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Dossier: Nommer les dieux en Syrie gréco-romaine. Paysages onomastiques et dynamiques religieuses

Some Considerations about Toponymic and Other Local Deities in the Roman Near East

Quelques considérations sur les divinités toponymiques et autres divinités locales du Proche-Orient romain
Ted Kaizer

Résumés

Les modèles d’organisation du culte reflètent les sociétés anciennes. En étudiant les façons dont les différentes divinités recevaient un culte, on peut tirer des leçons sur les sociétés locales dans lesquelles vivaient les acteurs de ces pratiques. Cet article se concentre sur ce qui est peut-être la méthode la plus évidente pour faire de toute divinité une puissance spécifiquement locale, à savoir le recours à une épithète toponymique. En se concentrant sur la perspective locale de la vie religieuse au Proche-Orient romain, et en particulier sur le lien étroit entre la divinité et le lieu (également en relation avec les questions de topographie religieuse et de formation des identités religieuses), cet article entend affronter un certain nombre de questions qui jouent un rôle important dans les débats actuels sur la relation entre localisme, régionalisme et le globalisme.

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  • 1 I remain grateful to Corinne Bonnet and Giuseppina Marano for their organization, patience and comm (...)
  • 2 For a discussion of the variety of ways in which local religious identities could be created in the (...)

1Religious life in the lands of the Roman Near East ought to be approached, above all, from a local perspective.1 It is clear that there were also obvious similarities between the various local divine worlds attested for the Levant – and between the ways in which the diverse inhabitants of these divine worlds were worshipped – but by looking for common denominators amongst the various traditional arrangements through which the gods and goddesses (whether bearing indigenous or Graeco-Roman names) were venerated, scholars are at risk of being too easily persuaded by broad patterns of resemblance and, subsequently, of categorising elements and circumstances as ‘Near Eastern’ which were primarily conditioned by their direct local context. Needless to say, patterns of worship reflect ancient society. By studying the ways in which homage was paid to the various deities, lessons can be learned about the local societies in which the worshippers lived. And at the basis lay an assortment of ostensibly inward-looking ways to verify that religious identity was first and foremost closely linked to the locality. The religious and cultural elements that served as ‘building blocks’ of a local religious identity were of course not all ‘local’ in the narrow sense of the word, but in order to appreciate them fully the unique settings in which they played their part have to be taken into account. If many of the divine names, of the iconographic attributes, and of the sacrificial rites were common also to gods and goddesses elsewhere in the Near Eastern lands (or indeed elsewhere in the ancient world), the Levantine deities became local through the application of various procedures.2

  • 3 See, on divine epithets in general, Gladigow 1981, esp. 1228-1229. See also the relevant publicatio (...)
  • 4 Millar 1993, 503.
  • 5 Rieger 2020, 352. See ibid.: “The local specification of deities and the identity-shaping of their (...)
  • 6 See, for a discussion of toponymic deities elsewhere in the ancient world, Parker 2017, 95-101, and (...)

2Perhaps the most obvious method to turn any deity into a specifically local one is the use of the toponymic epithet, with the transfiguration of the indigenous divine lord of a place into a toponymic Zeus as the most palpable paragon. The observations offered here are far from comprehensive, and this paper will merely pose a few relevant questions and look into some representative cases. But it is important to emphasise at the outset that – especially in Greek epigraphy – the toponymic appellation, more than any other sort of epithet, allowed the local deities to approach the level of the generic leading gods and goddesses of the Olympian pantheon, while simultaneously revealing a tendency to achieve parochial specification and restricting the mobility of the great divinities and their freedom to act as they saw fit in favour of a more geographically limited division of power.3 As so often, however, with modern attempts at tracing trends in religious and cultic occurrences, consistency in the available evidence is hard to find, and one ought to pay heed to Fergus Millar’s warning that “religious ideas and systems are not to be fully explained in terms of social and cultural contexts” (with the emphasis on ‘not fully’).4 In a recent paper, on sacralised places in the Roman Near East, Anna-Katharina Rieger has rightly noted that “it is through and in these landscapes and places … that place-bound identity is constructed and negotiated.”5 But even this will not lead to a lack of religious ambiguousness.6

  • 7 Sartre 1991, 491: “En réalité, le plus important ne réside pas tant dans le nom du dieu que dans so (...)
  • 8 I owe this important observation to my student Alison Ewins. Theos Baetocaece, in various spellings (...)
  • 9 In both cases, from Rome and Puteoli, respectively, the deity is fully named as Iuppiter Optimus Ma (...)
  • 10 [Julian], Ep. 80, with Millar 1993, 312. For the conventional identification with Hadad, see Sourde (...)

3As was noted by Maurice Sartre, the most important part of the nomenclature of a toponymic deity is not the actual divine name, but the toponymic epithet itself.7 According to scholarly literature (though without ever launching a detailed investigation into the notion), examples abound. However, it can be argued, following only summary inspection, that the conventional labelling - of toponymic deities - is not as straightforward as the generic modern term seems to imply. Thus, the local lord of Baetocaece, on the face of it a typical example of the scholarly category, is commonly the theos of Baetocaece, and appears only as the toponymic Zeus in the celebrated dossier which contains the letter of a Seleucid king granting privileges to the deity: in other words, the local god becomes a local form of Zeus only in royal communication.8 Another oft-mentioned specimen, Zeus Damaskēnos, finds himself commonly referred to in scholarship, rather confusingly, as Jupiter of Damascus - which technically is correct only with reference to those dedications which actually name him as Iuppiter Damascenus, as is the case in two inscriptions from Italy.9 But at home in the Near East, it would be better to follow the emperor Julian, or rather a letter falsely attributed to him, mentioning how ‘sacred and most mighty Damascus … in very truth belongs to Zeus’ – even if scholarship that is now quite outdated used to conventionally identify the deity as the ancient Near Eastern storm god Hadad.10

  • 11 See Bonnet et al. 2019.

