A Hellenistic Inscription from Bargylia Rigsby, Kent J Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1975; 16, 4; ProQuest pg. 403

A Hellenistic Inscription from Bargylia 
Kent J. Rigsby 

I N 1739 Richard Poco eke copied on Samos an inscription which, he 
was told, had been brought to the island from Mylasa in Caria.1 

On the basis of Po cocke's majuscule copy, Boeckh in 1835 was able 
to present the text in a scholarly fashion, recognizing in it the remains 
of two civic decrees concerning the acceptance of the panhellenic 
games and the inviolability (acv"{a) of some city or temple.2 In 1903 
Paul Graindor offered a number of new restorations, an interpretation 
of the diplomatic relationship of the two decrees, and a theory about 
the identity of the city honored.3 I shall reserve a reedition of this 
document for a corpus of grants of inviolability which I am preparing; 
but the identity of the city that received these honors, on which 
Graindor's suggestions must be rejected, merits a separate investi­
gation. 

The upper text is a letter in Doric from the recipient of the honors 
to Bargylia; the lower is the Bargylian decree recognizing the Dorian 
city's panhellenic games and inviolability. The stone itself therefore 
probably stood originally at Bargylia (as Pococke already suspected), 
coming to Samos by way of Mylasa if his informant was correct, and 
is the grantor's copy: for the' recipient of the status, in its inscribed 
archive of such grants, is less likely to have included its own letter. 
Graindor understood the upper text as a vote of thanks to Bargylia 
for its favorable response to the Dorian city's request for the recog­
nition; such a gesture would not be completely unparalleled Ccf IG IV 
679). The order of the two texts on the stone, however, suggests 
strongly that the Dorian letter is the ordinary initial invitation to 
Bargylia to recognize the festival (cf Syll.3 590). Otherwise we must 
imagine, with Graindor, that the Dorian city learned Bargylia's 

1 R. Pococke, Inscriptionum Antiquarum Graecarum et Latinarum Liber (London 1752) 44; on 
the poor quality of his copies see L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1937) 23 and 135. 

2 A. Boeckh, eIG II 2670, with reproduction of Po cocke's majuscules. The basic studies of 
acvAla remain B. Barth, De Graecorum Asy/is (Strasbourg 1888) and E. Schlesinger, Die 
gnechische Asylie (Giessen 1933); for panhellenic games see P. Boesch, 8£wpoc, Untersuchung 
~ur Epangelie griechischer Feste (Zurich 1908), and the references in Hug, RE 3A (1929) 2351 
S.V. STEPHANlTl!S AGON. 

S MusB 7 (1903) 296-300. 

403 



404 A HELLENISTIC INSCRIPTION FROM BARGYLIA 

response and conveyed a vote of thanks before Bargylia had inscribed 
its own decree.4 

The date of the inscription can be estimated, for virtually all extant 
civic grants of aev.\{a fall between approximately 250 and 150 B.C. 

From the surviving text we know that the city in question was Dorian 
and that its chief divinity, honored with acv.\ta, was a goddess (rae 
BE[ov], line 11). Two of Graindor's restorations, which would identify 
the city and the cult, must be rejected. In the Bargylian decree (line 
25), he understood [8€86xOaL T((h 8~I-'WL' E7TatVEeat] TOV 8fjl-'ov Tove 
T€[- -], and suggested T(-ry)[.\{ove] as the ethnic to be restored. But a 
subject is otiose and confusing with this infinitive; the sentiment is 
usually phrased E7T(ltVEClXL TOV 8fjl-'ov TWV 8€{vwv. Boeckh's restoration, 
[8€86xOaL I-'€TEX€tV] TOV 8fjf.LoV TOV eT€[cPav{TOV aywvoe], is at least 
economical. Telos, moreover, was probably too insignificant ever to 
have obtained inviolability and panhellenic games.s 

Again, as Graindor restored, the Dorian city had sent its ambas­
sadors «concerning the Persian goddess and inviolability," [7T€p{ 'T€ 

Tae BEOV Tae ll€pe]tKae KaL 7TEpL Tae aevAta[e] (line 6, leftunrestored by 
Boeckh). This is most unlikely. This divinity is known expressly as 
<the Persian goddess' only in Lydia, in the Hyrcanian plain and around 
Mt Tmolus; under other names she is attested rather more widely in 
Anatolia.6 But we may not imagine that a Dorian city of the Hel­
lenistic age had <the Persian goddess' as its chief divinity. 

