4
The Attic Thesmophoria was a three-day festival held a few weeks before the ploughing and sowing of the fields; we also hear of such festivals cele- brated as early as midsummer (Thebes) and lasting as long as ten days (Sicily).
The Attic Thesmophoria was a three-day festival held a few weeks before the ploughing and sowing of the fields; we also hear of such festivals cele- brated as early as midsummer (Thebes) and lasting as long as ten days (Sicily).
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
Scholars have speculated about the possible origin of the trident as a thunder- weapon (given Poseidon's connection with storms at sea) or an Indo-European symbol of kingship.
11
61
POSEIDON
Messenian Poseidon
The Linear B tablets indicate that Poseidon was a highly regarded deity among the Mycenaeans of Pylos. A series of Pylian tablets lists contributions (dosmoi) to various gods among whom Poseidon is the most prominent. Pylos 171 = Un 718 breaks down the community into functional groups listed in order of descending status and offering amounts. The king's contri- bution consists of wheat, wine, a bull, cheeses, a sheepskin, and honey. Similar but smaller gifts are presented by the da ? mos or village, the military leader, and the estate of the worgiones or cult association. Another famous tablet, Pylos 172 = Kn 02, describes ritual actions performed in the shrines of local deities. A shrine of Poseidon is mentioned, to which women bring golden cups. Later in the same tablet, a goddess Posidaeia (apparently a female version of the name Poseidon) receives a golden bowl carried by a woman. 12 The prominence of Poseidon at Pylos is reflected in the Homeric account (Od. 3. 4-11) of Telemachos' visit. When he arrives, the people are offering black bulls to Poseidon on the shore, divided into nine companies of five hundred men each; each company offers nine bulls to the god. Nestor and his sons sit feasting in the midst of their men; Nestor's father Neleus of Iolkos was a son of Poseidon and the founder of Pylos.
In spite of his early importance, Poseidon rapidly lost ground in Archaic Messenia with the rise of the Dorian Spartans. Whereas worship of the god known as Pohoidan (a Lakonian form of the Arkadian Posoidan) continued at Helos and Thouria (Akovitika), in historical times virtually nothing remained of the Pylian cult, while the important sanctuary at Tainaron was controlled by the Spartans. 13 Located at the southern tip of the Mani penin- sula, Tainaron was sacred to the helots, the occupants of Messenia enslaved by Sparta in the eighth and seventh centuries, and dates to before the time of the Messenian wars. Escaped slaves and fugitive helots fled to the sanctuary, where by religious custom they were safe from pursuers. Various late sources speak of the festival known as the Tainaria, which included a three-day feast held on the seashore, and most likely the crowning of Poseidon's cult statue by the helots. Always a wrathful god, he was particularly angry when the ritual laws protecting suppliants were violated. One example long cited as an instance of his wrath was the earthquake that hit Sparta in 464, nearly reducing the city to a pile of rubble. The god was said to be enraged at the Spartans, who had dared to remove fugitive helots from Tainaron and exe- cute them. Though Tainaron has not been excavated, finds of votive bulls and horses in bronze as well as Classical ste ? lai (stone markers) commemor- ating the release of slaves have been reported. Areas set aside for the display of such ste ? lai and for the housing of fugitives are apparent at the site. Over- looking Sternis Bay is a Hellenistic temple, which may have been preceded by earlier structures, to judge from votives found in the area. The most famous feature of the site is the cave oracle of the dead, which the sources describe as
62
POSEIDON
an underground "house" of the gods, into which souls were gathered. This type of oracle was useful in cases where the dead needed to be placated; legend had it that the man who killed Archilochus was sent here by the Pythia in order to propriate the soul of the poet with libations. The actual age of the cave oracle, located at the head of Sternis Bay and fitted with a wall and doorway at the entrance, is unknown. When he visited, Pausanias (3. 25. 5) noted that the cave did not contain a great chasm or other identifi- able entrance to the underworld. 14
Poseidon at Trozen
Poseidon's sanctuary on Kalaureia, a small island off Trozen with one of the best harbors in Greece, lies high above sea level, recalling a scene in the Iliad (13. 10-16) in which Poseidon sits on the highest peak of Samothrace, observing the far away battles at Troy. This place was another well-known refuge, famous for having hosted the orator Demosthenes when he fled from Alexander's successor Antipater in 322. Rather than pollute the sacred ground with the taint of death, Demosthenes took poison inside the temple, then staggered out as it began to take effect. The sanctuary's function as an asylum resulted from its role as the center of an early amphictyony, a league of seven communities in the area. The island's former name Eirene (Peace) probably had to do with the amphictyony as well. Scholars disagree on the purpose and date of the league, but the archaeological remains indicate that the sanctuary was founded by the seventh century at the latest, and acquired a Doric temple in the sixth. 15 Little is known of the ritual there, but Pausanias (2. 33. 2-3) says that Poseidon had a virgin priestess, an unusual arrangement for a male deity.
Trozen itself was unusual in honoring Poseidon as the protector of the city, Poliouchos, and as King, Basileus. He was an important ancestor, having fathered several of the city's heroes including Theseus. The people made the trident an emblem on their coins, while the city itself once bore the name Poseidonia. 16 Trozen's Poseidon cult, like that of Athens, was tied to its Ionic origins. The city fell under the sway of Argos at an early date and became increasingly Dorianized, yet it exported the worship of Poseidon to its colony of Halikarnassos in Karia.
Outside the walls of Trozen was a sanctuary of Poseidon Phytalmios (of Growth). The legend said that the angry god once inundated the crops with seawater until he yielded to prayers and sacrifices. Overlooking this shrine was a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros, established by Poseidon's son Althepos. In recognition of his connection with agriculture, the god was offered aparchai, first fruits from the crops. This facet of Poseidon's personality is unexpected, yet the cult pairing of Poseidon and Demeter is widespread (present in Attica, Argos, Mykonos, and of course, Arkadia). 17 It is likely that Poseidon's flood was originally a freshwater inundation, for as a
63
POSEIDON
god of subterranean forces, he controlled springs and rivers. Having caused a drought at Argos by drying up the springs, he relented and revealed the sources at Lerna to the Danaid Amymone. Aeschylus (Sept. 304-11) names Earth-supporting Poseidon and the rivers, offspring of Tethys, as the deities who pour forth the waters that fructify the earth. Poseidon's waters nourish the plants, yet too much water just as surely destroys them. Thus Poseidon's relationship with Demeter was both intimate and adversarial. Argos had a flood legend according to which Poseidon, angry when the land was awarded to Hera, caused an inundation, and the Argive sanctuary of Poseidon Pros- klystios (of Surging Water) was located beside that of Pelasgian Demeter. The Athenians too said that Poseidon had flooded the fruitful Thriasian plain where Demeter had her sanctuary at Eleusis. 18
A recently discovered Mycenaean sanctuary on the peninsula of Methana, facing Kalaureia, was unusual in that the finds included rare terracotta chariot groups, helmeted riders, and groups of oxen being driven or ridden. The absence of the female Psi and Phi figurines typically found in Mycenaean shrines, together with this evidence, point to a male deity connected with horses, chariots, and bulls. Thus, Poseidon may already have been the fore- most deity in Trozenia during the Bronze Age. 19
Poseidon Hippios
Onchestos in Boiotia was the site of a renowned Poseidon sanctuary often mentioned by early Greek poets (e. g. Hom. Il. 2. 506). Pindar (Isthm. 1. 52- 54) calls this Poseidon seisichtho ? n, earthshaker, and hippodromios, the patron of horse races (the latter epithet is also the name of a Boiotian month probably connected with the god). Like many sanctuaries of Poseidon, this one did not possess a temple at first, though one was added in the sixth century. The early sources speak of a sacred grove, and there must have been facilities for the races Pindar mentions. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 230-38) describes a curious custom of the shrine:
There the new-broken colt burdened with drawing the lovely chariot gets its breath; and the driver, though skillful, jumps to the earth from the car and walks. For a while the horses, lacking a driver, rattle the empty car along. If they break (or, if he brings) the chariot in the wooded grove, they care for the horses, but tilting the chariot they leave it. For such from the first was the holy rule (hosie ? ). They pray to the Lord, and the chariot is kept as the god's share.
There is no agreement on the meaning and context of the actions described; the ritual may have involved a driver leaping from the moving car and allow- ing the horses to career into the grove. If the chariot was wrecked, it was left in the grove as a dedication to the god. On the other hand, if the amended
64
POSEIDON
reading is correct, the poet may be referring to a ritual law requiring that any chariot driven into the grove be forfeit to the god. The only certain point is that Poseidon is here celebrated in his guise as the master of horses and chariot racing. 20 This role as horse god looms as large in the cult of Poseidon as his marine aspect, and supports the idea that Poseidon originally had more to do with fresh water and horses (often connected in Indo-European and Greek thought) than with the sea. 21
Another Boiotian tradition about Poseidon was preserved in the lost epic poem Thebais. In the territory of Haliartos was the spring Telphousa, where Poseidon, in the form of a horse, mated with the goddess Erinys. She in turn produced the wondrously swift horse Areion, whose name refers to his superiority, and Poseidon presented the horse as a gift to Kopreus, king of Haliartos. 22 This story finds a doublet in Arkadia, and given that both Erinys and Poseidon are Mycenaean deities, it may well have originated in the Bronze Age.
