Parasites of the God

Published with the support of the J.M. Kaplan Fund

Freed from Athenian tutelage in 314 BC, at a time of geopolitical changes that marked the beginnings of the Hellenistic period in the Aegean world, Delos gradually consolidated its political and economic independence. During the third and second centuries, the Delian community redefined the central place that the island had continually occupied in the economic, financial and cultural flows of the Mediterranean. This study, mainly based on epigraphic accounting sources, including more than five hundred accounts and engraved inventories that were displayed in the sanctuary of Apollo, but also on numismatic sources and archaeological remains on the seafront, re-considers the question of Delos’ place in the Hellenistic economy. Far from being an exception to be excluded from serialized comparisons, the Delian evidence is indicative of Aegean economic circumstances and demonstrates the capacities of the Greek communities to adapt to change in troubled times. Behind the numbers cut in stone appear human communities and societies whose economic activities shed fresh light on the history of this part of the Mediterranean.

Véronique Chankowski is a former member of the École française d’Athènes and is currently its director. She is professor of Greek History at Lumière-Lyon 2 University. Her work explores the organization and practices of trade and the market in the classical and Hellenistic periods through the epigraphic and numismatic sources of Delos and other cities. She is the author of Athènes et Délos à l’époque classique. Recherches sur l’administration du sanctuaire d’Apollon délien (BEFAR 331) and of several studies on the economic history of the Greek world.