4As will become clear from the examples that follow, not each and every toponymic deity is toponymic in the narrow sense of the word; or rather, one might have to think of different degrees of divine toponymity, with some gods or goddesses fitting the label more loosely than others.11 Whereas the most typical toponymic epithets took the form of an adjective of the place name (e.g. Damaskēnos), in other cases a deity could be linked to a place name with a different grammatical construction (e.g. deity X who is in place Y), or the divine name simply was the place name.

  • 12 On the temple of IOMH at Baalbek, see most recently Paturel 2019. The sources related to his cult a (...)
  • 13 Kaizer 2006, 41. IOMH was a beardless figure with curly hair, crowned with a calathos, standing on (...)
  • 14 Rieger 2020, 358.
  • 15 Hajjar 1977, no. 303, and for further examples see ibid. no. 272 (from Aquincum in Pannonia Inferio (...)
  • 16 Millar 1993, 249. For further discussion, see Kaizer 2013b.

5Furthermore, some toponyms appeared as references to a sacral landscape, others evoked certain religious memories, whereas there are also deities whose toponymic epithet came to lead a life on its own, in such a way that it became very far removed from any original meaning it may once have had. The latter is true, in at least a number of instances, with regard to two of the most famous ‘toponymic’ gods whose names revealed that they originated from the Levantine region: firstly Jupiter Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus, the Best and Greatest Jupiter of Heliopolis, the city of the sun in the Beqaa valley (a place nowadays known as Baalbek, its name hinting at the divine rule of the ‘lord of the Beqaa’); and secondly Jupiter Optimus Maximus Dolichenus, the Best and Greatest Jupiter of Doliche, a city in the north Syrian region that once belonged to Commagene. Both deities received cults often by means of epigraphic abbreviation (with dedications set up for IOMH and IOMD, respectively), both deities borrowed their honorary titles from the Jupiter who was worshipped on the Capitol in Rome, and both deities spread throughout the Roman empire where they enjoyed particular popularity amongst the military. They may have had their respective home sanctuaries in the Near Eastern lands - the monumental temple complex centred upon IOMH was situated in the hinterland of what was the first Roman colony in the Near Eastern lands (Berytus), while IOMD had his large temple on top of the hill now known as Dülük Baba Tepesi, near ancient Doliche12 - but to what degree their worshippers empire-wide were either aware of these original cult centres, or indeed interested in them, must remain uncertain. Both deities found themselves depicted according to somewhat ‘canonical’ types, though in both cases the iconography was “usually liable to a variable use of motifs and deviating details”.13 It could be argued that – at least in the format in which they were worshipped by Roman soldiers in the frontier zones of the empire – both IOMH and IOMD were ‘western constructs’ of so-called (even if originally) ‘Oriental deities’, and that the two best known ‘toponymic’ deities from the Syrian lands are therefore the ones that had become least ‘local’. They have recently been viewed as two of the main examples of local deities who “spread as part of processes of appropriation, due to a combination of factors such as an interest across the Roman Empire in ‘exotic’ deities, in religious Otherness, or in Antiquarianism”.14 Whereas most other toponymic deities kept their resolutely local manifestations, IOMH and IOMD became something different altogether, their maintenance of the original, truly toponymic epithets notwithstanding. How far removed from the original meaning of the place references these divine toponyms could end up is best exemplified by a dedication made at Aquileia, at the head of the Adriatic Sea, which combines the two toponymic epithets into Jupiter O M D Heliopolit(anus).15 As Fergus Millar commented on this inscription, “his worshippers could literally make of him what they would.”16

  • 17 1952, no. 206, with Hajjar 1977, no. 227. See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.hum (...)
  • 18 Tac. Hist. II 78: nec simulacrum deo aut templum - sic tradidere maiores -: ara tantum et reverenti (...)
  • 19 Spijkerman 1978, 118-121. See also Augé 1990, 330 on “le « Baal » de Dion, dont on ignore le nom in (...)
  • 20 Ethnika, s.v. Κύρρος, πόλις Συρίας ... καὶ Κυρρεστίς Ἀθηνᾶ, see ed. A. Meineke 1849, 397. See for (...)
  • 21 See on Athena Kyrrhestis also Daubner 2017, 53-54.

6A similar religious contradiction in terms is attested in a Greek inscription, believed to be from Mt Carmel, which records a dedication by a colonist from Caesarea ‘to Zeus Hēliopoleitēs Karmēlos’ (Διὶ Ἡλιοπολείτῃ Καρμήλῳ).17 Carmel, the mountain which was referred to by Ps-Scylax (according to the restored text) as ‘a sanctuary of Zeus’ (Periplous 104: [Κάρμηλος] ὄρος ἱερὸν Διός), was explicitly said by Tacitus (Hist. 2.78) to have shared its name with the local deity: ita vocant montem deumque. Whether that means that Tacitus understood the god to be called ‘Carmelus’ rather than being ‘Zeus of the Carmel’ is not clear. In any case, the historian’s comment on the god’s apparent aniconic appearance ought to be qualified by the fact that the above-mentioned inscription was carved on the base of a gigantic foot.18 Perhaps a similar occurrence, of a place and a god with the same name, may be found at Dion of the Decapolis. Here, the coinage shows a deity somewhat resembling the figure of IOMH, dressed in a sheath and standing on a plinth in between two animals, but never identified in the coin legends. However, it is telling that the very name of the city that issued the coinage, Dion, is based on that of Zeus, strongly suggesting that the indigenous god was identified with the Greek god, at least at the time of Dion’s foundation as a Greek city.19 Another Hellenistic foundation, Cyrrhus, situated in northern Syria near the Afrin Marsyas river, a tributary of the Orontes, was named after the Cyrrhus (Kyrrhos) located in the Macedonian homeland. In both cities a goddess known as Athena Kyrrhestis (Strabo Geogr. XVI 2, 7) received a cult – Stephanus of Byzantium provides a commentary on the toponymic epithet.20 Since the cult of the toponymic Athena in Macedonian Cyrrhus preceded that of the Near Eastern equivalent, this counts as an instance of a traditionally civic deity being transported to another part of the ancient world and keeping its original toponymic epithet which now covers a different locality.21

  • 22 Rostovtzeff 1934, 307-310, no. 610 with fig. 13 ; Cuvigny 2004, 192-194. See the MAP database: http (...)
  • 23 Rostovtzeff, Brown and Welles 1939, 180-217; Duchâteau 2013, 113-122.

