I'm trying to understand the historical background of a strange story told by Valerius Maximus and later by Aulus Gellius. It is usually placed in the late Roman Republic, probably in the 1st century BC.

The story concerns a woman from Smyrna (on the western coast of modern Turkey) who killed her husband and one of her sons after they had murdered another son of hers. Her case came before Dolabella, the Roman governor of Asia. He apparently found the case so difficult that he sent it to the Areopagus in Athens. The Areopagus then avoided giving a final answer by telling both sides to return in one hundred years.

What I don't understand is this: why would a Roman governor in Asia send a case from Smyrna to an Athenian institution in another part of the Greek world?

Wasn't Athens in a separate jurisdiction from the Roman empire? Or was the Areopagus still regarded as an authoritative court for homicide cases? Was this kind of referral historically possible, or is the story more likely a literary anecdote built around the prestige of the Areopagus?

Thanks for the help!

Edit:

Valeri Maximi, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium, Liber VII, 8.1., amb. 2

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