Festivals of Mên Askaênos in the Roman Colonia at Antioch of Pisidia

J. G. C. Anderson

doi:10.2307/296230

Festivals of Mên Askaênos in the Roman Colonia at Antioch of Pisidia

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012

J. G. C. Anderson

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

In the following article I propose to discuss a series of inscriptions discovered in the course of the excavations conducted in 1912 by Sir W. M. Ramsay, with the aid of Mr. W. M. Calder and myself, at the sanctuary of Mên on the hill of Karakuyu, which lies a little distance to the south of Pisidian Antioch. At first sight the subject might seem to lie outside the scope of a journal devoted to Roman studies: the documents are almost entirely Greek, and Mên was not a Roman god. But the Roman empire transcended nationality: it carried out in the east the work of civilisation which the Hellenic race did no more than begin, and that part of its history is the most varied and not the least important which deals with the diffusion of western culture over lands little affected, or wholly unaffected, by Hellenism. The foundation of Roman colonies was one of the means employed by the early empire to help on that work. In doing it these colonies lost themselves: they gradually lost their individuality and their Roman character; they adopted the local religion, as they were bound to do, and their descendants forgot the old Roman gods. Yet they left their mark behind, and the history of their fortunes is one of peculiar interest. Antioch was one of those Roman colonies, and my subject is a chapter of that history.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 3 , November 1913 , pp. 267 - 300

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/296230 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © J. G. C. Anderson1913. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 267 note 1} I gladly acknowledge the debt which the present study owes to frequent conversations with sir William Ramsay, but the responsibility for the views expressed rests with myself. It is necessary to add that the article was written and printed in the early months of 1913.

^{page 268 note 1} cf. Miss Hardie's paper in J.H.S. 1912, pp. III, ff.

^{page 268 note 2} 8th March, 1913, p. 290. See also an article entitled Sketches in the religious antiquities of Asia Minor, since published in Annual of the Brit. School at Athens, vol. xviii.

^{page 268 note 3} Bk. xii, 3, 31, p. 557.

^{page 268 note 4} The epigraphic copies of nos. 1–5,11 (frag. /), 18, and 26 are reproduced from squeezes.

^{page 271 note 1} cf. Calder in J.R.S. ii, p. 94Google Scholar.

^{page 272 note 1} xii, 3, 31, p. 557: ἔστι δὲ καὶ τοῦτο τῆς Σελήνης τὸ ἱερόν, καθάπερ τὸ ἐν ̕Αλβανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐν Φρυγίᾳ, κ τ.λ.

^{page 272 note 2} On this point see below, p. 273, f.

^{page 272 note 3} C.I.L. iii, no. 6829: cf. p. 298.

^{page 272 note 4} See Ramsay's article (§ xiv) quoted above, p. 268, and cf. below p. 280.

^{page 272 note 5} See Hogarth, The Archaic Artemisia (B.M. Excav. at Ephesus), p. 338.

^{page 273 note 1} B.C.H. xx (1896), pp. 55–106Google Scholar.

^{page 273 note 2} The primacy of the moon is very intelligible in a hot country: see Cumont, Astrology and Religion, p. 124, ff. who points out that the moon retained the chief place in “Osroëne and throughout a large part of Anatolia up to the time of the Roman empire. The predominance of the worship of Mên, as he was called in Asia Minor, is due to the persistence in this remote country of ancient ideas, elsewhere out of date.”

^{page 273 note 3} So possibly among the Greeks originally, and certainly in Old Indian, Zend, and the Germanic and Slavonic languages: Drexler in Roscher's Lexikon, s.v. Men, p. 2689.

^{page 273 note 4} M. Perdrizet admits syncretism in the third and fourth centuries in the relations of Mên with Attis and perhaps with Mithra.

^{page 274 note 1} See Ramsay, loc. cit. § ix.

^{page 276 note 1} For a striking example of such syncretism, cf. the Maeonian relief described by Buresch, Aus Lydien, p. 69, representing a group of three goddesses: Artemis (Anaitis) in Cybele style with crescent, on her right Nike winged, on her left Demeter with serpent bearing eagle (associated with Sabazios) on crescent. Each goddess has her name attached.

^{page 277 note 1} See Hogarth, The Archaic' Artemisia (B.M. Excavations at Ephesus), plate xxiv, 8.

^{page 277 note 2} ibid. p. 336.

^{page 278 note 1} Eagle or hawk, Perrot-Chipiez, iii, fig. 142.

^{page 278 note 2} ibid. iv, fig. 281.

^{page 278 note 3} Huraann, Reisen, pl. xvii.

^{page 278 note 4} Chantre, Mission, pl. 24.

^{page 279 note 1} It is unlikely that the building was a rather elaborate tomb.

^{page 280 note 1} Aus Lydien, p. 67, ff: some of his inferences, however, go too far.

^{page 280 note 2} Chron. d'Orient, i, p. 158, f. (Rev. Arch. 1885, ii, p. 108, f.)

^{page 280 note 3} Described and pictured by Ramsay, loc. cit. § xiii.

^{page 283 note 1} C.I.G. 4274; Petersen, Lykien, ii, no. 12Google Scholar.

^{page 283 note 2} J.H.S. 1905, p. 16.

^{page 284 note 1} B.C.H. xx. (1896), p. 523Google Scholar, ff.

^{page 285 note 1} Plin. Paneg. 75: cf. O. Hirschfeld's article, Kleine Schriften, p. 689, ff.

^{page 287 note 1} C.I.G. nos. 3497, 3493; Keil-Premerstein, Bericht über eine ziweite Reise in Lydien, p. 34.

^{page 287 note 2} E. N. Gardiner, J.H.S. 1905, p. 16.

^{page 289 note 1} Epb. Ep. ii, p. 188, nos. 79, 80.

^{page 290 note 1} C.I.L. ix, 3080.

^{page 290 note 2} Hist, i, 43. The name is always corrupted in MSS. to Statius.

^{page 291 note 1} De rebus Thyateirenorum, p. 87.

^{page 291 note 2} Rhein. Mus. li (1896), p. 635Google Scholar.

^{page 291 note 3} Bericht, ii, nos. 63, 71 (“neben dem Agonotheten fungierte noch ein Epistates als städtische Aufsichtsbehörde”), p. 34.

^{page 291 note 4} Liermann, Analecta. agonistica, p. 162; Dessau, Inscr. Sel. 5257; Keil-Premerstein, op. cit. p. 33.

^{page 296 note 1} cf. C.I.L. iii, 6835–6837.

^{page 296 note 2} Acta Pauli et Theklae: see Ramsay, Church in Emp. ch. xvi.

^{page 296 note 3} C.I.L. iii, 6835–6837.

^{page 296 note 4} Prof. Haverfield has kindly looked at this squeeze and others which I submitted to him, and his opinion is in essential agreement with my own. One cannot pretend that the lettering of Roman inscriptions in Asia Minor affords more than a criterion of relative date; and it often allows rather wide limits.

^{page 297 note 1} C.I.G. 4039 and Add. p. 1109.

^{page 297 note 2} Lex. col. Gen. loc. cit.

^{page 298 note 1} C.I.L. iii, 6829.

^{page 298 note 2} Inscr. no. 1209.

^{page 298 note 3} cf. C.I.L. iii, 6835–6837 (quoted above): “ex liberalitate sua electo agonothetae perpetuo ab imp. divo Marco certaminis sacri Hadrianion Ephesi.”

^{page 299 note 1} Strabo, p. 557.

^{page 300 note 1} Hist. Eccl. viii, 14, 9; ix, 5.

^{page 300 note 2} Ausbreitung, bk. iii, ch. v [Eng. trans, ii. p. 125].

Article contents

Festivals of Mên Askaênos in the Roman Colonia at Antioch of Pisidia

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests