7. Athens and Delos

In return for her loyal support, the Romans, after their victory over the Macedonian king Perseus at Pydna in 168, gave to Athens the island of Delos to administer as a free port. The Athenians expelled the Delians from their island and themselves took over the secular and sacred management of all Delian state cults and of the sacred treasury. For the religious history of Hellenistic Athens the assumption of control of the Delian cults is an important, perhaps decisive, moment. We now have Athenian citizens, men and women of social and political prominence, not only aware of but participating in and serving as priests and other officials in non-Athenian, sometimes non-Greek, cults. This inevitably had an impact both on the individuals themselves and on the Athenian society to which they returned after their years on Delos. And, furthermore, what happened to the religious cult structure of Delos illustrates in macrocosm, as what happened back in Athens illustates in microcosm, what I think to be the primary cause of lasting change in religion in the Hellenistic period: namely, the dislocation, voluntary or otherwise, of citizens from their homelands and the resulting long-term exposure to alien religious cults, whether Greek or not. When the Delians were expelled and Athenians seized control of Delian cults, the new masters, living in a new country, were less limited by their own Athenian religious traditions and even less restricted by Delian traditions. The Athenians had a relatively free hand, psychologically as well as practically, to innovate in religious matters on Delos, and this chapter will first examine how this freedom dramatically changed Delian religion and then describe the religious activities, at home and abroad, of some Athenians who participated in the process.

Delian Cults prior to 168/7

Delos was, of course, an international religious center, enjoying its fame as Apollo’s and Artemis’ birthplace. Over time the whole island had become, in a sense, sacred, for in the Hellenistic period neither birth, death or burial, nor war was permitted on it.^[1] For centuries various Greek and foreign states had sent, in acknowledgment of Apollo’s power, first-fruit offerings, choruses, and dedications to Delos. But despite the international appeal of the cult and despite the regular presence of foreigners on the island, the Delians had maintained their religious institutions and traditions and had excluded foreign influences no less tenaciously than had the Athenians. So long as Delians retained control of their own religion, Delian institutions were upheld. What these institutions were and what the Athenians found on Delos when they arrived in 167/6 can be summarized from the superb and highly detailed study of Philippe Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l’époque hellénistique et à l’époque impériale (1970).

On Delos the myth and cults of Apollo, his sister Artemis, his mother Leto, and the birth goddess Eileithyia predominated. The sanctuary of Apollo had three temples, with the “Great Temple” finally nearly completed ca. 280 and replacing the archaic poros temple as “the” temple of Apollo (52–54).^[2] The sanctuary had its great altar of goat horns (Κερατῶν), founded by Apollo himself (19–29). His festival, the Apollonia, was celebrated annually with sacrifices, athletic contests, choral songs, literary and musical productions, and, as at the City Dionysia in Athens, the awarding of crowns to individuals for meritorious civic service (65–81). At the Apollonia a chorus of Delian women (Deliades) performed, a chorus that the Delians, unlike the Athenians, maintained throughout the year to perform at a multitude of religious occasions, often at night, under torchlight, to the accompaniment of a flutist (35–38). Also throughout the year Apollo received theōriai (religious embassies) bearing first-fruit offerings from cities such as Calymna, Cnidos, Rhodes, Alexandria, and Athens, and the Deliades regularly performed on these occasions (93–114).

Artemis’ sanctuary adjoined Apollo’s to the northwest. Her archaic temple remained in service until it was replaced by a new Artemision in extensive remodeling after 179. In her sanctuary was the tomb (σῆμα) of the Hyperborean Maidens Laodice and Hyperoche (172–74). Artemis was also honored by the Delians on adjacent islands: the Artemision “on the island” with a temple, altar, bronze cult statue, and dining room, and another sanctuary for her as Artemis Ortygia with a “house” (οἶκος) and a spring (176–91). As the myth has it, Artemis, the firstborn, had assisted in the birth of her twin brother, and hence was appropriately revered by women as Artemis Lochia (“of Childbirth”) on the east slope of Mount Cynthos. Her sanctuary there, on a long terrace, included an altar and a temple (191–95). The Letoön, the sanctuary of Apollo’s mother Leto, was just north of her son’s sanctuary and included an archaic temple, altar, wood cult statue, and the sacred date palm to which Leto clung in the agonies of childbirth (207–12). Within the sanctuary of Apollo was a temple of Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, who enjoyed unusual prominence at Delos because of her role in Apollo’s birth myth (212–19). Both Leto and Eileithyia had annual festivals.

The myths and cults of this Delian triad, Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, together with Eileithyia, gave Delos its international prominence and its raison d’être as a religious center, but the Delian people, like peoples of other Greek states, had also a coterie of deities to serve their local needs. Zeus Cynthios, the major figure, shared with Athena Cynthia on the summit of Mount Cynthos a large sanctuary, the Cynthion, which was remodeled and improved in the century before 270. The sanctuary was the site of banquets, armed processions, and torch races (221–32). The cult may have served as the Delian equivalent of an Olympian acropolis cult, like that of Athena Polias in Athens, at least in spatial terms. The Delian Athena Polias, known from the sixth century, was associated with and probably subordinate to a Zeus Polieus. In the third century first appear Zeus Soter and Athena Soteira (233–38). After 166 the Athenians had one priest serve all four. Apollo was, of course, “the” god of Delos, and it is not surprising that, unlike in Athens, the cults of the Poliades and Soteres developed little. No temple for them is known, and the one surviving altar, of Zeus Polieus from the third century, stood in Apollo’s sanctuary.

Delos was famed for not having earthquakes (Hdt. 6.98), and credit for that no doubt should be given to Poseidon, because at his festival, the Posideia, he was honored as Asphaleios (“Securer”) and Orthosios (“Uprighter”). The festival featured contests and a banquet, and from the records of expenditures (520 drachmas in ca. 180 B.C.) for the banquet, Bruneau has calculated, at 1 1/2 obols per banqueter, about 2,000 participants, consuming about 1,600 quarts of wine. The banquet quite likely served most of the male, adult citizenry of Delos, and those few who missed it received their 1 1/2 obols in cash (257–67).

The women of Delos celebrated, as Greek women everywhere, the Thesmophoria for Demeter, Kore, and the Zeus Eubouleus common in the Cyclades. The Thesmophorion had altars for each, a temple for Demeter and perhaps one for Kore, a stoa, megaron, treasury, and statues of Demeter and Kore (269–90). As part of this cult the Delian women performed annually a separate, idiosyncratic ritual, the Nyktophylaxia (“Guard of the Night”), which involved, among other events, digging through a certain door, perhaps of the megaron, and walling it up again after the festival (290–93).

Although no Dionysion is attested, choregic monuments survive from the late fourth century and an altar for Dionysos was built in 281 near the Letoön. The Delians held annual Dionysia, surely in the theater, and this festival featured a phallic procession and competitions in tragedy, comedy, and boys’ choruses (295–326). The Delian month name “Lenaion” also presumes a Dionysiac Lenaia like the Lenaia in Athens. The Dioscouroi, as protectors of travelers, received a sacrifice on Delos as early as 301, and their sanctuary, the Dioscourion, included a temple, a hero cult–type altar (ἐσχάρα), and a dining hall where theoxenia was probably held (379–94). Hestia’s cult, as in Athens, was located in the Prytaneion where a continual fire was maintained. She served as patroness of the archons, who regularly made dedications to her (441–44).

To these traditional deities we may add the hero Anios, whose role is analogous to that of Erechtheus in Athens. He was the son of Apollo and Rhoio, was king of Delos at the time of the Trojan War, and served as priest of Apollo and as a mantis. His sons were Andros, Myconos, and Thasos, eponyms of nearby islands. His daughters, the Oinotrophoi Oino, Spermo, and Elaïs, had the power to transform whatever they touched into, respectively, wine, grain, and olive oil, a gift no doubt of their great-great-grandfather Dionysos. Anios’ sanctuary included a colonnaded courtyard, “houses,” and an ἐσχάρα. By the Delians he was called simply Basileus (“King”) or Archegetes (“Founder”), and they alone could enter his sanctuary (413–30).

