Festive Alexandria: Mobility, Leisure, and Art in the Hellenistic Age

Abstract

The development of a culture of mobility and leisure, principally motivated by the architectural and artistic enhancement of religious sites, can be traced back to the Hellenistic Age. That development becomes clear in the affirmation of periegetic lite rature as well as in the emergence of lists and accounts of the Seven Wonders, texts which combine the function of travel guides with notes on history, mythology, religion, and art. Other literary works testify to that process. This paper aims to discuss Theocritus’ Idyll XV and Herodas’ Mime IV as sources that illustrate the close relationship between religion and art, and its role in the development of the experience of tourism and leisure in Hellenistic Greece, especially as concerns women. In the last part of the paper the sculpture of a boy and a goose, mentioned in Herodas’ poem, will be analysed.