The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League

  Funke, Peter, and Nino Luraghi, eds. 2009. The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League. Hellenic Studies Series 32. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_FunkeP_LuraghiN_eds.The_Politics_of_Ethnicity.2009.


X. Subjection, Synoecism and Religious Life

Robert Parker

The Eleans have bought Epeion for thirty talents (Xenophon Hellenica 3.2.30); the Eleans refuse to surrender the Marganeis and Skillountians and Triphylians, claiming that “these cities are ours” (6.5.2); the Eleans capture Lasion, which “of old had belonged to them, but at present was enrolled in (συντελεĩν εἰς) the Arkadikon” (7.4.12). The Spartans force the Mantineans to “dioecize their city into four settlements, as they lived in the past” (5.2.7); but after the battle of Leuctra the Mantineans refound their single city (6.5.3). In the same period many communities of southern Arcadia come together to found Megalopolis. Greek history in the fourth century, indeed in all centuries, is full of incidents such as these; and no doubt much of human history is a story of appropriation of territory, coalescence and division of communities. But the intermeshing of religious and political organisation in Greece had as a consequence that religious life was not a timeless backdrop in front of which the play of history took place. Or it was so only in a very broad sense: in the most general terms nothing changed, familiar Greek gods were still worshipped in accord with familiar Greek rituals; but at a more detailed level every re-structuring of the political order required or potentially required the reorganisation of cults, rewriting of sacrificial calendars, re-assignation of priesthoods. These processes have been very little studied, and are indeed often not accessible to detailed investigation. But for a community threatened by subjection, aspiring to liberation or contemplating synoecism the future of ancestral cults must have been one very sensitive issue. In what follows I shall look at the implications for religious life of certain types of political re-ordering, voluntary or involuntary. A comprehensive study would be a large undertaking, and I can do no more than sketch some possibilities. I shall then turn to the specific situations of some Peloponnesian cities or tribes in the fourth century. [1]

Religion in the Dependent Polis

When the Eleans claimed a kind of ownership (“these cities are ours”) over Epeion, Lasion and the other communities mentioned above, the general and plausible assumption is that the poleis in question (I use the term polis here as a shorthand: the exact status of the communities is not important) were internally self-governing but bound to follow the Eleans in foreign policy; the extent to which they were exposed to financial exactions is quite unknown. They were, therefore, the Elean equivalent to the perioikoi of Sparta and other Greek cities. [4] Unfortunately, the perioikoi even of Sparta, to say nothing of those of Argos or Thessaly, are, as is well known, among the great voiceless groups of Greek society. They must have had their own sanctuaries, festivals and presumably priesthoods too. One ambiguous text may show some Spartan perioikoi participating in a festival of Sparta itself, the Promacheia. Conversely, Spartans certainly made dedications in perioikic sanctuaries and competed in their athletic festivals. [5] But it was normal for members of one group to have these two forms of access to the shrines and cults of another group. On an optimistic view, therefore, one might suppose that the perioikoi pursued their own religious life free from Spartan interference; that optimistic conclusion would chime with the current understanding of the perioikoi as an integrated rather than an alienated and rebellious element within the Spartan state. [6] As for other perioikoi or perioikoi-like groups, nothing forbids, though nothing enjoins, the same assumption.

The dealings of Athens with Oropos and Delos, however, show that it was by no means inevitable that a dominant power respected the religious autonomy of cities subordinate to it. In the fourth century, although Delos retained a polity and cults of its own, Athenian pressure on the sanctuary of Apollo was so strong that the Delians appealed to Philip, unsuccessfully, in an effort to recover control; as for Oropos, at all times when the Athenians had possession of the Oropia they treated the cult of Amphiaraos as, in effect, an Athenian cult. [7] In the second half of the fourth century Argos swallowed up Kleonai, which became an Argive deme; the Nemean games, traditionally Kleonai’s most precious possession, were henceforth under Argive administration (though the Kleonaians apparently enjoyed a privileged relation to the games for a while), and at an uncertain date (probably in the third century) the ancient festival was even re-located from Nemea to Argos. [8] At the time of the mysterious partial union of Corinth with Argos in the late 390s, enemies of the new arrangements maintained that the Argives had taken over the running of the Isthmian games of 390; and they certainly had some role, if not an exclusive one. [9] Celebrated sanctuaries and festivals such as these are perhaps a special case, a special temptation to a dominant power. [10] On Delos the Athenians had the excuse that they were operating as members of a shadowy Amphictyony. But we cannot necessarily assume that interference occurred in these circumstances alone.

Gods whose Worshippers are Expelled

Wholesale expulsion of an existing population is a very different case; but let us note it en passant because here too important issues about the maintenance of cults arise. According to an argument attributed to the Athenians in 424 by Thucydides (4.98.2), “the rule among the Greeks is that whatever power controls any territory, great or small, also owns the shrines, which should be tended in such traditional ways as are practicable.” The Athenians rather often had the opportunity to apply their principle, when they expelled existing inhabitants and divided territory among cleruchs of their own, and often we duly find them maintaining existing cults (e.g. on Lemnos over a long period, on Aigina in the late fifth century, on Samos in the fourth century); [11] sometimes, as on Delos in the fifth century and at Oropos in the fourth, the desire to establish secure control of the sanctuary may have been a main motive for the expulsion. [12] One showcase exists in which we can observe such a taking-over of cults on a large scale: Delos, handed over to the Athenians by Rome in 166 BCE and at once emptied by the new possessors of its Delian population. The main gods continued to be honoured, but an entirely new set of priesthoods had to be created, which followed the Athenian model of annual tenure, rotating (in some cases at least) between the tribes; and changes of emphasis between cults can be observed. [13] At the organizational level, at least, this “tending in such traditional ways as are practicable” involved extensive change.

A more drastic alternative was annihilation or evacuation of a population and destruction of the city. The best-described case is the destruction of Plataea by the Spartans in 426 BCE (Thucydides 3.68.3): the Spartans built a large temple and pilgrims’ hostel beside the existing Heraion, using spoils and building material taken from the city which the goddess had once guarded. The city which most frequently adopted “le modèle de la desertification” was Argos. [14] At Asine, destroyed at a very early date, they left behind a temple of Apollo Pythaeus and there maintained an important cult. [15] But any such gestures made to the gods of Mycenae and Tiryns, overthrown and left desolate in the mid-fifth century, are not recorded. [16] When Alexander sacked Thebes in 335 he spared the Kadmeia; we are not told what happened to sanctuaries in the lower town, but he exempted sacred properties from the general re-distribution of Theban territory among his allies and we can perhaps conclude that he intended them to be available to finance continued cult (Arrian Anabasis 1.9.9). About Colophon and Lebedos, destroyed by Lysimachus between 294 and 287 partly as a punitive measure, partly to gain population for his newly sited Ephesus, little is recorded, but the “sack of Colophon” was a sufficiently terrible event to provoke a lament from the local poet Phoenix. [17] A minimum requirement imposed by piety on the victors was perhaps to attempt to preserve actual sanctuaries, or some among them, from the firebrand and the crowbar. [18] And a festival of Panhellenic standing could not readily be simply abandoned: when the Romans sacked Corinth in 146, the presidency of the Isthmian games was handed over, though perhaps after an interval, to Sikyon. [19]

