See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/283967128

The Kouretes in Ephesos: thoughts on their origin, duties, and

engagement in cult and social life. GUY MACLEAN ROGERS, THE
MYSTERIES OF ARTEMIS OF EPHESOS. CULT, POLI....

Article  in  Journal of Roman Archaeology · January 2015

DOI: 10.1017/S1047759415003177

CITATIONS READS

0 126

1 author:

Peter Scherrer
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
17 PUBLICATIONS   68 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Mittelalterliche Keramik in St. Pölten, NÖ View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Peter Scherrer on 04 February 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 JOURNAL OF
ROMAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
VOLUME 28 2015
**
REVIEW ARTICLES AND LONG REVIEWS,
A SYNTHESIS ON ZEUGMA,
OBITUARIES, AND BOOKS RECEIVED

AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Alan K. Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford
Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, Lynden, Ontario
Pierre Gros, Aix-en-Provence
John W. Hayes, Oxford
Eugenio La Rocca, University of Rome 1
Carlo Pavolini, Università della Tuscia a Viterbo
Jean-Pierre Sodini, Colombes
Eva Margareta Steinby, Helsinki
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Cambridge
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
T. V. Buttrey, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Amanda Claridge, London
Moshe Fischer, Department of Classics, Tel-Aviv University
David L. Kennedy, University of Western Australia
Roger Ling, University of Manchester
Michael Mackensen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet München
John Matthews, Yale University
Richard Neudecker, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rom
Nicholas Purcell, Brasenose College, Oxford
Isabel Rodà, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona
Russell T. Scott, Department of Latin, Bryn Mawr College
Cinzia Vismara, Roma
Editor: John H. Humphrey, Portsmouth, Rhode Island
InDesign layout: Claudine Corey, Timothy Madden & Keith Henry

ISSN 1047-7594 (for the annual journal)

The abbreviation for this journal for purposes of citation is JRA.
This journal is printed on acid-free paper and the signatures are sewn.
Copyright © 2015 Journal of Roman Archaeology L.L.C. unless otherwise indicated
Permission to copy may be obtained only direct from JRA®, by mail, letter, fax or phone.
E-mail address: jra@JournalofRomanArch.com Phone (USA+) 401 683 1955
Mailing address: 95 Peleg Road, Portsmouth, Rhode Island 02871, USA Fax (USA+) 401 683 1975
The Copyright Clearance Center (USA), the Copyright Licensing Agency (UK), and other national
Reproduction Rights Organizations are not permitted to authorize copying or to collect fees for so
doing.

The opinions expressed in the articles and book reviews published in this journal are those of the authors
and not those of the editor or the editorial committee. Reviews are solicited in good faith.

The Journal of Roman Archaeology® has a home page on the World Wide Web, at:
http://www.JournalofRomanArch.com

The home page contains the full table of contents of all published issues of the journal, as well as an
index of all books reviewed arranged alphabetically by author, and indices by topic and by site of all
articles published. The home page also gives details of titles in the supplementary series (with special
offers for individuals).
 Table of contents of fascicule 2
Reviews
C. L. Sulosky Weaver The indigenous site of Castiglione di Ragusa (Sicily) and its cemeteries 510
in the wake of Greek colonization
A. Nijboer The Etruscan world and Rome 513
M. Squire Ars reuixit? In search of the ancient artist 523
M. Mogetta A new approach to early urbanization in central Italy 536
E. Lanza Catti Apulian and Lucanian red-figure pottery and issues of cultural identity 545
R. J. A. Wilson The coinage of Iaitas in the context of West Sicily 554
M. Gleba An experimental study of linen versus metal armour 558
J.-P. Thuillier Sport grec, spectacle romain? 563
A. Ziolkowski Reading Coarelli’s Palatium, or the Sacra via yet again 569
T. P. Wiseman Reading the City 582
J. Packer Reconstructing Pompey’s Theater 587
E. D’Ambra The short life of Rome’s columbaria 591
D. Woods A new edition of The death of Caligula 594
M. Beckmann New drawings of the Column of Marcus Aurelius 596
B. Borg Roman sarcophagi in context 599
K. Meinecke Looking at identity through portraits on sarcophagi 605
E. Fentress Oriental gods on the Caelian Hill 610
C. Bruun Ostian epigraphy in situ 615
E. Dwyer The provenance of artifacts discovered on the Vesuvian sites 620
between 1738 and c.1860
E. K. Gazda & The ‘Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor’ at Boscoreale: 622
L. J. McAlpine putting it all together
P. Keegan The ‘graffiti experience’ at Pompeii 630
C. C. Mattusch Architecture and luxury on the Bay of Naples 632
P. F. Bang An economist approaches Roman economic history 637
A. Van Oyen Globalisation and material culture: the road ahead 641
A. Corbeill Why, how or when the Romans laughed 647
B. W. Frier Roman law and the marriage of underage girls 652
E. Smith Broadening the scope for studying gender 665
N. Monteix Identifier les espaces économiques dans le monde romain 669
C. Virlouvet Les métiers du port: les saccarii, dockers du monde romain antique 673
E. Botte Exploiting the sea 684
E. R. Gebhard An exhibit on Poseidon 688
J. P. Oleson Neoria and navalia: not just about ships 690
W. E. Mierse Textiles in the socio-economic sphere of pre-Roman and Roman Europe 695
M. Feugère Fibules, identités et déplacements individuels ou collectifs 699
dans l’Antiquité
M. MacKinnon A zooarchaeologist studies animals in the larger picture 704
(or, on the benefits of keeping your own chickens)
J. P. Oleson The final word on Roman wooden pumping machinery 707
G. Davies The siege as a moral contest 709
P. Keegan Women and civic life in Italy and the western provinces 712
R. Reece Money for the Roman army 717
 Table of contents of fascicule 2 (continued)

M. Pitts Debating the Roman origins of Londinium, 723

with questions about its material signature
T. J. Derrick In Roman small things forgotten? A thematic exploration of ‘small finds’ 726
from Britain
J. Wood A lament for the defences of Silchester 728
R. Ling “Toichographologie” at AFPMA’s 26th colloquium: 731
painted plaster and stucco from Gaul and elsewhere
F.-S. Kirch Die Nutzung des Raumes in römischen Legionslagern und Kastellen 734
C. Pavel The “palace of the procurator” in Trier: 738
the promise and predicament of Roman archaeology
C. C. Mattusch Broken but not forgotten: fragments of bronze statues 751
from the northern limes
S. de Brestian Landscape archaeology in Roman Spain 761
J. Edmondson Rural epigraphy in central Spain: a new corpus of Latin inscriptions 764
C. Vismara In cerca della società africana 769
J. Stoop The ‘windmill model’ of the Augustan revolution 774
A. Spawforth Cult in Roman Greece (mostly) 780
M. E. Hoskins Walbank Inequality in Roman Corinth 782
C. B. Rose The reliefs from the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion at Aphrodisias 787
P. Scherrer The Kouretes in Ephesos: thoughts on their origin, duties, 792
and engagement in cult and social life
R. R. R. Smith Citizens and kings in the Tomba Bella at Hierapolis 803
L. Campagna Rappresentatività versus funzionalità: una nuova prospettiva 810
per lo studio delle fontane monumentali dell’Oriente romano
C. Abadie-Reynal Les fouilles de sauvetage de Zeugma: un bilan des résultats 821
C. S. Lightfoot Zeugma: Packard Humanities Institute excavations 846
K. Butcher Coins from the French excavations at Zeugma, and a comparison 858
with the PHI coins
I. R. Scott Small finds from the French-Turkish excavations at Zeugma 862
and the study of destruction deposits
A. U. De Giorgi The Princeton excavations in Antakya, 1932-40 873
J. A. Baird Jebel Khalid: counting sherds, or sherds that count? 877
T. Kaizer On the origins of Palmyra and its trade 881
W. E. Mierse Sasanian military architecture on Rome’s NE frontier 889
A. J. M. Kropp The iconography of Greek divinities in the arts of Central Asia 893
A. M. Berlin A once and future king 895
A. W. White The Roman games in Palestine and their reception 902
S. Sidebotham Surveying the Wadi ‘Araba near Aqaba 905
J. Patrich The new archaeological Atlas of Petra, fascicule 1 908
C. P. Elliott A “socio-political and environmental” crisis in Roman Egypt 912
A. Hollmann The material side of magic and its archaeological contexts 917
D. Woods Constantine the Great: a partial account 923
R. Lim The hippodrome of Constantinople: shaping Byzantine civilization 931
and its cultural imagination
K. G. Holum Wealth as a “stethoscope” for studying Late Antiquity 936
C. Vanderheyde Les reliquaires du Proche-Orient et le culte des martyrs 941
J. Balty Les mosaïques des provinces antiques d’Arabie et de Palestine 946
aux époques romaine, byzantine et arabe
C. Foss Coinage and circulation in Byzantine Palestine 954
J. G. Pedley The ups and downs of William Stillman, an American 19th-c. 956
archaeological photographer (and much more)
 Table of contents of fascicule 2 (continued)

