Working and Dying in the Harbour Cities of Roman Asia Minor: An Appraisal of the Funerary Inscriptions.

Aim of this paper is the analysis of the funerary inscriptions coming from harbour-cities in Asia Minor. The target is to collect and to examine the cases where offices and professions connected to the harbours (or generally to the sea) are recorded. The memory recorded on the funerary inscriptions is one of the most unquestionable elements to understand which kind of job was that of the dead. This happened moreover for the high class members, following the tradition of remarking high offices or honorable professions. In spite of the randomness and chanciness of the known funerary inscriptions from Asia Minor, the evidence permits to observe a wider panorama, including “other” (usually considered less honorable) jobs connected to harbour and sea-life. In this sense, there is the possibility to try to sketch the composite outline of harbours’ life and the collected data result very interesting from many points of view. The examined period is the Roman age, enlarged to the late-Roman/Byzantine case of the necropolis of Korykos, whose funerary inscriptions are extraordinary for what concerns the treated topic.