Apollo's oracles here were
delivered
through omens, as priests observed sacrificial animals burning in the flames on the altar.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
10
Dorian Apollo
For the Dorian Greeks of the Peloponnese and their overseas cousins, the late summer festival of Apollo Karneios (of the Ram) was the most important of the year. They took seriously the prohibition on combat during the Karneia, which was the reason why the Spartans missed the battle of Marathon and sent only a token force to Thermopylai. The festivities involved dances by the young men and women of the community; at Sparta the Karneia grew into a major musical competition. A group of unmarried men known as the Karneatai were chosen by lot to organize and bear the expenses of the festi- val. They also entered a footrace as staphulodromoi, "grape runners," and carried fruited vine branches while pursuing a runner decked with wool fillets like a sacrificial victim. If they caught him, it meant good luck for the city in
Figure 7. 3 Painted metopes and roof ornaments from the temple of Apollo at Thermon, Aitolia, c. 625. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
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the coming year. In spite of the injunction against warfare during the festival, it celebrated the warlike nature of the Dorians, and their legendary conquest of the Peloponnese, as well as historical colonization efforts. At Sparta, the warriors set up tents and banqueted in honor of the god as if on campaign, and at Kyrene they conducted a dance in armor. The myths surrounding the Spartan festival attributed its origins to the pre-Greek inhabitants. Sometime in the Geometric period, scholars have suggested, Apollo supplanted a pastoral, ram-headed god Karnos, whether of Dorian or indigenous origin, who presided over the seasonal movements of the flocks and led them to new pastures. The journey of the flocks was eventually identified with the mythic Dorian migration and the festival took on a more military character in keep- ing with the theme of conquest. 11
A more clear-cut case of a prehellenic deity whose cult was absorbed by Apollo is Hyakinthos. The -nthos termination of his name is also found in the Luwian language of Anatolia, and reveals a non-Greek origin. He is some- times thought to be Minoan. The month and festival named after Hyakinthos are common in Dorian cities, but most of our evidence comes from the cult at Amyklai outside Sparta. Here, Hyakinthos was remembered as a hero beloved of Apollo, whom the god accidentally killed with a discus throw. His tomb was located within the base of Apollo's ancient cult statue, a colossal bronze figure that stood in the open air. It drew on Near Eastern iconography, showing Apollo as a helmeted warrior with a bow in one hand and a spear in the other. This image, created in the late seventh or early sixth century, was unusual for several reasons. It did not possess a fully human shape, but took the form of a huge bronze pillar with sculpted face, feet, and hands. Colossal statues like the Athena Parthenos made by Pheidias were celebrated in the Classical period, but most Archaic cult images were considerably smaller than life-size. The size of the Apollo, estimated by Pausanias at 30 cubits (15 m), explains why there was no temple to house it, for buildings of such height were beyond the technology of the day. Instead of a temple, the image was displayed in an elaborately decorated enclosure known as the "throne," which was added about a century after the statue was erected. 12
The festival itself combined the worship of Apollo Amyklaios and Hyakinthos. The first day was a day of mourning and solemnity, when the blood of sacrificial animals was poured into Hyakinthos' tomb through a bronze door in the side of the statue base, which also functioned as an altar. The rest of the festival, in contrast, was a joyous celebration. The whole city joined the procession from Sparta to Amyklai, where there were spectacles of music, dance, and horse racing in which both boys and girls took part. Even the slaves joined in the celebrations. Every year, the women of Sparta presented Apollo with a newly woven tunic or chito ? n (probably not one large enough for the statue to wear). The high point of the festival was the singing of the paian, the special hymn for Apollo.
Apollo Amyklaios has drawn attention from scholars because his name 91
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appears on a bilingual inscription from Idalion in Cyprus, where he was equated with Reshep Mukal. The epithet Mukal, transformed to (A)myklos, was carried at an early date to Gortyn in Krete, and thence to Sparta, supply- ing a name for both the cult and the town. It illustrates how Cyprus and Krete were conduits for cultural influences from the Near East during the formative period of Greek religion. Excavation of Amyklai revealed evidence for nearly continuous activity from the late Bronze Age, another unusual feature of the site. After serving as a sub-Mycenaean cult place, the sanctuary began to receive dedications again in the ninth century, perhaps the date of Apollo's introduction. 13
Ionian Apollo
The small Cycladic island of Delos was a religious center for the Ionians, including the Athenians and many Greeks who emigrated during the Dark Age to the coast of Asia Minor. Delos was celebrated as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and while Artemis was probably the original mistress of the sanctuary there, Apollo came to dominate it in the Archaic period. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 145-61) tells how the festival was celebrated with "boxing, dancing and song" and describes the Delian maidens who were famed for their choral songs in honor of the god. The Athenians, who controlled the sanctuary for much of its life, twice purified the tiny island by removing burials (except for those of the heroes) and decreeing that all inhabitants must leave if they were soon to give birth or die. An elaborate web of myth and ritual connected Delos with Athens and its hero Theseus. The Athenians believed that Theseus visited Delos after slaying the Kretan Minotaur, and with his companions performed a winding dance called the Crane, which imitated the tortuous paths of the Labyrinth. They danced around the famous Keraton, an altar constructed from the horns of goats, Apollo's favored sacrificial animal. 14
Apollo, Artemis, and Leto all possessed temples on the island. In Apollo's Archaic temple stood a famous cult image, the work of the sixth-century sculptors Tektaios and Angelion. About twice life-size and covered with hammered sheets of gold, the god appeared in the frontal pose of a kouros, holding a bow in his left hand and small images of the three Charites in his right. 15 Another feature of the Delian cult was the legend that the Hyper- boreans, a mythical northern people whom Apollo visited every year, sent annual offerings of "sacred things" wrapped in wheat sheaves to his shrine. The mysterious offerings themselves seem to have some historical basis; in the Classical period they were conveyed by a long trade route until they reached Athens, where they were ceremoniously escorted to Delos. A Mycen- aean tomb on the island was venerated as the gravesite of two Hyperborean maidens. 16
The Athenians boasted of their descent from Ion, the son of Apollo and 92
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ancestor of the Ionian peoples; therefore they worshiped Apollo Patroo? s (Ancestor). The possession of domestic cults of Apollo Patroo? s and Zeus Herkeios became one of the criteria for holding office in Athens. 17 Because of their ancient kinship, the Athenians and the Ionians of Asia Minor had similar ritual calendars, and many of their common cults and festivals can be dated to the time before the Ionian migration. One of the shared Ionian-Attic festivals was the Thargelia, held at the onset of harvest time in May. The festival took place on the sixth and seventh of the month Thargelion, the birthdates of Artemis and Apollo respectively. At this time the Athenians sent sacred ambassadors (theo ? roi) to Delos with sacrificial victims and choruses for the musical competitions. Athens had to be kept pure, so executions of criminals were postponed until the return of the ship from Delos (such a delay occurred when Sokrates was to be executed). They also purified the land of Attica through a ritual involving human scapegoats known as pharmakoi. Two men, chosen for their ugliness and poverty, were feasted at public expense, then beaten with fig branches and driven out of the city. They symbolically carried away all the ills and impurities that might result in harm to the city or its ripening crops. On the second day of the Athenian Thargelia, the city celebrated with a cereal offering to Apollo, a mixture of produce cooked and carried in procession to the suburban shrine of Apollo Pythios. The festival was also noted for extensive dithyrambic (choral) competitions, and victors dedicated tripods at the Pythion. 18
Pythian Apollo
Perched on a rocky slope of Mt. Parnassos, Delphi has a stunning view and a "numinous quality" noted by every visitor. 19 A thriving Mycenaean village and cult area were abandoned at the end of the Bronze Age, but in the mid- ninth century, people returned to this lovely spot and resettled it. Fifty years later, Delphi had already become a regional gathering place for the worship of Apollo. Fueled by the popularity of the oracle, its fame grew until it became the premier sanctuary of Apollo in the Greek world, exerting a unique influ- ence on Greek colonization and interstate relations. Its only rival in this respect was the Panhellenic sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. 20 During the Archaic period, a mythic pedigree for Apollo's sanctuary was established in order to cement its claim to be the most important Greek oracle. Before Apollo's arrival, it was said, the oracle belonged to Gaia (e. g. Aesch. Eum. 1-8). Although Gaia did have old oracles like the one at Olympia, the lack of archaeological or literary evidence for Gaia's presence at Delphi before the fifth century makes it difficult to accept the historicity of this tradition. 21
What drew so many visitors to Delphi was the chance to consult Apollo, god of divination and prophecy. In myth, Apollo often predicted future events, such as Oedipus' murder of his father. In reality, he more often advised peti- tioners on the best course of action for addressing their problems, specializing
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in ritual solutions that invoked the aid of the gods. If a town suffered from a plague or crop failure, perhaps the citizens had neglected to make the proper sacrifices or purifications. If land shortages resulted in civic discord, or if new trade connections were required, Apollo might recommend that colonists settle in likely areas overseas. The oracle could be consulted on virtually any major enterprise contemplated by a city, from legal reform to military conquest. The congregation of delegates from many cities also ensured that Delphi remained a valuable resource for intelligence-gathering and diplo- matic exchange. The political importance of Delphi meant that it must not be under the control of any one state. After a series of wars, the sanctuary was overseen by a federation of states known as the Delphic Amphictyony. By the Classical period, however, the oracle was consulted primarily on matters involving religious practice and procedure. Purification was an important Apolline specialty, although there is surprisingly little evidence for purifica- tion rituals (for example, the cleansing of blood-guilt) performed at Delphi itself. 22
At the center of all this activity was the Pythia, the priestess who acted as the medium for the voice of Apollo. Consultation with the Pythia was limited to one day per month during the nine-month season when Apollo was believed to be "in residence," and this helps to explain why consultations in the early centuries of the oracle were dominated by important matters of state, rather than by individual concerns as at Dodona. Before an oracular session, the Pythia purified herself, probably with water from the Kastalian spring. She entered the inner room of the temple and sat on a covered tripod cauldron, clutching a branch of laurel. There she received the questions of the petitioners and answered them. Many reconstructions of the oracle have described the process as one of violent possession, in which the Pythia raved incoherently while priests translated her answers into verse oracles. None of the early sources presents the Pythia as frenzied or hysterical, and she is always described as responding directly to the petitioners in intelligible speech, though sometimes her answers were ambiguous and riddling. 23
