Religious Identities

in the Levant from

Alexander to Muhammed

CONTEXTUALIZING THE SACRED

Editorial Board
Elizabeth Frood, University of Oxford
Rubina Raja, Aarhus Universitet

volume 4
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Religious Identities
in the Levant from
Alexander to Muhammed
Continuity and Change

Edited by

Michael Blmer, Achim Lichtenberger,

and Rubina Raja

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Continuity and change (Conference) (2010 : Danish Institute in Damascus), creator.
Religious identities in the Levant from Alexander to Muhammed : continuity and change.
-- (Contextualizing the sacred ; 4)
1. Middle East--Religion--Congresses.
2. Middle East--Civilization--To 622--Congresses.
3. Identification (Religion)--History--To 1500--Congresses.
4. Sacred space--Middle East--History--To 1500--Congresses.
5. Religious architecture--Middle East--History--To 1500--Congresses.
6. Art and religion--Middle East--History--To 1500--Congresses.
I. Title
II. Series
III. Blomer, Michael editor.
IV. Lichtenberger, Achim editor.
V. Raja, Rubina, 1975- editor.
VI. Danish Institute in Damascus host institution.
200.9394-dc23
ISBN-13: 9782503544458

2015, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2015/0095/19
ISBN: 978-2-503-54445-8
Printed on acid-free paper

Contents
List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
List of Ancient Authors and Texts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Abbreviations of Journals and Books.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvii
Between Continuity and Change: Religious Identities in the Levant from Alexander to Muhammed

Michael Blmer, Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part I. General
Les signes du changement : ralits et faux-semblants

Maurice Sartre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Familiar Strangers: Gods and Worshippers away from Home in the Roman Near East

Ted Kaizer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East

Frank Daubner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The assembly rooms of religious groups in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East: A comparative study

Inge Nielsen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

The God who is called IAO: Judaism and Hellenistic Mystery Religions

Lester L. Grabbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Conversion, apologetic argumentation, and polemic (amongst friends)

in second-century Syria: Theophilus Ad Autolycum

Jakob Engberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Politicising the Religious: Or How the Umayyads Co-opted Classical Iconography

Nasser Rabbat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

vi

Contents

Part II. Northern Syria

The Re-emergence of Iron Age Religious Iconography in Roman Syria

Guy Bunnens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Religious Continuity? The Evidence from Doliche

Michael Blmer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

The Jebel Khalid Temple: Continuity and Change

Graeme Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

A Laodicean on Mount Casius

Julien Aliquot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Defining new gods: The daimones of Antiochus

Margherita Facella. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Images of Priests in North Syria and beyond

Michael Blmer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Perduration, Continuity and Discontinuity in thesanctuary of Atargatis in Hierapolis (Syria)

Alejandro Egea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

The Transformation of a Saintly Paradigm: Simeon the Elder and the Legacy of Stylitism

Volker Menze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Part III. The Desert and Mesopotamia

Babylon in achaemenidischer und hellenistischer Zeit:
Eine Stellungnahme zur aktuellen Forschungsdiskussion

Wolfgang Messerschmidt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Bel of Palmyra

Micha Gawlikowski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Cult Images in Cities of the Syrian-Mesopotamian Desert during the First Three Centuries ce:
Continuity and Change

Lucinda Dirven. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

StSergios in Resafa: Worshipped by Christians and Muslims Alike

Dorothe Sack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Contents

vii

Part IV. Southern Syria

Continuity and Change of Religious Life in Southern Syria during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods

Klaus Stefan Freyberger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Nouveaux dieux et dieux nouveaux dans le Hauran (Syrie du sud) lpoque romaine

Annie Sartre-Fauriat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

New archaeological research at the sanctuary of S in southern Syria:

The Graeco-Roman divinities invite themselves to Baalshamn

Jacqueline Dentzer-Feydy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Part V. Palestine
The Hellenistic-Roman Sanctuary at et-Tell (Bethsaida) and the Question of Tradition
in the Layout of the Holy Place

Ilona Skupinska-Lvset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

More on the Intentionally Broken Discus Lamps from Roman Palestine:

Mutilation and its Symbolic Meaning

Oren Tal and Marcio Teixeira Bastos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Part VI. Arabia

From Nabataea to the Province of Arabia: Changing Religious Identities and the Cults of Dushara

Peter Alpass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Romanisation through coins: The case of provincia Arabia

Cristina M. Acqua. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

The Last Phases of the Cathedral Church of Jerash

Beat Brenk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution

in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
Gymnasiis indulgent Graeculi
M. Ulpius Traianus1

he starting point for this short investigation, or

rather compilation, is the prevailing impression
that gymnasia were a rather rare feature in the
cities of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. The lists
given in the standard work on gymnasia by Jean Delorme
and in the scholarly literature on gymnasia in the East
name only ten cities in which this institution is attested.2
This seems a very low number, compared with mainland
Greece, Asia Minor, or even Egypt. Of course, there is
Poseidonios famous complaint about the luxury of gymnasia, which implies that they were common in first century bce Syria:
Poseidonios in Book 16 of the History, with reference
to luxurious living in the cities of Syria, writes as follows:
Because of the abundance that came from their land, the
people in the cities were free from the bother of the necessities of life, and so they were for ever meeting for a continual life of feasting; their gymnasia were turned into baths,
where even their unguents were expensive and perfumed.3
* I would like to express my gratitude to the editors and also to
those who met in Damascus under the auspices of the Danish school
there to discuss the broad issue of religious identities in the Levant.
This paper has benefited immeasurably from comments by Nadin
Burkhardt (Frankfurt a.M.) and Alexander G. Thein (Dublin). I
thank Alex Thein also for revising the English text and thus for saving me from making a number of errors.
1 Plin. (Y) Ep., 10. 40. 2.
2 J. Delorme, Gymnasion. Etude sur les monuments consacrs a
lducation en Grce (Paris 1960); K. Gro-Albenhausen, Bedeutung
und Funktion der Gymnasien fr die Hellenisierung des Ostens, in
Das hellenistische Gymnasion, ed. by D. Kah and P. Scholz (Berlin
2004), pp. 31322; K. Bringmann, Gymnasion und griechische
Bildung im Nahen Osten, in Das hellenistische Gymnasion, ed. by D.
Kah and P. Scholz (Berlin 2004), pp.32333; A. Mehl, Erziehung
zum HellenenErziehung zum Weltbrger. Bemerkungen zum
Gymnasion im hellenistischen Osten, Nikephoros, 5 (1992), pp.4373.
3 Poseidonios fr. 62a = Athen., 12. 527 EF; trans. by I. G. Kidd.

Frank Daubner*
Yet this complaint about the demoralisation of the
younger generation is a long-standing literary topos,
found for example in Aristophanes Clouds:
O youth, choose with confidence, me, the better cause,
and you will learn to hate the agora, and to refrain from
baths, and to be ashamed of what is disgraceful, and to
be enraged if any one jeer you, and to rise up from seats
before your seniors when they approach, and not to
behave ill toward your parents, and to do nothing else that
is base, because you are to form in your mind an image of
modesty: and not to dart into the house of a dancingwoman, lest, while gaping after these things, being struck
with an apple by a wanton, you should be damaged in
your reputation: and not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with
the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy.4

So there is little historical value in the account of

the Apamean historian, which is supplemented by
Philostratos, who states in his romantic Life of Apollonios
of Tyana that the citizens of Antioch had no interest at
all in Greek studies.5 Moreover, there is little evidence
for rhetors or scholars from the East. In Hellenistic times
there were above all the four Gadarenes, the philosophers
from Sidon, Poseidonios of Apameia and Nikolaos of
Damaskos, all of whom sooner or later left their homelands for the West along with more minor figures. In the
extant fragments of Nikolaos autobiography, which are
in fact a history of his paideia, there is no word of any
kind of public education in first century bce Damascus:
his skills were trained in a private context by his father.6

4Aristoph. Nub., 99099; transl. J. Henderson.

