Because they were imagined as dwellers below the earth and were therefore related to the common dead and the underworld gods, they
occasionally
received sacrifices with what are considered "chthonian" features: a nocturnal setting, a black victim, special blood rituals, and/or the burning of the carcass whole with no attendant feasting.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
Syncretization of Herakles, Bes, and Melqart, whose kourotrophic and apotropaic functions are similar, has been documented in Cyprus and elsewhere.
15
Ino-Leukothea
Like Herakles, Ino-Leukothea was widely worshiped and she transcended distinctions between mortal and immortal. The sixth-century philosopher Xenophanes (fr. 21 A 13 DK) advised his fellow Eleans that they ought to
187
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
make up their minds: if Leukothea was a mortal woman, they should not sacrifice (thuein) to her. But if she was a goddess, they should not sing laments. This evidence of Archaic dirges for Leukothea was cited by Farnell to support his interpretation of Ino-Leukothea as a vegetation goddess closely associ- ated with Dionysos, for lamentation is often a part of the worship of deities connected with the ebb and flow of the seasons and the cycle of plant growth and death. 16 The myth of Athamas' angry pursuit and Ino's leap into the sea indeed parallels the anger of Lykourgos and the leap of Dionysos recounted in the Iliad (6. 130-37).
Beneath the myth lies a substrate of ritual, rich in the symbolism of rebirth and transfiguration, which helps us to see how the Theban daughter of Kadmos and the sea-goddess who rescues Odysseus from drowning can be one and the same, an identification already made in Homeric epic (Od. 5. 333-35). Ino-Leukothea and her son Melikertes-Palaimon derive their power as sea gods from their own experience of drowning, and their dual names may signal not the blending of two originally separate figures, but a passage from one state of existence to another. Like other Dionysiac women, Ino-Leukothea has an ambivalent relationship to children: sometimes she is the maddened killer who dispatches Melikertes, sometimes she attempts to revive his lifeless body through immersion, and sometimes she is the nurtur- ing foster-mother of the infant Dionysos himself. 17
According to Cicero (Nat. D. 3. 15), all of Greece worshiped Ino-Leukothea. The evidence for her cults is mostly late, yet they were probably well developed by the Archaic period, given the wide distribution of her worship and her popularity in Archaic poetry. Homer, Alcman (fr. 50b PMG), and Pindar (Pyth. 11. 2) speak of her as a sea goddess, and we must presume that she received prayers and sacrifices from anxious mariners. Antiquarian sources note her presence in Thessaly (where inscribed dedications have been found), Boiotia, the Isthmos, and southern Lakonia, but in contrast to the witness of the Archaic poets, there is little or no indication of a marine character in the cults they describe. A festival at Miletos involving a boys' competition evokes Leukothea's kourotrophic role. 18 Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 267d) mentions her precinct (se ? kos) in Chaironeia (Boiotia), which was perhaps modeled on the se ? kos of her sister Semele in Thebes. Near Megara was the Molourian rock from which she leapt, and the Megarians of the Roman period said that her body washed up on their shore, where the two granddaughters of the king found it and laid it to rest, instituting annual sacrifices at the tomb. Whereas the Megarian customs sound like standard heroic cult, we also hear that Ino (like Dionysos at Argos) resided deep in a lake in southern Lakonia. During her annual festival, people threw barley loaves into the water and read omens from the manner in which they sank. Such deep lakes, through which access to the underworld was possible, were the homes of chthonian deities. 19
188
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
The Dioskouroi and Helen
The cult of the Dioskouroi, "youths of Zeus," is already attested in the eleventh book of the Odyssey (11. 298-304), where we learn that "the life- giving land holds them, living, who beneath the earth have honors from Zeus. On alternate days they live and again are dead, and they have honor equal to the gods. " This passage appears to "correct" lines in the Iliad (3. 243-44) that baldly note the burial of the brothers in Lakedaimon, with no mention of their special status. Together, the passages illustrate a central issue in the cult and myth of the divine twins: the tension between their dual identities as dead heroes and as gods, mortals and immortals. Other poets, including Alcman (fr. 7 PMG) and Pindar (Nem. 10. 55-90), celebrated the paradox of the twins alive under the Lakonian earth, and told how the immortal brother, Polydeukes, would not be separated from his mortal sibling Kastor even by death.
The Tyndaridai (sons of Tyndareos), as the Spartans usually called them, appear at first glance to be typical heroes who exert influence from their tombs. While their Lakonian cult is unquestionably chthonian, however, the Spartans always spoke of them as gods and swore "by the two gods. " Other Greeks saw them primarily as divine saviors who rode down from the skies in a blaze of light to give aid in battle or rescue swamped sailors, and their Panhellenic cult developed early in the Archaic period. Already in the seventh century, a hymn of Alcaeus tells how they fly from the Peloponnese to manifest themselves in a ship's rigging as St. Elmo's fire, and "easily rescue men from chilling death," and in the sixth, Poseidon accompanies them on Attic vase paintings. Their Delian cult, established in the seventh or early sixth century, presumably focused on the aid they offered to mariners. 20
Scholars agree, though not unanimously, that the Dioskouroi have an Indo-European pedigree. The Vedic Asvins, twin riders who give aid in battle and marry the daughter of the Sun, provide a striking parallel to the Greek twins and their divine sister Helen. Anak(t)es (Lords), a third cult title for the Greek twins used in Attica, Boiotia, and Argos, may signal yet another com- ponent in their evolution. It was an Argive who dedicated the famous twin statues of the local heroes Kleobis and Biton, now in the Delphi museum, to the Anakes. Thus several strands of tradition, some plausibly Indo-European in origin, coalesced to form the divine persona of the Dioskouroi. 21
The twins played an important role in the civic lives of the Spartans. Although the Spartan kings claimed to be descendants of Herakles, the dual kingship was intimately connected with the cult of the Tyndaridai. When either king left Sparta on campaign, one of the twins accompanied him, most likely in the form of a statue. The Tyndaridai also served as models for the Spartan youths who aspired to full citizenship. The influence of horse-taming Kastor and the boxer Polydeukes was felt in all the spheres of action appropriate to young Spartan males: there was a Kastorian hunting dog, a
189
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
Kastorian battle song, and a choral sword dance invented by the pair. They also provided a model for Spartan matrimony through their capture of the daughters of the Messenian king Leukippos (White Horse). These maidens, Hilaeira (Softly Shining) and Phoibe (Radiant), are ideal female counterparts of the brilliant twins. Spartan marriage customs included a ritual kidnapping that must have evoked this myth, an Archaic favorite often illustrated in Lakonian contexts. 22
Pindar (Pyth. 11. 61-64) and other early poets identify Therapne as the site of the brothers' joint burial. There, a complex of related sanctuaries included those of Helen and Menelaos, the shrine of Polydeukes, and "the so-called Phoibaion with a temple of the Dioskouroi in it" (Paus. 3. 20. 2) where Spartan youths sacrificed to the war god Enyalios. The Phoibaion was probably a shrine of the Leukippides. Unfortunately, none of the cult places of the Tyndaridai have been identified, but we have material evidence of their worship in ten votive reliefs of Archaic and Classical date. They depict the nude twins standing in profile, facing each other and holding spears. Their other attributes are two tall amphoras with peaked lids, a pair of snakes, and a curious monument called the dokana (the beams), which consisted of two parallel planks joined by two horizontal crossbars. All of these objects possessed chthonian or sepulchral connotations: the mysterious dokana may have served as a tomb marker, or as a schematic representation of the twins in their shrine. The Spartans exported the Tyndaridai to their colony Taras, most likely when it was founded in the eighth century, though our evidence is limited to an important series of terracotta relief plaques dedicated in the fourth and third centuries. These plaques, pierced for suspension on the walls of a shrine or in a grove, include some motifs that are obviously of Spartan origin (the dokana, twin amphoras, the rape of the Leukippides) and others that are more generalized (chariots, horse heads). 23
An aspect of the Panhellenic cult of the Dioskouroi, reflected both in popular legend and in individual devotions, was the belief that the twins gave aid in battle and sometimes appeared on the actual battlefield. Two inscribed spear butts, appropriate gifts for the spear-wielding Dioskouroi, were separ- ately dedicated as battle spoils in Classical Attica and Arkadia. 24 Partisans of Sparta, the Tyndaridai were said to have thwarted Aristomenes, Sparta's great antagonist in the Second Messenian War, on at least two occasions. After they miraculously appeared on their white horses during a clash between Lokroi Epizephyrioi and Kroton beside the Sagra river (c. 600), the victorious Lokrians set up altars to them. Over a century later, Simonides elegized the Battle of Plataiai with a description of the Dioskouroi and Menelaos accom- panying the Spartans as they rode out to battle against the Persians. 25
The core ritual in the worship of the Dioskouroi was their reception as guests at a meal. Scholars often refer to the practice as theoxenia, but this technical term is only rarely attested. Usually the ritual is described in the same terms used for the entertainment of mortal guests: the hosts receive
190
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
(dechesthai) them or provide hospitality (xenia); couches are strewn and tables are set out with food and drink. Herakles, Asklepios, and many other heroes and gods were recipients of such meals, which were often shared with "parasites" in special dining rooms, or as was more often the practice for the Dioskouroi during the Archaic period, set out in private households. According to Pindar (Ol. 3. 36-40, Nem. 10. 49-51), the family of Theron of Akragas was favored by the Tyndaridai because "of all mortals they attend them with the most tables of welcome" and Herodotus (6. 127) tells of an Arkadian who became famed for his hospitality after he received the Dioskouroi. 26
Like her siblings the Dioskouroi, Helen was prone to miraculous inter- ventions. Legend had it that she blinded the poet Stesichorus for singing of her adultery at Troy, and then restored his sight when he wrote a recantation denying that she ever traveled there. 27 Herodotus (6. 61) says that the nurse of a rich but ugly young Spartan girl took her regularly to the sanctuary of Helen at Therapne and placed her before the cult statue. One day a woman appeared from the shrine and predicted that the child would grow to be the most beautiful woman in Sparta. From that day, her looks improved so dramatically that she ended up marrying one of the Spartan kings. This anecdote illustrates Helen's important role in the lives of Spartan girls and women as a paradigm of female beauty and grace. Like the Dioskouroi, Helen was worshiped both in Sparta proper and in Therapne. The urban cult seems to have involved a girls' footrace or dance on the banks of the Eurotas, and the placing of wreaths on a plane tree sacred to Helen, acts in celebration of Helen's wedding. These rituals were performed at the Dromos and the Planes, the same areas where Spartan youths experienced a separate rite of passage under the protection of Herakles. 28
Therapne was an important Bronze Age site, revived in the late Geometric period under the impetus of Spartan military victories. Excavations there revealed an enclosure and a small white limestone shrine, begun as early as 700, where statues of Helen and Menelaos probably stood, plus a rich store of votive offerings including jewelry, plentiful bronzes, terracottas, lead figurines, and pottery. A seventh century bronze vase inscribed to "Helen, wife of Menelaos" attests that the royal pair were worshiped together, and other objects are dedicated separately to Menelaos or Helen. The site was centered on a rocky outcropping, hinting at the worship of a prehistoric goddess, a predecessor of the epic Helen. The disappearance and return of a goddess is a familiar motif in Greek religion and presumably gave rise to the myths of Helen's abductions. 29
Outside of Lakonia, Helen was usually worshiped only in connection with the Dioskouroi. As early as Euripides (Or. 1635-43, 1688; Hel. 1667-70), we hear of the belief that Helen was a celestial savior of mariners along with her brothers, and that the three received libations and xenia (ritual hospi- tality) as a group. Attica, where Kastor and Polydeukes were worshiped as
191
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
the Anakes, had its own local traditions of Helen's birth at Rhamnous, her kidnapping by Theseus and her rescue by the Dioskouroi. This rich lore was reflected in various minor cults, such as the sacrifices to the Anakes and Helen recorded in the Thorikos deme calendar. 30
Asklepios
All the Greeks agreed that Asklepios was a mortal healer who had perished, struck by Zeus' lightning bolt, for presuming to raise the dead. Yet by the Classical period, he was just as unequivocally considered a god, though subordinate to his father Apollo, from whom his healing power was derived. Very little is known of Asklepios before c. 500, when his cult at Epidauros began to develop. During the fifth century, "Asklepiad" was already a familiar synonym for a physician, and Asklepios was considered the father, in a metaphorical sense, of all members of the profession, some of whom probably honored him in private with prayers and offerings; with Apollo and Hygieia, he is one of the witnessing gods in the famous Hippokratic oath. Certainly he was renowned as a culture hero long before the rise of his Panhellenic cult. Homer (Il. 2. 729-33, 4. 194, etc. ) speaks of Asklepios as the "blameless physician" who is father to the heroes Machaon and Podaleirios, and connects the family with Trikka (Thessaly), Ithome, and Oichalia (both in Messenia), where there were early traditions about Asklepios' birth. 31
Although Asklepios' earliest sanctuary may well have been in Trikka, it was the small Peloponnesian city of Epidauros that developed a cult of Pan- hellenic importance, and from which the worship spread rapidly throughout the Greek world in the fifth and fourth centuries. The peak of Asklepios' popularity, and the heyday of his important Hellenistic sanctuaries at Kos and Pergamon, lie outside the chronological parameters of this discussion. At Epidauros, the early cult of Apollo Maleatas on Mt. Kynortion expanded to the plain as the city grew. One of the earliest installations in this lower sanctuary was an altar to Apollo, beneath which was found a bronze offering bowl dedicated to Asklepios in the early fifth century. A nearby stoa or court- yard ("Building E") contained an ash altar and terminated in a small room supplied with a water channel and a stone couch or table, where the god shared food with his worshipers. A sacred well, which was probably used for ritual baths, became the nucleus of the later abaton, the area where incuba- tion (dream cures) took place. 32 These elements formed the core of the early Classical sanctuary, shared by Apollo and Asklepios.
