Banqueter après un enagismos ? Réflexions sur une nouvelle inscription de Téos

A stele excavated at Teos in 2016 records the lease, by the neoi of the city, of a temenos dedicated to a certain Dionysas the son of Dionysas the son of Athenopolis, described as a “hero”. For three days each year in the spring, the neoi must enter the sacred precinct to gather and perform a ritual for the hero, which is qualified by the verb enagizein. For over a century, this technical term has been thought to refer to the complete destruction of an offering in a funerary and, by extension, a heroic setting. In the case of an animal offering, the action designated by the verb is generally interpreted as a holocaust. However, in the Teos inscription, this verb is followed by a reference to a distribution of portions, implying that meat was eaten. The article is devoted to rethinking the common interpretation of the enagizein-ritual. For this purpose, the heroic status of the recipient is set into perspective and a brief overview of the historiography regarding “conjunctive” and “disjunctive” sacrifices is proposed. Next, other attestations of heroic rituals are invoked as comparisons and the probable history of the use of the verb is reconstructed. Finally, a few concluding words emphasise the polysemy of the “ritual language” of the sacrifices for gods and heroes, respectively