Latin Inscription from Samothrace

Author(s): James H. Oliver

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1939), pp. 464-466
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/499493 .
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LATIN INSCRIPTION FROM SAMOTHRACE

A NEWfragment of OIL. iii, suppl. 7371 has recently been found in the American Excavations at Samothrace and was recognized as such by Mrs. Holsten. Dr. Karl Lehmann-Hartleben in the publication, AJA. xliii, 1939, p. 145, gives the following text:
1P24A.D.

Regibus lov[e] et Minerv[a]

iterum, M(arco) Acilio
Glabrione [C(aio)] Bellicio
Torquato cos(ulibus), mystae pii
5 [s]acra acceperu[n]t V idus Novembr[es]
List of Names
The interest of the inscription lies in the first date at the top of the stone, "When
Jupiter and Minerva were kings for the second time," for the king (PaulcrNEVs) was
the eponymous magistrate of Samothrace. The situation is a very common one: in a
year when no citizen is found to accept the financial burden of the public office, the
town is forced to take the money from a temple treasury, and the god concerned
becomes eponymous.'
A somewhat similar case, also very common, is that where a king or an emperor
accepts the office of chief magistrate.2 This might be purely an honor to the person
concerned or it might really constitute a generous benefaction by him to the city. I
wish to point out, however, that whatever may have been the situation half a century ago, it is not possible today for an epigraphist to believe that the name love was
a disguise for the emperor. Gratitude required in such a case that the honor of the
eponymate be unambiguously assigned to the emperor, and that where the latter has
been identified with a god, this particular incarnation of the god receive the credit,
e.g. Fouilles de Delphes iii, 2, 65: [E]TriA[']TOKp&Tropo[s]Kaicrapo[s XEP]acToro
A[op]t-ravoi
FEppiavlKOOAi6S 'EXEu0E[p]iou &pXov-ro[s ]v 'AOivais. Or he might be

called the "New Zeus" or "Hadrianus Olympius," but in official prose not "Zeus"
alone. We need only glance through the examples of identifications collected by P.
Riewald, De imperatorumRomanorum curmcertis dis et comparationeet aequatione,
Dissertation, Halle, 1911.
Furthermore, if the emperor accepted the honor and expense of the chief magistracy, he would not quibble about how much he should pay, and he would not expect
a temple to share the cost with him. For what else could we understand here from the
association of "Minerva"?
Therefore, there are not three possible interpretations as to the situation indicated
by line 1. We need ask ourselves only this: Was it one sanctuary or two sanctuaries
on which they placed the financial burden of the chief magistracy in this year when
"Jupiter" and "Minerva" held the eponymate for the second time?
1
Examples of this are collected by L. Robert, Istros ii, 1936, pp. 1-10, who, moreover, included in his
list CIL. iii, suppl. 7371, Regibus Iov[e et Herma?].
2Examples of this are collected by L. Robert, Etudes epigraphiques et philologiques, Paris, 1938,
pp. 143-150.
464

THE ARCHAEOLOGICALINSTITUTE
OF AMERICA

LATIN INSCRIPTION FROM SAMOTHRACE

465

The answer is that in Robert'sI rather extensive list of eponymous gods and
heroes, there is no case where two sanctuaries shared the expense for one year. The
tendency was to throw the financial burden repeatedly on the same sanctuary, that
of the city's chief deity, in one case a hundred and twenty times.
We know what the chief sanctuary of Samothrace was, that of the Cabiri or of the
Great Gods, but even in antiquity opinions differed as to who the latter were. Lehmann-Hartleben suggests as one possibility that Jupiter and Minerva together represent the Great Gods, but he also asks whether the honor (and cost) of the eponymate
were not divided between the sanctuary of the Great Gods (represented by Jupiter)
and the sanctuary of Athena Polias.
Although there is no obvious reason why the expense should not be divided, this,
as we have said, was not the custom. Two sanctuaries might have alternated, but
they would not share the office, just as two citizens would not share the office. Furthermore, the sanctuary of the Cabiri could not be represented by "Jupiter" alone,
just as the Eleusinian sanctuary could not be represented by Demeter alone. The
funds of the Eleusinian sanctuary were always r Xppa- ra oTVOEoTv,and the funds
of the sanctuary of the Cabiri could not belong just to one of the joint deities. Therefore, if the Cabiri bore the expense, the acknowledgment had to be made to both or
to all the joint deities. In this inscription both Jupiter and Minerva represent the
Cabiri, or else neither Jupiter nor Minerva represents them.
In this connection it is important to consider the incised figures which accompany
the only extant cult regulation of the Samothracian sanctuary, a stele published by
Lehmann-Hartleben, ibid., pp. 138-139 with photograph. It shows two snakes, one
on each side of a caduceus. Lehmann-Hartleben explains the symbols convincingly:
the caduceus represents Hermes Cadmilus, "the administer of the Great Gods of
Samothrace in the ancient sources," and "the two snakes symbolize the 8lpuETs
KaPElpol, who are mentioned in an Orphic hymn as assuming the form of snakes."