Synoecism and Sympolity

The prudent person will not attempt to define, or narrowly distinguish, synoecism and sympolity. The Greeks’ own use of these words and their cognates shows a bold disregard for bureaucratic precision, and the variety in what actually occurred is too great for a simple sorting into two heaps, “synoecism” and “sympolity,” to be helpful. [21] In broad terms, the phenomenon that concerns us here is the incorporation of what had been a wholly independent set of cults, or of several such sets, within a larger whole, on the occasion of a political coalescence between two or more communities. For these purposes the question whether the communities in question came together physically, partially or wholly, in an existing polis or one newly founded for the purpose, is not crucial, though in practice some population transfer would appear to have been the norm. What is crucial is the necessity that arose to re-write the ritual calendar in the new political circumstances, a necessity brought out in a model way by the opening of a decree from Mykonos to be dated to the last quarter of the third century: [22] “In the archonship of Kratinos, Polyzelos, Philophron, when the poleis were synoecized, the Mykonians decided to make the following sacrifices in addition to the existing ones and made the following corrections concerning existing ones.” Alas, no sure criterion allows us to distinguish “new” from “corrected” entries in the list that follows; [23] nor have we any evidence either about the independent ritual life of the two poleis of the island prior to the synoecism, or about their joint life after it. So the Mykonos decree altogether declines to help in answering the question that it poses so clearly. And among the very many other attested instances of synoecism, sympolity, and the like, many for our purposes do not offer so much as a starting point for enquiry: the union must have entailed changes in the cultic sphere, but we cannot begin to identify them. Synoecism sometimes occurs as an aetiological motif to explain existing cults: the cult of Artemis Triklaria, for instance, had supposedly been shared by the three villages which eventually combined to form Patrai, and a precinct of Dionysus in the same city contained three images named after the three primeval villages. [24] Here the idea of synoecism or of a time prior to synoecism is embodied in a city’s folk history and cult practice, as it was also in Athens, where there was even a mysterious festival Synoikia. [25] But such ways of envisaging the past do not help us directly to re-construct actual historical synoecisms.

Unequal Sympolity

Fortunately a modest number of sympolity agreements do mention cultic arrangements; the relevant data are excerpted in an appendix to this paper. And the religious systems of three poleis which underwent synoecism in the historical period (Rhodes, Megalopolis, Kos) are known well enough to give speculation at least some basis. A common situation is the “unequal sympolity,” which is in effect, whatever name it goes under, the incorporation of a small community into a much larger one. [26] Such mergers often occurred, in Hellenistic Asia Minor, at the instance of a king, but could also be motivated by the ambitions or fears of either party directly involved; the minor partner might be more or less willing. In such a situation the name that persists for the merged entity will obviously be that of the larger polis, of which the minor polis may now become a deme or something similar (the option of creating greater integration by distributing the new citizens among existing units is less common). [27] The dominant religious calendar will similarly be that of the major partner, and it is often made explicit that the newly incorporated citizens are to participate as equals in its existing rites or simply in everything to which existing citizens are entitled (Heliswasians, Pidaseans, by implication Teans in Lebedos, Magnesians, Medeonians [nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 9 in the list in the appendix]). A corresponding stipulation whereby members of the major partner may participate fully in the rites of the minor occurs only once (Medeonians and Stirians [no. 9]). [28] More common is a guarantee that rites—some rites at least—of the minor partner shall continue to be performed (Heliswasians, Euaimonians, Pereans [nos. 1, 2, 6]); a special official recruited from the minor partner may be charged with the task (Medeonians [no. 9]), or sums set aside specifically (Pereans, perhaps Medeonians [nos. 6. 9]). Occasionally nothing is said at all about the cults of the minor partner even in a text that is complete (Pidaseans in Herakleia, and in Miletus; Magnesians in Smyrna [nos. 3, 8; 5]). Perhaps it is simply taken for granted that they will be carried on. [29]

Greek religion was both inclusive and exclusive. It was inclusive in the sense that restrictions on who could enter sanctuaries, watch sacrifices or public rites, and make dedications were not very common. On the other hand the right to share in sacrificial meat, to hold priestly office, and to conduct rites in a given cult was strictly controlled; the exclusivity in this sense of a group’s cults was integral to its identity. [30] In the case where both parties to a sympolity are admitted reciprocally to each other’s rites they both surrender that exclusivity (at least at the level of participation in sacrifice; entitlement to priesthood is not explicitly mentioned). But the loss is unequal: whereas the major partner acquires in effect a new expanded religious identity, the minor partner no longer has anything that is distinctively its own. Such simple absorption of smaller by greater must sometimes have occurred. In little Phygela, for instance, swallowed up by Ephesos perhaps in the first decade of the third century, sacrifices continued to be performed, but they were in the charge of a board of neopoiai dispatched from the big city. [31] Again, the rites of Pidasa cannot have been maintained as distinct, if they were retained at all, once its sacred revenues had been pooled with those of Heraklea under Latmos [no. 3]. On the other hand, we noted that, in sympolity agreements where maintenance of the cults of the absorbed city is guaranteed, there is normally no stipulation that these are to be opened to all; the presumption perhaps is that they will remain separate, like the rites of an Attic deme vis-à-vis Athens itself. That such separateness could be an eagerly defended ideal is shown by an inscription from Olymos. It is of the second half of the second century BCE, and thus postdates the political absorption of Olymos within the larger Mylasa by perhaps 75 years. [32] It begins by explaining that a share in the “common hiera” of Olymos belongs by descent in the male line to (Olymians and) persons, and descendants of persons, to whom right of participation has been granted by decree.

But, as it is, certain persons who have no right to participate in any of the aforementioned ways are participating in [hiera relating to Apollo] and Artemis, gods to whom not only have revenues been consecrated by the people and sacrifices and receptions are held [annually, but also all that relates] and pertains to their honour and reputation is conducted in accord with tradition; in addition, the [dêmos] of the Olymians contains [three of what were previously called tribes] and now sungeneiai, the Mosseis, Kybimeis and Kandebeloi, and in each of these there are private [sacrifices and rituals] and private revenues: certain persons who have been granted by agreement right of participation in [hiera] in the sungeneiai, [and now claim that they should also have right of participation in] the meetings of [ ], have ventured to approach the rites conducted by the Olymian dêmos, some venturing to [approach just the sacrifices, others also the offices of hierourgos] and priest and prophet, and in consequence of their shameless claim to that to which they are not entitled [many impieties have occurred against the rights of the citizens] and against the protection of the gods…

 

