DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4679#0129
9. THE GOD AS RULER AND HEALER. 103
which was naturally exercised by the priest over the free population
without any formal legal authority was converted by the Romans
into an express and formal sovereignty, so that the priest was leader
of the free population (Strab. pp. 535, 558) and master (xvpios,
dominus) of the hierodouloi. Originally the influence of the priest
accrued to him partly as interpreter of the will of the god to people
who guided their action greatly by that will revealed in dreams or
prophecies, partly in virtue of his superior knowledge and education
among a simple and primitive population. Such informal influence,
exercised de facto but not de jure, was not properly understood by the
formal Romans, who wished to make explicit the constitution of these
half-independent states and to have a central authority formally re-
sponsible to them1. The temple of Zeus Chrysaor near Stratonicea
may be taken, perhaps, as a fairer specimen of the old native system:
the Carians assembled there to sacrifice and to deliberate about
the political situation 2.
When the immense, yet informal, influence of the priest was thus
regarded as a formal and express authority, it followed that, after the
government passed out of his hands into those of the Roman state or
the Emperor, the power and property which had belonged, according to
the Roman view, to the priest passed to the new government3. It is
an analogous fact that in many hellenized cities of the western coast-
valleys, a magistrate called Stephanephoros succeeded to the political
influence which had been exercised by the priest, while the latter
seems to have been restricted to the strictly religious duties of his
office, which were of course still great and important, Ch. II § 9-
There is also great probability that the Greek kings acted in the same
way as we suppose the emperors to have done 4, making themselves
the successors to the priests as owners of the land which belonged to
1 A similar change occurred in the the common government.
Scottish Highlands, when the half-patri- 3 It is probable that there would be
archal and informal authority of some some difference in the treatment of such
chiefs over the land and property of the property according as it was taken under
clan was converted by lawyers and the republican or the imperial govern-
legislators into a formal ownership of ment. Evidence must be sought for
the land. bearing on this point; but, as a general
■ Allowance ought to be made for rule, the Romans, when they took a pro-
a certain amount of hellenization of vince, found that the existing rulers
Carian institutions; but this pro- were not the old priests, but more re-
bably showed itself in affecting details cent kings or governors.
and giving freedom to the states in 4 See Ch. I § 6, IV § 9, VIII § 4, 5 and
practice and less weight to the priest IX § 3, 5.
rather than in altering the theory of
which was naturally exercised by the priest over the free population
without any formal legal authority was converted by the Romans
into an express and formal sovereignty, so that the priest was leader
of the free population (Strab. pp. 535, 558) and master (xvpios,
dominus) of the hierodouloi. Originally the influence of the priest
accrued to him partly as interpreter of the will of the god to people
who guided their action greatly by that will revealed in dreams or
prophecies, partly in virtue of his superior knowledge and education
among a simple and primitive population. Such informal influence,
exercised de facto but not de jure, was not properly understood by the
formal Romans, who wished to make explicit the constitution of these
half-independent states and to have a central authority formally re-
sponsible to them1. The temple of Zeus Chrysaor near Stratonicea
may be taken, perhaps, as a fairer specimen of the old native system:
the Carians assembled there to sacrifice and to deliberate about
the political situation 2.
When the immense, yet informal, influence of the priest was thus
regarded as a formal and express authority, it followed that, after the
government passed out of his hands into those of the Roman state or
the Emperor, the power and property which had belonged, according to
the Roman view, to the priest passed to the new government3. It is
an analogous fact that in many hellenized cities of the western coast-
valleys, a magistrate called Stephanephoros succeeded to the political
influence which had been exercised by the priest, while the latter
seems to have been restricted to the strictly religious duties of his
office, which were of course still great and important, Ch. II § 9-
There is also great probability that the Greek kings acted in the same
way as we suppose the emperors to have done 4, making themselves
the successors to the priests as owners of the land which belonged to
1 A similar change occurred in the the common government.
Scottish Highlands, when the half-patri- 3 It is probable that there would be
archal and informal authority of some some difference in the treatment of such
chiefs over the land and property of the property according as it was taken under
clan was converted by lawyers and the republican or the imperial govern-
legislators into a formal ownership of ment. Evidence must be sought for
the land. bearing on this point; but, as a general
■ Allowance ought to be made for rule, the Romans, when they took a pro-
a certain amount of hellenization of vince, found that the existing rulers
Carian institutions; but this pro- were not the old priests, but more re-
bably showed itself in affecting details cent kings or governors.
and giving freedom to the states in 4 See Ch. I § 6, IV § 9, VIII § 4, 5 and
practice and less weight to the priest IX § 3, 5.
rather than in altering the theory of