Certainly the Pythia experienced a form of religious ecstasy, and its cause has been the subject of much speculation through the centuries. According to various theories, she owed her inspiration to a drink from the spring Kassotis, to laurel leaves she chewed while seated on the tripod, to a mediumistic trance that required no artificial stimulant, or to intoxicating vapors rising from a chasm in the earth. This last possibility, taken seriously by Plutarch (Mor. 432d-438d) but scoffed at by modern scholars, was revived when geologists newly evaluated the site of Delphi in the 1990s. They concluded that ethylene, a sweet-smelling, mildly intoxicating gas present in the lime- stone beneath the temple, could have contributed to the Pythia's trance. 24
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 300-76) gives the foundation legend for the sanctuary, telling how the god battled a huge serpent (later known as the Python) for possession of the site and supervised the building of the first
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temple, which archaeologists date to the late seventh century. At the Pythian festival, held every four years, one of the most important contests was the Pythian nome, in which musicians presented their interpretations of Apollo's combat with the serpent. 25 The Pythian games originally focused upon artis- tic contests of lyre-playing and singing to the flute, though athletic events soon began to gain in popularity as the festival was modeled more closely on the Olympic games. The serpent combat was also considered the basis for another important Delphic festival, the Septerion. Every eight years, the Delphians enacted a ritual drama that incorporated elements of the combat myth and linked Delphi with the valley of Tempe in Thessaly. According to the Delphic myth, Apollo was purified in Tempe after killing the serpent, and returned in triumph with the laurel for his sanctuary. In ritual, a boy played Apollo's role and traveled to and from Tempe in a sacred procession, bring- ing laurel boughs to make crowns for the Pythian victors. 26
Because of Apollo's sponsorship of colonization efforts and his import- ance for civic decision-making, the cult of Apollo Pythios/Pythaeus became widespread throughout the Greek world; he often bears the titles Archegetes (Leader/Founder) and Ktistes (Establisher), which were also given to colony founders. The Spartans believed that Apollo played an instrumental role in creating their constitution. In their marketplace they had statues of Pythian Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, and the kings appointed a board of Pythioi who were responsible for state consultations of the oracle. In Athens, the Pythion was the oldest cult center of the god. At Argos, where an important sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus was located on the Deiras ridge between the two citadels, the cult seems to have been appropriated from Asine, which the Argives destroyed at the end of the eighth century. 27
Other Apolline oracles
Apollo had other oracles on the Greek mainland, yet the majority of Apollo shrines there were not oracular, or their oracles faded because they could not sustain competition with Delphi. One district with a strong independent oracular tradition was Boiotia, where the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios thrived in spite of its relative proximity to Delphi. The hero Ptoios, named for the triple-peaked Mt. Ptoion, may have preceded Apollo as the resident deity of the sanctuary. Its most prosperous period began in the late seventh century, when kouroi became fashionable dedications. Typical Archaic gifts to the gods, these stiffly frontal, sculpted nude youths made especially appropriate votives for Apollo, himself a divine kouros (youth). About a hundred kouroi were dedicated during the seventh and sixth centuries and discovered in the excavation of the site, providing a treasure trove for the study of Archaic sculpture. 28 The sanctuary attracted attention outside Boiotia, particularly from the neighboring Athenians. Visitors included Hipparchos, son of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos, who left an inscribed dedication. Herodotus
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(8. 135) gives our only account of the oracular procedure in his story of a barbarian named Mys who consulted the oracle during the Persian wars. As soon as Mys entered the shrine, the male prophet shocked the Greeks present by uttering words they could not understand. But Mys declared that the oracle was responding in his own language, Karian, and left satisfied.
Other mainland Apollo oracles included the Ismenion of Thebes and the sanctuary at Abai in Phokis, while at the Argive shrine of Apollo Pythaeus, a female prophet gave oracles after tasting the blood of a sacrificed ewe. 29 Yet these sanctuaries were exceptional. In the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, the situation was reversed. The entire Aegean coast was dotted with oracular Apollo shrines. The East Greeks had rich Apolline traditions influenced by their non-Greek neighbors, and were distant enough from Delphi to require their own oracle centers. The most famous was Didyma, but it never achieved the prominence of Delphi in Greek affairs because its interests were too closely aligned with nearby Miletos, a powerful Ionian city. In the Archaic period, Didyma was run by a family of prophets, the Branchidai, who traced their ancestry to the beautiful herdsman Branchos. Once, Apollo spotted Branchos with his flocks and immediately fell in love with him. The god kissed Branchos and bestowed on him a crown, a laurel rod, and the power of prophecy, which he passed down to his descendants. The story explains one of Apollo's cult titles at Didyma, Philesios (Loving). When Apollo became angry with the Milesians and sent a plague, Branchos saved the people by striking or sprinkling them with the purifying laurel branch. 30
Didyma and Miletos remained close partners throughout the history of the sanctuary. The patron god of Miletos was Apollo Delphinios, and his priests, the Molpoi (Singers), began every year with a grand procession, which traveled from the Delphinion along the Sacred Way to Didyma. The sanc- tuary itself can be traced archaeologically to the eighth century, when the sacred spring used to induce the prophetic trance was enclosed. Around 600 a portico was added to shelter visitors and display the increasing number of offerings. These included the Pharaoh Necho's gift of a royal garment, worn at his victory over Josiah, King of Judah, in the battle of Megiddo (609). Didyma also received treasures from the rich Lydian king Kroisos, who sent gifts to a number of Greek oracles. In the sixth century, a huge temple was constructed in the tradition of the colossal Ionic temples of Hera at Samos and Artemis at Ephesos. Differing from temples in mainland Greece, it was designed as an unroofed courtyard enclosing a grove of laurels and the sacred spring. At one end a small roofed shrine (naiskos) was provided to house the cult statue of Apollo Didymeus, commissioned from the sculptor Kanachos. He created a roughly life-sized, cast bronze figure of the nude god in a standing, frontal pose with one leg forward. In the left hand was a bow; in the outstretched right palm, the god held a stag. With respect to ritual practice, osteological analysis of the finds from Didyma has revealed that the sacrificial procedure was nonstandard: thigh bones of cattle were not burned on the
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altar, but were deposited unburned and whole in special places. The accumu- lation of these bones, like the "horn altars" of other sanctuaries, must have formed an impressive visual record of the gifts allotted to the gods in the sanctuary. 31
The Milesians and their neighbors consulted the oracle for much the same reasons as other Greeks consulted Delphi. Didyma, or Branchidai as it is often called, played an important role in Miletos' vigorous colonization program. A few sixth-century consultations are recorded in inscriptions: one petitioner asked for advice on whether to engage in piracy and was told to follow the practices of his ancestors, while another query dealt with whether women should be permitted in the sanctuary of Herakles. A recently discovered Archaic inscription from Olbia, found on a bone tablet, preserves an enigmatic text linking the colony's fate with multiples of Apollo's sacred number, seven, and different aspects of the god:
7: Wolf without strength. 77: Terrible lion. 777: Bowbearer, friendly with his gift, with the power of a healer. 7777: Wise dolphin. Peace to the Blessed City (Olbia). I pronounce her to be happy. I bear remembrance to Leto.
A second inscription on the same tablet mentions Apollo of Didyma, and the tablet has therefore been interpreted as a record of an oracular response. It is also possible that the tablet represents a hitherto unattested Apolline cult with Orphic or Pythagorean connections. 32
The highly prosperous operations of Didyma came to an abrupt end in 494, when Darius captured Miletos. The sanctuary was pillaged and burned, and the Branchidai were deported according to the usual Persian policy of resettling war captives far from home. After about a hundred and fifty years of silence, the oracle was revived under state-appointed priests to welcome Alexander the Great when he took the city. Alexander is said to have discovered the descendants of the Branchidai when he arrived in Bactria, but instead of restoring them to their ancient role, he cruelly slaughtered them. 33
Apollo Daphnephoros and Ismenios
Many gods possessed sacred groves, but they are especially characteristic of Apollo, whose major shrines were often located outside the cities. At Kour- ion, his most important sanctuary in Cyprus, he was known as Hylates (He of the Grove). 34 Apollo's special tree was the laurel or bay (daphne ? ), and he was worshiped particularly in central Greece as Apollo Daphnephoros (the Laurel-Carrier). The laurel had a purifying effect because of its sweet aromatic leaves, and in Euripides' Ion (102-6) we hear how the title character, an orphan raised at Delphi, sweeps the temple entrance with laurels and hangs up garlands every morning. Processions of laurel-carriers may have
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served a similar purpose of purification long before the advent of Apollo in Greece. We are best informed about the celebration of the Daphnephoria at Thebes, the leading city of Boiotia. In his discussion of ancient hymns, Pro- clus says that it involved a procession led by a boy with both parents living. His nearest male relative carried an olive log adorned with laurel branches, small bronze globes, and purple fillets. A man or boy designated as the daphne ? phoros and a chorus of girls carrying branches followed this group. Such festivals of "bringing in the tree" to symbolize prosperity are found in connection with other deities including Hera and Dionysos; the ritual, not the god, is primary. 35
A sanctuary of Apollo Daphnephoros has been discovered in Eretria, where a very early, apsidal hekatompedon was constructed about 740. (The cultic function of an even older building, which may have been a chieftain's house, is disputed. ) In addition to its early date, the Eretria temple is noted for the find of a bronze horse's blinker, inscribed in Aramaic to a ninth-century Syrian ruler. This was part of an heirloom set of horse trappings, dedicated piecemeal by some ancient traveler, and it is the earliest example of a West Semitic script to appear in Greece so far. Even more amazing, a forehead piece from this set, with the same inscription, has been found in the Heraion on Samos. Other finds at the sanctuary, including gold ornaments, bronzes, faience amulets, scarabs, and amber beads, further illustrate the wide trading contacts of the Geometric Eretrians and the prominence of Apollo Daphne- phoros in their city. 36
One of the most important gods of Thebes was Apollo Ismenios, named for the Ismenos river running through the city. Visitors to his temple were impressed by the numerous dedications of tripods, including one of gold dedicated by Kroisos of Lydia. Others were reputed to date to the heroic age. Writing in the fifth century, Herodotus (5. 59-61) attributed some of the tripods he saw to the time of King Oedipus. He says they were inscribed with "Kadmean letters," a reference to the Phoenician immigrant Kadmos who settled in Thebes, bringing with him the alphabet. The tripods were probably early gifts to the sanctuary, which was founded at the end of the eighth century. Other tripods were dedicated by youths after they served as daphne ? - phoroi.
