Contents Elaine Matthews: Introduction Jean-Claude Decourt & Athanasios Tziafalias: Mythological and Heroic Names in th...
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Contents Elaine Matthews: Introduction Jean-Claude Decourt & Athanasios Tziafalias: Mythological and Heroic Names in the onomastics of Atrax (Thessaly) Laurence Darmezin & Athanasios Tziafalias: The Twelve Tribes of Atrax: a Lexical Study Jean-Luis Garcia Ramon: Thessalian Personal Names and the Greek Lexicon Peter M Fraser: the Ptolemaic Garrison of Ptolemais Hermiou Denis Knoepfler: Was there an Anthroponymy of Euboian Origin in the Chalkid-Eretrian Colonies of the West and of Thrace? Thomas Corsten: Thracian Personal Names and Military Settlements in Hellenistic Bithynia Rudiger Schmitt: Greek Re-interpretation of Iranian Names by Folk Etymology Stephen Mitchell: The Persian Presence in the Religious Sanctuaries of Asia Minor Margaret H Williams: Semitic Name-Use by Jews in Roman Asia Minor and the dating of the Aphrodisias Stele Inscriptions Maurice Sartre: The Ambiguous Name: the Limitations of Cultural Identity in Graeco-Roman Onomastics
Introduction ELAINE MATTHEWS
THE PAPERS IN THIS VOLUME derive from the second Lexicon of Greek Personal Names colloquium, held at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in March 2003. As for the first colloquium in 1998,1 the theme and timing were chosen to mark a progression in the work of the LGPN project, and in the hope of generating scholarly discussion which would reflect and respond to that progress. The first colloquium had been something of a celebration, as Peter Fraser’s eightieth birthday coincided with a turning point in the progress of the project, with three LGPN volumes published, and only the North remaining to complete coverage of the Greek mainland. It seemed a good moment to assess the impact of LGPN, to see to what extent the hopes and expectations had been met, both those of Peter Fraser when he proposed the project to the British Academy in the early 1970s,2 and those of users of the work. Our speakers were invited to explore the contribution which names can make to a broad sweep of classical studies: philology, religion, historiography, fiction, and political history. By 2003, LGPN’s work on Northern Greece and the Black Sea was nearing completion.3 The project was already engaged with Thracian and Iranian influences on names, which awaited us, with greater force, across the Bosporos in Asia Minor. This colloquium would look both ways, back to the ‘old’ world, and forward to the ‘new’ world of Asia Minor.
1 Held at the British Academy in July 1998. See S. Hornblower and E. Matthews (eds.), Greek Personal Names: their Value as Evidence, Proceedings of the British Academy 104 (Oxford, 2000). 2 See ‘A New Lexicon of Greek Personal Names’ in Tribute to an Antiquary: Essays presented to Marc Fitch (London, 1976), 73 ff. Fraser picked out religion, social history, and comparative philology and dialectology as major areas where LGPN would make most impact. 3 LGPN IV: Macedonia, Thrace, Northern Shores of the Black Sea (Oxford, 2005).
Proceedings of the British Academy 148, 1–7. © The British Academy 2007.
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In compiling the onomasticon of the ancient Greek-speaking world, LGPN ranges over a period of more than 1,000 years. It embraces periods of epichoric alphabet, dialect, and koine; city states and colonies, Hellenistic kingdoms, and the Roman Empire; the spread of new religions, including Christianity; and territories where earlier cultures had left their mark in institutions and language (and therefore names), and where ethnically diverse communities lived side by side. For LGPN, the challenge is to present this range and diversity within one coherent onomastic framework. It is a recurring underlying theme in this volume that we should recognize the limits of what can be achieved with names, despite, and to some degree even because of, the ready availability of an ever-growing body of onomastic evidence through LGPN. Some limits are imposed by the state of the evidence, especially documentary evidence: its uneven distribution in space and time, the dependence on excavation, the rate at which results are published, and the potential of new discoveries to change the picture, making onomastic studies, to some extent, always ‘work in progress’. At the same time, recognition of these limitations, and corresponding attention to details of distribution in space and over time may yield new insights. The second limitation is the ‘human’ element—while general principles may be clear, we are hardly ever in a position to know the reason why a name was chosen in any individual case. This argument has particular force when we are dealing—as in Asia Minor we usually are—with multicultural, multilingual societies, where the choice of personal names offered scope for subtle manoeuvres to assert and maintain cultural identity, while remaining in apparent harmony with the dominant culture or political power.
OLD WORLDS Thessaly was chosen as the archetypal ‘old’ world: in mythology, the home of gods and heroes, in historical times apparently a fairly static society. Aside from the long-established tradition of serving in the armies of foreign rulers,4 a capacity in which they are found in far-flung places, Thessalians are not found abroad in large numbers. Thessaly is also a region of outstanding linguistic, and therefore onomastic interest, not least because of the survival of the Aeolic adjectival form of the patronymic adjective.
4 For Thessalians on military service, see still M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques (Paris, 1950), ii. 1139 ff.; for Egypt, see now C. A. La’da, Foreign Ethnics in Hellenistic Egypt (Louvain, 2002).
INTRODUCTION
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In one respect, however, Thessaly is resoundingly ‘new’, and that is in the rate of new epigraphical discoveries, notably from the excavations of the 13th Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities of Larissa, under the direction of A. Tziafalias. It was a foregone conclusion that we would invite members of the ‘Lyon Thessalian team’, who are collaborating with Tziafalias in the publication of the inscriptions, and their close colleague and collaborator José-Luis García Ramón. All three papers draw out the deep-rootedness of Thessalian names. Decourt and Darmezin deal with Atrax, a modest town which until recently had only fifteen inscriptions to its name, but now numbers more than 500, making it second only to Larissa in the epigraphical league of Thessalian cities. These statistics are astonishing enough, but they do not convey the onomastic richness of these texts, which contain many rare and even unique names. Decourt draws attention to the high proportion of names at Atrax attested there only once—out of a total of 600 names only 70 appear more than twice. As he stresses, this is a pattern observed elsewhere, but it is worth adding that of the 28,316 individual names recorded in LGPN I–III B, 15,203 occur only once.5 Decourt’s survey of the names which reflect mythology and epic uncovers a relative under-representation of names reflecting the Achilles or Herakles Cycles, and by contrast a concentration of names linked to Centaurs and Lapiths, and the Thessalian strands of epic. That is, precisely to a mythology and a history which relate to early episodes in the settlement of the region. Darmezin draws on an unpublished inscription which reveals the names of the twelve tribes of Atrax (previously only one was known), and a number of other civic subdivisions. This is an important discovery, for while civic divisions are attested at several other Thessalian cities, their names are for the most part not known. While most of the tribal names can be related to known anthroponyms, there are some rarities, and some interesting links to the early settlement of the region. The tribe Thamieies —also found at Larissa—relates to Thamiai, the region where the Thessaloi originated. Kelaindai, the name of a genos, is probably derived from kelainos, a poetic word (Prometheus’ wife was Kelaino), later superseded by melas. Such linguistic continuities are fully explored in García Ramón’s study of Thessalian personal names. This paper gives us insights into the methods he is using in the preparation of a Thessalian Grammar, a major project on which he is engaged with Bruno Helly. Through detailed analysis of names 5
These statistics continue: twice: 3,957; 3 times: 1,904; 4 times: 1,237; 5 times: 806; only 342 occur more than 100 times, and only 4 exceed 1,000. LGPN IV has not been included, because the large number of Thracian names, together with names showing Iranian, Sarmatian etc. influence, means that the statistics may be less directly informative about Greek naming practices.
