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GREEK SACRED HISTORY

JOHN DlLLERY

Abstract. This paper contends that there was a distinct branch of Greek local

historiography that focused on the past viewed through regional cult: sacred

history. After an introductory look at Atthidography, a number of cases of localcult history referred to in inscriptions from the Hellenistic period are examined;additionally, an instance where historia sacra is itself preserved on an inscription

is also discussed, namely, the Chronicle of the temple of Athena at Lindos. Thepaper analyzes this type of historical writing from the perspective of intentional

history, historiography written both to articulate the identity of a given region ofthe Greek world and to proclaim the region's importance in a larger, changingworld.

My title begs a question: what is Greek sacred history? In order toanswer the question, it is important to think about the more generalcategory of local history and especially how it is different from the

great historical narratives of the fifth century, Herodotus and Thucydides.Both of these authors take as the

spacefor

significanthuman action the

entire known world. For Herodotus, the compass of his work is impliedin his proem, toc jiev EXkr\G\, tcc 8e pccppdpoici d7toS?%08VToc; he will treat

the deeds brought into being by humans, those performed by both theGreeks and the barbarians. Thucydides, in his introduction, is even more

explicit: the Peloponnesian War was the greatest disturbance (kivtiok;)to affect the Greek world, parts of the barbarian world, and, so to speak,the majority of mankind (mi nXeiGiov dvOpconcov).

Insofar as these histories are held up as the first and best represen-tatives of Greek historiography, they are often seen as also defining the

genre for the Greeks themselves. This is a mistaken assumption. RobertFowler has demonstrated that

Jacoby's placementof local

historyafter

Herodotus in his evolutionary schema of the development of Greek

historiography should be reexamined, and that a kind of regional histori?cal writing was being practiced by poets before Herodotus' time, and

potentially by prose authors as well, and that in any case, there were anumber of other local historians active when Herodotus wrote his histories

(Fowler 1996:65-66). In building his case for Herodotus' contemporaries,

Americanournal fPhilology26 2005)05-526 2005 yThe ohnsHopkins niversityress



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GREEK SACRED HISTORY 507

contemporaries, Dionysius also gives us a working definition of sacredhistory. It is, following his formulation, a branch of local history, center-

ing specifically on the cult of a given region or polis in the Greek worldand based on documents from temple archives (ev iepoic, drcoKeijievociYpoccpoci), sometimes coming from the cult officials themselves (e.g., let?

ters; see the case of Lindos below).In a series of recent articles, Hans-Joachim Gehrke has defined an

important aspect of much local, and in particular, sacred Greek histori-

ography: intentional history, 4 treatments of the past that combine mythand history and that contain elements of subjective and conscious self

categorization (2001, 298). Intentional history is the past told as a par?

ticular group's own understanding of its place and importance in theoikoumene, be it a region or a polis. It may be the work of an individuallocal historian, or it may emerge from a set of documents. Falling intothis type of writing are both poets and historians; and, for Gehrke, like

Fowler, this group of writers in fact constitutes a mainstream traditionof Greek historiography, one that is different from such figures asHerodotus and Thucydides (299).5 One of Gehrke's chief exempla is

Magnesia on the Maeander and the collection of inscriptions that con?cerns its establishment of games in honor of Artemis Leukophryene(end of third century B.C.E.): delegates were sent around the Mediterra-nean world to obtain recognition for the new contest on the basis of an

invented past, though Gehrke avoids such terms.It is the aim of this paper to look at local Greek historiography, in

particular that centered on regional cult. The epigraphic record of theHellenistic period has preserved the names of several historians whowrote this sort of history and whose activities and texts share manypoints of similarity with one another.6 But before turning to them, weneed first to consider how far our best-attested set of local histories,

Atthidography, can be styled sacred history. Important issues that areconnected to the writers of Attic local history will have a direct bearingon our discussion of Greek history centered on local cult.

