Austerity, Communal Feasts, and the Emergence of the Cretan Polis

Abstract

Recent excavations and research projects are bringing Crete to the center of debates about state formation in ancient Greece. Civic feasting in the Archaic period, correlating in epigraphic terms to the andreion institution known on Crete, has emerged with greater clarity in the archaeological record. These feasts took place in the public mess halls where food and drink were served to citizens. Feasting buildings at Azoria help establish criteria for distinguishing andreion-style feasts from other forms as a more regular and inclusive practice emerging at the end of the seventh century BCE. Ceramic assemblages also provide clues to the defining characteristics of such feasting, with the standardization in the cup line best expressing a communalistic ideology. The frequency of the high-necked cup in addition to volumetric studies presented here point to a standard Cretan cup, implying uniform practices. In a broader sense, the cups themselves and their austere style contributed to a new ideology and defined citizenship in performative terms, the social glue underpinning the early Cretan polis.1