No More Learning

The pre-Greek Lemnians, known to Homer as Sinties, were credited with the invention of fire and the technique of forging weapons. Hephaistos is similar to craft-related daimones like the Telchines of Rhodes, the Idaian Daktyloi, and the Kyklopes who forged Zeus' thunderbolts, though his individual personality is more fully developed. In certain myths he is a craftsman-magician, creator of fabulous animated statues with talis- manic and apotropaic powers. Corresponding rituals intended to imbue real statues with such powers are unattested for our period in Greece, but were well known in Assyria, Anatolia, and Egypt. 10
Yet Hephaistos is also an elemental deity whose name functions (e. g. Hom. Il. 2. 426) as a synonym for fire. He is perhaps the god of the famous yearly fire festival at Lemnos, which involved the extinguishing of all fire on the island for nine days, until a ship brought new fire from which all the domestic hearths and forges could be kindled anew and purified. In the time of Philostratus of Lemnos (c. 215 CE), our source for this festival, the fire was brought from Delos, but if the festival existed in the Classical period, the new fire may have been the gift of the island's patron deity. In Sophocles' Philoctetes (986), the title character stranded on Lemnos cries out to "Lem- nian earth and the all-powerful flame wrought by Hephaistos. "11
The major locus of Hephaistos' cult outside Lemnos was Athens, where the god was integrated very early into the local pantheon and had a special affinity with Athena. The two were honored in the Chalkeia (Bronzework) festival as patrons of craft workers. As a fire deity, Hephaistos was particu- larly important to those who worked with forges and kilns. People set up clay statues and plaques of the god beside hearths and kilns as an "overseer" of the fire. Local legend also held that the birth of the primordial king Erech- theus from the Earth came about as a result of a comically unsuccessful rape attempt by Hephaistos, who had conceived a passion for Athena. Hephaistos therefore was ancestral to the people and had an altar in the Erechtheion.
159
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
? Figure12. 1 Temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian agora. Erich Lessing: Art Resource.
During the Apatouria, the festival at which a man's sons were presented for enrollment as citizens, certain Athenians dressed in magnificent clothing and lit torches "from the hearth" while singing hymns for Hephaistos. 12 A fragmentary decree of 421/20 (IG I3 82) shows that the Hephaisteia was reorganized in that year as a large-scale celebration including a torch race, sponsored by the tribes, and an interesting contest of "ox-lifting" to be per- formed by two hundred chosen youths, with the oxen subsequently sacrificed to the god. 13 In the same year, Alkamenes began work on the cult statues for the new temple of Hephaistos, which overlooked the busy commercial center of the city and, uniquely, was destined to survive into modern times almost fully preserved. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the bronze cult statues, one of Athena and one of Hephaistos, though later copies give us clues to their appearance. Ancient visitors praised this statue of the god because it minimized his deformity. 14
Hestia
The perpetual virginity of Hestia, whose name simply means "hearth," reflects the Greek belief that fire and the fireplace must be kept pure and inviolate. The hearth was the center of domestic cult; it symbolized the integrity of the individual household, and by extension, the chastity of the
160
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
resident women. Hesiod (Op. 733-34) advises men not to expose their genitals before the hearth after sex, and hearth fires polluted by proximity to corpses or violated by enemies needed to be extinguished and lit anew from a pure source. In spite of her great antiquity and her status as an Olympian god, Hestia remained one of the least anthropomorphic of Greek deities, without a fully developed mythology. The newborn child was carried around the hearth and laid upon the ground to indicate its acceptance into the family, while the outcast suppliant crouched at an alien hearth to indicate his homeless state. Hestia as a divine personality appears to have no role in these rituals, yet the hearth, hestia, is no less revered. Homer does not mention a personal goddess Hestia, but in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5. 30-32), she "sit[s] in the center of the house, taking a rich portion" of daily offerings and is honored in all temples. Hestia's priority is the distinguishing feature of her cult. According to a widely observed ritual protocol, Hestia was men- tioned first of the gods when oaths were sworn, and received an offering first when sacrifices were performed. This was the custom followed at Olympia, where Hestia was honored before Olympian Zeus himself. 15
During the Bronze and early Iron Ages, the sacral power of the domestic hearth was extended to the king's or chieftain's hearth as the symbol of civic continuity and integrity. With the development of the polis, this function was transferred to a communal civic hearth, usually located in the city hall or prutaneion. With a few exceptions, state cults of Hestia were conducted in these halls, which often functioned as dining rooms, rather than in separate sanctuaries. The civic hearth was in many ways analogous to the home hearth, for it was here that important guests were brought to receive the city's hospitality. Inscriptions from around the Greek world show that civic officials honored Hestia when they began their service. One such man was Aristagoras, who served on the governing council of the island Tenedos in the fifth century. Pindar's eleventh Nemean ode (11. 1-7), commissioned for his installation, asks Hestia to welcome Aristagoras to the prutaneion, where "they often worship you first among the gods with libations, and often with savory smoke. " Finally, when a city was founded, the colonists brought cinders from the prutaneion in their hometown to light the fires on their new hearths and altars. 16
