In the Hellenistic period, cities were the cornerstones of imperial rule. Cities were the loci for the acquisition of capital and manpower, and imperial agents (philoi) were recruited for a large part among Greek civic elites. This chapter departs from the dual premise that premodern empires are negotiated enterprises and that they are often networks of interaction rather than territorial states. The relentless competition between three rival superpowers in the Hellenistic Aegean – the Seleukid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid Empires – gave cities a good bargaining position vis-à-vis these empires. The fact that the imperial courts were dominated by philoi from the Aegean poleis moreover meant that these cities held a central and privileged place in Hellenistic imperialism, and benefited greatly from it. Royal benefactions structured imperial-local interactions. They were instrumental in a complex of reciprocal gift-exchange between empires and cities. Empires most of all needed capital, loyalty and military support. As kings were usually short of funds, the gifts by which they hoped to win the support of cities against their rivals often came in the form of immaterial benefactions like the granting of privileges and the protection of civic autonomy.

Athens represents a special case in the history of Greek public benefactions. 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 the widespread integration of citizens into an institution born before the classical period to regulate the relationship between poleis and foreigners. It deals with the reasons for the opposition to donations and honors for citizens, the factors that contributed to overcoming resistance to euergetism, and the elitist content of classical civic euergetism. Finally, it discusses some developments that counterbalanced this elitist component: the ‘democratization’ of euergetism through grants of honors to non-wealthy citizens, 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.

Against the common view that the creation of obligations through generosity in gift-giving and hospitality is a pervasive feature of the Homeric world and an antecedent of the classical and later culture of euergetism and benefactions, a survey of the epic evidence shows that this type of generosity is in effect confined to ‘international’ relations. Within Homeric communities, ‘gifts’ are almost always forms of payment for services rendered or tributes to those of higher status, and the flow of wealth is from the community to the elite more than vice-versa. The origins of public benefactions therefore do not lie in a culture of gift-giving but in an ideology of ‘public service’ owed by the elite to the community. In Homer, such service is ideally performed in war, counsel and the administration of justice, but as political and military changes reduced the scope for elite performance in these arenas while public spending needs increased during the archaic period, the community increasingly came to expect financial services instead from the elite.

This chapter presents concluding thoughts by the editors, identifying some of the main themes that have emerged from the chapters, and outlining some areas for further study.

On the one hand, the tyrants of the archaic age are considered to be demophagoi, the ‘eaters’ of common goods; on the other hand, their reign is praised as the Golden Age of Kronos. This chapter deals with the relationship between tyrants and the people and discusses the connection between dues and benefactions. It establishes the notion that the reign of tyrants as well as the reign of succeeding aristocratic houses were rooted in the tradition of Homeric kings. The garden of the Phaeacian king Alcinoos, where the citizens drew their water, symbolizes ideal ruling. Exactly the same kind of benefactions, the securing of the water supplies, has been attributed to the archaic tyrants. The chapter aims to present the lines of tradition as well as the discontinuities in the early Greek conceptions of generosity and dominion.

This chapter argues that euergetism in Hellenistic poleis was not just a form of benefaction securing kings and wealthy members of the polis symbolic capital, legitimacy and a superior place in the social hierarchy of poleis, but also a means of community building and social peace. The well-known habit of Hellenistic political communities to publish endowment decrees and the regulations concerning their legal execution on stone not only ensured that the assets dedicated to a particular purpose were not poorly managed, embezzled or transferred to another purpose. They were also public monuments of the democratic control over private wealth and its public display. Demonstrating that the people held ultimate power over the smooth running of public endowments, these decrees guaranteed and made visible the democratic commitment to their ‘eternal’ existence, and at the same time propagated the effectiveness of democratic institutions among the whole citizen body as well as vis-à-vis individual wealthy benefactors.

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. Core questions of the chapter are: What was the significance of the fact that public festivals were paid and organised by private benefactors? Why did benefactors do this? And what was it that cities stood to gain? The main argument is that agonistic festivals were not simply an object of euergetism but also a medium through which euergetism evolved. They not only were an opportunity for elite benefactors (and athletes) to increase their prestige but were primarily mass events where benefactors and their communities were jointly involved in representing the central social, cultural and political values of the time.

Contrary to common belief, Christian bishops did not simply continue practicing traditional euergetism in Christianized form in cities of the late Roman Near East. From the late fourth century onwards, they had to answer for their use of church resources to an ideologically significant special interest group known as the ptōchoi. Entitled to church resources called the poor fund (ptōchika), this constituency was often comprised not only of the urban poor but of local monastic leaders who had close connections with influential lay donors. This chapter examines the details of three early fifth-century allegations of episcopal lithomania (excessive construction of church buildings) to date the historical emergence of this urban constituency and show how it pressured bishops to spend funds in their interest. It argues that the pressure exerted by this group was crucial in ensuring that episcopal budgets would be spent not just on monumental vanity projects but on philanthropic institutions and services. Hence these ptōchoi were actively involved in the politics that changed the urban landscape of the Roman Near East.

Is it legitimate to refer to a ‘Christian euergetism’? This is the question posed by this study, by examining a series of representations of benefactors on mosaic floors in the churches of Aquileia, Thessaloniki and Gerasa, from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. Analysed in the light of their legal and municipal context, the portraits reveal a fundamental evolution of Late Antiquity society. Churches as private entities were the last places, after the reforms of Valentinian I, where it was possible to freely display one’s social prestige. They allowed the municipal elite to remain socially and religiously attractive. They provided a place of expression for the old competition that was at the root of municipal culture. This new form of euergetism took place in a society whose hierarchy of values had been reversed: the recognition of the imperial court and its agents was sought more than that of a people, whose cheers were expected at most.

This chapter considers the ‘vase festivals’ recorded on Hellenistic Delos as benefactions, and then considers the implications of this approach on our chronology for the period. It argues that the vase festival was a socially constrained form of competitive display, one open only to Delians and others who successfully sought and negotiated this privilege. Through the endowment and the associated display, these individuals claimed and performed a distinct superior status: as patrons of the sanctuary. But this was not an exclusive claim. It coexisted with and competed with other claims, both when they were founded and in subsequent years. As such, the dates and periods during which royal (and non-royal) individuals founded these vase festivals (Third Ptolemaea, 246/5 BC, Soteria/Antigonia, 245/4 BC, etc.) can be understood as periods of engagement by those individuals on Delos and the region. But this competitive context indicates that they should not be understood as dates for changes of control. Quite the reverse: if the vase festivals have any implication for our understanding of the broader geopolitical terrain – and they may not – they indicate that these were times when interest in the sanctuary and the region were higher, and when any specific patronage or hegemonic relationships in the sanctuary and the region were particularly contested.