The Boiotian worship of Poseidon is tied to that of Thessaly, the ancient home of the Boiotoi. Thessaly and Boiotia were the strongholds of the Minyans, a legendary clan whose patron deity was Poseidon. Among their heroes were his twin sons, Neleus (founder of Pylos) and Pelias, the king of Iolkos. The descendants of Neleus also had ties to the cult of Poseidon in
Figure 5. 2 Bronze Poseidon from Livadhostro Bay (Boiotia), c. 470. Inscribed to the god. Ht 1. 18 m. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
? 65
POSEIDON
Athens and the Ionian migration. Little information is available about the Thessalian cult, but as in Boiotia, it seems to have focused on Poseidon's rule over horses. A Thessalian legend told how the god created the first horse, Skyphios, by smiting the rock with his trident; Poseidon's widespread cult title Hippios (of the Horse) is connected with this story, as are the equestrian contests conducted for the god and the Thessalian sanctuary of Poseidon Petraios (he of the Rock). This sanctuary is still undiscovered, but it lay somewhere in the vale of Tempe, once a lake drained by the god when he smote the mountains with his trident and made an outlet for the river Peneios. 23 In a seminal paper, Marcel Detienne compared Poseidon's mastery of all things equestrian with the rival powers of Athena. Though both are concerned with horses and their training, he concluded, Athena's sphere tends more toward the driver's skill and strategy, while Poseidon governs the uncanny energy of the animal itself. 24
Arkadian Poseidon
An important center of Poseidon's cult was landlocked Arkadia, where he, not Zeus, was considered the father of Demeter's daughter, the mistress of the underworld. His sanctuaries were concentrated in the central plains and valleys around Orchomenos, Kaphyai, Methydrion, and Mantineia, poorly drained areas subject to flooding. 25 At Mantineia, Poseidon was a civic god and his trident adorned the shields of the citizens, while late inscriptions show that calendar years were reckoned by the names of his priests. Like Zeus Lykaios, Poseidon Hippios had an inviolate area in his sanctuary out- side Mantineia where no human being was permitted to tread; according to legend, a mere woolen thread marked the boundary of the sacred area. When the hero Aipytos cut this thread, he was blinded by a miraculous wave of seawater. Arkadia was a great repository of traditions about the births of the gods; one such legend, tied to a spring in the territory of Mantineia, said that Rhea fooled the murderous Kronos by telling him she had given birth to a horse, and gave him a foal to eat instead of the infant Poseidon, who was sheltered in a lambs' pen. 26
In most regions of Greece, we encounter a belief in Poseidon as the creator of the first horse or as the sire of miraculous steeds such as the winged Pegasos, who was the offspring of Poseidon and Medousa. In Arkadia, the god himself becomes a horse, as in the Mantinean birth legend and the myths attached to the city of Thelpousa. Here, Demeter Erinys sought to escape the lustful Poseidon by transforming herself into a mare, but he became a stallion and mated with her. The offspring of this union were a goddess whose name was kept secret (presumably the Arkadian equivalent of Kore) and the divine horse Areion. Pausanias, our source for most of this information, speaks of the sanctuary of Demeter outside Thelpousa, but does not elaborate on the cult of Poseidon here, except to say that he had the title of Hippios. Similarly
66
POSEIDON
at a cave sanctuary outside Phigaleia in the Neda river gorge, the cult myth recounted the coupling of Demeter and Poseidon in the shape of horses, specifying that their daughter was the goddess known as Despoina (Mistress). Poseidon Hippios also had an altar at the important sanctuary of the Mistress at Lykosoura. 27 Here Poseidon is hardly a god of the sea, and his cults are presumably least changed from their Mycenaean antecedents (just as Arkadian Posoidan is the dialect form closest to Linear B). The few references to his marine nature are due to Panhellenizing influences during the Classical period and later.
Athenian Poseidon
Athens and Trozen shared a myth according to which Athena and Poseidon disputed ownership of the land. 28 In the lore of cities bordering the Saronic Gulf, Poseidon figures in a number of these contests; tellingly, he is never the winner. At Trozen, the contest ended in a truce under which the territory was shared, while at Athens, the story went that the victorious Athena produced an olive tree on the Akropolis as a token of her claim, while Poseidon struck the rock with his trident, creating a "sea. " The nature of this sea is unclear, though Pausanias (1. 26. 5) describes it as a well with salt water, enclosed within the walls of the Classical Erechtheion. He also notes an altar on which sacrifices to both Poseidon and Erechtheus were made. The story of the conflict between Poseidon and Athena seems to be closely related to that of the early war between Athens and Eleusis, in which the earth-born Athenian king Erechtheus, prote? ge? of Athena, battled Eumolpos, the Eleusinian leader and son of Poseidon. Athens was victorious when Erechtheus sacrificed his daughters to save the city, but he himself was struck by Poseidon's trident and hidden under the earth. 29 By the fifth century, Poseidon had taken the name of his antagonist as a cult epithet, an arrangement comparable to that between Apollo and Hyakinthos at Amyklai. In both cases the cults of Olympian gods were superimposed on those of earlier indigenous deities, and the earlier figures were transformed into heroes killed by the gods and worshiped side by side with them. 30
Poseidon was an important deity in Archaic Eleusis, consistent with his usual close cult relations to Demeter. Eleusis possessed a cult of Poseidon Pater (Father), and a priest of the Kerykes served Poseidon Prosbaterios (of the Approaches) and Themeliouchos (Upholding the Foundations). It is likely that all these epithets have to do with Poseidon's role vis-a`-vis Demeter as a fructifying deity of water and flooding. That Poseidon's role in Athenian cult has much to do with the relations between Athens and Eleusis is likewise demonstrated in the festival known as the Skira, when the Athenian priests of Poseidon, Athena, and Helios walked to a sanctuary near the boundary with Eleusis. 31
Poseidon had other cults in Attica, but the most important was at the 67
POSEIDON
promontory of Sounion, where a temple was added c. 490 and rebuilt under Perikles. The Athenians held a quadrennial festival with boat races, and the vigor of the Archaic cult is attested by at least twelve kouroi (statues of idealized young men) found buried in a pit east of the temple. 32 The earliest cult at Sounion, however, probably belonged to the hero Phrontis, the steers- man of Menelaos buried there according to Homer (Od. 3. 276-85). In spite of the apparent antiquity of his cult, Poseidon was not a significant presence in Attica compared with Zeus, Demeter, Apollo, Dionysos, and of course Athena.
Further reading
Gebhard 1993 and Morgan 1994 summarize the development of sacred space at Isthmia from the eleventh century. Robertson 1984 demonstrates Poseidon's role as a god of fructifying waters and partner of Demeter. Schu- macher 1993 discusses the function of Poseidon's sanctuaries as places of asylum. Chapter 6 of Pache 2004 is devoted to Melikertes-Palaimon.
68
6
MISTRESSES OF GRAIN AND SOULS
Demeter and Kore/Persephone
Demeter's origins as a grain goddess must lie in the Neolithic period with the advent of agriculture. Her name contains the Greek word for "mother," but whether the initial syllable means "earth," "grain," or something else has long been debated. Homer had little interest in Demeter and none in her relationship with Kore (the Maiden), though Persephone appears in epic poetry as the bride of Hades. The queen of the dead (Attic Pherephatta) has a non-Greek name and must have been in origin a deity separate from Demeter's daughter. Even after the two were firmly and inextricably identified, they were often paradoxically represented in cult as two distinct personages. Eleusinian iconography and terminology, for example, juxtaposed Thea, the underworld goddess, with Kore, the daughter. The Greeks avoided pro- nouncing or inscribing the ominous name Persephone in cult contexts, replacing it with Kore or other euphemisms, though such caution was less often exercised by the poets. Demeter and Kore were frequently worshiped together under such names as the Two Goddesses, the Thesmophoroi, or the Great Goddesses.
Demeter sanctuaries tended to be scattered in neighborhoods rather than centralized, probably because they were used for local celebrations of the Thesmophoria, Demeter's main festival. In spite of their crucial role in the prosperity of the city, Demeter and Kore rarely functioned as civic gods. Exceptional were Thebes, where Demeter's sanctuary occupied prime civic space on the Kadmeia, and certain cities of Sicily and Magna Graecia, where the two goddesses were dominant presences in the pantheon. In the Greek West, Kore/Persephone herself was sometimes the more prominent partner of the two, and played an important role in the social construction of marriage and the rites leading to adulthood for women and men. In keeping with Kore's significance as the archetypal bride, the western colonies saw the core of the myth as the theogamy of Persephone/Kore and Hades, rather than the reunion of Demeter and Kore after the latter's abduction, which was the focus of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries.
69
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Thesmophoria
The most widespread festival of Demeter and Kore, and one of the most popular of all Greek rites, was the women's festival known as the Thesmo- phoria. The term thesmos means "that which is laid down," hence laws, rites, or revered customs. As the presiding deities, the two goddesses were called Thesmophoroi (Bringers of the Divine Law) because the introduction of grain cultivation was considered the origin of civilized life. Some scholars believe that the "things laid down" are to be understood in a much more literal sense, as the dead piglets deposited during the central rite of the festival. Still, the epithet unquestionably conveys the respect in which the goddesses were held, as do other cult titles such as Megalai Theai (Great Goddesses) and Hagnai Theai (Pure Goddesses). Each year, normally in late summer or early fall, married Greek women gathered in the local Demeter sanctuary, often called the Thesmophorion. Although celebration of the festival was generally not centralized, one sanctuary might be more heavily frequented than the rest. Most had a few modest cult buildings or a simple shrine called a megaron rather than an elaborate temple, but they are relatively easy to identify as sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore by the objects left behind: ceramic table- ware; water jars; terracottas of the goddesses or their votaries, often carrying a piglet; pig bones; numerous lamps for the nocturnal parts of the rites; and the remains of ritual meals.
Literary evidence for the exclusion of males is plentiful. Herodotus (6. 134) tells how the Athenian general Miltiades attempted to enter a restricted building (megaron) in the sanctuary on Paros - perhaps to meddle with the "untouchable" things there - and as a result of divine anger was stricken with a fatal case of gangrene. Xenophon says (Hell. 5. 2. 29) that the men of Thebes kept clear of the Kadmeia while the women were performing the rites there, going so far as to hold the boule ? (council) in the agora rather than its usual place on the akropolis. Men's dedications are often found at these sites, so we know that their exclusion was not complete. Demeter sanctuaries were apparently used for a number of different observances throughout the year, only some of which involved ritual gender segregation. 1
The sacred objects used and acts performed during the Thesmophoria were kept secret. We hear of ritual dances, processions, and special foods, particularly bread. The Delian celebration, held in the late summer month of Metageitnion, involved an event called the Megalartia (Large Loaves), and bread seems to have played an important role in the celebrations at Korinth (below). 2 Only one source, a scholiast on Lucian (Dial. meret. 2. 1), describes the ritual in detail, and his version refers to Attic custom. He writes that piglets are cast into the "chasms of Demeter and Kore" in honor of Eubouleus, a herdsman whose swine were swallowed in the abyss when Hades abducted Kore (Eubouleus reappears as a deity in Eleusis). After an unspecified period, the rotted remains of the piglets are brought up from the chasms (also called
70
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
aduta, innermost chambers, and megara, chambers) by ritually pure women, laid on the altars, and mixed with the seed grain to ensure a good harvest. The scholiast says that pine branches and phallic shapes made of wheat dough are used the same way, all given as thank offerings for the generation of crops and the procreation of people.
The ritual deposition of piglets was probably widespread; piglets were cast into megara at Potniai in Boiotia, and excavations of Demeter and Kore sanctuaries at Knidos and Priene have uncovered such pits. At Eleusis, several deep shafts, which probably served this function, were found around the porch of the so-called Telesterion. 3 Apparently, the story of Kore's rape was the mythic foundation for the ritual; the piglet is also symbolic of the female genitals, and the piglets falling into the earth to be resurrected with the grain repeat the descent and ascent of Kore. Thus the Thesmophoria and the Eleusinian Mysteries shared the same myth, interpreted in different ways. Kevin Clinton has suggested that the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, usually thought to recount the origin of the Mysteries, is primarily an aetiological account of the Thesmophoria.
