Obviously, this is not the place to argue about the impact of the description on Demosthenes’ rhetorical strategy.2 The passage is significant in another, rather neglected, respect. It reflects the ambience created by these kaloi thiasoi, ‘brilliant groups’, an atmosphere of hustle and buzzes. It is exactly this sense of thorybos conveyed by the passage that interests me. Similar thorybos may be behind the decision of the deme of Piraeus to ban groups of worshippers convening outside the Thesmophorion in Piraeus, except on certain festival days.3 Thorybos (that is, cheers, shouts, heckling and laughter) was an essential feature of social activity in the ancient Greek world. Quite apart the religious sphere, several scholars emphasised the role of thorybos in the working of Athenian democracy, in the assembly and in the lawcourts.4 Judith Tacon claims that thorybos (that is, cases when speakers interrupt each other, demos interrupts speakers, demos allies with opposing speakers) was an integral feature of assembly debate and by extension of Athenian democracy. Anti-democracy theorists regarded it as negative.

Associations were variably anchored in space and place.1 Being active in different spheres of life, associations carved their own space into the urban fabric or in the countryside to accommodate their multifaceted activities. Associations were emplaced in civic, sacred and funerary space, enriching and expanding it through their dedicatory, honorific, religious and commemorative practices.2 In these respects, their activities informed the built environment, which in turn framed social interaction.

Private Associations in the Ancient Greek World investigates the rules and regulations produced by ancient private associations in an attempt to show why and how associations were creating a system of well-ordered groups within their communities. Regulations represent, in fact, an understudied aspect of ancient associative life: this book aims to fill this gap by approaching the well-known phenomenon of ancient associations from a new angle. It analyses the organisational structures, legislative mechanisms and features of associations, while at the same time investigating the potential models from – and interrelations with – the habits and strategies of political institutions. It also provides an assessment of the associations’ impact on the broader socio-cultural and physical environment and of their role in local societies, thanks to the establishment of such regulations. The book explores the ideology, values, ideas and aspects of identity embedded in the regulations as ways adopted by associations to create a specific profile to present to the outside world, as well as to members (both existing and future).

Using a new chronostratigraphic sequence for Eretria’s Hellenistic Pottery, this chapter revisits the four main destructions sustained by the city in the Hellenistic period and its phases or recovery.

This chapter looks at what the author calls a “system of visual communication” in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. It focuses on “portrait concepts,” which refers to the double process of inventing an ideological image of the king’s public body, on the one hand, and maintaining the conventions of particular visual media, the interests of the composer, and the expectations of the recipients, on the other. The portrait concept thus encapsulates communication and exchange before it reaches the viewer’s eyes. Von den Hoff identifies three different periods in terms of their visual systems of communication. Between 323 and 280 BCE, during the Wars of Succession, there was close entanglement between Ptolemaic and Seleucid portrait concepts. They drifted apart in the subsequent period (280–160) due to dynamically changing local challenges. In the final period (160/40 to c. 100), there was a renaissance of earlier types of portraiture. The author’s emphasis on imperial entanglement in the first period, diversification in the second, and historicizing endeavors in the final period raises questions about the local background to which the visual representation of the kings responded.

The chapter analyzes the consequences of the earthquake that destroyed Rhodes in 227 B.C. and the “international” help, provided by Hellenistic kings, which contributed to the city’s spectacular recovery.

The chapter studies the destruction of Miletos by the Persians in 494 B.C. and its subsequent recovery by analyzing the literary and archaeological evidence, as well as by weighing the role of the countryside.

This chapter compares forms of political co-operation between the king, the Greek (or Hellenized) elites at the center and those at the peripheries during two wars of Antiochus III (222–187 BCE). The authors argue that these elites were a destabilizing factor in the structure of Ptolemaic and Seleucid imperial power. Their networks of communication were strong, becoming even more valuable, but also more fragile when war was threatening. Gerardin shows how the communication with the ruler could be compromised, especially in the case of the young Ptolemy V, and how Antiochus gained the support of elite and civic members, using some of the same strategies the Ptolemies had developed. Dreyer demonstrates that the political elites on all levels gained influence during the rivalry between Antiochus and Rome in Asia Minor because both based their influence on the rhetoric of the “freedom of the Greeks.” But the Romans did so more effectively by altering the rules of this diplomatic game. In both cases, the influence of civic and supra-civic elite network of communication was far more detrimental to the territorial power of both empires than so–called “ethnic” or “nationalist” revolts.

This chapter combines all available evidence to reassess the archaeological signature of Corinth’s destruction by the Romans in 146 B.C. and its refoundation as a Roman colony.

Exhaustive archaeological assessment of the damage sustained by Athens during the Sullan siege of 86 B.C. and the city’s subsequent recovery in the Roman period.

This chapter explores the foundation of poleis beyond the capital cities, as well as the alteration and renaming of settlements as marks of imperialism. Rather than presenting an exhaustive survey, the authors emphasize the methodological issues faced by historians of identifying and assessing new settlements – Mairs by focusing on the historiography and archaeology of the early Seleucid Far East, and Fischer-Bovet by offering a typology of Ptolemaic settlements. Seleucid settlements in Bactria can only be understood as a continuation of Alexander’s settlement policy. Their strong military character shows the early Seleucid interest in Central Asia and is not representative of the empire as a whole. The Ptolemaic empire was also connected through a network of either new or transformed settlements, whose variety was adapted to each region and actively shaped by local populations. The existing urban and administrative networks, moreover, did not create the need for new poleis – and complementary explanation to the question raised by Clancier and Gorre in the same volume – but the new and altered settlements reflect the Ptolemaic strategy of combining Greek and Egyptian elements.