Greek Paideia and Local Tradition in the Graeco-Roman East (Colloquia Antiqua) 9042940042, 9789042940048

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Greek Paideia and Local Tradition in the Graeco-Roman East

Edited by María-Paz de Hoz, Juan Luis García Alonso and Luis Arturo Guichard Romero

PEETERS

GREEK PAIDEIA AND LOCAL TRADITION IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN EAST

COLLOQUIA ANTIQUA Supplements to the Journal ANCIENT WEST & EAST

SERIES EDITOR

GOCHA R. TSETSKHLADZE (UK) EDITORIAL BOARD

A. Avram (Romania/France), Sir John Boardman (UK), J. Hargrave (UK), M. Kazanski (France), A. Mehl (Germany), A. Podossinov (Russia), N. Theodossiev (Bulgaria), J. Wiesehöfer (Germany) ADVISORY BOARD

S. Atasoy (Turkey), L. Ballesteros Pastor (Spain), J. Bouzek (Czech Rep.), S. Burstein (USA), J. Carter (USA), B. d’Agostino (Italy), J. de Boer (The Netherlands), A. Domínguez (Spain), A. Kuhrt (UK), Sir Fergus Millar (†) (UK), J.-P. Morel (France), M. Pearce (UK), D. Potts (USA), A. Rathje (Denmark), R. Rollinger (Austria), A. Snodgrass (UK), M. Sommer (Germany), D. Stronach (USA), M. Tiverios (Greece), C. Ulf (Austria), J. Vela Tejada (Spain)

Colloquia Antiqua is a refereed publication

For proposals and editorial and other matters, please contact the Series Editor: Gocha R. Tsetskhladze The Gallery Spa Road Llandrindod Wells Powys LD1 5ER UK E-mail: [email protected]

COLLOQUIA ANTIQUA ————— 29 —————

GREEK PAIDEIA AND LOCAL TRADITION IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN EAST

Edited by

MARÍA-PAZ DE HOZ, JUAN LUIS GARCÍA ALONSO and LUIS ARTURO GUICHARD ROMERO

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2020

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-429-4004-8 eISBN 978-90-429-4005-5 D/2020/0602/59 © 2020, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Series Editor’s Preface – Gocha R. Tsetskhladze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VII

Foreword – María-Paz de Hoz, Juan Luis García Alonso and   Luis Arturo Guichard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XIII

List of Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XV

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

Between Magian lore and Greek paideia: royal education in the kingdom of Pontus Luis Ballesteros Pastor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Pepaideumenoi and paideia at the court of Hellenistic Cappadocia and the impact on cultural change Christoph Michels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

Local culture and regional cultures in the Propontis and Bithynia Madalina Dana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

Graeco-Egyptian bilingualism: co-existence (and interference?) of two vowel systems Juan Luis García Alonso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

Phrygian in contact with Greek: an overview Bartomeu Obrador-Cursach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89

The interplay of text and image as a form of cultural contact in Greek inscriptions from Egypt Luis Arturo Guichard Romero. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123

Traces of Greek literary tradition in the magical papyri from Roman Egypt: borrowing, adaptation, appropriation Ljuba Merlina Bortolani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

139

VI

CHAPTER 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Greek literary tradition and local religion in metrical cult dedications from Asia Minor María-Paz de Hoz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161

Greek epic in Pisidia: the Solymi at Termessus Héctor Arroyo-Quirce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

183

Greek literary topoi and local traditions in the etiology of the ‘Antonine plague’ Juan Pablo Sánchez Hernández . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

199

Greek metrical inscriptions, classical paideia and identity in Late Antiquity Gianfranco Agosti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

217

Greek-Latin bilingualism and cultural identity in the Graeco-Roman East: Carmina Epigraphica Graeca et Latina (CEGL) from the Middle East Valentina Garulli and Eleonora Santin. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

233

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

259

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

261

CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

The relationship between Graeco-Roman and local cultures is one of the keystones of classical studies. This subject has gained ever greater importance in light of new discoveries and the re-examination of old ideas. In the main, it has been studied from an archaeological or historical perspective – but there are other lines of inquiry to which less attention has been paid, not least how language can help us in our understanding of this question. The present volume, with its concentration on language, literature and education, brings just such an overlooked approach to the fore. True to our interests in the periphery, this volume’s focus is on Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor (as a whole or specific regions of it) and the nature and results of Graeco-local contacts there (particularly in the spheres of language, literature and education), publishing some of the results of the ‘Hellenisation in the Graeco-Roman East: Processes of Perception and Assimilation of the Local Cultures’ project at the University of Salamanca. The dozen contributions, written by those within and associated with the project, seasoned by others with congruent interests, are in English, which will help to diffuse the findings to a wider audience, though the authors are based in Spain, France, Italy and Germany. Several of the contributors and the principal editor will be familiar from Colloquia Antiqua 17; others from Ancient West and East or from different volumes of Colloquia Antiqua. As with many of our volumes, the work of young and established scholars is juxtaposed. I should like to thank Bert Verrept and Peeters for their help with publication and James Hargrave for his assistance with copy-editing. Gocha R. TSETSKHLADZE Llandrindod Wells February 2019

FOREWORD This book has been produced within the framework of the research project ‘Hellenisation in the Graeco-Roman East: Processes of Perception and Assimilation of the Local Cultures’ (FFI2015-63956-P), sponsored by the Spanish MINECO and FEDER funds, and based at the University of Salamanca. The main goal of this project is to study the culture of the Graeco-Roman East in Hellenistic and Imperial times under the prism of Hellenisation, and situating Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor in the same context. These three areas share common cultural dynamics: the relation between Greek culture and pre-existing cultures. The project aims to study how the confluence of Hellenisation and native remnants surfaced in new cultural products in the areas of religion, literature and science. In order to reconstruct this Eastern substratum, perceived and assimilated by the Greeks, we have studied the native elements persisting in the contact zones, as well as the specific type of Greek identity triggered by these contacts, and the role played by both the Greek cultural elite and the local rural population throughout the process. The epigraphic and literary evidence provides numerous keys to understanding the process in each of the regions, with different characteristics because of the substratum. Our research thus focuses on analysis of the peculiarly Greek elements adopted by local cultures and converted into their own identity traits; in the survival of ancient elements of these cultures; and in how both cultures, Greek and local, modify each other. Using epigraphic and literary sources and by analysing historical, literary, religious, social and cultural aspects, the contributions focus particularly on the idea that, apart from their connection to continental Greece, these three ‘peripheral’ areas are also interrelated with each other and conform to a certain unity of cultural exchange and hybridity through which the Greek perception of a common ‘oriental’ substratum was formed. The purpose of this book is to study different phenomena of this interaction between Greek and local communities from the Hellenistic period until the later Roman empire, all of them related to local adoption and adaptation of the Greek educational and intellectual tradition, though at different moments and in different social levels and circumstances. It aims to demonstrate the different phenomena involved in the process of Hellenisation in the East, and to highlight this process as the history of a tension in the eastern territories between ‘becoming Greek’ (mainly through the adoption of Greek as a lingua franca, Greek education and literary tradition), while ‘staying local’ (through the preservation of their main identity features: their native languages in private

X

FOREWORD

contexts, at least during some centuries, and their magic, religious and funerary beliefs and rituals). The book also introduces some approaches to a very special notion of ‘local’ while talking about the Graeco-Roman East: ‘local’ may sometimes mean foreign that has become local, such as the Persian traditions, or even Greek vs Roman newcomers. The members of the project (Agosti, Arroyo-Quirce, Ballesteros Pastor, de Hoz, García Alonso, Guichard, Sánchez Hernández), together with other scholars working on the same questions (Bortolani, Dana, Garulli, Michels, Obrador-Cursach, Santin) analyse different aspects of this common topic: the first three chapters (Ballesteros, Michels and Dana) are dedicated to Greeklocal interaction in the education received and promoted by the Hellenistic (non-Greek) kings of Pontus, Cappadocia and Bithynia, and the politicostrategic reasons why they adopted many features of Greek culture. Ballesteros’s chapter is centred especially on the influence of Persian education of the magi in the rulers’ education. The three papers also inquire into the grade of influence of the rulers’ education in other spheres of the population. While Greek education was spreading in the upper classes, Greek language expanded across all the Eastern territories cohabiting with local languages. The next two chapters (Obrador, García) deal with how Greek was modified through the native languages of the people who are adopting it as a language of communication. This interaction is shown through the case studies of Phrygian and Egyptian. Guichard’s chapter focuses in how Greek and local discourse join together as a communication tool, exemplifying the phenomenon through Greek textual expression together with local iconography in Hellenistic inscriptions from Egypt. This study focuses unavoidably on the question of the identity of the writer and the reader, a question that is also exposed, among other topics, in Bortolani’s chapter dealing with the use of Greek literary tradition to express religious beliefs in magical papyri. Bortolani further analyses the possible different degrees of penetration of that Greek paideia. Greek literary tradition as a frame for local religious traditions is also the topic of de Hoz’s chapter, focused in this case on inscriptions from the interior of Roman Asia Minor, where very ancient cult traditions are still alive. The use of Greek literary tradition to express local religious rituals and beliefs is again the topic, though with a very different focus, of Sánchez’s chapter on how local religious traditions influenced the constitution of a literary tradition on an important sociohistorical event in the Roman East: the Antonine plague. Arroyo’s and Agosti’s chapters are good examples of how local identities are configured through Greek traditions and within Greek literary frameworks. Arroyo shows the phenomenon through Pisidian metrical inscriptions, where Homer’s solymoi are linked to the inhabitants of Pisidian Termessus, while Agosti deals with metrical

FOREWORD

XI

inscriptions in late antiquity, where literary allusions and style played a significant role in the enactment of cultural, religious and political identities. The last chapter, by Garulli and Santin, introduces a no-less important phenomenon in the Greek East: the presence of Romans who adopt Greek as the lingua franca in the East, but preserve their native Latin. The bilingual metrical texts analysed in this chapter show how the mixture in this case is not local vs Greek, but Greek (which now played the local role) vs Latin. Seen altogether, this collection shows how a new Greek cultural tradition was being created through contact with the East, one that has common traces in the whole area. Greeks were adopting cultural elements (mainly religious and philosophical) that they felt were common to the Eastern world, while locals were adopting what they felt was quintessentially Greek: Greek education and literary tradition. We are very grateful to all the contributors to the volume, an expression of our common research, and also to the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the FEDER funds for financing the project. We would also like to thank the team of the Diccionario Griego Español (CSIC, Madrid) for making available through open access the lexicon and the Claros database, both of them works of reference and invaluable resources for Greek epigraphists. We owe to the Claros database, with very few exceptions, the bulk of epigraphic abbreviations used here. We also want to thank Gocha Tsetskhladze (and his colleagues) for accepting and editing this volume in the collection Colloquia Antiqua, Veronica Walker for the English revisions, Bartomeu Obrador-Cursach for the revision of the whole book and the elaboration of the indexes and the abbreviation list, and Sara Matías for proofreading. The Editors

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER 6 (Guichard) Fig. 1.

IMEG 112 (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 27567).

Fig. 2.

IFayoum III 205 (Louvre E 27113).

Fig. 3.

IFayoum I 73 (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 9202).

Fig. 4.

SEG 45.2097 (current location unknown). Drawing by Van Rengen (1995).

Fig. 5.

IMEG 74 (Louvre N 330).

CHAPTER 9 (Arroyo-Quirce) Fig. 1.

The so-called Solymos hill behind Termessus’ theatre (photograph by author).

Fig. 2.

Statue bases and ruins of the double portico L 5 (photograph by author).

Fig. 3.

Plan of Termessus, adapted from Heberdey 1934 (modified by the author with the locations of Solymian inscriptions).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACLT ANRW

App. Anth. CAH CIG CIL CIPPh CLE CLEMoes

CTH DGE DNP EA EDG EDR Epigr. Gr. FD FGE FGH

I. Yakubovich, Annotated Corpus of Luwian Texts (http:// web-corpora.net/LuwianCorpus/search/). H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin 1972– ). E. Cougny, Appendix nova epigrammatum (Paris 1890). The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge 1970–2005). Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (Berlin 1826–77). Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin 1862– ). C. Brixhe and M. Lejeune, Corpus des inscriptions paléophrygiennes I: Texte (Mémoire 45) (Paris 1984). F. Buecheler, Carmina Latina Epigraphica (Supplementum, cur. E. Lommatzsch) (Leipzig 1895, 1897, 1926). P. Cugusi and M.T. Sblendorio Cugusi, Carmina latina epigraphica Moesica (CLEMoes), Carmina latina epigraphica Thraciae (CLEThr) (Testi e manuali per l’insegnamento universitario del latino n.s. 104) (Bologna 2008). E. Laroche, Catalogue des Textes Hittites (Paris 1971). F.R. Adrados (ed.), Diccionario Griego-Español (Madrid 1980– ). H. Cancik and H. Schneider (eds.), Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike (Stuttgart/Weimar 1996–2010). Epigraphica Anatolica. R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden/Boston 2010). Epigraphic Database Roma (http://www.edr-edr.it/default/ index.php). G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidus conlecta (Berlin 1878). E. Bourguet et al., Fouilles de Delphes III: Épigraphie (Paris 1909–85). D.L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge 1981). F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden 1923– ).

XVI

GDI Grabgedichte GVI HD IAmastris

IApameia IBeirut

IByzantion ICos

ICPisidia ICr. IDelos IDidyma IDR III.3

IEOG IEphesos

IEryth

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

H. Collitz (ed.), Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften (Göttingen 1884–1915; repr. Liechtenstein 1973–83). R. Weisshäupl, Die Grabgedichte der griechischen Anthologie (Vienna 1889). W. Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften I: Grab-Epigramme (Berlin 1955). Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (https://edh-www.adw.uniheidelberg.de/home). C. Marek, ‘Katalog der Inschriften von Amastris’. In C. Marek, Stadt, Ära und Territorium in Pontus-Bithynien und Nord Galatia (Istanbuler Forschungen 39) (Tübingen 1993). T. Corsten, Die Inschriften von Apameia (Bithynien) und Pylai (IGSK 32) (Bonn 1987). J.-B. Yon and J. Aliquot, Inscriptiones grecques et latines du Musée national de Beyrouth (Bulletin d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Libanaise. Hors-Série 12) (Beirut 2016). A. Łajtar, Die Inschriften von Byzantion I (IGSK 58) (Bonn 2000). M. Segre, Iscrizioni di Cos (Monografie della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente 6) (Rome 1993). G.H.R. Horsley and S. Mitchell, The Inscriptions of Central Pisidia (IGSK 57) (Bonn 2000). M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae opera et consilio Friederici Halbherr collectae (Rome 1935–50). F. Durrbach, P. Roussel, M. Launey, J. Coupry and A. Plassart, Inscriptions de Délos (Paris 1926–72). A. Rehm and R. Harder, Didyma II: Die Inschriften (Berlin 1958). I.I. Russu (ed.), Inscriptiones Daciae Romanae III: Dacia Superior 3. Zona centrală (teritoriul dintre Ulpia Traiana, Micia, Apulum, Alburnus Maior, Valea Crișului) (Bucharest 1984). F. Canali De Rossi, Iscrizioni dello Estremo Oriente Greco. Un repertorio (IGSK 65) (Bonn 2004). H. Wankel, C. Börker, R. Merkelbach, H. Engelmann, D. Knibbe, R. Meric, S. Şahin and J. Nollé, Die Inschriften von Ephesos (IGSK 11–17) (Bonn 1979–84). H. Engelmann and R. Merkelbach, Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai (IGSK 1–2) (Bonn 1972–73).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IEW

XVII

J. Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Munich 1959). IFayoum I E. Bernand, Recueil des Inscriptions Grecques du Fayoum I: La méris d’Hérakleidès (Leiden 1975). IFayoum III E. Bernand, Recueil des Inscriptions Grecques du Fayoum III: La méris de Polémôn (Cairo 1981). IG Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin 1924– ). IGBulg III G. Mihailov, Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria repertae III: Inscriptiones inter Haemum et Rhodopem repertae. Fasc. 1: a territorio Philippopolis (Sofia 1961). IGENLouvre E. Bernand, Inscriptions grecques d’Égypte et de la Nubie au Musée du Louvre (Paris 1992). IGLS Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie. II L. Jalabert and R. Mouterde, Chalcidique et Antiochène: nos. 257–698 (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 32) (Paris 1939). XIII.1 M. Sartre, Bostra: nos. 9001–9472 (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 113) (Paris 1982). XIII.2 M. Sartre with A. Sartre-Fauriat, Bostra (supplément) et la plaine de la Nuqrah (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 194) (Beirut 2011). XV.1–2 A. Sartre-Fauriat and M. Sartre, Le plateau du Trachôn et ses bordures (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 204) (Beirut 2014). IGM T. Preger, Inscriptiones graecae metricae ex scriptoribus praeter Anthologiam collectae (Leipzig 1891). IGSK Inschriften Griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien. IGR IV R. Cagnat and G. Lafaye, Inscriptiones graecae ad res romanas pertinentes IV (Paris 1975). L. Moretti, Inscriptiones graecae urbis Romae (Rome 1968–90). IGUR IKibyra T. Corsten, Die Inschriften von Kibyra I (IGSK 60) (Bonn 2002). IKios T. Corsten, Die Inschriften von Kios (IGSK 29) (Bonn 1985). T.B. Mitford, The Inscriptions of Kourion (Philadelphia 1971). IKourion IKPolis F. Becker-Bertau, Die Inschriften von Klaudiu Polis (IGSK 31) (Bonn 1986). IKyzikos E. Schwertheim, Die Inschriften von Kyzikos und Umgebung (IGSK 18, 26) (Bonn 1980–83). J. Crampa, Labraunda. Swedish Excavations and Researches ILabr. III.1–2: The Greek Inscriptions (Lund/Stockholm 1969, 1972).

XVIII

ILaod.Lyk. ILIug IMEG

IMilet VI.2 IMS I

INikaia IP

IOSPE 12 IRhod.Per. ISelge ISestos ISmyrna ISultan ISyrie ITyana

IUrb.Rom. JIEgypt JRA

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

T. Corsten, Die Inschriften von Laodikeia am Lykos I: Die Inschriften (IGSK 49) (Bonn 1997). Inscriptiones latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMII et MCMXL repertae et editae sunt (Ljubljana 1986). É. Bernand, Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte gréco-romaine. Recherches sur la poésie épigrammatique des Grecs en Égypte (Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 98) (Paris 1969). P. Herrmann, N. Ehrhardt and W. Günter, Inschriften von Milet VI.2 (Berlin 1997–2006). M. Mirković and S. Dušanić, Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure I: Singidunum et le nord-ouest de la province (Belgrade 1976). S. Şahin, Katalog der antiken Inschriften des Museums von Iznik (Nikaia) (IGSK 9.1–2, 10.1–2) (Bonn 1979–87). M. Fränkel, Altertümer von Pergamon VIII.1–2: Die Inschriften von Pergamon (Berlin 1890, 1895); C. Habicht: Altertümer von Pergamon VIII.3: Die Inschriften des Asklepieions (Berlin 1969). B. Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini, 2nd ed. (Petrograd 1916). W. Blümel, Die Inschriften der Rhodischen Peraia (IGSK 38) (Bonn 1991). J. Nollé and F. Schindler, Die Inschriften von Selge (IGSK 37) (Bonn 1991). J. Krauss, Die Inschriften von Sestos und der thrakischen Chersones (IGSK 19) (Bonn 1980). G. Petzl, Die Inschriften von Smyrna (IGSK 23, 24.1–2) (Bonn 1982–90). L. Jonnes, The Inscriptions of the Sultan Daği I: Philomelion, Thymbrion/Hadrianopolis, Tyraion (IGSK 62) (Bonn 2002). W.H. Waddington, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie recueillies et expliquées (Paris 1870; repr. Rome 1968). D. Berges and J. Nollé, Tyana. Archäologisch-historische Untersuchungen zum südwestlichen Kappadokien (IGSK 55) (Bonn 2000). G. Henzen et al., Inscriptiones urbis Romae Latinae (Berlin 1876– ). W. Horbury and D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge 1992). Journal of Roman Archaeology.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LGPN LIMC LIV2 LSA LW MAMA I III IV

V VI VII VIII

X

OGIS OnomThrac

PBon PGM PLRE

XIX

P.M. Fraser et al., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (Oxford 1987– ). Lexikon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (Zurich 1981– ). H. Rix, Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben: die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden 2001). Last Statues of Antiquity Database (http://laststatues.classics. ox.ac.uk). P. Le Bas and W.H. Waddington, Inscriptions grecques et latines recueillies en Asie Mineure (Paris 1870). Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. W.M. Calder, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (Manchester 1928). J. Keil and A. Wilhelm (eds.), Denkmaler aus dem rauhen Kilikien (Manchester 1931). W.H. Buckler, W.M. Calder and W.K.C. Guthrie, Monuments and Documents from Eastern Asia and Western Galatia (Manchester 1933). C.W.M. Cox, Monuments from Dorylaeon and Nacolea (Manchester 1937). W. H. Buckler and W.M. Calder, Monuments and Documents from Phrygia and Caria (Manchester 1939). W.M. Calder, Monuments from Eastern Phrygia (Manchester 1956). W.M. Calder, J.M.R. Cormack, M.H. Ballance and M.R.E. Gough, Monuments from Lycaonia, the Pisido-Phrygian Borderland, Aphrodisias (Manchester 1962). B. Levick and S. Mitchell (eds.), Monuments from Appian and the Upper Tembris Valley, Cotiaeum, Cadi, Synaus, Ancyra, and Tiberiopolis recorded by C.W.M. Cox, A. Cameron and J. Cullen (Journal of Roman Studies, Monograph 7) (London 1993). W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig 1903, 1905). D. Dana, Onomasticon Thracicum (OnomThrac). Repertoire des noms indigènes de Thrace, Macédoine Orientale, Mésies, Dacie et Bithynie (Meletemata 70) (Athens 2014). O. Montevecchi, Papyri Bononienses (Milan 1953). K. Preisendanz and A.J. Henrichs, Papyri Graecae Magicae, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart 1973–74). A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale and J. Morris (eds.), The Prosopography of Later Roman Empire (Cambridge 1971–92).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

XX

RE

RECAM II

RIB III

SB SEG SGO

SHell. SIG SM

SNG TAM III.1

IV.1

V.1 V.2

A. Pauly and G. Wissowa (eds.), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart/Munich 1894– 1978). S. Mitchell, Regional Epigraphic Catalogues of Asia Minor II: The Ankara District. The Inscriptions of North Galatia (BAR International Series 135; British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Monograph 4) (Oxford 1982). R.S.O. Tomlin, R.P Wright and M.W.C. Hassall, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain III: Inscriptions on Stone, found or notified between 1 January 1955 and 31 December 2006 (Oxford/Oakville, CT 2009). F. Priesigke et al., Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten (Strassburg 1915; Berlin/Leipzig 1922– ). Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden/Amsterdam 1923– ). R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber (eds.), Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten (Munich/Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998– 2004). H. Lloyd-Jones and P. Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin/New York 1983). W. Dittenberg (ed.), Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, 3rd ed. (Leipzig 1915–24). R.W. Daniel and F. Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum (Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 16) (Opladen 1990–92). Sylloge nummorum Graecorum. Tituli Asiae Minoris. R. Heberdey, Tituli Pisidiae: linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 1: Tituli Termessi et Agri Termessensis (Vienna 1941). F.K. Dörner and M.-B. von Stritzky, Tituli Bithyniae: linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 1: Paeninsula Bithynica praeter Chalcedonem. Nicomedia et ager Nicomedensis cum septentrionali meridianoque litore sinus Astaceni et cum lacu Sumonensi (Vienna 1978). P. Herrmann, Tituli Lydiae: linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 1: Regio septentrionalis ad orientem vergens (Vienna 1981). P. Herrmann, Tituli Lydiae: linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 2: Regio septentrionalis ad occidentem vergens (Vienna 1981).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

V.3 TCC Termessos I

IV

TM ZPE

XXI

G. Petzl, Tituli Lydiae: linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 3: Philadelpheia et Ager Philadelphenus (Vienna 2007). R.P. Harper, ‘Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae’. Anatolian Studies 18 (1968), 93–147. B. Iplıkçıoğlu, Epigraphische Forschungen in Termessos und seinem Territorium I (Sitzungsberichte, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 575; Veröffentlichungen der Kleinasiatischen Kommission 1) (Vienna 1991). B. Iplıkçıoğlu, G. Çelgin and A.V. Çelgin, Epigraphische Forschungen in Termessos und seinem Territorium IV (Sitzungsberichte, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 743; Veröffentlichungen der Kleinasiatischen Kommission 18) (Vienna 2007). Trismegistos Database (https://www.trismegistos.org/). Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigrapik.

BETWEEN MAGIAN LORE AND GREEK PAIDEIA: ROYAL EDUCATION IN THE KINGDOM OF PONTUS Luis BALLESTEROS PASTOR

Abstract The Persian nobles installed in Anatolia shared their traditions with Greek culture. The kings of Pontus, who were Iranians and had family ties with the Seleucids, would have assumed this cultural contact. In the Pontic court, the education was basically Iranian, and thus the adulthood began at the age of 24. This education was held by the magi, who transmitted the Persian lore and legitimised the crown prince. Therefore, Mithridates Eupator had a wide knowledge of the elements of nature and learnt to ride and to shoot the bow, two basic elements of the Iranian education which can also be found in the case of Arbinas, dynast of Xanthus. Likewise, Mithridates should have passed survival tests in the countryside, which were a stage of the Persian education. In the court of Sinope, he was formed together with the sons of Greek aristocrats, and this should have favoured the contact with paideia. The king was well acquainted with the Greek culture and religion. This combination of paideia and Persian tradition can be also detected in other Eastern rulers during the Late Hellenistic period.

ANATOLIA, A MEETING PLACE OF CULTURES By the middle of the 6th century BC, Cyrus the Great had defeated Croesus, king of Lydia, and taken control of Asia Minor. The Persian invaders settled on this land bringing their religion and customs with them, thus resulting in a cultural encounter which would survive beyond the arrival of Alexander and even the Roman conquest.1 A scarcely studied aspect of this process is education, which undoubtedly represents an essential element of cultural identity. We know very little about the instruction of boys in this environment, not only in regard to the members of the Iranian elites but also with respect to other people who lived in contact with them.2 We have evidence of the use of Greek by Persian aristocrats settled in Anatolia, but we do not know how they became 1 On Cyrus’ conquest of Lydia, see in general Briant 2002, 34–38. On Persian rule in Anatolia, see Debord 1999; Briant 2002, 493–505; Marek 2010, 185–227; McGing 1998; 2014 (with earlier bibliography). 2 On the Persian education in Anatolia and its relation with other cultures, see Dusinberre 2012, 245–58. About Zoroastrianism in Asia Minor, see in general Eddy 1961, 170–76 and passim; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 209–20; Bivar 2001.

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familiar with Hellenic culture throughout their period of instruction. Thus, our aim in this paper will be to analyse the way in which Greek education was combined with Iranian traditions in Hellenistic Asia Minor. To this purpose, we will focus on the figure of Mithridates Eupator. This king of Pontus belonged to a dynasty of Persian descent that maintained its ancestral cultural roots but also was engaged in an intense process of Hellenisation.3 THE EDUCATION

OF

PRINCES IN PONTUS: THE STAGES OF IRANIAN CHILDHOOD

Education was essential to becoming a worthy ruler both among Persians and Greeks. The transmission of ancestral values and the knowledge proper to a king constituted a fundamental facet of royalty. Likewise, suitable instruction legitimised the heir to the throne against other pretenders.4 This aspect highlights the importance of education in the Pontic court during Mithridates’ minority, because his father Mithridates Euergetes had died in a plot when the prince was only 11 years old. Eupator remained then under the regency of his mother Laodice and suffered attacks against his life during this period.5 It was, therefore, particularly relevant that the young monarch could reveal his acquaintance with the principles of Iranian kingship, thus appearing as the legitimate heir of his forefathers. Describing the formation of the princes of Pontus is as complicated as defining the dynasty which ruled that kingdom. The scarce sources that we possess about the character of the Mithridatids present a combination of elements which is not easy to define. In my opinion, the Pontic monarchy was essentially Iranian. Its legitimacy was based primarily on a genealogy traced back not only to Darius but also to the old satraps of Dascylium, who had governed over the so-called ‘Satrapy of the Sea’, located on both shores of the western Euxinus.6 Accordingly, the rulers of Pontus should be regarded 3 On Mithridates Eupator, see McGing 1986; Ballesteros Pastor 1996; de Callataÿ 1997; Mastrocinque 1999; Erciyas 2006. On the Hellenisation of Pontus under the Mithridatids, see further McGing 1998; 2014; Michels 2009. On the concept of Hellenisation in the Hellenistic East and its methodological problems, see de Jong 1997, 17–18; and in general Préaux 1984; Briant 1990. 4 On the Greeks, see Alonso Troncoso 2005b, 196 and passim; Le Bohec 2005, 63–64. On the Persians: Briant 2002, 330, 521–23; García Sánchez 2005; 2009, 156–58; Kuhrt 2009, 631–32. 5 On the death of Mithridates Euergetes and Mithridates Eupator’s childhood, see Strabo 10. 4. 10; Justin 37. 2; Memnon FGH 434 F1 22.1; McGing 1986, 41–46; García Moreno 1993; Ballesteros Pastor 1996, 38–43; 2013a; 2013c, 111–35; de Callataÿ 1997, 239–44; Biffi 2010, 102–05. 6 On the genealogy of the Mithridatids, see Panitschek 1987–88; Ballesteros Pastor 2012; 2013c, 272–80; Lerouge-Cohen 2017. The Cappadocian Ariarathids, who also claimed to descend from Darius, established kinship ties with the Pontics in the 2nd century BC: Justin 38. 2. 5;

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as holders of the Achaemenid legacy. In this kingdom there existed nobles of Persian origin, descendants from those who accompanied Mithridates I in his flight from Antigonus Monophthalmus.7 We know that the Pontic kings were buried according to Mazdaist practices, and they celebrated sacrifices reminiscent of those performed by the Persian great kings.8 In Pontus, such Iranian gods as Mithra and Anahita were worshipped, evidencing the diffusion of the Zoroastrian religion.9 Mithridates wore a tiara, and it is very likely that he had a tunic in the manner of the Persians.10 There are many facets in which this Iranian perspective is reflected on the education of the Pontic princes. To begin with, we know that adulthood began at the age of 24 years among the Mithridatids, following a Persian rule described by Strabo.11 This duration of the minority confirms that Mithridates was educated according to Iranian tradition.

Appian Mith. 10. 12; Ballesteros Pastor 2014a. On the Satrapy of Dascylium, see Debord 1999, 91–115; Briant 2002, 697–700; Bakır 2001; Dusinberre 2013, 56–59; and for bibliography Miller 2012. On its name, see Schmitt 1972. On the importance of genealogy in Achaemenid kingship, see Wiesehöfer 1996, 29–30 and passim; Briant 2002, 92–93, 110–11 and passim; Llewellyn-Jones 2013, 15. 7 Appian Mith. 9; although this account has apocryphal elements: McGing 1998, 105; 2014, 29–30; Panitschek 1987–88, 88; Ballesteros Pastor 2013b, 185–86. This Iranian nobility has also been deduced from the title kyrios recorded on an inscription from Amasya (Anderson et al. 1910, 116–17, no. 95). On the Iranian origin of this term, see Benveniste 1966, 20; Portanova 1988, 333. 8 On Mazdaist burial customs, see Fleischer 2009, 115; 2017, 130; Canepa 2010, 11–13; Ballesteros Pastor 2014b, 189. Mithridates’ sacrifices to Zeus Stratius, which were related with the rituals of the Persian kings, had divergences from Zoroastrian practice: Appian Mith. 66; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 293–94; de Jong 1997, 140; Ballesteros Pastor 2003; Williamson 2014; cf. contra Eddy 1961, 48, 168. 9 On Mithra in Pontus: Merkelbach 1984, 43–44; Olshausen 1990, 1889–90; Campos Méndez 2006, 226–30; Saprykin 2009, 153–60; Ballesteros Pastor 2016, 62. On Anahita, see Strabo 11. 8. 4; 12. 3. 37; cf. Dio Chrysostom 36. 48. 1; Olshausen 1990, 1870–71; Saprykin 2009, 245–65; and further Boyce and Grenet 1991, 288, 301, who, apart from the sacrifices to Zeus Stratius, deny any trace of Zoroastrianism in Pontus. Against this view, Nock (1972b, 523) highlights the Iranian roots of Pontus; cf. Eddy 1961, 177–82. 10 On the tiara among the Pontic kings, see Plutarch Pompey 42. 3; Appian Mith. 111; Ritter 1965, 162–64. On the tunic, see Justin 38. 1. 9; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 184. 11 Sallust fr. 2.75M; Ballesteros Pastor 2013b, 82–85; cf. Strabo. 15. 3. 17; de Jong 1997, 156. At the age of 20, the boys could go to war: Strabo 15. 3. 18; cf. Herodotus 1. 136. 2. For further references to Persian minority, see Herodotus 1. 209. 2; Plato Alcibiades 1. 121c; Xenophon Cyropaedia 1. 2. 8–9. This last author (Cyropaedia 1. 4. 4–10; 1. 5. 1; 1. 5. 5) describes the stages of Cyrus’ education: as an adolescent he practised hunting and riding, thereafter he went to Persia, where he passed a year in the class of the children and ten years with the young boys. Later on, he was taught in the class of the mature men, when he began to lead the army.

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MAGI IN THE PONTIC KINGDOM The instruction of the Pontic princes was in the hands of magi: Persian children, after being under the care of a tutor until the age of four, were educated by these priests until they turned 24 years of age, as we have already seen.12 The magi taught about Nature: plants, animals, rocks, rivers and stars. Besides, these sages conveyed the bases of Iranian culture, as well as the principles of Zoroastrianism.13 The wisdom of the magi had an elitist character, and it was reserved for princes and the sons of aristocratic families.14 The magi were responsible for transmitting everything related to the duties of a ruler and furthermore they were the bearers of the ancestral tradition which presented the sovereign as a charismatic leader. In this sense, it is particularly significant the case of Tiridates, king of Armenia contemporary of Nero, who is depicted as a magus, surrounded in turn by magi.15 Strabo kept silent about certain barbarian features of his homeland: he, therefore, did not mention magi in Pontus, whereas he described the activities of these priests in Cappadocia (15. 3. 15). Nevertheless, there are various testimonies that would indirectly reveal the presence of magi in the Pontic court. We can infer this from Mithridates’ own history as well as from his abilities and his knowledge of the elements of Nature. Mithridates was famous for his study of poisons and antidotes, which he drank to immunise himself against poisoning.16 This erudition may have to do, at least partially, with 12 Boyce 1975, 201; de Jong 1997; Briant 2002, 521–25; Dandamayev 2012; LlewellynJones 2013, 14, 17. 13 About the magi, see in general Benveniste 1938; Bidez and Cumont 1938; de Jong 1997; Briant 2002, 6, 266–67, 521–25; Dandamayev 2012. On Persian education, see Briant 2002, 327–30. On the magi as transmitters of the Persian traditions, see further Boyce 1975, 201; Briant 2002, 127. On plants: Strabo 15. 3. 18; Pliny NH 24. 160, 162, 165; Plutarch Moralia 369e–f; Suda s.v. κάρδαμα; cf. Xenophon Cyropaedia 8. 2. 24–5. On stones: Pliny NH 24. 164; 37. 142, 155, 157, 166, 169; Dickie 2001, 115–19; Briant 2002, 266–68; Mastrocinque 2005, 178. 14 Briant 2002, 327–30, 521–22; Mastrocinque 2005, 178; Llewellyn-Jones 2013, 17; cf. de Jong 1997, 449. 15 De Jong 1997, 446–59; 2015, 279–81; Briant 2002, 521–22; Mastrocinque 2005, especially 177–78; García Sánchez 2005, 224–25; Dandamayev 2012. For sources, see Xenophon Cyropaedia 4. 5. 14; 8. 3. 11–12; Ctesias FGH 688 F 17.3 apud Plutarch Artaxerxes 3. 3; Plato Alcibiades 1. 121e–122a; Cicero Diu. 41. 91; Philo De Specialibus Legibus 3. 100; cf. Nicolaus Damascenus FGH 90 F67; Dino FGH 690 F9 apud Athenaeus 14. 33. On Tiridates, see Pliny NH 30. 16–17; Mastrocinque 2005, 178, 182; de Jong 2015, 277. A similar interpretation is proposed by Llewellyn-Jones 2013, 151, based on the abovementioned fragment of Ctesias about Cyrus the Younger. 16 On the magi and the plants, see de Jong 1997, 180–81; Briant 2002, 266–68; Mastrocinque 2005, 178; Marastoni 2007, 77. On Mithridates’ knowledge of poisons, see Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 131. Concerning Strabo’s attitude in regard with the barbarian features of Pontus, see Ballesteros Pastor 2013b, 188; 2016, 54. On Strabo as eyewitness of the cults in Cappadocia,

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the teaching of the magi. It is also told that Mithridates wrote a book about the properties of roots and plants.17 Lenaeus, a libertus of Pompey, translated the toxicological notes written by the king and spread them in Rome.18 Mithridates’ entourage included a botanical specialist called Crateuas, who wrote about plants as well.19 Another celebrated facet of Mithridates was his erudition in respect of stones and their magical properties. In fact, he had a dactylotheca that was consecrated in the Capitol by Pompey.20 It is also recounted that Mithridates himself wrote about amber (Pliny NH 37. 39), and there was even a work dedicated to him by Zachalias of Babylon that dealt with the influence of stones in the destiny of men.21 Mithridates was also famous for his memory. Since the 5th century BC, mnemonics spread in Greece and the Near East, but the magi also knew the art of memorising, and Mithridates may have learnt it from them.22 The magi also acted as soothsayers and dream interpreters. According to Plutarch, Mithridates was accompanied by such experts who no doubt were magi.23 Besides, Persian rulers should know the procedures for performing sacrifices, and we can also see this capacity in Mithridates.24 Lastly, astrology was another of the disciplines which belonged to the scope of the magi’s erudition, and this caused these sages to be regarded as astrologers in later times. Pontus and Armenia, see de Jong 1997, 123. There were other Persian, Hellenistic and Roman rulers and princes interested in poisons: Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 131–32. 17 Epiphanius Constantientis Panarion seu aduersus LXXX haereses 1. 3; Mastrocinque 2005, 179. 18 Pliny NH 25. 5–6, 63; Aulus Gellius 17. 16; Ballesteros Pastor 1996, 296. 19 Pliny NH 25. 62; Portanova 1988, 303; Mastrocinque 2005, 178. Crateuas gave the name Mithridatia to a plant, possibly ‘dogtooth’ (erythronium dens canis). 20 Pliny NH 37. 11. On these engraved rings, see also Posidonius FGH 87 apud Athenaeus. 5. 212d; McGing 1986, 101 (with further bibliography). 21 Pliny NH 37. 169; Portanova 1988, 408. There has been discussion of whether this Mithridates mentioned by Pliny was Eupator or a Parthian king, in view of the birthplace of Zachalias (who was probably Jewish): Portanova 1988, 408. Some authors admit his relationship with the Pontic ruler: Reinach 1890, 284; McGing 1986, 101; Momigliano 1988, 184; Dickie 2001, 119. 22 Mithridates knew the languages of all the peoples who fought in his army: Valerius Maximus 8. 7. 16; Pliny NH 7. 88; 25. 6; Quintilian Institutio oratoria 11. 2. 50; Aulus Gellius 17. 17. 2; de Viris Illustribus 76. 1. He knew Latin too: Plutarch Marius 31. 3 This was also an attribute of Cyrus the Great: Valerius Maximus 8. 7. 16; Pliny NH 7. 24. About the magi and the art of memorising, see Dandamayev 2010. On mnemotechnic and its diffusion among the Greeks, see den Boer 1986, 8–14 and passim; Marastoni 2007, 61–64. 23 Plutarch Moralia 624b; cf. Pompey 37. 2; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 124. On the magi as dream interpreters, see in general Herodotus 1. 107–108, 120, 128; 7. 19, 37; cf. Diogenes Laertius 1. 7; de Jong 2007, 217–19, 396–99 and passim; Dandamayev 2012. 24 Such is the case with Cyrus the Great: Xenophon Cyropaedia 1. 6. 2; Boyce 1975, 213. We know about sacrifices performed by Mithridates: Appian Mith. 66, 70; Obsequens 56.

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Mithridates was conceived coinciding with the appearance of a comet, whose characteristics were explained by the wise men of the royal palace.25 His cult to the Dioscuri should have been based on the relationship between Gemini and the old satrapy of Dascylium, which had been governed by Mithridates’ ancestors. This association of the zodiacal signs with geographical regions could have been another facet of the teaching of the magi.26 OTHER ASPECTS OF MITHRIDATES’ PERSIAN EDUCATION. There are barely any preserved sources that refer to Mithridates’ childhood. Justin narrates several attempts on the young Eupator’s life. First, his ‘tutors’, who may have been magi, made him ride on a particularly fierce horse while shooting javelins at the same time. Against expectation, he managed to control the animal and avoided falling to the ground.27 Although an evocation of the taming of Bucephalus by Alexander could be detected here, McGing perceived that there was also a background of Iranian education in this episode. As transmitted by Herodotus and other authors, young Persians should learn three things above all: riding on horseback, shooting with a bow and telling the truth. Therefore, leaving aside possible plots within the palace, Justin’s account may have described the abilities that the young ruler had to demonstrate.28 In addition to this, McGing detected the coincidence of this anecdote with the education of Arbinas, dynast of Xanthus, in Lycia at the beginning of the 4th 25 Justin 37. 2. 1–3. On the magi and astrology, see de Jong 1997, 398; cf. Dickie 2001, 186 and passim. There is much debate if the magi were astrologers, or this study was only carried out by the Chaldeans. Astrology did not form part of Mazdaist practices in a first stage, but the influence of the countries under Achaemenid rule made the magi to acquire knowledge in astral divination: see Bidez and Cumont 1938, 131–42; de Jong 2015, 272–77; Panaino 2015, 237–38 and passim. 26 On the relationship between regions and zodiacal signs, see Cumont 1903. On Gemini and the satrapy of Dascylium, see Ballesteros Pastor 2014b, 185; cf. Marastoni 2007, 62. There is a relief representing magi in Dascylium: Nock 1972a, 318; Boyce 1982, 117–18; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 513; Dandamayev 2012; Miller 2012. 27 Justin 37. 2. 4–5. Fathers took part in the religious education of the boys up to 15 years (de Jong 1997, 74): thus, young Mithridates would have been supervised by dignitaries from the court. 28 Herodotus 1. 136. 2; Strabo 15. 3. 18; Plato Alcibiades 121e–122a; Boyce 1975, 181; McGing 1986, 44; de Jong 1997, 446–51; Briant 2002, 328–29, 521; Asheri, Lloyd and Corcella 2007 I, 170. The verb iaculor, used by Justin, would allude to throwing javelins: cf. Strabo 15. 3. 18; Xenophon Cyropaedia 1. 2. 8; Ballesteros Pastor 2013b, 130. On the importance of physical activity and truth for the Persians, see Knauth 1975, 93–119, 153–56; García Sanchez 2005, 223. The virtues in which the Persians are educated fitted with some Platonic principles: cf. Xenophon Cyropaedia 1. 2. 6–7; 8. 8. 13; Boyce 1982, 261; de Jong 1997, 447–48. These skills have been also related to Darius the Great: Herrenschmidt 1985, 127–28 and passim. On the relationship with Alexander and Bucephallus, see further García Moreno 1993, 107.

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century BC. As it appears in a famous inscription, Arbinas was likewise instructed in these three basic principles of Iranian lore.29 This shows to what extent the Anatolian aristocracies may have been educated in Persian traditions. Having escaped this conspiracy, Mithridates suffered another attempt on his life, this time by poisoning. Regardless of the credibility of Justin’s account, it should be borne in mind that the ingestion of poisons could be part of certain Persian ordeals.30 It is very likely, therefore, that the young king had to pass some kind of trials in order to demonstrate his legitimacy. Finally, Justin tells us that Mithridates, intending to escape from the dangers of the palace, spent seven years in the woods, without going to any city, sleeping under the stars and fighting wild animals. This is an allegorical passage. On the one hand, there is a coincidence with the dialogue in Alcibiades attributed to Plato, which states that the phases of the Iranian education covered periods of seven years.31 On the other hand, carrying out survival tests in the countryside formed part of the instruction of young Persians, who could thus demonstrate their knowledge of Nature, and at the same time show their endurance and their capacity for facing a hostile environment. Actually, Arrian compared this stage of Persian education with the Spartan krypteia.32 Along with this, the struggle with beasts formed part of the royal charisma: let us remember that some of the Diadochi had allegedly beaten savage animals.33

29 On this inscription, see Robert 1978; 1975; Asheri 1983. It has also been linked with Persian royal inscriptions (DNb; XP1): Herrenschmidt 1985 (with the remarks of P. Lévêque); cf. Dusinberre 2013, 246. Boyce and Grenet (1991, 198) affirm that there are no traces of Zoroastrianism in Lycia, but do not mention this inscription. 30 Portanova 1988, 138, n. 52; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 131. On poison ordeals, see in general Godbey 1930. 31 Justin 37. 2. 7–9; Plato Alcibiades 1. 121e. Valerius Maximus 2. 7. 16 tells that the children did not see their fathers until seven years of age. On the Iranian interpretation of Justin’s passage, see Ballesteros Pastor 2005, 134, n. 44; 2013c, 133–34. On the sacred meaning of the number seven and its multiples among the Persians: Knauth 1975, 54, 87; García Sanchez 2005, 224. The Alcibiades may have echoed certain view that divided the Spartan education into phases of seven years: from 5 to 11, and from 12 to 19: Plutarch Lycurgus 16. 7, 17. 4; cf. ChristienTregaro 1997, 58; Christien and Ruzé 2007, 116 (on the way to count the years: Marrou 1946, 219). This may also explain that Xenophon established the beginning of Persian majority at the age of 26 or 27 (Cyropaedia 1. 2. 8–9). 32 Arrian Anabasis 5. 4. 5; Briant 1982, 449–50; 2002, 328; Bosworth 1995, 234; Ballesteros Pastor 2005, 134; 2013c, 133. On the relations between the Persian and Spartan worlds, see Kuhrt 2007, 99; Dusinberre 2013, 246. This kind of proofs may be also related with the affirmation of the rights of the heir to the throne: Widengren 1960, 230–31; McGing 1986, 44; Erciyas 2006, 18; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 133. 33 Briant 1991; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 135.

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The existence of hunting reserves, the so-called paradeisoi, was probably linked to this period in the midst of Nature. Frequently, these places were linked to satrapal courts, and there was a paradeisos in Pontus near Cabeira, which was precisely one of the royal residences.34 MITHRIDATES

AND

PAIDEIA

As among the Iranians, education was essential for assessing the legitimacy of Macedonian rulers, because it ensured the succession by reinforcing the identification between the king and the heir to the throne.35 At the same time, the instructional characteristic of the Greek world had results particularly significant for the Hellenistic dynasties of Iranian origin. Paideia constituted a factor of cosmopolitanism through the common use of the Greek language among both the Eastern and Greek elites. As Alonso Troncoso affirms: ‘The barbarian king was redeemed thanks to a philhellenic formation.’36 Beside his Iranian instruction, Mithridates was also educated in the Hellenic paideia. Already the satrapy of Dascylium had constituted a point of contact between cultures.37 Let us recall that the satrap Artabazus II took refuge beside Philip II, and would later be well treated by Alexander.38 Furthermore, the family ties between Mithridatids and Seleucids implied that the Pontic rulers were also of Macedonian descent, and it brought favour that they received Greek education, as was the case with other dynasties in Hellenistic Asia Minor. As we know, both Mithridates II and Pharnaces I married Seleucid princesses. By these dynastic unions, the foreign queens would have imposed habits proper for the Greek world in the daily life and protocol of the Pontic court. Thus, the environment of the royal palace must have been strongly affected by the Hellenic culture.39 Probably the capital of the kingdom moved 34 Strabo 12. 3. 30; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 266; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 133. There was also a paradeisos in Dascylium: Xenophon Hellenica 4. 1. 15–16; Briant 2002, 346; Dusinberre 2013, 55. In general, on the paradeisoi, see Tuplin 1996, 80–131; Briant 2002, 297–99. 35 Alonso Troncoso 2005b, 196. 36 Alonso Troncoso 2005b, 198–99. 37 Maffre 2007. It has been proposed that the Mithridates who dedicated a bust of Plato in the Athenian Academia was an ancestor of the Pontic kings. For discussion, see Lorenz 1996, 68; Michels 2009, 87; Ballesteros Pastor 2012, 378, n. 70 (with further bibliography). 38 On Artabazus, Philip and Alexander, see Diodorus Siculus 16. 52. 3–4; Athenaeus 6. 256c–e; Curtius Rufus 5. 9. 1; 6. 5. 2; Carney 2000, 100–01; Ballesteros Pastor 2012, 378, n. 69; 2013a, 67, n. 31 (with bibliography). 39 Olshausen 1974, 158; Portanova 1988, 534; Ballesteros Pastor 1996, 310. On these unions between Pontics and Seleucids, see Petković 2012; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 240–41; SavalliLestrade 2005, 199; 2015, 202–03; D’Agostini 2016. On the Aramaic in Pontus, see Debord 1999, 114; Briant 2002, 599; Dusinberre 2013, 250. As Dusinberre remarks (2013, 253), the

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from Amasya to Sinope during the reign of Pharnaces I.40 Despite its remoteness, or perhaps precisely because of it, this polis was particularly interested in keeping the flame of Hellenism alive. The city had a library and preserved one of the versions of the Iliad. Sinope had a gymnasium, which was an inseparable element of the Greek education.41 The Sinopeans would have aimed to be recognised among the Greeks as belonging to secular Hellenic civilisation, even though the city was settled in a barbarian milieu.42 At first glance, paideia was hardly compatible with Persian education. Not only was there divergence in regards to the time period of formation and its phases, but also in the content of such instruction and other aspects related to it. As Boyce and Grenet noted, the formation in the gymnasium was antagonistic to Iranian tradition, because the nudity of the boys in the Greek sphere was opposed to the rules of purity established by the Zoroastrianism.43 We cannot confirm that the young Mithridates frequented the gymnasium of Sinope. One thing is clear, however: the Iranian aristocrats of Pontus were steeped in Greek culture, which they would have received from preceptors settled in the kingdom.44 Appian (Mith. 112) affirms that Mithridates ‘cultivated Greek education (paideia), became acquainted with the religious cults of Greece and was fond of mousike’, although it is hard to trace the scope and characteristics of such formation. The king’s respect for Greek religion can be perceived in his dedications to Hellenic gods and heroes, such as Zeus, Poseidon and the

Mazdaist rituals were made in a language different from Greek. On the Pontic royal coinage, see de Callataÿ 1997; Michels 2009, 183–219. There is an inscription to a tropheus of queen Dynamis of Bosporus, Mithridates’ granddaughter: Arseneva et al. in L’Année Épigraphique 2009.1226, 222–33. 40 Pharnaces conquered Sinope in 183 BC, and supposedly moved his court there: Polybius 23. 9. 1–4; Livy 40. 2. 6; Strabo 12. 3. 11; Barat 2009, 357; Biffi 2010, 105–06. 41 Strabo 12. 3. 11; Robinson 1906, 252; Barat 2010, 43, 54, 58. On the importance and meaning of the gymnasium, see Delorme 1960; Gauthier 1963; Marrou 1985, 130–55 and passim; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 56, n. 21; Alonso Troncoso 2005b, 186. On the gymnasium of Sinope in Roman times, see Dana 2011, 30, 32, 40, and on epheboi in the city, Dana 2011, 50. On the library, see Caruso 2014, 61. On the copy of Homer, see Latacz 1996, 68–9; Dana 2011, 403, n. 10. 42 Strabo 12. 3. 20–27; Camassa 1988; Dan 2012–13. Alexander regarded Sinope as a city submitted to Darius which did not belong to the Greek confederacy: Arrian Anabasis 3. 24. 4; Curtius Rufus 6. 5. 6; Bosworth 1980, 353; Briant 2002, 699. On Strabo’s eagerness to soften the barbarian features of his homeland, see above n. 16. 43 Boyce and Grenet 1991, 56, n. 21; cf. Bikerman 1938, 51. On the nudity in the gymnasium, see Alonso Troncoso 2009, 72–74. A high priest of Cappadocian Comana was gymnasiarch at the same time: Robert 1963, 124, 220, 433, 436–40; Boyce and Grenet 1991, 276. 44 On a tropheus of queen Dynamis, Mithridates’ granddaughter, see above n. 39.

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Dioscuri-Cabiroi.45 Mousike not only was the art of sound, it referred to the art of the muses in general.46 Mithridates, therefore, may have been a connoisseur of Greek poetry and music: there were Greek poets in the palace of Sinope, and he enjoyed their verses.47 Likewise, he would have been instructed in the art of rhetoric: Sulla, who was a particularly cultivated Roman, was impressed by the oratorical resources of Mithridates when they met at Dardanus.48 THE EDUCATION

OF

MEMBERS OF THE PONTIC COURT

As was customary among both Persians and Graeco-Macedonians, Mithridates may have been educated along with other aristocrats of his kingdom, who in many cases would become philoi.49 We know of two dignitaries of Mithridates’ court who appear described as syntrophoi of the king (literally ‘foster brothers’): Gaius and, above all, Dorylaus of Amisus, son of Philetaerus. Dorylaus was the nephew of a general of Mithridates Euergetes from whom Strabo descended.50 Dorylaus grew up next to Mithridates Eupator and, for this reason, there has been discussion of whether the title syntrophos was a mere honorific distinction, as was the case with other Hellenistic monarchies, or if it should be taken as evidence of having been educated together with the king. It can be argued that both facets are compatible, namely that Dorylaus grew up next to young Mithridates and the latter appointed him syntrophos as an office in the administration of the kingdom that was associated with military command.51 45 Durrbach 1921–22, nos. 114 (Zeus Urius), 133–136 (Poseidon Aisios and the Dioscuri) and 137 (Serapis). See Ballesteros Pastor 2006. 46 Marrou 1985, 64, 94; Murray and Wilson 2004. 47 Let us recall the story of the dancer Stratonice, who became the king’s concubine (Plutarch Pompey 32. 7–8). We know about a poet of the court called Charinus: Photius cod. 190; Dörrie 1974. On the taste of music among the Persian kings, see Aristotle Politics 1339a 34; Plutarch Moralia 140b; Momigliano 1988, 214; Briant 2002, 252, 279, 293–94. 48 Plutarch Sulla 24. 2; Bernard 1985, 78. 49 Cf. Justin 37. 4. 1–2; Ballesteros Pastor 2013c, 158. In general, on the Persian world, see Briant 2002, 327–28; Llewellyn-Jones 2013, 17. On the relationship between paideia and philia in the Hellenistic world, see Alonso Troncoso 2001. Young Persians were educated in age groups as well: Briant 2002, 329; cf. Xenophon Cyropaedia 1. 5. 1, 5; Strabo 15. 3. 18; Schmitt 2012. 50 On Gaius, see Durrbach 1921–22, no. 136d; Plutarch Pompey 40. 3; Portanova 1988, 265– 66; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 180–81 (although it is not clear that both sources allude to the same person). On Dorylaus, see above all Durrbach 1921–22, no. 136f; Strabo 10. 4. 10; Portanova 1988, 245–46; Cassia 2000, 215–17; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 179–80; Dana 2011, 324; Biffi 2010, 102–05, 110–13. 51 Ballesteros Pastor 1996, 39, n. 12; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 179–80; Cassia 2000, 215; Biffi 2010, 103–04. Regarding the title ‘in charge of the dagger’, assigned to Dorylaus in the Delian inscription, it should be noted that the nobles ‘in charge of the spear’ and ‘in charge of the bow and the axe’ of the Great King were important dignitaries in the Persian court (Brosius 2007, 27), and therefore Dorylaus’ office may have had an Iranian meaning. On the title syntrophos, see

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What kind of teaching did Dorylaus and Mithridates receive? As far as we know, Dorylaus would have been schooled in Greek arts and letters, but he knew Persian lore as well. It is possible, furthermore, that his education lasted to the age of 24 years, and so he developed a closer relationship with the young king. As a common feature with the Persians, this instruction would also have included hunting as an essential skill.52 In Mithridates’ palace, there were other Greek dignitaries whose education was based on Iranian culture, which they combined in some way with paideia. The most outstanding example was Metrodorus of Scepsis, a writer and historian whose knowledge about plants, animals and rivers has been related with the wisdom of the magi, to the point that he has been properly regarded as a magus. Metrodorus bore the title ‘father of the king’, although this does not necessarily mean that he had been the educator of young Mithridates.53 Another case is that of the sacrificer Hermaeus, who accompanied the king to war. This philos may have been a magus, taking into account that these priests were in charge of the propitiatory sacrifices for the Persian rulers before entering battle.54 OTHER EXAMPLES OF THE COMBINATION THE ANATOLIAN ELITES

OF INFLUENCES IN THE

EDUCATION

OF

In Anatolia, formation according to Persian custom did not only affect the princes and aristocrats of Pontus. We have already seen the cases of Arbinas and Metrodorus. Another example may be Archelaus I, king of Cappadocia. He descended from an aristocratic family which had Macedonian roots, but also links with the Iranian world. His great-grandfather had been a general of Mithridates, and his father was high priest of the sanctuary of Comana Pontica. Glaphyra, Archelaus’ mother, was very likely of Iranian descent, and this would reveal again a combination of influences to some extent similar to the Bikerman 1938, 42–44; Mooren 1975, part III, no. 0191; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 267, 271–72, 281–87 and passim; 2017, 104–08; Strootman 2014, 168. On the syntrophoi as companions of the Macedonian princes, see Polybius 5. 9. 4; Le Bohec 2005, 64. 52 Le Bohec 2005, 63. 53 The ‘father of the king’ was a sort of principal minister: 1 Maccabees 11:32; Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae 12. 148 and 13. 126; Toumanoff 1985, 314–15; Strootman 2014, 168. See further Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 37–38, 81–82, 182; Virgilio 1999, 121; Ballesteros Pastor 2005, 135. On the identity of Metrodorus and other writers linked to Mithridates’ court, see Biffi 2010, 120–22; Dana 2011, 325–28. 54 Plutarch Lucullus 17. 3. Portanova (1988, 278) writes that his name does not mean necessarily that he was a Greek. On the participation of magi in the sacrifices performed by the kings, see Herodotus 7. 43, 113; Xenophon Cyropaedia 7. 5. 57 and 8. 1. 23; Curtius Rufus 3. 3. 8–10; Procopius de bello Persico 1. 3. 18–19; de Jong 1997, 89.

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case of Strabo. Archelaus was an erudite man who wrote about rivers and stones. In all likelihood, this information had been transmitted by magi, whose activity in Cappadocia, as we saw, was described by Strabo.55 Finally, there is Artavasdes II, son of Tigranes II of Armenia. Artavasdes would have been instructed in the principles of Iranian culture, but he was the author of tragedies and historical works in Greek as well (Plutarch Crassus 33. 2). CONCLUSIONS As far as our knowledge goes, it seems evident that, during the Hellenistic period, members of the Anatolian elites combined the paideia with the acquisition of the principles of Persian lore. So, they absorbed interests that came from earlier periods and, at the same time, favoured the co-existence of different cultural traditions which would eventually permeate the Graeco-Roman world. Actually, the magi were relevant not only for the legitimacy of the monarchs in the Hellenistic East, but also of certain Roman emperors.56 Thus, education constituted one of the main factors in the encounter between cultures in Anatolia: whereas Iranian princes and nobles did not reject paideia, the Greeks learnt much from the barbarians. In this final phase of the Hellenism, this cultural transfer was clear enough, leaving a substrate which would survive for centuries.

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55

On Archelaus and his family, see Syme 1995, 144–52. On his works, see FGH 123. On Strabo’s Persian relatives, see Strabo 11. 2. 18; 12. 3. 33; Cassia 2000; Gabelko 2013. 56 Gagé 1968.

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Robinson, D.M. 1906: ‘Ancient Sinope. Second Part’. American Journal of Philology 27, 245–79. Saprykin S.Y. 2009: Religiya i kul’ty Ponta ellinisticheskogo i rimskogo vremeni (Moscow/Tula). Savalli-Lestrade, I. 1998: Les Philoi Royaux dans l’Asie Hellénistique (Hautes Études du Monde Gréco-Romain 25) (Geneva). —. 2005: ‘Le mogli di Seleuco IV e di Antioco IV’. In Virgilio, B. (ed.), Studi Ellenistici 16 (Pisa), 193–200. —. 2015: ‘Les adieux à la βασίλισσα. Mise en scène et mise en intrigue de la mort des femmes royales dans le monde hellénistique’. Chiron 45, 187–219. —. 2017: ‘ΒΙΟΣ ΑΥΛΙΚΟΣ. The Multiple Ways of the Life of Courtiers in the Hellenistic Age’. In Erskine, A., Llewellyn-Jones, L. and Wallace, S. (eds.), Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra (Swansea), 101–20. Schmitt, R. 1972: ‘Die achämenidische Satrapie Tayaiy drayahyā’. Historia 21, 522–27. —. 2012: ‘Kárdakes’. Encyclopaedia Iranica (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ kardakes). Strootman, R. 2014: Court and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East After the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30 BCE (Edinburgh). Syme, R. 1995: Anatolica: Studies in Strabo (Oxford). Toumanoff, C. 1963: Studies in Christian Caucasian History (Washington, DC). Virgilio, B. 1999: Lancia, diadema e porpora: Il re e la regalità ellenistica (Studi Ellenistici 11) (Pisa). Widengren, G. 1960: ‘La légende royale de l’Iran Antique’. In Hommages à G. Dumézil (Collection Latomus 45) (Brussels), 225–37. Wiesehöfer, J. 1996: Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD (London/New York). Williamson, C. 2014: ‘Power, Politics, and Panoramas. Viewing the Sacred Landscape of Zeus Stratios near Amaseia’. In Bekker-Nielsen 2014, 175–88.

PEPAIDEUMENOI AND PAIDEIA AT THE COURT OF HELLENISTIC CAPPADOCIA AND THE IMPACT ON CULTURAL CHANGE Christoph MICHELS

Abstract The paper treats the cultural dynamics at the Hellenistic royal courts with special regard to the indigenous monarchies of Asia Minor. The ideal monarch was, in the Graeco-Macedonian view, both himself an educated man and a patron of the (Greek) arts. As a consequence, the different residences of the large dynasties also became, to a greater or lesser extent, cultural centres. In a conscious effort, the monarchies created the infrastructure for pepaideumenoi. Therefore, newcomers like the Attalids and nonGreek, indigenous/Iranian dynasties tried to excel in this field in order to show that they were as much kings as their ‘peers’ of the Macedonian kingdoms. The paper contextualises this policy of the non-Greek kings, which was once thought to be an expression simply of philhellenism, understood as admiration for the (higher standing) Greek culture. Of special interest in this context is the Cappadocian king Ariarathes V. According to Diodorus, Ariarathes for the first time created an embioterion for the pepaideumenoi. An essential question for the local culture of Cappadocia in this time is whether Greek paideia was limited to the direct surroundings of the king or whether it spread into the land and, if so, in what way.

Polybius oftentimes gives an obituary of those monarchs who are relevant to his narrative.1 In the case of the Bithynian king Prusias II, the final appraisal of his personality and exploits is a crushing one: King Prusias was an ill-favoured man, and though possessed of fair reasoning power, was but half a man as regards his appearance, and had no more military capacity than a woman; for not only was he a coward, but he was incapable of putting up with hardship, and, to put it shortly, he was effeminate in body and mind through his whole life, a defect that no one, and least of all Bithynians, like to see in a king. In addition to this he was most incontinent in satisfying his sensual appetites; he was entirely a stranger to education, philosophy, and the systematic training these give, and generally speaking had no notion whatever of what goodness and beauty are, but lived by day and night the barbarous life of a

1

On Polybius’ concept of ideal monarchy, see Welwei 1963.

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Sardanapallus. So that all his subjects, the moment they saw the least chance of success, became irrevocably resolved not only to throw of allegiance to the king, but to exact punishment from him (Polybius 36. 15. 1–7).2

Polybius’ notorious characterisation of the king presents the Bithynian as almost the complete opposite of a good ruler – lacking not only the capacity to wage war but paideia as well. Thus, Prusias is even likened to the legendary Assyrian king Sardanapallus for being uncultured.3 The passage, apart from being used to pass judgment on the king,4 is often taken to illustrate by its very negative characterisation the ideals generally ascribed to members of the large dynasties.5 At least from a Graeco-Macedonian point of view, the monarch was not only supposed to be a warrior king but also an educated man and a patron of the – mostly Greek – arts.6 Polybius also shows, however, in my view, what could have been expected of a ‘good’ indigenous king of this time. In order to show themselves as peers of the Macedonians members of the various indigenous and Iranian dynasties of Asia Minor followed the established system of self-representation.7 The Greek language was used at the indigenous courts – perhaps comparable to the use of French at the German courts of the 18th century8 – and the non-Greek kings increasingly styled themselves as benefactors of Greek cities and sanctuaries and as patrons of the arts on an ‘international’ level, founded cities with dynastic names, minted coins of Graeco-Macedonian standard and styled their courts in a fashion similar to those of the Seleucids, Ptolemies and Antigonids.9 This ‘philhellenism’ was once understood as an admiration for the higher standing Greek culture but recently is interpreted rather as one aspect of royal self-representation and as part of a foreign policy directed towards the Greek world.10 How patronage and beneficence were used as elements of foreign policy and to acquire prestige in front of an international audience can be seen most clearly in the case of the Attalids of Pergamum under Attalus I and Eumenes II, but it is a general trait of Hellenistic kingship.11 To a certain degree, this system of selfrepresentation was even adopted by the Parthian kings, although in their case 2 Unless otherwise specified, all translations are from the Loeb edition. On Prusias as a drinker, see Aththenaeus 11. 50 and 94. 3 Champion 2004, 71. 4 Cf. for example, Habicht 1957, 1125. 5 Alonso Troncoso 2005, 194–95. 6 Walbank 1984, 73; Alonso Troncoso 2005. 7 On Hellenistic kingship, see Bilde et al. 1996; Ma 2003; Virgilio 2003. 8 Will 1998, 832–33. 9 Cohen 1995; Hannestad 1996; Kobes 1996; Facella 2006; Michels 2009. 10 Ferrary 1988; Michels 2009, 37–39. 11 Gruen 2000; Bringmann 2000; Étienne 2003.

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one has to concede that their ‘philhellenism’ was apparently directed mainly at their Greek subjects and ‘strongly determined by questions of loyalty and disloyalty’.12 In contrast to the Arsacids, the indigenous kings of Bithynia, Pontus and Cappadocia never took the epithet ‘philhellen’, which rather signified a non-Greek monarch, but they nonetheless engaged, perhaps even more so, in philhellenic acts of self-representation. In the following, I will concentrate on one aspect of these royal activities. The different residences of the major dynasties were not only seats of power but swiftly became cultural centres as well, famously so of course Ptolemaic Alexandria.13 But other competing dynasties followed suit. In a conscious effort, Hellenistic kings created the infrastructure (such as libraries, observatories, zoos, botanical gardens, anatomical institutes) for attracting intellectuals, that is poets, philosophers, doctors and other specialists, to their respective courts and thereby style themselves as patrons of culture.14 The motives for this royal commitment were manifold and need not be discussed in detail. That the Hellenistic monarchs were willing to invest substantial resources in this field is probably to be explained by the constant competition between them – be it by war or on various other levels.15 The immediate audience of the philosophers and poets under royal patronage were mainly the philoi who were present at the respective courts.16 Almost all of them stemmed from a socio-political elite called pepaideumenoi, that is ‘learned men’ or ‘men of culture’ (literally ‘those who have acquired paideia’), largely notables from Greek and Macedonian poleis who fulfilled the educational ideal of this time.17 The cultural dynamics at the Hellenistic royal courts are especially important with regard to the indigenous monarchies of Asia Minor as there were perhaps repercussions on local cultures – i.e. the courts may have played a role in what is commonly described as Hellenisation.18 While the Pontic court of the time of Mithridates VI offers more material, since he and his associates 12

Wiesehöfer 1996, 62. Cf. Wolski 1983 with Ferrary 1988, 499–500. Weber 2007; 2010. 14 Walbank 1984, 73; Weber 1993; 1997; 2007; 2010; Ehling 2002; Strootman 2010; 2014. On ‘science’ at the court, see now Berrey 2017. 15 Ma 2003, 188; Gauthier 1985, 42. The competitive nature of euergetism becomes apparent when Polybius (7. 8. 6; 1. 16. 11; 32. 8. 5) characterises two of the most ambitious benefactors, Hieron II and Eumenes II, as philodoxótatos – most loving fame/glory. The dynast Olympichus writes in a letter to the polis Mylasa that he will not fall behind the others who have granted benefactions to the polis (ILabr. 8, l. 15q). 16 Weber 1993, 122–84. 17 Habicht 1958, 7–8; Scholz 2004, 116, 119. 18 The term Hellenisation has rightly been criticised, but as long as it is not used simplistically to describe an all-encompassing, purposeful and irreversible process, my view is that it does not need to be discarded (cf. Michels 2009, 19–29). 13

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feature more prominently in the literary sources due to his military exploits against Rome, and it has thus been the subject of several studies,19 I will focus on the less well understood Ariarathids of Cappadocia.20 Of special interest in this context is the Cappadocian king Ariarathes V who reigned from ca. 163 to 130 BC.21 Like its northern neighbour, the kingdom of Pontus, Cappadocia had emerged from the Persian satrapy of Katpatuka.22 Having come under Macedonian rule in the time of the Diadochi, parts of Cappadocia were ruled first by the Antigonids, then by the Seleucids. By the middle of the 3rd century, however, the descendants of the erstwhile satrap had managed to establish themselves in Cappadocia as more and more independent rulers. After having been recognised eventually by the Seleucids through a dynastic marriage, they assumed the title of basileus.23 Although the Ariarathids soon followed the example of Hellenistic kingship on an international level, apparently used the Greek language, and minted (mostly) silver coins with Greek legends and iconography,24 within their realm they presented themselves as standing in the tradition of Persian kings (cf., for example, the headwear – apart from the diadem – that they sometimes show on coins). This corresponded to the cultural imprint of their domain, for Achaemenid rule had apparently resulted in a profound Iranisation of Cappadocia that persisted in the Hellenistic period.25 As in Pontus, this is illustrated by the wide spread of Iranian cults and the continuing importance of temple-states, part of which had existed long before the Persian conquest. A ‘feudal’ organisation seems still to have been characteristic for Hellenistic Cappadocia, for we can grasp the very strong position of its Iranian 19 Olshausen 1974a; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 171–91; Portanova 1988; de Callataÿ 2003, 220–21; Ballesteros Pastor above in the present volume. 20 Cf. the similar judgment of Gabelko 2017, 320, who focuses on the Hellenistic courts of Bithynia and Cappadocia and consciously leaves out Pontus. His study concentrates on the distinctiveness of the indigenous courts (or rather of the monarchies as a whole) and excludes the possible relevance and effects of the emergence of Greek paideia at the court. Gabelko (2017, 330) concludes that ‘there is little doubt that this system (scil. the pre-Hellenistic) did not undergo any radical change over the Hellenistic period’. This is debatable in relation to the administrative structure of the countries and the composition of the respective societies, but in my view the courts are one of the few clear exceptions that really constitute a new factor in comparison with pre-Hellenistic times. 21 Cf. Ferrary 1988, 462: ‘le grand acteur de l’hellénisation de la Cappadoce’. On him, see Panichi 2005. 22 Weiskopf 1990; Debord 1999, 83–110; Marek 2010, 333–40; Michels 2017. 23 Schmitt and Nollé 2005, 519–20. On the marriage between Ariarathes III and a sister(?) of the Seleucid Antiochos II Theos, see Gabelko 2017, 322–23. 24 On the coins of the Cappadocian kings, see B. Simonetta 1977 and A. Simonetta 2007 (both with problematic chronology); Michels 2009, 220–46. 25 Mitchell 2007; Klingenberg 2014; Michels 2017.

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nobles, who controlled their estates from strongholds.26 Thus, the kings moved in two rather different spheres. On the one hand they engaged in an international world-system, dominated by Graeco-Macedonian culture (even the Armenian kings apparently wrote their letters in Greek).27 On the other hand, the kings of Cappadocia ruled over territories characterised by their traditional Anatolian and Iranian cultures. There are only few sources for Hellenistic Cappadocia. As a consequence, only very limited statements on its cultural development are possible.28 It is, therefore, all the more important that we have in a short passage in Diodorus (9. 19. 8) an appraisal of the rule of the aforementioned Ariarathes V and an evaluation of activities that have sometimes been understood as a ‘cultural policy’:29 But when the fatal day came for his father, he (Ariarathes V) inherited the kingdom, and by his whole way of life, and especially by his devotion to philosophy, showed himself worthy of the highest praise; and thus it was that Cappadocia, so long unknown to the Greeks, offered at this time a place of sojourn to men of culture (Diodorus 31. 19. 8).

The note comes within a rather problematic passage in Diodorus that is a part of a kind of ‘Cappadocian chronicle’. It also gives a largely fictitious story of the origins of the Ariarathid dynasty that allegedly already ruled an autonomous Cappadocia in Achaemenid times, tracing itself back to Cyrus II.30 Diodorus perhaps used Polybius for this, but the original source was, as Breglia Pulci Doria has shown, probably a ‘propaganda’ text that stressed Ariarathes’ legitimacy in his fight against his brother Orophernes.31 The latter tried to usurp rule over Cappadocia after the death of Ariarathes IV (reigned ca. 220– 163 BC).32 It is therefore a rather dubious story that we find in Diodorus and, if one accepts its ‘propagandistic’ origins, in itself it may be a testimony of ‘court historians’ at the Cappadocian court who elaborated this narrative.33 The passage about Ariarathes’ cultural endeavours is not to be dismissed,

26

Ballesteros Pastor 2002, 149; 2006; Michels 2017; Gabelko 2017, 330. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 194–97. 28 The literary sources are collected in Franck 1966. There are only very few inscriptions from Cappadocia; cf. McGing 2014, 22. 29 On this problematic term, first used by Schalles 1985 to full effect with regard to the Attalids, cf. also Gruen 2000; Étienne 2003. See Michels 2009, 345–47. 30 Breglia Pulci Doria 1978; Panitschek 1987–88; Ballesteros Pastor 2013, 187–88. 31 Breglia Pulci Doria 1978. 32 On the struggles between Orophernes and Ariarathes and its problematic chronology, see Müller 1991, 411–19. 33 Gabelko 2017, 322. I do not see, however, why this should tell us that there were also court historiographers in Bithynia as Gabelko claims. 27

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though, as there is independent evidence for these.34 According to Diodorus, Ariarathes V, who had received a Greek education (Diodorus 31. 19. 7), for the first time created a ‘place of sojourn’, an embioterion, for the pepaideumenoi in Cappadocia. As mentioned above, the term pepaideumenos could mean ‘man of culture’ in a broad sense, and more specifically an erudite politician; it could, however, also denote a wandering scholar.35 It is not clear what kind of pepaideumenoi are meant by Diodorus. Nevertheless, the passage is of special significance as it is often taken as representative of the policies of the minor kingdoms of Asia. From different sources we know that Ariarathes’ father, Ariarathes IV, had already started to engage in politics in the Graeco-Macedonian world.36 Ariarathes V, a close ally of Pergamum, however, apparently brought this engagement to a new level. Seen in the context of Hellenistic kingship, Diodorus’ statement that Ariarathes was worthy of the highest praise (axiologotáten endeiknúmenos), i.e. that Ariarathes V purportedly received prestige for his commitment, was probably his main motivation for promoting Greek culture. Notwithstanding this, he was apparently interested intellectually in philosophy, as we know of a correspondence between him and the prominent philosopher Karneades, head of the Academy (Diogenes Laertius 4. 65). It is unclear whether Ariarathes actually studied at Athens, but he certainly was agonothetes of the Panathenaia as a king.37 We also know of connections to the Athenian synodos of the Dionysian technites. In two honorary decrees the technites bestowed several honours on the king and his wife for earlier benefactions.38 While this euergetism is standard royal practice in this time, it is potentially also interesting concerning the cultural development of Cappadocia because among the benefactions granted by the king were the privileges of asylia and asphaleia for the technites, which probably means, as Louis Robert stressed, that they practised their arts on occasion in Cappadocia as guests of the king.39 This fits well with another inscription (datable only roughly to the 2nd century BC) of an Athenian athlete named Menodoros who partook in an agon in Cappadocia organised by a king Ariarathes.40

34

Cf. below and Panichi 2005; Michels 2009, especially 133–39. Scholz 2004, 116, 119; cf. OGIS 339 (Austin 2006, 252), ll. 74–76. 36 SEG 33.675 (= ICos ED 5; Kotsidu 2000, cat. no. 167); cf. Michels 2009, 123–25. 37 IG 22 3781 (= SIG 666 = Burstein 1985, no. 76) seemed to imply that Ariarathes was a student of Carneades, but see Tracy and Habicht 1991, 114. That Ariarathes was agonothetes is documented by a prize amphora (cf. Bringmann and von Steuben 1995, cat. no. 37; Michels 2009, 135–36). 38 OGIS 352 (= IG 22 1330); Robert 1963, 495–97; Le Guen 2001, 67–74, no. 5; Aneziri 2003, 44–46, cat. no. A3; Kotsidu 2000, cat. no. 45; cf. Michels 2009, 136–38. 39 OGIS 352 (= IG 22 1330), l. 60. Robert 1963, 495–96. 40 IDelos 1957; Robert 1963, 496; cf. Panichi 2005, 254; Michels 2009, 138–39. 35

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Who attended these events? It is rather unlikely that Ariarathes organised them primarily for his indigenous subjects, who had most likely never seen anything like it and whose reaction might as well have been quite negative. It is rather for the pepaideumenoi and the philoi of the royal court, and for ‘international’ guests that these attractions were staged.41 The aulic institution of philoi of the king is documented since the reign of Ariarathes IV, but we know only very few by name.42 During his description of the city of Mazaka and its territory, Strabo mentions that there were many strongholds ‘some belonging to the kings and others to their friends’ (Strabo 12. 2. 9).43 That there were, similar to the Macedonian monarchies, philoi of the king who were based on some of the numerous strongholds characteristic for Pontus and Cappadocia and from there ruled over vast estates is possible,44 but it is not unlikely that Strabo uses the term to describe quite different structures – most probably these ‘friends’ were not Greeks like those testified in Greek inscriptions, but belonged to the Iranian aristocracy.45 Philoi and hegemones also appear in passages from Diodorus and Polybius concerned with the accession of Ariarathes V and associated festivities.46 What could be expected of court culture in one of the indigenous kingdoms? It should perhaps not be underestimated. In a famous story reported by Plutarch, the severed head of Crassus is brought before the Armenian king Artavasdes and the Parthian king Orodes while the Bacchae of Euripides are being played at the court in Artaxata (Plutarch Crassus 33). The scene itself is rather weird and horrible. That the Armenian king watched one of Euripides’ tragedies (and, according to Plutarch, himself composed some) is, however, not improbable,47 considering the rock inscriptions of Armavir (north-west from the Armenian capital Artaxata), among which there is also an anthology with aphorisms from Greek drama, perhaps solely from Euripides.48 41 The philoi are collectively mentioned alongside the children and the army of Ariarathes IV in an honorary decree from Cos (SEG 33.675; cf. Michels 2009, 123 [with literature]). 42 See Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 194–96; Olshausen 1974b, 261–63; Gabelko 2017, 329–30. There are probably six persons to be classified as friends although not in all cases the aulic title is explicitly attached to the person (not five as Gabelko writes; ITyana 30 attests two philoi who were brothers and belonged to the prōtoi philoi). 43 On Strabo’s description of Cappadocia, see Panichi 2000; Trotta 2000. 44 McGing 1986, 8. 45 Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 197; Ballesteros Pastor 2006, 385; Gabelko 2017, 330. 46 Polybius 31. 17. 1 informs us that hegemones were summoned to a feast by Ariarathes; Diodorus 31. 21. 1: ‘Then, when he (scil. Ariarathes V) had duly attended to the interests of his friends, of those in positions of authority, and of the other subordinate officials, he succeeded in winning great favour with the populace.’ 47 Bernard 1985, 75–77, 83–88. Brüggemann 2011, 219, n. 114. Le Guen (2003, 335) stresses that the passage does not prove that there was a theatre at Artaxata, as a part of the palace may have been used for the performance. 48 Habicht 1953; Bernard 1985, 85.

