This chapter proposes to look in some detail at a few evocative cases, primarily from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, where associations or other groups, such as bands of worshippers, were especially concerned with purity or where they published inscribed rules of purity.Footnote ¹ Limited in number partly due to the vicissitudes of epigraphic preservation, partly due to the geographic and chronological specificities of this material – post-Classical Asia Minor and the Aegean – other factors may also explain their scarcity and warrant further investigation.

Leading such an investigation entails probing the often-murky background and motivations for the publication of inscriptions regulating cult practice. These have traditionally been called ‘sacred laws’ – a questionable designation, since the documents are not always laws, nor ‘sacred’ in and of themselves. A newer proposal is to view such inscriptions as representative of ‘ritual norms’. These are a heterogeneous group of inscribed documents that defined, prescribed and/or codified norms for Greek ritual practices, such as purification.Footnote ² The context for the passing of such rules is not often explicitly defined and, indeed, this is usually the case with rules of purity.

In confronting the difficult question of context, the relevant cases adduced here are particularly instructive for apprehending the identity and the authority of the groups in question. One can outline a relatively broad spectrum of groups and associations: those that were identified with a specific sanctuary but do not seem to have been fully in control of it (Section 1); others that expounded purity regulations for sanctuaries that they evidently controlled but where entry was open to other worshippers (Section 2); and finally, cults that were founded by private individuals, whether for their families or for a wider audience, which also enacted rules concerning purity (Section 3).

These case studies thus frame a wider investigation, aimed at addressing the question of why associations and other groups would promulgate rules of purity in the first place. Purity was a fundamental type of order, an indispensable aspect of the definition of any sacred space or cultic community. Proper religious conduct or piety included abstaining (cf. ἁγνεία, ‘purity’, and related concepts) from sources of pollution, a sine qua non for maintaining a successful relationship with the gods (being ἁγνός, ‘pure’, καθαρός, ‘clean’, ὅσιος, ‘pious, holy’ and the like).Footnote ³ As this applied in society at large, so it did too in a smaller religious group or within an associational cult site. Many chapters in the present volume ably and amply underscore the importance of maintaining good order in assembled masses of people, such as associations. Concerns of this sort were administrative, logistical, even hygienic, but could also include ethical factors or those of religious decorum.

On fundamental level, then, it can be assumed that associations with direct ties to a cult or to a sanctuary would naturally wish to maintain it in a ‘well-ordered’ fashion, notably with regard to purity. Where sanctuaries are concerned, it is immediately apparent that associations sought in any eventuality to safeguard the sacrality of this space. For instance, associations in Attica regularly stipulated in lease agreements that a person renting their property treat it not just as normal land, but ‘as sacred’ (ὡς ἱερός).Footnote ⁴ Implicit in this requirement was also the essential preservation of the purity of the space.

But why did purity in particular matter to some groups? In what cases did this subject become an overt preoccupation? Beyond a general concern for maintaining pious conduct and the integrity of sacred space, such questions are normally difficult to answer fully in the absence of other evidence, though the rationale of the rules can occasionally become clear. Some progress can be made by looking at the circumstances of the development of such rules, where these can be identified, and at exactly how they were articulated. Did they precisely correspond with norms of purity at large or with ones in the local area of the community in question? Or were they different – for instance, more flexible or more stringent? In this regard, comparing purity rules in their local and wider context can be particularly illuminating (see Sections 2 and 3). Some rules articulated by groups can be recognised as inclusive or pragmatic, while others were apparently more strict or moralistic. Qualifying the rules of purity in this way can to some degree help evaluate their motivations. These can further be tied with the overall characteristics of the group, be it one generally welcoming outsiders in its sanctuary or one possessing more selective criteria of admission.

Making a sacred space accessible to worshippers, whether a select or a wider group, created a risk of impurity that needed to be carefully managed. In many if not most cases, associations and groups must have relied on existing, traditional rules of purity, whether recorded by the city and community or not. In other, more distinctive cases, regulations of purity became an intrinsic part of the definition of the cultic community and the organisation of its sacred space. The subject of purity rules therefore forms an interesting focus for apprehending how associations considered and managed sacred space as well as for illuminating the profile of the associations in their local and wider context.

The Bacchoi at Cnidus

Ensuring the purity of a sanctuary, if this was not a private cult site in any sense of the term, may be presumed to have been the remit either of the polis or of the sanctuary itself and its officials. In late Classical or early Hellenistic Cnidus, a group of Bacchoi made a petition to the city council and its prostatai, ‘leaders’. These worshippers of Dionysus formed a cultic group that was sufficiently well organised to make a collective action in front of the civic authorities, though whether they were formally an association – with a charter, rules, fixed membership or the like – remains unclear. The concern of the Bacchoi was apparently that many other worshippers were camping in the sanctuary, thus rendering it not only insalubrious but, worse, impure. Indeed, it must be stressed that the concern of the Bacchoi was not merely a logistical or hygienic one, but rather, as the resulting decree of the city makes explicitly clear, ‘that the sanctuary remain pure’ (ὅπω̣[ς] | ἁγνεύηται τὸ̣ [ἱαρὸ]|ν, ll. 4–6). The petition of the Bacchoi, though now lost to us, will almost certainly have framed their complaint in religious terms, specifically pointing to the necessary purity (ἁγνεία) of the sanctuary of Dionysus.

