Much like music festivals today, religious festivals in antiquity were hugely popular and drew tremendous crowds from across the ancient world. Especially after Alexander the Great, they became central nodes in a network that connected cities across the Mediterranean, and well beyond. Besides religious ceremonies, these festivals were lively spectacles that included song and dance as well as sporting events and music or theatrical competitions, with prizes. Cities especially in the eastern Mediterranean increasingly organized these ‘transnational’ events which were social and economic magnets and channels of political diplomacy all at the same time. But who was behind them? What did they mean to the different people who visited them? Was everyone equally involved? Or thrilled? How did people respond to them? What kinds of narratives did they inspire?
The Deep Mapping Sanctuaries project seeks to answer these questions through concepts of place-making, spatial narratives, and deep mapping. Drawn from the social sciences and urban planning, ‘place-making‘ is used to describe how people take ownership of a certain place, investing their identities through stories, rituals or other actions, monuments, and through what they leave behind. This concept is ideal for understanding the multi-vocality of a place.
In the ancient world, most of our surviving evidence of place-making stems from ‘official’ sources, like temples, theaters, and statues, commissioned by polities and individuals that could afford them. But looking carefully, we can sometimes get a glimpse of the crowds that once gathered there, telling stories, scratching their names on the walls or under the statues, leaving private dedications (votives) to the gods, and sometimes just by the wear and tear of their footprints.
This project attempts to combine these different kinds and levels of data into a composite ‘spatial narrative‘ of what these festival sites meant to different people at different times, seeking to understand the notion of place at the crossroads of collective ideologies and personal lives. Using the concept of ‘deep mapping‘, it attempts to assimilate the multiple layers of meaning accumulating across time in order to assess the long-term biography of a place in its relationships with people at the local, regional and ‘transnational’ levels.
Want to see deep-mapping in action? Visit the story map…
We were very happy to be at the Connected Past conference at Aarhus last month (even if did rain pretty much the whole time) discussing the network analytical aspects of our project. We gave a paper on September 30th presenting some of our work with networks so far – here’s a copy of the abstract and our presentation slides:
Multi-scalar festival network agents in the Hellenistic and Roman world: Regions, Kingdoms, and Empire
Adam Wiznura, Tom Britton, and Robin van Vliet (University of Groningen)
In this paper we will present a joint project (NWO and OIKOS Anchoring Innovation) that envisions the spectacular rise of festival culture in the Hellenistic and Roman period as a driving force constantly forging ties and linking the world of Greek communities together. We consider the development of this shared festival culture, embedded in Greek practices, as a key factor in the creation of an imagined community of cities within the Hellenistic world, paving the way for the Roman Empire. The object of analysis is the networks of interaction and ideas produced by agonistic festivals with a focus on the agency behind the networks. Artefactual data on the movements of athletes and the diffusion of prizes and festivals is provided through inscriptions and coinage and is subject to analysis using network-theoretic approaches in combination with agent-based modelling.This paper studies agonistic festivals from several angles, and comprises distinct but interrelated research projects conducted on different scales: At the regional level, festivals in Thessaly are examined using network theory in connection with regional identity processes. Following will be a discussion of Hellenistic kings as agents, using agonistic festivals to legitimize their authority. Lastly, we examine how festivals during the Roman period were anchored in pre-existing Greek practices, connecting the two worlds into a global empire centered on Rome.
We are very excited to announce that we are organising a conference on inter-urban religious contacts, to take place (hopefully in person!) at Groningen this autumn. We invite anyone interested in cities, religious practices and the ties between them to submit an abstract – you can read all about it here.
Hello! We’ve already seen that early Hellenistic rulers were willing to spend quite a bit of money and effort on gathering athletes, musicians and other competitors for festivals. At first these were one-off events, separate from the regular circuit of major games which had existed for centuries before Alexander. Yet from about 280 BC that changed – kings started to manage their own regular festivals, creating permanent ties to the Greek civic world in the process. The methods which they used to found and promote these festivals would in time be picked up by the cities themselves and then by the Romans, and some of these newly-founded competitions would come to rival the very oldest games in Greece. But the trend began with a single city, poised between the Mediterranean and the Middle East, one that exemplified all that was new about the Hellenistic era – Alexandria.
The city was founded as a port on the western edge of the Nile delta in 333/2, upon the Makedonian conquest of Egypt. In fact, Alexander founded more than forty different Alexandrias in his career, but “Alexandria by Egypt” grew to be the largest, mainly due to its position as a gateway to wealthy Egypt from the Mediterranean. After Alexander’s death his general Ptolemy made it the capital of a new kingdom, using the enormous fertility of the Nile as a basis for one of the most powerful states in the new Hellenistic political system. By the time of Ptolemy’s death in 283, Alexandria was a major commercial and political centre, and almost unique in Egypt as one of only three cities with Greek civic institutions.
