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Chapter 4 - The Scale of Benefaction

from Part II - Classical Benefactors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

Marc Domingo Gygax
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Affiliation:
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
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Summary

We know about the benefactors of Greek cities primarily from inscriptions that mark the honours given to them for their benefaction. But the act of benefaction, which is nothing other than the giving of a gift to a corporate body, existed independently of the honour, and this chapter seeks to turn attention to why it was that institutions needed benefactors, and the different needs of institutions of different sizes. Corporate bodies had a number of ways, including direct and indirect taxation and requiring contributions, to meet their financial and other needs, but the smaller the corporate body, the more important it was for it to cultivate benefactors. The particular need felt by Athenian demes can be seen to be reflected in the indications in the epigraphic record that they were precocious in developing ways of encouraging benefaction. But how a group relates in size to other groups is important in determining the attitudes that potential benefactors take to it, so that relative as well as absolute size matters.

Type
Chapter
Information
Benefactors and the Polis
The Public Gift in the Greek Cities from the Homeric World to Late Antiquity
, pp. 96 - 112
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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