In my previous post I talked about the widespread sense in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds that the affluent should give away some of their money.   But to whom/what did they give it and for what reasons?

The basic answer involves an entire system of giving that is now widely known as “euergetism.”  The term was coined by an early twentieth-century French scholar of antiquity, André Boulanger; it literally means (financial) “good work.”  It is probably best translated into English as “benefaction.”

Euergetism widely involved two kinds of giving by those with wealth:

This post describes aspects of giving completely different from what we think of as “charity” today.  Join the blog and you can see what it’s all about! Click here for membership options