I. Mylasa 861

Multi-Polis Synoecism

The dynamics of a synoecism involving several poleis were very different. Usually, there was no one dominant city to whose practices the others conformed, in religion as in the rest of life; instead, a new start was made with the creation of a new city on a new site (or an existing city was expanded to an extent that constituted a new foundation). Substantial population transfer was necessary if the new capital was to thrive, but the extent to which the old towns out of which it was formed were in fact scaled down was very various. The scope of the initial synoecism of Megalopolis is a matter of controversy, and the variables are large: was the great city’s initial catchment area one of c. 1500 square kilometres, or of somewhat less than 500? [37] On a “little Megalopolis” model the population of the khôra was largely absorbed in the city, and the sanctuaries of the old communities were kept in use as extra-urban sanctuaries of Megalopolis: Pausanias has several references to sanctuaries that survived, apparently in good repair, in deserted settlements near to the city, and we can imagine that they were sometimes approached by processions from the city. [38] Pausanias speaks also (Pausanias 8.27.5–6) of repentance and resistance to the synoecism by four nearby communities which had initially agreed to it: Lykaia and Trikolonoi were brought in by force; the inhabitants of Trapezous fled; the Lykosourans were spared and apparently allowed to stay where they were “from reverence for Demeter and Despoina,” in whose hallowed sanctuary they had taken refuge. On a “great Megalopolis” model the fate of the nearby communities will be the same, but right from the start the new capital will also have controlled quondam poleis further away which were now demoted to deme status (Pausanias 8.27.7) but continued as places of habitation (and occasionally re-asserted their independence as cities); like Attic demes, they may have retained effective autonomy in cultic matters, though almost no evidence on organisation is available. [39] Whatever the situation in the 360s, some version of the “great Megalopolis” model will certainly be needed to describe the situation by c. 200 BCE. As for post-synoecism Rhodes and Kos, a thoroughly vigorous municipal life persisted, and religious activity continued to be conducted, and organised, outside the new capital cities with remarkable commitment and vigour; as we have noted, the Lindians on Rhodes were as insistent as the Olymians in Caria on excluding outsiders from their traditional cults.

The new capital cities had to create new religious calendars of their own which were not simply extensions and modifications of one already in existence. The detailed evidence on Kos and Rhodes is presented below in an appendix. In brief, simple taking-over of existing cults (i.e. existing sanctuaries) seems almost never to have been the procedure. [40] The fate of the great pan-Arcadian sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios is a kind of counter-case, since it seems to have passed into the control of Megalopolis; but it may always have been administered by an amphictyony rather than a single community. [41] In the main, rather than to take over celebrated cults in the khôra, the preferred option was to create calques of them: the clearest case is the establishment in Megalopolis of a sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios which echoed, but did not seek to replace, the god’s famous precinct on Mount Lykaion. [42] The cult of the Great Goddesses in that city was not a calque but a variation, it has been suggested, on the traditional devotion to deities of that type in the region. [43] Pan too could not be absent from an Arcadian “great city.” [44] A large statue of Apollo Epikourios was brought “as an adornment” to Megalopolis from Phigaleia, which is not even in Megalopolitan territory. [45] Similarly, on Kos, Apollo Delios, always a central figure in the islanders’ religious consciousness, continued to be separately honoured in at least one deme but was also taken up in the city. Gods already popular in the region have found a place in the city, but in the familiar Greek way a new sanctuary is simply added to those that already exist.

Any sanctuary established in the capital belonged by definition to the “whole people,” but the foundation in Kos town of a cult of Aphrodite bearing precisely that title, Pandemos, may indicate a more conscious ideal of unification, particularly as the same cult seems to have been taken out into the demes. Zeus Polieus too early acquired a prominent role in the Koan calendar. On Rhodes the cult of Halios, either non-existent or on a small scale prior to the synoecism, was built up as a religious centre of the unified state. New cults, whether of rulers or of rising deities such as Asclepius, would naturally be attached to the capital and not to one of the old towns. In all these ways a new pantheon could be developed that did not intrude on existing prerogatives.

Back to the Peloponnese

It is time to relate all this to the main themes of this volume. Some connections are obvious: various Arcadian synoecisms and sympolities have already been mentioned above. At other points useful connections decline to be established. Writing a religious calendar for the new state of Messenia was just as challenging an exercise in creating tradition as was writing one for synoecized Rhodes or Megalopolis, but it was an exercise of a different kind. Again, it was neither by forced subjection nor by voluntary sympolity or synoecism that a sense of ethnic identity developed or was maintained in Arcadia and Achaea. But the world of fusion and fission described in this paper was, willy-nilly, very much the world of the communities subject in different ways to the domination of Elis. As the detailed studies elsewhere show, in the period between 425 and 350 the four poleis of the Akroreioi and some other such groups (Marganeis, Amphidoloi, Letrinoi) were at different moments subordinate allies of the Eleans (perioikoi), briefly perhaps “Eleans” incorporated into the Elean tribal structure, [47] and independent polities in alliance with Sparta or Arcadia; the poleis of Triphylia were initially perioikoi, then members of an independent federation allied with Sparta, then incorporated within the Arcadian federation; Lasion was first perioikic (but claimed by Arcadia, Xenophon Hellenica 3.2.30), then a free ally of Sparta, then a member of the Arcadian federation; the Pisatans were either discontented “Eleans” or independent, but very subordinate, allies of Arcadia.

Unfortunately the sources largely fail to reveal the differences that these successive metamorphoses may have made to religious life. Two dedications at Olympia, one made by the Amphidoloi, one jointly by the Akroreioi and the obscure Alasyes, [48] have often been taken as evidence of the new sense of freedom experienced by quondam perioikic communities which had thrown off the Elean yoke c. 400 BCE. But epigraphic and archaeological dating criteria for these dedications point rather to the fifth century, [49] and the conclusion to be drawn is therefore reversed: even when under the Elean yoke the perioikic communities were not quite crushed. Some suppose indeed that the dedications (and one by the Letrinoi which is surely archaic) attest the faint survival of an “Olympic amphictyony” like that of Delphi. [50] The great Panhellenic sanctuary must have been a central element in the religious life of the region. What is clear is that, though Elis made use of the sanctuary’s prestige in its dealings with its perioikoi, [51] it failed to create around it a community of hearts and minds; when the option of secession became available, it was taken. The Pisatans, the people in whose territory the sanctuary lay, certainly found the hand of Elis heavy in religious affairs. By the settlement that ended the Spartan-Elean war c. 400, the Spartans “did not deprive the Eleans of presidency of the shrine of Olympian Zeus, though it was not theirs of old, judging the counter-claimants [the Pisatans, as is universally accepted] to be countrymen and not competent to preside” (Xenophon Hellenica 3.2.31). Evidently then the “unequal sympolity” by which the Pisatans had been incorporated into Elis (as they seem to have been) had done nothing to recognise their ancestral claim on the sanctuary: [52] it is as if the Lindians had been deprived of the control of the temple of Lindian Athena. In 365 the Pisatans became briefly independent with Arcadian aid, and in 364, an Olympic year, “revived the ancient fame of their land and using certain ancient mythical proofs declared that the right of conducting the Olympic panêguris was theirs” (Diodorus Siculus 15.78.2; cf. Xenophon Hellenica 7.4.28). But the principle noted earlier in relation to really prestigious shrines applied here too: Pisatan independence depended on Arcadian force of arms, and the Arcadians were soon involved in the affairs of the shrine to the extent of using sacred treasure to pay troops (Xenophon Hellenica 7.4.33). Whether the Arcadians allowed the Pisatans more ceremonial precedence in 364 than they had enjoyed in Elean-conducted Olympic celebrations is not known, but in the eyes not just of posterity but even of contemporaries Arcadia, not Pisa, could be said to have the presidency of the shrine (Xenophon Hellenica 7.4.35). [53]