The city acted on the recommendation of the Bacchoi and passed a decree forbidding camping altogether and very probably imposing penalties to that effect, which are now missing in the fragmentary lines concluding the stele (cf. ll. 12–13). The fragmentary inscription recording this decree is normally presented and restored as follows:Footnote ⁵

A crux of the text occurs in lines 8–10: [ἐν | τῶ]ι ἱαρῶι τῶν̣ [Βάκ|χων μ]ηδένα. This widely accepted restoration would either – highly paradoxically – restrict the prohibition of camping only to the Bacchoi themselves (‘none of the Bacchoi is to camp …’) or would – much more naturally, and as translated here – suggest ownership of the sanctuary by the Bacchoi. Yet the latter reading also begs the question: why, if they owned or controlled the sanctuary, did the Bacchoi either bother or need to ask the city to intervene in the matter of the purity of their sacred space? We could perhaps imagine that they attempted to pass rules regarding purity in the sanctuary and that these proved to be ineffective, possibly for want of tangible sanctions. The Bacchoi would then, in a surprising display of their lack of competence, have approached the city to lend its authority to the regulation of their sanctuary.Footnote ⁶

While that reconstruction remains possible, there is an alternative: this is to view the completely uncertain restoration τῶν̣ [Βάκ|χων] as inherently problematic. A fairly simple solution, for example, might be to restore the passage in question as τῶν̣ [θυόν|των μ]ηδένα. This reading would entail that ‘none of those offering a sacrifice’ – essentially any worshipper – ‘is to camp in the sanctuary’. While some inscribed rules granted those who offered sacrifices the right to feast and linger overnight, others restricted camping altogether.Footnote ⁷ This seems to me to be the case here at Cnidus, where ‘neither a male nor a [female]’ worshipper, not just the Bacchoi, is to be allowed to remain overnight in the sanctuary and potentially pollute it.

What might have been the source of impurity that so worried the Bacchoi? Urination and defecation were possible forms of pollution in the ancient Greek world, though they rarely if at all warrant any mention in the available evidence.Footnote ⁸ It was perhaps simply expected that one did one’s business outside the sanctuary.Footnote ⁹ Since the purpose of the Cnidian decree is framed in terms of necessary abstention (ἁγνεία) and explicitly excludes both genders, the background of the petition of the Bacchoi suggests that campers were not just dirtying the sanctuary, but succumbing to that most natural of night-time proclivities: sex. Together with birth and death, as well as the shedding of blood and, much more rarely, the consumption of certain foods, intercourse was envisaged as one of the principal vectors of pollution in the ancient Greek world.

This new reading would also have the advantage of clearing up the question of the authority over the sanctuary at Cnidus: it belonged to the city and was controlled by it. Archaeological and epigraphical evidence for the sanctuary of Dionysus at Cnidus remains rather slim, but it is apparent that the city – as is also expected from other Greek cities – controlled the local festival of Dionysus, the Dionysia, from at least the early Hellenistic through the Roman periods.Footnote ¹⁰ Nevertheless, the Bacchoi formed an important group: their name echoed the epithet of the god and they probably had a substantial degree of involvement in the sanctuary, taking it upon themselves, we might envision, to perform and maintain the cult in collaboration with the – probably civic – priest.Footnote ¹¹ What is more, it should be noted that their petition to the polis worked: the city listened to their concerns and deemed them valid; the stele publicising the decree is the material manifestation of this. The sanctuary continued, as usual, to be allowed to receive visitors for sacrifices, but none of these – Bacchoi included – was allowed to stay overnight.

In other words, we seem to have here the case of a group that was closely connected with a sanctuary and had a role to play within it, but which did not properly control it. The Bacchoi were most probably not a fully formalised association.Footnote ¹² As a recognised interest-group, they were generally concerned with maintaining the sanctuary as a ‘well-ordered’ space, but not fully empowered to do so. As a group with a manifestly religious vocation and cultic function, they notably focussed on preserving the indispensable purity (ἁγνεία) of the sanctuary, an emphasis which facilitated a successful appeal to the civic authorities.

Though the sanctions of the decree from Cnidus are not preserved after lines 12–13 and therefore remain unclear to us, the text nonetheless demonstrates that the city took matters in hand. These sanctions may have included concrete penalties or fines for those contravening the rule and illegally camping in the sanctuary of Dionysus. Reference may also have been made to general norms of purity, whether codified or not, which were espoused by the city. Transgressing such rules would have carried either a concrete penalty – for instance, requiring a ritual process purifying the sanctuary as a whole – or a seemingly less tangible, but nonetheless more oppressive one – for instance, being considered impious (ἀσεβής) and incurring the anger of the gods.Footnote ¹³

A subcategory of the ‘sacred laws’ alluded to previously – texts that prescribe ritual norms or regulate religious behaviour in some way – consists of what might be called casuistic purity regulations. From the Archaic to the early Hellenistic periods especially, these regulations take the form of extensively detailed laws, enacted by the polis, which seek to define different cases of impurity and their recommended solutions.Footnote ¹⁴ The formulary of these laws is organised on a case-by-case basis – ‘if such-and-such happens, then do the following’, hence the designation ‘casuistic’. For example, in the laws of the city of Cos concerning purity, codified in ca. 240 BC, but at least in part probably belonging to an earlier tradition or model, priestly personnel were explicitly prevented from entering a house in which a person had died. The period of abstention (ἁγνεία) in this regard was to last five days after the body was carried out for burial; if any priestesses or priests contravened the rules, then a purification with water poured from a golden vessel and a sprinkling of grain was required.Footnote ¹⁵

The importance of civic authority in these kinds of regulations becomes less perceptible – if at all – in the epigraphic evidence from the late Hellenistic and Roman periods. This should not be taken to mean that the laws of the city that were already enacted did not remain in effect – they demonstrably did, in the case of Cos, for instanceFootnote ¹⁶ – only that the regulations published in later periods are generally of a different sort. The style of these later texts is also more practical and to the point. It now involves inscribing a series of rules, for instance on a legible stele or a pillar, which should be observed by worshippers wishing to enter a sanctuary.Footnote ¹⁷ As a representative example of this later form of casuistic purity regulation, we might take the following regulation inscribed on the entrance to the temple of Artemis Chitone near the agora at Miletus:Footnote ¹⁸

Though the beginning is partly missing, the text is essentially preserved.Footnote ²⁰ It is relatively clear that the regulation was simply addressed to worshippers and probably did not include any preamble concerning its source. In other words, the authority behind the regulation was left implicit. Moreover, no form of sanction for any contravention of the rules is stipulated at Miletus. In other rules, some form of sanction could occasionally be mentioned, but this usually took the form of a curse (or a blessing, which also implies its reverse: again, a curse).Footnote ²¹ We never find fines or other tangible penalties associated with this later form of casuistic purity regulation.

