Athens, Augustus, and the Settlement of 21 B.C. Schmalz, Geoffrey C R Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1996; 37, 4; ProQuest pg. 381 Athens, Augustus, and the Settlement of 21 B.C. Geoffrey C. R. Schmalz I N RECENT YEARS much has been made of the 'bad blood' be tween Athens and Augustus, es ecially in the context of the controversial imperial visit of 21 B.C. The Athenian so journ of Augustus, the second of three, is known from the rather full, if problematic, account in Cassius Dio (54.7.1-4). Over thirty years ago G. W. Bowersock adduced a supplemen tal source in Plutarch's Regum et Imperatorum Apophtheg mata (M or. 207E-F).l This passage purports to preserve a letter addressed to the Athenians by Augustus and is construed as evi dence for a winter stay on Aegina at the time. Thus taken to gether, these two sources are the basis for much of the present understanding of the early relationship between Augustus and his Athenian subjects.2 What follows here is a re-evaluation from several different per spectives of the imperial visit of 21 B.C. Through a closer reading of Dio and Plutarch, a review of the history of the period, and finally a consideration of the epigraphic evidence from Athens, several new conclusions will be drawn. First, it will become evident that Dio's account of the imperial visit cannot be placed in the winter of 21 B.C. but belongs rather to the following summer or perhaps even the fall. This rules out Augustus' cele- 1 G. W. Bowersock, "Augustus on Aegina," CQ N5. 14 (1964) 120f, followed in the standard account by H. HALFMANN, ltinera Principum (Stuttgart 1986: hereafter 'Halfmann') 24, 158. The letter is incorporated in E. Malcovati, Imperatoris Caesaris Augusti Operum Fragmenta (Turin 1969) ep. 70. 2 For the most recent characterization see K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996) 360. Particular emphasis is given by M. Hoff, "Civil Disobedience and Unrest in Augustan Athens," Hesperia 58 (1989) esp. 267ff, following (without credit) G. W. Bowersock, -The Mechanics of Subversion in the Roman Provinces," in A. Giovannini, a a ed., Opposition et resistances I'empire d'Auguste Trajan (=Entretiens Hardt 33 [Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1987]) 298ff; cf. R. Bernhardt, "Athen, Augustus und die eleusinischen Mysterien," AthMitt 90 (1975) 233-37. 381 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 382 ATHENS AND AUGUSTUS brated stay on Aegina, at least for the period under discussion, and thus raises questions about the date and interpretation of Plutarch's evidence. Secondly, by adopting a larger perspective on the imperial visit it is possible to see how Augustus' settle ment at Athens fits into a wider program of provincial reform, not only within Greece (where the additional testimony of Pausanias is adduced), but throughout many of Rome's more settled provinces, beginning with the extensive reorganization of Sicily between 22 and 21 B.C. Finally, in an attempt to open up a more helpful local perspective, this paper also examines cer tain Athenian inscriptions that may have a bearing on the Augus tan 'settlement' of 21 B.C. At the very least, the exceptional num ber of these inscriptions, particularly those dating to the archon ship of Apolexis of Oion (probably 21120 or 20/19 B.C.), should reflect the great flurry of documentary activity that often followed upon an imperial visit. The Evidence of Cassius Dio (and Pausanias) Dio's account of the Augustan settlment at Athens is familiar enough, although its full context has never been taken into con sideration. Upon arriving in Greece Augustus and his entourage visited Sparta, whose loyalty at Actium and long-standing pa tronage under the gens Claudii had won the early favor of the princeps.3 Due homage was paid to Spartan tradition by their dining together with the town's magistrates (and presumably the local dynast C. Iutius Eurycles) at the syssition-which should be taken to mean a state banquet in the "old Ephoreia," where the board of ephors still took their meals and which would appear to have been recently remodeled.4 Augustus 3 Halfmann (23f with tabulation at 158) fully discusses the Greek itinerary of 21 B.C. The Spartans had evidently been in the clientela of the Claudii (Pul chri or Nerones) since the Middle Republic (see Paus. 7.9.3). More immediate ly, during the Perusine War they had given refuge to Livia and her Claud ian husband, together with their infant son Tiberius (Suet. rib. 6.2, tutela Claudi orum): see E. Rawson, -The Eastern Clientelae of Clodius and the Claudii," Historia 22 (1973) 227, 229; cf also B. Levick, ·The Beginning of Tiberius' Career," CQ N.s.21 (1971)482. Dio here would appear to use ClUClCllnov in the same contemporary manner 4 as Plutarch (e.g. Cleom. 