No More Learning

ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
Incorporating recent archaeological discoveries and scholarly perspectives, Jennifer Larson explores the variety of cults celebrated by the Greeks, how these cults differed geographically, and how each deity was conceptualized in local cult titles and rituals. This volume will serve as a companion to the many introductions to Greek mythology, showing a side of the Greek gods to which most students are rarely exposed. For example, the worship of Zeus Meilichios in the form of a snake strongly contrasts with the Homeric image of the Olympian god. Similarly, some literary portraits of Aphrodite indicate that she was sometimes worshiped as an armed (or even a bearded) goddess.
Surveying ancient Greek religion through the cults of its gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide is detailed enough to be used as a quick reference tool or text, yet provides a readable account focusing on the oldest, most widespread, and most interesting religious practices of the ancient Greek world in the Archaic and Classical periods. Including an introductory chapter on sources and methods, and suggestions for further reading, this book will allow readers to gain a fresh perspective on Greek religion.
Jennifer Larson is Professor of Classics at Kent State University. Her research lies in the fields of Greek poetry, mythology, and religion, and she is the author of Greek Heroine Cults (1995) and Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (2001).
ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
A guide
Jennifer Larson
? First published 2007
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
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(C) 2007 Jennifer Larson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Larson, Jennifer (Jennifer Lynn)
Ancient Greek cults: a guide/Jennifer Larson. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mythology, Greek. 2. Greece-Religion. I. Title.
BL783. L37 2007 292. 08-dc22 2006030370
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-35698-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-32448-3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-98684-9 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-32448-9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-98684-4 (ebk)
FOR MY MOTHER, JANEAN LENNIE STALLMAN
CONTENTS
List of illustrations ix Preface and acknowledgments xi Frontispiece maps xii
1 Methods, sources, and concepts for the study of ancient
Greek cults 1
2 Progenitor and king: Zeus 15
3 Lady of grand temples: Hera 29
4 Mistress of citadels: Athena 41
5 Ruler of elemental powers: Poseidon 57
6 Mistresses of grain and souls: Demeter and
Kore/Persephone 69
7 Guarding and guiding the city: Apollo 86
8 The tender and the savage: Artemis 101
9 The persuasive goddess: Aphrodite 114
10 Epiphany and transformation: Dionysos 126
11 Dear to the people: Hermes, Pan, and nature deities 144
12 Divine specialists: other Panhellenic deities 156
vii
CONTENTS
13 Strangers and indigenes: latecomer and regional deities 170
14 Anomalous immortals: hero-gods and heroine-goddesses 183
15 The powerful dead: heroes and heroines 196
Notes 208 Bibliography 222 Index of primary sources 265 Index of divine, heroic, and mythic figures 276
General index
283
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece maps
1 Greece xii
2 The Aegean area xiii
3 South Italy and Sicily xiv
Figures
1. 1 A sacrificial bull is led to the priest at the altar, overseen by
the cult statue of a goddess. Attic red-figured pelike ? ,
fifth century 6
1. 2 A priest examines a ram's entrails to determine the will of the
gods. Attic red-figured skuphos, 490-80 13
2. 1 Votive bronze from Mt. Lykaion, Arkadia. Enthroned Zeus
holds the thunderbolt (left hand) and an unidentified attribute
(right hand). Sixth century 17
2. 2 Zeus Meilichios as serpent, votive relief from the Peiraieus,
c. 400 23
3. 1 Terracotta house or temple model from Perachora. End of the
ninth century 32
3. 2 Metope from Hera sanctuary at Foce del Sele: Centaur, 570-60 38
4. 1 Athena Parthenos. Roman marble copy of the cult statue in
the Parthenon at Athens, 447-39 43
4. 2 Bronze votive statue of Athena in battle from the Athenian Akropolis, c. 480 44
5. 1 Potter and kiln. Votive pinax from Poseidon sanctuary at Penteskouphia, early sixth century 61
5. 2 Bronze Poseidon from Livadhostro Bay (Boiotia), c. 470.
