Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The Gods of Anatolia and Their Names (2nd Workshop), Madrid, İspanya, 22 - 24 Mayıs 2024, ss.7-8
Telmissos of Karia, renowned for its inhabitants’ oracular gift, was historically prone to confusion in scholarly discourse due its name. Before the city’s integration into Halikarnassos through synoikismos, the people of Telmissos were the subject of several anecdotal references in ancient literature, highlighting their oracular tradition dating back to the 5th century BC. The emergence of Apollo Telmisseus as a local deity in our sources adds complexity to this oracular narrative. As witnessed in various instances in Karia, Apollo appears to have adopted the epithet “Telmisseus” in connection with the locality, possibly due to the alignment of his well-known oracular attributes with the community’s divinatory prowess. Apollo Telmisseus seems to be a functioning oracular (?) god on an institutional level with his priests and temple in the 3rd century BC whose legacy continues in the 2nd century AD. This paper aims to question when Telmessians assumed Apollo as their local god and bestowed upon him the epithet “Telmisseus.” Additionally, it seeks to explore whether Apollo’s temple of Telmisseus actually operated as an oracle during Antiquity.