L’inscription grecque de la grotte de Wasta près de Tyr (SEG XX 389) présente une configuration particulière où le roi lagide est invoquée dans une prière aux côtés à la déesse Aphrodite, formant avec elle une sorte de couple. Les interprétations précédentes ont surtout souligné le contexte cultuel phénicien, en particulier l’idéologie royale tyrienne qui accorde traditionnellement une place prépondérante à la déesse Astarté/Aphrodite, une idéologie qui est ici employée au bénéfice du roi lagide. Si l’inscription se situe bel et bien dans une certaine continuité avec les traditions tyriennes, l’invocation du roi tel un dieu associé à la déesse n’en demeure pas moins originale à plus d’un égard. La présente note vise à préciser cette originalité et à proposer un contexte historique spécifique permettant de l’expliquer. La place divine accordée au roi semble refléter la mise en place du culte de la dynastie et du souverain initié par Ptolémée II. Le couple formé par le roi et la déesse elle-même plutôt que la reine se comprend au mieux après le décès de la reine Arsinoé II, lorsque Ptolémée II promeut le culte de sa sœur et épouse défunte en l’assimilant à la déesse Isis/Aphrodite. Le roi vivant est désormais marié à la reine défunte, qui n’est autre que la déesse de la fertilité.
The new dynasty of the Ptolemies faced a new situation that demanded an ideology oriented towards the Greek and Egyptian worlds. The first Ptolemies established an ideology based on the royal couple, which found its Egyptian expression in the decorative scheme of the royal cult. This scheme was used in temples all over Egypt throughout the Ptolemaic period. However, it disappeared under Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysus, demonstrating that the royal ideology had changed. Both the royal ‘couple’ and the royal ancestors lost their importance. Once again, the main reference point for royalty became Horus. Ptolemy XII’s family situation may explain these changes.
The Greek inscription from the Wasta cave near Tyre (SEG XX 389) presents an original configuration in which the Ptolemaic king is invoked in a prayer together with the goddess Aphrodite, forming with her a sort of couple. Previous interpretations have mainly emphasized the Phoenician cultic context, in particular the traditional Tyrian royal ideology in which the goddess Astarte/Aphrodite plays a predominant role, an ideology that is used here to the benefit of the Ptolemaic ruler. While the content of the inscription does indeed demonstrate a certain continuity with Tyrian traditions, the invocation of the king as a god associated with the goddess is nonetheless original in more than one respect. This note highlights this originality and proposes a specific historical context to explain it. The divine place attributed to the king seems to reflect the establishment of the cult of the dynasty and the ruler initiated by Ptolemy II. The pairing of the king with the goddess herself rather than the queen is best understood after the death of Queen Arsinoe II, when Ptolemy II promoted the cult of his late sister and wife by assimilating her with the goddess Isis/Aphrodite. The living king was then married to the deceased queen, who was none other than the goddess of fertility.
The transdisciplinary dimension of the history of religions as studied in Geneva is inseparable from the practice of comparatism, which is open to the lessons of anthropology between societies distant in time and space. Here we focus on one aspect of this: the relationship between Hellenists and Africanists from Geneva and Paris, and the main projects that this relationship has given rise to from the 1980s to the most recent developments.
This contribution aims to shed light on the motives that prompted authors of the Early Hellenistic period to use the syntagm ἰσόθεοι τιμαί in the discussion of honours dedicated to the cities’ benefactors. The contextualisation of its use within the general structure of Lycurgus' Against Leocrates will highlight the function attributed to this syntagm. The use of expressions from the poetic register, such as ἰσόθεοι τιμαί, constitutes a strategy aimed at increasing the expressiveness and, consequently, the efficiency of a discourse. This rhetorical technique will then be considered in the decree of the koinon of the Nesiotes, which declares that they were the firsts to dedicate ἰσόθεοι τιμαί to the deceased Ptolemy I. This statement will be considered in the light of the political and diplomatic context of the Early Hellenistic period, during which cities were in constant competition for the attention of rulers.
With the exception of the eponymous priesthoods of dynastic cults, the royal priesthoods of the Hellenistic period have been scarcely explored in modern research. Moreover, they have often been the subject of hasty generalizations, which have led to their systematic interpretation as positions of power involving close relationships with ruling authorities. This contribution aims to reassess the nature of these functions by examining the different modes of appointment of royal priesthoods and the type of missions of their officiants. The analysis of the perquisites and obligations linked to the tenure of a royal priesthood also sheds light on the integration of royal honors into the pantheons of Greek cities, from the perspective of the individuals who serve these cults.
This article examines the epithets used for Ptolemaic rulers with particular regard to the terms ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’. To provide an overview of all the documentation, the analysis includes denominations both in Greek and Egyptian (hieroglyphic and demotic). The purpose is to highlight possible differences depending on the language and to determine whether certain uses are influenced by the Greek and/or Egyptian culture. The outcome of this research is a study of deifying denominations for kings and queens from the beginning of the Ptolemaic era to the 2nd century BC.
