Zusammenfassung
Die Anfragen an das Zeusorakel in Dodona sind eine einzigartige Quelle. Die Anfragen gelten den alltäglichen Anliegen von Menschen verschiedener Herkunft und geben den Blick frei auf die griechische Welt jenseits von Athen und Sparta. Die Veröffentlichung von 4.216 neuen Inschriften im Jahr 2013 hat unsere Datengrundlage vervielfacht und ermöglicht eine quantitative Auswertung der Anfragen. Dieser Aufsatz erschließt dieses Potenzial für die Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Er diskutiert methodische Schwierigkeiten bei der Interpretation der Anfragen und formuliert erste Thesen. Bereits im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. war selbst die Wirtschaft einer eher abgelegenen Region wie Epirus von geldbasiertem Austausch und hoher Mobilität geprägt. Austausch und Mobilität erfolgten allerdings weitgehend innerhalb regionaler Grenzen und waren sozial eingebettet.
ancient performance culture beyond the world of text. It also reminds us that many souvenirs would have been open to personal interpretations and meanings. Other objects discussed by Popkin challenge the notion of a souvenir as related to real-world events and places: For example, does it change anything when the racing chariots are driven not by human charioteers, but erotes (g. 63), a motif also found in funerary contexts? Citing Diane Favro, Popkin concludes that images of Rome were not part of the wider souvenir culture because none of its monuments had become an 'urban icon' (245). Maybe so, but the idea (and image) of Rome as the city of seven hills was nonetheless pervasive, as were personications of Roma (a form of cult statuary not far from the Antiochene Tyche that offers a vicarious experience of empire).Ultimately, what kind of work is the term 'souvenir' doing for us? Is it more than a helpful historical analogy (see the references passim to contemporary American sports and their consumer culture)? Do we lose some of the ner details when grouping together very diverse objects (ranging from terracottas to rather fancy gems, metal and glass works) under the banner of 'souvenirs'? Popkin in my view shows that the term has real heuristic value and makes us think harder about the meanings of objects and images, as well as how they can have an agency of their own and mediate different relationships. On the other hand, her book did leave me worrying that some of the term's essentialising implications may not be helpful in all cases. Notably the intricate patterning and interest in the labyrinthine depiction of civic space make the Puteoli and Baiae glass ampullae a little different. In this regard, it is interesting to note that some of the inscriptions found on them refer to drinking. This raises a more wide-ranging question about use that also haunts the study of late antique containers of all sorts: are (some of these) just fancy packaging for something that was perhaps even more fancy, but ephemeral and ultimately lost to us?Finally, I did also wonder about some of the assumptions made throughout the book about aspects of class and economy. For example, about the producers of these souvenirs we hear that 'economic prot surely motivated them' (82) and that they produced for a 'middle-class market' (188). In the nal part of the book, souvenirs are then presented as a means of 'democratising luxury ' (196). This circles back to the introduction's statement that 'the empire's culture of souvenirs was a bottom-up phenomenon' (12). But can we really know this? The danger here is to rely uncritically on assumptions about the social context of souvenirs. After all, a rather different story could emerge if we pursued the argument that ancient souvenirs, like the modern culture of souvenirs that began with the early modern Grand Tour (see, most recently, E. Gleadhill, Taking Travel Home: The Souvenir Culture of British Women Tourists, 1750-1830 (2022)), owe more to elite than subaltern practices. These probl...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.