Inscribed to the god 65
6. 1 Demeter and Kore or Hekate. Relief sculpture, fifth century 77
6. 2 Persephone opens a box containing an infant. Terracotta
pinax from Lokroi Epizephyrioi, 470-50 84
ix
ILLUSTRATIONS
7. 1 Youthful Apollo in bronze. Possibly produced as a cult
statue, originally with a bow in the left hand and an offering
bowl in the right, c. 520 87
7. 2 Bronze cult statues from Dreros, Krete: Apollo, Artemis,
and Leto, eighth century 89
7. 3 Painted metopes and roof ornaments from the temple of
Apollo at Thermon, Aitolia, c. 625 90
8. 1 Artemis from the east frieze of the Parthenon 103
8. 2 Artemis Ephesia. Roman alabaster and bronze copy of cult
statue, original, c. 500 110
9. 1 Aphrodite with dove, votive bronze from Dodona (? ), c. 450 118
9. 2 The birth of Aphrodite on the Ludovisi "Throne," probably
from the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Lokroi Epizephyrioi,
460-50 122
10. 1 Head of Dionysos cult statue from Ikarion, Attica, c. 520 134
10. 2 "Lenaia" vase: women ladle wine before an image of
Dionysos (a masked and draped pole). Attic stamnos
exported to Italy, fifth century 136
11. 1 Skuphos with an early depiction of Pan, from the Theban
Kabirion, fifth century 150
11. 2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by
Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic 154
12. 1 Temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian agora 160
13. 1 Skuphos from the Theban Kabirion showing initiates,
fifth century 173
13. 2 Bendis and Deloptes, terracotta votive relief, c. 400 176
14. 1 Marble votive relief to Asklepios and Hygieia. A family
brings a bovine to the altar for sacrifice. Late fourth century 193 15. 1 Marble votive relief dedicated to the healing hero
Amphiaraos. Background: incubation. The foreground shows the sleeper's dream: the hero treats his shoulder ailment, fourth century
205
x
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Limitations of space have made it necessary to resist the urge to document every fact; instead, I have cited primary sources only where they are directly quoted or otherwise indispensable. Secondary sources in the notes are also kept to a minimum, with emphasis on more recent scholarship, and citations of standard handbooks and reference works are generally avoided; a full list of works consulted can be found in the bibliography. I chose the further reading at the end of each chapter for its accessibility to undergraduate students, and it is therefore limited to items in English. Students who desire full coverage of a given subject will need to venture into other languages. All dates in this book are BCE unless otherwise specified. For Greek authors and the most familiar Greek names (Oedipus, Achilles) I use the conventional English spellings; other Greek words are transliterated. For the purposes of this book, I treat as singular the names of certain Greek festivals that are plural in form (Thesmophoria, Panathenaia). Abbreviations of journals are those used in L'Anne? e philologique. Abbreviations of ancient authors and other primary sources conform to the usage of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third edition).
In order to write this guide, I synthesized a massive amount of existing scholarship, so I must thank the colleagues, too many to name, whose specialized work in philology, epigraphy, archaeology, and other fields has made this book possible. Most are cited in the notes and/or bibliography; for any inadvertent omissions, I apologize. Thanks are owed to Christina Clark and Daniel Ogden for reading sections and offering useful comments, and to the anonymous referees for Routledge. Art Resource, Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, and the Heraklion Museum assisted with the illustrations, and Mark Rubin helped me with foreign currencies. The work was carried out with the support of the Kent State University Research Council. As always, thanks to my dear husband Bob.
Jennifer Larson
Kent State University June 2006
xi
? Map 1 Greece (reproduced from Cary 1949 by permission of Oxford University Press).
? Map 2 The Aegean area (reproduced from Cary 1949 by permission of Oxford University Press).
? Map 3 South Italy and Sicily (reproduced from Cary 1949 by permission of Oxford University Press).
1
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
This book focuses on the ancient Greeks' relationship with the many super- natural beings of their pantheon(s). These gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and assorted daimones (a neutral word for deity that does not carry the negative connotations of English "demon") were acknowledged and honored by the Greeks in myriad ways. "Cult" comes from the same Latin root as "cultivate," which is fitting because ancient worship was predicated less on faith or belief (which was normally taken for granted) than on concrete actions such as sacrifice, votive offerings, and festivals, repeated as one might repeatedly water a garden in order to encourage its growth. Some gods were favorably disposed toward mortals; others were neutral or even hostile. All had to be cultivated according to age-old customs.
I have not provided a complete account of Greek religion, for not every activity that we think of as "religious" was primarily directed toward super- natural beings. Complex systems of traditional belief and custom addressed individual rites of passage (birth, adulthood, and death), relations with other people (family obligations, interpersonal ethics), ritual acts such as suppli- cation and purification, and so on. These acts, beliefs, and stories were sometimes combined with worship of the gods, but recognizing a specific deity was not always their primary purpose. The amphidromia, a ritual by which a newborn infant was carried around the hearth in order to indicate its acceptance into the family, is an example. While Hestia was the goddess of the hearth, there is no indication that the ritual was directed to her as a personal deity. Furthermore, the communal nature of much Greek worship, and the fact that it was so often sponsored by the state, means that there is much more material in this book about civic worship than about the experi- ence of small groups or individuals. Funerary ritual and beliefs about the afterlife, surely an important part of most religions, are for the most part unexplored here. Curses and sorcery too, which I would assign to "religion" rather than the methodologically suspect category of "magic," are only lightly touched upon. 1 Finally, cult is only one facet of a god's character. Greek cults do not always reveal a fully rounded picture of a god, just as
1
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
poetic descriptions leave out much that is necessary toward the full under- standing of a deity.
Even within these limits, I make no claim to comprehensive coverage, for the sheer number and variety of attested cults would defeat any scholar who attempted to fully document them. Lewis Richard Farnell's magisterial The cults of the Greek states (1896-), which was the inspiration for my efforts, fell far short of this goal even though it comprised five hefty tomes on the Greek gods, followed by a separate title on heroic cults in 1921. Therefore, the present work is selective, and the principles of selection were as follows: I have limited the discussion to cults attested for the Archaic and Classical periods, or those that I believe existed before c. 340. Within this group, I have selected the oldest and most widespread cults, those with special aspects of anthropological interest (such as human sacrifice or "sacred prostitution"), and those most familiar from canonical literary sources. I have also included cults that illustrate specific aspects of Greek religion, such as the import and adoption of foreign deities, and the distinctive habit of hero and heroine worship. Throughout, I incorporate new archaeological discoveries, and I try to present a more geographically balanced picture than Farnell did by including as much evidence as possible from the Greek colonies. The goal is not to replace Farnell's work, which is still widely used, but to provide a more easily consulted and updated alternative. Although I devote a chapter to each of the major gods, my intention is not to create the impression of a fully integrated, consistent personality for each deity. The Greek gods were per- ceived in different ways depending on the time, the place, and the individual worshiper, and it is important to let these contradictions stand. At the same time, as a result of Panhellenism, the major gods gained some degree of con- sistency in personality and function by the Archaic period.