Apollo's oracles here were delivered through omens, as priests observed sacrificial animals burning in the flames on the altar. A number of subsidiary heroes and heroines were venerated at the Ismenion, including Teneros, the first seer at the shrine. 37
Apollo Maleatas
The site of Apollo Maleatas' sanctuary on Mt. Kynortion (Dog's Climb) at Epidauros is noted for its Bronze Age remains, which include an altar, auxiliary buildings, and a terrace where ritual meals were consumed. Though continuity with the Bronze Age cannot be demonstrated, medical instruments
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contained in the altar here show that the subsequent Geometric cult was addressed to Apollo (at least in part) as a healer. 38 Apollo's healing function is a legacy from the deity Paian, who is attested in Mycenaean Greek and in Homer (e. g. Il. 5. 401, 899-900). In later Greek, paian was a song, and Archaic medicine frequently made use of healing charms sung over the sick person. Apollo's power to control plagues and his status as an authority on purification also contributed to his healing abilities. Yet in the Classical period, Apollo ceded the role of healer to his son Asklepios, whose cult rapidly grew in popularity. At Epidauros, Apollo's sanctuary spread to the plain, where it was eventually taken over by Asklepios. Pilgrims to the shrine, hoping to be healed, still sacrificed first to Apollo before entering. The votive inscriptions they set up to describe their miraculous cures are addressed to both Apollo and Asklepios as saviors. In the fourth century, a paian com- posed by Isyllos was inscribed on a block near Asklepios' temple. It describes how a sacred procession of Epidauros' "best men" carry garlands of laurel to Apollo's temple, and shoots of olive to Asklepios. 39 Neither the Asklepios precinct nor Apollo's shrine on Mt. Kynortion possessed a monumental temple until the fourth century. Scholars disagree on whether Maleatas was initially the name of a separate deity, but inscriptions show that the cult was fairly widespread in the Archaic Peloponnese.
Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
During his journey around Greece, Pausanias (8. 41. 8) was struck by the beauty of the temple of Apollo at Bassai, a remote site in the highlands of Arkadia. Here, Apollo and his sister Artemis were provided with twin temples in the seventh century. An Archaic temple of Aphrodite stood on the summit of Mt. Kotilion in the same precinct. Pan was worshiped here too, and like the more famous Arkadian peak of Lykaion, all of Mt. Kotilion seems to have been considered sacred space. 40 Many Arkadians who served as pro- fessional mercenaries (epikouroi) made offerings of miniature armor and weapons for Apollo, who had the dual titles of Bassitas and Epikourios (of Allies): helmets, shields, corselets, and spear-heads. In the fifth century, they raised the money for a magnificent new temple to be built by Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon. Iktinos' temple, still standing today, is Doric on the outside with an interior Ionic colonnade and a sculpted frieze depicting Centaurs fighting Lapiths and Greeks fighting Amazons. It conservatively retained some of the features of its predecessor, such as its extra length and north-south orientation. A single column with a very early Korinthian capital was placed at the focal point of the cella where one would expect the cult statue to stand. This column may have had cultic significance, since we know that Apollo was sometimes worshiped in the form of a pillar. But the temple also possessed an aduton, or inner room, which was separated from the cella only by this column. An entrance created in the east side of the structure
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allowed the morning sun to enter the aduton (most temples are oriented east-west, and receive the sun through the main entrance). The aduton may have held the larger than life-size bronze statue of Apollo Epikourios that was created for the temple, but later moved to Megalopolis. 41
Further reading
Dietrich 1996, a chapter in a longer work about Kourion on Cyprus, contains an important general discussion of Apolline cults. Malkin 1994 includes an illuminating chapter on Apollo Karneios. On Apollo's oracles, Parke and Wormell 1956 (Delphi) and Fontenrose 1988b (Didyma) are essential works. Solomon 1994 gathers several useful articles, including Burkert's paper on the Archaic "oracle" inscription from Olbia (to be read with Onyshkevych 2002).
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THE TENDER AND THE SAVAGE
Artemis
Artemis' cults are numerous and more widespread than those of any other Greek goddess, extending from Massilia (modern Marseilles) to the Greek colonies of Sicily, to mainland Greece, north Africa, and Ephesos on the coast of Asia Minor. She is a paradoxical goddess: a virgin who aids women in childbirth, a fierce huntress who fosters wild beasts, and a bloodthirsty deity who both nurtures the young and demands their sacrifice. Standing at the borders, both conceptual and physical, between savage and civilized life, Artemis oversees the transition of girls to adult status, but is also a patron of warriors. The young, regarded as untamed and akin to the unruly natural world, are her special concern. Archaic and Classical Artemis is a composite figure with close ties to the Near East, like her brother Apollo, whose cults are regularly juxtaposed with hers. Among her antecedents we recognize the powerful mother goddesses of Asia Minor, a number of local Greek goddesses who presided over rites of passage, and the ancient figure known to students of iconography as the Mistress of Animals. Of unknown etymology, her name was sometimes associated with the Greek verb artameo ? , which means "to butcher, cut to pieces. " She is perhaps included among the deities of Mycenaean Pylos, but there is disagreement on this point. 1
The Mistress of Animals
The Artemis of cult bears only a partial resemblance to the Homeric goddess, an adolescent girl who delights in the hunt and is celebrated as the divine prototype of the virginal maiden, ripe for marriage. Still, hints of Artemis' cruelty and power appear in the Homeric portrait. Hera (Il. 21. 483) calls her "a lion to women," pointing out that she brings death to any woman she wishes, though her power is dependent on the will of Zeus. Homer (Il. 21. 470-71) also gives Artemis the titles Agrotera (of the Wilds) and Potnia Theron (Mistress of Animals). Because Artemis is a goddess of game animals and takes special delight in "the suckling young of every wild creature" (Aesch. Ag. 140-43), she has been compared to certain deities of hunter- gatherer cultures around the world, whose function is to protect and regulate
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the supply of game. Wild animals, particularly deer, were considered sacred to Artemis, and her sanctuaries sometimes possessed sacred and inviolate herds, as at Lousoi in Arkadia. 2
A Mistress of Animals is familiar in the shared iconography of Bronze Age cultures in the Aegean; she stands flanked by paired animals or birds, which she grasps firmly by their necks or tails. This motif occasionally appears in representations of other Greek goddesses, but is found most often among Archaic votive gifts to Artemis. In societies where hunting is reduced in the main to an aristocratic pastime, the powerful deities of the hunt are not forgotten but modified; Artemis' interest in the death-dealing potential of the hunter is transferred to the warrior. 3 The widespread cult of Artemis Agrotera, found all over mainland Greece and beyond, focused often on victory in battle. According to Xenophon (Hell. 4. 2. 20), at the crucial point when the enemy was within sight, the Spartans slaughtered a goat for Artemis Agrotera, "as was their custom," and charged. Athenian sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera were conducted by the polemarchos, a military official, and made in conjunction with those to the war god Enyalios. In thanks for their victory at Marathon in 490, the Athenians annually organized a large procession to Agrai outside the city, a pleasant spot where the young Artemis was supposed to have hunted for the first time. Dressed in their armor, the ephebes escorted five hundred female goats to be sacrificed at Artemis' small Classical temple on the Ilissos river. The battles of Artemision and Salamis were also com- memorated with festivals for Artemis, whose saving power was felt in times of dire peril. 4
Artemis' identity as mistress of wild nature is expressed through the place- ment of sanctuaries (often in rural areas, especially near rivers or wetlands) and through epithets and unusual sacrificial practices. In Samos, she was known as Kaprophagos (Boar Eater), presumably because wild boars were offered to her. The wild boar also appears as a sacred animal in the legends of Kalydon in Aitolia, where the angry goddess once sent a huge boar to ravage the countryside. The Laphrion or sanctuary of Artemis Laphria in Kalydon was the most important in the district, next to Apollo's sanctuary at Thermon. It was established in the Geometric period, while the first temple of Artemis appeared at the end of the seventh century and was rebuilt several times. In the fifth century (c. 460) the Kalydonians added a gold and ivory statue of Artemis in huntress garb with one breast exposed, sculpted by Menichmos and Soidas of Naupaktos. A second temple at the site was devoted to Apollo Laphrios, just as the Thermon sanctuary of Apollo in Aitolia included a temple of Artemis. The remains at the site show that the sacrificial animals here included boars, deer, and horses. Pausanias' description (7. 18. 8-13) of the later cult at nearby Patrai, where Augustus transferred it after destroying Kalydon, may give us some idea of earlier practices, though we cannot be certain that there was continuity. Each spring the people of Patrai held a grand procession to the altar, and last of all came the priestess of Artemis in a
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? Figure8. 1 ArtemisfromtheeastfriezeoftheParthenon. ErichLessing/ArtResource.
chariot drawn by yoked deer. Creatures of all sorts, including deer, game birds, bear cubs, and domesticated animals, were driven into a large enclosure around the altar. A bonfire of logs within was kindled and the fire consumed the animals alive. The offerings also included fruit from the local orchards, which suggests that the animals too were considered "first fruits" for the goddess. This ritual has been compared to the spring fire festivals of other Indo-European cultures, including the Celtic practice of burning live animals and people in wicker enclosures. 5
The themes of salvation in wartime and mastery over the animal world are again united with a fire festival in the Phokian cult of Artemis Elaphebolos (Shooter of Stags). The people of Phokis in central Greece long remembered a sixth-century conflict with their neighbors to the north, the Thessalians. They told how on the eve of the most desperate battle, the men of Phokis constructed a huge pyre and placed on it all their valuable possessions and the images of the gods. If the battle was lost, the men guarding the pyre were to kill the Phokian women and children, place them on the pyre, light it, and then commit suicide. When the Phokians instead won the battle, they com- memorated the victory during the important festival called the Elaphebolia at the sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo near Hyampolis. This site (modern Kalapodi) held symbolic and strategic importance because it guarded the entrance into Phokis. In all likelihood the festival, and certainly the sanctuary, were far older than the war with the Thessalians. Recent excavations have revealed that Kalapodi is one of the extremely rare cases in which continuity
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of worship can (arguably) be demonstrated from late Mycenaean times to the Geometric period. While this does not prove that Artemis was a goddess of the sanctuary in the Bronze Age, the remains of sacrificial deer from the Mycenaean levels are consistent with her title of Elaphebolos.
