IGI3 136 Decree about the cult of Bendis

Decree about the cult of Bendis

IG I³ 136 Date: 413/2 BC?

Fragments a+c

Relief Pasiphon of Phrearrhioi [was secretary].^[1]

Decree 1 The Council and the People decided; [ – was in prytany; Pasiphon] was secretary; -kles was chairman; Kle[okritos (413/2) was archon (?);^[2] . . . proposed]: . . . a rite of expulsion (?) (diapompaion)^[3] from the city . . . –stratos. After this (5) make a vow . . . from each tribe will sacrifice, if . . . the enemy . . . and the other things which . . . advises (parainei)^[4] . . . for Bendis and the statue (agalma)^[5] . . . and the stele (10) . . . they will take care . . . the People . . . and for this purpose . . . for Bendis . . . . . . always each of the two . . . (15) . . . Thracian woman . . . . . . . . .

Fragment b

. . . . . . nine . . . (20) . . . and a cult tax (eparche-)^[6] . . . . . . which occurred . . . . . . the cult tax (eparches) for . . . . . . for whatever it is sold . . . . . . and his assistants (paredroi); and the . . . (25) . . . as handsomely as possible; and to sacrifice . . . . . . the Council and anyone else who . . . . . . perform the all-night rite (pannuchida)^[7] as [handsomely] as possible . . . . . . on the eleventh of the month . . . . . . whether the wife of the priest (?) ought^[8] . . . (30) . . . (from) all the Athenians, let them send . . . . . . as soon as possible; and whatever (the god) responds^[9] . . . . . . shall receive of the sacrifices made publicly . . . . . . from ten sacrificial victims;^[10] and the other skins . . . . . . in future the religious officials (hieropoious) shall carry out an allotment about these matters . . . (35) . . . on each occasion for Bendis at a cost of fifty [drachmas] . . . . . . prytany; and let the payment officers (kolakretai) give [the money] . . . . . . the Council shall be authorised . . . Let the secretary of the Council [write up this decree on a stone stele and set it down in the Bendideion?];^[11] and let the official sellers (poletai) put the work out to contract; [and let the payment officers (kolakretai) provide the money].

Decree 2 (40) . . . proposed: in [other respects in accordance with ...]^[12] . . .

Previous - IG I³ 132 Next - IG I³ 227 bis

References:

IG I³ 136 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Sokolowski, LSS 6

Lawton 70

Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 183

CGRN 44 (CGRN)

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Robert Parker

Images: Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree 1 (Council and People), Decree 2 (People)

Original location: [Piraeus, sanctuary of Bendis]

Fragment a - Findspot: Piraeus (Mounychia) (Lost)
Fragment b - Findspot: Piraeus (Mounychia) (Piraeus Museum 1595)
Fragment c - Findspot: Piraeus (Mounychia) (Lost)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Fifth-century Athens was a maritime city with far-flung imperial interests and a cosmopolitan population and polytheism was an open system that adapted readily to new influences. The Thraceward region was an area of key strategic and economic interest to Athens and the Thracians were one of the most numerous foreign populations in Attica (named "Thracians" at Athens at all periods are listed, Foreign Residents of Athens 2487-2595, to which should be added residents of specific cities in the region). Moreover in the 430s Athens was actively engaged in diplomacy with the Thracian kings (cf. R. Garland, Introducing New Gods. The Politics of Athenian Religion, 1992, 111-14). An aspect of these political, social and economic connections with Thrace was the incorporation of the cult of Bendis, a huntress deity with similarities to Artemis, into Athenian religion (see Parker, Athenian Religion, 1996, 170-75; Wijma, Embracing the Immigrant, 139-45; Guicharrousse, Athènes en partage, 95-194).

First attested in the accounts of the treasurers of the Other Gods (i.e. the city’s gods other than Athena) in 429/8 (IG I³ 383, ll. 142-43, linked with the Phrygian deity Adrasteia; in 423/2, however, they appear separately, IG I³ 369, ll. 67-68), most likely the cult had already been introduced before the foundation of this treasury in perhaps 434/3 (see IG I³ 52). At around the same time Bendis appears on two vases, on one of them linked with Themis (an abstract divinity, “Customary rightness”), Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae s.v. Bendis, nos. 1-2 (see Beazley Archive, Attic Vase Inscriptions). If correctly dated to 413/2 (see n. 2 below) the decrees translated here did not, therefore, found the cult, but made provisions for one that already existed. In surviving parts they relate to rites and sacrifices (ll. 3-6, 25-28, 33-35), the cult statue (8), cult personnel (15, 24?, 29-33, 34), and financing (14-15, 23). On two occasions the measures are or are to be informed by external advice (7, 31), at least the second of these involving an oracular response. The opening scene of Plato’s Republic tells how Socrates with a friend “went down to the Piraeus to pray to the goddess [Bendis] and also wishing to see how they would conduct the festival, this being the first performance. I thought the procession of the locals was fine, but the one conducted by the Thracians seemed to me equally impressive." They then stayed on to see a torch race on horseback and an “all-night rite” (pannychis, cf. our l. 27). The dramatic date of the Republic is c. 410 BC, though Plato is notoriously indifferent to precise historical accuracy. Our decrees probably provided for an expansion of the cult of Bendis that is also reflected in Plato’s imagined scene. For an attempt to reconstruct the procession and its route, see Guicharrousse, Athènes en partage 173-184.

The inscription comprises three non-joining fragments. Frag. a, intact on the left, gives the left hand portion of lines 1-7, frag. c, intact on the right, the right hand portion of lines 2-17. Frag. b, broken on both sides, gives what are here presented as lines 18-40. J. Bingen, Revue Belge de Philologie 37 (1959), 31-44, suggested that b belonged between a and c, so that what are here presented as lines 18-31 stood in the middle of what are here lines 4-17; but Jameson in IG I³, having examined the stone, rejected this. The secretary’s name in l. 1 is inscribed on the moulding under a relief, of which only the left side is preserved, depicting a standing male (cf. Lawton). The public cult was administered by a group or groups of worshippers (orgeones) of Bendis, several of whose decrees (the earliest dating from the Lykourgan period) are extant. See LSCG 45, with notes. In the 3rd century there were also worshippers on Salamis (SEG 59.151, with notes), and there is a dedication to Bendis from the mining region of southern Attica (IG II³ 4, 591). For a recent discussion of the cult of Bendis in Attica see I. Arnaoutoglou, in V. Gabrielsen, C. A. Thomsen eds., Private Associations and the Public Sphere (2015), 25-56 (= SEG 65.30). [2] Kleokritos was archon in 413/2, and no other archon of this period with a name beginning Kle- is known. Before ca. 421 the archon is not usually named in decree prescripts and the chairman is often followed directly by the proposer’s name, but there are several other indications that tend to confirm the date of 413/2: the only other extant inscription cut by the same mason, IG I³ 102, dates to 410/9 (Tracy), as does our other reference to Pasiphon of Phrearrhioi, IG I³ 375 l. 35, where he is named as a general; and the style of the relief “probably calls for a date in the next decade” [i.e. 410s] (Lawton, p. 117). The payment officers (kolakretai, l. 36) are last attested in a firmly dated decree in 418/7 (IG I³ 82 l. 28), and after the restoration of democracy from 410/9 the board of hellenotamiai was increased to 20 and made payments that would previously have been made by the kolakretai (two hellenotamiai per tribe in IG I³ 375; paying for an inscription, IG I³ 103). This indicates a date for our inscription before 411. [3] The sense here is uncertain. The word diapompaion is not otherwise known, but might be related to the verb apodiopompeisthai, to perform a rite of expulsion, though the relevance of that in this context would be obscure. [4] Possibly the subject of the verb was a god or seer (mantis). [5] Agalma: statue of a god. [6] Cults were often financed from taxes (Parker, Athenian Religion, 125, 169, 181 n. 100). Here we cannot say on whom or what it was levied. [7] “All-night rites”, pannychides, formed part of many festivals and were celebrated primarily by women (Parker, Polytheism, 166, 182). See note 1 above for the all-night rite for Bendis mentioned by Plato. [8] L. 31 clearly alludes to an oracular response, and it is likely that we have here the question put to the god in a “whether . . . or” form. The word translated here as "of the priest" may also be part of a longer verb, which would change the sense to "whether a woman should serve as priest". On the priesthood of Bendis cf. Lambert, Historia 59, 2010, 161-63. [9] IG II² 1283 (mid-iii BC) begins “to the Thracians alone of all foreign peoples have the Athenians granted the right to acquire land and found a shrine, in accordance with the response from Dodona.” That oracle may have dated to the 430s. It would make sense, if the Athenians consulted the same god on both occasions, so “the god” mentioned here may be Zeus of Dodona. They may have consulted this oracle rather than Delphi because of difficulties accessing the latter sanctuary during the Peloponnesian War. [10] Skins (or in the case of mass sacrifices, as here, some skins) of sacrificial victims were commonly retained by the officiating priest or priestess as a fee (cf. e.g. SEG 54.214). Here a division is probably being made between skins going to the priestess and others which were to be sold to finance the cult. An inscription recording receipts from the sale of skins reveals that those from the Bendidea of 333 BC yielded 457 drachmas (IG II² 1496 ll. 86-7): if we take 6 drachmas as the price of an oxhide (estimates range from 4 to 10), about 76 cattle will have been sacrificed in that year, indicating a rather popular festival. [11] The Bendideion in Mounychia is mentioned by Xen. Hell. 2.4.11 as a notable landmark in 404/3 BC. The findspot of this inscription suggests that it was set up there. Its precise location is unknown, but it is unlikely to be coincidental that it was close to the famous sanctuary of Artemis Mounychia. [12] The little that survives of this line suggests that it contained wording introducing a rider to decree 1, proposed in the Assembly. This rider might, for example, have introduced the torch-race on horseback mentioned by Plato.

Added: 12 Jul 2017
Updated: 21 Jul 2024
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