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Legal engagement

 | 
Katell Berthelot
, 
Natalie B. Dohrmann
, 
Capucine Nemo-Pekelman

Provincial negotiation with the imperial legal system

Representing the rights of a city

Ekdikoi in Roman courts

Julien Fournier

Résumé

This paper focuses on the office of ekdikos, i.e., a public advocate appointed to represent the interests of a Greek city before a court. Widely attested in the interstate arbitrations of the Hellenistic period, the office remained important during the imperial period. The ekdikoi acted as intermediaries between local peregrine courts and Roman courts. During the Principate, the office underwent a significant evolution: what was previously a collegiate and ad hoc appointment became a permanent and individual one. In this respect, the ekdikos may have been a forerunner of the office of defensor ciuitatis, established by the central authorities in the 4th century CE.

Entrées d'index

Keywords :

ekdikos, Greek city, Roman Law

Note de l’auteur

Translated from the French by Juliana Froggatt.

Texte intégral

  • 1 This is notably the case with manumission, which still happened, for example, in the ancient form (...)

1The spread of Roman hegemony through the Hellenized East starting at the end of the 2nd century BCE did not destroy the institutions of local communities, as we know, but to the contrary largely relied on them. Even if these institutions changed, throughout the period of the early empire the city continued to be the ordinary unit of public life in Greece and in a large part of Asia Minor. The maintenance of a mosaic of local rights was a corollary, as Roman hegemony was not accompanied by legal equalization but instead brought about the coexistence of multiple juridical conditions within the provinces: Roman citizens on the one hand, who claimed the application of ius ciuile, and peregrines on the other, who were covered by a multitude of rights specific to each people or to each civic community. In the East, independent local jurisdictions are attested until at least the middle of the 3rd century CE – that is, even after the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 extended Roman citizenship to all the empire’s inhabitants. We observe throughout the Roman East the continuation of legal acts laid down by local law.1

  • 2 Cicero, Att. 6, 1, 15.

2At the same time, administrative and judicial structures inspired by Roman models developed in the newly formed provinces – in Asia at least: regular calendars of judicial hearings were drawn up from the 1st century BCE, within the framework of the conuentus iuridici, which allowed governors to administer justice by relying on provincial juries, chosen in part from among the Roman citizens residing in the province. One of the governor’s primary missions in the republican era consisted of defending the interests of Roman nationals. In this regard, the foundation of his judicial power was guaranteeing the application of ius ciuile – in other words, offering rights and remedies to the Roman citizens within his prouincia, in the administrative sense of the term. The law applied there was generally the same as in Rome. This is suggested by, in particular, Cicero’s provincial edict, passed during his administration of the province of Cilicia in 51/50 BCE. Like every governor, Cicero had to issue, at the beginning of his term of office, an edictum prouinciale, based on the model of the Praetor’s Edict at Rome, which announced the rules and procedures to be applied in the province while he exercised his mandate.2 This edict contained the foundations of administrative law governing the relations between local communities and Roman authorities, but also the jurisdictional elements common to both Italy and the provinces.

  • 3 Cicero, Fam. 13, 26; 28.
  • 4 Cicero, 2 Verr. 2, 32.

3It was the ius ciuile that applied in every proceeding between Roman citizens, before the provincial court. The Ciceronian corpus contains a series of affairs of this type, concerning private law, especially inheritance law, treated independently of any intervention by any local court. One of the most famous pitted L. Mescinius Rufus against Oppia for the inheritance of M. Mindius, the negotiator at Elis,3 before Ser. Sulpicius Rufus, the governor of Achaia in 46/5 BCE. In Sicily, the lex Rupilia, which had served as the island’s provincial charter since 132 BCE, defined a system for settling disputes that arose among its resident populations. Cicero reports that Roman judges also intervened when a Roman citizen was accused by a peregrine (quod ciuis Romanus a Siculo petit, Siculus iudex, quod Siculus a ciue Romano, ciuis Romanus datur). The Roman citizen prosecuted by a Sicilian was assured of being judged by his peers, in the province, and according to Roman law. Other cases, depending on their nature, were referred to the relevant judges. Notably, the law provided that when a Sicilian brought an action against a fellow citizen, the case would be settled by a city court, in accordance with local law (Siculi hoc iure sunt ut quod ciuis cum ciue agat, domi certet suis legibus).4 We see here confirmation of the autonomous functioning of civic courts, at the local level, without any Roman intervention.

4From the republican to the imperial era, a judicial edifice was thus constructed that can be qualified as mixed, with peregrine and Roman courts put into a hierarchical system. At the city level and for peregrines, ancient judicial organs, genuinely Greek, continued to refer to laws and customs inherited from the Hellenistic period. At the provincial level, Roman courts followed Roman procedure and law, initially put in place to guarantee the rights of ciues Romani.

  • 5 An echo of this trend appears in the edict of the proconsul Q. Mucius Scaevola, circa 99-97 BCE, a (...)

5These two circuits were not completely separate, particularly because peregrines progressively gained access to provincial jurisdiction, not only as plaintiffs or accusers in cases involving Roman citizens but also in suits between themselves that did not a priori require recourse to Roman jurisdiction. Two factors favored peregrine access to Roman courts. The first was the early tendency of inhabitants of hellenophone provinces to readily appeal to Roman jurisdiction, for all kinds of reasons: to find more impartiality there, to obtain sentences supposedly more effective and invested with more authority than those of local courts, or simply with a dilatory aim, with the intention of prolonging proceedings that were going poorly.5 Thus, recourse to Roman jurisdiction was evidently not perceived as entirely negative by the populations of Greek cities, who knew how to use it in their own best interests. The second factor was due to Rome’s own accord and proved to be more restrictive for peregrines. Under the Principate, as the eastern provinces’ integration into the empire progressed, Rome drew into the jurisdiction of its courts a wide range of cases that, until then, had been the responsibility of civic courts and local law. It gradually ceased to limit the governors’ jurisdiction to only the defense of Roman citizens, in order to claim a monopoly on entire sections of legal authority, regardless of the civil status of the parties involved. The possession or lack of Roman citizenship remained a discriminatory element in access to courts, but the imperial constitutions placed greater emphasis on the monopoly of capital jurisdiction by Roman courts, even when all the parties were of peregrine origin.

  • 6 C.P. Jones (2007, p. 1332) suggests that “la connaissance du droit romain était répandue dans l’O (...)
  • 7 Dig. 36, 1, 23.
  • 8 Gaius, Institutes 2, 110.
  • 9 Gaius, Institutes 2, 281.

6This integration provoked a sort of collusion between two legal spheres that, at the beginning, overlapped without really mixing – on the one hand, because peregrines increasingly confronted Roman procedure in their judicial proceedings; on the other hand, because provincial governors, invested with extended authority, were drawn into considering local cases, governed by Greek law, which went beyond the scope of their original remit. The development of the provincial and imperial judicial system required, on the part of the eastern provinces’ populations, if not personal understanding and mastery of Roman procedure and law, at least an awareness of them. For the notables of Greek cities who received Roman citizenship, this change was inevitable and happened largely under the Principate. After a few generations, the descendants of the first Greeks to obtain ciuitas Romana knew – certainly at least approximately and partially – ius ciuile and sought its application from Roman courts.6 An entry in the Digest7 thus preserves the memory of an inheritance case involving Ti. Claudius Brasidas, a representative of one of the greatest aristocratic families of Sparta, favored with Roman citizenship during Nero’s reign. In this regard, the difficulties posed by the juxtaposition of rights must be imagined, particularly when not all the members of a single family possessed Roman citizenship: ciues Romani could not, in fact, make a peregrine their heir or legatee,8 nor appoint legatees by using Greek, even though fidéicommis written in Greek were held to be valid.9

  • 10 I exclude from the scope of this study the ekdikia understood as the legal proceedings that any ci (...)