4Gehrke 1994, 2001, 2003. See also Flashar 1999.5Precisely the point made by Wiseman 1979, 149-53, and, following him, Gabba

1981, 50, and n. 1, in connection with Thucydides.6See esp. the groundbreaking book, Chaniotis 1988. Subsequent references to this

work will be either by his text numbers or to page numbers, where relevant. The cautionsof Marincola 1999 regarding ancient concepts of genre in historiography ought to be keptin mind; I do believe, however, that local history was a recognized category in antiquity. Thepassage from Dionysius cited above suggests this, as do other texts, e.g., Diod. 1.26.5, andthe other passages discussed by Jacoby 1949, 289, n. 110.



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(FGrH 328), put to death by Antigonus Gonatas in the aftermath of theChremonidean War (260), was a mantis and hieroskopos, and several ofhis works were devoted to Attic cult and other religious matters.16 Thenumber of religious and cult-centered works attached to his name iswithout parallel.17 Ister the Callimachean (FGrH 334) was not anAthenian himself, but years after Philochorus in the late third century, hemade a something of an anthology of the Atthidographers. While pre-cious little is known about him, and certainly nothing relating to what he

may have done in the world of cult, one of his works is extremelysignificant for the discussion below: an Epiphanies of Apollo (FF 50-52).

But an important question remains: were any of these men priests

(hiereis) in the strict sense of the word? The answer must be no, unlesswe can call exegetai priests in the late Classical period (Cleidemus).18Conversely, there is a distinct orientation to their work that, for want ofa better term, we might call religious or priestly, or perhaps best of

all, cult-centered. Characteristic of all the Atthidographers is an inter?est in cult and, in many, a corresponding interest in the myths of earlyAttica.

Easily the most notable in this regard was Phanodemus. Althoughwe do not know how many books his Atthis contained altogether, we doknow that by Book 9 he had only reached either the assassination of

Hipparchus in 514 or perhaps the creation of the ten tribes by Cleisthenes

in 508-7 (F 8).19 We do know, thanks to an unplaceable fragment (F 23),that he covered Athenian history at least down to the death of Cimon in450-4920 and probably beyond. Hence we can conclude that Athenian

prehistory must have constituted a massive portion of the whole work.One can see why Dionysius of Halicarnassus identified Phanodemus as

the one who wrote up the Attic archaeology ((PavoSruioc, 6 xr\v 'Attiktivypdxj/aq apxauAoyiav, AR 1.61.5 = T 6).21

In addition to scale, Phanodemus' history of mythical Athens madesome striking claims. He made Athens the mother-city of Troy (F 13), of

16Titles of some of his works: On Divination, On Sacrifices, On the Contests atAthens, On the Mysteries at Athens, On the Myths of Sophocles, Delian Matters, On Dreams,

On Days, On Purifications, On Portents (Peri Symbolon). See FGrH 328 TT 1 and 7.17Cf.Tresp 1914,27-29.18See esp. Clinton 1974,89. He cites IG II21092 as proof that the exegetes was indeed

considered a hiereus in the Roman period, and Sokolowski LSCG Supp. 14 that they wereprobably so identified in the Hellenistic. In general consult Oliver 1950.

19Jacoby 1954a, 183.20Harding 1994, 30.21Rhodes 1990, 78.



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510 JOHNDILLERY

Sais in Egypt (F 25), and of the land of the Hyperboreans (F 29). Simi-larly, Attica became the venue for famous mythical crimes against maid?ens normally situated elsewhere: the Rape of Persephone (F 27), for

instance, and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (F 14). And finally, although the

myth of Admetus does not elsewhere have anything to do with Athens,22in Phanodemus the hero Theseus rescues him from exile and settles himand his family in Attica (F 26).

The effect of this sort of historiography is to make Athens thecenter of the Greek world, in cult and in history.23 Phanodemus may havebeen inspired to write such a history of Athens and Attica to compensatefor the region's relative unimportance in earlier literature, especially

Homer. These points, both that local history could be a form of regionaladvocacy and, furthermore, that it may be intended to fill gaps in the

literary record, are both worth remembering when we think about thelater Greek local historians whose works celebrate the fame of a regionand its cult.

