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The Egyptian Cults in Athens*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Sterling Dow
Sterling Dow
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Ammon was made known to old Greece by the Greeks of Cyrene, Kimon visited the oracle at Siwa, Pindar wrote a hymn to Ammon, and the Athenians made his cult public at some undetermined date earlier than 371/0 B.C. Like Sarapis, Ammon seems never to have been extremely popular; Isis out-did them both. Nevertheless Ammon arrived long before, the others: the preserved records happen to show that he was receiving sacrifices from the Athenian generals themselves in a year (333/2) when the cult of Isis, which we learn about then for the first time, was still a cult of immigrants. Why Ammon, alone of all Egyptian gods, should have succeeded thus early is no mystery: he had an oracle, and he had Greek intermediaries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1937 , pp. 183 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1937

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References

1 On Ammon in Greece, cf. Ed. Meyer's article s.v. in Roscher's Lexikon; for Athens, cf. Sandys' commentary on Aristotle, Ath. Pol., ch. 61, lines 27–28 (ed. 2, p. 245). The date 371/0 is from the new edition of an inventory by the treasurers of Athena, IG, II2, 1428 (Add., 808), lines 73–74: [ϕι]άλη ἀργυᾶ Ἄμμωνος, κτλ., which has enabled Ferguson (Treasurers of Athena, 180) to restore the phrase in IG, II2, 1421; also in 1415, which is dated ‘post a. 385/4.’ — Cf. also A. B. Cook, Zeus, I, 351, and Dain, A., Inscriptions grecques du Musée du Bardo (Limoges, 1936)Google Scholar.

2 No dedication to Ammon has been found in Athens. There are some theophoric names, infra, p. 221.

3 Among contributing causes may be placed the fact that he was easily, or at least he became thoroughly, hellenized. Native Egyptians in the second century B.C. could regard Ammon as a Greek god (Nock, HTR, 29, 1936, 71, n. 95).

4 Roussel, Cultes égyptiens à Délos, 105, no. 37 of ante–166 B.C., found in Sarapieion B, a dedication by a non-Athenian (a Delian?) woman; and p. 176, no. 171 of 116–108 or 88–81 B.C., a dedication by an Athenian citizen with a Roman name, Mᾶρκος Ἔλευσίνιος, on behalf of a Ptolemy. Numerous deities found hospitality in the Egyptian shrines (op. cit., 279). — Note the altar dedicated by Greeks in Egypt to Isis and Ammon (Roussel, Cultes égyptiens à Délos, 278 n. 4).

5 Infra, pp. 222 and 228. Note also Ammonios, son of a ζάκορος of Sarapis, p. 213.

6 Sandys, loc. cit.

7 IG, II2, 1263; Plato, Rep., 1, 1 (p. 327).

8 Aves, 1296, Ἶβις Λυκούργῳ (J. van Leeuwen in his commentary ad loc. doubts whether the phrase proves any strong Egyptian connection); Kratinos, frg. 30, Kock, I, 21; Pherekr., frg. 11, Kock, I, 148.

9 U. Koehler, Hermes, 5, 1871, 352. He may also have wished to strengthen Athens by encouraging foreign merchants (Tarn, CAH, VI, 443).

10 Roussel, Cultes, 199–200; Cumont, Rel. Or., 91; Nock, Conversion, 38 ff., 142 ff., 278.

11 CIL, VIII, 1007; Pap. Hibeh, 72, 6; Realencyc, 27, 1061 ff.; 2 Reihe, 2, 2404.

12 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 28; Tacitus, Hist., IV, 83; Gruppe, Gr. Myth., p. 1574.

13 Arnobius, V, 5.

14 Diog. Laert. V, p. 5, § 76 (from Didymus). Cf. IG, XIV, 1034.

15 Favoring the latter: A. W. Lawrence, Later Greek Sculpture, 107; Classical Sculpture, 265, 276, 289.

16 Concerning the Peripatetic Ἀριστοκλῆς (Suidas, s.v.) and his (lost) work περὶ Σαράπιδος nothing is known, not even whether he had studied in Athens.

17 P. Oxy., 1803; O. Weinreich, Aegyptus, 11, 1931, 13 ff.

18 The word ‘creation’ is convenient rather than accurate.

19 Rusch dismissed it (p. 4); Cumont accepted it as corroboration of what looked to him like positive evidence, contained in Rusch's book, that Athens received Sarapis early in the third century (pp. 74, 234, n. 16). Wilcken in turn, misled by Cumont, considered that Pausanias I, 18, 4 makes the creation of Sarapis, and his introduction to Athens, by Ptolemy I not unlikely (UPZ, I, 83).