Typically, these rules apply to any and all who wish to enter the sanctuary (εἰσιέναι, εἰσπορεύεσθαι, vel sim.). The form that they take is again set of cases, defining purity – the words καθαρός or ἁγνεία are often invoked, though they may also be left implicit – from (ἀπό) a specific source of impurity, followed by a delay during which one must abstain from entry into the sanctuary and/or by a set of purificatory requirements, normally washing from the head down or other forms of ablution. Each scenario is either listed on a case-by-case basis or a group of cases may be treated under the same rubric in the regulation.

From the Hellenistic period onward, then, the inscribing of rules of purity, rather than emanating directly from the city or another form of political authority, was often left to the discretion and the initiative of sanctuaries and their officials, of private individuals or of other groups, notably associations. A related observation must be made. This type of evidence is more or less confined to the eastern Aegean and Asia Minor, with only a few cases from mainland Greece,Footnote ²² and one example coming from Ptolemais in Egypt.Footnote ²³ Prima facie, this geographical distribution need not be surprising or significant in and of itself, since a large proportion of the Hellenistic and Roman epigraphical sources comes from these areas of the ancient Greek world. A recent discussion, however, has sought to argue that these purity regulations all or nearly all pertain to foreign cults, more specifically Egyptian or Near Eastern forms of worship, whence they must have developed in Greek communities.Footnote ²⁴ Without denying that several of these regulations do indeed relate to such cults, it should be said that the question of the ‘origins’ of specific purity rules remains difficult to answer. Particularly cautioning any hasty judgement is the fact that the norms underpinning these casuistic regulations match the aforementioned purity laws of the city and thus seem to derive from much the same traditional sources.Footnote ²⁵ Moreover, as we shall see immediately below for the Attalid Kingdom, many of the cults that are concerned by such rules are far from straightforwardly explained as ‘Near Eastern’ or as having any connection to Egyptian practices.Footnote ²⁶ For all of their diversity in terms of provenance, content and context, the regulations present a coherent picture of the need to avoid the spread of impurity in a community, by restricting the entry of impure individuals into sacred space.

Pergamum and the Attalid Kingdom

A particularly intriguing case study for examining the purity rules of associations in their local context is Pergamum and the wider area of the Attalid kingdom. Here, we find a series of conspicuous examples where the different sources of authority behind the promulgation of purity rules are particularly clear. One inscription, from the sanctuary of Athena Nikephoros on the Acropolis of the city of Pergamum, forms an apt starting point.Footnote ²⁷ It has been thought to date to the period after 133 BC, but on the basis of its letterforms, could alternatively be dated to the late Attalid period:Footnote ²⁸

The inscription is tripartite, forming a dossier of regulations on the sanctuary and the cult of Athena Nikephoros. A heading in larger letters (ll. 1–2) states that the stele was inscribed at the initiative of Dionysios, son of Menophilos, who served as an annual hieronomos or ‘sanctuary-warden’ for the city of Pergamum.Footnote ²⁹ The first document inscribed on the stele (ll. 3–9) and quoted above, a list of purity regulations and entry requirements for the sanctuary, contrasts with the other two included below it, which are official documents, namely, decrees of the city of Pergamum. As presented on the stele, the rules of purity may represent an excerpt from a written document that was available to Dionysios: in this regard, note the beginning of the text in line 3, ἁγνευέτωσαν δὲ …, where the conjunction δὲ, presupposing an earlier clause, may thus imply a quotation. But, as far as we can tell, these rules derive from no other source of authority than that of recorded tradition, expounded by Dionysios in his role and his office as hieronomos.Footnote ³⁰ It is without doubt in this capacity also that Dionysios undertook to reinscribe the two excerpts from decrees of the city of Pergamum below the purity rules. Both decrees seek to regulate the fees for those sacrificing in the sanctuary of Athena.

Dionysios’ stele provides eloquent confirmation of the idea that, in the Hellenistic period, cities did not habitually inscribe casuistic purity regulations relating to specific sanctuaries: this was left to the occasional initiative of cult officials or other agents. General rules of the city remained in effect and would be consulted, but as in the case of the Bacchoi in Cnidus, groups or individuals needed to act in order to publicise or expand purity rules and encourage good behaviour. The need for such individual initiative remained current in Pergamum. One of the other major cults of the city, that of Asclepius, was also the recipient of two sets of cultic rules, which doubtless again derived from relatively long-standing tradition, but were only inscribed, as far as we know, in the second century AD. As the dedicatory formula concluding one of the texts makes clear, the rules were again inscribed at the behest of a hieronomos, one (…) Claudius Glykon.Footnote ³¹

How do these rules erected by civic and religious officials compare with those set up by private groups? Two inscriptions from the Attalid kingdom, in the period ca. 250–150 BC, may be adduced. One particularly intriguing albeit only potential case comes from Maionia in Lydia. The text is officially dated to the reign of Attalus II (147/6 BC):Footnote ³²