The Delians were as if not more hesitant than the Athenians to introduce foreign cults and accept them into state cult. Asclepios appears first at the end of the fourth century, one hundred years later than in Athens. His temple was still under construction in 297, and his sanctuary eventually had also, among other buildings, a gateway, colonnade, and dining room. As at Athens and everywhere, he was a god of healing and his cult, once founded, prospered (355–77). The cults of non-Delian gods, when introduced, were placed distant from the civic and cult center of the island; thus the Asclepieion was on the north coastline of the Bay of Fourni. The Cabeireion (later called the Samothrakeion), the sanctuary of the Cabeiroi, protectors of sailors, was founded in the first half of the fourth century on the left bank of the Inopos River (379–99).^[3] The Egyptian cults, attested as early as 332/1 in Athens, first appear on Delos in the first half of the third century along the Inopos. The earliest Sarapieion (A) was privately founded by the Egyptian priest Apollonios from Memphis, and after his death at the age of ninety-seven the priesthood remained in his family. The largest Sarapieion (C), a monumental complex above the reservoir of the Inopos, was the only one to become a state cult, and that not until ca. 180 B.C. (457–66). Sarapis, Isis, Anoubis, and Harpocrates were, at this period, primarily “saviors,” “healers,” and protectors of sailors. The needs of foreign sailors and merchants passing through or based on Delos are probably sufficient to explain the introduction of these cults, as they are for the foreign cults in Piraeus, and the Delians themselves seem little more inclined than the Athenians to participate in them.

Within the sanctuary of Apollo, Aphrodite had a state cult, by legend founded by Theseus on a stop on his return to Athens from Crete. Her festival, the Aphrodisia, included among other events a performance by the Deliades. Near the theater there was another Aphrodision, a private sanctuary founded by the Delian Stesileos, with a temple, altar, “houses,” and a marble cult statue. Stesileos, who served as archon in 305 and as a chorēgos for the Apollonia in 284 and the Dionysia in 280, also provides an example of a religious institution, common at Delos but not at Athens, that allowed the Delians to cope with some of the religious and political pressures of the times. Stesileos in 302 donated a considerable sum of money, a fund to be held by the state and administered by the state hieropoioi, to endow the Stesileia, an annual sacrifice, banquet, and dedicatory vase for Apollo and Aphrodite. Though named after the donor, this “festival” and others like it on Delos were to give divine honors to the deities, not to the founders. Years later Stesileios’ daughter Echenice followed her father’s example and endowed, with 3,000 drachmas, the Echenikeia for the same deities (331–44).

This particular type of “festival,” named after the donor but intended to honor the deity, perhaps derived from the embassies (theōriai) sent to Delos by cities with sacrifices, choruses, and dedications to honor Apollo. Whatever its origins, it became the format according to which, in the third century, the Ptolemies, Antigonids, and Attalids made their primary contribution to Delian religious life. In Athens, as we have seen, benevolent Hellenistic monarchs might be rewarded with divine honors and large public festivals in their honor. But on Delos these same monarchs received from the Delian state itself no such honors. Rather, the kings or members of their families or staff contributed sums of money, probably rather modest by their standards, and from the interest each year a sacrifice was performed, the Deliades sang, and a vase was made and inscribed to commemorate the event. The celebration was named after the monarch, whether Ptolemaieia, Antigoneia, or Attaleia, but the recipient of the honors was Apollo, not the monarch. In addition to endowing such festivals the Hellenistic monarchs also occasionally made dedications of precious objects or, less frequently, of buildings (515–83).

The Confederation of Island States, however—made up of Delos, Myconos, Cynthos, Ceos, Ios, Andros, Naxos, Amorgos, and Paros and based on Delos—at the end of the fourth century gave, as Athens did, divine honors to Antigonos Monophthalmos and Demetrios Poliorcetes in festivals of alternating years, the Antigoneia and Demetrieia.^[4] These festivals included sacrifices, contests, artistic performances, and singing by the Deliades (564–68). As political fortunes changed, the Confederation apparently abandoned the Antigoneia and Demetrieia and established ca. 287/6 a cult for Ptolemy I Soter. Soon after his death in 283 “the Savior” was honored “with godlike honors” (τὸν σωτῆρα Πτολεμαῖον ἰσοθέοις τιμαῖς) for having “liberated” their cities. The Confederation erected an altar for Ptolemy on Delos and celebrated a festival, the Ptolemaieia, for him there. The festival included a tragedy competition. Delians, as did citizens from the other islands, no doubt participated in these festivals, but the celebrations were not their state festivals (531–33). The Delians may also have participated in the cult of Arsinoe Philadephos privately founded by the Egyptian admiral Hermias in 268 (543–45). Another exception to the usual practice on Delos was Antigonos Gonatas’ foundation, in 245, of the Panaia, a festival of the Macedonian Pan (561).

Such is a rough summary of the pre-168 B.C. major Delian cults, deities, and festivals. Though offering only a bare-bones survey of the detailed study of Bruneau and of the complex and beautiful site of Delos, it does give in outline the religious structure the Athenians found on their arrival. This structure was traditionally Delian and probably little changed, except for architectural improvements, from that of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. The relative newcomer Asclepios the Athenians knew well. Sarapis had by now at least one state cult on Delos, but the Athenians knew of him and Isis only from one or two small, private non-Athenian cults in their own city. The cult of the Cabeiroi, though probably still private on Delos, the Athenians no doubt knew only by reputation. Although the Delian state itself had not established divine cults for Antigonids and Ptolemies, Delian citizens surely participated in the Confederation’s Ptolemaieia and, earlier, in its Antigoneia and Demetrieia that were not dissimilar to those once held in Athens. But, all in all, the religion of Delos in 168 was conventional and traditional, classical in structure. The Delians, as Bruneau says in summary (657–58), were attached to the religious traditions of their island, were hostile to establishing new foreign cults, and allowed the private foundation of some Egyptian cults but were slow to make them “official.” All these traits they shared with the Athenians.

Delos and Athens before 167/6

In the fifth century, after 478/7, Athens had designated Delos the financial center of the Delian League and sent her own officials, the hellēnotamiai, to Delos to administer League funds. When the treasury was transferred to Athens in 454/3 and the League even more transparently became the Athenian empire, Delos remained subject to Athens, but not paying tribute. In 426/5 Athens “purified” Delos and established there the quadrennial Delia. Thucydides describes both events and their antecedents from an Athenian point of view:

During the same winter (426/5) the Athenians also purified Delos on the basis of some oracle. Peisistratos the tyrant had also purified it before, not all of it but that part of the island which was visible from the sanctuary. But then (in 426/5) the whole island was purified in the following manner: they took up all the tombs of the dead on Delos, and they made a proclamation that henceforth no one was to die or bear a child on the island but such people were to be transferred to Rheneia. Rheneia is so close to Delos that Polycrates, the tyrant of the Samians, when he had for some time been strong with a naval force and had gotten control of the other islands, took Rheneia and dedicated it to Delian Apollo, binding it with a chain to Delos. And then (in 426/5) first after the purification the Athenians put on the quadrennial Delia.

And once also long ago there was a great gathering of Ionians and surrounding islanders on Delos. For they were coming as religious pilgrims (ἐθεώρουν) with their wives and children, just as the Ionians now go (to Ephesos) for the Ephesia. Athletic and musical contests were held there, and the cities used to provide choruses. In these lines from the Hymn to Apollo Homer reveals that there were such things:

	But when you, Phoebus, especially delighted in your heart in Delos,
	where the chiton-trailing Ionians gather for you
	into your street with their children and wives.
	There, when they make their contests, they remember you
	and delight you with boxing, dance, and song.

And in the following lines which are from the same hymn, Homer reveals that there was also a contest of the musical arts and that people used to come to compete. For after having sung of the Delian chorus of women he ended his praise in these lines in which he mentioned also himself:

	But come now, may Apollo with Artemis be appeased.
	And hail, all you women. And hereafter also
	remember me, whenever some other wretched mortal man
	comes and asks, “O girls, who, in your view, is
	the best of the poets to come here and in whom do you
	you especially find pleasure?” And then all in order answer well,
	“A blind man, and he lives on craggy Chios.”

