place
Rhodes
Aegean island; rhetorical and philosophical centre; conventional place of polite Roman exile in the Greek east.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 10.11 §4 in that Rhodian
Rhodes, the great maritime republic of the southeastern Aegean, was famous for its ships; Cicero recalls a queasy earlier voyage in a Rhodian aphraktos, an undecked light galley, to gauge how much worse a small skiff would be.
- Ad M. Brutum 2.4 §3 shut out by the Rhodians
Rhodes, a semi-autonomous island state allied with Rome, refused Dolabella entry to its harbour — an important signal of where Greek loyalties lay; this forced Dolabella to continue his eastward flight through Asia.
- Ad Familiares 11.28 §8 I shall spend what remains of my life in peace at Rhodes
Rhodes was the conventional retreat for a Roman seeking honourable withdrawal from politics into Greek philosophical leisure; Matius offers it as proof that he covets no power at Rome.