During the fifth century, Asklepios' popularity burgeoned, and his worship began to be exported, often by grateful pilgrims who wished to establish branch cults in their home towns. Important cults at Korinth and Athens were among the early offshoots. Still it was not until the fourth century that the great prosperity of the sanctuary resulted in major architectural elabor- ation, fortunately documented in an unusually full collection of inscriptions
192
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
detailing the financial and legal arrangements. The new structures, begun as early as 380, included a Doric temple of Asklepios, a large abaton that incor- porated the sacred well, and a mysterious circular building, the Thymele, which concealed below its floor level a mazelike arrangement of concentric rings around a central chamber. The stadium and famous theater came slightly later, though already in Plato's day (Ion 530a), Asklepieia with musical and athletic competitions were held.
Through hymns, dedications, and iconography, we learn that Asklepios was worshiped in conjunction with a family group who personify aspects of healing. The name of his consort Epione refers to the physician's gentle touch, and ancient speculation found the same root in Asklepios' name, though its true etymology is unknown. In addition to his two physician sons, he had a daughter or wife Hygieia (Health) and a trio of nymphlike attendants Akeso (Relief), Iaso (Healing), and Panakeia (Universal Cure). 33 Asklepios possessed certain chthonian characteristics, the most important of which were his epiphany as a snake and the ritual of enkoime ? sis or incuba- tion, which is generally associated with netherworld powers. The function of the famous Thymele is unknown, but its lower chambers suggest a chthonian component in the Epidaurian cult. In spite of these features, Asklepios lacked the kindly/wrathful dual personality that is typical of chthonian figures. Although he sometimes refused to heal evildoers, he was generally a bene- ficent, gentle god, extending his gifts even to unbelievers.
The popular and affective element in Asklepios' worship is accessible to us through the famous iamata of Apollo and Asklepios, testimonies of cures left
Figure 14. 1 Marble votive relief to Asklepios and Hygieia. A family brings a bovine to the altar for sacrifice. Late fourth century. Louvre Museum. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
? 193
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
by visitors from all over the Aegean. These were set up in the sanctuary in the second half of the fourth century, but they represent a compilation of many older dedications, including a number of painted pinakes which are now lost. Perhaps one of the oldest was dedicated by Kleo, whose inscription read: "The size of the tablet is not to be wondered at, but the greatness of the divinity, in that Kleo carried a burden in her womb for five years, until she lay down within and he made her healthy. " Another account tells of a local boy who suffered from kidney stones. In his dream, the god asked "what will you give me if I heal you? " The boy offered his collection of knucklebones, the ancient equivalent of dice, and Asklepios laughingly agreed to the bargain. Other tales tell of cures for parasites, blindness, and lameness; they are strikingly similar to the accounts from modern healing shrines such as Lourdes. 34
Around 420, Athens became home to two sanctuaries of Asklepios, one in the Peiraieus at Zea and one in the city, on the south slope of the Akropolis. Relations between Athens and Epidauros had just been restored through the Peace of Nikias in 421, and Athens was still recovering from the great plague that ravaged the city from 430 to 426. Although a number of older healing cults existed, including those of Apollo Paion, Athena Hygieia, and various physician heroes, the time was ripe for a newer, more potent healing figure. A monument found in the city Asklepieion (IG II2 4960-63) proclaims that one Telemachos introduced the god and financed the cult in its earliest years. This large inscribed ste ? le ? , topped by a double-sided relief illustrating Asklepios' arrival, says that he came from Zea in 420 at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and was temporarily lodged in the Eleusinion. Damaged lines sug- gest that Telemachos installed a sacred snake, summoned from Epidauros, in the new sanctuary (other accounts of Asklepios' travels similarly describe how he was conveyed in serpent form to Sikyon, Epidauros Limera, and Rome). 35 There is continuing controversy over which areas of the excavated city Asklepieion, west of the Theater of Dionysos, were included in Tele- machos' original installation. One of the oldest structures, c. 420, is a four- room dining area; another is the so-called bothros, a stone-lined circular pit covered by a four-columned canopy, which most likely served as a place to deposit offerings. A grotto-spring in the cliff must have been a part of the earliest shrine, since abundant water for ritual and therapeutic bathing was a necessity in all Asklepieia. 36
Aristophanes' comic account (Plut. 633-747) of the healing of Ploutos, set in the Peiraieus Asklepieion, is the earliest description of the incubation ritual. The blind Ploutos (Wealth) is led into the sea to bathe, and inexpensive cakes are burned on the altar. Then he is placed on the temple floor along with the other ailing visitors, and the lamps are extinguished for the night. The god enters, attending to each patient in turn. Assisted by his daughter Panakeia, he covers Ploutos' head with a cloth and calls two huge serpents from the temple to lick his eyes, speedily effecting the cure. This testimony shows that
194
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
Asklepios did not demand expensive sacrifices from those he treated. The standard preliminary offering consisted of cakes, while thank offerings after receiving a cure might be more generous: sacrificial sheep, pigs, and cattle are shown in the abundant votive reliefs from the Athens and Peiraieus Asklepieia. Although unusual in other cults, the cock was a common gift to Asklepios, as we learn from Sokrates' last words (Plat. Phd. 118a) and the terracotta roosters found in the sanctuaries at Athens and Korinth. Another widespread custom, still practiced at modern healing shrines, was the dedica- tion of metal or clay body parts as thank offerings.
The rise of Asklepios is often called the harbinger of an important shift in Greek religion, a movement away from state and communal worship toward a greater focus on the needs of the individual and the gods who addressed those needs. There is much truth to this, but the available evidence suggests that Asklepios concerned himself with families as much as individuals. More votive reliefs to Asklepios are extant than for any other single deity, and these usually show a family making offerings to the god and Hygieia or other associates. They vary greatly in the number, age, and sex of the family members depicted, showing that the reliefs were custom made, rather than "stock" items. 37
Further reading
Much of the material in Farnell 1921 is now out of date, yet this book still provides the only comprehensive discussions in English for the cults of several figures treated in this chapter. Woodford 1971 has detailed discus- sion of the literary and archaeological evidence for Herakles in Attica, and Silk 1985 is complementary. LiDonnici 1995 contributes new insights into the experience of pilgrims and the workings of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros; Edelstein and Edelstein 1975 contains an important collection of primary sources on Asklepios. Lambrinoudakis 2002 provides a current account of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas.
195
15
THE POWERFUL DEAD Heroes and heroines
The Greeks sacrificed and prayed to a class of supernatural beings they called the heroes, of which the heroes in Homeric epic formed only a subset. No taxonomy of the heroes and heroines can be completely satisfying because they are a large and varied group, sometimes resembling the medieval saints with respect to the way their relics are manipulated, other times the restless and vengeful dead in their malicious and ghostlike activities, and yet other times functioning as tutelary deities who help shape the identity of the polis and protect its lands. The Greeks looked back with intense interest on their own heroic past, and believed that the first generations of men had possessed godlike powers and stature. Hesiod (Op. 123, 141) speaks of early races that died out, yet became "pure ones dwelling on the earth, kindly ones, guard- ians of mortals" and "blessed ones under the earth. " Most of the epic heroes died (Op. 166-73), yet a privileged few were brought to the Islands of the Blessed to live an existence like that of the gods. Homer and Hesiod are concerned with Panhellenic, shared traditions about the heroes, so they have little to say about heroic cult, which is a varied phenomenon, distinctive to each place.
Since we must generalize about the worship of heroes and heroines, we can say that their cult places were usually their purported tombs, or ancient structures they supposedly once inhabited.
