Professor Marc Domingo Gygax (Oliver Smithies Visiting Fellow) will deliver an Oliver Smithies lecture, ‘How much is enough? Rethinking Public Subscriptions in the Hellenistic City’.
Abstract: Being financially constrained, many cities in the Hellenistic period (third to first centuries BCE) relied heavily on the generosity of their citizens. Civic funding was often secured through large individual benefactions by wealthy elites, but in some cases cities also mobilised broader sections of the population through public subscriptions, involving relatively small contributions from a large number of participants.
Focusing on one detailed case study alongside a range of comparanda, this lecture offers a reassessment of the mechanisms, meanings, and social functions of public subscriptions in the Hellenistic city. It examines the procedures used to maximise the collection of funds and the institutional strategies designed to ensure that pledged contributions were fulfilled. It further argues that these practices served important civic purposes, including the strengthening of communal cohesion, the inclusion of non-citizens, and a broader and more participatory articulation of euergetism (the social institution centred on performing and honouring benefactions). Finally, the lecture considers the rewards granted to contributors and the commemorative monuments erected in their honour, highlighting their role in shaping the social and symbolic meaning of collective giving.
All are welcome. Please RSVP to college.office@balliol.ox.ac.uk if you would like to attend. Refreshments will be available after the lecture.