Artemis-Leto and Apollo-Lairbenos Author(s): W. M. Ramsay Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 10 (1889), pp. 216-230 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/623595 . Accessed: 18/01/2015 22:51 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:51:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 216 ARTEMIS-LETO AND APOLLO-LAIRBENOS. ARTEMIS-LETO AND APOLLO-LAIRBENOS. ONE of the most curious series of Anatolian inscriptions known to me has been published by Mr. Hogarth in this Journal, 1887, pp. 376 ff. Their importance lies in the fact that they show us the manners and religion of one district hardly affected by Greek civilisation, and almost purely native in character. As the use of the Greek language and knowledge of Greek civilisation spread, the native manners were proscribed as barbarous, and even native mythology was discarded and Greek tales adapted to suit the locality. I have frequently given instances of this. At Magnesia ad Sipylumm, for example, if we may judge from the references of Pausanias, the mythology of the district was re-modelled under the influence of the Greek literary tradition of Niobe, and localities had to be found to suit the details of the story. As to the inscriptions published by Mr. Hogarth, Nos. 12-20, probably no one who reads over the texts can doubt that Greek was strange to the writers. They were native Phrygians, speaking their own language with a smattering of Greek, quite uneducated, but impressed with the belief universal over Asia Minor that Greek was the one language of education, and trying to express themselves in Greek. In every part of the country where the inscriptions enable us to penetrate below the Graeco-Roman varnish, the same inference is forced on us. Greek did not succeed in forcing itself on the native population of Phrygia, Galatia, Lycaonia, and Cappadocia (except in the large cities which were centres of Graeco-Roman civilisation) until Christianity gave it the additional power of being the language of the Scriptures. The fact that the inscriptions were written in Greek by persons who had a mere smattering of the language makes them very hard to understand. The words are mis-spelt, corrupted, distorted so much as to be sometimes unrecognisable. In June 1888 I spent a day at Badinlar, where the inscrip- tions are for the most part found, and discovered several new texts which throw some light on those which had previously been published. The interest of the subject makes me think it worth while to publish the newly discovered texts, and to show how far they help us towards the proper interpretation of those already published. I have elsewhere collected the facts which prove that a goddess called sometimes Leto, sometimes Artemis, was widely worshipped in the southern This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:51:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARTEMIS-LETO AND APOLLO-LAIRBENOS. 217 and central parts of western Asia Minor.1 She is invoked as the 'Mother,' and her son, most commonly called by the Greek name Apollo, is worshipped along with her. The inscriptions of Dionysopolis, where they were known as Leto and Lairbenos, give us some curious glimpses of the character of their cultus. They permit us to form some idea of the relations that existed between the two deities, mother and son, Leto and Lairbenos, on the one hand, and their worshippers on the other. With all their rudeness and bad grammar, they show us more of the real character of Asia Minor society and religion at the period to which they belong than do any other known inscriptions. Such errors as for show that the authors of the inscriptions picked 4.orrpapetup by the ear•.e?rXadptov only their small stock of Greek. The engraving also is so rudely done that A and A, 0 and 0, C and E, &c., are frequently confused, and letters are often omitted entirely. The interpretation of these texts is greatly a matter of comparison with less obscure inscriptions of a similar kind, and I shall therefore at the end quote a few inscriptions which throw light on obscurities in the Dionysopolitan texts. M. Foucart's admirable Associations Religieuses chez les Grecsought to be read in company with the following texts. 