Conforming to the expected pattern, the polis seems to be absent here. The first editors of the inscription, Keil and von Premerstein, already noted that while identifying the group responsible for erecting the stele containing these rules of purity represents a substantial problem, the traces following the lacuna in lines 4–5 are suggestive of a possible subject for the third-person plural verb ἔστησαν, ‘they set up’, in line 3. This intervening lacuna is rather large, however, and may perhaps have contained other names or nouns. Following it, we find what seems to be a definitive article, οἱ, and some other traces. Keil and von Premerstein tentatively suggested the restoration οἱ ἐμ Φ̣υση [ὀρ]χ̣η̣[σταί], thinking of an association of dancers at an unknown place called Physa or Physe.Footnote ³³ While this bold proposal has not been retained in most of the succeeding editions, we might suppose that Keil and von Premerstein were on the right track. An alternative restoration, for instance, could be οἱ ἐμφ̣υσ̣η|[ταί], involving a group of pipe-blowers.Footnote ³⁴ The role of flute or brass musicians as performers in the cult of the Mother goddess, alongside players of percussion instruments such as tambourines and cymbals, is well known.Footnote ³⁵ If this reasoning is correct, some or all of the musicians involved in the cult of Meter regulated by this stele may have temporarily joined forces or (less likely) formed a more permanent association, seeking to regulate the cult. If such a group could claim authority over the sanctuary, at least in matters of purity, it might suggest that this cult-site was not owned or controlled by the political community at Maionia. But we could just as easily be dealing with the private initiative of a group of individuals involved in a civic cult, not a fixed group of authoritative officials.

We are on much more secure ground with another set of ritual norms, which were manifestly enacted by a small cultic association. These are the rules of the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale in Pergamene territory (the Yüntdağ, ca. 30 km southeast of Pergamum).Footnote ³⁶ One stele found there testifies to the fact that a certain Demetrios, phrourarchos or commander of the Attalid garrison in this area, founded a sanctuary of Asclepius and gathered the first Asklepiastai at this relatively remote site in the first half of the second century BC.Footnote ³⁷ Another stele discovered near the same site, though its beginning is missing, contains rules of purity for entering the sanctuary and, much more fragmentarily, the dormitory for incubation which was situated beside it:Footnote ³⁸

Though this inscription is much more difficult to decipher than the other stele, its editor, Müller, expressed no doubt that it constitutes a part of the same dossier for the cult that was created by the phrourarchos Demetrios and the ‘first Asklepiastai’.Footnote ³⁹ This association will therefore have issued rules concerning the purity expected of worshippers visiting the new sanctuary of Asclepius or seeking incubation there.

In terms of content and normative characteristics, the purity rules closely parallel those found in the city and the area of Pergamum that we looked at earlier. After sex, entry into the sanctuary is allowed on the same day, having washed from the head down: this is essentially the same prescription as one finds in the inscription from Maionia quoted above and in the sanctuary of Asclepius at Pergamum (I.Pergamon 264, Footnote n. 31 above), but also very widely elsewhere.Footnote ⁴⁰ Sex between man and wife was similarly allowed on the same day as entry into the sanctuary of Athena Nikephoros in Pergamum (quoted above). Yet the cults in the city seem on occasion somewhat more restrictive: in the sanctuary of Athena, waiting until the next day (δευτεραῖοι, counting inclusively it would seem) was necessary after sex with someone who was not one’s spouse; until the third day (τριταῖος) after any form of sexual intercourse before visiting the incubation chambers of the Pergamene Asklepieion (AvP III 161, Footnote n. 31 above). Still, the match with the rules from Pergamum is particularly apparent when it comes to the other categories of impurity mentioned by the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale. From contact with a deceased individual, as well as with a woman who had aborted or miscarried, the delay was only until the next day (δευτ̣ερ̣αῖον̣, still counting inclusively). These delays are nearly identical with those recorded for the cult of Athena Nikephoros. At the Nikephorion, entry was permitted on the next day following the death of an individual, whether a relative or not (ἀπὸ κήδους… δευτεραῖο⟨ι⟩), and even on the same day from attendance at a funeral or at a tomb. At the Nikephorion again, abstaining the same amount of time was required after exposure to a woman who had given birth (ἀπὸ… τεκούσης γυναικός), while at Yaylakale, this delay applied to contact with an abortion or miscarriage.

In general, then, the regulations expounded by the association of the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale closely match those found in their immediate regional context. On the other stele, no ethnics are recorded for the names of the members of the ‘first Asklepiastai’. Though it is probable that some of the members were foreign soldiers, it is not impossible that at least a few of them were Pergamene or Mysian.Footnote ⁴¹ At any rate, it is likely that these men will have had some occasion to visit the Attalid capital and its famous sanctuaries, such as the Nikephorion and the Asklepieion. In other words, the rules most probably derive from those that Demetrios the phrourachos or other members of the group had commonly observed in practice at Pergamum. Though parallels with the Asklepieion of Pergamum might be thought the most suggestive,Footnote ⁴² it is perhaps especially the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis, close to where the garrison was located in the upper city and its arsenal, which seems to have influenced the purity rules of the ‘first Asklepiastai’.Footnote ⁴³ The phrourachos and his garrison at Yaylakale wished to found a cult-group and new sanctuary and thus closely modelled it on these Pergamene structures and their cultic framework.