In recent years, the ancient worlds have been at the centre of a heated debate pitting those who advocate a postcolonial approach to classical studies against those who denounce such perspectives as reflecting a so-called “cancel culture”. This article, written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the creation of the Chair of the History of Religions at the University of Geneva, aims to show that these questions, far from being entirely new, have long been the subject of substantial reflection within the Geneva and Parisian research traditions, particularly in the study of ancient religion.
The study examines the relationship between spaces and divine powers in Euripides' Ion, highlighting how the dramatic landscape is constructed as a network of interactions among material contexts, divine actions, cultic functions, and mythic narratives, aimed at emphasizing Athenian identity. The analysis of the dramatic landscape illustrates how Euripides employs space as an effective communicative tool to convey ideologies of civilization, autochthony, and legitimacy. The recurrent intrusions of Athens—and Athena—into the landscape of Delphi underscore the political and cultural centrality of the polis, emphasizing the religious and political connections between the two realms, while simultaneously stimulating the audience's memory and weaving together myth, cults, and civic identity.
Since the publication of Alain Le Boulluec’s pivotal work on the birth of the concept of “heresy”, ancient heresiology has been the subject of numerous research. Among the authors of anti-heretical treatises touched by this “rediscovery” of the heresiological genre, Epiphanius of Salamis is certainly one of the most significant. His work, the Panarion (“medicine chest”), is a vast work rich in information on numerous “heretical” groups, which reflects the richness and heterogeneity of the religious panorama in Late Antiquity. In this article, I will explore three themes and lines of research on Epiphanius and his work that emerged in the last decade and that are becoming significant, more in general, in the research on ancient heresiology: the “construction” of the heresiologist’s life as an auctoritas in the field of heresy by the sources; the heresiological-genealogical model that Epiphanius proposes in the Panarion; the different literary forms that “compose” his work.
This paper traces the contributions of his predecessors at the Chair of the History of Religions in Geneva over the last century and a half, taking them as stages towards a critical and deconfessionalised approach to religions that focuses on deconstructing theoretical preconceptions. It offers a historiographical assessment, centered on the Geneva context, of the discipline’s gradual emergence which is marked by a move away from the Faculty of Theology, and shows the extent to which it is rooted in current issues.
In prose texts, expressions referring to Homer's divine status have one main function. They establish the truth value of his poetry. They take place above all in argumentative passages where Homer is cited as an authority. Yet, since they refer to the concept of poetic inspiration, they can also be the basis for a broader reflection on what is implied by the idea of divine inspiration. It is conceived in different ways depending on authors and centuries, from Plato to Proclus. In the imperial period, some authors attribute a religious value to the poet, by depicting the devotion of certain people to him. Others equate his intimate contact with the divine with a priestly service. This conception, related to allegorical readings of the poems, could be based on ritual uses of Homeric poetry, well attested in late papyrological documentation, but perhaps also on a practice of allegorical readings perceived as mysteries.
This article explores the use of “Philometor”, introduced by Ptolemy VI during his co-rule with his mother, and examines its role in legitimizing both his reign and those of his successors. It sheds light on the evolution of royal ideology initiated under this rule, while offering a comparative analysis of the various Philometor “couples”.
This article focuses on the cultural phenomenon of maenadism and offers a fresh perspective on the role of women engaged in this practice. The prevailing interpretation of maenads, worshippers of Dionysus, characterizes maenadism as an ecstatic cult that emerges among women in a patriarchal society as a means of rebellion against male dominance. The act of maenads venturing to the mountains at night and returning after being tamed is often described as a return to their domestic responsibilities after releasing their wildness outside of society. Zeitlin further argues that Bacchic rites derive their power from being seen as counter-cultural practices (1982: 132). In contrast, this article posits that the role of maenads was fully legitimate and an integral part of the deme-religion. Maenads were not rebelling against or seeking to escape societal control. Rather, their rituals were not only approved and sanctioned by society but also served to restore order in the civilized world. Moreover, this article suggests that the fact that they were elegant and composed or in a frenzy was not indicative of their value within the society, their behaviour was recognised as a controlled ecstasy functional to the ritual. On this line, a cognitive explanation of how this mental state was actively induced during the oreibasia will be provided.
This essay draws a connection between Furio Jesi and Giorgio Colli, centered on their reflection on antiquity. The connection is initiated by the article that Jesi published in the newspaper L’Ora di Palermo, when Colli died. Both Jesi and Colli investigated the more remote past, and both, albeit from different perspectives, highlighted the impossibility of tapping into the origin, whether the origin is the myth, to use Jesi’s, or the immediacy, to use Colli’s term. Jesi and Colli, accepting the absence of a foundational principle, researched this principle’s epiphanies - testified by the mythological machine of Jesi as well as by Colli’s world as an expression - and the effects that these epiphanies have on the individual and collective behavior.
