Zamanakos Lecture: Gregory Callaghan, Union College, "Seeking Sponsors in Hellenistic Greece: Why and How Greek Communities Embraced Attalid Patronage"

03/06/2025
By Jane Sancinito

Please join us for the Zamanakos Annual Lecture on March 20: lecture 6-7 p.m., reception 7-8 p.m., in Coburn Hall, Room 255.

Gregory Callaghan, Union College, will present "Seeking Sponsors in Hellenistic Greece: Why and How Greek Communities Embraced Attalid Patronage."

At the end of the 3rd century BCE, the Aetolian League named King Attalus I of Pergamon as its Supreme Commander, and Athens renamed a tribe in his honor. Pergamon was a kingdom on the rise, but new and small compared to its mightier neighbors. Why would Greek communities seek this kingdom—by most metrics one of the weakest—as a patron and protector? This talk will explore how the Attalid dynasty utilized the more malleable metric of “status” to achieve an authority within the Greek world that far-exceeded its military and territorial power.

For more information, contact: Jane_Sancinito@uml.edu.