In general, it is probably fair to say that much of what the Atthi?

dographers wrote about would not have turned up in the main narrativesof the major Greek historians. This is not to say that they did not treatmore recent history. It is more a question of emphasis and degree. Indeed,it might be useful to imagine what is treated by a Herodotus or Thucydidesin a digression as constituting the main thrust of the various Atthides.24

More importantly, can we call what the Atthidographers wrote sacredhistory ? At a technical level, in keeping with Dionysius' implied definitiondiscussed above, the answer is probably no, though we may want to makesome exceptions. On the basis of his titles and career, Philochorus seemsto fit the bill as a sacred historian, but his surviving work does not re-semble the historiography of later figures we will be looking at in this

paper. Phanodemus is closer perhaps in spirit, but it is hard to know whatsort of sources he used. Although Ister did write a work with a title thatrefers to an important concept for the later sacred historians (divineepiphany), his primary historiographic enterprise seems in fact to havebeen chiefly the anthologizing of earlier Atthidographers and thus does

22Dale 1954, ix-x, broaches the idea that the reference at line 452 of Eur. Alc. toAlcestis' fame being sung at the Carnea at Sparta and at Athens reflects the fact that herstory was known in some formal way in Athens, but she later casts doubt on this interpre-tation in her commentary, ad 447.

23On the Attic patriotism evident in these fragments, see esp. Jacoby 1954a, 173; cf.Pearson 1942, 73, and more recently, Lardinois 1992.

24So, e.g., Hdt. 2.51.1 on the origin of the Attic herm, or Thuc. 2.15.5 on theEnneakrounos.



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not meet one of the criteria set out at the start of this paper. But, if it ishard to call any one Atthidographer an author of sacred history, I hopethat the above discussion has drawn attention to an orientation in their

writing that will also be seen to animate the true sacred history that iscelebrated on stone in the Hellenistic period.

II. LOCAL HISTORIES,TEMPLE DEDICATIONS, EPIPHANIES

While we can only see sacred history imperfectly in the works of the

Atthidographers, there is a set of local historians from the Hellenistic

periodwhose texts are constructed out of

templerecords and who com-

pile histories that include epiphanies of gods.As noted above, Ister actually composed an Epiphanies of Apollo.

We could add in this context Phylarchus as well, who wrote a workentitled On the Epiphany ofZeus (FGrH 81T 1). Sadly, nothing of theseworks remains. However, we can get a sense perhaps of what they werelike by taking a close look at the opening of the one substantial fragmentwe have of Menodotus of Samos from the last quarter of the third cen?

tury.25 In his Record ofRemarkable Things on Samos, or alternatively, Onthe Dedications in the Temple ofSamian Hera, Menodotus tells the storyof how a cult statue of Hera on Samos came to be washed in the sea and

venerated with barley-cakes in a festival called the Tonaia. He offers(through Athenaeus) the following aitiological story. Admete flees fromher home in Argos and goes to Samos where she dedicates herself to thecult of Hera. Tyrrhenian pirates, in the pay of the Argives, attempt tosteal the cult statue of Hera in order to bring Admete into disfavor withthe Samians. The statue is seized and taken to their ship, but the ship willnot move away from shore. Assuming this to be a divine sign, the piratesabandon the statue on the strand, leaving beside it barley-cakes; Admeteraises the alarm, and the statue is found on the beach. Carians, believingthat the statue made its own way there, tie it up with withes. Admetereleases the image, purifies it, and puts it back on its pedestal.26 It is the

beginning of the aition that is important to this discussion:

'A5ui|Triv ydp cprjoiv trjv Eup-DaSeax; e^ Apyoix; cpvyouaav eXQeiv Eiq Idjiov,0?aaajjivr|v 8e xrjv Tfj


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512 JOHN DILLERY

Xapiaxrjpiov po\)^o|ievr|v a7to8oa)vai e7UjxeXri0fivai xo\) iepou xov Kai vuvi)7cdp%ovxo(;. .

