British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Cultures of Commemoration:
War Memorials Ancient and Modern

The ritualized commemoration of war in the Hellenistic Polis

Angelos Chaniotis (University of Cambridge)

In this paper I intend to study (primarily using the epigraphic evidence) the various ways in which wars, both wars of the remote past and the recent Hellenistic wars, were present in the ritual life of Hellenistic cities. Instead of discussing a particular case or aspect, I would prefer to present a panorama of the continual presence of war memories and memorials in ritual activities (inter alia, historical anniversaries, public funerals, the graves of the war dead as places of memory, the part played by war dedications in sanctuaries, the commemoration of war in the public recitation of honorary decrees, narratives of epiphanies of gods in wars etc.).