HUMAN AGENTS, DIVINE IMPLICATIONS

Menachem Stern has persuasively argued that Josephus, in The Jewish War, does not dwell on the benefits of the Pax Romana.⁴⁰ Benefits achieved by the Romans derived largely from Roman virtue and not from Tyche. Josephus, he suggests, portrays Rome's world dominance as the outcome of divine will. The Jewish rebels did not receive help from God because he was on the side of the Roman Empire; Josephus, Stern argues, perceives God moving from nation to nation, ‘giving the scepter of empire to each in turn; now He has bestowed it upon Italy’.⁴¹ Feldman argues that Josephus's silence about the benefits of Roman rule in The Jewish War was due to his fear that others might label him an assimilationist.⁴² Yet Josephus does not simply accept the yoke of Roman rule. Roman power is viewed through the lenses of belief in a powerful and prestigious Jewish God who works through history.

Agrippa's famous speech makes it clear that the Jewish movement had spread across the οικουμένη. This, of course, reflects a real ‘situation’, as many have pointed out.⁴³ Agrippa's point emphasizes the potential destruction facing all Jews if the revolt against Rome takes place (War 2.399). His statements also indicate to the reader the extent (and by implication the importance) of the Jewish presence. This becomes a leitmotif in Josephus's Antiquities. In short, God works through history, benefitting those who follow the Jewish laws and setting up ‘irretrievable disasters’ for those who transgress them (Ant. 1.14). Josephus goes to great lengths to stress the antiquity of the Jewish movement, its spread across the οικουμένη, its recognition as a legitimate movement by Roman officials, and the power of the Jewish God. All this means nothing, however, if the adherents stray from God's purposes. ‘Neither its antiquity, nor its ample wealth, nor its people spread over the whole habitable world, nor yet the great glory of its religious rites, could aught avail to avert ruin’ (War 6.442).

Even the Romans are subject to God's law. Numerous examples show God at the center of Roman victories, primarily due to the wanton disregard of God's wishes by Jewish defenders. Cestius almost wins the city of Jerusalem early on in the campaign, but God ‘turned away even from His sanctuary and ordained that the day should not see the end of the war’ (War 2.539). Titus bolsters his men's courage by arguing that the Jewish God must be angry at the Jerusalem defenders and that ‘to betray a divine Ally would be beneath our dignity’ (War 6.39-41). Indeed, Josephus claims that ‘God it is then, God Himself, who with the Romans is bringing the fire to purge His temple and exterminating a city so laden with pollutions’ (War 6.110). Indeed any attempt by the brigands to hide from the Romans is futile, as they were not destined to escape either God or the Romans (War 6.371). When Titus surveys the massive walls of the temple, he exclaims ‘God indeed has been with us in the war. God it was who brought down the Jews from these strongholds; for what power have human hands or engines against these towers?’ (War 6.411).⁴⁴ T. Rajak rightly argues that Josephus had to make religious sense of the destruction of the temple. His presentation concerns ‘God's purpose for the world and his arrangements for the destiny of nations, centered on a scheme of sin and punishment’.⁴⁵ Thus, Josephus stresses sτάsις, civil strife, as a major sin against God and the cause of the destruction.⁴⁶

D. Ladouceur adds that in ‘granting Rome and her agents power, God also assigned responsibilities. Those who discharge their responsibilities, like Titus, prosper; those who do not, like Catullus, are punished, in this case by the time-honored method of an incurable bowel disease.’⁴⁷ Ladouceur overstates the case when he argues that Josephus did not distinguish between ‘rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's and rendering unto God what was God's’.⁴⁸ Rather, Josephus has defined Roman power within a new rubric, the power of the Jewish God. Again, a writer from the Greek East stresses for his reading audience the ancient roots and universal scope of his movement and the group's powerful deity as a major player in significant historical events. As Josephus grapples with the import and trauma of the Jewish War, he has effectively reformulated the rubric under which one answers why the Romans won. In one sense, Josephus ironically turns the tables. The Romans did not so much win the war as the Jews, by disobeying God, lost it. Roman power operates, from Josephus's perspective, under the aegis of the Jewish God.

