Benefactors and the Polis: The Public Gift in the Greek Cities from the Homeric World to Late Antiquity 1108842054, 9781108842051

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BENEFACTORS AND THE POLIS

Historians generally study elite public gift-giving in ancient Greek cities as a phenomenon that gained prominence only in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. The contributors to this volume challenge this perspective by offering analyses of various manifestations of elite public giving in the Greek cities from Homeric times until Late Antiquity, highlighting this as a structural feature of polis society from its origins in the early Archaic age to the world of the Christian Greek city in the early Byzantine period. They discuss existing interpretations, offer novel ideas and arguments, and stress continuities and changes over time. Bracketed by a substantial Introduction and Conclusion, the volume is accessible both to ancient historians and to scholars studying gift-giving in other times and places.    is Professor of Classics at Princeton University. He is the author of Untersuchungen zu den lykischen Gemeinwesen in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit () and Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism (Cambridge, ), which was joint winner of the  Runciman Book Award.   is an Associate Professor of Ancient History at Universiteit Gent. He is the author of The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor (Cambridge, ) and The Ancient City (Cambridge, ) and co-editor of Ownership and Exploitation of Land and Natural Resources in the Roman World (; with Paul Erdkamp and Koenraad Verboven), Imperial Identities in the Roman World (; with Wouter Vanacker), and Capital, Investment, and Innovation in the Roman World (; with Paul Erdkamp and Koenraad Verboven).

BENEFACTORS AND THE POLIS The Public Gift in the Greek Cities from the Homeric World to Late Antiquity       MARC DOMINGO GYGAX Princeton University

ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK Ghent University

University Printing House, Cambridge  , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York,  , USA  Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India  Anson Road, #–/, Singapore  Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Cambridge University Press  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published  A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Domingo Gygax, Marc, editor. | Zuiderhoek, Arjan, – editor. : Benefactors and the polis : the public gift in the Greek cities from the Homeric world to late antiquity / edited by Marc Domingo Gygax, Princeton University, New Jersey, Arjan Zuiderhoek, Universiteit Gent, Belgium. : Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. :   (print) |   (ebook) |   (hardback) |   (paperback) |   (epub) : : Benefactors–Greece–History–To . | Gifts–Greece–History–To . | Exchange–Greece–History–To . | Elite (Social sciences)–Greece–History–To . | Civilization, Classical. | Greece–Social life and customs. | Greece–Politics and government. :   .  (print) |   (ebook) |  – LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/  ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

page vii viii ix xii xiv

Introduction: Benefactors and the Polis, a Long-Term Perspective



Marc Domingo Gygax and Arjan Zuiderhoek

        

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



Hans van Wees



The Garden of Pisistratus: Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



Beate Wagner-Hasel

    

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



Marc Domingo Gygax





The Scale of Benefaction Robin Osborne

    



The Politics of Endowments Sitta von Reden

v

Contents

vi 

‘To be magnanimous and grateful’: The Entanglement of Cities and Empires in the Hellenistic Aegean



Rolf Strootman



Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



John Tully

        

Emperors, Benefaction and Honorific Practice in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



Carlos Noreña



Benefactors and the Poleis in the Roman Empire: Civic Munificence in the Roman East in the Context of the Longue Durée



Arjan Zuiderhoek

 Festivals and Benefactors



Onno M. van Nijf

       ?  Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



Daniel F. Caner

 Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture in Late Antiquity, from Aquileia to Gerasa (Fourth to Sixth Centuries CE)



Christophe J. Goddard

Conclusion



Marc Domingo Gygax and Arjan Zuiderhoek

Index Index Locorum

 

Figures

. Percentages of imperial statues dedicated by communities (or executive bodies) and by individuals,  BCE– CE (N = ,) page  . Mosaic pavement of the Basilica Theodoriana in Aquileia (southern room) 

vii

Tables

. . . . .

Festivals attested on early Hellenistic Delos page Endowments on Delos List of expenditures for sacrifice associated with ten festivals Endowments on Delos ordered by first date Surviving statue bases for Hadrian in the eastern Empire, by province (N = ) . Cities visited by Hadrian; benefactions and commemoration; statues

viii

     

Contributors

 .  is a social historian, classicist, and Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is author of Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, ) and History and Hagiography on the Late Antique Sinai (Liverpool University Press, ) and articles on late antique ascetic culture. He is currently completing a study of Christian philanthropy in the late Roman East.    is Professor of Classics at Princeton University and author of Untersuchungen zu den lykischen Gemeinwesen in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (Habelt, ) and Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism (Cambridge, ). His articles include ‘Gift-Giving and Power Relationships in Greek Social Praxis and Public Discourse’, in The Gift in Antiquity (ed. M. Satlow, ), and ‘Euergetism and the Embedded Economy of the Greek Polis’, in The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities (ed. D. Hollander, T. Blanton IV, and J. Fitzgerald, ).  .  is a CNRS Research Associate Professor in Roman Archaeology at PSL University (École Normale SupérieureÉcole Pratique des Hautes Études), Paris. He is the author of the forthcoming book Le crépuscule des temples dans l’Antiquité tardive and the co-editor of Les cités de l’Italie tardo-antique (Collection de l’École française de Rome, ). He is both a historian and an archaeologist. After co-leading an archaeological mission on the Janiculum’s late antique sanctuary in Rome, he is co-directing a second one on the Late Antique city of Ulpiana/Iustiniana Secunda in Kosovo. He is the director of the CNRS Archaeological Institute (AOROC) at PSL University in Paris. ix

x

Notes on Contributors

 ̃  is Associate Professor of History and Chair of Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology at UC Berkeley. He is the author of Imperial Ideals in the Roman West (Cambridge, ), editor of A Cultural History of Western Empires in Antiquity (Bloomsbury, ), and co-editor of From Document to History: Epigraphic Insight into the Graeco-Roman World (Brill, ) and The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual (Cambridge, ).   is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and of the British Academy. He works widely across Greek history and archaeology. His most recent books are The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece (Princeton, ) and, with P. J. Rhodes, Greek Historical Inscriptions – BC (Oxford, ).   is Associate Professor of History at the University of Utrecht. His most recent books are The Birdcage of the Muses: Patronage of the Arts and Sciences at the Ptolemaic Imperial Court (), Persianism in Antiquity (co-edited with M. J. Versluys, ), and Maritime Empires in World History (co-edited with F. van den Eijnde and R. van Wijk, ). In – he was a Senior Visiting Scholar at the Getty Villa in Malibu, where he began working on his current research project, ‘Iranians in the Hellenistic World’.   is the author of The Island Standard () and several articles and chapters on Hellenistic history and historiography, including ‘Ephorus, Polybius, and τὰ καθόλου γράφειν’ (in Between Thucydides and Polybius, ), ‘Artemidorus’ Temenos as a Memorial of Hellenistic Thera’ (in Pouvoirs, îles et mer, ), and ‘Samos, Hegemony, and the Nicuria Decree’ (Tyche, ). He is now an Associate Director at Delivery Associates.  .   holds the Chair of Ancient History at the University of Groningen. His work has focused on social, cultural and religious aspects of the Greek city in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. With Christina Williamson he is currently the Dutch Research Council NWO-funded research project Connecting the Greeks: multi scalar festivals in the Hellenistic world’. www.connectedcontests.org.    is Grote Professor of Ancient History at University College London. He is the author of Status Warriors: War, Violence and Society in Homer and History (), Greek Warfare: Myths and

Notes on Contributors

xi

Realities (), and Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens (). He has edited or co-edited several volumes, including ‘Aristocracy’ in Antiquity (with Nick Fisher, ), Competition in the Ancient World (with Nick Fisher, ), and A Companion to Archaic Greece (with Kurt Raaflaub, ).    is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Freiburg/Germany. She has encouraged interdisciplinary perspectives on foundations and benefactions in a volume Stiftungen zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft: Geschichte und Gegenwart im Dialog (Historische Zeitschrift Beiheft , ). She is author of Money in Ptolemaic Egypt (Cambridge, ), Money in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, ), and co-editor with Christelle Fischer-Bovet of Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires (Cambridge, forthcoming). Since  she is Principle Investigator of an interdisciplinary research project, funded by the European Research Council, investigating ancient imperial economies and their global interconnections. The first volume of the Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies was published by de Gruyter in .  - was Professor for Ancient History at the Leibniz University of Hannover (–). She is co-editor of the journal Historische Anthropologie and author of Der Stoff der Gaben (Campus, ) (The Fabric of Gifts, ), Die Arbeit des Gelehrten. Der Nationalökonom Karl Bu¨cher – – (Campus, ), Antike Welten (Campus, ), and Gaben, Waren und Tribute. Stoffkreisläufe und antike Textilökonomie (with Marie-Louise Nosch; Steiner, ).   is Associate Professor of Ancient History at Ghent University. He is the author of The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor (Cambridge, ) and The Ancient City (Cambridge, ). He has co-edited several volumes, including most recently, with Paul Erdkamp and Koenraad Verboven, Capital, Investment, and Innovation in the Roman World (Oxford, ).

Acknowledgements

The present volume stems from the workshop Benefactors and the Polis: Origins and Development of the Public Gift in the Greek Cities from the Homeric World to Late Antiquity held at Princeton University on April –, . Eleven chapters are based on papers presented at the meeting, while Chapter  was specially commissioned for this volume. It is a pleasure for the editors to thank those who helped organize the event: Emily Barth, events coordinator of Princeton’s Department of Classics; Nancy Blaustein, manager of the Department; Tamara Thatcher, program manager of the Council of the Humanities; and Princeton colleagues Edward Champlin, Nino Luraghi, and Brent Shaw. The workshop was generously funded by the Department of Classics, the Program in the Ancient World, the Program in Hellenic Studies, and the Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity. A special word of thanks is due Peter Garnsey for having introduced the editors of this book when they were working separately on their monographs on Greek public gift-giving, one on the origins of the phenomenon and the other on its later manifestations under the Roman Empire. Thanks to his initiative, the editors decided to join efforts to produce a volume that would cover the entire period from the Homeric world to Late Antiquity. We are very grateful to the contributors for their enthusiasm, diligence, and patience, and to Christof Schuler for his participation in the discussions at the workshop. Joshua Fincher read all the chapters carefully and offered precious editorial assistance. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the three anonymous referees of Cambridge University Press for taking time to read the manuscript and offer feedback. Their comments significantly improved the text and we hope that they will recognize their input in this final version. Michael Sharp has been an extremely supportive editor during the project’s long process of gestation. xii

Acknowledgements

xiii

The volume took its final form while Marc Domingo Gygax was a member of the Institut d’Études Avancées de Paris. He would like to thank the staff of the institute for their invaluable help during his ten-month stay, and to acknowledge generous financial support provided by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie program and the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations of names and titles of works of classical authors follow the conventions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary and the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (but see the ‘Primary Sources’ section of Chapter ). Note in addition the following. ACO AE Agora AIO Ἀρχ. Ἐφ. Bergk CChSL CEG CIL CLE Dessau, ILS EDR FGrH GE IAph I.Corinth . I.Délos

= Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum = L’Année Épigraphique (– ) = The Athenian Agora (– ) = Attic Inscriptions Online = Ἀρχαιολογική Ἐφημερίς = T. Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci (Leipzig, –; repr. –) = Corpus christianorum series latina = P. A. Hansen, Carmina epigraphica graeca,  vols. (Berlin, –) = Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (– ) = F. Bu¨cheler and E. Lommatzsch (eds.), Carmina latina epigraphica (Leipzig, –) = H. Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae (Berlin, –) = Epigraphic Database Roma = F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, – ) = F. Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden ) = Inscriptions of Aphrodisias = Corinth VIII, . The Inscriptions –, ed. John H. Kent (Athens, ) = Inscriptions de Délos, ed. F. Durrbach (Paris, –) xiv

List of Abbreviations I.Didyma I.Eph(esos) I.Erythrai IG IGC IGLS(yr)

IGR(om) I.L.Alg. ILCV ILLRP I.Manisa

I.Priene I.Prusias ad Hypium I.Sestos I.Smyrna I.Stratonikeia JÖAI

xv

= A. Rehm, Didyma, II. Die Inschriften, ed. R. Harder (Berlin, ) = H. Wankel, R. Merkelbach, et al., Die Inschriften von Ephesos, I–VII (IGSK Band –; Bonn, –) = H. Engelmann and R. Merkelbach, Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai, I–II (IGSK Band –; Bonn, –) = Inscriptiones Graecae (– ) = H. Grégoire, Recueil des inscriptions grecques chrétiennes d’Asie Mineure (Paris, ) = L. Jalabert, R. Mouterde, J.-P. Rey-Coquais, M. Sartre, and P.-L. Gatier, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, I–VII, XIII  and XXI  (Paris, –) = Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes (– ) = S. Gsell, Inscriptions latines de l’Algérie,  vols. (Paris, ) = E. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin, –) = Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Republicae, ed. A. Degrassi, vols.  () and  () = H. Malay, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Manisa Museum (Ergänzungsbände zu den TAM no. ; Denkschriften Österr. Akad., Phil.-Hist. Kl. Band ; Vienna, ) = W. Blu¨mel and R. Merkelbach, Die Inschriften von Priene I/II (IGSK Band ; Bonn, ) = W. Ameling, Die Inschriften von Prusias ad Hypium (IGSK Band ; Bonn, ) = J. Krauss, Die Inschriften von Sestos und der Thrakischen Chersones (IGSK Band ; Bonn, ) = G. Petzl, Die Inschriften von Smyrna, I–II (IGSK Band – /; Bonn, –) = M. C. Şahin, Die Inschriften von Stratonikeia, I–II (IGSK Band –; Bonn, –) = Jahreshefte des österreichischen archäologischen Instituts in Wien

xvi Laum LIMC LW McCabe, Hyllarima

McCabe, Panamara

MDAI (A) Migne, PG Milet Milet I.

OGI OR Page, FGE PLRE POxy RC Reynolds

List of Abbreviations = B. Laum, Stiftungen in der griechischen und römischen Antike,  vols. (Leipzig, ) = Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (– ) = P. Le Bas and W. H. Waddington, Inscriptions grecques et latines recueillies en Asia Mineure.  vols. (Paris, ) = D. F. McCabe, Hyllarima Inscriptions. Texts and List. The Princeton Project on the Inscriptions of Anatolia, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Packard Humanities Institute CD # (Princeton, ) = D. F. McCabe, Panamara Inscriptions. Texts and List. The Princeton Project on the Inscriptions of Anatolia, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Packard Humanities Institute CD # (Princeton, ) = Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts (A): Athenische Abteilung (– ) = J.-P. Migne, Patrologia graeca (Paris, –) = T. Wiegand, Milet: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen seit dem Jahre  (Berlin, – ) = G. Kawerau and A. Rehm, Milet. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen seit dem Jahre . Vol. , fasc. : Das Delphinion in Milet (Berlin,  []) = W. Dittenberger, Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (Leipzig, –) = R. Osborne and P. J. Rhodes, Greek Historical Inscriptions, – BC (Oxford, ) = D. L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, ) = Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. , ed. A. H. M. Jones et al. (Cambridge, ); vols.  and , ed. J. R. Martindale (Cambridge, –) = Oxyrhynchus papyri (– ) = C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (New Haven, ) = J.M Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome (London, )

List of Abbreviations RIC RO Robert, OMS RWI

SC SEG Smallwood  Syll. TAM TrGF

xvii

= H. Mattingly, E. A. Sydenham, et al., Roman Imperial Coinage (London, – ) = P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, – BC (Oxford, ; revised ed. ) = L. Robert, Opera minora selecta,  vols. (Amsterdam, –) = S. Hagel and K. Tomaschitz, Repertorium der westkilikischen Inschriften. Nach den Scheden der Kleinasiatischen Kommission der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Ergänzungsbände zu den TAM no. ; Denkschriften Österr. Akad., Phil.-Hist. Kl. Band ; Vienna, ) = Sources chrétiennes = Supplementum epigraphicum graecum (– ) = E. M. Smallwood, Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero (Cambridge, ) = W. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, rd edn. (Leipzig, –) = E. Kalinka et al., Tituli Asiae Minoris (– ) = B. Snell, R. Kannicht, and S. Radt (eds.) Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta,  vols. (Göttingen, –)

Introduction Benefactors and the Polis, a Long-Term Perspective Marc Domingo Gygax and Arjan Zuiderhoek

Ancient historians generally consider benefactions by wealthy citizens to their civic communities as a phenomenon that gained prominence only in the post-classical polis. Under the heading of ‘euergetism’, such public generosity is mainly studied for the poleis in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods, and it is also often explained primarily in terms relating to broader social, economic and political developments supposedly typical of these periods. With this volume, we wish to challenge this perspective. Our starting point, the working hypothesis behind the volume, is that public generosity in one form or another was actually a structural feature of polis society throughout its long history, from the Homeric world until well into Late Antiquity. Such a wide chronological scope inevitably invites reassessments of the role of public giving in the various periods of Greek history, and these the reader will find in the chapters that follow. In this introduction we will sketch the historiography of the subject, and argue why, in our view, developments in the debate on public giving and its relation to polis society over the past few decades necessitate a turn towards a longue durée perspective.

The Rise of a Subject Public generosity – gifts or contributions made by individuals to the wider community – was a prominent feature of civic life in classical antiquity. Indeed, the phenomenon is so omnipresent in our sources that scholars long took it more or less for granted, commenting on it in passing when dealing with more general topics such as the history of the post-classical polis, the broader Hellenistic world or Roman provincial administration, or treating it as an individual chapter in the history of social aid or care for the poor (Armenpflege). Thus Wilhelm Liebenam in his Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche () discussed gifts by members of the civic elite and the honours they received in return as part of his detailed 



     

overview of civic public finances in the Roman Empire, while the liturgies paid by the wealthy in classical Athens had many decades earlier found a place in August Boeckh’s monumental Staatshaushaltung der Athener (). Frank F. Abbott and Allan C. Johnson dealt in passing with the munera and liturgies (in their post-classical form, as munificence tied to office holding) recorded in the evidence from (Greco-)Roman cities in their volume on Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (). Civic munificence also figures prominently in some of the contributions to Tenney Frank’s Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, particularly in the section by T. R. S. Broughton on Roman Asia Minor in volume  (), which contains long lists of elite gifts and foundations as part of a survey of the evidence for urban economic life under the Empire. Civic munificence is also considered in A. H. M. Jones’s The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (), where the proliferation of benefactions in Hellenistic and Roman-era Greek cities is interpreted as a sign of postclassical civic decline (on which more below). Gift-giving by Greek and Roman elites was unsurprisingly accorded an even more prominent place in studies of charity and poor relief in antiquity. In his Wohltätigkeit und Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum (), Hendrik Bolkestein sought to explore the status of the poor and the social ethics and practices of poor relief in the Ancient Near East (Egypt and Palestine) and the Greco-Roman world, finding that whereas Near Eastern philanthropy focused on almsgiving and charity by the rich towards the poor (a tradition Christianity would inherit), Greek and Roman beneficence was concerned primarily with the citizencommunity rather than with the poor per se. In his  study Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome, Arthur R. Hands similarly focused on poor relief, but with attention only to the Greco-Roman world. While admitting, with Bolkestein, that Greek and Roman benefactors did not target the poor as such, Hands argued that various categories of munificence, such as the provision of (cash for the purchase of ) basic commodities, educational facilities and gifts related to health and hygiene, nonetheless benefitted the poorer segments of society. One feature of Hands’s study particularly relevant to the concerns of the present volume is that one chapter analyses elite munificence as a form of gift-exchange, in the anthropological tradition going back to Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le don,

 

Boeckh (); Liebenam (); Abbott and Johnson (). Broughton (); Jones ().

Introduction



focusing not just on what was given but also on the community’s obligation to make a return gift that increased the benefactor’s honour. Only from the mid-s onwards, however, did ancient public generosity come into its own as an object of study, a development due almost entirely to Paul Veyne’s monumental Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique () and its (critical) reception in historical scholarship. Veyne’s subject was l’évergétisme, the word itself being a neologism based on the honorific epithet euergetes (benefactor), a title often awarded wealthy public donors in the ancient world. Although Veyne did not invent the term, he made clear the types of ancient elite generosity to which it ought to be applied: specifically, the benefactions of wealthy citizens in the post-classical (i.e. Hellenistic and Roman-era) Greek poleis, as well as, up to a certain point at least, the public gifts of Roman Republican grandees and the public benefactions of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors. In Veyne’s vision, euergetism was a specifically Greco-Roman social phenomenon, to be distinguished from later Christian charity but also from other ancient forms of gift-giving, such as those associated with Greek guest-friendship (xenia), archaic largesse, the classical Athenian liturgy system and Roman patronage. As noted above, the subject had previously been dealt with by historians as part of the history of civic finance or social aid and poor relief, and some scholars had focused in detail on specific aspects of it, for example, the legal historian Bernhard Laum in his study of foundations, Stiftungen in der griechischen und römischen Antike (), and the epigrapher Louis Robert (one of Veyne’s teachers) in his many studies of individual honorific inscriptions. As such, the topic was not new. Veyne’s distinctive contribution lay in refashioning elite public generosity, specifically, the variety he called euergetism, as an important sociopolitical phenomenon tout court, with its own complex history and links to other aspects of Greco-Roman society. Yet despite Veyne’s innovative attempt to delineate the defining features of l’évergétisme and his success in placing the topic on the research agenda  

 

Bolkestein (); Hands (); see Mauss ( [–]). Veyne (). For the reception of Veyne’s work, see the review essays by Andreau, Schmitt and Schnapp () and Garnsey () (in response to the appearance of the abridged English edition, Veyne []). The word itself was coined by A. Boulanger in a study of Aelius Aristides, see Boulanger (), and was later picked up by Marrou in his  work on ancient education. Laum (); Robert (–).



     

of ancient historians, his analysis did not break entirely free from lines of interpretation that had shaped older, partial analyses of post-classical Greek public giving in particular, and that continue to characterize much work on euergetism today. The first of these is the conviction that euergetism was a product of the Hellenistic age, that is, that the rise of euergetism proper should be dated to the (later) Hellenistic period, even if there were already stirrings of it in the final decades of the fourth century BCE. For Veyne, euergetism ‘did not exist’ in the classical polis, because the sociopolitical conditions favouring its rise (the development of an ‘oligarchy of notables’) came to characterize the poleis only from the early Hellenistic period onwards. From then until the high Roman Empire, Veyne detects little change in the operation of euergetism in the poleis, chiefly because in his view sociopolitical conditions (i.e. oligarchy) remained the same. Here Veyne’s interpretation is in line with the scenario already sketched out by A. H. M. Jones in his Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (). More recently, a similar picture of a virtually unchanging development of euergetism in the context of an oligarchisation of civic politics from early Hellenistic times until the high Roman Empire was presented by Friedemann Quass in Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens (). This brings us to the second line of interpretation Veyne shares with most earlier scholars discussing civic benefactions, namely, his close association of the rise of euergetism with a ‘decline’ of the Greek polis in the post-classical era. This decline is supposed to have manifested itself in two spheres. The first is public finance: earlier authors, notably Jones, believed that Hellenistic and Roman-era Greek poleis were so crippled financially that they could not function without private contributions by wealthy citizens. The second is popular politics, also stressed by Jones but particularly by Veyne: civic euergetism was linked to the development of an increasingly oligarchic political culture and practice in the Hellenistic and Roman-era Greek cities. For Veyne, euergetism was a clear expression of the superiority of civic notables, the wealthy citizens generally thought to have dominated the post-classical polis (Veyne is nonetheless at pains to stress that the development of euergetism cannot be explained by simply interpreting it as an instrument to ‘depoliticize’ the masses, as he imagines a Marxist historian might do).  

Veyne () – (quote from p.  = Veyne () ). For discussion, see Domingo Gygax () –, esp. –.  Jones (); Quass (). Jones (), esp. – and –; Veyne () passim.

Introduction



A final trait of Veyne’s work, and perhaps the most noteworthy, which is not in line with earlier analyses of euergetism but in fact distinguishes his approach from that of some of his predecessors (particularly Hands), is his rejection of social scientific and historical-comparative explanations of euergetism. For Veyne (as argued in his Comment on écrit l’histoire), history is a way of analysing, describing or narrating what is unique about events and phenomena in the past. He recognizes that there are other methods of analysis, that is, those of the social sciences, where events and phenomena observed in various (past) societies are used as examples to formulate a general law or theory; but that, in his judgement, is not what historians do. Euergetism was thus sui generis in Veyne’s view, a phenomenon that could arise only in the specific social, political and cultural climate of the Greco-Roman city. Although one might compare it with examples of public gift-giving known from other societies, for example, the potlatch, to understand the essence of euergetism, to understand it historically, one must focus on its unique aspects. Indeed, for Veyne comparison only underlines historical uniqueness. He therefore rejects anthropological, sociological and economic explanations of euergetism as ultimately unusable (because too generic) and focuses on what he sees as euergetism’s unique characteristics, namely, the way such gifts symbolically expressed the superiority of the notables, their distance sociale from the rest of the citizenry, and the specific psychological satisfaction the notables derived from using their wealth this way. The implication is that euergetism was for Veyne primarily a one-way street, with rich citizens showering gifts on a mostly passive demos.

Recent Developments In the past few decades, researchers have increasingly challenged these assumptions. The chronology of the development of euergetism proposed by Veyne and historians before him was questioned already in  by Philippe Gauthier in an important study, Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs. Explicitly contra Veyne, Gauthier argues that the benefactions of the wealthy in the poleis of the early Hellenistic period continued to take place within a civic framework of public services provided by wealthy citizens, with only non-citizen outsiders awarded the honorific title euergetes, as had  

Veyne (). For a good discussion of Veyne’s theory of history, see the review essay of Gorman (), in response to the English edition of Comment on écrit l’histoire, Veyne (). For a similar perspective, see Wörrle (), with the discussion by Rogers ().



     

been the case in the classical polis. Only from the second century BCE onwards, when Rome entered the Greek world and the Hellenistic kingdoms declined, did oligarchisation set in and euergetism develop into a ‘système du gouvernement’, in which the civic notables, honoured by their poleis for their many benefactions, occupied a central place. In line with Gauthier’s argument, historians of the Hellenistic polis have increasingly stressed the continuation of democratic or populist political practices in Hellenistic cities, which some have argued ended only with the subjugation of the poleis to Roman hegemony. Others have contested the latter claim as well and have argued that even under Roman imperial rule, and despite some institutional changes in the poleis (e.g. city councillors now sat on the boulē for life, like decuriones in western Roman cities), aspects of traditional Greek popular politics continued to characterize political culture and practices; the popular assembly in particular remained a force to be reckoned with and, at least until well into the third century CE, continued to be structurally involved in political decision-making at the civic level. The notion of a deterioration of civic public finances, the other element in the traditional ‘decline of the polis’ scenario, which provided a supposed economic rationale for the rise of euergetism, has also been contested. It has been argued that Greek civic finances in the Hellenistic and Roman periods were nowhere near as structurally inadequate as has been assumed (although periods of war or bad harvests constituted exceptions, and it was precisely when such events put pressure on public resources that benefactors chipped in). This work suggests that a process of ‘decline of the polis’, if ‘decline’ is the proper term at all, should be located in the later Roman Empire as part of larger processes of transformation that occurred in (very) Late Antiquity. Finally, inspired by social scientific studies of the gift, recent work on civic benefactions has placed particular stress on the reciprocal character of elite munificence. Scholars have focused on the honours successful benefactors received from recipient communities as counter-gifts for their public generosity, effectively reconceptualizing euergetism as a form of gift-exchange.

     

Gauthier (). For discussion, see the review by Gruen (). See Grieb (); Carlsson () and the discussions in Mann and Scholz (); Wiemer (). Rogers (); Ma (); Zuiderhoek (); Heller (); Fernoux (); Brélaz (). Note, e.g. Schwarz (); Zuiderhoek (); Migeotte (). See notably Liebeschuetz (). See most recently Domingo Gygax (); Zuiderhoek (); Domingo Gygax ().

Introduction



These developments in the literature prompt a number of questions and considerations. If euergetism can no longer be regarded as a historically specific product of a supposed decline of the Greek polis during the (later) Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods, euergetism or forms of public giving akin to it may already have been present in polis society (much) earlier. Furthermore, if the causal links between elite public giving and oligarchic politics or endemic civic financial distress are tenuous, we should perhaps look for other, more structural reasons for the prominence of public gifts in the Greek polis. Could the structural features (whatever they prove to be) that gave rise to elite public contributions have been part of polis society from its very beginnings? And if euergetism can be seen as a form of gift-exchange, could it be argued that euergetism itself was only one particular, albeit temporarily prominent, incarnation of a tradition of reciprocal exchange between elite individuals and their communities dating back to the earliest periods of Greek history (and perhaps enduring beyond the slow demise of the phenomenon in its ‘classical’ form in the later Roman period)? That is, would it be legitimate to view the largesse of Homeric basileis, the liturgy system of democratic Athens and the euergesiai of Hellenistic and Roman-era civic notables as varying manifestations of the same underlying sociopolitical mechanism? Or should they be regarded as (radically?) different phenomena to be analysed on their own terms? And what links, if any, existed between public gifts to the civic community at large and other types of gift-giving in the ancient world, for example, gifts associated with patronage and guest-friendship or Christian care for the poor?

This Volume Starting from such questions and considerations, the editors invited a number of scholars specializing in different periods of Greek history to contribute chapters to the present volume, which aims to examine public giving in the Greek polis for the first time from a truly longue durée perspective, tracing continuities and exploring changes and developments, as well as regional variations, from Homeric Greece to the later Roman Empire. Our focus is on the Greek polis, not because Roman traditions of munificence are uninteresting, but because most of the earlier debate on euergetism also concentrated on the polis, albeit during the post-classical periods. As the foregoing will have made clear, it was precisely the recent challenges to the traditional ‘declinist’ perspective on the post-classical polis that prompted our main research question, namely, whether elite



     

public contributions were a structural feature of polis society from beginning to end (with the euergetism we know from Hellenistic and Roman times being only one particular – if prominent – manifestation of the phenomenon). The same question could profitably be asked with regard to the role played by public giving in Roman civic society from its earliest beginnings onwards. Such an investigation would be sufficiently complex and wide-ranging to require its own volume, but it would be interesting to compare its results with those that emerge from the contributions collected in this volume. It should be noted in any case that under the Empire, Greek public giving and Roman traditions of liberalitas merged in the benefactions of the emperors, whose gifts to Greek poleis also receive attention here (see the chapter by Carlos Noreña), and arguably to some extent in the munificence of civic elites in the eastern provinces, to which another portion of the volume is devoted (see the chapters by Onno van Nijf and Arjan Zuiderhoek). While we focus primarily, therefore, on public gifts made within the context of the polis itself by residents (citizens, metics, freedmen) to the community, we include three chapters (by Rolf Strootman, John Tully and Noreña) on benefactions by powerful outsiders, that is, Hellenistic kings and emperors, because it has traditionally been argued that the structure and content of royal or imperial benefactions powerfully influenced the euergetism of civic elites in the poleis. To ensure the volume’s analytic cohesion, we have asked contributors dealing with public generosity in particular periods to pay close attention to similarities and differences from, and (dis)continuities between, earlier and later periods of Greek history. Beyond this, the authors have been left free to choose the aspects of public giving they wish to consider, where they place their emphasis and how they frame their arguments, our goal being to ensure original insights and fruitful debate stimulating further research. In line with this, we wish to emphasize that we have deliberately not provided our authors with a strict working definition of elite public giving (beyond the intentionally vague ‘gifts or contributions by individuals to the wider community’), nor do we provide such a definition in this introduction. This is because the question of precisely what public generosity in the polis entailed in different eras of Greek history, and of how such forms of gift-giving should be defined, on their own and in relation to



For a good collection of studies examining civic munificence in Roman Italy, see Lomas and Cornell ().

Introduction



one another, is precisely what motivates this volume. Hasty a priori definitions would only hamper exploration of these issues. As part of the project, the authors were invited to present draft versions of their chapters during a workshop held at the Princeton University Department of Classics on – April . Feedback from discussion at the workshop was incorporated into the chapters as they now appear, providing a longue durée view of public gifts and their relationship to the Greek polis in the form of a series of detailed snapshots from different periods (Homeric and archaic Greece, the classical era, Hellenistic and Roman times and Late Antiquity). The chapters are followed by a general conclusion by the editors, in which we discuss the implications of each contributor’s findings and attempt to draw out some general themes emerging from the individual contributions. The advantage of taking a long-term perspective on public generosity, as we do in this volume, is that it allows discussion of elite public giving in relation to a wide range of important avenues of research, for example, the structure of Homeric society, the ‘rise of the polis’, tyranny, Athenian democracy, post-classical popular politics, festival culture, the relationship between poleis and empires, and the impact of Christianity and its institutional actors (priests, bishops). In addition, by opting for a long time span and explicitly including discussion and comparison of different manifestations of ancient Greek elite public generosity within a single volume, we hope to contribute to (and demonstrate the relevance of work on ancient Greek benefactions for) wider debates among historians and social scientists on gift-exchange and its role in society, both in antiquity and beyond. Should this volume succeed in offering inspiration to scholars (and students!) active in fields beyond Classics sensu stricto, as well as to colleagues working in more specialized areas, we would regard our mission as accomplished. BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbott, F. F., and Johnson, A. C. () Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire. Princeton. Andreau, J., Schmitt, P., and Schnapp, A. () ‘Paul Veyne et l’évergétisme’, Annales ESC : –. Boeckh, A. () Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener. Berlin. Bolkestein, H. () Wohltätigkeit und Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum. Utrecht. Boulanger, A. () Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d’Asie au IIe siècle de notre ère. Paris.



     

Brélaz, C. () ‘La vie démocratique dans les cités grecques à l’époque impériale’, Topoi : –. Broughton, T. R. S. () ‘Roman Asia Minor’, in T. Frank (ed.), An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome IV. Baltimore, –. Carlsson S. () Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart. Domingo Gygax, M. (). ‘Euergetismus und Gabentausch’, Mètis n.s. : –. () Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism. Cambridge. Fernoux, H.-L. () Le demos et la cité: communautés et assembleés populaires en Asie Mineure à l’époque impériale. Rennes. Garnsey, P. () ‘The generosity of Veyne’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. Gauthier, P. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe –Ier siècle avant J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens. Gorman, J. L. () ‘Review essay: Writing history. Essay on epistemology by Paul Veyne’, History and Theory .: –. Grieb V. () Hellenistische Demokratie. Politische Organisation und Struktur in freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Grossen. Stuttgart. Gruen, E. S. () ‘Review: Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe–Ier siècle avant J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions by P. Gauthier’, Journal of Hellenic Studies : . Heller, A. () ‘La cité grecque d’époque impériale: vers une société d’ordres?’, Annales HSS : –. Hands, A. R. () Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. Ithaca. Jones, A. H. M. () The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford. Laum, B. () Stiftungen in der griechischen und römischen Antike. Ein Beitrag zur antiken Kulturgeschichte,  vols. Leipzig. Liebenam, W. () Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche. Leipzig. Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. () The Decline and Fall of the Roman City. Oxford. Lomas, K., and Cornell, T. (eds.) () ‘Bread and Circuses’: Euergetism and Municipal Patronage in Roman Italy. New York. Ma, J. () ‘Public speech and community in the Euboicus’, in S. Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom. Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford, –. Mann, C., and Scholz, P. (eds.) () ‘Demokratie’ im Hellenismus. Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? Mainz. Marrou, H.-I. () Histoire de l’éducation dans l’Antiquité. Paris. Mauss, M. () The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York (original French ed. –). Migeotte, L. () Économie et finances publiques des cités grecques: vol. : choix d’articles publiés de  à . Lyon. Quass, F. () Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens. Untersuchungen zur politischen und sozialen Entwicklung in hellenistischer und römischer Zeit. Stuttgart.

Introduction



Robert, L. (–) Opera minora selecta: épigraphie et antiquités grecques,  vols. Amsterdam. Rogers, G. M. () ‘Demosthenes of Oenoanda and models of euergetism’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. () ‘The assembly of imperial Ephesos’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Papyrologie und Epigraphik : –. Schwarz, H. () Soll oder Haben? Die Finanzwirtschaft kleinasiatischer Städte in der Römischen Kaiserzeit am Beispiel von Bithynien, Lykien und Ephesos ( v. Chr.– n. Chr.). Bonn. Veyne, P. () Comment on écrit l'histoire: essai d’épistémologie. Paris. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. () Writing History: Essay on Epistemology. Middletown, CT. () Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. London (abridged translation from the French). Wiemer, H.-U. () ‘Hellenistic cities: the end of Greek democracy?’, in H. Beck (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Greek Government. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Chichester, –. Wörrle, M. () Stadt und Fest im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien. Munich. Zuiderhoek, A. () ‘On the political sociology of the imperial Greek city’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies : –. () The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge.

 

Benefiting the Community in Early Greece

 

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer Hans van Wees

Homer’s heroes seem paragons of generosity, always giving gifts and offering hospitality. At first glance their behaviour appears to fit very well the ‘archaic’, indeed ‘ageless’, customs which according to Paul Veyne were the antecedents of euergetism and civic benefactions: ‘generosity on the part of rich men, collective feasting’ (: ), offered not to the whole community but to ‘a narrower and nearer group’, especially to ‘the poor’ (), who become the donor’s ‘clients’ (). ‘Maintaining one’s own people and also offering splendid hospitality to foreigners – that was the old morality of the nobles’ (). Veyne himself did not discuss the evidence of the epics, but several influential studies of the Homeric world have indeed portrayed a society centred on these forms of ‘aristocratic largesse’. This chapter will argue that generosity is less important in Homer than has been assumed and that hierarchical generosity, in which the rich offer gifts and hospitality in order to create obligations and subservience among the less rich, is entirely absent. We do, however, find in Homer an ideal that the elite should serve the community as soldiers, counsellors and judges, and it is this notion which lies at the root of the financial services to the community demanded by the later culture of civic benefactions. Instead of an extension of private generosity to public causes, the key historical development between Homer and the classical period is the transformation of a persistent ideology of ‘public service’.

Generosity in the Homeric World: Modern Interpretations A series of studies from the early s onwards made generosity a key feature of Homeric society. They drew from evolutionary anthropology the idea that in pre-state societies gift-giving and feasting are essential means of creating social and political hierarchies and argued that Homer reflected just such mechanisms in just such a society. 



  

Walter Donlan’s ‘Reciprocities in Homer’ () is perhaps the best representative of the approach. The Homeric elite, the basileis, are entitled to ‘dues’ and other material privileges from the community but, according to Donlan, only on condition that they provide military leadership and display lavish generosity (a: –). This display involves generous use of their own property, offering gifts and feasts to personal dependants, followers and allies (–), as well as generosity in spending or redistributing communal resources, above all the spoils of war and raids, and in public feasting (–). If gifts and feasts are not generous enough, even dependants within the household are liable to desert (); ‘the granted right to redistribute is contingent on an equitable redistribution’ (). Since Homer’s basileis draw much more on their own resources than on the dues given to them, and since the people can withhold these dues if they are unsatisfied with the leaders’ performance, Donlan argued, their position is analogous to that of ‘chiefs’ in an ‘immature chiefdom’ (, ). This form of social and political organisation lies somewhere between a ‘tribal’ society without any ranked leaders and a developed chiefdom in which the chiefs fund their distributions primarily by levying compulsory dues. Other scholars place Homeric society higher or lower on the evolutionary scale, but they agree that generosity in gift-giving and feasting plays a central role in shaping its political structure. The underlying assumption of this model of Homeric society is that every gift and feast is by definition an act of generosity and as such puts its recipients under an obligation. This principle is so much taken for granted that attitudes towards gift-giving and feasting explicitly or implicitly expressed in the epics are barely considered, apart from a few passages relating to the exchange of gifts and hospitality between ‘guest-friends’ (xeinoi), which are cited as if they represented the norm for all forms of exchange. Yet guest-friendship is only one kind of reciprocity among many, and the principles which apply in such relations across community boundaries need not be the same as those which apply within a city. This distinction was made by the classic study that put Homeric gift-giving on the map, Moses Finley’s The World of Odysseus (/), but has somehow been forgotten. 



Donlan had already outlined his ideas about Homeric ‘chiefdom’ in Donlan (), reprinted with a selection of his later papers in Donlan (); see also e.g. Donlan (), (b), (), (), (). Qviller (), esp. –, –; () (developed chiefdom); Rihll (), (); Ulf () – (Big-Man); cf. Whitley () –; Raaflaub () –; Welwei () –.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



Finley famously said that in Homer ‘one measure of a man’s true worth was how much he could give away in treasure’ and that this was a ‘competitive, honorific activity . . . in both directions: it was as honourable to give as to receive’ (–; cf. ), a pattern ‘absolutely consistent’ with the model outlined in Marcel Mauss’s classic study of reciprocity, The Gift (). This claim, however, refers specifically to ‘diplomatic relations’ (: ) and guest-friendship. Finley did not suggest that it applies equally to other kinds of gift. Indeed, he noted that ‘gifts’ in Homer include ‘fees, rewards, prizes, and sometimes bribes . . . amends with a penal overtone . . . and even ordinary loans’, which are not regarded as gifts by later Greeks or modern readers (). The only other form of gift-giving which he discussed in some detail was the presentation of ‘gifts’ by subjects to their kings, and this does not fit Mauss’s model: such gifts are ‘compulsory for all practical purposes’ and come close to being taxes or feudal dues, qualifying as gifts only because their timing and amount were not fixed (). Instead of reciprocating with generous distributions, as a ‘counter-gift to the people . . . the king gave military leadership and protection, and he gave little else’ (). Moreover, gifts to kings and gifts for guest-friends were separate in kind and in circulation: ‘what went up the line from the people to their lord was one matter; what went to an outsider was something else again, and no confusion between the two was permissible’ (). Similarly, a visitor from abroad might be treated with generous hospitality and be expected to reciprocate in due course, but the same principle does not apply to all kinds of feasting. Finley noted that at some feasts the costs are shared by the visiting diners rather than met by the host (: ). He also argued that many diners on all occasions are not guests but ‘retainers’ (therapontes) who act as attendants at the feast and as followers in war in exchange for full and permanent membership of the household rather than just a share of food and drink (, ). Their relationship with the head of the household is based on ‘customary or legal obligation’ rather than on generosity and reciprocity (); at the top of ‘a whole hierarchy of retainers’ in the greatest houses one might even find ‘aristocrats’ in a position similar to Lord Chamberlain at ‘some early modern court’ (, ). The details remain unclear, but Finley evidently had in mind an institutionalised hierarchy with formal mutual obligations rather than a fluid network created by competitive generosity. Within a 

Finley ()  (Mauss), ()  (citing B. Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society, ).



  

community, feasting did not create hierarchy but was ‘necessary for the preservation of the group’, while beyond it hospitality actively served ‘the establishment of peaceful relations . . . with strangers and guest-friends’ (–; emphases added). Regardless of whether Finley was right or wrong about the relation between retainers and their leaders or between rulers and subjects in Homer (see below), he was right about the basic principle that not all kinds of gift-giving and feasting follow the same rules and produce the same sort of relationships. The main weakness of more recent studies has been to reduce the variety of forms found in Homer to a single norm – or conversely to posit that there ought to be a single norm and that the variety found in Homer shows that the epics do not reflect the practices and ideas of a historical society. We must look again at the range of gifts and favours exchanged in the Homeric world and reassess the evidence of the epics for the motivations and implications of such forms of exchange within the community.

The Homeric Gift: Payment and Tribute When the last prize in the chariot race at the funeral games of Patroclus – a two-handled bowl – remains unclaimed, Achilles picks it up and walks through the crowd towards Nestor, who is too old to compete. ‘I give you this prize just like that (autōs)’, he explains (Il. .–, –), presenting the gift as a gesture of pure generosity. We might expect Nestor to be grateful and feel obliged to Achilles, but his response shows otherwise: My heart rejoices because you always remember that I am kind to you and you do not forget the respect (timē) which I ought to be shown among the Greeks. May the gods, in return for this, grant you every favour (charis) you could want. (Il. .–)

Nestor regards Achilles’ gesture not as a gesture of gratuitous generosity but as a tribute to which he is entitled, both as a reward for the kindness he has previously shown to Achilles personally and as a token of the respect that he believes everyone owes him. He deserves this gift, so has no need to reciprocate: if Achilles receives something in return, it will come from the gods, who may reward his good manners.



So Hooker (); von Reden () –.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



The two motivations for gift-giving expressed in this episode underlie most of the gifts made in the epics. Some are rewards for services performed, some are tokens of respect for the recipient’s high status, and some are both. An example of the former is the gift made by Achilles when Antilochus takes last prize in the foot race but makes a little speech ‘glorifying’ Achilles, who responds: ‘Your praise was not uttered in vain, but I shall give you an additional half-talent of gold’ (Il. .–). Here we have a reciprocal exchange: Antilochus, like Nestor, does Achilles a favour, and Achilles returns the favour by making a gift. As we shall see, such exchanges always involve a gift for a favour – never a gift for a gift, except in ‘foreign’ relations, between guest-friends – and usually the favour comes first, so that the gift is in effect a payment and closes the exchange rather than initiating a new obligation. Nestor’s notion that he is also entitled to gifts as a show of ‘respect’, apparently from all Greeks at all times, has parallels in the prizes awarded by Achilles to Eumelos and Agamemnon. Eumelos is the best driver in the army and has the best horses, so ought to win the chariot race (Il. .–; .–, –, –), but crashes. Yet Achilles refuses to give him last prize, proposing to give him ‘second prize, as is appropriate’, because Eumelos is ‘the best man’ (anēr ōristos, .–). When this idea meets with opposition from the driver who came second, Achilles makes a highly prestigious extra prize available, the captured cuirass of Asteropaeus. He is motivated by ‘pity’ (., ) rather than ‘respect’ for Eumelos, but his pity derives from the idea that a man should get gifts which are commensurate with his status as ‘the best’, even if his actual performance on the day falls short. Later, he goes so far as to insist on giving Agamemnon first prize in javelin-throwing without competition: ‘because we know how much you surpass everyone else’ (.). Again, the gift is a tribute, a sign that the giver recognises the recipient’s status. The award of prizes to competitors at games is objectively among the major displays of generosity in the epic world, insofar as a great deal of wealth is given away for no tangible return. Yet the emphasis in the poems is not on the generosity of the giver but on the entitlement of the recipients. Prizes are never called ‘gifts’, dōra, by Homer, but always aethl(i)a, literally ‘exploits’, the same word being used for the physical feat as for its reward. This term emphasises the outstanding achievement that earns a contestant his prize. Moreover, prize-givers do not hand over the 

‘Prizes’: e.g. Il. .; ., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; Od. ., . ‘Exploits’: e.g. Il. .; ., , ; Od. .; .



  

awards in person – as Achilles does when giving additional gifts to Nestor, Antilochus and Eumelus (Il. .–, –, –) – but ‘set down’ the valuables ‘in the middle of the gathering’ (Od. .) to be picked up by the winners or their supporters. In disputes about prizes, the competitors ignore the donor and argue or threaten to fight with one another. The prize-giving procedure at games minimises the display of generosity by the donor and stresses that the competitors’ exploits – or their acknowledged rank – give them a right to claim rewards. The patterns of gift-giving we have identified at the games recur everywhere in the epics. Turning first to exchanges of gifts for favours, we find that they include not only gifts freely given in return for favours freely rendered – reciprocity in its full sense – as between Achilles, Nestor and Antilochus, but also ‘gifts’ made as part of a negotiated exchange and even ‘gifts’ extracted by threats or force, for which the term ‘payment’ would be a better modern description and which emphatically entail no further mutual obligations. Gifts in return for favours spontaneously rendered do occur. One may expect Paris to give ‘splendid gifts’ to the killer of Menelaos (Il. .–) or the Trojans to award an estate to the killer of Achilles (Il. .–). Halitherses is accused of speaking in Telemachus’ support ‘in expectation of a gift for your house which he may provide’ (Od. .–). Hephaistos gives Thetis a ‘gift’ of new armour for her son in return for the help he once received from her (Il. .–). Such transactions are voluntary and allow room for generosity, but the gift in each case pays off an acknowledged debt, so the exchange may end here rather than become part of an ongoing reciprocal relationship. A gift certainly ends the exchange in the case of negotiated rewards for services. The elders of Aetolia promise Meleager ‘a great gift’, an agricultural estate (Il. .–), if he will fight in defence of the city. He refuses, and when he later enters battle all the same, ‘they no longer delivered gifts



 

(suitors’ pastimes); . etc. (Phaeacian games); . etc. (archery challenge). In the footrace, the exploit consists of being fastest to reach the prizes (Il. .–); in the discus, the prize is the weight of iron thrown (.–). The same word is used for the ‘labours’ of Heracles (Il. .; .; .; Od. ., ) and Odysseus (Od. .; ., ; .; ., ), and for ‘exploits’ in battle (Il. .; Od. .; .; .). Prizes ‘set down’: Il. ., , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, ; Od. .–; prizes carried off: Il. ., , , , , –, , , , –, –. Disputes: Il. .–, –; the spectators also play a role in awarding prizes: .–, , –. See the definition and discussion in van Wees (), esp. –. Il. ., , ; ., ; ., .

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



to him’ (.–). The offer is thus not a generous gesture but strictly contractual: an agreed reward conditional upon the immediate performance of a specified service. Emphatically contractual is Hector’s offer of the two best horses and chariot to be captured from the Greeks to a volunteer for a spying mission: in the space of single verse this reward is called both ‘a great gift’ and ‘a reliable wage’ (misthos, Il. .; cf. ). The volunteer insists on even more specific and binding terms: he will have Achilles’ own horses, promised under oath (.–; cf. –). We may perhaps infer a similar contractual arrangement when Hector later reminds his ‘allies’ (epikouroi) that ‘with gifts and food . . . I increase the spirit of you all’ so that they will protect Troy (.–): supplies and ‘gifts’ are wages in exchange for military service. Away from the battlefield, Hera first promises a golden chair as ‘a gift’ to Sleep for help in her plot against Zeus (.), then raises her offer to ‘one of the younger Graces’ (.–). He accepts only on condition that she promises under oath to give him Pasithea in particular (.–). Again the contractual element could hardly be clearer, and the same is true for various ‘bribes’, such as Paris’ ‘splendid gifts’ of gold to Antimachus and others in exchange for support in the assembly (Il. .–). At the far end of the spectrum are ‘gifts’ made under duress. The treasures, race horses and slave women offered by Agamemnon to Achilles are called ‘gifts’ (dōra) more than twenty times, despite the fact that Agamemnon is forced to offer them by Achilles’ damaging withdrawal from battle. They are not an act of generosity but a coerced payment of ‘compensation’ (apoina, Il. .; .) for the ‘dishonour’ he has inflicted (e.g. .–, ), and accordingly it is not Agamemnon but Achilles who enjoys increased ‘honour’ (timē) and ‘glory’ (kudos; Il. .–; .–) as a result of the transaction. Generosity is even less in evidence when Euryalos is ordered by his king to give a ‘gift’ to Odysseus (Od. .) to make up for an insult. Ransoms, too, are called ‘gifts’ although they are extorted by force: Priam offers a set of ‘gifts’ for the release of Hector’s corpse, again a source of kudos for Achilles (Il. .); the silver krater, gold and wine that Maron gives to 

  

Also Il. . (golden cup in exchange for safe escort); Od. .; . (two men die ‘on account of women’s gifts’, i.e. women took gifts for actions that would lead to their husbands’ deaths). Iliad .; ., , , , , , , , , , , ; .; .; ., , , , , , , . For the meaning of apoina in this context, see Cairns (), contra Wilson (). Apoina: Il. ., , , etc. Gifts: ., , , , , , . See also ..



  

Odysseus for sparing the lives of his family are also ‘gifts’ (Od. .–). In each case, we find a negotiated exchange in which the gift buys off the threat of violence, to the credit of the recipient and without any implication that this establishes a reciprocal relationship. The other motivation for making a gift, as an expression of ‘respect’ and acknowledgement of rank, is best attested in the custom of awarding ‘prizes’ (gera) from spoils. A distinction is made between regular shares of plunder and special prizes (consisting of a single item each, typically a captive woman) awarded to each of the ‘best men and lords’ (aristēes, basileis; Il. .). A regular share is never referred to as gift but is called a ‘share’ (moira), a ‘fair share’ (isē), or a ‘lot’ (aisa) that ‘falls to’ one (lanchanō) in a ‘division’ (dasmos). The terminology is important because it shows that, whoever is in practice in charge of the process, the spoils are not regarded as his ‘gift’ to distribute ‘generously’ in the manner of Donlan’s ‘chief’: they are ‘common property’ (xunēia, Il. .) which the men ‘divide among themselves’ (.). ‘Prizes’, on the other hand, are ‘gifts’ (Il. .), and they are usually said to be given by ‘the sons of the Achaeans’, that is, the soldiers collectively. In other words, a ‘prize’ from spoils is a token of respect given by an army or community to its leading men. The description of the recipients of prizes as ‘the best men and lords’ suggests that social rank is acknowledged alongside military excellence, and it is the tension between the two which lies at the root of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Achilles sees his geras as something ‘for which I toiled hard’ (Il. .), and which constitutes both a token of ‘gratitude’ (charis, .) for his efforts in war and a sign of ‘respect’ (timē, .) for his martial prowess. Yet to his annoyance Agamemnon receives a ‘much greater geras’ despite not taking an active part in campaigns (Il. .–; cf. .–), that is, simply because of his senior rank. Elsewhere, too, we find that valour is not the only criterion by which prizes from spoils are allocated. Nestor receives a slave woman from spoils 





Cairns and Allan (); contra, e.g. Donlan (), () –, who argued that Agamemnon’s offer of lavish compensation makes him ‘appear a paragon of generosity’ and would have ‘put Achilles under a heavy debt of obligation’ (which Achilles supposedly counters by organising a generous funeral feast and games). moira, Od. .; isē, Il. .–; Od. ., ; aisa, Il. .; Od. .; . (for lanchanō, see also Il. .–; Od. .; .); dasmos, Il. ., . For the distinction between geras and regular share, see esp. Il. .; Od. .; .–; full discussion in van Wees () –. ‘Sons of Achaeans’: Il. ., , ; .; . (to Achilles; cf. .: ‘you’, plural); . –; .– (to Agamemnon); .– (to Nestor); cf. Od. .– and .–.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



‘because he was the best man of all in counsel’ (Il. .–), while Alcinous does so ‘because he ruled all Phaeacians and the people listened to him as if to a god’ (Od. .–). Ideally, therefore, the ‘gift’ of a geras combines a show of gratitude for services in battle or council and a show of respect for kings and lords, but in practice it may be merely a tribute to superior rank. Moreover, it is clear that an army or community has very little control over the award of prizes in its name. Twice Achilles states that his prize was given by Agamemnon (Il. ., –) rather than by the army as a whole, and in another passage it emerges, first, that Agamemnon can award a prize (here called presbēion) without reference to collective opinion, and second that he will always award a prize to himself before anyone else (Il. .–). The explanation for this seeming discrepancy is surely that in principle the whole army or community awards prizes, but in practice the commander or king does so on their behalf. Gera, then, are not generous gifts but tributes owed by the community to their rulers and leaders, which these rulers in fact award as they see fit. Their followers and subjects cannot withhold the tribute, except by rejecting the leaders’ authority altogether, as Achilles does and Thersites advocates (Il. .–), a course of action which the plot of the Iliad suggests will have dire consequences. The ruler of a city can expect other forms of tribute, too. His subjects will ‘honour him with gifts [dōtinai], like a god, and execute brilliant judgements under his staff’ (Il. .–, –). The comparison ‘like a god’ suggests a parallel with sacrifices and dedications, which are indeed regularly described as ‘gifts’ to the gods. Some sacrifices are institutionalised and take place on fixed festival days, while others are made ad hoc, in exchange for particular favours hoped for, or already received, from the deity. Gifts to ‘lords’ presumably cover a similar range, from customary gestures of deference and ‘honour’ to occasional payments and rewards for services and favours. Gods react with furious violence when they do not receive due sacrifices, and this too may have parallels in the behaviour of lords. Among the customary gifts will have been fees for arbitration in court, mentioned in the Iliad (.–) and perhaps alluded to in the line about 



Il. .; .; .; ., ., ; Od. .; .–. In turn, personal qualities and good fortune can be thought of as ‘gifts from the gods’: Il. ., , ; Od. .– (beauty); Il. ., ; Od. . (fortune in life). Note also the ‘gift of sleep’: Il. ., .; Od. .; .. Note the story of Artemis’ violent revenge for not being offered a sacrifice: Il. .–.



  

the ruler’s ‘brilliant judgements’. Another customary gift to kings was the equivalent of harbour dues: Many ships carrying wine arrived from Lemnos, sent by Euneos.. . . Separately for Agamemnon and Menelaos the son of Jason gave them , measures of wine to carry. From here the long-haired Greeks got wine – some for bronze, others for shining iron; some for hides, others for live cattle; and some for slaves. (Il. .–)

The , measures are evidently a gift from Euneos, while the remainder of the wine is bartered for the soldiers’ spoils, and the purpose of this gift is presumably to gain the king’s permission to trade with his subjects. The same arrangement probably lies behind the comment that Agamemnon’s quarters are ‘full of the wine which Greek ships carry across the sea every day from Thrace’ (Il. .–): the captains of these ships make a gift to the king when they come to barter wine with the troops. A silver krater which ‘Phoenicians carried across the sea, set down in the harbour [of Lemnos ], and gave as a gift to [king] Thoas’ (Il. .–) may be another gift which serves to facilitate trade. A final form of ‘tribute’ is a substitute for personal service owed to a king. The only explicit example is Echepolos of Sicyon’s presentation of a racehorse ‘as a gift to Agamemnon, so that he needed not follow him to windy Ilion, but could enjoy himself while staying at home’ (Il. .–). The implication is that Echepolos is somehow obliged to serve Agamemnon in war and that the ‘gift’ pays off this obligation. In this light, a second gift which otherwise might have seemed an act of simple generosity may be a further instance of tribute: the ‘comrade’ who might have given a tunic, cloak and brooch to Odysseus ‘when he embarked on his ship’ (Od. .) perhaps made his gift as a substitute for serving in person. We may discern a tribute-like gift even in the sole instance of what Finley described as ‘an ordinary loan’ (: ). Telemachus borrows a ship from Noemon, and the latter is asked: ‘Did he take the black ship from you by force, against your will, or did you give it to him willingly?’ He answers: ‘I gave it to him myself, willingly. What would anyone do if asked by such a man, with troubled heart? It would be difficult to refuse the gift’ (dosis, Od. .–; cf. .–). This is an act of kindness for a man in trouble, but it is more than a simple act of generosity: ‘such a man’ 

By contrast, Cinyras of Cyprus gave Agamemnon a cuirass ‘as a favour to the king’, when he heard about the campaign against Troy (Il. .–), which is presumably an example of reciprocity between guest-friends.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



(anēr toioutos) suggests that Telemachus’ high status as son of the king is a consideration, and the initial thought that he might have taken the ship by force suggests that this is indeed what he would have done if it had not been lent to him willingly. The comment that it would ‘difficult’ (chalepos) to refuse is significant when compared with a parallel passage in which Penelope asks her suitors for gifts, and they reply that ‘it is not fine (ou kalos) to refuse the gift’ (dosis, .). The suitors are under moral pressure to give gifts, but they have a choice (‘he who wishes’ may bring a gift, .); Noemon by contrast would find it ‘difficult’ not to do as asked and in effect has no choice. The courting gifts presented to Penelope and other gifts associated with marriage are perhaps the only kind of gift-giving in Homer, alongside gifts exchanged between guest-friends, which qualifies as a form of generosity and is designed to place the recipient under an obligation and create or reinforce a continuing reciprocal relationship. All other gifts attested in the epics are forms of payment rather than acts of generosity. They may pay for services rendered – from kind deeds and flattering words to the release of captives and corpses – or they may pay tribute to the status and power of the recipient. They may be more or less spontaneous, or they may be negotiated under oath, or even be extorted by threats and force. That Homer calls all these forms of payment ‘gift’ is striking, and implies a notion that these payments are to some extent voluntary, that the givers have a choice in whether or what to pay. But the vocabulary should not mislead us into applying a familiar model of gift-giving indiscriminately to everything called ‘gift’. As for the relation between elite and community, Homer mentions no ‘gift’ from king or lord to the common people, but many a ‘gift’ presented by the community as a whole or by individual members to kings and leaders, and such gifts, as Finley pointed out, are often compulsory tributes.

Gifts to Foreigners: Reciprocity, Profit and Public Funding The gifts, favours and hospitality exchanged between ‘guest-friends’ in Homer have been often studied, and there is no need for a full discussion here, especially if one accepts that norms and patterns of exchange in these 

The precise nature of such gifts, including most prominently he(e)dna (e.g. Od. .–), but also possible forms of dowry or trousseau (Od. .–; Il. .–, –) and wedding gifts (Il. ., ; .), is notoriously problematic and cannot be discussed here: see e.g. Morris () –; Perysinakis ().



  

‘international’ relationships are not the same as those which prevail within a community. It is clear from the epics and uncontroversial that generous hospitality and gift-giving to visitors from abroad is the norm and is designed to establish lasting, indeed hereditary, bonds. It is worth highlighting, however, some features which xeinia-relations do share with other Homeric forms of gift-giving and which help define the role of generosity in Homer’s world. First of all, generosity to foreign visitors is not a custom confined to the elite, and thus not evidence for an ‘aristocratic’ culture of largesse. Eumaeus, a swineherd and slave, treats a passing beggar with the same hospitality that a king would extend to a high-ranking visitor (Od. .–, esp. –). Only the material standard differs: instead of a chair, golden cup or change of clothes, a poor host offers his own goat-skin mattress (.–), his own wooden bowl (–) and his own winter cloak (–). In some ways Eumaeus is more generous with his hospitality than wealthier men are. He treats a pauper as a guest and as his equal, but the upper classes are more discriminating. They distinguish between a beggar who is tolerated out of ‘pity’ and a ‘respected’ guest (aidoios, Od. .–; .–), between a ‘better man’ who deserves to be ‘honoured in the house with a bed and food’ and a ‘worse man’ who can be left ‘uncared for’ (.–). A poor vagrant must sit on the threshold, beg for food (.–, ), is expected to perform menial work in exchange (.–; .–) and to leave the house at night to find shelter in some public place (.–). Once this same man has performed some services to the household and established that he has some claims to status, his treatment is upgraded, but still not on a par with regular guests: he is allowed inside the hall and given food and drink without having to beg, but still sits only just inside the threshold, on an ‘ugly stool’ by a ‘small table’ (.–). ‘Help in travel’ (pompē) offered by hosts is also hierarchal: a beggar will be sent on his way; a humble guest may be granted passage on a ship or given a travel outfit (sandals, sword and spear, in addition to the standard tunic and cloak); an honoured guest may be provided with a personal escort by chariot or ship.

 

E.g. Finley () –, –, –; van Wees () –, (). Passage: Od. .–; .–; travel outfit: .–; .–; personal escort by chariot or ship: .–, –; .–; .–.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



Host and hostess may give gifts but only to those visitors whom they hold in the highest respect or to whom they feel obliged. The difference between a beggar and an honoured guest is that one ‘asks for scraps’ while the other ‘asks for swords or cauldrons’ (.). A guest who brings good news is told that, if he is correct, ‘on account of it you would soon know friendship and many gifts from me’ (Od. .–; .–; .–). Mentes is offered a gift after he has offered his host ‘friendly thoughts’, ‘like father to son’ (.–, ). The Phaeacians offer Odysseus immediate hospitality and an escort home, but add gifts only after he has caused them to ‘rejoice’ by praising their dancers as ‘the best’ (.–). The ‘respect’ and ‘honour’ due to high status also play their part. Odysseus’ comrades exclaim, ‘How well-liked (philos) and honoured (timios) is this man to all people whose city and country he visits’ (–). Among the Phaeacians, Odysseus is ‘liked . . . feared and respected by all’ (philos . . . deinos t’ aidoios te, .–), and their hospitality and gifts amount to ‘honouring him like a god in their hearts’ (.–; .–; .–). Upper-class xenia is thus selective, offered primarily to fellowmembers of the elite, and many of the gifts that are part of the relationship amount, once again, to payments and tributes. Accordingly, the emphasis in the epics lies on the guest’s ability to attract gifts because he is liked and respected rather than on the generosity of the host. Menelaus’ gifts will bring ‘glory’ (kudos) and ‘splendour’ (aglaiê) to his guest, Telemachus, who is proud of the gifts he has acquired (Od. .–, –). His travelling companion observes the gifts ‘with wonder’ (.–), which hints at the admiration others will feel for Telemachus’ success in attracting gifts. Odysseus would go further and postpone his homecoming by a whole year if his host promised to send him home with ‘splendid gifts’ in the end: I would be willing to do even that, and it would be much more profitable to come to my own fatherland with my hands better filled, and I would be more respected and better liked by all men who saw me return to Ithaca. (Od. .–)

Guests do not always wait to be offered but actively ask for gifts (Od. .–; .–), or for a specific gift (.–; .–), or for gifts as valuable as possible (.–; .–). Sometimes the very purpose of travelling is to collect ‘at least one gift’ from each host  

Od. .–, –; .–; .–; .–; .–. Note also Penelope’s soliciting of gifts from her suitors (Od. .–), using her beauty to ‘bewitch’ them (.–, –). The ability to attract gifts served ‘to make her more highly



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(.–); some heroes spend years abroad as serial visitors on giftgathering expeditions. Gifts are regarded as a form of material ‘profit’ (kerdos) as well as a source of honour and glory. A (false) explanation of Odysseus’ long absence from home is that he decided that it was more profitable [kerdion] to travel widely across the earth and collect riches. Thus Odysseus surpasses other mortals in his concern with much that is profitable [polla kerdea], and no one else rivals him. . .. The possessions which Odysseus collected . . . could still feed others for ten generations. (Od. .–)

How one makes a profit from collecting gifts which one is supposed to reciprocate when the host pays a return visit is never explained, but the answer seems clear enough. In part, such profit is one’s reward for venturing out on long and distant journeys: the Phaeacians, in their isolation from mankind (Od. .–), will never come to visit Odysseus in return; the African and Levantine hosts visited by Menelaus are unlikely to turn up in Sparta. Even more important perhaps is again the perception of the gift as a form of tribute: men of high rank may be able to demand gifts more valuable than their hosts feel able to ask in return. The limits of generosity even in this form of gift-giving are forcefully asserted by the poet in a famous comment on the exchange of armour between Diomedes and Glaucus. The exchange is clearly meant to be purely symbolic, swapping outfits as a gesture of friendship, but it so happens that Glaucus’ armour is much more valuable than Diomedes’, and for him to agree to the swap all the same was, according to Homer, simply stupid: ‘at that point Zeus took away the good sense of Glaucus, who exchanged with Diomedes gold armour for bronze, the value of  oxen for the value of ’ (Il. .–). So far from praising Glaucus for generosity, the poet implies praise for Diomedes’ getting the better of the deal.

 

honoured by her husband and son than she already was’ (.–); Odysseus ‘rejoiced, because she dragged gifts out of them and bewitched their spirit with winsome words’ (–). Compare also an epithet for girls, ‘cattle-earning’ (alphesiboiai, Il. .; Hom. Hymn Aph. ), which alludes to their ability to attract (competitive) offers of livestock to their fathers as bridewealth (hedna; cf. Od. .–; .; .). Od. .–, with .–, –, –; .– (Menelaus’ seven-year voyage in the Levant and North Africa); .– (son of Castor’s travels in Egypt), –; .–. So also e.g. von Reden () ; Donlan () –; contra Calder ().

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer

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Finally, at least some of the cost of maintaining international relations through hospitality and gift-exchange is devolved onto the community. The Phaeacian elders give Odysseus lavish gifts from their own properties initially, ‘but’, they are reassured, ‘we will later compensate ourselves by collecting among the people (ageiromenoi kata dēmon), for it is difficult for one man to do a favour for free’ (proikos charisasthai, .–). In other words, since they have no prospect of reciprocal gifts, they expect the community to share the cost. Similarly, when Aithon hosts the Ithacan army for twelve days while their fleet is stranded in Crete, he takes Odysseus into his own home but ‘to the others, the comrades who followed him, I gave flour and bright wine and oxen to sacrifice, collecting these from the people’ (dēmothen ageiras, Od. .–). He can expect reciprocity from Odysseus, and turns up twenty years later hoping to claim his due, but he is unlikely to get a return from the hundreds of common soldiers and accordingly charges the cost of feeding them to the community. And in order to raise ‘gifts and food’ for the ‘countless tribes of allies’ gathered at Troy, Hector says, ‘I exhaust the people’ (katatruchō laous, Il. .–). Elite generosity clearly has its limits, and additional expenditure is covered by an early version of the classical eisphora tax, a demand that the people pay a further tribute to their kings and lords. In short, gift-giving and generosity are relatively prominent in hospitality shown to visitors from abroad: we never hear of local men exchanging gifts as symbols of friendship, or receiving parting gifts. This is surely because relations between people from different cities and countries reach beyond the structures and institutions of the community, so that generous gifts and lavish hospitality are required to create strong ties. But even in these relationships there are limits to generosity: it is good to spend wealth on guests, but even better to receive honour and profit than to bestow it on others, and if there is no chance of a return, the burden is devolved upon the community.

The Homeric Feast: Elite Reciprocity and Public Funding Apart from the frequency of gifts, the impression that generosity is central to Homeric society is created mainly by the Odyssey’s many scenes of lavish hospitality. Such scenes are certainly remarkable, but a closer look will show that private hospitality is largely confined to social equals, rather than 

Note also the mules given to Priam by ‘the Mysians’ (Il. .), presumably a collective ‘diplomatic’ gift.



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dependants or the wider community, and is conducted on the basis of reciprocity, while public hospitality is usually funded from communal resources. Moses Finley’s view that elite households contained numerous retainers who lived at the expense of their leader (see above) is not tenable. Only a few live-in retainers are attested, all of whom are exiles from their home countries. The other retainers who serve at feasts and in war have their own households and serve only as and when required. Menelaus’ chief retainer Eteoneus lives ‘not far away’, but in his own house, and comes over each morning (Od. .–; cf. .–). A Cretan in one of Odysseus’ stories is powerful enough to serve as a military leader in his own right, yet is asked by the king to serve as his retainer during the Trojan War; he refuses to do so (Od. .–). At least one of Achilles’ retainers has no prior connection with him but has been picked by lottery amongst his brothers to go to war (Il. .–). And only eight of Penelope’s  suitors have a retainer who will serve them at feasts outside their own homes (Od. .–). Generosity to dependants is thus limited to a very few exiles sheltering in the most powerful households. Six forms of occasional hospitality to fellow-members of the same community are attested in the epics, and we should distinguish between these types rather than generalise about ‘Homeric hospitality’ at large. Three kinds of feast are identified by a visitor who observes the boisterous diners in Telemachus’ house and asks: ‘What feast, what crowd is this? Why do you need it? An eilapinē or a wedding? Because this is not an eranos’ (.–; cf. .). The other three types, ruled out here by the guests’ rowdiness and youth, are the funeral feast, public sacrifice and ‘wine of the elders’. An eranos meal, in classical Greek usage, is one to which each of the diners contributes food and drink, so that the cost is shared and the host provides only the venue and staff. Such an arrangement is described once in the Odyssey, when guests arrive at Menelaus’ house bringing their own bread and wine and animals for slaughter (Od. .–). In contrast to 





Exiles: Il. .– (Lycophron); .– (Epeigeus, probably); .– (Patroclus); the exile Phoinix lives in Peleus’ household for a while but is then set up as an independent ruler (Il. .–). Further discussion, see Carlier () –; van Wees () –, () –. Wecowski () – also distinguishes different types of feast (including dais, which seems to me not a distinct form but a general term for all kinds of meal, including food eaten alone or with family only: see n.  below), but his discussion is unfortunately focused on dismissing as fiction, ‘aspirational’ or a historical relic all forms and elements of feasting in Homer that do not fit his model of the archaic symposion. See Gernet () –, –; Vondeling () –.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer

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other feasts in the epics, which are held for a particular reason, Menelaus’ eranos-guests arrive without any explanation or any purpose in the story, so their common dining is evidently a routine matter. The question asked by Telemachus’ visitor also implies that the eranos was the most common kind of feasting: he asks what is going on ‘because it is not an eranos’; if it had been, no special explanation would have been necessary. Eilapinē meals are more lavish and celebratory occasions. ‘Weddings and eilapinai’ feature in a city enjoying peace (Il. .) and in the ‘blessed’ lives of the gods (Il. .; .–). A later definition of eilapinē as an old word for ‘sacrifices and lavish feasts’ (Ath. d) fits well with this usage and the few attested occurrences of the term in classical authors. Sacrifices are followed by feasting, and the killing of animals for a feast involves a ritual element, so the two categories overlap. Unlike an eranos, an eilapinē is paid for by the host, as in the case of the eilapinai of the suitors in Odysseus’ home, and the sacrifices to Zeus and Athena hosted by Agamemnon and Nestor. Hosts of eilapinai are free to invite whom they want but typically invite only their peers. Agamemnon sacrifices an ox to Zeus and invites a mere six guests, ‘the best men, elders of the Panachaeans’ (Il. .–). Hector’s ‘eilapinē companion’, Podes, is ‘a rich man’ whom ‘he respected most highly among the people’ (Il. .–). In heaven, Zephyr hosts an eilapinē for the other Winds (Il. .–). Alcinous’ feast in honour of Odysseus (Od. .–) is attended by large numbers of ‘staff-bearing lords’ (.–) and fifty-two youths who are ‘the best’ among the people (.–). Indeed, to be invited to feasts – presumably both eranoi and eilapinai – is a crucial sign of the respect of one’s peers. The Odyssey cites as proof of the esteem in which Telemachus is still held, some years after his father’s  





E.g. Eur. Hel. , Med. –; Ap. Rhod. Argon. . (sacrifice). Suitors: Od. .; ., . Sacrifices: Il. .–; .–; Od. .–. Note also Il. .–, as I understand this passage: the Greek leaders will each give the man who volunteers for a dangerous mission a ewe and lamb, ‘to which no property is equal; it will always be at hand for meals and eilapinai’, i.e. he will never be short of animals to slaughter for his own meals and for the feasts which he hosts. The usual modern translation of the final phrase aiei d’ en daitēisi kai eilapinēisi parestai is ‘he will always be present at meals and eilapinai’, i.e. everyone will invite him to their feasts, but this would be a very allusive and off-hand way of introducing an additional reward, unique and even greater than the gift of the animals, as well as raise the problem of what, in this case, the difference is between ‘meals’ and eilapinai. Another sacrifice is attended by ‘the best of the Panachaeans’, ‘lords’ (Il. ., ); a meal for Achilles as part of their reconciliation (.–; .–) is attended by ‘elders’ (.–, ), ‘lords’ (.; .). Nestor invites Telemachus’ entire crew of twenty along to his sacrifice (Od. .–, –), but these are all youths of high social standing (.–; cf. .–).



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seeming disappearance at sea, that ‘he dines at the equal feasts which a man who administers justice ought to attend, for everyone invites him’ (Od. .–). These men of justice (dikaspoloi) must be the ‘lords’ and ‘elders’, and they evidently take turns to host ‘equal’ (isē) dinners for their peers. When the invitations stop coming and the young ‘lords’ of Ithaca demand an eilapinē at Telemachus’ expense every day, he pleads for a return to reciprocity: ‘attend other feasts, eating your own property, taking turns house-by-house’ (Od. .– = .–). Likewise, Achilles as a young boy goes out to dine (Il. .–); his father, the king, is clearly not the only one offering hospitality. After the death of Hector, his son Astyanax will at best be treated as a beggar and at worst be thrown out if he tries to join a group of his father’s friends at their dinner (Il. .–): these men are not dependent on Hector’s hospitality but continue to dine together as peers, and refuse to admit as an equal someone who has lost his father, his property and his status. The eranos, with its contributions from all guests, by definition includes only the host’s economic peers. These two common types of Homeric hospitality are thus extended only between men of similar economic and social status, and operate on a principle of reciprocity, so that in the long run the cost should more or less even out. By contrast, the wedding feast (gamos), and also the funeral feast (taphos), may involve hospitality to men of less high status, and even extend to an entire community. Menelaus offers a wedding feast attended by ‘many neighbours and fellow-townsmen’; the funeral feasts for Patroclus and Hector are shared by, respectively, all of the Myrmidon soldiers in the Greek camp (Il. .–) and the entire Trojan people (.–). The generosity of the feast-giver on such occasions is great, but a man will organise very few of these events in his lifetime – and Penelope’s pretend ‘wedding’ behind closed doors (Od. .–) shows that wider participation was not always expected even at these rare events. Alongside these four private forms of private hospitality, we find two kinds of ‘public’ dining: the so-called wine of the elders and public sacrificial feasts. The Odyssey features two communal festivals: , men sacrifice and eat bulls on the beach at Pylos (Od. .–); the assembled Ithacans offer a hecatomb in a sacred grove of Apollo (Od. .–). Twice in the Iliad collective offerings are made ad hoc to appease a deity.  

Od. ., –; for the argument that etai here means ‘fellow-townsmen’, see van Wees () –. To Apollo at Chryse: Il. ., –, –; to Athena at Troy: Il. .–, , –. Note also the bull and horse sacrifices to Scamander by Trojans (Il. .–) which may be private or public offerings.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



A robe (peplos) offered to Athena is donated by Hecabe from her own stores of cloth (Il. .–, –) and it seems likely that the animals, too, came from the large herds of livestock kept by the leading men. The provision of sacrificial victims may thus be a significant form of elite spending for the benefit of the community. Yet the poet does not hint at any element of generosity in making these offerings, and his silence may be significant. As we have seen, Homer knew mechanisms by which the elite could defray the cost of gifts, and these may have existed for sacrifices, too. Such mechanisms for covering the cost of public hospitality clearly did exist in the case of the ‘wine of the elders’. Alcinous’ proposal that ‘those of you who always drink the bright wine of the elders (gerousion oinon) in my halls’ should make gifts to Odysseus (.–) implies that this type of feast is hosted by the king, but the Iliad shows that it is not a private matter. Agamemnon recalls the respect he shows Idomeneus, ‘in war and in other actions, and at the meal, when the best of the Greeks mix the bright wine of the elders in the mixing-bowl’ (Il. .–). He reminds Odysseus and Menestheus that ‘you two are the first to hear my invitation whenever we Greeks prepare a meal for the elders, to eat roast meat and drink cups of sweet wine there as much as you want’ (.–). Similarly, Menelaos appeals for help in combat by calling out to his ‘Friends, leaders and counsellors of the Greeks, who beside the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaos drink at public expense’ (dēmia, Il. .–). These feasts for the senior leaders are thus simultaneously said to be convened by the king, held collectively by ‘we Greeks’ and somehow paid for by the community. The pattern is evidently similar to the distribution of ‘prizes’ from spoils: a king or commander is in charge but he acts on behalf of the community and makes use of communal resources – the wine, and perhaps also the food. Sarpedon’s famous exhortation to Glaucus, to fight well on account of the privileges they enjoy as rulers of Lycia, alludes to the same kind of publicly funded meal. He says that ‘we are honoured with a seat and meat and more cups’ (Il. .–; cf. –). The ‘seat’ is presumably a place at public rather than private banquets, for which the meat and especially the wine are provided by the people of Lycia as a token of honour. It seems likely that the wine, at any rate, comes from the ‘estate’ (temenos) mentioned by Sarpedon as another privilege of kingship (.–), originally awarded by ‘the Lycians’ collectively to Bellerophon, the first of his royal line (Il. .–). ‘Royal estates’ feature



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elsewhere, too. If rulers provided meals for the elders from the produce of such estates, one can see how the idea that ownership of royal domains was granted by the community implied that the meals offered by the king were also funded by the public. The royal estate is not the only source of revenue, however. Agamemnon is able to offer food and wine to the elders even at Troy, far from his own domain. In a council of ‘lords’, Nestor proposes that the most senior men should continue to talk elsewhere: You must take the lead, son of Atreus, for you are the most lordly (basileutatos). Lay on a meal for the elders; it is appropriate for you, not unseemly. Your quarters are full of wine, which Greek ships bring every day from Thrace across the wide sea. All hospitality is yours; you rule over many. (.–; cf. )

In other words, the most high-ranking leader is responsible for providing a meal for the elders on appropriate occasions – when he needs to consult more fully or confidentially than an outdoor meeting would allow (cf. Il. .–; .–) – and he is able to do so because his numerous subjects provide him with the means. In this case, the wine comes from tributes paid by Greek traders (see above). Public hospitality is thus funded from other ‘royal’ revenue when the royal estate cannot provide. In sum, private hospitality is normally confined to one’s peers and based on the principle that the cost is shared (eranos) or borne in rotation (eilapinē); generous spending on the entertainment of larger crowds or communities is limited to weddings and funerals. Public hospitality for meetings of selected elders – the Homeric equivalent of the dinners for prytaneis known from archaic and classical Greece – is funded from specific royal revenues and accordingly ‘at public expense’. Public sacrificial feasts may rely on elite generosity, but the epics leave open the possibility that sacrifices are at least in part funded by other royal revenues, either ad hoc ‘collections from the people’ or an institutional arrangement of the type found in classical Sparta where the kings enjoyed not only the use of royal  



Esp. Il. .–; cf. Od. .– (Alkinoos); .–; . (Odysseus); further van Wees () –. That the meeting constitutes a council, not a general assembly, is clear not only from the allusion to ‘lords’ (.), but also from the crowd being addressed as ‘leaders and counsellors of the Greeks’ (.) and invited ‘each by name’, rather than by a general summons (.–). Presumably, the poet here imagines trading ships from mainland Greece that travel via Thrace to acquire high-quality local wine to barter with the Greek army at Troy; the alternative would be Greek cities on the Thracian coast that are subject to Agamemnon, but these do not feature in the Catalogue of Ships.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



domains but also the right ‘to take a piglet from every litter of pigs, so that the king may never be short of animals for sacrifice’ (Xen. Lac. ., ).

The Lords and Their People: ‘Public Service’ and Its Rewards The ruling class in Homer’s world may not donate any of their wealth for the benefit of their subjects, or even have an ideal of generosity towards the people, but they do not ignore their communities. The old view that the heroes pursue only their own and their household’s interests, even at the expense of the common good, is no longer accepted. Kings and lords in Homer explicitly justify their status by claiming to serve the community in war, counsel and the administration of justice. The ideal is summed up in the verdict on Sarpedon: ‘he protected Lycia with his judgements (dikēisi) and his strength’ (Il. .). The heroes’ supposedly decisive role in the defence of the community is prominently advertised. The Greek elite at large are ‘the best men who protect the cities’ (Il. .), and the Greek leaders at Troy are ‘bulwarks (purgoi) of the Achaeans’ (., ), just as for the Trojans Sarpedon is ‘a bulwark (herma) of their city even though he was a foreigner’ (.–). Meleager ‘warded off the day of evil’ from his city (., ). The chief example of public service in war is Hector, who, as is frequently repeated, ‘by himself protected Troy’ (Il. .), ‘by himself protected the gates and great walls’ (.; also .–, .–, .–). The common epithet ‘shepherd of the people’ encapsulates a ruler’s role as protector against attack by predators. In offensive warfare, where the safety of the community is not at stake, leaders still ‘save’ their men and win ‘fame’ not only for themselves but for their communities, as Sarpedon notes when he imagines the satisfaction felt by ‘some Lycian’ when he sees his rulers fight ‘not without fame’. As well as leading by sheer physical prowess, the heroes provide leadership in making decisions, as ‘counsel-givers’ (boulēphoroi) or ‘leaders and counsellors’ (medontes) of their nations. Agamemnon dreams that     

Purgos, literally ‘tower’, a strong point in city fortifications, is here to be taken metaphorically, not in an otherwise unattested sense as a ‘technical’ term for a kind of military unit (contra LSJ s.v. II.). ‘Shepherd of the people’ (poimēn laōn), used fifty-six times, most often about Agamemnon: Haubold () –. E.g. Il. ., ; .; .–; see further van Wees () . Il. .–; cf. .–,  (Hector ‘a very great glory’ to Trojans); see van Wees () –. Boulēphoros ‘of the Trojans’: Il. .; .; .; . (Aeneas); ‘of the Lycians’: .; cf. . (Sarpedon); ‘of the Myrmidons’: .; ‘of the Thracians’: .; ‘of the Cretans’:



  

Nestor, the best adviser of all, rebukes him that ‘a counsel-giver to whom the people have entrusted themselves and who has such great matters in his care has no business sleeping all night long’ (Il. .–, –). Accordingly, it is ‘custom’ to have council meetings even at night (.–), when leaders cannot sleep for worry. ‘To whom the people have entrusted themselves’ (hōi laoi t’ epitraphatai) is a remarkable phrase: it suggests that the people have a choice in who leads them. In the same vein, Odysseus refers to the Phaeacian elders enjoying ‘the privilege (geras) which the people (dēmos) gave you’ (Od. .). Later, he explicitly states that the people have a say in picking their military leaders: ‘the son of Castor’ reluctantly led the Cretans against Troy because ‘they ordered me and far-famed Idomeneus to lead ships against Troy; there was no way to refuse, for the harsh voice of the people controlled us’ (Od. .–). Perhaps it is no coincidence that authority derived from the people is associated with ‘counsel-givers’ and elders at large, and with a non-royal military leader, rather than with the king, whose power is said to be hereditary and derive from Zeus. It is in any case a notable principle of leadership that those in charge must repay the people’s faith in them. Moreover, even a divinely ordained king must take advice from others in order to ensure that his decisions will be in the common interest. As Nestor puts it to Agamemnon: You are master of many men and Zeus bestowed upon you staff and laws so that you may make decisions for them – which is why you more than anyone else must speak and listen and act upon a proposal for the good which another man may be moved to make. What he starts will fall to you. (Il. .–)

Polydamas tells Hector the same thing, in a more critical vein: God gives the deeds of war to one man . . . and in the breast of another Zeus puts a fine mind. From him, many people reap the benefit (polloi epauriskont’ anthrōpoi) and he saves many (poleas esaōse), as he himself knows better than anyone. (Il. .–)

 

., ; ‘of the Phaeacians’: Od. .. The leaders of the Greeks and Trojans are also collectively called boulēphoroi: Il. .; .; .. Medontes ‘of the Greeks’: Il. .; .; .; ., , ; .; .; ., ; Od. .; ‘of the Trojans’: Il. .; .; ‘of the Lycians’: .; ‘of the Myrmidons’: .; ‘of the Phaeacians’: Od. ., ; ., , , , ; ., . See Schofield () contra Finley (/) –. Night councils: .–, –, –; cf. Neschke () –. Il. .–; ., –, , –, –; .– (Agamemnon’s inherited power bestowed by Zeus); also Il. .– (Priam); .–, – (Aeneas); Od. .–; . (Odysseus).