Response by C. Aranegui Gascó to E. Papi’s review of Lixus 3 (JRA 26 [2013] 800-7) 962
Obituary of David Peacock, by S. Keay 965
Obituary of Sheppard Sunderland Frere, by R. J. A. Wilson 968
Obituary of Paul B. Harvey, Jr., by C. E. Schultz 974

BOOKS RECEIVED 976

BOOKS REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE 983
 The Kouretes in Ephesos: thoughts on their origin,
duties, and engagement in cult and social life
Peter Scherrer
GUY MACLEAN ROGERS, THE MYSTERIES OF ARTEMIS OF EPHESOS. CULT, POLIS AND
CHANGE IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT 2013
[2012]). Pp. xii + 500 + 10 maps, 3 colour & 27 black-and-white ills. ISBN 978-0-300-17863-0. $45.
In his introduction (7) G. M. Rogers states:
At no point in time over this very long period [i.e., from Lysimachos to the 3rd c. A.D.] is
enough evidence available to reconstruct fully what happened during the celebration of the
mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos.
Yet, in spite of that (8),
a new theory about the great secret … and explanation for the success and ultimate failure of
the cult will be offered.
Thus the crucial point for any review will be how far Rogers has fulfilled his aims. He tries to
combine the polis Ephesos, the sanctuary of Artemis Ephesia and the hitherto-unlocated grove
of Ortygia, Artemis’ legendary birthplace of birth, as stages in a story of cultural history and
permanent change. His central idea is not to give an explanation of the mysteries in a cultic/
religious/mythical sense, frankly admitting (29 n.154) that he does not know (none of us does)
either who were the mystai to be initiated or how the mysteries worked in detail and what
happened during the rites. Consequently he investigates the potential aims of potentates from
king Lysimachos (early 3rd c. B.C.) through the Roman emperors (especially Augustus) down
to the early 3rd c. A.D. and considers the rôle of Ephesos’ political and cultic institutions and
priesthoods and the sanctuary of Artemis. The (change in) functions and the development as a
whole of the institutions involved in the mysteries of Artemis are his focus. In this way Rogers
can produce an enthralling (if sometimes somewhat redundant) story of social life and change
in Hellenistic and Roman Ephesos, treating it as a paradigm of urban life in antiquity.
Rogers thus develops his story strictly along chronological lines (Parts I and II; see also his
Appendix 4 on 131-32). Strabo’s discursive description of Ortygia (14.1.20), with Skopas as the
inventor of a new type of cult statue of Ortygia nursing the twin children Artemis and Apollo,
the re-organisation of the city and Ortygia by Lysimachos, with the gerousia as the new body of
persons who enjoyed his trust, the kouretes as a cultic entity overseeing the mysteries, and the
processions from the city to the grove of Ortygia to celebrate the goddess’s birthday — all these
form the background for Part I.
Due to a lack of information about what happened in Hellenistic times, in Part II Rogers
jumps to Octavian/Augustus and his cultic reforms at Ephesos, which are (generally rightly)
supposed among scholars. Rogers takes Strabo as an eyewitness of Octavian’ reforms in 29
B.C. and also takes for granted the chronology of architectural development in Ephesos, espe-
cially around the “Staatsmarkt” (State Agora/Upper Agora) with the priestly center housed
in a Prytaneion of Augustan times. Consequently he does not doubt the relative and absolute
chronology of the epigraphic evidence from this Prytaneion as outlined by D. Knibbe in 1981
(see further below, and Rogers’ Appendix 3 on 309-10), a long series of more than 60 inscrip-
tions recording the prytanis (eponymous “high priest” of Ephesos, changing every year) and
the entity of 5 to 9 kouretes with their growing group of cult attendants. Up to now historians
have displayed an unquestioned belief in the chronology of these lists with a supposed start
very shortly after Augustus, but I shall try to show below that this confidence in (pretended)
archaeological and epigraphic “facts” is probably the weakest point in Rogers’ book. These lists
are the main source for kouretes and a growing number of cult attendants (flute player, person
telling the sacred story, herald, person responsible for incense distribution, inspector of sacrifi-
cial victims) during the next two centuries. Rogers thus concludes that the increasing number
of kouretes and their cult attendants is an indication of the greater importance and abundance
of the mysteries, the ceremonies, and the festivals of Artemis Ephesia (see p. 10, most of Part 2,
and 269–70). Consequently, he argues that the end of the kouretes came in the early 3rd c. A.D.
when their reputation no longer justified the costs of the office.
The Kouretes in Ephesos: their origin, duties, and engagement in cult and social life 793

In his last chapters of Part II and in Part III, Rogers increasingly moves away from the
historical approach and into religious and cultural studies with a philosophical approach
plainly influenced by conservative Christian theology. The climax of this newly introduced
approach is his conclusion that rising Christianity in the 3rd c.(!) was at least partly respon-
sible for the changes in Ephesian society (and society as a whole), eroding traditional values.
I shall not comment on this because of my own lack of expertise. My aim is more modest.1 I
shall try to show that a decisive part of Rogers’ basic material, the whole complex of literary
and epigraphic evidence for the Archeion of the Kouretes, could or should be viewed in a quite
different way from how the author uses it, making room in turn for a sharpened interpretation
of the mysteries of Artemis in a broader historical sense. But first I must stress that Rogers has
written a very learned book which makes exemplary use of a huge amount of primary and sec-
ondary literature; stylistically the book is old-fashioned, but it is rooted in the best traditions
of the humanities. Whether he finally achieved his stated aims I am unable to say — the reader
must discern that for him-/herself — but it is certain that readers will be enriched and will start
thinking — and one could hardly say anything better about a book.

