Gods to Federate, Gods to Separate: Territorial Dynamics and Greek Divine Onomastics by Corinne Bonnet & Sylvain Lebreton (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, PLH-ERASME) (FeBinars “Crossing Federal Borders. Ancient and Modern” -ERC Project FeBo) (07.12.2023) (original) (raw)

ERC Project FeBo+research project "Gli dei dell'Olimpo tra culto, letteratura e teatro dall'antichità all'età contemporanea" [P. I. Giorgio Ieranò] funded by the 2022-2027 Excellence Project awarded to the Department of Humanities of the Univ. of Trento) Deities are important resources for social groups; they deal with issues pertaining to land management, mobility, natural risks, war and peace, alliances and dominions on other political entities, birth, marriage and death, epidemics and health… Among this wide panel of competences which humans allocate to gods, lays also the security of territories and their borders. In the footsteps of the ERC « Mapping Ancient Polytheisms » (MAP), which came to an end in June 2023, we will consider some of the divine onomastic sequences registered in the MAP database as an evidence of the way in which the gods were supposed to guarantee social cohesion within a given area and to avert potential threats. A set of case studies will be addressed: how do the gods (and their qualifications) play a role among Greek federative states (Boiotia, Elis…), but also in the link between an insular territory and its Perea (as in Rhodes), as well as how do they foster the relational dynamics between a city and its « Empire » (Athens and Delos) or a mother-city and its colony (Tyre and Carthage – in order to draw a comparison with non-Greek societies). Attention will also be paid to gods specialised in the protection of borders or treaties, in time of peace and war. Finally, we could compare the polytheistic and monotheistic management of borders, territories and federal dynamics, taking into account ancient Israel, defined as a tribal federation, with Yahweh (who became) its unique and shared god, whose onomastics bear the traces of a past between union and division.