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selected because of their morphological or semantic interest, or because they contain words specifically stated by ancient authorities to be ‘Thessalian’, he examines ‘latent vocabulary’, that is, vocabulary found in Mycenaean, Homer or the early poets but no longer in use in the contemporary lexicon. He thus traces the persistence of Mycenaean–Homeric elements into the historic period, where in due course they may be replaced by the contemporary term. These Thessalian studies are a demonstration of the linguistic continuities to be found in Greek names, continuities which give names their value as measures (sometimes in the absence of other evidence) of Greek cultural responses to new environments. With Fraser’s paper we are in the garrison town of Hermoupolis Magna in Middle Egypt in the last quarter of the second century BC, i.e. about 200 years after the establishment of Ptolemaic rule. Two hundred soldiers, members of a religious koinon, make a dedication; since they give the names of their fathers (patronymic), the list is a rich haul of about 400 names; interestingly, though they collectively describe themselves as xenoi, they do not give ethnics. Fraser’s question is: on the basis of the names alone, can we work out where these soldiers (or rather their forebears), came from? His is a classic onomastic exercise, which produces some surprises along the way: names which have a familiar ‘feel’ turn out to be very rare (Theombrotos, for example, even though names in -brotos are otherwise numerous), and names on the root Megalo- as opposed to Mega- turn out to be special to Thessaly. A significant proportion of the names can indeed be ‘localized’ in the ‘old’ world, and on this basis Fraser draws some wider conclusions about recruitment to the Ptolemaic army. Like recruitment to the Ptolemaic administration, it drew heavily on Cyrene, Crete, Thessaly, and the cities of southern Asia Minor. Interestingly, there are (probably) no Macedonian names. Knoepfler’s paper is nothing less than a survey of the onomastics of the Euboian colonies of Sicily and Magna Graecia, and of Thrace, looking for continuities with the names of the mother cities of Eretria and Chalkis. Justifiably, given the nature of the enterprise, Knoepfler flags at the outset the methodological pitfalls. Fundamental problems lie in the nature of the available evidence: Eretria much better documented than its neighbour Chalkis, though Chalkis was the more prolific colonizer; the colonies themselves very uneven in the extent to which they have been excavated, or have produced onomastic results. Above all, the dearth of Archaic evidence at both Eretria and Chalkis makes it impossible to measure exactly the extent to which the Euboian colonists retained or, conversely, renewed their stock of personal names in their new environment.
INTRODUCTION
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Knoepfler accordingly begins each section with a survey of the modern excavation and the modern literature, before examining the onomastic evidence from each colony, provided by the historiographical tradition, and, where it exists, the epigraphical record. It is an enquiry which reveals some striking convergences, with very rare names or distinctive patterns of names found in both mother city and the colony, and on the whole confirms the historiographical picture. It is good to discover in Strabo a supporter of the use of names to measure historical change: he observed creeping ‘Oscanization’ in the chronological list of Neapolitan demarchs, as the purely Hellenika onomata of the early years were gradually joined by Kampanika onomata (5. 4. 7 246C).
NEW WORLDS From now on we are in Asia Minor, a ‘new’ world for LGPN but a world which had absorbed, and still reflected, many external cultures from east and west over hundreds of years. The remaining papers all examine non-Greek languages and cultures. Corsten is concerned with Thracians, who, it is known, crossed the Bosporos into what later became the kingdom of Bithynia at some unknown date. By examining carefully the distribution of Thracian names on monuments and inscriptions in the vicinity of Nikaia, Prusa, Kios, and Nikomedeia, he notes that they are almost exclusively attested in the countryside, not the cities. These Thracian Bithynians, however, were not rural poor: their monuments demonstrate by their craftsmanship and their military subject-matter that they were high-ranking members of the Bithynian army, and people of considerable wealth. Schmitt explores the interpretation of Iranian names in Greek by socalled ‘folk etymology’, the phenomenon by which a name is assimilated according to sound and morphology into the ‘host’ language, often acquiring a pseudo-etymology as part of the process. A classic case is the rendering of names with Old Iranian baga- ‘god’ as their first element, by Greek ‘Mega-’; thus, ‘Bagapata’, Greek ‘Megabates’. There are many instances of Iranian names thus represented in Greek sources, but precise understanding of the process is often elusive, and it is only rarely that a prosopographical identity is available to provide the indisputable link between two versions of the same name. Such identity is provided by combining the evidence of the Bisutun inscription, in which Bagabux8a is named as one of Darius I’s fellow-conspirators, with the naming of the same man as Megabyxos by Herodotus (3. 153. 1). It is also notable that Ctesias, alone among our sources,
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gives the form ‘Bagapates’ rather than ‘Megabates’ and variants—Ctesias spent considerable time at the royal Persian court. Iranian names also appear in Mitchell’s study, which is a re-examination of the phenomenon, long observed and variously interpreted, of the longterm presence of people with Iranian names in sanctuaries of Asia Minor. Officials with names such as Bagadates, Ariaramnes, Megabyxos are found at the sanctuaries of Greek cults at Amyzon, Ephesos, and Priene, and it is possible to trace their descendants still holding those offices a century or more later. Indeed, the name Megabyxos later functioned as the name of the priestly office. Persian presence in the cult centres of Asia Minor was not limited to hellenized cults, but is observable in various guises, including cults with Persian cult practices, for example at Hypaipa and Hierocaesarea, but also in indigenous cults such as those of Anaitis and Mên in Lydia. The picture which emerges from a survey of the epigraphical and literary evidence is one of a sustained, and respected, Persian presence in hellenized, overtly Persian, and indigenous cults, over the whole of Asia Minor, over several centuries. This presence became significant when Parthians and Sassanians reasserted their claim to control over Asia Minor in the third century AD. Jewish communities of the Diaspora in Asia Minor date from around 200 BC, and their subsequent spread across the region is documented by a variety of literary sources; but these sources provide virtually no onomastic evidence, on the basis of which to study Jewish response to their new, culturally predominantly Greek environment. Epigraphical evidence from three Diaspora communities of western Asia Minor—Hierapolis, Sardis, and Aphrodisias—dating from the second century AD onwards, now makes it possible to carry out such a study, and Williams analyses the names in these documents in order to observe shifts in naming-patterns over time. In the earliest evidence, from Hierapolis, the nomenclature is overwhelmingly Greek, with very few overtly Hebraic names, though the proportion increases if we take into account culturally ambiguous, ‘crypto-Semitic’ names, that is, Greek names chosen because of their phonetic similarity to a Jewish name (Iason is phonetically similar to Iesus, the Aramaic form of Hebrew Joshua), or because they embody and translate concepts important to Judaism (for example, Heortasios, Theophilos, Theodorianos). Williams charts, over time, a growing preference for Hebraic names, in an undeclinable form: for example, Shime{on, often represented by the Greek name Simon, at Aphrodisias appears as uninflected Samouel. The marked increase in such names in the Aphrodisias texts leads Williams to put back their date to the sixth century at earliest. She interprets the increasingly conscious use of Hebraic names as the Jewish response to the more hostile environment of the Christianized Roman Empire.
