Hermes as guide and protector
Of all the Olympian gods, Hermes is the most "down to earth" (epichthonios), a deity who eschews the heavenly, watery, and underworld abodes in favor of the places inhabited by mortals.
Of all the Olympian gods, Hermes is the most "down to earth" (epichthonios), a deity who eschews the heavenly, watery, and underworld abodes in favor of the places inhabited by mortals.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
25 Greek myth is full of accounts of men or infants torn to pieces by the mainads, who fail to distinguish between human and animal quarry, yet there is no credible evidence that such forms of "sacrifice" were regularly practiced in any Greek city.
Delphi and Dionysos
The Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi, primarily dedicated to Apollo, welcomed Dionysos during the months of winter and early spring, when Apollo was
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said to be visiting the Hyperboreans. Delphic theology emphasized an inti- mate fraternal relationship between the two deities. Excavation of the Sacred Way brought to light a stele inscribed in 340/339 with a paian in which Dionysos is urged to appear "in the holy season of spring" for the Theoxenia (Hospitality to the Gods), a festival at which deities were provided with food, drink, and entertainment. 26 It also describes major additions to Dionysos' Delphic cult: the establishment of a sacrifice and dithyrambic competition, the erection of a statue of Bakchos "in a chariot drawn by golden lions" and the building of a grotto "suitable for the holy god. "
Already in the fifth century, tragedians speak of the ecstatic worship of Dionysos high on the slopes of Mt. Parnassos. Here the entourage of Diony- sos, whether mortal women or nymphs, were called Thyiads (Raving Ones), and they are described as scaling the twin peaks above the Korykian cave, roving over the mountain with torches to light their way and wetting the rocks with sacrificial blood. 27 No special altar or cult place is mentioned either on the mountain or in the sanctuary itself, though by the fourth century Dionysos and some rather sedate Thyiads, whose fragmentary remains have been recovered, were sculpted in the west pediment of Apollo's new temple. Like other mainadic festivals, this one took place every other winter; the Thyiads must have experienced great dangers and discomforts on the cold, dark slopes of Parnassos. It would be difficult to believe that Greek women actually danced on the mountain at night, were it not for the testimony of Plutarch (Mor. 249e-f, 953d), who served as a priest at Delphi during the turn of the first century CE. In his day, the Thyiads once had to be rescued when they were caught in a snowstorm on Parnassos. Pausanias (10. 4. 3) reports that he spoke with Thyiads from Attica, who joined with their Delphic counterparts every other year to perform mysterious rites for Dionysos.
Agriania/Agrionia
An early spring month Agrionios and a corresponding festival called Agr(i)ania/Agr(i)onia are well attested among the Dorian Greeks and in Boiotia. The name seems to be related to the adjective agrios "wild, savage," and the myths and rituals associated with this festival involve women who run wild under the influence of Dionysos. What distinguishes the Agriania from other mainadic traditions is the role played by men, who oppose and check the women's ravings, yet are themselves led by the priest of Dionysos or his surrogate. At Boiotian Orchomenos, the three daughters of Minyas were driven mad when they refused to participate in Dionysiac dances. Tearing apart an infant in their care, they dashed outdoors, only to be chased away as murderers. During the Agrionia, women said to be descended from the Minyads were pursued by a sword-wielding priest of Dionysos who was empowered to kill any woman he caught. Yet if this power was ever more than symbolic, it had lapsed by Plutarch's day (Quaest. Graec. 299c-300a),
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when the priest Zoilos actually killed a woman and his family was deprived of the priesthood as a result.
At Argos, we are told, the Agriania was held to honor Iphinoe? , another victim of the Dionysiac pursuit. According to Hesiod (fr. 131 M-W), the three daughters of Proitos refused to join Dionysos' worship and fell into a murderous frenzy, soon joined by the other women and girls of the city. With the strongest youths of the city, the Dionysiac prophet Melampous pursued the women to Sikyon, where Iphinoe? met her fate (a fourth-century inscrip- tion marking her tomb in the agora has been excavated). Other versions tell how Melampous cured the women of their madness and purified them, marrying one of the surviving daughters and succeeding to the kingship. 28 Thus the Agriania, performed on a biennial basis like other mainadic rituals, enacted a dissolution of social order and gender norms followed by a return to stability. The ritual segregation of men and women, not unusual in itself, was escalated into an overt opposition between raving women and pursuing men. The earliest attested version is the Homeric story (Il. 6. 130-40) of Thracian Lykourgos, who drove the nurses of raving Dionysos over the sacred plain of Nysa, striking them with an ox-goad while the god himself leapt fearfully into the sea and was received in the bosom of Thetis. King Perseus of Argos carried out a similar pursuit, killing the mainadic Haliai (Sea Women), but ultimately honoring their tombs and founding a temple of Dionysos. These myths probably arose from pursuit rituals like those attested for the Agrionia. 29
Wine miracles and the Elean hymn
More than the other Olympian gods, Dionysos is credited with supernatural wonders: springs of wine gush from the ground, thursoi drip with honey, vines spring up in minutes and bear fruit. These miracles are strongly associated with Dionysiac ecstasy (e. g. Eur. Bacch. 699-707) and with the epiphany of the god, particularly in his bull form. Such wonders, including magic "ephemeral" vines that grow and bear fruit in one winter day, are mentioned in Greek tragedies, but it is unclear what role they played in cult during the Archaic and Classical periods. 30 Later sources speak of sanctuaries in which miraculous springs of wine were to be found, sometimes in connec- tion with a lesser-known Dionysiac festival, the Theodaisia (God's Feast). Haliartos in Boiotia celebrated the Theodaisia by the spring Kissousa, where local tradition held that the infant Dionysos was bathed. The water of Kissousa was delicious and "had the color and sparkle of wine," the result of the holy bath. 31 The month name Theodaisios and/or the festival were observed in Kyrene, Rhodes, and Krete, where arrhe ? ta (unspoken things) were performed in connection with the Theodaisia of the city Olous. Springs of wine are also found in Ionian contexts. Pliny (HN 2. 106, 31. 13) says that wine flowed in the sanctuary of Dionysos on the island of Andros for the
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seven days of the Theodaisia in the winter. Similar wonders are attested for Teos and Naxos, where the miracle was inaugurated when Dionysos and Ariadne met. Based on the little evidence we have, the Theodaisia seems to have been a biennial winter festival, hence mainadic in origin, concerned with the mysteries of the god's birth and characterized by supernatural signs of his presence.
We see a similar combination of wine miracle, epiphany, and women's ritual in Elis at the celebration of the Dionysia or Thyia (Raving). According to Pausanias (6. 26. 1-2), the Eleans believed that Dionysos attended the festival, manifesting himself in the wine. At his sanctuary outside the city, the priests placed three empty pots in a room and sealed the doors in the presence of witnesses. The next day, when the seals were broken, the pots were found filled with wine. Plutarch (Quaest. Graec. 299a-b) reports that the Elean women sang a song of invocation to the god: "Come, hero Dionysos, with the Charites to the holy Elean temple, raving (thuo ? n) to the temple on bovine foot, worthy bull, worthy bull. " This hymn, which scholars consider one of the most ancient attested cult songs, was most likely sung as part of the Thyia. It illustrates the visualization of Dionysos as a bull, a recurrent feature of his worship. 32 In the Bacchae, for example, the ecstatic chorus praises Dionysos as the bull-horned god (100) and he appears to the demented Pentheus in the form of a bull (922). The designation of Dionysos as "hero" has not been satisfactorily explained.
Thebes and Semele
The tradition of Dionysos' birth at Thebes was very ancient, attested by both Homer (Il. 14. 323-25) and Hesiod (Theog. 940-42). There the god was called Dionysos Kadmeios because his sanctuary was located on the akropolis (Kadmeia) near that of Demeter. It included the part of the old palace where Kadmos' daughter Semele, the lover of Zeus, was destroyed by a thunderbolt. In keeping with Greek custom regarding places hit by lightning, the shrine/ tomb (se ? kos) was delimited by a wall and declared off limits for human feet. Euripides (Bacch. 7-8) describes it as "smoldering with the still-living flame of Zeus," perhaps an eternal flame of some sort, yet overgrown with lush vines. Centuries later, Pausanias (9. 12. 3) viewed the same spot, now called the bridechamber (thalamos) of Semele, and was told that the ancient image of Dionysos Kadmeios consisted of a log that fell from heaven with the thunderbolt.
Considering the importance of Thebes in the history of Dionysiac cult, we know surprisingly few specifics about the rituals performed there. The existence of a mainadic ritual conducted on Mt. Kithairon, probably the Agrionia, can be deduced from the myth of Pentheus' pursuit of the mainads as told in Euripides' Bacchae. As we have seen, the authority of Thebes in Dionysiac matters was supported by the Delphic oracle, and certain Theban
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cults were imitated by other cities. For example, the Pythia instructed the Korinthians to obtain the tree from which Pentheus was dragged and to "worship it just like the god. " Two images made of pinewood from Thebes were called Dionysos Lysios (Liberator) and Bakcheios. Sikyon too had a statue of Dionysos Lysios, brought from Thebes at the behest of the oracle, and paired with a Bakcheios. The sanctuary in Sikyon was located beside the theater, and one night each year the citizens escorted the god's two images to this Dionysion while carrying torches and singing hymns. 33 The Athenians practiced a similar ritual with respect to Dionysos Eleuthereus, originally a Boiotian god, who was installed beside the theater. The cult pattern can be traced ultimately to the sanctuary of Dionysos Lysios near the theater at Thebes.
