Appended Festivals: The Coordination and Combination of Traditional Civic and Ruler Cult Festivals in the Hellenistic and Roman East

Abstract

From the Hellenistic period on, various Greek civic festivals in honor of traditional deities were coordinated or combined with similar expressions of the ruler cult. The usual results were festivals under a joint name, such as the so-called Dionysia and Demetrieia at Athens. These appended festivals played, practically and ideologically, a supplementary but no less important part of the festivity in the cities that instituted them. The appended festivals helped ensure the monarchs' good will without swelling costs, especially when they shared an organizational framework with the old festivals of the cities. Examples concerning Alexander and members of the dynasties of the Antigonids, Seleucids, and Attalids are examined. The continuation of this cult practice into the Roman period of the Greek East, both during the republic and the empire, is also sketched.