Lunch @ Lepage with Dr. Eliza Gettel — “Between Federation and Empire: The Koinon in Roman Hellas”
On Wednesday, September 20, 2023, The Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest hosted Dr. Eliza Gettel, the Albert R. Lepage Assistant Professor of History, for the first Lunch @ Lepage event of the 2023 fall semester. Dr. Gettel presented research she conducted as a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study for her upcoming first book Between Federation and Empire: The Koinon in Roman Hellas, which analyzes the role of traditional Greek Federalist systems in Roman Hellas.
Dr. Eliza Gettel hosted the Lepage Center’s first “Lunch @ Lepage” of the Fall 2023 semester to share research she conducted for her book project Between Federation and Empire: The Koinon in Roman Hellas. This book analyzes the role of Koina in Greek Federalist systems, namely those in Roman Hellas. Modern day Greece was called Hellas by its inhabitants, and it only became known as Greece as an anglicization of the Roman word for the nation. Between Federalism and Empire’s structure is divided into two main parts: an institutional history and an analysis of the political imaginary (The norms, values, institutions, laws and symbols people use to interpret their political climate) the Greeks used to understand changing federal systems in Roman Hellas. The institutional history section of the book looks at the structure and functions of Greek Federalism within Roman Hellas. The political imaginary section of the book makes a larger argument about Greek Federalism’s role as a framework for Greeks in Roman Hellas to understand the Roman Empire’s political climate.
To start the discussion, Dr. Gettel described the importance of koina (singular koinon, meaning “common thing” in the sense of “public”) in Greek society. Koina were local political communities that brought together people from different city-states, poleis (singular polis), city-states within Greece’s mainland, or different ethnic groups (ethnos). Koina were central in forming Greek perspectives on religious, economic, and political communities above the level of the polis in the Greek world. To understand how Greeks viewed the shift to Roman rule, Dr. Gettel used a thought experiment from the perspective of Epaminondas, a real person who lived in Theosia on the Greek mainland in 27 BCE. Epaminondas represented the common Greek person living in Hellas, who had to comprehend their governmental system changing. Common terminology, notions of citizenship, and social and political hierarchies shifted. To comprehend this shift, Greek citizens like Epaminondas had to use established terminology and systems like koina to comprehend their new government.
Next, Dr. Gettel explained how she became fascinated with the Koinon. While pursuing her Ph.D. in Ancient History at Harvard, Dr. Gettel pursued Greco Roman history. During her second year, she read the book Creating a Common Polity by Emily Mackel, which discussed the importance of koina in the ancient Greek world. Mackel asserts that the koinon was everywhere in Greece, permeating in every part of life. Simultaneously, Dr. Gettel was taking a class on Roman Hellas and was surprised that koina were not discussed, and she realized this was common throughout the Greco Roman historical community. This led to the question that drove Dr. Gettel’s research going forward: Could something as significant as the Koinon really just disappear? Upon investigating this question, Dr. Gettel sought answers in Graecia Capta by Susan Alcock, the seminal book on Roman Greece. Alcock acknowledged the existence of the koinon, even listing some that existed in Roman Greece, but she asserted that political power in Roman Greece was situated in the poleis, or city-states, with the Koina playing a small, insignificant role. Alcock’s perspective on koina left Dr. Gettel unsatisfied, and she decided she was going to conduct research to challenge this common historical perspective.
Between Federation and Empire challenges the historical consensus that koina ceased to exist in any significant context after the end of the Acheaen War, when Rome sacked Corinth in 146 BCE. This perspective is rooted in the writings of Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer who traveled around Greece over 300 years after the end of the Achaean War. Pausanias claimed the Romans disbanded their koina after taking over Greece. More modern historians have claimed that Greek Federalism and the Koinon system extended until 27 CE, but Dr. Gettel’s research challenges these perspectives by further extending the history of Greek Federalism to the third century CE. Central to this assertion, Gettel researched 13 koina that continued to exist on the Greek mainland. By conducting epigraphical research, Gettel studied over 200 inscriptions, mainly on the bases of monuments and sculptures, allowing her to follow these 13 Koina. These inscriptions described banal elements of Greek life under Roman rule Dr. Gettel admitted, but the routine nature of these inscriptions showed how Koina played a pivotal role in the civic goings on of Roman Hellas.
In making these discoveries, Dr. Gettel conceded that Greek terminology made deciphering the inscriptions difficult. Greeks used the term strategos, a general term for a political leader, to describe both Roman and Greek officials. Initially baffled, Dr. Gettel eventually realized that this symmetrical language represented how Greeks interpreted the Roman world by using terminology they already understood. This understanding made the works of historians from the time, particularly Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Aelius Aristides, a comprehensive framework for understanding how Greek systems were used to interpret Roman rule. Dr. Gettel then described how these historians jumped from using symmetrical language about Roman Hellas to outright calling the Roman Empire a Koinon.
By understanding how historians like Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Aelius Aristides comprehended the rise of the Roman Empire in Greece, Dr. Gettel determined that this view represented a political imaginary. This framework allowed her to compare Greek/Hellenic and Roman ideas of citizenship while analyzing how ancient Greeks adjusted to this shift. Greeks understood citizenship as “politeia”, translating to both citizenship and constitution. Greeks viewed citizenship in an exclusionary way, where someone was a citizen of the city-state they were born in and attaining citizenship elsewhere was difficult. However, koina allowed people within different city-states to cooperate in a federalist structure. Conversely, Romans gave citizenship to provincial elites, which was less exclusive than the Greek system. This confused Greeks because it contradicted their exclusionary definition of citizenship, and koina became a convenient way of comprehending Roman political systems because they usually were comprised of multiple city states, mirroring the federated state of the Roman Empire. This conclusion caused Dr. Gettel to realize that the Greek way of interpreting Roman control over Hellas was based on a political imaginary based on koina, inspiring her investigate the blurred lines between federalism and empire in her book.
Dr. Gettel then fielded questions from the event’s attendees. When asked about her methodology, Dr. Gettel described the difficulties of engaging in epigraphy while working with Greek artifacts. The Greek government is protective of physical artifacts like the inscriptions Dr. Gettel needed to examine for her research. In turn, she often had to navigate layers of bureaucracy to conduct her research. Despite this, Dr. Gettel was able to investigate a wide range of artifacts for her epigraphical research, making significant breakthroughs in the process. The discussion also turned toward the idea of Greek adherence to Roman systems. Dr. Gettel clarified that the koinon as a political imaginary allowed Greeks to maintain their identity rather than being a way for them to conform to Roman cultural ideals within the Roman Empire. This distinction is important to make because it prioritizes Greek/Hellenic perspectives rather than assuming conformity to an imperial power. Dr. Gettel’s research into the political imaginary of Greek Federalism within Roman Hellas not only provides a new, interesting way of interpreting the Roman Empire: It also challenges how we ascribe modern values to ancient history, allowing historians to understand Roman Hellas more effectively.