South of the Alpheus, the cities of the region eventually known as Triphylia, which had been brought under Elean control in Herodotus’ time (4.148.4), were liberated by Sparta c. 400 and became an independent federation allied to Sparta. [54] According to Strabo (8.3.13, 343), there had existed in “Triphylia” at Samikon, surely from of old, a “greatly revered” precinct, a grove of wild olives, of “Samian Poseidon”; “the Makistians tended it, and they proclaimed the sacred truce known as Samion. All the Triphylians contribute to the shrine.” Strabo must be anachronistic, it has been powerfully argued of late, in implying that this was an ethnic shrine of the “Triphylians”: for the grove’s standing as a regional religious centre must go back to the archaic period, whereas before c. 400 there was, it is urged, no region known as Triphylia, nor did the peoples inhabiting what later became that region see themselves as an ethnic unity. [55] The Samikon will before 400 have been a regional shrine but not an ethnic one; or, if ethnic, not of the Triphylians but of one of the sub-groups from which the Triphylians were eventually constituted, probably the Minyans. Whether this case for the “invention of Triphylia” is correct or not, one may wonder what the Elean attitude will have been in the fifth century to what was surely an important cult centre in recently subjected territory. Would they have been happy for business to continue as usual at what could easily have become a focus for resistance? Conversely, after 400 the new Triphylia can scarcely have failed to make use of the hallowed shrine. But let us note in passing that even the new Triphylia was not exempt from interference in its religious affairs, in this case from Sparta. [56] In 370/9 or shortly afterwards the Triphylians joined the Arcadian league, and no more is heard of their own confederacy: to put the matter differently, they now sought to maintain independence from Elis, their central aspiration, as members of the Arcadian league rather than through Spartan-backed independence. In ethnic terms, they either became Arcadians for the first time, or at all events surrendered one of the pair of passports (Minyan and Arcadian) that they had hitherto held. [57] Perhaps the importance of the cult at Samikon will have declined again, now that the Triphylians had definitively turned their eyes to the east. [58] Much of the history of the region may have been reflected in miniature in the history of the Samikon grove.

That micro-history is lost to us, probably irrecoverably: the few phrases of Strabo quoted above are the total of our knowledge. If this paper has achieved anything, it is to have drawn attention to the many such lost histories. In a world where territory was constantly acquired and renounced, where autonomy was lost and recovered and lost again, where communities blended and broke apart, cults could not in any simple way survive through the centuries without disturbance. One can perhaps imagine an ideal, which would have been that of the Greeks themselves, whereby cults stood firm amid the ebb and flow of events, maintained by a shared Greek piety that did not need to conflict with particular interests. We saw above that old arrangements did sometimes survive the blending of communities in sympolity and synoecism. To that extent, the claim with which I began—that discontinuity and drastic reorganisation were the inevitable condition of the particular Greek relation between religious and political organisation—may appear exaggerated. Perhaps a different paper could be written about the durability and resilience of cult, its relative imperviousness to political change. But where cult continued it never simply survived, like a venerable ancient tree; it had to be maintained and adapted, like an ancient building. Survival κατὰ τὰ πάτρια could not simply occur but had always to be achieved.

Appendix

 

A. Specifications Relating to Cult in Sympolity Agreements

B. Religious Implications of the Synoecisms of Rhodes, Kos and Alexandreia Troas

 

Kos

The polis of Kos on the site of the present day town on the north east coast of the island is said to have been founded in 366/5 (Diodorus 15.76.2). The ancient sources (Diodorus 15.76.2, and Strabo 14.2.19) describe the event as a transfer of population to a new site, Strabo speaking more specifically of a transfer away from an existing polis Astypalaia; but Thucydides (8.41.2) attests the existence in the fifth century of a second Koan polis on the east of the island, Kos Meropis, very probably to be located (on the basis of archaeological evidence antedating 366) on or near the site of the “new” town of Kos. It follows that what happened in 366/5 was, in urbanistic terms, a re–foundation on a greatly enlarged scale, not a new foundation, but in political terms the first unification of an island hitherto divided into at least two poleis (since Thucydides and some other sources imply that Kos Meropis no less than Strabo’s Astypalaia had been a polis prior to 366). [71] There survive extensive fragments, dated palaeographically to the second half of the fourth century, of a calendar of public sacrifices which it is tempting to suppose was produced, after some delay, to meet the needs of the newly unified state (RO 62): the very existence of such a calendar at this date outside Attica and the thoroughness with which it prescribes ritual procedures are both unusual phenomena which invite a specific explanation. A roughly contemporary text which regulates the terms of office of the priest of Zeus Polieus and coordinates the island’s cult of Apollo Dalios may have been similarly motivated. [72]

Whatever the immediate impulse for the creation of these texts, the calendar that survives is beyond a doubt that of the synoecized state at a date not long after the synoecism; the prominence in it of an elaborate ritual of Zeus Polieus is very appropriate. But to get behind the calendar to a prior organisation of Koan religion is arduous work. In some cases the calendar that emerged after the coalescence of two poleis may have been that of the more dominant of the two, modestly adjusted and supplemented, but a more radical reshaping will certainly have been required here. The dominant polis had hitherto, if we believe Strabo, been Astypalaia, but the central focus of religious life was henceforth to be Kos new town; even if we suppose that some “Pankoan” rituals had been celebrated before the synoecism (for we know that on Kos as on other islands common activities such as the issue of common coins could antedate formal political unification), it is not very likely that they took place in Kos old town. The religious life of the island had to be largely relocated, therefore. Again, in the cults of the new state the three Dorian tribes had a very prominent place. Can we suppose that the Dorian tribes had had such an island-wide role before 366, with, say, Dymanes from Astypalaia occasionally meeting with those from Kos Meropis (and whatever other poleis may once have existed) to celebrate common rites? Wherever else we meet them, the Dorian tribes are sub-divisions of a unified state, not a form of association transcending political divisions: pandymanian rites bringing together Dymanians from different poleis are not known. Or were the individual poleis each divided into the three Dorian tribes without any connection being established between those of one polis and another? But the deme Isthmiotai of Hellenistic Kos, which is generally accepted to be the old polis of Astypalaia under a new name, was divided into three tribes which were not the Dorian ones; and there is evidence for such local non-Dorian tribes elsewhere on the island. [73] It is hard to see why one polis should have had both a Dorian and a concurrent non-Dorian tribal structure. Perhaps then the Dorian tribes were first introduced in 366, [74] as a way of replicating at whole-island level the principle of tribal division familiar from the individual poleis. This was an altogether new framework for religious life if so, even if one based on more than one familiar template.