In the ninth century the sanctuary was reorganized and two small temples (presumably for Artemis and Apollo) were constructed, one over the pre- vious Mycenaean installation. These were followed by a succession of later temples, in the early phases characterized by interior hearths for cooking sacrificial animals (now the more conventional goats and sheep). About 560, major renovations were undertaken and the character of the offerings changed, with a new preponderance of weapons and armor. These develop- ments are consistent with local memories of the war with Thessaly and the development of the sanctuary as a regional place of worship and a key factor in Phokian self-definition. 6
The bloodthirsty goddess: Artemis Tauropolos and Ortheia
Like Dionysos, Artemis embodies much that stands in opposition to Greek cultural ideals: she is an untamed, powerful female, a deity of the wilds more than of the city, and her personality includes a savage element which must be suppressed in the making of a civilized society. Both deities are so challenging to cultural norms that they are sometimes presented as "foreigners," gods who have arrived from strange and savage lands. This was the case in a number of cities, including Athens and Sparta, which attributed the founding of their Artemis cults to Orestes and his sister Iphigeneia. 7
Attic myths about Artemis tell of an angry goddess who must be appeased. At Aulis in nearby Boiotia, Agamemnon is said to have outraged Artemis by killing a sacred stag, causing her to demand the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. In some versions of the story, Iphigeneia perished at the altar, but in others she was saved by Artemis and made immortal, or spirited away to a distant land. Herodotus (4. 103) tells of the barbarian Tauroi on the shores of the Black Sea, who sacrifice strangers to a goddess they call Iphigeneia or Parthenos (the Maiden). His account may have inspired Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, in which Orestes discovers his sister serving as priestess of Artemis in the land of the Tauroi. Obeying an oracle, they escape the barbarians and bring the barbarian statue of Artemis Tauropolos (Bull Tender) to Attica, where it is installed in a temple at Halai Araphenides. There a strange rite of bloodletting takes place: a sword is held to a man's throat in order to draw a small amount of blood, "so that the goddess may have her proper honors" (Eur. IT 1459-61). This practice may have been an attenuated form of human sacrifice, though there is no additional evidence for this. What it does demonstrate is the uncanny and savage aspect of the goddess and the belief that she desired such sacrifices. While it is unclear whether the Greeks ever actually practiced human sacrifice, the concept was deeply embedded in their
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culture. Instead of recognizing their own fascination with the topic, they disavowed it by giving the practice, and even the goddess herself, a barbarian origin. 8
At Sparta, a bloody ritual was again linked to the putative origin of the goddess' image in the land of the Tauroi. Spartan boys underwent a series of trials designed to toughen them and to produce ideal warriors worthy of inclusion among the ranks of citizens; one of these tests took place at the altar of Artemis Ortheia. According to our earliest source, Xenophon (Lac. 2. 9), it was a sort of war game between two teams. One team attempted to steal cheeses piled on the altar, while the other wielded whips against them. Later sources speak of a simple test of endurance in which boys were whipped so that blood fell on the altar, while the priestess of Artemis stood by holding the ancient statue. If the men wielding the whips were too lenient, the statue became heavier in her hands. The boys who withstood the most punishment, called "victors at the altar" (bo ? monikai), were greatly honored. In Roman times this ritual became a popular spectacle, and an amphitheater was built around the altar to accommodate tourists. 9
Ortheia seems to mean the Upright Goddess, and folk etymology derives the name from the discovery of the statue tangled in the boughs of the agnus castus bush, which held it upright. 10 In the cult legend related by Pausanias (3. 16. 9), the strange character of the goddess was immediately manifested when the men who found her went mad. The early inscriptions speak of Ortheia, who was probably an independent goddess, only later syncretized with Artemis. Known as the Limnaion (the Marsh), the sanctuary was founded in the late eighth century, and originally consisted of a pavement and altar located in a hollow beside the river Eurotas. An Archaic temple was added and restored after a flood destroyed the original installation. The exca- vators found an unbroken series of votive objects from the late Geometric period to Roman times; among these the sanctuary is famous for its ivory and bone plaques inspired by Phoenician models, more than one hundred thou- sand lead figurines, and an array of unusual terracotta masks.
Found immediately north and south of the temple, the masks are votive copies of wood or cloth masks worn during ritual dances in the Archaic period, and depict a variety of stock characters: grotesque demons, youths, warriors, satyrs, and gorgons. The most numerous are the masks covered with wrinkled ridges, featuring gaping toothy mouths. The iconography of these rather fearsome-looking masks, based on Phoenician models, can be traced back to the male Babylonian monster Humbaba. Most modern schol- ars, however, think the masks represent grotesque females, for an ancient authority speaks of Spartan dances performed by males wearing female masks and clothing. Such dances, described as "funny and obscene," were a regular part of the Dorian and Peloponnesian worship of Artemis, and were probably related to rites of passage. 11
The ivories and the far cheaper molded terracotta and lead figurines include 105
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numerous images of a winged goddess, holding animals in the heraldic Mistress of Animals pose or grasping a wreath in each hand. Initially, Artemis' favorite animal, the deer, is absent from the animals depicted, but becomes increasingly popular after 600, suggesting that the syncretizing of Ortheia and Artemis took place in the sixth century. The lead figurines, including many hoplite warriors, are characteristic of Peloponnesian sanctuaries but little known elsewhere. Among the early votive gifts, limestone sculptures of heraldic lions and bronze double axes show that artistic motifs from the Mycenaean period were still remembered here. 12
Artemis and the vulnerable maiden
In many if not most Greek cities, adolescent girls danced for Artemis. These dances had social as well as religious functions, as they signaled a girl's readi- ness for marriage and made her visible to potential suitors. Also, transitions in the female life cycle governed by Artemis were linked to the prosperity and safety of the community as a whole. Many of Artemis' sanctuaries were located on the borders of a given polis, in lands that formed territorial boundaries. Rituals conducted safely by girls at these vulnerable sites demon- strated the strength of the polis, just as the very placement of such border sanctuaries asserted territorial claims. Likewise, a number of myths and legends draw a clear analogy between the rape of young women celebrating Artemis' festivals and the penetration of polis territory by enemies. The Spartans traced the origins of their hostility toward the Messenians to such an incident. During a festival, they said, Spartan girls were raped in the sanc- tuary of Artemis Limnatis (of the Marsh), which stood on the borderlands between Lakonia and Messenia and was disputed territory. 13
Artemis' concern for the nurture of human young overlaps with her control over the fertility of the natural world. Particularly in the Peloponnese, where her cults are extremely numerous, Artemis has the characteristics of a nature goddess who promotes the growth of vegetation and is to be found in green, moist places. The cult of Artemis Karyatis (of the Nut Tree) was famed throughout Greece for its dancing maidens, often said to be the inspiration for the columns in maiden form (caryatids) that support the porch of the Athenian Erechtheion and other ancient buildings. Located on the border between Lakonia and Arkadia, Karyai was sacred to Artemis and the nymphs who served as her companions. The girls of Lakonia made an annual pilgrimage there to dance "a traditional local dance" before the goddess' statue, which in Pausanias' day stood in the open air. Here too, the maidens were vulnerable: it was said that the Messenian general Aristomenes and his men kidnapped the daughters of their Lakonian enemies from this sanctuary. 14
As a virgin goddess, Artemis is not asexual but fosters a constant aware- ness of the maturing sexuality of the community's adolescent girls. From a
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patriarchal perspective, the asset of female fertility is always complicated by fears of poaching by rival males (or the desire to engage in such poaching), which helps to explain the regular appearance of the rape motif in Artemis' myths and cults. Still another Peloponnesian cult, that of Artemis Alpheiaia (of the river Alpheios) at Letrinoi, incorporated a legend about the attempted rape of Artemis by the local river god. Artemis escaped recognition by daubing her own face and those of her nymph companions with river mud, an act that probably reflects a lost ritual practice. Artemis and Alpheios shared an altar at Olympia, and the cult spread to the Dorian colony of Syracuse in Sicily, where Artemis Potamia (of the River) was worshiped at a spring said to be the local manifestation of the river Alpheios. 15
Artemis Brauronia
All over the Greek world, women prayed to Artemis for help with gynecological problems, childbirth, and the nurture of young children. Artemis' cult at Brauron, one of the oldest and most important in Attica, was concerned with these functions. The sanctuary, which included a temple and a dining facility, was arranged around a sacred spring and a cave-like cleft in the rocky hillside nearby. This "cave" area was appropriate for a goddess of childbirth, both from a symbolic standpoint and because the Kretan childbirth deity Eileithyia, who is sometimes syncretized with Artemis, was also worshiped in a cave. It is possible that Iphigeneia, whose name means something like "strong in birth," was originally the goddess of Brauron, and that she was demoted to the status of a heroine upon the arrival of Artemis. In Euripides' day (Eur. IT 1462-67), Iphigeneia was remembered as the first priestess at Brauron, and garments of women who died in childbirth were dedicated at her tomb. Excavation has failed to pinpoint the location of this tomb, but it may have been associated with the complex of structures found in the cave area.
Here and in the spring, archaeologists discovered costly gifts to Artemis from the women of Attica: gold jewelry, stone seals and scarab gems, glass beads and vases, and bronze mirrors. 16 But the most frequently dedicated items were articles of women's clothing: belts, tunics, long robes, shawls, and headgear. After using the garments for a time, women gave them to the goddess, often embroidered with their own names or the words "sacred to Artemis. " The items were displayed in the temple in boxes and on racks, and the officials in charge of the sanctuary kept careful records of them. No trace of them exists today, but the temple inventories were carved in stone in the fourth century and set up both at Brauron and at a sister sanctuary on the Athenian Akropolis. These lists make it clear that women gave the best they had to the goddess:
Pheidylla, a white woman's himation in a display box. Mneso, a frog- green garment. Nausis, a lady's himation with a broad purple border in
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wave pattern around the edge. Kleo, a delicate shawl. Phile, a bordered textile. Teisikrateia, a multi-colored Persian style shirt with sleeves. 17
Some of the garments were draped over the cult images of Artemis in the temple, which was first constructed in the sixth century and rebuilt after the Persian invasion in the fifth. There were at least two statues and possibly three, referred to in the inventories as "the old image," "the stone image," and "the standing statue. " As many as five garments at a time were worn by these images, a practice that allowed worshipers to feel they had achieved the closest possible contact with the goddess. 18
Old Attic stories, dating to the founding of Brauron and beyond, tell how Artemis became enraged when local inhabitants killed a sacred bear. The ensuing plague could be stopped only by a maiden sacrifice or by the insti- tution of a ritual in which young girls "played the bear" (arkteuein). 19 The bear was noted in Greek lore for both its fierceness and its maternal devotion; though presumably not commonly encountered in Classical Attica, it had a long history as a sacred yet prized game animal in the prehistoric hunting cultures of Europe. At Brauron, girls between the ages of five and ten danced and ran races beside the altar of Artemis. They wore special yellow robes, which they shed at some point in the rite, for the small painted jars dedicated at the end of their service depict both clothed and naked girls. 20
When the Attic towns were united under Athens, the state took over the Brauronia and entrusted the quadrennial festival to the hieropoioi (doers of the sacred things), the same officials who ran the Panathenaic festival for Athena. Not every girl in Attica could serve as a bear at Brauron, though the painted cups have turned up in several other sites, suggesting that some of the Attic villages held their own Brauronian festivals.
