1. Priests as Ritual Experts in the Greek World

Angelos Chaniotis

1. Who Needs Ritual Experts?

In the study of Greek rituals more interest has been paid to the content, context, meaning, and function of rituals than to the persons who performed them—and I should add: for good reasons. [1] As F. Gschnitzer has shown, [2] when secular magistrates and priests conducted ritual activities such as oaths, curses, prayers, and sacrifices jointly, the priests conducted the religious services under the responsibility or on behalf of the political authority; although magistrates sometimes conducted religious activities without the assistance of priests, it was less common for public priests to perform rituals without the presence of secular authorities.
With the exception of priesthoods reserved for the members of particular families—which are in fact more numerous than one might imagine—it was within the realistic expectations of every Greek male of some means (and of quite a few women) that he might receive a priestly office through election, purchase, or lot. And one would also expect that any Greek would be in a position to sacrifice, make a libation, celebrate a wedding, pray to the gods, or organize a funeral.
The performance of rituals was doubtlessly one of the major duties of priests, in addition to the care of sanctuaries and their finances. A Delian decree, for example, concerning orderly behavior in the sanctuary of Apollo assigns the duty of performing an imprecation according to ancestral custom to the priests and priestesses (SEG 48.1037). [3] When priests or priestesses are honored, they are honored for their ritual activities. An honorary inscription for a priestess of Artemis in Ephesus presents a characteristic example: the priestess had performed the sacrifices and had distributed the sacrificial meat to the councils of the boulē and the gerousia, to the personnel of the sanctuary and to the victors at the Artemisia (Knibbe et al. 1993 no. 21. SEG 43.779); in Athens a priest was praised for offering the eisiteteria sacrifice to Zeus Soter and Athena Soteira for the council, that is, a sacrifice offered on the last day of the year before the new council took over its duties; [4] in the same city, a priestess of Aglaurus was praised for offering the sacrifices to Aglaurus, Ares, Helius, the Horae, Apollo, and the other gods on the festival Eisiteteria and for taking care of the orderly celebration of a pannukhis, a ‘night-festival’ (SEG 33.115). [5] Not every priest received an honorary decree, and this suggests that some of them were fulfilling their duties in a more successful manner than others; they were more generous, or more imaginative in the performance of the rituals, or interested in reviving rituals that had been neglected, or more interested in the staging of a festival. I will return to this point later.
Priests were certainly performers of rituals. But were they also ritual experts, that is, persons who had an expertise that surpassed that of the majority of their peers (of the citizens in public cults or of the fellow members of an association in private cults)? Did they engage themselves more actively than the majority of their equals in the performance, transmission, and shaping of rituals?
Given the usual modes of appointment of priests (election, lot, purchase), but also given the simple nature of most rituals, ritual experts were usually not needed. The existence of sometimes quite detailed cult regulations, as for example the cult regulation of Epidaurus concerning the daily service in the sanctuary of Asclepius, offered a novice in a priestly office the information he needed in order to fulfill his duties (LSCG Suppl. 25).
A cult regulation from Cos concerning the priesthood of an unknown deity, perhaps Artemis, defines the duties of the priestess (ICos ED 236). [6] Among other things, she should open the temples at sunrise on the days determined by religious custom (hosion estin), she should provide for the burning of incense, and she was to organize an agermos (collection of money for religious services) on the first of Artemisius. The opening of the temple and the epithusis (burning of incense) did not require any further explanation; the days on which these ritual actions were to be performed were defined by custom and were probably recorded in a cult calendar; a large number of such cult calendars have been found on Cos. [7] If our priestess had questions concerning the ritual of agermos, there was a model which she could use: the agermos was to take place on the same conditions as those established for the cult of Artemis Pergaia. Cult regulations, both written and orally transmitted, provided for the norms to be followed by the persons who fulfilled cultic duties for a limited period of time. For several kinds of rituals, including sacrifices, a priest could rely on the assistance of a hierothutēs (sacrificial priest), a mageiros (butcher officiating in sacrifices), and a kreonomos (distributor of sacrificial meat).