CHARITON: THE WRITER AND HIS WORLD

Chariton's novel, Chaereas and Callirhoe, represents at first glance an odd addition to this discussion. Unlike Luke and Josephus, the author depicts events far removed from his own world. Few disagree that even though the author uses many devices from the field of historiography, he does not write history, nor does he even mention the Romans.⁴⁹ Nevertheless, his potential readers included those who know Roman presence and power only too well. The text provides images from the perspective of elites in the Greek East as to proper behavior between members in society and between those who are ruled, their rulers, and the divine realm.

HUMAN AGENTS, DIVINE IMPLICATIONS

Chariton's narrative in style and structure appears as a history or biography of the daughter of Hermocrates,⁵⁰ the naval commander who, according to Chariton, became the leading political figure and war hero in Syracuse after the defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War (1.1.1, 3).⁵¹ Not surprisingly, the setting of Chariton's romance, the period following the Peloponnesian War, belongs to the classical period of literary and political fame for the Greeks. As E. L. Bowie has shown, Greeks during the imperial period often portray this ‘classical’ period in heroic terms as a means to interpret their present diminished situation amid the grandeur of their past.⁵²

Chariton structures a work replete with power relationships between the divine and human realm, relations familiar to a Greek audience. The narrative begins with a description that compares Callirhoe, the heroine, to the goddess Aphrodite, and ends with her praying at the base of a cult statue of Aphrodite in Syracuse.⁵³ Throughout the narrative, Callirhoe acts out on the human plane mythic and social roles of Aphrodite, roles that include Aphrodite's power to unite cities and nations,⁵⁴ her appearance as goddess of love,⁵⁵ and her close affiliation with the sea.⁵⁶ Callirhoe is cultured (7.6.5), even-tempered (1.2.6), and well bred.⁵⁷ Chariton describes Callirhoe as an absolutely amazing young woman, the [agalma]⁵⁸ of all Sicily (1.1.1) whose beauty compares to that of Aphrodite Parthenos.⁵⁹ Callirhoe's human appearance embodies the [kállos] of the goddess Aphrodite (1.1.2).⁶⁰ Indeed, Callirhoe's presence and appearance recall Aphrodite's power, but do not replace it.

In the ancient romances, comparisons of the human protagonist (both hero and heroine) with a deity occur with great frequency.⁶¹ Such an attitude reflects a common feature in Graeco-Roman society, especially with regard to political figures in Asia Minor. Such identification with a god or goddess supported the maintenance of the political and social status quo. During the Imperial period it was common for women in major political families (most notably those of the emperors) to be associated with deities such as Aphrodite. Caligula's mother, Agrippina, and later his sister Drusilla, for example, were both called the New Aphrodite.⁶² At Assos in Turkey a bath was dedicated to Julia Aphrodite (Livia).⁶³ Such associations had overt political and social as well as religious overtones.

Callirhoe's appearance in public forums mixes civic and religious dimensions. As the human vehicle for Aphrodite, Callirhoe's κάλλος overwhelms crowds and undoes the fortitude of political leaders. When kidnapped by pirates, Callirhoe is carried from Syracuse to the country estate of Dionysius, a Greek aristocrat, in Miletus. Her sudden entrance astounds … all who see her, and the slaves and servants believe that they have seen a goddess, since word … had it that Aphrodite appeared … in the countryside (1.14.1).

Callirhoe's religious and corporate significance appear in her connection to Sicily and Syracuse.⁶⁴ Chariton's comparison of Callirhoe's beauty … with that of Aphrodite Parthenos (1.1.2) may allude to Athena Parthenos, the premier deity for the political and religious life of Athens.⁶⁵ Chariton, however, indicates that in certain respects Aphrodite surpasses Athena. The narrator makes this point in a scene set at Miletus, in which the crowds see Callirhoe with her newborn son as she prepares to pray before Aphrodite's cult statue.

she took the child in her arms, and thus presented a most charming sight, the like of which no painter has ever portrayed, nor sculptor fashioned, nor poet described to the present day; for no one of them has created an Artemis or an Athena holding a child in her arms

(3.8.6).

Aphrodite's power, equal on the political plane with that of Athena and Artemis, surpasses theirs in her ability to bear a child, most notably one who serves as the founder of the Roman Empire. Allusions to the significance of Callirhoe's child for Syracuse further Callirhoe's corporate significance in the narrative.

