1Every Greek city felt the need to consult an oracle. The most famous oracles were those at Delphi and Dodona in Greece, Didyma and Klaros in Asia Minor and the oracle of Ammon in the oasis of Siwa in Egypt; many others had mostly local significance1. As Kyzikos was a colony of Miletos, one would assume that the city’s oracular needs would best be met by Apollo of Didyma, on the territory of Miletos. This might have happened, the record is meager and also shows consultations with Delphi and Ammon to be earlier than the first attested case for Didyma. Without a doubt the city of Kyzikos venerated Apollo of Didyma. According to the testimony of Aelius Aristides, the god himself was considered the founder, the archegetes, of the city2. Whether this represents an old tradition or simply a panegyric fiction of the sophist, in any event it is true that, centuries after its foundation, Kyzikos used to send to Apollo’s temple at Didyma one or more silver bowls (φιάλαι) as offerings every year. They are recorded in the temple’s inventory from the year 271/270 down to about 100 BC3. Therefore, it would be natural to assume that the city would consult this oracle whenever a need arose. However, only two such instances are attested, the first not before imperial times, the second even later, in late antiquity. A third one, not dated, may have come either from Didyma or from another oracle.

Delphi

2The first clear instance of such consultation comes from Delphi, and it dates to the Hellenistic period. Like so many other cities in the eastern Mediterranean, Kyzikos eventually felt the need to upgrade the festival held annually for its chief goddess, Kore Soteira. In this, it followed the example of other cities which had done just that for their main deity: for instance Kos for Asklepios in 242 BC and Magnesia at the Maeander for Artemis in 2084. The way to proceed was to consult an oracle and ask for the god’s verdict as to whether the sanctuary in question (or the city and its territory, including the sanctuary) should be considered holy and inviolable ἱερὰ καὶ ἂσυλος). If the answer was in the affirmative, the oracle’s authorization then led to the upgrading of the festival for the local deity into a sacred and panhellenic event, no longer celebrated annually, but with greater splendor every third or every fifth year. The annual Asklepieia of Kos thus became the penteteric “Great Asklepieia”, for which recognition and participation was sought from the Greek states everywhere and obtained from all, since what was requested had already been sanctioned by the oracle.

3At about the same time as Magnesia, towards the end of the third or the beginning of the second century, in any event before 179 BC (see below), Kyzikos consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. An inscription found there contains the god’s response which, in turn, reveals what the question had been. The god said the citizens, with respect to their annual festival for Kore Soteira, would do well to let the world know (ἐπαγγέλειν ἐς ἀνθρώπους) that the city was “holy” according to the oracle and the sacrifice of the goddess5. The same response is also found on a stone in another shrine of Apollo, at Delos6, together with a decree of Delos inscribed on the same stone. The Delians report that sacred ambassadors from Kyzikos had come and requested permission to set up a stele with the text of the oracle at the sanctuary7. Permission was granted and both texts were inscribed at the same monument. As a consequence of the god’s pronouncement, the annual festival held for Kore Soteira, the Koreia or Soteria, was declared “holy” and announced “to the world”.

4As Louis Robert has shown, these events are reflected on Hellenistic silver coins of Kyzikos. On the obverse they show Kore, Demeter’s daughter (without naming her), crowned with oak branches, and on the reverse an oak crown encircling a torch and the ethnic of Kyzikos8. This series runs for one hundred years, beginning soon after 166 and ending in the middle of the first century BC9. Robert has shown that the series reflects a new and higher level of the veneration of Kore in that her annual festival had been elevated to a penteteric and panhellenic event. The fact is documented by a small number of foreign decrees answering the city’s request to acknowledge the new status and partake in the festivities. The very modest fragments of the decrees of four states are preserved on a single block from the Strangford collection, broken into two separate fragments10. The origin of only one of these fragments could be determined, the city of Medeon in Akarnania11. Another decree came from a city, of whose ethnic the ending- ραίων is preserved, as of Κερκυραίων or Παλαφαίων12. More substance is preserved in the beginning of a letter of King Philip V of Macedon to the Macedonian city of Dion13. The king has seen ambassadors from Kyzikos who reported that their city and its territory had been recognized as “holy” (ἱεράν) and that contests (ἀγ[ῶνες].... (the text breaks off). This agrees with an unpublished decree from that city presented by D. Pandermalis at an international conference on Macedonian Epigraphy held at Thessaloniki in December of 1993 and briefly discussed by M. B. Hatzopoulos in his collection of documents from the Macedonian monarchy14. It is reported that it grants asylia to Kyzikos and that Philip V is mentioned in it15. All indications are that the ambassadors from Kyzikos followed the pattern established earlier, in 242, by the ambassadors or theoroi from Kos in the case of the “Greater Asklepieia” and copied, in 208, by those from Magnesia for the Leukophryena in honor of Artemis. They first approached the king and obtained from him the requested recognition and letters to cities within his realm authorizing them to follow his example.

