[237] Decrees of the ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας Ἕλληνες, C. I. A. 3487, 3957; a Lycian honoured ὑπὸ τοῦ κο[ινο]ῦ τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας Ἑλλήνων καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐ[ν Πα]μφυλίᾳ πόλεων, Benndorf, Lyk. Reise, i. 122; letters to the Hellenes in Asia, C. I. Gr. 3832, 3833; ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες in the address to the diet of Pergamus, Aristides, p. 517.—An ἄρξας τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν ἐν Βιθυνίᾳ Ἑλλήνων, Perrot, Expl. de la Galatie, p. 32; letter of the emperor Alexander to the same, Dig. xlix. 1, 25.—Dio, li. 20: τοῖς ξένοις, Ἕλληνας σφᾶς ἐπικαλέσας, ἑαυτῷ τινα, τοῖς μὲν Ἀσιανοῖς ἐν Περγάμῳ, τοῖς δὲ Βιθυνοῖς ἐν Νικομηδείᾳ τεμενίσαι ἐπέτρεψε.
[238] Besides the Galatarchs (Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 515) we meet in Galatia even under Hadrian Helladarchae (Bull. de corr. Hell. vii. 18), who can only be taken here like the Hellenarchs in Tanais ([p. 315], note 2).
[239] The συνέδριον τῶν ἐννέα δήμων (Schliemann, Troia, 1884, p. 256) calls itself elsewhere Ἰλιεῖς καὶ πόλεις αἱ κοινωνοῦσαι τῆς θυσίας καὶ τοῦ ἀγῶνος καὶ τῆς πανηγύρεως (ib. p. 254). Another document of the same league from the time of Antigonus is given in Droysen, Hellenismus, ii. 2, 382 ff. So too other κοινά are to be taken, which refer to a narrower circle than the province, such as the old one of the thirteen Ionic cities, that of the Lesbians (Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. p. 516), that of the Phrygians on the coins of Apamea. These have also had their magisterial presidents, as indeed there has recently been found a Lesbiarch (Marquardt, l.c.), and likewise the Moesian Hellenes were under a Pontarch ([p. 308]). Yet it is not improbable that, where the archonship is named, the league is more than a mere festal association; the Lesbians as well as the Moesian Pentapolis may have had a special diet, over which these officers presided. On the other hand the κοινὸν τοῦ Ὑργαλέου πεδίου (Ramsay, Cities and bishoprics of Phrygia, p. 10), which stands alongside of several δῆμοι, is a quasi–community destitute of civic rights.
[240] The composition of the diets of Asia Minor is most clearly apparent in Strabo’s account of the Lyciarchy (xiv. 3, 3, p. 664) and in the narrative of Aristides (Or. 26, p. 344) as to his election to one of the Asiatic provincial priesthoods.
[241] See examples for Asia, C. I. Gr. 3487; for Lycia, Benndorf, Lyk. Reise, i. p. 71. But the Lycian federal assembly designates the years not by the Archiereus but by the Lyciarch.
[242] Tacitus, Ann. iv. 15, 55. The town which possesses a temple dedicated by the diet of the province (the κοινὸν τῆς Ἀσίας κ. τ. λ.) bears on that account the honorary predicate of the “(imperial) temple–keeper” (νεωκόρος); and, if one of them has several to show, the number is appended. In this institution one may clearly discern how the imperial worship obtained its full elaboration in Asia Minor. In reality the neocorate is general, applicable to any deity and any town; titularly, as an honorary surname of the town, it meets us with vanishing exceptions only in the imperial cultus of Asia Minor—only some Greek towns of the neighbouring provinces, such as Tripolis in Syria, Thessalonica in Macedonia, participated in it.
