756), who supposedly cursed the
Achaians
to three hundred years of athletic failure because they slighted him, their first Olympic victor.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
In his dream, the god asked "what will you give me if I heal you?
" The boy offered his collection of knucklebones, the ancient equivalent of dice, and Asklepios laughingly agreed to the bargain.
Other tales tell of cures for parasites, blindness, and lameness; they are strikingly similar to the accounts from modern healing shrines such as Lourdes.
34
Around 420, Athens became home to two sanctuaries of Asklepios, one in the Peiraieus at Zea and one in the city, on the south slope of the Akropolis. Relations between Athens and Epidauros had just been restored through the Peace of Nikias in 421, and Athens was still recovering from the great plague that ravaged the city from 430 to 426. Although a number of older healing cults existed, including those of Apollo Paion, Athena Hygieia, and various physician heroes, the time was ripe for a newer, more potent healing figure. A monument found in the city Asklepieion (IG II2 4960-63) proclaims that one Telemachos introduced the god and financed the cult in its earliest years. This large inscribed ste ? le ? , topped by a double-sided relief illustrating Asklepios' arrival, says that he came from Zea in 420 at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and was temporarily lodged in the Eleusinion. Damaged lines sug- gest that Telemachos installed a sacred snake, summoned from Epidauros, in the new sanctuary (other accounts of Asklepios' travels similarly describe how he was conveyed in serpent form to Sikyon, Epidauros Limera, and Rome). 35 There is continuing controversy over which areas of the excavated city Asklepieion, west of the Theater of Dionysos, were included in Tele- machos' original installation. One of the oldest structures, c. 420, is a four- room dining area; another is the so-called bothros, a stone-lined circular pit covered by a four-columned canopy, which most likely served as a place to deposit offerings. A grotto-spring in the cliff must have been a part of the earliest shrine, since abundant water for ritual and therapeutic bathing was a necessity in all Asklepieia. 36
Aristophanes' comic account (Plut. 633-747) of the healing of Ploutos, set in the Peiraieus Asklepieion, is the earliest description of the incubation ritual. The blind Ploutos (Wealth) is led into the sea to bathe, and inexpensive cakes are burned on the altar. Then he is placed on the temple floor along with the other ailing visitors, and the lamps are extinguished for the night. The god enters, attending to each patient in turn. Assisted by his daughter Panakeia, he covers Ploutos' head with a cloth and calls two huge serpents from the temple to lick his eyes, speedily effecting the cure. This testimony shows that
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Asklepios did not demand expensive sacrifices from those he treated. The standard preliminary offering consisted of cakes, while thank offerings after receiving a cure might be more generous: sacrificial sheep, pigs, and cattle are shown in the abundant votive reliefs from the Athens and Peiraieus Asklepieia. Although unusual in other cults, the cock was a common gift to Asklepios, as we learn from Sokrates' last words (Plat. Phd. 118a) and the terracotta roosters found in the sanctuaries at Athens and Korinth. Another widespread custom, still practiced at modern healing shrines, was the dedica- tion of metal or clay body parts as thank offerings.
The rise of Asklepios is often called the harbinger of an important shift in Greek religion, a movement away from state and communal worship toward a greater focus on the needs of the individual and the gods who addressed those needs. There is much truth to this, but the available evidence suggests that Asklepios concerned himself with families as much as individuals. More votive reliefs to Asklepios are extant than for any other single deity, and these usually show a family making offerings to the god and Hygieia or other associates. They vary greatly in the number, age, and sex of the family members depicted, showing that the reliefs were custom made, rather than "stock" items. 37
Further reading
Much of the material in Farnell 1921 is now out of date, yet this book still provides the only comprehensive discussions in English for the cults of several figures treated in this chapter. Woodford 1971 has detailed discus- sion of the literary and archaeological evidence for Herakles in Attica, and Silk 1985 is complementary. LiDonnici 1995 contributes new insights into the experience of pilgrims and the workings of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros; Edelstein and Edelstein 1975 contains an important collection of primary sources on Asklepios. Lambrinoudakis 2002 provides a current account of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas.
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15
THE POWERFUL DEAD Heroes and heroines
The Greeks sacrificed and prayed to a class of supernatural beings they called the heroes, of which the heroes in Homeric epic formed only a subset. No taxonomy of the heroes and heroines can be completely satisfying because they are a large and varied group, sometimes resembling the medieval saints with respect to the way their relics are manipulated, other times the restless and vengeful dead in their malicious and ghostlike activities, and yet other times functioning as tutelary deities who help shape the identity of the polis and protect its lands. The Greeks looked back with intense interest on their own heroic past, and believed that the first generations of men had possessed godlike powers and stature. Hesiod (Op. 123, 141) speaks of early races that died out, yet became "pure ones dwelling on the earth, kindly ones, guard- ians of mortals" and "blessed ones under the earth. " Most of the epic heroes died (Op. 166-73), yet a privileged few were brought to the Islands of the Blessed to live an existence like that of the gods. Homer and Hesiod are concerned with Panhellenic, shared traditions about the heroes, so they have little to say about heroic cult, which is a varied phenomenon, distinctive to each place.
Since we must generalize about the worship of heroes and heroines, we can say that their cult places were usually their purported tombs, or ancient structures they supposedly once inhabited. Because they were imagined as dwellers below the earth and were therefore related to the common dead and the underworld gods, they occasionally received sacrifices with what are considered "chthonian" features: a nocturnal setting, a black victim, special blood rituals, and/or the burning of the carcass whole with no attendant feasting. While this grim, renunciatory form of sacrifice "as to a hero" was opposed in the minds of many Greeks to the standard sacrifice "as to a god," the archaeological and epigraphic evidence shows that people were rarely willing to expend resources so lavishly. The prevailing mode of sacrifice for heroes and heroines seems to have been the slaughter of the animal followed by a ritual meal. In these cases the status of the recipient as a hero, hence one of the dead, might be indicated through the blood rituals mentioned above (allowing it to flow on the ground, or pouring into the tomb), the burning of
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a portion of meat (as opposed to the whole animal), or the requirement that all the meat be eaten on the spot, and not removed from the sanctuary. There was much local variation in sacrifices for the heroes, but the same was true for the gods. In many cases, heroes and heroines were simply "little gods," concerned for the most part with the daily comings and goings in their own neighborhoods. As such, they might be called simply "the hero at the salt- marsh" or "the heroines at the gate. " The epigraphic record gives us numerous examples of such minor heroes, whose existence we would not otherwise have suspected. 1
Heroic cult and tomb cult
Much debate has focused on the origins of heroic cult and to what degree it was influenced by the rise of Homeric epic. Most authorities agree that a major flowering of heroic cult took place in the eighth century, contemporary with the genesis of the Greek city-state and the dissemination of epic poetry in written form. An older scholarly model made epic the impetus for the development of hero cults, while more recent approaches focus on the role of heroes' tombs as "nodes of power" to be contested by different groups claim- ing land or social status in rapidly changing social and political contexts. During the eleventh through eighth centuries, there was a wave of interest in Bronze Age tombs, particularly in the Argolid and Messenia. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a similar phenomenon is attested over a broader area including Messenia, Lakonia, Boiotia, and Krete. Sometimes the locals reused the ancient tombs for burials, but other times they simply left gifts to honor the tomb occupants. Unlike proper heroic cults, these "tomb cults" usually involved one-time offerings or were sustained only a short while. 2 Special rituals in honor of ancestors also seem to be attested from time to time in the material record, and it is likely that heroic cult evolved from tribal and familial ancestor cults to serve the differing needs of the polis. 3 Unlike the ancestor, who was the actual progenitor of those bringing offerings, the hero was not always a real person, and his cult was not defined by family descent but by other common interests of the group he (or she) represented. In spite of their differences, tomb cult, ancestor cult, and heroic cult are related phenomena, as all share the assumption that, through ritual, the living can carry on a dialogue with the powerful dead, appeasing their anger or benefiting from their goodwill.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of hero and heroine cults in the ancient Greek world. In this chapter, I select a few for more detailed discus- sion, and information about others appears in the chapters on the gods. The tombs of many heroes and heroines could be found in the very sanctuaries of the gods, overturning the normal prohibition on contact between the Olympian gods and the dead. In such cases, the hero's death was often attri- buted to the god (Apollo and Hyakinthos, or Artemis and Iphigeneia), yet the
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identities of deity and mortal might overlap and converge. 4 With a hero or heroine functioning as a sort of alter ego, the festivals of these gods were rich in contrasting rites of mourning and celebration, evoking a full range of emotional experience in the worshipers. The festival of Hyakinthos at Sparta, which opened with a day of mourning for the hero and continued with a festive celebration, is a case in point.