7A silver libation bowl found in a house at Dura-Europos, dated to AD 232/3, is dedicated ‘to Zeus Theos who is in Adatha’ (Διὶ Θε τ ἐν Ἀδαθα).22 According to a narrow interpretation of the formula, this god does not count as a toponymic deity. Zeus Theos, i.e. Zeus the god (following the – unnecessary? – habit in Aramaic to add ’lh’ to the divine name to make the divine status even more explicit), is not called ‘of Adatha’ or ‘Adathean’. Zeus is ‘the god’ (theos), or the god is called Zeus. And this divine entity is located in Adatha - an explanation by which the dedicant distinguishes his deity from another Durene variant of Zeus Theos (better known than the first one, at least amongst scholars), namely the one after whom the temple ‘of Zeus Theos’ at Dura-Europos has conventionally been named.23

  • 24 CIS II.1, no. 182, with Healey 2001, 64 and 108-109; Alpass 2013, 194-195. For further bibliography (...)
  • 25 Savignac, Starcky 1957, with Healey 2001, 89-90; Alpass 2013, 102, notes to text no. 16.
  • 26 Though it cannot be entirely certain that Gaia is a place rather than a person, there is at least a (...)
  • 27 RES 83, dated to AD 93, with Healey 2001, 98; Alpass, 2013, 188-189, no. 1. See the MAP database: h (...)
  • 28 In as far as it had not been settled yet by the attestation of a similar but less ambiguous formula (...)
  • 29 Spijkerman 1978, 78-79, no. 39.
  • 30 E.g. the plural form of the place name Palmyra, similarly declined in the genitive as Παλμύρων, is (...)
  • 31 Spijkerman 1978, 78-81, no. 45-47.
  • 32 Spijkerman 1978, 74-75, no. 24.
  • 33 Spijkerman 1978, 60-61, no. 1-3, issued under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.

8Local specification is expressed in a similar manner in Nabataean inscriptions from Salhad (east of Bostra), dated to AD 57 and dedicated ‘to Allat their goddess who is in Salhad’ (l’lt ’lhthm dy bṣlḥd),24 and from Dumatha (Jawf), dated to AD 44, which records the building of a shrine ‘for Dushara the god of Gaia who is at Dumatha’ (ldwšr’ ’lh gy’ ’ dy [bdwm]t).25 The latter text, however, seems to add an additional level of complication, by its manifestation of a double layer of locality: a toponymic deity who is linked explicitly with another place.26 Elsewhere in the Nabataean world, to the east of Bostra, an inscription refers to ‘Dushara-Ara, the god of our lord (i.e. the king), who is in Bostra’ (dwšr’ ’‘r’ ’lh mr’n dy bbṣr’).27 In this case, at first glance it appears unclear whether it is the king or the god who is in Bostra, though numismatic evidence from this city may be called upon to settle the debate.28 The legend on the reverse of a coin issued during the reign of Caracalla reads, circled around a divine bust, ΔΟΥΣΑΡΗΣ ΘΕΟΣ ΒΟΣΤΡΩΝ, ‘Dusares the god of Bostra’,29 with the city’s name as a plural neuter, declined in the same way as the names of some other Syrian cities30 - the same formula used for the identification of the local Tyche (ΤΥΧΗ ΒΟΣΤΡΩΝ).31 In contrast, another coin from Bostra, issued under Commodus, reads ΒΟΣΤΡΗΝΩΝ ΔΟΥΣΑΡΗΣ on the reverse, in this case possibly referring separately to the divine name and to the fact that the coin, as is conventional on Roman provincial coinage, is literally ‘of the citizens of Bostra’.32 In other words, a distinction could have been made at Bostra between city and citizens, with the coin being ‘of the citizens’, but the god being ‘of the city’. At the nearby Decapolis city of Adraa, however, Dusares (and similarly the local Tyche) is the god ‘of the citizens of Adraa: ΔΟΥΣΑΡΗΣ ΘΕΟΣ ΑΔΡΑΗΝΩΝ, on a coin showing a conical stone rather than an anthropomorphic bust.33 In any case, both at Bostra and at Adraa Dusares has been turned into a toponymic deity.

  • 34 Negev 1981, no. 3-4, 6, 13. For discussion of the divine figure, see Healey 2001, 68-69; Alpass 201 (...)
  • 35 Ethnica, s.v. Ὄβοδα: ὅπου Ὀβοδης βασιλεύς, ὂν θεοποιοῦσι, τέθαπται.

9A different case is that of Zeus Oboda who is attested (as is Theos Oboda) in a number of Greek inscriptions from Oboda, the site of ‘Avdat in the Negev.34 At first glance this seems to be a typical toponymic deity, but his divine nomenclature has become the subject of a debate circling around the question of whether it instead hints at the worship of a deified Nabataean king called Obodas. The information provided by the fourth-century author Ouranios, in a fragment preserved by Stephanus of Byzantium, namely that the town of Obodas was the place ‘where Obodēs the king, whom they worship as a god, is buried’, cannot be taken as settling the issue.35 The place was probably named after a divine entity – or rather the divine name was the name of the place – but instead of thinking of Obodas as a deified king it is also possible that king Obodas was named after the deity. In any case, it is unlikely that after AD 106, when the royal lands became the Roman province of Arabia, the apotheosis of a Nabataean king was still formally commemorated. Regardless of the origins of the cult, therefore, by the Roman period Zeus/Theos Oboda must surely have been considered a regularly local god whose epithet explicitly linked him to the locality.

