Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City : The Origins of Euergetism

This Volume Presents For The First Time An In-depth Analysis Of The Origins Of Greek Euergetism. Derived From The Greek For 'benefactor,' 'euergetism' Refers To The Process Whereby Citizens And Foreigners Offered Voluntary Services And Donations To The Polis That Were In Turn Recognised As Benefactions In A Formal Act Of Reciprocation. Euergetism Is Key To Our Understanding Of How City-states Negotiated Both The Internal Tensions Between Mass And Elite, And Their Conflicts With External Powers. This Study Adopts The Standpoint Of Historical Anthropology And Seeks To Identify Patterns Of Behaviour And Social Practices Deeply Rooted In Greek Society And In The Long Course Of Greek History. It Covers More Than Five Hundred Years And Will Appeal To Ancient Historians And Scholars In Other Fields Interested In Gift Exchange, Benefactions, Philanthropy, Power Relationships Between Mass And Elite, And The Interplay Between Public Discourse And Social Praxis-- This Is A Historical Study That Adopts The Standpoint Of Historical Anthropology. I Do Not Mean By This That The Book Is Partially Based On The Work Of Social And Cultural Anthropologists Dealing With Gift-exchange. Instead, I Refer To The Approach To History From Which It Is Written. Specifically, I Seek To Identify--beyond Individual Cases And Exceptions--patterns Of Behavior And Social Practices Deeply Rooted In Greek Society And The Long Course Of Greek History. I Look For Regularities, Continuities And Rules Underlying A Wide Range Of Human Actions. My Goal Is Not To Isolate Ahistorical Features But To Analyze The Role These More Or Less Stable Elements Play In The Historical Process And How Their Articulation With More Dynamic Constituents Triggered Social Change. Simplification Is Inevitable In Such An Approach, But My Belief Is That In Historical Inquiry A Certain Degree Of Generalization Is Both Possible And Desirable. On The Other Hand, The Basis Of The Book Is Strongly Empirical. At This Level, I Have Tried To Avoid Simplification; The Reader Will Find Substantial Footnotes With Many References To Literary And Epigraphic Sources And Detailed Discussion Of Documents--provided By Publisher. 1. Synchronic Approaches -- 2. Creating An Institution -- 3. Continuity And Change (1) : Foreigners And Athletes; 4. Continuity And Change (2) : Citizens -- The Generalization Of Euergetism -- Epilogue: Sequence And Causal Relationships -- Index Of Passages And Inscriptions. Marc Domingo Gygax, Princeton University. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 259-291) And Index. Cover 1 Half-title page 2 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Preface 12 Acknowledgments 15 Abbreviations 16 Introduction 18 1 Words and things 18 2 Why euergetism? 22 3 Precedents and debts 26 4 Generosity and interest 29 5 Greek history and gift-giving 31 Chapter 1 Synchronic approaches 36 1 The paradox of public subscriptions 36 2 Structures and principles 43 2.1 Gifts and counter-gifts 43 Disjunction 49 Equivalence 50 Imbalance 52 2.2 Euergetism and gift-exchange 53 Further comparisons 57 The vocabulary of gift-exchange 60 3 Proleptic honors 62 3.1 Playing with the rules of euergetism 63 3.2 The scope of proleptic honors 65 3.3 The logic of proleptic honors 70 Chapter 2 Creating an institution 75 1 The initial stages of euergetism 75 1.1 The first euergetai and euergetic honors 75 1.2 Athletes as benefactors 80 Honors for athletes 83 Epinikia as rewards 86 2 Non-institutionalized reciprocity 89 2.1 Elite contributions 90 2.2 Archaic liturgies 96 2.3 Benefactions and reciprocity 101 The notion of benefaction 101 Institutional and non-institutional rewards 103 3 The tyrant’s generosity 108 3.1 Elite benefactions 108 3.2 Tyrannical dimensions 113 3.3 The “big man” metaphor 120 Chapter 3 Continuity and change (1): foreigners and athletes 124 1 Polis and foreigners 125 1.1 Proxenia and euergesia 126 1.2 Proxenia and the origins of euergetism 129 2 Polis and athletes 131 2.1 Statues as rewards 131 2.2 Other possible (and impossible) rewards 137 3 Athenian exceptionalism? 141 3.1 The absence and presence of athlete statues 141 3.2 Between honorific statue and private dedication 146 3.3 Safe and unsafe honors 148 Sitêsis and proedria 148 The dangers of statues 150 Chapter 4 Continuity and change (2): citizens 156 1 Patterns of civic benefaction in fifth-century Athens 156 1.1 The archaic tradition 156 1.2 Gifts and (in)dependence 161 Attitudes 161 Alternatives to gifts 166 1.3 The new benefactors 168 Services 168 Political rewards 171 1.4 The demos as benefactor 173 2 Toward public honors 178 2.1 Harmodius and Aristogiton 178 2.2 The problem of self-representation 182 Statues 182 The paintings in the Stoa Poikile 185 2.3 Between prize and reward 187 Awards of valor 188 Prizes for liturgists 189 2.4 Early honors 192 Chapter 5 The generalization of euergetism 197 1 Euergetism and war 198 1.1 Benefactors during the Peloponnesian War 198 1.2 Beyond military benefactions 202 2 Benefactors without empire 209 2.1 The great euergetai of fourth-century Athens 209 2.2 Responding to financial challenges 216 Liturgies, eisphorai, and epidoseis 217 Gifts in office and private donations 224 2.3 New (and old) perceptions 232 3 The euergetic system 235 3.1 Continuity and innovation 235 3.2 Embedded features 240 3.3 Euergetic honors 241 3.4 Deipnon (and xenia) in the prytaneion 251 3.5 Deserved and undeserved honors 257 4 Epilogue: sequence and causal relationships 260 Conclusions 268 Bibliography 276 The index of literary sources 309 The index of inscriptions 319 General Index 325