The goddess'
companion
was a chthonian deity represented as a snake and understood to be either Zeus or Hades.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
rpfeld, belong to a splendid late sixth-century temple, also Doric, which possessed two porches and a cella divided into four chambers.
Sculpture from this temple, including a striding Athena attacking a giant, has been identified.
A number of sculptures from unidentified buildings, such as the "Olive tree pediment," are also known.
Finally, immediately following the victories of 490, the Athenians began to build a splendid, large temple as a thank offering to the goddess.
Located on the south side of the Akropolis, this was the Older Parthenon, the direct predecessor of the great Periklean temple.
When the Persians sacked the Akropolis in 480, they burned the existing temples, including the unfinished Older Parthenon, and the remains of these were incorporated into the north Akropolis defensive wall.
2
It is safe to say that Athena possessed a temple from the eighth or seventh century, since this is the most likely date of the ancient olivewood cult image around which the central rituals for the goddess were organized. 3 Two Homeric passages are relevant; in the Iliad (2. 549) she establishes the cult of Erechtheus "in her own rich temple" while in the Odyssey (7. 78-81) she travels across the sea and enters "the strong-built house of Erechtheus. " The Ionic building we call the Erechtheion was known to the Classical Athenians as "the temple with the image" or the archaios neo ? s (Old Temple), even though it was quite new at the time. It took over this name from its predeces- sor, either the Do? rpfeld temple or a "pre-Erechtheion. " Active controversy attends the question of whether the Ionic building, in addition to housing Athena's olivewood statue, is also the shrine of Erechtheus; some say the latter, described by Pausanias (1. 26. 5-27. 4), is to be found elsewhere on the Akropolis. Though the question must remain open, the Homeric passages above suggest that Athena's holiest shrine always housed Erechtheus' cult as well. The same sacerdotal family, known as the Eteoboutadai, supplied the priests for both Poseidon-Erechtheus and Athena Polias. If the cults were housed together, we also have an explanation for the four-chambered cellas of both the Do? rpfeld temple and the Ionic temple. 4
An early fifth-century decree (IG I3 4) was carved on a metope from the Bluebeard temple and therefore postdates the dismantling of that structure. It refers to a neo ? s (Temple) and a hekatompedon (Hundred-Footer) as separate sacred areas, but there is no consensus on which labels fit which places. This inscription does however illustrate the pattern, probably dating to the early sixth century, of maintaining two Akropolis temples dedicated to Athena. One, situated on the north side, held the olivewood statue (and perhaps the associated cult of Erechtheus) and was the focus of the most ancient rituals. The other, on the south, came about as a result of the competitive vogue for elaborate "Hundred-Footers" that swept the Greek world in the seventh and sixth centuries, and the final representative of this tradition was the Parthe- non, with its colossal gold and ivory cult statue sculpted by Pheidias. 5 The
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? Figure 4. 1 Athena Parthenos. Roman marble copy of the cult statue in the Parthenon at Athens, 447-39. Ht 1. 045 m. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Alinari/Art Resource.
southern temples, whose primary function was to store and display the increasing number of rich objects dedicated to Athena, were themselves a form of offering from the citizens to their goddess.
Some two hundred marble fragments preserve the inventories of the tamiai (treasurers) of Athena, officials who were responsible for keeping track of the valuable ritual objects and dedications stored in the Parthenon and the Erechtheion in the Classical period. These inventories show that the interior walls of the temples were fitted with shelves or cupboards. For smaller items, baskets (often gilded) and bronze boxes were used. The earliest inventory of objects in the Parthenon (434/3) includes gold and silver ritual vessels, armor, at least fifty-seven items of furniture, several lyres, and six Persian daggers inlaid with gold. Many of these objects were used in Athena's festivals and returned to the temple, while others were simply valuable or decorative items owned by the goddess. The inventories for the Ionic temple describe the contents of the room where Athena's olivewood cult statue stood, including a gold incense burner fitted into the floor and a lustral basin held by a male
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statue. The cult image itself is said to possess a gold circlet, earrings, a neck- band, five necklaces, a gold owl (probably on the statue's shoulder), a gold aegis with a gorgon's head, and a gold libation bowl. 6
The bastion flanking the south entrance to the Akropolis was the site of a cult of Athena Nike (Victory) dating to the early sixth century. During the modern restoration of the gemlike Classical temple perched on the bastion, workers found remains of the Archaic sanctuary, which had been incorpor- ated into the newer structure. Beneath the new altar, a block from the old was preserved with its sixth-century inscription: "Altar of Athena Nike. Patrokles erected it. " The theme of victory relates to the reorganization of the Pana- thenaia in 566 and that festival's association with Athena's victory over the giants. The Archaic sanctuary was presumably destroyed by the Persians, though the cult statue, a wooden Athena holding a pomegranate in the right hand and a helmet in the left, survived to be reinstalled in its new home. 7 The mid-fifth-century Nike Temple Decree (IG I3 35) commissioned Kallikrates to design the temple that still stands and established the office of priestess of Athena Nike, which was awarded based on the drawing of lots from all Athenian citizen women.
Figure 4. 2 Bronze votive statue of Athena in battle from the Athenian Akropolis, c. 480. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Mar- burg.
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Athena's festival year
Athena's great festival, the Panathenaia, fell in midsummer during the first month of the Athenian calendar, Hekatombaion (named for the customary hecatombs or sacrifices of multiple cattle to the goddess). The preparations for the Panathenaia began nine months earlier, with the fall celebration of the Chalkeia (Festival of Bronze-workers) in honor of Athena Ergane (of Labors) and Hephaistos as deities of handicrafts. Weavers too honored Athena Ergane, and as part of the Chalkeia the ergastinai (women workers) set up a loom on which to weave the peplos destined to be presented to Athena during the Panathenaia. 8 They were assisted by little girls clad in white, about seven years old, and chosen from elite families to serve Athena. These girls, known as the arrhe ? phoroi, lived on the Akropolis "with the goddess" for the rest of the year, just as the daughters of king Kekrops once did.
As early summer drew near, the ritual and logistical preparations for the Panathenaia began in earnest. The purificatory month of Thargelion brought two holy days involving the cult statue of Athena, both associated with Aglauros, the daughter of Kekrops and priestess of Athena who leapt to her death from the Akropolis. The first day, called the Kallynteria (Beautifica- tion), is often described as the sweeping out of the temple (the verb kallunein can mean both "adorn" and "sweep, scour"). Alternatively, the ritual may have involved the kosme ? sis or adornment of the image with jewelry and other items, for it was said in connection with this festival that Aglauros was the first to adorn the gods' images. 9 Next, women of the Praxiergidai, an Athenian sacerdotal family, performed the Plynteria (Washing festival). They removed the garments of the statue and cleaned them. They may also have bathed the image itself, but our sources do not specifically say this. The naked image was veiled for one day, on which it was considered unlucky to conduct either private or public business; Athenian sanctuaries were closed during the Plynteria as well, and some Attic towns (also known as demes), such as Erchia and Thorikos, held their own observances. At this time the Praxiergidai conducted secret rites, and a cake made of figs, the first domesti- cated fruit, was carried at the head of a procession as a reminder of Athens' primitive origins. The somberness of the day was attributed to the mourning for Aglauros, but it was clearly part of a cycle of purification and a necessary preliminary to the celebration of the New Year and Panathenaia. A month called Plynterion, attested in the Ionian islands of Paros, Thasos, and Chios, suggests that this observance predates the Ionian migration, though it is not certain that "Washing month" refers specifically to the same ritual. 10
During Skirophorion, the arrhe ? phoroi were called on to perform a secret nocturnal rite. According to Pausanias (1. 27. 3), Athena's priestess gave them sacred objects in baskets, which they carried on their heads to an enclosure in the city not far from the sanctuary of Aphrodite in the Gardens, accessible by a "natural underground descent. " Neither the priestess nor the girls
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knew what the objects were, but when they reached their destination, they exchanged what they were carrying for other hidden objects, and returned to the Akropolis. This curious ritual has been interpreted as a fertility rite and/or a rite of passage, especially given the mention of Aphrodite and the comment of one scholiast that the secret objects were dough models of male genitalia and snakes. Although Pausanias does not identify Aphrodite's sanctuary as the actual destination of the arrhe ? phoroi, it has been suggested that the girls climbed down a passageway on the north slope of the Akropolis toward an area that served in Classical times as a shrine of Aphrodite and Eros. 11 Their journey reflects the myth that Athena gave the daughters of Kekrops something secret to carry in a basket, which turned out to be the snake-legged, earthborn infant Erichthonios. When the girls disobeyed the goddess' command and peeked into the basket, they were terrified and leapt from the Akropolis. Pandrosos (All-Dew), the one daughter who obeyed Athena, had a shrine beside the Ionic temple of Athena, and the families of former arrhe ? phoroi sometimes made dedications to Athena and Pandrosos. 12 The term arrhe ? phoros (also spelled errhe ? phoros) refers to a "bearer" of something; ancient commentators suggested that the unknown first element in the word came from arrhe ? ta (unspoken things) or herse ? (dew).
The New Year brought the Panathenaia, held on 28 Hekatombaion, the anniversary of Athena's triumph in the battle of the gods and giants. The battle of the gods and giants was the scene intricately woven into Athena's peplos; Elizabeth Barber has shown that such story cloths were an inherit- ance from the early Archaic period, if not the Bronze Age, and required months to create. 13 Every four years the weeklong annual festival became the Great Panathenaia, when games were celebrated on a lavish, Panhellenic scale. The wide variety of events included musical competitions and recita- tions of Homer, chariot racing, men's and boys' athletics, a dance in armor (purrhike ? ), a regatta in the harbor, and a torch race. Winners received commemorative jars filled with olive oil, many of which have survived for modern study.
The highlight of the festival was the Panathenaic parade, which followed the Sacred Way from the Dipylon gate through the potters' quarter and agora to the Akropolis, a distance of about 1 km. Unlike the games, the procession was an inclusive event with representatives from many segments of the Athenian population, who were given different ritual duties: non-citizens, freed slaves, women, and old men. Still, members of aristocratic families played the most important roles. On the Parthenon frieze, the procession is shown entering the company of the gods (i. e. the Akropolis? ) and presenting the newly woven robe to the goddess. Perhaps the olivewood statue was now fully dressed and adorned for the first time since the removal of its kosmos during the Plynteria. Meanwhile, a massive sacrifice took place and the meat was distributed to the gleeful residents of the city. The management of this elaborate festival was the responsibility of a number of officers, some
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of whom administered the games while others, the hieropoioi (doers of sacred things), organized the sacrifices. While the Panathenaic festival was "founded" in 566, this date probably represents a reorganization and elabor- ation of existing rituals, such as the weaving of the peplos, that reach back to the eighth century or earlier. In later centuries many changes were introduced, such as the inclusion in the parade of a ship on wheels with a giant "peplos" displayed as its sail. This elaborate cloth was produced by professional male weavers, but it did not take the place of the women's peplos, which was approximately 1. 8 by 2 m, the size of an actual garment. 14
Other Athenian cults
To judge from the evidence of the surviving deme calendars, many of the Attic demes held local celebrations of Athena's great city festivals. At Thorikos there was a sacrifice for the Plynteria, and at Erchia a sacrifice to Kourotro- phos (Nurturer of Youths), Athena Polias, Aglauros, Zeus Polieus, Poseidon, and Pandrosos fell on 3 Skirophorion, the same day the arrhe ? phoroi carried their secret objects for the goddess. 15 In the coastal deme of Phaleron, the Salaminioi, an extended family with strong ties to the nearby island of Salamis and its cult of Athena Skiras, maintained a sanctuary of the goddess. This Attic sanctuary of Athena Skiras played a role in the vintage festival of the Oschophoria and Athena herself, in association with the hero Skiros, received the clan's offering of a pregnant sheep in the winter month of Maimakterion. 16
The little-known cult of Athena Pallenis (of Pallene) is important for the light it sheds on the process by which the cults of Attica were absorbed into the larger system of the Athenian polis during the eighth and seventh centuries, and their continuing relations. Athenaeus (6. 234f-235a) preserves the rather mangled texts of a dedication and a sacred law pertaining to this Athena Pallenis. From them we learn that several of the inland demes, including Pallene, were gathered into a league centered on the worship of Athena. No later than the seventh century, this cult was brought under the supervision of the state in the person of the archo ? n basileus (the King Archon, who had inherited the original king's religious authority). He selected a group of officials known as archontes (rulers), who in turn designated parasitoi (fellow diners) from each member deme. The parasites and archons, the social elite of their communities, enjoyed a yearly banquet funded by the goddess in a building maintained for this purpose. Like several gods whose sanctuaries were located outside the urban area of Athens, Athena Pallenis possessed considerable wealth and her sanctuary easily financed the annual feast. A fine fifth-century temple in the agora, moved from its original site in the Roman period and previously assigned to Ares, is now thought to be the shrine of Athena Pallenis. 17
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Goddess and Palladion
Pallas was a common literary title of Athena, and the name appears on Archaic dedications from the Athenian Akropolis. There are two possible etymologies, one from the verb pallein, to brandish, and one that makes Pallas a synonym for girl or maiden.
The epic cycle told of a covert mission by Odysseus and Diomedes to enter Troy and carry off a small statue of Athena known as the Palladion (statue of Pallas). Sent down from heaven by Zeus, the talismanic image ensured the security of Troy as long as the Trojans possessed it. Many late sources speak of this tradition, and vase paintings illustrate the theft of the diminutive statue. Athens, Argos, Sparta, Rome, and other cities had protective images of this type, and each boasted that its Athena was none other than the original Palladion of Troy. The Argive claim was the oldest, for the Athenians and Spartans said that their Palladia were confiscated from the Argive hero Diomedes. 18 The Palladion of Argos was most likely the image housed in the akropolis temple on Larisa, which existed from the sixth century or earlier. (The cult itself, in which Athena and Zeus were closely associated as poliad deities, dated to Geometric times. ) Callimachus recorded the annual ritual of the statue's purification in his fifth Hymn (5. 1-2, 33-34), which indicates that female members of the clan or phratry of Arestor served as "bath pourers" (lotrocho ? oi) for Pallas. A procession accompanied the Palladion, carried on the shield of Diomedes, to the river Inachos about 4 km from the city, where it was bathed in the river. The only other attested Greek ritual in which a statue is carried out of its temple in order to be bathed belongs to another Palladion, this one at Athens.
Trials for accidental homicide and the murder of non-citizens were con- ducted at a court in the place called Palladion, located on the southeast side of Athens on the Ilissos river. The origins of this court were tied in legend to the sanctuary of Athena "at Palladion," which contained an image thought to be the celebrated Trojan Palladion, confiscated by King Demophon from Diomedes and his men at the port of Phaleron. During the scuffle, Demophon either killed the Argives themselves, or accidentally caused the death of an Athenian. He was brought to trial in the court at Palladion, which ever after served the same function. Two old priestly families, the Gephyraioi and Bouzygai, oversaw the sanctuary, and during an annual festival the statue was carried in a procession to Phaleron, where it was washed in the sea. The washing ritual for the Palladion has often been conflated with the ceremonies of the Plynteria, but there is no basis for this idea. The bath in the sea (or in sea water) was clearly connected with the need to "cleanse" the image from the miasma brought about by repeated exposure to the killers who were tried in the court, and the original bathing of the statue was ascribed to King Demophon himself. Because it was made of wood and small enough to carry about, the Palladion was probably of Archaic date. 19
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Ionian Athena
Though a less dominating presence than at Athens, Athena was a prominent civic goddess in virtually every Ionian city by the eighth century. At Miletos, where Apollo was the patron deity, the seventh-century Athena temple was constructed in a commercial district on the site of a former Minoan and Mycenaean colony. It was repeatedly damaged and rebuilt over the succeed- ing centuries. 20 An unbroken series of votive offerings, including metal items such as a fragmentary bronze griffin cauldron, stretches from the eighth century on and hints at the wealth of the sanctuary. Likewise, the earliest activity at Athena's sanctuary in Erythrai is dated to the eighth century; among the oldest structures found there were a temple (rebuilt in the sixth century) and a ruler's dwelling. Pausanias (7. 5. 9) describes the cult statue of Athena Polias at Erythrai as a large enthroned Athena made of wood, holding a distaff and crowned with a polos, a cylindrical headdress often worn by goddesses. He attributes it to the Archaic sculptor Endoios. Such representations of Athena with spinning tools are virtually absent from the Greek mainland, although facilities for sacred weaving in her sanctuaries were not unusual. 21
At Old Smyrna, the Athena cult seems to have been introduced by Ionian refugees from Kolophon who seized the city from its Aiolian founders in the late eighth century. The first temple to Athena, a modest apsidal structure, appeared shortly thereafter (c. 690), and its successors grew ever more elaborate. Excavation has revealed a wealth of faience, ivory, terracotta, and stone objects traceable to Rhodes, Krete, Cyprus, and Syria, evidence of the cosmopolitan city's flourishing trade in the Orientalizing period. Around 600, the Lydian ruler Alyattes sacked the city and looted the temple, but the people quickly rebuilt it. Several mushroom-shaped capitals from the early sixth-century temple, influenced by Phoenician and Hittite models, have sur- vived. Alyattes also burned the temple of Athena at Assessos, in the territory of Miletos. As a result of this sacrilege he fell ill, and the Delphic oracle ordered him rebuild the temple as penance for the offense to the goddess. Investigation of the ancient site, where excavators found the remains of an Archaic city and at least one temple destroyed and rebuilt in the seventh century, supports the general outline of Herodotus' account (1. 16, 19-22). 22
At the citadel of Emporio on Chios, the eighth-century sanctuary of Athena shared the space inside the circuit wall with a ruler's megaron, while the townspeople lived on the slopes below. Around 600, the hillside town was abandoned for a settlement in the harbor below, yet the Athena sanctuary was kept in use and a temple was added in the mid-sixth century. The temple design carefully preserved an earlier structure, an irregular stone box less than a meter high, touching the bedrock and filled with earth. This crude altar or basis for offerings, once the center of the open-air sanctuary, shared the focal area of the cella with the cult image. Nine small griffin protomes of
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lead, found in the cella, may have been attached to the helmet of this statue. 23 Priene, Phokaia, Ephesos, Teos, Kolophon, and Klazomenai too had their cults of Athena Polias or Poliouchos (Protector of the City), demonstrating the great popularity of Athena among the Ionians. Herodotus (1. 147-49) relates that all these cities except for Ephesos and Kolophon celebrated the Apatouria, a coming-of-age festival celebrated by the phratries. Athena and Zeus presided over the Apatouria at Athens, so the same may have been true in the Ionian cities.
Boiotian Athena
Homer (Il. 4. 8, 5. 908) gives Athena the epithet Alalkomenei? s, which literally means "she who protects" and evokes the warlike goddess of the Palladion. Several cults of Athena under this name existed, but its oldest home was perhaps her ancient sanctuary in the Boiotian town of Alalkomenai. Exca- vated but never published, it lay in a plain between the towns of Haliartos and Koroneia. According to Strabo (9. 2. 36), the venerable sanctuary was held in such respect that the city was never ravaged by a hostile army. His account is contradicted by Pausanias (9. 33. 5-6), who reports that Sulla impiously looted the temple's celebrated ivory statue. With the loss of the sacred image, the sanctuary at last fell into decline, and was overgrown with vegetation by the second century CE. Local legend held that Athena was born or grew to adulthood here; her poetic epithet Tritogeneia (Triton-born) was associated with the river Triton. 24
Oddly enough, nearby Koroneia boasted another Athena sanctuary of equal antiquity and renown, which served as the site of the Pamboiotia, or festival of all the Boiotians. This gathering, already old in Pindar's time, involved contests in chariot racing, music, and athletics. A series of sixth- century Boiotian vases showing a festival in progress and an armed Athena standing before an altar and temple have been attributed to this cult. The worship of Athena Itonia originated in the Thessalian town of Iton, but was brought to Boiotia when the Boiotoi moved south in the early Iron Age. In the seventh century Alcaeus (fr. 3, 325 LP) sang of this Athena, whom he addresses as Queen Athena polemadokos (Sustainer of War).