From what is known today about the proliferation of panhellenic 
games and of inviolability among Hellenistic cities, it may be possible 
to suggest another identity for the city and cult. Inviolability was the 
most prized civic status of the Hellenistic world, attained by fewer 
than twenty cities or temples in the first century of its existence. Of 
those known to us few were Dorian, and most of these are removed 

, Boesch, op.cit. (supra n.2) 99 n.1, commented on this oddity but accepted Graindor's 
interpretation; but see L. Robert, BCR 49 (1925) 236 n.5 (Opera Minora Selecta I [paris 1969] 
30), who also rejects Graindor's identification of the city and cult. 

6 The evidence for Telos as an independent city is collected by L. Robert, RevPhi11934, 
43-48 (Opera Minora I 569-74). 

41 Cf H. Oppermann, RE 19 (1937) 1026-29 s.\>. PER.SIKl!: this epithet only at Hierocaesarea, 
Hypaepa, Mermere and the ancient site southwest of San <;am (cf L. Robert, Villes d' Asie 
Mineurel [paris 1962] 88-90, especially 89 n.2 on the provenance of C. B. Welles, Royal 
Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period [New Haven 1934] nO.68). See further L. Robert, 
Hellenica 4 (Paris 1948) 19 n.1, CRA! 1953, 410f (Opera Minora Selecta III [Paris 1969] 1532f), 
Noms indigenes dans I'Asie-Mineure I (Paris 1963) 217 and 349, on these cults as evidence of 
Iranian population groups. 



KENT J. RIGSBY 405 

from consideration by the gender of the honored divinity: Asclepius 
at Cos, Apollo at Chalcedon, Delphi, Anaphe. After such eliminations, 
the one possible candidate, a Dorian city with a goddess honored with 
inviolability and panhellenic games, would seem to be Megara with 
the cult of Artemis Soteira: L. Robert has identified an inscription said 
to be from Megara as a fragment of an archive of acvAla grants. 7 

Some doubt, however, attaches to this case, for, as Robert observed, 
the name of one of the allegedly Megarian ambassadors is not Doric 
(-lIOOO7J/LOll). One is obliged to choose between the possibilities of a 
mason's error (H for A), a <pierre errante', or an error on the part of 
Viscount Strangford (who acquired the stone in the 1820's).8 

There is some reason, then, to pass over Megara and search among 
cities not currently known as recipients of inviolability. In seeking a 
Dorian goddess honored in our period by the creation of panhellenic 
games, one finds, if I am not mistaken, only Artemis Hyacintho­
trophos of Cnidus.9 The enlargement of her contest is known from 
two fragmentary inscriptions dated to the late third or early second 
century B.C., one a Delphian decree of recognition inscribed on the 
Cnidian treasury at Delphi (FD IIL1 308), the other an unpublished 
text from Cos containing the Cnidian decree of request and the Coan 
recognition. lO Several victors in the panhellenic Hyacinthotropheia are 
subsequently attested in late Hellenistic inscriptions.u In the second 
century B.C. the goddess bore the added title 'ETrupall-rlc, and indeed 
the unpublished Cnidian decree cites a manifestation of Artemis as 
the occasion for the requested increase in her honors.12 

