Abstract
The entrance ceremony (apantèsis), a specimen of the cult of rulers in Hellenistic times, has been the subject of readings vacillating between politics and religion : a simple tool of domination according to historiography of the early 20th century, the ceremony has tended to be interpreted since the 1980s as an element of polis-religion, the rites being identical to those of a religious procession, accompanied by sacrifices and, generally, the establishment of a cult for the ruler. In this way, they are seen as a way of uniting the civic community, of conceiving the extra-civic power of Hellenistic rulers, or of stylizing a relationship of communication with those in power.
The sheer number of documents, the variety of their media (texts, papyri, inscriptions) and their content (norms as much as narratives) offer an exceptionally dense view of the mechanisms of polis-religion, and allow us to put this model to the test. Taking them all into account, we would like to suggest that the entries validate this interpretative scheme, but that one aspect of its argument could be shifted.Apantesis, if not simply the manipulation of the masses, does not validate the idea of ritual as an integrator, a way of ordering and understanding the world, or of communicating with the powerful. Rather, it illustrates widespread forms of social routine, which may in turn shed light on certain features of polis-religion.
