University of Heidelberg

Political Institutions and the Lycian and Carian language in the process of Hellenization between the Achaemenids and the Early Diadochs

Christian Marek

(University of ZurichUZH)

During all periods, including the Hellenistic, ancient Asia Minor provides rich evidence for “transcultural encounters” and “multicultural societies”. At the turn from the Classical to the Hellenistic age “Hellenization” begins to spread out into the inland. Within this phenomenon southwestern Asia Minor holds a special position due to the considerable number of epigraphical documents, which display the parallel use of local languages next to Greek. In that context two multilingual inscriptions are noteworthy: the Lycian-Aramaic-Greek trilingual from the Letoon in Xanthos and the Carian-Greek bilingual of Kaunos. Since both inscriptions constitute state documents of an official character, the question arises about the dominating ethnic, cultural and political identity of the respective communities with regard to the use of the indigenous and/or of the Greek language. The identity of those communities has been debated controversially and the arguments depend on the appraisal of how far the Hellenization had progressed at the beginning of the Hellenistic age. What does it mean that documents written in the indigenous languages make use of Carian or Lycian terms for designating political and social institutions? Are they merely periphrases of Greek terms, or are we dealing with terms for already existing local institutions? Are the Lycian and Carian documents just translations of Greek originals or is it just the other way around, that the Greek versions are rather translations from original Lycian or Carian texts? In addition, are there definable criteria for an assessment which of the languages, the Greek or the local one, can be addressed as the “official” one of the respective community? Discussions of the epigraphical documents from Caria in the aforementioned period will emphasize the need of a differentiated answer to these questions and will show that no linear development towards the use of the Greek language as “la seule langue officielle” and consequently towards Hellenization emerges. Thus, in Caria an unequivocal preference for the local language as the “state language“ can be ascertained at a time, when resolutions of the community did not occur under monarchic directive, as can be deduced from the examples of community resolutions under the Hecatomnids and in the time of the Early Diadochs.