Roman Infrastructural Changes to Greek Sanctuaries and Games: Panhellenism in the Roman Empire, Formations of New Identities.

Abstract

My dissertation examines the changes to the Panhellenic Games in Greece during the Roman period through an examination of the nonmonumental architecture, infrastructural features, and epigraphic evidence of the four original Panhellenic Games: the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean. I argue that, though each of these Games played an important role in defining Greek responses to Roman rule, they were used in quite disparate ways and were conceptualized differently by their participants. The Olympic Games, for instance, continued to be administered by the city of Elis, which had autonomous control over the sanctuary of Zeus, maintaining its independence and preserving the traditional Greek cultural milieu; in contrast, Augustus, Nero, Hadrian and other emperors manipulated the membership of the Amphiktyonic League at Delphi in order to better serve their political strategies for the province of Achaea. The Nemean Games were transferred to their mother-city of Argos in the Hellenistic period and continued to be celebrated there in an urban context throughout the Roman period. The Isthmian Games were administered by the Roman colony of Corinth, who used their control over that spectacle to legitimate their place in Achaea. They maintained a Greek veneer over the Isthmian festival, through the continued use of Greek as the language of the Games, while making significant changes to the administration of the festival to make it suit the political structure of the new Roman colony. I conclude that there was not one Roman administrative model of control over these Games, but features of them were deliberately chosen and modified by many groups and individuals, from the emperors, to Roman citizens of Greece, to the native elites, to the athletes, to legitimize and highlight their connections to the classical Greek past and to create a broader sense of Panhellenism throughout the province of Achaea and the rest of the Greek world.