No More Learning

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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Achilles, lord of Leuke
While epic poetry may not have been the stimulus for the earliest worship of heroes, the case of Achilles shows how hero cult could indeed arise as a byproduct of epic. Near Troy, a mound on a promontory at the mouth of the Hellespont was identified with the burial site of Achilles described by Homer (Od. 24. 80-84). The town of Achilleion, mentioned already by Herodotus (5. 94), was founded near the tumulus. According to the late account of Philostratus (Her. 53. 8-18, third century CE), an ancient oracle of Dodona decreed that the Thessalians send annual offerings to this tomb to recognize their compatriot Achilles. After singing a hymn to Thetis, they sacrificed a black bull "as to the dead" and a white bull "as to a god," using wood brought from the forests of Mt. Pelion. Philostratus says that the Thessalians were carrying out these sacrifices well before the Persian wars, but he also speaks of the repeated suspension and revival of the worship, which means that the earlier history may have been fabricated to provide a pedigree for the cult.
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Whereas the cult in the Troad was predicated on Homer, the Euxine cults of Achilles show the powerful influence of the post-Homeric Aethiopis, which told the story of Achilles' death and funeral. Composed in the seventh century by Arctinus of Miletos, it said that Achilles' body was not buried in the Troad, but snatched from the pyre by Thetis and brought to Leuke, the White Island. Reflecting the current Greek interest in the Black Sea area, the poem probably located this island in the ambit of Skythia, for there was a tradition that Achilles' afterlife existence mirrored that of his enemy Memnon, whose mother Eos removed his body to Ethiopia. A fragment of Alcaeus (354 LP), the seventh-century lyric poet, already calls Achilles "ruler of Skythia. " According to the geographical knowledge of the time, the two regions were seen as the northernmost and southernmost extremes of the world. Many later authors detail the belief that Achilles continued an immortal existence on Leuke with Helen or Iphigeneia as his companion.
The Greek colonists of the northern Euxine, who came primarily from Miletos during the seventh and sixth centuries, must have been familiar with Arctinus' poem. Excavation of Olbia and surrounding sixth-century settle- ments revealed that the colonists had a special interest in Achilles. Just as Herakles defined Greek identity for colonists in the West, those in this part of the world seem to have claimed Achilles as their patron and protector in a foreign land. At one site, they buried pots incised with Achilles' name under the floors of their homes, and many such inscribed vessels have been found in Olbia and in the early settlement on the nearby isle of Berezan. Even more mysterious are the pottery disks, about the size of game tokens, bearing full or abbreviated forms of the name Achilles and pictures of snakes, human figures, ships, and weapons, which again come from domestic contexts in Beikush and Olbia. The island of Leuke itself has yielded fifth-century pottery inscribed to Achilles, including a black-glazed lekuthos with the message "Glaukos, the son of Posideios, dedicated me to Achilles, ruler of Leuke. " Little more than a great limestone boulder standing alone in the midst of the Euxine, Leuke measures only about one-quarter of a square kilometer. Nineteenth-century explorers reported the remains of a structure on the island, possibly the temple mentioned in literary sources. Most information about Achilles on Leuke dates from the Roman period, when Achilles Pontarches (Ruler of the Black Sea) had achieved a godlike status among the Olbians as the patron of the city leaders. Philostratus (Her. 55. 2-3, 56. 2-4), Arrian (Peripl. M. Eux. 23), and others tell how sailors passing the island would catch a glimpse of the ghostly Achilles or hear him singing. 23
Theseus and the Athenian polis
To judge from vase paintings, Theseus achieved a new prominence in late sixth-century Athens. Where before he was the hero who slew the Kretan Minotaur and engaged in some rather disreputable dealings with Ariadne
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and Helen, he now became a chastiser of brigands and founder of festivals, the just and respected unifier of Attica. Scholars are divided as to whether his elevation came through the patronage of the Peisistratids or a few years later under the nascent democracy, but it is clear that Theseus was to be the Athenian answer to Dorian Herakles (whose cults were already widespread in Attica). Gradually, local traditions about Theseus were expanded, and unrelated cults were provided with Thesean credentials. This process was accelerated when the politically adroit general Kimon, responding to an oracular command to "bring home the bones" of Theseus, contrived to find the hero's remains on the newly conquered island of Skyros (476). Perhaps the bones of some prehistoric behemoth, the remains were ceremoniously laid to rest in a new shrine, the Theseion (the location of which is still unknown) and a levy was passed in order to finance a state cult and annual festival called the Theseia. The resulting ritual cycle, which was readily assimilated into the existing festival calendar, commemorated events in the "biography" of the hero, especially his triumphant return from Krete via Delos and his landing at the port of Phaleron, celebrated in the preexisting vintage festival of the Oschophoria. Theseus' return was placed in the seed- sowing month of Pyanopsion, so the mixture of pulses and cereals consumed in the Apolline festival of the Pyanepsia (Bean Boiling) was explained as the potluck soup created when Theseus and his companions pooled the last of their rations for a homecoming meal. 24 Whereas the Spartans had focused on enlarging a collection of Atreid heroes in order to appropriate their creden- tials and prestige, the Athenians molded and elevated Theseus to fit the new ideals established by the democracy.