Dorian Apollo
For the Dorian Greeks of the Peloponnese and their overseas cousins, the late summer festival of Apollo Karneios (of the Ram) was the most important of the year. They took seriously the prohibition on combat during the Karneia, which was the reason why the Spartans missed the battle of Marathon and sent only a token force to Thermopylai. The festivities involved dances by the young men and women of the community; at Sparta the Karneia grew into a major musical competition. A group of unmarried men known as the Karneatai were chosen by lot to organize and bear the expenses of the festi- val. They also entered a footrace as staphulodromoi, "grape runners," and carried fruited vine branches while pursuing a runner decked with wool fillets like a sacrificial victim. If they caught him, it meant good luck for the city in
Figure 7. 3 Painted metopes and roof ornaments from the temple of Apollo at Thermon, Aitolia, c. 625. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
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the coming year. In spite of the injunction against warfare during the festival, it celebrated the warlike nature of the Dorians, and their legendary conquest of the Peloponnese, as well as historical colonization efforts. At Sparta, the warriors set up tents and banqueted in honor of the god as if on campaign, and at Kyrene they conducted a dance in armor. The myths surrounding the Spartan festival attributed its origins to the pre-Greek inhabitants. Sometime in the Geometric period, scholars have suggested, Apollo supplanted a pastoral, ram-headed god Karnos, whether of Dorian or indigenous origin, who presided over the seasonal movements of the flocks and led them to new pastures. The journey of the flocks was eventually identified with the mythic Dorian migration and the festival took on a more military character in keep- ing with the theme of conquest. 11
A more clear-cut case of a prehellenic deity whose cult was absorbed by Apollo is Hyakinthos. The -nthos termination of his name is also found in the Luwian language of Anatolia, and reveals a non-Greek origin. He is some- times thought to be Minoan. The month and festival named after Hyakinthos are common in Dorian cities, but most of our evidence comes from the cult at Amyklai outside Sparta. Here, Hyakinthos was remembered as a hero beloved of Apollo, whom the god accidentally killed with a discus throw. His tomb was located within the base of Apollo's ancient cult statue, a colossal bronze figure that stood in the open air. It drew on Near Eastern iconography, showing Apollo as a helmeted warrior with a bow in one hand and a spear in the other. This image, created in the late seventh or early sixth century, was unusual for several reasons. It did not possess a fully human shape, but took the form of a huge bronze pillar with sculpted face, feet, and hands. Colossal statues like the Athena Parthenos made by Pheidias were celebrated in the Classical period, but most Archaic cult images were considerably smaller than life-size. The size of the Apollo, estimated by Pausanias at 30 cubits (15 m), explains why there was no temple to house it, for buildings of such height were beyond the technology of the day. Instead of a temple, the image was displayed in an elaborately decorated enclosure known as the "throne," which was added about a century after the statue was erected. 12
The festival itself combined the worship of Apollo Amyklaios and Hyakinthos. The first day was a day of mourning and solemnity, when the blood of sacrificial animals was poured into Hyakinthos' tomb through a bronze door in the side of the statue base, which also functioned as an altar. The rest of the festival, in contrast, was a joyous celebration. The whole city joined the procession from Sparta to Amyklai, where there were spectacles of music, dance, and horse racing in which both boys and girls took part. Even the slaves joined in the celebrations. Every year, the women of Sparta presented Apollo with a newly woven tunic or chito ? n (probably not one large enough for the statue to wear). The high point of the festival was the singing of the paian, the special hymn for Apollo.
Apollo Amyklaios has drawn attention from scholars because his name 91
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appears on a bilingual inscription from Idalion in Cyprus, where he was equated with Reshep Mukal. The epithet Mukal, transformed to (A)myklos, was carried at an early date to Gortyn in Krete, and thence to Sparta, supply- ing a name for both the cult and the town. It illustrates how Cyprus and Krete were conduits for cultural influences from the Near East during the formative period of Greek religion. Excavation of Amyklai revealed evidence for nearly continuous activity from the late Bronze Age, another unusual feature of the site. After serving as a sub-Mycenaean cult place, the sanctuary began to receive dedications again in the ninth century, perhaps the date of Apollo's introduction. 13
Ionian Apollo
The small Cycladic island of Delos was a religious center for the Ionians, including the Athenians and many Greeks who emigrated during the Dark Age to the coast of Asia Minor. Delos was celebrated as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and while Artemis was probably the original mistress of the sanctuary there, Apollo came to dominate it in the Archaic period. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 145-61) tells how the festival was celebrated with "boxing, dancing and song" and describes the Delian maidens who were famed for their choral songs in honor of the god. The Athenians, who controlled the sanctuary for much of its life, twice purified the tiny island by removing burials (except for those of the heroes) and decreeing that all inhabitants must leave if they were soon to give birth or die. An elaborate web of myth and ritual connected Delos with Athens and its hero Theseus. The Athenians believed that Theseus visited Delos after slaying the Kretan Minotaur, and with his companions performed a winding dance called the Crane, which imitated the tortuous paths of the Labyrinth. They danced around the famous Keraton, an altar constructed from the horns of goats, Apollo's favored sacrificial animal. 14
Apollo, Artemis, and Leto all possessed temples on the island. In Apollo's Archaic temple stood a famous cult image, the work of the sixth-century sculptors Tektaios and Angelion. About twice life-size and covered with hammered sheets of gold, the god appeared in the frontal pose of a kouros, holding a bow in his left hand and small images of the three Charites in his right. 15 Another feature of the Delian cult was the legend that the Hyper- boreans, a mythical northern people whom Apollo visited every year, sent annual offerings of "sacred things" wrapped in wheat sheaves to his shrine. The mysterious offerings themselves seem to have some historical basis; in the Classical period they were conveyed by a long trade route until they reached Athens, where they were ceremoniously escorted to Delos. A Mycen- aean tomb on the island was venerated as the gravesite of two Hyperborean maidens. 16
The Athenians boasted of their descent from Ion, the son of Apollo and 92
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ancestor of the Ionian peoples; therefore they worshiped Apollo Patroo? s (Ancestor). The possession of domestic cults of Apollo Patroo? s and Zeus Herkeios became one of the criteria for holding office in Athens. 17 Because of their ancient kinship, the Athenians and the Ionians of Asia Minor had similar ritual calendars, and many of their common cults and festivals can be dated to the time before the Ionian migration. One of the shared Ionian-Attic festivals was the Thargelia, held at the onset of harvest time in May. The festival took place on the sixth and seventh of the month Thargelion, the birthdates of Artemis and Apollo respectively. At this time the Athenians sent sacred ambassadors (theo ? roi) to Delos with sacrificial victims and choruses for the musical competitions. Athens had to be kept pure, so executions of criminals were postponed until the return of the ship from Delos (such a delay occurred when Sokrates was to be executed). They also purified the land of Attica through a ritual involving human scapegoats known as pharmakoi. Two men, chosen for their ugliness and poverty, were feasted at public expense, then beaten with fig branches and driven out of the city. They symbolically carried away all the ills and impurities that might result in harm to the city or its ripening crops. On the second day of the Athenian Thargelia, the city celebrated with a cereal offering to Apollo, a mixture of produce cooked and carried in procession to the suburban shrine of Apollo Pythios. The festival was also noted for extensive dithyrambic (choral) competitions, and victors dedicated tripods at the Pythion. 18
Pythian Apollo
Perched on a rocky slope of Mt. Parnassos, Delphi has a stunning view and a "numinous quality" noted by every visitor. 19 A thriving Mycenaean village and cult area were abandoned at the end of the Bronze Age, but in the mid- ninth century, people returned to this lovely spot and resettled it. Fifty years later, Delphi had already become a regional gathering place for the worship of Apollo. Fueled by the popularity of the oracle, its fame grew until it became the premier sanctuary of Apollo in the Greek world, exerting a unique influ- ence on Greek colonization and interstate relations. Its only rival in this respect was the Panhellenic sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. 20 During the Archaic period, a mythic pedigree for Apollo's sanctuary was established in order to cement its claim to be the most important Greek oracle. Before Apollo's arrival, it was said, the oracle belonged to Gaia (e. g. Aesch. Eum. 1-8). Although Gaia did have old oracles like the one at Olympia, the lack of archaeological or literary evidence for Gaia's presence at Delphi before the fifth century makes it difficult to accept the historicity of this tradition. 21
What drew so many visitors to Delphi was the chance to consult Apollo, god of divination and prophecy. In myth, Apollo often predicted future events, such as Oedipus' murder of his father. In reality, he more often advised peti- tioners on the best course of action for addressing their problems, specializing
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in ritual solutions that invoked the aid of the gods. If a town suffered from a plague or crop failure, perhaps the citizens had neglected to make the proper sacrifices or purifications. If land shortages resulted in civic discord, or if new trade connections were required, Apollo might recommend that colonists settle in likely areas overseas. The oracle could be consulted on virtually any major enterprise contemplated by a city, from legal reform to military conquest. The congregation of delegates from many cities also ensured that Delphi remained a valuable resource for intelligence-gathering and diplo- matic exchange. The political importance of Delphi meant that it must not be under the control of any one state. After a series of wars, the sanctuary was overseen by a federation of states known as the Delphic Amphictyony. By the Classical period, however, the oracle was consulted primarily on matters involving religious practice and procedure. Purification was an important Apolline specialty, although there is surprisingly little evidence for purifica- tion rituals (for example, the cleansing of blood-guilt) performed at Delphi itself. 22
At the center of all this activity was the Pythia, the priestess who acted as the medium for the voice of Apollo. Consultation with the Pythia was limited to one day per month during the nine-month season when Apollo was believed to be "in residence," and this helps to explain why consultations in the early centuries of the oracle were dominated by important matters of state, rather than by individual concerns as at Dodona. Before an oracular session, the Pythia purified herself, probably with water from the Kastalian spring. She entered the inner room of the temple and sat on a covered tripod cauldron, clutching a branch of laurel. There she received the questions of the petitioners and answered them. Many reconstructions of the oracle have described the process as one of violent possession, in which the Pythia raved incoherently while priests translated her answers into verse oracles. None of the early sources presents the Pythia as frenzied or hysterical, and she is always described as responding directly to the petitioners in intelligible speech, though sometimes her answers were ambiguous and riddling. 23
