The precise significance of his reform is difficult to evaluate because we do not know if his visit preceded or followed the episode of Nicocrates and Arataphila. Lucullus’ citation from Plato, who, after alluding to Cyrene’s previous flourishing state, had added that no one was easier to govern than he who had been brought low by fortune, indicates that the city had been in a bad way, and was therefore ready to consent to unpalatable measures;[402] but it can hardly be supposed that these were fundamentally to the detriment of an aristocratic régime, since Rome’s permanent policy was to intervene in favour of such regimes. Generally, it looks as though Lucullus’ visit took place after Arataphila’s restoration of aristocratic government rather than before it.
Fifty years later (between 31 and 13 B.C.) it is true, M. Agrippa, minister of Augustus, addressed the city as “the people, the archons and the council of Cyrene”,[403] which would mean, theoretically, that a more democratic form of rule had meantime been reintroduced — yet this need be no more than a conventional diplomatic formula.[404]
In 88/6 B.C., when Lucullus reached Cyrene to mobilize ships,[405] he also found need, according to Strabo as cited by Josephus,[406] to put down a Jewish disturbance (στάσις). The reasons for this disturbance will be discussed elsewhere (see Ch. V), for this is the first appearance of the Jews in the country’s history as an independent political factor, and in the second half of the century (31-13 B.C.) they were again at odds with the city over their right to transmit the half-sheqel to the Temple of Jerusalem.[407]
The political disturbances and conflicts in Cyrene, however, do not seem to have ceased with Lucullus’ visit, and in 74 B.C. the Roman Senate saw need to intervene directly, assigning the task to a magistrate with the junior rank of quaestor.[408] If this was a decision to annex the country as a province, it may have been influenced by the pressure of a group of Roman citizens, including publicani, possessed of economic and financial interests, already settled in the country, and whose existence is evidenced by an inscription of 67 B.C. dedicated to Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus,[409] Pompey’s legate. Mentioned also in another source,[410] they had perhaps arrived earlier to take over the exploitation of the agri publici. Oost, on the other hand sees the Senate’s shortage of money as the main inducement for the annexation, and Badian finds no evidence of publicani before 67,[411] when Crete was added to the Roman dominions; by 63 Cyrene was certainly a province, and the administration of the island was merged with that of Cyrenaica.[412]
Several scholars[413] have assumed, that on the establishment of the province Cyrene lost her freedom. This however is doubtful, since the city’s officers and troops took part in the war against the Marmaritae at the end of the century under the leadership of their High Priest,[414] hence Cyrene may have retained her position as a free ally. Nevertheless, several inscriptions, particularly one group belonging to the year 67 B.C.,[415] indicate the continuation of an unstable internal situation. That year Pompey’s legate Lentulus Marcellinus arrived in the country during his commander’s great drive against the eastern Mediterranean pirates. The law which had given Pompey command of the campaign (the Lex Gabinia de piratis) had granted to him and his lieutenants control over a zone of 400 stades (80 kilometres) inland from all the coasts concerned, and Marcellinus apparently found it necessary to use this authority in Cyrenaica. According to the above inscriptions, a group of Roman citizens expressed its thanks to Cornelius Marcellinus for suppressing pirates,[416] and the legate settled on land near Ptolemais a mixed body of settlers, including some Cyreneans, but also people from Cilicia and IIIyria;[417] this is likely enough to have been the settlement of a group of captured pirates on the model of similar colonization work carried out by Pompey in Asia, Greece and Italy.[418] Marcellinus further arbitrated in a dispute between Apollonia and Cyrene,[419] and collected contributions towards some project of watersupply or irrigation.[420] All this suggests that the country’s government had been so enfeebled that Marcellinus had been forced to intervene in its internal affairs to the point of suppressing banditry; the Cyreneans at any rate felt bound to honour him with the title of “saviour” (σωτήρ),[421] an appellation hitherto reserved by them for the Ptolemies and in a later period for Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.
This period seems, nevertheless, to have been one of prosperity for Ptolemais. The remains of the “palace”, a wealthy residence excavated in the centre of the city (il Palazzo dei Colonne)[422], if they belong initially to this period, reveal wealth and good taste influenced both by the eastern and western Mediterranean. The Roman governor Crassus (23-19 B.C.) opened a mint in Ptolemais,[423] which already exceeded Cyrene in importance, and hardly fell behind the more ancient city in its objets d’art; its system of water supply was more up to date, its dwellings were larger and more magnificent. Ptolemais also boasted an academy and several gymnasia. Its commercial and economic contacts are evidenced by finds of Italian Arretine red glaze pottery, and of abundant Gallic terra sigillata. Stlaccius, whose name appears in the city’s neighbourhood,[424] perhaps belonged to the Puteolan family of that name, freed slaves engaged in the eastern trade; two brothers of this name are mentioned contemporaneously in the edicts which Augustus directed to Cyrene.[425] West of the city of Ptolemais, a majestic mausoleum was built in the second half of the ist century B.C., and later passed, on epigraphical evidence, into the hands of the Stlaccii themselves.[426] The palace of columns possessed roomy cellars, and attached shops on the north and east. In the ist century B.C. and A.D. there were changes and improvements in the building. Although an analysis of the personal Latin names recorded at Teucheira, Ptolemais and Cyrene in the early imperial period is not yet available, the impression is that the province absorbed a considerable group of Italian immigrants after the death of Apion and in the reign of Augustus.
412
See generally
418
Strabo VIII, 7, 5 (388); XIV, 3, 3 (665); Plut.,