1) Von Schoeffer (De Deli insulae rebus p. 226, 3) has restored IG II 985 C II 8 as follows: ['Αριστίων Σωκράτους ἐξ Οί]ου, and, since the title [ἐπιμελητὴς Δήλου appears immediately above in line 7, he conjectured that Aristion was governorgeneral of Delos in 98/7 (Prokles). Since we knew from the Delian documents that Polykleitos, son of Alexandros, of Phlya was epimeletes in 98/7, Homolle suggested that the latter was suffectus (BCH VIII p. 127; Kirchner, PA No. 11978).

But the priest of Zeus Kynthios for 98/7 was Sarapion, son of Sotades, of Aigilia (Kirchner, PA No. 12561); while the priest for the year in which Aristion was epimeletes was ε... Αχαρνεύς (Loewy, Inschr. griech. Bild. No. 247).

Is it thinkable that here too one was suffectus?

Rather we should supply [ Επὶ Μενοίτου] ἄρχοντος in line 3 of IG II 985 C II and regard the officials of lines 3 ff. as belonging to 105/4. Then we should restore line 8 [Σωκράτης Αριστίωνος ἐξ Οί]ου. See Kirchner, PA No. 11978 for a similar restoration.

The number in the fourth column indicates the position in the official order of the tribes to which the priest of the Great Deities belonged. It does more than that, however: when reduced by one and by two it indicates the same fact for the priest of Sarapis and the priest of Aphrodite respectively. In other words, the tribe which gave the priest of the Great Deities in one year gave the priest of Sarapis in the following year, and the priest of Aphrodite in the next after that again. Of course, we do not possess data sufficient to demonstrate this relation between the three priesthoods for many years in the period 166/5-103/2. But from CIG II 2270 it results that Eubulos of Marathon was priest of the Great Deities in or about 161/0, while the location of Gaios of Acharnai in 128/71), and of Sosikles of Koile in 126/52), is quite certain. So, too, we know beyond a doubt that Philokles of Sphettos was priest of Aphrodite in 127/63) and Demonikos of Anaphlystos in 110/9). From these data, therefore, we are warranted in constructing a speculative scheme for the entire earlier period.

We know that the official order was abandoned in the case of the priests of Sarapis in approximately 103/2. Thus Ptolemais was due for 105/4, and Hipponikos of Phlya was priest. In 100/99 Aiantis was due, but Theobios of Acharnai was priest. The interruption had obviously occurred in the meanwhile, and in an article in the fourth volume of Klio) I have shown reasons for believing that it took place in 103/2. We do not know at what time the official order was given up for the priests of the Great Deities). For the priests of Aphrodite the end came between 110/9 and 107/6. Thus, while Aigeis should have received this priesthood in 107/6, Aischrion of Melite was chosen); and with a similar disregard of tribal rights, Nikostratos of Lamptrai and Zoïlos of Phlya succeeded one another, perhaps in 106/5 and 105/4). We are not on this account warran

Aristion, son of Sokrates, & Olov was the son of the epimeletes of 105/4 (Kirchner, PA No. 13119). Eutychides, whose dated activity in Delos belongs to 116/5, 108/7, 106/5, 99/8?, was still at work in Aristion's year. Hence the father and son must have held the governor-generalship quite close together, Now, in 100/99, 96/5, and 95/4 Theobios, the son of Dionysios, of Acharnai was priest of Sarapis, Aphrodite, and Zeus Kynthios respectively. It is obvious that we have to restore the passage in Loewy (No. 247) thus: i regions [6][osior Atorvaior] Azcorios, and place the epimeleia of Aristion, son of Sokrates, of Oion in 95/4.

1) CIG II 2296. - 2) BCH VII p. 370.

3) BCH VI p. 347; VII p. 367; VIII p. 131, n. 2 on p. 132.

4) BCH VI p. 489. - 5) P. 7.

6) Since this priest does not appear at all in IG II 2 985, and since Helianax figures in c. 101/0 as priest of Poseidon Aisios for life and of the Great Deities (BCH VII p. 349), it is possible that at this time annual tenure had been replaced by life tenure. 7) '49v. IV p. 462.

8) Ibid. IV p. 460. The donor, Kleostratides, binds Nikostratos and Zoïlos to Aischrion = 107/6; cf. 49. IV p. 461: so does the demosios, Eutychides, who is common to the three priesthoods.

ted in doubting the maintenance of the official order for the fifty eight preceding years, the analogy of the priests of Sarapis being decisive on this point.