But one who tries to find exceptions to the rule that priests are not ritual experts will not be disappointed. Mystery cults require secrecy and, consequently, ritual experts; magic rituals can be performed by any reader of a magical handbook, but nonetheless a specialist is most welcome; [8] with some instruction, a lot of practice, and even more imagination, most divinatory practices can be performed by anyone, but this did not make specialists of divination disappear; [9] and despite the fact that an increasing number of cult regulations provided instructions for purificatory rituals from the Archaic period onwards, still the figure of the specialized kathartēs (purifier) was quite common at least until the fourth century BC. [10] In most cases, expertise in rituals was not a requirement for the acquisition of a priesthood, but this does not mean that some priests were not ritual experts or did not become interested in rituals, their performance, their codification, their revival, or their reformation. Although in most cases we know nothing about the persons behind the writing down of sacred regulations, we may assume that they were usually holders of priesthoods. The rare and very vague references to the initiation (teleisthai) of priests also suggests that a priesthood required more than the willingness of a man or a woman to accept the expenses connected with this office. [11]
This paper attempts to identify the parameters that occasionally made a priest a ritual expert, both in Classical Greece and in the Hellenized East. The word priest is used in a more general sense, not as the translation of hiereus or hiereia, but as a designation of the personnel primarily responsible for a cult. I have not included in this survey references to the Egyptian cults practiced in the Hellenistic and Roman East, since their priests present a separate phenomenon. [12] I have, however, examined the cultic personnel of (sometimes only superficially) Hellenized cults in Asia Minor and the Near East. [13]

2. The Role of Generosity, Family Traditions, and Personal Piety

A first important factor can be seen in the individual attitude of the holder of a priesthood, involving the person’s religiosity—which unfortunately can be neither defined nor observed with accuracy; the person’s interest in the aesthetic aspects of ritual performance; or in a personal (or family) relation to a divinity or a cult.
A major (perhaps the most important) issue in the occupation of a priesthood was the possession of property and the willingness to spend money for the augmentation of the cult. Many priests and priestesses are honored not for their piety and the performance of rituals, but for their generosity. A Hellenistic honorary decree for a priestess of Demeter in Aenus underlines precisely the fact that she excelled in generosity during her term in office (SEG 36.654); Harpalus, priest of the Theoi Euergetai (Benefactor Gods) in Beroea, is praised for willingly accepting a priesthood which involved great expenses (IBeroia 2), [14] and in Hierocaesarea, the priestess of Artemis Stratoneike is honored not only for her piety, but also for her generous conduct during the festivals of the goddess (SEG 49.1567). [15] Gods often served as eponymous priests only because their sanctuaries provided the necessary funds, not the expertise; in Histria, for example, Zeus repeatedly served as eponymous priest of Apollo. [16] Priesthoods were auctioned to the person who offered the highest price, even to children, which are indeed sometimes attested as priests. [17] It is also for the requirement of money, and not primarily because of expertise, that many persons iterated a priesthood, accumulated offices, and sometimes served for life. Flavius Praxeas served in Philadelphia under the reign of Domitian as priest of five different cults for life. [18]
Finally, it was not expertise, but the importance of the local sanctuary of Athena Lindia for the elite and its mentality that made the members of the Lindian aristocracy follow a priestly cursus honorum that brought them from the lower priesthoods of Poseidon Hippius, Apollo Pythius, and Dionysus or the office of arkhierothutēs (chief sacrificial priest), to the priesthood of Athena Lindia, and finally to the Rhodian eponymous priesthood of Helius. [19]
But even if expertise was not a requirement for the occupation of a priesthood it could be acquired by long service in the same sacred office—as in the case of a priestess of Athena, who held this office for sixty-four years (CEG 757)—or by the occupation of many priesthoods at the same time—as in the case of a lifelong priest of both Aphrodite and Isis Lochia in Beroea (IBeroia 20).
Family traditions could also contribute to the cultic expertise of the occupants of priestly offices. Besides the cultic activities of real or virtual family groups (tribes, phratriai, genē), the Greek communities acknowledged the priesthood of certain deities and the performance of specific cultic duties as the exclusive privilege of hereditary groups based on descent (genē). Functional names, such as the heralds (kērukes) or the ox-yokers (bouzugai) in Athens, indicate the specialization of hereditary groups in rituals. [20] The reorganization of the civic communities in the Archaic period, the writing down of law (including the registration of sacred regulations), and later the diffusion of democratic institutions affected to some extent the mode of appointment of the state’s sacred officials and, consequently, the organization of cult. Although new religious magistracies were usually open to all citizens, the privileges of hereditary groups in traditional cults and rituals survived these changes. Also, traditional priesthoods were the exclusive privilege of certain families, and often remained so until the imperial period. Fourth-century inscriptions concerning the genos of the Salaminians (IG II2 1232, 1237; LSCG 19) [21] and the phratries of the Demotionidae in Athens (LSS 19) [22] and the Labyadae of Delphi (CID 1.9) [23] provide the fullest picture of the sacrificial calendars and the cultic activities of such real or virtual family groups. Their activities included the appointment of sacred officials, the administration of property, the performance of sacrifices, the participation in public cult (Salaminians), the performance of funerary rituals (Labyadae) and the observance of old rites of passage for the children (Demotionidae). It is not certain whether membership in other early religious bodies with specific responsibilities in cult, such as the Milesian singers (molpoi ) ( IMilet 133), was originally based on heredity or on other criteria. Until the imperial period the evidence for priesthoods reserved to particular families (dia genous) abounds. [24] The existence of the adverb as appropriate for a priest (hieroprepōs), which describes the proper conduct of a priest in office, does not suggest ritual expertise, but it does show that the community associated with a religious office expectations that went beyond piety toward the gods. A priest who held the hereditary priesthood of Zeus Pigindenus in Caria is praised in a posthumous honorary decree not just for piety and justice but also for the fact that he had lived his life in a manner appropriate to a priest (ezēkota hieroprepōs; SEG 45.1515).