1. On a small stele at Badinlar. C CAN APOCIEPAOAE <ooav8pos'CeparoXe(i)- rwtop5ico-a( Ical THCETTIOPKHEACEKAIA" ANAFNOCICEHAAICTO lio-iX0a Tavaypvo i• 7r EYNBVrMONEKOAAC dcoXcr- o'vooe/poOv e HN APANrEAAv M H Oly"vrapav/ye'Xw Iry- AENAKATA PONEININ va icacua povetv T uAAIPMHNvETEIEEE 70 E7re'l'et RAatpp/7pY,,n v THNEMHNCTHMHNEZENTTAON "77v orj[X]7vEVewvrXov It is doubtful perhaps whether we should read 11 Tr[v] o-v'pwotov, Apollo being understood as the but I think it more probable that in Oe• o'-v'vwpoioo~; the bad Greek of these inscriptions Tro-'vov/Pov is to be understood as ' the temple of the o-v'pv/owot eol.' My friend Mr. Hogarth recognised in ETHMHN the word or4XXnv, and thus gave me the key to the understanding of the formula. The people of Hierapolis also worshipped Lairbenos, as is proved by their on which a radiated of the coins, head Sun-god, with the legend AAIPBHN 0 , 2 frequently occurs. The inscriptions show that persons from Hierapolis on the south, and Motella on the north, frequently came to share in the worship of Southern 'Antiquities Phrygia,' A. II., ial M71Opl'ArdAXwvos. in Amer. Jour. Archaeol., 1887. To the homes " Compare also the inscription No. 4 in my of her add worship (7) the Ormeleis in Kabalis, 'Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia,' Part I., as is shown by the inscription quoted in the J. IH.S., 1884. course of the same article, A. VIII., 'A7rFdAAw• This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:51:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 218 ARTEMIS-LETO AND APOLLO-LAIRBENOS. of the shrine near Dionysopolis overhanging the south bank of the Maeander. I do not in the transcript correct any of the faults of grammar in the text. The intention of the writer seems to be, 'I, Sosandros of Hierapolis, having sworn falsely and being impure on that account, entered the temple of the Gods Consort, and I was chastised, and I now give warning that no one should despise the god Lairmenos, since he will have my stele as an example.' On ryvos~,divayvo9, see Foucart, p. 147. The inscriptions of this class agree in representing the authors as having approached the hieron when polluted with some physical or moral impurity and therefore unfit to appear before the god: they are chastised by the god (in some cases at least, perhaps in all cases, with some disease 1): they confess and acknowledge their fault (dojo*Xoo•zotLatis the technical term); they thereby appease the god (idVo-KcoaatLprobably); they are cured of their ailment or released from their punishment; and finally they relate the facts as a warning to others not to treat the god lightly. The question might be raised whether the oath in this case was a one religious (e.g. among epavao-ra4, Foucart, I.c., p. 210, 1. 9), or belonged to ordinary social life. The term o-aivp/3o.ovis important, as showing that the mother and the son were in the same worshipped temple and on the same altar: o-'zvvaos and a 'vpwtLogare often united, but the latter here implies the former. 2. Orta Keui: in a house: on a marble stele beneath a relief representing a bipennis. The stone is broken left and bottom. HC IMOC0 A TT0 A ANI Y 'Ov]4o-tauo [A]v[p 'A•-6XXwvt EYIAMENOEYTTEPTOYKOA ] e6vtCeovo9 v'7rzep ,cok- /v oi•, ENTOEBOOCAIATOYETr ao-0]6'row83ob0\ 8tL 7o9 "e.. EKAIMHTTAPAFEFONI ... e icai l 71apayeyovl.... HEYCHMIII .. e~oy/,w............ NEYI AM .. S5w-.. e ed/vot; og O7XOrY- '"rEN pda]o This fragment would certainly have been interesting, if it were better The relief over preserved. it shows that the bipennis was the symbol of the god Lairbenos, marking him as the sun-god: the radiated head on coins of 1 of fever is Hogarth's suggestion very pro. Th V'b i4e[ptrICv]E,cal c1 lapayeyov[E'e, in cases cThrlXJ bably right where no other disease is EVaO1AyCPi[Aacod1uEros, EAoy]czv d0r indicated. evdig4[evor IC.r.X., ' on behalf of his ox which 2 The maximum of AoypdqoJrlo•Ve, probable letters lost is had been punished (by the god) because he had indicated the number of dots. The by text been late and had not made his appearance (at doubtless continued with the usual formula, the temple).' I felt confident when reading the The 7rapayyXAcow yrgEa following re- inscription that the gap in 5-6 began with Land storation, in which I i.'..A.am aided by suggestions ended with w, and the words which I suggest of Hogarth, suits the conditions of space, but I are all technical in these formulae.