The periods of abstention known from Pergamum were considerably generous. Other cults, as we have already glimpsed and shall see further below, would often require an abstention of several days, usually around ten after the death of a relative, somewhat less, such as five, for that of another individual,Footnote ⁴⁴ and typically of ten days in the case of contact with an abortion or miscarriage (forty days for the woman concerned). The rules articulated by the association at Yaylakale were of a similarly mild character, attributable to their Pergamene models but also with a view towards inclusivity. Indeed, the rules at Yaylakale expressly emphasised their function: not only was purity required ([ἁγ]ν̣[εύεσ]θ̣αι, ll. 1–2, if we accept this probable restoration), but the avowed purpose of the regulation was to foster good health (ὑγίας ἕνεκεν, ll. 3–4). This was a particularly apt goal for an Asklepieion, of course, a cult site whose purpose was to serve as a place for the worship of the god of healing (and perhaps of Ὑγία/Hygieia herself, the personification of Good Health and one of the daughters of Asclepius, often found associated with the god). In the view of the ‘first Asklepiastai’, purity (ἁγνεία) was thus a precondition for good health (ὑγία). This helped to rationalise the need for rules of purity and served to advertise their beneficial function by publishing the stele containing them.Footnote ⁴⁵

In their remote Attalid garrison, the ‘first Asklepiastai’ thus recreated elements of the Pergamene community, by founding a small local Asklepieion to honour the god, but also to consolidate their own identity, to invite worshippers from nearby villages and to host incubation rituals. The ‘well-ordered society’ developed in this case replicated on a smaller scale the civic and religious structures of Pergamum, being stimulated by an Attalid official and his soldiers for the inclusive benefit of a local community.Footnote ⁴⁶ In particular, the rules of purity published by the group underscored all of these features: they were modelled on the rules of the major sanctuaries, maintained their short or ‘generous’ delays of ἁγνεία and at the same time advertised good health (ὑγία) to promote access to the sanctuary.

From Families to ‘Associations in the Making’

From the beginning of the Hellenistic period, familial associations become more conspicuous in the epigraphical evidence. By this designation, one may refer to cults that were privately established for the benefit of a restricted kinship group, normally the immediate family of the founder.Footnote ⁴⁷ The membership of such groups was by definition exclusive: male relatives by marriage were sometimes accepted; bastards might be included with some provisos; occasionally a wider familial circle might be defined.Footnote ⁴⁸ Most of these groups constituted a completely different type of association from the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale, in that they sought less publicity or visibility, a fact reflected for instance in not having a well-defined name.Footnote ⁴⁹

An interesting though unique case of a familial association which published rules of purity comes from the deme of Isthmus on Cos:Footnote ⁵⁰

This consecration of a cult by Pythion and a nameless priestess (perhaps his wife), albeit much briefer, shares many resemblances with the much more detailed cultic dossier of Diomedon on the same island of Cos.Footnote ⁵¹ In both cases, a sanctuary is consecrated to a group of deities – at least in part ancestral, though the epithet of Artemis in the case of Pythion remains mysteriousFootnote ⁵² – and a slave is associated with this consecration to take care of the sanctuary. Doubtless we would have further details about the cult if the ‘sacred tablet’ mentioned in lines 10–11 or details concerning the bequests, probably testamentary, of Pythion and the priestess (τῶν λοιπῶν ὧγ καταλείπει, ll. 11–12), were preserved.

The conclusion of the stele is particularly interesting for our purposes: it clearly begins to mention rules for entrance into the sanctuary in line 15 (ἁγνὸν εἰσπορεύεσθαι…), but these are interrupted by the interjected phrase τὸ δὲ ἱερὸν ἔστω | τῶν υἱῶν πάντων κοινόν. This is to be taken to mean that the sanctuary (to hieron) is held in collective ownership by the sons of Pythion. A cultic community of synthyontes pantes is also vaguely alluded to in line 7 (τῶν συνθυόντων πάντων): this is most naturally interpreted as constituting the immediate family or the descendants of Pythion (and perhaps the priestess).Footnote ⁵³ The question that can be raised, however, is whether the interjected clause in line 15 has a purpose: does it seek to define those who may enter (εἰσπορεύεσθαι) the sanctuary, is it simply misplaced or is there another reason for its placement? In the first view, the clause concerning the ownership of the sanctuary clarified that only the sons of Pythion had privileged access to it. But in fact, it cannot be just the sons of Pythion who were granted access to the sanctuary: the priestess and the slave Makarinos needed to enter it and we might presume that female family members, at least, could also do so.

A further alternative might be that access to the sanctuary was not strictly limited to the familial group of Pythion. As they are often expressed in inscriptions affixed to sanctuaries open to visitors, the purity rules published on Pythion’s stele could be taken to imply that the hieron inaugurated by him was in fact open to members of the general public: by agreeing to respect their prescriptions, access to the sanctuary would be permitted. Anyone could then become part of the synthyontes pantes during one of the celebrations envisaged. But the clause appended, presumably out of fear of the property becoming alienated, quickly clarified that ownership and control of the sanctuary remained in the hands of Pythion’s sons (in perpetuity, one assumes). Such an idea would also go some way towards explaining why this is the only case of a ‘familial cult’ which does not appear to have had strict rules of membership and also why, again uniquely among similar groups, it enacted purity regulations for entry into its sanctuary.

As we have seen, however, the evidence provided by this relatively brief stele is hardly complete. It seems to have served as a sign for worshippers and as a reminder of some essential aspects. Other documents, a ‘sacred tablet’ and likely a testament, would have provided a much fuller view of this familial group and the sanctuary that it consecrated. Any definitive conclusions should therefore be resisted, though it remains highly probable that the rules of purity were aimed at other worshippers coming to visit the sanctuary consecrated by Pythion.

