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INTRODUCTION Any attempt to understand religious rivalries in the ancient Mediterranean world must take into account the social and political structures within which such phenomena took place. Such structures influenced or constrained in various ways the activities and behaviours of the individuals, groups, and communities that attract our historical interest. Thus, it is the city or polis of the Greek East, and the larger power structures of which the polis was a part, that should frame our investigations. It is important, of course, to remember that, in focusing on the polis, we are glimpsing only a small portion of social-religious life in antiquity; we are not studying life in the countryside and villages, concerning which the evidence is, unfortunately , far less abundant. Our understanding of the nature and characteristics of the polis and empire will have an impact on our assessment of social and religious life. For this reason, it is very important to be self-conscious about the models and presuppositions that have not only informed past scholarship in this area but also, for better or for worse, continue to shape our perceptions of civic life in regions like the Roman province of Asia. It is common, in discussions of the polis under Hellenistic and Roman rule, to read about the corrosion of civic spirit or identity, about interference by ruling authorities, about the hollowness of civic institutions and structures , which are supposed to have accompanied a fundamental decline. In recent years, some scholars have begun to question key aspects of this traditional scenario of decline. As we shall soon see, theories concerning the The Declining Polis? Religious Rivalries in Ancient Civic Context Philip A. Harland 2 21 02_vaage.qxd 2006/03/24 9:42 AM Page 21 degeneration of the polis, including its religious life, are based more on a debatable selection, interpretation, and employment of evidence—informed by an underlying model of decline—than they are by the weight of the evidence itself. Indeed, I shall argue that despite changes and developments in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, we can properly speak of the continuing vitality of civic life, especially in its social and religious aspects. I begin by discussing and questioning notions of decline in the study of the polis (Models of Decline in the Study of the Polis), before outlining ways in which this notion has influenced studies of ancient religious life in this context (Models of Decline in the Study of Social-Religious Life). I then provide evidence for the continuing vitality of civic life by using the inscriptional evidence for small social-religious groups in the cities of Roman Asia (Evidence for the Vitality of the Polis in Asia Minor). This evidence gives us a glimpse into the importance of networks of benefaction, and provides a picture of the polis as a locus of identity, pride, co-operation, and competition among various levels of society. Finally, I discuss how this overall picture of the polis might inform our discussion of religious rivalries (Implications for the Study of Religious Rivalries). MODELS OF DECLINE IN THE STUDY OF THE POLIS Pausanias, the ancient travel guide, makes a sarcastic statement which provides us with a rare description of how an ancient Greek defined the polis: “From Chaironeia it is two and a half miles to the polis of Panopeus in Phokis: if you can call it a polis when it has no civic offices, no gymnasium, no theatre, and no market-place, when it has no running water at a fountain and they live on the edge of a torrent in hovels like mountain huts. Still, their territory has boundary stones, and they send delegates to the Phokian assembly” (Pausanias, Descr. 10.4.1; trans. adapted from Levi 1971). Evidently , Pausanias viewed the buildings and related institutions that accompanied civilized Hellenistic life as the essence of a Greek polis, and he qualifies his sarcasm by noting that Panopeus did, at least, participate in its regional political assembly. Conspicuously absent from Pausanias’s description, however, is something that seems to be the focus of many modern attempts to define what is or is not a real polis: the idea that without true autonomy, or genuine democracy on the model of classical Athens, there is no polis at all, or at best only a polis in decay. According to the common view, changes that took place in the fourth century BCE led to the failure of the Greek polis, followed by a steady degeneration of virtually every...

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