Honorific Habit

For more than a century, archaeologists have equated the city of Pergamon with the capital of the Attalid kingdom. In contrast, this article investigates the ‘dark side’ of power, providing for the first time an archaeological perspective on the Pergamon of a broader citizenry and the manifestations of civic life within the urban space of the royal city.
To the question of civic visibility, Hellenistic honorific decrees present the chief hermeneutic key. These texts describe, in abundant terms from the semantic field of 'φαίνεσθαι' (becoming manifest, shining forth) , the municipal honorific practice toward dynasts and local euergetes, as a pivotal means of communal self-appearance. The Ionic city of Priene, with its agora a monumental arena for the civic honorific habit, is an ideal setting in which to study the Hellenistic ethos to make the polis manifest, with deft configurations of architecture, statuary, and inscriptions.
For Pergamon, this article discusses three distinct forms of civic expression in the light of epigraphic and archaeological evidence: first, citizens’ munificence and the donation of public buildings; second, the honorific habit of the demos both toward the king's philoi and the royal house; third, the municipal ruler cult. The last part aims at mapping the civic sphere of Pergamon and examines the Upper Agora – the presumed core of the polis – with respect to its alleged civic character.
As a result we can establish, for the Pergamene demos, an extraordinary internal dynamic in the struggle for presence. Evidence confronts us with an almost complete "blank space" of civic initiative under the first two kings, Attalos I and Eumenes II, suggesting severe political constraints imposed on the Pergamene demos by the Attalids. Only in the final years of Attalid rule, the citizenry entered rather suddenly into direct honorific dialogue with King Attalos III, and in doing so, emerge into visibility with and ‘through’ the ruler.

At Rome the ideal of the Roman woman was that of the perfectissima femina (“the most perfect of women”), to borrow the phrase that Seneca used to describe his aunt Helvia, who remained married to just one husband, who lived in a discreet fashion dedicating herself to the household, and who risked her own life to rescue her husband’s mortal remains. As a result, it was their domestic virtues that marked out Roman matrons as women of excellence, while public affairs were reserved for men, who were responsible for administering their cities and the Empire. However, the Iberian peninsula presents a set of notable exceptions to this general rule. Here despite their theoretical exclusion from any kind of political responsibility, certain women, namely of the broadly defined elite, played a notable role in the public sphere during the first two and a half centuries CE. Far from making any claim to this, they played a key role in the private sphere, which by necessity brought their actions to public notice, because the family was one of the main areas for determining men’s public reputation. Even if they gained prestige only vicariously, they were able in this way to find their place in history, their history, which is the subject of this book.
À Rome, l’idéal de la femme était celui de la perfectissima femina, “la plus parfaite des femmes”, celle que décrit Sénèque à travers sa tante Helvia, qui fut l’épouse d’un seul homme, qui vécut toujours dans la discrétion de son foyer et qui risqua sa vie pour sauver la dépouille de son mari. Ce sont donc les vertus domestiques qui faisaient des matrones romaines des femmes d’excellence, tandis que les affaires publiques étaient réservées aux hommes qui géraient les cités et l’Empire. Or, la péninsule Ibérique offre à cette règle sociale une remarquable série d’exceptions. Là, malgré leur exclusion théorique de toute responsabilité politique, certaines dames, celles de l’élite au sens large, ont occupé la sphère publique pendant les deux premiers siècles et demi de notre ère. En dehors de toute revendication, elles ont joué un rôle de premier plan comme actrices d’une vie privée qui devait s’exposer au grand jour, parce que la famille était devenue l’un des piliers de la reconnaissance publique des
hommes. Même si elles n’ont eu qu’un prestige par procuration, elles ont su par là entrer dans l’Histoire, la leur, celle que raconte ce livre.
El ideal de la mujer romana era el de la perfectissima femina, tal como describe Séneca a su tía, quien fuera la esposa de un solo hombre, que vivió de forma discreta ocupándose únicamente de su hogar y que arriesgó su vida para salvar los restos mortales de su esposo. Así pues, las matronas romanas se convertían en mujeres de excelencia gracias a las virtudes domésticas, mientras que los asuntos públicos estaban reservados a los hombres, que regían las ciudades y el Imperio. Sin embargo, la Península Ibérica ofrece una serie de extraordinarias excepciones a esta regla. A pesar de su teórica exclusión de toda responsabilidad pública, algunas damas, que podemos considerar como miembros de la élite en sentido amplio, ocuparon la esfera pública durante los doscientos cincuenta primeros años de nuestra era. Sin ver en ello reivindicación alguna, dichas mujeres jugaron un papel destacado como actrices de una vida privada que debía ser expuesta públicamente, en un momento en el que la familia se había convertido en uno de los pilares de la reputación pública de los hombres. A pesar de que ellas solo obtuvieron un prestigio por procuración, consiguieron entrar de este modo en la Historia, la suya, la que narra este libro.