Because they were imagined as dwellers below the earth and were therefore related to the common dead and the underworld gods, they occasionally received sacrifices with what are considered "chthonian" features: a nocturnal setting, a black victim, special blood rituals, and/or the burning of the carcass whole with no attendant feasting. While this grim, renunciatory form of sacrifice "as to a hero" was opposed in the minds of many Greeks to the standard sacrifice "as to a god," the archaeological and epigraphic evidence shows that people were rarely willing to expend resources so lavishly. The prevailing mode of sacrifice for heroes and heroines seems to have been the slaughter of the animal followed by a ritual meal. In these cases the status of the recipient as a hero, hence one of the dead, might be indicated through the blood rituals mentioned above (allowing it to flow on the ground, or pouring into the tomb), the burning of
196
HEROES AND HEROINES
a portion of meat (as opposed to the whole animal), or the requirement that all the meat be eaten on the spot, and not removed from the sanctuary. There was much local variation in sacrifices for the heroes, but the same was true for the gods. In many cases, heroes and heroines were simply "little gods," concerned for the most part with the daily comings and goings in their own neighborhoods. As such, they might be called simply "the hero at the salt- marsh" or "the heroines at the gate. " The epigraphic record gives us numerous examples of such minor heroes, whose existence we would not otherwise have suspected. 1
Heroic cult and tomb cult
Much debate has focused on the origins of heroic cult and to what degree it was influenced by the rise of Homeric epic. Most authorities agree that a major flowering of heroic cult took place in the eighth century, contemporary with the genesis of the Greek city-state and the dissemination of epic poetry in written form. An older scholarly model made epic the impetus for the development of hero cults, while more recent approaches focus on the role of heroes' tombs as "nodes of power" to be contested by different groups claim- ing land or social status in rapidly changing social and political contexts. During the eleventh through eighth centuries, there was a wave of interest in Bronze Age tombs, particularly in the Argolid and Messenia. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a similar phenomenon is attested over a broader area including Messenia, Lakonia, Boiotia, and Krete. Sometimes the locals reused the ancient tombs for burials, but other times they simply left gifts to honor the tomb occupants. Unlike proper heroic cults, these "tomb cults" usually involved one-time offerings or were sustained only a short while. 2 Special rituals in honor of ancestors also seem to be attested from time to time in the material record, and it is likely that heroic cult evolved from tribal and familial ancestor cults to serve the differing needs of the polis. 3 Unlike the ancestor, who was the actual progenitor of those bringing offerings, the hero was not always a real person, and his cult was not defined by family descent but by other common interests of the group he (or she) represented. In spite of their differences, tomb cult, ancestor cult, and heroic cult are related phenomena, as all share the assumption that, through ritual, the living can carry on a dialogue with the powerful dead, appeasing their anger or benefiting from their goodwill.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of hero and heroine cults in the ancient Greek world. In this chapter, I select a few for more detailed discus- sion, and information about others appears in the chapters on the gods. The tombs of many heroes and heroines could be found in the very sanctuaries of the gods, overturning the normal prohibition on contact between the Olympian gods and the dead. In such cases, the hero's death was often attri- buted to the god (Apollo and Hyakinthos, or Artemis and Iphigeneia), yet the
197
HEROES AND HEROINES
identities of deity and mortal might overlap and converge. 4 With a hero or heroine functioning as a sort of alter ego, the festivals of these gods were rich in contrasting rites of mourning and celebration, evoking a full range of emotional experience in the worshipers. The festival of Hyakinthos at Sparta, which opened with a day of mourning for the hero and continued with a festive celebration, is a case in point.
Epic heroes and the archaeological record
Surprisingly few cults of the great mythic and epic heroes can be firmly linked to the material record. The cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne is the lone case in which inscribed votives confirm the identity of the recipients as early as the seventh century and the first quarter of the sixth (the cult of Achilles at Olbia, discussed below, may prove to be of similar antiquity). The sanctuary of Alexandra and Agamemnon in Amyklai also produced a rich hoard of votive gifts stretching back to the seventh century, though without identifying inscriptions. The Archaic and Classical offerings include terra- cotta plaques with the typically Lakonian iconography of heroization: a man and woman are seated on thrones together; the bearded man extends a kantharos toward a rearing serpent. Other plaques show Alexandra enthroned, holding a scepter, and accompanied by a snake. The local heroine or goddess Alexandra was identified with the epic Kassandra, possibly as the focus of an expiatory rite that attempted to atone for Kassandra's murder. The introduction of Agamemnon's cult is in keeping with the strong Spartan interest in establishing cultic and mythic claims to the line of Pelops. The Spartans, in fact, seem to be the earliest and most vigorous proponents of heroic cult, promoting the cults of epic heroes as well as Spartan lawgivers and kings. 5
Often, a cult place can be securely dated to the early Archaic period, but there is no proof of a specific hero's residency until the late Classical or Hellenistic periods. Located about 1 km from the akropolis at Mycenae, the so-called sanctuary of Agamemnon was perhaps the most important cult place in the immediate area, in spite of its modest architecture. While signs of cult begin in the eighth century, only a rubble wall, a sacrificial pit, some roof tiles, and a large votive deposit remain from the Archaic and Classical phases. Inscribed sherds demonstrate that offerings were made to Agamemnon in the fourth century, but this only happened after a significant gap in activity resulting from the Argive sack of Mycenae in 468. Given the female figurines in the deposit, it has been suggested that the site was originally a shrine to Hera, and that the citizens of Archaic Mycenae were more interested in proclaiming their ties to Perseus, ancestor of Herakles, than to Agamemnon. A late Archaic inscription (IG IV 493) from the Perseian spring near the entrance to the citadel refers to the judges of youths' contests (probably rites of passage) held for Perseus. 6
198
HEROES AND HEROINES
Polis cave in Ithaka has been touted as the site of an old hero cult for Odysseus. This cave, which saw use throughout the Bronze Age, contained the remnants of at least thirteen Geometric tripod cauldrons and a series of other, later votive gifts suggesting female deities. Could it be coincidental that Homer makes Odysseus store away his Phaiakian guest-gifts, including numerous tripods, in an Ithakan cave of the nymphs (Od. 13. 13-14, 345- 50)? Given that some of the tripods go back to the ninth century, Homer's story may be a reference to this wondrous cave and its contents. Some scholars are skeptical about the claim of a cult for Odysseus, as his name does not appear on an object from the cave until the Hellenistic period. 7
An example of an epic hero who can be more firmly tied to an early shrine is Phrontis son of Onetor, the drowned steersman of Menelaos. Homer must have been aware of this cult, for he goes out of his way to mention that Phrontis was buried on the promontory of Sounion in Attica (Od. 3. 278-85). When excavators found votive pits containing offerings suitable for a hero (e. g. iron weapons, miniature shields), including a seventh-century terracotta plaque with a painted ship and helmsman, they naturally attributed the cult to the hero. Pots inscribed to Onetor and his son from the sixth century onward confirmed the connection. Phrontis (One Who Watches Over) and son of Onetor (Giver of Advantage) are the perfect names for a hero who looked down on sailors from the cliff of Sounion and took thought for their safety. Still, the minor figure Phrontis is not so much an "epic" hero like Agamemnon as a cult hero who has been absorbed into the epic. There has been much uncertainty about exactly which structures at Sounion can be assigned to Phrontis, for in the same area there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and Athena. 8
Heroes and politics
Because most heroes were closely identified with specific cities, lineages and/ or ethnic groups, Archaic poleis made extensive use of heroic cult as a sym- bolic system to convey messages about political relationships. The Athenian tribal epo ? numoi illustrate how heroes functioned as symbols of group identity, and the extent to which Athens both valued and manipulated heroic cult. Around 500, Kleisthenes reformed the tribal system by restructuring the four old Ionian tribes as ten new units, each containing a balance of citizens from different parts of Attica. The new tribes were political constructs with no kinship bonds to unify them, yet each was assigned a hero as its "founder" and each tribe was named for its hero. In the new democracy, it was by tribe that the Athenians voted, filled public offices, mustered for military service, and commemorated their war dead. With the assistance of Delphi, Kleis- thenes selected a group of Attic heroes that heavily favored legendary kings (Kekrops, Pandion, Aigeus, Erechtheus). Others in the list had special con- nections with places important to Athens, such as Salamis (Ajax), Eleusis
199
HEROES AND HEROINES
(Hippothoo? n), and Thrace (Akamas). All had preexisting cults and shrines, which were supplemented by a monument in the agora, a narrow base topped by ten bronze statues of the heroes. On the wall around the base were posted notices of lawsuits, pending legislation, muster rolls, and other information of public interest. In the 460s, statues of the eponymous heroes fashioned by Pheidias were financed by Persian spoils from the battle of Marathon and dedicated at Delphi. 9
From the sixth century on, there was a widespread belief in the talismanic powers of heroic remains, diligently fostered by the Delphic oracle. The presence of certain heroes and heroines brought prosperity and protected a city from its enemies, just as the Palladion, a famous statue of Athena, once protected Troy until Odysseus penetrated the city's defenses to steal it. Bones served as physical confirmation of a hero's presence, so heroes could be dis- covered, lost, transferred, and stolen via this medium. (Therefore the exact location of some heroic tombs, like those of Dirke in Thebes or Oedipus in Kolonos, was kept secret. ) Around 550, the Spartans became embroiled in a war with Tegea. Consulting Delphi about what ritual actions they should take in order to bring about a victory, they were told to "bring in the bones of Orestes" and given a set of riddling directions for finding his grave inside enemy territory (Hdt. 1. 67). Spartan propaganda had it that their subsequent hegemony in the Peloponnese was due to the discovery of bones belonging to a ten-foot giant, clearly those of a hero, and the installation of these remains in the Spartan agora. In spite of the Spartans' Dorian ethnicity, they took pains to establish ties with their Achaian, heroic predecessors through culti- vation of the Pelopid heroes: Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Orestes. The Spartan hunger to control the legacy of the Pelopids, and win their favor, even extended to Orestes' son Teisamenos, whose relics were brought from Achaia to Sparta in response to yet another oracle from Delphi. 10
Heroines too were of interest to the collectors of relics. A Theban tradition held that the body of Herakles' mother Alkmene was miraculously replaced by a stone, which the citizens piously installed in her shrine. At Haliartos in Boiotia, a second purported tomb of Alkmene was opened by Agesilaos (c. 379), who planned to move her remains to Sparta. The Spartans were dis- appointed in the modest contents of the tomb: a stone, a bronze bracelet, two amphoras filled with what appeared to be hardened earth, and a bronze tablet inscribed with strange characters. They went so far as to send the tablet to Egypt for "translation. " Disasters and portents followed the violation of the tomb, and attempts were made to propitiate its angry occupant and her husband Aleus, whom the Haliartans identified with the underworld judge Rhadamanthys. 11 The story shows that the fourth-century Spartans main- tained the interest in relics shown by their forefathers, and that they were eager to possess remains associated with Herakleid ancestry.
