Zeus Soter was also invoked broadly as a god who saved
individuals
in times of trouble.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
Through extraurban sanctuaries such as the Argive Heraion or Isthmia, nascent poleis were able to assert territorial claims.
More recent work in this area shows that sanctuaries developed in a variety of social and political contexts, yet confirms de Polignac's insights about the important relationships between sacred and political space, and shows that early Archaic (and later) Greek religion and politics are difficult to separate.
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Initiation
"Initiation" is used in modern scholarship to refer to two types of personal transition mediated by ritual. The first and less controversial use describes the rites by which an individual gained access to the secret knowledge and experiences offered by such cults as the Eleusinian or Samothracian Myster- ies. The second type involves rituals performed to mark the transition from childhood or adolescence to adult status, which is to be distinguished from sexual maturity. The Greeks agreed on a specialized terminology to describe the first type (mue? sis or telete? and related words), but not the second. With
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
respect to both types, initiation is conceived as a kind of death and rebirth. Many scholars have detected in ancient Greek culture parallels to the "puberty rites" and "initiation rituals" described in modern tribal cultures by social anthropologists. These rites are characterized above all by a period of physi- cal withdrawal and marginal or liminal social status.
While Greek initiation rituals for both males and females have been posited, there is much more evidence involving the transformation of boys into men; that this transition might be the focus of greater concern and ritual elaboration is not surprising, since the status of adult male was a necessary prerequisite for citizenship and its privileges in the developing Greek polis. In fact, there is a fair amount of evidence for institutionalized age-classes of young men who were required to undergo a period of marginalization and specialized training before they were considered adults (the Spartan ago? ge? and krupteia, the Kretan agela? , the Athenian ephe? beia). For many scholars, an underlying assumption about this second type of initiation is that it existed as the remnant of a prehistoric initiation rite practiced by the Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks, but this hypothesis is difficult to prove. The Spartan krupteia in particular has the look of an institution that developed relatively late in tandem with the militaristic, totalitarian state. Another oft-noted problem with some of the female "initiations" is that while the rituals appear to follow an initiatory pattern, the participants are not an entire age- class, but only a few representatives of that class (as with the Athenian arrhe? phoroi, girls who served Athena). In the end, coming of age remained a pivotal concept in Greek culture, a fundamental source of inspiration for both myths and rituals. Whether these were the relics of an early "age of initiation" or more recent productions must be the subject of further study. 20
Pollution and purity
Pollution and purity are concepts shared by most cultures, yet the sources of pollution and the means of dispelling it vary widely, as does the significance of being "polluted. " Mary Douglas suggested that the impure can be defined as whatever is "out of order" in a given context: an unburied corpse no longer fits in human society, but belongs with the other dead in the graveyard, which is itself maintained outside the city walls. Rules about pollution and purification are attempts to create order and deal with change, particularly as it relates to events beyond the reach of normal social rules, like birth and death. Among the Greeks, to incur pollution meant that one could not enter a sanctuary or participate in a festival. If the pollution resulted from such common sources as a death in the family or sexual intercourse, it wore off after a prescribed period of time (which varied by city or sanctuary). If it resulted from the killing of another person, its contagious nature made the
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
killer an outcast until he or she underwent ritual purification and was re- integrated into society.
Places as well as people could be polluted and purified. Sanctuaries had to be kept free of the taint caused by sex, birth, and death; purity regulations were common components of sacred laws. Purification could be achieved in many ways. For example, people bathed after sex and sprinkled themselves with water before entering a sanctuary or participating in a sacrifice. Before meetings of the Athenian council and assembly, a young pig was killed and carried around the perimeter of the area to be purified. Its body was then discarded outside the city, taking the pollution with it.
Normally pollution was invisible, but sometimes it was thought to mani- fest itself in the form of madness or disease. Skin conditions and epilepsy were the ailments most often attributed to pollution. In the Archaic period, wonder-working healers and purifiers such as Epimenides and Empedokles were highly respected, but their successors in the next centuries were a lesser breed, offering a regimen of baths, drugs, abstentions, and incantations to the unfortunate, and considered predatory charlatans by the educated. Although the physicians of the nascent Hippokratic school heaped scorn on these purifiers, their own methods were heavily influenced by traditional ideas about purity and pollution. 21
Olympian and chthonian
In the conceptual world of Greek polytheism, divinities took part of their character from the realm where they dwelt. The gods who lived in heaven were sometimes known as Olympian, while those whose abode was subter- ranean were considered chthonian, from chtho? n, earth. The powers under the earth, not surprisingly, included the heroes and heroines, who exerted influence from their tombs, and the dead themselves, as well as the gods and goddesses who ruled and interacted with the dead. Overlapping with this group because of their shared relationship to the earth are the agricultural deities. Demeter and Persephone afford the best example of divinities con- cerned with both souls and crops. Equally, the heroes and other chthonians, such as the Athenian Semnai Theai (Reverend Goddesses) or Eumenides (Kind Ones), have the power to affect agricultural prosperity. Chthonians tend to have dual personalities and manifestations, alternately beneficent and hostile. Their "true" names are often avoided in favor of euphemisms.
