Votive stele

Votive offering referring to the torch-races (lampadēdromia) of Patmos. The torch-race was common in many cults throughout Greece. The origin of the custom is probably to be found in the honour paid to the giver of fire, Prometheus, and to the deities associated with the arts in which fire is used, like Hephaestus. The runners carried lighted torches, passing them to the next athlete of their team. Runners of the winning line were all considered winners, as we can probably gather from the well-known line of Aeschylus “the last and the first (i.e. all alike in the chain) are successful” (Ag. 314). A different kind of torch-race is described by Pausanias, in which there was no handing of the torch from one to another, but several torch-bearers (i. 30.2). Moreover, according to Plato, at the festival of the Thracian goddess Bendis (Thracian Artemis), there was the novelty of a torch-race on horseback (Rep.1.328).