8.1-9.1); cf Paus. 3.11.1 of. On the important distinc tion in post-Classical Sparta, see N. M. Kennell, ·Where Was Sparta's Pryta neion?" AJA 91 (1987) 422. The remodeling (ca 30-20 R.C.) is suggested by A. J. S. Spawforth, ·Spartan Cults under the Roman Empire: Some Notes," in J. M. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GEOFFREY C. R. SCHMALZ 383 further indulged Sparta by personally awarding it the old peri oecic island of Cythera, which the dynast Eurycles later claimed as a personal possession.5 Another source (Paus. 4.31.1£), more over, indicates that at this time Spartan territory was also ex tended into Messenia at the expense of Sparta's old enemy, whose earlier loyalty to Antonius induced Augustus to deprive Messene of part of its land, quite possibly the long-disputed ager Dentheliatis.6 It is possible that Augustus also took this occasion to strike at another important Peloponnesian center, Tegea-this time in a symbolic manner by removing the ancient cult statue of Athena and confiscating the fabled relics of the Calydonian boar.? Athens was the next stop on the emperor's itinerary. Here Dio contrasts the good fortune of the Spartans with the subse quent measures taken against the Athenians. In this new settle ment Augustus deprived Athens of control over the tributary communities of Aegina (a gift of Antonius) and possibly Eretria, and then proceeded to ban the city's sale of Athenian citizen ship.8 Dio's own sources attributed these 'economic sanctions' Sanders, ed., Philolakon. Lakonian Studies in Honour of Hector Catling (Oxford 1992) 227-38 at 228 with the evidence at IG V.1 141-42; cf also SEG XXXV 329 for the date. s Dio 54.7.1£; cf also Strab. 7.7.6 (C325). On the entire episode see P. Cart ledge and A. J. S. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities (London 1989) 98f and esp. 199f. 6 See E. Meyer, -Messene," RE Supp!. XV (1978) 280; further discussion in G. W. Bowersock, • Augustus in the East: The Problem of Succession," in F. Millar and E. Segal, edd., Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (Oxford 1984) 174; cf L. Migeotte, "Reparation de monuments publics a Messene au temps d'Au guste," B CH 109 (1985) 603f. Difficulties between Messene and Sparta over the Dentheliatis are recorded in 14/15: SEG XLI 328.40f 7 See Paus. 8.46.1-5; cf S. Alcock, "Spaced-out Sanctuaries: The Ritual Land scape of Roman Greece," in E. Scott, ed., Theoretical Roman Archaeology: First Conference Proceedings (=Worldwide Archaeology Series 4 [Aldershot 1993]) 155-65 at 157f, and more fully in her Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge 1993) 176-80. 8 Cf L. Robert, ·Une epigramme satirique d'Automedon et Athenes au de but de l'empire (Anthologie Palatine XI 319)," REG 94 (1981) esp. 348f, where the Athenian custom of awarding heroic epithets to non-citizen benefactors (e.g. C. Iulius Nicanor as the "New Themistocles") was created subsequently in compensation for the lost foreign revenues; the city would become notori ous for this practice (cf Dio Chrys. Or. 31.116). For Aegina, P. GRAINDOR, Athenes sous Auguste (Cairo 1927: hereafter 'Graindor') 5-8, still offers the best discussion; according to Appian (BC 5.7) also included in Antonius' grant were the islands of Tenos, Ikos, Keos, Skiathos, and Peparethos (Plin. HN Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 384 ATHENS AND AUGUSTUS primarily to Athens' notoriously pro-Antonian stance ten years before. According to local tradition all of this-from the disap pointment at Actium to the present settlement-had already been portended by a peculiar incident on the Acropolis: "the statue of Athena on the Acropolis," presumably the cult statue of Athena Polias,9 was said to have spat blood while turning west to face Rome.10 Dio then goes on to conclude that Au gustus sailed off to Samos for the winter of 20 B.C. immediately after finishing his business in Greece. Dio's treatment of the Athenian settlement has always been regarded as problematic. Graindor, for one, could not believe that Augustus, a full ten years after Actium, would have manifested his former hostility in this way and at this time; thus his suggestion that Dio shifted this passage from his account of 31 B.C. to contrast more vividly the favored status of Sparta.l1 Yet the political situation in Athens vis-a.