Semele's cult was observed at both the major Theban sanctuaries of Dionysos, on the Kadmeia and at the theater. Euripides (Phoen. 1755-56) mentions Theban women's dances in the mountains for Semele. The cult spread to Attica, for Pindar (fr. 75. 19 Snell-Maehler) speaks of Athenian "choruses for Semele with her circlet wreath" in a dithyramb composed for the City Dionysia, and the deme Erchia sponsored sacrifices for Dionysos and Semele during the same festival. Scholars often call Semele a "faded" earth goddess because she is shown on Greek vases, like Persephone/Kore and Ge, rising from the earth. The Greeks, however, always thought of her as a heroine who both suffered and transcended mortality. Hesiod notes her special character as a mortal who birthed a god, and narratives about her focus almost exclusively on her death and Dionysos' descent to the under- world to retrieve her. Every eight years the Delphic Thyiads conducted the Heroi? s, a festival of Semele that included both public rites and secrets kept hidden from men. From what he was able to observe, Plutarch (Mor. 293b-c) concluded that the Heroi? s celebrated the anago ? ge ? (bringing up) of Semele from the underworld. 34
Dionysiac mysteries
According to the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus (fr. 15 DK), Hades and Dionysos were the same. The concept of a chthonian, underworld Dionysos who had a role to play in the fate of the soul was widespread, though not fully manifested in state religion. Instead, it was disseminated through private Bakchic mysteries, which seem to have arisen in the late Archaic period. An inscription from a chamber tomb at Cumae in Southern Italy restricts use of the tomb to Bakchic initiates (c. 500). At the other end of the Greek world, Dionysiac mysteries were celebrated in the Black Sea colony of Olbia. Herodotus' story (4. 78-79) of the Skythian king who had himself initiated at Olbia finds support in the excavations there, which yielded a sixth-century mirror inscribed with the names of a couple and the Bakchic ritual cry euai. Here too were collected a scattering of bone tablets from the fifth century,
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one with the message "life, death, life, truth . . . Dio(nysoi), Orphik(oi). "35 Discoveries like these have made it clear that the movement scholars call Orphism, which consisted of teachings and rituals concerned with the secret knowledge and purifications necessary to achieve a blessed afterlife, overlapped with Dionysiac religion. An esoteric Orphic tradition held that Persephone was the mother of Zagreus, who as a child was torn apart and consumed by the Titans, yet came to life again as Dionysos in the womb of Semele. 36 This unique experience meant that Dionysos, in conjunction with Persephone, was able to grant release from the miserable lot of the dead; thus his epithet Lysios (Releaser) had one meaning for the general public and another for the initiate. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, many initiates went to their graves with tiny folded leaves of gold, inscribed with the special instructions and passwords they would require. A small trapezoid of beaten gold from a grave at the south Italian city of Hipponion (c. 400) advises its owner to avoid the spring on the right when entering the house of Hades. Instead, she must look for the cold water flowing from the Lake of Memory, and speak the right words to the guardians. If she succeeds, she will "travel a road, a sacred road, which other famous initiates and bakchoi also tread. " Roughly a century later, a Thessalian woman was buried with two gold tablets shaped like ivy leaves positioned over her breasts, tablets which also provided the password to life after death: "Tell Persephone that the Bakchic one himself has set you free! " More than forty of these gold leaves have been uncovered in Thessaly, Krete, Italy, and other sites, witnesses to a form of religious experience that is rarely described in literary sources. 37
Plato and other authors speak scornfully of the itinerant prophets who offered initiations and purifications to the ignorant, and it is clear that Orphic/Bakchic initiation did not have the same cultural prestige as the Eleusinian or other state-sponsored mysteries. Instead of journeying as pil- grims to a sanctuary and becoming a member of a public cohort of initiates, Bakchic devotees received initiation privately or as part of a small group from prophets who traveled about plying the family trade with their heirloom sacred books and spoken formulas. (Although written texts seem to have played an important role in the Orphic traditions, recent scholarship on certain hexameter texts from the gold leaves suggests that they can be traced to an oral archetype. )38 The Dionysiac prophets, who induced "telestic mad- ness" as a remedy for physical and spiritual ills, had a long history reaching back to mythic figures like Melampous and Polyeidos. What is less clear is how such rites were related to those of Bakchic thiasoi, particularly those that engaged in mainadism. Euripides' Bacchae (e. g. 22, 73, 238) is sprinkled with allusions to Dionysos' teletai, initiatory rites, which were an integral part of the "Theban strand" of his worship. 39 The Delphic Thyiads, for example, had a limited membership, generally restricted to females who had experienced teletai preparing them for the mystical aspects of the cult.
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Further reading
Henrichs 1983a provides an excellent, brief survey of Dionysiac religion, and Gould 2001 usefully examines recent scholarly perspectives. Otto 1965 (originally published in 1933) is still essential reading, a sensitive and seminal discussion of "the god who comes. " Carpenter and Faraone eds 1993 collects several excellent essays. Chapter 4, "Orpheus and Egypt," in Burkert 2004 provides an account of recently discovered texts pertaining to Dionysiac mysteries, with current bibliography. Parker 2005, Chapter 14, provides detailed discussion of the festivals in Athens.
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DEAR TO THE PEOPLE Hermes, Pan, and nature deities
Relative to the other Olympian deities, Hermes had few sanctuaries, festivals, and temples. Instead, he was pre-eminent in private, neighborhood, and domestic contexts, often in connection with other deities worshiped in the countryside. Hermes' name is derived from an object: herma refers to a pillar- like prop or support, as well as to the cairn or stone-pile that marks a path or border. Essentially a god of travel and boundaries, Hermes came to preside over a host of related domains, such as thievery, lucky finds, and transitions between the lands of the living and the dead. Like Apollo and Pan, Hermes has an important pastoral function, especially in the oldest center of his worship, Arkadia. His cults are most prominent on the Greek mainland, particularly Attica, Boiotia, and the Peloponnese. His mythic function as the herald and messenger of the gods, probably borrowed from Near Eastern epic, is not emphasized in worship, though he is a patron of heralds and ambassadors.
Hermes in Arkadia
If, as seems likely from the Linear B tablets, Hermes had a Mycenaean predecessor, it is not surprising to find his cult vigorously maintained in mountainous Arkadia, one of the regions least affected by the upheavals at the close of the Bronze Age. 1 For people who support themselves by herding sheep and goats, as most Arkadians did, maintaining boundaries and pre- venting the theft of one's flocks (or thieving a neighbor's flocks undetected) are of paramount importance. Panhellenic myth recognized Arkadia as the god's birthplace, and his worship was unusually prominent in this land, where myth and cult tie him to mountain peaks, especially Kyllene. In a late stratum of Homer (Od. 24. 1) and other Archaic poetry, he receives the epithet Kyllenios. No cave on Kyllene has been confirmed as a cultic counterpart of the one described in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, but Pausanias (8. 17. 1-2) speaks of a ruined temple on the mountain with a cult statue made of wood from a conifer. The people of neighboring Pheneos dedicated at Olympia a
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statue by the Aiginetan master Onatas (c. 500), which showed Hermes carrying a ram under his arm. Small Archaic bronzes of the same subject have been found in Arkadia, so it is probable that the Arkadians visualized him as a fellow herdsman. He was also an ancestor, having fathered the local heroes Evander, Myrtilos, and Aipytos, whose name means "of the heights. " Homer (Il. 2. 604) mentions the latter's tomb near Kyllene, while a temple of Hermes Aipytos stood at Tegea. The relationship between god and the hero whose name he adopts parallels that between Poseidon and Erechtheus at Athens. Another Archaic cult of Hermes was centered on the hill and town Akakesion, which were etymologically related to the god's Homeric epithet akake ? ta, "doing no wrong" or "benevolent. " With the synoecism of Megalopolis c. 365, the most venerable Parrhasian cults, including that of Hermes Akakesios, were moved to the new city. 2
Lucky Hermes
To a large extent, the cult of Hermes was conducted at the popular level, meaning that people used modes of worship other than standard city- sponsored sanctuaries and festivals. The fourth day of the month, mentioned as Hermes' birthday in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 19), was the day to present offerings of food, often figs or small cakes, at neighborhood herms. Hermes was a "hungry" god, parodied in comedy as a food gobbler. 3 His fondness for tasty food and drink is probably a reflection of his role as a provider of good things. Lucky finds and other unexpected goods were called hermaia, and Hermes sometimes had the epithet Tychon (Lucky). Prayers, inscriptions, and votive reliefs, many from the area around Athens, demon- strate that Hermes was grouped in worship with other gods believed to inhabit the surface of the earth and to exert an influence over the prosperity of herdsmen; "Hermes, Pan and the nymphs" was a common triad in prayers and dedications at rural shrines. Early poets agree that Hermes could aid in the multiplication of flocks. According to Homer (Il. 14. 489-91, 16. 180- 86), Hermes favored Phorbas, a Trojan rich in flocks (polume ? los), and made him wealthy. On the Greek side, his affair with the aptly named Polymele resulted in a son Eudoros (Generous).
In popular belief, Hermes oversaw the operation of what we might call "poor man's oracles," those that could be consulted by people who lacked the wherewithal to travel to a major oracle and offer sacrifices there. Instead, they divined by casting knucklebones or other small objects and searching the resulting patterns for messages from the gods. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 550-68) says that the youthful god desired to share the prestige that his brother Apollo derived from Delphi, but had to be satisfied with a lesser form of divination involving the observation of bees. Hermes did possess at least one proper oracle, at Phares in Achaia, but even this was an
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informal affair compared to the pomp of Delphi. In the market square at Phares stood a Hermes Agoraios (of the Marketplace) facing a hearth surrounded with lamps. In the time of Pausanias (7. 22. 2-3), whoever wished to consult the oracle entered the agora at dusk, burned incense on the hearth, lit the lamps, and placed a coin on the altar. Then, having whispered a question in the god's ear, the petitioner covered his own ears so as to block out all sounds. Once out of the agora, he unstopped his ears and received as the oracle the first phrases he heard.