7But communities themselves had to take Roman law and procedure into account in collective cases. In that respect, I wish to focus here on the representatives of communities before Roman courts, who were charged with defending their interests against other communities or against individuals, sometimes Roman citizens. More precisely, I will devote the following reflections to the history of an official position called ekdikia (ἐκδικία), whose holder or holders had the title of ekdikos (ἔκδικος). Ekdikia designates an official mission, mandated by a community and entrusted to one or more people chosen to defend its interests before a judicial authority at a higher level.10 The term is attested several hundred times in the ancient epigraphic documentation, mainly in Asia Minor during the late Hellenistic period and under the Principate, and with quite diverse degrees of representation, depending on the place and the circumstances. According to the modalities specific to each degree, the ekdikoi could represent leagues or koina; cities; intermediate categories of a civic population such as tribes or villages; constituted bodies like the council or Gerousia; or even associations. However, they appear never to have defended the interests of individuals.

  • 11 It thus happens that the editors of inscriptions hesitate between σύνδικος and ἔκδικος when the be (...)
  • 12 On the role of the syndikos and what distinguished it from that of the ekdikos, see Fournier 2007.
  • 13 I.Mylasa I, app., 1, lines 2, 13.
  • 14 I.Prusias ad Hypium 2; 6. Contra Sherwin-White 1966, p. 719: “at Prusias ad Hypium the two terms a (...)
  • 15 The inscription I.Ephesos 614 C, in honor of Marcus Antonius Albus, indicates that this individual (...)

8The function of the ekdikos should not be confused with that of the syndikos, even if it is sometimes difficult to distinguish their assignments: both represented a city’s interests before a judicial body.11 The fact that a single person could successively exercise, in the course of his career, the office of ekdikos and then that of syndikos on behalf of the same city proves that these are not just two different titles for the same job.12 This is the case of a citizen from Mylasa at the turn of the 2nd to the 1st century BCE.13 The distinction continued to be made in the imperial era: toward the end of the 2nd century CE, two citizens of Prusias ad Hypium who had been syndikoi also held the position of ekdikos on another occasion.14 For the same reasons, this office is also distinct from the synēgoros.15

  • 16 In English, ekdikos has been translated as “legal representative” (Magie 1950, p. 648). Different (...)

9I would like to briefly define the function of a city’s ekdikos from the late Hellenistic period to the end of the Principate. This presentation will provide only the first steps of a much larger inquiry, which will be based on an exhaustive survey of epigraphic occurrences as well as those, less numerous, from the manuscript tradition. Even so, I will here endeavor to show that if the ekdikia’s aim – representing a city’s interests before an external body (Roman or not) – remained the same for several centuries, its form evolved from an extraordinary collective representative to an individual and regular magistracy. Because no modern word perfectly covers the polysemy of the Greek term over the centuries – from the judicial delegate of the Hellenistic era to the ordinary magistrate of the late imperial age – I will limit myself to the use of the transliteration ekdikos, without trying to offer a translation.16

Ekdikoi in late Hellenistic arbitrations

10Starting in the 2nd century BCE, the office is known from two principal types of sources: international arbitrations and long honorary decrees issued by communities for some of their most dedicated members. These documents provide a fairly homogenous outline of the mission of the ekdikos, associated with the same type of cases. Those who held this office acted essentially as representatives of a community before a higher arbitral authority. As such, they defended this community’s rights (dikaia) in court.

  • 17 I.Magnesia 93 (the story is summarized in Ager 1996, Case 120).

11The principle reason for their intervention was to claim contested territories and their related revenues, at different levels. So-called “international” cases are the most detailed. In the first half of the 2nd century BCE, one of the best known was that of the city of Mylasa’s arbitration between Priene and Magnesia on the Meander, at Rome’s request.17 The two cities were contesting the possession of a piece of land whose name has not survived. We know, in any case, that the appeal to Rome and Mylasa’s judgment constituted the second intervention in this dispute. According to its normal rule of conduct, the Senate had tasked the city arbiter with awarding the land to the one of the two states that had held it when they entered into amicitia with the Romans. On this occasion, the Mylasian court heard the arguments advanced by the ekdikoi dispatched by each of the opposing parties.

  • 18 OGIS 335 (Ager 1996, Case 146).

12At the same time, judges from Pergamon were arbitrating a dispute between Mytilene and Pitane over land on Asia Minor’s west coast.18 The judgment took place in Pergamon, where Pitane’s ekdikoi were able to furnish proof of the disputed land’s purchase by Antiochos I for 380 talents, while those of Mytilene asserted that the Seleucids had taken it by force.

  • 19 I.Priene 111, 120, 121 (Ager 1996, Case 171).

13In the late 90s BCE, a citizen of Priene, Krates, was honored by his city for his work in a dispute over the revenue from a piece of land.19 While publicani seem to have coveted this place and the income from the salt works found there, the Prienians claimed it as the traditional property of Athena Polias. Krates first intervened to convince Asia’s provincial governor not to respond to the publicani’s demands until the Senate had reached a decision. The Senate having referred the arbitration to Erythrae, Krates was thus designated as ekdikos, went to this city, and presented, in the theater, the arguments of his city. Later, Krates appears to have intervened in a dispute between his city and Miletus, very likely over the same stakes.

  • 20 See, regarding Krates, Ager 1996, Case 171, I, lines 124-126: ἀ[πὸ]|δεδειγμένος καὶ αὐτὸς ἔκδικος (...)
  • 21 I.Sardis VII, 1, 27 (c. 75-50 BCE), lines 6-9: ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν καὶ φιλόπατριν ὄντα | καὶ πολλὰς πρεσβ (...)

14These different cases confirm that the ekdikoi systematically officiated before courts outside their city, traveling to the place of judgment, most often in the third city designated as arbiter.20 In this regard, they ran the risks inherent in every long journey in antiquity: a decree from Sardis from the second quarter of the 1st century BCE thus recalls the dangers faced by an ekdikos in the performance of his duties.21 In accepting these perilous trips and defending the territorial integrity and income of their cities, the ekdikoi took on heavy responsibilities, which decrees sometimes emphasize. The one from Magnesia on the Meander concerning the arbitration carried out by Mylasa stresses the honors conferred on its ekdikoi, who defeated their counterparts from Priene and ensured the triumph of their own city’s cause. In particular, it was planned to praise the ekdikoi and to have the name of each one engraved at the bottom of the stele: indeed, this is how the list of the twelve defenders of the city’s rights has come down to us.

  • 22 Ch. Michel, Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, 459 (2nd c. BCE), lines 13-14.
  • 23 Ager 1996, Case 171, I, lines 144-145.
  • 24 I.Sinuri 11. Dionysios appeared twice before the court of the city of Mylasa, each time for matter (...)
  • 25 Ch. Michel, Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, 459, line 15.
  • 26 I.Mylasa 134, line 5.
  • 27 I.Mylasa 132, line 9.

15Ekdikoi were chosen ad hoc, for a specific mission, when a case required that delegates be sent before a superior authority. This is what the vocabulary used in the texts reveals: Krates was designated as an ekdikos of Priene (ἀ[πο]δεδειγμένος καὶ αὐτὸς ἔκδικος); the representatives of Magnesia on the Meander were also chosen (ᾑρέθησαν ἔγδικοι) when it was time to go before the court in Mylasa. The selection method was not always specified. Ekdikoi sometimes seem to have been directly solicited by a community, as shown by an inscription from Halicarnassus which informs us that Posideos the son of Posideos agreed to undertake an ekdikia at the invitation of the koinon of Telmissos (παρακληθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ ἀνεδέξατο τὴν ἐκδικίαν).22 In other cases, the choice was made by election. Priene’s decree notes that Krates, designated as an ekdikos, went before the exterior court in company with those who had been elected with him (ἀποδε[ι]χθεὶς καὶ [αὐτὸς ἔκδικος ἀπεδ]ήμησεν [μ]ε[τὰ τῶν συνκ]εχειροτονημένων).23 This last expression raises the question of the number of ekdikoi. It is not always easy to solve the problem of single or collective. Honorary decrees, by their very nature, put the accent on an individual’s merits, without necessarily highlighting the role of possible colleagues in the various positions held. The inscriptions from Sinuri for a certain Dionysios and from Halicarnassus for Posideos refer only to the action of an individual: Dionysios had recovered the god Sinuri’s sacred land on behalf of the syngeneia, a subdivision of the civic body;24 Posideos had restored the god Apollo’s rights on a piece of contested land (ἀποκατέστησε τῶι θεῶι τὴν χώραν).25 It is not impossible, however, that these persons acted as members of colleges. Other decrees, like the one about Krates, thus underline the virtues of the honorandus while mentioning in the background the presence of colleagues, referred to as συνκεχειροτονήμενοι, συνκαθεστάμενοι,26 or more often συνέκδικοι27 and left anonymous. It is possible, in these cases, that the honored person had exercised a form of presidency in a group of ekdikoi. Nevertheless, it should be noted that reports of territorial arbitration, whose aim was not to praise an individual, never mention ekdikoi except in the plural, as members of a commission. When the list of names is given, as in the case of Magnesia on the Meander, no hierarchy appears among the representatives.