-vis Rome was remark ably similar to that experienced elsewhere in the Empire during the late 20s B.C., when Augustus, having finally pacified Spain and reorganized the other western provinces (not to mention the capital itself), was only just getting around to an adminis trative tour of the more settled provinces, particularly those of the East. This historical development is clearly laid out at Dio 54.6.1, where he states that" Augustus went to Sicily with the 4.57 lists Aegina as a free community). The case of Eretria is problematic, as it is not otherwise known as an Athenian possession; A. N. Oikonomides, -De feated Athens, the Land of Oropos, Caesar and Augustus. Notes on the Sources for the History of the Years 49-27," AncW 2 (1979) 97-103, even goes so far as to suggest that Oropos was actually meant. 9 Thus B. S. Ridgway, MImages of Athena on the Acropolis," in J. Neils, ed., Goddess and Polis. The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens (Princeton 1992) 119-42 at 126. Alternatively identified with a cult statue of Athena Hy gieia by N. Robertson, MA thena's Shrines and Festivals," in J. Neils, ed., Wor shipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon (Madison 1996) 47f, arguing that Dio's use of a compass orientation indicates a location out-of-doors; he further notes the later dedication of a statue to Livia as Sebaste Hygieia (/ G IP 3240). 10 Dio's words (54.7.3) make it clear that the portent of the Athena statue re lated to all circumstances in the preceding section: Kat au'to'i~ EO; 'tau'ta £00;£ 'to 'tip 'tilo; 'A9T\vao; uycXAfLan a\)fL~av u1toalCil",m (-The Athenians held that these were the calamities portended by what had happened to the statue of Athena .... " Tr. J. W. RICH, Cassius Dio: The Augustan Settlement. Roman His tory 53-59 [Warminster 1990: hereafter 'Rich'] 180). \I Graindor 17f. On the possibility that Dio was in fact using a non-annal istic source here, see Rich 180 ad 54.7.3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GEOFFREY C. R. SCHMALZ 385 intention of organizing it and other provinces as far as Syria." Significantly enough, in Sicily the island's pro-Pompeian stance of 38-36 B.C. was an important factor in his new policies.12 When Augustus later traveled through Asia Minor, he was faced with factional strife in several cities and took away from the Rho dians certain islands given by Antonius.13 Closer to home is the testimony of Pausanias, noted above, concerning the "punish ment" of Messene: Augustus is said to have afterward "struck at other towns which had fought against him, some more than others."14 If this episode does indeed belong to the period un der discussion, then what Pausanias depicts as a form of delayed retribution is rather indicative, in real historical terms, of a wider program of provincial reform. Athens can then be counted, along with Tegea, as one of those other towns that Au gustus "struck at" one way or another while he was in Greece, as attested in a similar manner by Dio. Yet because these mea sures simply happened to be the first taken in Greece since Actium and the defeat of Antonius, they inevitably came to be associated in the sources with the province's past espousal of the Antonian cause. Recent discussions also reject the significance of a triumviral legacy for Augustus' Athenian settlement. Emphasis is given in stead to the behavior of Dio's statue of Athena, which has come to be regarded as an historical incident with real political impli cations. Some point to the event as an incontestable "act of op position" to Augustus, while others would even portray it as an instance of political theater staged by anti-Roman elements in the city.IS Yet this is all very wide of the mark. Dio cites the Acropolis incident not as a historical explanation (which is given generally in 54.6.1), but as an earlier portent-in a fashion remi niscent of the notorious Statuenwunder of the triumviral 12 See S. S. Stone, "Sextus Pompey, Octavian and Sicily," AJA 87 (1983) 11- 22, esp. 20ff; R. J. A. Wilson, Sicily under the Roman Empire: The Archaeol ogy oj a Roman Pr07Jince, 36 B.C.-A.D. 535 (Warminster 1990) 36. 13 See Dio 54.7.6, with G. W. Bowersock, Augustus and the Greek World (Oxford 1965) 102ff; on Rhodes, cf App. Be 5.7 with the recent study of A. Erskine, -Rhodes and Augustus," 2PE 88 (1991) 271-75. 14 Paus. 4.31.1£, esp. Kal. 0 ~£v 'to\)'tOlV £v£Ka ME(HlT}VtOU; Kal 'trov aAMov 'trov av'tl'ta~allivOlv 'tOl" ~£v au'trov EAanov, 'tol" O£ Kal E" ltA.£OV Elt£~i1Alk 15 Thus Hoff (supra n.2) 269 (following Bowersock [supra n.2] 299 and [supra n.D] 106): -the incident ... must have been meant as an insult to Rome and the Emperor." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 386 ATHENS AND AUGUSTUS period.16 In a similar manner, for instance, Dio gives a prodigy reported before the battle of Mutina (43 B.C.), according to which first a statue of Magna Mater on the Palatine turned from east to west, and then an image of Minerva at Mutina dripped blood and milk (46.33.3f). The Athenian Acropolis was already known to Dio and his readers as an especially good site for such supernatural events, for in his account of Actium (50.12.2) an ominous windstorm was said to have overturned statues of Antonius and Cleopatra.17 Whether omen or 'incident', the be havior of Athena's statue on the Acropolis could have only augured well for Augustus in any event, for the turning toward Rome would mean good fortune for his regime, but the spitting of blood would reflect rather on the Athenians as troubled devotees of the goddess. The date of Augustus' actions in Greece remains to be con sidered. The most serious problem in Dio's account, as pres ently undersood, lies in the chronological framework applied by scholars. From Bowersock on the accepted view has main tained that Augustus sailed to Greece from Sicily in midwinter, probably early in 21 B.C. (the first months of the consulship of Marcus Lollius); this would place the emperor in Athens some time in the third quarter of the Attic year 22121 B.C. Despite the orthodoxy of this view, Dio does not suggest (54.6.1-7.1) that Augustus cut short his ambitious agenda in Sicily and risked a hazardous midwinter voyage. In fact there is every indication that Augustus was fully occupied on the island throughout those fall and winter months, thereby suggesting a departure for Greece sometime after May, at the earliest, which also marked the opening of the Roman military sailing season.18 Augustus had rrobably arrived in Sicily in late September or early October 0 22 B.C.19 There he embarked on an extensive 16 For Dio's frequent recourse to such portents, see Rich 12; cf 180 ad 54.7.3. 17 Cf Pluto Ant. 60.2f with a similar prodigy report and characteristic 'per sonalizing' treatment, discussed by J. Mossman, ·Plutarch's Use of Statues," in M. A. Flower and M. Toher, edd., Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell (=BICS 58 [London 1991]) 112f. 18 Cf Halfmann 158. On the Roman sailing season, albeit with fleet activity in mind, see Veg. 4.39: the seas were considered closed at least "until the sixth day before the Ides of March" (i.e., 10 March), but remained highly uncertain until "the sixth day before the Kalends of June" (i.e., 27 May). 19 Cf Rich 178 ad 54.6.1. Augustus could not have left for Sicily before 1 Sep tember 22 B.C., when he dedicated the temple of Jupiter Tonans (54.4.2), and Dio gives no hint that the princeps moved away from the capital immediately afterward. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GEOFFREY C. R. SCHMALZ 387 reorganization of the province, involving the establishment of as many as six new colonies (probably as typical Augustan veteran settlements) and the extension of the ius Latii to several Sicilian towns; a considerable amount of imperial construction was evidently initiated as well, perhaps even including the new 20 amphitheater at Syracuse. On this occasion Augustus may also have had problems with his Sicilian procurator (cf Pluto M or. 207B). The princeps meanwhile had to deal with some very seri ous rroblems reported from Rome. Following his repeated re fusa to undertake another consulship, the consular elections proved factious and extremely protracted: the one newly elected consul, Lollius, was left to assume office alone at the beginning of the new year. Augustus was still working in Sicily "a long time" afterward when a consular colleague, Q. Aemilius Lepidus, was finally elected (March or even later?);21 at this time the princeps decided to recall Agrippa from Lesbos to quell the residual violence at Rome (Dio 54.6.5f).22 Agrippa's return found the princeps still in Sicily, and it was only sometime later that Augustus left the province (54.7.1). Hence it is difficult to see how Dio's narrative and the emperor's ongoing reforms in Sicily can be assigned to a few short months at the end of 22 B.C. and the beginning of 21 B.C. Dio goes on to report the imperial visits to Sparta and Athens, as discussed above, then concludes with Augustus on Samos at the start of winter, 21120 B.C. Here a final difficulty in the con ventional chronology emerges. If all the developments in Sicily and at Rome (Dio 54.1-6.6) took place in the autumn of 22 B.C. and perhaps the first month of 21 B.C., which seems most unlikely, then we are left with very little reported for the entire 20 Dio 54.6.1, 7.1; Plin. HN 3.89f; cf Strab. 