Asylia in the Hellenistic Period: Hiera Kai Asylia authority in the Ionia and Carian temples as well as their cities and their territories

We find the Greek term ?-????? in a large variety of contexts from the archaic period onwards. In the archaic and classical periods, sacred places and Greek temples were held to be automatically immnune from war and all acts of violence. Because superstitious folk were reluctant to commit violence in the presence of a god. From Classical period ?????? was granted to individuals or some case to whole citizen bodies. At the same time asylia were seen on the boundary stones of temples. The earliest example appears a fifth century boundary of a temple in Corinth. In the Hellenistic period the described forms of asylia continued and new forms came into existence. Not only sanctuaries but also cities and their civic territories began to be declared asylia. Cities, in a new diplomatic gesture, asked to be recognized as inviolable of city and its territory from kings, leagues, others cities, for the purpose of increasing the honor of the gods or goddess. A new phrase emerges epigraphic documents in third centry B.C. places are declared inviolable. Normal usage in these documents is that a temple is declared ??????, a city and its territory ???? ??? ??????.Many epigraphic documents are civic decrees or royal letters declaring a temple or city to be inviolable. The material record shows no such declaration before 281 B.C. The earliest testimony for this practice appears at the sanctuary of Plouton and Kore near Nysa in Asia Minor. Over the next century, the quest for asylia became a central goal of many cities in the Aegean islands and Asia Minor.