Such evidence Homer gave that also once long ago there was a great assembly and festival on Delos, but later the islanders and the Athenians used to send choruses and sacrifices. But the contests and most other things had been dissolved, because of misfortunes it seems, before the Athenians then made their contest and horse races. There had not been horse races before. (Thuc. 3.104)

The Athenian removal of Delian tombs in 426 was apparently quite complete and scarcely a tomb has been found there. The Athenian edict that forbade death and birth on the whole island also remained in effect for the subsequent history of Delos as a religious sanctuary.^[5] Thucydides treats the quadrennial Delia, with its games, sacrifices, and chorus, as an Athenian replacement for an ancient but lapsed Panionian festival on the island. This Delia founded by Athens apparently continued to be celebrated until 314, when Athens lost control of the island. After that the festival, which in a sense symbolized Athenian domination of Delos and the Aegean area in general, probably came to an end,^[6] but the Athenians no doubt continued, as other states did, to send an occasional theōria to Delian Apollo. We shall see that the Athenians reinstituted or enhanced the Delia after they regained control of the island.

Athens controlled Delos, to greater or lesser degrees, from ca. 478/7 to 314, with that control interrupted only by her defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Early in the fourth century Athens regained the island, and then Athenian officials (amphictiones) again “managed” Delian sacred funds, but only as financial administrators. In 314, following the decree of Antigonos Monophthalmos “liberating” all Greeks and Athenian losses in trying to put down Lemnian attempts to claim this independence,^[7] Athens lost her authority over Delos and did not regain it until 167/6. The description of the deities and cults of Delos with which this chapter opened is for the period of Delian independence, from 314–168, and it was that religious structure which the Athenians remodeled. But the Athenians had had a long involvement and familiarity with Delos and her cults, and it was no doubt that which made them aware of the possibilities there.

Athenian Innovation in Delian Religious Cult

From 158/7 survives on stone a list, in apparent hierarchical order, of Athenians then serving on Delos as priests of Delian cults (ID 2605). We begin our study of Athenian participation in and remodeling of Delian cults with this list because it provides not only an overview of the situation but also gives entrée to the new structure of individual cults.

1. Priest of Apollo on Delos: [- - -]s, son of Philoxenos, of Oion
2. Priest of Hestia, Demos, and Roma: [- - -g]oras, son of Nicocles, of Kropidai
3. Priest of Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia: Micion, son of Acrisias, of Semachidai
4. Priest of Zeus Soter, Athena Soteira, Zeus Polieus, and Athena Polias: Ephoros, son of Nicanor, of Ptelea
5. Priest of Artemis “on the island”: Athenagoras, son of Athenagoras, of Melite
6. Priest of the Theoi Megaloi, Dioscouroi, and the Cabeiroi: Seleucos, son of Diocles, of Pergase
7. Priest of Dionysos, Hermes, and Pan: Eumenes, son of Eumenes, of Oinoe
8. Priest of Asclepios: Echos, son of Straton, of Sounion
9. Priest of Sarapis: Philocrates, son of Philocrates, of Hamaxanteia
10. Priest of Anios: Noumenios, son of Euthias, of Phyle

To the list of priests in ID 2605 were added also the sacred herald, Dionysios, son of Demanthes, of Lamptrai; the mantis, Olympiodoros, son of Cromachos, of Pallene; a flute player, Perigenes, son of Phocion, of Eupyridai; and the kleidouchos (“key bearer”), Nymphodoros, son of Nymphodoros, of Marathon.

The establishment of ten priesthoods by itself suggests the extent of systematization the Athenians employed.^[8] Among the annual ten priests of 158/7 at least seven tribes are represented. At least one tribe has two priests (Ephoros and Noumenios are both from Oineis), and the sequence of some priests in some periods follows the canonical order of tribes.^[9] The annual terms, the number ten, the distribution among the tribes, and some arranging according to the canonical order of tribes all indicate that the Athenians were bringing to bear on this religious remodeling their long-standing governmental and bureaucratic systems. This may serve as our first indication that Athenian involvement in Delian cults was tied more to administrative than to religious purposes.

To have only ten priests, some of the Delian cults had to be combined. Zeus Cynthios and Athena may already have had a combined cult, and, as we have seen (above, p. 210), the Soteriad and Poliad deities may well already have been identified, but first under the Athenians do we have attested one cult and one priest for them. Also first under the Athenians are Hermes and Pan united with Dionysos, and the Dioscouroi and Cabeiroi joined with the Theoi Megaloi (“Great Gods”) of Samothrace. The latter consolidation in particular is our earliest clear example of what will become common on Delos and what is taken to be a characteristic of Hellenistic religion: that is, syncretism, the blending of deities of quite different origins but of similar functions into one cult.

Our investigation of Athenian Delos is greatly facilitated by Pierre Roussel’s excellent study Délos colonie Athénienne (1916) and by Philippe Bruneau’s work (1970). With them as our guides we now survey, in the hierarchical order of the priesthoods, changes that Athenians made to the cults they “inherited” on Delos. I also add the results of our own study of the dedications made to the various gods in order to indicate the amount and nature of Athenian participation in these cults.

1. Delian Apollo (Roussel, 206–15; Bruneau, 15–114)

Apart from installing their own fellow citizens as the annual priests for Delian Apollo, the Athenians probably continued many of the traditional practices of this most prestigious and profitable cult. They managed the annual celebration of the Apollonia, but now, for the first time, we have attested for it participation of resident foreigners and of foreign religious associations. In a sense all the inhabitants of Delos were now foreigners (i.e., non-Delians), and the Athenians could hardly stage a major festival with only their fellow citizens. Necessity thus promoted foreign participation, but it is also characteristic of the Athenians on Delos that in religious affairs they welcomed foreigners, even into cults that had once been exclusive to the Delians. For obvious reasons the Athenians were less inclined to maintain the exclusivity of Delian cults than they were to maintain that of their own cults back home. The model for the new Apollonia was probably the Athenian Panathenaia, which was designed to include and provide roles for all members of the community. The Athenians essentially made the Apollonia a Panapollonia.

By 158/7 the Athenians had also appended an Athenaia to the Apollonia. The new Athenaia, probably held concurrently with the Apollonia, included a sacrifice and a torch race, and it is indicative of Athenian attempts throughout Delian cult to promote their patroness, a deity who had been, as we have seen, of limited importance to the Delians themselves.

For Apollo himself the Athenians also reestablished the Delia, which they had instituted in 426 but which had since probably lapsed. The new, now annual Delia included contests and the horse race that had been part of the original Delia. Athenian theōroi, called Deliastai, traveled from Athens to Delos to participate. The renewed festival would recall the glory of classical Athens and was surely intended, at least in part, to reassert what the Athenians no doubt thought to be their traditional suzerainty over the island.^[10]

During the Athenian period Apollo, as head of the Delian triad of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, received hundreds, probably thousands of dedications. On a dedication he alone might be named or he might be joined with his sister and mother. Many, if not most, of these dedications were statues.^[11] The dedicators erected statues of the humans they wished to honor and dedicated them to Apollo or the Delian triad.

Among the honorees were kings of Egypt, Syria, Pontus, Pergamon, members of their families and staff, and friends, and these dedications were usually made by the royalty themselves, their staff, and friends.^[12] On these “royal” dedications Athenians infrequently appear as dedicators: Areios, son of Pamphilos (PA 1589), for a member of the Ptolemaic court (ID 1525); Stolos, son of Theon (PA 12909), a Ptolemaic official, honoring and being honored by a friend (1533, 1534); an Athenian honoring Antiochos IV (1541); an Athenian satrap of Demetrios I or II for his son (1544; cf. 1545); and an Athenian for Seleucos VI (1553). Athenians themselves are three times recipients of the honor: Himeros, son of Zenon (PA 7579), from a Cleopatra (1537); Apollonides, son of Theophilos, a naturalized citizen, from Attalos II (1554); and Dionysios, son of Boethos (PA 4118), from, probably, a member of the court of Mithridates V (1559). Similarly with a bronze plaque dedicated to the Delian triad, the Demos of the Athenians honored Stratonice, daughter of King Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia, for “her virtue and goodwill toward it” (1575).