He [Menodotus] says that Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, having fledfrom Argos came to Samos, and having seen an epiphany of Hera and

wishing to give a thank offering for her escape from home, took charge ofthe temple, the one that remains today ...27

What is remarkable about the introduction to the story is the highconcentration of epigraphic terms familiar from the maintenance of local

cult: we have the thank-offering (xapiaxf|piov), the decision to care for

the temple (eTujLietaiGfjvai), and, most importantly, the epiphany of Hera

(ir\v xr\q Rpaq ercupdveiocv).28 Indeed, we can see in these terms theessentials of sacred history : working back from the present, we have

(1) the thank-offering, in this case, Admete's superintendence of the

temple and the establishment of its ritual as they are now, (2) the aitionfor these facts, which in turn is a narrative set in motion by (3) a divine

epiphany. Offering, aitiological account, and epiphany are all linked to?

gether in a causal chain.29We know nothing about Menodotus beyond his scanty fragments

(F 1 and one other). We can, however, make a reasonable guess aboutthe remainder of his work on the basis of the composition of one of his

successors,30 the second-century Leon of Samos (FGrH 540). Althoughonly an honorary inscription survives,31 it tells us a great deal in a fewlines (Heraion Inv. 197, Chaniotis 1988 E 16). After the first four lines ofthe epigram, suggesting the permanence of (pdjucc over other monumen-tal media, we read:

xaq 8e Aecov eKuprjoe Kaxd rcxo^iv, o


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[fame] which Leon won throughout the city, who organizedinto sound histories the deeds regarding the homeland,having celebrated native Hera and how often with shipsmen rendered the temple splendid, having made offerings with spoils.32

There are some obscurities in this text. In the first place, the use of

nxvvxaq to describe icxopiaq is troubling. The adjective almost alwaysmodifies persons. In the Odyssey it is twice used to describe reliable

family members (Nestor's sons 4.211, Penelope 11.445), in each case byan Atreid (Menelaus and Agamemnon, respectively), who knows onlytoo well the opposite; note also Pindar / 8.26 (the sons and grandsons of

Aeacus). Perhapsthe

pointhere is to make the reader think of Leon as

writing a history expected of a dutiful son of the fatherland (ndxpaq),hence making nivmaq a transferred epithet. But note also Solon: Eunomia

renders everything apxioc koci 7iivot6c among men (4.39, West). I take

-bjivfiaaq to mean more generally celebrate, rather than specifically

hymnize. The participle seems to indicate that more than a hymn in her

honor was incorporated in the history; rather, there was a celebratoryorientation to the entire work.33 The problematic oc\)T6%6ova?the term is

rarely used of deities?and the equally difficult vocuaiv, I take as working

rhetorically as a pair34 to emphasize Hera's strong Samian identity and

yet simultaneously the international celebrity of her shrine on Samos.

The claim of Hera's origins on Samos is almost preemptively proprietary,while the ships remind us of the importance of the shrine for Greeks andnon-Greeks alike. In fact, dedications in the form of miniature ships were

common at the Samian Heraion.35

Putting all these interpretations together, it seems clear that the

focus of Leon's history was Samian Hera and the dedications made at

her temple, especially by non-Samians. The narrative may well have been

built around epiphanies of the goddess, perhaps in foreign places (likeone dedicated to Admete in Argos), that in turn helped to inspire dedi?

cations at her temple in Samos. In any case, a record of the dedications

themselves probably formed the backbone of the narrative.

32My translation.33Peek 1940,168, n. 3, compares Thuc. 2.42.2 and Aeschines 1.133.34This is not Peek's understanding of amoxQova, 1940,168-69. There are examples

of amoxOcovused of the Mother of the Gods: SEG 24.498 and 26.729, both from Macedoniaand both from the second century c.e. See most recently Hatzopoulos 2003, 208-9. Nor-

mally the term is used of a whole people who have never moved; it is seldom employed todescribe even an individual: see Flower and Marincola 2002, 238.

35On the Votivschiffe at Samian Heraion, see, e.g., Kopcke 1967, 145-48, and

Kyrieleis 1980, 89-94.