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



When Hector’s army has been routed and decimated, he spells out the moral of the story: I did not listen. That would have been much more profitable. But now, since I have destroyed the people (ōlesa laon) by my recklessness, I feel shame before the men and the gown-trailing women of Troy, afraid that someone worse than me (kakōteros) may say “Hector, relying on his own strength, destroyed the people.” (Il. .–)

Leadership must thus strike a balance between military valour and sensible, consultative decision-making; it must be exercised for the benefit of the community; the leaders fear the judgement of the common man and woman on their performance. Along with the ‘staff’, Zeus bestows upon kings responsibility for ‘laws’ (themistai, Il. .; ., , ; Od. .–). The elders are referred to as ‘men who administer justice (dikaspoloi) and safeguard laws on behalf of Zeus’, and they hold a staff when they take turns to speak in court. As judges, king and elders are responsible to Zeus rather than to the people, but their decisions affect the whole community, which will be punished or rewarded by the gods for the actions of their judges. Those who ‘by force pass judgement in crooked court sessions in the assembly and drive out justice’ will find their farms washed away by torrential rains sent by Zeus (Il. .–). By contrast, a ‘flawless lord’ must be a god-fearing man who upholds good judgements as he rules over many strong men, and as a result of his good leadership the black soil yields wheat and barley, plants and trees are weighed down by their fruit, livestock reproduce steadily, the sea provides fish, and the people flourish under him. (Od. .–)

The administration of justice is thus another role performed by the elite in the interest of the community – in Homer just as much as it is, more famously, in Hesiod’s world. Important as these forms of ‘public service’ are, they involve no material generosity towards the community, except that military leadership may   

Cf. Il. .–, –; .–; .–, – on Polydamas and Hector. See also Il. .–; .– on Agamemnon’s endangering of the laos; Haubold () –. Il. .–; .– (the interpretation of this scene is controversial, but Carlier () – seems to me to offer a convincing explanation of most essential points); cf. Od. .–. Od. .– and the other passages cited for a connection between ‘lords’ and ‘justice’ have often been regarded as ‘unheroic’, either a reflection of later developments (Finley () ; Lloyd-Jones () –) or a lower-class perspective (Donlan () –, –), but I can see no justification for this. Note also Il. .– (town burnt down by the ‘wrath of the gods’); Od. .– (law court sessions regular enough to be an indication of the time of day).



  

involve providing the use of one or more ships. The ships in which the Greeks travel to Troy are presumably privately owned by the leaders. Agamemnon is somehow able to ‘give’ the land-locked Arcadians sixty ships so that they can travel to Troy (Il. .–), but elsewhere the poet treats ships as a scarce commodity. When Odysseus goes abroad with twelve fifty-oared galleys, his son is left without any ship of his own, and indeed no other ships of that size are apparently left in Ithaca, so that the best Telemachus can do is borrow a twenty-oared vessel. If public opinion forced ‘the son of Castor’ to lead the Cretans to Troy, it was surely not only because he was a successful raider but also because he could provide nine warships (Od. .–, –). We may here have a forerunner of the archaic Athenian naukraria and classical trierarchy, but allowing the use of one’s ship entails only modest generosity and is not at all emphasised by the poet. So far from requiring much expenditure, all these ‘services’ performed by the elite are rewarded with gifts and payments, as we have seen. In war, they receive their ‘prizes’ as well as the lion’s share of the regular spoils. In council, the lords enjoy the ‘wine of the elders’ at communal expense. In court, they receive the litigants’ fees. Expenditure on gifts and food for visitors from abroad, beyond reciprocal hospitality among peers, is recouped by special levies ‘from the people’. On top of these forms of material compensation, subjects also ‘honour’ their rulers with other ‘gifts’. One can see why Telemachus sees two advantages in becoming king: not only does ‘he himself become more highly honoured’, but ‘his house quickly becomes wealthy’ (Od. .–). What is more, kings and elders receive gifts and enjoy other material benefits regardless of whether or not they provide the services expected of them. As noted, Agamemnon takes a large part of the spoils even when he has played no part in the expedition. Such behaviour elicits accusations of being greedy, ‘a lord who devours his people’ (dēmoboros basileus), but no one challenges the ruler’s right to exercise this privilege. Only when he goes a step further by seizing a prize which the army had awarded to Achilles does trouble begin; even then the troops go no further than becoming reluctant to fight. Common soldiers feel that the distribution of spoils generally fails to recognise the value of their own contribution to   

Od. .–; .–, –, –; .–; the suitors also use a twenty-oared ship: ..  See further van Wees (a), esp. –. Similarly, Finley () –. Agamemnon’s undeserved share: Il. .–; .–, –; dēmoboros basileus: .; cf. ., ; .–; cf. Neleus taking spoils from Nestor’s raid: .–. Donlan, while rightly stressing that ‘high rank [was] a gift of the community at large’, goes too far in

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



the war: so not only Thersites (Il. .–) but also Odysseus’ followers, who mutter that ‘he brings home many beautiful treasures from the Trojan spoils, but we, who have completed the same journey, return with our cupped hands empty’ (Od. .–). An even more general denunciation comes from Priam, who laments: I begat the best sons in Troy, and I tell you not one of them is left.. . . But all these shameful ones are still here, these boasters and dancers, the best men of the dancefloor, robbers of sheep and goats among their own people. (Il. .–, –)

Since all his brave sons have died in battle, Priam here dismisses his other sons as cowards who enjoy a life of safety and leisure, and the notion that they ‘rob’ the Trojans suggests that they take the livestock which the people offer as gifts but offer nothing in return: they fail to reciprocate by defending the community in battle. Homer does not explicitly say that king or elders do not deserve their material privileges if they fail to uphold justice or make bad decisions in council, but he does note that injustice may prevail in a community and will be punished by Zeus, and he deals at length with bad proposals by Agamemnon and bad decisions by Hector. There is no obvious way in such cases for the people to withhold payment of court fees or repossess the royal domain that funds public feasts, so it is inherently possible that the ‘gifts’ of subjects go unrewarded. It is left to Hesiod to spell out the implication that lords who pass unjust verdicts in court are ‘gift-eaters’ (dōrophagoi, Op. , , ) – meaning not that they are bribed but that they take the people’s ‘gifts’ yet fail to reciprocate by upholding justice. Homeric epic knows a strong ideology of public service, owed by the ruling class to their subjects in exchange for their high social status, privileges and material tributes. The heroes mostly live up to this ideology, reaching right and just decisions, and giving their lives to protect their communities, but the epics acknowledge that not all lords meet the same standards and that not every common man regards the lords as entitled to their privileges. The flow of wealth within communities runs upwards towards the elite rather than downwards towards the people, because the ruling classes claim that their high status deserves respectful tributes and their services to the community deserve payment.



saying that ‘conversely, if a leader abused his privileges, he was accountable to the people’, and that ‘his troops have the right to repudiate him’; () , . Murray () .



  

Conclusion: Transformations of Generosity Generosity plays only a small role in social relations within Homeric communities. ‘Gifts’ are typically obligatory payments and tributes. Private feasts are held mainly among social peers, on a balanced and reciprocal basis, while public banquets for elders and at festivals and sacrifices are paid for by ‘the people’ through revenues assigned to the king. The Homeric ideal is for the elite to receive material gifts from their subjects in exchange for intangible services, in a manner reminiscent of the Thracian system described by Thucydides and Xenophon: ‘the custom established among them . . . was to take rather than to give’ (Thuc. ..–; cf. Xen. An. ..–). This stands in stark contrast to the classical Athenian ideal which requires the elite to make material gifts to the community in return for intangible honours. The question is how, when and why these ideals and customs changed. Part of the answer is that the contractual and even coercive element in some forms of gift-giving in Homer became even stronger and a whole range of transactions moved out of the sphere of (notional) voluntary giving into the sphere of legally regulated obligatory payment. For instance, by the late seventh century ‘compensation’ gifts were replaced by legally fixed penalties, and by the late sixth century at the latest ransoms for war captives had become standardised at  drachmas across the Peloponnese (Hdt. ..; cf. ..). The tributes which communities offered to their kings and lords developed into institutionalised and legally compulsory taxes and duties paid to the public treasury, again no later than the end of sixth century, and in Athens no later than under Solon, whose reforms did much to establish a formal system of public finance. Whether generosity and patronage towards individuals and communities had a place in the developing archaic state is hard to tell, given the limitations of our evidence. One may be tempted to extrapolate from rare classical stories about generous ‘aristocrats’ and assume that such figures were the norm in the archaic age. Thus Paul Millett argued that the forms of patronage of the poor attributed to Pisistratus and Cimon reflect a oncewidespread custom which classical Athenian sources tended to avoid discussing, as incompatible with their egalitarian ideology. Similarly, Marc Domingo Gygax suggested that public benefactions were expected of archaic elites and that tyrants spent lavishly from their own pockets on 

See Van Wees (a).

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



public buildings and communal festivals. Yet the evidence is not at all clear on matters of funding, and Thucydides, for example, implies that Pisistratus and Hippias funded their wars, festivals and public buildings from a  per cent tax rather than from their own coffers (..). I would conclude instead that there is no good evidence that patronage and civic benefactions were much more significant in archaic Greece than in Homer’s world: rich men allowed the community the use of their warships and perhaps advanced or even met the cost of sacrifices, but nothing else. Occasional acts of generosity are reported because they were exceptional, rather than because they were representative of a structural element of archaic civic life. The costs of warfare, cult and public building increased from the late sixth century onwards, and the extra cost may have been a factor in drawing on private donations to fund public activities. However, citystates might have raised more taxes instead, and there was surely more to the emergence of civic benefactions than simple economic necessity. In view of the ideology of public service which justifies the privileges of kings and lords in Homer, it seems likely that (semi-)voluntary contributions to public funds, through liturgies, donations and benefactions – alongside the compulsory payment of taxes – served to give the upper classes a further area in which they could claim to play a vital role in the service to their community. Their other public services declined in the archaic age, as the power to make decisions in council and to pass judgement in court was increasingly widely shared, and their claims to play a decisive military role became ever more tenuous as the hoplite phalanx developed. Precisely when and how this happened is a matter of debate and cannot be explored here, but the broad pattern seems clear enough to suggest an inverse relation between financial and other public services: the smaller the role of the upper classes in the latter, the greater the pressure on them to justify their status by voluntarily spending money on the city.

 



Millett (), () –; Domingo Gygax () –. Contra Ostwald () , who posits that before the development of public finance, c.  BCE, all funding must have come from private elite resources – overlooking the evidence for ‘communal’ funding in Homer. For the role of liturgies, see e.g. Ober () –; Veyne () –; Liddell () –; introduced in late sixth century: Wilson () –; van Wees (a) –. Popular court replaces elite judges under Solon: van Wees (); wider participation in hoplite warfare form late sixth century: van Wees (b).



   BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cairns, D. L. () ‘Poine and Apoina in the Iliad’, in M. Linder and S. Tausend (eds.), ‘Böser Krieg’. Exzessive Gewalt in der antiken Kriegsfu¨hrung und Strategien zu deren Vermeidung. Graz, –. Cairns, D. L., and Allan, W. () ‘Conflict and community in the Iliad’, in N. Fisher and H. van Wees (eds.), Competition in the Ancient World. Swansea, –. Calder, W. H. () ‘Gold for bronze: Iliad .–’, in A. L. Boegehold (ed.), Studies Presented to Sterling Dow on His Eightieth Birthday. Durham, NC, –. Carlier, P. () La royauté en Grèce avant Alexandre. Strasbourg. Domingo Gygax, M. () Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism. Cambridge. Donlan, W. () The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece: Attitudes of Superiority from Homer to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. Lawrence, KS. () ‘Scale, value, and function in the Homeric economy’, American Journal of Ancient History : –. (a) ‘Reciprocities in Homer’, Classical World : –. (b) ‘The politics of generosity in Homer’, Helios : –. () ‘The social groups of Dark Age Greece’, Classical Philology : –. () ‘Homeric economy’, in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer. Leiden, –. () ‘Political reciprocity in Dark Age Greece’, in C. Gill et al., –. () The Aristocratic Ideal and Selected Papers. Wauconda, IL. Finley, M. I. (/) The World of Odysseus. London. Gernet, L. () Anthropologie de la Grèce antique. Paris. Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., and Seaford, R. (eds.) () Reciprocity in Ancient Greece. Oxford. Haubold, J. () Homer’s People. Cambridge. Hooker, J. T. () ‘Gifts in Homer’, BICS : –. Kurke, L. () Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece. Princeton. Liddell, P. () Civic Obligation and Individual Liberty in Ancient Athens. Oxford. Lloyd-Jones, H. () The Justice of Zeus, nd ed. Berkeley. Millett, P. () ‘Patronage and its avoidance in classical Athens’, in A. WallaceHadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society. London, –. Millet, P. () Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge. Morris, I. () ‘The use and abuse of Homer’, Classical Antiquity : –. (b) ‘Gift and commodity in archaic Greece’, Man : –. Murray, O. () Early Greece, nd ed. London. Neschke, A. B. () ‘Βουληφόρος ἀνήρ. Zur Bedeutung der sogenannten Diapeira im . Buch der Ilias (B, –)’, Antike und Abendland : –. Ober, J. () Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology and the Power of the People. Princeton. Ostwald, M. () ‘Public expense: whose obligation? Athens – BCE’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society .: –.

Heroic Benefactors? The Limits of Generosity in Homer



Perysinakis, I. N. () ‘Penelope’s ΕΕΔΝΑ again’, Classical Quarterly : –. Qviller, B. () ‘The dynamics of the Homeric society’, Symbolae Osloenses : –. () ‘The world of Odysseus revisited’, Symbolae Osloenses : –. Raaflaub, K. A. () ‘Homer und die Geschichte des . Jh.s v. Chr.’, in J. Latacz (ed.), Zweihundert Jahre Homer-Forschung. Stuttgart, –. Rihll, T. () ‘“Kings” and “commoners” in Homeric society’, Liverpool Classical Monthly .: –. () ‘The power of the Homeric basileis’, in Homer . Proceedings of the Third Greenbank Colloquium. Liverpool, –. Schaps, D. () The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor. Schofield, M. () ‘Euboulia in the Iliad’, Classical Quarterly : –. Seaford, R. () Money and the Early Greek Mind. Cambridge. Ulf, C. () Die homerische Gesellschaft. Munich. van Wees, H. () Status Warriors: War, Violence and Society in Homer and History. Amsterdam. () ‘Heroes, knights and nutters: warrior mentality in Homer’, in A. B. Lloyd (ed.), Battle in Antiquity. London, –. () ‘The law of gratitude. Reciprocity in anthropological theory’, in C. Gill et al. (eds.), –. () ‘Greed, generosity and gift-exchange in early Greece and the Western Pacific’, in W. Jongman and M. Kleijwegt (eds.), After the Past: Essays in Ancient History in Honour of H. W. Pleket. Leiden, –. () ‘Mass and elite in Solon’s Athens: the property classes revisited’, in J. Blok and A. Lardinois (eds.), Solon of Athens. Leiden, –. () ‘The “law of hybris” and Solon’s reform of justice’, in S. D. Lambert (ed.), Sociable Man: Essays on Ancient Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher. Swansea, –. (a) ‘Farmers and hoplites: historical models’, in D. Kagan and G. Viggiano (eds.), Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece. Princeton, –. (b) Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens. London. Veyne, P. () Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. Harmondsworth. von Reden, S. () Exchange in Ancient Greece. London. Vondeling, J. () Eranos. Groningen. Wecowski, M. () The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet. Oxford. Welwei, K.-W. (). Athen. Vom neolithischen Siedlungsplatz zur archaischen Grosspolis. Darmstadt. Whitley, J. () ‘Social diversity in Dark Age Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens : –. Wilson, P. () The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge. Wilson, D. () Ransom, Revenge and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge.

 

The Garden of Pisistratus Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens Beate Wagner-Hasel

Introduction: Plunderers of the Lambs and Kids of Their Own People In his Elegies, the poet Theognis condemns the Cypselid house (Thgn. –). He demands destruction of the tyrant, whom he refers to as dēmophagos, a devourer of common goods (Thgn. –). Hesiod in his Works and Days criticises leading men in similar terms. Here the reproach is addressed to the basilēes in their role as judges; they are castigated as dōrōphagoi, gift-eaters (Hes. Op. ). Critical remarks of the same sort are also found in the epics. Priam scolds his sons for being plunderers of lambs and kids belonging to their own people (epidēmioi) (Hom. Il. .). In contrast to Hector, they are unable to justify their privileges by their military exploits. Elite military success could be converted into honours from the people. A basileus could also expect dues, dōtinai, in return for properly dispensing justice (Hom. Il. .–). Theognis’ critical remark suggests that the tyrant, like the Homeric basileus, owes the dēmos something; in other words, there must be reciprocity between tyrant and dēmos. Ever since Moses I. Finley’s The World of Odysseus (), the functioning of a rule of reciprocity has been regarded as indicating the absence of a state. Whereas Finley directed his attention to personal alliances Particular thanks are due to Balbina Bäbler, Anne Elsen and Liselotte Glage for their help with the English translation. I also thank the editors of this volume for their helpful comments.  Corpus Theognideum (C.Th.), ed. D. Young (Leipzig, ). Cf. van der Lahr (). For the meaning of dēmophagos as ‘devourer of common goods’ see LSJ s.v. dēmophagos = dēmoboros: “devourer of the common stock” and GE (The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Franco Montanari (Leiden, )) s.v. dēmophagos = dēmoboros: ‘devourer of the people (e.g. of public goods)’. According to Ceccarelli () the basileus dēmoboros is a person, who ‘devient mangeur du territoire, de son people’ ().  Osborne in Chapter  in this volume calls them ‘bribes’, not gifts.  Wagner-Hasel () –, () –. See van Wees, Chapter  in this volume.  Wagner-Hasel () –, () –.



Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



created by guest-friendship, which he considered a type of system of interstate contracts, in the s the relationship between people and elite came to be analysed within the framework of reciprocity and generosity. According to Walter Donlan, epic society existed in a pre-state period, situated between egalitarian and stratified structures and with no political offices, taxes or formal administrative structures. Donlan nonetheless did not exclude elements of exploitation of the people. In recent research, the idea of a strong connection between pre-state structures and reciprocity has been abandoned. Reciprocal structures have been discovered even in the developed polis; as a consequence, statehood and reciprocity do not exclude each other. While the debate regarding the state-character of Homeric kingdoms subsided in the late s, there are still traces of it in controversies regarding the definition of tyranny. Michael Stahl located the final emergence of statehood in the age of the tyrants, discovering the process in the development of political offices, especially the introduction of public provision of justice for the maintenance of social peace, in the foundation of a state identity through feasts that create a spirit of community, and in the concentration of power. These are obvious features of tyrannies. But do they constitute the essential elements of statehood? While Stahl emphasised the significance of tyranny for the emergence of a state, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg underlined the non-governmental, personal character of tyranny, which she placed in the tradition of Homeric kingship. In her judgement, the personal ability to mobilise resources and a military entourage form the basis of tyranny. Both critics stressed the aristocratic character of early Greek tyranny; in 

 







Finley (). For a different view, see Raaflaub () –, who emphasises the importance of collective structures such as the assembly and council in epic, and the existence of alliances not only between individuals but between collectives. Whereas alliances between individuals were created by guest-friendship, alliances between collectives were based on oaths and sacrifices. See Wagner-Hasel () –, () –. Cf. Duplouy () –. Cf. Donlan (a) –, (b) –, () –. Here Donlan sees a connection between Mycenaean political and social structures and the classical polis. For a different view, see Carlier () –, who argues that the power of Homeric kings was not based on generosity. For a discussion of the various positions (but without reference to German publications), see ScheidTissinier () –. Some German contributions are included in the survey by Duplouy (). Donlan () –, for whom the development from a reciprocal relationship between people and king in Homeric times into a hierarchical structure took place in the archaic polis. For the transition from reciprocal structures to exploitation, see Qviller () ; Morris () . See Morris (), for whom slavery, private ownership and a complex descriptive terminology of relationships are the main elements of statehood. In this regard, Morris follows Thomson (). For the connection between reciprocity and statehood, see van Wees () –.  Stahl () –, . Stahl () –, –; Sancisi-Weerdenburg () –.



 -

their opinion, there was no connection between the rule of the tyrants and the rise of a new economic class, the traders, or the increasing power of the dēmos. In this chapter, I follow Sancisi-Weerdenburg but also take up another, neglected aspect of early Greek political power: the continued payment of dues. Neither studies of Homeric society nor research on tyranny has paid much attention to regular dues and taxes, which have been seen as characteristic of the state. In what follows, I focus on the relationship between dues and benefactions, that is, on reciprocal relations between the people and the elite. I present first the evidence regarding dues and then findings regarding the practice of generosity and benefaction. I do not use the terms ‘state’ or ‘statehood’, which were created in the seventeenth century, since there seems to be no generally accepted definition of either and most current definitions blur ancient particularities rather than explaining them. Ancient political orders were not centralised, unlike the Early Modern kingdoms in which the term ‘state’ was developed, nor do ancient institutions bear any substantial similarity to modern nationstates. I accordingly use instead the German term ‘Gemeinwesen’, which is more expansive than the English ‘community’ and closer to the Roman res publica, meaning ‘common-interest’ or ‘public welfare’ as well as ‘public property’. Ancient history can be read as a continual clash of self-interest and common interest. Jochen Martin has characterised the political order of ancient communities as an ‘Akzeptanzsystem’, by which he means that the elite needed to use some of their wealth to benefit the entire community in order to gain acceptance by the common people or citizens. This character of the ancient political order is decisive for understanding the 



   



Tyranny is characterised as the ‘culmination of aristocratic rule’ by Stein-Hölkeskamp () . Many measures of the tyrants are, in current scholarship, seen as actions of the elite, not as deeds of a single powerful person. Cf. Anderson () –. Cf. Ure (), who in particular characterised Polycrates as representative of the class of merchants. For a critical reflection of the sources, see Gu¨nther (). The strong connection between tyrant and people is stressed by Lavelle (). Cf. Scheid-Tissinier (). On the benefactions of the elites (including tyrants) and the response of the communities in the archaic period, see in general Domingo Gygax () –. For understanding the state as centralised power, a concept developed by Thomas Hobbes, cf. van Creveld () –. The invention of the term ‘state’ is discussed by Hölscher () . A typical feature of the early modern state are the ‘three elements’, i.e. a union of people, power and territory (‘Staatsvolk’, ‘Staatsmacht’, ‘Staatsgebiet’), which does not apply in ancient times. Max Weber stressed another feature, monopoly on power (‘Gewaltmonopol’). Cf. Reinhard () –. The ethnological theories are discussed by Service () –. On the polis lacking statehood in the Weberian sense, see Zuiderhoek, Chapter  in this volume.  Schmitt Pantel () –; Herman (). Martin () –, () –.

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



relationship between dues and generosity or euergetism. Another concept, the central-place theory developed in the field of geography and referring to the development of a geographical location as a cultic, administrative or economic centre, is also useful in this context. Precisely this process occurred in archaic Athens during the time of the tyrants.

Dues for the Tyrants All ancient authors who discuss the reign of the Pisistratids in Athens mention dues, but they refer to them in different ways. Herodotus speaks of dōtinai and chrēmata, Aristotle of dekatē, Thucydides of eikostē, and Diogenes Laertius of geras. Dōtinai and Chrēmata Herodotus uses dōtinē in his description of Pisistratus’ third and final takeover of the city. After the marriage alliance between the Pisistratids and the Alcmaeonids failed and Pisistratus retreated to Euboea, he consulted with his sons, who advised him to attempt to regain power. Pisistratus decided to go around and collect dōtinai in the poleis that were still in his debt (proaideato). The giving (dosis) of goods (chrēmata) from Thebes surpassed that of all other poleis. The counsel of Hippias prevailing, that they should recover the sovereignty, they set to collecting gifts (dōtinai) from all the cities that owed them some requital. Many of these contributed great sums (megala . . . chrēmata), the Thebans more than any. (Hdt. .., trans. Godley, adapted)

Herodotus does not explain what obligations the poleis owed Pisistratus. Later in his account, he uses chrēmata rather than dōtinai when he notes that Pisistratus regained the tyranny with the help of many followers (epikouroi polloi) and revenues (chrēmata) from Athens and the area around the Strymon River: Pisistratus got Athens for the third time, and in order that his sovereignty might be well rooted there, he made himself a strong guard and collected revenue (chrēmatōn synhodoisi) from both Athens and the Strymon River. (Hdt. .., trans. Godley, adapted)



Nissen (); Donlan () –.



 -

Herodotus fails to offer any specifics about these revenues, chrēmata. We do not know what goods they consisted of, and there is no information about who provided them. There are only regional allocations: Boeotia, Thebes, the Strymon River and Attica are mentioned. Comparison with the Homeric epics suggests three possible interpretations. . In the Iliad, those who offer dōtinai are wealthy owners of herds, as can be deduced from Agamemnon’s offer to Achilles. Three daughters I have in my well-built castle, . . . of these let him lead as his own to the house of Peleus whichever one he will, without bride wealth (hedna); and I will in addition give him very much (polla mala), such as no man ever yet gave with his daughter. Seven well-peopled cities will I give him, . . . and in them dwell men rich in flocks and rich in cattle, men who will honour him with gifts (dōtinai) as though he were a god (), and beneath his scepter will bring his ordinances to prosperous fulfilment. (Hom. Il. ., –, trans. Murray and Wyatt, adapted)

In this context, dōtinai may specifically designate goods derived from livestock obtained from herd-owners: lambs, cheese, wool. Such tributes, called boskēmata, epikarpia and dekatē, are mentioned in the pseudoAristotelian Oeconomia in connection with reflections on the management of the satrap’s household ([Arist.] Oec. .). The dōtinai collected by Pisistratus in the Boeotian poleis might be interpreted as boskēmata, if we assume a system of exchange of pastures known from other regions. According to Thucydides, the Skourta plain was shared by the Boeotians and the Athenians as common pasture land (Thuc. .: koinē nemein). Large herds of cattle could be accommodated at Orchomenos in the meadows around Lake Kopais. If Pisistratus pastured his flocks in these areas, he would collect their yield. If, on the other hand, the Thebans used the pastures near Marathon, Pisistratus might have demanded a share of the yield as his dues. . In epic, the basileus is also entitled to ‘material’ dōtinai. In the Odyssey, the Phaeacians collect these dōtinai, specified as tripods, garments and gold. Herodotus knows this type of dōtinai: the Lydian king Croesus gave the Lacedaemonians gold as dōtinē and thus demanded no payment (Hdt. .). Here the dōtinē is understood as a gift which demands a 

 

For dōtinai as dues paid by those who own flocks, cf. Wagner-Hasel () ch. , () –. Benveniste ()  argues: ‘c’est un don en tant que prestation contractuelle, imposée par les obligations d’un pacte, d’une alliance, d’une amitié, d’une hospitalité’.  Georgoudi () –; Wagner-Hasel () –. Jameson () . Wagner-Hasel () –, () –.

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



counter-gift, so that the Lacedaemonians feel obliged to agree to an alliance (symmachia kai xenia) with Croesus. One can imagine a similar act of reciprocal obligation in the case of Pisistratus. With regard to Thrace and Attica, it has been argued that Pisistratus exploited the gold and silver mines in Thrace. In this context, Herodotus uses the term chrēmata, since it could also include coins. Peter Spahn argues that the Pisistratid dues were not collected in the form of agricultural yield, since there were no appropriate storage facilities for these, but in the form of Wappenmu¨nzen or ‘heraldic coins’. Pisistratus himself circulated these coins and therefore needed to exploit the silver mines in Thrace and Attica. . Another meaning of dōtinai is a spatial ‘escort’ (German Geleit) of a sort not only granted by the Phaeacians but promised by the shepherd Polyphemus. There are indications of this meaning in Herodotus, who calls the fees for twenty ships the Corinthians lent to the Athenians dōtinai. In conclusion, all dues or gifts described as dōtinē are either mobile goods or services associated with mobility: the migration of herds, foreign alliances or transportation services. The term does not describe crop yields. Dekatē and Eikostē Thucydides and Aristotle use different terms, referring to dekatē (a tithe) and eikostē (a twentieth); these are levied from ‘what has been generated’ (gignomenōn). Thucydides refers to dues of  per cent on revenue. These dues are used to develop the city, for wars and to fund festivals: and although they exacted from the Athenians only five percent (eikostē) of their incomes, not only had they embellished their city, but they also carried on its wars and provided sacrifices for the temples. (Thuc. .., trans. Smith)

 

 

Lavelle () –. In the Athenaion Politeia (.), pseudo-Aristotle uses the verb chrēmatizomai instead of the substantive. According to him, Pisistratus obtained the goods (chrēmatisamenos) in the area around the Pangaion Hills.  Spahn () –. Wagner-Hasel () –, () –. Cf. Hdt. .. The people of Delphi collected gifts (dōtinazō) from Greek cities and from Egypt. Amasis sent , talents of alum.



 -

According to Aristotle, Pisistratus gave needy Athenians funds to support their farming and collected a tithe: and moreover he advanced loans of money (proedaneize chrēmata) to the poor for their industries (pros tas ergasias), so that they could support themselves by farming (geōrgountas) . . . And the thorough cultivation of the land also resulted in increasing his revenues; for he levied a tithe (dekatē) from the produce. ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. .–; , trans. Rackham, adapted)

It has been argued that dekatē and eikostē refer to a tax on crops, which is mentioned by Aristotle and by Herodotus in another context. Revenues from the soil (in this context called prosodoi apo gēs or ekphorion as well as dekatē) are also part of the budget management of the satrap ([Arist.] Oec. .). As Aristotle explicitly mentions crop yield and distinguishes it from funds derived from livestock, port taxes and tribute from mines, this must be a tithe of the grain harvest or other agrarian produce such as olives, wine or figs. Agrarian tributes are documented for the Peloponnese and Crete; in Sparta, they were called archaia moira.  That such tributes were also collected from the rural population in archaic Athens cannot be ruled out. This is suggested by the term hektēmoroi, ‘those who pay’ or ‘receive a sixth’, which is used by Aristotle and Plutarch to refer to the indebted peasantry in the context of the  





 

For daneizein as a term for lending money, cf. Harris () . Spahn () with references. Van Wees () – argues that the tithe was the forerunner of the eisphora, the war tax, which was levied on the rich in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Kallet () – assumes a topos: ‘The notion that only tyrants taxed, however, while a myth, is likely to be explained by the distinction felt by ancients (and moderns) between direct and indirect taxation: tyrants taxed individuals directly, a practice marking unfree status through the loss of personal and family autonomy; by contrast, poleis under free constitutions obtained revenue through indirect taxation of goods and commodities.’ Cf. Hdt. .. Herodotus mentions incomes, prosodoi, of the Thasians that came from their mines near Skapte Hyle and were used to build warships and to fortify the wall. The Thasians were thus freed from dues for crop yields (karpōn atelesi prosēie apo te gēs ēpeirou). According to Osborne () , gē signifies agrarian land that could be used in diverse ways, i.e. as vineyard, farmland, or garden: ‘Gē is the land itself, the basic resource which the farmer works (Xen. Oec. .), and varieties of agricultural land are distinguished by qualifying gē.’ Lazenby () –. See Wu¨st () –, who follows Plutarch’s tale of the division of the inhabitants into eupatridai, geōmoroi and dēmiourgoi by Theseus (Plut. Vit. Thes. –) and differentiates between nobles (eupatrideis), independent farmers (geōmoroi) and dependent farmers (dēmiourgoi), that is, hektēmoroi. Ando () – and Bintliff () – assume a traditional system of dues. Bintliff – like Wood () – stresses the Mycenaean tradition behind this system. For more references, see Zurbach () , who denies any similarity between helots and hektēmoroi (). For another view, see Meier (), who argues that the hektēmoroi never existed. For more details, see Wagner-Hasel ().

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



Solonian reforms (Plut. Vit. Sol. ; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. .., .).  This might allude to dues or tenancy amounting to one-sixth of the harvest or to six different kinds of dues or services involving land, water, animal, seed, labour and the like. The existence of such a system of labour services may explain the generous lending practices of Pisistratus, who according to Aelian offered oxen for use in ploughing and seed (VH .). Lending is in accord with the ethics of good neighbourly behaviour in rural societies. Hesiod in Works and Days advises giving only to those who give themselves (Op. –). But ploughing oxen are a sign of wealth, as Hans van Wees has argued convincingly in his interpretation of the Solonian timocratic class system. There must have been only a few peasants with access to ploughing oxen, and I suggest that the poor who were lent oxen were obliged to offer labour services, called ergasia, in return. In the translation quoted above, ergasia is rendered ‘industries’, referring to the work of those who take loans. I would maintain that the formulation pros tas ergasias hints at counter-gifts in response to loans, that is, labour services. A similar meaning can be found in epic, where Hector talks about the fate of his wife Andromache, who may have to weave for another woman if Troy falls: pros allēs (Hom. Il. .). In classical literature as well, ergazomai normally refers to working for another person, for example, wool-working or agricultural labour. If we take this to be the meaning of ergasia, Pisistratus was able to claim services in return for his oxen, but did not get cash revenues. But there is also another possible interpretation of dekatē or eikostē. Thucydides also refers to eikostē in the context of the tribute paid by members of the Delian League. In summer , Athens levied a twentieth on all sea-freight instead of the traditional phoroi (Thuc. ..; Ar. Ran. ), hoping to generate more income. Here the twentieth refers to revenues from seafaring, and the recipient is the Athenian community.





 

Debt-making as a purposeful act was, according to Finley () , the reason for the Solonian reforms, i.e. the abolition of debt-bondage. For a similar position, cf. Gallant () –, (). The existence of debt-bondsmen, however, continued to be recorded, and Edward Harris () is right to argue that Solon had not abolished debt-bondage but the practice of people selling themselves into slavery in order to obtain loans or credit. Such systems of debt still exist today. Cf. Gaborieau () –. Cf. Van Effenterre () –. The sources dealing with hektēmoroi have recently been collected by Zurbach (), who understands them to be clients or tenants of the oligarchic elite (–).   Cf. Kirk () –. Millet (); Schmitz (). Van Wees () –.  Wagner-Hasel () . For references, see Harris () .



 -

The dekatē too is not destined for individuals. Nor, as a rule, does dekatē refer to crop yields. Noun and verb are first attested in Herodotus, where they are used in the context of war or trade: successful traders and warriors dedicate one-tenth of their profits to the gods. The tithe from spoils of war or the revenue from business travels was often given in the form of votive offerings such as bowls, tripods or statues. These goods resemble the gifts called dōtinai, with the difference that temples rather than basilēes received the goods. This also applies to the tithe Xenophon dedicated to Artemis out of the yields of his agros in Skillus. This tithe came from pastures and arable land, and consisted of barley flour, wine and livestock (Xen. An. ..–). In a study of the terms idion, dēmosion and hieron, Peter Spahn has questioned whether the tyrants were the recipients of the dekatē. In his judgment, the dekatai were delivered to the temples, to the great shrine of Demeter at Eleusis, which was built during the reign of the Pisistratids, and to the temple of Athena. In other words, dekatē refers to sacrificial dues rendered to a temple, a hieron, not to a tax or dues paid to the person of the tyrant. Spahn explains the fact that the assumed ‘crop yield taxes’ are never mentioned in subsequent sources by assuming that these tributes to the temples were called aparchai, ‘first fruits’. Since the time of Cleisthenes, such aparchai were levied in the demes, after having been presented first at festivals. I find this argument plausible. The defining standard for the praxis of dues would then be the sacrificial ritual, that is, the Attic culture of feasts for the gods. This fits with the observation that aparchai are not only agrarian products, as has been demonstrated in a recent study by Theodora Suk Fong Jim. A closer look at the use of the cognate verb (already in Homer) and the noun (first attested in Herodotus) shows that aparchai often refers to sacrificial animals, being the lock of hair cut from the animal offered to the gods, as well as the share of it allotted to the gods and sometimes also the one allotted to the priests. This takes us back to Homer and the privilege of the basilēes, the geras.   

 

Jim () –, –. For the term agros, which (like chōrion) means land of any kind, as opposed to the city, see Osborne () –. According to pseudo-Aristotle (Oec. a), when someone died, the priestess of Athena would be given a choinix of barley and one of wheat, as well as an obolos. Van Wees () – thinks that the custom went back to archaic times. Spahn () . Here Spahn follows Connor (). Jim () –. The aparchai given to the temple of Eleusis in the fourth century BCE (precise date uncertain) consisted of one-sixth of  medimnoi of barley and one-twelfth of  medimnoi

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



Geras In very late sources, a connection is drawn between the Homeric gift of honour, the geras, given in epic to gods, and basilēes and seers. In a letter from Pisistratus to Solon quoted by Diogenes Laertius, and today deemed apocryphal, Pisistratus maintains that he claimed no gifts of honour other than those previously received by kings: and though I am tyrant, I arrogate to myself no undue share of reputation and honour, but merely such stated privileges (gera) as belonged to the kings in former times. Every citizen pays a tithe (dekatē) of his property (klēros) not to me but to a fund for defraying the cost of the public sacrifices or any other charges on the state or the expenditure on any war which may come upon us. (Diog. Laert. ., trans. Hicks, adapted)

Diogenes Laertius differentiates between gifts to the tyrants and the tithe, which is used for sacrifices and war (joint campaigns). Since the late fifth century BCE, a special term had existed for war taxes: eisphora (Thuc. .). The geras is owed the tyrant alone, and what it consists of is never said. It stands to reason, however, that geras is used to refer to a special share of the sacrificial animal. It is in this sense that the word is used in inscriptions of the classical period, where it probably designates the shares of sacrificial animals given to the priests. But it is also possible that Diogenes Laertius is referring to Thucydides, who in his archaiologia discusses the honours given to kings in olden times, for which he uses the term geras (Thuc. .). In epic, geras often means a special share of the sacrificial animal or – in the case of deserving warriors – a share of the spoils of war in the form of a woman skilled in weaving. We have thus come full circle. The meanings or contents of dekatē and aparchē lead to the dōtinai and chrēmata of epic, which consist of revenues from livestock and metals, as well as services such as rowing duty. The difference is that dōtinai are owed to the basilēes; they are dues to which the basileus is entitled. Elsewhere, I have tried to show that the basilēes received these gifts or dues as compensation for either social guidance or (geo-) spatial escort. This included dispensing justice, an area in which the tyrants too acquired influence. It is said that Pisistratus established judges

  

of wheat. The goods were collected in the dēmes. Jim () . On expenditures for animals for sacrifice, see Jameson () –.  Jim () . I am indebted for this reference to Nino Luraghi. Wagner-Hasel () –, () –. According to van Wees in Chapter  in this volume, geras denotes a tribute to superior rank. Wagner-Hasel () , () –.



 -

in the demes. Perhaps this refers to the fact that in archaic times the administration of justice was localised in the deme. This system changed in classical times. Only then, in the democratic polis, did all citizens participate in the administration of justice and receive a compensation, whereas the tithe, the dekatē, went to the temple. I believe the same was true in archaic times; the receiver of the tithe was the temple. It was here, in the ritual sphere, that the generosity of the tyrants manifested itself.

Generosity and Cult under the Tyrants According to the sources, the Pisistratids created the cultic order in Athens. Pisistratus’ sons organised the City Dionysia. Beginning in  BCE, theatrical performances of tragedies took place. The Panathenaia, a festival in honour of Athena, was also reorganised during the Pisistratid period; whether this happened in  BCE or later, during the reign of Hipparchus, is disputed. In addition, a recitation from Homer’s epics was put on the programme. Athens became the cultic centre of Attica. According to Norbert Ehrhardt, under the reign of the tyrants, Attic regionalism came to an end. The emergence of Athens as the centre of cult is apparent in two building projects archaeologists can date securely to the time of the tyrants: the erection of the Altar of the Twelve Gods, which functioned as a central milestone, consolidating Athens’ role as the spatial centre of Attica, and the building of a fountain house. This emergence of a spatial centre is what is actually new in the ‘post-Homeric’ development of the city. The erection of herms inscribed with epigrams and showing the distance to Athens takes this spatial integration into account. A Fountain House for the Dēmos The tradition of the water-supply projects of the tyrants has recently been investigated by Astrid Möller; she also embeds the tradition of the tyrant’s building policy within the wider context of aristocratic competition.     

Schmitt Pantel () , in whose opinion the introduction of the payment of judges by Pericles was directed against the generosity of Cimon. Tuplin () –; Shapiro () –; Blok () –; Kallet () .  Ehrhardt () . Shapiro () –; Boersma () –. Shapiro () , () . Möller () . Water conduits were also built by tyrants in other regions, by Theagenes of Megara and Polycrates of Samos. Stein-Hölkeskamp () .

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



In the Odyssey, water supply is part of the ideology of the rule of the good king. At the entry to the palace of King Alcinous are two springs: and in the orchard there are two springs (krēnai), one of which sends its water throughout the entire garden, while the other, opposite it, flows beneath the threshold of the court () toward the high house; from this the townsfolk draw their water. Such were the glorious gifts of the gods at the dwelling of Alcinous. (Hom. Od. .–, trans. Murray, adapted)

While Homeric epic mentions only springs, the ancient sources connect the construction of fountain houses and water conduits with tyranny. Pausanias says he saw the Enneakrounos (Nine Springs) fountain with his own eyes, and claims it was constructed during the reign of Pisistratus. He locates it in the south-east corner of the Agora, where archaeologists have found the remains of a fountain house. According to Renate TölleKastenbein, this fountain house was fed by a water-supply network dating from the sixth century BCE. The main line led from the Ilissos River to the Agora, passing to the south of the Acropolis. When you have entered the Odeum at Athens, you meet, among other objects, a figure of Dionysus worth seeing. Close by is a spring called Enneakrounos, embellished as you see it by Pisistratus. There are cisterns all over the city, but this is the only fountain. (Paus. .., trans. Jones, adapted)

Whether the fountain house in the south-east portion of the Agora was actually built by Pisistratus is disputed. Möller refers to Thucydides, who claims that Pisistratus adorned the bubbling spring Kallirhoe in the Ilissos valley with nine spouts (Thuc. ..). Möller follows Doro Levi, who suggested that the term Enneakrounos designates the entirety of the Pisistratid water-supply network. Möller doubts that the construction was carried out exclusively by the Pisistratids, and proposes that while they may have initiated construction of the fountain house, the watersupply system as a whole may have been completed by other aristocratic families in a competitive spirit. However one imagines its execution, the interest in securing the water supply is the key point. This corresponds to the Homeric tradition of supplying the citizens with spring water, but the method of execution is new. In addition to existing wells (German Schöpfbrunnen) – remnants of  

 Vidal-Naquet () –. Tölle-Kastenbein (). Möller () –; cf. Anderson () –.



 -

which can be found everywhere in the Agora – fountain houses (German Laufbrunnen) were constructed. All this construction was connected with the development of Athens’ Agora into the cultic centre of Attica. Fountain houses could better provide for the crowds flocking to the city for the Panathenaic festival than wells could. This transformation of Athens into the representative and religious centre of Attica is reflected in the numerous depictions of fountains on vases, which begin in approximately  BCE. According to Möller, these are not genre scenes or simple depictions of reality, but must be read as a mixture of imagination, cultural values and social fiction, putting emphasis on the use of water in ritual acts. Garden Fruit for the Dēmos One of the benefactions attributed to Pisistratus is opening up his gardens. This generous attitude is said to have led Miltiades and Cimon to imitate his behaviour. Athenaeus, who refers to sources from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, contextualises this attitude in a discourse on luxury: But Idomeneus [FGrH  F] claims that Pisistratus’ sons Hippias and Hipparchus invented parties and wandering the streets drunk; this is why they were surrounded by a large number of horses and many friends, which led to their rule becoming oppressive. Their father Pisistratus, in fact, adopted a moderate attitude toward pleasure, and did not post guards in his fields or his orchards, according to Theopompus in Book XXI [FGrH  F], but let anyone who wanted enter and enjoy them, and take whatever he needed. Later on, Cimon imitated him and adopted the same policy. (Ath. .f–a, trans. Olson)

Whereas Marc Domingo Gygax interprets the generosity of Pisistratus and Cimon as typical aristocratic behaviour, Pauline Schmitt Pantel characterises Cimon’s generosity as a democratic trait: he made his property public and puts it at the disposal of the dēmos. Both positions are convincing, because generosity remains a common feature in all periods. But we can also establish a connection with the Homeric practice of generosity and read the garden as a metaphor of abundance.   

 Möller () –. Domingo Gygax () –, () . Schmitt Pantel () , () –. For the continuity of generous practices from Homer to the classical polis, see Duplouy () – and van Wees, Chapter  in this volume. For the institution of xenia in particular, see Mitchell ().

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



Outside the courtyard, close to the doors, is a great orchard of four acres, and a hedge runs about it on each side. In it grow tall, luxuriant trees, pears and pomegranates and apple trees () with bright fruit, and sweet figs and luxuriant olives. The fruit of these neither perishes nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and the West Wind, as it blows, continually quickens some fruits to life and ripens others; pear waxes ripe upon pear, apple upon apple, grape bunch upon grape bunch, and fig upon fig. (Hom. Od. .–, trans. Murray and Wyatt, adapted)

The constant availability of these fruits is characteristic of the Golden Age, in which fruit grew without labour. It should be noted that the reign of Pisistratus was sometimes said to be the Golden Age ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. .), and the generosity of Cimon evokes the Golden Age of Kronos as well (Plut. Vit. Cim. ). Such abundance is also the indirect result of the good rule the Odyssey associates with a woman: Penelope. This is how the disguised Odysseus praises her: Lady, no one among mortals upon the boundless earth could find fault with you, for your fame goes up to the broad heaven, like the fame of a blameless king (basileus) who, with fear of the gods in his heart, is lord over many valiant men, upholding justice; and the black earth bears wheat and barley, the trees are laden with fruit, the flocks bring forth young unceasingly, and the sea yields fish, all from his good leading, and the people prosper under him. (Hom. Od. .–, trans. Murray and Dimock, adapted)

Does this mean that we should look on Pisistratus as the good ruler, whose reign guarantees the flourishing of both men and livestock?

Tyrants: Thieves of Common Goods? How then do we read the dēmophagoi of Theognis, the tyrant, as ‘devourer of common goods’? This term also leads to the cultic sphere. Paola Ceccarelli, Francois Létoublon and Martin Steinru¨ck have traced the semantic links of dēmos (‘land, people’) to dēmós (‘fat’). In their judgement, dēmos was merely another term for geras, meaning part of the sacrificial animal owed to the gods or the basilēes and priests. Theognis’ criticism obviously deals with the question of who is entitled to the traditional privileges – the agathoi, the traditional elite or the kakoi, whom



Ceccarelli, Létoublon and Steinru¨ck () –. According to them the term is connected with daimomai, dateomai, ‘et en general avec la notion de partage: le jeu avec la graisse permettrait d’inclure dans un seul terme les notions de partage du teritoire et de partage de la viande’ ().



 -

he abuses verbally. It is no coincidence that criticism of tyrants often brings up their misbehaviour during festivals. Periander is presented as stealing female festive clothing at Corinth (Hdt. .–); Polycrates gains power during a festival for the goddess Hera (Polyaenus, Strat. ..); and according to Aristotle, the Megarian tyrant Theagenes stole the pasturing sheep of the rich (euporoi) and slaughtered them (Pol. a–). Slaughtering hints at sacrificial ritual. Rituals create an idealised image of reality; during it, the ranked order of society becomes visible to everyone. And although this competition for privileges follows the agonistic orientation of the Greek aristocracy, it also has a spatial logic. From a settlement-geographic perspective, the development of the polis can be seen as a process of spatial integration and densification. This process cannot have occurred without conflict. There must have been ‘minor kings’ occupying a privileged position everywhere: in the mountains, in the plains, on the coast, in Brauron, in Eleusis, on Cape Sounion. This is what the elegies of the Megarian Theognis are about. Here, the tyranny represents not a Golden Age but the reversal of the traditional order (kosmos): self-interest triumphs over common interest. A reversal of values takes place because the traditional elite are replaced by a new elite, which are accused of having got their possessions illegally. This change in elites is described as a spatial antagonism between urban dwellers and rural dwellers. It is also perceived as an ethical contrast: Theognis complains that the goatskin-bearers (i.e. country people) and the traders (phortēgoi) have taken over, while the city-dwellers (astoi) and the former elite, the agathoi, are stripped of their goods (Thgn. –). Theognis also denounces marriage practices, that is, that a noble man marries a common woman, while a noble woman marries a common man as long as he has enough wealth (Thgn. –). This is addressed to the house of the Cypselids, which led a debauched regime in Corinth (Thgn. –). Theognis demands that his audience destroy the tyrant, the devourer of common goods (dēmophagos) (Thgn. –). In the sixth century BCE, the tyrants of Corinth established the Diolkos at the Isthmus as a portage-way for ships between the Saronic and Corinthian Gulfs. They profited from the customs duties levied there, that is, from transport. In other words, the spatial situation at the Isthmus served to open up new resources by exacting tolls. The issue of access to these new resources resulted in resource-allocation conflicts, depicted by Theognis as power struggles between the old and the new elites. Most likely this was also the character of the power struggle between the Alcmaeonids, the adversaries of Pisistratus, and the

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens



Pisistratids, whose followers lived in different regions of Attica. The Pisistratids and the Philaidai are associated with Brauron, the Alcmaeonids with the coastal region (paralia) of southern Attica. According to Aristotle, Pisistratus’ actions were directed against the pediakoi, the dwellers in the plain. In Herodotus’ account, the leader of the dwellers in the plain is Lycurgus, but we should also think of the Alcmaeonids, who were located near Glifada and Mavronouni (Arist. Pol. a). Pediakoi is often translated ‘landlords’, which suggests class conflict. I prefer to identify them with regional leaders who lived in the plains near the coast, and in particular with the Alcmaeonids.

Conclusion How are the benefactions of the tyrants and the dues of the dēmos linked? Surprisingly, there are no clear indications of agricultural dues such as grain. Labour services and cattle for sacrifices seem to be more important than anything else. I detect no balanced reciprocity between tyrant and dēmos. Surprisingly again, there is no clear connection between the benefactions of the tyrants and the tithe. Instead, a third area – cult – seems to be where benevolent acts by the tyrants were put on display. It is here that in classical Athens dues were levied and liturgies performed: Attic farmers delivered the oil for the prize amphoras given to victors at the Panathenaic festival. Equipping the choruses that performed in the festival was the business of the rich; the community provided the sacrificial animals. Both the benefactions of the tyrants – or their services to the community, as van Wees would argue – and the dues and services of the people connected with the term dōtinē are linked with the Homeric tradition. These are not regular taxes, however, but dues or gifts given in special situations: dispensation of justice, hospitality or ritual friendship, marriage. For the marriage of the daughter of the Spartan Menelaus, men and 



 

The Philaidai originally came from Salamis. In classical times, they inhabited Brauron and Melite. For the origin of the Philaidai, see Bonanno () –. For the integration of the Salaminoi into the Athenian ‘Kultverband’, see Waldner () –. For the acquisition of mines through marriage, see Cox () –. According to Herodotus, the Alcmaeonids belonged to the paralioi (dwellers of the coast). For their localisation in the south of Attica, see Kinzl (). For the meaning of paralia as coast and hinterland in Herodotus, see Audring () –. A more metaphorical-philosophical explanation is proposed by Schmidt-Hofner () –. They will have influenced the negative image of the tyrants in the fifth century BCE. Luraghi () –. Pritchard () –.



 -

women bring wine, sheep and bread (Hom. Od. .–). In classical times there are other situations of consumption: feasts for the gods at Athens and common meals at Sparta. Most likely we must see the system of dues and services in a new light, for even in Mycenaean times the dues recorded in the Linear B tablets are associated with common feasts. The differences between historical periods or geographical spaces seem to be less important than has been assumed. When one looks not only at the pattern of reciprocity but also at the circulation of gifts which hint at the cycle of social reproduction, as Annette B. Weiner has shown for the Trobriand Islands, one notices an important difference between the fictional society of epic and that of archaic Athens. In epic, all types of goods, which can be exchanged, stolen or dedicated, are found in the context of the ritual for the dead: male goods as prizes in athletic contests, female goods as gifts for the dead presented during the prothesis. Whereas the gifts function as a bond between generations, the prizes give visual expression to the hierarchy among warriors. The ritual for the dead is the space of regeneration of the decisive relationships in the society. In archaic and classical Athens, the feast of the gods functioned this way. The circulation of gifts ended in the sanctuary. It thus comes as no surprise that all types of dues for tyrants and their benefactions refer to the feasts of the gods. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, G. () ‘Before turannoi were tyrants: rethinking a chapter of early Greek history’, Classical Antiquity : –. Ando, H. () ‘A study of servile peasantry of ancient Greece: centering around hectemoroi of Athens’, in T. Yuge and M. Doi (eds.), Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity. Leiden, –. Audring, G. () Zur Struktur des Territoriums griechischer Poleis in Archaischer Zeit. Berlin. Benveniste, E. () Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, vol. . Paris. 



 

Lazenby (). This Spartan custom was proposed by Plato for the ideal ‘state’ (Leg. e). Following the practice of his own time, Plato calls these dues eisphora. This should be collected by the phylai. Whether the ‘tax’ should be levied on the whole property or only on the year’s yield is unclear. But only a part of the eisphora should be used to finance the meals. For discussion, see van Wees () –. Killen () –; Deger-Jalkotzy () –; Panagiotopoulos () . On continuities, see Morris () –. Zurbach () denies any continuity without any explanation but confirms the existence of the tithe in Mycenaean Greece (–, ).  Weiner () –. Wagner-Hasel () –, () –. Wagner-Hasel () –, () –; Morris () .

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

 -

Scheid-Tissinier, E. () ‘“Le monde d’Ulysse” de Moses I. Finley: le vocabulaire et les pratiques’, in P. Clinier, F. D. Joannès, P. Rouillard and A. Tenu (eds.), Autour des Polanyi: vocabulaires, théories et modalités des échanges. Nanterre, – juin . Paris, –. Schmidt-Hofner, S. () ‘Politik räumlich denken. Herodots drei Parteien in Attika und das politische Imaginaire der Griechen’, Historische Zeitschrift : –. Schmitt Pantel, P. () La cité au banquet: histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques. Rome. () ‘L’audience et la démocratie’, in J.-P. Caillet and M. Sot (eds.), L’audience: rituels et cadres spatiaux dans l’Antiquité et le haut Moyen Age. Paris, –. () Hommes illustres: mœurs et politique à Athènes au Ve siècle. Paris. () ‘Politische Identität und Lebensstil. Plutarchs Sicht auf die politische Elite im Athen des . Jahrhunderts v. Chr.’, Historische Anthropologie .: –. Schmitz, W. () Nachbarschaft und Dorfgemeinschaft im archaischen und klassischen Griechenland. Berlin. Service, E. R. () The Origin of the State and Civilization. New York. Shapiro, A. () Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens. Mainz. () ‘Mousikoi Agones: Music and Poetry at the Panathenaia’, in J. Neils (ed.), Goddess and Polis: The Panatheniac Festival in Ancient Athens. Princeton, –. () ‘Hipparchos and the Rhapsodes’, in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (eds.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece. Cambridge, –. Smith, C. F. () Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. With an English translation. Vol. . London. Spahn, P. () ‘Die Steuer der Peisistratiden – idion, koinon oder hieron?,’ in F. de Polignac and P. Schmitt Pantel (eds.), Public et privé en Grèce ancienne: lieux, conduites, pratiques. Ktèma . Strasbourg, –. Stahl, M. () Aristokraten und Tyrannen im archaischen Athen. Stuttgart. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. () ‘The tyrants’, in K. A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees (eds.), A Companion to Archaic Greece. London, –. Thomson, G. D. () Studies in Ancient Greek Society. London. Tölle-Kastenbein, R. () Das archaische Wasserleitungsnetz fu¨r Athen. Mainz. Tuplin, Ch. () ‘Imperial tyranny: some reflections on a classical Greek political metaphor’, in P. Cartledge and F. D. Harvey (eds.), Crux: Essays in Greek History Presented to G. E. M. de Ste Croix. Exeter, –. Ure, P. N. () The Origin of Tyranny. Cambridge. van der Lahr, S. () Dichter und Tyrannen im archaischen Griechenland. Das Corpus Theognideum als zeitgenössische Quelle politischer Wertvorstellungen archaisch-griechischer Aristokraten. Konstanz. van Effenterre, H. () ‘Solon et la terre d’Éleusis’, Revue Internationale des Droits de l’Antiquité rd ser. : –.

Benefactions and Dues in Archaic Athens

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van Wees, H. () ‘The law of gratitude: reciprocity in anthropological theory’, in C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite and R. Seaford (eds.), Reciprocity in Ancient Greece. Oxford, –. () ‘Mass and elite in Solon’s Athens: the property classes revisited’, in J. H. Blok and A. P. M. H. Lardinois (eds.), Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches. Leiden, –. () Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens. London. Vidal-Naquet, P. () ‘Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey: a study of religious and mythical meanings’, in P. Vidal-Naquet, The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World. Baltimore, –. () ‘Religiöse und mythische Bedeutung des Bodens und des Opfers in der Odyssee’, in P. Vidal-Naquet, Der schwarze Jäger. Frankfurt, –, –. Wagner-Hasel, B. () ‘Geschlecht und Gabe. Zum Brautgu¨tersystem bei Homer’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fu¨r Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung : –. () Der Stoff der Gaben. Kultur und Politik des Schenkens und Tauschens im archaischen Griechenland. Frankfurt. () ‘Kommunikationswege und die Entstehung u¨berregionaler Heiligtu¨mer. Das Fallbeispiel Delphi’, in E. Olshausen and H. Sonnabend (eds.), Zu Wasser und zu Land. Verkehrswege in der antiken Welt. Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur Historischen Geographie des Altertums . Stuttgart, –. () ‘Hektemoroi – Kontraktbauern, Schuldknechte oder abgabenpflichtige Bauern?’, in K. Ruffing and K. Droß-Kru¨pe (eds.), Emas non quod opus est, sed quos necesse est. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial-, Rezeptions- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Antike. Festschrift fu¨r Hans-Joachim Drexhage zum . Geburtstag. Wiesbaden, –. () The Fabric of Gifts. Culture and Politics of Giving and Exchange in Archaic Greece. Lincoln, NE. Waldner, K. () Geburt und Hochzeit des Kriegers. Geschlechterdifferenz und Initiation in Mythos und Ritual der griechischen Polis. Berlin. Weiner, A. B. () ‘“Reproduction”: a replacement for reciprocity’, American Ethnologist .: –. Wood, E. M. () Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy. London. Wu¨st, F. R. () ‘Gedanken u¨ber die attischen Stände. Ein Versuch’, Historia .: –. Zurbach, J. () Les hommes, la terre et la dette en Grèce c. –c.  a.C.,  vols. Bordeaux.

 

Classical Benefactors

 

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism Marc Domingo Gygax

Athens represents a special case in the history of Greek public benefactions, since it is probably the polis that most resisted the emergence of civic euergetism, that is, the establishment of an organized exchange of benefactions for honors between polis and citizens. At the same time, no other classical polis contributed so much to the development of the practice and to its transformation into a defining institution of the Hellenistic age. This chapter examines these two sides of the history of Athenian euergetism in order to explain a development key to understanding the topics taken up in the essays that follow: the widespread integration of citizens into a practice born before the classical period to regulate the relationships between poleis and foreigners, and thus ‘the invention’ of civic euergetism. The Athenians of the classical period had a problematic relationship to two major features of civic euergetism – donations and honors – and in particular to the combination of the two: the granting of honors for benefactions that consisted of donations. For most of the fifth century, the Athenians tried to avoid gifts made outside the context of liturgies (compulsory public services inherited from the archaic polis), and when in the fourth century contributions became more necessary, efforts were made to present them as services owed the polis rather than as benefactions. While the Athenians never had difficulty honoring foreign benefactors, they were long reluctant to publicly reward their fellow citizens. During the Peloponnesian War and throughout the fourth century, however, Athens overcame some of its resistance to the ritual, employing it to improve state administration, attract resources and increase citizens’ identification with the democratic regime. Honors went from being a thing that civic benefactors demanded to rewards that to a considerable extent were promoted by the polis. They were granted to citizens ‘so that others may also show love of honor 



  

(philotimia)’, a sentence we find with variations in several honorific decrees. In this chapter, I analyze the emergence and expansion of civic euergetism in classical Athens, the main contradictions in the process, their causes and their consequences. I deal with the reasons for the opposition to donations and honors for citizens: the subordination to which recipients of gifts became subject, the traces of archaic gift-giving in the collective memory of the classical polis, the importance of the egalitarian ethos, and the perception of the polis as a community governed by indirect reciprocity. In addition, I address factors that contributed to overcoming resistance to euergetism: the impact of military events (the Peloponnesian War, the Social War, the Battle of Chaeronea), the limitations of the liturgical system, the increasing sophistication of Athenian public administration, the progress of euergetism at the deme level, the impact of the polis discourse regarding gift-exchange among citizens, changes in euergetism involving foreigners, the agonistic spirit, and ambiguity in the distinction between prizes and rewards (with prizes functioning as rewards and rewards perceived as prizes). Finally, I discuss the elitist content of classical civic euergetism (how it connects with archaic elite/dēmos relationships, and how it prefigures Hellenistic relationships in turn), as well as some developments that counterbalanced this elitist component: the ‘democratization’ of euergetism through grants of honors to non-wealthy citizens, the ‘decentralization’ of euergetism (i.e. the growth of deme euergetism), the organization of epidoseis, and other measures that served to prevent the rise of a class of great financial benefactors, along with the relaxation of this policy in the time of Lycurgus. Despite its elitist essence, civic euergetism was a product of the classical democratic polis and could not have been created by the Hellenistic city. As in my previous work on the topic, in this chapter I analyze euergetism as a practice characterized by reciprocity rather than by one-way benefit, that is, as an institution essentially related to gift-exchange.

The ‘Poisoned Chalice’ In the Greek world, as elsewhere, gifts allowed the recipient to benefit to the extent that the recipient () obtained a necessary or desired item, () was the protagonist of a passive act (receiving) that helped the recipient to maintain or acquire high status and () established or preserved through 

E.g. IG II , , , .

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



the gift a relationship with a person or group of people with whom interactaction was desired. Thus, the Homeric poems describe gifts that enable heroes to accumulate valuable objects, exhibit their connections with other members of the elite, and, in the case of gera (gifts of honor awarded to the leader of the group), reassert a position of authority. Menelaus and Helen receive splendid presents from Polybus and his wife (two silver bathtubs, two tripods, ten talents of gold, a golden distaff and a silver basket on wheels with golden rims), while Eurymedusa is given to Alcinous as a geras, ‘since he was king over all the Phaeacians’. As Odysseus says to Alcinous, it would be better for him to return to Ithaca with many gifts, so as ‘to win more respect and love from all men’ who might see him. For the recipient, however, a gift generally represented more than enrichment. It also involved at some point in the near, medium or extended future having to give to another person (the donor or, in the case of indirect reciprocity, a third party). As a rule, gifts needed to be reciprocated. The Greek sources offer innumerable instances of the application of this principle, as well as many explicit references to it: for instance, ‘one hand washes the other’ (Epicharmus); ‘goodwill is indeed rendered in return for favors received, but this is merely the payment of a due’ (Aristotle); ‘men always give presents in the hope of receiving some benefit or as a recompense for former benefactions’ (pseudo-Aristotle). The reciprocity rule implied that the gift was far from being something ‘innocuous’, free of costs and risks for the recipient. In fact, it created a sense of debt that lasted until the reciprocation was viable or appropriate, a sentiment often surrounded by pressure from the giver or a third party (since a lack of reciprocation could lead the giver to fear not only that the gift was a loss but also that observers might perceive the giver’s gift as a counter-gift). In addition, the norm of reciprocity represented submission to a power relationship in which the giver, by means of the act (giving), obliged the recipient to react (to counter-give) and determined – through the giver’s gift – the dimension of the compensation (since the counter-gift was supposed to be equivalent to the gift). In sum, the gift, however    

Hom. Od. .–, .– (trans. Murray, adapted); Od. . (trans. Murray). On giftexchange in Homer, see Scheid-Tissinier (); Bertelli (); and Chapter  in this volume. On gift-giving and reciprocity in ancient Greece, see Gill, Postlethwaite and Seaford (); Satlow (); Carlà and Gori (). Epicharm. fr.  ap. [Pl.] Ax. c (trans. Cooper); Arist. Eth. Nic. a– (trans. Rackham); [Arist.] Rh. Al. b– (trans. Rackham). Domingo Gygax (); Beck ().



  

beneficial it was, always had an alienating dimension. In a relationship between equals this was not critical. The problem arose when the recipient lacked the capacity to respond and remained in debt, or when the recipient could reciprocate only in what was a demeaning way, for instance, by providing a humiliating service. Also problematic were counter-gifts that canceled the debt in spite of being objectively inferior (this being possible because the calculation of the equivalence of the counter-gift involved taking into account the capacities and circumstances of the two parties). Even when sufficient, counter-gifts expressed the inferiority of the person who gave them. Finally, the reciprocity principle placed givers in a position of moral superiority, because they risked not being reciprocated or inadequately compensated. Receivers, by contrast, due to the incommensurability that usually characterized the gifts that were exchanged, risked their counter-gifts being perceived as insufficient or as merely sufficient even if they exceeded what was necessary. It was thus more likely that in an exchange of gifts the first donor would emerge with the image of being the more generous person than the other way around. If instead of focusing on the consequences of the gift for the recipient, we pay attention to the donor’s action, all these contradictions of giftgiving can be summarized with the following observations by the anthropologist Maurice Godelier: By its very nature, gift-giving is an ambivalent practice which brings together or is capable of bringing together opposing emotions and forces. It can be, simultaneously or successively, an act of generosity or of violence; in the latter case, however, the violence is disguised as a disinterested gesture, since it is committed by means of and in the form of sharing.

Gifts, Dependence and Power The Athenians were very much aware of the downsides of receiving gifts. Pericles expresses this in the following terms in the ‘Funeral Oration’: Now he who confers the favor is a firmer friend, in that he is disposed, by continued goodwill toward the recipient, to keep the feeling of obligation alive in him; but he who owes it is more listless in his friendship, knowing that when he repays the kindness it will count, not as a favor bestowed, but as a debt repaid.   

Arist. Eth. Eud. b–b, a–; Domingo Gygax ().  Cf. Thuc. ..; Arist. Eth. Nic. b–. Godelier () . Thuc. .. (trans. Smith).

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



About eighty years later, Aristotle elaborates on the same question and discusses some of the points mentioned in the previous section. He stresses the superiority and inferiority of the giver and the receiver, respectively, comments on their respective comfort and distress, and mentions the possibility of reciprocating with excessive counter-gifts in order to reverse the conditions of the relationship: [The great-souled man] is fond of conferring benefits, but ashamed to receive them, because the former is a mark of superiority and the latter of inferiority. He returns a service done to him with interest, since this will put the original benefactor into his debt in turn, and make him the party benefited. The great-souled are thought to have a good memory for any benefit they have conferred, but a bad memory for those which they have received (since the recipient of a benefit is the inferior of his benefactor, whereas they desire to be superior); and to enjoy being reminded of the former but to dislike being reminded of the latter.

As we have seen, in the passage from the ‘Funeral Oration’ quoted above, Pericles also speaks of the power of gifts to dominate others. The passage refers to people in general, but this is part of a section in which Pericles deals with Athenian gift-giving, more likely with the way individual citizens exchanged favors among themselves within the polis than – as scholars generally assume – with Athens’s interactions with other states. This is a difficult passage, and it has been suggested that in it Pericles is claiming that the Athenians did favors without expecting a return. If this is what Thucydides is trying to say – although I do not believe that it is – Pericles’ claim is very far from reality. Before we focus on classical Athens, however, it is worth considering some aspects of gift-giving in the archaic period in order to understand how gifts were perceived later on. In the archaic polis, the gift was a typical elite strategy aimed at gaining support: gifts to individuals provided clients, and gifts to the community provided, in addition to personal advantages, a certain degree of acceptance of class privileges. Tyrants also resorted to gifts, which were even more necessary for them because their autocratic position required more support and more  

Arist. Eth. Nic. b– (trans. Rackham). The passage is preceded and followed by the following sentences: ‘In nobility of spirit we stand in sharp contrast to most men; for it is not by receiving kindness, but by conferring it, that we acquire our friends.. . . We alone confer our benefits without fear of consequences, not upon a calculation of the advantage we shall gain, but with confidence in the spirit of liberality which actuates us’ (Thuc. ..–). Many scholars believe that Pericles is discussing Athens’s relation to other poleis in comparison with Spartan practice (e.g. Hooker () –; Missiou () –, () –; Low () –). But see Rusten () ; Hornblower () ; von Reden () –.



  

extensive efforts to legitimize it. As Brian Lavelle has observed, ‘Peisistratos’ final tyranny depended on his ability to locate and exploit ongoing sources of wealth with which to enrich the Athenians over time. It was this partnership between the demos and him (and then his successors), really an economic and political symbiosis, that kept the tyranny going.’ In fifth-century Athens, gifts by members of the elite and by tyrants characteristic of the pre-democratic polis were still present in the memory of the citizens, but similar practices of domination also survived adapted to – and in tension with – the new political circumstances. Theopompus reports that Cimon ‘did not station guards to protect the crops in his fields or his orchards, allowing any citizens who wanted to enter them and pick the produce and take anything in his fields that they needed’. Cimon also opened his house for dinner to everyone, took care of the individuals who occasionally asked him for help, contributed to funeral expenses, and, whenever he saw a citizen who was badly dressed, ordered one of the young men accompanying him to exchange clothes with the man. Other sources provide more or less the same information or part of it. The pseudo-Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia adds that ‘he discharged the general public services [liturgies] in a brilliant manner’, and some evidence points to public gifts outside this context: funding the construction of a section of the Long Walls, tree-planting in the agora and enhancement of the Academy with gardens. Cimon may even have been involved in building the Stoa of the Herms and the Theseion. According to Theopompus, ‘as a consequence of all this [the gifts he mentions], he had a fine reputation and was their leading citizen’, while pseudo-Aristotle links Cimon’s gifts to political power by saying that Pericles, because he lacked the wealth of Cimon to use to gain support, was forced to rely on other strategies: ‘Pericles first made service in the jury-courts a paid office, as a popular counter-measure against Cimon’s wealth.’ Gorgias maintains that ‘Cimon made money that he might spend it, and spent it that he might be honored for it’. In addition,  

 

 

 Hall () –. See also Chapter  in this book. Lavelle () . FGrH  F  and F , ap. Ath. .f–c (trans. Olson); [Arist.] Ath. Pol. .–; Theophr. fr.  Fortenbaugh (ap. Cic. Off. .); Nep. .; Plut. Vit. Cim. , Vit. Per. ; scholia on Aristides .,  (Dindorf ). [Arist.] Ath. Pol. . (trans. Rackham). Plut. Vit. Cim. .–. On the date of the beginning of the construction of the Long Walls and Cimon’s possible participation, cf. Constantakopoulou () –; Conwell () – (contra Berkey () ). Judeich () –, , ; Walker () –; Kopanias () . Gorg.  B  D–K ap. Plut. Vit. Cim. . (trans. Perrin).

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



Theopompus and pseudo-Aristotle draw connections between Cimon’s behavior and the archaic tyrants. Pseudo-Aristotle says that Cimon performed his liturgies in such a spectacular manner because he ‘had an estate large enough for a tyrant’, and Theopompus attributes to Pisistratus the same policy of not posting guards in his fields or his orchards and letting anyone who wanted to enter and enjoy them. Both authors probably drew on a common fifth-century source that compared Pisistratus’ and Cimon’s liberality as well as their methods of financing their actions. Some features of Cimon’s behavior can be recognized in the deeds of other famous early fifth-century Athenian statesmen: Themistocles funded the restoration of the temple of his genos, the Lycomidae, in the deme of Phlya; built the temple of Artemis Aristoboule near his house in the deme of Melite; performed liturgies in a spectacular manner (resulting in a choregic victory in  BCE); and is said to have spent large quantities of money on spectacular sacrifices and on displays of generosity toward guests. Nicias was famous for the brilliance of his liturgies, including an impressive architheōria to Delos. According to Plutarch, he ‘sought by means of this [his excessive wealth] to win the leadership of the people’ and ‘tried to captivate the people by choral and gymnastic exhibitions, and other similar prodigalities, outdoing in the costliness and elegance of these all his predecessors and contemporaries’. Alcibiades also performed magnificent liturgies, in addition to voluntarily contributing money to public subscriptions (epidoseis) and obtaining Olympic victories that augmented the glory of the polis. Thucydides tells us that he went so far as to use these services to argue that he deserved to be appointed commander of the Sicilian expedition. A look at the chronology and types of gifts in the first two-thirds of the fifth century creates the impression that after the revolution of  and the subsequent radicalization of Athenian democracy, public gifts outside the context of liturgies (e.g. donations for construction or improvement of public spaces) were avoided. Unlike Cimon and Themistocles, Nicias and Alcibiades are not associated with this type of gift. Nor is anyone else, despite the intensive building activity of the period. The so-called      

Wade-Gery () , n. , ; Domingo Gygax ().  Plut. Vit. Them. . Plutarch gets the information from Simonides. Plut. Vit. Them. . Plut. Vit. Them. . Plutarch quotes the inscription Themistocles set up to commemorate his victory.  Pl. Grg. a; Plut. Vit. Nic. –.. Plut. Vit. Nic. .– (trans. Perrin, slightly adapted). Thuc. ..–; Isoc. .; Plut. Vit. Alc. .. A possible exception are the law courts of Callias and Metiochus, assuming that they got their names from the individuals who funded their construction and not from the epistatai appointed by



  

springhouse decree points toward the same conclusion. Pericles, or at least his sons Paralus and Xanthippus – the inscription is quite fragmentary – apparently offered to pay for a new spring house. The dēmos thanked them for the offer but chose to use public funds for the project. A famous anecdote describing how Pericles offered to pay for the building program is often put in relation to this inscription. This may not be a complete invention by Plutarch or one of his sources, but a reflection of the dēmos’ reluctance to accept gifts when public funds where available. One of Pericles’ main successes came precisely from doing the opposite of what he intended to in Plutarch’s anecdote, namely, by using payments for jury service to distribute money that came not from his private fortune but from public funds. As the Athenaion Politeia presents it, this was intended ‘to give the multitude what was their own’. Beyond that, there was a discourse in the classical period that tried to depict the dēmos not as beneficiary but as benefactor (sc. of the Greeks) and the money it received from its allies as a counter-gift.

Reciprocity and Honors Classical Athens could potentially have used honors to try to neutralize the effects of gifts by members of its elite. Since at least the early fifth century, Athens had regularly honored foreigners who acted as benefactors of the polis, and in other poleis the evidence of honors for foreigners, as well as for citizens who won athletic victories in Panhellenic games, goes back to the archaic period. Honors such as politeia and proxenia were obviously out of place for citizens, but sitēsis in the prytaneion, proedria, exemption from various taxes, honorific stelae, the title of euergetēs and statues were theoretically conceivable for civic benefactors. In addition, honors were not simple tokens of gratitude but counter-gifts with the capacity to cancel the debt created by the gift. The exchange of a gift for an honor was in fact an exchange of one gift (dōrea) for another (dōrea). The Athenian decree in honor of Spartocus and Paerisades, for example, reads: ‘Since [Spartocus

   

the state, and that the construction of the structures dates to the s BCE. See Jacoby on Androtion FGrH  F ; Davies () ; cf. Davies () , .   IG I . Plut. Vit. Per. .–. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. . (trans. Rackham). Hdt. .; Thuc. ..–, ., .., .; Isoc. .ff.; Plut. Vit. Per. .–; cf. Thuc. ... The honors for Alexander I of Macedonia date to c.  (Hdt. ., ). For more evidence, see Walbank () (regardless of whether one agrees with the dates he attributes to the inscriptions). In the time of Solon, there may already have been rewards for athletes in Athens. The prytaneion decree, in any case, refers to such honors in a way that suggests that they were not a novelty.

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



and Paerisades] give the Athenians the same dōreai Satyrus and Leucon had given them [the Athenians], Spartocus and Paerisades shall receive the dōreai the people had awarded to Satyrus and Leucon.’ In principle, honors were granted to rebalance the relationship with the giver or even to indebt the giver in order to trigger new benefactions. Accordingly, some Athenian decrees stress that the honors are at the level of the benefactions. For instance, they were granted ‘so that all the Greeks may know that the Athenian people knows how to give thanks to those who benefit it worthy of their benefactions’, while a Hellenistic decree from Athens announces that the people will give ‘as is its ancestral custom . . . commensurate thanks’ to benefactors. According to Demosthenes, ‘each man should receive from the people the exact reward (dōrea) he deserves’. But honors were tricky counter-gifts. Granting them involved moving from an ambiguous condition, in which the gift could be perceived by the citizens (or be depicted by the polis) as a service owed the community, to a situation in which the polis publicly acknowledged a benefaction, that is, openly recognized that a gift indebting fellow citizens had been made. Although the benefactors were compensated with honors that theoretically rebalanced their relationship with the polis, after receiving the honors they could maintain that they had been a benefactor and try to obtain all the advantages derived from this status, leaving the polis incapable of challenging the claim. As noted earlier, even if the result of a gift-exchange was balanced, the party that donated first often came out of the transaction symbolically reinforced, in the sense of being perceived as more generous. In addition, a person recognized as a benefactor was also seen as someone who could act again as such, that is, as a potential benefactor, someone with special qualities and better than others. (The status of benefactor could even be inherited, as we see in many Hellenistic inscriptions that honor individuals for being the descendants of benefactors.) The award of honors implied the establishment of a special class of citizens – benefactors – that challenged the egalitarian ethos of democratic Athens. It is for this reason that even in Hellenistic times, although it became customary to award honors to citizens, the granting of the title euergetēs – so prevalent for foreigners – generally continued to be avoided   

 IG II  = Syll. . IG II  (trans. Lambert, AIO). IG II  (trans. Lambert, AIO). See also  l.. Dem. . (trans. Vince, slightly amended). Kremmydas () : ‘the kind of grant which he appears to be worthy of’.



  

for citizens. From the entire Hellenistic world, in fact, we know of euergetēs titles granted to citizens in only four poleis. The solemn ritual surrounding the bestowal of honors made it difficult to forget that the recipient had been recognized as a benefactor. The homage might be revived every time another person mentioned or interacted with the recipient. Moreover, honors such as sitēsis (invitation to free meals in the prytaneion) and proedria (preferential seating at public spectacles) were rituals, ceremonies that periodically paid tribute to the benefactor and that lasted for the rest of the benefactor’s life or even beyond, if the honor was passed on to descendants. The honorific stele and the statue went even further, being permanent and potentially eternal. But honors such as these not only regularly recalled that the honorand had been a benefactor, but also conveyed, insofar as they represented continuous homage and an act of repayment that never ceased, the impression that the debt to the benefactor could never be canceled. Finally, Athens had a particular difficulty with honors for citizens that other poleis did not. In the early years of the democracy, the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogiton were posthumously rewarded with statues in the agora and with sitēsis, proedria and exemption from liturgies for their descendants. On the one hand, the magnitude of Harmodius’ and Aristogiton’s benefaction – the tyrannicide – made it difficult for other benefactions to be perceived as worthy of any of these honors, let alone of the same combination of them. On the other hand, the more such honors were accorded to other citizens, the less extraordinary would seem the position of Harmodius and Aristogiton, two icons of democracy whom it was convenient to maintain on the highest possible pedestal.

Honors and Controversies How problematic it was for the Athenians to bestow honors on fellow citizens is reflected not only in the meager evidence for such honors during much of the democratic period but also in numerous references to controversies surrounding the granting of honors, the difficulty of obtaining honors for certain services and the exceptionality of honors in the fifth century. It is true that in some polemics the underlying problem was the  

The inscriptions are cited by Gauthier () –. On the statues, see Azoulay () and Biard (); dedicatory epigram: ‘Simon.’  Bergk = Page, FGE – = CEG ; Meritt () – (inscription); sitēsis: IG I ; proedria and exemption from liturgies: Isae. .; Dem. .–, .

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



individual rather than the honors themselves, the opposition to granting them being more than anything else a way to attack the honorand or the person who proposed the honors. But even in these cases, the difficult relationship of the Athenians with euergetic honors for civic benefactions is often apparent. The first open criticism of the award of honors to citizens appears in Aristophanes’ Knights, where Cleon is blamed for having asked for sitēsis and proedria after his success at the Battle of Sphacteria (): And not a single general of the former generation would have applied to Cleaenetus for a state subsidy (sitēsis); whereas now if they don’t get frontrow seats (proedria) and free meals (sitia, i.e. sitēsis), they refuse to fight!

In another passage of Knights, Aristophanes refers to a crown awarded to Cleon, saying that Cleon robbed the dēmos after it crowned him. As a consequence, Demos (a symbolic character standing in for the Athenian people) takes the crown away and places it on the head of Cleon’s rival, the Sausage Seller, instead. In the final years of the Peloponnesian War, Andocides also deals with crowns for generals and says that he does not want to criticize them: ‘I will not deny that they deserve it; it is proof of signal merit to be able to render one’s country a service in any way whatsoever.’ But he argues that services that involve not only putting one’s life in danger but also spending one’s private wealth are even more deserving of reward. Some years after the end of the war, we find two brothers who brought grain to Piraeus in  stressing that at the time they performed their benefaction it was considerably more difficult to receive crowns: ‘You crowned us for our brave acts at a time when it was not as easy as it is now to win that honor.’ The most famous case of opposition to a crown is the affair of the gold crown proposed for Demosthenes by Ctesiphon. Crowns had become a widespread honor by this time, but in his long speech of justification of the reward, Demosthenes pays strikingly little attention to the economic contributions for which he actually received the crown – his donations during his supervision of the reconstruction of the city walls and his   

 

Neil () . Ar. Eq. – (trans. Henderson). See also Eq. – (sitēsis),  (proedria). Ar. Eq. –. For the interpretation of this crown as a reward and not a ‘Kranz des Amtsträgers’ or ‘Demagogenkranz’ (Kraus () ; Lind () ), see Blech () – and Henderson () –. Andoc. .– (trans. Maidment). On Andocides’ benefaction, see Andoc. .–: he supplies the Athenian forces in Samos with oar-spars, grain and bronze. Isoc. . (trans. Norlin, altered).



  

administration of the festival fund – and focuses on his political accomplishments. Demosthenes in  mentions how extraordinary sitēsis, proedria and statues (the megistai timai) were, while Aeschines in  observes that they were granted to victorious generals but not to citizens for political and diplomatic accomplishments: ‘You set up your statues and give your seats of honor and your crowns and your dinners in the prytaneion not to those who have brought you tidings of peace, but to those who have been victorious in battle.’ Not until  do we know of a citizen – Demades – honored with sitēsis and a bronze statue in the agora for political achievements. This unprecedented distinction was fervently opposed by Lycurgus and Polyeuctus. The honors (dōreai) posthumously bestowed on Eubulus, which seem to have included megistai timai, were also challenged, in this case by Hypereides in a speech delivered in / that has been lost. The statues of Sophocles and Euripides set up in the Theatre of Dionysus in the time of Lycurgus were criticized by the orator Philinus (who did not, however, censure the statue of Aeschylus). The statue in honor of the tragedian Astydamas in the Theatre of Dionysus erected according to some sources already around  (still in his lifetime) was surrounded by controversy as well, if it is true that the epigram Astydamas composed for the statue base was rejected by the Athenians. In the fourth century, it became customary to criticize the proliferation and magnificence of honors by comparing them with the scarcity and modesty of honors in the fifth century. Thus, for example, Demosthenes says in his Against Aristocrates (): It is also opportune, men of Athens, to inquire how our forefathers bestowed distinctions (timai) and rewards (dōreai) upon genuine benefactors, whether they were citizens or strangers. If you find their practice better than yours, you will do well to follow their example; if you prefer your own, it rests with you to continue it. Take first Themistocles, who won the naval victory at Salamis, Miltiades, who commanded at Marathon, and many others, whose achievements were not on a level with those of our     

 Dem. .; Aeschin. . (trans. Adams, slightly adapted). Din. .. Lycurg. fr.  Conomis; Apsines, Rhet. . ( Dilts–Kennedy). Hyp. frr. – Jensen; cf. Gauthier () ; Lambert (a) . Plut. Mor. f; Paus. ..–; Hanink () –,  (Aeschylus may have been treated differently because of his role at Marathon). Diog. Laert. . ; Astydamas II TrGF  T a and b. The sources are problematic, and it is possible that Astydamas’ statue dates after the statues of the three tragedians and that no such polemic took place. See Ma () . Cf. Hanink () –. On statues for benefactors in classical Athens, see Domingo Gygax () –, –; Biard ().

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



commanders today. Our ancestors did not put up bronze statues of these men, nor did they carry their regard for them to extremes.

A few years earlier, by contrast, in his Against Leptines (), written on behalf of the son of the general Chabrias, Demosthenes had supported the honors awarded Conon and Chabrias. The focus of the speech was actually a defense of the exemption from liturgies, an additional reward given Conon and Chabrias but abolished on the initiative of Leptines. Aware that he would be attacked by Leptines with the argument that fifthcentury benefactors were less lavishly rewarded, Demosthenes stresses that in earlier times as well benefactors received honors and maintains that every epoch rewards benefactors differently: ‘There were, men of Athens, plenty of zealous citizens in former generations, and our city even then honored its good men; only honors then, like everything else, reflected the temper of the times, just as they now reflect the temper of today.’ Some years later, in , when the award of one of his crowns was challenged by Aeschines, Demosthenes claimed again that it was unjust to criticize contemporary honors by comparing them with those made in the past. Aeschines instead offered the following case in criticism of the proliferation of honors: If any one should ask you whether our city seems to you more glorious in our own time or in the time of our fathers, you would agree, in the time of our fathers. And were there better men then than now? Then, eminent men; but now, far inferior. But rewards and crowns and proclamations, and maintenance in the prytaneion – were these things more common then than now? Then honors were rare among us, and the name of virtue was itself an honor. But now, the custom is already completely faded out, and you do the crowning as a matter of habit, not deliberately. Are you not therefore surprised, when you look at it in this light, that the rewards are now more numerous, but the city was then more prosperous?

