Aegean Interactions: Delos and its Networks in the Third Century by Christy Constantakopoulou

Abstract

Reviewed by: Aegean Interactions: Delos and its Networks in the Third Century by Christy Constantakopoulou Ephraim Lytle Christy Constantakopoulou. Aegean Interactions: Delos and its Networks in the Third Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xviii, 335. $110.00. ISBN 978-0-19-878727-3. Informed especially by Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), recent research on networks has produced useful results especially for the study of prehistory and for particular kinds of archaeological data sets. The usefulness of these approaches for answering historical questions in well-documented periods is less clear, but owing chiefly to its subtitle, Delos and its Networks in the Third Century, I approached Constantakopoulou’s Aegean Interactions with tremendous anticipation. The astonishingly rich archaeological and epigraphic evidence generated during Delos’ period of independence (c. 314 to 166 BCE) would seem to offer a brilliant opportunity to apply network analysis in the hope of answering a range of questions related to the city’s development in the century preceding its transformation as a free port. If readers approach Aegean Interactions with similar expectations, they will be disappointed. If, however, they are interested in one or more of four discrete topics related to Independent Delos—the Nesiotic League, monumentalization, honorary awards, and the dedications recorded in temple inventories—they may find something of value here. Aegean Interactions opens with a long introduction (1–30) that mixes survey of a variety of topics and themes with personal observation, commentary and anecdote. A number of digressions seem primarily interested in describing what the book is not about—this includes, most disappointingly, contemporary approaches to network analysis and theory. Only in the concluding pages of the introduction (27–30) does the reader learn what this book actually is—four thematic studies—but without being made to understand how it forms a coherent whole. The first study (chapter 2) reprises the scant epigraphic evidence for the Nesiotic League. Constantakopoulou follows the orthodox view that it was first formed in c. 313 BCE; but the only thing new here is her repeated suggestion [End Page 243] that we interpret the league not as an institution imposed from above by Hellenistic kings, but rather as “a reaction to external powers through the consolidation of local regional island identity” (32). The problem is that the evidence we do have can be explained by orthodox interpretations, and Constantakopoulou does not present any new evidence to suggest that the league emerged from the bottom up or to show that it reflected a deeply rooted “regional island identity.” The second study (chapter 3) offers a succinct summary of the evidence for the monumentalization of Independent Delos, organized into three categories—building projects initiated and funded by the Delians themselves, monuments that are the result of royal benefaction, and the relatively few monuments funded by private individuals. Constantakopoulou places much emphasis on the agency of the Delians in transforming their monumental landscape, but little here is new and much time is spent summarizing evidence—like Apollonius’ construction of Serapieion A (IG XI.4 1299; GD 91)—that will already be familiar to anyone interested in the Hellenistic period. The third study (chapter 4) examines the evidence for honors awarded by the Delians. The bulk of this long chapter is devoted to surveying the key features of Hellenistic proxeny decrees and the well-known problems inherent in their study. Nevertheless, there is value here insofar as Constantakopoulou demonstrates the wide geographic distribution of honorands. The final study (chapter 5), however, can rightfully claim to break new ground. Here Constantakopoulou quantifies and discusses the social dynamics of the dedications recorded in the Delian temple inventories, paying careful attention to the identity, gender, social status, and geographic distribution of the named dedicants. Constantakopoulou argues persuasively that this data allows us to glimpse a “world of individual piety” (226) that is largely invisible in our other forms of evidence for Hellenistic Delos. The book includes nineteen useful figures, a conclusion, five appendices, a bibliography, and three indices. Its production is handsome enough but otherwise falls short of what one should expect from a leading academic press. Constantakopoulou employs an awkward and sometimes ungrammatical English prose, but competent copy-editing...