Hermes as guide and protector
Of all the Olympian gods, Hermes is the most "down to earth" (epichthonios), a deity who eschews the heavenly, watery, and underworld abodes in favor of the places inhabited by mortals. His patronage of travelers grows not only from his territorial concerns but also from his role as a herdsman, for Hermes accompanies and protects the traveler just as the shepherd guides and watches over his flocks. In the last book of the Iliad (24. 334-38), Zeus asks him to protect Priam on his mission into the Greek camp because Hermes loves "to be a man's companion. " Roadside cairns and guideposts marking the path belonged to Hermes, and multi-headed images of him, like those of Hekate, were placed at crossroads. The Classical herm, a stone image of Hermes consisting of a squared pillar with a bearded head of Hermes on top, a cross- bar where the "shoulders" should be, and erect male genitals halfway down, probably developed from wooden versions used as markers. Around 520, Hipparchos, brother of the Athenian tyrant Hippias, set up stone herms marking the halfway points on the roads from each Attic village to the agora, where the Altar of the Twelve Gods had been designated the city center. Edifying verses supplied by Hipparchos himself, such as "walk with just intent" and "deceive not a friend" were carved upon the herms. These were enthusiastically received, and soon so many herms were clustered at the principal entrance to the agora that the spot became known as "the Herms. " Magistrates and victorious generals like Kimon dedicated them, and one in particular, known as Hermes Agoraios, had its own altar. 4
From the late sixth century on, herms served the Athenians and other Greeks not only as milestones and boundary markers, but also as guardians, warding off any evil spirits (or thieves) who might try to enter a home. They became an important focus of popular piety, and were regularly saluted, anointed with oil, and garlanded. Scenes of private sacrifice before herms are very common on Attic figured vases. Thus it was a terrible shock for the Athenians when they awoke one morning to find that someone had gone about the city knocking the noses and genitals from their beloved herms. This sacrilege took place on the eve of the Sicilian expedition in 415, and augured ill for the Athenian war effort. 5
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Phallic Hermes
Burkert has linked the function of the herm as a territorial marker to its phallicism, for in the primate world phallic display is used to warn potential trespassers to keep their distance. 6 It is unclear, however, whether Hermes' phallicism is an ancient part of his cult. According to Herodotus (2. 51), the Athenians learned to use ithyphallic images (those with erect members) from the Pelasgians, the pre-Greek inhabitants of the Aegean. He connects the herms with the ithyphallic statues used as guardians in the cult of the Samothracian gods, which was "Pelasgian" in origin. Yet phallic herms are not attested in the early Archaic period, and Athenian contact with Samoth- race was minimal before the Classical period. Another theory holds that the phallos is borrowed from the cult of Dionysos, whose phallic aspects are attested much earlier. Dionysos is sometimes worshiped in the form of a draped post and crosspiece topped with a mask, the same arrangement that most likely developed into the stone herm. Ancient authors commented on the unusual statue of Hermes Phales at Kyllene in Elis, which was simply an erect phallos set on a base. Similar statues are attested in Dionysiac cult. 7 Less widely accepted, though still plausible, is the view that Hermes' phallicism is tied to his pastoral and generative function. 8 Like his equally phallic com- patriot Pan, Hermes multiplies the flocks. Since gods typically become practitioners of the activities they rule, it is not surprising to find that Hermes has a lusty side. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5. 256-63) tells how he and the silens mate with the nymphs in the recesses of caves, and Hermes is the constant companion of the nymphs on votive reliefs and in the private observances of herdsmen, such as the swineherd Eumaios who sets aside portions for Hermes and the nymphs at his meal (Hom. Od. 14. 434-36). On this reading, the phallos is "lucky" because it is symbolic of animal fecundity, hence prosperity. Hermes' regular cultic connections with Aphrodite are also relevant to his phallicism; where they appear as a pair, the focus of the cult is usually on human sexuality.
Ephebic Hermes
In the fifth century, Hermes was increasingly recognized as "Lord of Con- tests" (Agonios or Enagonios) and, with Herakles, became a patron of the gymnasium and palaistra (wrestling ground). From this time he was usually portrayed as a beardless, athletic youth with great homoerotic appeal, though stone herms continued to be sculpted with archaizing bearded heads. The games for Hermes (Hermaia) at Achaian Pellene, where warm cloaks were awarded as prizes, were recognized at a Panhellenic level by the fifth century, and Hermaian games were celebrated at many other sites, including Pheneos beneath Kyllene. Pindar's victory odes often mention Hermes as the giver of victory, a god who "has charge of contests and the awarding of prizes. " In
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this guise of a youthful god associated with the physical education of boys, Hermes became an archetype of the ephebe, or young male citizen on the cusp of manhood. 9 While the ephebic god is typical of the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a few Archaic cults, particularly in the Peloponnese and Krete, also featured a youthful Hermes.
Recent excavations at Kato Symi in east-central Krete near Mt. Dikte show that cult activity in the Middle Minoan period continued unbroken through Archaic times, when the deities of the shrine were known as Hermes and Aphrodite. This sanctuary is noted for its fascinating series of bronze cut-out plaques from the seventh and sixth centuries. The subjects include hunters with bow and arrow, youths lifting or wrestling animals, scenes of homo- sexual courtship, and Hermes himself, who seems to have been the dominant partner at the sanctuary, to judge from the surviving dedications. The votives suggest a mostly male clientele engaged in typical Dorian aristocratic matur- ation and socialization rituals. At Kato Symi, Hermes appears as both beardless youth and mature adult, as if to illustrate his patronage of youths approaching manhood. Hermes' title here was Kedrites (of the Cedar), and a seventh-century bronze plaque illustrates his epiphany as a beardless god sitting in a tree, gazing at the viewer. This concept is probably a Minoan survival, since he is only rarely connected with trees in other parts of the Greek world, and on the coins of Phaistos Zeus Welchanos similarly appears as a youthful god sitting in a tree. 10
Hermes of Tanagra
The Boiotians contested the Arkadian claim that Hermes was born on Kyllene, asserting instead their own local traditions that Mt. Kerykeion (Herald's Mountain), or perhaps Thebes, witnessed the god's nativity. Tanagra, home of the poet Corinna, was particularly devoted to Hermes. As in Arkadia, he was regarded as an ancestor, the partner of the eponymous nymph Tanagra. One of Hermes' titles at Tanagra was Kriophoros (Ram- Bearer). The cult statue, sculpted by Kalamis in the early Classical period, is reproduced on Tanagran coins, which show a youthful, nude Hermes with a ram draped over his shoulders. It replaced an older, bearded and cloaked type. During the festival of Hermes, the town chose its most beautiful youth to walk the length of the walls carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Hermes once warded off a plague by carrying a ram. The ritual can be inter- preted as a purification by which the unfortunate animal, like the scapegoat, absorbs into itself all the noxious influences threatening the town, or again as a means by which the god, in his guise as "the good shepherd," wards off evil. 11 As the city god and protector of Tanagra, Hermes turned away mili- tary threats as well. Another of his sanctuaries was dedicated to Hermes Promachos (Battle-Ready), who led the Tanagran youth in battle against invading men from Euboia, wielding a strigil as his weapon. The emphasis
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upon Hermes' youthful beauty and his association with ephebes and athletics suggests an origin in the fifth century or later for these Tanagran legends, but the cult of Hermes there is doubtless much older.
Hermes of Ainos
The Greek colonies of Thrace seem to have shown a special interest in Hermes as evinced in the devices on their coins. Many of these are Hellenistic or later, but Herodotus (5. 7) says that the Thracian royal families worshiped "Hermes" the most and considered him their ancestor. This syncretism of a Thracian deity with a Greek one probably had its effect on both sides of the cultural divide. At Ainos the cult of Hermes was certainly well established by the mid-fifth century, when coins depict an unusual, pillar-like statue stand- ing on a high-backed throne. 12 The body has no arms or legs, nor is it equipped with a phallos like standard herms. The head is anthropomorphic and bearded; in some examples the god wears a hat or is draped. The throne, an elaborate piece of furniture sometimes decorated with a goat attribute or the god's wand, conveys the message that the image is sacred. According to a legend related by Callimachus (fr. 197 Pf. ), some fishermen of Ainos netted a block of wood and recognized in it a god, which Apollo's oracle instructed them to set up in the city. Epeios, maker of the Trojan horse, had sculpted the image, and it was washed to the sea from the Skamandros river. The statue was known as Hermes Perpheraios, probably a reference to a ritual of periphora in which the god was ceremoniously conducted about the city to spread his benefactions.
Hermes Chthonios
In the last book of the Odyssey (24. 1-10), Hermes shepherds the souls of the dead suitors to the underworld with a lovely golden wand, which he also uses to lull mortals to sleep and to awaken them. Hermes' mythic role as the psuchopompos or guide of souls is reflected in religious practice through prayers and offerings to Hermes Chthonios (of the Underworld) at the grave- site, attested in Thessaly and Argos. 13 As the god of ways and boundaries, closely associated with the standing stones and cairns that marked graves, Hermes was an ideal guide for journeys between the worlds of the living and the dead. In Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (1-5, 124-25), Orestes and Electra pray at their father's grave to Hermes Chthonios, the deity who can summon spirits from under the earth. Usually invoked in private contexts, including curses and binding spells, Hermes Chthonios occasionally plays a role in public festivals honoring the dead. After the Persian wars, the heroic dead of Plataiai were summoned to an annual banquet in their honor by means of prayers to Zeus and Hermes Chthonios, and the Attic Anthesteria supposedly included a meal offered to Hermes Chthonios for the dead. 14 The ghoulish,
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necromantic aspect of Hermes is balanced by his beneficent protection of souls in the vulnerable state between sleeping and waking. Homer (Od. 7. 136-38) mentions that the Phaiakians offered libations to Hermes before retiring, while Apollodorus of Athens (FGrH 244 F 129) calls Hermes the oneiropompos or conductor of dreams, and says that he is a guardian of sleepers; people orient their beds so that the foot of the bed faces Hermes' image, and pray to him before sleep.
