The Expression of Identities in Hellenistic Victor Epigrams

“The 120th Olympiad. Pythagoras the Magnesian, stadion. Wrestling, Keras the Argive (who tore the hooves of a cow).” [1] The Olympiad list copied by Eusebius identifies a long series of Olympic victors—in this case two victors from the year 300 BC—with their name, home, and specialty (and occasionally a legendary feat). This recalls the formal proclamation by the herald in Olympia, where also the father’s name was added to this list of identifiers. No athlete, however, was just citizen of his polis or just specialist in a certain sport. He was also a man, a son, a descendant, a husband, and/or a father, belonged to different social groups, lived in a town and at the same time a region, and had political ambitions influenced by historical circumstances. Victor lists therefore provide us with only one part of these victors’ individual, multi-layered identity, or, to be more precise, only some of their many (sometimes overlapping) potential identities.

This paper aims to analyze whether and how the victors of athletic or equestrian contests express a sense of belonging to the Greek world, kingdoms, regions and poleis in the epigrams they commissioned to advertise their success. These ethno-political identifications cover only some of the identities just listed. Much has already been written about the social groups to which athletes belonged. [2] Regarding the ethnic and political identities of victors, however, much is taken for granted. Epigrams are often treated as the competitors’ census declarations, that is as documents applying an objective classification into clearly defined ethnic or political groups. When, for example, the epigram for Leon, a pentathlete from Messana in the Peloponnese, declares his patris to be autonomous, this is taken as evidence that it predates the inclusion of Messana in the Achaean League in 191 BC, when Messana lost its independence. [3] What the choice for this particular formula shows above all, however, is a strong feeling that Messana should be independent, which would have been on Leon’s mind shortly before as well as shortly after 191 BC. Although this political statement could predate 191 by a couple of years, it can equally be interpreted as an act of defiance in 190 or in the 180s. [4]

Fundamental sociological research on identity and ethnicity, in particular by Rogers Brubaker, [5] has shown the difficulty of defining these terms as well as the fluidity of the feelings of belonging they represent. Two of Brubaker’s observations will guide our analysis. Firstly, not every identity is relevant in every context. Instead, specific circumstances activate a sense of belonging. As groups are not stable and ever-present entities, Brubaker warns for the use of ‘groups’ (i.e. the Greeks, the Athenians, etc.) as categories of analysis. Instead he prefers to analyze ‘groupness’, that is the process during which the latent sense of belonging crystallizes or congeals. Applied to antiquity, this means that we will not focus on being Greek or being a polis citizen as stable and ever-present elements of the victor’s identity, but on the specific circumstances that brought him to see himself as such. Secondly, even in situations in which a certain groupness has crystallized (e.g. situations in which people actively define themselves as ‘Greek’, ‘Athenian’, etc.) the emerging groups are not stable entities, as people can work with widely diverging definitions of what characterizes them. This is in particular the case when there are no authorities proscribing a classification system. The “Greeks” were, for example, less clearly delineated than the “Athenians”, as only for the latter a political institution maintained lists and granted citizenship. But even an identification with a political community can be problematic. Although categories used by political institutions often affect the self-understanding of people and their categorization of others, their self-understanding must not reflect the official category precisely.

In this paper, we want to analyze the self-understanding of agonistic victors on the basis of Hellenistic victor epigrams. The changes of political constellations in this period (the formation of new kingdoms and of leagues and the institution of new poleis) created the potential for new identifications, which could not be included in the fixed format of the herald’s announcement. The first section deals with the expression of Greekness in the epigrams of victors coming from the periphery of the Greek world, the second deals with the tension between the local and regional community in victory epigrams from two places with a long agonistic tradition, namely Rhodes and Thessaly. Although at first glance, epigrams form a fairly limiting genre (short texts with a restricting meter), they are actually well-suited for expressions of a more multi-layered identity, because they could divert from the restricting official identification pattern used by the herald and often copied in prose. In these pieces of poetry, victors—and the poets who turned their wishes into literature—could claim any identity that they found relevant to their self-understanding, and they did not have to use state-sanctioned categories. Epigrams should, therefore, not be treated as a kind of poetic census declarations containing objective attributions to stable categories, but as evidence for the various groups with which victors identified on the occasion of their agonistic victory. The analysis of selected examples will show several discrepancies between self-understanding and political reality.

