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The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

My excuse for adding another item to the literature of the Hellenistic ruler-cult is that two new ideas have recently come into prominence. One is that the founder of the official ruler-cult was not Ptolemy II but Alexander; the other is that what was worshipped was not the ruler himself but his daemon. The former idea originated with Dr. P. Schnabel, and was derived by him from a new interpretation of the proskynesis scene at Bactra; he argued that Chares' account in Plutarch (Alexander 54) showed that the proskynesis was made to a statue of Alexander standing on an altar (ἑστία) among the hearth-gods: whether Macedonians in the fourth century had hearth-gods he did not consider, but quoted Roman analogies of a later time. This idea has been much criticised, and I know of no one but Professor L. R. Taylor who has accepted it; in particular, Professor Berve has made a strong case for preferring Arrian's version of the proskynesis scene. But, in fact, Schnabel's interpretation of Chares was killed dead at once by Dr. Th. Birt, though this has not been much noticed, perhaps because it only needed one sentence: Chares in the same passage makes Demetrius say to Alexander οὖτος γάρ σε μόνος οὐ προσεκύνησε where the word σε is conclusive that the proskynesis was made to Alexander (and not to a statue on an altar).

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1928

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