Pan
Pan is distinctive among the Greek gods because of his hybrid human-animal form (theriomorphism). The earliest images of Pan, in bronze sculpture and in a Boiotian vase painting of the early fifth century, show a goat-headed god with a human torso atop a goat's hind legs. 15 Originally a guardian of the goats whose character he shares, he achieved Panhellenic status only in the
Figure 11. 1 Skuphos with an early depiction of Pan, from the Theban Kabirion, fifth century. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
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fifth century, when his cult was introduced from Arkadia to Athens and rapidly diffused to the rest of the Greek world. Many etymologies have been put forward for his name, which is also known in the compound form Aigipan (Goat-Pan). The most convincing makes it a cognate of Latin pastor, so that Pan is "one who grazes the flocks. "
In Arkadia itself, Pan's myth and cult were not standardized. There were conflicting views of his genealogy, the most common being that he was the son of Zeus and twin of the national hero Arkas, or that he was the son of Hermes and Penelope. His connection with Zeus sprang from their associ- ation on Mt. Lykaion, the sacred mountain of the Arkadians. Pan possessed a sanctuary on the south slopes of Lykaion, where in keeping with his identity as both goat and goatherd, he offered asylum to any animal being pursued by a wolf (lukos). A votive dump excavated here revealed many late Archaic and early Classical bronze figures, cut-out plaques, and terracottas with subjects reminiscent of those at Kato Symi: hunters, men carrying animals for sacrifice, and Hermes. Both youthful and mature males are depicted, and the bronzes include dead foxes, a standard courtship gift presented by adult males to their favorite youths. Inscribed pots show that the sanctuary was sacred to Pan, whose role as a god of the hunt and Master of Animals made him well suited, like Hermes, to sponsor maturation rituals. 16
The Athenians believed that Pan sent them a message on the eve of Marathon (490) via Philippides, who ran 233 km to ask for aid from the Spartans. Passing through Arkadia, he saw an apparition of the god, who asked why the Athenians did not honor him in spite of the good deeds that he had done and would yet do for them. When they learned of Pan's epiphany, the Athenians concluded that he had contributed to the victory at Marathon and instituted his worship with an annual festival including a torch race. Pan's official sanctuary was a grotto on the northwest slope of the Akropolis, but he quickly became a resident of the Attic countryside, where he was worshiped together with the nymphs and other rustic gods in numerous cave shrines. 17 Contrary to the practice in Arkadia, where Pan possessed temples and sanctuaries like those of other deities, the rest of the Greek world viewed the cave as the proper dwelling for this god of the wild places. After 490, the cults at these caves, including one near Marathon, gained a wider and more affluent clientele who dedicated pots, small metal items, and marble votive reliefs. Menander's comedy Dyscolus is set at one such shrine, the cave at Phyle in Attica. In the play, Pan rewards a pious maiden by causing a wealthy youth to fall in love with her, and punishes her neglectful father Knemon, whose sour misanthropy offends against the god's rule of laughter and good cheer. 18
Folk traditions illustrate the less benevolent side of Pan, connecting him with mysterious noises, particularly the echoes heard in mountainous terrain; with "panic," the phenomenon of sudden terror, seemingly without cause, that comes over armies in the night; and with certain types of illness involving
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apparent possession by the god (seizures). Pan's theriomorphism and associ- ation with madness also brought him into connection with ecstatic forms of worship such as the cults of Dionysos and Meter/Kybele, though always as a subordinate figure. Pindar refers to the Boiotian Pan as "the dog of Meter. "19
The nature deities: rivers and nymphs
Most of the Greek gods were connected in one way or another with natural phenomena: Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild beasts. A number of minor deities, however, were truly nature gods in the sense that they personified specific features in the landscape or pheno- mena in the environment. Pre-eminent among these were the river gods and the spring nymphs, whose cults appeared everywhere the Greeks lived. Closely tied to human fertility, the care of children and love of one's home- land, these minor gods made up for their strictly local influence by their great numbers: "it is difficult for a mortal to tell the names of all, but those who dwell near them know their own" (Hes. Theog. 69-70). Babies were often given names evocative of local rivers: Asopodoros, Ismenodoros, Acheloios. In fifth-century Athens, a man named Kephisodotos (Gift of Kephisos) co- founded a shrine to the river Kephisos and other gods, including Hermes and the nymphs. The other founder, Xenokrateia, made offerings for the welfare of her son. She established an altar for a number of gods concerned with children, including the rivers Kephisos and Acheloo? s; the trio Apollo, Artemis, and Leto; Eileithyia; and the local nymphs. In the Iliad (23. 140-51), Peleus similarly directs his prayers for his son's safety to the local river: upon Achilles' safe return to his dear homeland, Peleus vows that a hundred cattle and fifty rams will be sacrificed into the waters of the Spercheios, while Achilles himself will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and offer it to the god. The offering of a lock of hair to the local river was a widespread custom; in Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (6), Orestes calls this offering to Inachos a threpte ? rion, a recompense for his upbringing. 20
Popular taboos and cult regulations protected the purity of rivers and springs against the taint of human dirt, excrement, and other wastes, and rituals such as hand-washing or sacrifice before crossing a river are attested. 21 In the Iliad (5. 77-78, 23. 140-51), the cults of river deities are well developed: Skamandros has his own priest and Spercheios has an altar and sanctuary. Animal sacrifice was performed either on an altar in a sanctuary or at the river bank itself so that the blood flowed into the water. Immersion sacrifices are also attested; Homer speaks of live horses cast into the Skamandros (Il. 21. 124-32).
In the early twentieth century, a Swedish team investigated the sanctuary of the river Pamisos, the major waterway of Messenia. Located at a group of warm and cold-water springs feeding the stream, it was founded in the
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Archaic period and had a reputation as a place for healing. It included a small Doric temple with an unusual feature, a votive pit incorporated in the temple wall, which connected with one of the springs feeding the river. Into this pit were deposited gifts of all sorts, including a number of small bronzes, which can be divided into animal figures (primarily horses, bulls, and goats) and human figures (mainly naked youths of Classical date). There are signs that the god's sanctuary was used in rites of maturation: a number of small lead stars were found, originally attached with wire in wreaths. These are paral- leled at Lakonian sanctuaries and were apparently dedicated by ephebes. According to tradition, the kings of Messenia brought annual sacrifices to the river. If accurate, this would place the origins of the cult as early as the eighth or seventh century. 22
The only river god to achieve Panhellenic status in cult is Acheloo? s, god of the longest river in Greece, who shared many sanctuaries with the nymphs by the fifth century. His popularity was fostered by Zeus' oracle at Dodona, which often recommended sacrifice to Acheloo? s. A boundary stone marking a shrine of the nymphs and Acheloo? s was unearthed in Oichalia in Euboia, accompanied by a bronze of the god (c. 460), shown as a bearded, draped figure holding a cornucopia. The full anthropomorphism of this bronze seems to be characteristic of fifth-century sculpture. River gods are likewise shown in human form on pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, but in other media they are shown as theriomorphic, man-bull hybrids, the bull symbolizing both the terrifying force of a flooding river and the fertilizing potency of its waters. Acheloo? s was also worshiped in the form of a mask, (a marble example dating to about 470 was found near Marathon) and his bearded, horned face was used as an amulet in jewelry. 23
The nymphs, spirits of lakes, mountains, trees, and above all springs, were ubiquitous in the ancient Greek world, and their cult was probably an Indo- European inheritance. Much as described in Homer (Od. 13. 102-12, 349- 51; 17. 205-11), they were worshiped at simple open-air spring sanctuaries and in caves formed by the action of water. Often considered the first inhabitants of the land and cited as divine ancestors, they helped define local identity in the same way as rivers, and were similarly concerned with the welfare of the young. In myth, the nymphs often appear as companions of Olympian gods including Artemis, Dionysos, and Aphrodite, but in cult they are most often linked with pastoral deities including Apollo, Hermes, Acheloo? s, and Pan. They were worshiped as individuals or as pluralities, usually shown in Greek art as triads. Nymph sanctuaries securely dated to the Archaic period include Saftulis cave near Sikyon, where unique examples of Archaic painting on wood were discovered in 1934. Visitors in the sixth century hung painted wooden pinakes in the cave to commemorate their gifts to the nymphs. One well-preserved pinax shows a family preparing to sacrifice a sheep at a low altar; another features a triad of women, probably the nymphs. The terracottas of pregnant women found at this cave, while not
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? Figure 11. 2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
standard offerings to the nymphs, are consistent with the general Greek belief that nymphs aided in childbirth, the nurture of the young, and girls' transi- tion to adulthood at the time of their weddings. Many girls brought dolls and other toys to the nymphs when they entered adulthood, and the nymphs were among the goddesses who might receive formal prenuptial offerings. The word numphe ? means "bride," so it is fitting that the nymphs were always pictured as beautiful women, divine models for mortal brides.
In contrast to the a strictly local cult at Saftulis cave, the Korykian cave of the nymphs and Pan at Delphi was famous because of its location in a Pan- hellenic sanctuary and contained an unusual volume of cult-related deposits. Pilgrims to Delphi brought hundreds of seashells from the Korinthian gulf as gifts for the nymphs. The cave was also a center of divination with astragaloi or "knucklebones" from sheep and goats, which were cast like dice. This form of fortune-telling was associated with Hermes, whose relationship with the Korykian nymphs is mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 552- 68). 24 In the Archaic and Classical periods, the nymphs were credited with the ability to "seize" individuals and inspire them; some of these nympholepts claimed oracular powers. Others withdrew to cave shrines and devoted themselves entirely to the worship of the nymphs, tending their gardens and
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adorning their caves with sculptures. During the Classical period, nympho- lepts lived at caves in Attica (Vari) and Thessaly (Pharsalos). 25
Further reading
The discussion of Hermes in Athanassakis 1989 is most useful for students who have completed an introductory course in ancient Greek. Marinatos 2003 describes the finds from the sanctuary at Kato Symi and includes good illustrations. Osborne 1985 is the first full treatment in English of the origin of herms, the herms of Hipparchos, and the mutilation of the herms in 415. Borgeaud 1988 sensitively explores the cultural impact of Pan's cult through the themes of the Arkadian landscape, the human/animal divide, and the god's reception in Athens. Connor 1988 is the seminal article on nympholepsy, and Larson 2001 is a comprehensive study of the nymphs in myth and cult.
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DIVINE SPECIALISTS Other Panhellenic deities
All the gods discussed in this section appear in the Panhellenic poetry of Homer, Hesiod, or both. All were presumably known to Greeks of the Arch- aic and Classical periods, whether or not they were part of an individual's local pantheon. Popularity in art and poetry did not always translate into widespread worship; Hephaistos is an obvious example. Conversely, a deity such as Hestia, whose cult was indispensable to the polis, seldom found her way into art and played a role in very few myths. Most of the gods described in this chapter have well-delineated functions and spheres that simultaneously ensured their survival, but retarded the development of the complex person- alities and multiple roles characteristic of major deities like Athena, Zeus, and Artemis. Hekate, as so often, is exceptional.