  • 36 Rostovtzeff 1934, 112-113, no. 416; Duchâteau 2013, 324-347; Yon, Gatier 2009, 144-145, no. 35.
  • 37 Duchâteau 2013, 303-323.
  • 38 The interpretation of the inscription has been much discussed. See Dirven 1999, 5 n. 17: “the cult (...)
  • 39 See Kaizer 2002, 98-99. Du’anat and Shadrafa were represented alongside each other on a relief of w (...)
  • 40 Duchâteau 2013, 324. But the little that is left on the relief of Du’anat from Palmyra makes this g (...)

10Another oft-discussed case of a deity linked according to an epigraphic formula with a specific locality comes from Dura-Europos. Here, a relief of a god dressed in cuirass and standing on top of two griffons is accompanied by a Greek inscription which records how the dedicant set up, following a vow, ‘this image from the sanctuary of Aphlad, named the god of Anath, the village on the Euphrates’ (τὴν ἀφείδρυσιν ταύτη[ν] ἱεροῦ Ἀφλαδ λεγομένου θεοῦ τῆς Ἁναθ κώμης Εὐφράτου).36 Like another deity who is attested only at Dura, the goddess Azzanathkona (whose name combines the Semitic term for ‘power’ with a reference to the same village37), Aphlad came originally from Anath, and the term ἀφείδρυσις suggests that the image of the god erected at Dura-Europos was a precise copy of his original cult statue set up further down the Euphrates. Azzanathkona may have contained this same information implicitly within her actual divine nomenclature, but in the case of Aphlad, whose name identifies him as ‘son of Hadad’, it had to be explained explicitly, and clearly in such a way as to leave no doubt that the information was not solely aimed at worshippers who themselves came from the god’s home village.38 A third deity associated to the same site is known from Palmyra, where a divine being called Du’anat, whose name literally means ‘the one from Anath’, was associated with a healing god Shadrafa.39 In this case, however, the god Du’anat – sometimes thought by scholars, though unconvincingly, to be identical with Aphlad40 – is not linked to the locality by means of a toponymic (nor any other) epithet, but solely through the literal meaning of the name.

  • 41 Of course, in the absence of other qualifying epithets or iconography, away from their ‘home’ conte (...)
  • 42 Kaizer 2017.
  • 43 Strabo, Geogr. XVI 1, 27: ἡ Βαμβύκη, ἣν καὶ Ἔδεσσαν καὶ Ἱερὰν πόλιν καλοῦσιν, ἐν ᾗ τιμῶσι τὴν Συρία (...)
  • 44 IGLS XI, no. 45A, with Aliquot 2009, 146-147; CIS II, no. 422, with Healey 2001, 50 and 140; Alpass (...)

11No god or goddess needed to be toponymic in order to be considered local,41 and it is clear that many deities who lacked an epithet that was related to a place name were nonetheless universally associated with one place in particular (even if their main sanctuary did of course not have a monopoly on their cult). The geographic accounts of the (early) Roman Near East by Strabo and Pliny the Elder are a case in point.42 But even deities falling within this category, i.e. without the direct need to be toponymic, could still be linked unequivocally with ‘their’ site in epigraphy. Atargatis, the most emblematic of all Near Eastern deities, who received widespread worship as the ‘Syrian Goddess’, was widely acknowledged already under the early Roman empire (as is clear from references in said Strabo and Pliny) to have her main cult centre at Hierapolis-Bambyce/Manbog – long before that particular sanctuary famously became the subject, in the second century, of a treatise by the satirist Lucian of Samosata.43 Nevertheless, an altar from Kafr Hawar on Mt Hermon is dedicated according to its Greek inscription to ‘the Syrian goddess of the Hierapolitoi’ (Θεᾷ Συρίᾳ Ἱερα[π]ολιτῶν), while an Aramaic inscription from Petra seems to refer to her as ʾtrʿtʾ mnbgytʾ, ‘Atarate Manbigitess’ (applying an ethnicon based on the indigenous place-name Manbog).44

  • 45 See Hdn. V 3, 5 on the conical stone of Elagabalus in Emesa. A denarius minted under the homonymous (...)
  • 46 See BMC 24, a bronze coin of AD 253 with Greek legends and dated according to the Seleucid era whic (...)
  • 47 See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/element/1425.
  • 48 Millar 1993, 250-256 still provides the most accessible overview. See also Callot 1997. For all att (...)
  • 49 For an overview, see Mussies 1990, and now also Lipiński 2013. See Ovadiah, Mucznik 1997 on a Zeus (...)

12In many other cases which relate to deities that are considered typically local, however, the toponymic specification was absent – but without the divine losing a sense of locale. Thus, the god Elagabalus (whose name includes elements meaning ‘god’ and ‘mountain’ – despite the later ‘solarisation’ process which made ancient observers turn him into Heliogabalus) was undisputedly linked with Emesa on the Orontes; the conical stone representing this deity was the focal point of the cult infamously observed by the boy-emperor Elagabalus (nicknamed after the god) who was a descendant of the high priest of Elagabal at Emesa, Julius Bassianus, and who – while serving as pontifex maximus – styled himself on imperial coinage as ‘priest of the sun god Elagabalus’.45 The stone reappeared about thirty years later on the colonial coinage of Emesa issued by a usurper during the reign of Trebonianus Gallus known as Uranius, who was proclaimed as emperor following Shapur’s capture of Antioch and seems to have been referred to by means of the traditional Emesene royal name Sampsigeramus in John Malalas’ Chronographia.46 To the north, in the Limestone Massif, the hinterland of the cities of the tetrapolis, various rural temples centred upon the cult of a deity who – in several formats which followed distinct linguistic patterns, though all expressed in Greek – was associated with altar worship. A dedication from Burj Baqirha mentioned Zeus Bōmos, with the divine epithet being the Greek word for ‘altar’,47 whereas at the top of the nearby Jebel Sheikh Barakat a cult of Zeus Madbachos was found, with the epithet based on the Semitic word for altar (mdbk’) and thus serving as a synonym of Βωμός.48 And towards the south, the local deity of Gaza was called Marna, conventionally known to scholars as Zeus Marnas following a reference in the Life of Porphyry (19), the bishop of Gaza’s biography by Marc the Deacon.49

  • 50 Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 2740, with Teixidor 1967, 188.
  • 51 Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 1353 (AD 25), which records a dedication of a statue by the treasurers a (...)

