That title is actually somewhat misleading, in that Antiochia doesn’t have much to offer by way of Latin inscriptions. (There is at least one: a milestone, erected in the Julio-Claudian period, situated a bit away from our usual stomping grounds.) But what Antiochia does have, in abundance, are Greek inscriptions. Learning more about inscriptions (epigraphy) has been one of the most delightful topics of study for me on this trip. Professor Gatzke recently completed her doctoral thesis on Anatolian inscriptions, and so was a wonderful source of knowledge on the subject.
What I find fascinating is how complex social and cultural knowledge can be inferred from what at first glance appear to be rather dry statements of dedication or decree. The style and spacing of the letters, the presence of interpuncts, and the use of certain grammatical features (spelling, cases), among other elements, can tell us about date, but also about the language development of the region.
Beyond grammatical elements, one of the most fascinating components of epigraphy in the Roman provincial/peripheral regions is the choice of language for the inscription. Throughout the eastern Roman Empire, the complex interplay of Greek and Latin on inscriptions (sometimes Greek, sometimes Latin, sometimes both) can offer insight into the culture of the locals. To the best of our knowledge Antiochia was, and remained, a primarily Greek-speaking city, even in the Roman period. This is corroborated by the large number of Greek, rather than Latin, inscriptions: presumably the chosen language reflects the most accessible option for the inhabitants. Throughout the Roman world, the relationship between Latin and the local language illustrates facts of the local-imperial relationship.
Just as with excavation, training is required to extract cultural insight from seemingly mundane materials. A trench looks like a hole in the dirt to the uninitiated; likewise, an inscription might seem to be nothing more than a dry recitation of names and dates. I am all the more grateful, then, to have discovered that through inscriptions we have access to another analytical tool, one that connects to and builds upon what we uncover as we excavate.