It was thus the natural place for the new king, Ptolemy II, to hold memorials for his late father. In 279, on the fourth anniversary of his father’s death, Ptolemy II established a new, quadrennial festival to be held near Alexandria, called the Ptolemaia. This was swiftly associated with a second, similar set of games, the Theadelpheia, held in honour of Ptolemy II and his new wife (and sister) Arsinoe. A third festival, the Basileia, was dedicated to Royal Zeus, patron of the ruling dynasty. This complex of festivals was an unprecedented creation for a king, and must have entailed considerable expense. Yet Ptolemy II thought it worthwhile not merely to create the new contests but to pursue a vigorous diplomatic campaign to encourage attendance by competitors from across the Greek world.
This strategy is familiar from the later efforts of the Attalid king Eumenes II in promoting his own festivals – indeed, the Ptolemies set the standard for the marketing of royal games. Central to their approach was a request that other cities recognise the new contests as “isolympic” – equal to the Olympics and the Pythia, the most prestigious competitions in Greece. Not only would this raise the profile of the Alexandrian festivals, but crucially it meant that victors at Alexandria would receive the same valuable prizes and public honours in their native cities as would Olympic winners. This recognition (and it was eventually obtained from most, if not all, Greek cities) was thus key to attracting skilled competitors to festivals which had not even existed, let alone been culturally significant, only a few years before.
How successful was Ptolemy? Several records survive of men travelling to Alexandria to compete in the new games, but the quality of talent seems to have been mixed. One tragic actor from the Peloponnese won the boxing contest at the Ptolemaia, which certainly doesn’t suggest a surplus of elite athletes. On the other hand, an extremely successful lyrist who may have been the famous Nikokles of Taras competed at the Basileia, and an Olympic victor won a chariot-race at the Theadelpheia. Perhaps the amateur boxer was the exception rather than the rule, and in general the new festivals did see participation from the highest tier of Greek competitive culture. Statistical analysis of competitors travelling to and from Greek festival sites also suggests that Alexandria became an important node in the wider network of festivals during the third century.
These maps of the dense network of connections between sporting festivals, formed by travelling competitors, show the development of Egypt as a festival centre over time. From humble beginnings at the start of the period, Egypt became a frequent destination for competitors in the 3rd century, only to fall from significance as royal resources declined. (Note that the Ptolemaic court and royal family are separated out from other athletes in these maps, but would in fact have resided in Alexandria.)
Late 4th century BCEarly 3rd century BC1st Century BC (prior to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC)
Yet competitors are only part of the picture. Another frequent sight at Greek festivals were theōroi, sacred envoys sent to participate in rituals and sacrifices by foreign cities. Ptolemy II and his successors actively encouraged these religious missions, asking all cities which recognised their festivals to send envoys not only when announcing their participation, but to every instance of the games. The Ptolemaia and Theadelpheia fell close together in the calendar, so cities seem to have sent theōroi to sacrifice at both together.
This practice was useful for both the kings and the cities. In this period the Ptolemies controlled a network of naval bases spanning the eastern Mediterranean, and held authority over a large number of coastal cities. Yet these cities had no regular means to communicate with their royal overlords. The sending of theōroi to Alexandria every four years created a predictable diplomatic framework for the negotiation of responsibilities and privileges with the royal court – we know that theōroi were given royal audiences after the festivals and were often in communication with other important court figures. From the Ptolemaic viewpoint, these visits were opportunities to forge relationships with civic politicians and to impress upon them the might and majesty of the kingdom, using the monumental architecture of the capital, grand processions of soldiers and exotic goods, and, of course, the games themselves.
The Alexandrian festivals were thus closely linked to royal strategic interests in the Mediterranean. As Ptolemaic power declined in the second century and royal forces were gradually expelled or withdrawn from their fortresses in the Aegean, so too did the need to engage closely with Greek civic networks. At the same time, growing strains on the royal treasury lessened the appeal of costly festivals. It is not clear whether any of the major contests were ever formally abolished, but after the middle of the second century Alexandria no longer appears as a centre of sporting culture. Only in the Roman period would the city’s fortunes and festivals be revived.
And yet there is still much more to learn from the great Ptolemaic festivals! This entry has looked at them as vehicles for engagement with Greece, but future posts will discuss their impact on sport and competition in Egypt, both in the court and in the countryside. Even more important was the precedent set by the Ptolemaia as the first “isolympic” festival. We will see that this claim, and its eventual acceptance by the Greeks, would transform the Mediterranean festival system forever.
Hi everyone! So far we have learned a lot about festivals
forging links with and within Hellenistic kingdoms, and we have also seen how smaller
festivals created cohesive regional identities and connected people with the landscape
around them. Now we will jump forward in time a little bit to see which role cults
and festivals played in cementing connections also with the Romans, from the
moment Rome set foot on Greek soil onwards (ca. 200 BCE).
By now it is commonplace that under the Roman Empire,
cults and festivals played an important role in legitimising imperial
authority, the imperial cult being the most well-known example. Often overlooked
however, are the Greek and Roman cult and festival interactions in the two-hundred
years prior to the Empire, when Roman domination over the Eastern Mediterranean
was still being contested. It was already during this period that Greek
communities started to use the familiar language of cults and festivals to explore and experiment with their relationship
with Rome, which, at the same time, influenced Roman approaches to the Greek
speaking world. The result was a dynamic process in which all sorts of new cults
and festivals started to appear, to which a significant innovation was added: they
were now, in one way or the other, focussed on Rome. Together these cults and
festivals played an important role in the anchoring of Roman power in the
Eastern Mediterranean.