But even if a priesthood was not the privilege of a family, its wealth would often make its members occupy or even accumulate priesthoods. In Lagina we know, for example, of Heraclitus Eudemus Demetrius, member of a very important family, who served as priest of the boulē for life; his wife Tatarion Polynike Apphia was priestess of Artemis at Panamara for life; both of them volunteered to serve (ex epangelias) as priests of Hecate and fulfilled this service with piety and generosity; as a matter of fact, they waived their right on perquisites from sacrifices. In addition to the priesthood of boulē, Heraclitus also occupied that of Agrippa for life. Heraclitus and Tatarion handed down this engagement in the cultic life of their community to their children. The decree that honors them underlines the fact that their sons actively participated in the celebration of the mysteries of Dionysus, by performing the ritual cry (iakhountas) in all the mysteries (ITralleis 51, 88; TAM 5.2.931, 954, 966, 976; Şahin 1997 no. 10). [25]
The personal name is one of the forms of self-representation. Although we can hardly use names as evidence for the mentality and the attitude of their bearers, one may still notice that in some cases the name is related with the priestly occupation of a person. When a priest in Thyatira has the cognomen Sacerdotianus (TAM 5.2.979); when we see that a man with the theophoric name Dionys (an abbreviation of Dionysius) is a priest of Dionysus (IG X ii.i 248, Pelagonia); when a priestess in Beroea is known not only by her name Nike, but also by the signum the priestess (tēn kai hierian; IBeroia 312); when a priestess of Artemis in Callatis has a name (Kathara ‘the Pure’) that at least indirectly associates her with the cult of the virgin goddess and with purity (IKallatis 68); [26] when Saitta, a priestess of Leucothea in Sinope, gives her son the name Dionysus (SEG 47.1692), [27] possibly an allusion to the myth that Dionysus had been raised by Leucothea—then in these cases we are probably dealing with persons who were more closely connected with the cult of the god whom they served. It is among such persons that one may most expect a strong interest in rituals.
Priestesses are usually represented in Archaic and Classical times as bearers of the temple key, that is, bearing an attribute that underlines their administrative duties. [28] Priests are represented with the sacrificial knife in their hands, an allusion to the ritual under their responsibility. But in several cases we may notice that priests wanted to be remembered because of their ritual activities. The funerary epigram for the priest Phileratus in Cnidus (fourth century BC) specifically describes among his priestly duties the performance of rituals: when offering a sacrifice, he wore a wreath on his head. The most important of these sacrifices was the sacrifice of bulls offered to the immortal gods for the people of Cnidus; the thighs of the bulls were burnt on the altar (SEG 44.904). [29] Similarly, the funerary stele of Nike, a priestess of an anonymous deity in Beroea, is decorated with a libation scene (IBeroia 312). [30] The priest Philotas in Syria reports in a dedicatory inscription that he had erected the statues of gods “and represented himself making an incense offering” (SEG 40.1429); [31] the relief shows the representation of a priest in oriental dress offering incense in front of a statue of Heracles (unknown provenance, ca. 250-150 BC). Another priest, again in Syria (Babulin, near Alepo, ca. AD 250), had his tomb decorated with mythological scenes, divine figures, and cult scenes, which also include the representation of the priest himself performing a sacrifice. [32]
In a few cases we are fortunate enough to be able to see more clearly the importance played by the personal attitude towards a cult for the preservation, revival, augmentation, or more glamorous performance of rituals. In the mid-first century AD Tiberius Claudius Damas, president of the council in Miletus, proposed a decree concerning two banquets (euōkhia), to one of which the prophētēs (the priest of Apollo Didymeus) at Didyma invited the kosmoi (probably a board of sacred officials responsible for some kind of decoration in the sanctuary), while to the other the stephanēphoros, the eponymous magistrate, invited the molpoi, the old, respected priestly board of singers (LSAM 33 = IMilet 6.1.134). We happen to know Damas quite well. [33] Damas held the office of the prophētēs for at least two terms; in the year in which he served as arkhiprutanis, chief of the council of the prutaneis, the city—probably at his initiative—issued coins which bear his name and representations of the gods of Didyma: Apollo Didymeus by the river Canachus and Artemis Pythie. Damas was an individual with a particular interest in the old, revered sanctuary at Didyma and in its rituals, which were often neglected. His proposal obliges the acting prophētēs and the stephanēphoros “to organize the banquet of the kosmoi and the molpoi according to ancestral custom and in accordance with the laws and the decrees which have been previously issued.” Those who violated this decree faced severe punishment, and the responsible magistrates were not allowed to substitute a monetary contribution for this celebration. We know that such substitutions occasionally occurred in cities of Asia Minor. An inscription