A common way to express a Greek identity in epigrams was the explanation of mythological kinship connections. Genealogical constructions in which the hometown of a victor is connected via mythical founders to a traditional Greek polis indeed represent a recurring topic in Hellenistic victory epigrams. Because of reminiscences to the episode in Herodotus’ Histories (V 22), in which the right of Alexander I of Macedon to compete at Olympia is questioned by his competitors, but then granted by the Olympic judges on the basis of a mythological connection of the Argeads to Argos, the presence of such genealogical constructions in epigrams has in the past been interpreted as a necessary proof of Greekness. [6] The genealogical construction is, in other words, interpreted as the claim which the athletes or horse owners from new Greek areas had made at Olympia or another Panhellenic sanctuary before they were allowed to compete. The unease about Alexander’s presence at Olympia circa 500 BC, however, should be interpreted in the specific historical contest of Persian threats, with the emerging Greek coalition and self-definition and an uncertainty about the Macedonian alliance. [7] Herodotus says nothing about this test of Greekness becoming a standard procedure. As will be argued elsewhere [8] , the widespread idea that proof of Greekness was a requirement at Olympia and similar sanctuaries throughout the history of these games is not supported by the evidence. Greekness was, moreover, too flexible a concept for this to be workable.

That the genealogical information in Hellenistic victor epigrams should not be taken as an active defense against people denying an athlete or horse owner’s right to compete at the Panhellenic games is shown by an epigram celebrating a Pythian victory in the stadion for boys of Herogeiton from Magnesia on the Meander (Ebert 1972:no. 53). This epigram has been dated to circa 300 BC on the basis of style and paleography. Whereas the first words identify Herogeiton’s patris (verse 1: Μάγνης μὲν γεννεάν), the last of the four lines is entirely devoted to Thessaly as metropolis of Magnesia (verse 4: [θ]εσσαλία πατρίδος μητρόπολις λέγεται). Although the first Magnesian in the list of victors preserved by Eusebius is Herogeiton’s contemporary Pythagoras, who won the Olympic stadion race in 300 and 296 BC, [9] Magnesia on the Meander already sent athletes to the Panhellenic games in the fifth century BC. We indeed know of a Magnesian who competed in the fifth century: Kleomachos, a Magnesian boxer famous for copying all the mannerisms of cinaedi, was a contemporary of Aristophanes and Cratinus. [10] Athletes from other cities along the western coast of Asia Minor had been going to the Olympics since the seventh century. Herogeiton’s presence at Delphi would therefore not have surprised the other attendees, nor would his right to compete have been questioned by them.

The poet commissioned by Herogeiton made a deliberate choice when he included Thessaly in the epigram, as he seems to have been aware of uncertainties and conflicting tales about the foundation of Magnesia on the Meander, hence the addition of λέγεται in the fourth verse. The version that the original Magnesians came from Thessaly was inspired by the existence of a city with the same name here, and was well established in Magnesia on the Meander in the third century. In the late third century, when embassies were sent out to promote the Leukophryenia, an historiographer describing the foundation of the city indeed similarly suggests that the Magnesians came from Thessaly, though he explains that they first went to Crete and from there later migrated to Asia. In this way Magnesia connected itself to not one but two other cities of the same name. [11] Unlike this more complex history of Magnesia, the epigram for Herogeiton does not mention Thessalian Magnesia as metropolis, but just Thessaly, although this is in fact not a polis at all. The description of Thessaly as ἱπποτρόφος might seem surprising as well, as the epigram celebrates an athletic rather than an equestrian victory. Nevertheless this adjective, which probably refers to the well-established agonistic glory of the Thessalian horses, can help to explain the surprising focus on the entire region in the kinship construction as well as the general prominence of Thessaly in the epigram: in this way a Magnesian winner of the stadion race could bask in the reflected glory of the Thessalian horses of his constructed motherland.