Ares and Enyalios
In Homer, Ares is both an abstract noun denoting "war" and the deity, blood-stained and bellowing, who personifies the grim and horrific aspects of war (e. g. Il.
Delphi and Dionysos
The Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi, primarily dedicated to Apollo, welcomed Dionysos during the months of winter and early spring, when Apollo was
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said to be visiting the Hyperboreans. Delphic theology emphasized an inti- mate fraternal relationship between the two deities. Excavation of the Sacred Way brought to light a stele inscribed in 340/339 with a paian in which Dionysos is urged to appear "in the holy season of spring" for the Theoxenia (Hospitality to the Gods), a festival at which deities were provided with food, drink, and entertainment. 26 It also describes major additions to Dionysos' Delphic cult: the establishment of a sacrifice and dithyrambic competition, the erection of a statue of Bakchos "in a chariot drawn by golden lions" and the building of a grotto "suitable for the holy god. "
Already in the fifth century, tragedians speak of the ecstatic worship of Dionysos high on the slopes of Mt. Parnassos. Here the entourage of Diony- sos, whether mortal women or nymphs, were called Thyiads (Raving Ones), and they are described as scaling the twin peaks above the Korykian cave, roving over the mountain with torches to light their way and wetting the rocks with sacrificial blood. 27 No special altar or cult place is mentioned either on the mountain or in the sanctuary itself, though by the fourth century Dionysos and some rather sedate Thyiads, whose fragmentary remains have been recovered, were sculpted in the west pediment of Apollo's new temple. Like other mainadic festivals, this one took place every other winter; the Thyiads must have experienced great dangers and discomforts on the cold, dark slopes of Parnassos. It would be difficult to believe that Greek women actually danced on the mountain at night, were it not for the testimony of Plutarch (Mor. 249e-f, 953d), who served as a priest at Delphi during the turn of the first century CE. In his day, the Thyiads once had to be rescued when they were caught in a snowstorm on Parnassos. Pausanias (10. 4. 3) reports that he spoke with Thyiads from Attica, who joined with their Delphic counterparts every other year to perform mysterious rites for Dionysos.
Agriania/Agrionia
An early spring month Agrionios and a corresponding festival called Agr(i)ania/Agr(i)onia are well attested among the Dorian Greeks and in Boiotia. The name seems to be related to the adjective agrios "wild, savage," and the myths and rituals associated with this festival involve women who run wild under the influence of Dionysos. What distinguishes the Agriania from other mainadic traditions is the role played by men, who oppose and check the women's ravings, yet are themselves led by the priest of Dionysos or his surrogate. At Boiotian Orchomenos, the three daughters of Minyas were driven mad when they refused to participate in Dionysiac dances. Tearing apart an infant in their care, they dashed outdoors, only to be chased away as murderers. During the Agrionia, women said to be descended from the Minyads were pursued by a sword-wielding priest of Dionysos who was empowered to kill any woman he caught. Yet if this power was ever more than symbolic, it had lapsed by Plutarch's day (Quaest. Graec. 299c-300a),
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when the priest Zoilos actually killed a woman and his family was deprived of the priesthood as a result.
At Argos, we are told, the Agriania was held to honor Iphinoe? , another victim of the Dionysiac pursuit. According to Hesiod (fr. 131 M-W), the three daughters of Proitos refused to join Dionysos' worship and fell into a murderous frenzy, soon joined by the other women and girls of the city. With the strongest youths of the city, the Dionysiac prophet Melampous pursued the women to Sikyon, where Iphinoe? met her fate (a fourth-century inscrip- tion marking her tomb in the agora has been excavated). Other versions tell how Melampous cured the women of their madness and purified them, marrying one of the surviving daughters and succeeding to the kingship. 28 Thus the Agriania, performed on a biennial basis like other mainadic rituals, enacted a dissolution of social order and gender norms followed by a return to stability. The ritual segregation of men and women, not unusual in itself, was escalated into an overt opposition between raving women and pursuing men. The earliest attested version is the Homeric story (Il. 6. 130-40) of Thracian Lykourgos, who drove the nurses of raving Dionysos over the sacred plain of Nysa, striking them with an ox-goad while the god himself leapt fearfully into the sea and was received in the bosom of Thetis. King Perseus of Argos carried out a similar pursuit, killing the mainadic Haliai (Sea Women), but ultimately honoring their tombs and founding a temple of Dionysos. These myths probably arose from pursuit rituals like those attested for the Agrionia. 29
Wine miracles and the Elean hymn
More than the other Olympian gods, Dionysos is credited with supernatural wonders: springs of wine gush from the ground, thursoi drip with honey, vines spring up in minutes and bear fruit. These miracles are strongly associated with Dionysiac ecstasy (e. g. Eur. Bacch. 699-707) and with the epiphany of the god, particularly in his bull form. Such wonders, including magic "ephemeral" vines that grow and bear fruit in one winter day, are mentioned in Greek tragedies, but it is unclear what role they played in cult during the Archaic and Classical periods. 30 Later sources speak of sanctuaries in which miraculous springs of wine were to be found, sometimes in connec- tion with a lesser-known Dionysiac festival, the Theodaisia (God's Feast). Haliartos in Boiotia celebrated the Theodaisia by the spring Kissousa, where local tradition held that the infant Dionysos was bathed. The water of Kissousa was delicious and "had the color and sparkle of wine," the result of the holy bath. 31 The month name Theodaisios and/or the festival were observed in Kyrene, Rhodes, and Krete, where arrhe ? ta (unspoken things) were performed in connection with the Theodaisia of the city Olous. Springs of wine are also found in Ionian contexts. Pliny (HN 2. 106, 31. 13) says that wine flowed in the sanctuary of Dionysos on the island of Andros for the
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seven days of the Theodaisia in the winter. Similar wonders are attested for Teos and Naxos, where the miracle was inaugurated when Dionysos and Ariadne met. Based on the little evidence we have, the Theodaisia seems to have been a biennial winter festival, hence mainadic in origin, concerned with the mysteries of the god's birth and characterized by supernatural signs of his presence.
We see a similar combination of wine miracle, epiphany, and women's ritual in Elis at the celebration of the Dionysia or Thyia (Raving). According to Pausanias (6. 26. 1-2), the Eleans believed that Dionysos attended the festival, manifesting himself in the wine. At his sanctuary outside the city, the priests placed three empty pots in a room and sealed the doors in the presence of witnesses. The next day, when the seals were broken, the pots were found filled with wine. Plutarch (Quaest. Graec. 299a-b) reports that the Elean women sang a song of invocation to the god: "Come, hero Dionysos, with the Charites to the holy Elean temple, raving (thuo ? n) to the temple on bovine foot, worthy bull, worthy bull. " This hymn, which scholars consider one of the most ancient attested cult songs, was most likely sung as part of the Thyia. It illustrates the visualization of Dionysos as a bull, a recurrent feature of his worship. 32 In the Bacchae, for example, the ecstatic chorus praises Dionysos as the bull-horned god (100) and he appears to the demented Pentheus in the form of a bull (922). The designation of Dionysos as "hero" has not been satisfactorily explained.
Thebes and Semele
The tradition of Dionysos' birth at Thebes was very ancient, attested by both Homer (Il. 14. 323-25) and Hesiod (Theog. 940-42). There the god was called Dionysos Kadmeios because his sanctuary was located on the akropolis (Kadmeia) near that of Demeter. It included the part of the old palace where Kadmos' daughter Semele, the lover of Zeus, was destroyed by a thunderbolt. In keeping with Greek custom regarding places hit by lightning, the shrine/ tomb (se ? kos) was delimited by a wall and declared off limits for human feet. Euripides (Bacch. 7-8) describes it as "smoldering with the still-living flame of Zeus," perhaps an eternal flame of some sort, yet overgrown with lush vines. Centuries later, Pausanias (9. 12. 3) viewed the same spot, now called the bridechamber (thalamos) of Semele, and was told that the ancient image of Dionysos Kadmeios consisted of a log that fell from heaven with the thunderbolt.
Considering the importance of Thebes in the history of Dionysiac cult, we know surprisingly few specifics about the rituals performed there. The existence of a mainadic ritual conducted on Mt. Kithairon, probably the Agrionia, can be deduced from the myth of Pentheus' pursuit of the mainads as told in Euripides' Bacchae. As we have seen, the authority of Thebes in Dionysiac matters was supported by the Delphic oracle, and certain Theban
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cults were imitated by other cities. For example, the Pythia instructed the Korinthians to obtain the tree from which Pentheus was dragged and to "worship it just like the god. " Two images made of pinewood from Thebes were called Dionysos Lysios (Liberator) and Bakcheios. Sikyon too had a statue of Dionysos Lysios, brought from Thebes at the behest of the oracle, and paired with a Bakcheios. The sanctuary in Sikyon was located beside the theater, and one night each year the citizens escorted the god's two images to this Dionysion while carrying torches and singing hymns. 33 The Athenians practiced a similar ritual with respect to Dionysos Eleuthereus, originally a Boiotian god, who was installed beside the theater. The cult pattern can be traced ultimately to the sanctuary of Dionysos Lysios near the theater at Thebes.