The concept of the pantheon
Greek cults can be viewed from the perspective of cultural evolution: the details of each cult are determined not only by the specific god to whom the cult is addressed, but by a plethora of local conditions that change over time. These include the roles of other deities and heroic figures in local and external pantheons, manipulation of cults for the political and social benefit of individuals and groups, and the power of historical events (such as a battle near a sanctuary or a widely reported vision) to capture the popular imagin- ation. In spite of the ancient Greek tendency toward religious conservatism, cults can be said to develop, flower, reach maturity, and wither in a competi- tive process, for people had only limited resources to devote to worship, and their preferences demonstrably changed over the centuries. Lack of evidence makes it difficult to track short-term changes in most parts of the Greek world (with the possible exception of Athens), but any account of Greek religion should acknowledge that gods and rituals were far from static and
2
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
unchanging. As in biology, the proper application of the term "evolution" to this process implies no directional development from a "primitive" to an "advanced" state, nor a specific end goal.
Jean-Pierre Vernant, followed by many others, has argued that individual Greek gods have no identity outside the framework of the pantheon and that it is only by virtue of their associations with and oppositions to other gods that they achieve a personality and a functional range. 2 Yet there is no such thing as "the" pantheon at the level of individual religious experience as opposed to the artificial synthesis of Panhellenism: pantheons vary by place and time. Therefore, we should speak of a Theban pantheon in the Archaic period, or the Athenian pantheon of the fifth century. Even this formulation is too broad, for within the polis or other political unit, each individual was familiar with a pantheon determined by place of birth, family ancestry, neighborhood of residence, and ethnicity.
Using his recommended method to define Hermes in opposition to Hestia, Vernant achieved a fresh perspective on these deities and the way they con- cretize Greek habits of thought about space and movement. 3 Such structuralist approaches tend to be synchronic and to focus on the relationships to be detected in a set of facts, gathered from different centuries, about a given cult or cultic milieu. The underlying assumption is that cultic systems are predicated on the binary oppositions that are basic to human culture: life/ death, male/female, hot/cold, sterile/fertile, and so on. This method can yield valuable insights, but it may neglect the historical development and local idiosyncrasies of a given cult or deity, and it does not always acknowledge that some aspects of a cult, even quite important ones, may be due more to historical contingencies than to the inner logic of a pantheon. Order and symmetry are not always apparent in systems that have grown and evolved blindly over long periods of time, though we surely have to do with complex systems and not random accretions.
Still, it is certain that the most methodologically sound format for the study of Greek cults is the detailed account of a particular city or region (e. g. Jost 1985, Parker 2005), which permits examination of the interrelation- ships between the deities and festivals, yet also allows diachronic analysis. One drawback of the organizational format I have chosen (cults grouped by deity) is that it does not place in the foreground the interconnectedness of cults in the same sanctuary, polis pantheon, or region. Mindful of the dangers of studying any god in isolation, I have tried to address this issue by pointing out the special affinities between certain members of the pantheon, for example Poseidon's regular relations with Demeter, Apollo's with Artemis, and Zeus' with Athena. Also, each chapter on the major deities includes discussion of selected minor figures whose cults are closely associated.
Throughout the book, I stress geographic and ethnic distinctiveness. The importance of ethnicity, already noted by Farnell as a crucial variable in Greek religious practice, has recently received new emphasis as scholars
3
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
investigate the "cultures within Greek culture. " In particular, the work of Irad Malkin and Jonathan M. Hall has demonstrated how different Greek populations defined themselves against others and how the cults of various deities (Poseidon Helikonios, Apollo Karneios, etc. ) contributed to this activity. 4
Sources
Readers should be aware that the sources for Greek cults are lacunose and of widely varying date and reliability; they include the testimony of ancient poets, historians, and scholars; inscriptions; reports of excavated sanctuaries and their contents; and other bits of evidence. Scholars typically reconstruct rituals and festivals by judiciously weighing and combining information from these sources, and this practice has its pitfalls. For example, all scholars of ancient Greek religion are dependent to some degree on the testimony of the antiquary Pausanias, who lived in the second century CE and wrote a voluminous travelogue listing sights "worth seeing" in mainland Greece, with a heavy emphasis on sanctuaries. The accuracy of Pausanias' eyewitness descriptions has been repeatedly verified by archaeologists, and he is generally considered a reliable guide with respect to the places and objects he himself observed. But while Pausanias had a strong personal interest in the Archaic and Classical Greek periods, and a good eye for distinguishing their products, his reports of festivals and rituals as they were practiced and understood c. 160 CE are not necessarily accurate guides to what was done and believed centuries earlier. Therefore, the synthetic descriptions of festivals in this book must be viewed not as established facts, but as "best guesses" based on the available evidence. 5
The remainder of this chapter is a (very) brief introduction to a few more of the terms, concepts, and methodological issues that are most critical for the study of ancient Greek cults. Specialists will already be familiar with these terms and the debates surrounding them; for those new to the discipline, one of the introductions to Greek religion cited at the end of the chapter, or Walter Burkert's classic handbook Greek religion (1985) will provide further context for the cults described in this book.