Hestia's special relationship with Hermes is recognized in the Homeric Hymn to Hestia (29. 7-12), where the two are invoked as dear friends who dwell in and protect the house together. Both are the objects of domestic cult and both are concerned, more than the other gods, with the doings of epichthonioi, those "who live on the surface of the earth. " Also present in this pairing is an implicit recognition of the way the two deities govern gendered space and movement in relation to the home. Hestia, the most immobile of goddesses, marks and anchors the center of the home, just as the women of the house ideally remain indoors and aloof from contact with strangers. Conversely, Hermes guards the door and governs movement in
161
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
and out, just as the masculine role is to work under the sun and deal with strangers. Iconographic convention also linked these two gods. They appeared as a pair, for example, on the altar of Amphiaraos at Oropos and on the statue base of Pheidias' Olympian Zeus. 17
Charites
The Charites (Graces) are familiar in Greek poetry as companions of the Olympian gods. They are beauty experts who bathe, anoint, and dress Aphrodite in her shrine on Paphos, and they ensure the success of every entertainment on Olympos, enthroned beside Apollo or dancing around him while he plays the lyre. Greek charis denotes, among other things, joy in the giving and receiving of gifts, divine favor that results in athletic or military glory, and anything that is beautiful to the senses, as well as the response it engenders. 18 "All things sweet and pleasant for mortals" come about through the Charites according to Pindar (Ol. 14. 4-6, 13-15), whose ode for a victor from Boiotian Orchomenos celebrates the "much-sung queens of the city," naming them Aglaia (Shining), Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thaleia (Blooming). Rather unexpectedly, these paragons of pleasure and beauty were worshiped in Orchomenos as a triad of stones. The city was a Mycenaean stronghold, occupied in the prehistoric period by a Greek tribe known as the Minyai and long remembered for its fabled riches. Later accounts firmly link the worship of the Charites to these early inhabitants, while the founder of the cult was said to be a primordial king, Eteokles. The stones representing the goddesses fell from heaven, and Eteokles was the first to sacrifice to them. 19 The Greeks occasionally used unworked stones as cult objects, a practice that was common in the Near East and is paralleled in the Boiotian cults of Eros at Thespiai and Herakles at Hyettos.
Strabo (9. 2. 40) links the riches of Orchomenos with the cult of the Charites and the strong reciprocal element in the Greek concept of charis: the wealth of the city allowed it to give and receive abundantly. Usually the Charites are considered goddesses of water and vegetation, essentially nymphs in origin, and indeed they were closely associated with both the local river Kephisos and a spring Akidalia (or Argaphia). Orchomenos owed its prosperity to the fertility of the marshy Kopaic plain, and the grateful citizens allotted the Charites a share of its produce. 20 Yet the habit of personifying abstracts was an old one, and the concept of charis, so fundamental to Greek culture, surely shaped the worship from its earliest days. Certainly it was instrumental in the spread of the cult. According to Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1133a), shrines of the Charites were set up to serve as reminders of the special quality of charis: one ought not only to repay favors, but also initiate them. The Classical sanctuary of the Charites at Orchomenos, including their temple, has been identified but not fully excavated. Little else is known about their Archaic and Classical cult, though the dramatic and musical contests of the Hellen-
162
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
istic Charitesia may have begun in the late Classical period when the theater was built. 21
The Charites were worshiped at an early date on Paros, where legend had it that Minos was sacrificing to them when he received word of his son's death in Athens. Because he ripped the garland from his head and stopped the music, ritual law decreed that the sacrifices ever after be conducted with neither garland nor flute. This story has been taken as evidence of the antiquity of the cult (because the islanders associated it with the reign of Minos) and its chthonian orientation (because it was associated with mourn- ing and the ritual was austere). A relief sculpture of the three goddesses from Paros, now in Munich, confirms the Archaic date of the cult and features heavily draped Charites, for the familiar iconography of three entwined nudes is a late development. Callimachus (fr. 7. 11-12 Pf. ), pictures these Parian goddesses garbed in resplendent gowns with unguents dripping from their hair. Colonists carried the cult to Thasos, where Apollo with the nymphs and Hermes with the Charites, sculpted in the fifth century, adorned the entrance to the old city. 22
In Athens, the Charites were worshiped, again with Hermes, on a much- copied relief at the entrance to the Akropolis. Popular belief held that the sculptor was the philosopher Sokrates, whose father was a stonecutter, though scholars are skeptical. While the Akropolis sculpture was produced in the Classical period and showed a canonical triad of Charites, Pausanias remarks (9. 35. 1-7) that in the oldest Athenian cult the Charites were two, Auxo (Increase) and Hegemone (Leader). He mentions a third goddess, Thallo (Blossoming), whom he says is properly one of the Horai (Seasons), another divine plurality often associated with the Charites. Auxo, Hegemone, and Thallo were among the witnesses to the oath of the ephebes, and they represented agricultural abundance, the powers that invigorated the land and ripened the crops. The fact that a secret telete ? (initiation) was conducted at the Akropolis shrine is consistent with this function. 23
Eileithyia
While a Panhellenic tradition made Eileithyia one of the younger goddesses, child of Hera and Zeus, she is one of the few Greek deities who demonstrably existed in the Bronze Age. A Linear B tablet from Knossos mentions a jar of honey sent to Eleuthia at Amnisos, and others record offerings of wool. A large cave faces the sea at the harbor of Amnisos, probably the same one the Odyssey (19. 188) calls "the cave of Eileithyia. " It contained Neolithic, Bronze Age, Archaic, and Roman pottery clustered around a stalagmite used as a focus of worship, but no other identifiable votive objects. Near the cave, however, is a sanctuary constructed over an old Minoan site, which yielded votive objects from the eighth and seventh centuries: bronze bovines and men, Orientalizing nude females, and Egyptian figurines including the fertility
