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Last Updated on 02 Mar 2017

Author: Paschalis Paschidis

CAPInv. 722: Asianon ho thiasos

I. LOCATION

i. Geographical area Macedonia
ii. Region Mygdonia
iii. Site Thessalonike

II. NAME

i. Full name (original language) Ἀσιανῶν ὁ θίασος (IG X.2.1 309)
ii. Full name (transliterated) Asianon ho thiasos

III. DATE

i. Date(s) s. ii - f. iii AD

IV. NAME AND TERMINOLOGY

ii. Name elements
Geographical:Asianoi: On the term Asianoi, see the comments on the earliest such association in Macedonia in CAPInv. 515 (IV.ii: Name elements).
iii. Descriptive terms θίασος, thiasos
Note thiasos: IG X.2.1 309, ll. 2-3

V. SOURCES

i. Source(s) IG X.2.1 309 (ii-iii AD)
Note See also: Jaccottet II no. 20
Online Resources IG X.2.1 309
i.a. Source type(s) Epigraphic source(s)
i.b. Document(s) typology & language/script Greek funerary inscription
i.c. Physical format(s) Plaque (perhaps from a funerary altar)
ii. Source(s) provenance Reused in the city walls, near the Eastern (Kassandreotic) Gate.

VII. ORGANIZATION

ii. Leadership As is often the case in Macedonian associations related to an official cult, it is unclear whether the priest, whose name is used for dating purposes (ll. 4-6), was a priest of the association (so Edson 1948: 137), or of the official cult of Dionysos.
iii. Members The honorand is called a συνμύστης, synmystes.
iv. Officials See under VII.ii: Leadership, above.

X. ACTIVITIES

iv. Honours/Other activities Honours for a prominent member are attested in the only relevant source.

XI. INTERACTION

i. Local interaction There are two other associations of Asianoi in Macedonia. The one bearing the exact same name is an association of Lete, see CAPInv. 515, while the other association of Asianoi (CAPInv. 723) from Thessalonike is called a bakcheion and not a thiasos. It is therefore preferable to speak of three distinct associations of Asianoi (two of them in Thessalonike) rather than of attestations of the same association (cf. Nigdelis 2006: 239-41).

XII. NOTES

iii. Bibliography Edson, C. (1948), ‘Cults of Thessalonica (Macedonica III)’, HThR 41: 153-204, esp. 137.
Nigdelis, P. M. (2006), Επιγραφικά Θεσσαλονίκεια. Συμβολή στην πολιτική και κοινωνική ιστορία της αρχαίας Θεσσαλονίκης, Thessaloniki, esp. 239-41.

XIII. EVALUATION

i. Private association Certain
Note In the context of Dionysiac cults distinguishing between thiasos denoting the sum total of the god's devotees in a particular city and thiasos as a private cultic association is often strenuous. In this case, however, the fact that the group's name has a further mark of distinction (thiasos of the Asianoi) ensures that we are dealing with the latter case.