The goddess' companion was a chthonian deity represented as a snake and understood to be either Zeus or Hades. In the fifth century, Agorakritos, the pupil of Pheidias, created bronzes of Athena and Zeus for the Itoneion. Athena was served by a priestess, successor of the legendary priestess Iodama, who ventured at night into the sacred area and saw a vision of the goddess wearing the aegis with its gorgon head. Iodama was turned to stone (perhaps she was identified with a life-size statue) and a fire was lit daily on her altar in the sanctuary. 25
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The Lokrian Maidens
Ajax the Lesser, a native of Lokris, attacked the Trojan maiden Kassandra who had sought refuge beside the statue of Athena, and as he dragged her away he toppled the sacred image. The goddess' wrath was directed at all the Greeks for this sacrilege but especially at Ajax, who in the Homeric account was shipwrecked and drowned before reaching home (Od. 4. 499-511). In the third year, a plague fell upon Lokris, and the people consulted Apollo's oracle at Delphi. They were told that their penance for Ajax's crime would last a thousand years. They must choose two of their girls by lot and deliver them to the shores of Troy as temple servants of Athena. These girls must be led to the goddess secretly by night, while the Trojan men hunted them down. Maidens killed attempting to reach the safety of the temple were to be burned with wood that bore no fruit, and their ashes cast in the sea; those who arrived unharmed had to remain in the sanctuary for life, barefoot and wear- ing only a simple shift, sweeping out the temple and performing other menial duties like slaves. They grew old as virgins, and when one died, another must be brought to take her place.
This tribute of maidens, reported most fully by Lycophron (Alex. 1141-73 with schol. ) and mentioned by a number of late authors, has no exact paral- lels in Greek practice. 26 Maiden sacrifices are common enough in myth, but rarely if ever did they occur in the ritual of historical times. The Lokrians of Italy, according to some dubious sources, devoted their daughters as sacred prostitutes to the service of Aphrodite, but in these accounts the girls' lives were not threatened, nor were they forced to leave their homes forever. A ritual requirement of lifelong virginity is extremely unusual: the Greeks had no Vestal Virgins. Therefore, the amazing account of the Lokrian Maidens would likely be dismissed today as a fantasy, but for a third-century inscription (IG IX 12 3. 706), which establishes the journey of the maidens as historical fact. It declares that the Aianteioi, or descendants of Ajax, and their city of Naryx in Opuntian Lokris, shall receive significant privileges (such as tax relief and priority access to courts) in return for sending the two maidens to Ilion. The girls are to have their expenses paid, including the cost of their wardrobes (kosmos). The inscription makes it clear, however, that the girls served for a limited period, not for life; that they wore new garments, not rags; and that they were chosen from elite families, not by lot. It is reasonable to assume that the "hunting" of the maidens, though an important part of the ritual, was innocuous. The custom probably began in response to a civic crisis, not after the Trojan War when the site of Troy was abandoned, but in the sixth century and with the cooperation of the Greek colonists at New Ilion, who were eager to play the role of "Trojans. " There is evidence that it lapsed in the fourth century and was revived with due ceremony, perhaps about the time of our inscription.
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The journey of the Lokrian Maidens has been interpreted as a ritual counterpart of the many myths in which adolescent girls give up their lives to save their cities; it has also been called an "exemplary initiation," by which a few members of an age cohort stand in for the whole group in performing acts symbolic of that group's passage to adulthood. Finally, the putative humiliation of the maidens and the casting of their ashes in the sea are charac- teristic of the scapegoat or pharmakos rite, in which a city wards off harm from itself by expelling individuals who are treated as carriers of pollution. 27
Athena Alea
The sanctuary of Athena Alea at Tegea in Arkadia is the richest site so far excavated in that district, and the only one to produce significant Mycenaean finds. The earliest material dates to the Late Bronze Age, and though cult activity is archaeologically visible only from about 900, the worship of a goddess on this spot may have far deeper roots. Excavations have focused on the site of the successive temples and an associated sacred spring to the north, both of which yielded a rich variety of Archaic and Classical votives including a wealth of bronzes, lead and iron objects, jewelry, and ivories. During the eighth century, the first temple was constructed of wattle and daub on an apsidal plan, and had a neighboring metal workshop. It was replaced in the late seventh century by a monumental stone temple, which continued in use for some three hundred years until it was destroyed in a fire in 392. It was the sculptor and architect Skopas who designed the third temple, one of the finest and largest in the Peloponnese. Its east pediment illustrated the Arkadian myth of the Kalydonian boar hunt, and the trophies from the great beast, including its hide and tusks, were proudly displayed within. Its other treasures, appropriate to Athena, included trophies of war: chains brought by Spartan invaders who hoped to enslave the Tegeans, but themselves suffered this fate; and a bronze vessel used to feed the horses of the Persian general Mardonios, taken as a prize by the Tegeans who captured his camp. The cult statue was a small ivory Athena attributed to the Archaic sculptor Endoios, which was looted by Augustus along with the boar's tusks and set up in his new Forum at Rome. 28
The earliest deity worshiped on this spot was probably not Athena, but an indigenous goddess called Alea, whose name seems to mean "place of refuge. " Indeed, asylum was an important function of the sanctuary in historical times, and we are told (Paus. 3. 5. 6) that the entire Peloponnese respected the sanctity of Athena's suppliants. The cult was so renowned that daughter sanctuaries were founded in Lakonia and on the border with Argolis. The Geometric finds from the sanctuary suggest concerns with fertility (pomegranate pendants) and women's issues (loom weights, beads and other jewelry in great numbers), but also include items more often associated with Athena's cult, such as miniature votive shields. In any case, if
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Athena and Alea were distinct goddesses, they had merged by the sixth century, when a very Panhellenic bronze Athena with helmet, spear, shield, and aegis was deposited. 29
Spartan Athena
Sparta was dotted with minor cult places of Athena; these included three separate shrines of Athena Keleutheia (of the Road), which were associated with a race run by the suitors of Penelope. In the area of the Dromos were sanctuaries of Herakles and Athena Axiopoinos (of Deserved Vengeance). The latter was connected with Herakles' punishment of Hippokoo? n for killing his nephew Oionos. Still another shrine of Athena was founded by Theras, the great-grandson of Orestes and colonizer of Thera. The variety of her cults illustrates Athena's regular function as a "goddess of nearness," the guardian and helper of heroes. It also reflects Sparta's background as a group of independent villages loosely gathered into a polis, but never fully urban- ized or consolidated. 30
On the Spartan akropolis, a hill of no great height, the most important structure was the sanctuary of Athena Poliouchos (City Protector) or Chal- kioikos (of the Bronze House). Its origins were attributed to the mythic king Tyndareos, though excavation shows that the earliest remains are Geometric. The temple itself and its bronze cult statue by Gitiadas belonged to the sixth century. (Gitiadas was a multitalented Spartan who also composed "Dorian songs," including a hymn to Athena, and made bronze tripods for the Amyklaion. ) The temple was apparently sheathed in bronze plates, some of which were found by excavators at the turn of the last century. None of the relief-decorated plates have survived, but these included scenes of Athena's birth and the feats of Peloponnesian heroes including Herakles, Kastor and Polydeukes, and Perseus. 31
The sanctuary was well known as a place of asylum for criminals, even those under a death sentence. The ancient sources tend to draw attention to this function only when it is violated, as in the gruesome death of the Spartan general Pausanias, the victor at Plataiai in 479. Suspected of intrigue with Xerxes and of fomenting a helot rebellion, Pausanias was recalled to Sparta about 470 and, when he realized that he was to be arrested, ran into a back room of the Bronze House. The Spartan ephors sealed him in the chamber until he was dying of starvation, then carried him outdoors so as not to pollute the sanctuary with his death. Later, in the belief that they were being punished by Zeus Hikesios for violating the rights of a suppliant, they consulted Delphi about these events. The oracle commanded them to move Pausanias' tomb into the sanctuary and to "give back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Bronze House. " Therefore they installed two bronze statues of Pausanias beside Athena's altar. 32
Little is known of the cult at the Bronze House, but Polybius (4. 35. 2-4) 53
ATHENA
describes a traditional observance that involved a parade of all the Spartan warriors in full armor to the altar, where the ephors waited to conduct a sacrifice. Among the finds in the sanctuary were bronze figurines of Athena and a trumpeter, and, nearby on the akropolis, a fifth-century marble statue of a helmeted hoplite, known today as "Leonidas. " Unexplained is the large number of bells, forty of bronze and eighty of terracotta; they may have been dedicated by night watchmen who carried them on their patrols or warriors who used them as horse trappings. 33
Athena Lindia
Pindar's seventh Olympian Ode, written for the boxer Diagoras of Rhodes in 464, celebrates the prominent cult of Athena in the city of Lindos, one of the three original Greek cities on the island. Like the people of Alalkomenai in Boiotia or Alipheira in Arkadia, the Rhodians believed that their island witnessed the birth of Athena from Zeus' head. Helios, the patron deity of Rhodes, urged his children to be the first to honor the goddess with an altar and the smoke of sacrifice. But climbing to the peak of the Lindian akropolis, they forgot to bring live embers, establishing instead the custom of fireless sacrifice. Zeus confirmed these events by sending snow of gold on the city, while Athena herself taught the Heliadai the skills to create wondrous works of art that moved like living creatures. 34 An alternative legend attributed the founding of the sanctuary to Danaos and his daughters as they fled from Egypt, while the Archaic temple was built by the sixth-century tyrant Kleoboulos, one of Greece's Seven Sages and an associate of Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt. Amasis dedicated to Athena Lindia two stone statues and a linen corselet embroidered with figures in gold thread. 35 These connections between Rhodes and Egypt are borne out by actual fragments of Egyptian sculpture discovered near the temple of Athena Polias at Kameiros.
