Satlow - The Gift in Antiquity

Series Editor: Kurt A. Raaf laub

War and Peace in the Ancient World
Edited by Kurt A. Raaf laub
Household and Family Religion in Antiquity
Edited by John Bodel and Saul Olyan
Epic and History
Edited by David Konstan and Kurt A. Raaf laub
Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies
Edited by Kurt A. Raaf laub and Richard J. A. Talbert
The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Edited by Johann P. Arnason and Kurt A. Raaf laub
Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World
Edited by Susan E. Alcock, John Bodel, and Richard J. A. Talbert
The Gift in Antiquity
Edited by Michael L. Satlow

This edition first published 2013
2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The gift in antiquity / edited by Michael L. Satlow.
p. cm. (The ancient world: comparative histories)
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4443-5024-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. GiftsHistory. 2. Civilization, Ancient.
I. Satlow, Michael L.
GT3050.G55 2013
394dc23

2012036176

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Jacket image: Detail from Byzantine mosaic of kings bearing gifts, Sant Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 6th century. Neil Harrison / Alamy
Jacket design by cyandesign.co.uk

Daniel F. Caner is Associate Professor of History and Classics at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Author of Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (2002) and History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (2010). He is currently writing a book on religious wealth and society in the age of Justinian.
Neil Coffee is Associate Professor of Classics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research focuses on Latin epic poetry, the social conditions of poetic production, and digital approaches to literary history and stylistics. He is the author of The Commerce of War: Exchange and Social Order in Latin Epic (2009). He also leads the Tesserae Project ( http://tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu/ ), which uses computational methods to study allusion among classical and later authors, and offers a free online tool for intertextual research.
Zeba Crook is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). He is the author of Reconceptualising Conversion (2004); Honor, Shame, and Social Status Revisited ( JBL 2009); Reflections on Culture and Social-Scientific Models ( JBL 2005); and many other articles on social-scientific approaches to biblical literature.
Marc Domingo Gygax is Associate Professor of Classics at Princeton University and author of Untersuchungen zu den lykischen Gemeinwesen in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (2001). His main interests lie in ancient Greek history, historical anthropology, and modern historiography. He is currently working on a book on the origins of Greek euergetism, the phenomenon of voluntary donations to city-states, and the reciprocal recognition of these services as benefactions.
Gregg E. Gardner is Assistant Professor and the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia. His publications include Jewish Leadership and Hellenistic Civic Benefaction in the Second Century B.C.E (JBL 2007) and Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World (coedited; 2008). His current project is a monograph on charity in ancient Judaism and rabbinic literature.
Anne Katrine Gudme is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She did her doctoral research on votive practices in the Hebrew Bible and the dedicatory inscriptions on Mount Gerizim, and she has published several articles on ritual, vows, and votive practices in the Hebrew Bible.
Galit Hasan-Rokem is Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore and Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among her books are Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature (2000) and Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity (2003). Galit Hasan-Rokem is a published poet in Hebrew and in translation in several languages and is literary editor of Palestine-Israel Journal , as well as a founding member of its editorial board since 1993.
Marcel Hnaff is a philosopher, anthropologist, and professor at the University of California, San Diego. His publications include Claude Lvi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology (1998; orig. 1991); Public Space and Democracy (coedited with Tracy Strong; 2001); The Price of Truth: Gift, Money, Philosophy (2010; orig. 2002: Grand Prize of the French Academy); La Ville qui vient (2008); and Le Don des philosophes: Repenser la rciprocit (2012). His main field of research is political philosophy and the anthropology of political institutions and symbolic practices.
David Konstan