5Philostr. Ap., 3. 58.
6 FGrH, 90, fr. 131139.

34
So my intention was at first to try to explain why
there were so few g ymnasia in the East. In another
paper I have examined the spread of Macedonian deities in Syria and came to the conclusion that such deities are rare and in most cases imposed by rulers or city
founders.7 This supports Fergus Millars view that in fact
there were not many Greeks and Macedonians settling
in the East.8 Could this rarity and the imposition from
above also have been the case with a Greek institution
par excellence like the gymnasium? Were the gymnasia in
the east instruments of exclusion rather than of integration, or Hellenisation, or self-Hellenisation? But then,
verifying the evidence, the number of documented gymnasia in the East increased from 10 to a total of 25 or 26,
and this changes the overall picture significantly. In each
individual case, the evidence is sparse, but it remains useful to attempt the following sketches.
Before I try to characterise some aspects of this compilation, I will briefly outline those features of the gymnasium in Hellenistic and Roman times which make it
a suitable topic in this context of religious identities,
because I think the following collection and contextualisation will be revealing in view of some of the problems
we have in our research on the Hellenistic and Roman
Near East.
In late Hellenistic times, the gymnasium became a
very important civic centre, so that Louis Robert could
characterise it as a second agora.9 This change, sometimes interpreted as an indication of a decline in the
institution, was nothing less than that.10 It should be
7 F. Daubner, Makedonische Gtter in Syrien und Klein
asien: Erwgungen zur Identitt der Siedler in hellenistischen Stadt
grndungen, in Contextualising the sacred in the Hellenistic and Roman
Near East: Religious identities in local, regional and imperial settings,
Aarhus, 1820 September 2008, ed. by R. Raja, (forthcoming).
8 F. Millar, The Problem of Hellenistic Syria, in Rome, the
Greek World, and the East 3: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East,
ed. by F. Millar (Chapel Hill 2006), p.11.
9 L. Robert, Recherches pigraphiques, REA, 62 (1960),
276361 (= L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta: pigraphie et antiquits
grecques II (Amsterdam 1969), 792877), p.814 n.3: Le gymnase
devient la basse poque hellnistique un centre civique trs important; je lappellerais une seconde agora.
10 The widespread view that the gymnasium degenerates to a
Brgercasino goes back to Mommsen (Rmische Geschichte vol. 5,
(Berlin 1921, 9th edn), p.326 n.1) and needs considerable refinement. A model for such a reassessment could be the study of the
Sicilian gymnasia in Roman times by J. R. W. Prag, Auxilia and
Gymnasia: A Sicilian Model of Roman Imperialism, JRS, 97 (2007),
pp.68100; especially pp.8788. Another shape of the decline theories consists in the opinion that the gymnasia developed into bath-

Frank Daubner
seen, following Henner von Hesberg, as a change led by a
different concept of education, and as an accentuation of
the adolescent phase of a citizen: the magnificent buildings, the competitions, and the religious feast and rites
performed in the gymnasia were suitable means for the
training of patterns of behaviour which were constitutive for the later real life of the citizen.11
As an institution of what we might call civic education a gymnasium was essential for a polis. This was
not only the case in the time of Pausanias, who wonders how a backwater like Panopeus in Phokis could be
called a polis when it possesses no government offices,
no gymnasium, no theater, no market-place, no water
descending to a fountain. 12 Indeed, what constitutes
a polis is explicitly stated in the famous letter of the
Pergamene king Eumenes II to the Toriaians: a constitution (), laws, and a gymnasium.13
The education in the later Hellenistic and Roman
gymnasium consisted mainly of civics as opposed to athletics or school subjects like reading or writing.14 One of
gymnasia, a view which is supported by the notion of Poseidonios
cited above. This building type is most frequently found in secondcentury ce Asia Minor. The architecture of those complexes reflects
the Hellenistic gymnasia and is influenced by the Roman thermae:
I. Nielsen, Thermae et balnea. The Architecture and Cultural History
of Roman Public Baths (Aarhus 1993, 2nd edition), pp. 913;
pp.10411; R. Ginouvs, Balaneutik. Recherches sur le bain dans
lantiquit grecque (Paris 1962), pp.14750; cf. T. M. Weber, Gadara
Umm Qs I. Gadara Decapolitana (Wiesbaden 2002), pp.14142.
But, even aside from the numerous inscriptions that point to a connection between gymnasia and Emperor cult, some of those monumental structures designed for entertainment purposes show features of the intellectual and worship aspects: F. K. Yegl, A Study in
Architectural Iconography: Kaisersaal and the Imperial Cult, ABull,
64 (1982), pp.731. But we do not have positive evidence for a bath
to be termed gymnasium. In Roman Syria, the official term for baths
seems to have been , as we learn from the Apamean decrees for
L. Iulius Agrippa: J.-P. Rey-Coquais, Inscriptions grecques dApame,
AAAS, 23 (1973), pp.3984, no.1 l.10; no.2 l.16. Cf. the place
name , which appears even on the Madaba map.
11 H. von Hesberg, Das griechische Gymnasion im 2. Jh. v.
Chr., in Stadtbild und Brgerbild im Hellenismus, ed. by M. Wrrle
and P. Zanker (Mnchen1995), p. 23. Cf. p. Gauthier, Notes
sur le rle du gymnase dans les cits hellnistiques, in Stadtbild
und Brgerbild im Hellenismus, ed. by M. Wrrle and p.Zanker
(Mnchen 1995), pp.111; C. A. Forbes, Expanded Uses of the
Greek Gymnasium, CPh, 40 (1945), pp.3242.
12 Paus., 10. 4. 1, trans. W. H. S. Jones. Other examples for this
argument: Aristeid., 14. 364, 26. 97; Dion Chrys., 48. 9; Philostr.
Vit. soph., 2. 26.
13 IK, 62 (Sultan Da) 393.
14 Insofar the summary of the duties and functions of a gymnasiarch as given by J.-P. Rey-Coquais, Institutions hellniques des

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
the most significant social activities for a citizen is participation in religious life, in the cultic exercises of the
citizen body. These skills have to be trained, and they
were trained in the gymnasium. For that reason, many
sanctuaries and cults were housed in the gymnasia, above
all for Hermes and Heracles, the gymnasium gods, but
also for other deities, heroes, rulers, notables and benefactors.15 Explicit testimony for this kind of training
comes from Karian Stratonikeia: it was one of the duties
of the paidonomos to train a choir of thirty ephebes from
the gymnasium to sing a Hecate hymn once a month in
the bouleuterion.16
Those aspects of religious and moral education that
were essential parts of the daily training made the gymnasium a very Greek institution, so one should imagine
finding this significant marker of identity in Greek poleis
or in what we often reluctantly call Hellenised cities.

The Far East

The region I examine first is the Far East of the ancient
world. Well known are the spectacular gymnasium structures at A Khanoum on the Oxus which date at least
to the early third century bce.17 Fortunately, we know
much about the installation of the building and the institution thanks to three inscriptions. One is a dedication
by the two brothers Triballos and Straton (both names
are Greek), sons of Straton, to Hermes and Heracles, the
gods of the Greek gymnasium. Rather more interestcites de Syrie et de Phnicie lpoque romaine, in
. International Meeting of History and Archaeology (Athens
1991), p.409, is somewhat misleading: Tout cite possde au moins
un gymnase, centre de diffusion de la culture hellnique dont le
sport est une composante majeure. La function est coteuse. Parmi
les frais de la gymnasiarchie figure la fourniture d lhuile pour les
onctions indispensables aux sportifs.
15 See S. Aneziri and D. Damaskos, Stdtische Kulte im hellenistischen Gymnasion, in Das hellenistische Gymnasion, ed. by D.
Kah and p.Scholz (Berlin 2004), pp.24771; Delorme, Gymnasion,
pp.33761.
16 IK, 22. 1 (Stratonikeia) 1101, imperial times. In Delphi
(Syll.3 450), Magnesia on the Maeander (Syll.3 695), Teos (OGIS
309) and Laodikeia on the Lycos (IGRR, iv 1587 from Klaros, mentioning the rare and interesting office of a lifetime hymnographos) we
find those boy and sometimes girl choirs too from the third century
bce to the time of Hadrian at least. In Pergamon, it was a savings
measure proposed by the proconsul of ca. ce 44 to have the hymns
sung by ephebes instead of professionals: IK, 11. 1 (Ephesos) 1719,
18d l.49.
17 S. Veuve, Foilles dA Khanoum VI: Le gymnase. Architecture,
cramique, sculpture (Paris 1987).

35

ing is the epigram of Klearchos of Soloi which reports

that the philosopher, a pupil of Aristotle, brought the
doctrines of the seven sages from Delphi to this end of
the world. Fragments of an inscription of those verses
are preserved. This is an extraordinary testimony which
reveals, firstly, what was done in response to the problems outlined by Diodorus, who notes that the Greeks
settled in the upper satrapies longed for Greek customs
and manner of life ( and ) and were cast
away in the most distant part of the kingdom.18 So they
sent scholars like Klearchos to take care of the agoge and
paideia of the settlers and their children. Louis Robert
in his edition of the inscriptions evokes a lively picture
of Klearchos, who had a demonstrable interest in eastern philosophy and culture, attested by Josephus in his
Contra Apionem,19 wandering through the Orient and
hellenising wherever he went.20 Secondly one may note
the contents of paideia and agoge: they deal with moral
concepts and the behaviour of the individual toward
men and gods in accordance with the sayings of the seven
sages and not education in the strict sense of the term. A
Khanoum is supposed to have been a dynastic cult centre
of the Bactrian royal house,21 so one can imagine that the
gymnasium was connected with a ruler cult, as elsewhere
and especially at Tyre.
Five other towns in the Far East have revealed evidence for a gymnasium. The inscriptions are all from
Parthian times and suggest that the institution was older,
but remained unaffected by Parthian rule. In Babylon,
there is a victory list of 110 bce on a clay tablet mentioning a gymnasiarch, ephebes and neoi. Qala-i Sam in
Drangiana has produced a dipinto of the second century
bce on which the term gymnasium or gymnasiarch is
recognisable: a Nikolaos, possibly of Macedonian origin,
is honoured because he repaired the stadium as gymnasiarch. A clay stamp from Seleukeia on the Tigris reveals
the existence of a gymnasium in the town.22 A graffito
on the wall of the temple of Jupiter Dolichenus in Dura18 Diod. Sic., 18. 7, trans. R. M. Geer. The Inscriptions: IK,
65 (Estremo Oriente) pp.38183; see R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber,
Jenseits des Euphrat (Leipzig 2005), pp.715.
19 Klearchos fr. 6 Wehrli = Jos. c.Ap., 1. 22.
20 L. Robert, De Delphes lOxus. Inscriptions grecques
nouvelles de la Bactriane, CRAI (Paris 1968), 41657 (= L. Robert,
Opera Minora Selecta: pigraphie et antiquits grecques V (Amsterdam
1989), 51051)
21 L. Martinez-Sve, Pouvoir et religion dans la Bactriane
hellnistique. Recherches sur la politique religieuse des rois sleucides et grco-bactriens, Chiron, 40 (2010), p.18.
22 For the evidence see the accompanying table.

36
Europos is not as unambiguous as one might wish. An
exclamatory Dioysiac text full of invocations and dark
sentences mentions ephebes, which means that the concept was at least known at Dura.23 In Seleukeia-on-theEulaios (Susa) a Nikolaos was gymnasiarch and built a
stadium.
To sum up, the gymnasia in the Greek towns or garrisons of the Far East may have been founded by the
Macedonian kings, but not for reasons of Hellenisation.
A gymnasium was something the Greek and Macedonian
settlers needed and demanded for the purpose of staying
Greek abroad. We do not have to imagine the building
of a gymnasium as the first step when a new settlement
was founded. The functioning of the institution as such
does not depend on monumentalised structures.24 The
Greeks of the Far East kept their institution alive and
thus remained Greek even under Parthian rule.

Phoenicia
If we come closer to the Mediterranean coast, there are
three discernable categories of settlements to produce
evidence for gymnasia: the Greek poleis founded by the
kings, the Phoenician towns, and indigenous towns
inhabited by speakers of Aramaic or Arabic languages.
The documented Greek gymnasia perhaps surprisingly
are outnumbered by those in Phoenician towns.25
The Phoenician city states considered themselves as
culturally Greek in the sense put forward by Isocrates:
The title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share
our culture than to those who share a common blood.26
23 SEG, 17. 772; cf. H. N. Porter, A Bacchic Graffito from
the Dolicheneum at Dura, AJPh, 69 (1948), pp.2741. In Dura we
have a bath-gymnasium complex of the first century ce, which is
very early for Syria. It consists of a single bath section and a palaestra
surrounded by chambers: Nielsen, Thermae et balnea, p.117.
24 G. M. Cohen, The Seleucid Colonies. Studies in Founding,
Administration and Organization (Wiesbaden 1978), pp.8485,
states that a gymnasium is a fundamental requirement for a city
foundation. W. Orth Review of G. M. Cohen, The Seleucid Colonies.
Studies in Founding, Administration and Organization (Wiesbaden
1978), Gnomon, 53 (1981), p. 562) criticises Cohens opinion
because most of the archaeologically known gymnasia are much later
than the actual foundation. But this controversy is only apparent.
From Lydian Philadelphia, we have an early inscription which shows
that the civil and the military parts of the settlers cooperated to sustain the gymnasial education of the ephebes before there was a civic
gymnasium: TAM, V 3. 1425.
25 There might have been influences by the early Greek settlements on the Levantine coast.
26 Isokr., 4. 5051, trans. G. Norlin. See F. Millar, The Phoenician