Rhodes

What of the new capital? The priest of Halios in Rhodes was eventually to become the official who gave his name to the Rhodian year; the post was a pinnacle of prestige to which the ambitious might aspire after, but never before, having held one of the local priesthoods. [90] Halios had always been central to Rhodian mythology but not to cult, and everything commends the widely accepted view that it was the synoecism that first brought Halios to cultic prominence as a unifying symbol of the new state. (Some suppose that the new city was built around a modest existing sanctuary of the god.) [91] The early years of the cult, long obscure, have recently been illuminated by the discovery of a late-fifth century bronze kalpe inscribed “a prize from Rhodes from the Sun” (ἆθλον ἐγ ῾Ρόδο παρ’ ῾Αλίο). [92] It looks as if the agonistic Halieia, the island’s greatest festival in the hellenistic period, was set up more or less simultaneously with the foundation of the new city; the priesthood of Halios may well date back to the same time. [93] A festival Epitaphia is likely to have honoured the mythical “settler” of the whole island, Tlapolemus; if that identification of the honorand of the Epitaphia is correct, this is the one attested case in which Rhodes town took over a pre-existing festival: Tlapolemeia are already mentioned by Pindar, though we do not know how they were organised. [94] Many further festivals were to follow (Asklapieia, Dionysia, Diosoteria [Maiuri 19], Dioskouria, Dipanamia, Hippokathesia, Poseidania, and eventually Alexandreia and Rhomaia), [95] at many of which teams competed from the three tribes, Lindia, Kameiria and Ialysia, into which, for these purposes, the old cities had mutated; and many individual cults are attested, very prominent among them that of Dionysus in a fine precinct. [96] But fourth-century evidence is too scarce to allow any detailed reconstruction of the growth of the pantheon.

A separate but related question is that of Rhodes’ treatment of her overseas possessions. Since most of those communities (the islands, and those of the “incorporated Peraea”) constituted or formed parts of demes annexed to the three old Rhodian towns, an obvious possibility is that their rites retained the same independence as those of the Attic demes vis-à-vis those of Athens. And we duly find local priesthoods, ἀγῶνες and πανηγύρεις, subscriptions to build temples, cult regulations, and communal sacrifices and banquets. [97] Two important cults, however, seem to have been administered in some degree from Rhodes itself, that of Poseidon Porthmios on Karpathos, where ἰεραγωγοί were appointed by the Rhodian assembly (IG XII 1 1035.9–11), and that of Hemithea at Kastabos, where the scale of the fourth-century temple implies funding from the centre even if (the point is disputed: see Bresson’s commentary on his no. 44) the dêmos which issued a decree regulating the cult was that of the Bybassians and not of Rhodes itself. [98] Here then at least a partial “take over” of the most important regional cults seems to have occurred, though we have no reason to believe that it was resented. “Rhodianisation” of a different kind is visible where distinctively Rhodian cults are found in Rhodian overseas territories. It can only have been after the incorporation of Karpathos into Rhodes that the islands’ three poleis, Brykous, Arceseia, and Karpathos itself, all acquired cults of Athena Lindia. [99] Whether the impulse to introduce these cults came from Rhodes or from Karpathos itself unfortunately cannot be determined. At Thysannous a subscription was launched to build a temple Ἀθάνας [.] αμ[ , which by a plausible supplement becomes Ἀθάνας [Κ]αμ[ειράδος and thus a further example of the same phenomenon. [100] Financing by subscription must imply a certain local receptivity if so. Then there are the cults of Helios, “the Rhodian dêmos,” and the nymph Rhodos found at scattered places in the subject Peraea, but also e.g. in Kos, an island closely associated with Rhodes but never dependent upon it. [101] A “religious policy” of disseminating Rhodian cults, a rare thing indeed for a Greek city, has accordingly been postulated. But that intriguing issue cannot be pursued further here.

Alexandreia Troas

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Footnotes

[ back ] 1. To familiar abbreviations add RO = Rhodes and Osborne 2003.

[ back ] 2. Hansen 2004.

[ back ] 3. Note however IG IV I2.73 (LSS 23), a “law” written by the “law-drafters” of the Achaean league for the cult of Hygeia at Epidauros.

[ back ] 4. For details see Roy in this volume.

[ back ] 5. See Parker 1989:145, and the references to excavation given by Catling in Cavanagh et al. 2002:238n183. But Catling argues that perioikoi residing close to Sparta lacked important shrines of their own: “for these fragmented communities, Spartan festivals and sanctuaries may have provided the main occasions and locations for participation in communal cult activity, and their religious concerns were largely identified with those of the inhabitants of the Spartan plain.” (Cavanagh et al. 2002:224).

[ back ] 6. See Shipley 1997 passim, who cites earlier studies tending the same way.

[ back ] 7. On Delos, see Parker 1996:222–225; on Oropos, Parker 1996:148–151, 247, noting, for instance, Athenian occupancy of the priesthood.

[ back ] 8. See Perlman 2000:131–155; privileged relation: Piérart 1982:138, on IG IV 616; re-location: Plutarch Aratus 28.3–4 (where the temporary transfer back to the original site is recorded). Formally perhaps this case belongs in the “synoecism” section below. (Earlier, Mycenae too had aspired to control the Nemean games, Diodorus 11.65.2.) The situation of the Panamareis in Caria in relation to their shrine of Zeus Karios is perhaps another example of a “privileged relation” after absorption: in the second century BCE they still as a koinon concerned themselves with the affairs of the shrine even though the priesthood had been assumed by the polis Stratoniceia (SEG 45.1556) of which they were probably now a part (van Bremen 2004:227–231); the two demes from which most priests were selected may have been those into which quondam “Panamareis” were absorbed (van Bremen 2004:239).

[ back ] 9. Xenophon Hellenica 4.5.1–2; Plutarch Agesilaus 21.3–6; contrast Pausanias 3.10.1; cf. Whitby 1984:297–298.

[ back ] 10. The theoretical autonomy of Delphi too was constantly infringed, but the issues are too complicated to be discussed here.

[ back ] 11. See Parker 1994:342–346. Melos and Skione were similarly re-settled, though in these cases the male population was massacred, not deported (Thucydides 5.32.1, 5.116.4).

[ back ] 12. Parker 1996:151.

[ back ] 13. See Mikalson 1998:208–241.

[ back ] 14. The phrase is Piérart’s, 1997:330.

[ back ] 15. Pausanias 2.36.5; Bacchylides fr. 4; Thucydides 5.53.1; Kowalzig 2007:132–160.

[ back ] 16. We hear only of the removal of xoana from Tiryns to Argive shrines (Pausanias 2.17.5, 8.46.3), and a tithe from the spoils of Mycenae to Delphi (Diodorus 11.65.5).

[ back ] 17. Pausanias 1.9.7; on these events see Robert and Robert 1989:78–85. Antissa in Lesbos was similarly punitively destroyed by Rome in 167 and its inhabitants transferred to Methymna (Livy 45.31.14).

[ back ] 18. For the ideal, see e.g. Aeschylus Agamemnon 338–42, and e contrario Aeschylus Persians 809–815.

[ back ] 19. Pausanias 2.2.2; for the possible interval see Habicht 2006:154–155, citing S. Dow.

[ back ] 20. Demand 1990: chapters 5 and 8.

[ back ] 21. See Reger 2004a:148–149 (the whole study, building on many works of L. Robert, is most helpful); Hansen in Hansen and Nielsen 2004:115–119. The only general study I know of the religious consequences of synoecism is the brief one of Nilsson 1951:18–25.

[ back ] 22. See Reger 2001:159–161. The text is LSCG 96 (Syll. 3 1024).

