Stable URL: http://ancientassociations.ku.dk/assoc/657Download as PDF
Last Updated on 24 Mar 2017

Author: Benedikt Eckhardt

CAPInv. 657: hoi tes 3 dekania[s]

I. LOCATION

i. Geographical area The Near East and Beyond
ii. Region Phoenicia (Beqaa)
iii. Site Baalbek-Heliopolis

II. NAME

i. Full name (original language) οἱ τῆς γ’ δεκανία[ς] (IGLS VI 2740, l. 3)
ii. Full name (transliterated) hoi tes 3 dekania[s]

III. DATE

i. Date(s) i - iii AD

IV. NAME AND TERMINOLOGY

ii. Name elements
Other:Number 3
iii. Descriptive terms δεκανία, dekania
Note dekania: IGLS VI 2740, l. 3

V. SOURCES

i. Source(s) IGLS VI 2740 (i - iii AD)
Online Resources IGLS VI 2740
i.a. Source type(s) Epigraphic source(s)
i.b. Document(s) typology & language/script Greek votive inscription
i.c. Physical format(s) Quadrangular stone

X. ACTIVITIES

iii. Worship The inscription starts with an invocation to Zeus: the third dekania shall be remembered. The dedicant refers to himself (ll. 5-9) as having "served the lord Kronos and the gods well and justly". Worship by the group can be supposed.
Deities worshipped Zeus, Kronos, and Other gods

XII. NOTES

iii. Bibliography Aliquot, J. (2009), La vie religieuse au Liban sous l’empire romain. Beyrouth.
Milik, J.T. (1972), Dédicaces faites par des dieux (Palmyre, Hatra, Tyr) et des thiases sémitiques à l’époque romaine. Paris.
Rey-Coquais, J.-P. (1967), Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie VI: Baalbek et Beqa‘. Paris.

XIII. EVALUATION

i. Private association Possible
Note According to Rey-Coquais 1967: 68-70, no. 2740, "une décanie est sans doute une division de la cité partagée en dix arrondissements". Against this view, Aliquot 2009: 162, following Milik 1972: 121, prefers to see in the dekania an association consisting of 10 members and one leader. This view is based on Milik's reconstruction of an ideal Semitic thiasos, which is difficult to substantiate. It also raises the question why this association would refer to itself as "the third one". Associations' names could contain numbers, but the numeral would normally be 1, in order to bolster claims of pre-eminence in a local context. It is therefore at least as plausible to refer the number 3 to the number 10 implicit in dekania, and thus go back to Rey-Coquais' explanation.