20 The published account of the Elgin collection (JHS, 36, 1916, 163–372) contains no mention. On the activities of Elgin's agents near Piraeus, JHS, 46, 1926, 253. Mr. F. N. Pryce, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities, assures me that these articles are thorough.

Foot-worn surfaces, such as that of the present inscription, often yield new readings when good squeezes are used, and I wish to thank Sir John Forsdyke, now Director of the British Museum, for arranging the making of three excellent squeezes, and a no less helpful photograph. I have not seen the stone.

The previous editors were Osann, Boeckh, Foucart, Hicks, Koehler, Michel, and Kirchner (references in IG and IG2). Divergences between their texts and the new text are not specified.

21 S. Dow, Hesperia 2, 1933, 445; Harv. Stud. Class. Philol. 48, 1937, 105; AJA, 40, 1936, 58–60.

22 Infra, on line 17. On the public wealth of Athens ca. 200 B.C., cf. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 237 and n. 2.

23 The list is (1) Methymna: IG, XII, 2, 511: ‘synodos of the great Sarapieia,’ with a list of over 60 names. (2) Rhodos, various societies: IG, XII, 1, 162. (3) Kos: Paton and Hicks, 371: society under a gymnasiarch. (4) Kameiros: IG, XII, 1, 701. (5) Keos, IG, XII, 5, 606: men who helped the society praised, crowned, the honors to be announced at the Eisideia. (6) Delos: references in Roussel, Cultes, 254: meet under a συναγωγεύς, society seldom appears in our records, apparently disappeared early. (7) Thasos: Bull. Corr. Hell. 51, 1927, 219: ἐπωνυμία sold for 96 drachmas, purchaser to be crowned by the δοχεύς, the honor announced by the ἱεροκῆρυξ; ἱερεύς and γραμματεύς mentioned. Doubtful, devoteesof (?) Isis, (8) Tomoi: Archäol.-Epigr. Mitt. Oesterr., 6, 1882, 23 f., no. 46.

24 Poland, Ges. gr. Vereinswesens, 388.

25 Poland, op. cit., 376, 383.

26 The scheme given at the end, lines 30 ff., shows that the absolute minimum is 27.

27 IG, II2, 2358, 2360. On the sizes of cult societies, Poland, Ges. gr. Vereinswesens, 282 ff.

28 IG, II2, 1278, 1291, 1317, 1324, 1333, 1335; SEG, III, 127.

29 A tamias is mentioned in some 25 decrees of Athenian cult societies. No other officer is so common: next are epimeletes, 21; grammateus, 16; hieropoios, 7. The tamias regularly has a lower position than the ἱερεύς and ἀρχερανιστιής in societies which have those officials; consonantly, among the Sarapiastai, as we shall see, the προερανίστρια has nominal precedence.

30 Such special honors were generally a reward for payments out of his own pocket, as in IG, II2, 1271, 1323, 1325, 1327.

31 As in the Salaminian society of Bendis, see Dinsmoor, Archons, 91.

32 IG, II2, 1284, etc., 1327, 1278. Poland, op. cit., 380.

33 Cf. IG, II2, 1263, 1329.

34 A wealthy society, presumably also a big one, would have a γραμματεύς, ἀντιγραϕεύς and γραμματοϕύγαξ (IG, II2, 1278, cult unknown).

35 IG, II2, 1324, 1261, 1283, 1324, 1361, 1301, etc., 1314. Poland, op. cit., 407.

36 Cf. IG, II2, 1261, 1265.

37 IG, II2, 1263, 1297.

38 IG, II2, 1297.

39 IG, II2, 1255.

40 IG, II2, 1361.

41 IG, II2, 1255.

42 Cultes égyptiens à Délos, 266.

43 IG, II2, 1297, 1319, 1322, 1339, 1343, 2358.

44 IG, II2, 1343.

45 IG, II2, 2358.

46 IG, II2, 1322.

47 Roussel, Cultes, 269 and n. 3, kanephoroi the only female officers; 270, lampterophoroi were female; 100, seven out of 16 dekadists are women; 84, one woman contributor out of 19; 158, one out of 9; 253–254, enatistai, who worship Isis, admit 24 men, no women. There was no priest or priestess of Isis in Delos, 275 n. 6 with references; in Egypt women had some share in some cults.

Women had only a meager share in cult societies generally all over the Greek world in all periods: the evidence in Poland, op. cit., 289–298.

48 IG, II2, 1316, 1314, 1315.

49 Poland, loc. cit., has some instances of women founders.

50 Ἱέρεια was probably out of the question because Sarapis was a male.

51 The old view (Brady, rightly dismissing it, gives references on p. 20, n. 65) was that the cult of Sarapis was public in Athens in the early third century B.C. Had that been so, some at least of its officers, and probably many of its other members, must have been Athenians.