7 L. Robert, Etudes epigraphiques et philologiques (Paris 1938) 70-76, on IG VII 16. 
8 On Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, sixth Viscount of Strangford and British ambassador 

in Istanbul from 1821 to 1824, see E. Barrington de Fonblanque, Lives of the Lords Strangford 
(London 1877) 107-203; DNB 18.603-05. Mr B. F. Cook of the British Museum, Department 
of Greek and Roman Antiquities, kindly writes that "research on other objects from his 
Collection suggests that the stated provenances are not always reliable and may be dis­
regarded," and refers to an instance in the forthcomingJournal of the J. Paul Getty Museum. 
Foucart and Holleaux's attribution to Cyzicus would then be possible (M. Holleaux, 
Etudes d'epigraphie et d'histoire grecques I [Paris 1938J 211-17). 

e Cf Boesch, op.cit. (supra n.2) 98-99, with Robert,loc.cit. (supra n.4). The cult of Demeter 
Chthonia at Hermione should be noted, although participation in this festival does not 
seem to have extended beyond the Peloponnesus (IG IV 679 and 727; Boesch 117). 

10 R. Herzog, ArchAnz 1905, 11, cf Hermes 65 (1930) 462; M. Segre in L. Robert, Hellenica 
5 (paris 1948) 108 n.l. 

11 L. Robert, Hellenica 7 (Paris 1949) 114-16. 
12 SGDI 3502.13f, a temple and priest for 'AfYTafU'Tt ']aKVVUorpo.pwt (K]al'E7Tt.pave'i; 3512, a 

dedication to 'AfYTajUn '/aKWUO'Tp0.pw, 'Em.pave;'; for the manifestation see Herzog, ArchAnz 
1905,11. 



406 A HELLENISTIC INSCRIPTION FROM BARGYLIA 

In antiquity public miracles tended to happen when they were 
needed, and they were most often needed in time of military crisis, 
the god intervening to save his dty.IS Homolle, commenting on the 
Delphian decree, was surely right to suspect that the background of 
the event was a military attack on Cnidus. I suggest that the Bargylian 
inscription reveals a similar background, for the Dorian dty has 
restored its contest, evidently after a lapse: ['Tou] aywvoc 8(v) a7TOKa'T'C­
'Ta[ CEV a 7T(~AtC ap.'wv] (line 8: OT Pococke). While many reasons might 
be imagined for such a lapse, war is the cause of the disruption of 
festivals that is most commonly mentioned in Hellenistic texts,14 and 
it is a reasonable deduction that the Dorian dty has been under attack. 

Moreover, miracles tended in Hellenistic diplomacy to merit more 
than the creation of panhellenic games; they were, in fact, commonly 
the occasion to ask for the recognition of inviolability. This tendency 
may shed further light on the Delphian decree (the only published 
acceptance of the Hyadnthotropheia). Fragmentary throughout and 
of undetermined line-length, the text states that Cnidus has sent 
ambassadors to Delphi and has undertaken to increase the honors of 
the goddess, asking Delphi to join in this effort: Delphi decrees to 
praise the Cnidians for the piety they show Artemis Hyadnthotrophos, 

,> ~ ~, B [ ] , '\ '[B' " > ... , Kat a7TOOEOEX a t 'T av 7TO/UV 'Tav vctav - - - Kat 'TOVC aywvac P.OVCtKOV 

Ka!]1 YVP.VtKOV lC07TVB{ovc K'TA. (lines 9-10; Homolle suggested in his 
note on the passage [Bvclav &v P.'AAOVCtV <XYEtv Ka! 'Tctv 7Tavayvptv]). The 
restoration is not altogether satisfactory. The verb serves first without 
and then with a double accusative, and is endowed with a subject 
where none is needed (the subject 'Tctv 7T6Atv is stated later, in line 12, 
when future enactments are promised with a present infinitive). 
Homolle considered the restoration 'Tctv 7T6Atv 'Tav [KvtS{wv <xcvAov 
Elp.Ev] only to reject it: «the Cnidians are called 6 Sap.oc 1. 14, and the 
words a7TOC'TEtAac 1. 3, aV'Twt 1. 4, av'Tou 1. 8, prove that throughout the 
text 0 Sap.oc 'TWV KvtS{wv is to be restored" (FD m p.l71 n.1). The 
restoration would indeed be mistaken, but not for the reason stated. 
The formula <dty and country' is virtually obligatory in grants of 
acvAta to a dty, and the use of this formula is not dependent on the 

