S. Aneziri, Greek Endowments in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods

2004

Upon his arrival in Edessa as the new governor of Osrhoene in the year 497, Alexander (PLRE II, Alexander 14) launched his term of office with a series of benefactions, as Joshua the Stylite tells us in his Syriac Chronicle. 1 Alexander cleaned up the mess in the streets of the city. He put up a wooden 'suggestion' box in front of his residence in which people could drop him a note with a request in case they did not feel comfortable expressing their wish in public. 2 Every Friday he would settle lawsuits free of charge, and even uninvestigated cases going back more than fifty years would be brought before him and settled. In addition, he built a walkway at one of the city's gates, and began the construction of a public hall, which apparently had already been in the planning for many years. These measures give the impression that Alexander took his office as governor very seriously and cared a great deal for his subjects. What did they think of all of this? Did Alexander do more than they hoped for? Were his efforts beyond their expectations? And, from Alexander's point of view, what did he gain from his endeavors? In this paper I take a closer look at the relationship between governors and provincials: more precisely, I concentrate on the responsibility of governors as 'benefactors' in the Later Roman Empire, in particular in the * I would like to thank Richard Talbert and Richard Lim for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Women appear frequently as donors in the Greek antiquity, an action that emphasizes their presence in the public sphere. The endowments of movable or landed property, which were undertaken in order to furnish a permanent income for the perpetual support of a specific purpose, constitute an interesting category within the wide category of female donations constitute. This epigraphic evidence offers rich information about the founder, the recipient of the endowment, the endowment assets or their administration. Moreover, it allows us to ask questions on female agency and the purposes of the endowments, on the role of family as well as the perception of the endowments in the respective societies. The numerous cases in which men act as donors can be used for reference, especially regarding potential differences due to gender.

The funding of festivals and communal sacrifices in Greek cities in Roman times was not as straightforward as first meets the eye. For example, who defrayed the cost of the sacrificial victims and the celebrations? This apparently simple question evidently clashes with the complex definition of the public sphere, which is still an issue of debate, and with the opacity of the sources in this regard. In the Classical Age and at the beginning of the Hellenistic period, important sacrifices were ideally paid for out of the public purse and, for this reason, were regarded as ‘public rites’ (demotelés). In the words of Robert Parker, this ‘populist rhetoric’ was at the time one of the ways of expressing the civic ideal. This was most clearly illustrated by both the processions that preceded the sacrifices and the regulations governing them, which have come down to us in the shape of epigraphic formulae. But in the Hellenistic period, when Greek cities were now fully immersed in the imperial logic, the ideal of the self-financed city and the rites representing civic unity began to lose their sheen. Thus, the aim of this study is to interpret the gradual disappearance of the public funding ideal in the regulations pursuant to processions in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

A. Heller, O.M. van Nijf (eds.), The politics of honour in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire, Leiden - Boston, 2017

The διωβελία was a πόλις fund in Athens providing, as the name signals, a payment of two obols; it was instituted possibly in 410 and abolished perhaps around 404. 1 The primary questions about the διωβελία are what this fund was for and, in consequence of this, what light the διωβελία may shed on the institutions of the πόλις. Scholarship on the purpose of this fund tends to be divided into two competing views: either it was a fund with a social character, a dole for the poor and widows in the war years, or it was a fund to pay for ἀρχαί after the fi rst oligarchic episode, so rather with a democratic-political character. 2 Beside the διωβελία, a fund providing one obol appears in the records of the same years, of which the purpose and possible connection to the διωβελία are equally opaque. The fragmentary nature of our evidence makes it impossible to arrive at fi rm conclusions on many aspects of these funds, but newly published evidence and fresh views on related topics now encourage a new interpretation. My aim in this article is clarifying, in so far the evidence allows, the purpose of the διωβελία and the obol-fund, to gain a better insight into the social and political institutions of Athens in the classical era.

Religious Competition in the Third Century C.E.: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, Edited by N. DesRosiers, J. Rosenblum, and L. Vuong, 2014

to announce the names of those who do not pay their bills faithfully, for even though this concerns an individual, it affects the public conduct of commerce and the needs of the many, so one may announce it on Shabbat." Jews also participated, both in and outside of the land of Israel, in the Greek and Hellenistic invention of the polis with its high degree of citizen participation in public life and self-financing. Jews adopted and adapted Hellenistic forms of government as well as terminologysuch as sanhedrin, synagogue, prosbul.

Greece and Rome, 2020

On the neglected role of monetisation in forming the Greek aristocracy of the archaic and classical periods

1 Ulp. (44 ad Sab.), D 39.5.7.pr. Note, for instance, the exceptions of sons in military and civil service and of the son-in-power who has been given a free administration of his peculium by the pater familias and who was specifically granted the faculty of making gifts. On the peculium see Fleckner in this volume. 2 Papin. (29 quaest.), D 39.5.27. 3 Pomp. (33 ad Sab.), D 39.5.9.pr. See also below.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Comparing the accounts of the deme Ikarion (IG I 3 253) with those of Rhamnous (IG I 3 247 bis and 253; IRhamnous 181 and 182) and Plotheia (IG I 3 258), this article argues that the adjective hosios applied to a fund in Ikarion indicates that this money was dêmosios and to be used in a way pleasing to the gods. Th e longstanding view that hosios when applied to money means 'free for secular use' or 'secular' (e.g. LSJ s.v. ὅσιος) is shown to be unfounded, inviting a reassessment of the meanings of hosios. Th e use of public money for funding cults as attested in these deme accounts sheds new light on public fi nance in classical Athens.

2013

Modern scholarship has devoted much attention to pignus and hypotheca as forms of real security in classical Roman law.1 The same could be said about the research on the practical application of these forms, or vice versa, the apparent practical origins of the later dogmatic forms: there has been an extensive study on real securities in Greek and Hellenistic traditions. Much attention has been also devoted to the documents constituting, revoking, and accepting a real security in the Demotic and Graeco-Roman legal traditions in Egypt. Thanks above all to the classical studies of Andreas Bertalan Schwartz, we understand much better the system of ‘real’ – in the civil law vocabulary – securities for debt in the law of papyri.2 However, apart from Steinwenter’s remarks in his Recht der koptischen Urkunden, the Byzantine practice and doc- trine remains of much less scientific interest. Yet, my purpose in this paper is not to provide an all-embracing general overview of Byzantine securities, even thought they merit particular attention in themselves, but to discuss their particularity. The deeds of legal practice bring about a few cases of guarantees of obligations in the form of transfer of ownership. The papyri studied belong to dossier of the Melitian Monks in Labla (P. Dub. 31, 32, 33) and to the Archive of Parmouthis and Kako.

Classical World, 2006