Frank Daubner
From the third century bce, and especially in the second
century, Phoenicians, especially Sidonians, took part in
the great competitions in Greece and produced Olympic
victors.27 With the arrival of the Greeks, the Phoenician
cities adopted Greek building types, and they took part
in what we might call Hellenism to an extent and with
a natural ease which makes it inappropriate to speak of
Hellenisation.28 The abolition of the city kings from 280
bce on generated city states in the shape of a Greek polis,
and it is very doubtful that they obtained the status of
poleis by administrative acts from above, from the Seleucid
or Ptolemaic kings. As Greek style poleis, they had celebrations connected with musical and athletic games, so one
may suppose the existence of gymnasia in most Phoenician
cities.29 But to be sure we must rely on positive evidence.
The earliest inscription mentioning a Phoenician
g ymnasium is a dedication from Tyre, dated 188/7
bce. It reads: son of Demetrios, victor in the ephebic
Cities: A Case-Study of Hellenisation, in Rome, the Greek World,
and the East 3: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East, ed. by F.
Millar (Chapel Hill 2006), pp. 3250; M. Sartre, The Nature of
Syrian Hellenism in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Periods,
The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near East Reflections on
Culture, Ideology, and Power, ed. by Y. Z. Eliav and others (Leuven
2008), pp.2549; and, more critically regarding the Hellenicity of
the Phoenicians, J. D. Grainger, Hellenistic Phoenicia (Oxford 1991),
pp.7782 (3rd century); pp.10811 (2nd century).
27M. Sartre, Histoires Grecques. Snapshots from Antiquity
(Cambridge, MA 2009), pp. 21522; M. Sartre, DAlexandre
Zenobie. Histoire du Levant antique (Paris 2001), pp. 28081;
E. Bikerman, Sur une inscription grecque de Sidon, in Mlanges
syriens offerts a monsieur Ren Dussaud (Paris 1939), pp. 9199; L.
Moretti, Iscrizioni agonistiche greche (Rome 1953), pp.10811; O.
van Nijf, Local Heroes: Athletics, Festivals and Elite Self-Fashioning
in the Roman East, in Being Greek under Rome, ed. by S. Goldhill
(Cambridge 2001), pp.30634; W. Leschhorn, Die Verbreitung
von Agonen in den stlichen Provinzen des rmischen Reiches, in
Colloquium Agonistik in der rmischen Kaiserzeit (St Augustin 1998),
pp.3157. In the Eshmoun temple near Sidon, a tradition of presenting statues of athletes began in the second century bce, which clearly
goes back to Greek influence: M. Dunand, Le temple dEchmoun
Sidon. Essai de chronologie, BMB, 26 (1973), p.20. For Greek influences on the cult of Eshmun see C. Apicella, Asklpios, Dionysos
et Eshmun de Sidon: la cration dune identit religieuse originale,
Transferts culturels et politique dans le monde hellnistique, ed. by J.-C.
Couvenhes and B. Legras (Paris 2006), pp.14149.
28M. Sartre, DAlexandre Zenobie, p.147; p.268; M. Sommer,
Die Phnizier. Handelsherren zwischen Orient und Okzident (Stuttgart
2005), pp.24048; Millar, The Phoenician Cities; R. Stucky, Sidon
zur Zeit der Perserherrschaft, in . Inter
national Meeting of History and Archaeology (Athens 1991), pp.46776.
29Sartre, DAlexandre Zenobie, p.281. For the games in the province of Syria see now the rather unsatisfactory article by H. Bru, Les concours grecs dans les provinces syriennes, Stadion, 33 (2007), pp.128.

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East

37

category, to the Great king Antiochus, to his son king

Seleucus, and to Hermes and Heracles.30 These games
might be the penteteric games of Tyre mentioned in the
second book of the Maccabees.31 I will return to this
revealing inscription when I discuss the function of gymnasia as places of ruler worship. Another fragment of
uncertain date mentions a Tyrian gymnasiarch.32
At Arados, we have a bilingual dedication from 25/4
bce of a gymnasiarch to Hermes and Heracles. In the
Phoenician text, Hermes retains his Greek name, but
Heracles is called Melqart. This assimilation shows that
the gods concerned and the institution they represent
were nothing strange for the Phoenicians. So it is no surprise that the great Sidon, whose inhabitants took part
in the Pan-Hellenic games of the Greek mainland, had a
gymnasium too. The date of the inscription is uncertain;
it records that the demos honoured Apollophanes, son
of Apollophanes, grandson of Nikon, who was gymnasiarch and agoranomos.33 The names are entirely Greek,
but this does not say much about the ethnic origin of
the persons concerned. Names in ancient Syria were
ambiguous, and it was not unusual for the bearer of a
Syriac, Arabic or Phoenician name to take on a Greek
name for use in special contexts and on Greek inscriptions.34 So we should not assume that a Greek was gymnasiarch in Sidon. The same is the case with the gymnasiarchs Dionysodoros and Aspasion, known from an
inscription of uncertain date from Byblos. 35 Even the
obscure town Balanaia on the Syrian coast has produced
evidence for a gymnasium, but only in the second century ce: the boule and the demos honoured Philippos,

son of Antipatros, and his father Antipatros, son of

Philippos, for their benefactions and their remarkable
fulfilling of the gymnasiarchs office.36 The history and
standing of the town are enigmatic. We know neither if
it belonged to Phoenicia or to Syria, nor why and when
it was named Leukas in Hellenistic or in Roman times.37
However that might be, there was a gymnasium in the
second century, and from the names Philippos and in
particular Antipatros with their Macedonian background one should conclude of course with a note of
caution that there was some influence from the Greek
and Macedonian settlers from the west.38 In the late first
century bce, gymnasia were donated at Acco-Ptolemais
and at Tripolis by Herod the Great; a third he bestowed
on the city of Damascus. 39 This does not necessarily
mean that they had none before,40 but we can not know
that for sure. It might be the case that Herod donated
new gymnasia (in Greece it is not unusual for a relatively
large polis to have two or more gymnasia), or that he just
adorned or improved existing structures. To have a gymnasium does not necessarily mean to have a building of
the Greek gymnasium type.

30 I.Tyr, no. 1. For the assimilation of Heracles and Melqart

at Tyros see R. Dussaud, Hracls et Astrono Tyre, RHR, 64
(1911), pp.33139.
31 II Maccabees 4. 1820.
32 I.Tyr, p.56.
33 SEG, 2, p.842.
34M. Sartre, The Ambiguous Name: The Limitations of
Cultural Identity in Graeco-Roman Syrian Onomastics, in Old and
New Worlds in Greek Onomastics, ed. by E. Matthews (Oxford 2007),
pp.199232; I. Kajanto, Supernomina. A Study in Latin Epigraphy,
Comm. Hum. Lit., 40.1 (Helsinki 1966), pp.1435. In an undated
Sidonian inscription, we find the agonothete Apollophanes, son
of Abduzmounos, and the athlete Diotimos, son of Abdoubastios:
IGLS, 1866c; BE, 1977. 537. Cf. the Demokles, son of Demokles,
who was hieraphoros in the games of bce 59/58: R. Wachter, Die
griechischen Inschriften, in Das Eschmun-Heiligtum von Sidon.
Architektur und Inschriften, ed. by R. A. Stucky, AntK-BH, 19 (Basel
2005), pp.31931, no. Gr5.
35M. Dunand, Fouilles de Byblos II. 19331938. Texte (Paris
1954), p.60 no. 7041 = BE 1958, 507.

36 IGLS, 4, 1302. The publication dates the decree to the second century bce, but according to Julien Aliquot, who examined
the stone, this must be a mistake.
37 G. M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red
Sea Basin, and North Africa (Berkeley 2006), pp.20910, for the
sources.
38 In the third century ce, there were games held in Leukas:
IGLS, 4, 1265 = IGRR, 3,1012 l.21.
39Jos. BJ, 1. 21. 11 (422). For the building policy of Herodes
see A. Lichtenberger, Die Baupolitik Herodes des Groen (Wiesbaden
1999); D. W. Roller, New Insights into the Building Program of
Herod the Great, in The World of the Herods, ed. by N. Kokkinos
(Stuttgart 2007), pp.31320.
40 Contra Delorme, Gymnasion, p.218.
41Millar, The Problem, p. 13. For the lack of theatres see
the divergent opinion of B. Le Guen, Thtre, cits et royaumes
en Anatolie et au Proche-Orient de la mort dAlexandre le Grand
aux conqutes de Pompe, in LOrient mditerranen de la mort
dAlexandre aux campagnes de Pompe, ed. by F. Prost (Rennes 2003),
pp.32955.