Epic heroes and the archaeological record
Surprisingly few cults of the great mythic and epic heroes can be firmly linked to the material record. The cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne is the lone case in which inscribed votives confirm the identity of the recipients as early as the seventh century and the first quarter of the sixth (the cult of Achilles at Olbia, discussed below, may prove to be of similar antiquity). The sanctuary of Alexandra and Agamemnon in Amyklai also produced a rich hoard of votive gifts stretching back to the seventh century, though without identifying inscriptions. The Archaic and Classical offerings include terra- cotta plaques with the typically Lakonian iconography of heroization: a man and woman are seated on thrones together; the bearded man extends a kantharos toward a rearing serpent. Other plaques show Alexandra enthroned, holding a scepter, and accompanied by a snake. The local heroine or goddess Alexandra was identified with the epic Kassandra, possibly as the focus of an expiatory rite that attempted to atone for Kassandra's murder. The introduction of Agamemnon's cult is in keeping with the strong Spartan interest in establishing cultic and mythic claims to the line of Pelops. The Spartans, in fact, seem to be the earliest and most vigorous proponents of heroic cult, promoting the cults of epic heroes as well as Spartan lawgivers and kings. 5
Often, a cult place can be securely dated to the early Archaic period, but there is no proof of a specific hero's residency until the late Classical or Hellenistic periods. Located about 1 km from the akropolis at Mycenae, the so-called sanctuary of Agamemnon was perhaps the most important cult place in the immediate area, in spite of its modest architecture. While signs of cult begin in the eighth century, only a rubble wall, a sacrificial pit, some roof tiles, and a large votive deposit remain from the Archaic and Classical phases. Inscribed sherds demonstrate that offerings were made to Agamemnon in the fourth century, but this only happened after a significant gap in activity resulting from the Argive sack of Mycenae in 468. Given the female figurines in the deposit, it has been suggested that the site was originally a shrine to Hera, and that the citizens of Archaic Mycenae were more interested in proclaiming their ties to Perseus, ancestor of Herakles, than to Agamemnon. A late Archaic inscription (IG IV 493) from the Perseian spring near the entrance to the citadel refers to the judges of youths' contests (probably rites of passage) held for Perseus. 6
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Polis cave in Ithaka has been touted as the site of an old hero cult for Odysseus. This cave, which saw use throughout the Bronze Age, contained the remnants of at least thirteen Geometric tripod cauldrons and a series of other, later votive gifts suggesting female deities. Could it be coincidental that Homer makes Odysseus store away his Phaiakian guest-gifts, including numerous tripods, in an Ithakan cave of the nymphs (Od. 13. 13-14, 345- 50)? Given that some of the tripods go back to the ninth century, Homer's story may be a reference to this wondrous cave and its contents. Some scholars are skeptical about the claim of a cult for Odysseus, as his name does not appear on an object from the cave until the Hellenistic period. 7
An example of an epic hero who can be more firmly tied to an early shrine is Phrontis son of Onetor, the drowned steersman of Menelaos. Homer must have been aware of this cult, for he goes out of his way to mention that Phrontis was buried on the promontory of Sounion in Attica (Od. 3. 278-85). When excavators found votive pits containing offerings suitable for a hero (e. g. iron weapons, miniature shields), including a seventh-century terracotta plaque with a painted ship and helmsman, they naturally attributed the cult to the hero. Pots inscribed to Onetor and his son from the sixth century onward confirmed the connection. Phrontis (One Who Watches Over) and son of Onetor (Giver of Advantage) are the perfect names for a hero who looked down on sailors from the cliff of Sounion and took thought for their safety. Still, the minor figure Phrontis is not so much an "epic" hero like Agamemnon as a cult hero who has been absorbed into the epic. There has been much uncertainty about exactly which structures at Sounion can be assigned to Phrontis, for in the same area there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and Athena. 8
Heroes and politics
Because most heroes were closely identified with specific cities, lineages and/ or ethnic groups, Archaic poleis made extensive use of heroic cult as a sym- bolic system to convey messages about political relationships. The Athenian tribal epo ? numoi illustrate how heroes functioned as symbols of group identity, and the extent to which Athens both valued and manipulated heroic cult. Around 500, Kleisthenes reformed the tribal system by restructuring the four old Ionian tribes as ten new units, each containing a balance of citizens from different parts of Attica. The new tribes were political constructs with no kinship bonds to unify them, yet each was assigned a hero as its "founder" and each tribe was named for its hero. In the new democracy, it was by tribe that the Athenians voted, filled public offices, mustered for military service, and commemorated their war dead. With the assistance of Delphi, Kleis- thenes selected a group of Attic heroes that heavily favored legendary kings (Kekrops, Pandion, Aigeus, Erechtheus). Others in the list had special con- nections with places important to Athens, such as Salamis (Ajax), Eleusis
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(Hippothoo? n), and Thrace (Akamas). All had preexisting cults and shrines, which were supplemented by a monument in the agora, a narrow base topped by ten bronze statues of the heroes. On the wall around the base were posted notices of lawsuits, pending legislation, muster rolls, and other information of public interest. In the 460s, statues of the eponymous heroes fashioned by Pheidias were financed by Persian spoils from the battle of Marathon and dedicated at Delphi. 9
From the sixth century on, there was a widespread belief in the talismanic powers of heroic remains, diligently fostered by the Delphic oracle. The presence of certain heroes and heroines brought prosperity and protected a city from its enemies, just as the Palladion, a famous statue of Athena, once protected Troy until Odysseus penetrated the city's defenses to steal it. Bones served as physical confirmation of a hero's presence, so heroes could be dis- covered, lost, transferred, and stolen via this medium. (Therefore the exact location of some heroic tombs, like those of Dirke in Thebes or Oedipus in Kolonos, was kept secret. ) Around 550, the Spartans became embroiled in a war with Tegea. Consulting Delphi about what ritual actions they should take in order to bring about a victory, they were told to "bring in the bones of Orestes" and given a set of riddling directions for finding his grave inside enemy territory (Hdt. 1. 67). Spartan propaganda had it that their subsequent hegemony in the Peloponnese was due to the discovery of bones belonging to a ten-foot giant, clearly those of a hero, and the installation of these remains in the Spartan agora. In spite of the Spartans' Dorian ethnicity, they took pains to establish ties with their Achaian, heroic predecessors through culti- vation of the Pelopid heroes: Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Orestes. The Spartan hunger to control the legacy of the Pelopids, and win their favor, even extended to Orestes' son Teisamenos, whose relics were brought from Achaia to Sparta in response to yet another oracle from Delphi. 10
Heroines too were of interest to the collectors of relics. A Theban tradition held that the body of Herakles' mother Alkmene was miraculously replaced by a stone, which the citizens piously installed in her shrine. At Haliartos in Boiotia, a second purported tomb of Alkmene was opened by Agesilaos (c. 379), who planned to move her remains to Sparta. The Spartans were dis- appointed in the modest contents of the tomb: a stone, a bronze bracelet, two amphoras filled with what appeared to be hardened earth, and a bronze tablet inscribed with strange characters. They went so far as to send the tablet to Egypt for "translation. " Disasters and portents followed the violation of the tomb, and attempts were made to propitiate its angry occupant and her husband Aleus, whom the Haliartans identified with the underworld judge Rhadamanthys. 11 The story shows that the fourth-century Spartans main- tained the interest in relics shown by their forefathers, and that they were eager to possess remains associated with Herakleid ancestry.
