Hellenistic cultic foundations for the dead: Civic, royal, individual, and groups' initiatives in interaction

The paper explores the interaction between different kinds of social agents in the funding and management of cult foundations for the dead in the late-classical and Hellenistic period. Textual and archaeological dossiers will be discussed in order to 1) investigate the occupation of sacred space in existing sanctuaries and other public spaces as well as the creation of new sacred places, specifically meant to host ritual practice for dead individuals or groups; 2) provide a comparative analysis of the patterns of establishment, funding and management of cult foundations pertaining to civic, royal, individual or groups' initiatives; 3) explore the forms of interaction between various agents involved, e.g. between civic and private initiative in funding and management. When possible, these considerations will also be integrated with an evaluation of the religious status attributed to the honoured persons, with particular attention to the semantic fields of heroization and deification. Thus an attempt will be made at tracking down possible general trends of religious administration beyond local particularities, and at schematizing these configurations in a model taking into account four factors: the social status of ritual agents and recipients; the religious status acknowledged to cult recipients; the methods of funding and management; the degree of monumentalization and social impact of the cult foundations.