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Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum: 21.469


RENEWAL OF THE THARGELIA AT ATHENS


Greek text:   SEG_21.469
Provenance:   Athens
Date:   129/8 B.C.
Tags:     games+festivals ,   sacred_laws ,   slaves
Format:   see key to translations

Athenian worship of Apollo, with his various epithets, seems to have declined in the 3rd century B.C., but there was a revival in the later part of the 2nd century, as this inscription shows; see J.D.Mikalson, "Religion in Hellenistic Athens", pp. 268-274 ( Google Books ).   Adapted from the translation by C.E.Austino, "Adaptation and Tradition in Hellenistic Sacred Laws", pp. 139-140 ( PDF ).



[B]   When Lykiskos was archon, [in] the ninth prytany of the Kekropis tribe, [with] Heg... of Berenikidai, the son of . . ., [as secretary] . . .

[C]   It was resolved by the council and the people, as proposed by Xenophon of Sounion, the son of Sopatrides: since it is traditional and customary for the people of the Athenians, and handed down by their ancestors, to make [piety] toward the gods of greatest importance, and since because of this they have acquired a good reputation and [fame] for most glorious deeds on land and sea, in many infantry and naval expeditions, always beginning [their] piety toward the gods with [Zeus] Soter; and since Pythian Apollo exists as Patroös among the Athenians and as sacred interpreter {exēgētēs} of good things, and since the [son] of Zeus and Leto 10 is also similarly common saviour of all the Greeks, and since the god through his oracles has ordered them to pray to the god called Patroös, and to make the [ancestral sacrifices] to Apollo on behalf of the people of the Athenians at the [appropriate times] of the year, sacrificing as it is traditional for the people to do; and accordingly Timarchos of Sphettos, treasurer of the council, has approached the council and renewed the oracles and the honours that had been first [assigned] to the god through [the laws].

20 Therefore, so that the council and people may be seen not only as preserving the traditional practices but also as increasing the sacrifices and honours well and piously, in order also that they may acquire worthy favours from the gods: with good fortune, it is resolved by the council that those allotted as presidents for the next assembly shall raise these matters for consideration and report to the people the opinion of the council, that it is resolved by the council to do the [other] things for Apollo according to the oracles from . . ., and that the basileus - both the current archon and the one who will be in office each year - and the generals shall sacrifice at the festival previously decreed by the people, and that they perform the sacrifices and processions in the festival of the Thargelia in Kepoi each year, leading out the sacrificial victims as beautifully as possible . . .

33 And the priests and priestesses shall . . . and shall set . . . on the altar and pray. And at the Thargelia, after they say their prayers, the priest of Pythian Apollo, the exegetai, the other priests, the nine archons, the hierophants, the torch-bearer, those going with them, the agonothetes of the contest performed near the Pythion, and whoever [are] choregoi, [and] the hieropoioi shall go in procession . . .

46 And the maidens shall bring the sacred basket [for the god] . . . whenever according to custom the sacred days . . . the kosmetes . . . for Apollo Alexikakos. 50 And likewise [the household slaves shall be released from their work] and all public slaves from [all] their duties.

And the basileus, the priest, the herald of the Areopagus Council, [and the thesmothetes] shall sacrifice as follows: the priest of Pythian Apollo shall take care of the [appropriate] sacrifices at [Kepoi] at the Pythion, [presenting] an adult sow to [Apollo] Alexikakos, and a cow to Patroös, and [a cow] to Pythian Apollo, [taking the] same parts as before. The treasurer of the military fund shall sacrifice a bull from the year's revenues on behalf of the Athenian people, their children and wives, and on behalf of the Roman people; and he shall provide the sacrificial victim to the hieropoioi. The treasurers of the grain funds and the treasurer of the council shall sacrifice also. And the prytaneis who happen to be in office for the six-month period shall all sacrifice; 60 the treasurer of the military fund shall give the money for the sacrifice and procession, and likewise all the thesmothetes and those who are about to be thesmothetes . . .


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