In  Aeschines was able to direct this attack against Demosthenes’ crown both because the granting of honors to citizens had increased substantially and because these rewards continued to be problematic for

    

Dem. .– (trans. Vince). [Dem.] .– is similar. Dem. .ff. (Conon), ff. (Chabrias). Demosthenes clearly defends all their honors, including the statues, and not only the exemption from liturgies. Cf. Dem. ., , , , , . Dem. . : ‘they have another argument ready; that even at Athens in former generations men who had rendered great services met with no recognition of this sort’ (trans. Vince).  Dem. . (trans. Vince). See also Dem. .–. Dem. .. Aeschin. .– (trans. Adams).



  

all the reasons pointed out about. What then led to their multiplication, if they created so many tensions?

The Impact of the Peloponnesian War: Victorious Generals, Champions of Democracy, and Wealthy Donors The first development that must be taken into consideration is the effect of the Peloponnesian War on the way Athenians related to benefactions and honors for benefactors. Our evidence indicates that the number of crowns granted to generals increased in the Peloponnesian War period. The language used by Andocides and Xenophon in regard to them shows that between  and  they had become relatively common. The crown for Alcibiades, for example, belongs to that period (), and when Andocides mentions crowns for generals in his speech On His Return, he tries to ensure that his observation is not taken as criticism. The increased number of crowns must have been a consequence of the natural proliferation of outstanding military actions in a period of war, but also a reaction to requests by individual commanders who in such times enjoyed a stronger social and political position, for example, Cleon, as well as a result of an attempt to motivate the military and to promote patriotic role models. The increased number of crowns contradicted the egalitarian ethos fostered by the democratic state, but also took into account the reciprocity principle – gifts had to be reciprocated – and found precedents in awards of valor (aristeia, usually crowns) granted to outstanding combatants, as well as in the sitēsis (and most likely also proedria) for generals regulated by the prytaneion decree that probably dates to the early years of the Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War led in addition to grants of crowns to defenders of democracy against internal enemies, such as Diocleides () and Thrasybulus and the other ‘heroes of Phyle’ who fought against the Thirty Tyrants (). But the war also brought about a change that was quantitatively less perceptible than crowns for generals, but that qualitatively represented a greater departure from the principles that opposed the development of civic euergetism: the acknowledgment of benefactions  



 Andoc. .–; Xen. Hell. .; Plut. Vit. Alc. . (crown for Alcibiades). Ar. Eq. –. IG I . The decree has been dated to the period –, but see arguments for a date around  or the early s: Mattingly () ; Gauthier, Bull. ép. () no. ; Gauthier, Bull. ép. () no. ; Rivolta (); Tracy () –.  Andoc. .. Xen. Hell. ..ff.; Aeschin. .–; Nep. ..; SEG XXVIII .

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



such as supplying grain which, even if linked to the war, had economic implications. In , Andocides rendered an extraordinary service to the Athenian fleet in Samos, in the course of which he showed himself ‘reckless of both his life and his goods’. Andocides did not receive the reward he aimed at, but when he speaks of his service, he attempts to present it as superior to the victories achieved by the city’s generals: You must understand, gentlemen, how far services such as mine surpass ordinary ones. When citizens who hold public office add to your revenues, are they not actually giving you what is already yours? When those who hold military command benefit their country by means of some fine exploit, is it not by exposing your persons to weariness and danger, and by spending public money as well, that they render you the sort of service they do? Again, if they make a mistake at some point, they are not the ones who pay for their mistake; it is you who pay for the error which was their fault.. . . You must see that that man is much the worthiest, who has the courage to expose his own life and his own goods to danger in order to confer a benefit on his fellow-countrymen.

In the final years of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians not only honored citizens, but also accepted the public recognition of donations, services the Athenian dēmos had long preferred to avoid or had at least declined to acknowledge due to the dependence they generated and their archaic and pre-democratic implications.

Financial Needs, Great Commanders and the Democratization of Euergetism In  Isocrates wrote about some of his disciples: ‘All these men were crowned by Athens with garlands of gold, not because they coveted other people’s possessions, but because they were honorable individuals who had spent large portions of their private fortunes on the city.’ From this passage and evidence such as the claims of the trierarch Apollodorus regarding his services in /, we can conclude that in the first half of the fourth century, after the Peloponnesian War was over, economic benefactions and their recognition continued and increased. The Athenian state could not make up for the loss of revenues drawn from the empire simply by increasing the number of triērarchiai and eisphorai, since such contributions covered only military costs. In this context, citizens also began to  

 Isoc. ., . Andoc. .– (trans. Maidment, slightly adapted). Isoc. . (trans. Norlin, slightly adapted); [Dem.] ..



  

receive public rewards (deipnon in the prytaneion and public praise) for serving as envoys. Epigraphic information places this practice in the s and afterward. Apparently, crowns soon came to be seen as insufficient rewards for certain benefactions. The megistai timai (above all else a statue in the agora) offered to some generals from  until  reflect the fact that in this period the Athenians felt that some benefactions required greater honors because of the unprecedented significance of the gifts, the status and demands of the benefactors, or the polis’s intention of presenting these accomplishments as services superior to what they really were. That the bestowal of crowns and public praise had expanded so much by then that these honors were not taken to be as distinguished as they had been at one point must also have played a role. As noted above, around  Isocrates indicated that grants of crowns had already increased significantly compared with the end of the Peloponnesian War period. But the proliferation of crowns in the decades following the war was not only due to the recognition of political, military and economic benefactions, for crowns were also conferred on members of the boule. Beginning in / at the latest, it became normal to honor the most distinguished prytany of the year with a crown – numerous dedications from the first half of the fourth century document the practice. By the time of Demosthenes’ Against Androtion (–) it was customary to grant a crown to the entire boule for successful management at the end of its year of office or even before. These honors are probably to be understood as acts of democratic reassertion after the oligarchic regimes of  and , aimed at increasing identification with and reinforcing the democratic state in the spirit of Demophantus’ decree. But they may also have been in part a reaction to increasing honors for the elite, an attempt to democratize euergetism by  

 



IG II , ; SEG XXI . Conon: statue (Dem. .; Isoc. .; Paus. ..; Nep. ..), gold crown (Dem. ., . ), ateleia (Dem. .), and probably in addition sitēsis and proedria (Isoc. .; cf. scholiast on Dem. .). Iphicrates: statue (Aeschin. .; Dem. ., ., ; Arist. Rh. b–); sitēsis, proedria ‘and other honors’ (Dem. ., ; schol. on Dem. .). Chabrias: statue (Aeschin. .; Arist. Rh. b–; Diod. Sic. ..; Nep. .), gold crown (Dem. .), ateleia (Dem. ., , , ), ‘other honors’ (Aeschin. .; Dem. .). Timotheus: statue (Aeschin. .; Nep. ..; Paus. ..). On other commanders perhaps honored with statues, Aeschin. ..  Isoc. .. Cf. the first thirty inscriptions in Agora XV.. Dem. ., , –; see Gauthier () –; Faraguna () ; cf. Rhodes (a) –. IG II  reports that the boule of / was crowned for its year of office; cf. Rhodes (a) . See also Aeschin. .. Cf. Andoc. .–; Dem. .; Lycurg. ..

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



opening up access to honors to individuals who were not wealthy. In addition, these honors seem to follow a sort of ‘administrative’ logic, constituting the polis’s first attempt to use the device specifically to encourage citizens to improve the government and management of the Athenian state.

Euergetism and the Administration of the Polis After the Social War (–), this ‘administrative’ use of euergetism becomes more apparent with regular grants of honors to officials for performance of their duties, and from the s on it is reflected in inscriptions that include a reference to the honorand’s philotimia and invite the reader to follow that example. An excellent example is the decree in honor of Pytheas of Alopece, a superintendent of wells in /, for completing construction of a sacred spring house in the Sanctuary of Ammon and building another one in the Amphiareum of Oropus. The people shall decide: since Pythias, having been elected in charge of the water supply, is fulfilling his other official duties well and with love of honor (philotimōs), and has now constructed a new fountain at the sanctuary of Ammon and built the fountain in the Amphiareum, and has taken care of the water channel and the underground conduits there; to praise Pytheas son of Sosidemus of Alopece when he has rendered his accounts, and crown him with a gold crown of  drachmas for his excellence and justice in his management of the water supply, so that others who are elected in charge of the water supply may individually also show a love of honor (philotimōntai) toward the people.

In the fourth century, numerous reforms designed to improve the administration of the polis were carried out, and civic euergetism, increasingly regulated by law, became part of these efforts. Aeschines refers, for example, to a law that ‘expressly forbids crowning men before they have passed their final accounting’, while Demosthenes clearly expresses the idea that the laws that reward benefactors make the polis stronger and are as important for the solidity of the state as those that punish wrongdoing.    

That the crown to the most distinguished prytany goes back to the beginnings of democracy (Dow () ; Meritt and Traill () ) is merely speculation. E.g. IG II , , , . Cf. Xenophon’s recommendation in Poroi .. IG II  (trans. Lambert AIO, adapted). See also IG II , , , , with references to philotimia and occasional explicit reference to following the example of the honorand. Aeschin. .. On this and other regulations regarding crowns, see also Aeschin. ., –, –; Dem. .–.



   I have still a few things to say to you before I sit down. For you ought, in my opinion, men of Athens, to be anxious for the utmost possible efficiency of our laws, but especially of those on which depends the strength or weakness of our state. And which are they? They are those that assign honors (timai) to men who do good, and punishments to those who do evil. For in truth, if from fear of legal penalties all men shunned wrongdoing, and if from ambition for the rewards (dōreai) of benefactions (euergesiai) all chose the path of duty, what prevents our city from being great and all our citizens honest, with not a rogue among them?

Behind honors for city officials, however, lay not merely an attempt to improve the service they provided – or simply to find other men willing to serve – but also the pursuit of resources. One goal was to convince citizens such as Pytheas of Alopece to make use of personal funds when they performed their official duties. Neoptolemus son of Anticles was crowned in the s for his donations as a commissioner of public works. Phanodemus of Thymaetadae received a crown in / for his contributions to the sanctuary of Amphiaraus when he was in charge of reorganizing the festival, and the crown for Demosthenes challenged by Aeschines was awarded for the money Demosthenes spent as commissioner of fortifications. Financial need was certainly far more important in the development of civic euergetism than the language of the decrees suggests, making it clear how problematic the Athenians found it to acknowledge donations by citizens. Speeches by the orators are more explicit. Aeschines, for example, anticipates that Demosthenes will defend his crown with the following argument: ‘I admit that I am in charge of the construction of the walls; but I have made a present of a hundred minas to the state, and I have carried out the work on a larger scale than prescribed.’ After each major military crisis (the Peloponnesian War, the Social War and the Battle of Chaeronea), a new impetus to civic euergetism arose, and this expansion can be traced in the literary and epigraphic sources. The fact that decrees in honor of citizens were not regularly inscribed before the s creates some distortion in the picture, but the existence of the change itself is revealing. The desire to reinforce citizen identification and engagement with the state after a crisis must have had some effect. But the development of civic euergetism also correlates in an obvious fashion with   

Dem. . (trans. Vince, slightly adapted). For the idea that the state benefits from honoring benefactors, see also Dem. .. Pytheas: IG II ; Neoptolemus: Dem. .. Phanodemus: IG II ; Demosthenes: Dem. .–, –, , . See also Aeschin. .; Plut. Mor. f–a. Aeschin. . (trans. Adams, adapted).

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



the economic difficulties that followed each military defeat and led to the conferral of honors on non-elite foreigners for trade-related services. As Darel Engen notes, the inscription of decrees honoring such services began after Chaeronea, the first being perhaps the decree in honor of a wealthy trader from Cypriot Salamis who imported grain from Egypt and probably sold it at a reduced price c.  BCE.

Public Discourse and the Limits of Euergetism The expansion of civic euergetism was also accompanied by attempts to supervise the incorporation of economic benefactions into civic euergetism as closely as possible. From the Athenian point of view, the more control the state exercised, the less danger there was in accepting donations. The institution of the liturgy served as the model, since in that context (and contrary to the norm in gift-exchange) control rested not with the giver but with the recipient, who determined the donor, the minimum amount of the donation, its purpose and even whether it was considered a gift or simply a service owed the city. Donation via liturgy might confer influence on the donor (symbolic capital and the ability to make fellow citizens feel indebted), but in the democratic polis the liturgy manifested the power of the dēmos. The Athenians therefore tried to restrict grants of honors – and thus public recognition of gifts – to contributions made within a framework in which the polis would maintain (or at least seem to maintain) control, with its sovereignty unchallenged. Most donations publicly rewarded as benefactions were made in the context of the exercise of public functions. Others – fewer – were made via epidoseis, which (once economic euergetism was accepted) was the ideal option, since it emphasized the importance of collective effort and offered non-wealthy citizens the opportunity to appear as benefactors. In Lycurgus’ time, however, Athenian policy regarding donations and compensation for them grew more relaxed. On Lycurgus’ initiative, the Neoptolemus mentioned above was rewarded with a statue for gilding the altar of Apollo in the agora and honored by his fellow demesmen for financing the restoration of the temple of Artemis Aristoboule in his home deme of Melite. We hear also that Lycurgus persuaded a certain Deinias

  

IG II . See Engen () –, , , . Migeotte () –; Faraguna () , () ; Hakkarainen () –. Plut. Mor. f–a; SEG XXII . See Millett ()  and Hakkarainen () , .



  

to donate land for the construction of the Panathenaic stadium, and the ‘Gate of Diochares’ placed by Strabo near the Lyceum may have received this name because it was rebuilt by Diochares son of Diocles Pitheus. But there must have been many other donations of this kind, if it is true that under Lycurgus annual state revenues increased from  to , talents and that he distributed , talents from these funds. Some of these donations, such as that of Neoptolemus, must have been rewarded with honors. The movement toward recognition of economic benefactions was facilitated by the debate surrounding liturgies. As speeches by the orators make clear, the increased number of liturgies and eisphorai since the end of the Peloponnesian War, combined with attempts by numerous members of the liturgical class to avoid such obligations, led to a debate in which the rich were frequently accused of neglecting their financial duties. They for their part defended themselves by representing their contributions as gifts that exceeded the obligations of a good citizen, while simultaneously using their contributions to counter accusations of all kinds. All these aspects of the debate can be seen already in Lysias’ speech in Defense against a Bribery Charge (/). The speech refers to the financial difficulties of the polis and to its need to rely on the wealthy: ‘Do but observe, gentlemen of the jury, how slender the revenues of the state are.. . . You ought therefore to see the surest revenue for the state in the fortunes of those who are willing to perform public services’ (.). Lysias’ client criticizes ‘those who shirk their public services . . . giving up . . . no part of their own property’ (.) and devotes almost half the speech to listing and describing his own numerous contributions, above all, choregies, eisphorai and trierarchies (.–). He tries to impress the jurors not only with the quantity of services but with their costs: ‘I ask you, how much money do you think that a warship so well furnished must have cost me?’ (.). He also attacks his accusers for failing to make similar contributions and presents himself as a benefactor: ‘They make no contribution to any scheme that will cause the city to prosper, but do their utmost to incense you against those who benefit it’ (.). In return for his services he requests acquittal, implying, however, that he actually deserves a reward:   

 Plut. Mor. d. Str. ..; Faraguna () . Cf. Humphreys () , n. . Plut. Mor. f, b; cf. b. See also Rhodes () ; Faraguna () –; Habicht () ; Humphreys () –. E.g. Lys. .–, ., ., , –, ., ., ., .; Xen. Hell. .., Symp. .–; Isoc. ., , ., ., .; Isae. ., .–, .; Dem. .–, ., ., .–, ., ., ., .–, .; Diod. Sic. .., .

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



‘I now request, not a gift in return (dōrea), as others do, but that I not be deprived of my own property’ (. ). On the one hand, the debate surrounding liturgies made explicit what had previously been expressed less openly (through informal counter-gifts): some financial contributions were benefactions that deserved recognition and reward, as Demosthenes makes clear in his Against Leptines (). On the other hand, the discourse of the polis, by insisting that liturgists’ services were contributions owed the city (counter-gifts in a community based on indirect reciprocity, with each member contributing according to their ability), along with the suspicion that many rich men evaded their obligations, obscured the benefaction character of liturgies performed voluntarily or in excess of what was required, reducing liturgists’ profits in terms of symbolic capital and the capacity to indebt. The introduction of symmoriai (groups of contributors) in the reorganization of the trierarchy in  also made it more difficult for individual liturgists to stand out. For members of the elite in search of prestige through donations, therefore, euergetic honors and the sectors of public life in which they could be obtained grew more important. Finally, the expansion of civic euergetism was also fostered by developments in the various subdivisions of the polis: phylai, phratriai and, above all else, demes. At the local deme level, civic euergetism progressed more rapidly than it did at the polis level. The sources (mainly epigraphic) show that in the demes civic euergetism and the inscription of decrees in honor of citizens was well established already in the first half of the fourth century. Most likely this had to do with matters as diverse as the fact that the elite were more powerful in the demes, that fewer deme-level expenses were covered by public funds, and that activities not regarded as benefactions by the polis (e.g. choregic victories) were treated as such by demes. In the next chapter, Robin Osborne deals with some of these questions in a contribution entirely dedicated to euergetism in the demes.

Conclusion Throughout the fourth century, contributions to the polis moved toward a system that increasingly prefigured the civic euergetism of the Hellenistic   

Trans. Lamb, slightly adapted. See also Todd () –; Kapellos () . The well-off who did not contribute their share were stealing from their fellow citizens: Xen. Oec. .. E.g. IG II , , , , , ; SEG XXIV , .



  

period, being characterized by a rise in the number, scale, and public recognition of economic benefactions; by the expectation that magistrates would spend their own money in the course of the performance of their duties; and by the development of private economic benefactions outside the context of public office. Despite some lacunae, the decree in honor of Eurycleides of Cephisia offers an illustrative example of this type of euergetism in Hellenistic Athens. [the treasurership of the military fund (?)] he [Eurycleides] carried out through his son and spent no small sums also [from his own resources], and as games-sponsor obediently . . . spent a [further?] seven talents, and having again given over to his son . . . the responsibility, and after accomplishing the games-sponsorship well, he expended no small further sums, and when [the country, because] of its wars, was fallow and unsown, he was responsible for it being worked and sown by supplying money, and he reestablished the city’s freedom along with his brother Micion, after those who gave back the Piraeus, and he supplied the money for the crown for [the forces] . . . who with Diogenes returned [the garrisons], and fortified the harbors and repaired [the walls of the] city and of the Piraeus [along with Micion his] brother, and approached . . . Greek cities and [kings], and as many as . . . money to the People . . . considered how justice might be done . . . by supplying money and the . . . after . . . he prepared . . . made useful contributions to the People.

Fourth-century Athens moved toward this style of euergetism on several fronts. Liturgies – public services – were supplemented by eisphorai, monetary payments to the polis not linked to performance of any service (except when the contributor was in charge of a symmoria). After symmoriai were introduced, triērarchiai were reduced for most liturgists to strictly financial contributions. Gifts made through epidoseis were also only donations and were in fact openly acknowledged as euergesiai in the assembly and through the publication of lists of contributors on wooden tablets or inscriptions. Naval epidoseis, initiated in , assumed the organization of public subscriptions limited to wealthy citizens who could afford large donations. Donations by city officials, and the fact that such donations were expected and even encouraged, recall the relationship between 

 

IG II .– (trans. Lambert, AIO, adapted). The rest of the text is very fragmentary, but one can infer that Eurycleides also reconstructed the seating in the theater, funded a contest and erected a stoa. On Eurycleides and other wealthy benefactors of early Hellenistic Athens, see Oliver () –. Cf. Isae. .–; IG II ; Migeotte () , , –. Dem. .–; Plut. Mor. f, f; Philochorus FGrH  F . See Migeotte () , , () –; Gabrielsen () .

Classical Athens and the Invention of Civic Euergetism



holding office and making donations characteristic of later periods. Although this phenomenon, visible especially in the final third of the fourth century, has been described as the ‘liturgization of Athenian offices’, in reality it was more of an ‘euergetization’, since donations by officials were honored as benefactions, the type of transaction the elite favored. If the dēmos’s ideal way of obtaining resources from citizens was the liturgy, the elite preferred euergetism. In Lycurgus’ time, finally, euergetism incorporated large private donations made outside of office and recognized as benefactions. Unsurprisingly, these developments and the trend they represented did not escape Aristotle’s notice. In a premonitory text, he describes an imaginary polis in which only the wealthy can undertake magistracies because the occupation of office is linked to the assumption of expenses. In addition, the rich offer sacrifice and pay for public buildings, and the dēmos gratefully acknowledges their power. How close the euergetism of late classical Athens came to Hellenistic euergetism can be seen in the figure of Neoptolemus, who anticipates the emergence of great Hellenistic euergetai such as Eurycleides of Cephisia by being active in many areas. As we have seen, Neoptolemus made donations as an official (as superintendent of public works), as a private person not fulfilling any public function (by gilding the altar of Apollo) and as a member of his deme (through his reconstruction of the temple of Artemis Aristoboule and his other benefactions in Melite). Neoptolemus reminds us of Cimon, another ‘absolute’ benefactor, who in the first half of the fifth century made contributions in the same three fields of benefaction through liturgies, private donations to the polis and gifts to his fellow demesmen. But unlike Cimon, Neoptolemus was granted honors for his benefactions, in one case a statue, presumably in the agora, where he gilded the altar of Apollo. The great honor that had long been reserved for political and military benefactions was finally awarded for donations. Neoptolemus’ statue, proposed by Lycurgus, is our earliest evidence of this phenomenon. But the changes in the ways contributions were made and publicly recognized throughout the fourth century bring us closer to the Hellenistic period not only because these contributions point to Hellenistic euergetism but because they represent the consolidation and   

 Hakkarainen () . Arist. Pol. a– (trans. Rackham). Dem. .; Plut. Mor. f; SEG XXII . Theopompus FGrH  F  and F , ap. Ath. .f–c; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. .–; Cratin. fr.  K–A and Gorg.  B  D–K, ap. Plut. Vit. Cim.  and .–; Judeich () –, , .



  

expansion of a Hellenistic-minded institution. No matter how democratic civic euergetism may have been in some of its manifestations (epidoseis, honors for bouleutai), it was in essence an elitist institution. Admittedly, honors were a way to symbolize the solidarity of the elite and integrate it into the polis. Honors also granted some power to the dēmos, which may occasionally have been able to exploit the rivalry among the elite for honors. But deep down, euergetism was a means for the elite to transform its necessary contributions to the polis into a mechanism for obtaining returns. As we have seen, honors were inevitably accompanied by symbolic capital that offered recipients power that was not really under control of the polis. Honors for financial benefactions thus represented a partial return to the time when the liturgical system allowed the accumulation of symbolic capital, something that became more difficult to achieve with the introduction of eisphorai, symmoriai and the fourth-century polis discourse regarding liturgies. But euergetism went further. No ambiguity surrounded a benefaction sanctioned by the state as euergesia. Honors could be used unequivocably to display superiority and increase the donor’s distance from the dēmos. While civic euergetism was conceived by a radical democracy, it was a device more suited to a polis dominated by the elite, a creation of the classical period destined to flourish in the Hellenistic age. As I have tried to show in this chapter, however, there was no drastic change of the kind Paul Veyne imagines with the emergence of the Hellenistic ‘notables’, but a smooth transition that began in an earlier period. BIBLIOGRAPHY Azoulay, V. () The Tyrant-Slayers of Ancient Athens: A Tale of Two Statues. New York. Beck, M. () Der politische Euergetismus und dessen vor allem nichtbu¨rgerliche Rezipienten im hellenistischen und kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien sowie dem ägäischen Raum. Rahden. Berkey, D. L. () ‘Why fortifications endure: a case study of the walls of Athens during the classical period’, in V. D. Hanson (ed.), Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome. Princeton, –. Bertelli, L. () ‘The ratio of gift-giving in Homeric poems’, in Carlà and Gori (eds.), –. 

This assumes that one accepts the notion that the Hellenistic polis was dominated by the elite, which has been a matter of some scholarly controversy; cf. de Ste Croix () –; Gruen () –; Mann and Scholz (), Börm and Luraghi (); Domingo Gygax () –, –.

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Biard, G. () La représentation honorifique dans les cités grecques aux époques classique et hellénistique. Paris. Blech, M. () Studien zum Kranz bei den Griechen. Berlin. Börm, H., and Luraghi, N. (eds.) (). The Polis in the Hellenistic World. Stuttgart. Carlà, F., and Gori, M. (eds.) () Gift Giving and the ‘Embedded’ Economy in the Ancient World. Heidelberg. Constantakopoulou, C. () The Dance of the Islands: Insularity, Networks, the Athenian Empire, and the Aegean World. Oxford. Conwell, D. H. () Connecting a City to the Sea: The History of the Athenian Long Walls. Leiden. Davies, J. K. () Athenian Propertied Families, – B.C. Oxford. () Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. New York. De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. () The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests. London. Domingo Gygax, M. () ‘Peisistratos und Kimon. Anmerkung zu einem Vergleich bei Athenaios’, Hermes : –. () ‘Gift-giving and power relationships in Greek social praxis and public discourse’, in M. Satlow (ed.), –. () Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism. Cambridge. (). ‘Euergetism and the embedded economy of the Greek polis’, in D. B. Hollander, T. R. Blanton and J. T. Fitzgerald (eds.), The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities: New Perspectives on the Economic History of Classical Antiquity. Abingdon, –. Dow, S. () Prytaneis: A Study of the Inscriptions Honoring the Athenian Councillors. Hesperia. Suppl. . Athens. () ‘Companionable associates in the Athenian government’, in L. Bonfante and H. von Heintze (eds.), In Memoriam Otto J. Brendel: Essays in Archaeology and the Humanities. Mainz, –. Engen, D. T. () Honor and Profit: Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, – B.C.E. Ann Arbor. Faraguna, M. () Atene nell’età di Alessandro. Problemi politici, economici, finanziari. Rome. () ‘Lykourgan Athens?’, in V. Azoulay and P. Ismard (eds.), Clisthène et Lycurgue d’Athènes: autour du politique dans la cité classique. Paris, –. Gabrielsen, V. () Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations. Baltimore. Gauthier, P. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe –Ier siècle avant J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens. Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., and Seaford, R. (eds.) () Reciprocity in Ancient Greece. Oxford. Godelier, M. () The Enigma of the Gift. Cambridge. Gruen, E. S. () ‘The polis in the Hellenistic world’, in R. M. Rosen and J. Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald. Ann Arbor, –.

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Habicht, C. () Athens from Alexander to Antony. Cambridge, MA. Hakkarainen, M. () ‘Private wealth in the Athenian public sphere during the late classical and the early Hellenistic period’, in J. Frösén (ed.), Early Hellenistic Athens: Symptoms of a Change. Helsinki, –. Hall, J. M. () A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. – BCE, nd ed. Malden, MA. Hanink, J. () Lycurgan Athens and the Making of Classical Tragedy. Cambridge. Henderson, J. (ed. and trans.) () Aristophanes, Acharnians. Knights. Cambridge, MA. Hooker, J. T. () ‘Χάρις and ἀρετή in Thucydides’, Hermes : –. Hornblower, S. () A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. : Books I–III. Oxford. Humphreys, S. C. () The Strangeness of Gods: Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion. Oxford. Judeich, W. () Topographie von Athen, nd ed. Munich. Kapellos, A. () Lysias . A Commentary. Berlin. Kopanias, K. () ‘Kimon, Mikon und die Datierung des Athener Theseion’, in N. Kreutz and B. Schweizer (eds.), TEKMERIA. Archäologische Zeugnisse in ihrer kulturhistorischen und politischen Dimension. Beiträge fu¨r Werner Gauer. Mu¨nster, –. Kraus, W. (ed.) () Aristophanes’ politische Komödien. Vienna. Kremmydas, C. () Commentary on Demosthenes against Leptines. Oxford. Lambert, S. D. () Inscribed Athenian Laws and Decrees /–/ BC.: Epigraphical Essays. Leiden. Lavelle, B. M. () Fame, Money, and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and ‘Democratic’ Tyranny at Athens. Ann Arbor. Lind, H. () Der Gerber Kleon in den ‘Rittern’ des Aristophanes. Frankfurt am Main. Low, P. () Interstate Relations in Classical Greece: Morality and Power. Cambridge. Ma, J. () Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford. Mann, C., and Scholz, P. (eds.) () ‘Demokratie’ im Hellenismus. Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? Berlin. Mattingly, H. B. () ‘Some fifth-century Attic epigraphic hands’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Papyrologie und Epigraphik : –. Meritt, B. D. () ‘Greek inscriptions’, Hesperia : –. Meritt, B. D., and Traill, J. S. () The Athenian Agora. XV: Inscriptions: The Athenian Councillors. Princeton. Migeotte, L. () ‘Souscriptions athéniennes de la période classique’, Historia : –. () Les souscriptions publiques dans les cités grecques. Geneva. Millett, P. () Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge. Missiou, A. () The Subversive Oratory of Andokides: Politics, Ideology and Decision-Making in Democratic Athens. Cambridge.

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() ‘Reciprocal generosity in the foreign affairs of fifth-century Athens and Sparta’, in C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite and R. Seaford (eds.), Reciprocity in Ancient Greece. Oxford, –. Neil, R. A. (ed.) () The Knights of Aristophanes. Cambridge. Oliver, G. J. () War, Food, and Politics in Early Hellenistic Athens. Oxford. Raaflaub, K. () ‘Stick and glue: the function of tyranny in fifth-century Athenian democracy’, in K. A. Morgan (ed.), Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and Its Discontents in Ancient Greece. Austin, –. Rhodes, P. J. () The Athenian Boule, nd ed. Oxford. Rivolta, C. M. () ‘Il decreto del pritaneo e la concessione della sitesis nel V secolo’, Erga–Logoi : –. Rusten, J. S. (ed.) () Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. Book II. Cambridge. Satlow, M. L. (ed.) () The Gift in Antiquity. Malden, MA. Scheid-Tissinier, E. () Les usages du don chez Homère: vocabulaire et pratiques. Nancy. Todd, S. C. (trans.) () Lysias. Austin, TX. Tracy, S. V. () Athenian Lettering of the Fifth Century B.C.: The Rise of the Professional Letter Cutter. Berlin. Von Reden, S. () Exchange in Ancient Greece. London. Wade-Gery, H. T. () Essays in Greek History. Oxford. Walbank, M. B. () Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C. Toronto. Walker, H. J. () Theseus and Athens. Oxford.

 

The Scale of Benefaction Robin Osborne

Studies of the role of benefactors in Greek cities have concentrated very heavily on their role in relation to the city as a whole – la cité grecque et ses bienfaîteurs. But benefactors operated within the Greek city not simply to the benefit of the city as a whole but to the benefit of individuals and groups of various sizes and types. By looking at benefaction from the bottom up, this chapter aims to bring a greater understanding of the different ways in which cities reacted to their benefactors. This is both a historical and an epigraphic essay, but it is one that aims to rescue the phenomenon of benefaction from the historian and epigraphist and return it to the sociologist.

Benefaction Should Not Be Separated from Gift-Giving Already in the Homeric poems gifts are ‘endlessly given and endlessly talked about’. Material gifts are given by humans to gods (Il. .–), by subjects to lords (Il. .–), by nobles to strangers (Od. .–). They may mark achievements (Achilles’ gifts to victors in Patroklos’ funeral games), pay back services rendered (cf. the repeated lines at Od. .–, .–, .–), make up for injury done (cf. Il. .–) or simply create or mark status relations (Od. .–). Gifts are expected to affect the attitude of the recipient, whether that  

 

As in the title of Gauthier (). I use ‘benefaction’, rather than euergetism, since, despite the sense of precision which the use of a Greek term suggests, euergetism has been used in a variety of different senses since Veyne made it popular. See further Osborne () and cf. Domingo Gygax () –. Although much of what I am talking about here could be described as acts of giving, or donation, I consistently call them acts of benefaction in order to stress that they belong to a broader category of action, one that was likely to elicit thanks to them as ‘benefactors’. Finley () – (quotation from ) with Hornblower’s discussion at xvii–xviii. On Homeric gift-giving, see Van Wees, Chapter  in this volume. So, neatly, Sahlins () .



The Scale of Benefaction



recipient is god or man (cf. [Hes.] fr.  δῶρα θεοὺς πείθει, δῶρ᾽ αἰδοίους βασιλῆας), and Hesiod already flags up the potential of the gift to be a bribe, as Hesiod’s brother Perses feeds the pride of the ‘gift-gobbling’ (δωροφάγοι) kings of Thespiai with gifts (Op. –). Such bribes are not, however, the only sort of gift with which Hesiod’s world is familiar, for he is also interested in gifts given in circumstances where reciprocal material gifts can be and are expected. Hesiod advises that one should give to someone who gives and not to someone who does not, since people give to givers but not to those who do not give. ‘Giver is good; Stealer is bad, a giver of death’ – giving brings joy and pleasure to the giver (Op. –). Being willing to give or lend, and to be willing to give in response to requests, is central to positive community relations in Hesiod, being expressly part of what makes for a good neighbour as far as Hesiod is concerned (Op. –; cf. Veyne : ). Men who think they can live alone meet their comeuppance in baneful old age, deprived both of assistance and of any possibility of making a gift (Theog. –). Gifts from individuals to individuals are endlessly given and endlessly talked about across all archaic Greek literature and are similarly prominent in scenes on pots. The earliest long Attic inscription, on the Dipylon jug, makes that jug a gift to the best of the dancers (CEG ). The scenes of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis popular on Athenian pottery in the early sixth century BCE are scenes of the bringing of wedding gifts (LIMC s.v. ‘Peleus’ –; cf. ). Dedicatory inscriptions from Mantiklos’ Apollo onwards explore the reciprocity between men and gods in terms of gifts and countergifts (CEG ). What form the ‘acceptable exchange’ (χαρίϝεσσαν ἀμοιβάν; for the phrase, see Hom. Od. .) might take, about which Mantiklos asks Apollo, is not spelled out, but gifts from the gods are as likely to be of health and honour as of prosperity. Our earliest letters are pleas for practical help, but in the form of gifts of action rather than of material goods. Relations between individuals and groups similarly involve gifts from as early as we hear about them. The community of the Trojans together gives gifts to Athena in the hope of winning her support (Hom. Il. .–). The obligation found in the regulations of the phratry of the Labyadai at Delphi for members to include other members of the phratry when they feast is likely long to precede the reinscription of that rule c.  (RO ).  

See West ()  for the derogatory sense of dorophagoi here. Cf. e.g. the Berezan lead letter of – BCE which opens: ‘Protagoras, your father writes instructions for you. He is being wronged by Matasys, for he is enslaving him’; Ceccarelli () , A.–.



 

From as early as we have inscriptions from Athenian demes they are concerned with distribution to members of and residents within the deme in the context of sacrifices (as in OR  = IG i ). But issues of distribution are fundamental to all political arrangements, and questions of who gets what mean that those who make laws can also see themselves as ‘giving’ differentially to the people for whom they legislate. Solon insists that he does not think that the good should have equal shares with the bad (fr. ) but that he gave the people the privilege that was fitting (fr. .: δήμωι μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκα τόσον γέρας ὅσσον ἐπαρκεῖν). None of this is news or at all surprising. Studies of benefaction have ignored it on the grounds that benefactions to individuals are a different matter from benefactions to cities. There are indeed good reasons for this – private benefaction is much more likely to be consequential on personal friendship or other affective bonds and may be discreet, whereas public benefaction cannot rely on merely personal links and not only gives much greater opportunity for ostentation but virtually requires it. But when the rewards of benefaction lie in significant part in what it does for a person’s standing, both generally and in the eyes of significant individual others, it is foolish to treat the boundary between gifts to individuals and benefaction to corporate bodies as a strong boundary. There are also reasons for thinking more about the circumstances in which both corporate bodies and individuals came to need benefactors, and how private benefaction played out in the city and in other corporate bodies and with what consequences. The sorts of factors that created needs among individuals also created needs among groups, and, more importantly, the sorts of ambiguities about the motivations of individuals who gave benefits to other individuals play out in related ways in the case of benefits given to groups. Patterns of giving among individuals and among the subgroups of the city are a necessary background if we are to understand the nature of civic benefaction in the Greek city as a whole.

Benefaction Exists Independently of Its Publicly Advertised Rewards Two things need to be kept distinct in the study of benefaction that have often become confused. One is the phenomenon of individuals making benefactions to other individuals and to groups. The other is the formal recognition of such benefactions by groups. Because it is the formal 

I discuss what I call ‘the politics of entitlement’ in Osborne ().

The Scale of Benefaction



recognition that can be analysed most directly, the phenomenon of formal recognition has come to be treated as the phenomenon of benefaction. The rhythms of formal recognition are significant and well worth study, but they should not be mistaken for the rhythms of benefaction itself. Returning to the insights of Veyne in his wide-ranging discussion in the first chapter of Le pain et le cirque, it is the role of benefaction itself, not the role of formal recognition, that I seek to understand here, while resisting the opaque manoeuvres by which Veyne in his attempt to insist that euergetism in the Greco-Roman world is a peculiar phenomenon, both identifies euergetism and gift-giving and insists that they are different. In the Greek city as in every community, individuals were bound together in a dense web of economic relations that were also social and political relations. Credit relations were pervasive and, as Paul Millett has shown, failure to engage generously with those around oneself and with the city more generally is repeatedly criticized in Theophrastus’ Characters. Benefaction was expected. The most interesting of Theophrastus’ Characters from my point of view is the aneleutheros, the ‘niggardly man’ (Char. ). This is a man who has various opportunities for giving gifts and avoids them all: he walks down a side street to avoid meeting the friend who is collecting a friendly loan (eranos); he won’t send his children to school on a festival day of the Muses when they would be expected to make a contribution for the feast; he sells the meat from sacrifices rather than giving it away; he slips out of the assembly when the question of making donations (epidoseis) comes up. Here we see the whole range of situations in which benefaction might be sought, from inclusion of others in or contribution to a feast to contributions to fundraising activities, whether by individuals or the city. Participation (or not) in epidoseis, that is, responses to formal calls from the city for contribution to specific projects, is not here different in kind from other circumstances of participation. There is a continuous scale leading from 

  

This is particularly true of Gauthier (), who chose to limit his study of relations between the city and its benefactors to the study of patterns of formal honouring. Ma () is entirely devoted to studying one particular means by which benefaction was recognized by the civic community, ‘reestablishing the symbolical balance involved in the euergetical exchange and . . . displaying the primacy of the community – operations which affirm civic ideology and power’; Ma () . My concern here is to revisit the benefactions which had unbalanced the euergetical exchange in the first place and establishing why communities needed to go in for rebalancing. Veyne () . Pages – of the original are omitted from the English translation. Millett () –, () –. The literary and epigraphic evidence for epidoseis at Athens is collected by Migeotte () –; see further Osborne ().



 

relations with friends to relations with the city as a whole. For Theophrastus whether a man responded positively to opportunities for benefaction was determined by a man’s character in the same way, whether the prestation demanded was neighbourly or civic. The culture of the gift is a culture where inequality is both vital and always negotiated. Not only must the parties involved be unequal, but also the reciprocity itself must be unequal – ‘the counter-gift must be deferred and different’. Commensurability undermines gift-exchange (the puzzling comment by the poet at the end of the account of the exchange of armour by Glaukos and Diomedes, Hom. Il. .–, is best understood as a comment not on the impropriety of giving a larger gift than one receives in return, but on the problems of exchanging gifts whose relative value is straightforwardly commensurable). Inequalities between individuals, whether in material goods or in capacities, are ever present and expected, even if they may be disguised in various ways or denied. Inequalities between individuals and groups are manifest, but what gifting is needed in the face of them, and if so when and from whom, is necessarily less obvious. When the world effectively consists of two individuals, one who lacks and one who has, the need for the gift and the identity of the giver are unambiguous, but when the relationship is between a single individual or corporate body and a plurality of others, a more complex culture of the gift is required. In the case of an individual in need and the set of all of that person’s friends, there is a choice between having one particularly wealthy friend meet all the need or having all the friends make small contributions (as with ancient eranoi). In the case of a group or corporate institution that is short of resources and the set of its members who have the resources to make up that shortfall, the need for the gift is no less clear, but it is necessary for the members to articulate that need and to devise some method of deciding whether the need should be met by all members or only by some, and when. All corporate bodies need to have formal rules or informal protocols about which members are obliged to make what contribution and on what basis; they may place everyone under obligation or have methods for putting pressure on particular individuals to feel that meeting the need is especially incumbent on them. What marks out Theophrastus’ niggardly man as an antisocial character is his refusal to respond to any of the conventional signals – avoiding the  

Bourdieu () . On the puzzling passage from Iliad , see further Domingo Gygax () –.

The Scale of Benefaction



eranos loan in which a poor friend meets his needs by small contributions from many, slinking away from calls for epidoseis when the city meets its needs from a few generous citizen benefactors, and not sending his children to school when everyone was expected to make a contribution. That the man who avoids both social pressure to join others in contributing and social pressure to play the big benefactor is presented as aneleutheros (i.e. incapable of behaving as a free man should) reveals how deeply the culture of the gift was embedded into individual and corporate relations in the Greek city. But the niggardly man was a structural necessity. It is because there are niggardly men who do not give that the gift remains a gift; it is the fact that those who give might not have given that personalizes their gift and makes a counter-gift vital. The niggardly man is vital to ensure the ‘misrecognition’ of the objective mechanism of the exchange that Bourdieu has insisted is presupposed by gift-exchange. But the niggardly man also reveals that there is a constant adjusting of just how implicit or explicit the social pressure is in order to secure a balance that satisfies need without undermining the principle of gift-exchange.

What Corporate Groups Need The most obvious needs of individuals are material, but the primary need of corporate bodies is for people to act on behalf of the group; the need for material resources to cover the costs of the action must always come second. Without those willing to run them, there will be no corporate bodies. Corporate groups have no temporal extension unless someone ‘gives them time’. What ‘running’ a corporate body requires differs from one body to another, but in the case of cities, men to come to the defence of the corporate body are a basic need, and arguably the earliest and most fundamental gift offered by citizens to their city was military service. The degree of benefaction involved in funding a navy has long been recognized, no doubt because this was a benefaction which only a limited number of citizens could supply and which had to be formalized in the liturgy system. But other military service too is something for which men might be and

 

Bourdieu () –. Bourdieu ()  on time as a gift, which can be ostentatiously given or withheld (‘no time to spare’).



 

were honoured (e.g. by the state looking after war orphans), and to serve as a cavalryman, hoplite or light-armed soldier was indeed to bestow a benefaction on the city. In thinking about the needs of corporate groups, Theophrastus is again helpful. Another of his characters bears the description mikrophilotimos, a word coined by Theophrastus and never used by any other Greek (Char. ). That coinage picks up the much-praised quality of philotimia, a quality which is held to be at the root of benefaction and to need civic nurturing, and observes that it is a quality that can be found writ small across citizens as well as writ large. Unlike the niggardly man, the mikrophilotimos does not shun situations in which he might be obliged to contribute; he actively seeks them out. What distinguishes him is that he takes situations that require a trivial contribution and then acts as if the contribution was enormously significant. Unlike the niggardly man, this man does make sacrifices, but when he has sacrificed a cow he nails up its skull by his house to show that he has done so; he does serve in the cavalry, but then after the parade (in which he might not be noticed) he walks through the agora wearing his spurs; he does serve on the council, but when he is prytanis he makes sure that he gets himself chosen to report that the sacrifices were propitious. Every possible source for any little bit of glory that he can get by trivial service is milked by this man. In Bourdieu’s terms, he plays on the necessary misrecognition of the exchange in order to misrepresent the objective mechanism at work. Part of what makes the mikrophilotimos a figure of fun is that he takes inordinate pride in relatively trivial services, but part is that corporate bodies actually do need money as well as those who will act on their behalf. By the end of the archaic period, at least, Greek cities had developed systems of taxation – Cyzicus gives us good evidence for the sophistication of the tax system by the later sixth century when it honours the sons of Medikes and Aisepos with exemption from all other taxes except for the naussos, the talent tax, the horse-purchase tax, the quarter tax and the slave purchase tax (Syll. ). Some taxes targeted non-citizens (such as the metic poll tax at Athens, of which the date of introduction is uncertain) or targeted movement of goods into and out of a city (the regular  per cent harbour taxes), but taxes that affected citizens on land or

 

Cf. Van Wees () –. For the date of the introduction of metic status at Athens, see Watson ().

The Scale of Benefaction



on crops seem also regularly to be found (cf. Hdt. ..; Masson () no. ). Such taxes were raised not only by cities but also by subgroups. In Sicyon a group raises dues from members already by the end of the sixth century to fund communal facilities (SEG .). We do not know whether the enktetikon and ennomion taxes raised by Athenian demes on their land and pasturage go back to the beginning of the deme system (IG ii .–, ), but there is no doubt that demes were imposing obligations on their members already in the fifth century. An inscription from Attica (IG i ), perhaps from the deme of Lamptrai, requires those who drink from a particular spring to pay an obol a year, and this may be one example of a local community maintaining local facilities by a toll. Taxes and tolls could meet the secondary need of the deme for money, but the need of the deme for individuals to act on its behalf could not be met that way. Individuals who would run the deme could be recruited to magistracies, where the promise of power or the threat of others wielding that power ensured that there would be candidates. But some corporate needs – those where how something was done was as important as the fact that something was done – could not be well met by magistrates. This was particularly true of tasks that could not be well defined in advance. Liturgies were the Athenian answer to this corporate need. The best fifth-century evidence for demes requiring benefaction in the form of action from their members comes from the partially preserved decree from the small deme of Ikarion which makes arrangements for how to hold a property exchange (antidosis) if someone disputes that they have the property from which to serve as deme khoregos (IG i ). The decree, now lost, is incompletely preserved and cannot be precisely dated (IG i suggests perhaps between  and ). After giving the proposer’s name it opens with a clause about selecting one (or two) of the demesmen and residents at Ikarion who has not served as khoregos. It then goes on to specify that an antidosis of property (khremata) is to be held before the demarch within twenty days if there is to be an antidosis. The decree proceeds with clauses relating to the exaction of an oath from the khoregos and a specification of his duties. This decree from Ikarion raises directly the issue of the relationship between the scale of the corporate unit involved and the care with which the unit cultivates benefaction. Peter Wilson suggests that the Ikarion decree is evidence that there was already an antidosis procedure at the level of the city, making the assumption that it is the larger units that first sort out procedures for dealing with disputes over required benefaction and



 

smaller units that follow. But it is worth wondering whether this is necessarily true.

How Scale Changes the Culture of Benefaction There are two reasons for thinking that smaller units might be precocious in developing mechanisms for encouraging and policing benefaction. The first reason is theoretical. The smaller the unit, the fewer the potential sources of benefaction, and therefore the greater the chance of benefaction not being forthcoming at the moment at which it is needed. Similarly, the smaller the group, the more volatile its credit history (using ‘credit’ in the broadest possible terms). Benefactors tend to be needed more urgently by smaller groups and to be in a position to make a greater and more immediate difference. In view of all this, it would not be surprising if smaller groups were to reckon it appropriate to invest more in attracting and rewarding benefactors than larger groups and to be more prepared to make greater concessions in order to secure support. The second reason is that the surviving evidence consistently gives priority to demes over city in aspects related to benefaction – despite the fact that both the proportion of deme decrees that were inscribed and the proportion that have been recovered are almost certainly lower than for city decrees. Alongside Ikarion giving us the earliest evidence for antidosis, where an institution is in question, we find that it is in the subgroups of the city that the rhetoric of praise for benefactors is developed: mention of philotimia in honorific decrees seems to occur first in the demes (RO .), as does praise for piety when awarding honours (there and in IG ii .–), while praise for honesty (dikaiosyne) first occurs in a decree from an Athenian tribe (IG ii .– of /) and subsequently in deme decrees (including RO ) before appearing in decrees of the council (IG ii  of ) and eventually decrees of the assembly (IG ii . of ; . of ). Many decrees of tribes, demes and so on share the reticence of the city’s own honorific decrees. In the case of the city decrees, I have argued that this reticence was at least in part an attempt to limit discussion of particular cases after the honour had been passed and so prevent honours being an ongoing political issue and endless arguments about precedent. But in the case of smaller groups there may also be another motive: encouraging benefaction of all sorts by not specifying what sort of 

Wilson () , n. .



Osborne (/).

The Scale of Benefaction



benefaction it is that earns honour. A case in point is the decree of the orgeones of Amynos, Asklepios and Dexion from the second half of the fourth century, where two brothers from Peiraieus are praised for arete and dikaiosyne and crowned with a gold crown worth  dr. (IG ii ). The honour here is explicitly said to be motivated by a desire to encourage others to be benefactors, and the extraordinary vagueness has what might be thought the highly beneficial effect of not revealing precisely how high the bar for honour has been set. Arguably, the focus deliberately remains on the benefactor’s worth rather than the value of what has been given. However, the precocious acknowledgement of benefaction by corporate groups below the level of the city goes together, on occasions at least, with a very unreticent willingness to enlarge upon the precise services rendered by the benefactor. Sometimes these groups seem to be very carefully displaying exactly what honour one gets for how much benefaction. So the thiasotai in a decree of / (IG ii ) tell us precisely what the epimeletai and secretary contributed ( dr.) and dedicated ( dr.) in return for which they got an olive crown each and a speech of praise at every sacrifice ‘after the other benefactors’. These enable us to see quite precisely what has been done. The best example of a detailed description of behaviour being honoured comes from a decree of the early third century in which the tribe Erechtheis honours (the late) Antisthenes of Lamptrai (IG ii ). Antisthenes is praised for his arete and dikaiosyne for taking measures that increased tribal revenues by , dr., for having the properties of the tribe properly described and for instituting a regime of inspection to ensure that lands rented out were farmed according to the agreements and that the boundaries were in the right place. He receives a gold crown, and his daughter, now an heiress, is to be looked after by the tribal officials. Other honours that are explicit about how they have been earned include some at a date which makes their fulsomeness particularly striking. Already in c.  the deme Peiraieus, when honouring Theaios with an olive crown, spells out that this is because his proposal for renting out the theatre increased deme revenue by  dr. (IG ii ). In the middle of the fourth century the deme Eleusis, honouring Damasias of Thebes with a gold crown worth , dr. for his piety and moderation, details that this was because he helped make the Dionysia as fine as possible and equipped two choruses, one of men and one of boys, and made donations to Demeter and Kore and Dionysos (IG ii ). In / the deme of Eleusis honours Xenokles for services rendered that include building a stone bridge at his own expense (IG ii ). Two years later in /



 

Eleusis also honours Derkylos of Hagnous, who was serving as strategos, with a  dr. gold crown, tax exemption, front seats and the same share as a deme member of deme sacrifices, and it does this in return both for other help to the deme and particularly for seeing to the education (= military training, Hesperia  () ) of the boys (IG ii ). Similarly, among the gene, a decree from the second half of the fourth century recording the Krokonidai giving a gold crown to a group of gennetai specifies that, having been given responsibility for building a temple, they not only oversaw the building, but paid for it (IG ii ). Among the thiasotai, Menis son of Mnesitheos of Herakleia in / gets an olive crown and a statue of himself with an inscription, and it is spelled out that this is in return for taking charge of the façade colonnade and pediment of the temple of Zeus of Labraunda and spending his own money on it (IG ii ). The cases that bring out fulsome descriptions arguably have something in common: they praise gifts that were excessive or unique. There was no problem being explicit about the exchange in these cases since no one else was going to be in a position exactly to emulate the donor. Others could continue Antisthenes’ diligent care for tribal assets, but no one else could institute what he had instituted (nor was anyone else likely to die suddenly on leaving office and give the tribe chance to care for an orphaned daughter in this way). The same applies to renting out the deme theatre, building a bridge, building a temple. In the case of Damasias, the man honoured is foreign and his double khoregia something the deme would be happy to buy from an outsider at the price of repeating this honour. When less detail is given, it can be unclear what exactly those honoured have done to deserve their honours, but some of the fuller lists of what was done suggest that some were praised simply because they have done what they were expected to do. We can see some justification for thanking those who perform liturgies because, although they are obliged to perform the liturgy, they can do so meanly or generously (the oaths exacted from khoregoi in fifth-century Ikarion are presumably an attempt to ensure at least a minimal level of service). But this does mean that honour, and sometimes significant honours, are given to liturgists simply for fulfilling the liturgy. So Aixone in / gives gold crowns of  dr. to two choregoi (IG ii ). But if liturgists can do a job well or badly, so can officials who have designated jobs to do. Once one starts thanking people for doing the job that they were obliged to do well, it can come to seem invidious to draw the line at a

The Scale of Benefaction



job done but done less well. Demes and other groups display the tendency, also visible in the city and prevalent in the modern UK honours system, to not know when to stop thanking and honouring people and to thank people simply for doing their job. Classic here is the decree of the deme Aixone of / where hieropoioi are thanked for doing their job, and then further praise of the priest for doing his job is tacked on (IG ii ). More interesting is the deme of Halimous which praises one Kharisandros for standing in for the demarch in various religious tasks, rewarding him with a  dr. gold crown (SEG .). But the most interesting of all is again Ikarion, where around  [. . .]aios son of Sosigenes is honoured for his services as demarch, and these services are spelled out: he made the sacrifices to all the gods, he announced the sacrifices to be favourable, the crops were good throughout the countryside, he rendered his account on the tenth of Hekatombaion and revealed a surplus when income and expenditure were compared (SEG .). These would appear to be merely the standard jobs that a demarch does, but in recognition the deme gives him a crown worth , dr. Yet clearly if one is prepared to honour those who stand in for the demarch, one should also be willing to honour the demarch himself. Slightly out of the normal run of deme duties are the services honoured in the late fourth-century decree of the deme of Epikephisia for the men chosen to act as prosecutors in a legal case because they had secured a conviction (IG ii ), in a decree of the Eikadeis of similar date giving a gold crown to a man for successfully bringing to conviction those who gave false witness about the Eikadeis (IG ii ) and in a decree thanking soldiers for successfully defending an unknown deme against a night attack (IG ii ). We would probably not be wrong to detect in these cases a strong sense of relief that those honoured got the deme out of what might otherwise have been a tight and expensive fix. Demes are not alone in honouring men whose only benefaction is to have done their job. Gene do likewise. Euthydemos is honoured by the Kerykes at the end of the fourth century for doing his job as paredros of the basileus (IG ii ), Khairetios by the Eumolpids and Kerykes in / for being a good hierophant (IG ii ). We get a picture of the bind created by such honours in the three decrees of the thiasotai of Aphrodite honouring Stephanos ‘the cuirass-maker’. Stephanos was epimeletes of the thiasos in / and then hieropoios in the two following years. In / he is given a crown of olive and  dr., in / he is given the same again; in / he is given a crown of olive and  dr. The thiasos seems to have sensed that it was getting itself into deep water. It accompanied the last



 

award with the requirement that Stephanos use the  dr. to create a dedication recording these honours. If small groups have greater need of benefaction, how exactly does the economy of benefaction work for them? We are told by literary sources that being a khoregos in the city might cost anything from  dr. for a chorus of pyrrikhistai (Lysias .) to , dr. for a comic chorus, up to , dr. in the case of dithyramb. But what about being a khoregos in a deme? It is hard to think that expenditure would be on the same scale (one might guess at halving the figures?). It is notable, then, that when Halai Araphenides honours a khoregos in the middle of the fourth century for seeing to a chorus of pyrrikhistai ‘and all the other liturgies in the deme’, it awards a gold crown of  dr. and gives  dr. to the tamiai for sacrifice (Ἀρχ. Ἐφ.  Χρ. –). It is equally hard to think that the services of a good demarch were such as to cause a deme to increase income or reduce expense by the , dr. awarded by Ikarion in the form of a crown (SEG .) or that the financial value of the stand-in for the demarch at Halimous was anything like the  dr. that his crown cost (SEG .). What is going on here? The sometimes stark imbalance between the size of the honour and the monetary value of the service rendered suggests that we should not measure the needs of these small groups in primarily material terms. When a deme says that it gives worthy honour so that others may display philotimia towards the demesmen in the knowledge that they will be worthily thanked by the demesmen (to cite the fullest of these formulae, from the deme of Myrrhinous in the middle of the fourth century, IG ii .–), we should take that seriously: what demes wanted to encourage was members of the deme, and indeed outsiders, to see the deme as part of the theatre of honour. Demes wanted engagement, and they wanted engagement because the life of the deme depended on individuals being willing to do things. Demes are paying to encourage their members, and indeed others, to supply the agency without which there would be no communal life. Thirty years ago Osborne and Whitehead both observed, independently, that there was virtually no crossover between those who took on deme roles, in particular, being demarch, and those attested in city politics. That was a surprise to them and deserves to be taken seriously. The failure of those engaged in city politics to take an interest in the deme is a measure of the comparative unattractiveness of deme affairs to the politically ambitious. Demes had a problem attracting engagement from 

Wilson () –.



Osborne () –; Whitehead () –.

The Scale of Benefaction



the members of the deme – something further suggested by the (albeit one-sided) account of the meeting of the demesmen of Halimous given in Demosthenes . And no doubt other small associations, and particularly those based on hereditary membership, had similar problems of attracting engagement. What the demes needed was not so much money, though not all will have been as well resourced as Rhamnous and Plotheia seem to have been in the fifth century (cf. OR , ), and some demes no doubt regularly needed financial help; demes above all needed people to do things. It was because those willing to do things could potentially win themselves more honour by doing things for the city rather than their deme that it was well worthwhile for a deme to give a man a crown that cost more than the money he had himself devoted to performing the task for which he won the honour. There is a market for honours, but a market which operates in a less than completely transparent way: it is in the interests of both those honouring and those being honoured to keep the exchange rates as obscure as is compatible with attracting sufficient honourable activity. What this observation suggests is that not only does absolute size matter, so does relative size. How easy it is to get individuals to engage is affected for any group by the attractions to their members of engaging with other groups. The ambitious are more or less by definition going to want to play in the biggest arena they have access to – though they may perceive ‘biggest’ in a variety of ways. Plato makes this point (Resp. a–b): And indeed you observe, I think, the ambitious (philotimous) that if they cannot become strategoi they are trittyarkhoi, and if they cannot be honoured by greater and more revered individuals they love being honoured by smaller and less distinguished people, so insatiably do they desire honour.

By offering substantial honour, demes and other smaller groups encourage the ambitious through the promise that their insatiable desire for honour can be and will be both symbolically and materially satisfied. The problem of attracting benefaction, and the problem of dealing with ambition, is therefore different at the level of the deme or genos or phratry or tribe from the problem at the level of the city. And at the level of the city the problems of ambition and benefaction are affected by the position of the city with regard to other cities: the Athenian Empire gave 

καὶ μὴν φιλοτίμους γε, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, καθορᾷς ὅτι, ἂν μὴ στρατηγῆσαι δύνωνται, τριττυαρχοῦσιν, κἂν μὴ ὑπὸ μειζόνων καὶ σεμνοτέρων τιμᾶσθαι, ὑπὸ σμικροτέρων καὶ φαυλοτέρων τιμώμενοι ἀγαπῶσιν, ὡς ὅλως τιμῆς ἐπιθυμηταὶ ὄντες.



 

individuals in allied cities alternative sites for attracting honour (most readily in the form of proxenia and its rewards), as indeed the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire would give the citizens of Greek cities alternative sites for attracting honour. But classical Athens could reckon that its honours carried more symbolic capital than could be won from any other source. By contrast demes were aware that there was greater symbolic capital to be accumulated elsewhere, and they might well count themselves lucky if they had competing benefactors. Whereas cities needed to beware of the tensions caused by rival ambitious men pursuing limited opportunities for winning honour (cf., e.g. Thuc. .., .., ..), this was a problem that demes could safely ignore. Whitehead seems to me to be wrong both in theory and in fact when he suggests that ‘All such bodies’ (he has just listed ‘decrees of the city itself’ and ‘of other lesser bodies, the demes amongst them’) ‘faced the same basic problem. Viewed as an abstraction the individual pursuit of honor might be declared to be a natural thing, even a laudable one; and yet . . . it could, when taken to excess, be harmful and disruptive to the wider communities of which the individuals were members’. On the contrary, demes and other ‘lesser bodies’ faced a different problem from the problem of Athens itself or any other independent city – for them, securing gifts (of services as well as and perhaps more than of goods) was the big problem, ambition a trivial one. For the city as a whole, material gifts were certainly important, but a shortage of men willing to seek the limelight was not an issue. Even the mikrophilotimos wanted to play in the city. The city’s problem was that there might be too much ambition; the deme’s problem was that there might not be enough.   



Whitehead () is the classic discussion of the issue for the city. See also Wilson () –. Whitehead () . This locks into the debate between Gauthier and Veyne (Gauthier () ; cf. –) about whether civic euergetism is compatible with democracy. Rather than seeing the rise of civic euergetism correlate with decline in democracy because of increasing apathy, I would see it as correlating with the decline of independence and the rise of alternative fields in which the ambitious might play. Note that we should treat institutions like the Council as a ‘lesser body’: the rules surrounding bouleutic service (over thirty years old, only twice in a lifetime, apparently not consecutive years) along with the imbalance between service and reward (daily attendance;  or  days on constant duty as prytaneis) meant that ambitious men could not base a career on bouleutic service (the examples of Cleon and Demosthenes suggest that they ‘saved up’ a year of service to try to take it when politics was particularly lively, and the sense that there might be a more important year in which to be a councillor may have dissuaded some from taking up their second year of service) and hence both the city itself and the demes tried to augment the honour attached to bouleutic service – crowns for the Council as a whole, crowns for the best speaker (IG ii A = ii A), honour in one’s own deme (SEG .).

The Scale of Benefaction



Conclusion I hope that in this chapter I have managed to do three things. First, I hope to have demonstrated that there is no reason not to think that demes coined the language of philotimia. Second, I hope to have shown that if we are to understand euergetism we have to take scale seriously; that is, we have to take seriously that the problems answered (and created) by benefaction were different for institutions on different scales. This is important because what it is to be a benefactor to institutions on a small scale necessarily influences what it is to be a benefactor to institutions on a large scale (and vice versa). But it is also important because – and this is the third thing I hope this chapter to have shown – scale is relative and not absolute, dependent on position in a rank and not on absolute size: any given city, while remaining the same size, may at different times rank differently in the eyes both of its own residents and of others, and as it changes its position so its need for and potential problems with rewarding benefactors also changes. Such changes are not so much a product of history as of sociology. When Oswyn Murray cut the pages of sociological discussion from his abridgement of Veyne for the anglophone reader, he cut precisely the pages about which it would have been most productive to debate. Ironically, had Veyne been more of a sociologist and less of a historian, the history of the study of euergetism might have been very different. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bourdieu, P. () Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge. Ceccarelli, P. () Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History ( BC–  BC). Oxford. Domingo Gygax, M. () ‘Proleptic honours in Greek euergetism’, Chiron : –. () Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism. Cambridge. Finley, M. I. () The World of Odysseus. With introduction by Simon Hornblower. London. Gauthier, P. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe –Ier siècle avant J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens.  

Contra Whitehead () , n. , () , n. . The phenomenon of proleptic honours, discussed by Domingo Gygax () and () –, has a place here.



 

Ma, J. () Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford. Masson, O. () Les inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques, nd ed. Paris. Migeotte, L. () Les souscriptions publiques dans les cités grecques. Geneva. Millett, P. C. () Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Cambridge. () Theophrastus and His World. Cambridge. Osborne, R. G. () Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge. (/) ‘Inscribing performance’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds.), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge, –. Reprinted with endnote in R. Osborne, Athens and Athenian Democracy. Cambridge, , –. () ‘Economic growth and the politics of entitlement’, Cambridge Classical Journal : –. () ‘Euergetism and the public economy of classical Athens: the initiative of the deme’, in Z. H. Archibald and J. Haywood (eds.), The Power of Individual and Community in Ancient Athens and Beyond: Essays in Honour of John K. Davies. Swansea, –. Sahlins, M. () Stone Age Economics. Chicago. van Wees, H. () Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens. London. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. () Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. Abridged English translation of Veyne . London. Watson, J. M. () ‘The origin of metic status at Athens’, Cambridge Classical Journal : –. West, M. L. () Hesiod Works and Days. Edited with prolegomena and commentary. Oxford. Whitehead, D. () ‘Competitive outlay and community profit: philotimia in democratic Athens’, Classica et Medievalia : –. () The Demes of Attica – BC. Princeton. Wilson, P. J. () The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge.

 

Hellenistic Benefactors

 

The Politics of Endowments Sitta von Reden

The Theatre of Public Generosity Generosity in Hellenistic cities was an immensely visible process. Hundreds of inscriptions tell us about the importance of euergesia, public generosity and the recognition of euergetai in Hellenistic cities. They demonstrated to their viewers the reciprocities of publicly visible benefactions. In an inscription from Sestos, for example, Menas, son of Menes, was honoured with a stele, standing almost two meters high, publicizing the donations of oil and equipment for the local gymnasium and the munificence with which he had pursued his office as agonothetēs. The Greek text is replete with verbs of seeing and beholding, pointing to the visibility of civic virtue, of the public honours a benefactor received and the reciprocal processes of which the decree was part: So that the people is seen honouring their best citizens who from their youngest age have directed their ambition towards the common good and have made glory their utmost goal, and not failing to give due gratitude to them; and so that others by beholding the honours which the people bestow on their best citizens are encouraged to strive for the most beautiful things, too, and to be led towards virtue; and so that the community thrives because all are incited to aim for the sake of glory to do good things to their home town. Therefore, the council and the people shall resolve with good 

The distinction drawn by modern scholars between public and private endowments is often problematic in the context of Hellenistic history. If scholars distinguish between private and public, they usually do so to distinguish funerary endowments, regarded as private, and public endowments, which go ‘beyond strictly private interests’ (Harter-Uibopuu () ). However, the examples in this chapter demonstrate that so-called private funerary endowments for family members had several public aspects: they usually needed the approval of the polis, polis members benefitted from the celebrations in connection with the funerary cult (e.g. IG XII ,  = Laum no. ), and the inscriptions honouring the donor were erected in public spaces. The epigraphic habit of Hellenistic poleis shows how anachronistic clear distinctions between private and public endowments are when we look at their motivation and public outreach. See also n. , and the section on ‘Euergetism and Democracy’ below.





   fortune that Menas, son of Menes, shall be honoured for all that is written down above and for his goodwill towards the people. (I.Sestos , – ( BCE))

The publicity of civic benefaction increased substantially in the Hellenistic period. From the mid-fourth century BCE onwards the public spaces of Greek poleis must have gradually filled up with statues, inscriptions, dedications and buildings celebrating individuals who had shown their virtue (aretē), ambition (philotimia), love of glory (philodoxia) and patriotism (philopatria) by spending money liberally for the benefit of their home towns. In classical Athens, the dēmos had seen examples of such virtue, but they had seen them in the performance of the results, as choruses and warships, victory prizes and festivals. They had seen the sponsoring of public buildings and city walls, temples and sumptuous private residences which demonstrated publicly the ambitions of the rich to adorn the city and its people by means of their wealth (Arist. Eth. Nic. a–; b–a). Classical benefactors, moreover, remained alive through the monuments they had donated, in the memory of their fellow citizens and in the stories that circulated in assemblies, law courts and the written monuments of poetry and historiography. Down to the middle of the fourth century, honorific statues or decrees for citizens had been a rare exception (Harmodius und Aristogeiton being the only prominent ones in the Athenian agora), and the earliest statues made clear to be votive







. . . ἵνα οὖν καὶ ὁ δῆμος φαίνηται τοὺς καλοὺς καὶ ἀγαθοὺς τῶν ἀνδρῶν τιμῶν καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης ἡλικίας φιλοτί̣μους γινομένους περὶ τὰ κοινὰ καὶ φιλοδοξεῖν προαιρουμένους ἀποδεχόμενος καὶ ἐν χάριτος [ἀ]π̣οδόσει μὴ λείπηται, v θεωροῦντές τε καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ τὰς περιγινομένας τιμὰς ἐκ τοῦ δήμου τοῖς καλοῖς καὶ ἀγαθοῖς, ζηλωταὶ μὲν τῶν καλλίστων γίνωνται, προτρέπωνται δὲ πρὸς ἀρετήν ̣, ἐ̣παύξηται δὲ τὰ κοινὰ παρορμωμένων πάντων πρὸς τὸ φιλοδοξεῖν καὶ περιποιούντων ἀεί τι τῆι ̣ πατρίδι τῶν καλῶν· v τύχηι τῆι ἀγαθῆι δεδόχθαι τῆι βουλῆι καὶ τῶι δήμωι, ἐπῃνῆσθαι Μηνᾶν Μένητος ἐπί τε τοῖς προγεγραμμένοις πᾶσιν καὶ ἐφ’ ἧι ἔχων εὐνοίαι διατελεῖ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον . . . There is some justification in treating the Hellenistic period in the Aegean as a cultural unit from the mid-/late fourth century BCE to the second century CE and beyond (most recently, Chaniotis ). Roman domination meant some significant cultural and political change to the Greek cities, affecting the quantity and language, but less so the form and purposes of donations (see Van Nijf, Chapter  in this volume; Lomas and Cornell () and Zuiderhoek () stress the Hellenistic influence, via the Aegean cities, on Roman euergetism). Endowments peaked, according to Bernhard Laum’s still valid survey, in the second century CE after significant increase during the first centuries BCE and CE; see Laum () –. The subject needs further treatment, however, and I shall concentrate in this chapter on the evidence of the first three centuries BCE. See especially the excellent recent analysis by Ma (), which has the honorific, inscribed culture of the Hellenistic city as its main theme. Ma sees in this culture the key to understanding the interaction between elite and community, public and private and the balance between subordination and agency in the social space of the Hellenistic polis (, ).

The Politics of Endowments



offerings rather than monuments in honour of the benefactor. There was also a tendency of citizens to control benefactors by institutionalizing gifts as formal liturgies (‘services to the people’) which were imposed on a clearly defined group of the wealthiest citizens. Paul Veyne argued that classical megaloprepeia (munificence) was a form of generosity that existed ‘before euergetism’; that is, it foreshadowed the Hellenistic institution without being the same. It lacked the essential function of Hellenistic euergetism to symbolize the rule of a class of people who through their benefactions legitimized their political privilege in cities that maintained the fiction of being democracies. Constitutive of euergetism was a new class of notables whose gifts the city could not reject and which made the dēmos indebted to them. Other scholars have emphasized continuities rather than change and transformation. Marc Domingo Gygax argued that the emphasis on reciprocity was a principal element of both classical and archaic forms of generosity and euergetism. Underlying all systems of giving from Homer to the Hellenistic period and beyond was a gift ideology which had the principle of reciprocity at its centre. A gift included the obligation to be returned, which explained its immense importance for social collectives throughout antiquity. So, if there was something fundamentally new about euergetism in Hellenistic cities, it was the visibility of the process and the frequency with which benefactions appear in our epigraphic record, expressing in numerous examples the intimate relationship between benefactors and the people. It was, at the most apparent level, a change in epigraphic habit, that is, the habit to publicize honours, donations and their purposes for everybody to read, and we have to ask why this was the case. In this chapter, I would like to explore the reasons for the dramatically increased visibility of the reciprocities between benefactors and the city and the politics that lay behind the visibility. I am looking at one particular kind of euergetism which Veyne referred to as funerary euergetism, but which extended far beyond the context of funerary cult. Many inscriptions from the early Hellenistic period onwards document a new legal instrument, the endowment, which guaranteed long-term funding of a particular





Ma () –; an additional illustration of the increasing monumentalization of memory that set in during the course of the fourth century BCE is the increasing practice of dedicating monuments rather than votives to local and panhellenic temples; Veyne () f. with Isae. . , Pl. Grg. a–b and further examples.  Veyne [] () –. Domingo Gygax (); see also von Reden () –.



  

purpose from the proceeds of the donated asset (land, money or buildings). Many of these donations were devoted to the cult of a deceased donor who had made such provisions in his will or whose family did so. But endowments were by no means limited to the purpose of funerary cult, and many extant decrees relate to the endowment of religious festivals, processions, games or the funding of civic institutions such as gymnasia and schools. Their difference from ordinary gifts was the perpetuity of the gift and the perpetuity that this guaranteed to the memory and the glory of its donor. Endowments by their very construction aimed at influencing the future, allowing citizens and donors to achieve their highest goals: the stability and eternity of the polis and perpetual glory to the euergetic families. The publication of the endowment decrees communicated these goals to present and future beholders. Did euergesia increase in scale in the Hellenistic period? Even if we had more data, we would have to ask additional questions. Did the number of projects financed by euergetic payments increase? Did the size of the donations increase? Did the total value of voluntary contributions of elite citizens relative to expenditure from public treasuries increase? Did euergetism increase because city finance declined? Did cities require more money due to more expensive forms of warfare and defensive practices? Did, therefore, the number of people who spent their money for the city increase, and did more people have more surplus money to spend? Was an increase of euergetic spending related to an increase in private income or, by contrast, did economic inequality increase as a result of unequal entitlement to increasing incomes? And finally and most importantly, in







 

Laum (), though in need of updating, is still the starting point for any study of Hellenistic and Roman endowments; Harter-Uibopuu () for a recent survey of the legal aspects of Hellenistic and Roman endowments. Among the many, often fragmentary documents, the most frequently discussed are IG XII.,  (= Laum no. ) from Thera (– BCE); IG XII , ,  (= Laum no. ) from Kos (third/ second century BCE); IG XII ,  (SEG .) (= Laum no. ) from Aigiale on Amorgos (second century BCE); and SEG . (= Laum no. ) from Halikarnassos (third/second century BCE). Memoria for the donor is one of the central themes of medieval endowments, a theme that begins to take precedence already in the Roman imperial period; see Borgolte (); Pickert (). Typical of Hellenistic endowments is, by comparison, their intimate connection with the politics of the polis. For the communicative function of inscriptions in Roman cities, see Meyer (). Thus Chaniotis () , emphasizing epidoseis and other voluntary contributions; also Migeotte ().

The Politics of Endowments



what ways did voluntary contributions matter for the finances of the city? Such questions, and many more, lead into the complex issue of the conditions of third-sector finance – charity, endowments, private sponsoring – which economists and political scientists find difficult to answer even nowadays. Given that it is possible neither to measure the economic impact of euergetism in Greek cities nor to characterize precisely the nature of economic change in the Hellenistic period, we should look at the effort taken in the publicity of euergetism and inquire into its function. As we just saw, there was a measurable increase not just in the visibility of benefactions but in the visibility of the reciprocities between benefactors and the dēmos. There was also an increasing emphasis on the long-term effects of this reciprocity, both in terms of the memory granted by the people to the benefactor and in terms of the impact the benefaction had for the future of the polis. And there was an increasing insistence on the participation of the dēmos in protecting the gift’s purpose. In this latter function, I would like to argue, euergetism was not the result, but played an active part in the political transformation of democracy during the third and second centuries BCE.

Endowments and the Political Symbolism of Hellenistic Euergetism Paul Veyne distinguished three types of euergetism: gifts as forms of patronage, gifts for financing the duties of the benefactor’s public office (euergetism ‘ob honorem’), and endowments for funerary purposes (: ). The latter, he argued, was a new phenomenon of the early Hellenistic period, although endowments for other purposes, and without written 

 



The question has been discussed frequently in relation to Hellenistic and Roman city finance, e.g. Duncan-Jones () –; Eck (); Migeotte (); Meier (); see also Veyne () –, and below. Migeotte is probably right in arguing that euergetism could have much financial importance at certain occasions but not at others. Their order of magnitude varied tremendously so that no generally valid conclusion could be drawn. Ostrower () –; McCarthy () –. Important changes in city finances can be observed in Athens from the mid-fourth century BCE onwards, which led to greater professionalization of budgeting and tax collection without relinquishing the collective principle of the fiscal regime (Leppin []); for the development of fourth-century Athenian finance, see the excellent survey by Rhodes () and Pritchard (). Both the example of Athens and the efforts of Hellenistic cities to increase financial cooperation among league members (Mackil [] ) should stand as reminders that public financial planning by no means lacked strategic principles. For an excellent discussion of the nature of political change in the course of the Hellenistic period, see Mann () with a survey of recent research.



  

contractual form, had classical origins. The constituting principle of an endowment is, in contrast to other gifts, that the principal asset (usually land, money or a building) is never consumed. It is preserved in perpetuity, while from its proceeds a designated purpose is to be financed. Thus we hear of land to be leased in order to generate rents, money lent out to generate interest, and buildings, such as a stoa or a bath, generating income through the fees paid for their use. In principle, endowments last forever, since the donation never declines, so endowments typically reflect a concern for a time span that lasts beyond the lifetime of the donor. The beneficiaries of ancient endowments were the polis, a temple, the family or a semi-private club, such as religious associations founded for the sake of a cult. The first known endowments in Greece belong to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Both had religious and commemorative purposes. Plutarch reports that Nicias bought a piece of land for , dr. on Delos and dedicated it to Apollo. From the proceeds of the land, the Delians should finance sacrifices and meals and pray for Nicias the benefactor. Plutarch adds that the purpose of the endowment was written on a stele serving as the guardian of the endowment (Plut. Vit. Nic. .). Xenophon quotes the decree of his own endowment of a piece of land that he gave for the cult of Artemis Orthia in Scillus (An. ..). The endowment provided that from the tenth of the annual yield of the plot to be leased to a tenant, sacrifices to the goddess should be paid, while from any surplus the temple should be maintained. The sacrifices should be followed by a banquet at Scillus at which all citizens and the men and women of the neighborhood should participate. ‘And the goddess would provide for the banqueters barley meal and loaves of bread, wine and sweetmeats, and a portion of the sacrificial victims from the sacred herd as well as of the victims taken in the chase.’   



For the legal design and forms of protection of endowment contracts, see Harter-Uibopuu () and, more broadly, Laum () –. Borgolte (), (). The terms for one-time gifts and long-term endowments were not distinct in the Greek language, both being expressed by the unspecific terminology of giving (δῶρον, δίδωμι, etc.). It is significant that in Hellenistic cities both the management and the control over the assets were taken over by representatives of the city, while there was usually a clause that the perpetuity of the purpose was protected by the legal institutions of the polis. In Roman times, the emperor protected an endowment. In the case of Medieval, and also of non-European endowments, by contrast, it was either the Church or the family of the donor who managed and controlled the endowment, rendering endowments an institution that was far more independent of the state than their Hellenistic counterpart; see Borgolte () and Kogelmann (). The animals came from hunting expeditions Xenophon and the young men of the festival crowd made during the festival in the sacred precinct and the surrounding woods; Xen. An. ...

The Politics of Endowments



Perhaps not accidentally, Xenophon does not mention any provisions for celebrating himself, the benefactor, for this would have contradicted the civic ideals to which he adhered. According to Veyne, the proliferation of funerary endowments was due to two major phenomena. One was ‘patriotism, love of renown and the desire to leave behind some great memorial’ (: ); the other was a changing perception of the afterlife (: –). Since the first applied to all acts of euergetism, it is the latter that needs closer attention. Care for the dead by means of a cult was a moral obligation already in earlier periods, as the fate of the dead depended less on their conduct during their lifetimes than on the care they received from the living after their death. From the third century BCE onwards, however, the care for the dead became more sumptuous, especially as many men aspired to be heroized. This required not just ritual gestures at the grave, but the performance of sacrifices that brought them closer to a god. The expenditure for such occasions, which could extend into processions, games and feasts in which an ever-larger group of relatives and citizens participated, was best provided for by the establishment of an endowment that generated a regular income for years to come and whose purpose could be expressed in detail within a will. A particularly striking example was the case of Critolaus of Aigiale on Amorgos, who had established a fund for the celebration of a banquet and an agōn for which in return the city of Aigiale had heroized his deceased son (IG XII ,  = Laum no. ). Critolaus set up another fund of , dr. – the subject of the extant decree – to be lent at interest from which was to be paid the celebration of the sacrifice and the banquet in his son’s honour. Another example is the endowment of Epikteta, and Phoenix, her deceased husband, of Thera, who at the turn of the third and second century provided that a club (koinon) should be founded to manage , dr. which the benefactors had endowed to finance the cult, sacrifices and banquets to be held in honour of Phoenix himself and his two sons Cratesilochus and Andragoras, who had also died. The banquet was to be held at the herōon which Epikteta had built for all the family members according to the will of Andragoras and which was equipped with statues, reliefs and images of their ancestors. The essential matter was, according to Veyne, no longer the cult of the dead but the  

For the development of Hellenistic funerary cult and heroization, see Hughes (); Boddez (), (). IG XII.  = Laum no. . This famous endowment (most recently discussed by Harter Uibopuu ()) was established by Epikteta, who acted at the order first of her husband and then of her son Andragoras, who had asked her to build the heroon.



  

memory that the beneficiaries would retain of the dead and their generosity. Typical of the euergtic spirit of the time was the preference for conspicuous giving rather than conspicuous consumption. It was patronage rather than egotistic luxury. Veyne left the matter at that point and did not turn to the other side of the coin, which was the reciprocity between benefactors and the city. He discussed at length the bestowal of honours with which the people thanked their benefactors (: –). But he did not consider the role of the council, the assembly and the dēmos, the latter of which not only granted honours, but also took an active part in the regulation, protection and management of the endowment. He also did not integrate funerary endowments into the wider spectrum of Hellenistic endowments that were dedicated to public purposes. A large proportion of extant endowment contracts relate to the provision of funds for a festival, equipment for gymnasia and other duties that the benefactor took over as part of his office of agonothetēs and gymnasiarchos. He does not consider endowments for those public sacrifices and processions that were unrelated to either a public office or a funerary cult. There is also the further category of endowments for the construction, restoration, maintenance and running of buildings, city walls, baths and schools. The range of purposes for which endowments were established increased in the Roman period. Although funerary endowments continued to dominate the total number of endowments, they still remained a part of public euergetism and of its function in the civic life of the polis. If the legal control of endowments, the public involvement in their regulation, the conspicuous publication of their legal control, and their perpetuity are taken into consideration as related phenomena, their particular significance as a means of democratic community-building in Hellenistic cities falls into stronger relief.

Euergetism and Democracy The development of euergetism is intimately linked to the transformation of democracy in the Hellenistic period. Already by the fourth century BCE there are firm indications of increasing private fortunes or a concentration 



Aneziri () for the range and function of endowments connected with sport and athletic festivals. In Veyne’s tripartite scheme, these benefactions fall into the category of gifts ob honorem rather than endowments. For these various purposes, see Laum () –; on endowments for the sake of constructing and maintaining buildings, see also Meier ().

The Politics of Endowments



of wealth in the hands of fewer people, archaeologically visible by larger estates, more sumptuous private buildings and a bigger tax volume in Athens. From the time of the Corinthian League there is also a greater tendency of honouring individuals with statues, a tendency in which the Macedonian cults of Philip and Alexander played a part (Dem. fr. .–). The tendency, attested already in the middle of the fourth century BCE, to consign legislation and pre-decision-making to smaller, more specialized groups of officials (probouloi, prohedroi, nomothetai) might also have initiated a process in which decision-making gradually came to be dominated by a select group of people whose expertise prevailed in the democratically elected, but less professional, bodies. To what extent democratic institutions and procedures continued to operate in Hellenistic poleis seems, according to current research, to have varied from polis to polis and was subject to continual change throughout the three centuries of the Hellenistic period. Paul Veyne, Jochen Bleicken and Friedemann Quaß argued that already by the third century BCE a select group of notables, who increasingly perpetuated their power dynastically, dominated public life economically, socially and politically, a process to which euergetism contributed. More recently, Hellenistic historians, following Gauthier (), suggest that well into the second century BCE civic institutions such as law courts, council, civic legislation and the dokimasia worked democratically in many poleis, while some poleis even maintained public pay. Notable change in civic politics also did not come with the Macedonian conquest but with Roman domination in the mid-second century BCE. As democratic institutions and procedures declined, public monuments, perhaps paradoxically, strengthened their praise of equality and social harmony, while magistrates had their democratic spirit honoured in pre-formulated honorific decrees. The contracts and honorific inscriptions that went along with euergetic endowments tell us a slightly different story. They show a continuous attempt to control and regulate the success of benefactions democratically. Public magistrates or officials elected to control and manage the funds of 

    

Lohmann () and Schuler (); for the tax volume after Lycurgus’ reforms, see van Wees () –. But the evidence is ambivalent, and the tax volume might have increased because of more efficient tax collection rather than increasing incomes of the members of the liturgical class. Mari () for extended discussion. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. . (probouloi), .– (prohedroi); Dem. . et alib. (nomothetai); see Hansen () – and Rhodes (). Mann (). Veyne [] () – and passim; Bleicken () –; critically Habicht ().  Hamon (); Grieb (); Carlsson (); Walser (). Hamon ().



  

an endowment were accountable to the council or assembly. Many decrees prescribe that oaths had to be sworn by the officials before these bodies, and most provide for a popular action in the case of a endowment being alienated or its funds embezzled. Patrice Hamon has shown, moreover, that rich magistrates were praised if their generosity supported equality among ever larger groups of citizens and non-citzens. Thus, Metrodoros of Pergamon was honoured for having shown virtue and equality (isotēs and aretē) while being gymnasiarchos, especially for the parades of the neoi he had developed ‘equally and justly’ (isōs kai dikaiōs), because he had them parade not just at the occasion of the death of outstanding benefactors but at the funerals of other people as well. This led to the fact that not only the most outstanding but also very ordinary people (dēmotikoi) were honoured in this way. Other benefactors were equally inventive in the spread of their generosity. Normally, when benefactors sponsored public festivals and sacrifices, foreigners and slaves were ordered to hold sacrifices in private houses without being invited to the free meals outside. A large number of donations were connected with the gymnasiarchy, the office of head of gymnasium, or the inauguration of a new gymnasium. Gymnasia were semi-political institutions where young citizens were educated. At the same time, they were the places where sponsored athletes who belonged to a less exclusive class of citizens exercised. While certainly not open to everybody, they were politically and socially less controlled than civic spaces such as the agora or the theatre. Especially in their socially more inclusive and more integrating function they came to compete with the agora and its public buildings in being the centres of the polis, assembling a new class of people who distinguished themselves by the capacity to have leisure and economic freedom rather than by civic status. It was a reflection of part of this transformation of the role of public spaces that Dioscurides of Priene in the beginning of the first century BCE invited all members of the gymnasium to a public meal at the inauguration of his office (I. Priene  (c. – BCE)). In addition, all those who trained in the gymnasium – citizens, resident aliens and Romans – should receive free oil on the occasion. He also sponsored one year’s free entry to the gymnasium to all those who for reasons of ‘bad fortune’ (tuchēn kakēn)   

Harter-Uibopuu (). MDAI (A)  () –; Hamon () –; see also Fröhlich (); Wörrle (); Gray ().  Brélaz () –. Von Hesberg ().

