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 3 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Preface 13 Acknowledgments 16 Abbreviations 17 Introduction 19 1 Words and things 19 2 Why euergetism? 23 3 Precedents and debts 27 4 Generosity and interest 30 5 Greek history and gift-giving 32 Chapter 1 Synchronic approaches 37 1 The paradox of public subscriptions 37 2 Structures and principles 44 2.1 Gifts and counter-gifts 44 Disjunction 50 Equivalence 51 Imbalance 53 2.2 Euergetism and gift-exchange 54 Further comparisons 58 The vocabulary of gift-exchange 61 3 Proleptic honors 63 3.1 Playing with the rules of euergetism 64 3.2 The scope of proleptic honors 66 3.3 The logic of proleptic honors 71 Chapter 2 Creating an institution 76 1 The initial stages of euergetism 76 1.1 The first euergetai and euergetic honors 76 1.2 Athletes as benefactors 81 Honors for athletes 84 Epinikia as rewards 87 2 Non-institutionalized reciprocity 90 2.1 Elite contributions 91 2.2 Archaic liturgies 97 2.3 Benefactions and reciprocity 102 The notion of benefaction 102 Institutional and non-institutional rewards 104 3 The tyrant’s generosity 109 3.1 Elite benefactions 109 3.2 Tyrannical dimensions 114 3.3 The “big man” metaphor 121 Chapter 3 Continuity and change (1): foreigners and athletes 125 1 Polis and foreigners 126 1.1 Proxenia and euergesia 127 1.2 Proxenia and the origins of euergetism 130 2 Polis and athletes 132 2.1 Statues as rewards 132 2.2 Other possible (and impossible) rewards 138 3 Athenian exceptionalism? 142 3.1 The absence and presence of athlete statues 142 3.2 Between honorific statue and private dedication 147 3.3 Safe and unsafe honors 149 Sitêsis and proedria 149 The dangers of statues 151 Chapter 4 Continuity and change (2): citizens 157 1 Patterns of civic benefaction in fifth-century Athens 157 1.1 The archaic tradition 157 1.2 Gifts and (in)dependence 162 Attitudes 162 Alternatives to gifts 167 1.3 The new benefactors 169 Services 169 Political rewards 172 1.4 The demos as benefactor 174 2 Toward public honors 179 2.1 Harmodius and Aristogiton 179 2.2 The problem of self-representation 183 Statues 183 The paintings in the Stoa Poikile 186 2.3 Between prize and reward 188 Awards of valor 189 Prizes for liturgists 190 2.4 Early honors 193 Chapter 5 The generalization of euergetism 198 1 Euergetism and war 199 1.1 Benefactors during the Peloponnesian War 199 1.2 Beyond military benefactions 203 2 Benefactors without empire 210 2.1 The great euergetai of fourth-century Athens 210 2.2 Responding to financial challenges 217 Liturgies, eisphorai, and epidoseis 218 Gifts in office and private donations 225 2.3 New (and old) perceptions 233 3 The euergetic system 236 3.1 Continuity and innovation 236 3.2 Embedded features 241 3.3 Euergetic honors 242 3.4 Deipnon (and xenia) in the prytaneion 252 3.5 Deserved and undeserved honors 258 4 Epilogue: sequence and causal relationships 261 Conclusions 269 Bibliography 277 The index of literary sources 310 The index of inscriptions 320 General Index 326