Certainly the Pythia experienced a form of religious ecstasy, and its cause has been the subject of much speculation through the centuries. According to various theories, she owed her inspiration to a drink from the spring Kassotis, to laurel leaves she chewed while seated on the tripod, to a mediumistic trance that required no artificial stimulant, or to intoxicating vapors rising from a chasm in the earth. This last possibility, taken seriously by Plutarch (Mor. 432d-438d) but scoffed at by modern scholars, was revived when geologists newly evaluated the site of Delphi in the 1990s. They concluded that ethylene, a sweet-smelling, mildly intoxicating gas present in the lime- stone beneath the temple, could have contributed to the Pythia's trance. 24
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 300-76) gives the foundation legend for the sanctuary, telling how the god battled a huge serpent (later known as the Python) for possession of the site and supervised the building of the first
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temple, which archaeologists date to the late seventh century. At the Pythian festival, held every four years, one of the most important contests was the Pythian nome, in which musicians presented their interpretations of Apollo's combat with the serpent. 25 The Pythian games originally focused upon artis- tic contests of lyre-playing and singing to the flute, though athletic events soon began to gain in popularity as the festival was modeled more closely on the Olympic games. The serpent combat was also considered the basis for another important Delphic festival, the Septerion. Every eight years, the Delphians enacted a ritual drama that incorporated elements of the combat myth and linked Delphi with the valley of Tempe in Thessaly. According to the Delphic myth, Apollo was purified in Tempe after killing the serpent, and returned in triumph with the laurel for his sanctuary. In ritual, a boy played Apollo's role and traveled to and from Tempe in a sacred procession, bring- ing laurel boughs to make crowns for the Pythian victors. 26
Because of Apollo's sponsorship of colonization efforts and his import- ance for civic decision-making, the cult of Apollo Pythios/Pythaeus became widespread throughout the Greek world; he often bears the titles Archegetes (Leader/Founder) and Ktistes (Establisher), which were also given to colony founders. The Spartans believed that Apollo played an instrumental role in creating their constitution. In their marketplace they had statues of Pythian Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, and the kings appointed a board of Pythioi who were responsible for state consultations of the oracle. In Athens, the Pythion was the oldest cult center of the god. At Argos, where an important sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus was located on the Deiras ridge between the two citadels, the cult seems to have been appropriated from Asine, which the Argives destroyed at the end of the eighth century. 27
Other Apolline oracles
Apollo had other oracles on the Greek mainland, yet the majority of Apollo shrines there were not oracular, or their oracles faded because they could not sustain competition with Delphi. One district with a strong independent oracular tradition was Boiotia, where the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios thrived in spite of its relative proximity to Delphi. The hero Ptoios, named for the triple-peaked Mt. Ptoion, may have preceded Apollo as the resident deity of the sanctuary. Its most prosperous period began in the late seventh century, when kouroi became fashionable dedications. Typical Archaic gifts to the gods, these stiffly frontal, sculpted nude youths made especially appropriate votives for Apollo, himself a divine kouros (youth). About a hundred kouroi were dedicated during the seventh and sixth centuries and discovered in the excavation of the site, providing a treasure trove for the study of Archaic sculpture. 28 The sanctuary attracted attention outside Boiotia, particularly from the neighboring Athenians. Visitors included Hipparchos, son of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos, who left an inscribed dedication. Herodotus
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(8. 135) gives our only account of the oracular procedure in his story of a barbarian named Mys who consulted the oracle during the Persian wars. As soon as Mys entered the shrine, the male prophet shocked the Greeks present by uttering words they could not understand. But Mys declared that the oracle was responding in his own language, Karian, and left satisfied.
Other mainland Apollo oracles included the Ismenion of Thebes and the sanctuary at Abai in Phokis, while at the Argive shrine of Apollo Pythaeus, a female prophet gave oracles after tasting the blood of a sacrificed ewe. 29 Yet these sanctuaries were exceptional. In the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, the situation was reversed. The entire Aegean coast was dotted with oracular Apollo shrines. The East Greeks had rich Apolline traditions influenced by their non-Greek neighbors, and were distant enough from Delphi to require their own oracle centers. The most famous was Didyma, but it never achieved the prominence of Delphi in Greek affairs because its interests were too closely aligned with nearby Miletos, a powerful Ionian city. In the Archaic period, Didyma was run by a family of prophets, the Branchidai, who traced their ancestry to the beautiful herdsman Branchos. Once, Apollo spotted Branchos with his flocks and immediately fell in love with him. The god kissed Branchos and bestowed on him a crown, a laurel rod, and the power of prophecy, which he passed down to his descendants. The story explains one of Apollo's cult titles at Didyma, Philesios (Loving). When Apollo became angry with the Milesians and sent a plague, Branchos saved the people by striking or sprinkling them with the purifying laurel branch. 30
Didyma and Miletos remained close partners throughout the history of the sanctuary. The patron god of Miletos was Apollo Delphinios, and his priests, the Molpoi (Singers), began every year with a grand procession, which traveled from the Delphinion along the Sacred Way to Didyma. The sanc- tuary itself can be traced archaeologically to the eighth century, when the sacred spring used to induce the prophetic trance was enclosed. Around 600 a portico was added to shelter visitors and display the increasing number of offerings. These included the Pharaoh Necho's gift of a royal garment, worn at his victory over Josiah, King of Judah, in the battle of Megiddo (609). Didyma also received treasures from the rich Lydian king Kroisos, who sent gifts to a number of Greek oracles. In the sixth century, a huge temple was constructed in the tradition of the colossal Ionic temples of Hera at Samos and Artemis at Ephesos. Differing from temples in mainland Greece, it was designed as an unroofed courtyard enclosing a grove of laurels and the sacred spring. At one end a small roofed shrine (naiskos) was provided to house the cult statue of Apollo Didymeus, commissioned from the sculptor Kanachos. He created a roughly life-sized, cast bronze figure of the nude god in a standing, frontal pose with one leg forward. In the left hand was a bow; in the outstretched right palm, the god held a stag. With respect to ritual practice, osteological analysis of the finds from Didyma has revealed that the sacrificial procedure was nonstandard: thigh bones of cattle were not burned on the
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altar, but were deposited unburned and whole in special places. The accumu- lation of these bones, like the "horn altars" of other sanctuaries, must have formed an impressive visual record of the gifts allotted to the gods in the sanctuary. 31
The Milesians and their neighbors consulted the oracle for much the same reasons as other Greeks consulted Delphi. Didyma, or Branchidai as it is often called, played an important role in Miletos' vigorous colonization program. A few sixth-century consultations are recorded in inscriptions: one petitioner asked for advice on whether to engage in piracy and was told to follow the practices of his ancestors, while another query dealt with whether women should be permitted in the sanctuary of Herakles. A recently discovered Archaic inscription from Olbia, found on a bone tablet, preserves an enigmatic text linking the colony's fate with multiples of Apollo's sacred number, seven, and different aspects of the god:
7: Wolf without strength. 77: Terrible lion. 777: Bowbearer, friendly with his gift, with the power of a healer. 7777: Wise dolphin. Peace to the Blessed City (Olbia). I pronounce her to be happy. I bear remembrance to Leto.
A second inscription on the same tablet mentions Apollo of Didyma, and the tablet has therefore been interpreted as a record of an oracular response. It is also possible that the tablet represents a hitherto unattested Apolline cult with Orphic or Pythagorean connections. 32
The highly prosperous operations of Didyma came to an abrupt end in 494, when Darius captured Miletos. The sanctuary was pillaged and burned, and the Branchidai were deported according to the usual Persian policy of resettling war captives far from home. After about a hundred and fifty years of silence, the oracle was revived under state-appointed priests to welcome Alexander the Great when he took the city. Alexander is said to have discovered the descendants of the Branchidai when he arrived in Bactria, but instead of restoring them to their ancient role, he cruelly slaughtered them. 33
Apollo Daphnephoros and Ismenios
Many gods possessed sacred groves, but they are especially characteristic of Apollo, whose major shrines were often located outside the cities. At Kour- ion, his most important sanctuary in Cyprus, he was known as Hylates (He of the Grove). 34 Apollo's special tree was the laurel or bay (daphne ? ), and he was worshiped particularly in central Greece as Apollo Daphnephoros (the Laurel-Carrier). The laurel had a purifying effect because of its sweet aromatic leaves, and in Euripides' Ion (102-6) we hear how the title character, an orphan raised at Delphi, sweeps the temple entrance with laurels and hangs up garlands every morning. Processions of laurel-carriers may have
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served a similar purpose of purification long before the advent of Apollo in Greece. We are best informed about the celebration of the Daphnephoria at Thebes, the leading city of Boiotia. In his discussion of ancient hymns, Pro- clus says that it involved a procession led by a boy with both parents living. His nearest male relative carried an olive log adorned with laurel branches, small bronze globes, and purple fillets. A man or boy designated as the daphne ? phoros and a chorus of girls carrying branches followed this group. Such festivals of "bringing in the tree" to symbolize prosperity are found in connection with other deities including Hera and Dionysos; the ritual, not the god, is primary. 35
A sanctuary of Apollo Daphnephoros has been discovered in Eretria, where a very early, apsidal hekatompedon was constructed about 740. (The cultic function of an even older building, which may have been a chieftain's house, is disputed. ) In addition to its early date, the Eretria temple is noted for the find of a bronze horse's blinker, inscribed in Aramaic to a ninth-century Syrian ruler. This was part of an heirloom set of horse trappings, dedicated piecemeal by some ancient traveler, and it is the earliest example of a West Semitic script to appear in Greece so far. Even more amazing, a forehead piece from this set, with the same inscription, has been found in the Heraion on Samos. Other finds at the sanctuary, including gold ornaments, bronzes, faience amulets, scarabs, and amber beads, further illustrate the wide trading contacts of the Geometric Eretrians and the prominence of Apollo Daphne- phoros in their city. 36
One of the most important gods of Thebes was Apollo Ismenios, named for the Ismenos river running through the city. Visitors to his temple were impressed by the numerous dedications of tripods, including one of gold dedicated by Kroisos of Lydia. Others were reputed to date to the heroic age. Writing in the fifth century, Herodotus (5. 59-61) attributed some of the tripods he saw to the time of King Oedipus. He says they were inscribed with "Kadmean letters," a reference to the Phoenician immigrant Kadmos who settled in Thebes, bringing with him the alphabet. The tripods were probably early gifts to the sanctuary, which was founded at the end of the eighth century. Other tripods were dedicated by youths after they served as daphne ? - phoroi.