4
The Attic Thesmophoria was a three-day festival held a few weeks before the ploughing and sowing of the fields; we also hear of such festivals cele- brated as early as midsummer (Thebes) and lasting as long as ten days (Sicily). Women gathered in the sanctuaries, bringing supplies of food and setting up tents as temporary accommodations. As part of the proceedings, the women engaged in sex-talk (aischrologia) and ritual mockery. This seems to have been a mainstay of the goddesses' segregated worship; its mythic explanation is that when Demeter was grieving for Kore, scurrilous jokes and gestures caused her to smile. 5 The sex-talk was the verbal equivalent of the piglets, pine branches and phallic shapes handled by the participants; the women's heightened awareness of their own sexuality and reproductive ability was powerful (therefore it could be deployed to aid the growth of crops) yet dangerous to male prerogatives (therefore its unfettered expression was limited to the festival context). 6
The first day of the Athenian festival was called Anodos (Ascent), perhaps with reference to the women's retrieval of material from the chasms. The second day was the Nesteia (Fasting), a day when no public business or sacri- fice was conducted in the city. The last day was called Kalligeneia (Beautiful Offspring), making clear the connection between agricultural bounty and women's fertility. This was probably a feast day, presided over by leaders (archousai) elected from each deme. It is clear from Isaeus' speeches (3. 80, 6. 49-50, 8. 19) that citizen matrons organized and attended the festival, but the sources conflict on the question of whether slaves and prostitutes could be present and in what capacities. Aristophanes' Women at the Thesmophoria draws a vivid tableau of male suspicion and female revelry during the Thesmophoric ritual, which he sets on the Pnyx, in the same meeting place used by the Athenian assembly. Excavation in this area uncovered a few
71
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
terracottas and lamps consistent with a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, but not enough material to confirm the existence of a Thesmophorion. 7
Demeter, Kore, and the agricultural year
As one might expect, many festivals of Demeter and Kore were tied to the annual cycle of grain cultivation. Barley and wheat were the staple crops, sown during the fall in most Mediterranean lands. Great anxiety surrounded the fateful question of when to plough and sow, for the farmer must plant late enough to coincide with the fall rains, yet early enough to allow the shoots to become established before the onset of winter cold. 8 Therefore the most important festivals and rituals connected with grain cultivation are clustered around sowing time.
As usual, we are best informed about the Attic year. Early in Pyanopsion (October/November), the Proerosia or pre-ploughing sacrifices took place in the demes, including Eleusis. In conjunction with the Proerosia there were at least three sacred ploughings, one at Skiron, one in the Rharian plain of Eleusis, and one in Athens. The Thesmophoria, with its ritual preparation of the seed, followed soon after. During the next month, Poseideion (December/ January), the grain sprouted and began to grow. By the time of the Haloa at the winter solstice, it became evident whether the farmers had chosen their sowing dates wisely. Epigraphic evidence from the fourth century (IG II2 1672. 124, 144) shows that huge amounts of firewood were used, probably for the bonfires typical of solstice ritual. At this point in the year, the grain was quiescent because of the cold; only the returning heat of the sun could bring it to fruition. Ancient accounts of the Haloa are late and confused, but it is clear that like the Thesmophoria, the festival involved a link between human and vegetable fertility. 9 Temporarily flouting the rules of behavior for respectable females, women gathered at Eleusis drank wine, engaged in sexual banter, and handled pastries shaped like male and female genitals.
In Anthesterion (February/March) the Lesser Mysteries took place just as the grain stalks entered their prime phase of growth, celebrated in the Chloaia (Greening festival). This was probably the main festival of Demeter Chloe? , though she also received a sacrifice at the harvest. Perhaps surprisingly, the main harvest observance, known in Attica and some Ionian cities as the Thargelia and in other Greek lands as the Thalysia, had early ties to Apollo and Artemis rather than Demeter. Homer (Il. 9. 533-35) thinks of thalusia as first fruit offerings to Artemis, and Apollo was the patron of the Thargelia, but by the Hellenistic period Theocritus (Id. 7. 31-38) describes the Thalysia on Kos as a Demeter festival. On the other hand, we know that Demeter was an important figure in the harvest folklore of Greek peasants, who sang songs to her as they reaped. The Kalamaia (Straw festival), probably held in the mid-summer month of Skirophorion, was an Attic/Ionian celebration of the threshing and winnowing. This was also the month of the Skira, a poorly
72
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
understood festival celebrated by married women who temporarily abstained from sex. Like the Thesmophoria, it was celebrated at a number of sites in Attica. 10 Finally, the Eleusinian Mysteries were held in Boedromion (Sep- tember/October), about a month before the ploughing and sowing began once more, renewing the agricultural cycle.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
For a thousand years, people traveled to the small town of Eleusis in Attica in order to experience something profound, something that soothed their fears of death and enhanced their lives immeasurably. This most prestigious of mystery cults must have begun as a local rite open only to the people living nearby, but gradually it accommodated ever-larger numbers, including slaves and foreigners. Many secrets still surround the cult, for its hundreds of thousands of initiates kept their promise not to reveal what took place within the sanctuary. Still, a surprising amount is known from archaeological investigation of the once-inviolate precinct, the assertions of hostile Christian Fathers (which must be read with caution), and other scattered bits of information. The Eleusinian Mysteries had an important public component, and contemporary sources addressing this aspect of the rites, including inscriptions and vase paintings, are numerous.
In spite of the plentiful data (or perhaps because of it), many scholarly controversies surround the Mysteries. Debate centers on the date at which the Eleusinian cult was incorporated into Athenian religion (from the beginning, or not until the sixth century? ), the relationship between the cult and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (to what extent does the latter reflect an "Eleusinian" perspective? ) and the significance of the Mycenaean remains found in the sanctuary (do they point to continuity of the cult from the Bronze Age? ). The early Mycenaean Megaron B, located beneath the later Demeter temple or Telesterion, was distinguished from nearby houses by its stepped porch and the remains of frescoes within; Mycenaean figurines were found in the vicinity. Yet its function is not clearly established; it may have served as an elite residence, a cult building, or both. A curved Geometric wall outside Megaron B could be either the remains of a Geometric Demeter temple or a retaining wall added to the still-standing Bronze Age structure. In any case, the earliest unequivocal evidence of the cult are the massive eighth- century terrace and a wall enclosing the whole area, with a sacrificial pyre full of broken figurines, pottery, and ashes at the entrance. 11
Eleusis lies at the edge of the Thriasian plain, the "bread basket" of Attica; it was bound to be of interest to the emerging polis. 12 Legend tells of a war between the two towns when Erechtheus was king at Athens and Eumolpos, the first celebrant of the Mysteries, at Eleusis. The resulting settlement left financial control of the cult entirely in Athenian hands, while ritual respon- sibilities were shared between two aristocratic families, the Eumolpidai of
73
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Eleusis and the Kerykes of Athens. The chief priest of the Mysteries, the Hierophant (Revealer of Sacred Things) was always a Eumolpid, while the Keryx (Herald) and Dadouchos (Torchbearer), other important officials, were both Kerykes. Second only to the Hierophant was the Priestess of Demeter and Kore, who might come from a number of different families. Hers was probably the oldest office associated with the cult, for her duties extended to several of the local, deme-level festivals of Demeter at Eleusis. Inscriptions reveal an ongoing struggle for ritual authority between the Hiero- phant and the Priestess of Demeter in the fourth century, when a Hierophant was convicted of impiety for usurping the Priestess' right to preside at the Haloa. Many of the sacred personnel connected with the Mysteries seem to have held their offices for life, a fact that sets the Eleusinian priesthoods apart from most others among the Greeks. 13
Initiation to the Mysteries required time, effort, and a cost that, while substantial, was not out of reach even for the poor. Those who wished to participate were expected to undergo a long period of preparation, beginning with the Lesser Mysteries in Anthesterion, seven months before the Eleusinian festival. Little is known of the Lesser Mysteries, but they took place in the suburb of Agrai at Athens in the sanctuary of Meter/Rhea, and they involved purification of candidates by bathing in the Ilissos river or through the use of the Dios ko ? idion, a sacred fleece obtained by sacrificing a ram to Zeus Meilichios. Together with the Sacred Way that connected Athens to Eleusis, and the city Eleusinion between the agora and the northwest corner of the Akropolis, the Lesser Mysteries helped to cement the relationship between Athens and Eleusis and shaped the "Athenian" identity of the festival as a whole.
Candidates for initiation, or mustai (those whose eyes are closed), had to seek a sponsor from the Eumolpidai or Kerykes to guide their spiritual prepar- ation, known as mue ? sis. On 13 and 14 Boedromion (September/October), the hiera (sacred objects) were brought in procession from Eleusis to the Athenian Eleusinion, and their safe arrival was announced to the priestess of Athena on the Akropolis. Priestesses from Eleusis carried these objects in boxes on their heads, so they cannot have been large or heavy, but we know nothing else about them except that they played a central role in the climactic rite. The next day was the first day of the Mysteries proper, the Agyrmos (Gathering). All assembled in the agora for a formal proclamation by the Hierophant and Dadouchos. Anyone unable to speak Greek, ritually impure, or conscious of having committed a crime was asked to abstain from the rite. At this time the mustai probably paid their fees, which have been calculated as the equivalent of several days' wages. The sixteenth of Boedromion was a day of purification. Directed by the heralds, the mustai brought piglets to Phaleron or Peiraieus, where they bathed in the sea and washed the animals. Each then sacrificed the piglet "on his/her own behalf. " The next day was allotted to major state sacrifices, and the eighteenth was the Epidauria, a
74
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
subsidiary festival of Asklepios that began in 420 when the cult of Asklepios and Hygieia was introduced at Athens on this day. 14
The nineteenth brought the great pompe ? (procession) and escort of the hiera back to Eleusis. Wearing garlands of myrtle and carrying bunches of myrtle twigs or bundles of provisions attached to the end of sticks, the mustai set out in a merry mood to walk about 22 km to the sanctuary. They were led by Iakchos, the god who personified the ritual cry "Iakche! " Because of the boisterous tone of the parade and similarity between the names Iakchos and Bakchos, the former began at an early date to be associated with Dionysos, yet he is a distinct Eleusinian deity. 15 After arriving at the outer court of the sanctuary, where there was a temple of Artemis Propylaia (Before the Gate- way) and the Eleusinian patron deity Poseidon, the mustai spent the rest of the evening celebrating the "reception of Iakchos" and singing and dancing at the well called Kallichoron (Place of Beautiful Dances). Perhaps this was also the day when kernoi, special offering trays equipped with cups of various seeds and grains, were presented to the goddess. The next day saw the offering of the pelanos, a massive cake of barley and wheat harvested from the sacred Rharian plain, and other sacrifices financed from the "first fruit" offerings (aparchai) tithed to Demeter and Kore. The mustai mean- while fasted, and finally broke their fast with the kukeo ? n, a posset of barley water and an aromatic herb, pennyroyal. These actions, and others to follow, imitated the activities of Demeter when her daughter had disappeared; Demeter's fast and request for the kuko ? n is recorded in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2. 208-10).