By such statues dedicated to Apollo Athenians commonly honored also their own officials on the island: for example, epimelētai who held the highest administrative position,^[13]epimelētai of the market, agoranomoi, and, quite naturally, a priest of Apollo.^[14] We find also statue dedications by family members for sons who served as kleidouchoi in Apollo’s cult and for daughters who were kanēphoroi and subpriestesses of Artemis.^[15] These dedications have been occasioned by some secular or religious office held by the honoree. There are, in addition, numerous statues of apparently ordinary but no doubt prosperous Athenians dedicated to Apollo by family members. One exedra in Apollo’s sanctuary held statues of the two sons of Artemidoros, son of Hephaistion (PA 2272), and of himself, his father, and his wife, all dedicated to Apollo by Artemidoros or his sons (ID 1962). Such statuary dedications of multiple family members by Athenians are common,^[16] and to them can be added numerous single Athenian dedications: by sons for fathers, by a father for a son, by a wife for her husband, by a mother for a son, by an uncle for a nephew, and by nephews for an uncle.^[17] Athenians also used this means to honor friends and acquaintances.^[18]

The dedications to Apollo also give a taste of the religious cosmopolitanism of Delos in the period. For example, the Poseidoniastai were a koinon of merchants and shipowners devoted to the worship of Poseidon, Astarte, and Echmoun, the triad of deities of their native Beirut.^[19] The members of this foreign cult, however, in 122/1 made a large public dedication to Apollo honoring the Demos of the Athenians for “virtue and goodwill toward them” (ID 1777). And, as perhaps the best example, the banker Philostratos of Ascalon made dedications of altars to, quite naturally, Astarte (1719) and Poseidon (1720, 1721) of Ascalon for the sake of himself, his family, and his city. But, on another occasion, he presented dedications “to Apollo and the Italians” (1717, 1718). The same Philostratos was, in turn, honored by Romans with a statue dedicated to Apollo (1722, 1724) and, on another occasion, by a fellow Ascalonite, his nephew, with a statue dedicated to Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia (1723), all ca. 100 B.C.^[20] What we have here is the participation of foreigners in both their national and the Delian cults. But we shall see that as private citizens Athenians, with a few major exceptions, limited themselves to Greek, Delian cults.

The dedications to Delian Apollo are the most numerous set of dedications in the Athenian period, but, in comparison to those of other cults, they seem most devoid of religious content. That these statues, plaques, and other objects were dedicated to Apollo probably meant little more than that they were to be erected in Apollo’s sanctuary and were to become part of Apollo’s sacred and inviolable property.

On some (e.g., ID 1645, 1651, 1652, 1663) even the god’s name was omitted. Among the deities Apollo was probably selected when honor was being sought generally among the whole Delian community and when neither the dedicator nor the honoree had close ties with another cult. In this time and in this place, the dedication, though made to Apollo, seemingly was intended primarily to honor the human represented by the sculpture or praised in the text, not the god.^[21] We shall see, however, in other cults on Delos in this period some signs of religious devotion to the deities themselves.

2. Hestia, Demos, and Roma (Roussel, 221–23; Bruneau, 441–46)

Hestia had been worshipped, alone, by the Delians in their Prytaneion, and the Athenian remodeling of her cult gives one of our best examples of cult being used symbolically to represent changed political circumstances. Athens had gained control of Delos by Roman intervention, and the new cult—of the Delian Hestia, the Athenian Demos, and the goddess Roma, all elevated to the second level of importance just behind Apollo—perfectly reflects political realities. A later reality appears in 103/2 and thereafter when the priest is listed only as the Priest of Roma (SEG 32.218.40, 127–28, 264–65). The Demos of this triad recalls the cult of Demos and the Charites founded in Athens in the 220s and prospering in this period (above, chapter 6, pp. 172–78). In an Athenian context, however, the goddess Roma is new. The Delian Romaia was held as early as 167/6 (ID 1950) and was probably founded, as were other Athenian “political” festivals, in genuine gratitude to powerful benefactors. The Athenians on Delos apparently participated vigorously in the Romaia, in 127/6 providing eighteen of the twenty-one hieropoioi for the festival (ID 2596); but, to judge from the surviving inscriptions, they did little else in these cults of Hestia, Demos, and Roma.^[22] Only the priest of 129/8 erected a dedication (ID 1877). Most dedications were to Roma, and these only from foreign associations and usually in their own sanctuaries (ID 1763, 1778, 1779, 2484).

3. Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia (Roussel, 223–28; Bruneau, 222–32)

At the Cynthion on the summit of Mount Cynthos, before 166, Zeus Cynthios predominated, but even the nomenclature of the first attested Athenian priest suggests that from the very beginning the Athenians gave to Athena in this cult the increased prominence she was later to enjoy. The sanctuary was considerably enlarged and embellished in the second half of the second century with new terraces, entrance, exedra, and temple. Also, between 156/5 and 145/4, a single bronze statue (no doubt of Zeus) was replaced by two bronze statues of Zeus and Athena. The torch race ending at the altar of the Cynthion may also, in the Athenian period, have been that of the new Athenaia (above, p. 219).

Forty dedications attest to the prosperity of the cult in the Athenian period before the sack of Sulla, particularly at the end of the second century and the beginning of the first.^[23] At least nineteen of these are made by former priests, kleidouchoi, or other officials of the cult. One priest, Charmicos, son of Ainesias (PA 15516), dedicated a cult statue (ID 1881) and, on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians and the Demos of the Romans, a temple (1880). Another priest, Dionysios, son of Menias (PA 4229), dedicated two altars, one at his own expense on behalf of the Athenians and Romans (1882, 1883). Diophantos, son of Parnasos (PA 4431), contributed an exedra in 96/5 (1878), and the former epimelētēs of 97/6, Aristion, son of Socrates (PA 1749), at his own expense had several buildings built in the sanctuary (1817). A significant number of dedications come from foreigners: from Italy (ID 1893), Alexandria (1532), Ascalon (1723), Laodicea (2420), Seleucia on the Tigris (2429), and Gerrha (1442.A.82).

The Athenians again opened up to foreigners a cult once limited to Delian males. Some results of such inclusion may be seen in two dedications, both found in Sarapieion C: one by an Athenian (2074) to Zeus Cynthios, Athena Cynthia, Sarapis, and Isis; the other (2104) of 92/1 to Zeus Cynthios, Sarapis, and Isis. We have in these two dedications our first instance of l’orientalisation of two purely Greek deities in the cosmopolitan Delian society. Here, seemingly, devotees of the Egyptian gods have assimilated Zeus Cynthios to Sarapis and Athena Cynthia to Isis. As further evidence of this development Bruneau (231) notes the oriental style of a statue dedicated to Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia (ID 2428), the formula κατὰ πρόσταγμα (“according to [the god’s] command”), characteristic of oriental dedications (2104, 2424), and the Egyptian structure (with priest, zakoros, and kleidouchos) of the cult personnel. The datable oriental features are relatively late, all after ca. 125 B.C. Zeus Cynthios as a “summit” deity may well have appealed also to the oriental worshippers of Ba’al, who had neighboring sanctuaries on Mount Cynthos. The process on Delos was thus not only the acceptance of foreign cults by Athenians but also a transformation of the understanding of a Greek deity under the influence of foreign cults, even for some Athenians there (ID 2074).^[24]

A cult regulation (ID 2529), unfortunately of uncertain date but at least fifty years after the Athenians occupied Delos, may give tangible evidence of this orientalisation of Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia. It is the reissue of a former ordinance, produced κατὰ πρόσταγμα, by the priest of the two deities, that orders that those entering “the sanctuary be with pure hands and soul (ψυχῇ καθαρᾷ), wear white garments and no shoes, be pure (ἁγνεύοντας) of a woman and meat, and carry with them no key, or iron finger-ring, or belt, or purse, or military weapons, and do nothing other of the things forbidden but perform their sacrifices and seek omens in their sacrifices (καλλιερεῖν) in the ancestral ways.” The provisions for strict physical purity, the dress code, and especially the demand for moral purity, the first we have met in this study, suggest that a strong oriental influence has had its effect on this cult.^[25]

4. Zeus Soter, Athena Soteira, Zeus Polieus, Athena Polias (Roussel, 228–29; Bruneau, 233–38)

The pairs Zeus Soter / Athena Soteira and Zeus Polieus/ Athena Polias are first unmistakably associated in one cult in the priest list of 158/7. In origin the Poliades were quite probably civil gods whereas the Soteres may have been linked more to specific instances of “saving” in international political affairs (cf. IG XI 559). The Poliades appear earlier (sixth century B.C.), and the Soteres are not attested until 280 (IG XI 559), about the time when Athena Soteira emerges as a partner to Zeus Soter in Athenian city cult (above, chapter 5, pp. 110–13). The Poliad deities of the Delian state may have been of slight interest to the Athenians, and by the end of the second century the priest can be denoted simply as “of Zeus Soter and Athena Soteira” (ID 2608), the pair more familiar to the Athenians from their homeland. A major task of this priest must have been the staging of a procession, and for this he selected as many as thirty young Athenian males as pompostoloi (“conductors of the procession”; ID 2607, 2608).^[26] No dedications by Athenian officials or laymen survive, and cult activity seems similar in pattern to that of Hestia, Demos, and Roma.

5. Artemis “On the Island” (Roussel, 215–21; Bruneau, 176–88, 197–201)

Before 166 this cult was probably served by a priestess who was assisted by a male neōkoros (“warden”). One would expect a priestess for Artemis,^[27] and it is probably an indication of the bureaucratic (vs. religious) orientation of the Athenian reorganization that a male priest was chosen for this service. Neither the site nor much else is known of this cult, and only one dedication survives from the Athenian period; it is not by an Athenian (ID 2374).

6. Theoi Megaloi, Dioscouroi, Cabeiroi (Roussel, 229–33; Bruneau, 379–99)

At the time of the Athenian occupation of Delos there was a Dioscourion, with its own annual ritual, and a separate sanctuary of the Theoi Megaloi and the Cabeiroi.^[28] These cults, at least in this form, had not been established in Athens, and we can see here how the Athenians coped with them. The Athenians had at home several well-established cults of the Dioscouroi and knew them as protectors of sailors from their own literature,^[29] and on Delos they combined their cult with the Samothracian Theoi Megaloi and the Cabeiroi, who had a similar function. The Athenians may have united the cults at the sanctuary of the Theoi Megaloi, which they called the Samothrakeion, and may have virtually abandoned the Dioscourion. Under the Athenians the Samothrakeion was enlarged and remodeled in the third quarter of the second century. The Dioscourion has not yet been positively identified; but in contrast to the Samothrakeion, it must have fallen into some disrepair, for near the beginning of the first century, a priest, Athenobios, probably not an Athenian, prided himself on restoring the statues of the Dioscouroi on the porch of the temple, on renewing the lapsed annual procession, and on giving the gods their traditional honors (ID 2548).^[30] Rituals there as well as artifacts needed restoration.

In this cult complex we can see, perhaps better than elsewhere, the Hellenistic process of assimilation of deities (syncretism) and an Athenian contribution to it. By 166 the Samothracian Theoi Megaloi and the Cabeiroi were probably already assimilated, but the Dioscouroi were distinct. The Athenians then, in public cult, brought the Dioscouroi into the group, and among the now heterogeneous gods gave precedence to the Theoi Megaloi. In the nomenclature of the priest, the Theoi Megaloi always occur and always come first. In organizing this priesthood the Athenians had to decide which cults to combine, which deities should have priority, and, presumably, which of the sanctuaries should form the cult center. The selected sanctuary would profit from state support, and the others could be neglected. The result was an idiosyncratic cult because only on Delos were these sets of deities combined in just this fashion.

As epimelētēs of the island in 120/19 Polemon, son of Patron (PA 11891), dedicated a building in the Samothrakeion to the Theoi Megaloi and Heracles (ID 1808; cf. 1809). In this sanctuary the Athenian priests of the Theoi Megaloi regularly erected dedications throughout the Athenian period (1898–905, 1981). One of the priests, Helianax, son of Apollodoros (PA 6403), was exceptionally active. He may have been a naturalized citizen; if so, he was the only such among the Delian priests. As priest in 102/1 he dedicated a temple and accoutrements “to the gods for whom he served as priest and to King Mithridates…on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians and the Demos of the Romans” (SEG 40.657). On this “monument of Mithridates” ^[31] Helianax dedicated a number of statues: to Antiochos VIII (1552), to Mithridates and members of his court (1563, 1569, 1574), to Ariarathes VII (1576), and to other kings (1581, 1582). He also erected a statue of his own father (1903; cf. 1902). Apart from Polemon, the epimelētēs of the island, all other Athenians erected dedications to the Theoi Megaloi as priests of the cult.^[32]

7. Dionysos, Hermes, and Pan (Roussel, 233–37; Bruneau, 295–328, 349–54, 435–38)

Before 166 Dionysos had altars and choregic monuments on Delos but, apparently, no Dionysion. The Athenians combined his cult with that of Hermes and Pan and constructed for the unified cult a new sanctuary near the theater. It included a gateway, an altar, a stoa, and both a larger and smaller temple. In 146/5 the Athenians, interestingly, purchased from sacred funds a new garment for Artemis and gave to the cult statue of Dionysos the goddess’ old garment (ID 1442.B.54–56, 1444.Aa.38). In cultic terms such a move is unprecedented and scarcely conceivable, but it has the flavor of a purely bureaucratic maneuver to provide low-cost adornment for a relatively new cult. The Athenians continued to celebrate on Delos the Dionysia and the Lenaia, both probably with dramatic competitions.^[33] One priest of the cult (ID 1907), a priest of Sarapis (2061), and other Athenians (1870, 1873) honored their daughters, as was the fashion also in Athens (above, chapter 6, pp. 198–99), for their service as kanēphoroi in these festivals. The priest of Dionysos also selected Athenian young men as pompostoloi for the festivals (ID 2609). The Athenians may well have introduced into the Delian Dionysia their own practice of announcing crowns for civic services (ID 1505.18–21, 1507.21–23). Dionysos also received dedications from the epimelētēs of 111/0, who had won victories in a dramatic competition (ID 1959), and from the epimelētēs of 110/09.^[34]

Before 166 Hermes was one of the patrons of the Delian gymnasia, and he remained that throughout the Athenian period. In 156/5 forty-one marble herms stood in the gymnasion (ID 1417.A.I.146–47), and Hermes shared with Apollo and sometimes Heracles dedications erected by winners of torch races at the Romaia (ID 1950), Theseia (1951, 1952), and Athenaia (1953), most of them ephebes.^[35] He was particularly associated with the ephebes and ephebic training, and the Hermaia as an agonistic festival included a torch race for young men from both Athens and elsewhere. For this festival in the late second century ten young men from one palaestra, again both Athenians and non-Athenians, were designated as “priests” and no doubt assisted in the sacrifice.^[36] Private, non-Athenian commercial associations made dedications to Hermes as, probably, the Roman Mercurius, often joined with Apollo and Heracles,^[37] but only one Athenian, a Dionysios, made a private dedication, on behalf of Dionysios his “professor” and his fellow students (ID 1801).

Pan shared with the Nymphs a Nymphaion near the theater from as early as the fourth century, and in 115/4 Ptolemaios, son of Ptolemaios (PA 11880), who was put in charge of the Nymphaion, dedicated from his own funds an arch and doorway, “on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians” (ID 1839). After 166 Pan’s state cult was probably centered in the new Athenian sanctuary administered by the priest of Dionysos, Hermes, and Pan. One dedication to these three gods, from 98/7, survives (ID 2400). Pan’s specific function in the Delian pantheon is not known, nor are there any obvious religious reasons for uniting Dionysos, Hermes, and Pan into one cult. Their priest, of all the Athenian priests, seems to have had the responsibility for the most heterogeneous cult.

8. Asclepios (Roussel, 237–39; Bruneau, 355–77)

After its founding in the late fourth century and initial burst of construction, Asclepios’ cult developed little. Under the Athenians there was no new construction, and, as it had under the Delians, the treasury grew slowly. An inventory (ID 1417.B.I.102–50) of 156/5 gives a good contemporary picture of this treasury as the Athenians “inherited” it: a gold ring; numerous silver phialai and cups; two censors; the gold crown worn by the cult statue; coins; a lancet; a brazier; a marble table; statues, including three Asclepioi, one marble Apollo, one Apollo holding a bow, a centaur holding torches, and three children; an ivory pyxis; and ninety-seven votive tablets. The inventory, if it lists all dedications of the past 150 years, is rather small, and it grew very little in the following decade. The Athenians had at home their own cult and annual priesthood of Asclepios, and this priesthood on Delos would have probably been the most familiar and least challenging for an Athenian. But given Athenian familiarity with Asclepios and the magnificence of his sanctuary, it is surprising that no Athenian dedications made simply to him in his sanctuary survive. A priest of Asclepios even made his dedication to Artemis Soteira (ID 1909), and another was honored by a statue dedicated to Apollo (1834). The most detailed Athenian dedication to Asclepios and gods related to him was erected in Sarapieion C (2387). The Athenians clearly turned elsewhere than the Asclepieion for their healing.