The title of Rogers’ book does not mention the Kouretes. Nonetheless, this body, acting
apparently in some relation to the prytanis of Ephesos seemingly from the 1st to the 3rd c.
A.D., plays the rôle of the protagonist in the Mysteries of Artemis, as well as in this book. The
Kouretes appear in inscriptions first in 302 B.C. and again slightly later when the city was newly
founded by Lysimachos. After that, they appear only in the period after Augustus. They are
mentioned by Strabo (14.1.20) in his description of the birth mysteries of Artemis in Ortygia,
and the material for this section of his work may well (Rogers 103) have been collected in the
early Augustan period, or, more precisely, in the winter or spring 30/29 B.C.
Central notions for scholars who have evaluated the rôle of the Kouretes in Ephesos are
that their official meeting place (archeion) was originally located in the sanctuary of Artemis
Ephesia, that they received new duties under Lysimachos, and that they were transformed
and connected with the prytanis by Augustus, when they were relocated in the Prytaneion; as
a result, the Artemision and its priests no longer had had any strong, direct influence on the
cultic life of the polis. This assumption is based on a hypothesis of Ch. Picard (1922),2 which was
formulated in a more elaborate yet duly cautious fashion by D. Knibbe (1981) in his monograph
on the yearly lists of Kouretes inscribed on walls and columns of the Prytaneion:3
… Trotzdem dürfen wir festhalten, daß die Kureten in hellenistischer Zeit nicht nur kultische,
sondern auch politische Funktionen hatten. … Man darf hier vielleicht mit aller Vorsicht einen
Rückschluß auf die vorhellenistische Zeit wagen. Der Sitz der Kuretenschaft war in hellenis-
tischer Zeit offensichtlich das Artemision, er lag also außerhalb der neuen, von Lysimachos
gegründeten Stadt. Dagegen war das Ephesos der klassischen Zeit … am Artemision gelegen.
Man wird daher vermuten dürfen, daß die halb kultische, halb politische Funktion der helle-
nistischen Kureten auf jene ältere Zeit zurückgeht, in der das Artemision noch der Mittelpunkt
von Ephesos war. Daß sich bisher nirgendwo der geringste Hinweis auf eine Kuretenliste aus
hellenistischer oder womöglich noch älterer Zeit gefunden hat, muss nicht unbedingt bedeu-
ten, daß man keine Kuretenverzeichnisse geführt hat, … Die … Kureten, deren sowohl lokale
als auch funktionelle Zugehörigkeit zum Artemision sich mit einiger Wahrscheinlichkeit
aufgrund der beiden Inschriften [IvE V 1449 and VII/2 4102] … erschließen läßt, erscheinen
nunmehr als Körperschaft des neuerrichteten “augusteischen” Prytaneions, eine einsch-
neidende Zäsur, die, wenn nicht alles täuscht, vor dem Hintergrund der römischen Politik,

1 An overview of the book in the manner of a standard review has been done concisely by others (e.g.,
see, in English, M. Bontty, Canadian Journal of History 48.3, 2013, available at www.thefreelibrary.
com/Ancient,+classical,+medieval,+and+renaissance%2F+l’antiquite,+l’epoque...-a0363688403; H.
Wendt, BMCR 2013.10.05, available at bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-10-05.html.
2 Ch. Picard, Éphèse et Claros. Recherches sur les sanctuaires et les cultes de l’Ionie du Nord (BÉFAR 123,
1922) 280.
3 D. Knibbe, Der Staatsmarkt. Die Inschriften des Prytaneions. Die Kureteninschriften und sonstige religiöse
Texte (FiE IX/1/1, 1981) especially 74-76.
794 P. Scherrer

insbesondere der des ersten Prinzeps, gesehen werden will. … Da das Artemision in dieser
neuen Ordnung politisch keine offizielle Rolle mehr spielte, war auch das κουρήτων ἀρχεῖον
in seiner bisherigen politisch-kultischen Doppelfunktion unerwünscht. Was von den Funk-
tionen dieses κουρήτων ἀρχεῖον blieb, war die Aufgabe, die ortygischen Mysterien zu feiern
und die Rolle der dämonischen Kureten bei der jährlichen Wiederholung des Geburtsdramas
zu spielen, dessen Regie nunmehr offenbar der Prytane jeweils übernahm.
A similar opinion was expressed in even more certain terms by F. Graf (1999),4 who states that
the Kouretes under the Empire acted only in the Prytaneion and its surroundings. He sums up
as follows (257-58):
Zwei Inschriften aus dem späten 4. oder frühen 3. Jh. v. Chr. verbinden es [= Archeion Koureton]
mit dem Artemision … wohl als Zeugen beim Verkauf eines Libanotopolion
and furthermore
… geben sie im Jahre 302 zusammen mit den Neopoioi eine Empfehlung in einem Bürger
rechtsgesuch ab — sie stehen mithin funktionell zwischen Artemision und Polis von Ephesos.
… man hat den Verdacht, daß beim Bau des Prytaneions in augusteischer Zeit das gesamte
Kollegium samt seinen kultischen Aufgaben nicht nur mit dem neuen Prytaneion verbunden,
sondern auch radikal umgestaltet wurde.
In Rogers’ chapt. 1 (9) we already read that the Kouretes connected the sanctuary of Artemis
and the city, that Augustus transferred “the Kouretes from the Artemision to the newly built
Augustan-era prytaneion” and that this “removal of the Kouretes … should be seen as the cul-
mination of Augustus’s policy”. At 118 he says “… that the removal of the Kouretes … to the
newly built prytaneion of the polis” was part of Augustus’ reforms of the Artemision and the
city administration; as Graf and J. Bremmer had already done,5 he theorizes here (120) about
possible connections with the reform of Vedius Pollio. He then summarizes his opinion (n.197,
followed by quotations from 120-21):
… after the transfer of the Kouretes to the prytaneion, as we shall see, there is no doubt that this
office and the association were radically transformed.
Once they were based at the prytaneion, the Kouretes are no longer found recommending citi-
zenship for foreigners such as Euphronios of Acarnania to the Boule of Ephesos, as they had
done during the late fourth and/or early third centuries B.C. … Therefore, the transfer of the
Kouretes from the Artemision to the prytaneion undoubtedly removed from the Artemision
an association that had played a role in the politics of the city since the fourth century B.C. But
the removal of the Kouretes to the prytaneion also stripped the Artemision of some of its reli-
gious authority.

4 F. Graf, “Ephesische und andere Kureten,” in H. Friesinger und F. Krinzinger (edd.), 100 Jahre
österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos (Vienna 1999) 255-62.
5 Graf ibid. 262; J. Bremmer, “Priestly personnel of the Ephesian Artemision: Anatolian, Persian,
Greek and Roman aspects,” in B. Dignas and K. Trampedach (edd.), Practitioners of the divine: Greek
priests and religious officials from Homer to Heliodorus (Washington, D.C. 2008) 49. Graf and Rogers
both connect the building programme on and near the “Staatsmarkt” in Ephesos with this constitutio
Vedii Pollionis, but one must pay attention to the fact that the temple in the middle of the open place,
traditionally connected with the cult of Augustus/divus Iulius and Roma, is now dated later than
before, in the years around or after A.D. 11: see H. Thür, “Wie römisch ist der sog. Staatsmarkt
in Ephesos?” in M. Meyer (ed.), Neue Zeiten — Neue Sitten. Zu Rezeption und Integration römischen
und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (Vienna 2007) especially 84-85; P. Scherrer, “Der conventus
civium Romanorum und kaiserliche Freigelassene als Bauherren in Ephesos in augusteischer Zeit,”
ibid. especially 69-70. P. Herz had already doubted the very existence of a temple of divus Iulius in
Ephesos: “Zur Geschichte des Kaiserkultes in Kleinasien. Die Kultorganisation für die cives Romani,”
in G. Heedemann and E. Winter (edd.), Neue Forschungen zur Religionsgeschichte Kleinasiens, Elmar
Schwertheim zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet (Asia-Minor Studien 49, 2003) especially 140. Rogers’
considerations (99 and 102) regarding the architectural framework of the Imperial cult are thus
not up-to-date, nor are his references (67-71 and 97) to the city map of early Arsinoeia and Roman
Ephesos.
The Kouretes in Ephesos: their origin, duties, and engagement in cult and social life 795