Callirhoe's child may draw on the powerful myth of the child that Aphrodite gave to the world, Aeneas, founder of Rome and ancestor to the Julio-Claudian emperors. When Callirhoe finds she is pregnant, she agrees to marry Dionysius to preserve the image of Chaereas. This is one of the few events that looks beyond the world of the narrative itself.⁶⁶ The son, Chariton states, will come in triumph to Syracuse from Ionia when he grows up, surpassing in glory even his grandfather Hermocrates (3.2.13; 8.7.11-12). The child is compared to Zethos and Amphion (founders of Thebes) and Cyrus (founder of the Persian empire [6.8.7; 2.9.4-5]).

Scholars have puzzled over the unusual inclusion of a son in a romance narrative. Further, it seemed odd that after the reunion of Chaereas and Callirhoe, they left their son in the care of a local aristocrat in the Greek East, Dionysius. Perry suggests that it could only reflect the pressure of popular or historical tradition that forced the author to include it.⁶⁷ However, no evidence exists that the real daughter of Hermocrates (mentioned in Diodorus Siculus [13.112] and Plutarch [Dionysios 3]) had a child. Marcel LaPlace persuasively argues that the child, like Cyrus, Zethos, and Emphion before him, is also a founder; one who upon his return will surpass the glories of his father and grandfather. Suggestive but difficult to prove is LaPlace's argument that the child alludes to Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite and Anchises, the founder of the Roman empire. To be sure, Chariton may write a symbolic history of the birth of the son of Chaereas and Callirhoe, which shows two Syracusans who after a period of discord, wars, adventures, and the whim of Fate, looking forward to a new time when their son will inaugurate an age of gold. And a reader in Asia Minor may associate the unnamed son of Callirhoe, who comes from the east to inaugurate a new day, with Aeneas, who anticipates the Julian gens.⁶⁸ Certainly the city of Aphrodisias promoted the connection between Aeneas, Aphrodite, and the Julio-Claudian line.⁶⁹ More importantly, the child who unites East and West is Greek (cf. 8.1.15), stressing the future power and prestige of the Greeks.

Chariton ends his work showing Chaereas as a general united with Callirhoe, the reflection of Aphrodite. When Chaereas and Callirhoe advance before the soldiers of Chaereas, Chariton reports that the two combined … ‘the sweetest fruits of war and of peace, the triumph and the wedding’ (8.1.12). In addition, Chariton implies that marriage and family suggest stability and continuity in society, something Aphrodite could provide. A recurring theme in the ancient Greek romances is the emphasis on lawful marriage. Even in her second marriage, Callirhoe remains faithful to the memory of Chaereas. Chariton is at pains to make clear the importance of this element. Marriage was an important part of the maintenance of the society, a factor assumed throughout the narrative. The marriage of Chaereas and Callirhoe represents part of the very fabric of society itself. Disruption of the marriage disrupts society.

The major stops in Callirhoe's journeys across the landscape of the eastern Mediterranean world seldom occur without the appearance of a temple of Aphrodite or worshippers of the godess. The narrative opens with Callirhoe proceeding to the temple of Aphrodite in Syracuse during a public festival of the goddess.⁷⁰ Later, when Callirhoe is carried to the estate of the Milesian aristocrat Dionysius, the shrine of Aphrodite becomes a significant center of activity in the narrative. The cult is venerated by aristocrats (Dionysius holds the goddess in special honor [2.2.5]) as well as countryfolk who recognize the importance and viability of the cult. Even Callirhoe's trip to Babylon stresses Aphrodite's power. Stateira, the queen of Babylon herself, holds the goddess in special honor (5.9.1). Artaxerxes, the Persian king, recognizes the power of the goddess and offers sacrifices so that she might intervene on his behalf (6.2.4). The narrative displays Aphrodite's power and presence among all social classes, but most especially the elite throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.

The power of Aphrodite successively affects most major political figures whom Callirhoe meets. The first figure to encounter her power is Chaereas, who has many of the qualities and attributes of the other leaders in the narrative: these include high political connections, heroic appearance, and παιδεία. He is the son of Ariston, the second leading figure of Syracuse. Polycharmus, his friend and companion, describes him as ‘once at the very top in Sicily, in reputation, wealth, and handsome appearance’ (4.3.1). Chaereas combines heroic features with popular Stoic virtues such as self-control, proper observance of the law, an aristocratic education, and an emphasis on reason.⁷¹ Indeed, Chaereas represents the free and educated Greek whose training and bearing stand in marked contrast to the barbarian.⁷²