Further reading
Antonaccio 1995 argues from an archaeologist's perspective against the con- ventional wisdom linking hero cult with the spread of epic and the rise of the polis. Boedeker 1998 discusses the value of Orestes as a "Spartan" hero, while Mayor 2000 (Chapter 3) examines the cults and relics of Pelops, Orestes, and Theseus in the context of ancient fossil discoveries. Kearns 1989 explores the functions of heroic figures, especially as they relate to Attic subgroups such as tribe and deme. Larson 1995b and Lyons 1997 deal with heroines and their cults. Clay 2004 is a valuable discussion of the evidence for the cults of poets, especially Archilochus' cult on Paros and Thasos.
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NOTES
1 METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
1 Graf 1991a; Fowler 2000.
2 Vernant 1980. 92-109.
3 Vernant 1983a.
4 Malkin 1994, 2001; Hall 1997, 2002a; papers in Dougherty and Kurke eds
2003.
5 Habicht 1985; Musti and Bingen 1996; Alcock, Cherry and Elsner eds 2001;
Arafat 1996. 1-79; Hutton 2005.
6 Burkert 1985. 227-34; Bell 1997. 72-76, 1998.
7 Burkert 1987; Langdon 1987.
8 Meuli 1946; Burkert 1983b. 1-72; Girard 1977; Hamerton-Kelly ed. 1987;
Robbins 1998.
9 Be? rard 1989; Detienne et al. 1989.
10 Thomson 1943; Samuel 1972. 64-65; Hannah 2005. 16-70.
11 Nilsson 1951 Vol 1. 166-214; Connor 1987; Graf 1996.
12 Van Straten 1974; Jameson 1988; Pulleyn 1997; Furley and Bremer 2001. See also
the papers in Versnel ed. 1981; Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
13 Yavis 1949; Rupp 1974; Gould 1973; Sinn 2000. See also the papers in Marinatos
and Ha? gg eds 1993.
14 Bergquist 1998, 1990; Bookidis 1993. See also the papers in Murray ed. 1990.
15 Corbett 1970; Burkert 1996; Scheer 2000; Nick 2002. 9-99. Contra the concept
of the cult statue: Donohue 1997.
16 Linders 1972, 1975; Aleshire 1989; Harris 1995; Hamilton 2000.
17 Rouse 1975 [1902]; Van Straten 2000 [1992]; Baumbach 2004. See also the
papers in Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
18 Snodgrass 1980. 54; Sourvinou-Inwood 1993; Morris 1997. 34-42.
19 de Polignac 1984, 1995. See also the papers in Alcock and Osborne eds 1994.
20 van Gennep 1960. 65-115; Brelich 1969; Vidal-Naquet 1986; Dowden 1989. See
also the papers in Padilla ed. 1999; Dodd and Faraone eds 2003.
21 Moulinier 1975 [1952]; Parker 1983; Douglas 1994 [1966].
22 Kaestner 1976; Schlesier 1991-92; Scullion 1994, 2000. See also the papers in
Ha? gg and Alroth eds 2005.
23 Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1990]. 15.
24 Beard and North 1990. 1-18; Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1988], 2000 [1990];
Parker 2005. 89-115.
208
NOTES
2 PROGENITOR AND KING: ZEUS
1 Kn 02 = PY 172 (Pylos), Fp 05 (Knossos), etc. [Chadwick and Ventris 1973]; Ge? rard-Rousseau 1968. 72-74; Dowden 2006. 9-11, 28-29.
