not alone in adopting such a limited definition of religion; it is not hard to
see how the application to the ancient world (or to any non-western cul-
ture, for that matter) of such a modern, western, Christian, individualist
conception of religion can obscure the vast majority of religious life, cate-
gorizing it (a priori) as artificial and less than genuine.
Hence the misguided and all-consuming focus, in some scholarship, on
the mystery religions. Giulia Sfameni Gasparro (1985, xiii–xxiii) and Wal-
ter Burkert (1987), among others, question the Christianizing interpreta-
tions of the mysteries that were previously prevalent. As Burkert points
out, mysteries were an optional activity within the broader context of tra-
ditional religious forms, not a separate movement or religion over against
thepolisand its structures. Associations and groups that engaged in mys-
teries were often fully integrated into the complex structures of family and
polis(Burkert 1987, 32) rather than being their replacements.
EVIDENCE FOR THE VITALITY OF THE POLISIN ASIA MINOR
Now that we have challenged some scholarly portraits of the polis,we can
go on to discuss more positive evidence concerning the continuing vitality
of civic life. I begin by addressing the significance, for the polis,of social net-
works of benefaction in the Hellenistic and Roman eras; then, I continue
by using inscriptional evidence for associations in Roman Asia as an indi-
cation of involvements in, attachments to, and identifications with numer-
ous dimensions of the polison the part of its inhabitants from various social
strata.
Social Networks of Benefaction
One can see important continuities within many of the central political,
social, and cultural institutions and structures of the polis,from the classi-
cal period into the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The constitutions of cities
that were founded on the model of the Greek poliscontinued to consist of
the two main bodies of civic authority: the council (boulê), which usually
numbered between two hundred and five hundred members; and the peo-
ple (dêmos), which included the citizen body divided according to tribes
(phylai), along with various civic official positions and boards (whose titles
could differ from one city to the next). Social-cultural institutions, includ-
ing some mentioned earlier by Pausanias, remained prominent in civic life.
Yet one of the most significant developments in the structure of the polisin
the late-Hellenistic and Roman eras, which is also essential for under-
standing competition, rivalry, and co-operation between different groups,
was the emergence of a systematic pattern of benefaction (euergetism),
The Declining Polis? 35