at Tempsianoi records that a priest had funded the construction of an aqueduct (ca. AD 180-192); following the request of the city he provided the money he was supposed to spend for banquets for the construction of the aqueduct (SEG 49.1556). This is an interesting case of a city asking a priest not to follow the ritual traditions in order to secure funds for the aqueduct. The text from Tempsianoi shows exactly what Damas wanted to prevent. Damas was obviously afraid that his decree would be as persistently ignored by future magistrates as had been the many earlier laws which he quotes on the same matter. His concern must have been justified. Damas himself served as a prophētēs, voluntarily (IDidyma 237.2); in the text which records his first term in this office Damas underscores the fact that “he performed everything which his predecessors used to perform.” Such statements in honorific inscriptions indicate that some priests were less diligent in the fulfillment of their duties; in fact, numerous inscriptions document a general unwillingness among the citizens to serve as prophētai, and an even greater unwillingness to perform all the traditional rituals. Damas served a second term later, after the office had been vacant for a year; not a single Milesian had been willing to serve as a prophētēs at Didyma. IDidyma 268 reports that Damas voluntarily served a second term as a prophētēs, at the age of eighty-one, and that he revived the ancestral customs and celebrated the banquet in the sanctuary at Didyma twelve days long. Similar references to the rites performed by the prophētēs appear occasionally in the inscriptions of the prophētai. I suspect that the explicit certification that the particular priest had fulfilled his duties indicate that this was not always the case. And some officials seem to have done more than their predecessors. An anonymous prophētēs, for example, provided the funds for a banquet for all the citizens for thirteen days; he distributed money to women and virgins at a festival; he provided a dinner for the boys who officiated in a celebration; and he distributed money to the members of the council on Apollo’s birthday (IDidyma 297). And two other prophētai claim that they had revived ancient customs—their inscriptions are, unfortunately, too fragmentary to allow us to see what exactly the object of the revival had been (IDidyma 289, 303). These sporadic references to revivals seem to me to reflect failure rather than success. In any case, the inscriptions of Damas and other conscientious priests leave no doubt that some priests went beyond what most of their predecessors were willing to do.
The case of Damas reminds us that some of the temporary occupants of priestly offices attempted the revival of neglected rituals, motivated by a deep religiosity and a vivid interest in ancestral customs. Even after the end of their term of office they functioned, in this particular sense, as ritual experts. The fact that inscriptions which refer to these initiatives survive does not permit the conclusion that these initiatives were lasting. Damas’ success, at least, was ephemeral. From his own inscriptions we know that at least he followed the custom; but otherwise we only find sporadic references to this celebration among the numerous prophētai inscriptions of the imperial period. [34]
The interest of priests in rituals is to be expected among the holders of hereditary priesthoods. Dryantianus, one of the Eumolpidae, represents such a case. Around AD 220 he proposed an Athenian decree concerning the Eleusinian procession, a cult that was an integral part of Athenian identity and self-representation from the fifth century BC onward (LSCG 8). Dryantianus’ declared aim was to revive the customary rituals:
because we celebrate the mysteries now, as we did in the past, and because the ancestral custom obliges us to see to it, together with the Eumolpidae, that the sacred things are carried from Eleusis to Athens and from the city back to Eleusis. (lines 4–9)
Further references to the ritual tradition follow: the supervisor of the ephebes should be ordered according to the ancient custom (kata ta arkhaia nomima; lines 9–11) to lead the young men in the customary manner (meta tou eithismenou skhēmatos; line 12); another official, the cleanser (phaiduntes), should announce to the priestess of Athena the arrival of the sacred things according to the custom of the forefathers (kata ta patria; line 16). The preoccupation with the maintenance of these customs implies that they were sometimes neglected. Indeed,
the kosmētēs (the supervisor of the ephebes) who is in office, year after year, should take care that this custom will never be omitted and that the piety toward the goddesses will not be neglected. (lines 22–25)
Dryantianus is, however, not only appealing to piety and tradition. He is clearly interested in a spectacular performance of rituals in order to impress an audience. The ephebes should march in armor, wearing myrtle, “so that the sacred objects will be carried with a stronger escort and a longer procession” (lines 30–31). Other priests took steps in order to secure the funds customarily allocated to rituals, [35] proposed measures for the dedication of cult statues and paraphernalia of rituals, [36] or wrote down the customary cult regulations (for example, the Athenian exēgētai, the ‘expounders of sacred law’).