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Regrettably, there are no stories like this for Cappadocia. It is all the more important when inscriptions document aspects of the cultural life surrounding the kings. A rectangular statue base of local marble, found during excavations on Rhodes at the east side of the acropolis, may belong in this category – it carries the inscription: Paramonos, son of Kastorides from Tarsus, (dedicated) king Ariarathes Epiphanes Philopator, the son of king Ariarathes Eusebes and Philopator, because of his virtue and goodwill and benefaction toward him to the gods. Philagoras, son of Menyllos, has made it (SEG 33. 642).49

It once belonged to a statue of Ariarathes VI (ca. 130–112/1 BC), the son of Ariarathes V, and was dedicated by a citizen of Tarsos, Paramonos son of Castorides. The dedication could, therefore, be interpreted broadly as an expression of contacts between the Ariarathid ruler and the Cilician cities and/ or between Cappadocia and Rhodes.50 However, the dedicand Paramonus may be, as was proposed first by Ferrary and now, in a more detailed study, by Haake, identical with the homonymous pupil of the Stoic Panaitios of Rhodes (whose patronymic we do not know).51 Even if the background of the dedication remains quite unsure, some tangible benefactions of the Cappadocian king towards the possible philosopher seem likely because the inscription mentions not only eunoia but also euergesia shown by the king towards Paramonos. We know too little of the philosopher Paramonos’ life to tell why he dedicated the statue at Rhodes. As he does not identify himself as a philos of the king he probably was not a member of the Cappadocian court but had in some other way served the king.52 Rhodes had become an intellectual centre and perhaps Paramonos had established a philosophical school there.53 Ferrary suspected that Ariarathes may have subsidised this institution which is of course hypothetical and, as Haake rightly stresses, an entirely different scenario is also possible, but it fits well with the activities of the Hellenistic kings mentioned above.54 It is, however, also not farfetched to assume that Paramonos had for some time stayed at the Cappadocian court prior to this. It is hard to tell in what function but he may have served as a teacher to a member of the royal family. 49

Cf. Haake 2012, 45–46. Wiemer (2002, 331 with n. 14) takes the inscription as evidence for connections between Rhodes and Cappadocia. Michels 2013, 298: Cilician cities. 51 Ferrary 1988, 461; Haake 2012. 52 On the situation of Greek philoi at the court of Hellenistic monarchs, see Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 289–394; Meißner 2000. 53 Bringmann 2002 on Rhodes; Haake 2012, 52–53. 54 Ferrary 1988, 461–62; Haake 2012, 56–58. 50

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As mentioned above, Diodorus specifically states that Ariarathes V received a Greek education (paideías te Hellenikēs metascheīn) and Orophernes was, according to Diodorus, raised in Ionia (perhaps Priene) to avoid dynastic disputes while Ariarathes was sent to Rome (Diodorus 31. 19. 7).55 Men of letters, especially scholars and philosophers, were often assigned the task of educating the children of kings. It was a principal responsibility of the head of the museum at Alexandria.56 One of the few textual testimonies we have on this topic, an inscription from Ephesos, shows, however, that teachers of members of a royal dynasty could also come from a Greek city in the vicinity. In the attested case, it was a citizen of Ephesos whose name has only partially survived who had been appointed as teacher of Attalus III, future and last king of Pergamum. After his task was finished he probably returned to his home polis.57 While it seems therefore legitimate to say that at the court of the Ariarathids certain elements of Greek culture were introduced in the course of the 2nd century,58 an essential question for the development of the local culture of Cappadocia in this time is whether Greek paideia was limited to the direct surroundings of the king or whether it spread into the land and if this is the case in what form. Closely connected to this question is the problem what role the kings played in this regard and whether there was a conscious effort on their part to Hellenise Cappadocia. As ancient Cappadocia was a land of villages rather than cities, and there were, in contrast with, for instance, Bithynia, no Greek poleis in the vicinity, modern research has focused on the city foundation of the Ariarathids.59 Ariarathes V Eusebes Philopator probably was responsible for the re-founding 55 That Orophernes was raised in Priene might be deduced by his good connection to the city as an adult (Niese 1903, 248; cf. Michels 2009, 126) but it is, of course, far from certain. 56 Cf. Alonso Troncoso 2001, 84–86. While the head of the museum in Alexandria was a philos of the respective ruling Ptolemaic king, many other teachers of princes did not carry the aulic title even when they were ‘friends’ of the rulers in a broader sense. 57 IEphesos 202 and Add. p. 6; SEG 47.1625 (transl. from Austin 2006, no. 248): ‘[King Attalus (II)] to the council and people of Ephesos, greetings. Aristod[…], your fellow citizen, having been judged worthy by us [to be entrusted with the care] of Attalus (III) [the son of] our brother, was invited by us and introduced to him, and [took charge] of the appropriate education. He was appointed by us in particular because not only he surpassed many in his experience of speaking and ability to teach it, but also because through his character he seemed worthy of all [praise] and the most suitable person to associate with a young man. For it is clear to all that young men endowed with a natural excellence of character imitate the manners of those in charge of them. And this is why, having been welcomed not only by us but also by Attalus himself in a most gentle manner, he has received from us and him the distinction he deserves.’ 58 Bernard 1985, 81–83; Panichi 2005. 59 Cf. Cohen 1995, 375–80; Michels 2009, 310–39 (with literature).

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of two indigenous cities, Tyana, which became Eusebeia near the Taurus, and Mazaka, later Eusebeia near the Argaios – both traditional centres and the only Cappadocian settlements which Strabo classifies as poleis.60 In itself, a city foundation was not necessarily a promotion of Greek culture as the foundations rather served to control the respective territories and at the same time formed part of the self-representation of Hellenistic kings.61 Apparently, Ariarathes’ predecessors had already founded cities with dynastic names (Ariaramneia, Ariaratheia).62 We do, however, have sources that imply the spread of Greek culture in the new cities of Ariarathes V. For Mazaka/Eusebeia near the Argaios this is mainly a short notice from Strabo (12. 2. 9): ‘The Mazaceni use the laws of Charondas, choosing also a nomodus, who, like the jurisconsults among the Romans, is the expounder of the laws.’ According to Strabo, the Mazaceni used the laws of the Archaic Greek law-giver Charondas from Sicilian Katane. This is certainly a surprising information. Silvia Panichi and others thought that it must have been Ariarathes V who – because of his philosophical interests (and perhaps on advice of Karneades) – introduced this constitution when he re-founded the city.63 Strabo does not say so, however, and in the following I will argue that while it is plausible that the kings played an important part in the (limited) spread of Greek culture in Cappadocia, the phenomenon need not be explained as a consequence of an intentional royal policy. For Tyana/Eusebeia near the Taurus, there is more but still scarce evidence. The Hellenisation of Tyana seems to have been, in the end, profound. Centuries later, long after the city had abandoned its dynastic name Eusebeia, Philostratos in his life of Apollonios of Tyana, calls it ‘a Greek city within the ethnos of the Cappadocians’ (Philostratus Vita Apollonii 1 .4). An Ionic capital found by Berges, and dated by him to the second quarter of the 2nd century BC, seems to indicate building activities in the time frame under consideration that followed Hellenistic patterns. But to what kind of building the capital belonged (royal residence, temple, ‘polis’ building?) is not clear.64 Even more important 60 Cohen 1995, 377–79; Michels 2009, 314–24. Strabo 12. 2. 7. Cappadocian Nyssa was perhaps also founded by Ariarathes V and named after his wife Nysa (see Panichi 2005, 256). Cohen (1995, 378) is sceptical. Cf. also Michels 2009, 325 (with further literature). 61 Philip II and Alexander III were, of course, the role models (see Michels 2009, 253–63). It is not clear that the Cappadocian cities were ‘pourvues de gymnases et de théâtres’ from the start as Robert (1963, 494) thought. 62 Michels 2009, 310–13. 63 Panichi 2005, 248 argues that Carneades served as advisor for Ariarathes’ ‘progetto di portare in Cappadocia uno stile di vita cittadino’, see in this sense also Berges 1998, 189–90. Cf. Trotta 2000, 200. 64 Berges 1998, especially 191–92 with fig. 4; ITyana 127 with fig. 39, 55, l. 2, pl. 88.

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is a list of gymnasiarchs from Tyana dedicated to Ariarathes VI. The inscription (ITyana 29) reads: For king Ariarathes Epiphanes: Atezoas, son of Dryenes/os, gymnasiarchos and agonothetes of Hermes and Heracles, (prompted the erection of) the list of gymnasiarchs since the 5th year (of the king’s reign): [Atez]oas, son of Dryenos, [ ], son of Heraklei[des] – [ ].

The inscription not only attests a gymnasium but also games for ‘Hermes and Heracles’. Robert thought that these gods might actually not be the Greek gods but the interpretatio Graeca of indigenous gods.65 This would be similar to the Anatolian goddess Ma, called Athena Nicephorus at this time and depicted on royal coins.66 But this has to remain speculative. Both gods were closely linked to the institution of the gymnasium.67 Their appearance is therefore only fitting. Even more noteworthy in our context is that the dedicator of the inscription, Atezoas son of Dryenos, who was, according to Nollé, probably the first gymnasiarch, carries – like his father – an indigenous name.68 If one follows Nollé’s reconstruction of the inscription, the father of another gymnasiarch was called by the Greek name Herakleides. On the side of the block a man by the name of Athenaios, son of Heg[’ is mentioned.69 It is of course problematic to assign ethnicities to these persons based on their names. It seems remarkable, nevertheless, that already in the beginning of the gymnasium a man with an indigenous name, Atezoas, was gymnasiarch.70 Thus, this institution was from the start accepted at least among a part of the indigenous elite and was not only to be used by foreign pepaideumenoi.71 For an evaluation of the presence of a gymnasium in Tyana – certainly an element of utmost significance for Greek civilisation in the Hellenistic world72 – it is important to remember that the gymnasium was not primarily a place for elementary or even higher education, though certainly of intellectual activities.73 Furthermore, the exclusivist character of the gymnasium is well 65

Robert 1963, 493. Michels 2009, 224–27. 67 Aneziri and Damaskos 2004, 248–51. Cf. for example, SEG 27.261, ll. 26, 45–46. 68 Stressed by Robert 1963, 493; cf. Groß-Albenhausen 2004, 319. 69 The theophoric name Athenaeus, which appears in its male and female form in Cappadocia, is to be seen in context with the mentioned interpretatio graeca of the goddess Ma as Athena Nicephorus (cf. Robert 1963, 494; see also Drew-Bear 1991, pp. 144–45; ITyana 35; ITyana, pp. 500–01). 70 On gymnasiarchy in Hellenistic times, see Schuler 2004. 71 Nollé in ITyana, p. 206. 72 See Kah and Scholz 2004; Alonso Troncoso 2009; Daubner 2015. 73 Probably too optimistic concerning the role of the gymnasium in Hellenisation is Mehl (1992, especially 70–71), who assumed that elementary education took place in gymnasia; but see 66

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attested. In the decree and gymnasiarchic law of Beroia (ca. 200–170 BC) those who may not take part in the institution are explicitly listed: ‘a slave, a freedman, or a [son] of these, if he has not been through the palaistra, if he has been a prostitute, or has practised a banausic trade, or is drunk, or mad’.74 Thus, the gymnasia were not instruments for a basic Hellenisation but rather a consequence of Greek culture being already present.75 Although the king is mentioned in the list of gymnasiarchs from Tyana, it does not follow that the gymnasium was founded at his command. While Hellenistic kings are frequently mentioned as benefactors in gymnasia,76 from what we know of potential parallels in Hellenistic times it is more likely a consequence of ‘selfHellenisation.’77 A prime example of such a development is of course the Jewish elite of Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC.78 The eventual failure of the reforms is less important than the insight that the initiative to adopt features of Greek lifestyle originated within Jewish circles and did not depend on any royal policy.79 An equally relevant potential parallel has come to light through an inscription found in 1997 in south-east Phrygia. It preserves a dossier of three letters of Eumenes II concerning the Seleucid colony of Toriaion, which had come under Pergamene rule as a consequence of the peace of Apameia.80 The mixed settlers of the colony had asked their new sovereign, Eumenes, for the right to organise and conduct themselves as a polis. More specifically, a delegation requested of the monarch that the community, in exchange for its continued loyalty, be granted ‘a city constitution (politeia), and (the use of) (…) own laws, and a gymnasium, and other things consistent with those’ (ISultan 393, ll. 9–11). In the course of the correspondence Eumenes rather grudgingly granted the request, but he then showed himself a true euergetes by promising to subsidise the gymnasium – the initiative to establish one, however, came from the settlers, and it is apparent that the gymnasium was closely linked to

Scholz 2004. It was on the contrary a prerequisite for the participation in the intellectual activities of the gymnasium to have previously learned to read and write (cf. Bringmann 2004, 323). 74 SEG 27.261, ll. 27–29. Translation from Bagnall and Derow 2004, 135. In the beginning (ll. 5–11), the text refers to laws in other poleis similar to the one enacted in Beroia. Cf. Kobes 2004; also Groß-Albenhausen 2004, 322. 75 Cf. Bringmann 2004. 76 Cf. Ameling 2004; Bringmann and von Steuben 1995, cat. nos. 17, 106, 189–191, 284, 357, 390 [A], 418 [A]. 77 Bringmann 2004. 78 1 Maccabees 1:10–25, 41–56. Already referred to by Robert 1963, 492. 79 Bringmann 1983, 66–74; 2004; Mittag 2006, 237–47. 80 SEG 47.1745 (= ISultan 393); cf. Schuler 1999; Savalli-Lestrade 2005.

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acquiring the status of polis.81 What becomes equally clear, however, is that the establishment of a gymnasium required the permission of the monarch. In Cappadocia, the catalyst for a perhaps similar development may have been the ‘philhellenic’ activities of Ariarathes V.82 This does not mean, however, that there was a conscious effort by the king to Hellenise Cappadocia. Only once do we hear of something which could be understood as testimony of such a policy. A fragment of Polybius’ histories preserved in the Deipnosophistai of Athenaios tells us the following: ‘Polybius says that Orophernes reigned for a short time in Cappadocia, and despising their traditional customs introduced the refined debauchery of Ionia.’83 According to this, the usurper Orophernes tried during his short reign to introduce new customs in Cappadocia and this resulted in some kind of culture clash.84 The description is very negative and rather speaks against such policies as a common practice of the Cappadocian kings. A far more likely scenario (which also remains speculative, of course) is that networks between the foreign pepaideumenoi and the local elites created a milieu in which it was desirable for the local elites to adopt certain elements of Greek culture. In order to partake in wider, international networks, Greek paideia was a necessary prerequisite, a factor that seems to have motivated those who were part of the Jewish elite in favour of self-Hellenisation.85 Perhaps, as Nollé suggested, the first gymnasiarch in Tyana, the otherwise unattested Atezoas, also played a major role in the foundation of the gymnasium.86 As already mentioned, Tyana seems to have preserved or even intensified the adoption of aspects of Greek culture. An honorary decree from the first half of the 1st century for two brothers, former city governors and philoi of Ariobarzanes I (96/5–63/2 BC) shows that by this time Tyana had some sort of polis organisation as in the last line public funds are mentioned from which the decreed statues for the brothers are to be paid.87 81 ISultan 393, ll. 17–28, 37–49. Schuler 1999, 130; Savalli-Lestrade 2005, 12; Ameling 2004, 131–37; Bringmann 2004, 324. 82 Robert 1963, 494–97; cf. but reconstructing an intentional policy, Berges in ITyana, pp. 481–84; Panichi 2005. 83 Polybius 32. 11 (p. 277 Loeb) (= 32. 20); from Athenaeus 10. 440B. Cf. the isolated note in Aelian Varia Historia 2. 41: ‘And why should we omit the Cappadocian king Orophernes, who was a great drinker?’. 84 Cf. Ballesteros Pastor 2006, 384. 85 Bringmann 2004, 325–27; Mittag 2006, 246–47; cf. Daubner 2015, 40 who, however, excludes Greek education as a factor in the establishment of the gymnasium. 86 Nollé in ITyana, p. 205. 87 (ITyana 30: ‘[Council and people (?) honoured n.n., son of Herakleides, and n.n.], son of [Her]akleides, also called Se[…, one of the firs]t friends of king Ariobar[zanes] [Ph]iloromaios, who enjoyed his greatest confidence and were highly honoured by him, the former city governors

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We have too few sources to retrace in detail the mechanisms of culture mingling like we see it for example in Ptolemaic Egypt. In neither Cappadocia nor Pontus or Bithynia do we see figures like the Babylonian Berossos or the Egyptian Manethon, who wrote in Greek about themes of their respective culture, and it is questionable whether we should presuppose their existence in ‘non-colonial’ monarchies. We do see, however, that it would be simplistic to suppose two entirely separate worlds in Cappadocia, one characterised by Greek paideia and the other totally devoid of it. Characteristic is perhaps the following testimony. In the 1st century, a man by the name of Mithratochmes was honoured by the gerousia of Comana.88 He was at the same time gymnasiarch and priest of the ‘victory-bringing goddess’, that is of Ma-Enyo, whose main sanctuary in Cappadocia was at Comana, one of the largest ‘temple-states’ of Asia Minor. In this time, having adopted the Greek name Hieropolis, it had developed certain polis institutions.89 Although another inscription honours the last king of Cappadocia, Archelaos, as ktistes and soter, it is possible that he was honoured as benefactor not as founder of the city, and that this civic constitution, too, did not result from a top-down process but rather from of an initiative of the local elite which, of course, needed royal approval.90 That no intentional policy was, in fact, needed for the spread of Greek culture is illustrated by Cappadocian Hanisa. The indigenous city, which had Assyrian origins, apparently developed into a polis in the course of the 2nd century BC quite independently from any royal intervention. A (now lost) inscription engraved on a bronze tablet – an honorary decree which Robert dated to the late 2nd or early 1st century BC – illustrates that the city, which apparently used the Macedonian calendar, had the constitution of a polis comprising a boule (l. 4), an ekklesia (ll. 22–23), a board of prytaneis (l. 5) and an eponymous demiourgos (l. 3), as well as at least one archon (l. 8), and also perceived itself as being a polis (l. 34).91 As it bears no dynastic name, no royal re-foundation seems to have taken place. and brothers as common benefactors because of their virtue and their goodwill that they constantly had towards the king and the people. Their statues were erected with public funds’). 88 OGIS 364 (= TCC 2.05): ‘The gerousia (honours) Mithratochmes, son of Iazemis, grandson of Iazemis, great-grandson of Mithratochmes, also called Ariobarzanes, priest of the victorybringing goddess, gymnasiarch (?) …’ The inscription is dated to the 1st century by Harper 1968, 102. 89 On Comana, see Strabo 12. 2. 3; Magie 1966, 141–42, 494 with n. 9; and Hild and Restle 1981, 208–09. On Pontic Comana, a ‘cultic branch’ of the Cappadocian Comana, where also Ma was revered (Strabo 12. 3. 32) and which seems to have been structurally similar, see now Ballesteros Pastor 2016. 90 OGIS 358 (TCC 2.01): ‘The people (honour) King Archelaos Philopatris, the ktistes and savior.’ Cf. on this Michels 2013, 300–01. 91 Formerly Antikensammlung, Berlin, Inv. Misc. 7459: ‘Good fortune. In the seventh year, in the month Dios, in Hanisa, Papes, son of Balasopos, was demiourgos, resolved by the boule

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The political and cultural basis for developments like these was nevertheless influenced by the Cappadocian monarchs. In order to be perceived as peers of the Macedonian kings, both by these competitors and also by a wider mainly Greek public of the eastern Mediterranean, the non-Greek kings of Cappadocia emulated the practice of the large monarchies to style themselves as patrons of the arts. In this context (and Ariarathes V seems to have been especially active in this regard) they apparently also attracted intellectuals and the wider group of pepaideumenoi to their courts. These men of culture were needed for participating in international politics. It is possible, though, that this also started a dynamic which led to a wider – though still limited – Hellenisation of Cappadocia, carried out by parts of the indigenous/Iranian elite. We have only a few sources for these processes, but it is all the more important to reflect on their interpretative framework.

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and the demos of the Hanisoi upon the request of the prytaneis: Since Apollonios, son of Abbas, having always been an excellent man for our community, when serving as archon in the fourth year, he – while providing other services – also enforced the claims (of the demos) to the property of Sindenos, son of Apollonios, who had died without heir, and, incurring expenses and troubles, he appealed in Eusebeia for a legal decision before Menophilos, son of Maidates, the archidioiketes, and Alexandros, son of Sasas [or: -ai?], the city governor of Eusebeia, against Anoptenes, son of Teires, who laid claim on the heritage and against certain other citizens, and he did not abandon the people but, showing diligence and love for honour, he secured the heritage for the people by the judgment; that it should be resolved by the boule and the demos that the excellence of this man shall not remain unappreciated but, according to the resolution of boule and ekklesia, that he is a benefactor of the people and shall be crowned with a golden wreath both at the festivals of Zeus Soter and of Herakles, as well as at the public assemblies taking place monthly and yearly, while the sacrificial herald shall proclaim at the same time: “The demos crowns Apollonios, son of Abbas, Euergetes, with a golden wreath, to good fortune!” A transcription of this decree shall be recorded on a bronze tablet and it shall be erected in the pronaos of the sanctuary of Astarte, so that also the others, having witnessed the gratitude of the people, will always strive to render a service to the polis. It has been resolved.’ Cf. Robert 1963, 457–523; Will 1998; Couvenhes and Heller 2006, 33–34; Michels 2013.

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—. 2013: ‘The Spread of Polis Institutions in Hellenistic Cappadocia and the Peer Polity Interaction Model’. In Stavrianopoulou, E. (ed.), Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period. Narrations, Practices and Images (Mnemosyne Suppl. 363) (Leiden/Boston), 283–307. —. 2017: ‘The Persian Impact on Bithynia, Commagene, Pontus, and Cappadocia’. In Müller, S., Howe, T., Bowden, H. and Rollinger, R. (eds.), The History of the Argeads, New Perspectives (Classica et Orientalia 19) (Wiesbaden), 41–56. Mittag, P.F. 2006: Antiochos IV. Epiphanes. Eine politische Biographie (Klio Beih. n.f. 11) (Berlin). Mitchell, S. 1993: Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, 2 vols. (Oxford). —. 2007: ‘Iranian Names and the Presence of Persians in the Religious Sanctuaries of Asia Minor’. In Matthews, E. (ed.), Old and New Worlds in Greek Onomastics (Oxford), 151–71. Müller, H. 1991: ‘Königin Stratonike, Tochter des Königs Ariarathes’. Chiron 21, 393–424. Niese, B. 1903: Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chaeronea 3: Von 188 bis 120 v. Chr. (Gotha). Olshausen, E. 1974a: ‘Zum Hellenisierungsprozeß am pontischen Königshof’. Ancient Society 5, 153–70. —. 1974b: Prosopographie der hellenistischen Königsgesandten 1: Von Triparadeisos bis Pydna (Studia Hellenistica 19) (Leuven). Panichi, S. 2000: ‘La Cappadocia’. In Biraschi, A.M. and Salmeri, G. (eds.), Strabone e l’Asia Minore (Incontro Perugino di Storia della Storiografia Antica e sul Mondo Antico 10) (Naples), 509–41. —. 2005: ‘Sul ‘filellenismo’ di Ariarate V’. In Virgilio, B. (ed.), Studi Ellenistici 16 (Pisa), 241–59. Panitschek, P. 1987–88. ‘Zu den genealogischen Konstruktionen der Dynastien von Pontos und Kappadokien’. Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 17–18, 73–95. Portanova, J.J. 1988: The Associates of Mithridates VI of Pontus (Dissertation, Columbia University). Prost, F. (ed.) 2003: L’Orient Méditerranéen de la mort d’Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée. Cités et royaumes à l’époque hellénistique (Actes du colloque international de la SOPHAU, Rennes, 4–6 avril 2003) (Rennes). Robert, L. 1963: Noms indigènes dans l’Asie Mineure gréco-romaine (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie d’Istanbul 13) (Paris). Savalli-Lestrade, I. 1998: Les philoi royaux dans l’Asie hellénistique (Hautes Études du Monde Gréco-Romain 25) (Geneva). —. 2005: ‘Devenir une cité: Poleis nouvelles et aspirations civiques en Asie Mineure à la basse époque hellénistique’. In Fröhlich, P. and Müller, C. (eds.), Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique (Actes de la table ronde des 22 et 23 mai 2004, Paris) (Hautes Études du Monde Gréco-Romain 35) (Geneva), 9–37. Schalles, H.-J. 1985: Untersuchungen zur Kulturpolitik der pergamenischen Herrscher im 3. Jahrhundert vor Christus (Istanbuler Forschungen 36) (Tübingen). Schmitt, H.H. and Nollé, J. 2005: ‘Kappadokien’. In Schmitt, H.H. and Vogl, E. (eds.), Lexikon des Hellenismus (Wiesbaden), 519–23.

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Scholz, P. 2004: ‘Elementarunterricht und intellektuelle Bildung im hellenistischen Gymnasion’. In Kah and Scholz 2004, 103–28. Schuler, C. 1999: ‘Kolonisten und Einheimische in einer attalidischen Polisgründung’. ZPE 128, 124–32. —. 2004: ‘Die Gymnasiarchie in hellenistischer Zeit’. In Kah and Scholz 2004, 163–92. Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A. 1993: From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (London/Berkeley). Simonetta, A.M. 2007: ‘The Coinage of the Cappadocian Kings. A Revision and a Catalogue of the Simonetta Collection’. Parthica 9, 9–152. Simonetta, B. 1977: The Coins of the Cappadocian Kings (Typos 2) (Fribourg). Strootman, R. 2010: ‘Literature and Kings’. In Clauss, J.J. and Cuypers, M. (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Oxford/Malden, MA), 30–45. —. 2014: Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East After the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30 BCE (Edinburgh). Tracy, S.W. and Habicht, C. 1991: ‘New and Old Panathenaic Victor Lists’. Hesperia 60, 187–236. Trotta, F. 2000: ‘Strabone e l’Asia Minore: politeiai e gradi di civilizzazione’. In Biraschi, A.M. and Salmeri, G. (eds.), Strabone e l’Asia Minore (Centro Studi Villa ‘La Colombella’, Perugia, 25–28 maggio 1997) (Incontri Perugini di Storia della Storiografia Antica e sul Mondo Antico 10) (Naples), 189–208. Virgilio, B. 2003: Lancia, diadema e porpora: Il re e la regalità ellenistica, 2nd ed. (Studi Ellenistici 14) (Pisa). Walbank, F.W. 1984: ‘Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas’. CAH 7.12, 62–100. Weber, G. 1993: Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft. Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäer (Hermes Einzelschriften 62) (Stuttgart). —. 1997: ‘Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus’. In Winterling, A. (ed.), Zwischen “Haus” und “Staat”: Antike Höfe im Vergleich (Historische Zeitschrift Beih. n.f. 23) (Munich), 27–71. —. 2007: ‘Die neuen Zentralen. Hauptstädte, Residenzen, Paläste und Höfe’. In Weber, G. (ed.), Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus: Von Alexander dem Großen bis Kleopatra (Stuttgart), 99–117. —. 2010: Alexandreia und das ptolemäische Ägypten: Kulturbegegnungen in hellenistischer Zeit (Berlin). Weiskopf, M. 1990: ‘Cappadocia’. In Encyclopædia Iranica 4, 780–86. Welwei, K.-W. 1963: Könige und Königtum im Urteil des Polybios (Dissertation, Cologne). Wiemer, H.-U. 2002: Krieg, Handel und Piraterie: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos (Klio Beih. n.f. 6) (Berlin). Wiesehöfer, J. 1996: ‘“King of Kings” and “Philhellên”: Kingship in Arsacid Iran’. In Bilde et al. 1996, 55–66. Will, É. 1998: ‘Poleis hellénistiques: deux notes’. Échos du Monde Classique 32, 329–52. Wolski, J. 1983: ‘Sur le ‘philhellénisme’ des Arsacides’. Gerión 1, 145–56.

LOCAL CULTURE AND REGIONAL CULTURES IN PROPONTIS AND BITHYNIA Madalina DANA

Abstract This paper aims to study the articulation between ‘local culture’ and regional cultures. Successive waves of domination in these areas, as well as the intensity of the contacts, have led to several forms of power and various cultural influences overlaid on the Thracian-Mysian background. Thus, regional cultures are plural, albeit with a strong Hellenic influence, a phenomenon that should be nuanced according to the way in which Greek culture was adopted and adapted. It is remarkable that the royal Bithynian power, of Thracian origin, is representative of the transmission of Greek cultural values. Greek culture is to be examined between continuity and rupture, both that of ancient Greek foundations, with their nomima, language, and especially paideia, and that of the Bithynian cities, which are royal foundations, governed by indigenous kings who had adopted Greek culture. These educated kings declaimed their ‘authentic’ kinship with the Greeks in Greek inscriptions and offered gifts to the Panhellenic religious centres. These perfect Hellenistic monarchs, bearers of ‘barbarian’ names, were proud of their adhesion to Greek values through various practices. Some of them have become famous in the art and culture not only of their regions, but all of the Hellenised East.

INTRODUCTION This study has its origin in an enquiry into the regional specificity of a space that is politically and ethnically divided.1 It is well known that Panhellenism and localism are not mutually exclusive: for example, Pausanias builds the culture of the (globalised) empire by reference to local phenomena.2 I had the occasion to use the theoretical tools of ‘globalisation’ and ‘glocalisation’ for an approach to the Black Sea as part of the Greek world, and for understanding its specificity as well as its contribution to ancient Greek culture. On the one hand, this specificity is an expression of the local adaptation of global cultural trends, which in turn takes on a new aspect over the course of their contact 1 M. Dana and Prêteux 2016. Unless otherwise stated, the translation of literary sources is that of the Loeb editions, while the translation of the epigraphical texts is mine. I am very grateful to Peter Liddel (Manchester) for having considerably improved my English and for his valuable suggestions. 2 Goldhill 2010. See also Clarke 2005.

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with local cultures. On the other hand, this contribution to Greek culture would not be possible without a common ground that could integrate it, transform it and redistribute it in the form of ‘globalised’ features that continue to circulate.3 In order to avoid the trap of generalisation, we have to take into account the diversity of regional cultures, especially for the areas with which we will be dealing. Successive dominions in these parts of the ancient world, and also the intensity of engagement led to several forms of power and various cultural influences overlaid on the Thracian-Mysian background. These regions were first touched by Archaic Greek colonisation,4 and subsequently experienced not only Persian domination, temporarily interrupted by the Athenian archē (Strabo 12. 4. 1–4 [C. 563–564]),5 but also by the emergence of new forms of authority, such as that of the local Hellenistic kingdoms of Bithynia and Pontus, in the 3rd century BC. Their successive fall in the first half of the 1st century BC left these regions under Roman domination, when the province of BithyniaPontus was created after the final defeat of Mithridates VI Eupator in 63 BC.6 The regional cultures are thus plural, with, however, a strong Hellenic influence which should be nuanced, according to its background and the way in which the Greek culture was adopted and adapted. The modern bibliography offers a view consistent with this perspective in terms both of geopolitics and the cultural policies of the dominant powers over the region.7 Taking into consideration especially the process of Hellenisation of indigenous dynasties and elites, my aim is twofold: first, I intend to examine the way in which political elites, especially kings, built Mediterranean networks on the basis of shared Greek values; second, my intention is to show how paideia became the privileged mode of expression not only of the Greek inhabitants of the poleis but also of the indigenous peoples living in the territories of Bithynia and 3

M. Dana forthcoming. On the Megarian foundations Astacos and Chalcedon, see Robu 2014, 201–42. For an overview of the Milesian foundations in the Black Sea, see Ehrhardt 1988. 5 Myrleia paid to the Delian League, between 433 and 427 BC, about 3000 drachms, which is not much in comparison with 9 talents for Chalcedon since 451 (IG 13 194 for the year 451/50 BC and 220 for the year 421/20 BC). Concerning Cyzicus, Maffre (2014) emphasises its good relations with the Achaemenids from the 6th century BC onwards and the installation of the satrapy of Dascylium. During the Ionian revolt, these ties were reaffirmed unlike the other cities of the region. On the arrival of the new Athenian colonists in 435/4 BC at Astacus and the reaffirmation of the Persian authority over Mysia from 418/7 to 302 BC, see Fernoux 2004, 25–27. 6 Marek 2003. 7 On the Pontic kingdom: McGing 1986; Ballesteros Pastor 1996; Erciyas 2006; Højte 2009; Mayor 2010; D’Agostini 2016. On Bithynia: Vitucci 1953; Fernoux 2004; Gabelko 2005. On the cultural identity of the Bithynian kings, see Hannestad 1996; on the three peripheral kingdoms of the northern Asia Minor (including Cappodocia), see Michels 2008; 2010a; 2010b; for the Propontis, see recently Sève and Schlosser 2014 (on Cyzicus); M. Dana and Prêteux 2016 (institutions, economies and cultures). 4

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Mysia. Particularly, I will examine how the interaction between the indigenous background, the civic memory of the colonisation associated with Greek cultural practices, and the political transformations imposed by the kings through their Hellenistic new foundations, shaped the cultural features of these areas. GREEK CULTURE AND INDIGENOUS MEMORY The memory of a Greek polis, nourished by its legends and myths of foundation, is based also on its indigenous heritage. The role of the indigenous past in the construction of local memory is obvious, for example, in the legends concerning the foundation of Byzantium. The proper name of the eponymous hero, Byzas, is significant. This Byzas appears in the ancient sources as a Megarian oikist or a Thracian king.8 The Byzantines themselves became cognisant of this local attachment: one of the authors of the Πάτρια Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Hesychius of Miletus, mentions a chief of Chalcedon named Dinis, a Thracian name,9 who would become, after Byzas, the second ruler of Byzantium. Whether a real or invented person, Dinis could be a figure of mediation, in Hellenistic and Roman times, serving to associate the indigenous peoples both in the past and in the present of the city. This real or symbolic presence of Thracians in the regional narratives, transmitted by the fragmentary local histories, could have contributed to a skilfully negotiated integration. Therefore, before examining the way in which the indigenous elites have adopted Greek culture, it seems useful to begin by examining how indigenous culture is reflected in the Greek sources. Indeed, if one can speak of an ‘indigenous patrimony’, it is one selected, transmitted and adapted according to its resonance for the Greeks. Thus the famous Hellenocentrism of the Greeks can be taken into consideration. Who are these ‘indigenous peoples’ whose identity was amalgamated under a generic name? Concerning the southern Pontus, some verses of the Iliad (2. 851–857) present the Paphlagonians: Paphlagonians [who] did Pylaemenes of the shaggy heart lead from the land of the Eneti, whence is the race of wild she-mules. These were they that held Cytorus and dwelt about Sesamus and had their famed dwellings around the river Parthenius and Cromna and Aegialus and lofty Erythini. But of the Halizones Odius and Epistrophus were captains from afar, from Alybe, where is the birthplace of silver.10 8

M. Dana 2011a, 357–58. Hesychius of Miletus FGH 390 F 20 (see also 22 and 26); for more details, see Robu 2014, 285–92. See also the epitaph of woman bearing a Thracian name, Μοκαζοιρη Δινεως (2nd century BC, IByzantion 340) and OnomThrac 135–36. 10 See Strabo on the pertinence of Homeric geography (12. 3. 20–28 [C. 549–555]). 9

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Most scholars consider ll. 853–855 mentioning the cities on the coast to be a late interpolation,11 linked with the claim of many Greek cities to be considered the homeland of the Poet, or, at least, to be evoked in the poems which were the basis of all young Greeks’ education.12 But the Paphlagonians were known and correctly localised in the Southern Pontus. In Bithynia,13 according to Herodotus, the Thracians ‘who crossed over to Asia were called Bithynians’ (Herodotus 7. 75); elsewhere, Herodotus speaks about the Thracian tribes, Bithynoi or Thynoi (1. 28). We find this distinction in Xenophon, who explains that the Thynoi lived in Europe and the Bithynoi in Asia (Anabasis 6. 4), and in Strabo: ‘they put down as evidence of the tribe of the Bithynians that in Thrace certain people are to this day called Bithynians, and of that of the Thynians, that the coast near Apollonia and Salmydessus is called Thynians’ (12. 3. 3 [C 541–542]). Thucydides mentions the passage of the Athenian general Lamachus with his army ‘through Bithynia-Thracia’ (4. 75. 2).14 The heartland of this territory is the Bithynian peninsula on the Bosporus opposite Byzantium, ‘bounded on the east by the Paphlagonians and the Mariandyni and some of the Epicteti’. In the north it bordered on the Black sea, in the west on the Propontis, to the south on Mysia and Hellespontine Phrygia (Strabo 12. 4. 1 [C. 563–564]). Strabo includes among the Thracian populations the Mariandyni, whose territory served for the installation of the Heracleots (12. 3. 4 [C. 542]), and the Bebryces (12. 3. 3 [C. 541–542]).15 However, notes Strabo (12. 4. 4 [C. 564]), ‘it is difficult to mark the boundaries between the Bithynians and the Phrygians and the Mysians, or even those between the Doliones round Cyzicus and the Mygdonians and the Trojans’. Despite the well-attested onomastic associations 11 Allen 1921, 156–59; Kirk 1985, 258–59; Ivantchik 1998, 319–20. Sesamus, Cromna, Cytorus are three Milesian small cities, which by a synoecism with Tieium constituted (ca. 300 BC) a new city, called Amastris from the name of the Heraclea’s tyrant’s wife (see Ehrhardt 1988, 53–55). 12 In addition to cities like Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Kyme, Ios, Argos, Rhodes or Cnossos, some small cities such as Ithaca, Kenchreai of Troas, Mycenae and Pylos were proud to affirme that they gave birth to the Poet. The most surprising mention however is an inscription engraved on a Hermes, Ὅμηρος Κρομνεύς, found at Tekkeönü, ancient Cromna (IAmastris 109 and L. Robert 1937, 262–66, ‘Homère en Paphlagonie’, pl. I, figs. 3 and 8); see also a coin with the head of Homer and the legend OMHΡOΣ AMAΣTΡIAN (SNG Sammlung von Aulock no. 160; L. Robert 1967, 125–27). 13 See Corsten 2007, 121; Hannestad 1996, 68. 14 See also Xenophon (Hellenica 1. 3. 2; Anabasis 6. 4. 1–2; Hellenica 3. 2. 2: ἡ Θρᾴκη ἡ ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ or Βιθυνίς), Ps.-Scylax (Periplus § 92) and Arrian (Anabasis 1. 29. 5: ‘the land of the Bithynian Thracians’). 15 He is wrong when he affirms, in the same passage ‘it is stated that even the Mysians themselves are colonists of those Thracians who are now called Moesians’, as observed by D. Dana 2016, 57–58.

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between these tribes, it is to be noted that Strabo remarks that successive dominations removed all identifiable aspects of language and the names of the different tribes. Although the passage concerns the Phrygians and the Mysians, the observation is valid also for the Bithynians: For both the Phrygians and the Mysians had mastery after the capture of Troy; and then later the Lydians; and with them the Aeolians and the Ionians; and then the Persians and the Macedonians; and lastly the Romans, under whose reign most of the peoples have already lost both their dialects and their names, since a different partition of the country has been made (12. 4. 6 [C. 565]).16

The Greek authors integrated the Thracian peoples into their system of regional classification, although their aim was to highlight the antiquity and the influence of their own city.17 Their works belong rather to the Lokalgeschichte than to the traditional Graeco-Jewish, Graeco-Egyptian or Graeco-Phoenician literature, whose main mission was to highlight a past different to that of the Greeks. The best known works of this literary genre are the Bithyniaka. Very few fragments have survived of the local history of the famous physician Asclepiades of Myrleia, who lived in the 1st century BC,18 and of Demosthenes of Bithynia,19 in 2nd century AD(?),20 but 72 fragments are attributed to the more famous Arrian of Nicomedia. Arrian’s purpose was to ennoble the ancestral origins of this region, by showing that the Bithynian Thracians, far from being savage barbarians (the image that dominated the whole Greek literary tradition) were related to the heroes of Greek mythology and had brought civilisation to Asia.21 The author was confronted with a double difficulty. On the one hand, he had to deal with an area inhabited by non-Greek populations, with only few cities founded in the Archaic period (Astacus and Chalcedon) and cities founded or refounded in the Hellenistic period by the Bithynian kings (Nicomedia, Nicaea, Prusa ad Olympum, Prusa ad Hypium, Prusias ad Mare, Bithynium). On the other hand, this region is not mentioned by Homer, which, for Arrian as well as for Strabo, was essential. In particular, the eponymous heroes of the non-Greek peoples should be included in Greek 16 Under Roman domination, according to Pliny NH 5. 143, the country was divided into 12 civitates, seven royal cities (Apameia, Bithynium, Nicaea, Nicomedia, Prusias ad Mare, Prusias ad Hypium) and the old Greek cities of Chalcedon and Dascylium. 17 M. Dana 2016a, 171–240. 18 Trachsel 2008a. 19 Trachsel 2008b. 20 Alexandros Polyhistor of Miletus (ca. 80–35 BC) (FGH 273 F 12–13) and Artemidorus of Ascalon (FGH 698) wrote works designated as Περὶ Βιθυνίας. 21 Arrian Bith. F 19 (the Thracians of Pataros put out the Cimmerian invaders). See F. Jacoby, FGH II.B. Komm., 564 (on the close link with the mythical Greek world); Wirth 1974, 194 (on the belonging of Bithynia to the Greek culture); and Stadter 1980.

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genealogies. Thus, the eponymous ancestor of the Bithynians was, in Arrian’s narrative, borrowed from local history, Bithynus, son of Zeus and of the nymph Thrake (Appian Mith. 1. 2).22 In this way, the Greek and Thracian genealogical descendants are closely, even indistinctly, associated. Stephanus of Byzantium reports that the brother of Bithynus is Doloncus, the son of Cronos (and not of Zeus) and of Thrake, the eponym of the Doloncoi, located in European Thracia.23 Arrian provides another eponymic genealogy according to which Thynus and Bithynus would have been the sons of Odryses, adopted by Phineus, father of Paphlagon (Arrian Bith. F 20 Roos [= F 78 J.] = Eustathius in Dionysius Periegetes 793). This scenario served to better reconcile Thracian descent with the new homeland in Asia Minor.24 A productive topos, which can be identified in the foundation myth of Marseilles (Justinus Epitome 43. 3–5), is that of the installation of the Greeks at Lampsacus. The local historian Charon relates how Mandron, the king of the Bebryces, after concluding an alliance with the Phocaeans led by Phoxus and giving them land to settle there, betrayed them (FGH 262 F 7 = Plutarch Moralia 255 B; FGH 262 F 7 b = Polyaenus Stratagemata 8. 37). The daughter of the king, the virgin Lampsake, in love with the chief of the Greek expedition, warned them and thus became the eponym of the city (Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Λάμψακος). Interaction with local peoples, in this case the Bebryces, serves, along with local cults, to attach the new polis to the mythical history, older than the colonial foundation.25 Therefore, the aim of the local historians is, above all, to show the pre-eminent place of the city on the complex map of the myths which constituted the first and strongest of the Panhellenic networks. The indigenous peoples are thus a significant part of the Greek past: conversely, by a process illustrating both the complexity of regional situations and the spread of Greek culture, the indigenous populations adopted the Greek paideia. INDIGENOUS KINGS AND GREEK NETWORKS Bithynia, the main topic of this paper, was less touched by the Archaic colonisation than the Pontic coastline, but increasingly urbanised over the course of the Hellenistic period by the Bithynian kings of indigenous origin. Chalcedon 22 According to other authors, Bithys, son of Zeus and of Thrake, was the first king of the Bithynians; thus, the mother and the son gave their names to the two regions. 23 Stephanus of Byzantium s.vv. Βιθυνία and Δόλογκοι. On this legend, see L. Robert 1980, 131. 24 See for details Dana and Dana 2014, 27–32. 25 Prêteux 2005, 246. Two other authors interested by the Propontis’ history, Androitas of Tenedos (FGH 599) and Apollodorus (FGH 803), mention episodes of the Argonautic saga, which take place at the Bebryces, see M. Dana 2016a, 216–18.

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was founded by the Megarians at the mouth of the Pontus; in the Astacene Gulf was founded Nicomedia, ‘named after one of the Bithynian kings’, in 264 BC; ‘on the gulf itself there was also the city Astacus, founded by the Megarians and Athenians (435/4) and afterwards by Doedalsus’ (great grandfather of Zipoites, who, in 405, after the defeat of Aigos Potamos, refounded it). Concerning two other cities on the Gulf of Kios, ‘Prusias restored them from their ruins and named the city Kios26 “Prusias” after himself [Prusias ad Mare] and Myrleia “Apameia” after his wife’.27 After that, Strabo describes in panegyric terms the city which will become the main concurrent of Nicomedia in Imperial times, Nicaea:28 In the interior of Bithynia are, not only Bithynium, which is situated above Tieium and holds the territory round Salon, where is the best pasturage for cattle and whence comes the Salonian cheese, but also Nicaea, the metropolis of Bithynia, situated on the Ascanian Lake, which is surrounded by a plain that is large and very fertile but not at all healthful in summer. Nicaea was first founded by Antigonus the son of Philip, who called it Antigonia, and then by Lysimachus, who changed its name to that of Nicaea his wife. She was the daughter of Antipater. The city is 16 stadia in circuit and is quadrangular in shape; it is situated in a plain, and has four gates; and its streets are cut at right angles, so that the four gates can be seen from one stone which is set up in the middle of the gymnasium (12. 4. 7 [C. 565–566]).

After Corupedion, in 281 BC, the city came under the rule of the Bithynian kings. It constituted a perfect Hellenistic polis, respecting in all likelihood the new rules of urbanism: a hippodamian, orthogonal plan, a gymnasium in the centre of the city and gates at the end of each great avenue. The cities founded in inland territories, bearing dynastic names, illustrate the king’s political will: at about 180 BC, Prusias I founded Prusa ad Olympum, the hometown of Dio Chrysostomus,29 at the junction of several roads, and, in the late 180s BC, Prusias ad Hypium, – replacing the old Heracleote village Kierus (a phylē of the city was named after the king) – and Bithynium were founded.30 Through the foundation of Prusias ad Hypium, it can be seen that the relations between the Bithynian kings and the Greek cities, which affirmed their independence, such as Heraclea, seems to be complicated throughout the 3rd century and at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. The object of their 26 Milesian foundation (ca. 625 BC) in Mysia, according to Apollonius Rhodius 1. 1177– 1178; Herodotus 5. 122; Xenophon Hellenica 1. 4. 7. Myrleia was founded by Colophon, see T. Corsten, IKios, pp. 4–5. 27 Strabo 12. 4. 2–3 (C. 563–564). Both cities suffered in 202 because of Philip V (Polybius 15. 21–24); Prusias I, his ally, was interested in this wipe-out (Polybius 18. 4). 28 For the vicissitudes of the city, see Merkelbach 1985. 29 In the speeches addressed to the citizens of his own city, Dio describes the Prusians as authentic although they were not Greeks from the beginning. 30 See Hannestad 1996, 89–90 (‘Appendix I: The royal cities’).

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rivalry – the eastern region of Bithynia and Paphlagonia – had its origins in an area of influence of the Heracleotes.31 In spite of the Bithynian pressure, these cities remained independent until the peace of Apamea, when Heraclea was associated with the negotiations of 188 BC and shortly afterwards signed a treaty of alliance with Rome (Memnon of Heraclea FGH 434 F 18.10) as civitas libera. In 74 BC, Heraclea was integrated into the province of Bithynia, created after the death of the last king, Nicomedes IV. Strabo insists in his Book 12 on the continuity of these cities’ cultural history, despite their political vicissitudes.32 Bithynia is a region rich in men of knowledge, beginning with the best known, Arrian of Nicomedia.33 Many mathematicians, philosophers, rhetoricians,34 poets, physicians, sophists, but also young students (philologoi) – having travelled in the most famous cultural centres of Greece – came from the Bithynian cities in the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.35 The royal Bithynian authority was characterised by his policy of repopulating the cities, without exaggerating its extent.36 In their capacity as masters of the Greek cities, where they allowed the persistence of traditional institutions (civic tribes, magistracies and political organs),37 the kings aspired to be recognised as Greek kings, while their Bithynian origin is incontestable. Pausanias (5. 12. 7) specifies the following: Ζυποίτης (…) Θρᾷξ γένος εἰκάζοντί γε ἀπὸ τοῦ 31

See in general Marek 1993; 2003. On the cultural life of the Pontic cities, see M. Dana 2011a. Heraclea is distinguished by the important number of the disciples of Plato and Aristotle (M. Dana 2012, 201–03) and especially for its local historians (Desideri 1991). 33 Dana and Dana 2014. 34 Strabo 12. 4. 9 (C. 566), among the ἄνδρες ἀξιόλογοι κατὰ παιδείαν. The schools of mathematics best known of the region are those of Cyzicus and Lampsacus (see M. Dana 2014, 197–203). I add here a piece of evidence omitted in my earlier paper (M. Dana 2014) on Cyzicus. This is a funerary epigram of Aslepiakos, son of Telesphorus and Moscharion (Imperial period). The deceased is an adherent of the Pythagorean school of mathematics (ll. 7–8: κἀγὼ δ’οὐκ ἀσόφοισι μαθήμασι Πυθαγορείοις / μάντις ἐὼν ᾔδειν τοῦδε τέλος θανάτου). He is seated, a large roll in his hand, the two ends of the roll half-wound; on the roll we can see more letters: Α[---] | Χ[---] | ΠΛ[---] | ΓΕ[---] | ΟΣ[---] | ΤΑ[---]. See SEG 28.943; IKyzikos I 500, pl. XXXVI; SGO 08/01/35, photograph on p. 47. For two other Pythagoreans in Asia Minor, see SGO 04/24/02 (Philadelphia in Lydia) and 03/02/41 (Ephesus). 35 M. Dana 2016a, 178–80. See also Marek 2013. Nicomedia, which became metropolis in Roman period, organised the agōnes of the koinon of the provincia of Pontus–Bithynia, in an endless competition with its neighbour Nicaea. See L. Robert 1989; Heller 2006; Guerber 2009, 92–99. 36 For the dynasty, see Fernoux 2004, 31–57; Gabelko 2005, 415–57 (the stemma p. 457). Concerning the urbanisation of Bithynia, there are different opinions: on the one hand, Vitucci (1953, 132) and Jones (1981, 17), who assume that the urbanisation was restricted to the Propontic coasts; on the other, Marek (1993, 402–03) and Harris (1980, 867), who believe that there was intensive activity among the kings. 37 See Fernoux 2004, 65–71. 32

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ὀνόματος. C. Michels has recently demonstrated that indigenous kings were motivated not purely by Philhellenism, and even this Philhellenism was not linked with an intentional policy of Hellenisation. By founding cities and imitating the rulers of the Macedonian dynasties they presented themselves as Hellenistic kings.38 It is important to note, however, that this rivalry was, if not exclusively, at least visibly in the cultural field, just as the networks that the kings wished to put in place are those of culture and religion.39 As these questions have already been widely debated,40 we shall not dwell on the question of the philhellenism of kings, which, as Michels has shown, must be re-examined. We will focus upon the astonishing ability of the kings in their deployment of Hellenic-style cultural references, those to which the Greeks were particularly attached: offerings in sanctuaries, generosity to the gymnasium, support to artists and intellectuals – in other words, the most valuable features from the point of view of the Greeks. In order to counteract the bad reputation of his father Nicomedes, who in 278 BC had made an alliance with the Galatians allowing them to cross the Bosporus, Prusias I created the Sōteria in Nicomedia to celebrate his victory over the Galatians after coming to power in 230 BC.41 Prusias had several grievances against the Byzantines, against whom he had supported the Rhodians during the war of 230–220 BC,42 but ‘he was also irritated because it was said that the Byzantines had sent to Attalus43 representatives to take part in the sacrifice held at the festival of Athena,44 whereas they had sent none to himself when he celebrated the Soteria’ (Polybius 4. 49).45 A ‘reconciliation’ 38

Michels 2008. We cannot exclude the political and matrimonial networks from this analysis: in 255 BC, Nicomedes I designated Antigonus Gonatas and Ptolemy II as guardians of his children from the second marriage (Memnon of Heraclea, in Photius Bibliotheca 228 b). See Hannestad 1996, 77. 40 Hannestad 1996; Fernoux 2004, 61–63. 41 On the victory against the Aiosagii, in Asia Minor, used by Prusias in his campaign against Achaios, see Polybius 5. 111: ‘By this exploit he freed the cities on the Hellespont from a serious menace and danger, and gave a good lesson to the Barbarians from Europe in future not to be ready to cross to Asia.’ 42 On this episode, see Polybius 46. 6. 43 For the rivalry with Attalus, see the example of the famous earthquake of Rhodes in 227 BC (Polybius 5. 80–88), when Prusias I appears among the most prestigious donors (Ptolemy III, Antigonus Doson, Seleucus II Kallinikos), while the king of Pergamum is absent. 44 The Nikephoria was celebrated, upon the initiative of Attalus I, undoubtedly shortly before 220 BC. The festival was reorganised by his son Eumenes II who in 182 BC obtained the status of Panhellenic agōn, to be celebrated every two years starting in 181 BC. See L. Robert 1969 I, 151–65 (‘Sur les Niképhoria de Pergame’) and 450 (cf. also J. and L. Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique 1952, 127); Musti 1998, 5–7. On the cultural policy of the Attalids, see Virgilio 1993, 32–53; Montanari 1993. 45 See Vitucci 1953, 38 and n. 4; Fernoux 2004, 59–60; Michels 2010a, 203–04. 39

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between the two dynasties, however, could be reflected by the erection by the Aetolian koinon, in about 182 BC, of two monumental pillars side by side for Prusias II and Eumenes II.46 According to the archaeological evidence, the equestrian statue of Prusias was at the top of the pillar, the horse rearing up in the middle of a sheaf of wheat. The golden harvest could symbolise the generosity of the king.47 Some other marks of deference towards the Bithynian kings in the Greek meeting places as the Panhellenic sanctuaries have to be pointed out: Nicomedes I had his ivory statue at Olympia,48 and Nicomedes was worshipped in Cos in parallel with the sacrifices for Asclepius and Hygieia.49 It is true that the Bithynian kings were active in supporting the sanctuaries and other places of culture of the Greeks.50 As the kings of the Cimmerian Bosporus,51 they had consecrated philai to Didyma,52 a place highly connected for the Milesians to the colonisation movement of the 7th century BC. Although the royal foundations are late compared to the Archaic foundations in Pontus and Propontis, and there is no link between them and the first settlements of the Milesians, the kings seem to take advantage of an invented continuity and at the same time they follow the ‘trend’ in their constant emulation with the other Hellenistic powers. They also financed cultual and cultural institutions. In 110/09, the priest Sosion dedicated at Delos a temple and a cult statue to Isis and Nemesis on behalf of the Athenian people and of king Nicomedes III.53 The same king received from the people of Delphi an honorary decree, together with his wife Laodice, in 94 BC (FD III 4.1 77). The kings had sent 30 slaves to be employed by the sanctuary, in exchange for honours (during the Pythian games, the herald had to announce the names of the king and of the queen and their crown and the bronze statue erected in the most prominent place) and privileges: 46 SIG 632. The erection of this monument is to be dated between his accession, that is 182, and 179 BC (marriage with the sister of Perseus of Macedonia, which was not very convenient for the Aetolians) (cf. Hannestad 1996, 86). 47 Jacquemin and Laroche 1986. 48 Pausanias 5. 12. 7: ‘Of the statues set up in the round constructions, the amber one represents Augustus the Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portrait of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia.’ 49 GDI 3635; IG 12(4) 1.344; Sherwin-White 1978, 137 and n. 291. 50 On the euergetism of the ‘peripheral kings’, see Michels 2010a. 51 See M. Dana 2011b, 49–50. In the inscriptions of the northern cities of the Black Sea, the rulers are designated as archontes of the Greek cities and as kings of the indigenous peoples (see Müller 2010, 39–40). 52 Prusias II, between 182 and 149 BC: the first time, one phialē of 300 Alexandrian drachms, and one hydria of 1490 drachms; the second time, one phialē (IDidyma 463, ll. 10–16, 22–25; 469; 473, ll. 3–4; maybe 462, l. 5). Ps.-Scymnus mentions the ‘true cult’ of Nicomedes (II or III) towards Apollo of Didyma (Marcotte 2000, vv. 58–59). 53 Durrbach 1921–22, no. 102.

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promantia, proedria (both significant given the oracular and agonistic nature of the sanctuary), as well as proxenia. An official connection was thus established between the two peoples, the citizens of Delphi were invited to visit the kingdom and the copy of the decree had to be sent to Nicomedia. In order to emphasise their gratitude both for the euergesia of the reigning monarch and to the dynasty, the Delphians had inscribed the text of the honorific decree on a stele to be erected near Prusias II’s pillar. This is a skilful stratagem to not only thank the Bithynian kings for their past and actual acts, but also to encourage this behaviour in the future. Thirdly, the kings were generous towards the Greek cultural institutions: the gymnasium, the theatre, the agonistic festivals. It is remarkable that the future king, Nicomedes III Euergetes, had a statue dedicated by the ephebes when he himself was their age, before his ascension to the throne (139/8 BC: ID 1580), while after his coming to power a statue was dedicated, in the same place, by the gymnasiarch Dioskourides son of Dioskourides (in 127/6 BC).54 In 105/4 BC, a statue of Nicomedes IV, the son of Nicomedes Euergetes, was dedicated on Delos by the ephebes.55 Nicomedes III is also known for his euergesia for the Isthmian and Nemean association of technitai (one of the five professional corporations of this type attested in the Hellenistic period). Their treasurer had built a base in Argos for the statue of the king, ‘our benefactor’ (IG 4 558, l. 24–25 [115/4 BC]). We cannot exclude the possibility that the king might wish to invite the artists to come to Bithynia, where the association of the technitai of Ionia and the Hellespont was more popular – one of the most respectable members of this last association was, in the first half of the 2nd century BC, the flute-player Craton of Chalcedon,56 a city of Bithynia in fact. Finally, the piety of the Bithynian dynasts was demonstrated on another occasion: a statue of Nicomedes III had been erected in the Asclepieium at Epidaurus, a famous oracular centre of the Greek world.57

54

Durrbach 1921–22, no. 101. Durrbach 1921–22, no. 104. See also an inscription mentioning an association of merchants and shippers dealing with Bithynia, dated after 167 (Durrbach 1921–22, no. 103), which shows the intensity of their commercial relations. 56 Le Guen 2007. 57 IG 42 591. The kings seem to worship this god particularly: see for example the sacrifice made by Prusias II, who had defeated Attalus in 156/5, to Asclepius of Pergamum – paradoxically, before the attack of the sanctuary (see Polybius 32. 15. 1; Boffo 1985, 209); Pausanias (3. 3. 8) mentions the temple of Asclepius at Nicomedia, where a civic tribe Asklepios is attested in Imperial times (MAMA III 263). 55

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Nevertheless, the most significant moment in the cultural policy of kings is the acceptance of the asylia of Cos by the king Ziaelas, son of Nicomedes, in 242/1.58 Although it was coupled with economic interests59 – the king encouraged the citizens of Cos on their way to Byzantium to visit the ‘places’ controlled by the royal authority – the scope of this text is highly symbolic. In particular, it is necessary to highlight an expression which appears at the beginning of the text (πεπεισμένοι πρὸς δόξαν οὐ μικρὸν συμβάλλεσθαι τὸ μέρος τοῦτο), upon which many scholars have focused, to the extent that L. Hannestad used it in the title of her article about the strategies used by the Bithynian kings to become ‘members of the exclusive club of Hellenistic rulers’.60 The decree of Cos is not unique but constitutes one of the answers from kings and cities to a request for recognition of a new penteteric festival of the asylia of the sanctuary, the city and the chora; an answer from one of the Greek cities in Bithynia, Kios, is preserved.61 The text is the following, mentioning the continuity of the policy inaugurated by Nicomedes I and the friendship of Ziaelas with Ptolemy III: Ziaelas king of Bithynia to the council and the people of Cos, greetings. Diogitus, Aristolochus, and Theudotus, your envoys, came and asked us to recognise as inviolable the temple of Asclepius in your city and to befriend the city in all other ways, just as our father Nicomedes was well disposed toward your people (καθόπερ καὶ Νικομήδης ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν εὐνόως διέκειτο τῶι δήμωι). We do in fact exercise care for all the Greeks who come to us as we are convinced that this contributes in no small way to one’s reputation; especially do we continue to make much of our father’s (other) friends and of you, because of his personal acquaintance with your people because king Ptolemy, our friend and ally, is friendly toward you, and still further because your envoys expressed with great enthusiasm the good-will which you have for us. In the future, as you may request, we shall try for each one individually and for all in common to favour you as much as lies in our power, and as for your seafaring citizens to take thought for those who happen to enter territory under our control, so that their safety may be assured, 58 TAM IV.1 1; Welles 1934, 118–20, no. 25; Rigsby 1996, 118–21, no. 11; Hannestad 1996, 77–78; Brodersen et al. 1999, 12–13, no. 409. 59 Sherwin-White 1978, 243, and for the Asklepieia, 357–58; see Rigsby 1996, 106–53. 60 Hannestad 1996, 67. The author remarks upon the name Nicomedes, a true manifesto from the point of view of Zipoitas, who gave this name to his son in order to reserve a place for him among the exclusive group of Hellenistic kings. The iconography of the tetradrachms of Nicomedes shows, according to Hannestad (1996, 75), a portrait on the obverse that appears to have been modelled on that of Antiochus I, with large and rugged facial features, while on the reverse we can see a woman – most probably the Thracian deity Bendis – seated on a rock, dressed in a short tunic, carrying two short spears in her right hand and a short sword in her left. This double aspect of the dynasty is thus emphasised through its appearance on coins that would circulate among their users. 61 IKios 18. The answer of Ziaelas is conserved on a tapering stele with the letters from Ptolemy III and Seleucus II.

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and in the same way also for those who are cast upon our coast because of an accident in the course of their voyage, we shall try to exercise all concern that may be injured by no one. We recognise also your temple as inviolable, as you have requested, and concerning these and our other wishes I have ordered Diogitus and Aristolochus and Theudotus to report to you. Farewell (transl. C.B. Welles).

The text was criticised for its ‘infelicities of expression’, as Welles wrote. However, while the editor, R. Herzog, pointed out the grammatical errors, which – despite its diplomatic style – he attributed to their semi-barbarian origin and the non-Greek tone of the letter,62 according to Welles the author was not writing in the ‘barbarian’ Greek of a half-educated Bithynian but the colloquialisms are those of a Greek secretary not very well read in the classical language. The letter is written in the usual form of a replay to an embassy.63 Excepting the style of the letter, which is indeed rather negligent, we must dwell upon a remark of Hannestad concerning the famous sentence ‘we do in fact exercise care for all Greeks who come to us as we are convinced that this contributes in no small way to one’s reputation’. The author remarks that such a phrase is inconceivable in a letter from any of the great kings, and is found only one similar example: a letter from king Theodoros and king Amynander of Athamania, a part of Epirus whose inhabitants were of Illyrian descent, to the city of Teos recognising the city and its land as sacred, inviolable and tax-free in 205–201 BC: ‘This we do both [that is, the delivery of the decree and the asylia] because of our being in fact related to all the Greeks since we are related to the origin of the common appellation of the Greeks.’64 Actually, there is another very instructive example, a letter very likely of a Spartocid king to the Coans:65 I and my sister [scil. his wife] [---] and our citizens accept both your proclamation that has been made for the god and the inviolability, as we also accepted gladly the kinship as true and worthy of you and us, the best testimony being that of our father, which you have made clear he himself furnished’ (transl. K.J. Rigsby).66

Because a decree of Gela is on other side of the stone it was supposed that the author of the letter was a tyrant of Syracuse, Gelon or Hieron; but, as J. and L. Robert remarked, the fact that the king was glad that some Greeks have acknowledged his kinship with them, shows that he was not Greek.67 62 Rigsby 1996, 120: the letter is ‘discursive and shapeless’. See the solecism τῶν τούτων (l. 48); but other expressions are merely usages of the day: εἰς ἡμᾶς for πρὸς ἡμᾶς (l. 29); τὸ μέρος τοῦτο for τοῦτο (ll. 16–17). 63 Welles 1934, 124. 64 Welles 1934, 152–56, no. 35. 65 Curty 1995, 48–52, no. 24e. 66 Rigsby 1996, 121–24, no. 12. 67 J. and L. Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique 1953, 152.

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Both answers affirm the continuity of paternal policy, which is a way to point out the continuity of the dynasty as well as that of the relationship, although there is no evidence of previous connections between the two kings and Cos. However we have to distinguish between the expression of the Bosporan king obviously claiming the kinship, and Ziaelas’ assertion that, according to Hannestad, ‘even more strongly and with strange naivety express the barbarian king’s motive for complying with the Coan request’.68 On the contrary, we must see in this passage not the abnegation of a barbarian king to be admitted ‘among the Greeks’, but rather a skilful comprehension of the policy of interconnectivity. Some kings, like certain cities, have understood the advantages of networks, namely what the latter could bring in terms of cultural influence and of political and economic advantages.69 Another trend followed by the Bithynian kings, in accordance with their times, is that of cultural patronage.70 In the introduction of his Περίοδος γῆς ἐν κωμικῶι μέτρωι εἰς Νικομήδην βασιλέα, written between 110 and 100, Ps.Scymnus presents Nicomedes as a protector of the arts and letters, supporting his own fellow citizens as well as foreign artists.71 Were kings also cultivated?72 This does not seem to be the opinion of Polybius, who presents Prusias II as a perfect ignorant of art and culture and moreover deprived of reason.73 This is not the image of Nicomedes which emerges from the work of the Ps.-Scymnus, the glowing tone being undoubtedly not unrelated to the patronage exercised by the king (vv. 50–54, 62–63). Moreover, Ps.-Scymnus established a parallel between the person of the king (vv. 103–104: ἐπιφανέστατος ἀρχηγέτης) and Apollo μουσηγέτης (v. 60).74 The debate is not yet closed concerning the 68

Hannestad 1996, 78. See M. Dana and Savalli-Lestrade 2019. 70 For Mithridates VI Eupator, see M. Dana 2011a, 320–29. For the Hellenisation of the Pontic Kingdom, see Olshausen 1974; McGing 1986, 39–40 and 92–93; Erciyas 2006, 176, who opportunely remarked: ‘Mithridates emphasised his familiarity with the Greeks, but not necessarily his Greekness’. 71 Marcotte 2000, vv. 16–18. 72 For Greek paideia at the Bithynian court, see Vitucci 1953, 128–31; and Michels in the present volume. 73 Polybius 36. 15. 5–7 (‘he was entirely a stranger to education, philosophy, and the systematic training these give, and generally speaking had no notion whatever of what goodness and beauty are’); 3–4: ‘he destroyed all these temples [Nicephorium and Asclepium] and sacred precincts of the gods, and carried off the bronze and marble statues, finally removing and carrying of for himself the statue of Asclepius, an admirable work of art by Pyromachus’ (see Andreae 1990), in the war of 156/5 BC against Pergamum; 7–8: ‘to spoil these very objects and by their destruction to inflict an outrage on the divinity, cannot be otherwise described than the act of a man frenzied by passion and with mind unhinged ‒ as was actually the case with Prusias’. 74 See FD III 2 50 (dedication of a synodos of Athenian poets declaring their piety ποτὶ τὸν μουσαγέταν καὶ ἀρχαγέταν τᾶς ποιητικᾶς θεόν). 69

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identity of the king, the two candidates being Epiphanes (Nicomedes II) or Euergetes (Nicomedes III).75 The favourite is Nicomedes III, who had to ascend to the throne in 127/6. His taste for art seems to be real: according to Pliny, he had offered to pay the Cnidians’ debts if they were to give him their famous Aphrodite, work of Praxiteles, who had as a model the infamous courtesan Phryne. The Cnidians, though, preferred not to cede the statue to which they owed their reputation.76 The kings had in the most prominent place in their kingdom, Nicomedia, a well-known statue of Zeus Stratius,77 the work of the local sculptor Doidalses, who bears a Thracian name attested in both Bithynia and Mysia (OnomThrac 155). Arrian in his Bithynian Histories describes this sculpture as ‘admirable’: καὶ δημιουργόν τινα ἰστορεῖ παρὰ Βιθυνοῖς Δοιδάλσην καλουμένον, οὗ ἔργον ἐν Νικομηδείᾳ γενέσθαι θαυμαστὸν ἄγαλμα Στρατίου Διός (Arrian Bith. F 20 Roos = Eustathius in Dionysius Periegetes 793). Pliny lists, among the monuments of Asinius Pollio in Rome, an Aphrodite at the bath, the work of Doidalses.78 It is generally considered that the artist was active at the Bithynian court in the middle of the 3rd century BC, under Nicomedes I and his son Prusias I. Hannestad judiciously observed: ‘Bithynia as a pale reflection of the Pergamene kingdom, its kings as either definitely barbarian or semi-barbarian, sometimes imitating the appearance of the Attalids, but in a crude or even ludicrous way, is in fact the image which has adhered to the kingdom in modern times’.79 The cultural model promoted by the kings is not so much a Hellenic model in its most traditional sense, but rather a Hellenistic model born precisely from the meeting between Hellenism and other cultures. There are not two separated worlds, that is, the settlements of the Propontis vs indigenous world inland. The royal foundations respect the new urbanistic models: their networks are those of the contemporary cities and kings. The Bithynian rulers adopted the mode of exposing their images at the great sanctuaries, of accepting asylia for the Hellenistic agōnes, whereas the link with the gymnasium is 75

See the commentary of Marcotte 2000, Notice, 10–16. Pliny NH 7. 127 (Nicomedis aestimatione regis grandi Gnidiorum aere alieno permutare eam conati) 36. 21 (Illo enim signo Praxiteles nobilitauit Cnidum); Migeotte (1984, 325–26, no. 104), dates the event between 84 and 68 BC because he was thinking that the crisis was connected with the Mithridatic Wars, but these situations are frequent in the history of the Hellenistic cities. 77 Hannestad (1996, 80–81) notes that the Zeus statue depicted on coins from Prusias I should be identified as the statue of Zeus Nikephoros, not, as is usually done, with the cult statue of Zeus Stratios made by Doidalses. 78 Pliny NH 36. 35: Daedalsas [daedalsas B: dedalsa Vd1R: daedalus d3 marg.]. See C. Robert 1903. One of the contemporaries and neighbours of Doidalses, Boethus of Chalcedon, was famous for his ‘Child and Goose’ (see M. Dana 2011a, 209–11). 79 Hannestad 1996, 88. 76

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typical for this period when this institution becomes a second agora. Far from being peripheral and old-fashioned kings, they are surprisingly modern through their efforts of imitation and competition, which is also typical for their time. NAMES AND CULTURE: LOCAL ELITES AND PAIDEIA Kings are not the only representatives of Bithynia abroad who bear indigenous names. Political elites, undoubtedly chosen among the philoi and notables of the cities, were created, such as two of the three ambassadors of Prusias II to Aptera in Crete. One of them, Dionysios son of Apatourios of Nicomedia, has a classical Greek name, while the two others are Dintiporis son of [.]skiprasis, coming from Prusias ad Mare, and Dintiporis son of Diliporis, from an unknown city.80 They are granted civic honours, including proxenia, like the king. The question of Bithynian onomastics has raised a debate which is not yet closed. As shown recently by D. Dana, the place and the status of native populations in territories of fringes and passage, such as Byzantium and Cyzicus, are not homogeneous. A Greek city for most historians,81 Thracian city or ‘Thracised’ for others,82 the case of Byzantium is indicative for the ideological stakes of modern scholars and the circumstantial use of sources. The presence of two slightly different indigenous onomastic groups, namely Thracian and Bithynian, suggests the complexity of this region. Cyzicus, the foremost city on the southern coast of the Propontis, with an important territorial hinterland,83 is marked by a greater complexity of relationships with indigenous populations (Mysians, Bithynians, Thracians, Phrygians).84 The Mysian language is almost unknown. According to Strabo, the Mysians would have spoken an idiom μιξολύδιον καὶ μιξοφρύγιον.85 In Mysia we can find Bithynian and Thracians names (maybe colonists from Hellenistic times?), but also Phrygian names and some Mysian epichoric names. D. Dana observes that, unlike at Byzantium, if Bithynian names are present at Cyzicus, they are surpassed by the Thracian names or by the Myso-Phrygian anthroponyms. He remarks also that the indigenous inhabitants of these cities should not be 80

ICr. II, 18–20, 4 B (182–149 BC); IKios T 29. For the name Dintiporis, see OnomThrac

137. 81

L. Robert in Fıratlı and L. Robert 1964, 133; followed by Loukopoulou 1989, 199–203. Fıratlı (Fıratlı and L. Robert 1964, 45) assumed: ‘Byzance était en réalité une ville thrace.’ 83 According to Strabo 12. 8. 10–11 (C. 575–576), the north of Mysia, with Proconnesus, Artake, Dascylium, maybe Apollonia of Rhyndacos and Miletoupolis. 84 D. Dana 2016, 47–68. 85 Strabo 12. 8. 3 (C. 572). On the Mysian language, see Jenniges 2006, 96–97. 82

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seen as foreigners, marginals, or excluded. Onomastic interactions show that the two most important cities of the Propontis are a privileged space of encounter between the indigenous milieux and Hellenism.86 For the Bithynian space, T. Corsten points out the pattern of ‘indigenous inhabitants pushed aside and eventually restricted to rural areas, where they lived a rather miserable life, whereas the Greeks lived in cities, which they had founded, and occupied the leading positions in state and society’,87 which does not reflect the reality of this heterogenous territory. He notices that there are few indigenous names in the cities precisely defined (Nicaea, Nicomedia, Prusa), while most of the Bithynian names appear in the countryside. Twelve inscriptions, on Hellenistic tombstones, bear personal names (2nd and 1st centuries BC); nine of these monuments are Stockwerkstelen, steles with two or more reliefs presented one above the other. Or, one of these very impressive steles is that of the Bithynian Mokazis, who certainly belonged to the upper class in Bithynia88 (see below). There are two possible explanations for their presence in the region: they could be ancient mercenaries and military colonists from Thrace, supported by Antigonos the One-Eyed or Lysimachus, who had been given a stretch of land (the Hellenistic tombstones are located in rural areas). But the explanation that Corsten prefers, that I have also adopted, is that these men could have been regular officers of the Bithynian army. They are in the countryside because that trend corresponds to the evidence about the places where the ‘Thracian Bithynian’ settled. The Bithynian noblemen had large estates and they did not need to move to the cities,89 but they are no less representative for the elites. A representative of the royal administration, attested in the hinterland of Nicaea, is called Σουσαρίων Θεοφίλου γραμματεὺς [δι]οικητοῦ, while his wife bears a Thracian name, Νανα, and other names of this familial epitaph are Phrygian.90 These Bithynian elites, though bearers of indigenous names, proudly state on their funerary steles their taste and their admiration for Greek culture. It would certainly be a mistake to designate these monuments as ‘Greek’, whereas this heterogeneous art is the result of the contacts and of the cultural exchanges that characterise the region.91 The funerary banquet, imported from 86

D. Dana 2016, 57–59 and 67. Corsten 2007, 123. On the dichotomy between city and country, see Harris 1980, 868–69. 88 Corsten 2007, 133 (Appendix), no. 12. 89 Corsten 2007, 125–30. 90 INikaia II.2 1588; Cremer 1992, 128, no. NSA 3 (2nd century BC). For Nana, see OnomThrac 259. 91 On the local traditions perceptible on the steles, see Fernoux 2004, 106–07; Cremer 1992, 7 and n. 24; Corsten 1994, 298. 87

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the East,92 became the privileged instrument of expression of a civic elite, and then of the Greek middle class. Therefore, this pattern was considered by the non-Greek populations as a Hellenic marker and enthusiastically adopted during the integration process – just as, when those Thracians on the western coast of the Pontus who wanted to hide their origin took on the name of Hellen, which no Greek would have assumed.93 This is a typical case of cultural transfer, where the function of an object, diverted and transformed, is no longer recognised in its place of origin and even becomes a marker of the culture to which the initial transfer had been made. The funerary steles were to be the main production of the local workshops, especially in Nicomedia, famous in the region for the quality of its marble,94 but also in Prusa ad Olympun and in the eastern part of Bithynia.95 The transfer is visible not only in the iconography of funerary commemoration, but also in its representations and techniques. For example, at Strobilos-Pylai, a marble stele (2nd–1st centuries BC) was dedicated to Apollo Citharede by a native person (Δαδίον | Ἀπόλλων[ι] | εὐχάν). It is noteworthy that the artist who executed the relief bears a Thracian name: Σαδαλας ἐπόσε.96 MENAS, SON OF BIOERIS (CIHANKÖY, BETWEEN PRUSIAS AD MARE AND NICAEA) The grave stele of the Bithynian officer Menas, son of Bioeris,97 as well as his funerary epigram, are remarkable both culturally and historically. The stele was discovered at Cihanköy, between Prusias ad Mare and Nicaea. Bioeris is a Bithynian name,98 but Menas, who bears a Greek name, is called a Βιθυνός (l. 5); he was a foot soldier.99 Before commenting upon the inscription, it is worth observing that the iconography of the stele is particularly expressive, though the top part of the relief is lost. In the centre we can see a soldier lying on the ground, his leg and his right arm hanging out of the field of the relief, covered by his shield, apparently dead. His helmet is placed on the right, and 92

Dentzel 1982. Dana and Dana 2013, 290–91. 94 There were marble quarries at Synnada, Aphrodisias, Dokimeion. A school of sculpture is attested for the Imperial period, see L. Robert 1960, 35–36; Pippidi 1983, 487–89. 95 Fernoux 2004, 104–05. 96 Şahin 1978 II, 5, pl. VII; only the inscription in IApameia 117; for the name, see OnomThrac 298–301. 97 Grabgedichte 457; Pfuhl and Möbius 1979, no. 1269, pl. 332; IKios 98 (commentary, pp. 149–53) = INikaia II.1 751; Hannestad 1996, 73, fig. 2; SGO 09/05/16, photograph on p. 170. 98 For this name, attested only in Bithynia (our text), see OnomThrac 36. 99 Corsten 2007, 130. 93

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another shield, perhaps belonging to another unfortunate comrade, is placed at the left. The scene suggests a field of war after the battle: the standing man whose legs are visible on the right could be a collector of the dead bodies, or maybe a survivor, either from the same army as Menas or from that of the enemy. The style of the epigram is quite elaborate: Even if a long tomb encompasses my bones, stranger, I did not hesitate before the force of the enemy. Struggling on foot, I withstood the horsemen, struggling in the first line, as we fought in the plain of Cyrus [Corupedion]. I met a Thracian in his armor, and a Mysian, and then I fell in my great bravery. That is why we should praise the fast Bithynian, Menas, the son of Bioeris, the excellent officer.

Another (poem): Tears may be shed as a sacrifice for cowards who have received an inglorious death by disease; but when I fought on the River Phrygios for my homeland and for my glorious fathers, I received the earth as one who is praised and fallen in the first line, and has slain many enemies before. That is why the Bithynian Menas, the son of Bioeris, should be acclaimed: he has exchanged the light for (everlasting) excellence.

With an heroic vocabulary, the deceased relates his epic, giving two essential pies of information: he was killed by a Thracian and a Mysian, and he fought near a Phrygian river in the Plain of Cyrus. This is the well-known toponym, Corupedion, associated with the history of the diadochoi, separated (as by a tmesis) for more stylistic effect. The text is divided into two parts, but in reality the second part resumes the first. M. Fantuzzi assumes that paired inscriptional epigrams with a variation of the same content in aesthetic terms seem to be attested only after the 2nd century AD. Our epigram is thus an exception. R. Merkelbach supposed there were two different hands, but after an examination of the writing it seems to me that we are dealing with the same engraver. The word ἄλλο, as explained by M. Fantuzzi, is a technical term to divide epigrams on the same topic in 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.100 In this case, if the second part is only a variation of the first part, the river mentioned in the second part would be located in the neighbourhood of Corupedion. It is well known that the plain where, in 281 BC, the famous battle between Lysimachus and Seleucus I Nicator took place, and where Lysimachus died, is located in Lydia, to the west of Sardis (Strabo 13. 4. 5 [C. 626]). The rivers flowing in the region are Hermos, which crosses the Phrygios to the north of Mount Sipylos, in the plain where the confrontation between the Roman army and

100

Fantuzzi 2010, 310 and n. 62.

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Antiochos III took place later, in December 190 BC.101 Although it is difficult to decide between these two important moments,102 one might think of a connection, for the author of the epigram, between the place where the Battle of Corupedion took place, and the River Phrygios.103 Menas was to fight in the Bithynian troops of Zipoites,104 an ally of Seleucus, while the Thracian and Mysian whom he had attacked on the battle-field were to be, as might be expected, enrolled in the army of Lysimachus, at that moment the master of Thrace. Recovering in a funerary epigram a witness of such an important event, whether it was the Battle of Corupedion or that of Magnesia, remains an unusual occasion for the historian. This Bithynian soldier presents himself as a hero fallen on the battlefield, in a Greek way par excellence. MOKAZIS, SON OF KALAS (TARSOS,

NEAR

NICOMEDIA)

A large stele, 1.76 m. high, belonging to the widespread type in the region of the Stockwerkstelen,105 was discovered at Adapazarı, near the Sangarios river. The stele has three reliefs. The upper relief represents a funerary banquet with a man (Mokazis), clad in chiton and himation reclining on a couch, a kantharos in his left; with his right hand he holds a wreath above a woman seated on the left part of the couch; at the left of the woman we can see two small girls, in front of the couch a table with meals, behind the table a small servant. On the relief in the middle there is depicted a battle scene each with three groups of two warriors: to the left a warrior who pierces his naked opponent, who has a shield and a sword, with a lance; in the middle a victorious warrior on horseback (Mokazis), who has much larger dimensions that the others, with cuirass and Phrygian helmet – he is about to pierce his long-haired, fallen opponent, with a lance; to the right another warrior holds a shield and strikes his opponent, naked, with a sword. The lower relief brings the representation of a bear hunt: in the centre Mokazis, that is the main person who is about to pierce a bear with his spear; the hunter is accompanied by two dogs and a servant, two trees suggesting a wooded landscape.106 101 See SIG 606, mentioning τὴν ἐν Λυδίαι παρὰ τὸν Φρύγιον ποταμὸν μάχην. Livy 37. 3. 8: secutus vestigia citra Phrygium amnem quattuor milia ab hoste posuit castra. 102 See Pfuhl 1933. 103 See the useful map and commentary given by Corsten, IKios, pp. 151–52. Appian Syr. 62: ‘The last war that he [scil. Seleucus] waged was with Lysimachus, for the possession of Phrygia on the Hellespont.’ 104 Hannestad 1996, 71–72. 105 Sève 2016. 106 Rumscheid and Held 1994, pls. 18–20 (ca. 200–150 BC); Merkelbach and Blümel 1995, pl. 17; SEG 44.1010; SGO 09/06/18, photograph on p. 213.

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The scenes reflect the ideal way in which the good notable wished to be seen, showing episodes of an accomplished life, and the iconographic themes that were circulating at the time. The text exalts values like courage, heroic death and the defence of the fatherland: ‘Never, while you were fighting in the first line, Mokazis, could the enemy kill you, when you were fighting with your sword in the battle’ (vv. 1–2): Such a courage was blowing in your chest, but also your mind (inspired) you. And now that you are dead, your children have erected for you this monument covered with crowns, as a tomb, at the crossroads. As a resident of Tarsus, you protect your country, like a good spirit (Ταρσεανὸς κατέχις δαίμων πάτραν). But the man who, with a hostile purpose, has deprived me of my country, may you annihilate him! (vv. 5 –9).