52 Brady notes that no known Athenian family has a member named Nikippe. It has been alleged that the name Δωρίων (line 39) is borne by an Athenian citizen of the fourth century B.C. (PA, 4583a); but the name appears quite alone on a grave monument (IG, II1, 3644). The date of the lettering seems to me correct; but the absence of patronymic and demotic proves that he was not a citizen. Another non-Athenian Δωρίων appears in a list of devotees of Artemis Kalliste, IG, II2, 1298 of the archonship of Diomedon (241/0?); in a similar list, IG, II2, 1297 of 237/6, note Δωριεύς, Δῶρος. The first known citizens named Δωρίων, as Brady points out, are of ca. 30 B.C.

53 What follows brings up to date certain aspects of Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 218 ff. (which has references to older discussions).

54 IG, II2, 1253 (contrast 1252 of the same club), 1256 (contrast 1255 of the same club), 1258, 1259. There is but one troublesome text, a decree of the orgeones of Bendis in the Piraeus, IG, II2, 1324. The stone is lost. The arrangement, which is not stoichedon, with lines not divided according to syllables, would favor a date in the late fourth or early third, rather than in the second, century B.C.

55 Non-Athenians appear among orgeones in a few inscriptions: IG, II2, 2947 of s. III/II a.; IG, II2, 1327 of 178/7; and IG, II2, 1337 of 95/4.

56 A δημóσιος is so indicated in IG, II2, 1335.

57 A complete list of the thiasotai of Artemis Kalliste for 237/6 B.C. is preserved in IG, II2, 1297. That none was a citizen is shown by the fact that the (Athenian) priest of Artemis Kalliste, who was not a thiasotes, is given his demotic. IG, II2, 1298 is from the same club. The orator is given a patronymic; doubtless he was not an Athenian.

A possible exception is IG, II2, 2943 of s. III a. In this the thiasotai crown four persons. The last is designated Σαμαρίτης; the other three have patronymics only, which probably shows that they are not Athenians. Cf. IG, II2, 1261, where one Stephanos, ὁ θωρακοποιóς, in a thiasos of Aphrodite, is given one name in five different mentions, then a patronymic in the sixth, which is the last, mention. He was probably not an Athenian. A similar instance is found in IG, II2, 1271. Again in IG, II2, 1283 and 1284 some patronymics appear: the men were definitely not Athenians (Ferguson, Tribal Cycles, 81, n. 1). The eranistai of IG, II2, 1291 are to be taken as non-Athenian.

58 IG, II2, 1323, the spokesman: distinguished by patronymic and demotic.

59 IG, II2, 1335.

60 Roussel, Cultes, nos. 23, 55, 172. Others: no. 10, a small block, has a rasura after Ἴσι. No. 33 is to Osiris and Isis. No. 41 adds the θεοὶ ἐντεμένιοι. In 49 ter, line 2, restore [Ἀνούβι], as in 49. In no. 67, line 2, restore Ἀνούβει, as the spacing would appear to suggest.

61 Rather than ἀνέθηκεν: the connotations of ἀνέθηκεν (-αν) at this period are clear from its use in the Delian dedications to the Egyptian gods. Twelve instances only appear. All except no. 145 certainly refer to objects of considerable size and value, not small portable votives but large permanent structures. No. 145, a small plaque, therefore refers to the structure to which it was attached. — In the (earlier) inventories, however, ἀνάθημα is regularly used, and ἀνέθηκεν appears, for small objects.

62 In Delos, Roussel, Cultes, no. 23 has Σαράπιδι Ἴσιδι. The dedications in Athens to Asklepios and Hygieia regularly have Ἀσκληπιῷ καὶ ῾ϒγιείαι.

63 There is no earlier or contemporary instance of a foreign priest being given the full style, i.e. patronymic and ethnic, — a style rarely given to any foreigner in the cult societies, supra, p. 197.

64 Quite possibly the good relations between the thiasotai and the Athenian priest of Artemis Kalliste (IG, II2, 788, 1297, 1298) may imply that the successive priests ‘allotted’ by the state were chosen from among men already known to be well disposed toward the thiasotai.

65 L. Robert plausibly conjectured that a known priestess of Magna Mater appears in IG, II2, 4687a (p. 353). No patronymic nor demotic is given.

66 There was certainly no priest (or priestess) of Isis in Delos, and none can be proved in Athenian records earlier than the Roman list IG, II2, 1950. On the other hand it is only on the analogy of Delian documents (and of IG, II2, 2336) that the priest of IG, II2, 4692 and the other Athenian documents is called a priest of Sarapis. Doubtless as in Delos he served Isis and the others too.