The removal of the Kouretes from the Artemision to the prytaneion of the temenos/upper
agora of Ephesos thus was one of the defining moments in the history of the celebration of the
mysteries of Artemis, not to mention in the history of the city itself. … Indeed, it was a revolu-
tionary moment that ultimately led to the creation of a new association of Artemis’s ‘youths’,
the vast majority of whom thereafter were Roman citizens and members of the Boule. Their
participation in the festival, and the subsequent publication of the Kouretes’ lists on the archi-
tectural elements of the new prytaneion, was an unmistakable indication of how the world had
changed in favor of Octavian/Augustus and his adherents and was inextricably connected to
Octavian’s victory at Actium.
From Picard to Rogers, the crucial point of this theory is dating the migration of the Kouretes
from the Artemision to the Prytaneion in the reign of Augustus. But what proof do we really
have, firstly, for any relocation, and, secondly, for dating such to the Augustan period? Both
Graf (1999, 256) and Rogers (10-11 and 309-10) take the chronology of the lists of Kouretes pro-
vided by Knibbe (1981) as given.6 Knibbe’s lists allowed him to argue that the growing number
of cult attendants (hierourgoi) could be used as a chronological guide. With very few inscrip-
tions being dated absolutely (mostly with the help of known names of prytaneis from other
inscriptions), Knibbe developed the relative chronology of the lists by taking the number of
cult attendants mentioned, increasing from 1 to 5 (and even more in the late 2nd c. A.D.), as a
chronological feature.7 But here some caution has to be exercised, and I shall try to show that
there are good reasons to change the relative and absolute chronological position of some of
the earlier inscriptions.
The starting point is that there are only 2 (nearly) completely recorded inscriptions where
there are exactly 5 (and not the usual 6) Kouretes in the association.8 In a first inscription to be
examined, the first 5 letters of l.1 reading [ἐπὶ πρ]υτάνεως Γαίου are missing.9 Thus we might
easily continue in the reading of l.2 with [Ἰουλί]ου Διονυσοδώρου υἱου.10 In ll. 5-6 we read
that the first Koures in the list is [Διονυσ]όδωρος Διονυσίου, the father of the prytanis. So the
prytanis might be a typical Early Imperial new citizen of the Caius Iulius type, individuals who
were in charge of many offices and who were donors of numerous buildings in Augustan and
Julio-Claudian Ephesos11 (and elsewhere), such as the Tetragonos Agora with its South Gate
and probably the Prytaneion too. Not one of the 5 Kouretes is a Roman citizen, even if two of
them express their status as town-councillors (bouleutes).
In a second inscription (IvE IV 1008) we find two Ti. Claudii — the father who served as
prytanis, and the son as one of the 5 Kouretes — but no other cives Romani. A Neronian date, as
suggested by Knibbe and Rogers,12 cannot be argued conclusively, as the probable appearance

6 Apparently by mistake, some inscriptions in Rogers’ Appendix 2 on Cults in the Prytaneion (espe-
cially on 306-7) are repeated with differing chronological assignations (to periods III and IV, and
to periods IV and V): see, e.g., Die Inschriften von Ephesos [henceforth IvE] IV 1058, 1060 and 1063.
7 Knibbe (supra n.3) especially 79 and 84.
8 In IvE IV 1011, the first lines with the prytanis are completely missing, so we cannot ascertain if there
were more than the 5 surviving Kouretes mentioned.
9 IvE IV 1009; Knibbe (supra n.3) p. 19 no. B9 dated the inscription into the “2. Hälfte? 1. Jh. n. Chr.”
and placed it in his group 2; Rogers (309) has it as “late 1st”.
10 The editors of IvE IV hesitate to place a C. Iulius in the lacuna because of the tribus Sergia in the
following text, but there is plenty of epigraphic evidence for C. Iulii in the tribus Sergia: I give only
one example from a contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius in Dalmatia: CIL III 3158 (p. 1038)
= CIL V *336 = ILS 3320: Iano Patri / Aug(usto) sacrum / C(aius) Iulius C(ai) f(ilius) Ser(gia) / Aetor
aed(ilis) / donatus ab(!) Ti(berio) Caes(are) / Aug(usti) f(ilio) Augusto torq(ue) / maiore bello Delma/tico
ob honorem / IIviratus cum liberis / suis posuit. It is probably his father in ILJug 1 215 from Aenona
(Nin): C(aius) Iulius Ceuni f(ilius) / Ser(gia) Curticus Aetor / pontem de sua pecun(ia) / fecit / lon(gum)
p(e)d(es) CXXCVII / lat(um) p(edes) X.
11 One of them was C. Iulius C.l. Nikephoros, prytanis for life: see Scherrer (supra n.5), especially
68-69.
12 Knibbe (supra n.3) p. 18-19, no. B8, dated “Neronische Zeit?”, group 2; the authors of IvE IV p. 5 no.
796 P. Scherrer

of one of the Kouretes, Dionysious Karesiou, mentioned in an early Neronian inscription (IvE
Ia, 20a, ll. 38-39) as paying for a coloured column in the new fishery customs-house, suggests
only a broad span for his life in the 1st c. A.D. Ti. Claudius Arieos might well have received his
Roman citizenship and served as prytanis under Claudius, or even Tiberius.
For both groups in IvE IV 1008-9 the same cult-attendants are listed: Markos as hieros-
kopos (inspector of sacrificial victims), Menodotos as hierokeryx (sacred herald), Olympikos as
(akrobates) epi thymiatrou (burning incense); only in IvE IV 1008 do we find Metras added as
spondaules (flute-player). The two inscriptions should not be too far apart in date. Markos and
Menodotos carried out their duties until near the end of the 1st c.,13 which does not give much
possibility for a dating much earlier than the mid-1st c. With the exception of Kapiton as hiero-
keryx instead of Menodotos, the inscriptions IvE IV 1004-7 also have 3 attendants (Markos,
Meras, Olympikos) in common.14 Already 1004, however, lists two Ti. Claudii and a Cornelius
Faustus as Kouretes. According to Knibbe, the inscriptions with only 1 attendant (Alexandros
serving as spondaules) stand at the beginning of the preserved lists,15 but with 4 Roman citizens
among the Kouretes (again one Ti. Claudius) in IvE IV 1001, and 3 more in IV 1002, their dis-
tance from the other group cannot be great. If one were to give priority to the number of Roman
citizens (Rogers 164-65), as opposed to the number of cult attendants, mentioned, these last two
might be even later than the ones with no or only one Roman citizen. In any event, the occur-
rence of Tiberii Claudii implies that the emperor Claudius was the bestower of the citizenship,
leading to a date possibly after A.D. 41.16 None of the preserved inscriptions can be (much)
older than the mid-1st c. A.D., a conclusion which is in accordance with the building history of
the Prytaneion. Its construction probably started in the final decade before the turn of the era,
but the earthquake of A.D. 23, which destroyed a large part of the city, caused a rebuilding,
which may well have been accomplished under Claudius or Nero.17 The epigraphic evidence
thus suggests a date at least 60-70 years later than the traditional view that the re-organisation
of the cult occurred early in Augustus’ reign; that the preserved inscriptions began at the latest
under Tiberius (119) also turns out to be incorrect.18
There is one more distinctive feature whose meaning has never been discussed: it affects
an absolute chronology for the lists of Kouretes. In only two inscriptions of this early group do
some of the Kouretes mention their affiliation to a certain chiliastys (group of 1000 citizens) in
one of the city’s phylai. In IvE IV 1005, these are the ‘Imperial’ chiliastyes Anchiseus, Kaisareus,
Tiberieus, Klaudieus, and the traditional one Smyrnaios. In IvE IV 1006, we find the ‘Impe-
rial’ chiliastyes Klaudieus (3 times), Neronieus (2 times), and the traditional Glaukeos.19 In IvE
IV 1005, we find a prytanis named C. Minucius N[…] and 4 more Roman citizens among the
6 Kouretes, but in IvE IV 1006 they are all peregrine men, including the prytanis. We may con-
clude, first, that holding Roman citizenship is not so convincing an argument with respect to
an accurate chronology but more likely an indication of belonging to a certain socio-political
group; and, second, that the affiliation to a new phyle or Imperial chiliastyes is not necessarily

