In this review of an important collective volume, I take issue with the insistance on exchange an... more In this review of an important collective volume, I take issue with the insistance on exchange and reciprocity as the main interpretive models for euergetism and reframe the debate in terms of leitourgia, accountability and elite competition. I return to P. Veyne's seminar model, notably to the functionalist and neo-instittionalist views exposed in his pre-Foucaldian phase. This reuses material from an earlier paper, "Pour en finir avec l'évergétisme"
Aršāma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context, 2021
An attempt at constructing a model of the Achaimenid economy based on the Arshama letters; and at... more An attempt at constructing a model of the Achaimenid economy based on the Arshama letters; and at bringing back violence and oppression as part of the histographical picture of the Achaimenid entity.
This chapter begins by citing modern examples of public notices in order to illustrate the role o... more This chapter begins by citing modern examples of public notices in order to illustrate the role of inscriptions as both stylised gestures and as channels of authority: they are performative utterances. Various sources of authority are identified, such as human communities, divine sanction, magic or royal decision: the latter category is illustrated in detail by a dossier of 209 bce from Asia Minor that had both symbolic and 'real' impact. Also illustrated, by other examples, are the ways in which locations are used, especially by lending or creating authority. In these ways, inscriptions exemplify speech-act theories: they make us accept a particular version of events as social magic or even 'truth' and act in terms of it, while the negotiations involved are hidden under an authoritative aspect. Yet the latter may be detectable if the inscription is read against the grain, in the knowledge that words are also traps.
M. Canevaro, B. Gray, The Hellenistic reception of classical Athenian democracy and political thought, 2018
What are the shape, causes and implications of the institutional convergence in the Hellenistic p... more What are the shape, causes and implications of the institutional convergence in the Hellenistic poleis ? What is the relationship with the democratic institutions of Classical Athens ?
What is eikôn? Epigraphical examples accompanying actual ancient statues (notably a remarkable ea... more What is eikôn? Epigraphical examples accompanying actual ancient statues (notably a remarkable early Hellenistic dossier from Erythrai, concerning the statue of the tyrannicide Philitas) allow us to read the word in concept, as an image emanating from or produced by material means (the andrias). The workings of eikôn represent a body of civic thinking about art and images, that reflects the political culture of the Greek civic state. This com-munitarian connoisseurship determined production, appearance and reception of Hellenis-tic: if the actual works of this civic art of mostly lost, some playful variants or reactions to it allow us to capture some of its effect. Keywords statues-art history-visuality-civic culture-Hellenistic art-polis Mutilating and restoring the eikôn: Philitas of Erythrai Some time in the early Hellenistic period, the citizens of Erythrai decided to restore the statue of one Philitas, the tyrannicide. This work of civic art had been modified earlier, when the city was under the control of an oligarchical faction: apparently feeling under threat by the stance (stasis) of the statue, they had removed the sword which the figure wielded, thus changing the monument and neutralizing its threat. The democratic polis deliberated, investigated, and put the sword back in place, reestablishing its meaning. The moment is a striking example of an honorific statue, perhaps quite ancient, and its political force in a local, relational context, down in time; 1 we know of this statue through the official decision taken by the Erythraians, and inscribed on a stone slab set up next to the statue.
Portraits of Hellenistic kings are the result of social forces, as produced from below rather tha... more Portraits of Hellenistic kings are the result of social forces, as produced from below rather than imposed centrally and from above. One consequence is that the oft-favoured method of identification by comparison to central models (coins, gems) is highly problematic; another is that there is no securely contextualized example which would allow for a thick description of purpose and performance, How, then, to study the "hellenistic royal portrait" ?
