The materiality of Greek festivals in the Roman East: the view from Perge

Civic festival culture thrived in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, with numerous new festivals created, and older ones upgraded. This paper explores two aspects of the ways that material culture can help to illuminate the meanings which festivals held for a particular city, focusing on Perge in Pamphylia. Part 1 looks at the ways images around the cityscape would have been energised during festival processions, creating particular memories and identities for the citizens within. The focus is on the 3rd century A.D., when Perge’s civic and religious identity is celebrated in a number of material contexts, from the porta regia frieze of the Theatre, to reliefs on the South Nymphaea and along the Colonnaded Street, as well as in civic coinage. Part 2 examines the ways that Perge’s civic coinage expressed her identity externally, and in particular in rivalry with Side. The connections between the messages conveyed by coins and other visual media shed light on how these events were not only promoted by the civic elites and the organisers, but also perceived and experienced by the civic community as a whole.