Xystarchai anf eisagogeis at the Sebasta in Neapolis

Abstract

The first problem to face in the foundation of an agon of the importance of the Sebastas was obviously the finances. In a Greek city a great deal of public expenditure, which in a modern state is derived from tax revenues, pertained much more directly to the institution called "liturgy." Financial responsibilities for certain offices were imposed on wealthy citizens in turns, with provisions to ensure that no one could escape them.
Alongside prominent figures such as the agonoteta, i.e. "president" or "organizer" of public games and the ginnasiarco, the director in charge of the gymnasium, who had the task of supervising, on behalf of the city, the youth who practiced there , then there existed a whole series of "secondary" figures, but more closely linked to the technical aspects of the competition.
The xystarches, was the head of a guild association of athletes who used the gymnasium and its grounds, and was appointed directly by the emperor to represent the association on official occasions. During the imperial age, this association most likely had its headquarters in Rome, while the numerous other companies were only local or regional sections of the main confederation. Ex-athletes were chosen as leaders of the xystòs, preferably heavy athletes, above all pancraziasti, but also wrestlers, boxers, and equally runners; naturally the most famous champions were chosen, the hieronikai, the periodonikai, the pleistonikai, those veterans who considered themselves worthy of presiding over the competition in case they didn't take part. Supervisors of one or more competitions that took place in a city or in a region or in a province, the xystarchi could exercise this function in a special feast, but starting from the second century, their duties could also extend to all the feasts of the city. Most of the time, xystarchy appears rather merely as an honorific dignity. To the Sebastàs the xystarches appears in the company of the mastigophores and agonothetes and offers a sacrifice at the expense of the city.
The word εἰσαγωγεῖς, on the other hand, indicated the members of a particular college of magistrates designated by lot. Their functions are not easy to interpret, but they have a sure link with the competitive environment. The term is translated as "introductory" within a sports competition, a position certainly lower than that of the agonoteta. All the testimonies in our possession, including that of the new catalogs in Piazza Nicola Amore, belong to the imperial era, and it seems we can affirm that the office continued to exist until the fifth century AD.