AIUK11 no. 3 Honorific altar for the hierophant

Honorific altar for the hierophant

AIUK 11 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) no. 3 Date: late iv AD

Glorifying Deo and Kore’s god-like hierophant, Kleadas erected in the halls (a statue of) his father, Kekropia’s wise scion (ernos), Erotios,^[1] from whom he himself received the Lernaian sanctuary’s equivalent privilege (geras).^[2]

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 11 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) no. 3 (Translated text) (AIO) (AIUK)

IG II² 3674 (PHI)

IG II² 5 13278 (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 42.238

Agora XXXI 209, no. 79

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

AIO Images: 1

Monument type: Altar

Inscription type: Dedication (private, Demeter and Kore)

Original location: City Eleusinion (?)

Findspot: Athens, church of St. Nikolaos (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford ANChandler 2.72)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This is one of five inscriptions acquired by James Dawkins on a visit to Athens in 1751 and donated to the University of Oxford on his death in 1757 (cf. AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), no. 1). Dawkins found it in the Church of St. Nikolaos, near where the Metropolis Cathedral is now located.

This altar was a dedicated to Demeter ("Deo") and Kore by Kleadas, priest of a mystery cult at Lerna in Argos, in honour of Erotios, who was Hierophant, one of the two chief priests of the Eleusinian cult (cf. AIUK 4.2 (BM), no. 1 n. 8). It is likely that the altar originally stood in the Eleusinion. Letter forms indicate a date in the second half of the fourth century AD, making this one of the last attestations of the Eleusinian cult, which came to an end with the sack of Eleusis by Alaric the Goth in 395 AD (Eunapios Vit. Soph. 7.3-4, 10.8). The text is an epigram in elegiac couplets, using poetic language and metre to demonstrate the author’s education and culture (paideia, cf. AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), no. 6, 15, and 16). In the Roman period, there was a taboo on using the hierophant’s name during his lifetime (“hieronymy”), so Erotios must have been dead when this dedication was made. Erotios is referred to as a scion of Kekropia (a poetic name for Athens); the word for “scion” (ernos, literally “seedling”) is a learned reference to Athenian autochthony (the idea that the original Athenians were born from the soil of Attica) and to Erotios’ role in the Eleusinian cult, which commemorated the disclosure of agriculture to mortals in Attica. [2] The nature of Kleadas' "equivalent privilege" is clarified by another epigram by Kleadas, originally inscribed on a gateway at Lerna, near Argos, and preserved in Greek Anthology 9.688:

“This gateway, built with well-polished stones,
at once ornament to the fatherland and marvel to wayfarers,
was built by Kleadas, husband of Kleë, a gentle lady of a noble father,
the Lernaian sanctuary’s extraordinary Orgiophant,
who delights in the gifts of the most powerful kings.”

The office of Orgiophant was the equivalent in the mystery cult at Lerna of the position of Hierophant at Eleusis. The connection between Eleusis and Lerna is also indicated by IG II² 5, 13252, another fourth century AD altar. It is part of a general trend in the fourth century AD, in which the mystery cults of Greece developed into a network with Eleusis as its hub. Although Kleadas refers to Erotios as his father, in the epigram from the gateway he refers to Argos as his “fatherland.” It may be that he had dual citizenship (like the dedicator of IG II² 5, 13252), or that Erotios was actually the “noble father” of Kleadas’ wife, Kleë, whose name is Attic.

For more detailed discussion of the inscription see AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), no. 3. For the continued vitality of traditional Athenian religion through the fourth century AD, see IG II² 13252-13253, 13273, 13281 with notes.

Added: 14 Jan 2021
Updated: 28 Jul 2023
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