9. Sarapis (Roussel, 249–52; Bruneau, 457–66)

By contrast to that of Asclepios, the priesthood of Sarapis must have required the most ingenuity and open-mindedness on the part of its new Athenian priest.^[38] For him the deities (Sarapis, Isis, Anoubis, and, later, Harpocrates) were probably known only by name, the rituals were quite alien, and the devotees were non-Athenians.^[39] But it seems also to be the Delian cult into which the Athenian priests threw themselves most wholeheartedly and which enjoyed, under the Athenians, the most prosperity.

Sarapis and Isis were imagined as more immanent in human life than their Olympian counterparts. They are often, in dedications, addressed as “hearing” (ἐπηκόος) and “appearing” (ἐπιφανής) deities. Dedications and buildings were often given to them “as ordered” (κατὰ πρόσταγμα)—that is, presumably, as the deities commanded in a dream.^[40] Both served as healers, which may suggest a reason for the slow growth of the Asclepios cult on Delos, and Isis protected sailors. For the former role Isis was associated with Hygieia (ID 2060) and for the latter Sarapis and Isis were linked to the Dioscouroi (ID 2123). Isis, as elsewhere in the Hellenistic world, took on many epithets and roles. On Delos she was praised as “just” (δικαία), “savior” (σώτειρα), and “good” (χρηστής). She was linked with Aphrodite, the Mother of the Gods, Astarte, Nemesis, Nike, and Hygieia. In Sarapieion C, which Roussel (251) nicely terms “un véritable pandémonium,” stood dedications to Ammon, Boubastis, Osiris, Zeus Ourios, Demeter Eleusinia, Kore, Hermes, Heracles, Apallaxikakos, Asclepios, Hygieia, the Dioscouroi, and even Apollo.^[41]

The cult structure, even under the Athenians, had the oriental form: a (Athenian) priest, (often Athenian) subpriest (ὑφιερεύς), kleidouchos, zakoros (“attendant”), females serving as kanēphoros and dream interpreter, lamp bearers, and aretologists. Of the hundreds of donors to special projects in Sarapieion C at the end of the second century (ID 2614–25), only a handful, all officials, can be identified as Athenians (e.g., 2616.I.3–10, 2619.6–10). Most of the donors bear Greek names, a substantial minority are Roman, and many were quite likely freedmen and slaves. In this cult, more than in any other of the original ten priesthoods, the Athenians found themselves participating in and leading foreign religious activities of a very mixed and cosmopolitan congregation.

The Demos of the Athenians itself also dedicated several temples and buildings in Sarapieion C: one before 135 and others in 135/4, 130/29, and ca. 90 (ID 2041–43, 2045). The state also erected a large statue of Isis in 128/7 (2044).^[42] Athenian priests of the cult also contributed significantly:

-
• Athenagoras, son of Athenagoras (PA 217), of 126/5, “as ordered”: a megaron (ID 2047; cf. 2048)
• Staseas, son of Philocles (PA 12875), of 118/7: exedrai and a statue (2053, 2054)
• Hipponicos, son of Hipponicos (PA 7665), of 117/6 and his kanēphoros, Mystion, daughter of Heracleides (PA 10515): vaults, altars, and steps (2055, 2056)
• Dionysios, son of Dionysios (PA 4249), of 116/5: a spring house (2057)
• Sosion, son of Eumenes (PA 13302), of 110/09: temple and statue of Isis Nemesis along with other dedications (2038, 2062–64)
• Dionysios, son of Zenon (PA 4190), of 109/8: a gateway and pavement (2065)
• Dicaios, son of Dicaios (PA 3784), of ca. 94/3: a building, on behalf of the Athenians, Romans, Mithridates, and his own mother and father (2039; cf. 2040)

Other priests of Sarapis also made dedications to the Egyptian gods and were in turn honored by members of the cult or by their own relatives for their service.^[43]

Eight of the nearly 130 surviving private dedications to the Egyptian deities can also be attributed to Athenians.^[44] In 111/0 a father erected, for the sake of himself, his wife, and his children, a statue of his daughter who had served as a kanēphoros (ID 2125). In 92/1 the brother of a priest erected a dedication for Isis Aphrodite Dikaia (2158). In the late second century an Athenian dedicated an altar to Isis Euploia (2153), and a former epimelētēs and a priest made cash contributions (2165–66). Athenagoras, son of Athenagoras, was, as we have seen, priest in 126/5, and members of his family thereafter made gifts to the Egyptian deities (2152, 2179). This level of state, priestly, and private participation by Athenians is unparalleled among the cults of Delos, and it reflects the favor that Sarapis, Isis, and their entourage quickly found among the new masters of the island.

10. Anios (Roussel, 239–40; Bruneau, 413–30)

The Athenians, despite assigning him a priest, showed little interest in the purely Delian hero Anios. To the Delians he was Archegetes (“Founder”) and his sanctuary was the Archegesion. The Athenians had, of course, their own Founder, Athena Archegetis, and they designated the Delian hero’s sanctuary as only “that of Anios” (ID 1417.A.I.117–18). Only three dedications survive from the Athenian period, two of them by the priests of Anios (ID 1910, 1911). In the great inventory of 156/5 the only dedication listed for the sanctuary is an archaic bronze statue of Apollo, Anios’ father (ID 1417.A.I.117–18). Clearly, to the Athenians, this cult deserved its last place in the hierarchy.

Our survey of the cults of the ten priesthoods the Athenians established in the first years of their control of Delos indicates their initial orientation toward these non-Athenian cults. They followed their own governmental and bureaucratic systems, with annual priesthoods distributed among the tribes and occasionally rotated on the cycle of the canonical order of tribes. They maintained the major Delian cults—Apollo, Artemis, Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia—but wherever possible “Atticized” them by the introduction or emphasis of Athena. The purely Delian, as Anios, was de-emphasized. The lesser deities in the Delian pantheon they grouped, the Soteres and Poliades together, Pan and Hermes with Dionysos. The cult of Delian Hestia they significantly politicized, linking it with Athenian Demos and the Roman Roma and then giving it second rank. Asclepios they maintained as he was but did not promote, and the foreign Theoi Megaloi and Cabeiroi they combined with the more familiar Dioscouroi. Initially they probably mistook the importance of the cult of Isis and Sarapis, of negligible importance back in Athens, and gave it only the ninth rank, but they quickly moved to promote this cult when they saw the support it had in the local community.

Most notable, as we attempt to assess the Athenian religious commitment to the Delian cults they administered, is the lack of Athenian private dedications to these gods, apart from the cult of Sarapis. There are, for example, no such dedications to Artemis “on the island,” the Samothracian gods or the Dioscouroi, Hestia, Demos, and Roma, the Soteres or Poliades, or Anios. Asclepios received only one (ID 2387), and that in Sarapieion C. The only Athenian private dedication to Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia was also erected in the Sarapieion (2074). The dedications to Delian Apollo, while numerous, were intended primarily to honor the humans, not the god. The Athenians on Delos, it appears, for private cult turned more to Sarapis and, as we shall see, to Aphrodite Hagne.

