In Hellenistic Athens and other of his writings W. S. Ferguson discussed and lamented as a feature of Athenian religion in the third century B.C. the development of private religious associations of the type I have been describing. He writes of a “new Athens with a narrower economy and narrower politics, with a loyalty divided between an anaemic state and hundreds of religious, professional and social organizations of a semi-public or private character” (1911, 232). Reflecting the ideals and predilections of his class and times, Ferguson sees as particularly decadent the religious “clubs.” They were formed and maintained not by true Athenians of good families and good education, but by foreigners and, even worse, by what he calls “Atticans,” people of uncertain heritage and background who lived in Athens as permanent residents but lacked the proper background of true Athenians.

Ferguson’s assessment of the emergence and profusion of religious clubs in the third century contributes to his overall view of the decadence and, one might say, loss of “quality” of Athenian religion in the Hellenistic period. We have, in recent pages, been examining such koina, and this is the opportune moment to complete the survey and to reconsider Ferguson’s judgment of them, a judgment that is widely accepted in the scholarly literature. Private religious associations do appear in the late fourth and third centuries B.C., but there are important questions beyond the fact of their existence: How many were there? Where were they located? Who, citizens or foreigners, participated in them? Did they affect the traditional state and private cults?

Let us first survey the private cults known to have been established or practiced from the beginning of the Hellenistic period to the end of the third century, taking them, generally, in the order of their first attestation.^[20]

1. The cult of Bendis was brought to Athens by Thracians in the second half of the fifth century, and by the end of the century it had a festival sponsored by the state. Bendis’ initial and primary cult center was in Piraeus, but by the 260s a branch existed in Athens. Some Athenians participated in the cult—for example, in the procession of the festival—from as early as the late fifth century, but none can be surely identified from the cult’s inscriptions. In all texts but IG II² 1317 and 1317B the members are termed orgeōnes. In IG II² 1317 and 1317B they are thiasōtai, and since these two inscriptions were found on Salamis, they are probably from a separate, perhaps wholly Thracian koinon of Bendis there. Nothing survives from the city Bendis cult after 260; nothing from the Piraeus cult after, at the latest, the 230s.
2. The Asclepiastai,^[21] consisting of at least two groups, one being made up of citizens from the deme Prospalta, served cults of Asclepios. The Prospaltians, with sixteen members from no more than four families, called themselves orgeōnes and tended a local sanctuary (IG II² 2355).^[22] The group named in SEG 18.33 styled itself a koinon and was centered, as was the state sanctuary of Asclepios, on the south slope of the Acropolis. All were Athenians, and their inscriptional records date from the late third and early second centuries (IG II² 2353; SEG 18.33).^[23]
3. The orgeōnes, all Athenian, of Amynos, Asclepios, and Dexion tended as two koina two sanctuaries: one of Dexion; the other, of Amynos and Asclepios, in the valley between the Areopagos and the Pnyx (IG II² 1252 + 999 and 1253 of the mid–fourth century). In 313/2 they honored their two histiātōres (“banquet givers”), evidently the chief officials of the koina (IG II² 1259). A series of fourth-century dedications survive from the Amyneion, most to Amynos alone (IG II² 4385–4387, 4424, 4435), one to Amynos and Asclepios together (IG II² 4365). Amynos, like and prior to Asclepios, was a healing deity, and Dexion (“Receiver”) was probably involved in the “reception” of Asclepios in 420.^[24] In quite early times the poet Sophocles was identified with Dexion (Vita 11; Etym. M. s.v. “ Δεξίων ”), and it is noteworthy that, ca. 50–20 B.C., the priest of Amynos, Asclepios, and Hygieia was a Sophocles, son of Philotas, of Sounion (PA 12836) (IG II² 4457).^[25]
4. The Egyptian Ammon had already in the mid–fourth century a sanctuary in Piraeus and by 363/2 a substantial store of dedications made by the Athenian state (SEG 21.241; see chapter 1, pp. 37–38). In 333/2 he received a state sacrifice (IG II² 1496.96–97) and by ca. 330 his priest was an Athenian (IG II² 410.19). IG II² 1282 (above, p. 139) of the late 260s does not reveal whether the members of the association that repaired the sanctuary of Ammon were citizens or not, but no demotics are given. There is no evidence of citizen involvement after ca. 330, nor of the cult at all after 260.
5. In 342/1 the hieropoioi of Sabazios erected a monument in Piraeus (IG II² 2932). The Sabaziastai practiced a cult at the same site centuries later (IG II² 1335 of 103/2), and the latter group included both Athenian and foreign nationals. There is no evidence, however, that Athenians were members in 342/1 or that the history of the cult was continuous.
6. Before 333/2 Egyptians had founded a cult of Isis in Piraeus (chapter 1, pp. 30–31), but there is no further evidence for Isis in the Piraeus, nor in the city until the second century (IG II² 4692). Under Macedonian, anti-Egyptian domination of the Piraeus the Ammon cult probably suffered and perhaps lapsed; the Isis cult, with no citizen members, died.
7. In 333/2 Cyprian merchants from Cition formed a cult of Aphrodite Ourania in Piraeus (Schwenk #27; see above, chapter 1, pp. 30–31). They styled themselves thiasōtai and their group a koinon. In 302/1 and the two succeeding years they passed decrees honoring their own official, the breastplate maker Stephanos (IG II² 1261). Two dedications survive from Citian women (IG II² 4636 and 4637). No Athenians appear as members, and the last sure attestation is the decree of 300/29.^[26]
8. In 307/6 the orgeōnes of Egretes, near the Hill of the Nymphs in Athens, rented out the wooded sanctuary of their hero for ten years, at 200 drachmas a year, with provisions made for their sacrifice and banquet there each Boedromion (IG II² 2499).^[27]
9. In 301/0 the thiasōtai of Tynabos from Piraeus honor two of their epimelētai, both apparently named Dracon, both Citians no doubt resident in Athens (IG II² 1262). This cult may have some connection to the Citian cult of Aphrodite Ourania, but Tynabos is otherwise unknown.^[28] One may wonder whether the philosopher Zeno, himself a Citian, patronized this or the Aphrodite Ourania cult.
10. In the late fourth century the orgeōnes of Hypodektes, like those of Egretes above, rented out the sanctuary of their deity in Athens for fifty drachmas a year, again with the provision that the sanctuary be available for their use one day a year, in this case on Boedromion 14 (IG II² 2501).^[29]
11. In 300/299 the thiasōtai of an unknown deity in Piraeus honored their secretary, Demetrios of Olynthos. The decree was proposed by Cleon, son of Leocritos, of Cyprian Salamis (IG II² 1263).
12. IG II² 1271 of 299/8 is the first and only evidence for the thiasōtai of Zeus Labraundos,^[30] among whom metics from Heracleia were prominent. This cult too was in Piraeus, and no Athenians are attested as members.
13. In the early third century two apparently amalgamated koina of Echelos and of the Heroines recorded debtors to their koinon and, more interestingly, inscribed earlier decrees that concerned their sacrifices to the Heroines and Echelos on Hecatombaion 17 and 18. Provisions are made for the distribution of meat to members; to their sons, wives, and daughters; and to female attendants. Here too the chief official was the hestiātōr. The one named member is an Athenian, and the inscription was found on the Areiopagos (SEG 21.530).^[31]