That a similar, though more precise, reference to a Thessalian origin appears in the genealogical construction published in the context of the embassies sent out by Magnesia for the Leukophryenia contains a hint to why kinship constructed on the basis of the movements of mythical Greek heroes was so popular in Hellenistic epigrams. The argument of kinship was a central element in the discourse of polis diplomacy. Despite the new political constellations, the self-governing city remained the central political unit. For the political reality, it was no doubt important in which sphere of royal influence a city was located, or to which league it belonged, but this was not included in the self-representation. Herogeiton does not, therefore, refer to Lysimachos or Seleukos. In its epigraphic advertisement, the city remains an independent player. The overarching community, which the elite in these cities identified with, was the network of cities that formed the Greek world. The Hellenistic period was therefore characterized by a very active diplomatic interaction between poleis, especially in Greece and Asia Minor; new connections between poleis were habitually forged on the basis of constructed kinship. [12]

Kinship connections between Greek poleis are also explored in a victor epigram written for Diotimos, son of Dionysios, from Sidon, who won the chariot race at Nemea (Ebert 1972:no. 64). [13] Here, this focus on genealogy is more noteworthy, as Syria was not so actively involved in the diplomatic polis networks as the Asian poleis. According to the accompanying prose inscription, the monument for Diotimos was made by Timocharis, who is known to have worked in the last decades of the third century BC. This means that this particular inscription was one of the first Greek inscriptions erected in Sidon. Diotimos was not the first Sidonian to be interested in agones, however. An inscription from 269 BC records Sillis of Sidon as victor in the boxing for young men at Delos. [14] Sillis is a common Phoenician name, so he was certainly not a Greek immigrant. Therefore, we have no reason to assume that Diotimos—who was, as we will see, also of Phoenician descent—was the first Sidonian to appear at a Panhellenic festival. In general, the Sidonian elite seems to have developed a taste for Greek culture before the rest of Phoenicia. [15]

Following the epigraphic practice of the time, the prose introduction presents the monument as erected by the polis to the dikastes Diotimos. This does not mean that the victor monument represents an initiative of the city council, as it may have been in more traditional poleis. The highest authority in Hellenistic Sidon was a monarchic regent called sofet. After the conquest of the city by Alexander, Abdalonymos was appointed as monarch. He is well-known for his interest in Greek culture: he is the probable owner of the so-called Alexander-sarcophagus and gave at least one of his sons a Greek name, [Dio]timos. Christian Habicht has made the convincing suggestion that the Diotimos of the victor epigram may very well be a direct descendant of this family. [16] Using the translation basileus for sofet would have been politically unwise in the late third century, as Sidon lay in the sphere of influence of the Ptolemies, who of course already claimed this title. Therefore, Diotimos and his poet went for the more literal translation of ‘judge’ or dikastes. [17] What we have, therefore, is a monument of a philhellenic Sidonian regent praising himself.

Although making no secret of the fact that he was a Sidonian regent, the epigram identifies Diotimos foremost as a Greek, using a genealogical argument. In the third verse he is connected to Phoroneus, the mythical ancestor of the Argives. Then this link with the Argives is further explained. The sixth line namely described Sidon as home of the Agenorids, a family named after Agenor, a scion of the family of Phoroneus who traveled to the East. Among Agenor’s children were Phoinix, the founder of Phoenicia, Kadmos and Europa. Kadmos went back to Greece when his sister was taken and there he founded Thebes. [18] The specific link between Kadmos and Sidon was already made by Euripides. [19] Whereas in the case of Phoroneus and Agenor a mere reference seems to have sufficed for the poet, the last connection between Sidon and Greece was deemed worthy of elaboration. “Also the sacred city of Kadmean Thebes plumes herself, as she looks upon her metropolis, famous for victories.” [20] If the kinship construction was there to proof his Greek origin, one expects Diotimos to highlight the Argive connection—as Alexander did in the fifth century—and not the Theban one. But Diotimos was above all a ruler, and being a metropolis to a famous Greek city gave Sidon far more prestige than merely having a metropolis in Greece. As a monarch, he wanted to transcend the local level to compete in the same arena as the mightier Hellenistic kings, and this is why he squarely located himself in the Greek community that included the entire eastern Mediterranean.