1008 (and Rogers 309) give the date “54-59”.

13 They are listed in IvE IV nos. 1012-14, all from between 92 and 97.
14 IvE IV 1003 is a fragment where only [Metr]as might be identified.
15 IvE IV nos. 1001-2; Knibbe (supra n.3) nos. B1 and B2, especially p. 74 et passim.
16 Tiberius’ nomen gentile from his adoption in A.D. 4 was Iulius, so his grants would have produced
“Ti. Iulii”.
17 The nearby Basilike Stoa, originally finished in AD 11 (for the exact dating, see D. Knibbe, H. Engel-
mann and B. İplikčioğlu, “Neue Inschriften aus Ephesos XII,” ÖJh 62 [1993] 148-49 no. 80) has a
Neronian building inscription at its W annexe (IvE II no. 410). For the datings of buildings in the
area of the “State Agora”, see also Thür (supra n.5). For the Prytaneion, see now M. Steskal, Das
Prytaneion in Ephesos (FiE IX/4, 2010).
18 See Knibbe (supra n.3) 75-76; as a result, Rogers’ chapt. 5 dealing with Tiberius becomes more or
less obsolete.
19 For an overview of the Ephesian phylai and chiliastyes, see H. Engelmann, “Phylen und Chiliastyen
von Ephesos,” ZPE 113 (1996) 94-100, and now U. Kunnert, Bürger unter sich. Phylen in den Städten
des kaiserzeitlichen Ostens (Basel 2012) especially 109-17.
The Kouretes in Ephesos: their origin, duties, and engagement in cult and social life 797

connected to Roman citizenship at all. Why, however, do these men so prominently proclaim
their affiliations in the demos, whereas nearly all of the others do not feel compelled to do so?
In contrast to the prevailing opinion, it seems that the Phyle Sebaste with its chiliastyes was not
constituted under Augustus but under Claudius or even Nero.20 While Knibbe thought the
chiliastyes Klaudieus belonged to the traditional phyle Karenaion,21 we can now be certain that
Klaudieus and also Drusieus belonged to the phyle Sebaste; individual citizens, on the other
hand, could transfer to other phylai but took their original chiliastys with them.22 Our Kouretes
belonging to the chiliastyes Smyrnaios and Glaukeos might also have changed their phyle to
Sebaste. Possibly the original 7 chiliastyes in the phyle Sebaste were the Anchiseis, Kaisareis,
Iulieis, Tiberieis, Klaudieis, Drusieis and Neronieis.
Again counter to the prevailing opinion, the Kouretes of the Imperial era seem to be closely
connected with civil rights and the organisation of the demos of Ephesos. If what is proposed
here is convincing, then the oldest two known lists of Kouretes must be those with 5 members,
in line with the 5 traditional phylai. The only disadvantage of the new proposed order is that
the sequence of cult attendants as compiled by Knibbe23 is now in some disorder. It is conceivable
that different prytaneis and their Kouretes, arising from rival groups in the demos, preferred differ-
ent persons for their support staff, so that the increasing number of attendants is not strictly
chronological. It seems that sometimes a part of the Kouretes themselves might have fulfilled
certain functions. The problem of chronology remains, but this seems a more logical solution
than having 5 unexplained Kouretes in the middle of lists of 6. This issue does not cause Rogers
to abandon his goal: in his entire Part 2 (in particular chapts. 6-7) the number and functions of
the cult attendants play a very important rôle in his consideration of the development, social
status, and final decline of the Kouretes and the mystical events Since the prytanis C. [Iuli]us
Dionysidoros, son of Dionysidoros, should have received his citizenship under Augustus,
dating this inscription to the reign of Claudius seems more likely than to Nero. With the foun-
dation of a new (sixth) phyle, the number of Kouretes also increased. Only when a new phyle was
created under Hadrian, it seems, did the Kouretes start again to promote the new chiliastyes, in
a (fragmentary) inscription where the chiliastyes Aphrodeisieus and Larandeus appear.24 Fur-
thermore, from the Hadrianic period onwards, at the latest (there is far less reliable evidence
than in the 1st c. A.D.), at least two inscriptions show 7 Kouretes.25 In one of these inscriptions
the last Koures in the list is set apart by the title hebdomokoures.26 This shows an awareness of

20 For the discussion of earlier opinions (Neronian) and a strong case for an Augustan origin, see
Knibbe (supra n.3) 107.
21 Knibbe ibid. 108.
22 Engelmann (supra n.19) 98. He dates the phyle Sebaste at one point (94) “für … Kaiser Augustus”,
but then speaks of an arrangement “… zu Ehren des iulisch-claudischen Kaiserhauses”. Kunnert
(supra n.19) 232-33 has convincingly argued that the changing of phyle with unchanged chiliastyes,
traceable only at the neopoioi, finds its reason in the fact that phylai sometimes did not want to or
could not appoint sufficient persons for the office, so that others, switching phyle, stepped into the
breach.
A similar situation may have existed for the Kouretes, or perhaps some citizens had to move to
the new Imperial phylai so as not to leave them empty. These chiliastyes are thus no proof for the
Kouretes not being appointed by the phylai, as Kunnert (ibid. 113 and 297 n.1162) and N. F. Jones
(Public organization in ancient Greece: a documentary study [Philadelphia, PA 1987]) 313, already
thought.
23 Knibbe (supra n.3) 76-92.
24 IvE IV 1026 (dated to c.A.D. 120-130), the number of Kouretes is unknown as the middle part is
missing; see also Knibbe (supra n.3), no. 26 (dated by him to the years between c.105 and 120);
Rogers 309 (with the date of “120 +”).
According to Engelmann (supra n.19) 98, only the chiliastyes Philorhomaios (IvE VII/2 4331) is
assigned to the phyle Hadriane for certain; he assigns the Aphrodisieus to the phyle Sebaste (ibid.
98-99).
25 IvE IV 1040 and 1042.
26 IvE IV 1042, l.11 (dated to “etwa Zeit des Pius”).
798 P. Scherrer