The Politics of Endowments



had been excluded from it. Generosity and acts of integration were indicative of, but also encouraged, new concepts of equality and democracy understood as a highly communitarian principle. Thus, Soteles of Pagai donated on the occasion of the inauguration of his office as agonothetēs in – BCE a meal for all ‘citizens and aliens, Romans and their sons, slaves and their wives: female citizens, female aliens, female Romans and female slaves, and daughters’ (JÖAI  (), –). A similar formula occurs in the endowment decree of Critolaus of Amorgos, mentioned above, endowing the costs for the festival for his heroized son. The sacrifice and the wine poured during the festival should benefit not just the citizens but also foreigners, resident aliens and Romans. Grain handouts were to be given to all citizens, as well as to residents, foreigners and children (IG XII.  (second century BCE) = Laum no. ). And Zosimus of Priene sponsored a meal at private expense to all citizens, resident aliens, Romans, foreigners and slaves, thus making the first day of his office a communal experience of equality to all (κοινοποησάμενος πᾶσιν ἐπ’ἴσον, I. Priene , ). Behind the frequent use of isotēs, different ideas of equality can be discerned. Yet the examples show that benefactions fostered new concepts of equality and democracy that were less focused on formal citizenship rights, male status and participation in the political institutions than on community-building and joint feasting.

Endowments, Monuments and Democratic Communication Honorific decrees and contracts were usually erected close to the place of the endowment. They were normally financed either from the treasury or by the benefactors themselves and were stated to have been so by the monuments. However financed, the texts on the steles created a relationship between the gift, the people, their gratitude, their monumental representation and public finance. The decree in honour of Menas with which we began encapsulated all these aspects, including the future exchange between benefactor, people and the viewers. Rhetoric and the public display of honours, however, were characteristic not just of honorific decrees but of endowment documents too, which often included both honorific formulae and the endowment decree and contract. Apart from stating the act of dedication and purpose of the donation and detailing the financial and redistributive management of 

Krumeich and Witschel ().



Ma ().



  

the endowment, they provided additional opportunity for praising the benefactor and his public ambition and zeal. Here is the decree of Aristocles’ endowment for the city of Aphrodisias: Since Aristocles, son of Artemidorus, Molossus, has served the city with glorious and ambitious gifts and liturgies (of offices) during his lifetime, and because he has shown himself also in other respects most philotimos towards his home town: even on his deathbed he did not change the love for his home town, but put up a will in which in addition to all that he had given already to his home town he provided that the citizens are given money every year from the proceeds of the land which he has left for the community together with all the rest he has given during his life time. He strives for glory (philodoxia) by being remembered forever for his decision to give gifts during his lifetime and because of his will showing his love for his home town. (IAph, . (first century CE) = Laum no. )

Aristocles is already dead, but his personality is still alive through the gifts he made during his lifetime and his will, which was erected in the polis. There is a continuous line from his life and his will to the memory he enjoys in the eyes of the beholders. The hometown (patris), however, is also mentioned four times in the brief text, linking the town, the benefactor, the memory of the benefactor, the benefaction and those who are in charge of it into a common bond. The inscription comes close to making Aristocles a hero, if not in cult at least in the immortal status attributed to him in his home town. The benefactor, the inscription and the city formed a triangular relationship in the process in which perpetuity for all of them was created. Endowments were controlled and protected by the permanent contracts inscribed on a stele, a monument which Antiochus of Comagene called indestructible (OGI  (– BCE) = IGLSyr. . = Laum no. , ll. –). Other endowment agreements were kept safe by their erection in a temple, especially when the temple benefitted from the endowment. This possibility was chosen in the case of an endowment for the maintenance of an Apollo Temple on Ceos where the contract was erected in Pythion’s altar niche in the temple itself (IG XII , , Ioulis (third/ second century BCE) = Laum no. ; see also SEG ., Delphi, ( BCE) = Laum no. ). The contract (nomos) of the endowment of Critolaus of Aigiale stipulated that it was to be registered in the public records (grammata dēmosia, while an additional version was to be inscribed 

In the case of earlier endowments in which the written contractual form was not yet available, it was just the stele that protected the endowment; see above with Plut. Vit. Nic. . and Xen. An. ...

The Politics of Endowments



on a stele by order of Critolaus himself and put up next to his statue (IG XII   (second century BCE) = Laum no. , ll. –). Particularly explicit is the famous inscription concerning the endowment of a school in Miletus. It very clearly lays out the details of the cooperation between the benefactor, the architect, the commissioners of the city and the people of Miletus, the latter being in charge of publishing the endowment decree (Milet I ,  (/ BCE) = Laum no. ): So that the resolution of the people and the philodoxia of Eudemus become visible to all, the commissioners in charge of the city walls together with the architect shall take care that the psēphisma (about the administration of the endowment) be inscribed on two stone steles. One shall be erected in the palaistra of the boys, wherever there is room, the other in the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios at the exedra dedicated by Eudemus, son of Thallion. On how Eudemus because of his philotimia should be honoured the people should deliberate at the appropriate time. The people decided to inscribe this decree on a whitewashed board.

Endowment decree and contract fullfilled above all legal purposes. Like other official documents they were kept also in the public record office, and it was the written contracts and endowment decrees that rendered the endowment a legally valid agreement that could be executed by public procedures. Their publication on stone, however, allowed inspection by anyone who wished (ho boulomenos). This gave the documents a distinctly democratic function, emphasizing the control of the endowment by the dēmos. In the decree of an endowment to Apollo in Delphi, the erection of the stele is even made the condition for the endowment to be legally valid (Ἀναγράψαντω δὲ οἱ ἄρχοντες ἐν τῶι ἱερῶι καὶ κυρία ἔστω: the archons shall erect an inscription in the temple and this shall be lawful, SEG ., Delphi, ( BCE) = Laum no. , l. ). Moreover, the published documents served the additional purpose of showing that the benefactor and the institutions of the polis were the two parts of the reciprocal relationship. They documented the zeal of the benefactor and the participation of the people to translate this zeal into a public benefit that kept the memory of the benefactor. Endowments always require close and peaceful cooperation between benefactors and various political or religious institutions, since benefactors lack legislative, executive or judicial   

See esp. Gauthier () – on this inscription.  See also Strootman, Chapter  in this volume. Rhodes (). Rhodes () for this being the primary reason for the epigraphic publication of legal documents and accounts.



  

powers. While this is a more or less unspoken condition of endowments (especially in the modern world) these powers were emphatically expressed as being the prerogatives of the dēmos by the publication of the decrees, and by the popular protection of their provisions. Not only were the institutional procedures clearly explained, but, arguably, they were deliberately rehearsed on the inscriptions in order to show the popular control of the endowment. An endowment decree of some  lines from Corcyra (IG IX , ,  (third/second century BCE)) is divided into two parts: the dosis is described in the first part and the dogma (decree) in the second. Yet the two legally different functions of the inscription were not apparent to the viewer who read the two parts as a continuous text. The various clauses are separated by phrases like ei de or epei de, as was usual in both honorific and legal decrees. Three authorities are invoked: () the two benefactors Aristomenes and Psylla, () the council of Corcyra including the probouloi and the prodikai, and () the polis, including the agonothetēs appointed by the assembly. A fourth authority is the nomos containing the rules for the office of the agonothetēs. The most prominent function seems to have been exercised in this case by the council, followed by the assembly only in the second instance. The council is ordered to elect three commissioners annually who lend the money at interest. The council also decrees the administration of the endowment, which allows it to operate in the prescribed ways. It is also the council to which the commissioners and the agonothetēs have to render account. Yet council and assembly together are made to be obliged to impeach the commissioners if they do not collect the interest or disburse the payments as required. The prodikai have to lodge suit against both the commissioners and the agonothetēs if either of them alienates money or disregards any clause of the decree. The indictment is to be filed with the probouloi, who, within thirty days, have to bring the suit to the people’s court. In the final clause, the control of the endowment is stated to be the responsibility of both council and assembly, which shall order ‘everything else’ (l.). Somewhat differently construed were the procedures for the endowment of Critolaus, mentioned already several times in this chapter. Both the heroization and the endowment seem to have required public approval by a nomos promulgated by the dēmos. The dēmos also appointed the commission for the administration of the endowment, as well as its legal protection. However, one member of the commission was Critolaus 

Strachwitz ().

The Politics of Endowments



himself, so that the appointment seems to have been just a procedural requirement, giving eventually the power of execution to the benefactor himself. While the decree makes clear that the assembly agreed to the endowment and its purposes (l. ), public control was reduced in favour of that of the donor. Only in the final clause are the people invoked as alone able to bring a popular action before the thesmothetai if the endowment was alienated. In the short inscription from Ioulis, finally, yet another model of civic control is exemplified. This endowment benefitted the maintenance of the Apollo Temple of Ioulis and the sacrifices made in honour of the god (IG XII , ; Ioulis, (third/second century BCE) = Laum no. ). The democratic institutions of the city seem to be working well: council and assembly together pass the decree (ll. –), the commission is appointed by lot, and the procedures for operating the endowment are clearly laid down. The hieropoioi of the temple in charge of the sacrifices were secular personnel and thus subordinate to the council and assembly. Thus the polis had full control over the hieropoioi, who for their financial proceedings were fully accountable to the dēmos (II.–): If one of the hieropoioi takes a portion away or takes something from the money, or does not disburse it, he shall pay a fine of , dr to the treasury of Apollo. Everybody may bring an action before the thesmophylakes against half of the penalty payment. The thesmophylakes shall charge the penalty of , dr and bring suit against the defendant within  days.. . . If he does not pay, the thesmophylakes shall inscribe his name on a stone stele, adding his patronym and how much sacred money he owes. This psēphisma shall be inscribed on a stele and be erected in front of the Pythion, and it shall be valid as a nomos for all times.

Endowment decrees are invaluable sources for legal procedure in Hellenistic cities, but they also showed these procedures to whomever wished to consult them. They made public the rules of the city which encapsulated the tensions and social competitions within the polis. Despite variations in the distribution of power, there was a general tendency to emphasize the role of the dēmos either as members of the assembly or as the initiators of popular action in case the endowment was alienated. This role that could hardly be forfeited legitimized endowments democratically despite the dangers benefactions imply for democracies. They strengthened the belief in the power of the people, regardless of whether this was 

Strachwitz () for the debates surrounding this problem in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe.



  

perceived in terms of democratic institutions or the right to popular resistance. This can finally be seen in the case of a decree honouring Antiochus I for his benefactions to the Milesians at the turn of the fourth century (OGI  (/ BCE) = I.Didyma  = Laum no. ). The decree negotiated the relationship between the polis and the king, demonstrating that both participated in the success of the benefaction. Demodamas, in fact, was at that time strategos in Central Asia and a Seleucid representative who had promoted the benefaction on behalf of the king: Resolved by the dēmos (Ἔδοξε τῶι δήμωι). Motion of the synedroi. Demodamas, son of Aristeides, proposed the motion. Since Antiochos, the eldest [son] of King Seleucus, previously displayed great goodwill and zeal continuously for the Milesian people and now, seeing his own father exerting every effort on behalf of the sanctuary at Didyma (and) judging that it would be good to follow his father’s [policy], promises to construct a stoa one stadion (in length) for the god in the city from which shall be derived every year income, to be spent for the maintenance of the sanctuary at Didyma.. . . It has been resolved by the Milesians that they praise [Antiochos] for his reverence for the god and his goodwill [towards the] Greeks; and that there shall be given to him [for the stoa] whichever spot the architektōn who is chosen, and the men appointed by Antiochos may designate. The tamiai and the prytaneis in charge shall deposit the proceeds of the stoa and lease them in the way the people resolve (καθότι ἂν τῶι δήμωι δοκῆι).

The dēmos quite explicitly appropriates the gift in the course of the inscribed text. In cooperation with the benefactor, they choose the place for the stoa. But subsequently it is just the institutions of the polis which are in charge of the endowment: the tamiai, the prytaneis and the assembly. It is perhaps not quite accidental that this first paragraph of the decree begins and closes with the words ‘resolved by the people’.

Conclusions Paul Veyne initiated an important debate about the nature of Hellenistic democracies, their transformation and the part euergetism played in this transformation. But despite his awareness of euergetism having reciprocity at its centre, he neglected the role of the dēmos in the symbolic exchanges that accompanied euergetic spending. Domingo Gygax has emphatically 

See Strootman, Chapter  in this volume; Gu¨nther () – on this inscription in the wider context of the famous oracle of Dydima.

The Politics of Endowments



underscored these reciprocities, but also pointed to the discourse that helped to ‘misrecognize’ the inequality of the exchange. He has stressed this in particular in the case of monarchic euergetism that habitually shaped foreign relationships in the Hellenistic world: In the foreign relationships of the Hellenistic poleis, honours acquired great importance. They transmitted the idea that the interaction between the polis and the king was a rapport in the tradition of relationships between the sovereign polis of the classical period and their foreign benefactors (kings or citizens of other poleis), that is, a relationship not between patron and client but between equals, friends who exchanged presents. This was habitually not the case. But the Hellenistic poleis as well as the kings benefitted from the fiction, which helped the former to bear a humiliating reality, while putting the latter in a more comfortable position in a world hostile to monarchy. A clear example of the use of honours is the phenomenon of taxes paid to kings in the form of the typical reward for benefactors: gold crowns. (Domingo Gygax () )

Hellenistic endowments throw a further light on the series of misrecognized relationships initiated by euergetic donations, at both the symbolic and a very tangible political level. Endowment decrees and contracts that made the endowment operative often explicitly affirmed the role of the dēmos and of the political institutions of the polis in the preservation of the donation in the long term. It was in many cases the polis, not the benefactor’s family, the king, his friends or a club, who had the power to control and protect the proper use of the endowment. I suggest that we have to take seriously the great visibility of benefactions, their emphasis on the permanence of the gift, and the degree to which benefactions allegedly promoted equality, harmony and democracy. By monumentalizing the reciprocities negotiating the power relationships between benefactor and the dēmos, inscriptions participated in the process of making benefactions a democratically legitimized institution. By invoking the institutions of the polis in the management and protection of the benefaction, they stabilized, and added weight to, these institutions, however powerless they had become. And, finally, inscriptions demonstrate the desire of the people to hedge in the antidemocratic tendencies that generosity made visible in public  

Domingo Gygax () –, with Bourdieu (). There are, of course, several examples of the benefactors themselves, rather than institutions of the polis, exercising control over the legal and administrative aspects of their endowments; see HarterUibopuu (). But still in these cases the triangular relationship between donor, polis and emperor is clearly at stake.



  

necessarily entails. Democratic procedures and the rotation of offices may have declined significantly during the Hellenistic period, but in the attempt to control benefactions by popular procedures, Hellenistic dēmoi maintained some of the democratic ideals which had been crucial for maintaining democracy in the classical period. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aneziri, S. () ‘Stiftungen fu¨r sportliche und musische Agone’, in K. HarterUibopuu and T. Kruse (eds.), Sport und Recht in der Antike. Beiträge zum . Wiener Kolloquium zur antiken Rechtsgeschichte .–... Vienna, –. Bleicken, J. () Die athenische Demokratie. Paderborn. Boddez, T. () ‘Entre le roi et la cité: remarques sur le développement des cultes héroïques entre  et ’, Erga-Logoi .: –. () ‘Neue Heroen in einer Zeit lebender Götter. Die Artikulation heroischer Muster in den Herrscherkulten und Honoratiorenkulten der griechischen Städte der fru¨h- und hochhellenistischen Epoche’, PhD dissertation, University of Freiburg (DOI: ./UNIFR/). Borgolte, M. () ‘Einleitung’, in M. Borgolte (ed.), Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne. Auf der Suche nach ihren Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden in religiösen Grundlagen, praktischen Zwecken und historischen Transformationen. Berlin, –. () ‘Planen fu¨r die Ewigkeit – Stiftungen im Mittelalter’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht : –. Bourdieu, P. () ‘Marginalia: some additional notes on the gift’, in A. D. Schrift (ed.), The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity. New York, –. Brélaz, C. () ‘Les bienfaiteurs, “sauveurs” et “fossoyeurs” de la cité hellénistique? Une approche historiographique de l’évergétisme’, in O. Curty (ed.), L’huile et l’argent: gymnasiarchie et évergétisme dans la Grèce hellénistique. Paris, –. Carlà, F., and Gori, M. (eds.) () Gift Giving and the ‘Embedded’ Economy in the Ancient World. Heidelberg. Carlsson, S. () Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart. Chaniotis, A. () War in the Hellenistic World: A Social and Cultural History. Malden, MA. () Age of Conquests. The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian ( BC – AD ). London. Christol, M., and Masson, O. (eds.) () Actes du Xe congrès international d’épigraphie grecque et latine, Nîmes, – octobre . Paris. Dean, M. () ‘The genealogy of the gift in antiquity’, Australian Journal of Anthropology .: –.

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Domingo Gygax, M. () ‘Euergetismus und Gabentausch’, Mètis n.s. : –. () ‘Gift-giving and power relationships in Greek social practice and public discourse’, in M. L. Satlow (ed.), The Gift in Antiquity. Malden, MA, –. Duncan-Jones, R. () Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy. Cambridge. Eck, W. () ‘Der Euergetismus im Funktionszusammenhang der kaiserzeitlichen Städte’, in M. Christol and O. Masson (eds.), Actes du Xe congrès international d’épigraphie grecque et latine, Nîmes, – octobre . Paris, –. Fröhlich, P. () ‘Dépenses publiques et évergétisme des citoyens dans l’exercice des charges à Priène à la basse époque hellénistique’, in P. Fröhlich and Ch. Mu¨ller (eds.), Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique: actes de la table ronde des  et  mai , Paris, BNF, organisée par le groupe de recherche dirigé par Philippe Gauthier de l’UMR  (Centre Gustave Glotz). Geneva, –. Gauthier, P. () ‘Études sur des inscriptions d’Amorgos’, BCH .: –. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe–Ier siècle avant J.C.): contibution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens. Gray, B. () ‘The polis becomes human?: φιλανθρωπία as a cardinal civic virtue in later Hellenistic honorific epigraphy and historiography’, in M. Mari and J. Thornton (eds.), Parole in movimento: linguaggio politico e lessico storiografico nel mondo ellenistico: atti del convegno internazionale, Roma – febbraio . Pisa, –. Grieb, V. () Hellenistische Demokratie. Politische Organisation und Struktur in freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Großen. Stuttgart. Gu¨nther, W. () Das Orakel von Didyma in hellenistischer Zeit. Eine Interpretation von Steinurkunden. Tu¨bingen. Habicht, C. () ‘Ist ein “Honoratiorenregime” das Kennzeichen der Stadt im späteren Hellenismus?’, in M. Wörrle and P. Zanker (eds.), Stadtbild und Bu¨rgerbild im Hellenismus. Kolloquium, Mu¨nchen, . bis . Juni . Munich, –. Hamon, P. () ‘Élites dirigeantes et processus d’aristocratisation à l’époque hellénistique’, in H.-L. Fernoux and C. Stein (eds.), Aristocratie antique: modèles et exemplarité sociale. Dijon, –. () ‘Gleichheit, Ungleichheit und Euergetismus. Die isotes in den kleinasiatischen Poleis der hellenistischen Zeit’, in C. Mann and P. Scholz (eds.), ‘Demokratie’ im Hellenismus. Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? Mainz, –. Hansen, M. H. () The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Priciples and Ideology. Oxford. Harter-Uibopuu, K. () ‘Stadt und Stifter. Rechtshistorische Einblicke in die Struktur und Verwaltung öffentlicher Stiftungen im Hellenismus und in der Kaiserzeit’, in S. von Reden (ed.), Stiftungen zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft. Geschichte und Gegenwart im Dialog. Berlin, –.

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 

‘To be magnanimous and grateful’ The Entanglement of Cities and Empires in the Hellenistic Aegean Rolf Strootman An inscription of Miletos from / records the acceptance of gifts donated by Seleukos I to the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma. The inventory of gifts is impressive. There is a variety of gold and silver vessels and other cultic objects, some of them Persian in style; precious incense from Arabia and India; and , sheep and  bulls for sacrifices (likely purchased locally). The inscription comprises a letter of king Seleukos to the Milesians, on whose territory the sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis was located, brought by the king’s Greek agent, Polianthes: King Seleukos to the council and the people of Miletos, greetings. We have sent to the sanctuary of Didymaian Apollo, as offerings to the Savior Gods, the great lamp-stand and cups of gold and silver bearing inscriptions; . . . [D]eposit them in the sanctuary, so that you may use them for libations and other uses on behalf of our health and fortune and the safety of the city, for which I wish and you pray. Carry out the written instructions of Polianthes and dedicate the objects sent to you and perform the sacrifice.. . . I have written the list of the gold and silver vessels sent to the sanctuary so that you may know the type and the weight of each one. Farewell.

Seleukid patronage of the Didymaion is well attested, and the magnificence of the gifts is in keeping with Seleukos’ status and the vast resources at his disposal. But there is a problem. The inscription is unambiguously dated to the year / (ll. –, not cited here), which means that the letter was sent more than five years before the Battle of Koroupedion (), that is, at a time when western Asia Minor according to our historical atlases was part of the short-lived Lysimachid Empire. The inscription postdates by one year a well-known Milesian decree honoring Hippostrates of Miletos, Lysimachos’ stratēgos ‘of the Ionian cities’. Rather than accepting that an important polis like Miletos maintained  

All dates are BCE unless otherwise noted. I.Didyma , l. ; Lund () .



I.Didyma  (OGI ), ll. – = RC .





 

links with several dynasties simultaneously, historians have tried to save the alleged nation-state–like nature of ancient empires by assuming that Seleukos’ donations were ‘not political’. A comparable historical anomaly, in modern views, is the construction of the Olympieion in Athens by Antiochos Epiphanes, about a century later. Replacing a smaller, unfinished building of the Pisistratid era, this huge temple was not yet completed at the king’s death in . Vitruvius, however, described the Olympieion even in its unfinished state as ‘a work not only universally esteemed, but counted among the rarest specimens of magnificence’, and equated it with the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos and the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. Modern scholars often find it hard to reconcile Antiochos’ building activity with the perceived idea that at this time the Seleukid Empire was no longer part of the political landscape of mainland Greece. Antiochos’ benefactions to cities in mainland Greece, therefore, have been dismissed as apolitical, ‘cultural’ patronage. But can the construction of the biggest Greek temple of all times, located in the middle of the Pan-Hellenic center, Athens, and designed to house a colossal statue of the most powerful of the gods (and a symbol of kingship especially in Antiochos IV’s reign) really be thought of as a politically neutral act? The cases of the Didymaion and Olympieion illustrate two major themes that will be central to this chapter. The first is the crisscrossing of personal networks that could link a single polis to several imperial powers at the same time, often through the agency of distinct, rivalrous elite families or factions within that polis. The second theme is the entanglement of city and empire in the Hellenistic Aegean. I argue that cities and empires were mutually dependent, and that there was much less of an antithesis between them than is generally assumed. Often, the people dominating the imperial courts were the same people who dominated the cities. A decade or so before the acceptance of Seleukos’ donations to the Didymaion by the Milesian dēmos, Demodamas, a powerful citizen of Miletos and a guest friend of Seleukos I, had proposed a decree in honor of Seleukos’ son and later co-ruler, Antiochos I, and had been one of three   



 See Lund () –, with further references. Vitr. De arch. .; Strabo ... Vitr. De arch. .; cf. Livy, .. Antiochos IV funded a theater and city walls at Tegea and Megalopolis, respectively (Livy, ..; the wall in Megalopolis was actually built, see Bringmann and Von Steuben () no. ); cf. Bringmann () –; Mittag () –. On the nature of Seleukid imperialism in Asia Minor and mainland Greece under Antiochos IV, see Strootman () –. I.Didyma  (/ BCE).

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



commissioners charged with setting up a statue of Antiochos’ mother, Queen Apama. In /, the personal networks that connected the Seleukids and powerful families within Miletos apparently were still operational (Demodamas at that time represented the Seleukids as stratēgos in Central Asia; we will return to him later). This chapter departs from the premise that with few exceptions premodern Eurasian empires were not states. I approach empires instead as dynamic and intersecting networks of interaction and as essentially negotiated enterprises. In imperial situations, access to resources was commonly mediated by personal, often ritualized relationships rather than through formalized institutions because imperial rulers commonly invited local elites to participate in the imperial project. The idea that elites did so to preserve their privileges and social status is too simple: imperial conquest often coincided with shifts in the power balances within local communities as new persons or families rose to power. The network approach to empire allows us to see that in the Hellenistic Aegean distinct imperial projects were active at the same time, as Seleukids, Antigonids and Ptolemies, and eventually Romans too, competed to bring the same poleis into their respective spheres of influence. In this world of competing empires and a multitude of internally divided cities, royal euergetism was instrumental in the ensuing processes of negotiation. To explore the significance of local royal euergetism in the wider context of ‘global’ empire, this chapter will focus on the cities of western Asia Minor in the early Hellenistic period. Owing to the relative abundance of epigraphic sources, it is here that we see most clearly the correlation between the conflicting interests of empires and shifting power relations among local elites. After a brief overview of the status quaestionis, we will first look at the actual practice of royal euergetism, and the different types of (material and immaterial) gifts and counter-gifts. We will then examine these benefactions in the context of the entanglement of city and empire in the Hellenistic Aegean. I argue that royal benefactions to cities were part and parcel of a system of reciprocal gift exchange that regulated city–empire relations, and that the connections between imperial and civic elites were established  



I.Didyma  (/ BCE). Foundational is Mann () with Tilly (); successful case studies include Wallace-Hadrill (); Hintze (); D’Altroy (); Barfield (); Barkey (); Hämäläinen (); Faruqui (). Cf. Gellner (), pointing out that the elites on top of communities were often linked horizontally with other local elites. Strootman (a) (Jerusalem) and (b) (Babylon).



 

primarily by means of personal connections such as ritualized friendship (philia) and guest-friendship (xenia). As a result, the relation between polis and dynasty was framed in friendship terminology too. I furthermore argue that because of the inter-imperial competition converging in the Aegean, the representatives of poleis in this region had a relatively strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the imperial dynasties and that the outcome of the ensuing negotiations often was the actual protection of civic rights by powerful royal patrons.

Cities and Empires in the Hellenistic Aegean The Hellenistic Age, like the preceding Achaemenid period, was an age of empire. The Macedonian dynasties that dominated the political geography of western and central Afro-Eurasia from the mid-fourth to mid-second centuries – first the Argeads and later the Seleukids, Ptolemies and Antigonids – were different from their Persian predecessors in many respects. One of the most striking differences was their relatively greater reliance on cities and on civic elites. Cities were cornerstones of Macedonian hegemony. The Hellenistic empires were military organizations above all; cities were loci of surplus accumulation where these empires could obtain the capital, manpower and other resources that they needed for the upkeep of their military capabilities. The key to understanding royal benefactions in Aegean cities lies in assessing the place of cities within the imperial projects of the respective empires. The interaction between city and empire has been a central problem in Hellenistic scholarship since the appearance of Heuss’s Stadt und Herrscher des Hellenismus () and Bickerman’s Institutions des Séleucides (). While Bickerman presented a rather legalistic and unitary image of the Seleukid ‘state’, Heuss saw a more complex and pluralistic world and suggested that kings protected poleis because of their pivotal place in the international political order. Aalders elaborated this point by arguing that kings favored poleis because polis society was congenial to the subjects on whom they most relied: the Greeks.





For the dynamics of Hellenistic inter-imperial warfare and the role of cities, see Strootman (a) –; cf. Austin (); Strootman (a) . For the omnipresence of war in Hellenistic Greece and Asia Minor, see Chaniotis () –. Aalders () –; I owe this reference to Andrew Erskine, who himself argued that Hellenistic royal courts resembled poleis in their sociocultural setup because of the predominance of Greek philoi (lecture at Pennsylvania State University, April , ).

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



Lately, the study of the Seleukids’ relationships with Babylonian cities has become an additional major focus of research. Royal benefactors have been described as powerful outsiders, encroaching, so to speak, upon the internal affairs of the poleis. It is safe to assume that these Macedonian kings were not primarily motivated by altruistic considerations. But were they outsiders? And was royal interference really bad for polis autonomy? To briefly address the first question (the second will be this chapter’s main issue): Hellenistic kings acted as the figureheads of dynasties rather than as autonomous individuals. When dealing with these dynasties, poleis in fact dealt with sociopolitical groups, more specifically the core members of royal household and court society, and the wider network of imperial agents converging at the dynastic center(s). A polis similarly is not a monolithic entity. Poleis consist of people who are likely divided by social hierarchies and economic inequality, and often by ethnocultural diversity as well. Civic elites in particular were disunited time and again by conflicting political and familial interests. Empires took advantage of this disunity, supporting oligarchic or popular regimes as fitted them best. In the Aegean region, the intermediaries between city and court – the so-called philoi of the king – predominantly came from poleis in the region itself. These philoi had Greek identities. Some of them became imperial leaders and belonged to both social systems, the court and the polis. They represented the interests of the cities at court and the interests of the court in the cities. For instance in a letter to Miletos, Seleukos II assures the citizens that he is well disposed to them because the friends of his deceased predecessor (πατρικοὶ φίλοι), Antiochos II, informed him about the attitude of Miletos toward his family. Moreover, the older view that the Hellenistic kings were cultural shapeshifters who never actively promoted ‘Hellenization’ is no longer tenable. Following the example of the Hekatomnids and Argeads, a distinct form of Hellenic elite culture did develop at the royal courts of the Seleukids and especially the Ptolemies. Ptolemaic court poetry overwhelmingly deals with local mythologies from    

 

Kuhrt and Sherwin-White (); cf. Boiy (); more recently Erickson (); Strootman (b); Clancier and Monerie (); Kosmin (b); Stevens (). Schuler () –; Bertrand (); Zuiderhoek, Chapter  in this volume. Ober (); Börm (). Habicht (); Herman (), (); Hermann (); Weber () –; Savalli-Lestrade (); Capdetrey () –; Strootman () –; Paschidis () (pace Sherwin-White and Kuhrt () – and Carsana ()). On Hellenistic court society, see Herman (); Weber (); Strootman (a), (a).  Strootman (a) –. Welles, RC , ll. –.



 

western Asia Minor and southern Greece, and there can be no doubt that the elites of Greek, Hellenized and Hellenizing poleis in the Aegean were an important audience for these writings. Evidence from the Seleukid Empire furthermore reveals that the imperial ‘Greekness’ of the court was emulated by non-Greek local elites. From an emic point of view, these elites selectively adopted the Hellenism of the court as a prestigious, cosmopolitan identity that made them appear, literally, as ‘men of the world’ and distanced them from less successful groups; from an etic point of view, imperial Hellenism – including the use of koinē Greek as an international language – created cohesion among culturally disparate elites and facilitated transcultural, horizontal interactions between these elites. Court emulation coincided with the wide geographical spread of polis institutions and citizenship, particularly in the second-century Seleukid Empire. Due to these developments, old Aegean poleis became models for new ones. Athens especially became a ‘cultural capital’ of the expanding Hellenistic world. Thus, two interrelated phenomena profoundly influenced the geopolitical importance of the Aegean. First, philoi from the Aegean poleis had leading roles in the establishment of Seleukid and Ptolemaic hegemony through worldwide networks of connectivity. Second, aspects of Greek polis culture became pervasive in these cosmopolitan empires. As a result, the Aegean was transformed from a frontier zone of empire under the Achaemenids into a central hub of imperial ‘globalization’, a vibrant contact zone where the rival ambitions of three empires met and often clashed. A further difference from the relative unity upheld previously by the Achaemenids has already been pointed out: the severe inter-imperial competition that made Hellenistic history so very turbulent and violent. Present scholarly interpretations of the age have radically abandoned the image of a ‘balance of power’, intentionally maintained by a variety of bounded, centralized states that looked conspicuously like modern     



See Strootman (c), with references to current debates. Strootman (a), (a), (b); cf. Canepa () and Strootman (a) on the emergence of Iranian dynastic identities in the later Seleukid Empire. See Hoo (), arguing that in Ay Khanoum Greek style was used for public architecture, while it significantly was not adopted in the religious sphere. Schmitz (); Teegarden () ; see also Bringmann (). On ancient globalization, see Pitts and Versluys () and Versluys (); for Hellenistic Eurasia as a ‘globalized’ world of transcultural exchange, see Manning (); Strootman (b); Hoo (), (); and Versluys (). Already Lévêque (); also Austin (). Against the notion of a ‘balance of power’, see more recently Ager (); Meeus (); Strootman (c).

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



nation-states in their alleged recognition of a multistate international order (and were accordingly labeled ‘Syria’ or ‘Egypt’). New views, by contrast, emphasize the universalistic, imperial nature of these empires, as well as the diversity of lesser polities arranged under the aegis of imperial overlordship in an ever-shifting hierarchical order. Using Realist international-relations theory, Arthur Eckstein has analyzed the ‘Hellenistic world of war’ as a multipolar interstate anarchy. But there was system in this apparent chaos. After the tumultuous warfare of the Diadochs, the core conflict of the Hellenistic world consistently was the relentless antagonism of the Ptolemies and Seleukids, who confronted each other directly in six major wars between  and . These wars are known as the Syrian Wars, but that is a misnomer: much more was at stake than the control of (southern) Syria. Smaller and bigger wars in the eastern Mediterranean were directly or indirectly connected to the SeleukidPtolemaic antagonism. The principal arena for the military and diplomatic clashes between the two powers and their various vassals and allies was the Aegean, and what was mainly at issue there was the goodwill and support of the poleis.

The Hellenistic Polis: The State of the Question The enduring vitality of the polis after ‘Chaironeia’ () has been amply demonstrated, particularly by Philippe Gauthier and Louis Robert. The number of poleis in fact increased substantially owing to city foundations and refoundations by Alexander and his successors. The Hellenistic period moreover saw the widespread adoption of polis institutions and ideology by non-Greek communities, as well as the spread of civic monuments associated with the polis – gymnasion, theater, bouleuterion – to Central Asia and the western Mediterranean. It is clear that the polis did not 



 



Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (); Ma (a); Strootman (), (a); Bang (); Kosmin (a). For universalistic ideology as an instrument of empire, see Strootman (); Bang (); cf. Fowler (); Engels (); Strootman (b). Capdetrey (); Strootman (b); Engels (). Diversity is stressed as a defining characteristic of empire e.g. by Sinopoli () ; Howe () ; Burbank and Cooper (); Bang and Bayly () ; Lavan, Payne and Weisweiler (). Eckstein () –. Gauthier (); also see () and (), persuasively arguing that the majority of Hellenistic poleis were democracies. For current trends and debates, see Zuiderhoek, Chapter  in this volume, and the introduction in Wallace (); see further Zuiderhoek (); Hamon (); Alston and Van Nijf (); Strootman (a). On the significance of public space in the post-classical polis, see Dickenson and Van Nijf (); cf. Dickenson () on the monumentalization of the agora as expression of changing power



 

simply ‘survive’ despite the emergence of Hellenistic kingship, but that civic autonomy and democratic institutions flourished because of the protection offered by the monarchies, and there indeed may have been a ‘Hellenistic democratic revolution’, particularly in Asia Minor. But were the Hellenistic poleis really democratic? Recent investigations have shown that they were. Democratic institutions spread widely in the Hellenistic period. We should not equate Ancient Greek democracy with the radical supremacy of the ekklēsia over other political bodies as it had sometimes existed in Athens. As Paolo Tucci has shown, the contemporaneous term dēmokratia was a technical term for the combined legislative and administrative institutions of the polis, and in narrative sources more generally denoted republican (i.e. non-monarchical) polities of any form. This does not imply that we should understand the Hellenistic polis in terms of continuity. A noticeable new trend is, for instance, the growing emphasis on civic autonomy as signified by the prominence of the concepts autonomia, eleutheria and dēmokratia in public decrees. Throughout the Hellenistic period, imperial leaders from Alexander to Antony presented themselves as liberators of cities, deriving substantial popularity and political success (not to mention divine honors) from actually keeping their promises. By making the ‘freedom of the Greeks’ the key idea in their propaganda vis-à-vis the poleis in and around the Aegean, Macedonian rulers continued an earlier Achaemenid practice but hugely increased its significance, elaborating the polis ideal in interaction with the representatives of local elites with whom they negotiated alliances.

 





relations; Heinle () examining monumental beautification as a means to boost the prestige of a polis; and Zuiderhoek () on the role of civic elites in the monumentalization of public space in the Roman period. In the Hellenistic period, the agora became a Mediterranean-wide, transcultural phenomenon expressing civic communal identity; cf. Thomsen (); Cavalier, Descat and Des Courtils (); and Wolf (). Rheidt () shows that the increasing autonomy of Pergamon and other poleis in Asia Minor found expression in building activities in the public spaces of these cities. Teegarden () –. Dmitriev (); Grieb (); Carlsson (); Mann and Scholz (); Zuiderhoek (). Ma () argues that the point of honorific decrees is to make clear who is doing the honoring: ‘any individual name occurred [only] once, but the community (ho dēmos) recurred’ (). Tucci (). Also see Robinson (), showing that popular government was not originally an Athenian phenomenon, but a gradual and widespread development in a number of poleis from the sixth century; cf. Robinson () on the even wider spread of democracy among poleis in the classical period. On eleutheria as a political slogan, see Dixon (); Dmitriev (); Meissner (); Bugh (); Wallace (). The conventional view that the slogan of Greek freedom was fake is defended, e.g. by Dmitriev () and Luraghi () –, who holds that monarchy was anathema to the Greek mind and that the single most important characteristic of a polis was ‘an environment of relative flat hierarchies with a strong underlying current of egalitarianism’.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



It was normal for cities in the Ancient World to have self-rule. To make cities ‘unfree’ was costly and risky – and in most cases pointless. The conventional assertion, expressed most strongly by Orth, that Greek cities lost their independence to the powerful Macedonian kings, still lacks an explanation why these rulers desired to do that and how they were able to do it, that is, how the alleged imperial governing of cities was accomplished in actual practice and what it meant. This question applies also to Bickerman’s more sophisticated argument that poleis after being conquered were stripped of their formal rights and then received them back by the grace of the benevolent king. Were these warlords really that powerful? But at least Bickerman challenged the simplistic idea that royal benevolence toward cities was a charade to cover up ruthless exploitation. In  Magie questioned the modern juxtaposition of city and empire more forcefully, arguing instead that the relationship between monarchy and polis ‘was that of an “alliance” for mutual assistance in the event of an attack by a third Power’. The subjugation of so many cities simply was beyond the military capabilities of the empires. Of course, premodern empire-builders from the Assyrian kings to the Mongol khans selectively used extreme violence against cities, and the Macedonian basileis were no exception. But they could attack with full force only one major city at a time. They did so only if they had no other choice or to set an example, usually in retaliation for alleged treachery (and any resistance to empire qualified as such). The severity of the Macedonian punishment of Thebes and Tyre in  and  are well-known examples. Legitimization for these acts of violence was derived from the kings’ religious duty to safeguard what the Persian imperial inscriptions called arta (‘truth’), known to the Greeks as kosmos, the divinely ordained situation of worldwide peace and order. In both royal letters and honorific decrees for kings, order/chaos terminology is omnipresent: termination of internal stasis, liberation from tyranny and restoration of ‘ancestral’ laws, relieving a city from famine, and more generally the establishment of universal peace. Often the aim was to restore overthrown, ‘legitimate’ regimes.

   

Orth (). Bickerman () (who also was keenly aware that Seleukid power rested primarily on the mutual ‘goodwill’ (eunoia) between ruler and ruled; cf. Bickerman () ). Magie () –. See Ober () on the importance of stasis anxiety in Greek political thought and Börm () on internal power struggles in Aegean poleis during the Roman Civil Wars.



 

The use of force against walled cities moreover could result in humiliating failure even for the most powerful of kings. This was a risk typical of Hellenistic warfare, where cities could potentially obtain the help of rival kings. The current rethinking of the post-classical polis in terms of increasing vitality has led to a better awareness of the considerable military capabilities of poleis. Cities like Sparta, Byzantion and Rhodes were military middle powers in international conflicts; other poleis successfully joined forces in military confederacies, for instance, the Achaian League. The decisive roles of poleis in the big wars of the big empires stimulated the improvement of civic military institutions, most of all the ephebeia. Indeed, defensive capability came to be seen as a precondition for being a polis, as this was directly connected to both the ideology and the practice of autonomy. From the late fourth century, more and more cities were transformed into heavily fortified strongholds, as Hellenistic sites like Messene, Kaunos and Perge still impressively show. Such fortifications were not merely defensive. They turned cities into weapons of war. That too made the support of poleis so very important for rulers. Free cities could of course be liable to royal interference and could be subjected to taxation or garrisoning. Paradoxically, the standardized desire of cities to be ‘ungarrisoned’ at first sight appears to be more ideologically motivated than the idea of autonomy. Garrisons were not inevitably disadvantageous for cities. Garrisons provided protection, and mercenary garrisons were therefore sometimes hired by cities themselves. The principal dispute probably was the question of who controlled the garrison and whom the garrison itself was supposed to control. A comprehensive and systematic comparison of the specific historical circumstances that led to the establishment of garrisons and the





 

Cities continuing to wage war: Ma (c); Chaniotis () –; and the contributions by Matthaiou, Kanto, Chaniotis and Kennell in Martzavou and Papazarkadas (); also see Ma () on the vitality of civic military culture in Hellenistic Asia Minor. Evidence for the (defensive) military capabilities of the poleis of Asia Minor is collected and discussed by Boulay (). See further Migeotte (); Pimouguet-Pédarros () – (on the citizen army of Rhodes during the siege of /); Couvenhes () (cities hiring mercenary troops); and Avram () (recruitment of citizen troops by Mithradates VI). Shipley and Hansen ()  describe the ephebeia as ‘the most important public institution’ of the Hellenistic polis; also νέοι, νεώτεροι, νεανίσκοι etc. were institutions aimed at training citizen soldiers, and the distinctions between these age groups and ephebes is often unclear; cf. Chankowski () – and Kennell (). For the military functions of the ephebeia, see Chankowski () –; Boulay () –; Knoepfler ().  Boulay () . Ma (a); Boulay () –; cf. Wallace () –.  Labarre (); cf. Boulay () –. Couvenhes ().

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



impositions of restrictive measures or sanctions, however, is a venture that lies beyond the scope of this chapter.

The Financial Resources of Kings and Cities As we saw above, Hellenistic poleis often had sufficient resources for troops and fortifications. The typical Hellenistic monumentalization of public space, too, required massive investments. It has been assumed that in the early Hellenistic period kings paid for all this and that only with the decline and disappearance of the big empires local benefactors assumed this role. Though it remains difficult to assess the precise impact of private benefactors, it can no longer be assumed that Hellenistic poleis were dependent on external support to finance public buildings and military installations. Let us also consider whether kings were able to bestow rich material benefactions on cities. Were their financial resources sufficient to fund building activities on a grand scale in so many cities? Kings of course were not rich simply because they claimed to be rich in public presentations of imperial tryphē such as the Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphos. The modern historian should be wary of taking these standard claims, like the claim of autocratic power, too literally. In previous publications, this author has argued that despite the riches of Mesopotamia or Egypt, the massive military expenses of the overextended Seleukid and Ptolemaic Empires exceeded the little regular revenue they had. Contrary to a view once held by economic historians, the Hellenistic empires were not centralized states, and there was no structural ‘state intervention’ in economic activity or an elaborate system of taxation outside a limited number of regions like the Fayum and Babylonia. The upkeep of the court, too, required vast status expenditures. To acquire sufficient capital, kings had to beg, steal and borrow from, respectively, cities, opponents and courtiers. Narrative sources consistently point out financial problems of kings. Ptolemy V, when asked by one of his courtiers where he would find sufficient funds for an upcoming campaign against the Seleukids, ‘pointed





Meier () emphasizes the role of private benefactors; for a different view, see Eck (), suggesting that public buildings in the later Hellenistic period were mainly financed from public rather than private funds. On these debates, see Zuiderhoek (), evaluating the economic impact of private donations to the polis, and von Reden, Chapter  in this volume. Shipley () ; cf. Manning (), reviewing new approaches to the social and political embeddedness of Hellenistic ‘economy’.



 

to his philoi and said: “There, walking about, are my money-bags”’. Antiochos III’s campaign against an uprising of Macedonian governors in the Upper Satrapies (the so-called Revolt of Molon, –) was financed by a single courtier, Hermeias, whose influence at court increased accordingly. In the Treaty of Apameia (), the same king agreed to pay the Romans , talents for the expenses of the war, but we are told that the king had to ‘press for funds’. Lack of means could partially be resolved by distributing immaterial gifts that only kings could give. For instance, they could allocate status to individuals by granting them honorific titles, accompanied by such material tokens of favor as purple robes or bowls and dishes from the king’s table. Successful warfare was a means to acquire booty, slaves and land to give to military leaders in return for their loyalty and support. But warfare was not always successful. The relatively weak financial position of kings, generally speaking, is consistent with their reluctance to give to cities money or things that cost a lot of money (not counting gifts to deities and incidental gifts of oil, grain or timber). In exceptional cases, kings made surprisingly rich benefactions, usually following successful warfare and territorial expansion. But, looking over the evidence, this seems to have been quite uncommon. Instead, kings in general preferred to confer immaterial benefactions upon cities. Bringmann has repeatedly made this point, emphasizing that cities honored kings most often for protecting their autonomy and other essential aspects of being a polis, and rarely for material benefactions. Material euergetism is mostly a later Hellenistic phenomenon, to be associated, not with the big empires, but with localized, lesser kingdoms like Pergamon, Bithynia or Pontos, and with civic benefactors. In sum, considerable wealth was accumulated in the cities, and kings by means of immaterial benefactions tried to tap into that wealth. This is not a surprising conclusion. Honorific inscriptions regularly mention gold or silver crowns given by cities to the kings. Other epigraphic and narrative sources mention a variety of tribute (φόρος), regular taxes (τα βασιλικὰ τέλη) and incidental contributions (συντάξεις or εἰσφοραί) paid by the cities to the dynasties. This suggests a more ‘symbiotic’ relationship between city and empire: poleis needed formal acknowledgment   



 Diod. Sic. .; cf. .. Polyb. .–; cf. Herman (); Strootman (b). Diod. Sic. . and ; cf. Polyb. .; Livy, .. Bringmann () II –; cf. () –, () and (). On the growing importance of local elite euergetism from the late Hellenistic to the early Imperial period, see Zuiderhoek (); cf. Kah (). See Boulay () –.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



and effective protection of civic rights; kings needed money and support against their rivals.

Material Benefactions and the Patronage of Sanctuaries Material benefactions more often than not were given to sanctuaries, preferably sanctuaries with a wider, supra-local radius. These were either sanctuaries that created cohesion among communities in a particular region, such as the Letoon (Lykia), Panionion (Ionia) or Esagil (Babylonia). Or they were transregional, namely, pan-Hellenic sanctuaries like Delphi, Olympia or Didyma. Kings could strengthen the position of particular cities like Miletos or Xanthos by favoring sanctuaries on their territory (here, respectively, the Didymaion and the Letoon), or even promote a cult’s wider appeal, as, for example, in the case of Achaemenid and Hekatomnid support of the pan-Karian sanctuary of Zeus Karios at Labraunda, or the Seleukid patronage of HierapolisBambyke. A good example of the first category – patronage of regional sanctuaries – are the Seleukid benefactions to the central Judean cult of Yahweh–Zeus Olympios at Jerusalem, about which the second book of Maccabees says that ‘the kings themselves honored the place and glorified the temple with the finest presents, so that even Seleukos (IV), the King of Asia, defrayed from his own revenues all the expenses connected with the service of the sacrifices’. The famous ‘Jerusalem Charter’, a letter of Antiochos III to an official called Ptolemaios (after ), combines the language of Aegean polis decrees with local ideology and law to the benefit of both empire and local priesthood: King Antiochos to Ptolemaios, greetings. Since the Jews, upon our first entrance in their country, demonstrated their munificence (philotimia) towards us, and when we came to their city, received us in a splendid manner, and came to meet us with their council (gerousia) and gave abundant provisions to our soldiers, and to the elephants, and joined with us in ejecting the garrison of the Egyptians that were in the citadel, we have thought fit to reward them, and to retrieve the condition of their city.. . . First, we have determined, on account of their piety towards God, to bestow on them, as a pension, for their sacrifices of animals that are fit for sacrifice, for wine, and oil, and frankincense, the value of , pieces of silver, and [six] sacred artabrae of fine flour, with one , medimni of  

Royal patronage of pan-Hellenic cult centers: Hintzen-Bohlen ().  Carstens (); Karlsson ().  Macc. :–.



  wheat, and  medimni of salt.. . . I also want the work on the Temple to be finished, and anything else to be rebuilt that needs to be rebuilt . . . and let the entire people live according to their own laws; and let the council, and the priests, and the scribes of the Temple, and the sacred singers, be discharged from poll-tax and the crown tax and all other taxes.

Several themes that are familiar aspects of the Aegean inscriptions occur here too: the liberation from an allegedly hostile garrison, the restoration of a traditional order through the granting of the right to live in accordance to one’s own laws, and the benefactions made to the deity and his sanctuary, rather than directly to the people. The preference for the religious sphere as ‘contact zone’ between local and ‘global’ elites is typical of early Hellenistic imperialism. Sanctuaries constituted neutral spaces where people could interact under the impartial supervision of a collectively recognized divine power, having accepted in advance certain ritualized modes of behavior. This does not mean that religious patronage was apolitical. A Milesian decree from the s honoring Antiochos (the future king Antiochos I Soter) shows how the religious sphere, namely, Apollo’s sanctuary at Didyma, serves as neutral zone for the interactions between dynasty and polis in the Aegean: Resolved by the dēmos. Motion of the synedroi. Demodamas, son of Aristeides, proposed the motion. Since Antiochos, the eldest [son] of King Seleukos, previously displayed great goodwill and zeal continuously for the Milesian people and now, seeing his own father exerting every effort on behalf of the sanctuary at Didyma (and) judging that it would be good to follow his father’s [policy], promises to construct a stoa one stadion (in length) for the god in the city from which shall be derived every year income, to be spent for the maintenance of the sanctuary at Didyma.. . . It has been resolved by the Milesians that they praise [Antiochos] for his reverence for the god and his goodwill [toward the] Greeks; and that there shall be given to him [for the stoa] whichever spot the architect who is chosen, and the men appointed by Antiochos may designate. The tamiai and the prytaneis in charge shall deposit the proceeds of the stoa and lease them in the way the People resolve.

  

Joseph. AJ ..–, trans. Austin. For the Charter’s authentic core, see still Bickerman (); cf. (); and Gauger (). Strootman (b), (). OGI  = I.Didyma , trans. Burstein. For an alternative interpretation, see von Reden, Chapter  in this volume. The various officials and governmental bodies mentioned in the Milesian inscriptions are discussed by Dmitriev () –.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



While the tamiai and the prytaneis in charge of the money may represent the dēmos, they are also elite figures. But they are not the most important persons here: the motion is proposed by Demodamas, a Milesian citizen and philos of Seleukos and Antiochos. Demodamas is the only individual apart from the crown prince who is mentioned by name. His leading role suggests he secured the benefaction in the first place. The execution of the building moreover is assigned to men appointed by Antiochos. The honors voted for Antiochos, as proposed by Demodamas (not cited here), give the king a place in the city as an honorary citizen of sorts: his name is to be inscribed on the stoa; a bronze equestrian statue of him will be set up; and he will be granted free meals in the prytaneion and, interestingly, exemption from all taxes. The other honors concern the future king’s participation in local religion: front seats in the theater during the Dionysia and the Didymeia festivals and promanteia at the oracle for himself and his descendants.

The Freedom of the Greeks In the previous section, material gifts were discussed. These were rare for kings to give and almost always connected with the religious sphere, that is, given to a deity rather than to the dēmos. But the term εὐεργεσία could allude to both material and immaterial benefactions. In honorific decrees for kings, immaterial benefactions comprised the establishment of peace; the creation, preservation or restoration of civic freedom; and a wide range of privileges such as ἀτέλεια and ἀσυλία. Greek parlance distinguishes, more or less, between the self-rule of a polis (αὐτονομία), rule by citizens (δημοκρατία) and sovereignty (ἐλευθερία). For reasons discussed in the introduction to this chapter, protection of cities is a common feature of empires, and to present acts of conquest as acts of liberation is a commonplace of imperial ideology. However, the Aegean background of the Hellenistic dynasties induced them to draw upon the specific traditions of polis ideology and terminology, which subsequently became more pronounced in the language of the decrees, and spread beyond the





Bringmann () . The epigraphical, archaeological and narrative sources for royal euergetism in Greek cities are collected by Bringmann and Steuben (), with full bibliography to , and for discussion, see Bringmann and Steuben (). Cf. Shipley and Hansen () : ‘In the Classical period, independence (autonomia) was not yet an indispensable feature of the concept of the polis. Now, at the very time when most poleis were dependent rather than independent, autonomia became the explicit ideal and goal of the polis.’



 

Greek world, as we saw illustrated by the example of the Jerusalem Charter. In  Antigonos I Monophthalmos famously proclaimed that all poleis were to be ‘free, ungarrisoned, and autonomous.’ The historicity of this passage in Diodoros is confirmed by two inscriptions from Skepsis, both dated to . The first contains Antigonos’ letter to the Skepsians: we exercised [zeal for the] liberty [of the Greeks?], making for [this reason] no small concessions and distributing money besides . . . We sent Aristodemos and Aischylos and Hegesias to draw up an agreement (with Ptolemy). They have now returned with the pledges, and the representative of Ptolemy, Aristoboulos, came to receive them from us. Know then that a truce has been made and that peace is established. We have written in the treaty that all the Greeks are to swear to aid each other in preserving their freedom and autonomy, [so that] freedom will be secured for all the Greeks when both they and the men in power are bound by oaths.

The second inscription records a Skepsian decree in which Antigonos is awarded cultic honors in return for his benefactions: Resolved by the dēmos, since Antigonos has been responsible for great goods for the city and for the rest of the Greeks, to praise Antigonos and to rejoice with him over what has been done; and for the city to rejoice also with Greeks at the fact that, being free and autonomous, they will continue [for] the future to exist in peace. In order that Antigonos may be honored in a manner worthy of what has been done and that the dēmos may be seen to render thanks for the good things it has already received, (be it resolved) to set aside a precinct for him and to make an altar and to set up as fine an image as possible; and for the sacrifice and the festival to take place in his honor each year, just as it was even formerly carried out; and to crown him with a gold crown of  gold [staters]; and to crown also Demetrios and Philip, each with (a crown of ) fifty gold pieces; and to proclaim the crowns [at the] contest during the festival; and for the city to sacrifice (the offering for the) glad tidings sent by Antigonos; and for all the citizens to wear garlands; and for the treasurer to provide the expenditure for these things. (Resolved) also to send him gifts of friendship . . .

Expressions of joy abound in this decree, and, with the emphasis on his establishment of universal peace in Antigonos’ original letter, they place the concept of freedom firmly in the world of imperial ideology; to be noted in particular is the eschatological image of empire as a situation of enduring peace and prosperity. Important too is the description in this  

 Diod. Sic. ... RC  = OGI , ll. –, –; trans. Welles.  OGI , ll. –; trans. Welles. Strootman () –, (), (d).

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



text of the interaction between city and king as a form of reciprocal gift exchange in the context of philia. The establishment of peace is not often seen as a form of euergetism. But it is presented in these famous inscriptions as the principal benefaction, and as prerequisite for freedom and autonomy. The granting of autonomy, and the awarding of honors in return, are local phenomena. But they result from developments on a wider, global scale. The increasing international standardization of the rhetoric of freedom in civic decrees shows that the context was more than local. Already in the Achaemenid Empire, cities had been autonomous, and when dealing with cities in the Aegean, the Achaemenids and their representatives usually adhered to local concepts and institutions, too. The fact that the autonomy of poleis had never been curbed by the Achaemenid rulers accounts for the importance of the theme of liberation from internal tyranny in Macedonian propaganda. Neither was the idea of freedom restricted to Greek poleis. In , Alexander had granted to ‘the Sardians and the other Lydians . . . the use of their ancestral laws and allowed them their freedom’. Under the Hellenistic kings, Jerusalem and Babylon were autonomous cities too. But Aegean poleis became models for cities elsewhere in the world, so that in the later Hellenistic period ‘Philhellenism’ came to denote protection of cities rather than of Greeks per se. The theme of liberation was widespread. In /, Polyperchon had proclaimed the universal freedom of the Greeks; he did so some three years before Antigonos and in the name of the minor Argead king, Alexander IV, reviving Alexander the Great’s earlier policy of liberation. The same source that we also rely on for Antigonos’ imperial proclamation, Diodoros, also recorded that when the Thebans declared war on the Macedonians in , they called upon all the Greeks to join ‘the Thebans and the Great King in liberating the Greeks and destroying

  

 

Cf. Bringmann () , arguing that a generalized idiom of euergetism was consciously developed to present the king as common benefactor of all the Greeks. On the autonomy of Babylonian cities, see Van de Mieroop (); on Achaemenid Jerusalem, e.g. Bernett (); Vanderkam (); Lipschits (). See e.g. Plut. Vit. Alex. ., on Alexander’s expressed aim to abolish all ‘tyrannies’, viz., pro-Persian regimes. The fourth-century background to the idea that the ‘Greeks of Asia’ had to be liberated from the Persians is examined by Seager and Tuplin (). On liberation from tyranny as royal ideology, see Versnel (); Niebergall (); Teegarden (); Wallace ().  Arr. Anab. ... Philhellenism as protection of cities: Michels (); Andrade (). Diod. Sic. .–; on Alexander’s protection of civic freedom, see Thonemann ().



 

the tyrant of Greece [sc. Alexander]’. The Diadochs naturally accused each other of being tyrants. In the third century, the Ptolemies equated the Seleukids with the Persians. When Seleukos added western Asia Minor to his empire and crossed the Hellespont into Thrace, he claimed to have come to restore democracy and autonomy to the poleis, as would later his descendant Antiochos III when he invaded Greece in . Seleukos’ son and successor, Antiochos I, was awarded divine honors by the Ionian League; a copy of the decree found at Klazomenai stresses that Antiochos in return was expected to protect the eleutheria, autonomia and dēmokratia of the Ionian cities. In order that [King Antiochos and] Queen Stratonike may know [what has been decreed by the koinon of the] Ionians in respect to the honors, (be it resolved) to choose immediately two (men) from each city who have [before this time] served as ambassadors to King [Antiochos, and for these] to deliver [to the king] this decree [from the koinon] of the Ionian cities . . . [and for them to accomplish whatever good] they may be able to for the koinon [of the cities]. And let the ambassadors [call upon] King [Antiochos] to take [every] care for the [Ionian] cities [in order that (the cities) being free and [being] democracies, may [with concord] continue to conduct their own internal political affairs according to (their) ancestral [laws].. . . And to have this decree inscribed on a stele, and (on it) the names and patronymics of the synedroi who have come from the cities, and placed in the sacred precinct by the altar of the kings; and that the dēmoi in the individual cities have this decree inscribed, and (on it) the names and patronymics of the synedroi, [and set up in whatever place] may seem most conspicuous.

Although their names are not given, the decree highlights the role of the intermediaries traveling between cities and court. These ambassadors are given a mandate to negotiate on behalf of the League. This implies that they may have been selected for their connections with the court and possibly their access to the king’s inner circle. In a decree of Smyrna for Seleukos II the city presents itself as the benefactor of the king. The context is the Third Syrian War (–), when Smyrna fought Magnesia-by-Sipylos because the troops stationed    

Diod. Sic. ..; cf. Plut. Vit. Alex. .–. During the Peloponnesian War, both Athens and Sparta claimed to champion the eleutheria of poleis (Raaflaub () –).  Funck (); Agut-Labordère (). Funck (). I.Erythrai , ll. –; OGI  (c.  BCE). Compare the Athenian decree in honor of Pharnakes (I.Délos ; discussed by Noreña, Chapter  in this volume), explicitly urging the king to make proper benefactions in return; in the context of the court, it was normal to ask gifts or benefactions from a person of higher status: see Strootman (c) –. In both the Jerusalem Charter, cited above, and the letter of Ptolemy II to Miletos, below, kings acknowledge benevolences of cities toward themselves.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



there had gone over to Ptolemy III. The leaders of Smyrna remained loyal to Seleukos, and they finally negotiated a peace settlement in the king’s name with the troops that occupied the citadel of Magnesia. The inscription consists of three parts. The first two deal with the aforementioned negotiations and the awarding of citizenship to the soldiers in Magnesia in return for their surrender. The part quoted here honors Seleukos II for supporting Smyrna’s autonomy and his efforts to find universal recognition for the asylia of the sanctuary of Aphrodite Stratonikis. Resolved by the dēmos, proposal of the stratēgoi. Whereas previously, at the time when King Seleukos crossed over into the Seleukis [sc. NW Syria], when many and great perils beset our city and territory, the dēmos maintained its good-will (eunoia) and friendship (philia) toward him . . . , as has been its way from the beginning; wherefore King Seleukos too, being disposed piously toward the gods and lovingly toward his parents, being magnanimous and knowing how to return gratitude to those who benefit him, honored our city, on account of the good-will of the dēmos and the zeal which it evinced for his affairs . . . ; and he confirmed for the dēmos its autonomia and dēmokratia, and he wrote to the kings and the dynasts and the cities and the leagues, asking that the temple of Aphrodite Stratonikis be inviolable and our city sacred and inviolable.

The philia between Smyrna and Seleukos is no hollow phrase. In its dealings with Magnesia, Smyrna represented Seleukos and defended his interests as their own. This is what philoi are supposed to do for each other. The emphasis on reciprocity in this inscription shows how cities were entangled with empires, rather than unilaterally subjugated by empires.

The Entanglement of Civic and Imperial Elites Kings may have been the embodiment of justice; they never prescribed cities the law. Not even the rich contemporaneous documentation from Babylon – a city centrally located and firmly integrated in the Seleukid    

Wörrle (). I.Smyrna .I + II  p. , ll. –; a favorable response to this request has been preserved in Delphi (OGI ). On philia, see Herman (); Konstan (); Belfiore (). The Hellenistic image of the king as ‘Law Incarnate’ (Nomos Empsuchos; cf. e.g. Arr. Anab. ..–; Plut. Vit. Alex. .–; Mor. a) has nothing to do with (city) government and can better be understood as the king being the embodiment of Justice in the context of imperial universality; pace Aalders (), Ramelli () and Brock (), who all believe that this commonplace derives



 

imperial framework – contains any indication that the dynasty or its surrogates ever actually took the government of that city in their own hands. What these sources reveal instead is a complex, reciprocal system of local-imperial negotiations. A mutually dependent system of local and royal support existed in Seleukid Jerusalem too. Here, imperial engagement with local politics was restricted to supporting particular individuals and factions in the context of local concepts and institutions, combined with benefactions to the sanctuary of the city’s tutelary deity, Yahweh. Jerusalem’s location in a contested frontier zone and the coexistence of pro-Seleukid and proPtolemaic factions within the Judaic elite explains why, in contrast to Babylon, power struggles in Jerusalem eventually became so violent. O’Neil has shown that in civic inscriptions from Hellenistic poleis kings occasionally appear in the capacity of mediators but avoided giving direct orders and made sure to embed their ‘suggestions’ in local law and institutions, often delegating decisions to the dēmos. A revealing example is provided by the so-called Tyrants Dossier from Eresos, a series of inscriptions recording how (the descendants of ) exiles, who had been banished from Eresos in the early years of Alexander’s reign, appealed to a succession of kings – Alexander III, Philip III and Antigonos I – to be granted permission to return; the kings, however, consistently deferred the decision to the Eresian dēmos, which on each occasion refused. The only known instances of kings actually influencing civic law are late and concern cities highly integrated in the monarchical framework (Larisa and Thessalonike in the reign of Philip V). All this does not yet tell us who made, or influenced most, the decision of the ‘people’. Recent scholarship has emphasized the reciprocal, interactive nature of regime change after the Macedonian conquests. This usually was a complex, prolonged process in which the co-opting of disenfranchised elite groups was key. Agut-Labordère recently showed how the

 

  

from Greek, viz., Platonic or Stoic philosophy (Achaemenid royal ideology provides a more plausible background: see Xen., Cyr. ..; App. Syr. .). Van der Spek (); Boiy () . Kosmin (), (b); Strootman (b); Stevens (). Also see Hoover (), arguing that the iconography on civic coins from Seleukid Phoenicia can be studied as a form of negotiation between city and empire. For the latter point: Strootman (a); Honigman (). On the dynamics of city–empire interactions in Seleukid Jerusalem, see Ma (b). O’Neil (); cf. Habicht (). Also see Gauthier (), arguing that Hellenistic kings promoted the employment of foreign arbitrators by poleis to settle internal disputes.  Ellis-Evans () –. O’Neil () –.

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

Ptolemies assumed the role of liberators in Egypt by amalgamating local anti-Assyrian traditions and Greco-Macedonian ideas about the oppressive Persians (with whom the Seleukids could then be conveniently equated) in cooperation with the Memphite priesthood. This author has argued that the alleged ‘traditional’ kingship assumed by the Seleukids in Babylon was in fact a composite cultural memory created through a process of negotiation between local and imperial agents, in which local and imperial ideologies merged. The pattern that emerges is that when conquest took place, empires co-opted on an ad hoc basis elites that had been alienated by the former imperial rulers, or at least tried to benefit from factional strife within civic elites. Through their contacts with the court, and often their use of koinē Greek, along with the adoption of courtly behavior and sometimes additional Greek personal names, these local imperial agents ‘code switched’ between imperial and local identities until these finally and inevitably merged. In the Aegean something different was going on. We already saw the inscription from Miletos honoring Antiochos for planning to build a stoa for the benefit of the Didymaion. We saw how in this decree a Milesian, Demodamas, proposed the motion. This Demodamas is the same as the famous Seleukid stratēgos who campaigned in Central Asia and is mentioned by Pliny because he ordered the construction, or reconstruction, of sanctuaries for Apollo Didymaios on the banks of the river Jaxartes (Syr Darya) to symbolically demarcate the extent of the Seleukid world empire. The identification is confirmed by another Milesian decree, issued a year later: Concerning those things which Demodamas son of Aristeides gave public notice, that Apame wife of Seleukos, the king, should be honored, the boulē and the dēmos have decided: Since Apame the queen formerly showed much goodwill and kindness concerning those of Miletos campaigning with King Seleukos . . .

The decrees mentioning Demodamas are dated shortly after Seleukos’ and Lysimachos’ joint victory against the Antigonids at Ipsos. This victory more or less ended the Third War of the Diadochs (–). Seleukos’   

 Agut-Labordère (). Strootman (b); followed by Stevens ().  Strootman (b). Plin. HN .. I.Didyma  (/ BCE), ll. –. Because Apama, daughter of Spitamenes, belonged to the east Iranian nobility, Seleukos’ campaigns in eastern Iran/Central Asia (/–) presumably are referred to here; cf. Robert (). On Apama’s role as queen in the west, see Harders () and Ramsey ().



 

Milesian commanders apparently returned home after the battle and arranged the philia between Miletos and the victorious Seleukids. An important observation can be made here: in the polis–empire negotiations taking place in early third-century Miletos, the person representing the polis and the person representing the empire turns out to be the same person. Miletos was for the Seleukids what Edinburgh was for the British Empire in the nineteenth century: not a city subjugated and exploited by a foreign colonial power but a cornerstone of the empire. This makes the case of Miletos fundamentally different from Babylon or Jerusalem, where local elites were co-opted by the empire. In Aegean cities like Miletos, local elites by contrast were the empire. As a powerful philos of the Seleukid house, Demodamas of course may have been a special case – and Miletos and Didyma certainly were especially important for the early Seleukids. But evidence from other poleis reveals a pattern. Of the approximately seventy-five high-ranking Seleukid officials whose names and cities of origin have been recorded in the narrative sources,  percent came from poleis in and around the Aegean; for the Ptolemies, the total number of leading Greeks identifying themselves with Aegean poleis is on average about  percent (the others are mainly citizens of Alexandria). That there was indeed dissension within the elite of Miletos is suggested by a decree of the Ionian League in honor of the Milesian Hippostratos, a leading philos and stratēgos of Seleukos’ enemy, Lysimachos. The decree, preserved in two copies, one from Smyrna and one from Miletos, was issued a decade after the last proposal by Seleukos’ man, Demodamas: Resolved by the koinon of the Ionians. Whereas Hippostratos, son of Hippodemos, of Miletos, a philos of King Lysimachos and appointed stratēgos in charge of the cities of the Ionians, continues to treat in a friendly and beneficent way each city individually and the Ionians as a whole, with good fortune, be it resolved by the koinon of the Ionians: to praise Hippostratos son of Hippodemos for his virtue and the good-will which he continues to hold toward the koinon of the Ionians.. . . And to erect a bronze equestrian statue of him in the Panionion; and for two cities to be chosen to see to it that the statue of Hippostratos is erected.. . . The cities chosen were Miletos and Arsinoeia.

  

Meijering (). See the tables and references in Strootman () –; reprinted in (a) –; cf. O’Neil (), (). Syll. A (/ BCE); trans. Burstein.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



Though here honors are not given to the king directly but to his local representative, the pattern is similar as in the two Demodamas inscriptions: the imperial general honored for his goodwill toward the Ionian poleis is himself a man from one of the Ionian poleis. With the defeat and death of Lysimachos at Koroupedion in February , Seleukos acquired the Macedonian royal title, and the Seleukid house must have been seen by all as the single most powerful dynasty in the Aegean and beyond. Seleukos spent the following months organizing the western parts of his empire, sending out generals to Phrygia and Pontos and receiving embassies from poleis, before traveling on to Thrace and Macedon. We do not know where Seleukos resided after Koroupedion – Miletos or Ephesos being likely candidates – but the nearness of the court induced also smaller communities to send envoys in order to obtain (confirmation of ) polis rights. The Athymbrians, a community whose identity focused on a cult of Hades and Kore, requested ἱκεσία, ἀσυλία and ἀτέλεια for their communal sanctuary. The preserved reply – issued in the name of both kings, Seleukos and his son Antiochos – instructs a certain Sopatros, presumably a Seleukid stratēgos in Karia, to give the Athymbrians a favorable reply: [King] Seleukos and Antiochos to Sopat[ros, greeting]. The Athymbrians [having sent] to us [as envoys] Iatrokles, Artemidoros and Timotheos concerning their [right of receiving suppliants, their inviolability, and their tax-exemption] . . . [For it has always been our policy] through benefactions [to please] the citizens [of the Greek cities] . . . and to join in increasing [the honors] of the gods, [so that we may be the object of goodwill] transmissible for all time [to those who come after] us. We are convinced that in previous times we have given [many great] proofs of (our) personal [reverence, and] now also, to be consistent with [our actions from the beginning, we grant] to all the temples which [have received the right of inviolability] . . .

That the three delegates are mentioned by name may seem no more than conventional. But it is a conscious choice. By being mentioned in a letter of the king, the delegates are publicly awarded the king’s favor: it is made known that they have been granted access to the king’s presence (and by   

Memnon . In the same year, Seleukos granted a royal title to Mithradates I of Pontos (Strabo ..; cf.; App. Mithr. .; Plut. Vit. Demetr. ; cf. Steph. Byz. Ethnica, s. v. ‘Ancyra’). On Athymbra, probably a newly founded constituent community of the city of Nysa, see Cohen () . Syll. , I ( BCE); the preserved letter was part of a reissue of privilege documents for the Athymbrian Ploutonion in  BCE.



 

being allowed to make their request in public, their request was granted) and there can be little doubt that these men derived substantial prestige from the letter in their native city. Around  a pro-Ptolemaic faction came to power in Miletos with the assistance of Ptolemaic troops. A letter of Ptolemy II offering benefactions to the Milesians discloses the role of intermediaries – both high-ranking agents (the king’s son and the well-known admiral Kallikrates of Samos) and philoi: King Ptolemy to the boulē and the dēmos of the Milesians, greeting. I have in former times shown all zeal on behalf of your city, both giving land and exercising care in all other matters, as was proper because I saw that our father was kindly disposed toward the city and was responsible for many benefits for you and relieved you of harsh and oppressive taxes and tolls which certain of the kings had imposed. Now also, as you have guarded fittingly your city and your friendship and alliance with us – for my son and Kallikrates and the other philoi who are with you have written me what a demonstration you have made of your good-will (εὐνοία) toward us – we consequently praise you highly and shall try to requite your people through benefactions, and we call upon you for the future to maintain the same policy toward us so that, this being the case, we may exercise even more care for your city. We have ordered Hegestratos to address you at greater length on these subjects and to give you our greeting. Farewell.

Ptolemy reminds the Milesians of his father’s and his own former benefactions and kindness toward the Milesians before urging them to preserve their friendship and (military) alliance (φιλία καὶ συμμαχία). References to past kindness often appear in royal letters and the civic decrees issued in response to them. It means quite plainly that something is expected in return. This places royal euergetism in Greek or Hellenized cities firmly in the context of philia with its obligations of loyalty and mutual assistance. To think of this as a ‘charade’ makes no sense. The ritualized giftexchange that is the fuel of philia creates very real obligations for both 

  

On the rules and rituals of royal audience, see Strootman (a) –; for the Athymbrian delegation’s actual presence at court (rather than having appealed to Seleukos indirectly through Sopatros), see Orth () –, and for the significance of being granted an audience with the king for the social status of citizens, see Allen (); cf. Dreyer and Mittag () , defining local elites as individuals or groups who tried to monopolize communication with imperial rulers on behalf of their cities. On ‘favor’, see Strootman (b). RC  (c./ BCE) = Milet. I , A. Note that Ptolemy in this letter honors the Milesians for their goodwill. Pace Veyne () ; the element of reciprocity is stressed by Bringmann () . For the pivotal place of φιλία in the vocabulary of Greek interstate relations, see Panessa () –; Chaniotis () ; Paschidis ().

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



parties precisely because of its solemn and public nature and its being documented for all eternity on stone and set up in a public space. In honor-driven, premodern societies personal bonds of ritualized friendship like Greek-style philia were strong bonds. In fact, philia could only be broken if the other party could be convincingly accused of violating the philia, a radical step that, for example, the Athenians took vis-à-vis Philip V in  (and which was exceptional enough to be recorded by Polybius and Livy). The insistence in royal letters and civic decrees on the continued fulfillment of mutual obligations stresses this aspect of perpetuity in a philia relationship. In a decree of Miletos in response to the letter cited above, the obligations of friendship and alliance between the Milesians and Ptolemy I are continued by his son and successor, Ptolemy II. As usual, the dēmos is presented as the principal authority of the polis: Resolved by the dēmos; proposal of the epistatai; Peithenous son of Tharsagoras spoke: . . . since the dēmos had previously chosen friendship and alliance (φιλία καὶ συμμαχία) with the god and savior Ptolemy, it happened that the city became prosperous and renowned and that the dēmos was judged worthy of many great goods, for which reasons the dēmos honored him with the greatest and most noble honors; and (whereas) his son, King Ptolemy, having succeeded him, and having renewed the friendship and alliance with the city, has shown all zeal in promoting the interests of the Milesians, giving land and arranging the peace for the dēmos and being responsible for other good things for the city, and now, when many great wars overtook us by land and sea and the enemy attacked our city from the sea, the king, having learned that the city honored its philia and alliance with him, dispatched letters and the ambassador Hegestratos and praises the dēmos for its policy and promises to take all care for the city and to requite it even more with benefactions and calls upon the dēmos to maintain its philia toward him in the future as well . . .

Local factional strife became connected to inter-dynastic rivalry. Kings tried to bring on board the enemies of the ruling families if a city was supporting a rival empire. In /, the pro-Ptolemaic Peithenous, a member of the Milesian boulē, successfully proposed friendship and alliance between the Milesians and Ptolemy II. Although the inscription does not explicitly say so, it is likely that Peithenous was a member of Ptolemy’s network of philoi.  

See Noreña, Chapter  in this volume. On the pivotal importance of gift exchange at the Hellenistic royal courts, see Strootman (c) –.  Livy, ..–, following Polybius (cf. ..). Milet. I , B (c. / BCE).



 

Fifteen years later, the tables were turning again in Miletos, as we read in this letter of Seleukos II in which new names turn up: King Seleukos to the council and the people of Miletos, greetings. Whereas our ancestors and our father have conferred many great benefits upon your city because of the oracles given out from the sanctuary there of Apollo Didymaios and because of kinship to the god himself and also because of the gratitude of your people; whereas from your other measures taken with reference to our state in the past – these have been pointed out by our father’s friends – and from the speech delivered by your envoys Glaukippos and Diomandros who brought the holy wreath from the sanctuary with which you had crowned us, we ourselves see that you preserve sincere and firm your esteem for your friends and that you remember the favors which you have received, we approved your policy, and as we both desired and considered it very important to raise [your city] to a more illustrious state and [to increase your present] privileges [in the way you asked].

The accepted date for this inscription, , suggests that the Milesian envoys, Glaukippos and Diomandros, traveled to the court for the occasion of Seleukos II’s inauguration – a typical ‘great event’ of the dynasty, announced well in advance to attract powerful people and envoys to the itinerant imperial center. There they were allowed to publicly give a gift and establish a philia bond between the Milesian dēmos and the new king. A request made to a king in public at such an occasion, whether by an individual or a polis, could not easily be refused. What a king could do, however, was to negotiate in advance and then to regulate access to his person by creating a protective shield of intermediaries around him. This means that at ceremonial occasions where gifts could be given and favors could be asked, requests made by ambassadors and other petitioners likely had been approved by the court in advance. A letter of Eumenes II in response to a resolution passed by the Ionian League reveals an interesting variant of this mechanism: King Eu[menes to the League of the Ionians, greeting]. Of your envoys, Menekles did not appear before me, but Eirenias and Archelaos meeting me in Delos delivered a fine and generous decree in which you began by saying that I, having chosen from the start the finest actions and having shown myself a common benefactor of the Greeks, had undertaken many and great struggles against the barbarians, exercising all zeal and forethought that the inhabitants of the Greek cities might always dwell in peace and in the best  

I.Didyma  = OGI  (c.  BCE). For politics of access at royal courts, see Winterling (); cf. Strootman (b), for the Hellenistic imperial courts.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



condition.. . . Wherefore, in order that you might show that you always return fitting honors to your benefactors, you have resolved to crown us with a gold crown of valor, to set up a gold statue in whatever spot of Ionia I may wish, and to proclaim the honors in the games celebrated by you and throughout the cities in the (games) held in each.. . . The honors I accept kindly and having never failed, as far as it lay in [my] power, to confer always something of what pertains to [honor and glory] both upon all in common and individually by city, I shall now try not to diverge from such a precedent.. . . I shall present you with sufficient revenues from which you will be able to [establish] our memory suitably. The gold statue I shall make myself, because I desire that [the] favor should be altogether without expense for the League.

What is interesting about this inscription are not the honors as such but the king’s refusal of part of the honors: by paying for the statue from his private funds, Eumenes is able to moderate the reciprocal obligations on his own part without offending his Ionian philoi. John Ma has made a compelling case for understanding the language of the decrees as discourse. According to Ma, honorific decrees should be seen not as mirroring negotiations but as a form of negotiation themselves: cities addressed kings with the rhetoric of philia and euergesia in order to oblige them to act in accordance with this ideology; kings for their part publicly employed the same idiom in order to force the poleis to remain grateful and loyal. Public inscriptions evidently had this function. Generations later, inscribed or archived royal letters were still used to influence rulers or resolve internal disputes. A problem with this interpretation, however, is the underlying notion of an ideological and political opposition of city and empire. If, however, we accept the alternative view that cities and empires were politically, economically and socially interwoven components of the same, globalizing ‘Hellenistic’ world, it is more plausible that the terms of the philia between polis and basileus, as expressed in civic decrees, were agreed upon, or enforced, before the definitive formulation of these

  



 RC , ll. – = OGI  (/ BCE); trans. Welles. Ma (a). For this latter aspect, also see Ma (b). E.g. RC  (cited above) and RC  = IGLSyr VII  B + C (letter of a Seleukid king to Arados concerning the granting of asylia to the sanctuary of Zeus Baitokaikes). On the presence of Hellenistic kings in civic archives, see Boffo (); cf. Ellis-Evans () –. See e.g. Ma () – and , understanding the language of the decrees as a means for cities to present a favorable version of unfavorable and ‘potentially traumatic occurrences’, and royal euergetism more generally as a means ‘to represent, or camouflage, power as benefactions’.



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decrees. We may then allow for the possibility that royal honors were negotiated and proposed by internal imperial agents.

Conclusion: World Empire and Local Autonomy In this chapter, Hellenistic euergetism has been considered in the context of competing empires in need of civic support. Material benefactions were rare, and mainly directed toward sanctuaries, that is, given to a deity rather than the dēmos. The most common form of royal benefactions to cities in the Hellenistic world were immaterial: acknowledgment and protection of the autonomy and the rights of (urban) communities. In practice, this often entailed the patronage of specific families or groups within those communities. In return, the dynasties expected loyalty, military support and access to the resources they needed. Royal euergetism was reciprocal in practice as well as ideology. In practical terms, royal euergetism was part and parcel of the entanglement of city and empire in the Hellenistic Aegean and the complex processes of negotiation between them. It was difficult for kings to actually subjugate poleis and near impossible to ‘rule’ them. These premodern empires lacked the necessary military capabilities, administrative sophistication and modern means of communication. The mutual goodwill (eunoia) that was at the root of imperial hegemonies over Aegean poleis moreover was based on the Macedonian kings’ pledge to protect civic autonomy. Imperial interventions in civic politics were typically aimed at bringing or restoring to power certain factions within the civic elites. That too could be framed as liberation (from ‘tyranny’, or from the other king’s garrison). From an ideological perspective, the bestowing of specific forms of civic freedom – autonomia, eleutheria, dēmokratia – on poleis was part of a wider imperial ideology of liberation and the establishment of universal peace. The Hellenistic period’s emphasis on these values as prerequisites for being a polis was thus more than the intensification of a specific set of civic concepts. It was the cross-fertilization of civic and imperial ideologies. This cross-fertilization of specifically Greek and more generic imperial ideas resulted from the importance of Aegean poleis for the empires and the predominance of Greek philoi at the imperial courts. All empires made use of the same networks of ritualized friendship (xenia and philia) to approach the poleis. Because friends and envoys of rival dynasties could be present in a polis at the same time and because 

Strootman (a) –.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



these rival dynasties competed partly by means of beneficence, poleis had a relatively good bargaining position. In the early second century, Antiochos III’s empire for a brief period of time could be seen as the world’s single superpower: Antiochos had restored Seleukid authority over the Upper Satrapies, defeated the Ptolemies in Palestine, and was now present with his army in Asia Minor. The poleis of Asia Minor had no choice but to yield to the Great King of Asia. But soon enough his supremacy was challenged by the Romans, who appropriated Antiochos’ claim of liberating the Greek cities and took over the Ptolemaic image of the Seleukid kings as neo-Persian despots. Again, the poleis could choose between parties eager to support them, though it turned out that this time they had to choose more carefully. Similar entanglements of city and empire existed also beyond the Aegean, for example, in Seleukid Babylonia, where comparable ideologies of liberation, restoration and protection were negotiated. What made the Aegean special is the fact that the generals and officials of the empires came from there and maintained direct lines of communication with their fellow citizens and families. In other words, imperial and local leaders often belonged to the same social groups and sometimes, as in the case of Demodamas of Miletos, were the same individuals. We still do not understand who the synedroi were who occupy such prominent places in the decrees, beyond their being commissioners, temporarily selected for specific purposes on an ad hoc basis. In the Milesian decrees they make legislative proposals. Because Demodamas is introduced as one of the synedroi, they may in similar contexts have been men chosen for their having access to international elite networks. Another elusive civic officeholder, the epistatēs, is sometimes given prominence too in the honorific decrees; though not to be seen as royal officials, the epistatai were representatives of the dynasty and members of the boulē; they too make legislative proposals. That cities possessed freedom (eleutheria) and self-government (autonomia) did not inevitably mean that they were also independent from empire. But the dependency was to a significant degree mutual. As was hypothesized in the introduction to this chapter, the violent inter-imperial competition in the post-Achaemenid Aegean must have caused massive financial strains on the empires. In order to gain supremacy, the imperial dynasties had to permanently maintain standing armies, occasionally raise huge campaigning armies, assemble large fleets that consisted of bigger ships than ever before and most of all finance the massive costs of siege 

Flamerie de Lachapelle ().



Dmitriev () –.



 

warfare (including expenditures for maintaining garrisons and for building and sustaining fortifications). It follows that empires more than ever were reliant on cities for the necessary resources and to access markets. The expansion of the use of coined money in the Hellenistic empires attest to this development. As a result, protection of cities became a pivotal element of imperial ideologies during the Hellenistic period. A correlation existed between the two forms of ritualized friendship discussed in this chapter. On the one hand, there is the use of philia terminology and ideology to describe, in royal letters and civic decrees alike, the relationship between dēmos and basileus, while the dynamics of polis–dynasty interaction are presented accordingly as reciprocal gift exchange and mutual aid. On the other hand, there is the very practical use of philia and xenia arrangements to create and operate the horizontal networks of interaction that connected local elites to each other and to the royal families. In civic decrees, deals are made with the dynasty in the name of the dēmos, which is presented as if it were a single person. That of course is entirely fictional. Deals are made by the people who make them, and it is significant above all that inscriptions mention by name these brokers – who likely derived status and influence, at the expense of their rivals, from their being mentioned as successful intermediaries. The dynamics of local euergesia and supra-local philia and xenia worked together in giving people of the poleis access to a wider world of globalizing empires. Together with Macedonian and Iranian aristocrats, these ‘Hellenes’ played leading political roles on a global stage, and their home cities derived substantial benefits from that. In the context of the Seleukid Empire they have been attested as imperial agents in eastern India (Megasthenes, a Ionian), Sogdia (Euthydemos of Magnesia), northern Iran (Nikomedes of Kos) and Italy (Hegesianax of Alexandreia Troas). The widening networks of transregional connectivity that poleis participated in during the Hellenistic period is also exemplified by the considerable increase in the number and spread of civic proxenia decrees that begins c.  and lasts until c.  BCE, when the number of proxenia decrees drops abruptly. 



