from the Greco-Roman social and cultural context in which the Corinthians lived, for they were accustomed to stories about generals and heads of state who tried to win laurels for upstaging predecessors. Thus Caesar Augustus boasted (Res Gestae 15.26–27): “Others before me had planted colonies in Italy and in the provinces, but my contemporaries could recall no one who matched me in such concern for veterans.” And in an imperial decree delivered in person at Corinth in the year 66, the emperor Nero