Indeed, what we can affirm is that the purity rules defined by Pythion and his family readily match others known elsewhere in the epigraphic evidence from across the eastern Aegean and Asia Minor. A delay of ten days is specified before entry after childbed or an abortion/miscarriage. This matches some of the delays stipulated in the regulation of an unknown cult at Eresos and also seems to agree with a regulation for the cult of Despoina at Lycosura, though that text is quite lacunose.Footnote ⁵⁴ At Eresos, the delay of ten days was aimed at a man who entered into contact with a woman who had miscarried; but ten days was also the required hagneia for a woman who had given birth (only three days for a man). As a result, it remains somewhat unclear if women were also concerned by the purity rules enacted by Pythion. Apparently more demanding was the requirement to abstain three days from the sanctuary after sex with one’s wife (ἀπὸ γυναικός; or does this mean ‘any woman’ here?). As we saw earlier, ablutions might be required after sex, but entry into the sanctuary would usually be permitted on the same day, after no delay. Yet the delay of three days in fact closely corresponds to other, stricter norms found elsewhere: in the enkoimeterion, ‘dormitory’, of the Asklepieion at Pergamum, as we have already seen, but also in the sanctuary of Syrian gods on Delos and in the sanctuary of Meter Gallesia at Metropolis.Footnote ⁵⁵

To broaden this understanding of Pythion’s cult on Cos, instructive comparisons and contrasts may briefly be drawn with two famous epigraphic dossiers. The first is the cult of Men Tyrannos privately founded by Xanthos, probably a slave or a freedman, at Laurion, at a date that remains debated, but probably lies somewhere in the first century BC or AD.Footnote ⁵⁶ The details of the cult, originating from Anatolia – Xanthos is notably called Λύκιος, ‘Lycian’ – are known from a pair of stelae. These are nearly identical in their formulary, though not entirely so. The narrower of the two (text B), functioning more as a sign, includes only a brief summary of the rules that were discussed more extensively in the lengthier document (text A). The cult elaborated by Xanthos following a command of the god (αἱρετίσαντος τοῦ θεοῦ) does not explicitly aim at creating an association; rather, it confers pride of place on the founder as the principal participant or agent in the cult. Xanthos, while living, is to be present at all sacrifices (μηθένα θυσιάζειν ἄνε[υ] τοῦ καθειδρυσαμένου τὸ ἱερόν, A, ll. 7–8; cf. B, ll. 11–13) and any violence, perhaps especially against him, is proscribed.Footnote ⁵⁷ Upon anything undermining Xanthos’ role as founder of the cult, such as his death, illness or emigration, no one is to have any right to the sanctuary, unless Xanthos himself confers it.Footnote ⁵⁸ Therefore, by contrast with Pythion, the cult was not familial and Xanthos had apparently not yet thought of a precise successor.

Xanthos also enacted elaborate rules concerning sacrifices and purity. The cult was open to any participant who chose to follow these guidelines. In the context of the sacrifices, Xanthos in fact grants the opportunity for anyone to gather a temporary or ad hoc cult group (A, l. 21: τοὺς… βουλομένους ἔρανον συνάγειν) for the purposes of celebrating the god and holding a sacrificial feast; these groups might even wish to camp at the cult-site to continue their night-time feast (cf. also ll. 24–5: ἐὰν κατακλιθῶσιν οἱ ἐρανισταὶ…). There is little evidence that such groups would go on to form durative cult associations, though this of course remains possible.Footnote ⁵⁹ In terms of rules concerning purity, we find some general precepts. On a basic level, Xanthos was concerned that nothing impure be brought forward to the cult-site and its altar: καὶ [μηθένα] ἀκάθαρτον προσάγειν (A, ll. 2–3; cf. B, 8–9). Such a rule was presumably designed to prevent the sacrificial offering of animals or foodstuffs viewed as impure in the cult (pork and garlic are specifically mentioned in the text; perhaps porcine products, such as leather, which might be brought into the sanctuary, would also be concerned by this interdiction). Another rule was presented as a blessing: that the god would be merciful to those who worshipped him with a simple soul. This is tantamount to the fundamental requirement that the worshipper’s mind be pure, which is explicitly found in entry regulations for sanctuaries from the Hellenistic period onward.Footnote ⁶⁰ The moral sense of these rules is further underlined in other clauses containing stringent sanctions, notably against any interference in the cult.Footnote ⁶¹ All of this is coupled with practical cases of impurity such as we have looked at here. On both stelae, specific causes of impurity such as garlic, pork and sex are said to be remediable simply by washing from the head down. Impurity resulting from the eating of pork is found in one other purity regulation, appropriately from a sanctuary focussed on Near Eastern rituals.Footnote ⁶² Other standard causes of impurity, but apparently only for women, are treated with severe but normative periods of abstention: menstruation (seven days and washing), contact with a corpse (ten days) and abortion or miscarriage (forty days).Footnote ⁶³

The second interesting case for comparison is the much-discussed stele from Philadelphia in Lydia, which can only very briefly be treated here.Footnote ⁶⁴ Debate continues to be sparked regarding the precise characteristics and background of the cult, as well as the interpretation of the text (about a third of the lines is missing to the right). The rules outlined in the text are presented as a written account of the divine commands ([παραγγέλμα]τα, ll. 3–4; παραγγέλ[ματα], l. 12) that were given to a certain Dionysios by Zeus, in a dream. On one view, the outcome of this divine inspiration was that Dionysios opened his own house (π[ρόσοδον διδόν]τ’ εἰς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οἶκον, l. 5), in which altars of large variety of gods have been constructed (ll. 6–12), to any worshipper, be they male or female, free or slave (ll. 5–6). Periodic sacrifices are also mentioned (l. 55), which would no doubt have served to gather together a community of worshippers. However, it has been questioned whether the stele actually reflects an attempt at inviting participants beyond the οἶκος, ‘house’, of Dionysios or whether it primarily concerns an existing cultic community (such as his kinship group and the slaves of his household).Footnote ⁶⁵