Traditional scholarship made the Olympian/chthonian opposition parallel to others, such as Indo-European/Mediterranean, Greek/prehellenic, or even patriarchal/matriarchal. None of these juxtapositions can withstand critical scrutiny, especially given that the categories of Olympian and chthonian themselves cannot be used to construct a rigid classification of supernatural beings. First of all, the traditional Olympian gods have decidedly chthonian
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
personalities in certain cults. Zeus Meilichios (the Mild) is an underworld counterpart of heavenly Zeus. Even an "Olympian" deity such as Athena Polias at Athens may have chthonian features, such as her association with the snake, a creature symbolic of the earth. Second, some deities evolved a cultic personality that blended Olympian and chthonian elements (the hero- gods Asklepios and Herakles are good examples), while others (such as the river gods and nymphs) can be comfortably assigned to neither category.
The other traditional assumption about the Olympian/chthonian distinc- tion is that it corresponds to differences in sacrificial practices and termin- ology: in an Olympian sacrifice (generally termed a thusia), for example, the victim is light in color, the ritual is conducted in daylight on a raised altar, and the participants joyfully share in the meat. In a chthonian sacrifice (denoted by enagismos and other terms), the victim is black or dark, the somber sacrifice is performed at night on a low altar or over a pit, and there is no meal: the animal is burned completely. Chthonians are also thought to prefer wineless libations of milk, honey, and water. These generalizations fail because many supernaturals with a strong chthonian character, especially the heroes, regularly received festive, participatory sacrifices. In the study of Greek cults, it may be preferable to abandon the concept of a strong opposi- tion between Olympian and chthonian deities, since the character of a given deity depends upon the context. The term "chthonian" remains useful as a marker for a set of divine characteristics and ritual acts which are more often than not found together, and which connote relations with the land, the dead, or the underworld. 22
Religious authority
It is often observed that Greek religion possessed no denominations or central organization, no dogmas, no scriptures, and no creed. The lack of these features, which in modern religious contexts provide the basis for religious authority, along with the polytheism of the Greeks, might mislead us into thinking that individuals exercised a great deal of individual choice in the matter of religion. Instead, the gods one worshiped and the manner in which one did so were for the most part predetermined by tradition and enforced by the state. Participation in the cults of one's family, tribe, village, city, and region was an important component of personal identity, while rejection of these cults was considered deviant, and exclusion from them was traumatic. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood argued that the polis (and to a lesser extent, the ethnos or tribal state) "anchored, legitimated and mediated all religious activity. "23 Depending on how "religious activity" is defined, one might argue for numerous exceptions to this dictum, but her main point is valid: the polis not only exercised more religious authority than any group or indi- vidual, it provided the structural and conceptual foundations on which the system of worship was articulated. The construction of monumental temples,
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
symbols of a city's sovereign power as well as its piety, was only the most obvious manifestation of this communal religion. Greek assemblies and councils considered themselves empowered to enact all manner of religious legislation, from rules about dress and conduct within sanctuaries to purity laws and sacrificial calendars. Recent research on religious authority in the ancient world emphasizes that the modern distinction between religious and secular spheres, including the concept of a separate "church" and "state," is anachronistic when applied to the Greeks.
Although the polis controlled the selection of many priesthoods, the oldest and most respected offices were inherited. Certain priestly families, such as the Eumolpidai and Kerykes at Eleusis or the Branchidai at Didyma, exercised special authority over their respective cults. A wide variety of religious specialists, from charismatic sectarian leaders to oracle-sellers and purifiers, operated more or less independently, claiming direct access to the divine and sometimes falling foul of local authorities. Other independent sources of religious authority were the oracles, particularly the Delphic oracle, which played an important role as arbiters of ritual questions felt to be beyond the expertise of citizen bodies. 24
Figure 1. 2 A priest examines a ram's entrails to determine the will of the gods. Attic red-figured skuphos, 490-80. National Museum, Warsaw. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource.
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
Further reading
For introductions to Greek religion organized by concept and theme, see Mikalson 2004, Price 1999, and Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1992 (the latter provides a good introduction to structuralist approaches). Bremmer 1994 is valued for its bibliographical notes. On sanctuaries see Pedley 2005. Parker 2005, Parts I and III, offers more detailed discussion of the pros and cons of structuralism in the study of Greek cults.
