Artemis-Leto and Apollo-Lairbenos

Abstract

One of the most curious series of Anatolian inscriptions known to me has been published by Mr. Hogarth in this Journal, 1887, pp. 376 ff. Their importance lies in the fact that they show us the manners and religion of one district hardly affected by Greek civilisation, and almost purely native in character. As the use of the Greek language and knowledge of Greek civilisation spread, the native manners were proscribed as barbarous, and even native mythology was discarded and Greek tales adapted to suit the locality. I have frequently given instances of this. At Magnesia ad Sipylum, for example, if we may judge from the references of Pausanias, the mythology of the district was re-modelled under the influence of the Greek literary tradition of Niobe, and localities had to be found to suit the details of the story.As to the inscriptions published by Mr. Hogarth, Nos. 12–20, probably no one who reads over the texts can doubt that Greek was strange to the writers. They were native Phrygians, speaking their own language with a smattering of Greek, quite uneducated, but impressed with the belief universal over Asia Minor that Greek was the one language of education, and trying to express themselves in Greek. In every part of the country where the inscriptions enable us to penetrate below the Graeco-Roman varnish, the same inference is forced on us. Greek did not succeed in forcing itself on the native population of Phrygia, Galatia, Lycaonia, and Cappadocia (except in the large cities which were centres of Graeco-Roman civilisation) until Christianity gave it the additional power of being the language of the Scriptures.