Semele's cult was observed at both the major Theban sanctuaries of Dionysos, on the Kadmeia and at the theater. Euripides (Phoen. 1755-56) mentions Theban women's dances in the mountains for Semele. The cult spread to Attica, for Pindar (fr. 75. 19 Snell-Maehler) speaks of Athenian "choruses for Semele with her circlet wreath" in a dithyramb composed for the City Dionysia, and the deme Erchia sponsored sacrifices for Dionysos and Semele during the same festival. Scholars often call Semele a "faded" earth goddess because she is shown on Greek vases, like Persephone/Kore and Ge, rising from the earth. The Greeks, however, always thought of her as a heroine who both suffered and transcended mortality. Hesiod notes her special character as a mortal who birthed a god, and narratives about her focus almost exclusively on her death and Dionysos' descent to the under- world to retrieve her. Every eight years the Delphic Thyiads conducted the Heroi? s, a festival of Semele that included both public rites and secrets kept hidden from men. From what he was able to observe, Plutarch (Mor. 293b-c) concluded that the Heroi? s celebrated the anago ? ge ? (bringing up) of Semele from the underworld. 34
Dionysiac mysteries
According to the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus (fr. 15 DK), Hades and Dionysos were the same. The concept of a chthonian, underworld Dionysos who had a role to play in the fate of the soul was widespread, though not fully manifested in state religion. Instead, it was disseminated through private Bakchic mysteries, which seem to have arisen in the late Archaic period. An inscription from a chamber tomb at Cumae in Southern Italy restricts use of the tomb to Bakchic initiates (c. 500). At the other end of the Greek world, Dionysiac mysteries were celebrated in the Black Sea colony of Olbia. Herodotus' story (4. 78-79) of the Skythian king who had himself initiated at Olbia finds support in the excavations there, which yielded a sixth-century mirror inscribed with the names of a couple and the Bakchic ritual cry euai. Here too were collected a scattering of bone tablets from the fifth century,
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one with the message "life, death, life, truth . . . Dio(nysoi), Orphik(oi). "35 Discoveries like these have made it clear that the movement scholars call Orphism, which consisted of teachings and rituals concerned with the secret knowledge and purifications necessary to achieve a blessed afterlife, overlapped with Dionysiac religion. An esoteric Orphic tradition held that Persephone was the mother of Zagreus, who as a child was torn apart and consumed by the Titans, yet came to life again as Dionysos in the womb of Semele. 36 This unique experience meant that Dionysos, in conjunction with Persephone, was able to grant release from the miserable lot of the dead; thus his epithet Lysios (Releaser) had one meaning for the general public and another for the initiate. In the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, many initiates went to their graves with tiny folded leaves of gold, inscribed with the special instructions and passwords they would require. A small trapezoid of beaten gold from a grave at the south Italian city of Hipponion (c. 400) advises its owner to avoid the spring on the right when entering the house of Hades. Instead, she must look for the cold water flowing from the Lake of Memory, and speak the right words to the guardians. If she succeeds, she will "travel a road, a sacred road, which other famous initiates and bakchoi also tread. " Roughly a century later, a Thessalian woman was buried with two gold tablets shaped like ivy leaves positioned over her breasts, tablets which also provided the password to life after death: "Tell Persephone that the Bakchic one himself has set you free! " More than forty of these gold leaves have been uncovered in Thessaly, Krete, Italy, and other sites, witnesses to a form of religious experience that is rarely described in literary sources. 37
Plato and other authors speak scornfully of the itinerant prophets who offered initiations and purifications to the ignorant, and it is clear that Orphic/Bakchic initiation did not have the same cultural prestige as the Eleusinian or other state-sponsored mysteries. Instead of journeying as pil- grims to a sanctuary and becoming a member of a public cohort of initiates, Bakchic devotees received initiation privately or as part of a small group from prophets who traveled about plying the family trade with their heirloom sacred books and spoken formulas. (Although written texts seem to have played an important role in the Orphic traditions, recent scholarship on certain hexameter texts from the gold leaves suggests that they can be traced to an oral archetype. )38 The Dionysiac prophets, who induced "telestic mad- ness" as a remedy for physical and spiritual ills, had a long history reaching back to mythic figures like Melampous and Polyeidos. What is less clear is how such rites were related to those of Bakchic thiasoi, particularly those that engaged in mainadism. Euripides' Bacchae (e. g. 22, 73, 238) is sprinkled with allusions to Dionysos' teletai, initiatory rites, which were an integral part of the "Theban strand" of his worship. 39 The Delphic Thyiads, for example, had a limited membership, generally restricted to females who had experienced teletai preparing them for the mystical aspects of the cult.
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Further reading
Henrichs 1983a provides an excellent, brief survey of Dionysiac religion, and Gould 2001 usefully examines recent scholarly perspectives. Otto 1965 (originally published in 1933) is still essential reading, a sensitive and seminal discussion of "the god who comes. " Carpenter and Faraone eds 1993 collects several excellent essays. Chapter 4, "Orpheus and Egypt," in Burkert 2004 provides an account of recently discovered texts pertaining to Dionysiac mysteries, with current bibliography. Parker 2005, Chapter 14, provides detailed discussion of the festivals in Athens.
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DEAR TO THE PEOPLE Hermes, Pan, and nature deities
Relative to the other Olympian deities, Hermes had few sanctuaries, festivals, and temples. Instead, he was pre-eminent in private, neighborhood, and domestic contexts, often in connection with other deities worshiped in the countryside. Hermes' name is derived from an object: herma refers to a pillar- like prop or support, as well as to the cairn or stone-pile that marks a path or border. Essentially a god of travel and boundaries, Hermes came to preside over a host of related domains, such as thievery, lucky finds, and transitions between the lands of the living and the dead. Like Apollo and Pan, Hermes has an important pastoral function, especially in the oldest center of his worship, Arkadia. His cults are most prominent on the Greek mainland, particularly Attica, Boiotia, and the Peloponnese. His mythic function as the herald and messenger of the gods, probably borrowed from Near Eastern epic, is not emphasized in worship, though he is a patron of heralds and ambassadors.
Hermes in Arkadia
If, as seems likely from the Linear B tablets, Hermes had a Mycenaean predecessor, it is not surprising to find his cult vigorously maintained in mountainous Arkadia, one of the regions least affected by the upheavals at the close of the Bronze Age. 1 For people who support themselves by herding sheep and goats, as most Arkadians did, maintaining boundaries and pre- venting the theft of one's flocks (or thieving a neighbor's flocks undetected) are of paramount importance. Panhellenic myth recognized Arkadia as the god's birthplace, and his worship was unusually prominent in this land, where myth and cult tie him to mountain peaks, especially Kyllene. In a late stratum of Homer (Od. 24. 1) and other Archaic poetry, he receives the epithet Kyllenios. No cave on Kyllene has been confirmed as a cultic counterpart of the one described in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, but Pausanias (8. 17. 1-2) speaks of a ruined temple on the mountain with a cult statue made of wood from a conifer. The people of neighboring Pheneos dedicated at Olympia a
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statue by the Aiginetan master Onatas (c. 500), which showed Hermes carrying a ram under his arm. Small Archaic bronzes of the same subject have been found in Arkadia, so it is probable that the Arkadians visualized him as a fellow herdsman. He was also an ancestor, having fathered the local heroes Evander, Myrtilos, and Aipytos, whose name means "of the heights. " Homer (Il. 2. 604) mentions the latter's tomb near Kyllene, while a temple of Hermes Aipytos stood at Tegea. The relationship between god and the hero whose name he adopts parallels that between Poseidon and Erechtheus at Athens. Another Archaic cult of Hermes was centered on the hill and town Akakesion, which were etymologically related to the god's Homeric epithet akake ? ta, "doing no wrong" or "benevolent. " With the synoecism of Megalopolis c. 365, the most venerable Parrhasian cults, including that of Hermes Akakesios, were moved to the new city. 2
Lucky Hermes
To a large extent, the cult of Hermes was conducted at the popular level, meaning that people used modes of worship other than standard city- sponsored sanctuaries and festivals. The fourth day of the month, mentioned as Hermes' birthday in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 19), was the day to present offerings of food, often figs or small cakes, at neighborhood herms. Hermes was a "hungry" god, parodied in comedy as a food gobbler. 3 His fondness for tasty food and drink is probably a reflection of his role as a provider of good things. Lucky finds and other unexpected goods were called hermaia, and Hermes sometimes had the epithet Tychon (Lucky). Prayers, inscriptions, and votive reliefs, many from the area around Athens, demon- strate that Hermes was grouped in worship with other gods believed to inhabit the surface of the earth and to exert an influence over the prosperity of herdsmen; "Hermes, Pan and the nymphs" was a common triad in prayers and dedications at rural shrines. Early poets agree that Hermes could aid in the multiplication of flocks. According to Homer (Il. 14. 489-91, 16. 180- 86), Hermes favored Phorbas, a Trojan rich in flocks (polume ? los), and made him wealthy. On the Greek side, his affair with the aptly named Polymele resulted in a son Eudoros (Generous).
In popular belief, Hermes oversaw the operation of what we might call "poor man's oracles," those that could be consulted by people who lacked the wherewithal to travel to a major oracle and offer sacrifices there. Instead, they divined by casting knucklebones or other small objects and searching the resulting patterns for messages from the gods. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 550-68) says that the youthful god desired to share the prestige that his brother Apollo derived from Delphi, but had to be satisfied with a lesser form of divination involving the observation of bees. Hermes did possess at least one proper oracle, at Phares in Achaia, but even this was an
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informal affair compared to the pomp of Delphi. In the market square at Phares stood a Hermes Agoraios (of the Marketplace) facing a hearth surrounded with lamps. In the time of Pausanias (7. 22. 2-3), whoever wished to consult the oracle entered the agora at dusk, burned incense on the hearth, lit the lamps, and placed a coin on the altar. Then, having whispered a question in the god's ear, the petitioner covered his own ears so as to block out all sounds. Once out of the agora, he unstopped his ears and received as the oracle the first phrases he heard.
