Connecting the Greeks: Festival networks in the Hellenistic world

Panhellenic festivals were central to the ancient Greek world since archaic times, with places such as Delphi and Olympia defining the essence of a Greek ‘imagined community’. In the Hellenistic period, several Greek cities began to organize large-scale festivals of their own at their main sanctuaries, gradually linking the expanded Greek world together through increasingly stronger ties. As Rome became dominant in the eastern Mediterranean, it was able to use these existing festival connections to anchor its hegemony, making them thereby even stronger. Through case studies of festivals at Magnesia on the Maeander, Stratonikeia, and Oropos we explore ways that network theory can help interpret this phenomenon.