Around 392, the temple on the akropolis and its contents were completely destroyed, perhaps in the violent struggles between the supporters of Sparta and Athens, and a lengthy period of recovery followed. Roughly a century after its destruction, the Rhodians began to rebuild the sanctuary on a lavish scale. Conscious of Athena Lindia's distinguished past, but lacking the rich variety of heirloom dedications to be seen in other sanctuaries, they eventually decided to create a list of all the famous gifts that had been lost, and to display it in the sanctuary. This inscription, known as the Lindian Chronicle, dates to 99 and contains a catalogue of fabulous gifts from ancient heroes (e. g. Herakles, Helen, Tlepolemos) and historical figures (Alexander the Great and Pyrrhos) as well as descriptions of three epiphanies of the goddess. The votive catalogue, complete with "footnotes" which cite written sources for each entry, is an interesting mixture of legend and history. In spite of its late date, it is an invaluable resource for Athena's cult. It shows, for example, how colonists from Rhodes maintained a relationship with Athena Lindia by
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ATHENA
sending gifts to her shrine. The votive catalogue lists gifts of Archaic and Classical date from Lindian colonists at Kyrene, Phaselis, Gela, Akragas, and Soloi, all of which are probably authentic dedications. 36
Athena's cult partners
Because her functions overlap with those of Zeus and Poseidon, Athena was often worshiped in tandem with these deities. Poseidon and Athena shared space in the Ionic temple on the Akropolis and at Cape Sounion because of their common interest in the Athenian polis, though the myth of their contest for the land shows that the relationship was one of opposition as well as affinity. At Kolonos in Attica, Poseidon Hippios and Athena Hippia (of horses) had a shared altar in Pausanias' time (1. 30. 4). Athena's interest in horses stemmed not only from her identity as a war goddess, but also from her role as a teacher of crafts and skills. Pindar (Ol. 13. 63-86) is the earliest written source for the story that Athena gave a golden bridle to Bellerophon, which he used to tame Pegasos. In return, he dedicated an altar to Athena Hippia in Korinth, where her worship was focused primarily on the taming and training of horses. Poseidon, on the other hand, was the creator of the horse and the source of its fierce energy and speed. 37
Athena's mythic intimacy with her father Zeus is reflected in many dual cults, particularly those that deal with civic administration, law and justice. In Sparta they shared the titles of Agoraios (of the Marketplace), Xenios (of Strangers), and Amboulios (of Counsel), among others. In Athens, as we learn from the orator Antiphon (6. 45), the Council-chamber or bouleute ? rion contained a shrine of Zeus Boulaios and Athena Boulaia (of Counsel), at which members prayed as they entered. Polieus, Zeus' title as the protector of the city, is the masculine form of Athena's common epithet Polias, while Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria shared altars throughout Attica as the patrons of the Athenian kinship groups known as phratries. Athena frequently accompanies Zeus when he appears in his chthonic guise as a serpent. In the fifth century, for example, a sanctuary of Zeus Meilichios and Athena existed at Athens. The same configuration of goddess and serpent companion is to be found in the cult of Athena Itonia (above) and of course in the presence of Athena's serpent familiar, sometimes identified with Erichthonios, on the Athenian Akropolis. 38
Further reading
Deacy and Villing 2001 collects papers on Athena and includes an important study of the Athena sanctuary at Stymphalos by H. Williams and G. Schaus. Chapter 4 of Detienne and Vernant 1991 [1978], originally published in French in 1974, explores the interlocking "domains" of Athena and her rela- tions with Poseidon. Hurwit 1999 includes full coverage of the topography
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of Athena's cult places on the Athenian Akropolis. Two volumes edited by J. Neils (1992 and 1996) contain papers on the Panathenaic festival, inclu- ding an important article on Athena's peplos by E. J. W. Barber (103-17 in Goddess and polis). On Athena Alea, the work of M. E. Voyatzis (1990, 1998) is indispensable.
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5
RULER OF ELEMENTAL POWERS
Poseidon
Homer (Il. 15. 184-93) recounts that when the cosmos was divided among the gods, Poseidon received the sea as his lot. Yet his first worshipers probably did not live within sight of the sea. Poseidon was a powerful god among the Mycenaean Greeks, and his cult is strongest among populations established in the Greek world before the so-called Dorian invasion. His status was gradually eroded in the Archaic period, as the process of Panhellenization required that all the gods of the canon be subordinated to Zeus. Little concerned with the spheres of justice, invention, or the arts, Poseidon is in origin a god of elemental, geological forces: life-giving springs, disastrous floods, chasms through which water flows or recedes, and tremors in the earth. Ultimately he ruled the vast and unpredictable sea, causing storms and tidal waves.
He is often found partnered with Demeter, a clue to his probable origin as a deity of fresh water. The most commonly cited etymology of his name recognizes it as a compound: Greek posis or potis, "lord, spouse" is combined with an element of unknown meaning, possibly "earth. "1 Poseidon's name, then, contains the masculine version of the word potnia, or mistress, which is familiar from the Linear B tablets, while he himself appears in the tablets from Knossos and especially Pylos. One of his most widespread cult epithets, Asphaleios (Steadfast), was apparently a euphemism, emphasizing his power to still earthquakes rather than induce them. In both poetry and cult he is Ennosigaios (Earth-Shaker) and Gaieochos (Embracer of Earth). This control over the forces in the earth only occasionally spilled over into agricultural or chthonic, underworld functions, as at Tainaron, where Poseidon hosted an oracle of the dead.
Poseidon was also a god around whom many Greeks shaped their ethnic identities. For the Thessalians, the Boiotians, the people of Trozen, and many others, he was an ancestor, comparable to Zeus in the large number of heroes he sired with mortal maidens. Poseidon was an important amphictyonic deity, which means that his cult was the focus for many federations and leagues, whose shared interests were based sometimes on tribal affinity and sometimes on geographical proximity. According to the Homeric Hymn in
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POSEIDON
his honor (22. 5), Poseidon is "a tamer of horses and a savior of ships. " Myth made him the father of the horses Areion and Pegasos, while he was honored in many places as Hippios and was a master of chariot races from earliest times. He was the central deity at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Isthmia, worshiped with his consort Amphitrite.
Poseidon Helikonios
The member cities of the Ionian League met annually at the sanctuary of Poseidon Helikonios at the Panionion on the promontory of Mt. Mykale. Very little is left of the sanctuary now, though the foundation of a huge, 18 m Archaic altar has been detected. Also found at the site were a council chamber and a large cave, which must have played a role in the cult. The sanctuary probably never included a temple, yet it was an important symbol of political and cultural identity in the Archaic period. The priests were supplied by the city of Priene. Later the meeting place was moved for safety to a spot near Ephesos. Though this cult was almost certainly brought to Asia Minor when the Ionians migrated to their new homes around the tenth century, there is debate over its source, closely tied to the question of Ionian origins. One school of thought derives Poseidon Helikonios from the city of Helike in Achaia, often cited by ancient authors as a homeland of the Ionians. The Ionians of the Classical period seem to have believed this version, for in response to an oracle, they sent representatives to Helike to ask for sacred objects (aphidrumata) from the ancestral altars. The Achaians' refusal to permit this privilege is said to have caused the famous earthquake and tidal wave that destroyed and engulfed Helike in 373. 2 It is certain that an ancient cult of Poseidon was present at Helike, for Homer (Il. 8. 203-4) mentions offerings to the god from the people of Helike and Aigai. From a linguistic point of view, however, the word Helikonios is better derived from Helikon, the mountain in Boiotia. Though no Poseidon cult on Helikon is attested in historical times, the god had deep roots in Boiotia and such a cult may have largely faded from memory. In any case, Homer is also aware of the worship of Poseidon Helikonios, for he speaks (Il. 20. 403-5) of the bellowing bulls sacrificed to "the Helikonian lord. " According to Strabo (8. 7. 2), some in antiquity took this as a reference to the sacrifices at the Panionia, where the participants read omens if the bull bellowed as it was struck down. 3
On Delos, another Ionian religious center, a large sacrificial feast was held during the month Posideion, which fell during the stormy period of mid- winter. Poseideia, or festivals of Poseidon, seem to have been a regular feature of this month in many Ionian cities, both in the islands and on the coast of Asia Minor. Poseidon's epithets in these places vary, from Helikonios at Sinope to Asphalios (Steadfast) or Themeliouchos (of Foundations) on Delos and Phykios (of Seaweed) on Mykonos. Noel Robertson connects the winter festival to Poseidon's function as a partner of Demeter in fructifying the
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POSEIDON
fields; alternatively, the timing suggests a propitiation of the god who causes storms at the season when his anger is most evident. 4
Isthmia and Korinth
Poseidon's sanctuary at Isthmia is one of the earliest post-Mycenaean cult places yet identified in the Greek world, having been established at the beginning of the Protogeometric period around 1050. It therefore ranks in age with Olympia and Kalapodi/Hyampolis. Yet for centuries the worship of Poseidon required no temple; the main structures were a platform for dining created in the eighth century, and temporary shelters of which only the post- holes remain. The dominant activity seems to have been sacrifice followed by extensive feasting and drinking. 5 Easily accessible by land and sea, the sanc- tuary was an important meeting place for the people living in the scattered communities that would evolve into the maritime polis of Korinth. In con- trast to Olympia or Delphi, it attracted few dedications of precious metals, such as tripods, and there was less of an emphasis on aristocratic display in the votive practice. In spite of the focus on drinking, dedications of jewelry show that women were active in the worship. Terracotta bulls, animals symbolic of Poseidon, are present from the earliest years, though most of the bones found on the site belonged to sheep, goats, and pigs. The sacrificial area was covered with egg-sized stones that were used in the ritual. Most likely, the participants cast stones at the hapless victim in the moments before its throat was cut. In this way, all present joined in the act of slaughter, just as all would share in the feast. 6
Constructed in the seventh century, the first temple was destroyed in a conflagration around 470. No sign of a statue base was found in the cella, and the temple may have been used mainly as a strongroom for valuable dedications and supplies. Excavation has brought to light the charred remains of storage vessels for oil, chariots, and horse trappings from the cella, while many small valuables came from the area of the east porch, including a tiny golden bull. The exterior wall was coated with stucco and brightly painted with animals and geometric designs, while within the peristyle stood a lovely marble perirrhante ? rion, a water basin used for purification before entering the temple. 7 Its Orientalizing design features a base with four women standing on lions. Outside the temple was a monumental altar over 30 m long. In 582 the Isthmian games were opened to Panhellenic participation, a stadium was added, and the sanctuary continued to grow with the patronage of Korinth and the advantage of placement on a major road. When the Archaic temple burned, it was speedily replaced with a larger Doric temple, which stood until late antiquity. A major category of dedication in this period, second only to the offerings at Olympia in abundance, is armor and weapons, which were displayed so as to be visible from the road.
A number of other gods were worshiped at the sanctuary, including 59
POSEIDON
Amphitrite, Poseidon's consort, and the child-hero Melikertes-Palaimon. The games, with their prize of a pine crown (later changed to wild celery), were said to have originated as funeral games instituted in his honor by Sisyphos. According to the legend, Palaimon and his mother Ino-Leukothea were drowned in the sea, but Ino was transformed into a Nereid, while Palaimon's body was carried to shore by a dolphin. Both mother and son granted mariners' prayers for safety. An interesting and unusual feature of the sanctuary in the Classical period was the pair of underground, man-made caves, designed to serve as dining rooms. One is located near the theater, while the other sits roughly between the theater and the temple of Poseidon and is associated with a nearby altar. Each cave contained couches carved from the earth, and the theater cave also had two kitchen areas. These small rooms, each able to accommodate only five to six people, may have been used in the worship of Melikertes-Palaimon or some other chthonian power. 8
Yet another early Poseidon cult, the source of our earliest images of the god, has been detected in the environs of Korinth. At Penteskouphia a large number of painted terracotta pinakes (tablets) dating to the seventh and sixth centuries were recovered from a votive dump.
