ABSTRACT
An interesting indication of the undeveloped level of the state institutions of Arcadia, even in the second(?) century B.C., is given in the inscription which records the responsibility of the kosmoi for work on a temple of Artemis, defrayed from public funds.4 For Aristotle5 writes of a kind of superintendence concerned with divine worship, in this category being priests and superintendents of matters connected with the temples, the preservation of existing buildings and the restoration of those that are ruined, and the other duties relating to the gods. In practice, he continues, this superintendence in some places forms a single office, for instance in the small cities, but in others it belongs to a number of officials who are not members of the priesthood, for example Sacrificial Officers and Temple-guardians and Stewards of Sacred Funds. Since the state is, in this particular case, responsible for defraying expenses, and no special officers are mentioned, the two men named as ergepistatai may well have been priests, constituting the single office of a small state described by Aristotle.
