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ΠΡΟΓΟΝΟΙ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

M. Rostovtzeff
M. Rostovtzeff
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

One of the Dura parchments (Dura Perg. 23)—a sale of a slave in 180 A.D.—recently transcribed and translated by C. Bradford Welles in his preliminary report on the Dura documents of private character shews a very elaborate and unusual date. First comes the consular date and the name of the emperor, then the date according to the Seleucid era and the month, and finally the place and the municipal date: l. 4 ff. ἐν Εὐρώπῳ τῇ πρὸς ᾿Αραβίᾳ ἐπὶ ἱερέωυ Διὸς μὲν Λυσανίου τοῦ Ζηνοδότου τοῦ ῾Ηλιοδώρου ᾿Απόλλωνος δὲ Θεοδώρου τοῦ ᾿Αθηνοδότου τοῦ ᾿Αρτεμιδώρου, τῶν δὲ προγόνων ῾Ηλιοδώρου τοῦ Διοκλέους τοῦ ῾Ηλιοδώρου, βασιλέως δὲ Σελεύκου Νικ[ά] τορος Δανύμου τοῦ Σελεύκου τοῦ Δανύμου.

Dating a document, not only by consuls, the imperial year and the year according to a provincial or municipal era, but also by eponymous priests of the municipal gods was not the common practice at Dura in Roman times. We have now a rather large and representative group of various private documents found at Dura, some of them with the date completely preserved. In no one of them is mention of the eponymous priests found. The date consists of the name of the consuls, the name of the emperor or emperors, and the number of the year according to the Seleucid era. Sometimes when the emperors are themselves consuls the second step is omitted. Nor is such a dating by the priests very common in other parts of the Roman Empire. In contracts or similar documents found in Egypt in most cases the imperial date only is used.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , 1935 , pp. 56 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1935

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References

1 Welles, C. Bradford, Die zivilen Archive in Dura, Münch. Beiträge zu Papyrusf. etc., 19 (1934), p. 379 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 See D. Perg. 22—Welles, l.l. p. 389 ff.; cp. the list of other private documents found at Dura, ib. p. 395 ff. I have not tried to collect the evidence of dating by municipal priests in Greek cities of the Roman period. It has no direct bearing on the problems treated in this paper.

3 See e.g. Rostovtzeff, and Welles, , A Parchment Contract of Loan, etc., Yale Class. St. II (1931), p. 3 ff., esp. p. 39 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 Minns, E. H., Parchments of the Parthian Period from Avroman in Kurdistan, JHS. 35 (1915), p. 22 ff.Google Scholar; cp. my article quoted in note 3, p. 33, note 48.

