Asia Minor seers and practices in Antiquity

The dissertation focuses on the seers surviving from the epigraphic memory of the cities of Asia Minor from the Archaic Period to the end of the Roman Imperial Period. In contrast to their position in modern societies, in antiquity, the seers, who almost always belonged to the intellectual and gentry classes, were one of the main phenomena of Hellenic polytheism. With their intuitive, observational and literary abilities, they effectively addressed all layers of society while practising the art of divination. Their methods of communication with the gods, their divination practices, the terms used for them, their social status, their biographies and their relations with authority are the principal points of the study. Each case is analysed in the context of its own time and place through a detailed study of ancient sources written in Hellenic and Latin. The hierarchies, duties and responsibilities of the priests in some twenty large and small divination centres in Asia Minor, especially Didyma, Claros, Patara and Sura, whose institutional structures are relatively well known, are comprehensively evaluated. In addition, in the case of singular examples of diviners whose contexts are controversial, the aetiology of many terms used to describe them, such as μάντις, προφήτης, χρησμόλογος, θεοπρόπος, is determined, and suggestions are made about their functions, positions, and whether they were part of an institutional structure.