The “traditional” ekdikia from the 1st century BCE to the beginning of the 2nd century CE

  • 28 On this subject, see Burton 2000.

16Between the second half of the 1st century BCE and the beginning of the 2nd century CE, the nature of the documentation concerning ekdikoi changed significantly. Inscriptions relating to international arbitration became much rarer, with most border disputes being handled directly by provincial governors or deputy judges without recourse to a third-party city.28 The honorary decrees, now much shorter and less detailed, mainly focus on the series of offices held by the commended person and the generosity exercised in these posts. This new type of source throws a different light on the ekdikia but at the same time reveals that its function was part of a certain continuity going back to the Hellenistic period.

  • 29 I.Stratonikeia 1025, lines 23-25. Cf. I.Kibyra 41, line 4: καὶ ἐγδικήσαντα δημοσίας ὑποθέσεις πολλ (...)
  • 30 L. Robert, La Carie II (1954), p. 180, no 78, lines 15-17: γενομένῳ δὲ καὶ ἐγδίκῳ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδο (...)

17The ekdikia, regularly mentioned in notable careers, remained a one-off mission most of the time. The charge regularly appears in the plural in these citations, a sign that it could be repeated several times. An inscription from Stratonicea in Caria thus evokes the numerous ekdikiai and embassies that T. Flavius Aenius carried out on behalf of his homeland (πολλὰς πρεσβείας καὶ ἐκδικίας τῇ πατρίδι παρασχομένου).29 In certain instances, the mention of the mission’s exact purpose makes clear that this office was not annual and recurring but was assigned in the context of a specific case. An inscription from Heracleia Salbace dating to Trajan’s reign thus refers to a citizen, L. Aburnius, who was chosen as an ekdikos for a border restoration.30

  • 31 I.Etenna 11 (2nd c. CE). Cf. IG XII, 2, 134 (Mytilene); TAM V, 2, 1002 (Thyatira); Milet I, 2, 7; (...)
  • 32 Callistratus, Dig. 50, 4, 14, 1, distinguishes the honos, “administratio rei publicae cum dignitat (...)
  • 33 On this subject, see Neesen 1981, which identifies and discusses the different classifications of (...)
  • 34 Dig. 50, 4, 18, 1 (Arcadius Charisius): “personalia sunt, quae animi prouisione et corporalis labo (...)
  • 35 Some inscriptions indicate that certain ekdikoi covered the costs of their mission. See, e.g., TAM(...)
  • 36 In practice, the difference between magistracy and liturgy faded considerably in the imperial era: (...)
  • 37 CIG 2771.
  • 38 SEG XLVII, 1573, lines 7-9: ἐκδικίας τελέσαντα δωρεὰν καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς λειτουργίας μεγαλοψύχως (the (...)

18When it appears as part of a career, the ekdikia is frequently coupled with the embassy. This is the case in the abovementioned inscription from Stratonicea but also, for example, in an inscription from the city of Etenna, in Pisidia, which evokes a noble’s availability “in ekdikiai and embassies” (ἔν τε ἐγδικίαις καὶ πρεσβείαις).31 This recurrent association indicates that the two offices were both similar and distinct. They both represent what classical Roman jurists called a munus personale: that is, a service which was not a part of the regular political bodies but a contribution for a particular task.32 These jurists divided the category of munera into several branches.33 The ekdikia, like the syndikia or the embassy, was a munus personale, which required only the skill and energy of the person undertaking the duty,34 as opposed to a munus patrimonii, which demanded a financial contribution. The person chosen as ekdikos was therefore not legally obliged to cover his own expenses while on his mission, even if some incumbents did pay for them.35 The munus differs from the honos just as, in Greek nomenclature, the λειτουργία differs from the ἀρχή. Moreover, several inscriptions distinguish embassies and ekdikiai from regular magistracies and compare them to liturgies instead.36 An inscription from Aphrodisias evokes the “magistracies, embassies, and ekdikiai entrusted to a notable (αἱ ἐνχειρισθεῖσαι αὐτῷ ἀρχαὶ καὶ πρεσβείαι καὶ ἐγδικίαι).37 An inscription from Cnidos specifies that Androneikos son of Eukration carried out “embassies, ekdikiai, and other liturgies”.38

  • 39 Cicero, Fam. 13, 56. Translation by E.S. Shuckburgh (1908-1909), lightly modified.

19Embassy and ekdikia are nevertheless distinguished by the recognized skills of those who performed them. A passage from Cicero’s letters, dating from 51 BCE, emphasizes this difference. Then the provincial governor of Cilicia, Cicero was interceding with Q. Minucius Thermus, the proconsul of Asia, in favor of a Campanian negotiator in a dispute with the city of Mylasa.39

Μυλασεῖς et Ἀλαβανδεῖς pecuniam Cluuio debent. Dixerat mihi Euthydemus, cum Ephesi essem, se curaturum ut ecdici a Mylasinis Romam mitterentur. Id factum non est. Legatos audio missos esse, sed malo ecdicos, ut aliquid confici possit. Qua re peto a te ut et eos et Ἀλαβανδεῖς iubeas ecdicos Romam mittere.
The people of Mylasa and Alabanda owe Cluvius money. Euthydemus told me, when I was at Ephesus, that he would see that ekdikoi were sent from Mylasa to Rome. That has not been done. I hear that legates have been sent; but I prefer ekdikoi, in order that some settlement may be made. Therefore I beg you to order them and the Alabandians to send ekdikoi to Rome.

  • 40 See the cases compared by L. Robert, RPh 32, 1958, p. 30 (OMS V, p. 170).

20From Cicero’s point of view, sending ekdikoi was the surest and most effective way to settle the dispute before a court in Rome. Like ekdikoi, ambassadors had the ultimate goal of defending a city’s rights.40 But while the ambassador was just a mere spokesperson, the ekdikos had the power to plead before a court as plaintiff or defendant – whence the judgment of his superior effectiveness. The passage admits of no ambiguity on one point: ambassadors and ekdikoi were not permanent representatives of cities but were always chosen ad hoc.

  • 41 TAM V, 2, 1002 (see supra, n. 35): T. Flavius Alexandros, honored by the city of Thyatira, was an (...)
  • 42 Inscriptions repeatedly mention the dēmosia pragmata. See, e.g., MAMA VIII, 484 (Aphrodisias, seco (...)
  • 43 A decree from Mylasa, dating to the 1st c. BCE, thus reveals that a citizen, “appointed an ekdikos(...)
  • 44 Milet I, 2, 7, lines 28-31.
  • 45 I.Kibyra I, 41.
  • 46 L. Robert, La Carie II (1954), p. 180-181, no 78 (see supra, n. 30).
  • 47 IG IX, 1, 61. On this case, see, most recently, Grenet 2011, p. 103-148.