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The heroic founder
Greek mythology and religion held in common a lively interest in the first authors of rituals, founders of cities and sanctuaries, and inventors. Such founder figures, whether real or invented, were often made the objects of cults. 12 One such hero who deserves to be better known is Anios, the priest- king of Delos. His father Apollo taught him divination and established him on Delos, while his grandfather Dionysos gave Anios' daughters Spermo (Grain-Girl), Oino (Wine-Girl), and Elai? s (Oil-Girl) the magical power to create food and drink. The epic Cypria told how Anios offered the services of his daughters to provision the Greek armies setting out for Troy. 13 On Delos, however, Anios' importance was far greater than the literary sources suggest. The Delians called him the Archegete (Founder), a title that shows he was considered their first ruler and corporate ancestor. His is one of the few fully excavated and securely identified hero shrines of the Archaic period, and its architectural pattern was often used for heroic cults, though by no means unique to them. Established in the late seventh or early sixth century, Anios' shrine first consisted of a small open-air court, about 10 m by 11 m, edged by a wooden colonnade and wall. Within the court was an altar with a drainage conduit. This was soon tripled in size, and a prohibition on entry by strangers was carved at the thresholds. The sanctuary held numerous dedications including a marble kouros; vases deposited at the site were inscribed to Anios, the Archegete, or the King. A few meters away stood a long, multi-chambered building, which surely functioned as a dining facility. Seven Archaic tombs marked with ste ? lai, survivors of the purifications of Delos, were also part of the complex; perhaps they belonged to figures connected with Anios. 14
A similar but better-known founder-figure is Aiakos, the primordial king of Aigina and son of Zeus. Through the odes of Pindar (e. g. Ol. 8, Nem. 3-8), who often wrote for elite Aiginetan patrons, we gather that the aristocratic families of the island considered themselves Aiakidai, descendants of Aiakos, and thereby partook of the immense prestige of this mythic lineage, which includes Peleus, Telamon, Achilles, Ajax, and Neoptolemos. Like Anios on Delos, Aiakos had a special priestly relationship with his father. When a drought hit all of Greece, the Delphic oracle told the anxious petitioners that only the prayers and sacrifices of Aiakos could bring rain from Zeus. Thus Aiakos founded the mountain sanctuary of Zeus Hellenios (parts of the Aiakid myth, including the lineage of Peleus, are shared with Thessaly, the ancestral home of the "Hellenes"). Like the hero-shrine of Anios, the Aiakeion seen by Pausanias (2. 29. 6) was a rectangular enclosure with low walls of stone. Carved at the entrance was the story of the drought, while the interior held a few olive trees and a low altar reputed to be Aiakos' tomb. Here, in Pindar's ode for the victor Pytheas (Nem. 5. 53-54), a procession brings floral crowns to the "door of Aiakos. " During the long struggle between Athens and Aigina, the Athenians attempted to appease Aiakos by building him a
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hero shrine in Athens. This structure has now been convincingly identified as a large enclosure (the "rectangular peribolos") in the southwest corner of the agora. Still later, the Athenians sent a ship to retrieve Aiakos and the Aiakidai (either cult statues or relics) from Aigina before the battle of Salamis, believing that the heroes would function as allies. 15
The cults of founders were especially important in the Greek colonies, and in these cases the cult was normally observed at the centrally located tomb of the historical oikist, the leader of the original colonial expedition. The foun- der's death marked the end of the first phase of occupation, and gave the residents their first state cult that was not derivative of the mother-city. The best example of a heroized founder is Battos of Kyrene, who led Theran colonists to the coast of Libya (c. 630). Local legend had it that Battos (whose name seems to mean "stammerer") consulted the Delphic oracle to ask about his voice. The Pythia ignored his query and told him to found a city in Libya. Kyrene's subsequent prosperity was attributed in part to the personal qualities of Battos; Pindar describes him (Pyth. 5. 89-95) as a pious king who founded the groves of the gods and laid a processional road for the celebrations of Apollo. His tomb lay in the agora, set apart from those of his descendants: "Blessed while he dwelled among men, afterwards he was a hero worshiped by the people. " The tomb, which has been located and dated to around 600, turned out to be a cremation beneath a large heap of sacrificial ashes, covered in turn by a mound of earth and a ring of stone slabs. Nearby, a preexisting sanctuary contained a one-room structure that was enlarged around the time of the burial. Within it were a sacrificial pit and a number of vases from Battos' time. This has been described as a hero-shrine for Battos, though it could also be an early temple or funerary chapel. In the late Classical period, as the level of the agora rose, the mound was no longer visible, so an elaborate cenotaph was constructed beside it. 16
The hero as revenant
In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (390-415), Apollo tells the Thebans that the safety of their city depends upon gaining control over the deposed king they expelled from the city. Though he still lives, Oedipus is already depicted as a numinous figure whose blessings and curses carry supernatural power, and whose approaching death sets in motion a conflict over possession of his relics. Sophocles recounts the establishment of the Attic cult at Kolonos, and makes the embittered Oedipus resolve never to be of aid to Thebes, but instead vow that if the Athenians protect him, they will gain a "great savior for the city" (459-60). Because of his horrific (though involuntary) crimes against his mother and father, Oedipus was traditionally associated with the Erinyes, chthonian spirits who represent the anger of the dead. Therefore, in the context of rivalry between Athens and Thebes, it is not surprising that claims to the Theban hero were put forward in Kolonos, a deme that possessed
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a venerable cult of the Erinyes under the euphemistic names of Eumenides (Kindly Ones) or Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses). Oedipus came as a wanderer and suppliant of the goddesses, and it was in their grove that he mysteriously disappeared, joining his powers to theirs as givers of blessings and curses.
This concept of Oedipus as a suppliant was not the invention of Sophocles, but existed in an independent Boiotian tradition (Lysimachus FGrH 382 F 2), according to which the corpse of the hero was denied burial in Thebes. After burial and expulsion by a second Boiotian town, it was finally interred during the night at Eteonos, but in the morning, the people realized that the grave was within the sanctuary of Demeter. Consulting an oracle, they were told not to disturb "the suppliant of the goddess. " This story makes clear that even in death, Oedipus was a wanderer, and reflects a conception of the hero as a ghostly revenant whose sufferings will not let him rest in peace. Oedipus the polluted outcast and sufferer derived his powers as a hero from these very qualities. In a fragment of the poet Asios (West IE2 fr. 14), a similar ghostly hero rises from the earth to visit a wedding uninvited, "like a wanderer," squalid and hungry. Such revenant heroes, who both suffer and cause suffer- ing, represent a strand of folk belief that is usually suppressed in the epic and tragic genres. 17
Revenant heroes were typically persons who died violently or in despair. The Delphic oracle regularly recommended the establishment of annual sacrifices to these restless dead, whose unappeased anger caused famines, illness, and other disasters. A particularly touchy group were the athlete heroes, legendary and historical victors at the Panhellenic games who were already good candidates for heroization because of their superlative physical abilities. During the fifth century, stories of anger and appeasement became attached to athletes such as Kleomedes of Astypalaia (fl. 496), whose fellow citizens tried to stone him, and Oibotas of Dyme, (fl.
756), who supposedly cursed the Achaians to three hundred years of athletic failure because they slighted him, their first Olympic victor. 18 Another revenant was Polites, the hero of Temesa in southern Italy, who had once been a crewman of Odysseus. His spirit terrorized and killed the Temesans because they had stoned him to death for committing a rape. At the behest of Delphi, they agreed to placate him by giving him a maiden to deflower every year. This went on until the Lokrian boxer Euthymos arrived in Temesa and bested the spirit, who sank into the sea and never troubled the city again. Euthymos himself, who won multiple Olympic victories in the early fifth century, became an important cult hero in Lokroi. 19
Seers and healers
Some "heroes" were clearly local deities absorbed into this category as the pantheon of major Greek gods crystallized. Both Amphiaraos and Trophonios
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possessed mantic powers, unusual for heroes, which hint at former divine status. Amphiaraos, the Argive seer who fought as one of the Seven Against Thebes, was swallowed into a chasm as he fled the battle in his chariot. Thereafter he lived beneath the earth, still practicing the profession of seer through the medium of a priestess. According to Herodotus (1. 46, 1. 52, 8. 134), his oracle at or near Thebes was well known in the late Archaic period. Though a former enemy, Amphiaraos became a benefactor of Thebes, following a common cult pattern according to which hostile heroic figures are reconciled through worship and appeasement. 20 Later the Athenians popularized their own cult of Amphiaraos at the rival site of Oropos, on the much-contested border area between Attica and Boiotia. The buildings at the site, which has been extensively studied, date no earlier than the late fifth century. Here, the focus of the oracle shifted to healing (a much more com- mon occupation of heroes) and Amphiaraos' cult functioned in many ways like that of Asklepios, except that it charged a fee like an oracular shrine. 21 Pausanias (1. 34. 1-3) describes the fourth-century altar of Amphiaraos, which was divided into five sections for different groups of gods and heroes. To be healed, visitors made purification sacrifices (normally a piglet was used for this purpose) to all the deities named on the altar, then sacrificed a ram and slept on its fleece in the temple. The resulting dreams were interpreted as prescriptions for the proper treatment of the disease.
Boiotia was a land unusually rich in oracles, and the concept of the hero who is swallowed by the earth seems to have been endemic to this area. Trophonios, the Boiotian master builder who with his brother Agamedes constructed Apollo's first temple at Delphi, disappeared into a chasm at Lebadeia and became an oracular deity. Consultation at this oracle, already renowned in the Archaic period, was a unique and terrifying experience. Pausanias (9. 39. 2-9. 40. 3) wrote from personal knowledge about the elabor- ate purifications and sacrifices required as preparation for an encounter with Trophonios, many of which must have been operative in earlier times. The key preliminary was the sacrifice of a ram at the bothros (pit) where Trophonios disappeared, with an invocation to Agamedes and the exami- nation of the entrails to determine the mood of Trophonios. Another Archaic feature was the statue of Trophonios attributed to Daidalos, which was revealed only to those about to consult the oracle. Those who received accept- able omens climbed into a man-made subterranean chamber and poised themselves at a small opening in the floor, carrying honey-cakes as a gift. They were sucked down into "the second place" by means unknown, where they came into personal contact with the divine power. Eventually they were expelled by the same route, dazed and disoriented. Whatever they saw or heard, they were required to record on wooden tablets. In the time of Pausanias, it is clear that consultation of Trophonios was similar to initiation into one of the mystery cults, but in the Archaic period, it may have been more narrowly focused on pragmatic oracular responses. 22
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? Figure 15. 1 Marble votive relief dedicated to the healing hero Amphiaraos. Back- ground: incubation. The foreground shows the sleeper's dream: the hero treats his shoulder ailment, fourth century. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
Achilles, lord of Leuke
While epic poetry may not have been the stimulus for the earliest worship of heroes, the case of Achilles shows how hero cult could indeed arise as a byproduct of epic. Near Troy, a mound on a promontory at the mouth of the Hellespont was identified with the burial site of Achilles described by Homer (Od. 24. 80-84). The town of Achilleion, mentioned already by Herodotus (5. 94), was founded near the tumulus. According to the late account of Philostratus (Her. 53. 8-18, third century CE), an ancient oracle of Dodona decreed that the Thessalians send annual offerings to this tomb to recognize their compatriot Achilles. After singing a hymn to Thetis, they sacrificed a black bull "as to the dead" and a white bull "as to a god," using wood brought from the forests of Mt. Pelion. Philostratus says that the Thessalians were carrying out these sacrifices well before the Persian wars, but he also speaks of the repeated suspension and revival of the worship, which means that the earlier history may have been fabricated to provide a pedigree for the cult.