13This seemingly obvious point, namely that divine locality could be expressed also without toponym, deserves further emphasis, as it is important to realise that the actual category (of toponymic deities) does not seem to have a prominent place within those local divine worlds of the Roman Near East which scholars have become most familiar with. Thus, with regard to the best available case studies for local religious life in the region, it is noticeable that there is no attestation in the sources of a ‘Zeus Palmyrenos’, a ‘Zeus of Dura/Europos’, or a ‘Lord/God of Hatra’. A Palmyrenean inscription found in the midst of Safaitic graffiti in the Wadi Miqat, in present-day Iraq, which records a prayer for remembrance ‘before the gods of Tadmor’ (qdm [’]lhy t[dmr]), using Palmyra’s indigenous name, is merely an invocation by a Palmyrene based outside the civic territory of the united gods of his home town.50 A similar divine collectivity is expressed in a formula twice attested in a honorific context, in recognition of benefactions made to ‘the gods of the Palmyrenes’ – thus creating a civic layer of divinity in addition to the divine protectors of individual tribes.51 In terms of actual toponymity, however, there is nothing at Palmyra (and Dura-Europos) to fit the bill besides the Gaddē and Tychai of both places (which will be discussed briefly below).

14Generally speaking, the available source material from these sites is such that it becomes rather unlikely that the absence of the toponymic divine epithet is simply a function of the evidence. It is therefore worth considering how the locality of the divine world in those places was highlighted instead. In the case of Palmyra, a number of deities are known by indigenous names not attested outside the oasis (or in any case not outside Palmyrene contexts, as they could be worshipped also by Palmyrenes away from home), above all the popular gods Yarhibol, Aglibol, and Malakbel. These deities kept their indigenous name also in transliterated format in Greek inscriptions (Iarheibolos, Agleibolos, Malachbelos) and thus remained local from that perspective. It could of course be said that in the case of such uniquely local divine names a toponymic epithet would have been unnecessary, but there are enough examples known from elsewhere within the wider region (see Baetocaece, discussed above) to make the point that any deity could still be named after a locality even if the local affiliation would have been clear regardless, i.e. when the use of the epithet was not strictly necessary to achieve a full understanding.

  • 52 Thus Millar 1993, 319.

15Many other deities at Palmyra, all fully integrated within the local divine world but with non-Classical names known from other religious spheres of influence, found themselves identified with Greek counterparts in the bilingual epigraphy which characterised the oasis: Allat-Athena; Arsu-Ares; Herta-Hera; Elqonera-Poseidon; Baalshamin-Zeus. From their names only, it would be impossible to deduce a link with the Palmyrene locality, though it could perhaps be argued that the “explicit syncretism of Greek and Semitic deities”52 in itself strengthened their status as Palmyrene deities.

  • 53 Gad of the blessed source: Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 0322; mṣb’ of the source: ibid. 1099. See Kai (...)
  • 54 For a discussion of all attestations of Gad in the Aramaic epigraphy of the Roman period, see Kaize (...)
  • 55 Dirven 1999, pl. IV.
  • 56 Cumont 1923, 12.
  • 57 On Tyche in the Graeco-Roman world in general, see Matheson 1994. Hippos-Sussita: e.g. RPC IV.3, no (...)

16Of the above-mentioned uniquely Palmyrene gods, it is Yarhibol who was explicitly associated with a specific place within the site. In the local divine world of Palmyra itself he did not only serve as an ‘acolyte’ to Bel in the latter’s temple, but in his own right he functioned as the divine protector of the Efqa spring, which obviously counted as the most vital place within the settlement. This seems to have been recognised not only by the site’s inhabitants (who referred to him as the ‘Gad of the blessed source’, gd’ dy ‘yn’ brykt’), but also by Palmyrene expatriates living in Dura-Europos (who worshipped him as the ‘idol’ of the source, mṣb’ dy ‘yn’).53 These same Palmyrenes at Dura-Europos also adhered to the worship of two divinities known as the Gaddē of Tadmor and of Dura, respectively. In many cases, though obviously not in all, Gad simply is the Aramaic equivalent of Greek Tyche (and Latin Fortuna),54 and the Gad of Tadmor, known from a relief found at Dura-Europos and dated to AD 159, does indeed follow the expected iconographic pattern of the typical Greek city goddess.55 The Gad of Tadmor’s Greek equivalent, the Tyche of Palmyra (Τύχη Παλμύρων), also made an appearance at Dura, on the famous painting from the 230s depicting the sacrifice by Iulius Terentius, tribune of the Twentieth Cohort of the Palmyrenes.56 Tyche forms a particular class within the context of a discussion centred upon toponymic deities, because of her different dimension. Whereas the toponymic deities which are discussed above can only be toponymic deities because of their particular kind of epithet, thus totally regardless of their iconography, Tyche as the Greek city protectress expresses the unique local relationship between divine power and locality in a visual manner that is virtually identical in all localities: based on the famous Tyche of Antioch as created by Lysippus’ pupil Eutychides in the early Hellenistic period, wearing a mural crown and holding a horn of abundance or another fertility symbol such as a corn ear, and with her feet resting on the representation of the local source of water (the Orontes river at Antioch, and the Efqa spring in the case of Palmyra). Some Tychai were further distinguished by the addition of locally specific requisites, such as a horse for the Tyche of the Decapolis city Hippos-Sussita (both the Greek and the indigenous place name meaning ‘horse’) or a crescent for the Tyche of Carrhae-Harran (an ancient centre of the Moon cult).57

  • 58 Dirven 1999, pl. III. For the interpretation of the Gad of Dura as Zeus Olympios, see ibid., 111-11 (...)