21Thus, some ekdikoi at the end of the republic and the beginning of the imperial era still appear as specialists in judicial affairs, chosen for specific but often repeated missions. Those with the most-renowned skills could even be solicited by cities other than the one from which they came.41 Excluding the passage from Cicero, we have less information about the nature of the cases in which they were involved at this time than in the previous period. Career inscriptions often refer only to “public affairs” or “public interests” brilliantly defended in the course of an ekdikia,42 which suggests a wide range of expertise.43 Some texts, however, suggest that territorial disputes remained predominant, with, in the background, the question of community incomes. An honorary decree from Miletus, dating to the Augustan age, thus indicates that C. Iulius Eukrates, through embassies and ekdikiai, helped to increase the revenues of the city and of the god Apollo.44 An inscription from Kibyra, dating to the 1st century CE, announces the intervention of Q. Veranius Philagros, who, as an ekdikos, worked to obtain the return of 107 public slaves and a piece of land that belonged to the city and had been illegally sold by a private individual, whose property was confiscated.45 The inscription from Heraclea Salbace relating to the border restoration during Trajan’s reign46 also testifies to the ekdikoi’s privileged field of action. Finally, one of the most detailed cases was that which set the city of Daulis, in Phocis, against an individual by the name of Memmius Antiochos, at the end of the 110s CE. The issue was the possession of four properties claimed by both sides. Two ekdikoi, Zopyrus son of Aristion and Parmenon son of Zopyrus, represented the city before a judge appointed by the provincial governor of Achaia.47 The judge, T. Flavius Eubulus, made a strict demarcation between the lands that Memmius Antiochus legitimately owned and those that were restored to the city. This inscription is one of the few documents attesting the continuation of collective action by ekdikoi up to the beginning of the 2nd century CE.

22While praising their devotion, inscriptions about ekdikoi say nothing of the technical, linguistic, and legal expertise they must have deployed. Yet this would have been essential for communities coming up against a language and a judicial tradition still largely unknown to them. In advance of any appearance before a Roman court, a significant amount of documentation and probably translation work must be presumed, even when the dispute was between communities. Cases between a city and a Roman citizen, such as the one in which Mylasa opposed the negotiator M. Cluvius of Pozzuoli, certainly required that the city’s representatives be aware of the provisions of Roman law concerning the matter being litigated. Appearance in Rome also implies knowledge of Latin. In any event, the interaction between peregrine communities and Roman jurisdiction required a minima, on the part of the ekdikoi, knowledge of the lex prouinciae, in the provinces where this existed, and of the provincial edict promulgated by each governor on taking office.

Changes in function under the Principate

23Even though the old form of the ekdikos persisted in some communities until at least the first half of the 2nd century CE, an evolution seems to have occurred in others, which prohibits an unambiguous definition of the term and the functions that it could cover. Some epigraphic documents give the ekdikos the appearance of a permanent magistrate, with a wider range of responsibilities than that of a public advocate.

  • 48 I.Sardis VII, 1, 8.
  • 49 Τελέσαντα τὴν ἀρχὴν καθαρῶς καὶ σ[υν]φερόντως τῇ Ἀσίᾳ, line 81; ἁγνῶς καὶ ἐπιμελῶς τοῖς τῆς Ἀσίας (...)

24It is at the federal level that the oldest evidence of this evolution can be detected. Two contemporaneous inscriptions, dating to the reign of Augustus, reveal the permanent presence of ekdikoi in the provincial assembly (koinon) of Asia. The first is a decree issued by the koinon between 5 and 1 BCE in honor of the Sardian citizen Menogenes son of Isidoros.48 The text discloses that ekdikos of the koinon of the Greeks in Asia was an annual office (ὁ καθ’ ἔτος ἔκδικος τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας Ἑλλήνων, lines 77-78), to which Menogenes acceded at least three times. The choice was always made by election (χειροτονηθεὶς καὶ ἔκδικος, line 93), but it is remarkable that, in this case, the office was considered a magistracy (τελέσαντα τὴν ἀρχὴν καθαρῶς καὶ σ[υν]φερόντως τῇ Ἀσίᾳ, line 81). In contrast, the decree is less specific about Menogenes’ remit and actions as an ekdikos of the koinon. We learn simply that he showed himself useful in communal affairs.49

  • 50 I.Priene2 14, lines 64-67: προνοῆσαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς καθ’ ἕτος ἐκδίκους ὅπως | ἐν ταῖς ἀφηγουμέναις τῶ (...)

25Some additional information appears in a document a few years older: the decree of Asia’s koinon adopting the provisions of Paulus Fabius Maximus, the proconsul of Asia, concerning the provincial calendar, in 9 BCE. Here we learn that there was not one but several ekdikoi in the koinon, forming a college. One of the main duties of the ekdikoi in office the year of the decree was to ensure that the proconsul’s instructions were engraved and displayed in the capital cities of the province’s judiciary districts.50 They thus exercised enforcement powers larger than those of the civic ekdikoi, who traditionally served as mere legal representatives for ad hoc missions.

  • 51 SEG XLIX, 1685. Fournier 2007, p. 26-27.

26Below the federal level, it seems that in at least some cities of Asia Minor, one or more ekdikoi served as permanent magistrates, their commission renewed yearly. We are certain of this for the Lydian city of Silandos. A magisterial list from the years 235 to 239 of the Sullan age – that is, 150 to 154 CE – displays repetitive sequences of three colleges of annual magistrates:51 registered each year are two archons, two agoranomi, and two ekdikoi, whose responsibilities are not detailed. It appears that their duties were not specialized but were handled by a small number of citizens, in accordance with a well-regulated rotation of the pairs of magistrates. In a recurring pattern, the ekdikoi of one year had been archons the previous year and agoranomi the year before that.

  • 52 Pliny the Younger, 10, 110. Translation by B. Radice (1963), lightly modified.
  • 53 The ekdikos of Amisos is generally considered to have been an annual magistrate: see especially C. (...)

27Elsewhere, it is possible that only one ekdikos was appointed at a time. One might suppose this of the free city of Amisos in Bithynia in particular, on reading one of the letters addressed to Trajan by Pliny the Younger, then the governor of the province of Bithynia and Pontus.52 Pliny refers to the city’s ekdikos as if he were a permanent magistrate and alone in this position.53

Ecdicus, domine, Amisenorum ciuitatis petebat apud me a Iulio Pisone denariorum circiter quadraginta milia donata ei publice ante uiginti annos bule et ecclesia consentiente utebaturque mandatis tuis quibus eius modidonationes uetantur. Piso contra plurima se in rem publicam contulisse ac prope totas facultates erogasse dicebat. Addebat etiam temporis spatium postulabatque ne id, quod pro multis et olim accepisset, cum euersione reliquae dignitatis reddere cogeretur.
The ekdikos of Amisos, Sir, has brought a claim before me against Julius Piso, for the sum of 40,000 denarii granted to the defendant twenty years previously by joint vote of the local senate and assembly. He based his claim on your instructions which forbid donations of this kind. Piso, on the other hand, declared that he had spent large sums of money on his city and had almost exhausted his means. He also pleaded the lapse of time since the grant, and argued that he should not be compelled to refund what had been given to him so long ago for his many public services, since it would mean the ruin of his remaining fortunes.

  • 54 In their commentary, H. Zehnacker and N. Méthy, CUF, 2017, p. 136, refer to a “manoeuvre d’intimid (...)
  • 55 Amisos had specialists in the law, who could inspire emulation: see in particular a funeral altar (...)

28This passage is one of the few documents of its period that make it possible to identify the prerogatives of the ekdikos, which had become, it seems, a permanent magistracy. The function of the office, even in this new form, was still to defend the city’s interests before Roman courts.54 The magistrate had thus solicited the province’s governor to initiate proceedings against a resident Roman citizen. Appealed to by Pliny, the emperor declined to make his own measure retroactive. We do not know the identity or the status of the ekdikos of Amisos. It is likely, given his position, that he himself was a Roman citizen and personally interested in knowledge – however imperfect – of the ius ciuile. The passage hardly allows a determination of the extent of his legal expertise55 but at least reveals that he based his action on the mandata sent – in Latin – by Trajan to Pliny, of which he must have been aware.