Mokazis was originally from a settlement in the territory of Nicomedia, known only by a fragment of the local historian Demosthenes (now close to Adliye Köyü).107 The onomastics, not only of Mokazis but also of his family, are Bithynian: Μοκαζις Καλα, γυνὴ αὐτοῦ Ανξα,| υἱοὶ Γηριας, Ζαραζις, Ζαρδοηλας,| χαίρετε. The name of the deceased is the Bithynian correspondent of the western Thracian name Μοκασης/Μουκασης.108 The names of his father, his wife and his first two sons, although attested only by this occurrence, could be easily identified as Bithynian, while the name of the third son is attested three times in the territory of Nicomedia.109 Mokazis was undoubtedly a member of a wealthy rural elite, for in the middle scene he is represented on horseback,110 a significant image both of his social rank and of an ideal of heroic life. Concerning the last scene, Mokazis hunting a bear, it illustrates a typical aristocratic pastime. His belonging to the upper class is confirmed by his impressive monument and by the sophisticated epigram in Homeric style. The iconography reflects a surprising as well as a remarkable combination of artistic influences. First of all, the scene of the funerary banquet is typical not only for this particular region but for the entirety of Asia Minor.111 The middle scene, where a rider is crushing his enemies, is reminiscent of the Attic funerary 107 Demosthenes of Bithynia FGH 699 F 2 = Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ταρσός (ἔστι δὲ καὶ Ταρσὸς ἄλλη τῆς Βιθυνίας (…) ἔστι καὶ χωρίον Βιθυνίας Ταρσὸς λεγόμενον). Cf. SGO II, p. 214. 108 OnomThrac 224, Μοκαζις for Μουκαζις (OnomThrac 243–244). The name is attested three times at Nicomedia, see OnomThrac 244, fig. 33 (map). 109 ?Καλας: OnomThrac 76; Ανξα: OnomThrac 7; Γηριας: OnomThrac 187 (according to C. Brixhe, Bulletin Épigraphique 2011, 489, it would be a Greek name); Ζαραζις: OnomThrac 386; Ζαρδοηλας: OnomThrac 386. 110 Corsten 2007, 127–28. 111 Fabricius 1999.

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representation of Dexileos, which was also adapted on this stele according to the models coming from the East.112 The Attic influence113 is coupled with Pergamene artistic motifs: on the left a warrior kills with his spear (on the right image the spear was replaced by a sword) a kneeling adversary who turns his back, but who tries to protect himself with a shield.114 DILIPORIS, SON OF APPHOS (TERBOS,

NEAR

NICAEA)

The monument of Diliporis (2nd–3rd centuries AD), found in Bithynia at Akçakaya/Geyve,115 is impressive first for its proportions. Located at the top of a hill, the funerary complex (of 7 m high) was erected upon a double base, upon which has been installed a large pillar, which supports a large architrave. On this architrave is placed the sarcophagus decorated with two heads of Gorgon. M. Guarducci deplores the artificious excess of the funerary monuments in Asia Minor in Imperial times, taking as examples our monument and that of the most famous Opramoas, from Rhodiapolis in Lycia (2nd century AD).116 The long inscription engraved on the pillar, in which Diliporis, inspired by a Sibyllan oracle, interprets the letters which compose his name, is qualified by Guarducci as ‘esempio di cose artificiose ed astruse che dominava in quell’età’.117 The historiography of that time promptly criticised the excesses of the ‘barbarians’ and the ‘decadence’ of the Greek societies corrupted by the oriental influences. The text of the epigram imitates an enigma that God has transmitted to Noah:118 (5)

ἐν|νέα γράμματ’ ἔχω, τετρασύλλαβός εἰμι, νόει | σύ · αἱ τρεῖς αἱ πρῶται δύο γράμματ’ ἔχουσιν ἑκάσ|τη. ἡ λοιπὴ δὲ τὰ τρεῖα, καὶ εἰσιν ἄφωνα τὰ πέντε, | ἔστι δ’ ἀριθμὸς πένθ’ ἑκατοντάδες ἠδὲ δὶς | ἑπτά.

112 For example: the monument of Alketas de Termessos, the sarcophagus of Pajawa of Xanthos, the monumental graves of Lycia (cf. Rumscheid and Held 1994, 101). 113 See also the stele of Νανα, Ἑρμοκράτου μήτηρ, Cremer 1992, 119, no. NP1, pl. 3; INikaia II.2 1593 and pl. XXIII (end of 3rd century BC), inspired from the funerary monument of Hegeso (Clairmont 1993, 2.95, cat. 2.150). For this feminine name, widespread in the region, see OnomThrac 269. 114 Fernoux 2004, 100–01. 115 GVI 1324; Grabgedichte 395; Guarducci 1974, 134–35, fig. 5; INikaia II.2 1232; SGO 09/05/17, photograph on p. 172. 116 For the extraordinary wealth of this notable, see Kokkinia 2000. 117 See also a votive epigram from Sparta (IG 5(1) 257), cf. Guarducci 1974, 52–53. 118 Ideler 1842, 225, 9–14 (work of the alchemist Stephanus of Alexandria); Erbse 1995, § 81, 52–53 (ancient enigmas) and Theosophia Sibyllarum S. 6, 69; Berthelot 1888, 267–68 (αἴνιγμα τοῦ φιλοσοφικοῦ λίθου, Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ἀγαθοδαίμονος).

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ταῦτ’ οὖν ζητήσας καὶ γνούς, ὅστις περ ὁ γρά|ψας, γνωστὸς ἔσῃ Μούσαις καὶ σοφίης μέ|τοχος. μνῆμα δ’ ἐμὸν τόδε χεῖρες ἔτι ζώ|οντος ἔτευξαν λαΐνεον γαίης Τέρβοιο | ἣν κατέχω.

‘I have nine letters and four syllables. Note: The first three syllables have two letters each, the last three, and five (letters) are consonants. The sum is 514 [500 and two times seven]. If you have searched for it and found out who wrote it, then you will be a friend of the Muses, partaking of the wisdom. My hands erected this stone tomb when I was still alive, on the earth of Terbos, which I possess.’ This is the original text: ἐννέα γράμματ’ ἔχω, τετρασύλλαβός εἰμι· νόει με· αἱ τρεῖς αἱ πρῶται δύο γράμματ’ ἔχουσιν ἑκάστη. ἡ λοιπὴ δὲ τὰ λοῖπα καὶ εἰσιν ἄφωνα τὰ πέντε· τοῦ παντὸς δ’ ἀριθμοῦ ἑκατοντάδες εἰσὶ δὶς ὀκτώ, τρεῖς τρισκαιδεκάδες τρίς θ’ ἑπτά · γνοῦς δὲ τίς εἰμι, οὐκ ἀμύητος ἔσῃ σοφίης πολυήρατος ἀνήρ (Oracula Sibilina I, vv. 141–146)

If one adds the numbers of the epigram of Diliporis, the result is, indeed, 514: Διλιπορις 4+10+30+10+80+70+100+10+200 = 514.

Διλιπορις is a well-attested Bithynian name,119 while the father bears a Lallname, very frequent in Asia Minor and especially in Bithynia. He was perfectly integrated into the onomastic frame of Terbos, a small village in the territory of Nicomedia, certainly eponymous of a mythical founder. The image he wants to give of himself is that of a cultivated man, as the choice of this text, accessible only to the connoisseurs, demonstrates. He also provokes the passer-by to share this sophisticated intellectual game, congratulating him, in case of success, to show himself as a true ‘friend of the Muses’ and sophos. The epigram is adapted to the second sophistic trend, as we can conclude in respect of the contamination between the abstract oracular knowledge and the familiar reference to the pepaideumenos of his time, often represented with a papyrus book in his hand.120

119 OnomThrac 131–132. See also a woman named Dinteses, wife of Diliporis (Hellenistic of Imperial): Cremer 1992, NS1 and pl. 4; TAM IV.1 126; OnomThrac 132. 120 For the Euxine Pontus, see M. Dana 2011a, 146–69 (especially the stele of Lysandra, daughter of Doles, a Thracian name, IByzantion 368, 1st century AD). For the different names of the Mousōn philoi, see Dobias-Lalou 1982, 48–49.

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PROUSES, SON OF MENECRATES (NICOMEDIA), DIED

AT

MEGARA

Prouses, son of Menecrates, was a young Bithynian scholar who died at the age of 24 in Megara, in the 1st or 2nd centuries AD.121 Its name, Προυσῆς, is a derivative of Προυσίας, a name borne by several Bithynian kings. The iconography of his funerary stele is particularly suggestive of his literary preoccupations: below the text are two volumina joined to a box with a handle (capsula). The choice of Megara by this young friend of letters does not seem a haphazard: Megara, or its apoikia Chalcedon, had been the metropolis of Astacus, on the southern shore of the gulf where Nicomedia was founded by the eponymous king. The fact that the new foundation appropriated the Hellenic past, hence the poetic appellation given to Nicomedia, often in the funerary epigrams, Ἀστακίη γῆ, Ἀστακίη πατρίς,122 is an indication of the reactivation in the Imperial era of kinship ties, real or legendary. We can also mention the fact that kinship connected Bithynium/Claudiopolis (a dynastic name), a small city known as ‘Mantineia of Bithynia’, to the ancient Mantineia of Arcadia. The relationship was reactivated due to the rise of the cult of Antinoos, originating from Bithynium.123 In Bithynium is precisely attested, in the 3rd century AD, an agonothetes and gymnasiarch named Prousias, son of Archedemos (IKPolis 61, ll. 9–10). DOIDALSES, SON OF APOLLONIUS, OF MILETUPOLIS (MYSIA) A relief-decorated stele from Miletupolis, in the region of Cyzicus was erected by the katoikoi for the athlete Doidalses, son of Apollonius, in the Hellenistic period:124 The katoikoi to Doidalses, son of Apollonius. If Doidalses, who often put upon his head merry wreaths as prizes for his victories, had a famous fatherland, his strength and the force would have been recorded among the strong achievements of Heracles. Therefore, the descendants of Telephus have placed him on the same level as the noble men, and distinguished him with favours, which are eternally recounted.

121

Kaloyeropoulou 1974 (cf. J. and L. Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique 1976, 289). See L. Robert 1969 II, 1320–23; Avram 2004, 977–78, no. 737; Fernoux 2004, 36–37. According to Arrian Bith. F 5 Roos (= F 26 J.), Astacus was called from an eponymous hero, son of Poseidon and of the nymph Olbia. 123 See L. Robert 1980, 132–46 (‘Mantinée de Bithynie. De la patrie d’Antinoos aux couvents byzantins’). 124 IKyzikos II 23, pl. VII, fig. 21; Hannestad 1996, 69; SGO 08/05/07, photograph on p. 91. 122

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On the pediment of the stele is represented a large crown, recalling both the victories of Doidalses and the honours granted to him. The relief, in two registers, shows at the top, on the right, a large Zeus (a Hellenised Myso-Phrygian type of Zeus) (see SGO II, p. 91), with in his left hand a sceptre and in the right hand a phiale. In the middle, we can see a palm and a priest who sacrificed a bull with a knife to its throat, and on the left a man in adoration before Zeus. The scene is to be interpreted as the celebration accompanied by sacrifices on behalf of Doidalses. Below are two men, represented symmetrically, one tending his right leg and the other his left leg. The man on the left is naked and holds a lance, the other has his chest concealed beneath a cloak; at right a cup is represented. We are dealing perhaps with the double image of the young notable, warrior and citizen. Nudity may be heroic, but in this specific case, associated with the cup, it may refer to his quality as an athlete.125 The Telephides are those who have made of the son of Heracles their eponymous hero, namely the Pergamenians, as they appear in an inscription of this city (SGO 06/02/01, v. 1 [Claros’ oracle for the Pergamenians]). That means that our athlete had participated in the Pergamene agōnes and won prizes. One can understand from his epigram that if Doidalses had originated from a more reputed and larger city, instead of the modest katoikia that honours him, his achievements would certainly have had more resonance and would also have been on a larger scale. The comparison with Heracles, the Greek athlete par excellence, is a significant marker of the Hellenic references of the colonists, especially in this region where Heracles, the founder of the eponymous city, is a very popular hero. Our athlete bears the same Bithynian name as the sculptor (see supra) but also that of the Bithynian king who would have taken Astacos after the Athenian episode in 435/4 BC.126 A certain Menophanes son of Mokas (1st century BC), whose patronym is Thracian, also originally from Mysia, though in this case from Dascylium, would perhaps be a comic actor. He is represented in a scene of funerary banquet with his family, and only the allusion to his ‘cheerful laughing jokes’ can suggest his profession.127 * *

125

*

Zanker 1993, 220. Strabo 12. 4. 2 (C. 563); Memnon of Heraclea FGH 434 F 1.12.4 (= Photios Bibliotheca cod. 224, 228 a). See Meyer 1903. For the name, see OnomThrac 155. 127 SGO 08/04/03, photograph on p. 78 (and the literature). For his father’s name, see OnomThrac 223, s.v. Muca, 227–28. 126

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If the funerary epigrams of these local notables reflect their taste for Greek culture, it is to be noted that the texts were written by their family, in accordance with the activities of the deceased but also with their social practices. The ‘intellectualisation’ of the portrait of the citizen in the imagery of the Late Hellenistic period, pointed out by P. Zanker,128 in association with a tendency for more and more elaborate funerary inscriptions, shows that paideia was gradually considered an essential feature of Hellenism. Exercising an intellectual profession is no longer a condition for being represented as a scholar or for engraving one’s admiration for the Muses on his tombstone. Only one indigenous, bearing an Iranian name, native of Bithynia, is known among the disciples of the Athenian philosophical schools. This is Batakes of Nicaea, attested by Philodemus as an academician, disciple of Carneades at the beginning of the 2nd century BC.129 Two famous intellectuals of the region are to be mentioned, Parthenius of Nicaea and Strabo of Amaseia. Concerning the origin of Parthenius, the Suda hesitated: ‘Parthenius, son of Heracleides and Eudora (or Tetha, according to Hermippus of Berytos [see FGH(C) 106]: Ἕρμιππος δὲ Τήθας φησι). Originally from Nicaea or Myrleia. Author of Elegies and Poems in various meters’ (Suda s.v. Παρθένιος [Π 664]). The poet was born between 95 and 85 BC and lived, according to the Suda, until the time of Tiberius (he was one of the favourite poets of the emperors, who consecrated statues of the poet in libraries). He had fallen into the hands of the Romans after the fall of Mithridates VI130 but, becoming a freedman, began his career at the side of the poet C. Helvius Cinna or of his father. He was a friend of Virgil and of Cornelius Gallus, to whom he dedicated his Passions of Love.131 Concerning the name of her mother, it is to be understood as the Lallname Ti(t)tha, very popular in Bithynia and in the neighbouring regions (OnomThrac 370–372, with map). As for Strabo, we know more about his apprenticeship at Nysa132 than about the one he had in his own city, Amaseia.133 More information is available on his paternal family, starting with Dorylaus (I), of Amisos. A tactician in charge of recruiting mercenaries in Greece, Thrace and Crete, he moved in Cnossus upon the announcement of the murder of Mithridates V, in 120 BC. About 128

Zanker 1995. Philodemus Ind. Acad. Herc, coll. 23, 43–44 = 32, 36 (= Carneades, T 3b 13 Mette). See von Arnim 1897; Dorandi 1994. 130 For another Pontic intellectual who had the same trajectory, Tyrannion of Amisos, see M. Dana 2011a, 330–32. 131 See Biraud et al. 2008, 11–22. 132 See M. Dana 2016b. 133 See, however, Bowersock 2000; Linsay 2005. 129

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100 BC the family is attested at the court of Mithridates VI, where the nephew of the tactician, Dorylaus (II), appears as king’s σύντροφος.134 One of the two sons of Dorylaus I, Lagetas, is the great-grandfather of Strabo of Amaseia.135 Among the philoi of Mithridates VI is also the paternal uncle of Strabo’s mother, Moaphernes, who bears an Iranian name. It was this uncle who betrayed the king and passed over to the Romans: ‘But long afterwards Moaphernes, my mother’s uncle, came into distinction just before the dissolution of the kingdom.’136 CONCLUSION It is not easy to identify the ‘indigenous people’ in the public space, even with consideration of onomastics, for the simple reason that they use the Greek language and express themselves through Greek practices. Moreover, one could find a non-Greek with a Greek name. Even if some of them bear Bithynian or Thracian names by familial tradition or because of various alliances, they are no less Greeks. Nobody doubts about Strabo’s belonging to Greek culture, yet his uncle bore an Iranian name. Hence the difficulty of understanding the process through which the indigenous elites adopted the Greek culture. The ethnic discrimination is not only elusive, but it is also not operational for a region ‘colonised’ for a long time, which has created its own local identity by integrating the indigenous populations not only in the foundations myths but also in the common Greek legends. The indigenous memory is essential because it enables the setting of a city in its territory, and it makes legitimate this occupation of space. The Bithynian rulers used this memory while at the same time creating their own. The example of Nicomedia, named after a Bithynian king bearing a Greek name, is symptomatic for the peculiarities of this kingdom. Just as they spoke the civic language, these kings controlled the Hellenistic language: they learned it quickly and not necessarily through philhellenism.137 The local elites likewise developed a form of expression that did not distinguish them in any way from the inhabitants of the Greek cities of the coast. Despite the social distinction, the link between kings bearing Bithynian names and indigenous rural elites is not ethnicity, but rather the adoption of the culture of their Greek neighbours. Although the diffusion of 134 Savalli-Lestrade 1998, no. 8; his statue is among those of the Mithridates’ philoi at Delos (IDélos 1572). 135 Strabo 10. 4. 10 (C. 477); Savalli-Lestrade 1998, no. 2. 136 Strabo 12. 3. 33 (C. 557–558); see also 11. 2. 18 (C. 498–499); Savalli-Lestrade 1998, no. 11. For the genealogy of Strabo, see Dueck 2000, 6, fig. 1. 137 See Michels 2010b.

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the latter was certainly favoured by the long-standing cohabitation between the descendants of the Megarian or Milesian settlers and the Bithynian Thracians, the major impact was that of the conquest of Alexander and of the spread of Hellenism. This region of Asia Minor, which had seen the coming of Alexander and the numerous Hellenistic conflicts, was at the heart of the transformations which marked the entire Greek world. However, Greek culture was not adopted everywhere or by all social categories with the same intensity. On the one hand, the sources are not the same for all times and all areas. On the other hand, local populations, despite the apparently uniform background, are different from an onomastic point of view (for example, the proportion of Phrygian names in Mysia) as well as for the influences that they have received: Cyzicus and its territory were for a long time under Achaemenid rule and, from the artistic point of view, were marked by Persian culture. Greek paideia was widespread in urbanised regions or in the territory of prosperous cities like Nicaea and Nicomedia, within a rural elite integrated into the army and the royal administration. Not all the Bithynians, Mysians, or Thracians of Propontis adopted it for the simple reason that they did not all possess the financial resources for erecting monuments such as those of Mokazis or Diliporis. Local culture, then, is not only fragmented between regional cultures, but it is also the expression of the local notables imitating those of the Greek cities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, T.W. 1921: The Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Oxford). Andreae, B. 1990: Phyromachos-Probleme: mit einem Anhang zur Datierung des grossen Altares von Pergamon (Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung. Ergänzungsheft 31) (Mainz). von Arnim, H. 1897: ‘Batakes’. RE III.1, 114. Avram, A. 2004: ‘The Propontic Coast of Asia Minor’. In Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation (Oxford), 974–99. Ballesteros Pastor, L. 1996: Mitridates Eupator, rey del Ponto (Biblioteca de Estudios Clásicos 6) (Granada). Berthelot, M. 1888: Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, vol. 2 (Paris). Biraud, M., Voisin, D. and Zucker, A. (eds.) 2008: Parthénios de Nicée, Passions d’amour (texte grec établi, traduit et commenté) (Grenoble). Boffo, L. 1985: I re ellenistici e i centri religiosi dell’Asia Minore (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Pavia 37) (Florence). Bowersock, G.W. 2000: ‘La patria di Strabone’. In Biraschi, A.M. and Salmeri, G. (eds.), Strabone e l’Asia Minore (Incontri Perugini di Storia della Storiografia Antica e del Mondo Antico 10) (Naples), 13–24.

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Hannestad, L. 1996: ‘“This Contributes in No Small Way to One’s Reputation”: The Bithynian Kings and Greek Culture’. In Bilde, P., Engberg-Pedersen, T., Hannestad, L. and Zahle, J. (eds.), Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship (Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 7) (Aarhus), 67–98. Harris B.F. 1980: ‘Bithynia: Roman Sovereignty and the Survival of Hellenism’. ANRW 7.2, 857–901. Heller, A. 2006: ‘Les bêtises des Grecs’: Conflits et rivalités entre cités d’Asie et de Bithynie à l’époque romaine (129 a.C.–235 p.C.) (Scripta Antiqua 17) (Bordeaux). Højte, J.M. (ed.) 2009: Mithridates VI and the Pontic Kingdom (Black Sea Studies 9) (Aarhus). Ideler, I.L. 1842: Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, vol. 2 (Berlin). Ivantchik, A.I. 1998: ‘Die Gründung von Sinope und die Probleme der Anfangsphase der griechischen Kolonisation des Schwarzmeergebietes’. In Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), The Greek Colonization of the Black Sea Area: Historical Interpretation of Archaeology (Historia Einzelschriften 121) (Stuttgart), 297–330. Jacquemin, A. and Laroche, D. 1986: ‘Travaux de l’École française en Grèce. Delphes. Piliers de la place du pronaos’. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 110.2, 785–88. Jenniges, W. 2006: ‘L’Asie Mineure et ses langues’. Res Antiquae 3, 73–97. Jones, A.H.M. 1981: The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (Oxford). Kaloyeropoulou, A.G. 1974: ‘Épitaphe mégarien[ne]’. Athens Annals of Archaeology 7, 287–91. Kirk, G.S. 1985: The Iliad, A Commentary 1: Books 1–4 (Cambridge). Kokkinia, C. 2000: Die Opramoas-Inschrift von Rhodiapolis: Euergetismus und soziale Elite in Lykien (Abhandlungen zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte, zur Klassischen und Provinzial-Römischen Archäologie und zur Geschichte des Altertums 40) (Bonn). Le Guen, B. 2007: ‘Kratôn, Son of Zotichos: Artists’ Associations and Monarchic Power in the Hellenistic Period’. In Wilson, P. (ed.), The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (Oxford), 246–78. Linsay, H. 2005: ‘Amasya and Strabo’s patria in Pontus’. In Dueck, D., Lindsay, H. and Pothecary, S. (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography. The Making of a Kolossourgia (Cambridge), 180–99. Loukopoulou, L.D. 1989: Contributions à l’histoire de la Thrace propontique durant la période archaïque (Meletemata 9) (Athens). McGing, B.G. 1986: The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus (Mnemosyne Suppl. 89) (Leiden). Maffre, F. 2014: ‘Cyzique et le monde achéménide’. In Sève and Schlosser 2014, 63–100. Marcotte, D. (ed.) 2000: Les Géographes grecs 1: Pseudo-Scymnos, Circuit de la terre (Paris). Marek, C. 1993: Stadt, Ära und Territorium in Pontus-Bithynia und Nord-Galatia (Istanbuler Forschungen 39) (Tübingen). —. 2003: Pontus et Bithynia: Die römischen Provinzen im Norden Kleinasiens (Mainz). —. 2013: ‘Intellektuelle in Bithynien und ihre Feindschaften’. In Winter, E. and Zimmermann, K. (eds.), Neue Funde und Forschungen in Bithynien. Friedrich Karl Dörner zum 100. Geburtstag gewidmet (Asia Minor Studien 69) (Bonn), 33–46. Mayor, A. 2010: The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithridates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton/Oxford). Merkelbach, R. 1985: ‘Nikaia die Rankenreiche’. EA 5, 1–3.

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GRAECO-EGYPTIAN BILINGUALISM: CO-EXISTENCE (AND INTERFERENCE?) OF TWO VOWEL SYSTEMS Juan Luis GARCÍA ALONSO

Abstract From the 1st century AD an adaptation of the Greek alphabet was used for Coptic. But before this adaptation, some Demotic speakers of Hellenistic times had to learn Greek. After contextualising the arrival and teaching of the Greek language in Egypt in the linguistic landscape of the different periods, we will have a look at some linguistic interferences between Greek and Egyptian in Hellenistic times. We will analyse certain vocalic ‘mistakes’ pointing at the efforts of Demotic-speakers learning Greek and try to draw a few conclusions from them and from later Coptic texts, in order to (1) have an idea of the details of both vocalic systems at those times; (2) add arguments concerning some doubts in modern research about the quality of the vowel system of Ancient Egyptian and (3) analyse how both languages co-existed and interfered each other in a society that was, up to a certain extent, bilingual. Coptic language scholars still disagree on the phonetic interpretation of the writing system of Coptic vowels. There are two main theories: length theory (the different letters represent differences in length) and vowel quality theory (the different letters represent differences in vowel quality).

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN When the first Greeks settled in the Nile Delta, the language spoken by the local population was the contemporary version of the old pharaonic language. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC), Middle Kingdom (2050–1800 BC) and New Kingdom (1570–1069 BC) eras. There are more than 5000 texts if we include those from the Graeco-Roman period.1 Some centuries later, Ancient Egyptian would be replaced in Egypt by the Arabic language spoken by the Muslim conquerors of the country (AD 639– 641).2 Both languages, Ancient Egyptian and Arabic, are in fact distant cousins 1

Loprieno 1995, 12. In December 639, ‘Amr ibn al-’As entered Egypt with a force of 4000 troops. After two years, the conquest of Alexandria (September 641) would mean the fall of Egypt. 2

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in linguistic terms. They are both classified today in the Afroasiatic language family. Afroasiatic, traditionally known as Hamito-Semitic (Chamito-Semitic), is a large language family3 of several hundred languages and dialects.4 It is considered to have six distinct branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic and Semitic. By far the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language is Arabic.5 Afroasiatic also includes, of course, several important ancient languages, such as Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Biblical Hebrew or Old Aramaic.6 The earliest known complete written sentence in the Egyptian language has been dated to about 2690 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known, along with Sumerian. Egyptian was spoken until at least the 11th century as Coptic. Coptic is still used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Egyptian language shows many of the best known typological features identified for this Afroasiatic language family.7 But even if Egyptian is the oldest Afroasiatic language documented in written form, its morphological repertoire is quite distant from that of the rest of reconstructed Afroasiatic. Scholars divide the Egyptian language into six major chronological stages:8 • • •

•

Archaic Egyptian language (before 2600 BC, the language of the Early Dynastic Period); Old Egyptian language (2686 BC–2181 BC, the language of the Old Kingdom); Middle Egyptian language (2055 BC–1650 BC), the language stage of the Middle Kingdom (2055 BC–1650 BC) up to and including the Amarna Period (1353 BC); Late Egyptian language (1353–700 BC);

3 On the Afroasiatic language family, see Greenberg 1955; Newman 1980; Diakonoff 1988; Ehret 1995; Heine and Nurse 2000; Bender 2003; Huehnergard 2004; Dimmendaal and Voeltz 2007; and Sands 2009. 4 It comprises about 300 or so living languages and dialects. It includes languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel. Afroasiatic languages have today more than 350 million native speakers, the fourth largest number of any language family. 5 It has around 200–230 million native speakers concentrated primarily in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Malta. Other widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Tamazight and other Berber varieties (Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, northern Mali and northern Niger), Hausa (northern Nigeria and southern Niger), Oromo (Ethiopia and Kenya), Amharic (Ethiopia), Somali (Greater Somalia), Modern Hebrew and Modern Aramaic. 6 It is uncertain when or where the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family existed. Proposed locations include North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Sahara and the Levant. 7 The linguistic differences between different members of the family are huge and their internal classification is not always clear (Theil 2006). 8 Bard and Shubert 1999, 325.

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Demotic (7th century BC–5th century AD, Late Period through Roman Egypt); Coptic (1st century AD–11th century, early Roman Egypt to the early modern period).

•

The stage Alexander the Great found in Egypt in 331 BC was Demotic, but Coptic would be the language stage spoken in Egypt in Roman times, when Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet, an adaptation of the Greek alphabet,9 with the addition of six or seven signs from Demotic10 to represent Egyptian sounds Greek did not have.11 LANGUAGE CONTACT From the first days of the Greek settlement in Egypt led by Alexander the Great, and as a consequence of it, quite significant contact between the Greek and the Egyptian languages started to take place. This would become more extensive and intensive in the following centuries.12 Of course, the first interactions between Greeks and Egyptians are much older: we have at least a couple of examples where Egyptians are apparently mentioned in Mycenaean Linear B tablets from Knossos (a-ku-pi-ti-jo).13 The foundation of Naucratis (ca. 650 BC) meant already a certain language contact and Herodotus (2. 154), referring to events happening ca. 570–526 BC, mentions the existence of Graeco-Egyptian interpreters explicitly: To the Ionians and Carians who had helped him, Psammetichus gave places to live in two pieces of land called ‘The Camps’, opposite each other on either side of the Nile; and besides this, he paid them all that he had promised. [2] Moreover, he put Egyptian boys in their hands to be taught Greek, and from these, who learned the language, are descended the present-day Egyptian interpreters. [3] The Ionians and Carians lived for a long time in these places, which are near the sea, on the arm of the Nile called the Pelusian, a little way below the town of Bubastis. 9

Cf. Quack 2017. Depending on the dialectal/geographical variety: Sahidic used six, whereas Bohairic and Akhmimic used seven each. 11 Several distinct Coptic dialects are identified, the most prominent of which are Sahidic, originating in parts of Upper Egypt, and Bohairic, originally from the western Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. Coptic and Demotic are closely linked to Late Egyptian, still written with hieroglyphs. Coptic was used as a literary language from the 2nd to the 13th centuries, and, in the form of its Bohairic dialect, Coptic continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was replaced by Egyptian Arabic as the general spoken language of the country toward the early modern period. However, language revitalisation efforts have been underway since the 19th century. 12 On this, see Muysken 2017; Zakrzewska 2017. 13 Ventris and Chadwick 1973, 98. 10

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Long afterwards, king Amasis removed them and settled them at Memphis to be his guard against the Egyptians. [4] It is a result of our communication with these settlers in Egypt (the first of foreign speech to settle in that country) that we Greeks have exact knowledge of the history of Egypt from the reign of Psammetichus onwards.

It seems most sectors of both populations never learned or even bothered to learn each other’s language. But from the foundation of Alexandria and in later Ptolemaic times there was a bilingual sector of society, a few bilingual individuals, both among the Macedonian Greeks and among the Egyptians. There is a substantial number of testimonies on different types of documents from the period: inscriptions, papyri and, from the 1st century AD (especially from the 3rd century AD) onwards, also parchments. The growing intimacy between the two communities would produce different degrees and forms of syncretism in many other aspects: political, social, cultural or religious, what, in its turn, would clearly need the support of a few bilingual individuals, able to communicate in both languages in more and more complex situations. Most native Egyptians, though, would only use their language, but Greek being chosen not only by ethnic Greeks but also by anyone in a significant number of official or administrative contexts. By the 1st century AD, the increasing degree of contact between the two linguistic communities would lead to the adoption of the Greek alphabet to represent the contemporary Egyptian language: this is the so-called Coptic alphabet. LANGUAGE LEARNING Of course, there cannot be bilingual individuals without language learning. Because of the different situational uses given to each of the languages, though, the fact is that it was much more frequent for Egyptians to learn Greek than for Greeks to learn Egyptian. The Greek minority rarely bothered to learn Egyptian, in a situation perhaps not so different, in this respect, from that of the British presence in India in modern colonial times, for instance. Greek would become the language of the administration in Ptolemaic Egypt. This meant that many official documents sent to any other place in the country and written in Greek in Alexandria were not translated into Egyptian, implying there was a quite widespread need in the country for Hellenophone civil servants. On the other side of the equation, when a local document written in Egyptian had to be sent to Alexandria, it had to be translated into Greek first.14

14

Appel and Muysken 1987, 10–13.

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All this led to a situation where, apparently: •

the Greek minority did not bother about the local language and only a few individuals would learn Egyptian; of the Egyptian majority, most individuals did not actually have the need or the opportunity to learn Greek; finally, of the Egyptian majority, a few individuals, civil servants or at least individuals needing to relate with the administration in a way or another, did in fact embark in learning Greek.

• •

From language contact we come, then, to second language learning. A few of these learners (just a few) would reach a level of what we would call today bilingualism. But learning a language is a process and we have testimonies of different stages in this. I will not go into details now about all the social, cultural, religious or other sort of implications of this phenomenon in relation to the interaction or closeness between the two communities. In this paper, I will limit myself to exploring the language contact and second language acquisition process on a more simply linguistic level. LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE In any process of second language learning there is a degree of language interference. In research on second language acquisition and language contact, thematic fields very active these days, the term interference refers to the influence of one language on another in the speech of individuals who are using both languages, especially when they are in the process of acquiring one of them: ‘Those instances of deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language, i.e. as a result of language contact, will be referred to as INTERFERENCE phenomena’.15 Interference can take place at all levels of the linguistic system, i.e. in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and the lexicon. The influence of one language on another in the speech of bilinguals is relevant both to the field of second language acquisition (where the interference from the learner’s native language is studied) and to the field of historical linguistics (where the effects of interference on language change are studied). Coming back to ancient Egypt, I will limit my analysis to the phonological level and more specifically to the vowel systems. 15

Weinreich 1953, 1.

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EGYPTIAN AND GREEK VOWEL SYSTEMS As mentioned above, from the 1st century AD onwards an adapted Greek alphabet was used to write Coptic, the latest stage of the Ancient Egyptian language. But before adapting the Greek alphabet to write Coptic, its predecessors, the Demotic speakers of Hellenistic times, had to learn Greek, of course. After having contextualized the arrival and teaching of the Greek language in ancient Egypt, we will now have a look at the linguistic co-existence of the Greek and the Egyptian vowel systems. This way we will try to: 1. 2.

have an idea of the details of both vocalic systems at those times; add arguments, if possible, concerning some doubts in modern research about the details of the vowel system of Ancient Egyptian and; analyse how both languages co-existed and, perhaps, even interfered with each other in a society that was, even if to a limited extent (somehow still being determined), bilingual.

3.

Having a look at the spelling of Greek vowels in papyri written by scribes from Ptolemaic Egypt one finds ‘mistakes’ that could perfectly be attributed to the contemporary pronunciation of Greek (koine) all over the Greek world. We usually have no external way to know anything about the ethnic origin of the scribes. Some examples, though, do not prove any sort of L1–L2 interference. Examples as these are just spelling mistakes that could happen elsewhere in the Greek-speaking world at the time. This is the case with some of the Egyptian examples collected and commented upon by Horrocks:16 θέλι instead of θέλει or μυ instead of μοι, among many others. The phonemes represented by some of these letters have merged together in the Greek of the time and it is only conservative orthographic habits what prevents that we find many more such ‘mistakes’ in more texts. Therefore, examples like these ones (those that could also appear in other areas of the Greek world) are not relevant to our discussion. However, the situation changes with mistakes that cannot be attributed to internal developments of Greek. We do not have evidence of the vowel quality of contemporary Demotic, since the local writing system used does not reproduce vowels. But sometimes, in Greek texts, instead of the expected ε, we find ο or α, especially in unstressed syllables, although not only: see for instance a case of ἔτι for ὅτι.17 There are other non-Greek mistakes with liquids, fricatives or plosives, but we will just consider the vowel sound structure.

16 17

Horrocks 2010, 173, from PFay. 114, AD 100. Horrocks 2010, 173, from PFay. 114, AD 100.

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As I just mentioned, we have no written details of how the Demotic vowels were pronounced. We do have Coptic vowels represented in writing, though. And the writing system was, in fact, essentially Greek. However, Coptic language scholars still disagree on the correct phonetic interpretation of the writing of Coptic vowels, and in particular in the phonetic values of the pairs of letters ε/η and ο/ω. There are two main theories: length theory (the different values of each of the members of these two pairs of letters are motivated by differences in length) and vowel quality theory (the differences expressed by the opposing letters are motivated by differences in vowel quality). In a comparable way to what happens with Semitic languages, the vowel system of Ancient Egyptian did have relatively few phonemes, if we compare the repertoire with that of Ancient Greek. This is the vowel system supposed for earlier stages of Ancient Egyptian:18 Earlier Egyptian vowel system Front Close Open

Back

i, i:

u, u: a, a:

Strikingly enough, the phonological vowel system reconstructed for Ancient Egyptian is basically identical to that of Modern Standard Arabic:

It is well known that when a second language learner has few vowel phonemes in his/her L1 repertoire, the correct pronunciation of an L2 with a more extensive vowel phoneme repertoire becomes a challenging task. On the contrary, speakers of a language rich in vowel sounds, are likely to find it simpler to imitate those of another language, since it is more likely they have a similar one in their native language vowel system. 18

Loprieno 1995, 35.

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So, with all the nuances and distance one can consider, I have been thinking about what is happening today to native educated Egyptian Arabic speakers when speaking and when writing Spanish. For the past few years, I have been involved in several European projects19 with professors of Spanish from different Egyptian universities. They all have been educated in Spain and have lived in Spain and/or Latin America for a long number of years. Most of them have a near-native fluency level of Spanish, and at least some of them can be perceived as Spanish native-speakers in Spain. When listening to them, Spaniards are not able to identify them as non-native and often believe they come from another non-identified region in Spain or perhaps from somewhere in Latin America. However, I have realised that some of them make more mistakes in writing, especially with the more colloquial or less bookish words: they tend to have difficulties with the writing of i/e or with o/u, even a/o. My analysis is that when speaking they basically imitate the phonetic realisation of the Spanish phoneme linking it to allophones existing in their native language. They do it very well, but, when writing, they reflect the vowel phoneme they believe is there – but they are often wrong. It is indicative that this happens more often with familiar words not so frequently found in writing. In Ancient Egyptian, vowels were always short in unstressed syllables, long in open stressed syllables, and either short or long in closed stressed syllables. Unstressed vowels, especially after the stress, became */ə/. And therefore, this is the system supposed for Ancient Egyptian around 1000 BC: Egyptian vowel system ca. 1000 BC (after Loprieno 1995, 39) Front Close

i:

Mid

e e:

Open

Central

Back

ə

o:

a

To evaluate the situation of the Egyptian vowel system in Ptolemaic times is really complicated, though. The script does not help at all and, at the same time, the Greek vowel system is suffering its own long and somehow dramatic changes, as I will get into more detail about below.

19 Tempus Project IDELE (2012–2016), Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership Project E-LENGUA (2015–2018) and Erasmus+ KA2 Capacity Building in Higher Education Project XCELING (2017–2020).

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By the 2nd century AD, though, we have the Coptic writing system to help us. Theoretically. Because nothing is simple. There are major differences of opinion among Coptic language scholars on the correct phonetic interpretation of the vowel writing system of Coptic. Differences centre on how to interpret the pairs of letters ε/η and ο/ω. In Classical Greek spelling, the first member of each pair is a short close vowel /e, o/, whereas the second member is a long open vowel /ɛː, ɔː/. In some interpretations of Coptic phonology,20 it is assumed that the length difference is primary, with ε/η reflecting e/eː, whereas the pair ο/ω should represent o/oː. Other scholars21 argue for a different analysis claiming that ε/η and ο/ω should be interpreted as e/ɛ22 and o/ɔ. These two charts show the two main theories just mentioned on how to interpret the contemporary alphabetic depiction of the Coptic vowel phonology: Length theory vowel system Front Close

i:

Mid

e e:

Central

Back

ə

o o:

u:

Open

a Vowel quality theory vowel system Front

Close

i:

Close-Mid

e

Mid

ɛ

Open

Central

Back u: o

ə

ɔ a

The alphabet used to write Coptic being originally Greek, we would need to consider the detailed phonological situation of contemporary Greek. The first complication we face, though, is that, apparently, the situation of Greek in Egypt was somehow different to what is reconstructed for other Greek-speaking regions. As Horrocks puts it: It is of the greatest importance to recall that the Koine was based on a conservative (…) variety of Attic, continuing the spoken and official written Attic (Great Attic) used widely in the Greek world from the 4th century BC onwards. The 20

Plumley 1948. Greenberg 1962; Lambdin 1983, xii–xix. 22 In my opinion, as pointed out below, the values of the front vowels should actually be the opposite: ε/η should be interpreted as denoting the phonetic values /ɛ/ and a vowel with a quality between /e/ and /i/, respectively. 21

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Macedonians thus made a decisive contribution to the maintenance of aspects of ‘Old Attic’ phonology, with the result that, while the subsequent evolution of the Koine as a spoken lingua franca in the Hellenistic east follows the general pattern of development already seen in the majority variety of Athenian Attic, its progress is somewhat retarded by comparison (…), with some developments taking place only in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. In Egypt specifically, it seems that the royal court in Alexandria maintained a highly conservative pronunciation throughout the Ptolemaic period, and that the educated urban population quickly developed its own standard from this foundation. At lower levels, however, the rapidly evolving Koine base was influenced both by the native dialects of Greek immigrants (though only in the earlier period) and by the substrate effects of the Egyptian/Coptic spoken by the native population.23

Basically, the vowel system of Greek in Egypt by the mid-3rd century BC was very close to the Athenian koine a century earlier.24 Significant changes had happened already by the mid-2nd century BC. The most relevant one for us today, maybe, is the elimination of the vowel length distinction. The process is virtually complete by the 1st century BC,25 long before the adaptation of the Greek alphabet to Coptic. 1st-century BC Greek vowel system Front Close Close-Mid Open

Central

i, ü

Back u

e

o a

But there is a very important reflection to make. Although often treated together, the phonological situation in the back and in the front part of the vowel system was essentially different. Open /e:/ and /e/ never merged with each other. Open /e:/, represented as η, would eventually merge with /i/ (written as ι), as had happened earlier with closed /e:/ (written ει). In modern Greek, η is actually pronounced /i/ and ε is pronounced /e/. Although at first this may be shocking, since η initially represented a vowel phoneme that was more open (and

23 24 25

Horrocks 2010, 165–66. Horrocks 2010, 166. Horrocks 2010, 167.

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longer) than ε,26 the closing and merging of ει with ι27 dragged the phoneme represented by η to higher positions,28 in a process that would eventually lead to its merger also with ι. The closing of the phoneme represented with η left behind room for the resolution of the old diphthong αι in /e:/.29 This new phoneme resulting from the old diphthong αι (/e:/), with the elimination of vowel length opposition, would actually be the one that would merge with the old ε (/e/). Horrocks is also the author of another very clear graphic representation with the final result of this process:30 As for the back vowels, the situation is different and somehow simpler: open /o:/ and /o/ did merge with each other with the disappearance of vowel length distinction. Close /o:/ (written ου) had become /u/ before that. Both ο/ω are pronounced /o/ until today. For this very reason, the situation with both pairs of letters should also be analysed separately. The fact that Coptic maintained the two pairs of letters could be taken as a sign that both pairs had an opposing pronunciation in this language, be that either in length or in quality. CLOSING REMARKS •

With the arrival of the koine, Greek underwent a major modification of the Classical vowel system. The process is well known, but the uncertainties and differences among scholars are in the detailed dating of each change everywhere and by all social classes. The process is well known, but texts coming from Egypt influence a lot how we see it; this complicates things, since occasionally we cannot be certain whether a specific phenomenon is 100% Greek or there is a certain Egyptian motivation. There are scholars (Theodorsson, for instance) that have argued changes in Greek happened earlier than initially suspected.31

•

•

•

26 27 28 29 30 31

ε represented a phoneme less open than η in Classical Greek. No. 1 in Horrocks’s figure: Horrocks 2010, 162. No. 2 in Horrocks’s figure: Horrocks 2010, 162. No. 3 in Horrocks’s figure: Horrocks 2010, 162. Horrocks 2007, 162. Theodorsson 1977.

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•

However, changes already undergone in 4th-century Athens could have been delayed, stopped or even reversed in the more conservative koine used in Egypt. The ‘academic’ conservative koine taught in schools did not agree with the familiar pronunciation of Greek by contemporary Greek native speakers in Egypt or elsewhere. The mistakes found in papyri, etc., may point out very different origins and may reflect: – totally Greek phenomena: they may represent the real pronunciation of Greek by natives or by learners reproducing faithfully what they are exposed to – spelling mistakes due to substratum influence of Coptic origin In Classical Greek, the pairs η/ε and ο/ω showed two types of phonological distinction: length and quality. By the time the Greek alphabet was adapted to represent Coptic, length opposition had been lost in these two pairs in spoken koine in Greece proper and elsewhere in the Orient (but perhaps not in Egypt?); as for the quality it had also been lost between ο/ω, whereas η kept itself always different from ε, as proven by the itacism process just described (concluded in the Late Roman or Early Byzantine period, when it finally merged with /i/). the Coptic alphabet of the 2nd century AD did maintain the graphic distinction between η and ε on the one hand and between ο and ω on the other.

•

•

• •

•

Now, we have, I believe, two possibilities: 1.

The quality of the two vowels of each pair was not the same (in Greek and in Coptic). This would imply a spoken koine divergent from the rest of contemporary Greek as far as the pair of back vowels goes; as for the front vowels the pronunciation was also different in Greek. The length of the two vowels of each pair was not the same (in Greek and in Coptic). This would imply a spoken koine divergent from the rest of contemporary Greek.

2.

Keeping the two pairs of letters might be simply a sign of a ‘purist’ usage of an archaic kind of koine in schools, learned by the Egyptian students.32 But this could be reinforced by a reality in the Coptic language. In this case, we would still have two main options: a. b.

The Coptic vowel system had an opposition of quality. The Coptic vowel system had an opposition of length. 32

Bagnall 2017, 20–23.

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These are the two main theories mentioned above. If one looks at what we know of Greek, although the events happened centuries earlier elsewhere in the Greek-speaking world in comparison with Egypt, there is a general impression that the loss of quality distinction is earlier than that of quantity.33 However, although this could be a good description of the changes undergone by the back vowels, the opposition in quality was really never lost in the front ones, as explained above. Taking into account the itacism process suffered by η,34 I would venture there is a slightly more plausible explanation that the pairs of letters in Coptic reflect differences in quality, since the Greek model, at least for the front vowels, also reflected a difference in quality. But, contrary to the Classical Greek pronunciation, it is likely that the letter η represented a phoneme less open than the phoneme represented by ε, since this was the situation as part of the itacism process in Late Hellenistic and Early Roman times in Greek, a process that, eventually, would mean a merging of the phoneme represented with η with the phoneme represented with ι (/i/). With the back vowels the situation is different. In Greek ο and ω did merge after losing both the quantity and the quality distinction. Therefore, it is harder to say what the fact the Coptic alphabet kept both letters implies in phonetic terms. I would be inclined to say there was a quality difference, because of the parallelism with the front vowels. But no one could say how these two vowels were pronounced, of course. The two pairs of letters could just be a representation of allophones and not phonemes. In a language with a reduced repertoire of vocalic phonemes, as the reconstructed Coptic vowel structure would suggest, the number of allophones should be high and the hesitations when adapting the writing system of a language with more vocalic phonemes could be significant. This is consistent with the reconstructed older stages of Egyptian vowel phonological values: Earlier Egyptian vowel system Front Close Open

33

Back

i, i:

u, u: a, a:

Allen 1987, 94. In Classical Greek it was longer and more open than ε, but in contemporary koine, it was a vowel of the same length but less open (it was moving towards /i/). 34

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Egyptian vowel system ca. 1000 BC (after Loprieno 1995, 39) Front Close

i:

Mid

e e:

Open

Central

Back

ə

o:

a Length theory vowel system Front

Close

i:

Mid

e e:

Central

Back u:

ə

Open

o o: a

Vowel quality theory vowel system Front Close

i:

Close-Mid

e

Mid

ɛ

Central

Back u: o

ə

Open

ɔ a

BIBLIOGRAPHY Appel, R. and Muysken, P. 1987: Language Contact and Bilingualism (London). Bagnall, R.S. 2017: ‘Zones of Interaction between Greek and Egyptian in Roman Egypt’. In Grossman et al. 2017, 19–26. Bard, K.A. and Shubert, S.B. (eds.) 1999: Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (London/New York). Bender, L., Takács, G. and Appleyard, D.L. (eds.) 2003: Selected Comparative-Historical Afro-Asiatic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff (LINCOM Studies in Afroasiatic Linguistics 14) (Munich). Diakonoff, I.M. 1988: Afrasian Languages (Moscow). Dimmendaal, G. and Voeltz, E. 2007: ‘Africa’. In Moseley, C. (ed.), Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages (London/New York). Ehret, C. 1995: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (University of California Publications in Linguistics 126) (Berkeley/Los Angeles). Greenberg, J.H. 1955: Studies in African Linguistic Classification (Branford, CT). —. 1962: ‘The interpretation of the Coptic vowel system’. Journal of African Languages 1, 22–29. Grossman, E., Dils, P., Richter, T.S. and Schenkel, W. (eds.) 2017: Greek Influence on Egyptian-Coptic: Contact-Induced Change in an Ancient African Language (DDGLC Working Papers 1; Lingua Aegyptia Studia Monographica 17) (Hamburg).

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Heine, B. and Nurse, D. 2000: African Languages: An Introduction (Cambridge). Horrocks, G.C. 2010: Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA). Huehnergard, J. 2004: ‘Afro-Asiatic’. In Woodard, R.D. (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (Cambridge), 138–59. Lambdin, T.O. 1983: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic (Macon, GA). Loprieno, A. 1995: Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge). Muysken, P. 2017: ‘Using Scenarios in Language Contact Studies: Linguistic Borrowings into Coptic’. In Grossman et al. 2017, 3–16. Newman, P. 1980: The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic (Leiden). Plumley, M.J. 1948: An introductory Coptic Grammar (Sahidic dialect) (London). Quack, J. 2017: ‘How the Coptic Script came about’. In Grossman et al. 2017, 27–96. Sands, B. 2009: ‘Africa’s linguistic diversity’. Language and Linguistics Compass 3.2, 559–80. Theil, R. 2006: ‘Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic?’. In Proceedings from the David Dwyer Retirement Symposium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 21 October 2006 (http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iln/LING2110/v07/THEIL+Is+Omotic+ Afroasiatic.pdf). Theodorsson, S. 1974: The Phonemic System of the Attic Dialect 400–340 B.C. (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 32) (Gothenburg). —. 1977: The Phonology of the Ptolemaic Koine (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 36) (Gothenburg). Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. 1973: Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge). Weinreich, U. 1953: Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York 1) (New York). Zakrzewska, E.D. 2017: ‘“A Bilingual Language Variety” or “The Language of the Pharaohs”? Coptic from the Perspective of Contact Linguistics’. In Grossman et al. 2017, 115–61.

PHRYGIAN IN CONTACT WITH GREEK: AN OVERVIEW Bartomeu OBRADOR-CURSACH

Abstract The goal of the present paper is to provide an updated analysis of the linguistic contact between Phrygian and Greek through specific aspects such as bilingual inscriptions, loanwords between languages (with a special focus on Aeolian Greek) and the use of the Greek alphabet and metre to write Phrygian epitaphs since the Hellenistic period.

THE PHRYGIAN LANGUAGE AND ITS CONTACT WITH GREEK The earliest evidence of Phrygian appears in some inscriptions found in Gordion, the royal seat of the Phrygians, and dates from the late 9th century BC. These inscriptions were written in an alphabet very similar to Greek script.1 The Phrygian alphabet was used until the Macedonian conquest of Anatolia (334 BC), and 387 inscriptions in this script have been discovered so far. Because of the alphabet used in these texts, their age and their linguistic features, this group of inscriptions is known as Old Phrygian (OPhr.) or PaleoPhrygian. Although the OPhr. sub-corpus has been found across a vast territory of Anatolia (from Parion to Tyana),2 it is unlikely that the language was spoken in such a large area. It is important to note that more than half of this subcorpus (259 out of 395 inscriptions) was found in Gordion. Other relevant sites with respect to Phrygian inscriptions are Midas City, Dorylaion and the surrounding areas of Alacahöyük, Boğazkale (formerly Boğazköy, the ancient Ḫattuša) and Kerkenes Dağ. In addition, 15 inscriptions were uncovered in Bithynia, including the longest Phrygian text (the Vezirhan stele, B-05). Although many inscriptions contain few letters or simply a personal name, 1 According to Brixhe (2004b, 276–77), the oldest earliest inscriptions are G-104, G-237 and G-249. The numbers of the OPhr. inscriptions (preceded by a letter to indicate the area in which they were found) refer to the recompilation of Brixhe and Lejeune (CIPPh) and Brixhe’s supplements (2002a and 2004a), while NPhr. inscriptions (without letters) refer to Ramsay’s first compilation (1887), which has been followed and enhanced by many scholars. 2 Phrygian texts have even been found in Karkemish and Persepolis. However, these are isolated discoveries: a personal name engraved in a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription (Börker-Klähn 1994) and an administrative clay tablet (HP-114), respectively. On the expansion of the OPhr. inscriptions, see Brixhe 2004b, 272–73.

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the OPhr. sub-corpus also includes longer inscriptions that provide a rich typology of texts: cultic (on the famous West Phrygian façades or little idols), offerings (for example G-02), seals (for example Dd-101), an administrative clay tablet (HP-114), a weight (G-249), etc. After the Macedonian conquest, or perhaps a little earlier, the Phrygian alphabet fell out of use and the Phrygians adopted the Greek script to represent their language. However, until the Roman Imperial period, aside from some graffiti on sherds from Gordion dating from Hellenistic times, only one Phrygian inscription clearly belongs to the very beginning of this period. This text is an obscure epitaph found in Alanyurt (olim Bavurdu) and bearing the Greek names of two men: Νικόστρατος and Κλεόμαχος (see below). This text presents features that are common to both the old and new Phrygian subcorpora, which led Brixhe3 to propose an intermediate stage for the language called Middle Phrygian. The last stage of Phrygian language is New Phrygian (NPhr.) and consists of 117 inscriptions dated between the end of the 1st and the middle of the 3rd century AD found in an area of the OPhr. sub-corpus restricted to ‘a sphere bounded by Eskişehir-Dorylaion, Kütahya-Kotiaion, the lake of Eğridir, Laodikeia Katakekaumene and the northern point of Lake Tatta (Tuz Gölü)’.4 All are funerary texts. Although the number of inscriptions is considerable, much of the material is redundant since few inscriptions contain more than a formulaic curse.5 Indeed, most of the New Phrygian texts consist of an epitaph in Greek and are similar to the following standardised text: ιος νι σεμουν κνουμανει κακουν αδδακετ, με δεως κε ζεμελως κε ατ Τιε τιττετικμενος ειτου. ‘whoever does harm to this tomb, let him be accursed by Zeus in the sight of gods and men.’

It seems that the process of language replacement in Phrygia was complete in the major cities by Roman Imperial times, since most of the NPhr. inscriptions are restricted to villages and towns. However, Greek loanwords and calques have been found elsewhere, so even there this process can be perceived. In any case, although it has been said that the last possible evidence of Phrygian as a living language was provided by Socrates of Constantinople in the 5th century AD (Historia Ecclesiastica 5. 23), Sozomen (Historia Ecclesiastica 7. 17) specifies that Selinas, the bishop assumed to be capable of praying in Phrygian (as well as in Gothic), did so in Greek.6 3 4 5 6

Brixhe 1993, 326–27; 2004a, 9; 2008, 71. Brixhe 2013, 60. NPhr. 9, 15, 18, 30, 31, 48, 58, 69, 98, 116 (the longest NPhr. inscription), 120 and 130. See Roller 2018, 124–25.

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The decipherment of Phrygian inscriptions is ongoing; nevertheless, the inscriptions reflect a language very close to Greek. For this reason, it is often compared with Macedonian and Thracian too,7 and these languages are frequently grouped under the label ‘Balkan languages’. Indeed, Greek sources and modern scholars consider that Phrygian entered Anatolia from the Balkans; however, its origins and the period in which it crossed the Bosporus or the Dardanelles remain unclear. Although contact between Phrygian and Greek seems to be longstanding, the two languages also coexisted after the Phrygian invasion of Anatolia, throughout the whole millennium in which Phrygian was written. Even before the Macedonian conquest, Phrygian texts reflect Greek influences in the form of loanwords, personal names and the use of the alphabet, if one assumes that the Phrygian alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet.8 Greek also presents some Phrygian loanwords from the archaic period. The objective of this paper is to present this linguistic contact in detail by analysing bilingual inscriptions, loanwords, Greek personal names in Phrygian,9 the use of the Greek alphabet to represent the Phrygian language and the possible adaptation of Greek metrics in MPhr. and NPhr. epitaphs. Another aspect to consider is the role of Phrygian as a substratum and adstratum language with respect to Greek in Phrygia. However, since this subject has been studied in depth by Brixhe10 and this paper focuses on Phrygian, I will refer to his work only when the features of Phrygian Greek are relevant to the aspects presented herein. THE GRAECO-PHRYGIAN INSCRIPTIONS Aside from some damaged graffiti on a sherd containing the last letters of a Phrygian text and the beginning of an Aramaic one (G-157), Phrygian is associated only with Greek in bilingual inscriptions. Nevertheless, these texts are not word-for-word translations; instead, each language provides complementary information. The only exception is the oldest Graeco-Phrygian bilingual inscription, the Vezirhan stele (B-05, first edited by Neumann in 1997), which contains 13 long lines of a lex sacra summarised in seven short lines of a 7

Brixhe 2006. The first Phrygian inscriptions date from some decades before Greek ones. However, the age of the alphabet cannot be based exclusively on the chronology of the inscriptions that have survived. For more about this complex subject, see Brixhe 2004b. 9 Greek personal names in the New Phrygian sub-corpus are not as relevant as those found before the Macedonian conquest of Anatolia, which imply early contact with Greek words in pre-Hellenistic times. 10 Brixhe 1987, 110–16. 8

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Greek inscription from a little later. The correspondence between the two texts is provided in Table 1: Table 1: Correspondence between the Phrygian and Greek texts in the Vezirhan stele (B-05). Phrygian text sin⸗t imenạn Kạliyạ ti tedạt[oy?] ‘this monument Kallias erect[ed]’

L. 1

L. 8-9

L. 11

Greek text L. 1-3

yos niy ạrt sint imenạn kạkạ oskạvos kạkey | kạn dedạsitiy L. 3-4 ‘whoever makes harm around this monument…’ torvetun ↑irạy ‘cutting (a tree) by his hand’?

L. 4-5

Καλλίας Αβικτου παῖς | ΗΓΗΜΑΣ ἀνέ|θεκεν. ‘Kallias son of Abiktos erected (it)’ Ὅστις περὶ | τὸ ἱερὸν κακουρετήσαι ‘Whoever harms around this holy place’ δρῦν | ἐκόψαι ‘or cuts a tree’

Simon11 also equated the last Phrygian line, yos isekosos ↑emeney ḍupratoy vebạn ituv, to the conclusive Greek blessing in ll 6–7, καὶ τοῖ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἐνθ|άδε ἥκοντι πολὰ καὶ ἀγαθά (‘and who coming here reads it, many and good things to him’). Although he defends his hypothesis in an etymological analysis of each word based on sound knowledge of historical Phrygian phonetics, the occurrence of veban in a NPhr. inscription (130, first edited by Avram in 2015) invalidates the equation between the texts, since this word in NPhr. clearly refers to the monument (a memorial in the shape of an altar) or part of it: αινι ουεβαν δεδασσιννι πατρε|ς σεμουν κορο[υ]μανη (‘if? the parents put this veban in this place…’). Indeed, ουεβαν must be equated to μνημόσυνον (‘memorial’) in the Greek part of this NPhr. inscription (Face A). Leaving aside the apparent lack of a Phrygian counterpart for καὶ τοῖ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἐνθ|άδε ἥκοντι πολὰ καὶ ἀγαθά, another difference between the texts lies in the fact that the Greek text in the Vezirhan stele contains the name of the promotor’s father, Καλλίας Αβικτου παῖς, while this information is not recorded in the Phrygian version, which mentions only Kaliya. Nevertheless, despite Hämmig’s excellent analysis of ll. 8–1312 (the imprecative part of the text), most of this long inscription remains obscure. In any case, the Vezirhan stele is the only Graeco-Phrygian bilingual inscription in the whole OPhr. sub-corpus. In Roman times, however, most NPhr. inscriptions are bilingual, but the epitaph itself proper is commonly written in Greek, while Phrygian is restricted to a formulaic curse, commonly in a 11 12

Simon 2015. Hämmig 2013.

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secondary position.13 Thus, both parts of these funerary texts are independent clauses, and the Phrygian curses were added systematically as a formula.14 Only five of the 63 bilingual inscriptions from Roman times present a real connection between the Greek and Phrygian texts: 9 (= MAMA IV 18): υσδουνετ[.]ου πασε | δεκμουταις κινο[υ]|μα ετι μνκαν οπεσταμ|εναν δαδιτι Νεν[υε]ρια | παρτυς ουβρα. | Κόϊντος Ῥούφου τῇ ἰδί|ᾳ γυναικὶ Νενυεριᾳ μν|[ήμη]ς ἀ[ϊδ]ιότατον ἵνεκα. | [- - -]. The Phrygian text remains obscure. Some, κινο[υ]|μα (‘tomb’) (variant spelling for κνουμαν) and μνκαν (‘stele’), shows that the Phrygian part describes the monument, while the Greek text identifies the promotor (Κόϊντος Ῥούφου [‘Quintus the son of Rufus’]). Nevertheless, both texts show that the monument was made for a girl called Νενυερια. 48: [- - -]. | ε[..]γεντουμενος | νιοισιος ναδροτος | ειτου. μιτραφατα | κε μας τεμρογε|ιος κε πουντας | βας κε ενσταρνα. | δουμε κε οι ουε|βαν αδδακετ ορου|αν, παρεθέμην τὸ | μνημεῖον τοῖς προ|γεγραμμένοις θε|οῖς κὲ τῇ κώμῃ· | ταυθ’ ὁ πατὴρ | Ἀσκληπιός. (‘[Phrygian] let him become ε[..]γεντουμενος, νιοισιος [two obscure adjectives] and impotent?. Mitrapata and Mas Timbrogic and Bas Pontan were appointed. And for [the care of] the religious community the father [or keeper] has put his [tomb]stone. [Greek] I put this memorial under the protection of the aforementioned gods and the community. The father Asklepios [established] these things.’).15 88: Αὐρ(ήλιος) Μηνόφιλος Οὐενούστου κὲ Μα|νια Ἀντιόχου ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ Αππῃ καὶ Οὐεναουίῃ τέκνοις ἀώροις καὶ | ἑαυτοῖς μνήμης χάριν. ❧ ιος | νι σεμουν κνουμανει κακε | αδδακετ αωρω ουεναουιας, τιγ|γεγαριτμενος ιτου, πουρ ουανα|κταν κε ουρανιον ιστ?εικετ διουνσιν. ❧ | ❧ καὶ Αὐρ(ηλίῳ) Σώζοντι Κανκαρου ἀνδρὶ τῆς Οὐεναουίης. (‘[Greek] Aurelios Menophilos the son of Venustos and his wife Mania the daughter of Antiochus for Appe and Venavia, their children who died prematurely, in memoriam. [Phrygian] Whoever does harm to this tomb of the prematurely dead Venavia, let him become accursed and he will be responsible towards the heavenly king Dionysos.16 [Greek] and for Aurelios Sozon the son of Kankaros, Venavias’ husband.’).

13

In only two inscriptions, 72 and 122, does the Phrygian formula precede the Greek epitaph. This is the layout of texts in 2, 4, 4b, 10, 12, 14, 20, 21, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 42, 43, 47, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 67, 68, 73, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 89, 90, 92, 97, 107, 109, 111, 112, 115, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127 and 128. It should also be noted that the Greek epitaph in 58 is followed by a non-imprecative Phrygian text, but with an exhortation against burying someone else in the tomb. Note also that it is very likely that many of the inscriptions consisting of a Phrygian curse originally followed a Greek text, which has been lost due to damage to these funerary monuments. On code-switching in New Phrygian inscriptions, see a recent study by Anfosso 2017. 15 This tentative translation is based mainly on a study of this inscription by Lubotsky (1997). ‘Father’ seems to be used here as a title for a priest. For a contrasting opinion, see Polito (2004, 29), who considers Asklepios to be the real father of the deceased. 16 Translation of the last apodosis by Lubotsky 2004, 235. 14

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98: Κλωδία | Σοφοκλέ|ως θυγά|τηρ καὶ Τερ|τίας· παρ|θένε, χαῖρε. δακαρεν πα|τερης ευκιν | αργου. (‘[Greek text] Clodia the daughter of Sofocles and Tertias. Hail, oh maiden. [Phrygian text] [Her] parents set it up as a vow.’). 130: [Face A] Βρογιμαρος Ἐπικράτου | Διὶ Βρογιμαρου καὶ Κυρί|ᾳ εὐχήν, καὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυ|τῷ μνημόσυνον. | αινι ουεβαν δεδασσιννι πατρε|ς σεμουν κορο[υ] μανη σως κη | γουμειε, καρπυς ειλικρινη εγο|υννου | αινι κος κακην αδδακετ κορο|[υ]μανη σως κη γουμειε, τιττετι|[κ]μενος ειτου εικαδ αυτον μεκ|αν τιαν. [Face B] Εὐξάμενος πρὸς ἔπ|ος ἱεραῖς ἐπαοιδαῖς ἐν|γελάον ἐγὼ πάτρῃ τε | [γόν]οις μου, χεὶρ ὑπὲρ Ι[|.]Α[…..]εχειν | [- - -]λακεδοηων μηνε|[- - -]ροιο δάμαρτος Ο|[- - -]ΟΜωЄΙ δοξ’ Ἀριστο|[- - -]ΝΕΠ[- - -]. [Face C] .Ο..ΜΕ [- - -] | υἱὸς [- - -] |..Π…..Η [- - -]| γλυκερω[..]ΑΠΟ [- - -]. [Face D] [..]ẸN[- -] Βρογιμα|ρος ἐγὼ μεγάλου Διὸς | ἀρητὴρ ἔ[ν]θα μένω | ἱεροῖς ἐνὶ καρποῖς |ΜΗΠΣΟ ̣ΑΝΑ - - Ο…|ΟΣ- - - - - Α….Ε..Υ|ΑΣ..ΑΝ - - - - Α - -|.Ο….ΟΥ. (‘[Translation of the Greek text, ll. 1–4:] Brogimaros, [Sohn] des Epikrates, für den Zeus des Brogimaros und für Kyria aufgrund eines Gelübdes und für sich selbst [als] Denkmal. [First Phrygian clause ll. 5–8:] und wenn die Eltern dieser Grabparzelle das Grab geweiht haben, ihnen [selbst] und dem Geschlecht, das daraus entspränge [?], [so soll] dem Nachfolger Reinheit und Bodenfrüchten [bestimmt sein?]; [Second Phrygian clause below the relief, ll. 9–12:] wer immer aber der Grabparzelle Böses antut, ihnen und dem Geschlecht, das daraus entspränge [?], so soll er unter einem Fluch von großem Zeus wandeln. [Greek B] Indem ich zu diesem Zweck meinen Wunsch durch heilige Beschwörungen ausgesprochen habe und wobei ich mich meines Geschlechtes und meiner Kinder erfreue… [Greek D] … ich Brogimaros, Priester des großen Zeus, bleibe hier in gesegneten Bodenfrüchten.’).17

In three inscriptions, a Phrygian curse after the Greek epitaph is followed by a different one in Greek: 5 ις κε σεμουν κουμινος | αδακεν, με διω[ς ζ]εμελως τιτετικμενος ητου. | ὃς ἂν δὲ κακῶς [π]υήσε, τέκνα ἄω|ρα ἐντύ[χοιτο]. (‘[Phrygian] Whoever does to this tomb, let him be accursed in the sight of gods and men. [Greek] Whoever does harms, let his children die prematurely.’); 103 [ιος] σεμον τι κνουμανι κ[ακ]|[ον α]βερετι ζει[ραι] παρταν, το[ς] | [νι με] ζι[μελως] α τι ατιτικμενος | [ειτ]ου. | [τίς ἂν] τούτῳ κακὴν χεῖρα | [προσ]οίσει, ὀρφανὰ τέκνα λ[ί]|[ποιτ]ο, χῆρον βίον, οἶκον ἔ|[ρημ]ον. (‘[Phrygian] Whoever brings harm to this tomb by his hand παρταν?, let him be accursed by Zeus in the sight of men. [Greek] Whoever lays a wicked hand on this tomb, may he leave orphaned children, a widow’s life for his wife, and a deserted house’);18 64, although the text was not well preserved when copied by Ramsay and Calder.19

17 Tentative translation taken from Avram 2015, with remarks by Obrador-Cursach 2016 and de Hoz 2017, 141. 18 On this last Greek formula, see Strubbe 1997, 291–92, with many parallels in eastern Phrygia. 19 Calder 1911, 210–11.

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Finally, a more interesting example of bilingualism is inscription 96 (= MAMA VI 382),20 which consists of a single curse with a Greek protasis and a Phrygian apodosis: ὃς ἂν τούτῳ τῷ μνημείῳ κακῶς προσποιήσει ἢ τοῖς | προγεγραμμένοις ὑπεναντίον τι πράξῃ, με δεως κε | ζεμελως κε τιτετικμ̮ενος ειτου. (‘[in Greek] who damages this monument or contravenes the foregoing injunctions, [in Phrygian] let him be accursed in the sight of gods and men’). This reveals a good example of tag- or formula-switching (to use Adams’s terminology).21 The addressee of the curse is written in Greek (readable by non-Phrygian speakers), but the punishment is expressed in the standardised Phrygian apodosis. GREEK LOANWORDS IN PHRYGIAN The Greek influence on Phrygian is revealed by the huge number of examples of Greek loanwords in the Phrygian corpus. Indeed, at least ten words are considered to be Greek in origin. Although this is not a high number in absolute terms, it is considerable in the fragmentary context of the Phrygian language. The possible Greek loanwords are as follows: –

– –

–

– –

ακροδμαν (116): despite not existing in the Greek language, it clearly seems Greek in formation, parallel to μεσό-δμη (‘crossbeam’)22 and built with the element ἄκρος (‘at the farthest point or end, topmost’) and -δμᾱ(‘house’) (> Att.-Ion. -δμη-, derived from δέμω [‘build’]). ανανκαι (35): very likely the Greek noun ἀνάγκη (‘force, constraint, necessity’). αωρω (88): clearly a loanword from Greek ἄωρος, -ον (‘untimely, unseasonable’); this interpretation is corroborated by the Greek part of the inscription. εγουννου (130): this word was identified by Avram23 as a loanword from Greek ἔγγονον (‘descendant’); it also appears in the Greek part of this inscription. ειλικρινη (130): a clear loanword from Greek εἰλικρινής, -ές, (‘unmixed, without alloy, pure’); also found in the Greek part of the inscription.24 ζως (69): very likely borrowed from Greek ζώς (‘alive, living’), although the context remains obscure.

20 Brixhe (2002b, 252) considered this inscription to be irrefutable proof that Phrygian was understood. 21 Adams 2003, 22. 22 Brixhe and Neumann 1985, 172. 23 Avram 2015, 211. 24 See Avram 2015, 14–15.

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θαλαμει (‘funerary chamber’) (4): this noun was clearly borrowed from Greek θαλάμη (‘a lurking-place, den, hole, cave’).25 vanakt- (sg.nom. modro-vanak M-04, sg.acc. ουανακταν 88 and sg.dat. vanaktei W-01a): this seems to have been borrowed from Greek (ϝ)άναξ, -κτος (Myc. wa-na-ka /wanaks/). Since the word has no clear origin and is commonly considered a ‘substrate word’ (EDG 98–99), it is possible that Phrygian shares this substrate with Greek; however, in light of the word lavagtaei, it is very likely a loanword from Greek (see below). kako- (verb 3sg.opt. kakoioi G-02c / kakuioi P-04b, sg.nom.-acc. noun κακουν passim and adverb kạkey B-05 / κακε 88 / κακην 130, etc.): this is clearly related to the Greek word κακός (‘bad’). Although it has been considered a Greek loanword (see EDG 620), there is no phonetic reason to refute the Phrygian and Greek words as cognates. Note that the origin of this word is unclear. κορο- (κορου 92):26 borrowed from Greek χώρος (‘a definite space, piece of ground, place’), in Phrygian it may refer to the space devoted to the tomb and also appears in the derived noun κορο[υ]μανη (130). kraniyas (B-05, sg.gen.): this adjective in -yā- is an Artemis epithet that seems to be derived from the Aeolic noun κράννα (‘spring, fountain’) (Alcaeus fr. 105.5, Att.-Ion. κρήνη, Dor. κράνα). kuryaneyon (W-01c, sg.nom.): this word was identified by Lubotsky27 as a Greek loanword in light of the Greek word κοιρανέων. However, as discussed below, he realised that this must have been borrowed in Mycenaean times, before the *kori- > κοιρ- shift that appears in alphabetic Greek. Nevertheless, a Graeco-Phrygian cognate cannot be ruled out. lavagtaei (W-01a, sg.dat.): this title is borrowed (see below) from the Mycenaean ra-wa-ke-ta /lāwāgetās/ also found as λαγέτας in Pindar (Olympian Odes 1. 89 and Pythian Odes 2. 85, 4. 107 and 10. 31), Sophocles (fr. 221. 12), Strabo (10. 4, 10) and, with the variant λαγέτης, in Hesychius (λ 51). OPhr. lavagtaei contains a spelling problem in the ending, since the expected form would be *lavagetai. It remains unclear whether Phrygian preserved this title from Mycenaean times or whether it was borrowed from a very conservative dialect. λατομειον (18): this noun is a loanword from Greek λατομεῖον (‘stonequarry’) (also spelled as λατόμιον and λατομίς28) used to mean ‘grave’, at least in inscriptions from Perinthos (for example, IG 22 13218 or CIG 2032).

– –

–

–

–

–

–

–

25 26 27 28

Brixhe 1978, 5. The presence of κορο in W-12 may be discounted after Lubotsky’s analysis (2017, 430–31). Lubotsky 1988, 23–25. See Woodhouse 2006, 182.

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ναδροτος (1.1): perhaps a loanword from Greek ἄνανδρος, -ον, with the meaning ‘impotent, husbandless’,29 despite the apheresis. σορο- (σοροι W-12 and σορου 21, 124): this noun is considered a loanword from Greek σορός -ου (‘cinerary urn’) by Brixhe.30 It should be noted that this word is used to mean ‘sarcophagus’ in Anatolia.31 sṭaḷ?a (B-06): this seems to be borrowed from Aeolic στάλλα (‘stele’),32 although the reading is not at all clear and the context is lost. τις (71) and τι (39): the Greek indefinite pronoun τις, τι (‘anyone, anything’) used instead of the Phrygian cognate ki-. In NPhr. 71, τις even occurs as a relative introducing the protasis, this feature is common in Greek texts from Hellenistic and Roman times.33 This grammatical borrowing, found only in NPhr, demonstrates the intensity of the relationship between Greek and Phrygian in Roman times.

– –

– –

As shown, most of these words relate to the funerary world (parts of monuments or words related to curses) and are mainly, but not exclusively, found in the NPhr. sub-corpus. Problems with Identifying Greek Borrowing in Phrygian: Loanwords or Cognates? Because Phrygian and Greek are such close languages from a genetic point of view, it is not always easy to determine whether a Phrygian word is a cognate or a loanword from Greek. Only when a phonetic rule or morphological feature restricted to Greek occurs can one be completely sure that a word is a loanword and not an inherited word. This issue is reflected in the classic discussion of Midas’ titles in the inscription W-01a: lavagtaei and vanaktei. Are these words shared with Greek or early loanwords into Phrygian? Because of the Phrygian Lautverschiebung, lavagtaei must these days be considered a Greek loanword, but vanakt- (sg.nom. vanak M-04 and sg.acc. ουανακταν = 88) remains ambiguous. Greek (ϝ)άναξ, -κτος (Myc. wa-na-ka /wanaks/) has no clear origin and is commonly considered a ‘substrate word’ (EDG 98–99). Perhaps Greek shares this substrate with Phrygian, but in view of lavagtaei, it was likely borrowed from Greek too.34 29

Lubotsky 1987, 122. Brixhe 2002b, 258. 31 Kubińska 1968, 32–35. 32 Brixhe 2004a, 71. 33 On this feature in Anatolian Greek inscriptions, see Brixhe 1987, 84. Note that there are more Greek curses in Phrygia introduced by τις (in 46 inscriptions of Strubbe 1997) than ὅς (38). 34 Brixhe in several papers (1990, 73–75; 1993, 340–41; 1994, 176–77; 2002b, 257) considered Phrygian vanakt- and Greek ἄναξ, -κτος to be cognates and, consequently, provides proof 30

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A similar case occurs in kuryaneyon W-01c, also a title. According to Ligorio and Lubotsky,35 this is a Mycenaean loanword (borrowed before the metathesis *kori- > κοιρ- and the loss of yod, as alphabetic Greek κοιρανέων, present participle of κοιρανέω, shows).36 However, aside from the fact that at least one title is borrowed (lavagtaei), there is no phonetic or morphological reason to conclude that Phrygian kuryaneyon is not a cognate of the Greek word κοιρανέων, since Phrygian kury- fits, as inherited from PIE *kori-. This is the difference between kuryaneyon and vanaktei: the first word originates from the mother language of Phrygian and Greek, while the second is a loanword from an unidentified substrate language, whose contact with Greek is uncertain. In any case, it is unclear whether both words were borrowed from Greek. Finally, the root kako- (verb 3sg.opt. kakoioi G-02c / kakuioi P-04b, sg. nom.-acc. noun κακουν passim and adverb kạkey B-05 / κακε 88 / κακην 130, etc.) is also ambiguous. There is no evidence of borrowing, aside from the fact that this word is found only in Greek and Phrygian. Are they cognates or were the Phrygian forms borrowed from Greek? Possible Aeolic Words in Phrygian and Phrygian Words in Greek Literature Based on the list above, one can conclude that, while Greek o-stems remained as o-stems in Phrygian, old Greek a-stems with the Attic-Ionian shift ᾱ > η were inflected as consonant-stems in Phrygian in light of θαλάμη > θαλαμει (4, sg.dat.).37 This example shows that Phrygian a-stem loanwords cannot have been borrowed from Ionian, Attic or Koine, but from a dialect without the ᾱ > η shift. From a phonetic and geographical point of view, Aeolic is the most likely origin of these loanwords. Indeed, the Aeolic dialect retained the original ā in all positions and contact with Phrygian is corroborated by the presence of at least one Phrygian word in Lesbian poetry (see below). Therefore, ανανκαι (35, sg.dat.) can be considered a loanword from the Aeolic ἀνάγκα (Alcaeus fr. 75. 6, 249. 9 and 298. 2) and sṭaḷ?a (B-06) from στάλλα (in of the relationship between the two languages. However, as shown, it is not so clear-cut and does not constitute a valid argument to establish the position of Phrygian. 35 Lubotsky 2013, 187. 36 Brixhe (in Brixhe and Summers 2006, 128) interpreted it as a noun in sg.acc. without explaining its meaning or origin. 37 There is some evidence against the existence of /eː/ and /ɛː/ in Phrygian (see § 5.2.2.). Note also that personal names in -es in Phrygian have a hesitant inflection: compare manes (nom., B-07) / mane (Dd-103), maniṇ (acc., B-07) and manitos (gen., B-07) with αδε|νατω (dat.?, 69), if indeed it is the dat. of αδενπ|ατης (69), or atevo (W-10), if it is the gen. of ates, as Brixhe (1983, 124) argued (with the same -vo ending found in the possible a-stem leravo or lelavo W-10 and the pronoun [t]ovo, G-02 c).

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inscriptions from Aeolis and Lesbos). Even Artemis’ epithet kraniyas (B-05, sg.gen.) is very likely derived from the Aeolic word κράννα (‘spring, fountain’) (Alcaeus fr. 105. 5, Att.-Ion. κρήνη, Dor. κρᾱ́να). Although the word is not attested in Aeolic, ακροδμαν (116), a formation similar to μεσό-δμη (‘crossbeam’),38 is very likely Aeolic. Evidence of Aeolic-Phrygian contact is not restricted to Aeolic loanwords in Phrygian. Indeed, Lubotsky39 showed that Sappho’s βεῦδος (‘woman’s dress’, fr. 155, also ‘statue’ at Hermione, Etymologicum Magnum 195. 52, and Hesychius β 542) is a borrowing from OPhr. bevdos (‘statue’) (B-01). As a working hypothesis, I suggest that the poetic word κῖκυς (‘strength, vigour’) is also Phrygian in origin and was introduced to the Greek literary tradition through Aeolic poetry. Although this word, as well as its derivative ἄκικυς (‘powerless, feeble’), appears for the first time in the Odyssey, the Etymologicum Gudianum reports that this noun was also used by Alcaeus: ὁ δὲ Ἀλκαῖος, ὁμοίως Ὁμήρῳ τὸν ἰσχυρὸν κίκυν καλεῖ (‘Alcaeus, like Homer, calls the strength κίκυν’).40 Despite the fact that it is not attested in the Phrygian corpus, its etymology suggests that it is Phrygian in origin. Since it is derived from PIE *gwih3g(w)u- according to Mihaylova,41 it fits perfectly with the historic Phrygian phonetic system, as shown by *gwneh2- > knays (‘woman, wife’) (HP-114, Greek γυνή)42 and *sleh2gw- > lakedo (W-01b, equated to the Greek λαμβάνω [‘take’] by Lubotsky).43 Leaving aside Aeolic poetry, Herodotus (2. 2) reported that the Phrygian word for bread is βέκος in the famous tale of Pharaoh Psammetichus I. This has been corroborated by the use of this word in some New Phrygian curses with the same meaning.44 Therefore, some knowledge of Phrygian is once again reflected in some of the most famous writers of ancient Greece.