Greek Poleis
The evidence for the Greek cities, even for the great
centres, is far from satisfactory, and this is surprising.
The fact that there were no Hellenistic theatres in Syria
and the few Hellenistic inscriptions made Fergus Millar
question the spread of Greek culture in this region.41

Frank Daubner

38
Indeed, evidence only comes from the Tetrapolis towns.
There were gymnastic festivals, as an inscription of the
year 198/7 bce from Antioch shows, in which some theoroi honour an agonothetes from Seleucia.42 So we have
to assume that Seleucia had a gymnasium in Hellenistic
times, even if it is not documented until Imperial times
by an honorific decree of the boule and demos, dated
after a Tiberius Nikanor, who was agonothetes and gymnasiarch.43 Even the gymnasium of Antioch is not well
documented: from the extant fragments of the hypomnemata of Ptolemy III we learn that his entrance into
Antioch after the Third Syrian War in 246 was witnessed
by the population of Antioch which stood arranged
in civic sections. One of these sections were the neaniskoi from the gymnasium.44 In 167 bce, 800 ephebes
accompanied the pompe of Antiochus IV in Daphne.
One has to suppose that they were Antiochians, because
the number seems far too high for a town like Daphne,
which nevertheless had a gymnasium which was spacious enough for 1500 klinai, on which Antiochus fed
the people after his pompe.45 The gymnasium survived
in Roman times: an inscription of 73/4 ce concerning the building of a channel mentions the house of the
gymnasiarch Pharnakes, which is an Iranian name. 46
From Gerasa, we have a dedication of a xystarches from
Antioch to the legate Lucius Alfenus Avitianus, dated to
the first decades of the third century ce.47 The fact that
Laodicea also had a gymnasium is known only because
a murder occurred there in around 164 bce. As Cicero
relates in his ninth Philippic:

42 C. H. Kraeling, A New Greek Inscription from Antioch on

the Orontes, AJA, 68 (1964), pp.17879; BE, 1965. 436.
43 IGLS, 3,1186.
44 L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundzge und Chrestomathie
der Papyrusurkunde (Leipzig and Berlin 1912), no. 1 = FGrHist,
160. Trans.: R. S. Bagnall and p. Derow, Historical Sources in
Translation: The Hellenistic Period (Malden and Oxford 2004, 2nd
edition), no.27.
45 Polyb., 31. 34. For the Seleucid dynastic sanctuary at
Daphne see B. Cabouret, Les cultes grecs dAntioche, Topoi, 7
(1997), pp.101315.
46 SEG, 35, 1483 l. 3334. See D. Feissel, Deux listes de
quartiers dAntioche astreints au creusement dun canal (7374 aprs
J.-C.), Syria, 62 (1985), pp.77103.
47 I.Gerasa, no. 170. Cf. P.-L. Gatier, La culture grecque
Gerasa. Nouveaux documents, in .
International Meeting of History and Archaeology (Athens 1991),
pp.32829. A xystos in Antioch, built together with a public bath by
the emperor Commodus, is mentioned by Malal., 12. 283.

C. Octavius, having been sent by the senate to investigate

the dispositions of kings and of free nations, and especially to forbid the grandson of king Antiochus, the one
who had carried on war against our forefathers, to maintain fleets and to keep elephants, he was slain at Laodicea,
in the gymnasium, by a man of the name of Leptines.48

The Australian excavations on Jebel Khalid on the

Euphrates have brought to light Hellenistic palaestra
structures, which might be connected with the gymnasium of this Seleucid settlement.49 That is all the evidence we have from the Greek settlements of Syria.

Indigenous Settlements
The fourth group of towns, the indigenous poleis, is
chronologically distinct from the Greek and Phoenician
poleis already discussed: they all come from Imperial
times if we set aside the much-debated case of Jerusalem,
where in c.174 bce the high priest Jason tried and failed
to install a Greek polis. Jasons main objective was probably to let the Hellenised Jews participate in the wider
society of his day. What upset the compilator of II
Maccabees most was the creation of a gymnasium and an
ephebeion.50 This underlines the importance of the institution for a polis cultivated in Hellenistic manner.
Damascus is one of the towns given a gymnasium by
Herod the Great, and during the Jewish War, according to Josephus, the Jewish population of Damascus was
gathered in this spot and massacred. In total, there were
10,500 victims.51 If this number is correct, the gymnasium was huge and probably also served administrative purposes, perhaps as a dikasterion, as is the case at
Alexandria and Kyrene.52
48Cic. Phil., 9. 4, trans. C. D. Yonge; cf. App. Syr., 46.
49 I thank Graeme Clarke for information about this still
unpublished structure.
50 II Maccabees, 4. 729. From the bulk of literature about
this episode see K. Bringmann, Judentum und Hellenismus, in
Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus, ed. by G. Weber (Stuttgart 2007),
pp.24259; M. Sartre, Les lites juives de Jude dune rvolte
lautre, in Elite in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. by A. o and K.
Nawotka (Wrocaw 2005), pp.4041; Sartre, Histoires, pp.24147.
51 For violent conflicts between different population groups
in Syria and Judaea see N. Andrade, Ambiguity, Violence, and
Community in the Cities of Judaea and Syria, Historia, 59 (2010),
pp.34270.
52 T. M. Weber, Damasks Plis Epsmos. Hellenistische,
rmische und byzantinische Bauwerke in Damaskus aus der Sicht
griechischer und lateinischer Schriftquellen, DaM, 7 (1993),
pp.16264, discusses the gymnasium of Damascus. For the gym-

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
The terminus ante quem for the g ymnasium of
Gerasa is 42 ce, when the gymnasiarchs Ariston, son
of Andromachos, and Athenion, son of Athenion and
grandson of Loupos, appear in two inscriptions recording donations to the temple of Zeus.53 Another inscription tells us that the name of Aristons brother was
Zabdion,54 so it is very likely that he was not Greek, but
Arab. This is confirmed by two unpublished Gerasene
inscriptions of the same period which mention the gymnasiarchs Theodoros, son of Barnanaios, and Marion,
son of Phallion.55 The abundance of personal names in
the epigraphy of Gerasa lets us assume that the towns
elite in the first century ce had Semitic names. This
picture changes in the second century to a preponderance of Greek names. Certainly, this does not mean that
the elites changed, but that the habit of adopting Greek
names developed gradually. The only gymnasiarch of
Gerasa we know in the second century is Titus Flavius
Gerrenos, a very generous benefactor from a respected
Gerasene family. 56 His name might be Semitic and
derived from the Syrian and South Arabic place name
Gerrha.57
In the second century we find evidence for gymnasia in Gadara and Palmyra. A fragmentary inscription
from Gadara reveals nothing more than the mere existence of a gymnasium.58 But if Gadara was a Greek town,
as it is called by Josephus, it is not surprising that it had
the political and cultural institution of a gymnasium.59
Philadelphia-Amman also had a gymnasium. An honorific inscription of the boule and demos to Martas, son of
Diogenes, reveals that he was gymnasiarch and built the
Herakleion. Martas is a Semitic name, and Heracles was

nasium of Alexandria see F. Burkhalter, Le gymnase dAlexandrie:

Centre administratif de la province romaine dgypte, BCH, 116
(1992), pp.34573.
53 I.Gerasa, 34. For the date of those inscriptions see J.
Seigne, Le sanctuaire de Zeus Jerash: lments de chronologie,
Syria, 62 (1985), p.292 n.17.
54 I.Gerasa, 2.
55 P.-L. Gatier, La prsence arabe Grasa et en Dcapole,
in Prsence arabe dans le croissant fertile avant lHgire, ed. by H.
Lozachmeur (Paris 1995), pp.109118. Cf. Sartre, DAlexandre
Zenobie, p.731.
56 I.Gerasa, 192.
57 Polyb., 5. 46. 12.; 61. 7; Plin. (E) HN, 146; Strab., 16. 3. 3,
who reports houses built of salt in the town of Gerrha.
58Weber, GadaraUmm Qs, pp.14142; p.288.
59Jos. AJ, 17. 11. 4; BJ, 2. 6. 3. See J. M. C. Bowsher, Civic
Organisation within the Decapolis, ARAM, 4 (1992), pp.26581.

