The name Cleopatra has an immense resonance in western culture, conjuring up images of romance, intrigue, actress Elizabeth Taylor, and the clash between ancient Egypt and the rising power of Rome.1 She is indelibly linked with some of Rome’s most powerful men: Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian, who would become Rome’s first emperor. We might think of a young, exotic, and beautiful queen being rolled out of a carpet in Caesar’s presence, or clutching an asp to her breast to take her own life. That Cleopatra is rightly famous, occupying the Egyptian throne at what in hindsight was a pivotal point in Mediterranean history – if she and Antony had defeated Octavian then things might have turned out very differently indeed. A Hellenistic-style monarchy would have continued to rule in the east and, if Antony had consolidated himself in Rome as well, the two states may have been combined: Antony and Cleopatra’s empire. The ‘what ifs’ are intriguing. Less famous but no less interesting in terms of her position and the life she lived is that of Cleopatra’s daughter with Antony, Cleopatra Selene (Figure 24).2

The first half of the second century ad was marked by an important event in the history of the ecumenical synods. They both acquired headquarters in Rome: the thymelic synod seemingly settled in a precinct on the Campus Martius and the xystic synod occupied a part of the great bath complex of Trajan on the Oppian hill. This chapter analyses the reasons for this shift and its consequences. The establishment of the Capitolia in ad 86 played a key role, as well as the desire of the synods to be closer to the imperial court. Furthermore, this chapter argues that the move to Rome strengthened centralising tendencies, as it had become easier to take central decisions for the whole agonistic circuit in close consultation with the emperor. Special attention in this chapter is given to the xystic synod’s headquarters, which is documented in a series of inscriptions found near the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. Recent archaeological excavations on the Oppian hill have furthermore led to the conclusion that the synod was indeed settled in the bath-gymnasium complex of Trajan.

The Hittite state started small, as one of a number of competing kingdoms in Anatolia.1 Under a series of rulers from the early king Hattusili I, around 1650 bc, it grew to become a regional superpower, expanding from its north-central Anatolian heartland, with political and economic interests drawing its attention southeast to the Mediterranean coast, Syria, and the older kingdoms in the area, and also westward to the Aegean.2 Its capital at Hattusa, the fortified residence of the Hittite kings, modern Boğazköy, became a splendid city of temples, testament to the rulers’ commitment to the gods and the rituals necessary to win their favour and avoid incurring their displeasure.3

Theodora is a woman about whom we are supposed to believe the worst. She has the misfortune to have become one of the main subjects, alongside her husband, the emperor Justinian, of one of the most famous, accessible, and lurid texts from antiquity: The Secret History, by Procopius. The Secret History is a book that has defied classification; it is not exactly a history and not exactly a biography – in Byzantine times, the writer of the Suda labelled it both a comedy and an invective. Peter Sarris, in his introduction to one translation, rightly calls it ‘vitriolic’ – with ‘carefully calibrated pieces of character assassination aimed at the Emperor and his wife’.1 ‘Our’ Theodora is fundamentally entangled with Procopius’ own vision of his times revealed in The Secret History and to approach her we must approach him too.2

In the third year of pharaoh Ramesses V, c. 1145 bc, an Egyptian woman called Naunakhte, who lived in the workers’ village of Deir el-Medina (Figure 12), went to her local court to explain her final will.1 It was her express wish to disinherit some of her eight surviving children, sons and daughters, because they had failed in their duty to care for her in her old age. In her words:

Marc Van de Mieroop has written that ‘human agency … defines the limits of the Mediterranean world’.1 Thus whilst not Mediterranean in a geographical sense, Iron Age Vix, in Burgundy, France, was certainly connected to the Mediterranean and to its diverse peoples and cultures. Vix is located strategically at the southern end of the northwest-flowing Seine and the northern reaches of the Saone/Rhone that flows south to the sea at Arles, near Marseilles, the site of a major Greek colony from 600 bc.2 It is around this time that archaeologists note the adoption by many Celtic elites of the accoutrements of Greek drinking culture – the symposion – with its attendant cups and craters. Greek and Etruscan goods are found in greater numbers and Vix had contacts with both cultures and quite possibly Greek and Etruscan craftspeople were at work in Celtic lands.3 Celtic mercenaries were active in the Mediterranean and Celtic people were intermarrying with Etruscans and possibly Greeks too.4

