Legal Status of Gymnasia

This chapter focuses on the legal status and the financing of the gymnasia of Egypt. In the Greek poleis of Egypt, the gymnasium may have at first been run privately but subsequently controlled by civic magistrates; in the villages, the gymnasium always remained a private institution, organized and financed directly by their members, although it was more and more strongly embedded in the public life of its communities. A possible Macedonian model is suggested, on the basis of the evidence of the so-called gymnasiarchic law of Beroea and the later ephebarchic law from Amphipolis. The chapter also provides comparison with gymnasia in some selected areas of the Ptolemaic Empire (Cyrene, Thera, and Cyprus) and in the lands of the Seleucid Kingdom, in order to show how different legal traditions and statuses coexisted in the gymnasia of the Hellenistic world.

Gymnasia and Greek Identity in Ptolemaic Egypt

This is the first complete study of all the documentation relevant to the gymnasium and gymnasial life in Egypt at the time of the Ptolemies, the longest-reigning Hellenistic Royal House (323–30 BC). It analyses the diffusion, characteristics, administration, and developments of the institution of the gymnasium in Ptolemaic Egypt and its implications for the assertion of Greek identity. It shows how this institution and its people were affected by the local environment and how ‘those from the gymnasium’, the members of the most Greek institution ever, were truly embedded in the social and cultural milieu of the country where they lived: they were the ‘Greeks’ of Egypt. Thanks to the information from Ptolemaic Egypt with its papyrological sources, this work showcases the variety of concomitant features and different traditions alive and active in the Hellenistic world, thus contributing to a better understanding of the ancient world in all its complexity and vitality.

Introduction

The Introduction provides a background to set the book’s argument into the larger context of the Hellenistic world. After giving a brief account of Hellenism in Egypt before and after Alexander’s campaigns, the chapter provides comparative material by presenting selected examples of Hellenistic gymnasia outside of Egypt with their architectonic characteristics, their functions, and their cultural significance. It then provides the methodological and scholarly foundations of the analysis and reviews the main aspects that come into play for the study of the gymnasia of Ptolemaic Egypt. This sets the place of Egypt within the study of the larger Hellenistic world.

Tides and Volcanoes: A Historical Perspective

In this paper, we examine the origins and the history of the hypothesis for an influence of tidal forces on volcanic activity. We believe that exploring this subject through a historical perspective may help geoscientists gain new insights in a field of research so closely connected with the contemporary scientific debate and often erroneously considered as a totally separated niche topic. The idea of an influence of the Moon and Sun on magmatic processes dates back to the Hellenistic world. However, it was only since the late 19th century, with the establishment of volcano observatories at Mt. Etna and Vesuvius allowing a systematic collection of observations with modern methods, that the “tidal controversy” opened one of the longest and most important debates in Earth Science. At the beginning of the 20th century, the controversy assumed a much more general significance, as the debate around the tidal influence on volcanism developed around the formulation of the first modern theories on the origins of volcanism, the structure of the Earth’s interior and the mechanisms for continental drift. During the same period, the first experimental evidence for the existence of the Earth tides by Hecker (Beobachtungen an Horizontalpendeln über die Deformation des Erdkörpers unter dem Einfluss von Sonne und MondVeröffentlichung des Königl, 1907, 32), and the Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis (proposed in 1905 by geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin and astronomer Forest Ray Moulton) about the “tidal” origin of the Solar System, influenced and stimulated new researches on volcano-tides interactions, such as the first description of the “lava tide” at the Kilauea volcano by Thomas Augustus Jaggar in 1924. Surprisingly, this phase of gradual acceptance of the tidal hypothesis was followed by a period of lapse between 1930 to late 1960. A new era of stimulating and interesting speculations opened at the beginning of the seventies of the 20th century thanks to the discovery of the moonquakes revealed by the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package. A few years later, in 1979, the intense volcanism on the Jupiter’s moon Io, discovered by the Voyager 1 mission, was explained by the tidal heating produced by the Io’s orbital eccentricity. In the last part of the paper, we discuss the major advances over the last decades and the new frontiers of this research topic, which traditionally bears on interdisciplinary contributions (e.g., from geosciences, physics, astronomy). We conclude that the present-day debate around the environmental crisis, characterized by a large collection of interconnected variables, stimulated a new field of research around the complex mechanisms of mutual interactions among orbital factors, Milankovitch Cycles, climate changes and volcanism.