2 Paus. 1. 32. 2; Cook 1964 [1914-] Vol. 2. 868-987; Langdon 1976; Dowden 2006. 54-64.
3 Isoc. 9. 14-15 (Aiakos); Paus. 2. 29. 6-8 (Hellanios); Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2. 516-27 with schol. ; Callim. fr. 75. 32-37 Pf. (Ikmaios); Heraclides Creticus 2. 8 [Pfister 1951] (Akraios); Langdon 1976. 79-87.
4 Hughes 1991. 92-96.
5 Paus. 8. 38. 2-6; Burkert 1983b. 84-93, 109-16; Voutiras and Tiverios 1997, no.
461 (coins).
6 Buxton 1986. 67-72; Hughes 1991. 102-7. Jost 2002 argues for a real human
sacrifice.
7 Hes. fr. 163 M-W; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 8. 1 (further sources in Frazer's 1921 edition,
ad loc. ); Jost 1985. 180-5, 249-69.
8 Cf. Theophrastus in Porph. Abst. 2. 28-30; other primary sources in Patillon and
Bouffartigue eds 1977-, Vol. 2. 51-58. Meuli 1975 [1946]. 954, 1005; Smith
1982. 57-65; Burkert 1983b. 12-22, 136-43, 2001. 10-11.
9 Paus. 3. 12. 9; West 1969; Pritchett 1971-, Vol. 2. 272 n. 78; Jacquemin 2000. 62-
64.
10 Isoc. 9. 57; Plut. Vit. Arist. 20. 4; Paus. 9. 2. 5-7; Wycherley 1957. 25-30; Rosivach
1978, 1987; Raaflaub 2000.
11 Aesch. Suppl. 26-27, Ag. 244-47, 1384-87, Cho. 244-45, and so on; Ar. Plut.
1175-84; Ath. 15. 692f-693c (citing comic poets); Garland 1987. 137-38; Cole
1988. 892; Dowden 2006. 80-85.
12 [Dem. ] 43. 14, 82 (Zeus Phratrios); Apollod. 2. 8. 4 (Patroo? s); Sjo? vall 1931. 49-52;
Hedrick 1991. 241-68; Lambert 1993. 205-25.
13 Catling 1990 (Messapeai); Parker 2005. 16-18 (Herkeios).
14 Aesch. Supp. 443-48; Dem. 21. 53; Ath. 11. 473b-c (jar); Sjo? vall 1931. 53-74;
Nilsson 1951 Vol. 1. 25-34 (snake stele from Boiotia); Parker 2005. 15-16.
15 Thuc. 1. 126. 6 with schol. , referring to the seventh century; Jameson 1965. 159-
72; Dowden 2006. 65-67.
16 Eust. Od. 22. 481; Suda s. v. Dios ko ? idion (fleece); Simon 1983. 12-15.
17 Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky 1993 with Clinton 1996a.
18 Garland 1987. 136-37.
19 Bianchi 1953. 13-204; Gould 1973; Graf 1985. 24-31.
20 Solon fr. 44b Ruschenbusch = Pollux 8. 142.
21 Willetts 1962. 199-223; Verbruggen 1981. 17-26.
22 KN Fp 1. 2 [Chadwick and Ventris 1973]; Chadwick 1985. 197; Perlman 1995;
Sporn 2002. 378.
23 IC II. 2 12-17; West 1965; Furley and Bremer 2001 Vol. 1. 65-76, Vol. 2. 1-20.
24 MacGillivray, Driessen and Sackett 2000.
25 Verbruggen 1981. 71-99; Sakellarakis 1988a, b; Sporn 2002. 218-23.
26 Eur. fr. 472 TrGF = Porph. Abst. 4. 19; Willetts 1962. 239-43.
27 Porph. Vit. Pyth. 17 [Des Places 1982]; Kokolakis 1995; Postlethwait 1999.
28 For Zeus Ammon, see Chapter 13.
29 Parke 1967. 1-163; Gartziou-Tatti 1990. An edition of the collected responses
from Dodona is in preparation.
30 Stella G. Miller 1988; Stephen G. Miller 2002; Miller et al. 2004. 50-53, 124-31;
Pache 2004. 95-134.
31 Morgan 1990. 26-56.
32 Pind. Ol. 6. 64-70; Parke 1967. 164-93.
209
NOTES
33 Herrmann 1972. 67-68; Mallwitz 1988. 85-89; Kyrieleis 1990, 2003. 55; Anton- accio 1995. 170-76.