It is safe to say that Athena possessed a temple from the eighth or seventh century, since this is the most likely date of the ancient olivewood cult image around which the central rituals for the goddess were organized. 3 Two Homeric passages are relevant; in the Iliad (2. 549) she establishes the cult of Erechtheus "in her own rich temple" while in the Odyssey (7. 78-81) she travels across the sea and enters "the strong-built house of Erechtheus. " The Ionic building we call the Erechtheion was known to the Classical Athenians as "the temple with the image" or the archaios neo ? s (Old Temple), even though it was quite new at the time. It took over this name from its predeces- sor, either the Do? rpfeld temple or a "pre-Erechtheion. " Active controversy attends the question of whether the Ionic building, in addition to housing Athena's olivewood statue, is also the shrine of Erechtheus; some say the latter, described by Pausanias (1. 26. 5-27. 4), is to be found elsewhere on the Akropolis. Though the question must remain open, the Homeric passages above suggest that Athena's holiest shrine always housed Erechtheus' cult as well. The same sacerdotal family, known as the Eteoboutadai, supplied the priests for both Poseidon-Erechtheus and Athena Polias. If the cults were housed together, we also have an explanation for the four-chambered cellas of both the Do? rpfeld temple and the Ionic temple. 4
An early fifth-century decree (IG I3 4) was carved on a metope from the Bluebeard temple and therefore postdates the dismantling of that structure. It refers to a neo ? s (Temple) and a hekatompedon (Hundred-Footer) as separate sacred areas, but there is no consensus on which labels fit which places. This inscription does however illustrate the pattern, probably dating to the early sixth century, of maintaining two Akropolis temples dedicated to Athena. One, situated on the north side, held the olivewood statue (and perhaps the associated cult of Erechtheus) and was the focus of the most ancient rituals. The other, on the south, came about as a result of the competitive vogue for elaborate "Hundred-Footers" that swept the Greek world in the seventh and sixth centuries, and the final representative of this tradition was the Parthe- non, with its colossal gold and ivory cult statue sculpted by Pheidias. 5 The
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ATHENA
? Figure 4. 1 Athena Parthenos. Roman marble copy of the cult statue in the Parthenon at Athens, 447-39. Ht 1. 045 m. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Alinari/Art Resource.
southern temples, whose primary function was to store and display the increasing number of rich objects dedicated to Athena, were themselves a form of offering from the citizens to their goddess.
Some two hundred marble fragments preserve the inventories of the tamiai (treasurers) of Athena, officials who were responsible for keeping track of the valuable ritual objects and dedications stored in the Parthenon and the Erechtheion in the Classical period. These inventories show that the interior walls of the temples were fitted with shelves or cupboards. For smaller items, baskets (often gilded) and bronze boxes were used. The earliest inventory of objects in the Parthenon (434/3) includes gold and silver ritual vessels, armor, at least fifty-seven items of furniture, several lyres, and six Persian daggers inlaid with gold. Many of these objects were used in Athena's festivals and returned to the temple, while others were simply valuable or decorative items owned by the goddess. The inventories for the Ionic temple describe the contents of the room where Athena's olivewood cult statue stood, including a gold incense burner fitted into the floor and a lustral basin held by a male
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ATHENA
statue. The cult image itself is said to possess a gold circlet, earrings, a neck- band, five necklaces, a gold owl (probably on the statue's shoulder), a gold aegis with a gorgon's head, and a gold libation bowl. 6
The bastion flanking the south entrance to the Akropolis was the site of a cult of Athena Nike (Victory) dating to the early sixth century. During the modern restoration of the gemlike Classical temple perched on the bastion, workers found remains of the Archaic sanctuary, which had been incorpor- ated into the newer structure. Beneath the new altar, a block from the old was preserved with its sixth-century inscription: "Altar of Athena Nike. Patrokles erected it. " The theme of victory relates to the reorganization of the Pana- thenaia in 566 and that festival's association with Athena's victory over the giants. The Archaic sanctuary was presumably destroyed by the Persians, though the cult statue, a wooden Athena holding a pomegranate in the right hand and a helmet in the left, survived to be reinstalled in its new home. 7 The mid-fifth-century Nike Temple Decree (IG I3 35) commissioned Kallikrates to design the temple that still stands and established the office of priestess of Athena Nike, which was awarded based on the drawing of lots from all Athenian citizen women.
Figure 4. 2 Bronze votive statue of Athena in battle from the Athenian Akropolis, c. 480. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Mar- burg.
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ATHENA
Athena's festival year
Athena's great festival, the Panathenaia, fell in midsummer during the first month of the Athenian calendar, Hekatombaion (named for the customary hecatombs or sacrifices of multiple cattle to the goddess). The preparations for the Panathenaia began nine months earlier, with the fall celebration of the Chalkeia (Festival of Bronze-workers) in honor of Athena Ergane (of Labors) and Hephaistos as deities of handicrafts. Weavers too honored Athena Ergane, and as part of the Chalkeia the ergastinai (women workers) set up a loom on which to weave the peplos destined to be presented to Athena during the Panathenaia. 8 They were assisted by little girls clad in white, about seven years old, and chosen from elite families to serve Athena. These girls, known as the arrhe ? phoroi, lived on the Akropolis "with the goddess" for the rest of the year, just as the daughters of king Kekrops once did.
As early summer drew near, the ritual and logistical preparations for the Panathenaia began in earnest. The purificatory month of Thargelion brought two holy days involving the cult statue of Athena, both associated with Aglauros, the daughter of Kekrops and priestess of Athena who leapt to her death from the Akropolis. The first day, called the Kallynteria (Beautifica- tion), is often described as the sweeping out of the temple (the verb kallunein can mean both "adorn" and "sweep, scour"). Alternatively, the ritual may have involved the kosme ? sis or adornment of the image with jewelry and other items, for it was said in connection with this festival that Aglauros was the first to adorn the gods' images. 9 Next, women of the Praxiergidai, an Athenian sacerdotal family, performed the Plynteria (Washing festival). They removed the garments of the statue and cleaned them. They may also have bathed the image itself, but our sources do not specifically say this. The naked image was veiled for one day, on which it was considered unlucky to conduct either private or public business; Athenian sanctuaries were closed during the Plynteria as well, and some Attic towns (also known as demes), such as Erchia and Thorikos, held their own observances. At this time the Praxiergidai conducted secret rites, and a cake made of figs, the first domesti- cated fruit, was carried at the head of a procession as a reminder of Athens' primitive origins. The somberness of the day was attributed to the mourning for Aglauros, but it was clearly part of a cycle of purification and a necessary preliminary to the celebration of the New Year and Panathenaia. A month called Plynterion, attested in the Ionian islands of Paros, Thasos, and Chios, suggests that this observance predates the Ionian migration, though it is not certain that "Washing month" refers specifically to the same ritual. 10
During Skirophorion, the arrhe ? phoroi were called on to perform a secret nocturnal rite. According to Pausanias (1. 27. 3), Athena's priestess gave them sacred objects in baskets, which they carried on their heads to an enclosure in the city not far from the sanctuary of Aphrodite in the Gardens, accessible by a "natural underground descent. " Neither the priestess nor the girls
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ATHENA
knew what the objects were, but when they reached their destination, they exchanged what they were carrying for other hidden objects, and returned to the Akropolis. This curious ritual has been interpreted as a fertility rite and/or a rite of passage, especially given the mention of Aphrodite and the comment of one scholiast that the secret objects were dough models of male genitalia and snakes. Although Pausanias does not identify Aphrodite's sanctuary as the actual destination of the arrhe ? phoroi, it has been suggested that the girls climbed down a passageway on the north slope of the Akropolis toward an area that served in Classical times as a shrine of Aphrodite and Eros. 11 Their journey reflects the myth that Athena gave the daughters of Kekrops something secret to carry in a basket, which turned out to be the snake-legged, earthborn infant Erichthonios. When the girls disobeyed the goddess' command and peeked into the basket, they were terrified and leapt from the Akropolis. Pandrosos (All-Dew), the one daughter who obeyed Athena, had a shrine beside the Ionic temple of Athena, and the families of former arrhe ? phoroi sometimes made dedications to Athena and Pandrosos. 12 The term arrhe ? phoros (also spelled errhe ? phoros) refers to a "bearer" of something; ancient commentators suggested that the unknown first element in the word came from arrhe ? ta (unspoken things) or herse ? (dew).
The New Year brought the Panathenaia, held on 28 Hekatombaion, the anniversary of Athena's triumph in the battle of the gods and giants. The battle of the gods and giants was the scene intricately woven into Athena's peplos; Elizabeth Barber has shown that such story cloths were an inherit- ance from the early Archaic period, if not the Bronze Age, and required months to create. 13 Every four years the weeklong annual festival became the Great Panathenaia, when games were celebrated on a lavish, Panhellenic scale. The wide variety of events included musical competitions and recita- tions of Homer, chariot racing, men's and boys' athletics, a dance in armor (purrhike ? ), a regatta in the harbor, and a torch race. Winners received commemorative jars filled with olive oil, many of which have survived for modern study.