39

the chief deity of Philadelphia. Again the office of the

gymnasiarch had a connection with Heracles.60
In Palmyra there was a gymnasium in the second century, attested by two inscriptions. A bilingual inscription
of 130/1 is an honorific decree recording a donation of
oil for citizens, soldiers, and aliens by Male, also named
Agrippa, son of Yarhai, grandson of Rahai, who was
grammateus.61 Another inscription, in the Palmyrene
language, mentions a g ymnasiarch (GMNSYRKS).
Unfortunately, the name is missing, but he was most
probably a Palmyrene.62 Two architectural reliefs, depicting Heracles, Hermes and two palm branches, built into
the medieval fortress on the site of the temple of Bel,
are executed in a purely Greek style, very different from
typical Palmyrene reliefs. They could well have adorned
the gymnasium.63
A final epigraphic document mentioning the office of
the gymnasiarch is a decree from Kyrrhestian Nicopolis
commemorating Barnebos, also Apollinarios, son of
Sammana, who is evidently not a Greek.64
In Petra, some built structures have been interpreted
as a gymnasium. Of course one must be cautious, but
the discovery of a relief representing Eros between two
winged lions supports the assumption of Wiegand.65 The
60 IGLS, 21: I.Jordanie, 2. 29 with pp. 5154. Cf. Weber,
Damasks, p.163. For Herakles-Melqart in Philadelpheia see A.
Lichtenberger, Kulte und Kultur der Dekapolis. Untersuchungen
zu numismatischen, archologischen und epigraphischen Zeugnissen
(Wiesbaden 2003), pp.24853; pp.26061.
61 IGLS, 17. 145 = J. Cantineau, Inventaire des inscriptions de
Palmyre I (Beirut 1930), no.2.
62 IGLS, 17. 221 = J. Starcky, Inventaire des inscriptions de
Palmyre IX (Damascus 1949), no.102.
63 H. Seyrig, Antiquits syriennes: Hracls-Nergal, Syria,
24 (1944), p.75 with pl. IV. Cf. T. Kaizer, The Heracles Figure
at Hatra and Palmyra: Problems of Interpretation, Iraq, 62 (2000),
p.227.
64 IGLS, 1, 166. For Hermes at Palmyra see T. Kaizer, The
Religious Life of Palmyra. A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in
the Roman Period (Stuttgart 2002), pp.12425.
65 W. Bachmann, C. Watzinger, and Th. Wiegand, Petra (Berlin
and Leipzig 1921), pp.6568. See Sartre, DAlexandre Zenobie,
p.710 and n.372; Delorme, Gymnasion, pp.21820. Today the
building complex is mostly interpreted as the paradeisos of the nearby
palace: A. J. M. Kropp, Nabataean Petra: The Royal Palace and the
Herodian Connections, Boreas, 32 (2009), pp.4748. The excavations in Marisa/Tell Sandahanna and in Nysa-Scythopolis brought
to light porticoed buildings which might have served as gymnasia:
W. Thiel, Studien zum hellenistischen Siedlungswesen in Palstina
und Transjordanien. Historische und archologische Untersuchungen
zur stdtebaulichen Entwicklung ausgewhlter Siedlungen unter den
Ptolemern und Seleukiden (Mnchen 2007), p.141; p.214. But in

40
connection of Eros with the gymnasium and his assimilation with Heracles are well known, 66 and Imperial
Petra had been a breeding ground for Greek sophists.67
The participation of Syrian and Arabic cities in this
institution might show the adoption of Greek values.
Nowhere were Greek minorities in non-Greek towns
responsible for the introduction of the gymnasium, nor
in my view did any Hellenistic king or Roman emperor
issue orders for the creation of gymnasia.68 Rather, it
was a result of the process of self-Hellenisation, which
should be understood as willing of participation in an
attractive lifestyle which did not have to be actively promoted. In other words: it is Hellenism.69

Gymnasia and Ruler Worship

One aspect of the religious functions of the gymnasium
I wish to return to is the worship of the ruler,70 a pattern
that emerges in Hellenistic times71 and continued under
Roman rule. I mentioned the inscription from Tyre containing a dedication of an ephebe to Antiochus, Seleucus,
Hermes and Heracles. Other examples for a connection
the absence of inscriptions or other evidence in the material record
we should be cautious about this interpretation.
66 Aneziri and Damaskos, Stdtische Kulte, pp.25354 with
examples.
67 G. W. Bowersock, Greek Culture at Petra and Bostra in
the Third Century ad, in . International
Meeting of History and Archaeology (Athens 1991), p.17.
68 The Apamean baths erected by L. Iulius Agrippa were dedicated to Trajan during the proconsulship of the famous Pergamene
A. Iulius Quadratus Bassus (PIR2 I 507): Rey-Coquais, Inscriptions
grecques dApame.
69 For what we might call the self-Hellenisation of nonGreek populations without graeco-macedonian immigration J.-C.
Couvenhes and A. Heller, Les transferts culturels dans le monde
institutionnel des cites et des royaumes lpoque hellnistique, in
Transferts culturels et politique dans le monde hellnistique, ed. by J.-C.
Couvenhes and B. Legras (Paris 2006), pp.3234. See also Sartre,
DAlexandre Zenobie, p.268; p.710; Bikerman, Sur une inscription, pp.9899; M. Zugmann, Hellenisten in der Apostelgeschichte
(Tbingen 2009), pp.5773; F. Millar, Libanios Vorstellungen
vom Nahen Osten, in Lokale Identitt im rmischen Nahen Osten,
ed. by M. Blmer and others (Stuttgart 2009), pp.17787.
70 L. DAmore, Il culto civico dei sovrani e degli evergeti
nelle citt ellenistiche dAsia Minore: Il ruolo del ginnasio, in XII
Congressus Internationalis Epigraphiae Graecae et Latinae, ed. by M.
Mayer i Oliv and others (Barcelona 2007), pp.33946.
71 The statue of Alexander in the gymnasium of Bargylia (OGIS
3 = IK 28 [Iasos] 620), which might be referred to as a very early
example, is in fact a re-erection of the third century ce, and we cannot assume that the Hellenistic statue stood in the gymnasium too.

Frank Daubner
of the gymnasium gods Hermes and Heracles with the
ruler can be found at Ephesus (honours for Eumenes II),
at Pharbaitos in Egypt (for Ptolemy VI, Cleopatra II and
their children), at Chytroi on Cyprus (also for Ptolemy
VI and his wife Cleopatra II), and at Lapethus, also
on Cyprus, where Adrastos, son of Adrastos, who was
gymnasiarch and priest of Tiberius and of the gods in
the gymnasium ( : most probably
Hermes and Heracles) built a naos with a statue of the
emperor.72 From Salamis on Cyprus, we have a dedication by those from the gymnasium to Ptolemy I.73
We should not assume that this connection reveals
much about the relationship of the ruler to the gymnasium or any particular interest in this institution on his
part but it is important for his relation to the polis. A
most revealing parallel is a list of gymnasiarchs of the second half of the second century bce from Cappadocian
Tyana. It is dedicated to Hermes and Heracles on behalf
of Ariarathes VI Epiphanes. The man responsible for
the list is Atezoas, son of Dryenas.74 He and his city
are unsuspicious of Greekness and had no reason to
flatter any Greek, but the town seems to have gained a
polis constitution. It is not very convincing to suppose
a role for these gymnasia that has anything to do with
Greek education. It is an institution which belongs to
a Hellenistic polis, and its main aim is to accommodate
the youth to their future role as citizens, as politai, and as
inhabitants and participators of a globalised Hellenistic
world. For this purpose, the poleis had to respect the
rules of the gymnasium, i.e. to worship Hermes and
Heracles or their indigenous equivalents, and to assure
the ruler, be he Macedonian, Roman, or Cappadocian,
of their loyalty.