Replication is an important part of the ancient statue habit; the issues and problems it poses co... more Replication is an important part of the ancient statue habit; the issues and problems it poses confront students of ancient sculpture, from the most elementary and fundamental level (how secure knowledge of lost classical Greek art works can be when it is based on Roman-era copies) to the more theoretical and sociological (why replicate? how replication functions; how it is viewed). In this essay, I explore the intersection of the practice of replication with another important ancient practice, that of honorific statues, in the Greek world, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. From the early fourth century BCE onwards, Greek communities could honour men and women who had rendered services and hence deserved the title of benefactor (euergetai) with their portrait, often a bronze statue. The community voted the honour (and usually recorded the decision in monumental, permanent form), commissioned the statue, paid for it (the honorands themselves later assumed the costs), and set it up on an inscribed base in a significant public space: shrine, public square (agora), gymnasion, theatre. The practice belonged to a wider honorific culture of gifts and reciprocity between community and elite; it also offered a useful idiom to interact with powerful foreigners, especially Hellenistic kings. Such honours remained exceptional during the third century BCE, but became more widespread from the second century BCE onwards; they continued and developed in the period of Roman domination, into late antiquity. A related form is the 'private honorific' monument: starting in the mid-fourth century BCE, families and friends set up statues of individuals, in shrines (normally) or in public spaces (from c. 200 BCE onwards). The practice developed from the offering of life-size statues by family members as votive offerings or funeral markers in the archaic period (the so-called kouroi and korai). The practice of honorific statues, public and familial (and mixed, as was increasingly the case from the mid-second century BCE onwards), constituted a highly visible and important visual genre in Hellenistic culture. Its study reveals much about Hellenistic history, the period after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE), a period marked by the paradox of strong continuities (notably in the ART HISTORY .
Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos,, Continuity and destruction in the Greek east : the transformation of monumental space from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity, 2011
in Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos, 2011, Continuity and Destruction. A sketch history of space, me... more in Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos, 2011, Continuity and Destruction. A sketch history of space, memory and conflict in the Hellenistic period
In this review of an important collective volume, I take issue with the insistance on exchange an... more In this review of an important collective volume, I take issue with the insistance on exchange and reciprocity as the main interpretive models for euergetism and reframe the debate in terms of leitourgia, accountability and elite competition. I return to P. Veyne's seminar model, notably to the functionalist and neo-instittionalist views exposed in his pre-Foucaldian phase. This reuses material from an earlier paper, "Pour en finir avec l'évergétisme"
Aršāma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context, 2021
An attempt at constructing a model of the Achaimenid economy based on the Arshama letters; and at... more An attempt at constructing a model of the Achaimenid economy based on the Arshama letters; and at bringing back violence and oppression as part of the histographical picture of the Achaimenid entity.
This chapter begins by citing modern examples of public notices in order to illustrate the role o... more This chapter begins by citing modern examples of public notices in order to illustrate the role of inscriptions as both stylised gestures and as channels of authority: they are performative utterances. Various sources of authority are identified, such as human communities, divine sanction, magic or royal decision: the latter category is illustrated in detail by a dossier of 209 bce from Asia Minor that had both symbolic and 'real' impact. Also illustrated, by other examples, are the ways in which locations are used, especially by lending or creating authority. In these ways, inscriptions exemplify speech-act theories: they make us accept a particular version of events as social magic or even 'truth' and act in terms of it, while the negotiations involved are hidden under an authoritative aspect. Yet the latter may be detectable if the inscription is read against the grain, in the knowledge that words are also traps.
M. Canevaro, B. Gray, The Hellenistic reception of classical Athenian democracy and political thought, 2018
What are the shape, causes and implications of the institutional convergence in the Hellenistic p... more What are the shape, causes and implications of the institutional convergence in the Hellenistic poleis ? What is the relationship with the democratic institutions of Classical Athens ?
What is eikôn? Epigraphical examples accompanying actual ancient statues (notably a remarkable ea... more What is eikôn? Epigraphical examples accompanying actual ancient statues (notably a remarkable early Hellenistic dossier from Erythrai, concerning the statue of the tyrannicide Philitas) allow us to read the word in concept, as an image emanating from or produced by material means (the andrias). The workings of eikôn represent a body of civic thinking about art and images, that reflects the political culture of the Greek civic state. This com-munitarian connoisseurship determined production, appearance and reception of Hellenis-tic: if the actual works of this civic art of mostly lost, some playful variants or reactions to it allow us to capture some of its effect. Keywords statues-art history-visuality-civic culture-Hellenistic art-polis Mutilating and restoring the eikôn: Philitas of Erythrai Some time in the early Hellenistic period, the citizens of Erythrai decided to restore the statue of one Philitas, the tyrannicide. This work of civic art had been modified earlier, when the city was under the control of an oligarchical faction: apparently feeling under threat by the stance (stasis) of the statue, they had removed the sword which the figure wielded, thus changing the monument and neutralizing its threat. The democratic polis deliberated, investigated, and put the sword back in place, reestablishing its meaning. The moment is a striking example of an honorific statue, perhaps quite ancient, and its political force in a local, relational context, down in time; 1 we know of this statue through the official decision taken by the Erythraians, and inscribed on a stone slab set up next to the statue.