Apollo's oracles here were delivered through omens, as priests observed sacrificial animals burning in the flames on the altar. A number of subsidiary heroes and heroines were venerated at the Ismenion, including Teneros, the first seer at the shrine. 37
Apollo Maleatas
The site of Apollo Maleatas' sanctuary on Mt. Kynortion (Dog's Climb) at Epidauros is noted for its Bronze Age remains, which include an altar, auxiliary buildings, and a terrace where ritual meals were consumed. Though continuity with the Bronze Age cannot be demonstrated, medical instruments
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contained in the altar here show that the subsequent Geometric cult was addressed to Apollo (at least in part) as a healer. 38 Apollo's healing function is a legacy from the deity Paian, who is attested in Mycenaean Greek and in Homer (e. g. Il. 5. 401, 899-900). In later Greek, paian was a song, and Archaic medicine frequently made use of healing charms sung over the sick person. Apollo's power to control plagues and his status as an authority on purification also contributed to his healing abilities. Yet in the Classical period, Apollo ceded the role of healer to his son Asklepios, whose cult rapidly grew in popularity. At Epidauros, Apollo's sanctuary spread to the plain, where it was eventually taken over by Asklepios. Pilgrims to the shrine, hoping to be healed, still sacrificed first to Apollo before entering. The votive inscriptions they set up to describe their miraculous cures are addressed to both Apollo and Asklepios as saviors. In the fourth century, a paian com- posed by Isyllos was inscribed on a block near Asklepios' temple. It describes how a sacred procession of Epidauros' "best men" carry garlands of laurel to Apollo's temple, and shoots of olive to Asklepios. 39 Neither the Asklepios precinct nor Apollo's shrine on Mt. Kynortion possessed a monumental temple until the fourth century. Scholars disagree on whether Maleatas was initially the name of a separate deity, but inscriptions show that the cult was fairly widespread in the Archaic Peloponnese.
Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
During his journey around Greece, Pausanias (8. 41. 8) was struck by the beauty of the temple of Apollo at Bassai, a remote site in the highlands of Arkadia. Here, Apollo and his sister Artemis were provided with twin temples in the seventh century. An Archaic temple of Aphrodite stood on the summit of Mt. Kotilion in the same precinct. Pan was worshiped here too, and like the more famous Arkadian peak of Lykaion, all of Mt. Kotilion seems to have been considered sacred space. 40 Many Arkadians who served as pro- fessional mercenaries (epikouroi) made offerings of miniature armor and weapons for Apollo, who had the dual titles of Bassitas and Epikourios (of Allies): helmets, shields, corselets, and spear-heads. In the fifth century, they raised the money for a magnificent new temple to be built by Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon. Iktinos' temple, still standing today, is Doric on the outside with an interior Ionic colonnade and a sculpted frieze depicting Centaurs fighting Lapiths and Greeks fighting Amazons. It conservatively retained some of the features of its predecessor, such as its extra length and north-south orientation. A single column with a very early Korinthian capital was placed at the focal point of the cella where one would expect the cult statue to stand. This column may have had cultic significance, since we know that Apollo was sometimes worshiped in the form of a pillar. But the temple also possessed an aduton, or inner room, which was separated from the cella only by this column. An entrance created in the east side of the structure
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allowed the morning sun to enter the aduton (most temples are oriented east-west, and receive the sun through the main entrance). The aduton may have held the larger than life-size bronze statue of Apollo Epikourios that was created for the temple, but later moved to Megalopolis. 41
Further reading
Dietrich 1996, a chapter in a longer work about Kourion on Cyprus, contains an important general discussion of Apolline cults. Malkin 1994 includes an illuminating chapter on Apollo Karneios. On Apollo's oracles, Parke and Wormell 1956 (Delphi) and Fontenrose 1988b (Didyma) are essential works. Solomon 1994 gathers several useful articles, including Burkert's paper on the Archaic "oracle" inscription from Olbia (to be read with Onyshkevych 2002).
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THE TENDER AND THE SAVAGE
Artemis
Artemis' cults are numerous and more widespread than those of any other Greek goddess, extending from Massilia (modern Marseilles) to the Greek colonies of Sicily, to mainland Greece, north Africa, and Ephesos on the coast of Asia Minor. She is a paradoxical goddess: a virgin who aids women in childbirth, a fierce huntress who fosters wild beasts, and a bloodthirsty deity who both nurtures the young and demands their sacrifice. Standing at the borders, both conceptual and physical, between savage and civilized life, Artemis oversees the transition of girls to adult status, but is also a patron of warriors. The young, regarded as untamed and akin to the unruly natural world, are her special concern. Archaic and Classical Artemis is a composite figure with close ties to the Near East, like her brother Apollo, whose cults are regularly juxtaposed with hers. Among her antecedents we recognize the powerful mother goddesses of Asia Minor, a number of local Greek goddesses who presided over rites of passage, and the ancient figure known to students of iconography as the Mistress of Animals. Of unknown etymology, her name was sometimes associated with the Greek verb artameo ? , which means "to butcher, cut to pieces. " She is perhaps included among the deities of Mycenaean Pylos, but there is disagreement on this point. 1
The Mistress of Animals
The Artemis of cult bears only a partial resemblance to the Homeric goddess, an adolescent girl who delights in the hunt and is celebrated as the divine prototype of the virginal maiden, ripe for marriage. Still, hints of Artemis' cruelty and power appear in the Homeric portrait. Hera (Il. 21. 483) calls her "a lion to women," pointing out that she brings death to any woman she wishes, though her power is dependent on the will of Zeus. Homer (Il. 21. 470-71) also gives Artemis the titles Agrotera (of the Wilds) and Potnia Theron (Mistress of Animals). Because Artemis is a goddess of game animals and takes special delight in "the suckling young of every wild creature" (Aesch. Ag. 140-43), she has been compared to certain deities of hunter- gatherer cultures around the world, whose function is to protect and regulate
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the supply of game. Wild animals, particularly deer, were considered sacred to Artemis, and her sanctuaries sometimes possessed sacred and inviolate herds, as at Lousoi in Arkadia. 2
A Mistress of Animals is familiar in the shared iconography of Bronze Age cultures in the Aegean; she stands flanked by paired animals or birds, which she grasps firmly by their necks or tails. This motif occasionally appears in representations of other Greek goddesses, but is found most often among Archaic votive gifts to Artemis. In societies where hunting is reduced in the main to an aristocratic pastime, the powerful deities of the hunt are not forgotten but modified; Artemis' interest in the death-dealing potential of the hunter is transferred to the warrior. 3 The widespread cult of Artemis Agrotera, found all over mainland Greece and beyond, focused often on victory in battle. According to Xenophon (Hell. 4. 2. 20), at the crucial point when the enemy was within sight, the Spartans slaughtered a goat for Artemis Agrotera, "as was their custom," and charged. Athenian sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera were conducted by the polemarchos, a military official, and made in conjunction with those to the war god Enyalios. In thanks for their victory at Marathon in 490, the Athenians annually organized a large procession to Agrai outside the city, a pleasant spot where the young Artemis was supposed to have hunted for the first time. Dressed in their armor, the ephebes escorted five hundred female goats to be sacrificed at Artemis' small Classical temple on the Ilissos river. The battles of Artemision and Salamis were also com- memorated with festivals for Artemis, whose saving power was felt in times of dire peril. 4
Artemis' identity as mistress of wild nature is expressed through the place- ment of sanctuaries (often in rural areas, especially near rivers or wetlands) and through epithets and unusual sacrificial practices. In Samos, she was known as Kaprophagos (Boar Eater), presumably because wild boars were offered to her. The wild boar also appears as a sacred animal in the legends of Kalydon in Aitolia, where the angry goddess once sent a huge boar to ravage the countryside. The Laphrion or sanctuary of Artemis Laphria in Kalydon was the most important in the district, next to Apollo's sanctuary at Thermon. It was established in the Geometric period, while the first temple of Artemis appeared at the end of the seventh century and was rebuilt several times. In the fifth century (c. 460) the Kalydonians added a gold and ivory statue of Artemis in huntress garb with one breast exposed, sculpted by Menichmos and Soidas of Naupaktos. A second temple at the site was devoted to Apollo Laphrios, just as the Thermon sanctuary of Apollo in Aitolia included a temple of Artemis. The remains at the site show that the sacrificial animals here included boars, deer, and horses. Pausanias' description (7. 18. 8-13) of the later cult at nearby Patrai, where Augustus transferred it after destroying Kalydon, may give us some idea of earlier practices, though we cannot be certain that there was continuity. Each spring the people of Patrai held a grand procession to the altar, and last of all came the priestess of Artemis in a
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? Figure8. 1 ArtemisfromtheeastfriezeoftheParthenon. ErichLessing/ArtResource.
chariot drawn by yoked deer. Creatures of all sorts, including deer, game birds, bear cubs, and domesticated animals, were driven into a large enclosure around the altar. A bonfire of logs within was kindled and the fire consumed the animals alive. The offerings also included fruit from the local orchards, which suggests that the animals too were considered "first fruits" for the goddess. This ritual has been compared to the spring fire festivals of other Indo-European cultures, including the Celtic practice of burning live animals and people in wicker enclosures. 5
The themes of salvation in wartime and mastery over the animal world are again united with a fire festival in the Phokian cult of Artemis Elaphebolos (Shooter of Stags). The people of Phokis in central Greece long remembered a sixth-century conflict with their neighbors to the north, the Thessalians. They told how on the eve of the most desperate battle, the men of Phokis constructed a huge pyre and placed on it all their valuable possessions and the images of the gods. If the battle was lost, the men guarding the pyre were to kill the Phokian women and children, place them on the pyre, light it, and then commit suicide. When the Phokians instead won the battle, they com- memorated the victory during the important festival called the Elaphebolia at the sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo near Hyampolis. This site (modern Kalapodi) held symbolic and strategic importance because it guarded the entrance into Phokis. In all likelihood the festival, and certainly the sanctuary, were far older than the war with the Thessalians. Recent excavations have revealed that Kalapodi is one of the extremely rare cases in which continuity
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of worship can (arguably) be demonstrated from late Mycenaean times to the Geometric period. While this does not prove that Artemis was a goddess of the sanctuary in the Bronze Age, the remains of sacrificial deer from the Mycenaean levels are consistent with her title of Elaphebolos.