The receptiveness the Athenians showed to the Delian Sarapis and Isis cult is atypical of the attitude they had had in their own country, but it is characteristic of their handling of Delian cults. The Athenians on Delos soon took to the Syrian cult of Atargatis and Hadad of the Hieropolitans.^[45] Initially the priest was himself a Hieropolitan, and in 128/7 Achaios, the Hieropolitan priest, dedicated a temple, some altars, and an οἴκος. By 112/1 at the latest, Athenians had assumed the priesthood. The Athenians identified Atargatis with Aphrodite, who was given a specifying epithet, Hagne (“Pure”). Hadad, Atargatis’ paramour, became Zeus Hadatos. The assignment of Olympian names, however, could only be superficial; and for Athenians at least, the cult, despite the Olympian names, must have remained very alien. The divine pair, with the prominent female and her inferior male paramour, could hardly be fully assimilated to Athenian conceptions of Aphrodite and Zeus. The cult structure was also, even in the period of Athenian priests, oriental: a priest, a kleidouchos, a female kanēphoros (all Athenian), a non-Athenian zakoros, and a slave. The cult of Atargatis and Hadad prospered quickly, and soon the sanctuary, next to Sarapieion C, included a courtyard with temples, a stoa, banquet halls, a theater seating six to seven hundred, cisterns, and many smaller structures. Much of this monumental construction is dated to the time of the early Athenian priests, from 113/2 to 105/4.^[46]

The numerous dedications from 128/7 to ca. 90 are very revealing. In the earliest (ID 2226 of 128/7) a Syrian from Hieropolis named Achaios, son of Apollonios, the elected priest, dedicated “to his ancestral gods” Hadatos and Atargatis, on behalf of “himself, his wife, his children, and his brothers,” a temple, an adjoining οἴκος, and some altars. By 112/1 the priest had become an Athenian: “Theodoros, son of Theodoros, of Aithalidai (PA 6850), priest in the year of the archonship of Dionysios, and the therapeutai (“devotees”), on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians, dedicated the vaults to Aphrodite Hagne” (ID 2229). Here Atargatis has been given a Greek name, and the dedication is “on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians.” Sometime between 128/7 and 112/1—the date is usually given as 118/7—Athenians had assumed the priesthood and control of the cult. Until that time Hieropolitans served as priests.^[47] The Hieropolitans, however, all maintained the Syrian names of the deities. Aphrodite Hagne appears first in the first dedication by an Athenian priest, and we may suspect that it was the Athenians who changed her name.^[48]

As in the cult of Sarapis, the Athenian priests of Aphrodite Hagne, despite being only annual and appointed from Athens, seem wholeheartedly to have become involved in the cult. And, also notably, Athenians with no official capacity were participating. Even under a Hieropolitan priest, an Athenian Cleostratides, son of Apollonios (PA 8619), offered a charistērion (“a gift of gratitude”) to Hadatos and Atargatis (ID 2258). In 108/7 the same Cleostratides, “on behalf of the Athenians, the Romans, and the therapeutai,” gave a “throne,” now to Aphrodite Hagne as a charistērion (2250). This year he dedicated also Erotes and pilasters, both no doubt for the sanctuary’s theater (2251, 2252). The Athenian priests of Aphrodite Hagne in these years showed an interest well beyond that of fulfilling administrative assignments. In 110/09 Demonicos, son of Heuremon (PA 3564), added to the usual beneficiaries (the Demos of the Athenians and the Demos of the Romans) himself, his nephew, his wife, and the therapeutai when he dedicated an Ionic colonnade (2230). The same Demonicos gave to the sanctuary, from his own funds, another building and “furniture” (2231). Also in Demonicos’ year the epimelētēs of Delos, the chief Athenian official on the island, and his wife dedicated “for themselves, their children, and the Demos of the Athenians” a temple and pronaos (2221). In 107/6 the priest Aischrion, son of Aischrion (PA 387), from his own funds dedicated altars (2232, 2233; cf. SEG 36.740). And, as a final example, Philocles, son of Zenon (PA 14561), was priest in 100/99 and dedicated a temple and doors (ID 2237), a statue of the kanēphoros Nympho (2238), and an altar (2239).^[49] Among the dedications made privately by Athenians are a statue of a son erected by his mother (2246), Cleostratides’ four contributions (2250–52, 2258), and Phormion’s for himself, his wife, his children, Philippos (a cult official), and the therapeutai (2274). A few Athenians, including Cleostratides and the priest, are also listed among the many contributors to the sanctuary’s theater in 108/7 (2628.I.18 ff.). But this list and the many other dedications also serve to remind us that the large majority of therapeutai were non-Athenians, coming from places such as Antioch, Laodicea, Hieropolis, Rome, Alexandria, Ascalon, Seleucia, Ephesos, and Damascus.

In the Delian cult of Atargatis, more than in any other of the Hellenistic period, we have good evidence for Athenian private and official participation in a truly exotic, foreign, and highly cosmopolitan cult. In the Delian context Atargatis / Aphrodite Hagne seems to promote “healing” and “immanence” amid secret, mystery-type rituals requiring temporary purity from certain foods (including fish and pork), sex, childbirth, and miscarriage (ID 2530). In the many charistēria to this goddess on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians, the Demos of the Romans, the givers and their family and friends, one sees the same striving, on the political and personal level, for “health and safety” that we have seen, in Athens, in the Olympian cults. Here, living on an island a day’s voyage from their homeland, some Athenians found, as they did in Sarapis and Isis, a new provider of health and safety. That these effects were felt also back in Athens is best suggested by one dedication to the goddess by the Demos of the Athenians itself, made κατὰ προστάγματα, that is, “at the commands” of the goddess herself (ID 2220). The Athenian Demos, in Athens, had voted in 110/09 to honor the requests of a Syrian deity.

Athenians on Delos seem particularly attracted to the cults of Sarapis and Atargatis, but they also allowed, more readily than had their Delian predecessors, foreigners to found sanctuaries for the worship of their native gods. By ca. 100 B.C. there were on Delos sanctuaries of (1) Zeus Hypsistos = Ba’al (ID 2306); (2) of Astarte of Ascalon (1719, 2305); and (3) of Heracles (= Ba’al) and Hauronas, gods of the Palestinian city Iamneia (2308). There was also a Jewish synagogue of Theos Hypsistos (2328–33). A number of other “oriental” sanctuaries have also been identified in which foreign deities were honored under Greek names such as Megistos Ares Ouranios (2312) and Theoi Protoi (2310).^[50] In addition to these, there were various private cult associations of merchants and sailors such as the Roman Competaliastai (1760–71), the Heracleistai of Tyre (1519), and the Poseidoniastai of Beirut (1520, 1772–96, 2323–27, 2611).^[51]

Although the Athenians did not participate in these various cults as either officials or laymen, they must have approved for them the purchase of land and hence the permanent establishment of the cults.^[52] The result was that, by ca. 100 B.C., as Bruneau (1970, 1) puts it, “here, more than elsewhere in Greece, the confrontation of Greek deities and of foreign deities was multiplied by a real encounter among their devotees.” Within two generations the Athenians, in part by participation and in part by tolerance, neither of which they exhibited at home, had turned the religiously conservative Delos into a mixing pot of a bewildering variety of Greek and foreign cults. They did this, I think, because as newcomers themselves to Delos they were inhibited by neither Athenian nor Delian religious traditions. With much less constraint than they felt at home, they were able to innovate with and participate in the new religious movements flooding Asia Minor and the Aegean.

We have thus far been examining, from epigraphical texts, the externals of the Delian cult structure and the changes effected by the Athenians. But the same inscriptions allow us to see more clearly than does any other evidence from the Hellenistic period the participation in religious cults by Athenian individuals and families, both as officials and as laymen. It immediately becomes apparent that individuals and families participated in a wide variety of quite different types of cults. There is virtually no evidence for exclusive devotion to one cult, even for the devotees of the Egyptian or Syrian deities. We shall also see how members of individual families—fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters—played roles in various cults and how sacred offices were passed around among a rather large group of prominent families. And, we shall see, many of these families maintained their ties with traditional cults back at Athens.

Euboulos, son of Demetrios, of Marathon (PA 5364) is among the earliest attested Athenian priests on Delos, and his priestly career is unparalleled not in the number (three) of priesthoods he held,^[53] but because he held them in successive years. In 159/8 Euboulos was praised for his services by the Ekklesia of the Athenian cleruchs on Delos:

Chosen as archetheōros, with his son and fellow theōroi, he administered (βραβεύσας) all things well and properly, and he brought it about that for the first time at the Panathenaia the Demos of the Athenians on Delos was honored with a gold crown that was announced in the theater (in Athens), and having been an ambassador and having spoken zealously many times he brought about many of the useful things for Athenians on Delos. He was priest of the Theoi Megaloi, and again of Asclepios, and again, chosen by the Demos and having won the lot, of Dionysos. From his private funds he paid for and performed all the processions and sacrifices on behalf of the Athenians and Romans well and in ways befitting sacred rites (ἱεροπρεπῶς). (ID 1498.8–22)

From this we conclude that Euboulos was priest of the Theoi Megaloi, the Cabeiroi, and the Dioscouroi in 161/0, of Asclepios in 160/59, and of Dionysos, Hermes, and Pan in 159/8. His brother Demetrios (PA 3422) also resided on Delos, and Euboulos’ son, Demetrios II (PA 3423), was a theōros and like his father served as an ambassador to Athens. This son set up in the Samothrakeion a statue honoring his father and dedicated to the Theoi Megaloi (ID 1981). We see here, in our first and earliest example, elements characteristic of the Athenian role in Delian religion: multiple priesthoods, each of a year’s term, held by one person; the priest’s contribution of his own funds; the rather high social and political status of the priest (suggested by the ambassadorships); and the involvement of whole families, not just individuals. The multiple priesthoods of Euboulos, like those of the other Athenian priests, reveal no particular pattern. There is no religious tie, for example, between the cults of Dionysos and Asclepios, nor is there any apparent cursus honorum. In the hierarchical ranking of ID 2605 Euboulos’ first priesthood, of the Theoi Megaloi, was sixth; his second, of Asclepios, was eighth; and his last, of Dionysos, was seventh. The multiple priesthoods, the rotation of some on the tribal cycle, and the annual tenure suggest that from the very beginning, these priesthoods were largely administrative in nature. For some cults, as we have seen for Sarapis and Aphrodite Hagne, the priesthoods may, for some priests, have become considerably more; but for most they did not.

