control over a treasury. Whether Bendis already had a temple of her own, which Xenophon later refers to ( Hell. 2.4.11) is unknown. She must at least have had an altar with atemenos , most likely [...] How did a foreign deity like Bendis receive an officially accepted public cult with atemenos and what did this entail for her Thracian worshippers? A glimpse of what happened is given in a late inscription [...] privilege by 332. This can be explained by the importance attached to the building of sanctuaries for the cohesion and definition of a polis community. [17] Founding a cult and building a sanctuary