67 See further, Roussel, Rev. Égyptologique, NS, 1, 1919, 89.

68 On ζάκορος generally see Poland, Gesch. d. gr. Vereinsw., p. 387, who however has no grasp of the place of the zakoros in Delos; and he mistakes the character of the present dedication, which has no necessary relation to a cult society.

69 Exception: Roussel, Cultes, no. 185.

70 The zakoros in Delos: Roussel, Cultes, 269; Rev. Égyptologique, NS, 1, 1919, 89. In the Egyptian cults at Eretria: Arch. Delt., I, 1915, 148.

In Athens, apart from the Egyptian cults, zakoroi are not numerous. They are known in the cult of Asklepios (but not before med.s.I a., IG, II2, 4466, etc.), of a heroized doctor (IG, II2, 840), of the Pythais (IG, II2, 3520), at Eleusis (IG, II2, 3639); in a society of Acharnians (IG, II2, 2953); cults unknown, IG, II2, 3550, 3654, 4770, 4821, 5158. Most explicit is the pair of decrees IG, II2, 1328, which give particulars of the provision for, and appointment of, a female zakoros for life by the orgeonesof Magna Mater, 183/2–175/4. Here the office is distinctly honorable, with financial obligations. Further, infra, p. 212 f.

The zakoros of Sarapis is the earliest known zakoros in Athens. One cannot help suspecting that the office was invented at about this time as a device for getting gifts out of rich metics, who also performed very real services, and who secured for themselves participation with Athenians in the cults.

71 Priest and zakoros alone only in nos. 147, 150–153, also p. 179; cf. nos. 182, 183. The zakoros is absent when other functionaries appear only in nos. 171 and 174. — The most common practice is to mention only the priest. The next most common practice is to list three or four functionaries. — The persistent occurrence of the zakoros doubtless means that he was the one who during the year usually took most interest in the shrine: that he would be on hand much of the time, that he would keep the dedications in order, etc.

72 This paragraph is based on Roussel's Cultes, 261–272, to which the reader is referred. The documents for the rest of this section are published therein.

73 The little stele no. 111 of 117/6 is clearly not a record of any large monument or construction.

74 For the sake merely of simplicity, all the dedications are dated in the year of the priest's term, though a few may have been made later (Daux, Rev. Ét. Gr., 47, 1934, 166).

75 This term applies to a building or a statue (Cultes, 149).

76 Roussel's list (Cultes, 264–265) contains no large dedication by anyone before no. 74.

77 The lesser dedications by priests, to judge from the bases, were nos. 107, 140, 141, 171, 179, 180.

78 No. 172 shows that a generation or so later the Demos put up another building, which may mean that no priest then could afford to. Popular subscriptions were another means of adding equipment: nos. 132, 133, 168. Laymen undertook expensive gifts occasionally: nos. 75, 81, 130–131 (the Pastophorion, by two Romans and an Antiochean ca. 112/1), 146, 173.

The workmanship in general of all these buildings, statues, and altars is somewhat economical, even shoddy (Roussel, Cultes, 266).

79 The list of ἀπαρχαί IG, II2, 2336 is an illustration of the fact that by ca. 100 B.C. many Athenian offices involved liturgies. When contributions were raised by popular subscription, it was the priest who set up the record (nos. 175 A, 175 B), and probably headed the list (no. 175 C).

80 Dedications by other Athenian officials of the cult are negligible: a zakoros set up a dedication on a small base (no. 154), and a kleidouchos another (no. 209). The small number and size of these dedications confirm the views of the officers suggested supra, p. 201 and infra, p, 212.

81 The statement in Cultes, 283, is to be modified. The number of Athenian lay dedicators exceeds all others except perhaps the indeterminate number made by native Delians, and the Ἰταλικοί as a group.

82 The objects dedicated are of all kinds except entire buildings. The list is: relatives of cult officials, nos. 94, 125–129, 135, 155, 159, 162, 169 (duplicate: BCH, VI, 324, no. 17), 187; no official connection with the cult, inventories Kallistratos B, col. I, lines 34–36, 53–54 and Metrophanes A, lines 65–66, 73–74, and nos. 92, 147, 165, 186.

83 Thus nos. 168 (see p. 174), 175 C a, line 11 (?), and many others who cannot be positively identified as Athenians.

84 This might be due, in theory, to a mere change of style, whereby big cheap objects were set up out-of-doors on stone pedestals, instead of smaller objects of precious metal which had to be stored in-doors. The use of stone bases for dedication had been familiar, however, for centuries, and had been used plentifully by non-Athenians in these very shrines.

