Byzantine Preservation of Ancient Monuments at Miletus in Caria

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appears to have marked a turning point. The central spring of the healing shrine was
filled in and hidden around the turn of the fifth century. This was done with care, in-
volving (a) a top layer of broken roof tiles for drainage, (b) 44 oil lamps, probably the
last pagan votive offerings that were thus buried inside the sanctuary as required by
custom, and (c) half a dozen ancient marble sculptures, mostly or possibly all myth-
ological and from the theatre - therefore from the same cultic context as the cave.67
The noses of some marbles were broken intentionally, apparently when they were
still on display at the theatre and probably by zealous Christians, and it is not obvious
why the same or other Christians should have bothered to carry the heavy marbles into
the cave. Rather, burying the marbles in a fittingly numinous location and combining
this with an appropriate deposition of the votive offerings suggests pagan authorship.
The last pagans may have taken this opportunity to deconsecrate their cave sanctuary
and hide their sacred spring, their votive offerings, and their mythological sculptures,
thereby giving them a fitting burial and protecting them from further abuse.
According to this scenario the pagans themselves complied with the Theodosian
laws that prohibited pagan cults and required sanctuaries to be shut down.68 Such
compliance would have enabled the pagans to close their sanctuary themselves in a
dignified manner, thus saving face and protecting the memory of their ancestral rites,
and it would avoid vengefulness and ill feelings that might otherwise have under-
mined social cohesion within the citizenry of Miletus, as has been suggested happened
elsewhere.69 Such an understanding between the creeds would also explain why the
Christians were willing to preserve ancient monuments and to embrace the city’s glo-
rious past even in their own church buildings: the pagan aspects of that past had been
put to rest without becoming the object of factional dispute.70
The conversion of the former temple of Dionysus into the bishop’s palace chapel
in the fifth century suggests that the temple had gone out of use much earlier and was
not associated with a pagan community anymore,71 as such conversions normally
only happened after long vacancies, once a temple had lost its pagan affiliations and
connotations.72
Entablature blocks and other large marbles from the city’s oldest and most impor-
tant pagan sanctuary, dedicated to Apollo Delphinios, were re-used in the foundations
of a cemetery church around the turn of the sixth century73 The Delphinion and the
necropolis basilica were far apart, but both were located close to the shore, making it
convenient for the bulky items to be shipped from one site to the other. More marbles
of the Delphinion served as raw material when the ‘Great Church’ was built with

67 Niewöhner (2016c).

68 Trombley (1993/1994), vol. 1, pp. 10-35; Chuvin (2009), pp. 63-84.

69 Chaniotis (2002); Chaniotis (2008).

70 Cf. Behrwald (2009) for a similar process at fourth-century Rome.

71 Niewöhner (2016a), pp. 39-42.

72 Vaes (1984-1986), p. 326; Meier (1996), pp. 369-370, 372; Bayliss (2004), pp. 55-56; Niewöhner (2007),
pp. 153-155; Pülz (2008), pp. 67-68; Talloen/Vercauteren (2011).

73 Niewöhner (2009).