Revista Analele Banatului S.N. Arheologie-Istorie

Silviu I. Purece

KNOWN HOARD, UNKNOWN SETTLEMENT: A DACIAN HOARD WITH ROMAN COINS DISCOVERED IN MIHĂEȘTI COMMUNE, VÂLCEA COUNTY

12 Februarie 2025

Abstract

Our study focuses on the system of division of time in the calendars of the Milesian colonies from Propontida and Pontus Euxinus, as well as on the chronological system used in the Miletus foundations. Our research is based exclusively on epigraphic documentation, which is very scarce, which led us to make numerous analogies and comparisons with other Ionian cities, especially Athens and Miletus, in order to reconstruct the calendars of the Milesian colonies in particular. The approach to the structure of the calendars of the Milesian colonies is based on the division of annual time or the calendar year in ancient Greece (especially in Athens) into three time intervals: the month, the decade and the day. Likewise, the study of the chronological system used by the Milesian colonies is premised on the double dimension of time, cyclical and linear, which characterizes the annual schedule of the cults in Greek cities (the cyclical dimension of time) and respectively, the lived time or historical time (the linear dimension of time). Greek chronology operates with linear time. The dating of public events was done through the system of the succession of eponymous magistrates or city priests. The name of the annual archon or priest in epigraphic documents designated the year corresponding to his magistracy. Ever since their foundation, the Milesian colonies adopted the twelve-month calendar of the metropolis of Miletus, which they used unchanged until Roman times. A fragment of a sacred law discovered at Olbia clearly mentions the month Ταυρεών - the first month of the Olbian and Milesian year - as the intercalary month of the Olbian calendar. The evidence for the division of the month into three decades and for the calculation of the days is so sparse and scattered in the Milesian colonies that it is difficult to establish any similarities and differences in this respect between the Milesian citadels and their metropolis. Inscriptions found in the Milesian colonies on Pontus Euxinus confirm the use of the chronological system based on the succession of the calendar months for dating public feasts and rituals performed on that occasion. The chronological system based on the succession of prytans is not directly attested in the Milesian colonies. Its possible use could be assumed only at Cyzic. The chronological system based on the succession of local eponymous magistrates was widespread in the Greek world. Many epigraphic documents confirm that the Milesian colonies inherited both the eponymic office and the chronological system based on the succession of local eponyms from their metropolis Milet. At Cyzic, the function of eponym of the city is attested earliest at the beginning of the 4th century BC, when an archon served as an eponymous magistrate. From the middle of the 4th century BC until at least the middle of the 2nd century AD, epigraphic documents consistently attest Hipparchus (ἱπππάρχης) as an eponymous magistrate of Cyzicus. At Amastris, the eponymy was held by the president of the college of archons. In the city of Sinope, the eponymous magistrate was the aisymnet, as in its metropolis Milet. Roman emperors or members of the imperial family were eponyms in the Milesian colonies (Caligula at Cyzicus, Hadrian at Odessos). In the Milesian colonies on the Euxine Pontus, the priests of the main deities (Apollo, Dionysos) were eponyms. In the late Hellenistic and imperial periods, epigraphic and numismatic sources attest a number of gods and goddesses as eponyms in Pontic cities, such as Poseidon at Cyzicus and Theos Megas Derzelas at Odessos. Dionysos at Dionysopolis, Dioscuri at Istros.