Festival Networks: Stratonikeia and the Sanctuary of Hekate at Lagina

Abstract

In the two previous chapters, we saw how monumental sanctuaries in the civic territory of Mylasa could exhibit very different kinds of relationships with the polis: Labraunda was politically critical for both its strategic location and the symbolic capital of Zeus Labraundos among the wider population. By stark contrast, the sanctuary of the Karian god Sinuri played a central role in the social cohesion of its local community, giving us a microcosmic view of the aggregate polis. This chapter and the next will explore the urban dynamics of two other major sanctuaries in Karia, both of which found themselves within the territory of Mylasa’s rising neighbor, the polis of Stratonikeia, roughly 30 kilometers to the east. Stratonikeia, a Hellenistic foundation, came to absorb the older sanctuaries of Hekate at Lagina, some eight kilometers north-northwest of the city’s center, and Zeus at Panamara, roughly ten kilometers to the southeast (Figure 5.1). A closer examination of this development at each sanctuary will reveal more of the dynamics in the relationship between a country sanctuary and a composite polis. In this case, both sanctuaries ultimately served to foster internal social cohesion but also to establish a wider regional identity. Different from Mylasa, Stratonikeia was a new arrival in the Hellenistic era and both shrines appear to have been pivotal in consolidating the incorporated communities but also in the positioning of the polis on the regional and global map. Nonetheless, there are two important points of comparison between the younger polis and Mylasa, besides their mutual border and the possession of two major sanctuaries in their respective territories: both poleis were made up of a number of ancient communities, and both were located near the home sanctuary of a Karian federation – for Stratonikeia this was the sanctuary of Zeus Chrysaoreus. Strabo in fact describes the city primarily through the lens of this sanctuary, which has not yet been identified, and that of Hekate at Lagina as follows: