LUNGO LE TRACCE DI SISTEMI AGGREGATIVI PRIMA DELLE CORPORAZIONI ARTISTICHE

Abstract

This contribution explores the phase before the first decrees attesting to the activity of the associations of
the Dionysiac τεχνῖται of Athens and of the Isthmus and Nemea. Although inscriptions do not support at
defining the very starting point of these guilds, we are allowed to acknowledge that artistic coordination was
in place long before institutional epigraphy. There is evidence of artistic groups travelling along the threefold
itinerary of the Athenian, Delian, and Delphian festivals in the time span of the eighties and fifties of the 3rd
century BC. The in-depth observation of this convergence, whose start slightly precedes and overlaps the
guilds’ first documents, leads to a granular analysis of contests involved in this route and to their socio-political
implications. On the other hand, the investigation of the pre-attested-guilds phase allows to trace
back to the mid-4th century BC artistic arrangements for professionals of drama and dithyramb in which a
gestational phase of the Athenian and Peloponnesian guilds could be recognized.