Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Antiquitates Romanae 4.25.4-5: female spectators at communal festivals in Ionia and Caria

Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Antiquitates Romanae 4.25.4-5: female spectators at communal festivals in Ionia and Caria

1st century BCE

Historiography

Literary source

Dionysius is discussing historical examples of increasing the unity of a community through the foundation of a common festival. He begins with a foundation myth of the panhellenic League protecting the sanctuary of Delphi and organizing its games, the so-called Amphictyony. This league, he claims, was founded by Amphictyon, the son of the mythical progenitor of the Greeks, Hellen. After this follows the present passage in which he claims that the Greeks of Ionia and Caria in Asia Minor followed the example of Amphictyon in founding their communal festivals, respectively at Ephesus and Triopium.

The passage clearly relies on Thucydides 3.104.3–4, where an Athenian festival on Delos is compared with the one in Ephesus. Dionysius seems to have added the Carian example himself as his hometown of Halicarnassus was in Caria, but it is unclear whether he knew of the attendance of women and children at the festival in Triopium or merely took it for granted. He is clearly speaking about the past and it is debated whether the festival still existed in his time. Moreover, Halicarnassus seems to have been excluded from the festival in the fifth century BCE and we do not know where Dionysius got his information.

The festival is studied by Berges & Tuna 2001 and Zingg 2018, 34–47, but they do not discuss the question of female involvement.

Amphictyon's example was followed by the Ionians who, leaving Europe, settled in the maritime parts of Caria, and also by the Dorians, who built their cities in the same region and erected temples at the common expense — the Ionians building the temple of Diana at Ephesus and the Dorians that of Apollo at Triopium — where they assembled with their wives and children at the appointed times, joined together in sacrificing and celebrating the festival, engaged in various contests, equestrian, gymnastic and musical, and made joint offerings to the gods. After they had witnessed the spectacles, celebrated the festival, and received the other evidences of goodwill from one another, if any difference had arisen between one city and another, arbiters sat in judgment and decided the controversy; and they also consulted together concerning the means both of carrying on the war against the barbarians and of maintaining their mutual concord.

Earnest Cary, Roman Antiquities. Dionysius of Harlicarnassus, vol. 2 (= Loeb Classical Library; 347), Cambridge, MA 1939.

παρ᾽ οὗ τὸ παράδειγμα λαβόντες Ἴωνές θ᾽ οἱ μεταθέμενοι τὴν οἴκησιν ἐκ τῆς Εὐρώπης εἰς τὰ παραθαλάττια τῆς Καρίας καὶ Δωριεῖς οἱ περὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς τόπους τὰς πόλεις ἱδρυσάμενοι ἱερὰ κατεσκεύασαν ἀπὸ κοινῶν ἀναλωμάτων: Ἴωνες μὲν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ τὸ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος, Δωριεῖς δ᾽ ἐπὶ Τριοπίῳ τὸ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος: ἔνθα συνιόντες γυναιξὶν ὁμοῦ καὶ τέκνοις κατὰ τοὺς ἀποδειχθέντας χρόνους συνέθυόν τε καὶ συνεπανηγύριζον καὶ ἀγῶνας ἐπετέλουν ἱππικοὺς καὶ γυμνικοὺς καὶ τῶν περὶ μουσικὴν ἀκουσμάτων καὶ τοὺς θεοὺς ἀναθήμασι κοινοῖς ἐδωροῦντο. θεωρήσαντες δὲ καὶ πανηγυρίσαντες καὶ τὰς ἄλλας φιλοφροσύνας παρ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἀναλαβόντες, εἴ τι πρόσκρουσμα πόλει πρὸς πόλιν ἐγεγόνει, δικασταὶ καθεζόμενοι διῄτων καὶ περὶ τοῦ πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους πολέμου καὶ περὶ τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμοφροσύνης κοινὰς ἐποιοῦντο βουλάς.

Karl Jacoby (ed.), Dionysii Halicarnasei Antiquitatum Romanarum quae supersunt, vol. 2, Leipzig 1888.

Berges, D. – N. Tuna (2001). Kult–, Wettkampf– und politische Versammlungsstätte: Das Triopion – Bundesheiligtum der dorischen Pentapolis, in: Antike Welt 32, 155–166.