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2
PROGENITOR AND KING Zeus
The supreme god of every Greek pantheon, Zeus appears in Greek cults not only as a sovereign god of kings and city councils, the "father of gods and men," but in a multitude of other, humbler and less familiar guises. Zeus Pater, or "Father Zeus" is one of the few Greek gods whose name can be traced with certainty to Indo-European origins; the same name has been recognized in the Indic god Dyaus pitar and in Roman Juppiter or Diespiter. These are deities of the sky, perceived as divine fathers. Bronze Age Greeks knew the god Zeus, a feminine counterpart of Zeus called Diwa, and a month Diwos, which survived to historical times in Aitolia and Macedonia. 1 This proto-Zeus probably bore only a partial resemblance to the Zeus of the Classical period, who took over the functions of a number of prehellenic deities, and also borrowed certain characteristics of Near Eastern deities in both myth and iconography. Like Babylonian Marduk and Hittite Teshub, Zeus rises to become the supreme deity of the divine assembly. Like West Semitic Baal, he is a storm god who wields the thunderbolt.
Early Archaic Zeus was a rain-making, agricultural deity, sometimes paired with Ge or Demeter, and worshiped at altars constructed on mountain peaks. Disturbing myths of child sacrifice were elements in several of his cults. These can be explained as imported Near Eastern themes or as the mythic expression of initiation practices through which symbolic death led to rebirth in a new stage of life. Later, Zeus was drawn from his rural haunts into the city center, where he presided in a general way over the realm of politics, yet rarely became the patron deity of an individual city. Instead, he was acknowledged as the most powerful of the Olympians through the estab- lishment and growth of his Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia, Nemea, and Dodona. His cults typically reinforce traditional sources of authority and standards of behavior, whether in the family, the kinship group, or the city.
Zeus of rain
As a deity of the sky and therefore of rain, Zeus' natural home was the mountain peak where clouds are seen to gather, presaging a storm or shower. In myth, Zeus' home was of course Mt. Olympos, a high peak in northern
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Thessaly, but in cult too he was often worshiped on mountain summits. Eighth- and seventh-century Attica saw a vogue for the worship of Zeus on the local peaks of Hymettos and Parnes. Zeus Ombrios (Showery Zeus) had an altar on Hymettos where local farmers came to make offerings for rain. An excavated site at the summit of Hymettos revealed a cache of cups and jugs inscribed to Zeus, from the period when writing was first introduced to the area. This cult site, which dates back to the tenth century, is one of the earliest attested in Attica. Similar early sanctuaries of Zeus existed on Mt. Parnes and other Attic peaks, but all declined in popularity during the Classical period. 2
Zeus' association with mountains was not confined to his role as a rain god, nor must all prayers for rain be conducted on mountaintops, but the practice was fairly widespread. Another example is the cult of Zeus Hellanios or Panhellenios in Aigina, where the highest peak was known as Oros, "The Mountain. " There, the founding myth of the sanctuary told how the pious king Aiakos sacrificed to Zeus on the mountain and ended a drought that threatened all of Greece. On the island of Keos, a mountaintop sacrifice was conducted for Zeus Ikmaios (of Moisture) and for the Dog-star, Sirius, which heralds the greatest heat of summer. Likewise in Thessaly, Mt. Pelion was the site of a strange ritual performed for Zeus Akraios (of the Heights) at the time of Sirius' rising. The elite citizens of the district sacrificed sheep and donned their fleecy skins, then climbed to the cave of the centaur Cheiron and the associated shrine of Zeus. This poorly understood rite was perhaps an insti- tutionalized version of the old sacrifices for rain. 3
Zeus Laphystios and Lykaios
The Pelion sacrifice also shares certain features with other, more sinister cults and myths of Zeus. A Thessalian example concerns king Athamas, who attempted to sacrifice his son Phrixos and his daughter Helle to Zeus Laphystios (the Devourer) in order to stop a drought. Either Zeus himself or the children's mother Nephele (Cloud) arranged their escape on a flying golden ram, and this miraculous creature was the source of the famous Golden Fleece. Here again we see the juxtaposition of drought, sacrifice to Zeus, and the skin of a sheep that is thought to possess special powers or attributes. A related myth declared that Athamas himself was to be killed as a scapegoat to purify the land, but was rescued in the nick of time, just as Phrixos had been. According to Herodotus (7. 197), the descendants of Athamas in Thessaly were liable to be sacrificed to Zeus Laphystios if they set foot in the town hall, which for some reason they were constrained to do (there are problems with the text in this passage). Herodotus himself seems convinced that such sacrifices took place, but it is also possible that the ritual involved an elaborate "rescue" reflecting the mythic rescues of Phrixos and Athamas, or that a ram was substituted for the human victim. 4
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Rain-making and human sacrifice are associated with yet another of Zeus' mountain peaks, Mt. Lykaion in Arkadia. The inhabitants of this remote area in the central Peloponnese were widely considered backward and primitive, and they preserved a number of customs and rituals that seemed strange to other Greeks. Mt. Lykaion, the birthplace of Zeus and the center of religious life in the district, was an important focus of ethnic unity for Arkadians. Fifth-century coins from Arkadia display the image of Lykaian Zeus, and the annual festival of Zeus, known as the Lykaia, included athletic competitions and attracted participants from other districts. Xenophon (An. 1. 2. 10) reports that the four thousand Arkadian mercenaries who served the general Kyros c. 400 stopped their march to celebrate the Lykaian
Figure 2. 1 Votive bronze from Mt. Lykaion, Arkadia. Enthroned Zeus holds the thunderbolt (left hand) and an unidentified attribute (right hand). Sixth century. Ht 12 cm. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich
Lessing/Art Resource.
