Rhodes Before the Synoecism and the Cult of Zeus Atabyrios
Bresson Alain
The question has been asked whether there already existed a federal state regrouping the three Rhodian cities in the Archaic and early Classical period, before the start of the process of unification of the Rhodian cities at the end of the fifth century BCE. This essay argues that although the existence of a formal Rhodian federal state remains unproven, there existed other institutional structures that linked the three Rhodian cities. They shared a common membership in the Hellenion of Naucratis in Egypt, a sanctuary that was managed by nine cities of western Asia Minor on the model of an amphictiony. The organization of their common cult of Zeus Atabyrios also had the characteristics of an amphictiony. A new restoration of an early Hellenistic dedication of the attendants of the cult proves the existence at that time of a rotating priesthood of this god between the three cities. This may suggest that such a system existed already before the synoecism and even that the organization of the common priesthood of Halios, the cult of the unified Rhodian state, was modeled on that of the previous organization of the cult of Zeus Atabyrios.
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