With evening began the secret part of the ritual, when the mustai were admitted into the confines of the sanctuary proper. This was situated on the southwest slope of the Eleusinian akropolis, and had two main components. First was the rocky cliff containing a cave that served as a cult place for Theos (God) and Thea (Goddess), the Eleusinian titles for Plouton and Persephone in their roles as king and queen of the dead. With them was worshiped a deity or hero named Eubouleus, whose role was similar to that of Hermes in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: he is shown on vase paintings holding torches in the presence of Theos and Thea, ready to guide the goddess back to the upper world for a reunion with her grieving mother. The agelastos petros (Mirth- less Rock), where Demeter is supposed to have sat mourning the loss of her daughter, was probably also in this rocky area. Passing by the cave with its small shrine, the mustai would have followed a path up to the principal structure, the initiation hall known to scholars as the Telesterion, but in Classical times called the neo ? s (temple) or anaktoron (lord's hall). Starting in the late seventh or early sixth century, a succession of ever-larger temples was built over the old Mycenaean Megaron B, each one containing an inner room whose position was kept constant. The design of this "temple" differs dramat- ically from those of other gods, for unlike most Greek temples, it was designed to hold a large number of people and includes seating around the walls. 16
75
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
The sources give us only a glimpse of what took place in this room amid the forest of columns, the actual telete ? (mystery rite). Certainly the initiates were guided on an emotional path from confusion and grief to confidence and joy, and this progression seems to have corresponded to the events in a ritual drama depicting Kore's return from the underworld and her reunion with Demeter. At a critical moment, the Hierophant appeared from the inner room in a blaze of torchlight to display the hiera to the onlookers. Those who had experienced the Mysteries in a previous year were permitted to remain in the Telesterion for a further revelation; such individuals were called epoptai (those who have seen). Following the climactic rites, bulls and pigs were sacri- ficed to the goddesses and other Eleusinian deities, while initiates used special vessels called ple ? mochoai to pour libations of water toward the east and west.
On the day after the Mysteries concluded, the Athenian Council met in the city Eleusinion to review the conduct of the festival and deal with any infractions of sacred law; this custom was attributed to a law of Solon. The earliest votive deposits in the Eleusinion date to the seventh century, and it received architectural elaboration in the sixth. It contained a temple of Demeter and Kore, altars, and many inscribed decrees relating to the conduct of the Mysteries, as well as a temple of Triptolemos, the Eleusinian hero who is said to have introduced the knowledge of grain cultivation to the world, flying about in his winged chariot. 17
Particularly in the period of empire, Athens promoted the Mysteries, along with the knowledge imparted by Triptolemos, as its unique gifts to the world. Heralds were sent to other cities to declare a sacred truce of fifty-five days, which allowed time for pilgrims to travel to Athens, be initiated, and return home. The first fruits decree (IG I3 78), issued c. 435, details the collection of an annual tithe of grain from every deme in Attica and the Athenian allies, and urges that every Greek city likewise join in the offering. 18 We don't know how many Greek cities heeded this rather high-handed request, but Athens clearly succeeded in securing for Eleusis a Panhellenic reputation and status, which it maintained until the end of antiquity. Even as the cult gained renown across the Greek world, however, the "Eleusinian version" of the Demeter/Kore myth remained surprisingly localized. Other cities often had their own versions of the myth that failed to be displaced because they, like the traditions at Eleusis, were venerable tales tied to local landmarks (wells, caves, or rocky outcroppings). Even the Homeric Hymn to Demeter reflects a generic, Panhellenized version of the Attic cult: Eubouleus, the titles Theos and Thea, and the Mirthless Rock are omitted from the story, while Tripto- lemos is barely mentioned.
Demeter at Korinth
On a steep slope of the Akrokorinthos, some fifteen minutes' walk from the city center, Demeter's principal sanctuary at Korinth was constructed in a
76
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
? Figure6. 1 DemeterandKoreorHekate. Reliefsculpture,fifthcentury. Archaeological Museum, Eleusis. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
series of three terraces. Though there was continuous activity on the site from the Late Bronze Age, no evidence for a cult appears until a series of pins and rings deposited in the mid-eighth century. Even at this early date the offerings give the impression of a strong female presence at the site. In the seventh century a wider variety of offerings appears in the middle terrace, including bronze jewelry, miniature vases, and terracotta figurines. A small but sub- stantial building, probably a temple, was already present in this period. The middle terrace, with its temple, sacrificial area, bone debris (primarily from pigs), and votive collections, served as the nucleus of the cult for its first hundred and fifty years, while the upper terrace contained a theatral area that was probably used for a mystery rite.
In the sixth century came a major architectural development: numerous dining rooms were constructed on the lower terrace. Ritual dining in this area was probably not new, but the Korinthians now expended considerable resources on dining facilities. Each room held from six to eight diners, who reclined on stone couches. By mid-century, the sanctuary could accommodate about one hundred diners at once. The ritual menu seems to have focused not on sacrificial meat, but on grain-based foods. One of the characteristic votive offerings at this site was the terracotta liknon (winnowing fan) filled with a
77
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
variety of model breads and cakes. The cooking vessels are the types used for boiling and stewing, so gruels or porridge may also have been an important menu item. Finally, numerous wine cups (kantharoi and skuphoi), mixing bowls and amphoras show that wine was consumed with the meal.
Who partook of these meals is a mystery. On the one hand, elaborate dining facilities, reclining posture, and wine consumption are associated with men's symposia. Yet the abundance of women's votive offerings, the empha- sis on grain-based foods, and the fact that this was a Demeter sanctuary point toward a women's festival such as the Thesmophoria. In any case, the expansion of the dining facilities at Korinth continued through the fifth and fourth centuries. Eventually, more than two hundred diners at once could use the rooms, which were provided with extra spaces for food preparation and washing. To judge from the scarcity of imported offerings here (relative to a sanctuary like that of Hera at Perachora), the cult seems to have attracted few outsiders. 19
The Two Goddesses are said to have played a role in the success of Timoleon, the Korinthian who was credited with the liberation of Syracuse from rule by Greek tyrants and Carthaginians. On the eve of Timoleon's expedition in 345/4, the priestesses of Demeter and Persephone reported a dream in which the goddesses appeared to them in traveling garb to announce that they would accompany Timoleon to Sicily. Much encouraged, the Korinthians dedicated a "sacred trireme" to the goddesses and set sail. On their journey, a great flame appeared in the night sky, and forming itself into a torch "like those used in the Mysteries," guided them to their destination. 20
Demeter Chthonia at Hermione
Pausanias (2. 35. 4-11) is our most detailed source for the famous cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Underworld) at the remote town of Hermione in the Argolid. Hermione was not a Dorian town, but was settled by the aboriginal Dryopes when the Dorians expelled them from Thessaly. This cult is unusual in its emphasis on the role of Hades (who is given the euphemistic name of Klymenos, the Renowned One). Examination of the site has revealed a lengthy section of wall, which probably marked off the Classical sanctuary, a series of inscribed bronze cows (which relate to the ritual described below), and numerous late inscriptions. It is difficult to know from Pausanias' second-century CE account which elements of the ritual date back to the Classical period. He reports that the Chthonia festival took place in the summer and began with a procession of all the priests, magistrates, and townspeople, even the children. Dressed in white and crowned with wreaths made from a local summer wildflower, they led a heifer to the sanctuary, where it was allowed to roam about until it entered the open doors of the temple. Inside, four old women rose from their ceremonial thrones and
78
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
pursued the heifer until one of them cut its throat with a sickle. Three more cows were slaughtered for the goddess in the same way.
The indoor sacrifice is very unusual, but can be explained as the result of the strict gender segregation practiced in the cult. The cult statue of Chthonia was so sacred that only the old women were permitted to view it, and the exclusion of men seems to have extended to the sacrificial slaughter, usually a male prerogative. Although the whole city participated in the festival, its climactic ritual acts had to take place in seclusion, away from male eyes. Chthonia seems to have been an important Dryopian goddess, for the Dryopes of Asine, a neighboring town, sent a sacrificial cow and a delegation to walk in the procession even after they were forced to emigrate to Messenia (IG IV 679. 1-2). Opposite Chthonia's sanctuary was that of Klymenos, and the area was famed for its entrance to the underworld, an opening in the earth from which Herakles once emerged, it was said, leading Kerberos. Although Kore plays no role in Pausanias' description of the cult, she appears with Demeter Chthonia and Klymenos in numerous dedicatory inscriptions from Hermione. A fragmentary hymn composed by the sixth-century poet Lasos of Hermione confirms that worship of the triad Demeter, Klymenos, and Kore was the norm in the late Archaic period as well. 21
Demeter and Despoina in Arkadia
According to Herodotus (2. 171), the telete ? (secret rite) of Demeter which the Greeks call the Thesmophoria was mostly abandoned in the Peloponnese with the arrival of the Dorians, but was preserved among the Arkadians, whose lands were not penetrated by the invaders. Certainly the worship of Demeter was far more prominent in Arkadia than elsewhere in the Pelopon- nese. The Arkadia of the poets is a mountainous, wild land sparsely inhabited by goatherds and hunters, but the district also encompassed fertile lowlands where cereal crops were grown. Like so many other Arkadian cults, with their pronounced tendency toward theriomorphic (animal-shaped) gods, the worship of the Two Goddesses in this isolated district seems strange and primeval, the remnant of a very early syncretism of Greek and indigenous traditions.
The Arkadians worshiped an equine Demeter, consort of the horse-god Poseidon Hippios. They held in common with the other Greeks the belief that Demeter angrily withdrew to an earthly abode and caused a crisis in the natural world because of her rage at the abduction of her daughter. Demeter's anger was further attributed to her unwilling union with Poseidon. In order to escape his lustful pursuit, she transformed herself into a mare, but he saw through the trick and forced himself on her in the form of a stallion. Their offspring were the miraculous horse Areion and a daughter, the Arkadian equivalent of Kore, whose true name was revealed only to initiates. In public, their daughter was called Despoina (the Mistress). This story was attached to
79
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Thelpousa, where Demeter had the title Erinys (the Wrathful One), and a similar myth about Erinys is attested for Telphousa/Tilphossa in Boiotia. 22 Demeter also had the title of Lousia (of Washing) at Thelpousa, because she purified herself in the river Ladon after intercourse with Poseidon and let go of her anger. Demeter Erinys and Demeter Lousia thus form a complemen- tary pair representing angry and appeased manifestations of the goddess.
The Thelpousan cult is closely related to that at Phigaleia, where Demeter's Archaic statue had the head of a horse and was housed in a cave on the rocky gorge of the river Neda, well outside the city. To this cave Demeter had withdrawn, causing a famine until her anger abated. She was known as Melaina (the Black) because she dressed all in black to express her mood; scholars generally interpret her blackness, which is a feature shared by the Erinyes, as a sign of her underworld nature. The statue was seated on a rock with serpents and other creatures emerging from its mane, and it held a dolphin in one hand and in the other a dove. This Demeter is a Mistress of Animals and has close affinities with the gorgon Medousa, who similarly sported snaky hair, mated with Poseidon, and gave birth to a miraculous horse (Pegasos). Kore/Despoina has little involvement in this cult, nor is Demeter primarily a grain goddess. Every year the people set upon an altar outside the cave samples of all the raw materials produced in their land, including grapes, honeycombs, and wool, and poured olive oil over these in an attempt to appease the disgruntled goddess. According to Pausanias (8. 42. 5-7), this was a revival of an Archaic cult that had fallen into disuse. The original theriomorphic statue was lost to a fire in the distant past. On the occasion of a blight, the people consulted Delphi and were told to replace the statue of "stallion-mated Deo," whose anger had been renewed by the people's neglect. Onatas of Aigina, a sculptor active in the fifth century, was given the commission, and inspired by a dream and perhaps an old copy of the image, he re-created it. 23
The Arkadian cults of Demeter resulted from a complex process combining the old Mycenaean goddess Erinys, who was early on linked to Poseidon Hippios and whose offspring was a horse, with the Panhellenic and Eleusinian Demeter who bore a daughter.
