The cult of Apollo in the Milesian colonies along the coast of the Black Sea : an inventory of archaeological data

Abstract

À la période Archaïque, la colonisation grecque avait pour but l’expansion et l’exportation des coutumes sociales des diverses cités États à travers différentes régions. Bien que le sujet de la colonisation grecque soit abondamment basé sur des sources primaires biaisées, causant une confusion concernant l’établissement du lien entre une cité mère et ses colonies, il demeure néanmoins qu’une connexion entre la cité de Milet et les colonies de la Mer Noire est observée au sein des institutions religieuses instaurées sur ces territoires. Le culte d’Apollon fut prédominant tout au long des périodes Archaïque, Classique et Hellénistique de la Grèce antique. À l’époque de la colonisation par Milet, la cité avait pour divinité principale Apollon qui était également dieu de la colonisation et dieu de la navigation. Pour les milésiens, Apollon autorisait et sanctionnait le droit de coloniser et d’y instaurer de nouveaux cultes. Dans les colonies fondées le long de la côte de la Mer Noire, une influence claire du culte de cette divinité est discernable dans la tradition littéraire, ainsi que dans les registres archéologiques. Grâce à un catalogue raisonné, concernant seize colonies dites milésiennes situées autour de la Mer Noire, unissant toute l’information archéologique et littéraire pertinente relatif au culte d’Apollon, ce mémoire propose qu’une forte représentation de ce culte dans cette région est attribuable à son instauration par les Milésiens dans l’espoir que les institutions religieuses des colonies reflètent celles de la cité mère. Il en découle qu’Apollon devint, par le fait même, la divinité principale de la majorité des colonies milésiennes de la Mer Noire.

Greek colonisation in the Archaic period had as its goal the expansion and the exportation of a city state’s social and religious customs into different regions. Although the subject of Greek colonisation is often vague, and based on erroneous, and generous primary sources, which can confound links between the colonies and their apparent mother city, a connection can nevertheless be established between the colonies in the Black Sea and the mother city of Miletus through the religious institutions that were installed upon colonisation. The cult of the god Apollo was prevalent throughout the ancient Greek world during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. For the Archaic period colonizing Greek city state of Miletus, Apollo was patron deity, the god of colonisation, as well as the god of seafaring. For the Milesians, Apollo was the deity who sanctioned the right to set up new cults in new locations, as well as authorising the very act of establishing colonies. In the colonies founded by Miletus located along the coast of the Black Sea, there is a clear disposition towards the cult of Apollo in the literary tradition, as well as in the archaeological record. This thesis proposes, by means of a well-defined catalogue uniting all pertinent archaeological and literary information relating to the cult of Apollo in 16 colonies located around the Black Sea said to have been colonies of Miletus, that the reason for such a strong representation of the cult of Apollo in these colonies is a result of the Milesians installing the cult of their patron deity Apollo with the wish that the colonies’ religious institutions mirror that of the metropolis. The inventory demonstrates that Apollo was the patron deity of the majority of Miletus’s colonies in the Black Sea. This thesis will also propose that a proper study of religious trends found in city states and their supposed colonies can act as a methodology for identifying which colonies belonged to which mother city, as I propose that the patron deity in a city state will be the patron deity in their colony.