Lecture | Ancient History Research Seminar
Sacrifice and Social Imaginary in Hellenistic Kos
- Date
- Thursday 16 April 2026
- Time
- Serie
- Ancient History Research Seminars 2025-2026
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
An intriguing aspect of the epigraphic evidence for the sale of priesthoods from Hellenistic Kos is the unusually large number of sacrificial prescriptions addressed to various groups within the local population. Previous scholarship has explained these rules either as economic measures designed to generate revenue from cults that had supposedly lost their religious significance, or as reflections of pre-existing ritual practice.
In this paper, I am going to propose a different approach: these prescriptions can illuminate how influential segments of the Koan citizen body imagined their own society. To explore this, a close analysis of the regulations is needed, paying particular attention to elements not dictated by immutable religious tradition—namely, the price of sacrificial victims, the timing and location of the rites, and the mechanisms for enforcing and sanctioning compliance.
This examination suggests a clear preference for preserving established social hierarchies, with affluent, politically active full citizens firmly at the apex. At the same time, the prescriptions reveal a serious intent to integrate the non-citizen population, albeit at lower levels within an imagined social order. Significantly, certain details indicate that non-citizens possessed considerable bargaining power in relation to citizens. I will argue that these findings have important implications not only for the Hellenistic city of Kos but also for our broader understanding of the post-classical polis.
For whom?
All are welcome, including and especially BA, MA and RMA students of all programmes. This lecture is in English.