Benefactors and the Poleis in the Roman Empire

Abstract

In this chapter the author identifies the chief continuities and changes in civic munificence in the poleis under Roman imperial rule in comparison with the previous periods of Greek history. To do so, the author develops a model to answer the question of why elite public giving was a such an enduring element of polis society in the first place. He identifies three structural features of polis society that can explain the centrality of elite public giving: the specific way wealth, fame, power and authority needed to be legitimated in the polis; the particularity of the Greeks’ idea of politics; and the stateless character of the polis. To test this model, the author then applies it to explain two specific characteristics of civic euergetism in the Greek cities under the Roman empire, namely, its unprecedented proliferation during the first, second and early third centuries CE, and the extent to which munificence started to transcend the benefactor’s own civic community, that is, the increasing tendency of benefactors to include non-citizen groups in the poleis in their munificence as well as to give to cities other than their own.