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Whereas the cult in the Troad was predicated on Homer, the Euxine cults of Achilles show the powerful influence of the post-Homeric Aethiopis, which told the story of Achilles' death and funeral. Composed in the seventh century by Arctinus of Miletos, it said that Achilles' body was not buried in the Troad, but snatched from the pyre by Thetis and brought to Leuke, the White Island. Reflecting the current Greek interest in the Black Sea area, the poem probably located this island in the ambit of Skythia, for there was a tradition that Achilles' afterlife existence mirrored that of his enemy Memnon, whose mother Eos removed his body to Ethiopia. A fragment of Alcaeus (354 LP), the seventh-century lyric poet, already calls Achilles "ruler of Skythia. " According to the geographical knowledge of the time, the two regions were seen as the northernmost and southernmost extremes of the world. Many later authors detail the belief that Achilles continued an immortal existence on Leuke with Helen or Iphigeneia as his companion.
The Greek colonists of the northern Euxine, who came primarily from Miletos during the seventh and sixth centuries, must have been familiar with Arctinus' poem. Excavation of Olbia and surrounding sixth-century settle- ments revealed that the colonists had a special interest in Achilles. Just as Herakles defined Greek identity for colonists in the West, those in this part of the world seem to have claimed Achilles as their patron and protector in a foreign land. At one site, they buried pots incised with Achilles' name under the floors of their homes, and many such inscribed vessels have been found in Olbia and in the early settlement on the nearby isle of Berezan. Even more mysterious are the pottery disks, about the size of game tokens, bearing full or abbreviated forms of the name Achilles and pictures of snakes, human figures, ships, and weapons, which again come from domestic contexts in Beikush and Olbia. The island of Leuke itself has yielded fifth-century pottery inscribed to Achilles, including a black-glazed lekuthos with the message "Glaukos, the son of Posideios, dedicated me to Achilles, ruler of Leuke. " Little more than a great limestone boulder standing alone in the midst of the Euxine, Leuke measures only about one-quarter of a square kilometer. Nineteenth-century explorers reported the remains of a structure on the island, possibly the temple mentioned in literary sources. Most information about Achilles on Leuke dates from the Roman period, when Achilles Pontarches (Ruler of the Black Sea) had achieved a godlike status among the Olbians as the patron of the city leaders. Philostratus (Her. 55. 2-3, 56. 2-4), Arrian (Peripl. M. Eux. 23), and others tell how sailors passing the island would catch a glimpse of the ghostly Achilles or hear him singing. 23
Theseus and the Athenian polis
To judge from vase paintings, Theseus achieved a new prominence in late sixth-century Athens. Where before he was the hero who slew the Kretan Minotaur and engaged in some rather disreputable dealings with Ariadne
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and Helen, he now became a chastiser of brigands and founder of festivals, the just and respected unifier of Attica. Scholars are divided as to whether his elevation came through the patronage of the Peisistratids or a few years later under the nascent democracy, but it is clear that Theseus was to be the Athenian answer to Dorian Herakles (whose cults were already widespread in Attica). Gradually, local traditions about Theseus were expanded, and unrelated cults were provided with Thesean credentials. This process was accelerated when the politically adroit general Kimon, responding to an oracular command to "bring home the bones" of Theseus, contrived to find the hero's remains on the newly conquered island of Skyros (476). Perhaps the bones of some prehistoric behemoth, the remains were ceremoniously laid to rest in a new shrine, the Theseion (the location of which is still unknown) and a levy was passed in order to finance a state cult and annual festival called the Theseia. The resulting ritual cycle, which was readily assimilated into the existing festival calendar, commemorated events in the "biography" of the hero, especially his triumphant return from Krete via Delos and his landing at the port of Phaleron, celebrated in the preexisting vintage festival of the Oschophoria. Theseus' return was placed in the seed- sowing month of Pyanopsion, so the mixture of pulses and cereals consumed in the Apolline festival of the Pyanepsia (Bean Boiling) was explained as the potluck soup created when Theseus and his companions pooled the last of their rations for a homecoming meal. 24 Whereas the Spartans had focused on enlarging a collection of Atreid heroes in order to appropriate their creden- tials and prestige, the Athenians molded and elevated Theseus to fit the new ideals established by the democracy.
Further reading
Antonaccio 1995 argues from an archaeologist's perspective against the con- ventional wisdom linking hero cult with the spread of epic and the rise of the polis. Boedeker 1998 discusses the value of Orestes as a "Spartan" hero, while Mayor 2000 (Chapter 3) examines the cults and relics of Pelops, Orestes, and Theseus in the context of ancient fossil discoveries. Kearns 1989 explores the functions of heroic figures, especially as they relate to Attic subgroups such as tribe and deme. Larson 1995b and Lyons 1997 deal with heroines and their cults. Clay 2004 is a valuable discussion of the evidence for the cults of poets, especially Archilochus' cult on Paros and Thasos.
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NOTES
1 METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
1 Graf 1991a; Fowler 2000.
2 Vernant 1980. 92-109.
3 Vernant 1983a.
4 Malkin 1994, 2001; Hall 1997, 2002a; papers in Dougherty and Kurke eds
2003.
5 Habicht 1985; Musti and Bingen 1996; Alcock, Cherry and Elsner eds 2001;
Arafat 1996. 1-79; Hutton 2005.
6 Burkert 1985. 227-34; Bell 1997. 72-76, 1998.
7 Burkert 1987; Langdon 1987.
8 Meuli 1946; Burkert 1983b. 1-72; Girard 1977; Hamerton-Kelly ed. 1987;
Robbins 1998.
9 Be? rard 1989; Detienne et al. 1989.
10 Thomson 1943; Samuel 1972. 64-65; Hannah 2005. 16-70.
11 Nilsson 1951 Vol 1. 166-214; Connor 1987; Graf 1996.
12 Van Straten 1974; Jameson 1988; Pulleyn 1997; Furley and Bremer 2001. See also
the papers in Versnel ed. 1981; Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
13 Yavis 1949; Rupp 1974; Gould 1973; Sinn 2000. See also the papers in Marinatos
and Ha? gg eds 1993.
14 Bergquist 1998, 1990; Bookidis 1993. See also the papers in Murray ed. 1990.
15 Corbett 1970; Burkert 1996; Scheer 2000; Nick 2002. 9-99. Contra the concept
of the cult statue: Donohue 1997.
16 Linders 1972, 1975; Aleshire 1989; Harris 1995; Hamilton 2000.
17 Rouse 1975 [1902]; Van Straten 2000 [1992]; Baumbach 2004. See also the
papers in Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
18 Snodgrass 1980. 54; Sourvinou-Inwood 1993; Morris 1997. 34-42.
19 de Polignac 1984, 1995. See also the papers in Alcock and Osborne eds 1994.
20 van Gennep 1960. 65-115; Brelich 1969; Vidal-Naquet 1986; Dowden 1989. See
also the papers in Padilla ed. 1999; Dodd and Faraone eds 2003.
21 Moulinier 1975 [1952]; Parker 1983; Douglas 1994 [1966].
22 Kaestner 1976; Schlesier 1991-92; Scullion 1994, 2000. See also the papers in
Ha? gg and Alroth eds 2005.
23 Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1990]. 15.
24 Beard and North 1990. 1-18; Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1988], 2000 [1990];
Parker 2005. 89-115.
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NOTES
2 PROGENITOR AND KING: ZEUS
1 Kn 02 = PY 172 (Pylos), Fp 05 (Knossos), etc. [Chadwick and Ventris 1973]; Ge? rard-Rousseau 1968. 72-74; Dowden 2006. 9-11, 28-29.
2 Paus. 1. 32. 2; Cook 1964 [1914-] Vol. 2. 868-987; Langdon 1976; Dowden 2006. 54-64.
3 Isoc. 9. 14-15 (Aiakos); Paus. 2. 29. 6-8 (Hellanios); Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2. 516-27 with schol. ; Callim. fr. 75. 32-37 Pf. (Ikmaios); Heraclides Creticus 2. 8 [Pfister 1951] (Akraios); Langdon 1976. 79-87.
4 Hughes 1991. 92-96.
5 Paus. 8. 38. 2-6; Burkert 1983b. 84-93, 109-16; Voutiras and Tiverios 1997, no.
461 (coins).
6 Buxton 1986. 67-72; Hughes 1991. 102-7. Jost 2002 argues for a real human
sacrifice.