I wish to emphasize that the snakes, hence also the Cabiri, are two in number. Together with Hermes they form a triad.
It is now necessary to consider how these deities would have been translated into
Roman theological conceptions.
Varro in the De Lingua Latina (v, 58) writes as follows: Terra enim et Caelum, ut
Samothracum initia docent, sunt dei magni et hi quos dixi multis nominibus, non quas
Samothracia ante portas statuit duas virilis species dei magni, neque, ut volgus putat,
hi Samothraces dii, qui Castor et Pollux, sed hi mas etfemina, et hi quos Augurum Libri
scriptos habent sic "divi qui potes" pro illo quod Samothraces Eol 8uvxTaroi. Varro in

this passage informs us that serious misconceptions existed as to who the Great
Gods were, and he asserts that the Great Gods were really a male sky deity and a
female earth deity. This was not a very satisfactory translation into Roman terms,
but it was much more accurate than a bold identification with members of the
Roman pantheon would have been. Varro probably knew what he was here talking
about, because he claimed for his knowledge the proper source (ut initia docent).
It is not my intention to discuss the origin of the misconceptions and conflicting
reports about the Great Gods. Since the latter were frequently confused with the
1

Istros ii, 1936, pp. 1-10.

466

JAMES H. OLIVER

Penates, G. Wissowa has collected references from Latin authors in his article "Die
Uberlieferung tiber die r*mischen Penaten," Hermes xxii, 1887, pp. 29-57.
In translating the names of Greek gods, the ordinary practice was to select an
equivalent in the Roman pantheon. The great sky god of the two Samothracian
deities would obviously be Jupiter, but I suspect that his powerful female companion
was rather difficult to equate. Some may have wanted to call her Juno, and others
Minerva; she may have seemed a combination of Juno and Minerva. I suggest that
this was the reason for the double tradition. Some thought that Jupiter had both
Juno and Minerva as companions, while others, keeping a triad, named Minerva
and Mercury as the associates of Jupiter. In Mercury, of course, we have Hermes
Cadmilus, the closely associated administer of the Cabiri.
Since we are endeavoring to show that the Jupiter and Minerva mentioned in the
first line of the inscription did represent the Cabiri, I restrict myself to those passages in Latin writers which reveal that Jupiter and Minerva were, at least among
some, a recognized equation for the Cabiri.
Servius Grammaticus (ed. Thilo et Hagen) to Vergil, Aeneid iii, 9264,NUMINA
MAGNA hoc est Iovem Minervam Mercurium secundum Samothracas; and to viii,
679, PENA TIBUS ET MAGNIS DIS alii unum voluntesse, alii separant, ut magnos
deos accipias Iovem Minervam Mercurium, quos Aeneas de Samothracia sustulit.
When we remove the administer Mercury, whose presence is easily understandable, we are left with Jupiter and Minerva as the Cabiri. I see no reason to assign this
tradition to Nigidius Figulus, because the significant words secundum Samothracas
may indicate that this equation was the one officially recognized at Samothrace.
Although this identification need not antedate the Hadrianic Period, it is impossible,
in view of the explicit statement in the commentary to Aeneid iii, 264 that the
Samothracians favored the equation of Jupiter and Minerva with the Cabiri, to
reject that identification when the names of Jupiter and Minerva appear on a
Samothracian inscription where we expect a reference to the god or gods of a single
wealthy sanctuary.
JAMES H. OLIVER
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY