Note 3 — Chapter X · THE ORPHICS

θεοὶ ξενικοί, Hsch., see Lob., Agl. 627 ff. A nameless θεὸς ξενικός occurs in CIA. i, 273 f., 18.—The foundation of such θίασοι for foreign deities (or deities at least not officially worshipped by the city in question) is almost invariably the work of foreigners (many exx. from Rhodos in BCH. 1889, p. 364). They are all foreigners, e.g. whose names occur in the decree of the θιασῶται of the Karian Zeus Labraundos, CIA. ii, 613 (298/7 B.C.); cf. ib. 614; SIG. 726. Merchants from Kition found a cult of their Aphrodite (Astarte) in Athens, just as some Egyptians had a little while before put up τὸ τῆς Ἴσιδος ἱερόν there: CIA. ii, 168. The names of foreigners (in addition to Athenians) are very numerous among the ὄνοματα τῶν ἐρανιστῶν of a collegium of Σαβαζιασταί in the Peiraeus (second century B.C.): Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245 f. The foreign worship would then begin to receive the support of natives of the host-city (most of them being at first of the poorer classes), and in this way the new religion would gain a footing in its adopted home. (Pure Athenian citizens compose the society of the Dionysiastai in the Peiraeus, second century B.C., Ath. Mitt. ix, 288 = CIA. iv, 2, 623 d.)