INTRODUCTION
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Culturally ambiguous names are at the heart of Sartre’s study of Syrian onomastics. Taking apparently clear-cut cases of ‘Roman’, ‘Greek’, or ‘Thracian’ names (for example, Annius, Cheilon, Sadalas), he shows, by close observation of their geographical distribution, that the ‘obvious’ explanation is unlikely to be the right one. His study has the advantage, as he acknowledges, of rich epigraphical documentation in the indigenous languages of the region, and by drawing on Semitic philology he can offer alternative explanations for the popularity of these names. Essentially, they are ‘ambiguous’ names, chosen because they have a ‘Greek’ look, but have phonetic and semantic parallels in the language of the bearer of the name. Sartre’s study is a sustained warning not to jump to conclusions based on modern understanding of the classification of names, or the meaning of the words embodied in them. In multilingual societies, rooted in two or more cultures, people did not necessarily think consciously whether to choose a Greek or an indigenous name, or whether they were worshipping a Greek or an indigenous god; words were not always translated from one language to another. This is timely advice as the LGPN project moves on through Asia Minor, through Caria to Lycia and beyond; and to the third LGPN colloquium, which will focus on indigenous names attested in Greek, the relationship between them and Greek names, and what their interaction means in terms of cultural history. *** I should like to thank my colleagues on LGPN, Richard Catling and Thomas Corsten, for discussions in the early stages of planning the colloquium; Robert Parker, Chairman of the LGPN project, and Stephen Mitchell, for their vital support in bringing it to fruition, as well as for their participation; all the speakers for agreeing to participate and Simon Hornblower, Anna Morpurgo Davies, Amélie Kurht, and Ted Kaizer for chairing sessions; and Ji-Eun Lee for practical support on the day. For support in the preparation of this volume, I have to thank James Rivington, Publications Officer of the British Academy; Susan Milligan for her expert copy-editing of a demanding volume; Mat Carbon for initial translation of the articles submitted in French; Fabienne Marchand for assistance with Professor Knoepfler’s paper; Nikoletta Kanavou and Maggy Sasanow for assistance in preparation of the papers, and Charles Crowther for making his expertise available when dealing with the multiplicity of Greek fonts. Above all, I take this opportunity to put on record the gratitude we all owe to Peter Fraser for the vision and sheer intellectual vigour and commitment which brought the LGPN project into existence, and saw it well on its way to completion.
1 Mythological and Heroic Names in the Onomastics of Atrax (Thessaly) JEAN-CLAUDE DECOURT AND ATHANASIOS TZIAFALIAS
THE LONG-AWAITED EPIGRAPHIC CORPUS of Atrax is now in the process of being completed. Since O. Kern’s volume IG IX (2), published in 1908,1 a systematic survey of the site and its territory by the team from Lyon, and active monitoring by the Ephorate of Larissa have resulted in an impressive increase in the available documentation. Where we once had a mere fifteen inscriptions, we now possess approximately 510, which makes the corpus of Atrax, among the Thessalian cities, second only to that of Larissa, which can lay claim to over 700 inscriptions, although the precise number eludes us. The distribution of the inscriptions in the different categories can, in some cases, be a source of disappointment or, rather, frustration. For example, we only have about twenty civic documents, of which eleven are (often very fragmentary) decrees, and little more than ten stones bearing manumissions.2 Consequently our knowledge of the civic institutions has not advanced as much as we could have wished, even though the contribution by L. Darmezin to the present volume opens up interesting perspectives on the subdivisions of the citizen body. Similarly, while our knowledge of the cults at Atrax has made substantial progress, since we have progressed from five to more than a hundred dedications, and we now know of about twenty deities and can advance sound arguments for Apollo as the poliadic deity, yet we have to recognize that the present state of field research has enabled us to locate only a very small number of sanctuaries on the acropolis, in the lower town or beyond the walls, and that we are still unable to attribute these to specific deities, with two exceptions: Poseidon, at the village of Koutsochero, and 1
O. Kern, Inscriptiones Graeciae Septentrionali. Pars secunda: Inscriptiones Thessaliae (Berlin, 1908). 2 L. Darmezin is responsible for the publication of civic documents, G. Lucas of the manumissions of Atrax. Proceedings of the British Academy 148, 9–20. © The British Academy 2007.
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the Nymphs, on the banks of the Peneus.3 However, there is one area where the increase in the documentation, here as elsewhere, has completely revolutionized our knowledge, and that is without a doubt the area of onomastics, due in particular to more than 340 funerary inscriptions, the best represented epigraphic category at Atrax.4 In this connection, we should recall that right from the first years of the Lyon team’s work, Michel Casevitz was interested in the onomastics of Atrax, which he suspected to be original,5 and that Olivier Masson was in regular contact, requesting information relevant to his own onomastic researches. Finally, the contributions that we have been able to provide to the editors of the LGPN in respect of all matters concerning Thessaly have, of course, drawn the onomastics of Atrax in particular to our attention.
A FEW STATISTICS? In the matter of names from Atrax, it is tempting to start by presenting some statistics, even if they can only be approximate, and liable to rapid reappraisal in the light of continuing discoveries—though in fact such a reappraisal is likely to have only a marginal effect, since the vast majority of recent acquisitions are not fortuitous but the result of a few systematic campaigns of epigraphic surveying. The following numbers, therefore, may be taken to be significant, in that Atrax was a city of modest rank, but is one for which fieldwork has yielded a rich body of material. We have counted approximately 600 different names in Atrax, calculating on the basis that different spellings of a name (Θεσσαλ, Πεθθαλ, Πετθαλ, for example, or even Αγαθων ´ , Αγαθουν ´ ) count as one, as do the masculine and feminine forms, the latter, as always, being far less often attested. In the current state of the Atrax corpus, roughly seventy names appear more than twice, whilst the number of those attested more than three times diminishes rapidly. One name is attested ten times, Φλιππο —in the vast majority of instances in the fourth and third centuries BC —and another is attested eighteen times, namely Λων/Λουν —in nearly all instances at the turn of our era. Among the other prevalent names, there are different variations of Θσσαλο (five instances), of Αλξανδρο (six) and of Παυσανα (thirteen)—in the latter two a Macedonian influence can be 3 J.-C. Decourt has prepared the publication of the dedications and honorific inscriptions. See also, by the same author, ‘Dédicaces et cultes d’Atrax’ in: Actes du second Congrès épigraphique panhellénique, Thessalonique, novembre 2001 (forthcoming). 4 B. Helly has prepared the publication of the funerary inscriptions. 5 M. Casevitz, ‘Sur l’onomastique des stèles d’Atrax (Thessalie)’, REG 94 (1981), 151–9.