At any rate, the injunctions that Zeus made to Dionysios involve the performance of ‘abstentions, purifications and (probably) mysteries, according to the ancestral customs as well as to what is now written on the stele’ (τούς τε ἀ]|γνισμοὺς καὶ τοὺς καθαρμοὺς κ[αὶ τὰ μυστήρια ἐπι]|τελεῖν κατά τε τὰ πάτρια καὶ ὡς νῦν [γέγραπται], ll. 12–14).Footnote ⁶⁶ Indeed, the bulk of the inscribed text (ὡς νῦν [γέγραπται]) contains precepts of purity that have a strong ethical dimension: for instance, worshippers entering the house are to swear an oath not to avail themselves of any magic or poison (ll. 14–19); instead of rules concerning the temporary impurity caused by an abortion or miscarriage, taking the oath required forsaking the use of any form of contraceptive (ll. 20–1); instead of lax rules concerning sexual intercourse, Dionysios promotes the virtue of marriage, strictly forbidding the ‘corruption’ of married women and of those who are not yet married by men (ll. 25–31) – while tacitly allowing for other, non-married partners or ἑταίραι – and by recommending the exclusive company of one’s spouse for women (ll. 35–44).Footnote ⁶⁷ Both men and women who fail in this regard are to be barred from entering (ll. 31–2). The guidelines and the outcomes of transgression are more severe for women, who are to be deemed impure and to spread this impurity to their kin (ll. 37–8: [μεμιασμέ]|νην καὶ μύσο[υ]ς ἐμφυλίου πλή[ρ]η), in addition to being barred from the cult.Footnote ⁶⁸ Peer denunciation is to be the mechanism of enforcement (ll. 28–31), as well as the use of the stele itself as a touchstone (during prayers and the required oath-rituals, ll. 56–60), but in general the sanctions consists of threats of divine punishment (ll. 43–6, 48–50) while, conversely, blessings are formulated for those who respect and obey the commands (ll. 46–8, compare 50–4).

In other words, instead of a series of cases of impurity that could be readily resolved, whether through washing or delays in participation, the precepts outlined by Dionysios in this stele are detailed moral principles that hold dire consequences when contravened. This is not to say that some standard cases of abstention (ἁγνεία) and their correspondingly necessary purifications (καθαρμοί) would not have been covered implicitly by Dionysios’ rules. This in fact seems to be what is alluded to by traditional practice in lines 12–14: ἁγνισμοί and καθαρμοί… κατά τε τὰ πάτρια.Footnote ⁶⁹ To take the case of sexual relations, in addition to the ἁγνεία expected of men after sex with one’s wife (ἀπὸ γυναικός) or after visiting a courtesan (ἑταίρα), Dionysios’ stele makes explicit the parameters of these sexual relations: they are absolutely not to concern married women or those not yet married (children, maidens). It is probable that adultery was always implicitly proscribed, even by other purity regulations that seem to take a broader view of sexual relations, as ἀφροδίσια ‘sexual dealings’, for instance.Footnote ⁷⁰ But in the case of women, the stele is still more strict: some form of ἁγνεία would still be expected after relations with one’s husband,Footnote ⁷¹ but this was the only partner allowed for married women. This forms a marked contrast with some of the rules broaching the possibility of ἀφροδίσια even for women,Footnote ⁷² but it matches some other purity rules, for example, a text from Lindos that emphasises the licit character of sexual relations when discussing the necessary ἁγνεία in such a case; illicit sex is not mentioned at all, presumably because it was excluded and resulted in a more serious form of impurity.Footnote ⁷³ In other words, Dionysios’ rules supplement standard ritual practice and reshape existing ethical standards, by adding rigid and much weightier moral requirements for participants in the cult housed in his οἶκος.Footnote ⁷⁴

In all of these cases, from Pythion to Xanthos and Dionysios, it is unclear if the intention of the founder of the cult was to create a group such as a durable association. None of the texts envisages the formal structure of an association, with a name and a well-defined membership, for instance. While these dossiers may potentially present primordial snapshots of associations in the making, what can clearly be discerned is that they represent private, individual efforts to inaugurate cults with doors at least partly open to the outside world. Pythion has founded a sanctuary that will belong to his sons, but which may well have accepted outsiders, who must respect some basic guidelines of purity. Xanthos instigates a cult where he is the founder but where anyone may freely gather, following some detailed guidelines for sacrifice and purification. Dionysios invites both genders, free individuals and slaves, but is more demanding, explicitly requiring that men, and women especially, abstain completely from deviant behaviour that is deemed impure. In these individual acts, then, the rules concerning purity play a fundamental role in regulating access to the sanctuary and the cult: the delays of ἁγνεία proposed by Pythion are relatively standard and strict, but are few in number and quite briefly presented at the conclusion of the stele, which seems to have functioned as a sign demarcating the sanctuary for worshippers; those expounded by Xanthos are of similar character, but are presented in a more detailed fashion and also include moral precepts, whether on the lengthier stele (text A) or on the sign for worshippers (text B). Finally, the case of Dionysios is different, since the strict rules he presented seem to have been aimed not just at safeguarding the purity of the sanctuary, but at shaping the moral character of worshippers in his οἶκος. All of these acts may represent attempts at a transition from private or familial worship to a cult that aimed to become more open to the public. The intended process is relatively clear given the publication of the inscribed documents for each cult, though it is not sure if this transformation became fully realised in each case.

