Local festivals

The chapter will draw attention to the importance of some 500 known Greek agonistic festivals for local identity politics and for the networking of cities in the first three centuries ce. The chapter will establish the role of such festivals as ‘civic rituals’. They will be studied against a diachronic and comparative background focusing on the role of public ritual and ceremony as a feature of political culture in the pre-modern world. The study relies on documentary sources to shed light on issues such as organization, planning and financing. Finally the religious dimensions will be explored, both in the context of traditional civic cult, but also with special attention for their link with the imperial cult