163
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
god Bes. Perhaps both sites were sacred to the goddess of birth pangs. The use of cave sanctuaries was, of course, a well-established feature of Minoan religion. Another Kretan cave at Inatos is assigned to the goddess because of its votives: from the late Minoan through the early Archaic period, people left figurines of pregnant and nursing women, erotic groups, jewelry, and other items. As at Amnisos, Bes figurines imported from Egypt were present; these may have been used as amulets during childbirth. The idea that Eileithyia should be worshiped in a cave seems to have been exported to Paros, where a cave sanctuary functioned from late Geometric through Roman times. 24
Eileithyia's name is not Greek in origin and probably derives from the little-understood Minoan language. Its early diffusion and initial unfamiliarity to Greek ears led to a plethora of dialect forms; the Peloponnesian Eleuthia or Eleusia is closest to the Mycenaean spelling. During the Archaic period, Eileithyia's cult was most prolific in Krete, the Peloponnese (particularly Lakonia, which had close relations with Krete), and the Cyclades. From an early date, she was associated with the Apolline triad. On Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, she was especially honored. Olen of Lykia, a legendary hymnist and prophet, was credited with the suite of ancient hymns, including one to Eileithyia, that celebrated Delian sacred history. None survive, but we know that they told how the goddess came to the island from the land of the Hyperboreans in preparation for Leto's travail. In her hymn, Eileithyia was lauded as the "good spinner" (eulinon), "older than Kronos," and "mother of Eros. " The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 95-116) gives her a less exalted but still indispensable role, and recounts Hera's spiteful scheme to delay her visit to Delos. Summoned at last by Iris, Eileithyia's arrival allowed Apollo to spring forth from the womb. She possessed a temple on Delos, perhaps within the boundaries of Apollo's sanctuary. Hellenistic inscriptions give us information about repairs to the temple, sacrifices and banquets during the Eileithyiaia in the month of Posideion, and an inventory of offerings to the goddess (vases, jewelry, votive plaques of gold and silver), which were given exclusively by women. 25
In Sparta we find the oldest record of Eileithyia's cult on the Greek mainland. Pausanias' description (3. 17. 1) of a sanctuary of Eileithyia near that of Artemis Ortheia was confirmed by the discovery of part of a bronze dress pin and a bronze die, both inscribed with the birth-goddess' name and both from the seventh or sixth century. Other scattered artifacts of Archaic and Classical date, together with Pausanias' description of seven sanctuaries and three temples, complete the picture of a cult well established in all areas of the Peloponnese. At Olympia, Eileithyia seems to be cast as a divine kourotrophos or nurturer of the young. There she was worshiped near the hill of Kronos in an Archaic temple shared with the mysterious infant daimo ? n Sosipolis (City-Savior). According to local legend, a woman guided by a dream brought the suckling child to the Elean army when the city was under attack by Arkadians. Placed at the head of the army, the child turned into a
164
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
serpent as the enemy charged, throwing them into confusion. Eileithyia's kourotrophic function is a natural outgrowth of her concern for pregnant and parturient women, and many of her sanctuaries featured thank offerings made for the survival of children. 26
Whereas in Boiotia and Thessaly the functions and name of this ancient goddess were absorbed by Artemis, worship of an independent Eileithyia continued in Attica, which followed the Delian/Kretan cult traditions. Describing the shrine of Eileithyia near the Athenian Olympieion, Pausanias' informants (1. 18. 5) said that "the women" attributed two of the three ancient wooden statues to Krete and one to Delos. The fact that women were the authorities in this matter is consistent with the sacerdotal arrangements at the sanctuaries of Hermione and Olympia: only women served Eileithyia and access to her inner sanctum, with its sacred images, was sometimes restricted. 27 The orator Isaeus (5. 39) provides an interesting footnote on the significance of this cult for women. In a speech against Dikaiogenes, the narrator tells how the malefactor's mother seated herself as a suppliant in the shrine of Eileithyia and publicly reproached her son for crimes "too shameful to repeat. " Presumably the goddess could be relied upon to punish an ungrateful child.
Hekate
According to the current scholarly consensus, Hekate originated as a goddess in the pantheon of Karia on the west coast of Asia Minor. In Lagina, the home of her largest known sanctuary, she was the preeminent deity, ensuring the security and prosperity of the inhabitants and maintaining close relations with the Karian equivalent of Zeus. So far, none of the archaeological evidence for her cult at Lagina predates the Hellenistic period. Yet a number of Karian personal names contain the Hekat- root, suggesting that it is not Greek in origin, and that her worship was native to this area. In the Archaic period, her cult was apparently adopted by the Karians' Greek neighbors, and was particularly prominent at Miletos, where she had an altar before the prutaneion as early as the sixth century and a shrine at the city gates by the fifth. A single terracotta figure inscribed with her name reveals her presence in Athens by the late sixth century. 28
Her absence from Homer and the paucity of myths about her suggest a rela- tively late entry into the Panhellenic pantheon, and while her role in Hesiod's Theogony (411-52) is substantial, it is also anomalous. For Hesiod, Hekate is a mighty goddess who has a surprisingly wide range of special prerogatives from Zeus: she assists kings and speakers in the assembly, gives victory in battle and athletics, helps mariners, fishermen, and herdsmen, and acts as a kourotrophos. 29 While this portrait of the goddess conflicts with most of what we know about her Classical Greek cults, it closely resembles the Karian conception of her, right down to the special relationship with Zeus.