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Mivcoc;dpyopeov 7ioTT|ptov, cp' oi) e7teyeypoc/7cco?Mivcoq 'AGdvai no^id8i KaiAil no^iei, (hq paxi / Sevayopoa; ev xdi a' iaq %poviKd


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516 JOHN DILLERY

breastplate by the pharaoh Amasis, Herodotus is listed as the first au?thority for the votive but is followed by no less than seven other writers,including the priest Hieroboulus (C, lines 36-55). In particular, one

Xenagoras added that Amasis made a dedication also of two statues andten phialai, and that on each statue there was a bilingual inscription inGreek and hieroglyphs, stating, Amasis, renowned king of Egypt, dedi-cated [this]. 44This information goes well beyond Herodotus' brief notice

(Hdt. 2.182). If some are inclined to doubt that this document was under-stood as history, indeed if there is a suspicion that it was not in fact real

historiography at all but something more like an act of public memory, itneeds to be remembered that the inventory was constructed with a view

towards adding to the literary-historical record. We know this becausethe inventories evidently were to augment the testimony of none otherthan luminaries such as Homer and Herodotus. As such, the Chroniclewas in some sense intended to be part of the written past, as well as

(obviously) a public record of popular memory.But even more revealing of the sacred and historical nature of the

Lindian Chronicle are the epiphanies of section D. As we have seen,sacred history is often constructed around a narrative involving an

epiphany, followed by a dedication that celebrates and commemoratesthe events of the narrative. In the Chronicle of Lindos, the stories ofdivine epiphany are separate from the votives, and, in fact, none of the

surviving accounts (there are only three) has a corresponding entry inthe votive section. One does, however, contain within it a reference to

dedications, complete with a listing of supporting authorities for them,just as in the epiphany section.45 But in any case, a connection is felt, if

only at the general level, between the sections B, C, and D: even if longnarratives with epiphanies are not found in the votive sections, theycould be in a sense assumed, at least for some of the entries.46

Importantly, in the third epiphany, from the very end of the fourth

century (305-4: the siege of Demetrius Poliorcetes), it is clear that the

recording of the appearance of the goddess came about through theinitiative of a priest, Callicles, who had a dream in which Athena made

herself manifest and gave her commands how to survive the siege (D 95-

115). The hero of the tale, in other words, is a priest, as well as its main

44Herodotus also mentions the statues but does not say anything about an inscrip-tion upon them. Cf. the speculations of Francis and Vickers 1984.

45That of Datis, treated below.46Though not in a case such as Alexander the Great, who, we are told, made

dedications at the temple in accordance with an oracle.



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(only?) source. It should be added here that, just as with the list ofdedications, the stories of epiphanies are coordinated with other writtenaccounts of the events in question: thus the compilers cite no less than

nine authors who also treated the events of the Datis story (D 47-58).Bertrand's cross-checking mindset is evident here as well.

The epiphany-logoi themselves are remarkable texts. As Bruno

Keil noted long ago, they are artful compositions: there is evidence that

the compilers wrote with an eye towards prose rhythm and the avoid-ance of hiatus.47 They represent not terse lapidary Greek but rather true

historiographic prose, very much in the manner of a typical Herodotean

diegema.

Indeed, the first epiphany, the longest and only intact one, finds anatural pairing with a similar tale in Herodotus. It tells the story of the

siege of Lindos by the Persians, when Darius, King of the Persians, sent

great forces to subdue Greece (D 1-2). When the Lindians were about

to surrender because of a lack of water, Athena appeared to one of the

city magistrates and told him to take heart, for she would beg her fatherto give the city water (D 13-16). When the Lindians asked for an armi-stice for five days to see if the help would come, after which they wouldotherwise surrender, Datis, the Persian commander laughed. But thenclouds immediately formed and rain fell, providing the Lindians with

water while the invaders suffered from an acute lack of it. Datis was awe-

struck by the divine nature of this miracle48 and proceeded immediatelyto dedicate to the goddess his own cloak, bracelet, tiara, sword (specifiedas an akinakes), and chariot.The compilers say that these objects did notsurvive the fire that destroyed the other dedications as well as the temple,but they were attested by many of the same authorities used in the votivesection of the document (D 34-59). Datis continued on his way, havingmade a treaty with the Lindians and noting that the gods protect thesemen (D 46-47).