200
HEROES AND HEROINES
The heroic founder
Greek mythology and religion held in common a lively interest in the first authors of rituals, founders of cities and sanctuaries, and inventors. Such founder figures, whether real or invented, were often made the objects of cults. 12 One such hero who deserves to be better known is Anios, the priest- king of Delos. His father Apollo taught him divination and established him on Delos, while his grandfather Dionysos gave Anios' daughters Spermo (Grain-Girl), Oino (Wine-Girl), and Elai? s (Oil-Girl) the magical power to create food and drink. The epic Cypria told how Anios offered the services of his daughters to provision the Greek armies setting out for Troy. 13 On Delos, however, Anios' importance was far greater than the literary sources suggest. The Delians called him the Archegete (Founder), a title that shows he was considered their first ruler and corporate ancestor. His is one of the few fully excavated and securely identified hero shrines of the Archaic period, and its architectural pattern was often used for heroic cults, though by no means unique to them. Established in the late seventh or early sixth century, Anios' shrine first consisted of a small open-air court, about 10 m by 11 m, edged by a wooden colonnade and wall. Within the court was an altar with a drainage conduit. This was soon tripled in size, and a prohibition on entry by strangers was carved at the thresholds. The sanctuary held numerous dedications including a marble kouros; vases deposited at the site were inscribed to Anios, the Archegete, or the King. A few meters away stood a long, multi-chambered building, which surely functioned as a dining facility. Seven Archaic tombs marked with ste ? lai, survivors of the purifications of Delos, were also part of the complex; perhaps they belonged to figures connected with Anios. 14
A similar but better-known founder-figure is Aiakos, the primordial king of Aigina and son of Zeus. Through the odes of Pindar (e. g. Ol. 8, Nem. 3-8), who often wrote for elite Aiginetan patrons, we gather that the aristocratic families of the island considered themselves Aiakidai, descendants of Aiakos, and thereby partook of the immense prestige of this mythic lineage, which includes Peleus, Telamon, Achilles, Ajax, and Neoptolemos. Like Anios on Delos, Aiakos had a special priestly relationship with his father. When a drought hit all of Greece, the Delphic oracle told the anxious petitioners that only the prayers and sacrifices of Aiakos could bring rain from Zeus. Thus Aiakos founded the mountain sanctuary of Zeus Hellenios (parts of the Aiakid myth, including the lineage of Peleus, are shared with Thessaly, the ancestral home of the "Hellenes"). Like the hero-shrine of Anios, the Aiakeion seen by Pausanias (2. 29. 6) was a rectangular enclosure with low walls of stone. Carved at the entrance was the story of the drought, while the interior held a few olive trees and a low altar reputed to be Aiakos' tomb. Here, in Pindar's ode for the victor Pytheas (Nem. 5. 53-54), a procession brings floral crowns to the "door of Aiakos. " During the long struggle between Athens and Aigina, the Athenians attempted to appease Aiakos by building him a
201
HEROES AND HEROINES
hero shrine in Athens. This structure has now been convincingly identified as a large enclosure (the "rectangular peribolos") in the southwest corner of the agora. Still later, the Athenians sent a ship to retrieve Aiakos and the Aiakidai (either cult statues or relics) from Aigina before the battle of Salamis, believing that the heroes would function as allies. 15
The cults of founders were especially important in the Greek colonies, and in these cases the cult was normally observed at the centrally located tomb of the historical oikist, the leader of the original colonial expedition. The foun- der's death marked the end of the first phase of occupation, and gave the residents their first state cult that was not derivative of the mother-city. The best example of a heroized founder is Battos of Kyrene, who led Theran colonists to the coast of Libya (c. 630). Local legend had it that Battos (whose name seems to mean "stammerer") consulted the Delphic oracle to ask about his voice. The Pythia ignored his query and told him to found a city in Libya. Kyrene's subsequent prosperity was attributed in part to the personal qualities of Battos; Pindar describes him (Pyth. 5. 89-95) as a pious king who founded the groves of the gods and laid a processional road for the celebrations of Apollo. His tomb lay in the agora, set apart from those of his descendants: "Blessed while he dwelled among men, afterwards he was a hero worshiped by the people. " The tomb, which has been located and dated to around 600, turned out to be a cremation beneath a large heap of sacrificial ashes, covered in turn by a mound of earth and a ring of stone slabs. Nearby, a preexisting sanctuary contained a one-room structure that was enlarged around the time of the burial. Within it were a sacrificial pit and a number of vases from Battos' time. This has been described as a hero-shrine for Battos, though it could also be an early temple or funerary chapel. In the late Classical period, as the level of the agora rose, the mound was no longer visible, so an elaborate cenotaph was constructed beside it. 16
The hero as revenant
In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (390-415), Apollo tells the Thebans that the safety of their city depends upon gaining control over the deposed king they expelled from the city. Though he still lives, Oedipus is already depicted as a numinous figure whose blessings and curses carry supernatural power, and whose approaching death sets in motion a conflict over possession of his relics. Sophocles recounts the establishment of the Attic cult at Kolonos, and makes the embittered Oedipus resolve never to be of aid to Thebes, but instead vow that if the Athenians protect him, they will gain a "great savior for the city" (459-60). Because of his horrific (though involuntary) crimes against his mother and father, Oedipus was traditionally associated with the Erinyes, chthonian spirits who represent the anger of the dead. Therefore, in the context of rivalry between Athens and Thebes, it is not surprising that claims to the Theban hero were put forward in Kolonos, a deme that possessed
202
HEROES AND HEROINES
a venerable cult of the Erinyes under the euphemistic names of Eumenides (Kindly Ones) or Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses). Oedipus came as a wanderer and suppliant of the goddesses, and it was in their grove that he mysteriously disappeared, joining his powers to theirs as givers of blessings and curses.
This concept of Oedipus as a suppliant was not the invention of Sophocles, but existed in an independent Boiotian tradition (Lysimachus FGrH 382 F 2), according to which the corpse of the hero was denied burial in Thebes. After burial and expulsion by a second Boiotian town, it was finally interred during the night at Eteonos, but in the morning, the people realized that the grave was within the sanctuary of Demeter. Consulting an oracle, they were told not to disturb "the suppliant of the goddess. " This story makes clear that even in death, Oedipus was a wanderer, and reflects a conception of the hero as a ghostly revenant whose sufferings will not let him rest in peace. Oedipus the polluted outcast and sufferer derived his powers as a hero from these very qualities. In a fragment of the poet Asios (West IE2 fr. 14), a similar ghostly hero rises from the earth to visit a wedding uninvited, "like a wanderer," squalid and hungry. Such revenant heroes, who both suffer and cause suffer- ing, represent a strand of folk belief that is usually suppressed in the epic and tragic genres. 17
Revenant heroes were typically persons who died violently or in despair. The Delphic oracle regularly recommended the establishment of annual sacrifices to these restless dead, whose unappeased anger caused famines, illness, and other disasters. A particularly touchy group were the athlete heroes, legendary and historical victors at the Panhellenic games who were already good candidates for heroization because of their superlative physical abilities. During the fifth century, stories of anger and appeasement became attached to athletes such as Kleomedes of Astypalaia (fl. 496), whose fellow citizens tried to stone him, and Oibotas of Dyme, (fl. 756), who supposedly cursed the Achaians to three hundred years of athletic failure because they slighted him, their first Olympic victor. 18 Another revenant was Polites, the hero of Temesa in southern Italy, who had once been a crewman of Odysseus. His spirit terrorized and killed the Temesans because they had stoned him to death for committing a rape. At the behest of Delphi, they agreed to placate him by giving him a maiden to deflower every year. This went on until the Lokrian boxer Euthymos arrived in Temesa and bested the spirit, who sank into the sea and never troubled the city again. Euthymos himself, who won multiple Olympic victories in the early fifth century, became an important cult hero in Lokroi. 19
Seers and healers
Some "heroes" were clearly local deities absorbed into this category as the pantheon of major Greek gods crystallized. Both Amphiaraos and Trophonios
203
HEROES AND HEROINES
possessed mantic powers, unusual for heroes, which hint at former divine status. Amphiaraos, the Argive seer who fought as one of the Seven Against Thebes, was swallowed into a chasm as he fled the battle in his chariot. Thereafter he lived beneath the earth, still practicing the profession of seer through the medium of a priestess. According to Herodotus (1. 46, 1. 52, 8. 134), his oracle at or near Thebes was well known in the late Archaic period. Though a former enemy, Amphiaraos became a benefactor of Thebes, following a common cult pattern according to which hostile heroic figures are reconciled through worship and appeasement. 20 Later the Athenians popularized their own cult of Amphiaraos at the rival site of Oropos, on the much-contested border area between Attica and Boiotia. The buildings at the site, which has been extensively studied, date no earlier than the late fifth century. Here, the focus of the oracle shifted to healing (a much more com- mon occupation of heroes) and Amphiaraos' cult functioned in many ways like that of Asklepios, except that it charged a fee like an oracular shrine. 21 Pausanias (1. 34. 1-3) describes the fourth-century altar of Amphiaraos, which was divided into five sections for different groups of gods and heroes. To be healed, visitors made purification sacrifices (normally a piglet was used for this purpose) to all the deities named on the altar, then sacrificed a ram and slept on its fleece in the temple. The resulting dreams were interpreted as prescriptions for the proper treatment of the disease.
Boiotia was a land unusually rich in oracles, and the concept of the hero who is swallowed by the earth seems to have been endemic to this area. Trophonios, the Boiotian master builder who with his brother Agamedes constructed Apollo's first temple at Delphi, disappeared into a chasm at Lebadeia and became an oracular deity. Consultation at this oracle, already renowned in the Archaic period, was a unique and terrifying experience. Pausanias (9. 39. 2-9. 40. 3) wrote from personal knowledge about the elabor- ate purifications and sacrifices required as preparation for an encounter with Trophonios, many of which must have been operative in earlier times. The key preliminary was the sacrifice of a ram at the bothros (pit) where Trophonios disappeared, with an invocation to Agamedes and the exami- nation of the entrails to determine the mood of Trophonios. Another Archaic feature was the statue of Trophonios attributed to Daidalos, which was revealed only to those about to consult the oracle. Those who received accept- able omens climbed into a man-made subterranean chamber and poised themselves at a small opening in the floor, carrying honey-cakes as a gift. They were sucked down into "the second place" by means unknown, where they came into personal contact with the divine power. Eventually they were expelled by the same route, dazed and disoriented. Whatever they saw or heard, they were required to record on wooden tablets. In the time of Pausanias, it is clear that consultation of Trophonios was similar to initiation into one of the mystery cults, but in the Archaic period, it may have been more narrowly focused on pragmatic oracular responses. 22
204
HEROES AND HEROINES
? Figure 15. 1 Marble votive relief dedicated to the healing hero Amphiaraos. Back- ground: incubation. The foreground shows the sleeper's dream: the hero treats his shoulder ailment, fourth century. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
Ino-Leukothea
Like Herakles, Ino-Leukothea was widely worshiped and she transcended distinctions between mortal and immortal. The sixth-century philosopher Xenophanes (fr. 21 A 13 DK) advised his fellow Eleans that they ought to
187
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
make up their minds: if Leukothea was a mortal woman, they should not sacrifice (thuein) to her. But if she was a goddess, they should not sing laments. This evidence of Archaic dirges for Leukothea was cited by Farnell to support his interpretation of Ino-Leukothea as a vegetation goddess closely associ- ated with Dionysos, for lamentation is often a part of the worship of deities connected with the ebb and flow of the seasons and the cycle of plant growth and death. 16 The myth of Athamas' angry pursuit and Ino's leap into the sea indeed parallels the anger of Lykourgos and the leap of Dionysos recounted in the Iliad (6. 130-37).
