In 1955, Michael Ballance travelled from the Pentapolis (Sandıklı ovası) to Akmoneia (Ahat) via Hocalar and Yazıtepe (formerly Doğla). In the early Roman imperial period, this fertile highland region (the northern part of the Çatma Dağı range) was home to the demos of the Moxeanoi, an autonomous rural collectivity without polis-status. By the early third century AD, two small poleis had been created in this district: the first of them, Diokleia, was probably situated at modern Yeşilhisar (formerly Ahırhisar, 6km north-east of Yazıtepe), while the second, Siocharax, has not yet been identified. Both minted small issues of bronze coinage in the early third century.
Of the three inscriptions published here, two were previously unknown (MAMA XI 158-159). The third, a statue base of the emperor Septimius Severus erected by the polis of Diokleia (MAMA XI 157), has long been known from copies made by Sterrett and Ramsay in the 1880s. However, a complex series of erasures – not noted by earlier editors – shows that the inscription was radically modified shortly after it was first erected. As I argue in the commentary to MAMA XI 157, these alterations strongly imply that Diokleia and Siocharax first received city-status only in the mid-190s AD.
1. Ramsay, Phrygia II 631-3 (his location of Siocharax at Oturak, near the headwaters of the Banaz Çayı, is wholly conjectural), 660-2, nos. 615-21; MAMA VI, pp. xvii-xviii, and nos. 299 (Doğla), 351-9; Habicht 1975: 86; Aulock 1980: 51-3, 90-1; Drew-Bear 1980a: 937-8; Waelkens 1986: 177-80, nos. 443-8.
In 1955, Michael Ballance travelled from the Pentapolis (Sandıklı ovası) to Akmoneia (Ahat) via Hocalar and Yazıtepe (formerly Doğla). In the early Roman imperial period, this fertile highland region (the northern part of the Çatma Dağı range) was home to the demos of the Moxeanoi, an autonomous rural collectivity without polis-status. By the early third century AD, two small poleis had been created in this district: the first of them, Diokleia, was probably situated at modern Yeşilhisar (formerly Ahırhisar, 6km north-east of Yazıtepe), while the second, Siocharax, has not yet been identified. Both minted small issues of bronze coinage in the early third century.
Of the three inscriptions published here, two were previously unknown (MAMA XI 158-159). The third, a statue base of the emperor Septimius Severus erected by the polis of Diokleia (MAMA XI 157), has long been known from copies made by Sterrett and Ramsay in the 1880s. However, a complex series of erasures – not noted by earlier editors – shows that the inscription was radically modified shortly after it was first erected. As I argue in the commentary to MAMA XI 157, these alterations strongly imply that Diokleia and Siocharax first received city-status only in the mid-190s AD.
List of monuments from Moxeanoi
Notes
1. Ramsay, Phrygia II 631-3 (his location of Siocharax at Oturak, near the headwaters of the Banaz Çayı, is wholly conjectural), 660-2, nos. 615-21; MAMA VI, pp. xvii-xviii, and nos. 299 (Doğla), 351-9; Habicht 1975: 86; Aulock 1980: 51-3, 90-1; Drew-Bear 1980a: 937-8; Waelkens 1986: 177-80, nos. 443-8.