the new situation in noting one more member. In the second half of the 2nd c., the number
increases to 9 Kouretes, probably due to the number of phylai which again increased.27
In the relatively late inscription IvE IV 1044 most of the Kouretes are also (or had been) neo-
poioi, temple-wardens of Artemis. Probably due to the increasing difficulty in finding sufficient
men for those offices in the late 2nd c., the two bodies were merged, or members of one corpo-
ration were elected to the other based on experience. These neopoioi, normally 12 in the Imperial
era, were nominated by the phylai annually; thus 2 neopoioi came from each phyle.28
In addition to other duties, the neopoioi had to inscribe newly-achieved citizen rights on cer-
tain walls in the sanctuary of Artemis and keep the archive in order. With our new knowledge
of the close connection between Kouretes and phylai, we might interpret this as a good indica-
tion that the Kouretes were also selected each year from the phylai (one from each), and that the
two groups worked hand in hand under the Empire. When Strabo (14.1.20) calls the Kouretes an
archeion, this could well reflect not only a legal body (already dating back to Lysimachus) (Rog-
ers 108), but also that they possessed or met in a public building for their banquets, a building
which housed an archive. This building/archive should then be located in Ortygia where the
banquets took place, and not in the newly-founded town of Arsinoeia nor in the Artemision
at the original coastline, where the neopoioi were in charge. This would mean that the Kouretes
were relocated in the (mid-)1st c. A.D. to the prytaneion not from the Artemision but from the
Ortygian grove below Mt. Solmissos. As Graf and Rogers (109-14) have said, these Ephesian
Kouretes in their archeion were neither descendants of mythical figures nor young warriors, but
civic officials who kept the Ephesians aware of the hieros logos, the mythical birth of Artemis.
We may return to the first epigraphical record of Kouretes at Ephesos. It is an inscription
of 302 B.C., more or less right after Lysimachos’ general Prepelaos had gained control over
the city.29 Two groups of functionaries, the neopoiai and the Kouretes, discuss before the boule
the granting of Ephesian citizenship to a certain Euphronios and use a decree of the gerousia
and the epikletoi in favour of that. It appears that the constitutional reform of the city by Lysi-
machos took place immediately after he had conquered it in 302. The members in the new
bodies of epikletoi and gerousia were his confidants,30 and they formulated decrees, which the
boule and the demos are (allowed or forced) to enact.31 The inscription says that οἱ νεωποῖαι
καὶ οἱ κουρῆτες κατασταθέντες discussed (the citizenship of Euphronios). Up to now this
κατασταθέντες (“appointed”)has been referred only to the Kouretes,32 but here it could well
mean both groups. By analogy with what has been argued for the Imperial period, in the early
Hellenistic with its 5 phylai we have to expect the appointment of 10 neopoiai and 5 Kouretes, all
representatives of the phylai.33 The rôle of the neopoiai is clear from other Hellenistic edicts: they

27 IvE IV 1044 (dated to “etwa Zeit des Pius”). We know of a phyle Antoniniane at the time of Pius (IvE
III 957): Engelmann (supra n.19) 98. Probably another phyle (no. 9) should have been created under
Marcus Aurelius, which the inscription IvE IV 1044 might reflect.
28 IvE V, 1578A, dated roughly between Claudius and Vespasian, as in ll. 11-12, a certain Pythion, son
and grandson of Perigenes is listed, who was T. Flavius Pythion in inscriptions under Domitian.
Very likely the neopoiai (later written as neopoioi) had similar lists of their yearly bodies (with the
prytanis at their head in the sanctuary of Artemis to those of the Kouretes in the Prytaneion; see also
Engelmann (supra n.19) 94.
29 IvE V 1449.
30 For the rôle of the gerousia and the epikletoi in the time of Lysimachos, and the decree for Euphronios,
see now E. Bauer, Gerusien in den Poleis Kleinasiens in hellenistischer Zeit und der römischen Kaiserzeit
(Munich 2014) especially 78-90.
31 Of course, Bauer ibid. 84, and Rogers (especially 73) are right when they state that the legislative
power belonged to the demos (and the boule). In reality, however, this was no more than a fiction.
Even if the authority of the epikletoi was questioned by opposing citizens in the demos, a garrison in
the city served to defend the king’s interests. And this is exactly what Strabo meant when he wrote
(14.1.21) that in the city of Lysimachos everything was regulated by the epikletoi and the gerousia.
32 E.g.,.the translations of Knibbe (supra n.3) 14 and Rogers 40.
33 Rogers (43) thinks that the Kouretes were probably appointed by the gerousia, but later (e.g., 50)
The Kouretes in Ephesos: their origin, duties, and engagement in cult and social life 799

had to write down the decree on a wall in the sanctuary,34 which means that they were respon-
sible for the archive of citizenships. The archive was protected by Artemis Ephesia at least from
Alexander the Great to c.275, when the series of known decrees suddenly comes to an end.35
But what did the Kouretes do?36 In similar inscriptions before and directly after Lysimachos, in
combination with the neopoiai, other functionaries who were called essenes, an oikonomos, and
the priestess of Artemis were involved in administering the granting of citizenships.37 It thus
seems logical that the Kouretes too fulfilled an administrative function, probably the same one
the essenes (who do not appear in inscriptions of Lysimachos’ time) usually had before and
after him: that of allotting a phyle and a chiliastyes to the new citizen.38 To hand over this respon-
sibility to a group of representatives of all the phylai seems like a nice solution for guaranteeing
a balanced allocation and phylai of equal sizes.39
We are now in a better position to understand another (fragmentary) inscription. It relates
that the neopoiai and Kouretes at some point in the (early) 3rd c. B.C. worked together in business
affairs related to a libanotopolion.40 Since the principal edition by Keil, scholars have assumed
without hesitation that this building was located in the temenos of Artemis Ephesia and that
the Kouretes were an administrative body in the Artemision.41 It is here that the roots of the
misunderstanding of the origin, rôle and number of the Kouretes lie. In ll. 6-7 three names of
Kouretes are more or less completely preserved, with one more partially preserved. Keil took
it for granted that the total number must have been 6, but there is no proof; 5 are just as likely.
For some unknown reason the epikletoi vanished after the death of Lysimachos, while the
gerousia and Kouretes must have remained in existence but without playing a significant rôle
until the gerousia was granted privileges first by Octavian and later by members of the Julio-
Claudian family (Agrippa, Tiberius, Germanicus) and some proconsuls of Asia.42 Thus it seems

disputes that they were actual members of the gerousia.