61
POSEIDON
Messenian Poseidon
The Linear B tablets indicate that Poseidon was a highly regarded deity among the Mycenaeans of Pylos. A series of Pylian tablets lists contributions (dosmoi) to various gods among whom Poseidon is the most prominent. Pylos 171 = Un 718 breaks down the community into functional groups listed in order of descending status and offering amounts. The king's contri- bution consists of wheat, wine, a bull, cheeses, a sheepskin, and honey. Similar but smaller gifts are presented by the da ? mos or village, the military leader, and the estate of the worgiones or cult association. Another famous tablet, Pylos 172 = Kn 02, describes ritual actions performed in the shrines of local deities. A shrine of Poseidon is mentioned, to which women bring golden cups. Later in the same tablet, a goddess Posidaeia (apparently a female version of the name Poseidon) receives a golden bowl carried by a woman. 12 The prominence of Poseidon at Pylos is reflected in the Homeric account (Od. 3. 4-11) of Telemachos' visit. When he arrives, the people are offering black bulls to Poseidon on the shore, divided into nine companies of five hundred men each; each company offers nine bulls to the god. Nestor and his sons sit feasting in the midst of their men; Nestor's father Neleus of Iolkos was a son of Poseidon and the founder of Pylos.
In spite of his early importance, Poseidon rapidly lost ground in Archaic Messenia with the rise of the Dorian Spartans. Whereas worship of the god known as Pohoidan (a Lakonian form of the Arkadian Posoidan) continued at Helos and Thouria (Akovitika), in historical times virtually nothing remained of the Pylian cult, while the important sanctuary at Tainaron was controlled by the Spartans. 13 Located at the southern tip of the Mani penin- sula, Tainaron was sacred to the helots, the occupants of Messenia enslaved by Sparta in the eighth and seventh centuries, and dates to before the time of the Messenian wars. Escaped slaves and fugitive helots fled to the sanctuary, where by religious custom they were safe from pursuers. Various late sources speak of the festival known as the Tainaria, which included a three-day feast held on the seashore, and most likely the crowning of Poseidon's cult statue by the helots. Always a wrathful god, he was particularly angry when the ritual laws protecting suppliants were violated. One example long cited as an instance of his wrath was the earthquake that hit Sparta in 464, nearly reducing the city to a pile of rubble. The god was said to be enraged at the Spartans, who had dared to remove fugitive helots from Tainaron and exe- cute them. Though Tainaron has not been excavated, finds of votive bulls and horses in bronze as well as Classical ste ? lai (stone markers) commemor- ating the release of slaves have been reported. Areas set aside for the display of such ste ? lai and for the housing of fugitives are apparent at the site. Over- looking Sternis Bay is a Hellenistic temple, which may have been preceded by earlier structures, to judge from votives found in the area. The most famous feature of the site is the cave oracle of the dead, which the sources describe as
62
POSEIDON
an underground "house" of the gods, into which souls were gathered. This type of oracle was useful in cases where the dead needed to be placated; legend had it that the man who killed Archilochus was sent here by the Pythia in order to propriate the soul of the poet with libations. The actual age of the cave oracle, located at the head of Sternis Bay and fitted with a wall and doorway at the entrance, is unknown. When he visited, Pausanias (3. 25. 5) noted that the cave did not contain a great chasm or other identifi- able entrance to the underworld. 14
Poseidon at Trozen
Poseidon's sanctuary on Kalaureia, a small island off Trozen with one of the best harbors in Greece, lies high above sea level, recalling a scene in the Iliad (13. 10-16) in which Poseidon sits on the highest peak of Samothrace, observing the far away battles at Troy. This place was another well-known refuge, famous for having hosted the orator Demosthenes when he fled from Alexander's successor Antipater in 322. Rather than pollute the sacred ground with the taint of death, Demosthenes took poison inside the temple, then staggered out as it began to take effect. The sanctuary's function as an asylum resulted from its role as the center of an early amphictyony, a league of seven communities in the area. The island's former name Eirene (Peace) probably had to do with the amphictyony as well. Scholars disagree on the purpose and date of the league, but the archaeological remains indicate that the sanctuary was founded by the seventh century at the latest, and acquired a Doric temple in the sixth. 15 Little is known of the ritual there, but Pausanias (2. 33. 2-3) says that Poseidon had a virgin priestess, an unusual arrangement for a male deity.
Trozen itself was unusual in honoring Poseidon as the protector of the city, Poliouchos, and as King, Basileus. He was an important ancestor, having fathered several of the city's heroes including Theseus. The people made the trident an emblem on their coins, while the city itself once bore the name Poseidonia. 16 Trozen's Poseidon cult, like that of Athens, was tied to its Ionic origins. The city fell under the sway of Argos at an early date and became increasingly Dorianized, yet it exported the worship of Poseidon to its colony of Halikarnassos in Karia.
Outside the walls of Trozen was a sanctuary of Poseidon Phytalmios (of Growth). The legend said that the angry god once inundated the crops with seawater until he yielded to prayers and sacrifices. Overlooking this shrine was a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros, established by Poseidon's son Althepos. In recognition of his connection with agriculture, the god was offered aparchai, first fruits from the crops. This facet of Poseidon's personality is unexpected, yet the cult pairing of Poseidon and Demeter is widespread (present in Attica, Argos, Mykonos, and of course, Arkadia). 17 It is likely that Poseidon's flood was originally a freshwater inundation, for as a
63
POSEIDON
god of subterranean forces, he controlled springs and rivers. Having caused a drought at Argos by drying up the springs, he relented and revealed the sources at Lerna to the Danaid Amymone. Aeschylus (Sept. 304-11) names Earth-supporting Poseidon and the rivers, offspring of Tethys, as the deities who pour forth the waters that fructify the earth. Poseidon's waters nourish the plants, yet too much water just as surely destroys them. Thus Poseidon's relationship with Demeter was both intimate and adversarial. Argos had a flood legend according to which Poseidon, angry when the land was awarded to Hera, caused an inundation, and the Argive sanctuary of Poseidon Pros- klystios (of Surging Water) was located beside that of Pelasgian Demeter. The Athenians too said that Poseidon had flooded the fruitful Thriasian plain where Demeter had her sanctuary at Eleusis. 18
A recently discovered Mycenaean sanctuary on the peninsula of Methana, facing Kalaureia, was unusual in that the finds included rare terracotta chariot groups, helmeted riders, and groups of oxen being driven or ridden. The absence of the female Psi and Phi figurines typically found in Mycenaean shrines, together with this evidence, point to a male deity connected with horses, chariots, and bulls. Thus, Poseidon may already have been the fore- most deity in Trozenia during the Bronze Age. 19
Poseidon Hippios
Onchestos in Boiotia was the site of a renowned Poseidon sanctuary often mentioned by early Greek poets (e. g. Hom. Il. 2. 506). Pindar (Isthm. 1. 52- 54) calls this Poseidon seisichtho ? n, earthshaker, and hippodromios, the patron of horse races (the latter epithet is also the name of a Boiotian month probably connected with the god). Like many sanctuaries of Poseidon, this one did not possess a temple at first, though one was added in the sixth century. The early sources speak of a sacred grove, and there must have been facilities for the races Pindar mentions. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 230-38) describes a curious custom of the shrine:
There the new-broken colt burdened with drawing the lovely chariot gets its breath; and the driver, though skillful, jumps to the earth from the car and walks. For a while the horses, lacking a driver, rattle the empty car along. If they break (or, if he brings) the chariot in the wooded grove, they care for the horses, but tilting the chariot they leave it. For such from the first was the holy rule (hosie ? ). They pray to the Lord, and the chariot is kept as the god's share.
There is no agreement on the meaning and context of the actions described; the ritual may have involved a driver leaping from the moving car and allow- ing the horses to career into the grove. If the chariot was wrecked, it was left in the grove as a dedication to the god. On the other hand, if the amended
64
POSEIDON
reading is correct, the poet may be referring to a ritual law requiring that any chariot driven into the grove be forfeit to the god. The only certain point is that Poseidon is here celebrated in his guise as the master of horses and chariot racing. 20 This role as horse god looms as large in the cult of Poseidon as his marine aspect, and supports the idea that Poseidon originally had more to do with fresh water and horses (often connected in Indo-European and Greek thought) than with the sea. 21
Another Boiotian tradition about Poseidon was preserved in the lost epic poem Thebais. In the territory of Haliartos was the spring Telphousa, where Poseidon, in the form of a horse, mated with the goddess Erinys. She in turn produced the wondrously swift horse Areion, whose name refers to his superiority, and Poseidon presented the horse as a gift to Kopreus, king of Haliartos. 22 This story finds a doublet in Arkadia, and given that both Erinys and Poseidon are Mycenaean deities, it may well have originated in the Bronze Age.
The Boiotian worship of Poseidon is tied to that of Thessaly, the ancient home of the Boiotoi. Thessaly and Boiotia were the strongholds of the Minyans, a legendary clan whose patron deity was Poseidon. Among their heroes were his twin sons, Neleus (founder of Pylos) and Pelias, the king of Iolkos. The descendants of Neleus also had ties to the cult of Poseidon in
Figure 5. 2 Bronze Poseidon from Livadhostro Bay (Boiotia), c. 470. Inscribed to the god. Ht 1. 18 m. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
? 65
POSEIDON
Athens and the Ionian migration. Little information is available about the Thessalian cult, but as in Boiotia, it seems to have focused on Poseidon's rule over horses. A Thessalian legend told how the god created the first horse, Skyphios, by smiting the rock with his trident; Poseidon's widespread cult title Hippios (of the Horse) is connected with this story, as are the equestrian contests conducted for the god and the Thessalian sanctuary of Poseidon Petraios (he of the Rock). This sanctuary is still undiscovered, but it lay somewhere in the vale of Tempe, once a lake drained by the god when he smote the mountains with his trident and made an outlet for the river Peneios. 23 In a seminal paper, Marcel Detienne compared Poseidon's mastery of all things equestrian with the rival powers of Athena. Though both are concerned with horses and their training, he concluded, Athena's sphere tends more toward the driver's skill and strategy, while Poseidon governs the uncanny energy of the animal itself. 24
Arkadian Poseidon
An important center of Poseidon's cult was landlocked Arkadia, where he, not Zeus, was considered the father of Demeter's daughter, the mistress of the underworld. His sanctuaries were concentrated in the central plains and valleys around Orchomenos, Kaphyai, Methydrion, and Mantineia, poorly drained areas subject to flooding. 25 At Mantineia, Poseidon was a civic god and his trident adorned the shields of the citizens, while late inscriptions show that calendar years were reckoned by the names of his priests. Like Zeus Lykaios, Poseidon Hippios had an inviolate area in his sanctuary out- side Mantineia where no human being was permitted to tread; according to legend, a mere woolen thread marked the boundary of the sacred area. When the hero Aipytos cut this thread, he was blinded by a miraculous wave of seawater. Arkadia was a great repository of traditions about the births of the gods; one such legend, tied to a spring in the territory of Mantineia, said that Rhea fooled the murderous Kronos by telling him she had given birth to a horse, and gave him a foal to eat instead of the infant Poseidon, who was sheltered in a lambs' pen. 26
In most regions of Greece, we encounter a belief in Poseidon as the creator of the first horse or as the sire of miraculous steeds such as the winged Pegasos, who was the offspring of Poseidon and Medousa. In Arkadia, the god himself becomes a horse, as in the Mantinean birth legend and the myths attached to the city of Thelpousa. Here, Demeter Erinys sought to escape the lustful Poseidon by transforming herself into a mare, but he became a stallion and mated with her. The offspring of this union were a goddess whose name was kept secret (presumably the Arkadian equivalent of Kore) and the divine horse Areion. Pausanias, our source for most of this information, speaks of the sanctuary of Demeter outside Thelpousa, but does not elaborate on the cult of Poseidon here, except to say that he had the title of Hippios. Similarly
66
POSEIDON
at a cave sanctuary outside Phigaleia in the Neda river gorge, the cult myth recounted the coupling of Demeter and Poseidon in the shape of horses, specifying that their daughter was the goddess known as Despoina (Mistress). Poseidon Hippios also had an altar at the important sanctuary of the Mistress at Lykosoura. 27 Here Poseidon is hardly a god of the sea, and his cults are presumably least changed from their Mycenaean antecedents (just as Arkadian Posoidan is the dialect form closest to Linear B). The few references to his marine nature are due to Panhellenizing influences during the Classical period and later.