14. Some apparently fourth-century dedications, from both Athenians and non-Athenians, survive from the Piraeic cult of the Mother of the Gods, but the first surely dated record is IG II² 1316 of 272/1, where the members are called both orgeōnes and thiasōtai. In the decrees of the late third century (IG II² 1314, 1315) and in the second and first centuries (IG II² 1327–29, 1334), the koinon seems wholly Athenian.^[32] There was also in 265/4 an apparently separate, wholly foreign thiasos of the Mother of the Gods, also in the Piraeus (IG II² 1273).
15. Two decrees (SEG 2.10 of 247/6 and 2.9 of 241/0) record honors given to the epimelētai of a thiasos devoted to unidentified gods on Salamis. The association had, besides epimelētai, a secretary, treasurer, and priest. In 247/6 they met on Skirophorion 2; in 241/0, on Anthesterion 3. Twenty members are known, none with a demotic or patronymic and none probably an Athenian. This group may have been associated, in some way, with the Salaminian devotees of Bendis.^[33]
16. IG II² 1297 of 237/6 records the honors that a thiasos of a goddess, probably located outside the Dipylon Gate, paid to its archeranistēs Sophron for his good services. The inscription lists all the members of the thiasos, thirty-eight men and twenty-one women. There are no demotics, a patronymic only for the priest, and several names suggest non-Athenian origins. Sophron himself had to provide the stele for the inscription, and in general the circumstances seem quite humble. The goddess of IG II² 1297 is not identified, but quite probably is the Artemis named by perhaps the same thiasos in an honorary decree of 244/3 (IG II² 1298) found nearby. None of the twelve names on IG II² 1298 is the same as the fifty-nine on IG II² 1297 of seven years later, but several names suggest the same non-Athenian origins.
17. This thiasos, if it is in fact a single one, has been, wrongly I think, associated with an Athenian cult of Kalliste located in the same area.^[34] Kalliste, associated with an Ariste, was apparently Artemis;^[35] she had a cult also on the road from the Dipylon Gate to the Academy, first attested in 246/5 by a dedication of her priest Antibios of Phrearrhioi (SEG 18.87). In 235/4 Antidoros of Pergase, her priest chosen by lot for a one-year term, was honored by the state for the sacrifices he made to the goddess on behalf of the Boule and Demos and for dedicating a stone altar, at his own expense (IG II² 788; cf. IG II² 789). No doubt from the same sanctuary comes a series of private dedications to Kalliste, one by an Athenian man, Timasitheos of Plotheia (IG II² 4665), and three by women bearing noble, quite probably Athenian names: Hippostrate (IG II² 4667), Hippokleia (IG II² 4666), and Eukoline (IG II² 4668).^[36]
18. The thiasos of IG II² 1297 and 1298 is distinct, I think, from this citizen cult of Kalliste. To be sure, both have male priests of the goddess, which is unusual, and IG II² 1297, 1298, and 788 were found in the same general area, but the differences outweigh the similarities. There is nothing to indicate citizen membership in the thiasos. And, in particular, Antidoros of Pergase, who was to be Kalliste’s priest in 235/4, is not listed among all the members of the thiasos in 237/6, nor are any of those who made private dedications. In short, the thiasos of IG II² 1297 and 1298 was devoted to Artemis and had foreign membership. The cult of Kalliste was practiced by citizens and sacrificed on behalf of the state. The thiasos disappears from the record after 237/6, but Pausanias in the second century A.D. saw not far from the Dipylon Gate the sanctuary of Artemis with its statues of Kalliste and Ariste (1.29.2).
19. In 238/7 a thiasos centered in Eleusis honored its treasurer Paidicos for his efforts during wartime and for the sacrifice that he made with other officials to Zeus Soter and Hygieia (SEG 24.156). On the side of the stele members, probably twenty-two originally, were listed, none with a demotic or patronymic.^[37]
20. IG II² 1291, of unknown origin and dated by letter forms to the middle of the third century, records an honorary decree of a koinon of eranistai devoted to Zeus Soter, Heracles, and the Soteres. Among the honorees is Aischylion, son of Theon, who was an isotelēs, that is, a metic given exemption from the usual metic taxes.
21. The very fragmentary IG II² 1294, found in Athens, is a record of orgeōnes of Zeus and may date to the middle of the third century. Zeus’ epithet is restored to “Epakrios,” known also from the Erchia sacred calendar (SEG 21.541.V.60–64) and related to “mountain top” Zeuses such as Hymettios (Paus. 1.32.2).^[38]
22. In the Amphieraistai of IG II² 1322 Jean Pouilloux sees a group of Athenians, styling themselves eranistai, who after 229 contributed to financing necessary repairs to the Amphiaraion at Rhamnous.^[39] There Amphieraos, under the influence of the military garrisons, had displaced the local “Physician Hero” (ἥρως ἰατρός) (SEG 31.177), and among the eranistai of IG II² 1322 are several military officers and soldiers. This appears not to be a cult association so much as a group dedicated to the restoration and maintenance of a sanctuary important to them and their fellow soldiers.
23. In IG II² 1275, from Piraeus, the thiasōtai of an unknown deity make provisions for attendance at funerals of deceased members and for instances of injustice affecting the members. These are the kinds of support that, in particular, a noncitizen in Athens would require. By letter forms the text is dated to the third or early second century.^[40]
24. Also in the third century in Piraeus thiasōtai of an unknown deity honor five members, one of whom is from Samaria (IG II² 2943).
25. Among the koina of orgeōnes of unknown deities, AJA 69 (1965): 104, #1 is a late-fourth-century cult table from Athens. IG II² 2947 of the third or second century from the area of the Academy records honors given to Asclapon of Maroneia. If Asclapon was a member of the koinon, he would be a rare example of a noncitizen among orgeōnes, but his membership is not assured.^[41] In IG II² 1289, also from Athens, is recorded the outcome of a legal dispute involving orgeōnes of an unknown goddess.^[42]
26. Two decrees (IG II² 1318 and 1319) of unknown provenance, both dated to the end of the third century, record honorary decrees of thiasoi of unknown deities. IG II² 1278 of 273/2, also of unknown provenance, records honors a thiasos gave to its officials.^[43]