5 The Syriac text of the contract of Edessa is published by Prof. Torrey, C. C. in the Zeitschr.f. Semitistik, 10 (1935), p. 33 ff.Google Scholar; comments on it of C. B. Welles and A. Bellinger will appear in the forthcoming fifth vol. of Yale Class. St. I may point out that the three magistrates of Edessa mentioned in the document are probably a kind of governor of the city representing Rome and the two στρατηγοί. It was a form of government first created by the Seleucids (see the recently discovered document of Seleucia of the time of Seleucus IV, Holleaux, M., BCH. 57 (1933), p. 3 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and adopted by the Parthians (see the important letter of Artabanus III, Cumont, F., CRAcInscr. 1932, p. 256Google Scholar; Wilhelm, A., Anz- d. Wien. Ak. 1934, p. 45 ffGoogle Scholar.). At Dura—a smaller city—the office of ἐπιστάτης was combined with that of the στρατηγός and so it was in many other cities of the Parthian Empire: e.g. Babylon, OGI. 254 and Nineveh (temple of Nabu, Hutchinson, R.W., Archaeol. 79 (1929), p. 140ff.Google Scholar; SEG. VII, 37; the text needs a thorough revision; I read the date tentatively ΑΠΣ-281 of the Seleucid era, i.e. 31 B.C.; the man for whose safety the stele was put up is Apollonius, ; cp. OGI. 254). As regards Dura I would note that we know well one holder of the office—Σέλευκος Λυσίου—who held it for at least ten years from about 51 to 61 A.D. (new evidence which concerns him will be found in Dura Rep. V, p. 113, No. 418 and p. 185, Nos. 520, 523 and 525). It is probable that the office at Dura was not annual and that it was practically (though hardly legally) hereditary in one and the same family (Johnson, J., Dura Studies, 1932, p. 17 ff.Google Scholar). The earliest member of the family who was holding the office was a Σέλευκος Λυσίου whose date is 32–1 B.C. He is styled in the inscription which contains his name στρατηγὸς τῆς πόλεως γενεάρχης (Dura Rep. V, p. 116). I am inclined to think that γενεάρχης means in this case ἐθνάρχης and that Seleucus was both the chief magistrate of the Macedonian colonists and the chief (sheikh) of the non-Macedonian residents of the city and its territory. In Roman times the office of στρατηγὸς at Dura is no longer connected with that of ἐπιστάτης. In larger cities, however, like at Edessa and at Palmyra the Romans seem to have retained the ancient organisation and appointed a kind of city-governor, who was, in fact, the successor of the Hellenistic and Parthian ἐπιστάτης. Such a representative of Rome at Palmyra was probably the τεταγμένος ἐν Παλμύροις of the νόμος τελωνικός of Palmyra (OGI. 629, 105). Along with him existed the two στρατηγοί (Cumont, , CRAcInscr. 1932, p. 256)Google Scholar.

6 Cp. Rostovtzeff, M., The Caravan Cities, p. 178Google Scholar, cp. the Italian edition of this book (Bari, 1934), p. 164 ff. and Dura Rep. V; in Rep. VI and VII will be found an account of the Synagogue and the temples of Bel, Zeus Theos, Zeus Kyrios and Adonis.

7 On the divine honours paid to Seleucus after his death and on the cult of Zeus and Apollo see Stähelin, art. Seleucus in RE. II A, p. 1231 ff.

8 On the early history of the temple of Nanaia see F. Brown in the forthcoming Dura Rep. VI.

9 See F. Cumont, l.l. p. 254 ff.

10 Last summaries of the data bearing on the cult of the Seleucids: Ferguson, W. S., CAH. VII, pp. 16 and 19Google Scholar, and Rostovtzeff, ib., p. 162, with the corresponding bibliographies, p. 869 ff. and p. 898 ff.; cp. Nock, A. D., Σύνναος θεός, Harv. St. XLI (1930)Google Scholar, and Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of the Roman Emperors, 1931Google Scholar. It is well known that our information is not sufficient for following the evolution of the dynastic cult in the Seleucid Empire. We know the first stage, i.e. the spontaneous cult organised by Greek cities for the first Seleucids, and we know also how the first two Seleucids became divi. Then comes a gap, and after this gap we meet the dynastic cult strictly organised in probably all the satrapies of the Empire, at least in the subject cities and in the military colonies. It was customary to ascribe this organisation to Antiochus Theos. However, since we know that the inscription OGI. 224 is a letter of Antiochus III and not of Antiochus II (Holleaux, , BCH. LIV (1930), p. 245 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period, 1934Google Scholar, Nos. 36–37), I am inclined to think that the great reorganiser of the dynastic cult in the Seleucid Empire on Ptolemaic lines was Antiochus III, not Antiochus II.