  • 56 I.Prusias ad Hypium 2, line 7; 3, lines 7-8; 6, line 8.
  • 57 In this city, a certain Cassius Lyaios was honored as an ekdikos and city secretary: I.Iznik (Nika (...)
  • 58 IC III, 3, 30.

29Amisos was not an isolated case in Bithynia. Some inscriptions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries attest the existence of a permanent ekdikos, an office sometimes combined with other magistracies, as in Prusias ad Hypium56 or Nicaea.57 The same type of position appears, less systematically, in other regions of the empire. An inscription from Hierapytna, on Crete, dating to the 2nd century CE, identifies a certain Ti. Claudius Aristagoras, son of the city, patron and ekdikos, who took on the responsibility of renovating the public archives building.58 The cumulation of the titles of prostatēs and ekdikos is significant. It evokes a prominent figure, whose influence, powers, and responsibilities were certainly much greater than those of the ekdikoi who were in office only for the duration of a legal proceeding.

  • 59 I.Ephesos 614 C, lines 9-11: διά τε συνηγο|ριῶν καὶ ἐκδικιῶν, ἃς ὑπὲρ τῶν κοι|νῶν διὰ παντὸς παρέσ (...)
  • 60 I.Ephesos 27, lines 315-320: μηδεν[ὶ] δὲ ἐξέστω ἄρχοντι ἢ ἐκδίκῳ ἢ ἰδιώ|τῃ πε̣[ιρᾶ]σαί τι ἀλλάξαι (...)
  • 61 See already, on this subject, the remark by Chapot (1904, p. 270): “on ne comprend guère cette pré (...)
  • 62 I.Ephesos 740 (211/2 CE), 743 (3rd c.), 951 (under Commodus); SEG XXXVII, 886, lines 17-18 (213-21 (...)
  • 63 In particular, we know of an ekdikos of the synedrion of the Curetes (I.Ephesos 1075).
  • 64 For the ekdikos of the Gerousia in Ephesus, see especially I.Ephesos 26 (during Commodus’s reign), (...)

30The transformation of the function of the ekdikos did not happen everywhere at the same time and at the same rate. In the cities with the most significant documentation, such as Ephesus, this change can be observed over time. In the first half of the 1st century CE, L. Antonius Albus was honored for having undertaken several missions as a synēgoros and as an ekdikos:59 it can be deduced that he likely represented the city’s interests in several trials held before a higher authority, perhaps the provincial governor. In 104 CE, a stipulation of the foundation of the rich Ephesian C. Vibius Salutaris forbade anyone, magistrate, ekdikos, or private individual, from ever proposing any modification of the decree that determined the use of this legacy.60 This means that at that time the ekdikos could be involved in the deliberative sessions of the assembly or the council and could even propose decrees, like an ordinary magistrate.61 Throughout the rest of the 2nd and the first half of the 3rd century, inscriptions indicate only a single city ekdikos, apparently now a permanent magistrate.62 Another significant development, clearly observable in Ephesus and elsewhere, is the multiplication in the epigraphic documentation of ekdikoi of colleges,63 associations, and constituent bodies, particularly the Gerousia:64 like the city ekdikos, they acted as permanent representatives, endowed with financial powers in particular.

31Beyond Ephesus, most of the civic ekdikoi in the Greek inscriptions of Asia Minor and Thrace, beginning in the 2nd century CE, appear to be single magistrates equipped with extended powers.

Conclusion: attempt at a diachronic perspective

32Considered in the long term, from the late Hellenistic to the proto-Byzantine period, the word ekdikos does not have a single definition. Indeed, at its chronological extremes it covers two very different functions. In the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, the ekdikos was an extraordinary delegate, a member of a commission appointed by a community to represent its interests, most often before an external arbitration court. Like a lawyer, he defended the city’s case against the representatives of the opposing party but exercised no regular command (archē) in the city.

  • 65 C.Th. 1, 29, 1-5. Various studies have suggested that its appearance can be traced back to Constan (...)
  • 66 The praetorian prefect then had to ratify the nomination (C.J. 1, 55, 8 pr., 409 CE). On the proce (...)
  • 67 The late empire’s defensor/ekdikos is attested notably in Amphissa in Phocis (CIL III, 568), Thess (...)
  • 68 Cf. Justinian, Nov. 15, 1. pr.; 15, 6, 1 (535 CE). The expression ἔκδικοι τοῦ πλῆθους was already (...)

33From the second half of the 4th century CE, Latin legal sources register the office of defensor ciuitatis. The position appears in legislation for the first time after 368, in the constitutions of Valentinian I and Valens preserved in the De defensoribus civitatum section of the Theodosian Code.65 This single magistrate, first appointed by the praetorian prefect and then chosen by the community,66 had wide jurisdictional and enforcement powers in minor cases, with the explicit mission of defending the interests of the most humble against local elites. He served as a kind of investigating judge for criminal and major civil trials. He could also act as a tax collector. The defensor ciuitatis appears in inscriptions from cities of the Roman East up to the 6th century CE:67 it is precisely designated, in Greek, as ekdikos.68

  • 69 Chapot 1904, p. 270-271, already reported: “il y eut encore des ἔκδικοι à l’époque impériale, mais (...)

34Is there an institutional filiation between these two forms of ekdikoi? The question requires a close look at the ekdikia of the early empire. This period poses more of a problem for historians, who struggle to retrace the institution’s evolution and to identify its points of progress and of failure.69 The term does not seem to cover a uniform function, identical in all the cities of the Roman East. While in some communities the ekdikia remained an extraordinary – and perhaps collegial – mission until the beginning of the 2nd century CE, at the same time in others – koina or cities – it became an ordinary magistracy. This second sense seemed to have been widely established from the 2nd century onward and to have continued alone in the 3rd century. Like the ekdikoi of associations or of the Gerousia, which then multiplied in the documentation, the city ekdikos became a permanent representative, endowed with broader financial and judicial prerogatives, without being an agent of the central power.

  • 70 This is the hypothesis supported by Frakes 2001, p. 42, which traces the appearance of the ekdikos(...)

35The regularization of a previously extraordinary mission suggests at least that the ekdikoi filled an essential role as intermediaries or “passers” between two legal systems, local and peregrine on the one hand, central and Roman on the other. They had undoubtedly become indispensable to the orderly running of cities. This intermediate state certainly constitutes an important, although not easily perceptible, link in the ekdikia’s long history. If there is no assurance that the defensor ciuitatis, as institutionalized in the 4th century, followed directly from the ekdikos,70 it is possible that – in the Greek nomenclature of civic institutions – this term, with its more recent meaning, seemed the most appropriate equivalent for the new office.

Bibliographie

Ager 1996 = S.L. Ager, Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337-90 B.C., Berkeley, 1996.

Burton 2000 = G.P. Burton, The Resolution of Territorial Disputes in the Provinces of the Roman Empire, in Chiron, 30, 2000, p. 195-215.

Chapot 1904 = V. Chapot, La province romaine proconsulaire d’Asie, Paris, 1904.

Curchin 2014 = L.A. Curchin, The End of Local Magistrates in the Roman Empire, in Gérión, 32, 2014, p. 271-287.

Dmitriev 2005 = S. Dmitriev, City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor, Oxford, 2005.

Fernoux 2009 = H. Fernoux, Frontières civiques et maîtrise du territoire : un enjeu pour la cité grecque sous le Haut-Empire (Ier-IIIe siècle apr. J.-C.), in H. Bru, Fr. Kirbihler, St. Lebreton (ed.), L’Asie Mineure dans l’Antiquité : échanges, populations et territoires, Rennes, 2009, p. 135-164.

Fournier 2007 = J. Fournier, Les syndikoi, représentants juridiques des cités grecques sous le Haut-Empire romain, in CCG, 18, 2007, p. 7-36.

