align="center">5Amaseia
By far the best sample of dated inscriptions derives from the territory of Amaseia, the former capital of the Pontic Kingdom, and was collected by David French. Although the corpus still awaits publication, the published lists of dated inscriptions provide us with an adequate impression of the material. The latest count shows 443 inscriptions: 6 Hellenistic, 350 Roman, and 87 Byzantine – figures that strongly testify to the scarcity of Hellenistic material. Among the Roman inscriptions, 278 relate to funerary monuments, and of these 84, or 30%, can be dated according to the local era.29
We have no idea as to what caused people to include or omit the year in the epitaphs of their relatives. It does not seem to be a question of chronology. A study of the limited material published with photographs or drawings in Studia Pontica30 on the basis of letter forms suggests that there is no overall discrepancy between the chronological distribution of the dated and undated inscriptions. The monuments likewise appear to be a representative sample with regard to quality. I think that we can safely take the dated inscriptions as indicative of the whole corpus.
The earliest definite evidence of the use of the local era in Amaseia is provided by three coin issues during the Flavian period.31 Slightly later, we find the earliest epigraphic use of the era on a sarcophagus dated to 97/98 AD, and from then on, the number of inscriptions increases until the 160s and 170s, after which a decrease sets in (Table 1). The high figures in the late 160s and 170s can possibly be interpreted as an increased mortality rate due to the Antonine Plague, followed by a reduced number of deaths and perhaps economic stagnation in the 180s AD.32 The Gothic and Sassanian invasions in the 250s and 260s brought an end to the use of local calendars, or at least to our knowledge of them. It may be of significance that local coinages ceased at the same time. The very sporadic use of the Amaseian era and other eras in northern Asia Minor in the late fourth, the fifth and even sixth centuries AD reveals that the memory of the era was somehow kept alive in media not preserved for posterity or was reinvented during late antiquity.
One area where the dated inscriptions offer promising evidence concerns the changes in the use of personal names: When did people begin to use Roman names and how common do they become, how long did indigenous and Persian names persist, can we detect gender related practices etc. The list of questions raised by these changes is long, and to answer them adequately would require a very thorough study; here I will restrict myself to one aspect: the introduction of Latin names. In this respect the evidence from Amaseia is a bit disappointing because the transition from Greek and indigenous names to the mixture of Greek, Latin and mixed names that can be observed in the second and third centuries must have taken place before our record of inscriptions begins (Fig. 4). The earliest inscriptions already have a majority of Latin names. Indigenous and Persian names that were relatively common at the time of Mithridates VI, judging from a study of names of officials and officers,33 had largely disappeared.
Table 2. Chronological distribution of the dated inscriptions from Amastris (based on Marek 1993, 157-187).
| Decade | Number of inscriptions |
| AD 50-59 | 1 |
| 60-69 | 1 |
| 70-79 | 0 |
| 80-89 | 1 |
| 90-99 | 1 |
| 100-109 | 2 |
| 110-119 | 2 |
| 120-129 | 1 |
| 130-139 | 2 |
| 140-149 | 2 |
| 150-159 | 2 |
| 160-169 | 1 |
| 170-179 | 1 |
| 180-189 | 2 |
| 190-199 | 1 |
| 200-209 | 4 |
| 210-219 | 0 |
| 220-229 | 0 |
| 230-239 | 1 |
| 240-249 | 0 |
| 250-259 | 1 |
| 260-269 | 0 |
| 270-279 | 0 |
| 280-289 | 0 |
| Total | 26 |
Amastris and Inner Paphlagonia
A smaller sample of twenty-six dated inscriptions from Amastris shows a somewhat different pattern (Table 2).34 Here the earliest inscription dates from 50/51 AD, i.e., half a century earlier than in Amaseia. It is, however, no less than 121 years after the introduction of the Lucullan era; and as mentioned above, Amastris is in fact one of the few places where we have certain evidence of the use of the calendar immediately after its introduction. The end of the use of the calendar likewise coincides with the invasions in the 250s and 260s AD. Between these end points, the inscriptions are distributed more evenly than in Amaseia, with only a slight increase in the first half of the second century. The concentration of four inscriptions under Septimius Severus is probably coincidental. With regard to the ethnic character of the names, we see a clear development away from purely Greek names over time. In the three earliest inscriptions of the first century AD, all names are of Greek or Iranian inspiration. During the first half of the second century, Greek names still dominate but Latin names or Latin tria nomina with a Greek cognomen begin to appear; after the middle of the century only a single Greek name appears. In two instances, a father with a Greek name gave his children Latin names.35 This could be a sign of the times or of the upward mobility of the persons that appear in the epigraphic record.
Fig. 4. Ethnic composition of the names in the dated inscriptions from Amaseia (based on French 1996).
The last examples I shall present here concern the cities of Pompeiopolis, Neoklaudiopolis and Hadrianopolis in inner Paphlagonia. Apart from two inscriptions from Neoklaudiopolis from the 120s, dated inscriptions only begin in the 160s (Table 3), yet end around 260, with one late example from the 280s.36 The small size of the sample and the scattered distribution does not permit a detailed statistical analysis of the development in the use of names. Suffice to say that at least some non-Greek, non-Latin names still occur among the inscriptions.
Table 3. Chronological distribution of the inscriptions from inner Paphlagonia: Neoklaudiopolis, Hadrianopolis, Pompeiopolis, and Germanikopolis (based on Leschhorn 1993, 481-484).
| Decade | Number of inscriptions |
| AD 50-59 | 0 |
| 60-69 | 0 |
| 70-79 | 0 |
| 80-89 | 0 |
| 90-99 | 0 |
| 100-109 | 0 |
| 110-119 | 0 |
| 120-129 | 2 |
| 130-139 | 0 |
| 140-149 | 0 |
| 150-159 | 0 |
| 160-169 | 4 |
| 170-179 | 2 |
| 180-189 |
|