7 Hes. fr. 163 M-W; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 8. 1 (further sources in Frazer's 1921 edition,
ad loc. ); Jost 1985. 180-5, 249-69.
8 Cf. Theophrastus in Porph. Abst.
Around 420, Athens became home to two sanctuaries of Asklepios, one in the Peiraieus at Zea and one in the city, on the south slope of the Akropolis. Relations between Athens and Epidauros had just been restored through the Peace of Nikias in 421, and Athens was still recovering from the great plague that ravaged the city from 430 to 426. Although a number of older healing cults existed, including those of Apollo Paion, Athena Hygieia, and various physician heroes, the time was ripe for a newer, more potent healing figure. A monument found in the city Asklepieion (IG II2 4960-63) proclaims that one Telemachos introduced the god and financed the cult in its earliest years. This large inscribed ste ? le ? , topped by a double-sided relief illustrating Asklepios' arrival, says that he came from Zea in 420 at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and was temporarily lodged in the Eleusinion. Damaged lines sug- gest that Telemachos installed a sacred snake, summoned from Epidauros, in the new sanctuary (other accounts of Asklepios' travels similarly describe how he was conveyed in serpent form to Sikyon, Epidauros Limera, and Rome). 35 There is continuing controversy over which areas of the excavated city Asklepieion, west of the Theater of Dionysos, were included in Tele- machos' original installation. One of the oldest structures, c. 420, is a four- room dining area; another is the so-called bothros, a stone-lined circular pit covered by a four-columned canopy, which most likely served as a place to deposit offerings. A grotto-spring in the cliff must have been a part of the earliest shrine, since abundant water for ritual and therapeutic bathing was a necessity in all Asklepieia. 36
Aristophanes' comic account (Plut. 633-747) of the healing of Ploutos, set in the Peiraieus Asklepieion, is the earliest description of the incubation ritual. The blind Ploutos (Wealth) is led into the sea to bathe, and inexpensive cakes are burned on the altar. Then he is placed on the temple floor along with the other ailing visitors, and the lamps are extinguished for the night. The god enters, attending to each patient in turn. Assisted by his daughter Panakeia, he covers Ploutos' head with a cloth and calls two huge serpents from the temple to lick his eyes, speedily effecting the cure. This testimony shows that
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Asklepios did not demand expensive sacrifices from those he treated. The standard preliminary offering consisted of cakes, while thank offerings after receiving a cure might be more generous: sacrificial sheep, pigs, and cattle are shown in the abundant votive reliefs from the Athens and Peiraieus Asklepieia. Although unusual in other cults, the cock was a common gift to Asklepios, as we learn from Sokrates' last words (Plat. Phd. 118a) and the terracotta roosters found in the sanctuaries at Athens and Korinth. Another widespread custom, still practiced at modern healing shrines, was the dedica- tion of metal or clay body parts as thank offerings.
The rise of Asklepios is often called the harbinger of an important shift in Greek religion, a movement away from state and communal worship toward a greater focus on the needs of the individual and the gods who addressed those needs. There is much truth to this, but the available evidence suggests that Asklepios concerned himself with families as much as individuals. More votive reliefs to Asklepios are extant than for any other single deity, and these usually show a family making offerings to the god and Hygieia or other associates. They vary greatly in the number, age, and sex of the family members depicted, showing that the reliefs were custom made, rather than "stock" items. 37
Further reading
Much of the material in Farnell 1921 is now out of date, yet this book still provides the only comprehensive discussions in English for the cults of several figures treated in this chapter. Woodford 1971 has detailed discus- sion of the literary and archaeological evidence for Herakles in Attica, and Silk 1985 is complementary. LiDonnici 1995 contributes new insights into the experience of pilgrims and the workings of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros; Edelstein and Edelstein 1975 contains an important collection of primary sources on Asklepios. Lambrinoudakis 2002 provides a current account of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas.
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15
THE POWERFUL DEAD Heroes and heroines
The Greeks sacrificed and prayed to a class of supernatural beings they called the heroes, of which the heroes in Homeric epic formed only a subset. No taxonomy of the heroes and heroines can be completely satisfying because they are a large and varied group, sometimes resembling the medieval saints with respect to the way their relics are manipulated, other times the restless and vengeful dead in their malicious and ghostlike activities, and yet other times functioning as tutelary deities who help shape the identity of the polis and protect its lands. The Greeks looked back with intense interest on their own heroic past, and believed that the first generations of men had possessed godlike powers and stature. Hesiod (Op. 123, 141) speaks of early races that died out, yet became "pure ones dwelling on the earth, kindly ones, guard- ians of mortals" and "blessed ones under the earth. " Most of the epic heroes died (Op. 166-73), yet a privileged few were brought to the Islands of the Blessed to live an existence like that of the gods. Homer and Hesiod are concerned with Panhellenic, shared traditions about the heroes, so they have little to say about heroic cult, which is a varied phenomenon, distinctive to each place.
Since we must generalize about the worship of heroes and heroines, we can say that their cult places were usually their purported tombs, or ancient structures they supposedly once inhabited. Because they were imagined as dwellers below the earth and were therefore related to the common dead and the underworld gods, they occasionally received sacrifices with what are considered "chthonian" features: a nocturnal setting, a black victim, special blood rituals, and/or the burning of the carcass whole with no attendant feasting. While this grim, renunciatory form of sacrifice "as to a hero" was opposed in the minds of many Greeks to the standard sacrifice "as to a god," the archaeological and epigraphic evidence shows that people were rarely willing to expend resources so lavishly. The prevailing mode of sacrifice for heroes and heroines seems to have been the slaughter of the animal followed by a ritual meal. In these cases the status of the recipient as a hero, hence one of the dead, might be indicated through the blood rituals mentioned above (allowing it to flow on the ground, or pouring into the tomb), the burning of
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a portion of meat (as opposed to the whole animal), or the requirement that all the meat be eaten on the spot, and not removed from the sanctuary. There was much local variation in sacrifices for the heroes, but the same was true for the gods. In many cases, heroes and heroines were simply "little gods," concerned for the most part with the daily comings and goings in their own neighborhoods. As such, they might be called simply "the hero at the salt- marsh" or "the heroines at the gate. " The epigraphic record gives us numerous examples of such minor heroes, whose existence we would not otherwise have suspected. 1
Heroic cult and tomb cult
Much debate has focused on the origins of heroic cult and to what degree it was influenced by the rise of Homeric epic. Most authorities agree that a major flowering of heroic cult took place in the eighth century, contemporary with the genesis of the Greek city-state and the dissemination of epic poetry in written form. An older scholarly model made epic the impetus for the development of hero cults, while more recent approaches focus on the role of heroes' tombs as "nodes of power" to be contested by different groups claim- ing land or social status in rapidly changing social and political contexts. During the eleventh through eighth centuries, there was a wave of interest in Bronze Age tombs, particularly in the Argolid and Messenia. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a similar phenomenon is attested over a broader area including Messenia, Lakonia, Boiotia, and Krete. Sometimes the locals reused the ancient tombs for burials, but other times they simply left gifts to honor the tomb occupants. Unlike proper heroic cults, these "tomb cults" usually involved one-time offerings or were sustained only a short while. 2 Special rituals in honor of ancestors also seem to be attested from time to time in the material record, and it is likely that heroic cult evolved from tribal and familial ancestor cults to serve the differing needs of the polis. 3 Unlike the ancestor, who was the actual progenitor of those bringing offerings, the hero was not always a real person, and his cult was not defined by family descent but by other common interests of the group he (or she) represented. In spite of their differences, tomb cult, ancestor cult, and heroic cult are related phenomena, as all share the assumption that, through ritual, the living can carry on a dialogue with the powerful dead, appeasing their anger or benefiting from their goodwill.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of hero and heroine cults in the ancient Greek world. In this chapter, I select a few for more detailed discus- sion, and information about others appears in the chapters on the gods. The tombs of many heroes and heroines could be found in the very sanctuaries of the gods, overturning the normal prohibition on contact between the Olympian gods and the dead. In such cases, the hero's death was often attri- buted to the god (Apollo and Hyakinthos, or Artemis and Iphigeneia), yet the
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identities of deity and mortal might overlap and converge. 4 With a hero or heroine functioning as a sort of alter ego, the festivals of these gods were rich in contrasting rites of mourning and celebration, evoking a full range of emotional experience in the worshipers. The festival of Hyakinthos at Sparta, which opened with a day of mourning for the hero and continued with a festive celebration, is a case in point.