Fournier 2010 = J. Fournier, Entre tutelle romaine et autonomie civique : l’administration judiciaire dans les provinces hellénophones de l’empire romain (129 av. J.-C.-235 apr. J.-C.), Athens, 2010.

Frakes 2001 = R.M. Frakes, Contra Potentium Iniurias: The Defensor Civitatis and Late Roman Justice, Munich, 2001.

Frakes 2018 = R.M. Frakes, The Defensor Civitatis and the Late Roman City, in AnTard, 26, 2018, p. 127-147.

Grenet 2011 = C. Grenet, Un litige foncier à Daulis au IIe s. ap. J.-C. (IG IX, 1, 61), in N. Badoud (ed.), Philologos Dionysios : Mélanges offerts au professeur Denis Knoepfler, Geneva, 2011, p. 103-148.

Jones 1940 = A.H.M. Jones, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian, Oxford, 1940.

Jones 2007 = C.P. Jones, Juristes romains dans l’Orient grec, in CRAI, 151-3, 2007, p. 1331-1359.

Laniado 2006 = A. Laniado, Le christianisme et l’évolution des institutions municipales du Bas-Empire : l’exemple du defensor civitatis, in J.-U. Krause, Chr. Witschel (ed.), Die Stadt in der Spätantike – Niedergang oder Wandel?, Stuttgart, 2006, p. 319-334.

Lévy 1899 = I. Lévy, Études sur la vie municipale de l’Asie Mineure sous les Antonins : Seconde série, in REG, 12, 1899, p. 255-289.

Magie 1950 = D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor. II, Princeton, 1950.

Marchetti 1987 = P. Marchetti, Un ekdikos méconnu en Asie Mineure au IIe s. ap. J.-C., in J. Servais, T. Hackens, B. Servais-Soyez (ed.), Stemmata, Mélanges de philologie, d’histoire et d’archéologie grecques offerts à Jules Labarbe, Liège, 1987, p. 333-336.

Mason 1974 = H.J. Mason, Greek Terms for Roman Institutions, Toronto, 1974.

Neesen 1981 = L. Neesen, Die Entwicklung der Leistungen und Ämter (munera et honores) im römischen Kaiserreich des zweiten bis vierten Jahrhunderts, in Historia, 30, 1981, p. 203-235.

Pergami 1995 = F. Pergami, Sulla istituzione del defensor civitatis, in SDHI, 61, 1995, p. 413-431.

Petsas – Hatzopoulos – Gounaropoulou 2000 = P.H.M. Petsas, M.B. Hatzopoulos, L. Gounaropoulou, Inscriptions du sanctuaire de la Mère des Dieux autochtone de Leukopétra, Athens, 2000.

Radice 1963 = B. Radice, trans., The Letters of the Younger Pliny, London, 1963.

Rizos 2018 = E. Rizos, Civic Administration in Illyricum and Thrace, in AnTard, 26, 2018, p. 211-223.

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Notes

1 This is notably the case with manumission, which still happened, for example, in the ancient form of consecration to a divinity in the sanctuary of the Mother of the Autochthonous Gods in Leukopetra, Macedonia, independent of Roman norms in this matter, until at least the beginning of the 4th c. CE (see Petsas – Hatzopoulos – Gounaropoulou 2000). The Constitutio Antoniniana did not put an end to this practice. The main difference is that these emancipations, which were initially done outside the control of the Macedonian proconsul, were then constituted “in accordance with the disposition of Tertullianus Aquila” (κατὰ τὴν ἀπόφασιν τὴν Τερτυλλιανοῦ Ἀκύλα), the proconsul in 212/3. C.P. Jones (2007, p. 1336) believes that he “rendit une décision (apophasis) relative à l’affranchissement, sans doute parce que la récente Constitutio Antoniniana avait compliqué la question pour ceux qui jusqu’alors avaient été peregrini” (rendered a decision [apophasis] on manumission probably because the recent Constitutio Antoniniana had complicated the question for those who had been peregrini until then). It was necessary to reconcile Roman citizenship with the preservation of ancient customs.

2 Cicero, Att. 6, 1, 15.

3 Cicero, Fam. 13, 26; 28.

4 Cicero, 2 Verr. 2, 32.

5 An echo of this trend appears in the edict of the proconsul Q. Mucius Scaevola, circa 99-97 BCE, as reported by Cicero, Att. 6, 1, 15. In letting Greek judges settle suits between Greeks, the governor indicated his willingness to disengage from peregrines who increasingly sought Roman jurisdiction in cases of purely local interest.

6 C.P. Jones (2007, p. 1332) suggests that “la connaissance du droit romain était répandue dans l’Orient grec dès environ 100 apr. J.-C.” (knowledge of Roman law was widespread throughout the Greek East from circa 100 CE).

7 Dig. 36, 1, 23.

8 Gaius, Institutes 2, 110.

9 Gaius, Institutes 2, 281.

10 I exclude from the scope of this study the ekdikia understood as the legal proceedings that any citizen who observed the obvious contravention of a regulatory provision, whether public or private, could bring before the local magistrates (on this subject, see Dmitriev’s remarks [2005, p. 216]). Attestations of this procedure recur in funeral inscriptions from Asia Minor from the beginning of the imperial era. See, for example, TAM III, 335, lines 8-12 (Termessos): ἑτέρω δὲ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖ|ναι ἐπενθεῖναι, ἐπεὶ ἐκτείσει | τῶ ταμείω (δην.) μύρια καὶ τῆ πόλει τῆ | Τερμησέων (δην.) μύρια, παντὸς ἔχον|τος ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τῶι ἡμίσει ἐκδικεῖν. The one who initiated the prosecution carried out the ekdikia. See TAM V, 2, 1316, lines 14-16 (Hyrcania, Lydia): ἐὰν δέ τ[ι]ς παραβῇ τι τούτων, ἀποτεισ[ά]|τ̣ωσαν τῇ κατοικίᾳ ἱερὰς ἀπαρα̣ι̣τήτους δραχμὰς φʹ καὶ ἡ ἐ̣[κδι]|[κί]α ἔστω τῷ βουλομένῳ.

11 It thus happens that the editors of inscriptions hesitate between σύνδικος and ἔκδικος when the beginning of the term must be reconstructed: see, for example, IG Bulg III, 1, 1303; I.Scythia Minor III, 121.

12 On the role of the syndikos and what distinguished it from that of the ekdikos, see Fournier 2007.

13 I.Mylasa I, app., 1, lines 2, 13.

14 I.Prusias ad Hypium 2; 6. Contra Sherwin-White 1966, p. 719: “at Prusias ad Hypium the two terms appear synonymous”.

15 The inscription I.Ephesos 614 C, in honor of Marcus Antonius Albus, indicates that this individual performed synēgoria and ekdikia at the same time on behalf of the city (see infra, n. 51). Synēgoria likewise consisted of judicial representation.

16 In English, ekdikos has been translated as “legal representative” (Magie 1950, p. 648). Different French translations of the term have been offered: “défenseur public” (Lévy 1899, p. 275; Chapot 1904, p. 270), “défenseur des droits” (L. Robert, RPh, 32, 1958, p. 29 [OMS V, p. 169]), “fondé de pouvoir,” (L.A. Constans, CUF, 1950, in Cicero, Fam. 13, 56), “receveur municipal” (M. Durry, CUF, 1947, in Pliny the Younger, 10, 110), “procureur” (H. Zehnacker and N. Méthy, CUF, 2017, same passage in Pliny), “avocat” (Grenet 2011, on the subject of the inscription IG IX, 1, 61).

17 I.Magnesia 93 (the story is summarized in Ager 1996, Case 120).

18 OGIS 335 (Ager 1996, Case 146).

19 I.Priene 111, 120, 121 (Ager 1996, Case 171).

20 See, regarding Krates, Ager 1996, Case 171, I, lines 124-126: ἀ[πὸ]|δεδειγμένος καὶ αὐτὸς ἔκδικος (. . .) [ἀποδημ]ή̣σας εἰς Ἐρυθρὰς εἰσηνέγκατο τὴν πᾶσαν ἐπιμέλειαν κα[ὶ - - - - - - - - - - δικαιο]λ̣ογήσας ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως ἐν τῶι θεάτρωι τῶι Ἐρυθραίων.

