Here is a (relatively) late inscription from Caria. I love these later inscriptions because they demonstrate that Acheloios was still very much a part of cultic activity well into Roman times.
Everything seems normal except for Ἄναξι. What do I make of the ending? A weird dative? PHI states that yes, this is an inscription to Anaktes by Apelles of Myndios: https://inscriptions.packhum.org/text/258048
INSCRIPTION FROM CARIA, Roman Imperial?
Ἀχ 138. An inscription mentioning Acheloios and his retinue as part of a dedication to Anaktes by Apelles of Myndios. Numismatic representations of Acheloios from Caria, although rare, do exist (Ἀχ #).
I, the servant of the gods, dedicate this to the Anakes, Lords of the Nymphly Naiads
Pictured below are: Acheloios, Hermes, Periklymene, Naiousa, Panope
Signed Apelles of Myndios, son of Apollonios.
If you look at the relief, the names on the second line are really captions for the five figures in the image: Ἀχελώιος Ἑρμῆς Περικλυμένη Ναίουσα Πανόπη
Ἄναξι is the dative plural of ἄναξ, but here I assume it’s the “Anakes” (despite what PHI says). LSJ says the Anakes are Castor and Pollux. Maybe.
Νύμφας Ναΐδας is accusative, I think in respect to Ἄναξι. We know that there are two Anakes, and we also have two male gods represented in the picture together with the nymphs. Are the two Anakes worshipped here as Acheloios and Hermes, not as Castor and Pollux? Woah.
Oh, I see. The three names are the names of the nymphs and Anaxi is lords (PHI really threw me off). I believe your interpretation is correct–this is a very common iconographic motif.
Looking back at Isler’s (Acheloios) catalog, he claims this example is not evidence of cult. He redates it to c. 150 BC (as opposed to Roman Imperial times). I’ve suggested that the cult of Acheloios lasted a lot longer than Isler thought. He claimed this old iconographic scheme was more-or-less adopting the iconography because it was nice to look at but lacked any real religious significance. However, I just noticed that he also says it is dedicated to “many gods,” not the nymphs, and that probably includes Acheloios.
I wouldn’t want to pronounce on the man’s private religious beliefs about the statement that he made in this public (?) dedication. It is dedicated to multiple gods, but specifically to the Lords of Naiad-Nymphs. Not to the Lords and the Naiad-Nymphs. The connection to the figure seems strong enough, and the known connection of Hermes and Acheloios to the naiads really seems to single out these two gods as the ἄνακτες referred to here…but are they just being referred to as ἄνακτες or actually as Ἄνακες, the sacred title?
The argument for Ἄνακες is that the dedicant [edit: my awful Latin…dedicated-to position] position is such a prominent place to use that word, where it might almost be bound to be confused with the cult title, if the person were aware of it, and if the cult title really were as specific to the Dioskouroi (the Zeus-boys) as a person might guess if he were just going by an altar-inscription like the above and by the Roman-era lexicon mentions.
I have an image of the relief but I can’t seem to figure out how to upload it on this system. If you email me I can send it to you. njmolinari AT gmail.