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Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum: 47.1563


SYMPOLITEIA BETWEEN LATMOS AND PIDASA


Greek text: SEG_47.1563
Provenance:   Heraclea ad Latmum , Caria
Date:   323-313 B.C.
Tags:     oaths ,   sympoliteia
Format:   see key to translations

It is assumed from the mention of a tribe called Asandris, that these two cities in Caria were persuaded to merge in sympoliteia by the satrap Asandros. Their agreement is particularly remarkable for the clauses that enforced intermarriage between the two cities; but even so it seems that the union eventually failed, because the two cities still retained their separate identities in later centuries.

The Greek text was published in 1997 by W.Blümel, along with a German translation ( academia.edu ). The English translation is copied, with minor changes, from R. van Bremen, in "A Companion to the Hellenistic World", pp.314-5 ( Google Books ). The terms of the agreement have been discussed by J.Labuff, "The Union of Latmos and Pidasa Reconsidered", Epigr.Anat. 2010 ( PDF ).


. . . the officials shall also immediately lay on a sacrifice so that the city may live in harmony. A new tribe shall be added to the existing ones and it shall be named Asandris. Men from all the tribes and phratries in Latmos and in Pidasa shall be allocated to it by lot. And the remaining Pidaseans shall be allocated to the remaining three phratries as evenly as possible. 10 The Pidaseans who have been so distributed shall be allowed to participate in all cultic activities: as members of the phratries in the cultic activities of the phratries, and as members of the tribes in the cultic activities of the tribes, to whichever one they have been allocated. And the revenue which accrues to the Pidaseans and Latmians, from sacred or other sources, they shall have in common, and there shall not be any separate income for either of the cities. And the debts which exist in either of the cities until the month of Dios shall be settled separately by each of the cities. And the Latmians shall provide for the Pidaseans sufficient living and stabling accommodation 20 for a period of one year.

And so that they will also intermarry with each other, it shall not be permitted for a Latmian to give a daughter as wife to a Latmian nor to take a daughter from him, and it shall not be permitted for a Pidasean to give a daughter as wife to a Pidasean nor to take a daughter from him, but a Latmian must give to and take a wife from a Pidasean and a Pidasean must give to and take a wife from a Latmian for a period of six years. And the magistracies must be filled from both Latmians and Pidaseans. It will be permitted to the Pidaseans to build houses in the city on the common land wherever they wish. And one hundred Pidasean men, as designated by the Latmians, 30 and two hundred Latmians as designated by the Pidaseans, shall swear an oath over a bull and boar in the agora to abide by this decree and this constitution. And the decree shall be inscribed on stone stelai of which one shall be set up in the sanctuary of Zeus at Labraunda, and the other in the sanctuary of Athena at Latmos. The magistrates who are allocated to Aropos shall take care of the arrangements.

The oath, which the Latmians must swear: "I swear by Zeus, Gē, Helios, Poseidon, Athena Areia and the Tauropolos [and the other gods],40 that I will share citizenship with the [Pidaseans] . . ."


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