The anchoring of Roman authority through pre-existing cult and festival practices took various forms. One of the ways in which this took shape was through the introduction of a new goddess, Thea Romē, and cults in her honour (see map). As part of this cult complex there also appeared new festivals, the so-called Romaia festivals. In addition, individual Romans (pro-magistrates and other officials) were also being honoured with cults and festivals, and Rome and/or the Romans were honoured collectively (e.g. as Common Benefactors) or through personifications and abstractions (e.g. the Demos Romaion) too.
Cults in honour ofThea Romē
We could interpret these new cult and festival
interactions as ‘anchoring processes’. In this process the coming of Rome and
the new cults and festivals linked to Roman authority can be seen as the
‘innovation’, and the pre-existing cults and festivals – to which the new
Rome-oriented cults and festivals were often linked – as the ‘anchors’, meaning
the traditional practices through which Greek communities and Roman agents
found a shared field of experience to create common knowledge and to connect
the new political developments to familiar frameworks.
A good example of how such anchoring processes worked can be found in Kyme, a city on the Western shore of Asia Minor. Already from classical times onwards this was a prosperous city, benefitting from its coastline location. Kyme’s prosperity continued after the Alexandrian conquest of Asia Minor, and the city’s well-being seems to have been hardly affected by the series of conflicts fought between Alexander’s successors. As a result of these conflicts however, political influence spheres followed each other quickly. First the city was part of the Seleukid Empire. But after the death of Antiochus III in the Battle of Magnesia, an event that had put an end to the Seleukid presence in Western Asia Minor, there followed a brief period of Attalid rule. Not much later Kyme decided to declare itself ally of Rome, and eventually became incorporated in the Roman province of Asia (Plb. 22.27, Liv. 38.39).
That festivals were an important medium for anchoring political change is shown by a rich epigraphic dossier that was found in Kyme, consisting of three documents: a decree containing a letter of Philetairos, the founder of the Attalid dynasty and successor to the Seleukid rulers (SEG 50.1195) dating to 280-278 or circa 270 BCE, a honorary decree for the Attalid official Epigonos dating to around 200 BCE (SEG 29.1216), and a honorary decree for the benefactress Archippe, dating to the 2nd half of the 2nd century BCE (SEG 33.1039), when Rome arrived on the scene. What these inscriptions show first is that festival titles changed in response to shifting political alliances. First of all, the city’s Dionysia changed from a pre-existing civic festival to the Dionysia and Antiocheia and then, in response to the transitions of rule, to the Dionysia and Attaleia, to be changed back again to the civic Dionysia without any appendage a few decades later. That Kymean festivals reflect political alliances is also shown by the Soteria festival, that changed from the Soteria and the Philetaireia to the Soteria and the Romaia, in the period that Roman power in the region firmly began to manifest itself.[1]
However, the set of Kymean inscriptions not only show that political change is reflected through festival titles. They also provide insight into how festivals and other cultic acts played an active role in the process of anchoring new powers. First of all, it are the inscriptions themselves, set up in highly visible and public places, that were an important tool in communicating shifting political alliances. Secondly, their contents emphasise the festivals, theatres, and processions as the mass-advertising media par excellence through which to publicly announce the messages of changing political power. Not always however, this needed to be the main subject. Often messages of political power were embedded in wider messages about civic benefactions and civic values. Hereby one made use of a shared field of experience i.e. the festival practices and related beneficiary acts that were already known, to embed the messages of these new political alliances in familiar frameworks.
This naturally raises questions about the specific nature of the anchoring of Roman power through cults and festivals, in the various forms as sketched above. In the next posts we will therefore take a look at other manifestations of early anchoring through which Roman authority gradually became embedded in pre-existing practices.
Robin
Further reading:
Ando, Clifford. 2000. Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire. Classics and contemporary thought ; 6.
Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.
Buraselis, Kostas. 2012.
“Appended Festivals: The Coordination and Combination of Traditional Civic
and Ruler Cult Festivals in the Hellenistic and Roman East.” Greek and Roman Festivals, Oxford:
247-265.
Mellor, Ronald. 1975. Thea Rōmē : the worship of the goddess Roma in the Greek world. Hypomnemata; 42. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Price, Simon. R.F. 1984. Rituals and power : the Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor.
Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press.
Sluiter, Ineke. 2017. “Anchoring Innovation: A
Classical Research Agenda.” European
Review 25, no. 1: 20–38.
Hello
everyone Adam here! Until now we have been talking about festivals and their
interactions with Hellenistic kingdoms, but what about the smaller festivals
that impact regions? In this post, I am going to focus on a much smaller festival,
without sporting events, that helped to shape the identity of people in the
Greek region of Thessaly during the Hellenistic period. This helps us understand
how groups of people identified within a smaller area and how people connected
closely with their surroundings.
This
particular festival was held in the Eastern Thessalian perioikos of
Magnesia on Mount Pelion, located next to the Aegean Sea. The name of the
festival is unclear, but it is possible it was called the “Chironidai
festival”, as the chironidai were the descendants of Chiron who was
sacred to the area around Mount Pelion. It was on Mount Pelion that Chiron is
said to have trained many heroes such as Achilles so Chiron was of special
mythological importance to the region and it is suggested many people
worshipped him.
A
sanctuary of Zeus Akraios and a cave of Chiron was partially excavated by
Apostolos Arvanitopoulos in 1911 on Mount Pelion. Arvanitopoulos mapped out a
plan of the site that can be seen below.
Plan of the Sanctuary of Zeus Akraios and Chiron on Mount Pelion (Arvanitopoulos, A. 1911. “Ανασκαφαί και έρευναι εν Θεσσαλία κατά το έτος 1911.” PAE: 307.)
So, what is known about the festival? What we know about this festival comes from a 3rd c. BC
literary text of Herakleides Kritikos (originally attributed to Dikaiarchos):
“On
the peak of the mountain’s topthere
is the cave called the Chironion and a shrine to Zeus Aktaios. At the rising of
the Dog Star, the time of greatest heat, the most distinguished of the citizens
(of Demetrias) and in the prime of their lives ascend, having been chosen in
the presence of the priest, clad in thick new fleeces – so cold is it on the
mountain.” (FHG II, fr. 60. 8, pg.
262 = BNJ 369A F2.8)
Interestingly, in this passage, Herakleides refers
to the shrine of Zeus Aktaios instead of Akraios. This is generally thought to be a
mistake as many inscriptions from the area mention a Zeus Akraios but a Zeus
Aktaios is never mentioned.
As there
are no other sanctuaries on Pelion’s other peaks, we know that this is referring to
the site excavated by Arvanitopoulos, and we know the procession
is started at the newly founded city of Demetrias (founded in 294/3 BC by
Demetrios Poliorketes). Although material evidence from the site indicates
people travelled to the site from around Magnesia from as early as the 5th
c. BC, this is the first written evidence that a formal procession occurred
every year.
In previous blog posts we have talked about agonistic
festivals (festivals with a sporting aspect), but many festivals that happened
contained just a religious aspect and that is what we are seeing here. Annually
youths dressed up in ram-skins and processed to a sanctuary that was around 30
km away on the top of a mountain. As this sanctuary was located at the top of
Mount Pelion, it was an extra-urban sanctuary, meaning it was located outside
of a city, and this procession to the sanctuary was a way for sacred space to
be crafted as the sanctuary was a symbolic boundary of Magnesian territory. We
can see on the map below a possible route to the sanctuary, though the precise
route taken is unknown.
Possible route of the procession from the city of Demetrias to the Sanctuary of Zeus Akraios and Chiron. Created on Google Earth.
Regional festivals
such as this one had a different purpose than the large Pan-Hellenic festivals like
the Great Panathenaia at Athens. They were a way for people within a defined
area to connect with one another and they aided in formation of a cohesive
identity where people in the area all knew this procession was happening and
why they were performing the ritual. The landscape of Mount Pelion was anchored
in various myths and Chiron was a central figure. This small festival allowed
for people to not only connect with each other, but was a way for people to
connect with the landscape around them.
Of course, the fragmentary evidence we have with regard to this festival leads to lots of questions, which I hope to develop further in my research!
Adam
Further
Reading
Aston, E. 2006. “The Absence of
Chiron.” The Classical Quarterly 56(2):
349-362.
—.
2009. “Thetis and Cheiron in Thessaly.” Kernos
22: 83-107.
Gorrini, M.E. 2006. “Healing Heroes
in Thessaly: Chiron the Centaur.” AEΘΣΕ1: 297-309.
Kravaritou, S. 2018. “Cults and Rites of Passage in Ancient Thessaly.”
In Βορειοελλαδικά: Tales from the lands of the ethne.
Essays in honour of Miltiades B.
Hatzopoulos. Eds. M. Kalaitzi, P. Paschidis, C. Antonetti, and A.-M.
Guimier-Sorbets. Athens: 377-396.
Hello again! So far we have looked at festivals founded or
sponsored by rulers, but that was not the limit of Hellenistic royal
involvement with the agonistic world. Kings, queens and other members of the
dynasties frequently entered themselves as competitors in major sporting festivals,
continuing a practice of the Makedonian monarchy that dates back to at least
the reign of Alexander I (c.498-454 BC).
By the 4th century royalty seem to have
restricted themselves to the entering of race-horses and chariot teams. Usually
in ancient Greek equestrian events the competitors did not ride or drive their
horses in person, with this task being left to slaves. Kings were thus spared
the indignity of defeat at the hands of career athletes in the prime of their youth,
and could use their great wealth to rear and purchase the very best horses. (Also
notable is that this approach allowed royal women to compete in an almost
entirely male-dominated setting.) The exemplar of this strategy was Philip II,
who garnered much prestige and goodwill among the Greek cities with his three
victories at the Olympics.