Ritual
The use of the term "ritual" has been criticized as imposing an artificial distinction between thought and action. Especially in scholarly traditions of religious studies influenced by Protestantism, "ritual" may carry a negative connotation of mindless repetition. "Performance," which recognizes the scripted nature of ritual behavior, yet avoids the baggage attached to "ritual," is sometimes preferred, though I choose to retain the latter term in this book. Established scholarly understandings of religious ritual point to its role in
4
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
transmitting ideas, socializing the young, and creating group solidarity. In these ways, it functions much like a language and similarly has a vocabulary of acts that can be repeated in different combinations to convey different meanings. Burkert and other experts on ancient Greek ritual have stressed the way rituals create temporary disorder, fear, or uncertainty, only to decisively reaffirm order and convention. More recent approaches emphasize human agency in the construction of ritual/performance and view it as a fluid activity shaped by individuals, who use it to create culture. This perspective suggests that while some individuals may be passively indoctrinated by their participation in ritual, people are also agents who may create and modify rituals for their own ends. 6
There is no ancient Greek word for ritual; the closest equivalents are per- haps ta nomizomena (customary things) and ta patria (ancestral customs). The basic components of Greek ritual practice include various forms of sacri- fice, libation, and the offering of gifts to the gods; purifications; processions, dances, and competitions held in festival contexts; hymns and prayers; and divination. Of these rituals, which are common to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, animal sacrifice has attracted the most scholarly attention. Starting in the nineteenth century with Edward B. Tylor and W. Robertson Smith, animal sacrifice was explained by turns as a gift to the gods, a form of communion with them, a method of exchange between humans and gods, a conduit for human contact with the sacred, and so on. The concept of sacri- fice as a gift has been the most enduring of these, for anthropological studies of reciprocity suggest that offerings to supernatural figures can be under- stood as an extension of "secular" gift exchange and systems of food distribution. 7
Karl Meuli and Burkert sought the origins of sacrifice in the transition from Paleolithic hunting to the raising of domesticated animals, and in the fundamental anxiety produced in human beings by slaughter, while Rene? Girard saw in the ritualized killing of animals an outlet for human aggression and even the substrate of all later culture. These influential theories have lost ground in recent years. Anthropologists no longer place hunting at the center of Paleolithic life, and the emotional impact of killing an animal is difficult to detect among many modern practitioners of sacrifice. The abundant evidence for sacrifice as a joyous and festive occasion in antiquity also seems to out- weigh the hints of guilt and anxiety, though these are indisputably present. 8 A different approach is represented by Vernant and Marcel Detienne, who focus on the role of sacrifice in articulating the relationships between gods (who enjoy only the savor), humans (who carve and cook), and beasts (who consume raw food). Sacrifice also involves a formal distribution of food that reflects social and political structures: for example, meat may be divided into strictly equal portions among a group of political equals, or portions of honor may be allotted to certain individuals, while others are excluded from participation. 9
5
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
? Figure 1. 1 A sacrificial bull is led to the priest at the altar, overseen by the cult statue of a goddess. Attic red-figured pelike? , fifth century. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
The religious experience of the Greeks was organized by a lunar calendar of festivals and sacrifices unique to each place and time.
Within this group, I have selected the oldest and most widespread cults, those with special aspects of anthropological interest (such as human sacrifice or "sacred prostitution"), and those most familiar from canonical literary sources. I have also included cults that illustrate specific aspects of Greek religion, such as the import and adoption of foreign deities, and the distinctive habit of hero and heroine worship. Throughout, I incorporate new archaeological discoveries, and I try to present a more geographically balanced picture than Farnell did by including as much evidence as possible from the Greek colonies. The goal is not to replace Farnell's work, which is still widely used, but to provide a more easily consulted and updated alternative. Although I devote a chapter to each of the major gods, my intention is not to create the impression of a fully integrated, consistent personality for each deity. The Greek gods were per- ceived in different ways depending on the time, the place, and the individual worshiper, and it is important to let these contradictions stand. At the same time, as a result of Panhellenism, the major gods gained some degree of con- sistency in personality and function by the Archaic period.
The concept of the pantheon
Greek cults can be viewed from the perspective of cultural evolution: the details of each cult are determined not only by the specific god to whom the cult is addressed, but by a plethora of local conditions that change over time. These include the roles of other deities and heroic figures in local and external pantheons, manipulation of cults for the political and social benefit of individuals and groups, and the power of historical events (such as a battle near a sanctuary or a widely reported vision) to capture the popular imagin- ation. In spite of the ancient Greek tendency toward religious conservatism, cults can be said to develop, flower, reach maturity, and wither in a competi- tive process, for people had only limited resources to devote to worship, and their preferences demonstrably changed over the centuries. Lack of evidence makes it difficult to track short-term changes in most parts of the Greek world (with the possible exception of Athens), but any account of Greek religion should acknowledge that gods and rituals were far from static and
2
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
unchanging. As in biology, the proper application of the term "evolution" to this process implies no directional development from a "primitive" to an "advanced" state, nor a specific end goal.