Similar to this account is the story told by Herodotus of how the

same Datis spared Delos.49 Datis scrupulously avoids harming the holyisland but rather asks that the inhabitants, who had fled at his approach,

47Keil 1916.48Note the wording of D 31-34: o[^]x(co)qnapabo^q xoi jiev 7uo^iopKe{)U? voi

5a\j/iA-e


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518 JOHNDILLERY

return. In this case he also acknowledges the sanctity of the place and itspeople (he calls the Delians avopzq ipoi and refers to the island as the

birthplace of Apollo and Artemis), and he makes a massive offering ofthree-hundred talents' weight of frankincense (Hdt. 6.97). The story ofDatis at Lindos is important not only because of the comparison withHerodotus but also because stories like it about the salvation of impor?tant Greek sanctuaries in the Persian wars seem to have reached aninternational audience. Momigliano and others have argued that the siegeof Lindos by Datis, specifically the motif of the five days of thirst before

surrendering, can be paralleled in the story of the besieged Jews of Bethuliain the Book of Judith (7:30). What the Greeks said about the Persians had

an impact that went beyond the Greeks themselves.50 Indeed, to judge bythis case, it was the stories of localities and the survival of their cults thatwere transferable to other regions and cultures, not the larger narrativesthat dealt with the salvation and victory of the Greek people.

The Lindian Chronicle is essentially a history of the temple asseen through the history of its treasures ; indeed, as Dignas says, takenas a whole, a list of Athena's local and famous donors narrates the

history of Rhodes. 51 The significance of this type of historical writing isbest seen by contrasting it with Herodotus, from whom we have alreadynoticed several parallels with the Chronicle. Herodotus, too, can producehistory that is very cult-centered: it has long been accepted that to a

significant degree much of Herodotus' History is written with Delphi atits center, both in terms of orientation and information.52 Furthermore,he, too, provides inventories of Delphi's votives (Gyges' dedications,Hdt. 1.14; Croesus', Hdt. 1.50-52), and he even knows of an earlierdestruction thanks to a fire (Hdt. 1.50.3; cf. Paus. 10.5.13), just as hap-pened at Lindos, with its attendant damage to the offerings. What is

more, Herodotus also has epiphanies of gods and, in particular, deities

protecting their sacred space, as in the case (as it happens) of AthenaPronaia who protects her shrine at Delphi from Persian attack withthunderbolts from heaven that cause a rockslide (Hdt. 8.37-38).

Yet the views of the past that we get in Herodotus' treatment of

Lydian donors to Delphi and in the Lindian Chronicle are very different.Even if we grant that Herodotus' history is Delphi-centered, indeed,even if a strong Delphic bias can be detected, the Delphic stories them-

50Momigliano 1987, 9-10. Note also Heltzer 1989; and for the general point on non-Greeks borrowing large scale explanations from the Greeks, Millar 1997.

51Dignas 2002a, 240-41; cf. Dignas 2002b, 18-19.52See Murray 1993,105-7, and 1987/2001, 31-32.



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selves are subordinated to larger concerns in his account: While Croesus'Delphic votives are indeed important, they are but a part of Herodotus'treatment of the whole of Croesus' career, which is in turn a blueprintthat anticipates the successes and failures of other eastern dynasts, most

notably Xerxes.53 On the other hand, the dedications and their compan?ion stories of divine epiphany from the inventory of the temple of AthenaLindia are not exemplary of larger historical processes; they are them?selves constitutive of history. The sacred precinct is the historical hori?

zon, the sole locality for action that is worthy of record. Historical figuresand their deeds are noted only when they intersect with the temple ofAthena at Lindos.

With the Chronicle of Lindos we have indeed sacred history, that is,an historiographic enterprise initiated by a priest, in part derived from

priestly records, establishing a past seen through the lens of a religioussite and its dedications. It is a type of history that is profoundly cult-

centered, inasmuch as the lists of dedications and epiphanies establishthe celebrity, power, and authority of Athena Lindia and her temple. Asa brand of historiography, it puts Lindos and its cult at the center of theoikoumene.

III. CONCLUSIONS: INTENTIONAL HISTORY,

OR CLIO AT WORK

It is important to point out that the Lindian Chronicle is not our onlyexample of Greek historiography of this type. In a superb article from

1919, Rostovtzeff linked the Chronicle to other city/sanctuary epigraphichistories as well as to other authors of epiphanies.54 Especially noteworthyare the so-called Historia Sacra of Magnesia on the Maeander,55 which

explained the origins of the games of Artemis Leukophryene, inspired byan epiphany of the goddess. Another is the story of the miracle of Zeusat Panamara in southern Caria,56 which involved the manifestation of

53Classic statements of this position: Immerwahr 1966,76,148,153-54,306-7; Fornara1971, 77, and n. 6.