Athenian Poseidon
Athens and Trozen shared a myth according to which Athena and Poseidon disputed ownership of the land. 28 In the lore of cities bordering the Saronic Gulf, Poseidon figures in a number of these contests; tellingly, he is never the winner. At Trozen, the contest ended in a truce under which the territory was shared, while at Athens, the story went that the victorious Athena produced an olive tree on the Akropolis as a token of her claim, while Poseidon struck the rock with his trident, creating a "sea. " The nature of this sea is unclear, though Pausanias (1. 26. 5) describes it as a well with salt water, enclosed within the walls of the Classical Erechtheion. He also notes an altar on which sacrifices to both Poseidon and Erechtheus were made. The story of the conflict between Poseidon and Athena seems to be closely related to that of the early war between Athens and Eleusis, in which the earth-born Athenian king Erechtheus, prote? ge? of Athena, battled Eumolpos, the Eleusinian leader and son of Poseidon. Athens was victorious when Erechtheus sacrificed his daughters to save the city, but he himself was struck by Poseidon's trident and hidden under the earth. 29 By the fifth century, Poseidon had taken the name of his antagonist as a cult epithet, an arrangement comparable to that between Apollo and Hyakinthos at Amyklai. In both cases the cults of Olympian gods were superimposed on those of earlier indigenous deities, and the earlier figures were transformed into heroes killed by the gods and worshiped side by side with them. 30
Poseidon was an important deity in Archaic Eleusis, consistent with his usual close cult relations to Demeter. Eleusis possessed a cult of Poseidon Pater (Father), and a priest of the Kerykes served Poseidon Prosbaterios (of the Approaches) and Themeliouchos (Upholding the Foundations). It is likely that all these epithets have to do with Poseidon's role vis-a`-vis Demeter as a fructifying deity of water and flooding. That Poseidon's role in Athenian cult has much to do with the relations between Athens and Eleusis is likewise demonstrated in the festival known as the Skira, when the Athenian priests of Poseidon, Athena, and Helios walked to a sanctuary near the boundary with Eleusis. 31
Poseidon had other cults in Attica, but the most important was at the 67
POSEIDON
promontory of Sounion, where a temple was added c. 490 and rebuilt under Perikles. The Athenians held a quadrennial festival with boat races, and the vigor of the Archaic cult is attested by at least twelve kouroi (statues of idealized young men) found buried in a pit east of the temple. 32 The earliest cult at Sounion, however, probably belonged to the hero Phrontis, the steers- man of Menelaos buried there according to Homer (Od. 3. 276-85). In spite of the apparent antiquity of his cult, Poseidon was not a significant presence in Attica compared with Zeus, Demeter, Apollo, Dionysos, and of course Athena.
Further reading
Gebhard 1993 and Morgan 1994 summarize the development of sacred space at Isthmia from the eleventh century. Robertson 1984 demonstrates Poseidon's role as a god of fructifying waters and partner of Demeter. Schu- macher 1993 discusses the function of Poseidon's sanctuaries as places of asylum. Chapter 6 of Pache 2004 is devoted to Melikertes-Palaimon.
68
6
MISTRESSES OF GRAIN AND SOULS
Demeter and Kore/Persephone
Demeter's origins as a grain goddess must lie in the Neolithic period with the advent of agriculture. Her name contains the Greek word for "mother," but whether the initial syllable means "earth," "grain," or something else has long been debated. Homer had little interest in Demeter and none in her relationship with Kore (the Maiden), though Persephone appears in epic poetry as the bride of Hades. The queen of the dead (Attic Pherephatta) has a non-Greek name and must have been in origin a deity separate from Demeter's daughter. Even after the two were firmly and inextricably identified, they were often paradoxically represented in cult as two distinct personages. Eleusinian iconography and terminology, for example, juxtaposed Thea, the underworld goddess, with Kore, the daughter. The Greeks avoided pro- nouncing or inscribing the ominous name Persephone in cult contexts, replacing it with Kore or other euphemisms, though such caution was less often exercised by the poets. Demeter and Kore were frequently worshiped together under such names as the Two Goddesses, the Thesmophoroi, or the Great Goddesses.
Demeter sanctuaries tended to be scattered in neighborhoods rather than centralized, probably because they were used for local celebrations of the Thesmophoria, Demeter's main festival. In spite of their crucial role in the prosperity of the city, Demeter and Kore rarely functioned as civic gods. Exceptional were Thebes, where Demeter's sanctuary occupied prime civic space on the Kadmeia, and certain cities of Sicily and Magna Graecia, where the two goddesses were dominant presences in the pantheon. In the Greek West, Kore/Persephone herself was sometimes the more prominent partner of the two, and played an important role in the social construction of marriage and the rites leading to adulthood for women and men. In keeping with Kore's significance as the archetypal bride, the western colonies saw the core of the myth as the theogamy of Persephone/Kore and Hades, rather than the reunion of Demeter and Kore after the latter's abduction, which was the focus of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries.
69
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Thesmophoria
The most widespread festival of Demeter and Kore, and one of the most popular of all Greek rites, was the women's festival known as the Thesmo- phoria. The term thesmos means "that which is laid down," hence laws, rites, or revered customs. As the presiding deities, the two goddesses were called Thesmophoroi (Bringers of the Divine Law) because the introduction of grain cultivation was considered the origin of civilized life. Some scholars believe that the "things laid down" are to be understood in a much more literal sense, as the dead piglets deposited during the central rite of the festival. Still, the epithet unquestionably conveys the respect in which the goddesses were held, as do other cult titles such as Megalai Theai (Great Goddesses) and Hagnai Theai (Pure Goddesses). Each year, normally in late summer or early fall, married Greek women gathered in the local Demeter sanctuary, often called the Thesmophorion. Although celebration of the festival was generally not centralized, one sanctuary might be more heavily frequented than the rest. Most had a few modest cult buildings or a simple shrine called a megaron rather than an elaborate temple, but they are relatively easy to identify as sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore by the objects left behind: ceramic table- ware; water jars; terracottas of the goddesses or their votaries, often carrying a piglet; pig bones; numerous lamps for the nocturnal parts of the rites; and the remains of ritual meals.
Literary evidence for the exclusion of males is plentiful. Herodotus (6. 134) tells how the Athenian general Miltiades attempted to enter a restricted building (megaron) in the sanctuary on Paros - perhaps to meddle with the "untouchable" things there - and as a result of divine anger was stricken with a fatal case of gangrene. Xenophon says (Hell. 5. 2. 29) that the men of Thebes kept clear of the Kadmeia while the women were performing the rites there, going so far as to hold the boule ? (council) in the agora rather than its usual place on the akropolis. Men's dedications are often found at these sites, so we know that their exclusion was not complete. Demeter sanctuaries were apparently used for a number of different observances throughout the year, only some of which involved ritual gender segregation. 1
The sacred objects used and acts performed during the Thesmophoria were kept secret. We hear of ritual dances, processions, and special foods, particularly bread. The Delian celebration, held in the late summer month of Metageitnion, involved an event called the Megalartia (Large Loaves), and bread seems to have played an important role in the celebrations at Korinth (below). 2 Only one source, a scholiast on Lucian (Dial. meret. 2. 1), describes the ritual in detail, and his version refers to Attic custom. He writes that piglets are cast into the "chasms of Demeter and Kore" in honor of Eubouleus, a herdsman whose swine were swallowed in the abyss when Hades abducted Kore (Eubouleus reappears as a deity in Eleusis). After an unspecified period, the rotted remains of the piglets are brought up from the chasms (also called
70
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
aduta, innermost chambers, and megara, chambers) by ritually pure women, laid on the altars, and mixed with the seed grain to ensure a good harvest. The scholiast says that pine branches and phallic shapes made of wheat dough are used the same way, all given as thank offerings for the generation of crops and the procreation of people.
The ritual deposition of piglets was probably widespread; piglets were cast into megara at Potniai in Boiotia, and excavations of Demeter and Kore sanctuaries at Knidos and Priene have uncovered such pits. At Eleusis, several deep shafts, which probably served this function, were found around the porch of the so-called Telesterion. 3 Apparently, the story of Kore's rape was the mythic foundation for the ritual; the piglet is also symbolic of the female genitals, and the piglets falling into the earth to be resurrected with the grain repeat the descent and ascent of Kore. Thus the Thesmophoria and the Eleusinian Mysteries shared the same myth, interpreted in different ways. Kevin Clinton has suggested that the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, usually thought to recount the origin of the Mysteries, is primarily an aetiological account of the Thesmophoria.