5Until recently it was believed that an incomplete decree of Rhodes also reflected this diplomatic activity of Kyzikos in that it granted asylia for the city. This is SGDI, 3752, and it is said about it: “An inscription from Kyzikos preserves a decree with the positive answer of Rhodes”16. There is, however, no explicit reference to asylia (or to contests) in what is preserved of it17. It is, therefore, possible that this decree does not answer the original request of Kyzikos to acknowledge the city’s inviolability and the new, enhanced status of the Soteria, but rather replies to a somewhat later invitation to participate in an upcoming celebration of this festival. This seems, in fact, to be the case, and for cogent chronological reasons18.

6When did Kyzikos decide to address the oracle at Delphi with the question concerning the festival in honor of Kore Soteira, the very action that soon led to the sending out of theoroi asking for the recognition of the new status of city and festival? The stones at Delphi and Delos carrying Apollo’s response were dated according to their writing, to the later third or to the early second century19. Since the result of this diplomatic activity is reflected in a new series of silver coins beginning around 166 or soon thereafter, this gives a terminus ante quem. An earlier terminus is provided by the documents from Dion which both date from the lifetime of King Philip V and are, therefore, not later than 179, the year in which he died.

7It is now time to look at what the decree of Rhodes might be able to contribute. It was found at Kyzikos, but unfortunately the stone is long lost so that nothing can be gained from its lettering. The text opens with a note stating the date the decree was delivered at Kyzikos by the Rhodian ambassador: in the year when Aristandros, son of Apollophanes, was eponymous hipparch. A man of this name is otherwise known and also another, likewise as eponym, with the same names in inverse order, undoubtedly a close relative. However, both are dated only approximately20. Another man, Ἀριστάν[δρος] Ἀπολλ[---], was ambassador to Kos in a decree from a city that has now been identified as Kyzikos and which dates from the first half of the second century BC21. The stone continues with the date at which the Rhodians passed the decree: “In the year of the priest (of Helios) Aratophanes, on the 21^st day of the month Sminthios”. At Rhodes, two eponyms named Aratophanes are attested, one of them as late as the very end of the second century and therefore here out of the question. The other, Aratophanes I, has been conventionally dated to one of the years between 182 and 17622. Recently, however, Gérald Finkielsztejn, in a profound revision of the chronology of the Hellenistic amphora stamps of Rhodes, has developed the so-called “low chronology”, lowering the dates of the eponyms of Group III in the system by about twelve years23. This brought Aratophanes I to one of the years between 169 and 167. As the “low chronology” has widely been accepted by scholars, including myself24, it led me to date the asylia request of Kyzikos to these years25–the evidence from Dion that requires a date not later than 179 having at the time slipped my mind. When I became aware of this, I consulted with the colleagues mentioned above (n. 18). Gérald Finkielsztejn kindly replied as follows: “Aratophanes I falls in a very clear context of relative chronology, well studied (and published!) by V. Grace. It is based on two clear contexts (in addition to clear types): the Pergamon Deposit (which was re-studied by M. Lawall, who considered that its stratigraphy and chronology is supporting the low chronology) and the foundation fill of the Athenian Agora Middle Stoa, both having produced significant numbers of items for analysis. The only emendation that may result from a re-examination of the stamps of the end of Period III is the precise order of names, Aratophanes I being dated between 169 and 161 BC, i.e. even LATER than 169 but certainly NOT earlier, even less so by 10-12 YEARS. So my conclusion is that either the context of the inscriptions is different or we would have another eponym not attested on stamps (which I find quite unlikely for this period of intense activity)”. With equal generosity Alain Bresson wrote: “With Christian I note that nothing in the Rhodian decree supposes that the Rhodians had to acknowledge some new festival. It even seems to be a kind of normal, routine announcement of the Cyzicus festival, which in itself does not imply any precise date. Thus this would not contradict Gérald’s low chronology at all”. Miltiades Hatzopoulos, for his part, pointed out that the silver coins would have to be dissociated in time from the asylia decrees. Nobody was in favor of postulating a third Rhodian eponym named Aratophanes. After all, it seems that asylia was requested (and granted) not later than 179 and that the Rhodian decree was the state’s answer to an invitation to participate in an upcoming return of the Soteria. This happened during the war against Perseus or very soon after its end, when Rhodian spirits were at a low point. At that time Rhodes was invited to take part in a later return of the festival at Kyzikos that had been founded around 180. In the same way, before the end of the second century, the Ptolemaic court was invited to take part in another return of this very festival, when Eudoxos of Kyzikos came to Alexandria as theoros and spondophoros for his city to announce the upcoming Koreia26.