Megasthenes as ambassador at Pātaliputra on the Ganges: Strabo ..; Euthydemos as military governor of Sogdia, and from  _viceroy of Seleukid Central Asia: Polyb. ..-; Nikomedes as cavalry commander in the Elburz region: Polyb. .. ( BCE); Hegesianax as envoy of Antiochos III at Rome: Livy, ..; App. Syr.  ( BCE). Mack (), with the interactive database published on the Proxeny Networks of the Ancient World (PNAW) website at proxenies.csad.ox.ac.uk; especially for the sharp rise in both the number of cities issuing proxenia and the total volume of proxenia decrees after , see the map and column chart under ‘Evidence’.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires



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G. Rouwhorst (eds.), Religies in interactie. Jodendom en Christendom in de Oudheid. Zoetermeer, –. (b) ‘“En in woede en razernij doodden zij de afvalligen”. Interactie van Joodse en Griekse cultuur in hellenistisch Palestina’, Leidschrift .: –. () ‘The Hellenistic royal courts: court culture, ceremonial and ideology in Greece, Egypt and the Near East, – BCE’, PhD dissertation, Utrecht University. () ‘Seleucid Era’, in E. Yarshater et al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia Iranica. Online at www.iranica.com; printed edition forthcoming. () ‘Queen of Kings: Cleopatra VII and the Donations of Alexandria’, in M. Facella and T. Kaizer (eds.), Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East. Stuttgart, –. (a) ‘Kings and cities in the Hellenistic Age’, in R. Alston, O. van Nijf and C. Williamson (eds.), Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Leuven, –. (b) ‘Hellenistic court society: the Seleukid imperial court under Antiochos the Great, – BCE’, in J. Duindam, M. Kunt and T. Artan (eds.), Royal Courts in Dynastic States and Empires: A Global Perspective. Leiden, –. (a) ‘Dynastic courts of the Hellenistic empires’, in H. Beck (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Greek Government. Malden, MA, –. (b) ‘Babylonian, Macedonian, king of the world: the Antiochos Cylinder from Borsippa and Seleukid imperial integration’, in E. Stavrianopoulou (ed.), Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period: Narrations, Practices, and Images. Leiden, –. (a) Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East after the Achaemenids, – BCE. Edinburgh. (b) ‘Hellenistic imperialism and the idea of world unity’, in C. Rapp and H. Drake (eds.), The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World: Changing Contexts of Power and Identity. Cambridge, –. (c) ‘“Men to whose rapacity neither sea nor mountain sets a limit”: the aims of the Diadochs’, in H. Hauben and A. Meeus (eds.), The Age of the Successors and the Creation of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, – B.C. Leuven, –. (d) ‘The dawning of a Golden Age: images of peace and abundance in Alexandrian court poetry in the context of Ptolemaic imperial ideology’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry in Context: Tenth International Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen th–th August . Leuven, –. (a) ‘Imperial Persianism: Seleukids, Arsakids, Fratarakā’, in R. Strootman and M. J. Versluys (eds.), Persianism in Antiquity. Stuttgart, –. (b) ‘Eunuchs, renegades and concubines: the “paradox of power” and the promotion of favorites in the Hellenistic empires’, in A. Erskine, L. Llewellyn-Jones and S. Wallace (eds.), The Hellenistic Royal Court. Swansea, –.

The Entanglement of Cities and Empires

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(c) The Birdcage of the Muses: Patronage of the Arts and Sciences at the Ptolemaic Imperial Court, – BCE. Leuven. () ‘The return of the king: civic feasting and the entanglement of city and empire in Hellenistic Greece’, in J. H. Blok, R. Strootman and F. van den Eijnde (eds.), Feasting and Polis Institutions. Leiden, –. () ‘Antiochos IV and Rome: the festival at Daphne (Syria), the Treaty of Apameia and the revival of Seleukid expansionism in the West’, in A. Coşkun and D. Engels (eds.), Rome and the Seleukid East: Select Papers from Seleukid Study Day V, Brussels, – August . Brussels, –. Teegarden, D. A. () Death to Tyrants! Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle against Tyranny. Princeton. Thomsen, A. () ‘Hellenistische Städte in Unteritalien’, in A. Matthaei and M. Zimmermann (eds.), Stadtbilder im Hellenismus. Berlin, –. Thonemann, P. () ‘Alexander, Priene, and Naulochon’, in P. Martzavou and N. Papazarkadas (eds.), Epigraphical Approaches to the Postclassical Polis: Fourth Century BC to Second Century AD. Oxford, –. Tilly, C. () Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD –. Cambridge, MA. Tucci, P. () ‘La democrazia di Polibio tra eredità classica e federalisme’, in C. Bearzot et al. (eds.), Gli stati territoriali nel mondo antico. Milan, –. Van de Mieroop, M. () The Ancient Mesopotamian City. Oxford. Van der Spek, R. J. () ‘The Babylonian city’, in A. Kuhrt and S. SherwinWhite (eds.), Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations From Syria to Central Asia After Alexander. Berkeley, –. Vanderkam, J. C. () From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile. Minneapolis. Versluys, M. J. () ‘Roman visual material culture as globalizing koinē’, in M. Pitts and M. J. Versluys (eds.), Globalisation and the Roman World: World History, Connectivity and Material Culture. Cambridge, –. () Visual Style and Constructing Identity in the Hellenistic World: Nemrud Dağ and Commagene under Antiochos I. Cambridge. Versnel, H. S. () ‘Isis, una quae es omnia: tyrants against tyranny: Isis as a paradigm of Hellenistic rulership’, in Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion I: Ter Unus. Isis, Dionysos, Hermes. Three Studies in Henotheism. Leiden, –. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. Wallace, S. () ‘The freedom of the Greeks in the early Hellenistic period: a study in ruler–city relations’, PhD dissertation, Edinburgh. () ‘Defending the freedom of the Greeks: Antigonos, Telesphoros, and the Olympic Games of  B.C.’, Phoenix .–: –. Wallace-Hadrill, A. () ‘Patronage in Roman society: from Republic to Empire’, in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society. London, –.

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Weber, G. () ‘Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus’, in A. Winterling (ed.), Zwischen Haus und Staat. Antike Höfe im Vergleich. Munich, –. Winterling, A. () ‘“Hof”. Versuch einer idealtypischen Bestimmung anhand der mittelalterlichen und neufru¨hzeitlichen Geschichte’, in R. Butz, J. Hirschbiegel and D. Willoweit (eds.), Hof und Theorie. Cologne, –. Wolf, M. () Die Agora von Solunt. Öffentliche Gebäude und öffentliche Räume des Hellenismus im griechischen Westen. Wiesbaden. Wörrle, M. () ‘Der Friede zwischen Milet und Magnesia. Methodische Probleme einer Communis opinio’, Chiron : –. Zuiderhoek, A. () ‘The icing on the cake: benefactors, economics and public buildings in Roman Asia Minor’, in S. Mitchell and C. Katsari (eds.), Patterns in the Economy of Roman Asia Minor. Swansea, –. () ‘On the political sociology of the imperial Greek city’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies : –. () The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge. () ‘Controlling urban public space in Roman Asia Minor’, in T. BekkerNielsen (ed.), Space, Place and Identity in Northern Anatolia. Stuttgart, –.

 

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos John Tully

‘The Cycladic islands dance around Delos.’ Callimachus’ famous phrase is the most notable example of a trope which runs throughout our ancient sources for the Cyclades and which has long been accepted by modern scholars: that the island of Delos with its great sanctuary to Apollo was geographically and culticly central to the Cyclades. The rich surviving monumental and epigraphic record also makes it possible to reconstruct a social history of the practice of benefaction. Through the surviving annual inventories recorded by the overseers of the sanctuary, we can trace the ‘afterlife’ of specific benefactions and series of benefactions: how long each individual gift was recognised after the initial bestowal and how long a series continued. We can also evaluate how each successive benefaction affected its ‘predecessors’. In this chapter, I focus specifically on the ‘vase festivals’, a series of endowments attested from the early third to the mid-second centuries BCE. These festivals have been much discussed in previous literature, but from a different angle: to understand their significance as date-markers for changes in control in what historians still often see as a sequence of external control by the various Hellenistic kings in the Aegean. 

This extrapolation has long been controversial among scholars of Delos. See Kolbe () –, especially –; Roussel () –, especially : ‘On s’expose à une grave désillusion si l’on croit que l’histoire des Cyclades y est inscrite en même temps que l’histoire du sanctuaire délien’; Bikerman (), especially –; Will (–) :–; Bruneau () –, especially – and –, reiterated at Bruneau ()  and at Bruneau () , and more generally –. Nevertheless, it remains the norm. One illustration is the common hypothesis connecting the first vase in the third Ptolemaic sequence with the problematic battle of Andros, accepted by many including Heckel () : ‘late  . . . or perhaps in ’; Walbank in Hammond, Griffith and Walbank (–) :– and –, especially : ‘ or (more probably) in ’, and his timeline at ; Hammond () : ‘’; Errington () : ‘’; Reger () : ‘late  or early ’; Reger (a) : ‘ or  B.C.’; Reger (b) : ‘late  or early  B.C.’; Shipley () : ‘possibly c. ’. This chapter fundamentally approaches empire in a similar way to Strootman’s Chapter  in this volume, specifically in the vision that they were ‘dynamic and intersecting networks of interaction’, in the emphasis on the strength of





 

The conclusions here cast doubt on the hegemonic frame of that interpretation. My primary focus, however, is the insight that the uniquely rich evidence from Delos provides on euergetistic practice. We see royal benefactors participating in a socially constrained practice in a fashion which is directly equivalent to that of local Delians, thus reinforcing this volume’s theme around the continued importance of strong social cues into the Hellenistic period. Both insights arise in large part from reframing the questions scholars ask. When scholars have addressed these benefactions as a category, they have asked: What is the significance of the royal dedications on Delos? and not: What is the significance of dedications on Delos? Even Bruneau did this, separating discussion on what he termed the four great dynasties the Ptolemies, Antigonids, Seleucids and Attalids) from his broader debate for good reason: it is a hundred-page discussion. It also enabled him to speak directly to the existing historical debate. In so doing, however, he also implicitly supported the validity of discussing those monarchs’ activity and benefactions semi-independently of the broader religious life of the sanctuary and island. He made it more difficult to identify the Delian social euergetistic context in which these ‘royal’ festivals occurred. In this chapter I want to ask this different question: What is the significance of the dedications on Delos? If we embed these royal festivals in their Delian euergetistic context, what does that suggest both for their immediate significance and for any possible connection with outside ‘grande histoire’? I argue in short that this apparent evidence of hegemony and royal exceptionalism will become something quite different: evidence of competition, that is, evidence of socially determined attempts to claim privileged positions. But this is not evidence of an attempt to insist on an exclusive position, let alone of its acceptance by the broader community in the sanctuary.

Delos as a Space for Competition and Display: Festivals In this context, I first outline the festival calendar on Delos, to answer the question, How unusual were the royal festivals? In doing so, I first trace cities’ bargaining position and on the ‘entanglements’ between the two. He focusses on how royal gift-exchange formed part of the broader royal–city relationship and entanglement. This chapter concentrates more on how the relationship was encoded in civic norms. Specifically for one city, Delos, it emphasises the strength of the civic norms which the kings and elites negotiated in the middle Hellenistic period and the contemporaneity of kings’ dedications as a form of non-exclusive competition.

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



out the overall calendar in which these vase endowments were created before then turning to the endowments themselves. Ideally, I would start with the archaic and classical period, but we are unfortunately not able to trace the broader festival cycle of archaic and classical Delos. Instead, our knowledge of festivals before the Hellenistic period is essentially limited to Thucydides’ brief history in the context of the Athenian ‘restoration’ of the Dēlia in  and the reference in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which Thucydides also cites, to Ionians gathering on Delos. For Thucydides, the Dēlia had faded from its earlier glory to involve just dancing and sacrifice until the Athenians restored games and added a new competition: the horse race. Neither source mentions other contemporary festivals which would have provided opportunities for the community to gather under different auspices and which may have been sponsored by other groups. Such festivals presumably did exist. For an earlier period, they are also perhaps implied by the multiple treasuries/oikoi erected in the late sixth and early fifth century or epigraphically attested. Thucydides is, however, not interested in them. The few epigraphic references which do survive also offer little from which to contextualise his discussion of the Dēlia. The period from the late fourth to the early second centuries is, however, another matter. This is because of the multiple inscriptions which survive from Delos, including multiple inventory lists and accounts inscribed by the temple authorities which were painstakingly published by Durrbach and meticulously revised by Tréheux and Bryn Mawr’s Richard Hamilton. These accounts and inventories enable us to trace much of the  

 

Thuc. . and Hymn. Hom. Ap. –; – is cited by Thucydides. Five oikoi are epigraphically attested on Delos, belonging to the Andrians, Delians, Carystians, Ceans and Naxians. Of these oikoi, only the oikos of the Naxians is securely identified to the south of the sanctuary: Bruneau and Ducat () –. Additional oikoi have also been suggested for Myconos and Paros. See Vallois () :–; Hellmann and Fraisse (); Tréheux (); Bruneau and Ducat (). Oikoi: Delian scholars generally refer to several small buildings with cella and pronaos architecturally attested on Delos as oikoi, following the language used by the Delian inscriptions. At Delphi and Olympia, buildings of similar plan are called treasuries, following the descriptions in Strabo and Pausanias of such buildings as θησαυροί. On Delian oikoi more generally, see briefly Tréheux (); Bruneau and Ducat () ; on treasuries more generally: Neer () – and Rups (). On festivals on Delos in the fifth and fourth centuries, see Chankowski (), –, especially – for a collation of epigraphic testimonia. IG XI. and I.Délos – (fascicules one and two) for accounts and inventory lists from the period of Delian ‘independence’ (i.e. –/). Tréheux () : suggests that Durrbach paid more attention to the accounts than to the inventories because of the accounts’ greater value for the financial, religious and architectural history of the sanctuary. Whether so or not, the multiple revisions and wide-ranging commentary which Tréheux offers render many of the texts offered by Durrbach essentially obsolete. It is deeply regrettable that Tréheux seems never to have completed



  Table . Festivals attested on early Hellenistic Delos God

Festival

Month

Apollo Dionysus Artemis

Apollonia Dionysia Artemisia Britomartia Aphroditia Heraea Thesmophoria Nyctophylaea Eilithyaea Poseidonia

Hieros () Galaxion () Galaxion () Artemision () Hecatombaion () Metageitnion () Metageitnion () Aresion () Posideion () Posideion ()

Aphrodite Hera Demeter, Core Eileithyia Poseidon

religious calendar of the city and sanctuary. We can envisage the range and timing of established festivals that can be reconstructed by identifying the festivals attested in the early inventory lists which are not there explicitly associated with historical figures. I focus only on the festivals attested in the early inventory lists which are • • •

not there associated with historical figures seem to have been annual seem to have included some communal element beyond a sacrifice, whether through references to a chorus, torch race, or banquet.

I identify ten festivals in Table ., honouring gods ranging from Apollo (Apollonia) to Demeter (Thesmophoria). Some of these festivals are much better attested than others, but the very number illustrates the dynamic religious context. Even the earliest festivals founded in the Hellenistic period were not created in a vacuum but instead found a place in this broader religious canvas. Just as one endowed festival did not replace another endowed festival, so too they did not replace these pre-existing



his study. Bruneau (), Vial () and, especially, Hamilton () do, however, evaluate many of Tréheux’s conclusions and revisions that are relevant to their own projects. Other cultic references not explicitly including choruses, banquets or torch races are omitted. For a summary including later festivals only attested after /, see Bruneau () –. Cf. for a comparable overview of Athenian festivals illustrating the diversity of gods there honoured: Parker () –, with table at –. Note that the Eilithyaea (Posideion, month twelve) is attested in different parts of the sanctuary in  and , a salutary reminder against insisting on possibly ahistorical rigour and consistency. In addition, a festival to Hermes is known after /. Dedications by torch-runners to Hermes suggest it may have existed earlier: Bruneau () . A festival to Leto (Artemision, month four) is attested only once, in : Bruneau () –.

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



festivals. Instead, they coexisted as part of a broader rhythm not just of religious life in the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos but of life on Delos as a whole. This is the context in which we can now turn to the ‘vase festivals’. The ‘vase’ part of the name refers to the fact that the overwhelming majority of references to these festivals come in the form of sequences of identical offerings made across multiple years which are annually mentioned in the inventories of the sanctuary. Rarely, there are also references to expenditure and other contextual clues. Most commonly, however, they are just lists. I cite one example from IG XI. : ‘a phialē of the Delian maidens, a gesture of thanks by King Ptolemy, with Xeno as tamias; a phialē of the Delians, a gesture of thanks by King Ptolemy, with Telemnestos as epistates; a phialē of the Delians, a gesture of thanks by King Ptolemy, the Menyllus as tamias’, and so on, for sixteen lines of the inscription. These lists have been incredibly useful – they are, for example, critical to the initial decoding of the Delian archon list on which much of our earliest chronology for the Hellenistic period depends. They are very repetitive, and each list is identified with the name of the archon in which it was inscribed. As each inventory in a sequence should involve one new vase in a sequence, the order of the archons could be established. When 





As the primary religious sanctuary of Delos, which incorporated altars not just to Apollo, but also an Artemisium (Bruneau and Ducat () –, ), an altar to Athena (Bruneau and Ducat () ) and no doubt many more divinities, it is plausible that many of the festivals here discussed will have involved the sanctuary of Apollo in some way. We do not, however, need to insist that all of them did. For a sense of the scale, cf. Bruneau’s estimate that the community involved in the Poseidonia banquet was but ,–, people: Bruneau () , calculating specifically , and , for I.Délos  (early second century) and I.Délos  (). Duchêne and Fraisse ()  still follow Bruneau. φιάλη Δηλιάδων, χορεῖα ἐπιδόντος βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου, ταμίου Ξένωνος· φιάλη Δηλιάδων, χορεῖα ἐπιδόντος βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου, ἐπιστατοῦντος Τηλεμνήστου· φιάλη Δηλιάδων, χορεῖα ἐπιδόντος βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου, ταμία Μενύλλου· φιάλη Δηλιάδων, χορεῖα ἐπιδόντος βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου, ἐπιστατοῦντος Μνησιμάχου· See Homolle () , n. , developed by Durrbach (). Stesileus must date to  because that date is the latest possible date of the earliest attested archōn vase (for the Stēsilea). Homolle’s list was produced during the course of significant excavation on Delos and so was heavily revised early in its history, most notably by Durrbach (). Such efforts focused, however, on adjusting the fit between ancient archōn-years and the modern calendar, on finding space for additional archons as they were unearthed, and on solving specific areas where Homolle and then Durrbach remained less certain: notably the last two decades of the third century and the archōn-list before  (see Tréheux () :–, especially – and :–: for a detailed reanalysis, including , n. , for revised dates for the inventory lists of this period; for a more accessible overview, see Vial () –). The principles and underlying order of the archons established by Homolle were not challenged by Durrbach, Kolbe, Schulhof or any of the many other scholars who engaged in this debate then. More recent and more flexible approaches do not affect the logic of the argument here or change the vision of Delos as a locus of competitive rather than hegemonic display.



 

unpacked, these inscriptions point, among other dedications, to fifteen series of royal dedications. They start with the First Ptolemaea started traditionally around , and continue to a last series, the Philippaea, presumably connected with Philip V of Macedon, first attested around . They are, however, not the only such dedications. Parallel series of nonroyal offerings were founded at approximately the same time and are attested in the same way. Again from IG XI. : ‘these were the offerings of the Thyestadae and the Ocyneidae: a phialē in the archonship of Philias; a phialē in the archonship of Aristocrites; a phialē in the archonship of Cleostrates; a phialē in the archonship of Glauciades’, and so on for a total of twenty-nine entries. Cumulatively, the festivals may be summarised as shown in Table .. The royal dedications have understandably been the focus of the scholarly debate mentioned above because of their identified significance for the broader Hellenistic chronology. To understand their significance as benefactions, however, the existence of these Delian parallels is significant. Modern scholars have implicitly discounted this Delian context in just analysing the royal festivals, the festivals on the left in Table .. Close analysis indicates, however, that there is widespread similarity between these different groups of offerings. These similarities point to social constraints on euergetistic practice in the sanctuary for benefactors, both royal and non-royal. Five distinct aspects bear discussion. . Similarity of presentation and treatment of the offerings . Similarity of offering and festival expenditure . Similar breadth of divine honorands and approach to the human– divine relationship . The profile of dedicators . Clustering of foundation dates



τούτων ἦσαν Θυεσταδῶν καὶ Ὠκυνειδῶν ἀνάθημα· ἐπὶ Φιλίου φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀριστοκρίτου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Ποσειδ[ί]κου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Κλεοστράτου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Γλαυκιάδου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Χάρμου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Ὑψοκλέους φιάλη· ἐπὶ Μενεκράτου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Σωσιμάχου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Φίλλιδος φιάλη· ἐπὶ Τηλεμνήστου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Μειλιχίδου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Χαρίλα φιάλη· ἐπὶ Καλλίμου φιάλη· ἐπὶ Μειλιχίδου τοῦ Ἐχεσθένου φιάλαι δύο· . . . ἐπὶ Προκλέους φιάλη· ἐπὶ Πολύβου φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀρχεδάμα φιάλη· ἐπὶ Ἐλπίνου φιάλαι δύο· ἐπὶ Φίλλιος φιάλη· ἐπὶ Θεοπρώτου φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀντιχάρου φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀντιγόνου φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀναξιθέμιδος φιάλη· ἐπ’ Ἀρτυσίλεω φιάλη· φιάλη Ὠκυνειδῶν καὶ Θυεσταδῶν, τρικτυαρχησάντων Αὐτοσθένους, Μενεκράτους· φιάλη Ὠκυνειδῶν καὶ Θυεσταδῶν, τρικτυαρχησάντων Γλαύκου, Ἀρχεδάμα· φιάλη Θυεσταδῶν καὶ Ὠκυνειδῶν, τρικτυαρχήσαντος Ἀριστοκλέους κα τὸ αὐτοῦ μέρος. κεφαλὴ Δ Δ Π ΙΙΙ.



Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos Table . Endowments on Delos Royal offering sequences Series name First date Connection Philadelphia  Hermias, Arsinoe II Philetaeria  Philetaerus Antigonia



Stratonicia Nicolaea

 

Second Ptolemaea Third Ptolemaea Sōtēria/ Antigonia Pania/ Antigonia Dēmētriaea Attalia Theuergesia



 – –

Philippia

–

  

Antigonus Gonatas Stratonice Nicolaus, Aetolian Ptolemy II Philopator Ptolemy III Euergetes Antigonus Gonatas Antigonus Gonatas Demetrius II Attalus I Ptolemy III Euergetes Philip V

Non-royal offering sequences Series name Stēsilea

First date Connection  Stesileus

Ōcyneidaea/  Thyestadaea Nēsiadia By 

Ocyneidae, Thyestadae Nesiades

Xenocleidaea Philoclia

By  c. 

Xenocleides Philocles

Echenicia

c. 

Echenice

Mapsichidaea



Mapsichidae

Philonidia



Philonis

Eutychia

c. 

Eutyches

Sōpatria Gorgieia Donacia

c.   –

Sopatrus Gorgias Donax

Pataecia

–

Pataecus

Similarity of Presentation and Treatment of the Offerings The Delians present the festivals in the same way on the inventories, and the evidence suggests that they also treated the offerings in the same way when storing and moving them. As Richard Hamilton and others have shown, the Delian officials followed different recording procedures at different times in the inventory lists. This fact, even beyond the different preservation state of the inventory lists themselves, explains why some festivals (those from the middle of the third century) can be more confidently and more closely dated than those from either earlier or later. At times, the Delians grouped together all the offerings from a specific offering occasion in a single list. At others, they listed together all the offerings made in a particular year before moving to the next list.



 

Importantly, however, on each occasion, the Delians present the royal and non-royal offerings in the same way in the inscriptions. To illustrate: IG XI. .B lists all the offerings from the Thyestadaea/Ōcyneidaea in lines –, and then continues to the Ptolemaea (ll. –). Conversely, in , I.Délos .A.– records offerings by year from the Donacia, Antigonia, Thyestadaea/Ōcyneidaea, Ptolemaea and Nicolaea. Note that this order is also the order of the dedications in the inscription – non-royal, royal, non-royal, royal, royal – intermixed royal and non-royal festivals. This order may reflect the order of the festivals during the year or the order in which the deposits were made, but it does not distinguish royal and non-royal offerings. As for my third point, this similarity of treatment was not just epigraphic. The Delian officials also physically treated the offerings in the same way. This point is, on one level, implicit in the inscriptions already cited because they are lists of offerings stored in specific buildings. As such, they already indicate that there were not special deposits of royal versus non-royal offerings. Tracing sequences of offerings indicates, however, that this physically similar treatment continued over time: when offerings were moved from inventory to inventory, they were moved together. To illustrate, offerings from the Ōcyneidaea/Thyestadaea and from the First Ptolemaea are originally attested in the Hieropoeum; in  or ; however, they moved to the oikos of the Andrians; in  were divided between the oikos of the Andrians and the temple of Apollo; and from  were all in the temple of Apollo. Over time, treatment of offerings changed, but no permutation or action ever seems to involve an implicit clustering or recognition of the royal and foreign endowments against the Delian endowments; instead, as in the examples above, any (re)arrangement involves royal, foreign and Delian endowments. To summarise, because the Delians presented and treated royal and non-royal offerings in the same way, I would argue that it is valid (and necessary) to consider the royal and non-royal offering sequences together when drawing any inference about the nature and significance of royal offering sequences.

Similarity of Offering and Festival Expenditure The lists of offerings and of expenditures on festivals indicate that the royal and foreign festivals were not noticeably larger or smaller in size than those of local donors. I offer two examples. First, most of the festivals resulted in

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



Table . List of expenditures for sacrifice associated with ten festivals (I.Délos .A.–) Festival

Expenditure (in drachms)

Philadelphia Eutychia Philetaeria Chersonesia Gorgieia Philoclia Stēsilea Echenicia Philonidia Nēsiadia Median

          

the dedication of a single phialē of a standard weight,  drachms, including all the royal dedications. There are exceptions, including incense-burners and a little cup. These tend to focus on the Micythaea and Stēsilea which are both early dedications. The overwhelming majority, however, including all the royal vase festivals, resulted in this standard dedication. Second, we also have one inscription that preserves the expenditure on sacrifice associated with ten festivals (see Table .). The list in Table . includes two royal festivals: the Philadelphia and the Philetaeria, and eight other festivals. Perhaps trivially, we may note that there is no grouping as per point () above. Instead, the royal and nonroyal festivals are listed together with no distinction. Furthermore, the expenditure for the royal festivals, at  drachms and  drachms, respectively, falls just below the middle of expenditure attested, which 

The extreme case is the Micythaea, where σκάφια μικύθεια (e.g. I.Délos .B., .B.b.), an ἀργυρίδα μικύθειον (e.g. I.Délos .B., .B.b.) and κύλικας μικυθείους (e.g. I.Délos . B., , .B.b., ) are all attested, as well as a θυμιατήριον Μικύθου (e.g. IG XI. . and .–) and four θηρίκλειοι (IG XI. .–). The Micythaea, the earliest festival attested, is particularly diverse, with σκάφια μικύθεια (small bowls) (e.g. I.Délos .B., .B.b.), a ἀργυρίδα μικύθειον (silver cup) (e.g. I.Délos .B., .B.b.) and κύλικας μικυθείους (cups) (e.g. I.Délos .B., , .B.b., ) all attested, as well as a θυμιατήριον Μικύθου (incense burner) (e.g. IG XI. ., and .–) and four θηρίκλειοι (craters) (IG XI. .–). Various different recording procedures were followed at different times in the inventory lists. This fact, even beyond the different preservation state of the inventory lists themselves, explains why some festivals (those from the middle of the third century) can be more confidently and more closely dated than those from either earlier or later.



 

ranges from  drachms (the Stēsilea) to the Philonidia ( drachms): the mean is . drachms, the median  drachms. We cannot know whether the apparent restraint was the choice of the dedicators or dictated by sanctuary authorities. What is clear is the result. Royal expenditure was not untrammelled; instead, it was of the same order as non-royal festivals, presumably resulting in a similar profile in the sanctuary. In terms of both offerings and festival expenditure, therefore, royal and non-royal activity was equivalent in order. To summarise my argument so far, the evidence indicates that the Delians seem not to have considered the royal and foreign festivals as distinct in either essence or status (whether superior or inferior) to their own. No permutation or action ever seems to involve an implicit clustering or recognition of the royal and foreign offering sequences against the Delian endowments; instead, as in the examples above, any (re)arrangement involves royal, foreign and Delian endowments. From the Delian perspective, each benefaction involved similar treatment. The final three points move beyond this similarity to derive specific implications from three further characteristics: first, that both sets of offerings sequences honoured a diverse range of gods and positioned the human donor in a range of positions relative to the offering. Second, that close analysis of the donors of non-royal festivals indicates that each can be connected with families or Delian trittyes that were otherwise prominent on the island. Finally, both royal and non-royal festivals were founded in clusters, as though there were ‘fashions’ of foundation.

Similar Breadth of Divine Honorands and Approach to the Human–Divine Relationship Two much-noted aspects of the royal festivals have been identified as a rupture from Delian precedent. First is the dynastic nature of some of the royal gods honoured. To be clear, most of the royal offering sequences honour Apollo, Artemis and Leto. Nevertheless, some sequences do also honour other dynastically relevant gods. So, the Philadelphia sequence occasionally (but not always) is inscribed as honouring the theoi adelphoi, plausibly Ptolemy Philadelphus and his sister, Arsinoe, as well as Apollo, Artemis and Leto. Similarly, two sequences started by Antigonus of Macedon honoured the theoi sōtēres, Antigonus, Demetrius and Pan. Second, the majority of royal sequences involve the Delian maidens making the actual donation, with the king or royal as benefactor: Δηλιάδες, χορεῖα Ἀ]πό[λλωνι Ἀ]ρτέμιδι Λητῶι. Some sequences, however,

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



also involve offerings being made directly to the gods by the king in his own name: so, by Antigonus to the theoi sōtēres and to Pan (I.Délos . A. and ). Traditionally, this has been seen as a case of paradigm and rupture. Festivals and offerings sequences were supposed to honour Apollo, Artemis and Leto, and the Delian maidens were supposed to perform the offering. These are genuine norms, but they are not norms that distinguish royal dedicatory practice by contrast or establish them as a distinct category. Instead, if we broaden our perspective, there are non-royal dedications made directly in the name of the benefactor, instead of through a chorus. To cite one example, the hieropoioi included a phialē offered by Gorgias directly: Γοργίας Σωσίλου Ἀπόλλωνι Ἀρτέμιδι Λητ[οῖ. Similarly, these non-royal sequences also honoured other combinations of gods: the Stēsilea and the Echenicia both honoured Apollo and Aphrodite. To summarise, these royal endowments were unusual specifically with regard to the gods chosen. They also provide valuable evidence for the discussion of how approaches to divine honours changed geographically and chronologically, and we are surely justified in explaining the choice of god honoured by Antigonus in dynastic terms. The Delian comparanda, however, indicate that the sheer fact of an endowment of a festival to gods other than Apollo, Artemis and Leto was not an imposition in Delian sacral space and practice. It follows even less that the Ptolemies and Antigonids possessed some unique, predominant position to enforce such religious rupture. 



Royal sequences mentioning the Delian maidens and dedicating to Apollo, Artemis and Leto include the Second Ptolemaea, the Third Ptolemaea and the Philetaeria: I.Délos .A.,  (), and .B.a.I.– (/). The Philadelphia offering sequences sometimes additionally mention King Ptolemy: I.Délos .A.– but I.Délos .a.– and .B.–. Offerings directly in the name of the benefactor: Antigonus’ offerings for the Sōtēria and Pania: I.Délos . A. and ; cf. Gorgias: I.Délos .A. [/]. Offerings not to the Apolline triad: Antigonus’ offerings for the Sōtēria and Pania: I.Délos .A. and ; cf. the Stēsilea: I.Délos .B., –, – (); Echenicia: IG XI. .A. (= Prêtre and Brunet (), – []). Cf. Hammond, Griffith and Walbank (–) –, which carefully acknowledges the debate over the political implications of endowments by the Ptolemies and Antigonids and believes it ‘demonstrably not true’ that only a power controlling Delos could establish an endowment (), but still suggests that the Pania and Sōtēria are ‘unique within the group in being named after gods, and so in directing attention to them rather than to the founder’. They are thus more likely than other festivals to be ‘celebrating events leading to a major political change in the Aegean’ (). This argument elides the fact that the Pania and Sōtēria are also referred to as Antigonia: see Bruneau () – and  for a summary of evidence. The performative context of these inscriptions can also explain the different framing: Pan and the theoi sotēres were not as prominent on Delos as the Apolline triad, and these festivals plausibly formed the only endowments in their honour. In addition, as the varying descriptions for festivals indicates, the lists do not offer unproblematic names for items or events, but instead references which were meaningful to those creating them.



 

The Profile of Dedicators Each of the dedicators of the non-Delian vase festivals can be situated within a prominent Delian family. Four endowments are attested as starting between  and , by Philonis, Eutychus, Gorgias and Sopatrus. Each of the dedicators either was a prominent Delian in his own right or (for Philonis) can be connected to a known family. Philonis herself is only attested through this endowment and its products, but various prominent Hegesanders are known in the early third century who could be her father, including one who was father of Periander, a chorēgos in the Dionysia of  and , and who is probably the grandfather of the Periander active in the early second century. Eutychus is probably Eutychus of Chios, who was honoured by the Delians (IG XI. ) and whose son is attested as a chorēgos in . Gorgias was a member of the prominent family which included Mnesalcus, chorēgos in  and , and which is traceable for more than a century. Sopatrus is most likely the Sopatrus recorded as chorēgos in , who could well be the donor of this festival. Whether he, an ancestor or someone quite separate, no foreign Sopatrus is known for the third century. The same applies more generally to the other non-royal dedicators: Xenocleides is mentioned as a homeowner in an inscription from c.  and is plausibly the grandfather of the epimeletēs mentioned when Q. Fabius Labeo was awarded a crown in . Stesileus was archon in  and plausibly father or perhaps great-uncle of Echenice, and so on. We are not, therefore, dealing with a melange of different donors. Instead, the ability to establish these endowed sequences of offerings seems to have been tightly controlled and restricted to elite Delian families. It was





They characterise; they do not describe. For the Sōtēria and the Pania, there was an implicit distinguishing contrast with the pre-existing Antigonia, where for the Antigonia itself, the contrast was with the other festivals to the Apolline triad, through the bare fact that it was endowed by Antigonus. It was thus both possible and more plausible for the hieropoioi to refer simply to the Sōtēria or the Pania as such in the inventories than any of the other festivals. This difference does not indicate that they were somehow symbolically different, but again points to the importance of embedding the festivals in their Delian context. Philonidia: IG XI. .–, XI. ; Hegesander and Periander: IG XI. ., XI. .; Eutychus and son: IG XI.  (= Durrbach (–) – ), IG XI. .; Gorgias: I.Délos .B., , .A.b./, .A.b.II.; see further Vial () s.v. Mnesalcus, the chorēgos: IG XI. ., XI. .. For a stemma, see Vial () ; Sopatrus: I.Délos . B.; IG XI. .. Xenocleides: IG XI. ; Q Fabius Labeo: I.Délos .B.–; Stesileus: IG XI.  –, XI. .B.–, XI. .B.– (= Prêtre and Brunet (), –), etc.; for a family tree also including Echenice (II), Vial () .

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



a form of in-group activity. Like chorēgia, it formed part of their statement of service to the sanctuary and polis. It was part of the ongoing negotiation of their status vis-à-vis the polis and each other. And it also distinguished those families from other Delians, as well as from most other foreign donors on Delos who did not have the ability to create such endowments. There was, however, one group of foreign donors who did make similar benefactions: the kings. By behaving like Delians, the kings were laying claim – being allowed to lay claim – to a similar special position in the sanctuary. In the continued receipt and inscription of the offerings year after year, the Delian officials were also accepting that those kings held a special position. It was not, however, a unique position, beyond their competitors – instead, it was membership in a select club which had explicit structural and social bounds, including the size, form and frequency of dedication.

Clustering of Foundation Dates Analysis of the dates at which the endowments were created confirms the social boundaries of this competitive frame (see Table .). Both royal and non-royal endowments have a tendency to cluster: one non-royal group clusters around , and another non-royal cluster of four members between  and . It is almost as though the very fact of an endowment of a series by a rival family led a separate family to endow their own festival. Similarly, the same phenomenon occurs with ‘royal festivals’. There is a cluster around –, when the Antigonids, Ptolemies and Aetolians and possibly also the Seleucids all established festivals; another in the s, when the Ptolemies and Antigonids were active; and then finally a cluster in the late s involving the Attalids, Philip V and the Ptolemies again. Why does this matter? In the case of the internal Delian foundations, there cannot be any question of identifying an external hegemonic spur that led to the creation of the festivals or a ‘change of control’ in the



The Attalia, Theuergesia and Philippia are all first attested in I.Délos .A (). For the Attalia, the terminus post quem is strictly Attalus’ accession in , but the failure to mention the Attalia in any of the many inventories known prior to  indicates that the context is likely renewed competition after . For all three, a terminus post quem of Philip V’s accession in  is plausible.



  Table . Endowments on Delos ordered by first date Royal offering sequences

Series name First date Connection Philadelphia  Hermias, Arsinoe II Philetaeria  Philetaerus Antigonia



Stratonicia Nicolaea

 

Second Ptolemaea Third Ptolemaea Sōtēria/ Antigonia Pania/ Antigonia





Dēmētriaea







Non-royal offering sequences Series name Stēsilea

First date Connection  Stesileus

Ōcyneidaea/  Thyestadaea

Ocyneidae, Thyestadae,

Nēsiadia

By 

Nesiades

Xenocleidaea Philoclia

By  c. 

Xenocleides Philocles

Echenicia

c. 

Echenice

Mapsichidaea



Mapsichidae

Philonidia



Philonis

Eutychia

c. 

Eutyches

Demetrius II

Sōpatria

c. 

Sopatrus

Antigonus Gonatas Stratonice Nicolaus, Aetolian Ptolemy II Philopator Ptolemy III Euergetes Antigonus Gonatas Antigonus Gonatas

Attalia

–

Attalus I

Gorgieia



Gorgias

Theuergesia

–

Donacia

–

Donax

Philippia

–

Ptolemy III Euergetes Philip V

Pataecia

–

Pataecus

sanctuary. At most, there was an internal threat to their personal position or the position of their family in the sanctuary. The stakes had been raised. The same logic applies to the foreign donations: the donations of Attalus I and Philip V are both datable to the period around the time of the accession of Philip V. Since Attalus’ reign dates to , his festival cannot be connected to his accession. It can, however, be understood as a response to the growing power of Philip V or to Philip’s endowment of a festival as part of his attempt to raise his profile. So too, the endowments in mid-century might plug into a time of increased competition first around the accession of Ptolemy III. As Philip V and Ptolemy III declared their membership within this elite group of patrons, so too did Antigonus and Attalus feel the need to respond, or perhaps it was the other way round.

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



Our dating sequence is not precise enough to know the exact order, but it can indicate that the foundations are linked. Each of these five characteristics points to the underlying similarity of the royal and non-royal festivals. First and second, royal endowments were not superior in scale or nature from the non-royal ones, nor were they recorded in a way that suggested they were. Third, the royal festivals reflect Delian practice in the diversity of epigraphic framing and dedicators, rather than rupturing it. Fourth, the royal figures’ ability to create these endowments did indicate a special position, but it was one equivalent to that offered prominent Delian families. It was, moreover, fifth, a competitive position, including involvement in a socially constructed practice. The monarchs did not attempt, or were not allowed, to differentiate themselves by their donations, either individually or even as a group; instead, the royal foundations all resulted in phialae, which was also the most common donation for the non-royal foundations. The chronological clustering of the foundations indicates that, at least by the midcentury, the presence or high profile of another dynasty was a spur to creating a response: they were restatements of the ongoing relevance and participation in the in-group, not declarations of a unique status. This chapter started by reframing the core question as not, What is the significance of the royal dedications on Delos? but: What is the significance of dedications on Delos? So far, I have answered with reference to internal Delian dynamics. The dedication involved a status-based claim: that the benefactor was accepted as being not an ordinary foreigner who might choose to display his merits on Delos, but a benevolent patron. This Delian euergetistic context is, however, directly relevant to the broader Cycladic context, and needs translating. These forms of display on Delos have been directly connected to hegemonic positions outside Delos. The core competitive nature of the dedication series indicates that this can no longer hold. The creation of an endowment by a foreign donor cannot imply control either of Delos or of the sea at that time; rather, it implies the reverse. If anything, the creation of an endowment suggests that the dynamics of competitive emulation and status creation were particularly active at that time, and so any attempt at claiming a unique status on Delos, in the Cyclades and in the Aegean would have been even more dubious and imperilled than was the norm.



For a rare acknowledgement of the in-group effect as motivating the Philetaeria: Schalles () –, followed by Schwarzer () . They do not, however, consider the Delian context.



 

What does this mean for our understanding of the Cyclades at this time? In a narrow sense, very little: the only two dates in broader Hellenistic histories directly connected to these endowments are those around  and . The year  is the earliest date Ptolemaic hegemony can have been renewed because of the Antigonid activity in , while , as noted above, has been connected with the battle of Andros. The broader implications are, however, important. When the euergetistic context is so explicitly competitive, there can be no suggestion that this is part of a ‘balance of power’. We can also only justify exclusive external readings if there is significant additional evidence that points to exclusive control or if the evidence points uniquely to one power being active. That is not the case. As a brief review of Reger’s  article, for example, confirms, there is essentially no other evidence for Ptolemaic hegemony after . The hegemony exists because of the methodological paradigm’s horror vacui. Instead, the fact that the temple authorities continued recognising Ptolemaic and Antigonid dedications and status throughout this period calls into question all the hegemonies. They considered the endowments still relevant to the internal politics of the sanctuary. Ironically, the same euergetistic constraints identified in the initial dedication that guided kings in their initial display provide the continued evidence for the relevance of the benefactors throughout the period. These euergetistic constraints underpin the broader monumentalisation of the sanctuary of this time and continue into the second century. The great buildings in Hellenistic Delos, including the Stoa of Antigonus and the Stoa of Philip V, were plausibly all the results of Hellenistic dedications. These individual buildings and the architraves with the donors’ names will have monumentalised their donors’ claims to pre-eminence. Nevertheless, their duration, form and placement instead point to the dedications as the result of socially embedded mediation between sanctuary officials and donors, as might be expected in a competitive environment in which multiple donors were active. The dynamics are thus analogous to those traced for the archaic period, where various cities seem to have sponsored similar buildings. 



Bookends: for recent discussions agreeing in methodology, though not detail, see Reger (a) and Buraselis (); older discussions with similar approach include König (), Guggenmos () and Fellmann (). For lengthier discussion in similar terms, see Strootman, Chapter  in this volume: ‘Present scholarly interpretations of the age have radically abandoned the image of a “balance of power”.’

Socially Embedded Benefaction on Delos



Similarly, after , the evidence for ongoing dedications by Roman generals and others argues that the form of competition had changed rather than the underlying dynamic. Instead, the dynamics of competition and display remained a prominent factor in the life of the sanctuary at least until the systemic crisis caused by the Mithridatic sack. The placement of most surviving dedications is unknown, but the few that have been found in situ around the Portico of Antigonus and the Portico of Philip suggest that dynamics of competitive placement and response remained relevant. The sanctuary and city remained critical as a locus of display, and the identification between the two remained strong even as the city beyond the sanctuary developed in size. The donations of individual kingdoms may have diminished in number as they became weaker or their interest in the Aegean changed, but Delos as a whole remained an important locus of display until it was sacked by Mithridates; this is why he put so much effort into maintaining a presence there and then made the decision to destroy Delos. The Romans were not alone in their ability to perform such symbolic gestures. To conclude, this chapter has analysed the internal Delian euergetistic context for the offering sequences created by the Hellenistic kings and other donors. Where previous studies identified a wide range of donors for these endowments, the reanalysis here suggests that they should be more narrowly categorised as created by either Delians or elite foreigners. Hence, we can sharpen the symbolic power of such festivals as a claim of a role as patron of the sanctuary and the island. The chronology and contemporaneity indicate that power was framed in terms of competition and manifestations of and demands for status rather than as statements of hegemony. This chronology then also points to ‘fashions of competition’ that seem to have operated at different times with the foundation of festivals by prominent external powers a peculiarly third-century phenomenon, reflecting the heat of competition at this time rather than its absence. As such, Delos, like Olympia, becomes a symbol of competition in a sanctuary context. Without that competition, however, it would lose its relevance, as we see in the absence of any recovery after the twin sacks of the first century BCE. We could argue it has never recovered. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bikerman, E. () ‘Sur les batailles navales de Cos et d’Andros’, Revue des Études Anciennes : –. Bruneau, P. () Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l’époque hellénistique et à l’époque impériale. Paris.



 

() ‘Deliaca (VI)’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique : –. () ‘Deliaca (VIII)’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique : –. Bruneau, P., and Ducat, J. () Guide de Délos, th ed. Athens. Buraselis, K. () Das hellenistische Makedonien und die Ägäis. Forschungen zur Politik des Kassandros und der drei ersten Antigoniden (Antigonos Monophthalmos, Demetrios Poliorketes und Antigonos Gonatas) im Ägäischen Meer und in Westkleinasien. Munich. Chankowski, V. () Athènes et Délos à l’époque classique: recherches sur l’administration du sanctuaire d’Apollon délien. Athens. Duchêne, H., and Fraisse, P. () Le paysage portuaire de la Délos antique: recherches sur les installations maritimes, commerciales et urbaines du littoral délien. Athens. Durrbach, F. () ‘La chronologie des archontes déliens’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique : –. (–) Choix d’inscriptions de Délos. Paris. Errington, R.M. () A History of Macedonia. Berkeley. Fellmann, W. () Antigonos Gonatas, König der Makedonen, und die griechischen Staaten. Wu¨rzburg. Guggenmos, A.T. () ‘Die Geschichte des Nesiotenbundes bis zur Mitte des III. Jahrhunderts vor Chr. Mit besonderer Beru¨cksichtigung des Gru¨ndungsproblems’, PhD dissertation, University of Wu¨rzburg. Hamilton, R. () Treasure Map: A Guide to the Delian Inventories. Ann Arbor. Hammond, N. G. L. () The Macedonian State: Origins, Institutions, and History. Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L., Griffith, G. T., and Walbank, F. W. (–) A History of Macedonia. Oxford. Heckel, W. () ‘Review: [untitled]’, Phoenix : –. Hellmann, M.-C., and Fraisse, P. () Le monument aux hexagones et le Portique des Naxiens. Paris. Homolle, T. () Les archives de l’intendance sacrée à Délos (– av. J.-C.). Paris. Kolbe, W. () ‘Review. Tarn Antigonos Gonatas’, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen : –. König, W. () Der Bund der Nesioten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kykladen und benachbarten Inseln im Zeitalter des Hellenismus. Halle an der Saale. Neer, R. T. () ‘Framing the gift: the politics of the Siphnian treasury at Delphi’’, Classical Antiquity : –. Parker, R. () Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford. Prêtre, C., and Brunet, M. () Nouveau choix d’inscriptions de Délos: lois, comptes et inventaires. Athens. Reger, G. L. () ‘The date of the battle of Kos’, American Journal of Ancient History : –. (a) ‘The political history of the Kyklades – B.C.’, Historia : –.

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

(b) Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, – B.C. Berkeley. Roussel, P. () ‘Les inscriptions de Délos’, Journal des Savants : –, –. Rups, M. () ‘Thesauros: a study of the treasury building as found in Greek sanctuaries’, PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University. Schalles, H.-J. () Untersuchungen zur Kulturpolitik der pergamenischen Herrscher im dritten Jahrhundert vor Christus. Tu¨bingen. Schwarzer, H. () ‘Untersuchungen zum hellenistischen Herrscherkult in Pergamon’, Istanbuler Mitteilungen : –. Shipley, G. () The Greek World after Alexander, – B.C. London. Tréheux, J. () ‘Études critiques sur les inventaires de l’indépendance délienne’, PhD dissertation, University of Paris. (), ‘L’Hiéropoion et les oikoi du sanctuaire à Délos’, in J. Servais, T. Hackens and B. Servais-Soyez (eds.), Stemmata: mélanges de philologie, d’histoire et d’archéologie grecques offerts à Jules Labarbe. Liege, –. Vallois, R. () L’architecture hellénique et hellénistique à Délos jusqu’à l’éviction des Déliens ( av. J.-C.). Paris. Vial, C. () Délos indépendante. Athens. () Les Déliens. Paris. Will, É. (–) Histoire politique du monde hellénistique (– av. J.-C.), nd ed. Nancy.

 

Benefactors and the Polis under Rome

 

Emperors, Benefaction and Honorific Practice in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis Carlos Noreña

Complex societies are largely shaped by the distribution of material resources within them. This distribution can take many different forms (including, of course, redistribution); can be organized, in logistical terms, by means of many different mechanisms; and can be rationalized, justified, naturalized and idealized by many different sorts of values and claims. As a result, the allocation of goods to different groups and individuals within any one society is a convoluted process, often difficult even to recognize, much less explain. One of the critical variables that shapes the flow of material resources within a given society is the nature of the political system operating in that society. Political systems, and the institutions through which collective decisions are made and implemented, not only set the terms that govern the movement of goods in the public sphere – the ‘rules of the game’ as it were – but also influence the normative frameworks within which the distribution of goods is perceived by the actors on the ground. One way to begin to grasp how a particular distribution regime functions, then, is to consider the ways in which it is imbricated with the norms and practices of a larger political structure. The type of political system at the heart of this volume is the city-state. As a ‘container’ for the distribution of resources, the city-state has several characteristic features that distinguish it from other forms of premodern sociopolitical organization, such as empires. Especially pertinent in this context are the relatively small scale of city-state politics, the prominence of corporate institutions for collective decision-making and, more generally, the existence of a vibrant public sphere. In light of these characteristic features, the distribution regimes of different city-states will tend to look more similar than different from one another – especially when contrasted with the distribution regimes of other political systems. At this level of generalization, the ancient Greek polis, as a particular instantiation of the 

For city-states and city-state culture in comparative perspective, see Hansen ().





˜   n

city-state, will have its own ideal-typical framework for the distribution of material resources, which will have prevailed from the archaic period through Late Antiquity. But if we take the ancient Greek polis itself as our unit of analysis and investigate its history diachronically, with our interpretive lens trained not on generalities but on specifics, then we should expect to discern change over time in the mechanisms and norms that determined the allocation of goods. Identifying such change, and explaining it, is the real challenge. This chapter investigates the Greek polis of the Roman imperial period, with a focus on the second century CE. In many ways, the Roman imperial Greek polis was not so different from its classical predecessor. The small scale of its internal politics, the basic configuration of its decision-making institutions and the dynamism of its public sphere were all mostly intact. What was different, of course, was the fact that the Greek polis of this period was no longer politically autonomous, having been incorporated into a superordinate political system, the Roman Empire. Incorporation into the Roman Empire naturally had an impact on civic finances and local control over resources, above all because Greek cities were subject to Roman taxation. More pertinent to the theme of this volume is the fact that Greek poleis of the imperial period were nested in a hierarchical political system that had an emperor at its apex. It was not just the fact of empire in general, that is, but the fact of monarchy in particular that reconfigured the distribution regime of the Greek polis. And the place where the impact of monarchy on resource allocation within Greek cities is most evident is in the ideology and practice of civic benefaction. The figure of the Roman emperor, as I will argue, not only redefined the terms of what constituted a benefaction but also transformed the relationship between benefaction and honorific practice at the local level. The trend was towards an ever-widening circle of imperial actions that could be attributed to the emperor’s personal generosity – and therefore imagined as ‘gifts’ – and towards an ever-looser relationship between specific imperial benefactions to Greek cities and reciprocal Greek honours for those benefactions. Both developments transformed the dynamics of civic euergetism within the Greek polis. The Roman emperor, in brief, was a very  



The literature on the political system of ancient Greek city-states is vast; for useful orientations, see Murray and Price (); Hansen (); Ober (). Important recent discussions of the Greek polis of the Roman imperial period include Zuiderhoek (); Heller (); cf. the essays in Whitmarsh () and van Nijf and Alston (b). For developments in Late Antiquity, Rapp and Drake (). For comparison and contrast with the Hellenistic period, see below, pp. –.

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



‘powerful outsider’ indeed, but not only, or even mainly, because of his own concrete benefactions, but rather because of the deeper impact of Roman imperial monarchy on civic consciousness within the Greek polis. The fact that many routine transactions of the Roman imperial state were celebrated as benefactions, and that they came to be ascribed to the emperor himself, is well known and does not require much discussion here. Consider, for example, the logistics of what we call ‘imperial building’ in the provinces. Though the central state sometimes provided labor or technical expertise for the construction or repair of monumental buildings or urban infrastructure projects, more often imperial assistance came in the form of cash subsidies or the temporary remission of taxes. As a matter of political economy, such assistance can be seen as a type of redistribution, financed by the collective surplus of the empire as a whole. But that is not how it was represented in texts celebrating the majesty of Rome. When Aelius Aristeides, in his panegyric to Rome, declares that ‘the coasts and inland areas have been filled up with cities, some newly founded, others enhanced by you’ (Or. .), he is echoing the official line and helping to sustain the fiction that urbanization was the direct product of imperial benevolence and generosity. Other forms of imperial intervention, such as infrastructural or financial support for a city’s grain supply or the upgrading of a city’s formal status, despite being routine transactional matters, were similarly construed and celebrated as benefactions. These putative benefactions were imagined to flow directly from the emperor himself. The automatic ascription to the emperor of impersonal state actions and the collective representation of these actions as gifts from the emperor are characteristic features of what Veyne has called ‘le style monarchique’, a product of the deep psychological need among the emperor’s subjects, as Veyne suggests, to imagine that they were being ruled by a ‘good’ emperor. The key role played by the emperor himself in  

 

What follows draws on the fuller discussion in Noreña () –. For imperial building in the Roman East, Mitchell (); cf. Boatwright () chs.  and  for imperial building activity under Hadrian. See also the convenient collection of evidence in Horster () (literary texts) and () (inscriptions). On the imperial financing of such construction, see Millar () –; Mitchell () –; Boatwright () –. Grain supply: Garnsey () –; Boatwright () , , . Formal status of cities: Millar (); Boatwright () ch. . Veyne () –, –, –; cf. Veyne () for elaboration of the idea that Roman imperial subjects desperately wanted to love their emperor. The idea strikes the modern observer as naïve, but we should be wary of assumptions about political life that may be anachronistic for the premodern world. In any case, what imperial subjects really thought about their ruler is beyond the reach of our (direct) evidence.



˜   n

guaranteeing the diffusion of benefits throughout the empire, a central strand of Roman imperial ideology in the first two centuries CE, was normally attributed to the emperor’s own character, and in particular to his personal virtues. The association between rulers and virtues had a long history in the classical world, but the assertion of monarchic virtue was particularly pronounced in the Roman imperial period. Scores of different virtues were proclaimed by and on behalf of Roman emperors. These virtues were systematically communicated by various media, both official, such as imperial coins and official documents, and unofficial, especially literary texts and honorific inscriptions set up for the emperor. Of the many virtues attached to the emperor, the most relevant in the context of civic benefaction were indulgentia, munificentia and especially liberalitas, all of which commemorated different aspects of the emperor’s personal generosity. A good illustration of the ways in which these terms could become routinized comes from the usage of liberalitas at Rome during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. An honorific inscription from Rome praises Trajan for his liberalitas on the grounds that a number of seats had been added to the Circus Maximus – a ‘fausse évergésie’, as Veyne calls it. And under Hadrian, the abstract concept of liberalitas is concretized, numbered and even made plural, as individual cash distributions to the urban populace of Rome (congiariae) are recorded on coins by means of numbered liberalitates. The public sphere was eventually saturated with such expressions of imperial generosity, with the result that virtually any transaction undertaken by the Roman imperial state could be imagined as a benefaction of the ruling emperor. It was this ideological construct that animated the presence of the Roman emperor as a ‘powerful outsider’ in the context of the Greek polis in the first two centuries CE. It goes without saying that the emperor did make real, concrete benefactions to Greek cities and that such gifts could materially improve conditions there. More important over the long term, though, was the diffusion of the idea of the ‘good’ emperor as a model benefactor, so systematically promoted by the imperial regime. That this idea was widely diffused throughout the eastern empire is evident from the deep embedding of the emperor – or, rather, the figure of the emperor – within the urban fabric of the Greek polis. The most common and visible   

Noreña () –, with sources and references to earlier bibliography. Noreña () –, –. Honorific inscription for Trajan: CIL . = Dessau, ILS : tribus xxxv quod liberalitate optimi principis commoda earum etiam locorum adiectione ampliata sint, with Veyne () –. Numbered liberalitates under Hadrian: RIC , Hadrian , , –, .

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



form of this urban embedding in Greek cities was the imperial statue. Statues of the Roman emperor were commissioned in large numbers – according to one calculation as many as , imperial statues per year under Augustus – and erected in various public spaces in the cities of the eastern empire. In some cities, such as Ephesos, Magnesia, Miletos and Aphrodisias, imperial statues crowded the area in and around the agora, very much like the fora of some western cities. In many cities, they were also placed in the theater (which was much less common in the West), in sanctuaries (including sanctuaries dedicated to the imperial cult) and in other public structures such as libraries (e.g. Pergamon) or nymphaea (e.g. Olympia, Ephesos). It is probably no exaggeration to say that statues of Roman emperors past and present were omnipresent in the public sphere of the Roman imperial Greek polis. Proposed by individual communities on their own initiative and paid for, erected and maintained by local resources, Roman imperial statues should be seen as public and permanent expressions of local honour for the emperor. To honour the Roman emperor by means of a statue, often accompanied by a commemorative inscription, was to engage in a longstanding tradition of symbolic reciprocity. From the classical through the Hellenistic period, it was customary within the Greek polis for the community to reward civic benefactors with a whole range of local honours. From the end of the fifth century BCE, the boulai and dēmoi of cities throughout the Greek world generated a constant flood of honorific decrees for local benefactors and prominent non-citizens alike. The most common award was the gold crown (stephanos), sometimes supplemented by other honours including titles, legal privileges and the erection of a statue. Statues, especially in precious metals, quickly emerged as the principal form of local honour for Hellenistic monarchs. Occasionally, 







In general on Roman imperial statues, see Pékary (); Stewart (); Højte (). For the eastern empire in particular, Price () –; Rose (); for the Hellenistic background, see Ma (). Calculation: Pfanner () –. Placement of imperial statues: Pékary () – (literary sources); Højte () – (statue bases). Ephesos, Magnesia and Miletos: Pékary (). Aphrodisias: Smith et al. () –. Western fora: Noreña () , n. . Veyne () –, (over)estimating that some  per cent of Greek civic decrees during the classical period were honorific in nature (); Gauthier (). For the highly formulaic language of the decrees, see also the exhaustive analysis of Larfeld () – (Attic inscriptions) and () – (non-Attic inscriptions). Veyne () –; Price () –; Gauthier () –; Smith () –. The whole subject has been placed on a new footing by Ma (), who situates honorific practice in general, and the erection of statues (with formal dedications) in particular, in the broader political culture(s) of the Hellenistic Greek polis.



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royal benefactors were directly involved in the process of specifying the details of the statue, whether in terms of form (e.g. standing or equestrian) or location. This sort of dialogue highlights the reciprocal nature of the exchange, as do those dedications, such as the Athenian decree honouring King Pharnakes of Pontos (I. Dēlos b), which explicitly reminded kings to follow through with their promised benefactions. In most of the decrees that accompanied these statues – and the public display of the decree itself was a crucial feature of this form of honorific practice – the connection between the honour and the benefaction that motivated it was explicit. In light of Greek honorific practice in general and the system of reciprocal benefactions and honours that linked Greek cities to Hellenistic kings in particular, it is normally thought that local honours for the Roman emperor were similarly given ‘in gratitude for or in anticipation of imperial benefactions’, as Rose has put it (: ). And there are a number of concrete cases in which a local honour, usually a statue, is in fact closely tied to a specific imperial benefaction. So, for example, the Alexandrians offered a statue to Claudius in the hopes that the emperor would be induced to intervene in the city’s urban unrest (Oliver ). In Aphrodisias, Vespasian was honoured with a statue in return for the city’s continued autonomy and immunity from Roman taxation (Reynolds ). A marble base from Ephesos records the several gifts for which Hadrian is expressly being thanked by means of a statue erected in his honour (I. Ephesos .): The council and people of Ephesos (have set up this statue) to their founder and savior, on account of his unsurpassed gifts to Artemis, giving to the goddess legal rights over inheritances, deposits, and her own laws; providing shipments of Egyptian grain; making the harbors navigable; diverting the river Kaystros, which was silting up the harbor . . .

And so on and so on. The logic of such symbolic reciprocity is quite clear. As Menander Rhetor declares, ‘Having, as we do, so many good things from the emperors, it is absurd not to return them our due and proper offering.’ 



See, for example, the decree from Aptera in Crete, inviting Attalos II to decide which kind of statue he wanted, standing or equestrian (OGI , ll. –). Kings choose location of statue: e.g. OGI  = Welles no.  (from Teos), ll. – (Eumenes II); for civic benefactors choosing the location of honorific statues, see also I.Délos , ll. – (/ BCE). Men. Rhet. . See Lendon () – on the place of the emperor in an empire-wide web of honour, and  for the Menander passage (modifying the translation of Russell and Wilson).

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



Table . Surviving statue bases for Hadrian in the eastern Empire, by province (N = ) Province

Statues (no.)

Province

Statues (no.)

Thrace Macedonia Achaia Crete/Cyrene Bithynia/Pontos Asia

     

Lycia/Pamphylia Galatia Cappadocia Cilicia Cyprus

    

The question is whether local dedications of this sort, which commemorated (or made an appeal for) specific imperial benefactions, can be generalized, and whether, as a result, the honorific system of the Roman imperial Greek polis in its engagement with powerful outsiders, especially monarchs, operated as it had during the Hellenistic period. That the honorific system did continue more or less unchanged seems to be widely assumed, but if one examines imperial statues and their dedications in the aggregate, a different pattern begins to emerge. In fact, the surviving statue bases suggest that there is hardly any correlation at all between a specific imperial benefaction, on the one hand, and a local honour commemorating that benefaction, on the other. Since it is beyond the scope of this chapter to examine all local dedications to all Roman emperors, let us consider just the reign of Hadrian, which is particularly well documented, and focus on the main Greek-inscribing provinces of the eastern empire. We have good evidence for Hadrian’s travels in this region, his benefactions to cities there, and the erection of statues in his honour. The main observation is that the evidence from these three categories does not appear to line up in any meaningful way. Consider, first, the surviving statue bases from the eastern empire, which make up over  per cent of all surviving statue bases for Hadrian (Table .). The geographical distribution is hardly surprising, with the largest number of bases preserved in Achaia and Asia, the heartland of the Roman Greek world. These were also provinces in which Hadrian traveled frequently, of course, visiting many cities during his multiple provincial  

Thrace, Macedonia, Achaia, Crete and Cyrene, Bithynia and Pontos, Asia, Lycia and Pamphylia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Cyprus. Travels: Halfmann () –, –. Benefactions: Boatwright (), esp. chs. –. Statues: Højte () –.



˜   n

tours. We have many recorded visits from Hadrian to different cities in the eastern empire and many honorific statues for Hadrian in these regions (cf. Table .). But there is no demonstrable correlation between the two. Højte, who systematically compared Hadrian’s itineraries with dated statue bases, concluded that ‘there can be no doubt that imperial journeys as a general rule did not cause the cities visited by the emperor or the cities in the general area to erect statues – neither on the occasion of the visit nor in anticipation or appreciation of it’ (: ). This lack of correlation is the first clue that Roman imperial benefactions and reciprocal honours in the Greek polis did not necessarily go together in a straightforward way. An imperial visit, ritualized through the elaborate ceremony of the adventus, was an ideal moment, in principle, for emperors to confer their patronage directly on favored cities. But the record of Hadrian’s visits, on the one hand, and civic benefactions, on the other, raises questions about how regular such immediate gifts were in practice. The evidence is set out in Table .. Of the thirty-three cities in the provinces under consideration which Hadrian is thought to have visited, there is good evidence for a benefaction of one sort or another in just eighteen; if the more questionable evidence for benefactions is included, the number increases to twentyone. Even if we count all of the evidence – and also assume that all of these documented benefactions were made (or promised) during Hadrian’s visit to the city in question – then fully one-third of all imperial visits under Hadrian did not include any direct patronage. ‘Hadrian’s presence’, as Boatwright observes, ‘did not automatically entail a benefaction’ (: ). More striking is the relative paucity of local dedications to Hadrian that specifically recorded the attested gift: only seven of twenty-three cases ( per cent). The many statues of Hadrian erected in these cities, therefore, and the even more numerous statues set up throughout the eastern empire, did not necessarily commemorate specific benefactions made by the emperor. This apparent divergence between imperial visits, benefactions, and commemorative statues for the emperor can surely be explained, at least in part, by the very fragmentary nature of our evidence. With a fuller documentary record we could probably line up more local honours with the specific imperial benefactions they were meant to commemorate – the extensive Hadrianic dossier from Athens, for example, contains a number



Imperial visits and benefactions to cities: Millar () –; Halfmann () –. For the ceremony of the adventus, which could be quite elaborate (and expensive), Lehnen ().

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



Table . Cities visited by Hadrian; benefactions and commemoration; statues City

Year(s)

Benefaction(s)

Ankyra



Apameia Argos Athens

  / / /              

Financed competition (agōn) Bath (?) Aqueduct; temple of Hera (see note ) (see note ) (see note ) Aqueduct; baths ?

Corinth Delphi Dion Dyrrachium Eleusis Ephesos Epidauros Erythrai Ilion Koroneia Kyzikos Laodikeia Mantineia Megara Melissa Miletos Nikaia Nikomedia Nikopolis Pergamon Phokis Rhodes Smyrna Sparta Stratonikeia Thespiai Tralleis Trapezos Troizen

  / /  /            

Aqueduct Tax remission; bridge Harbour works ?

Commemoration

Statue base(s)

 X X X X

  

X X

  

Tombs: Hector, Ajax Aqueduct Temple of Zeus

  

Temple of Poseidon Roadwork; temple of Apollo Tomb: Alcibiades



City walls  Colonnade; temple of Apollo (see note )

X 

Tax benefits Harbour works





˜   n

of such direct exchanges. But the surviving evidence from Hadrian’s reign for the eastern empire as a whole is unlikely to be wholly misleading. Nor is the period – CE likely to have been anomalous in this regard. We may tentatively conclude, therefore, that the reciprocal relationship between imperial benefaction and local honorific practice in the Roman imperial Greek polis often operated at the level of generalization and abstraction. If local honours for the emperor were not motivated in every instance by gratitude for past benefactions, or in hopes of future ones, then we must seek an additional explanation for the proliferation of honorific statues for the emperor in the first two centuries CE. Many scholars have offered a political explanation for the Roman imperial statue habit, suggesting that such local honours for the emperor were meant to serve as public expressions of loyalty. But there is no indication that the Roman imperial state required such demonstrations. It is also possible that such honours were hegemonic, in the Gramscian sense, and that they represent the absorption of a ruling ideology and unthinking replication of its main tenets. But this sort of ‘false consciousness’ argument is difficult to maintain without adopting the full apparatus of Marxist social analysis. It is more promising, in my view, to begin from the proposition that the agents behind these honours knew what they were doing and to focus on the local, internal audience for this form of display. Perhaps the collective dedication of honorific statues to the emperor, like the characteristic rituals of the imperial cult, should be seen as a strategic incorporation of imperial symbols into a local context and as a way for provincial communities to represent the emperor to themselves in a familiar symbolic language. In my  book, Imperial Ideals in the Roman West, I argued that such local honours for the Roman emperor not only helped provincial communities to make sense of the power and authority of the emperor, but also served to legitimate and reinforce the power of local elites. The idealization of the emperor through this honorific system, I suggested, entailed a positive valuation of imperial power, which in turn entailed a positive    

Boatwright () –; cf. – for imperial benefactions and local honours at Smyrna (but there the exchange was not quite so direct). A central claim of Ando (); cf. – for the erection of statues in particular; see also Pékary () – for imperial statues as demonstrations of loyalty. Gramsci [–] (), esp. vol.  for the key writings on hegemony and ideology. The formulation is inspired by Price (); cf. Zanker () for provincial portraits of the emperor, and Gordon () for religious authority and practice, both showing how (and why) different sorts of imperial symbols could be incorporated into local contexts.

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



valuation of local power, since local elites in the western empire were such visible beneficiaries, and exponents, of the new imperial order. More to the point, local elites in the West came to model themselves very directly on the emperor as an ideal-typical benefactor, not only receiving praise for the very same virtues as the emperor (e.g. liberalitas and munificentia), but also expending their own wealth in civic benefactions – as the ideology demanded – and being rewarded for their expenditures, like the emperor, with a range of honours, including statues. And this is precisely why the generalized and abstract reciprocity of this honorific system was so important. To have relied on actual imperial visits and on concrete imperial benefactions requiring direct, symbolic requital would have been most inconvenient. Because it was so manifestly in their interests to represent the emperor as an ideal ruler to generate an additional source of authority for their own elevated positions, local elites in the western empire had a strong incentive to sustain the illusion of the emperor as a model benefactor with or without the emperor’s participation in this particular script. This argument, if correct, can help us to understand the relationship between imperial benefaction and local honorific practice in the Roman imperial Greek polis, too, but only up to a point. Several historical and structural differences between East and West in the Roman Empire are relevant here. For local elites in the West, there were no real alternatives to the emperor as an ideal model for public generosity, since empire, urbanization, monarchy and the ideology of civic benefaction came together more or less as a single package (‘Romanization’) throughout much of the western empire. In the East, by contrast, the tradition of civic benefactions and local honours had preceded the coming of the Romans by several centuries with the result that local benefactors there did not have to pattern themselves on the Roman emperor quite so exclusively. In addition, the civic institutions of the Roman imperial Greek polis, as vehicles for the expression of the collective will, were always more active than those in western cities. Regional patterning in the dedication of imperial statues bears out this contrast. As Figure . shows, communities as a whole (and their executive bodies) were responsible for a far greater share of such dedications – especially as compared with 



For this process in the late first century BCE/early first century CE, see e.g. Woolf () (‘formative period of provincial cultures’); Noreña () – (‘general convergence of social power’). On this point I am mostly in agreement with Zuiderhoek, who argues that the emperor was not an essential model for the euergetism of local aristocrats in Asia Minor (: –). But the impact of imperial monarchy should not be dismissed entirely (see below).



˜   n

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Italy

North Africa

Spain

Communities

Figure .

Greece

Asia Minor

E Provinces

Individuals

Percentages of imperial statues dedicated by communities (or executive bodies) and by individuals,  BCE– CE (N = ,). Source: Højte : –, tables SC  and 

dedications by individuals – in Greece and Asia Minor than elsewhere in the empire (including the provinces of the eastern Mediterranean region). This broad discrepancy in the agency behind local honours for the emperor suggests that there was less scope for elites in the Greek polis than for those in western cities to assert their own superiority by emulating the emperor. Finally, there is a simple linguistic difference in the vocabulary of benefaction between the Latin West and Greek East: liberalitas and indulgentia are not quite the semantic equivalents of philanthrōpia and philotimia. In the East, unlike the West, the translation of the official Roman imperial lexicon into the local idiom was always mediated in linguistic, and perhaps also cognitive, terms. Nevertheless, and despite these real differences in the political and cultural conditions of East and West, it is difficult to imagine that the elites of the Roman imperial Greek polis, like their counterparts in the west, were not motivated to idealize the figure of the emperor as a model benefactor in their own sectional (not communal) interests. That the civic euergetism of local elites during this period was in part an assertion of their social superiority, and a vehicle for legitimating their political authority, above all because of the honorific system through which such benefactions 



Beneficium and euergesia, by contrast, do seem to be very near equivalents, both etymologically and semantically; cf. ILLRP  (bilingual inscription from Delos). Philanthrōpia treated as royal virtue in imperial period: Dio Chrys. Or. .., ., .; Aristid. Or. .; Philo, Mos. .; Men. Rhet. . For the linguistic and cognitive processes involved in the translation of Latin into Greek during the Roman period, see Ando ().

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

were publicly commemorated, is now (I think) broadly accepted. This does not necessarily imply that the local elites of the Roman East had hardened into a hereditary oligarchic order, or that elite differentiation from the masses via a system of public benefactions and honours was a distinctive feature of the Roman imperial period. But even if we see the competitive internal politics of the Greek polis during this period as largely democratic in nature, as many scholars now advocate, there were still winners and losers in the game, as the hierarchy of honours reminds us. And in that sort of competitive landscape, it is likely that many elites were self-consciously patterning their own public behavior on the figure of the emperor, expending their own resources on civic benefactions in return for honours voted to them by the citizens of their community. Hence, they too had a strong incentive to uphold the idea of the emperor as a model benefactor. The abstract reciprocity that characterized the relationship between imperial benefaction and local honorific practice, in other words, is not just an accident of the surviving evidence. It was a structural feature of the system. If the underlying ideology of imperial benefaction matters in this way – if, that is, the ideal of imperial generosity was as important as specific gifts and dispensations from the emperor, and if that ideal really influenced elite behavior – then any significant changes in that ideology should have demonstrable effects not only in the sorts of honours directed towards the emperor but also in the practices of the communities and the elites who generated those honours. One historical moment in which we may see a real rupture in both the ideology and practice of civic benefaction is in the period – CE – the ‘crisis’ of the third century. It is a period characterized, according to the traditional narrative, by continuous warfare, both external and internal; acute political instability, especially on the imperial throne; the debasement of the coinage; rampant inflation and economic stagnation; 



 

Veyne () remains the standard formulation. For the nexus of benefactions, honours and the legitimation of elite authority in the Roman period, see also e.g. Rogers (); Lendon () –; Zuiderhoek () –; cf. van Nijf () and Noreña () for the operation of this same nexus at the sub-elite level. Differences between the elite social strata of the Roman imperial Greek polis and those of cities in the West are explored in Heller (). Continuities from Hellenistic into Roman period: Quass (). Hierarchy of honours in Hellenistic polis: Gauthier (), esp. ch. . For democratic elements in the Roman imperial Greek polis, see studies cited above in note . In general on the emperor as a model for imitation, see Lendon (): –); Noreña () –.

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a pervasive sense of decline among contemporaries; and, most germane to our topic, the near-total cessation of urban development. Recent scholarship on this period has attempted to overturn much of this conventional narrative, but the new, more optimistic view is not really consistent with the facts on the ground. Not only is there very little evidence for new urban construction in the third century, which almost no one disputes, but there is also positive evidence for a significant decline in the number of cities throughout the empire between c.  and  CE. The evidence comes from data collected for a group research project that aims to produce an atlas of cities, urban networks and urban connectivity in the Roman world. These data reveal a dramatic decline in the number of functioning urban centres over the course of the third century, with a drop from a high of , cities in the middle of the second century CE to , cities in the late Roman period. Taking into account the fact that some – per cent of the cities known from the late Roman period were constructed in the fourth century or later, the real change from c.  to  CE amounts to something on the order of a  per cent decrease in the overall number of cities throughout the empire. On any reckoning, that is a significant urban hemorrhaging. Part of the explanation for this large-scale urban decline must lie in the demographic contraction caused by the Antonine plague. In a world of razor-thin agricultural margins necessary for the material support of urban populations, even a  per cent drop in the overall population would have been more than enough to destabilize an entire urban system for decades. Part of the explanation must lie in the cumulative effect of the developments associated with the third-century crisis, especially endemic warfare and economic regression, both of which will have militated against urban  

  



Ando () provides a convenient overview. For arguments against any real crisis in the third century, see e.g. Strobel () (contemporary despair voiced by Christians alone, not the population as a whole); Witschel () (patterns in economic performance and urban activity varied by region, hence no empire-wide crisis); Borg and Witschel () (civic benefactions by local patrons did not actually disappear, but were less frequently commemorated by honorific inscriptions). Rambaldi () surveys the limited evidence for public building in the period –. Data derived from evidence compiled from The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton, ). These figures are based on the chronological periods employed in the Barrington Atlas and on the tabulations for cities in the top four (of five) size rankings (a “high count” of cities); if only the top three size rankings are used (a “low count”), the numbers go from a high of , in the Roman imperial period to a high of , in the late Roman period (a  per cent decline, but again, probably higher in fact, for the reasons cited in the text above). Precision with data of this nature is not possible, of course, but the orders of magnitude are unlikely to be misleading. For a variety of recent views on the Antonine Plague and its impact, see Lo Cascio ().

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

development. But changes in the nature of local honours for the Roman emperor might be relevant, too. Here I draw on another argument advanced in Imperial Ideals in the Roman West. Beginning from the proposition that local elites in the west modeled themselves closely on the figure of the emperor as a way of interlinking imperial power and local authority, I examined long-term trends in the specific honorific terminology employed in local dedications to the emperor. What I found was that the figure of the Roman emperor, as a model constructed by provincial communities, underwent a profound and indeed revolutionary shift over the course of the second century CE. Through most of the second century, the most common honorific term for the emperor was optimus, ‘the best man’, which implied both moral excellence and ethical exemplarity. The core value that local elites chose to follow most carefully was generosity, which found material expression in the civic benefactions of these very elites. By the last quarter of the second century, however, the term optimus had dropped out of this honorific vocabulary, its place effectively taken by the very different term dominus, ‘master.’ Unlike optimus, the term dominus had neither an ethical component nor any exemplary or paradigmatic potential. It simply defined the emperor as a distant, frightening and all-powerful autocrat. This long-term shift in local representations of the emperor had deep and consequential effects outside the realm of ideals and values, as I argued, fundamentally altering not only the nature of local aristocratic authority but also the actions of these local elites themselves. As long as the honorific term optimus and all that it implied was in the ascendant, local elites continued to model their own authority on that of the emperor, and to legitimate their status through emulation of the emperor as a civic benefactor. But the rise of the term dominus for the emperor and its effective displacement of the term optimus shattered this interlinking of imperial and local authority and the euergetistic impulse that went with it. With the disappearance of a certain model of imperial authority, based on ethical excellence and civic benefaction, went the disappearance of the very particular set of incentives that encouraged public expenditures by the elite, especially in the sphere of urban development. The power and status of local elites, in brief, could no longer be as effectively legitimated by means of civic euergetism.



Esp. pp. –, based upon  honorific inscriptions for the emperor, erected between  and  in the western empire.



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A similar dynamic might well have played out in the eastern empire. In Greek inscriptions prior to the fourth century CE, kurios is the standard Greek term for the Latin dominus. The chronological patterning in the usage of kurios as an honorific title for the emperor appears to follow a nearly identical trajectory to that of dominus. The term is first attested epigraphically under Tiberius (– CE), but does not become common until the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (–), and the sole rule of the latter (–). It is surely no coincidence that it was Commodus, according to Dio, who first insisted on the title kurios (..). It is only under Septimius Severus (–) and especially Caracalla (–), however, that this title really proliferates in honorific inscriptions for the emperor, just when the term dominus is exploding throughout the western empire. It is not impossible, then, that local elites in the eastern empire, like their counterparts in the West, were no longer representing their emperor as a model benefactor but as a master, and that as a result they, too, lost the necessary incentives to expend their own resources on civic benefactions. So the changing ideological framework within which elite investment in urban development was embedded should be seen as one part of the explanation for the decline in urban infrastructure in the third century. It goes without saying that this almost empire-wide decline in urbanization and urban culture was the result of a multivariate process. Honouring the emperor as dominus or kurios obviously did not cause the third-century crisis. But given the outsize role played by elite benefaction in the maintenance of cities, their attitudes and practices cannot be ignored. In attempting to understand the urban dimension of the third-century crisis, in other words, we should give due weight to the changing symbolism of social power. In terms of public life within the Roman imperial Greek polis, to return to our central theme, what this argument suggests is that it was not just monarchy but a particular form of idealized monarchy in which emphasis was placed on virtue, generosity and public giving that helped to catalyze   

The following paragraph, based on the indices to IGRom. –, is only the barest sketch of what a properly documented argument might look like. Dickey ()  notes that despotēs begins to replace kurios at the end of the third century. Tiberius: IGRom. .. Marcus Aurelius: IGRom. ., , , , ; ., . Commodus: IGRom. ., , , . Septimius Severus: e.g. IGRom. ., , , . Caracalla: e.g. IGRom. ., , , –, ; ., , . The papyrological evidence from Egypt, it should be noted, tells a different story, with kurios becoming common already under Nero (– CE); see the evidence collected in Bureth () , –.

Emperors and Benefaction in the Roman Imperial Greek Polis



the practice of civic benefaction. And it was that practice that undergirded the municipal vitality of the Greek world in the first two centuries CE. When that idealized form of imperial monarchy was transformed into something very different, though, with the emperor increasingly represented, and presumably imagined, as an autocratic and remote master, the rhythms of urban life in the eastern empire were transformed as well. Public giving on the grand scale was one of the primary casualties of this transformation. Such was the animating power of Roman imperial monarchy on civic consciousness in the Greek polis. We return, in conclusion, to the importance of political systems for the distribution of resources within complex societies. Though what we refer to as classical ‘euergetism’ was in part a cultural construct with several distinctive features, the whole process of civic benefaction can still be seen, from a materialist perspective, as a matter of resource (re)distribution. That the local elites of the Roman imperial Greek polis expended vast sums from their own resources on many different forms of civic benefaction can hardly be doubted. But such private expenditures on public goods long predated the second century CE. So what, if anything, makes the Roman imperial period distinctive in the long sweep of ancient Greek city-state history? Dynamic interactions between the polis and a ‘powerful outsider’ are not a distinguishing feature of the period. Indeed, the reward of civic honours to wealthy and influential foreigners goes right back to the origins of the honorific system in classical Athens and the granting of proxenia to foreign euergetai. One difference, of course, is the presence of a single, all-powerful outsider, the emperor. But the existence of a monarch who was frequently entangled in the affairs of the polis had already emerged in the Hellenistic period. In this regard, the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods go together as a single stage in the historical evolution of civic benefaction in the Greek polis to be distinguished from the classical era, when monarchy, as a political form, rarely impinged on internal politics in this way.



  

In this important respect I must part ways with Veyne, who explicitly rejected this interpretation of the phenomenon: “Expliquons d’abord ce qu’on peut entendre par évergétisme et ce que l’évergétisme n’est pas: ni redistribution, ni ostentation, ni dépolitisation” (: ). To turn to virtually any page of Quass () or Zuiderhoek () is to be confronted by an avalanche of evidence for such material benefactions. Gauthier () –, ff. In this specific regard, I would endorse the implicit periodizations of Veyne () and Quass () (as against that of Gauthier ()).



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What is new and different in the Roman imperial period itself, as I have tried to argue here, is that the ‘powerful outsider’ in question, the emperor, was invested with a highly idealized set of virtues, especially generosity, and was routinely honoured, regardless of his actual behavior, as a model benefactor. Local honours for Hellenistic kings could have a generalizing and idealizing thrust, too, but the abstraction of honours in the Roman period is more pervasive. Reciprocal honours were sometimes given in exchange for specific benefactions, as we have seen, but the honorific system as a whole appears to have been driven by the regular reward of general honours for the persistent ideal of imperial generosity. This type of abstraction benefitted the elites of the Greek polis, for whom the figure of the emperor, as model benefactor, was a useful paradigm upon which they could base their own claims to social superiority, in part by expending their own private resources in exchange for public honours. This does not mean that the politics of the Roman imperial Greek polis were debased or dominated by Roman-style oligarchies, or that the costs of urban development and maintenance were far beyond the scope of civic finances. But it does mean that a very particular value system was carrying a lot of the weight in determining the distribution of resources within the polis. When that value system was transformed, and the emperor was no longer imagined as an ethical benefactor, the incentives that had helped to drive civic euergetism for more than two centuries were lost forever. The road to the very different world of Christian charity lay wide open. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ando, C. () Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley. () Imperial Rome AD –: The Critical Century. Edinburgh. () Roman Social Imaginaries: Language and Thought in the Context of Empire. Toronto. Boatwright, M. () Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire. Princeton. Borg, B., and Witschel, C. () ‘Veränderung im Repräsentationsverhalten der römischen Eliten während des . Jhs. n. Chr.’, in G. Alföldy and S. Panciera  

For the generalizing force of local honours for Hellenistic kings, see Ma (), esp. ch. , arguing that civic honours generated a set of ongoing expectations that could shape subsequent royal action. The argument for debased politics and the imposition of Roman-style oligarchies throughout the Greek world is made most forcefully by de Ste. Croix (), esp. –, –, –, –. Equally forceful reactions against this picture in, e.g., Heller (); van Nijf and Alston (a).

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(eds.), Inschriftliche Denkmäler als Medien der Selbstdarstellung in der römischen Welt. Stuttgart, –. Bureth, P. () Les titulatures impériales dans les papyrus, les ostraca et les inscriptions d’Égypte ( a.C.– p.C.). Brussels. de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. () The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, N.Y. Dickey, E. () ‘Kyrie, Despota, Domine: Greek politeness in the Roman Empire’, Journal of Hellenic Studies : –. Garnsey, P. () Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis. Cambridge. Gauthier, P. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe–Ier siècle av. J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens. Gordon, R. () ‘The veil of power: emperors, sacrificers, and benefactors’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds.), Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World. Ithaca, NY, –. Gramsci, A. [–] () The Prison Notebooks,  vols. New York. Halfmann, H. () Itinera principum. Geschichte und Typologie der Kaiserreisen im römischen Reich. Stuttgart. Hansen, M. (ed.) () The Ancient Greek City-State. Copenhagen. (ed.) () A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures. Copenhagen. Heller, A. () ‘La cité grecque d’époque impériale: vers une société d’ordres’, Annales ESC : –. Højte, J. M. () Roman Imperial Statue Bases: From Augustus to Commodus. Aarhus. Horster, M. () Literarische Zeugnisse kaiserlicher Bautätigkeit. Eine Studie zu Baumassnahmen in Städten des römischen Reiches während des Prinzipats. Stuttgart. () Bauinschriften römischer Kaiser. Untersuchungen zu Inschriftenpraxis und Bautätigkeit in Städten des westlichen Imperium Romanum in der Zeit des Prinzipats. Stuttgart. Larfeld, W. () Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik, vol. . Leipzig. () Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik, vol. . Leipzig. Lehnen, J. () Adventus Principis. Frankfurt. Lendon, J. E. () Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World. Oxford. Lo Cascio, E. (ed.) () L’impatto della ‘peste antonina’. Bari. Ma, J. () Antiochus III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor. Oxford. () Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford. Millar, F. () The Emperor in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY. () ‘Empire and city, Augustus to Julian: obligations, excuses, and status’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. Mitchell, S. () ‘Imperial building in the eastern Roman provinces’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology : –. Murray, O., and Price, S. (eds.) () The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford.