38

Brixhe and Neumann 1985, 172. Lubotsky 2008. 40 The use of κῖκυς is restricted to Odyssey (11. 393), the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (237) and some fragments of Alcaeus and Aeschylus conveyed by lexicographers. The derived noun ἄκικυς occurs in Odyssey (9. 515 and 21. 131), Aeschylus (Prometheus Victus 548), Theocritus (11. 6), Oppian (Halieutica 4. 468), Orphika lithika (22 and 140) and Leonidas of Tarentum (Anthologia Palatina 7. 661). Hippocrates (Morb. 4. 565) is the sole writer in prose to use it. Lexicographers and grammarians report that the verb ἀνακικύειν is used only by Aeschylus (in fragments of lost works), while the plain form κικύω (‘to be strong’) occurs only in glosses. 41 Mihaylova 2016, 312. 42 Note that the Phrygian form has levelled -ay- from the oblique cases. 43 Lubotsky 2004, 234–35. In addition, it is also highly probable that the Aeolian shift *-ans, *-ons > -αις -οις is an areal feature shared with Phrygian (cf. B-04 braterais ‘brothers’, in pl.acc.). 44 NPhr. nos. 18, 33, 76, 86, 99, 108, 111 and 128. 39

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Another Phrygian word found in Greek literature is γλουρός, -οῦ (‘gold’), used by Besantinus in his famous bomos-calligram (Anthologia Palatina 15. 25, 7). The first Phrygian inscription written in the Greek alphabet (W-12) confirms the Hesychian gloss that reports that the word is Phrygian (Γ 659): γλούρεα· χρύσεα. Φρύγες γλουρός· χρυσός (g.: golden things. Phrygians. Also g.: gold). Indeed, the Phrygian word γλουρεος is a cognate of Greek and both originate in PIE *ǵhl̥h3- ‘green, yellow’. In addition, it has been claimed that the Homeric word ἄκολος (‘bit, morsel’) (Odyssey 17. 222) comes from the Phrygian word ακκαλος (33, 76 and 108, ακαλα 2). Its etymon is unclear. However, I suggest that it is a loanword from the Assyrian akalu (‘bread’). Nevertheless, if both words share the same origin, the Greek form can only be explained as showing a vocalic dissimilation a_a > a_o. In any case, the most widespread Phrygian word in Greek is the theonym Κυβέλη, attested in Phrygian in Matar’s epithet Kubeleya (B-01 and B-08)45 / Kubileya (W-04). This name for the goddess may come from an oronym Κύβελον, in a similar way to some of Matar’s other epithets. The Greek form Κυβέλη seems to be an early borrowing of this theonym, since the final -η may show a general loss of intervocalic /j/ and the contraction of the resulting hiatus: -eya > *-e.a > - η. The Kubeleya > Κυβέλη shift can therefore be equated to Attic Ἀθηναία > Ἀθήνη (‘Athena’). The early dissemination of this theonym in Greek is verified by the presence of the form Ϙυβάλας in Lokroi Epizephyrioi (Italy) in the first half of the 6th century BC.46 The original form with -eya- is preserved in two Greek inscriptions devoted to the goddess. Indeed, Ματρὶ Κυβελείαι appeared in a votive inscription from Bulgaria (4th century BC)47 and Μητρὶ Κυβελείῃ, in Ionian, in an inscription from Chios (no. 137, undated).48

45 B-08 is the OPhr. inscription recently found near B-01 and published by Brixhe and Vottéro 2016. 46 The unique spelling of ϙυβάλας instead of *ϙυβέλας can be explained by its adaptation to the north-western dialect of Lokroi Epizephyrioi. Although inscriptions from the city do not provide any other example of ελ > αλ (or of ερ > αρ), it is a known feature of these groups of Greek dialects: see Delphian Δαλφοι for Δελφοί (Méndez Dosuna 1985, 397). The alternative explanation, a dissimilation from Kubaba (the North Syrian mother-goddess also found in Lydian as Kuwawa and in Herodotus as Κυβήβη) must be refuted in light of the Phrygian form, even though also Ϙβάβας (SEG 49.1357) occurs in Lokroi Epizephyrioi. 47 Nessebar Museum, inv. no. 1354, Sharankov 2009, 48, no. 28. 48 Before the Phrygian form Kubeleya was known, Louis Robert (1933, 483–84) suggested that the mother-goddess worshipped in the inscription from Chios was named after Κυβέλειον, a city in the Erythraean peninsula known by Strabo 14. 1. 33 and Stephanus of Byzantium 10. 245. However, a votive inscription from Erythrai clearly shows that the goddess worshipped there was the Phrygian one: Ἡδεῖα Μητρὶ Φρυγίαι ‘Hedeia for the Phrygian Mother’

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As with other Phrygian gods, the superior Phrygian male god has been found in a Greek source. Indeed, Stephanus of Byzantium reports that the city of Tion was named after the local name for Zeus. It is highly likely that this information is correct, since it implies that the local name for Zeus was Ti-, which is exactly what appears in NPhr. inscriptions: Τιαν (acc.), Τιος (gen.) and Τι, Τιε or Τιη.49 Greek inscriptions from Phrygia represent another important source of Phrygian, since they contain Phrygian words. Such is the case of δοῦμος (‘religious community’), which occurs in inscriptions from north-eastern Lydia and Pisidia, one from Phrygia50 and another from Thracia (IGBulg. IV, no. 20, from Serdica/Sofia), as well as in Greek poems (such as Hipponax 40. 2 and Philodemus Anthologia Palatina 7. 222).51 In Phrygian, it occurs as duman (OPhr. sg.acc., B-01) and in δουμε (NPhr. sg.dat., 48).52 In NPhr. inscription 48 (see § 2), δουμε is equated to Greek κώμη (‘unwalled village’) and may reveal that this word was not restricted to the world of religion in Phrygian. In any case, analysing this word is not straightforward, and even its etymology is not at all clear. If the word is indeed Phrygian and inherited, it can be equated to Greek θωμός (‘heap’) and Go. doms (‘judgment’), which seem to have their origins in a derivative of the PIE root *dheh1- ‘put’ (LIV2 136–140; IEW 235– 239). Nevertheless, if this is the case, it is unclear why the Phrygian cognate is not inflected as a thematic word, as with the Greek noun. The epithets of the gods in Greek inscriptions from Phrygia are another important source of information on the Phrygian language.53 Perhaps the most famous is Βέννιος, which refers to Zeus. This adjective probably derives from the noun βέννος (‘society of the faithful’). The prehistory of this word is still unknown and it is unclear whether it occurs as the first element of the personal name Bena-gonos (G-116, as Lejeune suggested).54 Although there are more (IEryth. 80). In such a scenario, the name of Κυβέλειον is more easily explained as being named after the Phrygian mother-goddess. 49 Spelling variants of its dat., Lubotsky 1997, 126, n. 23; 2004, 230. 50 Neumann 2002. 51 It also occurs in Lat. inscriptions as dumus (in Lancia, Hispania, see Aldea Celada 2013) and in the compound dumopireti ‘the fire-kindlers of the dumos’ (= Greek *δουμο-πύραιθοι, in a dedication from Novae, Moesia Inferior, see de Jong 1997, 144–45, with references). For a complete list of occurrences, see Polito 2004. 52 OPhr. dumasta (G-131; ḍumastạ? G-245) and dumeyay (G-01a) are often considered to be a title and adjective derived from this noun (see Lubotsky 1997, 125). However, their contexts are not clear enough to corroborate this. 53 A compilation of divine epithets attested in Phrygia Epiktetos is provided by Ricl (2017). At this point, I want to thank her for sharing her paper with me prior to publication. 54 Lejeune 1969, 294. For a tentative etymological explanation, see Opfermann 2017, 72, n. 89. If indeed it derives from *gu̯enos, this word must be considered an Aeolic loanword. However, the etymology *bhendh-nos > βέννος cannot be ruled out.

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of these Phrygian epithets, I will present just two more cases here. The first is Zeus’ epithet Σαρνενδός / Σαρνενδηνός, found in the regions of Mihalıççık and Nallıhan / Juliopolis (RECAM II, 76, SEG 50, 1222–1224), Nikaia (INikaia 1128) and Dacia (IDR III 3 400). Although the meaning of the word is unknown, Avram55 identified it in the NPhr. corpus. Indeed, the subject of the imprecative apodosis βεο|ς ιοι με τοτοσσ’ ευγισαρναν (18) is ευγι-σαρναν. Hämmig recently observed that this inscription may be read as βεο|ς ιοι με τοτοσσετι σαρναν (‘may Sarnan not give bread to him’) in light of με κε οι | τοτοσσειτι βας βεκος (‘may Bas not give bread to him’) (99). Because the god Bas is a Phrygian epiclesis of Zeus56 and Zeus’ power over crops is well attested in Phrygia, the identification of Zeus with Σαρναν and Βας as different epicleses of the same god is obvious. The second epithet is Κικλέα, which refers to the mother-goddess in two votive inscriptions from Phrygia.57 This epithet confirms the Phrygian origin of the gloss κίκλην· τὴν ἄρκτον τὸ ἄστρον. Φρύγες (‘κ.: the constellation Ursa Major’) (Hesychius κ 2655). According to Fick,58 it is related to the Greek κύκλος, Anglo-Saxon hwēol (hweowol, hweogol), English wheel and Sanskrit cakrá-, all of which mean ‘wheel’ and are derived from a reduplicated form of the root *kwel(H)- (‘turn’): *kwe-kwl(o)-. Consequently, the name of the constellation in Phrygian was ‘wagon’ and the epithet Κικλέα must mean ‘she of the wagon’, which fits with the iconography of the mother-goddess, at least in Roman times. The high number of Phrygian glosses provides further evidence of the Phrygian influence on Greek literature. Indeed, the fact that almost 30 Phrygian glosses59 (excluding onomastics) have been preserved in Greek sources is remarkable, given that few glosses in neighbouring languages remain.60 Finally, it is important to note that many other words in Greek, especially those that refer to instruments, have sometimes been considered as Phrygian in origin.61 However, their history and filiation are far from clear. It is possible that there are more unidentified Phrygian words in Greek literature, since Phrygian likely played a role in eastern archaic literature, in light of these poetic words. In any 55

Avram 2016. See Obrador-Cursach 2017. 57 Ramsay 1905b, 427, 13; MAMA X 226. 58 Fick 1873, 413. 59 Nevertheless, some of these must be ruled out as Phrygian. Note that the ethnonym ‘Phrygian’ is sometimes used to refer ‘Asian’. 60 See, for instance, Adiego (2007, 455), who counts 11 Carian glosses, and Molina Valero (2010, 460), who counts only five Lycian glosses in Greek. 61 For an interesting compilation of musical instruments found in Gordion and their relationship to the Greek world, see Holzman 2016. 56

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case, the limitations of the existing corpus and our limited, albeit increasing, knowledge of the Phrygian language make it difficult to identify the extent to which Phrygian influenced the Greek language. GREEK PERSONAL NAMES

IN THE

PHRYGIAN CORPUS

Aside from some unclear cases, Phrygians lost their own naming tradition and borrowed personal names from the Anatolian languages, especially Lallnamen, and from the peoples who conquered them. Greek personal names are also represented in the three historical stages of the Phrygian languages. The presence of Greek personal names before the Macedonian conquest of Anatolia is especially interesting, since it shows that Greek culture had previously influenced Phrygian. The earliest appearance of a Greek name in the Phrygian corpus is muksos (G-346), which is engraved alongside other personal names (nana muksos | si↑idos | (urunis) on a beam of the Tumulus in Gordion.62 Since the tomb was closed before 740 BC, the Phrygian muksos had appeared by the time this name was found in the bilingual inscription Karatepe 1: Hieroglyphic Luwian muksa- (muksassan parni ‘the house of Muksos’) and Phoenician mpš (bt mpš: ‘the house of Mopsus’). All these renderings are derived from the Greek name *mokwsos,63 seen in Mycenaean as mo-qo-so and mo-qo-so-jo and in alphabetic Greek as Μόψος or, less frequently, Μόξος. As shown by Karatepe 1, the Hellenistic toponyms Μοψουκρήνη and Μοψουεστία,64 and the Greek myths (Strabo 14. 1. 27), this name is associated with the ruling dynasty of Cilicia in the Early Iron Age. Consequently, the presence of this Greek name on the most important royal tumulus in Gordion provides a connection – or aims to show such a connection – with Cilicia. Contact between Gordion and south-eastern Anatolia is well attested, since Gordion imported many objects and architectural features from the Syro-Hittite states in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. However, it remains unclear whether the name muksos was borrowed from Greek or its Luwian rendering (Greek *mokwsos > Hieroglyphic Luwian muksa- > Phrygian muksos). What we know for sure is that, out of the thousands of personal names from Gordion, muksos is the only Greek one to appear before the Macedonian conquest.

62 63 64

Liebhart and Brixhe 2009. See Yakubovich 2015, 37. Vanschoonwinkel 1990.

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Other Greek personal names in Phrygian inscriptions are restricted to the north-west of Phrygia and Bithynia, the very area where the earliest Greek loanwords are recorded. These personal names share a similar context, since they appear in cultic monuments dating from the Achaemenid period (550– 330 BC) or some years earlier. Two of these appear in cultic façades and under the guise of patronymics: arkia-evais (M-01a) < Greek Ἀρχίας and iketa-ios (W-02) < Greek Ἱκέτας. The Vezirhan stele (B-05) is said to have been erected by a man named kạliyạ (dat. kạliyay, B-05) and equated to Καλλίας in the Greek part of this inscription. Another Greek personal name in the Old Phrygian sub-corpus is pseṛ?keyoy (Dd-101, if not read as pseu?keyoy), as long as it is considered as a loanword from Greek Σπερχειός and shows a metathesis.65 However, the inscription poses some difficulties and could also be read as pseỵ?keyoy. Even the seal bearing this name is problematic, since its origin is unknown. The first Phrygian text written in the Greek alphabet is a funerary stele from Alanyurt, dated from between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC. Although most of the text remains unclear, it is evidently a monument erected by a man called Νικοστρατος for another called Κλευμαχοι. Both names are undoubtedly Greek; Νικόστρατος and Κλεόμαχος.66 After this text, there were no findings until the New Phrygian sub-corpus, which includes four Greek personal names. Before listing them, it is important to note that the Phrygian part of these inscriptions is usually made up of curses, which do not feature personal names. Consequently, they appear only in the few Phrygian inscriptions that report the circumstances of the monument. The first Greek name found in the NPhr. inscriptions is Εκατηας (116), identified by Brixhe and Neumann67 as the Greek personal name Ἑκαταία. The Phrygian form shows the same monophthongisation found in Ἑκατέα (for example ILaod.Lyk. 116 or IEryth. 152). The name Ερμω[λ]αος (116) clearly corresponds to Greek personal name Ἑρμόλαος, and is well attested in Phrygia (for example MAMA V R 2) and the whole of Anatolia. Finally, Λευκις (dat. Λευκιωι, 18) renders the common Greek name Λεύκιος. As seen, it takes a thematic inflection, even though the nom. form features the -ιο- > -ι- shift also found in Greek inscriptions from Phrygia.68

65

As suggested by Pisani 1982. The variant Κλευ- instead of Κλεο- occurs once in the Greek inscription from Caria IRhod.Per. 302, but it is more frequent in Central Greece and the Aegean Islands. 67 Brixhe and Neumann 1985, 175. 68 Brixhe 1987, 49–50. 66

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Finally, the theonym Διουνσιν (88) can be added to the list of Greek onomastics in Phrygian, since is clearly related to Διόνῡσος. However, its spelling is problematic, since it seems to show the syncope Διόνῡσ- > *Διονσ- > Διουν- and a thematic ending spelled with -ι- instead of the common -ου-, as happens in σεμιν (76 and 100) for σεμουν.69 THE USE OF

THE

GREEK ALPHABET TO REPRESENT THE PHRYGIAN LANGUAGE

The Stele from Dokimeion (W-12): The First Phrygian Inscription to Use the Greek Alphabet Use of the Phrygian alphabet stopped after the Macedonian conquest led by Alexander the Great (mid-330s BC), or perhaps during ‘the period immediately preceding’ it.70 After this critical event, all Phrygian inscriptions were written in Greek script. However, only one clear text dating from between the Macedonian conquest and the Phrygian inscriptions from Roman Imperial times (the NPhr. inscriptions) has been found.71 This singular inscription (W-12) was engraved in a funerary stele discovered near Dokimeion, ‘the earliest colonial settlement […] founded as a Greek polis in the last years of the fourth century BC by a certain Dokimos?’.72 Despite Brixhe’s excellent edition and analysis,73 the content of this inscription remains obscure. Nevertheless, the language is clearly written in Phrygian, as revealed by intelligible sequences (the clearest is l. 1 μανκα μεκας σας (‘this big stele’),74 and the preservation of some obscure terms found in other Phrygian funerary steles (for example, compare B-07 l. 8 ομνισιτ with B-07 umnotan). What seems clear is that the stele was erected by a man called Nikostratos for Kleumachos 69

See Lubotsky 1989, 153, pace Brixhe 1999, 308, who did not rule out a ‘théonyme autoch-

tone’. 70

As suggested by Brixhe 2008, 70. As mentioned above, some OPhr. may be written in Greek script. Brixhe and Drew-Bear (2010) considered that NPhr. 129, from Prymnessos, was also a Hellenistic inscription (perhaps from the 2nd century BC). However, in the absence of a good reason for such a conclusion, which is based only on the ‘style’ of the letters, it would be preferable to consider it, as Ligorio and Lubotsky do (2013, 182), as another NPhr. inscription (the second one found in Prymnessos, 96). Indeed, the only significant feature of its letters is the presence of apices at the extremes, a common feature of Imperial inscriptions. See also Bru (2017, 227–28), who suggested that it was perhaps from the 1st century BC rather than the 3rd or 2nd centuries BC. Moreover, the content of the inscription, although incomplete, features the common NPhr. imprecation against violators. 72 Thonemann 2013, 17. 73 Brixhe 3004a, 7–26. 74 See Obrador-Cursach 2016, 183–84. 71

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(ll. 4–5 Νικοστρατος | Κλευμαχοι). Both men bear Greek names, so they are considered to belong to a Phrygian elite family adopting Greek cultural practices (the practice of erecting inscribed funerary stelai, Greek names, the Greek alphabet, the Greek language),75 to a Greek family adopting Phrygian cultural practices (the Phrygian language, a Phrygian ‘baby-name’), or with a culturally hybrid family formed by intermarriage between settlers and natives.76

This inscription is so significant that Brixhe considered it to belong to an intermediate stage between OPhr. and NPhr.: Middle Phrygian (MPhr.). Indeed, the phraseology of the text seems to be related to OPhr. text, but the script is the same as that used in NPhr. inscriptions. The epitaph reads as follows:77 μανκα μεκας σας κιυιν εν κε βιλαταδεναν νεκοινουν : ποκραιου κη γλουρεος γαμενουν σα σοροι ματι μακραν : βλασκον κε τακρις κε λουνιου μροτις λαπτα ματι αοινουν : Νικοστρατος Κλευμαχοι μιρος αιδομενου ματιν κιυιν [:] μο.κρος υιταν παρτιας πλαδε πορ κοροος ..ρος παντης : πεννιτι ιος κοροαν δετουν σουν ομαστα ομνισιτ ους

4

8

It is important to consider some of the particularities of this inscription before moving on to the NPhr. texts: first, the lack of waw or digamma is redressed by the use of upsilon in l. 1 κιυιν, l. 5 κιυιν and l. 6 υιταν, but by omicron, at least in κοροαν.78 However, the vowel /u/ is represented by the digraph ‹ου›: l. 2 νεκοινουν, ποκραιου, γλουρεος and γαμενουν, ll. 3–4 λουν|ιου, l. 4 αοινουν, l. 5 αιδομενου, l. 7 δετουν and l. 8 ους. Likewise, [j] it is marked by iota: l. ιος (OPhr. yos / ios, NPhr. ιος). Another feature is the use of eta ‹η› for /e/ instead of a long vowel (as occurs in some NPhr. Inscriptions, perhaps as a consequence of the lack of long /e/ in Phrygian): see l. 2 κη < PIE *ku̯e ‘and’ (= l. 3 κε, OPhr. ke(y) and NPhr. κε / κη) and the athematic pl.nom. ending of παντης < PIE *-es (compare, for example, with NPhr. 98 πα|τερης). The lack of omega in this text is striking, since it is expected in the o-stem 75

Brixhe (2013, 59) and Bru (2017, 227) preferred this possibility. Thonemann 2013, 17–19. On the Greek language and the ‘Phrygian baby-name’, see another stele found alongside W-12 with the epitaph of Nikostratos’ daughter according to the Turkish translation of the text given by Drew-Bear (1985, 259: ‘Nikostratos’un kızı, Theophilos’un karısı Tatis’) and the English translation by Thoneman (2013, 18: ‘Tatis, daughter of Nikostratos, wife of Theophilos’). This girl bears a typical Anatolian Lallname, which contrasts with the Greek names borne by her father and husband. 77 The segmentation given here follows Brixhe’s edition (2004a, 24) with Lubotsky’s remarks (2017). I suggest the segmentation πορ κοροος instead of porkoro oṣ..|ṛọṣ (Brixhe) or πορ κορο οσ..ρος (Lubotsky) because κοροος seems to be the athematic sg. gen. of κοροαν (l. 7). 78 Lubotsky 2017, 430. 76

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sg.dat. Κλευμαχοι (OPhr. Dd-102 surgastoy, NPhr. 18 λευκιωι, 30 αυτω, although the common NPhr. ending is -ου, 21 and 124 σορου, 92 κορου). The presence of the Greek letter chi ‹χ› is unparalleled in the whole Phrygian corpus. Nevertheless, this idiosyncrasy is not surprising in a personal name borrowed from Greek as Κλεόμαχος/Κλεύμαχος, although other Greek loanwords with this sound appear written with ‹k›: κορου (92, also its derived noun κορο[υ]μανη 130) < Greek χῶρος and ευκιν (98 and 30) < Greek εὐχήν. Finally, there is one possible example of geminates in πεννιτι.79 The Greek Alphabet in the New Phrygian Inscriptions After W-12, Phrygian does not appear again until Roman Imperial times, when it occurs in a very homogeneous group dated between the end of the 1st and the end of the 3rd centuries AD, i.e. the NPhr. sub-corpus. The script used at this stage is the same as that of Greek monumental inscriptions from Hellenistic and Roman times. However, the reading of these texts is not always as straightforward as one would expect. Leaving aside the significant fact that this alphabet was not designed for the Phrygian language, the changes in Greek phonology (itacism or iotacism, desperation of the length contrast, loss of final consonants and geminates, etc.) affected the manner in which Phrygian was written (see below) and there are many hesitations in the spelling of words: for example αδδακετ (passim) ∼ αδακετ (97, 99, 111, etc.), σεμουν (passim) ∼ σεμον (97, 99, 112, etc.) ∼ σεμιν (76, 100 and 107) and ιος (passim) ∼ ειος (12) ∼ ις (4 b, 121, etc.). Moreover, the lack of blanks between the words (the so-called scriptio continua) or interpunctions in most cases also hinders the segmentation and interpretation of the texts. Nevertheless, the main problem with this sub-corpus is that many of the NPhr. inscriptions are now lost and the readings provided by old copies, which are riddled with reading errors, cannot be corroborated. As Brixhe showed,80 one of the most common mistakes when reading the inscriptions is the confusion caused by round letters. Indeed, by Imperial times, it was common to see epsilon and sigma as Є and С (the so-called lunate epsilon and sigma),81 which is why these are misread as Ο, Φ and even Θ in many copies of the first known inscriptions. Since most of the Phrygian texts are reiterative formulae, many of 79

Pace Brixhe 2004a, 13. Brixhe 1999, 293–95. In this excellent paper, he deals with the main issues in this chapter and provides a very detailed and useful assessment. I follow his approach in this paper, although I have also included some alternative interpretations. 81 The classical and the rectangular shape of these letters is also found in the New Phrygian inscriptions. 80

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these mistakes are repeated. Taking one example given by Brixhe,82 the NPhr. inscription 4 bis of CIG 3880 presents an unparalleled sequence, ΟЄΜΟΝ, which must be read as the common pronoun σεμον (also as σεμουν). In addition, the angular letters (Δ, Λ, Α and Μ) present similar problems: see, for example, 69 l. 1, which could be read as ΕΙΝΕΑΜ or ΕΙΝΕΜΑ. Finally, errors by engravers seem to happen frequently;83 however, in many instances, they are difficult to detect in non-formulaic texts, and even with the many lost inscriptions, one cannot discount errors made by modern copiers. A clear example of an engraver’s mistake in a preserved stele is αδακτε (127) for αδακετ (passim).84 Representation of Consonants: The main difference between the Phrygian alphabet and the Greek alphabet in Imperial times, with respect to consonants, is that New Phrygian inscriptions have a tendency to mark the geminates: αδδακετ, τιττετικμενος, αββερετ. As shown, this feature seems to be found in W-12 (see above). However, at the time these inscriptions were created, the Greek simplified them,85 and the same seems to be the case with Phrygian inscriptions. Indeed, although 54 of the 117 NPhr. inscriptions (46.15%)86 have geminates, 20 (17.10%)87 do not, and 17 (14.53%)88 have hesitations. In the remaining 26 inscriptions (22.22%),89 no such information is available. In such a scenario, the presence of hypercorrect geminates is not unusual, for example κνουμ|μανει (44) and κν[ου]|μμανει (53) for κνουμανει (passim). The lack of the Greek letter chi (as mentioned, ‹χ› is attested only in W-12) and the few occurrences of the other two letters that represent aspirated stops are also noteworthy. The fact that the Phrygian phonemic repertoire does not contain such sounds explains this absence and the fact that they are limited to a few words. The letter theta (‹θ›, /th/ > /θ/) appears three times in the whole NPhr. corpus: θαλαμει (4), αδιθρερακ (31) and θιτ[τ]ετικμενο[ς] (65). The first word, θαλαμει, is a clear loanword from Greek θαλάμη and justifies the 82

Brixhe 1999, 293. Brixhe 1999, 296. Note also that Brixhe (1999, 296, n. 22) suggests that the engravers were not Phrygian speakers. 84 See Drew-Bear et al. 2008, 111. 85 Brixhe 1987, 31–33. 86 Nos. 2, 3, 6, 7, 10–13, 18, 25, 26, 29, 32–35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 53–57, 59, 62, 65, 71, 73, 75–77, 79, 80, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 101, 108, 113, 114, 120, 121, 123, 124, 126, 129 and 130. 87 Nos. 4, 5, 14, 20, 28, 35, 37, 38, 68, 87, 92, 93, 96, 97, 100, 102, 103, 105, 111 and 127. 88 Nos. 21, 51, 61, 63, 67, 69, 72, 75, 81, 94, 99, 106, 112, 115, 118, 119 and 128. 89 Nos. 4b, 8, 9, 15, 17, 19, 27, 30, 31, 44, 58, 60, 64, 70, 81, 84, 89, 95, 98, 104, 107, 109, 110, 116 and 122. 83

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use of this letter; however, θιτ[τ]ετικμενο[ς] must be a hypercorrection of the common τιττετικμενος (passim). The personal name αδιθρερακ has no clear origin because of the lack of parallels, and its analysis is impossible. With regard to phi (‹φ›, /ph/ > /φ/), this is found only in the Persian personal name Μιτραφατα 4890 < *Miθra-pāta- (‘protected by Mithra’). Here, the use of phi is unexpected and very likely a common hypercorrection. Indeed, the lack of such stops in Phrygian affected the Greek spoken in Phrygia, since misspellings related to chi, phi and theta are common in Greek:91 θ|υγαθρί (MAMA IV 198) for θυγατρί, φ[ι]|λέρειτος (MAMA VII 263) for φιλέριθος, ἕνεχεν (MAMA I 197) for ἕνεκεν, κάριν (MAMA IV 263) for χάριν, φοθινοτάτοις (MAMA I 281) for ποθεινοτάτοις and ἀδελπῶ (MAMA VII 284) for ἀδελφῷ. Phrygian consonantism has two approximants that have been lost in contemporary Greek: the velar /w/ and the palatal /j/. Because of the lack of specific letters for these sounds, some Greeks letters and digraphs were reused to represent Phrygian consonants. In the case of /j/, it was commonly spelled with a simple iota ‹ι›: ιος (passim, OPhr. yos, ios), κνουμανει (passim), τεμρογειος (48). The digraph ‹ει› appears once with this function, as a consequence of Greek itacism: ειος (12) ιος (passim). It is important to add that ‹ι› is commonly found for /i̯o/, which can also be explained by the Greek simplification /i̯o/ > /i/ in the final position (and sometimes in the middle of the word);92 the clearest example in Phrygian is ις (4 b, 121, 120, 116 and 5) for ιος (passim). The form τετιο|κμενος (118) for τετικμενος is a hypercorrection resulting from this shift. The velar approximant /w/ is commonly represented by the digraph ‹ου›: ουα (2, 33 and 36) - ουαν (59, OPhr. va and vay B-05), ουανακταν (OPhr. vanaktei M-01a), οουιτετου (2). In two instances, omicron is used for this purpose: οαν (116, OPhr. va, NPhr. ουαν) and οεαυται (OPhr. venavtun W-01b). The letter sigma ordinarily represents a consonant /s/. It appears in many positions, including consonant clusters: at the beginning of a word followed by a vowel (σεμουν passim) and a consonant (σκελεδριαι 67), between vowels (εγεσιτ 58), between a vowel and a consonant (εσταες 31) and at the end of a word after a vowel (τιττετικμενος passim). A double sigma -σσ- is found 90 Lubotsky (1997, 122) preferred to segment Μιτρα Φατα and suggested that here the Iranian god Mithra is qualified with an (unparalleled) ethnic Φατα in light of the other two theonyms that follow this sequence in NPhr. 48. However, this Iranian name is well attested in Anatolia: in Lycian as miθrapata and mizrppata (Neumann 2007, 217 and 218 s.v.) and in Greek as Μιθρωπάστης (Strabo 16. 5) and Μιτροβάτης (Herodotus 3. 120–129, both variants referring to the same satrap of Hellespontic Phrygia). On the possibility of a hero cult, see de Hoz 2017, 152. 91 Brixhe 1987, 110–11. 92 According to Brixhe 1987, 49–50; 1999, 299–300.

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in two verbal forms, δεδασσιννι (130) and τοτοσσειτι (99). It is unknown whether -σσ- underlies a different sound to /s/ or is a mere graphic convention. In both occurrences of -σσ-, it is preceded by a synchronic long vowel. In OPhr., a single ‹s› represents the same form, as dedasitiy (B-05, also ịsini in G-289) shows; however, the OPhr. alphabet avoids the repetition of letters and ‹s› may stand for /ss/. Finally, a sigma is twice attached to zeta (ζ) in σζεμελως (39 and 113), a variant of the common ζεμελως (passim). This spelling, which is considered redundant, is well attested in Greek inscriptions elsewhere (mainly dating from Hellenistic times) and in Phrygia.93 Regarding the remaining letters, β, δ, γ, π, τ and κ, these represent the voiced and voiceless stops /b/, /d/, /g/, /p/, /t/ and /k/, respectively. Although Greek stops are known to become fricative in inner positions (except when they follow a nasal), there is no reason to consider that this shift exists in Phrygian.94 Perhaps γ represents an allophone [ŋ] before a consonant (as in Greek before κ, γ, χ and ξ), although the only possible example is εγδαες (18, if εγ- < εν-). However, this word remains unclear, although it appears to be a verb.95 Representation of vowels: The representation of Phrygian vowels is influenced to an even greater extent than consonantism by Greek phonetic shifts, because they seem to affect the Phrygian language too. In view of these phenomena, the formulaic character of NPhr. curses tends to reflect a conservative spelling, although shifts are attested elsewhere. In such a scenario, NPhr. inscriptions show many hesitations and hypercorrections in the notation of the vowels. The most important changes are twofold: itacism and the loss of the vowel length contrast. Because of the first shift, there are many hesitations between ι, ει, η and even υ: γεγριμενον (58) for γεγρειμενον (106), δυως (113) for διως (a variant of δεως in 4, 5 and 118), ειτου (passim) - ιτου (8) - ητου (5) for the OPhr. ituv (B-05), Μανεις (69) for OPhr. manes (B-07, in Greek texts as Μάνης), τειττετικμενος (56) for τιττετικμενος (passim). It is especially common in the athematic sg.dat. ending (PIE *-ei): compare κνουμανει (passim), κνουμανε (passim), κνουμανι (86, 88, etc.) and κνουμανη (114), or Τιε (passim), Τι (44, 11, 87, etc.) and Τιη (6, 62 and 86). The hesitation even occurs in the same text: αινι ουεβαν δεδασσιννι πατρε|ς σεμουν κορο[υ]μανη σως κη | γουμειε,

93 94 95

MAMA IV 219: ἐλπίσζοντι for ἐλπίζοντι: Brixhe 1987, 46; 1999, 297. Brixhe 1999, 297–98. Even less clear is αργμενα[.?] (116).

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καρπυς ειλικρινη εγο|υννου (130). According to Lubotsky, the god’s name Τιε - Τι - Τιη shows a tendency towards the following distribution: Τιη only occurs before consonants (6, 39, 62, 65, 86, 114), Τι only occurs before vowels (αδειτου 11, 54, 57, 72, 76, 77, 80, 85, 87, 101, 106; ατιτικμενος 103), Τιε is found in both positions, but the instances before a vowel are rare (only 5 times out of 15: 12, 45, 56, 61, 100). We may conclude that there was a strong tendency to drop the final -ε of Τιε in the position before a vowel. 96

However, this distribution does not occur in κνουμανει, κνουμανε, κνουμανι or κνουμανη. Brixhe considers the final -ε ‘an inverse spelling related to the interchangeability, in final position, of e and i’.97 The letter eta ‹η› has special status,98 since it is found to represent three different sounds. However, the possible personal name in sg.nom. αδενπ|ατης (69), which seems to be Iranian in origin but adapted to Greek,99 is the only occurrence that provides a possible example of eta used for the Greek classical sound /εː/. In any case, it clearly represents /e/ in many occurrences (as occurs in W-12): for example πα|τερης (‘parents’) (98, PIE pl.nom. ending *-es), also spelled πατρες (130), κακην (130) for κακε (‘badly’) (21, 88, 99 and 124) or κη (‘and’) (130) for κε (passim, OPhr. ke(y)). This use already appears in W-12, where κη and παντης ‘?’ (very likely an athematic pl.nom.) occur. For this last text, Brixhe100 suggests that the Macedonians introduced the Greek alphabet in Phrygia and these spellings are a result of the ‘même aperture pour *ε: et pour *e’ in Macedonian.101 Nevertheless, this hypothesis may be refuted for a number of reasons. In view of the bilingual inscription from Vezirhan (B-05), the Greek alphabet was introduced in Phrygian before the arrival of the Macedonians, which invalidates the first assumption of Brixhe’s proposal. Moreover, worse still, if the Dodona oracular tablet no. 2493A is indeed written in Macedonian, it is a good example of η representing /εː/ and not /eː/ in a Macedonian context.102 In addition, the form μανκης (86) instead of the more common μανκαι can be explained as representing /e/ because of the influence of the general Greek

96 Lubotsky 1997, 126, n. 23. After Lubotsky’s paper, it also appeared in NPhr. inscriptions 115, 120, 123, 126 and 127. 97 Brixhe 2008, 75; see also Brixhe 1990, 78–79. 98 See Brixhe 1999, 301–03. 99 See the element -pātā, for example in the name Ἀρτα-πάτης, borne by Cirus’ son in Xenophon Anabasis 1. 6. 11. 100 Brixhe 2004a, 17. 101 See also Brixhe 1999, 302. 102 Méndez Dosuna 2012, 144.

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monophthongisation αι > ε. One must consider the common use of the genitive ending in the a-stem inflection instead of the dative.103 When analysing the use of eta for /e/ in Greek inscriptions from Anatolia, Brixhe104 considers it to be the result of hypercorrections that occurred at school, where the ancient sound of this letter was still taught. This explanation is perhaps the most likely, although when this spelling occurs in Pontus, it is thought to be evidence of the preservation of the sound /e/ from /εː/, as also occurs in the new Greek dialect from that region.105 Although schooling may have resulted in such spelling, the diffusion of education in rural Phrygia is ‘enormously controversial’106 and is not the only possible explanation. In Phrygian, PIE *eː and *eh1 > *eː merged with /aː/. As a result, it is likely that there was no phoneme /eː/ in this language.107 In such a scenario, the lack of a Phrygian counterpart for the Greek sound traditionally represented by eta may have given rise to such spelling, not only in Phrygian, but also in Greek inscriptions from Phrygia. In any case, the letter eta also represents [j] after or before the vowel (if not also in the athematic sg.dat. ending; see above): αυταη (30, OPhr. avtay W-01b), μαιμαρηαν (31) and δεκμουταης (31) ∼ δεκμουταις (9). This use is clearly a consequence of Greek itacism, since it is not attested in W-12 (4th century BC). Finally, it remains unclear which sound is represented by this letter in the athematic sg.dat. ending *-ey, spelled as -ει (the historical spelling), -ι and -ε, as well as -η. On the one hand, one could argue that it represents /i/ because of the influence of Greek itacism as -ι. Nevertheless, as mentioned, there are good examples of eta as [j], but there is only one definite example of [i], ητου (5) instead of ειτου. On the other hand, in such a position, it can also be considered to represent /e/, as occurs in spellings with -ε. The second significant issue is the loss of the vowel length contrast,108 demonstrated by the hesitation between omicron (ο) and omega (ω): for example ερμω[λ]|αος (116) for Greek Ἑρμόλαος or δεος (6 and 7) for δεως (passim). Commonly, the digraph ου represents /u/: for example κνουμανει (passim) or ειτου (passim). This sound is sometimes represented by upsilon (υ): σεμυν and κακυν (62). The hesitation between ου and ο shows the neutralisation

103 104 105 106 107 108

See Brixhe 2008, 78, with older references. Brixhe 1987, 49. Brixhe 1987, 110. de Hoz 2006, 139, with references. Ligorio and Lubotsky 2013, 183. Brixhe 1987, 46–47.

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between /u/ and /o/ before the nasal /n/:109 σεμον (97, 99 and 112) and κακον (73, 112, 120, etc.). On the other hand, the hesitation ου ∼ ι, found in σεμιν (76, 100 and 107) for σεμουν (passim) and τιτετουκμενουν (28) for τιττετικμενος (passim)110 has no phonetic motivation, according to Brixhe: on a vu que ΟΥ pouvait être occasionnellement relayé par Υ ; or Υ, dans le système grec, est une des notations de /i/, cf. d’ailleurs δυως (113) pour δεως/διως (où, en hiatus, ε/ι vaut [j] ; avec la médiation implicite de Υ, ΟΥ (en finale, Ο et ΟΥ) pourra être remplacé par Ι.111

GREEK METRICS IN NEW PHRYGIAN INSCRIPTIONS In his second recompilation of New Phrygian inscriptions, Ramsay reported an observation suggested to him by Sayce: ‘the commonest formula was originally two hexameters’. He showed this metric with the following text: ιος νι σεμουν κνουμανι κακων αδδακετο ζειρα με ζεμελως κε δεος κε τετικμενος ατ τιε αδειτου.

Ramsay also added that ‘numerous traces of metrical arrangement are seen in the inscriptions’,112 but since the above text is a prototype suggested in light of the many variants of a similar curse, he only gave scansions for no. 31 (which he considered to consist of three dactylic hexameters),113 no. 32 (‘like part of a bad hexameter line’114) and no. 48 (‘like part of a bad hexameter line’115). Leaving aside the fact that some of the segmentations or scansions can be refuted today, Calder followed Ramsay in showing the rhythm of the Phrygian inscriptions. However, he did not agree with Ramsay in his identification of the metres: for no. 31, Calder suggested an elegiac couplet; this was also the case for no. 15 (although ‘scanned roughly according to accent’116). He also considered no. 58 to be a ‘rough iambic’ verse.117 No. 31 was reanalysed by Haas, who considered that the inscriptions consisted of two spondaic tetrameters and two pentameters.118

109

Brixhe 1999, 306. Brixhe (1999, 307) also adds τι (9, 25, 39, 67 and 103); however, this must be discounted, since it is also found in OPhr. as ti (B-05). 111 Brixhe 1999, 307–08. 112 Ramsay 1905a, 85. 113 Ramsay 1905a, 90. 114 Ramsay 1905a, 94. 115 Ramsay 1905a, 105. 116 Calder 1911, 173 and 180. 117 Calder 1911, 202. 118 Haas 1951, 12–14; 1966, 103–04. 110

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More recently, Orel119 argued that W-08, W-10 and G-229 contained verses of five, six and eight syllables. His proposal, nevertheless, is not convincing and West was right when he asserted that ‘nearly all of this seems to be as arbitrary and ad hoc as much of the exegetical material in Orel’s useful but unsatisfactory work’.120 Even this brilliant classical scholar suggested a new scansion for the NPhr. curses. According to West,121 many Phrygian imprecative phrases consist of glyconics + catalectic glyconics (or pherecrateans) or even penthemimers, and these Phrygian patterns look ‘like a survival of archaic Indo-European verse technique, preserved independently of Greek tradition’.122 However, this analysis, which would be very attractive given the potential comparison with Aeolian and Vedic poetry, does not stand up. Leaving aside possible mistakes such as ᾱδδᾰκετ (< PIE *dheh1-k- ‘to do’), two of the adduced sequences are not the best examples to defend West’s hypothesis: in δεως κε ζ󰯌μ󰯌λωσῐ κε123 the pl.dat. in -ωσι is an isolated form against the more common ζεμελως and in αινι οι θᾰλᾰμειδη the last sequence is more easily analysed as θαλαμει (sg.dat.) and δη, a preposition that replaces the more common με.124 Of course, one could accept West’s proposal based on the implication that mistakes occur elsewhere. Nevertheless, there are other arguments against it. The relationship between the kind of rhythms suggested by West and epitaphs is unparalleled and difficult to defend because of their nature. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine that these metres are inherited from PIE instead of arising from Greek cultural influence. The use of curses in Phrygian appears in the transition between the Middle Phrygian period and the Late Phrygian period (for example, W-01b, dated ca. 550 BC by BerndtErsöz),125 when the Greek influence becomes more apparent in Phrygian. Moreover, according to Lubotsky,126 the most common New Phrygian apodosis, με δεως κε ζεμελως κε Τιε τιττετικμενος ειτου ‘let him be accursed in the sight of gods and men by Zeus’, is a calque of a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription Karkamiš A 2+3 §24: wa/i-sa-’ ¦DEUS-na-za ¦CAPUT-tá-za-ha ¦*366-na-na ¦(DEUS) TONITRUS-tá-ti-i¦(LOQUI) ta-tara/i-ia-mi-sa i-zi-ia-ru

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

Orel 1997, 48–49, 52, 227 and 355. West 2003, 78. West 2003, 80–84. West 2003, 85. West 2003, 82. Brixhe 1997, 55–56. Berndt-Ersöz 2006, 238. Lubotsky 1998, 420.

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‘Let him be made accursed by Tarhunza in the sight of? God and men!’127 Neither the Luwian apodosis nor the exact Phrygian parallel shows any metrical pattern. The most convincing attempt to identify NPhr. metrics is made by Lubotsky,128 who considered that the basic formula consisted of two verses intended as hexameters: ιος νι σεμουν κνουμανει κακουν αδδακετ αινι μανκα / αινι α τεαμα(ς) με ζεμελως κε δεως κε Τιε τιτετικμενος ειτου.

Because of the presence of ‘mistakes’, one must admit that some of ‘the authors of these inscriptions at least intended to produce something like a reasonable hexameter’.129 The Phrygian inversion of the common με δεως κε ζεμελως κε in με ζεμελως κε δεως κε is very likely a recent attempt to provide such apodoses with the dactylic rhythm in the only possible hexametric New Phrygian inscription considered by Lubotsky. The use here of a dactylic rhythm is highly likely due to its use in contemporaneous Greek curses from Anatolia. Indeed, it is used in Strubbe nos. 3, 26 and 151 and all occurrences ‘of the east Phrygian interdiction and curse formula’, which consist of dactylic hexameters.130 Other rhythms are also used in Greek curses: Strubbe no. 253 consists of two hexameters followed by a pentameter, no. 275 is a dactylic hexameter followed by an iambic senarius, nos. 205, 370 and ‘the north Phrygian interdiction and curse formula’ consist of iambic trimetres.131 As shown, Greek inscriptions from the same location and contemporaneous to the NPhr. inscriptions consist of curses with a dactylic and/or iambic rhythm. Although the issue is not straightforward, dactylic is the most probable rhythm for some of the NPhr. inscriptions. However, it appears to be only roughly applied to the Phrygian texts and only in few instances. Here, West’s comparison with lower-class Greek epitaphs,132 which contain metrical and unmetrical elements, clarifies such Phrygian examples. The composer of inscription no. 97 very likely noticed that many segments of the common formula present a dactylic rhythm and invert the other of the old formula ‘gods and men’ to make two dactyls, as was common in Greek inscriptions by that time: 127 The Luwian text is taken from the pilot version of the ACLT, developed by Ilya Yakubovich. The translation is provided by Bauer 2013, 131. On the relationship between the Phrygian and Greek formula, see also Obrador-Cursach 2019. 128 Lubotsky 1998. 129 Lubotsky 1998, 416. 130 Strubbe 1997, 290. 131 Strubbe 1997, 187. 132 West 2003, 84.

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ιος νῐ σ󰯌μον κνουμᾰνε κᾰκ󰯌ν ᾱδακ󰯌τ αῑνι | μᾱνκα, με ζ󰯌λως κ󰯌 δ󰯌ως κ󰯌 Τῐε τιτ󰯌|τῑκμ[󰯌νο̆ς ειτοῡ].

Nevertheless, it cannot be considered an ancient feature, because both verses present some later features. First of all, hesitations in the length contrast can be observed: κνουμᾰνε ‘tomb’ is a cognate of Greek κνῦμα, ‘scratching’, so its root is expected to be long; the root of ᾱδακ󰯌τ, as mentioned, was originally long, and νι in αῑνι is short, but counted as long at the beginning of the protasis, and ειτοῡ appears in OPhr. as ituv (B-05), so derives from *h1i- and is expected to count as short. Secondly, geminates are counted (although not spelled) in the preverb of ᾱδᾱκ󰯌τ (< αδ-δακετ), but not in τῐτ󰯌τῑκμ[󰯌νο̆ς] (< τιττετικμενος). Both features are typical of NPhr., when geminates were simplified and the length contrast in the vowels lost. Both processes are also attested in Greek inscriptions from Phrygia. Recently, Lubotsky133 also argued that the MPhr. epitaph (W-12) contains six hexametric verses. His analysis is based on the presence of cola consisting of two dots that has a regular distribution and separates the alleged verses: μανκα μεκας σας κιυιν εν κε βιλαταδε|ναν νεκοινουν : ποκραιου κη γλουρεος γαμενουν | σα σοροι ματι μακραν : βλασκον κε τακρις κε λουν|ιου μροτις λαπτα ματι αοινουν : Νικοστρατος | Κλευμαχοι μιρος αιδομενου ματιν κιυιν [:] μο|.κρος υιταν παρτιας πλαδε πορ κοροος ..ρος παντης : πεννιτι ιος κοροαν δετουν | σουν ομαστα ομνισιτ ους

This is a highly likely scenario that demonstrates that the adoption of Greek metres occurred in parallel with the Greek alphabet’s replacement of the Phrygian alphabet. Therefore, both the alphabet and metrics in epitaphs are a consequence of the Hellenisation arising from the Macedonian conquest. Finally, it is important to add that, in the editio princeps on the altar from Nacoleia (130), Avram134 suggests some metrics for both Phrygian clauses: an elegiac couple (a hexameter followed by a pentameter with a supplementary foot) and a composition of two verses of five feet and a third with only three feet, like the Greek epigram B on the same altar. Nevertheless, this scansion is difficult to accept in light of our knowledge of the Phrygian language. To start with, the elegiac couple is highly unusual, not only because of the addition of a supplementary foot: αῑνῐ ου󰯌βᾱν δ󰯌δᾰσσῑννῑ πᾱτρ󰯌ς σ󰯌μοῡν κŏροῠμᾱνη, σως κη γοῡμ εῑε, ‖ κᾱρπῡς εῑλῐκρῐνη 󰯌γοῠννοῡ.

133 134

Lubotsky 2017. Avram 2015, 213–15.

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First of all, sequences of two consonants seem to be ignored in δ󰯌δᾰσσῑννῑ and πᾱτρ󰯌ς σ󰯌μοῡν. Moreover, -μαν- in κ󰰈ροῠμᾱνη is expected to be short, as in κνουμᾰνε, as well as κη, which is a spelling variant of the more common κε. In addition, we do not know what γουμ ειε, or γουμειε, means or how to count it. Moreover, the second verse could be a second hexameter, if -ρι- in εῑλῑκρινη (borrowed from εἰλικρῐνής) was erroneously considered long and -νη (< -ey) shortened before the vowel: σως κ󰯠 γοῠμεῑε κᾱρπῡς εῑλῑκρῑν󰯠 󰯌γοῡννοῡ. The second Phrygian clause in this inscription is less clear. Avram suggests the following possible scansion: αῑνῐ κŏς κᾱκην ᾱδδᾱκετ κŏροῠμᾱνη σως κη γοῡμ εῑε, τῐττ󰯌τῑκμ󰯌νŏς εῑτοῡ εῑκᾰδ αῠτōν μ󰯌κᾰ[ς?] ᾱν Τί͜ᾱν

5dac. 5dac. 3dac.

However, in addition to similar problems found in the scansion of the first clause, I have argued135 that the last two lines of this inscription may be read as μεκ|αν Τιαν ‘the great Zeus’. The size of this second text is very similar to the first, and perhaps represents a failed attempt to create another pair of hexameters, although it presents further problems. In conclusion, it is very difficult to believe that most of NPhr. inscriptions are metrical compositions. Indeed, no. 97, which is the clearest example of a metric inscription, features a special inversion of the common elements to fit the hexametric verse. A second example can be found in no. 130. Since the use of metrics is restricted to these examples and hexameters are found in contemporaneous Greek curses, their presence in New Phrygian can be considered a result of Greek influence. CONCLUSIONS Phrygian coexisted with Greek during the entire period in which the former language was spoken. Although the earliest Old Phrygian inscriptions do not contain information to back up such a statement, contact in prehistoric times is deduced from the available documentation and made explicit between the Achaemenid period and the death of the Phrygian language. The history of Phrygian provides a good example of language replacement. After a period in which both languages had equal status, when even the prestigious, refined language of the Lesbian poets contained loanwords from Phrygian, Greek increasingly became the most common language in Central Anatolia, at the expense 135

In Obrador-Cursach 2016.

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of Phrygian. As the result of the Macedonian conquest and the consequent Hellenisation, Phrygian was used only in funerary contexts in rural areas. By the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, imprecative formulae were virtually the only kind of text written in Phrygian. Although there are some examples of non-formulaic epitaphs in Phrygian that seem to indicate that Phrygian was still spoken, the language of this period was deeply Hellenised, as implied by the continuous use of Greek terms. Note that even such nuclear words as pronouns (τις, τι) were borrowed in Phrygian. Of course, the minoritised language (Phrygian) left traces in the Greek language spoken in Phrygia, as revealed by Greek inscriptions. Phonetics and onomastics provide information about how Phrygian affected Greek. However, it is in the survival of religious terms (the names of cultic associations and the epithets of the gods) where the influence of Phrygian is most evident in Greek inscriptions. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, J.N. 2003: Bilingualism and Latin Language (Oxford). Adiego, I.J. 2007: The Carian Language (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East 86) (Leiden/Boston). Aldea Celada, J.M. 2013: ‘Apolo en el valle del Duero. El dumus sacratus de Lancia Villasabariego, León)’. In Sastre Blanco, J.C., Catalán Ramos, R. and Fuentes Melgar, P. (eds.), Arqueología en el valle del Duero. Del Neolítico a la Antigüedad Tardía: nuevas perspectivas (Actas de las primeres jornades de jóvenes investigadores en el valle del Duero) (Madrid), 165–73. Anfosso, M. 2017: ‘Du grec au phrygien et du phrygien au grec: changements et mélanges de code dans les inscriptions néo-phrygiennes (Ier–IIIe siècles après J.C.)’. Camenulae 18, 1–22. Avram, A. 2015: ‘Ein Altar aus Nakoleia und seine griechisch-phrygischen Inschriften’. Gephyra 12, 199–229. —. 2016: ‘Two Phrygian Gods Between Phrygia and Dacia’. Colloquium Anatolicum 15, 70–83. Bauer A.H. 2013: Morphosyntax of the noun phrase in hieroglyphic Luwian (Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages and Linguistics 12) (Leiden/Boston). Berndt-Ersöz, S. 2006: Phrygian Rock-Cut Shrines. Structure, Functions, and Cult Practice (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 25) (Leiden/Boston). Börker-Klähn, J. 1994: ‘Ein Phryger in Kargamiš’. Altorientalische Forschungen 21.1, 198. Brixhe, C. 1978: ‘Études néo-phrygiennes II (n. 1)’. Verbum 1.2, 1–22. —. 1983: ‘Épigraphie et grammaire du phrygien: état présent et perspectives’. In Vineis, E. (ed.), Le lingue indoeuroppe di frammentaria attestazione – Die indogermanischen Restsprachen (Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana di Glottologia e della Indogermanische Gesellshaft. Udine, 22–24 settembre 1981) (Pisa), 109–33. —. 1987: Essai sur le grec anatolien au début de notre ère (Travaux et Mémoires de l’Université de Nancy II. Études Anciennes 1) (Nancy).

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—. 1990: ‘Comparaison et langues faiblement documentées: l’exemple du phrygien et de ses voyelles longues’. In Dor, J. and Kellens, J. (eds.), La reconstruction des Laryngales (Paris), 59–99. —. 1993: ‘Du paléo- au néo-phrygien’. Comptes-rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 137.2, 323–44. —. 1994: ‘Le Phrygien’. In Bader, F. (ed.), Langues indo-européennes (Paris), 165– 78. —. 1997: ‘Les clitiques du néo-phrygien’. In Gusmani et al. 1997, 41–70. —. 1999: ‘Prolégomènes au Corpus Néo-phrygien’. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 94.1, 285–316. —. 2002a: ‘Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes. Supplément I’. Kadmos 41.1, 1–102. —. 2002b: ‘Interactions between Greek and Phrygian under the Roman Empire’. In Adams, J.N., Janse, M. and Swain, S. (eds.), Bilingualism in Ancient Society (Oxford), 246–66. —. 2004a: ‘Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes. Supplément II’. Kadmos 43.1, 1–130. —. 2004b: ‘Nouvelle chronologie anatolienne et date d’élaboration des alphabets grec et phrygien’. Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 148.1, 271–89. —. 2006: ‘Préhistoire et début de l’histoire des dialectes grecs’. Incontri Linguistici 29, 39–59. —. 2008: ‘Phrygian’. In Woodard, R. (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor (Cambridge), 69–80. —. 2013: ‘The personal onomastics of Roman Phrygia’. In Thonemann, P. (ed.), Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society (Cambridge), 55–59. Brixhe, C. and Neumann, G. 1985: ‘Découverte du plus long texte néo-phrygien: l’inscription de Gezler Köyü’. Kadmos 24, 161–84. Brixhe, C. and Summers, G.D. 2006: ‘Les inscriptions phrygiennes de Kerkenes Dağ (Anatolie centrale)’. Kadmos 48, 93–135. Brixhe, C. and Vottéro, G. 2016: ‘Germanos/Soğukçam: nouvelle inscription paléophrygienne dans une aire cultuelle remarquable’. Kadmos 55.1, 131–46. Bru, H. 2017: La Phrygie Parorée et la Pisidie septentrionale aux époques hellénistique et romaine. Géographie historique et sociologie culturelle (Mnemosyne Suppl. 401) (Leiden/Boston). Calder, W.M. 1911: ‘Corpus Inscriptionum Neo-Phrygiarum’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 31, 161–215. de Hoz, M.-P. 2006: ‘Literacy in Rural Anatolia: the Testimony of the Confession Inscriptions’. ZPE 155, 139–44. —. 2017: ‘Prayer to the deceased? Relations between gods, dead and the living in Phrygia Epictetus’. Ancient West and East 16, 139–54. de Jong, A. 1997: Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 133) (Leiden). Drew-Bear, T. 1985: ‘Frig dilinde yeni yazıtlar’. Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı 3, 257–60. Drew-Bear, T., Lubotsky, A. and Üyümez, M. 2008: ‘Three New Phrygian inscriptions’. Kadmos 47, 109–16. Fick, A. 1873: Die ehemalige Spracheinheit der Indogermanen Europas (Göttingen).

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Gusmani, R., Salvini, M. and Vannicelli, P. (eds.) 1997: Frigi e Frigio (Atti del 1º Simposio Internazionale, Roma 16–17 ottobre 1995) (Rome). Haas, O. 1951: ‘Zur Deutung der phrygischen Inschriften’. Revue Hittite et Asianique 11, 1–30. —. 1966: Die phrygischen Sprachdenkmäler (Linguistique balkanique 10) (Sofia). Hämmig, A.E. 2013: ‘Nevotan niptiyan. Die Fluchformel der Stele von Vezirhan’. Indogermanische Forschungen 118, 125–54. Holzman, S. 2016: ‘Tortoise-Shell Lyres from Phrygian Gordion’. American Journal of Archaeology 120.4, 537–64. Kubińska, J. 1968: Les monuments funéraires dans les inscriptions grecques de l’Asie Mineure (Travaux du Centre d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne de l’Académie Polonaise des Sciences 5) (Warsaw). Lejeune, M. 1969: ‘Notes paléo-phrygiennes’. Revue des Études Anciennes 71.3–4, 287–300. Liebhart, R.F. and Brixhe, C. 2009: ‘The recently discovered inscriptions from Tumulus MM at Gordion. A preliminary report’. Kadmos 48, 141–56. Ligorio, O. and Alexander, L. 2013: ‘Frigiiskii yazyk’. In Koryakov, Y.B and Kibrik, А.А. (eds.), Yazyki mira: Reliktovye indoevropeiskie yazyki Perednei i Tsentral’noi Azii (Мoscow), 180–95. Lubotsky, A. 1988: ‘The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription’. Kadmos 27.1, 9–26. —. 1989: ‘The syntax of the New Phrygian inscription No. 88’. Kadmos 27.2, 146–55. —. 1997: ‘New Phrygian Inscription No. 48: Palaeographic and Linguistic Comments’. In Gusmani et al. 1997, 115–30. —. 1998: ‘New Phrygian metrics and the δεως ζεμελως formula’. In Jasanoff, J., Melchert, H.C. and Oliver, L. (eds.), Mír curad. Studies in Honor of Calvert Watkins (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 92) (Innsbruck), 413–21. —. 2004: ‘The Phrygian Zeus and the problem of the “Lautverschiebung”’. Historische Sprachforschung 117, 234–35. —. 2008: ‘Old Phrygian bevdos “statue, image”, Greek βεῦδος “woman’s dress”’. Journal of Indo-European Studies 36.1–2, 96–98. —. 2017: ‘The Phrygian inscription from Dokimeion and its meter’. In Hajnal, I., Kölligan, D. and Zipser, K. (eds.), Miscellanea Indogermanica. Festschrift für José Luís García Ramón zum 65. Geburtstag (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 154) (Innsbruck), 427–31. Méndez Dosuna, J. 1985: Los dialectos dorios del noroeste: gramática y estudio dialectal (Acta Salamanticensia, Filosofía y Letras 161) (Salamanca). —. 2012: ‘Ancient Macedonian as a Greek dialect: A critical survey on recent work’. In Giannakis, G.K. (ed.), Ancient Macedonia: Language, History, Culture (Salonica), 133–45. Molina Valero, C. 2010: ‘Las glosas licias en fuentes griegas’. In Cortés Gabaudan, F. and Méndez Dosuna, J.V. (eds.), Dic mihi, musa, virum: homenaje al profesor Antonio López Eire (Acta Salamanticensia. Estudios Filológicos 326) (Salamanca), 459–64. Neumann, G. 1997: ‘Die zwei Inschriften auf der Stele von Vezirhan’. In Gusmani et al. 1997, 13–32. —. 2002: ‘Ein neuer Beleg für ΔΟΥΜΟΣ’. Historische Sprachforschung 115.1, 57–58. —. 2007: Glossar des Lykischen (Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie 21) (Wiesbaden).

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Obrador-Cursach, B. 2016: ‘Phrygian mekas and the recently discovered New Phrygian inscription from Nacoleia’. Indogermanische Forschungen 121.1, 177–86. —. 2017: ‘The Phrygian god Bas’. The Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76.2, 1–12. —. 2019: ‘The Luwian origin of the Phrygian imprecations’. In Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), Phrygia in Antiquity: From the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period (Proceedings of an International Conference ‘The Phrygian Lands over Time: From Prehistory to the Middle of the 1st Millennium AD’, held at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2nd–8th November, 2015) (Colloquia Antiqua 24) (Leuven/ Paris/Bristol, CT), 145–59. Opfermann, A. 2017: ‘Griechische, Armenische und Albanische ,Frauen‘ und die Wurzel *Gu̯en-’. In: Bichlmeier, H. and Opfermann, A. (eds.), Das Menschenbild bei den Indogermanen (Studien zur Historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft 9) (Hamburg), 55–80. Orel, V.O. 1997: The Language of Phrygians: Description and Analysis (Delmar, NY). Pisani, V. 1982: ‘Un genitive singolare frigio?’. Kadmos 21.2, 170. Polito, M. 2004: Il δοῦμος: Un’associazione sacra in zone di contatto (Naples). Ramsay, W.M. 1887: ‘Phrygian inscriptions of the Roman Period’. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 28, 381–400. —. 1905a: ‘Neo-Phrygian Inscriptions’. Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien 8, 79–120. —. 1905b: ‘Lycaonian and Phrygian Notes (Continued)’. Classical Review 19.8, 413–29. Ricl, M. 2017: ‘Cults of Phrygia Epiktetos in the Roman Imperial Period’. EA 50, 133–48. Robert, L. 1933: ‘Inscriptions d’Érythrai’. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 57.1, 467–84. Roller, L.E. 2018: ‘Attitudes toward the Past in Roman Phrygia: Survivals and Revivals’. In Simpson, E. (ed.), The Adventure of the Illustrious Scholar. Papers Presented to Oscar White Muscarella (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 94) (Leiden/Boston), 124–39. Sharankov, N. 2009: ‘Notes on Ancient and Mediaeval Latin and Greek Inscriptions from Bulgaria’. Archaeologia Bulgarica 13.3, 47–61. Simon, Z. 2015: ‘Die letzte Zeile der phrygischen Inschrift von Vezirhan’. Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 51, 17–30. Strubbe, J.H.M. 1997: Arai epitymbioi: Imprecations against Desecrators of the Grave in the Greek Epitaphs of Asia Minor: A Catalogue (IGSK 52) (Bonn). Thonemann, P. 2013: ‘Phrygia: an anarchist history, 950 BC–AD 100’. In Thonemann, P. (ed.), Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society (Cambridge), 1–40. Vanschoonwinkel, J. 1990: ‘Mopsus: légendes et réalité’. Hethitica 10, 195–211. West, M.L. 2003: ‘Phrygian metre’. Kadmos 42, 77–86. Woodhouse, R. 2006: ‘Conditioned devoicing of mediae in Phrygian’. Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia 11, 157–91. Yakubovich, I. 2015: ‘Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia’. Anatolian Studies 65, 35–53.

THE INTERPLAY OF TEXT AND IMAGE AS A FORM OF CULTURAL CONTACT IN GREEK INSCRIPTIONS FROM EGYPT Luis Arturo GUICHARD ROMERO

Abstract Scholars of ancient inscriptions have been aware for some time that text and image form a significant unit, although some might be more interested in one than the other according to the approach taken to the study of the inscription. No one can ignore the fact that the original message was made up of both elements. This paper tackles a special group of inscriptions: those with a Greek text and paired with an Egyptian image. I argue that on these monuments the image serves as an instrument of cultural translation, as the language and the image belong to different cultures. Among the inscriptions studied here we can highlight IMEG 112 Bernand = SB 685 (TM 6574), IFayoum I 73 (TM 42851), IFayoum III 205 Bernand (TM 8171), SEG 45 2097 (TM 129723), IMEG 74 Bernand (TM 103917).

For some time now, scholars of ancient inscriptions have been aware that text and image form a significant unit. Although some scholars might be more interested in one over the other according to the approach taken to the study of the inscription, no one can ignore the fact that the original message was made up of both of them. Thus, in his seminal study on Archaic and Classical gravestone inscriptions, Clairmont noted the following: The present monograph is a corpus of the archaic and classical gravestones carved (or painted) with figures and inscribed with epigrams. Its principal aim is to study the correlation of epigrams and figured scenes. The monuments are examined from viewpoints which may be of interest to epigraphists and philologists, as well as the archaeologist and art historian. The epigrams are an integral part of the gravestones, whether they are good or bad poetry or whether or not they contribute to the understanding of the figured scenes.1

Clairmont therefore bucked the trend among archaeologists and art historians by prioritising the image over the text, often dismissing the inscriptions as nothing more than complements that, moreover, had little literary interest. Yet he also decried the opposite trend, defended by epigraphists and philologists, of dismissing the image and prioritising the text. Clairmont, who was basically 1

Clairmont 1970, xvii.

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a historian, clearly understood that when ancient inscriptions are accompanied by an image (or when ancient images are accompanied by a text) they become part of a different, hybrid communicative category that may contain several types depending on the kind of monument involved. More recently, Day completed the notion from a philologist’s perspective: ‘Consideration of the inscribed epigram’s relationship to the object it accompanies must be central in any investigation of its form, meaning, and function in historical context.’2 The monument’s historical context does indeed inform the manner and nature of the interrelationship between text and image. A stone monument featuring a text and an image is above all a functional object that serves a purpose. It needs to be studied not only as a work of art but also as a tangible piece of culture. According to this perspective, each monument is different within certain general classifications, which to be useful need to be broad. The monuments studied by Clairmont, for example, are all gravestones and share the same purpose, but their morphology differs depending on the context and, likewise, the interaction between text and image varies from one to another. In due course, the development of the epigram as a literary genre led to interesting interconnections between the actual monument and the separate text, now no longer designed to be an inscription accompanying an image.3 This article sets out to focus on what I consider to be one of the numerous types of stone monument with a text and an image. I am referring to those monuments on which the image serves as an instrument of cultural translation; in other words, those in which the language and the image belong to different cultures. In this case, I am referring to monuments on which the text is in Greek, while the image is Egyptian. The geographical and historical context of these monuments is clearly defined: Egypt between the 3rd century BC and the 6th century AD. The bulk of Greek inscriptions in Egypt are, as is well known, concentrated in Imperial and Late Antique times, between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, and the type of inscriptions of interest to us is no exception. It is also common knowledge that the Greek culture that spread to Egypt in the 4th century BC with the arrival of the Ptolemies very quickly assimilated aspects of the local culture. The language of communication for Greek communities continued to be Greek, but in literature and art, as adroitly described by Stephens,4 they began to see double. Already the great poets of the Early Hellenistic period, whose works initially seem to be wholly Greek, reveal an extremely interesting interplay with the 2

Day 2007, 29. See Guichard 2004, 32–42 (with bibliography). 4 Stephens 2003, from whom I take the metaphor of seeing double to refer to the cultural hybridisation in inscriptions. 3

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local culture. The cases studied by Stephens (Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius Rhodius) are highly eloquent: the Egyptian component may well take second place and a good eye is needed to see it, but it is still there nonetheless. One can also see double in the inscriptions that concern us here. 1. IMEG 112 = SB 685 (TM 6574) (Fig. 1) Memphis (Mit Riheina): Saqqāra – 4th/3rd century BC ἐνύπνια κρίνω τοῦ θεοῦ πρόσταγμα ἔχων· | τυχἀγαθᾶι Κρής ἐστιν ὁ κρίνων τάδε. 4-5 i.e. τύχαι ἀγαθᾶι

‘I interpret dreams by the god’s mandate. Here’s to good Fortune! This interpreter hails from Crete.’

Fig. 1. IMEG 112 (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 27567).

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This is one of the oldest commercial advertisements ever found. It is made of limestone, and is 35 cm high and 25 cm long. It was discovered in Memphis, near the temple of Anubis, and is now kept in Cairo.5 It consists of a polychrome relief with a painted scene in the middle.6 The lower part features a stairway with four steps leading to the sacred bull Apis beside an altar of triangular corners standing on a dais, which is flanked by two columns crowned by two naked female figures supporting a pediment decorated with acroteria. Judging by the holes in its back, the stone was designed to be hung on a wall or beam with nails or metal fixtures. This extraordinary piece reveals a curious cultural hybridisation at an early stage in Ptolemaic history.7 According to the most widely accepted interpretation, it shows that a Greek could earn a living as an interpreter of dreams for an Egyptian god of such importance as Apis, and in Memphis no less, one of the country’s most visited pilgrimage sites. As Thompson described in her splendid book on Memphis,8 the city’s sanctuaries remained under the strict control of Egyptian priestly elites throughout the Hellenistic period: there are extremely few vestiges of Greek influence in the worship of the Egyptian gods in this period; with the passage of time, however, cultural hybridisation bore its fruits, and in Imperial and Late Antique times, an increasing number of testimonies appear on the Greeks’ adoption of the Egyptian gods. As Bowman9 reports for that time, we have evidence to show that Greeks attended the temples of the Egyptian gods and dedicated votive offerings to them and that, in turn, the Egyptians increasingly adopted the Greek deities. In the Cretan times of interest to us here, nonetheless, this is a highly incipient process and there is still little interplay, although the worship of Sarapis is a very clear exception. Sarapis is in fact a Graeco-Egyptian deity in origin: it is the bull Apis who on its death is reborn as a deity. As Thompson reports, the living bull Apis is worshipped by Egyptians, while the worship of Sarapis, by contrast, involves Greeks from the start. Why, then, does the Cretan’s advertisement feature a living bull Apis – typically Egyptian – and not a Greek anthropomorphic Sarapis? The simplest explanation is that the anthropomorphic Sarapis still did not exist: Sarapis is a bespoke god created by the establishment, to the extent that we more or less know when he acquired his appearance of half Zeus, half Hades, which later on defines him. Bryaxis, the 5

Egyptian Museum CG 27567. For the artistic description, see Charron 1998; Meadows 2001. 7 Most scholars date the monument to the 3rd century BC; Preisigke, when editing it in SB 685, thought it was from the 2nd century BC, without providing any explanations. 8 Thompson 2012. 9 Bowman 1986, 166–69. 6

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court sculptor, was the one who ‘designed’ the anthropomorphic Sarapis, probably during the time of Ptolemy III (who reigned from 246 to 222 BC).10 If the advertisement is earlier, one may assume that the image we know had still not become popularised, and so the bull is still being used to portray the divinity. Yet this poses several problems. First is a purely cultural one: it means that the Graeco-Egyptian god already existed, it does not have an anthropomorphic portrayal, and it is depicted with the appearance of the Egyptian bull Apis through a kind of curious loan. This seems fairly unconvincing. Then there is also a problem of a social nature. If the worship of Apis is exclusively Egyptian at this time, how can the Cretan be interpreting dreams sent by Apis (Sarapis)? None of the interpretations of the stele I am aware of even consider these problems, being satisfied with the fact there is a Greek working there, in Memphis, in the Mecca of Egyptian religiosity. In my opinion, we need to understand that its target customers are Greeks attending the temple of Apis, performing their incubation there and then visiting the Cretan so that he can explain, in Greek, the meaning of their dreams. The Cretan is a cultural mediator, and his sign is in Greek not only because that is his mother tongue, but also because that is precisely the service he is providing, namely, his mastery of Greek; his advertisement highlights, furthermore, his origin, no doubt to assure customers seeking to have their dreams interpreted. The image of Apis and the altar in the advertisement, nonetheless, is directed toward the Egyptian population that does not speak Greek. 2. IFayoum III 205 (TM 8171) (Fig. 2) Arsinoïte Nome (Faiyūm) – 51 BC ὑπὲρ βασιλίσσης Κλεοπάτρας θεᾶς Φιλοπάτωρ τόπος Σνοναιτιακῆς συνόδου ὧν συναγογὸς Ὀννῶφρις λεσώνης· (ἔτους) αʹ, Ἐπὶφ αʹ.

5

3 Φιλοπάτωρ sic lapis : legas Φιλοπάτορος 6 συναγογὸς sic lapis : legas συναγωγός

10 See Green 1990, 407 and n. 92 (p. 835) with all the ancient sources and a discussion of the chronology.

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Fig. 2. IFayoum III 205 (Louvre E 27113). ‘To the divine Queen Cleopatra Philopator, the president of the association of Isis Snonais, Onnophrius the high priest, dedicated its seat Year 1, the first day of the month epiphi.’

Judging by its content, this beautiful stele, measuring 52.5 cm in height, 27.7 cm in width and 4 cm in thickness, probably comes from Fayum, although there is no archaeological data on its original location.11 It is a votive offering

11

The best descriptions, with a good commentary: Wagner 1973; Pfeiffer 2015, 177–81.

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made by a group of believers to Isis Snonais12 at their ‘seat’; the term used (τόπος) is ambiguous and may refer equally to a temple in its truest sense or to any other place where the association meets, and even to an outdoor area. The group or association of believers is dedicating the stele to the divine Cleopatra Philopator, that is, the famous Cleopatra VII, on 2 July 51 BC, the first year of her reign. The person responsible for the offering is Onnophrius, the goddess’s high priest, who acts as the association’s president or guide (συναγωγός). The title accompanying him (λεσῶνης / λεσῶνις) is a transcription of the Egyptian mr-šn, which is the equivalent of the Greek ἀρχιερεύς. The Greek text and the Egyptian image have a very particular relationship on this stele. The Greek text sets the scene for the votive offering, the date and the devotees, with the remarkable characteristic that Cleopatra appears alone as queen of Egypt. Yet the image is even more surprising, as it depicts a man dressed as Ppharaoh, who in addition is wearing the pschent, the double crown that symbolises dominion over Upper and Lower Egypt. The explanation of the former, the fact ‘she’ appears alone, has been thoroughly discussed. Chauveau and Bingen13 have argued that Cleopatra ruled alone for two years (51–50 BC), until she was forced to share the throne with Ptolemy XIII.14 This explanation would clarify why she appears alone in the two testimonies we have of those years. Regarding the surprising fact that the image is of a man, Bianchi, followed by Etienne,15 has interpreted this representation to be intentional: an all-powerful ‘masculine’ Cleopatra. Chauveau and Bingen, by contrast, provide a much more practical explanation: the stele was originally dedicated to Ptolemy XII, and it was reused on his death, removing the original text and inscribing a new one with the name of Cleopatra. This explains, Chauveau contends, why the two last lines in the text are closer together and the fact the engraver had to remove part of the lower frame to include the date. This explanation is obviously more convincing than the one offered by Bianchi, although I do not find it totally so: there is no need to include the new ruler on a monument that is not even an official one. Furthermore, I cannot find any obvious 12 We do not know the precise meaning of the epithet Σονονάϊς, which also appears in another two testimonies associated with Isis; it has been conjectured that it is probably related to the ancient Babylonian goddess Nana (see Wagner 1973, 107), although this explanation seems to be obscura per obscurius. 13 Chauveau 1998; Bingen 2007, 67–70. 14 It should be remembered that the succession of Ptolemy XII Auletes and the ascent to power of Cleopatra VII marked a particularly turbulent time within an already complicated political scenario in the Alexandria of the 1st century BC, which may well have led her to oppose the wish her father had expressed when alive and rule alone for a time, until the latter’s principal ally, Rome, intervened and upheld Ptolemy XIII’s rights. 15 Bianchi 1988, 188–89; Etienne 1998; 2001.

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signs of the stone being ground down: if this was indeed performed it was to such a depth (more than a centimetre of the monument’s 4-cm thickness) that the surface was rendered completely smooth again. The material is limestone, so any abrasions are usually visible on the surface. It is more likely, in my opinion, that the monument with the image was made during the lifetime of Ptolemy XII Auletes, and therefore features a male figure, but the Greek text had still not been engraved by the time of his death. When the king died and Cleopatra ascended the throne, the text that was engraved now referred to the new queen. Bingen posits that the engraver did not ‘consider himself capable’ of reworking the image. I do not think it even involves the same hand: the monument is the work of two different cultures and very probably two different people: one undertook the bas-relief with the Egyptian image and another one subsequently engraved the Greek text. The fact the latter had to adjust the size of the letter and even fit it within the frame is not because the text is a palimpsest, but instead because he miscalculated the space, as Chauveau believed.16 From the perspective of interest to us here, the mismatch between text and image on this monument is highly illustrative: Onnophrius, who has a clearly Egyptian name, has had a Greek text engraved that does not ultimately match the Egyptian image. Yet this does not constitute a problem for him, as the two messages, the written one and the visual one, target different audiences and there is a common thread in which everything is clear. 3. IFayoum I 73 (TM 42851) (Fig. 3) Soknopaiou Nesos (Dimai) – 24 BC SB 5.8895 ὑπὲρ Καίσαρος Αὐτοκράτορος θεοῦ ἐκ θεοῦ ἡ οἰκοδομὴ τοῦ περιβόλου τῷ θεῶι καὶ κυρίῳ Σοκνοπαίωι παρὰ τῶ ἐκ Νείλου πόλεως προβατοκτηνοτρόφν καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ τῶν τέκνων εὐχήν· (ἔτους) ϛʹ Καίσαρος, Φαμ(ενὼθ) κʹ.

5

16 M.-P. de Hoz, based on the epigraphic formulation, suggested to me that both the text and the image may date from the time of Ptolemy XII, and the image shows the father making the votive offering on his daughter’s behalf. The suggestion that both text and image are contemporary is very appealing, but I am not sure, however, that the historical circumstances surrounding the last years of Ptolemy XII as Pharaoh and the intricate power fight at court at this time might be a good scenario for such an offering.

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Fig. 3. IFayoum I 73 (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 9202). ‘In honour of the Emperor Caesar, god son of god, the enclosure for the god and lord Soknopaios was built by the city of Nilopolis, its shepherds, women and sons, in fulfilment of a promise. Year 6 of the Caesar, 28 of Phamenoth.’

This monument17 is dedicated to Augustus, in year 6 of his rule, 24 BC. It is an enclosure that the προβατοκτηνοτρόφοι18 of Nilopolis built for the sacred 17

Pfeiffer 2009, 71–72. The use of this double compound is very interesting, and it is not recorded anywhere else. The text’s author is very precise: the people that have contributed to the building of the wall are not shepherds in the broad sense (as I have translated above for the want of a better term), but instead are those responsible for breeding the smaller livestock (πρόβατα) destined to be sacrificed (κτῆνος) to the crocodile god. 18

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crocodile, Soknopaios. The Greek text explains the situation of the votive offering and the Egyptian image adds interesting nuances. It depicts the sacred crocodile on the left, the enclosure wall in the centre and a standing figure on the right. According to Egyptian custom, this would be the Pharaoh’s place, but it is occupied by Augustus portrayed as Zeus Ammon, with the head of a male goat and this god’s characteristic horns. The Greek text established the following identity: θεός ἐκ θεοῦ (‘god son of god’), which is interesting because it places Caesar on a par with the Pharaoh, who is the divine son of another god. This also shows how quickly the people accepted Augustus as their ruler, which is confirmed by inscriptions in Egyptian.19 As far as we are concerned here, the Greek text and the Egyptian image complement each other, but the image adds information to the text, namely, the god involved. Based on the text alone, we would not know it is Zeus Ammon. We are told this by the image, which anyone can understand, regardless of whether or not they know Greek. The image’s positioning regarding the image is also curious. It seems obvious that the image was engraved first, as the artist has used part of the lower space to depict the crocodile’s tail. The engraver adding the text in this case is skilful,20 managing to adapt it to the space available: wider and more spaced in the first two lines and tighter in all the others. As with the inscription on the Isiac Tablet, it seems that the text and the image follow parallel, albeit slightly different, paths. 4. SEG 45.2097 (TM 129723) (Fig. 4) Porphyrites – AD 18 July 23 (Tiberius, year 4, Epeiph 29) Γαῖος Κομίνιος Λεῦγας ὁ εὑρὼν τὰ μέταλλα τοῦ πορφυρίτου καὶ κνηκίτου καὶ μέλανος πορφυρίτου καὶ ποικίλους λίθους εὐχὴν τέμενος Πανὶ καὶ Σαράπιδι θεοῖς μεγίστοις ὑπὲρ τῆς 19 See the inscription in honour of Apis cited and translated by Pfeiffer 2009, 70. This is an inscription with Egyptian text and image. 20 Although it is true that the final ny has been omitted from the article in line 4 and the omega in line 5, it is a term that I have obviously never seen before.

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σωτηρίας τῶν τέκνων αὐτοῦ vacat ἔτους δ᾽ Τιβερίου Καίσαρος Σεβαστοῦ Ἐπεὶφ κθ ‘Caius Cominius / Leugas, who discovered / the quarries of the / porphyry stone and / knekites and / black porphyry / and also [found] / multi-coloured stones, / dedicated a sanctuary / to Pan and Sarapis / very great gods / for the / well-being of / his children // The 4th year of Tiberius / Caesar Augustus / Epeiph / the 29th.’21

Fig. 4. SEG 45.2097 (current location unknown). Drawing by Van Rengen (1995).

21

Text and translation by Van Rengen 1995.

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According to the concise description made by Chaniotis et al.,22 it is a black porphyry stele with rounded top depicting the winged sun-disk and two cobras; in the middle a picture of Pan-Min, the ithyphallic god of the Eastern Desert, wearing a crown surmounted by two tall straight plumes and raising with his right hand a flail behind his head; on his left a three-legged incense-burner; to his right a Greek inscription.

Caius Cominius Leugas seems to have been a freedman23 who discovered the mines of black porphyry, knekites and granite (or diorite) of Mons Claudianus. To commemorate his discovery, he had a Greek text and a typically Egyptian image engraved on a block of black porphyry. According to the perspective we have adopted, it is highly significant that the image of Min, the Egyptian god the Greeks had identified with Pan since the time of Herodotus, is placed in the centre of the visual frame that delimits the winged sun-disk in the upper part, while the Greek text is placed on the far right, accommodated in the free space outside that frame. It is obvious that the image preceded the text when the monument was made, not only because of the arrangement itself but also because the Greek text mentions Sarapis, of whom there is no trace in the image. Although it is true that Min is the prevailing god in this region, it is still surprising that the Graeco-Egyptian Sarapis does not even appear. It may be that as in the case of the Cretan at Memphis, the creator of this monument wanted to stress the image’s Egyptian nature, and Min is the truly autochthonous one of these two gods. It is a matter of seeing double, as he is the one fulfilling the Egyptian visual aspect, while he is referred to by his Greek name in the text. Also of significance is the qualifier (θεοῖς μεγίστοις) applied to the two gods, as at first glance it appears unnecessary. Why stress they are both equally important? First of all, the image only shows one of them; and secondly, because the freedman of Greek origin making the votive offering knows he is in the domain of the Greek gods. Putting the Graeco-Egyptian Sarapis and the Egyptian Min on an equal footing is just as an effective way of reaffirming their origin as the very fact of engraving the inscription in Greek.

22 Chaniotis et al. 1995. The material used to make the monument renders it impossible to read in any of the published photos I have consulted; the drawing by Van Rengen 1995 is the source used in the successive updates of SEG, and is the one I have used. 23 Chaniotis et al. 1995 compare him with another freedman, Publius Iuventius Agathopous, ‘active in other quarries’ (Bernard 1977, 51; 1972, 39, 41).

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5. IMEG 74 (TM 103917) (Fig. 5) Abydos — (El ‘Araba el-Madfūna) Roman Imperial period — GVI 1089; Louvre 94. πατρὶς μέν μοί ἐστι Λυ | κὼν πόλις, εἰμὶ δ’ Ἐλήμων· | εἴκοσι καὶ ἑνὶ κῆρα κατα | ζβεσθεὶς ἐνιαυτῶι, | Φοίβου καὶ Μουσῶν ὁ θέ | ραψ, παντώνυμος ἤμην. ‘My homeland is Lycopolis and my name is Helemon. At the age of 21 years death consumed me. Servant of Phoebus and the Muses, I was respected by all.’

