This concluding chapter discusses the similarities and differences between the Little Panathenaia and the Great Panathenaia and the consequences for the identities created at them. The Little Panathenaia was an inclusive, local event focused on the residents of the city, while the penteteric festivities were international and exclusive; consequently, creating the community of ‘all the Athenians’ played an important role only in the Great Panathenaia. At the annual festival, in contrast, the emphasis was on constructing identities for the residents within the context of the city and especially as members of various different groups and subgroups. The chapter then compares the Panathenaia to other festivals in Athens and Attica. It shows that the Panathenaia was not typical of the city’s festivities, but, in both forms, it was set apart from other celebrations by its size, its inclusivity and, in the case of the Great Panathenaia, its international character. The dynamics identified here cannot be used as a paradigm for understanding the politics of a major festival organised by the city. Each celebration must be understood on its own terms and situated within its larger context.

What is chen? During the early imperial period, philologists usually interpreted the word chen as “to be fulfilled,”1 “subtle,”2 and “secret writing.”3 Chen were words that seemed trivial and insignificant, but were in fact laden with meaning, mystery, and mysticism. They were words that prophesied future events that eventually came true. “The words were said beforehand, and the evidence came afterward.”4 Chen prophecy refers to unusual verbal or written discourse, or signs that revealed the Mandate of Heaven and prophesied the fate of individuals or regimes. These words and signs contained cryptic messages, and made their revelations and prophecies in a metaphorical and obscure manner.

The academic study of rumor as a phenomenon began in the early twentieth century among psychologists, notably Louis William Stern in Hamburg, who conducted experiments on how the content of information was altered in the process of passing between individuals. However, it became a topic for historical study only as attention shifted toward examining the conduct of “crowds,” the “masses,” or the emergence of public opinion. The most important studies of rumor thus appeared in France, where the “crowd” had become a central topic in sociology in the late nineteenth century.1 Here the study of rumors focused on their contents and significance, specifically on how rumors revealed the fears, hopes, resentments, and other passions of the lower strata who did not otherwise figure in the historical record, notably peasants and urban workers.

In the summer of 2001, I was busy at work on the banks of Clear Water Bay in Hong Kong, deep in my research into the belief in chen prophecies during the Western Jin, Eastern Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. The fruit of my labor was the book Power of the Words: Chen Prophecy in Chinese Politics, AD265–618, published in 2003.

This chapter is the first of two chapters examining the identities created at the Great Panathenaia. It asks what identities were created for Athenian men. For these men, the processes were particularly complex, and they had to take part in a variety of different aspects of the festival. The more often a man participated, the more complex his identities became. A man could also have further identities as a member of specific subgroups of Athenian men: as a member of the cavalry, as benefactor of the city, as a member of a genos, a (Kleisthenic) deme and a (Kleisthenic) tribe. Different aspects of a man’s overall identity would have been salient at different moments in the festival and depended on how exactly any individual man participated. Especially in the games during the classical and Hellenistic periods, the definition of what it meant to be an Athenian male mapped quite closely on to a very political and Aristotelian understanding of citizenship. Consequently, the identities of Athenian men were particularly sensitive to political change in the city, and they quickly reflected developments in other areas of the city’s life.

Dictionaries of Modern Standard Chinese usually define liuyan as “disseminating baseless talk,” “rumors”;1 “baseless talk (usually refers to talk that makes comments on people behind their back, talk that is slanderous, and talk that stirs up disagreements between people).”2 Chen Hsueh-Ping, a Chinese psychologist in the early twentieth century, averred that “rumors are either referred to as liuyan or referred to as eyan” – in other words, liuyan is rumor.3 Contemporary Chinese social psychologists may have a different understanding. For example, they believe that both liuyan and rumor are “imprecise information,” but there are certain differences between the two. The main difference is that “the former is often misinformation that has been disseminated unintentionally, while the latter is fabricated on purpose.”4 Some mass psychologists classify them this way: “Liuyan has an origin; a rumor is fabricated from thin air.”5 I have already explained in the Preface that the rumors discussed in this book, be they ancient or modern, are not necessarily speech information that is baseless, false, or fabricated. How then, are liuyan and rumor related to each other? What was liuyan like during the early imperial period?

The large archaeological sites in Athens are the result of systematic excavations, while numerous rescue excavations following the pace of modern construction have revealed a wealth of information on all aspects of life in the ancient city. Although rescue excavations are conducted in a piecemeal fashion, they have provided fixed points in the topography of Athens, new finds, and identifications of monuments.

The public, official life of Athens took place mostly in the central square, known as the Agora, described by ancient authors, especially Pausanias, and excavated by the American School of Classical Studies. This chapter explores the buildings that housed the executive (Royal Stoa), legislative (Bouleuterion), and judiciary (law courts, or diskasteria) branches of the Athenian democracy.