MYTHOLOGICAL AND HEROIC NAMES IN ATRAX
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discerned— as well as the names Επικρατη ´ (five), Εδ μο (eight) and Θρασ!λοχο (six). All of these names are very commonplace in Thessaly and elsewhere— but please note that I have chosen to limit myself in the comparisons offered here, except where I specifically indicate to the contrary, to LGPN III B. Only the last name, Θρασ!λοχο, appears to be typically Thessalian, perhaps even specifically Atragian:6 all the attestations cited are from Thessaly, and half of those are from Atrax. Ultimately, this wide variety of names ought not to cause surprise, since it has been observed elsewhere, and in Thessaly it is, for example, the norm in two cities whose onomastics are relatively abundant and have been the subject of comparable studies: Pharsalos and Krannon.7 I am, therefore, not at all sure that we are in a position to say that this taste for a varied nomenclature is more or less pronounced in one city or the next. In any case, it is not unique to Atrax. Moreover, B. Helly cautions us, on the basis of recent publications, to distrust the various hasty statistical treatments that the publication of a reference work such as LGPN may permit, when it is badly or precipitously used. In the case of Atrax, as in other cities, it is appropriate in onomastic studies to take a number of factors into account. I will draw your attention to only one of these: the importance of chronology. At Atrax, the great majority of known inscriptions date back to— roughly— the third and second centuries. The names from the Archaic period, though not negligible, are not very abundant. More surprising, at first glance, is the poor showing of Roman names. It is, however, an accurate reflection of the paucity of known Imperial dedications (five or six examples) and, more generally, of the modesty of the traces— still visible in the numerous surface remains on the acropolis— of the site’s occupation during the Roman period, before its Byzantine renewal. It is thus extremely difficult to bring into play the question of the influence of fashion, for example, since in most cases we simply lack the evidence for significant variations in the number of occurrences over time.8 It is also risky to assert that such or such a type of name was popular, unless one takes great care to date all the attestations in the category under investigation.
6
There are frequent attestations in the islands, especially at Rhodes, and also at Athens, while they are rare in the Peloponnese and in Western Greece, according to the first three volumes of LGPN. No hero bears this name. 7 Specifically on Pharsalos: J.-C. Decourt, ‘Décret de Pharsale pour une politographie’, ZPE 81 (1990), 163–84. On Krannon: J.-C. Decourt and A. Tziafalias, ‘Une liste civique à Crannon: la stèle dite des Ménandridai’, ZPE 137 (2001), 139–52. 8 More generally, any attempt to unearth an onomastic fashion— a phenomenon which certainly could occur, as we know, for example, from the popularity of theophoric names borrowed from foreign deities— must be cautiously undertaken, otherwise one risks falling into the trap of anachronistic analysis. Today such fashions are not only more pronounced and quick to appear, but also more ephemeral.
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At Atrax, names composed of #ππο (forty-six instances) are numerous; it is tempting to add ‘as could be expected’, but in fact they occur throughout Thessaly. They are, in any event, more frequent than in Boiotia, and some even appear to be specifically Thessalian. On the other hand, many of these names are extremely commonplace and are found all over Greece. Finally, one ought to examine more closely whether their frequency varied across the centuries, not only at Atrax but in the rest of Thessaly as well. It may be purely chance that four of them have as yet been attested only at Atrax: $ Ιππαιχμο,9 &Ιπποκλεαδα ´ , &Ιπποκρατεια ´ , &Ιππνοο, two in the fourth and two in the third–second centuries. There is a study waiting to be done here. Prudence, therefore, is of the essence, and we will delve no further into a statistical study.
ON THE CORPUS During the preparation of this paper, it soon became apparent that it is especially tricky to define the scope of the corpus of names to submit to analysis. To provide a benchmark against which to assess the names of Atrax, we have drawn on the index of Pierre Grimal’s Dictionnaire de la mythologie,10 which is an accepted authority in French and has the advantage that it is based almost exclusively on a systematic review of the literary sources. On this basis, approximately 130 theophoric names, or names which more generally refer to mythology or epic, have been identified; that is, just under a quarter of the total of the names from Atrax— prima facie a considerable number. But that number itself is misleading. Being guided by Grimal or by any other lexicon or encyclopaedia for that matter, leads to selections which are too inclusive, and probably also biased. I will briefly give a few examples. Does the fact that Α γα´θων is the name of a son of Priam entail that it has an epic flavour? Obviously not, it is tempting to say, and for two reasons. First, the Homeric Agathon is a very obscure figure, with no proven connection to Thessaly.11 Second, the name could have been chosen with reference not to a person but to a quality. Α λξανδρο and Περδκκα both figure in 9 LGPN, following Αρχαιολογικ'ν Δελτον 48B (1993 [1998]) 254 no. 5, proposes $ Ιππαιχνο, an absolute hapax. A revisiting of the stone yields the reading $ Ιππαιχμο, for which there is one parallel, at Athens. &Ιπποκλεδα and &Ιπποκλεδη are not common in any of the regions published in LGPN (seven in all); &Ιπποκρατεα is never found elsewhere, unlike the masculine, which is common; &Ιππνοο is also a hapax. 10
P. Grimal, Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque et romaine, 1st edn. (Paris, 1951). The obscurity of a god or a hero is not in itself an argument for rejecting it, since we would on that basis quite absurdly have to reject purely local deities. 11
MYTHOLOGICAL AND HEROIC NAMES IN ATRAX
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Grimal as heroes, but these names were also very common in Macedonia. It is, therefore, virtually impossible to determine why they were given to a particular inhabitant of Atrax: was it as a reference to Homeric epic? out of ‘philo-macedonianism’ in its widest sense? out of a taste for hunting (in the second case)? or even for more than one of these reasons at the same time? We cannot answer these questions. Λων, which is the most frequent name at Atrax and which is also commonplace elsewhere, is without any doubt a reference to the animal and its qualities, whether real or presumed, rather than to some obscure mythological figure who bears this name.12 More examples could be adduced. We have, therefore, eliminated from consideration the most frequent and most commonplace names, because these are not, except perhaps for statistical studies, clear markers, and I have at the same time abandoned the idea of giving a precise list and number. To conclude on this point: over a hundred names fall into the category that is left, a little less than one out of six. It is a significant proportion of the whole corpus, without being disproportionate. I do not believe, however, that the situation at Atrax is fundamentally different from that in the rest of Thessaly, at least if one compares it to the onomastics of the cities in the Enipeus valley, Krannon and the Tripolis of Perrhaibia, on which we have been able to work. We will, nevertheless, remain cautious. The study of Thessalian onomastics, notwithstanding, or thanks to, the quantity of data amassed in LGPN, remains nearly virgin territory. It must also be conceded that not all the prerequisites for such a study are in place: a plentiful and upto-date onomastic corpus is still lacking for many Thessalian cities, though the example of Atrax proves that such an update and enhancement are possible. We can no longer today base our studies on Hiller von Gaertringen’s index for the IG of Kern, and it is to be feared that current and future research will in turn undermine the data supplied by LGPN. Comparisons between cities are slanted by the imbalance between the corpora, that imbalance itself a result, for the most part, of recent research. I am thinking in particular of the poleis of the Tripolis of Perrhaibia, on which G. Lucas is at work, and of the corpus of Skotoussa, now modest, but which will be entirely rejuvenated by the projects of the Ephorate, if they are brought to fruition.