85 Cultes, table opposite p. 272. The oneirokrites, who is rarely mentioned among the officials in Delos, dates back nearly to 166, and doubtless the position existed, formally or otherwise, before then.

86 Cultes, 268.

87 Cultes, nos. 135, 136. Supra, p. 201, n. 71.

88 Cultes, nos. 76, 86, 87, 125.

89 Nos. 85, 135, 144.

90 Roussel, Dél. col. ath., 202; Ferguson, Tribal Cycles, 167, n. 2.

91 In a forthcoming study of IG, II2, 2336, the data in this paragraph will be made more explicit.

92 See infra, p. 226 for publications, etc. For the head-dress, Svoronos, Trésor, pl. 68, nos. 13–27. The date 110/9 is from M. Kambanis, BCH, 1934, 115; to the other series no exact year can be assigned.

93 Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 287, n. 4, 303.

94 The symbol would naturally be the same as that on the man's own signet ring. A lead seal, found in Athens, stamped with a head-dress of Isis (BCH, 8, 1884, 9, no. 56, and pl. II) shows that in at least one instance the cult of Isis did provide a symbol for a signet.

95 For the view, which needs fuller proof, that the magistrate named second in each series regularly chose the symbol for that series, see Kambanis, Arethusa, 5/6, 1928 (no. 21), 125.

96 For information on this point and on Athenagoras (p. 207), I am indebted to Mr. P. L. MacKendrick of Harvard University.

97 The head and head-dress, however, were not uncommon as symbols on coins (A. Rusch, De Serapide, 7). The Egyptian symbols on Athenian coins are mentioned by Sundwall, Untersuchungen, 62, 109, and by Brady, Reception, 42.

98 A. Boeckh, Archaeologischen Intelligenzblatt der Hallischen Allgemeinen Lit. Zeitg., 1835, No. 4, p. 25, and Intell.-Bl. d. Allg. Litt. Zeit., 1835, no. 38, p. 268. The latter I have not seen; the former only as reprinted in Boeckh's Kleine Schriften, VI, 434. K. Keil, Rh. Mus., 19, 1864, 255–256. A. Rusch, De Serapide et Iside in Graecia cultis, 52. K. Kourouniotes, Ἀρχ. Ἐϕ., 1913, 197. P. Roussel, Les cultes égyptiens à Délos, 268, n. 2.

Boeckh knew it from Mustoxis, via Forchhammer. Boeckh writes that it was found ‘zu Athen bei einer armen Frau.’ The precise street address is given by Keil. Nothing proves, to be sure, that the inscription had not been moved in the intervening thirty years.

99 Berl. Phil. Woch., 28, 1908, 884.

100 Loc. cit.

101 Among those not precisely dated is IG, II2, 1023; see AJA, 38, 1934, 102, n. 4.

102 S. Dow, Hesperia, Supplement I (Athens, 1937).

103 There are several exceptions but the tendency is definite. Earlier the gods were frequently named first: the motive of personal ostentation became steadily stronger during the second century.

104 Zeus is never subordinated to any deity in the dedications from the Sarapieia in Delos, except to the unidentified Θεòς μέγας (= Sarapis ?) of Roussel, Cultes, no. 16; cf. nos. 153, 166, 187, 190.

105 Ἑλλάς Aἰμυλία. Roussel, Cultes, no. 149. It is possible that no. 123, of which one line is missing, was similar (114/3 B.C.). The other instance is ante-166 B.C. (no. 49): Anoubis Hegemon, Sarapis Soter, Isis Soteira.

106 Seven dedications of the Athenian period made by women are preserved at Delos: only one is to Isis alone, the rest are to the regular group Sarapis, Isis, Anoubis, (Harpokrates). Dedications primarily on behalf of women, of which there are six, include only one to Isis alone.

107 Properly, the breathing should be smooth: W. Schulze, Kleine Schriften, 384–391 ( = Zeits. f. Sprachforsch. a. d. Gebiete d. indogerm. Sprache, 33, 1895, 233–242). Orthography in Delos: most common is Ἀρποχράτης in all periods; Ἀρϕοκράτης curiously in five dedications of 120/19–118/7 (no other spelling in these years) in the inventory Metrophanes A, lines 52–53, and in a dedication of 105/3; Ἀρποκράτης in six scattered instances, four of them dedications by Athenian citizens; Ἀρϕοχράτης in no. 192, post-140 B.C., by a Tyrian. The list of forms in E. Sittig, De graecorum nominibus theophoris (Diss. Philol. Hal., vol. XX), 162 is to be amended.

108 Loc. cit. Sundwall, Untersuchungen über die attischen Münzen, 41.

109 Roussel, Cultes, 268.

110 As we have noted, dedicants were always inclined to name the zakoros when only one associate of the priest was wanted in their inscriptions.

