BIDIAEI
BIDIAEI (
βιδιαῖοι), called in
inscriptions
βίδεοι or
βίδυοι, were magistrates in Sparta whose
business was to inspect the gymnastic exercises. Their house of meeting
(
ἀρχεῖον was in the market-place.
(
Paus. 3.11.2.) They were either five
(Paus.
l.c.) or six in number (
C. I.
G., Nos. 1270, 1271, 1364), and had a president who is called in
inscriptions
πρέσβυς βιδέων. (
C. I.
G. i. p. 611.) Böckh conjectures that
βίδεοι or
βίδυοι is the Laconian form for
ἴδυοι or
Ϝίδυοι, and
signifies witnesses and judges among the youth. (Comp. Müller,
Dorians, 3.7.8.) Valckenaer (
ad
Hdt. 6.57) supposed that the bidiaei were the
same as the
νομοφύλακες: but the
inscriptions given by Boeckh show that the bidiaei and
νομοφύλακες were two separate classes of officers. The
[p. 1.299]annually elected heads of a priesthood of Helen
and the Dioscuri at Sparta were also called
βιδιαῖοι (Le Bas et Foucart,
Inscr. du
Peloponnèse, No. 163A):
they may have been identical with the preceding.
[
W.S] [
W.W]