In the victor epigrams for Ptolemy II and his daughter Berenike (Posidippus no. 78, 79, 82, 87 and 88) [21] , however, a similar claim of Greekness is not even hinted at. These poems do not want to create a connection between the victorious royals and the Greek community at the games. The Ptolemies had higher ambitions than Diotimos; their epigrams, therefore, aim to set these kings apart. Only in one of the five epigrams for royals (the short Ep. 87) the words ‘king’ or ‘princess’ are absent. In epigram 78, it falls at least thrice. [22] The two longer epigrams (78 and 88) are, moreover, all about keeping victory in the family: words for family (γένοςσ, προπάτωρ, πάτηρ, μάτηρ, etc.) are omnipresent. This focus on kinship can again be linked to kingship, as family was an important motif in Ptolemy’s II claim of legitimacy. [23] Four of the five epigrams identify the ethnicity of this family as Macedonian. Egypt and Greece are not referred to. Whereas retrospectively, one cannot but associate the Ptolemaic kingdom with Egypt, at the time the Ptolemies did not see themselves as kings of Egypt, but as the legitimate successors of Alexander, who just happened to be residing in Egypt. [24] The absence of any claim to Greekness should not surprise us either: why would they see themselves as ordinary Greek polis citizens if they could see themselves as Macedonian kings in the line of Alexander? [25] These are no poems about belonging, they are about standing out.

In the traditional center of the Greek world, Greekness is not a topic addressed in victor epigrams. [26] Although the cities here similarly strove for preeminence in the Greek world, their inclusion was never questioned. This does not mean that victors from the Greek mainland and the Aegean expressed their political identities in a more straightforward way when presenting their agonistic successes in epigrams. They too imagined themselves as members of communities that did not quite overlap with official political structures.

Examples of a discrepancy between self-understanding and political reality can for example be found in victor epigrams from Hellenistic Rhodes. [27] The hometown of the victor is a standard element in all victor epigrams; two Rhodian epigrams, however, include not only a reference to the polis Rhodes, but also mention subdivisions of the polis. The first of these two poems, which is extraordinary in metrical terms and can be dated to the first half of the second century, [28] emphasizes the Lindian identity of the victor Hagesistratos, son of Polykreon: “the first to grant fortunate Lindos the blessed reward.” [29] Although the athlete was first introduced as a Rhodian, [30] his victory is connected with the ancient town of Lindos. An honorific inscription for the same Hagesistratos, which is not part of the same monument but records the same victory, does not even mention Rhodes, but Lindos twice. [31] Similarly, another Rhodian epigram for a certain Kleonymos dating to the end of the third century first mentions the polis—Rhodes is called εὐστέφανος in line 6—but then presents the victory as a reward for the little island of Chalke, which was part of the territory of the ancient city of Kameiros. [32] In this way, the successful horses of the victor are connected to their local origin. Hence the ethnic identity of Rhodian athletes as expressed in these Hellenistic victor epigrams is a multiple one. There is more to it than that, however.

Interestingly, the Rhodian victors of the fifth century BC instead emphasize their Rhodian identity and were even called ‘Rhodians’ in the herald’s announcement, [33] although unlike their Hellenistic successors, they were no Rhodian citizens, as there was no city of Rhodes prior to the year 408/7, when a synœcism united the entire island into one polis. In the course of that event the three ancient poleis of Ialysos, Kameiros and Lindos were reduced in rank to phylai within the state territory of the new polis Rhodes. This means that both the Hellenistic athletes emphasizing their local identity in epigrams and the classical athletes asking to be called Rhodians in epinikia are presenting themselves as citizens of a desired fatherland, an imagined community. The famous Olympic victors of the family of the Diagoridai had a pan-Rhodian political ambition, which is for example illustrated by the seventh Olympian ode on Diagoras from Ialysos (464 BC): in the center of this poem there are three myths about the entire island, not just about the hometown of the victor. In addition, a stele with a copy of the ode in golden letters was erected at the sanctuary of Athena Lindia in Lindos. [34] Since we know that the family of Diagoras played a crucial role in the new city in the years after the synœcism of 408/7 it is clear that the pan-Rhodian emphasis in their self-advertisement reflected a political program. Their attempt to rule the entire island ended with their expulsion from the island in 395. [35] The fortune of the Diagoridai changed the agonistic discourse on Rhodes in a permanent way: after that, we know of nobody who tried to secure for himself a position of power on Rhodes based explicitly on agonistic success.