In the ninth century the sanctuary was reorganized and two small temples (presumably for Artemis and Apollo) were constructed, one over the pre- vious Mycenaean installation. These were followed by a succession of later temples, in the early phases characterized by interior hearths for cooking sacrificial animals (now the more conventional goats and sheep). About 560, major renovations were undertaken and the character of the offerings changed, with a new preponderance of weapons and armor. These develop- ments are consistent with local memories of the war with Thessaly and the development of the sanctuary as a regional place of worship and a key factor in Phokian self-definition. 6
The bloodthirsty goddess: Artemis Tauropolos and Ortheia
Like Dionysos, Artemis embodies much that stands in opposition to Greek cultural ideals: she is an untamed, powerful female, a deity of the wilds more than of the city, and her personality includes a savage element which must be suppressed in the making of a civilized society. Both deities are so challenging to cultural norms that they are sometimes presented as "foreigners," gods who have arrived from strange and savage lands. This was the case in a number of cities, including Athens and Sparta, which attributed the founding of their Artemis cults to Orestes and his sister Iphigeneia. 7
Attic myths about Artemis tell of an angry goddess who must be appeased. At Aulis in nearby Boiotia, Agamemnon is said to have outraged Artemis by killing a sacred stag, causing her to demand the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. In some versions of the story, Iphigeneia perished at the altar, but in others she was saved by Artemis and made immortal, or spirited away to a distant land. Herodotus (4. 103) tells of the barbarian Tauroi on the shores of the Black Sea, who sacrifice strangers to a goddess they call Iphigeneia or Parthenos (the Maiden). His account may have inspired Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, in which Orestes discovers his sister serving as priestess of Artemis in the land of the Tauroi. Obeying an oracle, they escape the barbarians and bring the barbarian statue of Artemis Tauropolos (Bull Tender) to Attica, where it is installed in a temple at Halai Araphenides. There a strange rite of bloodletting takes place: a sword is held to a man's throat in order to draw a small amount of blood, "so that the goddess may have her proper honors" (Eur. IT 1459-61). This practice may have been an attenuated form of human sacrifice, though there is no additional evidence for this. What it does demonstrate is the uncanny and savage aspect of the goddess and the belief that she desired such sacrifices. While it is unclear whether the Greeks ever actually practiced human sacrifice, the concept was deeply embedded in their
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culture. Instead of recognizing their own fascination with the topic, they disavowed it by giving the practice, and even the goddess herself, a barbarian origin. 8
At Sparta, a bloody ritual was again linked to the putative origin of the goddess' image in the land of the Tauroi. Spartan boys underwent a series of trials designed to toughen them and to produce ideal warriors worthy of inclusion among the ranks of citizens; one of these tests took place at the altar of Artemis Ortheia. According to our earliest source, Xenophon (Lac. 2. 9), it was a sort of war game between two teams. One team attempted to steal cheeses piled on the altar, while the other wielded whips against them. Later sources speak of a simple test of endurance in which boys were whipped so that blood fell on the altar, while the priestess of Artemis stood by holding the ancient statue. If the men wielding the whips were too lenient, the statue became heavier in her hands. The boys who withstood the most punishment, called "victors at the altar" (bo ? monikai), were greatly honored. In Roman times this ritual became a popular spectacle, and an amphitheater was built around the altar to accommodate tourists. 9
Ortheia seems to mean the Upright Goddess, and folk etymology derives the name from the discovery of the statue tangled in the boughs of the agnus castus bush, which held it upright. 10 In the cult legend related by Pausanias (3. 16. 9), the strange character of the goddess was immediately manifested when the men who found her went mad. The early inscriptions speak of Ortheia, who was probably an independent goddess, only later syncretized with Artemis. Known as the Limnaion (the Marsh), the sanctuary was founded in the late eighth century, and originally consisted of a pavement and altar located in a hollow beside the river Eurotas. An Archaic temple was added and restored after a flood destroyed the original installation. The exca- vators found an unbroken series of votive objects from the late Geometric period to Roman times; among these the sanctuary is famous for its ivory and bone plaques inspired by Phoenician models, more than one hundred thou- sand lead figurines, and an array of unusual terracotta masks.
Found immediately north and south of the temple, the masks are votive copies of wood or cloth masks worn during ritual dances in the Archaic period, and depict a variety of stock characters: grotesque demons, youths, warriors, satyrs, and gorgons. The most numerous are the masks covered with wrinkled ridges, featuring gaping toothy mouths. The iconography of these rather fearsome-looking masks, based on Phoenician models, can be traced back to the male Babylonian monster Humbaba. Most modern schol- ars, however, think the masks represent grotesque females, for an ancient authority speaks of Spartan dances performed by males wearing female masks and clothing. Such dances, described as "funny and obscene," were a regular part of the Dorian and Peloponnesian worship of Artemis, and were probably related to rites of passage. 11
The ivories and the far cheaper molded terracotta and lead figurines include 105
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numerous images of a winged goddess, holding animals in the heraldic Mistress of Animals pose or grasping a wreath in each hand. Initially, Artemis' favorite animal, the deer, is absent from the animals depicted, but becomes increasingly popular after 600, suggesting that the syncretizing of Ortheia and Artemis took place in the sixth century. The lead figurines, including many hoplite warriors, are characteristic of Peloponnesian sanctuaries but little known elsewhere. Among the early votive gifts, limestone sculptures of heraldic lions and bronze double axes show that artistic motifs from the Mycenaean period were still remembered here. 12
Artemis and the vulnerable maiden
In many if not most Greek cities, adolescent girls danced for Artemis. These dances had social as well as religious functions, as they signaled a girl's readi- ness for marriage and made her visible to potential suitors. Also, transitions in the female life cycle governed by Artemis were linked to the prosperity and safety of the community as a whole. Many of Artemis' sanctuaries were located on the borders of a given polis, in lands that formed territorial boundaries. Rituals conducted safely by girls at these vulnerable sites demon- strated the strength of the polis, just as the very placement of such border sanctuaries asserted territorial claims. Likewise, a number of myths and legends draw a clear analogy between the rape of young women celebrating Artemis' festivals and the penetration of polis territory by enemies. The Spartans traced the origins of their hostility toward the Messenians to such an incident. During a festival, they said, Spartan girls were raped in the sanc- tuary of Artemis Limnatis (of the Marsh), which stood on the borderlands between Lakonia and Messenia and was disputed territory. 13
Artemis' concern for the nurture of human young overlaps with her control over the fertility of the natural world. Particularly in the Peloponnese, where her cults are extremely numerous, Artemis has the characteristics of a nature goddess who promotes the growth of vegetation and is to be found in green, moist places. The cult of Artemis Karyatis (of the Nut Tree) was famed throughout Greece for its dancing maidens, often said to be the inspiration for the columns in maiden form (caryatids) that support the porch of the Athenian Erechtheion and other ancient buildings. Located on the border between Lakonia and Arkadia, Karyai was sacred to Artemis and the nymphs who served as her companions. The girls of Lakonia made an annual pilgrimage there to dance "a traditional local dance" before the goddess' statue, which in Pausanias' day stood in the open air. Here too, the maidens were vulnerable: it was said that the Messenian general Aristomenes and his men kidnapped the daughters of their Lakonian enemies from this sanctuary. 14
As a virgin goddess, Artemis is not asexual but fosters a constant aware- ness of the maturing sexuality of the community's adolescent girls. From a
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patriarchal perspective, the asset of female fertility is always complicated by fears of poaching by rival males (or the desire to engage in such poaching), which helps to explain the regular appearance of the rape motif in Artemis' myths and cults. Still another Peloponnesian cult, that of Artemis Alpheiaia (of the river Alpheios) at Letrinoi, incorporated a legend about the attempted rape of Artemis by the local river god. Artemis escaped recognition by daubing her own face and those of her nymph companions with river mud, an act that probably reflects a lost ritual practice. Artemis and Alpheios shared an altar at Olympia, and the cult spread to the Dorian colony of Syracuse in Sicily, where Artemis Potamia (of the River) was worshiped at a spring said to be the local manifestation of the river Alpheios. 15
Artemis Brauronia
All over the Greek world, women prayed to Artemis for help with gynecological problems, childbirth, and the nurture of young children. Artemis' cult at Brauron, one of the oldest and most important in Attica, was concerned with these functions. The sanctuary, which included a temple and a dining facility, was arranged around a sacred spring and a cave-like cleft in the rocky hillside nearby. This "cave" area was appropriate for a goddess of childbirth, both from a symbolic standpoint and because the Kretan childbirth deity Eileithyia, who is sometimes syncretized with Artemis, was also worshiped in a cave. It is possible that Iphigeneia, whose name means something like "strong in birth," was originally the goddess of Brauron, and that she was demoted to the status of a heroine upon the arrival of Artemis. In Euripides' day (Eur. IT 1462-67), Iphigeneia was remembered as the first priestess at Brauron, and garments of women who died in childbirth were dedicated at her tomb. Excavation has failed to pinpoint the location of this tomb, but it may have been associated with the complex of structures found in the cave area.
Here and in the spring, archaeologists discovered costly gifts to Artemis from the women of Attica: gold jewelry, stone seals and scarab gems, glass beads and vases, and bronze mirrors. 16 But the most frequently dedicated items were articles of women's clothing: belts, tunics, long robes, shawls, and headgear. After using the garments for a time, women gave them to the goddess, often embroidered with their own names or the words "sacred to Artemis. " The items were displayed in the temple in boxes and on racks, and the officials in charge of the sanctuary kept careful records of them. No trace of them exists today, but the temple inventories were carved in stone in the fourth century and set up both at Brauron and at a sister sanctuary on the Athenian Akropolis. These lists make it clear that women gave the best they had to the goddess:
Pheidylla, a white woman's himation in a display box. Mneso, a frog- green garment. Nausis, a lady's himation with a broad purple border in
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wave pattern around the edge. Kleo, a delicate shawl. Phile, a bordered textile. Teisikrateia, a multi-colored Persian style shirt with sleeves. 17
Some of the garments were draped over the cult images of Artemis in the temple, which was first constructed in the sixth century and rebuilt after the Persian invasion in the fifth. There were at least two statues and possibly three, referred to in the inventories as "the old image," "the stone image," and "the standing statue. " As many as five garments at a time were worn by these images, a practice that allowed worshipers to feel they had achieved the closest possible contact with the goddess. 18
Old Attic stories, dating to the founding of Brauron and beyond, tell how Artemis became enraged when local inhabitants killed a sacred bear. The ensuing plague could be stopped only by a maiden sacrifice or by the insti- tution of a ritual in which young girls "played the bear" (arkteuein). 19 The bear was noted in Greek lore for both its fierceness and its maternal devotion; though presumably not commonly encountered in Classical Attica, it had a long history as a sacred yet prized game animal in the prehistoric hunting cultures of Europe. At Brauron, girls between the ages of five and ten danced and ran races beside the altar of Artemis. They wore special yellow robes, which they shed at some point in the rite, for the small painted jars dedicated at the end of their service depict both clothed and naked girls. 20
When the Attic towns were united under Athens, the state took over the Brauronia and entrusted the quadrennial festival to the hieropoioi (doers of the sacred things), the same officials who ran the Panathenaic festival for Athena. Not every girl in Attica could serve as a bear at Brauron, though the painted cups have turned up in several other sites, suggesting that some of the Attic villages held their own Brauronian festivals.