Fig. 5. IMEG 74 (Louvre N 330).

This gravestone belongs to a Greek from Lycopolis who, judging by the way he is described (‘servant of Apollo and the Muses’), might well have been a teacher in the basic levels of education, probably a γραμματιστής. The stele’s

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origin is unknown,24 although it is very likely to have come from Abydos, from the burial grounds near the famous sanctuary that supposedly contained the tomb of Osiris.25 In the image we can see, below the typical ornament of the sun-disk and the cobras that is identical to the inscription dedicated to Min that we referred to earlier, a figure dressed in Egyptian clothing is being received by Osiris and his entourage. As usual in Egyptian inscriptions, the god occupies a place of honour on the far right, while Helemon himself occupies the far left. The Greek text consists of three hexameters placed in the lower part of the monument. The fact that the name of the deceased and his place of origin are integrated in the metrics clearly indicates that it is an epitaph composed specifically for the occasion, not some stock verses that have been rehashed. The stele is an excellent example of the Greek identity of the text translated through the Egyptian image and of how the two cultures form a unity that is impossible to separate: someone described as a servant of Apollo and the Muses is received by Osiris in the afterlife. * *

*

The representation of the identities and cultural baggage we find in Egyptian monuments is not restricted, of course, to the interplay between a Greek text and an Egyptian image: it also involves immigrants from other regions around 24 See Fraser 1955, 105. Peek’s theory that its provenance is Alexandria is surprising to say the least (cf. GVI 1089). 25 There is therefore a valid comparison with IGENLouvre 93 = IMEG 73 (TM 103916), as already suggested by Fraser, of another native of Lycopolis entombed there: πατρὶς μέν μοί ἐστι Λύκων πόλις· εἰμὶ δ’ Ἀπολλ[ώς], / ἐν Φαρίηι γαίηι θυμὸν ἀποφθίμενος· / νήπιος ἡρπάσθην δ’ ἑκκαιδεκάτου ἐνιαυτοῦ, / ἕκτον ἀωροσύνης μῆνα παρερχόμενος. / νῦν δ’ Ἀβυδηναίου τὸν Ὀσείριδος ἀμφιπολεύω / θῶκον καὶ φθιμένων οὐκ ἐπάτησα δόμους. / ἀθανάτων καὶ τέκνα μεμορμένον οἶτον ἐπέσ[πεν], / ἀλλ’ οἰκεῖ μακάρων Ἠλύσιον πεδίον· / ἒνθ’ ἅμα παισὶ θεῶν με φ[έρ]ων Κυλλήνιος Ἑρμῆς / ἵδρυσε καὶ Λήθης οὐκ ἔπιον λιβάδα. ‘My homeland is Lycopolis. I am Apollo / and I have lost my life in the land of Pharos. / I was still a child, when I was kidnapped at the age of sixteen and a half, / after having reached the sixth month of my premature fate. / Now I serve the throne of Osiris from Abydos / and I have not set foot / inside the mansion of the dead. The sons of the immortals face a predestined death, as well / but they dwell in the Elysian plain of the Blessed. / Hermes Cyllenius took me there, among the sons of the gods, / he put me up and I did not drink from the stream of Lethe’ (trans. by Jiménez San Cristóbal 2011, 168, who deals with the text’s religious aspects.) There is no clear relationship between the two monuments and this would require a detailed study of its own. It is important to remember, according to the approach adopted here, that the inscription to Apollo is bilingual: it has a text in hieroglyphics, an epigram in Greek and an Egyptian image, and although it shares with the one of Helemon the translation of the Greek text and local images, the circumstances of the two characters are likely to have been very different, as Apollo seems to have been a member of some kind of religious community. We know nothing about Helemon.

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the known world, above all in Roman times.26 In the cases I have studied so far there is a distribution of communicative functions between the Greek/Latin text and the Egyptian image, which is not limited to the text’s cultural or visual illustration. Text and image are complementary, but they respond to slightly different communicational aspects: it should not be forgotten, as Stephens reports,27 that the Greeks who settled in Egypt encountered ‘alien habits of mind’ that required adapting to the environment: someone who juxtaposes an Egyptian imagen and a Greek text is seeking to improve communication in an environment that visually no longer speaks the same language: using a Greek image no longer says anything in that new area of meaning. Instead of a bilingual inscription, whose text responds to different cultures,28 what we have briefly seen here on the monuments is the use of two differentiated codes: textual and visual. One might say that the Egyptian image in them fulfils the same role performed by the secondary language in a bilingual inscription: sometimes a mere translation (rarely literal, however), yet in many cases more than that.29

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bernard, A. 1972: De Koptos à Kosseir (Leiden). —. 1977: Pan du désert (Leiden). Bingen, J. 2007: Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture, ed. with an introduction by R.S. Bagnall (Edinburgh). Bowman, A.K. 1986: Egypt after the Pharaohs, 332 BC–AD 642: from Alexander to the Arab Conquest (London).

26 Two good examples are CIL III 6604 (TM 102420), a gravestone for the son of a legionnaire that had settled in Nicopolis, with a Latin text and a hybrid Latin-Egyptian image, and JIEgypt 42 (TM 103271), the epitaph of a Jew from Leontopolis with a Greek text and an Egyptian image. 27 Stephens 2003, 20. 28 See Garulli and Santin in the present volume. 29 This would be the topic for another article, and I do not think there is a need here to discuss the theories on the relationship between text and image in complex messages, although I would like to quote a revealing passage from a classic work on the aesthetics of Reception: ‘The literary work is a many-layered formation. It contains (a) the stratum of verbal sounds and phonetic formations and phenomena of a higher order; (b) the stratum of semantic units, of sentence meanings and the meanings of whole groups of sentences; (c) the stratum of schematized aspects, in which objects of various kinds portrayed in the work come to appearance; and (d) the stratum of the objectivities portrayed in the intentional states of affairs projected by the sentences’ (Ingarden 1973, 12, my emphasis). It is precisely in this deeper layer of language where the superimposed visual image is involved, complementing, conditioning and altering it.

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Chaniotis, A., Pleket, H.W., Stroud, R.S. and Strubbe, J.H.M. 1995: ‘SEG 45-2097. Mons Porphyrites. Dedication to Pan and Sarapis, 23 July 18 A.D.’. SEG (http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1874-6772_seg_a45_2097) (consulted 27 February 2018). Charron, A. 1998: ‘Enseigne d’un interprète des songes crétois’. In Rausch 1998, 195, no. 141. Chauveau, M. 1998: L’Égypte au temps de Cléopâtre (Paris). Clairmont, C.W. 1970: Gravestone and Epigram: Greek Memorials from the Archaic and Classical Period (Mainz). Day, J.W. 2007: ‘Poems on Stone: The Inscribed Antecedents of Hellenistic Epigram’. In Bing, P. and Bruss, J.S. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden/ Boston), 27–47. Etienne, M. 1998: ‘Stèle portant une dédicace au nom de Cléopâtre VII Philopator’. In Rausch 1998, 290, no. 244. —. 2001: ‘Limestone stele attributed to the reign of Cleopatra VII’. In Walker and Higgs 2001, 156–57, no. 154. Fraser, P.M. 1955: ‘Bibliography: Graeco Roman Egypt: Greek Epigraphy’. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 42, 105–15. Ingarden, R. 1973: The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art (Evanston, IL). Jiménez San Cristóbal, A.I. 2011: ‘Do not drink the water of Forgetfulness (OF 474– 477)’. In Herrero de Jáuregui, M., Jiménez San Cristóbal, A.I., Luján Martínez, E.R., Santamaría Álvarez, M.A., Martín Hernández, R. and Torallas Tovar, S. (eds.), Tracing Orpheus. Studies of Orphic Fragments in Honour of Alberto Bernabé (Sozomena 10) (Berlin/Boston), 163–70. Meadows, A.R. 2001: ‘Limestone stele: advertisement for an interpreter of dreams’. In Walker and Higgs 2001, 104, no. 125. Pfeiffer, S. 2009: ‘Octavian-Augustus und Ägypten’. In Coşkun, A., Heinen, H. and Pfeiffer, S. (eds.), Identität und Zugehörigkeit im Osten der griechisch-römischen Welt. Aspekte ihrer Repräsentation in Städten, Provinzen und Reichen (Inklusion/ Exklusion 14) (Frankfurt), 55–79. —. 2015: Griechische und lateinische Inschriften zum Ptolemäerreich und zur römischen Provinz Aegyptus (Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 9) (Berlin). Rausch, M. (ed.) 1998: La gloire d’Alexandrie (Exhibition Catalogue) (Paris). Stephens, S.A. 2003: Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Hellenistic Culture and Society 37) (Berkeley/London). Thompson, D.J. 2012: Memphis under the Ptolemies, 2nd ed. (Princeton/Oxford). van Rengen, W. 1995: ‘A New Paneion at Mons Porphyrites’. Chronique d’Égypte 70, 240–45. Wagner, G. 1973: ‘Une dédicace à la grande Cléopâtre de la part du synode snonaïtiaque (2 Juillet 51 av. J.-C. – Fayoum-Soknopéonèse)’. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 73, 103–08. Walker, S. and Higgs, P. (eds.) 2001: Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth (Exhibition Catalogue) (London).

TRACES OF GREEK LITERARY TRADITION IN THE MAGICAL PAPYRI FROM ROMAN EGYPT: BORROWING, ADAPTATION, APPROPRIATION Ljuba Merlina BORTOLANI

Abstract This contribution analyses the possible different degrees of penetration of the Greek literary tradition that represented the basis of Greek paideia (Homer and Hesiod) in the Greek magical papyri from Roman Egypt (PGM). The most famous, and easy detectable, examples of influence of this Greek literary tradition in the PGM are the use of the Greek hexameter for some short incantations or longer invocations to deities (the so-called ‘magical hymns’), and the use of single Homeric verses either as oracular responses or as powerful magical formulae. Apart from these cases, which have been often discussed by scholars, it is possible to hypothesise the influence of this Greek literary tradition also in the scattered appearance of some names of specifically literary Greek deities and even in the shaping of some magical rituals. The different instances are discussed, focusing on the various levels of interaction with Greek literary tradition they imply, and on their subsequent significance in relation to the compilers of the PGM and their clientele.

Thanks to the new interdisciplinary debate that developed around the Greek and Demotic magical papyri (abbreviated PGM and PDM)1 from the second 1 These collections of spells from Roman Egypt, dated mainly between the 2nd and the 5th centuries AD, represent one of the best examples of coexistence of different magico-religious traditions. The corpus, up to now, consists of about 240 papyri of very different length and about 40 other documents on ostraka, wooden and metal tablets (and further documents are awaiting publication). It includes examples of ‘applied spells’ (documents that are remains of rituals that were actually performed) but also proper magical handbooks to be consulted when needed assembling spells for many different purposes (from divination to curses, from spells for erotic attraction to iatromagical charms, etc.). Even if the provenance of most papyri is unknown, some of the longest handbooks are part of the so-called ‘Theban Magical Library’, as they were allegedly found together in a tomb in or around Thebes in Upper Egypt sometime before 1828 (see, for example, Brashear 1995, 3400–05; Zago 2010, especially 31–71; Dosoo 2016). The main language and script of the magical papyri is Greek, but Egyptian Demotic script is also employed for whole papyri or passages or glosses, and also the Egyptian Old Coptic and Hieratic scripts can be used for passages or glosses. Similar to the mixture of languages and scripts, the first impression looking at these papyri is that they assemble disparate religious traditions (obviously Egyptian, and Greek, but to a lesser extent also Jewish, Christian, Babylonian and Mithraic). For a detailed overview of the PGM and PDM and their history of

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half of the 20th century,2 some fundamental characteristics of this corpus were finally established. Most notably, though it appears to be the product of a complex tangle of different magico-religious traditions,3 its main components are Egyptian and Greek,4 and many procedures and underlying conceptions can be traced back to Egyptian religious tradition even if most of the papyri are written in Greek.5 Furthermore, the magical handbooks are not original compositions but the results of a long process of collection and re-elaboration of earlier material,6 and most of this compilation process must have been carried out within an Egyptian priestly milieu (as proved, for instance, by the presence of Demotic, Old Coptic and especially Hieratic)7 by ritual experts, maybe offduty priests, who at least at a certain stage had access to temple libraries.8 Despite this strong Egyptian background, the magical papyri display many elements that can be described as authentically Greek. However, while it is quite easy to identify these elements in themselves (such as names of Greek deities), it is much more difficult to distinguish whether these elements are actually used in line with a Greek cultural background or have been appropriated and adapted in an Egyptian cultural perspective. studies, see Brashear 1995; Ritner 1995. The standard edition for the Greek texts is Preisendanz and Henrichs 1973–74 = PGM; for the Demotic ones, see n. 2 and the new translations of many spells in Quack 2008. 2 Even if the multicultural contributions were recognised from the beginning (see n. 1 and below), Greek and Demotic texts were mainly treated separately for many years. This scholarly attitude began to change from the 1970s when all the most significant Demotic papyri became available in different publications (the earlier Griffith and Thompson 1904–09 and Bell, Nock and Thompson 1933 were complemented by Johnson 1975 and 1977), 100 new Greek texts were edited by Daniel and Maltomini (Supplementum Magicum [SM] 1990–92), and in 1986 H.D. Betz supervised a team of both Classicists and Egyptologists for the edition of The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation – Including the Demotic Spells (Betz 1992), with which the unity of the Greek and Demotic magical papyri was finally recognised. 3 See nn. 1 and 4. 4 Elements from other religious traditions are mainly limited to voces magicae (see n. 34) and divine names. See, for example, Brashear 1995, 3422–29; Ritner 1995, 3351–52; Bohak 2003; LiDonnici 2007; Fauth 2014; Quack 2017; Schwemer 2019. 5 For example, Sauneron 1951; Brashear 1995, 3390–95; Kákosy 1995a, 3028–43; Ritner 1993, in particular 112–19, 157–59, 193–99; 1995, 3345–55, 3362–71; Koenig 1994, 60–72, 156–65. 6 For example, Brashear 1995, 3414–16; Dieleman 2005, especially 47–101; 2011; etc. Moreover, among the unpublished Demotic texts there are handbooks from the Saite or Ptolemaic periods (for example P. Brooklyn 47.218.47 v. and P. Heidelberg Dem. 5 that will be published by J.F. Quack) and a few Greek handbooks dated to the 1st century BC/AD (for example, PGM XX, SM 71, 72, POxy. 4468), which demonstrates that this kind of magical texts must have started to circulate at a much earlier date than the one of most extant documents. 7 For example, Ritner 1995, 3361–62; Dieleman 2005; 2011; Frankfurter 2000, especially 175–83. 8 For example, Quack 1998, especially 85, 89; 2010; cf. Frankfurter 2002; Quack 2011, 143–44.

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In particular, if we want to analyse specifically the influence of the Greek literary tradition in the magical papyri, various considerations should be kept in mind. Of course the use of the Greek language itself can be considered as a reflection of Greek paideia, and thus literary tradition,9 but, when considered alone, it can hardly tell us much about the special ways in which the Greek literary tradition may have been incorporated by these magical texts. Focusing on more specific content or stylistic patterns would thus seem more promising but, since we are dealing with ritual texts, it is important to remember that many of the elements that can be labelled as culturally Greek did not necessarily have to be connected with literary tradition. For example, the presence of the name of Apollo together with some of his typical attributes does not necessarily imply that the compilers of the magical papyri had read Greek literature on Apollo since, living in the multicultural society of Roman Egypt, they could have acquired knowledge of the god and his well-known features also through popular or ritual traditions. At the same time, the long process of composition and collection of the handbooks is highly relevant since some spells, or parts of spells, might have originated in a completely Greek cultural background and reached the magical papyri as almost finished products. Therefore, even if pre-existing material can always be expanded or modified,10 when we detect possible influences of Greek literary tradition it is important to try to distinguish if they imply the direct interaction of the Graeco-Egyptian compilers or just their will to incorporate pre-existing Greek products. Keeping all this in mind, in order to limit the field of investigation, this contribution will discuss examples from the magical papyri that demonstrate or suggest the influence of that literary tradition that represented the hard core of Greek paideia, mainly Homer and Hesiod. The final aim is to provide an overview of the possible different levels of penetration of this tradition and to evaluate their significance in relation to the compilers of these texts and their clientele. The most famous, and easy detectable, examples of influence of this Greek literary tradition in the PGM are the use of the Greek hexameter for some short incantations or longer invocations to deities (that together with other compositions in different metres are usually called ‘magical hymns’), and the use of single Homeric verses either as oracular responses or as powerful magical 9 We know that Greek classical authors were available to and read by the literate elite in Graeco-Roman Egypt, especially as employed in Greek schooling (see, for example, Thompson 1992; 1994, 76–77; Cribiore 1996, 48–49; 2001, 178–80, 192–204, 225–38; cf. Miguélez Cavero 2008, 23–29, 97–105, 197–263; Schwendner 2002). 10 For example, Bohak 2008, 146–48; Quack 2010, 47–51; even if magic displays also a tendency to conservatism.

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formulae. Homeric verses as oracular responses are attested in the so-called Homeromanteion,11 a lot oracle preserved more extensively by PGM VII 1–148, in which we find random verses from the Iliad and the Odyssey, each of them marked with a combination of three numbers from one to six. The consultant threw a dice three times in order to obtain the three numbers that identified the verse to be used as oracular response. On the other hand, single or grouped Homeric verses could be employed also as magical formulae, to be written or pronounced mainly for healing or protective purposes.12 These cases definitely represent instances of penetration of Greek literary tradition in the magical papyri. However, it seems they reached these handbooks through similar collections of spells or oracles, and thus that the compilers did not directly consult the Homeric text during the composition process. For example, it has been noticed how two other versions of the same Homeromanteion13 preserve a reading of Iliad 24. 92 (line that is not preserved in PGM VII) that is unknown to Homeric tradition and incompatible with the context, which suggests these oracles were copied from a model and not assembled anew every time starting from the Homeric text.14 At the same time, some of the scholars who analysed the Homeric verses used as magical formulae15 in the PGM noticed how their relevance in connection with their magical context does not appear to derive from their original meaning within the Homeric text, but from evocative analogies and interpretations of the employed words that are disconnected from the original narrative. Here is one of the examples quoted by Collins – PGM XXIIa 11–14, in which a verse of the Iliad (3. 40) is used as a contraceptive: Carried [with a magnetic] stone, or even spoken, [this verse] serves as a contraceptive: ‘Would that you be fated to be unborn and to die unmarried’ (αἴθ’ ὄφελες ἄγονός [τ’ ἔμεναι ἄγαμ]ός τ’ ἀπολέσθαι). Write this on a piece of new [papyrus] and tie it up with hairs of a mule.16 11 On this oracle, see Maltomini 1995; Schwendner 2002; Karanika 2011; Zografou 2013; Martín Hernández 2014a; 2014b; cf. Graf 2005; also Nagy 2002, for Homeric poetry equated with oracular poetry. 12 For example, PGM IV 467–474; PGM IV 821–824; PGM IV 830–834; PGM IV 2145– 2150; PGM XXIIa 1–17. 13 POxy. 3831, dated to the 3rd/4th century AD, preserved verses 1–18 of the oracle introduced by instructions about its use; SM 77 (= PBon. 3), dated to the 2nd/3rd century AD, preserved verses 1–15, 26–34 and 51–61 of the oracle. 14 See Maltomini 1995, 110: Iliad 24. 92, εἶμι μέν, οὐδ’ ἅλιον ἔπος ἔσσεται ὅττί κεν εἴπῃ (‘howbeit I will go, neither shall his word be vain, whatsoever he shall speak’); POxy. 3831, b.12, εἶμι μέν, οὐδ’ ἅλιον ἔπ[ος ἔσσ]εται ὅττί κεν εἴπω; SM 77 Fol. 5v.12 (PBon. 3), εἶμι μέν, οὐδ’ ἅλιον ἔπος ἔσσεται ὅττί κ]εν εἴπω. See also Martín Hernández 2014b, §17, §34. 15 Most recently Collins 2008a; 2008b, 104–31; Suárez de la Torre 2011; cf. Karanika 2011, 260–64. 16 Translation by J. Scarborough in Betz 1992, 260.

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In its original narrative context the verse had nothing to do with pregnancy but it was part of a series of insults with which Hector reprimanded Paris for his cowardice. However, it seems that its new magical use was triggered by the presence of the evocative words ἄγονος and ἄγαμος.17 It has also been noticed how, starting mainly from the 2nd century AD, there are various other attestations of the use of Homeric verses for healing and protective purposes.18 It is thus clear that there was an ongoing tradition attributing a special power to Homer.19 However, while in its earlier attestations the original Homeric narrative context appears to be meaningful for the choice of the verses, in later cases, including the magical papyri, this connection seems to be lost.20 All this suggests that even in this case the compilers of the magical papyri did not necessarily have to consult the Homeric text for producing the spells in question, but they could have copied them from pre-existing handbooks. Similar conclusions were drawn when analysing short hexametrical incantations found in the magical papyri. For instance, Faraone21 noted that the hexametrical charms included in PGM XX and SM 72 (dated to the 1st century BC/ AD) basically have no added ritual, mostly conform to Greek tradition and could have been copied from anthologies of metrical incantations possibly similar to the anthologies of Greek poetry that became popular in the Hellenistic period. In this case, we would have originally orally transmitted Greek incantations that at a certain stage were recorded in writing and then became available as a literary source to be copied and modified by the compilers of these early magical papyri.22 The use of the metre and sometimes their 17 Collins 2008a, 216–17; 2008b, 110–11: ἄγονος, ‘unborn’ in the Homeric context, can also be interpreted as meaning ‘unfruitful/sterile’, and ἄγαμος, ‘unmarried’, can also be interpreted as meaning ‘without sexual union’ (cf. Dickie 2000, 570); see also Faraone 1996, 83, n. 20. 18 For example, Lucian Charon 7. 1–15; Marcellus Empiricus De medicamentis 8. 58 and 15. 108. For an extensive list of the attestations and discussion also about the following footnote, see Collins 2008a, 211–15, 222–28, 231–32; 2008b, 104–08, 118–25; also Faraone 1996, 83–85. 19 The existence of this tradition has been explained, for example, according to the power traditionally attributed to hexametrical incantations (on which see Faraone 1995; 1996, especially 85–97; 2011; cf. Furley 1993) or through Neoplatonic views about the divinity of Homer and the subsequent sympathetic connection between the cosmic and the material world order retained by his verses (see Collins 2008a, 229–34; 2008b, 125–30; Lamberton 1986, especially 19–22; Zografou 2013, 2.1; Martín Hernández 2014b, §20; cf. Versnel 2002, 124–25; Schwendner 2002, 108; Suárez de la Torre 2011, 528). 20 Collins 2008a, especially 214–22, 233–34; 2008b, 108–18, 131; Karanika 2011, 260–64; cf. Suárez de la Torre 2011, who gives more relevance to the original narrative context (in the end his opinion is not so different from Collins’s since the relevance he gives to the Homeric narrative is based on analogies that are somehow present also in the single verses detached from their context). 21 Faraone 2000. 22 See also Faraone (1995, especially 8–11, 13–14; 1996, 93–100), who also discusses the famous case of PGM LXX (3rd/4th century AD) and SM 49 (3rd/4th century AD), some lines of

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contents display the influence of Greek literary tradition but, if they were copied as pre-existing incantations, the compilers of the magical papyri did not need to directly interact with the Greek literary tradition that influenced them. The situation becomes more complex when evaluating the magical hymns.23 These hymns employ Greek metre, which was seemingly integrated in the magical papyri as the authoritative traditionally Greek form of addressing deities, but a closer analysis reveals that they cannot be considered altogether and that their textual history might have been very different according to the single hymn or to subgroups of hymns. Here follow two examples from hexametrical hymns that also incorporate Homeric verses. The first one is a hymn to Apollo from PGM VI+II24 appearing in a spell aimed at obtaining dream revelations. After an initial more fragmentary part, the hymn proceeds as follows:25 PGM VI 25–38 25

30

35

‘[μ]αντοσύναισιν [ἐπ]ίρροθε, Φοῖβε Ἀπόλλ[ον], [Λ]ητοΐδη ἑκάεργε, [θε]οπρόπε, δεῦρ’ ἄγε δε[ῦρο], δεῦρ’ ἄγε, θεσπίζω[ν], μαντεύεο νυκτὸς ἐ[ν ὥ]ρῃ.’ (two lines of ritual instructions) ‘κλῦθί μευ, ἀργυρό[τοξ]ε, ὃς Χρύσην ἀμφιβέ[βηκ]ας Κίλλαν τε ζαθέην [Τε]νέδοιό τε ἶφι ἀνάσσεις, χρυσοφαῆ, λαῖλ[α]ψ καὶ Πυθολέτα μεσεγκριφι, Λατῶε σιαωθ’ Σ[αβ]αώθ, Μελιοῦχε, τύραννε, πευχρη, νυκτε[ρόφ]οιτε σεσεγγενβαρφ[α]ρα⟨γ⟩γης καὶ αρβεθω πολύμορφε, φιλαίματε, Ἀρβαθιαω, Σμινθεῦ, εἴ ποτ[έ τ]οι χαρίεντ’ ἐπὶ βωμὸν ἔρεψα, ἢ εἰ δή ποτέ τοι κ[ατ]ὰ πίονα μηρί’ ἔκηα ταύρων ἠδ’ α[ἰγ]ῶν, τόδε μοι κρήηνο[ν] ἐέλδωρ.’

which are paralleled in the so-called Getty Hexameters (first edition in Jordan and Kotansky 2011; for extensive commentaries see the essays in Faraone and Obbink 2013) written on a lead tablet from 5th-century BC Selinus, i.e. 700/800 years earlier (Col. i.8 = PGM LXX 12, Col. i.8– 14 = SM 49 64–70). As before, this examples testifies to the availability of earlier Greek hexametrical sources (in this case ritual/apotropaic texts) but not necessarily to the direct interaction of the PGM’s compilers with Greek literary tradition. See also Faraone 2011; 1992 (for a probably traditional hexametrical coda of Greek incantations found again in the magical papyri). 23 Also because of the lack of actual parallels which makes it hard to trace a textual history for these compositions. For an overview of the magical hymns, see the reconstructed versions of them provided in PGM vol. 2, 237–266; more specific discussion or commentaries to single hymns can be found, for example, in Riesenfeld 1946; Heitsch 1959; Merkelbach and Totti 1990–2001 I–II; Brashear 1995, 3420–21; Smith 1981; Calvo Martínez 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2008; 2009; 2010; 2012; 2013a; 2013b; Tissi 2013; 2014; 2015; Suárez de la Torre 2015; Bortolani 2016; Ristorto 2019. 24 For PGM VI and PGM II as parts of the same handbook, see Chronopoulou 2017. 25 For a detailed analysis of the whole hymn, see Bortolani 2016, hymn no. 8, cf. hymn no. 6.

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‘O helper through the arts of prophecy, Phoibos Apollo, Leto’s son, who dart afar, prophet, come here, here, come here, prophesying, give oracles in the night’s hour.’ (two lines of ritual instructions) ‘Listen to me, you with the silver bow, who protect Chryses and holy Cilla and are the mighty ruler of Tenedos, gold-shining, storm and Python slayer, MESEGKRIPHI, Leto’s son, SIAŌTH SABAŌTH MELIOUCHE, absolute ruler, PEUCHRĒ, night-wanderer, SESEGGENBARPHARAGGĒS and ARBETHŌ, with many forms, fond of blood, ARBATHIAŌ, Smintheus, if I ever roofed a pleasing altar for you, or if I ever burnt for you fat thighs of bulls or goats, fulfil this desire for me.’

30

35

At the beginning we find various traditional epithets of Apollo, like the Homeric Phoibos26 and ἑκάεργε,27, and abundance of Homeric language, such as ἐπίρροθος,28 ἔρχεο,29 together with the rare μαντεύεο.30 The two hexametrical feet νυκτὸς ἐν ὥρῃ31 and Λητοΐδη32 are frequent in the Homeric hymn to Hermes, and ἄγε δεῦρο is almost exclusively Homeric.33 The hymn proceeds with five verses from the Iliad (1. 37–41 found at ll. 30–31 and 36–38 of the papyrus), in the middle of which three lines of epithets have been inserted (ll. 32–35 of the papyrus). They contain mainly so-called voces magicae34 and some other Greek words that appear to be used as voces magicae. Interestingly these words have been arranged trying to fit the hexameter, even if not always with great results. This insertion clearly testifies to the influence of the magical tradition, but it is also easily detachable from the rest of the passage which, both in language and in contents, is highly consistent with a Greek cultural background and with the Greek Apollo. The Homeric passage in its original narrative context is part of the prayer that Chryses addresses to Apollo in order to obtain vengeance against Agamemnon and which the god fulfils immediately sending a plague to the Greek armies. The Homeric narrative context 26

Iliad 1. 43, 64, 72, 182; 5. 344, 454, 509 and passim. For example, Iliad 5. 439; Odyssey 8. 323; Hymnus ad Apollinem passim; Hymnus ad Mercurium passim. 28 Iliad 4. 390; 23. 770; Hesiod Opera et Dies 56. 29 For example, Iliad 6. 270; 9. 43, 603; 10. 85; Odyssey 1. 281; 10. 320, 402. 30 See Odyssey 2. 178. 31 Hymnus ad Mercurium 67, 155, 400. 32 Hymnus ad Mercurium passim. 33 For example, Iliad 11. 314; 17. 179, 685; 22. 254; Odyssey 11. 561; 22. 233; 24. 299. 34 Words, typical of magical texts, without apparent meaning but with a special sound or visual impact that sometimes originally derived from meaningful words in foreign languages but are used in magic mainly as secret powerful names of deities (see, for example, Brashear 1995, 3429–38; Versnel 2002; Quack 2004; Addey 2011; Tardieu et al. 2013). 27

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matches the magical spell inasmuch as the magician is also praying Apollo and he hopes the god will promptly fulfil his request. Nevertheless, the final aim of the spell is to obtain dream revelations and not to arise the wrath of the god against someone. In conclusion, whoever composed the hymn clearly knew or consulted the Homeric text and was familiar with Homeric language, but considering that the four lines of magical epithets could have been a later addition, it is hard to establish whether the main bulk of a hymn like this one was composed in the Graeco-Egyptian magical milieu or reached the magical papyri as an almost finished product composed in a Greek cultural background. However, at l. 27, the god is supposed to ‘give oracles in the night’s hour’, which fits the magical context of the dream oracle. The line could have either been already present in a pre-existing hymn,35 or could have been modified to fit the context. If it was modified, whoever did it must have had a certain familiarity with Greek hexameters, and this is certainly true for whoever tried to metrically arrange the four lines of epithets and voces magicae to fit the metre. All this considered, for sure the presence of a hymn like this one in the PGM testifies to the will of incorporating Greek style praises according to the principle, typical of magic, for which it is worth to integrate something that is believed to be authoritative in a certain religious tradition in order to enhance the power of the spell. At the same time, this hymn also demonstrates that some compilers in the magical milieu had at least some knowledge of Greek hexameters, which allowed them to feel at ease in trying to metrically arrange lines of epithets and voces magicae or, maybe, in modifying some verses. A different case is represented by a hexametrical hymn that appears in the lamp divination PGM IV 930–1114 (939–948): the spell displays many similarities to the other examples of this magical technique that are more commonly attested in Demotic papyri, and in the prose section invokes more than once Horus Harpocrates, the Egyptian solar god Horus the child. The first part of the spell includes the hexametrical section that begins as follows:36

35 Perhaps composed in connection with that tradition that associated Apollo with prophetic dreams. See, for example, the connection between prophetic dreams and the oracle of Gaea that preceded the oracle of Apollo at Delphi (for example, Euripides Iphigenia Taurica 1234–1275, and Hecuba 69–76; cf. Pausanias 10. 5. 5–6; Amandry 1950, 37–40, 201–14; Sourvinou-Inwood 1987, especially 225–33). See also Pausanias 1. 34. 4; Herodotus. 1. 182. 2; Renberg 2010b, 46–74. 36 For the detailed analysis of the whole hymn and thorough explanation of the Egyptian background of all the epithets (including the ones mentioned below), see Bortolani 2016, hymn no. 5; also Merkelbach and Totti 1990–2001 I, 2–10; Calvo Martínez 2004.

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PGM IV 939–943 940

940

χαῖρε δράκων, ἀκμαῖε δὲ λέων, φυσικαὶ πυρὸς ἀρχαί, χαῖρε δὲ λευκὸν ὕδωρ καὶ δένδρεον ὑψιπέτηλον, καὶ χρυσοῦ κυαμῶνος ἀναθρῴσκων μελίλωτον, καὶ καθαρῶν στομάτων ἀφρὸν ἥμερον ἐξαναβλύων, κάνθαρε, κύκλον ἄγων σπορίμου πυρός, αὐτογένεθλε… ‘Hail serpent, lion at the full height of its strength, natural origins of fire, hail clear water and lofty foliaged tree and you who sprout from a golden field of lotuses as sweet lotus and you who make mild foam gush forth from pure mouths, scarab, who lead the circle of the fertile fire, self-engendered…’

Even in this case we find part of a Homeric verse pasted into the hymn: l. 940 of the papyrus represents a variation of Homer Odyssey 4. 458: γίνετο δ’ ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ καὶ δένδρεον ὑψιπέτηλον. However, contrary to the previous case, here the verse is used within the description of a completely Egyptian deity: the solar creator god especially alluded to in his child form as sun at dawn. Just to quickly mention some epithets, the god is said to be a ‘serpent’, a ‘lion’ and a ‘scarab’, all animals with strong symbolism in Egyptian religious thought that were often employed as divine manifestations to express especially the primordial, solar and regenerative aspect of solar creator gods.37 He is identified with the ‘origins of fire’, said to ‘lead the circle of the fertile fire’ and described as a sprouting lotus flower, all images that describe the Egyptian solar god in his primeval appearance at the beginning of time and in his daily cyclical reappearance at dawn.38 He is also said to be αὐτογένεθλος, ‘self-engendered’, a Greek late formation that is likely to translate the Egyptian epithet ḫpr-ḏs.f, literally ‘who came into being by himself’, extremely common for Egyptian creator gods that are considered self-begotten.39 In all this we find the Homeric verse that in its original narrative context refers to two of the many forms into which Proteus metamorphoses when he is captured by Menelaus and his companions trying to obtain an oracle from the god (Odyssey 4. 456–458): but also at first he turned into a well-maned lion, and then into a serpent, and a leopard, and a huge boar; then he turned into running water, and into a lofty-foliaged tree. 37 Bortolani 2016, 124–25, 153–56; cf. Kákosy 1995b; Mendel 2003, 64–72; De Wit 1954; Michel 2002, 16–25; Minas-Nerpel 2006, especially 1, 61–63, 102–04, 140–43, 244–46, 306–08, 395–96, 463–77. 38 Bortolani 2016, 157–60, 163–64; cf. Morenz and Schubert 1954; Weidner 1985, 113–17; Calvo Martínez 2004, 275. For the various possible interpretations (anyhow all in line with the Egyptian background) of the epithet ‘who make mild foam gush forth from pure mouths’, see Bortolani 2016, 160–63. 39 See Leitz 2002–03 V, 703–06; Bortolani 2016, 93–94, 164.

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The use of the Homeric verse in the magical hymn reflects the Homeric narrative since not only the magician is looking for an oracle like Menelaus, but also the hymn uses the verse to refer to the multiple forms of a god exactly as the Homeric passage: instead of the metamorphoses of Proteus, the various manifestations of Egyptian solar creator gods. Moreover, in the Homeric passage Proteus changes also into a lion and into a serpent, forms that we find again in the magical hymn. All this considered, it is very probable that the compiler knew the Homeric passage very well or consulted the Homeric text during the composition of this hymn. However, contrary to the previous example, we must assume that the hymn was composed in a Graeco-Egyptian milieu since the metre is employed to express contents alien to Greek religious tradition. This example not only testifies again to the prestige and authority of Greek metre and of Homer, but also to a degree of involvement with Greek texts that went beyond the mere availability of sources to copy from, since the author had to directly engage with Greek literary tradition in order to create a new product. Apart from Homeric verses and hexametrical incantations or hymns, which were more often discussed by scholars, other possible instances of penetration of this same Greek literary tradition in the magical papyri have been less investigated. In fact, without the metrical form, the frequent lack of actual parallels makes even more difficult to identify with certainty the potential influence of Greek literary tradition. Nevertheless, some instances that appear outside hexametrical sections and could imply this influence may be worth mentioning. For example, while the presence of the names of many Greek deities is not particularly relevant in itself since at conceptual level they are often identified with their Egyptian equivalents (such as Apollo–solar god, Hermes–Thoth, Typhon–Seth), the sporadic appearance of specifically Greek divine entities of literary tradition is more suspicious. For instance, in a bowl divination of Aphrodite (PGM IV 3209–3254) we find a recitation that mentions Himeros together with the Horae and the Graces: PGM IV 3227–3233 ἐπὰν δὲ μὴ ἐπακούσῃ, λέγε· ‘ἐπικαλοῦμαι τὴν ιλαουχ, Ἵμερον γεννήσασαν, Ὥρας ἀγαθάς τε ὑμᾶς Χάριτας, ἐπικαλοῦμαι καὶ τὴν τῶν ἁπάντων Διογενῆ φύσιν… ἀφρωραίαν Ἀφροδίτην…’ ‘But if she does not listen say: ‘I call upon the ILAOUCH who has begotten Himeros, the lovely Horai and you Graces, I also call upon the Zeus-sprung origin of all things… foam-beautiful Aphrodite…’40

40

Translation by J.P. Hershbell in Betz 1992 with one variation.

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Himeros, as the personification of longing love or sexual desire, was mainly a literary entity, mentioned very rarely by classical authors41 with the exception of Hesiod’s Theogony, where he appears twice not only in connection with Aphrodite but also with the Graces. Hesiod Theogony 201–202 τῇ δ’ Ἔρος ὡμάρτησε καὶ Ἵμερος ἔσπετο καλὸς γεινομένῃ τὰ πρῶτα θεῶν τ’ ἐς φῦλον ἰούσῃ· ‘and with her (Aphrodite) went Eros, and comely Himeros followed her at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods.’42

Hesiod Theogony 63–65 ἔνθά σφιν λιπαροί τε χοροὶ καὶ δώματα καλά, πὰρ δ’ αὐτῇς Χάριτές τε καὶ Ἵμερος οἰκί’ ἔχουσιν ἐν θαλίῃς… ‘There are their (of the Muses) bright dancing places and beautiful homes, and beside them the Graces and Himeros live in delight.’

This example hints to the influence of Greek literary tradition also outside metrical sections and the presence of the magical word ILAOUCH suggests that this invocation may have been at least reworked in a magical context (even if of course it could represent a corrupted reading of a once meaningful word). Similarly, Chaos and Erebos, the primeval deities of the vacant, infinite space and darkness of the Hesiodic Theogony, who were also mainly literary entities, appear together in the PGM four times. In the first two cases, we are dealing with hexametrical invocations that display many other Greek elements43 and, as in the previous instances, may have also reached the PGM as an almost finished product. PGM IV 1460–1462 Χάος ἀρχέγονον, / Ἔρεβος, φρικτὸν Στυγὸς ὕδωρ, / νάματα Λήθης Ἀχερουσία τε λί/μνη Ἅιδου… ‘O primal Chaos, Erebos, and you O awful water of the Styx, O streams O Lethe, Hades’ Acherousian pool…’44 41 Cf. Sophocles fr. 874 (Radt); and then Cornutus De natura deorum 47. 15–21; Lucian Dearum iudicium 15. 9, 12; 16. 15; Pausanias 1. 43. 6. 42 All translations of Hesiod are by Evelyn-White 1914. 43 See PGM IV 1460–1469: an invocation to chthonic entities that, even if it actually contains only traces of hexameters, was reconstructed by Preisendanz as hymn no. 26 (PGM vol. 2, 264); PGM IV 2786–2870: a long hexametrical hymn to Hekate–Selene–Persephone–Artemis (for the complete analysis of which, see Bortolani 2016, hymn no. 15). 44 Translation by E.N. O’Neil in Betz 1992.

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PGM IV 2856–2858 ἥσυχε καὶ δασπλῆτι, τάφοις / ἔνι δαῖτα ἔχουσα, Νύξ, Ἔρεβος, /Χάος εὐρύ… ‘(you) calm and horrible, who have your meal among the tombs, (you are) Night, Erebos, vast Chaos…’45

However, the second two cases are more interesting since they are represented by a partly parallel prosaic invocation, in which Chaos and Erebos are clearly used to refer to areas of the Underworld. Excerpts from PGM IV 1345–1361 ἐπικαλοῦμαι ὑμᾶς, ἁγίους, μεγαλοδυνάμους, μεγαλοδόξους, μεγασθενεῖς, ἁγίους, αὐτόχθονας, παρέδρους τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ, τοὺς κραταιοὺς ἀρχιδαίμονας, οἵτινές ἐστε χάους, ἐρέβους, ἀβύσσου, βυθοῦ, γαίης οἰκήτορες οὐρανοκευθμωνοδιαίτους… ἀθεωρήτων ἐνεφόπτας, κρυφίμων φύλακας… σκοτιοερέβους… ‘I call upon you, holy, very-powerful, very-glorious, very-strong, holy, autochthons, assistants of the great god, the powerful chief daimons, you who are inhabitants of Chaos, of Erebos, of the abyss, of the depth, of earth, dwelling in the recesses of heaven… watchers of things not to be seen, guardians of secrets… inhabitants of dark Erebos…’46

Excerpts from PGM VII 350–358: ἐπικαλοῦμαι ὑμᾶς, χάους καὶ ἐρέβους, βυθοῦ, γαίας οἰκήτορας οὐρανοῦ, σκότους ἐπόπτας, ἀθεωρήτων δεσπότας, κρυφίμων φύλ[α]κας… σκοτιοερέβους… χρηματίσατε, περὶ οὗ σκέπτομαι πράγματος… ‘I call upon you, inhabitants of Chaos and Erebos, of the depth, of earth, watchers of heaven, of darkness, masters of things not to be seen, guardians of secrets… inhabitants of dark Erebos… reveal about the matter which I am considering…’47

Though Chaos used to refer to an area of the Underworld reflects a later usage, Erebos is already employed in this way in Homer and Hesiod48 and anyhow their conjoint appearance definitely seems to echo the Hesiodic Theogony.49 Furthermore, these two prosaic invocations are more likely to have been composed, or at least heavily reworked, within the magical milieu considering their specific appeal to a series of chthonic and heavenly powerful daimons. Like the appearance of Himeros in the invocation to Aphrodite, also these examples suggest the influence of Greek literary tradition outside metrical 45

Cf. n. 49. Translation by Bortolani (2016, hymn no. 15). Translation by W.C. Grese in Betz 1992. 47 Translation by W.C. Grese in Betz 1992. 48 For example, Iliad 8. 366–369; 16. 326–327; Odyssey 11. 36–37; Hesiod Theogony 514–516. 49 Hesiod Theogony 123: ἐκ Χάεος δ’ Ἔρεβός τε μέλαινά τε Νὺξ ἐγένοντο (‘from Chaos came forth Erebos and black Night’). Cf. Aristophanes Aves 693–694. 46

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sections and seem to imply that at a certain stage in the composition process, and probably already in the magical milieu, a compiler knew or consulted Greek literary sources and wanted to incorporate Greek literary elements. Unfortunately, since we are dealing just with single names of divine entities, it is impossible to determine the degree of interaction, if any, that the compiler might have had with his sources. Another line of investigation consists in trying to find out if the Greek literary tradition in question had any influence on the shaping of the rituals themselves.50 Among the many magical techniques attested by the papyri, I will present two examples concerning the spells aimed at receiving a divine oracle in a dream, the so-called dream oracles. In fact, these spells, contrary to other magical procedures, can be extremely varied and do not appear to have had one standardised tradition of incantations, which may suggest that they were recent formations compared to other spells and/or that anyhow there was a higher degree of freedom in their composition. This means that it is more likely that at least some of these spells were devised directly in the GraecoEgyptian magical milieu. The first example is represented by two dream oracles addressed to Hermes appearing in PGM V 370–439 and VII 664–685. Both spells include two versions of a same hexametrical hymn, which describes the god with various features: some of them typical of the Greek Hermes, some typical of his Egyptian counterpart Thoth, and some others shared by the two deities.51 This balance between Greek and Egyptian elements displayed by the hymn suggests it originated in a Graeco-Egyptian milieu. Among other epithets, Hermes-Thoth is called θεῖος ὄνειρος, ‘divine dream’ (PGM V 411 and VII 675), a Homeric phrase used to refer to god’s sent dreams (Iliad 2. 22), which in the magical hymn identifies the messenger of the gods Hermes with the dream that traditionally, and especially in Homer, was imagined as a message sent by the gods. Most interestingly, in Homer Hermes was a deity of sleep and a bringer of dreams52 but in actual Greek ritual practice, though we have some attestations of oracles of Hermes determined ‘by chance’ and by means of pebbles,53 Hermes does not appear to have been a god of incubation sanctuaries or to have been particularly connected with dreams or sleeping. 50 What follows is an outline of some of the research results that will appear more extensively in Bortolani and Nagel forthcoming. 51 For the single features, see Heitsch 1959, 223–36; Calvo Martínez 2009; Suárez de la Torre 2015; Bortolani 2019a. 52 For example, Iliad 24. 343–344, 445; Odyssey 5. 47–48; 7. 137; 24. 2–4; Hymnus ad Mercurium 13–14; Eitrem 1913, 788–89; van Lieshout 1980, 35–36; cf. Koch Piettre 1997, 139. 53 See, for example, Hymnus ad Mercurium 568a–573 (Zeus made him ‘lord over all birds of omen’); Pausanias 7. 22. 2–4 (for the oracle of Hermes agoraios at Pharai in Achaia); Graf 2005, 73–77; Johnston 2008, 99–100; Lapatin 2010.

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Of course we may hypothesise that these dream oracles were addressed to Hermes because of his identification with Thoth. In fact, Thoth was generally an oracular god54 and from the Ptolemaic period we have some evidence, especially from Saqqara, that, though scant, testifies to the existence of dream oracles of Thoth, and possibly also of incubation, practised by cult officials.55 Not by chance among the Demotic spells there are few dream oracles addressed to Thoth in his traditional Egyptian attributes56 and another dream oracle in a bilingual magical papyrus (PGM XII 144–151) uses the Greek name Hermes even if the deity invoked is clearly the Egyptian Thoth–Horus.57 However, the two spells in question (PGM V 370–439 and VII 664–685) are different from these cases inasmuch as they try to present a balanced Greek and Egyptian deity. In particular, the epithet ‘divine dream’ connects this Hermes directly to the Homeric text and to his Homeric competence over sleeping and dreaming, which points to a conscious choice. All this suggests that, in order to devise these dream oracles addressed to Hermes–Thoth, the compilers, when faced with the Greek components, more than knowing actual Greek ritual practice, took inspiration from Greek literary tradition, from the Homeric Hermes ruler of sleep and bringer of dreams. Another example concerns a ritual gesture often attested in the dream oracles: to put an object beside or under the head before going to sleep.58 It will here suffice to say that, taking into consideration all the examples of this divination technique, it clearly appears that the symbolism behind this gesture is not always the same and it probably followed two different lines of development, one Egyptian and one Greek.59 On the Greek side, the objects to be placed beside the head are either clearly symbolic of the god invoked (such as a ring or a papyrus with the image of the god, a figurine of the god in his shrine),60 or are similarly aimed at communicating with the deity (for example, when the magician puts beside his head a piece of linen inscribed with the question he wants to ask the god).61 However, in Greek ritual practice we have no special evidence of objects to be put beside the head to initiate communication with a deity, especially in incubation sanctuaries. Nevertheless, in the Greek classical

54

For example, Quaegebeur 1975; 1977; Volokhine 2004, 148–50. Ray 1976, especially 131–34 and O.Ḥor 12, 13, 23. 16; Renberg 2010a, 656–57. 56 PDM lxi 63–78; PDM Suppl. 149–162. 57 Bortolani 2019b, 159–60. 58 See, for instance, the dream oracles in PGM VI 1–47+II 1–64 (cf. n. 24); PGM V 370–439, 440–458; PGM VII 664–685, 740–755, 795–845, 1009–1016; PGM VIII 64–110; PDM xiv 93–114; PDM lxi 63–78; PDM Suppl. 130–138. 59 Cf. n. 50. 60 See, for example, PGM VI 1–47+II 1–64 (cf. n. 24); PGM V 370–439, 440–548. 61 For example, PGM VII 664–685. 55

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literary description of divine dreams the personified Dream, or a deity or a messenger of the deity, is imagined as approaching the sleeper and talking to him while bending over his head. This traditional conception of course comes from Homer, in which these divine dreams are especially frequent and the standard expression is στῆ δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς, ‘so he (the dream/the deity) stands over his head’.62 Therefore, we may wonder if even in this case the compilers of the magical papyri working in an Egyptian priestly milieu and wanting to devise some dream oracle rituals that appealed to a Greek clientele, took inspiration from Greek literary tradition more than from actual Greek ritual practice. In conclusion, it is possible to hypothesise many different levels of penetration of Greek literary tradition in the magical papyri, even if we concentrate only on stylistic features and/or contents that can specifically be connected with the literary sources that represented the basis of Greek paideia. At a first level, Homeric verses used as oracle responses or magical formulae and short hexametrical incantations are likely to have reached the magical papyri as an almost finished product. They represent an example of borrowing and testify to the compilers’ will to collect this kind of material and to its availability. At a second level, the example of the magical hymn to Apollo, in which some lines appear to have been inserted trying to fit the hexameter, testifies at least to the compilers’ will to integrate Greek style praises (if not to compose them) and to a process of adaptation that required some familiarity with Greek literary tradition and/or access to Greek literary sources. The situation is similar as far as the scattered presence of specifically Greek literary divine entities in prose invocations is concerned. The influence of the magical context in the analysed passages seems to suggest they were at least reworked or composed in the magical milieu, which implies either a process of adaptation or familiarity with and/or access to Greek literary sources. At a third level, the magical hymn to Horus Harpocrates represents an example of how Greek stylistic patterns (and a Homeric verse) can be appropriated to translate Egyptian contents and implies the compilers’ direct interaction with Greek literary tradition. At a fourth and final level, I hypothesised that some ritual components that do not appear to have parallels in actual Greek ritual practice, may have been devised taking inspiration from Greek literary tradition. Of course these different levels of penetration appear to be connected with the specific characteristics of the corpus of the magical papyri. First of all, the importance that magical literature attributes to incorporating elements that 62 For example, Iliad 2. 20; 23. 68; Odyssey 4. 803; 6. 21; cf. Iliad 10. 496–497. See, for example, Dodds 1951, 104–09; Kessels 1978, 161–62; Brillante 1991, 20–21; Koch Piettre 1997, especially 132–35.

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are considered powerful or authoritative in other religious traditions. Second, the presence of a multicultural clientele and, most importantly, the Egyptian priestly milieu in which the majority of these handbooks appear to have been composed. In fact, the idea of describing an Egyptian deity with Greek stylistic patterns, exemplified by the hymn to Horus Harpocrates, and probably aimed at reaching a larger Hellenised audience, can be found again, just to make a famous example, in Isis’ Greek hymns and aretalogies63 and thus is not exclusive to the Graeco-Egyptian magical milieu. However, if my hypothesis about the influence of Greek literary tradition on some rituals is correct, we would deal with cases that not only confirm the general idea that the compilers of the magical papyri had access to and valued Greek literary sources, but also suggest that at least some of these compilers were more acquainted with these literary sources than with actual Greek ritual practice. I believe that further research on the influence of Greek literary tradition on the rituals of the magical papyri may demonstrate that more elements that are generally considered as Greek came specifically from literary tradition. And this would agree with the notion that a great part of the composition process of the magical papyri took place in an Egyptian priestly milieu, among ritual experts that probably had access to rich temple libraries but maybe not so much direct knowledge of actual Greek ritual practice. If we consider that in the Demotic magical papyri there are basically no traces of Greek literary tradition and not even of Greek deities, it clearly appears that the borrowing, adaptation and appropriation of such a tradition was not generic of magical literature but typical of magical texts meant for an audience that read Greek. So, these texts may embody not only an obvious interest in collecting Greek magico-religious material but also an exploitation of Greek literary tradition for ‘marketing’ purposes more than an actual impact of Greek paideia.

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Specifically on the Egyptian elements of these hymns and aretalogies, see, for example, Müller 1961; Bergman 1968; Žabkar 1988, 135–60; Dousa 2002; Quack 2003; Kockelmann 2008; Jördens 2013.

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Martín Hernández, R. 2014a: ‘Two more verses for the Homeromanteion (PGM VII)’. ZPE 190, 97–98. —. 2014b: ‘Using Homer for Divination: Homeromanteia in Context’. CHS Research Bulletin 2.1 (http://www.chs-fellows.org/2014/03/28/using-homer-for-divinationhomeromanteia-in-context/). Mendel, D. 2003: Die kosmogonischen Inschriften in der Barkenkapelle des Chonstempels von Karnak (Monographies Reine Elisabeth 9) (Turnhout). Merkelbach, R. and Totti, M. 1990–2001: Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri religiösen und magischen Inhalts, 5 vols. (Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 17.1–5) (Opladen). Michel, S. 2002: ‘Seele der Finsternis, Schutzgottheit und Schicksalsmacht: der Pantheos auf magischen Gemmen’. Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus 6, 1–40. Miguélez Cavero, L. 2008: Poems in Context: Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid 200–600 AD (Sozomena 2) (Berlin). Minas-Nerpel, M. 2006: Der Gott Chepri: Untersuchungen zu Schriftzeugnissen und ikonographischen Quellen vom Alten Reich bis in griechisch-römische Zeit (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 154) (Leuven). Mirecki, P. and Meyer, M. (eds.) 2002: Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 141) (Leiden/Boston). Morenz, S. and Schubert, J. 1954: Der Gott auf der Blume: Eine äyptische Kosmogonie und ihre weltweite Bildwirkung (Artibus Asiae Suppl. 12) (Ascona). Müller, D. 1961: Ägypten und die griechischen Isis-Aretalogien (Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 53.1) (Berlin). Nagy, G. 2002: ‘The language of heroes as mantic poetry: hypokrisis in Homer’. In Reichel, M. and Rengakons, A. (eds.), EPEA PTEROENTA: Beiträge zur Homerforschung. Festschrift für Wolfgang Kullmannn zum 75. Geburtstag (Stuttgart), 141–50. Quack, J.F. 1998: ‘Kontinuität und Wandel in der spätägyptischen Magie’. Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico 15, 77–94. —. 2003: ‘“Ich bin Isis, die Herrin der beiden Länder”. Versuch zum demotischen Hintergrund der memphitischen Isisaretalogie’. In Meyer, S. (ed.), Egypt, Temple of the Whole World/Ägypten, Tempel der gesamten Welt: Studies in Honour of Jan Assmann (Studies in the History of Religions 97) (Leiden/Boston), 319–65. —. 2004: ‘Griechische und andere Dämonen in den spätdemotischen magischen Texten’. In Schneider, T. (ed.), Das Ägyptische und die Sprachen Vorderasiens, Nordafrikas und der Ägäis (Akten des Basler Kolloquiums zum ägyptisch-nichtsemitischen Sprachkontakt, Basel 9.–11. Juli 2003) (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 310) (Münster), 427–507. —. 2008: ‘Demotische magische und divinatorische Texte’. In Janowsky, B. and Wilhelm, G. (eds.), Omina, Orakel, Rituale und Beschwörungen (Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments Neue Folge 4) (Gütersloh), 331–85. —. 2010: ‘Postulated and real efficacy in late antique divination rituals’. Journal of Ritual Studies 24, 45–60. —. 2011: ‘Remarks on Egyptian rituals of dream-sending’. In Kousoulis, P. (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Demonology: Studies on the Boundaries Between the Demonic and the Divine in Egyptian Magic (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 175) (Leuven), 129–50.

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—. 2017: ‘Alttestamentliche Motive in der gräkoägyptischen Magie’. In Kamlah, J., Schäfer, R. and Witte, M. (eds.), Zauber und Magie im antiken Palästina und in seiner Umwelt (Kolloquium des Deutschen Vereins zur Erforschung Palästinas vom 14. bis 16. November 2014 in Mainz) (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 46) (Wiesbaden), 141–82. Quaegebeur, J. 1975: ‘Teëphibis dieu oraculaire?’. Enchoria 5, 19–24. —. 1977: ‘Tithoes, dieu oraculaire?’. Enchoria 7, 103–08. Ray, J.D. 1976: The Archive of Ḥor (Excavations at North Saqqâra. Documentary Series 1) (London). Renberg, G.H. 2010a: ‘Incubation at Saqqâra’. In Gagos, T. (ed.), Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology (Ann Arbor, July 29–August 4, 2007) (Ann Arbor), 649–62. —. 2010b: ‘Dream-narratives and unnarrated dreams in Greek and Latin dedicatory inscriptions’. In Scioli, E. and Walde, C. (eds.), Sub Imagine Somni: Nighttime Phenomena in Greco-Roman Culture (Testi e Studi di Cultura Classica 46) (Pisa), 33–61. Riesenfeld, H. 1946: ‘Remarques sur les hymnes magiques’. Eranos 44, 153–60. Ristorto, M. 2019: ‘Love spell and hymn to Aphrodite in PGM IV (2891–2941)’. In Bortolani et al. 2019, 238–55. Ritner, R.K. 1993: The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilisation 54) (Chicago). —. 1995: ‘Egyptian magical practice under the Roman Empire: the Demotic spells and their religious context’. ANRW II.18.5, 3333–79. Sauneron, S. 1951: ‘Aspects et sort d’un thème magique égyptien: les menaces incluant les dieux’. Bulletin de la Société Française d’Égyptologie 8, 11–21. Schwemer, D. 2019: ‘Beyond Ereškigal? Mesopotamian magic traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae’. In Bortolani et al. 2019, 62–85. Schwendner, G. 2002: ‘Under Homer’s spell: bilingualism, oracular magic, and the Michigan excavation at Dimê’. In Ciraolo, L. and Seidel, J. (eds.), Magic and Divination in the Ancient World (Ancient Magic and Divination 2) (Leiden/ Boston), 107–18. Smith, M. 1981: ‘The hymn to the moon, PGM IV 2242–355’. In Bagnall, R.S., Browne, G.M., Hanson, A.E. and Koenen, L. (eds.), Proceedings of the XVI International Congress of Papyrology (New York, 24–31 July 1980) (American Studies in Papyrology 23) (Chico, CA), 643–54. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1987: ‘Myth as history: the previous owners of the Delphic oracle’. In Bremmer, J. (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London), 215–41. Suárez de la Torre, E. 2011: ‘Versos homéricos en los papiros mágicos griegos’. In García Blanco, M.J., Amado Rodríguez, T., Martín Velasco, M.J., Pereiro Pardo, A. and Vázquez Buján, M.E. (eds.), ANTIDORON: Homenaje a Juan José Moralejo (Santiago de Compostela), 527–43. —. 2015: ‘Himno(s)-plegaria a Hermes en los papiros mágicos griegos’. In Giuffré Scibona, C. and Mastrocinque, A. (eds.), Ex Pluribus Unum: Studi in Onore di Giulia Sfameni Gasparro (Rome), 193–212. Tardieu, M., Van den Kerchove, A. and Zago, M. (eds.) 2013: Noms barbares 1: Formes et contextes d’une pratique magique (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études: Sciences Religieuses 162) (Turnhout).

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Thompson, D.J. 1992: ‘Language and literacy in early Hellenistic Egypt’. In Bilde, P., Engberg-Pedersen, T., Hannestad, L. and Zahle, J. (eds.), Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt (Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 3) (Aarhus), 39–52. —. 1994: ‘Literacy and power in Ptolemaic Egypt’. In Bowman, A.K. and Woolf, G. (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge), 67–83. Tissi, L.M. 2013: ‘Edizione critica, traduzione e commento dell’inno magico 5 Pr. (PGM III 198–228)’. Analecta Papyrologica 25, 175–208. —. 2014: ‘Edizione critica, traduzione e commento all’inno magico 11 Pr. (PGM II 81–101)’. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete 60.1, 66–92. —. 2015: ‘L’innologia magica, per una puntualizzazione tassonomica’. In De Haro Sanchez, M. (ed.), Écrire la magie dans l’antiquité (Actes du colloque international, Liège, 13–15 octobre 2011) (Papyrologica Leodiensia 5) (Liège), 151–72. van Lieshout, R.G.A. 1980: Greeks on Dreams (Utrecht). Versnel, H.S. 2002: ‘The poetics of the magical charm: an essay on the power of words’. In Mirecki and Meyer 2002, 105–58. Volokhine, Y. 2004: ‘Le dieu Thot et la parole’. Revue de l’histoire des religions 221, 131–56. Weidner, S. 1985: Lotos im alten Ägypten: Vorarbeiten zu einer Kulturgeschichte von Nymphaea lotus, Nymphaea coerulea und Nelumbo nucifera in der dynastischen Zeit (Pfaffenweiler). Žabkar, L.V. 1988: Hymns to Isis in her Temple at Philae (Hanover/London). Zago, M. 2010: Tebe magica e alchemica: l’idea di biblioteca nell’Egitto romano. La Collezione Anastasi (Padua). Zografou, A. 2013: ‘Un oracle homérique de l’Antiquité tardive: un livre-miniature à usage oraculaire’. Kernos 26, 173–90.

GREEK LITERARY TRADITION AND LOCAL RELIGION IN METRICAL CULT DEDICATIONS FROM ASIA MINOR* María-Paz DE HOZ

Abstract There are a great number of metrical dedications to the gods in Asia Minor that are worth studying in order to document the level of dispersal of Greek paideia in the different areas of that vast territory, as well as the level of survival of ancient local cults. Some verse dedications from lately Hellenised settlements and rural areas of the interior of the Peninsula will be presented in this paper, and analysed as example of the interaction between both phenomena. The cult content of the dedications will be compared with local prose inscriptions that seem to be made by roughly Hellenised persons who maintained their ancestral religious customs and beliefs. The conclusion is that metrical dedications in the rural centre of Asia Minor adapted the Greek paideia to their own religious world. At the same time, the religious elements we find in these dedications demonstrate that Eastern religions are the main origin of a new religious koine that was being created in the Greek world from at least the end of the Hellenistic period. Some of the religious elements of the dedications analysed in this paper are surely local, but they belong at the same time to this religious koine that returns to the East integrated in the Greek paideia.

INTRODUCTION Epigraphic prayers, hymns and other metrical dedications to the gods in Asia Minor are a very illustrative source for studying the cultural interaction that took place during the process of Hellenisation in this part of the Graeco-Roman world. The spreading of the Greek paideia and epigraphic habit configures the way in which local cult elements were expressed and, at the same time, it gives us a hint about the ways in which the influence of Eastern religions developed a new koine of religious discourse in the Graeco-Roman world. This process * This paper has been created within the research project ‘Hellenisation in the Graeco-Roman East: Processes of Perception and Assimilation of the Local Cultures’ (FFI2015-63956-P), sponsored by the Spanish MINECO and FEDER funds. I am grateful to the participants of the colloquium where it was presented for their comments, and to Bartomeu Obrador-Cursach for his comments on a first version of the written paper.

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is, in part, a return trip. While there are Eastern elements that are maintained from ancient local traditions, others have returned to Asia Minor through the adoption of Greek paideia, after arriving in the Greek world and being inserted into Greek religious and philosophical ideology. In order to make this distinction, it is worth analysing the evidence from the Anatolian interior, where the culmination of the Hellenisation process is no earlier than Roman times. Here we find that Greek paideia, though often very superficial, is consciously shown, and Greek epigraphic habit is astonishing high in the private sphere. At the same time, some of these elements, common to other Eastern religions, are integrated in a religious discourse common to the Greek East in Roman times. * *

*

This paper will deal with metrical texts that are hymns, prayers or, most frequently, a mixture of both, and that are frequently inserted in ex-votos or are just thanksgiving dedications.1 What they all have in common is the importance of praising the god. Only some of those numerous hymns, prayers or thanksgivings that were part of collective rituals or private communication with the god were written in stone, but the quantity of texts of this kind found in Roman Asia Minor is notable. One reason is certainly the general fashion of giving the god a product of the intellect as an expression of gratitude,2 but there are two other reasons of great significance in Asia Minor, especially in areas Hellenised late: the desire of showing Greek paideia as proof of Hellenism, and the belief that public propaganda of the god is a requirement for a good relationship between god and worshipper. The evidence of the Greek poetic tradition through the epigraphic habit implies also some problems with the correct interpretation of the texts: did the authors know, appropriate and adapt the Greek paideia in order to express their religious feelings and the necessities of communication with the god? Did they know and appropriate that paideia along with the religious content? Did they copy some formulae or other expressions from other inscriptions or 1 Among the texts presented by Merkelbach and Stauber in SGO as hymns, Garulli (2010) distinguishes hymns written as mnema, i.e. as remembrance of the ritual act, author hymns for reading, hymnodic prayers or epigrammatic prayers, and epigrams that could be votive, hymnic or prayers. 2 On votive offerings consisting of ‘opere dell’intelletto’, see Guarducci 1974, 77–89; Anthologia Palatina 6, with many such offers dedicated to Artemis. Cf. also SGO 17/10/02; IDidyma 217.

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from centones, or extract them from their most superficial Greek background, to which they fitted their contents without really assimilating the Greek paideia? All of these questions must be taken into account in order to analyse the topic discussed in this paper. The texts chosen do not seem to be composed by copying from centones or formulaic inscriptions, and a real, though not necessarily high, education can be attributed to their authors. All texts chosen here are examples of private worship, which is supposed to be a better probe of popular religious feelings, and of the real interaction between local elements and Greek paideia. GREEK LITERARY TRADITION AND LOCAL RELIGION In areas of Anatolia that were not Hellenised before the Hellenistic period or even during Roman times, besides very humble prose dedications and prayers to the gods, there are hymns and prayers, included or not in ex-votos or thanksgiving dedications composed in a Greek literary tradition, but expressing ancient local Eastern religious conceptions. I will present some metrical cult texts from these lately Hellenised areas, where this mixture is very clear, in order to compare the cult content of these texts with other non-poetic evidence of the local traditional communication with the gods. 1. Let us start with an ex-voto with prayer to Helios inscribed in a marble stele from the area of Nakoleia in Phrygia Epiktetos (SGO 16/35/01):3 [Ἠε]λίῳ Τειτάνι κὲ φ[ωτὶ ἀεννάῳ κὲ] [τῷ] Ὁσ|[ίῳ] Δικέῳ κὲ θείῳ πα[ν/τ]οδυνάστ/ῃ] ἔνθ[α] / Πολυξενία, ὡς η[ὔξ]/αντο κὲ ἐκέλευσ[α]/ς ἧκον κὲ Νείκην χ[ρυ]σοστέφανον [ἀνέθη]/σαν εὐξάμενοί σε μάκαρ / περὶ ἑαυτῶν κὲ τεκέεσσιν, οἷς ἱκέταις ἐπάκουε κὲ εἴλ[ε]/ος οὐράνιον φῶς. ‘To Helios Titan and [the eternal light and] Hosios Dikaios and to the divine being who dominates everything, Polyxenia (and her man) have come here and dedicated a statue of Nike of golden crown as they prayed to you and you ordered, praying to you blessed for themselves and the children. Listen to them, supplicants, and be propitious, celestial light.’

3 I have introduced some possible supplements: l. 1 κὲ φ[ωτὶ ἀεννάῳ κὲ] (cf. ἀέναον φῶς in IEphesos 1062; Sibylline Oracles fr. 3, l. 34; Eusebius de laudibus Constantini 12. 16, ll. 6–7; and below for the importance of light); another possibility: κὲ Θ[είοις ἀειδησι], οr θ[είῳ ἀειδῆι Μηνὶ] (see below); SGO: κὲ Ο[ / ----]ΑΕΙΔΑΙΙ; l. 4: SGO νείκην; [ ]/σαν.

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This hexametric poem is composed following Greek poetic tradition. It shows Homeric forms (τεκέεσσιν) and Hesiodic terminology, such as χ[ρυ]σοστέφανον, a word used by Hesiod as the epithet of Aphrodita (fr. 26. 13), Hebe (Theogony 17) and Phoibe (Theogony 136), and also by Euripides referred to Kore (Ion 1085).4 Mάκαρ is a very common word in religious context, particularly poetic, especially frequent in Homer, Hesiod and Euripides, and η[ὔξ]αντο, ἱκέταις, ἐπάκουε and εἴλ[ε]/ος are all usual words in cultic context along the whole Greek cult tradition.5 The variation περὶ ἑαυτῶν / τεκέεσσιν contrasts with the spelling κὲ, which nevertheless counts metrically as a diphthong, and εἴλ[ε]/ος, and with the late normalised form [ἀνέθη]/σαν, if the reconstruction is correct. The dedicators thank the gods with the promised image of Nike, but also with a poem in which they stress the powerful and celestial nature of the god.6 Yet the praise of the god does not follow Greek cult tradition. The Sun is one of the main divinities in Anatolian (as well as Mesopotamian) ancient religions. It is relevant that many of the prayers in Roman Anatolia are dedicated to the god Helios or to other gods that are related to or even identified with Helios, as we will see later on. In the Greek classical tradition, Helios is the son of a Titan, sometimes identified with Hyperion, sometimes his son.7 He is called Titan, instead of Hyperion, in later texts coming from the East part of the Greek world, such as the Orphic Hymn 8. 2, a funerary inscription from North Galatia (RECAM 2. 110), a poem (considered an oracle) on how to make an oath to the god (AP 14.72. 1), or in PGM III 210; 23.6. In PGM II 87 the god called Titan is Apollo, a god identified with Helios in this period, like Mandulis, who also receives the epithet Titan in a hymn from Talmis in Nubia (IMEG 166; 2nd–3rd centuries AD). Helios is especially worshipped in Roman Phrygia, and very often in relation to Hosios (kai) Dikaios, a god or couple of gods who were widely spread in Asia Minor in Roman times, especially in Phrygia and Lydia.8 While these 4 I think Nike here refers to the goddess, and not to the common word ‘victory’, because of the poetic tradition, though the divine order of dedicating a statue of Nike may be related to a granted prayer for winning a (judicial or agonistic?) victory. Cf., for instance, the numerous dedications to Apollo of a golden Nike in Olbia in the Black Sea (IOSPE 1[2] 79, 83, 93, 96–98, 100, 113, 116, 269; 1st/2nd centuries AD). For the interpretation of the poem as an ex-voto for a victory won, and nike as common noun, see Merkelbach and Stauber’s commentary to SGO 16/35/01. 5 For their use in prayers, see Pulleyn 1997, 56–69. 6 For the praise as thanksgiving, see Pulleyn 1997, 39–55. 7 Cf. the first hexameter of a prayer from Midas city, in the same Phrygian area: χαῖρε μάκαρ πολ[ύ]ολβε/ θεῶν Ὑπερείονε λάνπων (MAMA I 390; SGO 16/41/07). 8 On Hosios kai Dikaios, see Ricl 1991; 1992a; 1992b; 2008.

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two adjectives appear very often together in Greek literature – as far back as Hesiod9 – they never appear as gods in Greece. Hosios kai Dikaios appear as angeloi of Helios in a Phrygian dedication (SEG 41.1185),10 and it is probably not a coincidence that two similar divine beings appear as acolytes of the Hittite and the Acadian Sun god.11 Besides Helios and Hosios Dikaios, an allpowerful theios is also recipient of the dedication. Pantodynastes is an epithet that appears in the Orphic Hymns (12. 4; 45. 2), though the same meaning is expressed by other epithets found in cult contexts in Asia Minor and other areas of the eastern Roman empire.12 The poem begins and ends with a reference to the main god: Helios. Hosios kai Dikaios and the Theios pantodynastes are probably his angeloi, his hypostaseis, the expression of his powers, or all together. The prayer finishes with an acclamation confirming an aspect of the god’s nature: he is a celestial light. The celestial nature of the gods is very well attested in religious texts from Asia Minor (see below), but besides, the importance of the celestial light, a literary topos already in the Archaic literature, acquires a new dimension in acclamation to the gods in post-classical texts. Hestia is the owner of celestial light in a hymn from Ephesos (IEphesos 1062; SGO 03/02/37): θαλερὸν φῶς κατέχει πατρίδος, θεόκτιτον ἃ κατέχεις φῶς, κατέχεις βωμοῖς δαλὸν ἀπ’ οὐρανόθεν.13 The relationship between being master of light and being master of the world is more clearly exposed in PGM fr. 4, 25–26: ἵλαθί μοι, προπάτωρ, κόσμου θάλος, αὐτολόχευτε, /πυρφόρε, χρυσοφαῆ, φαεσίμβροτε, δέσποτα κόσμου. This poem includes many crucial elements of the local cult expressions in Asia Minor: dedication to the most powerful, superior god who has a heavenly nature and is related to or identified with Helios; existence of minor gods, angeloi or hypostaseis of the superior god; and other elements that, being more general in the Greek post-classical world, are especially frequent in Asia

9

See Ricl 1992a, 76–77. Hosios kai Dikaios, as one divine being, is also called angelos of Men in an inscription from Maionian Saittai (TAM V.1 151, cf. 185). On the divine or angelical nature of Hosios kai Dikaios, see Ricl 1992a, 97–101; Cline 2011, 65–70; Belayche 2013, 253–59; Horsley and Luxford 2016, 157–59. On the especial relationship between Hosios kai Dikaios and Helios, the role of Hosios kai Dikaios as judge(s) and avenger(s), and his (their) role as divine intermediary/ intermediaries, see de Hoz 2017, 147–48. On angeloi in Asia Minor, in general, see Horsley and Luxford 2016 (with previous bibliography). 11 Cf. below, p. 176. 12 For this and other divine epithets composed with pan-, see Chiai 2009, 229. 13 For the same expression cf. Themistocles Peri philias 281 c 1–2 Harduin (δοὶ τῆς θεοῦ.’ ‘αὕτη μέν’ εἰπεῖν ‘ἡ τὸ πολὺ φῶς κατέχουσα /καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀδάμαντος καθημένη, Διὸς θυγάτηρ Ἀλήθεια·); Michael Ephesius in Parva Naturalia commentaria 75. 21 (σὺ τὸ φῶς κατέχεις·). 10

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Minor, such as the expression of the divine orders through the verb κελεύω, or the use of acclamations.14 We find all these elements together as well in texts expressing the worship’s communication with the Anatolian god Men, who is widely spread in Central Anatolia, especially in Phrygia and Lydia, but also in Pisidia and Lycaonia. His powerful and henotheistic power is revealed, as in the case of Helios, by the fact that he has intermediary assistants (angeloi), an especial relationship with Hosios kai Dikaios and an especial capacity of judging and seeing everything; he is a heavenly god,15 and his superior power is often stressed in acclamations.16 This makes it possible, though not certain, to reconstruct this name in the lost part of the inscription.17 2. The relationship between Men and Helios, and of both of them with justice and sanctity, is best shown in a metrical dedication from Dorylaion, also in Phrygia Epiktetos, by the inhabitants of the village of Saklea (?):18 [Μ]ητρὶ θεῶν Φοίβῳ τ’ ὁσίῳ καὶ Μηνὶ δικαίῳ ❦ ὀφθαλμῷ τε Δίκης δικεοφροσύνης χάριν ἄνδρες vac. Σακλεανοὶ σωτῆρσι θεοῖς vac. ὁσίοις ἀνέθηκαν. ❦ ‘For the Mother of the gods, holy Phoebo and just Men, and for the eye of Justice have the men from Saklea(?) dedicated this gratitude for justice to the saviour, holy gods.’

The main part of the dedication is the acclamation of the divine powers. It could have been engraved on a pre-existing stele: Zeus Bronton appears on the pediment; on the main field Helios is riding his chariot with four horses, and beneath him there are a riding god with a double axe who does not seem to be Men, as the editio princeps supposes (Apollo perhaps?), and Dionysos standing beside him.19 Zeus Bronton could be the eye of the righteous Dike, but the absence of Meter Theon and Men, and the presence of Dionysos makes the relationship between text and iconography dubious. This iconography is, in any case, also a good example of the interplay between Greek influence, as seen in the representation of Helios and Dionysos, and indigenous tradition,

On κελεύω, see Regensberg 2003 (with earlier bibliography); on acclamations, infra. Cf. alphabetic and dice oracles, where both Helios and Men appear with this attribute: phosphoros (ICPisidia 5. 51 and 5. 42). 16 On the relationship between both gods, see de Hoz 2002. 17 Cf. n. 3. 18 Frei 1988, 25–26, no. 12, with photographs (SGO 16/34/03). 19 Frei 1988, 25–26 (who already mentions the oddity of the iconography in relation to the text), with photographs in Taf. 7, Abb. 18, 19; Taf. 8, Abb. 20; Ricl 1991, 13–4, no. 25, Taf. 5, on p. 59: no. 25a–c. 14 15

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represented in Zeus Bronton and the rider god, all of it carved with a very provincial artistic technique. The main concepts in this dedication are piety and, especially, justice. Helios is an all-seeing god that appears in Greek literature since Homer,20 but in Hellenistic and Roman times this capacity acquires a deeper dimension as the power to chastise. While the idea of a divine eye of justice is best attested in Christian texts,21 the judicial character of Helios, Apollo and Men related to (or identified with) the supreme power, the all-seeing god, Helios or the celestial light is very well known, especially in Asia Minor, in the pagan Eastern context of the confession inscriptions (see below), and also in other types of dedications, especially in funerary contexts.22 On the other hand, the Greek traditional poetic value of δικαιοσύνη in Hesiod, the Archaic lyric, and tragedy provide these pagan religious ideals with a very suitable poetic intellectual Greek frame. 3. The god called Hypsistos that appears in a dedication from Amastris in Bythinia engraved on one of the sides of an altar shares many features with the henotheistic Helios of Asia Minor, and is probably identified with him in many cases.23 Θεῷ ὑψίστῳ / ὀμφῇ ἀκερ/σεκόμου βω/μὸν θεοῦ ὑψίσ/τοιο, ὃς κατὰ / πάντων ἔστι / καὶ οὐ βλέπε/ται, εἰσοράᾳ δὲ / δείμαθ’ ὄπως / ἀπαλάλκηται / βροτολοιγέ/α θνητῶν. ‘To the God Hypsistos, because of an oracle of the long-haired (the dedication of) this altar of the highest god, who is everywhere and cannot be seen, and watches to awful things so that he removes all human-damage from mortals.’

Apart from a very strange caesura, this dedication is composed in three nearly perfect hexameters, where only the short scan in the first syllable of εἰσοράᾳ reveals the itacistic pronunciation of that time. That the dedication is made by oracular order of Apollo is known through the expression ὀμφῇ ἀκερσεκόμου, 20 Cf. Ἠελίου, ὃς πάντ’ ἐφορᾷ καὶ πάντ’ ἐπακούει (Odyssey 12. 323; 11. 109; cf. Iliad 3. 277; Aeschylus Choephori 985f.; Orphic Hymn 8. 1). 21 Cf. Eusebius Comm. in Psalmos 23. 280. 4; 23. 656. 17: ὀφθαλμοὶ Κυρίου ἐπὶ δικαίους, and, especially, 23. 529. 12: τὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἥλιον ὀφθαλμοῖς ψυχῆς θεάσασθαι; Gregorius Nazianzenus 35. 429. 11: ὀφθαλμὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τῆς δίκης; Basil. Hom. Psal. 29. 345. 43: Ὀφθαλμοὶ Κυρίου ἐπὶ δικαίους, etc. 22 Ricl 1991, 40–41, no. 88, Phrygia; SEG 14.634, Phrygia? appeared in Magna Graecia; RECAM 2.110, North Galatia. For this relationship in general, see Versnel 1991, 70–71; cf. de Hoz 2002 for the especial relationship between Helios and Men as judicial gods. As example of other Graeco-Oriental attestations outside Asia Minor, see SB 1.1323, Alexandria, 2nd century AD. 23 Editio princeps: Marek 2000, 135–37 (photograph; translation) (SGO 10/03/01; SEG 50.1225).

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which includes one of the commonest epithets in Greek literature to identify Apollo, and the also poetic form for ‘voice’.24 δείμαθ’ ὄπως ἀπαλάλκηται βροτολοιγέα θνητῶν, though not being attested as such, is completely Ηomeric in nuance. βροτολοιγέ is called Ares in Iliad 5. 31 and 455 as fateful to mortals.25 The poetic aorist ἀπάλαλκε is attested, according to the DGE in Iliad 22. 348, Odyssey 4. 766, Pindar Olympian Odes 8. 85, Theocritus 28. 20, Quintus Smyrnaeus 5. 215. Hypsistos is the name of a god attested from the 2nd century BC onwards, especially in Roman Asia Minor, but also in other parts of the East Greek world.26 There is no iconography associated with him, but he appears in relation to other gods, especially Zeus and Helios, and uses angeloi as intermediaries with the worshippers. Because of his characteristics and the fact that Hypsistos is the name given to God in the Bible, there are different opinions concerning the Jewish or pagan origin of this god.27 This inscription is, in my view, one more example of the pagan henotheistic conception of a highest god that rules over all, watches everything and makes justice. He can be identified with any of the known ‘henotheistic’ gods, such as Helios, Men or Apollo, or could use these as intermediaries. In the inscription from Amastris he is ‘everywhere’ (κατὰ πάντων), which means that he rules over all. He also looks for awful things (δείμαθ’)28 so that they are pushed away from mortals. Also especially Eastern is the ability of the god to not be seen. Though apparently in contradiction to the longing in Graeco-Roman times for, and the public narrations of, divine epiphanies,29 this is another one of the typical religious inconsistencies of the time. This idea appears in the magical papyri (PGM V 101), and in the New Testament, having a probable Semitic origin.30 The fact that the dedication is made by order of an oracle from Apollo, and that this god is often identified with Helios, who in turn appears in the text as 24 Cf. Marek 2000, 135–36 (for literary evidence, and for the existence of an oracle 170 km away from Amastris, in Abonuteichos-Ionopolis). 25 Cf. also Odyssey 8. 115; Hesiod Scutum 333; Tyrtaeus 1. 47; Aeschylus Supplices 665; Schol. Dionysius Thrax 234. 14; Cornutus de natura deorum 21; and, referred to Eros: Anthologia Palatina 5. 180 (Mel.), 12. 37 (Diosc.); or to Eris, Timo: SHell. 795. 26 On Hypsistos, see Mitchell 1999 with catalogue of all evidence known at that time; 2010 with new evidence and comments in response to criticism to the monotheistic interpretation of the god in his previous study. For Helios Hypsistos, see IP 2.330. 27 On the different interpretations, see Belayche 2010, 142–44 with nn. 2 and 11. 28 On εἰσοράᾳ in the sense of ‘examine’, see Herodotus 4. 68, 7. 219; in the sense of ‘be mentally aware of something’, Theogony 780, cf. 1110, Sophocles Electra 611 (DGE, s.v.). 29 On epiphanies as topos in post-classical religious discourse, see de Hoz 2017a, 194 with nn. 21 and 22 with further references. 30 Cf. Marek 2000, 136–37 for references, who also mentions the evidence of both characteristics together referred to the Christian God by the Bishop of Antioch in the 2nd century AD (Apologia ad Autolycum 2. 36, ll. 10–14).