In a political sense, victors became more modest. Whereas in the fifth century the Diagoridai used agonistic victories to underline their pan-Rhodian identity and to express their political ambitions, two of the three known victor epigrams from Hellenistic Rhodes stress the local identity as citizen of a no longer existing polis, maybe because the new, pan-Rhodian aristocracy wanted to show that they remained in touch with their local power base. This is also indicated by the fact that all but one inscription for a Rhodian Hellenistic victor (including epigrams as well as other inscriptions) were erected on Rhodes, rather than in Panhellenic sanctuaries. [36] The third preserved Hellenistic victor epigram does not connect the agonistic glory with the local power base of the athlete. This victor, however, was in fact the most modest of all. In the epigram the word kudos—the fame which according to Leslie Kurke is of central importance for the reintegration of the victor into the community of citizens [37] —is no longer connected with the personal arete of the victor. Instead, it becomes an identifier of the whole patris: the island is called κυδιάνειρα. [38]

In epigrams of successful athletes from Hellenistic Thessaly, the tension between the adherence to local as well as regional communities is dealt with in a somewhat different way. After the much debated ‘royal poems’ for Ptolemaic victors, epigrams celebrating Thessalian victories constitute the second biggest group in the Hippika of Posidippus. [39] As with the royal epigrams, also these literary showpieces about clearly identified agonistic victories were presumably commissioned and therefore reflect at least partially the own identity construction of the Thessalian victors. As the Egyptian royals, they all won horse races. We have already seen in the epigram for the Magnesian Herogeiton that Thessaly and Thessalian horses were an important point of reference even in some non-Thessalian victor epigrams. [40] Thessalian horses and chariots were very famous indeed during the Hellenistic period. [41] More important for our current topic, however, is that it is always the entire region of Thessaly Posidippus’ poems refer to. The hometown of the victors is never even mentioned.

The first of the four Thessalian epigrams (Ep. 71) ends with the emphatic invocation of the personified πότνια Θεϲϲαλία in verse 4, whereas the last one (Ep. 85) explicitly calls Thessaly patris. [42] Both phrases come at the very end of the epigram, a stressed position in every poem. The same is true for the initial word(s) of an epigram. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that epigram 83 begins with the word Θεϲϲαλόϲ referring to the victorious horse of the victor. More complicated is the reading of epigram 84. This poem includes a certain reference to Thessaly in the second verse. Some editions give the desperate θεϲ̣ϲαλοτυλοϲιδα, but we prefer the version of the editio princeps Θεϲ̣ϲαλ‹ὲ› ‹Φ›υλο‹π›ίδα which has the advantage of actually making sense. As none of the other gaps in the text on the left side of the papyrus is large enough to contain the name of the victor, the last part has to be a misreading of the name and the first part is than clearly an ethnikon. This reconstruction renders them both in the vocative. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Thessaly is mentioned in this verse in one form or another.