The importance of these victories to Philip’s self-representation is demonstrated by these tetradrachms, depicting his victorious horse from the 356 BC Olympics.
Royal competitors are not always easy to discern in the
historical record, but a number of (more or less fragmentary) victor lists from
the 2nd century BC give insight into participation in one major
festival – the Athenian Panathenaia. This was the largest agonistic festival
held at Athens and, while the contests were not part of the periodos of
traditional “Panhellenic” games, Athens’ cultural cachet made put them on a
similar level to the Olympics and the Pythia. The penteteric* Great Panathenaia
thus attracted competitors from the length and breadth of the Greek world, with
athletes from as far afield as Italy and Mesopotamia. Several of these
competitors were royal, as laid out here:
Royal Panathenaic Victors
182 BC: Ptolemy V – Victor in a
four-horse chariot race (Citizens’)
“the son of Ptolemy, the Makedonian” – Ptolemy V again? –
Victor in an unknown Panhellenic event
178 BC: Eumenes II – Victor in a
four-horse chariot race (Panhellenic)
Attalos (brother of Eumenes) – Victor in a four-horse
chariot race (Panhellenic)
Philetairos (brother of Eumenes) – Victor in a horse race
(Panhellenic)
Athenaios (brother of Eumenes) – Victor in a two-horse
chariot race (Panhellenic)
170BC: Attalos (brother
of Eumenes) – Victor in a two-horse chariot race (Citizens’)
162BC: Ptolemy VI –
Victor in a two-horse chariot race (Citizens’)
Kleopatra (sister and wife of Ptolemy VI) – Victor in a
horse race (Citizens’)
Eumenes II – Victor in a four-horse war-chariot race (Citizens’)
158BC: Mastanabal, son of
the Numidian king Massinissa – Victor in a horse race (Panhellenic)
Ptolemy VI – Victor in a two-horse chariot race (Panhellenic)
150 or 146BC (date
uncertain): Alexander Balas (a claimant to the Seleukid diadem) – Victor in a
horse race (Panhellenic) and one unknown event
The Panathenaic stadium, where the Panhellenic events were held. Unfortunately, the spectacular modern reconstruction reflects the marble stadium of the 2nd century AD, rather than its Hellenistic form.
Immediately striking is the variety of royal competitors
here – Ptolemies, Attalids, a Seleukid and even a Numidian. A reasonable conclusion
to draw would be that competing in the Panathenaia was a strategy of general
interest to Hellenistic monarchs, rather than one useful to a particular
dynasty. This makes sense, given the number and diversity of participants at
the Panathenaia – Athens made a good stage for displays of wealth and power by
any ruler around the Mediterranean. We might also infer that these competitors
were emulating each other. Once it had been established that winning victories
at the Panathenaia brought a dynasty political benefits, other rulers were
motivated to contest that victorious position. Particularly important here are
the Attalids and Mastanabal, representatives of new powers in the Hellenistic
world seeking to show themselves equal to the more established dynasties.
The second feature of this participation that I want to
point to is that the class of events entered is also varied. The Great
Panathenaia comprised “Panhellenic” contests open to all, and contests restricted
to Athenian citizens. During the 3rd century BC, however, the
Ptolemaic and Attalid royal families had acquired honorary Athenian
citizenship, allowing them to participate in the latter class of races. These
two dynasties appear to have switched between the classes in this period, winning
victories in both, but why? The open races, taking place in the primary stadium,
would have had a larger, more geographically varied audience, and were probably
considered more prestigious due to the larger pool of competitors. Yet by
competing as citizens these dynasties could demonstrate their special connection
to Athens, enhancing the city’s prestige and reaffirming their diplomatic
commitment to its welfare. For these dynasties the Panathenaia served both as a
means to reach out to the Greek world as a whole, and as a specific connection
to a key city in which they desired to promote their influence.
This list raises more questions, of course, and in the next
post we will take a look at its most surprising – indeed, unlikely – aspect, the
quadruple Attalid victory of 178 BC.
Tom
*Taking place every five years as the ancient Greeks
counted: every four years by our reckoning. The Panathenaia was an annual
festival, but only every four years (the Greater Panathenaia) were contests
opened to foreigners.
Further Reading
Habicht, Christian, “Athens and the Attalids in the Second
Century BC”, Hesperia 59 (1990), 561-577.
— “Athens and the Ptolemies”, Classical Antiquity 11.1
(1992), 68-90.
Shear, Julia, “Royal Athenians: The Ptolemies and Attalids at
the Panathenaia”, in Olgia Palagia and Alkestis Spetsieri-Choremi (eds.) The
Panathenaic Games (Oxbow, 2015), 135-145.
Hello again! Having talked about the first royal festival
of the Hellenistic period, I’m now going to take a look at one of the most
spectacular – not for its size or prestige, but its location, more than 1,000
miles from the Mediterranean. These local contests, held on the island of
Failaka at the head of the Persian Gulf, are an excellent example of the use of
festivals by Hellenistic rulers to manage their far-flung dominions.
