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The Cult of Aratus at Sicyon (Plutarch, Aratus, 53)
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At the end of his life of Aratus Plutarch recounts the death of the Achaean statesman in 213 BC, the subsequent transport of his body — after a consultation of the Delphic oracle — from Aigion to his native Sicyon, his burial inside of the city, and the annual festival established in his honor. Although Plutarch’s account of the retrieval of the body is for several reasons highly suspect historically, his description of the festival rings true and appears to derive — not directly, I argue, but indirectly through an intermediate source — from an inscription. Most of the content and language finds close parallels in surviving inscriptions concerned with the conduct of sacrifices and, especially, with the large, organized processions that very often preceded them. I use material from these inscriptions to supplement and shed light on Plutarch’s brief account and to offer a tentative reconstruction of the festival and its procession, in the context of what is known of the topography of Hellenistic Sicyon. I also make a suggestion, again tentative, of the identity of Plutarch’s source for the passage.
Title: The Cult of Aratus at Sicyon (Plutarch, Aratus, 53)
Description:
At the end of his life of Aratus Plutarch recounts the death of the Achaean statesman in 213 BC, the subsequent transport of his body — after a consultation of the Delphic oracle — from Aigion to his native Sicyon, his burial inside of the city, and the annual festival established in his honor.
Although Plutarch’s account of the retrieval of the body is for several reasons highly suspect historically, his description of the festival rings true and appears to derive — not directly, I argue, but indirectly through an intermediate source — from an inscription.
Most of the content and language finds close parallels in surviving inscriptions concerned with the conduct of sacrifices and, especially, with the large, organized processions that very often preceded them.
I use material from these inscriptions to supplement and shed light on Plutarch’s brief account and to offer a tentative reconstruction of the festival and its procession, in the context of what is known of the topography of Hellenistic Sicyon.
I also make a suggestion, again tentative, of the identity of Plutarch’s source for the passage.
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