Hermes as guide and protector
Of all the Olympian gods, Hermes is the most "down to earth" (epichthonios), a deity who eschews the heavenly, watery, and underworld abodes in favor of the places inhabited by mortals. His patronage of travelers grows not only from his territorial concerns but also from his role as a herdsman, for Hermes accompanies and protects the traveler just as the shepherd guides and watches over his flocks. In the last book of the Iliad (24. 334-38), Zeus asks him to protect Priam on his mission into the Greek camp because Hermes loves "to be a man's companion. " Roadside cairns and guideposts marking the path belonged to Hermes, and multi-headed images of him, like those of Hekate, were placed at crossroads. The Classical herm, a stone image of Hermes consisting of a squared pillar with a bearded head of Hermes on top, a cross- bar where the "shoulders" should be, and erect male genitals halfway down, probably developed from wooden versions used as markers. Around 520, Hipparchos, brother of the Athenian tyrant Hippias, set up stone herms marking the halfway points on the roads from each Attic village to the agora, where the Altar of the Twelve Gods had been designated the city center. Edifying verses supplied by Hipparchos himself, such as "walk with just intent" and "deceive not a friend" were carved upon the herms. These were enthusiastically received, and soon so many herms were clustered at the principal entrance to the agora that the spot became known as "the Herms. " Magistrates and victorious generals like Kimon dedicated them, and one in particular, known as Hermes Agoraios, had its own altar. 4
From the late sixth century on, herms served the Athenians and other Greeks not only as milestones and boundary markers, but also as guardians, warding off any evil spirits (or thieves) who might try to enter a home. They became an important focus of popular piety, and were regularly saluted, anointed with oil, and garlanded. Scenes of private sacrifice before herms are very common on Attic figured vases. Thus it was a terrible shock for the Athenians when they awoke one morning to find that someone had gone about the city knocking the noses and genitals from their beloved herms. This sacrilege took place on the eve of the Sicilian expedition in 415, and augured ill for the Athenian war effort. 5
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Phallic Hermes
Burkert has linked the function of the herm as a territorial marker to its phallicism, for in the primate world phallic display is used to warn potential trespassers to keep their distance. 6 It is unclear, however, whether Hermes' phallicism is an ancient part of his cult. According to Herodotus (2. 51), the Athenians learned to use ithyphallic images (those with erect members) from the Pelasgians, the pre-Greek inhabitants of the Aegean. He connects the herms with the ithyphallic statues used as guardians in the cult of the Samothracian gods, which was "Pelasgian" in origin. Yet phallic herms are not attested in the early Archaic period, and Athenian contact with Samoth- race was minimal before the Classical period. Another theory holds that the phallos is borrowed from the cult of Dionysos, whose phallic aspects are attested much earlier. Dionysos is sometimes worshiped in the form of a draped post and crosspiece topped with a mask, the same arrangement that most likely developed into the stone herm. Ancient authors commented on the unusual statue of Hermes Phales at Kyllene in Elis, which was simply an erect phallos set on a base. Similar statues are attested in Dionysiac cult. 7 Less widely accepted, though still plausible, is the view that Hermes' phallicism is tied to his pastoral and generative function. 8 Like his equally phallic com- patriot Pan, Hermes multiplies the flocks. Since gods typically become practitioners of the activities they rule, it is not surprising to find that Hermes has a lusty side. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5. 256-63) tells how he and the silens mate with the nymphs in the recesses of caves, and Hermes is the constant companion of the nymphs on votive reliefs and in the private observances of herdsmen, such as the swineherd Eumaios who sets aside portions for Hermes and the nymphs at his meal (Hom. Od. 14. 434-36). On this reading, the phallos is "lucky" because it is symbolic of animal fecundity, hence prosperity. Hermes' regular cultic connections with Aphrodite are also relevant to his phallicism; where they appear as a pair, the focus of the cult is usually on human sexuality.
Ephebic Hermes
In the fifth century, Hermes was increasingly recognized as "Lord of Con- tests" (Agonios or Enagonios) and, with Herakles, became a patron of the gymnasium and palaistra (wrestling ground). From this time he was usually portrayed as a beardless, athletic youth with great homoerotic appeal, though stone herms continued to be sculpted with archaizing bearded heads. The games for Hermes (Hermaia) at Achaian Pellene, where warm cloaks were awarded as prizes, were recognized at a Panhellenic level by the fifth century, and Hermaian games were celebrated at many other sites, including Pheneos beneath Kyllene. Pindar's victory odes often mention Hermes as the giver of victory, a god who "has charge of contests and the awarding of prizes. " In
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this guise of a youthful god associated with the physical education of boys, Hermes became an archetype of the ephebe, or young male citizen on the cusp of manhood. 9 While the ephebic god is typical of the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, a few Archaic cults, particularly in the Peloponnese and Krete, also featured a youthful Hermes.
Recent excavations at Kato Symi in east-central Krete near Mt. Dikte show that cult activity in the Middle Minoan period continued unbroken through Archaic times, when the deities of the shrine were known as Hermes and Aphrodite. This sanctuary is noted for its fascinating series of bronze cut-out plaques from the seventh and sixth centuries. The subjects include hunters with bow and arrow, youths lifting or wrestling animals, scenes of homo- sexual courtship, and Hermes himself, who seems to have been the dominant partner at the sanctuary, to judge from the surviving dedications. The votives suggest a mostly male clientele engaged in typical Dorian aristocratic matur- ation and socialization rituals. At Kato Symi, Hermes appears as both beardless youth and mature adult, as if to illustrate his patronage of youths approaching manhood. Hermes' title here was Kedrites (of the Cedar), and a seventh-century bronze plaque illustrates his epiphany as a beardless god sitting in a tree, gazing at the viewer. This concept is probably a Minoan survival, since he is only rarely connected with trees in other parts of the Greek world, and on the coins of Phaistos Zeus Welchanos similarly appears as a youthful god sitting in a tree. 10
Hermes of Tanagra
The Boiotians contested the Arkadian claim that Hermes was born on Kyllene, asserting instead their own local traditions that Mt. Kerykeion (Herald's Mountain), or perhaps Thebes, witnessed the god's nativity. Tanagra, home of the poet Corinna, was particularly devoted to Hermes. As in Arkadia, he was regarded as an ancestor, the partner of the eponymous nymph Tanagra. One of Hermes' titles at Tanagra was Kriophoros (Ram- Bearer). The cult statue, sculpted by Kalamis in the early Classical period, is reproduced on Tanagran coins, which show a youthful, nude Hermes with a ram draped over his shoulders. It replaced an older, bearded and cloaked type. During the festival of Hermes, the town chose its most beautiful youth to walk the length of the walls carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Hermes once warded off a plague by carrying a ram. The ritual can be inter- preted as a purification by which the unfortunate animal, like the scapegoat, absorbs into itself all the noxious influences threatening the town, or again as a means by which the god, in his guise as "the good shepherd," wards off evil. 11 As the city god and protector of Tanagra, Hermes turned away mili- tary threats as well. Another of his sanctuaries was dedicated to Hermes Promachos (Battle-Ready), who led the Tanagran youth in battle against invading men from Euboia, wielding a strigil as his weapon. The emphasis
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upon Hermes' youthful beauty and his association with ephebes and athletics suggests an origin in the fifth century or later for these Tanagran legends, but the cult of Hermes there is doubtless much older.
Hermes of Ainos
The Greek colonies of Thrace seem to have shown a special interest in Hermes as evinced in the devices on their coins. Many of these are Hellenistic or later, but Herodotus (5. 7) says that the Thracian royal families worshiped "Hermes" the most and considered him their ancestor. This syncretism of a Thracian deity with a Greek one probably had its effect on both sides of the cultural divide. At Ainos the cult of Hermes was certainly well established by the mid-fifth century, when coins depict an unusual, pillar-like statue stand- ing on a high-backed throne. 12 The body has no arms or legs, nor is it equipped with a phallos like standard herms. The head is anthropomorphic and bearded; in some examples the god wears a hat or is draped. The throne, an elaborate piece of furniture sometimes decorated with a goat attribute or the god's wand, conveys the message that the image is sacred. According to a legend related by Callimachus (fr. 197 Pf. ), some fishermen of Ainos netted a block of wood and recognized in it a god, which Apollo's oracle instructed them to set up in the city. Epeios, maker of the Trojan horse, had sculpted the image, and it was washed to the sea from the Skamandros river. The statue was known as Hermes Perpheraios, probably a reference to a ritual of periphora in which the god was ceremoniously conducted about the city to spread his benefactions.
Hermes Chthonios
In the last book of the Odyssey (24. 1-10), Hermes shepherds the souls of the dead suitors to the underworld with a lovely golden wand, which he also uses to lull mortals to sleep and to awaken them. Hermes' mythic role as the psuchopompos or guide of souls is reflected in religious practice through prayers and offerings to Hermes Chthonios (of the Underworld) at the grave- site, attested in Thessaly and Argos. 13 As the god of ways and boundaries, closely associated with the standing stones and cairns that marked graves, Hermes was an ideal guide for journeys between the worlds of the living and the dead. In Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (1-5, 124-25), Orestes and Electra pray at their father's grave to Hermes Chthonios, the deity who can summon spirits from under the earth. Usually invoked in private contexts, including curses and binding spells, Hermes Chthonios occasionally plays a role in public festivals honoring the dead. After the Persian wars, the heroic dead of Plataiai were summoned to an annual banquet in their honor by means of prayers to Zeus and Hermes Chthonios, and the Attic Anthesteria supposedly included a meal offered to Hermes Chthonios for the dead. 14 The ghoulish,
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necromantic aspect of Hermes is balanced by his beneficent protection of souls in the vulnerable state between sleeping and waking. Homer (Od. 7. 136-38) mentions that the Phaiakians offered libations to Hermes before retiring, while Apollodorus of Athens (FGrH 244 F 129) calls Hermes the oneiropompos or conductor of dreams, and says that he is a guardian of sleepers; people orient their beds so that the foot of the bed faces Hermes' image, and pray to him before sleep.