72Ephesus: I.Ephesos, 1101; Pharbaetus: M. Seymour de

Ricci, Lettres, CRAI (1908), p.799; cf. M. Launey, Recherches sur
les armes hellnistiques (Paris 1949), p.839; Chytroi: IG, xiv 240;
Laphetus: OGIS, 583. See W. Ameling, Wohltter im hellenistischen Gymnasion, in Das hellenistische Gymnasion, ed. by D. Kah
and p.Scholz (Berlin 2004), pp.13435. The western evidence for
ruler worship in gymnasia or by gymnasiarchs is not very abundant.
Exemplary cases are the offerings for the king by the gymnasiarch in
Lydian Thyatira (TAM, V, 2. 855) and in Ilium (IK, 3 [Ilion] 31). See
L. Robert, tudes anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques
de lAsie Mineure (Amsterdam 1970), pp.17282. For the role of the
gymnasia in ruler worship see also Launey, Recherches sur les armes
hellnistiques, pp.85456.
73 J. Pouilloux, Deux statues de Ptolme Philadelphe
Salamine de Chypre, BCH, 95 (1971), pp.569572; cf. SEG, 25.
1057.
74 SEG, 1. 466.

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
An important religious and political function of a
gymnasiarch is emperor worship at the provincial level.75
The invaluable edition of the Tyrian inscriptions by JeanPaul Rey-Coquais has made us aware of a very interesting inscription of 43/44, which honours a Diodoros, son
of Idas, for having been gymnasiarch of the four eparchies.76 There is much uncertainty surrounding the four
eparchies or provinces or koina of Syria which leads
back to the lack of a concise history of the province of
Syria.77 A koinon of the province of Syria existed, and
common games existed too. But the division into sectors, eparchies, is less clear. This is not the place to deal
with this problem in full.78 We know that the provincial
75 For this aspect of the gymnasium see S. R. F. Price, Rituals
and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge
1984), p.110; pp.14344. For the difference between the emperors
cult at polis and provincial level see C. Habicht, Die augusteische
Zeit und das erste Jahrhundert nach Christi Geburt, in Le culte des
souverains dans lempire romain, ed. by W. den Boer, EntrHardt,
19 (Geneve 1972) pp.5564. For the Emperors cult in Syria and
Arabia M. Sartre, Les manifestations du culte imprial dans les provinces syriennes et en Arabie, in Rome et ses provinces. Gense et diffusion dune image du pouvoir. Hommages Jean-Charles Balty, ed. by
C. Evers and A. Tsingarida (Brussels 2004), pp.16786.
76 I.Tyr 54: . Cf. J.-P. ReyCoquais, Philadelphie de Coilsyrie, ADAJ, 25 (1981), pp.3031,
who already mentions the inscription, and Sartre, Les manifestations,
p.181. In Syria, the term eparchia denotes the Latin provincial. Also,
rather unusually here it means koinon: M. Sartre, LOrient romain.
Provinces et socits provinciales en Mditerrane orientale dAuguste
aux Svres (Paris 1991), pp.33940. This is confirmed by a coin of
Laodikeia from 217/18 which bears the legend COL. LAVDICIAE
METR. III PROV. This expression replaces the common legend
on the third-century coinage of Laodikeia and Antioch: H. C.
Lindgren and F. L. Kovacs, Ancient Bronze Coins of Asia Minor and
the Levant from the Lindgren Collection (San Mateo 1985), no. 2098;
a better piece from the Burstein collection: M. Burstein, Dr Busso
Peus Nachf. Mnzhandlung, Griechische, Rmische und Byzantinische
Mnzen. Sammlung Marcel Burstein, Nevada: Provinzialprgungen
des Imperium Romanum. Auktion 25. Oktober 2000 (Katalog 366)
(Frankfurt 2000), no. 1123. I thank Lars Rutten (Bern) for making
me aware of this specimen. See E. Meyer, Die Bronzeprgung von
Laodikeia in Syrien 194217, JNG, 37/38 (1987/88), pp.6873.
For the historical background R. Ziegler, Antiochia, Laodicea und
Sidon in der Politik der Severer, Chiron, 8 (1978), pp.493514. For
the meaning of the legend see R. McAlee, The Coins of Roman
Antioch (Lancaster 2007), pp.56.
77 The starting point for such a history is A. Gebhardt,
Imperiale Politik und provinziale Entwicklung. Untersuchungen zum
Verhltnis von Kaiser, Heer und Stdten im Syrien der vorseverischen
Zeit (Berlin 2002); J.-P. Rey-Coquais, Syrie romaine, de Pompe
Diocletien, JRS, 68 (1978), pp.4473.
78Gebhardt, Imperiale Politik, pp. 30510; Sartre, Les
manifestations; J. Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage der rmis-

41

assembly of Syria inaugurated an annual priesthood of

Augustus and games that were part of the international
Greek athletic circuit.79 The connection of the offices
of the high priest of the emperor and the gymnasiarch
of the provincial assembly is well known from Roman
Cyprus,80 but we do not have as much evidence for the
organisation of the games of the provincial assemblies as
we might wish. The most extensively attested provincial
games are those of the koinon Asias, which met around
twice a year in different places to hold games connected
with the worship of the emperor.81 Pergamene inscriptions attest a of Asia which might
have had something to do with the provincial games.82
Also from Pergamon was M. Tullius Cratippus, gymnasiarch of the six gymnasia of the koinon Asias and possibly responsible for the panegyreis of the koinon.83 We
should imagine that this gymnasiarch, like our Tyrian,
was responsible for the athletic games of the provincial
assembly, for the accommodation of the participants,
and for the provision of oil.84
chen Kaiserzeit (Mnchen 1965), pp.8788; Sartre, DAlexandre
Zenobie, pp.47679; Rey-Coquais, Philadelphie; Rey-Coquais,
Syrie romaine, pp. 5354; R. Haensch, Capita provinciarum.
Statthaltersitze und Provinzialverwaltung in der rmischen Kaiserzeit
(Mainz 1997), pp.22761; K. Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near
East (London 2003), pp.37071; W. Liebeschuetz, The Syriarch in
the Fourth Century, Historia, 8 (1959), pp.11326.
79 AE, 1976. 678; I.Magnesia, 149; S. Remijsen, The
Introduction of the Antiochene Olympics: A Proposal for a New
Date, GRBS, 50 (2010), p.425. See M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price,
Religions of Rome I. A History (Cambridge 1998), p.352.
80 IGRR, 3. 980 (Kition); 994 = OGIS, 582 (Salamis);
Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage, pp.8687.
81Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage, pp.5355. But see S.
J. Friesen, Asiarchs, ZPE, 126 (1999), pp.28688, and L. Moretti,
, RFIC, 82 (1954), pp.27980.
82E.g. IvPergamon, 273 and 463.
83 C. Habicht, Die Inschriften des Asklepieions, AvP, viii 3
(Berlin 1969), pp.16465: [] []
; L. Robert, Monnaies antiques en Troade (Geneve
and Paris 1966), p.46. C. Iulius Sacerdos from Pergamon was high
priest of the emperors cult and gymnasiarch of the five gymnasia of
the 12th Sebasta Romaia (
): MDAI(A), 32 (1907), no.50; now
http://www.dainst.org/sites/default/files/media/download/aek/
ehrenins/32n050.pdf ?ft=all (accessed 20 November 2012). This
office might also have had something to do with the provincial cult.
84 For the course of events during the games in honour of the
emperor see A. Chaniotis, Der Kaiserkult im Osten des Rmischen
Reiches im Kontext der zeitgenssischen Ritualpraxis, in Die Praxis
der Herrscherverehrung in Rom und seinen Provinzen, ed. by H.
Cancik and K. Hitzl (Tbingen 2003), pp.328.

