THE RELIGION OF THE GREEKS AS

ILLUSTRATED BY GREEK INSCRIPTIONS.

I.

In the number of the Contemporary Review for December 1876, I contributed an article on Greek inscriptions, in which my object was to draw attention to those inscriptions on marble or bronze which might be considered as documents having a direct bearing on the general history of the Greeks, or as throwing light on the history of some particular Hellenic State. In the present article I have attempted a classification of those inscriptions which have relation to Greek religion.

Such inscriptions may be roughly classed under the following heads : temples, ritual and ministers of religion, religious associations and clubs, dedications, sepulchral monuments.

The temples of the Greeks were erected and endowed partly at the cost of the State, and also by the piety of rich individuals. Probably in many cases, as for instance at Olympia, the temple was not built till long after its site had become hallowed by sacrifice and by the consultation of an oracle. Each successive generation of worshippers contributed offerings, which, as they accumulated, formed a fund subsequently devoted to the building of the temple. It was customary to dedicate the tenth of the spoils of war, and to enforce the observance of treaties and laws by fines to be paid to some particular deity named in the law. The land confiscated on account of political offences became the property of the local deity, and was either added to the domain of his temple, or resold in lots, with a title guaranteed against all claims by divine authority. In proportion as the wealth of a temple increased, so also grew the fame of its worship, and offerings came from the kings and potentates of far countries, eager to propitiate the deity of a famous shrine, and at the same time to cultivate the alliance of the State in whose territory it was situated. Then arose the belief that these time-hallowed sanctuaries were the safest conceivable places in which earthly treasure could be laid up, and the temples became in some sort banks of deposit. As specie and bullion accumulated in the coffers of the gods, it was invested in loans or in the purchase of real property. It has been asserted too, not without some show of probability, that

in some instances the temples had mints from wbich coins were issued. It may be well to illustrate these statements by reference to inscriptions.

In my previous memoir, already referred to, I have pointed out how, in the most ancient extant treaty in the Greek language, a fine of a silver talent, to be paid to the Zeus of Olympia, is imposed on any one who presumes to violate the treaty. In like manner, in the convention between the people of Halicarnassus and Lygdamis, published in my History of Discoveries,' any one attempting to set aside the enactments of that law is liable to have his goods confiscated to Apollo. In an unedited inscription from Halicarnassus, which seems, as I stated in my previous memoir, to be the sequel to the convention with Lygdamis, certain real property is described as due, i.e. forfeit, to Apollo and other local deities, and those deities undertake to guarantee the title of this forfeited real property to all who purchase it from them; the surveyors of the temple, neopoiai,

a ; for ever being associated in this guarantee. So in the accounts of the Temple of the Delian Apollo, preserved in the celebrated Marmor Sandvicense (Böckh, No. 158), a list is given of persons, all fined 10,000 drachmæ for impiety, asebeia. I have noticed in my previous memoir the treasure laid by in the Parthenon at Athens after the Persian war, and the precautions taken for its custody. A decree found at Oropos in Boeotia shows how such treasures were dealt with when articles became unserviceable. This inscription gives a list of a number of sacrificial vessels belonging to the Amphiaraion at Oropos, which were broken up as unfit for use, and melted down again; and it is ordered that a large gold sacrificial dish, phialè, be made out of the bullion thus obtained, and be dedicated to Amphiaraos. In like manner a statue of Zeus is dedicated at Ilium Novum (Böckh, No. 3607) by the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian out of sacred silver bullion, the product of previous melting down.

The Oropos decree shows how carefully the treasure of an ancient temple was protected from embezzlement by the supervision of a number of functionaries independent of each other. Three commissioners are to be elected from the entire body of citizens, who are to receive the treasure in question from its ordinary guardians, the hierarcha. The polemarchs, who were the chief magistrates, and the katoptæ, who seem to have been a kind of scrutineers, are to take part in this handing over. The three commissioners are then to cause to be put in order such articles as are in need of repair, and to make new sacrificial vessels of the remainder, consulting the polemarchs, hierarchs, and synegori about this. An inventory of the articles which are to be broken up and melted down, specifying the weight, the name and country of the dedicator, and the nature of the object, is to be engraved on a marble pillar. Two inscriptions of a similar nature have been recently discovered at Athens (Athenaion,

iii. p. 262). Both are decrees of the Athenian people, sanctioning the melting down of a number of votive offerings dedicated in gratitude for cures in the temple of a certain physician who, having received divine honours after his death, was designated the Hero Physician. · The first of these decrees is probably not later than the early part of the second century B.C. It states that the priest (hiereus) of the Hero Physician has proposed to the demos to dedicate an oinochoè to the Hero Physician out of the votive offerings in silver which have accumulated in his temple. This is agreed on by the senate and people, and five commissioners are thereupon appointed, of whom two are members of the Areiopagos. These are to be associated with the chief priest (hiereus) of the temple, the strategos, one of the chief magistrates of Athens, and the architect, who superintends sacred things. These functionaries, after duly propitiating the gods by a preliminary sacrifice, are to melt down the votive objects, whether of gold or silver, and make them into the finest possible dedication (anathema) for the god, inscribing on it the words, “ The Senate (boulè) in the archonship of Thrasyphron (dedicate

6 this) to the Hero Physician from the votive offerings. The commissioners are then to inscribe the names of the dedicators, and the weight of the objects dedicated, on a marble pillar (stelè), and having placed it in the sacred precinct (hieron) are to render an account of their disbursements and of the proceeds of the melting down. A public notary is also to be appointed by vote of the demos to make an accurate register of the whole proceeding. Then follows the register of offerings, which, like those of the Boeotian Amphiaraion, already referred to, consisted chiefly of models in silver of different parts of the body in which cures of diseases had been effected through the agency of the god. Whether among these models were representations of diseased parts sufficiently exact to serve for pathological study, we do not know; but Hippocrates is said to have derived part of his medical experience from the record of cases in the celebrated temple of Æsculapius in the island of Kos.