4
The Attic Thesmophoria was a three-day festival held a few weeks before the ploughing and sowing of the fields; we also hear of such festivals cele- brated as early as midsummer (Thebes) and lasting as long as ten days (Sicily). Women gathered in the sanctuaries, bringing supplies of food and setting up tents as temporary accommodations. As part of the proceedings, the women engaged in sex-talk (aischrologia) and ritual mockery. This seems to have been a mainstay of the goddesses' segregated worship; its mythic explanation is that when Demeter was grieving for Kore, scurrilous jokes and gestures caused her to smile. 5 The sex-talk was the verbal equivalent of the piglets, pine branches and phallic shapes handled by the participants; the women's heightened awareness of their own sexuality and reproductive ability was powerful (therefore it could be deployed to aid the growth of crops) yet dangerous to male prerogatives (therefore its unfettered expression was limited to the festival context). 6
The first day of the Athenian festival was called Anodos (Ascent), perhaps with reference to the women's retrieval of material from the chasms. The second day was the Nesteia (Fasting), a day when no public business or sacri- fice was conducted in the city. The last day was called Kalligeneia (Beautiful Offspring), making clear the connection between agricultural bounty and women's fertility. This was probably a feast day, presided over by leaders (archousai) elected from each deme. It is clear from Isaeus' speeches (3. 80, 6. 49-50, 8. 19) that citizen matrons organized and attended the festival, but the sources conflict on the question of whether slaves and prostitutes could be present and in what capacities. Aristophanes' Women at the Thesmophoria draws a vivid tableau of male suspicion and female revelry during the Thesmophoric ritual, which he sets on the Pnyx, in the same meeting place used by the Athenian assembly. Excavation in this area uncovered a few
71
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
terracottas and lamps consistent with a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, but not enough material to confirm the existence of a Thesmophorion. 7
Demeter, Kore, and the agricultural year
As one might expect, many festivals of Demeter and Kore were tied to the annual cycle of grain cultivation. Barley and wheat were the staple crops, sown during the fall in most Mediterranean lands. Great anxiety surrounded the fateful question of when to plough and sow, for the farmer must plant late enough to coincide with the fall rains, yet early enough to allow the shoots to become established before the onset of winter cold. 8 Therefore the most important festivals and rituals connected with grain cultivation are clustered around sowing time.
As usual, we are best informed about the Attic year. Early in Pyanopsion (October/November), the Proerosia or pre-ploughing sacrifices took place in the demes, including Eleusis. In conjunction with the Proerosia there were at least three sacred ploughings, one at Skiron, one in the Rharian plain of Eleusis, and one in Athens. The Thesmophoria, with its ritual preparation of the seed, followed soon after. During the next month, Poseideion (December/ January), the grain sprouted and began to grow. By the time of the Haloa at the winter solstice, it became evident whether the farmers had chosen their sowing dates wisely. Epigraphic evidence from the fourth century (IG II2 1672. 124, 144) shows that huge amounts of firewood were used, probably for the bonfires typical of solstice ritual. At this point in the year, the grain was quiescent because of the cold; only the returning heat of the sun could bring it to fruition. Ancient accounts of the Haloa are late and confused, but it is clear that like the Thesmophoria, the festival involved a link between human and vegetable fertility. 9 Temporarily flouting the rules of behavior for respectable females, women gathered at Eleusis drank wine, engaged in sexual banter, and handled pastries shaped like male and female genitals.
In Anthesterion (February/March) the Lesser Mysteries took place just as the grain stalks entered their prime phase of growth, celebrated in the Chloaia (Greening festival). This was probably the main festival of Demeter Chloe? , though she also received a sacrifice at the harvest. Perhaps surprisingly, the main harvest observance, known in Attica and some Ionian cities as the Thargelia and in other Greek lands as the Thalysia, had early ties to Apollo and Artemis rather than Demeter. Homer (Il. 9. 533-35) thinks of thalusia as first fruit offerings to Artemis, and Apollo was the patron of the Thargelia, but by the Hellenistic period Theocritus (Id. 7. 31-38) describes the Thalysia on Kos as a Demeter festival. On the other hand, we know that Demeter was an important figure in the harvest folklore of Greek peasants, who sang songs to her as they reaped. The Kalamaia (Straw festival), probably held in the mid-summer month of Skirophorion, was an Attic/Ionian celebration of the threshing and winnowing. This was also the month of the Skira, a poorly
72
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
understood festival celebrated by married women who temporarily abstained from sex. Like the Thesmophoria, it was celebrated at a number of sites in Attica. 10 Finally, the Eleusinian Mysteries were held in Boedromion (Sep- tember/October), about a month before the ploughing and sowing began once more, renewing the agricultural cycle.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
For a thousand years, people traveled to the small town of Eleusis in Attica in order to experience something profound, something that soothed their fears of death and enhanced their lives immeasurably. This most prestigious of mystery cults must have begun as a local rite open only to the people living nearby, but gradually it accommodated ever-larger numbers, including slaves and foreigners. Many secrets still surround the cult, for its hundreds of thousands of initiates kept their promise not to reveal what took place within the sanctuary. Still, a surprising amount is known from archaeological investigation of the once-inviolate precinct, the assertions of hostile Christian Fathers (which must be read with caution), and other scattered bits of information. The Eleusinian Mysteries had an important public component, and contemporary sources addressing this aspect of the rites, including inscriptions and vase paintings, are numerous.
In spite of the plentiful data (or perhaps because of it), many scholarly controversies surround the Mysteries. Debate centers on the date at which the Eleusinian cult was incorporated into Athenian religion (from the beginning, or not until the sixth century? ), the relationship between the cult and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (to what extent does the latter reflect an "Eleusinian" perspective? ) and the significance of the Mycenaean remains found in the sanctuary (do they point to continuity of the cult from the Bronze Age? ). The early Mycenaean Megaron B, located beneath the later Demeter temple or Telesterion, was distinguished from nearby houses by its stepped porch and the remains of frescoes within; Mycenaean figurines were found in the vicinity. Yet its function is not clearly established; it may have served as an elite residence, a cult building, or both. A curved Geometric wall outside Megaron B could be either the remains of a Geometric Demeter temple or a retaining wall added to the still-standing Bronze Age structure. In any case, the earliest unequivocal evidence of the cult are the massive eighth- century terrace and a wall enclosing the whole area, with a sacrificial pyre full of broken figurines, pottery, and ashes at the entrance. 11
Eleusis lies at the edge of the Thriasian plain, the "bread basket" of Attica; it was bound to be of interest to the emerging polis. 12 Legend tells of a war between the two towns when Erechtheus was king at Athens and Eumolpos, the first celebrant of the Mysteries, at Eleusis. The resulting settlement left financial control of the cult entirely in Athenian hands, while ritual respon- sibilities were shared between two aristocratic families, the Eumolpidai of
73
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Eleusis and the Kerykes of Athens. The chief priest of the Mysteries, the Hierophant (Revealer of Sacred Things) was always a Eumolpid, while the Keryx (Herald) and Dadouchos (Torchbearer), other important officials, were both Kerykes. Second only to the Hierophant was the Priestess of Demeter and Kore, who might come from a number of different families. Hers was probably the oldest office associated with the cult, for her duties extended to several of the local, deme-level festivals of Demeter at Eleusis. Inscriptions reveal an ongoing struggle for ritual authority between the Hiero- phant and the Priestess of Demeter in the fourth century, when a Hierophant was convicted of impiety for usurping the Priestess' right to preside at the Haloa. Many of the sacred personnel connected with the Mysteries seem to have held their offices for life, a fact that sets the Eleusinian priesthoods apart from most others among the Greeks. 13
Initiation to the Mysteries required time, effort, and a cost that, while substantial, was not out of reach even for the poor. Those who wished to participate were expected to undergo a long period of preparation, beginning with the Lesser Mysteries in Anthesterion, seven months before the Eleusinian festival. Little is known of the Lesser Mysteries, but they took place in the suburb of Agrai at Athens in the sanctuary of Meter/Rhea, and they involved purification of candidates by bathing in the Ilissos river or through the use of the Dios ko ? idion, a sacred fleece obtained by sacrificing a ram to Zeus Meilichios. Together with the Sacred Way that connected Athens to Eleusis, and the city Eleusinion between the agora and the northwest corner of the Akropolis, the Lesser Mysteries helped to cement the relationship between Athens and Eleusis and shaped the "Athenian" identity of the festival as a whole.
Candidates for initiation, or mustai (those whose eyes are closed), had to seek a sponsor from the Eumolpidai or Kerykes to guide their spiritual prepar- ation, known as mue ? sis. On 13 and 14 Boedromion (September/October), the hiera (sacred objects) were brought in procession from Eleusis to the Athenian Eleusinion, and their safe arrival was announced to the priestess of Athena on the Akropolis. Priestesses from Eleusis carried these objects in boxes on their heads, so they cannot have been large or heavy, but we know nothing else about them except that they played a central role in the climactic rite. The next day was the first day of the Mysteries proper, the Agyrmos (Gathering). All assembled in the agora for a formal proclamation by the Hierophant and Dadouchos. Anyone unable to speak Greek, ritually impure, or conscious of having committed a crime was asked to abstain from the rite. At this time the mustai probably paid their fees, which have been calculated as the equivalent of several days' wages. The sixteenth of Boedromion was a day of purification. Directed by the heralds, the mustai brought piglets to Phaleron or Peiraieus, where they bathed in the sea and washed the animals. Each then sacrificed the piglet "on his/her own behalf. " The next day was allotted to major state sacrifices, and the eighteenth was the Epidauria, a
74
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
subsidiary festival of Asklepios that began in 420 when the cult of Asklepios and Hygieia was introduced at Athens on this day. 14
The nineteenth brought the great pompe ? (procession) and escort of the hiera back to Eleusis. Wearing garlands of myrtle and carrying bunches of myrtle twigs or bundles of provisions attached to the end of sticks, the mustai set out in a merry mood to walk about 22 km to the sanctuary. They were led by Iakchos, the god who personified the ritual cry "Iakche! " Because of the boisterous tone of the parade and similarity between the names Iakchos and Bakchos, the former began at an early date to be associated with Dionysos, yet he is a distinct Eleusinian deity. 15 After arriving at the outer court of the sanctuary, where there was a temple of Artemis Propylaia (Before the Gate- way) and the Eleusinian patron deity Poseidon, the mustai spent the rest of the evening celebrating the "reception of Iakchos" and singing and dancing at the well called Kallichoron (Place of Beautiful Dances). Perhaps this was also the day when kernoi, special offering trays equipped with cups of various seeds and grains, were presented to the goddess. The next day saw the offering of the pelanos, a massive cake of barley and wheat harvested from the sacred Rharian plain, and other sacrifices financed from the "first fruit" offerings (aparchai) tithed to Demeter and Kore. The mustai mean- while fasted, and finally broke their fast with the kukeo ? n, a posset of barley water and an aromatic herb, pennyroyal. These actions, and others to follow, imitated the activities of Demeter when her daughter had disappeared; Demeter's fast and request for the kuko ? n is recorded in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2. 208-10).
With evening began the secret part of the ritual, when the mustai were admitted into the confines of the sanctuary proper. This was situated on the southwest slope of the Eleusinian akropolis, and had two main components. First was the rocky cliff containing a cave that served as a cult place for Theos (God) and Thea (Goddess), the Eleusinian titles for Plouton and Persephone in their roles as king and queen of the dead. With them was worshiped a deity or hero named Eubouleus, whose role was similar to that of Hermes in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: he is shown on vase paintings holding torches in the presence of Theos and Thea, ready to guide the goddess back to the upper world for a reunion with her grieving mother. The agelastos petros (Mirth- less Rock), where Demeter is supposed to have sat mourning the loss of her daughter, was probably also in this rocky area. Passing by the cave with its small shrine, the mustai would have followed a path up to the principal structure, the initiation hall known to scholars as the Telesterion, but in Classical times called the neo ? s (temple) or anaktoron (lord's hall). Starting in the late seventh or early sixth century, a succession of ever-larger temples was built over the old Mycenaean Megaron B, each one containing an inner room whose position was kept constant. The design of this "temple" differs dramat- ically from those of other gods, for unlike most Greek temples, it was designed to hold a large number of people and includes seating around the walls. 16
75
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
The sources give us only a glimpse of what took place in this room amid the forest of columns, the actual telete ? (mystery rite). Certainly the initiates were guided on an emotional path from confusion and grief to confidence and joy, and this progression seems to have corresponded to the events in a ritual drama depicting Kore's return from the underworld and her reunion with Demeter. At a critical moment, the Hierophant appeared from the inner room in a blaze of torchlight to display the hiera to the onlookers. Those who had experienced the Mysteries in a previous year were permitted to remain in the Telesterion for a further revelation; such individuals were called epoptai (those who have seen). Following the climactic rites, bulls and pigs were sacri- ficed to the goddesses and other Eleusinian deities, while initiates used special vessels called ple ? mochoai to pour libations of water toward the east and west.