Epic heroes and the archaeological record
Surprisingly few cults of the great mythic and epic heroes can be firmly linked to the material record. The cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne is the lone case in which inscribed votives confirm the identity of the recipients as early as the seventh century and the first quarter of the sixth (the cult of Achilles at Olbia, discussed below, may prove to be of similar antiquity). The sanctuary of Alexandra and Agamemnon in Amyklai also produced a rich hoard of votive gifts stretching back to the seventh century, though without identifying inscriptions. The Archaic and Classical offerings include terra- cotta plaques with the typically Lakonian iconography of heroization: a man and woman are seated on thrones together; the bearded man extends a kantharos toward a rearing serpent. Other plaques show Alexandra enthroned, holding a scepter, and accompanied by a snake. The local heroine or goddess Alexandra was identified with the epic Kassandra, possibly as the focus of an expiatory rite that attempted to atone for Kassandra's murder. The introduction of Agamemnon's cult is in keeping with the strong Spartan interest in establishing cultic and mythic claims to the line of Pelops. The Spartans, in fact, seem to be the earliest and most vigorous proponents of heroic cult, promoting the cults of epic heroes as well as Spartan lawgivers and kings. 5
Often, a cult place can be securely dated to the early Archaic period, but there is no proof of a specific hero's residency until the late Classical or Hellenistic periods. Located about 1 km from the akropolis at Mycenae, the so-called sanctuary of Agamemnon was perhaps the most important cult place in the immediate area, in spite of its modest architecture. While signs of cult begin in the eighth century, only a rubble wall, a sacrificial pit, some roof tiles, and a large votive deposit remain from the Archaic and Classical phases. Inscribed sherds demonstrate that offerings were made to Agamemnon in the fourth century, but this only happened after a significant gap in activity resulting from the Argive sack of Mycenae in 468. Given the female figurines in the deposit, it has been suggested that the site was originally a shrine to Hera, and that the citizens of Archaic Mycenae were more interested in proclaiming their ties to Perseus, ancestor of Herakles, than to Agamemnon. A late Archaic inscription (IG IV 493) from the Perseian spring near the entrance to the citadel refers to the judges of youths' contests (probably rites of passage) held for Perseus. 6
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HEROES AND HEROINES
Polis cave in Ithaka has been touted as the site of an old hero cult for Odysseus. This cave, which saw use throughout the Bronze Age, contained the remnants of at least thirteen Geometric tripod cauldrons and a series of other, later votive gifts suggesting female deities. Could it be coincidental that Homer makes Odysseus store away his Phaiakian guest-gifts, including numerous tripods, in an Ithakan cave of the nymphs (Od. 13. 13-14, 345- 50)? Given that some of the tripods go back to the ninth century, Homer's story may be a reference to this wondrous cave and its contents. Some scholars are skeptical about the claim of a cult for Odysseus, as his name does not appear on an object from the cave until the Hellenistic period. 7
An example of an epic hero who can be more firmly tied to an early shrine is Phrontis son of Onetor, the drowned steersman of Menelaos. Homer must have been aware of this cult, for he goes out of his way to mention that Phrontis was buried on the promontory of Sounion in Attica (Od. 3. 278-85). When excavators found votive pits containing offerings suitable for a hero (e. g. iron weapons, miniature shields), including a seventh-century terracotta plaque with a painted ship and helmsman, they naturally attributed the cult to the hero. Pots inscribed to Onetor and his son from the sixth century onward confirmed the connection. Phrontis (One Who Watches Over) and son of Onetor (Giver of Advantage) are the perfect names for a hero who looked down on sailors from the cliff of Sounion and took thought for their safety. Still, the minor figure Phrontis is not so much an "epic" hero like Agamemnon as a cult hero who has been absorbed into the epic. There has been much uncertainty about exactly which structures at Sounion can be assigned to Phrontis, for in the same area there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and Athena. 8
Heroes and politics
Because most heroes were closely identified with specific cities, lineages and/ or ethnic groups, Archaic poleis made extensive use of heroic cult as a sym- bolic system to convey messages about political relationships. The Athenian tribal epo ? numoi illustrate how heroes functioned as symbols of group identity, and the extent to which Athens both valued and manipulated heroic cult. Around 500, Kleisthenes reformed the tribal system by restructuring the four old Ionian tribes as ten new units, each containing a balance of citizens from different parts of Attica. The new tribes were political constructs with no kinship bonds to unify them, yet each was assigned a hero as its "founder" and each tribe was named for its hero. In the new democracy, it was by tribe that the Athenians voted, filled public offices, mustered for military service, and commemorated their war dead. With the assistance of Delphi, Kleis- thenes selected a group of Attic heroes that heavily favored legendary kings (Kekrops, Pandion, Aigeus, Erechtheus). Others in the list had special con- nections with places important to Athens, such as Salamis (Ajax), Eleusis
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(Hippothoo? n), and Thrace (Akamas). All had preexisting cults and shrines, which were supplemented by a monument in the agora, a narrow base topped by ten bronze statues of the heroes. On the wall around the base were posted notices of lawsuits, pending legislation, muster rolls, and other information of public interest. In the 460s, statues of the eponymous heroes fashioned by Pheidias were financed by Persian spoils from the battle of Marathon and dedicated at Delphi. 9
From the sixth century on, there was a widespread belief in the talismanic powers of heroic remains, diligently fostered by the Delphic oracle. The presence of certain heroes and heroines brought prosperity and protected a city from its enemies, just as the Palladion, a famous statue of Athena, once protected Troy until Odysseus penetrated the city's defenses to steal it. Bones served as physical confirmation of a hero's presence, so heroes could be dis- covered, lost, transferred, and stolen via this medium. (Therefore the exact location of some heroic tombs, like those of Dirke in Thebes or Oedipus in Kolonos, was kept secret. ) Around 550, the Spartans became embroiled in a war with Tegea. Consulting Delphi about what ritual actions they should take in order to bring about a victory, they were told to "bring in the bones of Orestes" and given a set of riddling directions for finding his grave inside enemy territory (Hdt. 1. 67). Spartan propaganda had it that their subsequent hegemony in the Peloponnese was due to the discovery of bones belonging to a ten-foot giant, clearly those of a hero, and the installation of these remains in the Spartan agora. In spite of the Spartans' Dorian ethnicity, they took pains to establish ties with their Achaian, heroic predecessors through culti- vation of the Pelopid heroes: Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Orestes. The Spartan hunger to control the legacy of the Pelopids, and win their favor, even extended to Orestes' son Teisamenos, whose relics were brought from Achaia to Sparta in response to yet another oracle from Delphi. 10
Heroines too were of interest to the collectors of relics. A Theban tradition held that the body of Herakles' mother Alkmene was miraculously replaced by a stone, which the citizens piously installed in her shrine. At Haliartos in Boiotia, a second purported tomb of Alkmene was opened by Agesilaos (c. 379), who planned to move her remains to Sparta. The Spartans were dis- appointed in the modest contents of the tomb: a stone, a bronze bracelet, two amphoras filled with what appeared to be hardened earth, and a bronze tablet inscribed with strange characters. They went so far as to send the tablet to Egypt for "translation. " Disasters and portents followed the violation of the tomb, and attempts were made to propitiate its angry occupant and her husband Aleus, whom the Haliartans identified with the underworld judge Rhadamanthys. 11 The story shows that the fourth-century Spartans main- tained the interest in relics shown by their forefathers, and that they were eager to possess remains associated with Herakleid ancestry.
