(literally, benefaction). Certainly, its good works included what we would
call charity (in the practical sense) or welfare. But its principal product
line, which devoured much of antiquity’s economic surplus, was temples,
statues, games, anything that could be gazed on or witnessed by the citi-
zenry in awe at the benefactor’s munificence and piety: circuses before
bread, to adapt the old phrase that Paul Veyne took as the title of his fun-
damental study of the phenomenon (1976). Here, too, we see an exchange
at work, as private wealth and the personal wealth of the emperor are
transmuted into public amenities available to all—or, at least, to a much
wider circle than the civic elite (for further description and examples of euer-
getism, see Harland, chapter 2).
Stark’s classic market model is incapable of accommodating the social
and political realities of this religious economy based on philanthropic
exchange. Generally, Stark’s terms and concepts, such as “compensators”
or “free riders,” do not apply, and many of his propositions, which fit
ancient Christianity and the religious movements of modern Western soci-
ety to a “T,” are not so much false as beside the point when ancient pagan-
ism is measured against them. This is particularly so when the propositions
concern social class.
First, the tripartite classification of religious rewards in Stark’s sec-
ond chapter is not germane to public paganism, and consequently its cor-
relation with social class according to three propositions has little relevance
in the ancient context. The three propositions, rephrased here for the sake
of brevity, are: (1) the worldly rewards of religion tend to accrue to the
upper classes; (2) compensating religious rewards tend to be sought dis-
proportionately by the lower classes; and (3) the quest for rewards not
attainable in this life is class-neutral (Stark 1997, 34–37). To take the last
proposition first, public paganism was not in the business of posthumous
rewards. In so far as it concerned itself with the hereafter, its concern was
that the dead of the community be kindly disposed, or at least not haunt-
ingly hostile, to the community of the living; hence festivals of the dead and
care for proper burial. As to the second proposition, public paganism was
not in the business of compensating religious rewards, either. As we have
seen, the religious good sought was the “peace of the gods” and the corre-
sponding prosperity and harmony. All profited from the goodwill of the
gods, though the rich had the larger stake in a stable society and so prof-
ited more than the poor. Only the first proposition, then, that the worldly
rewards of religion accrue disproportionately to the upper classes, appears
both relevant and true. Even here, however, we should recall that materi-
ally elite philotimiaserved to transfer amenities down the social scale. In the
The Religious Market of the Roman Empire 245