111 Exception: Roussel, Cultes, no. 170, where the fact of two κανηϕóροι displaced him. He is omitted entirely, in favor of the kanephoros, in nos. 156, 173, 174, 185.

112 Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinityés d'Alexandrie, 141.

113 Roussel, Cultes, 268.

114 The kleidouchos appears in a very few other cults in Athens, of which the important one is that of Asklepios. From two decrees (IG, II2, 974, 975) of 137/6 B.C. and a similar date, and from a list of the first century B.C. (IG, II2, 1944), it appears that the priest, if he had a son who would qualify, regularly made the son kleidouchos. The kleidouchos, whoever he might be, seems regularly to have been the second in precedence.

115 On the office and its place in the cult, see Roussel, Cultes, 269–270; O. Rubensohn in Festschrift Vahlen, 1 ff.; A. D. Nock, Conversion, 54.

116–117 No κανηϕóρος appears. In the Egyptian cults of Delos she appears about as often as the kleidouchos, who regularly precedes her when both are present. The absence of a kanephoros in the present text does not mean that none was attached to the cult in Athens. The prominence of Isis might seem to prove the opposite, but the Delian evidence as a whole does not support the theory that the kanephoros there was especially attached to Isis. On Athens later, infra, p. 225.

The same three officers, but without the interpreter of dreams, appear in Roussel, Cultes, nos. 146 and 148 (of 107/6 B.C.), and 166 (of ca. 94/3).

118 Roussel, Cultes, pp. 179–180.

119 By a mere slip, the priest is said to be of Isis in Roussel, Dél. col. ath., 375; the same priest is correctly assigned to Sarapis on p. 61. The error was copied in Dinsmoor's Archons, 290.

120 Judeich, Topographie2, 321, n. has references.

121 For over a century theophoric names have been studied in connection with cults, but these studies generally lack both scope and restraint. For an account of earlier work, see pp. 1–10 in the important dissertation by Ernst Sittig, De Graecorum nominibus theophoris (Diss. Philol. Halenses, Vol. XX, pars I, 1911). The most recent article on names generally is Fraenkel's, s.v. Namen in Realencyc. On Egyptian theophoric names in Eretria, see Arch. Delt., 1, 1915, 166; in Thasos, BCH, 51, 1927, 229; in Thera, I. Braun, Theräische Kulte, 66.

122 Whibley's Companion to Greek Studies4, p. 593.

123 The general regularity of names in stemmata in the prosopographies is sufficient proof of this.

124 Panofka (Sitz. Berl. Akad., 1839, 129; cf. 1840, 33) alleged that a man's own cult interests could be determined by his name. In the whole range of his studies, W. H. D. Rouse (Greek Votive Offerings, 393) could find no evidence to support this; but Rouse did not study the Hellenistic offerings. In the Hellenistic period, Panofka's theory has a modicum of validity, if it be interpreted to mean that occasionally a man inherited and followed a cult preference which his parents had expressed in the name they gave him. Examples: two families using the names Ἀμμώνιος and Σαραπίων in several successive generations: infra, p. 222, and NPA, 12; and Δίκαιος Δικαίου Ἰωνίδης, who worshipped Ἶσις Ἀϕροδίτη Δικαία, Roussel, Cultes, no. 160.

These instances, however significant, are exceptions: note how few are the names from Egyptian deities in Brady's prosopography (op. cit., 51–88, listing 1324 Greeks who were interested in the Egyptian cults): Isis 15 names, Sarapis 13, Anoubis 0, Harpokrates 0.

125 Hellenistic Athens, 423–424.

126 For stemmata which show this intrusion of foreign theophoric names, see NPA, 21, 28, 40, 85, 151. The intrusion in all of these cases occurs in the second century B.C.

127 Hellenistic Athens, 423–424.

128 Three daughters of Themistocles were Ἰταλία, Συβαρίς, and Ἀσία (Plut., Themis., 32).

129 Names from Poseidon, few and late, possibly were attractive because unusual, not because of a cult preference.

In general, there seems to have been a constant tendency in all periods to find new names. The total number of Athenian names is considerable, and almost every new inscription with a list of any extent reveals new names (cf. Prytaneis, passim).

130 The desire for an unusual name might overcome this feeling, e.g. Ῥαδἀμανθυς Ἀττινοῦ (Ἀντιοχίδος), (NPA, late second century B.C.), in one of the few families which could name a son for Attis.

131 Names from Apollo: Sittig, 11.

132 Thus it seems that Sittig, using his statistics mostly to try to determine the country of origin of the various deities (e.g., p. 85, Dionysos), fastened upon a question which, since the names are mostly late, his data do not positively answer.

