“Fluid agents in Hellenistic and Roman Macedonia. Religious networks and iconographic consistencies”

Dafni Maikidou-Poutrinou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

This paper discusses religious connectivity in the Hellenistic and Roman regions of Macedonia. It considers geographic interconnectedness, focusing on the networks created around the fluid means of communication: the Aegean Sea and the numerous rivers in the area. The paper proposes a model to understand connectivity, discussing issues of navigability and the movement of people, goods, and information through the riverine channels. Key locations in this network are the cities and sites on those routes, particularly those that connect riverine and maritime communication, such as Thessaloniki and Amphipolis. These urban settlements served as economic, social, and cultural hubs, welcoming various cults and facilitating religious exchange. 

During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, numerous gods reached these shores – divine figures and divine families that traveled across the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. These deities, through different ways, were gradually incorporated into these settlements of Northern Greece. Examples include the Isiac cults, the cult of Cybele and Attis, and Theos Hypsistos. This paper investigates how these fluid networks impacted the spread of these cults and the communication of religious features between cities and sites. To this end, it traces common iconographic features and patterns of religious practices as manifestations of human communication with the divine. The study is better conceptualized within a theoretical framework that views these lands as part of a globalizing world that combines global and local features. This framework highlights cultural heterogeneities while emphasizing local diversities.