Didyma

8During the reign of Hadrian, when T. Claudius Eumenes was eponymous hipparch at Kyzikos, Apollo of Didyma gave an oracle: Ἱππαρχοῦντος T. Κλ. Εὐμένους ἥρωος χρησμòς στεφανηφόρων ὃν ἔχρησεν αὐτοις Ἀπόλλων ὁ ἐν Διδύμοις27. What the oracle was is not known nor is it clear what χρησμòς στεφανηφόρων means. It is understood that the city was the recipient, with αὐτοῖς referring to the citizens, Κυζικηνοῖς28. It could, however, as well have been addressed to another body within the city, maybe an association like the Ammonitai mentioned in the following action. The date is securely established since the eponym Eumenes is a well-known personality of the emperor Hadrian’s time.

Ammon

9Claudius Eumenes, mentioned above as the eponym of the city, reappears in a similar context in a lost inscription copied in the fifteenth century by Cyriacus of Ancona and published by Théodore Reinach29. It dates from the year of the hipparch Claudius Eteoneus and reports the following: ἀνεδείχθη εὐτυχῶς30 ὁ τοῦ Ἄμμωνος στέφανος ὑπò Κλ. Εὐμένους κτλ. A newly discovered inscription also refers to an oracle given by Ammon to the city of Kyzikos and proclaimed there by Claudius Eumenes. It dates from the year in which the emperor Hadrian was eponym of the city for the second time, probably between 124 and 12931: “Eumenes made the announcement [of the crown] of Ammon (as in the previous inscription), when an oracle from Ammon was brought (to the city)”: [χρησμòς κο]μισθεὶς Ἄμμωνος ποιουμενου τὴν ἀνάδειξ[ιν τοῦ στεφάνου]32 τοῦ Ἄμμωνος ὑπò (delendum) Κλ. Οὐάρου Εὐμένους. This introduction is followed by 13 hexameters in ten fragmentary lines which address Kyzikos (Κύζικε) and give the text of the oracle. The response of Ammon is not entirely clear, due to the defective state of the inscription. The god seems to have said something to the effect that he did not care for bloody sacrifices or gold, but only for incense and pious thoughts33. Ammon seems also to have recommended that the city approach the oracle of Apollo at Klaros. Such advice – one oracle recommending consultation of another–is not uncommon. The monument was erected in the year of Claudius Lucianus by Tiberius Fundanius Bassus, the διοικητής, for the association of the Ammonitai called νεωκόροι εὐσεβεῖς καὶ φιλοσέβαστοι (lines 55-58), with no less than fifty members, all registered in lines 16-54.

Klaros?

10Kyzikos, if it heeded the advice given to it by Ammon (section 3), may have sent to Klaros to consult Apollo’s oracle. Whether this happened is, however, not clear. The city was not a regular client of Klaros and fails to be represented among the large number of cities from Asia Minor and the Black Sea region which in this period sent delegations to Klaros more or less frequently. For this, see the preliminary report of L. Robert (Robert 1954 = Robert 1969-1989, 6.529-549), and the same author, with or without J. Robert, in numerous other publications34.