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The heroic founder
Greek mythology and religion held in common a lively interest in the first authors of rituals, founders of cities and sanctuaries, and inventors. Such founder figures, whether real or invented, were often made the objects of cults. 12 One such hero who deserves to be better known is Anios, the priest- king of Delos. His father Apollo taught him divination and established him on Delos, while his grandfather Dionysos gave Anios' daughters Spermo (Grain-Girl), Oino (Wine-Girl), and Elai? s (Oil-Girl) the magical power to create food and drink. The epic Cypria told how Anios offered the services of his daughters to provision the Greek armies setting out for Troy. 13 On Delos, however, Anios' importance was far greater than the literary sources suggest. The Delians called him the Archegete (Founder), a title that shows he was considered their first ruler and corporate ancestor. His is one of the few fully excavated and securely identified hero shrines of the Archaic period, and its architectural pattern was often used for heroic cults, though by no means unique to them. Established in the late seventh or early sixth century, Anios' shrine first consisted of a small open-air court, about 10 m by 11 m, edged by a wooden colonnade and wall. Within the court was an altar with a drainage conduit. This was soon tripled in size, and a prohibition on entry by strangers was carved at the thresholds. The sanctuary held numerous dedications including a marble kouros; vases deposited at the site were inscribed to Anios, the Archegete, or the King. A few meters away stood a long, multi-chambered building, which surely functioned as a dining facility. Seven Archaic tombs marked with ste ? lai, survivors of the purifications of Delos, were also part of the complex; perhaps they belonged to figures connected with Anios. 14
A similar but better-known founder-figure is Aiakos, the primordial king of Aigina and son of Zeus. Through the odes of Pindar (e. g. Ol. 8, Nem. 3-8), who often wrote for elite Aiginetan patrons, we gather that the aristocratic families of the island considered themselves Aiakidai, descendants of Aiakos, and thereby partook of the immense prestige of this mythic lineage, which includes Peleus, Telamon, Achilles, Ajax, and Neoptolemos. Like Anios on Delos, Aiakos had a special priestly relationship with his father. When a drought hit all of Greece, the Delphic oracle told the anxious petitioners that only the prayers and sacrifices of Aiakos could bring rain from Zeus. Thus Aiakos founded the mountain sanctuary of Zeus Hellenios (parts of the Aiakid myth, including the lineage of Peleus, are shared with Thessaly, the ancestral home of the "Hellenes"). Like the hero-shrine of Anios, the Aiakeion seen by Pausanias (2. 29. 6) was a rectangular enclosure with low walls of stone. Carved at the entrance was the story of the drought, while the interior held a few olive trees and a low altar reputed to be Aiakos' tomb. Here, in Pindar's ode for the victor Pytheas (Nem. 5. 53-54), a procession brings floral crowns to the "door of Aiakos. " During the long struggle between Athens and Aigina, the Athenians attempted to appease Aiakos by building him a
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hero shrine in Athens. This structure has now been convincingly identified as a large enclosure (the "rectangular peribolos") in the southwest corner of the agora. Still later, the Athenians sent a ship to retrieve Aiakos and the Aiakidai (either cult statues or relics) from Aigina before the battle of Salamis, believing that the heroes would function as allies. 15
The cults of founders were especially important in the Greek colonies, and in these cases the cult was normally observed at the centrally located tomb of the historical oikist, the leader of the original colonial expedition. The foun- der's death marked the end of the first phase of occupation, and gave the residents their first state cult that was not derivative of the mother-city. The best example of a heroized founder is Battos of Kyrene, who led Theran colonists to the coast of Libya (c. 630). Local legend had it that Battos (whose name seems to mean "stammerer") consulted the Delphic oracle to ask about his voice. The Pythia ignored his query and told him to found a city in Libya. Kyrene's subsequent prosperity was attributed in part to the personal qualities of Battos; Pindar describes him (Pyth. 5. 89-95) as a pious king who founded the groves of the gods and laid a processional road for the celebrations of Apollo. His tomb lay in the agora, set apart from those of his descendants: "Blessed while he dwelled among men, afterwards he was a hero worshiped by the people. " The tomb, which has been located and dated to around 600, turned out to be a cremation beneath a large heap of sacrificial ashes, covered in turn by a mound of earth and a ring of stone slabs. Nearby, a preexisting sanctuary contained a one-room structure that was enlarged around the time of the burial. Within it were a sacrificial pit and a number of vases from Battos' time. This has been described as a hero-shrine for Battos, though it could also be an early temple or funerary chapel. In the late Classical period, as the level of the agora rose, the mound was no longer visible, so an elaborate cenotaph was constructed beside it. 16
The hero as revenant
In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (390-415), Apollo tells the Thebans that the safety of their city depends upon gaining control over the deposed king they expelled from the city. Though he still lives, Oedipus is already depicted as a numinous figure whose blessings and curses carry supernatural power, and whose approaching death sets in motion a conflict over possession of his relics. Sophocles recounts the establishment of the Attic cult at Kolonos, and makes the embittered Oedipus resolve never to be of aid to Thebes, but instead vow that if the Athenians protect him, they will gain a "great savior for the city" (459-60). Because of his horrific (though involuntary) crimes against his mother and father, Oedipus was traditionally associated with the Erinyes, chthonian spirits who represent the anger of the dead. Therefore, in the context of rivalry between Athens and Thebes, it is not surprising that claims to the Theban hero were put forward in Kolonos, a deme that possessed
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a venerable cult of the Erinyes under the euphemistic names of Eumenides (Kindly Ones) or Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses). Oedipus came as a wanderer and suppliant of the goddesses, and it was in their grove that he mysteriously disappeared, joining his powers to theirs as givers of blessings and curses.
This concept of Oedipus as a suppliant was not the invention of Sophocles, but existed in an independent Boiotian tradition (Lysimachus FGrH 382 F 2), according to which the corpse of the hero was denied burial in Thebes. After burial and expulsion by a second Boiotian town, it was finally interred during the night at Eteonos, but in the morning, the people realized that the grave was within the sanctuary of Demeter. Consulting an oracle, they were told not to disturb "the suppliant of the goddess. " This story makes clear that even in death, Oedipus was a wanderer, and reflects a conception of the hero as a ghostly revenant whose sufferings will not let him rest in peace. Oedipus the polluted outcast and sufferer derived his powers as a hero from these very qualities. In a fragment of the poet Asios (West IE2 fr. 14), a similar ghostly hero rises from the earth to visit a wedding uninvited, "like a wanderer," squalid and hungry. Such revenant heroes, who both suffer and cause suffer- ing, represent a strand of folk belief that is usually suppressed in the epic and tragic genres. 17
Revenant heroes were typically persons who died violently or in despair. The Delphic oracle regularly recommended the establishment of annual sacrifices to these restless dead, whose unappeased anger caused famines, illness, and other disasters. A particularly touchy group were the athlete heroes, legendary and historical victors at the Panhellenic games who were already good candidates for heroization because of their superlative physical abilities. During the fifth century, stories of anger and appeasement became attached to athletes such as Kleomedes of Astypalaia (fl. 496), whose fellow citizens tried to stone him, and Oibotas of Dyme, (fl.
756), who supposedly cursed the Achaians to three hundred years of athletic failure because they slighted him, their first Olympic victor. 18 Another revenant was Polites, the hero of Temesa in southern Italy, who had once been a crewman of Odysseus. His spirit terrorized and killed the Temesans because they had stoned him to death for committing a rape. At the behest of Delphi, they agreed to placate him by giving him a maiden to deflower every year. This went on until the Lokrian boxer Euthymos arrived in Temesa and bested the spirit, who sank into the sea and never troubled the city again. Euthymos himself, who won multiple Olympic victories in the early fifth century, became an important cult hero in Lokroi. 19
Seers and healers
Some "heroes" were clearly local deities absorbed into this category as the pantheon of major Greek gods crystallized. Both Amphiaraos and Trophonios
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possessed mantic powers, unusual for heroes, which hint at former divine status. Amphiaraos, the Argive seer who fought as one of the Seven Against Thebes, was swallowed into a chasm as he fled the battle in his chariot. Thereafter he lived beneath the earth, still practicing the profession of seer through the medium of a priestess. According to Herodotus (1. 46, 1. 52, 8. 134), his oracle at or near Thebes was well known in the late Archaic period. Though a former enemy, Amphiaraos became a benefactor of Thebes, following a common cult pattern according to which hostile heroic figures are reconciled through worship and appeasement. 20 Later the Athenians popularized their own cult of Amphiaraos at the rival site of Oropos, on the much-contested border area between Attica and Boiotia. The buildings at the site, which has been extensively studied, date no earlier than the late fifth century. Here, the focus of the oracle shifted to healing (a much more com- mon occupation of heroes) and Amphiaraos' cult functioned in many ways like that of Asklepios, except that it charged a fee like an oracular shrine. 21 Pausanias (1. 34. 1-3) describes the fourth-century altar of Amphiaraos, which was divided into five sections for different groups of gods and heroes. To be healed, visitors made purification sacrifices (normally a piglet was used for this purpose) to all the deities named on the altar, then sacrificed a ram and slept on its fleece in the temple. The resulting dreams were interpreted as prescriptions for the proper treatment of the disease.
Boiotia was a land unusually rich in oracles, and the concept of the hero who is swallowed by the earth seems to have been endemic to this area. Trophonios, the Boiotian master builder who with his brother Agamedes constructed Apollo's first temple at Delphi, disappeared into a chasm at Lebadeia and became an oracular deity. Consultation at this oracle, already renowned in the Archaic period, was a unique and terrifying experience. Pausanias (9. 39. 2-9. 40. 3) wrote from personal knowledge about the elabor- ate purifications and sacrifices required as preparation for an encounter with Trophonios, many of which must have been operative in earlier times. The key preliminary was the sacrifice of a ram at the bothros (pit) where Trophonios disappeared, with an invocation to Agamedes and the exami- nation of the entrails to determine the mood of Trophonios. Another Archaic feature was the statue of Trophonios attributed to Daidalos, which was revealed only to those about to consult the oracle. Those who received accept- able omens climbed into a man-made subterranean chamber and poised themselves at a small opening in the floor, carrying honey-cakes as a gift. They were sucked down into "the second place" by means unknown, where they came into personal contact with the divine power. Eventually they were expelled by the same route, dazed and disoriented. Whatever they saw or heard, they were required to record on wooden tablets. In the time of Pausanias, it is clear that consultation of Trophonios was similar to initiation into one of the mystery cults, but in the Archaic period, it may have been more narrowly focused on pragmatic oracular responses. 22
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? Figure 15. 1 Marble votive relief dedicated to the healing hero Amphiaraos. Back- ground: incubation. The foreground shows the sleeper's dream: the hero treats his shoulder ailment, fourth century. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
Achilles, lord of Leuke
While epic poetry may not have been the stimulus for the earliest worship of heroes, the case of Achilles shows how hero cult could indeed arise as a byproduct of epic. Near Troy, a mound on a promontory at the mouth of the Hellespont was identified with the burial site of Achilles described by Homer (Od. 24. 80-84). The town of Achilleion, mentioned already by Herodotus (5. 94), was founded near the tumulus. According to the late account of Philostratus (Her. 53. 8-18, third century CE), an ancient oracle of Dodona decreed that the Thessalians send annual offerings to this tomb to recognize their compatriot Achilles. After singing a hymn to Thetis, they sacrificed a black bull "as to the dead" and a white bull "as to a god," using wood brought from the forests of Mt. Pelion. Philostratus says that the Thessalians were carrying out these sacrifices well before the Persian wars, but he also speaks of the repeated suspension and revival of the worship, which means that the earlier history may have been fabricated to provide a pedigree for the cult.
