Abstract
The accounts of the written sources on the sanctuary of Artemis Ephesia found by Xenophon in Scillus permit us to include this singular event (described by its main actor as some particular episode of his life after his return from the Anabasis) into the more wide historical context of serious transformations in the political landscape of the North-Western Peloponnese in late 5th – fi rst third of the 4th century BC.
The foundation of a new sanctuary in Scillus (exempt from the power of the Elean territorial state at the result of the war between Elis and Sparta, 402-400 BC) was the way to establish in the region of Triphilia the Laconian-friendly political regime and to provide here the root to Xenophon – the personal friend of the king Agesilaus – who at this place acquired the functions of Spartan proxenos. The new regular festival connected with the sanctuary of Artemis included ritualized hunting and the youth getting ready to became adult citizens participated in it, and the children of Xenophon himself as well. All these actions created, developed and actualized new social connections and were not “private matter” in the strict sense of this word.
After the Spartan defeat at Leuctra (371 BC) Xenophon and his family had to leave Scillus, and the historian was accused in the Olympic Council – the fact which provides us a reason to deduce that the authority of this institution was not limited only by the questions of organization and administration of the Pan-Hellenic festival in Olympia, but it was also the key-instrument of Elean political hegemony in the North-West Peloponnese as the whole.
Keywords
Xenophon, Sсillus, sanctuary, Elis, Olympia, Artemis cult, Olympic Council.
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