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Early Christian communities emerged in a range of urban communities found across the Roman provinces around the eastern Mediterranean. Some were established in formal Roman colonies such as Pisidian Antioch, Philippi, and Corinth. The urban landscape deliberately evoked Rome, urban officials were known by their Latin terminology, and Latin was the formal language. The colonial contexts provided early Christian communities with a hierarchical structure where Roman citizenship and its related status was highly valued. There was a strong element of personal patronage, such as the likely introduction of Paul to Pisidian Antioch through his encounter with Sergius Paulus the Roman governor of Cyprus. Civic elites from polities such as Sparta are known to have gravitated towards provincial centres such as Corinth during the first century AD. These colonial settings contrast with other poleis such as Athens and Thessalonike that echoed their Hellenistic pasts with their traditional forms of magistracies and cults. It is important to look beyond these colonial settings to the dispersed rural communities within their provinces and their relationship with the urban populations.
Corinth in Context. Comparative Perspectives on Religion and Society. Ed. by S. J. Friesen, J. Walters, and D. Schowalter
The Emperor in a Roman Town: The Base of the Augustales in the Forum at Corinth2010 •
From the Late Republic to High Empire, inscriptions attest to seventeen freed magistrates, including quaestors, aediles, duoviri, octoviri, and quattuorviri, from colonies, oppida, and municipia in Greece, Macedonia, Illyria, Africa, and Italy. These examples obviate the assumption that freedmen could only hold office in a Caesarian colony before the lex Visellia (24 c.e.). Rather, individual freedmen were elected thanks to patronage, public benefactions, and a local preference for economic success over traditional, aristocratic hierarchies such as Rome’s. The fact that Roman customs and laws did not govern all colonies or municipia equally demonstrates the flexibility of Roman imperialism.
Buried History 47, pp. 3-21
‘“More Than Conquerors” (Rom 8:37): Paul’s Gospel and the Augustan Triumphal Arches of the Greek East and Latin West’2011 •
This paper investigates the social and theological import of Romans against the iconography of the Augustan arches, focusing on Paul's indebtedness to Greeks and barbarians, the reconciliation of enemies, the victory of Christ on behalf of believers, and his rule over the nations. D.C. Lopez and B. Kahl investigated the iconographic evidence of Aphrodisias and Pergamon when discussing the political implications of Paul's gospel in the Roman province of Asia. Paul visited neither city, so arguments about the apostle's interaction with the imperial ideology of 'victory' depends more on the ubiquity of the Julio-Claudian propaganda than on any contact Paul might have had with those specifi c monuments. The Augustan arches throughout the Empire stereotypically depict the humiliation of barbarians at the sites of Pisidian Antioch, a city visited by Paul (Acts 13:14-50), as well as at La Turbie, Glanum, Carpentras and the triple arch at the Roman Forum. However, there were other iconographic motifs on the arches that confl icted with the relentless triumphal ideology of Augustus. They articulated an alternate vision of social relations between conqueror and conquered.
This was a 1990 paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, summarizing the state of knowledge about Alexandria Troas before the recent excavations had begun. After summarizing the history of the polis it describes its importance as an early center of Christianity.
2005 •
2015 •
L’HÉRITAGE GREC DES COLONIES ROMAINES D’ORIENT Interactions culturelles dans les provinces hellénophones de l’empire romain (éd. par C. Brélaz)
“Bande à part” : l’eredità greca nelle colonie augustee di Sicilia2017 •
Brélaz, C. (éd.), L'héritage grec des colonies romaines d'Orient: interactions culturelles et linguistiques dans les provinces hellénophones de l'Empire romain (Études d’archéologie et d’histoire ancienne de l’Université de Strasbourg), Paris
L’identità greca di Neapolis2017 •
2019 •
L’Illyrie méridionale et l’Épire dans l’antiquité V
The Roman Forum at Butrint and the Development of the Ancient Urban Center2011 •
Religion in the Roman Empire
Macedonian small towns and their use of Augustus2016 •
in Il princeps romano: autocrate o magistrato? Fattori giuridici e fattori sociali del potere imperiale da Augusto a Commodo, ed. J.-L. Ferrary and J. Scheid
"The Roman Emperor and the Local Communities of the Roman Empire"2014 •
María-Paz de Hoz, Juan Pablo Sánchez and Carlos Molina (Eds.), Between Tarhuntas and Zeus Polieus: Cultural Crossroads in the Temples and Cults of Graeco-Roman Anatolia (Colloquia Antiqua 17) Peeters, 2016, pp. 119-150
MÊN ASKAENOS AND THE NATIVE CULTS OF ANTIOCH BY PISIDIAUrban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary …
Urban Corinth: An Introduction2005 •
From Artemis to Diana.
Sanctuaries of Artemis and the Domitii Ahenobarbi2009 •
Roman Butrint. An Assessment: 44-61
The Trojan connection: Butrint and Rome2007 •
A Companion to the Roman Empire
Cities and Urban Life in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire 30 BCE‐250 CE2006 •
Classical Philology 97 (2002) 168-178.
When did the Isthmian Games Return to the Isthmus? (Re-Reading Corinth 8.3. 153)2016 •
Religion in Republican Italy
Hot, cold, or smelly: the power of sacred water in Roman religion, 400-100 BCE2006 •
Early Christianity in Contexts, edited by W. Tabbernee
Early Christianity in contexts: the Balkan peninsula, Achaea and the Greek islands2014 •
A.D. Rizakis – Cl. Lepenioti (eds.), Roman Peloponnese III. Society, economy and culture under the Roman Empire: continuity and innovation (Meletemata 63), Athens 2010, 375-406
The imperial cult in the Peloponnese2010 •
David W J Gill