Both in the Amphiaraion inscription and the Athenian one we find among the votive offerings the large silver coin of the period, called tetradrachm, the value of which, speaking roughly, would be about four francs. This, it is to be presumed, was the fee offered to the god. Pausanias tells us that in the Boeotian Ampbiaraion was a well, in which convalescent persons were in the habit of depositing gold and silver coins in gratitude for their recovery. It is to be presumed that the priests of the Amphiaraion did not leave this money in the well, but placed it in the temple among the other anathemata. The custom of dropping the god's fee in the well may have originated in the idea that the water would purify the coin from the pollution caused by the touch of a sick person. In modern lazarettos money received from the hand of a person in quarantine is usually passed through water. After the register follows the account duly rendered by the commission, of which the following may be given as a translation :

Drachmæ . . 234 The decree disposes of the balance of two drachmæ (about 18. 6d.) by ordering it to be made into a votive offering. It should be noted that the sum of the expenditure is, according to our modern arithme tic, only 231 drachmæ. Either the mark of a single drachma has been effaced from the stone, or the engraver of the stelè, who does not seem to have been overpaid for cutting eighty-eight lines of letters, has inadvertently omitted it. Time rolled on, and at some later period, probably in the first century B.C., we find from another inscription that the hiereus of the same temple represented to the Athenian Senate that the sacrificial vessels of the Hero Physician were sadly out of repairthat he wanted, in short, a new service of plate. The senate accordingly named a commission similar to the former one, whom they empowered to melt down the old offerings and sacrificial vessels and make new ones out of the proceeds.

I have noted in my travels (ii. p. 7) the use made by the modern Greeks of the anathemata in their churches. In the village of Ayasso in Mitylene is a church dedicated to the Virgin, which is greatly frequented by pilgrims and rich in votive offerings. These, as I was informed at Ayasso, are periodically melted down ; and out of the proceeds the priests of the church receive a share, the rest being employed in some public work for the benefit of the community. The aqueduct with which the village of Ayasso is supplied was, I was told, built with the funds thus obtained.

Of the immense treasure dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Branchidæ we have a few samples in the fragments of inventories which have come down to us. One of these contains a list of sacrificial vessels dedicated by Seleukos the Second and his brother Antiochos Hierax. On the same marble is a gracious letter from Seleukos to the people of Miletos, informing them that he has sent them the offerings for libations and other sacrificial uses. The inscription discovered by Mr. Wood at Ephesus, which gives an account of the treasure dedicated by Salutaris in the temple of Diana, and of his other gifts, is especially interesting because it is a detailed list of figures of Artemis, with her attendant stags, in silver and gold,

a

which at once remind us of the little shrines of the Ephesian goddess which Demetrius the silversmith and his brother craftsmen were supplying to the Roman world at the time when St. Paul preached Christianity in the theatre at Ephesus. The date of the Salutaris inscription is A.D. 104. The weight of the several statues thus dedicated ranges from three to seven Roman pounds. When these works of art require cleaning, this is to be done by the keeper of the sacred deposits for the time being, in the presence of the two surveyors of the temple (neopoiai) and another officer. Only a particular kind of earth, called argyromatike, “plate powder,' is to be used for this purpose.

The amount of treasure deposited in the Ephesian Artemision for security must have been very great, for, according to Dio Chrysostom, not only private persons, but kings and States, preferred to place their money there on account of the scrupulous integrity which the official guardians of such deposits always observed, and the publicity and regularity of their accounts. An inscription published by Böckh (C. I., No. 2953 b) contains a mutilated statement of these accounts, of which the date is probably not later than the time of Lysimachos. In this document the hieropoioi render an account of certain moneys which they have received from their predecessors in office. Some of this money they have lent to the city. We learn from another Ephesian inscription, published in Lebas (Voyage Archéologique, iii. p. 156), that this money was lent at interest, and that it was the business of the auditors of sacred funds to enforce payment of all interest or other money due to the goddess, and to punish defaulters by striking them off the register of citizens, or suspending their civic rights for a time.

In the Marmor Sandvicense, already referred to, we see this system of lending sacred money more in detail; that document gives a list of States, bankers, and other private persons to whom large sums belonging to the temple of Apollo at Delos had been lent. We find from this Delian inscription that the amount of interest paid on loans by States amounted to upwards of four talents, that on loans to private persons to nearly 5,000 drachmæ. The names of the cities and individuals who had not paid up their interest at the date of the inscription are also published. It is to be presumed that these loans were made on the security of mortgages on land or houses, as in the case of the money of minors. We may hope soon to know more about the treasure of Delos and its management, as in the course of last summer a number of very interesting inscriptions relating to this subject have been discovered at Delos, and will shortly be published in the Bulletin of the Ecole Française at Athens.

From an Athenian inscription of which the fragments have been finally edited by Kirchhoff (Corpus, i. p. 145), we learn that for eleven years during the Peloponnesian war large sums were borrowed by