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Noreña, C. () ‘The ethics of autocracy in the Roman world’, in R. Balot (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought. Malden, MA, –. () Imperial Ideals in the Roman West: Representation, Circulation, Power. Cambridge. () ‘Private associations and urban experience in the Han and Roman empires’, in H. Beck and G. Vankeerberghen (eds.), Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China. Cambridge. Ober, J. () The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. Princeton. Pékary, T. () ‘Statuen in kleinasiatischen Inschriften’, in Studien zur Religion und Kultur Kleinasiens. Leiden, –. Pekáry, T. () Das römische Kaiserbildnis in Staat, Kult und Gesellschaft. Berlin. Pfanner, M. () ‘Über das Herstellen von Porträts. Ein Beitrag zu Rationalisierungsmaßnahmen und Produktionsmechanismen von Massenware im späten Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts : –. Price, S. R. F. () Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge. Quass, F. () Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens. Untersuchungen zur politischen und sozialen Entwicklung in hellenistischer und römischer Zeit. Stuttgart. Rambaldi, S. () L’edilizia pubblica nell’impero romano all’epoca dell’anarchia militare (– d.C.). Bologna. Rapp, C., and H. Drake (eds.) () The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World. Cambridge. Rogers, G. () ‘Demosthenes of Oenoanda and models of euergetism’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. Rose, C. B. () ‘The imperial image in the eastern Mediterranean’, in S. Alcock (ed.), The Early Roman Empire in the East. Oxford, –. Smith, R. R. R. () Hellenistic Royal Portraits. Oxford. et al. () Roman Portrait Statuary from Aphrodisias. Mainz. Stewart, P. () Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response. Oxford. Strobel, K. () Das Imperium Romanum im ‘. Jahrhundert’. Modell einer historischen Krise? Stuttgart. van Nijf, O. () The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East. Amsterdam. van Nijf, O., and Alston, R. (a) ‘Political culture in the Greek city after the classical age: introduction and preview’, in van Nijf and Alston b, –. van Nijf, O., and Alston, R. (eds.) (b) Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Leuven. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. () ‘L’empereur, ses concitoyens et ses sujets’, in H. Ingelbert (ed.), Idéologies et valeurs civiques dans le monde romaine. Paris, –.

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Whitmarsh, T. (ed.) () Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World. Cambridge. Witschel, C. () Krise, Rezession, Stagnation? Der Westen des römischen Reiches im . Jahrhundert n. Chr. Frankfurt. Woolf, G. () ‘The formation of Roman provincial cultures’, in J. Metzler et al. (eds.), Integration in the Early Roman West: The Role of Culture and Ideology. Luxembourg, –. Zanker, P. () Provinzielle Kaiserporträts. Zur Rezeption der Selbstdarstellung des Princeps. Munich. Zuiderhoek, A. () ‘On the political sociology of the imperial Greek city’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies : –. () The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge.

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Benefactors and the Poleis in the Roman Empire Civic Munificence in the Roman East in the Context of the Longue Durée Arjan Zuiderhoek Introduction Elite public generosity, that is, gifts or contributions by wealthy individuals to the wider community, was a longue durée feature of polis society. It may have taken on different shapes in different epochs of polis history, but the underlying mechanism – public gifts or services (material or immaterial) by the elite for which they received honours and privileges (material or immaterial) in return – remained more or less the same. That is the Leitmotiv or, perhaps better, the working hypothesis of the present volume, and I think the chapters in this book, focussing on the different periods of ancient Greek history from early archaic times until well into the later Roman Empire, for all their diversity of scope and argument, underscore the essential validity of this hypothesis. Such apparent continuity through the ages of polis history does beg an important question, however, and that is simply: Why? Why was elite public giving such an enduring element of polis life? In this chapter, I shall discuss the development of elite public gift-giving in the poleis under Roman imperial rule. I shall deal with various characteristics of elite generosity that began to emerge from the later Hellenistic period onwards, but (strongly) intensified in the poleis under the Roman Empire. These developments, I argue, were largely a response to the pressures, challenges and opportunities created by the incorporation and integration of the polis-communities into larger territorial polities, particularly the imperium Romanum. The strongly politically charged exchange of gifts for honours and/or privileges that had always been present in polis society, and which, for the period from the fourth century BCE onwards, increasingly took on the shape of elite benefactions to the community in 

I would like to thank Robin Osborne for his incisive comments on an early draft of this chapter. All remaining errors are mine alone.

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exchange for public inscribed honorific monuments (what modern scholars call euergetism), bent and adapted under the pressures of empire, as did the social vision on which it was predicated, which we may call the ‘civic model of society’. Euergetism bent, but it did not break; on the contrary, the phenomenon experienced its greatest proliferation in the Roman era, and arguably became a crucial contributing factor to Roman imperial longevity. Yet, and this is my second argument, behind all this change there was an important element of continuity, not just with the later Hellenistic period but with the entire social and political history of the polis. For I want to argue that the ways in which euergetism adapted to empire were strongly moulded and determined by precisely the factors which explain why elite public generosity and the exchange of gifts for honours had been such prominent and enduring features of polis society in the first place. This means, of course, that we should start with a discussion of these factors first, before we can turn to the development of civic euergetism in the Roman period.

Benefactors and the Polis: Explaining the Centrality of the Public Gift Why was public giving such a central element in polis society? I would single out three factors characteristic of the polis and its sociopolitical structures that might help us to answer this question. I deliberately present them here in a rather robust form, mostly devoid of nuance: they are the building blocks of an explanatory model that should be tested through further research. The first factor has to do with how power and authority were legitimated in Greek society from the early archaic period onwards. The social world portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey was dominated by what appears to be, at first glance, an aristocratic elite: the basileis. The basileis were the social group that provided society’s leaders in both peace and war. Assuming, according to the current consensus, that the Homeric epics broadly reflect the social and political structures of late Dark Age/early archaic Greece, we might thus be tempted to conclude that early on in Greek history, power, in both its political and military form, was  

Following Brown (). I present a shorter version of this model in Zuiderhoek (b), which focusses on euergetic discourse and practices in the New Testament, specifically in Luke and Acts.



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legitimated primarily through descent, that is, aristocratic birth. However, when we look more closely at the epics, we see that while aristocratic descent may have been a necessary condition for leadership in Homeric Greece, it certainly was not a sufficient one. Telemachos may be Odysseus’ son, but that does not automatically give him authority or make him king of Ithaca. The Homeric basileus was a primus inter pares, and his authority, power and prestige had to be earned through deeds and actions that benefitted his community. Interestingly, on several occasions Homer has his characters explicitly discuss claims to privilege and authority in terms of an exchange between the elite and the people. Indeed, as Hans van Wees argues in this volume (Chapter ), the epics are imbued with a strong ideology of elite public service, according to which members of the ruling class served their peoples as warriors/protectors, councillors and judges, in exchange for high status and social, political and material privileges awarded by the community. When, after the archaic social revolutions, aristocratic descent ceased to be a necessary condition for the exercise of political leadership, being replaced first by the combination of wealth plus (a developing notion of ) citizenship and later, in democratic poleis, solely by citizenship, this latter aspect of Greek political culture – that is, that those claiming authority and privilege first had to prove themselves worthy through public activities that clearly benefitted their community – became an absolutely central element of polis politics. In a society predicated on the notion of the basic political equality of all (adult male) citizens, inequalities of wealth, status and power presented an obvious ideological and political problem. In addition, Greek culture, in Adkins’s apt formulation, was a ‘results-culture’; hence, such disparities could be justified and made 



See e.g. the famous exchange between the Lycian basileis Sarpedon and Glaukos in Il..–, where Sarpedon states: ‘Glaukos, why is it you and I are honored with pride of place, the choice meats and the filled wine-cups in Lykia, and all men look on us as if we were immortals, and we are appointed a great piece of land by the banks of the Xanthos, good land, orchard and vineyard, and ploughland for the planting of wheat? Therefore it is our duty in the forefront of the Lykians to take our stand and bear our part of the blazing of battle, so that a man of the close-armoured Lykians may say of us, “Indeed these are no ignoble men who are lords of Lykia, these kings of ours, who feed upon the fat sheep appointed and drink the exquisite sweet wine, since indeed there is strength of valour in them, since they fight in the forefront of the Lykians.”’ Trans. Lattimore (). Other passages in the epics express the same idea, e.g. Il. .–, where Achilles is offered lordship over seven cities; the implication is that they will reward him richly for his good government; Od. .–, where Mentor berates the men in the assembly-meeting at Ithaca for not properly rewarding Odysseus for his just rule as basileus, but instead letting the suitors plunder Odysseus’ oikos. See Raaflaub () for discussion. Adkins () .

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acceptable only when those possessing superior wealth, status or talent allowed the fellow members of their community, and their fellow citizens in the first place, a share in the benefits which derived from such advantages, and they had to do so in public, in a manner visible to the entire community. One could earn privileges and status through excelling on the battlefield, defending or securing glory for one’s polis, or in athletic or other competitions, bringing honour to one’s community, or indeed through being publicly generous, allowing fellow citizens to share in one’s wealth. Thus in classical Athens elite litigants facing the popular juries would present themselves as upstanding democratic citizens who accepted the communitarian ethics of the polis and would use their wealth to benefit their fellow Athenians (through paying for liturgies). Stressing one’s public contributions in court or assembly would result in a favourable reputation among the dēmos, and elite speakers quite openly admit that this was in fact their aim when they paid for liturgies. The liturgy system as such, however, by severely limiting the autonomy of the wealthy regarding the choice of whether, when and how to be publicly generous, was exemplary of the degree to which the Athenian democracy had been successful in severing the link between (public displays of ) wealth and the direct exercise of political power. Wealth might buy one a good rhetorical education; if expended on (many or highly expensive) liturgies, it brought social standing and gave one credit with the people. In and of itself, however, it did not bring political power: only the assembly could provide that through election (mostly by allotment) to a public office, at one stroke equipping the new magistrate with the authority and legitimacy to carry out his public duties. The link between the justification of social and political power and public gifts was far more sharply evident in those poleis which were less radically democratic than Athens, communities where ordinary citizens shared in public decision-making via a popular assembly but where political offices were mostly held by wealthier citizens. In such poleis, as Aristotle clearly perceived, the best way for wealthier citizens to secure and justify their exalted political position, and thus to ensure the political stability of their communities, was through frequent public gifts 

Ober (). Note the speaker in Lys. .–: ‘I was trierarch five times; I fought in a sea battle four times; I made many contributions of money to the public finances; and I performed the other liturgies in a manner not inferior to any other citizen. And I spent more money on these than I was required to do so by the city, so that I might be thought more agathos by you [i.e. the citizen-jury], and if some misfortune should come upon me, I might ameinon agōnizesthai (fare better in court).’ Trans. Adkins () .

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(Pol. .a). This, as we shall see, aptly describes the situation in most post-classical (i.e. Hellenistic and Roman-era) poleis. A second factor that might help us understand the centrality of public giving in the Greek polis is the Greek idea of politics per se. As Oswyn Murray notes, the Greek conception of politics was fundamentally different from the modern western one: whereas in the modern West, politics is conceived as a (rule-governed) struggle between power groups/interest groups, ideally resulting in eventual reconciliation around a compromise, for the Greeks politics was about unity, about the expression of the will of the community as a whole. In reality, of course, there were ‘power blocks’ in every polis, as our sources acknowledge, but the existence of stasis, the struggle between such factions or parties, even if conducted peacefully, was experienced as deeply uncomfortable by the Greeks: it might all too easily descend into violence and result in a (temporary) breakdown of society. Given that the polis did not possess a central government separated from the people as such that might serve as an arbiter in such disputes, nor commanded a professional police force or army to quell violence (I will return to these issues shortly), other means of maintaining social cohesion and preventing civic conflict had to be found. Elite public generosity turned out to be ideal for this purpose, since it had the effect of neutralizing the two most important sources of (violent) political conflict in the Greek polis: the struggle between elite individuals for power and prestige and the struggle between the elite, or the wealthy, and the dēmos, or ordinary citizens, for primacy in the polis. Other mitigating factors of course came into play, such as, during the archaic, classical and early Hellenistic periods, the elite’s dependence on the military participation of the dēmos. The problem was that the two types of conflict were often intertwined: the intensely competitive nature of intra-elite struggles for honour and power could easily turn nasty and split the dēmos into factions. However, competition between individual members of the elite that was focused on who could bestow the most splendid gifts could hardly hurt the polis (or, even if very fierce, at least not hurt it as bad as violent stasis might), while the natural tension between rich and poor in a politically egalitarian society could be mitigated by the visible efforts of the rich to let their poorer fellow citizens share in their wealth via public benefactions. A third factor that might explain the prevalence of public giving in Greek cities is the stateless character of the polis, already hinted at above. As Moshe Berent and others have pointed out, the polis was not a state in 

Murray () –. See also Cartledge () –, –.

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the modern Weberian sense of the word; that is, it did not have a clearly identifiable political and institutional centre (i.e. a caste of professional politicians, administrative bureaucracies) with true coercive power (a monopoly of violence, realized in the form of an institutionalized police force or professional army) that was differentiated from the citizenry and that can be called a government. Rather, power was diffused throughout society: citizens ruled together through mass political institutions such as councils of a hundred or, in larger cities, several hundred members, popular assemblies numbering hundreds, or again in larger cities, thousands of citizens and elected committees of magistrates with annually rotating membership, features which, I would stress, continued to characterise the polis from the archaic period until well into the high Roman Empire. A crucial question then is: In the absence of a clear political and institutional centre to ensure cohesion, which forces of integration were operative to keep the community intact? Mass collective action was clearly very important here: fighting together, for instance (during the archaic, classical and Hellenistic periods, all adult male citizens of a polis were soldiers) or participating in mass political decision-making. Crucial, however, were also collective civic rituals (perhaps increasingly so from the later Hellenistic period onwards, as the deployment of citizen armies became more of a rarity, and there was consequently less opportunity for military bonding): religious festivals, theatre shows, games, processions and so forth, through which communities could define and reaffirm their collective identity and maintain social cohesion. It is here that public giving had an important role to play, in two ways. First, many such collective events were financed and (co-)organized by benefactors. Second, and more importantly, the act of public giving itself in a sense constituted and defined the community, since benefactors focused on a certain circle of recipients and excluded others. Acts of munificence were rituals of inclusion (and, by implication, exclusion). Thus, the collective unity of the civic community could be reaffirmed through public benefaction.  

 

Berent (), (); see also Lintott () ; Osborne () –, () ; Cartledge () –, () , () –; and Wagner-Hasel, Chapter  in this volume. See Zuiderhoek (a) – for discussion. As I argue there, employing watered-down versions of the Weberian ideal type or vaguer alternative definitions of ‘the state’, as some scholars do, is analytically unhelpful. It only serves to increase confusion and risks emptying the concept of all meaning. Berent (). Zuiderhoek (a) –. I should note that in my  book on civic munificence in Roman Asia Minor I argued that a Maussian model of reciprocal gift-exchange constituted an ideal point of

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These three factors – legitimation/justification of inequalities of wealth and power in citizen communities characterised by (the ideal of ) basic political equality, the specific Greek understanding of politics, and the stateless or politically decentralized character of the polis – I think go a long way towards explaining the centrality of elite public giving and, more specifically, the exchange of gifts for honours and privileges between elite and people, in the polis. The list of three is not meant to be exhaustive; other contributing causes might well be identified. One that would strike readers as most obviously missing from the analysis above is probably the struggle for honour. This is the motive generally highlighted in our sources, and it is mostly connected with the benefactor’s express wish to benefit his city or fellow citizens. Needless to say, the quest for honour did motivate benefactors, and Greek public generosity was an exchange of gifts for honours. Indeed, honour is embedded in the first structural factor outlined above, since it was the honour and prestige gained through public gifts and contributions which served to justify inequalities of wealth and power in polis society. However, despite its crucial role as a force motivating elite generosity, we ought also to recognise that honour could be won in many different ways in Greek society (e.g. through athletic, military, political or cultural achievements), not solely through making public benefactions. Hence, if we want to explain why elite public giving per se was such an important phenomenon in polis society, we need to look beyond immediately expressed motivations and towards more structural factors, as I have tried to do above. As said, I present my three factors here briefly as a hypothesis to be validated or rejected on the basis of further research. One way to test their validity as an explanatory model, of course, would be to see whether they can help us analyse and understand better the developments and



departure for the analysis of civic euergetism, but that one drawback was that anthropologists including Mauss himself had primarily used the model to explain the maintenance of social cohesion in societies lacking formal institutions of government possessing a monopoly of violence, whereas the Greek city, I thought, had such institutions. Thus I came to the conclusion that euergetism primarily functioned to assuage social tensions within the institutional structure of the Roman-era Greek city (pp. –). The Greek polis indeed possessed political institutions, but since studying the work of Berent and other scholars presenting similar arguments (see note  above for references) I am no longer convinced that these institutions were equivalent to a state government differentiated from the citizenry and possessing a monopoly of violence. If the polis, despite its institutional complexity, did not have a state government separate from the citizen-body as such that could function as a stabilizing centre, then of course the cohesion-enhancing and conflict-assuaging character of the public rituals of reciprocity associated with elite public giving were even more crucial to the stability of polis society than I originally assumed. See e.g. Zuiderhoek (a) –; Domingo Gygax () –; Heller and van Nijf ().

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changes in elite public giving during different epochs of polis history. In the remainder of this chapter, that is precisely what I propose to do. I shall focus on what might arguably have been one of the most challenging periods in the history of Greek public giving: the Roman imperial era, more specifically the first two and a half centuries CE (but with occasional strategic retreats back into the later Hellenistic period, to highlight continuities or accentuate changes).

Benefactors and the Poleis under the Roman Empire: Explaining Continuities and Changes In the poleis of the Greek East under the Roman Empire, elite public giving generally took a form that had (slowly) developed during the classical period and had become its dominant manifestation during the Hellenistic centuries. That is, it essentially consisted of a reciprocal exchange, mostly between citizens, and of public gifts (mainly contributions to public buildings and sanctuaries, donations of games and festivals, distributions of grain, wine, oil or money) for public honours, specifically, among other privileges, the award of a public honorific monument often consisting of a statue of the donor with an inscription carved on its base recording the decision of a public body or bodies, generally the boule and dēmos of the city, to honour the benefactor and listing the offices and priesthoods he had held and, most importantly, his public gifts. This is the type of elite public giving that, following the lead of A. Boulanger and H.-I. Marrou, but particularly, of Paul Veyne, ancient historians tend to label l’évergétisme. Originally, as Marc Domingo Gygax argues, euergetism as a specific type of elite generosity might have developed out of the archaic Greek institution of xenia, or ritualized friendship characterised by gift-exchange between (elite) citizens of different poleis, in which the partners cared not only for each other but also for their partner’s family, friends and fellow citizens. This exchange came to include the typical euergetic ‘rewards’ of honorific inscriptions and civic privileges, which were bestowed by poleis on outsiders, that is, on the xenoi who had performed benefactions for their partners’ poleis. Increasingly, however, during the classical period, euergetic exchanges came to involve citizens from the same polis. While initially slow to develop in fifth-century BCE Athens, for both ideological reasons (public contributions were fine, and even expected from the wealthy in the polis, but in the radical Athenian 

Boulanger () ; Marrou (); Veyne (); Gauthier ().

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democracy of the fifth century, awarding permanent honorific monuments and inscriptions to one’s fellow citizens in return for them was thought to rather un-democratically elevate the wealthy above their political peers) and economic realities (empire provided sufficient public income), euergetic exchanges became more and more common during the fourth century, at both deme and polis level, even if, at Athens (and perhaps in other democratic poleis as well), there remained present a constant tension between the dēmos’ desire to present elite gifts as simply ‘owed to the polis’ and the elite’s wish for honours and public recognition. Nonetheless, from the late classical period onwards, euergetism increasingly came to overshadow other types of public giving in the poleis or replaced earlier, now obsolete forms (the Homeric exchange between basileus and people, archaic largesse, the democratic liturgy system, etc.). Exchanges clothed in euergetic discourse also came to dominate the relationships between poleis and external powers such as the Hellenistic kings, Roman generals and, later, emperors (see shortly below, and also Chapters  and  by Strootman and Noreña, respectively, in this volume). In what follows, I want to single out and discuss several trends within elite public giving that became prominent during the early and high Roman Empire. These are () the unprecedented proliferation of civic euergetism in the poleis of the imperial period and () the increasing use of the reciprocal mechanism and the associated discourse and ideology of civic euergetism outside the strictly civic (or citizen) sphere, at what I call the para-civic and supra-civic levels. These developments mostly already started from later Hellenistic times onwards but became much more marked during the imperial period. This suggests that they had a feature in common, and that feature, I would argue, is the poleis’ confrontation with and adaptation to the demands of territorial empires, in the shape of the Hellenistic kingdoms but particularly the imperium Romanum. As said, I focus here mainly on the Roman era. I start with proliferation. From the later Hellenistic period onwards, a steady increase is detectable in the number of public honours recorded on inscriptions in many poleis throughout the East, a trend which culminated in an unprecedented proliferation during the high Roman Empire. Does this increase in the number of recorded honours signify a concomitant increase in the number of public gifts? This need not necessarily have been the case. After all, there existed forms of elite public giving in the archaic and classical poleis, which we know of through other sources, which were 

Domingo Gygax () and his Chapter  in this volume.



Zuiderhoek (a).

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not commemorated by public honorific inscriptions. So, the argument could be made that what we are seeing in the post-classical poleis is simply a fundamental change in commemorative and honorific practices, while the underlying reality of elite public giving remained much the same. However, I think this is unlikely, for two reasons. First, although difficult to quantify, the increase in attestations is such that it simply strains credulity that we are dealing solely with a shift in commemorative practice (note that such an assumption would imply that the incidence of elite public giving in the archaic, classical and early Hellenistic poleis was already as high as in the later Hellenistic and, particularly, Roman imperial poleis, something which I think no one will want to argue). Second and more importantly, public honours in the form of an honorific decree on a stele set up in a public place, or a shortened form thereof, inscribed on the base of a statue of the honorand, were a fundamental and defining characteristic of the mode of elite benefaction that we call euergetism. As we saw, this type of elite public giving arose in classical Athens alongside other forms of elite public generosity, and it eventually developed into the most successful manifestation of the phenomenon yet, in terms of numbers, geographical spread and, arguably, the amount of political time and energy that was spent on it in the cities. Euergetism was thus characterised by an organic connection between public gifts and honours in the form of an inscribed public honorific monument; when such inscriptions are mostly absent from the record, as they were in the Greek world up until the later fifth century BCE (at least, for citizens; ‘outside’ benefactors of the poleis were honoured with such inscriptions, and here, as Domingo Gygax shows, we can detect the origins of civic euergetism), or display a significant decline in numbers, as they started to do in Greek cities during the Roman period from the mid-third century CE onwards, then we can safely assume that elite public giving in the form of euergetism was mostly absent or in decline (but other types of elite generosity might be present or develop in its stead). So, why was there such an increase in civic euergetism from the later Hellenistic period onwards, and particularly during the high Roman Empire? To begin with, it should be noted that recent research has demonstrated that the dominance which wealthier citizens exercised over the city council and magistracies in the post-classical poleis did emphatically not imply the death of democracy-style popular politics (indeed, boards of magistrates and councils in many ‘moderately democratic’ or ‘mildly oligarchic’ poleis in the classical period had been similarly wealthdominated). Post-classical poleis were no radical Athenian democracies, yet



 

the popular assemblies mostly remained vigorous institutions in Hellenistic and Roman imperial Greek cities at least until well into the third century CE, voting laws and decrees, and by and large polis politics remained a sparring contest between mass and elite and between individual elite members competing in the public arena of the assembly, as it had always been. With this in mind, I have argued elsewhere that one of the most important reasons for the proliferation of munificence in the early imperial East (during the first but primarily the second century CE) was the pressure that the demands of empire exerted on polis political life. From the Hellenistic period onwards, but particularly under Roman rule, the demands of territorial rulers and their officials (kings, emperors, governors) increasingly threatened to compromise what we may call the ‘civic model of society’ of the Greek polis, exemplified by the exchange deal between elite and mass outlined above, according to which inequalities of wealth, power and prestige in a citizen community consisting of basic political equals could only be justified by public contributions and exertions by rich citizens for the benefit of their community. The emperors in particular expected local elites to maintain public order and collect taxes. They made them responsible for local jurisdiction as well as for the maintenance of the public infrastructure of their communities. Partly for these purposes, city councils in the poleis were transformed into minisenates on the Roman model, composed of ex-magistrates who sat for life. Failure to comply with Roman demands was not an option. At the same time, however, Greek civic elites still operated within a polis framework centred on the notion of the basic political equality of all adult male citizens, and the absence of any institutionalized coercive force (police, local army) meant that polis politics mostly remained a game of persuasion, of rhetorical speeches by elites in public assemblies to ensure the backing and support of the ordinary citizens. Disturbances of the peace, that is, agitation by ordinary citizens against their own elites, needed to be avoided at all cost. These might all too easily lead to stasis and the breakdown of political society, and would, if serious enough, provoke 

 

See Grieb (); Carlsson (); Mann and Scholz () and Wiemer () for discussion of popular politics in Hellenistic poleis and Rogers (); Lewin (); Ma (); Zuiderhoek (); Heller (); Fernoux (); Brélaz () and Oppeneer () for the role of the people in the imperial poleis. Zuiderhoek (a). Jones () remains the classic account; see also Sartre (); Mitchell (); Quass (); Dmitriev ().

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

intervention by Roman officials, with resulting loss of power by the local elite and perhaps punishment. In such a context, the only conceivable political response, within the polis framework, to the oligarchisation that inevitably resulted from the increasing demands which empire placed on the local civic elites, was a marked intensification of the age-old social mechanism of power legitimation in the polis: the exchange of gifts for honours, now in the form of euergetism. Consequently, there was an explosion of public giving. There were other contributing factors as well, such as the fact that stellar performance as a local benefactor might draw favourable attention from the Roman authorities, and lead to a profitable imperial career, and the demographics of elite formation, with older families dying out or becoming impoverished, and new social risers eager to make a name for themselves investing in munificence (in turn provoking established elites families into providing even more extravagant displays of generosity). Competition was clearly intense, and increasingly so: this can be gleaned from the fact that both big gifts (i.e. of , denarii or more or of entire public buildings) and smaller gifts (a one-off distribution among a small number of recipients, gifts of architectural elements such as pillars, statues, stairways, blocks of seating, etc.) show a spectacular increase in numbers during the early empire, which reached its peak during the second century CE. Almost everyone participated, lower-ranking city councillors as well as the most elevated echelons of the boule, the proteuontes or primores viri. Again, however, as long as intra-elite struggles came in the shape of competitive gift-giving, tensions might be released in a way that was (most of the time) beneficial to the polis community as a whole and did not give rise to stasis. Now I would maintain that the three factors responsible for the centrality of public giving in the polis discussed above do indeed provide an excellent interpretative framework for understanding the Roman-period developments just described. As central government pressure on the local   



See e.g. Plut. Mor. a; Dio Chrys. Or. .. Salmeri (); Zuiderhoek (a) –.  Zuiderhoek (). Zuiderhoek (). A gift of , denarii is defined as ‘big’ because it represents about  per cent of the annual income (, denarii) of a town councillor possessing property to the value of HS , or , denarii, the census requirement for the ordo decurionum, assuming an annual return on landed property of  per cent, for which see Duncan-Jones () . See Zuiderhoek (a) –. See Zuiderhoek (a) – (esp. figures . and .), – and – (with figure .) for analysis and discussion of evidence drawn from a corpus of over  recorded benefactions from Roman Asia Minor.



 

elites to behave more manifestly as a leading caste (an ordo, as the Romans would say) increased, this naturally created a problem of legitimation in the politically egalitarian context of the polis. Polis citizens, as we saw, had an age-old and effective solution to this problem, which was the exchange of gifts for honours. The public rituals of praise organised by the poleis to thank their benefactors in fact provided an ideal setting for the public expression of consent with elite leadership that is so important to the process of legitimation (following David Beetham’s influential model). Given the continuous nature of the pressures of empire on polis society, the absence of a stabilising governmental centre within the polis that could deal with the effects of these pressures through its monopoly of violence, and the absence of associated executive branches (bureaucracy, police, army) to effectively maintain this monopoly, the legitimating exchange between elite and masses had to be constantly reiterated in the form of an ongoing process of political negotiation, arbitration and manufacturing of consent. Conflict, or stasis, had to be avoided at all costs: the perseverance of the Greek ideal of politics as the unified expression of collective will can be observed in the imperial poleis’ obsession with homonoia, a theme which constantly recurs in their discourse, in the inscriptions and in the works of imperial Greek authors who derived from the local civic elites. The Roman Empire, however, was more than just the sum of emperors, provincial governors and local elites. It was also, and primarily, a vast territorial space. Consequently, what is missing from explanations for the proliferation of euergetism like the one just developed (as I have come to realize) is an awareness of spatiality, of territory, of the vast landscapes of the empire, and how individuals, groups and communities sought to forge connections and create and maintain networks stretching across these landscapes and territories. If we start to examine civic euergetism from this point of view, different patterns emerge and reveal themselves to be relevant, and we might arrive at an additional and contributing explanation for the flourishing of elite public giving in the Roman East. In the remaining pages, I shall therefore provide two instances of such different patterns, which have hitherto not been linked specifically to any explanation for the proliferation of munificence in the imperial poleis. For each

 

Beetham (). See Zuiderhoek (a) –. See e.g. Salmeri () – on homonoia as a constantly recurring theme in the orations of Dio Chrysostom. Note also Aristid. Or.  (Oration to the Rhodians: Concerning Concord), and see Sheppard (–).

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

instance, I provide a few brief examples from the sources, by way of illustration. Euergetism, as we saw, was primarily a civic phenomenon: benefactors mostly gave to their fellow citizens, to their city, and in exchange received honours and prestige and were thereby legitimated and confirmed in their positions of power. This, as noted above, is the essence of the so-called civic model of society. From the later Hellenistic period onwards, however, benefactors increasingly began to include specific groups of non-citizen inhabitants of the polis alongside the citizenry as beneficiaries of their generosity, for instance, through distributing oil, wine, grain or money among such groups as well as among the citizens, or by inviting them to euergetic feasts and banquets. In the imperial Greek cities, particularly in the poleis of Roman Asia Minor, some of the most commonly attested among these non-citizens were groups of resident foreigners who mainly lived in communities and villages in the large rural territories of the poleis, so-called paroikoi and katoikoi. At Kyme in Aiolis, for instance, the prytanis Kleanax on several occasions held public meals for citizens (politai) and a variety of non-citizen groups (resident Romans, xenoi) including the paroikoi, and in Sillyon in Pamphylia Megakles and his mother Menodora gave two denarii per person to ordinary citizens (politai) and one denarius per person to freedmen and paroikoi. In Prusias ad Hypium, a benefactor explicitly differentiated between tois enkekrimenois, that is, the full citizens living in the town, and tois ten agroikian katoikousin, that is, non-citizens living in the countryside, among the recipients of his gifts. Benefactors thus began to reach out both downwards to groups below the citizenry and outwards across the rural hinterland of the poleis. Now there exists an interesting parallel in Greek history that might help us better to understand this development. In the large, publicly funded and publicly organised religious festivals of classical Athens (e.g. the Panathenaia), groups of non-citizens, especially metoikoi, had also often participated in the associated rituals and processions alongside the Athenian citizens. Athens was an exceptional polis, the largest one in  

  

For a more elaborate version of the following analysis, see Zuiderhoek (c). Strubbe (); Beck () collects the evidence; see also Zuiderhoek (c). On paroikoi, see Gagliardi (/). For katoikoi as explicitly differentiated from the politai (citizens), see the discussion in Schuler () , –. Kleanax of Kyme: SEG  () no.  = Merkelbach (). IGR .. See also e.g. IG VII  (Akraiphia [Boiotia], after  CE), SEG  () no. , ll. – (Oinoanda, –/ CE). I.Prusias ad Hypium .



 

classical Greece, with a particularly extensive hinterland filled with villages and small communities and home, also, to a very large number of resident foreigners, living in Athens as well as in demes throughout Attica. The participation of the metoikoi in the Athenian public festivals, it has been argued, served to integrate the large and disparate communities of resident foreigners into the Athenian polis. The poleis of the Hellenistic and Roman East also often had very large territories, and were home to large, generally rural-based communities of resident non-citizens, the aforementioned paroikoi and katoikoi, who lived scattered throughout the territories of the poleis. With the incorporation of these poleis in the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire, as we saw, a heavy burden of responsibility was placed on the local polis elites to properly fulfil the administrative and fiscal tasks assigned to their cities and to maintain peace and order in their communities. This, it might be argued, provided them with a strong incentive to propagate an ideal of their poleis as inclusive societies, communities to which all residents belonged, not just those who possessed citizenship, and to create rituals and to stage events that would symbolise this shared sense of identity. Euergetism, then, increasingly came to function as a mechanism for integration in the later Hellenistic and Roman imperial poleis, allowing a variety of groups beyond the citizens in both city and country to participate in the rituals and amenities associated with the ideal of the ‘civic model of society’. Benefactors, however, not only began reaching out to non-citizen and rural groups within their own communities. Increasingly, during the Roman imperial period, we see elite individuals in the East acting as benefactors of more than one polis, making benefactions to their home community as well as to a number of other poleis. Thus, for instance, the imperial priest Eratophanes was honoured by both Rhodes (his native community) and the city of Kys in Caria for his munificence and his piety towards the emperor. Supra-civic benefactors (to paraphrase A. D. Rizakis) might also use provincial koina, that is, leagues of cities within a province, as a vehicle for their munificence to various cities, especially if they held an office or priesthood associated with the league. Hence, to give an example, M. Aurelius Diadochus, who was both imperial high priest of the koinon of Asia in the League’s temple at Pergamon and imperial high priest in his hometown Thyatira, gave gladiatorial games in both Pergamon and Thyatira (TAM V., ). One of the best-known and  

Wijma () on metic participation in Athenian polis religion.  Smallwood () no.  = McCabe, Hyllarima . Rizakis ().

Civic Munificence in the Roman East in the Longue Durée



most spectacular multi-city benefactors, Opramoas of Rhodiapolis, who gave gifts to cities throughout Roman Lycia, was honoured for this many times by the Lycian koinon, in which he also held important offices. Yet another route towards supra-civic munificence was open to elite individuals who were successful enough to secure a priesthood in a sanctuary with supra-regional appeal. Such people were in a position to focus their generosity on a wide array of different social groups, often deriving from far beyond their native city: hence, for instance, the numerous references to gifts (banquets, distributions) to non-citizens (mostly pilgrims) in the honorific inscriptions for the priests at the sanctuaries of Zeus Panamaros and Hera at Stratonikeia. Now how should we interpret all this? Again, we can have recourse to the three factors outlined above. Para-civic munificence, that is, involving non-citizen, often rural-based groups in elite munificence alongside the citizenry (which, incidentally, could also mean that such groups became involved in the process of honouring the benefactors concerned) of course stimulated the social, cultural and political integration of the polis. Shared participation of all inhabitants of the polis in euergetic rituals stimulated the development of a common sense of identity and purpose, which would lessen the risk of conflicts among citizens or between citizens and non-citizens. Such inclusive acts of munificence also, of course, further legitimated the leading political role played by members of the bouleutic elite, who could base their claim to authority in the polis not just on the fact that they used their wealth and status to benefit their fellow citizens, but that through their generosity they allowed even non-citizen inhabitants to share in the amenities and comforts of Greco-Roman civic society. Also, given that repeated rituals of integration are a typical characteristic of stateless societies such as the polis, para-civic munificence makes excellent  



Kokkinia (). The texts are assembled in I.Stratonikeia I and II. For a random example, see I.Stratonikeia I,  = McCabe, Panamara , which lists the gifts of Ti. Flavius Theophanes, priest of Zeus Panamaros and Hera, who at the occasion of the festival of Komurion provided wine to citizens (politai), strangers (xenoi) and slaves (douloi). See TAM V.,  with Schuler () – and n. : at Apollonis in / BCE, a group of katoikoi honour a certain A[t]talos the son of Apollonios as the κοινὸν σωτῆρα καὶ εὐεργέτην τοῦ τε δήμου καὶ τῶν κατοίκων (‘common saviour and benefactor of the dēmos [i.e. the citizen community] and the katoikoi’). See also TAM V.,  with Schuler () – and n.  (katoikoi honour a local notable who benefitted both the city [polis] and the katoikia) and I.Manisa , with Schuler ()  (Sardis: dēmos, gerousia and katoikoi honour a benefactor). Pace Schuler ()  it seems highly unlikely that these katoikoi were polis-citizens too, given that in the inscriptions, they are so clearly distinguished from the dēmos/polis, i.e. the citizen community. See Zuiderhoek (c) –.



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sense as an integrative mechanism in the poleis of the imperial East (Asia Minor, Syria) with their often vast territories and multi-ethnic populations. The themes of statelessness, integration and particularly state formation are even more important, I would argue, for an interpretation of supracivic munificence. Scholars often note that the Roman Empire of the Principate, despite its vast size, was administratively underdeveloped and under-bureaucratised. This was a world of personal ties, of patronage and friends of friends. Yet in sociocultural terms, the empire appears remarkably integrated, as indicated by strong similarities in material culture, urban landscapes, civic structures, political culture and forms of expression and representation. The imperium Romanum of the late Republic and the Principate, it might be argued, was a proto-state, a territorial state in the making, yet the process of Roman imperial state-formation was of a peculiar nature. It did, at least for the first two and a half centuries of the empire’s existence, not so much consist of expanding bureaucratic hierarchies, but was mainly stimulated through the creation of extensive informal or semi-formal networks and reciprocal ties between individuals, groups and (civic) communities. Supra-civic munificence was, I think, one of the mechanisms responsible for creating and maintaining such ties between elites and civic communities on a regional and even supraregional scale. The circuit of festivals and games, which flourished under the empire, was another such mechanism, binding cities together into a broader network, as were the phenomena of multiple citizenship (one individual being a citizen of several poleis), the operation of provincial koina/concilia (leagues of cities), and patron–client relationships between cities and members of the imperial elite. Through such social, political and cultural ties and connections, individuals, groups and communities became ever more closely interwoven into a large imperial tapestry, a network of networks that, effectively, constituted the Roman Empire. In this peculiar process of state formation, the provincial cities and their elites played a pivotal role, as nodal points in the networks and as initiators of new connections. Given its role in helping to ensure the relative internal stability of the empire’s cities and its contribution to the formation of supra-civic networks, euergetism can  

Garnsey and Saller ( []) provide the classic statement. Van Nijf and Williamson () on festivals, see also Van Nijf, Chapter  in this volume; on multiple citizenship see Heller and Pont (); Edelmann-Singer () on provincial leagues; on patrons of cities, see Eilers () and Nicols ().

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

thus be said to have played a crucial part in supporting the further integration, stability and, ultimately, longevity of the Roman Empire. It is surely significant that when, during the troubles of the third century and after, the provincial cities and their elites came increasingly under threat, the result was not just the end of the euergetic boom that had characterised the previous period, but also a growing attempt, by the central government, to create the kind of top-down bureaucratic hierarchies that had been so conspicuously absent in the earlier centuries of imperial rule. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adkins, A. W. H. () Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the End of the Fifth Century. London. Beck, M. () Der politische Euergetismus und dessen vor allem nichtbu¨rgerliche Rezipienten im hellenistischen und kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien sowie dem ägäischen Raum. Rahden. Beetham, D. () The Legitimation of Power. Atlantic Highlands. Berent, M. () ‘Anthropology and the classics: war, violence and the stateless polis’, Classical Quarterly : –. () ‘In search of the Greek state: a rejoinder to M. H. Hansen’, Polis .– : –. Boulanger, A. () Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d’Asie au IIe siècle de notre ère. Paris. Brélaz, C. () ‘La vie démocratique dans les cités grecques à l’époque impériale romaine’, Topoi : –. Bremen, R. van () The Limits of Participation: Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Amsterdam. Brown, P. () Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Hanover. Carlsson, S. () Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart. Cartledge, P. () ‘Laying down polis law’, The Classical Review : –. () ‘The economy (economies) of ancient Greece’, in W. Scheidel and S. von Reden (eds.), The Ancient Economy. New York, –. () Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice. Cambridge. Dmitriev, S. () City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor. Oxford. Domingo Gygax, M. () Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism. Cambridge. Duncan-Jones, R. P. () The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies. Cambridge. Edelmann-Singer, B. () Koina und Concilia. Genese, Organisation und sozioökonomische Funktion der Provinziallandtage im römischen Reich. Stuttgart. Eilers, C. () Roman Patrons of Greek Cities. Oxford. 

Zuiderhoek (b) offers some reflections on these developments specifically for Asia Minor.



 

Fernoux, H.-L. () Le demos et la cité: communautés et assembleés populaires en Asie Mineure à l’époque impériale. Rennes. Gagliardi, L. (/) ‘I paroikoi delle città dell’Asia Minore in età ellenistica e nella prima età romana’, Dike –: –. Garnsey, P., and Saller, R. () The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture, nd ed. London. Gauthier, P. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe–Ier siècle av. J.-C.): contribution à l’histoire des institutions. Athens. Grieb, V. () Hellenistische Demokratie. Politische Organisation und Struktur in freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Großen. Stuttgart. Heller, A. () ‘La cité grecque d’époque impériale: vers une société d’ordres?’, Annales HSS : –. Heller, A., and Pont, A.-V. (eds.) () Patrie d’origine et patries électives: les citoyennetés multiples dans le monde grec d’époque romaine: actes du colloque international de Tours, – novembre . Bordeaux. Heller, A., and van Nijf, O. M. (eds.) () The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire. Leiden. Jones, A. H. M. () The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford. Kokkinia, C. () Die Opramoas-Inschrift von Rhodiapolis. Euergetismus und soziale Elite in Lykien. Bonn. Lattimore, R. () The Iliad. Chicago. Lewin, A. () Assemblee popolari e lotta politica nelle città dell’imperio romano. Florence. Lintott, A. () Violence, Civil Strife, and Revolution in the Classical City, – B.C. London. Ma, J. () ‘Public speech and community in the Euboicus’, in S. Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford, –. Mann, C., and Scholz, P. (eds.) () ‘Demokratie’ im Hellenismus. Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? Mainz. Marrou, H.-I. () Histoire de l’éducation dans l’Antiquité. Paris. Merkelbach, R. () ‘Ehrenbeschluss der Kymäer fu¨r den prytanis Kleanax’, Epigraphica Anatolica : –. Mitchell, S. () Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. : The Celts and the Impact of Roman Rule. Oxford. Murray, O. () ‘Cities of reason’, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander. Oxford, –. Nicols, J. () Civic Patronage in the Roman Empire. Leiden. Ober, J. () Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology and the Power of the People. Princeton. Oppeneer, T. () ‘Assembly politics and the rhetoric of honour in Chariton, Dio of Prusa and John Chrysostom’, Historia : –. Osborne, R. () Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge. () ‘Law and laws: how do we join up the dots?’, in L. G. Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes (eds.), The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London, –.

Civic Munificence in the Roman East in the Longue Durée

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Quass, F. () Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens. Untersuchungen zur politischen und sozialen Entwicklung in hellenistischer und römischer Zeit. Stuttgart. Raaflaub, K. A. () ‘Homer and the beginning of Greek political thought’, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium Series in Ancient Philosophy : –. Rizakis, A. D. () ‘Supra-civic landowning and supra-civic euergetic activities of urban elites in the imperial Peloponnese’, in Being Peloponnesian: Conference Proceedings  March– April , at www.nottingham.ac.uk/ csps/open-source/peloponnese-.aspx. Rogers, G. M. () ‘The assembly of imperial Ephesos’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Papyrologie und Epigraphik : –. Salmeri, G. () ‘Dio, Rome, and the civic life of Asia Minor’, in S. Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters and Philosophy. Oxford, –. Sartre, M. () L’Orient romain: provinces et sociétés provinciales en Méditerranée orientale d’Auguste aux Sévères ( avant J.-C.– après J.-C.). Paris. Schuler, Ch. () Ländliche Siedlungen und Gemeinden im hellenistischen und römischen Kleinasien. Munich. Sheppard, A. R. R. (–) ‘Homonoia in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire’, Ancient Society –: –. Strubbe, J. H. M. () ‘Bu¨rger, Nicht-Bu¨rger und Polis-Ideologie’, in K. Demoen (ed.), The Greek City from Antiquity to the Present: Historical Reality, Ideological Construction, Literary Representation. Leuven, –. van Nijf, O. M., and C. G. Williamson () ‘Re-inventing traditions: connecting contests in the Hellenistic and Roman world’, in D. Boschung, A. W. Busch and M. J. Versluys (eds.), Reinventing ‘The Invention of Tradition’? Indigenous Pasts and the Roman Present. Paderborn, –. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. Wiemer, H.-U. () ‘Hellenistic cities: the end of Greek democracy?’, in H. Beck (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Greek Government. Malden, MA, –. Wijma, S. () Embracing the Immigrant: The Participation of Metics in Athenian Polis Religion (th–th Century BC). Stuttgart. Zuiderhoek, A. () ‘On the political sociology of the imperial Greek city’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies : –. (a). The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge. (b) ‘Government centralization in late second and third century A.D. Asia Minor: a working hypothesis’, Classical World .: –. () ‘Oligarchs and benefactors: elite demography and euergetism in the Greek East of the Roman Empire’, in O. M. van Nijf and R. Alston (eds.), Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies on the Greek City after the Classical Age . Leuven, –. (a) The Ancient City. Cambridge.

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(b) ‘What should Jesus do? How not to go round and do good in the Greco-Roman world’, in J. S. Kloppenborg and J. Verheyden (eds.), Luke on Jesus, Paul and Christianity: What Did He Really Know? Biblical Tools and Studies . Leuven, –. (c) ‘Un-civic benefactions? Gifts to non-citizens and civic honours in the Greek cities of the Roman East’, in A. Heller and O.M. van Nijf (eds.) The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire. Leiden and Boston, –.

 

Festivals and Benefactors Onno M. van Nijf

Of all types of Greek benefaction, agonistic festivals – that is, festivals that revolved around athletic, dramatic or cultural contests – may have been the most central to the phenomenon of civic euergetism in the Greek cities of the Hellenistic and Roman period. They were not the most frequent type of benefaction – according to the calculations of Arjan Zuiderhoek, building was more common – but as social and cultural events, involving the expenditure of much money and energy and requiring the collaboration of large numbers of people, they had undoubtedly the greatest impact. It is probably fair to say that the prominence of contests and other festivals in the euergetic economy is normally explained as a (simple) case of ambitious politicians courting popularity by offering public entertainment and largesse. This can be summarised as the ‘bread and circuses’ approach, with a reference to Juvenal’s line about the demise of Roman politics. Now, I do not want to question the idea that festivals were or could be a popular form of mass entertainment or that they could contribute to a donor’s popularity, but I would like to argue that festival euergetism was a complex phenomenon. Festivals should not be studied as merely the object of euergetism, but rather as one of the factors that actually shaped the process of euergetism. The aim of this chapter is to explore some aspects of this particular form of euergetism. What was the significance of the fact that public festivals were paid for and organised by private benefactors? Why did benefactors do this? And what was it that cities stood to gain? I shall argue that festivals were not simply an object of euergetism but also a medium through which euergetism evolved. I shall consider the various ways in which the 



Zuiderhoek ()  calculates games and festivals at  per cent on a total of , but public building accounts for  per cent. Zuiderhoek lists distributions apart ( per cent), but most of these distributions were ritual occasions and often connected with festivals as in Oinoanda: Wörrle (). Juv. .–.





 .  

benefactors could contribute to the festive life of their communities and explore what they received in exchange. Festivals were much more than an opportunity for wealthy individuals to gain prestige, however. The festivals were also mass events where benefactors and their communities were jointly involved in representing the central social, cultural and political values. I shall consider the way in which festival euergetism played a central part in this process.

Festivals as Opportunities for Benefaction Before we turn to the motivations of benefactors for offering festivals, and of assemblies for accepting them, it is useful to consider how festivals were funded and at what point benefactors were able – and expected – to step in. Festivals had always been considered as quintessential manifestations of the Greek polis culture, and most traditional festivals will have been paid for from public funds, including sacred funds, that is, moneys that were handled by and on behalf of sanctuaries. Now, even in fifth- and fourthcentury Athens public funds alone had not been sufficient to sustain the dense festival calendar: part of the financial and organisational burden was shifted to wealthy individuals via the chorēgia and other liturgies. That this could involve heavy outlays indeed is clear from a passage in Lysias  and several similar passages where liturgies are mentioned to curry favour with a jury. From the fourth century, the social role of agonistic festivals seems to have increased as drama attached itself to athletic contests outside Athens. Festivals were upgraded by the inclusion of further contests and greater prizes, which increased the organisational complexity of the festivals at all levels. In the Hellenistic and Roman period the number of festivals started to increase even further. One of the greatest authorities in the field, Louis Robert, describes this development in terms of an ‘agonistic explosion’. As the number of festivals increased, permanent stone-built theatres and stadia became a fixture in urban landscapes. Inscriptions show that the  



Camia (); for a study of festival foundations: Aneziri (). Wilson (); Lys. .–: ‘I was certified of age in the archonship of Theopompus: appointed to produce tragic drama, I spent thirty minae and two months later, at the Thargelia, two thousand drachmae, when I won a victory with a male chorus; and in the archonship of Glaucippus, at the Great Panathenaea, eight hundred drachmae on pyrrhic dancers.’ The texts goes on to list choregic and other expenses to a total of , drachmae. For other examples: Csapo and Slater () –.  Le Guen (), (). Robert ().

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festivals and ceremonial life in general only gained in social and political importance. Not only did festivals grow in number, but they became heavily regulated and even scripted affairs that were of major concern to the elites and assemblies alike. As part of this development, the role of benefactors also grew. It seems unnecessary to ask whether this was cause or effect, as the whole point of the euergetic exchanges must have been precisely to obfuscate this issue. Civic funds and organisational skills were supplemented by the efforts and from the purses of the wealthy citizens, but civic authorities still seem to have been the dominant partner in these exchanges. There were various ways in which benefactors were able to step in, but it is relevant that many cases relied on officials and functionaries who were, if not formally, certainly in effect expected to make a personal contribution to the festive occasion. The most obvious were the agōnothetai, the formally appointed festival presidents who took it upon themselves and/or were expected to expand the festival and pay for part of it: the prizes or the epideixeis or even buildings that were needed for the celebration of the festivals. The epigraphical record provides us with other cases of agōnothetai introducing new disciplines or adding in other ways to the costs of the celebrations. It seems reasonable to assume that wealthy individuals were appointed to the agōnothesia precisely to provoke such ‘spontaneous’ ex-officio contributions. As with all other euergetic exchanges, the generous agōnothetai could expect to receive civic honour of various types, most often inscriptions that mentioned, or obliquely referred to, the spending of time, money and effort. It should be noted, though, that such texts and monuments tend to emphasise the primacy of the polis and its institutions. Moreover, accounts had to be rendered at all times. A long text from first-century BCE Tanagra may serve as an example. It belongs to a genre that was      



  Mathé (); Moretti (). Chaniotis (), (). Gordon (). Camia (); Gauthier (), (): for the observation that control by the dēmos remained important until the later Hellenistic period. Migeotte () discusses different forms of funding in the Hellenistic city. E.g. Dio Chrys. Or. ..: ‘he must collect flute-players and mimes and harpists and jugglers and, more than that, pugilists and pancratiasts and wrestlers and runners and all that tribe’. E.g. I.Corinth ., . Even Olympia could use some help from time to time; Josephus informs us that the King of Judea was appointed as agōnothetēs for life, in exchange for a substantial financial contribution, but this route was of course also open to private citizens. Pleket (); Camia (). Camia ().



 .  

popular in Hellenistic Boiotia, that of the apologia or commemorative account. The agōnothetēs Glaukos listed in detail how he had spent public money as well as his own to secure the successful edition of a local festival. He carefully lists the large amounts of public money (thousands of drachmas) that he has spent on fees, crowns and other prizes and so on, and he specifically mentions that he has returned funds he had not used. Public accountability obviously still counted for much! Yet he does not forget to mention his own expenditures: ‘Other expenses for the daily oaths and the feasting of the daily participants, judges and . . . and choruses and victors, and for the incense and . . . I do [not] account, since I paid the money from my own resources.’ In other cases we find that benefactors could step in to restore traditional festivals that had fallen into disuse. One of the most spectacular examples is that of the Boiotian magnate Epameinōndas of Akraiphia, who is presented by Veyne as the exemplary festival benefactor. The long text lists all his benefactions, emphasising their extraordinary character and scale. Although it is clear that Epameinōndas offered a whole new experience to his community, the authors of the document are at pains to stress the civic nature of the events. The inscription continues for many lines with his further benefactions, before it concludes with a list of the appropriate honours, including gilded portrait statues in the agora that carried the inscription framing his generosity as a civic duty: ‘The dēmos and boulē honour Epameinōndas son of Epameinōndas, for an excellent and most just performance as citizen (arista politeusamenos).’ Although such efforts may have seemed hard to improve, it was probably considered even more honorable to initiate a new festival oneself. Again there was a long tradition of private individuals to initiate cults and festivals that included an agonistic contest. However, the phenomenon of setting up new contests seems really to have taken off in the imperial period. In many cases we are dealing with local notables who were keen to show their loyalty – and that of their community – to the new imperial system, as was already the case with the festivals offered by Epameinōndas, but other cases seem to have been newly invented traditions. Throughout the East we find that private benefactors set up new agonistic festivals. The number of such new festivals increases rapidly under Roman rule to peak in the third century, when they are the most commonly attested form of   

Migeotte (). I want to thank Léopold Migeotte for sending me a copy of this article.   SEG , . Veyne () –. IG VII, , ll. –. IG VII,  is a third-century BCE example from Megara.

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

benefaction. In southwest Asia Minor, where we find a particularly large concentration of such games, they were known as themides. We should note that many of these festivals are known only from relatively small monuments that do not offer much information about the motives of the benefactor, about the background of their generosity, or about their modus operandi. However, the proliferation of these monuments suggests that the presentation of new festivals quickly became a standard routine. Such festivals were referred to as agōnes chrēmatitai or thematitai after the money and cash prizes that were offered to distinguish them from the more prestigious stephanitic or sacred contests, in which a (symbolic) crown or wreath was offered. It should be noted, however, that the borderline between these types of contests was very thin indeed: crowned contests could offer valuable crowns made of gold or even cash prizes, and thematic contests could easily be ‘upgraded’. With programs copied from the more prestigious sacred contests, they were a powerful illustration of the attraction of Greek (agonistic) culture to the civic elites, but they were important as community events as well. Most of these festivals seem to have been low-scale affairs that attracted mainly competitors from the city itself or from the immediate region. These local festivals were an important vehicle for elite self-fashioning: they were normally named after the benefactor and involved members of their families as officials and agonothetes, and not infrequently the main performers were local as well. Quite a few immediately or gradually attracted competitors from further afield and captured a wider audience, thus getting linked to a wider agonistic network. Our information about these festivals often depends on athletes who list them in their victory list, in which they would often be described as prize games, or if the donors provided funds for the erection of statues for the victors, which does not always seem to have happened. A salutary reminder of the state of our ignorance is provided by the case of the Demostheneia in the small Lycian city of Oinoanda. This festival was funded in the second century but did not produce any victory inscriptions until about a century after its foundation. In fact, we would barely have registered the festival had it not been for the decision of the benefactor C. Iulius Demosthenes to publish the entire dossier of its foundation on stone. This inscription describes in    

Heberdey (); van Nijf (), (); Farrington ().   Pleket (), (); Remijsen (). Farrington (). Van Nijf (). A rare text that explicitly mentions the funding for the statues is SEG ,  (= Hall and Milner ()); van Nijf (). SEG , , , with Hall and Milner () –.



 .  

exceptional detail the whole process of setting up a foundation for a local festival that not only involved protracted negotiations between the benefactor, his colleagues in the city council, the assembly and the Roman governor, but even included the Roman emperor who lent his support to the undertaking. The dossier contains a letter by the emperor, a formal promise by Demosthenes detailing his intended set-up, a decree of acceptance of the city, an honorific decree of Demosthenes that was sent to the governor, and a subscription by the latter confirming tax reliefs. The level of detail in the documentation may have been more exceptional than the preparations involved in the organisation, making this text one of the best windows we have on the organisational complexities of local festivals and their tremendous impact on social, cultural and even political life.

Festival Euergetism as Source of Prestige The arrangements for the Demostheneia in Oinoanda render it perfectly obvious why benefactors were attracted to festivals. These were civic events of the first order that offered members of the elite and their relatives a maximum of public exposure. The festival provided the benefactors with a respectable way to place themselves, their name and their families for an extended period at the centre of civic life and public attention. This happened, of course, during the festivals, when the benefactor would be at the center of attention, but it started with the moment that the benefactions were offered in the assembly or in the council chamber (either at one’s own initiative or as the result of peer or popular pressure); it would have continued when during the sometimes protracted negotiations the benefactors were at the very centre of political and legal deliberations. The reputation of the benefactor was of course also raised outside the city. Coins had to be minted to mark the celebrations and to prevent any cash-flow problems during the event. The name of the festival – the benefactor’s name – and the prize money had to be announced to other cities and to the representatives of the unions of athletes and other performers who had to be persuaded to send worthy competitors. There was also an opportunity to get noticed by the Roman authorities    

SEG , ; Wörrle (). For an excellent review and translation: Mitchell (). A striking description of a benefactor enjoying the attention can be found in John Chrysostom, De inani gloria. –. For protracted negotiations (and an emphasis on the role of the dēmos): Rogers (); Zuiderhoek ().  Harl () –. Jones (); Rutherford ().

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or even by the emperor himself, who could be asked to supply martyriai to speed up negotiations and who would receive martyriai from the city in turn. There were many ways in which the memory of the event could be made to last even after the event. The presentation of the accounts to the assembly would have been another occasion of ritual importance, where also decisions were to be made on the honorific inscriptions for the benefactor. And then there were the inscriptions set up in honour of the (local) victorious athletes – provided the benefactor had taken care of this – that reproduced the name of the benefactor all over the urban landscape: in the agoras, along the streets, in the colonnaded avenues and even in the theatres and stadia. And if the festival was the result of a foundation, as many festivals were, the whole cycle, of course, would be repeated in one, two or four years to come and thereafter in perpetuity, or at least until the money ran out. Personal and family memories were thus firmly integrated with the passage of civic time. It was clearly the duty of later generations to keep the undertaking going. Later generations of the same family could make additional investments to the festival for athletic competitions and/or statues, or the original endowment could be arranged more securely. The festivals thus became a monument to the enduring social prominence of a particular family. Dio Chrysostom may have dismissed all this as ‘the inane ambitions of would-be celebrities’ (doxokopoi), but the social benefits are obvious. The festival was a classic case of symbolic exchange: the benefactor spent his money in exchange for the symbolic capital, civic honour, which added to his social capital and that of his family as well. This was, however, not only a matter of status. Festivals served as a (complex) mechanism to (re-)define the relationship between the cities and their most wealthy and important members at several different levels. Dio Chrysostom argues in his sixty-sixth oration that the ordinary population had nothing valuable to offer to the benefactors, but that was of course a deliberate misrepresentation, for the dēmos had something    



Kokkinia (). For the impact of (agonistic) status on the urban landscape: Hall and Milner (); van Nijf (b). Statues in theatres: Di Napoli (); cf. Ma ().  Agonistic foundations: Aneziri (). SEG ,  with Hall and Milner () no. . For the case of the Kaisareia-Eurykleia in Sparta, which were originally set up in the age of Augustus by C. Iulius Eurykles and expanded in the third century by a descendant: Cartledge and Spawforth () –; Camia (). Dio Chrys. Or. ..



 .  

crucial to offer which the benefactors craved. Festivals – alongside the more formal assemblies – were an important setting for the exchange of what was the most important political commodity, honour, but at the same time they provided the dēmos with a considerable handle on their benefactors. Honour had always been central to the political economy of the Greek city, and the circulation and exchange of honours was a crucial ingredient of euergetism. Greek cities were ‘communities of honour’. Love of timē offered by one’s fellow citizens must have been a major driving force behind political engagement and civic-mindedness of leading citizens and statesmen of the classical polis. But timē and philotimia were ambivalent qualities in the polis community. In an isonomic or democratic context, expressions of individual philotimia were regarded with some suspicion. The excessive pursuit of individual honour presented a potential threat to citizen solidarity and could easily be construed as hybris. However, in the classical polis, philotimia was deemed acceptable only when it could be harnessed for the interests of the polis. This meant that the community remained the main beneficiary of the activities that deserved the honour, and at the same time it was acknowledged as the sole legitimate source of honour. This was symbolic exchange within the polis, between the dēmos and the leading citizens. In the classical polis, honour could be expressed by performing liturgies, and its capital value was also exploited by orators in speeches addressed at the jury courts, as we saw above in the case of Lysias . Beyond that it was difficult – and not without risk – for individuals to give (loud) expression to their (love of ) honour: ostracism and indictments for hybris were easily provoked. Permanent commemoration of honour – monumentalisation in the form of statues and inscriptions – was only rarely granted and would always be subject to civic, that is, public, scrutiny, even under the empire when the epigraphic habit was booming. Civic honour was processual in the sense that it depended on a joint performance of the entire community in one place. Honorific exchanges 



Veyne () saw honour as the unproblematic expression of social distance in the post-classical Greek city. This image has been revised for the Hellenistic period by Gauthier and his followers, who argue for a continuity of traditional Greek practices up to the second century: Gauthier (). See also Ma (). The link between honour and politics in the imperial period has been the subject of a research project that was directed by the author and Anna Heller: Heller and van Nijf ().    Lendon (). Whitehead (). Ober (). Ma ().

Festivals and Benefactors



were played out publicly. The decision to confer honour was, of course, a matter of the formal political institutions: the boulē, dēmos and the assembly. The honours were captured in carefully crafted formal decrees, but that was never enough: to make these exchanges socially effective, honour also became a matter of public enactment and re-enactment in ceremonies and settings designed to maximise their public impact. Agonistic festivals and other public events were among the prime settings for such re-enactments. Many honorific decrees contained explicit statements to the effect that the honorific titles awarded were to be called out at public meetings, such as the festival of Dionysos or other celebrations and contests that were to be held by the city in its theatres and stadia. Moral philosophers like Plutarch and orators like Dio Chrysostom may have tried to convince their audiences that these seats of honour had nothing much to offer, but their voices would not have carried much weight with their colleagues in the council who were obviously eager to occupy these seats – nor with the urban populations at large, who continued to place their benefactors in these conspicuous positions. The question is, Why did this happen? Why were these seats of honour so important in the honorific process? I have argued elsewhere that the notions of ‘rational ritual’ and ‘common knowledge’, which were developed by the game theorist Michel Chwe, go a long way towards explaining how such events work. Chwe argues that people are more likely to take a particular course of action and make a certain practical choice when they know that other people in their situation do the same. The prerequisite of common action is common knowledge. This is not the same as shared knowledge, that is, the simple fact that people have access to the same information, but it implies the presence of this knowledge at a meta-level. When people know that other people know that they have access to the same information, it makes them more prone to accept and internalise that information and act accordingly. This is, according to Chwe, the basis not simply of common activities but also of social coherence and thereby of political legitimacy. There are, of course, various ways in which such information can be shared, and common knowledge can be created, but Chwe argues that  



For examples: SEG , . See e.g. Dio Chrys. Or. .. ‘Furthermore, by official act virtually all the states have devised lures of every kind for the simpletons – crowns and front seats and public proclamations. Accordingly, in some instances men who craved these things have actually been made wretched and reduced to beggary, although the states held before them nothing great or wonderful at all.’ I have discussed this in van Nijf (), (). Cf. Chwe ().



 .  

historically one important way in which this happened – and still happens – has been through mass ceremonies and public ritual events, where the members of a community are brought together in an ‘inward-facing circle’ where everybody knows that they are observed by all other members of the community as well (a kind of inverted panopticon). The auditoria of theatres and stadia in (later) Greek cities were ideally suited to the process. These were not only the settings for dramatic or musical contests, but also frequently the sites of assembly meetings, which is a reminder of the closeness of the political and the spectacular in this time. They provided the Greek cities with an impressive and effective setting for the public renewal of the social contract between the dēmos and the elite. The festival setting gave a particular political spin to the production of common knowledge because the composition of the festival audiences in ancient theatres and stadia was far from random. Each auditorium served as a representation of the concepts and values that informed social and political order. The auditorium reflected the political ideology of isonomia. Each wedge offered notionally equivalent places to the individual members of a phylē – wherein the seats in the front rows were reserved for the officials and priests. In the later Greek city, and certainly under Rome, the seating arrangements in Greek auditoria began to present a more hierarchical view of society, if only because priesthoods and offices were increasingly monopolised by elite families. When honorific ceremonies started to include local benefactors from these same families, this raised their visibility even further. At these events, the city and its benefactors came face to face, and the ceremonies and announcements that remained a fixture on the festival agenda’s served to remind both masses and elites of their part of the deal. The honour of both parties was at stake: that of the honorand as well as that of the community that awarded the honours. Each subsequent installment of the festival and each re-enacted honorific ceremony added to individual and collective fame and glory of the benefactors, but also bound them to the community. The role of the audience was to give consent, by sitting in their allocated seats, and to support the political hierarchy, by doing so in view of all their fellow citizens. In ancient auditoria spectators took part in the ritual performance. In the context of the Greek city this had a political relevance. Going to the theatre or to a festival thus went beyond mere entertainment. These were places that defined a whole sector of civic activity, and they demanded appropriate 

Van Nijf (). And more recently: Zuiderhoek (); van Nijf ().

Festivals and Benefactors



dress, gestures and decorum of the spectators who attended them. This logic applied not only to the ordinary members of the audience, of course, but also to the benefactors who were seated in the front rows and whose names were announced, making them the very centre of public attention. This effect was undoubtedly strengthened by the epigraphic commemoration that was such a crucial ingredient in civic euergetism. Many texts include a hortatory formula that makes it explicit that these media too were meant to make a contribution to the production of common knowledge. In this way the festival helped to produce political legitimacy. It is important to note, however, that this was not a top-down phenomenon: the dēmos was not exactly voiceless, nor without its handles on the elite benefactors and their families. Epigraphic sources may represent a harmonious picture, but authors such as Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom alert us to other aspects of this exchange. Like contemporary western politicians, local elites in the imperial Greek city lived a life of public representation. In his Praecepta rei publicae gerendae, Plutarch warns Menemachos and other aspiring politicians that they will have to get used to public attention and live their lives ‘as on a public stage’, which was not necessarily a comfortable position. The consequences of this must have been particularly noticeable to the benefactors who were so visibly present at the festivals. Dio Chrystostom sarcastically compares the position of the benefactors in the front seats with that of slaves auctioned in the market: ‘while persons who are cried for sale in the market-place all deem wretched, those cried in the theatre they deem fortunate’. The result of the situation is that the elites must have felt as if they were permanently on trial. The honorific procedures in a face-toface society implied a public, and potentially confrontational, encounter between all parties involved. Seats of honour easily turned into a pillory. Festival euergetism, then, was about the exchange of honour which defined and redefined the relationship between the dēmos and its leaders – but it was clearly not a walk-over for the elite. It offered the elite an  



 Charneux (). Pels and te Velde (). Plut. Prae. ger. reip, : ‘for it is a difficult task to change the multitude. But do you yourself, since you are henceforth to live as on an open stage, educate your character and put it in order; and if it is not easy wholly to banish evil from the soul, at any rate remove and repress those faults which are most flourishing and conspicuous.’ Cf. Dio Chrys. Or. ..; cf. –: ‘Let us put it this way. Suppose one were to be put on trial every day concerning anything whatever, whether his life or his property, would it not be altogether preferable to renounce that thing and to cease being in jeopardy for the future – if it be property, then the property; if it be life, then his life?’



 .  

opportunity to gain political capital, but it affected both parties in a different way. Even though we should not talk about a full-scale democracy Athenian style, I still think that we witness here the reflexes of a longstanding local political culture that was more ‘democratic’ than scholars have long assumed, even though local democracy now had to operate within the limits set by an imperial system.

Emperors and Festival Euergetism This brings me to the next point: the role of Rome and the emperors in festival euergetism. One relatively well-studied aspect of all ancient festivals is their function in the representation of the political realities to the community. Angelos Chaniotis has repeatedly argued that from the Hellenistic period onwards this dimension increased in importance, a development that he describes as a growing functionalisation of the festivals. One important element of this development is the way in which festivals were linked to the monarchical system, for example, via ruler-cult. Many festivals of the Hellenistic and Roman period aimed to integrate the new, distant rulers into the ritual life of the political community. This phenomenon started with celebrations for kings and dynasts, but it was also extended to Roman generals. Other festivals became linked to the cult of Thea Romē. In the imperial period these various strands came together, as emperors acquired a central role in the festival culture. This is not the place to go into much detail about the imperial cult, and I shall limit myself to brief remarks on the various ways that emperors were involved in the euergetic exchanges surrounding the festivals. It is well known that many agonistic festivals were dedicated, jointly dedicated or re-dedicated to Roman emperors in the context of the Roman imperial cult. This was normally the outcome of a protracted process of (symbolic) exchange that was couched in the language of euergetism; the initiative will have often come from the city or, to be more precise, from a benefactor. Many emperors were of course active founders of festivals themselves, to begin with Augustus, who marked his victory at Actium and the restoration of the Roman republic with the reorganisation of a Greek contest, the Aktia, that was raised to the status of crown games. Other emperors, like Hadrian and Commodus, seem to have been   

See below on the tensions that this awkward situation could produce.   Chaniotis (), (). Mellor (); Erskine (). Price (). Pavlogiannis, Albanidis and Dimitriou ().

Festivals and Benefactors



particularly active in promoting festival benefactions. Festivals could not be dedicated or re-dedicated in honour of the emperor without his formal permission, but once this was granted such festivals would be known as imperial gifts (dōrea). Cities would advertise their games by proudly referring to the imperial ‘generosity’ on their local coinage, as is shown by coins from Side that carry the legend dōrea. In Roman colonies the Latin term donatio was used instead. Sometimes the emperors would indeed make a financial contribution to the festivals by setting up a foundation, as seems to have happened in Ephesos or in Laodicea, but this can hardly have been common practice, as it would soon have depleted the imperial treasury. It seems more to the point to expect that the language of imperial benefaction was used to give more lustre to a local initiative. This may be illustrated with a letter from a certain Aurelius Horion, who asks for permission to set up a foundation for a contest for ephebes in Oxyrhynchus. His wish is apparently granted, for we have another letter that dates from a few years later that mentions the contest, but this time the contest is described as a gift of the emperors: ‘I obtained from our Lords the Emperors Severus and Antoninus (Caracalla) the gift of a contest for ephebes.’ The effect would have been much the same as the listing of imperial martyriai by benefactors such as Demosthenes of Oinoanda: imperial support was needed to give some backing to the initiative of a local benefactor and would have added to his prestige. It is clear, nonetheless, that emperors were concerned that euergetic exchanges would continue undisturbed. Many local festivals would have had a precarious financial footing, and the emperors were prepared to send out financial officials (curatores or logistai) to check the situation. An epigraphic dossier from Aphrodisias informs us about the activities of M. Ulpius Appuleius Eurykles, a citizen from Aizanoi, who was sent to Aphrodisias to inspect the city’s finances. While he was there, he was formally asked by the city to look at the state of the funds for contests, although it seems that an association of performers – who stood to lose income in case of defaulting funds – had approached him several times about the issue:     

 For an example, see above: Mitchell () . Mitchell () .  Robert ()  = Robert, OMS II, . Pleket () , n. .  Robert () , n. . Mitchell () .  Cf. Noreña, Chapter  in this volume. POxy. .  POxy. , –; on these texts: Millar () . Roueché () .



 .   With good fortune. Marcus Ulpius Appuleius Eurycles, designated highpriest of Asia, of the temples of Smyrna, for the second time, greets the Magistrates, Council and People of the Aphrodisians. Since it was your wish that I make provision also for the (funds) relating to the contests, because of your piety towards the very great emperor Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, and because of the memory of those who bequeathed them, and because of the reputation of the city, and since those from the Synod had also already approached me several times, I have not failed to examine this sector as well, applying the same order and zeal as (I observed) in my curatorship.

This was by no means a unique case: the other inscriptions from Aphrodisias show that such visitations were a regular occurrence. Perhaps it was a difficult period for Aphrodisias, but if finances were the only concern, it is surprising that Eurykles gave the go-ahead also in cases where the money in the capital fund had not yet accumulated sufficiently. These actions may have been the result of a desire to protect the interests of the synods – who were in a sense agents of imperial propaganda – but it is clear that one concern was to honour ‘the memory of those who bequeathed the contests’. This fitted in with a long-standing imperial policy: in a letter to his governor Pliny, the emperor Trajan ensured that athletes made an official entry to their hometowns before collecting their pensions; his successor Hadrian concerned himself with the obligations of the cities towards the athletes and performers. A long inscription that was found in Alexandria in the Troad was probably set up in the local headquarters of the Synod. It contains a series of rescripts, ordering ‘that all the contests have to be celebrated, and that cities are not permitted to use agonistic funds, provided by law, decree or testament, for other purposes’, such as buildings. In the same letter Hadrian also writes that an imperial official has to oversee distribution of prizes to the victors (ll. –). Further down (ll. –) he writes that the Ephesians are not obliged to put up statues for trumpeters and heralds, as ‘these should be paid from the proceeds of the lands that Nysios left’. The circle of euergetic exchange was apparently not to be broken. Festivals provided their cities with an opportunity to engage in the symbolic exchange of honour at yet another level, that of the imperial state. Festivals were an opportunity to involve the emperor in the local  

IAph, , , ll. –. Petzl and Schwertheim ().



 Van Nijf (). IAph, , , ll. –.  Petzl and Schwertheim ().

Festivals and Benefactors



euergetic exchanges between cities and benefactors; the initiative will have come from below, as much as from above. The imperial festivals were set up to honour the emperor, but they brought honour back for the city and presumably also that of the organising benefactors, who were able to position themselves as perfect mediators between the cities and the imperial centre in Rome. It is no coincidence that several of the festivalbenefactors whom I discussed above had strong links with Rome. Both Salutaris and Demosthenes had returned home after a long career in Roman service; others will have stayed at home but had maintained special links with Rome as the officials and priests who were responsible for the imperial cult. So far I have argued that festivals served as clearing-houses between different symbolic exchange systems that focused on the distribution and circulation of different forms of symbolic capital: social, political, cultural and religious capital. But money and, of course, labour (think of the athletes) were involved as well. When benefactors provided their cities with festivals, they were not simply catering to a public that wanted to be entertained, although that must have played a part. People want to be entertained, but what if they weren’t; what if the entertainment offered was not to their taste? Were festivals indeed always such playful and pleasant events?

Tensions Even though the festivals will have contributed to the creation of consensus and civic solidarity, we should not imagine that the route to consensus was always peaceful. Quite the opposite: they were also an occasion where rivalries and tensions within the community could easily come to the surface. These tensions existed at different levels: there is a tendency to look at the political culture of the imperial Greek city in terms of a binary opposition between dēmos and elite, but we should not forget that the elite may have consisted of ambitious individuals, and rival factions and families, who were competing for honour, influence and primacy in the community. Euergetism provided the community with a means to sort out these claims in public, and festivals were among the most effective settings to achieve this. John Chrysostom says as much in a famous passage where he refers to the jealousy that was felt by councillors at the festival for a colleague who 

Zuiderhoek ().



 .  

had organised a successful show: ‘The great man bows to the crowd and in this way shows his regard for them. Then he sits down amid the congratulations of his admiring peers, each of whom prays that he himself may attain the same eminence.’ Similar observations may be found in Dio and other authors, and even in epigraphic documents. A small-scale benefactor from Oinoanda, I. Lucius Pilius Euarestos, who had financed a small local festival that he named after himself, makes no bones about it: in a concluding epigram he refers to the criticisms of his peers, and explicitly states as his aim to make them envious: This is the fifth themis O sweet Fatherland, I Euarestos, have myself celebrated for you, rejoicing, and these are the fifth statues that I am erecting again in bronze, symbols of virtue and wisdom. Many have put up fair prizes for cities, after they were dead, but, in his own life, no mortal man. I alone dared do this, and it rejoices my heart to delight in the brazen images. So, abating your criticism, all those who have dread Envy, look upon my statue with emulous eyes.

Peer pressure and envy were of course crucial to the honorific exchange system. Such psychological factors will have stimulated members of the elite to engage in ever more magnanimous acts of euergetism. The festival setting can only have reinforced these mechanisms. The public character of the event – the fact that the entire community was gathered in the theatre or stadion, the attention and acclamations – in short, everything that was attractive to the successful benefactor – would have made it worse for his political rivals who were on that occasion reduced to being mere spectators – in full view of the entire community. However, the tensions did not only arise out of intra-elite jealousy. They also provided the dēmos with leverage on their leading councillors – to come up with even more and better events at a future occasion. And again the festival setting – and the logic of common knowledge – would have made this leverage only more powerful. Festival gatherings could be unpredictable mass events that were ruled by passions, including envy, sudden anger and fear, and (would-be) benefactors may well have approached these events with some trepidation. When Plutarch, in his Praecepta, advocates the virtue of obedience, he contrasts the good citizens to those who ‘abuse the umpires at the contests, revile the chorēgoi at the Dionysiac festival, and jeer at generals and gymnasiarchs, not knowing and not understanding that it is often more glorious to pay honour than to  

 Joh. Chrys. De inani gloria. –. Hall and Milner () b = SEG ,  l./B –.  Chaniotis (). Van Nijf ().

Festivals and Benefactors



receive it’. Plutarch and Dio, who offer themselves as practical guides to aspiring benefactors on how to withstand the vilification and the anger of the mob (loidoria and orgē tou plēthous), may have exaggerated the risk, but they had a point. Modern studies of political rituals suggest that the same events that are used to produce civic solidarity may easily turn into the locus of civic unrest. It should be noted that ritual settings, and particularly the ‘inward-facing circles’ of stadia and amphitheaters, were then, as they are today, also the likely setting for erupting popular protests and riots. The logic of common knowledge, discussed above, would have been a factor here. Many individuals in a city may have been disgruntled for one reason or another, but only when this was publicly expressed in the context of a ritual would these feelings become common knowledge, encouraging each individual to join the protest, riots or plunder. The organisers of Greek festivals were aware, of course, that festival crowds could cause an uproar and took measures to prevent any disturbance. During processions, pompagōgoi and other officials were appointed to keep the participants on the right track. Agōnothetai could be praised for maintaining eukosmia or eutaxia in the theatre. Benefactors took no chances: the regulations for the Demostheneia in Oinoanda stipulate that the agōnothetai, who were responsible for the eukosmia during the festivals, made sure that mastigophoroi or rhabdouchoi were at hand to impose discipline: ‘Twenty mastigophoroi should also be chosen by him, who will lead the way dressed in white clothing without undergarments, also carrying shields and whips, and they will be in charge of good order in the theatre as they have been instructed by the agōnothetēs’ (ll. –). However, as much as the notables tried their best at crowd control, there was always a chance that matters would get out of hand, that there would be fights between rival groups in the audience or that grievances against the organising benefactors would be expressed publicly. It is easy to imagine how acclamations could turn sour if the spectacle was not to everybody’s taste or if the public had other grievances to air – heckling and booing not only would have spoilt the benefactor’s day but would have altered the character of the whole event. It is not surprising that when we hear of riots and unrest in the later Greek city these were often connected     

Plut. Prae. ger. reip. . The classic case is the carnival of Romans of : Le Roy Ladurie (). Chaniotis () . SEG ., ll. –; IG II  B, ll. – (= Agora XV,  B); , ll. –.  Wörrle (). Van Nijf ().



 .  

to festivals and theatrical settings. Nowadays we hear about supporters of particular soccer teams who are infamous for hooliganism; in antiquity the Alexandrians seem to have been particularly notorious for this type of behaviour: The Alexandrians are moderate enough when they offer sacrifice or stroll by themselves or engage in their other pursuits; but when they enter the theatre or the stadium, just as if drugs that would madden them lay buried there, they lose all consciousness of their former state and are not ashamed to say or do anything that occurs to them.. . . And when the dreadful exhibition is over and they are dismissed, although the more violent aspect of their disorder has been extinguished, still at street-corners and in alleyways the malady continues throughout the entire city for several days; just as when a mighty conflagration has died down, you can see for a long time, not only the smoke, but also some portions of the buildings still aflame.

Other examples show that theatres and stadia were closely associated with urban riots. Polybius records how in  BCE protesters dragged Agathokles, the disgraced majordomo of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, to the stadion of Alexandria, where he was publicly torn to pieces by the frenzied mob. Another case – which did not end in a mob lynching, but only just – was described in the New Testament. The passage concerns an uproar caused by the arrival in Ephesos of the apostle Paul and fellow Christians. The episode starts when a silversmith, Demetrius, warns his colleagues that the Christians represent a threat to their businesses: When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ Soon the whole city was in an uproar . . . and all of them rushed into the theatre together. Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theatre. The assembly was in confusion: some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. The Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander to the front, and they shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. But when they realised he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’

The uproar stopped only when the grammateus of the boulē stepped in to quiet the crowd (i.e. by hinting at Roman reprisals). Such riots were sometimes taken up by the visual media of the time, as we can see in a famous fresco from Pompeii that seems to depict riots that were connected 

Dio Chrys. Or. ..



Polyb. ...



Acts :–.

Festivals and Benefactors



with gladiatorial games. I do not know of any similar images in the East, but I do not doubt that any benefactor would carry a mental image of such riots with him.

Conclusion So, when benefactors paid for the festivals, they offered their cities much more than popular entertainment: they offered a complex social, cultural and political experience that played a major role in defining the social, political and cultural relations in the post-classical polis. Festivals were collective performances centred on a symbolic exchange between cities, athletes and performers, elites, other cities and emperors that involved different forms of capital: political legitimacy, cultural identity, social status and even wealth. I have argued that festivals were a kind of clearing-house where these types of capital were commuted in a common currency, that of honour. Festivals were the place where cities became honorific communities. Honour was used by benefactors to raise their status and that of their families and to give their power in the city some form of legitimacy; honour was used to provide communities with a Greek cultural identity that joined Greek cities with each other in a worldwide network; honour was used to connect with an imperial system of power; and honour (or rather the lack or withdrawal of honour) was used by the dēmoi to keep their leaders under control. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alston, R., van Nijf, O. M., and Willamson, C. (eds.) () Cults, Creeds and Identities: Religious Cultures in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies in the Greek City after the Classical Age . Leuven. Aneziri, S. () ‘Stiftungen fu¨r sportliche und musische Agone’, in K. HarterUibopuu and T. Kruse (eds.), Sport und Recht in der Antike. Beiträge zum . Wiener Kolloquium zur Antiken Rechtsgeschichte. Vienna, –. Borchhardt, J., and Dobesch, G. (eds.) () Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions. Wien – Mai . Vienna. Camia, F. () ‘Spending on the agones: the financing of festivals in the cities of Roman Greece’, Tyche : –. Cartledge, P., and Spawforth, A. () Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. London. 

Huet ().



 .  

Chaniotis, A. () ‘Sich selbst feiern? Städtische Feste des Hellenismus im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik’, in M. Wörrle and P. Zanker (eds.), Stadtbild und Bu¨rgerbild im Hellenismus. Mu¨nchen, –. () ‘Theatricality beyond the theater: staging public life in the Hellenistic World’, Pallas : –. () ‘Negotiating religion in the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire’, Kernos : –. () ‘Processions in Hellenistic cities: contemporary discourses and ritual dynamics’, in Alston, van Nijf and Williamson (eds.), –. Charneux, P. () ‘En relisant les décrets argiens (II)’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique: –. Chwe, M. S.-Y () Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge. Princeton. Csapo, E., and Slater, W. J. () The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor. Di Napoli, V. () ‘Honorary statues in the theatres of Roman Greece’, in Heller and van Nijf (eds.), –. Erskine, A. () ‘The Romans as common benefactors’, Historia .: –. Farrington, A. () ‘Θέμιδες and the local elites of Lycia, Pamphylia and Pisidia’, in A. D. Rizakis and F. Camia (eds.), Pathways to Power: Civic Elites in the Eastern Part of the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the International Workshop Held at Athens. Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene.  December . Athens, –. Gauthier, P. () ‘Les cités hellénistiques: épigraphie et histoire des institutions et des régimes politiques’, in Πρακτικὰ τοῦ Η Διεθνοῦς Συνεδρίου Ἑλληνικῆς καὶ Λατινικῆς Ἐπιγραφικῆς, Ἀθήνα, – Ὀκτωβρίου . Athens, –. () Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (IVe–Ier siècle avant J.-C.): contribution à l'histoire des institutions. Paris. Gordon, R. . ‘The veil of power: emperors, sacrificers and benefactors’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds.), Pagan Priests. Oxford, –. Hall, A., and Milner, N. () ‘Education and athletics: documents illustrating the festivals of Oenoanda’, in D. French (ed.), Studies in the History and Topography of Lycia and Pisidia in Memoriam A. S. Hall. Oxford, –. Harl, K. W. () Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East A.D. –. Berkeley. Heberdey, R. () ‘Gymnische und andere Agone in Termessus Pisidiae’, in Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay. Manchester, –. Heller, A., and van Nijf, O. (eds.) () The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire. Leiden. Huet, V. () ‘La représentation de la rixe de l’amphithéâtre de Pompéi: une prefiguration de “l’hooliganisme”’, Histoire Urbaine : –. Jones, C. P. () ‘Joint sacrifice at Iasus and Side’, Journal of Hellenic Studies : –. Kokkinia, C. () ‘Martyriai: civic honours and imperial government’, in A. Heller and O. van Nijf (eds.), –.

