Chapter 5 - On Tour through the Festival World

Summary

This chapter studies the presence and the activities of the ecumenical synods throughout the Roman empire during the second and third centuries ad, the heyday of Greek agonistic culture. First, it discusses synod presence in the core regions of the agonistic circuit by following in the footsteps of one of the greatest athletes of antiquity, the pankratiast M. Aurelius Asklepiades, who won almost all of the important agones in Italy, Greece and western Asia Minor. Next, the chapter moves to the more peripheral regions of the agonistic world: the circuits in the interior of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, the Balkans and Gallia Narbonensis. From this geographical overview a picture emerges of two interconnected phenomena: the expansion of the agonistic network and the growing reach of the ecumenical synods. Moreover, throughout the agonistic world the two synods reveal a remarkable uniformity and a high degree of mobility. These observations form the basis of the discussion in Chapter 7.