Dr Matthew Evans (Warwick/BSA), “Group Identity, Representation, and the Gymnasium on Late Hellenistic Delos”
Dr Matthew Evans (Warwick/BSA), “Group Identity, Representation, and the Gymnasium on Late Hellenistic Delos”
In the corpus of inscriptions from Delos during the Second Athenian Domination (167/6 – 88 BCE), we come across various formal and informal groups associated with the island’s athletic education institutions. This paper explores the role that these groups played in the lives, identities, and representation of the gymnasium’s clientele on Delos as well as in the social and political dynamics of the island at this time. It highlights how the gymnasium brought together into coherent groups individuals hailing from various locations throughout the Mediterranean. Those groups then offered a degree of civic relevance and social exclusivity within the wider community of Delos, making group membership attractive to wealthy Athenian and non-Athenian families who had moved to the island. On the other hand, the paper argues that from a top-down perspective, the gymnasium and its associated groups provided a means for officials to communicate Athenian political control over Delos and its inhabitants. Overall, this focus on the identity and epigraphic representation of the gymnasium’s clientele on Delos after 167/6 BCE reveals the locally specific social dynamics of a significant institution found throughout the ancient Greek world.
Dr Matthew Evans is the BSA’s 2023-24 Richard Bradford McConnell Student.