Beneath the myth lies a substrate of ritual, rich in the symbolism of rebirth and transfiguration, which helps us to see how the Theban daughter of Kadmos and the sea-goddess who rescues Odysseus from drowning can be one and the same, an identification already made in Homeric epic (Od. 5. 333-35). Ino-Leukothea and her son Melikertes-Palaimon derive their power as sea gods from their own experience of drowning, and their dual names may signal not the blending of two originally separate figures, but a passage from one state of existence to another. Like other Dionysiac women, Ino-Leukothea has an ambivalent relationship to children: sometimes she is the maddened killer who dispatches Melikertes, sometimes she attempts to revive his lifeless body through immersion, and sometimes she is the nurtur- ing foster-mother of the infant Dionysos himself. 17
According to Cicero (Nat. D. 3. 15), all of Greece worshiped Ino-Leukothea. The evidence for her cults is mostly late, yet they were probably well developed by the Archaic period, given the wide distribution of her worship and her popularity in Archaic poetry. Homer, Alcman (fr. 50b PMG), and Pindar (Pyth. 11. 2) speak of her as a sea goddess, and we must presume that she received prayers and sacrifices from anxious mariners. Antiquarian sources note her presence in Thessaly (where inscribed dedications have been found), Boiotia, the Isthmos, and southern Lakonia, but in contrast to the witness of the Archaic poets, there is little or no indication of a marine character in the cults they describe. A festival at Miletos involving a boys' competition evokes Leukothea's kourotrophic role. 18 Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 267d) mentions her precinct (se ? kos) in Chaironeia (Boiotia), which was perhaps modeled on the se ? kos of her sister Semele in Thebes. Near Megara was the Molourian rock from which she leapt, and the Megarians of the Roman period said that her body washed up on their shore, where the two granddaughters of the king found it and laid it to rest, instituting annual sacrifices at the tomb. Whereas the Megarian customs sound like standard heroic cult, we also hear that Ino (like Dionysos at Argos) resided deep in a lake in southern Lakonia. During her annual festival, people threw barley loaves into the water and read omens from the manner in which they sank. Such deep lakes, through which access to the underworld was possible, were the homes of chthonian deities. 19
188
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
The Dioskouroi and Helen
The cult of the Dioskouroi, "youths of Zeus," is already attested in the eleventh book of the Odyssey (11. 298-304), where we learn that "the life- giving land holds them, living, who beneath the earth have honors from Zeus. On alternate days they live and again are dead, and they have honor equal to the gods. " This passage appears to "correct" lines in the Iliad (3. 243-44) that baldly note the burial of the brothers in Lakedaimon, with no mention of their special status. Together, the passages illustrate a central issue in the cult and myth of the divine twins: the tension between their dual identities as dead heroes and as gods, mortals and immortals. Other poets, including Alcman (fr. 7 PMG) and Pindar (Nem. 10. 55-90), celebrated the paradox of the twins alive under the Lakonian earth, and told how the immortal brother, Polydeukes, would not be separated from his mortal sibling Kastor even by death.
The Tyndaridai (sons of Tyndareos), as the Spartans usually called them, appear at first glance to be typical heroes who exert influence from their tombs. While their Lakonian cult is unquestionably chthonian, however, the Spartans always spoke of them as gods and swore "by the two gods. " Other Greeks saw them primarily as divine saviors who rode down from the skies in a blaze of light to give aid in battle or rescue swamped sailors, and their Panhellenic cult developed early in the Archaic period. Already in the seventh century, a hymn of Alcaeus tells how they fly from the Peloponnese to manifest themselves in a ship's rigging as St. Elmo's fire, and "easily rescue men from chilling death," and in the sixth, Poseidon accompanies them on Attic vase paintings. Their Delian cult, established in the seventh or early sixth century, presumably focused on the aid they offered to mariners. 20
Scholars agree, though not unanimously, that the Dioskouroi have an Indo-European pedigree. The Vedic Asvins, twin riders who give aid in battle and marry the daughter of the Sun, provide a striking parallel to the Greek twins and their divine sister Helen. Anak(t)es (Lords), a third cult title for the Greek twins used in Attica, Boiotia, and Argos, may signal yet another com- ponent in their evolution. It was an Argive who dedicated the famous twin statues of the local heroes Kleobis and Biton, now in the Delphi museum, to the Anakes. Thus several strands of tradition, some plausibly Indo-European in origin, coalesced to form the divine persona of the Dioskouroi. 21
The twins played an important role in the civic lives of the Spartans. Although the Spartan kings claimed to be descendants of Herakles, the dual kingship was intimately connected with the cult of the Tyndaridai. When either king left Sparta on campaign, one of the twins accompanied him, most likely in the form of a statue. The Tyndaridai also served as models for the Spartan youths who aspired to full citizenship. The influence of horse-taming Kastor and the boxer Polydeukes was felt in all the spheres of action appropriate to young Spartan males: there was a Kastorian hunting dog, a
189
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
Kastorian battle song, and a choral sword dance invented by the pair. They also provided a model for Spartan matrimony through their capture of the daughters of the Messenian king Leukippos (White Horse). These maidens, Hilaeira (Softly Shining) and Phoibe (Radiant), are ideal female counterparts of the brilliant twins. Spartan marriage customs included a ritual kidnapping that must have evoked this myth, an Archaic favorite often illustrated in Lakonian contexts. 22
Pindar (Pyth. 11. 61-64) and other early poets identify Therapne as the site of the brothers' joint burial. There, a complex of related sanctuaries included those of Helen and Menelaos, the shrine of Polydeukes, and "the so-called Phoibaion with a temple of the Dioskouroi in it" (Paus. 3. 20. 2) where Spartan youths sacrificed to the war god Enyalios. The Phoibaion was probably a shrine of the Leukippides. Unfortunately, none of the cult places of the Tyndaridai have been identified, but we have material evidence of their worship in ten votive reliefs of Archaic and Classical date. They depict the nude twins standing in profile, facing each other and holding spears. Their other attributes are two tall amphoras with peaked lids, a pair of snakes, and a curious monument called the dokana (the beams), which consisted of two parallel planks joined by two horizontal crossbars. All of these objects possessed chthonian or sepulchral connotations: the mysterious dokana may have served as a tomb marker, or as a schematic representation of the twins in their shrine. The Spartans exported the Tyndaridai to their colony Taras, most likely when it was founded in the eighth century, though our evidence is limited to an important series of terracotta relief plaques dedicated in the fourth and third centuries. These plaques, pierced for suspension on the walls of a shrine or in a grove, include some motifs that are obviously of Spartan origin (the dokana, twin amphoras, the rape of the Leukippides) and others that are more generalized (chariots, horse heads). 23
An aspect of the Panhellenic cult of the Dioskouroi, reflected both in popular legend and in individual devotions, was the belief that the twins gave aid in battle and sometimes appeared on the actual battlefield. Two inscribed spear butts, appropriate gifts for the spear-wielding Dioskouroi, were separ- ately dedicated as battle spoils in Classical Attica and Arkadia. 24 Partisans of Sparta, the Tyndaridai were said to have thwarted Aristomenes, Sparta's great antagonist in the Second Messenian War, on at least two occasions. After they miraculously appeared on their white horses during a clash between Lokroi Epizephyrioi and Kroton beside the Sagra river (c. 600), the victorious Lokrians set up altars to them. Over a century later, Simonides elegized the Battle of Plataiai with a description of the Dioskouroi and Menelaos accom- panying the Spartans as they rode out to battle against the Persians. 25
The core ritual in the worship of the Dioskouroi was their reception as guests at a meal. Scholars often refer to the practice as theoxenia, but this technical term is only rarely attested. Usually the ritual is described in the same terms used for the entertainment of mortal guests: the hosts receive
190
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
(dechesthai) them or provide hospitality (xenia); couches are strewn and tables are set out with food and drink. Herakles, Asklepios, and many other heroes and gods were recipients of such meals, which were often shared with "parasites" in special dining rooms, or as was more often the practice for the Dioskouroi during the Archaic period, set out in private households. According to Pindar (Ol. 3. 36-40, Nem. 10. 49-51), the family of Theron of Akragas was favored by the Tyndaridai because "of all mortals they attend them with the most tables of welcome" and Herodotus (6. 127) tells of an Arkadian who became famed for his hospitality after he received the Dioskouroi. 26
Like her siblings the Dioskouroi, Helen was prone to miraculous inter- ventions. Legend had it that she blinded the poet Stesichorus for singing of her adultery at Troy, and then restored his sight when he wrote a recantation denying that she ever traveled there. 27 Herodotus (6. 61) says that the nurse of a rich but ugly young Spartan girl took her regularly to the sanctuary of Helen at Therapne and placed her before the cult statue. One day a woman appeared from the shrine and predicted that the child would grow to be the most beautiful woman in Sparta. From that day, her looks improved so dramatically that she ended up marrying one of the Spartan kings. This anecdote illustrates Helen's important role in the lives of Spartan girls and women as a paradigm of female beauty and grace. Like the Dioskouroi, Helen was worshiped both in Sparta proper and in Therapne. The urban cult seems to have involved a girls' footrace or dance on the banks of the Eurotas, and the placing of wreaths on a plane tree sacred to Helen, acts in celebration of Helen's wedding. These rituals were performed at the Dromos and the Planes, the same areas where Spartan youths experienced a separate rite of passage under the protection of Herakles. 28
Therapne was an important Bronze Age site, revived in the late Geometric period under the impetus of Spartan military victories. Excavations there revealed an enclosure and a small white limestone shrine, begun as early as 700, where statues of Helen and Menelaos probably stood, plus a rich store of votive offerings including jewelry, plentiful bronzes, terracottas, lead figurines, and pottery. A seventh century bronze vase inscribed to "Helen, wife of Menelaos" attests that the royal pair were worshiped together, and other objects are dedicated separately to Menelaos or Helen. The site was centered on a rocky outcropping, hinting at the worship of a prehistoric goddess, a predecessor of the epic Helen. The disappearance and return of a goddess is a familiar motif in Greek religion and presumably gave rise to the myths of Helen's abductions. 29
Outside of Lakonia, Helen was usually worshiped only in connection with the Dioskouroi. As early as Euripides (Or. 1635-43, 1688; Hel. 1667-70), we hear of the belief that Helen was a celestial savior of mariners along with her brothers, and that the three received libations and xenia (ritual hospi- tality) as a group. Attica, where Kastor and Polydeukes were worshiped as
191
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
the Anakes, had its own local traditions of Helen's birth at Rhamnous, her kidnapping by Theseus and her rescue by the Dioskouroi. This rich lore was reflected in various minor cults, such as the sacrifices to the Anakes and Helen recorded in the Thorikos deme calendar. 30
Asklepios
All the Greeks agreed that Asklepios was a mortal healer who had perished, struck by Zeus' lightning bolt, for presuming to raise the dead. Yet by the Classical period, he was just as unequivocally considered a god, though subordinate to his father Apollo, from whom his healing power was derived. Very little is known of Asklepios before c. 500, when his cult at Epidauros began to develop. During the fifth century, "Asklepiad" was already a familiar synonym for a physician, and Asklepios was considered the father, in a metaphorical sense, of all members of the profession, some of whom probably honored him in private with prayers and offerings; with Apollo and Hygieia, he is one of the witnessing gods in the famous Hippokratic oath. Certainly he was renowned as a culture hero long before the rise of his Panhellenic cult. Homer (Il. 2. 729-33, 4. 194, etc. ) speaks of Asklepios as the "blameless physician" who is father to the heroes Machaon and Podaleirios, and connects the family with Trikka (Thessaly), Ithome, and Oichalia (both in Messenia), where there were early traditions about Asklepios' birth. 31
Although Asklepios' earliest sanctuary may well have been in Trikka, it was the small Peloponnesian city of Epidauros that developed a cult of Pan- hellenic importance, and from which the worship spread rapidly throughout the Greek world in the fifth and fourth centuries. The peak of Asklepios' popularity, and the heyday of his important Hellenistic sanctuaries at Kos and Pergamon, lie outside the chronological parameters of this discussion. At Epidauros, the early cult of Apollo Maleatas on Mt. Kynortion expanded to the plain as the city grew. One of the earliest installations in this lower sanctuary was an altar to Apollo, beneath which was found a bronze offering bowl dedicated to Asklepios in the early fifth century. A nearby stoa or court- yard ("Building E") contained an ash altar and terminated in a small room supplied with a water channel and a stone couch or table, where the god shared food with his worshipers. A sacred well, which was probably used for ritual baths, became the nucleus of the later abaton, the area where incuba- tion (dream cures) took place. 32 These elements formed the core of the early Classical sanctuary, shared by Apollo and Asklepios.
