Judicial Organisation in the Poleis of Roman Asian Minor

Autonomous Jurisdiction had always formed one of the core areas of municipal self-administration among the greek poleis and was also guaranteed throughout the period of Roman rule. This principle can be found from the implementation of the Roman provinces in Asia Minor on and is thus described by Cicero in a letter to his friend Atticus: ... multaeque sum secutus Scaevolae, in iis illud in quo sibi libertatem censent Graeci datam, ut Graeci inter se disceptent suis legibus (ad Att. 6,1,15). My research commences from the point where Cicero`s information ceases and deals with the question of what we can understand under suae leges. How did the local jurisdiction, which was visibly important to the Greeks, work? The concessions, which were made for those Greeks, who were subject to the Roman administration, naturally were applied even more in the civitates liberae, so that we can assume that there was local jurisdiction in all of the cities in Asia Minor. To make the procedures within the poleis clear, I will mainly consult epigraphic sources, which are direct testimony of the administration. Two topics are at the centre of the analysis of the inscriptions and texts relevant to procedural law, which I will explicate in further detail. Firstly, the development of procedural law within the individual polis must be taken into account. The organisation of the courts, the forms of legal action, denunciation or prosecution, as well as the proceedings and the execution of sentences, in Roman times must be compared to the sources of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, as far as information allows. Thusly, an eventual continuity of procedural directives can be highlighted, or changes and reforms can be proven. With the results of this part of my research, I hope to make an important contribution to the constitutional and administrative history of the cities of Asia Minor. The second topic centres arround any possible external influences. As already mentioned, the local jurisdiction often stood in an area of conflict between the imperial administration and the autonomy of the city. Many Roman citizens lived in the cities of Asia Minor and the active contact between the municipal authorities, the provincial administration and the imperial administration in Rome may have also influenced procedure in municipal courts from time to time. Can traces of Roman notions of law be found in the local procedures, or did local institutions resist all influences? How were Roman citizens treated in the Greek cities? Did they have any form of active access to the local courts and were they subjected to their procedures or were there special procedures for this group of the population? Could Romans appear in court as the plaintiff and were they subject to summons? How were conflicts solved between Greek and Roman citizens? All texts are to be researched under these aforementioned aspects, a second step will allow a synopsis of the results of general information about the organisation of court and procedural law. Because the Greek perception of law was far away from the modern differentiation between material law and procedural law, I expect valuable results on questions of the legal system of the single poleis which will help to better understand the scopes of municipal autonomy.