The highlight of the festival was the Panathenaic parade, which followed the Sacred Way from the Dipylon gate through the potters' quarter and agora to the Akropolis, a distance of about 1 km. Unlike the games, the procession was an inclusive event with representatives from many segments of the Athenian population, who were given different ritual duties: non-citizens, freed slaves, women, and old men. Still, members of aristocratic families played the most important roles. On the Parthenon frieze, the procession is shown entering the company of the gods (i. e. the Akropolis? ) and presenting the newly woven robe to the goddess. Perhaps the olivewood statue was now fully dressed and adorned for the first time since the removal of its kosmos during the Plynteria. Meanwhile, a massive sacrifice took place and the meat was distributed to the gleeful residents of the city. The management of this elaborate festival was the responsibility of a number of officers, some
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of whom administered the games while others, the hieropoioi (doers of sacred things), organized the sacrifices. While the Panathenaic festival was "founded" in 566, this date probably represents a reorganization and elabor- ation of existing rituals, such as the weaving of the peplos, that reach back to the eighth century or earlier. In later centuries many changes were introduced, such as the inclusion in the parade of a ship on wheels with a giant "peplos" displayed as its sail. This elaborate cloth was produced by professional male weavers, but it did not take the place of the women's peplos, which was approximately 1. 8 by 2 m, the size of an actual garment. 14
Other Athenian cults
To judge from the evidence of the surviving deme calendars, many of the Attic demes held local celebrations of Athena's great city festivals. At Thorikos there was a sacrifice for the Plynteria, and at Erchia a sacrifice to Kourotro- phos (Nurturer of Youths), Athena Polias, Aglauros, Zeus Polieus, Poseidon, and Pandrosos fell on 3 Skirophorion, the same day the arrhe ? phoroi carried their secret objects for the goddess. 15 In the coastal deme of Phaleron, the Salaminioi, an extended family with strong ties to the nearby island of Salamis and its cult of Athena Skiras, maintained a sanctuary of the goddess. This Attic sanctuary of Athena Skiras played a role in the vintage festival of the Oschophoria and Athena herself, in association with the hero Skiros, received the clan's offering of a pregnant sheep in the winter month of Maimakterion. 16
The little-known cult of Athena Pallenis (of Pallene) is important for the light it sheds on the process by which the cults of Attica were absorbed into the larger system of the Athenian polis during the eighth and seventh centuries, and their continuing relations. Athenaeus (6. 234f-235a) preserves the rather mangled texts of a dedication and a sacred law pertaining to this Athena Pallenis. From them we learn that several of the inland demes, including Pallene, were gathered into a league centered on the worship of Athena. No later than the seventh century, this cult was brought under the supervision of the state in the person of the archo ? n basileus (the King Archon, who had inherited the original king's religious authority). He selected a group of officials known as archontes (rulers), who in turn designated parasitoi (fellow diners) from each member deme. The parasites and archons, the social elite of their communities, enjoyed a yearly banquet funded by the goddess in a building maintained for this purpose. Like several gods whose sanctuaries were located outside the urban area of Athens, Athena Pallenis possessed considerable wealth and her sanctuary easily financed the annual feast. A fine fifth-century temple in the agora, moved from its original site in the Roman period and previously assigned to Ares, is now thought to be the shrine of Athena Pallenis. 17
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Goddess and Palladion
Pallas was a common literary title of Athena, and the name appears on Archaic dedications from the Athenian Akropolis. There are two possible etymologies, one from the verb pallein, to brandish, and one that makes Pallas a synonym for girl or maiden.
The epic cycle told of a covert mission by Odysseus and Diomedes to enter Troy and carry off a small statue of Athena known as the Palladion (statue of Pallas). Sent down from heaven by Zeus, the talismanic image ensured the security of Troy as long as the Trojans possessed it. Many late sources speak of this tradition, and vase paintings illustrate the theft of the diminutive statue. Athens, Argos, Sparta, Rome, and other cities had protective images of this type, and each boasted that its Athena was none other than the original Palladion of Troy. The Argive claim was the oldest, for the Athenians and Spartans said that their Palladia were confiscated from the Argive hero Diomedes. 18 The Palladion of Argos was most likely the image housed in the akropolis temple on Larisa, which existed from the sixth century or earlier. (The cult itself, in which Athena and Zeus were closely associated as poliad deities, dated to Geometric times. ) Callimachus recorded the annual ritual of the statue's purification in his fifth Hymn (5. 1-2, 33-34), which indicates that female members of the clan or phratry of Arestor served as "bath pourers" (lotrocho ? oi) for Pallas. A procession accompanied the Palladion, carried on the shield of Diomedes, to the river Inachos about 4 km from the city, where it was bathed in the river. The only other attested Greek ritual in which a statue is carried out of its temple in order to be bathed belongs to another Palladion, this one at Athens.
Trials for accidental homicide and the murder of non-citizens were con- ducted at a court in the place called Palladion, located on the southeast side of Athens on the Ilissos river. The origins of this court were tied in legend to the sanctuary of Athena "at Palladion," which contained an image thought to be the celebrated Trojan Palladion, confiscated by King Demophon from Diomedes and his men at the port of Phaleron. During the scuffle, Demophon either killed the Argives themselves, or accidentally caused the death of an Athenian. He was brought to trial in the court at Palladion, which ever after served the same function. Two old priestly families, the Gephyraioi and Bouzygai, oversaw the sanctuary, and during an annual festival the statue was carried in a procession to Phaleron, where it was washed in the sea. The washing ritual for the Palladion has often been conflated with the ceremonies of the Plynteria, but there is no basis for this idea. The bath in the sea (or in sea water) was clearly connected with the need to "cleanse" the image from the miasma brought about by repeated exposure to the killers who were tried in the court, and the original bathing of the statue was ascribed to King Demophon himself. Because it was made of wood and small enough to carry about, the Palladion was probably of Archaic date. 19
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ATHENA
Ionian Athena
Though a less dominating presence than at Athens, Athena was a prominent civic goddess in virtually every Ionian city by the eighth century. At Miletos, where Apollo was the patron deity, the seventh-century Athena temple was constructed in a commercial district on the site of a former Minoan and Mycenaean colony. It was repeatedly damaged and rebuilt over the succeed- ing centuries. 20 An unbroken series of votive offerings, including metal items such as a fragmentary bronze griffin cauldron, stretches from the eighth century on and hints at the wealth of the sanctuary. Likewise, the earliest activity at Athena's sanctuary in Erythrai is dated to the eighth century; among the oldest structures found there were a temple (rebuilt in the sixth century) and a ruler's dwelling. Pausanias (7. 5. 9) describes the cult statue of Athena Polias at Erythrai as a large enthroned Athena made of wood, holding a distaff and crowned with a polos, a cylindrical headdress often worn by goddesses. He attributes it to the Archaic sculptor Endoios. Such representations of Athena with spinning tools are virtually absent from the Greek mainland, although facilities for sacred weaving in her sanctuaries were not unusual. 21
At Old Smyrna, the Athena cult seems to have been introduced by Ionian refugees from Kolophon who seized the city from its Aiolian founders in the late eighth century. The first temple to Athena, a modest apsidal structure, appeared shortly thereafter (c. 690), and its successors grew ever more elaborate. Excavation has revealed a wealth of faience, ivory, terracotta, and stone objects traceable to Rhodes, Krete, Cyprus, and Syria, evidence of the cosmopolitan city's flourishing trade in the Orientalizing period. Around 600, the Lydian ruler Alyattes sacked the city and looted the temple, but the people quickly rebuilt it. Several mushroom-shaped capitals from the early sixth-century temple, influenced by Phoenician and Hittite models, have sur- vived. Alyattes also burned the temple of Athena at Assessos, in the territory of Miletos. As a result of this sacrilege he fell ill, and the Delphic oracle ordered him rebuild the temple as penance for the offense to the goddess. Investigation of the ancient site, where excavators found the remains of an Archaic city and at least one temple destroyed and rebuilt in the seventh century, supports the general outline of Herodotus' account (1. 16, 19-22). 22
At the citadel of Emporio on Chios, the eighth-century sanctuary of Athena shared the space inside the circuit wall with a ruler's megaron, while the townspeople lived on the slopes below. Around 600, the hillside town was abandoned for a settlement in the harbor below, yet the Athena sanctuary was kept in use and a temple was added in the mid-sixth century. The temple design carefully preserved an earlier structure, an irregular stone box less than a meter high, touching the bedrock and filled with earth. This crude altar or basis for offerings, once the center of the open-air sanctuary, shared the focal area of the cella with the cult image. Nine small griffin protomes of
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lead, found in the cella, may have been attached to the helmet of this statue. 23 Priene, Phokaia, Ephesos, Teos, Kolophon, and Klazomenai too had their cults of Athena Polias or Poliouchos (Protector of the City), demonstrating the great popularity of Athena among the Ionians. Herodotus (1. 147-49) relates that all these cities except for Ephesos and Kolophon celebrated the Apatouria, a coming-of-age festival celebrated by the phratries. Athena and Zeus presided over the Apatouria at Athens, so the same may have been true in the Ionian cities.
Boiotian Athena
Homer (Il. 4. 8, 5. 908) gives Athena the epithet Alalkomenei? s, which literally means "she who protects" and evokes the warlike goddess of the Palladion. Several cults of Athena under this name existed, but its oldest home was perhaps her ancient sanctuary in the Boiotian town of Alalkomenai. Exca- vated but never published, it lay in a plain between the towns of Haliartos and Koroneia. According to Strabo (9. 2. 36), the venerable sanctuary was held in such respect that the city was never ravaged by a hostile army. His account is contradicted by Pausanias (9. 33. 5-6), who reports that Sulla impiously looted the temple's celebrated ivory statue. With the loss of the sacred image, the sanctuary at last fell into decline, and was overgrown with vegetation by the second century CE. Local legend held that Athena was born or grew to adulthood here; her poetic epithet Tritogeneia (Triton-born) was associated with the river Triton. 24
Oddly enough, nearby Koroneia boasted another Athena sanctuary of equal antiquity and renown, which served as the site of the Pamboiotia, or festival of all the Boiotians. This gathering, already old in Pindar's time, involved contests in chariot racing, music, and athletics. A series of sixth- century Boiotian vases showing a festival in progress and an armed Athena standing before an altar and temple have been attributed to this cult. The worship of Athena Itonia originated in the Thessalian town of Iton, but was brought to Boiotia when the Boiotoi moved south in the early Iron Age. In the seventh century Alcaeus (fr. 3, 325 LP) sang of this Athena, whom he addresses as Queen Athena polemadokos (Sustainer of War).
The goddess' companion was a chthonian deity represented as a snake and understood to be either Zeus or Hades. In the fifth century, Agorakritos, the pupil of Pheidias, created bronzes of Athena and Zeus for the Itoneion. Athena was served by a priestess, successor of the legendary priestess Iodama, who ventured at night into the sacred area and saw a vision of the goddess wearing the aegis with its gorgon head. Iodama was turned to stone (perhaps she was identified with a life-size statue) and a fire was lit daily on her altar in the sanctuary. 25
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The Lokrian Maidens
Ajax the Lesser, a native of Lokris, attacked the Trojan maiden Kassandra who had sought refuge beside the statue of Athena, and as he dragged her away he toppled the sacred image. The goddess' wrath was directed at all the Greeks for this sacrilege but especially at Ajax, who in the Homeric account was shipwrecked and drowned before reaching home (Od. 4. 499-511). In the third year, a plague fell upon Lokris, and the people consulted Apollo's oracle at Delphi. They were told that their penance for Ajax's crime would last a thousand years. They must choose two of their girls by lot and deliver them to the shores of Troy as temple servants of Athena. These girls must be led to the goddess secretly by night, while the Trojan men hunted them down. Maidens killed attempting to reach the safety of the temple were to be burned with wood that bore no fruit, and their ashes cast in the sea; those who arrived unharmed had to remain in the sanctuary for life, barefoot and wear- ing only a simple shift, sweeping out the temple and performing other menial duties like slaves. They grew old as virgins, and when one died, another must be brought to take her place.
