Cet article défend l’idée que Mater Matuta qui, selon une inscription latine de Deir el-Qal’a, reçut un culte sur le territoire de Berytus n’était pas une importation romaine, étrangère dans l’univers religieux de la colonie, mais l’interpretatio romana de Leucothéa, la déesse avec laquelle elle est identifiée dans le monde gréco-romain et qui reçut souvent un culte au Proche-Orient, en particulier en Phénicie à l’époque romaine. Suivant la thèse que la mythologie doit être considérée comme un élément essentiel de la renégociation continuelle de la culture religieuse gréco-romaine, des inscriptions de la ville sont replacées dans le contexte de l’histoire de Leucothéa. Cet exemple peut encourager d’autres chercheurs à observer davantage l’hellénisation de Bérytus au-delà de l’habillage romain.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Dura-Europos was rich in gods and rich in languages. The unique religious and linguistic situation of this fortress town on the Middle Euphrates reflected its vicissitudes. Founded as the Macedonian colony Europos on a plateau overlooking the river, Dura was under Parthian control (with a brief Roman interlude in AD 116/7) from the late-second century BC until AD 165. Lucius Verus' campaigns brought in the Roman troops who, nearly a century later, would be defeated by the Sasanians in AD 256. Throughout most of the Parthian and Roman phases a large Palmyrene contingent was to be found in the town too. The now legendary excavations from the 1920s and 1930s by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres revealed a wide spectrum of pagan cults, coming from different spheres of influence, in addition to a synagogue (famous because of its unique murals, with their illustrations of scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures) and a Christian house church. Graffiti and inscriptions, as well as the remains of writing on more perishable material, show an even more remarkable diversity of languages and dialects in use, with the Classical languages supplemented by Aramaic (including Palmyrenean, 2 Hatrean and Syriac), Hebrew, Parthian and Middle-Persian, and the proto-Arabic dialect known as Safaitic. Though not one of the grand Levantine cities, Dura-Europos was no marginal outpost either, 3 and the abundance of archaeological findings makes it potentially our best case study for social and religious life in a normalNear Eastern small town under the early and high empire. So far, however, neither the religious life nor the language situation has received the attention that has long been due.The only comprehensive account of Dura's cults is an article by Bradford Welles from 1 I am very grateful to Lucinda Dirven for her critical comments on a draft of this paper, and to Hannah Cotton for asking me to contribute to this volume and subsequently showing so much patience. All remaining errors are of course mine. Abbreviations: DEÉ

, for their comments on several drafts of the text and for being very generous with their time, and to Margherita Facella for providing me with references and helpful suggestions on numerous occasions. Abbreviations: ANRW H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt (1972-). H 1, 2, etc. Inscriptions from Hatra. Same numbering adopted by the main collections: F. Vattioni, Le iscrizioni di Hatra (1981); B. Aggoula, Inventaire des inscriptions hatreennes (1991); K. Beyer, Die aramaischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem ubrigen Ostmesopotamien (1998). PAT D. Hillers and E. Cussini, Palmyrene Aramaic Texts (1996). RTP H. Ingholt, H. Seyrig and J. Starcky (eds.), Recueil des tesseres de Palmyre (1955). 2 See e.g. J. Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity (1994), ch. 4: "The East after Alexander the Great", pp. 75-153. 3It is worth mentioning separately the material from Seleucia, collected by W. van Ingen, Figurines from Seleucia on the Tigris (1939), pp. 106-9, and especially the famous bronze statue of a Heracles figure which the Parthian ruler Vologaeses IV took from Mesene, with a bilingual inscription in Greek and Parthian (the latter written in Aramaic characters) that identifies the figure in Greek as Heracles, in Parthian as Verethraghna (wrtrgn). See A. Invernizzi, "Heracles a Seleucie du Tigre" in Revue Archeologique (1989), fascicule 1, pp. 65-113, with further references, and also H. Stierlin, Stadte in der Waste (1987), p. 177 Abb. 158. On the text see especially F. A. Pennacchietti, "L'iscrizione bilingue greco-partica dell'Eracle di Seleucia" in Mesopotamia 22 (1987), pp. 169-85. 4 On this deity see E. von Weiher, Der babylonische Gott Nergal (1971), and W. G. Lambert, "Studies in Nergal" in Bibliotheca Orientalis 30 (1973), pp. 355-63. See also S. Dalley, "Near Eastern patron deities of mining and smelting in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages" in Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (1987), pp. 61-6. 5 On the possible typological and historical antecedents of the Heracles figure in the more ancient Near East, see Iraq LXII (2000)

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This chapter studies the diverse and often contradictory trajectories of Hellenism at the great caravan city of Tadmor-Palmyra in the heart of the Syrian steppe and at the small town of Dura-Europos on the Middle Euphrates. Building on the limited evidence for the two local cultures in the pre-Roman period, the chapter explores the way in which the relation between the two sites developed. Focus is not only on the various kinds of Greek culture at stake, but also on the diverse ways in which these different forms of Greek culture interacted with the different indigenous cultural elements.