11 This type of dating is age-old. Alexander was using it. From him it was inherited by Cassandrus (SIG. 3, 332), Lysimachus (ib. 380) and the Ptolemies. It was adopted by the Attalids, OGI. 309 and CAH. VIII, p. 593; cf. Robert, L., BCH. LIV (1930), p. 251Google Scholar, note 1, and Welles, op. cit. p. 183. I am, however, inclined to think that in the Seleucid Empire this mode of dating was never enforced by the government and made compulsory for the cities before Antiochus III and that this enforcement was a constituent part of his general reorganisation of the dynastic cult. Note the expressions Antiochus III is using in ordering the name of the archiereia to be included in the official prescripts of documents OGI. 224, 15 f.; Welles, op. cit. No. 36, and in the corresponding paragraph of his letter concerning the appointment of a chief priest at Daphne, OGI. 244; Welles, op. cit. No. 44, 1. 31 ff. One feels that the king is speaking not of a routine business but of something new.

12 The θεοὶ σωτῆρες of this and the following two inscriptions is a puzzle. In the two Palestinian inscriptions they may be Apollo and Artemis, but the same is hardly possible for OGI. 245.

13 The inscription of Beisan was first published by the Rev. Fath. Vincent, and Abel, in Publ. of the Palestine Section of the Mus. of the Univ. of Pennsylvania, I, 1930Google Scholar; the topography and history of Beth-Shan by Alan Row, p. 45 ff. and pl. 53, 1; that of Samaria by Reisner, G. in Harv. Excav. at Samaria, IV, p. 250Google Scholar, III, 1, and pl. 59. Cf. Rev. Mouterde, P. in Mél. de l'Université S. Joseph, XVI (1933), p. 180 ffGoogle Scholar. Prof. C. B. Welles drew my attention to these two inscriptions.

14 OGI. 224; Welles, op. cit. No. 36.

15 E.g. the letter of Darius, SIG.3 22, 5; cp. the same type of expression used by Maussollus of Caria, SIG.3 167, and by the Spartocids of Bosporus, SIG.3 370, 40.

16 On the date of OGI. 223 see Welles, C. Bradford, Royal Corresp. 1934, p. 81, No. 15Google Scholar; cp. his discussion of the meaning of πρόγονοι in the two documents.

17 SIG.3 434–5 (266 B.C.) and 463 (246 B.C.); cp Holleaux, M., Arch.f. Pap. 6 (1913), p. 14Google Scholar.

18 Tarn, W. W., Two Notes on Ptolemaic History, JHS. 53 (1933), p. 57 ff.Google Scholar; cp. Edson, F. Jr, The Antigonids, Heracles and Beroea, Harv. St. in Class. Phil. 45 (1934), p. 221 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 See his paper quoted in the preceding note.

20 In the main inscription of Nimrud Dagh Antiochus I speaks about the institution of his and of his πρόγονοι cult in the following way, OGI. 383, 44 ff.; Jalabert, et Mouterde, , Inscriptions … de la Syne, IGoogle Scholar, No. I, 44 ff.: ; and in his Νόμος (it. 124 ff.) about the appointment of a ἱερεύς. At Arsameia (Jalabert et Mouterde, ib. No. 47, col. III, l. 11) a priest is appointed for the cult of the πρόγονοι alone: etc., cf..

21 Jalabert et Mouterde, op. cit. No. 24.

22 Holleaux, M., BCH. 57 (1933), p. 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 M. Holleaux, l.l. p. 64, note 6, has suggested this possible explanation of the demoticon of Aristolochus. I may add to the material collected by Holleaux a reference to the tribe Νερουάνιος and its δῆμοι Γενε[άρχειος] and Προπατόριος at Antinoe: Weber, W., Unters. z. Gesch. d. Kaisers Hadrian, p. 251Google Scholar; Strack, P., Unters. z. röm. Reichsprägung des Zweiten Jahrh. I (1931), p. 73Google Scholar.

24 Tarn, W. W., Queen Ptolemais and Apama, CQ. 23 (1929), p. 139 ffGoogle Scholar. While the considerations of Tarn concerning the Apameae are quite convincing, his suggestion of Apama being regarded as the illegitimate daughter of Alexander is far-fetched and not convincing.