This tribute of maidens, reported most fully by Lycophron (Alex. 1141-73 with schol. ) and mentioned by a number of late authors, has no exact paral- lels in Greek practice. 26 Maiden sacrifices are common enough in myth, but rarely if ever did they occur in the ritual of historical times. The Lokrians of Italy, according to some dubious sources, devoted their daughters as sacred prostitutes to the service of Aphrodite, but in these accounts the girls' lives were not threatened, nor were they forced to leave their homes forever. A ritual requirement of lifelong virginity is extremely unusual: the Greeks had no Vestal Virgins. Therefore, the amazing account of the Lokrian Maidens would likely be dismissed today as a fantasy, but for a third-century inscription (IG IX 12 3. 706), which establishes the journey of the maidens as historical fact. It declares that the Aianteioi, or descendants of Ajax, and their city of Naryx in Opuntian Lokris, shall receive significant privileges (such as tax relief and priority access to courts) in return for sending the two maidens to Ilion. The girls are to have their expenses paid, including the cost of their wardrobes (kosmos). The inscription makes it clear, however, that the girls served for a limited period, not for life; that they wore new garments, not rags; and that they were chosen from elite families, not by lot. It is reasonable to assume that the "hunting" of the maidens, though an important part of the ritual, was innocuous. The custom probably began in response to a civic crisis, not after the Trojan War when the site of Troy was abandoned, but in the sixth century and with the cooperation of the Greek colonists at New Ilion, who were eager to play the role of "Trojans. " There is evidence that it lapsed in the fourth century and was revived with due ceremony, perhaps about the time of our inscription.
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The journey of the Lokrian Maidens has been interpreted as a ritual counterpart of the many myths in which adolescent girls give up their lives to save their cities; it has also been called an "exemplary initiation," by which a few members of an age cohort stand in for the whole group in performing acts symbolic of that group's passage to adulthood. Finally, the putative humiliation of the maidens and the casting of their ashes in the sea are charac- teristic of the scapegoat or pharmakos rite, in which a city wards off harm from itself by expelling individuals who are treated as carriers of pollution. 27
Athena Alea
The sanctuary of Athena Alea at Tegea in Arkadia is the richest site so far excavated in that district, and the only one to produce significant Mycenaean finds. The earliest material dates to the Late Bronze Age, and though cult activity is archaeologically visible only from about 900, the worship of a goddess on this spot may have far deeper roots. Excavations have focused on the site of the successive temples and an associated sacred spring to the north, both of which yielded a rich variety of Archaic and Classical votives including a wealth of bronzes, lead and iron objects, jewelry, and ivories. During the eighth century, the first temple was constructed of wattle and daub on an apsidal plan, and had a neighboring metal workshop. It was replaced in the late seventh century by a monumental stone temple, which continued in use for some three hundred years until it was destroyed in a fire in 392. It was the sculptor and architect Skopas who designed the third temple, one of the finest and largest in the Peloponnese. Its east pediment illustrated the Arkadian myth of the Kalydonian boar hunt, and the trophies from the great beast, including its hide and tusks, were proudly displayed within. Its other treasures, appropriate to Athena, included trophies of war: chains brought by Spartan invaders who hoped to enslave the Tegeans, but themselves suffered this fate; and a bronze vessel used to feed the horses of the Persian general Mardonios, taken as a prize by the Tegeans who captured his camp. The cult statue was a small ivory Athena attributed to the Archaic sculptor Endoios, which was looted by Augustus along with the boar's tusks and set up in his new Forum at Rome. 28
The earliest deity worshiped on this spot was probably not Athena, but an indigenous goddess called Alea, whose name seems to mean "place of refuge. " Indeed, asylum was an important function of the sanctuary in historical times, and we are told (Paus. 3. 5. 6) that the entire Peloponnese respected the sanctity of Athena's suppliants. The cult was so renowned that daughter sanctuaries were founded in Lakonia and on the border with Argolis. The Geometric finds from the sanctuary suggest concerns with fertility (pomegranate pendants) and women's issues (loom weights, beads and other jewelry in great numbers), but also include items more often associated with Athena's cult, such as miniature votive shields. In any case, if
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Athena and Alea were distinct goddesses, they had merged by the sixth century, when a very Panhellenic bronze Athena with helmet, spear, shield, and aegis was deposited. 29
Spartan Athena
Sparta was dotted with minor cult places of Athena; these included three separate shrines of Athena Keleutheia (of the Road), which were associated with a race run by the suitors of Penelope. In the area of the Dromos were sanctuaries of Herakles and Athena Axiopoinos (of Deserved Vengeance). The latter was connected with Herakles' punishment of Hippokoo? n for killing his nephew Oionos. Still another shrine of Athena was founded by Theras, the great-grandson of Orestes and colonizer of Thera. The variety of her cults illustrates Athena's regular function as a "goddess of nearness," the guardian and helper of heroes. It also reflects Sparta's background as a group of independent villages loosely gathered into a polis, but never fully urban- ized or consolidated. 30
On the Spartan akropolis, a hill of no great height, the most important structure was the sanctuary of Athena Poliouchos (City Protector) or Chal- kioikos (of the Bronze House). Its origins were attributed to the mythic king Tyndareos, though excavation shows that the earliest remains are Geometric. The temple itself and its bronze cult statue by Gitiadas belonged to the sixth century. (Gitiadas was a multitalented Spartan who also composed "Dorian songs," including a hymn to Athena, and made bronze tripods for the Amyklaion. ) The temple was apparently sheathed in bronze plates, some of which were found by excavators at the turn of the last century. None of the relief-decorated plates have survived, but these included scenes of Athena's birth and the feats of Peloponnesian heroes including Herakles, Kastor and Polydeukes, and Perseus. 31
The sanctuary was well known as a place of asylum for criminals, even those under a death sentence. The ancient sources tend to draw attention to this function only when it is violated, as in the gruesome death of the Spartan general Pausanias, the victor at Plataiai in 479. Suspected of intrigue with Xerxes and of fomenting a helot rebellion, Pausanias was recalled to Sparta about 470 and, when he realized that he was to be arrested, ran into a back room of the Bronze House. The Spartan ephors sealed him in the chamber until he was dying of starvation, then carried him outdoors so as not to pollute the sanctuary with his death. Later, in the belief that they were being punished by Zeus Hikesios for violating the rights of a suppliant, they consulted Delphi about these events. The oracle commanded them to move Pausanias' tomb into the sanctuary and to "give back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Bronze House. " Therefore they installed two bronze statues of Pausanias beside Athena's altar. 32
Little is known of the cult at the Bronze House, but Polybius (4. 35. 2-4) 53
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describes a traditional observance that involved a parade of all the Spartan warriors in full armor to the altar, where the ephors waited to conduct a sacrifice. Among the finds in the sanctuary were bronze figurines of Athena and a trumpeter, and, nearby on the akropolis, a fifth-century marble statue of a helmeted hoplite, known today as "Leonidas. " Unexplained is the large number of bells, forty of bronze and eighty of terracotta; they may have been dedicated by night watchmen who carried them on their patrols or warriors who used them as horse trappings. 33
Athena Lindia
Pindar's seventh Olympian Ode, written for the boxer Diagoras of Rhodes in 464, celebrates the prominent cult of Athena in the city of Lindos, one of the three original Greek cities on the island. Like the people of Alalkomenai in Boiotia or Alipheira in Arkadia, the Rhodians believed that their island witnessed the birth of Athena from Zeus' head. Helios, the patron deity of Rhodes, urged his children to be the first to honor the goddess with an altar and the smoke of sacrifice. But climbing to the peak of the Lindian akropolis, they forgot to bring live embers, establishing instead the custom of fireless sacrifice. Zeus confirmed these events by sending snow of gold on the city, while Athena herself taught the Heliadai the skills to create wondrous works of art that moved like living creatures. 34 An alternative legend attributed the founding of the sanctuary to Danaos and his daughters as they fled from Egypt, while the Archaic temple was built by the sixth-century tyrant Kleoboulos, one of Greece's Seven Sages and an associate of Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt. Amasis dedicated to Athena Lindia two stone statues and a linen corselet embroidered with figures in gold thread. 35 These connections between Rhodes and Egypt are borne out by actual fragments of Egyptian sculpture discovered near the temple of Athena Polias at Kameiros.
