Property Transfer to Consecrated Individuals at the Sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos: Katagraphai 2 and 7 Reconsidered

Abstract

The katagraphai of the sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos record the transfer of enslaved persons and freeborn children to the god. When property appears in these documents, to whom did it pass? Since Ricl’s studies and the edition of Ritti, Şimşek, and Yıldız, the answer has been the sanctuary, on the strength of one fragmentary text (K43) and the analogy of the Macedonian corpora. This article argues from katagraphai 2 and 7 in Akıncı Öztürk and Tanrıver’s 2008 publication that the personal datives identify the consecrated persons as the immediate beneficiaries of the associated property clauses. In both texts the verb katagraphō governs a dative of the recipient, tō Zēnōni in no. 2 and autō in no. 7. The same instrument that assigns the person to the god, with the god’s name in the dative, assigns the property to the person in a second clause under the same verb. K43, whose lacunae permitted the older interpretation, should be reread in light of the fuller texts. On this reading the sanctuary emerges as the public record through which households settled a dwelling and a livelihood on those they consecrated, a function distinct from that of Macedonian examples.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Gephyra, 2026 · DOI ↗