Abstract

Grants of Roman status to eastern Greeks did not begin until the arrival of Pompey in the East. In the previous decades the Greeks had aimed at more profitable benefits than the Roman citizenship: money, tax-exemption and a privileged judicial position in the province. Only in the years of personal power of Caesar and the Triumvirs the individual grants of Roman status began to acquire a significant importance in the East. However, the Greek cities were facing the problem of the fiscal immunity conferred on the new Roman citizens. The third Augustan edict of Cyrene represented for the Greek cities a decisive move, and opened the way to an extensive distribution of the right of Roman citizenship among the Greeks