Aphrodite, through her agent Eros, causes Chaereas and Callirhoe to meet during the festival of Aphrodite.⁷³ Divine beauty … meets nobility. … They fall in love … (1.1.6) and display characteristics closely linked with death. Chaereas is described as mortally wounded as a hero in battle (1.1.7), suffering from disease (νόsος), withered in appearance, and close to death because of the suffering of his noble soul … (1.1.10).⁷⁴ This power of Aphrodite to overcome the reason and control of a heroic and political figure is repeated as she debilitates the [psuxé] of Dionysius, the most powerful man in Miletus, Mithridates, the governor of Caria, and even Artaxerxes, the King of Persia himself.

Chariton wrote during the golden age of Aphrodisias, a city whose fortune prospered under the aegis of Rome. Kenan Erim notes that during the early centuries of this era, Aphrodisias ‘reached great fame and prosperity both as a religious site and as a center of art and culture’.⁷⁵ A Sebasteion found at Aphrodisias indicates how important the cult of Aphrodite was for the city's political and religious identity. According to Erim, the Sebasteion proclaims ‘the close affiliation of the city's goddess with the Julio-Claudian house, as well as with Rome. There can be no doubt that the cult of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias was intimately connected with the development of the Imperial cult’.⁷⁶

Aphrodite was a central symbol for the political and economic well-being of the city. As with most western Greek cities, Aphrodisias had to define itself in relation to the rising Roman star. For Aphrodisias, group identity and group success—at least among the ruling class⁷⁷—centered on Aphrodite. She was central in treaties (both with Rome and surrounding cities), in new buildings that were dedicated to her,⁷⁸ in her maintenance of the social and political fabric of Aphrodisias,⁷⁹ and in her role as a goddess whose reputation and power were universal.

Chariton's work, Chaereas and Callirhoe, reflects the civic and religious pride that the city of Aphrodisias felt for its cult of Aphrodite. In his fictive history, he depicts Aphrodite's power extending across political and social boundaries, alludes to the promise of a New Age, and stresses the necessary combination of a peaceful and stable society: victory in war and lawful marriage. Chaereas's search for Callirhoe does not merely represent a human quest for meaning in a world grown large, nor is it simply pleasurable reading. Rather, Chariton participates in Aphrodisian society's attempt to define itself amid the Roman ‘web of power’. Callirhoe, Aphrodite's representative, highlights the power of Aphrodite across the landscape of the οικουμένη. Chariton's narrative affirms and confirms the power and significance of Aphrodite over the machinations of fate and social upheaval (represented by pirates, wayward politicians, disruption of proper marriage, separation from family, friends, country, and spouse). In addition, Chariton makes clear the power of Aphrodite before the political order: even the mightiest are susceptible to her power. The latter of course is of particular importance for a Greek city that understands the power of Rome through the lens of Greek tradition and pride.

To whom might Chariton's text appeal? On the one hand it would appeal to Aphrodisians, who looked with pride at their cult of Aphrodite as the one that created and sustained their present prosperity; even the emperors acknowledge, they would argue, the power and significance of Aphrodite. In short, the elites on the periphery of Roman power gained local prestige and civic power by their association with Rome and their promotion of Aphrodite as the deity whose power encompasses even the Roman empire. On the other hand, Chariton's work would also appeal to those outside of Aphrodisias proper who acknowledge the universal power of Aphrodite, especially soldiers and merchants. Each group was well disposed toward a deity, such as Chariton's Aphrodite, who controls cosmic forces and political rulers, had a universal presence throughout the οικουμένη, and provided a means with which persons could participate within the ‘web of power’ of the Roman world with a modicum of power.

CONCLUSION

Local ruling elites and their immediate subordinates in the Greek East incorporated Roman power within their own frameworks of meaning. Three writers, Chariton of Aphrodisias, Josephus, and the author of Luke-Acts, all provincial writers from the Greek East, use religion to construct a power base that explicitly or implicitly redefines for their audience the ‘web of power’ existing between Rome and members of the Greek East. Despite diverse backgrounds and concerns unique to their groups, Luke, Josephus, and Chariton acknowledge and affirm the practice and observance of legitimate law and customs. Nevertheless, each author places political figures and historical events under the aegis and guidance of a deity with whom the writer and the groups that they represent have close ties. Josephus, the Jewish historian, acknowledges Roman power, but presents to his audience a Jewish God who stands behind Roman success and Roman power in the Jewish Wars (and more to the point, the Jewish defeat). The writer of Acts places for his audience the hand of the Christian God in the political decisions and the historical events that take place as the movement expands to the ‘ends of the earth’. Chariton, a bit more circumspect than the others, nevertheless shows his readership that political power functions in co-operation with the power of Aphrodite, a point that his city, Aphrodisias in Caria, promotes through its statuary, epigraphy, and buildings.