165
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
One of our few other Archaic sources is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, in which Hekate, together with the sun god Helios, witnesses the rape of Persephone (implicit in these lines is the later concept of Hekate as a moon goddess). At the end of the poem, Hekate becomes the companion of Persephone, who "goes before and follows after" her as she travels between the upper and lower worlds. This is our first evidence of what was to become Hekate's most important role, as a deity who provided protection during transitions of all kinds, which were by nature perilous. It was in the inter- stices between safely defined territories (home, sanctuary, city) and times (new and old month) that dangerous spirits were emboldened to attack the unwary. Her very power to protect, of course, derived from her intimacy with and control over these spirits, the untimely and restless dead. By the Classical period, protective statues of Hekate (hekataia) were ubiquitous in Athens, functioning as complements to the older herms, and monthly garlanding of the family statues was a sign of conventional piety. The triple- formed Hekate sculpted by Alkamenes (c. 430) for the entrance to the Athen- ian Akropolis is the most famous example. A Hekate who simultaneously faced in different directions was presumably a more efficacious guardian; the form also expresses visually the goddess' role as mistress of the crossroads, dangerous transitional spots where one was likely to encounter prosti- tutes and other dispossessed persons as well as angry ghosts. In Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (Root-cutters), Hekate has a place on Olympos but also dwells at the crossroads; she is a terrifying figure crowned with oak leaves and serpents. 30 Aristophanes (Plut. 594-97) and others tell how those who could afford it sent deipna (dinners) to Hekate at the crossroads when the new moon arrived. A related practice was the use of sacrificial dogs for the puri- fication of private houses; the remains were set out at the crossroads for the goddess. Because the Greeks did not normally consume the meat of dogs, these sacrifices were doubly marked as outside the norm. Only extreme poverty or impiety would move someone to eat such food. 31
Just as Kybele was assimilated to Greek Rhea, Hekate was sometimes accommodated in the Greek pantheon as an aspect of Artemis (both were thought to have an interest in weddings, childbirth, and the care of the young). Aeschylus (Supp. 676-77), for example, described Artemis-Hekate as a guardian of women in labor. An important Archaic version of Iphigeneia's myth (recounted by Stesichorus among others) held that when Artemis demanded her sacrifice, the heroine was transformed into Hekate or Artemis- Hekate. 32 Sometime before the fifth century, Hekate was also fully syncre- tized with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (She in the Road) and began to use her name as an epithet. Lacking evidence for the early nature of Enodia, we cannot say which of the two goddesses contributed the many characteristics they share, but given the longstanding association of Thessaly with drugs and witchcraft, it is logical to assume that Hekate's role as a patron of magical practitioners originated here. Hekate's interest in sorcery is attested first in
166
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (fr. 534 TrGF), where she is invoked by Thessalian women as they gather powerful herbs. Enodia also functioned, like Hekate, as a guardian of private houses and a protector of children. Fifth-century Thessalians set up small statues of the goddess in front of or inside houses, asking her aid "for a child's sake. "33
Another relatively early center of Hekate's Greek cult was Aigina, where Myron's wooden statue stood in the goddess' sanctuary. We do not know whether the mysteries of Hekate mentioned by Pausanias (2. 30. 2) were already celebrated in the Classical period, but the Aiginetan cult is unusual in any case because the goddess rarely achieved such full integration into any civic pantheon. Sanctuaries devoted primarily to Hekate were unusual, and the development of civic cult was probably hampered by the continuing growth of the goddess' reputation as a deity invoked for private and nefar- ious purposes. As early as the mid-fourth century, Hekate Chthonia (of the Underworld) and Chthonic Hermes are the deities named in an Attic curse tablet incised on lead, which was intended to bind and neutralize the author's opponent in a lawsuit. 34
Erinyes
Erinys is named in offering lists on at least two Linear B tablets from Knossos. We do not know how much, if any, of the Mycenaean goddess' personality persisted in the Erinys and plural Erinyes of later centuries, but an Arkadian word erinuo ? , "to be angry," seems to be derived from her name. Anger is also an important component in the personality of Arkadian Demeter Erinys, a descendant of the Mycenaean goddess. 35 The Homeric Erinyes (or Erinys), who inhabit the underworld (Il. 9. 571-72, 19. 259, etc. ), are concerned with the punishment of deviant behavior, especially transgressions of filial duty and respect. Outraging a parent, committing a murder of a blood relative, or breaking an oath were all actions that aroused the anger and merciless pursuit of the goddesses. Both dead and living relatives, especially mothers, were thought to have the power to awake the Erinyes through curses. Although by nature inimical to the processes by which the claims of the family and blood ties give way to the demands of larger social groups, they were successfully integrated into polis religion. This process is memorialized in Aeschylus' Eumenides, which shows how the goddesses' enduring powers could be harnessed for the benefit of the state through a program of propitiation.
In local cult contexts, the Panhellenic name "Erinyes" was assiduously avoided in favor of euphemistic titles. 36 The Athenians consistently used the name Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses) in their principal cult, an ancient observance that was closely related to the Council of the Areopagos. A relic of Athens' earliest constitution, the Council lost most of its political clout by Solon's day but remained highly respected as the court before which
167
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
homicides were tried. The abode of the Semnai Theai was a chasm beside the Areios pagos (Hill of Ares), where according to legend the goddesses were persuaded to descend after their unsuccessful prosecution of the matricide Orestes.