133 Among 1500 theophoric names from Phrygia, 233 of which derive from Men, there is none from Isis. The proper inference here is doubtless, as Sittig remarked (p. 160), that the cult of Isis was weak or absent.

134 In this and the next two tables, I have often used Sittig's figures without checking them. Perfect accuracy in counts of names over 50 is difficult, and also pointless, since many new names appear every year. In the case of the smaller numbers, and in the last table, I have tried to be scrupulously accurate and up-to-date.

135 Reference to IG, III1 shows that Sittig meant to print 514 on his p. 166; the correct figure appears on pp. 27 and 89.

136 The latter change probably began in the second century B.C. In NPA, which contains a large proportion of names from that century, the figures are Apollo 76, Dionysos 84, Zeus 61. The clearest evidence of a considerable change, of the element of awareness and discrimination in giving names, and of the period when the change occurred, is given by

There is no evidence that names from female deities were avoided in naming males. Conversely, in naming females, names from male deities were freely used.

Very few women in Athens were named for Sarapis.

137 The oldest ‘Egyptian’ name outside Egypt is from Thasos (Nεῖλις Tιυοξένου, fl. period of Persian Wars); two others appear in the fourth century: soon after 400, a Kάνωβος and ca. 350 a name spelled IΣAΓONOΣ. This evidence is pressed hard by H. Seyrig (BCH, 51, 1927, 229). Sittig gives only 8 names from Isis among 650 theophorie names in Thasos.

138 IG, II2, 1927, lines 148–150. The stone itself is lost; it was read only by Chandler, who made 15 proved errors in reading it (cf. Hesperia 3, 1934, 188), but his reading in this instance may be accepted. On the subject of this list, A. W. Gomme, Population of Athens, 70; Körte, Gnomon, 8, 1932, 299.

139 Unless the grave monument IG, II1, 2585, which I have not seen, is earlier; more likely it is identical with IG III1 2044. — For some dated Egyptian theophoric names of the Hadrianic period, Graindor, Ath. s. Had., 165, n. 5.

140 Orthography: Σεραπ- is not known before ca. 100 B.C. In Delos only Σαραπ- appears. Names in Athens: Σαραπιάς, Σαραπίων (much the most common), Φιλοσέραπις (3 in Empire only), Σεραπᾶς, Σεραπιóς, Σεραπιακóς.

141 Délos col. ath., 37. Roussel included the mu of Παμβωτάδην within the brackets, but the stone preserves a small trace of this crucial letter.

Study of the whole inscription shows that the lettering is fairly regular, and the lines can be restored with close to 39 letters each (counting iotas as half-letters). Neither side is preserved: the disregard of syllabification in IG2 is unwarranted. The title of the priest, including the article(s), should contain close to 18½ letters; τοῦ Ἀσκληπιοῦ τοῦ ἐν ἄστει, which has 21, appears to be excluded. Lines 13–16: [καὶ στῆσαι αὐτ]ὴν ἐν τῶι ἱερῶι []αι τὴν στήλην [ τò δὲ γενóμ]ενον ἀ[νάλωμα, κτλ.].

142 Cf. the other family, NPA, p. 12, which used these names. The explanation, granted a decision to use Egyptian names, is possibly that to those who used names from Sarapis, names from Ammon alone were available. On this point, however, the data fail us. It is a curious fact that, apart from the family of Pambotadai, no ‘Egyptian’ name in all the Athenian records now known is associated with a patronymic derived from the name of a different Egyptian deity. Thus e.g. we have Σαραπίων Σαραπίωνος, but never Σαραπίων Ἰσιδώρου.

143 (1) Σαραπἰων, who was one of the ‘third’ mint magistrates in 176/5 B.C. (Sundwall, Untersuchungen über die attischen Münzen, 15). Holders of this position were probably Areopagites (Sundwall, op. cit., 69). If so, Sarapion may have been born as early as ca. 240 B.C. (2) Σαραπίων Ἀναϕλύστιος, father of Δημήτριος. The latter was πομπóστολος ca. 180 B.C. (NPA); his father, Sarapion, was probably born nearer 200 than 230 B.C.

144 Unless the grave monuments IG, II1, 2418 and 2326, which I have not seen, are to be dated earlier. The Salaminian of IG, II1, 3294 may well be of Roman times: Σεραπίων Σεραπίωνος Σαλαμίνιος: cf. supra, p. 221, n. 140.

145 Taking all periods together, in Phrygia Apollo has 296 and Men has 233. These are the only figures over 200 outside Athens.

146 First table; the largest figures outside Athens are Boeotia 1500, Ionia 1100, Phrygia 1500, Pergamum 1230; no others over 1000. Total of theophoric names outside Athens, all periods, 12,860; in Athens, 6270.