Jean-Pierre Vernant, followed by many others, has argued that individual Greek gods have no identity outside the framework of the pantheon and that it is only by virtue of their associations with and oppositions to other gods that they achieve a personality and a functional range. 2 Yet there is no such thing as "the" pantheon at the level of individual religious experience as opposed to the artificial synthesis of Panhellenism: pantheons vary by place and time. Therefore, we should speak of a Theban pantheon in the Archaic period, or the Athenian pantheon of the fifth century. Even this formulation is too broad, for within the polis or other political unit, each individual was familiar with a pantheon determined by place of birth, family ancestry, neighborhood of residence, and ethnicity.
Using his recommended method to define Hermes in opposition to Hestia, Vernant achieved a fresh perspective on these deities and the way they con- cretize Greek habits of thought about space and movement. 3 Such structuralist approaches tend to be synchronic and to focus on the relationships to be detected in a set of facts, gathered from different centuries, about a given cult or cultic milieu. The underlying assumption is that cultic systems are predicated on the binary oppositions that are basic to human culture: life/ death, male/female, hot/cold, sterile/fertile, and so on. This method can yield valuable insights, but it may neglect the historical development and local idiosyncrasies of a given cult or deity, and it does not always acknowledge that some aspects of a cult, even quite important ones, may be due more to historical contingencies than to the inner logic of a pantheon. Order and symmetry are not always apparent in systems that have grown and evolved blindly over long periods of time, though we surely have to do with complex systems and not random accretions.
Still, it is certain that the most methodologically sound format for the study of Greek cults is the detailed account of a particular city or region (e. g. Jost 1985, Parker 2005), which permits examination of the interrelation- ships between the deities and festivals, yet also allows diachronic analysis. One drawback of the organizational format I have chosen (cults grouped by deity) is that it does not place in the foreground the interconnectedness of cults in the same sanctuary, polis pantheon, or region. Mindful of the dangers of studying any god in isolation, I have tried to address this issue by pointing out the special affinities between certain members of the pantheon, for example Poseidon's regular relations with Demeter, Apollo's with Artemis, and Zeus' with Athena. Also, each chapter on the major deities includes discussion of selected minor figures whose cults are closely associated.
Throughout the book, I stress geographic and ethnic distinctiveness. The importance of ethnicity, already noted by Farnell as a crucial variable in Greek religious practice, has recently received new emphasis as scholars
3
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
investigate the "cultures within Greek culture. " In particular, the work of Irad Malkin and Jonathan M. Hall has demonstrated how different Greek populations defined themselves against others and how the cults of various deities (Poseidon Helikonios, Apollo Karneios, etc. ) contributed to this activity. 4
Sources
Readers should be aware that the sources for Greek cults are lacunose and of widely varying date and reliability; they include the testimony of ancient poets, historians, and scholars; inscriptions; reports of excavated sanctuaries and their contents; and other bits of evidence. Scholars typically reconstruct rituals and festivals by judiciously weighing and combining information from these sources, and this practice has its pitfalls. For example, all scholars of ancient Greek religion are dependent to some degree on the testimony of the antiquary Pausanias, who lived in the second century CE and wrote a voluminous travelogue listing sights "worth seeing" in mainland Greece, with a heavy emphasis on sanctuaries. The accuracy of Pausanias' eyewitness descriptions has been repeatedly verified by archaeologists, and he is generally considered a reliable guide with respect to the places and objects he himself observed. But while Pausanias had a strong personal interest in the Archaic and Classical Greek periods, and a good eye for distinguishing their products, his reports of festivals and rituals as they were practiced and understood c. 160 CE are not necessarily accurate guides to what was done and believed centuries earlier. Therefore, the synthetic descriptions of festivals in this book must be viewed not as established facts, but as "best guesses" based on the available evidence. 5
The remainder of this chapter is a (very) brief introduction to a few more of the terms, concepts, and methodological issues that are most critical for the study of ancient Greek cults. Specialists will already be familiar with these terms and the debates surrounding them; for those new to the discipline, one of the introductions to Greek religion cited at the end of the chapter, or Walter Burkert's classic handbook Greek religion (1985) will provide further context for the cults described in this book.