Conclusion

Groups that were particularly concerned with purity form a disparate array. We have looked at one, the Bacchoi at Cnidus, which was concerned to maintain standards of purity in a sanctuary but which did not have the authority or power to do so (Section 1). It is likely that many other cult groups and even associations, which partook in civic sanctuaries rather than possessing their own cult sites, were faced with similar problems. More clearly an association, the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale recreated the rules of the major sanctuaries of Pergamum for the use and benefit of worshippers in the countryside (Section 2). Finally, we analysed a series of private cults that expounded rules of purity, probably as part of a process of opening their doors to a wider community (Section 3). In the case of the Asklepiastai and the private cults of Pythion and Xanthos, it is no coincidence that we are dealing with the act of inaugurating a cult. One of the main strategies employed for addressing new and potential worshippers and for defining the sacred space used by the cult was the publication of casuistic rules of purity. Enacting rules of purity of this sort can thus be seen as a mechanism for fostering participation beyond the core group of the association or the family, while at the same time maintaining religious (and moral) standards expected of a sanctuary.

More distinctive is the case of Dionysios at Philadelphia, which in fact required that worshippers abstain permanently from certain acts, such as adultery, and, in the case of women, from sex outside of marriage. This was not just the casuistic type of ἁγνεία necessitating a temporary absence from the sanctuary, therefore, but a sort of ‘categorical imperative’ that was imposed on potential worshippers. Yet even such ideas were far from new. We might, for instance, recall a similar view aired as part of the accusations made against Androtion, in the speech written by Demosthenes in 356/5 BC.

Some impure deeds were severe enough that they could be viewed as beyond the remedy of time or mere purification by washing. In fact, casuistic purity rules could also include clauses that issued similar moral pronouncements. A prime example is a much later text from Lindos, recently reedited, which concluded a list of ἁγνείαι with the statement: ‘from illicit acts one is never pure’ (ἀπὸ τῶν παρανόμων οὐδέποτε καθαρός).Footnote ⁷⁶ Xanthos in his rules also emphasised the moral dimension of purity, advising worshippers to approach or perform the cult ‘with a simple soul’.Footnote ⁷⁷

While moral commands could thus be part of the entry rules for all worshippers, some of the difference between the casuistic rules of the Asklepiastai, Pythion and Xanthos, on the one hand, and the strict purity rules of Dionysios, on the other, can be explained in terms of whom these rules addressed.Footnote ⁷⁸ The casuistic rules applied to any and all worshippers in sanctuaries that were open to a wide participation. In such cases, there could be a core group or association, but the cultic community was potentially much wider. The rules of Dionysios, by contrast, were more demanding and find closer analogies in rules for membership in an association. One celebrated Athenian inscription, containing the foundational rules (literally, ‘a law of friendship’, θεσμὸν φιλίης, l. 28) for a community calling itself an eranos, provides an evocative parallel.Footnote ⁷⁹ The rules begin immediately with a stipulation of what an ideal member would be: no one is to be admitted to the group without a formal examination or dokimasia performed by the officials of the group.Footnote ⁸⁰ This, of course, imitates some structures of the Athenian state, where the dokimasia was held to scrutinise the legitimacy of officials, whether they possessed citizenship and met all the requirements to hold a specific office.Footnote ⁸¹ But there is a fundamental difference in the case of this eranos: the dokimasia is not one of the legitimacy, but instead concerns the character of the prospective new member into an assembly that presents itself as ‘most revered’ or ‘holy’ (ἰ̣ς̣ τὴν σεμνοτάτ̣ην | σύνοδον τῶν ἐρανιστῶν) and that was probably focussed on the cult of a hero.Footnote ⁸² The prospective member must first and foremost be ἁ[γν]ός, that is to say, chaste and abstemious with regard to known sources of impurity; the other criteria listed are piety (εὐσεβής) and general goodness of character (ἀγ̣α[θ]ός̣; this adjective might also refer to ‘good birth’).Footnote ⁸³ The rules then went on to discuss further, but related, practicalities: if anyone caused fights or disturbances, they would be expelled from the eranos and subject to a fine.Footnote ⁸⁴ Only one who was not hagnos, eusebes and agathos would be at the source of such chaos in the sanctuary or risk shedding blood in the ‘most holy assembly’.

Purity, piety and good morality were the requirements for membership in this Athenian association, as they were for participation in the cult of Dionysios at Philadelphia. A process of dokimasia was undertaken to test for these characteristics in the Athenian eranos, just as, in the oikos of Dionysios, oaths would be required of participants in good, ethical standing. The purity rules of Dionysios, though they do not explicitly claim this purpose, should therefore be thought of as analogous to membership rules for admission into an association. A recent study by Kloppenborg concluded that the moral principles that constituted criteria of admission in associations ‘not only served as a public advertisement of the propriety of the members, but functioned internally to create an ethos of trust and solidarity that no doubt served as an instrument of recruitment’.Footnote ⁸⁵ What we have witnessed here, however, are quite varying strategies of advertising and potential recruitment: for instance, the Asklepiastai at Yaylakale promoted good health and simply recommended washing after any sexual activity; the precepts of Dionysios at Philadelphia on the same subject were, to say the least, much more strict and elaborately codified.

Rules of purity, though only occasionally apparent in the available evidence, constitute an interesting case study for evaluating how a cultic community chose to present and define itself. Such rules could be modelled on local practice or developed according to more widespread ethical and religious principles in the Greek world. The norms of purity functioned not only as a necessary precondition for the maintenance of good order, but could shape participation in the cultic community, whether this was formalised as an association or not. Purity regulations could be published to open and regulate access to a sanctuary for a wider group of worshippers, as well as to define admission and participation in a limited cultic group, like an association. Much like for sanctuaries generally, the rules of purity enabled groups to establish a difficult equilibrium between expanding their networks of worshippers and maintaining appropriate control over the cults themselves.