The writers recognize and to an extent appreciate outside political powers; each writer, however, extols the virtues of his deity in light of those powers. The authors' works indicate how some members of local elites and their affiliates in the Greek East sought to make sense of their groups, their tradition, and their gods amid the ever present web of Roman power.

Notes

1. E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (2 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

2. P. Garnsey and R. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 189.

3. The term ‘web of power’ is used by S. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 239-47. Cf. K. Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 38, 51-54.

4. P. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 23.

5. F. Millar, The Roman Empire and its Neighbors (New York: Holmes and Meier, 2nd edn, 1981), p. 196. Cf. his ‘Empire, Community and Culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews, and Arabs’, Journal of Jewish Studies 28 (1987), pp. 143-64.

6. Cf. A. Jones, The Greek City: From Alexander to Justinian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 76.

7. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity, p. 36.

8. Price, Rituals and Power, p. 247.

9. Price, Rituals and Power, pp. 241-42.

10. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity, p. 34.

11. Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, pp. 118-25.

12. R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 2-4.

13. Luke serves as a convenient title for the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. The use of the name is not meant to suggest any identification with a known historical personage; see R. Maddox, The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), pp. 3-6.

14. E. L. Bowie, ‘Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic’, Studies in Ancient Society (Past and Present Series; ed. M.J. Finley; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 166-209; cf. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity, p. 28.

15. J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible Series, 28; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), pp. 393-94.

16. C. H. Talbert, Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1974), p. 1.

17. E.g. the use of the term δύναμις at significant junctures of the narrative in Luke-Acts (Acts 1.8; 6.8; 8.13).

18. D. L. Tiede, Prophecy and History in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), p. 32. Cf. E. Richard, ‘The Divine Purpose. The Jews and the Gentile Mission (Acts 15)’, in C.H. Talbert (ed.), Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar (New York: Crossroad, 1984), p. 192.

19. Most appropriate are the following examples: Acts 3.20; 22.14; 26.16 … 10.41 … ; 4.28. …

20. Lk. 2.49; 4.23; 9.22; 12.12; 13.14, 16, 33; 15.32; 17.25; 18.1; 19.5; 21.9; 22.7, 37; 24.7, 36, 44; Acts 1.16, 21; 3.21; 4.12; 5.29; 9.6, 16; 14.22; 15.5; 16.30; 19.21; 19.36; 20.35; 23.11; 24.19; 25.10; 27.24.

21. F. Danker has rightly observed that δει operates in the same manner as προνοία. See ‘The Endangered Benefactor in Luke-Acts’, in SBL Seminar Papers 20 (ed. Kent H. Richards; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), pp. 46-47.

22. H. Conzelmann, The Theology of Luke (trans. G. Buswell; New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 18-94.

23. C. H. Talbert, ‘Promise and Fulfillment in Lucan Theology’, in idem (ed.), Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar, pp. 91-103.

24. P. F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (SNTSMS, 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 215-19.

25. Esler, Community and Gospel, pp. 211-17.

26. Cf. the prediction of Jerusalem's destruction (Lk. 19.41): ‘Would that today you knew the things that make for peace.’

27. Talbert, Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts, pp. 51-66.

28. E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), pp. 674-75; cf. Gallio, who hears the Jewish attack on Paul but refuses to make a judgment because it is an internal matter (Acts 18.12-17).

29. Festus declares Paul innocent (Acts 25.18; 25.25; 26.31), Agrippa II, Bernice and ‘prominent men of the city’ (Caesarea) find no guilt in Paul (Acts 25.23-24), and Paul himself recalls that no guilt was found (Acts 28.18); cf. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 692-93.

30. Luke 23; Acts 16.39; 18.15-16; 19.37; 23.29; 25.25; 26.32. See discussion by W.G. Kümmel, in Introduction to the New Testament (trans. H.C. Kee; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975), p. 162-63.

