Consensus, Community, and Discourses of Power

The final chapter explores the ways in which competing interests and social groups of the polis potentially threatened the unity of the synoikized city. It first discusses potential causes for disunity (competing founder cults and claims to religious and social prerogatives, the challenges of social organization). It then focuses on the ways in which these challenges were addressed and negotiated. The chapter stresses the functional role of ritual activity and symbolism in binding together communities of disparate backgrounds while simultaneously accommodating distinctiveness within a unified political community. In this context, religious and civic traditions could constitute a challenge to the authority of the Hellenistic kings, but the potential for using religious symbolism and ritual to forge a collective political identity also represented an opportunity for building consensus. The chapter engages sociological and anthropological perspectives on ritual and ritual activity, myth, symbolism, and memory to address issues of consensus, legitimacy, dialogue, and social response.