Didyma

11From the shrine of Apollo at Didyma comes a complete inscription of 31 lines, found in 1909 and published first by Theodor Wiegand, and then by Albert Rehm in the corpus of inscriptions from Didyma35. Rehm dates it, according to the letter forms, to the time of the emperor Diocletian, around AD 300. Damianos, the prophet of the god, asks Apollo for an answer to his question: “Since he has not seen an altar of your holy sister, his ancestral goddess, Soteira Kore, in your holy altar circle of all gods, and such an omission grieves him as a god-loving man, he asks you, Lord Apollo Didymeus Helios, to tell him whether you allow him to establish beside the altar of Demeter Karpophoros an altar of her daughter”. The god replied: “Give Soteira Kore the honor of an altar in the altar circle”36. Immediately following on the stone (lines 17-31) is a second exchange between Damianos and Apollo, as follows: “Your prophet Damianos asks, ‘Since by your holy oracle you have allowed him to establish in your holy altar circle an altar of his most holy ancestral goddess Soteira Kore beside the altar of the most reverend Demeter Karpotrophos, he asks you to be ordainer of her auspicious and hymnal epithet’”. The god replied, “Let us with holy cries call Soteira Meilichos (Gentle) to meet always with mother Deo”.

12Rehm has not commented on this text, except to note that the words περιβωμικóς and περβωμίς seem not to be attested elsewhere. Fontenrose quotes some additional bibliography by Otto Weinreich, Louis Robert and Wolfgang Günther. The most important contribution is that of Robert, and it came in two installments, first in 1968 in his paper “Trois oracles de la théosophie”37. He quoted other testimonies for the equating of Apollo and Helios and made the point that the prophet hailed from a city other than Miletos, a city where the cult of Kore was traditional and extremely important. He thought of Nysa and even more of Sardis, but in the end gave preference to Kyzikos: “à cause de l’épithète”. He also quoted instances in which people invoke their πάτριος θεός outside of their hometowns. Ten years later, he was quite firm in concluding that the sovereignty of Kore Soteira at Kyzikos proved that city to be Damianos’ city of origin: “le πάτριος θεά de Damianos est le Corè Sôteira, la Sôteira Corè de Cyzique”38. He also commented on Kore as the “sister” of Apollo (lines 5-6 of the inscription) and finally on the coins from the second century BC that reflect the elevation of the festival in Kore’s honor to panhellenic rank, an event that had come several decades earlier (above, section 1).

13Fontenrose, however, voiced some skepticism: “But it is unlikely that anyone but a Milesian could hold the office of prophet aside from Roman emperors, who would be honorary citizens of the city”39. He also remarked that Kore had no altar at Didyma, “but since she was Damianos’ ancestral goddess, she probably had a cult in Miletos”40. In this comment, he seems firmly opposed to Robert’s thesis that Damianos hailed from Kyzikos. Nevertheless, at the later passage, on p. 205, unable to make up his mind, he says: “Yet Damianos may have been granted Milesian citizenship, Kyzikos was, after all, a Milesian colony, and he was apparently a resident of Miletos”. Still, the solution seems to be at hand. First, since Kore Soteira was the main goddess of Kyzikos and of no other city, Robert was undoubtedly correct to infer that Damianos, who called her his πάτριος θεά, referred to Kyzikos as his hometown. Second, Fontenrose was correct in stating that only a person who was a citizen and a resident of Miletos was eligible for the office of prophet41. He came close to the solution when he spoke of the possibility of Milesian citizenship being granted to him. He was unaware of the fact (which Robert, too, had failed to point out) that in the time of Alexander the Great the old bond between Miletos and its colony Kyzikos had solemnly been renewed, when a contract of isopolity was concluded that stipulated that there should be friendship between the two cities for all times “as of old” (κατὰ τὰ πάτρια). It was also agreed that any Kyzikenian would be considered Milesian in Miletos and any Milesian Kyzikenian in Kyzikos42. I have no difficulty in assuming that this provision was still valid and could be invoked some six hundred years later, and that Damianos (or one of his ancestors) took up residence at Miletos and claimed and obtained Milesian citizenship, which enabled Damianos to rise to the top of Milesian society and stand for election to become prophet of Apollo. Even so, he had not forgotten his πατρίς, nor his πάτριος θεά,, and when he failed to find an altar for her in Apollo’s precinct, he took the necessary steps to remedy the situation.

