Economy of the Sacred in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (review)

This Oxford dissertation tries to tackle the complicated question of how sanctuaries were related to the cities with which they were associated; that is, whether or not sanctuaries were dependent on cities. Dependence almost always means, of course, dependence in financial matters, and hence the title of the book. To achieve this goal, Dignas has chosen to focus her study on Asia Minor, and from there she takes some well-known (and well-documented) sanctuaries as case studies without, however, neglecting others of which we know less; most prominent is the sanctuary of Zeus at Labraunda near the city of Mylasa in Caria. Dignas relies mostly on the rich epigraphic material, but also on literary sources; all documents are given in the original with translation. Her main thesis is pronounced clearly in the preface (v–vii): she discovers a "triangular relationship of city, cult, and ruler," meaning that sanctuaries were independent from the cities which served as their hosts and that there was nothing of what we like to call a "civic religion."

Despite the wealth of material and the intelligence of this sophisticated study, the difficulties inherent in the subject matter make it almost impossible to come to a secure conclusion; but this is what Dignas tries to achieve. Yet most of her evidence can also be interpreted in the opposite way. She maintains that differences between, e.g., civic and sacred funds, as well as tensions between civic and sacred institutions, mean that both sides were autonomous entities. To support her view, she quotes (23–24) among others an inscription from Kos (D. Obbink and R. Parker, Chiron 31 [2001] 253–54, no. 1 [not no. 4A on 238–39]), from which she rightly infers that the polis was responsible for the construction of sacred buildings unless it was short of money and the temple was not. Equally right is her conclusion that "polis and cult were perceived as two different agents," but this does not mean independence. More revealing is, I think, the practice of appointing priests, e.g., at Herakleia under Latmos (265–68): it is the polis that sells the priesthood; it is the polis that "decided to limit the duration of office" (268). The same holds true for Ephesos (e.g., 173–75, 189): Dignas concedes that the Greeks did not strictly distinguish "sacred and profane aspects of their civic life" and that the Ephesians sold sacred land, used sacred funds for paving a street (175), and decided who became priest of Ephesian Artemis (189). The question of whether the priest was strictly a civic magistrate or not is, I think, not relevant. In this, as in other cases, where the evidence seems to speak in favor of a sanctuary being dependent on the city, Dignas tries hard to explain this as a misinterpretation (see also 197–98 on the cult of Apollo). Of course, there were differences in the relationship between different cities and sanctuaries, and some sanctuaries might have been truly independent of any other power, but this was hardly a general rule.

Even if one does not agree with its overall interpretation, this book is nevertheless a very valuable attempt to understand the system—or systems—of temple finance, taking a fresh look at the many difficult topics connected with this subject.