Portraits of Hellenistic kings are the result of social forces, as produced from below rather tha... more Portraits of Hellenistic kings are the result of social forces, as produced from below rather than imposed centrally and from above. One consequence is that the oft-favoured method of identification by comparison to central models (coins, gems) is highly problematic; another is that there is no securely contextualized example which would allow for a thick description of purpose and performance, How, then, to study the "hellenistic royal portrait" ?
Replication is an important part of the ancient statue habit; the issues and problems it poses co... more Replication is an important part of the ancient statue habit; the issues and problems it poses confront students of ancient sculpture, from the most elementary and fundamental level (how secure knowledge of lost classical Greek art works can be when it is based on Roman-era copies) to the more theoretical and sociological (why replicate? how replication functions; how it is viewed). In this essay, I explore the intersection of the practice of replication with another important ancient practice, that of honorific statues, in the Greek world, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. From the early fourth century BCE onwards, Greek communities could honour men and women who had rendered services and hence deserved the title of benefactor (euergetai) with their portrait, often a bronze statue. The community voted the honour (and usually recorded the decision in monumental, permanent form), commissioned the statue, paid for it (the honorands themselves later assumed the costs), and set it up on an inscribed base in a significant public space: shrine, public square (agora), gymnasion, theatre. The practice belonged to a wider honorific culture of gifts and reciprocity between community and elite; it also offered a useful idiom to interact with powerful foreigners, especially Hellenistic kings. Such honours remained exceptional during the third century BCE, but became more widespread from the second century BCE onwards; they continued and developed in the period of Roman domination, into late antiquity. A related form is the 'private honorific' monument: starting in the mid-fourth century BCE, families and friends set up statues of individuals, in shrines (normally) or in public spaces (from c. 200 BCE onwards). The practice developed from the offering of life-size statues by family members as votive offerings or funeral markers in the archaic period (the so-called kouroi and korai). The practice of honorific statues, public and familial (and mixed, as was increasingly the case from the mid-second century BCE onwards), constituted a highly visible and important visual genre in Hellenistic culture. Its study reveals much about Hellenistic history, the period after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE), a period marked by the paradox of strong continuities (notably in the ART HISTORY .
Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos,, Continuity and destruction in the Greek east : the transformation of monumental space from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity, 2011
in Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos, 2011, Continuity and Destruction. A sketch history of space, me... more in Chandrasekaran and Kouremenos, 2011, Continuity and Destruction. A sketch history of space, memory and conflict in the Hellenistic period
From the Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (P. Bang, W. Sch... more From the Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (P. Bang, W. Scheidel eds), 2013.
English version of paper which appeared in Annales in 2016, on elitism and "prestige" in the arch... more English version of paper which appeared in Annales in 2016, on elitism and "prestige" in the archaic Greek polis
Paper given at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm), 6 February 2014, followed by questions. Themes... more Paper given at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm), 6 February 2014, followed by questions. Themes: history of the Greek city-state, cultural transfers, spread of the Greek city, and honorific statues, as well as some theoretical thoughts on how to apply the notion of cultural transfers. I thank Paraskevi Martzavou and Jas Elsner for advice.
Paper given at Columbia in 2012, at a conference organized by W. Harris on "The Future of Ancient... more Paper given at Columbia in 2012, at a conference organized by W. Harris on "The Future of Ancient History". Pretty self-explanatory, really.
A paper I gave in Stanford (Eitner Lecture)-- thanks for the Classics Dep't for the invitation. B... more A paper I gave in Stanford (Eitner Lecture)-- thanks for the Classics Dep't for the invitation. Blueprint of current book. Excellent, earthy remarks on YT comments thread.
Quick, rough presentation and translation of some documents, which form the documentary basis of ... more Quick, rough presentation and translation of some documents, which form the documentary basis of a talk which I gave on the events of 175-164 BCE in Judaea-- namely that they can be explained as a synoikism and petition-and-response, and that they cast doubt on any specific religious persecution and on the importance of the Maccabaean uprising and the Maccabaean faction or group at this point in time (as opposed to later).
Readings and assignments for a session on epigraphy, in a graduate class on "Fragments" taught by... more Readings and assignments for a session on epigraphy, in a graduate class on "Fragments" taught by E. Scharffenberger, Dept of Classics, Columbia University, Fall 2017.
(Second version, with corrections; thanks to Dr A. Ellis-Evans for pointing out a mistake at the end).
Uploads
Books by John Ma
Papers by John Ma
A version of this paper is forthcoming in DHA
(Second version, with corrections; thanks to Dr A. Ellis-Evans for pointing out a mistake at the end).