[243] However little the original diversity of the presidency of the diet and the provincial chief–priesthood for the cultus of the emperor can be called in question, yet not merely in the case of the former does the magisterial character of the president, still clearly recognisable in Hellas, whence the organisation of the κοινά generally proceeds, fall completely into the shade in Asia Minor, but here in fact, where the κοινόν has several ritual centres, the Ἀσιάρχης and the ἀρχιερεὺς τῆς Ἀσίας seem to have amalgamated. The president of the κοινόν never bears in Asia Minor the title of στρατηγός, which sharply emphasises the civil office, and ἄρξας τοῦ κοινοῦ ([p. 344], note) or τοῦ ἔθνους (C. I. Gr. 4380ᵏ⁴, p. 1168) is rare; the compounds Ἀσιάρχης, Λυκιάρχης, analogous to the Ἑλλαδάρχης of Achaia, are already in Strabo’s time the usual designation. That in the minor provinces, like Galatia and Lycia, the Archon and the Archiereus of the province remained separate, is certain. But in Asia the existence of Asiarchs for Ephesus and Smyrna is established by inscriptions (Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 514), while yet according to the nature of the institution there could only be one Asiarch for the whole province. Here, too, the Agonothesia of the Archiereus is attested (Galen on Hippocrates de part. 18, 2, p. 567, Kühn: παρ’ ἡμῖν ἐν Περγάμῳ τῶν ἀρχιερέων τὰς καλουμένας μονομαχίας ἐπιτελούντων), while it is the very essence of the Asiarchate. To all appearance the rivalries of the towns have here led to the result, that, after there were several temples of the emperor dedicated by the province in different towns, the Agonothesia was taken from the real president of the diet, and, instead, the titular Asiarchate and the Agonothesia were committed to the chief priest of each temple. In that case the Ἀσιάρχης καὶ ἀρχιερεὺς ιγʹ πόλεων is explained on the coins of the thirteen Ionic towns (Mionnet, iii. 61, 1), and on Ephesian inscriptions the same Ti. Julius Reginus may be named sometimes Ἀσιάρχης βʹ ναῶν τῶν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ (Wood, Inscr. from the great theatre, p. 18), sometimes ἀρχιερεὺς βʹ ναῶν τῶν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ (ib. n. 8. 14, similarly 9).—Only in this way, too, are the institutions of the fourth century to be comprehended. Here a chief priest appears in every province, in Asia with the title of Asiarch, in Syria with that of Syriarch, and so forth. If the amalgamation of the Archon and the Archiereus had already begun earlier in the province of Asia, nothing was more natural than now, on the diminution of the provinces, to combine them everywhere in this way.
[244] C. I. Gr. 3902ᵇ.
[245] Dio of Prusa, Or. 35, p. 66 R., names the Asiarchs and the analogous archons (he designates clearly their Agonothesia, and to it also point the corrupt words τοὺς ἐπωνύμους τῶν δύο ἠπείρων τῆς ἑσπέρας ὅλης, for which probably we should read τῆς ἑτέρας ὅλης) τοὺς ἁπάντων ἄρχοντας τῶν ἱερέων. There is, as is well known, an almost constant absence in the designation of the provincial priests of express reference to the worship of the emperors; there was good reason for that absence, if they were expected to play in their spheres the part of the Pontifex Maximus in Rome.
[246] Maximinus for this purpose placed military help at the disposal of the chief priest of the individual province (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 14, 9); and the famous letter of Julian (Ep. 49, comp. Ep. 63) to the Galatarch of the time gives a clear view of his obligations. He is to superintend the whole religious matters of the province; to preserve his independence in contradistinction to the governor, not to dance attendance upon him, not to allow him to appear in the temple with military escort, to receive him not in front of, but in, the temple, within which he is lord and the governor a private man. Of the subsidies which the government has settled on the province (30,000 bushels of corn and 60,000 sextarii of wine), he is to expend the fifth part on the poor persons who become clients of the heathen priests, and to employ the rest otherwise on charitable objects; in every town of the province, if possible, with the aid of private persons, to call into existence hospitals (ξενοδοχεῖα), not merely for heathens, but for everybody, and no longer to allow the Christians the monopoly of good works. He is to urge all the priests of the province by example and exhortation generally to maintain a religious walk, to avoid the frequenting of theatres and taverns, and in particular to frequent the temples diligently with their family and their attendants, or else, if they should not amend their ways, to depose them. It is a pastoral letter in the best form, only with the address altered, and with quotations from Homer instead of the Bible. Clearly as these arrangements bear on their face the stamp of heathenism already collapsing, and certainly as in this extent they are foreign to the earlier epoch, the foundation at any rate—the general superintendence of the chief priest of the province over matters of worship—by no means appears as a new institution.