Brotherhoods of Faith and Provident Planning: The Non-public Associations of the Greek World

Abstract

This chapter utilizes material from various parts of the Greek-speaking world, and offers a rather wide-ranging assessment of the networking capabilities of the ancient non-public associations; for reasons that will become apparent shortly, chronologically the stress will be on Hellenistic times. Treatment of the ancient 'brotherhoods' sui generis can of course only be undertaken at the cost of leaving out individual features, deviations and local nuances, all of which underline particularity and difference. The chapter shows that potential as it would have been ideal, with equal weight on all three of the fields; rather, the stress will be on the political. It discusses the contention that there are at least three good reasons for including the non-public associations in an analysis of networks in the Greek-speaking world. Societal organization at that time was almost coterminous with, and certainly under the primacy of, the political, and had 'citizenship' and the smooth functioning of the public sphere as its pre-eminent concerns.

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