147 The total number of known names from Athens is over 35,000; of citizens only, over 20,000.

148 Among the various regions, Thessaly has most with 24, Boeotia is next with 18, Naxos and Priene are third with 11 each.

149 Mrs. Mary Barton Wallace (letter), from study of photographs.

150 As yet I have not found any publication or any record whatever of the foot, which I hope may be published in an archaeological journal in 1939.

Scattered in various collections there are several representations of the foot of Sarapis which terminate at the ankle in heads, busts or complete miniature figures of the god. The Athens foot may possibly have been one of this series, and obviously the whole series and the Athens foot should be studied together. In the Révue de l'histoire des Religions, 68, 1913, 69 n. 1, A. Reinach announced a study to be called ‘Le Pied de Sarapis.’ He requested his readers to send him information on the various feet of Sarapis; but he died evidently before the article could be completed. I venture to repeat his request, the more urgently since I can less easily visit European museums. [The address is Widener Library, Cambridge, Mass.] O. Weinreich's list (Ath. Mitt., 37, 1912, 37, n. 1; cf. his Neue Urkunden zur Sarapis-Religion, 7 n. 7) has been helpful for a beginning.

151 A parallel case may be that of the Mother of the Gods, Cybele of Pessinus, whose celebrants were already organized in the year of Lysitheides (IG, II2, 1316). When this archon was dated late in the century, the group of orgeones in the Piraeus, whose organization was counted as a formal reception, was naturally connected with Attalos I and placed ca. 220 (Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 223). Lysitheides, however, was subsequently dated on good evidence ca. 245/4 (Dinsmoor, Archons, 181; Meritt, Hesperia, 4, 1935, 585; Dow, AJA, 40, 1936, 65–70). We know also that the Mother had thiasotai in Piraeus in 295/4 (IG, II2, 1273, dated by Dinsmoor, Archons, 67).

Activity in societies ca. 215 B.C.: Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 220.

152 The extreme possible limits are ca. 280–ca. 180 B.C. Hitherto the best attempt to fix a date gave middle second century B.C. (Brady, op. cit., p. 42).

The society of Sarapiastai as such throws no light on the date of the public adoption, since the society could go on existing, like those of Bendis in Attica and like the Sarapiastai in Delos, after the public adoption.

153 E. Bevan, Hist. Eg., 233.

154 Nock, Conversion, 55. The Delians made the cult of Sarapis public in their island early in the second century, ca. 190–180, certainly after 200 B.C. No Ptolemaic influence has been detected (Roussel, Cultes, 252, 256).

155 It is notable that this was a period of definite ill-will toward the Ptolemies. The Ptolemaia, which flourished in Athens from ca. 222/1 until ca. 150, were then suspended until ca. 103/2 (Ferguson, Klio, 8, 1908, 338, 344).

156 The only precincts which are positively known to have existed are: (1) The old Iseion in Piraeus. (2) The Sarapieion in Athens seen by Pausanias (and restorable in IG, II2, 1292). Doubtless there were others; at Corinth, Pausanias saw four on his way to Acrocorinth (2, 4, 6). The temple of Herodes Atticus at Marathon, for instance, may have been built in an Egyptian precinct already existing. Cf. also IG, II2, 4771 and Graindor, Ath. s. Had., 160.

157 Isis and Sarapis in the Asklepieion, supra, p. 215; at Eleusis (IG, II2, 4871). Though they were to some extent deities of healing, no trace of Sarapis and Isis has been found in the Amphiareion at Oropos, where Ammon is known, though only from IG, II2, 337.

158 G. Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinités d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1884, 32 and refs. Greeks generally disliked animal gods: Cumont, Religions orientales, 73, and n. 11.

159 Roussel, Cultes, 32, 276.

160 Four exist in Delos.

161 On Delos 24; in Athens 6.

162 Lafaye, op. cit., 31, n. 5 (Philemon); also Diodorus, 1, 29 (34).

163 Isis and her many names in Delos, Roussel, Cultes, 276. Her full list of names in Egypt, the extraordinary Oxy. P. 1380. Her spiritual aspects, Nock, Conversion, 38, 138. It is doubtful whether the popularity of Isis was due to women (supra, pp. 194, 210); but cf. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization2, 323.

164 Most significant, if it could be made absolutely certain, would be the absence of any priest of Sarapis or Isis from the front row of seats in the theater. There were 67 seats in the front row, and we know the inscriptions of all but 13. Since no priest of any non-native, non-political god (e.g. Magna Mater) except Asklepios appears in the preserved inscriptions of the front row, it is unlikely that the priest of Sarapis found a place there. Nor does any of the poros seats bear his title.