In none of these four epigrams we hear anything explicit about the polis the victors belonged to. The only case where a local identity is alluded to can be found in epigram 83. Here the poet, probably referring to an (imagined or real) victory monument, calls the victorious horse “a monument sacred to the Skopadai.” [43] The name of the victor is lost in a gap at the beginning of the fourth line. Since the Skopadai were an important aristocratic family from the Thessalian polis Krannon, [44] this reference may suggest that this was his home. [45] It is less clear, however, whether the victor also belonged to this family. The Skopadai are not the only family mentioned in this epigram: the epigram concludes with the invocation of the Iamidae as witnesses (μάρτυρεϲ Ἰαμίδαι). [46] Like Σκοπάδαιϲ in verse 2, Ἰαμίδαι is reserved for the last word of the pentameter which indicates a parallel use at a stressed position within the poem. As the mention of the Iamidae, a family of priests from Olympia, serves as a literary reference to the place of the victory, the reference to the Skopadai may allude to the citizens from Krannon in general, rather than the victor. In any case, the fact that the Skopadai are brought up is noteworthy because there is no other Hellenistic victor epigram where the name of a (contemporary) noble family is mentioned explicitly. [47] This demonstrates not only the essential role of aristocratic families in Thessaly, but the particular importance of the Skopadai as well. As in the case of Rhodes, in Thessaly agonistic success goes hand in hand with a strong aristocracy. [48] How successful some of these aristocratic families were, is clearly shown by the phrase [μ]έγα δῶμα μεθύϲτερον ἐϲτεφανώθη (“a large hall was later decorated with wreaths”) in epigram 84, verse 3. This even brings to mind the often-cited words of a victor epigram from Miletus: “the entire house is full of crowns.” [49] The focus in both phrases seems to be on the large number of victories in one family. Obviously, both victors were not alone in their success.

The focus on the larger regional community in the self-representation of the Thessalian victors in the Posidippus epigrams can be again compared with their classical precursors. The well-known pankratiast Poulydamas from Skotoussa, who won at Olympia in the competition of 408, is praised in a classical verse cited by Pausanias: “Scotoessa, nurse of unbeaten Poulydamas.” [50] A second pre-Hellenistic point of reference is the epigram for the Pythian victory of Agias, written on the famous Daochos monument at Delphi. [51] Agias is in the first place presented as citizen of his hometown (l. 1: Φαρσάλιε). His Thessalian identity follows in the next pentameter (verse 2: γῆς ἀπὸ Θεσσαλίας). This is in line with the way in which Poulydamas of Skotoussa was praised. In classical times, therefore, the polis identity of Thessalian victors was stressed in their self-presentation, whereas the regional identity could be used in addition. In the Hellenistic period, however, the region became the primary point of reference.

The regional option, though obviously more important in the Hellenistic period, had in fact been available since the sixth century BC. In this century, at least two athletes were officially proclaimed as Thessalians in the herald’s announcement at Olympia. [52] This is remarkable because there are only four examples from that century where the name of the polis of the victor is not known. [53] The reason for this relative prominence of the regional identity in Thessaly is to be found in the fact that the polis-structures in Thessaly were rather weak compared to other regions of mainland Greece: besides poleis as Krannon, Larisa or Pharsalos, at least in the adjacent regions of Thessaly there were political entities with a tribal structure like the Athamanes, the Dolopians, the Ainians and the Malians. [54]

If the regional option had been on the table since the sixth century, why did it then become only in the third century the main point of reference for the successful Thessalian athletes? The ‘old élites’ in Thessaly had to find an answer to the challenge brought on by the successes of the “new society of victors” [55] including courtiers and kings. Instead of connecting their kudos in the first place to their family and fellow citizens, as the Daochids had done in the classical period, the new Thessalian victors wanted to share in the agonistic fame of a larger community. As in the political reality, where we can now see an increase and spread of koina to strengthen the position of each individual member-polis, in the agonistic sphere it made sense to refer to the region instead of the polis as patris, especially as the entire region was so well-known for its successful horses. So the difference between the classical stone-epigrams and the Hellenistic literary products may also be explained with reference to the involved disciplines. Whereas the successful Thessalian athletes of the Classical era won their victories in athletic disciplines, the competitors praised by Posidippus were hippic victors.

