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Part II. Variations of Priesthood2. Priestly Personnel of the Ephesian Artemision: Anatolian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Aspects, Jan Bremmer

2. Priestly Personnel of the Ephesian Artemision: Anatolian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Aspects* Jan Bremmer The Indo-Europeans had neither a separate priestly class nor a specific term for priests or priestesses. This tradition may be one of the reasons why the Greeks had no clearly defined priestly class either. Every city could develop its own organization and vocabulary, [1]… Read more

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3. Professionals, Volunteers, and Amateurs: Serving the Gods kata ta patria, Susan Guettel Cole

3. Professionals, Volunteers, and Amateurs: Serving the Gods kata ta patria Susan Guettel Cole Alexandra Consults the Oracle In the second century AD, a priestess of Demeter Thesmophoros at Miletus consulted the oracle of Apollo at Didyma. A third-person account of her query survives: With good fortune. Alexandra, priestess of Demeter Thesmophoros, puts a question to the oracle, because, since the time when… Read more

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4. Greek Priests of Sarapis? Beate Dignas

4. Greek Priests of Sarapis? Beate Dignas Studying Hellenistic priests is piecework. Given that the main body of evidence comes from inscriptions, the questions, where is the best place to start? and how can this study be structured successfully? seem almost unanswerable. The task is extremely ambitious, but general statements on the character and significance of priesthoods are such a desideratum that even idiosyncratic examples must… Read more

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5. Priests—Dynasts—Kings: Temples and Secular Rule in Asia Minor, Ulrich Gotter

5. Priests—Dynasts—Kings: Temples and Secular Rule in Asia Minor* Ulrich Gotter The aim of this essay is to explore the complex relationship between sacred authority and secular power in Asia Minor, focusing exclusively on cases of personal rule. My dramatis personae will include rulers as priests and priests as rulers. More specifically, I will consider the role of sacred office for… Read more

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Part III. Visual Representation6. Images and Prestige of Cult Personnel in Athens between the Sixth and First Centuries BC, Ralf von den Hoff

6. Images and Prestige of Cult Personnel in Athens between the Sixth and First Centuries BC* Ralf von den Hoff In the poleis of ancient Greece, priests and priestesses rarely had permanent political, social, or economic power as a group and outside their sanctuaries. [1] On the other hand, everyone would agree that priests were an… Read more

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4. Traditions in Flux

Chapter 4. Traditions in Flux It is thanks to themthat I live in three dimensions,in a space non-lyrical and non-rhetorical,with a horizon real because movable.They themselves do not knowhow much they bring in empty hands.“I owe them nothing,”love would sayon this open question. —Wisława Szymborska, from Gratitude (trans. M. J. Krynski and R. A. Maguire) … Read more

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5. In Search of Sappho’s Companions: Anthropological Fieldwork on Socioaesthetic Cultures

Chapter 5. In Search of Sappho’s Companions: Anthropological Fieldwork on Socioaesthetic Cultures The postcard on the cover of the book depicts a privileged view of a central street of Mytilene at the beginning of the twentieth century. One of the major Greek Orthodox monuments of the city, the elaborate church of St. Therapon, most prominent in Mytilene until today, dominates the left background of the picture, the… Read more

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Abbreviations and Bibliography

Abbreviations and Bibliography For the fragments of Sappho and Alkaios I cite Voigt’s critical edition [= V]. For the other melic poets I use Page’s Poetae Melici Graeci [= PMG], while for Alkman, Stesikhoros, and Ibykos I refer to Davies 1991 when necessary. For the elegiac and iambic poets, I cite West’s edition [= W]. For Pindar I use Snell and Maehler [= S-M] and Maehler [=… Read more

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Preface

For Addie ἐγὼ δέ κέ τοι ἰδέω χάριν ἤματα πάντα. Preface The present volume argues for “discordant harmony” (concordia discors) as an aesthetic principle where classical Athenian literature addresses politics in the idiom of sexual desire. Its approach is an untried one for such a topic. Drawing on theorists of the sociality of language, it examines various ways in which erôs, consuming, destabilizing desire, became… Read more

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List of Abbreviations

Abbreviations D-K Diels, H., and W. Krantz, eds. 1952, repr. Dublin, 1966. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. 6. Berlin. FGrH Jacoby, F. 1957–. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden. PCG Kassel, R., and C. Austin, eds. 1983–. Poetae comici graeci. Berlin. PMG Page, D. L. 1962. Poetae melici graeci. Oxford. SSR Giannantoni, G. 1990. Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae. Naples. GHI Meiggs, R. and D. Lewis, eds. 1988. Read more