[ back ] 23. For some suggestions see Reger 2001:177–178. As he observes, the formulation of the decree implies that the existing calendar of one of the two poleis (which will therefore have been already dominant) served as a basis, rather than that two calendars of comparable scale were blended. The old view of von Prott 1896:15 is worth recalling: the text contains rules expressed both in the indicative, usually stipulating sacrifices to be made, and in the imperative, usually regulating details of how the sacrifice is to be performed: the indicative is the traditional mood in such texts, and the imperatives will therefore point to additions; it will follow that few sacrifices are actually added, and the main thrust of the text is to codify and correct.

[ back ] 24. Pausanias 7.19.1; 7.20.1–2. According to Pausanias, poverty caused Patrai to dissolve again in the third century into the original three villages plus three others, in which condition it remained until re-united by Augustus (7.18.6–7): these later vicissitudes are likely to have influenced the tradition concerning Artemis Triklaria and the cult of Dionysus. On the separate tradition in Strabo (8.3.2, 337) which speaks of synoecism from 7 cities see Moggi 1976:92–93. Similar to the Patrai myth is another passage in Pausanias (3.16.9) where he traces the obligatory shedding of human blood on the altar of Artemis Orthia to a bloody conflict between the inhabitants of the four villages of Sparta while celebrating her rites: the implication is that the men of Amyklai did not at that date yet share in the festival.

[ back ] 25. See Parker 1996:14.

[ back ] 26. Reger 2004a:145–172.

[ back ] 27. The Heliswasians and probably the Pereans and Medeonians [numbers 1, 6 and 9 in the list in the appendix] become demes or villages; the Pidaseans in Herakleia under Latmos are distributed [n. 3].

[ back ] 28. Hypnia and Myania [n. 7] share in at least some sacrifices on a basis of proportional contributions. This might—but need not—entail a generalised sharing of sacrifices.

[ back ] 29. But Wörrle 2003 may bring this suggestion into doubt, at least in relation to the incorporation of Pidasa into Latmos (cf. n. 62).

[ back ] 30. I simplify a little; for a nuanced account see Krauter 2004:53–113.

[ back ] 31. See Robert 1967 on I. Ephes. 1408. The sacrifices in question are probably those in Phygela’s main shrine, that of Artemis Mounichia; what happened to lesser cults of the city we do not know. From the late third century, the Asklepieion of Lebena in Crete seems to have been under Gortynian control: see Melfi 2007:116.

[ back ] 32. On the political incorporation of Olymos into Mylasa, after 246 BC, see Reger 2004a:164–168. Population transfer is not attested, and Olymos retained cults and cult property of “the gods of the deme of Olymos” (I. Mylasa 806.9); it also, remarkably, retained a citizenship of its own which it could confer on Mylasians (Reger 2004a:164–168). Contrast the case of the Panamareis who retained influence over the shrine of Zeus Karios but lost the priesthood (n. 8 above).

[ back ] 33. IG XII 1.761 (Syll. 3 340) 38–42: cf. n. 83 below.

[ back ] 34. Thearodokia is often taken as a sign of a community’s status as a polis. But the case of Helisson shows the criterion to be ambiguous: Helisson is a polis in name, a kômê in fact.

[ back ] 35. Pausanias 7.2.11 (date not specified); for the loose third-century sympolity see Herrmann 1965:90–96.

[ back ] 36. Prokonnesos: Pausanias 8.46.4; for the date, Demosthenes 50.5. Prokonnesos survived, perhaps as a dependent polis: Avram 2004:994. Trapezous: Pausanias 8.31.5 with 8.27.5–6.

[ back ] 37. For an excellent and finally agnostic analysis of the two positions (Roy and Moggi) see Nielsen 2002:413–455. On the religious implications of the synoecism see above all Jost 1992:224–238 (partially translated in Jost 1994:225–228).

[ back ] 38. Pausanias 8.29.5 (sanctuary of Demeter Eleusinia in the ruins of Basilis); 8.35.6 (sanctuary of Poseidon above the quondam polis of Trikolonoi); 8.35.7 (temples of Demeter and Artemis in deserted Zoitia); cf. Jost 1992:226. Pausanias 8.38.8 attests a procession from the statue of Apollo Epikourios in the agora to the shrine of Apollo Parrhasios on the slopes of Mt. Lykaion (Jost 1992:234).

[ back ] 39. See Jost 1992:235f, who wonders whether the scale of construction at Gortys and Lykosoura (the latter, however, not Megalopolitan at all according to Pausanias 8.27.6) in the fourth and third centuries implies the use of Megalopolitan money. Thür and Taeuber 1994: n. 16, lines 18–21 (= IG V 2.344; Syll. 3 490, of shortly after 235) is not wholly clear, but seems to show men of Methydrion raising money on the security of a statue belonging to Zeus Hoplosmios (a Methydrian god) and Megalopolis laying claim to that money. On the archaeological evidence for persistence of cults in Megalopolitan territory see Jost 1992:226–227.

[ back ] 40. Except in the case where sanctuaries of now depopulated settlements were kept in use.

[ back ] 41. Megalopolitan honours are proclaimed “at the Lykaia and the other crowned agônes” (I cannot suggest what these are) in IG V 2.437.20–21 (second century), and the priests by whom victor lists in the Lykaia are dated (IG V 2.549–550, late fourth century) are presumably Megalopolitan. Amphictyony: Nielsen 2002:148–152. Note too p. 210 below on Alexandreia Troas and the Smintheum.

[ back ] 42. Pausanias 8.30.2–3, with Jost 1992:229f. Jost sees a temple of Hermes Akakesios built in the agora (Pausanias 8.30.6) as similarly honouring, not supplanting, the cult at Akakesion (Pausanias 8.36.10).

[ back ] 43. Pausanias 8.31.1–8, with Jost 1992:232f.

[ back ] 44. Pausanias 8.30.2–3; 8.30.6.

[ back ] 45. Pausanias 8.30.3. According to Schubart-Walz’s generally accepted conjecture, the statue was a “contribution” (συντέλεια): the intriguing idea of such contributions to the new city’s religious culture is unparallelled. On this statue see Cooper 1978:10.

[ back ] 46. Syll. 3 546b [n. 6 below], with (line 16) the verb ἀποπολιτεύεσθαι. Robert constantly stressed the phenomenon of collapsing synoecisms, e.g. in Robert 1951:5–36; cf. Wörrle 2003:140n94; Reger 2004a:168–172.

[ back ] 47. For this explanation of the increase in Elean tribes in 368 (Pausanias 5.9.4–6) see the references in Ruggeri 2004:36.

[ back ] 48. IvO 257 and 258.

[ back ] 49. See Siewert 1991 and Ruggeri 2004:152–153.

[ back ] 50. The amphictyony was first postulated by Kahrstedt 1927: for recent opinions see references in Ruggeri 2004:92n242, 153, and Roy, this volume. Letrinoi: SEG 25.462 (with 1164).

[ back ] 51. See Roy, this volume.

[ back ] 52. See Roy, this volume, who now argues that the Pisatans had never been perioikoi; but Ruggeri 2004:209 has them first incorporated in Elis in 400.

[ back ] 53. Cf. Roy, this volume.

[ back ] 54. See Ruggeri, this volume.