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well as in the iconography of many dedications as highest god, shows how complicated and at the same time permeable are religious conceptions in Asia Minor and other eastern areas, where different gods can be the highest god, an intermediary of the highest god, or can represent an abstract concept identifying the things bestowed upon mortals by the highest god, working as his hypostasis. 4. As we have seen, this supreme god (Men, Helios, Hypsistos) is pantodynastes, hypsistos or κατὰ πάντων. This overall power is attributed to the god in a dedication to Sabathikos from the Lydian city of Kastollos in the territorium of Philadelphia (TAM V.1 225; TAM V.3 1658). It is another example of the mixture of ex-voto, hymn and prayer that is typical of epigraphic religious epigrams in Asia Minor.31 Reading in SGO 04/23/01 (TAM V.3 1658), with some previous supplements in TAM V.1 225, and a new restitution in v. 8:

5

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[– vv – τ]ελέσας μέγα πρᾶγ[μα/ v – v v – –] εἰς φάος ἔστησεν [λαμ/πρ]όν, ἐλευθέριον ἐγ γενεῆς [προ/φέρ]οντα, [ἀρ]χὴν τσαντα· πολ[εί/την] Ῥ]ωμαῖον ποῖσεν δὲ αὐτὸν [v–/ –]· ἔπει εὔξησεν δὲ αὐτὸν [τόσ/σον,] διὰ ταῦτά τε πάντα κόσμι[α τῷ / μεγ]άλῳ θήκατο δῶρα θεῷ Σαβαθ[ικῷ ἁ]γίῳ εὐχῆς χάριν, ἣν [τ]ελέωσεν· [σω]/ τὴρ ὦ μέγας ὢν καὶ δυνατὸς δ[ι’ ὅλ]/ου, χαίροις ὦ μακάρων πάντων [σὺ / μ]εγίστος ὑπάρχων καὶ δυνατὸς [κραί/ν]ειν· ταῦτα γὰρ ἔστι θεοῦ τοῦ κατέχον[τος] / ἑὸν κόσμον. σὺ δὲ χαῖρε καὶ αὔξοις [εἰς αἰ/ε]ὶ σώζων π[ρ]ῶτον ἐν Αἰνεάδαις [τειμ]αῖς δῶμα τε καὶ τῶν γραψάντω[ν τόδε / οἴ]κῳ καὶ τέκνοις αὐτῶν πᾶσι φίλον θέ/μενος. --- ‘accomplishing a great thing, put --- in a brilliant light, libertus from birth, having promoted and having held a position: --- made him Roman citizen. Because he prayed to him so much and because of all these insignia, he gave to the great holy god Sabathikos gifts in return to the prayer that he granted. Oh you saviour, great and powerful over everything, I wish you be pleased, you the greatest of all blessed beings, and capable of ruling, since these things are in the nature of the god who rules over the world. Be pleased and saving forever the first house among the Aineadai increase it with honours and also the oikos of those who have written this and their children being friendly in everything.’

31 Cf. SGO 06/02/16 (Garulli 2010, 2.4.1). Verse 8: δ[υνατὸς δυνάμει] SGO 04/23/01 (TAM V.3 1658). As parallel for my restitution δ[ι’ ὅλ]/ου, relying on TAM V.1 225: δ[…]ου, cf. καὶ χάριτας μεγάλας σάς τε ἔχειν δι’ ὅλου (IMEG 175; Narmouthis, 1st century BC); εὐψύχει δι’ ὅλο/υ καὶ εἴλεος ἴσθι καὶ ἡμεῖν / εἴ τι καὶ ἐν θνητοῖς ἐστι χαρᾶς δύναμς (IGUR 3.1282, Roma). Verse 13: [τειμ]αῖς; [ν τόδε / οἴ]κῳ TAM V.1 225; [….]ΑΙΣ; [ν v v/– – ] SGO 04/23/01 (TAM V.3 1658).

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This text begins with the statement of a granted prayer (εὐχῆς χάριν) and is followed by a hymn as charisterion/charitesion, which in turn also aims to be a new prayer.32 The god is praised because he has accomplished μέγα πρᾶγ[μα].33 The hymn starts with an acclamation: [σω]τὴρ ὦ μέγας ὢν καὶ δυνατὸς δ[ι’ ὅλ]/ου, which stresses the magnitude and power of the god, which is again stressed, with repetition of the words megas and dynatos, in a second acclamation that seems to be invocation and hymnic argument at the same time: ὦ μακάρων πάντων [σὺ / μ]εγίστος ὑπάρχων καὶ δυνατὸς [ἄρ/χ]ειν. This hymnic argument based on the topic da ut hoc dare tuum est, is expanded by the confirmation ταῦτα γὰρ ἔστι θεοῦ τοῦ κατέχον[τος] / τὸν κόσμον, where his power is again stressed achieving the climax of its expression. The hymn finishes, in a traditional way, with a new greeting and a prayer that is also the final prayer of the whole poem. The granted prayer was an individual one; the new one is a prayer on behalf of the imperial house (‘to save the first house among the Aineadai’), and on behalf of the author(s) and their families: may be a collegium, following the interpretation of the supplied word oikos by the first editors, or the Roman inhabitants (a Roman colony in the area?). The description of the god in this text is very repetitive and very simple: the god is great, powerful and ruler over the whole kosmos. What more can be said? The intensity of the acclamations, and the repetition of the powerful nature of the god and of his universal character almost obscure the traditional structure of the poem, mostly visible in the initial ex-voto, in the hymnic structure and in the final prayer.34 The expression κατέχων τὸν κόσμον is not exactly attested anywhere else, but the same idea is expressed in a similar way for instance in Orphic Hymn 8 to Helios and PGM IV 1966 to Hestia: δέσποτα κόσμου, PGM V 401: Ἑρμῆ κοσμοκράτωρ (= 7. 668); PGM IV 386: ὁ κύριος κόσμου or Orphic Hymn 27 to the Meter Theon: ἣ κατέχεις κόσμοιο μέσον θρόνον. Yet the expression κατέχων / βασιλεύων followed by a toponym is very frequent in north-eastern Lydia attributed to Men (for instance: Μέγας Μεις Ταρσι βασιλεύων or

32

On the poem/praise as thanksgiving to the god, see above, n. 2. On miraculous things granted to mortals by the gods as topos in the post-classical religious discourse, see de Hoz 2017a, 193–94. 34 For a gratitude hymn for having achieved the desired relationship with the Romans, and with similar elements stressing the extraordinary power of the god, cf. the hymn to Asclepius from Pergamon (SGO 06/02/16), attributed, as Merkelbach and Stauber have already said, by Herzog (1934) to Aelius Aristides. Since those elements are common in the east, and specifically in Asia Minor, the attribution to Aelius Aristides is not really founded. 33

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Ἀξιοττα κατέχων).35 We can see a further megatheistic and acclamatory step in an ex-voto from Kula in the same area (SEG 48.1441(1) = SGO 04/02/01), where Artemis is appealed to with the words τῇ Διὸς ἐκ Λητοῖς κούρῃ, βασιληΐ/δι κόσμου. The acclamation ταῦτα γὰρ ἔστι θεοῦ τοῦ κατέχον[τος] / τὸν κόσμον (ll. 10–11) seems to be also an adaptation of that formula to a universal character, perhaps motivated by Graeco-Oriental influence. 5. The rulership of the world is also attributed to an anonymous god (probably Ζεὺς Σαρνενδηνός)36 in an inscription from Iuliopolis with a first prose dedication (A) and an epigram (B):37 A. Θεῷ ἀρίστῳ μεγίστῳ ἐπη/κόῳ σωτῆρι… /εὐχήν. B. Σοὶ μακάρων κύδιστε γέρας τόδε /Τέργος ἔθηκεν εὔτυκτον Μο[υ]/σῶν γράμμασι γραψάμενος/ σὰς χάριτας, μεγ’ ἄριστε, φιλήκοε/ κοίρανε κόσμου / σοὶ δ’ αὐ/τός τε μέλοι τέκνα τε κα[ὶ κτέ]/ανα. A. ‘To god the best, greatest, listener, saviour… this pray.’ B. ‘To you, most glorious of all blessed beings, dedicated Tergas this well achieved gift, having written in Muses’ letters your favours, you the best, who likes listening, master of the world, and lets him be your concern, and also his children and his livestock.’

In the first prose dedication the god is the best and the greatest, but also epekoos and soter, as most gods in this time in prayers or ex-votos that use the topos do ut hoc dare tuum est as captatio benevolentiae. In the second part however, a poem is dedicated to the god based on the topos do ut des. The god is here again aristos and epekoos (philekoos). He is also κοίρανε κόσμου, a very representative mixture of these times: a well-known epithet applied to different gods from Homer onwards,38 but delimited by the universalising noun kosmos with this use that belongs to the post-classical philosophical and religious tradition.39 The author, a farmer, obviously wanted to please the god with a literary charitesion, showing everybody his mastery of the Greek tradition: γέρας τόδε /Τέργος ἔθηκεν εὔτυκτον Μο[υ]/σῶν γράμμασι γραψάμενος/ σὰς χάριτας. He writes in hexameters and poetic words, and is proud of it (Μο[υ]/σῶν 35

de Hoz 1999, 40–41 for evidence; and new ones in Malay-Petzl 2017, nos. 123, 124. The god must be Ζεὺς Σαρνενδηνός, who presumably had a sanctuary in this region: the editio princeps refers to two dedications to him found nearby (SEG 50.1223, 1224). 37 Marek 2000, 129–35. On this inscription, see also Chaniotis 2010, 129–32. 38 Cf. Marek 2000, 133, no. 16. 39 Marek (2000, 134) finds the only exact parallels in Christian texts, but see also κοίρανε κόσμου, Ἠέλιε κλυτόπωλε, PMG II 88, and almost identical expressions in Orphic Hymns (28. 2–4, and above p. 170), and in other inscriptions from Asia Minor, as already seen (see also below pp. 173–74). 36

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γράμμασι γραψάμενος);40 γέρας is the privilege destined to the Homeric heroes, often appealed with the vocative κύδιστε, as is Zeus often appealed; εὔτυκτον is a Homeric and Hesiodic adjective. The word philekoos, which he uses instead of epekoos, certainly as variatio to show his mastery, appears for the first time in Isocrates (1 [Ad Demonicum] 18.6), and is extensively used by Plato (Lysis 206c10, Euthydemus 274c3, Republic 475d3, 476b4, etc.) and by Christian authors (cf. also MAMA I 237, from Laodikeia Katakekaumene in Lykaonia), but in the sense of ‘fond of learning’ (cf. Photius. Φιλήκοος: φιλομαθής). Did the author of the text use this philosophical word without really understanding its meaning? * *

*

In all these texts there is an obvious aim of showing Greek paideia through the knowledge of Greek poetic language and metre. It is nonetheless more difficult to know if prayer and hymnic elements such as the arguments do ut des, da quia dedisti or da quia hoc dare tuum est are due to Greek traditional cult literary influence. Those are normal elements in the communication with the gods in different cultures, and are well attested in Mesopotamian or Hittite hymns. The texts use Greek literary cult tradition adapting the structure and the content of their personal communication with the god: a very fuzzy triadic hymnic structure, and a blurry difference between ex-voto, prayer or hymn. The presentation of the gods in these texts is not the expected in Greek tradition. In Roman times, many new gods and religious concepts were spreading over the whole Mediterranean. What aspects of these texts were general and common to the contemporaneous Greek world, and which part was indigenous? What has become mainstream, but can certainly be identified as indigenous to this area? What can be ascribed to Greek philosophical and religious development and what to Eastern influences? Clues to these questions can be found in the humble prose of cult inscriptions from rural Asia Minor – most of which were written in ‘bad’ Greek – when we compare them to ancient Anatolian religions. This analysis can help us determine which aspects of the poetic cult dedications commented above belong to indigenous religious feelings. 40 For the explicit allusion to the poetic and/or educated competence of the author (or the dead in the epitaphs) in central Asia Minor see for instance 16/03/03, 16/04/01, 16/34/26. Cf. Marek 2000, 133 for other examples of ‘Ostentation der Poesie’ in inscriptions from Asia Minor: SGO 04/02/11 (Sardis, Hellenistic period); Robert 1960, 414–29 (Eumeneia, 3rd century AD).

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SURVIVAL OF LOCAL RELIGION In all of this evidence, the god appears as highest god, ruler of everything, watcher and justice dispenser, celestial god. The tool used to gain the favour of the god whilst giving thanks or praying was to praise him with aretalogies based on acclamations that concentrate his powers, that extol his henotheism. The aretalogy is the real charitesion in ex-votos and hymns, and is the captatio benevolentiae in both hymns and prayers. Acclamations play a crucial role in these instances, far more than in Greek traditional cult texts, and are often the core of the whole communication.41 Acclamation is propaganda of the god, and this propaganda seems to be the most important gift or charis. Acclamations based on divine names and epithets are particularly widely spread in rural inner Anatolia, always expressing the power and magnitude of the divinity.42 Supreme power is identified with the power to hear and see everything, judge, chastise and save, and with the power in the celestial sphere. This sort of epithet is very frequent in simple non-poetic dedications that are not literarily ambitious and do not pretend mastery in Greek paideia. Therefore, they are good evidence for ancient cult traditions, as they allow us to distinguish the indigenous from the Greek (either traditional Greek or a new Greek religious koine influenced by Eastern religion) in literary dedications. Epithets denoting the magnitude or extension of the divine power are especially frequent in humble, prosaic inscriptions dedicated to local gods in Maionia and Phrygia: μέγας, μέγιστος, ὕψιστος; epithets revealing the Eastern conception of the god as ruler of a place: τύραννος, βασιλεύς or κατέχων following a toponym; epithets detaching the heavenly nature of the god: οὐράνιος, ἐν οὐρανίῳ, ἐπουράνιος; epithets denoting the indestructibility of the god’s power: ἄλυτος,43 or his all-seeing and knowing capacity: πανδερκής, ἀλάθητος, or his eternity: πάντοτε γεγονυίᾳ (TAM V.1 236).44 The combination of these elements makes the effect stronger, as in Μέγας Μεὶς Οὐράνιος Ἀρτεμιδώρου Ἀξιοττα κατέχων καὶ ἡ δύναμις αὐτοῦ, κρ[ι]τὴς ἀλάθητος ἐν οὐρανῷ;45 εἷς θεὸς ἐ/ν οὐρανοῖς, /μέγας Μὴν / Οὐράνιος, /μεγάλη δύ/ναμις τοῦ ἀ/θανάτου 41

Cf. Belayche 2013, 28. On this topos apo tou onomatos (cf. Aristotle Rhetorica 2. 1400b20), see Pernot (2005, 29–39; 2009, 233–37), who indicates different types of names and epiclesis attributed to gods, among them local and functional. For ancient Greek comments on this topos, cf. Theon Progym. 111. 3–11; Menander Rhetor 1. 357, 9–11. On epigraphic acclamations, see Chaniotis 2010. 43 Petzl 1994, 4; de Hoz 1999, 39.63; cf. TAM V.1 63 B3 = de Hoz 1999, 57.27. 44 On all these types of epithets, see above and de Hoz 1999, 117; Chiai 2009; Chaniotis 2010. 45 Herrmann and Malay 2007, no. 52 (north-eastern Lydia); ἀλάθητος is a very rare word (cf. DGE s.v. 2.: τὸ θεῖον Aesop. 36. 2, 3; 67. 2). 42

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θε/οῦ (TAM V.1 75; Saittai, Lydia); Μεγάλη Ἄρτεμις Ἀναεῖτις καὶ Μεὶς Τιαμου… Μεγάλοι οὖν οἱ θεοὶ οἱ ἐν Ἀζίττοις.46 It is true that expressions such as εἷς θεός are not expressions of monotheism, but a way of extolling the god in the same, or in an even more emphatic, way;47 but not all gods are called that way, and only some of them – those who are able to gather together a series of features, most of them Eastern in origin – are henotheistic. As seen in the former examples, the divine power (δύναμις) is also the object of acclamation, as well as other hypostaseis of the god, such as τὰ ἄλυτα σκῆπτρα τὰ ἐν Ταβάλοις, referred to the gods in Tabala.48 In general, divine epithets and acclamations are used with two main functions: thanksgiving or request for benefits in relation to the philanthropic nature of the divinity, and asking for forgiveness or requesting revenge (imprecations, judicial appeals) in relation to the rightful and fearsome divine nature. The main characters of divinity in acclamations are in fact philanthropy and justice. It is interesting to see that the fearsome nature of the acclamations and epithets are especially common in local evidence with a strong Eastern and indigenous character. In fact, the power of the god is often acclaimed in evidence related to their power to chastise and apply justice concerning funerary imprecations and confessions. Anatolia is very rich in funerary imprecations, and some of them can be traced back to Phrygian, Luwian or Hittite funerary customs. Especially present in this context are Helios and Hecate in Phrygia, Men in Lydian Maionia, in Phrygia and in Pisidia. 49 Even more evident is the fearsome power of the gods in the so-called confession inscriptions and in the praises to the god as consequence of a judicial prayer. The main gods are again Men, especially in Maionia, and Apollo Helios in the nearby area of Motella in Phrygia.50 Let us see the text engraved on a stele with a moon crescent in high relief above:51 Μεγάλη Μήτηρ Μηνὸς Ἀξιοττηνοῦ· Μηνὶ Οὐρανίῳ, Μηνὶ Ἀρτεμιδώρου Ἀξιοττα κατέχοντι Γλύ46 47

Petzl 1994, no. 69 (cf. 79); north-eastern Lydia. On Heis Theos, see Peterson 1926; for recent discussion, see Belayche 2010; Chaniotis

2010. 48

TAM V.1 63B3 = de Hoz 1999, 57.27. For imprecations in Greek inscriptions from Asia Minor, see Strubbe 1997, especially Appendix 2 (at pp. 285–98) with lists of the main formulae in areas of the interior such as Phrygia, East Caria, East Lydia and Lycaonia, but also in the Western cities, that seem to belong to an especial tradition in Asia Minor. On the Luwian origin of imprecations still alive in Roman imperial times in New Phrygian inscriptions, see Obrador-Cursach 2019. 50 For a catalogue of confession inscriptions, see Petzl 1994. On confession inscriptions as religious phenomenon, and their evidence in different Eastern cultures, see Pettazzoni 1936. 51 Malay 2003, 13–18; AD 57/8. See also Chaniotis 2009, 116–22; 2010, 122–26. 49

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κων Ἀπολλωνίου καὶ Μύρτιον Γλύκωνος εὐλογίαν περὶ τῆς ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίας καὶ τῶν ἰδίων τέκνων· Σὺ γάρ με, κύριε, αἰχμαλωτιζόμενον ἠλέησες. Μέγα σοι τὸ ὅσιον, μέγα σοι τὸ δίκαιον, μεγάλη νείκη, μεγάλαι σαὶ νεμέσεις, μέγα σοι τὸ δωδεκάθεον τὸ παρὰ σοὶ κατεκτισμένον. Ἠχμαλωτίσθην ὑπὸ ἀδελφοῦ τέκνου τοῦ Δημαινέτου, ὅτι τὰ ἐμὰ προέλειψα καὶ σοι βοίθεαν ἔδωκα ὡς τέκνῳ· σὺ δὲ ἐξέκλεισές με καὶ ᾐχμαλώτισάς με οὐχ ὡς πάτρως, ἀλλὰ ὡς κακοῦργον. Μέγας οὖν ἐστι Μεὶς ᾽Αξιοττα κατέχων· τὸ εἱκανόν μοι ἐποίησας· εὐλογῶ ὑμεῖν. Ἔτους ρμβ’ μη(νὸς) Πανήμου β’. ‘Great is the Mother of Men Axiottenos! Glykon, son of Apollonios, and Myrtion the wife of Glykon (set up this) praise to heavenly Men, Men Artemidorou ruling over Axiotta because of the safety of themselves and of their own children. Because you showed mercy upon me, o Lord, when I was imprisoned. Great is your quality of holiness, great is your quality of justice, great is your victory, great are your acts of revenge, great is the Dodekatheon which is located next to you! I have been imprisoned by Demainetos, son of (my) brother, because I abandoned (sold?) my property and gave you my support as if you had been my child. But you locked me out and imprisoned me as if I were not (your) uncle, but a criminal. Great is, therefore, Meis ruling over Axiotta: you satisfied me! I praise you! In the year 142, on the 2nd day of the month Panemos’ (transl. Malay 2003).

The text starts with an invocation to the mother of the god, the Great Mother, in a sort of genealogical acclamation to stress the importance of the god Men, who is here identified as Axiottenos (from Axiotta). The praise (eulogia) is dedicated to Men, who is described as heavenly, Artemidorou (i.e. of the temple originally founded by Artemidoros) and, again, Axiottenos, but this time stressing his dominance over Axiotta (᾽Αξιοττα κατέχων). After the statement of the finality of the text (a eulogia) that follows the dedication/invocation, an aretalogy (the proper eulogia) in the second person narrates an episode of the power of the god, called here kyrios, and acclaiming his qualities (hosion, dikaion) and his powers (nike, nemeseis), all of them great.52 The dedication 52 Cf. similar henotheistic acclamations in ex-votos: ἷς θεὸς / ἐν οὐρανῷ· / μέγα Ὅσιον, / μέγα τὸ Δίκεον (Aizanoi; SEG 42.1192); μέγα τὸ ὅσεον, μ[έ]/γα τὸ δίκαιο[ν] (Thasos, 2nd century AD; IG 12(8) 613).

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finishes with a new acclamation stressing the magnitude of the god and his rulership over Axiotta, with the statement that the god has done justice (τὸ εἱκανόν μοι ἐποίησας)53 and with the confirmation that the text is a dedication in praise of the god: εὐλογῶ ὑμεῖν (cf. also l. 5). * *

*

Though from the Hellenistic period onwards acclamations praising the power and name of the divinity are more and more common in the Greek literary and epigraphic evidence in general, their intensity and richness in the Anatolian rural interior is a very important evidence for the reconstruction of an East– West way in this treatment of the divinity and the possible importance that Asia Minor had in the spreading of this tradition. That this religious practice and thought, together with other religious elements, are very ancient in Asia Minor is demonstrated by the fact that they are already attested in Hittite religious evidence, where many elements have been, in turn, incorporated from Anatolian pre-Indo-European and from Semitic religions, specifically Hattian, Mesopotamian and Hurrian. The epithets denoting greatness of the divinity, the god as ruler or king of a place, his astral nature, the god as holder of justice, as chastiser, his fearsome nature, the importance of a solar and a moon god, of the divine hypostaseis (such as the animals related to the god, the moon, the sceptre or his dynameis), of the intermediaries between god and men: all these elements, that are heavily stressed in confessions and similar inscriptions from Phrygia and Maionia, are also the main elements that appear in ancient Anatolian religions. The special relationship of the solar god with the concepts of justice and law is especially evident in Mesopotamia, from where it was probably adopted by Hittite religion. It is likely not just a coincidence that the Akkadian Solar god (Šamaš), who is god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, appears together with his sons Kittum (‘justice’) and Mesaru (‘law and righteousness/equity’),54 and that they also appear in Hittite texts together with the Hittite Sun-God Istanu (who is light, lord of land and sea, lord of justice), providing us with a clear parallel for the existence in Roman Anatolia of a god (or two gods) called Hosios kai Dikaios, and for their relationship to the main god, be it Men or Helios or both, as his hypostaseis or 53 The verb ἱκανοποέω appears in other Lydian confessions: Petzl 1994, nos. 47, 59, 69 = de Hoz 1999, nos. 57.8, 39.9, 3.27. 54 Ricl 2014, 10, who also cites Philo of Byblos (Phoenician History), for the mention of two Phoenician gods, Misor and Sydyk, ‘offspring of Titans’, called in Greek Εὔλυτος (‘Straight’/ ‘Right’/‘Easily solved’) and Δίκαιος (‘Just’).

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intermediaries.55 The transcribed confession inscription is in fact proof of the character of those two divinities as hypostaseis or qualifications of the great god, who in most inscriptions is Helios or Men. The dodekatheon mentioned is not necessarily to be conceived as a group of gods who have their cult near or in his sanctuary, but as the god’s council in heaven.56 The megalai nemeseis of the god, often acclaimed in the Maionian and Phrygian judicial dedications, and also called dynameis, remind us of the Sumerian me (‘divine power’, ‘true’, ‘order’) that, under different names, represent the universal cosmic, ethic and ritual order that rules the sacred and the profane. Through their dynameis, Men, Helios Apollo Lairbenos or Artemis Anaitis guarantee the ethic and ritual order of the Anatolian communities in particular. The Sumerian divine power is in part his powerful luminosity, the main aspect of the terrifying and menacing character of the god.57 But even much written evidence of the communication with the gods is very similar. The Hittites had the same custom of ‘confession’, known to us from texts where the kings pray to the gods to investigate, to examine the sin that lays behind an epidemic or other disasters, and to reveal them the sin and the propitiation’s requirements through a prophecy or dream (the two primary means of communication with the gods in Roman Anatolian inscriptions), and where they confess their faults, ask for forgiveness, and praise the power of the god.58 CONCLUSIONS In the interior of Anatolia there are poetic texts that use Greek tradition to reveal the same local religious beliefs and feelings that we find in other texts written in simple prose, as opposed to pretentious inscriptions that emphasise their knowledge of paideia. In some cases they make use of the Greek hymnand prayer tradition for the structural composition and organisation of the topics, but they use them mostly for the selection of metrical and poetic language. 55 In a hymn of Mursilis II (CTH 376), the solar goddess Arinna is repeatedly called ‘pious and mistress of justice’ in a sort of adage. 56 See editio princeps for the first interpretation. Chaniotis (2009, 116–22; 2010, 122–26) thinks that there is a competitive use of the word heis, and that Men is here conceived as presiding a council of gods, which mirrors the worshipper’s image of the divine council as a Roman senate, and the god as the emperor. For a different interpretation suggesting a survival of an ancient Anatolian religious conception, with which I agree, see Ricl 2014, 15–16. Cf. also, for the attestation of a divine assembly in clay tablets from Ugarit and in the Bible, Matthews and Benjamin 2006, 263, 267. 57 Sanmartín 1993, 265–66. 58 Vieyra 1989, 360. Ricl 2014 for elements in the Lydian confession inscriptions that go back to the Hittite period. For Hittite and Mesopotamian religions in general, see Vieyra 1989; Sanmartín 1993; Collins 2007, 157–94.

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Metrics and language belong to the Greek poetic tradition, mainly Homeric, but the compositions do not seem to be compilations of formulae and of the most famous, or more didactic, ancient Greek verses. Besides, there are many poetic expressions that belong to tragedy, or that are probably taken from the Hellenistic and Imperial adaptation of Homer, and of the archaic and classical literature. For some poetic expressions, the best parallels are found in Quintus from Smyrna or Nonnus, revealing the probable existence of a literary postclassical tradition circulating in Asia Minor prior to these authors. The language is adapted and integrated to express religious contents that do not belong to the Greek cult tradition. In prose inscriptions, new uses of ancient Greek words, such as εὐλογία, εὐλογέω, ἐλεέω, δύναμις or ἱκανοποιέω reveal religious features common to Judaism and Christianism, in whose texts we find similar terminology and expressions. In poetic texts, the use of words and expressions such as ὕψιστος or παντοδυνάστης, that in Greek literary tradition are a way of extolling and emphasising the magnitude of a god such as Zeus in a poetic way, become appropriate expressions for the Eastern gods and Eastern divine feelings and beliefs, and for local direct communication with the gods. In the texts analysed in this paper, as well as in similar others from Asia Minor, we can recognise nevertheless two different levels of Greek adaptation to Eastern religious contents besides the Greek literary tradition: a local or regional adaptation, and a supra-regional one. Local religious features in the poems can be recognised if we compare them with non-poetic evidence such as the confession inscriptions, or with iconographic elements and evidence of ancient Anatolian religions. But there are also other elements that are not traditionally Greek, have a clear Eastern origin, but are integrated into the Greek literary and philosophical tradition in post-classical times, and expanded in the whole of the East Mediterranean, and later on, in the Roman world. The universal character of the gods such as is expressed in the hymn to Sabathikos (1. 4) or in the prayer 1. 5, or the celestial being, that sees everything and establishes justice (see 1. 1, 1. 2 and 1. 3) belong to these elements. In many cases it is difficult to know if these ideas arrived in a Greek metrical cult dedication in Asia Minor through the influence of Greek literary evidence that had already integrated them, or they were individual or local adaptations of local ideas into a Greek literary tradition. The core of Eastern religious beliefs and conceptions that explains the constitution of an especial Graeco-Roman religious discourse can be found in all the texts from Asia Minor mentioned above. In some of them we can appreciate mainstream Eastern influences together with the more local Eastern aspects; in others, the Greek paideia has modelled the expression of those ancient religious feelings that travel also to the Roman West through

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population – more than literary – movement. It is significant that most Greek epigraphic evidence for this new religious discourse comes from eastern Mediterranean islands, from Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, and not from Greece.59 The Eastern elements are very difficult to assign to a certain territory because one of the characteristics of Eastern religions is that, since the times of the Hittites, Indo-European and Semitic religions have blended over and over again through all the conquests and migrations of Hittites, Hurrians, Acadians, Assyrians, etc. Agreeing with the words of Ted Kaizer ‘religious life in the Roman Near East can only be approached properly by a full appreciation of the interplay between local and universal (or in any case supra-regional) tendencies’,60 I insist on the fact that religious texts such as hymns and prayers can only be approached properly in that same way, and by full appreciation of the interplay between Greek and indigenous (local Eastern or general Eastern).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barton, S.C. and Horsley, G.H.R. 1981: ‘A Hellenistic Cult Group and the New Testament Churches’. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 24, 7–41. Belayche, N. 2010: ‘Deus deum… summorum maximus (Apuleius): ritual expressions of distinction in the divine world in the imperial period’. In Mitchell, S. and Van Nuffelen, P. (eds.), One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (Cambridge), 141–66. —. 2013: ‘L’évolution des formes rituelles: hymnes et mystèria’. In Bricault, L. and Bonnet, C. (eds.), Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 177) (Leiden/Boston). Bernand, E. 1969: Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte gréco-romaine: Recherches sur la poésie épigrammatique des grecs en Égypte (Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 98) (Besançon). Chaniotis, A. 2009: ‘Acclamations as a Form of Religious Communication’. In Cancik, H. and Rüpke, J. (eds.), Die Religion des Imperium Romanum. Koine und Konfrontation (Tübingen), 199–218. —. 2010: ‘Megatheism: the search for the almighty god and the competition of cults’. In Mitchell, S. and Van Nuffelen, P. (eds.), One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (Cambridge), 112–41. Chiai, G.F. 2009: ‘Königliche Götter und gehorsame Untertanen im Kleinasien der Kaiserzeit: Zur Funktion der Machtepitheta in religiöser Kommunikation’. In Cancik, H. and Rüpke, J. (eds.), Die Religion des Imperium Romanum. Koine und Konfrontation (Tübingen), 219–47.

59 For a different interpretation of the hymnic practices, based on social considerations, see Belayche 2013, 35. 60 Kaizer 2013, 125.

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Cline, R. 2011: Ancient Angels: Conceptualizing Angeloi in the Roman Empire (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 172) (Leiden/Boston). Collins, B.J. 2007: The Hittites and their World (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 7) (Atlanta). de Hoz, M.-P. 1997: ‘The verb καθιερόω and reference to a divinity in Anatolian funeral formulas’. Arkeoloji Dergisi 5, 161–69. —. 1999: ‘Angelos y Theion en exvotos anatolios’. In Τῆς φιλίη τάδε δῶρα. Miscelánea léxica en memoria de Conchita Serrano (Manuales y Anejos de Emerita 41) (Madrid), 103–09. —. 1999: Die Lydischen Kulte im Lichte der griechischen Inschriften (Asia Minor Studien 36) (Bonn). —. 2002: ‘Men, un dios lunar, con corona de rayos’. MHNH: Revista internacional de investigación sobre magia y astrología antiguas 2, 189–202. —. 2017: ‘Prayer to the deceased? Relations between gods, dead and the living in Roman Phrygia Epiktetos’. Ancient West and East 16, 139–54. —. 2017a: ‘Religious discourse in Hellenistic and Roman times: content topoi in Greek epigraphic cult foundations and sacred norms’. Kernos 30, 187–20. Frei, P. 1988: ‘Phrygische Toponyme’. EA 11, 9–33. Furley, W.D. and Bremer, J.M. 2001: Greek Hymns: Selected Cult Songs from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period. 2: Greek Texts and Commentary (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 10) (Tübingen). Garulli, V. 2010: ‘Inni epigrafici greci di provenienza microasiatica’. Paideia 65, 49–99. Guarducci, M. 1974: Epigrafia greca 3: Epigrafi di carattere privato (Rome). Habicht, C. 1990: ‘Euripides Phoenissae 1–3 and Aelius Nico of Pergamum’. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 31, 177–82. Haspels, C.H.E. 1971: The Highlands of Phrygia: Sites and Monuments, 2 vols. (Princeton). Herrmann, P. and Malay, H. 2007: New Documents from Lydia (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Ergänzungsbände zu den tituli Asiae Minoris 24; Denkschriften 340) (Vienna). Horsley, G.H.R and Luxford, J.M. 2016: ‘Pagan angels in Roman Asia Minor: revisiting the epigraphic evidence’. Anatolian Studies 66, 141–83. Kaizer, T. 2013: ‘Identifying the divine in the Roman Near East’. In Bricault, L. and Bonnet, C. (eds.), Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 177) (Leiden/Boston), 113–28. Lehmann, Y. (ed.) 2007: L’hymne antique et son public (Recherches sur les Rhétoriques Religieuses 7) (Turnhout). Malay, H. 1994: Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Manisa Museum (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Ergänzungsband zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 19; Denkschriften 237) (Vienna). —. 2003: ‘A Praise on Men Artemidorou Axiottenos’. EA 36, 13–18. Malay, H. and Petzl, G. 2017: New Religious Texts from Lydia (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Ergänzungsband zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 28; Denkschriften 497) (Vienna). Marek, C. 2000: ‘Der höchste, beste, grösste, allmächtige Gott. Inschriften aus Nordkleinasien’. EA 32, 129–46.

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Matthews, V.H. and Benjamin, D.C. 2006: Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 3rd ed. (New York). Mitchell, S. 1999: ‘The cult of Theos Hypsistos between pagans, Jews, and Christians’. In Athanassiadi, P. and Frede, M. (eds.), Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford), 81–148. Obrador-Cursach, B. 2019: ‘The Luwian origin of the Phrygian imprecations’. In Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), Phrygia in Antiquity: From the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period (Proceedings of an International Conference ‘The Phrygian Lands over Time: From Prehistory to the Middle of the 1st Millennium AD’, held at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2nd–8th November, 2015) (Colloquia Antiqua 24) (Leuven/Paris/Bristol, CT), 145–59. Pernot, L. 2005: ‘Le lieu du nom (ΤΟΠΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΟΣ) dans la rhétorique religieuse des grecs’. In Belayche, N. et al. (eds.), Nommer les Dieux: Théonymes, épithètes, épiclèses dans l’Antiquité (Recherches sur les Rhértoriques Religieuses 5) (Turnhout), 29–39. —. 2009: ‘The Rhetoric of Religion’. In Pernot, L. (ed.), New Chapters in the History of Rhetoric (International Studies in the History of Rhetoric 1) (Leiden/Boston), 327–46. Pettazzoni, R. 1936: La confessione dei peccati 3: Siria, Hittiti, Asia Minore, Grecia (Storia delle Religioni 8) (Bologna). Peterson, E. 1926: Heis Theos: epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments n.f. 24) (Göttingen). Petzl, G. 1994: Die Beichtinschriften Westkleinasiens (= EA 22) (Bonn). Pulleyn, S. 1997: Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford). Renberg, G.H. 2003: ‘Commanded by the Gods’: An Epigraphical Study of Dreams and Visions in Greek and Roman Religious Life, vol. 1 (Durham, NC). Ricl, M. 1991: ‘Hosios kai Dikaios I: Catalogue des inscriptions’. EA 18, 1–70. —. 1992a: ‘Hosios kai Dikaios II: Analyse’. EA 19, 71–103. —. 1992b: ‘Hosios kai Dikaios. Nouveaux monuments’. EA 20, 95–100. —. 2014: ‘Continuity and change in Anatolian cults: the case of Lydian confessioninscriptions’. Belgrade Historical Review 5, 7–21. Robert, L. 1960: Hellenica 11–12: Recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d’antiquités grecques (Paris). Sanmartín J. 1993: ‘Mesopotamia’. In López, J. and Sanmartín, J., Mitología y Religión del Oriente Antiguo 1: Egipto-Mesopotamia (Estudios Orientales 7) (Barcelona). Sterrett, J.R.S. 1888: An Epigraphical Journey in Asia Minor (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2, 1883–84) (Boston). Strubbe, J.H.M. 1997: Arai epitymbioi: Imprecations against Desecrators of the Grave in the Greek Epitaphs of Asia Minor: A Catalogue (IGSK 52) (Bonn). Totti, M. 1985: Ausgewählte Texte der Isis- und Sarapis-Religion (Subsidia Epigraphica 12) (Hildesheim). van Straten, F.T. 1976: ‘Daikrates’ Dream, A votive relief from Kos, and some other kat’ onar dedications’. BABesch 31, 1–38. Vanderlip, V.F. 1972: The Four Greek Hymns of Isidorus and the Cult of Isis (American Studies in Papyrology 12) (Toronto).

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GREEK EPIC IN PISIDIA: THE SOLYMI AT TERMESSUS Héctor ARROYO-QUIRCE

Abstract It is a well-known fact that the inhabitants of Pisidian Termessus in south-western Asia Minor were linked to the Solymi, a people that appears twice in Homer’s Iliad fighting against the Greek hero Bellerophon and killing his son Isander. Strabo’s Geography, which describes the city and its warlike surroundings quoting the relevant Homeric verses, is the oldest and main literary account that has been preserved, while local expressions of Solymian identity are displayed only in verse inscriptions with epic wording throughout Imperial times. The paper first discusses how the Termessians came to adopt and adapt the Solymian tradition to its Pisidian community, focusing on the so-called Solymos hill and its relationship to the god Zeus Solymeus, followed by a study that brings forth the Solymian inscriptions, with an emphasis on the honours paid to a man called Solymios, wise among the Solymi, and the references to the Solymian fatherland. Some incidental points touch upon the important cult of the goddess Artemis in the city.

TERMESSUS: PISIDIAN BARBARIANS AT THE EDGES OF THE HELLENISTIC WORLD By reading the Anabasis of Alexander, written by the historian Arrian from Nicomedia in the 2nd century AD, but using sources contemporaneous with Alexander the Great’s campaigns, mainly Aristobulus and Ptolemy,1 precious information can be gained about the city of Termessus in Pisidia, today located within the modern Güllük Mountain National Park, 34 km north-west of Antalya. Having dealt with rebellious Aspendians in Pamphylia, the Macedonian king and his army moved to Perge on their way to Phrygia and the expedition then arrived at the city of Termessus, whose men, strictly speaking, appear now for the first time in the history of the Hellenistic world. The Termessians are introduced as Pisidians by race, barbarians inhabiting a place which is best described as exceedingly high and precipitous on every side (Arrian Anabasis 1. 27. 5), and nothing is added there on the glorious Solymi identity that they claimed later for themselves through the Greek epic, the topic that defines the scope of the present paper. The silence could be taken as

1

On Arrian’s historical methods, see Bosworth 1980, 16–34.

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a proof of non-existence, especially when considering the known interest of Alexander in Homer’s greatest poem, the Iliad:2 a reference to the mighty foes of the celebrated hero Bellerophon would have been welcomed even though the king decided finally not to storm the city. In any case, there is no need to quarrel much about this suggestion, for it seems only natural that the community of Termessus had little acquaintance with Hellenism before the advent of Alexander the Great in 334 BC, a turning point in the Hellenisation of Pisidia, to put it simply.3 From that moment on, local communities start to generate Greek credentials for their own past through different paths: so, as far as we can gather from ancient evidence, by the 2nd century BC at the latest, the Selgians of Pisidia, former rivals of Termessus, could already boast of a colonial kinship, certainly fictitious, with the Lacedaemonians, in due course supplemented by a previous foundation legend involving the seer Calchas, to be located in time just after the fall of Troy.4 THE GLORIOUS SOLYMI AT TERMESSUS I. THE SO-CALLED SOLYMOS HILL GOD ZEUS SOLYMEUS

AND

THE

Of the glorious Solymi of Homer at Termessus, the first account is provided by Strabo’s Geography. The description of the city occurs at 13. 4. 16, where the Cabalian people are said to be Solymi, while the passage concludes by pointing out that Termessus is a Pisidian polis, the one that is situated the nearest beyond Cibyra.5 Between both statements, the text informs us that the hill (lophos) that lies above the fortress (akra) of the Termessians is called Solymos, and that the Termessians themselves are called Solymi,6 and it reveals as well that nearby stand the palisade of Bellerophon and the tomb of his son Pisander, who fell in the battle against the Solymi. Next, noting that these words agree with what the poet Homer says, Strabo goes on to quote the relevant verses of the Iliad concerning the glorious Solymi, although slightly adapted due to the prose style of his work, and changing the son’s personal name: περὶ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ Βελλεροφόντου φησὶν οὕτως ‘δεύτερον αὖ Σολύμοισι μαχέσσατο κυδαλίμοισι’. περὶ δὲ τοῦ παιδὸς 2

Cf. Plutarch Alexander 8. 2. Seminal works by Mitchell 1991; 1992. 4 See Arroyo-Quirce 2016. 5 In Greek, ἡ μάλιστα καὶ ἔγγιστα ὑπερκειμένη τῆς Κιβύρας. Given that Isinda is the nearest Pisidian city to Cibyra, the topographical indication surely betrays a confusion with the location of Termessus Minor by Oenoanda, a homonymous colony of Pisidian Termessus in the Cabalis (cf. Rousset 2010, 81, n. 4, with previous bibliography). 6 English translation by H.L. Jones 1929 (Loeb edition). 3

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αὐτοῦ ‘Πείσανδρον δέ οἱ υἱὸν Ἄρης ἆτος πολέμοιο μαρνάμενον Σολύμοισι κατέκτανεν’.7 Looking inside Hellenistic Termessus, there is something of a Solymian reality too, which means that Greek literary tradition was not a mere invention intended to explain where Homer’s glorious Solymi lived: an inscription (TAM III.1 26), dated by Heberdey based on letter forms that fit better in the 2nd than the 1st century BC, records a vow made to Zeus Solymeus by a man who has served him as priest. Understandably enough, the function implies an official cult. Regarding the second part of the text with the sign of a gilder from Alexandria, probably the famous Egyptian city,8 the contrast suffices to remark how Hellenism did not obliterate Anatolian personal names at Termessus.9 In fact, they remained in use until well into the 3rd century AD alongside Greek and Roman personal names, even within members of the elite.10 TAM III.1 26: Οτανις Μωτος ἱερητεύσας Διὶ Σολυμεῖ εὐχ[ή]ν. anaglyphum Διονύσιος Ἡρακλείδου ἀπὸ Ἀλεξανδρέας ἐχρύσωσεν.

A

B

‘Otanis, son of Mos, having been priest, to Zeus Solymeus a vow. Dionysios, son of Herakleides, from Alexandria, gilded it.’

At first glance, the theonym Zeus Solymeus should be seen as a Greek rendering of an indigenous local god, probably a descendant of the Luwian stormgod Tarhunt, related to a hill precisely called Solymos (Fig. 1).11 This topographical feature does not seem to be unusual in the Pisidian religious and mountainous landscape: Polybius (5. 76. 2–3) relates that the so-called Kesbelion in Selge is a temple of Zeus that takes the disposition of an akra.12 In this regard, the nature of the god at Termessus can be tested against the bulk of Trokondas in the city, because it is deemed a theophoric personal name derived from Tarhunt,13 yet we must note that the toponym associated with the divinity 7 Homer Iliad 6. 184: δεύτερον αὖ Σολύμοισι μαχέσσατο κυδαλίμοισι; Iliad 6. 203–204: Ἴσανδρον δέ οἱ υἱὸν Ἄρης ἆτος πολέμοιο / μαρνάμενον Σολύμοισι κατέκτανε κυδαλίμοισι. 8 For discussion, see Donderer 2001, 179–82. 9 Cf. Zgusta 1964, 1003, 1125-2. 10 See van Nijf 2010 on onomastic habits in Termessus. 11 See Talloen 2015, 53. 12 For the temple and its name, see the commentary by Nollé and Schindler, ISelge 15. 13 See Houwink ten Cate 1965, 202.

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Fig. 1. The so-called Solymos hill behind Termessus’ theatre (photograph by author).

also matches the eponymous ancestor of the Solymi. He is a certain Solymos, son of Zeus and Chelidonia, daughter of Pydes, according to Antimachus of Colophon, an expert in Homer’s poetry who lived in the 5th century BC.14 In light of the epic environment that surrounds Pisidian Termessus, it would be fair to infer that its inhabitants adopted the name Solymos for the hill, conceived perhaps as his grave,15 in order to sustain the rights of their community to be both the Solymi and the Solymian fatherland,16 the two topoi which recur in local inscriptions from Imperial times (see below).17 Such a process would have made Zeus Solymeus a hybrid divinity born between two cultures, neither simply indigenous nor completely Greek, and so connected to, but also different from, the ancestor Solymos. That being said, Solymeus is not the sole epiclesis for Zeus at Termessus in the Hellenistic period, albeit the traditionally accepted proposal depends on the heavily damaged and restored decree TAM III.1 1, written on a fragmentary 14

See Matthews 1996 on F81. For this specific idea, see Weiss 1994, LIMC s.v. Solymos, 797–98. 16 Sartre 1991, 195 alludes to cities changing ‘le nom des fleuves et des montagnes pour créer un cadre où puissent prendre place sans dépaysement les exploits des dieux, des héros ou des grands hommes du passé’. 17 Despite some differences, Syme (1995, 185–86) and Coulton (2008, 20) have been both thought-provoking and influential in my approach. 15

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stele not seen by Heberdey, the second editor.18 On the authority of his text, Zeus Eleutherios would have been invoked as protector of the inscription, dated to the 2nd century BC: if anyone makes any alteration to its content, shall he be unholy πρὸς Ἐλευ]/[θερ]ίου Διὸς καὶ Κυρίας Ἀρτέ[μ]ιδ[ος. Admittedly, in spite of the reverse sequence for the theonym, there are reasons to support it, since the cult of Zeus Eleutherios is attested in Roman times through two priests (TAM III.1 14, 145) and there is not a chance to insert Σολυμέως because of the preserved genitive declension.19 His appearance as deliverer god may have resulted from Hellenic influences, to be sure,20 but the goddess Artemis Kyria that shares in power has led me to try an equivalent reading,21 that is κυρ]ίου Διός, perhaps more suitable for the present context. If Artemis was indeed the lady of the community, Zeus could well have been its lord.22 An additional question before continuing with the epigraphic study is to elucidate how Termessus came to claim a Solymian identity, for the Solymi have little to do with Pisidians in Classical and Hellenistic sources, when discussion revolves around Lycians, Milyans and Cabalians.23 I basically agree with Coulton24 on the idea that geographical grounds can justify the link, since the community of Pisidian Termessus not only had colonised the Cabalis, where Termessus Minor by Oenanda was founded in the Hellenistic period,25 but, more importantly, it also guards the pass into the Milyas and lies on the foothills of the Solyma Mountains above Phaselis in eastern Lycia,26 where the Lindos chronicle placed the Solymi.27 A Termessian hill called Solymos was therefore practically at home. As for the time of the installation, Strabo could 18 Cf. Heberdey, TAM III.1 1, on editio princeps Lanckoronski 1892, no. 57 (Petersen): lapidem non vidi, in imagine delineanda ectypo Pet. usus sum. 19 ΣΟΛΥ]ΜΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ seems to be a quite forced and desperate solution. Even if we allow the supposed I to be the final stroke of a letter M, the exceptional Διὶ Σολύμῳ attested in two post-AD 212 epitaphs, TAM III.1 940 and Termessos IV 55 (= SEG 57.1509), must be treated with caution, particularly in the first case. 20 On his role as the god of freedom in the Classical Greek world, see Talloen 2015, 94. 21 For the epithet in a sanctuary cave from Kremna’s territory, cf. ICPisidia 81, 2nd/3rd century AD: κυρίᾳ / Τυριω[σῃ]. 22 That the same epithet can be used separately for each deity is shown by inscriptions such as IGBulg III.1 1089: κυρίῳ Διὶ καὶ κυρίᾳ Ἥρᾳ. 23 See Gonzales 2005 and de Hoz 2005–06, each with different interests. Admittedly, the discussion in Imperial sources deals with Solymi and Pisidians. 24 Coulton 2008, 20. 25 See n. 5. In addition, Strabo (13. 4. 17) records that the inhabitants of Cibyra, whose settlement was removed to another place by Pisidians, used both the Pisidian language and that of the Solymi, an interesting distinction from a sociolinguistic perspective. 26 Cf. Strabo 14. 3. 9; for the reading τὰ Σόλυμα ὄρη, to be preferred, see Radt 2009, 107. 27 See Higbie 2003, 104.

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have taken the information from Artemidorus of Ephesus (ca. 100 BC), or at least we have his name explicitly cited for the list of Pisidian cities in which Termessus itself is included (Strabo 12. 7. 2). That the Lex Antonia granting autonomy and freedom to the city in 72/68 BC still presented its inhabitants under the rubric I de Termesi(bus) Pisid(is) Mai(oribus) should not be seen an impediment here.28 As can be seen in the following section, the Solymian name for the Termessians is a matter of Greek epic, not an identity to be officially recognised by a Roman law. THE GLORIOUS SOLYMI AT TERMESSUS II. SOLYMIOS AND THE SOLYMIAN FATHERLAND Now, the focus of the study will be placed on how the Termessians expressed their collective identity as the glorious Solymi of Homer in local epigraphy from Roman times, the most striking feature being that both the people and the fatherland only appear in verse inscriptions with epic wording. Others have also pointed to it with more or less emphasis,29 but, for different reasons, they have also missed an important inscription, found long ago at the Via Ostiense in Rome, that straightforwardly explains the phenomenon. It is IGUR III 1204: the first hexameter connects the name of Termessus to the formula of the Iliad concerning the glorious Solymi, albeit metrically different, Τερμησσὸν ναίων Σολύμοις / ἐνὶ κυδαλίμοισιν, and the ninth hexameter speaks again of Termessus as Solymian land, Σολυ[μηΐ]δος / αὖτ’ ἀπὸ γαί[ας]. The text, which contains the epitaph in verse of two Termessians who died during their stay at Rome,30 is the sole epigraphic manifestation of its kind abroad, and probably the first one if we stick to its dating, whether in the 1st or the 2nd century AD, which is preferred. In Roman Termessus, the Solymian manifestations seem to start from the 3rd century AD onwards, although in most cases dating is not very precise. There are five inscriptions in total, three for the Solymian people and two for the Solymian fatherland.

28

For the Lex Antonia de Termessibus, see Ferrary 1985. See Heberdey 1934, 737; and specially Coulton 2008, 20. 30 The deceased are (1) the son of Orthagoras, and (2) Hermaios, son of Arteimas, and the monument was erected by a friend of theirs, Konon, son of Hermaios, in memory. Unfortunately, although all the names are pretty common at Termessus, nothing else is known about any of the individuals or their families; in Arroyo-Quirce 2017, drawing attention to the inscription, it was assumed that the three Termessians had probably come to Rome as ambassadors from their city, without reflecting carefully enough on the lack of any formal indication of such status. With Patriarca (1934, 155) one can equally suppose they came to the capital of the empire in cerca di fortuna. 29

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Fig. 2. Statue bases and ruins of the double portico L 5 (photograph by author).

Regarding the inscriptions of the Solymian people, all three were written in honorific statue bases set along the west side of the northern double portico L 5 (Fig. 2),31 the civic centre for public commemoration, and two of them have been written in previously used statue bases: at column 12,32 TAM III.1 103 (= SGO 18/1/6; LSA 621), dated roughly to AD 300–500, where the Solymi honour Honoratus, either a local aedile or a Roman provincial governor, that chased famine into the sea, in four hexameters, and right next to it, at column 13, TAM III.1 135 (= SGO 18/01/08; LSA 625), dated roughly to AD 212–400, where the people of the Solymi honour by acclamation the august wife of a local leading magistrate – her honorific name seems to be Phlorention or Phlorentios – in just one distich. The extant inscription, TAM III.1 127, with Wilhelm, addenda, 127 (= SGO 18/01/02; LSA 623), dated roughly to AD 200– 350 and seemingly written on a new statue base, located at column 18, deserves particular attention because the Solymian inhabitants of Termessus honour Solymios, a wealthy local notable of senatorial kin, that has been proboulos and Pamphyliarch, the highest offices in the city and the Pamphylian koinon

31 32

For its location, see the plan of Termessus (Fig. 3). For column numbers at portico L 5, cf. Heberdey, TAM III.1, appendix I.

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respectively.33 The composition is a single long sentence of four elegiac distiches, and the overall impression is that the author had every intention to build a showcase of Greek paideia, as the initial reference to the wisdom seems to denote. Confirmation is provided by the rest of the first two lines, making the first hexameter of the poem, since the dative plural Solymoisi takes the same position as the dative plural Solymoisi in the Iliad. Besides, the expression herma poleos closing the verse recalls the end of Iliad 16. 549, where the same expression is used in relation to the Lycian hero Sarpedon between the Trojans. TAM III.1 127, with Wilhelm, addenda, 127. τὸν σοφὸν ἐν Σολύμοισι Σολύμιον, ἕρμα πόληος, ψῆφος Παμφύλων, εὐκτέανον πρύτανιν, χρυσοδότην, κτεάνοισιν ἀφειδέα Παμφυλιάρχην, αἵματος συνκλήτου, τέρμερον ὀρθόπολιν, εὔδικον, εὐέρκτην, ἀγανόφρονα, μειλιχόθυμον, πᾶσιν ὁμῶς ἀστοῖς ἤπιον ὡς γενέτην, οἱ ναέται λειτοσιν ἀμειβόμενοι γεράεσσιν στῆσαν ἀρειπρεπέα, τὸν πολὺν ἐν πραπίσιν.

5

10

15

‘Sage among the Solymi Solymios, stay of the city, honoured through the vote of the Pamphylians,34 wealthy president, gold-dispenser, Pamphyliarch unsparing of expenditure, of senatorial blood, the boundary-guarding upholder of the city,35 righteous, benefactor, gentle of mood, gentle-hearted, to all citizens alike kind as 33

On the Pamphylian koinon, see Vitale 2012, 272–82. According to Wilhelm, addenda, 127: ψῆφος igitur neutro genere usurpatum est (…). Est igitur ψῆφος Παμφύλων, qui Pamphyliis venerationis est; whereas SGO 18/1/2: ‘den durch Abstimmung der Pamphyler geehrten’, preferred here on the basis of Termessos IV 13 (= SEG 57.1439), after AD 221–227. For yet another option, see Gehn, LSA 623, apparently influenced by Heberdey, TAM III.1 127: ‘[honoured by] decree of the Pamphylians’. 35 Adopting partly Gehn, LSA 623: ‘wealthy president, gold-giving, Pamphyliarch unsparing of expenditure, of senatorial blood, the boundary-guarding restorer of the city’; differently, SGO 18/1/2: ‘den Goldspender, der seinen Besitz nicht schont, den Pamphyliarchen, aus senatorischem Blut, den Steingipfel, der die Stadt aufrecht hält’. On the other hand, Wilhelm, addenda, 127, wrote Τέρμερον, without translation nor explanation: to be sure, his final comment is alia de hoc carmine alio loco expositurus sum, but, if he really did it, I have not been able to find where. To think about Τέρμερος, the brutal Lelegian robber eponym of Termera in Caria that was killed by Heracles and gave name to the Termerian misfortune (cf. Türk 1934), seems completely out of place. 34

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a father, the inhabitants repaying with frugal gifts of honour set him up very distinguished, whom is mighty in mind.’

Assuredly, Solymios is a signum, an honorific name bestowed upon the honorand by the inhabitants of Termessus.36 The aim is to equate the man who props up the city with the eponymous ancestor Solymos,37 whose bust as a warrior is represented on some coins from Imperial times;38 and the reason behind the naming could well have been the defence of his Solymian fellow citizens, perhaps their rights as free and autonomous in virtue of the Lex Antonia de Termessibus mentioned above.39 A nice parallel comes from Dorylaion in Phrygia (SGO 16/34/06, AD 212–250), where the founder of the city Q. Voconius Aelius Stratonicus is called Akamantios, explicitly Akamas neos, referring thus to the mythical founder Acamas, son of Theseus, to which someone gave the place for serving as an ally against the Solymi,40 while the second distich indicates the obtaining of numerous advantages for the city from the Roman authorities.41 Whatever the case, a connection to the famous mythical ancestors was a special distinction for special individuals.42 Of course, one can even ponder the possibility of tracing an allusion to the role of Solymios as new Solymos in line 12, where the phrase ὡς γενέτην is clearly highlighted before entering the last distich, but many scholars will probably notice an over-interpretation of the text. Finally, there is the matter of the location of Solymios’ statue base within the portico L 5, standing close to the statue bases of two champions in the Agones Sebasteioi Solymeioi,43 the public games at Termessus celebrating the Roman emperor together with Zeus Solymeus, and probably including the figure of Solymos as well.44 Even if another statue base that has nothing to do with Solymian words stands between this series,45 it is difficult not to see some rationale behind the setting.

36

Cf. SGO 18/01/02, adding: ‘der bürgerliche Name hätte dann unter der Statue gestanden’. In the same direction, Gehn, LSA 623. For Nollé (2009, 276), it remains unclear whether the name ‘mit Zeus, dem Heros Solymos oder dem Volk der Solymer zu verbinden ist’. 38 See Kosmetatou 1997. 39 See n. 28. 40 Cf. Billerbeck, Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Akamantion, considering Pisander, the son of Bellerophon. 41 As stated by Robert 1981, 356–58. 42 See Strubbe 1984–86, 297–98; and Weiss 1984, 187. 43 Cf. TAM III.1 161, at column 19, and TAM III.1 164, at column 16, both dated to AD 180– 212 and written in prose. 44 On the Sebasteioi Solymeioi, see Termessos I 3 (= SEG 41.1256), commenting another agonistic inscription found in the lower gymnasium, H in the plan (Fig. 3). 45 At column 17, the city honours a certain Olympios, in four elegiac distiches: cf. TAM III.1 102 (= SGO 18/01/05; LSA 393), dated roughly to AD 300–400 and written on a statue base not previously used, as far as we know. 37

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Moving to the Solymian fatherland inscriptions, we leave the important L 5 portico to visit the main sacred area in Termessus, where several cult buildings were located. There, an anta block with a verse dedication in three elegiac distiches was found by Heberdey (TAM III.1 18 [= SGO 18/01/01]), lying on the ground within the ruins of temple N 5, which has been traditionally assigned to the goddess Artemis because of the facts provided by the text itself,46 reproduced below. Still, others have tried to assign the temple to the worship of Zeus Solymeus, arguing that the anta block with the aforementioned inscription can be attributed to another building: the small pseudomonopteros-shaped monument that is near, designated Q 1 on the plan (Fig. 3), and apparently decorated with reliefs representing episodes of Iphigenia’s myth,47 such as her sacrifice in Aulis, finally frustrated by Artemis, or Pylades awaiting the letter of Iphigenia, once she is priestess of the goddess among the Taurians.48 It is no small task to choose between these options, nor is it desirable at this moment, as both identifications have advantages and pitfalls that need to be carefully examined, but what remains from the overall context is a fundamental bond between Termessus’ Solymian identity and the goddess Artemis, who was kyria of the community, or so it seems, since Hellenistic times (see above). In addition, if the conclusions reached by Nollé are to be followed,49 and I am willing to do so, a Greek foundation legend seems to have emerged at some point in the history of the cult, in such a way that the Termessians will have come to claim the famous Artemis Tauropolos that Orestes, Pylades and Iphigenia stole from Thoas, the king of the Taurians. Returning to the poem, the two individuals responsible for the dedication were Molesis and Aristeides, both probouloi and judges who could have been active post-AD 212, although the inscription is dated based only on letter forms, with a considerable degree of uncertainty.50 Note also that the recipient was not Artemis herself but the Solymian fatherland, addressed in vocative case in the third verse after the introductory personal pronoun in the dative. What it did receive, however, is not self-evident.51

46 For a probable restoration of the temple, with Imperial participation, see Termessos I 2 (= SEG 41.1255), ca. AD 140. 47 See Talloen 2015, 104. 48 See Kahil 1990, LIMC s.v. Iphigeneia, 710–11. 49 Nollé 2009, 284–88. 50 See Heberdey 1929, 130. As he himself specified, the absence of Aurelian names should not be an impediment in view of the metrical form of the inscription. 51 Nonetheless, see n. 53 for an interesting possibility.

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Fig. 3. Plan of Termessus, adapted from Heberdey 1934 (modified by the author with the locations of Solymian inscriptions).

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TAM III.1 18. Α∙Φ∙ Α∙Κ∙ τειμαῖς ἐν προέδροισι καὶ εὐδικίαις ἐν ἀμέμπτοις πάσαις ἀμφὶ δίκαις κῦδος ἀϊράμενοι, σοί, πάτρη Σολυμηΐ, θεμιστοπόλοι ναετῆρες, [σ]τρη[ν]έος εὐεπίης ἄνθεα λεξάμενο[ι], […….] Μολεσις καὶ Ἀριστείδης ἀγανόφρω[ν] [ἄνθεσαν(?) εὐσε]βίης εἵνε[κ]εν Ἀρτέμιδος.

5

‘Artemis, loving virginity, Artemis, maiden.52 Having won renown in presiding magistracies and in righteous dealings without reproach as concerning all judgements, to you, oh Solymian fatherland, the inhabitants ministering law and right, having gathered flowers of rough eloquence,53 […]54 Molesis and Aristeides gentle of mood dedicated for reverence towards Artemis.’55

Last, but not least, the second Solymian fatherland inscription. It is to be found in a completely different location, outside the city centre, written on a sarcophagus in the southern necropolis E 10 (Fig. 3), not far from road C 8, and dated after AD 212 on account of the Aurelian name of the deceased. Apart from its location, another feature that needs to be emphasised, already noticed by Heberdey (TAM III.1 548), is the composition of the text, for its author mixed prose and verse, not included in SGO, unsurprisingly. In the interest of the current analysis, it will be crucial to realise the dactylic rhythm of the final expression γλυκε/ρῆ Σολυμηΐδι πάτρη, in dative case as beneficiary of the fine that intends to protect the tomb against desecrators.56 Many of these fines were paid to Zeus Solymeus, as in the verse epitaph of Boiotos’ son, whom all 52 For the content of the line, see Nollé 2009, 281–82, explaining the heading letters of the Greek text as abbreviations for the theonym Ἄρτεμις accompanied by the epithets φιλοπάρθενος and κόρη / κούρη, or maybe κυρία. 53 No doubt, the meaning is somewhat obscure: cf. SGO 18/01/01, removing [σ]τρη[ν]έος: ‘… nachdem sie die Blumen des schönen Sprechens gepflückt haben’; and Nollé 2009, 280, doing the same but with a different syntax for the missing word: ‘Blumen des […] Wohllauts’. On the next page, if I understand him correctly, Nollé takes the verse as expressing the dedication itself: ‘eine Blütenlese schöner Worte in Form dieses Epigramms’ (Nollé 2009, 281). 54 Wilhelm, TAM III.1 18, suggested κυδάλιμος, which would be an appealing restoration bearing in mind the Solymoisi kydalimoisi formula from the Iliad, but corroboration is not possible. Many other epithets could be envisaged for Molesis in order to metrically fill the lacuna. 55 On the other hand, cf. SGO 18/01/01, reading εὐσε]βίης εἵνε[κ]’ ἐν Ἀρτέμιδος: ‘um der Frömmigkeit willen im Tempel der Artemis’; followed by Nollé 2009, 280: ‘in Frömmigkeit auf/ in dem Tempel der Artemis’. However, an adverbial of place seems to me less informative than an adverbial of cause, for the people at Termessus surely knew that the monument belonged to Artemis: what they probably needed to know is why this dedication to the Solymian fatherland was done there. 56 See on this Cormack 2004, 128–33.

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called Aur. Pamphilos, because he was the most beloved for all, in the same necropolis E 10 (TAM III.1 700 [= SGO 18/01/15]). For sure, the epitaph of Aur. Kerkion cannot compete with the literary skills displayed by Pamphilos, even less with those of notables such as Molesis and Aristeides, yet again its content shows plainly how Solymian identity at Termessus was to be understood uniquely within the limits of Greek epic. TAM III.1 548. χαῖρε, φίλε. Αὐρ(ήλιος) Κερκίων Ἀρτέμωνος Μηνοδώρου ἐνθάδε κεῖμαι. ὁ ος συγενίης· εἰ δέ τις ἄλλος ἀνύξει, δώσει τάλαντον βουλῆ, δήμω, γλυκερῆ Σολυμηΐδι πάτρη.

5

‘Hail, oh friend. Aurelios Kerkion, son of Artemon, son of Menodoros, here I lie. The tomb of the family: if any other is going to open it, he will give a talent to the council, the people, the sweet Solymian fatherland.’

PISIDIAN TERMESSUS AND THE SOLYMI: AN HOMERIC IDENTITY After having contemplated the whole Solymian phenomenon at Pisidian Termessus, the main conclusion of the study is that their inhabitants claimed to be the glorious Solymi of the Iliad who faced Bellerophon and killed his son Isander, hence gaining an entirely Homeric identity while channelling local roots through the Solymos hill, presumably named after the eponymous ancestor of the Solymi, and related to the most important god Zeus Solymeus. The final historicity of the Solymi as Anatolian people, if such a question happens to come to the reader’s mind, must not divert our attention here, for it has been argued that the Solymi at Termessus is a process of appropriation developed through the Greek epic, and this appreciation can in turn go some way into explaining why Pisidians and Solymi are identified in Imperial sources.57 In regard to the inscriptions, the analysis has made obvious that the Solymian people and the Solymian fatherland only emerge when verses are written, though it is difficult to discern any internal patterns beyond the employment of common hexameters and elegiac distiches. Its use then seems to be determined by the tastes of those involved in the message that is being conveyed, be it the 57

See n. 23.

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author, the honorand, the deceased’s desires, or all of the above,58 and the same is true for the slight variations present among the texts, even for the most unusual Solymian gaia at Rome. The wording here is allegedly chosen to avoid repetition, since the genitive of patre, which could also fit metrically, is used in the fourth verse of the poem without problems.59 Location and dating may also be instructive, excluding the Roman document, which arises in a completely different context. The Solymian inscriptions at Termessus tend to occupy highly visible places dominated by the elite like the portico L 5, where some bases of statues are reused for the occasion, and they belong to a period of transition between the High and Late empire, when poetry was flourishing in connection with public honours.60 In a sense, one can surmise that new epigraphic trends promoted the Solymian theme within Termessian upper class, whose members were very eager to exhibit their paideia, as is widely acknowledged by scholars interested in GraecoRoman Asia Minor. However, we must not forget that lower classes had cultural aspirations too, and the epitaph of Kerkion is a nice reminder of their efforts when compared with the dedication by Molesis and Aristeides at the religious city centre in connection with the goddess Artemis, venerated as the famous Tauropolos of Greek mythology according to local foundation legends. The cultural influence of Hellenism at Pisidian Termessus thus becomes undeniable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arroyo-Quirce, H. 2016: ‘Los orígenes griegos de una ciudad de Pisidia: Selge, Esparta y Calcante’. Emerita 84.1, 51–71. —. 2017: ‘Glorious Solymi. Homer and a neglected inscription concerning Pisidian Termessos at Rome’. EA 50, 129–32. Bosworth, A.B. 1980: A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander 1: Commentary on Books 1–3 (Oxford). Cormack, S.H. 2004: The Space of Death in Roman Asia Minor (Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 6) (Vienna). Coulton, J.J. 2008: ‘Homer and the Solymians’. In Kurtz, D. (ed.), Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou 1977–2007 (BAR International Series 1796; Studies in Classical Archaeology 4) (Oxford), 17–25. de Hoz, M.-P. 2005–06: ‘Los solymoi: identidad, pervivencia y relación con licios, milyai y kabaleis’. Geographia Antiqua 14–15, 77–88. 58 Needless to say, not every verse inscription at Termessus invokes the Solymian people or the Solymian fatherland, as the case of Olympios shows: see n. 45. 59 IGUR III 1204: [τ]ὸν ἐκ πάτρης ἅμ’ ἰόντα. 60 In fact, the style of the poem honouring Solymios resembles the Late Antique epigrams honouring Roman governors studied by Robert 1948.

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Donderer, M. 2001: ‘Bildhauer in und aus Alexandria’. In Geus, K. and Zimmermann, K. (eds.), Punica, Libyca, Ptolemaica: Festschrift für Werner Huss, zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von Schülern, Freunden und Kollegen (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 104) (Leuven), 167–83. Ferrary, J.-L. 1985: ‘La Lex Antonia de Termessibus’. Athenaeum 63, 419–57. Gonzales, M.P. 2005: ‘The oracle and cult of Ares in Asia Minor’. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 45.3, 261–83. Heberdey, R. 1929: Termessische Studien (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Denkschriften 69) (Vienna/Leipzig). —. 1934: ‘Termessos’. RE V A1, 732–78. Higbie, C. 2003: The Lindian Chronicle and the Greek Creation of their Past (Oxford). Houwink ten Cate, P.H.J. 1965: The Luwian Population Groups of Lycia and Cilicia Aspera during the Hellenistic Period (Documenta et Monumenta Antiqui 10) (Leiden). Kosmetatou, E. 1997: ‘The hero Solymos on the coinage of Termessos Major’. Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau 76, 41–63. Lanckoronski, K.G. 1892: Städte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens 2: Pisidien (Vienna). Matthews, V.J. 1996: Antimachus of Colophon: text and commentary (Mnemosyne Suppl. 155) (Leiden). Mitchell, S. 1991: ‘The Hellenization of Pisidia’. Mediterranean Archaeology 4, 119– 45. —. 1992: ‘Hellenismus in Pisidien’. In Schwertheim, E. (ed.), Forschungen in Pisidien (Asia Minor Studien 6) (Bonn), 1–27. Nollé, J. 2009: ‘Die taurische Artemis in Tauros: Zeugnisse und Überlegungen zum Artemiskult von Termessos in Pisidien’. In Tekin, O. (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World: Studies in Memory of Clemens E. Bosch and Sabahat Atlan and in Honour of Nezahat Baydur (Istanbul), 275–89. Patriarca, G. 1934: ‘Epigramma sepolcrale del cimitero della Via Ostiense’. Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 62, 151–55. Radt, S.L. 2009: Strabons Geographika 8: Buch 14–17. Kommentar (Göttingen). Robert, L. 1948: Hellenica 4: Recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d’antiquités grecques. Épigrammes du Bas-Empire (Paris). —. 1981: ‘Une épigramme satirique d’Automédon et Athènes au début de l’Empire (Anth. Pal. 11-319)’. Revue des Études Grecques 94, 338–61. Rousset, D. 2010: De Lycie en Cabalide: la convention entre les Lyciens et Termessos près d’Oinoanda (Fouilles de Xanthos 10; Hautes Études du Monde GrécoRomain 45) (Geneva). Sartre, M. 1991: L’Orient romain: provinces et sociétés provinciales en Méditerranée orientale d’Auguste aux Sévères (31 avant J.-C.–235 après J.-C.) (Paris). Strubbe, J.H.M. 1984–86: ‘Gründer kleinasiatischer Städte. Fiktion und Realität’. Ancient Society 15–17, 253–304. Syme, R. 1995: Anatolica: Studies in Strabo (Oxford). Talloen, P. 2015: Cult in Pisidia: Religious Practice in Southwestern Asia Minor from Alexander the Great to the Rise of Christianity (Studies in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology 10) (Turnhout). Türk, W.L. 1934: ‘Termeros’. RE V A1, 731.

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van Nijf, O.M. 2010: ‘Being Termessian: local knowledge and identity politics in a Pisidian city’. In Whitmarsh, T. (ed.), Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World (Cambridge), 163–88. Vitale, M. 2012: Eparchie und Koinon in Kleinasien von der ausgehenden Republik bis ins 3. Jh. n. Chr. (Asia Minor Studien 67) (Bonn). Weiss, P. 1984: ‘Lebendiger Mythos. Gründerheroen und städtische Gründungstraditionen im griechisch-römischen Osten’. Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 10, 179–208. Zgusta, L. 1964: Kleinasiatische Personennamen (Československá Akademie ved. Sekoe Jazyka a Literatury. Monografie Orientálního ústavu 19) (Prague).

GREEK LITERARY TOPOI AND LOCAL TRADITIONS IN THE ETIOLOGY OF THE ‘ANTONINE PLAGUE’ Juan Pablo SÁNCHEZ HERNÁNDEZ

Abstract The ‘Antonine plague’ was the epidemic disease (λοιμóς) that supposedly broke out in Mesopotamia in late AD 165 in the wake of the Parthian Wars (AD 161–166), and had several recurrences throughout all the Roman Empire during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius (reigned AD 161–180) and Commodus (reigned AD 180–192). For how everything started, however, we have only two sketchy late narratives in Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae and in the anonymous Historia Augusta (both dated to the 4th century AD). It is commonly assumed that those narratives might have drawn some information from earlier historical accounts of the 2nd century AD that were nonetheless discredited as unreliable rhetorical imitations of Herodotus and Thucydides. The oracle of Claros was also very active during the 2nd century AD and answered particular questions about the plague in long poems that were mainly concerned with religious prescriptions and local traditions. However, a detailed look at this epigraphic evidence in comparison with Ammian and the Historia Augusta should also be of great interest, as it will permit us to show to which degree certain elements in the narrative of the Antonine Plague (such as Apollo’s wrath, the toxic fumes, and the Chaldean magic) were actually shaped by Claros.

The origins of the so-called ‘Antonine plague’ were inextricably associated with the Parthian Wars (AD 161–166), which were waged against Vologeses IV (reigned AD 147–192) and were successfully concluded by the Roman general Avidius Cassius after his conquest of Seleucia on the Tigris in late AD 165.1 Apparently, the returning Roman troops contracted a terrible disease in Seleucia and brought it back to the West. The famous physician Galen (ca. AD 130‒210) was in Rome in AD 166 when he heard of the outbreak of the plague in the city2 and decided to leave for his birthplace in Asia Minor, Pergamum. One might wonder whether his was a wise decision: the plague had already reached Smyrna, as attested by the sophist Aelius Aristides (ca. AD 117–187) who 1 On Rome and Parthia, see Sheldon 2010; and more specifically, Edwell 2017 (Osrhoene and Mesopotamia). On Roman military policies on the Eastern frontiers, see also Isaac 1990, 19–53; Ball 2000, 8–22 and 106–123; Whittaker 2004, 28–49; Edwell 2008, 7‒30. 2 Galen Libr. Propr. 1. 16 (= XIX 96 Kühn).

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contracted the disease.3 Nevertheless, Galen stayed in Pergamum until AD 168, when he was summoned by the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus to Aquileia on the Adriatic border. Troops had been conscripted there in preparation for the Marcomannic Wars (AD 169–176) and Galen arrived just in time for a virulent outbreak of the plague that raged through the entire camp in the winter of AD 168/9. The emperors set off immediately for Rome – Lucius Verus actually died on the way; but Galen was left to treat the infected soldiers, before he also re-joined Marcus Aurelius in Rome in the following spring of AD 169.4 Galen kept a clinical record of the symptoms of the plague (λοιμóς):5 exanthemas, fever, vomit, diarrhoea, etc.; and such details permitted scholars to identify this epidemic disease as smallpox (variola maior). Thus, this plague became also known as ‘the plague of Galen’.6 The ‘Antonine plague’ stands out for the variety of the available evidence. Unfortunately, most historical accounts are either late in time or simply note the devastating effects of the plague in general terms: a large part of the population at Rome, Italy and the provinces and almost all the military forces fell victims to the disease… in the time of the said Verus and of Marcus Antoninus [the pestilence] polluted everything with contagion and death, from the frontiers of Persia all the way to the Rhine and to Gaul.7

For Egypt, we have some dated papyri confirming that the plague provoked a massive mortality in certain populations8 and a general decrease after AD 165 in the documentation (brick stamps, army diplomas, dedicatory inscriptions, etc.) is usually correlated to a demographic contraction.9 However, it seems difficult to extrapolate the data for all the regions.10 In fact, the most hotly debated issue concerning this epidemic disease has been its actual death rate 3 Aristides Orationes 48. 37–43 and also 50. 9 and 51. 25. Those passages are securely dated. See Behr 1968, 121–30. It is generally accepted that they refer to the Antonine plague. Gilliam (1961, 229–30 and n. 18) was a bit sceptical, but see otherwise Behr 1968, 96–97 and 166–67. Behr 1981–86 provides an English translations/edition of the complete works of Aristides. 4 Galen Praen. 8. 12–9. 5 (= XIV 647–648 Kühn) and Libr. Propr. 3. 1–6 (= XIX 98–99 Kühn). 5 λοιμóς in the Greek sources; lues, pestis, pestilentia in the Latin ones. See Stok 2000. 6 See Gourevitch 2013. That the Antonine plague was smallpox seems to be generally accepted after Littman and Littmann 1973. See also Gourevitch 2013, 66–74, for an up-to-date bibliography. 7 Romae ac per Italiam provinciasque maxima hominum pars, militum omnes fere copiae languore defecerint (Eutropius 8. 12. 2)… Veri Marcique Antonini temporibus, ab ipsis Persarum finibus ad usque Rhenum et Gallias, cuncta contagiis polluebat et mortibus (Ammian 23. 6. 24). Dio Cassius (73. 14. 3) claims that two thousand people a day died only in Rome in AD 189. For a detail look at the literary sources, see Storchi Marino 2012. 8 Mostly in the Fayyum and the Mendesian nome (Scheidel 2001). 9 Duncan-Jones 1996; further refinements in Scheidel 2002; 2012. 10 See Andorlini 2012.

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and, with estimates ranging from 1–2% to 20–30% for the different waves of the plague,11 it is not surprising that some scholars are even quite sceptical as to a real possibility of calibrating the demographic effects of it.12 The same scepticism should be applied for those stories of divine rage and Persian magic that surround the outbreak of the plague in Seleucia on the Tigris. For what exactly happened we have only two sketchy narratives dated to the 4th century AD: Ammianus Marcelinus’ Res Gestae (23. 6. 24) and the anonymous Life of Verus (8. 1‒3) of the Historia Augusta.13 Both sources claim that the nursery of the plague was Seleucia on the Tigris, in Parthia, and that the Roman troops contracted the disease in a temple of Apollo that they were ransacking. In contrast, other historical sources are less precise with their vague mentions of ‘Persia’;14 only Lucian of Samosata mentions the city of Nisibis in Osrhoene as affected by the plague during a Roman siege (Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 15), but he does not say that it started there. Considering this, the way in which Ammian – otherwise a quite conscientious historian – confidently deploys basic facts is certainly striking, in what is a summary of the more detailed account he offered in a previous book (sadly lost to us).15 Which, then, were Ammian’s sources? Or, raising the issue in more general terms, which link(s) can be established between the late narratives of the 4th century AD and other sources from the 2nd century AD that were closer in time to the events being described? Apart from Aelius Aristides and Galen, we have the testimony of Lucian of Samosata who was present at the court of Lucius Verus during the Parthian Wars and specifically shows people’s exaggerated reactions when news came from the eastern fronts.16 As Lucian reminds us, for example, an initial Roman defeat in Elegeia (Armenia) in AD 161 was heavily felt and the death in battle of the general Severianus was recreated with pathetic oracles in verse and funeral speeches modelled after

11 Estimated death rate 1–2%: Gilliam 1961, 225; 7–15%: Littman and Littmann 1973, 254– 55; 20–30 %: Duncan-Jones 1996, 116. 12 See Greenberg 2003; Bruun 2012. 13 The Life of Marcus Aurelius (SHA Marc. Aurel. 13. 3, 17. 2, 21. 6) focuses on the effects of the plague in Rome and the Danubian frontiers, thus confirming the testimony of Galen. 14 See Eutropius, mentioning the ‘Persian victory’: post victoriam Persicam Romae… (Eutropius 8. 12. 2). 15 … ut ante rettulimus (Ammian 23. 6. 24). 16 As Lucian was trying to gain the imperial favour, he composed two treatises that eulogised the Lucius Verus’ most distinguished passions: the art of mime (De Saltatione) and her lover Pantheia (Imagines, Pro Imaginibus). See Jones 1986, 68–77.