Pan
Pan is distinctive among the Greek gods because of his hybrid human-animal form (theriomorphism). The earliest images of Pan, in bronze sculpture and in a Boiotian vase painting of the early fifth century, show a goat-headed god with a human torso atop a goat's hind legs. 15 Originally a guardian of the goats whose character he shares, he achieved Panhellenic status only in the
Figure 11. 1 Skuphos with an early depiction of Pan, from the Theban Kabirion, fifth century. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
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fifth century, when his cult was introduced from Arkadia to Athens and rapidly diffused to the rest of the Greek world. Many etymologies have been put forward for his name, which is also known in the compound form Aigipan (Goat-Pan). The most convincing makes it a cognate of Latin pastor, so that Pan is "one who grazes the flocks. "
In Arkadia itself, Pan's myth and cult were not standardized. There were conflicting views of his genealogy, the most common being that he was the son of Zeus and twin of the national hero Arkas, or that he was the son of Hermes and Penelope. His connection with Zeus sprang from their associ- ation on Mt. Lykaion, the sacred mountain of the Arkadians. Pan possessed a sanctuary on the south slopes of Lykaion, where in keeping with his identity as both goat and goatherd, he offered asylum to any animal being pursued by a wolf (lukos). A votive dump excavated here revealed many late Archaic and early Classical bronze figures, cut-out plaques, and terracottas with subjects reminiscent of those at Kato Symi: hunters, men carrying animals for sacrifice, and Hermes. Both youthful and mature males are depicted, and the bronzes include dead foxes, a standard courtship gift presented by adult males to their favorite youths. Inscribed pots show that the sanctuary was sacred to Pan, whose role as a god of the hunt and Master of Animals made him well suited, like Hermes, to sponsor maturation rituals. 16
The Athenians believed that Pan sent them a message on the eve of Marathon (490) via Philippides, who ran 233 km to ask for aid from the Spartans. Passing through Arkadia, he saw an apparition of the god, who asked why the Athenians did not honor him in spite of the good deeds that he had done and would yet do for them. When they learned of Pan's epiphany, the Athenians concluded that he had contributed to the victory at Marathon and instituted his worship with an annual festival including a torch race. Pan's official sanctuary was a grotto on the northwest slope of the Akropolis, but he quickly became a resident of the Attic countryside, where he was worshiped together with the nymphs and other rustic gods in numerous cave shrines. 17 Contrary to the practice in Arkadia, where Pan possessed temples and sanctuaries like those of other deities, the rest of the Greek world viewed the cave as the proper dwelling for this god of the wild places. After 490, the cults at these caves, including one near Marathon, gained a wider and more affluent clientele who dedicated pots, small metal items, and marble votive reliefs. Menander's comedy Dyscolus is set at one such shrine, the cave at Phyle in Attica. In the play, Pan rewards a pious maiden by causing a wealthy youth to fall in love with her, and punishes her neglectful father Knemon, whose sour misanthropy offends against the god's rule of laughter and good cheer. 18
Folk traditions illustrate the less benevolent side of Pan, connecting him with mysterious noises, particularly the echoes heard in mountainous terrain; with "panic," the phenomenon of sudden terror, seemingly without cause, that comes over armies in the night; and with certain types of illness involving
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apparent possession by the god (seizures). Pan's theriomorphism and associ- ation with madness also brought him into connection with ecstatic forms of worship such as the cults of Dionysos and Meter/Kybele, though always as a subordinate figure. Pindar refers to the Boiotian Pan as "the dog of Meter. "19
The nature deities: rivers and nymphs
Most of the Greek gods were connected in one way or another with natural phenomena: Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild beasts. A number of minor deities, however, were truly nature gods in the sense that they personified specific features in the landscape or pheno- mena in the environment. Pre-eminent among these were the river gods and the spring nymphs, whose cults appeared everywhere the Greeks lived. Closely tied to human fertility, the care of children and love of one's home- land, these minor gods made up for their strictly local influence by their great numbers: "it is difficult for a mortal to tell the names of all, but those who dwell near them know their own" (Hes. Theog. 69-70). Babies were often given names evocative of local rivers: Asopodoros, Ismenodoros, Acheloios. In fifth-century Athens, a man named Kephisodotos (Gift of Kephisos) co- founded a shrine to the river Kephisos and other gods, including Hermes and the nymphs. The other founder, Xenokrateia, made offerings for the welfare of her son. She established an altar for a number of gods concerned with children, including the rivers Kephisos and Acheloo? s; the trio Apollo, Artemis, and Leto; Eileithyia; and the local nymphs. In the Iliad (23. 140-51), Peleus similarly directs his prayers for his son's safety to the local river: upon Achilles' safe return to his dear homeland, Peleus vows that a hundred cattle and fifty rams will be sacrificed into the waters of the Spercheios, while Achilles himself will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and offer it to the god. The offering of a lock of hair to the local river was a widespread custom; in Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (6), Orestes calls this offering to Inachos a threpte ? rion, a recompense for his upbringing. 20
Popular taboos and cult regulations protected the purity of rivers and springs against the taint of human dirt, excrement, and other wastes, and rituals such as hand-washing or sacrifice before crossing a river are attested. 21 In the Iliad (5. 77-78, 23. 140-51), the cults of river deities are well developed: Skamandros has his own priest and Spercheios has an altar and sanctuary. Animal sacrifice was performed either on an altar in a sanctuary or at the river bank itself so that the blood flowed into the water. Immersion sacrifices are also attested; Homer speaks of live horses cast into the Skamandros (Il. 21. 124-32).
In the early twentieth century, a Swedish team investigated the sanctuary of the river Pamisos, the major waterway of Messenia. Located at a group of warm and cold-water springs feeding the stream, it was founded in the
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Archaic period and had a reputation as a place for healing. It included a small Doric temple with an unusual feature, a votive pit incorporated in the temple wall, which connected with one of the springs feeding the river. Into this pit were deposited gifts of all sorts, including a number of small bronzes, which can be divided into animal figures (primarily horses, bulls, and goats) and human figures (mainly naked youths of Classical date). There are signs that the god's sanctuary was used in rites of maturation: a number of small lead stars were found, originally attached with wire in wreaths. These are paral- leled at Lakonian sanctuaries and were apparently dedicated by ephebes. According to tradition, the kings of Messenia brought annual sacrifices to the river. If accurate, this would place the origins of the cult as early as the eighth or seventh century. 22
The only river god to achieve Panhellenic status in cult is Acheloo? s, god of the longest river in Greece, who shared many sanctuaries with the nymphs by the fifth century. His popularity was fostered by Zeus' oracle at Dodona, which often recommended sacrifice to Acheloo? s. A boundary stone marking a shrine of the nymphs and Acheloo? s was unearthed in Oichalia in Euboia, accompanied by a bronze of the god (c. 460), shown as a bearded, draped figure holding a cornucopia. The full anthropomorphism of this bronze seems to be characteristic of fifth-century sculpture. River gods are likewise shown in human form on pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, but in other media they are shown as theriomorphic, man-bull hybrids, the bull symbolizing both the terrifying force of a flooding river and the fertilizing potency of its waters. Acheloo? s was also worshiped in the form of a mask, (a marble example dating to about 470 was found near Marathon) and his bearded, horned face was used as an amulet in jewelry. 23
The nymphs, spirits of lakes, mountains, trees, and above all springs, were ubiquitous in the ancient Greek world, and their cult was probably an Indo- European inheritance. Much as described in Homer (Od. 13. 102-12, 349- 51; 17. 205-11), they were worshiped at simple open-air spring sanctuaries and in caves formed by the action of water. Often considered the first inhabitants of the land and cited as divine ancestors, they helped define local identity in the same way as rivers, and were similarly concerned with the welfare of the young. In myth, the nymphs often appear as companions of Olympian gods including Artemis, Dionysos, and Aphrodite, but in cult they are most often linked with pastoral deities including Apollo, Hermes, Acheloo? s, and Pan. They were worshiped as individuals or as pluralities, usually shown in Greek art as triads. Nymph sanctuaries securely dated to the Archaic period include Saftulis cave near Sikyon, where unique examples of Archaic painting on wood were discovered in 1934. Visitors in the sixth century hung painted wooden pinakes in the cave to commemorate their gifts to the nymphs. One well-preserved pinax shows a family preparing to sacrifice a sheep at a low altar; another features a triad of women, probably the nymphs. The terracottas of pregnant women found at this cave, while not
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? Figure 11. 2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
standard offerings to the nymphs, are consistent with the general Greek belief that nymphs aided in childbirth, the nurture of the young, and girls' transi- tion to adulthood at the time of their weddings. Many girls brought dolls and other toys to the nymphs when they entered adulthood, and the nymphs were among the goddesses who might receive formal prenuptial offerings. The word numphe ? means "bride," so it is fitting that the nymphs were always pictured as beautiful women, divine models for mortal brides.
In contrast to the a strictly local cult at Saftulis cave, the Korykian cave of the nymphs and Pan at Delphi was famous because of its location in a Pan- hellenic sanctuary and contained an unusual volume of cult-related deposits. Pilgrims to Delphi brought hundreds of seashells from the Korinthian gulf as gifts for the nymphs. The cave was also a center of divination with astragaloi or "knucklebones" from sheep and goats, which were cast like dice. This form of fortune-telling was associated with Hermes, whose relationship with the Korykian nymphs is mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 552- 68). 24 In the Archaic and Classical periods, the nymphs were credited with the ability to "seize" individuals and inspire them; some of these nympholepts claimed oracular powers. Others withdrew to cave shrines and devoted themselves entirely to the worship of the nymphs, tending their gardens and
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adorning their caves with sculptures. During the Classical period, nympho- lepts lived at caves in Attica (Vari) and Thessaly (Pharsalos). 25
Further reading
The discussion of Hermes in Athanassakis 1989 is most useful for students who have completed an introductory course in ancient Greek. Marinatos 2003 describes the finds from the sanctuary at Kato Symi and includes good illustrations. Osborne 1985 is the first full treatment in English of the origin of herms, the herms of Hipparchos, and the mutilation of the herms in 415. Borgeaud 1988 sensitively explores the cultural impact of Pan's cult through the themes of the Arkadian landscape, the human/animal divide, and the god's reception in Athens. Connor 1988 is the seminal article on nympholepsy, and Larson 2001 is a comprehensive study of the nymphs in myth and cult.
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DIVINE SPECIALISTS Other Panhellenic deities
All the gods discussed in this section appear in the Panhellenic poetry of Homer, Hesiod, or both. All were presumably known to Greeks of the Arch- aic and Classical periods, whether or not they were part of an individual's local pantheon. Popularity in art and poetry did not always translate into widespread worship; Hephaistos is an obvious example. Conversely, a deity such as Hestia, whose cult was indispensable to the polis, seldom found her way into art and played a role in very few myths. Most of the gods described in this chapter have well-delineated functions and spheres that simultaneously ensured their survival, but retarded the development of the complex person- alities and multiple roles characteristic of major deities like Athena, Zeus, and Artemis. Hekate, as so often, is exceptional.
Ares and Enyalios
In Homer, Ares is both an abstract noun denoting "war" and the deity, blood-stained and bellowing, who personifies the grim and horrific aspects of war (e. g. Il.
