Social networks are critical keys to the transmission and exchange of various non-material and material commodities, including rumours, information, employment opportunities, influence, infections and religious cults. Social Network Theory provides useful models to account for the diffusion of elective cults within the deregulated religious environment of the ancient Mediterranean World (300 BCE to 300 CE). The course will examine selected elective cults, reconstruct the social networks in which they are embedded, and develop theoretical models by which to account for the successes or failures in propagation.