Athens and its Roman Benefactors

Was Athens strengthened through its dealings with Rome? This study of around 200 statues set up to Roman benefactors in Athens between Sulla and Nero (86 BC to AD 68) reveals how Athens exploited the system of Greek euergetism to attract Roman financial support and thereby to reinvent itself as a city under Rome. Honorific statues, set up throughout the city in an elaborate grammar of honorific spaces, displayed Athens’ multilayered relationships with Rome, some based on official, some on more personal rapports. Reuse allowed for complex monuments that constructed Roman political ideals by drawing on the Athenian past and kindled political rivalries among the Roman elite to Athens’ benefit. By drawing on material that has often been neglected in other studies of Roman Athens with their focus on Rome’s rulers, this investigation furnishes a comprehensive account of Athens’ policies towards the Roman elite and of its transformation into a flourishing Greek city in the Roman empire.