Ramsay, William Mitchell: The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia: being an essay of the local history of Phrygia from the earliest time to the Turkish conquest (Band 1,1): The Lycos Valley and South-Western Phrygia (Oxford, 1895)

13. GEROUSIA. 113

Elders, but denoted the entire body. Other equivalent terms are
avar-qfia, crvvtSpiov twv Trpeo-fivripaii' \ or trvviSpiov simply. As to
officials, besides raji'ias and \oyio-Tijs, we find irpocrrdrr]^, ypap/iarevs.
The Gyrnnasiarch was, at Hierapolis, the controller of the funds of the
Gerousia.

So far the Gerousia might seem to be only a club of the older
citizens ; but the following facts point to the existence of restrictions
on the number and to conditions of admission. The rank of Senator
and Elder is often mentioned, evidently with the implication that
each title denoted a grade of honour. When a Gerousia was formed
at Sidyma about the end of the second century, there were exactly
one hundred members in it. At Sillyon, in the third century, a
certain Menodora distributed to each senator eighty-six denarii, to
each elder eighty, to each demotes seventy-seven, to each ordinary
citizen nine, and each freedman three. This proves that the Senate,
Gerousia, and Demos were assemblies limited in number, and shows
the comparative rank of each. The large revenues of the Gerousia
alone would suffice to raise it above the rank of a mere club, and
make it a great and influential institution.

At Hierapolis the Gerousia seems to have been arranged in groups
or classes, and a list of the members in each class was given in a
separate tablet (Pyxion). There were at least eight such classes.
Bequests were sometimes left, not to the whole Gerousia, but to the
particular pyxion in which the testator might be. In inscr. 20 the
deceased, Apollonios, had left to the eighth pyxion three hundred
denarii; in other two cases the testator, while still living, bequeaths
three hundred denarii to whatever class he may be in at his death.
The person who was living did not know in what class he would be
at the time of his death2; therefore there must have been some rule,

M. Th. Eeinaoh distinguishes be- in inferring that they were different

tween the npea[SuT(poL and the Gerousia, from the Gerousia. So far as I can

Rev. Et. Gr. 1893 p. 162 ; but I cannot gather, his sole argument for distin-

believe he is right. MM. Cousin and guishing the two bodies is that the

Desehamps rightly remark BCH 1888 Presbyteroi were social,-the Gerousia

P- 211 that the avifTr)pa rasv npio-fivrfpav political. But when we find that the

u* Magnesia Mae. is proved by their in- Gerousia is fundamentally social, the

scription to be the same as the Gerousia. argument loses all weight. Add. 35.
fhe npetrfivTepoi at EphesOS were cer- a 7ru£to) orvnv av ivKaTa\Tj(j)6co or iv a av

tainly the Gerousia, see Hicks 77, Mena- Karakt)<t>6S> (CIG 3912, 3919, Wadd. 1680,

dier 57. Reinach rightly says that the 1681). The idea that these bequests are

n-peo-/3'v7-epot at Iasos are clearly proved made by persons who were not yet Elders,

V the inscriptions to be a mere asso- but expected to become so in due course,

eiation of elderly citizens without any need not be considered,

political character ; but he is not right f
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