DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0172
7. SECOND CENTURY CHRISTIAN EPITAPHS. 503
coinage of the city continued to bear the old types ; but that does not
prove the city to be pagan. The Fortune of the city is a very common
type; but, in the spirit of concession which evidently ruled at
Eumeneia, probably a Chr. would not hesitate to authorize such types.
The coinage ends about 260 A.D.; and it is not very varied. About
350-360, when persecution was being renewed, several Diana types
occur, as if some acknowledgement of the established religion were
necessitated at that crisis.
Further the inscr. convey the impression that there was no violent
break between Greek and Chr. culture in Eumeneia. There is no sign
of bitterness on either side. Even no. 232, which is distinctly anti-
Christian, savours more of argument than of persecution; it seems
to indicate deliberate choice of the better of two alternatives. The
inscr. bring before us a picture of rich and generous development,
of concession, of liberality, in which people of diverse thoughts were
practically reconciled in a single society. But they also show us
Eumeneia as mainly a city of Christians. Nothing similar to this is
known throughout the ancient world: Eumeneia stands before us as
the earliest Chr. city of which record remains, exemplifying the
practical conciliation of two hostile religions in a peaceful and orderly
city. The first requirement exacted from every Asian city by the
Imperial government was order and quiet: the citizens felt this, and
in ordinary circumstances the citizens seem to have confined them-
selves to verbal disagreement, while each section avoided extremes.
The ordinary class of municipal inscr., empty honorary decrees and
the like, are conspicuously absent in Eumeneia during the third
century, though the epigraphic harvest is unusually rich: the decrees
published in Ch. X App. 1 are all obviously earlier, except no. 197,
which perhaps belongs to the philosophic reaction. This suggests
that attention was withdrawn from the rather silly style of business
that seems generally to have occupied much time in the meetings of
Senate and Demos ; and that energy was concentrated on the practical
problem of working out, within the bounds of 'the Roman peace,'
a balance between the stronger Chr. and the diminishing pagan party.
It would be interesting to trace the character of this practical com-
promise of interests ; but evidence does not exist as to details. It was
necessary to keep up the forms of the established worship of the
Emperors, for that cultus was ' the key-stone of the Imperial policy \'
and the maintenance of it was the test of loyalty: to the ancient mind
1 Church in R. E. p. 324; quoted with approval by Mommsen in Expositor 1893
VIII p. 2.
coinage of the city continued to bear the old types ; but that does not
prove the city to be pagan. The Fortune of the city is a very common
type; but, in the spirit of concession which evidently ruled at
Eumeneia, probably a Chr. would not hesitate to authorize such types.
The coinage ends about 260 A.D.; and it is not very varied. About
350-360, when persecution was being renewed, several Diana types
occur, as if some acknowledgement of the established religion were
necessitated at that crisis.
Further the inscr. convey the impression that there was no violent
break between Greek and Chr. culture in Eumeneia. There is no sign
of bitterness on either side. Even no. 232, which is distinctly anti-
Christian, savours more of argument than of persecution; it seems
to indicate deliberate choice of the better of two alternatives. The
inscr. bring before us a picture of rich and generous development,
of concession, of liberality, in which people of diverse thoughts were
practically reconciled in a single society. But they also show us
Eumeneia as mainly a city of Christians. Nothing similar to this is
known throughout the ancient world: Eumeneia stands before us as
the earliest Chr. city of which record remains, exemplifying the
practical conciliation of two hostile religions in a peaceful and orderly
city. The first requirement exacted from every Asian city by the
Imperial government was order and quiet: the citizens felt this, and
in ordinary circumstances the citizens seem to have confined them-
selves to verbal disagreement, while each section avoided extremes.
The ordinary class of municipal inscr., empty honorary decrees and
the like, are conspicuously absent in Eumeneia during the third
century, though the epigraphic harvest is unusually rich: the decrees
published in Ch. X App. 1 are all obviously earlier, except no. 197,
which perhaps belongs to the philosophic reaction. This suggests
that attention was withdrawn from the rather silly style of business
that seems generally to have occupied much time in the meetings of
Senate and Demos ; and that energy was concentrated on the practical
problem of working out, within the bounds of 'the Roman peace,'
a balance between the stronger Chr. and the diminishing pagan party.
It would be interesting to trace the character of this practical com-
promise of interests ; but evidence does not exist as to details. It was
necessary to keep up the forms of the established worship of the
Emperors, for that cultus was ' the key-stone of the Imperial policy \'
and the maintenance of it was the test of loyalty: to the ancient mind
1 Church in R. E. p. 324; quoted with approval by Mommsen in Expositor 1893
VIII p. 2.