[ back ] 55. For the non-existence of Triphylia in the fifth century see especially Nielsen 2002:229–269 (for ethnic disunity 234–235); the implications for the Samikon are drawn by Ruggeri 2004:96–108. Herodotus never speaks of Triphylia: according to him, six cities in the region were established by Minyans from Lemnos who expelled Paroreatai and Kaukones (4.148.4); in another passage, however, he speaks of what are evidently the same Paroreatai as being themselves Lemnian (8.73.2). This inconsistency in a prime source may recommend agnosticism about fifth-century understandings of the region. My own guesses are that the term Triphylia existed in the fifth century (see Bölte 1948:186, criticised by Nielsen 2002:250–251), was most commonly understood as referring to Minyans, Paroreatai and Kaukones (so Ruggeri 2004:77–80, with further references), and indicated a certain sense of shared identity even at that date.

[ back ] 56. See Ruggeri, this volume, on the Spartan intervention that allowed Xenophon to establish his precinct of Artemis Ephesia at Skillous.

[ back ] 57. For mythological and other links between Triphylia and Arcadia going back to the fifth century see Nielsen 2002:100–105.

[ back ] 58. Their Arcadian-ness will not have had any necessary impact on their religious arrangements, though it may have encouraged them, e.g., to participate in the Lykaia. Strabo 8.3.25 mentions a sanctuary of Artemis Heleia of which the Arcadians acquired the priesthood. The context in Strabo would suggest a location in Triphylia (so Jost 1985:397f), but the point can be taken no further.

[ back ] 59. Thür and Taeuber 1994: n. 9. On the date and circumstances see Funke in this volume.

[ back ] 60. Whether this thearos is a member of the board of thearoi in Mantinea, i.e. a magistrate, or a sacred thearos sent to a Panhellenic shrine is disputed: contrast Thür and Taeuber 1994:103 and Nielsen 2004:513.

[ back ] 61. Thür and Taeuber 1994: n. 15. That Euaimon (archaeologically unknown) retained some inhabitants has been argued (inconclusively) from the internal evidence of the agreement and from the citation of Theopompus FGH 115 F 61 in Stephenus Byzantinus 283.14–15 (Nielsen 1996:71).

[ back ] 62. SEG 47.1563; cf. Wörrle 2003; Reger 2004a:151–152.

[ back ] 63. See Wörrle 2003, who sees the treaty as imposed by Asander and designed in effect to obliterate Pidasean identity, and the notes in SEG 47.1563.

[ back ] 64. Syll. 3 344; Welles 1934: n. 3–4.

[ back ] 65. OGIS 229; I. Smyrna 573; I. Magnesia am Sipylos 1.

[ back ] 66. Syll. 3 546b; IG IX 12.1.188; Ager 1996: n. 56.

[ back ] 67. IG IX 12.3.748.

[ back ] 68. See Bousquet 1965:672, citing FdD III 4.38.8ff, where Thronion claims a third of the amphictyonic role of the Epiknemidian Locrians just as it has contributed sheep for sacrifice in that proportion.

[ back ] 69. Milet 1.3.149; for views on the date see Reger 2004a:156n43.

[ back ] 70. IG IX 1.32; Syll. 3 647; Salviat and Vatin 1971:77–80.

[ back ] 71. See Sherwin-White 1978:43–58, powerfully reviving an old view; cf. recently Reger 2001:171–174.

[ back ] 72. LSCG 156: cf. Parker and Obbink 2000:421.

[ back ] 73. See Parker and Obbink 2001:263–265. Isthmiotai/Astypalaia: the principal argument is the survival of the old place name, in the form Stampalia, in the Isthmos region of Kos: see Bean and Cook 1957:121n244.

[ back ] 74. See (as a possibility) Sherwin-White 1978:156–158.

[ back ] 75. An old theory of Pugliese Carratelli still countenanced by Reger 2004b:755 despite the refutation by Sherwin-White 1978:74.

[ back ] 76. State cult: LSCG 156 B; cult of Isthmiotai: IG XI 2.287 B 45 (an independent theôria to Delos c. 250; cf. Bruneau 1970:99). A text regulating the state cult gives a role to Isthmiotai and (?) Halasarnitai (LSCG 156 B 23–25); but we now know that the main festival of Apollo in the great cult at Halasarna, though celebrated in the month Dalios (Sherwin-White 1978:300), was named Pythaia (Kokkorou-Aleura 2004:n4).

[ back ] 77. Zeus Polieus and Athena Polias in the city: RO 62 A; LSCG 156 A (this text too perhaps a product of the synoecism); in Halasarna: Kokkorou-Aleura 2004, n. 6, 20–24. Of course the reverse hypothesis that the deme cult imitates that of the city cannot be refuted. Demeter: LSCG 154 A is a state document prescribing purity rules for priestesses in at least two cults of Demeter, supplemented (but wholly speculatively) by Herzog as “Demeter Olympia [in the city]” (21) and “Demeter [in Isthmos]” (36): the law was to be displayed at Isthmos and Halasarna as well as in the city (14–18). LSCG 175 is a roughly contemporary text found at Antimachia and generally supposed to have been issued by a deme which stipulates terms of office for “priestesses of Demeter.” On these texts cf. Parker and Obbink 2000:420–421.

[ back ] 78. See Parker 2002:152–156, on Segre 1993: ED 178 (A) 26–31; LSCG 169 A 12–13; 172.1–4.

[ back ] 79. See Kokkorou-Aleura 2004:27–82.

[ back ] 80. See I. Delos 1432 Bb II, 9–10 (140/39) for a phiale dedicated by “the city of the Kalymnians” to Delian Apollo, but also described as an ἀνάθημα Κώιων: for earlier Kalymnian dedications see Bruneau 1970:96; cf. Hamilton 2000: Apollo, D 8. The formulas used (both “the city” and the co-presence of Kalymnians and Koans) are very unusual (I thank Richard Hamilton for advice on this point). Isthmiotai: see n. 75 above.

[ back ] 81. Nielsen and Gabrielsen 2004:1205.

[ back ] 82. By Gabrielsen 2000, which is now the starting point (summarised in Nielsen and Gabrielsen 2004:1196–1197). Panrhodian cults: on Athena Lindia see Momigliano 1936:49–51; on Zeus Atabyrios the references in Morelli 1959:141, and note the joining of Tit. Cam. 280–281 appendix n. 19–20 to give a list of theôroi to the shrine from all three old Rhodian poleis (Papachristodoulou 1999:32).

[ back ] 83. I. Lindos 1, with the calculations of Blinkenberg 1941:90–98; for a list of priest lists see Morricone 1952:360–362. But the argument of Blinkenberg 1937:13–14 for taking back the list of Lindian priests of Poseidon Hippios to the same starting point is unacceptable: one cannot base an exact calculation on a hypothetical average tenure of “permanent” priesthoods. All one can say is that the annual priests in that list begin c. 325 and are preceded by four permanent priests. On the effects of synoecism on the old cities see Dignas 2003:50. An obvious possibility is that the priesthood of Athena Lindia became annual for the first time in 406. Yet annual tenure of a Lindian priesthood (that of Enyalios) appears already in LSS 85 (IKRP 251), usually dated “c. 440–420” (but an extension of the argument of Gabrielsen 2000:185–186 might perhaps allow it to be downdated).

