Aparatos de Comunicación

Prescriptions about correct ritual behaviour are not confi ned to boundary markers alone; they are either the main topic or a part of other documents as well, many of which originate as decrees of the local assembly or of a private body organized around a spe- cifi c cult.43 _{Often, they were exhibited in the sanctuary with which}

they were concerned, either in their entirety or in a relevant digest; Pausanias saw such a law in the sanctuary of Hyrnetho in Argos and summarized its main provisions.44 _{Modern scholarship, going as far}

back as the late nineteenth century, called such prescriptions ‘sacred laws’, lois sacrées, leges sacrae. In so far as such prescriptions are not just part of public decrees, laws, of which sacred laws then would be a subcategory, the term is problematical and has recently been questioned; but it has some heuristic advantage if only to help to structure the mass of epigraphical texts, and should not be discarded easily.45

Priene preserved three decrees like this. Two decrees of the assem- bly regulate the sale of a priesthood, of Dionysos Phleos in one case, of Poseidon Helikonios in another. The former is a well- preserved excerpt of such a decree, with the title įȚĮȖࣁĮࢥ੽ ǻȚȠȞ઄ıȠȣ ĭȜ੼Ƞȣ, ‘Ordinance of Dionysos Phleos’.46 _{It omits all technicalities such as}

the date of the assembly, the offi cials, the mover of the decree and the decision on its display; instead, it adds the name of the buyer and the price he paid, things known only after the assembly had fi n- ished. The inscription thus served both as a record of the transaction

41 I.Gonnoi 197 and 198 (Asklepios), 210. 42 An uncertain case, AnnEpig 1914, 15.211.

43 Not necessarily identical with the distinction between polis cult and private cult.

44 Paus. 2.28.7; Pirenne- Delforge, Retour à la source, p. 132.

45 See E. Lupu, Greek Sacred Law (Leiden: Brill, 20092_{), and R. Parker, ‘What are}

sacred laws?’, in E. M. Harris and L. Rubinstein (eds), The Law and the Courts in

Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2004), pp. 57–70.

and as a reminder of the rules under which the incumbent offi ciated; since the offi ce lasted as long as he lived, such a reminder had its use. The second is preserved in two copies, a full decree and an excerpt.47

Neither of these two laws is interested in the divinity, but instead in the duties and privileges of the future buyer of the priesthood. But since the priest of Dionysos Phleos also had to perform the sacrifi ces for Dionysos Katagogios and for Dionysos Melpomenos in the theatre, we grasp a hierarchy among the diff erent cults of Dionysos in the city, which was refl ected in the incidence of cult (sacrifi ces throughout the year versus sacrifi ces connected with specifi c events such as theatrical performances only) and perhaps in the organization of sacred space (sanctuary versus an altar only in the theatre). This does not mean, however, that a lesser hierarchical position makes a specifi c cult less relevant for the city: the duty in the cult of Dionysos Melpomenos was ‘to perform sacrifi ces for Dionysos Melpomenos in the theatre, to burn incense, to lead the libation and to say the prayers for the citizens of Priene’.48 _{The occasion that assembled the people of Priene in their}

theatre did not serve for entertainment only but was also supposed to bring them divine blessings. Poseidon Helikonios in turn was wor- shipped in the Panionion, whose administration was in the hands of little Priene;49 _{the texts, identical except for the technical introduction}

of the decree, again deal with the duties and privileges of the buyer and refer to a decree of the Ionians on the cult that must have been displayed in the Panionion.50

The very fragmentary third decree regards the priest of the Egyptian gods from whose sanctuary it comes; the introduction is lost, but it was most probably issued again from the public assembly to deter- mine the details of the priesthood when it came up for sale. The gods whose names are preserved are ‘Sarapis, Isis and the gods with them’; one of them, as we can read later, was Apis. These immigrant gods retained their Egyptian cult forms, to judge from the detail that ‘the priest also provides an Egyptian who will help to perform the sacrifi ce expertly; it is forbidden for anyone else to perform the sacrifi ce for the goddess without expertise, except for the priest’. We know of similar rules from elsewhere: part of the attraction of the Egyptian gods was

47 Poseidon I.Priene 201 and 202; LSAM 38 (second century BC).

48 I.Priene 174.15–19, șȪıİȚ į੻ țĮ੿ IJ੹Ȣ șȣı઀ĮȢ IJ੹Ȣ ਥȞ IJ૵Ț șİ੺IJࣁȦȚ IJ૵Ț ΔȚȠȞ઄ıȦȚ IJ૵Ț ȂİȜʌȠμ੼ȞȦȚ țĮ੿ ȜȚȕĮȞȦIJઁȞ ਥʌȚș੾ıİȚ țĮ੿ ıʌȠȞįĮࣁȤ੾ıİȚ țĮ੿ IJ੹Ȣ İ੝Ȥ੹Ȣ İ੡ȟİIJĮȚ ਫ਼ʌ੻ࣁ IJોȢ ʌંȜİȦȢ IJોȢ ȆࣁȚȘȞ੼ȦȞ.

49 Regulations for the priesthood of the god: I.Priene 201 and 202 (= LSAM 38); see also I.Priene 203; on the archaeological record: G. Kleiner, P. Hommel and W. Müller- Wiener, Panionion und Melie (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967).

50 I.Priene 201.8–9. The decree guarantees the privileges and curses whoever attempts to diminish them, which seems to point to tensions inside the federation.

their exoticism, which might have promised special power.51 _{But it has}

to be underlined that the city guaranteed this exoticism, if the decree really was issued by the assembly; there was no dichotomy of values between ‘Hellenic’ and foreign cultic identity.