During the fifth century, Asklepios' popularity burgeoned, and his worship began to be exported, often by grateful pilgrims who wished to establish branch cults in their home towns. Important cults at Korinth and Athens were among the early offshoots. Still it was not until the fourth century that the great prosperity of the sanctuary resulted in major architectural elabor- ation, fortunately documented in an unusually full collection of inscriptions
192
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
detailing the financial and legal arrangements. The new structures, begun as early as 380, included a Doric temple of Asklepios, a large abaton that incor- porated the sacred well, and a mysterious circular building, the Thymele, which concealed below its floor level a mazelike arrangement of concentric rings around a central chamber. The stadium and famous theater came slightly later, though already in Plato's day (Ion 530a), Asklepieia with musical and athletic competitions were held.
Through hymns, dedications, and iconography, we learn that Asklepios was worshiped in conjunction with a family group who personify aspects of healing. The name of his consort Epione refers to the physician's gentle touch, and ancient speculation found the same root in Asklepios' name, though its true etymology is unknown. In addition to his two physician sons, he had a daughter or wife Hygieia (Health) and a trio of nymphlike attendants Akeso (Relief), Iaso (Healing), and Panakeia (Universal Cure). 33 Asklepios possessed certain chthonian characteristics, the most important of which were his epiphany as a snake and the ritual of enkoime ? sis or incuba- tion, which is generally associated with netherworld powers. The function of the famous Thymele is unknown, but its lower chambers suggest a chthonian component in the Epidaurian cult. In spite of these features, Asklepios lacked the kindly/wrathful dual personality that is typical of chthonian figures. Although he sometimes refused to heal evildoers, he was generally a bene- ficent, gentle god, extending his gifts even to unbelievers.
The popular and affective element in Asklepios' worship is accessible to us through the famous iamata of Apollo and Asklepios, testimonies of cures left
Figure 14. 1 Marble votive relief to Asklepios and Hygieia. A family brings a bovine to the altar for sacrifice. Late fourth century. Louvre Museum. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
? 193
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
by visitors from all over the Aegean. These were set up in the sanctuary in the second half of the fourth century, but they represent a compilation of many older dedications, including a number of painted pinakes which are now lost. Perhaps one of the oldest was dedicated by Kleo, whose inscription read: "The size of the tablet is not to be wondered at, but the greatness of the divinity, in that Kleo carried a burden in her womb for five years, until she lay down within and he made her healthy. " Another account tells of a local boy who suffered from kidney stones. In his dream, the god asked "what will you give me if I heal you? " The boy offered his collection of knucklebones, the ancient equivalent of dice, and Asklepios laughingly agreed to the bargain. Other tales tell of cures for parasites, blindness, and lameness; they are strikingly similar to the accounts from modern healing shrines such as Lourdes. 34
Around 420, Athens became home to two sanctuaries of Asklepios, one in the Peiraieus at Zea and one in the city, on the south slope of the Akropolis. Relations between Athens and Epidauros had just been restored through the Peace of Nikias in 421, and Athens was still recovering from the great plague that ravaged the city from 430 to 426. Although a number of older healing cults existed, including those of Apollo Paion, Athena Hygieia, and various physician heroes, the time was ripe for a newer, more potent healing figure. A monument found in the city Asklepieion (IG II2 4960-63) proclaims that one Telemachos introduced the god and financed the cult in its earliest years. This large inscribed ste ? le ? , topped by a double-sided relief illustrating Asklepios' arrival, says that he came from Zea in 420 at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and was temporarily lodged in the Eleusinion. Damaged lines sug- gest that Telemachos installed a sacred snake, summoned from Epidauros, in the new sanctuary (other accounts of Asklepios' travels similarly describe how he was conveyed in serpent form to Sikyon, Epidauros Limera, and Rome). 35 There is continuing controversy over which areas of the excavated city Asklepieion, west of the Theater of Dionysos, were included in Tele- machos' original installation. One of the oldest structures, c. 420, is a four- room dining area; another is the so-called bothros, a stone-lined circular pit covered by a four-columned canopy, which most likely served as a place to deposit offerings. A grotto-spring in the cliff must have been a part of the earliest shrine, since abundant water for ritual and therapeutic bathing was a necessity in all Asklepieia. 36
Aristophanes' comic account (Plut. 633-747) of the healing of Ploutos, set in the Peiraieus Asklepieion, is the earliest description of the incubation ritual. The blind Ploutos (Wealth) is led into the sea to bathe, and inexpensive cakes are burned on the altar. Then he is placed on the temple floor along with the other ailing visitors, and the lamps are extinguished for the night. The god enters, attending to each patient in turn. Assisted by his daughter Panakeia, he covers Ploutos' head with a cloth and calls two huge serpents from the temple to lick his eyes, speedily effecting the cure. This testimony shows that
194
HERO-GODS AND HEROINE-GODDESSES
Asklepios did not demand expensive sacrifices from those he treated. The standard preliminary offering consisted of cakes, while thank offerings after receiving a cure might be more generous: sacrificial sheep, pigs, and cattle are shown in the abundant votive reliefs from the Athens and Peiraieus Asklepieia. Although unusual in other cults, the cock was a common gift to Asklepios, as we learn from Sokrates' last words (Plat. Phd. 118a) and the terracotta roosters found in the sanctuaries at Athens and Korinth. Another widespread custom, still practiced at modern healing shrines, was the dedica- tion of metal or clay body parts as thank offerings.
The rise of Asklepios is often called the harbinger of an important shift in Greek religion, a movement away from state and communal worship toward a greater focus on the needs of the individual and the gods who addressed those needs. There is much truth to this, but the available evidence suggests that Asklepios concerned himself with families as much as individuals. More votive reliefs to Asklepios are extant than for any other single deity, and these usually show a family making offerings to the god and Hygieia or other associates. They vary greatly in the number, age, and sex of the family members depicted, showing that the reliefs were custom made, rather than "stock" items. 37
Further reading
Much of the material in Farnell 1921 is now out of date, yet this book still provides the only comprehensive discussions in English for the cults of several figures treated in this chapter. Woodford 1971 has detailed discus- sion of the literary and archaeological evidence for Herakles in Attica, and Silk 1985 is complementary. LiDonnici 1995 contributes new insights into the experience of pilgrims and the workings of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros; Edelstein and Edelstein 1975 contains an important collection of primary sources on Asklepios. Lambrinoudakis 2002 provides a current account of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas.
195
15
THE POWERFUL DEAD Heroes and heroines
The Greeks sacrificed and prayed to a class of supernatural beings they called the heroes, of which the heroes in Homeric epic formed only a subset. No taxonomy of the heroes and heroines can be completely satisfying because they are a large and varied group, sometimes resembling the medieval saints with respect to the way their relics are manipulated, other times the restless and vengeful dead in their malicious and ghostlike activities, and yet other times functioning as tutelary deities who help shape the identity of the polis and protect its lands. The Greeks looked back with intense interest on their own heroic past, and believed that the first generations of men had possessed godlike powers and stature. Hesiod (Op. 123, 141) speaks of early races that died out, yet became "pure ones dwelling on the earth, kindly ones, guard- ians of mortals" and "blessed ones under the earth. " Most of the epic heroes died (Op. 166-73), yet a privileged few were brought to the Islands of the Blessed to live an existence like that of the gods. Homer and Hesiod are concerned with Panhellenic, shared traditions about the heroes, so they have little to say about heroic cult, which is a varied phenomenon, distinctive to each place.
Since we must generalize about the worship of heroes and heroines, we can say that their cult places were usually their purported tombs, or ancient structures they supposedly once inhabited.
