Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, The
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Number of quotes: 8
Book ID: 264 Page: 34
Section: 4B
‘The poor’, moreover, as Peter Brown has recently and convincingly argued, did in fact not exist as a social category in the pagan, Greco-Roman, civic world view. It required a complete shift in the social imagination, the development of a totally new, revolutionary model of society, constructed precisely in opposition to the pagan idea of euergesia, for charity and love of the poor to become dominant themes in civic discourse. Its inspiration was Judeo-Christian, and its agents were the bishops and their flocks. Christian charity and love of the poor had in fact little if anything to do with the pagan, Greco-Roman, ideals of elite public generosity and civic munificence. {32}
Quote ID: 6682
Time Periods: 014
Book ID: 264 Page: 53
Section: 4B
In a Greek horoscope dating from the second century AD, we read the following, apt, summary of an ancient success-story career:"…then, later, getting an inheritance and improving his means by shrewd enterprises, he became ambitious, dominant and munificent… and he provided temples and public works, and gained perpetual remembrance." {I}
There was, as I shall try to show, nothing accidental about the link the horoscope text makes between the accumulation of wealth, political dominance and munificence.
Quote ID: 6683
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 264 Page: 121
Section: 4B
Not all rich men were good, but all good men were - usually - rich.{30} Possession of abundant quantities of traditional virtues, as exemplified by their public benefactions, thus legitimated the rule of the - munificent- rich.With reference to the third criterion of Beetham’s model, that there [should be] evidence of consent by the subordinate to the particular power relation’, I would argue that the honours awarded to benefactors, involving public acclamations in the assembly, crowning ceremonies, statues, inscriptions and so forth, can be interpreted as actions showing the consent of the subordinates (demos) to the rule of the rich but generous elite.
{30} See Finley (1985) 35-6: ‘The judgement of antiquity about wealth was fundamentally unequivocal and uncomplicated. Wealth was necessary and it was good; it was an absolute requisite for the good life. . .’
Quote ID: 8477
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 264 Page: 124/125
Section: 4B
As a final example I cite a long post-mortem honorific inscription from Kaunos in Caria.{38} Dating to the second century AD, the text probably formed part of the funerary monument of its honorand, a certain Agreophon. I quote:Ever since he was a boy and ephebe, Agreophon himself has shown his love of honour….
Quote ID: 8478
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 264 Page: 126
Section: 4B
Consider the following decree of the council and people of Kyme, which forms part of a long inscription in honour of the benefactor L. Vaccius Labeo that was set up somewhere between 2BC and AD 14:. . .therefore, with good fortune, the council and the people will decide: Labeo, who is worthy of all honours, should further be praised for his dignified way of life [GREEK WORDS], his love of fame [GREEK WORD] and his attitude of liberality towards the city [GREEK WORDS], and he should be held in the highest esteem and be most highly appreciated, . . .
. . . .
’The people crown Lucius Vaccius Labeo, son of Lucius, of the tribus Aemilia, friend of Kyme [GREEK WORD], benefactor [GREEK WORD], with a golden crown because of his virtue [GREEK WORDS] and his goodwill [GREEK WORD] towards the people.’ {43}
Quote ID: 6687
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 264 Page: 127
Section: 4B
The most striking portrayal, however, of the honorific rituals that constituted the real-life context of our epigraphic vocabulary of praise we find, perhaps ironically, in the work of a Christian critic. St John Chrysostom, preaching on the ‘vainglory’ still so feverishly sought after by the civic notables of his day, has left us the following graphic picture of the philotimos, the ‘honor-loving man’, making his grand entrée into the theatre of his city:The theatre is filling up, and all the people are sitting aloft presenting a splendid sight and composed of numberless faces, so that many times the very rafters and roof above are hidden by human bodies. You can see neither tiles nor stones but all is men’s bodies and faces. Then, as the benefactor who has brought them together enters in the sight of all, they stand up and as from a single mouth cry out. All with one voice call him protector and ruler of the city that they share in common, and stretch out their hands in salutation. Next, they liken him to the greatest of rivers, comparing his grand and lavish munificence to the copious waters of the Nile; and they call him the Nile of gifts. Others, flattering him still more and thinking the simile of the Nile too mean, reject rivers and seas; and they instance the Ocean [GREEK WORD] and say that he in his lavish gifts is what the Ocean is among the waters, and they leave not a word of praise unsaid…What next? The great man bows to the crowd and in his way shows his regard for them. Then he sits down amid the congratulations of his admiring peers, each of whom prays that he himself may attain to the same eminence and then die. {46}
In the passages such as these, Christian writers like St John Crysostom were shooting their arrows at what was by their time a well-established political culture with a long and distinguished pedigree.
Quote ID: 6688
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 264 Page: 156
Section: 4B
Commenting on the role of public benefactors in the pagan, civic, model of society, Brown writes:[T]he community these civic benefactors, the euergetai, addressed and helped to define through their generosity was, first and foremost, thought of as a ‘civic’ community. It was always the city that was, in the first instance, the recipient of gifts, or, if not the city, the civic community, the demos or the populus, of the city. It was never the poor. What one can call a ‘civic’ model of society prevailed. The rich thought of themselves as the ‘fellow citizens’ of a distinctive community- their city. It was their city they were expected to love…
. . . .
As we saw, Brown dates this shift from a pagan model of society focused on citizens to a Christian all-embracing one with special emphasis on the destitute poor to the period 300-600 AD. As we saw in Fig. 1.2, however, the demise of euergetism in Asia Minor started already from the 220s AD onwards.
Quote ID: 6689
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 264 Page: xvii
Section: 1A
Insert MapPastor John’s note: refer to map. Record which book this is in.
Quote ID: 6681
Time Periods: 1
End of quotes