We learn from the Attic orators and their scholiasts that legal proceedings were limited to the last three days of the month, which were sacred to the three Semnai Theai (and inauspicious days for any other busi- ness to be carried out). Each party at the start of a trial took a solemn oath over the cut pieces of a boar, a ram, and a bull, calling down ruin on himself and his descendants if he lied. When a man was acquitted of murder, sacrifice to the Semnai Theai was required to satisfy their anger. The Athenians also conducted an annual torchlight procession for the goddesses, in which the family of the Hesychidai (the "silent ones," referring to the solemn silence kept during the proceedings) played a leading role. The women of the Hesychidai formed a college of priestesses attending the goddesses. Other citizens, of whom the orator Demosthenes was one, were also selected to serve as hieropoioi (doers of sacred things). Wine was excluded from the worship (a feature typical of old chthonian cults), and offerings consisted of cakes and libations of milk or honey. The grove of the Eumenides (Kindly Ones) in the Athenian town of Kolonos, associated with the hero Oedipus, hosted an independent cult of the goddesses (who were also locally known as Semnai Theai) with its own unique rituals. Both sanctuaries were known as places where suppliants could find refuge. 37
Worship of the Eumenides and similar goddesses was widespread in the Peloponnese, where it was associated with Orestes, or less often, Oedipus. Near Megalopolis in Arkadia was a sanctuary of the Maniai (Crazes), who maddened Orestes until he bit off his own finger. This is an extreme form of expiation, the sacrifice of an expendable body part. The satisfied goddesses, who had previously appeared black, now turned white and Orestes, recovered from his madness, established the custom of sacrifice to each group, enagismos to the black and thusia to the white. That the sanc- tuary was located in a place called Ake (cure) suggests that people sought healing there, perhaps for mental illnesses. 38 Material evidence of an Argive cult exists in the form of several votive reliefs dedicated to the Eumenides. One, inscribed as a thank offering, shows three benevolent-looking god- desses, each holding a flower in the left hand and a snake in the right. They are greeted by a couple approaching from the right side of the relief. These dedications from the fourth century illustrate a more personal, family- oriented cult practice, and show how the actual worship of these goddesses invariably focused not on their dark and threatening aspects, but on the benefits they could provide if properly appeased. 39
168
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Further reading
Harrison 1977a, b reconstructs the interior sculptures of the splendidly preserved temple to Hephaistos in the Athenian agora, while Faraone 1987 shows how the myths of Hephaistos as a maker of talismanic statues reflect ritual practices in the Near East. Vernant 1983a, a classic article, uses structuralist analysis to define Hestia in relation to Hermes. Marinatos 1996 reexamines the traditional identification of the Kretan cave at Amnisos as the shrine of Eileithyia. Johnston 1999 (203-87) includes the fullest recent discussions of Hekate and the Erinyes.
169
13
STRANGERS AND INDIGENES
Latecomer and regional deities
The "latecomers" of this chapter were adopted by Greeks only after the polis system, which implied regulation of the civic pantheon, was established in the eighth century. Therefore these deities faced a more challenging path to local, regional, and (in some cases) Panhellenic acceptance. Native to Phrygia, Thrace, Lydia, and elsewhere in the Aegean, they illustrate the fluidity of culture in the ancient world, and show that Greek pantheons were open to change well before the revolutionary developments of the Hellenistic period. On the other hand, the cults of "regional" deities such as Themis, Diktynna, Damia, and Auxesia were ancient but remained geographically restricted. They exemplify the resistance of local pantheons to the homogenizing pressures of Panhellenism, and - in the case of Aphaia/Athena - show how anomalous deities might eventually succumb.
Kybele
The most important goddess in the Phrygian pantheon was Matar Kubileya, the Mother of the Mountains. From the sixth century on, Greek religion knew her as Meter (the Mother), and poets called her Kybele, a personal name derived from her Phrygian title. In her homeland, her places of worship were door-shaped niches carved into rocky cliffs and hillsides. These were filled with high relief or freestanding images of the goddess, often holding a bird of prey or flanked by lions. A mistress of wild nature, Matar Kubileya was a close relative of the Bronze Age goddess who is depicted in Minoan gems standing on a mountain peak, flanked by twin lions; many variations of this goddess were worshiped throughout Anatolia. Some of the Ionians who first adopted her cult, like the Chians and Phokaians, continued the tradition of rural, rock-cut sanctuaries, but more often the motif of the goddess in the niche was transferred to the portable medium of stone votive reliefs. The popular appeal of Meter's cult is attested both by its rapid spread through the Greek world in the sixth century and by the abundance of votive reliefs and figurines depicting the goddess, found not only in sanctuaries, but also in
170
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
domestic contexts and tombs. On the other hand, "Meter" iconography was used to depict a wide range of goddesses, so without an inscription, secure identification of artifacts can be difficult. 1
Meter was quickly syncretized with Ge/Gaia, with Demeter, and especially with the Titaness Rhea, mother of Zeus and the other elder Olympians. Rhea's Kretan cult, perhaps a Bronze Age survival, was focused on the birth of Zeus and was celebrated in an ecstatic dance during which the participants imitated the mythical Kouretes, youths who clashed their shields to cover the infant's cries. One of the centers of this cult, Mt. Ida in Krete, was closely associated with the Phrygian Mt. Ida, the haunt of Meter. Like Idaian Zeus and Rhea, Meter was worshiped with percussive music and ecstatic dancing, and she was accompanied by the Korybantes, youths who were analogous to the Kouretes. The characteristic instruments in her music were the tumpanon, a tambourine-like drum, and the flute. Herodotus (4. 76) tells how the Greeks of Kyzikos celebrated Meter's festival at night, striking tumpana and decking themselves with small images of the goddess. Most ancient and modern observers have traced the ecstatic elements of the cult, as well as the use of the tumpanon, to Phrygia. These features, negatively stereotyped as "Eastern" in the wake of the Persian wars, are most likely Greek developments originating in Krete. Less is known about the origins of the mendicant priests of Meter known as me ? tragurtai (Gatherers for the Mother); they too are considered somewhat disreputable in surviving sources. 2
