Nesiotai and Poleis Aspects of Agency in the Hellenistic Cyclades

Abstract

This thesis examines the interactions of the poleis of the Cycladic Islands with hegemonic powers in the Hellenistic period on two levels: 1) the level of the Nesiotic League and 2) the level of the individual island poleis. It examines these interactions through the evidence of honorific decrees issued by the Nesiotic League and by individual cities in a diachronic perspective, with the aim to place the polities of the Cyclades at the centre of the history of the region in the Hellenistic Period. The framing concept for analysing these interactions is "limited agency" which is elucidated in the introduction. Chapter 1 examines the three phases of the Nesiotic League: the Antigonid, Ptolemaic and Rhodian in three sections. The first section of this chapter shows that the orthodox date of the origin of the Nesiotic League be maintained and that it was founded under Antigonos Monophthalmos. The second section of this chapter discusses the evidence from the Ptolemaic period reveals that the Islanders, despite being in a circumscribed position, conducted their interactions with a view to emphasising their limited agency. Chapter 2 provides a case study of the interactions and connections that the island of Tenos pursued from interstate agreements with Athens, to asylia campaigns, to the honorific grants of proxeny made. This chapter also discusses the evidence for the interaction between Tenos and Rhodes when Tenos was the centre of the Nesiotic League. Chapters 3 and 4 examine interaction of several poleis with hegemonic agents and officials: agents who had a role in deliberation and officials and agents who did not have a specific role. Chapter 5 considers the epigraphic evidence of the island of Ios. Ios did not have the same type of connections as Tenos but they made deliberate attempts to show the strength of their interactions, and their ability to adapt to different type of reactions, as evidenced in the honorific decrees. Chapter 6 considers one aspect of the decisions that communities made in regard to their inscribed monuments: the expression of time through the use or rejection of dating formulae.