[ back ] 84. IG XII 1.761 (Syll. 3 340) 38–42. For the late-fourth century dating, which is prosopographically assured, see Fraser 1952:194; on the question of the court involved see Gabrielsen 2000:194. Fraser argues that the laws are those of the Lindians, against Blinkenberg’s view that they were Rhodian; had Blinkenberg been right, the continuing separate identity of the cults of the three old poleis would have been guaranteed by federal law. This situation continued: “Der Staat hatte schon vor Jahrhunderten die Scheidewand zwischen den drei Städten fallen lassen, der Cultus behielt sie ängstlich bei” (van Gelder 1900:305). It is, however, not certain that the threat to Lindian exclusivity came from Ialysians and Kameirians: members of “Lindian” demes in the Rhodian peraea were apparently excluded from tenure of Lindian priesthoods (Fraser and Bean 1954:123).

[ back ] 85. van Gelder 1900:291; cf. Hornblower 1982:83.

[ back ] 86. I. Lindos 123; on priesthoods see Dignas 2003.

[ back ] 87. Tit. Cam. 109 (on the date, early third century, see Fraser 1952:194–195). The representatives are to be summoned to the temple of Athena καὶ ἀθρεόντω τὰ ἱερὰ τὰ Καμιρέων [τὰ δαμο] τελῆ πάντα, αἴ τι [—————— ]. Since there is no hint that the representatives are to leave the temple, ἀθρεῑν should refer to consideration of the rites, not to a physical tour of shrines; the αἴ τι clause may have had the sense “in case any change is needed.”

[ back ] 88. This is proved for the Ialysian competition Erethimia by the text published by Kontorini 1975; either tribal competion or, at all events, panrhodian participation is surely likely at other local agonistic festivals, such as the “crowned games” of the Lindians (I. Lindos 123).

[ back ] 89. The Sminthia in honour of Dionysus Smintheus (Morelli 1959:41–42) may have been such an event: both the “whole people” of Rhodes and the Lindians were involved with it, to judge from IG XII 1.762.

[ back ] 90. Dignas 2003:38.

[ back ] 91. Van Gelder 1900:291–292, quoting Dittenberger. The identification of the sanctuary remains controversial: Michalachi-Kollia 1999:73–74. The recent discovery that Kerkaphos, sun of Helios and father of the eponyms of the three old Rhodian cities (Pindar Olympian 7.71–74; cf. I. Lindos 57b and 274), was already worshipped in Ialysian territory and perhaps elsewhere in the sixth century (Marankou and Papachristodoulou 1991:484) does not affect the point about Helios himself.

[ back ] 92. SEG 27.481 (which it is natural to date after and not, with Nielsen and Gabrielsen 2004:1196, before 408—archaeologically either date seems possible). For fourth century Rhodian amphorae of panathenaic shape, but showing the sun on one side, which also apparently served as prizes see Zervoudaki 1978; LIMC V.I s.v. Helios, 1009, n. 17.

[ back ] 93. See Morricone 1952, in the first publication of the list of priests of the Sun; the doubts of Gabrielsen 2000:202n49 are not compelling.

[ back ] 94. Pindar Olympian 7.80. The Epitaphia are known, as the name of a festival entailing tribal competion, from Pugliese Carratelli 1955: n. 18 and 19; Maiuri 1925: n. 18; I. Lindos 222 and 707. Pindar Olympian 7.36c speaks of an ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος in Rhodes town honouring Tlapolemus. Tlapolemeia are still mentioned under that name in an inscription of the second century, Syll. 3 1067.8 (IKRP 555); but the festival could perhaps have borne both names. The current explanation of the Epitaphia (see the note to I. Lindos 222) is that, like the Athenian festival of the same name, they honoured the war dead.

[ back ] 95. See Pugliese Carratelli 1955:250–252. A famous Homeric passage (Iliad 2.655f) implies a tribal structure in pre-synoecized Rhodes, perhaps even that those tribes like those after the synoecism were territorially defined. But all in relation to this crucial topic is darkness.

[ back ] 96. Strabo 14.2.5.

[ back ] 97. Priesthoods: Bresson 1991: n. 3, 54, 118, 148; IG XII 1.998; ἀγω̄νες: Bresson 1991: n. 4; IG XII 1.1032.23–29; subscriptions: Bresson 1991: n. 122, 149; regulations: Bresson 1991: n. 102; banquets: Bresson 1991: n. 59. The issuing body in most of these cases is not a deme, but the point about local autonomy is unaffected. Bresson 1991: n. 22 (LSCG 143) shows some dependence of Physkos on Lindos, but of a kind to which a deme on Rhodes would very possibly also have been exposed. The issue may be as much financial as religious: the text concerns λογεία, and LSJ s.v. λογεύω shows that the word can refer to a levy of any kind. All Rhodian sub-groups, not just those of the Peraea, were required to seek authorization from the Rhodian assembly to display honorary decrees in sanctuaries: Gabrielsen 1994:130–133.

[ back ] 98. Cf. Cook and Plommer 1966:65: “the sanctuary at Kastabos was by no means an exclusively Bybassian concern. The decree [Bresson 1991: n. 44] is issued by the people of Rhodes; the proposer is a Bybassian, the honorand an Amian, and the original dedicator of the temple [Bresson 1991: n. 38] a Hygassian.” Cf. Cook and Plommer 1966:167, “it was evidently under Rhodian patronage that Hemithea and her festival at Kastabos acquired the celebrity that Diodorus describes.” But we must I think assume that the cult was already famous by the late fourth century, or why would it have merited such attention? For the importance of Poseidon Porthmios on Karpathos, cf. IG XII 1.1033 (the koinon of Potidaieis displays decrees there). IG XII 1.1036 (dedication by a Rhodian general); for archaic finds probably associable with the shrine see Hope Simpson and Lazenby 1962:167.

[ back ] 99. Arcaseia: Historia 7 (1933), 577–579; Brykous: IG XII 1.998; Karpathos IG XII 1.1033.25–26 (at Potidaion; on the relation of Potidaion to Karpathos see Fraser and Bean 1954:142n3). But the argument of Fraser and Bean 1954:147n1—that Telos took its cult of Athana Polieus and Zeus Polieus (SEG III 719) from Kameiros—is fragile, given the ubiquity of that pairing. The island already had an Athanaion while still independent (C. V. Crowther, personal communication on the basis of a text relating to Koan judges [Fraser and Bean 1954:146n3] which he is preparing for publication).

[ back ] 100. Bresson 1991: n. 122.

[ back ] 101. Fraser and Bean 1954:130–147.

[ back ] 102. Tit. Cam. 109 (cf. n. 87). The point cannot be simply that the Chalketans were geographically shut off from involvement; they were less so than Kameirian demes in the Peraea.

[ back ] 103. See n. 83 above.

[ back ] 104. Rice 1999:50.

[ back ] 105. For all this see Robert 1951:5–36; Cohen 1995:145–148; Ricl 1997:4–8. Robert 1951:34–35 supposed that Larisa and Hamaxitos had left the synoecism when they received the Delphic thearoi. The synoecism of Halicarnassus by Mausolus (see Hornblower 1982:78–105) offers little grist to our mill, but note that the shrine and revenues of Apollo Telmisseus are still precariously in the control of a koinon of the Telmissians, heir to one of the tributary communities, in the early second century (Michel 1900: n. 459; cf. Hornblower 1982:94).