Ritual
The use of the term "ritual" has been criticized as imposing an artificial distinction between thought and action. Especially in scholarly traditions of religious studies influenced by Protestantism, "ritual" may carry a negative connotation of mindless repetition. "Performance," which recognizes the scripted nature of ritual behavior, yet avoids the baggage attached to "ritual," is sometimes preferred, though I choose to retain the latter term in this book. Established scholarly understandings of religious ritual point to its role in
4
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
transmitting ideas, socializing the young, and creating group solidarity. In these ways, it functions much like a language and similarly has a vocabulary of acts that can be repeated in different combinations to convey different meanings. Burkert and other experts on ancient Greek ritual have stressed the way rituals create temporary disorder, fear, or uncertainty, only to decisively reaffirm order and convention. More recent approaches emphasize human agency in the construction of ritual/performance and view it as a fluid activity shaped by individuals, who use it to create culture. This perspective suggests that while some individuals may be passively indoctrinated by their participation in ritual, people are also agents who may create and modify rituals for their own ends. 6
There is no ancient Greek word for ritual; the closest equivalents are per- haps ta nomizomena (customary things) and ta patria (ancestral customs). The basic components of Greek ritual practice include various forms of sacri- fice, libation, and the offering of gifts to the gods; purifications; processions, dances, and competitions held in festival contexts; hymns and prayers; and divination. Of these rituals, which are common to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, animal sacrifice has attracted the most scholarly attention. Starting in the nineteenth century with Edward B. Tylor and W. Robertson Smith, animal sacrifice was explained by turns as a gift to the gods, a form of communion with them, a method of exchange between humans and gods, a conduit for human contact with the sacred, and so on. The concept of sacri- fice as a gift has been the most enduring of these, for anthropological studies of reciprocity suggest that offerings to supernatural figures can be under- stood as an extension of "secular" gift exchange and systems of food distribution. 7
Karl Meuli and Burkert sought the origins of sacrifice in the transition from Paleolithic hunting to the raising of domesticated animals, and in the fundamental anxiety produced in human beings by slaughter, while Rene? Girard saw in the ritualized killing of animals an outlet for human aggression and even the substrate of all later culture. These influential theories have lost ground in recent years. Anthropologists no longer place hunting at the center of Paleolithic life, and the emotional impact of killing an animal is difficult to detect among many modern practitioners of sacrifice. The abundant evidence for sacrifice as a joyous and festive occasion in antiquity also seems to out- weigh the hints of guilt and anxiety, though these are indisputably present. 8 A different approach is represented by Vernant and Marcel Detienne, who focus on the role of sacrifice in articulating the relationships between gods (who enjoy only the savor), humans (who carve and cook), and beasts (who consume raw food). Sacrifice also involves a formal distribution of food that reflects social and political structures: for example, meat may be divided into strictly equal portions among a group of political equals, or portions of honor may be allotted to certain individuals, while others are excluded from participation. 9
5
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
? Figure 1. 1 A sacrificial bull is led to the priest at the altar, overseen by the cult statue of a goddess. Attic red-figured pelike? , fifth century. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
The religious experience of the Greeks was organized by a lunar calendar of festivals and sacrifices unique to each place and time. Such calendars were in use as early as the Mycenaean period, for the Linear B tablets contain the names of months (including a month named after Zeus) and festivals. Festival calendars and month names correspond broadly to the ethnic background of a given city or region: Karneios and Agrianios are common Dorian months, while Anthesterion and Poseideon are found among Ionians. The month- names typically refer to gods and festivals (which allowed for arbitrary changes in order), rather than seasonal events or the rhythms of the agri- cultural year. 10
A standard feature of Greek communal worship was the pompe? or pro- cession. While the endpoint was usually the sanctuary of the deity to be honored, the starting point varied. Starting at the city gates and moving toward the citadel emphasized that a deity on the akropolis was at the heart of the city. Starting at the prutaneion (city hall) emphasized the state spon- sorship of the cult in question. Because most processions culminated in sacrifice, the participants led the victims and carried certain items to be used in the ritual. They might also escort the cult statue of the god on a given route.
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
While processions often included members of different social classes and categories, they were typically organized so as to draw attention to these differences and to highlight the gulf between citizens and noncitizens. 11
Prayers were offered, above all, at the beginning of any endeavor, large or small: a season's ploughing, a meeting of citizens, the start of a journey. Greek worshipers usually prayed standing, with one or both arms raised. Prayers were spoken aloud rather than silently. Communal worship often involved the singing of hymns, and hymnic genres developed with respect to specific deities and occasions. An aspect of Greek worship far less familiar to moderns is the constant emphasis on ago? n, competition. Many festivals, especially those that gained wide popularity and drew a Panhellenic audi- ence, involved contests. The best drama, song and dance by a chorus, flute composition, display of horsemanship, or athletic performance would please the god or goddess, and the winners dedicated statues and other gifts in thanks for their victory. 12
Myth, ritual, and cult
In the early twentieth century the "Cambridge ritualists," as they are known, shocked Classicists by pointing out the similarity of certain Greek religious practices to those of so-called "primitive" tribal peoples. Insisting on the priority of ritual in the study of Greek religion, they argued (in the most extreme form of the theory) that myths were nothing more than "misunder- stood rituals. " Although much of their work is outmoded today, the work of the ritualists (James G. Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray, and others) coincided with the great surge of interest in folklore and popular culture that influenced continental scholars from Wilhelm Mannhardt to Martin P. Nilsson. Their influence endures in that "Greek religion" as a discipline now has a strong anthropological/comparative strain, and focuses on rituals and material culture as much as (if not more than) myth. Counter- ing this trend is the continuing impact of the "Chicago school" founded by Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade. Their phenomenological method empha- sizes the importance of myth, symbol, and the experience of the sacred, and sees ritual as a response to myth.
The fact that there are no broadly accepted definitions for either "myth" or "ritual" complicates the continuing discussion about their relationship. If we think of ritual as "performance," it may include a retelling of a myth or pre- suppose knowledge of it, so that the assumed distinction begins to dissolve. Many rituals were perceived as recapitulations of acts originally performed by a founder: Theseus and the youths he rescued from the Minotaur were the first to perform the crane dance on Delos. Often, a rite had to be performed as expiation for an ancient offense against a god (thus, the Attic Arkteia appeased Artemis' anger at the slaughter of her sacred bear). Still, many tradi- tional narratives about gods and heroes appear to have no corresponding
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
rituals (in the sense of acts to be performed with reference to the narrative), and vice versa. In this book, "cults" are understood to include both rituals and, where applicable, corresponding myths.