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the Periclean one in Thucydides.17 Likewise, the eventual triumph in AD 165 resounded throughout the Roman East with the orators and pseudo-historians who celebrated the Roman victories in public displays in Greece and Asia Minor.18 Even Aelius Aristides, as sick as he was, saw himself in dreams delivering an oration in the presence of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and king Vologeses IV, as part of the solemnities of a peace agreement.19 Lucian’s How to Write History is a reaction to this ‘plague’ of flatterers who were, in his opinion, authors of pompous eulogies that imitated the mannerisms of Herodotus and Thucydides.20 No less dismaying, their poetic exaggerations in the fashion of epic tales of Homer went so far as to compare the Roman general Avidius Cassius with Achilles and Vologeses IV with Thersites.21 For example, the aforementioned account of the plague in Nisibis is found in Lucian’s review on the work of a particularly hopeless historian, Crepereius Calpurnianus from Pompeiopolis (FGH IIB 208). Calpurnianus’ explanations about the origin and nature of this plague were obscured by his imitation of Thucydides;22 and more specifically, by his imitation of Thucydides’ famous description of the plague of Athens in 430‒427 BC (2. 47–57) that was recommended as a model for sophistic compositions.23 In sum, Ammian and other later historians had at their disposal many sources of the 17 Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 21, 25, 26 (dramatic deaths and funeral speeches) and Alexander, 27 (oracles in verse). According to Dio Cassius (71. 2), the entire force was surrounded and wiped out. 18 Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 2, 14 and 17. 19 Aristides Orationes 47. 36–39. Although this ceremony never took place, nevertheless Aristides praised the emperors in his Panegyric in Cyzicus concerning the temple in AD 166 (see Quet 2002). 20 μᾶλλον δὲ Θουκυδίδαι καὶ Ἡρόδοτοι καὶ Ξενοφῶντες ἡμῖν ἅπαντες (Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 2). See examples in Lucian 2, 5, 15, 18–19, 26, 38, 42, 47, 53–54, 57, 61. On these historians, see discussion in Free 2015. It is significant to find an actual general by the name of Thucydides distinguishing himself in Dio’s account of the Parthian Wars: Dio Cassius 71. 3. 21 Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 14 (quoting Homer Iliad 22. 158). Fronto also compares Lucius Verus with Achilles and invokes the example of Homer: Princ. Hist. 1. Curiously enough, other sources (Herodian 1. 2; SHA Verus 1. 1) remark on the quality of the accounts of such campaigns. 22 οἷον Νισιβηνοῖς λοιμὸν τοῖς μὴ τὰ Ῥωμαίων αἱρουμένοις ἐπήγαγε παρὰ Θουκυδίδου χρησάμενος ὅλον ἄρδην (Lucian Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 15). 23 See Theo Prog. 68. 5; Aphthonius Progymnasmata 38. 24R. Nevertheless, the tradition of ‘plague-narratives’ deriving from Thucydides stretches from the poems by Lucretius (6. 1138– 1286) and Virgil (Georgics 3. 478–566) to the description of the Justianianic plague of the 6th century AD by Procopius (Pers. 2. 22. 1–23. 21 and 2. 24. 6–12). See André 1980; Dupont 1984; Byl 1993; Duncan-Jones 1996, 111‒15; Klinkott 2017, 290‒95. In Lucian’s times Thucydides was the prime literary model for historians; even the emperor Lucius Verus, in a letter addressed to his former master Fronto (Ad Verum 2. 3), suggests him the use of Thucydides for Fronto’s History of the Parthian Wars. See Greenwood 2006, 109‒29; Free 2015, 40‒104.

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2nd century AD that discussed the events surrounding the ‘Antonine plague’, but those sources were largely discredited as mere followers of their Classical models of the 5th century BC. However, apart from those written accounts, there were also oracles predicting the onslaught of the plague and they were so influential in the public opinion of the cities concerned as to deserve, in some cases, to be inscribed on stone.24 We have no less than five consultations to the oracle of Claros of the late 2nd century AD that concern the same subject, a plague – they are from Sardes, Hierapolis, Pergamum, Callipoli, and Odessos in Thrace.25 These inscriptions preserved long and elaborate responses in verse – presumably composed by the professional ‘oracle singer’ (θεσπιῳδός) of the sanctuary – and with such an emotionally charged language that it could only be appropriate on the occasion of this severe epidemic that was the ‘Antonine Plague’.26 Furthermore, the oracular responses seem well tailored to the concerns of the enquirers, who usually visited Claros as part of a city delegation. Without doubt, the consultants not only informed the temple officials about their cities and their traditions, but also expressed their own visions about what could have caused the plague and which the possible cures were.27 Actually, as the plague heightened all types of superstitions and local traditions (Hellenic and non-Hellenic), it seems that Claros channelled all those particular sensitivities through new syncretised religious concepts that tended to henotheism (and even monotheism).28 24 In Athens, Thucydides (2. 54. 2–5) mentions some actual discussion on the rightful interpretation of certain Delphic oracles, predicting both the Peloponnesian war and the plague. Thucydides also considers it important to note their influence in public opinion. See Demont 1990. 25 Those cities turning for advice to Claros perhaps followed the example of Marcus Aurelius himself. See Jones 2005, 301. On this impulse to consult an oracle as a ‘popular remedy’, see Harris 2016. 26 For the oracular inscriptions of Claros, see Rodríguez Somolinos 1991, 8‒206 and Merkelbach and Stauber 1996 (text); Busine 2005, 32‒47, 59‒69; and 2014 (comments). On the shrine of Claros during the 2nd century AD, see Parke 1985, 142‒70; Lane Fox 1986, 171‒80 and 200‒02; Johnston 2008, 76‒82; Oesterheld 2008, 43‒231; Graf 2009, 58‒60; Stoneman 2011, 90‒100; Ferrary 2014, 73‒131. 27 ‘… No doubt they [i.e. the envoys] talked to the priest and the secretary and probably to the thespode too, telling them about their city and their problems, and starting the simple process by which a good counselling service works. They gave away enough to suggest an answer before they asked the question for which they had come. The temple staff listened innocently and so, therefore, did Apollo’ (Lane Fox 1986, 173). On the composition of such city delegations (that included choruses and hymn composers), see Ferrary 2014, 132‒82 (generalities) and 200‒654 (inscriptions at Claros). 28 According to Jones (2005; 2006), Claros delivered an oracle concerning the Antonine plague that required further exegesis, as shown by ten short votive texts to ‘the gods and the goddesses’ that were found in different locations (from Pisidia to Gallaecia) with the following

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However, charlatans also tried to cash in on the anxiety of the people during the plague, since people frequently turned not only to the gods and their representatives, but also to healers and miracle workers. Even in Rome, opportunists were continuously spreading false rumours to a terrified audience, as people were carried off in thousands by the plague. Thus, the emperor Marcus Aurelius had to make provisions for all types of rites to be performed, even in the presence of foreign priests, to assuage the public hysteria (also enhanced by the impending wars on the frontiers).29 In his Alexander or the False prophet, Lucian of Samosata denounces the case of a certain Alexander that set up an oracle of the serpent-god Glykon, the ‘New Asclepius’ (and hence a son of Apollo), at his native town of Abounouteichos. Lucian makes clear that many of his clients were also consultants of the most prestigious oracles of Apollo at Delphi, Didyma and Claros.30 We even read in one inscription from Claros concerning the plague that the leader of one delegation was a certain Miletos, a priest of Apollo Soter (‘the Saviour’) at Caesarea Trocetta, who also claimed to be the son of ‘New Asclepius Glykon’.31 In sum, as we see, not only the oracles of Apollo, but also newly created ones in Asia Minor were at their peak in their activity at the 2nd century AD. What this paper tries to demonstrate is that those oracular responses also helped to shape the elements in the narratives of the Antonine plague that involved God’s will and magic. In the version of the events, as narrated in Ammian and the Historia Augusta, it is implied that Apollo was responsible for the outbreak of the plague after the Roman troops had stormed Seleucia and had ransacked the god’s temple, bringing the cult statue with them back to Rome. Apollo already appeared in the Iliad as a vengeful deity in wartimes: the epic poem precisely begins with this god shooting his arrows into the camp of the invading Greeks and bringing text: secundum interpretatione oraculi Clarii Apolloni / ἀπὸ ἐξηγήσεως χρησμοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος Κλαρίου. However, Stephen Mitchell (2003, 150‒54) suggested that the oracle that required interpretation was a ‘monotheistic’ one, which became known through an inscription at Oinoanda: Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 41, no. 25 (= SEG 27.933). See furthermore Robert 1971; Hall 1978. The first three lines of this inscription were also quoted by Lactantius (The Divine Institutions 1. 71) and made their way into a Christian compilation of the late 5th century, the Theosophy of Tübingen (13 Erbse = 1. 2 Beatrice). On this ‘monotheism’ of Clarian Apollo, see Mitchell 1999; Chaniotis 2010; Graf 2010; also Busine 2005, 110‒26 and 362‒73. 29 SHA Marc. Aur. 13. 1–6. On these measures, see Motschmann 2002, 103‒15. 30 References to Apollo’s oracles in Greece and Asia Minor: Alexander. 8, 19, 29, 43. Apotropaic charms: Alexander 35. On Alexander and his oracle, see Robert 1980, 393‒421; Jones 1986, 43‒45 and 133‒48; Johnston 2008, 101‒05. See also Le Glay 1989; Miron 1996; Sfameni Gasparro 1996; 1999; Chaniotis 2002. 31 χαρ[ι]σαμένου τὸ ἀργύριο[ν] εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὴν βάσιν Μειλήτου τοῦ Γλύκωνος Παφλαγόνος τοῦ ἱερέως αὐτοῦ (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 16, no. 8.A.5-10 = IGR IV 1498. A.5-10). Alexander is said to have fathered many children all over Asia Minor: Lucian Alexander 42. See Robert 1980, 405‒14.

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a deadly plague to them, because they have violated the sacred status of Chryses, one of his priests in the Troad (Homer Iliad 1.8‒100). In fact, the Iliad shows Apollo as having many temples in Asia Minor – Chryses actually invokes him as the lord of Chryse, Cylla and also the island of Tenedos32 – and his cult there seems to be rooted in old and pre-Hellenic traditions.33 As many cities in imperial times wanted to underline their links with a prestigious past, Clarian Apollo also boasted the ancient origins of Hierapolis in his oracular response concerning the plague, also referring to his own son, Mopsos, as ‘the city’s patron’.34 Mopsos was a wandering seer and the mythical founder not only of Hierapolis and many other cities in Asia Minor (Aspendus, Phaselis, Perge, Mallos, etc.), but also of the very same oracle of Claros. Such legends might actually reflect a gradual Hellenisation of Asia Minor:35 at least, some ancient sources expressly stated that the oracle of Didyma was older than the Ionian colonisation.36 Curiously enough, Didyma was also founded by a certain Branchos, another son of Apollo (to some also his lover), who stopped an epidemic disease by sprinkling people with laurel branches while making them sing an incomprehensible song – another pointer to a non-Greek connection.37 But Apollo the Archer not only sent diseases, he also could keep them away. In the Iliad the plague ceased only after the Greeks had offered to Apollo lavish hecatombs in Chryse (Homer Iliad 1. 312‒317). Likewise, during the raging periods of the plague in the Antonine period, the oracle of Claros 32 … ὃς Χρύσην ἀμφιβέβηκας / Κίλλάν τε ζαθέην Τενέδοιό τε ἶφι ἀνάσσεις (Iliad 1. 37‒38). Further on Apollo in Homer in Graf 2009, 9‒27. 33 For example, Burkert (1975; 1985, 144‒46) regarded Apollo as an amalgamation of diverse cultic aspects of Dorian/north-west Greek origin, Cretan-Minoan origin and a SyroHittite origin; being the latter a connection between Apollo and the Semitic god Rešep, also a plague god equipped with bow and arrows. 34 ἐκ γὰρ ἐμεῦ γένος ἐστὲ πολισσούχοιό τε Μόψου (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 11, no. 4.17). Guizzi 2014. 35 A Luwian-Phoenician inscription from Cilicia mentions king Azitawadda from the house of Mopsos (Luwian Mukšuš; Phoenician mpš) and the name Mo-qo-so also appears twice in the Linear B tablets, in Pylos (PY Sa 774) and in Cnossos (KN De 1381). In Greek mythological accounts, Mopsus became son of Apollo and Manto, the daughter of the prophet Teiresias: Strabo 14. 5. 16 C675; Pausanias 7. 3. 1–2; FGH 26 F 1, 6 [Conon] = Apollodorus Epitome 6. 3. See Metzler 1990; Vanschoonwinkel 1990; Baldriga 1994; also Burkert 1992, 52‒53; Bremmer 2008, 136‒51; Oesterheld 2008, 81‒82; Stoneman 2011, 79‒80. 36 τὸ δὲ ἱερὸν τὸ ἐν Διδύμοις τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστιν ἀρχαιότερον ἢ κατὰ τὴν Ἰώνων ἐσοίκησιν (Pausanias 7. 2. 6). 37 Callimachus fr. 194. 28–31 and fr. 229. 2–8 (Branchos). For the magic song against the plague, see Apollodorus of Corcyra in Clem.Al. Strom. 5. 8. 48. For the oracular inscriptions of Didyma, see Rodríguez Somolinos 1991, 208‒596 (text); Busine 2005, 28‒32 and 55‒59 (comments). On the sanctuary of Didyma (apart from Fontenrose 1988), see Parke 1985, 1–111; Lane Fox 1986, 168–200; Curnow 2004, 132‒33; Johnston 2008, 82‒90; Graf 2009, 60‒61; Stoneman 2011, 84‒90.

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instructed the consulting cities to offer libations and hecatombs in the sanctuary (sometimes accompanied with musical performances).38 On the other hand, a statue of Apollo, known as Ἀλεξίκακος (‘evil-averter’), it is said by Pausanias (1. 3. 4) to have been set up in the Agora of Athens as thanksoffering for the god’s help during the plague in 430 BC, following the advice of the Delphic oracle. Similarly, in Roman times, Hierapolis, Callipolis and Caesarea Troketta were also advised to consecrate shrines of Clarian Apollo or statues of Apollo, equipped with his bow and arrows, before all their respective city gates as a measure of protection.39 We also know that, at that time, in many doorways it was engraved a single oracular verse of Apollo that the false prophet Alexander dispatched to all nations as a charm against the plague. As Homeric verses were generally excised from their poems and used as incantations,40 Alexander of Abonouteichos also used for his own oracle part of a verse of the epic tradition in which Apollo featured as ‘the god unshorn who shoots afar’:41 ‘Phoebus, the god unshorn (ἀκειρεκόμης), keeps off the plague’s nebulous onset’.42 This cult of Apollo the Archer was transplanted into other regions in the Hellenised East as a sort of patron god or tutelary divinity. In the particular case of Mesopotamia, the temple at Seleucia was reported by Ammian to be dedicated to Apollo Comaeus.43 This epithet of Apollo is commonly assumed to be a transcription of the Greek Κωμαῖος (‘of the village’),44 but it has been

38 As, for example, in Hierapolis: ὧν ἀπαλεύασθαι κέλομαι χόλον ἀλγινόεντα / λοιβαῖς εἰλαπίναις τε τεληέσσαις θ’ ἑκατόμβαις (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 11, no. 4.5‒6). 39 See, again, in Hierapolis: πάσαις δ’ ἀμφὶ πύλαις Κλαρίου τεμενίξατε Φοίβου /τόξοις ἱρὸν ἄγαλμα κεκασμένον ὠλεσινούσοις, / οἷον ὀιστεύοντος ἀναρδέα τηλόσε λοιμόν (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 11, no. 4.18‒20). On those three Clarian oracles prescribing the erection of a statue, see Graf 2007. For Apollo among the divinities πρὸ πόλεως, see Pugliese Carratelli 1965 and Labarre 2007. See also Faraone 1992. 40 See Collins 2008, 104‒31. 41 Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης, ἑκατηβόλος (Hymnus ad Apollinem 3. 134). Also in inscriptions: [Φ]οῖβον ἀκερσεκόμην [ἑκ]ατηβόλον Ἀπόλλωνα… (IG 14 451.1‒2). 42 Φοῖβος ἀκειρεκόμης λοιμοῦ νεφέλην ἀπερύκει (Lucian Alexander 36). This verse of Alexander was also quoted by Martianus Capella (Nupt philol. merc. 1. 18) and has been also found on a statue-base of Apollo Ἀλεξίκακος (‘evil-averter’) in Antioch (Syria) and on a Greek amulet found in London, in Rome’s most north-westerly province, Britannia. For Antioch, see Perdrizet 1903 (text of the inscription); comments in Sfameni Gasparro 1999, 279; Jones 1986, 142; 2005, 298–99 (comments). For London, see Tomlin 2014 (text) and Jones 2016 (comments). On magic spells on amulets against plagues and other diseases see, in general, Kotansky 1991. On Apollo as ‘evil-averter’, see Graf 2009, 65‒83. 43 simulacrum Comei Apollinis (Ammian 23. 6. 4). 44 See Robert 1969, 984‒85. Apollo Κωμαῖος is paired with Artemis in an inscription from Philippi of the late 4th century BC: SEG 24.620. Apollo Κωμαῖος was also venerated in Naucratis: Athenaeus 4. 32. 149d.

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also rendered into Greek as Κομαῖος (‘long-haired’),45 thus being a better match for the Homeric ἀκειρεκόμης/ἀκερσεκóμης (‘with unshorn locks’).46 Seleucus I, the founder of Seleucia, was himself a worshipper of Apollo – the oracle of Didyma had actually predicted his kingship47 – and he promoted the cult of this god in Asia.48 More precisely, colonists might have introduced the cult of Apollo Comaeus into Seleucia from Macedonia –where it was already attested in the late 4th century BC49 – at the time of the foundation of this new Greek city in Mesopotamia. However, Apollo really became a dynastic god with Antiochus I, who portrayed this Greek deity as the Archer in association with the Babylonian Nabû and Tištrya (or Tir), thus inscribing the Seleucids in the eastern tradition of divine kingship to which this archer figure was closely related.50 The cult of Apollo at Seleucia was still very much alive in Parthian times: Vologases IV dedicated there in AD 150 a statue of Heracles, taken from Characene as a spoil of war, ‘in the temple of the god Apollo who oversees the Door of Bronze’ (i.e. the one who protected one of the city gates as a divinity πρὸ πόλεως).51 Once inside the temple of Apollo Comaeus, Ammian says that the Roman soldiers actually violated its sacred area. For this innermost recess Ammian uses the very rare term adytum (= ἄδυτον), which is actually a hapax legomenon in his preserved writings. This term, however, recalls other adyta that 45 See Faraone 1992, 63; Oesterheld 2014, 212; Jones 2016, 470. But Κομαῖος is only attested as a personal name in Attica: IG 2² 1611, 1622, 1750 (basically as a different spelling for Κωμαῖος). 46 The epithet ἀκερσεκóμης (ἀκερσι-/ ἀκειρ-) is a well-attested poetic epithet of Apollo: Iliad 20. 39; Hymnus ad Apollinem 3. 134; Pindar Pythian Odes 3. 14 and Isthmian Odes 1. 7; Philostratus Ep. 1. 16; Nonnus Dionysiaca 10. 29 and 14. 232; IG 14 451.1. 47 Diodorus 19. 90. 1‒5. Seleucus also embellished the temple with new constructions (Didyma 424, 449 and 480) and restituted the cult statue of Apollo that has been taken away by the Achaemenids. 48 Iossif and Lorber (2009, 19‒25) argue that a series of five inscribed tablets found at Persepolis and presumably affixed to altars can be dated to the reign of Seleucos I. One of them is inscribed with the name of Apollo. The Seleucid general Demodamas of Miletos, crossed over the Iaxartes river in Bactria and dedicated altars to Apollo of Didyma. See Pliny NH 1. 6; 6. 49 (= Demodamas FGH 428 F 3). 49 ‘une importation macédonienne’ (Robert 1969, 985). 50 Coins from Seleucia depict Apollo’s head and/or Apollo’s figure holding arrows and a bow (either standing or seated on the omphalos). See Iossif and Lorber 2009; Erickson and Wright 2011; Iossif 2011. For the assimilation between Apollo and the pair Nabû-Tir, see Erickson 2011; Beaulieu 2014. 51 ἐν ἱερῶι τῷδε θεοῦ ᾽Απόλλωνος τοῦ χαλκῆς πύλης προκαθημένου (IEOG 86. 19‒22). The word προκάθημαι means ‘to sit before’ and ‘preside over’, but also ‘to defend’ and ‘to protect’. Potter 1991, 285. See discussions in Invernizzi 1989; Bernard 1990; Potter 1991. Invernizzi (1989, 74‒87) argued for the identification of this temple at Seleucia with that of Apollo Κωμαῖος.

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were typically reserved for temple officers in the oracle sanctuaries of Apollo. For example, the priests in Clarus would descend to the adytum and through a marble maze of corridors underneath the temple they will access a room in which a sacred spring flowed – although some carved seats on an adjacent area were likely reserved for initiates as well.52 Also in Didyma two narrow sloping passages on both sides of the antechamber descended into the adytum, which actually was an open courtyard, with a sacred grove and a small shrine constructed on the sacred spring.53 It seems, therefore, that the temple of Apollo at Seleucia was assumed to be very similar in its topography to those oracular temples of Claros and Didyma.54 Ammian continues the story of the conquest of Seleucia affirming that the soldiers widened the crevice on the temple floor in the hope of finding a treasure, but instead the ‘germ of the pestilence’55 burst forth from an underground chamber. Ammian refers to the crevice of the temple as a foramen, i.e. an ‘opening’ or ‘hole’, and he uses the very same term – in fact, just some paragraphs before – for the so-called Plutonium/Πλουτώνιον (or ‘Pluto’s place’) of Hierapolis in Phrygia, a cave of toxic vapour under the temple complex of Apollo in the city centre.56 The entrance to the Plutonium was a corridor of marble blocks with a vaulted crowning that arrived at a cleft in the rock, from which carbon dioxide fumes were exuded. It was said that only the eunuch priests of Cybele could resist the deadly fumes that the cave emitted, a ‘noxious vapour (spiritus)’ – as Ammian specifies – ‘with a penetrating stench, destructive to whatever came near it’.57 As we also learn from the Historia 52

On the adytum and the rites performed there, see Moretti et al. 2014. Nevertheless, there was also a central doorway (perhaps, only open in special occasions) that gave access to a flight of 22 steps leading down into the adytum. This ground plan dates to the Hellenistic period and was quite unusual. See Fortenrose 1988, 37‒39. 54 Unfortunately this question will remain inconclusive, considering the difficult conditions for excavating in Iraq. On the topography of Seleucia on the Tigris, see Hopkins 1972, 118‒26 (Temples A and B). 55 Labes primordialis (Ammian 23. 6. 24). Ammian also uses the term labes to denote the plague of Amida (Ammian 19. 4. 6), comparing it with other diseases described by Thucydides and Homer. 56 Cuius simile foramen apud Hierapolim Phrygiae antehac (ut asserunt aliqui), videbatur… (Ammian 23. 6. 18). On the remains of a cluster of temples that formed part of the sanctuary of Apollo in the city centre of Hierapolis, see Ritti 2006, 92‒102 (figs. 37‒41) (epigraphy) and D’Andria 2010, 136‒44 (figs. 119‒124) (archaeology); and, more recently, Semeraro 2014. 57 noxius spiritus, perseveranti odore quidquid prope venerat corrumpebat (Ammian 23. 6. 18). See also Strabo 12. 8. 17 and 13. 4. 14; Dio Cassius 68. 27. 3; Damascius apud Photius Bibl. 344 b35. This opening was considered an entrance to the underworld, hence its name as Plutonium or Πλουτώνιον (‘Pluto’s place’). The small marble vaulted structure at the entrance of the Plutonium dates to the 2nd century AD. See Miller 1985, 46‒49; Parke 1985, 180‒83; and more specifically D’Andria 2013. 53

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Augusta that the plague was conceived as a sort of ‘pestilential vapour’ (spiritus),58 one might then wonder whether all of this was just casual or not; especially, considering that Hierapolis was one of the consultants of Apollo at Claros regarding the plague. Actually, the people of Hierapolis, who had long worshipped Apollo as Archegetes (‘the founder’), also had their own local ‘long-haired’ version of Apollo, known as Kareios.59 This god run in a temple precisely located above the Plutonium an ‘alphabet oracle’: after extracting one of the tags that corresponded to one of the letters of the Greek alphabet, all you had to do was to find in the inscription of the temple archives, in correspondence with the letter, the answer to the particular query.60 However, when the Hierapolitans were also afflicted by the plague, they deemed this particular way of getting responses to be quite limited to such dramatic situation61 and, therefore, the town decided to consult Apollo of Claros. Having learnt from the circumstances of the conquest of Seleucia, it is likely that the delegation from Hierapolis would have come to Claros with some idea about the nature of the plague; for example, that the pestilence might have well been a deadly fume arising from a chasm in the temple, like the one that emerges from the Plutonium. The god of Claros duly interpreted in his answer to the Hierapolitans such concerns, declaring that the plague was an expression of the wrath of the ‘sacred Earth’ for the death of her son Python. Thus, the god advised the people of Hierapolis to sacrifice and pour libations to Gaia, Demeter, and the gods of the underworld – being, nevertheless, reminded to pay the due respect to Apollo Kareios.62 Judging from other similar oracular responses, in which the 58 spiritus pestilens (SHA Verus 8. 1); although, in this case, the vapour came from a golden casket that a soldier accidentally opened. This action was like ‘opening the Pandora’s box’ (Klinkott 2017). For the Mesopotamian origin of the myth of Pandora, see Penglase 1994, 166‒92; Bremmer 2008, 19‒34. 59 For a statue (3rd century AD) dedicated to Apollo Kareios, found in the theatre, see Ceylan and Ritti 1997; also Ritti 1985, 129‒30 (figs. 22 and 23); 2006, 172–73 (no. 40, figs. 70 and 71) (photographs of the headless statue, with traces of his long locks of hair running on the shoulders). 60 On the alphabetic oracles of Apollo Kareios, see Ritti 1989 (in general); further Nollé 2007, 253‒65; Stoneman 2011, 132‒48. On the location of the temple (a monopteros) above the Plutonium, see Ismaelli 2009. On the preserved inscriptions, apart from Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, see West 1967 (revised edition); Ritti 1985, 130‒32; 2006, 167‒71 (no. 39, fig. 69); D’Andria 2010, 228‒31 (translations and comments on the ‘alphabetic oracles’). 61 In one oracle delivered on the occasion of a drought (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 15, no. 7), Apollo Kareios confesses that he does not know everything and that it is not wise for a god to think he is cleverer than the other gods. See also West 1967, 187. 62 On the inscription of Hierapolis, see mostly Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 11, no. 4; also Pugliese Carratelli 1963‒64; Parke 1985, 153‒55; Várhelyi 2001, 18‒19; Ritti 2006, 94‒98; Oesterheld 2008, 72‒121. Furthermore, more recently, see Rutherford 2007; Miller 2014; Oesterheld 2014.

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plague was associated with chthonian divinities,63 other nations could have also advanced similar interpretations in their questions to the oracle. There is another intriguing detail that Ammian gives in his account of the plague and might also derive from Claros: the underground shrine, before being opened by the Romans, ‘was closed by the occult arts of the Chaldaeans’.64 This could be a reference to the so-called ‘Chaldean oracles’ attributed to a certain Julian the Theurgist who lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The preserved fragments describe a cosmological system wherein a supreme God was linked to the sensible world through lesser divinities; much in the line of these theological debates tending to henotheism, in which the oracle of Claros also participated (see also above).65 But, apart from this connection, Apollo of Claros was also linked with sorcery, since he was invoked in some magic papyri66 and miniature copies of his cult image were used in love incantations that also resorted to this ‘Chaldaean wisdom’.67 In fact, the temple officials at Claros should have been familiar with all such popular practices, because we read in one of the oracles concerning the plague that Apollo recognised an attack of the magi and recommended a ritual with which Artemis would destroy a hidden voodoo doll.68 In conclusion, in an attempt to reformulate the whole question of the impact of the ‘Antonine plague’, a bit more has been done to explain the relationship between the narratives of the origin of the plague in the histories of the 4th century AD (mostly Ammian) and the information that derives from other sources from the 2nd century AD. A detailed look at the available evidence has permitted us to re-assess some of the basic elements of these ancient narratives: its eastern origin and mode of infection, the mention of the god Apollo alongside other related cults/rites, and the use of Classic models of 63 As in Callipolis (Thrace). See Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 20, no. 9 (= ISestos 11); also Parke 1985, 152‒53; Várhelyi 2001, 19‒21; Busine 2005, 33‒34; Oesterheld 2008, 161‒88. 64 concluso a Chaldaeorum arcanis (Ammian 23. 6. 17). 65 For this sort of theological koine in the revelatory literature of the period, see Athanassiadi 1999. For the Chaldaean oracles, see Majercick 1989; more recently, Seng 2016. 66 PGM II 139. Apollo–Phoebus–Helios in magical papyri: PGM I 262‒347, II 64‒183, III 282–409, VI 1‒47, VII 727‒739, X 36‒50, XIII 646‒734, XXIIa 2‒9. 67 In AD 49, Lollia Paulina was accused to have resorted unsuccessfully to magic to attract the emperor Claudius into marrying her: accusatorem qui obiceret Chaldaeos, magos interrogatumque Apollinis Clarii simulacrum super nuptiis imperatoris (Tacitus Annales 12. 22). On love magic, see Faraone 1999; also Gager 1992, 78‒115; Graf 1997, 175–90; Ogden 2002, 225‒44; Collins 2008, 64‒103. 68 ἥ κεν ἀλύξει / πήματα καὶ λοίμοιο βροτοφθόρα φάρμα[κ]α λύσει / λαμπάσι πυρσοφόροις νυχίᾳ φλογὶ μάγματα κηροῦ/ τηΐξασα, μάγου κακοτήϊα σύμβολα τέχνης· (Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 26, no. 11.6‒9 = SEG 41.981.6‒9). See Graf 1992, 267‒79; Várhelyi 2001, 16‒17. On voodoo dolls, see Faraone 1991; also Graf 1997, 118‒74; Ogden 2002, 245–60.

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the ‘ancient plague tradition’ (Homer and Thucydides) as a frame of such narratives. But in addition to this, it seems quite clear that these late accounts originated in the late 2nd century AD, at a time when, in a desperate search of answers, cities also dispatched embassies to sanctuaries, such as the oracle of Apollo at Claros. Informal conversations in Claros between the consultants and the temple officials about the plague and its origin would have derived into elaborated verse versions, enhanced with Homeric epithets and etiological fables by the temple officials (most notably, the θεσπιῳδός), that presumed that the plague had been sent by Apollo. It seems, therefore, that some of the narrative elements of the late historical accounts of the plague (namely, the adyton, the crevice, the toxic fumes, and the Chaldean magic) can be better understood within this context, in which the oracle of Claros and its clients were considering different rituals and religious practices as a response to this terrible disease.

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Kotansky, R. 1991: ‘Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed Greek Amulets’. In Faraone, C. and Obbink, D. (eds.), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (Oxford/New York), 107‒37. Labarre, G. 2007: ‘L’Apollon Propylaios d’Eumeneia et les theoi propylaioi’. In Brun, P. (ed.), Scripta Anatolica: Hommages à Pierre Debord (Ausonius. Études 18) (Bordeaux), 283–96. Lane Fox, R. 1986: Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine (London/New York). Le Glay, M. 1989: ‘D’Abônouteichos à Sabratha, les déviations de la religion romaine au temps de Marc Aurèle’. In Mastino, A. (ed.), L’Africa romana (Atti del VI convegno di studio, Sassari, 16–18 dicembre 1988) (Pubblicazioni del Dipartimento di Storia dell’Università di Sassari 14) (Sassari), 35–41. Littman, R.J. and Litmann, M.L. 1973: ‘Galen and the Antonine plague’. American Journal of Philology 94.3, 243–55. Lo Cascio, E. (ed.) 2012: L’impatto della peste Antonina (Pragmateiai 22) (Bari). Majercik, M. 1989: The Chaldean Oracles: text, translation, and commentary (Studies in Greek and Roman Religion 5) (Leiden). Merkelbach, R. and Stauber, J. 1996: ‘Die Orakel des Apollon von Klaros’. EA 27, 1–54. Metzler, D. 1990: ‘Der Seher Mopsos auf den Münzen der Stadt Mallos’. Kernos 3, 235–50. Miller, K. 1985: ‘Apollo Lairbenos’. Numen 32.1, 46–70. —. 2014: ‘La parole salvatrice transformée en remède perpétuel. L’oracle d’Apollon de Claros rendu à la ville de Hiérapolis en Phrygie’. In Moretti and Rabatel 2014, 211‒26. Miron, A.V.B. 1996: ‘Alexander von Abonuteichos. Zur Geschichte des Orakels des Neos Asklepios Glykon’. In Leschhorn, W. (ed.), Hellas und der griechische Osten: Studien zur Geschichte und Numismatik der griechischen Welt. Festschrift für Peter Robert Franke zum 70. Geburtstag (Saarbrücken), 153‒88. Mitchell, S. 1999: ‘The cult of theos hypsistos between pagans, Jews, and Christians’. In Athanassiadi, P. and Frede, M. (eds.), Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford), 81‒149. —. 2003: ‘Inscriptions from Melli (Kocaalier) in Pisidia’. Anatolian Studies 53, 139‒59. Monbrun, P. 2007: Les Voix d’Apollon: L’arc, la lyre et les oracles (Rennes). Moretti, J.-C., Bresch, N., Bonora, I., Laroche, D. and Riss, O. 2014: ‘Le temple d’Apollon et le fonctionnement de l’oracle’. In Moretti and Rabatel 2014, 33‒49. Moretti, J.-C. and Rabatel, L. (eds.) 2014: Le sanctuaire de Claros et son oracle (Actes du colloque international de Lyon, 13–14 janvier 2012) (Lyons). Motschmann, C. 2002: Die Religionspolitik Marc Aurels (Hermes Einzelschriften 88) (Stuttgart). Nollé, J. 2007: Kleinasiatische Losorakel: Astragal- und Alphabetchresmologien der hochkaiserzeitlichen Orakelrenaissance (Vestigia 57) (Munich). Oesterheld, C. 2008: Göttliche Botschaften für zweifelnde Menschen: Pragmatik und Orientierungsleistung der Apollo-Orakel von Klaros und Didyma in hellenistischrömischer Zeit (Hypomnemata 174) (Göttingen). —. 2014 : ‘La parole salvatrice transformé en remède perpétuel. L’oracle d’Apollon de Claros rendu à la ville de Hiérapolis en Phrygie’. In Moretti and Rabatel 2014, 211‒26.

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Ogden, O. 2002: Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford). Parke, H.W. 1985: The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor (London). Penglase, C. 1994: Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influences in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod (London/New York). Perdrizet, P. 1903: ‘Une inscription d’Antioche qui reproduit un oracle d’Alexandre d’Abonotichos’. Comptes-Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 47, 62–66. Potter, D.D. 1991: ‘The Inscriptions on the Bronze Herakles from Mesene: Vologeses IV’s War with Rome and the Date of Tacitus’ “Annales”’. ZPE 88, 277–90. Pugliese Carratelli, G. 1963‒64: ‘Χρησμοί di Apollo Kareios e Apollo Klarios a Hierapolis di frigia’. Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene 41–42, 351‒70. —. 1965: ‘Theoi Propylaioi’. Studi Classici e Orientali 14, 5–10. Quet, M.-H. 2002: ‘Éloge par Aelius Aristide des co-empereurs Marc Aurèle et Lucius Vérus à l’issue de la guerre contre les Parthes’. Journal des Savants 1, 75–150. Ritti, T. 1985: Fonti letterarie ed epigraphiche (Hierapolis – Scavi e Ricerche 1) (Rome). —. 1989: ‘Oracoli alfabetici a Hierapolis di frigia’. In Miscellanea Greca e Romana, vol. 14 (Rome), 245‒86. —. 2006: An Epigraphic Guide to Hierapolis (Pammukale) (Istanbul). Robert, L. 1969: ‘Eulaeus, histoire et onomastique’. In Robert, L., Opera Minora Selecta: Épigraphie et antiquités grecques, vol. 2 (Amsterdam). —. 1971: ‘Un oracle gravé à Oenoanda’. Comptes-Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 115.3, 597‒619. —. 1980: À travers l’Asie mineure: Poètes et prosateurs, monnaies grecques, voyageurs et géographie (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 239) (Paris). Rodríguez Somolinos, J. 1991: Los oráculos de Claros y Dídima. Edición y Comentario (Dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Rossignol, B. 2012: ‘Le climat, les famines et la guerre’. In Lo Cascio 2012, 87–122. Rutherford, I. 2007: ‘Trouble in Snake-Town: interpreting an oracle from HierapolisPammukale’. In Swain, S., Harrison, S. and Elsner, J. (eds.), Severan Culture (Cambridge), 449‒57. Scheidel, W. 2001: Death on the Nile: Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt (Mnemosyne Suppl. 228) (Leiden/Boston). —. 2002. ‘A Model of Demographic and Economic Change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine Plague’. JRA 15, 97–114. —. 2012. ‘Roman well-being and the economic consequences of the Antonine plague’. In Lo Cascio 2012, 265–95. Semeraro, G. 2014: ‘Archaeology of the cult in the sanctuary of Apollo in Hierapolis’. In Guizzi, F. (ed.), Fra il Meandro e il Lico. Archeologia e storia in un paesaggio anatolico (Giornata di studio. Sapienza Università di Roma, 30 marzo 2012) (Scienze dell’Antichita 20.2) (Rome), 11‒29. Seng, H. 2016: Un livre sacré de l’Antiquité tardive: les Oracles Chaldaïques (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses 170) (Turnhout). Sfameni Gasparro, G. 1996: ‘Alessandro di Abonutico, lo “pseudoprofeta” ovvero come construirsi un’identità religiosa. I. Il profeta, “eroe” e “uomo divino”’. Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 62, 565–90.

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—. 1999: ‘Alessandro di Abonutico, lo “pseudoprofeta” ovvero come crearsi un’ identità religiosa, II: L’oracolo e i misteri’. In Bonnet, C. and Motta, A. (eds.), Les Syncrétismes religieux dans le monde méditerranéen antique (Actes du Colloque International en l’honneur de Franz Cumont à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire de sa mort, Rome, Academia Belgica, 25–27 septembre 1997) (Études de Philologie, d’Archéologie et d’Histoire Anciennes 36) (Brussels), 275‒305. Sheldon, R.M. 2010: Rome’s War in Parthia: Blood in the Sand (Edgware, Mx/ Portland, OR). Stok, F. 2000: ‘Il lessico del contagio’. In Radici Colace, P. and Zumbo, A. (eds.), Letteratura scientifica e tecnica greca e latina (Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studi, Messina, 29–31 ottobre 1997) (Lessico e Cultura 3) (Messina), 55–89. Stoneman, R. 2011: The Ancient Oracles: Making the Gods Speak (New Haven/ London). Storchi Marino, A. 2012: ‘Una rilettura delle fonti storico-letterarie sulla peste di età antonina’. In Lo Cascio 2012, 29–61. Tomlin, R.S.O. 2014: ‘Drive away the cloud of plague: a Greek amulet from Roman London’. In Collins, R. and McIntosh, F. (eds.), Life in the Limes: Studies of the People and Objects of the Roman Frontiers. Presented to Lindsay Allason-Jones on the Occasion of her Birthday and Retirement (Oxford), 197‒205. Várhelyi, Z. 2001: ‘Magic, religion, and Sincretism at the Oracle of Claros’. In Asirvatham, S.R., Pache, C.O. and Watrous, J. (eds.), Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society (Lanham, MD/Oxford), 13‒31. Vanschoonwinkel, J. 1990: ‘Mopsos: légendes et réalité’. Hethitica 10, 185‒211. West, M.L. 1967: ‘Oracles of Apollo Kareios’. ZPE 1, 183‒87. Whittaker, C.R. 2004: Rome and its Frontiers: the Dynamics of Empire (London/ New York). Wiseman, J. 1973: ‘Gods, War, and Plague in the Times of the Antonines’. In ManoZissi, D. and Wiseman, J. (eds.), Studies in the Antiquities of Stobi, vol. 1 (Belgrade), 143‒83.

GREEK METRICAL INSCRIPTIONS, CLASSICAL PAIDEIA AND IDENTITY IN LATE ANTIQUITY Gianfranco AGOSTI

Abstract The paper deals with metrical inscriptions as indicators of continuity and transformation of Greek paideia in Late Antiquity, focusing on the possible relevance of poetic language as a signpost of identity. Through close reading of selected verse inscriptions from peripheral centres, I argue that literary allusions/quotations and style played a significant role in the intended message of Late Antique metrical epigrams, not only in literary terms, but also (and especially) in terms of enactment of identities, from the cultural, to religious and political ones. I also suggest that we should give up on the standard interpretive vertical model (i.e. the influence of literary poetry and traditional paideia on the authors of epigrams) and instead we should adopt rather a horizontal model, taking into account the expectations of commissioners and their intended audience.

Metrical inscriptions are usually considered a reliable indicator of continuity of Greek culture and self-representation of elites in local areas in Late Antiquity.1 In fact, assessments of ‘culture and society’ based on inscriptions, rely heavily, if not exclusively, on evidence provided by epigrams on stone, both private (almost uniquely funerary) and public (dedicatory and epideictic). Verse inscriptions are credited with witnessing the ‘level of education and knowledge of the Greek language and literature’, even in case of a scarce evidence.2 It is not my intention to question the validity of such an approach in this paper – this would require a long discussion based on close examination of many more texts than the handful I am presenting here. It is important to remark, however, that the poetic language of epigrams on stone is not a 1

See Gatier 1992. For example, these words have been used to comment the only one Late Antique hexametric couplet found in the town of Scythopolis/Beth Shean (Palaestina II). Namely from the area where the Nymphaeum and a temple have been found comes the base for a gilded bronze statue of the empress Eudoxia (SEG 49.2076 = LSA 2836): ‘The best examples of the remarkable level of education and knowledge of the Greek language and literature [scil. in Scythopolis] are the inscriptions…’, according to Tsafrir and Foerster 1997, 127–28. The only other Late Antique metrical inscription from Scythopolis (SGO 21/14/01, AD 558–559) is prose + iambic trimeter and not in lofty language. 2

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secondary issue, and we have to deal with it thoroughly, avoiding generalisations and easy characterisations as much as possible, as I tried to demonstrate elsewhere.3 In what follows, through a sample of select metrical inscriptions I will tackle the issue of continuity and transformation of Greek paideia in late antiquity, focusing on the possible relevance of poetic language as a signpost of identity.4 A few preliminary remarks are required. Verse inscriptions coming from a given place and time were actually part of a broader network in space and time – even those that are limited in number, or accidentally isolated instances. This network was the literary language they adopted. Even though we should always be cautious,5 it is undeniable that metrical inscriptions ipso facto were part of the Greek literary tradition for their sophisticated language and form, and perceived as such by patrons and audience alike.6 To display a poem on stone was primarily an act of exhibition of culture and learning,7 considered particularly suitable to members of the elites (of any social strata, and regardless of religious affinities).8 From this point of view, metrical inscriptions conveyed social rather than ethnical identity, and showcased a learning perceived as corresponding to a specific social status.9 Individuals adopted verse inscriptions to express their ambitions through the public display of paideia, positioning themselves in both a specific cultural and social position. This implies that we always have to take into account the filter represented by literary language and the audience’s response to it. The latter point is a notoriously controversial issue. To put it roughly, was the audience able to perceive not only the sense of social prestige conveyed by a poem carved on stone, but also its content? Despite recent attempts to show that verse inscriptions were meant just to be viewed in order to convey the ‘magical power’ of the written signs, I am convinced that we have enough evidence to maintain that they continued to be read aloud, in a performative way, until the beginning of the 7th century AD.10 3 Agosti 2016a (on the complexity of Christian metrical inscriptions); 2017 (questioning the tendency to classify any inscriptions as ‘Homeric’). 4 For earlier examples, see Mairs 2011. 5 Cf., for example, Clackson 2015, 78, on the difficulty of making any generalisations from bilingual inscriptions. 6 The social prestige of this tradition was one of the main reasons for the success of epigrams in the Late Antique epigraphic habit, despite the overall diminishing of the number of inscriptions (cf. the essays in Bolle, Machado and Witschel 2017). 7 In order ‘to emphasize the culture of those involved in the transaction’, as Rouché (1997, 365) put it effectively. 8 For examples of inscriptions commissioned (if not composed) by member or lower social strata, see Mairs 2011 (acrostic poems in Nubia, 2nd century AD); Agosti 2016b (Late Antique poems with Homeric allusions from Cyrenaica). 9 For recent studies on identity in Late Antiquity, see Miles 1999; Rebillard 2012. 10 Agosti 2015 (with further bibliography).

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If beholders (or at least some of them) were also readers, style and language were an essential part of the message. As a consequence the study of words and poetic tags is not a mere philological exercise, but may be revealing of the (self)-representation people aimed to portray.11 In addition, close reading proves to be particularly helpful also in order to ascertain the existence of local epigraphic workshops, with their ‘professional’ poets and repertoire of models, as well as of local schools – in other words, the style of poetry in vogue in a given space and time, the poetry people appreciated.12 Therefore, the question of the circulation and reuse of models, either literary or epigraphic, should always be taken into account. From this point of view, verse inscriptions are also literary texts and they form an essential part of the so-called ‘resurgence of poetry’ in late antiquity, whose language they share – whatever our judgment of their literary value might be. Inscriptions and literary poems are two sides of the same coin and there were mutual relations between them.13 Nevertheless, however important it is to read inscriptions against the background of high literary poetry, we should avoid an approach focused only on literary qualities of the texts that risks ultimately to perpetuate the traditional interpretative model based on ‘the high’ vs ‘the low’ (or ‘the correct’ vs ‘the awkward’). As legitimate as this model might be in terms of literary values, it is surely inadequate to understand the social functions of verse inscriptions. This is why in the last part of the paper I will briefly address the issue of the relations between periphery and centre. Let us examine briefly a couple of examples of metrical inscriptions, which are precious witnesses of the prestige of Greek paideia as perceived by individuals living in small communities and provincial areas. The first is a text coming from the Hauran, southern Syria, possibly from the Trachôn region (Léja) and the Jabal al-‘Arab, as onomastics points out. Published in 1906 by Jalabert, who dated it between the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the epigram was re-edited by Merkelbach and Stauber, and more recently by Aliquot and Yon, who favour an earlier date (between 2nd and 4th centuries AD) and whose text is here reproduced.14 11 Cf. Shaw 2013, 67: ‘In the presentation of one’s life successes in verse, a factor as simple (or perhaps not as simple) as that of style and fashion must be considered.’ 12 See Robert 1960, 323–24 (on the so-called ‘école hauranaise de versification’); Drew-Bear 1979; Horsley 2000; Sartre-Fauriat 1986; Adams 1999; de Hoz 2008; Ast-Lougovaya 2011; Thonemann 2014; Agosti 2018. 13 Agosti 2015 (assessment and bibliography). 14 SGO 22/49/02 = IBeirut 110. See Jalabert 1906, 154–57; Woolley 1921, 25; Sartre-Fauriat 1998, 216 and 219; Aliquot and Yon 2016, 188 (‘plaque de basalte. Texte en deux parties: épigramme funéraire débordant du cartouche (A); dédicace autour d’un cartouche à queues d’aronde (B). Traces de rubrication. Dim. 50 × 82 × 8. H.l. 2–3’).

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A Ἐνθάδε τὴν ἱερὴν | κεφαλὴν κατέθαψ|αν ἅπαντες ἀνδρὸς ἀρ|ιστῆος Ταννηλου Μαλειχ|θου ὁ καὶ |Σιγί|λλου {ΙΟΑΟ}, ὅς ποτ᾿ ὀδυρομένην | ἑὴν πατρίδ᾿ ἠρύσατο χερ|σὶν ἀνδρῶν ὑπ᾿ ἐχ|θρώων ·καὶ οἷ ἠμείβετο πα|τρεὶς σῆμα τόδε, οἷ τεύξα|σα εἵνεκεν εὐεργεσίης. B. [Τ]αννηλος Νασεου ἐποίησε|ν τὸ | μνη|μῖον | με|τὰ| Σα|λα|μα|θη συμβίου ἐπὶ τῷ θίῳ αὐτ[οῦ]. ‘Here all his tribesmen laid the holy head of Tannelos son of Maleichatos, called Sigillos, proven chief, who with his arm once rescued from alien foes his country plunged in grief; so in requital for good service done his country wrought this tombstone for her son. ‘Tannelos son of Naseos made this monument together with his wife Salamathes for his uncle.’15

The community and the namesake nephew erected the monument to honour a certain Tannelos, who rescued his motherland against the raids of the enemies (probably the nomads).16 The poem is far from being perfect: versification is poor and expressions are, in the words of Jalabert, those ‘courants dans la versification funéraire à bon marché’.17 All this is true, but if we leave aside aesthetic judgment, the poem turns out to be very revealing. The last two lines express the concept of erecting a monument in exchange for Tannelos’ merits in the standard way,18 while in the previous verses the intention to style Tannelos as a Homeric hero is quite evident. In line 2 ἀνδρὸς ἀριστῆος is obviously an epic tag (four times in Homer), which had already entered epigraphic language.19 In l. 3 ὀδυρομένην | ἑὴν πατρίδ(α) perhaps the author had somehow in mind, or wanted to allude to, the wording of Odyssey 13. 219 ὁ δ’ ὀδύρετο πατρίδα γαῖαν; and finally, ἠρύσατο [l. ἐρύσατο] χερ|σὶν points to Iliad 5. 344 καὶ τὸν μὲν μετὰ χερσὶν ἐρύσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων. Moving back to the incipit of the poem, it displays a high style phraseology in poignant contrast with the general awkwardness of the text. Ἐνθάδε τὴν ἱερὴν | κεφαλὴν comes from the well-known metrical epitaph of Homer, transmitted

15

Transl. by Woolley 1921, adapted. The narrative and emotionally discourse that lies behind this kind of statements in inscriptions (and in literature) is now analysed in the fascinating paper by Moralee 2018. 17 Jalabert 1906, 156. 18 See SGO 22/42/03 = IGLS XIII 9091 = LSA (Bosra, 4th/5th century AD) Στῆσε Σαβινιανὸν τὸν ἀο[ιδιμον ἡγεμονῆα] / ἀνθ’ εὐεργεσίης ἡ πό[λις ἡ σφετέρη] (‘The city set up (the statue of) Sabinianus, renowned governor, in exchange for his benefactions’). 19 Iliad 15. 489 and 17. 203; Odyssey 21. 333 and 24. 460; in inscriptions, for example, SGO 22/38/99 (Bosana, Syria, Imperial age). 16

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by various sources in antiquity.20 The tag enjoyed some success in inscriptions, and at least another occurrence comes from southern Syria.21 Therefore, the text conveys the idea that Tannelos was a sort of epic hero, and the ‘quotation’ of Homer’ epitaph appears to be particularly appropriate. It is actually difficult to decide whether the commissioner asked for a particularly prestigious and easily recognisable model, or the epigram seller just reused one of the standard tools he had at his disposal, but I would cautiously favour the first possibility. Homer’s epitaph was widely known in antiquity and such an easily recognisable model added prestige to our poem. A comparable example comes from the recently edited Kyrion’s inscription from Nikomedia.22 This local intellectual and poet is honoured for his achievements in a long inscription (which is an intermingling of cola, poetic phraseology and vernacular forms), under the sign of Hesiod’s authority. Embedded in the text there is an epigram, usually attributed to Pindar, dealing with Hesiod’s double youth.23 Regardless of what the epigram on Hesiod really means, and what Kyrion and his family thought of it, it is evident that the insertion was intended to ennoble Kyrion’s poetic talent and (local) glory, as well as the reputation of his family.24 Similarly, the magniloquent incipit of Tannelos’ epigram sets the deceased in the world of the Homeric heroes. The poem does not say very much about the deeds of Tannelos, but eloquently reveals the intention of his nephew, who aimed at displaying his familiarity with the most prestigious Greek culture. The commissioner identifies himself strongly with Greek culture, and it is such cultural identity that acquires the salience, while other aspects are, significantly, omitted because they are not relevant.25 This is why not a single word is devoted to Tannelos’ religion. The text praises him only for his military and civic virtues, and even the erection of the funerary monument is justified 20 AP 7. 3 and others. See Garulli 2012, 206–12; Kimmel-Clauzet 2013, 286; list of occurrences in Habicht 1999, 97–99 (and see Agosti 2007, 48). 21 Sartre-Fauriat 1998, 219, quoting SEG 7.1060 (Arabia, Radeime AD 404/5). 22 SEG 61.1058 (Nikomedia, 3rd/4th century AD). White marble sarcophagus with gabled lid with acroteria, inscription on a long side of the plain chest. Editio princeps: Akyürek Şahin 2011; revised edition in Jones 2014, 29–33. 23 Ll. 1–2 χε͂ρε, δὶς ἡβήσας καὶ δὶς τάφου ἀντιβολήσας| ἐν σοφίῃ μέτρον Κυρίων (‘Farewell. Twice you flourished and twice you met with the tomb, Kyrion, the standard in wisdom’): cf. IGM 240 = FGE 582–583 = nοs. 31–32 Kimmel-Clauzet χαῖρε δὶς ἡβήσας καὶ δὶς τάφου ἀντιβολήσας, /Ἡσίοδ᾽, ἀνθρώποις μέτρον ἔχων σοφίης. The first who recognised the quotation was Kassel 2014. See also Agosti 2016c, 179–82, for further discussion. 24 It represented one of the ‘trappings of Greek or Latin literary culture’, which ‘perhaps contributing to their possessor’s prestige’, to use an effective definition by Adams 1999, 134. 25 On multiple personal identities in late antiquity, activated according to the contexts of interactions, see Rebillard 2012.

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according to the usual terminology of the epigrams for benefactors. It is, however, probable that the monument gave enough information about his religion (unfortunately, the context of the stone is unknown). This apparent religious ‘neutrality’ is actually common in Late Antique verse inscriptions. In a study of this phenomenon, some years ago, I emphasised the role of classicising language, which often conceals religious faith in virtue of its ambiguity.26 In cases like Tannelos’ epigram, however, it is the intention to activate a civic and cultural rather than a religious identity that made the real difference. Tannelos’ nephew needed to point out his role in the community and the prominence of his family. In light of that, becomes very questionable if the awkwardness of the text did affect the message and the audience response. To the contrary, it is probable that the commissioner, his family, and the community where they lived were pleased with the final result. It is difficult to imagine them regretting prosodic shortcomings in the text. Just as a certain Symphodion is not likely to have payed attention to the very low quality of the verses of the epigram he wanted inscribed on a wall of his workshop in Cyrenaica (Hydrax, 6th century AD). The text compares the mill to the palace of Alkinoos, and that was what Symphodion was looking for.27 To what extent his boast of Hellenic cultural identity was justified is highly debatable, of course – although this is not so important, after all. What really matters, again, is the will to display such an identity.28 This feature is often present in metrical inscriptions coming from marginal areas. To quote an earlier example from the Western part of the Empire, in an inscription found in Chester (2nd century AD, or even later), a certain Antiochos, a physician, erected an altar dedicated to Asklepios, Hygeia and Panakeia, with a metrical text asserting his Hellenic cultural identity.29 Πανυπείροχα|ς ἀνθρώπων | σωτῆρας ἐν ἀθα|νάτοισιν ❦ ‖ Ἀσκληπιὸν ἠ|πιόχειρα ⟨θ’ (?) Ὑγεί|ην ⟨καὶ⟩ Πανάκει|αν ❦ εἰητρὸς ‖ Ἀντίοχος (?) 26

In some cases also on purpose, see Agosti 2010, 336–39. SEG 20.705 = 62.1785; further bibliography and discussion in Dobias-Lalou 2012 and Agosti 2016a, 140–42. Dobias-Lalou (2012, 134) aptly quotes a passage from Synesius’ letter (Ep. 148. 135–145), where a humorous description of the ‘Homeric knowledge’ of the farmers in the countryside of Cyrene is depicted. 28 Biographical verse inscriptions celebrating upward mobility of people from lower classes offer noteworthy comparanda, like the well-known Maktar harvester poem (on which, Shaw 2013, especially 48–68 and 281–95), or the centurions inscription studied by Adams 1999. For an insightful discussion on self-representation in inscriptions from Hellenistic Far East and Egypt, see now Mairs 2014, 103–45. 29 RIB III 3151 = SEG 37.840 = SEG 50.1086 = SEG 59.1118 = TM 167261 (= Samama 524, where an outdated text is unfortunately published). Text and translation according to Clackson and Torsten 2001. 27

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‘?Antiochos the doctor [honours] the all-surpassing saviours of men among the gods, gentle-handed Asklepios, and Hygeia and Panakeia.’

It is evident that Antiochos (the name is uncertain) wanted people to recognise his cultural identity, expressed in a sophisticated poetic language.30 The prominent importance assigned to Greek paideia as a message in itself is evident also in Christian verse inscriptions – which is not particularly surprising, of course. An intriguing example is the epigram coming from a martyrion dedicated to unspecified martyrs from Anasartha (northern Syria). The text is dated to the first part of 5th century AD (on palaeographic grounds essentially) and points out a (non-Jafnid) Arab involvement in areas of Roman settlement.31 [Μ]άρτυσιν εὐύμνοισι πολύλλιτον ἄνθετο νηὸν [π]ολλὸν ὑπ’ αἰθούσσηισι καὶ ἕρκεσιν εὔκτιτον ὧδε [λα]μπρότατος Σιλβανὸς ἀεὶ κρατέων ἐν Ἐρεμβοῖς· [πά]ντα δ’ ὑπ’ ἐννεσίηισιν ἀποιχομένης θέτο παιδὸς [πα]ντοίηισ’ ἀρετῆισιν ἀοιδοτάτης Χασιδάθης [νύ]μφης φυλάρχοιο νέης ἣν ζεῦξαν ἄνακτες· [ἣ κ]αὶ πένθος ἔπαυσε τὸ πάτριον, ούδ’ ὑπό[τρυ]νε [και]ρῶι ὑφ’ αἱματόεντι λαχεῖν γέρας οὐχ[ὶ ἄδα]κρυ [-˘]οσον ψαλμοῖσιν ἐπ’ εὐχωλαῖς τεκο[-]ο [- -] θειοτάτηισι γραφαῖς εχεμετασ[˘-˘]

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‘To the martyrs celebrated in many hymns he dedicated a temple to be much visited by suppliants, large under its porticos and well built in its walls, the lamprotatos (clarissimus) Silvanus, forever powerful among the Eremboi (i.e. Arabs). He did everything at the urging of his child who has now passed, she who was renowned for every sort of virtue, Chasidathe, the young bride of a phylarch, whom the emperors joined in marriage. She also put an end to her father’s grief; she did not urge him to obtain the reward that does not come without tears through a bloody act of daring, (but …) by psalms and by prayers … the holy Scriptures.’

30 Cf. Clackson 2015, 94: ‘Antiochos further advertised his Greekness by his command of highly poetic, literary language and recondite metre … his selection of a literary form of Greek advertises his professional expertise and his allegiance to a wider Greek cultural world.’ Πανυπείροχος is an epic adjective, used by [Oppian] Cyn. 1. 311, 2. 63, 3. 170 and 353, and later in AP 9. 656. 2 (age of Anastasius) and in Dioscorus of Aphrodito (mid-6th century AD). In [Oppian] 2. 63, 3. 170 and 353 the adverb (πανυπείροχα) occurs, and I wonder if we should restore it in our inscription (considering the final sigma a mistake of the stonecutter): Πανυπείροχα| {ς} ἀνθρώπων | σωτῆρα σ’ ἐν ἀθα|νάτοισιν (‘It is you, pre-eminent among men and saviour among the immortals, Asklepios, that Antiochos [honours], and Hygiea etc.’). 31 IGLS II 297 = SEG 52.1544 = SEG 56.1854 = SGO 20/21/01 [addendum in SGO V, p. 14]. New edition and detailed discussion in Feissel 2002, 209–20. Transl. Bevan apud Fisher and Wood 2015, 312, slightly modified.

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This poem celebrates the clarissimus Silvanus who erected the martyrion in honour of his daughter, married with a phylarch, who apparently convinced him to embrace Christian faith. It is uncertain whether Silvanus himself was a phylarch of one of those nomad Arab tribes that eventually became allies of the Empire, or a Roman officer, since the text does not give any clear indications. However, the stilted language constitutes a significant choice in itself and shows the same concern for displaying an identity we have already seen in Tannelos’ epigram.32 Like in the latter, a significant Homeric expression highlights the claim to cultural identity. In line 3 ἐν Ἐρεμβοῖς is a Homeric rarity (Iliad 4. 84) of disputed meaning but usually related to Arabs in the exegetical tradition. Its choice reveals a special attention by the commissioner, proud as he was of his ethnicity and his Greek culture both at the same time.33 Moreover, since the epigram commemorated the erection of a martyrion, Silvanus enacted his Christian identity as well. He converted to Christianity (ll. 7–8, where the ‘grief’ is presumably his previous paganism) and honoured his beloved daughter by acts of Christian piety, instead of bloody war.34 As a result, the text displays the multiple identities of Silvanus: ethnic, cultural, and religious. The language of the poem35 signposts that to the intended audience since the very beginning. Quite remarkably, the first line opens with strongly significant Christian word ([μ]άρτυσιν), followed by two solemn adjectives that convey a Late Antique and typically Christian poetic allure. Indeed, εὐύμνοισι comes from the repertoire of classical hymnic poetry and is here absorbed into Christian language.36 It is a nice example of the ‘usurpation’, a literary technique typical of Christian literary poetry, which finds its meaning in the interaction between an allusion and the transposed context of the model. 32 See, l. 2: cf. Odyssey 8. 57 πλῆντο δ’ ἄρ’ αἴθουσαί τε καὶ ἕρκεα καὶ δόμοι ἀνδρῶν, and Apollonius Rhodius 3. 39; Nonnus Paraphrase of John 5. 4; and see below. 33 Odyssey 4. 84, with Stephanus of Byzantium ε 106 B. For this reason I agree with Feissel (2002, 213), who identifies Silvanos with a phylarch of a tribe (‘titulaire d’une dignité romaine, Silvanos n’était cependant pas un fonctionnaire impérial: son autorité sur les Arabes (appelés en style homérique…), qui plus est une autorité perpétuelle, ne peut être que celle d’un chef indigène, autrement dit un phylarque arabe’). 34 I wonder if in l. 8 we should restore [οἴστ]ρωι ὑφ’ αἱματόεντι, meaning ‘the bloody impulse of war’. Interesting enough, the usual characterisation of Arabs is ‘blood-sucking’ (αἱμοβόροι) in hagiographic narrative (for example, Ps.-Nilus Narr. 3. 1, and Vita Symeonis Stylitis Jun. 41). 35 The style of the poem shows some features of the poetry of its own age, like the presence of a four-word hexameter at l. 5, enhancing the glory of Chasidathe, and only trochaic caesuras. The diction, however, is quite exclusively Homeric and does not show any trace of the so-called ‘modern style’ (that of Nonnus of Panopolis and his followers), with the exception of l. 8 if my restoration is right (see n. 34 above). 36 Hymnus ad Apollinem 19. 207; cf. IGLS XIII 9119a-d = SGO 22/45/05 Bostra (Arabia, 5th century AD) Μαρίαν πολύϋμνον.

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Immediately after, πολύλλιτον is an adjective that already entered epigraphic and literary Christian poetry.37 Both classical paideia and Christian piety contribute to defining the identity of Silvanus. We see here a slight, but significant change. As it is evident from several other inscriptions of the 4th and 5th centuries, the conscious manipulation of classical language experimented by Christian literary poetry since the 4th century gradually entered Christian epigraphic production.38 Thanks to this progressive adaptation, Christian verse inscriptions were able to express a claim of continuity and mark discontinuity with the past, at the same time transforming traditional language into something new, albeit still recognisable as ‘classical’.39 Indeed, it is only in the presence of these features that we can confidently speak of a Christian epigraphy in verse and not simply of verse inscriptions by Christians. What is interesting – and only partially explored – is the connection of this new Christian paideia with the question of local identity. The inscription of Silvanus is an intriguing example. Another instance is the longer of the two epigrams of the mid-6th century, coming from a small town north-east of Apamea, on the Syrian limes,40 and celebrating the defensive walls erected to protect a domus against attacks from the Saracens. ἡ Τριάς, ὁ θεός, πόρρω διώκοι τὸν φθόνον. Εἰκὸν ἐπουρανίοιο θεοῦ, Λόγε, μειλίχιον φῶς, ὃς Χριστὸς τελέθεις, ὃς ἐδείμαο κόσμον ἀλήτην ὄλβον ἐμοὶ προίαλλε, τεὴν χάριν ἄφθιτον αἰεί. Χριστὸς ἀειζῴων λυσ̣[ι]πήμονα χεῖρα κομίζει. τοὔνεκεν οὐ τρομέο[ι]μι κακορρέκτοιο μενοινάς δαίμονος, οὐδ᾿ ἀνδρὸς ς̣τυγερὸν καὶ ἀθέσμιον ὄμμα. Νεύμασιν ὃς μούνοισι θεμείλια πήξαο γαίης, ῥίζας τ᾿ οὐρανίας καὶ ἀτρυ[γ]έτοιο θαλάσσης, τόνδε δόμον λιτομαί σε, [κ]αὶ ἐσσομένοισιν ὀπάζοις [εὔ]διον ἀστυφέλικτον, [ἀ]οίδιμον αἰὲν ὁρᾶσθαι.

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‘Might Trinity, God, chase away Envy! Image of heavenly God, Word, gracious light, you who are the Christ, you who built the wanderer world, send forth to me happiness, your eternal grace. Christ ever-living offers his hand that ends sorrow. So, I could not fear eager desires of the devil, nor the hateful and impious eye of men. You who only with your will established earth’s foundations, and the roots 37 A Callimachean word, probably much more used than we can guess according to present evidence: cf. IKourion 202 and often in Nonnus Paraphrase of John and [Apollinarius] Metaphrase of the Psalms, and see the insightful remarks by Feissel (2002, 212). 38 For this distinction, see Roueché and Sotinel 2017. 39 I further elaborated on this point in some recent contributions: Agosti 2016a; 2017; 2018. See also Raja 2015. 40 SGO 20/05/06 (I’gaz, Syria; AD 546–547). See Feissel 1998, whose text is here reproduced. Further bibliography in Agosti 2008, 194–95.

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of heaven and of unharvested sea, I pray you to give this home to future generations, gracious, unshaken and always famous to see!’

From the second epigram, it is clear that the authors of the texts (οἱ τοὺς στίχους, i.e. Pantaleon, Petros and Leontia, who identify themselves as the authors in ll. 4–5) were people belonging to the same family, endogamic like many others in Syria.41 The language of the quoted epigram clearly shows they were not only familiar with Greek classical authors, but also acquainted with Christian poems, like the Paraphrase of Nonnus, Eudocia’s Saint Cyprian and with the Metaphrase of the Psalms.42 This text eloquently witnesses a discontinuity not only in the composition of poetry, but also in education. In the border regions of the Near East the question of identity was obviously particularly urgent, especially among local elites, who needed to reaffirm their cultural and political role as members of the Roman empire, and to assert their religious identity against the various ethne of the desert. The issue of identity expressed through cultivated language might also acquire a political aspect, and activate this identity of the commissioners. Hence, the emphasis on the connection with the Imperial power that we find in many inscriptions, like in the epigram of Silvanus at l. 6 (where the emperors are mentioned). Quite intriguingly, the use of poetic tags could play a role in strengthening the connection with Constantinople. This is the case of a remarkable lintel inscription from a church of St Sergius, found in Azra’ at the southern border of the Laja (Hawrān), and transported to the theatre of Bostra.43 Dated on palaeographical grounds to the 6th century. This poem combines the story of the dedicatees with a summary of the martyr’s passion, i.e. St Sergius. Sergius was a military saint, whose cult was born in the castrum of Rusafa (then Sergiupolis) and became very popular in the 5th and 6th centuries, both among Byzantines and Arab tribes, and also the Sasanians.44

41

See SGO 22/05/07 l. 4. L. 2 ἐπουρανίοιο θεοῦ: Nonnus Paraphrase 1. 134, 5. 70 – l. 3 κόσμον ἀλήτην: cf. Nonnus Dionysiaka 1. 399, 32. 54; Paraphrase 9. 29, 15. 105, 16. 74 – l. 5 Χριστὸς ἀειζώων: = [Apollinarius] Metaphrase of the Psalms πρ. 110; Nonnus Paraphrase 1. 34, 201 – l. 7 ἀνδρὸς σ̣τυγερὸν καὶ ἀθέσμιον ὄμμα: cf. [Apollinarius] Metaphrase of the Psalms 36, 14 ἀνδρὸς … ἀθέσμου – l. 8 νεύμασιν ὃς μούνοισι: cf. Nonnus Dionysiaka 3. 48 νεύμασι θεσπεσίοις ἰθύνεται ἴχνια φωτός; Nonnus Paraphrase 17. 11 νεύμασιν ὑμετέροισι τό μοι πόρες; Iohannes Gazaeus 1. 159 νεύμαςιν ἀτρέπτοισι – l. 8 θεμείλια πήξαο: Callimachus Hymnus in Apollinem 58; Nonnus Paraphrase 17. 14, Dionysiaka 5. 50, 17. 135, 43. 3; [Apollinarius] Metaphrase of the Psalms 96. 8 θεμείλια πάντοσε γαίης, 88. 22 θεμείλια θήκατο κόσμου, 103. 18 θεμείλια πήξαο χώρων – l. 11 ἀστυφέλικτον in Nonni deliciis (for example Paraphrase 18. 48). 43 SGO 22/14/04 = IGLS XV 186. 44 IGLS XV 186 = SGO 22/14/04. Translation by Fowden 1999, 110–11. See Fowden 2015, 182–89; Sack 2015; Gussone and Sack 2017; Agosti 2017 (with further bibliography). 42

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✠ καὶ νῦν σωτῆρος δεσπότου θεοῦ δύναμιν ὁρῶν| δόξασον ἄνακτ’ ἅγιον, ὃς εἰδώλων ὤλησεν ἔργα·| οὗτος γὰρ δόμος τὸ πρὶν γλυπτῶν δαιμόνων ἐτέτυκτο| ἀχρίστοις λάεσι vac δεδμημένος, οὓς λόγος Χριστοῦ| λῦσεν, ἠδ’ ἀνήγειρεν εὐξέστοισι λάεσι| δόμον ἑοῦ θεράποντος εὐίππεός τε Σεργίου, | σπουδῇ καὶ ἔργοισι παίδων ἐσθλοῦ Θεοδώρου, | Σέργιν αὐτὸν ἅγιον ἔχειν ἀρωγὸν θελήσαντες, | ὃς χθόνιον κράτος ἀνῄνετο ἠδὲ πικρούς τε| βασσάνους ἐδέξατο κεφαλῆς ἄπο μέχρι ποδῶν τε·| πόδας γὰρ ἡλωθεὶς κεφαλῆς οὐκ ἐφίσατ’ ὁ κλῖνος, | ἀλλ’ θανάτῳ προὔδωκεν ψυχὴν ἑῷ δεσπότῃ δώσας| σωτῆρι ἠδ’ ἀντὶ χθονίας οὐρανίαν ἔλαχεν ζ‹ω›ντι|ήν.

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‘And now, seeing the power of the Saviour, master, God, glorify the holy king, who has destroyed the works of idols. For this house was once adorned with images of demons and bound by rough stones, which the logos of Christ has freed and has re-established, with finely polished stone, the house of his servant, the well-mounted Sergius, through the zeal and efforts of the children of noble Theodore, who desired to have Sergius himself as their divine defender, he who spurned worldly authority, and accepted bitter tortures from head to foot. Although his feet were pierced with nails, he did not spare his head, but having given his spirit unto his master and saviour, he delivered it up to death, and in exchange for a worldly life, received his portion of celestial life.’

The text is carefully arranged (6 +1 +1+ 5) and divided into two main parts, and lines 7–8 function as a joint, bearing the name of the church’s benefactors. The first section (ll. 1–6) describes the erection of the church, according to a binary structure based on the opposition between now (νῦν) and once (πρίν). The second section (ll. 9–13) offers a recapitulation of Sergius’ martyrdom, showing that the Passio of the martyr circulated in the region. The word σωτήρ opens and closes the poem, inscribing it under the sign of the salvation given by God through the intercession of St Sergius. Diction is quite pretentious. The author clearly studied some Homer, although his metrics is faulty and awkward, as the first editor remarked. However, as in the previously examined cases, this is our point of view, which does not necessarily correspond to that of the contemporary audience. According to the intentions of the commissioner, this was probably a good poetic inscription. The audience, in my view, considered it a learned example of poetry, assuring social prestige to the donors of the church, who aimed at being renowned in the community for their devotion, munificence, and culture as well. The reuse of Homeric tags, albeit awkward, was coherent with this intention, conveying the flavour of classical paideia and inscribing the identity of the donors under its sign. Furthermore, the poem shows some points of contact with the metrical inscription carved in the entablature of the church of St Sergius in Constantinople, erected

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by Justinian in the mid-520s.45 The parallels suggest that the author of the Azra‘ inscription had some knowledge of the metrical inscription from Constantinople, who had an immediate success as we see from other imitations.46 All of this shows that the church was part of the Imperial programme of promoting the cult of St Sergius in the region (due to his growing popularity and his recognised role of defender of the frontier). It is not difficult to imagine that the text of the refined epigram of the sanctuary in Constantinople circulated in written versions, being a model for any poetic inscription in honour of the saint. We have here a nice example of epigraphic texts spreading from the capital into the periphery, as part of the Imperial policy of encouraging the cult of St Sergius. To build a church in Azra’ meant also to demonstrate the allegiance to the Imperial policy by local upper class, an allegiance expressed also on the literary ground, alluding to a prestigious text from Constantinople. * *

*

To sum up, literary allusions/quotations and style played a significant role in the intended message of Late Antique metrical epigrams, not only in literary terms, but also (and especially) in terms of enactment of identities. These could cover a range of possibilities, from the cultural, to religious and political identities, and the activation of one or multiple identities was related to a specific situation that closer reading of the texts helps us to reconstruct. In order to do that, I suggest that we should give up on the standard interpretive vertical model (i.e. the influence of literary poetry and traditional paideia on the authors of epigrams) and instead we should adopt rather a horizontal model, taking into account the expectations of commissioners and their intended audience. Aesthetic judgments on the quality of texts, although legitimate and useful, should not prevent us from properly appreciating the social role of verse inscriptions.

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AP Appendix I 358 Cougny = 210 Preger. See now Bardill 2017. This point is elaborated in Agosti 2017, 238–39; Bardill 2017, 91–99.

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Mairs, R. 2011: ‘Acrostich Inscriptions at Kalabsha (Roman Talmis): Cultural Identities and Literary Games’. Chronique d’Égypte 86, 281–97. —. 2014: The Hellenistic Far East: Archaeology, Language, and Identity in Greek Central Asia (Berkeley). Miles, R. 1999: ‘Introduction: Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity’. In Miles, R. (ed.), Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity (London/New York), 1–15. Moralee, J. 2018: ‘Emotional Rescue. The Usefulness of Danger in Hellenistic and Roman Epigraphy’. Mnemosyne 72.1, 1–30. Perkins, J. 2009: Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era (London/ New York). Raja, R. 2015: ‘Bishop Aeneas and the Church of St. Theodore in Gerasa’. In Rüpke, J. and Rebillard, E. (eds.), Group Identity and Religious Individuality in Late Antiquity (Washington, DC), 270–92. Rebillard, É. 2012: Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca/London). Robert, L. 1960: Hellenica 11–12: Recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d’antiquités grecques (Paris). Roueché, C.M. 1997: ‘Benefactors in the Late Roman Period: the Eastern Empire’. In Christol, M. and Masson, O. (eds.), Actes du Xe Congrès international d’épigraphie grecque et latine, Nîmes 1992 (Paris), 353–68. Roueché, C.M. and Sotinel, C. 2017: ‘Christian and Late Antique Epigraphies’. In Bolle, Machado and Witschel 2017, 503–14. Sack, D. 2015: ‘St Sergios in Resafa: Worshipped by Christians and Muslims Alike’. In Blömer, M., Lichtenberger, A. and Raja, R. (eds.), Religious Identities in the Levant from Alexander to Muhammed: Continuity and Change (Contextualizing the Sacred 4) (Turnhout), 271–80. Sartre-Fauriat, A. 1998: ‘Culture et société dans le Hauran (Syrie du Sud) d’après les épigrammes funéraires (IIIe–Ve siècles ap. J.-C.)’. Syria 75.1, 213–24. Shaw, B. 2013: Bringing in the Sheaves: Economy and Metaphor in the Roman World (Toronto/Buffalo/London). Thonemann, P. 2014: ‘Poets of the Axylon’. Chiron 44, 191–232. Tsafrir, Y. and Foerster, G. 1997: ‘Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries’. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51, 127–28. Woolley, C.L. 1921: Guide to the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut (Beirut).

GREEK-LATIN BILINGUALISM AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN EAST: CARMINA EPIGRAPHICA GRAECA ET LATINA (CEGL) FROM THE MIDDLE EAST* Valentina GARULLI and Eleonora SANTIN

Abstract A close examination of three bilingual (Greek-Latin) verse inscriptions coming from Middle East and dating to the Imperial age offers a precious chance for observing the relations between Greek and Roman languages and cultures in the everyday life of the Graeco-Roman East: their texts, languages, personal names and monuments betray a multifaceted cultural context, where the interaction of Greek paideia and Roman tradition casts light on a different and more varied local background.

1. METHODS AND AIM Although Greek-Latin bilingualism is the rule in the Graeco-Roman East during the Imperial age, the cultural and linguistic scenario is far from even, since the category of bilingualism covers a wide range of situations and a varied kind of dynamics.1 In this light, bilingual verse inscriptions2 offer precious evidence for relations between languages and cultures in everyday life of the Graeco-Roman East. In particular, they function as a litmus test for defining the roles of Greek * Our warmest thanks go not only to the organisers and to the participants in this conference for suggestions and reactions, but also to Gianfranco Agosti, Julien Aliquot, Alessandro Cristofori and Enrico Magnelli for reading a first draft of this paper. In particular, we should like to acknowledge our gratitude to Patrick Finglass, who kindly improved our English. V.G. is responsible for §§ 4-5, E.S. for § 2, both authors for §§ 1 and 5; all contents have been shared and discussed between the authors. 1 In the following we will be subscribing to the ‘all-embracing’ definition of bilingualism given by Adams (2003, 8): ‘the “term” bilingual will be used here to include even those whose second language is far from perfect’. For different views of bilingualism, see Adams 2003, 3–7. 2 With bilingual verse inscriptions, we mean inscriptions combining some text in Greek and some text in Latin within the same monument, both being in verse. This paper belongs to a joint research project of the authors, which intends to collect and edit the whole corpus of bilingual verse inscriptions (Carmina Epigraphica Graeca et Latina: CEGL). At the moment this corpus includes 23 bilingual verse inscriptions and six further which are doubtful (for metrical reasons, fragmentary status or both), from all over the Greek-speaking world and dating across a wide range of time, from the 1st to the 5th century AD.

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and Roman/Latin language and culture and their interaction in their respective contexts, all the more so since the choice of verse reveals cultural ambition on the part of the clients, who want to insert themselves into an ancient and noble tradition of celebrative and funerary poetry. Dealing with the Graeco-Roman East during the Imperial age raises several questions. What can be regarded as local culture at this stage and within such an environment? What relationship can be detected between Greek and Latin and (as a consequence) between the social, political and military powers that they imply? What relationship – if any – is there between Greek/Latin and other languages? To try to answer these questions, we will focus on three bilingual verse inscriptions from the Middle East included in our corpus: these are private and funerary texts, which mirror the cultural identity of the clients (and sometimes poets) of the monuments more immediately than public texts, which contrariwise convey the voice of authority and thus do not always allow us to identify individual backgrounds and local differences. 2. MAIORINUS’ EPITAPH This is the Greek and Latin epitaph3 of the praetorian prefect Maiorinus.4 The Greek epigram is incised on three contiguous local basalt blocks belonging to the east wall of an ancient building, now partially destroyed, called the Ma’aref house, in the modern village of Burṣr al-Ḥarīri5 located on the plateau of the Trachonitis (Arabic: Leja6 or il-Ledjā) in southern Syria. The Latin inscription is lost, but its text is known thanks to the facsimiles of W.J. Bankes and W.H. Waddington. Our text is based on the latter and on a good photograph of the Greek inscription.7 τύμβος ὑπουδαίων μακάρων ὅδε· τῷ ἔνι κεῖται / συγκλήτου φίλον ὄμμα σαόφρων Μαιουρῖνος, / οὗ δύσις ἀντολίη τε μεσημβρίη τε καὶ ἄρκτοι / πισ3 See ISyrie 2474 (Graeca) and 2475 (Latina); Froehner 1873, 31; F. Bücheler, CLE 622 (Latina); Epigr. Gr. 441 (Graeca); CIL III 124 (Latina); GVI 655 (Graeca); Robert 1960, 302– 05; Feissel 2006, 123–24 (Latina: based on an unpublished copy by W.J. Bankes [1786–1855]); SGO 22/15/01 (Latina: based on the copy by Waddington) and 22/15/02 (Graeca); Sartre-Fauriat 2001, 53–56 (Graeca); Puech 2002, 341–42; IGLS XV.1 241 (Graeca) and 242 (Latina: based on the copy by Bankes). Waddington observed both Greek and Latin inscriptions, Bankes just the Latin inscription and Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat (IGLS XV.1) just the Greek inscription. 4 Cf. A. Gutsfeld, DNP s.v. Maiorinus and PLRE I, 537–38 s.v. Maiorinus 1. See also Barnes 1992, 255; Petit 1994, 152–53 par. 179; Puech 2002, 341–42. 5 About the modern village, see IGLS XV, p. 299–301. 6 About this site, see Dentzer-Feydy et al. 2017; about the Trachonitis, 31–37. 7 We wish to thank Annie Sartre-Fauriat for sharing this photograph with us.

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τοτάτου βασιλεῦσιν ἀμωμήτοιό τε Κέρτου / εὐρύ τε καὶ μάλα καλὸν ἀεὶ κλέος ἀείδουσιν. / Τεῦξε δέ μιν ὤριστος ἐν ἡμερίοισι Φίλιππος, / αὐτοκασιγνήτης πινυτόφρονος ἔκγονος ἥρως, / καὐτὸς ἐὼν βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος ἐσλὸς ὀπάων, / καὶ κτίσε πύργον ὕπερθεν ἐϋπτερύγεσσι πελείαις, / λαοτύπων παλάμῃσιν ἐς οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἀείρας /

5

10

1 ἔνι Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat: ἐνὶ Kaibel, Merkelbach and Stauber || 4 ΒΑCΙΛΕΥCΙΝ lapis: βασ[ι]λεῦσιν Merkelbach and Stauber: λεῦσιν Kaibel, Peek and Robert: ΕΛΕΛΕΥCΙΝ, ἐλέλευσιν Waddington: ἐέλευσιν Froehner | ΤΕΚΕΡΤΟΥ lapis: τε Κέρτου Froehner: τε κέρτου (lt. certus) Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat: τε κερτου vel τεκερτου Waddington: τ’ ἐρου Kaibel: τ’ ἐ ἔρο[ς] Robert: τ’ ἐν ἔργῳ vel τ’ ἐνεργοῦ Peek

sede sub hac recubat clarus praetorique praefectus / Maiorinus, virtute caelebratus magna per orbem. haec illi nu(n)c requies fati haec sedis aeterna, / Filippi extructa studiis gratique nepotis

5

1 ṣub Waddington | RECVBAS Bankes: RECUBAI, recubaṭ Waddington: recubat Merkelbach and Stauber || 2 MAIORINVS Bankes: MAIORINOS Waddington || 3 AETERA, aetera Waddington || 4 NVC Bankes, Waddington: nuc Sartre-Fauriat and Sartre | SEDIS Bankes, Waddington: seds Sartre-Fauriat and Sartre | gratique Sartre-Fauriat and Sartre: Gratique Waddington, Robert, Merkelbach and Stauber

Greek: ‘This is the tomb of the blessed dead of the underworld, here lies / the wise Maiorinus, a person beloved to the Senate; / of him, most loyal to the emperors and son of blameless Kertos, / the West and East, the South and North, / sing always the vast and splendid glory. / It was built by Philippos excellent among mortals, / a hero, son of Maiorinus’ own wise sister; / he too was a noble comrade of the blameless emperor, / and above he founded a tower for the well-winged doves, / thanks to the hands of stone-cutters raising it up to the vast sky.’ Latin: ‘Underneath this seat you lie down bright praetorian prefect / Maiorinus, celebrated through the world for your great virtue. / Now he has this fated rest, this eternal seat, / erected by Filippus, his grateful nephew.’

