Institut du monde antique et byzantin

In Athens, the practical applications of the distribution of citizens according to the Solonian property classes were gradually left behind during the 4th century BC. But civic life in the Greek cities came to be dominated in the Hellenistic and Imperial periods by groups of notables monopolizing public offices. Those élites distinguished themselves from ordinary people through wealth. This paper aims at looking at the consequences on institutions and on political mentalities of the difference existing in the post-classical cities between rich citizens and citizens who were not wealthy enough to become members of the Council and to offer benefactions. Special attention is paid to the words used in formal contexts and by the notables to describe those people who were in practice kept away from power and were usually considered as “poor”. Although it was very often used by the élites, this naming never proved official and, in a public context, notables preferred to stress on the theoretical homogeneity of the civic body.

Cédric BRÉLAZ École française d'Athènes rÉSUMÉ 170 c. Brélaz À l'exclusion de toute langue indigène, le grec est la langue ordinaire des relations officielles entre Rome et les communautés locales situées dans la partie orientale de son empire. En effet, lorsqu'elles s'adressent aux cités grecques 2 , les autorités romaines s'expriment, en principe, toujours en grec, ou veillent, pour le moins, à fournir une traduction grecque du document original latin qu'elles leur destinent 3 . C'est pourquoi les documents émanant des autorités romaines dont une copie fut affichée dans les cités grecques de l'empire nous sont généralement parvenus en grec (qu'il s'agisse de traités, de lois, de sénatus-consultes, de lettres ou d'édits de divers magistrats, du gouverneur ou de l'empereur) 4 , ou dans une version bilingue si les communautés locales ont fait reproduire l'original latin à côté de la traduction grecque 5 .

This paper deals with the political institutions of the Roman colony of Philippi (province of Macedonia), by studying the way in which the civic magistratures follow one another. This study rests on the analysis of the municipal careers such as they appear in the epigraphical cur-sus honorwn.The aim is to highlight some types of careers which reveal local specificities in the institutions. These results belong to a preliminary study for the publication of the first volume of the Corpus of the Greek and Latin inscriptions of Philippi. In appendix the question of the statute of the pmefedumfabrum through the attestations of this title at Philippi is mentioned.