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I. LOCATION

i.	Geographical area	Peloponnese with Adjacent Islands
ii.	Region	Argolis
iii.	Site	Argos

II. NAME

i.	Full name (original language)	δελφιδ[ῶται] (Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5, l. 2)
ii.	Full name (transliterated)	delphid[otai]

III. DATE

i.

Date(s)

ii BC

IV. NAME AND TERMINOLOGY

ii.

Name elements

Topographical:

delphidotai: from Delphis, the appellation given to a local gymnasium (?)

iii.

Descriptive terms

κοινόν, koinon

Note

koinon: Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5, l. 6 and 14-15

V. SOURCES

i.	Source(s)	IG IV 608 (II BC?) Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5, 183-202 (II BC)
	Note	See also BE 2010: no. 254.
	Online Resources	IG IV 608
i.a.	Source type(s)	Epigraphic source(s)
i.b.	Document(s) typology & language/script	IG IV 608: Honorary inscription for Damostratos son of Sosos Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5: Decree in honour of the gymnasiarch Aristokrates son of Kleainetos.
i.c.	Physical format(s)	Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5: Two fragments of a block of grey limestone.
ii.	Source(s) provenance	IG IV 608 is said to have been found in Argos, built into the church of Hagia Paraskevi, not visible from the outside. Curty and Piérart 2009: 184-5: Found in the agora of Argos in the ruins of a medieval construction.

X. ACTIVITIES

iv.

Honours/Other activities

Delphid[otai] honour Damostratos, son of Sosos, and Aristokrates, son of Kleainetos, as their benefactors.

XI. INTERACTION

i.

Local interaction

The fact that the Delphidotai honour prominent local individuals, shows that they maintained relations with influential people on a local level.

XII. NOTES

i.	Comments	Curty and Pierart 2009 associate the name of the group with the name of a gymnasium, which they think was called "Delphis". This remains, however, a hypothesis. Already A. Boeckh (CIG 1135) and Waltzing 1899: 67 no. 186 drew attention to the fact that the name δεφιδασταί, dephidastai, which is restored in IG IV 608, makes little sense. The IG editor, M. Fraenkel, identified the δεφιδασταί, dephidastai with an association of fullones (from δέφω, depho, “soften by working with the hand"). Curty and Piérart, on the advice of M. Sève, adopted Ph. Jourdain's reading in his copy of 1822, which was δελφιδῶται, delphidotai, instead of M. Fourmont's δεφιδασταί, dephidastai and accordingly completed the word ΔΕΛΦΙΔ[---], DELPHID[---] of the new decree published by them as Δελφιδῶται, Delphidotai. As in Fourmont's copy we read ΔΑΜΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ, DAMOSTATOS instead of ΔΑΜΟΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ, DAMOSTRATOS, and a false copy of the first line of the inscription and the name of the group which honours Sosos cannot be excluded. Curty and Piérart interpret this group as a community which frequented a gymnasium, since they honour a gymnasiarch. This gymnasium could have been called Delphis; a further gymnasium is named by Pausanias Kylabaris.
ii.	Poland concordance	Poland Z 5
iii.	Bibliography	Curty, O. (2015), Gymnasiarchika. Recueil et analyse des inscriptions de l'époque hellénistique en l'honneur des gymnasiarques. Paris: 27-30. Curty, O. and Piérart, M. (2009), ‘Un gymnasiarque argien de la basse époque hellénistique’, in: O. Curty and M. Piérart (eds.), L'huile et l'argen: gymnasiarchie et évergétisme dans la Grèce hellénistique : actes du colloque tenu à Fribourg du 13 au 15 octobre 2005, publiés en l'honneur du professeur Marcel Piérart à l'occasion de son 60ème anniversaire. Fribourg: 183-202 (BE 2010: no. 254). Millis, B. and Balzat, S. (2013), ‘M. Antonius Aristocrates: Provincial involvement with Roman power in the Late 1st c. BC’, Hesperia 82.4: 651-672. Waltzing, J.P. (1899) Etude historique sur les corporations professionelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusqu' à la chute de l' Empire d' Occident. Vol. 3. Louvain.

XIII. EVALUATION

i.	Private association	Certain
	Note	Since the group defines itself twice in Curty and Pierart 2009 as koinon and as they erect two documents in honour of promiment local individuals displaying thus some duration as a collectivity, we could regard them as a private association.

CAPInv. 784: delphid[otai]