17The Gad of Dura, on the other hand, does not map onto the established pattern of the Tyche at all. Depicted on a relief with which that of the Gad of Tadmor forms a set, and dedicated by the same Palmyrene worshipper in AD 159, the Gad of Dura is represented as a bearded male, according to the iconography of Zeus Olympios.58 It is therefore important to emphasise that the figure is not labelled as ‘Zeus (nor Theos, nor Bel) of Dura’, but as the ‘Gad’, the divine protector of the town, thus providing a commentary on the way in which Palmyrene migrants chose to represent the divine world of the town in which they were living. On the above-mentioned painting of the sacrifice by Iulius Terentius, however, the Tyche of Dura (Τύχη Δούρας, even in this case using the indigenous place name, rather than Europos) was represented as a city goddess in the best classical tradition, similar to her counterpart, the Tyche of Palmyra. It goes to show that over time different Palmyrene inhabitants of Dura-Europos could have different understandings of the cultic situation, or rather followed different religious agendas.

  • 59 Kaizer 2000, 233. The triad is also attested in a bilingual (Hatrean Aramaic and Greek) graffito fr (...)
  • 60 Dio LXVIII 31, 2: τοῦ Ἡλίου ᾧπέρ που καὶ ἀνάκειται.
  • 61 Walter 1958; S 1977.

18Finally, toponymity also seems to have been absent from the gods and goddesses of Hatra, a stronghold and religious and administrative centre in the Jazirah region of northern Iraq. Hatra was home to an idiosyncratic local divine world, which was centred upon the only veritable family triad in the Roman Near East, Maren (our Lord), Marten (our Lady) and Bar-Maren (the son of our Lord).59 It is possible that, at least in some cases, Maren was identified with the Sun god Shamash, to whom the city was consecrated according to Cassius Dio.60 The coinage issued by Hatra is inscribed with a legend saying ḥṭr’ dy šmš, Hatra (literally ‘sacred enclosure’) of Shamash, i.e. of the Sun.61 But a toponymic labelling of the deity, which would have gone the other way around, ‘Shamash of Hatra’, is conspicuously absent.

19It is clear from a closer look at these well preserved cities, Hatra, Palmyra and Dura-Europos, that a toponymic epithet is not absolutely necessary to bring about strong local identities with regard to the deities. Epithets which are adjectives based on a place name, or formulas that express a deity to be ‘of’ a place, may present the most unequivocal indicators of a unique and unbroken link between god and place, but many other aspects and elements can fulfil such a role too, including non-toponymic epithets, religious topography, divine iconography, sacrificial practice, and other cultic patterns.

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Notes

1 I remain grateful to Corinne Bonnet and Giuseppina Marano for their organization, patience and comments, to Aleksandra Kubiak-Schneider for the original invitation to the workshop, and to the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback.

2 For a discussion of the variety of ways in which local religious identities could be created in the Roman Near East, see Kaizer 2013a.

3 See, on divine epithets in general, Gladigow 1981, esp. 1228-1229. See also the relevant publications by the Mapping Ancient Polytheisms project (ERC MAP 741182), which are listed at https://map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/activites-2/publications/?lang=en.

4 Millar 1993, 503.

5 Rieger 2020, 352. See ibid.: “The local specification of deities and the identity-shaping of their human counterparts occurred at the sacralized places due to tensions between local interests and those of outsiders, primarily concerning agricultural resources and especially in the 1st to 3rd centuries CE.”

6 See, for a discussion of toponymic deities elsewhere in the ancient world, Parker 2017, 95-101, and Blömer 2017a on iconographical aspects of local cults.

7 Sartre 1991, 491: “En réalité, le plus important ne réside pas tant dans le nom du dieu que dans son épithète topique.”

8 I owe this important observation to my student Alison Ewins. Theos Baetocaece, in various spellings and with a variety of additional epithets, is attested in IGLS VII, 4031-35, 4037-38, 4041. Only the famous dossier uses Zeus, when referring to the power ‘of the god Zeus of Baetocaece’ (θεοῦ Διὸς Βαιτοκαικης), see IGLS VII, 4028C (with those responsible for the re-inscription of the document identifying themselves as οἱ κάτοχοι ἁγίου οὐρανίου Διὸς, ‘devotees of sacred heavenly Zeus’, ibid. E). On Baetocaece and its inscriptions, see now also Bonnet 2015, 132-149.

9 In both cases, from Rome and Puteoli, respectively, the deity is fully named as Iuppiter Optimus Maximus Damascenus, CIL VI, 405 and X, 1576. A dedication from Bostra (Δὶ Δαμασκηνῷ), made by someone sporting the tria nomina, has been heralded as the only appearance of the deity in Syria outside Damascus itself, see IGLS XIII.1, 9013.

10 [Julian], Ep. 80, with Millar 1993, 312. For the conventional identification with Hadad, see Sourdel 1952, 44; Sartre 2001, 288; but see Millar 1993, 313-314.

11 See Bonnet et al. 2019.

12 On the temple of IOMH at Baalbek, see most recently Paturel 2019. The sources related to his cult are collected by Hajjar 1977, with Id. 1985 and J.C. Greenfield’s review and the ensuing debate between the two scholars in Numen 37.2 (1990) 280-283 and ibid. 38.2 (1991) 266-273. On the excavations of the home sanctuary of IOMD at Dülük Baba Tepesi, conducted by the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor of the University of Münster, and on the deity’s cult, see, e.g., Winter 2017; Blömer 2012; Id. 2017b.