In evaluating the importance of these private koina to religion in Hellenistic Athens the important questions are, as stated above: How many were there? Where were they located? Who, citizens or foreigners, participated in them? We now are in a position to treat these questions.

Of the approximately twenty-five “private” cults for which the cult site or the provenance of the inscriptions is known,^[44] eleven were located in Piraeus: the devotees of Bendis (#1), of Ammon (#4), and of Isis (#6); the Sabaziastai (#5); the thiasōtai of Aphrodite Ourania (#7), of Tynabos (#9), of Zeus Labraundos (#12); three koina of thiasōtai of unknown deities (#11, 21, 22), and the worshippers of the Mother of the Gods (#14).^[45] Ten were situated in or very near the city Athens: the devotees of Bendis (#1); the Asclepiastai (#2); koina of orgeōnes of Amynos, Asclepios, and Dexion (#3), of Egretes (#8), of Hypodektes (#10), of Echelos and the Heroines (#13), and of Zeus Epakrios (#19); and a thiasos of Artemis (#16). The thiasos of Zeus Soter and Hygieia was in Eleusis (#17), and a separate thiasos of Bendis and another of unknown gods were on Salamis (#1, 15).

The private cults may be divided quite evenly between the city and Piraeus, but the nature and membership of the cults were significantly different. The attributable Piraeic cults were all devoted to foreign deities, some of whom were taken up by citizens (Bendis, Ammon, and Mother of the Gods), while the others had only foreign membership (Isis, Sabazios, Aphrodite Ourania, Tynabos, Zeus Labraundos). Bendis was established as a state deity by the end of the fifth century, Ammon by the middle of the fourth. The Mother of the Gods had long since been established in the Agora as a part of state cult, although her relationship, if any, to the Piraeic Mother is uncertain.^[46] Only the Bendis cult, recognized as unusual in this regard by Socrates (Pl. Rep. 1.327A), certainly had simultaneously both citizen and foreign members. In Piraeus then we have citizen members in cults accepted by the state (Bendis, Ammon, and, perhaps, Mother of the Gods) but wholly foreign cults devoted to Isis, Sabazios, Mother of the Gods, Tynabos, and Zeus Labraundos.

In the city the majority of private cults were koina of orgeōnes, devoted to Bendis, Amynos and Asclepios, Dexion, Egretes, Hypodektes, Echelos and the Heroines, and Zeus Epakrios. Bendis, Asclepios, Amynos, Dexion, and Hypodektes all apparently had classical origins, and the koina dedicated to them probably are survivals from the classical period.^[47] The same is probably true of Egretes, Echelos and the Heroines, and Zeus Epakrios. With the exception of Bendis,^[48] these “orgeonic” koina had only Athenians as members, and many, perhaps most, of them featured an annual sacrifice and formal banquet. The only non-Athenian koinon attested for the city was that of Artemis outside the Dipylon Gate (#16).

The division between the city and Piraeus could not be more clear. Private cults in the city were dedicated to classical deities and had exclusively citizen membership. Private cults in Piraeus probably all began as cults of foreigners. Some of them attracted citizen members and gained state recognition (Bendis, Ammon) or even became wholly Athenian (Mother of the Gods). Most noteworthy is how few of the Piraeic foreign cults (only Bendis) penetrated the city. One would expect, in the normal course of religious development in the Hellenistic period, that some foreign cults, once introduced, would spread throughout the population. That there are relatively few new foreign cults in Piraeus in this period and that they did not penetrate the city are quite probably owed in part to the long periods in which Piraeus, the port of entry and incubator for such cults, was isolated from the city. This may be one key to explaining what appears to be the religious conservatism of Athenian religion in the Hellenistic period.

In terms of membership, the devotees of the Bendis cult (#1), the Asclepiastai (#2), the worshippers of Amynos, Asclepios, and Dexion (#3), of Egretes (#8), of Hypodektes (#10), of Echelos and the Heroines (#13), one cult of the Mother of the Gods (#14), the devotees of Zeus Epakrios (#19), and members of three koina of unknown deities (#23) all explicitly termed themselves orgeōnes. They were all Athenian citizens, albeit few in number. The Asclepiastai of Prospalta (#2) were sixteen, and the cult table of a similar koinon (AJA 69 [1965]: 104) suggests a similar size. These citizen koina may have been small, but, as Ferguson concluded (1944, 104), the members in the third century were “quite respectable Athenians, preponderantly persons of the propertied classes.”