The Persian
Gulf in the Hellenistic period, showing major trade routes for South Asian and
South Arabian goods. Note that the location, and even the existence, of many of
these sites is speculative, and that the head of the Gulf is constantly being filled
in by silt from the Tigris and Euphrates – Alexandria/Antiocheia Charax was
probably situated on the coastline in this era.
The Persian Gulf was crossed by long-established maritime
networks which linked Mesopotamia and southern Iran to southern Arabia and
ultimately India, and many pre-Hellenistic states, including the Achaemenid
empire, had exerted political influence there in order to benefit from the
trade in exotic and luxury goods. The Seleukids proved no exception, as their
dedications of incense and spices to Mediterranean temples demonstrate.
Building on Alexander’s foundation of a new city, Alexandria Charax, at the
head of the Gulf, the third-century kings established a chain of settlements
and naval bases stretching at least as far as Bahrain (Greek Tylos), and
allowing them to project naval power to the Strait of Hormuz (see Pliny, Natural
History VI.28.152).
The small island of Ikaros (modern Failaka) was a link in
this chain. Numerous excavations have revealed Hellenistic settlements and
sanctuaries on the island, and there are indications of some immigration by
Greeks – several potsherds and rough inscriptions in Greek have been found,
some of which mention an Athenian, Soteles. Of especial interest to us is a stele
discovered near one of the two temples at the evocatively-named Location F5, a
fortified sanctuary in the southwest of the island which flourished between
c.250 and c.150 BC.
The stele records a letter from a high-ranking Seleukid
official, Ikadion, to Anaxarchos, who was probably a governor based at Tylos.
After a short covering letter from Anaxarchos to the Ikarians, it reads:
“Ikadion to Anaxarchos. Greetings. The king is
concerned about the island of Ikaros, because his forebears also consecrated
land there and decided to move the temple of the Saviour Goddess. And they
wrote to the officials in charge of the administration (instructing them) to
move it. But they, either, [perhaps] because they were prevented, or indeed for
some [other] reason did not move it. But
we, when the king wrote to us, moved [it? promptly], and we established
[…] a contest, both / sporting and [musical,] wishing to carry out the
policy of the king and of his forebears.”
SEG 20-411, lines 7-20. Translation adapted
from Roueché and Sherwin-White (1985).
Unfortunately the inscription becomes extremely fragmentary
after this point, but Ikadion seems to be concerned for the status of land, settlements
and trade on Ikaros, particularly with regard to the neōkoroi (temple
wardens). The Saviour Goddess is almost certainly a local deity known to the
Greeks as Artemis Soteira, and mentioned in several other inscriptions. The
date of the letter has provoked much controversy, with suggestions ranging
throughout the 3rd century BC – some point in the second half of the
century seems most plausible, considering the lifespan of the sanctuary as a
whole (on this issue, see Hannestad 2019).
The
sanctuary at F5.
It is thus impossible to pin down the exact circumstances under
which this agōn was introduced to Ikaros. What is clear, however, is
that it was intended to bind the islanders together through a communal ritual centred
on one of the island’s most important deities. The text later seems to refer to
“encroachment” on land, suggesting a conflict over property rights, and to synoikismos,
the gathering of scattered people into a single settlement. As a response to
social divisions royal officials turned to a competitive festival as a means to
foster a cohesive local identity.
What is particularly notable is the form of the festival –
an agōn was very much a Greek cultural institution. Yet while there may
have been a sizeable Greek population on Ikaros, there is no sign here that
this was an event aimed only at them. Rather it was to involve the whole
community, presumably including the neōkoroi, who should perhaps be seen
as local priestly elites. As we will see many times when looking at Hellenistic
festivals, one’s identity as a Greek was less important than one’s ability to
engage with Greek culture and perform its rituals. The aim may have been to tie
Ikaros to other regional sites with Greek institutions such as Seleukeia on the
Tigris and Antiocheia in Persia, both of which are known to have interacted
with agōnes in other cities.
Equally important is that the letter presents the movement
of the temple and the establishment of the festival as royal policy. Whether this
was indeed a personal initiative of the king is unclear, but the truth is less
important than the appearance – that these contests were founded in a system of
royal oversight stretching back generations to the time of the king’s forebears.
This novel institution is rendered not only a link to the Greek world, but a
link to the court, a ceremony in which the people of Ikaros themselves invoked
an imperial presence in the reshaping of their community. At the same time, it
was one which revolved around a local cult, symbol of a local identity which
was now bound a little more closely to the Seleukid dynasty.
The concept of “Hellenisation” remains a somewhat controversial one in modern scholarship, and certainly political projects like the Seleukid did not involve any large-scale efforts to impose a Greek identity on subject populations. What we can see here, however, is the selective promotion of a Greek practice – the agonistic festival – as a means to reinforce social cohesion, create connections between an island settlement and the great urban centres of the kingdom, and position a distant community as explicitly Seleukid in its allegiance, pushing royal authority a little further into the expanses of the Indian Ocean.