21 I.Sardis VII, 1, 27 (c. 75-50 BCE), lines 6-9: ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν καὶ φιλόπατριν ὄντα | καὶ πολλὰς πρεσβείας τελέσαντα ἐπιτυχῶς, καὶ πολ|λοὺς κινδύνους καὶ ἀγῶνας καὶ ἐγδικασίας ὑπὲρ τοῦ |δήμου ἀναδεξάμενον καὶ κατορθώσαντα.

22 Ch. Michel, Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, 459 (2nd c. BCE), lines 13-14.

23 Ager 1996, Case 171, I, lines 144-145.

24 I.Sinuri 11. Dionysios appeared twice before the court of the city of Mylasa, each time for matters concerning the god’s domains. The first time, he pleaded against the opposing party’s encroachments on the divinity’s possessions (lines 6-9); the second time, against tenants of a sacred property who were challenging the amount of its annual rent.

25 Ch. Michel, Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, 459, line 15.

26 I.Mylasa 134, line 5.

27 I.Mylasa 132, line 9.

28 On this subject, see Burton 2000.

29 I.Stratonikeia 1025, lines 23-25. Cf. I.Kibyra 41, line 4: καὶ ἐγδικήσαντα δημοσίας ὑποθέσεις πολλὰς καὶ με̣γάλα̣[ς].

30 L. Robert, La Carie II (1954), p. 180, no 78, lines 15-17: γενομένῳ δὲ καὶ ἐγδίκῳ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος περὶ τῆς τῶν ὅρων ἀποκαταστάσεως. On this case, see Fernoux 2009, p. 143.

31 I.Etenna 11 (2nd c. CE). Cf. IG XII, 2, 134 (Mytilene); TAM V, 2, 1002 (Thyatira); Milet I, 2, 7; MAMA VIII, 484 (Aphrodisias).

32 Callistratus, Dig. 50, 4, 14, 1, distinguishes the honos, “administratio rei publicae cum dignitatis gradu,” from the munus publicum, which is “sine titulo dignitatis”.

33 On this subject, see Neesen 1981, which identifies and discusses the different classifications of munera in classical and postclassical Roman law.

34 Dig. 50, 4, 18, 1 (Arcadius Charisius): “personalia sunt, quae animi prouisione et corporalis laboris intentione sine aliquo gerentis detrimento perpetrantur (…)”.

35 Some inscriptions indicate that certain ekdikoi covered the costs of their mission. See, e.g., TAM V, 2, 1002 (Thyatira), lines 9-12 (ἐκ|[δ]ικήσαντα τὰ ἀχθέντα ὑπὲρ | [Ἀτταλ]εατῶν πράγματα δαπά|[ναις] ἰδίαις); SEG LI, 1499 (decree of the koinon of the Leukoideis for the Rhodian Sopatros, 107-80 BCE), lines 8-11 (ἔγδ[ικ]ος τε γεινό|[μ]ενος πλεονάκις οὐδεμίαν δα[πάν]ην ἀνήνενκεν | [τ]ῶι κοινῶι); SEG XLVII, 1573 (Cnidos), lines 7-8 (ἐκδικίας τελέσαντα δωρεὰν).

36 In practice, the difference between magistracy and liturgy faded considerably in the imperial era: the exercise of a magistracy was regularly accompanied by the responsibility for its financing, while the financing of an institution – such as the gymnasiarchy – conferred a right to oversee its functioning.

37 CIG 2771.

38 SEG XLVII, 1573, lines 7-9: ἐκδικίας τελέσαντα δωρεὰν καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς λειτουργίας μεγαλοψύχως (the text is imprecisely dated to the imperial era).

39 Cicero, Fam. 13, 56. Translation by E.S. Shuckburgh (1908-1909), lightly modified.

40 See the cases compared by L. Robert, RPh 32, 1958, p. 30 (OMS V, p. 170).

41 TAM V, 2, 1002 (see supra, n. 35): T. Flavius Alexandros, honored by the city of Thyatira, was an ekdikos for the city of Attaleia. In at least one case, at Laodicea on the Lycus, a provincial governor was chosen as an ekdikos for the city: Cornelius Proculus, the proconsul of the province of Asia (I.Laodikeia am Lykos 37). See also Marchetti 1987, p. 333-336.

42 Inscriptions repeatedly mention the dēmosia pragmata. See, e.g., MAMA VIII, 484 (Aphrodisias, second half of the 1st c. CE), lines 14-16: πρεσβεύσαντα πλεονάκις ὑπὲρ [τ]ῆς πατρίδος, γενόμενον ἔκδικ̣ον δημοσίων πραγμάτων. Equally vague wording is used in an inscription from Thyatira (end 1st – beginning 2nd c.) concerning a representative of village communities (TAM V, 2, 974, lines 7-8): ἐπὶ τῷ ἐ<κ>δικῆσαι καὶ ἀποκαταστῆσαι τὰ τῶν κωμῶν.

43 A decree from Mylasa, dating to the 1st c. BCE, thus reveals that a citizen, “appointed an ekdikos by the People against those who had corrupted foreign courts, brought an end to most of the disputes with his ekdikoi colleagues” (I.Mylasa 134, lines 3-6: ἔγδικος | [δὲ ὑπ]ὸ τοῦ δήμου κατασταθεὶς κατὰ τῶν φθειράντων τὰ ξενικὰ δικαστήρια, | [τοὺς] πλείστους ἤδη τῶν ἀγώνων μετὰ τῶν συνκαθεσταμένων ἐκδίκων τετέλε|[κεν]). On this case and its interpretation, see Fournier 2010, p. 218-219.

44 Milet I, 2, 7, lines 28-31.

45 I.Kibyra I, 41.

46 L. Robert, La Carie II (1954), p. 180-181, no 78 (see supra, n. 30).

47 IG IX, 1, 61. On this case, see, most recently, Grenet 2011, p. 103-148.

48 I.Sardis VII, 1, 8.

49 Τελέσαντα τὴν ἀρχὴν καθαρῶς καὶ σ[υν]φερόντως τῇ Ἀσίᾳ, line 81; ἁγνῶς καὶ ἐπιμελῶς τοῖς τῆς Ἀσίας πράγμασιν προσήδρευσεν, line 94; ἀναστραφεὶς ἁγνῶς καὶ συνφερόντως τοῖς τῆς Ἀσίας πράγμασιν, line 106.

50 I.Priene2 14, lines 64-67: προνοῆσαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς καθ’ ἕτος ἐκδίκους ὅπως | ἐν ταῖς ἀφηγουμέναις τῶν διοικήσεων πόλεσιν ἐν στήλαις λευ|κολίθοις ἐνχαραχθῇ τό τε δελτογράφημα τοῦ Μαξίμου καὶ τὸ τῆς Ἀσίας | ψήφισμα.

51 SEG XLIX, 1685. Fournier 2007, p. 26-27.

52 Pliny the Younger, 10, 110. Translation by B. Radice (1963), lightly modified.

53 The ekdikos of Amisos is generally considered to have been an annual magistrate: see especially C.G. Brandis, RE V (1905), 2161, s.v. “ἔκδικος”; Sherwin-White 1966, p. 719.

54 In their commentary, H. Zehnacker and N. Méthy, CUF, 2017, p. 136, refer to a “manoeuvre d’intimidation” performed by the representative of the free city to make Julius Piso back down, whereas, by law, the authorities of Amisos itself could have settled the case.