12
And why is the name, at Atrax, attested almost exclusively in the first centuries BC and AD? What is the situation elsewhere, in Thessaly and in Greece? The chronological spread is much more even in Athens, even allowing for the fact that names of the Imperial period are very numerous; in the first volume of LGPN there are many names of the second and first centuries BC. This leads us back to questions of chronology and of fashion.
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Jean-Claude Decourt and Athanasios Tziafalias THEOPHORIC NAMES
Let us now examine the names of Atrax category by category. The first category is that of theophoric names.13 A dozen deities form the basis of about twenty different names,14 which means that individual deities are often represented by only a single name. More importantly, there is no privileged or outstanding name, neither Apollo, the civic god of Atrax (one Απολλδουρο, two Α πολλω´νιο), nor Asklepios the Thessalian god par excellence (three Ασ(σ)κλαπια´δα). At the most, one can observe, on a wide chronological spread (from the fourth century BC to the beginning of the first century AD), a significant presence of Peitho (two Πειθλαο, one Πε)θο, three Πεθουν, -ων), without being able to determine whether the name alludes to the goddess or to the mental quality of persuasion.15 Attention should also be drawn to the originality of three names related to Zeus, Δο!δουν, Δουδο!ναιο (here not used as a patronymic adjective), and Δουδο!να, all doubtless referring to Dodona. They are all hapax, though we know of a Δωδων, mother of Θεσσαλσκο16 at Thebes: at Thebes we are still in the Thessalian domain. In any event, we know that for Homer Dodona belonged to Perrhaibia17 —and Atrax itself was long considered Perrhaibian.18 The names are therefore at home in the city, and a good marker of its identity. There is, finally, only a single instance of a foreign deity, namely Σαραπων, found in an inscription of the end of the second or the beginning of the first century BC. It is a hapax both in Thessaly and in LGPN III B. The cult of Egyptian deities is only rarely attested at Atrax, and the same is true of the rest of Thessaly: there is, aside from a few objects and representations, only a single inscription, of the end of the third century BC.19 13 On this matter, see the bibliography given in B. H. McLean, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (Ann Arbor, 2002), 77–82 and 107–8. 14 Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Daimon, Demeter and Kore, Dionysos, Ge, Helios, Hermes, Isis and Sarapis, Leukathea, the Mother of the Gods, the Nymphs, Poseidon, Themis, Zeus; to which can be added the hero Herakles and the hero Polyphylax. 15 On this theme, the three other volumes of LGPN offer a variety of names, but with few instances in each case. 16 There is a literary attestation of the name, in Aristotle, Politics 1398b. No anthroponym of the same family exists in any of the other volumes of LGPN. 17 Homer, Iiad 2. 750; Strabo 9. 5. 20; B. Helly, L’État thessalien. Aleuas le Roux, les tétrades et les tagoi (Lyon, 1995), 168. 18 On the Perrhaibian character of Atrax cf. B. Helly, ‘Une liste des cités perrhèbes dans la première moitié du IVe siècle av. J.-C.’, in B. Helly (ed.), La Thessalie. Actes de la table-ronde Lyon 1974 (Lyon, 1979), 165–92, and B. Helly, L’État thessalien, 166 and 169. 19 On the cult of Sarapis in Thessaly, see T. Axénidis, Pelasgis Larisa (Athens, 1949), 179–80; L. Vidman, Sylloge Inscriptionum Religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae (Berlin, 1969), 42–8, nos. 91–106; F. Dunand, Le culte d’Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Méditerranée (Leiden, 1973), ii. 46–52;
MYTHOLOGICAL AND HEROIC NAMES IN ATRAX
15
I will not add anything further on this topic, because it seems to me that in this respect there is little that is original in the onomastics of Atrax. To be more precise, if Atrax does not seem to be partial to theophoric names in general, neither is there one deity in particular that stands out; the Perrhaibian exception (Doudoun etc.) thus takes on an even greater significance.
MYTHOLOGICAL NAMES IN THESSALY To find originality, one has to look elsewhere. Beside the series of theophoric names given above, we can highlight several clusters of Atragian names whose mythological, historical, and geographical connotations are more strictly speaking Thessalian. First, two names which draw on both the geography and the mythology of the region.20 We know of a certain Ενπα or Ενπα (the inscription does not allow us to decide the gender), and of a Πεινειδουρο, names which refer to two rivers and their eponymous deities. For all practical purposes the distinction is a fine one; in any event they are both hapax in LGPN III B. On this basis, it is relatively easy to trace the thread of the legend in the nomenclature. First, Peneus is traditionally considered to be the ancestor of the Lapiths.21 In the onomastics of Atrax, we note, from the names which feature in this legend, a Στλβουν, the masculine equivalent of Στλβη, the mother of Kentauros and Lapithes, and also a Φρβα whom the mythological tradition considered her great-grandson.22 These names occur as hapax in
B. Helly, Gonnoi 2 (Amsterdam, 1973), 205; K. Rakatsanis and A. Tziafalias, Cultes et sanctuaires (Ioannina, 1997), 59 and L. Bricault, ‘Les cultes isiaques en Grèce centrale et occidentale’, ZPE 119 (1998), 117–22. J.-C. Decourt, ‘Cultes et divinités isiaques en Thessalie: identité et urbanisation’, in L. Bricault et al. (eds.), Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World (Leiden and Boston, 2007), 329–63. A dedication to Isis and Sarapis, GHW 4493, comes from Atrax. 20 Names with a geographical or ethnic origin are not at all numerous at Atrax, nor more generally in Thessaly, according to B. Helly; ethnic names seem to be the more numerous. Besides Ενπα and Πεινειδουρο, and Θεσσαλ and its variants (six examples), we encounter, from the third to the second century BC, Εβη ´ as ˜ ο, Κυρηνα˜ιο, Πηλοπονν σιο, and Σαμο masculine names, Αργεα, Σικλα, Σπαρτα ´ , and Σ!ρα (a second name) as feminine names, which have a higher representation than usual in this category. In each case, the name is attested once only. 21 Apollo had at least two sons with Stilbe, the daughter of Peneus and Kreusa: Kentauros and Lapithes. For the literary sources: Grimal, Dictionnaire, s.v. ‘Lapithes, Stilbe’ and the genealogical chart no. 23; RE IIIA, col. 2522, s.v. ‘Stilbe 1’ (Türk); XI, col. 178–9, s.v. ‘Kentauros’ (Bethe); Supplbd. IX, s.v. ‘Lapithes 1’ (Geisau); Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, ed. W. H. Roscher (Hildesheim, 1965) III2, s.v. ‘Peneios’, col. 1898–1900. 22 Phorbas is, in some versions, the son of Lapithes and Orsinome, in others the son of Triopas, and hence the grandson of Lapithes: RE XX, col. 527–8, s.v. ‘Phorbas 1A’ (Schmidt); XVIII, col. 1420, s.v. ‘Orsinome’ (Türk). The genealogy of the hero is highly complex.
