Note 143.2 — Chapter V · THE PERIOD AFTER ALEXANDER

The Θεοκρασία.—The tolerant humanitarianism of Menander, of which we catch the echo in certain formulæ inscribed on the Delphic and other temples, is reflected in that which is perhaps the most striking religious phenomenon of this period, namely, the ‘theocrasia,’ the fusion of divinities of East and West. As regards religious theory this is not to be regarded as a new departure. Herodotus shows how natural it was to the Hellenic mind to interpret the deities of foreign nations in terms of its native pantheon; and it was easy for Euripides to commend Kybele as Demeter.143.2 But it was by no means easy, in fact it was exceedingly dangerous, before the time of Alexander, to introduce any unauthorised foreign cult into the City-State. We hear vaguely of the death-sentence inflicted or threatened on those who did so. Nevertheless, as we have seen, such foreigners as Sabazios and Attis were intruding themselves into Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war, trailing with them the orgiastic atmosphere of Phrygia; and at some indefinite time before this the impure ritual of certain Oriental Goddess-cults had invaded the Corinthian worship of Aphrodite. But after the establishment of the kingdoms of the Diadochi, the gentile barrier in religion loses gradually its force and significance. It was, in fact, a far-sighted measure of policy on the part of some of the kings to establish some common cult that might win the devotion of the Hellenic and Oriental peoples alike. Such was the intention of Ptolemy when he founded at Alexandria the cult of the Babylonian god, Sarapis, whom the Egyptians were able owing to a similarity of name to identify with their Osiris-Apis, and the Hellenes with their Plouton, owing to the accidental fact that an image of this underworld-god happened to be consecrated to the cult at its first institution. Similarly, when the Syrian city of Bambyke was resettled as Hierapolis by Seleukos Nikator, the personality of the great goddess, Atargatis, was blent with that of Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite and other Hellenic goddesses; and the treatise of Lucian, de Dea Syria, gives us the most interesting picture presented by antiquity of the working of the θεοκρασία in the domain of religion and religious art.