3. Ritual Experts for Local Rituals

Both Damas and Dryantianus repeatedly occupied religious magistracies; both men proposed decrees in the assembly as experts, in the sense that they had occupied themselves with the ritual traditions they aimed at preserving. Damas’ motivation was his piety, while in the case of Dryantianus we are dealing with a ritual expert in an additional sense: a member of a family that had the hereditary privilege of transmitting and performing customary rituals. Both Damas and Dryantianus were concerned with local rituals, which were only performed in Didyma and in Athens and Eleusis respectively. It is reasonable to assume that local ritual particularities more likely required (or attracted the interest of) experts rather than common rituals such as sacrifice or libation. A Hellenistic decree of Tlos concerning the election of a priest (TAM 2.548; LSAM 78) required, for example, that the priest be experienced (andra ton empeirotaton), be present at all sacrifices (dunēsomenon pareinai pasais tais thusiais), and be careful that the traditional local sacrifices (tas paradedomenas thusias hupo tōn progonōn) were performed in a worthy manner (endoxōs) and according to ancestral custom (kata ta patria).
Local rituals remained very popular throughout the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods; in fact their popularity seems to have increased from the Hellenistic period onwards, because of the role played by rituals for the construction of a local identity. Dozens of designations of religious personnel active in local cults—such as the kistiokosmos (the adorner of the basket) of Athena Kypharissia in Messene (SEG 39.381), the purphoros hieras nuktos (the torch bearer of the sacred night) in the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas in Epidaurus (SEG 39.358), the diabetria in the service of Artemis at Mopsuestia (see below), the kunēgoi ‘hunters’ in the service of Heracles Kunagidas in Beroea, [37] the periaktria (a person responsible for a procession?) in the service of Artemis in Cyrene (SEG 9.13), or the essenes of Artemis in Ephesus [38] —are only a faint reflection of a large variety of ritual practices.
Even a designation as common as that of the loutrophoros, the water–bearer (in the service of Artemis Boulaia in Miletus and Artemis Kindyas in Bargylia) may in fact be connected with very specific ritual practices. The cult of Aphrodite in Sicyon was served by a virgin called a loutrophoros and by a neokoros (temple warden) who was not allowed to have sexual intercourse (Pausanias 2.10.4). It has been suggested that the loutrophoria was a nuptial bath intended to promote fecundity. [39] Another ritual for which the expertise of a priestess was required is the enigmatic ritual of the nuktophulaxia (night watch) at Delos. Little is known about this ritual, [40] but what is known suggests that we are dealing with a unique ritual, probably at the Thesmophoria, during which a doorway in the sanctuary of Demeter was broken through and put back up again, under the direction of the priestesses of Demeter and Kore (IG XI 154, 287); this may refer to the opening and closing of the megaron, when a sow was thrown into it and when her remains were removed. A rather puzzling Hellenistic inscription from Cizicale (SEG 36.1235) [41] probably commemorates the performance of an uncommon ritual (a ritual dance?) by a priest (“Crateros, son of Hermocrates, priest, leaped”).
Expertise was certainly required for the priesthood of the hudroskopos in Macedonia (IBeroia 509), [42] for the complex rituals of propitiation described in the confession inscriptions (see below), and probably also for the hereditary position of the thoinarmostria (the mistress of the banquet) in the cult of Demeter in Sparta. [43] When a key bearer (kleidophoros) and priestess of Hecate is praised in Stratonicea for the organization of the procession of the keys (kleidōn pompē; IStratonikeia 1048M; SEG 38.1083), it is certainly not because she had fulfilled a routine duty, but possibly for the performance of the ritual in an aesthetically appealing manner.
A combination of generosity and respect for customary rituals that required some expertise can be seen in the honorary inscriptions for two women in first-century Mantinea (IG V ii 265–266). [44] Nicippa and Phaena were honored for their active participation in the religious life of their city and for their financial support of traditional cults. Nicippa assisted the priestesses of Kore in dressing and decorating the cult statue, accepted und fulfilled with generosity the liturgy of financing the sacrifices at the festival of the Coragia, led the procession, dedicated a peplos to Kore, took care of the housing and the proper performance of the mysteries, and financed the necessary construction work in the temple. Phaena was honored by the board of the priestesses of Demeter for her generous contributions to this cult, which are described in more general terms than in the decree for Nicippa; but it is interesting to note that her generosity was continued for at least two more generations by her daughter Theodora and her grand-daughter Phaena.
A special interest in ritual traditions can also be observed among priests in late antiquity, when pagan rituals were in danger both because of lack of faith and because of imperial legislation. A fourth-century honorary epigram from Patmos is an instructive example of a priestess who was dedicated to the revival of neglected rituals (Merkelbach and Stauber 1998:01/21/01). Vera was selected by Artemis to be her priestess; as a hudrophoros (observer or finder of water) she came from Lebedus to Patmus, where according to the local tradition a statue of Artemis existed, brought by Orestes from Scythia. In this holy place Vera celebrated a festival which included a very special sacrifice: the sacrifice of a pregnant she-goat. Even later, probably in the fifth century, a pagan priest in Megara, Helladius, set up an inscription in the monument to the dead of the Persian Wars, restored an epigram attributed to Simonides, and added the remark that “the city offered sacrifices up to this day” (IG VII 53); it would be a mistake to take this statement as proof that this ritual had been continually performed in Megara for ten centuries. Long after the prohibition of pagan sacrifices, Helladius provocatively defied the laws of the Christian emperors; his performance of a heroic sacrifice was a revival rather than a survival.