54Rostovtzeff 1919.55The description historia sacra comes from SIG3 557 = IMagnesia 16, FGrH 482

F 2, Chaniotis 1988 T 8. Important recent treatments of this text and the Magnesian dossier:Ebert 1982 (cf. SEG 32.1147 and Robert and Robert 1983a), Dusanic 1983, Chaniotis 1999,and Gehrke 2001.

56See BCH 55 [1931]:72-76, 85.



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tory of the relations between Chersonesos and neighboring powers, boththe Bosporan kings, and other cities, organized around a list of epipha?nies of his city's patron god, the Maiden,62 just as in the case of Lindossection D. What is more, he gave public recitations of his work.63 As the

inscription makes clear, while not (apparently) a priest stricto sensu,

Syriscus was an advocate of his city and its patron deity in the Black Sea

region. Like the Atthidographers and the Lindian Chronicle, he wrote

antiquarian history, constructed around a chronological list that mayhave extended back in time for several years. In functional terms, Syriscusis really quite like the familiar elite representative of his polis in theHellenistic period: the aspirations of the free city-state and the hellenistic

monarch are brought together and harmonized through the interventionof an aristocrat with knowledge of the requirements of local cult.64

Historical writing in the Hellenistic period became deeply impli-cated in a process that P Herrmann has called the intensification of thehistorical dimension of a city's self-understanding.65 Gehrke's notion of

intentional history is clearly also relevant. Local historiography was

required to help cities define who they were and, further, to help themarticulate their needs and aspirations in the wider context of the powerdynamics of the age. The famous dispute of Priene and Samos over the

ownership of the Batinetis is a signal case (I. Priene 37, Ager nos. 26 and

74): just as in the Lindian Chronicle, in addition to documents, historical

narratives are cited as supporting evidence, first before King Lysimachusin 283-82, and again later before the Rhodians at the start of the second

century.66This was not the only instance of historical texts being used as

evidence.67 The inscriptions dealing with the foundation of Artemis' gamesat Magnesia, or the great dedications and appearances of Athena at

Lindos, or, for that matter, of the Maiden at Chersonesos, need to be

62For the importance of this deity in the region, see Ustinova 1999, 54-58.63The phenomenon of public readings of historical texts and related materials has

beenexpertly

discussedby

L. Robert in a number ofplaces, e.g., 1938,14-15; 1946, 35-36;1963, 58-59; and (with J. Robert) 1958, 336; 1983b, 162. Consult also Boffo 1988.

64Cf. Millar 1983/2002, 53, discussing Callias of Sphettus.65Herrmann 1984,114-15.66Ager 1996, 208-9. Note esp. her concluding remarks: The extensive use of the

literary works of historians in this case is interesting. In the Hellenistic period, a time whenthe number of local histories was increasing, it is scarcely surprising that such works shouldbe employed as evidence for the past history of a piece of territory.

67Ager 1996,209, n. 16: she cites her case nos. 146 and 158, in addition to the Priene/Samos dispute. See also the excellent discussion of Curty 1989.



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522 JOHN DILLERY

seen as related documents.68 They all demonstrate that local, sacredhistories had become important tools in the advocacy of regional inter-ests. Or, to put it another way, in the language of the inscriptions them?

selves, both the dedications and the stories about them glorify the local

deity and its shrine (dy^a'i^eiv: Chronicle of Lindos B, line 95; honors for

Leon, line 8). Even the cities themselves seemed to acknowledge the

important role historians played in bringing acclaim to their regions. The

recently published inscription from Salmakis details several reasons forHalicarnassus to take pride in her past, a mix of myth and history that wehave seen elsewhere in this article. When the subject turns to her nativesons who achieved greatness in letters, pride of place goes to two histo?

rians who are mentioned first: Herodotus and Andron (lines 43-44).69

University of Virginiae-mail: [email protected]

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