Placing goats in context: Heracleia, IG XII.7 509 and the mini island networks of the Aegean

The purpose of this paper is to examine patterns of interaction between the Aegean islands in a small scale. In addition to the larger island networks that existed in classical antiquity, like the Island District in the Athenian Tribute Lists, we also encounter smaller patterns of interaction between neighbouring islands. The island of Heracleia, to the south east of Naxos, produced a unique document in the third century: it is a legislative text which prohibited the entering of goats on the island. It will be argued that this unique document was the result of attempts to use Heracleia as a goat island, that is an island used as pasture land for goats. Goat islands, in fact, will be viewed here as an expression of the theme of connectivity in the Aegean. Uninhabited islands were often used as grazing territory by neighbouring islands, a practice which brings us back to the topic of mini island networks. Mini networks also took the form of a larger island controlling its smaller neighbours, like the incorporation and subjugation of the neighbouring islands of Rhodes to the Rhodian demes, or the incorporation of Calymnos into Cos. Finally, the interesting phenomenon of synteleiai in the Athenian Tribute Lists is examined as another indication of small scale interaction