Why did elite benefactors give what they gave? This will be the central question of the present chapter. In previous chapters we saw that euergetism was not driven primarily by economic or charitable impulses. But if this is true then what did drive it? I will argue that the strain put on the polis model of society by the growing accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of small coteries of rich families encouraged elite benefactors to emphasise the continuing importance of the citizen community. Public munificence thus constituted a celebration of citizenship and the civic ideal, but it also helped to modify that ideal by allowing benefactors, whether deliberately or unconsciously, to move the focus away from the Classical notion of political egalitarianism towards a glorification of hierarchy within the citizen community. This latter aspect can be seen particularly clearly when we study the festivals and public handouts organised by members of the elite. In this way, euergetism served to re-emphasise the age-old collectivist ideal of the polis as a community of citizens in the face of the threats posed by contemporary economic and socio-political developments (for which see the previous chapter), while at the same time providing legitimation for the increasingly hierarchical and oligarchic nature of Greek civic society under the Empire.

BENEFACTIONS: THE CIVIC IDEAL AND CIVIC HIERARCHY

The old polis ideal, which defined the city essentially as a community of people, of citizens, had remained central to Greek civic ideology during the Roman imperial period.