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Jean-Claude Decourt and Athanasios Tziafalias
Thessaly, but we know of at least one Στλβων in Boiotia23 and of another at Megara. Σωσ, in the feminine, which is specifically Thessalian in LGPN III B and which appears once at Atrax, is not common. It is the name of the wife of Triopas,24 the brother of Phorbas (or his father, in some versions of the legend). Three instances of Καινε! ought to catch our attention. If Kaineus is not, as I have shown elsewhere, himself a Lapith, he is nonetheless closely linked to the legend and to the traditions pertaining to the history of the settlement of Thessaly— sufficiently linked, in any case, to be considered as one of the Lapiths by the modern vulgate.25 He is, moreover, closely linked to Atrax itself, because at least some versions of the myth make him, before his metamorphosis into a man by Poseidon, the daughter, with the name Kainis, of the nymph Atrax, the pale eponym of the city. The name appears only at Atrax. $ Οπλουνο is also found three times in the onomastics of the city, and, with the variant $ Οπλων, appears to be a specifically Thessalian name;26 it is, furthermore, the name of one of the Lapiths on the François Vase.27 Finally, though no Chiron occurs as a Thessalian anthroponym,28 Μ δειο, son of Jason and Medea, a character about whom nothing else is known, was thought to have been raised by the Centaur. He appears once at Atrax under the form Μεδειο. Under the form Μ δειο, the name has a distinctly Thessalian colour, since it is the name traditionally borne by a prominent family of Larissa, and is perhaps a reference to Medea herself.29 One might also wonder if the name does not, like Mardonios which will be discussed below, contain a hint of Thessalian ‘Medizing’. Finally, we meet a certain Φλο at Atrax (yet again an anthroponymic hapax) who, without being Thessalian, was together with Chiron, one of the only two good Centaurs according to tradition.30 To this well-identified and characteristically Thessalian group we could link several more modest clusters of names which are related to the mythology and the history of the region. The Thessalian strands found in Greek epic Στλβων is known from an allusion in Aristotle, Politics 1398b, where Δωδων and Θεσσαλσκο (cf. supra) are also mentioned. This is obviously not a coincidence. 23
24
This
On Triopas: B. Helly, ‘Les premiers agriculteurs de la Thessalie’, in: M.-C. Cauvin (ed.), Rites et rythmes agraires (Lyon, 1991), 135–47. 25 J.-C. Decourt, ‘Caïnis-Caïneus et l’occupation humaine de la plaine orientale de la Thessalie’, REG 111 (1998), 1–42. 26 Perrhaibian evidence appears later than that from the rest of Thessaly. 27 Cf. A. Minto, Il Vaso François (Florence, 1960), no. IIB. In Hesiod, Aspis 180, he is called &Οπλε!. 28 The name does not appear in LGPN III B. 29 Μ δειο and Μεδειο are exclusively Thessalian in LGPN III B. 30 Literary sources in Grimal, Dictionnaire, s.v. ‘Pholos, Chiron’. The first is not known elsewhere as an anthroponym; Chiron is very rare: Andros, Chios, Cyrenaica, and an Athenian potter of the sixth century BC. On Pholos: RE XX, s.v. col. 517–22 (Schmidt).
MYTHOLOGICAL AND HEROIC NAMES IN ATRAX
17
are, of course, also present in onomastics. Πρωτεσλαο, who was the leader, 0γμων, of Phylake, the city which probably preceded Thebes of Phthiotis: the name is only known from two occurrences, one at Magnesia, the other at Atrax. And Ευ1μειλο, the son of Admetos and of Alkestis, who took part in the Trojan war. These names occur, as is well known, in the Catalogue of ships.31 Νικμαχο, however, is a name altogether too widespread and too explicable in terms of its components for it to be firmly associated with the hero, who was the son of Machaon, doctor-king of Trikke, Ithome, and Oichalia,32 and who also fought at Troy. This Nikomachos has only a tenuous connection with Thessaly, for if he is a native of the region and rules over Pherai, it is the city of Messenia and not of Thessaly that is meant. The association, nonetheless, cannot be ruled out. The ‘Achilles Cycle’ seems curiously under-represented. Νεοπτολμο is fairly common outside Thessaly and therefore not particularly significant; Πηλεδωρο is, on the contrary, a hapax, as is Α λκιμα´χα (the name of the sister of Peleus— we could also link to it a Πελεα, the feminine form of Πηλε!, which can be found at Atrax), while the masculine Α λκμαχο is a little more widespread, in Thessaly and elsewhere (ten examples in LGPN III B of which three are from Thessaly, though none from Atrax). To these may be added Αντλοχο, the son of Nestor. The hero, beloved of Achilles, also took part in the Trojan War: a kantharos represents him making a libation with Nestor, Patroklos, and Thetis.33 Φο)νιξ, the son of the Boiotian Amyntor, can also be adduced. He took refuge from his father with Peleus, was cured of his blindness by Chiron, and commended by Peleus to Achilles, who made him king of the Dolopes.34 Phoinix is not stricto sensu Thessalian, since his father is Boiotian and he himself becomes king of the Dolopes, but it is surely significant that his mother was called Hippodamia (the same as the wife of the Lapith Perithoos) and the concubine of his father was called Phthia, a rare and special anthroponym. The deeds of Herakles have only distant links with Thessaly, except for the brief stay with Admetos at Pherai and, above all, the death by burning on Mount Oita. Atragian names which go back to Herakles are indeed rare: we
31
Protesilaos: Homer, Iliad 2. 698; Eumelos: Iliad 2. 714. There are approximately 100 examples of Nikomachos in LGPN III B, of which twenty-six come from Thessaly. The name is particularly well represented at Pythion in Perrhaibia. On the hero: Pausanias 4. 3. 10 and 4. 30. 3. 33 Cf. LIMC, s.v. ‘Antilochos 1’ no. *I3: the author of the entry, A. Kossatz-Diessmann, believes that the scene takes place at Phthia, which is possible. Cf. also Grimal, Dictionnaire, s.v. ‘Antiloque’. The hero, while not Thessalian, is often related to Chiron and, less frequently, intervenes in the quarrel between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. 34 For the literary sources: Grimal, Dictionnaire, s.v. ‘Phoenix 2’; RE XX, s.v. ‘Phoenix 3’, col. 404–14 (Würst). 32
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Jean-Claude Decourt and Athanasios Tziafalias