During the Meter cult's period of explosive growth in the late Archaic period, she was quickly incorporated into civic worship. In Athens, the emerg- ing democracy seems to have welcomed this popular goddess by the end of the sixth century. Meter's cult was established in or near the bouleute ? rion (council chamber) in the agora and Athenian council members began to sacrifice to the Mother of the Gods along with the other major civic deities. In the late fifth century, with the construction of a new bouleute ? rion, the old one became known as the Metroo? n, or temple of Meter. Like the temple of the Mother in Kolophon, the Metroo? n was used as a state archive. 3 Private sponsorship of Meter was also widespread and was prompted by dreams and visions. Pindar is said to have founded a Theban shrine of Meter after he had a vision of the goddess' statue walking, and Themistokles brought the cult to Magnesia after the goddess warned him in a dream of an assassination attempt. 4 In the succeeding generation, however, the cult of Meter was viewed less favorably, at least by the elite men of Athens, and was associated with women, the poor, and excessive emotional displays. Attis, who later became known as the consort of Kybele, does not become a prominent figure in the cult until the fourth century. While the Phrygian priests of Matar bore the title Attes, the myth of Attis seems to be a Greek invention. 5
171
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
The Kabeiroi and the Megaloi Theoi
Scattered about the Aegean, particularly in its northern half, were a number of sanctuaries devoted to groups of deities who were the guardians of mysteries. These deities are sometimes known as the Megaloi Theoi (Great Gods) and sometimes as the Kabeiroi, a name related to the Semitic kabir, "mighty. " Like the Kouretes and Korybantes who surround Meter, the Kabeiroi are sometimes portrayed as subordinate to a goddess or a divine pair, ministers or servants of more powerful deities whose names are only for the ears of initiates. Yet they are potent cult figures in their own right, and they seem to function as intermediaries between the human and the divine. In origin, these deities were non-Greek, but they were rapidly accepted by Greek worshipers, and their mysteries were developed and administered using Greek models.
Though its material remains are venerable, dating to the late seventh century, the Kabeiric cult in the territory of Thebes was surely imported from the northeastern Aegean. Located about 6 km west of Thebes, the sanctuary site was apparently selected because of its natural features: a small stream bisected the area, a hillside served as a natural amphitheater, and a rock formation on the hill seems to have provided a focus for the cult. The resident deities included a mother goddess, her consort, and two attendant Kabiroi (to use the local spelling), an elder and a younger. We know little about the identity and nature of the first pair, who must have been the subject of the secret mysteries. Within a circular cult building (tholos) dating to the fifth century, excavators found a clay tub buried with its rim slightly protruding from the ground, and inscribed "of the Husband. " A hole pierced in the bottom shows that it was intended for liquid offerings, which drained into the earth, and the sequestering of this basin inside the tholos suggests that these offerings were secret. Far more accessible were the Kabiroi themselves, who were the recipients of many of the inscribed gifts left in the sanctuary. Prominent among these were bull figurines, first of bronze and later of terracotta. The site also yielded an unusually large number of glass beads, more than at any other Greek sanctuary. Many of the colorful beads have dots or bumps, which represent apotropaic eyes. 6 They may have been gifts for the goddess, or perhaps strings of beads played a role in the rituals. The architecture of the Kabirion was not extensively developed during the Archaic and Classical periods, in spite of its great popularity: it consisted of the theatral area, some sacrificial pits, and a number of modest tholoi, as well as a rectangular building that housed symposiasts.
The Theban Kabirion is best known for a special type of figured vase that was custom made for the sanctuary. The so-called Kabirion ware is decorated with scenes of activity at the sanctuary and was produced from the fifth to the third centuries. The abundant drinking vessels left at the Kabirion show that symposia attended by elite men were an important activity in the sixth
172
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
century, even before the figured wares appeared. That these symposia had a pederastic focus is suggested by the hundreds of terracottas of boys and youths, which are contemporary with the drinking cups. Participation in the worship, however, was by no means restricted to males. Some dedications were made by women, and vases show family groups participating in sacri- fices and other activities which took place both before and after initiation. Initiates wear distinctive ribbons and leafy twigs in their hair. One of the most puzzling features of these scenes is that many individuals are shown with body types and facial features that the Greeks associated with the mythical race of Pygmies. This may reflect the influence of Greek comedy, or some aspect of the cult, such as costumed performances. Another suggestion, supported by Herodotus (3. 37), is that the cult images of the Kabiroi themselves had a pygmoid appearance; still, the iconography of the Theban Kabiroi was never fixed. On one vase the senior of the two, labeled Kabiros (Lord), closely resembles Dionysos as he reclines at a symposium, while the junior, Pais (Boy), takes the role of a cupbearer. Another vase shows the elder as Hermes and the younger as Pan. 7
Several other Kabeiric shrines are mentioned by late authors or revealed in inscriptions. The cult at Lemnos is perhaps the oldest, though its custodians through the Archaic period were so-called Pelasgians, a non-Greek people. Only in the late sixth or early fifth century was the island formally colonized
Figure 13. 1 Skuphos from the Theban Kabirion showing initiates, fifth century. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
? 173
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
by the Athenians, who already had in their mother city a thriving cult of the island's most important deity, Hephaistos. The fifth-century historian Acusilaus (FGrH 2 F 20) says that Hephaistos produced a son Kamillos with a goddess named Kabeiro. Kamillos in turn fathered the three Kabeiroi and they the three Kabeirid nymphs. The attributes of the Kabeiroi were the smith's hammer and tongs, and the goddess whom they attended was called Lemnos or Megale Theos (Great Goddess). The sanctuary is situated north- east of the capital city Hephaistia. The plentiful inscriptions found there, some as early as the fifth century, give a picture of a Hellenized mystery cult with its staff of priests and financial officers, though the native language persisted and was surely used in the rites. Early versions of the cult probably also existed at Imbros and in the Troad, which were part of the same cultural sphere. 8
Initiation into the mysteries of Samothrace was said to bestow protection from drowning at sea, and the island with its sanctuary quickly gained a Panhellenic reputation during the Archaic and Classical periods. Filled with votive monuments and tablets presented by grateful survivors, it drew the scorn of the atheist Diagoras of Melos, who remarked that the number of votives would be much greater if all those who did not survive had made dedications. 9 Meticulous excavation of the sanctuary revealed that its first archaeologically visible operations were roughly contemporary with the settlement of the island by Greeks in the seventh century.