31. C. K. Barrett, Luke the Historian in Recent Study (A.S. Peak Memorial Lectures, 6; London, 1960), p. 63; cf. P. Walaskay, ‘And so we came to Rome’: The political Perspective of St Luke (SNTSMS, 49; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 18.

32. Esler, Community and Gospel, p. 213.

33. See the useful discussion by Walaskay, ‘And so we came to Rome’: The political Perspective of St Luke, pp. 35-37.

34. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 163.

35. Esler, Community and Gospel, p. 212.

36. Wengst, Pax Romana, pp. 89-105; Walaskay, ‘And so we came to Rome’: The political Perspective of St Luke, pp. 64-67.

37. Cf. Esler, Community and Gospel, pp. 215-16.

38. For bibliography see C. Vermeule, Jewish Relations with the Art of Ancient Greece and Rome: ‘Judaea Capta Sed non Devicta’ (Art of Antiquity 4.2; Boston: Department of Classical Art, Museum of Fine Arts, 1981).

39. T. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and his Society (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 79.

40. Menahem Stern, ‘Josephus and the Roman Empire’, in L. H. Feldman and G. Hata (eds.), Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 76.

41. Stern, ‘Josephus and the Roman Empire’, p. 77.

42. L. H. Feldman, ‘Introduction’, in Feldman and Hata (eds.), Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, p. 25.

43. See discussion by L. H. Kant, ‘Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Latin’, ANRW II.20.2 (1987), pp. 671-713.

44. Cf. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and his Society, p. 100, who notes that in Josephus Roman generals often mention the role of God in history.

45. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and his Society, pp. 78-79.

46. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and his Society, pp. 92-98.

47. D. J. Ladouceur, ‘Josephus and Masada’, in Feldman and Hata (eds.), Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, p. 110.

48. Ladouceur, ‘Josephus and Masada’, p. 111.

49. Although he does mention Italy (1.1.2; 1.12.8; 3.3.8).

50. A recent fragment of the Metiochus and Parthenope romance indicates the importance of historiography for the early romances. See H. Maehler, ‘Der Metiochus-Parthenope-Roman’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 23 (1976), pp. 1-20. See also T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 16-17; and B. E. Perry, who remarks ‘What Thucydides did for the Peloponnesian War, that Chariton has done for the daughter of Hermocrates!’, The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Historical Account of Their Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 137.

51. This places Callirhoe in the upper strata of Syracusan society. Little is known about the real daughter of Hermocrates. See discussion by Perry, The Ancient Romances, p. 353 n. 25; K. Plepelits, Chariton von Aphrodisias: Kallirhoe (Stuttgart, 1976).

52. E. L. Bowie, ‘Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic’, in M.I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Ancient Society (Past and Present Series; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 166-209.

53. 1.1.1-2; 8.8.15-16. Accurately observed by E.H. Haight, Essays on the Greek Romances (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1943), p. 32; T. Hägg, Narrative Techniques in Ancient Romances: Studies of Chariton, Xenophon, Ephesius and Achilles Tatius (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1971), p. 216.

54. At Aphrodisias this aspect is evident in a series of coin issues that feature the cult statue of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias with those of other cities under the label ομονοία; Ephesus (BMC Caria 18, no. 161, p. 53, plate 44), Antiochia (BMC Caria 18, no. 162, p. 53), Hierapolis (BMC Phrygia 25, no. 166, p. 257) and Neapolis (D.J. MacDonald, ‘Greek and Roman Coins from Aphrodisias’, British Archaeological Reports Supplementary Series 9 [1976], p. 31). The coins also indicate Aphrodisias's close association with the Roman emperors, especially Augustus (MacDonald, ‘Greek and Roman Coins’, p. 30).

55. Readily available in literary sources such as Homer, which Chariton clearly uses in his work; for Chariton's citations see Warren Blake, ‘Index Analyticus’, in Chariton Aphrodisiensis: De Chaerea et Callirhoe Amatoriarum Narrationum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), pp. 129-42.

56. At Aphrodisias of Caria, a third century ce aedicula of Aphrodite features Aphrodite drying her hair on a half shell held by two tritons; see K. Erim, ‘Recent Archaeological Research in Turkey’, Anatolian Studies 32 (1982), p. 13. Iris Love has shown that nearby Cnidos had an active cult to Aphrodite Euploia, see AJA 82 (1978), pp. 324-25. L.R. Farnell provides additional references to this aspect of Aphrodite in The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), II, pp. 636-38.