6.2.5. On the Augustan settle ment see especially Wilson (supra n.12) 33-45, esp. 38ff (coloniae and muni cipia), 44f with fig. 30; Stone (supra n.12) 20ff with n.79 for the amphitheater. 21 The electorial crisis of 19 B.C., though severely aggravated by the 'con spiracy' of Egnatius Rufus, gives an indication of just how late in the year a consul ordinarius might be elected in a time of political strife: it was only after 1 August that C. Sentius Saturninus, the sale consul, was able to preside over the election of his colleague. Sec, most recently, D. A. Phillips, "The Conspir acy of Egnatius Rufus and the Election of Suffect Consuls under Augustus," Historia 46 (1997) 107, 111f. 22 Bowersock (supra n.1: 120) incorrectly claims that "Dio does not say where the Emperor was at the time of the riots at the beginning of 21 B.C."; Halfmann (163) simply places Agrippa in Rome sometime early in the new year. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 388 ATHENS AND AUGUSTUS year of 21 B.c.-merely the notice of the imperial visits to Sparta and Athens (54.7.1-4). In view of the probable length of Augustus' stay in Sicily, it seems much more sensible to assign the princeps' initial movements in Greece to the summer, or perhaps even the fall, of 21 B.C. Athens was probably not reached until after the beginning (in July) of the new Attic year 21120 B.C. Dio gives no hint of a new seasonal cycle until the end of his brief account of the provincial settlement in Greece, which also concluded the consulship of Lollius (and Lepidus): «After completing his business in Greece, Augustus sailed to Samos and spent the winter there. In the spring of the year in which Marcus Apuleius and Publius Silius (Nerva) held the consulship [20 B.C.], he proceeded to Asia and organized everything there and in Bithynia. "23 The Augustan settlement at Athens therefore took place at least six months later than is commonly supposed and was com pleted just in advance of the winter of 20 B.C. Thus Dio never meant for his readers to include 21 B.C. in the accounts of Augustus' eastern winters, thereby leaving four, not five, such occasions (31130 and 30129, then 21120 and 20/19 B.C.). At the same time, the historian provides-as anticipated at 54.6.1-a rather systematic, if schematic, overview of Augustus' new ad ministrative initiatives in Sicily, Greece (and Athens), and then Asia and Bithynia; but only in the case of Greece, with its longer history and greater cultural importance, does the historian pause to elaborate on this theme. It may be too much to speak of an Augustan 'policy' at this time for the province of Achaea. Yet a consistent theme runs through the various settlements in Athens and among the Pelo ponnesian towns, revealing a remarkably conservative, almost antiquarian, concern for the place of an 'Old Greece' within (but still culturally distinct from) the principate. The territorial primacy of Sparta in the Peloponnese, exercised at the expense of the contemporary regional centers of Messene and Tegea, certainly points to such a historically-minded initiative.24 The 23 Dio 54.7.4 (tr. Rich); in contrast, Bowersock (supra n.1: 120) assumes an entire year intervened between Augustus' arrival in Greece and his departure to Asia. 24 This does not mean, of course, that the interests of Sparta's neighbors would always be slighted: a Mantinean embassy to Rome in A.D. 112, for in stance, won an important imperial decision against the activities of local negotiatores (IC V.2 268). For the date see A. J. Gossage, "The Date of IC V(2) 516 (SIC3 800)," BSA 49 (1954) 56. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GEOFFREY C. R. SCHMALZ 389 same can be said of Augustus' liberation of Aegina from Athens. Far from being a willful gesture of imperial displeasure toward the Athenians, the measure betrays a proper recogni tion of the island's historical independence and its venerable role as a counter-weight to Athenian influence over the Saronic Gulf. Such a celebration of the 'traditional' Greece by Augustus in 21 B.C. stands in marked contrast to the approach later taken by Nero, the only Julio-Claudian emperor to visit Greece. Dur ing his lengthy tour of the province's various festivals (66-67), Nero sought to develop an alternative model for Greece's con temporary identity, integrating the cultures of province and empire in his hazy vision of an 'imperial Achaea' -a vision that privileged