Because they were imagined as dwellers below the earth and were therefore related to the common dead and the underworld gods, they occasionally received sacrifices with what are considered "chthonian" features: a nocturnal setting, a black victim, special blood rituals, and/or the burning of the carcass whole with no attendant feasting. While this grim, renunciatory form of sacrifice "as to a hero" was opposed in the minds of many Greeks to the standard sacrifice "as to a god," the archaeological and epigraphic evidence shows that people were rarely willing to expend resources so lavishly. The prevailing mode of sacrifice for heroes and heroines seems to have been the slaughter of the animal followed by a ritual meal. In these cases the status of the recipient as a hero, hence one of the dead, might be indicated through the blood rituals mentioned above (allowing it to flow on the ground, or pouring into the tomb), the burning of
196
HEROES AND HEROINES
a portion of meat (as opposed to the whole animal), or the requirement that all the meat be eaten on the spot, and not removed from the sanctuary. There was much local variation in sacrifices for the heroes, but the same was true for the gods. In many cases, heroes and heroines were simply "little gods," concerned for the most part with the daily comings and goings in their own neighborhoods. As such, they might be called simply "the hero at the salt- marsh" or "the heroines at the gate. " The epigraphic record gives us numerous examples of such minor heroes, whose existence we would not otherwise have suspected. 1
Heroic cult and tomb cult
Much debate has focused on the origins of heroic cult and to what degree it was influenced by the rise of Homeric epic. Most authorities agree that a major flowering of heroic cult took place in the eighth century, contemporary with the genesis of the Greek city-state and the dissemination of epic poetry in written form. An older scholarly model made epic the impetus for the development of hero cults, while more recent approaches focus on the role of heroes' tombs as "nodes of power" to be contested by different groups claim- ing land or social status in rapidly changing social and political contexts. During the eleventh through eighth centuries, there was a wave of interest in Bronze Age tombs, particularly in the Argolid and Messenia. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a similar phenomenon is attested over a broader area including Messenia, Lakonia, Boiotia, and Krete. Sometimes the locals reused the ancient tombs for burials, but other times they simply left gifts to honor the tomb occupants. Unlike proper heroic cults, these "tomb cults" usually involved one-time offerings or were sustained only a short while. 2 Special rituals in honor of ancestors also seem to be attested from time to time in the material record, and it is likely that heroic cult evolved from tribal and familial ancestor cults to serve the differing needs of the polis. 3 Unlike the ancestor, who was the actual progenitor of those bringing offerings, the hero was not always a real person, and his cult was not defined by family descent but by other common interests of the group he (or she) represented. In spite of their differences, tomb cult, ancestor cult, and heroic cult are related phenomena, as all share the assumption that, through ritual, the living can carry on a dialogue with the powerful dead, appeasing their anger or benefiting from their goodwill.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of hero and heroine cults in the ancient Greek world. In this chapter, I select a few for more detailed discus- sion, and information about others appears in the chapters on the gods. The tombs of many heroes and heroines could be found in the very sanctuaries of the gods, overturning the normal prohibition on contact between the Olympian gods and the dead. In such cases, the hero's death was often attri- buted to the god (Apollo and Hyakinthos, or Artemis and Iphigeneia), yet the
197
HEROES AND HEROINES
identities of deity and mortal might overlap and converge. 4 With a hero or heroine functioning as a sort of alter ego, the festivals of these gods were rich in contrasting rites of mourning and celebration, evoking a full range of emotional experience in the worshipers. The festival of Hyakinthos at Sparta, which opened with a day of mourning for the hero and continued with a festive celebration, is a case in point.
Epic heroes and the archaeological record
Surprisingly few cults of the great mythic and epic heroes can be firmly linked to the material record. The cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne is the lone case in which inscribed votives confirm the identity of the recipients as early as the seventh century and the first quarter of the sixth (the cult of Achilles at Olbia, discussed below, may prove to be of similar antiquity). The sanctuary of Alexandra and Agamemnon in Amyklai also produced a rich hoard of votive gifts stretching back to the seventh century, though without identifying inscriptions. The Archaic and Classical offerings include terra- cotta plaques with the typically Lakonian iconography of heroization: a man and woman are seated on thrones together; the bearded man extends a kantharos toward a rearing serpent. Other plaques show Alexandra enthroned, holding a scepter, and accompanied by a snake. The local heroine or goddess Alexandra was identified with the epic Kassandra, possibly as the focus of an expiatory rite that attempted to atone for Kassandra's murder. The introduction of Agamemnon's cult is in keeping with the strong Spartan interest in establishing cultic and mythic claims to the line of Pelops. The Spartans, in fact, seem to be the earliest and most vigorous proponents of heroic cult, promoting the cults of epic heroes as well as Spartan lawgivers and kings. 5
Often, a cult place can be securely dated to the early Archaic period, but there is no proof of a specific hero's residency until the late Classical or Hellenistic periods. Located about 1 km from the akropolis at Mycenae, the so-called sanctuary of Agamemnon was perhaps the most important cult place in the immediate area, in spite of its modest architecture. While signs of cult begin in the eighth century, only a rubble wall, a sacrificial pit, some roof tiles, and a large votive deposit remain from the Archaic and Classical phases. Inscribed sherds demonstrate that offerings were made to Agamemnon in the fourth century, but this only happened after a significant gap in activity resulting from the Argive sack of Mycenae in 468. Given the female figurines in the deposit, it has been suggested that the site was originally a shrine to Hera, and that the citizens of Archaic Mycenae were more interested in proclaiming their ties to Perseus, ancestor of Herakles, than to Agamemnon. A late Archaic inscription (IG IV 493) from the Perseian spring near the entrance to the citadel refers to the judges of youths' contests (probably rites of passage) held for Perseus. 6
198
HEROES AND HEROINES
Polis cave in Ithaka has been touted as the site of an old hero cult for Odysseus. This cave, which saw use throughout the Bronze Age, contained the remnants of at least thirteen Geometric tripod cauldrons and a series of other, later votive gifts suggesting female deities. Could it be coincidental that Homer makes Odysseus store away his Phaiakian guest-gifts, including numerous tripods, in an Ithakan cave of the nymphs (Od. 13. 13-14, 345- 50)? Given that some of the tripods go back to the ninth century, Homer's story may be a reference to this wondrous cave and its contents. Some scholars are skeptical about the claim of a cult for Odysseus, as his name does not appear on an object from the cave until the Hellenistic period. 7
An example of an epic hero who can be more firmly tied to an early shrine is Phrontis son of Onetor, the drowned steersman of Menelaos. Homer must have been aware of this cult, for he goes out of his way to mention that Phrontis was buried on the promontory of Sounion in Attica (Od. 3. 278-85). When excavators found votive pits containing offerings suitable for a hero (e. g. iron weapons, miniature shields), including a seventh-century terracotta plaque with a painted ship and helmsman, they naturally attributed the cult to the hero. Pots inscribed to Onetor and his son from the sixth century onward confirmed the connection. Phrontis (One Who Watches Over) and son of Onetor (Giver of Advantage) are the perfect names for a hero who looked down on sailors from the cliff of Sounion and took thought for their safety. Still, the minor figure Phrontis is not so much an "epic" hero like Agamemnon as a cult hero who has been absorbed into the epic. There has been much uncertainty about exactly which structures at Sounion can be assigned to Phrontis, for in the same area there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and Athena. 8
Heroes and politics
Because most heroes were closely identified with specific cities, lineages and/ or ethnic groups, Archaic poleis made extensive use of heroic cult as a sym- bolic system to convey messages about political relationships. The Athenian tribal epo ? numoi illustrate how heroes functioned as symbols of group identity, and the extent to which Athens both valued and manipulated heroic cult. Around 500, Kleisthenes reformed the tribal system by restructuring the four old Ionian tribes as ten new units, each containing a balance of citizens from different parts of Attica. The new tribes were political constructs with no kinship bonds to unify them, yet each was assigned a hero as its "founder" and each tribe was named for its hero. In the new democracy, it was by tribe that the Athenians voted, filled public offices, mustered for military service, and commemorated their war dead. With the assistance of Delphi, Kleis- thenes selected a group of Attic heroes that heavily favored legendary kings (Kekrops, Pandion, Aigeus, Erechtheus). Others in the list had special con- nections with places important to Athens, such as Salamis (Ajax), Eleusis
199
HEROES AND HEROINES
(Hippothoo? n), and Thrace (Akamas). All had preexisting cults and shrines, which were supplemented by a monument in the agora, a narrow base topped by ten bronze statues of the heroes. On the wall around the base were posted notices of lawsuits, pending legislation, muster rolls, and other information of public interest. In the 460s, statues of the eponymous heroes fashioned by Pheidias were financed by Persian spoils from the battle of Marathon and dedicated at Delphi. 9
From the sixth century on, there was a widespread belief in the talismanic powers of heroic remains, diligently fostered by the Delphic oracle. The presence of certain heroes and heroines brought prosperity and protected a city from its enemies, just as the Palladion, a famous statue of Athena, once protected Troy until Odysseus penetrated the city's defenses to steal it. Bones served as physical confirmation of a hero's presence, so heroes could be dis- covered, lost, transferred, and stolen via this medium. (Therefore the exact location of some heroic tombs, like those of Dirke in Thebes or Oedipus in Kolonos, was kept secret. ) Around 550, the Spartans became embroiled in a war with Tegea. Consulting Delphi about what ritual actions they should take in order to bring about a victory, they were told to "bring in the bones of Orestes" and given a set of riddling directions for finding his grave inside enemy territory (Hdt. 1. 67). Spartan propaganda had it that their subsequent hegemony in the Peloponnese was due to the discovery of bones belonging to a ten-foot giant, clearly those of a hero, and the installation of these remains in the Spartan agora. In spite of the Spartans' Dorian ethnicity, they took pains to establish ties with their Achaian, heroic predecessors through culti- vation of the Pelopid heroes: Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Orestes. The Spartan hunger to control the legacy of the Pelopids, and win their favor, even extended to Orestes' son Teisamenos, whose relics were brought from Achaia to Sparta in response to yet another oracle from Delphi. 10
Heroines too were of interest to the collectors of relics. A Theban tradition held that the body of Herakles' mother Alkmene was miraculously replaced by a stone, which the citizens piously installed in her shrine. At Haliartos in Boiotia, a second purported tomb of Alkmene was opened by Agesilaos (c. 379), who planned to move her remains to Sparta. The Spartans were dis- appointed in the modest contents of the tomb: a stone, a bronze bracelet, two amphoras filled with what appeared to be hardened earth, and a bronze tablet inscribed with strange characters. They went so far as to send the tablet to Egypt for "translation. " Disasters and portents followed the violation of the tomb, and attempts were made to propitiate its angry occupant and her husband Aleus, whom the Haliartans identified with the underworld judge Rhadamanthys. 11 The story shows that the fourth-century Spartans main- tained the interest in relics shown by their forefathers, and that they were eager to possess remains associated with Herakleid ancestry.