Sanctuaries
From the eighth century at the latest, most Greek gods were worshiped in a temenos (from temno ? , cut), a space set aside for sacred use. These sanctuaries were typically marked by a low wall (peribolos) or inscribed boundary stone (horos). At a minimum, they included a space set aside for sacred use, and an altar (bo? mos or eschara), the indispensable point of contact with the divine. Sanctuary altars were nearly always open to the sky rather than indoors. They varied from simple fire pits on the ground, to marble blocks the size of a piece of furniture, to elaborate stone monuments hundreds of feet long with sculpted relief decoration. The altar served as a platform on which to deposit and burn offerings: incense, cakes, blood and other liquids, or animal flesh. To the altar also came suppliants, outcasts seeking refuge within the inviolate boundaries of the sanctuary. Certain sanctuaries were renowned as places of asylum, and it was possible (though presumably not very comfortable) to live on their grounds for months at a time. 13
The structures most often found in sanctuaries are the temple and the dining room or hestiatorion. Common meals taken in the sanctuary were central to many cults; usually the participants consumed boiled or spit- roasted pieces from sacrificial animals. The number of people who could be accommodated in such a dining room (or even a series of rooms) was quite limited, which suggests an inner circle privileged to partake of the food. Dining rooms of the Classical period typically had couches positioned against the walls, and might include kitchens and drains. Earlier examples, built before the introduction of reclining banquets, are more difficult to identify; recently, a number of early Archaic structures first classified as temples have been reinterpreted as dining rooms. 14
Some Greek deities, such as Hermes, only rarely occupied a temple. Other gods like Apollo, Artemis, and Hera were temple deities from at least the eighth century, and cult statues played an important role in their worship. The Greeks had no regular word for "cult statue" but instead used a variety of terms such as agalma (delightful thing), xoanon (carved image), hedos (seated image). As substitutes for the deity, Archaic cult statues were bathed, clothed, oiled, garlanded, paraded about the city, and otherwise ritually manipulated. During the early Classical period, a new trend toward colossal cult statues emerged in tandem with the fashion for ever-larger and more elaborate temples. 15 The temple (na? os, Attic neo? s) was not a house of wor- ship, but a dwelling place for the deity and a storehouse for the god's possessions, to which access was often restricted. Many surviving inventories list the contents of temples: wooden furniture and sacrificial implements;
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
armor and war booty dedicated to the deity; statues and figurines of the resident deity and other gods; caches of coins and jewelry; and valuable textiles. 16
Over time, sanctuaries grew more and more crowded with votive gifts to the gods. Strictly speaking, a votive gift was offered to the deity in fulfillment of a vow made in a time of trouble: travelers caught in storms at sea and people who became ill promised a gift if the god provided assistance. In the broader sense, votives include all the items dedicated to a god. Visitors to large sanctuaries purchased clay, wood, or bronze votive objects from arti- sans who worked nearby. The most common gifts were ceramic vases and figurines, but almost anything could become a votive, from personal items such as rings to captured warships. Sculpted votive monuments of various types dotted most large sanctuaries, and because the property of the gods could not be discarded, excess or damaged offerings were deposited in pits inside the sanctuary. 17
Around 700, people in central Greece and the Peloponnese began to allo- cate fewer gifts to tombs and more to sanctuaries, a change that roughly coincides with the advent of monumental temples. The increased investment of resources in sanctuaries, which were emblems of the emerging poleis, implies new ideals of citizenship and state-regulated, communal worship. 18 Franc? ois de Polignac's work has given a further stimulus over the past two decades to the study of the relationship between sanctuaries and civic organ- ization. De Polignac argued that sanctuaries, particularly those located on frontiers and political boundaries, played an important role in the develop- ment of the emergent polis, and suggested a "bipolar" model of interaction between an urban nucleus with a civic sanctuary (usually of Athena or Apollo) and a major rural sanctuary. Through extraurban sanctuaries such as the Argive Heraion or Isthmia, nascent poleis were able to assert territorial claims. More recent work in this area shows that sanctuaries developed in a variety of social and political contexts, yet confirms de Polignac's insights about the important relationships between sacred and political space, and shows that early Archaic (and later) Greek religion and politics are difficult to separate. 19
Initiation
"Initiation" is used in modern scholarship to refer to two types of personal transition mediated by ritual. The first and less controversial use describes the rites by which an individual gained access to the secret knowledge and experiences offered by such cults as the Eleusinian or Samothracian Myster- ies. The second type involves rituals performed to mark the transition from childhood or adolescence to adult status, which is to be distinguished from sexual maturity. The Greeks agreed on a specialized terminology to describe the first type (mue? sis or telete? and related words), but not the second. With
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
respect to both types, initiation is conceived as a kind of death and rebirth. Many scholars have detected in ancient Greek culture parallels to the "puberty rites" and "initiation rituals" described in modern tribal cultures by social anthropologists. These rites are characterized above all by a period of physi- cal withdrawal and marginal or liminal social status.