Although the aforementioned examples allude to complex services, they still concern rituals that can be found almost everywhere: the decoration of the statue of a goddess, processions, sacrifices, banquets. A higher degree of expertise can be assumed in the case of unique rituals, such as fire-walking, attested for the priestesses of Artemis Perasia in Mopsuestia. A funerary inscription for a priestess (second/third century) is of special interest, since it combines two of the parameters that we have already seen: the performance of a unique local ritual and the use of onomastics in the self-representation of religious officials. The epitaph, published with a detailed commentary by H. Taeuber, [45] is dedicated to Eutychia, who was a diabetria Perasias, that is, priestess of the Anatolian Mother Goddess Perasia, who was worshipped in Hierapolis-Castabala and was associated with Artemis, Hecate, Selene, Demeter, and Aphrodite; the unique name of this priesthood is related to the ritual of walking on burning coals (Strabo 12.2.7); [46] Eutychia’s agnomen, Metereine, derives from Meter (the Mother Goddess) and is also related to her office.

4. Ritual Experts for Exclusive Rituals

Most rituals are performed in order to establish communication between an individual or a group of persons and superhuman beings; the communication usually fulfills a very particular purpose. The results of initiatory rituals are, however, of a more permanent nature: life-cycle rituals change the status of a person, while initiation into certain mystery cults establishes a permanent and privileged relation with a divinity both during one’s lifetime and after death. Given the secrecy of initiatory cults, it is not easy to determine the role of the priests, not as performers of rituals, but as ritual experts. One of the rare pieces of evidence that reveal an expertise in this respect is the epitaph of Alcmeonis, a priestess of Dionysus in Miletus (IMilet 6.2.733). [47] The statement that “she knew the destiny reserved for the virtuous” (kalōn moira) clearly shows that Alcmeonis combined the public office of the priestess with a religious experience relating to private eschatological expectations (probably beliefs related to the Dionysiac-Orphic mysteries). The case of Alcmeonis reveals the close interaction between public and private rituals. [48] One expected the priestess of Dionysus not only to preside over the dēmosios thiasos (public Dionysiac association) and to perform the rites on behalf of the polis, but also to exercise some control over the private thiasoi. The latter had to pay a fee for the initiation of women. [49] This stipulation is probably more than an effort to increase the revenues of the public cult of Dionysus: it seems to have aimed at putting the private thiasoi under some kind of public control, the more so given the orgiastic and potentially uncontrolled nature of the cult. But the expertise (epistamenē) of Alcmeonis does not exclude the possibility that we are dealing with a normative interference of the polis which wanted to guarantee the proper conduct of the ritual.
The case of the cult of the Corybantes in Erythrae is similar, both in the regulations and in the uncertainties of their interpretation. The regulations are included in a fragmentary cult regulation (ca. 350–300), of which a new fragment was published only a few years ago (IErythrai 2.206; LSAM 23, 25; SEG 46.1463; 47.1628). [50] The first lines seem to determine the sequence of sacrificial animals. Then the text stipulates that the purchaser of the priesthood (man or woman) would receive perquisites from all public sacrifices. The fact that the public priesthood could be purchased rules out the possibility that a ritual expert was needed; the priesthood required money, not expertise. The following regulations are also concerned with the perquisites the priest received from private sacrifices on public altars. The most revealing lines stipulate that when another priest performed the initiation or another priestess performed the rituals of washing (louō) and krētēriazein (mixing a bowl of wine?), he or she should give to the purchaser of the priesthood half of the revenues (lines 11–16). The law also stipulates that the purchaser of the priesthood had the right to swear in (aporkisai) the other priests and priestesses as well as the men and women who had been initiated (telestheisas) and washed (loutheisas). and who had performed the ritual of krētēriazein under the priests’ supervision (lines 17–24). Himmelmann has observed that the text reveals the effort of the city to control the hitherto private worship of the Corybantes and to make all other priests and priestesses of the Corybantes pay dues to the purchaser of the priesthood. [51] Ritual expertise was needed, as the specific terminology implies (teleō, louō, krētēriazō), but the ritual expert was not the purchaser of the priesthood; Y. Ustinova is probably right in her assumption that the priest was in charge of the sacrifices and the general supervision, while the ecstatic part was the responsibility of a religious expert. After the sacrifice a healer—the religious expert—drove the patient into an altered state of consciousness through music, incantation, and dance. R. M. Simms [52] has observed that a Phrearrhian cult regulation is exhaustively detailed in comparison to other leges sacrae (SEG 35.113). [53] According to his plausible explanation, this is so because the regulation describes rites connected with the Eleusinian mysteries; these rites obviously surpassed the sphere of common local priestly knowledge and required ritual experts.