Euboulos’ successor, in 158/7, as priest of Dionysos was Eumenes of Oinoe (PA 5824). In 144/3 Eumenes was among a large group of prominent Athenians who served as hieropoioi for the annual Delian Apollonia. As commonly happened on Delos, Eumenes’ son Sosion (PA 13302) later held a priesthood, that of Sarapis in 110/09, and dedicated a temple and a statue to Isis Nemesis.^[54] A few years earlier, in 113/2, Sosion’s daughter Hedea had served as a kanēphoros for the island’s Dionysia. A descendant of Eumenes also served as priest of Asclepios.^[55]

The family of Athenagoras II of Melite (PA 217), the priest of Artemis in 158/7, had a long and constant involvement in the cults of both Athens and Delos. His daughter Soteira served as kanēphoros for Asclepios in Athens when her cousin Leonides (II) was the kleidouchos and her uncle Zenon (I) was priest. On Delos in the last half of the second century members of Athenagoras’ family served as priest of Sarapis in 126/5, as kleidouchos and pythaïstēs to Delphi, and as subpriestess of Artemis and kanēphoros for the Delian Pythaïs to Delphi. They patronized especially the Sarapieion, giving a megaron, altar, gateways, and a door, in addition to five statues of family members. These dedications were primarily for Sarapis, Isis, and Anoubis, but some named also Zeus Sarapis, Zeus Ourios, and Artemis Hekate. Outside the Sarapieion they dedicated statues of family members to Apollo and to Zeus Cynthios and Athena Cynthia.^[56]

Gaios, son of Gaios, of Acharnai (PA 2937), who shared with his father a Roman name, was priest of the Theoi Megaloi in 128/7, of Sarapis in 115/4, and of Aphrodite Hagne in 98/7. He seems one of those priests who became involved in the cults he was serving, making dedications to Isis Dikaiosyne, the Theoi Megaloi, and Aphrodite Hagne. In his priesthood of the latter he had his daughter Nicopolis as kanēphoros, and they together with the therapeutai offered a charistērion to Aphrodite Hagne. It is most interesting, however, that about this time, perhaps somewhat earlier, Gaios’ daughter Nicopolis also served in Athens as one of the many ergastīnai (“workeresses”) who, at least nominally, wove the peplos for Athena Polias. Service to the most traditional cult of Athens was apparently not incompatible with service in one of the most exotic cults in the Athenian realm.^[57]

The priesthood of Apollo was first in the hierarchical rankings, and the record of three brothers from Anaphlystos suggests that it may have been reserved for men of the first rank. Dionysios (III) (PA 4152) first served as priest of Apollo, then as epimēlētes of the island in 111/0. That same year his brother Demetrios (III) (PA 3385) was priest of Sarapis. Later, in 100/99, Demetrios too held the priesthood of Apollo. In the interim, in 107/6, their brother Ammonios (IV) (PA 722) was epimelētēs. Their uncle Ammonios (II) (PA 721) also had been epimelētēs for two years, ca. 128. The epimelētēs was first rank in the secular administration, as was Apollo’s priest among the other priests.^[58]

We first meet Theodotos, son of Diodoros, of Sounion (PA 6803) as the priest of Aphrodite Hagne shortly before 110/09. In the year of his priesthood his two sons, Cleophanes and Apollonios, contributed funds for some construction in the sanctuary. The same Apollonios served as kleidouchos of the cult during his father’s priesthood. A few years after his priesthood Theodotos, “on behalf of the Demos of the Athenians, the Demos of the Romans, his wife, and his son Apollonios,” gave, at his own expense, a stoa to the goddess as a charistērion. Theodotos then returned to Athens and in 106/5 proposed two decrees: one honoring John Hyrcanos, high priest of the Jews; the other honoring the ephebes of 107/6, among whom was another son, Timocrates. In 104/3 he proposed a decree honoring the pyrtanists. Then Theodotos went back to Delos where he held the highest position, epimelētēs, in 102/1.^[59] Clearly Theodotos was a man of wealth and high political position who moved easily to and from Delos.^[60]

As the last of our examples of Athenians participating in Delian religious cults I offer Medeios, son of Medeios, of Piraeus (PA 10098).^[61] Around 120–110 his mother and father erected on Delos, in an exedra, statues of Medeios for his service as a member of the Athenian embassy to Delos for the Delia; of his sister Philippe, who had been both kanēphoros for the Delia and a subpriestess (ὑφιέρεια) of Artemis; and of another sister, Laodameia, who had been a kanēphoros for both the Delia and the Apollonia (ID 1869). These statues were all dedicated to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto. As archon in Athens in 101/0 Medeios himself contributed probably 100 drachmas to the annual collection for the Pythaïs to Delphi. In 99/8 he gave far more for the Pythaïs: 250 drachmas as epimelētēs of Delos; 200 drachmas as general “for the weapons” in Athens; 250 drachmas as agōnothetēs of the Panathenaia; 250 drachmas as agōnothetēs of the Delia on Delos; and, finally, another 200 drachmas as magistrate “for the public bank” on Delos.^[62] Apart from indicating great wealth, Medeios’ contributions as the simultaneous holder of five offices in one year suggest that his religious role now was symbolic or, better, merely financial. He no doubt gave his funds, but little more, for the celebration of the Panathenaia and the Delia. It is noteworthy, however, that like many other epimelētai and prominent political figures of the time he is not attested to have held a priesthood on Delos.^[63] A priesthood would probably have required residence on the island for the year or at least regular visits.

As leader of the oligarchic faction in power in the troubled years of the late 90s, Medeios served as archon for three successive years, from 91/0–89/8 (IG II² 1713.9–11), until he, along with other pro-Romans, fled when the pro-Mithridaic faction took control of Athens. He or his son would eventually return, with the army of Sulla, in 86. But in the religious activities of Medeios, one element stands out, an element that will take us back over two hundred years to the beginning of this study. Medeios was, however distant, a descendant of the fourth-century statesman Lycourgos, a member of the Eteobutad family. We find Medeios, like generations of Eteobutadai, like Lycourgos himself, assuming the priesthood of Poseidon-Erechtheus, the deity of the most venerable cult on the Athenian Acropolis.^[64] And Medeios’ sister, the same Philippe who had been a kanēphoros at the Delia and a subpriestess of the Delian Artemis, served, as an Eteobutad, as the priestess of Athena Polias ([Plut.] X Orat. 843B).^[65] After so many generations, after so much political upheaval, after sixty years of experience on Delos—still, less than three years before Sulla’s devastation of Athens, the Eteobutadai, Lycourgos’ family, maintained its authority over the cult central to Athenian state religion.^[66] Despite everything, the most venerable of Athenian cults was still tended according to traditions that reached back into the classical and archaic periods.

We have examined what, in religious terms, the Athenians found on Delos when they took it over in 167/6, how they reorganized some cults and “Atticized” others, and how they themselves as officials or as private individuals participated in them. We leave Delos somewhat reluctantly, because the abundant sources there give us our best information on Athenian individuals and families practicing their religion in the Hellenistic period, in fact in all of Athenian history; but it remains now to be seen what, in religious terms, was going on back home in Athens and what impact the Delian experience had there.

Notes