200
HEROES AND HEROINES
The heroic founder
Greek mythology and religion held in common a lively interest in the first authors of rituals, founders of cities and sanctuaries, and inventors. Such founder figures, whether real or invented, were often made the objects of cults. 12 One such hero who deserves to be better known is Anios, the priest- king of Delos. His father Apollo taught him divination and established him on Delos, while his grandfather Dionysos gave Anios' daughters Spermo (Grain-Girl), Oino (Wine-Girl), and Elai? s (Oil-Girl) the magical power to create food and drink. The epic Cypria told how Anios offered the services of his daughters to provision the Greek armies setting out for Troy. 13 On Delos, however, Anios' importance was far greater than the literary sources suggest. The Delians called him the Archegete (Founder), a title that shows he was considered their first ruler and corporate ancestor. His is one of the few fully excavated and securely identified hero shrines of the Archaic period, and its architectural pattern was often used for heroic cults, though by no means unique to them. Established in the late seventh or early sixth century, Anios' shrine first consisted of a small open-air court, about 10 m by 11 m, edged by a wooden colonnade and wall. Within the court was an altar with a drainage conduit. This was soon tripled in size, and a prohibition on entry by strangers was carved at the thresholds. The sanctuary held numerous dedications including a marble kouros; vases deposited at the site were inscribed to Anios, the Archegete, or the King. A few meters away stood a long, multi-chambered building, which surely functioned as a dining facility. Seven Archaic tombs marked with ste ? lai, survivors of the purifications of Delos, were also part of the complex; perhaps they belonged to figures connected with Anios. 14
A similar but better-known founder-figure is Aiakos, the primordial king of Aigina and son of Zeus. Through the odes of Pindar (e. g. Ol. 8, Nem. 3-8), who often wrote for elite Aiginetan patrons, we gather that the aristocratic families of the island considered themselves Aiakidai, descendants of Aiakos, and thereby partook of the immense prestige of this mythic lineage, which includes Peleus, Telamon, Achilles, Ajax, and Neoptolemos. Like Anios on Delos, Aiakos had a special priestly relationship with his father. When a drought hit all of Greece, the Delphic oracle told the anxious petitioners that only the prayers and sacrifices of Aiakos could bring rain from Zeus. Thus Aiakos founded the mountain sanctuary of Zeus Hellenios (parts of the Aiakid myth, including the lineage of Peleus, are shared with Thessaly, the ancestral home of the "Hellenes"). Like the hero-shrine of Anios, the Aiakeion seen by Pausanias (2. 29. 6) was a rectangular enclosure with low walls of stone. Carved at the entrance was the story of the drought, while the interior held a few olive trees and a low altar reputed to be Aiakos' tomb. Here, in Pindar's ode for the victor Pytheas (Nem. 5. 53-54), a procession brings floral crowns to the "door of Aiakos. " During the long struggle between Athens and Aigina, the Athenians attempted to appease Aiakos by building him a
201
HEROES AND HEROINES
hero shrine in Athens. This structure has now been convincingly identified as a large enclosure (the "rectangular peribolos") in the southwest corner of the agora. Still later, the Athenians sent a ship to retrieve Aiakos and the Aiakidai (either cult statues or relics) from Aigina before the battle of Salamis, believing that the heroes would function as allies. 15
The cults of founders were especially important in the Greek colonies, and in these cases the cult was normally observed at the centrally located tomb of the historical oikist, the leader of the original colonial expedition. The foun- der's death marked the end of the first phase of occupation, and gave the residents their first state cult that was not derivative of the mother-city. The best example of a heroized founder is Battos of Kyrene, who led Theran colonists to the coast of Libya (c. 630). Local legend had it that Battos (whose name seems to mean "stammerer") consulted the Delphic oracle to ask about his voice. The Pythia ignored his query and told him to found a city in Libya. Kyrene's subsequent prosperity was attributed in part to the personal qualities of Battos; Pindar describes him (Pyth. 5. 89-95) as a pious king who founded the groves of the gods and laid a processional road for the celebrations of Apollo. His tomb lay in the agora, set apart from those of his descendants: "Blessed while he dwelled among men, afterwards he was a hero worshiped by the people. " The tomb, which has been located and dated to around 600, turned out to be a cremation beneath a large heap of sacrificial ashes, covered in turn by a mound of earth and a ring of stone slabs. Nearby, a preexisting sanctuary contained a one-room structure that was enlarged around the time of the burial. Within it were a sacrificial pit and a number of vases from Battos' time. This has been described as a hero-shrine for Battos, though it could also be an early temple or funerary chapel. In the late Classical period, as the level of the agora rose, the mound was no longer visible, so an elaborate cenotaph was constructed beside it. 16
The hero as revenant
In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (390-415), Apollo tells the Thebans that the safety of their city depends upon gaining control over the deposed king they expelled from the city. Though he still lives, Oedipus is already depicted as a numinous figure whose blessings and curses carry supernatural power, and whose approaching death sets in motion a conflict over possession of his relics. Sophocles recounts the establishment of the Attic cult at Kolonos, and makes the embittered Oedipus resolve never to be of aid to Thebes, but instead vow that if the Athenians protect him, they will gain a "great savior for the city" (459-60). Because of his horrific (though involuntary) crimes against his mother and father, Oedipus was traditionally associated with the Erinyes, chthonian spirits who represent the anger of the dead. Therefore, in the context of rivalry between Athens and Thebes, it is not surprising that claims to the Theban hero were put forward in Kolonos, a deme that possessed
202
HEROES AND HEROINES
a venerable cult of the Erinyes under the euphemistic names of Eumenides (Kindly Ones) or Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses). Oedipus came as a wanderer and suppliant of the goddesses, and it was in their grove that he mysteriously disappeared, joining his powers to theirs as givers of blessings and curses.
This concept of Oedipus as a suppliant was not the invention of Sophocles, but existed in an independent Boiotian tradition (Lysimachus FGrH 382 F 2), according to which the corpse of the hero was denied burial in Thebes. After burial and expulsion by a second Boiotian town, it was finally interred during the night at Eteonos, but in the morning, the people realized that the grave was within the sanctuary of Demeter. Consulting an oracle, they were told not to disturb "the suppliant of the goddess. " This story makes clear that even in death, Oedipus was a wanderer, and reflects a conception of the hero as a ghostly revenant whose sufferings will not let him rest in peace. Oedipus the polluted outcast and sufferer derived his powers as a hero from these very qualities. In a fragment of the poet Asios (West IE2 fr. 14), a similar ghostly hero rises from the earth to visit a wedding uninvited, "like a wanderer," squalid and hungry. Such revenant heroes, who both suffer and cause suffer- ing, represent a strand of folk belief that is usually suppressed in the epic and tragic genres. 17
Revenant heroes were typically persons who died violently or in despair. The Delphic oracle regularly recommended the establishment of annual sacrifices to these restless dead, whose unappeased anger caused famines, illness, and other disasters. A particularly touchy group were the athlete heroes, legendary and historical victors at the Panhellenic games who were already good candidates for heroization because of their superlative physical abilities. During the fifth century, stories of anger and appeasement became attached to athletes such as Kleomedes of Astypalaia (fl. 496), whose fellow citizens tried to stone him, and Oibotas of Dyme, (fl. 756), who supposedly cursed the Achaians to three hundred years of athletic failure because they slighted him, their first Olympic victor. 18 Another revenant was Polites, the hero of Temesa in southern Italy, who had once been a crewman of Odysseus. His spirit terrorized and killed the Temesans because they had stoned him to death for committing a rape. At the behest of Delphi, they agreed to placate him by giving him a maiden to deflower every year. This went on until the Lokrian boxer Euthymos arrived in Temesa and bested the spirit, who sank into the sea and never troubled the city again. Euthymos himself, who won multiple Olympic victories in the early fifth century, became an important cult hero in Lokroi. 19
Seers and healers
Some "heroes" were clearly local deities absorbed into this category as the pantheon of major Greek gods crystallized. Both Amphiaraos and Trophonios
203
HEROES AND HEROINES
possessed mantic powers, unusual for heroes, which hint at former divine status. Amphiaraos, the Argive seer who fought as one of the Seven Against Thebes, was swallowed into a chasm as he fled the battle in his chariot. Thereafter he lived beneath the earth, still practicing the profession of seer through the medium of a priestess. According to Herodotus (1. 46, 1. 52, 8. 134), his oracle at or near Thebes was well known in the late Archaic period. Though a former enemy, Amphiaraos became a benefactor of Thebes, following a common cult pattern according to which hostile heroic figures are reconciled through worship and appeasement. 20 Later the Athenians popularized their own cult of Amphiaraos at the rival site of Oropos, on the much-contested border area between Attica and Boiotia. The buildings at the site, which has been extensively studied, date no earlier than the late fifth century. Here, the focus of the oracle shifted to healing (a much more com- mon occupation of heroes) and Amphiaraos' cult functioned in many ways like that of Asklepios, except that it charged a fee like an oracular shrine. 21 Pausanias (1. 34. 1-3) describes the fourth-century altar of Amphiaraos, which was divided into five sections for different groups of gods and heroes. To be healed, visitors made purification sacrifices (normally a piglet was used for this purpose) to all the deities named on the altar, then sacrificed a ram and slept on its fleece in the temple. The resulting dreams were interpreted as prescriptions for the proper treatment of the disease.
Boiotia was a land unusually rich in oracles, and the concept of the hero who is swallowed by the earth seems to have been endemic to this area. Trophonios, the Boiotian master builder who with his brother Agamedes constructed Apollo's first temple at Delphi, disappeared into a chasm at Lebadeia and became an oracular deity. Consultation at this oracle, already renowned in the Archaic period, was a unique and terrifying experience. Pausanias (9. 39. 2-9. 40. 3) wrote from personal knowledge about the elabor- ate purifications and sacrifices required as preparation for an encounter with Trophonios, many of which must have been operative in earlier times. The key preliminary was the sacrifice of a ram at the bothros (pit) where Trophonios disappeared, with an invocation to Agamedes and the exami- nation of the entrails to determine the mood of Trophonios. Another Archaic feature was the statue of Trophonios attributed to Daidalos, which was revealed only to those about to consult the oracle. Those who received accept- able omens climbed into a man-made subterranean chamber and poised themselves at a small opening in the floor, carrying honey-cakes as a gift. They were sucked down into "the second place" by means unknown, where they came into personal contact with the divine power. Eventually they were expelled by the same route, dazed and disoriented. Whatever they saw or heard, they were required to record on wooden tablets. In the time of Pausanias, it is clear that consultation of Trophonios was similar to initiation into one of the mystery cults, but in the Archaic period, it may have been more narrowly focused on pragmatic oracular responses. 22
204
HEROES AND HEROINES
? Figure 15. 1 Marble votive relief dedicated to the healing hero Amphiaraos. Back- ground: incubation. The foreground shows the sleeper's dream: the hero treats his shoulder ailment, fourth century. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