18 See in general F. pfister. RE Suppl. 4 (1924) 277£1'. s.v. EPIPHANIE; P. Roussel, BCH 55 
(1931) 95£1'. 

1& As examples see OGIS 55 .33ff; H. H. Schmitt, Die Staatsvertritge des Altertums ill (Munich 
1969) no.523.8ff and 46ff; AthMitt 33 (1908) 406 no.35, if. ehr. Habicht, Altert1lmer von 
Pergamon vrn.3 (Berlin 1969) 26ft"; IG IX.l 694.18ft" and 25ft"; cf. Robert, op.cit. (supra n.1) 
426. 



KENT J. RIGSBY 407 

juridical person that authors the city's decrees. Is The proper formula 
would also make of this line a Greek sentence: a.7TODE"DEXOa[(. r ]<xv 7TO.\('V 
'[K <::' " , ., ,,, \ ". ~ \] ray V£OtWV Kat 'Tav xwpav tE"pav Kat. aev/\ov Kat rove aywvae Kr/\. 
If these suggestions are correct, the Bargylian and Delphian in­

scriptions both stem from an effort by Cnidus, around 200 B.C., to 
obtain Greek recognition of panhellenic games and inviolability. But 
it must be emphasized that there is no specific point of contact be­
tween the two texts (such as the ambassadors' names or a mention in 
the Delphian decree of the unusual <restoration' of the contest) which 
would guarantee that the two texts concerned the same city. If the 
Dorian city of the Bargylian inscription is Cnidus, then the opening 
of the letter is vague and therefore unrevealing: [Kvt8twv (& Oaf1-0e 
Ka,) 0' apxov]T€C Bapyvlw'l'TWV rat 7T().\' [xatPE"'v]. Cnidus did not to our 
knowledge have <archons', but civic letters were authored by <the 
magistrates' (ol apxovT€c) collectively16 as often as by the chief 
executive magistrates, who at Cnidus would have been the 7TpOC'Ta­
'TatP If the name of the goddess is to be restored in line 6, perhaps the 
Cnidians on this occasion used one of the most common epithets of 
Artemis: [7TE"P' rac • Apraf1-LrOe rae l:W7"€ ]t(P )ae Kat 7Tfpt rae aevAta[ e J.18 

The necessary implication of these suggestions is that there was at 
Cnidus an inscribed archive of decrees of inviolability, none of which 
has been found on the site. The archive would probably have been 
inscribed on the temple of Artemis, which has not yet been identified. 
A cult of the importance of Artemis Hyacinthotrophos might fittingly 
have occupied the Corinthian temple of Roman imperial date in the 
northwest part of the city. This building had been at last report only 
superficially excavated,19 but presumably it replaced an earlier 

15 Random examples of a ~ijp.oc whose dty and country are declared inviolable are ICr 1. 
xxvii 1 and n.iii 1 for Teos. 

16 E.g., & 1ro.uc Kal. ol apxOVT€c at Cydonia rather than the KOCP.O£ (ICr II x 2); if. & 1rOA£C 
at ThessaIonica (IG X.2 1028). 

17 Thus the strategoi at Athens (Syll.3 664) and Lampsacus (BCH 77 [1953] 426), the pole­
marchs and synedroi at Thebes (ICr II xxiii 1); a letter from Thera to Cnidus was addressed 
to 1rpOCT&[7]a£c Kat [TW]£ oo[p.w]£ (IG XII.3 322; the usage of the Roman chancellery in Syll.3 
780 is uninformative here). 

18 Pococke mistook K for P in line 14. This epithet. however, was apparently not used in 
the Delphian decree, and not in the two texts dted supra n.12. 