Frank Daubner

42
Evidence for gymnasia in the East
Date

Source

Content

A Khanoum

4th/3rd c.bce

Veuve, Fouilles

Built structures of gymnasium type; herms; inscriptions

Akko-Ptolemais

Late 1st c.bce

Jos. BJ, 1. 21. 11

Herod the Great builds a gymnasium

Antiocheia on
the Orontes

246 bce t.a.q.

c.167 bce
73/4 ce
2nd decade, 3rd c.ce

FGrH, 160
Polyb., 31. 3
SEG, 35. 1483
Welles, Gerasa, 170

People of the gymnasium welcome PtolemyIII

800 Ephebes in Antiochus pompe in Daphne
Gymnasiarch Pharnakes
The xystarch Marcus Aurelius Alketas from Antioch honours
the legate L. Alfenus Avitianus

Arados

25/4 bce

IGLS, 7. 4001

Bilingual dedication of a gymnasiarch to Hermes and Heracles/Melqart

Babylon

110 bce

SEG, 7. 39 = IK 65
(Estremo Oriente) 107

Clay tablet containing an ephebic list, neoi, eponymous gymnasiarch;

Greek names throughout

Balanaia-Leukas

2nd c.ce

IGLS, 4. 1302

Honorific decree of boule and demos to a gymnasiarch (gymnarch)

Byblos

Dunand, Fouilles, 60. 7041;

BE, 1958. 507

Honorific decree to at least two gymnasiarchs

Damaskos

Late 1st c.bce

1st c.ce

Jos. BJ, 1. 21. 11

Jos. BJ, 2. 20. 2

Herod the Great builds a gymnasium

10,500 Jews of Damascus killed in the gymnasium

Daphne

c.167 bce

Polyb., 31. 4

Gymnasium capable of holding1500 klinai

Dura-Europos

225250 ce

SEG, 17. 772

Dionysiac graffito mentioning ephebes

Gadara

Mid-2ndearly 3rd c.ce

Weber, Gadara, I IS 16

Building inscription of a gymnasium

Gerasa

After 42 ce

Welles, Gerasa, 3; 4

After 42 ce
105114 ce

unpublished
Welles, Gerasa, 192

Gymnasiarchs, one of them brother of Zabdion (I.Gerasa 2) gives money for

works on the temple of Zeus Olympius
Gymnasiarchs Theodoros, son of Barnanaios, and Marion, son of Phallion
Decree of a sacred guild of artists, l.17 gymnasiarch for the games

Hellenistic

unpublished

Palaestra structures

Jebel Khalid
Jerusalem

c.174 bce

II Maccabees, 4. 729

The high priest Jason tries to turn Jerusalem into a polis

Laodikeia

c.164 bce

App. Syr., 46; Cic. Phil., 9.4

Cn. Octavius is killed by Leptines in the gymnasium

Nikopolis
(Kyrrhestike)

Imperial

IGLS, 1. 166

Honorific inscription for a gymnasiarch with the semitic name Barnebos

Palmyra

130/1 ce
2nd c. ce

IGLS, 17. 145

IGLS, 17. 221

Bilingual honorific decree for a donation of oil for citizens, soldiers, and aliens
Aramaic inscription mentioning a gmnsyrks

Petra

W. Bachmann et al.,
Petra, 6568

Built structures of gymnasium type; relief representing Eros and lions;

debatable

Philadelpheia

I.Jordanie, 2. 29

Honorific decree of boule and demos for the gymnasiarch Martas,

Priest of Heracles

Qala-i Sam
(Drangiana)

2nd c. bce?

IK, 65 (Estremo Oriente) 285 Mention of a gymnasium or a gymnasiarch

Seleukeia Pieria

Reign of Tiberius?

IGLS, 3. 1186

Honorific decree of boule and demos for a gymnasiarch and agonothetes

Seleukeia-on-the- Parthian times

Eulaios (Susa)

SEG, 7. 3 = IK, 65
(Estremo Oriente) 207

Honorific decree for a gymnasiarch who built a stadion

Seleukeia on
the Tigris

After 72/1 bce

IK, 65 (Estremo Oriente) 81

Inversed clay stamp of uncertain function mentioning a gymnasiarch

Sidon

SEG, 2. 842

Honorific inscription of the demos for Apollophanes, gymnasiarch and

agoranomos

Tripolis

Late 1st c.bce

Jos. BJ, 1. 21. 11

Herod the Great builds a gymnasium

Tyros

188/7 bce
43/4 ce
?
?

I.Tyr, 1
I.Tyr, 54
I.Tyr, 55
I.Tyr, 56

Dedication of an ephebe to AntiochusIII, his son Seleucus, Hermes

and Heracles
Statue base for Diodoros, son of Idas, gymnasiarch of the 4 eparchies
Fragment mentioning a gymnasiarch of the 4 eparchies?
Fragment mentioning a gymnasiarch

Gymnasia: Aspects of a Greek Institution in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
What is puzzling about the Tyrian inscription is that
the sentence of the four eparchies is a later addition in a
different hand. We thought to know that the four koina
of the province of Syria were a creation of Hadrianic
times when the eparchy of Koile Syria and its capital
Damascus was cut off from Phoenicia. Previously there
were only three: Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia,85 and, from
72, Commagene; Cilicia was transformed into a separate
province in the 80s. That this division of the province
had something to do with emperor worship is indicated
by a Gerasene inscription of 119/20, which mentions a
high priest of the four eparchies in Antioch.86 And there
85 In Cilicia, especially in Tarsus, we have many references
for gymnasia and gymnasiarchs. In this respect, the country seems
to be much closer to Asia Minor than to Syria, so it did not seem
to be useful to discuss them in detail in the present context. Some
of the Cilician gymnasiarchs among them we find also women,
which do not appear in Syria are also priests of the emperor cult or
Cilicarchs: IGRR, 3. 833; 834; R. Paribeni and P. Romanelli, Studi
e ricerche nellAnatolia meridionale, MonAnt, 23 (1915), p.178,
no.122; SEG, 26. 1457; G. Daux, A propos dune inscription honorifique de Tarse, ZPE, 20 (1976), p.249.
86 I.Gerasa, 53. According to Gatier, the honour must refer to
an earlier date when Gerasa was still part of the province of Syria:
P.-L. Gatier, Philadelphie et Gerasa du royaume nabaten la province dArabie, in Gographie historique au Proche-orient, ed. by P.-L.
Gatier and others (Paris 1990), p.169 n.53, even though in the light
of I.Gerasa 170 (a xystarch from Antiocheia is honoured in Gerasa;
cf. n.47) it is possible that Arabia and Syria held common games or
had a common cult of the emperor. In the third century, a Gerasene
citizen held the office of the Syriarch: Sartre, Les manifestations,
p.169; cf. p.179.

43

are strong arguments for the participation of Cilicia in

the Syrian koinon until 132/135.87 Is it possible that the
phrase was added to the Tyrian inscription some 30 or
even 60 years after its erection? This would be quite unusual.88 Another possibility is that Commagene, which
was under Roman rule from 18 ce, was not returned
to Antiochus IV immediately after the succession of
Claudius but only some years later; thus it formed part
of the province of Syria as late as 43/44 as it did after 72
ce.89 Ultimately we have to rethink the territorial organisation of the provincial assembly of Syria in the light of
the honorific inscription for the gymnasiarch of Tyre
but not here.90

87 R. Ziegler, Zur Einrichtung des kilikischen Koinon. Ein

Datierungsversuch, in Studien zum antiken Kleinasien III, AMS, 16
(Bonn 1995), pp.18386.
88 A similar addition in very rough scratchy letters, yet contemporary with the inscription, was made to IvPergamon 274, a letter
of Hadrian. An addition one year after the erection of the inscription is found in an early second-century bce decree of Xanthus:
p.Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs du gymnase au Lton de Xanthos, REG,
109 (1996), pp.134, no.1 l.38f. Cf. p.17.
89 The sources for Roman rule in Commagene are collected by
M. A. Speidel, Early Roman Rule in Commagene, SCI, 24 (2005),
pp.85100. See also M. Facella, Advantages and Disadvantages
of an Allied Kingdom: The Case of Commagene, in Kingdoms
and Principalities in the Roman Near East, ed. by T. Kaizer and M.
Facella (Stuttgart 2010), pp.195197.
90 For a discussion of this difficult subject see Sartre,
DAlexandre Zenobie, pp.47080.

44

Frank Daubner

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