The activities of Thessalian competitors in the third century—or at least of those competitors whose victories were described by Posidippus—were centered at the Olympic Games. [56] Especially in the first half of that century, until about 240, the success of Thessalian horses was outstanding. At the end of that century the Thessalians literally brought their Olympian success home when they established their own Olympic festival. [57] It is in that context that we even find a connection between the region of Thessaly and Olympia on the religious level. The inscription that mentions the establishment of the Olympic festival also demonstrates that the heros Thessalos was worshipped together with Zeus Olympios. [58] Perhaps this is to be interpreted as an attempt to connect Olympic success with the entire region of Thessaly in a more permanent manner. Even more important than the fact that the Thessalians themselves made this cultic connection is that they were able to introduce it in their apoikiai outside of Thessaly. One might therefore say that this cult became an instrument of Thessalian foreign policy.

The passion for the Olympic games, however, seems to have declined in the second and first centuries. According to our sources, the agonistic activities of Thessalian athletes shifted to a more regional or even local level. [59] This goes hand in hand with another phenomenon: the epigraphic record clearly demonstrates that the Thessalians had very particular agonistic interests in that time: Denver Graninger has recently called the three otherwise not (or only rarely) known disciplines of taurotheria, aphippolampas and aphippodromas a “Thessalian triad” [60] and a newly found inscription from Pelinna shows that the Thessalians even had a tristadion race. [61]

Whatever the reasons for these new developments at the Thessalian agones may have been, it is clear that the first half of the third century saw the peak of Thessalian success at Olympia. It was at that time that the victorious athletes explicitly stressed their Thessalian identity without even mentioning their hometown. As on second-century Rhodes the basis of the success was a strong local aristocracy, but the Thessalian aristocracy seems to have understood the competition very differently from their Rhodian peers: whereas the Rhodians celebrated their success with stone-epigrams on the island itself to demonstrate their kudos to their fellow citizens, the Thessalians commissioning one of the most famous poets of their time paid less attention to their local power base but instead tried to compete internationally with kings and queens, both with their chariots and with the advertisement of their agonistic success.

The epigrams commissioned by the victors of famous agones connect their agonistic glory to various political and ethnic groups, to which they belonged or, more precisely, to which they imagined themselves belonging. This paper aimed to show that these imagined communities reflect the ambitions of the competitor and his circle rather than political realities. The first section dealt with the imagined community of Greeks. All victors discussed in this paper could claim a Greek identity: with the acts of participating in agones and of commissioning victory epigrams they indeed all presented themselves, non-verbally, as Greek. Only some, however, also explicitly claimed a Greek identity in these epigrams and, therefore, presented a heightened awareness of this often latent layer of their self-understanding, now activated by particular historical circumstances. The normal way of claiming Greekness was by creating a genealogical connection with a traditional Greek city. The epigram for Herogeiton, the young runner from Magnesia on the Meander who linked his home to Thessaly, indirectly reflects the contemporary ambition of his city to be perceived as an equal partner in the community of Greek poleis. When Diotimos, the ruler of Sidon, advertised his Greek credentials, he phrased a similar ambition in a far more confident way: he presented his city not only as a Greek foundation, but also as the metropolis of a Greek city as important as Thebes. Ptolemy II and his family did not claim a Greek identity, as they were even more confident: they did not want to belong to the Greek polis world, but instead to rule it in the Macedonian tradition of Alexander.

The second section dealt with tensions between local and supra-local identifiers. The normal practice of competitors at the games was to identify themselves as citizens of their polis. The analysis of examples from Rhodes and Thessaly, however, showed that this constitutionally defined community could be superseded in the self-understanding of the competitors by either more local or supra-local communities. Especially in Rhodes, a clear discrepancy between political reality and the citizen community imagined in the epigrams can be observed: whereas before the Rhodian synœcism, the ambitious Diagoridai expressed their political program when they presented themselves as Rhodians and not as citizens of Ialysos, in the Hellenistic period, prominence is given to the local level, even if these towns lost polis-status after the synœcism. In the third-century epigrams for Thessalian victors of the Olympic horse races, the polis adherence became completely overshadowed by the regional level. For the Hellenistic elite in the Thessalian poleis, the key to being taken serious as a partner in the international network of Greek communities was the coherence of the region. As Thessaly had long been known for its fine horses and as agones were traditional occasions for the members of different Greek communities to forge diplomatic networks, the Olympics were the perfect occasion to play the regional card.