Triggered Identities and Imperial Power? Macedonian label re/use by civic communities in Roman Lydia and Phrygia.

Abstract

The present thesis investigates why a number of Lydian and Phrygian communities in Asia Minor used the Macedonian label as tool of self-representation in the Roman Imperial period. This phenomenon developed centuries after Alexander the Great and the Macedonian dynasties, which ruled the Hellenistic kingdoms. The first two chapters present two specific case studies: the Phrygian community of Blaundos and the Lydian centre of Hyrkanis. The analysis draws on the collection of the epigraphic and numismatic evidence related to these archaeological sites, in order to find possible interpretative patterns of the re-appearance of the Macedonian label and symbols during the Roman Imperial period. The hypothesis to be tested is the concept of “triggered identity”. Was the re/use of the Macedonian label triggered by the intervention of the Roman Empire? The fourth chapter presents the wider context, bringing in the practices of other regional communities in order to situate the use of the Macedonian label by the civic communities of Blaundos and Hyrkanis. Did they constitute an exception or a trend in the wider regional context of Lydia and Phrygia? The fifth chapter analyses the meaning of “Being Macedonian” within the Roman Imperial ideology, by drawing on the writings of two ancient authors, who were contemporaries in the second century AD, Polyaenus and Aelius Aristides. The present study will address four key questions: 1) Why did the Macedonian label become important for several local communities under the Roman Empire? 2) How was the Macedonian label exploited by Phrygian and Lydian communities? 3) Why did several Phrygian and Lydian civic communities use a Macedonian label instead of a different Greek one? 4) Was the use of the Macedonian label caused by an external “trigger”? More specifically, could the use of the Macedonian label be the outcome of the ideology of the ruling power, or was it an autonomous construction triggered but not directed by Roman Imperial authority? The findings of the research show that the interest from Roman emperors in Alexander the Great and the Macedonians might be one of the triggers behind the choice by Blaundos, Hyrkanis and other communities of Asia Minor to re-use the Macedonian label as part of the civic memory. Another trigger to a change in the self-representations of civic identity was the desire by these provincial elites to be part of a Greek cultural network.