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Ladurie, E. L. () Le Carnaval de Romans de da Chandeleur au Mercredi des Cendres –. Paris. Le Guen, B. () ‘Théâtre et cités à l’époque hellénistique: “mort de la cité” – “mort du théâtre”?’, REG : –. () Les associations des technites dionysiaques à l’époque hellénistique, vol. : Corpus documentaire; vol. , Synthèse. Vols.  and . Nancy. Lendon, J. E. () Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World. Oxford. Ma, John () Statues and Cities. Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford. Mathé, V. () ‘Coût et financement des stades et des hippodromes’, in B. Le Guen (ed.), L’argent dans les concours du monde grec. Paris, –. Mellor, R. () Θέα Ρώμη: The Worship of the Goddess Roma in the Greek World. Göttingen. Migeotte, L. () ‘Le financement des concours dans la Béotie hellénistique’, The Ancient World : –. () ‘Le financement des concours dans les cités hellénistiques: essai de typologie’, in B. Le Guen (ed.), L’argent dans les concours du monde grec. Paris, –. Millar, F. () The Emperor in the Roman World: ( BC–AD ). London. Mitchell, S. () ‘Festivals, games, and civic life in Roman Asia Minor’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. Moretti, J.-C. () ‘Le coût et le financement des théâtres Grecs’, in B. Le Guen (ed.), L’argent dans les concours du monde grec. Paris, –. Ober, J. D. () Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology and the Power of the People. Princeton. Pavlogiannis, O., Albanidis, E., and Dimitriou, M. () ‘The Aktia of Nikopolis: new approaches’, Nikephoros : –. Pels, D., and te Velde, H. () Politieke Stijl. Over Presentatie en Optreden in de Politiek. Amsterdam. Petzl, G., and Schwertheim, E. () Hadrian und die dionysischen Ku¨nstler. Drei in Alexandria Troas neugefundene Briefe des Kaisers an die Ku¨nstlerVereinigung. Bonn. Pleket, H. W. () ‘Olympic benefactors’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Papyrologie und Epigraphik : –. () ‘Einige Betrachtungen zum Thema “Geld und Sport”’, Nikephoros : –. () ‘Sport in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor’, in P. Christesen and D. G. Kyle (eds.), A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Oxford, –. Price, S. () Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge. Remijsen, S. () ‘The so-called “crown games”: terminology and historical context of the ancient categories for “agones”’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Papyrologie und Epigraphik : –.



 .  

Robert, L. () ‘Notes de numismatique et d’épigraphie grecques’, Revue Numismatique: – = OMS II, –. () ‘Laodicée du Lycos, les inscriptions’, in J. des Gagniers (ed.), Laodicée du Lykos: le Nymphée. Quebec, –. () ‘Discours d’ouverture’, in Πρακτικὰ του Η´Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Ελληνικής καὶ Λατινικής Επιγραφικής. Αθηνα, – Οκτωβρίου , Τόμος Α´. Athens, –. Rogers, G. M. () ‘Demosthenes of Oenoanda and models of euergetism’, Journal of Roman Studies : –. Roueché, C. () Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods: A Study Based on Inscriptions from the Current Excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria. London. Rutherford, I. C. () State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece: A Study of Theoria and Theoroi. Cambridge. van Nijf, O. M. () The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East. Amsterdam. () ‘Local heroes: athletics, festivals and elite self-fashioning in the Roman East’, in S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome. Cambridge, –. () ‘Athletics and paideia: festivals and physical education in the world of the second sophistic’, in B. E. Borg (ed.), Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic. Berlin, –. (a) ‘Les athlètes et les artistes comme médiateurs culturels’, in A. Gangloff (ed.), Médiateurs culturels et politiques dans l’empire romain: voyages, conflits, identités. Paris, –. (b) ‘Public space and political culture in Roman Termessos’, in O. M. van Nijf and R. Alston (eds.), Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Leuven, –. () ‘Political games’, Entretiens Hardt sur l’Antiquité Classique : –. () ‘Affective politics: the emotional regime in the imperial Greek city’, in A. Chaniotis and P. Ducrey (eds.), Emotions as Historical Factor: Perceptions and Feelings in the Ancient World. Stuttgart, –. () ‘Civic mirrors: honorific inscriptions and the politics of prestige’, in A. Kuhn (ed.), Social Status and Prestige in the Graeco-Roman World. Stuttgart, –. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. Whitehead, D. () ‘Competetive outlay and community profit: Φιλοτιμία in democratic Athens’, Classica et Mediaevalia : –. Wilson, P. () The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge. Wörrle, M. D. () Stadt und Fest im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien. Studien zu einer agonistischen Stiftung aus Oinoanda. Munich. Zuiderhoek, A. () ‘On the political sociology of the imperial Greek city’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies .: –. () The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge.

 

The Decline and Fall of Euergetism?

 

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium Daniel F. Caner

By the end of the sixth century and certainly before the invasions of the seventh, the late Roman Empire of the East (‘Early Byzantium’) had acquired an urban landscape that would have been almost unrecognizable to citizens of the earlier empire. In most cases the public spaces of the classical polis had been appropriated for private dwellings, with civic amenities like theaters and stoas being stripped for spolia or filled with workshops and booths. Meanwhile, churches ‘sprouted like mushrooms after a rain’, with even modest cities having at least five. Surrounded by colonnaded plazas and oil-lit streets that led past heaps of bricolage to public baths, churches offered new foci of urban pride. But they did not stand alone: often nearby were hospices, monasteries and poorhouses. It was such non-classical amenities as these – in addition to churches and baths – that sixth-century panegyrists praised as ‘signs of a prosperous polis’. This chapter explores the episcopal politics behind this early Byzantine nexus of church buildings and charitable amenities. Thanks to magisterial surveys by Wolf Liebeschuetz and Hélène Saradi, we now see that the transformation of the polis in this period resulted from a confluence of trends, including the emergence of new benefactors and benefactions. With municipal politics now largely dictated by imperial representatives and a clique of regional gentry (many of whom had abandoned their cities for the suburbs), there remained little incentive for local aristocrats to furnish or maintain the costly monuments that had adorned their cities in yesteryear. This is clear not only from the general dearth of honorific statuary and inscriptions at early Byzantine sites but also from the   

Di Segni () ; cf. Saradi () –. Procop. Aed. .. (ed. Haury, ): ἱερὰ τεμένη πολλὰ καὶ ξενῶνας καὶ λουτρῶνας . . . καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἐνδείκνυται πόλιν εὐδαίμονα. Cf. Evagr. Schol. Hist. eccl. . and Magdalino () –. Liebeschuetz () –, –; Alston () –; Saradi posits stagnation, but see Haldon () –. On changes in euergetism, see Haensch () – and Caillet ().





 . 

observation of John Lydus (–c. ) that although traditions of civic liberality had been brought to Constantinople from Rome, they had never taken root ‘because illustrious men among us [prefer to] display the superiority of their fortune only to themselves’. In their absence a new set of public donors came to the fore: emperors, provincial governors and bishops. Whether appointed or elected into office, the latter held their positions for life and became important municipal leaders, entrusted by law to govern their cities and maintain order. The involvement of early Byzantine bishops in religious and nonreligious building projects is well documented. Often cited is a pair of letters written by Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus to members of the imperial court in the late s mentioning his construction of two bridges, an aqueduct, a stoa and public baths at Cyrrhus. In so doing, Theodoret notes that he had, as bishop, assumed burdens no less onerous than those of high officials and landowners, that is the imperial governor and local magnates who now dominated secular affairs. These letters certainly show the potential for a Christian bishop to carry out civic works. What is surprising, however, is both that Theodoret explains that he paid for these works entirely out of church revenues (i.e. not out of his own wealth) and that he cites this use of church revenues as proof that he had never derived any personal gain from his office. These remarks make his case more problematic as an example of either episcopal euergetism or continuity with classical tradition than has usually been recognized. From a classical perspective, it is problematic because Theodoret had not provided anything for his city at his own expense; from a Christian perspective, it is problematic because he had spent church funds on secular projects. It is clear that Theodoret wanted to impress imperial officials at Constantinople with his responsible use of church funds. Yet from what follows below we might wonder if he would have been so ready to disclose such expenditures   

Lydus Mag. . (trans. Bandy, ). Local civic benefactors did not completely disappear: Roueché () –. Avraméa () –; Rapp () –, –. Theodoret Ep. . (to Anatolius; SC .): πολλὰ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς προσόδου εἰς τὰ δημόσια ἀνηλώσαμεν οἰκοδομήματα, στοὰς ἐγείροντες καὶ λουτρά, καὶ γεφύρας κατασκευάζοντες, καὶ τῶν κοινῶν τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιμελούμενοι (‘I have spent much of my church revenues on municipal buildings, constructing colonnades and baths, building bridges and other public structures’); Ep. . (to Nomus, SC .): Ἕνα ἄρτον ἢ ὠὸν οὐδεὶς τῶν ἐμῶν συνοίκων ἐδέξατο πώποτε . . . Δημοσίας στοὰς ἐκ τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν προσόδων ἀνέστησα· γεφύρας δύο μεγίστας ᾠκοδόμησα, λουτρῶν ἐπεμελήθην κοινῶν (‘None of my relatives ever received [even] a loaf of bread or an egg.. . . From my church revenues I erected municipal colonnades, constructed two big bridges and took care of the public baths’).

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



had his correspondents been local church benefactors or poor members within his own congregation. The fact that late Roman bishops were salaried officials responsible for protecting communal church resources makes their euergetism more complicated than that of amateur, invariably wealthy classical politicians. Although we learn nothing more about Theodoret’s expenditures, we do regularly hear about episcopal waste of communal funds on unnecessary church building projects in this period. Accusations of lithomania – unrestrained monumental building for self-serving purposes – became a distinct feature of eastern church politics in the fifth century. Yet the details of this charge and its possible impact on episcopal practices have never been fully explored. Previous studies have treated it as either a matter of polemics or an inconsequential reflection of polarized positions on the proper use of church funds. I argue that such charges influenced contemporary practices, encouraging bishops and episcopal aspirants to bestow charitable amenities like hospices and poorhouses upon their cities in addition to building churches and baths, thereby assuaging the concerns of important specialinterest groups. Observing that this accusation became prominent only in the first half of the fifth century, scholars have mainly been content to explain it as a response to the fact that most cities by then had enough churches to serve their populations. Certainly in the decades following Constantine‘s conversion bishops felt no restraint in bestowing sumptuous cathedrals on their cities (or advertising that they had done so). An epitaph written c.  records that M. Julius Eugenius not only gave up an imperial career to become bishop of Laodicea Combusta in Phrygia but also ‘built up [its] whole church from the foundations and all the adornments around it, namely the colonnades, porticoes, mosaics, fountain and atrium, outfitting it with all the works of the stonecutters and simply everything’. It states that Eugenius had done this for the ‘glory of the church and my family’. Gregory of Nazianzus gushed no less about the octagonal church that his episcopal father, a former curialis of Eugenius’ generation, built for the Cappadocian city of Nazianzus in the s: two stories high, with flashing vaults, life-like statuary and ‘excrescent equiangular ambulatories of most splendid material’, it was a ‘living memorial of his munificence’, which secured for the city ‘a celebrity among the majority of mankind’. This was   

Gaddis () ; Rapp () . Batiffol () –, trans. Rapp () – with n. . Greg. Naz. Or. . (PG .); trans. Browne, –.



 . 

euergetism in a distinctly classical vein. In some regions such episcopal building and boasting never went out of fashion. An inscription from the Peloponnese records that the expensive lithoi that once graced a church there bore witness to ‘all the good qualities’ by which Bishop Thyrsus, its fifth- or sixth-century builder, had surpassed his twenty-eight predecessors in office. A Justinianic law of  complained that ‘many rush to founding holy churches for the sake of a name’. This seems meant to refer to members of the laity, but the comment could describe bishops and clerics as well. On the whole, however, such testimony becomes rare after the fourth century. Does this mean that a surfeit of churches dissuaded most bishops from adding more? Surveying the corpus of church inscriptions from Syria and Palestine, Rudolf Haensch concludes that episcopal involvement in such projects tended to consist of solicitation and supervision rather than foundation or adornment. He proposes several explanations for this, including a desire to avoid accusations of simony. Yet it is hard to tell how much we can generalize from the epigraphical evidence. Choricius of Gaza (–c. ) praises his bishop, Marcian, not only for persuading a local magistrate to build a major church at Gaza but for having given the city ‘more new churches than there were of old’ himself. No doubt Choricius exaggerates, but it is impossible to dismiss the implication of his comment altogether. This chapter therefore explores instead the questions that such projects raised regarding proper uses of church funds. It is notable that Gregory of Nazianzus made sure to explain that his father built his church almost completely at his own expense, ‘with very little contributions from the people in addition’. The cases examined below show that the collection and allocation of lay contributions, called karpophoriai, were central concerns behind charges of lithomania. These cases also make clear, however, that those responsible for raising or pursuing such charges were primarily Christian ascetics. These represented a vocal set of constituents whom bishops had to take seriously. I argue that it was the emergence of these  

  

Feissel and Philippides-Braat () –, no. : πᾶσιν ἐσθλοῖς·//καὶ μαρτυρῖ τὰ κτίσματα καὶ λίθου λεπταλέης. Just. Nov.  ( CE; ed. Schoell, –): πολλοὶ γὰρ ὀνόματος ἕνεκεν πρὸς ποίησιν ἁγιωτάτων ἐκκλησιῶν ὁρμῶσιν . . . : ὀνόματος δὲ ἴσως ἐπιθυμῶν τοῦ καὶ αὐτὸς κτίστης ἐκκλησίας καλεῖσθαι βούλοιτό τι τοιοῦτο πρᾶξαι. Haensch () –; cf. Haensch () and Lassus () –. Chor. Laud Marciani . (ed. Foerster-Richsteig, ). Greg. Naz. Or. . (Migne, PG :): ὀλίγα μὲν τῷ λαῷ προσχρησάμενος, τὰ πλείω δὲ οἴκοθεν εἰσενεγκών.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



constituents as a quasi-political force, as much as the existence of too many churches, that historically explains the charges of lithomania in the early fifth century. For ideological reasons, bishops had to demonstrate that they were serving these constituents as much as themselves. The result was not so much a cessation of episcopal building as an awareness that it was politic to provide such constituents with amenities like hospitals and monasteries alongside monumental churches. At stake was the legitimacy of bishops not only to lead their cities as ‘nourishers of the poor’ but to subsist on resources known as the poor funds (ptōchika) and the lay contributions that provided them. Such issues may seem foreign to those guiding Greco-Roman benefactors of the classical era. My approach, however, is prompted by Arjan Zuiderhoek’s perception that classical euergetism was shaped by the recognition of urban elites that to justify their preponderant control of wealth and privileges in their polis communities, they had to provide amenities that made citizens feel valued. Christian bishops found themselves in analogous positions but with different ideological constituencies and concerns. Therefore, instead of providing the ‘icing on the cake’ (i.e. the nonutilitarian amenities that Zuiderhoek attributes to classical benefactors), they found it expedient to emphasize their provision of ‘needful’ amenities, preferring to excel as impresarios of benefactions rather than as monumental benefactors themselves. Such euergetism did not diminish opportunities for episcopal self-aggrandizement. Yet inasmuch as it forced bishops to accommodate a social spectrum ranging from the most elevated to the most fallen members of their community, it laid a new basis for solidarity in cities of the Roman and post-Roman East.

Three Cases of Lithomania in the Early Fifth Century We know three specific cases in which charges of lithomania were leveled against bishops in Early Byzantium. The best-known arose in connection to the trials of Bishop John Chrysostom of Constantinople (–), whose partisans, Palladius of Helenopolis and Isidore of Pelusium, used the term to discredit his episcopal adversary, Theophilus of Alexandria (–). The second, lesser-known case is that which 

 

Brown () – argues that fourth-century bishops built such amenities to justify their new privileges to imperial officials; I am arguing that after the fourth century, bishops needed to justify their privileges to local constituents. Zuiderhoek () , –, –. Caillet (); Haensch () ; for the West, Brown () –.



 . 

Isidore of Pelusium raised against his own bishop, Eusebius of Pelusium (fl. c. –). The third is inferred from literature that partisans of Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (–) produced after Rabbula had died and his successor, Hiba (a.k.a. Ibas), held sway (–, –). Because the first and third are embedded in complicated narratives, I will outline them before considering the specific concerns that Palladius and Isidore express. Chrysostom was deposed from his see following an inquiry that Theophilus arranged in  at the Synod of the Oak. At issue was Chrysostom’s violation of episcopal juridical boundaries and other transgressions, including sale of valuable church property, like the marble slabs a previous bishop had purchased to adorn Constantinople‘s Church of the Resurrection. Five years later, after Chrysostom had died in exile, Palladius sought to set the record straight in his Dialogue on John Chrysostom, contending that the conflict stemmed from Theophilus’ boundless self-aggrandizement and persecution of Isidore, an elderly Alexandrian church hospitaler who got in his way. As Palladius tells it, a wealthy widow once entrusted Isidore with a thousand pounds of gold to buy clothing for destitute women in Alexandria but first made him swear not to tell his bishop, lest he spend it on lithoi. This was because, according to Palladius, it was well known that Theophilus ‘had a sort of lithomania worthy of the Pharaohs for building edifices that the Church does not need’. The hospitaler did as requested, but Theophilus found out and began campaigning against him and the monks who sheltered him in the desert, and then against Chrysostom for granting them all asylum in Constantinople. Palladius thus coined (it appears) the term ‘lithomania’ specifically to explain the origin of Theophilus’ attack on Chrysostom. Later, however, he explains the problem more generally: Many so-called bishops, seeking to diminish the hatred to which they are justly subject due to their personal conduct and indifference to spiritual things, exchange one passion for another, namely avarice for vainglory. While one hand does not refrain from committing injustices for the sake of shameful gain, the other sets banquets and raises pillars for high buildings, that they might seem purposeful and energetic, reaping honour instead of dishonor.. . . I do not refer to those who build appropriately as needed or restore church property. I am talking about those who squander the property of the poor on hanging colonnades, fountains three-stories high  

For Palladius’ depiction of Theophilus, Elm () –, esp. –. Pall. v.Chrys.  (SC .): λιθομανία γάρ τις αὐτὸν φαραώνιος ἐχει εἰς οἰκοδομήματα, ὧν οὐδαμῶς χρῄζει ἡ ἐκκλησία.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



and unseemly unisex baths, so that through these frivolities they might collect silver or acquire more love, since their zeal for these purchases them popularity.

Of course, by ‘those who build . . . as needed’, Palladius would have included Chrysostom. Earlier in the Dialogue he presents Chrysostom’s suppression of episcopal expenditures ‘of no benefit to the Church’ among his first postordinational reforms. The resulting revenues were reportedly used to refurbish an old hospital and build others, including a leprosarium outside the city. These are the only buildings that Palladius attributes to Chrysostom anywhere in this account. Some forty years later, a remarkably similar combination of panegyric and accusation was produced by partisans of the deceased Bishop Rabbula in opposition to his successor Hiba at Edessa, capital of Osrhoēnē near the eastern Roman frontier. Rabbula and Hiba had been enemies: following the First Council of Ephesus in , Rabbula reportedly had expelled Hiba, a gifted translator of Antiochene theology, from the city as a Nestorian sympathizer. That Hiba later returned shows he had influential partisans in the city as well. The only direct representation we have of his time in office, however, are petitions and allegations raised against him before and during the Second Council of Ephesus in , accusing Hiba and friends of misappropriating Edessa’s communal church funds: ‘Hiba has ravaged the Church! His party seized the riches of the Church! Let what belongs to the Church be returned to the Church! Let what belongs to the poor be returned to the poor!’ Formal charges at Ephesus II specified his embezzlement of money raised for prisoners of war, theft of liturgical vessels, sale of ordinations and diversion to family members of all ‘bequests, fruit-bearings and contributions received from whatever source’. At some point Hiba’s opponents sought to discredit him more indirectly, through a hagiographical panegyric composed to honor his predecessor Rabbula. This so-called Deeds of Rabbula emphasized Rabbula’s 

  

Pall. v.Chrys.  (SC .–): Ταῦτα δὲ λέγω, οὐ συμπεριλαμβάνων τοὺς εὐλόγως καὶ δι’ ἀνάγκην κτίζοντας ἢ διορθουμένους τὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἀλλὰ διὰ τοὺς τὰ τῶν πτωχῶν εἰς κρεμαστοὺς περιβόλους καὶ ἀερίων ὑδάτων δεξαμενὰς ἐν τριωρόφοις καὶ ἀπρεπῆ ἀνδρογύνων λουτρὰ ἐν ἀποκρύφοις καταναλίσκοντας εἰς συλλογὴν ἢ πλείονος ἀργυρίου ἢ τοὔμπαλιν παρὰ τῶν ἀθυρμάτων ἀγαπηθῆναι, ἐν αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῆς σπουδῆς τὴν χάριν ἀντιπληρούντων. Pall. v.Chrys.  (SC .). Second Council of Ephesus, First report on Hiba (trans. Doran, ). Second Council of Ephesus, Articles against Hiba nos. –,  and  (ACO .., trans. Price, .–): τὰς κληρονομίας καὶ τὰς καρποφορίας καὶ τὰ ὅθεν δήποτε συνεισφερόμενα . . . καταβάλλεται ἐπὶ τὸν αὐτοῦ ἀδελφὸν καὶ τοὺς αὐτοῦ ἀδελφιδοῦς.



 . 

priorities. According to its author, upon ordination his first act was to sell all the silver his clergy feasted upon, allocating its proceeds for ‘the use of the needy’. (He reportedly intended to do the same with gold and silver liturgical vessels, but acquiesced when told that these had been offered by deceased donors for the redemption of their souls.) Content with just a single tunic, he silenced lay people who plundered the poor, while openly humiliating clerics who ‘exalt[ed] themselves above their neighbors by their riches’, promoting only those who displayed a desire for poverty. Meanwhile his careful stewardship enabled him to disburse , pounds of gold to the poor in addition to what he provided for clerics and those on church welfare rolls. Finally, the author insists that ‘all the days of his life he did not consent to build anything on earth except for half of the northern nave of the church of the community of his city, which he was forced to do because it was damaged’. They depict Rabbula explaining: According to an honest assessment, we ourselves live from what belongs to the poor.. . . For whatever the church possesses, she inherits from believing persons for the sustenance of orphans and widows and the needy. According to an honest assessment, to us leaders is allowed as much as the body needs, so that we may use some of it in a simple manner, like the rest of the poor, and not as our body, which desires whatever is hurtful to our spirit, wills.

‘Because of the love of the poor which he had in his soul’, Rabbula reportedly used only church revenues to build and refurbish hospitals, including a leprosarium outside the city. Han Drijvers has shown that the Deeds of Rabbula, though classified as a panegyric, was intended to serve as a polemic, since it ‘emphasizes exactly those qualities of the bishop that are totally missing with Hiba . . . the alleged bon-vivant’. That includes its claim that Rabbula refused to ‘build anything on earth’. Drijvers points out that later chronicles attribute to Hiba several major church constructions, including a new Church of the Apostles that was considered unrivalled in its splendor and became the city’s cathedral. The author of the Deeds of Rabbula crafted his portrait of Rabbula specifically with these activities in mind. Indeed, the parallels between the Deeds of Rabbula and Palladius’ Dialogue indicate that a discourse regarding proper and improper episcopal expenditures was emerging that could be marshaled when evidence of doctrinal malfeasance (for which Hiba was never formally charged by his  

Pan. Rabb., trans. Doran, –, , , –. Baumstark () –; Segal () .



Drijvers () –.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



opponents) was lacking. But that should not make us think that charges of lithomania were just a matter of ecclesiastical polemics or episcopal rivalries. Here the complaints that Isidore of Pelusium addressed in letters to his own bishop, Eusebius, are instructive. Formerly a priest, Isidore (d. c. ) retired to live as a monk outside Pelusium, an Egyptian city (modern Tell el-Farama) located where the easternmost mouth of the Nile meets the Mediterranean coast. Isidore was well connected, and retirement allowed him to become an exceptional correspondent. His letters (more than , survive) cast light on ecclesiastical developments in the early fifth century. A partisan of Chrysostom’s camp, Isidore used the term ‘lithomaniac’ to describe Theophilus in a letter of his own. Whether or not Palladius opened his eyes to this problem, Isidore considered it symptomatic of a new and more general decadence. ‘In our days church buildings are adorned more than necessary’, he told one correspondent. ‘If I could choose, I would have lived in times when church buildings were not so thoroughly adorned but the Church itself was garlanded with heavenly charisms – instead of our own times, when church buildings are embellished with a variety of marbles, but the Church is bare of charismatic spirits’. Isidore’s remarks referred to the building program launched by Pelusium’s new bishop, Eusebius. To Isidore, Eusebius (c. –) exemplified a whole class of eloquent but incompetent spiritual leaders who jeopardized their communities by prioritizing walls, columns and other material refinements over caring for souls. What alarmed him most, however, was not Eusebius’ misplaced priorities but his means of funding them. Isidore expressed his concerns in a series of letters addressed to Eusebius himself: ‘They say you are building a church in Pelusium that gleams with ingenuities but also with wicked dealings, sale of ordinations, injustices, threats, pressure on the poor and wastage of the funds of the poor (ptōchika). This is none other than building Sion in blood’, he wrote in one letter. ‘You are constructing a church building on unprofitable

 

 

Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .A): λιθομανῆ . . . καὶ χρυσολάτριν . . . Θεόφιλον. On Isidore, see Évieux (). Isid. Pel., Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .C): ἐπὶ δὲ ἡμῶν τὰ ἐκκλησιαστήρια πλέον τοῦ δέοντος κεκόσμηται . . . εἰλόμην ἂν ἐν τοῖς καιροῖς ἐκείνοις γεγενῆσθαι, ἐν οἷς ἐκκλησιαστήρια μὲν οὕτω κεκοσμηνένα μὴ ἦν, Ἐκκλησία δὲ θείοις καὶ οὐρανίοις χαρίσματα ἐστεμμένη, ἤ ἐν τούτοις, ἐν οἷς τὰ μὲν ἐκκλησιαστήρια παντοίοις κεκαλλώπισται μαρμάροις . . . Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .A); cf.  (A); Évieux () –. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .AB): Κτίζεις, ὥς φασιν, ἐκκλησίν ἐν Πηλουσίῳ, λαμπρὰν μὲν τοῖς μηχανήμασι, πονηροῖς δὲ τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασι, χειροτονιῶν τιμήμασι, καὶ ἀδικίαις, καὶ



 . 

lithoi, by which I mean impious and transgressive provisions’, he wrote in another; as a result, he warned, ‘many Lazaruses are circling around you’. To pay for these projects Eusebius had put priesthoods up for sale, thereby recruiting four unscrupulous clerics, one of whom allegedly used what he embezzled from Pelusium’s church treasury to purchase another priesthood in Alexandria. In this way, according to Isidore, Eusebius’ building projects meant even more losses for the poor. ‘For those facing the ravenous beast of poverty (ptōcheia), why do you make their agony harder by appropriating the collections made for them as alms for food?’ he asked one of these priests. Although we do not know how this situation played out, Isidore took it to the highest level, asking his patriarch, Cyril of Alexandria (Theophilus’ successor, –), to remove these priests’ access to church revenues, ‘for if it be indecent to supply the needy through injustices, it is all the more indecent to give the poor nothing at all but to take [from them] for oneself . . . the account of the poor is nothing to them, while they pillage church funds and waste them on their own philotimia’. These cases share four similar features: alleged misappropriation of funds for the poor, evaluation of episcopal building propriety based on the criterion of need, involvement of ascetics as critics, and occurrence during the Theodosian Age (–). Complaints about misappropriations of poor funds by Christian clerics had been raised since the third century. Did new circumstances exist that might historically account for their concentration in the Theodosian era?

Christian Ideology, Core Constituencies and Ecclesiastical Funds of the Poor As specialists know, the accession of Theodosius I after the Battle of Hadrianople in  brought not just dynastic changes to Constantinople but decisive changes in policies related to Christianity. These included the

    

ὕβρεσι καὶ πενήτων ἐκπιεσμοῖς, καὶ πτωχικοῖς δαπανήμασιν . . . παῦσαι τοίνυν καὶ κτίζων καὶ ἀδικῶν, ἵνα μὴ εἰς ἔλεγχόν σοι ὑπὸ ὁ οἶκος εὐρεθῇ. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .C): Ἀχρήστοις λίθοις τὸ ἐκκλησιαστήριον κτίζεις, τοῖς παρανόμοις, ἢ μᾶλλον ἀσεβέσι σου πόροις. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= ..; Migne, PG .D). Isid. Pel. Ep.  (SC .–). On these clerics, Évieux () –. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (SC .) and  (= .; Migne, PG .C): τῶν μὲν πενήτων λόγος ἦν αὐτοῖς οὐδεὶς, τά τε ἐκκλησιαστικὰ χρήματα ἐληίζοντο, καὶ οἰκείας ἀνηλίσκοντο φιλοτιμίας. Origen In Mt. ., . (Migne, PG .A, C); Bas. Caes. Ep. .; Epiph. Adv. haeres. ..; cf. Zeisel () –.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



imperial promotion of Nicene Orthodoxy, its identification with Roman citizenship, destruction of pagan temples in the East and support of a Christian culture more strident than anything seen before. It is now apparent that even in substantially converted cities like Antioch, a secularism had previously prevailed prior to the Theodosian Age that allowed Christian ceremonies to exist alongside spectacles within the traditional framework of civic euergetism and curial politics. That began to change, however, once a new generation of bishops began to capitalize on Theodosian preferences to advance their own civic position and communal agenda. This included an unprecedented wave of episcopal church construction. Theophilus may have been exceptional in adding nine churches and martyr shrines to the thirteen already existing at Alexandria, but other bishops were remembered for soliciting largesse from the imperial court to adorn their cities with sumptuous cathedrals at this time. Since, as one writer noted, seeing such a church in one city excited envy among bishops in others, it is no surprise that charges of lithomania should arise out of this relatively sudden spasm of ecclesiastical construction. Monumental constructions aside, however, this generation of church leaders established themselves by adopting a political ideology rooted in Judeo-Christian rather than Greco-Roman precedents. Peter Brown has drawn attention to the ideals and ambitions that lay behind the effort of late Roman bishops to present themselves as ‘governors of the poor’. Some scholars, looking at bishops appointed in the Justinianic era, believe Brown overstated the significance of this facet of episcopal self-representation. Yet it undeniably provided the chief ideological basis for the intrusion of bishops into civic affairs and their receipt, control and distribution of wealth. This was especially true at the dawn of the Theodosian age. John Chrysostom, for example, having embarked on his ecclesiastical career in the year following Theodosius’ accession, used his pulpit as priest in Antioch (–) and then as bishop in Constantinople to supplant classical with Christian virtues. To that end he sought to reform habits of civic euergetism, railing not only against pagans who pursued honor in     

Matthews () – and Holum (). Natalie () –; Sandwell () –, () –; Maxwell () –. On secularism in the West at this time, Markus (). Martin () –; Marc. Diac. v.Porph. , , ; Geront. v.Melan. . Archaeologists may have found Eusebius’ church: Abd el-Samie (). Brown () –; () passim; Finn () –. Allen ()  argues that patriarchs were appointed for diplomatic skills during sixth-century controversies, yet two had previously been hospitalers, and it may be that episcopal philanthropy was calculated to win over adherents. See Downey () , n.  and Déroche () .



 . 

theaters but also against Christians who preferred to give monumental offerings instead of alms: what would Christ say, he asked, if they claimed to adorn Him with marble columns, mosaics and costly lamps, yet refused Him rags when they saw Him shivering in the cold? Indeed, it was their failure to provide sufficient alms, Chrysostom said, that forced his church to accumulate estates and rental properties to compensate for all in need. From an ideological perspective, the core constituents of these new civic leaders were ‘the poor’; these were the people who were primarily supposed to benefit from whatever surplus resources churches received. Yet, as Brown observes, ‘it is particularly important to define with some care what contemporaries meant by the term “poor”’. Bishops like Chrysostom could and did encourage Christians to give to destitute beggars. But because New Testament literature described both Jesus and the poor with a Greek word (ptōchos) that emphasized a state of ruin or fallenness, the early Byzantine concept of ptōcheia privileged those who had come down in the world. These included not only those who had suffered a familial, financial or bodily collapse but also those who voluntarily had given up opportunities for worldly prestige to serve God, becoming ‘poor in spirit’ – bishops, clerics, virgins and monks. These two types of ptōchoi, rather than the ordinary poor born into poverty, were the ones registered on church poor rolls. Not only were they the core ideological constituents of Theodosian bishops, but they were also the ones who stood most to lose from any institutional diminution or misuse of the ‘funds of the poor’. Such constituents represented a larger communal body than we might expect; hence Isidore felt he could describe Eusebius as a ‘devourer of the dēmos’ because of the way he mishandled the poor funds. All wanted those funds to be available in case they fell into need, including immensely rich but threadbare pilgrims like Melania the Younger, who allegedly     

Joh. Chrys. De inani gloria – (SC .–), In Stat. . (Migne, PG .), Gen. . (.–), Exp. in Ps.  (.), Mt. ., . (., ),  Cor. . (.). Joh. Chrys. In Mt. . (Migne, PG .), Act. . (.),  Cor. .– (.–); cf. Brown () . Brown () . See Caner, () –; in general, Patlagean () –; for Chrysostom, Mayer () –, () –. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .D): δημοβόρος . . . τὰ μὲν τῶν πενήτων σφετεριζόμενος. (Note that Isidore applies a label identified with tyrants in the archaic era; there are perhaps other parallels with the pre-polis situation explored by Wagner-Hasel, Chapter  in this volume.) Petitioners against Hiba consisted of ‘all those who live in the city . . . together with the honourable archimandrites and monks . . . honourable clerics, God-loving archimandrites, monks, and sons of the covenant.’ Second Council of Ephesus, Records against Hibas (trans. Doran, , ; cf. ).

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



considered registering herself for the church dole when she first arrived in Jerusalem. But among this constituency the newest and most vocal segment was monastic. Perhaps no special interest group profited more from Theodosian patronage. Monasticism rose to quasi-political prominence in early Byzantine cities as abbots and other Christian ascetics not only gained access to the imperial court but also occasionally orchestrated protests using their own dependents. In these years they were still largely free agents. A few reveled in confronting clerics and bishops, but not all were fanatics: more influential were learned monks like Palladius and Isidore of Pelusium, whose cultural capital won them aristocratic admirers. Palladius presented fellow ascetics as more dependable to serve as stewards for lay benefactions than church clerics, who ‘turned it into a business’. Isidore himself, however, seems to have served elite donors not as a conduit of alms but as a communicator of grievances. As he wrote in response to complaints from an imperial tribune named Serenus, ‘Today some (I should not say all) teachers of the Word dare to appropriate the communal funds. This outrage causes even those who habitually produce fruit-bearings [karpophorein] to wither. A church’s treasury depends on the good will of its congregations, but [these church leaders] do not let this happen.’ Isidore was making a crucial point. While major sees like those of Alexandria or Antioch by the fifth century had begun to derive substantial incomes from estates and imperial subsidies, the vast majority had to depend on regular contributions from lay people to build up communal endowments for the poor and other projects. Critical were the karpophoriai, the ‘fruit-bearings’ gleaned off God’s various gifts that ensured future prosperity if given back to God with gratitude in advance. Akin to first fruits, such contributions were collected on a periodic basis or derived from special solicitations for ad hoc needs; they were supposed to be voluntary, but were so fundamental that they were sometimes compared to a tithe (one fifth-century emperor felt compelled to forbid clerics from

   

 Geront. v.Melan. . Caner () –; López () –. For contemporaneous emergence of such a constitutency in the West, Markus () –. Pall. Hist. Laus. . (ed. Butler, ): πάντες γὰρ καπηλεύουσι τὰ πράγματα. Cf. Geront. v. Melan. . Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .C): νυνὶ δέ τινες τῶν ὑφηγητῶν τοῦ λόγου (οὐ γὰρ πάντων καταψηφίζεσθαι θέμις) τὰ κοινὰ σφετερίζεσθαι τολμῶσι. Πεποιήκασι γοῦν ἀπὸ ταύτης τῆς ἀτοπίας, καὶ τοὺς καρποφορεῖν εἰωθότας ἀποναρκῆσαι. Δέον γὰρ ἐν τῆς εὐγνωμοσύνῃ τῶν ὑπηκόων ἀποκεῖσθαι τοὺς τῆς Ἐκκλησίας θησαυροὺς, τοῦτο οὐ συγχωροῦσι γίνεσθαι.



 . 

demanding them as a virtual tax). It is evident that zealous Christians like those who joined local confraternities could be expected to contribute when asked, but Chrysostom notes that it was common for others to balk on the grounds that a bishop would simply devour whatever they gave: ‘He steals’, [you say,] ‘he robs, he drinks the goods of the poor and gulps down the things of the ptōchoi’. Complicating these perceptions was the fact that bishops and clerics were canonically entitled to a portion of these contributions for their own upkeep. When confronted with complaints, bishops, including Chrysostom, tended to close ranks (Hiba of Edessa was acquitted on all the financial charges against him by his episcopal tribunal). So too Isidore: in three separate letters he urged Serenus not to lessen his inclination for donating by scrutinizing how priests spent his karpophoriai. Nevertheless, as we have seen, Isidore also took Eusebius directly to task about this issue, exemplifying his tact and persistence mediating between church officials and lay benefactors as a relative insider over use of the ptōchika. Isidore offers rare insight into the complexities surrounding such dealings, but he was not the only ascetic to be consulted by lay people concerned that a bishop was abusing the financial opportunities of office. Another was Barsanuphius, a famous hermit near Gaza. Sometime c.  some local lay people asked Barsanuphius what they should do after they had managed to evict, by ‘interceding petitions and common vote’, a bishop hated for ‘greed and other failings’. When it became clear that Emperor Anastasius (–) might reinstate this bishop against their wishes, Barsanuphius advised them to send records of their petitions to the emperor to assure him that the impeachment had been conducted ‘according to God’s will’. The people neglected this advice, and both the emperor and bishop in question died before the affair reached a crisis. Nonetheless, considering the support that Barsanuphius had given the laity up to that   

  

Cod. Iust. ...; Rabb. Canons for Priests, nos. –; Isid. Pel. Ep.  (Migne, PG .C); Wipszycka () –; Patlagean () –; Martin () –; Jones () –. On this role of lay confraternities, Dagron () –. Joh. Chrys. In Tit.  (PG .): Εἶπεν ὁ τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν ἔχων, εἰσενεγκεῖν χρήματα, ἂν μὴ θέλῃ, οὐ μόνον οὐκ εἰσήνεγκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ . . . κατηγορεῖ τοῦ κελεύσαντος· κλέπτει φησὶν, ἁρπάζει, καταπίνει τὰ τῶν πενήτων, κατεσθίει τὰ τῶν πτωχῶν. Zeisel () – argues (at –, –) that early Byzantine churches mixed their fund streams and therefore suffered a spiral of debt. Second Council of Ephesus, Acts (trans. Doran, ): ‘Bishop Domnus stood steadfastly by him . . . he said, “It was in his power so to manage”’; cf. Zeisel () –. Isid. Pel. Ep.  (= .; Migne, PG .A): ὅτι δεῖ τοὺς καρποφοροῦντας ἀπλῶς τὰ δῶρα προσάγειν Θεῷ, καὶ μὴ κρίνειν τον τουτων μεσίτην . . . Ep.  (= .; AB): μὴ καὶ τὴν πρόθεσιν τῆς δωροφορίας . . . Ep.  (= .; CD).

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



point, it is not surprising that the next bishop upon assuming office asked for his blessing and consulted him on who to appoint to his clergy. The correspondence of Isidore and Barsanuphius shows the active role such Christian ascetics – technically ptōchoi – sometimes played behind the scenes in ecclesiastical politics. As virtual ombudsmen representing the practical and ideological concerns of a congregation’s core constituents, their opinion could be ignored only at risk of inconveniencing church leaders and candidates for episcopal office. This would have been especially true if, as Peter Norton has argued, lay congregations remained important in episcopal elections throughout Late Antiquity; but it would have probably been true anyway, because most bishops, having acquired office for life, would have wanted to avoid any trouble from such potentially volatile constituents. It was therefore prudent to ingratiate themselves with this group – something not achieved by directing church funds solely toward ‘unnecessary’ vanity projects. By the s, Isidore, the hospitaler of Alexandria, was said to have tried to convince Bishop Theophilus that it was ‘better to restore the bodies of the sick, which are more chiefly temples of God . . . than to construct walls’. According to fifth-century propagandists, Bishop Rabbula learned this lesson himself only after being confronted by the ascetic, Christ-like humility of the legendary ‘Holy Man of Edessa’. After that, ‘with much diligence he was always multiplying his gifts for the poor and for strangers . . . For he desisted from constructing many buildings and . . . only for orphans and widows did he take heed, and he was solicitous for the unfortunate and for strangers.. . . He did not neglect to support them with his gifts.’ The Deeds of Rabbula notes that these gifts included new constructions but (in accord with Palladius’ discussion of church buildings) suggests that these were limited to ‘needful’ amenities like infirmaries and leper colonies. Otherwise it emphasizes that Rabbula used church funds only to feed the poor – including the region’s monastic population – while coaxing his laity to contribute as well. Such 

    

Bars. qu. et resp.  (SC .: ἐπὶ φιλαργίᾳ καὶ ἑτέροις πταίσμασι καταγνωθεὶς καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ λαοῦ διὰ ταῦτα μισούμενος . . . ἐχρήσατο παραιτητικοῖς λιβέλλοις καὶ ἀπεκινήθη κοινῇ ψήφῳ τοῦ θρόνου), , –. As far as I know Hevelone-Harper () –, , n.  is the only discussion of this affair. Norton () –, –. v.Alex. Acoem. – recounts how its monastic saint harrassed Antiochene clergy to care for the city’s ptōchoi in the s; cf., in the sixth century, v.Sym.Styl.iun. . Sozom. Hist. eccl. .. (GCS n.F. .): ἄμεινον εἶναι λέγων τὰ σώματα τῶν καμνόντων, ἃ ναοὺς θεοῦ . . . ἀνανεοῦν ἢ τοίχους οἰκοδομεῖν. Man of God of Edessa, First Syr. version (trans. Doran, –); cf. Drijvers () . Pan. Rabb. trans. Doran, –, , –.



 . 

panegyrics set the bar unusually high, but nonetheless expressed the concerns of an urban demographic that we know at Edessa included ‘honourable archimandrites and monks’ as well as clerics. Is there evidence that other bishops similarly took heed and directed their euergetism toward ideologically appropriate ends?

Needful Amenities, Episcopal Benefactions and Ecclesiastical Compassion Writing to bishops in central Gaul in the late sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great (–) complained of reports that simony was rampant in their dioceses. Having already scolded them for this practice in earlier letters he took this occasion to explain his objections more fully, and in so doing sheds light on the type of benefactions frequently connected to such transactions. Those who purchased church positions often tried to dissemble it, he says, through a guise of fervent piety, persuading their episcopal sellers that whatever funds they received could be used to provide for the poor. This did not redeem the crime, Gregory insists. Besides the fact that true alms could never arise from ill-gotten gains, the funds received as payment could never raise enough edifices to make up for the harm done by putting someone corrupt into office: ‘so even if monasteries, hospitals or anything else be constructed, it will bring no reward’. By mentioning monasteries and hospitals in this letter, Gregory inadvertently indicates the type of benefactions (here also called alms) that might smoothen the acquisition of ecclesiastical office in Early Byzantium. Having spent several years in Constantinople, he did not want fledgling Gallic churches to embrace a practice he knew to be entrenched in Italy and the Eastern Empire (‘It has come to my attention’, he told his counterpart at Antioch, ‘that no one obtains holy orders in churches of the East except by giving bribes’). Forbidden by the Council of Chalcedon, purchasing church office nevertheless remained pervasive partly because it was almost indistinguishable from the practice of  



Second Council of Ephesus, First Report (trans. Doran, ); cf.  and . Monks are the only petitioners mentioned in each report. Greg. reg. . (CChSL A.): etsi monasteria aut xenodochia vel quid aliud construatur, mercedi non proficit, quoniam, dum perversus et emptor honoris in loco transmittitur et alios ad sui similitudinem sub commodi datione constituit, plura male ordinando destruit . . . Greg. reg. . (April , three months before his letter to Gaul; CChSL A.): pervenit ad nos in Orientis ecclesiis nullum ad sacrum ordinem nisi ex praemorium datione pervenire. Cf. reg. ., . and Markus () –.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



furnishing ‘enthronement’ gifts to bishops and clerics upon ordination. This custom mirrored imperial and civic political conventions; ostensibly, it defrayed travel and accommodation costs connected to attending a candidate’s ordination, but of course in practice it was ripe for abuse. A ruling from sixth-century Syria shows how authorities tried to make the best of similar expectations that priests would give gifts to villagers upon being appointed to their village. Such ‘compensation’, the authorities agreed, seemed like getting elected through bribes. So they proposed a compromise: ‘Inasmuch as we want to save [you] from a sin like this . . . we order that you do it no longer, but join the gifts you were making to the village to your custom of giving to the church. If there is a lack of books, buy sacred books with both [such gifts]. If books exist, [use your gifts] for expenses for the temple, for the poor, and for necessities.’ Unlike Gregory the Great, these eastern authorities deemed it acceptable to give gifts as compensation for church ordination, as long as this resulted in gifts that were useful to a church or its poor. It is possible that these authorities were applying a compromise already deemed acceptable for candidates for episcopal office. Although Rudolf Haensch’s survey of the corpus of eastern church inscriptions leads him to conclude that Christian bishops usually did not practice what Paul Veyne called ‘euergetism ob honorem’ (the Greco-Roman practice of providing amenities upon assumption of curial office), a different picture emerges if we look not for churches but for the construction of more ‘needful’ amenities like those Gregory mentions. A revealing case is that of Bassian, erstwhile Bishop of Ephesus (c. –), whose claim to that see was heard at the Council of Chalcedon. To support his case Bassian stated that since his youth he had been so ‘zealous for the ptōchoi’ that before his ordination he had constructed a poorhouse (ptōcheion) equipped with seventy beds to accommodate the city’s sick and injured. This, he said, made him ‘loved by all’, but envied by the city’s bishop, who contrived to have him ordained to a less prestigious see. Once that bishop died, Bassian was installed at Ephesus, elevated by a ‘disorderly mob’ allegedly consisting of former beneficiaries; but in four years he was deposed, now partly on charges that he had wronged the ptōchoi. After investigating for three   

Jones () –; Wipszycka () –; Rapp () –; Norton () , , , . Ps.-John of Tella, can. ; trans. (adapted) Vööbus, CSCO .– (syr.), . (Engl.). Citations above, note . I agree with Zuiderhoek () , n. , that distinguishing between ‘euergetism ob honorem‘ and other gift-giving practices (cf. enthronement fees) connected to office is misleading, since arguably all were political.



 . 

months, an imperial commissioner reported his findings to ‘the clergy, the ptōchoi, and the church’. The denouement of this affair need not occupy us. What is important is the prominence of the ptōchoi as a group that had to be courted, defended and later included in the company made privy to the findings of an imperial investigator: whoever they were, these ptōchoi had acquired a highly politicized role in ecclesiastical politics at Ephesus. But most illuminating is Bassian’s assumption that it would advance his claim to episcopal office if he (first) built a ptōcheion for the city and (second) pointed this out when defending himself at Chalcedon. In his view, that gift attested his zeal for the ptōchoi, explained their love for him and thus served to legitimize his claim to office. This case of episcopal euergetism not only resembled the civic euergetism ob honorem of the classical era; it also fulfilled the criterion of utility that Palladius had used to define appropriate episcopal constructions in his Dialogue on John Chrysostom a generation earlier, producing an amenity attuned to the needs of his core ideological constituency at Ephesus. How typical was Bassian’s benefaction? Based on epigraphical evidence, Haensch believes it was not. But literature suggests otherwise. According to the church historian Socrates, Nestorius’ successor as patriarch of Constantinople in  had earlier established his reputation by personally funding the construction of tombs for public use. Other such ‘needful amenities’ are attributed to John the Merciful, a wealthy Cypriote whom Emperor Heraclius, a relative, had installed at Alexandria to serve as the Chalcedonian patriarch (c. –). Leontius of Neapolis’ seventhcentury Life of John the Almsgiver supplements an earlier hagiography that attributes to John the construction of a church of St. Stephen to which he dedicated all his possessions. Passing over this, however, Leontius records only the amenities that John built for the city’s ptōchoi: hostels, poorhouses, elderly homes and monasteries. By focusing on these, 

  

ACO ..:  (p. ): ὄχλον ἄτακτον μετὰ ξιφῶν καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν ἐραναρίων . . . ἐγὼ ἐκ νέας ἡλικίας ἔζων τοῖς πτωχοῖς καὶ πτωχεῖον ἐποίησα καὶ ἔθηκα εἰς αὐτὸ ἑβδομήκοντα κραββάτια καὶ πάντας τοὺς νοσοῦντας καὶ τετραυματισμένους ἐξένιζον. Μέμνων δὲ ὁ γενόμενος ἐπίσκοπος Ἐφέσου φθονήσας τούτοις, ἐπειδὴ ἠγαπώμην παρὰ πάντων . . . ἔπεμψεν ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις βασιλεὺς Θεοδόσιος Εὐστάθιον . . . διαγνῶναι μεταξὺ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ κλήρου καὶ τῶν πτωχῶν τῶν ἠδικημένων παρ’ αὐτοῦ. . .καὶ τὸν ὅρον ὅνπερ ὥρισεν ὁ μακάριος Εὐστάθιος . . . ἐξέθετο καὶ τῶι κλήρωι καὶ τοῖς πτωχοῖς καὶ τῆι ἐκκλησίαι. On this complicated affair, see Norton () – and Destephen () –. On why he might think this would have gained him approval, see v.Alex. Acoem. –. Haensch () –. Socrates, Hist. eccl .. (GCS n.F. .): Οὗτος ὑπόληψιν εὐλαβείας πάλαι ἐκέκτητο, διότι οἰκείοις ἀναλώμασι κατεσκευάκει μνήματα.

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Leontius assures us that although he was a hastily ordained imperial appointee, John had gotten his priorities straight as bishop. When he died, all the city’s ptōchoi could be seen escorting him out to church, ‘assuring everyone that his almsgiving and compassion had brought him into the Kingdom of Heaven’. We do not know why Leontius chose to portray John as he did. Nonetheless, his portrayal not only records benefactions similar to Bassian’s but suggests a hagiographical effort to balance (or suppress) a record of church constructions in favor of highlighting those that directly served John’s core ideological constituency. This is consonant with earlier episcopal propaganda. For example, if we turn to a funeral oration composed in classical style upon John Chrysostom’s death, we learn that this bishop of Constantinople was in fact known to have used church funds to arrange for the construction and adornment of several churches within his diocese. Palladius completely omits this information from his more polemical and ideologically driven Dialogue. Likewise, the Deeds of Rabbula notwithstanding, it is apparent that Rabbula during his episcopate built or completed at least two churches at Edessa, one of which was the Church of St. Barlaha in which the city’s bishops were thereafter buried. Indeed, that is not all. After initially declaring that Rabbula, ‘in all the years of his life, did not consent to build anything on earth’, the Deeds later reveals that he used, for his own church’s benefit, the stones taken from a heretical church of Bardaisan that he had had demolished, and then that he built a women’s hospital ‘out of stones from four temples of idols in his city which had been with his authority pulled down at his command’. The panegyric thus inadvertently reveals that Bishop Rabbula significantly reshaped the civic landscape by actively pursuing a building program that resulted in new city monuments designed to advertise his ideological priorities in relation to both the poor and his pagans and heretical rivals, completely at the latter’s expense. While this does not support the panegyric’s contention that he never built anything on earth, it is consonant with its claim that he    

Anon. v.Jo.Eleem. ; Leont. N. v.Jo.Eleem. , , , ,  (ed. Festugière, ). On Leontius’ portrayal, Déroche () –, – and Rapp () . Ps.-Mart. Or. fun.  (ed. Wallraff, ): ἐκκλησίας οἰκοδομῶν ἔν τε ἀγροῖς καὶ πόλεσιν, though adding ‘if they happened to need them’. Cf. . Drijvers () –. Pan. Rabb., trans. Doran, , , . Archaeology shows that Abbot Shenoute of Atripe built his church at the White Monastery in Sohag, Egypt, c. , using spolia probably taken from the Pharaonic temple of Reptyt that he and his monks destroyed three kilometers away at Atripe: see Kotz () and, in general, Caseau ().



 . 

touched nothing belonging to the poor to further his own or his clergy’s worldly ambitions. Moreover, the panegyricists who neglected these constructions were almost certainly written by partisans of Nona, Hiba’s episcopal substitute and successor at Edessa (–, –). In the year  – the very year that he replaced Hiba after his death – this same Nona built a new leprosarium outside the city walls. That project, so reminiscent of Rabbula’s, must have been carefully timed to signal a dramatic reassertion of Rabbula’s legacy and departure from the practices alleged of Hiba’s regime. Later records reveal, however, that Nona himself subsequently built a church of John the Baptist that became renowned. Such building programs and polemics arose amid controversies in an attempt to give concrete expression to a set of ideological priorities. Yet it evidently was prudent for a bishop to advertise his ideological credentials even in less contentious contexts. While praising Bishop Marcian for facilitating the construction of a church for St. Stephen in sixth-century Gaza, the panegyrist Choricius took care to note (albeit in classical style) that this bishop never forgot his ptōchoi: Of things for which you are known, I especially admire that you are building philanthropic shelters outside the church precinct to the south. It is not amazing that philanthropy concerns you – since this is a natural and habitual concern for you – but it is amazing that although your mind is occupied with decorating the church, you still make room for this solicitude that offers a shield against the greatest of evils, old age and penury.

These shelters stood as proof that Bishop Marcian, a borderline lithomaniac, could still ‘make room’ in his mind for the poor. The archaeological and epigraphical record for such amenities is admittedly slim, but literary descriptions suggest they consisted of little more than wood structures with pallets or rugs on the floor: utilitarian and inexpensive, probably few were ever built to last. Indeed, many bishops or episcopal aspirants may have chosen to display their compassion through handouts instead. According to the Deeds of Rabbula, Rabbula 





Segal () ; Chron. Edessum an.  mentions monasteries, towers, bridges. Nona was bishop first after Hiba’s deposition at Ephesus II until his reinstatement at Chalcedon, then after Hiba died. Chor. Or. . (ed. Foester-Richsteig, ): Ὃ δὲ μάλιστά σου θαυμάζω . . . ὅτι τοῦ τεμένους ἐκτὸς ἐκ μεσημβρίας φιλανθρώπους δημιουργεῖς καταλύσεις. ἢ τοῦτο μὲν οὐδὲν θαυμαστόν . . . ὅτι τοῦ νεὼ τὴν ποικιλίαν τῷ λογισμῷ περιφέρων καὶ ταύτην ἐχώρησας τὴν φροντίδα, ἣ τὰ μέγιστα τῶν κακῶν γῆρας ἀμύνεται καὶ πενίαν. Man of God, Greek version, trans. Doran, ; Leont. N., v.Jo.Eleem. . For an inventory of evidence, Mentzou-Meimari ().

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



made his name by dispensing alms to the monks and poor at Edessa long before he stood for episcopal office: ‘this act foretold that he would receive the city of Edessa as his inheritance’, that is, that he would eventually be made bishop. Another story seemingly modeled after the Man of God of Edessa tells how an anonymous beggar at Antioch (‘one of the ptōchoi of the city’, actually a former bishop who had become a laborer), foreseeing that an imperial officer named Ephraim would soon be appointed the city’s patriarch, recommended that he strive for ‘orthodoxy and almsgiving’. The causal connections in this story are obscure, but it clearly assumes that Ephraim’s candidacy – he became Chalcedonian Patriarch of Antioch from  to  – like Rabbula’s, would benefit from distributing alms in advance. The point of such stories was to promote episcopal compassion (sympatheia) and concern for ptōchoi. By the sixth century, both imperial officers and ecclesiastical officials of the Roman Empire were expected to present themselves as ‘lovers of the poor’ (philoptōchoi). Indicating generosity and accessibility, this legitimized power and justified control of wealth. We might be inclined to dismiss such titles and associated benefactions as empty, token gestures. Yet that was not how they seemed to ideologically conscientious contemporaries who wrote hagiography. According to Leontius, one of John the Merciful’s accomplishments was to rouse a fellow bishop named Troilus to compassion, for he was ‘extremely avaricious and uncompassionate’. One day John found Troilus shopping in Alexandria, intending to buy silver plate for his episcopal table, costing thirty pounds of gold. Seeing his intention, John took him to see the shelters he had built for the city’s ptōchoi and persuaded him to dispense all his gold there as alms instead. John later reimbursed him for that sum, whereupon Troilus dreamed he saw John sitting in a mansion bought for thirty pounds of gold, making him realize that John had profited most from the transaction. Thus, we are told, Troilus learned to be compassionate: but instructive for our purposes is both the self-interest implied in his compassion and that in the end he was able to retain his gold while enjoying a reputation for that virtue. Apparently for Leontius (a bishop himself ) the former was acceptable as long as it was accompanied by displays of the latter.    

 Pan. Rabb. trans. Doran, . Mosch. prat.  (PG [].). Brown () , () . Deliyannis () finds the same discrepancy in western sources: chronicles attest church constructions while hagiography records only charitable foundations. Leont. N. v.Jo.Eleem. .



 . 

Lay Benefactions, Episcopal Fundraising and Communal Solidarity The foregoing has focused on the episcopal use of ideologically appropriate benefactions to cultivate positive relations with a special-interest group (the ptōchoi, including their monastic spokesmen) and allay concerns that bishops might squander on themselves both the funds of the poor (the ptōchika) and the lay contributions (karpophoriai) that provided them. Another side to this story can only be sketched here: namely, the connection between episcopal benefactions and cultivating the lay people who might provide those crucial contributions. According to a church manual produced in fourth- or fifth-century Alexandria, ‘A bishop that loveth the poor, the same is rich and the city with its district shall honour him and in his days shall the church not lack aught.’ Its authors state that God would rather the ‘goods of the poor’ be given to them than used to erect churches or altars – a comment which (together with the manual’s general emphasis on the poor as a responsibility of church leaders) has been interpreted as a reaction to Theophilus’ practices. Be that as it may, the connection its authors drew between a bishop’s love of the poor and his church’s solvency was probably not just pious thinking. Inscriptions show that communal churches expected and depended on a steady flow of voluntary contributions to support both their initial construction and their later maintenance. One standard formula of the era runs, ‘O Lord, accept the karpophoriai of both those who gave them, and those who shall give them’; church mosaic floors celebrate such contributions with illustrations of fruit baskets or similar motifs. The fact that even churches with landed wealth depended on these contributions meant that early Byzantine bishops – unlike amateur magistrates in classical cities, but certainly like executives of modern nonprofits – had to devote much of their time after securing office to raising funds and soliciting donations. John the Merciful reportedly derived immense pleasure from extracting contributions from rich members of his congregation. In one case Leontius describes how, after receiving a widow’s promissory note for a karpophoria of  pounds of gold, he managed to convince her that she really wanted to pledge three times more than that  

Ps.-Ath. can.  and  (trans. Riedel and Crum, – and ); cf. Zeisel () . Saller and Bagatti () ; Piccirillo () , , . I follow the interpretation of karpophoriai as ‘contribution to a general church collection’ in Donceel-Voûte ()  despite inconsistencies noted by Saradi () , n. ; cf. Haensch () –.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



sum. Leontius’ vignette illustrates the type of story that must have lain behind the numerous church inscriptions recording donations made ‘to fulfill a vow’. But Leontius made such fundraising look far easier than it was. We get a different picture from two sermons by Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (–), who tried to extract just one pound of silver from each member of his congregation to outfit his favorite church, that of St. Drosis, with a silver canopy. Severus stressed the worldly benefits that would accrue to donors and their families, such as healthy children and wealthy husbands, if they gave. Nevertheless, he failed to get the funds. One reason his congregations may have been reluctant was that the finances of his see were known to be a mess, due partly to the emoluments its clerics expected to receive despite their church’s massive debts. At the same time, aristocratic families of his era increasingly had other institutional outlets for their donations. These existed in the form of private memorial churches. First encouraged (as far as we know) by John Chrysostom, such estate churches were built for the liturgical commemoration of their owners’ families. Although epigraphical evidence for them is slim (no surprise, given the laconic nature of all church inscriptions of the period), these foundations seem to have become a significant feature of the Christian landscape from the fifth century onward. Privately funded and staffed by clerics selected by the family, they operated outside the financial control of the local bishop, and must have often represented a more attractive object of religious investment just at a time when bishops were already concerned about the diversion of donations away from local churches to famous distant shrines. As Isidore’s correspondence explained, a church treasury depended on the good will of its congregation, and this diminished, as Chrysostom observed, once a congregation began to suspect their bishop and clerics of ‘devouring the funds of the poor’. To encourage lay gifts, Emperor Justinian himself not only required that bishops ‘possess a pure character 

  

Leont. N. v.Jo.Eleem. ; cf.  and Anast. Sin. qu. et resp. ., on churches that became wealthy by ‘insatiably’ collecting funds. On the phrase ὑπὲρ εὐχῆς (prominent in the Leontius vignette), see Donceel-Voûte () , , , , , ,  and Kraeling () . On fundraising as an episcopal preoccupation, see Rapp () . Sev. Ant. Hom. Cath.  and ; Saradi ()  and – notes an emphasis on donating on behalf of an entire family in Early Byzantium. Sev. Ant. Ep. . (financial woes known to whole city) and  (annual collections imposed on laity to pay clergy). Church and clerical maintenance came before poor relief: Ps.-Ath. can. . Joh. Chrys. In Act.  (PG .–). On early Byzantine Eigenkirchen, Thomas () –; Haensch () –; for possible relation to church finances, Jäggi and Meier (); lay offerings sent outside communities, Mar Jesuyahb Synod, can.  ( CE; ed. Chabot, –).



 . 

and scorn money’, but forbade them from having families, lest they take ‘for their own gain’ what lay folk had given ‘to expend on ptōchoi and paupers and other pious needs’ (he also demanded that they show up to chant the liturgies, ‘lest only in expending ecclesiastical properties should they appear to be clerics’). By contrast, those who demonstrated concern for the ptōchoi (and, thus, not themselves) might persuade rich donors to offer sumptuous and arguably superfluous new public churches, as Choricius suggests happened in the case of Bishop Marcian and the Church of St. Stephen at Gaza. Bishops needed to keep such big donors in their church, while convincing the rest of their flock to compete with smaller benefactions of their own. The results can be seen in the patchwork floor designs of early Byzantine churches that commemorate different donors in separate mosaic panels, indicating different levels of karpophoriai by their proximity to the altar. When Choricius describes Marcian as the ‘guardian of equity even with regard to the construction of buildings’ at Gaza, he may have meant his responsibility for harmonizing the various lay groups within his church community into a cohesive unity. ‘With such a priest presiding over the city’, exclaimed Choricius, ‘our polis is naturally filled with zeal and rejoicing.’ Choricius’ classicizing refrains aside, his polis would have hardly been recognizable to its citizens of the classical age; yet the episcopal approach to euergetism he describes offered such communities a new and increasingly urgent basis for solidarity at the end of antiquity. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Anon. Vita Iohanni Eleēmosyni, in H. Delehaye (ed.), Une vie inédite de S. Jean l’Aumónier, Brussels (), –. Trans. E. Dawes and N. H. Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints. Crestwood, NY (), –. Athanasius, Pseudo- [Ps.-Ath.]. Canons, in W. Riedel and W. Crum (ed. and trans.), The Canons of Athanasius. Text and Translation Society . Amsterdam ().





Cod. Iust. ... ( CE; ed. Krueger, ): τὰ ὑπάρχοντα αὐτοῖς ταύταις [ἐκκλησίαις] προσφερόντων καὶ καταλιμπανόντων ἐπὶ τῷ εἰς πτωχοὺς καὶ πένητας καὶ ἑτέρας εὐσεβεῖς ταύτας δαπανᾶσθαι χρείας . . .  (): μὴ μόνον ἐν τῷ δαπανᾶν τὰ ἐκκλησιαστικὰ πράγματα κληρικοὺς φαίνεσθαι. Chor. Or. . (ed. Foerster-Richtsteig, ) ὥστε φαίη τις ἂν κἀν ταῖς οἰκοδομίαις τὴν ἰσότητα τὸν ἱερέα φυλάττειν. . .  (). Cf. Sophron. Laud. Cyr. et Ioann. . On a bishop’s role in negotiating church offerings, Haensch () –. On mosaics patterns, Donceel-Voûte () –.

Bishops and the Politics of Lithomania in Early Byzantium



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 

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture in Late Antiquity, from Aquileia to Gerasa (Fourth to Sixth Centuries CE) Christophe J. Goddard Church portraits of benefactors in Late Antiquity allow us to consider the complex relationship between euergetism, Christianity and municipal culture from a new angle. According to P. Veyne, euergetism and Christianity stand in clear opposition to one another. Christian benefactors, especially when they made charitable donations or built churches, were only trying to save their souls or express their love for the Church and had very little concern for the public benefit of their fellow citizens. E. Patlagean added that charity was a social and economical revolution that should not be underestimated: by demanding that members of their congregations focus on ‘the poor’, bishops were pushing Christian notables to look beyond their traditional and civic horizon. As P. Brown recently summed it up, notables ‘were urged to look beyond their fellow citizens and to switch their giving toward the gray immensity of poverty in their city and in the countryside around them’. In other words, Christian benefaction had nothing to do with the city. It had a specific religious scope, a spiritual motivation that one could not find in traditional euergetism even when it benefitted sanctuaries or priestly colleges. It embraced an area wider than the Greco-Roman city because it was based on social and economic rather than civic criteria. This assumption has been challenged over the years by C. Lepelley, C. Pietri, J.-P. Caillet and more recently by R. Haensch in different ways. For C. Lepelley, the view expressed by bishops like Augustine of Hippo blaming his parishioners for attending the games at the amphitheatre and frittering their days away did not reflect the ‘tastes and way of thinking’ of the vast majority of Christians. Most of them were still intellectually and culturally very close to their fellow pagan citizens and   

Veyne () ff., following Bolkestein (). Veyne ()  considers love for the Church as Christian benefactors’ main motivation.  Patlagean () –, –, and –. Brown () ; cf. Brown () –.





 . 

clearly attached to their old municipal habits. Most bishops seemed unconcerned and would just ask their followers to avoid such ‘amusements’ on Sundays and during Christian celebrations, as the Council of Carthage recommended in . R. Haensch brought to light the same debate in the East, between John Chrysostom asking landowners to build churches on their estates and his supporter Palladius blaming wealthy Christians for spending their money on useless new buildings, just as Pharaohs did, instead of pursuing charitable purposes as true Christians. Western bishops also criticized extravagant and destructive forms of charity, which A. Giardina calls ‘carità eversiva’. They insisted on the moral, social and economic duties of the senatorial elite. Their members ought not to abandon their civic duties and traditional benefactions to embrace a monastic life but had to practice euergetism as true Christians. In other words, P. Veyne’s opposition between euergetism and Christianity was far too theoretical. It paid no attention to the municipal culture shared by Christians and pagans. After N. Duval and C. Pietri, J. Caillet has been one of the strongest advocates of the phrase ‘Christian euergetism’. Between old and new practices, he sees only ‘slight shifts’ where – he assumes –P. Veyne and E. Patlagean saw a deep rift. Pagans and Christians were all looking for a subtle blend of communal benefit and personal recognition, even if for the latter this was granted in Heaven: their ‘initial individualism benefited the community after all’. R. Haensch recently added that even when Christian dedications mentioned ὑπ̣ὲρ σωτερίας, they could be referring to the safety and welfare of their military units or estates and not to their personal salvation as was previously understood. Furthermore, communal interests could not be opposed to personal aspirations, since Christian benefactors regularly acted collectively. This chapter will further explore this issue and show that, paradoxically, churches were the last places where potential benefactors could express   

    

Lepelley () , () –; August. Serm. , En. in Ps., , Serm. , ., .; Pall. v. Chrys. .. Reg. Ecc. Carth. canon ; Munier . Haensch () ; Chrys. Hom.  (in act. Apost., Migne, PG, .); Pall. v.Chrys. . (refering to their ‘Pharaonic lithomania’). See Caner’s contribution on lithomania, Chapter  in this volume.  Giardina () –, () –. Duval and Pietri () –, (). Caillet () ; as we will see later on, P. Veyne and E. Patlagean argued that Christian benefactors continued at first to practise euergetism during an intermediary phase. Caillet () . Haensch () , () . See SEG ,  = RWI, Anemurion, . Haensch () –.

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

themselves freely in the old euergetic way in Late Antiquity. One might even argue that late antique administrative constraints and a strong municipal consciousness drove the municipal elite to Christianity. Following P. Brown, this chapter will also recall the fierce debate over benefaction among Christians, a debate that allowed a very specific and original ‘Christian euergetism’ to find its place in Greco-Roman cities between the fourth and sixth centuries CE. I should add that one should label a benefaction as an act of ‘Christian euergetism’ only if it had the same social scope as the traditional ‘civic’ euergetism and aimed at confirming or increasing the benefactor’s social prestige in a city in the here and now. By studying carefully its Christian version, we will see that traditional civic euergetism was still vigorous in late antique cities throughout the Empire, but also that it went through important changes.

Portraits of Benefactors in Late Antique Aquileia ‘Christian euergetism’ is particularly manifest in a series of late antique portraits of Christian benefactors. We will start by commenting on those on the beautiful mosaic pavement of the Basilica Theodoriana in Aquileia, since they remain probably among the oldest and the most striking pieces of evidence of this curious phenomenon (see Figure .). The Long and Complex Story of the Aquileian ‘Double Basilica’ The Basilica Theodoriana in Aquileia is probably one of the oldest churches of the Roman world. It was rebuilt several times, and the complex where it stands still hosts the city’s cathedral. Its first phase clearly seems to date back to the reign of Constantine, although there is still a debate on its exact date. Since , excavations have revealed a very long and complex history and the importance of its local benefactors. The first phase of the basilica included two main rooms, making it one of the double basilicas studied by N. Duval, J. P. Caillet, H. Brandenburg and G. Pelizzari, whose recent work emphasizes how difficult it is to understand their liturgical function.

 

Taking into account the opposing views among Christians, as well as among pagans and Jews, is one the breakthroughs of P. Brown’s latest contributions (), (). Duval () –; Brandenburg () –; Pelizzari () , following Menis () .



Figure .

 . 

Mosaic pavement of the Basilica Theodoriana in Aquileia (southern room). Drawing from Caillet () figure 

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

The second phase dates back to the middle of the fourth century. According to Athanasius of Alexandria, a new church was still under construction when he attended Easter service alongside Emperor Constans and Bishop Fortunatius (although the latter is not mentioned by name) on  April . D. Dalla Barba Brusin and G. Cantino Wataghin rejected Athanasius’ acccount, on the ground that the northern building which the new church replaced underwent a major rebuilding later, at the end of the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century. They based their interpretation on the level of the second mosaic pavement, which was built .–. metres over the original one. However, the excavation conducted by F. Maselli Scotti, C. Tiussi and L. Villa in – seems to confirm the existence of a building phase dating back to the middle of the fourth century. According to them, the ‘postTheodorian’ basilica was built after razing completely the Theodorian room down to one metre high. Their work confirmed G. Brusin and L. Bertacchi’s hypothesis. The stratigraphy of the new mosaic pavement included an intermediary phase they associate with Athanasius’ testimony: a ‘stesura su tutta l’area dell’edificio ecclesiale e la quota uniforme del piano, che elimina i dislivelli esistenti tra i muri rasati del complesso teodosiano, fa pensare comunque ad una superficie che poteva essere praticata, sebbene privata delle necessarie rifiniture’. Since new domus were built in the area about one metre over old ones, the buildings all apparently faced some common problem at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century that has not yet been identified. The new church was far from finished when the bishop of Alexandria and Emperor Constans arrived there for Easter. The exact involvement of Bishop Chromatius (–) is still under discussion, even if he was recorded by his friend Rufinus of Aquileia as a major builder in the city. The resulting ‘post-Theodorian’ church was three and a half times larger (, instead of  m) and almost one metre higher than its predecessor and the rest of the complex. It remained linked to the southern Theodorian building ( m) by connecting rooms where a new baptistery stood. A quadriportico was added further west, possibly in the s–s.

     

Athanasius, Apol. ad Constant.  (SC , ). Masella Scotti, Tiussi and Villa (b) . Brusin (); Bertacchi () ; Masella Scotti, Tiussi and Villa (b) .  Masella Scotti, Tiussi and Villa (b) . As opposed to Bratoz () . Cantino Wataghin () – and n. ; Jäggi () ff.; Sotinel () –. Bratoz () ; cf. Bertacchi () ; Brandenburg ()  and n. .



 . 

It received a new mosaic pavement sometime during the fifth century, possibly after Attila’s capture of the city in . Who Paid for It? The two dedicatory inscriptions of the imposing mosaic pavements in the southern and northern rooms both seem to refer to the first phase of the building and do not explain clearly who paid for it. We will try to understand why. In the southern room, the first inscription reads under a chrisma: Theodore feli[x], / [a]diuuante Deo / omnipotente et / poemnio caelitus tibi / [tra]ditum, omnia / [b]eate fecisti et / gloriose dedicas/ti. O Fortunate Theodorus, with the support of the Almighty God and the flock Heaven entrusted you with, you did all of this blessedly and gloriously dedicated them.

The Italian archaeologist L. Bertacchi describes its location in a double circle almost at the centre of the upper original; she believes the bishop’s throne probably stood there. A second inscription, fragmentary and rather enigmatic, discovered in the so-called northern room, adds: ‘Theodo ?]re felix creuisti hic felix’, either ‘Fortunate (Theodorus), you grew up here and you were fortunate’ or ‘you became important and were fortunate here’. This tribute was part of the mosaic pavement of the second, northern room of the complex. Since basilicas were partly built over suburban domus, it has been sometimes assumed that Theodorus converted his childhood house into a major Christian religious centre. However, the verb crescere could also simply refer to the glory Theodorus had achieved by becoming bishop ‘there’. The   

 

Masella Scotti, Tiussi and Villa (b)  (results of the  dig). The mosaic pavement of the southern room covered nearly entirely the  m ( feet wide by  feet long). See Sotinel () . AE ,  = EDR  (discovered in ). The bishop is only known to have attended the council of Arles in . See Cuscito () –; Caillet () –, () –; Mazzoleni () –; Duval () ; Zettler () –; Sotinel () ; Tavano () –; Bratoz () ff. On the mosaics of the complex with its two basilicas, the bibliography is impressive. See Bovini () ; Iacumin () and () thinks the mosaic programme was inspired by gnosticism, an argument which has received little support, especially not from Moraldi () –; Mazzoleni () –; Sotinel ()  and n. : ‘une hypothèse indéfendable’, –, –; Brandenburg () –; Marini () publishes only  per cent of the pavements without any scientific analysis; Lehmann () –, () –.  See Brown () . Bertacchi () . On the domus, see Maselli Scotti, Tiussi and Villa (a) –.

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

question cannot be solved and seems almost irrelevant anyway. If Theodorus’ name is to be restored at the beginning of the sentence, it would only imply the two buildings were contemporary – or thought to be so by whoever designed the mosaic. However, the mosaic pavements in both rooms seem to include later additions. Following F. Bisconti, C. Sotinel noticed that a few figures had certainly been added to the original scenes of the pavement in the southern room at an unknown date. The use of the perfect tense on both inscriptions has led specialists to surmise that Theodorus was probably already dead when they were composed. Specialists all seem to agree now on one very important point: wealthy members of his congregation helped the bishop by financing the church, since the inscription mentions only the construction and dedication, with no indication that his glorious deed had been done sua pecunia, with his own money. Theodorus was not the only bishop acting in such a manner. I would like to suggest that the bishop was in a way acting like any Roman emperor of the fourth century CE. The bishop of Aquileia was celebrated for having initiated, authorized and supervised the project by using resources put at his disposal by Christians from his congregation. As with an emperor, only his words could be heard. The Cost of the Northern Building and Its Mosaic Pavement The building of the Theodorian and post-Theodorian basilicas proved to be very costly for the local community. It seems clear that Emperor Constantine, his sons and successors did not contribute to it. For J. P. Caillet, the total cost for the pavement of the northern room of the Theodorian complex reached  solidi for  m (. solidi/m). This sum corresponds approximately to less than  per cent of the annual income of a humble senator from Rome, yet was a considerable amount to 



 

A praying figure in Jonah’s boat, a rooster and a turtle further east: see Sotinel () ; Bisconti () –. Cf. Tavano () –; Duval () –; Zettler () –; contra Testini () –. See Caillet () –, following Pietri () : at the very end of the fifth century pope Gelasius (Ep. , ed. A. Thiel, , Hildesheim-NY, , ; Ep. , , ; fr. Loewenfeld,  and ) instructed Italian bishops ‘to accept their gift but resist any attempt to further control its use’. Cf. Pietri () –; Caillet () , about clerics talking all the credit for construction they did not finance.  See below note . See below note . Caillet () –; Bratoz ()  and n. . Carrié () , : since , Constantine fixed in his realm the :. According to Bratoz () , the total cost for the mosaic pavements of the Theodorian basilica comprising its northern and southern room (, m), may have reached up to , or , solidi (–. solidi/m).



 . 

be raised by a member of the municipal elite. An inscription found in  on the southeast section of the northern room (covered by the foundations of the campanile) shows that the mosaic pavement had been a collective endeavour, for it reads: ‘Ianuari[us. . .] de dei dono . . . p(edes) DCCCLXX’. P. Brown sees here a clear reference to the prayer King David pronounced for the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem and shows that de dei dono was a very common ‘votive formula shared by Christians and Jews’ of the time. This otherwise unknown Ianuarius paid for more than – feet (i.e. approximately  m). His contribution comprised around fifty solidi according to Caillet, which means that although Ianuarius paid for only . per cent of the pavement ( m), he made the most important personal contribution in the region. C. Sotinel believes that the position of Ianuarius’ dedication away from the entrance, and thus any place of honour, indicates that he held a lower rank in the community. He cannot possibly be identified with a bishop. She adds that the important lacunae on this northern pavement could have included the names of many other benefactors. In the north-west section of the same northern room, another dedication to a certain Cyriacus, placed over a depiction of a ram, states: ‘Cyriace uiuas’. It refers presumably to another donator of the post-Theodorian phase. In both cases, there is no indication of their social rank, which is a very common feature on late antique mosaic pavement in Italian churches. It should be noted that the building effort was obviously collective, as in many other churches of the area during more or less the same period. Given the small number of inlustres and clarissimi among the benefactors mentioned on Italian mosaic inscriptions, J. P. Caillet concludes rightly that those benefactors belonged   

  



 

See Chastagnol () . Mazzoleni () –; Zettler () ; Sotinel () .  Chron. :: ‘For all things come from Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee’, Cited in Brown () . On the very common Christian expression de dei donis, see Brown () . For Jewish formulars related to dedication of synagogues in the Roman Empire, see Lifshitz (). Caillet () ; Sotinel () . See Caillet ()  for the prices and correspondance between pedes of pavement and solidi. Caillet () : only Paulinus and Marcella’s contribution (probably  feet, i.e.  m: ibid. ) to the basilica located in the piazza della Victoria in Grado is more important; cf. Sotinel, () . Caillet () contra Stucchi (–) –, who believed Ianuarius was bishop of Aquileia between  and , and Pietri () –, followed by Caillet () , who considers him as a member of the local elite.  Mazzoleni () ; Zettler () ; Sotinel () . Caillet () . Caillet () .

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

to what R. Markus and P. Brown refer to as mediocres, that is, ‘respectable, middling persons’ who could afford to renounce a more or less significant portion of their wealth without financial risk. This is confirmed by studying the few who do mention their rank or profession. On S. Euphemia in Grado at an unknown date, but almost certainly in the fifth century, a palatinus, an officer of the imperial palace, spent  solidi; probably during the same period, a tailor (sarsor) in Trieste around . solidi; and a to(n)sor, a modest barber, in San Canzian d’Isonzo, around . solidus, according to J. P. Caillet. Significantly, the Church offered a kind of euergetism to donors that did not demand their entire fortune to impress their contemporaries. There was, however, another advantage to this kind of euergetism. In Celje, a scholasticus, one of the mediocres of the city, could see his name inscribed on a pavement next to those of a couple of upper-class provincial clarissimi. In Verona’s cathedral, Maurilio and Valeria, as well as Stercorius and Decentius, who did not disclose their social rank, could compare themselves with the clarissimus Rufinus, since they had paid for the same portion of the pavement,  feet (around  m) probably in the fifth century CE. This meant that the Church, in a way, made it possible for local mediocres to be honoured like provincial grandees. As S. Mazzarino might have put it, the Church ‘democratized’ the municipal ‘culture’ of giving in provincial cities. The social spectrum of Christian euergetism seems indeed wider than its traditional civic counterpart. Was it stimulated by the same kind of civic and social impulse? This is, I think, what the Aquileian bust portraits help us to understand. Portraying Christian Benefactors in Late Antique Aquileia The mosaic pavement of the southern room is divided into ten panels separated by acanthus foliage (Figure .). The north-east panel (at the    



 Caillet () –. Brown () ff., () ; Markus () . Caillet () , . As the mosaic seems of the fifth century, those clarissimi are provincial who were called honorati. On these clarissimi, ‘les honorati à l’état pur’, see Chastagnol () ff. Caillet () ff., . Mazzarino (/). Cf. Carrié () –, who reminds us that Mazzarino not only used this paradigm to refer to the revival of national identities and cultures in Roman Empire from the third century CE onwards but also applied it to Christian uses of wealth (ibid. ). Or as Patlagean ()  puts it: ‘Le don monumental devient désormais désirable et accessible en même temps, à tous ceux que leur résidence et leurs moyens matériels auraient exclus des grandes générosités monumentales à l’antique.’ But I do not think that Christian benefaction systematically provoked ‘l’éclatement . . . du cadre urbain traditionnel’.



 . 

top right-hand corner of the picture) is separated from the other nine by a series of diamonds and intertwined rings symbolizing the slabs of a chancel screen. The nine remaining panels are themselves divided evenly into three rows (, , ). I will focus on the portraits found on the mosaic pavement of the southern room, but before that, I will briefly turn to the first panel that depicts in its upper part the cycle of Jonah. Close to the middle of this section, though slightly off-centre to the right and level with the putti’s boats, stands the first dedication to Theodorus, surrounded with a double circle, its text tilting to the right. The theological meaning of the cycle is well known from the Book of Jonah: the ordeal celebrates God’s forgiveness and redemption through baptism. In its Aquileian context, it has been argued that it could refer to the local elite’s remorse and Constantine’s clemency after the recent civil war. The city had taken Maxentius’ side but eventually opened its gates to Constantine’s troops after Verona’s fall. It is obviously very difficult to prove the pavement had such a political meaning given the extreme popularity of Jonah’s tribulations among Christians at the beginning of the fourth century. The portraits I am mainly interested in are concentrated on three panels of the second and third row on the northern and central part of the southern room. . On the first panel on the left of the second row, a succession of octagons with intertwined (or Borromean) rings and patterned crosses alternate with a series of five bust portraits of four men and a woman, each in a square frame flanked by octagons with Borromean rings. The five figures are all facing the west side (left) of the southern building, where the main entrance used to be. Five of the square frames display birds on a branch. The men have short hair. Two of the men wear a white tunic with a diamond pattern on their left shoulder and a yellow coat with a brownish stripe on the left. One has a white tunic with a rather narrow red stripe underlined by two black lines covered by a white toga. The last man has a yellow tunic with a dark stripe and a blue coat. The woman wears a yellow veil that partly covers her hair and a red tunic with a double black stripe. Based on the chrisma’s clear Constantinian shape and interpreting the Victory present on the central panel of the first row as a reference to Constantine and Licinius’ famous edict of Milan authorizing Christianity ( CE), H. Kähler and W. H. Schumacher understand the togatus to be



See Sotinel () .



See Bisconti () –.

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

Constantine and the four other figures his relatives. C. Sotinel prefers to be more cautious and follows G. Brusin and G. C. Menis, seeing in this group members of the local elite. I would add that the togatus does not seem to be a senator with his typical latus clauus, his large purple stripe, as often suggested. His simple and formal dress contrasts with the others, whose outfits are more elaborate and much richer. He could be a young boy wearing his toga praetextata with the members of his family or people associated with him in some other way. What seems clear is that members of the local elite are displayed, almost certainly the upper-class sheep of the ‘flock’ mentioned in the first inscription, who helped Bishop Theodorus in his pious task. One has to notice that none of them is mentioned by name in this section of mosaic pavement. Was this apparent anonymity deliberate, since we know of several examples where it was clearly the case? Were their portraits so explicit that anyone in Aquileia could easily guess whom they were referring to? Could one find their names somewhere in the church, perhaps on an inscription, for example, on the capitals, as in Concordia’s main basilica? It is difficult to say, since the adornment of the building and most of its original walls have been lost. . The central panel on this second row contains six wreaths with either geometrical patterns or intertwined lines. Two of the circles are lost, and three of the last register at the bottom (southeast side) are cut off again by the next row on the southeast/bottom of the pavement. On those medallions five bust portraits of three women and two men follow one another. Seven other circles display fish (six) or jellyfish (one), interspersed with birds on branches bound by a different geometrical pattern, a circle consisting of eight convex lines. Those portraits do not have the same orientation. They form a circle around another togatus facing north on the Jonah cycle, very similar to the one on the second register of the left/west panel of the same row. Three women with a yellow tunic adorned with a double stripe (left/west facing left/west; right/east, facing right/east; south/ bottom facing north/top) and a fourth one who is veiled (top/north, facing south/bottom) seem to form a diamond shape or a cross around him.    

Kähler (); Schumacher () –, () –, contra Caillet () : ‘il semble inconcevable que l’empereur ait été représenté au sol’.  Brusin (); Menis () –; Sotinel () . See above note . See Patlagean ()  and  (n. ), who mentions examples in the eastern part of the Empire in Zorava (LW ), Dâna (IGLS ) and Halbân (IGLS ). Cf. IGC . The maximum height of the original late antique walls never exceed  cm. See Sotinel () ; Riavez () –; Salvadori, Tiussi, and Villa () –.