Tom
Further Reading:
Beaujard, Philippe, The Worlds of the Indian Ocean Vol.
I (Berlin, 2019, trans. Tamara Loring, Frances Meadows and Andromeda Tait,
originally published 2014), ch. 9.
Hannestad, Lise, “On the Periphery of the Seleucid Kingdom:
Failaka Revisited”, in Roland Oetjen (ed.) New Perspectives in Seleucid History,
Archaeology and Numismatics (Berlin, 2019), 312-332.
Roueché, Charlotte and Sherwin-White, Susan, “Some Aspects
of the Seleucid Empire: The Greek Inscriptions from Failaka, in the Arabian
Gulf”, Chiron 15 (1985), 1-39.
Hello! As you can see from our information pages, each of
us on the project is focusing on a different aspect of Greek festival culture
and its transformations from the Hellenistic period onwards. I’m looking at the
interactions between festivals and a new, defining feature of that period – the
kingdoms that emerged across the eastern Mediterranean (and further east) in
the wake of the death of Alexander the Great.
The ruling elites of these states – initially mainly
Makedonians – were interested in Greek civic culture to a far greater extent
than their precursors in the Achaemenid Persian empire. Their engagement with
the network of competitive festivals spanning the Greek world would change it
considerably – the institution of the Ptolemaia at Alexandria by Ptolemy II in
280 BC, for example, played a key role in the surge of “Panhellenisation” of
festivals in the Hellenistic era. Before diving into the evidential morass of
the third century, however, we might consider an intriguing note from the late
Hellenistic Sicilian historian Diodorus, describing what could very well be the
first “royal” festival ever organised, but one that never even took place. This
ghost of a festival throws a certain spectral illumination on one of the key
questions our project seeks to answer – what were rulers trying to achieve when
sponsoring agōnes?
First, some context: in 306 BC, following a spectacular
naval victory off the coast of Cyprus, Antigonos Monopthalmos (“the One-Eyed”)
had himself and his son Demetrios crowned as kings. Antigonos was at the time
the most powerful of the Makedonian generals who had carved up Alexander’s
empire between them, and was the first openly to declare himself a king.
Shortly before this he had founded a new city, named Antigoneia, on the Orontes
river in northern Syria, which he had controlled since 317. This was a region
which had been relatively sparsely populated and lacking in urban centres since
the Assyrian terror campaigns of the 8th-7th centuries,
and Antigonos planned to create a number of new settlements, granting land in
return for tax payments and military service. The settlers were largely drawn
from the Greek world – those at Antigoneia were a mixture of Makedonians and
Athenians.
In 302 this new city was to play host to a grand festival.
Diodorus’ description is worth quoting here:
“Antigonos, who had made preparations to celebrate great games (agōnes) and a festival (panēgyris) in Antigoneia, had collected from all sides the most famous athletes and artists to compete for great prizes and fees. But when he heard of the crossing of Lysimachos [into Anatolia] and the desertion of his own generals, he abandoned the games but distributed to the athletes and artists not less than two hundred talents as compensation.” (Diodorus Siculus, 20.108.1)
This brief note raises many questions. To what god or gods
was the festival dedicated? Was it intended to be a regular institution, as was
common in Greek cities? Where, exactly, did the competitors come from, and were
they satisfied with their abrupt (albeit generously compensated) dismissal?
Unfortunately, the campaign to which Antigonos was now called would be his
last, and upon his death in battle in 301 northern Syria was seized by
Seleukos, one of his rivals. Antigoneia was depopulated and abandoned, with its
people and cults transferred to Seleukos’ own new urban foundations. Whatever
plans Antigonos had for this festival died with him, and we are left with very
little evidence to go on.
Yet, while the festival never amounted to anything more
than intentions, intentions themselves are crucial in studying royal policy. In
this case, certainly, Antigonos’ publicised decision to hold agōnes at
his new foundation would have been just as politically significant as the
festival itself. Festive agōnes played an important role in Greek civic
culture, binding together worship, civic identity, aristocratic conceptions of
human excellence and inter-civic relationships into repeated public rituals. By
organising such contests at his eponymous city, Antigonos signalled to the
Greek world his willingness to act as a sponsor and benefactor of the Greek
cities – his philhellenism. From 319 he had increasingly portrayed himself as a
champion of Greek cities against the despotic exactions of his rivals,
expelling Makedonian garrisons from occupied poleis and proclaiming
their “freedom and autonomy”. The announcement of a festival at Antigoneia
mirrored in the cultural sphere the intentions he had already demonstrated in
the political, encouraging Greeks concerned about the ramifications of
Makedonian hegemony to look to Antigonos as their friend.