It thus appears that the way was left open for a man should he aspire to hold the three priesthoods in succession; for, had the same tribe received them all in the one year, a candidate could secure the three only after the lapse of twenty five years. This was objectionable, not so much, perhaps, from the disability it put upon individuals, as from the handicap it imposed upon those who were interested in the prosperity of the foreign cults. Wealthy men should be encouraged to hold the priesthoods, not debarred by restrictions, artificial at best, and quite unintelligible to orientals; for what did Syrians or Hieropolitans know of the democratic theory that all citizens should be advanced in turn to public trusts? In addition, there was a practical objection to placing unnecessary obstacles in the way of successive tenure of priesthoods. These charges belonged almost, if not quite, exclusively to the members of the Athenian settlement on Delos; for, whereas the holders of the higher insular magistracies meet us at every turn in the contemporary Athenian inscriptions, and were demonstrably sent from the capital, the priests are rarely found outside the Delian documents. Perhaps the distinction conferred by a priesthood was not sufficient to induce an Athenian to spend a year on the island, and return home feeling mean if he had not made some handsome gift to the shrine of which he had had charge. Perhaps the priesthoods were given over as perquisites to the kleruchs. At any rate the responsibility of attending to the cultus, of erecting temples, images, balustrades, exedras. and priests-houses, of paving courts and building walks and walls, of frescoing ceilings, and providing windows, doors, fountains, etc., in a word, of equipping a new and expanding precinct, fell upon the devotees of the various gods in the first instance, but very heavily also upon the shoulders. of the wealthy men in the colony for to these the priesthoods were ordinarily left. Such men were relatively few in number. Upon this point we must not be misled by appearances. The recent proof that there were but 700 citizens in Delphi1) shows again that it does not take many grasshoppers to make a noisy orchestra. The Athenian kleruchy was, in fact, a small settlement, and we can be sure that there were not too many suitable men at hand each year for allotment to the priesthoods of the foreign deities. Hence the necessity of opening them in quick succession to the same person.

The reason for treating the priesthood of the Great Deities, Dioskuri, Kabiri - to give it its full title (to which that of Poseidon Aisios was added later), the priesthood of Sarapis (to which fell the cult of Isis. Anubis, and Harpokrates), and the priesthood of Aphrodite Hagne (to which the worship of Adad and Atargatis was closely related) as a special unit was that they had as their collective function the care of all the 1) Bourguet, L'administration financière du sanctuaire Pythique pp. 44 f.

foreign deities recognized in Delos. They had nothing to do with the Apollo-Artemis-Leto precinct and its aggregate of native shrines. To them belonged a new precinct, with a complex of temples, located on the slope of Mt. Kynthos, by the edge of the Inopos ravine, at a slight distance from the old religious centre of the island. It is possible that Herakles, i. e. Melkarth, and Asklepios were regarded as foreign deities likewise 1), and relegated to the same region. Hence we should like to have some data for establishing the tribal relations of the priests of these deities, but unfortunately we cannot be sure that a priest of Herakles existed at all, and we can make nothing out of the few referances to the priest of Asklepios.

Since the priesthoods of the foreign gods formed a group by themselves we must not conclude that the mode of election used in their case was that employed for the other priesthoods in Delos. Here the most natural parallel is the priesthood of Asklepios in Athens itself, and the evidence at present available is quite against the use of the official order to distribute this priesthood in the second century B.C.2). Such is also the case for the priesthood of Apollo in Delos. To be sure, only one priest prior to 103/2 can be assigned to a precise year, and this one 3), Dionysios, son of Demetrios, of Anaphlystos (111/0) came from the same tribe as that which in this year gave the priest of Sarapis and the prytany secretary. But Ares, the son of Ares, of Kephisia was priest of Apollo in the year (147/6?) in which Heraios, son of Apollodoros, of Sunion was priest of the Great Deities). Had the priest of Apollo belonged to the same tribe as the priest of Sarapis, Ares should have been registered, not in Erechtheis, but in Attalis. Hence, while the point is not definitely established, it seems most likely that the tribal order was disregarded in the selection of the priests of Apollo.

We have now answered the question with which we started our examination of the Delian priestships, and we can affirm confidently that the priest of Asklepios for 237/6 was taken from the tribe Antigonis, and the priest of Artemis from the tribe Antiochis, in order that the arrangement of this year being taken as indicative of the general practice it might be possible for the priests of Asklepios to offer themselves as candidates for the priesthood of Artemis in the following year. Otherwise they would have been obliged to wait for twelve years, and by that time an ambitious man was less likely to trouble himself with the petty duties of a priesthood. 3. Chronologica.

A. Aristaichmos. According as we reckon inclusively or exclusively,

1) Reinach. BCH VII pp. 333 and 366. 2) Priests of Asklepios p. 144. 3) BCH XIII p. 372; CIG II 2298.

4) Αρχικλής Αρχικλέους Λακιάδης was ὁ ἐπὶ τὰ ἱερά in this year: an 'Αρχικλής laziadne was hieropoios in 152/1.