New Documents from Lydia

In this book, a supplementary volume to the Tituli Asiae Minoris, the authors present new Greek inscriptions from the Hermos and Cayster valleys in Lydia. All the texts have been discovered during MALAY`s researches which were financed by the Kleinasiatische Kommission of ÖAW. The lemmata are arranged in geographical order under headings serving to identify their contents, with date, translation, commentary and illustration. At the end the authors offer detailed indexes, photographs and a map. Of the 101 texts providing new evidence in respect to history, onomastics, language, historical geography and prosopography, the most important documents are the two fragmentary texts from the Attalid chancellery which dates to 165/4 B.C. They are concerned with several benefits and privileges granted to some Mysians who suffered from the well-known Galatikos polemos (168-6 B.C.). One of these documents is in the form of a prostagma, perhaps directed to some subordinate local functionary, while the other, with a series of statements in the first person plural, seems to be addressed to a royal official by the King. Of the long Hellenistic decrees one is resolved by the Maeonians in order to honour a certain Mogetes, the other by some Heroistai, i.e. the members of a funerary cult association. In addition to a considerable number of minor honorific and funerary inscriptions, also important for prosopography, many dedications to various divinities are the novelties of considerable interest and deserve to catch the eye of specialists. These dedications record many different local cults, i.e. Apollon (Tolos, Axyros, Tarsios), Zeus (Stratios, Soter, "from Twin Oaks", Patroos, Megistos, Olympios, Oreites, Digindenos, Sabazios), Hermos (the River-God), Artemis (Boritene, Anaeitis), Meter (Tarsene, Tazene, Anaeitis), Men (Axiottenos, Motylleites, Ouranios, Tiamou etc.), Perkoos (a Thracian god) etc. Many of the dedications, on the other hand, record confessions of sins followed by divine punishment and certain gifts (thymolysia) to mitigate the divine anger. These confessions supply important evidence for the history of religion of rural Asia Minor. The most interesting stories recorded in these texts are: a punished woman who applied to the god only after the doctors had come to her; appeal of a man to Men Ouranios all-seeing judge in heaven; offering of three animals (triphonon) to a deity taking away a sin or disease; a punished woman who disregarded her obligation to give in return immediately the ex-voto; a man who refused to give a stolen pig to the priest; a sinner who handled recklessly the god`s land and made a trade; inhabitants of a village who paid ransom to certain gods; a woman slave who entered a sacred place unsuitably; a crowd who crushed the sacred slaves and the images of the gods with swords, sticks and stones; two brothers, who overcame their father, asked the gods, the Great Senatus, the Council of the Gods and Hieros Doumos (a religious association) in order to obtain mercy. The information supplied by these new confessions now make it necessary to reconsider some questions concerning the relations between the rural population and the local sanctuaries.