City advocacy in Hellenistic and Roman periods

This study focuses on lawyers who worked in cities during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Institutional lawyers are also mentioned through inscriptions and literary sources. However, this study focuses only on city lawyers who defended their cities against other cities, individuals, Hellenistic Kingdoms or the Roman Republic/Empire. As far as the inscriptions reveal, these lawyers are called by different names. The study aims to contribute to the literature in the field by evaluating the duties of city lawyers in Asia Minor, the islands and continental Greece during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the problems faced by the cities in general through the cases encountered, and the diplomatic relations with the rulers of the cities, Hellenistic kings, Roman rulers or emperors. For this study, first of all, Ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions from all Asia Minor, the islands and Continental Greece, in which city lawyers were present, were collected and translated into Turkish. Then, the cases in which the city lawyers were particularly involved in the ancient writers, the evaluations of the ancient writers were identified and translated into Turkish, and in the next stage, the issues mentioned by literary sources and epigraphic sources were interpreted. It has been tried to be evaluated with the modern literature, although they do not give detailed information on this subject with general expressions. The inscriptions and literary sources collected within the scope of the study were classified in accordance with the purpose and analysed comparatively for the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the light of the analyzed data, it is understood that in the Hellenistic Period, the cities mostly experienced land-boundary problems among themselves, while in the Roman Period they mostly had problems with the Roman administrators. Keywords: Hellenistic and Roman Periods, City Lawyership, Advocacy, Arbitration, International Relations.