From Kalın Ağıl to Paris : the royal letter from prints in the Fonds Louis Robert

The four stamps on the royal letter are very difficult to read. Digital photos and their computer processing have enabled me to put forward a possible decipherment. Here is the text of the letter I have proposed (l. 9, whose restitution is virtually certain being based on the formulas of a letter from Antiochos III or Zeuxis to Amyzon: J. et L. Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon, n° 9 ll. 9-11, allows us to recognize that each line must have contained 66-68 letters):

"King Antiochos the Great to the suggeneia of Pormounos and to the priest ... (?), greetings. Whereas it has come to pass that in the course of ... the consecrated service people have been taken away and now you ask that these all together be brought safely away (or: safe) from ..., we grant you that ... of the domain (in your ownership) and to mark it with boundary steles. In this respect, even earlier Zeuxis had written to the soldiers ordering that this same estate (in your ownership)... and that ... of the people who were abducted and what belongs to them... As for us, we wrote directly to the officials in charge of administration ordering that the abducted people, all together, be brought safely back home (e.g.) and, since you are devoted and have confidence in us, that they ( = the officials) do not allow anyone to torment you and that they look after you with zeal. Be well."

The king's title in the form Basileus Antiochos Megas dates the letter to between 203 and 201, at the time of the Seleucid campaign in Caria. The inscription reads "during..." (an event in the military campaign), a topos belonging to the sanctuary was ransacked by the Seleucid army and people were kidnapped and deported elsewhere (presumably "consecrated" people such as hierodouloi, hieroi, who became hiera somata through the kidnapping).

The singular suntãjaw (l. 5) and plural gegrãfamen (l. 7) imply that the matter was handled at two different levels, by a high official and by the king. The official's order concerns the topos and the abducted people (ll. 5-6). With regard to the topos, the official may have ordered that it be released and returned to the sanctuary; with regard to the abducted people, the official may have ordered the safeguarding of their physical integrity (see A. Bielman, Retour à la liberté, 1994, no. 38) and the prohibition of appropriating what belongs to them. The official who gave these orders to the soldiers can only be Zeuxis, given that Antiochos and Zeuxis, during the campaign in Caria, engaged in the defense of the sanctuaries against the abuses of the army, and that Zeuxis was specially charged by Antiochos to "take care of the sanctuaries" (J. and L. Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon, n° 10-11).

War, abduction and repatriation of hiera somata represent a situation of upheaval in the sanctuary of Sinuri similar to that represented by the inscriptions of the sanctuary of Amyzon in the very circumstances of the Seleucid campaign in Caria: I refer, e.g., the letter from Antiochos III or Zeuxis to Amyzon (end of May 203); Amyzon's decree in honor of Hermias (203-202) (ll. 4-7: "the hiera somata having been captured during the war, he went as ambassador to Antiochos at his own expense and brought back the somata "); to Amyzon's decree in honor of Menestratos (November-December 201), who did everything in his power to ensure that the Amyzonians recovered their aposkeué retained at Alinda (J. and L. Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon, nos. 9, 18, 15).

Amyzon's documents on the aposkeué and on the hiera somata apachthenta, Sinuri's letter on the occupation of the topos and on the [hiera somata] apachthenta are closely related documents in a Caria traversed by the Seleucid army on campaign in 203-201. These documents show that army discipline and respect for sanctuaries are attitudes desired by Antiochos and Zeuxis rather than practiced, at Amyzon as at Sinuri.