The first significant issue about this pair of epigrams concerns the context of their discovery and the previously recorded locations of the Latin and Greek inscriptions. Previous editors and travellers who saw both texts, or just one of them, gave different information about their location. The first editor, Waddington, saw both inscriptions in the same building, «dans la petite église», where he noticed also the funerary inscription IGLS XV 251. Von Oppenheim8 8

von Oppenheim 1899, 185.

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claims that he observed the Greek inscription on the external wall of the porch belonging to a big monument called ‘the castle’ beside IGLS XV 251, which is now situated on the wall of the Ma’aref’s house but not immediately close to Maiorinus’ Greek funerary epigram. Bankes in a document in his archives9 recorded that the Latin epigram was incised ‘on a tablet over an arched recess in a large remarkable edifice at Bossr Harreary’. The last editors, Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat, think that ‘le monument sur lequel l’inscription est visible aujourd’hui peut difficilement passer pour le tombeau d’origine’, and that the blocks were reused, maybe more than once, in different later buildings.10 As we can learn from the last verse of the Greek epigram, the original monument was a funerary dovecote, that is to say a structure intended to house pigeons or doves, a type of monument typical of the Hawran, but also attested elsewhere. In accordance with the opinion of Feissel and the Sartres, we assume that the Greek and Latin epigrams appeared on the same monument, hence our decision to present them side by side in our corpus.11 This assumption is consistent with Waddington’s report, but it is especially suggested by the texts themselves, which reveal a parallel composition of the Greek and Latin versions, following a technique of variation that consists in amplifying or reducing one of the two texts.12 The monument description is included in the Greek epigram. This reference to the monument and especially to this specific form of monument, the dovecote, whithin a metrical inscription, is a typical feature of the Hawran epigraphic landscape.13 The epigrams are usually incised on lintels within tabulae ansatae. In this respect, Maiorinus’ one is exceptional among the nine inscriptions describing dovecotes found in southern Syria collected by Sartre-Fauriat,14 because it is incised on contiguous blocks. This position is puzzling and only an architectural study of the building where the Greek inscription is now visible will confirm the hypothesis (at present the most plausible) of the reuse of the blocks. 9

Bankes Archive, Kingston Lacy, 47, no. 51; cf. Sartre-Fauriat 2004, 15–53. See IGLS XV, p. 308. 11 See n. 2. 12 Four items from our corpus of CEGL, including Maiorinus’ epitaph, fall into this particular category of bilingual epigrams based on amplification/reduction of Greek or Latin texts: IGEP 395, Lebek 1995, 107–53, IUrb.Rom. 1250. 13 This group of inscriptions that describe the funerary dovecote and share different thematic and lexical aspects was partially noticed and studied by Waddington, then re-examined by Will (1949) and analysed as an ensemble which shows ‘l’importance du groupement et de l’étude des thèmes pour la chronologie dans une région donnée’ by Robert 1960. See now Sartre-Fauriat 2001 II, 69–72. 14 Sartre-Fauriat 2001 II, 69–70 and 2001 I (corpus) 18, 53–56 (about Maiorinus’ inscriptions and the context of their discovery), 69, 80, 96–97, 149, 170–73, 193, 199. 10

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The dovecotes are quite common in 4th-century AD Hawran; some of them can be precisely dated between 354 and 358, others more broadly from the 4th century. Sartre-Fauriat argued that this type of funerary building usually belongs to Christian owners.15 However, a long and very well written epigram from Philadelphia-Amman published by Gatier and Vérilhac16 proves that dovecotes, as funerary monuments, already existed in the 2nd century AD and shows (at least in this case) that they were related to pagan cults worshipping sky-gods connected with the cycle of seasons and fertility (Zeus and Demeter). It seems therefore that this particular kind of building first related to the rural and pagan world of the ancient Near East, as described by the skilful poet of Philadelphia-Amman, was at some point incorporated into the Christian universe. They were then reinterpreted and translated into formulae that do not reveal always explicitly a Christian faith, but can be considered, in 4th-century Hawran, a kind of crypto-Christianism, because of the nature of the subject itself, since the symbolism of pigeon- and dove-houses raised up to the sky is patent. The identification of Maiorinus is due to Louis Robert.17 He is not Libanius’ pupil, as some scholars wrongly argued in the past, but his father, the praetorian prefect. In a letter to Andronicus, governor of Arabia dated AD 357 (Ep. 560F = W474), Libanius praises a new disciple, called Μαιορῖνος, who was previously the pupil of another teacher (maybe Acacius) and then started to admire and follow him. In his letter, Libanius commends the noble origins of the new pupil, because his father ‘held the highest office’. The epigrams of Burṣr al-Ḥarīri reveal that the praetorian prefecture was such a charge. In a recommendation letter for Maiorinus, dated AD 365 (Ep. 1510F = W1534), Libanius wrote that his father showed very good skills as a chief in the public administration and that the boy followed in his father’s footsteps. The verbs referring to Maiorinus’ father are all in past tense, which might mean that the praetorian prefect had been dead for some years in 365. Maiorinus was the praetorian praefect of Constantius II, son of Constantine, a Christian emperor, enemy of paganism. Maybe he was in charge when the emperor was resident in Syrian Antioch, surely before AD 357:18 the mention, in the Greek text, of more than one emperor (πιστοτάτου βασιλεῦσιν) sug-

15

Sartre-Fauriat 2001, 71. Gatier and Vérilhac 1989. See now Agosti forthcoming a. 17 See Robert 1960, 305 and IGLS XV, p. 307, n. 30. 18 Between 351 and 354 according to Barnes 1992; between 344 and 346 according to PLRE 538. 16

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gests that he probably served as prefect when more than one emperor was reigning. The Christian faith of Maiorinus and his family cannot be inferred from the epigram’s vocabulary, as will be discussed below, but it seems to be confirmed by the epigraphic sources: 1. IGLS XV 243, Χρ(ιστέ), βο(ήθει) Μαιουρίν, a now lost inscription of Burṣr al-Ḥarīri, seen by Waddington ‘près de la grande église’, which can be assigned to the same Maoiorinus as the bilingual funerary inscriptions or to a member of his family; 2. IGLS XV 235, a dedication incised on the lintel of a church (dated AD 517–518) whose donor, Elias, archdeacon of St Sergius’ church, declares himself a descendant of Maiorinus’ line. The family presumably came from the village of Buṣr Al-Ḥarīri/Bosora(?) or had properties in this land for generations. It was long the most illustrious and powerful family in the village, as attested by inscriptions (cf. above IGLS XV 235). The study of rhetoric, law and Latin must have been a family tradition, since a rhetorical education and knowledge of Latin language were needed to access the highest administrative offices in the Roman East at least until the end of the 4th century.19 Maiorinus (fem. Maiorina) is a Latin cognomen, used by at least two members of the prefect’s family. Different occurrences are attested in the Roman West.20 In the Greek epigram three persons are mentioned: the deceased, his father(?) and his nephew, the dedicator of the monument. We do not share Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat’s interpretation of ΚΕΡΤΟΥ21 (genitive at l. 4) as a latinism (κέρτου = Latin certi). This form, unattested elsewhere, would be inappropriate in a Greek epitaph competently written by a native Greek-speaker. We prefer Froehner’s idea, that Κέρτου is a personal name, but not, as he thought, belonging to Maiorinus (Maiorinus Certus) but probably to Maiorinus’ father.22 The Greek form Κέρτος (Latin: Certus) is rare in the Roman East. We have only a couple of attestations: IByzantion S65: Ν(εμέριος) Κορνήλι[ος] Κέρτος (2nd century AD?) and l. 10 of the epigram for the jurist Konon 19

Rochette 1997, 35 and 167–77. CIL III 9565 (Salona, 4th century AD), CIL V 3729 (Verona, date?), CIL VIII 24590 = 24656 (Carthage, date?), CIL XIII 2415 (Lugdunum, date?); IMS I 151–159 (Moesia Superior, date?). 21 The reading on the stone is clear, a mistake is highly improbable and there is no need to introduce corrections as did Kaibel, Robert and Peek, cf. apparatus and Robert 1960, 302, n. 8. 22 For a thorough discussion of this interpretation, see Aliquot forthcoming: he argues that Kernos is the name of either a relative or a colleague of Maiorinus. In his view, a parent/child relationship is not assured by the text (see his n. 17). Since the passage is not easy, it is reasonable to keep this alternative open. 20

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of Kolybrassos from Ayasofya in Pamphylia,23 now dated between the end of the 3rd (295) and the first half of the 4th century (before AD 357/8). The Latin form Certus is quite common in the Western provinces and attested twice in the Eastern ones, in Macedonia and Acaia (at Philippi: CIL III 666; and Ptoion: CIL III 7302). In the 14-line Greek epigram (seven lines per block) there is no coincidence beetwen verse and line, but the end of each verse-line is highlighted by a slanting stroke (a kind of slash). In Bankes’s and Waddington’s facsimiles of the lost Latin inscription disposed on six lines, which are not verse-lines, we can see the same type of division marks, but they are used only when the end of verse falls within a line. These signs have the same function in Greek and Latin; the same slanting strokes are attested in another verse inscription of Burṣr al-Ḥarīri (IGLS XV 248). The use of the same kind of division marks to highlight the metrical nature of the text reveals a widespread epigraphic habit in late antiquity.24 Letters have a different shape in Greek and Latin. Bankes’s copy shows that in the Latin inscription the letter form is quite cursive, while the Greek shows monumental and lunate forms (see in particular the different shapes of M, E). The association of a Latin and a Greek epigram in a Greek-speaking zone of the Roman empire is related to the high position of Maiorinus.25 The praetorian praefecture in the 4th century was closely linked to the use of Latin not only in inscriptions dedicated by the prefect himself but also in dedications that cities made to him.26 The four-verse-line Latin epigram seems a kind of summary of the tenverse-line Greek one, since only the main textual elements have been selected by the author and simply expressed without long periphrasis and accumulations of adjectives. More than once, one or more Greek verse corresponds to only one Latin hemistich, and the two versions diverge not only in length but also in the quality of the message. 23 See Bean and Mitford 1970, 74–76, no. 49; Gilliam 1974; Lebek 1976; and SGO 18/18/01. About the identification of the Kernos mentioned in the epigram and that mentioned in the epigram under examination, see Aliquot forthcoming. 24 See Agosti forthcoming b. 25 Robert 1960, 304. 26 Feissel mentions a kind of linguistic privilege which belongs to the emperor, the prefect, but not to other administrators, a privilege that is not extended to any place and that changes over time in favour of Greek language (cf. Feissel 2006, 106–07). In our corpus CEGL, the other two funerary inscriptions coming from the Roman East and dating from the 4th and 5th centuries are linked to the figure of the praetorian prefect (see Lebek 1995; Feissel 2006, 120, Constantinople, AD 447), or to the emperor and his circle of loyal collaborators (see Traquair and Wace 1909 = CIG IV 8612; Feissel 2006, 119, Constantinople, AD 390).

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It may well be that they were written by the same Greek-speaking poet who was able to compose verse in Latin. Maybe he was a member of Maiorinus’ family (Philippos?) used to practising rhetorical exercices of variation, translation and paraphrase at school.27 Each syntagm or sentence of the Greek has a parallel in Latin, as it is possible to see in the following comparative list of pericopes belonging to the first part of the eulogy: 1. sede sub hac recubas τύμβος ὑπουδαίων μακάρων ὅδε· τῷ | ἔνι κεῖται 2. clarus praetori|que praefectus συνκλήτου φίλον ὄμμα | σαόφρων 3. virtu|te caelebratus magna per orbem σαόφρων … οὗ δύσις ἀν|τολίη τε μεσημβρίη τε κὲ ἄρκτοι πισ|τοτάτου βασιλεῦσιν ἀμωμήτοιό τε Κέρ|του εὐρύ τε καὶ μάλα καλὸν ἀεὶ κλέος | ἀείδουσιν.

The Latin is precise and technical in describing the function of Maiorinus (praetori|que praefectus [scil. praetorio praefectus]) while the Greek employs the expression φίλον ὄμμα,28 which is vague and ambiguous, as we cannot guess the office of Maiorinus. It was familiar, though, to an educated local reader because this metonymic expression (eye for person) is common in the regional vocabulary of epigraphic poetry and in contemporary poetry.29 Latin clarus parallels the Greek σαόφρων: in referring to his celebrity, the Latin verse still stresses the social identity of Maiorinus, while the Greek moves to individual and personal qualities. This σαόφρων has also an equivalent in the Latin virtus magna. The simple syntagm per orbem is developed in a Greek verse which describes the limits of this orbis. The participle caelebratus is developed in a full Greek verse (εὐρύ τε καὶ μάλα καλὸν ἀεὶ κλέος | ἀείδουσιν), which echoes key concepts of Greek paideia, and especially of epic poetry, as the words κλέος and ἀείδουσιν make Maiorinus an object of song and endow him with a heroic and epic aura. 27 The main reference concerning this kind of exercises is the Latin-learning material for Greek students such as the Grammar of Dositheus and the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana. About bilingual texts for language learning, see Dickey 2014; 2016; about paraphrase, see also Cottier 2002. 28 Cf. ἀγλαὸν ὄμμα in the epigram for the Christian Bassos, see SGO 22/21/01 and IGLS XVI 523 (Maximianopolis – Shaqqa, Merkelbach-Stauber date AD 356/7; on the dating to the 4th century AD, see Robert 1960, 307–12). 29 Robert 1960, 303, n. 4.

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Only the Greek epigram expresses the personal merits of Maiorinus towards the Imperial power (πιστοτάτου βασιλεῦσιν) and introduces his father’s(?) name (ἀμωμήτοιό τε Κέρτου) speaking of the quality of the latter, which must have been well known to the local people. All this is represented in the Latin epigram by only the generic institutional label of virtus magna. The second part of the content is related to the dedicator and the monument: 4. Filippi extructa stu|diis gratique nepotis τεῦξε δέ μιν ὤριστος ἐν | ἡμερίοισι Φίλιππος αὐτοκασιγνή|της πινυτόφρονος ἔκγονος ἥρως καὐτὸς ἐὼν βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος ἐσ|λὸς ὀπάων

While the Latin does not give space to Philippos and qualifies him only in connection to his uncle (grati), the Greek also praises the nephew, keeping for him all the traditional celebratory terminology of the Greek epigraphic tradition and clarifying, even if without specifying his charge, his relationship with the emperor (καὐτὸς ἐὼν βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος ἐσλὸς ὀπάων). Such an extension of the praise of the dedicator, who also made a successful career in the high Imperial administration and thereby certainly received a suitable education, suggests that he might be the author of the epigrams. 5. haec illi nu(n)c requies fati, haec sedis | aeterna καὶ κτίσε πύργον ὕπερ|θεν ἐϋπτερύγεσσι πελείαις, λαοτύ|πων παλάμῃσιν ἐς οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἀεί|ρας

The celebration of the monument gives the poet the opportunity to flaunt his rhetorical and poetical abilities in Greek, as well as a reason to celebrate Philip and his exploits again. From a morphosyntactic point of view, the Greek text appears more correct than the Latin which shows phonetic transcription: nuc for nunc, sedis for sedes (unless they are the mistakes of the stone-cutter). Caelebratus for celebratus is maybe also a phonetic spelling. The abuse of the enclitic -que in pretorique and gratique corresponds to a frequent use of the polysyndeton in Greek (τε). The metre seems to confirm the better quality and regularity of the Greek compared to the Latin. In Latin the first three verses are dactylic; it is clear that the poet’s intention was to write hexameters, but presumably he could not handle Latin metric rules well and he loses control of the prosody. By contrast, in Greek a particular care of metre in the ten dactylic hexameters can be observed: two are spondaic (2 and 5) and two have tetrakola (4 and 7). The strong parallel between the Greek and Latin versions reveals a joint conception of the texts written to be engraved on the same monument and to be

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seen together, the Latin to mark the high military and administrative office of the deceased and his proximity to the emperors, the Greek to be read and understood by educated local people. In other words, the Greek epigram praises both the deceased and the dedicator of the monument in a more verbose fashion, while the Latin, the language of the Imperial power, is more technical and precise in expressing the public function of the deceased, a position the Greek alludes to by means of poetical circumlocutions and via the reference to absolute fidelity to the emperors. 30 Neither the Greek nor the Latin verses present textual elements that would unequivocally reveal the Christian faith of Maiorinus and his family. A vague allusion to eternal rest may be concealed in the expressions requies fati and sedis aeterna. In the Greek epigram the poet chooses traditional poetic language and uses standard pagan formulae like ὑπουδαίων μακάρων and the common ἐς οὐρανὸν εὐρύν. Such a mix of pagan and Christian imagery, metaphors and formulae within the same poem is intentional and frequent in the funerary epigraphy of the Near East and Hawran during the 3rd and 4th centuries; it is connected to the desire both to display one’s classical education and to conceal one’s religious faith in troubled periods.31 We noted, however, that the description of the dovecote might in itself be a sign of Christian faith. The poet was influenced by the classical models of scholarly education. Sartre and Sartre-Fauriat find epic and tragic echoes in the vocabulary (IGLS XV, p. 308), but beyond the epic cover, we find a local set of formulae and themes which make this bilingual epigram ‘a local product’. A close comparison with other epigrams of Trachonitis32 confirms this assertion: for example, the adjective ἀμύμων is also present in the epigram IGLS XV 248, l. 2, the only other epigram from the village of Burṣr al-Ḥarīri. In the Greek version, the last verses have the strongest connection to the local environment. While the Latin characterises the tomb in general terms as a place of rest and as an eternal home, the Greek develops a detailed and precise description in which the explicit reference to stone-cutters’ work makes the construction of the dovecote out of local basalt blocks a challenge that mobilises local workers and becomes a village matter. The linguistic reality of the ancient Near East was multilingual in the Roman era. Greek quickly became the dominant language but shared the linguistic space with Latin (used in the Roman administration and army from the 1st until 30 31 32

Robert 1960, 303, n. 3. See Sartre-Fauriat 2001 II, 213–29. See also Agosti 2010. See Robert 1960.

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the 4th or 5th centuries AD), Aramaic and its dialects (Nabataean, Palmyrene, Syriac, Samaritan, Hatrean), and Hebrew. In this multilingual context, attested by literary and epigraphic sources, bilingual documents are present but rare. Even more isolated are the cases of Graeco-Latin bilingualism, all related to administrative uses of the linguistic medium or, even in a private context, linked to the army and to officials of the Roman government. In the Hawran, archaeologists have found only one33 partially bilingual inscription, an epitaph dedicated by a Roman veteran: the main text is in Greek and only the abbreviations used to designate the legions in which the soldier has served are in Latin (cf. IGLS XV 210). IGLS XV 411 is not really a bilingual text, but rather a double dedication from two dedicants, one who writes in Greek and the other in Latin. If Maiorinus’ epigrams were inscribed as a bilingual inscription on the same monument, we would be facing one of the most developed and complex Greek and Latin inscriptions attested in Syrian epigraphy. This complexity is a tangible sign of the culture and wealth of a local elite composed of high officials who studied Latin to improve their career.34 They flaunted their wealth through impressive funerary monuments and magnified the greatness and beauty of the buildings through the verse that they had incised upon them.35

33 IGLS XV 411 is not really a bilingual inscription, but rather a double dedication on the same object addressed to Jupiter by two dedicators, one who writes in Greek and the other in Latin. 34 Rochette 1997, 249: ‘the praetorian prefect of the East is necessarily bilingual’. 35 Concerning the flowering of epigraphic poetry in Hawran’s funerary epigraphy, see Sartre-Fauriat 2001 II, 199–203. According to Gatier (1992), the absence or extreme scarcity of inscribed poems in nerve centres of Greek culture as Pella, Gadara and Abila and their presence in Jerash and Philadelphia during the 2nd century AD, in the Hawran and at Petra in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and in the Moab between the 5th and 7th centuries, is not to be interpreted as an index of poor Hellenisation of these territories, but rather as a phenomenon of acculturation and a trend concerning the epigraphic evidence produced by a local elite recently Hellenised. In other words, the verse inscription is to be considered as ‘a luxury’, as a hallmark; the clients and/or the authors of epigrams were the new rich, educated people living in urban and suburban locations, rather than truly cultivated people, such as teachers, rhetors and men of learning who, despite their proficiency in composing verse, could not afford the engraving of texts on longlasting and magnificent monuments. When they incised verse inscriptions for different purposes they chose monuments that were less lasting and expensive, and thus more suited to their standard of living.

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3. IOPE’S EPITAPH This bilingual verse inscription from the 1st–2nd century AD mourns for the untimely death of the 15-year-old Iope,36 although it does not tell us how she died: vacat Iope > Hi- vacat vacat lari > Caes(aris) > vacat vacat uixit > an(nis) XV vacat vacat quid superos potuit iuuenis laesisse penates, quod tumulo Iopes ossa sepulta latent? nec patrio potui gremio mea debita fatis reddere nec manibus lumina contegere: in Pygia miserae corpus, Volcane, cremasti sumeret ut tellus uneris ossa mei, et quae debebam matri supremo tempore terram ponere uel maestos pietatis scindere crines, effecit properans mortis quae uenerat hora ut genitrix casus fleret ubique meos. vacat Ἰοπὴ vacat vacat χρηστὴ χαῖρε vacat vacat τίς τοὐμὸν δύστηνον ἐπ’ οὔνομα γράψε τὸ χαῖρε; τίς κωφὴν ματέως θήκατό μοι χάριτα; οὔτε γὰρ εἰσορόω λαμπρὸν φάος οὔτ’ ἐσακούω, ὀστέα καὶ σποδιὴ κειμένη ἐνχθόνιος. ΠΡΩΙΓΑΡΗΔ ἀλλὰ θρήνων, φίλε, παύεο· μῆτερ Πρειμιγένη, ἀπόθου θυμοδακεῖς ὀδύνας. τῆς ἐπ’ ἐμοὶ λύπης παραμύθιον ἐμ φρεσὶ θέσθε τοῦτον καὶ μακάρων παῖδες ἔνερθεν ἔβαν. vacat vacat ἔζησεν vacat vacat ἔτη ιεʹ

5

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4 qui Froehner, Kaibel, Lafaye | potui Froehner, Kaibel, Lafaye, Merkelbach and Stauber || 7 mas Mommsen, Le Bas and Waddington, Lafaye, Kearsley || 8 PRHYGIA facs. || 9 MUNERIS facs., corr. Bücheler || 13 gentrix Mommsen, Froehner, Bücheler, Lafaye || 19 ΕΝ ΧΘΟΝΙΟΙΣ facs., corr. Kaibel, coll. Leon. in AP 7 740.2 ἐν χθονίοις Mommsen, Kearsley || 20 ΠΡΩΙΓΑΡΗΔΑΛΛΑ facs., ΠΡΩΙΓΑΡΗΔ ἀλλὰ Merkelbach and Stauber: π δ’ ἀλλά, Kaibel, Lafaye: πρωὶ γὰρ ἠδ’ – ἀλλὰ Peek: πρωί. δ’ ἅμα Froehner: ραήρ. ἀλλὰ Kirchhoff apud Mommsen || 23 ΤΟΥΤΟΝ facs., τοῦτον Kaibel, Lafaye, Peek: τοῦτο Le Bas and Waddington: τοῦτ’, ὅ Kirchhoff apud Mommsen, Froehner || 25 ΕΤΗ ΙΕ facs.: ΕΤΗ ΙΓ Chandler, Böckh 36 See Chandler 1774, 10, no. 28 (prose inscriptions only); CIG II 3111 (prose inscriptions only); LW 114; CIL III 423; Froehner 1875, 26–28, no. 114; Epigr. Gr. 298 (l. 1 of the Latin epigram; Greek epigram); App. Anth. 2. 350 (Greek epigram); CLE 1168 (Latin epigram); IGR IV 1577; GVI 2006; SGO 03/06/04; Kearsley 2001, 61–62, no. 85; Garulli 2012, 266–70, no. 3.1.12.

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Latin: ‘Iope daughter of Ilarus slave of Caesar lived 15 years. / How was she able – being so young – to harm the upper Penates, / so that Iope’s bones are buried under this tumulus? / Neither could I render my due to the Fate on my father’s lap, / nor close his eyes with my hands: / in Phrygia you cremated, Vulcan, the corpse of this poor girl, / so that the earth might take on the bones of my burial, / and for her, whom I should have buried at the last time / or torn the mournful locks of piety, / the hour of death which had come quickly / brought it to pass that she who was the parent lamented my misfortunes at any time.’ Greek: ‘Excellent Iope, farewell! / Who wrote the “farewell” beside my unhappy name? / Who dedicated to me a senseless gift in vain? / For I do not look upon bright light nor do I give heed / as I lie, bones and ash, among the gods of the underworld, / [---] but, my dear, cease your lamentations; mother / Preimigene, lay aside your heart-breaking pains; / as comfort for your grief over me place / this, that even the children of the blessed ones went below. / She lived 15 years.’

Almost nothing is known about this funerary monument: we have available only a facsimile published by Le Bas and Waddington, with no photograph, and its size and original position are unknown. According to the first editors, this relatively long epitaph was inscribed on an ancient marble column, reemployed on the entranceway of a mosque at Seferihisar, in the area of the ancient Ionian city of Teos. Since it is unlikely that a column was reused far from its original context, we can infer that the monument itself came from Teos. Nonetheless, no reference to Teos can be detected in the inscribed text: the only geographical reference is the mention of Phrygia – l. 8, in the Latin text – as the place where the dead girl was cremated. In any case, the lack of any reference to Iope’s fatherland is unusual, and suggests the following conclusions: –

Phrygia was neither the burial place nor the fatherland of Iope’s family: otherwise this would have been emphasised; Iope’s family was not rooted in a certain place, and did not have a welldefined tradition and history.

–

The names of the dead girl and her parents seem to fit perfectly in such a frame. The dead girl’s name, Ἰοπή, is a Greek name, rarely attested: besides our inscription, there is a Stesichorean passage (Stesichorus fr. 90. 21–23 F.), a 6th-century BC Athenian example37 and a Late Hellenistic inscription from Miletus (IMilet VI.2 449). The variant Ἰόππα is attested at Delphi in the 2nd century BC (FD III 6, 91, ll. 7–8, 9, 13: 124–16 BC). ᾿Ιοπᾶς (masc.) and ᾿Ιοππίς (fem.) are also rare: the former is found at Myrmekion, in Crimea, in 37

A black-figured Attic hydria (see Walters 1893, 191, no. B 329).

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the 4th century BC (SEG 37.666.7), the latter at Delphi in the second half of the 2nd century BC (GDI II 1698.4). Both inscriptions from Delphi are manumission acts. Ἰο(π)πή was the ancient Greek name of the harbour city of Jaffa, and also a mythological feminine name, attested in several Greek and Latin sources as the name of a daughter of Iphicles38 as well as that of a daughter of Aeolus and wife of Cepheus, who would have founded the homonymous town in Palestine.39 The latter version makes the connection of this personal name to Palestine quite strong. The mother’s name, Πρειμιγένη, is a rare variant form of the more popular Πριμιγένεια, a sort of transliteration of the Latin name Primigenia and attested in all its phonetic variants (either with ει or ι in the first and penultimate syllable). The Latin names Primigenius and Primigenia correspond to the Greek names Πρωτογένης/Πρωτογένεια: the former are Latin cognomina and the latter are Greek names, related to the circumstances of a child’s birth.40 Such anthroponyms were apparently more popular among slaves and women.41 ῞Ιλαρος, Iope’s father, had a popular Greek name;42 its Latin equivalent is Hilarus. In Late Antique Greek inscriptions ῾Ιλάριος too is found, following the Latin Hilarius, for which a genitive Hilari is also attested.43 Since the name of Iope’s father occurs only in the genitive at ll. 1–2 (Hilari), we cannot be sure whether its nominative was ῞Ιλαρος/Hilarus or ῾Ιλάριος/Hilarius, although 38 Stesichorus apparently mentions Iope as mother of Demophon and daughter of Iphicles (fr. 90. 21–23 F.), whereas Plutarch Theseus 29. 1 regards her as daughter of Iphicles and wife of Theseus: Finglass (2013, 44–45) thinks that Stesichorus might be Plutarch’s source, since Plutarch seems to know Stesichorus well elsewhere (Finglass 2013, 44, n. 76), and that the name Ἵππη, given in the pseudo-hesiodean Catalogue of women (fr. 147 M.-W.) to Theseus’ wife might be a mistake for Iope, although the ἵππ- stem does recur in Theseus’ genealogy. In particular, he remarks that the character of Iope mentioned by Stesichorus and Plutarch establishes a connection between Theseus and Heracles through Iphicles, a connection well attested from Stesichorus onwards both in literature and in the figurative arts. 39 Stephanus of Byzantium ι 72 Billerbeck and Zubler: ἐκλήθη δὲ ἀπὸ Ἰόπης τῆς Αἰόλου θυγατρός, τῆς γυναικὸς Κηφέως τοῦ κτίσαντος καὶ βασιλεύσαντος, τοῦ καταστερισθέντος, οὗ ἐστι γυνὴ Κασσιέπεια. οἱ Ἕλληνες κακῶς φασιν. After mentioning Iope as daughter of Aeolus and wife of Cepheus, Stephanus brands as false the Greek version of the story, according to which Cepheus was transformed into a star and Cassiepeia, Andromeda’s mother, was his wife. Since the Suda ϰ 453 A. explains the proper name Cassiepeia as meaning ἡ ϰαλλονή, ‘beauty’, and the Hebrew word which generated the name of Jaffa (‫ )יפו‬refers to beauty (‫)יפי‬, the Greek Ἰόπη appears as a Greek spelling of the Hebrew name of Cepheus’ wife, called by Greeks Cassiepeia, whose daughter Andromeda is the protagonist of a classical myth located in Jaffa (see Gruppe 1889, 93; Tümpel 1890–94, 295; and now Kaizer 2011, especially 17). 40 On such Latin cognomina, see Kajanto 1965, 74–78. 41 See Kajanto 1965, 76–78. 42 158 cases are recorded in LGPN (http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/database/lgpn.php [consulted May 2019]). 43 See Perin 1965, 744 s.v. Hilarius.

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the genitive Hilari is more common for ῞Ιλαρος/Hilarus. The cognomen Ἵλαρος/Hilarus is followed by Caes(aris) – with servus implied – which is the usual title of Imperial slaves.44 In light of all this, Iope was daughter of Imperial slaves,45 and this allows us to explain the use of Latin within a Greek-speaking context, and the lack of a clear place of family origin, since the members of the Imperial familia had to move throughout different regions of the Greek East. Moreover, the choice of a Greek mythological name of Hebrew origin for their daughter may reveal either a high education or a Hebrew origin for her parents, or both. Be that as it may, both the dead girl’s name and that of her mother are well attested within a servile context. As said, the inscription dates from the 1st– 2nd century AD.46 The inscribed text includes prose and verse (elegiac couplets), both bilingual; both Latin and Greek verses are accompanied by a short prose text in the same language. The Latin prose inscription preceding the Latin poem declares the name of the dead girl together with that of her father, and her age; the Greek prose text preceding the Greek poem is the traditional farewell to the dead person, whereas the Greek prose following the epigram indicates Iope’s age. Both epigrams begin with a question, which is intended to be unanswered (ll. 4 quid, 5 quod ~ 16 τίς, 17 τίς), and emphasises the deep complaint about such a painful untimely death; however, this complaint follows different paths in the Latin and in the Greek epigram. The first couplet of the Latin epigram, immediately following the short prose passage containing the name and age of Iope, refers to her apparently in the third person,47 and introduces the ipsissima verba of the girl from l. 6 onwards, as the passage in the first person singular indicates. Within such a frame the initial question sounds like the reaction of an anonymous vox populi to the preceding information, concerning the premature death of Iope; she replies in the following lines. In other words, the poem enacts a sort of dialogue between an anonymous passer-by, who has read the essential and dry prose, and the dead girl herself.48 44 For Imperial slaves and freedmen a reference work is Chantraine 1967, who deals with nomenclature of Imperial slaves and its abbreviations at pp. 174–88; he records 29 examples of the abbreviation Caes(aris), most from Rome (Chantraine 1967, 175). About Imperial slaves, see also Boulvert 1970; 1974. 45 See Perin 1965, 798 s.v. Iope. 46 According to Weaver (1972, 52), the omission of ser. from the slave indication is particularly common in the Julio-Claudian period (see also Weaver 1964, 135). 47 That the first couplet is uttered at the third person, is far from certain: however, it is suggested by the use of the personal name without first person pronouns. 48 On different forms of dialogues in funerary epitaphs, see, for example, Garulli 2014.

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The Greek poem is consistent in the use of the first person singular from its beginning: nonetheless, she replies in the following lines to the greeting conveyed by the words Ἰοπή and χρηστὴ χαῖρε, which must be figured as uttered and inscribed on her tomb by the relatives of the young woman. In this case the dialogue develops not within the epigram, but between the prose and the verse passages. After the initial question, Iope’s words show some formal similarities: the negative conjunctions at the beginning of the lines are similar in both texts (ll. 6–7 nec … nec, 18 οὔτε … οὔτ’), but the Latin epigram focuses on the relationship between the parents and their daughter, whereas the Greek epigram concentrates on the idea of death as annihilation of the person and his world. In the following the similarity between the two texts becomes weaker: the Latin poem insists on Iope’s cremation in Phrygia (ll. 8–9), and complains about the unnatural reversal of the relationship among the generations that an untimely death produces (ll. 10–13); the Greek lines turn to the more traditional invitation addressed to the parents to cease lamentations (ll. 20–21), and conclude with the consolatory argument that even the children of the immortals are subject to death (ll. 22–23). As a result, Iope has a bilingual voice: what is more, she addresses different addresees with different languages. The Latin text – which mentions the name of the dead girl’s father, mentions the Penates, alludes to the cremation in a foreign land, and claims about the reversal of the relationship between generations – seems to address an audience external to the circle of friends and relatives, and mirrors an ‘external’ point of view, belonging to the social context. The Greek text, which includes for sure only the name of Iope’s mother at l. 21 (Πρειμιγένη), seems to imply the knowledge of facts and persons, betraying a more intimate, subjective, individual point of view, belonging to the horizon of the family and emphasising the emotional aspects of Iope’s sad story (death as physical annihilation of the person, a heart-breaking pain, the idea of a sad destiny which afflicts even the children of the μάκαρες, who therefore appear in a human light). In this respect Latin appears as the code of social communication, some sort of official and public language, while Greek seems to be the private and familiar language of Iope and her beloved. A comparison between the two epigrams shows a few metrical mistakes in the Latin text,49 together with some awkward turnings.50 The pattern debita 49

Line 10 is hypermetrical. At ll. 6–7 the harsh change of subject from one clause to the next one makes the passage quite hard to understand, and at ll. 10–13 the syntax changes while in progress, since the relative clause introduced by quae has no completion. 50

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fatis has some poetic antecedents (for example. Lucan 8. 415, Valerius Flaccus 3. 461). The Greek epigram is composed in a generically Ionic language, and betrays some changes in the pronounciation of Greek.51 Despite a hiatus at l. 21 (Πρειμιγένη, ἀπόθου), the whole text seeks a poetic diction by using uncontracted forms, as well as Homerisms,52 to say nothing of the sequence ὀστέα καὶ σποδιή (l. 19), which has a long history in Greek epigram,53 and therefore betrays some knowledge of this tradition. The author (or authors) of this bilingual inscription know(s) both languages well and aim(s) at realising a unitary project. Nonetheless, the quality of the Latin epigram is worse than that of the Greek one: whoever composed these lines, he had a better education in Greek composition than in Latin. In other words, Greek paideia appears strong enough in this social and geographical context; or better, paideia speaks Greek, not Latin, within such a context. This bilingual verse inscription is one of the 155 bilingual inscriptions collected by Kearsley in Asia Minor (including Mysia, Aeolis, Ionia, Caria, Phrygia and the islands).54 In particular, Ionia is the area from which most bilingual documents come, especially Ephesos, Smyrna and Magnesia on the Maeander. What is more, a remarkable number of bilingual inscriptions from Asia Minor concern the members of the Imperial family, especially freedmen, who often established close connections with the local communities,55 but also a few slaves who, if they had administrative or educational duties, were expected to be bilingual.56 4. VALERIA’S EPITAPH Valeria’s epitaph – or better Valeria’s epitaph and Dassianus’ cenotaph – is a marble table, engraved on reuse and kept now at the Museum of Manisa.57 Its original setting was the city of Maeonia: 51 L. 17 ματέως instead of ματαίως, with an alteration of the original length. As for φίλε at l. 20, we do not agree with Cougny (ad l.), according to whom this is a phonetic spelling for φίλη, whith an alteration of the vowel length: in fact, the following μῆτερ / Πρειμιγένη, preceding another imperative ἀπόθου, rather suggests that Iope’s mother is addressed only from this point onwards, while her father was addressed before that. 52 L. 21 θυμοδακεῖς, for which: Odyssey 8. 185, l. 18 εἰσορόω. 53 See Garulli 2012, 268–70. 54 Kearsley 2001. 55 See, for example, Kearsley 2001, no. 96. 56 See Kearsley 2001, nos. 47, 89, 61. For a survey on the social groups affected by the phenomenon of Greek-Latin bilingualism – especially merchants, soldiers and members of the Imperial familia – see Kearsley 2001, 148. 57 The inscription was edited by Drew-Bear et al. 2004; see also L’Année Épigraphique 2004, 1396a (Simone Follet). An older inscription is found on the opposite face of the table (an administrative Greek text surviving in only three lines: see Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 415–17), at a right

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τίς ἐστιν ὁ ζητῶν ἐν τῷ τίτλῳ τίς ἐνδο[ξάζεται]; οὕτως εὐτυχὴς τὴν ζωὴν μετὰ χαρᾶς [διάγοι]. τί συ(μ)φορὰν γυναικὸς ζητεῖς ἔνδεν ἣ τέθα[πται]; Βαλερίαν εὐπρεπῆ κατέχει τότε ν[- -]. dum tenera fuera(m) cognouera(m) conpare[m dulcem] singulaque meruit gradatim cuncta dec̣[ora] centurio primus domesticus inde trib[unus]. culminis adeptus his uiribus audax ina[ne] in bello cecidit, sic fata hoc tribue⟦.t⟧run[t]. ut Dassianum comitem rursom coniun[gerem] et idem quae sunt humanis rebus adempta s[olacia], tunc ad carum subolem Hadrianum me prọ[duxi] ut manibus eius que sunt suprema futu[ra]. reddere uita(m) peti, merui prece quodque r[ogaui] orbe pererrato requiem mihi parcat de[us]. post bis tricenos transactos mensibus [annos] nunc Ludie sedes consedi ultima(m) terram. palma m[ea] fatis iam debita reddi. palma te queso care f[- -] adde sepulti

5

10

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suppl. edd. prr. || 4 τότε ν[έαν] dub. edd. prr. || 8 ina[nis] Follet

Greek: ‘Who is that seeking to know who is commemorated in this inscription? / So may he pass his life with a good luck and with joy. / Why do you investigate the misfortune of the woman who is buried here? / The excellent Valeria is kept now n[.’ While being young I had met my sweet husband / and he deserved gradually one by one all the honours: / first centurion, staff officer and then tribune. / Over the top, vainly confident in his own strength, / he fell in war, this destiny did the fate give him. / In order to join my fellow Dassianus, / and at the same time the delights that are irrelevant to human things, / then I caught up with my beloved son Hadrian, / to receive from his own hands what will be the last honours. / I requested to give back my life, I deserved by prayer what I had asked for, / after wandering all over the world god may grant me peace. / Being sixty years old / now I settled in Lydia as my last place. I have already paid / my debts to the Fates. I pray you, my dear son, / add of the buried [.’

This funerary monument was build up for the dead Valeria by her beloved son Hadrian – references to her burial can be found at l. 3 τέθα[πται], 4 κατέχει, 15 requiem, 17 ultima(m) terram. However, this relatively long inscription has a double function, as it commemorates two persons: this is also the celebrative monument of her husband Dassianus, who had died before her in war and probably had no funerary monument – at ll. 6–9 the circumstances of his death angle to our inscription. The stone has been reused a second time, and its margins were cut out; this destroyed most of the first inscription and the final part of the lines of Valeria’s epitaph. Now the table is broken in four pieces which were put together again.

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and his career are described. In fact, the dead Valeria describes her life as that of Dassianus’ wife: the funerary monument of the widow which pays great attention to commemorating her dead husband is apparently a type of funerary monument attested in the area.58 The three personal names occurring in the inscribed lines – Valeria, Dassianus, Hadrianus – are undoubtedly Latin: Valeria and Hadrianus are quite popular, while Da(s)sianus is a rare cognomen, apparently originating in the Balkans.59 Much more common is Da(s)sius, a cognomen of Illyrian origin,60 and relatively widespread in some areas (Dalmatia, Dacia, Pannonia, Moesia Superior).61 The inscribed text reveals that Valeria after her husband’s death moved from an undefined place to Lydia to join her dead husband and her son and keep her family together. This suggests that the original settlement of Valeria’s family was not in Lydia, and perhaps not even in Asia Minor. All these clues lead us to suspect that we are dealing with a Latin-speaking family. But what does the language of the text reveal? In this inscription bilingualism is ‘vertical’; that is, it marks different speakers. Indeed, the first part of the inscribed text, the Greek lines (ll. 1–4), correspond to an anonymous voice, which can be regarded as that of the funerary monument, which expresses the point of view of an observer, apparently different from the dead people (no personal pronoun is found in what remains of these lines). Yet the following 15 lines of Latin text correspond to a speech that must be figured as uttered by the dead Valeria herself (the first person singular is used throughout the text).62 Such a neat linguistic division of the inscribed text is meaningful: Greek appears to be the language for communication within the social context, 58 In particular, the editors (Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 410–11) call the attention to the epitaph of Aurelius Gaius (see Drew-Bear 1981) and that of Valerius Victorinus (see Speidel 1995). 59 Besides this inscription it is attested only in Rome (around AD 223: CIL VI 2389 + pp. 3320, 3339; CIL VI. 2833, 2835, 32542 = EDR 121800), and in Moesia Superior, at Aquae (modern Prahovo, Serbia) (4th century AD: L’Année Épigraphique 1911, 164; ILIug 3.1367 = HD 28977) and at Ratiaria (modern Archar, Bulgaria) (CLEMoes 23). The variant Dasianus is found in CIL III 3540 from Aquincum (modern Óbuda, near Budapest: see Dean 1916, 165). In CIL III 7872 (Dacia, 2nd–3rd century AD) one can read only DASSI(?). Da(s)sianus is derived from Da(s)sius through the suffix -anus typical of cognomina derived from gentilicia: see Perin 1965, 462; Kajanto 1965, 32–35, 197. 60 See Russu 1977, 359. 61 See Lörincz 1999, 93. 62 The final part of the inscribed text is not entirely legible and unlikely to be complete: at ll. 17 and 18 one can see two dividers. Although it is not clear what the last part of l. 18 and the first part of l. 19 mean, one cannot exclude the idea that the divider of l. 18 marks some change in Valeria’s speech, for example of addressee or speaker.

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whereas Latin is the usual communication tool within the family circle of the dead Valeria and Dassianus. So, if the clients were Latin-speakers, they must have learned some Greek as a consequence of their moving to Eastern countries. The linguistic and stylistic quality of the text fits this scenario; although the overall quality of the lines is far from satisfactory, a few basic differences can be detected between Greek and Latin. In other words, bilingualism is asymmetrical, from both a quantitative and qualitative point of view. First, the size of the Latin text is more than three times that of the Greek text. Moreover, the four lines of Greek have no complete metrical structure (showing here and there an undoubtedly iambic rhythm), and an awkward and stiff syntax,63 a poor vocabulary,64 in part built upon Latin,65 and more generally a diction simplified and without nuances.66 Obviously, some phonetic spellings are not surprising in Anatolian Greek.67 The Latin text is of a better quality: it can boast a more complete and continuous dactylic rhythm, although not free from error68 and a more appreciable lexical variety.69 As for the syntax, hypotaxis and parataxis are well balanced, although most sentences correspond to a single line, and this reveals a decent, but not excellent, command of verse composition.70 Some interesting phenomena relevant to the history of language can be found also in the Latin text:71 63 At l. 1 τίς is used as an interrogative indirect pronoun; at l. 4 τότε immediately after κατέχει sounds slightly discordant. 64 Note the same verb repeated from l. 1 ὁ ζητῶν to l. 3 ζητεῖς. 65 L. 1 ἐν τῷ τίτλῳ (see García Domingo 1979, 434). 66 L. 3 τί συ(μ)φορὰν γυναικὸς ζητεῖς. 67 συφοράν at l. 3 attests the weakening of the final nasal before a plosive (see Brixhe 1987, 34); Βαλερίαν at l. 4 attests the fricativisation of the voiced labial plosive, whose sign can therefore be used for Latin |v| (see Brixhe 1987, 39); ἔνδεν might correspond either to ἔνδον as a result of assimilation (Follet) or to ἔνθεν with a confusion between voiced and aspirated dental consonant due to the gradual fricativisation of the latter (see Brixhe 1987, 39). 68 Ll. 11 and 16 are exceptional, since the former has no clear metre, and the latter is the only regular hexameter. 69 The only words used twice are the adjective carus (ll. 12 and 18) and the noun fata (ll. 9 and 18); the only line which stands out as entirely formulaic (an inscriptional formula) is 16 (see CLE 1156, 769, 465B); the adjectives tenera at l. 5 and subolem at l. 12 have a poetic background; when Valeria describes Dassianus’ military career, she uses the technical terms domesticus and tribunus, whereas centurio primus is rather the paraphrase of a technical term; at l. 10 she uses also the term comes, the next military degree after that of tribunus: however, in Valeria’s use this term means ‘partner’, although within the context of the inscription it does not lack a certain allusive strength, as if Valeria wanted to give his husband a late promotion ad honorem (Follet, ad l.). The inscription includes a poetic reminiscence, such as viribus audax at l. 8, for which the editors cite Virgil Aeneid 5. 67. 70 The use of pluperfect instead of imperfect tense is remarkable (l. 5 fuera(m)); as is the use of consido with the accusative (l. 17). 71 The letter E replaces AE (que l. 13, Ludie l. 17, queso l. 18: Dessau 1916, 812–13); the letter O replaces V (l. 10 rursom: Dessau 1916, 828); the final nasal drops out at ll. 5, 14 and 17 (see Dessau 1916, 824).

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in particular, a weakening of the nasal before a plosive is found also at l. 5 conparem: this is quite common, but perhaps it is not meaningless to find the same phenomenon in Greek at l. 3 (συφοράν), as a sort of phonetic habit shared by both languages within the same social and geographical context. The identity of the author is that of a Latin-speaker, with a restricted knowledge of Greek, which does not allow him to go further than four lines: yet his Latin is good enough to weave a rhythmical discourse, relatively independent from the traditional inscriptional and funerary formulae. The quality of the text eliminates the hypothesis of a professional versifier. The editors regard Hadrian, the dedicatee, son of Dassianus and Valeria, as the author of the double epitaph;72 he might have been a soldier like his father in the same place, as Valeria’s words suggest. Whether or not this is true, this author offers an interesting example of Greek as a communication tool, rather than as a literary language: the use of Greek meets the need to address a Greek-speaking audience, and declare who was buried in this tomb to local people. Latin functions here as the language of the military class, and generally speaking of the empire. And Greek paideia has little space within such a social context. The inscription can be dated to AD 350–375: the role of domesticus mentioned at l. 7 gives a terminus post quem, since it is unattested before 350; at the same time, the fact that this is a pagan inscription and that we are dealing with a Latin speaking family settled in the East suggest that the monument is not from later than the third quarter of the 4th century.73 At l. 15 a reference to a single deus not further described might betray a Christian background, but nothing else in the inscription supports this hypothesis.74 No further bilingual inscription can be found among the inscriptions from Maeonia and its area collected in TAM V.1 164–193.75

72

See Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 412. See Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 415, who wonder whether Dassianus was an official of Julian who died during the campaign in Persia, and whether his son might have moved to East after the division of the empire between Valentinianus and Valens in 364, but these are mere guesses. The inscription carved on the verso, legible only for three lines, can be dated on palaeographical grounds (epsilon with central stroke which does not meet the vertical stroke) to the end of the 3rd century AD (Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 416). 74 See Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 411. 75 But see Drew-Bear et al. 2004, 410, n. 12. 73

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5. FINAL REMARKS The category of local culture changes remarkably over time: during the Imperial age, Hellenisation went so far that Greek could play the role of a local language. This is true in all the cases under examination, despite the different quality of the texts and the different relationship between Greek and Latin: Greek works as the local language, the language for social communication within the local contexts, whereas Latin is the language of the establishment (administration, political power, army). In Maiorinus’ epitaph Greek prevails, and is used to address the local people and to show Maiorinus as belonging to the local world, its culture and its epigraphic tradition. Latin on the other side emphasises Maiorinus’ close connection to the Imperial elite. In Iope’s epitaph Latin conveys the official and public message, while Greek gives voice to familiar affections and to a fairly good Greek education. In Valeria’s epitaph Latin prevails and is the family language of an immigrant family, while Greek – which is not mastered well – is used to address the inhabitants. In other words, Greek may be either language in use or language of culture, and is in any case the local code for social communication; Latin may be either the language of the establishment or that of the family, but functions always as some sort of ‘global’ communication tool, far from being ‘local’. Neither language necessarily implies a high or low education: indeed, the quality of the verses is rather varied, depending on several variables. However, their role and their nature of ‘local’ and ‘global’ are quite clear. What kind of language is this ‘local’ Greek? This is ‘the long established official language’ and some sort of ‘universal lingua franca of the East’, ‘the vehicle of the widely admired ancient Hellenic civilisation’:76 it is a flexible language, which can work both as a poetic and refined language and as ‘a “practical” everyday Koine’.77 Any other ‘local’ cultural heritage is filtered by Greek language and culture. In other words, within multiple cultural identities of the Near East, Greek and Roman identities play the major roles, different from and – to some extent – counterbalancing each other; by this time substrate cultures are apparently relegated in the backstage and may emerge only in personal names or little more.

76 77

Horrocks 2010, 125–26. Horrocks 2010, 126.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Gianfranco Agosti Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità Facoltà di Lettere Sapienza Università di Roma P. le A. Moro, 5 00185 Roma Italy [email protected] Héctor Arroyo-Quirce Departamento de Filología Clásica e Indoeuropeo Universidad de Salamanca Pz. de Anaya s/nº 37008 Salamanca Spain [email protected] Luis Ballesteros Pastor Facultad de Geografía e Historia Departamento de Historia Antigua C/ Doña María de Padilla s/nº 41004 Sevilla Spain [email protected] Ljuba Merlina Bortolani Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Philosophische Fakultät Seminar für Klassische Philologie Marstallhof 2–4 69117 Heidelberg Germany ljuba.bortolani@asia-europe. uni-heidelberg.de Madalina Dana Département d’histoire Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/ ANHIMA 17 rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris France [email protected]

María-Paz de Hoz Departamento de Filología clásica Facultad de Filología Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria, Edificio A Plaza Menéndez Pelayo, s/n° 28040 Madrid Spain [email protected] Juan Luis García Alonso Departamento de Filología Clásica e Indoeuropeo Universidad de Salamanca Pz. de Anaya s/nº 37008 Salamanca Spain [email protected] Valentina Garulli Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica Alma mater studiorum – Università di Bologna Via Zamboni 32 40126 Bologna Italy [email protected] Luis Arturo Guichard Departamento de Filología Clásica e Indoeuropeo Universidad de Salamanca Pz. de Anaya s/nº 37008 Salamanca Spain [email protected] Christoph Michels Lehrstuhl für Alte Geschichte Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf Universitätsstraße 1 40225 Düsseldorf Germany [email protected]

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Bartomeu Obrador-Cursach Institut del Pròxim Orient Antic Universitat de Barcelona Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 585 08007 Barcelona Spain [email protected] Juan Pablo Sánchez Hernández C/Cebreros, nº 15 3º A 28011 Madrid Spain [email protected]

Eleonora Santin CNRS - Laboratoire HiSoMA Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée 5/7 rue Raulin 69365 Lyon cedex 07 France [email protected]

INDEX OF SOURCES

Literary sources Aelian Varia Historia 2. 41: 31 n. Aeschylus Choephori 985f.: 167 n. Ammianus Marcellinus 23. 6. 4: 206 n. 23. 6. 17: 210 n. 23. 6. 18: 208 n. 23. 6. 24: 200 n., 201 n., 208 n. Appian Syr. 62: 58 n. Aristophanes Aves 693–694: 150 n. Arrian Bith. F 20 Roos: 44, 53 Athenaeus 10.440B: 31 n. Basil. Hom. Psal. 29. 345. 43: 167 n. Cornutus de natura deorum 47. 15–21: 149 n. de Viris Illustribus 76. 1: 5 n. Diodorus Siculus 31. 19. 8: 23 31. 21. 1: 25 Euripides Hecuba 69–76: 146 n. Iphigenia Taurica 1234–1275: 146 n. Eusebius Comm in Psalmos 23. 280. 4: 167 n. 23. 656. 17: 167 n. de laudibus Constantini 12. 16: 163 n. Eutropius 8. 12. 2: 201 n. Galen Praen. 8. 12–9. 5: 200 n. Gregorius Nazianzenus 35. 429. 11: 167 n. Herodotus 1. 107–108, 120, 128: 5 n. 1. 182. 2: 146 n. 2. 154: 75 7. 19, 37: 5 n. 7. 75: 42 Hesiod Opera et Dies 56: 145 n. Theogony 63–65: 149 123: 150 n. 201–202: 149 514–516: 150 n. Homer Iliad 1. 37, 41: 145

1. 43, 64, 72, 182: 145 n. 2. 20: 153 n. 2. 22: 151 2. 23–68: 167 n. 2. 851–857: 41 3. 277: 167 n. 4. 84: 224 4. 390: 145 n. 5. 344, 439, 454, 509: 145 n. 6. 184: 185 n. 6. 203–204: 185 n. 6. 270: 145 n. 8. 366–369: 150 n. 9. 43, 603: 145 n. 10. 85: 145 n. 10. 496–497: 153 n. 11. 36–37: 150 n. 11. 314: 145 n. 16. 326–327: 150 n. 17. 179, 585: 145 n. 22. 254: 145 n. 23. 68: 153 n. 23. 770: 145 n. 24. 92:142 n. 24. 343–344, 445: 151 n. Odyssey 1. 281: 145 n. 2. 178: 145 n. 4. 456–458: 147 4. 803: 153 n. 5. 47–48: 151 n. 6. 21: 153 n. 7. 137: 151 n. 8. 57: 224 8. 323: 145 n. 10. 320, 402: 145 n. 11. 36–37: 150 n. 11. 109: 167 n. 11. 561: 145 n. 12. 323: 167 n. 13. 219: 220 n. 22. 233: 145 n. 24. 299: 145 n.

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INDEX OF SOURCES

Hymn. Ap. 3. 134: 206 n.; passim: 145 n. Hymn. Merc. 67, 155, 400 passim: 145 n. Isocrates 1 [Ad Demonicum] 18. 6: 172 Justin 38. 2. 5: 2 n. Livy 37. 38: 58 n. Lucian Alex. 36: 206 n. Charon 7. 1–15: 143 n. Dearum iudicium 15. 9, 12; 16. 15: 149 n. Quomodo historia conscribenda 2, 15: 202 n. Marcellus Empiricus 8. 58, 15. 108: 143 n. Michael Ephesius in Parva Naturalia 75, 21: 165 n. Orphic Hymns 8. 1: 167 12: 165 13: 152 n. 23: 152 n. 27: 170 Pausanias 1. 3. 4: 206 1. 34. 4: 146 n. 1. 43. 6: 149 n. 5. 12. 7: 46 7. 2. 6: 205 n. 7. 22. 2–4: 151 n. 10. 5. 5–6: 146 n. Pliny NH 7. 127: 53 n. 25. 62: 5 n. 36. 35: 53 n. Plutarch Moralia: 5 n., 44 Polybius 4. 49: 47 5. 111: 47 n. 32. 11: 31 n. 36. 15. 1–7: 20 36. 15. 3–4: 52 n. 36. 15. 5–7: 52 n. 36. 15. 7–8: 52 n. Ps.-Scymnus v. 103–104: 52 SHA Verus 8. 1: 202 n., 209 n. Sophocles fr. 874 (Radt): 149 Strabo 12. 2. 9: 25, 28

12. 3. 3: 12, 42 65 12. 4. 1: 40, 42 12. 4. 4: 42 12. 4. 6: 43 12. 4. 7: 45 12. 4 .9: 46 12. 8. 3: 54 Tacitus Annals 12. 22: 209 Themistocles Peri philias, 281 c 1–2: Harduin: 165 n. Thucydides 4. 75. 2: 42 Xenophon Anabasis 6. 4: 42 n. Papyri and ostraka PBon. 3: see SM 77 PDM 1xi 63–78: 152 n. PDM xiv 93–114: 152 n. PDM Suppl. 130–138: 152 n. PDM Suppl. 149–162: 152 n. PFay. 114: 78 n. PGM Fr. 4, 25–26: 165 PGM IV 467–474: 142 PGM IV 821–824: 142 n. PGM IV 830–834: 142 n. PGM IV 1345–1361: 142 n., 150 PGM IV 1460–1462: 149 PGM IV 1460–1469: 149 PGM IV 1966: 170 PGM IV 2145–2150: 142 n. PGM IV 2786–2870: 149 n. PGM IV 2856–2858: 150 PGM IV 3227–3233: 148 PGM IV 386: 170 PGM IV 930–1114: 146 PGM IV 939–943: 147 PGM IV 939–948: 146 PGM IV 3209–3254: 148 PGM V 370–439: 151, 152 PGM V 401: 170 PGM V 411: 151 PGM V 440–548: 152 PGM VI+II: 144 PGM VI 1–47 + II 1–64: 152 n. PGM VI 25–38: 144 n. PGM VII 1–148: 142 PGM VII 350–358: 150 PGM VII 664–685: 151, 152 n.

INDEX OF SOURCES

PGM VII 675: 151 PGM VII 740–755: 152 n. PGM VII 795–845: 152 n. PGM VII 1009–1016: 152 n. PGM VIII 64–110: 152 n. PGM XII 144–151: 152 PGM XX: 140 n., 143 PGM XXIIa 11–14: 142 PGM LXX 12: 143 n. POxy. 3831, b.12: 142 n. POxy. 4468: 142 n. SM 49: 144 n. SM 71: 140 n. SM 72: 140 n., 143 SM 77 fol. 5v.12: 142 n. Greek Inscriptions Antikensammlung Inv. Misc. 7459: 32 n. App. Anth. 2.350: 243 n. CIG 3880: 108 n. CIG II 3111: 243 n. CIL III 423: 243 n. Drew-Bear et al. 2004: 249 n., 250 n., 253 n. Epigr. Gr. 298: 243 n. Epigr. Gr. 441: 234 n. FD III 2, 50: 52 n. FD III 4.1, 77: 48 FD III 6, 91: 245 Grabgedichte 395: 60 n. Grabgedichte 457: 56 n. GVI 1089: 135, 136 n. GVI 1324: 60 n. GVI 2006: 243 n. GVI 655: 234 n. IApameia 117: 56 n. IBeirut 110: 219 n. IByzantion S65: 238 IEOG 86.19‒22: 207 n. IEphesos 1062: 163 n., 165 IEphesos 202 and Add. p. 6: 27 n. IFayoum I 73: 123, 130 IFayoum III 205: 123, 127 IG 5(1) 257: 60 n. IG 12(8) 613: 175 n. IG 14 451.1‒2: 206 n. IGENLouvre 93: 136 n.

263

IGLS II 297: 223 IGLS XV 186: 226 n. IGLS XV 235: 238 IGLS XV 243: 238 IGLS XV/1 241: 234 n. IGR 4.1498: 204 n. IGR 4.1577: 243 n. IGUR III 1204: 188 IKios 18: 50 n. IKios 98: 56 n. IKyzikos I 500: 46 n. IKyzikos II 23: 62 n. IMEG 73: 136 n. IMEG 74: 123, 135 IMEG 112: 125 INikaia II.1 751: 56 n. INikaia II.2 1232: 60 n. INikaia II.2 1588: 55 n. ISultan 393: 30 ISyrie 2474: 234 n. ITyana 29: 29 ITyana 30: 25 MAMA IV 18: 93 MAMA VI 382: 95 Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 11, no. 4: 206 n. Merkelbach and Stauber 1996, 26, no. 11: 210 n. OGIS 358: 32 n. OGIS 364: 32 n. RIB III 3151: 222 n. SB 5.8895: 130 SB 685: 125 SEG 27.261: 30 n. SEG 27.933: 204 n. SEG 28.943: 46 n. SEG 33.675: 24 n., 25 n., 26 n. SEG 37.666.7: 245 SEG 37.840: 222 n. SEG 42.1192: 175 n. SEG 44.1010: 58 n. SEG 45.2097: 123, 132, 133 SEG 47.1625: 27 n. SEG 48.1441(1): 171 SEG 49.1357: 100 SEG 50.1086: 222 n. SEG 52.1544: 223 n. SEG 56.1854: 223 n.

264 SEG 59.1118: 222 n. SGO 03/02/37: 165 SGO 03/06/04: 243 n. SGO 04/02/01: 169 n., 171 SGO 04/23/01: 169 n. SGO 06/02/16: 169 n., 170 n. SGO 08/01/35: 46 n. SGO 08/05/07: 62 n. SGO 09/05/16: 56 n. SGO 09/05/17: 60 n. SGO 09/06/18: 58 n. SGO 16/34/03: 166 n. SGO 16/34/06: 191 SGO 16/35/01: 164 SGO 18/01/01: 192, 194 n. SGO 18/01/02: 189, 191 n. SGO 18/01/05: 191 n. SGO 18/01/08: 189 SGO 18/01/15: 191 SGO 20/05/06: 225 n. SGO 20/21/01: 223 n. SGO 22/14/04: 226 n. SGO 22/15/01: 234 n. SGO 22/15/02 SGO 22/49/02: 219 n. SIG 606: 58 n. SIG 632: 48 n. TAM III.1 1: 186 TAM III.1 127: 189, 190 n. TAM III.1 18: 192, 194 n. TAM III.1 26: 185 TAM III.1 548: 195 TAM IV.1 1: 50 n. TAM V.1 75: 174

INDEX OF SOURCES

TAM V.1 225: 169 TAM V.1 236: 173 TAM V.3 1658: 169 TCC 2.01: 32 n. TCC 2.05: 32 n. TM 6574: 125 TM 8171: 123, 127 TM 42851: 123, 130 TM 103916: 136 n. TM 103917: 123, 135 TM 129723: 123, 132 TM 167261: 222 Phrygian inscriptions Old Phrygian B-05: 89, 91, 92, 96, 98, 99, 104, 109–11, 113 n., 116 Middle Phrygian W-12: 96 n., 97, 100, 105, 106 n., 107, 108, 111, 112, 116 New Phrygian 5: 109, 110 9: 90 n., 92, 93, 112 19: 108 n. 48: 90 n., 93, 101, 108 n., 109, 113 88: 93, 95–98, 105, 109–11 96: 95 98: 90 n., 94, 106 99: 99 n., 102, 107, 110, 113 103: 94, 108 n., 111 130: 90 n., 92, 95

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

Historical characters Alexander: 6, 8, 9 n., 66, 75, 105, 137, 183, 184, 204, 206 Alexander III: 28 n. Alexander of Abonouteichos: 206 Antigonos the One-Eyed: 55 Antigonus Monophthalmus: 3 Antiochos II Theos: 22 n. Antiochos III: 58 Arbinas: 6, 7, 11 Archelaos: 32 Archelaus I: 11, 12 Ariarathes III: 22 Ariarathes IV: 24, 25 Ariarathes V: 19, 22–24, 27, 31, 33 Ariobarzanes I: 31, 32 n. Artabazus II: 8 Artavasdes: 25 Artavasdes II: 12 Artaxata: 25 Attalus I: 20, 47, 49 Attalus III: 27 Augustus: 48 n., 131–33 Batakes of Nicaea: 64 Bryaxis: 126 Byzas: 41 Charinus: 10 Charondas: 28 Cleopatra VII Philopator: 128–30 Crassus: 12, 25 Croesus: 1 Cyrus II: 23 Darius: 2, 6 Dinis: 41 Dorylaus (I) of Amisus: 10–12, 64, 65 Eumenes II: 20 Gaius: 10, 249 Glaphyra: 11 Hermaeus: 11 Hieron II: 21 Julian the Theurgist: 210

Krateuas: 5 Laodice: 2, 48 Lenaeus: 5 Lysimachus: 45, 55, 57, 58 Marcus Aurelius: 199, 200, 202, 203 n., 204 Metrodorus of Scepsis: 11 Mithridates I Ctistes: 3 Mithridates II: 8 Mithridates V Euergetes: 2, 9 Mithridates VI Eupator: 2–4, 5 n., 6–8, 10, 11, 52 n., 53 n., 64, 65, 65 n. Mopsos: 103, 205 Nicomedes I: 48 Nicomedes III Euergetes: 48, 49 Nicomedes IV Philopator: 46 Olymphichus: 21 Orodes: 25 Orophernes: 23, 27, 31 Panaitios of Rhodes: 26 Paramonos: 26 Parthenius of Nicaea: 41, 64 Pharnaces I: 8, 9 Philip II: 8 Pompey: 5 Prusias I: 20, 45, 47, 53 Prusias II: 19, 48–50, 54 Ptolemy III: 43, 47 n., 50, 127 Ptolemy XIII: 129 Q. Voconius Aelius Stratonicus: 191 Sardanapallus: 20 Seleucus I Nicator: 57, 58 Selinas: 90 Sosion: 48 Strabo: 64, 65 Sulla: 10 Tiridates: 4 Zachalias of Babylon: 4 Ziaelas: 50, 52

266

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

Places Alexandria: 21, 27, 129 n., 136 n., 167 n., 185 Amastris: 42 n., 167, 168 Amasya: 3 n., 9 Anasartha: 223 Azra’: 226, 228 Beroia: 30 Bithynia: 21, 22 n., 23 n., 27, 32, 39, 40, 42–46, 48–50, 53–56, 59–62, 64, 89, 104 Bithynion: 62 Bithynium: 43, 45 Bostra: 224, 226 Byzantines: 41, 47, 226 Caesarea Troketta: 206 Callipolis: 203, 206, 210 n. Cappadocia: 4, 11, 12, 19, 21–29, 31–33 Cibyra: 184, 187 Cilicia: 26, 103, 121 Claros: 63, 199, 203–05, 208–11 Claudiopolis: 62 Comana Pontica: 11, 32 Corupedion: 45, 57, 58 Cyzicus: 40 n., 42, 46 n., 54, 62, 66 Dardanus: 10 Dascylium: 2, 3 n., 4, 6, 8, 40 n., 43 n., 54 n., 63 Delos: 48, 49, 65 n. Didyma: 48, 204, 205, 207, 208 Egypt: 32, 74–78, 83–85, 123, 124, 129, 137, 139, 141, 160, 179, 200, 222 Ephesus: 46 n., 188 Faiyūm: 127 Hanisa: 32 Hauran: 219 Hieropolis: 32, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209 Ionia: 27, 31, 49, 249 Jerursalem: 30 Katane: 28 Katpatuka: 22 Kios: 45, 50, 100 Lycia: 6, 7, 60, 187 Lycopolis: 135, 136 Maionia: 173, 174, 176 Mantineia of Arcadia: 62

Mantineia of Bithynia: 62 Mazaka: 25, 28 Memphis: 76, 125–27, 134 Miletus: 41, 43 n., 245 Mylasa: 21 n. Naucratis: 75, 206 n. Nicaea: 43, 45, 46 n., 55, 56, 60, 64, 66 Nicomedia: 43, 45–47, 49, 53–56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 183 Nysa: 64 Paphlagonia: 41, 42, 46 Pergamum: 20, 24, 27, 47 n., 49 n., 52 n. Perge: 183, 199, 200, 203 Phrygia: 30, 42, 58, 90, 91, 94 n., 97 n., 101, 102, 104, 109–12, 116, 118, 163, 164, 166, 167 n., 173, 174, 176, 183, 191, 244, 245, 247, 248 Phrygia Epiktetos: 101 n., 163, 166 Pisidia: 183, 184, 187 n., 166, 174 Plutonium: 208, 209 Pontus: 2–4, 5 n., 8, 9, 11, 21, 22, 25, 32, 40–42, 45, 46 n., 48, 56, 61 n., 112 Priene: 27 Prusa ad Olympum: 43, 45, 56 Prusias ad Hypium: 43, 45 Prusias ad Mare: 43, 45, 56 Rhodes: 26, 42 n., 47 n. Rome: 22, 27, 46, 53, 99 n., 129 n., 188, 196, 199, 200, 201 n., 204, 206 n., 246 n., 250 n. Saklea: 166 Seleucia: 199, 201, 204, 206–09 Sinope: 9, 10 Soknopaiou Nesos: 130 Tarsos: 26, 58 Teos: 51, 245 Tenedos: 44 n., 145 Termessus: 183–89, 191–93, 194 n., 195, 196 Thracia: 42, 44, 101, 203 Toriaion: 30 Trachonitis: 234, 242 Tyana: 28–31, 89 Ἰο(π)πή: 245

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

267

Divine and mythological characters Angelos: 165 Antinoos: 62 Aphrodite: 53, 99, 148–50 Apis: 126, 132 Apollo: 48 n., 52, 135, 136, 141, 144–46, 148, 153, 164, 166–68, 174, 199, 201, 203 n., 204–10 Apollo Citharede: 56 Apollo Comaeus: 206, 207 Apollo Kareios: 209 Apollo Κωμαῖος: 206, 207 Apollo Lairbenos: 177 Apollo Soter: 171, 204 Ares: 168 Artemis: 96, 99, 149 n., 162 n., 171, 177, 183, 187, 192, 194, 196, 206, 210 Artemis Anaitis: 177 Artemis Tauropolos: 192 Asklepios: 49, 93, 222, 223 Athena Nicephorus: 29 Branchos: 205 Chao: 149, 150 Daimones: 150 Demeter: 237, 209 Didyma: 48, 162 Dikaios: 163, 164, 165, 166, 176 Dike: 166 Dioscuri–Cabiroi: 10 Erebos: 149 Glykon: 175 Graces: 148, 149 Helios: 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 174, 176, 177 Heracles: 29, 62, 63, 190, 245 Hermes: 29, 136, 145, 148, 151, 152 Himeros: 148, 149, 150 Horae: 148 Horus Harpocrates: 146, 153, 154 Hosios: 163, 164, 165, 166, 176 Hygeia: 222, 223 Hypsistos: 167, 168, 169 Isis: 48, 129, 154 Isis Snonais: 128 Istanu: 176 Kittum: 176 Ma: 29

Ma-Enyo: 32 Men: 174, 166, 168, 169, 170, 174, 175, 177 Men Axiottenos: 175 Mesaru: 176 Meter Theon: 166 Min: 134, 136 Nabû: 207 Nemesis: 48 Panakeia: 222, 223 Pantodynastes: 165 Phoibos: 145 Poseidon: 9 Poseidon Aisios: 10 Rešep: 205 n. Sabathikos: 169, 178 Šamaš: 176 Sarapis: 126, 127, 133, 134 Seth: 148 Smintheus: 145 Soknopaios: 131, 132 Thoth: 148, 151, 152 Thrake: 44 Ti-: 101 Tištrya: 207 Titan: 163, 164, 176 Typhon: 148 Zeus: 9, 33, 44, 63, 90, 94, 101, 102, 114, 117, 126, 132, 148, 151 n., 168, 172, 178, 186, 237 Zeus Ammon: 132 Zeus Bronton: 167, 196 Zeus Eleutherios: 187 Zeus Solymeus: 183–86, 191, 192, 194, 195 Zeus Stratius: 3 n., 53 Zeus Urius: 10 n. Ἀλεξίκακος: 206 Βέννιος: 101 ἑκάεργε: 145 Ζεὺς Σαρνενδηνός: 102 Κικλέα: 102 Κυβέλη: 100 Νείκη χ[ρυ]σοστέφανος: 163 Σαρναν: 102 Σαρνενδηνός: 102 Σαρνενδός: 102

268

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

Non-Greek proper names Anatolian Atezoas: 29, 31 Bythynian Bioeris: 56, 57 Dintiporis: 54 Doidalses: 53 Ανξα: 59 Γηριας: 59 Διλιπορις: 61 Ζαραζις: 59 Ζαρδοηλας: 59 Καλας: 59 Μοκαζις: 59 Προυσῆς: 62 Προυσίας: 62

Iranian Mithratochmes: 32 *Miθra-pāta-: 93, 109 Latin Certus: 238 Dassianus: 249–52, 253 n. Hadrianus: 250–52 Hilarius: 246, 247 Maiorinus: 234–43 Primigenia: 246 Silvanus: 223–26 Valeria: 249–54 Thracian Μοκασης: 59 Μουκασης: 59 Νανα: 55 Σαδαλας: 56

INDEX OF ANCIENT TERMS

Assyrian terms akalu: 100 Egyptian terms mr-šn: 129 ḫpr-ḏs.f: 147 Greek terms agon: 24 agonothetes: 24, 29, 62 archon: 32, 33 n. aretalogies: 154, 173, 175 asphaleia: 24 asylia: 24, 50, 51, 53 axiologotáten endeiknúmenos: 24 boule: 32, 33 charitesion: 170, 171, 173 demiourgos: 32 ekklesia: 32, 33 n. embioterion: 19, 24 ephebos: 49 ethnos: 28 euergesia: 26, 49 euergetes: 30, 33 n., 49, 53 eunoia: 26 gerousia: 32 gymnasia: 9, 29, 30 gymnasiarchos: 29 gymnasium: 9, 29, 30, 31, 33, 45, 49, 53, 191 n. hegemon: 25 Homeromanteion: 142 hymnodic: 162 n. hymnus: 144–48, 149 n., 150 n., 151, 153, 154, 164, 165, 169, 170, 172, 177 n., 178 hypsistos: 167–69 krypteia: 6 ktistes: 32 magos: 4 n., 5 n., 6, 7, 11, 12

martyrion: 223, 224 Mithridatia: 5 n. mnema: 162 n. mousike: 10 nemeseis: 175, 177 nike: 163, 164, 175 pais: 92, 136 n., 223 panathenaia: 24 paradeisos: 8 pepaideumenos: 20, 21, 24, 61 philia: 10 n. phosphoros: 166 n. politeia: 30 proedria: 49 promantia: 49 prōtoi phíloi: 25 n. proxenia: 49, 54 prytaneis: 32, 33 n. synodos: 24, 52 n. sophos: 61 soter: 32, 33 n., 171 syntrophos: 10 technites: 24 ἄγαμος: 142, 143 ἄγονος: 142 ἀκερσεκόμης: 167, 207 ἄκικυς: 99 ἀλάθητος: 173 ἄλλο: 57 ἄλυτος: 173 ἀμύμων: 242 ἀνάγκη: 95 ἄνανδρος: 97 ἄναξ: 96 αὐτογένεθλος: 147 ἄωρος: 95 βασιλεύς: 175 βεῦδος: 99 γλουρός: 100 γραμματιστής: 135 δικαιοσύνη: 167

270

INDEX OF ANCIENT TERMS

δοῦμος: 101 δύναμις: 173, 174, 178 ἔγγονον: 95 εἰλικρινής: 95 εἰσοράᾳ: 167 ἐλεέω: 178 ἐπίρροθος: 145 ἐπουράνιος: 173 ἔρχεο: 145 εὐλογέω: 178 εὐλογία: 175 εὐχαί: 56 εὐχήν: 94, 107, 130, 132, 171 ζώς: 95 θαλάμη: 95, 98, 108 θεσπιῳδός: 203 ἱκανοποιέω: 176 n., 178 κακός: 96 κατέχων: 170, 171, 173, 175 κελεύω: 166 κῖκυς: 99 κοιρανέων: 96, 98 κρήνη: 96, 99 λαγέτης: 96 λατομεῖον: 96 μαντεύεο: 144, 145 μέγας: 150, 169, 170, 173, 175 μέγιστος: 173 μεσό –δμη: 95, 99, 170 οὐράνιος: 173 πανδερκής: 173 Πανυπείροχος: 223 σαόφρων: 234 σορός: 97 στάλλα: 97 σύντροφος: 65 σωτήρ: 133, 166, 171, 175, 222, 223, 227 τόπος: 130, 173 τύραννος: 144, 173 ὕψιστος: 173, 178

Latin terms adytum: 207, 208 centones: 167 dumopireti: 101 n. dumus: 101 n. iaculor: 6 n. voces magicae: 140 n., 145, 146 Phrygian terms bevdos: 99 duman: 101 kako-: 96, 98 knays: 99 kraniyas: 96, 99 Kubeleya: 100 kuryaneyon: 96, 98 lakedo: 99 lavagtaei: 96–98 sṭaḷ?a: 97, 98 vanakt-: 96, 97 ακκαλος: 100 ακροδμαν: 95, 99 ανανκαι: 95, 98 ἀρχιερεύς: 129 αωρω: 93, 95 γλουρεος: 100, 106, 116 δουμε: 93, 101 εγουννου: 95 ειλικρινη: 94, 95, 111, 116, 117 ευκιν: 94, 107 ζως: 95 θαλαμει: 96, 98, 108, 114 κοροαν: 106, 116 λατομειον: 96 ναδροτος: 93, 97 σορο-: 97 συναγωγός: 127 τις: 97, 118, 195

COLLOQUIA ANTIQUA 1. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (ed.), The Black Sea, Greece, Anatolia and Europe in the First Millennium BC. 2. H. GENZ and D.P. MIELKE (eds.), Insights into Hittite History and Archaeology. 3. S.A. KOVALENKO, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Coins of the Black Sea Region. Part I: Ancient Coins from the Northern Black Sea Littoral. 4. A. HERMARY and G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (eds.), From the Pillars of Hercules to the Footsteps of the Argonauts. 5. L. MIHAILESCU-BÎRLIBA, Ex Toto Orbe Romano: Immigration into Roman Dacia. With Prosopographical Observations on the Population of Dacia. 6. P.-A. KREUZ, Die Grabreliefs aus dem Bosporanischen Reich. 7. F. DE ANGELIS (ed.), Regionalism and Globalism in Antiquity: Exploring Their Limits. 8. A. AVRAM, Prosopographia Ponti Euxini Externa. 9. Y.N. YOUSSEF and S. MOAWAD (eds.), From Old Cairo to the New World. Coptic Studies Presented to Gawdat Gabra on the Occasion of his SixtyFifth Birthday. 10. R. ROLLINGER and K. SCHNEGG (eds.), Kulturkontakte in antiken Welten: vom Denkmodell zum Fallbeispiel. 11. S.A. KOVALENKO, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Coins of the Black Sea Region. Part II: Ancient Coins of the Black Sea Littoral. 12. A.V. PODOSSINOV (ed.), The Periphery of the Classical World in Ancient Geography and Cartography. 13. A.M. MADDEN, Corpus of Byzantine Church Mosaic Pavements from Israel and the Palestinian Territories. 14. A. PETROVA, Funerary Reliefs from the West Pontic Area (6th–1st Centuries BC). 15. A. FANTALKIN and O. TAL, Tell Qudadi: An Iron Age IIB Fortress on the Central Mediterranean Coast of Israel (with References to Earlier and Later Periods). 16. C.M. DRAYCOTT and M. STAMATOPOULOU (eds.), Dining and Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the ‘Funerary Banquet’ in Ancient Art, Burial and Belief. 17. M.-P. DE HOZ, J.P. SÁNCHEZ HERNÁNDEZ and C. MOLINA VALERO (eds.), Between Tarhuntas and Zeus Polieus: Cultural Crossroads in the Temples and Cults of Graeco-Roman Anatolia.

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18. M. MANOLEDAKIS, G.R. TSETSKHLADZE and I. XYDOPOULOS (eds.), Essays on the Archaeology and Ancient History of the Black Sea Littoral. 19. R.G. GÜRTEKIN DEMIR, H. CEVIZOĞLU, Y. POLAT and G. POLAT (eds.), Archaic and Classical Western Anatolia: New Perspectives in Ceramic Studies. 20. C. KÖRNER, Die zyprischen Königtümer im Schatten der Großreiche des Vorderen Orients. Studien zu den zyprischen Monarchien vom 8. bis zum 4. Jh. v. Chr. 21. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (ed.), Pessinus and Its Regional Setting. Volume 1. 22. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (ed.), Pessinus and Its Regional Setting. Volume 2: Work in 2009–2013. 23. I. MOGA, Religious Excitement in Ancient Anatolia. Cult and Devotional Forms for Solar and Lunar Gods. 24. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (ed.), Phrygia in Antiquity: From the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period. 25. L. MIHAILESCU-BÎRLIBA (ed.), Limes, Economy and Society in the Lower Danubian Roman Provinces. 26. M. COSTANZI and M. DANA (eds.), Une autre façon d’être grec: interactions et productions des Grecs en milieu colonial/Another Way of Being Greek: Interactions and Cultural Innovations of the Greeks in a Colonial Milieu. 27. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE (ed.), Ionians in the West and East. 28. G.R. TSETSKHLADZE et al. (eds.), Archaeology and History of Urartu (Biainili). 29. M.-P. DE HOZ, J.L. GARCÍA ALONSO and L.A. GUICHARD ROMERO (eds.), Greek Paideia and Local Tradition in the Graeco-Roman East.

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