The personal contribution of a priest and his family to a mystery cult can best be seen in an inscription honoring the priest Trocondas in Cremna. [54] Trocondas was hereditary priest (kata diadokhēn dia genous) of Artemis Ephesia. He was succeeded by his daughter Artemis; once again we observe the use of a personal name that underlines the personal relationship between priest(ess) and deity. The inscription informs us that Trocondas’ family had provided the temple and the statue of Artemis, which suggests that the family had probably introduced the cult. Trocondas watched over the mysteries of Artemis with purity and in the manner appropriate to the goddess (teterekota hagnōs kai theoprepōs) and developed them further. The mysteries were introduced after the discovery of an item, for example, a written document—a cult regulation as in the case of the mysteries of Andania?—and were transmitted further within the family (ta heurēthenta kai paradothenta hierotelē musteria). The priest himself is represented in relief, wreathed, offering a libation in front of the temple and the statue of the seated goddess. The activity of Trocondas’ ancestor who introduced the cult may be compared with that of Alexander of Abunoteichos in introducing a mystery cult modeled on the Eleusinian mysteries [55] or with that of Dionysius, the founder of an association of mystae in Philadelphia, who received the rituals and the rules of purity from Zeus while asleep. [56]

5. Ritual Experts for Body and Soul

Besides the expertise needed for the specific rituals of mystery cults, one may assume that rituals which went beyond the routine of public celebration (procession, sacrifice, libation, prayer, and so on) and which corresponded to very individual needs were also tasks for ritual experts.
A dedication to Artemis Anaitis from Lydia reports that a woman made the dedication in fulfillment of a vow, because she had been cured from a disease by the priestess through incantation (TAM 5.1.331). Incantations are not necessarily performed by priests, [57] but in this particular case the diseased person entrusted her life to the hands of a priestess, obviously in expectation of better results through the performance of the incantation by a priestess as a ritual expert. It is from the same region (Lydia and Phrygia) that we get more information of specific rituals which required experts.
The confession inscriptions explicitly mention, allude to, or simply presuppose rituals involving priests. [58] The priests were responsible for cursing culprits; receiving written prayers for justice; [59] administering promissory and exculpatory oaths; and for explaining to visitors to the sanctuaries, who believed that they were being persecuted by the gods, the reason for their divine punishment (usually by means of oracles), and assisting them in atoning for their misdemeanors. Two rituals, in particular, reveal expertise: the public imprecation (to set up a scepter) and the transmission of sin to a triad of animals. The expression to set up a scepter appears in several variants in the inscriptions of Lydia and designates the erection of a symbol of divine power—probably in a sanctuary—during a ceremony of imprecation. [60] The erection of the scepter aimed both at preventing future crimes and at punishing offences already committed, usually by unknown offenders. We may assume that the ceremony was performed by the priests, who are in fact occasionally depicted on stelae with a scepter (the god’s scepter?) in one hand. One of the rituals for which the sinners certainly needed assistance from priests is called a triphonon (triad of voices) in one text, and an enneaphonon (ennead of voices) in another, still-unpublished text. The confession of a certain Theodorus presents a description of the ritual. [61] After the mention of each sin we find the formula he takes away followed by a triad of animals—in the first case a sheep, a partridge, and a mole; in the second case, three kinds of fish; in the third case, a chicken, a sparrow, and a pigeon. The triads of animals probably represent various elements: the earth, the sky, and the area under the surface of the earth. The object of the verb to take away is only once explicitly stated: it is the sin (not the illness). E. Varinlioğlu points out that the ritual transmission of the sin to animals recalls scapegoat rituals, [62] but finds its closest parallels in Hittite rituals which include the release of birds, fish, and mice supposed to carry an evil away. [63] Incantations accompany the ritual. The triphonon and the enneaphonon are hitherto unknown outside of Lydia, but there can be little doubt that in this case we have a ritual with a long local tradition expressed in Greek terms. The fact that the sinners had to receive instructions from the priests regarding the removal of sins shows that in this case the priests functioned as upholders of tradition and as ritual experts. This also applies to other rituals of atonement that could be performed only by priests and that are mentioned in the confession inscriptions. A text from Cula (?) dated AD 168/9 reports, for example, that the priests propitiated Men Axiotenus after supplication, following the god’s command (Malay 1999 no. 111 = SEG 49.1720).

6. All Priests Are Zealous, but Some Are More Zealous than Others

This brief survey of the epigraphic evidence concerning the activities of priests confirms the communis opinio that, in general, persons in antiquity who acquired priesthoods by election, purchase, or lot were not ritual experts, while ritual expertise was to be expected among hereditary priests. And yet, some priests became ritual experts because of their personal commitment and their religiosity, sometimes because of their long service in a cult. Their expertise can be seen in their efforts to write down cultic regulations—as several leges sacrae suggest—in the proposal of measures for the restoration or more impressive performance of rituals, and in the performance of unusual rituals. This personal commitment is sometimes reflected by onomastic practices or by the self-representation of priests in their epitaphs. Such priests could even acquire the status of holy figures, either during their lifetime (compare Alexander of Abunoteichos) or after their death.