Herodotus (2. 51) and other sources refer to the Samothracian gods as Kabeiroi, but inscriptions found on the island speak only of Megaloi Theoi (Great Gods) or Theoi (Gods). A Hellenistic historian revealed the secret names of these gods, which are manifestly non-Greek: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, and Kasmilos (who is comparable to Lemnian Kamillos). 10 The four have been identified respectively as Demeter, Persephone, Hades, and Hermes, though it is not certain whether Axieros is male or female. As for the content of the mysteries, sources speak of statues with erect phalloi at the sanctuary and Herodotus connects these with the sacred story told to initiates. 11 Initiates wore rings of magnetized iron, which were most likely associated with a lodestone in the sanctuary, and the uncanny power of magnetism may have had a role in the mysteries as well. As at Thebes, the focal points of the early sanctuary were a theatral area and natural rock formations, used by the Samothracians as altars. Although the Samothracian mysteries were familiar to Classical Athenians, it is not clear how far their fame had spread by the fifth century. Few structures or artifacts in the sanctuary can be firmly assigned to the Archaic or Classical periods (a sixth- century dining room, previously identified as "the Hall of Votive Gifts," appears to be one). Only in early Hellenistic times did the Samothracian mysteries become a major source of revenue for the islanders. 12
174
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
Ammon
Just as Greek colonists installed the gods of their mother cities in their new homes, they also adopted the cults of indigenous peoples and systematically exported them, in Hellenized form, back to Greece. A good example is the cult of Ammon, which the colonists in Kyrene enthusiastically promoted in Greece. The god Ammon was the result of the blending of Amun-Ra, the main god of Egyptian Thebes, with an indigenous Libyan deity. Because this god was supreme in the pantheon, the Greeks identified him with Zeus. Like Amun-Ra, Ammon was an oracular deity whose responses were determined by the movements of his image, carried in a palanquin on the backs of priests.
During the sixth century, Ammon's oracle in the isolated desert oasis of Siwa began to gain an international reputation, and by about 500, the citi- zens of Kyrene had struck coins bearing the head of a horned Zeus Ammon, and raised a magnificent temple, comparable in size to the temple of Zeus at Olympia. 13 Most instances of Greek interest in Ammon can be traced back to the colonists of Kyrene. They dedicated monuments of Ammon at Delphi and Olympia, and the elite athletes of the city commissioned Pindar to compose victory odes that acknowledged Ammon's guardianship of the city and its territory. Pindar (Pyth. 9. 53) calls Kyrene "the finest garden of Zeus," and in his masterpiece, the fourth Pythian ode (14-16), Medeia prophesies that Libya "will be planted with the root of illustrious cities at the foundations of Zeus Ammon. " Pindar also expressed his personal devotion to Ammon in a hymn, now lost, and dedicated a statue of the god in his hometown of Thebes. 14
The Spartans maintained close ties with the Dorian colonists of Kyrene and thus felt a strong affinity for the oracle in the Archaic and Classical periods. 15 According to tradition, Zeus Ammon held the Spartans in high regard, and prophesied that they would colonize Libya. The Spartan general Lysander had a dream vision of Zeus Ammon that caused him to abandon the siege of Aphytis, and he most likely visited Siwa more than once. Temples of Ammon were established at an unknown date in Sparta and its port town of Gythion. To judge from contemporary references in the work of Aristophanes, Euripides, and Herodotus, fifth-century Athenians were also familiar with Ammon, though not as quick to adopt his cult. 16 Plutarch (Vit. Cim. 18) tells how the general Kimon, who not coincidentally was a man of pro-Spartan sentiments, attempted to consult the god in 451 during his last campaign in Cyprus. The story goes that he sent a delegation with a secret inquiry, but fell ill and died while the men were traveling. When they arrived at Siwa, the oracle told them their long journey was needless, "for Kimon is already with me. " By the early fourth century there is epigraphic evidence of the Athenian state's interest in Ammon, including records of gold sent to
175
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
Siwa on behalf of the Athenian people. Its military situation forced Athens to seek alternatives to Delphi during this period, among which Dodona and the oracle of Ammon were favored. Of course the most famous petitioner was Alexander the Great, whose consultation in 331 gave rise to a popular tradition that he was the son of Zeus Ammon. 17
Bendis
A major Thracian goddess, Bendis came to the notice of Greeks who colonized the northern Aegean in the Archaic period. Thasian settlers on the coast of Thrace frequented at least two sanctuaries (at Neapolis and Oisyme) sacred to a goddess with the title Parthenos (Maiden), who is thought to be Bendis. Too little is known of Bendis as a Thracian deity, but she seems to have been a Great Goddess of the wilderness who like Artemis was associated with springs and cave spirits. On the other hand, an interest in agriculture is suggested by Herodotus' statement (4. 33) that the Thracian and Paionian women always sacrificed to "Artemis the Queen" (presumably Bendis) by burning straw. Unlike Artemis, however, Bendis acquired a male cult com- panion, the hero or deity Deloptes, whose iconography, borrowed from that of Asklepios, suggests that he was viewed as a healer. Bendis' own Hellenized appearance, known to us from fourth-century votive reliefs, was that of a young, athletic woman in a short dress, skin cloak, hunting boots, and
