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Problems Concerning the Early Cult and Oracle of Amphiaraos

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Problems Concerning the Early Cult and Oracle of Amphiaraos Appendix X Problems Concerning the Early Cult and Oracle of Amphiaraos Due to conflicting and incomplete sources, including internal contradictions in the works of both Strabo and Pausanias, there are a number of problems concerning the location and relationship of cult sites devoted to Amphiaraos, especially the Theban and Oropian sites that were most important in the his- tory of the cult, and despite the existence of some valuable treatments of the subject the complex issues surrounding the cult’s development have not been fully evaluated.1 Several scholars over the years have held the position that the Oropos Amphiareion, located in a border zone between Boeotia and Attica that changed hands multiple times, was the god’s original cult site and therefore would have been the oracular sanctuary that according to Herodotus on dif- ferent occasions was consulted from afar by Croesus and visited by Mys (and also was alluded to by Aeschylus and possibly Pindar), but a Theban setting for these episodes and the cult’s origin is preferable.2 While a general—though not universal—consensus for this Theban setting has emerged, there are still a number of uncertainties associated with the nature, location and duration 1 The best treatment of the cult’s origins and development is Sineux 2007a, recently joined by Terranova 2013, another monograph-length treatment that also features helpful appendi- ces devoted to reproducing the literary, epigraphical and papyrological testimonia; see also Bearzot 1987 and Terranova 2008, both addressing many of the pertinent issues, and the brief but important discussion in Parker 1996, 146–149. 2 Hdt. 1.46, 49, 52 (Croesus), 8.133–134 (Mys); see pp. 102–104. Aeschylus/Pindar: see below. For arguments favoring Oropos as the original oracular site, see Schachter 1981–94, I:22–23 (with earlier references to both sides of the debate); cf. Schachter 1989, 76–77. In contrast, Theban territory has been more widely favored, most notably by Vasileios Petrakos, author of the most important study of the sanctuary and editor of the site’s inscriptions (Petrakos 1968, 66–67; cf. Petrakos 1995, 12; I.Oropos, pp. 487–511 implicitly reflects this view by omitting the Herodotus passages from the list of testimonies for Oropos). In recent decades this posi- tion has also been held by a number of scholars: Symeonoglou 1985a, 108, 136, 177–178 and Symeonoglou 1985b, 157–158; Petropoulou 1985, 176; Bearzot 1987, 88–95; Parker 1996, 146–149; Gorrini 2002–03, 180; Sineux 2007a, 68–72, 217; Terranova 2008, 170–172, 180–181, 185–187 et pass. and Terranova 2013, 107–113, 136–137; and de Polignac 2011, 96–97, 104–105. However, the position favoring Oropos still persists (e.g., Hansen/Nielsen, Inventory, 448–449, s.v. “Oropos” (M.H. Hansen), Ustinova 2002, 268 and Ustinova 2009, 96). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004330�38_0�0 Problems Concerning The Early Cult And Oracle Of amphiaraos 661 of the Theban cult site as well as this site’s relationship with the more famous Oropos sanctuary, and these bear exploration, especially due to the cult’s apparently unparalleled evolution from one with divinatory incubation as its focus to one giving at least equal prominence to therapeutic incubation. The best and earliest evidence for the Theban cult site has only recently been published, but its significance is not yet fully recognized: an epigram first inscribed c. 500 BCE that indirectly attests to Croesus’s consultation, since it refers to the apparent theft and recovery of the golden shield he had given Amphiaraos.3 Though of interest for a number of reasons, it is especially sig- nificant that the epigram supports Herodotus’s description of one of Croesus’s gifts to Amphiaraos and confirms that this was to be seen in Thebes at the sanctuary of Apollo Ismenios.4 Although its editor Nikolaos Papazarkadas follows Schachter’s position that Croesus’s representative had visited Oropos rather than Thebes (while accepting the possibility of two sites devoted to Amphiaraos),5 this position cannot easily be accepted without an explana- tion for why Croesus’s gifts, the golden shield and matching spear, would not then have been kept at Oropos instead of the distant Ismeneion.6 Due to the epigram’s attesting that these objects were kept at the Ismeneion roughly a half-century before Herodotus placed them there, it now appears clear that Croesus’s consultation was undertaken at Amphiaraos’s original Theban site, but that his valuable gifts could not be displayed there and instead for multiple reasons were to be seen at Apollo’s sanctuary.7 3 BE 2015, 306; see Papazarkadas 2014, 233–247, the editio princeps of this important inscrip- tion which dates to the late-sixth or early-fifth century BCE but was reinscribed in the fourth century BCE. [See Addendum on p. 676.] 4 Hdt. 1.52. For the sanctuary’s remains, see Faraklas 1996, 52–57; cf. Asheri/Lloyd/Corcella 2007, 113 and Friese 2010, 370, Cat. No. I.I.I.7. 5 Papazarkadas 2014, 246, also implicitly associating Mardonios’s consultation (Hdt. 8.134) with Oropos. 6 Papazarkadas envisions a scenario in which the gifts were stolen from Oropos and, since the Thebans were not allowed to consult Amphiaraos themselves (see n. 26), the oracle of Apollo Ismenios was instead consulted regarding the shield’s theft, and following its return both objects were transferred to the Ismeneion (see Papazarkadas 2014, 245– 247). Though plausible, the simpler explanation is that the spear and shield were never at Oropos; moreover, there seems no reason why the shield could not have been stolen from the Ismeneion itself, if Croesus’s gifts were originally displayed there rather than at Amphiaraos’s shrine. 7 Even before the epigram’s discovery and publication there had been a long debate regarding Herodotus’s report of having seen the gifts at the Ismeneion. The reason for these gifts being seen at Apollo’s sanctuary rather than Amphiaraos’s has been the subject of occasional spec- ulation over the years, none of it fully convincing. For example, Schachter has argued that .
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