This chapter discusses the members of the ecumenical synods, beginning with the core members: the ‘athletes/artists who take part and win in sacred crown games’. Among these, several hierarchies are detectable: hierarchies based on agonistic victories (the more victories in sacred games, the better), on agonistic disciplines (some disciplines were regarded higher than others, e.g. kitharists were regarded higher than trumpeters and pankratiasts higher than runners) and on social background (not all competitors came from elite families). Next, the chapter proceeds to the members who offered competitive support: the so-called synagonistai of the thymelic synod took part in the performances but could not win prizes themselves; they were for instance secondary actors or choir members. In the xystic synod, the presence of trainers supporting individual athletes is documented. Finally there were other people who were not involved in the competitions themselves, such as support crews, administrative aides, family members of competitors and honorary members.

The conclusion comes back to the main findings of the different chapters. Taken as a whole, this book rehabilitates the ecumenical synods of competitors as prominent actors in the Graeco-Roman society. They shaped its socio-cultural life, reconciled Greek traditions with Roman rule and contributed to the remarkable cultural unification of the Mediterranean in that period.

Whilst not especially well known in Anglophone culture,1 the Early-Middle Bronze Age Spanish Argaric culture has long been regarded as important, sometimes even ‘the most important Bronze Age culture in Western Europe’, on a par with the better known Aegean cultures such as the Minoans, who were busy on Crete at the same time.2 Discovered in Victorian times by the Belgian Siret brothers, Louis and Henri, and named for the site at El Argar (in Antas, Almeria), the culture has perhaps suffered from the lack of a classical connection – unlike the Minoans and Mycenaeans there is no hint of them in later sources. Developing from around 2200 bc, the Argaric culture came to comprise several state-level polities that collapsed c. 1550 bc; this ending might have been welcomed by many, as Argaric society is thought to have been quite hierarchical and extractive, and the socio-political system it developed gladly and totally forgotten.3

Around eight or nine thousand years ago in southern Anatolia a young woman lived and died in the place now known as Çatalhöyük, southeast of the modern city of Konya. She was buried in a building, Building 17 of the South Area, Space 620, along with several other bodies, and found, with seventy-six other bodies across the site, by archaeologists in 2017 (Figure 2).1 Since we have no way of knowing her name, she is known simply as F.8018 Sk (21884). It is a specific yet also anonymous memorial to the lived life of a woman who was at the very least a daughter, a neighbour, and a friend.

At the heart of ancient Greece lay a small city perched on a mountainside – Delphi.1 At the heart of Delphi was the temple of Apollo, where delegations from cities far and wide, even beyond Greece, would come for answers and advice. And at the heart of the temple was a woman, the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo and mouthpiece of the god (Figure 17). For a thousand years successive Pythias occupied this position as ‘the voice at the center of the world’, until the oracles eventually ran dry in the fourth century and then pagan cults were outlawed by the Roman emperor Theodosius in the ad 390s.2 Around 480 bc, the Pythia was a woman called Aristonice. Her words have reverberated through western history.

This chapter studies the presence and the activities of the ecumenical synods throughout the Roman empire during the second and third centuries ad, the heyday of Greek agonistic culture. First, it discusses synod presence in the core regions of the agonistic circuit by following in the footsteps of one of the greatest athletes of antiquity, the pankratiast M. Aurelius Asklepiades, who won almost all of the important agones in Italy, Greece and western Asia Minor. Next, the chapter moves to the more peripheral regions of the agonistic world: the circuits in the interior of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, the Balkans and Gallia Narbonensis. From this geographical overview a picture emerges of two interconnected phenomena: the expansion of the agonistic network and the growing reach of the ecumenical synods. Moreover, throughout the agonistic world the two synods reveal a remarkable uniformity and a high degree of mobility. These observations form the basis of the discussion in Chapter 7.