 . 

Their hairstyles seem rather sophisticated, with a very elegant headband, possibly a tiara, especially when compared to veiled woman of the western/ left panel. The remaining two figures have been regularly identified with the seasons. A man with short, curly hair and a diadem adorned with red fruit, wearing a red tunic, is supposed to represent Spring. A woman with her long hair tied with red flowers on both sides wears a yellow tunic with two red/brown stripes. The flowers on her head seem to throw out six rays of sunshine. She is commonly identified with Summer. The missing Fall and Winter would have been represented in two of the remaining circles, now lost. . On the last row at the bottom/south of the pavement, only the left/ western panel presents four new figures on each corner, the northern ones facing up, and the southern ones facing down, as well as animals (birds and fish). Eight rows present a succession of octagons similar to those in the middle section of the first row, separated by crosses adorned with complex patterns, either geometrical designs or foliage. The figureless octagons include a bird on a branch (one in the middle facing north, five on either side, facing both directions), as well as fish (three to the left, six to the right). The four figures, possibly two men and two women, are all dressed in the same manner, with a blue tunic with a double dark blue stripe; they wear the same black necklace with a golden medallion. Their hairstyles, their faces, and especially their eyes seem rather different from the other figures on the pavement. It is difficult to believe that the same artists who did the first two panels examined on the second row worked on this section of the third row. They could belong to a different social stratum as suggested by C. Sotinel, but they seem to be the product of a different, later period. Those bust portraits almost certainly represent donors. They are all located southeast of the chancel closure where laymen and women stood during the service. They are clearly separated from the most sacred part of the room adorned with the Jonah cycle where Theodorus was celebrated and his successors stood. Those laymen and women all seem to be dressed up in rich clothes according to their rank and age. They appear to be presented as the members of the local elite. They are not named but are arranged in three groups (two series of five figures on the third row and one group of four on the fourth one). The fact that men and women appear conjointly on the same panels seems to indicate that they are members of a family, at least on the third row. I do not think the two togati are Roman 

Sotinel () ; Caillet () .

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

senators displaying proudly their latus clauus, but rather young members of the local elite wearing their (toga) praetexta None of them could possibly be Constantine as H. Kähler suggested, since the emperor did not contribute at all to the erection of the Theodorian basilica. For C. Sotinel, there is something more political than dogmatic about this series of panels in the southern room, so trying to find the theological meaning of the shepherd on the third row and that of the Victory on the central panel of the second row is irrelevant. The pavement is a ‘celebration of the social diversity of the characters, but maybe also the gathering of several Christian groups’, beyond dogmatic or disciplinary issues. This may well be. It appears as a tribute to the church’s unity, its victorious ‘entry in the city, its official recognition, its involvement in the new imperial order’. This conclusion should be qualified however, for it seems to imply that the church became a public institution and its pastor a member of the late Roman state. Conversely, at least down to the sixth century, bishops and their religious communities were considered by Roman law as private bodies. The church was built near docks and warehouses in a suburban area away from the centre on private land as often in the fourth century. Even when Constantine decided to build his impressive Christian basilicas in Rome, he did it away from the most sacred part of the city, away from its fora and public buildings, on private estates in the peri-urban area. The pavement certainly presented the Christian community according to its internal hierarchy, with Bishop Theodorus and Jonah north of the chancel screen and the members of the local elite who proudly joined his noble flock south of it in the area where laywomen and men would stand. I would argue that curiales and honorati invested in the new building not only to show their faith and their support for the church in order to redeem their sins and save their souls, but to demonstrate that they were also behaving as true Roman benefactors, euergetai, by displaying their wealth and power. They probably insisted on doing so in their own section of the pavement, adopting different styles for their portraits and symbolic environment to make them more distinctive in a context of fierce  

 

 Sotinel () . Kähler () –. Sotinel () : ‘J’y verrais volontiers le regroupement de la communauté dans sa diversité (non seulement la célébration de la diversité sociale des individus, mais peut-être aussi le rassemblement de plusieurs groupes chrétiens).’ Sotinel () : ‘Ce que célèbre la mosaïque d’Aquilée, c’est l’entrée de l’Eglise dans la ville, sa reconnaissance officielle, sa participation au pouvoir impérial nouveau.’  Lepelley () ; following Gaudemet () . Krautheimer () –.



 . 

competition. The apparent disorder between the panels may have something to do with the competition between local leaders in their communities and with the old municipal tradition that had been providing benefactors to provincial cities for centuries. We now need to understand why those notables chose to do so in a church rather than a public building in a late antique city.

Municipal Consciousness and Its Christian Asylum Why did those benefactors prefer churches to public buildings when they sought to display their prestige and their position in their cities? I would argue that their reasons were not solely religious. Traditional euergetism faced a stern challenge in the later Roman Empire. First of all, secular or pagan euergetism did not decline because cities and their elite were becoming more impoverished. Newly built churches and monasteries did cost a lot of money, and Christian patrons were ready to pay for at least some of them. Emperors placed new constraints upon provincial cities to solve a very old administrative and financial issue. Old municipal lithomania often put the cities’ budgets in dire straits. It left old prestigious buildings on the verge of ruin, since benefactors usually preferred to put their name on a new building. Valentinian I, Theodosius and Valentinian II tried to put an end to this urban disaster. Curiales as well as provincial governors could not express their power and prestige by adding new public buildings to their cities without repairing those already built. At first, curiales had to seek the approval of their provincial governor. C. Lepelley showed that late antique emperors remained faithful to a very old policy that dated back to the third century, when Roman emperors increased the fiscal burden of the cities in order to finance costly military campaigns. Since Diocletian, they used to appoint curatores rei publicae on a permanent basis in provincial cities to 



Cod. Theod. ..,  January  from Valentinian I referring to another law on the same subject; Cod. Theod. ..,  March , Theodosius on Egypt (one-third only of the public works could consist of new buildings). Cf. Cod. Theod. ..,  April  (Valentinian II). See Patlagean () ff. Lepelley () ff., who comments on Hdn. . complaining about Emperor Maximinus Thrax (–) who seized the public revenues of African cities and the incomes of their temples. Lepelley never considered the late Roman state as a ‘monarchie centralisatrice’, as Chouquer () , commenting on Bransbourg () –, seems to think. Confiscations of fundi templorum and rei publicae are not imaginary, as Chouquer ()  adds, but are well documented, even if they followed a long and complex process not always well understood. See Tantillo ()  and n. ; Goddard () ff.

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



preside over their municipal councils, without waiting for a major crisis to occur. Those curatores answered only to the imperial authority, but they were now recruited among those who had completed the municipal cursus honorum. Restoring monuments under the close supervision of the governors and the imperial agents was part of their task. The financing of those repairs or construction changed. The imperial authorities would allocate municipal revenues (local taxes, the uectigalia, and the rent of their estates, the fundi rei publicae) to whatever they saw fit, without hesitating to confiscate municipal estates (fundi) and divert their uectigalia. We will see that this policy not only undermined the authority of the curia who could not decide anymore which public building would be repaired or built, but also discouraged potential benefactors among its ranks from covering those expenses personally (sua pecunia). There is, as a matter of fact, a direct link between municipal munera, public duties imposed by the ordo on their fellow citizens, and euergesia, free gifts to city made in the old euergetic way by the wealthiest for the benefit of their fellow citizens. We can follow in reign after reign the small percentage of the municipal incomes curiales were allowed to use as they saw fit, as R. Delmaire showed by pointing out two different systems in the eastern and the western parts of the Empire at least until . In , Constantius II authorized African cities to allocate only a fourth of their fiscal incomes to the restoration of public monuments. Julian the Apostate temporarily restored the cities’ financial autonomy, but his successors needed money. Since /, Valens had let the Asian cities, especially Ephesus, rent a portion of their estates for their own benefit. They would directly receive the pertaining revenues, as he instructed the proconsul of Asia, Valens, by letter. The management of the rest of the de iure rei publicae estates would be entrusted to the res priuata. As R. Delmaire showed, the system was very pragmatic and varied from one city to another. In , Valentinian I decided to return to western cities only a third of their municipal incomes (uectigalia and revenues from their    

 

 Lepelley () –; Jacques () ff.; Laniado () . Lepelley () ff. Delmaire () ff. Cod. Theod. ..; Delmaire () , who thinks uetigalia meant the revenues of the municipal estates considered as agri uestigales, referencing Cod. Theod. ... Amm. Marc. ..; Sozom. Hist. eccl. ..; Hist. Aceph., ; Lib. Or. ..; Cod. Theod. ..; with the exception of buildings erected on public properties according to Cod. Iust. ..; cf. ..; Delmaire () . Cod. Theod. ..,  September ; ..,  January ; AE ,  = FIRA I, . (Ephesus, ). Chastagnol () –; Delmaire () ; Lepelley () ff. Delmaire () .



 . 

properties), the remaining two-thirds going to the sacrae largitiones, while leaving the actual management of the fundi rei publicae to the res priuata. In  in the West, the Count of the res priuata took over the municipal estates from the Count of the sacrae largitiones. In  Valentinian III applied the eastern model to his western realm: cities were allowed to manage directly one-third of their estates. As for public repair work, the emperor stated in  that one-third of the municipal incomes would be enough. In case of an emergency, the cities could ask for more but would need an imperial grant given by their governors to unlock the rest of the municipal funds controlled by the imperial administration. According to C. Lepelley, it also allowed a governor to prevent local crises in a city of his province by allocating resources obtained from another. As R. Delmaire explains, ‘cette intervention est dans la ligne de la politique impériale pour empêcher les cités de se livrer à des dépenses excessives’. Further imperial provisions show how this new policy affected euergetism in Late Antiquity and fiscalized compulsory ‘benefactions’, called munera. According to a decree issued on  July , governors would use public and most likely municipal funds to finance public works and be honoured for it as euergetes. The prince considered dedications celebrating those governors as the worst crime one could imagine: de maiestate, the violation of the emperor’s sovereignty. In other words, Theodosius 

    

Cod. Theod. ..; .. = Cod. Iust. ..; .. = Cod. Iust. ..; ..; Delmaire ()  explains that the measure was promulgated as early as  January  (Cod. Theod. ..) and not  September as previously surmised (Cod. Theod. ..). Cod. Iust. ..–; Cod. Theod. [XI]... Delmaire () . Cod. Iust. ... Delmaire ()  argues that the system was still applied under Theodoric according to Cassiod. Var. .. Cod. Theod. .., to Hadrianus, Count of the res priuata.  Cod. Theod. ..,  January . See Lepelley () . Delmaire () . Cod. Theod. ..,  July  (Theodosius, Constantinople): Idem AAA(usti) Rufino praefecto praetorio. Si qui iudices perfecto operi suum potius nomen quam nostrae perennitatis scripserint, maiestatis teneantur obnoxii. Illud etiam repetita sanctione decernimus, ut nemini iudicum liceat nouis molitionibus industriae captare famam. Quod si quis in administratione positus sine iussu nostro aedificii alicuius iacere fundamenta temptauerit, is proprio sumptu et iam priuatus perficere cogetur quod ei non licuerat inchoare, nec prouincia permittetur abscedere prius, quam ad perfectam manum coeptum perduxerit et, si quid de quibuslibet publicis titulis in ea ipsa fabrica praecepto eius impensum fuerit, reformarit. dat. III Non. Iul. Constantinopoli Arcadio III et Honorio II AA(ugustis) conss(ulibus). (trans. Pharr () –: ‘The same Augustuses to Rufinus, Praetorian Prefect. If any of the judges [i.e. governors] should inscribe their own names, rather than the name of Our Eternity, on any completed public work, they shall be held guilty of high treason. . We also decree by a renewed sanction that no judge [i.e. governor] shall be permitted to court a reputation for industry by undertaking new constructions. But if any person placed in an administrative position should attempt to lay the foundation of any by building without Our order, he shall be compelled, even after becoming a private person, to complete at his own expense what he was not authorized to commence. He shall not be permitted to depart from the province until he has brought to

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



specifically forbade governors to mention their names on a building after that kind of restoration. Only the name of the emperor could be cited on the official dedication, even if he had not covered the expense by using the imperial treasury at any level. An earlier decree had already stated that governors who wanted to add a new building to a city would have to write a report and ask for a special imperial grant. The text does not specify if the emperor had in mind only buildings financed sua pecunia or those with public municipal funds. It almost certainly concerned both instances. It belongs to a long series of imperial decisions requiring a focus on repairs and restorations, rather than the construction of new and superfluous buildings and the completion of any public work before the planning of a new one. It is not difficult to understand how these provisions









completion what he began, and if anything was paid in connection with this structure from any public account by his order, he shall restore it. Given on the third day before the nones of July at Constantinople in the year of the third consulship of Arcadius Augustus and the second consulship of Honorius Augustus’). The phrase is proprio sumptu et iam priuatus perficere cogetur quod ei non licuerat inchoare clearly indicates the building bearing the governor’s name was not done at his own expense. The governor used public funds and most likely municipal ones. A few constitutions preserved in the Theodosian Code prove it without ambiguity since a governor who did not complete repair work or finish a building he started had to pay for its completion at his own expense (Cod. Theod. .. to the Senate,  August ; .., to Prefect of the City Albinus,  April ; .. to Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum and Italy, Polemius,  April ; .. to Praetorian Prefect Rufinus,  July  ). Cod. Theod. ..,  February  (Theodosius, Constantinople): Idem AAA(ugusti) Aureliano praefecto Vrbi. si quando concessa a nobis licentia fuerit extruendi, id sublimis magnificentia tua sciat esse seruandum, ut nulla domus inchoandae publicae fabricae gratia diruatur, nisi usque ad quinquaginta libras argenti pretii aestimatione taxabitur. De aedificiis uero maioris meriti ad nostram scientiam referetur, ut, ubi amplior poscitur quantitas, imperialis extet auctoritas. dat. III Kal. Mart. Constantinopoli Theodosio A(usguto) III et Abundantio conss(ulibus) (trans. Pharr () : ‘The same Augustuses to Aurelianus, Prefect of the City. If at any time permission to build should be granted by Us, Your Sublimity shall know that the regulation must be observed that no house shall be torn down for the purpose of beginning the construction of a public work, unless the house is valued at less than fifty pounds of silver. As to buildings of greater value, a report must first be made to Our Wisdom, so that when a greater amount is requested, imperial authority may be granted. Given on the third day before the kalends of March at Constantinople in the year of the third consulship of Theodosius Augustus and the consulship of Abundantius’). See for example: Cod. Theod. ..,  October  (to the Vicar of Africa, Dracontius, promulgated in Senigallia); ..,  August/ August  (to Albinus, Prefect of the City of Rome, read in the Senate); ..,  August  (to Eutropius, Praetorian Prefect, promulgated in Adrianople); ..,  April  (to Albinus, Prefect of the City of Rome, promulgated in Milan). From  to  at least according to constitutions recorded in the Theodosian Code: Cod. Theod. .. to Menander,  April ; .. to Praetorian Prefect Secundus,  June ; , to Pefect of City of Rome Symmachus: / May ; , to Draconthius:  February ; , to Praetorian Prefect Mamertinus:  March ; , to consularis of Picenum Valentinianus:  October ;  to the Senate:  August ;  to Praetorian Prefect Eutropius:  August ; , to Prefect of the City of Rome Albinus;  April ; , to Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum and Italy Polemius:  April ; , to Prefect of the City Aurelianus:  February ; , to



 . 

dramatically undermined traditional euergetism in late antique cities and not only the financial autonomy of their institutions. By strictly controlling the destination of public funds allocated to municipal building and by fiscalizing any kind of public construction, especially large and visible structures, in provincial cities, the late Roman state discouraged traditional benefactors, local curiales and governors, often long-established patrons of their communities, from engaging in any new euergetic architectural display. Nevertheless, traditional monumental euergetism can still be found in Roman cities in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, but their champions’ social status was much higher than those one can find on dedications of the first three centuries of the Principate. We find occasionally a few principales, members of the small group among the ordo of the curiales acting as its executive board, but often senators, governors and sometimes imperial administrators of a higher rank. Generally, members of the local elite were mentioned only as having actually ‘taken care’ (curante) of a repair work or a construction decided on by the emperor’s agents or by the emperor himself. Most of them were curatores rei publicae. We should not forget it was certainly still a real honour, but this honour was symbolic of a social revolution within provincal cities, of a dramatic change of political and social perspective. What was then publicized on inscriptions and displayed on public spaces was the special link those projects revealed







Prefect of the City Aurelianus:  February ; , to Praetorian Prefect Rufinus:  June ; , to Praetorian Prefect Theodorus:  January/ December . For principales involved in public works, see for example in Italy, in Beneventum: CIL IX, , a dedication to Attis and the Mother of the Gods by uir principalis L. Sonteius Pineius Iustinianus of equestrian rank, a former duumuir of the city. In Cod. Iust. IX, , another principalis of the city is described as a patron and generous benefactor (praestantissimus uir). In Africa, in Sitifis between  and  the principales restored the ovens of the public annona according to CIL VIII,  = Dessau, ILS . See for example the numerous restorations undertaken by governor Fabius Maximus in Samnium under Constantius II (CIL IX,  = basilique = Dessau, ILS  = N.S. , ; Gaggiotti , no. , ; CIL IX, , ; Gaggiotti no. , ; CIL IX, ,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL IX, , ,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL IX,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL IX,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL IX,  = Dessau, ILS ; CIL IX,  = Dessau, ILS ) or those launched ten years later (–) in Numidia by its governor, Publilius Caeionius Caecina Albinus (CIL VIII,  = I.L.Alg., II,  ;  = I.L.Alg., II, , ) under Valentinian I. On Fabius Maximus, see Cecconi () ; Goddard () ; on Caecina Albinus, see Chastagnol () ; Lepelley () . See for example: CIL XIV,  (= Dessau, ILS ), in Palestrina mentioning major repairs of public buildings, decided on by consularis Campaniae Barbarus Pompeianus in  CE but undertaken (curante), by curator (rei publicae) of perfectissimus rank, Iulius Laurentius. In Late Antiquity, curatores rei publicae became part of the local elite and were chosen from among the principales of the city. See Lepelley ()  on this specific cura of public buildings in provincial cities.

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



between local curiales and ‘central’ clarissimi – either proper members of the Roman senate in the fourth century or honorary and provincial ones in the fifth – and not the link between those curiales and their fellow citizens, members of the plebs. It was a serious breach in the traditional euergetic system. The natural leader of a late antique city was someone who could prove his ties, his special and personal relationship with the highest members of the imperial administration. This dramatic shift, both social and political, explains why Late Antiquity saw dedications commemorating construction supervised by nobles rapidly decreasing in number once this new legislation was put in place in the last third of the fourth century. However, the local elite still felt the urge to display their authority over their people, but they had to do it in different contexts. Christian basilicas, being private buildings, were not affected at all by these measures. They could be built without any kind of authorization, unless their builders were planning to use public properties. When a request was made to use a temple, Honorius ruled in  that such use was permitted only if the building was no longer contributing to the beauty of the city and if the provincial governor gave its approval. Finally, they would have to buy it at the appropriate price. This complex process discouraged most of the bishops to go further. Thus only a few temples or public buildings were converted into churches and usually very late, when their cities faced major issues or when they were completely run down. Churches, paradoxically enough, had become the place where local elites could display their social prestige and seek their fellow citizens’ recognition. With several Christian communities in conflict with one another, the demand for new religious buildings grew even stronger. The fierce competition between the members of the local elite, an original element of the municipal ‘civilization’, eventually found a way of expressing itself by adding new buildings to their city. Those buildings were not public; they were often in suburban or even peri-urban areas, but they were publice, in full view, catching the eye and publicly displayed. Wealthy benefactors could maintain their rank and leadership over their fellow citizens by attaching their names to the local churches. They could also get closer to the new emerging power, the bishops. Euergetism was not unknown in late Roman cities, but Christian amenities offered the only places that enabled it to be performed legally and without constraints. 

Cod. Theod. .., cited by Lepelley () .



See Goddard (forthcoming).



 . 

From Italy to Jordan, from Late Antique to Later Late Antique Cities: The Mirror of Social Transformation Tributes to benefactors in churches can be found all over the Roman world, which clearly shows that this kind of monumental gift was not specific to Italian basilicas. It can still be found at the end of the sixth century in Jordan, as J. P. Caillet, P. Baumann and R. Haensch showed, but in a very different context. Can we still speak about euergetism in this precise case? We will answer the question with reference to a different set of portraits. The three-nave basilica (.  / m) of SS. Cosmas and Damian in Gerasa, Jordan, provides us with an excellent example of the evolution of Christian benefactions. The church is one of the three buildings of a religious complex including two other basilicas dedicated to St John the Baptist and St George. It seems to belong to a building programme launched by Bishop Paul (– CE) in the city centre, southwest of the old and prestigious Artemision, which was then falling in ruin. SS. Cosmas and Damian was erected in , as recalled in its long dedication on the upper part of the main mosaic pavement of its central nave, which is divided into four panels. The upper row along the chancel has three panels. The central one bears the first inscription enclosed in a rectangular frame with two inverted triangles on the sides. The inscription consists of a metrical poem celebrating Cosmas and Damian, the Christian Dioscuri, and explains that a rich layman bearing the name of the local saint was following his bishop’s ‘sound orders’, implying that he paid for the building.      

Baumann (); Caillet () –; Haensch () –. Kraeling () –; Caillet () –, () –. Kraeling () ff.; – and nos. – for the inscriptions (Welles); Piccirillo () –, () ff. See Michel () – for the architecture. Michel () –. Brizzi, Sepio and Baldoni () –. According to them, the Artemision only collapsed after a major earthquake in  (ibid. ). See March () –. Kraeling ()  and no.  (Welles); Michel () , with a French translation: Ἐψ[ηφώθη τὸ εὐ]κτήριον τοῦ ἁγίου Κοσμᾶ καὶ Δαμιανοῦ τῷ εϙφ ´ἔτει Περιτίου χρόνων ἑνδεκάτης ἰνδ(ικτιῶνος). / [Τ]ῶν ἀθλοφόρων νῦν τὴν καλὴν ξυνωρίδα / σέβων προσεύχου. Καὶ γάρ εἰσιν ἅγιοι,/ τέχνην ἔχοντες τῶν παθῶν θελκτήριον. / Ἐντεῦθεν ἕκαστος πρ[ο]σφέρων ἀγάλλεται / Ταύτῃ καλύπτων τοῦ βίου τὰ πταίσματα. / Τούτοις δὲ πᾶσι τὴν ποθυμίαν νέμει / Παῦλος ὁ ποιμὴν ὡς σοφὸς κυβερνήτης, / ἴκοντος αὐτοῦ τοῖς σοφοῖς ἐπιτάγμασιν / ἀνδρὸς ἀγίστου, οὗ μαθήσει τοὔνομα / τοῦ Προδόρμου σώζοντα τὸ ἐπώνυμον. (‘The chapel of saints Cosmas and Damian was covered with a mosaic (pavement) in  (i.e. ), on the eleventh indiction, in the month of Perios (i.e. January). Pray now and praise the handsome and triumphant couple. The saints know how to ease (our) pain. Henceforth everyone makes a gift with joy and

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



The mosaic removes any ambiguity about it. The panels on each side have two full-length portraits of a couple. In the first one, framed by two trees, a layman named Theodorus is holding a model of a church towards the inscription as contemporary bishops did in Rome. In the second one, his wife Georgia is also standing between two trees, raising both hands in prayer. They are both dressed in elegant garments, with full-length white tunics covered by a red cloak. The inscription over Theodorus presents him as a paramonarius, which I would suggest makes him the guardian angel of the local churches rather than a simple warden or custos ecclesiae. This status is reinforced by the fact that the extremely wealthy couple had also paid for another church in Gerasa, the church of St John the Baptist, where Theodorus is praised explicitly as a spontaneous benefactor (ψυχῇ προθύμῳ προσφορὰν). The main panel has a rectangular border with geometric designs (meanders consisting of double swastikas alternating with different shaped crosses and intertwined rings). A series of diamonds enclose two portraits at the top on each side, a second inscription, an acanthus growing out of its pot on the first line and geometrical figures on the remaining twelve lines. The rest of the field is occupied by a check pattern with bigger squares between the diamonds and four smaller ones surrounding them. The bigger ones mainly show birds and animals and a few vases. To the left, the full-length first figure on the line is barefoot and dressed with a short tunic, holding a basket full of fruit on his left shoulder. The inscription to his left presents him as a Calloeonistus. To the right, another

 

atones for the faults he has committed during his life. To all of them, the famous Paul offers his zeal as a competent pilot, while an excellent man carries out his sound orders. You will learn the name he shares with the Forerunner’). See for example in San-Agnese-fuori-le-Mura on the apse mosaic a representation of the pope Honorius offering a basilica to the saint (– CE). Kraeling () ;  and no.  for the inscription (Welles); Michel () , with a French translation: [῾Oσ]οι βλέπουσι τοῦ τόπου τὸ κόσμιον καὶ τῆς στέγης τὸ σεμνὸν ἢ τῆς ψηφίδος, Παύλου δικαίως τοῦ σοφοῦ τοῦ ποιμένος / Aινοῦσι ἀτεχνῶς τὴν ἄγαν προθυμίαν καὶ τοῦ κτίσαντος τὴν χορηγίαν θαμά. Θεόδορος οὗτος οἴκοθεν χρυσὸν / διδούς, Oν῝ Θομᾶς ἐξέθρεψεν οἷα πατὴρ γεγώς, Ψυχῇ προθύμῳ προσφορὰν τῷ Προσρόμῳ Oὗ τὴν ὁμώνυμον προσηγορίαν / ἐπέλαχεν, Ὁ πᾶσαν ἐνθεὶς τῷ τόπῳ τὴν καλλονήν. Ὁ Κύριος οὖν, τῶν ὅλων ὁ Δεσπότης, Προσδέξεται τάντων τὴν καλὴν / προαίρεσιν. Ἐψηφώθη κ(αὶ) ἐστεγάσθη σὺν Θεῷ τὸ πᾶν ἔργον τοῦ ἁγίου εὐκτηρίου / τῷ δϙφ᾽ ἔτει μηνὸς Ἀπελλαίου χρ(όνων) δεκάτης ἰδικ(ιῶνος). (‘All of those who see the adornment of this building, the beauty of its ceiling and mosaic, praise unreservedly the extraordinary zeal of the wise shepherd Paul (and praise) highly the contribution of its founder. It is Theodorus, raised by Thomas – who was a father to him – spontaneous donor, using his own gold and offering it to the Forerunner – whose name he shares – who has embellished this building. The Lord, who owns everything, will accept all good deeds. The floor of the chapel was completely covered with a mosaic pavement with God’s help in  (i.e. ) in the month of Apellaios, on the eleventh (indiction)’).



 . 

full-length figure dressed only with a short tunic and boots is holding another basket and stretches the palm of his right hand open towards an inscription bearing his name: ‘John (son) of Astricius’. According to C. Kraeling, both may have been masons or mosaists who offered their services to embellish the church. Of course, there is no proof, but this seems rather unlikely given the social rank of the other figures present at the same level. In the middle diamond on this same row, a fourth inscription mentions a third character and his rank, the tribune Dagistheus, usually identified with Justinian’s magister utriusque militum for Armenia in –. He could have made a donation to the church at a very early stage of his military career. Such an explicit mention of local benefactors is rather exceptional according to J. P. Caillet, since Justinian ruled that only bishops could initiate the building of churches and consecrate them. Furthermore, local honorati were also included in a tribute to the bishop in the same section of the mosaic pavement next to the chancel. When put in its municipal context, this evolution seems logical. In the sixth century, Gerasa was merely a shadow of its former self. Churches were only constructed in the main centre of the city when most of its public monuments were already falling apart, as the intense use of their spolia shows. This is a clear indication that the old municipal institutions had more or less vanished. What was left was probably managed by a rather informal group composed of the local bishop, members of former curial families (then known as πολιτευόμενοι), honorati (ἀξιοματικοι) and possessores. They formed what J. W. Liebeschuetz, following A. Chastagnol, has defined as the typical ‘post-curial government’ of ‘later late’ Roman cities. There was no reason to display lay benefactors and bishops in separate places on a mosaic pavement and exclude them from the most sacred place of the nave, near the altar and the apse, where the saints, the virgin or Christ  

  

Kraeling () . For the signification of the very common expression Χριστὲ βοήθι preceding the name of the donor, see Caillet () . Kraeling ()  and no.  (Welles); Piccirillo () . The inscription reads: Κύριε / ὁ Θ(εὸ)ς τοῦ ἁγίου / Κοσμᾶ κ(αὶ) Δαμιανοῦ / ἐλέησον τὸν τριβοῦνον / Δαγισθεον καὶ πρόσ/δξε τὴν αὐτοῦ/ προσφο/ράν. (‘Lord God of Saint Cosmas and Damianus, have mercy on the tribune Dagistheus and accept his gift’). Welles and Piccirillo follow Hartmann (/) and identify Dagistheus with the namesake in Procop. Goth. ... Procopius presents him as very young in , but young for such a prestigious function. Cf. s.v. Dagistheus , PLRE, III () . Just. Nov. ., ., .. See Caillet () . Brenk () –; March () –. March () –; Moralee () –.

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



stood in their full glory, for the former separation between ecclesiastical and municipal authorities had completely vanished. In a few cases, prestigious benefactors even join the bishop on the walls but not in the apse, following the example set by emperors since Constantine himself or his sons, as seen in St Demetrios in Thessaloniki as late as the beginning of the seventh century. In other words, the position of the figures and their portraits was highly significant. It mirrors the social, juridical and symbolical evolution of the elite not only within the church but also in provincial cities. However, this does not mean that we should only consider those portraits as an assertion of social standing which laymen and women made in a post-municipal urban centre of the sixth century. There is more to it than this. We said that Georgia was raising her hands in prayer, echoing a very significant verse of the dedicatory poem: ‘everyone is contributing to compensate a life’s failures’. Those words (τοῦ βίου τὰ πταίσματαi) clearly refer to the expiation of sins. They belong to a discourse of penance, so popular in sixth-century Gaul, as Brown recently showed. The same prayer can also be found on the dedication of St George’s basilica again under Bishop Paul. The donor, ‘only known to the Lord’ – who apparently asked to remain anonymous – hoped he would be ‘forgiven for his sins’ by erecting a new church. Of course, in this precise case, his anonymity prevented him from getting any kind of social recognition within the city or at court. Brown explained the inner logic of this discourse of penance in Late Antiquity thus: bishops encouraged rich members of their congregation to place ‘a treasure in Heaven’, by either contributing to the Church or distributing alms to the poor. In the case of the foundation of a basilica, a chapel or a monastery, benefactors expected  

 



Liebeschuetz () ff. See also Chastagnol () . The first example of an emperor offering a model of church to Christ, the Saints or the Virgin on the wall of the central apse was Constantine according to Brandenburg () ; De Blaauw () ; Liverani () ; contra Spieser () –, who believes that this kind of imperial assocation only occurred later on and not before the end of the fourth century. For Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki, see Spieser () –; Caillet () . The church was built after the earthquake that occurred after –. Brown () ff. Kraeling ()  and no. ; trans. Michel () : ᾽Eπὶ τοῦ θεοφιλεστ[άτου καὶ ὁσιωτ(άτου) ἐπισ]κόπου Πα[ύλοὒ] / [ἐσ]τεγάσθη καὶ ἐψηφώθη κ[αὶ ἂ]νεκοσμήθη ὁ ναὸς το[ῦ ἁγίοὒ] / [Γε]ωργίου ἐκ προσφορᾶς οὗ ὁ Κύριος οἶδεν τὸ ὄνομα ὑπ[ὲρ συν] / χωρήσεως ἁμαρτιῶν ἐν χρόνοις η’ ἰνδ(ικτιῶνος) τοῦ βϙφ´ ἔτους. (‘At the time of the most holy bishop Paul, God’s beloved, the temple of Saint George was covered with a mosaic pavement and adorned with the gifts of the man, you are the only one, Lord, to know the name, for the remission of his sins in the eighth indiction in  (i.e. /)’). For other examples, see above note .



 . 

the congregation, bishop, monks and nuns who would use them to pray for their souls and help them find their way to Paradise after death. In other words, Theodorus and Georgia’s gift was addressing their fear of afterlife at least as much as it was looking for social recognition in the here and now. It was actually doing both at the same time. Paying one’s respect to Christ by honoring his saints with a building was also showing one’s allegiance to a Christian emperor – especially emperors like Anastasius or Justinian, who required all their (pagan) subjects to become Christian – and maybe angling for some kind of promotion. Let us now go back to the question we raised in the beginning of the chapter. Was euergetism, and especially its monumental version, incompatible with Christianity? As we saw, late antique euergetes, whether Christian or not, were mainly looking above them and seeking social acknowledgement from the highest members of the senatorial elite and ultimately from the emperor himself. They were not looking down the social ladder. Even when they distributed alms to the poor, they were told by bishops like Augustine of Hippo that those trembling hands would help them to reach Christ. As P. Brown put it, in late antiquity ‘acts of mercy to the faceless poor simply mirrored (and so could be thought, on some level, to provoke) the acts of mercy by which a distant God cancelled the sins of the almsgiver’. I would add that Christan curiales could act also like the grandees of their world or even like the emperor himself and treat their ‘poor’ in a rather condescending way without trying to create any kind of personal bond. They would hold out one hand to them and avoid their begging eyes. There was a debate among Christians at the beginning of the fifth century on whether the wealthy had to become poor to get closer to

 



Matt. :; cited and commented upon by Brown () ff. See Brown () , citing (and translating) Augustine of Hippo, Erfurt Sermon , , ed. Schiller, Weber and Weidmann () : ‘lazy members of our churches are to be challenged to action, seeing that they barely break a single loaf of bread to feed the starving Christ [in the poor], while those who lavish wealth on the theatre [spend so heavily that they] leave hardly a loaf of bread for their own sons’. Augustine refers to old biblical sayings such as Prov. : (‘he who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord’) or Matt. :–. See Leyerle () ; Finn () ff.; Anderson () ; and see Holman ()  on the identification of the poor with Christ and on John Chrysostom and the Cappodocians’ preaching on the subject. One can see the success of the predication on funerary inscription (for instance in Sardinia, CIL X,  = AE ,  = N. Duval, REAug, , , – = ILCV  = EDR ; cited and translated by Finn () –) or Christian tabulae (for example in the church of S. Ippolito in Atripalda (Avellino)), CIL X,  = CLE  = ILCV , refering to pauperies Christi. Brown ()  also mentions the popular image of the Christ emperor (ibid. ).

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



Christ and obtain salvation, as Pelagius and his followers thought. But even when they did – and one thinks naturally of grandees such as Melania the Younger and her young husband Pinianus, the heirs of two of the richest and most powerful Roman families of the time (namely, the Valerii and the Ceionii Rufii Albini) who suddenly decided to get rid of their fortune to live an ascetic life – they would do it, without thinking much about the future of the thousands of slaves they would abandon along the way by freeing them suddenly. They would do it by founding impressive monasteries and convents, by distributing alms in a theatrical way, by making what P. Brown calls a big ‘splash’ in a typical euergetic – and oldfashioned – way. Augustine of Hippo reacted vigorously to this ‘carità eversiva’, as A. Giardina puts it, by explaining that caring for the poor did not imply becoming one of them and running away from one’s responsibilities as a rich man for those in need. Contemporary pagans pursued more or less the same objectives. They were also looking for a ‘splash’, but their splash had to be wide enough to be seen far away in the high spheres of the imperial society. They would not pay much attention to the lower part of their municipal society. Late antique benefactors always raised their eyes way above them. This does not mean, of course, that members of the elite building churches or founding monasteries or charitable amenities had in mind only their selfpromotion in the here and now. Rather, we simply should not consider Christian euergetism as a ‘phase’ of Christian benefaction, as P. Veyne or E. Patlagean did, a phase soon to be overcome by a new one that was truly Christian, profoundly charitable, mostly preoccupied with salvation of the souls in the afterlife and not lingering on its civic past. Instead, we should consider Christian euergetism as one facet of a prism. Our sources   



See Brown () ff. Brown ()  on classical euergetism. Patlagean ()  calls it the ‘superflu d’un jour’. Giardina () –, () –; Lepelley () –; Brown () –, () ff. See Geront. v.Melan.  and , edited and translated by Gorce () and translated by E. A. Clark () , . Their freed slaves near Rome protested at their masters’ surprise (ibid. , SC , –). See for example how Augustine reacted to Edicia’s similar attitude (August. Ep. , CSEL , –, cited and commented upon by Lepelley ()) or Jerome’s comment on Fabiola (Jer. Ep. . cited and commented upon by Giardina () –; Lepelley ()). On the reponsabilities of the rich according to Augustine: En. in Ps. CIII, .; De utilitate credendi, ., BA ,  (Lepelley ()). Veyne () –: ‘L’aristocratie romaine avait des conduites d’apparat et de responsabilité sociale; elle était évergète et faisait construire des bâtiments civils; elle fera désormais bâtir des églises’; Patlagean () , : ‘l’extension aux églises de la munificence monumentale sur le modèle antique atteste donc de la vitalité de cette dernière, qui se manifeste d’ailleurs pareillement dans les synagogues contemporaines’.



 . 

may shed light on only one of those facets, make us forget the existence of the other ones and give a deformed image of its other sides, but we can only apprehend the specificity of late antique euergetism by taking them all into account. One could argue that at least games continued to be financed by senators in Rome and curiales in provincial cities at least in the fifth century, which proves that their relationship with ordinary citizens still remained important to them and that they continued to ‘look down’ the social ladder. By fulminating against the urge that their fellow citizens still felt to spend most of their fortune on races at the circus or games at the amphitheatre, Augustine’s or John Chrysostom’s sermons show that this kind of euergetism that ‘looked down’ was still fashionable. However, euergetai and, more importantly, thankful ordines and populi (the civic bodies of the city) rarely chose to publicize their benefaction by a dedication on the forum. And this phenomenon is so widespread it seems difficult to argue that it only reflected the gaps in our documentation. It was obviously a trend. Euergetai kept an eye backwards and still tried to please ordinary citizens, but they were not praised for doing it anymore. They could only expect to be praised by receiving cheerful acclamations in the circus or the amphitheatre, provided these shouts would not be too loud and make them a threat to the emperors. But in late antiquity they gazed above them at the social stars of their world. I would not say of course that nothing changed and that we should consider all gifts to be euergetic acts simply because they had a social resonance. As we saw, euergetism only makes sense in a society with strong municipal values. When the city, the ciuitas, the polis, disappeared as a social, political and cultural body, what we call ‘euergetism’ vanished with it. We can still find foundations of impressive monasteries on private estates in the seventh century, meant by their patrons to pray for their souls and display to the local king their noble faith and their command of the territory with which they were entrusted. These were foundations that had both a spiritual and a social dimension, but the new buildings, because they excluded the claims of any potential rival, completely lacked any kind 



On games and shows attended by Christians, see Lepelley () , () –, refering to Augustine, Serm. , En. in Ps. , Serm. , ., .; Pall. v.Chrys. .; Brown () –, () , citing Augustine’s sermons in Carthage in  (August. Erfurt Sermon ., ed. Schiller, Weber and Weidmann () . Cf. Lim () –. On the popularity of the games in Late Roman Africa throughout fourth century, see Lepelley () ; Brown () –. In Rome both pagan and Christian senators continued to give splendid games and races for their consulship or the praetorship (and for the most distinguished families, for the quaestorship) of their sons. See Chastagnol () ; Brown () ff. For references in Augustine and John Chrysostom, see above notes  and .

Euergetism, Christianity and Municipal Culture



of competitive spirit that was at the very heart of ‘municipal civilization’. Euergetism was all about competition between powerful and local honestiores within a ciuitas. The social dialogue that this new brand of benefaction displayed was now between the lord of the land and his king. Families competing for social recognition could still be found in the seventh-century Frankish Gaul, for example, but in the context of the court, not the local ciuitates. The collapse of euergetism had nothing to do with Christianity. It was simply one of the signs of the disappearance of the civic consciousness, of the need to inscribe one’s ambition in a municipal framework. Conversely, as we saw, in a few instances at least, the construction of churches within that specific framework conjured up the vitality of the municipal culture and its competitive spirit, especially throughout the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Because they were private buildings, Christian basilicas, monasteries and hospices offered a temporary asylum to euergetism in late antiquity and contributed paradoxically to preserving the old and multisecular municipal culture. But these same basilicas offered a sanctuary to a euergetism completely reshaped, a euergetism slightly democratized but constantly raising its eyes to the grandees of the late Roman world, a euergetism that maintained its distance from the lower members of the plebs by strengthening social and now religious ties between inlustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi and the upper layer of the mediocres. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, G. () Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. New Haven. Baumann, P. () Spätantike Stifter im Heiligen Land. Darstellungen und Inschriften auf Bodenmosaiken in Kirchen, Synagogen und Privathäusern. Wiesbaden. Bertacchi, L. () ‘Architettura e mosaico’, in B. Forlatti Talmaro et al. (eds.), Da Aquileia a Venezia. Una mediazione tra l’Europa e l’Oriente dal II secolo A.C. al VII secolo D.C. Rome, –. Bertacchi, L. () ‘Scavi e studi relativi al complesso basilicale di Aquileia tra il  e il ’, Aquileia nostra : –. Bisconti, F. () ‘Il tappeto di Giona: interpretazioni interne e relazioni externe’, in G. Cuscito and T. Lehmann (eds.), Der Dom von Aquileia. Geschichte, Archäologie, Kunst. (Atti della XL settimana di Studi Aquileiesi, Aquileia – maggio ). Trieste, –.



Brown () –.



Le Jan () –; Brown () ff.



 . 

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Pelizzari, G. () Il Pastore ad Aquileia. La trascrizione musiva della catechesi catecumenale nella cattedrale di Teodoro. Villanova di San Daniele del Friuli. Piccirillo, M. () Chiese e mosaici della Giordania settentrionale. Jerusalem. () I mosaici di Giordania. Rome. Piccirillo, M., Bikai, P. M., and Dailey, T. A. () The Mosaics of Jordan. Amman. Piccirillo, M., Sartre, M., Schelstraete, É., and Duverne, M.-P. (eds.) () L’Arabie chrétienne. Paris. Pietri, C. () ‘Recherches sur les domus ecclesiae’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes : –. () ‘Aristocratie et société cléricale dans l’Italie chrétienne’, Melanges de l’ École Française de Rome : –. () ‘Une aristocratie provinciale et la mission chrétienne: l’exemple de la Venetia’, Antichità Altoadriatiche : –. Riavez P. () ‘La basilica di Aquileia: risultati dell’analisi stratigrafica’, Antichità Altoadriatiche : –. Salvadori, M., C. Tiussi and L. Villa () ‘Il sistema di decorazione parietale della basilica tardoantica di Aquileia: nuovi spunti’, Antichità Altoadriatiche .: –. Schiller, I., Weber, D., and Weidmann, C. () ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten. Teil  mit Edition dreier Sermones zum Thema Almosen’, Wiener Studien : –. Schumacher, W. N. () ‘Victoria in Aquileia’. Tortulae. Studien zu altchristlichen und byzantinischen Monumenten. Rome. Sotinel, C. () Identité civique et christianisme: Aquilée du IIIe au VIe siècle. Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome . Rome. Spieser, J.-M. () Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe siècle: contribution à l’étude d’une ville paléochrétienne. Paris. () ‘Le décor figuré des édifices ecclésiaux’, Antiquité Tardive : –. Stucchi, S. () ‘Le basiliche paleocristiane di Aquileia’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana : –. Tantillo, I. () La prima orazione di Giuliano a Costanzo: introduzione, traduzione e commento. Rome. Tavano, S. () ‘La crisi formale tardoantica e i mosaici teodoriani’, Antichità Altoadriatiche : –. () Aquileia e Grado. Storia, arte, cultura. Trieste. () La Basilica di Aquileia. Pordenone. Testini, P. () ‘Basilica, domus ecclesiae e aule teodoriane di Aquileia’, Antichità Altoadriatiche : –. Veyne, P. () Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris. Zettler, A () Offerenteninschriften auf den fru¨hchristlichen Mosaikfussböden Venetiens und Istriens. Berlin.

Conclusion Marc Domingo Gygax and Arjan Zuiderhoek

Many of the questions posed at the beginning of this project and at the Princeton conference have been answered in similar ways by the contributors of this volume, while continuing debate and divergent points of view are apparent in the case of others. Much research clearly remains to be done in regard to public generosity in the Greek world. But it is also apparent that the chapters in this book allow a number of general conclusions regarding the nature and evolution of the public gift from the Homeric world to Late Antiquity. This volume shows how much weight the focus on the relational aspect of the public gift has assumed in recent years. This could not have been taken for granted at the beginning of the project. Traditionally, the study of gifts to the community concentrated either on the givers and their motivations or on one of the most visible and best documented consequences of gifts, the honors granted benefactors by the poleis. The authors of the chapters in this volume have instead analyzed the public gift as part of a relationship of reciprocity. This does not mean that they have renounced addressing other aspects of the public gift, such as the goals of the benefactors, their degree of generosity and the economic, social and political impact of their actions. Indeed, such considerations have a central place in some chapters. But the authors have treated these aspects as better understood in light of the exchange between benefactors and communities and related conditions: negotiations between parties, social pressure, public discourses and a capacity for self-deception (what Pierre Bourdieu would call common miscognition). In fact, the term ‘public gift’ in the book’s subtitle applies not only to the donations of benefactors but also to the honors with which communities publicly rewarded them or triggered their benefactions. While there is consensus among the contributors that gifts were normally part of an exchange, there are different views as to what was exchanged and why. In Chapter , Hans van Wees offers a picture of 

Conclusion



the Homeric world in which elites contribute to the community primarily through ‘public service’ (military leadership, decision-making and judicial administration) in exchange for material compensation and social status. In his reconstruction, wealth flows from the bottom up and not the other way around. Ships supplied by elites for military purposes – probably a precedent for naukraria – would represent an exception to this tendency, and sacrifices performed on behalf of the community would be another or should perhaps be understood as services funded with extractions from the common people. Although none of the chapters directly challenges this view of Homeric gift-exchange, since they deal with later periods, van Wees’s hypothesis in his conclusion, that this type of exchange remains the same in archaic times and that the increase of expenses of a more developed polis could have been covered with taxes, does not sit easily with the theses expressed by Beate Wagner-Hasel, Marc Domingo Gygax and Sitta von Reden. Behind these divergent views are different understandings of the degree of development of the state in the archaic period. But van Wees, Wagner-Hasel, Domingo Gygax and Arjan Zuiderhoek all agree on an important point about the services provided by elites in the archaic period: whatever their economic role was, contributions such as liturgies and voluntary donations served to legitimize the superior position of elites and reduce social tensions. In Chapter , by Marc Domingo Gygax, we nevertheless see that in classical Athens public gifts did not always decrease tensions, but often increased them. The dēmos was uncomfortable with voluntary donations made by the elite outside the context of liturgies and eisphorai, that is, with donations that could not be presented as services due the polis or as expressions of the power of the dēmos to determine who contributed, when and how. Donations openly acknowledged as gifts, apart from recalling the elite/dēmos relationship of the predemocratic polis, indebted the community, and compensating such donations with honors, as in the case of benefactions by foreigners, implied the institutionalization of a class of citizens – the euergetai – that subverted the egalitarian ethos of the polis. But liturgies and eisphorai also gave rise to tensions, as is reflected especially in the fourth-century orators. In this case, the resistance to public gifts came from the givers rather than the recipients. Many rich individuals tried to evade such contributions or, as in the case of the Old Oligarch, criticized them openly. As Zuiderhoek observes in Chapter , however, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods public gifts once again had the effect of reducing conflicts between elite and dēmos (or continued to have such an effect, since for this



     

period we have not restricted our focus to Athens). In poleis dominated politically by the elite, either because only their members were able to assume the costs of the magistracies or because the constitution was oligarchic, public gifts compensated the dēmos for the absence of political equality. But this was not the only factor that facilitated the proliferation of public gifts after the classical period. In poleis with strong economic and social differences, there might have been less concern for equality than in classical Athens, and thus more acceptance of the existence of an upper class of citizens and less reluctance to formally recognize some of them as euergetai. In addition, poleis could not always cover their expenses without assistance from elites. In this case, elites preferred voluntary donations to liturgies, whereas in poleis in which the dēmos exercised more power, the same conclusion might have been reached as in Athens at the end of the fourth century: money could not be obtained from the rich through liturgies alone, and an exchange of honors for voluntary donations was required. This system also gave the dēmos some degree of power, insofar as the assembly decided on awards of honors for members of an elite competing among themselves for recognition. Public gifts contributed to social harmony in the post-classical polis, but in Chapter  Onno van Nijf shows that they could also trigger social tensions within the polis even if they aimed at the opposite. Festivals offered the masses an ideal setting to express criticism of the founder of the festival and other members of the elite in processions, theaters and stadiums. Huge crowds could create public disorder, and there was in addition the potential for conflict between wealthy individuals vying for honor. While in Chapter  Domingo Gygax suggests that gifts produced a mix of satisfaction and distress in the recipient, since they indebted the latter at the same time as they represented acts of solidarity, van Nijf’s chapter reminds us of another paradox: gifts produced envy not only among those who were rivals in generosity but also among those who benefited from them. This problem of benefactions can be traced far back. Indeed, concern is expressed already in Pindar about neutralizing the envy felt toward an athlete honored by his fellow citizens for having brought glory to the polis. Hellenistic poleis also tried to neutralize the tensions caused by public generosity, and, as Sitta von Reden argues in Chapter , they did so by means of strategies that offer interesting continuities with respect to classical Athens. As Domingo Gygax notes in Chapter , one reaction of fourth-century Athens to the discomfort generated by public gifts in the democratic polis was to channel them through mechanisms controlled by

Conclusion



the dēmos (liturgies and eisphorai) and to produce a public discourse that presented these contributions as debts rather than benefactions. In the same vein, as von Reden shows, Hellenistic poleis attempted to take control of foundations through polis institutions and public discourse. Foundation contracts and honorific inscriptions emphasize the role of the dēmos and show councils, assemblies and magistrates taking an active part in the regulation, protection and management of endowments for festivals, gymnasia and schools. At the same time, these documents indicate that in the Hellenistic polis, benefactions, despite contributing to social harmony, could still be perceived as a threat to equality and democracy. Von Reden argues that foundations and their documents were used to create the fiction that the relationship between dēmos and elite was more balanced than it really was, and following Domingo Gygax she compares this strategy to the discourse on gifts that helped ‘misrecognize’ the inequality of the relationships between cities and Hellenistic kings. These relationships, particularly those between cities and the Seleucid kings, are the topic of Rolf Strootman in Chapter , but his interpretation differs to the extent that he considers the depiction of these exchanges as transactions between equal friends and considerably less fictional. In his view, the Hellenistic cities were in general truly democratic, financially robust and politically independent, while kings were in an economically weak position and lacked the capacity to subjugate numerous individual cities. In line with van Wees’s reconstruction of Homeric gift-exchange between elites and dēmos, characterized by a flow of material wealth from bottom to top, Strootman concludes that gifts made by the kings consisted of immaterial benefactions such as the preservation of autonomy and democracy, and that the honors bestowed by the cities included silver and gold crowns. These results call into question Philippe Gauthier’s famous thesis, according to which the contributions of the kings to the Hellenistic cities were so important that we are required to assume a link between the crisis of the Hellenistic monarchies and the emergence of great citizen benefactors in the late Hellenistic period. According to Strootman, the material benefactions of the kings were aimed not at cities but at sanctuaries. In Chapter , John Tully focuses on a specific sanctuary, the one at Delos, from the early third century to the mid-second century BCE, and his analysis, like von Reden’s, establishes the importance of certain benefactions and discourses for offering an image of the relationship between poleis and benefactors. On the one hand, the Delian inscriptions present the festivals sponsored by the Hellenistic kings and those endowed by the



     

Delian elite as identical in essence and status. On the other hand, the kings were the only non-Delians allowed to bestow festivals. Another important result of Tully’s chapter is the illustration of an aspect of public gift-giving highlighted by Strootman – the royal competition in benefactions – and the demonstration that consideration of this phenomenon helps us avoid mistakes such as assuming that lists of festivals endowed by different monarchies reflect changes in royal political hegemony in the Cyclades. The change from several competing powerful outsiders – the Hellenistic kings – to only one – the emperor – had a significant impact on the evolution of public gift-giving. In Chapter , Carlos Noreña shows that the emperor’s benefactions were predominantly material and that the exchange of benefactions for honors was now more abstract than in the Hellenistic period. Poleis systematically honored the emperor with statues for his role of benefactor rather than for concrete benefactions. The polis discourse that presented the exchange with a powerful outsider as a relationship between philoi disappeared, and the honors bestowed by the polis changed from counter-gifts to mere signals of recognition to a benefactor whose position meant that the debt could not be canceled. But these changes also affected the performance of benefactions within the polis. The figure of the benefactor-emperor stimulated the benefactions by civic elites, who attempted to model their behavior on the emperor’s and to legitimize their own position by honoring him. The extent to which Noreña’s observations imply important changes in imperial times depends on our understanding of public gift-giving in the Hellenistic age, specifically, whether one believes, contra Strootman, that kings made material benefactions to cities, or whether we accept other continuities between the two periods. In the Hellenistic age, the discourse that presented the relationship between king and polis as an exchange of favors between equals was often combined with strategies on the part of the polis designed to make the monarch feel superior, for example, by presenting him as the initiator of the exchange even when the first step was taken by the polis. Moreover, for Hellenistic elites one attraction of performing benefactions was that public recognition of their actions brought them closer to the kings, the euergetai par excellence, whose image as benefactors both the cities and the kings themselves were concerned to cultivate because it facilitated their relationship. But beyond these possible continuities, there are also changes to be considered. In Chapter , Arjan Zuiderhoek stresses that the number and size of elite public gifts increased in the imperial period, an observation in accord with Noreña’s thesis that the emperor’s image as a benefactor

Conclusion



stimulated elite benefactions. Zuiderhoek argues that the political and financial demands of the empire led to an ‘oligarchisation’ of the cities that caused elites to increase compensations for the rest of the society. At the same time, the competition between members of the elite in the imperial cursus honorum encouraged many of them try to stand out before the Roman authorities through public gifts. But the public gift was not expanded only in terms of quantity, for there was also a tendency to go beyond the limits of the polis. Increasingly, the beneficiaries of gifts were not only citizens – the polis as a political community – but also noncitizens residing in the polis (in both the city and the chora), a phenomenon perhaps related to an increase in social stratification and a greater need for community cohesion. In addition, elites increasingly made gifts to cities other than their own. Although the empire was only a proto-state, the polis ceased to be the only political frame of reference for elites, and the scope of action of benefactors expanded considerably. As van Nijf’s chapter shows, some of their benefactions – festivals – fulfilled an important function in the cohesion of this new sphere through supra-civic networks. The Early Byzantine world of the fifth and sixth centuries studied by Daniel Caner in Chapter  is remarkably different from the social environment sketched out above. The urban landscape was now dominated by churches at the same time that public buildings such as theaters and stoas were falling apart. Local aristocrats, retired to the suburbs of the cities, no longer donated money for public construction, and their place was taken by other benefactors, including bishops, who used what were nominally church funds to build amenities such as monasteries, hospitals, hospices and poorhouses, in addition to monumental churches. But Caner has also identified similarities between this world and Zuiderhoek’s vision of the imperial period. If in Zuiderhoek’s view elite gift-giving was shaped by the idea that elites had to provide amenities that made citizens feel valued in order to justify their own superior economic and political position, Caner argues that bishops tried to present themselves in an analogous way, as providers of ‘necessary’ amenities rather than monumental buildings. In Chapter , Christophe Goddard studies the same period, but in many ways offers an opposed image of gift-giving (although without his interpretation necessarily contradicting Caner’s). Goddard focuses on the Western Empire rather than Byzantium and on secular notables donating to the construction of churches rather than on churchmen moving from building churches to providing more ‘necessary’ facilities. To display their wealth and prestige, these notables chose churches because they preferred



     

to associate their names with new monumental buildings rather than with the reconstruction and maintenance of old secular structures. Thus for Goddard the decay of the classical polis/civitas landscape in the later Roman Empire is related neither to an impoverishment of the cities – churches cost a great deal of money – nor to religious motives, but to reasons connected with traditional pre-Christian gift-giving: display of private wealth and the prestige of the benefactor. The dramatic decline of gifts for public buildings, however, is already documented in the third century CE. Although the reasons given by Goddard may help explain the late antique manifestation of the phenomenon, other factors must be considered to make sense of this trend in the pre-Christian empire. There were of course political difficulties that affected the cities and their elites. But Noreña notes an ideological factor that has received less consideration: the shift from representing the emperor as a model benefactor to representing him as a remote, autocratic ruler, that is, the transition from an idealized monarchy, in which virtue, generosity and public giving were emphasized, to a very different kind of rule. One consequence of this shift was a considerable decrease in gifts by elites, who ceased to perceive munificence as a way to strengthen their position. Interestingly, this is contrary to what Gauthier imagined took place when the Hellenistic monarchs stopped performing benefactions in the late Hellenistic period and were replaced in this role by polis elites. After several chapters focusing on the polis and benefactors beyond the polis (kings and emperors), as well as on the expanded group of beneficiaries that included not only citizens but other inhabitants of the polis, the final two chapters directed our attention to smaller units within cities, specifically churches and their communities. While this is normal in any study of gift-giving in the late antique world, the consideration of smaller units is uncommon in research on public benefactions in earlier periods, which normally concentrates on the city as a whole. Robin Osborne, however, shows the value of paying attention to smaller-scale entities within the classical polis in his discussion in Chapter  of benefactions in classical Athenian demes. Osborne demonstrates how much scale affects gift-giving. The smaller the group, the smaller the pool of potential benefactors. Consequently, small communities were intensely devoted to attracting sufficient benefactions, and they used the incentive of public honors to do so. Moreover, it was more difficult for demes to identify volunteers for offices than it was for the polis, and this led demes to grant honors even for services that merely represented the execution of official duties. As a consequence, in classical Athens we find relatively more

Conclusion



evidence of honors for benefactors at the deme level than we do at the level of the polis, and this evidence starts earlier. This is also noted by Domingo Gygax, who in his chapter suggests that the reluctance to grant honors to local benefactors was more easily overcome due to factors such as greater financial need and the stronger position of deme elites, who could rely on a broader and better organized basis of support. This final point reminds us of one other aspect of public gift-giving that has become apparent in this volume. The history of public gifts is less complicated than that of the honors with which such gifts were rewarded, that is, the development of what might be called public counter-gifts. The custom of openly and officially compensating benefactors began later, especially if we consider the practice of honoring citizens, which seems to have been influenced by the practice of rewarding foreigners, with the exception of the very old tradition of honoring citizens for athletic victories. Domingo Gygax makes clear the difficulties this turn toward publicly honoring citizen-benefactors posed for the Athenians in classical times, while subsequent chapters bring out the repercussions of the steps the Athenians took. Although there was always compensation for benefactions, from the moment compensations were made official, the consequences of the exchange between elite and dēmos changed. Granting honors to fellow citizens was different from awarding them to noncitizens, who rarely made their honorific citizenship effective and thus, from the point of view of the polis, remained persons of lower status. It is revealing that despite the many high honors awarded to citizens, post-classical poleis generally avoided granting such individuals the title euergetes or inscribing them on lists of euergetai. We began this book by noting that recent literature on the political and economic ‘decline’ of the post-classical polis had encouraged us to investigate the public gift from the Homeric world to Late Antiquity. While public generosity rather than the controversy about the crisis of the polis is the focus of the volume and of these final conclusions, we should close by noting that we hope the results will be used in the ‘decline’ debate. How is that debate affected, for example, by the thesis put forward by some contributors that public gifts served to compensate the masses for the privileged position of elites from the archaic period to the Roman Empire? Or by the argument that classical Athens tried to avoid public elite gifts and honors for citizens – but eventually came to accept them, largely for financial reasons – and prioritized liturgies and taxes over voluntary gifts? At a fundamental level, the debate about elite public generosity in the ancient Greek world is a debate about the relationship



     

of the wealthy and powerful individual to the community (a theme as relevant nowadays as it was in antiquity) and about the development of this relationship throughout the long and variegated history of the polis. This is a crucially important subject in and of itself, but, as we suggest, it is also one with wide ramifications for other areas of ancient Greek history. Thus we hope that the arguments put forward in this volume not only will inspire further research on the topic of public giving in the polis, but also will help to contribute new insights to some of the broader debates in polis history, debates within which specific views of elite public generosity have often played a crucial role.

Index

abbots,  Academy,  Achaia,  Achaemenids, , , – Achaian League,  Actium,  adventus,  Aeschines, –, – Aetolians,  agonistic spirit,  agōnothetai, , , , , ,  agora, , , ,  Athenian, , , ,  Aigiale, ,  Aixone,  Aizanoi,  Akraiphia,  Alcibiades, , ,  Alcmaeonids, ,  Alexander III the Great, , , –,  Alexander IV,  Alexandria, , , , , , –,  Alexandria in the Troad,  alms, , , – almsgiving, , ,  Alopece,  Altar of the Twelve Gods erection of,  Amorgos, ,  amphitheatres, ,  Anastasius, ,  Andocides, ,  anger, divine,  animals, sacrificial,  antidemocratic tendencies, of euergetism,  Antigonids, , , ,  Antigonos,  Antigonos I Monophthalmos, ,  Antioch, , , ,  Antiochos I Soter, , –, –, , , 

Antiochos II Theos,  Antiochos III Megas, –, ,  Antiochos IV Epiphanes,  Antonine Plague,  Apama I, ,  Apameia, Treaty of,  Aphrodisias, , –,  Apollonis,  aqueducts,  Aquileia, , ,  arbitration, fees for,  archon list, Delian,  Argeads,  aristocracy, agonistic orientation of,  ascetics, Christian, , ,  Asia,  Asia Minor, ,  assemblies, , , , –, , , –, ,  associations, ,  benefactions towards, ,  of performers,  religious,  Athens, , , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , –, – athletes, , , , ,  Attalids, –, ,  Attalos I Soter,  Attalos II Philadelphos,  Attica, –, , , , ,  Augustine of Hippo, bishop, ,  Augustus, , ,  autonomy, civic, , , , , –,  autonomy, financial, of late antique cities,  Babylon, , , –, ,  Babylonia, , , , 





Index

banquets,  barley,  Barsanuphius, hermit,  basilicas, Christian, , –,  baths, , , – beggars, , , ,  benefactions of the Christian laity,  by Hellenistic kings, ,  private vs. public,  Big-Man,  bishops, , –, –, , , , ,  as benefactors,  legitimacy of,  Bithynia,  Boeotia,  Brauron, – bread,  bribes, ,  gifts as,  bridges,  Byzantion,  Cape Sounion,  Caracalla, ,  care for the dead,  Carthage, Council of,  cavalry,  central-place theory,  Ceos,  Chaeronea, Battle of, , ,  Chalcedon, Council of, – charity, –, , , , , , , –,  chiefdom,  children, as recipients,  Chios,  chorēgia,  church funds, proper use of,  church portraits, of benefactors, ,  churches, , , , , , ,  donations to,  revenues of,  tributes to benefactors in,  Cimon, , , –, –,  benefactions of, ,  circus,  city councillors, ,  city councils, , , , –, –, , , , , , ,  transformation of,  city government, post-curial,  Claudius,  Cleisthenes,  Cleon, , , 

coins, ,  heraldic,  imperial,  to mark festivals,  colonies, Roman,  Commodus, ,  common land,  competition, intra-elite,  Constans,  Constantine, , , , , ,  Constantinople, , , –, , – Constantius II,  convents,  Corcyra,  Corinth, ,  Corinthian Gulf,  Corinthian League,  council house,  counter-gifts, , , , , , ,  as equivalent to gifts,  excessive,  expressing inferiority,  honours as,  courts, of Hellenistic kings, ,  Crete, , ,  crisis, of the third century,  Croesus,  cult, , , – imperial, , ,  curatores rei publicae, , ,  Cyclades, ,  Cyprus,  Cyril of Alexandria, patriarch,  Cyrrhus,  Cyzicus,  debt, through gifts,  debt-bondage,  debt-slavery,  decentralization, of euergetism,  decision-making, in Homer,  decrees, honorific, , ,  dedications,  non-royal, on Delos,  royal,  to Roman emperors,  deference,  Delian League,  Delos, , , ,  Delphi, , , –, , , , ,  demes, –, , , , , , ,  benefactions toward,  honours from, – Demetrios I Poliorketes,  democracy, , , 

Index Athenian, radicalisation of,  and euergetism,  and management of foundations,  new concept of, in benefactions,  in post-classical poleis, , , , ,  democratisation, of euergetism,  Demodamas of Miletos, –,  dēmos, , , , , , , , –, , , –, , , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, –, , , ,  as benefactor,  role in relation to foundations,  Demosthenes, , –, –, , – Didyma, , –, –,  Didymaion,  Diocletian,  Diolkos,  Dionysia,  discourse, honorific,  distributions,  dues, , – paid to tyrants, ,  relationship with benefactions,  sacrificial,  Edessa, ,  Egypt, , , , ,  eisphora, , , , , , , , ,  Eleusis, , ,  emperors as benefactors, ,  as model benefactors, , , ,  empires, and royal euergetism,  ephebes, ,  Ephesus, , –, , ,  First Council of,  Second Council of,  epidoseis, , , , –, , ,  Epikephisia,  eranos, –, , ,  meal,  Eresos,  Euboea,  euergetism Christian,  democratization of,  effects of empire on,  by Hellenistic kings,  incompatibility with Christianity,  ob honorem, , , – opposition between Christianity and,  Eumenes II Philadelphos, –,  Eusebius of Pelusium, bishop, 



exceptionalism, royal,  expenditure, royal,  exploitation, of the people,  false consciousness,  famine relief,  feasting, ,  collective,  feasts, , –, , , ,  funerary, ,  of the gods,  sacrificial,  festival calendar, Delian,  festivals, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  athletic,  athletic, dramatic or cultural,  as benefactions,  dedicated to Roman emperors,  on Delos,  donations of,  funding of,  growing functionalisation of,  misbehaviour of tyrants during,  religious,  rivalries and tensions associated with,  royal, ,  shaping euergetism,  as sources of social tensions,  feudal dues,  figs,  flour,  foreigners, , ,  as benefactors, , ,  as recipients,  honours for,  foundation documents,  democratic function of,  foundations, –, , , , ,  funerary, – of monasteries on private estates,  popular control of,  principles of,  for private memorial churches,  fountain houses,  friendship, ritualised, ,  games, , , , , , , , , ,  donations of,  Panhellenic,  gardens, as benefactions by tyrants,  garrisoning, of cities by Hellenistic kings,  Gaul, , , 



Index

Gaza, , , ,  gene,  honouring benefactors,  Gerasa, – gift-exchange, , , , , , , –, , , –, , , , , , , , ,  gifts alienating dimension of,  benefits of,  circulation of,  grain,  distribution of, , ,  supply, civic,  Greece,  Gregory the Great, Pope, – Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop,  guest-friendship, , , , , ,  gymnasium, , , , , ,  Hadrian, –, –, ,  Hadrianople, Battle of,  Halimous, – harbour dues,  Harmodius and Aristogiton, ,  hegemony,  hektēmoroi,  Hellenism, as identity,  Heraclius,  herms, with epigrams,  heroization, ,  Hierapolis-Bambyke,  Hipparchus,  Hippias, , ,  Homeric leader as counsel-giver,  as judge,  as protector,  homonoia,  Honorius,  honours, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , –,  for Archaic kings,  exchange of benefactions for,  link with imperial benefactions,  proleptic,  public display of,  for Roman emperors,  struggle for,  hoplite phalanx,  horse race,  hospices, , , ,  hospitality, , –, –, –,  public, –

hospitals, , –, ,  for women,  hostels,  hybris,  ideology,  of civic benefaction,  of imperial benefaction,  of public service, Homeric,  Roman imperial,  Ikarion, , ,  injustice, punished by Zeus,  inscriptions, , , , ,  church, ,  dedicatory,  honorific, , , , , , , , , , , ,  dearth of at Byzantine sites,  Ionia,  Ionian League, , , –, – Ioulis,  Ipsos, Battle of,  Isidore of Pelusium,  Jerusalem, –, , , ,  Jews,  John Chrysostom, bishop, , , , ,  Jordan,  Julian,  jury service, payment for, ,  Justinian, ,  karpophoria, , , , ,  katoikoi,  Kaunos,  koina, ,  Koroupedion, Battle of, ,  Kyme,  labour, agricultural,  labour services, ,  Labraunda,  Laodicea,  Laodicea Combusta,  Larisa,  law courts, ,  leadership, military,  legal procedure, in Hellenistic cities,  legitimation of power, , , –,  through benefactions, ,  Lemnos,  lending, in Archaic Greek rural society,  leprosarium,  Levant, 

Index liberalitas, , , – libraries,  Licinius,  lithomania,  accusations of, – liturgies, , , , –, –, , –, , , , , , , , , , –,  liturgy system, Athenian, ,  livestock, funds derived from, , , , , , , –,  loans, ,  advanced by tyrant,  Long Walls, Athens,  Lyceum,  Lycia, , ,  Lycurgus,  Lysimachos, , , – Magnesia,  Magnesia-by-Sipylos,  Marathon, ,  Marcus Aurelius,  marriage,  gifts associated with,  martyriai,  Maxentius,  meals, public, , ,  mediators, Hellenistic kings as,  mediocres, gifts towards churces by,  Megalopolis,  Megara,  Melania the Younger, ,  Melite, ,  Mesopotamia,  Messene,  metals, revenues from,  metoikoi, ,  Milan, Edict of,  Miletus, , , , , , , –, –,  military service, as a gift,  mines gold and silver, Thrace,  silver, Attica,  Mithridates,  monasteries, , , , , , ,  monasticism,  money, distribution of, ,  monks,  mosaics, , , , , –,  munera,  late Roman, – Myrrhinous, 



navy,  Nazianzus,  Near East,  negotiations, surrounding benefactions,  Nicias, ,  notables, , –, , , , , , ,  Christian,  nymphaea,  oaths, alliances based on,  obligation,  oil,  distribution of, , ,  for gymnasium,  Oinoanda, , –, – oligarchisation, , ,  of civic politics,  oligarchy,  olives,  Olympia, , , , ,  victories at,  Olympieion, at Athens,  Orchomenos,  ordo decurionum, ,  Oropus,  ostracism,  oxen,  Oxyrhynchus,  Pagai,  Palestine, ,  Palestrina,  Panathenaia, ,  paroikoi,  patronage, , , , ,  in Archaic Greece,  of cities,  of cities by Hellenistic kings,  gifts as a form of,  religious,  Roman,  Paul, apostle,  payment,  Peloponnese, ,  Peloponnesian War, –, , –, , ,  Pelusium,  penalties,  penance, discourse of,  Pergamon, , ,  Perge,  Pericles, , –,  Philaidai,  philhellenism,  philia, , , , ,  Philip II of Macedon, 



Index

Philip III,  Philip V, , , ,  philoi, –, , , , –,  philotimia, , , , , , , , , ,  in honorific decrees,  Phlya,  Phoenicians,  phratries, ,  Piraeus, ,  Pisistratids, , , –, ,  Pisistratus, , –, , – plebs, ,  Pliny the Younger, as governor of Bithynia,  Plotheia,  plunder, , ,  polis decline of,  spatial integration of,  politics, Greek conception of,  Polycrates of Samos,  Pontos,  poorhouses, , , –,  popular courts, Athenian, ,  portraits,  potlatch,  poverty, , , ,  praise, public rituals of,  pre-state societies,  Priene, – priests, , , , ,  principales,  private ownership,  prizes, , , ,  cash, at festivals,  distribution of, to victors,  at the Panathenaia,  recipients of,  and rewards in Classical Athens,  processions, , –, , ,  profit, ,  provincial administration, Roman,  provincial governors, as benefactors,  proxenia, , , ,  Prusias ad Hypium,  prytaneion, , , –, ,  ptōchika, , , ,  ptōchoi, , –, –,  Ptolemies, –, , ,  Ptolemy I Soter,  Ptolemy II Philadelphos, , ,  Ptolemy III Euergetes, , ,  Ptolemy V Epiphanes, ,  public administration, Athenian, 

public building, , , , , ,  avoidance of donations for,  foundations related to,  public finance, civic, –, , , , ,  deterioration of,  undermining of city councils’ control of,  public monuments, restoration of,  public service, of Homeric kings and lords,  Rabbula of Edessa, bishop,  ransom, ,  reciprocity, , , –, , –, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –,  between cities and empires,  generalized and abstract, ,  indirect,  long-term effects of,  monumentalization of,  between people and elite in Archaic Greece,  and pre-state structures,  and statehood,  between tyrant and people, ,  redistribution, , ,  euergetism as,  reforms, of Solon, ,  Rhamnous,  rhetoric,  Rhodes,  riots, – Romanization,  Romans, –, ,  Rome,  ruler-cult,  sacrifice, , –, , , , –, , , , , –,  expenditure on,  sacrificial victims,  Salamis,  Samos, , ,  sanctuaries benefactions to,  pan-Hellenic,  Sardis,  Saronic Gulf,  satrap,  schools, , ,  foundations for,  Scillus, ,  Seleucids, –, –, –, ,  Seleukos I Nikator, –, , , – Seleukos II Kallinikos, , –,  Seleukos IV Philopator, 

Index self-fashioning, elite,  Septimius Severus,  Sestos, – sheep,  Shenoute of Atripe, abbot,  ships, ,  Sicilian expedition,  Sicyon, ,  Side,  Sillyon,  simony,  accusations of,  Skepsis,  slavery,  slaves, –, –, ,  as recipients,  Smyrna, , ,  social aid, ,  social revolutions, archaic,  Social War, , – sovereignty,  Sparta, , , , , , , ,  Sphacteria, Battle of,  spoils, , , ,  tithe from,  spolia, ,  springs,  stadia, , , –,  stasis, , , , – state absence of,  Weberian definition of,  state formation,  statues, , , , ,  honorific, dearth of at Byzantine sites,  of Hadrian,  portrait,  of Roman emperors,  for Roman emperors, proliferation of,  Stoa of Antigonus,  Stoa of the Herms,  Stoa of Philip V,  stoas, , , , , –,  Stratonike I,  Stratonikeia,  subgroups, civic,  suitors,  Syria, ,  Syrian Wars,  Tanagra,  taxation; see also taxes of cities by Hellenistic kings,  direct and indirect, 



Roman imperial,  immunity from,  systems of,  taxes, , , , ; see also taxation on crops,  exemption from, ,  paid by cities to Hellenistic kings,  port, ,  raised by city-states,  and statehood,  Tegea,  temples, , , , , , , ,  inventories of,  tenants,  Teos,  Theagenes of Megara,  theatre auditoria, Greek, hierarchisation of under Rome,  theatres, , , , , , –, , ,  theatre shows,  Theatre of Dionysus,  Thebes, , ,  Themistocles, ,  Theodoret of Cyrrhus, bishop,  Theodosius,  Theophilus of Alexandria, bishop,  Thera,  Theseion,  Thessaloniki, ,  Third Syrian War,  Thirty Tyrants,  Thrace, , ,  Tiberius,  tithe collected by tyrant,  in Mycenaean Greece,  trade, , ,  traders,  Trajan, ,  treasury church, ,  civic,  public,  tribes, ,  benefactions towards,  tribute, –, –, , , , , –,  from mines,  Troy, , , , , –,  tyranny, ,  aristocratic character of,  liberation from,  and state formation, 

 tyrants, , ,  dues paid to,  gardens as benefactions by,  loans advanced by, – misbehaviour of, during festivals,  reciprocity between tyrant and people, ,  as thiefs of common goods,  tithe, collected by,  and water supply,  Tyre,  urbanization,  decline of,  Valens,  Valentinian I, – Valentinian II,  variety, of gift-giving in Homer,  Verona,  Vespasian, 

Index violence, threat of,  virtues, of rulers,  visibility, of Hellenistic euergetism,  votive offerings, ,  walls, , , , ,  warfare, cost of, , – Weber, Max, definition of the state,  wedding, ,  wedding feast,  wine, , , , , ,  distribution of, , ,  women, as recipients,  wool-working,  workshops,  Xanthos,  xenia, , , –, , , ,  xenoi, ,  yields, 

Index locorum

Literary sources Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum . . . :  . . : 

Anonymous v.Jo.Eleem. : 

Appian Syr. : 

Aelian Apsines

VH . : 

.  ( Dilts–Kennedy): 

Aelius Aristides :  . :  . : 

Aeschines . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . –:  . :  . –: – . : 

Aristophanes Eq. –:  Eq. –: ,  Eq. :  Eq. –:  Ran. : 

Aristotle and ps.-Aristotle

Ammianus Marcellinus . . : 

Andocides . :  . –:  . –:  . –: , –

Ath. . . :  Ath. . :  Ath. . :  Ath. . –:  Ath. . :  Ath. . –: ,  Ath. . :  Ath. . :  Ath. . :  Ath. . –:  EE b–b:  EE a–:  EN b–a:  EN a–:  EN b–:  EN b–:  EN a–:  Oec. . : ,  Oec. a: 





Index locorum

Pol. a:  Pol. a–:  Pol. a:  Pol. a–:  Rh. b–:  Rh. b–:  Rhet. Al. b–: 

 Macc. : –:  Matt. : :  Matt. : –:  Acts : –: 

Cassius Dio . . : 

Arrian Choricius of Gaza

Anab. . . : 

Astydamas TrGF  T a–b: 

Athanasius and ps.-Athanasius Apol. ad Constant. :  Can. :  Can. :  Can. : 

Athenaeus . d:  . f–a:  . f–c: , 

Augustine BA . :  De. util. cred. . :  En. in Ps. :  En. in Ps. . . :  Ep. :  Erfurt Sermon . :  Serm. . . :  Serm . . :  Serm. : 

Barsanuphius Qu. et resp. : 

Basil of Caesarea Ep. . : 

Laud. Marciani . :  Or. . :  Or. . : 

Chronicum Edessum an. : 

Codex Iustinianus . . .:  . . .:  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . :  . . :  . . –:  . . : 

Codex Theodosianus . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . :  . . : ,  . . :  . . : – . . :  . . : 

Bible Prov. : :   Chron. : : 

Cratinus fr.  K–A: 



Index locorum Demosthenes and ps.-Demosthenes . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . : ,  . –:  . –:  . :  . :  . :  :  . :  . : ,  . :  . : ,  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . : ,  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . :  . :  :  fr. . –: 

Dinarchus . : 

Dio Chrysostom . . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  :  . :  . . :  . . :  . –: 

Diodorus Siculus . . :  . :  . . :  . . :  . –:  . . :  . :  . :  . :  . : 

Diogenes Laertius . :  . : 

Epicharmus fr.  ap. [Pl.] Ax. c: 

Epiphanius Adv. haeres. . . : 

Evagrius Scholasticus Hist. eccl. .: 

Gorgias  B  D–K ap. Plut. Cim. . : , 



Index locorum Gregory the Great

Reg. . :  Reg. . : 

Gregory Nazianzus Or. . : –

Gerontius v.Melan. : v.Melan. : v.Melan. : v.Melan. : v.Melan. : v.Melan. :

     

Hesiod and ps.-Hesiod Op. –:  Op. :  Op. :  Op. : ,  Op. –: ,  Op. –:  Theog. –:  fr.  M–W: 

Herodotus . . :  . . :  . :  . :  . . :  . –:  . :  . . :  . . :  . :  . :  . : 

Hist. Aceph. : 

Homer, Il. . :  . :  . :  . :  . –: 

. –:  . .  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . –: ,  . –:  . –: – . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –: ,  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . :  . : – . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –: 



Index locorum . :  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –: ,  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . :  . –:  . –: 

. :  . –:  . –:  . –: 

Homer, Od. . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –: ,  . :  . –:  . –:  . –: ,  . –:  . –:  . –: 



Index locorum . :  . –:  . : 

. –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . :  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . –:  . : 

Isidore of Pelusium Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. :  Ep. : 

Isocrates . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . : , –

Jerome Ep. . : 

Hymn. Hom. Ap. –: 

Hypereides frr. – Jensen: 

Idomeneus FGrH  F: 

John Chrysostom  Cor. . –:   Cor. . :  De Inani Gloria –: , ,  Exp. in Ps. :  Gen. . :  In Act. : ,  In Act. . :  In Mt. . :  In Mt. . :  In Stat. . :  In Tit. : 

Isaeus . :  . –: 

John Lydus Mag. . : 



Index locorum John Moschus Prat. : 

ps.-John of Tella Can. : 

Josephus AJ . . –: , 

Justinian

. –:  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . :  . : 

Man of God of Edessa

Nov. . :  Nov. : ,  Nov. . : 

–:  : 

Juvenal . –: 

Leontius of Neapolis v.Jo.Eleem. :  v.Jo.Eleem. :  v.Jo.Eleem. :  v.Jo.Eleem. :  v.Jo.Eleem. : – v.Jo.Eleem. :  v.Jo.Eleem. : 

Marcus Diaconus v.Porph. :  v.Porph. :  v.Porph. : 

ps.-Martyrius of Antioch Or. fun. : 

Memnon of Heraclea FGrH  F : 

Libanius Or. . . : 

Livy

Menander Rhetor :  : 

Nepos

. . –:  . . :  . :  . : 

. :  . . :  . :  . . : 

Lycurgus . :  fr.  Conomis =  Burtt =  Durrbach: 

Lysias . –:  . :  . :  . :  . –:  . –: 

Origen In Mt. . :  In Mt. . : 

Palladius Hist. Laus. . :  v.Chrys. :  v.Chrys. :  v.Chrys. : – v.Chrys. . : 



Index locorum Panegyric of Rabbula

:  –:  :  : ,  –:  :  :  :  : ,  –: 

Mor. b:  Mor. d:  Mor. f:  Mor. f:  Mor. f:  Mor. f–a:  Mor. f–a:  Mor. f:  Mor. f:  Mor. b:  Prae. ger. Reip. :  Prae. ger. Reip. : 

Pausanias . . :  . . :  . . –: 

Polyaenus Strat.. . : 

Polybius

Philo of Alexandria Mos. . : 

Philochorus FGrH  F : 

. –:  . . :  . . –:  . . :  . :  . . : 

POxy

Plato :  : 

Grg. a:  Leg. e:  R. a–b: 

Procopius Pliny

Aed. . . : 

Nat. . : 

Rabbula of Edessa Plutarch Alc. . :  Alc. . :  Alex. . –:  Alex. . :  Cim. : , ,  Cim. . :  Cim. . –: ,  Nic. –.:  Nic. . –:  Nic. . : ,  Per. :  Per. . –:  Per. . –:  Sol. :  Them. :  Them. :  Them. :  Mor. a: 

Can. –: 

Reg. Ecc. Carth. : 

Scholia on Aristid. (Dindorf III. ):  on Aristid. (Dindorf III. ):  on D. .: 

Second Council of Ephesus Acts :  Articles against Hiba –:  Articles against Hiba –:  First report on Hiba:  First Report : 



Index locorum Records against Hiba :  Records against Hiba : 

Severus of Antioch Ant. Hom. Cath. –:  Ep. . :  Ep. . : 

Simonides  Bergk = Page FGE –: 

Socrates Scholasticus Hist. eccl. . . : 

Solon fr. .  West:  fr.  West: 

Thucydides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

:  .–:  . :  . : – . –:  . :  . :  . –:  :  . :  :  :  :  . –:  . : ,  . :  . :  . :  . : 

v.Alex. Acoem. Sozomen Hist. eccl. . . :  Hist. eccl. . . : 

Strabo . . :  . . :  . . : 

–: , 

Vitruvius . :  . : 

Xenophon Theodoret

Ep. . :  Ep. . : 

Theognis –:  –:  –:  –:  –: , 

An. . . –:  An. . . : ,  An. . . :  An. . . –:  HG . :  HG . . :  HG . . :  Lac. . :  Lac. . :  Oec. . :  Poroi . :  Symp. . –: 

Inscriptions

Theophrastus Char. :  Char. : – fr.  Fortenbaugh: 

AE , :  , : 

Theopompus FGrH  F : ,  FGrH  F: , , 

Agora XV –:  XV : 



Index locorum Ἀρχ. Ἐφ. 

Χρ. –: 

CEG :  :  : 

CIL VI :  VIII :  IX :  XIV : 

I.Délos –:  :  :  : – : –, ,  :  : ,  :  : – : ,  : 

I.Didyma Dessau, ILS

:  :  : 

Durrbach (–) –: 

:  :  :  : , ,  : , 

I.Ephesos : 

I.Erythrai

EDR : 

: 

I.Manisa

Feissel and Philippides-Braat () : 

–, no.: 

I.Priene

FIRA I :  : 

.: 

Hall and Milner () I.Prusias ad Hypium

b:  : 

: 

IAph . :  . : 

I.Sestos : –, 

I.Smyrna

I. Corinth : 

: 



Index locorum I.Stratonikeia I : 

IG I :  I : ,  I :  I :  I :  II :  II :  II : ,  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II : ,  II : – II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II :  II : ,  II :  II : , – II :  II : – II : ,  II : ,  II : ,  II :  II : 

II :  II :  VII :  VII : ,  IX , , :  XI, :  XI, , :  XI, , :  XI, , :  XI, , : ,  XI, , : ,  XI, , :  XI, , :  XI, , :  XI, , :  XI, , : –, , – XI, , :  XI, , :  XII, , :  XII, , : ,  XII, , : , , , –

IGLSyr. I :  VII : 

IGR :  –: 

ILLRP : 

JÖAI () , –: 

Kraeling () :  :  : , 

Laum : : : :

–  , , ,  , 

 : : : :

Index locorum Prêtre and Brunet ()

   

–: –

RC McCabe Hyllarima : 

McCabe Panamara : 

:  :  :  :  :  : –,  : 

MDAI (A)  (), –: 

Reynolds : 

Michel () RO

:  :  : 

: 

Milet I. : – : 

RWI Anemurion : 

SEG

OGI :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : –, 

Oliver : 

OR :  :  : 

II : – XI :  XIX :  XXI :  XXI :  XXII : ,  XXII : – XXIV :  XXIV :  XXV : – XXVIII :  XXX :  XXXII :  XXXVIII : , ,  XXXIX :  XLIV :  XLIV :  XLIV : ,  XLIV :  LV : 

Smallwood 

Piccirillo () : 

: 



Index locorum Syll. :  :  :  : 

TAM V. :  :  : 