14His case reflects an oracle given, at his request, to an individual. Ammon’s oracle was addressed to the city, but the interested party may have been not so much the city as an association, the Ammonitai. The state itself, however, was at the origin of the question put to the oracle at Delphi in the second century BC, where the god’s answer led to the revaluation of the festival for Kore Soteira. Damianos, who calls himself a pious man (φιλόθεος) may have been one of the last among the high officials to attend to the pagan pantheon43. Before long, a Christian bishop had become the most powerful man in his πατρίς. In 325 Theonas represented Kyzikos and the province of Hellespont at the ecumenical council at Nicaea and was one of the 318 fathers to sign the formula adopted by the majority of those present which soon became known as the Nicene creed44. Once again, the pagan population in Kyzikos reacted strongly when Julian as emperor espoused the case of “Hellenism”. A delegation from the city appeared before him in 362 and requested the restoration of the pagan temples. The emperor commended them for their zeal and gave them a free hand; moreover, he exiled the bishop Eleusios45. Eleusios had once before been deposed by the Christian emperor Constantius, and was about to be banned by Julian’s Christian successor Valens46, always to return. By the days of Valens’ successor Theodosius, paganism, while not extinct, was almost an anachronism. Men such as the prophet Damianos with his sincere devotion to his ancestral goddess had become rare. In due course, the oracles became silent.

Unknown Oracle

15In the course of the second century A.D., Dionysius of Byzantium composed a thorough description of the Bosporus, the Anaplus Bospori. His work is for the most part preserved in Greek, but for sections 57-95 only in a Latin translation made by Petrus Gillius (Pierre Gilles) in the sixteenth century from a Greek manuscript now lost47.

16Dionysius begins with a description of the western, European shore and moves upstream to the entrance to the Black Sea. Some 7 km north of Byzantium, between Chelai and Hermaion48, he mentions in section 56 a sanctuary of Artemis Diktynne and says that the goddess, as the only one capable of hunting on land and sea, received (part of) the catch of the fishermen: ἀνέθησαν δ’ αὐτῆ τὰς κατὰ θάλασσαν ἄγρας. He then says that “the God” advised the citizens of Kyzikos, when they were plagued by a severe shortage of fish, to venerate this goddess. They, however, surreptitiously stole her (sc. the cult image). When she then disappeared–“since for a god everything is possible” (θεῷ γὰρ ἐπὶ τάντα δύναμις) –the people of Kyzikos suffered just as before because the goddess had returned to her original location. They then sailed to the spot and transferred her openly (ἀπò τοῦ φανεροῦ)49 and secured her with golden chains. “And from that moment the goddess gave up her anger toward them”: καὶ ἐκ τούτου μετέβαλε μὲν αὐτοῖς τοῦ χόλου ἡ θεός.

17The events depicted in this remarkable story cannot be dated and may have occurred long before the author’s time. Nor can it be determined who advised the citizens of Kyzikos when a shortage of fish endangered their livelihood. Clear is, however, that any advisement given by a god could only come as the result of a consultation, that is, in the form of a oracle, when this was addressed as so often happened in times of dire straits. In this case, it was a male god (ὁ θεός), in all probability Apollo. The possibilities are primarily Delphi, Didyma, and Klaros. And the object of the question was Apollo’s sister, Artemis, here Artemis Diktynna. The cult of the goddess originated in Crete and spread from there50.

18In view of the long-standing relationship between Kyzikos and Apollo’s oracle at Didyma (see p. 316-317), he may have been the god recommending that the city venerate Artemis Diktynne. The cult of the goddess established at Kyzikos in the end has been overlooked by Hasluck and by N. Ehrhardt in their reviews of the cults of the city51.