34 See already H. Engelmann, “Inschriften und Heiligtum,” in U. Muss (ed.), Der Kosmos der Artemis
von Ephesos (ÖAISond 37, 2001) 38 and 41-42.
35 C. Habicht, “Ein neues Bürgerrechtsdekret aus Ephesos,” ZPE 77 (1989) 88. Habicht thinks that the
decrees were not inscribed on the walls any more because the new city of Lysimachos was too far
from the Artemision.
36 Rogers (46) also could not explain the rôle of the Kouretes in this process; he guessed that all the
neopoiai and the Kouretes (15 persons as we now know) took part in the legation to Prepelaos,
thereby preparing the ground for the civil rights of Euphronios, but this now seems quite unlikely
and is certainly unnecessary.
37 See also Rogers 57 for such a contrasting juxtaposition. Bauer (supra n.33) 84-85 also states that the
gerousia’s action here is unusual and questions the rôle of the Kouretes: “Dass Kureten im Zuge einer
Bürgerrechtsverleihung in Erscheinung treten, ist wie im Falle der Gerusie sonst nicht überliefert”.
Bauer tries to explain the rôle of these groups by the special case of Euphronios, who had helped
exempt the Artemision from taxes and the duty of hosting soldiers.
Some months later in that year 302 B.C. when Demetrios resumed power at Ephesos (IvE V 1448)
and his officer Apollonides received Ephesian citizenship, the essenes were back in office.
38 Engelmann (supra n.34) 37; but see J. Keil, “Ephesische Bürgerrechts- und Proxeniedekrete aus
dem vierten und dritten Jahrhundert v. Chr.,” ÖJh 16 (1913) 242-43: at the time of the wars against
Mithridates proedroi are mentioned (IvE Ia, 8) instead of the former essenes.
39 See also Bremmer (supra n.5) 49, who recognized the absence of essenes from the inscriptions as a
key to substantial changes in the city organization. It would be worth analyzing the way in which
these essenes came into office and what their other responsibilities were (and when their function
ended).
40 IvE VII/2 4102.
41 J. Keil, “Inschriften,” in E. Reisch, F. Knoll and J. Keil, Die Marienkirche (FiE IV/1, 1932) 82 no. 2;
Knibbe (supra n.3) 74 no. A1. Rogers (especially 83 and 91) dates the inscription to the 3rd c. B.C.,
but explicitly after Lysimachos; Bauer (supra n.33) 85.
42 Knibbe, Engelmann and İplikčioğlu (supra n.17) 113-22 nos. 1-11. Bauer (supra n.33) 103-16 argues
that the oldest letter in a long series is more likely to have been written by Caesar than Octavian (on
his first visit to Ephesos in 31 B.C.?); the second letter is certainly from Octavian in the year 29 B.C.
800 P. Scherrer

likely (and especially with respect to Rogers’ argument dating Strabo’s description of Ortygia
to 29 B.C.) that the gerousia and the archeion Koureton were re-awarded honours in the early part
of Octavian’s reign, even before Vedius Pollio’s mission to the East which introduced the cult
of Augustus to the cities sometime between 27 and 23 B.C.43 They may well have replaced other
local authorities who had compromised themselves either because of their part in the Mithri-
datic wars or at the time when Mark Antony and Cleopatra had their headquarters in Ephesos.
Rogers may well be right in stating (115) that the Kouretes played a “proactive role in securing
the Olympian/Augustan order” in a disordered world. He is also surely correct in one of his
final statements (289):
…what this book has shown is that changes in the structure of authority within the polis
brought about significant changes in the celebration.
Yet it seems that he has misunderstood some historical processes. The foundation of Arsinoeia
as a formal new polis (instead of the traditional Ephesos) by Lysimachos must have been planned
and begun already in 302, when Prepelaos first took over power in the name of his king. In the
few months before Demetrios’ return, Prepelaos in the name of Lysimachos changed the insti-
tutions and installed the epikletoi, gerousia, and probably also arranged a reform of the phylai
and their bodies, the neopoiai and the (new?) Kouretes.44 This would have been needed for the
many new citizens brought to Arsinoeia from neighbouring Kolophon and Lebedeia (Paus.
1.9.7 and 7.3.4–5). The new city with her partly new citizens, new political instruments and new
corporations also needed a new cultic identity, which was expressed in the story of Artemis’
birth in Ortygia and in her mysteries, in which the Kouretes played a leading rôle.45
During the struggle in A.D. 26 to win the provincial temple for the Imperial cult, the embassy
of Ephesos in Rome still told the story of Artemis’ birth as “the central myth through which the
Roman emperor, the Roman Senate, and the Polis of Ephesos negotiated their relations” (11).
If Ortygia was of such importance for the city of Arsinoeia/Ephesos, then one would expect to
find a management team for the sacred grove, similar to the neopoiai in the Artemision. Those
duties might have been fulfilled by the Kouretes, and this might have been the reason why the
Kouretes as a cultic entity could not have been dissolved after Lysimachos lost power and his
life; instead, they were reduced to this one location, while losing their active rôle in the grant-
ing of civil rights. At first the old institutions, especially the essenes, replaced them, but later
on this corporation too disappeared. At least in the 1st c. B.C. it seems that another group, the
molpoi46 (a group which fulfilled similar duties in other Greek cities too) took over. In fact, it
would not be surprising if Lysimachos did not form his Kouretes by taking as an example the
molpoi from near Miletos with their banquets, festivals and performances.47 This is exactly what

43 P. Scherrer, “Augustus, die Mission des Vedius Pollio und die Artemis Ephesia,” ÖJh 1990 especially
89-90 and 101; see also B. M. Kreiler, Statthalter zwischen Republik und Prinzipat (Frankfurt 2006)
199-202.
44 Rogers is not convincing (39) that the gerousia existed before Lysimachos and was only reformed
by and received privileges from him. At 75-83, Rogers tries to convince the reader that Lysimachos
was also the founder of the mysteries and of the temple of (Artemis) Soteira and her statue in
Ortygia; thus the fragmentary decree of the gerousia under Commodus (IvE Ia 26) must refer to
Lysimachos and the renewal of those privileges which that body had received from him at the time
of its foundation. But that foundation is to be dated not to Lysimachos’ second period at Ephesos,
after 294 (see Rogers especially 58-60 and 83), but in 302, as the Euphronios inscription states.
45 Rogers 33-34. He seems to contradict his own position when he argues on 38 that Ortygia and the
mysteries of Artemis were already combined in the middle of the 4th c. B.C., when Scopas sculpted
a statue of the nymph Ortygia nursing little Artemis. The location and the story were much older,
with wooden statues existing in 5th(?)-c. temples, but Lysimachos probably gave the whole a new
meaning.
46 A few Ephesian inscriptions exist which list a group or mention persons who ‘act as molpoi’. All
seem to come from Late Hellenistic times: IvE III 900, l.4; ibid. 901, l.3; ibid. 906, l.1 (all dated
tentatively “around 100 B.C.”); ibid. V 1897a (very fragmentary); ibid. Ia, 14 l.21 (late 1st c. B.C.; in
H. Wankel’s translation the molpos is erroneously designated a mere “Musiker”).
47 I express my warm thanks to my colleague Eveline Krummen (Univ. of Graz) for directing my
The Kouretes in Ephesos: their origin, duties, and engagement in cult and social life 801