Insularity and Religious Life: The Case of Hellenistic Ikaros/Failaka Island

This paper explores the notion of insularity and religious life in the sacred landscape of Ikaros/Failaka with a particular focus on the Hellenistic period. The little island of Ikaros/Failaka in the Persian Gulf had a long pre-Hellenistic religious history and was occupied by Alexander, explored by his officials and became part of the Seleucid kingdom. From the mid-20th century, archaeological missions working on the nesiotic space of the Persian Gulf have revealed material evidence that has altered our view of this remote part of the Hellenistic world. Research revealed a flourishing network of cultural communication and contacts between the indigenous population of the East and Greco-Macedonians. These interactions mirror the landscape of the Hellenistic East. Thus Ikaros/Failaka, an island on the periphery of the Seleucid kingdom, situated at a strategic point (near the mouth of the River Euphrates and close to the shores of the Persian Gulf) appears to be part of a chain of locations that possessed political/military, economic, and religious importance for the Seleucids. It became a fruitful landscape, where the Seleucids pursued their political and religious agenda.

Λογικὴ λατρεία (Rom 12,1). The Pauline Idea of Worship between the Hebrew and Hellenistic Worlds

This essay focuses on a passage from the Letter to the Romans, better on a famous expression: λογικὴ λατρεία (Rom 12,1). After having studied its context in some depth, it shows how Paul operates in a dual direction: the apostle removes from the expression any kind of semantic link bound up with the cult; he also attributes to it a profane semantic. Paul does not intend to oppose the two cults, Jewish and Christian. His words imply that, like the ancient Israel before them, the Christian believers should also be distinguished for their cult. Christian worship is conceived in a different way. It is far from being a spiritualisation of the cult. Such a reduction is excluded by the object of the sacrifice, «your bodies». Paul operates in two directions: on the one hand, he avoids the trap of supersessionism with regard to the Jewish cult; on the other hand, he excludes a spiritualisation (or interiorisation) of Greek religious practices. Paul’s language is distinct both from the great tradition of Israel and from the Hellenistic world.

Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires

The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires are usually studied separately, or else included in broader examinations of the Hellenistic world. This book provides a systematic comparison of the roles of local elites and local populations in the construction, negotiation, and adaptation of political, economic, military and ideological power within these states in formation. The two states, conceived as multi-ethnic empires, are sufficiently similar to make comparisons valid, while the process of comparison highlights and better explains differences. Regions that were successively incorporated into the Ptolemaic and then Seleucid state receive particular attention, and are understood within the broader picture of the ruling strategies of both empires. The book focusses on forms of communication through coins, inscriptions and visual culture; settlement policies and the relationship between local and immigrant populations; and the forms of collaboration with and resistance of local elites against immigrant populations and government institutions.

‘Professional’ Organizations in the Hellenistic World

This contribution focuses on the development of the so-called ancient ‘professionalism’ in sport. Beginning with an often quoted passage in Galen’s Thrasyboulos and some critical comments by Plato and Euripides on athletes, the paper discusses the various definitions of professional athletes in modern scholarship (E. N. Gardiner, H. A. Harris, J. Jüthner, H. W. Pleket, N .B. Crowther, D. Young, H. Lee, M. Golden, D. G. Kyle). The last mentioned scholars show that the application of the nineteenth-century concepts of amateurism and professionalism to ancient sports is anachronistic. There, however, is no doubt that changes existed in the history of athletics since the foundation of the gymnasium. The rise of ‘professionalism’ is connected to this development. The second part discusses various types of ‘worldwide’ athletic guilds (synodos tōn hieronikōn kai stephaneitōn, ecumenical federation of athlētai). These guilds made efforts to retain guarantees concerning their privileges, exemptions, and honors. Two documents from the late Hellenistic period (inscription of Erythrae, letter from Mark Antony) illustrate these endeavours.

Building on the Border: Architecture as a Meeting Place

To establish a border signifies defining a fixed point from which to start and to which to refer in order to circumscribe controlled and measured environments. It is not important whether it is a border between states and regions or private and public spaces, because the main effect of the border is to sanction a diversity. This proposal will analyse three case-studies that, starting from antiquity to the contemporary age, have proposed over time different ways of conceiving the border, making architecture the convergence point. The first is the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, a monument created by Greek artists located in Persian territory. It stood on the peninsula of Anatolia, the border land par excellence in the Hellenistic world, a place where the dominant Western cultures of Greece and Persia clashed. The second is Castel Velturno, a border utopia belonging to Prince-Bishop Cristoforo Madruzzo, who deposited his dreams of unification between the North and the South of Christianity which were torn apart by the theological demands addressed during the Council of Trento. Finally, this proposal will examine the contemporary project entitled the Bi-National Community Skyscraper, which proposes a reinterpretation of the walls erected on the border between the USA and Mexico by building a skyscraper on it in which the two communities can meet and merge together.