An inscription in Lydia records the dedication of an altar for a dead priestess by the association of mustai (TAM 5.2.1055). The deceased priestess was believed to have divinatory powers, and people seeking the truth were to pray in front of her altar in order to receive an answer by means of visions that would come either during the day or at night. It should not be surprising that this text—like much of the evidence mentioned in this survey—concerns a mystery cult.

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. These reasons, all closely linked to the observation that priests were not servants of the gods as much as representatives of their community, are referred to throughout this volume.
[ back ] 2. Gschnitzer 1989.
[ back ] 3. Ca. 180–166 BC.
[ back ] 4. Matthaiou 1992–1998.
[ back ] 5. Ca. 245 BC.
[ back ] 6. First century BC.
[ back ] 7. E.g. LSCG 151, 153, 165, 169.
[ back ] 8. E.g. Dickie 1999; Frankfurter 2001.
[ back ] 9. E.g. Georgoudi 1998.
[ back ] 10. Parker 1993:207–234.
[ back ] 11. Parker and Obbink 2000. SEG 50.766.
[ back ] 12. But see Dignas on the cults of Sarapis in this volume.
[ back ] 13. See also Gotter on priestly dynasts in Asia Minor in this volume.
[ back ] 14. Tēn megistēn kai pleiston deomenēn dapanēmaton hierosunēn eutharsos apedexato.
[ back ] 15. Second century AD. eusebōs kai philodoxōs anastrapheisan en tais heortais.
[ back ] 16. E.g. IHistriae 222; SEG 50.683.
[ back ] 17. See Parker and Obbink 2000 and Wiemer 2003. E.g. SEG 39.1069.
[ back ] 18. See Weiss 1996.
[ back ] 19. Lippolis 1988f:118–123. See also Dignas 2003.
[ back ] 20. Parker 1996:56–66, 284–342.
[ back ] 21. Taylor 1997; Lambert 1997 ead. 1999; Lohmann and Schäfer 2000.
[ back ] 22. Hedrick 1990; Lambert 1994:96–141; Rhodes 1997.
[ back ] 23. Sebillotte 1997.
[ back ] 24. E.g. IG XII iii 868; IPerge 241. Horsley 1992; Sanders 1993; Malay 1999 no. 55; Budin 2003.
[ back ] 25. Cf. Parker 1991.
[ back ] 26. Avram et al. 1999.
[ back ] 27. French and Merkelbach 1997.
[ back ] 28. Mantis 1990; see von den Hoff in this volume.
[ back ] 29. Blümel 1994:158–159.
[ back ] 30. Second century AD.
[ back ] 31. Bordreuil and Gatier 1990.
[ back ] 32. Chéhadeh and Griesheimer 1998.
[ back ] 33. See Chaniotis 2003.
[ back ] 34. IDidyma 268, 291, 314, perhaps 322.
[ back ] 35. See e.g. Malay 1999 no.131 = SEG 49.1676. Cf. IMilet 1.9.360; IEphesos 213. See also Dignas 2002.
[ back ] 36. E.g. IMylasa 895–897. Geagan 1991.
[ back ] 37. Hatzopoulos 1994:101–110.
[ back ] 38. On these see Bremmer in this volume.
[ back ] 39. See Pirenne-Delforge 1994.
[ back ] 40. See Robertson 1996; Schachter 1999; Salviat 2001.
[ back ] 41. See French 1996:95–96.
[ back ] 42. Casadio 1994:250.
[ back ] 43. Walker 1989.
[ back ] 44. Jost 1996.
[ back ] 45. Taeuber 1992.
[ back ] 46. Furley 1988:212–222.
[ back ] 47. Cf. Villanueva-Puig 1998.
[ back ] 48. On this interaction see also Dignas in this volume.
[ back ] 49. Cf. LSAM 48; LSCG 166.
[ back ] 50. Cf. Voutiras 1996; Himmelmann 1997; Ustinova 1992–1998; Dignas 2002a; Herrmann 2002.
[ back ] 51. With a different interpretation see Dignas 2002a.
[ back ] 52. Simms 1998.
[ back ] 53. Ca. 300 BC.
[ back ] 54. Horsley 1992 (first century AD).
[ back ] 55. See Chaniotis 2002.
[ back ] 56. Barton and Horsley 1981.
[ back ] 57. Cf. Furley 1993.
[ back ] 58. Cf. Chaniotis 2004b and 2008.
[ back ] 59. Versnel 1991; Chaniotis 2004b:8–9.
[ back ] 60. Robert 1983:518–520; Strubbe 1991:44–145; Petzl 1994:4, 89–90; Strubbe 1997:48; Gordon 2004:185–187.
[ back ] 61. Petzl 1994:8–11; Chaniotis 2004b.
[ back ] 62. Varinlioğlu 1989:48–49.
[ back ] 63. Cf. Wright 1987.