we hear of the Kouretes of Ephesos. According to Strabo and the epigraphic evidence, as Rogers
convincingly argues, they performed festivals and banquets in Ortygia (and in the prytaneion?),
particularly on the occasion of the birth of Artemis on the sixth day of the month Thargelion, in
springtime. These banquets and mystic sacrifices were not just empty formalities, but, as noted
by F Graf,48 served as a welcoming festival for the youths (known as ephebes at Athens and
other cities), who now became new full citizens (neoi). The Kouretes were the members of the
community who organized these initiations. They probably taught the young all the necessary
skills to become distinguished members of Ephesian society. This inference is illustrated by
Strabo (10.3.11, transl. Jones) when discussing the meaning of the term Kouretes for the Cretan
story of the birth of Zeus:
Kouretes, young men who executed movements in armour, accompanied by dancing, as they
set forth the mythical story of the birth of Zeus; in this they introduced Kronos as accustomed
to swallow his children immediately after their birth, and Rhea as trying to keep her travail
secret and, when the child was born, to get it out of the way and save its life by every means
in her power; and to accomplish this it is said that she took as helpers the Kouretes, who, by
surrounding the goddess with tambourines and similar noisy instruments and with war-dance
and uproar, were supposed to strike terror into Kronos and without his knowledge to steal
his child away; and that, according to tradition, Zeus was actually reared by them with the
same diligence; consequently the Kouretes, either because, being young, that is ‘youths’, they
performed this service, or because they ‘reared’ Zeus ‘in his youth’ (for both explanations are
given), were accorded this appellation.
Similarly at 10.3.19:
In the Cretan accounts the Kouretes are called ‘rearers of Zeus’, and ‘protectors of Zeus’, hav-
ing been summoned from Phrygia to Crete by Rhea. Some say that, of the nine Telkhines who
lived in Rhodes, those who accompanied Rhea to Crete and ‘reared’ Zeus ‘in his youth’ were
named Kouretes.
For Ephesos, where the mythical Kouretes functioned in the same manner for Artemis as for
Zeus in Crete, this means that the Kouretes “reared Artemis”; thus they were qualified to “bring
up” the youth of the city in historical times, to keep the city of Artemis strong.49
In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (16-20), Artemis is set in opposition to Aphrodite with the
following characteristic:
Nor is Artemis of the gold shafts and view-halloo ever overcome in love by smile-loving Aph-
rodite, for she too likes other things, archery and hunting animals in the mountains, lyres,
dances, and piercing yells, shady groves, and a city of righteous men.50

attention to the molpoi. For their rôle in the distribution of citizenship, see A. Herda, “How to
run a state cult. The organization of the cult of Apollo Delphinios in Miletos,” in M. Haysom and
J. Wallensten (edd.), Current approaches to religion in ancient Greece (ActInstAthRegSuec ser. in 8°, 21;
Stockholm 2011) 57-93, with bibliography.
48 Graf (supra n.4) 258-61.
49 For such an historicising view see Ovid, Fast. 4. 207-14 (transl. Boyle): “Why the Great Goddess
[Rhea-Kybele] loves incessant din? ... [When] Jove [Zeus] was born [to Rhea]: a stone, concealed in
cloth, settled in the god’s [Kronos’] gullet; so the father was fated to be tricked. For a long time steep
Ida booms its clanging noise so the wordless infant may wail safely. Shields or empty helmets are
pounded with sticks, the Curetes’ or Corybantes’ task. The truth hid. The ancient event’s copied
today: her acolytes shake brass and rumbling hides. They hammer cymbals, not helmets, and
drums, not shields; the flute makes Phrygian tunes as before”. Ovid was probably inspired by the
Ephesian story since he speaks of the “Phrygian tunes”.
50 Transl. M. L. West, slightly modified by I. Petrovic, “Transforming Artemis: from the goddess of
the outdoors to city goddess,” in J. N. Bremmer and A. Erskine (edd.), The gods of ancient Greece:
identities and transformations (Edinburgh 2010) 214-15. Petrovic expressed her surprise about the
phrase “city of righteous men”, but exactly here we find the tertium comparationis between the
Anatolian city-goddess, the potnia Aswiya (Pylos Fr. 1202; cf. S. Morris, “The prehistoric background
of Artemis Ephesia: a solution to the enigma of her ‘breasts’?” in Muss [supra n.34] 135-38; ead.,
“Zur Vorgeschichte der Artemis Ephesia,” in U. Muss [ed., Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis.
802 P. Scherrer

And to educate the youth in this sense of a “city of righteous men” was the noble duty of the
prytanis (originally the captain in a ship of warriors) and his Kouretes, “grown men” and “full
members of the socio-economic elite of the polis” (Rogers 50) and later the attendants of their
cult. They told them how to use their weapons in war and when hunting, to dance, play the
lyre, sing and whistle, and how to hold glittering symposia. In this manner it was granted that
the neoi (as Strabo calls them) became the new citizens of Ephesos as “righteous men”.
What happened if young citizens did not act in a ‘righteous’ way is told by the story of
the Calydonian boar hunt. Artemis had sent a huge boar to punish the city. Atalanta as well
as Meleager had to die because they had wounded and finally killed this sacred boar, thereby
offending the goddess.51 At the end of the story as related by Homer (Il. 9.549) the Kouretes
come to Calydon from neighbouring Pleuron and fight the Calydonian warriors until Melea-
ger takes part and loses his life. Afterwards, surprisingly, the Kouretes do not overpower the
city or demand an enormous ransom; instead, they simply disappear, leaving Calydon alone,
somewhat devastated, with no royal house any more, but purified and delivered from the
bane. The Kouretes had to protect Artemis and her purposes by killing Meleager, but not defeat
Calydon.52
Rogers is right continually to stress the importance of being initiated in the mysteries of
Artemis,53 even if he fails to recognize the ultimate combination of initiation with the instruc-
tion of new citizens (neoi).54 As he clearly points out (169 et passim), however, it is no accident
that regularly a Koures is also bouleutes. In democratic 6th- to 5th-c. Athens, the boule regularly
met in the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, as decreed by Solon,55 which naturally presupposed
their being initiated into those mysteries. In short, to be initiated into the mysteries was the
basis for becoming a ‘righteous’ citizen, a person able to assume responsibilities and public
offices in the polis that belonged to Artemis Ephesia. Rogers’ book — even if he began it with
other purposes in mind — has opened the way to this conclusion.
But why did the Kouretes disappear from public life (or at least from the epigraphic record
in the prytaneion)? Rogers provides (279-88) very sophisticated explanations of the gap between
expenses and revenues, and of the emergence of salvation theologies, above all Christiani-
ty.56 But the solution might be much simpler. The decisive moment for the Kouretes may have
arrived long before Christianity played a rôle in public life. If it really was the primary rôle of
the Kouretes to oversee the adoption of new citizens, then the coincidence of the timing of their
last precisely datable inscription to A.D. 211/21257 with the constitutio Antoniniana, which gave
citizen rights to almost all freeborn men in the empire, is hardly a surprise. If there was no need
to become a citizen of a local polis any more, since everyone had now attained the superior
rights of being Roman, then no one would invest money, time and effort any longer to achieve
what was in effect a subordinate status.
peter.scherrer@uni-graz.at University of Graz, Universitaetsplatz 3, 8010 Graz

Gestalt und Ritual eines Heiligtums [Vienna 2008] especially 57) and Greek Artemis, so that the
historical goddess could be named Artemis Ephesia.
51 To avoid that offence, Herakles bound the Erymanthian Boar and carried him away on his shoulders,
alive and unhurt.
52 P. Scherrer, “Hunting the boar — the fiction of a local past in foundation myths of Hellenistic and
Roman cities,” in B. Alroth and C. Scheffer (edd.), Attitudes towards the past in antiquity. Creating
identities (Stockholm 2014) especially 113-14.
53 See, e.g., Rogers 29-31, stating (31) that the “sacred story of mortal and immortal interdependence
(do ut des)” and “traits of identity in the celebration of the mysteries of Artemis … were maintained
not through continuous tradition, but through rearrangement, reorganisation, and revitalisation …
continuity in change”.
54 Rogers 29 n.154: “we know next to nothing about who the initiates into Artemis’ mysteries were”.
55 Andocides 116; see also the discussion of Rogers (26) with relevant literature.
56 Wendt (supra n.1), however, is somewhat sceptical.
57 IvE IV 1077; fragment mentioning Caracalla and Geta. Another fragmentary text was dated to
A.D. 214/215 by Knibbe (supra n.3) 167-68 no. N2, as he had good arguments for Caracalla being
mentioned as prytanis, but IvE IV 1057 is more cautious in determining the emperor.

View publication stats