La beotarchia in età imperiale

The paper discusses the documentation relating to the office of the boiotarchos in the imperial period. Although the Boiotian koinon was revived around the middle of the 1st cent. BC, it is only in the Flavian period that there is clear evidence of the rebirth of the office of the boiotarchos (cp. Plut. an seni resp. 785C; praec. ger. reip. 813D). The first epigraphic source is Hadrian's letter to the Lokrian town of Naryka (SEG LI 641), while the last known boiotarch, Cn. Curtius Dexippos, was active during the principate of Decius (IG VII 3426; Scythica Vindobonensia F III Martin-Grusková). On the basis of a comparative analysis of the literary and epigraphic sources on the office, the author suggests the existence of a single boiotarchos in the imperial age. The institution was endorsed by the Roman authorities and was favourably received in Boiotia, where the boiotarchy was present from the origins of the regional institutions. The office of the boiotarchos would have been held in turn by the individual Boiotian tele and would not have had as its main purpose the administration of the imperial cult, as the fragment of the Scythica Vindobonensia also shows: here the boiotarchos is involved in regional coordination and has an administrative function, still less important than the local authorities of the individual poleis of Boiotia. These towns still appear autonomous and not subordinate to the boiotarchos in the documentation of the 2nd century.