19 See the general description in E. AkurgaI, Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey3 

(Istanbul 1973) 252f; I. Love in M. Mellink, AJA 73 (1969) 216, for the date; AJA 76 (1972) 
61, for the state of the excavations. 



408 A HELLENISTIC INSCRIPTION FROM BARGYLIA 

temple and its inscriptions. Future excavation may resolve these 
matters. 

Homolle recognized from the Delphian decree the event that must 
lie behind the Cnidian request.20 If the Bargylian text concerns Cnidus, 
it further clarifies one of the central events in the city's history. 
During his Carian expedition,21 Philip V, probably late in the sum­
mer of 201, besieged Cnidus, making several unsuccessful attacks and 
finally withdrawing, defeated by the strength of the place.22 By 
autumn he had moved on to the north, ravaging Mylasa and Alabanda 
and holding Bargylia under siege through the winter, until he evacu­
ated Caria in the early months of 200. The expedition was not without 
some success, for several cities, including Bargylia, owed him some 
sort of allegiance still in 196.23 The two inscriptions suggest what these 
events meant to Cnidus: that the time for the Hyacinthotropheia, 
which will have been annual, came while Cnidus was under siege, 
and the festival could not be held; that Artemis, manifesting herself 
in some way, was credited with the withdrawal of the Macedonian 
forces from the city; and that the Cnidians, following what had 
become a custom in the third century, commemorated this event by 
seeking Greek recognition of the sanctity of their city and the pan­
hellenic status of the restored games of Artemis, who, for a time at 
least,24 became the patron divinity of Cnidus. 

The granting of inviolability was a matter that transcended political 
allegiance. In this instance, Aetolian Delphi and Antigonid Bargylia 
recognize the sanctity of a free city. The two neighbors Bargylia and 

. Cnidus had both suffered at the hands of a powerful invader, and 
Bargylia evidently much the worse. Indeed, the Cnidians, commemo­
rating the event which had preserved their independence, must have 
realized that their own good fortune could not have been viewed 
with indifference at Bargylia. Edouard Will, in a provocative note on 

20 FD ill 1 (1929) p.l71 n.2 "if we reject a private apparition of the goddess to a believer 
and consider rather an offidal manifestation, occurring in a moment of crisis, to save the 
dty, for example from danger in war, we may recall the siege of Cnidus by Philip in 201." 

11 For the chronology, see M. Holleaux, op.dt. (supra n.B) IV (1952) 21lff. 
211 Polyb. 16.11.1; the dty is identified only by a gloss, as H. H. Schmitt properly cautions 

(Untersuchungen {Ur Geschichte Antiochus' der Grossen und seiner Zeit [Wiesbaden 1964] 258), 
but its accuracy has not been questioned. 

18 Livy 33.30.3, with H. Bengston, Die Strategie in der hellenistischen ZeitS II (Munich 1964) 
367ff • 

• , On the possible later eclipse of the contest of Artemis see L. Robert, Hellenica 7 (paris 
1949) 116. 



KENT J. RIGSBY 409 

these years, detected the growth of a feeling of community among 
the old Greek cities of the eastern Aegean in the face of the increasing 
feebleness and violence of the Hellenistic monarchs.25 Perhaps the 
rapid spread of nCVA-ta: in these years was facilitated by this same 
spirit. 

DUKE UNIVERSITY 

July, 1975 

15 Histoire politique du monde helUnistique n (Nancy 1967) 109: "no one will doubt that the 
crisis of the great kingdoms ... had meant a degree of relaxation for the Greek cities of the 
old tradition, on the islands and the coast of Asia Minor, and had fostered regional alliances 
among cities and with a Pergamum as yet not formidable. The evidence is nevertheless 
insufficient to reveal whether this was a factor fostering a trend toward federalism ... but 
it is certain that the brutal irruption of Philip V into a little world no longer accustomed 
to feel too heavily the weight of royal tutelage would have favored its cohesion."