Edict of a proconsul of Asia on the bakers of Ephesus — edition δὲ καὶ κατὰ συνθήκην παάντων λικ ὥστε συμ- βαίνειν ἐνίοτε τὸν δῆμον ἰς ταραχὴν καὶ θορύβους ἐνπίπτιν διὰ τὴν σύλ- λογον καὶ ἀθρασίαν τῶν ἀρτοκόπων ἐπὶ τῇ ἀγορᾷ· στάσεων ἐφʼ οἷς ἐχρῆν αὐ- τοὺς μεταπεμφθέντας ἤδη δίκην ὑποσχεῖν· ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ τῇ πόλει συμφέρον χρὴ τῆς τούτων τιμωρίας μᾶλλον προτιμᾶν, ἀναγκαῖον ἡγησάμην διατάγματι αὐτοὺς σωφρονίσαι· ὅθεν ἀπαγορεύω μήτε συνέρχεσθαι τοὺς ἀρτοκό- πους κατʼ ἑταιρίαν μήτε προεστηκότας θρασύνεσθαι, πειθαρχεῖν δὲ πάν- τως τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινῇ συμφέροντος ἐπιταττομένοις καὶ τὴν ἀναγ- καίαν τοῦ ἄρτου ἐργασίαν ἀνενδεῆ παρέχειν τῇ πόλει· ὡς ἂν ἁλῷ τις αὐ- τῶν τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε ἢ συνιὼν παρὰ τὰ διηγορευμένα ἢ θορύβου τινὸς καὶ στά- σεως ἐξάρχων, μεταπεμφθεὶς τῇ προσηκούσῃ τειμωρίᾳ κολασθήσεται· ἐὰν δέ τις τολμήσῃ τὴν πόλιν ἐνεδρεύων ἀποκρύψαι αὑτόν, δεκυείροις ἐπὶ πο- δὸς προσσημιωθήσεται· καὶ ὁ τὸν τοιοῦτον δὲ ὑποδεξάμενος τῇ αὐτῇ τιμωρίᾳ ὑπεύθυνος γενήσεται. ἐπὶ πρυτάνεως Κλαυδίου Μοδέστου, μηνὸς Κλαρεῶνος δʹ ἱσταμένου, βουλῆς ἀγομένης ἄλλο μέρος· Μαρκελλεῖνος εἶπεν· τῆς δὲ ἀπονοίας τῶν ἐργαστηριαρχῶν μέγι- στον δεῖγμα χθὲς Ἑρμείας ὁ πρὸς τῇ ταμίᾳ ᾧ μεταντη.

Edict of a proconsul of Asia on the bakers of Ephesus — translation

Edict of a proconsul of Asia on the bakers of Ephesus — commentary

The opening of the inscription is broken, but its subject is already clear: the bakers of the city, by their assembling and their ‘recklessness’ in the marketplace, have been throwing the people into disturbance and uproar.

The speaker — a Roman proconsul of Asia, whose name is lost with the start of the text — treats this as a matter that strictly deserved prosecution: the bakers ‘ought already to have been summoned and brought to trial’. But he sets that aside for a larger principle: what is advantageous to the city — an uninterrupted bread supply — must come before the satisfaction of punishing them.

The remedy is an edict, and it has three prongs. The proconsul forbids the bakers to ‘assemble as a guild’ (κατʼ ἑταιρίαν) and forbids their leaders (προεστηκότες) to behave with insolence. Then the positive command: they are to obey the orders given for the common good, and — the practical heart of it — to keep the city’s ‘necessary work of breadmaking’ flowing ‘without fail’.

This is the document’s fame: it treats a body of urban workers acting collectively — what modern readers have called a ‘bakers’ strike’ — and answers it not by destroying the trade but by banning its organisation. The bakers may bake; they may not combine. The edict is a rare, vivid window onto Roman anxiety about collective action among the working population of a great Greek city.

The sanctions are graded. The ordinary offender — caught assembling against the edict, or starting a riot — is ‘summoned and punished with the fitting penalty’. But for the man who ‘plots against the city’ and then hides, the edict prescribes something harsher and physical: he is to be branded on the foot. Whoever shelters such a man incurs the same penalty.

The exact term (δεκυείροις) is obscure, and the branding clause is a crux; but the drift is plain — the proconsul will treat a baker who turns agitator and absconder not as a tradesman but as a public enemy, and will pursue those who hide him.

The edict is dated in the civic manner of Ephesus — by the eponymous prytanis Claudius Modestus and the day of the Ephesian month Klareon, ‘the council being in session’.

Then the stone adds, under the rubric ἄλλο μέρος — ‘another part’ — a fragment of the city council’s own proceedings: a councillor, Marcellinus, rising to speak of the ‘madness of the workshop-masters’ and of something that happened ‘yesterday’. The fragment breaks off — but it shows that the proconsul’s edict was bound up with a live debate in the city’s own council, and was inscribed together with it.

Critical apparatus [...] δὲ καὶ κατὰ συνθήκην — The opening of the inscription is broken; only fragments survive before the main clause. The proconsul's name was lost with these lines. ἰς … ἐνπίπτιν — Non-standard spellings, kept verbatim: ἰς for εἰς, and ἐνπίπτιν for ἐμπίπτειν (unassimilated -νπ-, and the itacistic infinitive -ιν for -ειν). σύλλογον … τῶν ἀρτοκόπων — The σύλλογος, the 'assembling', of the bakers in the marketplace — the collective action the edict exists to stop. The ἀρτοκόποι are the city's bakers. ἀπαγορεύω μήτε συνέρχεσθαι … κατʼ ἑταιρίαν — The heart of the edict: 'I forbid the bakers to assemble as a guild.' What is prohibited is the organised combination (ἑταιρία), not the trade itself. τὴν ἀναγκαίαν τοῦ ἄρτου ἐργασίαν ἀνενδεῆ παρέχειν — The positive command: to supply 'the necessary work of breadmaking without fail'. The city's bread supply is the interest to which the whole edict is subordinated. δεκυείρ[οις ἐπὶ πο]δὸς προσσημιωθήσεται — A crux. The man who plots against the city and hides is to be 'marked/branded on the foot' (ἐπὶ ποδός); the word δεκυείροις is obscure and the restoration across lines 13–14 uncertain. The sense is a physical, penal mark. ἐπὶ πρυτάνεως Κλ(αυδίου) Μοδέστου, μηνὸς Κλαρεῶνος — The civic dating clause: by the eponymous prytanis of Ephesus and the Ephesian month Klareon (named from Klaros). The Ephesian calendar and magistracy tie the document to Ephesus. ἄλλο μέρος· Μαρκελλεῖνος εἶπεν — 'Another part' — the stone now gives a fragment of a different document, the Ephesian council in session, with the councillor Marcellinus speaking. The fragment breaks off in line 19.

Editions and commentary C. Börker & R. Merkelbach, Die Inschriften von Ephesos II (Bonn 1979), no. 215 (the edition followed here). P. Foucart, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 7 (1883), 504–506 (editio princeps). F. F. Abbott & A. C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire, Princeton 1926, no. 124. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum IV 512; XXVIII 863. R. MacMullen, ‘A note on Roman strikes’, Classical Journal 58 (1962–63), 269–271. H. Freis, Historische Inschriften zur römischen Kaiserzeit, Darmstadt 1994, no. 112.