Philetairos Ktistes and Pergamon’s Civic Memory in the Post-Attalid Period

This paper provides a reappraisal of the representation of Philetairos as the new founder of Pergamon between the Hellenistic and the Imperial period. The link between Philetairos and the early development of Pergamon as a polis is reassessed in the wake of the recent archaeological scholarship and with particular attention to the occurrences of the toponym Philetaireia, by which the areas of the citadel urbanised before Eumenes II were known. The existence of a cult of Philetairos as Ktistes is possible but unproven for the Attalid period; conversely, its traces are evident in the late 2nd and 1st cent. BC. Finally, by reassessing the sources regarding the charge of “prytanis and priest (of Philetairos)” between 133/2 BC and the advent of the Principatus, it is possible to identify a rupture in the organisation of Pergamon’s civic memory at the beginning of the Imperial period. This overview shows that the characterisation of Philetairos as city founder in Pergamon’s civic memory was probably first shaped by his successors to spread a message of legitimacy but reached its peak in the century between the end of the Attalid dynasty and Augustus. At this time, the city looked at its grand past as a source of identity and prestige, with which the new ruling class wished to connect. Under the Empire, the legacy of Philetairos lost a great deal of its appeal without, however, causing the complete disappearance of Pergamon’s dynastic past from the memory of the civic elites.