Corinth, provincial capital and imperial-cult center, and the newly expanded Achaean League above Sparta and Athens.25 Dio appreciated the fundamental difference between these two imperial missions, however derisive his account (62.8.2f): "But [Nero] crossed over into Greece, not at all as Flamininus or Mummius or as Agrippa and Augustus, his an cestors, had done, but for the purpose of driving chariots, playing the lyre, making proclamations, and acting in tragedies." The Evidence of Plurarch (M or. 207E-F) With the Sicilian winter of 22121 B.C. fully accounted for in Dio, we are now faced with a second historiographical problem. Dio's account of the Athenian settlement of 21 B.C. is common ly linked with an anecdote at Pluto M or. 207 E-F. This isolated passage purportedly preserves a letter written by Augustus to his Athenian subjects during a winter sojourn in the East: Tou ()' ax' 'ASllvalCJ)v MUlOU E~llllap'tllKEvat 'tl M~av'tO<;, Eypa'l'fV AiYlVll<; (3ouAfOSat 11ft AaVSUVEtV au'tou<; 6pyt~6IlfVO<;, ou ya.p 25 See G. Woolf, uBecoming Roman, Staying Greek: Culture, Identity and the Civilizing Process in the Roman East," PCPS 40 (1994) 133; on Nero's "liberation" of Greece, cf S. Alcock. "Nero at Play? The Emperor's Grecian Odyssey," in J. Elsner and J. Masters, edd., Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, Representation (London 1994) 105f; on Corinth as the center of the province's new imperial cult, see esp. A. J. S. Spawforth, ·Corinth, Argos, and the Imperial Cult: Pseudo-Julian, Letters 198," Hesperia 63 (1994) 211-32. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. '390 ATHENS AND AUGUSTUS Civ £v Aiyivn OtaXEtIHXOEtEV. liAAO 0' OUOEV o,h' d7tEV all'tou<; o,h' £7tOlrlOE.26 Bowersock assigned this letter to the imperial visit as re corded in Dio, which he believed to have taken place in the winter of 21 B.C. Because Plutarch's text implies just such a sea sonal date, and nothing more, there appeared no reason why the two accounts should not be synchronized, especially as Bowersock had accounted for all the princeps' other wintersY As a parallel account of Augustus' second Athenian sojourn, therefore, the letter's mention of "some offense" (£~llJ.Lap'tllKE­ vat n) and the consequent anger of the emperor could be ex plained easily by reference to Dio.28 Because the historical record rules out such a winter sojourn on Aegina, it is difficult to know what to do wth Plutarch's evi dence. One way out of the difficulty is simply to read Plutarch differently. In this regard the most crucial part of Augustus' letter is the clause concerning his winter plans (ou yap Civ £V Aiyivn OtaXEtJ.LcXOEtEV), which is universally interpreted as an un fulfilled conditional to mean that Augustus "would not other wise have finished out the winter on Aegina"-as translated below. Yet the same clause can also be read to imply an original potential optative, which leaves Augustus making the opposite point: "he believed that they were not unaware of his anger, since he would not finish out the win ter on Aegina." On this 29 reading Augustus would have originally planned to remain on 26 "When the Athenian people seemed to have committed some offense, Augustus wrote from Aegina that he believed that they were not unaware of his anger, since he would finish out the winter on Aegina. Otherwise he said nothing, nor did he act against them." Cf Malcovati (supra n.1); the same text appears in the Teubner edition of W. Nachstadt et al., Plutarch, Moralia II (1971). Cf also the Bude edition of F. Fuhrmann, Plutarque, Oeuvres Morales III (Paris 1988). 27 Bowersock (supra n.1) 120. For other reasons Graindor (17f) already sug gested we move the letter-writing episode up to 31130 B.C.; but Augustus' move ments after Actium are fully accounted for in Dio (51.4.1), and the unspecified offense in Plutarch (E~T}f.lafYCT}1(£vcn tl) is evidently too insignificant to refer to the Athenians' support of Antonius. 28 This much is asserted even though Plutarch's own introduction to the letter implies that the Athenian provocation was not aimed primarily at Au gustus. Incidently, Bernhardt (supra n.2: 235f) believes that Plutarch's text im plies an unsuccessful lobbying effort by the Athenians to have Augustus re main with them for the winter. 29 See Smyth no. 1824 for the original potential optative with iiv; Bower sock's reading would be better suited to a different emendation, especially iiv ... ~haXElf.la~Elv (cf the Bude edition), which would yield the imperfect indica tive sense needed (see Smyth no. 1846). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.