Claros, the sanctuary of Apollo

Au sein des plus grands sanctuaires d’Apollon, une place est dévolue à Artémis : elle y reçoit un culte et possède souvent son propre temple. Le mythe de la naissance des jumeaux divins explique en partie cet appariement, mais ne suffit pas à rendre compte de la place et de la fonction réservées à la déesse dans ces lieux sacrés. Dans le tandem qu’elle forme avec son frère là où il règne en maître, quel est le rôle assumé par Artémis ? Cette question est au cœur du présent ouvrage, qui rassemble systématiquement les documents archéologiques et textuels disponibles sur les sites de Délos, de Delphes, de Claros et de Didymes. Leur confrontation critique éclaire la place et le rôle spécifique de la déesse d’un sanctuaire à l’autre. Près d’Apollon et souvent dans son ombre, Artémis semble avoir été un rouage essentiel dans l’articulation des pratiques locales avec les cultes panhelléniques. Attirant une clientèle très diverse par ses origines géographiques, son statut social et son genre, la déesse a été impliquée à différents titres et avec une intensité variable dans la vie des cités qui géraient ces sanctuaires. Sa position secondaire par rapport à son jumeau lui a conservé une plasticité qui a favorisé l’évolution de son culte au plan local.
http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/kernos/portfolio-items/supplement-37-2021/

Among the many researchers working on East Greek kotylai, the views of J. N. Coldstream and the
classification system he established have been agreed on up to now. Nevertheless, examples of different
types which have been retrieved from Ionia and Karia in recent years reveal decorations differing from
those of standard kotylai and thus contribute to the present classification system. The new examples also
indicate that kotyle production must have existed even before the Nestor cup which, dating to 730–720 BC,
had been accepted as the earliest four-paneled kotyle. The aim of this preliminary report about the kotylai
found at recent excavations in Klaros is to attempt to approach the classification and dating of kotylai
differently in consideration of the new pieces.

The orality of oracles in oracular shrines is a well-know feature of Greek divination, peculiarly discussed by Plutarch in his Pythic dialogues, revolving around inspiration and versification. When one reads those dialogues, one might think that the words of the Gods were limited in an oral performance that was not recorded, but by some historians searching for striking exempla. The « wax tablets of the mind  » would have been enough to remember them.
Nonetheless, this vision of a punctual oral revelation is challenged by a growing number of written evidence in the Hellenistic and Roman times: most of the flourishing oracular shrines took then very seriously the act of writing down the gods’ words. At Claros, the mémoriaux de délégation as Louis Robert and Jean-Louis Ferrary  called them, mentioned systematically a γραμματεύς, a secretary; there was in Didyma a special place where to write the oracles, the Chresmographeion  ; and after each revelation given by Trophonios, in Lebadeia, the content of the latter was carefully reported over pinakes that were as archives of the past revelations .
What I intend to do in this paper is to question this trend of preserving in an institutional way a written record of many god’s words: contrary to Aslak Rostad’s point of view , who sees in the use of writing in the sanctuary of Abonoteichos a feature denouncing magic, I think that, in the first centuries A.D., the multiplication of institutionalized ways of recording oracles shows a new interest in their control and diffusion. By comparing the sacred functions and processes of recording the oracles in the oracular shrines, my aim is to ask how writing god’s words became a strategy of controlling a peculiar kind of knowledge: oracles.

Dionysus and his thiasos are the most frequently depicted themes on vase paintings from the 6th century to 4th century BC. Ithyphallik mule, which is the mount of Dionysus, is one of the thiasos members. Various figures including Dionysus himself can be seen on mule. This depiction is called as “mule rider” in iconography. “Mule rider Dionysus” is especially common on black figured vases from the end of the 6th century BC. A black figured oinochoe fragment found at Claros is dated to the end of the 6th century
BC and “mule rider Dionysus” is depicted on it. In this study, the oinochoe of Claros with the “mule rider Dionysus” depiction, which serves as a new model for the black figure repertoire, is being discussed in terms of iconography. The composition on the oinochoe fragment of Claros is analogically identified as “drunken Dionysus on the mule.”

Kulte im Kult: Sakrale Strukturen extraurbaner Heiligtümer. Internationale Tagung des Forschungsprojektes ›Kulte im Kult‹ der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste an der Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg vom 12. bis 13. Februar 2016 (Hrsg. H. Bumke), Germany: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2020, 171-179.