Figure 13. 2 Bendis and Deloptes, terracotta votive relief, c. 400. Archaeological museum of Chalkis, Greece. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
? 176
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
Phrygian cap. 18 She typically leans on a spear, and the comic poet Cratinus (fr. 85 Kassel-Austin) called her "twin-speared. "
The Athenians too had numerous direct and indirect contacts with Thrace. By 450, most Greek cities of the northern Aegean and Hellespont were allied to or dependencies of Athens, while Athens itself possessed a significant popu- lation of Thracian metics (resident foreigners) and slaves. Within another twenty years, the Athenians took the unprecedented step of instituting public worship of Bendis in the Peiraieus, their cosmopolitan port. This event is recorded in the opening lines of Plato's Republic (327a-328a), where Sokrates describes how he and a companion walked several miles to say their prayers and see the dual procession: one composed of Athenian citizens, and one of Thracians. Later in the evening, there was a torch race (on horseback, a typically Thracian touch), and an all-night celebration. From later records, it appears that considerable resources were expended on this festival, including the sacrifice of a hundred cattle and the distribution of their meat. 19 The public festival was complemented by private cult organizations of citizens and metics, which conducted their own observances and presumably helped to organize the annual festivities.
Historians have long debated the motivation for the state's highly unusual interest in Bendis, since the Athenians were generally suspicious of foreign gods. The most likely explanation is that they wanted to cement their existing diplomatic, military, and trade relations with the Odrysian Thracians at a time when a major war with the Peloponnesians was imminent. 20
Britomartis, Diktynna, and Aphaia
In Krete, the worship of a Minoan goddess (or goddesses) of the natural world lingered for centuries. Hellenistic poets and mythographers under- stood the indigenous Kretan goddesses Britomartis and Diktynna either as companions of Artemis, or as bynames of Artemis herself, but in the realm of cult they continued to be treated as separate deities. Ancient lexicographers tell us that among the Kretans, the name Britomartis meant "sweet maiden. " She was worshiped primarily in the eastern half of the island, and her name with the local spelling Britomarpis appears in Hellenistic treaties of Olous, which possessed an Archaic cult statue said to be the work of Daidalos. 21 According to Callimachus (Hymn 3. 189-203), Britomartis was a nymph, a beloved companion of Artemis who drew the amorous attention of Minos. He pursued her until, in desperation, she threw herself into the sea and was saved in the nets (diktua) of some fishermen. Henceforth she was called Diktynna. An alternate version says that she hid from Minos in a grove at Aigina and was afterwards worshiped as Aphaia, the unseen (aphane ? s) goddess. 22 These tales are constructed around false etymologies, but give us a few hints about the nature of Britomarpis: as her name suggests, she was a virgin, and she was a mistress of the natural world like Artemis.
177
LATECOMER AND REGIONAL DEITIES
Diktynna has nothing to do with nets, but rather with the Kretan Mt. Dikte. On the other hand, Dikte lies in the east, while the major centers of Diktynna's cult (Kydonia and Lisos) were in the west of Krete, a fact that has puzzled both ancient and modern commentators. A temple of Diktynna built by Samian colonists in Kydonia (Hdt. 3. 59) has been located by archaeolo- gists, and a month name Diktynnaios is attested. During the Classical period, Diktynna was more widely recognized than Britomartis, and her syncretiza- tion with Artemis was well underway. Aristophanes (Ran. 1359) already thinks of them as identical, and Euripides (Hipp. 145) describes Diktynna as a mistress of many beasts. Later we hear of Diktynna or Artemis Diktynna in Lakonia, Phokis, and Athens. The Hellenistic poets' interest in Diktynna coincided with a resurgence of her cult, attested on coins from western Krete starting in the fourth century. 23
Before the twentieth century, information about Aphaia was strictly limited to a few late literary sources, which recounted how Britomartis/Diktynna fled to the island of Aigina to escape Minos. 24 There, a splendid Doric temple (c. 500) had long been assigned to Athena because she appeared as the key figure in both pediments (the east portrays the sack of Troy by Herakles, while the west shows the capture of the city by Aiakid heroes). This temple also contained a cult statue of an Athena-like, spear-wielding goddess, the right arm of which has been recovered. But a sixth-century inscription (IG IV 1580) revealed that the predecessor of the Classical temple was dedicated to Aphaia: "In the priesthood of [Th? ]eoitas, the house of Aphaia was built and the altar; the ivory was added and a wall was built all around. " The ivory in question may refer to ivory components of a cult statue, or plaques of ivory used to adorn the temple interior. A still earlier dedicatory inscription was made to Apha, which is probably the original form of the goddess' name. 25 Aphaia remains an enigmatic deity, and while it is unclear why the fifth- century Aiginetans began to assimilate her to Athena, they may have intended to win for themselves the favor of the better-known goddess who protected their longtime enemy, Athens. They were unsuccessful, for the Athenians eventually expelled the Aiginetans and colonized the island themselves.