13 Kaizer 2006, 41. IOMH was a beardless figure with curly hair, crowned with a calathos, standing on a plinth, flanked by bulls, holding a whip in his right hand and an ear in his left, and most often enclosed in a kind of sheath which was neatly divided in a number of sections displaying busts. IOMD stood on a bull, waving an axe in one hand, and was often accompanied by his female consort known as Juno Dolichena, who herself sported a mirror and stood either on a cow or on a deer. As for IOMH, a statue of the god found at as-Sukhnah, about 70 km to the northeast of Palmyra but situated within the city’s territory, was made in the typically Palmyrene art style, despite the dedicant being a Roman military official, prefect of the Second Syrian Cohort of the Thracians. See Kaizer 2022, 127-128.

14 Rieger 2020, 358.

15 Hajjar 1977, no. 303, and for further examples see ibid. no. 272 (from Aquincum in Pannonia Inferior) and no. 283 (from Carvoran, ancient Magnae, on Hadrian’s Wall).

16 Millar 1993, 249. For further discussion, see Kaizer 2013b.

17 1952, no. 206, with Hajjar 1977, no. 227. See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/4752.

18 Tac. Hist. II 78: nec simulacrum deo aut templum - sic tradidere maiores -: ara tantum et reverentia (‘the god has no image or temple — such is the rule handed down by the fathers —; there is only an altar and the worship of the god). See Hajjar 1977, no. 227 with pl. LXXXVI. Not only does Tacitus stress that this is an ancient tradition, the Heliopolitanus with whom the god of the Carmel (Karmēlos) is being identified in the inscription (as Hēliopoleitēs) was of course widely attested in an ‘iconic’ format. In this context, Hajjar 1977, 269 emphasised “la grande poussée expansive imprimée au culte héliopolitain par la dynastie des Sévères” and drew attention to the fact that from the Severan period Jupiter Heliopolitanus was put on the coinage of Ptolemais.

19 Spijkerman 1978, 118-121. See also Augé 1990, 330 on “le « Baal » de Dion, dont on ignore le nom indigène, mais que l’aigle et la Niké assimilent très probablement à Zeus.”

20 Ethnika, s.v. Κύρρος, πόλις Συρίας ... καὶ Κυρρεστίς Ἀθηνᾶ, see ed. A. Meineke 1849, 397. See for further references and discussion Cohen 2006, 181-182.

21 See on Athena Kyrrhestis also Daubner 2017, 53-54.

22 Rostovtzeff 1934, 307-310, no. 610 with fig. 13 ; Cuvigny 2004, 192-194. See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/attestation/7111.

23 Rostovtzeff, Brown and Welles 1939, 180-217; Duchâteau 2013, 113-122.

24 CIS II.1, no. 182, with Healey 2001, 64 and 108-109; Alpass 2013, 194-195. For further bibliography, see the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/11288.

25 Savignac, Starcky 1957, with Healey 2001, 89-90; Alpass 2013, 102, notes to text no. 16.

26 Though it cannot be entirely certain that Gaia is a place rather than a person, there is at least a place called Gaia located near Petra. On top of this, the name Dushara (transliterated as Dusares) itself has been explained as ‘He of the Shara’, a mountain range in southern Jordan. See Healey 2001, 86-89. So this might even be considered a triple layer of divine locality.

27 RES 83, dated to AD 93, with Healey 2001, 98; Alpass, 2013, 188-189, no. 1. See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/11335.

28 In as far as it had not been settled yet by the attestation of a similar but less ambiguous formula from Hegra, see Healey 2001, 98; Alpass 2013, 186, 189, no. 2, a dedication ‘to A‘ra who is in Bostra, god of Rabbel’ (l’‘r’ dy bbṣr’ ’lh rb’l). The most interesting aspect of this latter example is the fact that the deity is still explicitly named as ‘god of Rabbel’ while the inscription is dated to the first year of the reign of another king, Maliku.

29 Spijkerman 1978, 78-79, no. 39.

30 E.g. the plural form of the place name Palmyra, similarly declined in the genitive as Παλμύρων, is attested in a fragment from the third-century author Nikostratus of Trapezus, preserved by the sixth-century Syrian scholar Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica 5.24 (FGrH/BNJ 98), see Bleckmann, Gross 2016, 72; also on the famous painting from Dura-Europos of the sacrifice by the tribune Julius Terentius, see Cumont 1923, 12 n. 3.

31 Spijkerman 1978, 78-81, no. 45-47.

32 Spijkerman 1978, 74-75, no. 24.

33 Spijkerman 1978, 60-61, no. 1-3, issued under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.

34 Negev 1981, no. 3-4, 6, 13. For discussion of the divine figure, see Healey 2001, 68-69; Alpass 2013, 156-159; Nehmé 2012.

35 Ethnica, s.v. Ὄβοδα: ὅπου Ὀβοδης βασιλεύς, ὂν θεοποιοῦσι, τέθαπται.

36 Rostovtzeff 1934, 112-113, no. 416; Duchâteau 2013, 324-347; Yon, Gatier 2009, 144-145, no. 35.

37 Duchâteau 2013, 303-323.

38 The interpretation of the inscription has been much discussed. See Dirven 1999, 5 n. 17: “the cult of Aphlad was confined to people from the village of Anath.” Kaizer 2009a, 162-163: “it must be doubtful whether it was adhered to only by villagers from Anath themselves. Surely there would have been no need for such meticulous description.” Dirven 2011, 217 n. 15: “the stress on the god’s origin functions as an identity marker for the group from Anath. This formulation is well known in the Roman Near East and it does not follow from this that people from other places worshipped the god as well.” As Andrade 2013, 222-225 has shown, other inscriptions from the temple of Aphlad at Dura-Europos imply that the deity’s cult was attended also by citizens of Dura, while the original villagers from Anath managed to keep a distinctive status through their own association within a ‘brotherhood’ (ἑταιρεία).