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Whereas the cult in the Troad was predicated on Homer, the Euxine cults of Achilles show the powerful influence of the post-Homeric Aethiopis, which told the story of Achilles' death and funeral. Composed in the seventh century by Arctinus of Miletos, it said that Achilles' body was not buried in the Troad, but snatched from the pyre by Thetis and brought to Leuke, the White Island. Reflecting the current Greek interest in the Black Sea area, the poem probably located this island in the ambit of Skythia, for there was a tradition that Achilles' afterlife existence mirrored that of his enemy Memnon, whose mother Eos removed his body to Ethiopia. A fragment of Alcaeus (354 LP), the seventh-century lyric poet, already calls Achilles "ruler of Skythia. " According to the geographical knowledge of the time, the two regions were seen as the northernmost and southernmost extremes of the world. Many later authors detail the belief that Achilles continued an immortal existence on Leuke with Helen or Iphigeneia as his companion.
The Greek colonists of the northern Euxine, who came primarily from Miletos during the seventh and sixth centuries, must have been familiar with Arctinus' poem. Excavation of Olbia and surrounding sixth-century settle- ments revealed that the colonists had a special interest in Achilles. Just as Herakles defined Greek identity for colonists in the West, those in this part of the world seem to have claimed Achilles as their patron and protector in a foreign land. At one site, they buried pots incised with Achilles' name under the floors of their homes, and many such inscribed vessels have been found in Olbia and in the early settlement on the nearby isle of Berezan. Even more mysterious are the pottery disks, about the size of game tokens, bearing full or abbreviated forms of the name Achilles and pictures of snakes, human figures, ships, and weapons, which again come from domestic contexts in Beikush and Olbia. The island of Leuke itself has yielded fifth-century pottery inscribed to Achilles, including a black-glazed lekuthos with the message "Glaukos, the son of Posideios, dedicated me to Achilles, ruler of Leuke. " Little more than a great limestone boulder standing alone in the midst of the Euxine, Leuke measures only about one-quarter of a square kilometer. Nineteenth-century explorers reported the remains of a structure on the island, possibly the temple mentioned in literary sources. Most information about Achilles on Leuke dates from the Roman period, when Achilles Pontarches (Ruler of the Black Sea) had achieved a godlike status among the Olbians as the patron of the city leaders. Philostratus (Her. 55. 2-3, 56. 2-4), Arrian (Peripl. M. Eux. 23), and others tell how sailors passing the island would catch a glimpse of the ghostly Achilles or hear him singing. 23
Theseus and the Athenian polis
To judge from vase paintings, Theseus achieved a new prominence in late sixth-century Athens. Where before he was the hero who slew the Kretan Minotaur and engaged in some rather disreputable dealings with Ariadne
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and Helen, he now became a chastiser of brigands and founder of festivals, the just and respected unifier of Attica. Scholars are divided as to whether his elevation came through the patronage of the Peisistratids or a few years later under the nascent democracy, but it is clear that Theseus was to be the Athenian answer to Dorian Herakles (whose cults were already widespread in Attica). Gradually, local traditions about Theseus were expanded, and unrelated cults were provided with Thesean credentials. This process was accelerated when the politically adroit general Kimon, responding to an oracular command to "bring home the bones" of Theseus, contrived to find the hero's remains on the newly conquered island of Skyros (476). Perhaps the bones of some prehistoric behemoth, the remains were ceremoniously laid to rest in a new shrine, the Theseion (the location of which is still unknown) and a levy was passed in order to finance a state cult and annual festival called the Theseia. The resulting ritual cycle, which was readily assimilated into the existing festival calendar, commemorated events in the "biography" of the hero, especially his triumphant return from Krete via Delos and his landing at the port of Phaleron, celebrated in the preexisting vintage festival of the Oschophoria. Theseus' return was placed in the seed- sowing month of Pyanopsion, so the mixture of pulses and cereals consumed in the Apolline festival of the Pyanepsia (Bean Boiling) was explained as the potluck soup created when Theseus and his companions pooled the last of their rations for a homecoming meal. 24 Whereas the Spartans had focused on enlarging a collection of Atreid heroes in order to appropriate their creden- tials and prestige, the Athenians molded and elevated Theseus to fit the new ideals established by the democracy.
Further reading
Antonaccio 1995 argues from an archaeologist's perspective against the con- ventional wisdom linking hero cult with the spread of epic and the rise of the polis. Boedeker 1998 discusses the value of Orestes as a "Spartan" hero, while Mayor 2000 (Chapter 3) examines the cults and relics of Pelops, Orestes, and Theseus in the context of ancient fossil discoveries. Kearns 1989 explores the functions of heroic figures, especially as they relate to Attic subgroups such as tribe and deme. Larson 1995b and Lyons 1997 deal with heroines and their cults. Clay 2004 is a valuable discussion of the evidence for the cults of poets, especially Archilochus' cult on Paros and Thasos.
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NOTES
1 METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT GREEK CULTS
1 Graf 1991a; Fowler 2000.
2 Vernant 1980. 92-109.
3 Vernant 1983a.
4 Malkin 1994, 2001; Hall 1997, 2002a; papers in Dougherty and Kurke eds
2003.
5 Habicht 1985; Musti and Bingen 1996; Alcock, Cherry and Elsner eds 2001;
Arafat 1996. 1-79; Hutton 2005.
6 Burkert 1985. 227-34; Bell 1997. 72-76, 1998.
7 Burkert 1987; Langdon 1987.
8 Meuli 1946; Burkert 1983b. 1-72; Girard 1977; Hamerton-Kelly ed. 1987;
Robbins 1998.
9 Be? rard 1989; Detienne et al. 1989.
10 Thomson 1943; Samuel 1972. 64-65; Hannah 2005. 16-70.
11 Nilsson 1951 Vol 1. 166-214; Connor 1987; Graf 1996.
12 Van Straten 1974; Jameson 1988; Pulleyn 1997; Furley and Bremer 2001. See also
the papers in Versnel ed. 1981; Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
13 Yavis 1949; Rupp 1974; Gould 1973; Sinn 2000. See also the papers in Marinatos
and Ha? gg eds 1993.
14 Bergquist 1998, 1990; Bookidis 1993. See also the papers in Murray ed. 1990.
15 Corbett 1970; Burkert 1996; Scheer 2000; Nick 2002. 9-99. Contra the concept
of the cult statue: Donohue 1997.
16 Linders 1972, 1975; Aleshire 1989; Harris 1995; Hamilton 2000.
17 Rouse 1975 [1902]; Van Straten 2000 [1992]; Baumbach 2004. See also the
papers in Linders and Nordquist eds 1987.
18 Snodgrass 1980. 54; Sourvinou-Inwood 1993; Morris 1997. 34-42.
19 de Polignac 1984, 1995. See also the papers in Alcock and Osborne eds 1994.
20 van Gennep 1960. 65-115; Brelich 1969; Vidal-Naquet 1986; Dowden 1989. See
also the papers in Padilla ed. 1999; Dodd and Faraone eds 2003.
21 Moulinier 1975 [1952]; Parker 1983; Douglas 1994 [1966].
22 Kaestner 1976; Schlesier 1991-92; Scullion 1994, 2000. See also the papers in
Ha? gg and Alroth eds 2005.
23 Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1990]. 15.
24 Beard and North 1990. 1-18; Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1988], 2000 [1990];
Parker 2005. 89-115.
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NOTES
2 PROGENITOR AND KING: ZEUS
1 Kn 02 = PY 172 (Pylos), Fp 05 (Knossos), etc. [Chadwick and Ventris 1973]; Ge? rard-Rousseau 1968. 72-74; Dowden 2006. 9-11, 28-29.
2 Paus. 1. 32. 2; Cook 1964 [1914-] Vol. 2. 868-987; Langdon 1976; Dowden 2006. 54-64.
3 Isoc. 9. 14-15 (Aiakos); Paus. 2. 29. 6-8 (Hellanios); Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2. 516-27 with schol. ; Callim. fr. 75. 32-37 Pf. (Ikmaios); Heraclides Creticus 2. 8 [Pfister 1951] (Akraios); Langdon 1976. 79-87.
4 Hughes 1991. 92-96.
5 Paus. 8. 38. 2-6; Burkert 1983b. 84-93, 109-16; Voutiras and Tiverios 1997, no.
461 (coins).
6 Buxton 1986. 67-72; Hughes 1991. 102-7. Jost 2002 argues for a real human
sacrifice.
7 Hes. fr. 163 M-W; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 8. 1 (further sources in Frazer's 1921 edition,
ad loc. ); Jost 1985. 180-5, 249-69.
8 Cf. Theophrastus in Porph. Abst.