While Greek initiation rituals for both males and females have been posited, there is much more evidence involving the transformation of boys into men; that this transition might be the focus of greater concern and ritual elaboration is not surprising, since the status of adult male was a necessary prerequisite for citizenship and its privileges in the developing Greek polis. In fact, there is a fair amount of evidence for institutionalized age-classes of young men who were required to undergo a period of marginalization and specialized training before they were considered adults (the Spartan ago? ge? and krupteia, the Kretan agela? , the Athenian ephe? beia). For many scholars, an underlying assumption about this second type of initiation is that it existed as the remnant of a prehistoric initiation rite practiced by the Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks, but this hypothesis is difficult to prove. The Spartan krupteia in particular has the look of an institution that developed relatively late in tandem with the militaristic, totalitarian state. Another oft-noted problem with some of the female "initiations" is that while the rituals appear to follow an initiatory pattern, the participants are not an entire age- class, but only a few representatives of that class (as with the Athenian arrhe? phoroi, girls who served Athena). In the end, coming of age remained a pivotal concept in Greek culture, a fundamental source of inspiration for both myths and rituals. Whether these were the relics of an early "age of initiation" or more recent productions must be the subject of further study. 20
Pollution and purity
Pollution and purity are concepts shared by most cultures, yet the sources of pollution and the means of dispelling it vary widely, as does the significance of being "polluted. " Mary Douglas suggested that the impure can be defined as whatever is "out of order" in a given context: an unburied corpse no longer fits in human society, but belongs with the other dead in the graveyard, which is itself maintained outside the city walls. Rules about pollution and purification are attempts to create order and deal with change, particularly as it relates to events beyond the reach of normal social rules, like birth and death. Among the Greeks, to incur pollution meant that one could not enter a sanctuary or participate in a festival. If the pollution resulted from such common sources as a death in the family or sexual intercourse, it wore off after a prescribed period of time (which varied by city or sanctuary). If it resulted from the killing of another person, its contagious nature made the
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
killer an outcast until he or she underwent ritual purification and was re- integrated into society.
Places as well as people could be polluted and purified. Sanctuaries had to be kept free of the taint caused by sex, birth, and death; purity regulations were common components of sacred laws. Purification could be achieved in many ways. For example, people bathed after sex and sprinkled themselves with water before entering a sanctuary or participating in a sacrifice. Before meetings of the Athenian council and assembly, a young pig was killed and carried around the perimeter of the area to be purified. Its body was then discarded outside the city, taking the pollution with it.
Normally pollution was invisible, but sometimes it was thought to mani- fest itself in the form of madness or disease. Skin conditions and epilepsy were the ailments most often attributed to pollution. In the Archaic period, wonder-working healers and purifiers such as Epimenides and Empedokles were highly respected, but their successors in the next centuries were a lesser breed, offering a regimen of baths, drugs, abstentions, and incantations to the unfortunate, and considered predatory charlatans by the educated. Although the physicians of the nascent Hippokratic school heaped scorn on these purifiers, their own methods were heavily influenced by traditional ideas about purity and pollution. 21
Olympian and chthonian
In the conceptual world of Greek polytheism, divinities took part of their character from the realm where they dwelt. The gods who lived in heaven were sometimes known as Olympian, while those whose abode was subter- ranean were considered chthonian, from chtho? n, earth. The powers under the earth, not surprisingly, included the heroes and heroines, who exerted influence from their tombs, and the dead themselves, as well as the gods and goddesses who ruled and interacted with the dead. Overlapping with this group because of their shared relationship to the earth are the agricultural deities. Demeter and Persephone afford the best example of divinities con- cerned with both souls and crops. Equally, the heroes and other chthonians, such as the Athenian Semnai Theai (Reverend Goddesses) or Eumenides (Kind Ones), have the power to affect agricultural prosperity. Chthonians tend to have dual personalities and manifestations, alternately beneficent and hostile. Their "true" names are often avoided in favor of euphemisms.
Traditional scholarship made the Olympian/chthonian opposition parallel to others, such as Indo-European/Mediterranean, Greek/prehellenic, or even patriarchal/matriarchal. None of these juxtapositions can withstand critical scrutiny, especially given that the categories of Olympian and chthonian themselves cannot be used to construct a rigid classification of supernatural beings. First of all, the traditional Olympian gods have decidedly chthonian
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
personalities in certain cults. Zeus Meilichios (the Mild) is an underworld counterpart of heavenly Zeus. Even an "Olympian" deity such as Athena Polias at Athens may have chthonian features, such as her association with the snake, a creature symbolic of the earth. Second, some deities evolved a cultic personality that blended Olympian and chthonian elements (the hero- gods Asklepios and Herakles are good examples), while others (such as the river gods and nymphs) can be comfortably assigned to neither category.
The other traditional assumption about the Olympian/chthonian distinc- tion is that it corresponds to differences in sacrificial practices and termin- ology: in an Olympian sacrifice (generally termed a thusia), for example, the victim is light in color, the ritual is conducted in daylight on a raised altar, and the participants joyfully share in the meat. In a chthonian sacrifice (denoted by enagismos and other terms), the victim is black or dark, the somber sacrifice is performed at night on a low altar or over a pit, and there is no meal: the animal is burned completely. Chthonians are also thought to prefer wineless libations of milk, honey, and water. These generalizations fail because many supernaturals with a strong chthonian character, especially the heroes, regularly received festive, participatory sacrifices. In the study of Greek cults, it may be preferable to abandon the concept of a strong opposi- tion between Olympian and chthonian deities, since the character of a given deity depends upon the context. The term "chthonian" remains useful as a marker for a set of divine characteristics and ritual acts which are more often than not found together, and which connote relations with the land, the dead, or the underworld. 22
Religious authority
It is often observed that Greek religion possessed no denominations or central organization, no dogmas, no scriptures, and no creed. The lack of these features, which in modern religious contexts provide the basis for religious authority, along with the polytheism of the Greeks, might mislead us into thinking that individuals exercised a great deal of individual choice in the matter of religion.