57. See J. Helms, Character Portrayal in the Romance of Chariton (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), pp. 45-66. …

58. Kenneth Scott translates αγαλμα as ‘cult image’ (in ‘Ruler Cult and Related Problems in the Greek Romances’, Classical Philology 33 [1938], p. 384), perhaps too extreme but more plausible than Warren Blake's ‘admiration’ (Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1939]), Georges Molinié's ‘trésor’ (Chariton: Le roman de Chairéas et Callirhoé [Paris: Budé, 1979]), or K. Plepelits's ‘Entzücken’ (Kallirhoe). Scholars generally consider … as an object placed in the temple and designed for worship; for references see A. Nock, ‘Synnaos Theos’, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (ed. Z. Stewart, Cambridge, MA: Harvard mUniversity Press, 1972), I, p. 204 n. 5. Price, however (Rituals and Power, p. 178), notes that translating … as ‘cult statue’ assumes a cult association that does not always occur. Some private citizens did not receive public cult status during the imperial period even though they had images … placed in sacred locations, one even at Aphrodisias (Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, 8 [ed. W. Calder and J. Cormack; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962], pp. 76-77, no. 412). This does not diminish the fact that the divine [kállos] of Callirhoe shines throughout the narrative. See also the discussion of the term by W. Burker, Greek Religion (trans. J. Raffa; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 65, 91, 94, 187.

59. Parthenos is an unusual epithet for Aphrodite (although see Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique XXXII [1908], p. 500). Marcel LaPlace plausibly suggests an allusion to Athena Parthenos in ‘Les légendes troyennes dans le “roman” de Chariton Chairéas et Callirhoé’, REG 93 (January-June, 1980), pp. 124-25. For discussions on the role of cult statues in antiquity see Nock, ‘Synnaos Theos’, Essays, I, pp. 202-51; Price, Rituals and Power, pp. 170-206.

60. Cf. R. Petri, Über den Roman des Chariton (Beitrage zur Klassischen Philologie; Meisenheim an Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1963), pp. 11-12; and Helms, Character Portrayal in the Romance of Chariton, pp. 42-45, who note the close relationship between Callirhoe and the goddess Aphrodite but who downplay its importance for the narrative. Peter Walsh (The Roman Novel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970], pp. 55 n. 2; 200) cites the similar role played by Psyche in Apuleius's Metamorphoses.

61. E.g. Xenophon's Ephesiaca, 1.2.6-8; 1.12.1; 2.2.4; Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1.2; 1.7; 2.23; 2.39; 3.4; 10.9.

62. D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), I, p. 512.

63. C. C. Vermeule III, Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 457. See also Nock, ‘Synnaos Theos I’, Essays, I, pp. 226-27; J. Aymard, ‘Venus et les imperatrices sous les derniers Antonina’, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire 51 (1934), pp. 178-96.

64. J. Bompaire, ‘Le décor sicilien dans le roman grec et dans la littérature comtemporaire (II siècle)’, REG 90 (1977), pp. 55-68.

65. M. LaPlace, ‘Les légendes troyennes dans le “roman” de Chariton’, pp. 124-25.

66. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances, p. 309.

67. Perry, The Ancient Romances, p. 138.

68. LaPlace, ‘Les légendes troyennes dans le “roman” de Chariton’, pp. 124-25.

69. K. T. Erim, Aphrodisias: City of Venus Aphrodite (New York: Facts on File, 1986), pp. 111, 118.

70. For this essay, it matters little whether a temple to Aphrodite existed or whether such a festival actually occurred at Syracuse. Readers in the Greek East would understand the implications of the festival. See G. Schmeling, Chariton (TWAS, 295; New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), p. 83.

71. For a brief discussion of the use of popular Stoic thought in the ancient romances, see K. Berger, ‘Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament’, ANRW II.25.2 (1984): especially pp. 1264-68, 1278-81. Chaereas appears in a bad light when he betrays these qualities of proper conduct. The best example occurs when his lack of self-control and unfounded jealousy cause the apparent death of Callirhoe (1.4.12).