55 Amisos had specialists in the law, who could inspire emulation: see in particular a funeral altar erected for Lucius Eiutius Elis of Amisos, “excellent legal expert, aged 22, and first of the geometers” (I.Smyrna II, 2, 893, 1st c. CE?, lines 5-9: νομικὸς ἄριστος ἐτῶν κβʹ καὶ γεομετρῶν πρῶτος). More generally, it could be that, among the approximately fifty legal experts (nomikoi) honored by Greek inscriptions in the Roman East – principally in the 2nd and 3rd centuries – some may have taken on the job of ekdikos ad hoc to defend the interests of a city, whether or not they were originally from it (on these individuals, see the study by C.P. Jones [2007]). In Aphrodisias, Aelius Aurelius Ammianus Papias, “excellent legal expert,” had thus held “the first magistracies and liturgies before adulthood” (CIG 2787, beginning of the 2nd c., lines 12-16: νομικὸν ἄριστον, ἐκτελέσαντα τὰς πρώτας ἀρχὰς καὶ λειτουργίας πρὸ ἡλικίας).

56 I.Prusias ad Hypium 2, line 7; 3, lines 7-8; 6, line 8.

57 In this city, a certain Cassius Lyaios was honored as an ekdikos and city secretary: I.Iznik (Nikaia) II, 1, 702, lines 3-5 ([ὁ] δῆμος ἐτείμησεν Κάσσιον Λυαῖον τὸν ἔκδικον καὶ γραμματέα). It is also a regular civic magistrate that we find in inscription 726, from the joint reign of Diocletian and Maximian (288). Two other inscriptions, dating to the 3rd c. CE, reveal an ekdikos for life: I.Iznik (Nikaia) I, 62, lines 9-10 (ἐκδικοῦντος διὰ βίου Μ. Αὐρ. Καλλίστου), and 63, line 9 (ἐκδικοῦντος διὰ βίου Μ. Αὐρ. [- - - -]); in both cases, it is an ekdikos of the Gerousia (see L. Robert, RPh 32, 1958, p. 29, n. 4 [OMS V, p. 169]).

58 IC III, 3, 30.

59 I.Ephesos 614 C, lines 9-11: διά τε συνηγο|ριῶν καὶ ἐκδικιῶν, ἃς ὑπὲρ τῶν κοι|νῶν διὰ παντὸς παρέσχετο.

60 I.Ephesos 27, lines 315-320: μηδεν[ὶ] δὲ ἐξέστω ἄρχοντι ἢ ἐκδίκῳ ἢ ἰδιώ|τῃ πε̣[ιρᾶ]σαί τι ἀλλάξαι ἢ μεταθεῖναι ἢ μετοικονομῆσαι ἢ μετα|ψηφί[σ]ασθα[ι] τῶν καθιερωμένων ἀπεικονισμάτων (…).

61 See already, on this subject, the remark by Chapot (1904, p. 270): “on ne comprend guère cette précaution prise contre un ambassadeur extraordinaire, alors qu’elle est toute simple à l’égard d’un fonctionnaire régulier” (it is hard to understand this precaution being taken against an extraordinary ambassador, whereas it is quite easy with regard to a regular functionary).

62 I.Ephesos 740 (211/2 CE), 743 (3rd c.), 951 (under Commodus); SEG XXXVII, 886, lines 17-18 (213-217 CE).

63 In particular, we know of an ekdikos of the synedrion of the Curetes (I.Ephesos 1075).

64 For the ekdikos of the Gerousia in Ephesus, see especially I.Ephesos 26 (during Commodus’s reign), 737 (244-246 CE). Gerousia ekdikoi are numerous in the inscriptions of Asia Minor, particularly in the cities of Bithynia and Pamphylia. See, e.g., I.Side II, 153 (with the older commentary of L. Robert, RPh 32, 1958, p. 25-31 [OMS V, p. 165-171]). Dmitriev (2005, p. 214) believes that this office was systematically held for life there. In the province of Thrace, an honorary inscription from Philippopolis explicitly mentions an ekdikos of the Gerousia (IG Bulg III, 1, 885). Other inscriptions also mention an ekdikos, although it is not easy to determine if they refer to a proxy of the Gerousia or to a civic magistrate (IG Bulg III, 1, 902; 1303; 1323; 1517; V, 5468; AE 2005, 1380).

65 C.Th. 1, 29, 1-5. Various studies have suggested that its appearance can be traced back to Constantine’s era, or even to the reign of Diocletian; see, most recently, Frakes 2001 (and, more briefly, Frakes 2018, p. 128, which also traces the institution back to Diocletian but places its true definition under Constantine’s reign). Contra Pergami 1995, which maintains that the syndikoi attested in papyri from the 330s CE and the defensor in a Constantinian constitution (C.J. 6, 1, 5) cannot be assimilated to the defensor ciuitatis of the century’s end. On the defensor’s powers, see the summary in Curchin 2014.

66 The praetorian prefect then had to ratify the nomination (C.J. 1, 55, 8 pr., 409 CE). On the procedure for selecting the defensor ciuitatis in the legislation of the late empire and the question of interpolation, see Laniado 2006.

67 The late empire’s defensor/ekdikos is attested notably in Amphissa in Phocis (CIL III, 568), Thessaly (SEG XXXVII, 500), Macedonia (I.Beroia 439-440), the Aegean islands (I.Cos ED 90), and Asia Minor (I.Sardis VII, 1, 18; I.Ephesos 1340, 1343; I.Stratonikeia 1019; I.Side 171; MAMA III, 197 A). On the general place of the defensor ciuitatis in the cities of the Roman East, see Jones 1940, p. 208-209; on the ekdikos in Illyricum, Rizos 2018, p. 214-217 (which identifies other probable cases in Achaia and Epirus). On the office and its evolution between the 4th and 6th centuries, see, most recently, the useful summary in Frakes 2018.

68 Cf. Justinian, Nov. 15, 1. pr.; 15, 6, 1 (535 CE). The expression ἔκδικοι τοῦ πλῆθους was already used circa 380 as the equivalent of defensores ciuitatum by Paenius, 1, 13, in his Greek translation of Eutropius. Sometimes defensor is translated as syndikos (Dig. 50, 4, 1, 2 [Hermogenian], 50, 4, 18, 13 [Arcadius Charisius]). But Pergami 1995, p. 415-416, shows that in those cases the word refers to the office of civil lawyer as it was known in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, not to a position that prefigured the late empire’s defensor ciuitatis.

69 Chapot 1904, p. 270-271, already reported: “il y eut encore des ἔκδικοι à l’époque impériale, mais le point délicat est de savoir si ce sont ceux dont parle Cicéron, ou déjà ceux de la période byzantine, représentants dans les villes des gouverneurs de provinces, et servant d’intermédiaires entre ceux-ci et les cités” (there were still ἔκδικοι in the imperial era, but the delicate point is to know if they were the ones that Cicero spoke about or already those of the Byzantine period, the representatives of provincial governors in cities, serving as intermediaries between the governors and the cities). C. G. Brandis, RE V (1905), p. 2160-2161, s.v. “ἔκδικος,” considers all regular ekdikoi – such as those of the koinon of Asia in the Augustan period – to be representatives of a governor (Stellvertreter des Statthalters), acting as intermediaries between him and the community. This designation would thus already be equivalent to that of defensor ciuitatis, which, however, appears in legal literature only in the 4th century (Mason 1974, p. 42, s.v. “ἔκδικος,” also implicitly recognizes this correspondence, referring principally to the appellation defensor ciuitatis in early imperial epigraphic attestations). For Magie 1950, p. 1518, “there is also no good ground […] for distinguishing, with Brandis, between two types of ekdikoi, those appointed for special cases and those who were regular officials and representatives of the governor”. Frakes 2001, p. 18, notes the same difficulty for the early empire: “So defensor, σύνδικος, and ἔκδικος are all terms used to denote different things at different times. When no clues to dating are offered […], examination of such terms is, to say the least, problematic”.

70 This is the hypothesis supported by Frakes 2001, p. 42, which traces the appearance of the ekdikosdefensor ciuitatis back to Diocletian: “As Diocletian was the author of many reforms in this period, and especially had interest in increasing the power of central imperial power at the local level, an attractive explanation would be that he reformed these earlier municipal representatives into agents of the center throughout the empire”.

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