The Salaminian devotees of Bendis (#1), the other Salaminian koinon (#15), the Citian worshippers of Aphrodite Ourania (#7) and Tynabos (#9), the members of the cult of Zeus Labraundos (#12), some devotees of the Mother of the Gods (#14), the worshippers of Artemis in the city (#16), and members of three koina from Piraeus (#11, 21, 22), of one from Eleusis (#17), and of two of unknown location (#24) designated themselves as thiasōtai or their koina as thiasoi. Apart from the complicated cult of Mother of the Gods, none of these thiasōtai is surely an Athenian and many among them are designated as foreigners. They too, like the koina of orgeōnes, were small, with that of Artemis (#16) recording thirty-eight male and twenty-one female members and that in Eleusis (#17) having twenty-two members.

Particularly significant here is the clear separation between koina of citizens (orgeōnes) and of foreigners (thiasōtai). In this period and before, the distinction between orgeōnes and thiasōtai holds for all but two cults, of Bendis and the Mother of the Gods, those two Piraeic cults that began foreign but eventually became partially if not wholly Athenian. Clearly even in the third century, with rare exception, Athenian citizens were not participating in foreign cults, certainly not in those of recent origin.

And, finally, the subsequent history of the foreign cults would suggest that they were not only small but weak. Most are attested by only one inscriptional text (#5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24). The disappearance of the wholly foreign koina, even of Isis, is not surprising, but the loss of the state deities Ammon (after 260) and Bendis (after, at the latest, 230) is noteworthy. The one foreign cult that was to thrive, probably because it had become wholly citizen, was that of the Mother of the Gods. Also noteworthy is the virtual disappearance from the record hereafter of the citizen cults of orgeōnes of traditional deities—for example, those of Asclepios, Amynos, Dexion, Egretes, Hypodektes, and Echelos—many or all of which dated back to the classical period.

I save for last IG II² 1277 from 278/7, which, because it is complete, offers some insight into the activities and purposes of the foreign thiasoi. It fills out details preserved only in fragments in the thiasos texts considered thus far. The goddess is unknown, but her cult center may have been in the city, near the Pnyx.

In the archonship of Democles (278/7), on the seventeenth of Mounichion, at an authoritative meeting. Noumenias proposed:

Whereas the epimelētai and secretary put in office by the koinon in the archonship of Democles took care of the sanctuary well and generously; and made all the sacrifices according to ancestral traditions; and adorned (ἐπεκόσμησαν) the goddess and built from scratch the altar; and for these things contributed 65 drachmas of their own funds; and, having had a silver cup weighing 57 1/2 drachmas made at their own expense, dedicated it to the goddess; and in a good and generous manner took care of those who died; and have given an accounting and audit of everything they have administered,

it was voted, with good fortune, by the thiasōtai to praise these epimelētai, Eucles, Thallos, and Zeno, and the secretary Ctesias, and to crown each of them with an olive crown because of their virtue and generosity toward the koinon and because of their piety toward the goddess. Their crowns and praise are to be proclaimed at each sacrifice together with the other benefactors. And they are to receive from the koinon whatever other good they seem to be deserving, so that all those who enter into the office of epimelētēs may be generous toward the goddess and the koinon, knowing that they will receive worthwhile returns. And the epimelētai (in the year) after Democles are to inscribe this decree on a stone tablet and erect it in the sanctuary.

The members of this koinon are given neither patronymics nor demotics, and hence are probably not Athenian citizens. The elected epimelētai had major responsibilities for the sanctuary, sacrifices, building program, and dedications of the cult. The three men spent, as was the custom of the time, from their own funds: 65 drachmas for the sacrifice, adornment of the goddess, and the building of the altar, and money for the silver cup weighing 57 1/2 drachmas—altogether rather modest sums. Among their good services was proper tendance of those thiasōtai who had died during the year.^[49] For all Greeks funeral responsibilities fell upon family members, but family may well not have been present for many foreign nationals residing in Athens, and koina such as this could provide this valuable service. That some foreign koina took on the responsibilities of burial of their members indicates nothing, of course, about the status of the Athenian families of the time. Athenian citizens no doubt provided as they always had for their deceased members.

In sum, there were some private religious “clubs” or associations in early Hellenistic Athens. Those of citizens were predominantly in the city, dedicated to traditional deities and tended by prosperous individuals. Those in Piraeus were made up largely of foreigners worshipping their native gods. Most of these were relatively small and short-lived. Athenian citizens apparently participated in or took over two of them (Bendis and the Mother of the Gods), and these had a somewhat longer life. But compared to native Athenian cults, there were only a handful of foreign cults and they had only a handful of members. If, as Ferguson claims (1911, 225), each citizen, foreign or Athenian, who joined such associations “struck a blow at the ancient national religion,” then the blows were few and weak, and there is no reason to assume that private koina, citizen or foreign, significantly affected the strength or “quality” of Athenian religion in this period.^[50]