Greek civic culture, however, had many easily-replicable
elements – why an agonistic festival? The answer here would seem to be
connection. Antigoneia had been established as a polis in Greek fashion,
populated with Greeks and Makedonians. Yet it lay very much on the margins of
the Greek world of the Classical period. A festival which drew competitors
“from all sides” (by which Diodorus can only mean from across the Greek
Mediterranean, athletics not yet having become popular beyond the Greek world)
would create connections between his fledgling city and those competitors’ home
poleis. The “great prizes” would be taken away by the victors and
displayed across the Mediterranean, establishing Antigoneia firmly as part of a
Greek network of competition. It was crucial for Antigonos that this city and
the Greek and Makedonian settlers in the surrounding area not feel cut off from
the old Greek world, as had the Greek settlers in Iran who had revolted against
royal rule in 323. The festival network would not only facilitate Antigonos’
self-representation as a patron of the Greek cities and a respecter of their
inter-civic connections, but ensure that his new settlements could benefit from
those connections as well.
A final point to note is that these objectives clearly
mattered to Antigonos very much. His payment to the disappointed competitors
after the cancellation of the festival was extremely large at 200 talents –
approximately five tonnes of silver and enough to finance a small fleet for a
campaign season. Antigonos was hardly lacking in funds – he took with him a
mobile treasury of 3,000 talents for the campaign of 302/1 – but he would not
have spent such a sum out of mere embarrassment. Rather he sought to ensure the
gratitude of the athletes and artists involved, and to encourage more
competitors to travel to any future agōnes he might sponsor. Effectively
Antigonos was investing in the competitive festival network as a means of
managing his carefully-constructed relationship of benefaction with the Greek
cities.
Antigonos’ festival was never celebrated, and nothing is
known of it beyond Diodorus’ short passage. Yet it points to some of the themes
which we will see recurring throughout the history of royal engagement with
festivals – the need for rulers to communicate their power, wealth and
philhellenism to the Greek world, and the efficacy of the festival network as a
connecting tissue of common institutions and cultural practices that tied
together Greek cities across their extensive kingdoms. It’s all pretty fascinating,
and we hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we do researching it!
Tom
Further Reading
Billows, Richard, Antigonos the One-Eyed and the
Creation of the Hellenistic State (Berkeley, 1990).
Capdetrey, Laurent, Le pouvoir séleucide (Rennes,
2007), esp. pp. 60-76.
Cohen, Getzel, The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the
Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (Berkeley, 2006), esp. pp. 76-79.
Mann, Christian, “Cash and Crowns: A Network Approach to Greek
Athletic Prizes”, in Mirko Canevaro et al (eds.) Ancient Greek History and
Contemporary Social Science (Edinburgh, 2018), pp. 293-312.
Chairete! We
thought we should start off with an explanation for what we’re trying to do,
and for the significance of both festivals and networks in the Hellenistic and
Roman Mediterranean.
Agonistic festivals – religious celebrations incorporating competitions of various kinds – were a major feature of socio-religious life among the Greeks from the Archaic period, which saw the creation of such famous contests as the Olympic and Pythian Games. Attracting competitors and spectators from across the Greek world, the largest of these festivals played a crucial role in the very definition of Greek identity.
Less well known, however, are the dramatic changes which affected festival culture in the Hellenistic era. Throughout the Greek world and Asia Minor in particular, old festivals were revived or re-organised, and new ones were founded in large numbers. The popularity and political importance of previously minor, local festivals increased dramatically, and more and more these festivals now operated on different scales at the same time: local, by consolidating the (new) citizenry of the polis; regional, by including surrounding cities in athletic competitions; and ‘global’, by forging links between cities across the extended Greek world. In the early centuries of Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean these trends were again amplified, while becoming bound up inextricably with the experience of Roman rule. The Connecting the Greeks project aims to shed new light on the development of a shared festival culture from the 3rd century BC, anchored in existing Greek traditions, and proposes that festivals were a driving force in the complex processes of connectivity that defined the place of cities, dynasts, leagues, kingdoms and eventually the Roman empire itself in the new Hellenistic world.
Given that one of the most important aspects of the Greek
festival was this creation of connectivity, we have found it helpful to
conceptualise “festival culture” as a network, with nodes – the festivals –
tied together by a variety of mobile agents – athletes, spectators and sacred
envoys. The network was the product of, and reflected, the social and political
links between individuals and groups throughout the Mediterranean, but at the
same time it formed a medium for interaction. We draw these insights from the
loose school of thought known as “network theory”, but also intend to employ a
more formal methodology: (Social) Network Analysis. This consists of the
mathematical representation of networks, allowing us to examine the shape and
density of interactions between festivals and to measure the influence and
centrality of particular nodes. Naturally, this requires a comprehensive
database of all information regarding the agents moving between festivals,
which is currently under construction at (link). Ideally we will be able to
trace developments over time in the broader festival network or portions of it,
and to compare them with social, economic and political trends. We ask: how was
the agonistic festival network shaped by the many transformations of the Greek
world after Alexander’s death, and how did it in turn influence the thoughts
and behaviours of those living in that world?
This website is intended firstly as a place for us to show
off snippets of our ongoing research, as well as our thoughts on festival
culture, network theory and SNA. Secondly, we wanted a way to let people know
about new developments – conferences, workshops, publications – in our somewhat
eclectic group of fields, so watch this space for news!