72. The stress of the free status of the Greek in relation to barbarians during this period is discussed by E. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, I, pp. 132-57. The popularity of this motif in the Greek world is exhibited in a fragment of a relief found at Athens by T. Leslie Shear, Jr. Shear notes that the barbarians were portrayed in standard fashion, rugged features, anguished in defeat but still proud with a look of anger: ‘his is the portrait of the noble savage whose merciful treatment at his captor's hand serves to ennoble still more the emperor [Trajan] himself’. ‘The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1972’, Hesperia 42 (1973), p. 404.

73. 5.1.1 indicates that Aphrodite managed (πολιτεύειν) the marriage.

74. Love as a malady represents a popular topos that cuts across genres. See the brief summary of a paper given by Carlos Miralles entitled ‘Eros as nosos in the Greek novel’, in Proceedings for the Ancient Novel, p. 20.

75. S.v. ‘Aphrodisias’, in R. Stillwell (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979 [1976]), p. 68. See also Erim, Aphrodisias: City of Venus Aphrodite; ‘The School of Aphrodisias’, Archaeology 20 (1967), p. 18.

76. K. Erim, ‘Recent Archaeological Research in Turkey’ Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), p. 234; cf. R. Smith, ‘The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 77 (1987), pp. 88-138; K. Erim, Aphrodisias: City of Venus Aphrodite, pp. 106-23; J. Reynolds, ‘Further Information on Imperial Cult at Aphrodisias’, Studii Clasice 24 (1986), pp. 109-17.

77. Price rightly observes that the wealthy and powerful in Greek cities were not the only beneficiaries. Indeed a form of welfare was established in which the whole town participated in games, festivals, and religious observances generally paid for by the wealthy in the city. See Rituals and Power, pp. 101-32; cf. R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), especially pp. 18-42.

78. For example, a dedication found on the architrave blocks of the first portico of the Sebesteion read ‘To Aphrodite, the deified Augusti, Tiberius Claudius Caesar and the People’, K. Erim as quoted by M. Mellink, ‘Archaeology in Asia Minor’, AJA 85 (1981), p. 472; for other examples see J. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome (Journal of Roman Studies Monographs, 1; London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1982).

79. A. Laumonier (Les cultes indigènes en carie [ed. E. de Boccard; Paris: Bibliothéque des Ecoles Françaises D'Athénes et de Rome, 1958], p. 499) also draws attention to Aphrodite as the patroness of the city.

Abbreviations

AB: Anchor Bible

AE: Années epigraphiques

AJA: American Journal of Archaeology

AJPh: American Journal of Philology

ANRW: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt

AUSS: Andrews University Seminary Studies

BA: Biblical Archaeologist

BETL: Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium

Bib: Biblica

BHT: Beiträge zur historischen Theologie

BJS: Brown Judaic Studies

BMC: British Museum Coins

BMCRE: British Museum Coins of the Roman Empire

BNTC: Black's New Testament Commentaries

BZNW: Beihefte zur ZNW

CBQMS: Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series

CChr. Ser. Lat.: Corpus christianorum series latina

CIL: Corpus inscriptionum latinarum

CNRS: Centre nationale des recherches scientifiques

CSEL: Corpus scriptorum eccclesiasticorum latinorum

DJD: Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

HTR: Harvard Theological Review

HUCA: Hebrew Union College Annual

ICC: International Critical Commentary

ILS: Inscriptiones latinae selectae

JACT: Joint Association of Classical Teachers

JJS: Journal of Jewish Studies

JRS: Journal of Roman Studies

JSNTSup: Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

JSOT: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSPSup: Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series

JSS: Journal of Semitic Studies

JTS: Journal of Theological Studies

MAMA: W. Calder and J. Cormack, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua

MGWJ: Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums

MNTC: Moffatt NT Commentary

NCB: New Century Bible

New Documents: G.H.R. Horsley (ed.), New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity (Macquarie University, NSW: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre)

NICNT: New International Commentary on the New Testament

P& P: Past and Present

PBSR: Papers of the British School at Rome

PEQ: Palestine Exploration Quarterly

PG: J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca

PL: J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina

RB: Revue biblique

RE: Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realenzyklopädie

REG: Revue des études grecques

RevQ: Revue de Qumrân

RG: Augustus, Res Gestae

RSA: Rivista storica dell'Antichita

SBLDS: Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBLMS: Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SNTSMS: Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

TLZ: Theologischer Literaturzeitung

TWAS: Twayne's World Authors Series

VT: Vetus Testamentun