39 See Kaizer 2002, 98-99. Du’anat and Shadrafa were represented alongside each other on a relief of which only the bottom part is preserved, see Dunant, Stucky 2000, 87, no. 11 with Taf. 6.11.

40 Duchâteau 2013, 324. But the little that is left on the relief of Du’anat from Palmyra makes this god look rather different from the deity identified as Aphlad on the relief from Dura-Europos.

41 Of course, in the absence of other qualifying epithets or iconography, away from their ‘home’ context deities would need a toponymic epithet to have their original locality expressed, e.g. the above-mentioned Zeus Damaskēnos from Bostra (IGLS XIII.1, 9013) or the Zeus Phainēsios, from Phaena (Mismiyeh) who was worshipped at Damet el-‘Alya, see Sourdel 1952, 24 n. 7.

42 Kaizer 2017.

43 Strabo, Geogr. XVI 1, 27: ἡ Βαμβύκη, ἣν καὶ Ἔδεσσαν καὶ Ἱερὰν πόλιν καλοῦσιν, ἐν ᾗ τιμῶσι τὴν Συρίαν θεὸν τὴν Ἀταργάτιν. Pliny, HN V 19, 81: Bambycen quae alio nomine Hierapolis vocatur, Syris vero Mabog - ibi prodigiosa Atargatis, Graecis autem Derceto dicta, colitur. On Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess, see Lightfoot 2003. Atargatis was worshipped elsewhere in the Near East as well, and (co-)inhabited temples and shrines at Palmyra, Dura-Europos and Hatra. See the contribution of Nate Andrade in this volume.

44 IGLS XI, no. 45A, with Aliquot 2009, 146-147; CIS II, no. 422, with Healey 2001, 50 and 140; Alpass 2013, 105, no. 23. See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/11787.

45 See Hdn. V 3, 5 on the conical stone of Elagabalus in Emesa. A denarius minted under the homonymous emperor at Antioch in 218/9 shows a quadriga carrying this aniconic image (baetyl), see RIC 195 / BMC 284. See RIC 131 / BMC 225, a denarius depicting the emperor in an act of sacrifice accompanied by the legend SACERD(os) DEI SOLIS ELAGAB(ali). See also Rüpke 2007, 33-34.

46 See BMC 24, a bronze coin of AD 253 with Greek legends and dated according to the Seleucid era which was minted at colonia Emesa (ΕΜΙΣΩΝ ΚΟΛΩΝ), showing a bust of Uranius (ΑΥΤΟΚ ΣΟΥΛΠ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟΣ ΣΕ) on the obverse and a temple with the conical stone of Elagabalus in its centre on the reverse. See Malalas XII 26 (296), who records how ‘the priest of Aphrodite, called Sampsigeramos’ ( ἱερεὺς τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ὀνόματι Σαμψιγέραμος), stood up against Shapur when the Sasanians overran the region.

47 See the MAP database: https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/element/1425.

48 Millar 1993, 250-256 still provides the most accessible overview. See also Callot 1997. For all attestations see https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/element/1421.

49 For an overview, see Mussies 1990, and now also Lipiński 2013. See Ovadiah, Mucznik 1997 on a Zeus statue which they interpret as bringing together various trends and characteristics, and Millar 1993, 358 for the deity’s cult as “an element of continuity.” The god’s temple at Gaza was known as the Marneion, see Life of Porphyry 75.

50 Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 2740, with Teixidor 1967, 188.

51 Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 1353 (AD 25), which records a dedication of a statue by the treasurers and the assembly of the Palmyrenes for a certain Malku ‘because he did good to them and to their city and to the house of their gods’ ([mn d]y špr lhwn wlmḥwzhwn wlbt ’lhyhwn); no. 0269 (AD 51), which records how the city of the Palmyrenes ([Παλμυρη]νῶν [π][λις]; the Palmyrenean uses a different term meaning ‘collectivity’ to express this notion: gbl tdmry’ klhn) honoured a certain Mokeimu because he had offered cultic objects ‘to the temple of their gods’ (lbt ’lhyhn). See also Kaizer 2002, 70 and n. 21.

52 Thus Millar 1993, 319.

53 Gad of the blessed source: Hillers, Cussini 1996, no. 0322; mṣb’ of the source: ibid. 1099. See Kaizer 2002, 143-148.

54 For a discussion of all attestations of Gad in the Aramaic epigraphy of the Roman period, see Kaizer 1997; Id. 1998.

55 Dirven 1999, pl. IV.

56 Cumont 1923, 12.

57 On Tyche in the Graeco-Roman world in general, see Matheson 1994. Hippos-Sussita: e.g. RPC IV.3, no. 6289, 6567, 6290, 6582, all examples of the local Tyche holding the bridle of the horse standing next to her. Carrhae-Harran: e.g. RPC VII.2, no. 3439-3444, all examples of a bust of the Tyche with a moon crescent above her corona muralis.

58 Dirven 1999, pl. III. For the interpretation of the Gad of Dura as Zeus Olympios, see ibid., 111-119.

59 Kaizer 2000, 233. The triad is also attested in a bilingual (Hatrean Aramaic and Greek) graffito from Dura-Europos, on which see Kaizer (2009b) 245-246.

60 Dio LXVIII 31, 2: τοῦ Ἡλίου ᾧπέρ που καὶ ἀνάκειται.

61 Walter 1958; S 1977.

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Ted Kaizer, « Some Considerations about Toponymic and Other Local Deities in the Roman Near East »Mythos [En ligne], 16 | 2022, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2022, consulté le 05 décembre 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/5218 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mythos.5218

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Ted Kaizer

Durham University, Department of Classics & Ancient History. 38 North Bailey, Durham DH1 3EU, United Kingdom. ted.kaizer(at)durham.ac.uk

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