know only of &Ηρακλεδα/-δη (five instances, between the fourth and the end of the first century BC), to which could be added Α λκεδα (a single example in LGPN III B, but also two instances of Α λκδα in Thessaly). The claim of major Thessalian families to be descended from the Heraklids was well known among ancient authors,35 but I am not certain that one can find the trace of this claim in the dozen or so Atragian names which are also those of the sons of Herakles or of the Heraklids. These names are, for the most part, very frequent, not to say commonplace (e.g. thirteen cases of Αριστμαχο in Thessaly out of a total of eighty-two in LGPN III B). They are found everywhere in Greece and may refer to something completely different from the legend: Περδκκα is the name of a Heraklid, but it is also a Macedonian name, for the dynasty of the Argeadai claimed to be descended from Herakles. The name appears seven times in Thessaly— but it is also the name of the pheasant. It is impossible to determine which is the prime derivation in each case. We may also note the name of Herakles’ companion, Ιλαο: the name occurs twice in Thessaly and is rare elsewhere except in Macedonia.36 More obscure, and at the same time more Thessalian, is Ο4νοκλο, king of the Ainianai, known from Plutarch as the leader of the migration of his people towards Kirrha.37 The name appears only at Atrax, although we have, elsewhere in Thessaly, three instances of Ο5νοκλ6. The name Στρατονκη is a relatively popular name; in any event it is, as I have already mentioned, the name of the mother of Eurytos, king of Oichalia in western Thessaly. There are, finally, a few rare mythological names, the choice of which we are entirely unable to explain. I will give here only one example. Φα´ραξ is an epigraphical hapax in LGPN III B. It is the name of the father of Kyanippos, the Thessalian hero of an exemplary love story transmitted to us only by Parthenios of Nikaia, Plutarch, and Stobaios.38 Ought we to see a veiled intention behind the choice of the name? Perhaps, but a merely mythological explanation does not seem sufficient. Pharax is in fact a name with a very pronounced Spartan flavour, demonstrated notably in the examples gathered by Lippold.39
35
Cf. for example Pindar, Pythian Odes 10. 1–4. Eleven cases in LGPN I–III B, including two from Atrax. LGPN IV, however, has nine examples, eight from Macedonia and one from Thrace. For the Boiotian Iolaos: RE IX, s.v. ‘Iolaos 1’, col. 1843–6 (Kroll). 37 Plutarch, Moralia 294a. 38 Parthenios 10; Plutarch, Moralia 310e; Stobaeus 66. 34. 39 RE XIX, s.v. ‘Pharax’, col. 1815–17; Lippold totally ignores the Thessalian hero, who is merely mentioned as Vater des Kyanippos in Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie. We ought perhaps to attempt to relate this name to two Atragian toponyms: Πηλοπονν σιο and Σπα´ρτα. Beneath a strong Macedonian overtone, we would therefore have the trace of a more subtle Lakedaimonian undertone. 36
MYTHOLOGICAL AND HEROIC NAMES IN ATRAX
19
It is, therefore, clear that there was an underlying inspiration in the onomastics of Atrax linked to a mythology and a history which we could qualify as pre-Thessalian. Some elements are also connected to the group of those called properly Thessaloi, as defined by B. Helly.40 Besides the Medeios mentioned above, it is probably also the case with Αλε!α, a quintessentially Thessalian name and one which, while undoubtedly historical, was surrounded by a legendary aura. There are two examples at Atrax (from the fourth and third centuries BC)— but Atrax was admittedly for a long time a Perrhaibian city and was not, in the strict sense, Thessalian. This onomastic trend, which we would be happy to call ‘historicizing’, is found again in the Atragian name Μαρδνιο, which is, as is well known, the name of the Persian general who was defeated at the battle of Plataia. It is also the name of a treasurer (and thus of a citizen, and a prominent one at that because he was a magistrate— it is not the name of the freedman) on a manumission document from Atrax that can be dated, without further precision, to the turn of the Christian era. The name appears to contain some element of provocation: would it be reading too much into it to affirm that it betrays the Medizing tendencies for which the Thessalians were traditionally reproached? In any case, the name seems to refer to a distant past and to belong, in a sense, as much to legend as to history.
OTHER SOURCES? The different onomastic groups outlined in this paper do not, in themselves, exhaust the Atragian names that can be seen to borrow from mythology and epic. The objective was not to compile a complete catalogue, whose content, as explained in the introduction, would have been difficult to delimit, but we do believe that the groups selected are the core ones. The other names that can be identified are few in number, and do not fall easily into groups. Ultimately, the motivation for the choice of one name or another often eludes us. Some names, of course, are related to those in the Homeric epic and have no specific connection with Thessaly. There is nothing startling or original in this: the names are drawing on a common culture. Other names refer to a region or city, like Σπα´ρτα, which refers to the city (cf. note 39), but also to the eponymous nymph of the Lakedaimonian city. Finally, there are a few names that attract our attention because of their rarity: this is the case with Προμαθε!, a rare name, but one already attested in Thessaly, and perhaps
40
B. Helly, ‘Le dialecte thessalien, un autre modèle de développement’, in Actes du 4e colloque international de dialectologie grecque, Berlin, September 2001 (forthcoming).
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Jean-Claude Decourt and Athanasios Tziafalias
more of a ‘sobriquet’ than a first name. It was once the focus of a study by J. Ducat41 and is now evoked by L. Darmezin in this volume (Chapter 2).
CONCLUSION To conclude: if there is one aspect of the nomenclature of Atrax that deserves to be emphasized, it is the inspiration that it draws from various facets of Thessalian mythology and from the Achaian substratum, that is to say, from the early historical episodes of the settlement of the region, to which B. Helly and I have repeatedly referred. This paper does not ask the question whether or not the same phenomenon can be observed elsewhere in Thessaly and, more generally, what are the principal characteristics of Thessalian onomastics. It is only as a result of such future comparative research that we will truly be able to assess the originality of the onomastics of Atrax. Note. This paper owes much to our colleagues in Lyon, L. Darmezin, B. Helly, and G. Lucas.
41
J. Ducat, Les Pénestes de Thessalie, Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 512 (Besançon, 1994), 54–7; and Helly, L’État thessalien, 306–9 and 350–1.
