Roman culture in a Greek context: Smyrna between the first and the fourth century AD. Some preliminary observations

Abstract

Smyrna was founded by Greek colonists; in 132 BC it was incorporated in the Roman province of Asia Proconsular, but only during the period of Augustus (27 BC–14 AD) and the Flavian Dinasty (96-192 AD) Smyrna became “one of the most beautiful cities in the Empire”, especially after the reconstruction of the city ordered by Marcus Aurelius in the third century AD. If it’s possible to see the magnificence of a typical Roman city, it’s also true that the majority of the private inscriptions was written in Greek language throughout the imperial period: so we can deduce that in Smyrna there was a bilingual population, that used the Latin for public institutions and the Greek for the private life. Despite of the lack of information, it’s possible to outline that in Smyrna the Roman influence lasted until the seventh century AD, but after the fall of the Roman Empire the Greek culture became again dominant. To sum up, we can infer that at a local level, the Roman influence was only superficial; in fact the Greek culture turned up until the Middle Age.