Marcin N. Pawlak

A few months before his death, Caesar decided to establish a Roman colony on the spot where Corinth, destroyed in 146 BC, used to lie. The population of Roman Corinth was ethnically and socially diverse from the very beginning. This, however, does not change the fact that the city was a Roman colony, whose offi cial name was Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis. With time, natural demographic processes started to take place, which on the one hand increased the original diversity, and on the other hand reinforced the strongest element of this diversity, i.e. Greekness. In this article, the author tries to answer the often-asked question about the circumstances in which Corinth – a Roman colony – started to be perceived as a hellenised city. What exactly does the “hellenisation” of Corinth mean and how does it show?

The article is an attempt to find answers to the fundamental questions of which Roman province the individual islands belonged to and from when. The literature on the subject frequently presents the opinion that some of the Aegean Islands were incorporated into the province of Asia at the moment of its creation. The status of the other islands was, in turn, regulated by Augustus. After a meticulous analysis of sources, the author shows that such an image is oversimplified. The administrative affiliation of the individual islands changed depending on the political circumstances and the good or bad will of the Roman generals operating in the East. The efforts of the islanders themselves were also not without significance. The locations of the individual Aegean Islands were very different, and some of them formally became part of the Roman Empire only during the Flavian rule

Theophanes and Potamon of Mytilene, two Greek euergetes who sought to serve their home polis in a rapidly changing political landscape of the late Roman Republic and early Principate, took an active interest in the politics of the day and sought to lobby Roman elites on Mytilene’s behalf. Theophanes befriended and advised Pompey, contributing to Pompey’s decision to pardon and liberate Mytilene after the city’s ignominious participation in the Asiatic Vespers, whereas Potamon served as Mytilene’s ambassador in Rome, adroitly championing its city’s interests. Two politicians bettered Mytilene’s political status in the tumultuous period of transformation from a republic to an autocracy and ensured that the city maintained its freedom until the times of the Flavians.