翻閱東亞各地在十七、十八世紀留下的海洋史料時，經常會遇到冠以「官」、「舍」等詞綴的人名，它們與當時縱橫東亞海域的閩南海商密切有關，是非常有福建和閩語特色的標誌。但是這些人名詞綴的意義、用法、詞源，仍是尚未徹底解明的問題。本研究先從批判目前被普遍引用理論下手，梳理此說法從明代中葉至二十世紀初的學術脈絡，並指出既有理論的疑點以及與常理不合之處。筆者認為，梁嘉彬提出的證據僅是缺乏歷史根據的傳說，無法和史料互相檢證，更不可能解釋「官」和「舍」這兩個頭銜的使用，反而是清代《廈門志》與《廈英大辭典》所記的用法較為正確，並且可以和閩南語戲文、臺灣的古契字、廣東行商的名號、巴達維亞華人史料互相印證。至於「官」與「舍」的詞源，則分別可上溯至宋代的身分制度和太學三舍法，本研究將以歷代史料說明之。

Reading maritime materials from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we usually encounter names with -qua and -sia suffixes. These distinctive honorific suffixes belonged to Hokkien merchants who took a significant part in the East Asian maritime trade. However, the meanings, usages, and etymologies have not yet clarified. This study first criticizes the existing theory proposed by Liang Chia-pin in the 1930s and points out its problems. However, I find no support to Liang’s theory and evidences in the historical materials. They are merely folk stories without historical basis and cannot explain the usages of -qua and -sia. I believe The Gazette of Amoy (Xiamen-zhi) and The Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular of Spoken Language of Amoy offer the correct meanings and usages of these honorific suffixes: -qua is applicable to all gentlemen, but -sia is exclusive to the relatives of mandarins. I have found many supportive evidences in the Hokkien language materials, such as scripts, land deeds, merchants’ trade names, Chinese records from Batavia (Jakarta), etc. According to the usages of these suffixes, I also trace their etymologies to the Song dynasty, and try to explain their diachronic changes with historical evidences.

ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH :
Cato the Younger’s arrival in Antioch, during a trip in the Eastern Mediterranean, was reported by both Plutarch and Julian. Cato would have mistaken about honors he thought being destined for him. In analysing in minute detail these two authors’ texts, but also the transmission of the anecdote, my purpose in writing the present paper is to underline the complexity of interactions between discourses, several of which contribute to make Cato a model, a Greek cultural practice (the apantesis), and Cato’s, his biographers’, and Julian’s representations, as well as their readers’ ones.
---------------------------------------- RÉSUMÉ EN FRANÇAIS : L’arrivée de Caton le Jeune à Antioche, au cours d’un voyage en Méditerranée orientale, a été rapportée à la fois par Plutarque et Julien. Caton se serait mépris sur des honneurs qu’il pensait lui être destinés. Analysant minutieusement les textes de ces deux auteurs, mais aussi la transmission de l’anecdote, le présent article cherche à souligner la complexité des interactions entre des discours, dont plusieurs concourent à faire de Caton un modèle, une pratique culturelle grecque (l’apantèsis), et les représentations de Caton, de ses biographes et de Julien, ainsi que de leurs lecteurs.

This article discusses the phenomenon of public munificence as seen in the Greek cities on the western/northern Black Sea coast between the fifth c. BC and the third c. AD. The analysis of over three hundred local honorific inscriptions demonstrated that certain trends, such as the
growing popularity of euergetism in the second c. AD, closely resembled those seen in other communities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Nonetheless, the occurrence of particular deeds in the material
that was analysed deviates from the contemporaneous standards of the Eastern Mediterranean. More expensive contributions, such as building funds or large direct donations, were relatively rare in western and northern Pontic Greek cities, possibly due to their precarious political and financial position. The material that was analysed showcases that the Greek poleis from the northwest Pontic region initially experienced constant pressure from the hinterland tribes. Records of envoys to natives decline in number between the Hellenistic and Roman periods, proving that, thanks to the pax Romana, the barbarian threat was substantially reduced.