On the day after the Mysteries concluded, the Athenian Council met in the city Eleusinion to review the conduct of the festival and deal with any infractions of sacred law; this custom was attributed to a law of Solon. The earliest votive deposits in the Eleusinion date to the seventh century, and it received architectural elaboration in the sixth. It contained a temple of Demeter and Kore, altars, and many inscribed decrees relating to the conduct of the Mysteries, as well as a temple of Triptolemos, the Eleusinian hero who is said to have introduced the knowledge of grain cultivation to the world, flying about in his winged chariot. 17
Particularly in the period of empire, Athens promoted the Mysteries, along with the knowledge imparted by Triptolemos, as its unique gifts to the world. Heralds were sent to other cities to declare a sacred truce of fifty-five days, which allowed time for pilgrims to travel to Athens, be initiated, and return home. The first fruits decree (IG I3 78), issued c. 435, details the collection of an annual tithe of grain from every deme in Attica and the Athenian allies, and urges that every Greek city likewise join in the offering. 18 We don't know how many Greek cities heeded this rather high-handed request, but Athens clearly succeeded in securing for Eleusis a Panhellenic reputation and status, which it maintained until the end of antiquity. Even as the cult gained renown across the Greek world, however, the "Eleusinian version" of the Demeter/Kore myth remained surprisingly localized. Other cities often had their own versions of the myth that failed to be displaced because they, like the traditions at Eleusis, were venerable tales tied to local landmarks (wells, caves, or rocky outcroppings). Even the Homeric Hymn to Demeter reflects a generic, Panhellenized version of the Attic cult: Eubouleus, the titles Theos and Thea, and the Mirthless Rock are omitted from the story, while Tripto- lemos is barely mentioned.
Demeter at Korinth
On a steep slope of the Akrokorinthos, some fifteen minutes' walk from the city center, Demeter's principal sanctuary at Korinth was constructed in a
76
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
? Figure6. 1 DemeterandKoreorHekate. Reliefsculpture,fifthcentury. Archaeological Museum, Eleusis. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
series of three terraces. Though there was continuous activity on the site from the Late Bronze Age, no evidence for a cult appears until a series of pins and rings deposited in the mid-eighth century. Even at this early date the offerings give the impression of a strong female presence at the site. In the seventh century a wider variety of offerings appears in the middle terrace, including bronze jewelry, miniature vases, and terracotta figurines. A small but sub- stantial building, probably a temple, was already present in this period. The middle terrace, with its temple, sacrificial area, bone debris (primarily from pigs), and votive collections, served as the nucleus of the cult for its first hundred and fifty years, while the upper terrace contained a theatral area that was probably used for a mystery rite.
In the sixth century came a major architectural development: numerous dining rooms were constructed on the lower terrace. Ritual dining in this area was probably not new, but the Korinthians now expended considerable resources on dining facilities. Each room held from six to eight diners, who reclined on stone couches. By mid-century, the sanctuary could accommodate about one hundred diners at once. The ritual menu seems to have focused not on sacrificial meat, but on grain-based foods. One of the characteristic votive offerings at this site was the terracotta liknon (winnowing fan) filled with a
77
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
variety of model breads and cakes. The cooking vessels are the types used for boiling and stewing, so gruels or porridge may also have been an important menu item. Finally, numerous wine cups (kantharoi and skuphoi), mixing bowls and amphoras show that wine was consumed with the meal.
Who partook of these meals is a mystery. On the one hand, elaborate dining facilities, reclining posture, and wine consumption are associated with men's symposia. Yet the abundance of women's votive offerings, the empha- sis on grain-based foods, and the fact that this was a Demeter sanctuary point toward a women's festival such as the Thesmophoria. In any case, the expansion of the dining facilities at Korinth continued through the fifth and fourth centuries. Eventually, more than two hundred diners at once could use the rooms, which were provided with extra spaces for food preparation and washing. To judge from the scarcity of imported offerings here (relative to a sanctuary like that of Hera at Perachora), the cult seems to have attracted few outsiders. 19
The Two Goddesses are said to have played a role in the success of Timoleon, the Korinthian who was credited with the liberation of Syracuse from rule by Greek tyrants and Carthaginians. On the eve of Timoleon's expedition in 345/4, the priestesses of Demeter and Persephone reported a dream in which the goddesses appeared to them in traveling garb to announce that they would accompany Timoleon to Sicily. Much encouraged, the Korinthians dedicated a "sacred trireme" to the goddesses and set sail. On their journey, a great flame appeared in the night sky, and forming itself into a torch "like those used in the Mysteries," guided them to their destination. 20
Demeter Chthonia at Hermione
Pausanias (2. 35. 4-11) is our most detailed source for the famous cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Underworld) at the remote town of Hermione in the Argolid. Hermione was not a Dorian town, but was settled by the aboriginal Dryopes when the Dorians expelled them from Thessaly. This cult is unusual in its emphasis on the role of Hades (who is given the euphemistic name of Klymenos, the Renowned One). Examination of the site has revealed a lengthy section of wall, which probably marked off the Classical sanctuary, a series of inscribed bronze cows (which relate to the ritual described below), and numerous late inscriptions. It is difficult to know from Pausanias' second-century CE account which elements of the ritual date back to the Classical period. He reports that the Chthonia festival took place in the summer and began with a procession of all the priests, magistrates, and townspeople, even the children. Dressed in white and crowned with wreaths made from a local summer wildflower, they led a heifer to the sanctuary, where it was allowed to roam about until it entered the open doors of the temple. Inside, four old women rose from their ceremonial thrones and
78
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
pursued the heifer until one of them cut its throat with a sickle. Three more cows were slaughtered for the goddess in the same way.
The indoor sacrifice is very unusual, but can be explained as the result of the strict gender segregation practiced in the cult. The cult statue of Chthonia was so sacred that only the old women were permitted to view it, and the exclusion of men seems to have extended to the sacrificial slaughter, usually a male prerogative. Although the whole city participated in the festival, its climactic ritual acts had to take place in seclusion, away from male eyes. Chthonia seems to have been an important Dryopian goddess, for the Dryopes of Asine, a neighboring town, sent a sacrificial cow and a delegation to walk in the procession even after they were forced to emigrate to Messenia (IG IV 679. 1-2). Opposite Chthonia's sanctuary was that of Klymenos, and the area was famed for its entrance to the underworld, an opening in the earth from which Herakles once emerged, it was said, leading Kerberos. Although Kore plays no role in Pausanias' description of the cult, she appears with Demeter Chthonia and Klymenos in numerous dedicatory inscriptions from Hermione. A fragmentary hymn composed by the sixth-century poet Lasos of Hermione confirms that worship of the triad Demeter, Klymenos, and Kore was the norm in the late Archaic period as well. 21
Demeter and Despoina in Arkadia
According to Herodotus (2. 171), the telete ? (secret rite) of Demeter which the Greeks call the Thesmophoria was mostly abandoned in the Peloponnese with the arrival of the Dorians, but was preserved among the Arkadians, whose lands were not penetrated by the invaders. Certainly the worship of Demeter was far more prominent in Arkadia than elsewhere in the Pelopon- nese. The Arkadia of the poets is a mountainous, wild land sparsely inhabited by goatherds and hunters, but the district also encompassed fertile lowlands where cereal crops were grown. Like so many other Arkadian cults, with their pronounced tendency toward theriomorphic (animal-shaped) gods, the worship of the Two Goddesses in this isolated district seems strange and primeval, the remnant of a very early syncretism of Greek and indigenous traditions.
The Arkadians worshiped an equine Demeter, consort of the horse-god Poseidon Hippios. They held in common with the other Greeks the belief that Demeter angrily withdrew to an earthly abode and caused a crisis in the natural world because of her rage at the abduction of her daughter. Demeter's anger was further attributed to her unwilling union with Poseidon. In order to escape his lustful pursuit, she transformed herself into a mare, but he saw through the trick and forced himself on her in the form of a stallion. Their offspring were the miraculous horse Areion and a daughter, the Arkadian equivalent of Kore, whose true name was revealed only to initiates. In public, their daughter was called Despoina (the Mistress). This story was attached to
79
DEMETER AND KORE/PERSEPHONE
Thelpousa, where Demeter had the title Erinys (the Wrathful One), and a similar myth about Erinys is attested for Telphousa/Tilphossa in Boiotia. 22 Demeter also had the title of Lousia (of Washing) at Thelpousa, because she purified herself in the river Ladon after intercourse with Poseidon and let go of her anger. Demeter Erinys and Demeter Lousia thus form a complemen- tary pair representing angry and appeased manifestations of the goddess.
The Thelpousan cult is closely related to that at Phigaleia, where Demeter's Archaic statue had the head of a horse and was housed in a cave on the rocky gorge of the river Neda, well outside the city. To this cave Demeter had withdrawn, causing a famine until her anger abated. She was known as Melaina (the Black) because she dressed all in black to express her mood; scholars generally interpret her blackness, which is a feature shared by the Erinyes, as a sign of her underworld nature. The statue was seated on a rock with serpents and other creatures emerging from its mane, and it held a dolphin in one hand and in the other a dove. This Demeter is a Mistress of Animals and has close affinities with the gorgon Medousa, who similarly sported snaky hair, mated with Poseidon, and gave birth to a miraculous horse (Pegasos). Kore/Despoina has little involvement in this cult, nor is Demeter primarily a grain goddess. Every year the people set upon an altar outside the cave samples of all the raw materials produced in their land, including grapes, honeycombs, and wool, and poured olive oil over these in an attempt to appease the disgruntled goddess. According to Pausanias (8. 42. 5-7), this was a revival of an Archaic cult that had fallen into disuse. The original theriomorphic statue was lost to a fire in the distant past. On the occasion of a blight, the people consulted Delphi and were told to replace the statue of "stallion-mated Deo," whose anger had been renewed by the people's neglect. Onatas of Aigina, a sculptor active in the fifth century, was given the commission, and inspired by a dream and perhaps an old copy of the image, he re-created it. 23
The Arkadian cults of Demeter resulted from a complex process combining the old Mycenaean goddess Erinys, who was early on linked to Poseidon Hippios and whose offspring was a horse, with the Panhellenic and Eleusinian Demeter who bore a daughter.
