Disciplinary Agents in the Sepulchral Inscriptions of Lycia

Abstract

Lycian scholars have long recognized that a number of the sepulchral inscriptions of Lycia refer to certain disciplinary agents responsible for punishing persons guilty of illegal use of a tomb—e.g. by making unauthorized burials in the tomb. TL 57 provides a typical example:hrppiye mei:tadi:tike:me ne:tubeiti:mãhãi huwedri.se itlehi:trmili: (lines 8–9)“If (anyone) places anyone (else) upon them (i.e. the authorized tomb occupants), the huwedri gods and the Lycian itlehi will punish him.”There has been some fluctuation of opinion on the actual nature of the disciplinary agents involved. Many of them once thought to have been secular authorities can now quite confidently be regarded as deities or religious institutions, and this of course throws a rather different light on the nature and purpose of the penalty clauses in the inscriptions. In some cases, these clauses seem to have threatened the offender with divine retribution and nothing more, but in other cases, the offender apparently risked a more tangible form of penalty. One might then ask to whom precisely a tomb violator was answerable for his offence, and what precisely was the nature of the penalty imposed upon him.