Hadrian, Foundation Stories, and Civic Identities in Second-Century-CE Cyrene

This paper deals with local traditions about Cyrene’s foundation during the second century CE. It focuses on an inscribed dossier of Imperial documents (now IRCyr C.163) that was published during the reign of Antoninus but includes excerpts of three documents from Hadrian. In these texts, Hadrian repurposes local traditions about Cyrene’s foundation as a model for the city’s reconstruction after the Tumultus Iudaicus (115-117 CE). The posthumous publication of Hadrian’s documents is mirrored by the retroactive inscription of a list of eponymous priests opened by the «God Hadrian». This shows that a generation after the Tumultus Iudaicus Hadrian’s interventions had come to be perceived as a new starting point for Cyrene.