Around 392, the temple on the akropolis and its contents were completely destroyed, perhaps in the violent struggles between the supporters of Sparta and Athens, and a lengthy period of recovery followed. Roughly a century after its destruction, the Rhodians began to rebuild the sanctuary on a lavish scale. Conscious of Athena Lindia's distinguished past, but lacking the rich variety of heirloom dedications to be seen in other sanctuaries, they eventually decided to create a list of all the famous gifts that had been lost, and to display it in the sanctuary. This inscription, known as the Lindian Chronicle, dates to 99 and contains a catalogue of fabulous gifts from ancient heroes (e. g. Herakles, Helen, Tlepolemos) and historical figures (Alexander the Great and Pyrrhos) as well as descriptions of three epiphanies of the goddess. The votive catalogue, complete with "footnotes" which cite written sources for each entry, is an interesting mixture of legend and history. In spite of its late date, it is an invaluable resource for Athena's cult. It shows, for example, how colonists from Rhodes maintained a relationship with Athena Lindia by
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sending gifts to her shrine. The votive catalogue lists gifts of Archaic and Classical date from Lindian colonists at Kyrene, Phaselis, Gela, Akragas, and Soloi, all of which are probably authentic dedications. 36
Athena's cult partners
Because her functions overlap with those of Zeus and Poseidon, Athena was often worshiped in tandem with these deities. Poseidon and Athena shared space in the Ionic temple on the Akropolis and at Cape Sounion because of their common interest in the Athenian polis, though the myth of their contest for the land shows that the relationship was one of opposition as well as affinity. At Kolonos in Attica, Poseidon Hippios and Athena Hippia (of horses) had a shared altar in Pausanias' time (1. 30. 4). Athena's interest in horses stemmed not only from her identity as a war goddess, but also from her role as a teacher of crafts and skills. Pindar (Ol. 13. 63-86) is the earliest written source for the story that Athena gave a golden bridle to Bellerophon, which he used to tame Pegasos. In return, he dedicated an altar to Athena Hippia in Korinth, where her worship was focused primarily on the taming and training of horses. Poseidon, on the other hand, was the creator of the horse and the source of its fierce energy and speed. 37
Athena's mythic intimacy with her father Zeus is reflected in many dual cults, particularly those that deal with civic administration, law and justice. In Sparta they shared the titles of Agoraios (of the Marketplace), Xenios (of Strangers), and Amboulios (of Counsel), among others. In Athens, as we learn from the orator Antiphon (6. 45), the Council-chamber or bouleute ? rion contained a shrine of Zeus Boulaios and Athena Boulaia (of Counsel), at which members prayed as they entered. Polieus, Zeus' title as the protector of the city, is the masculine form of Athena's common epithet Polias, while Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria shared altars throughout Attica as the patrons of the Athenian kinship groups known as phratries. Athena frequently accompanies Zeus when he appears in his chthonic guise as a serpent. In the fifth century, for example, a sanctuary of Zeus Meilichios and Athena existed at Athens. The same configuration of goddess and serpent companion is to be found in the cult of Athena Itonia (above) and of course in the presence of Athena's serpent familiar, sometimes identified with Erichthonios, on the Athenian Akropolis. 38
Further reading
Deacy and Villing 2001 collects papers on Athena and includes an important study of the Athena sanctuary at Stymphalos by H. Williams and G. Schaus. Chapter 4 of Detienne and Vernant 1991 [1978], originally published in French in 1974, explores the interlocking "domains" of Athena and her rela- tions with Poseidon. Hurwit 1999 includes full coverage of the topography
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of Athena's cult places on the Athenian Akropolis. Two volumes edited by J. Neils (1992 and 1996) contain papers on the Panathenaic festival, inclu- ding an important article on Athena's peplos by E. J. W. Barber (103-17 in Goddess and polis). On Athena Alea, the work of M. E. Voyatzis (1990, 1998) is indispensable.
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5
RULER OF ELEMENTAL POWERS
Poseidon
Homer (Il. 15. 184-93) recounts that when the cosmos was divided among the gods, Poseidon received the sea as his lot. Yet his first worshipers probably did not live within sight of the sea. Poseidon was a powerful god among the Mycenaean Greeks, and his cult is strongest among populations established in the Greek world before the so-called Dorian invasion. His status was gradually eroded in the Archaic period, as the process of Panhellenization required that all the gods of the canon be subordinated to Zeus. Little concerned with the spheres of justice, invention, or the arts, Poseidon is in origin a god of elemental, geological forces: life-giving springs, disastrous floods, chasms through which water flows or recedes, and tremors in the earth. Ultimately he ruled the vast and unpredictable sea, causing storms and tidal waves.
He is often found partnered with Demeter, a clue to his probable origin as a deity of fresh water. The most commonly cited etymology of his name recognizes it as a compound: Greek posis or potis, "lord, spouse" is combined with an element of unknown meaning, possibly "earth. "1 Poseidon's name, then, contains the masculine version of the word potnia, or mistress, which is familiar from the Linear B tablets, while he himself appears in the tablets from Knossos and especially Pylos. One of his most widespread cult epithets, Asphaleios (Steadfast), was apparently a euphemism, emphasizing his power to still earthquakes rather than induce them. In both poetry and cult he is Ennosigaios (Earth-Shaker) and Gaieochos (Embracer of Earth). This control over the forces in the earth only occasionally spilled over into agricultural or chthonic, underworld functions, as at Tainaron, where Poseidon hosted an oracle of the dead.
Poseidon was also a god around whom many Greeks shaped their ethnic identities. For the Thessalians, the Boiotians, the people of Trozen, and many others, he was an ancestor, comparable to Zeus in the large number of heroes he sired with mortal maidens. Poseidon was an important amphictyonic deity, which means that his cult was the focus for many federations and leagues, whose shared interests were based sometimes on tribal affinity and sometimes on geographical proximity. According to the Homeric Hymn in
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his honor (22. 5), Poseidon is "a tamer of horses and a savior of ships. " Myth made him the father of the horses Areion and Pegasos, while he was honored in many places as Hippios and was a master of chariot races from earliest times. He was the central deity at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Isthmia, worshiped with his consort Amphitrite.
Poseidon Helikonios
The member cities of the Ionian League met annually at the sanctuary of Poseidon Helikonios at the Panionion on the promontory of Mt. Mykale. Very little is left of the sanctuary now, though the foundation of a huge, 18 m Archaic altar has been detected. Also found at the site were a council chamber and a large cave, which must have played a role in the cult. The sanctuary probably never included a temple, yet it was an important symbol of political and cultural identity in the Archaic period. The priests were supplied by the city of Priene. Later the meeting place was moved for safety to a spot near Ephesos. Though this cult was almost certainly brought to Asia Minor when the Ionians migrated to their new homes around the tenth century, there is debate over its source, closely tied to the question of Ionian origins. One school of thought derives Poseidon Helikonios from the city of Helike in Achaia, often cited by ancient authors as a homeland of the Ionians. The Ionians of the Classical period seem to have believed this version, for in response to an oracle, they sent representatives to Helike to ask for sacred objects (aphidrumata) from the ancestral altars. The Achaians' refusal to permit this privilege is said to have caused the famous earthquake and tidal wave that destroyed and engulfed Helike in 373. 2 It is certain that an ancient cult of Poseidon was present at Helike, for Homer (Il. 8. 203-4) mentions offerings to the god from the people of Helike and Aigai. From a linguistic point of view, however, the word Helikonios is better derived from Helikon, the mountain in Boiotia. Though no Poseidon cult on Helikon is attested in historical times, the god had deep roots in Boiotia and such a cult may have largely faded from memory. In any case, Homer is also aware of the worship of Poseidon Helikonios, for he speaks (Il. 20. 403-5) of the bellowing bulls sacrificed to "the Helikonian lord. " According to Strabo (8. 7. 2), some in antiquity took this as a reference to the sacrifices at the Panionia, where the participants read omens if the bull bellowed as it was struck down. 3
On Delos, another Ionian religious center, a large sacrificial feast was held during the month Posideion, which fell during the stormy period of mid- winter. Poseideia, or festivals of Poseidon, seem to have been a regular feature of this month in many Ionian cities, both in the islands and on the coast of Asia Minor. Poseidon's epithets in these places vary, from Helikonios at Sinope to Asphalios (Steadfast) or Themeliouchos (of Foundations) on Delos and Phykios (of Seaweed) on Mykonos. Noel Robertson connects the winter festival to Poseidon's function as a partner of Demeter in fructifying the
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fields; alternatively, the timing suggests a propitiation of the god who causes storms at the season when his anger is most evident. 4
Isthmia and Korinth
Poseidon's sanctuary at Isthmia is one of the earliest post-Mycenaean cult places yet identified in the Greek world, having been established at the beginning of the Protogeometric period around 1050. It therefore ranks in age with Olympia and Kalapodi/Hyampolis. Yet for centuries the worship of Poseidon required no temple; the main structures were a platform for dining created in the eighth century, and temporary shelters of which only the post- holes remain. The dominant activity seems to have been sacrifice followed by extensive feasting and drinking. 5 Easily accessible by land and sea, the sanc- tuary was an important meeting place for the people living in the scattered communities that would evolve into the maritime polis of Korinth. In con- trast to Olympia or Delphi, it attracted few dedications of precious metals, such as tripods, and there was less of an emphasis on aristocratic display in the votive practice. In spite of the focus on drinking, dedications of jewelry show that women were active in the worship. Terracotta bulls, animals symbolic of Poseidon, are present from the earliest years, though most of the bones found on the site belonged to sheep, goats, and pigs. The sacrificial area was covered with egg-sized stones that were used in the ritual. Most likely, the participants cast stones at the hapless victim in the moments before its throat was cut. In this way, all present joined in the act of slaughter, just as all would share in the feast. 6
Constructed in the seventh century, the first temple was destroyed in a conflagration around 470. No sign of a statue base was found in the cella, and the temple may have been used mainly as a strongroom for valuable dedications and supplies. Excavation has brought to light the charred remains of storage vessels for oil, chariots, and horse trappings from the cella, while many small valuables came from the area of the east porch, including a tiny golden bull. The exterior wall was coated with stucco and brightly painted with animals and geometric designs, while within the peristyle stood a lovely marble perirrhante ? rion, a water basin used for purification before entering the temple. 7 Its Orientalizing design features a base with four women standing on lions. Outside the temple was a monumental altar over 30 m long. In 582 the Isthmian games were opened to Panhellenic participation, a stadium was added, and the sanctuary continued to grow with the patronage of Korinth and the advantage of placement on a major road. When the Archaic temple burned, it was speedily replaced with a larger Doric temple, which stood until late antiquity. A major category of dedication in this period, second only to the offerings at Olympia in abundance, is armor and weapons, which were displayed so as to be visible from the road.
A number of other gods were worshiped at the sanctuary, including 59
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Amphitrite, Poseidon's consort, and the child-hero Melikertes-Palaimon. The games, with their prize of a pine crown (later changed to wild celery), were said to have originated as funeral games instituted in his honor by Sisyphos. According to the legend, Palaimon and his mother Ino-Leukothea were drowned in the sea, but Ino was transformed into a Nereid, while Palaimon's body was carried to shore by a dolphin. Both mother and son granted mariners' prayers for safety. An interesting and unusual feature of the sanctuary in the Classical period was the pair of underground, man-made caves, designed to serve as dining rooms. One is located near the theater, while the other sits roughly between the theater and the temple of Poseidon and is associated with a nearby altar. Each cave contained couches carved from the earth, and the theater cave also had two kitchen areas. These small rooms, each able to accommodate only five to six people, may have been used in the worship of Melikertes-Palaimon or some other chthonian power. 8
Yet another early Poseidon cult, the source of our earliest images of the god, has been detected in the environs of Korinth. At Penteskouphia a large number of painted terracotta pinakes (tablets) dating to the seventh and sixth centuries were recovered from a votive dump.