2 The Twelve Tribes of Atrax: a Lexical Study LAURENCE DARMEZIN AND ATHANASIOS TZIAFALIAS
AN INSCRIPTION FOUND ON THE SITE of the ancient city of Atrax1 offers a key to the understanding of the history of that city: the name and number of tribes. We will only examine here the names of these tribes as provided by the inscription, whose dialect and script lead us to date it to the end of the third or the beginning of the second century BC. The text records a court ruling: a panel of judges, composed of at least seven members,2 excludes a genos from the community because of unacceptable acts committed by one of the members of that genos. The troublemaker’s name is Promatheus, the genos complained of is that of the Kelaindai and the matter has engaged the entire city since the judgement was pronounced in front of twelve ξενδκοι κοινο, official witnesses, whose names are listed together with the names of their respective tribes as follows: the personal name and the patronymic adjective in the nominative the group name φυλα in the genitive singular, and the name of the tribe also in the genitive singular, with a single exception where the name of the tribe appears in the genitive plural: e.g. Φιλοκ!δει &Οπλο!νειο φυλα Δαμο!νδα (lines 19–20) but Πολ!αρχο & Ιππομα´χειο φυλα Θαμιεουν (line 25).
1
The Corpus of the inscriptions of Atrax is almost complete and will be published in the near future by A. Tziafalias and the ‘Thessalian team’ of Lyon (L. Darmezin, J.-C. Decourt, B. Helly, and G. Lucas). 2 Six names are preserved, and the end of a seventh, but the exact number of names is unknown as the top of the stone is broken. Proceedings of the British Academy 148, 21–28. © The British Academy 2007.
22
Laurence Darmezin and Athanasios Tziafalias THE TRIBES
The names of the twelve tribes, which we present here in the nominative singular because they qualify only one individual in each case, appear in the following order:
Βουλεπαρδα, which is the tribe affected by the trial and to which the γνο Κελανδα belongs Εμενδα &Οδαδα [Φυλο!]νδα or [Φυλιο!]νδα3 Αρογιο!νδα Δαμο!νδα Κονθδα Αθαναδα &Αγειμο!νδα &Ρινυο!νδα Θαμιε)ε ( Θαμιε)ο, hence the plural Θαμιε)οι) Οροβδα Most of these names derive from known anthroponyms that identify the eponymous hero of the tribe. This is the case for the tribes Εμενδα (based on Εμνει/Εμνη); Δαμο!νδα (based on Δα´μουν/Δ μων); Αθαναδα, the only name which could plausibly be argued to be theophoric, though the use of the ethnic as a personal name, Α θανα)ο, cannot be entirely excluded; Α & γειμο!νδα (built on Α & γεμουν/ &Ηγ μων). The name of the tribe Οροβδα is derived from an anthroponym well attested in Thessaly ( 1 Οροβι at Pharsalos and Οροβτα at Demetrias), and elsewhere in Greece (1 Οροβο in Boiotia, Οροβων at Kos), names which themselves go back to ;ροβο (‘lentil’, ‘vetch’), the basis for many toponyms in Asia Minor and Euboia.4 Some of these names are derived from unattested variants of anthroponyms which are more or less common in other forms. [Φυλο!]νδα goes back to an unattested form (*Φ!λων) of an anthroponym which is well attested elsewhere (Φ!λο in Crete, Φυλε! in Attica as well as at Eretria on Euboia and on Samos, Φ!λη at Rhodes). It also makes
3 The name of this tribe is hard to read because of the condition of the stone, which is eroded in this spot. Moreover, the engraver has obviously forgotten the word φυλα, since there is only room for three or four letters before the sequence ΝΔΑ. Hence, we can infer a conflation: [Φυλο!]νδα for [(φυλα) Φυλο! ]νδα. 4 See L. Robert, Noms indigènes dans l’Asie Mineure gréco-romaine (Paris, 1963), 74–5.
THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ATRAX
23
one think of a name like [Φυλιο!]νδα, based on the name Φυλων attested at Chyretiai or of Φ!λιο known at Epidauros. Κονθδα5 theoretically presupposes an as yet unattested form *Κονθο, deriving from κοντ (‘spear’, ‘javelin’). However, we already know of fluctuations between tau and theta in Thessalian, for which we have an illustration in a term which was until now a hapax, and attested precisely at Atrax, where κονθινα´ρχεντε6 (‘leaders of the javelin-bearers’) preside at a collective dedication to a deity whose name has not been preserved. & Ρινυο!νδα is morphologically problematic because it presupposes a name that is not yet attested, & Ριν!ουν, and, more importantly, because it presents a double suffix: & Ριν-υ-ουν.7 Etymologically, the name could of course correspond with ταν ατα` Lκπταλα Pχωσι); cf. also Hsch. βοG πετηλ. ? α ναπεπταμνα τα` κρατα Pχων. Στα´χυ (LAR, 2nd cent.): σταχ! ‘ear of corn’ (Hom.). 5.4.2.
Names so far Attested only in Thessaly
$Ιλξινο or &Ιλξ)νο MN: Ιλοξινο- μναμα, GHW 1624 (KRANN, 2nd half |
5th cent.) Needless to say, accentuation, and especially spiritus, are hypothetical and rely on the twofold assumption that the name has been formed on *=λξνα- and that this is a variant of Oλξνη (Diosc.), a plant identified as Conuuluulus aruensis, and/or Parietaria officinalis, as well as smilax asera. A synonymous form is Oλξ)τι (Ps.-Diosc.). $Ιλξινο (or &Ιλξ)νο) would thus reflect an old form which was later transformed to Oλξι- (Oλξνη, Oλξ)τι) by folk etymology. This is fairly conceivable for a phytonym which gives the impression of drawing or whirling: an assimilation to Qλκω ‘drag’,95 Qλξι ‘dragging’, Qλιξ ‘whirl’ (Hom.), Oλκη ‘winding’ (cf. ε5λω ‘wind, turn round’, aor. ε5λησα-, also pres. 4λλω, aor. 5λλα- from IE *uel-, cf. Lat. ˆ formerly uoluo¯ ).96 It is a priori conceivable that the Thessalian name was *&Ελξ)νο, to be interpreted as a ‘short’ form in -)νο of a compound with the first element &Ελξι, cf. WN &Ελξππα (Messene, 2nd cent.). ‘Short’ forms in -)νο of compounds of the τερψμβροτο type are well attested with the first element both in -ξ(ι) (corresponding to an aorist in -ξα, e.g. MN Αναξ)νο, Δεξ)νο, Πραξ)νο), and in σ( ι), cf. aor. in -σ(α) (Α γασ)νο, Α κεσ)νο, Ερασ)νο, &Ηγησ)νο, Μνησ)νο, Πεισ)νο, Τελεσ)νο). However, the initial I- would remain unexplained. An explanation as the result of a secondary association with the phytonym would in any case imply that this one, irrespective of its being Greek or pre-Greek, had actually an initial i.
Κορμ WN (ATR, 3rd cent.): κρμο ‘trunk of a tree’ (Od.). Cf. also the MN Κρμο (Attica) and Κορμνα (Sikyon, 5th cent.), both hapax. Ρ & ουξνα (LAR, Hellenistic): may be based upon