A LETTER OF HADRIAN TO NARYKA AND THE PERCEPTION OF GREEK POLIS UNDER ROMAN RULE
A LETTER OF HADRIAN TO NARYKA AND THE PERCEPTION OF GREEK POLIS UNDER ROMAN RULE

Summary/Abstract: Ths paper offers an attempt at analysis and reexamination of the recently published letter of the Emperor Hadrian addressed to the town of Naryka. The citizens of this small and rather obscure town in the Eastern Locris received an unusual imperial letter, dated to the last months of Hadrian’s life, filled with reassurances about its indisputable polis status and undeniable Greek origin. The analysis is focused on value of this inscription as a source of information on social, political and cultural features of the Greek cities during the Roman Empire. Most of the scholars who wrote about Hadrian’s letter express the opinion that it contains a 2nd century “definition” of the Greek polis. The view argued in this paper is that this is not the case and that features listed in the letter do not constitute a “definition”, although they provide some useful evidence on the contemporary perception of the Greek polis and Greek identity as such.

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