The Athenian Ephēbeia Performing the Past

Abstract

Abstract The Athenian ephEbeia in the Roman period has not received much attention, despite the fact that most of our epigraphic evidence dates to the Wrst to third cen- turies ad. So, Pelekides’ 1962 study ends with 31 bc, with only minimal discussion of the later evidence. Where the inscriptions have received attention, it has been primarily in the interests of prosopography and chronology, though Graindor also looked at ephebic festivals and the honoriWc portraits. This is perhaps due to the lack of attention paid to the Athenian ephEbeia in the literary sources of the Roman period. While the ephebes of Athens do Wnd occasional mention, particularly in Philostratus’ account of Herodes Atticus in The Lives of the Sophists, their pursuits do not appear to have excited the same literary interest as those of Sparta. How- ever, the epigraphic record suggests that the ephEbeia was indeed thriving in Roman Athens and that ephebes would have been prominent in both ephebic and civic festivals. While the literary sources are relatively quiet here, inscriptions, reliefs, and portraits present persuasive material evidence of the importance of the ephEbeia in Athenian cultural life.