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games, even though they were far from home. On the mountain, there was a sacred enclosure of Zeus where none might enter (it was said that anyone who did cast no shadow and would die within the year). During times of prolonged drought, the priest of Zeus made a sacrifice and stirred the waters of the spring Hagno (the Pure) with an oak branch in order to bring rain. 5
But the most mysterious activity of the cult took place on the summit of the mountain. At the very top, a large mound of ashes and blackened soil contained knives, small tripods and burnt bones, while the sanctuary 20 m below included two fifth-century Doric columns topped by gilded eagles. Here, a secret nocturnal sacrifice was held during which participants ate portions of "mystery meat" from a tripod kettle reputed to contain not only entrails of animals, but also a piece taken from a human victim. According to Plato (Resp. 565d) "he who tastes of the human entrails minced up with those of other victims inevitably becomes a wolf (lukos). " Tradition said that at least one person at the sacrifice was always transformed; if during his time as a wolf he abstained from human flesh, he would become human again after ten years, but otherwise he would remain a wolf forever. What are we to make of this ancient story of lycanthropy? And could it be true that people were regularly sacrificed to Zeus Lykaios? The latter possibility is not the most likely, considering that no human remains have been found in the excavation of the site, and that human sacrifice seems to have been far more common in Greek myths and symbolic rites than in actual practice. On the other hand, the participants in the ritual may well have believed that the pot contained forbidden meat. As for the werewolves, it has been suggested that the ritual originally served as a rite of passage, through which youths entering adolescence (girls were apparently excluded) began a period of rugged training as warriors by hunting and living in the wild as "wolves. " After this probationary period, the young men would be eligible to marry and enjoy other rights of full manhood. 6
The Arkadians believed that their ancestral king Lykaon and his fifty sons once played host to the gods, who in those days dined among humans. They incurred the wrath of Zeus, however, by serving a cannibalistic feast that contained the flesh of a slaughtered boy, in some accounts the king's own grandson Arkas. Lykaon's punishment was to be turned into a wolf. Thus, the re-enactment of the meal was an annual reminder of a past epoch in which the savage ancestor of the Arkadians failed to distinguish properly between human and animal, and offended the gods with a perverted sacrifice. The descendants of Lykaon were fated to suffer his punishment, but this special burden of identity with the wolf also set them apart from other Greeks. In spite of the Arkadians' belief in the great antiquity of this custom, the oldest artifacts in the sanctuary are no earlier than the seventh century. 7
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Zeus of the city
As the sovereign and father of the gods, Zeus presided over normative civic, social, and family relationships. He endorsed the power of early chieftains and kings (in Hom. Il. 2. 100-8, for example, Agamemnon's scepter is an heirloom from the god), but in the later age of the Greek polis, Zeus was the upholder of civic authority. Zeus Polieus (of the City) was worshiped in many Greek cities, often with Athena Polias, the citadel goddess, as his partner. The Athenians preserved an ancient and curious ritual for this god, carried out on the Akropolis at his annual festival, the Dipolieia. Already considered old-fashioned by the Classical period, the Dipolieia ritually linked Zeus' Archaic role as an agricultural deity with his civic function as a guarantor of justice. According to Pausanias (1. 24. 4):
They put barley mixed with wheat on the altar of Zeus and leave no guard there. The ox that they have ready for the sacrifice goes to the altar and touches the grains. They call one of the priests the Ox-Slayer (Bouphonos); [after striking the ox] he drops the axe and flees, for this is the custom. And refusing to recognize the man who did the deed, they put the axe on trial.
The ritual has received attention for its special focus on the ox: many sacrifices included oxen, but only this one had a special priest known as the Ox-Slayer, and the alternative name of the festival was the Ox-Slaying or Bouphonia. This indicates that the festival was concerned with the value of the ox as a domesticated animal. The ritual expresses tension between the ox's value as a meat animal and the need to keep oxen alive as draft animals, vital for agriculture. Hence, the man who kills the ox commits a "crime," but also re- enacts the first sacrifice and the pleasurable sacrificial meal of meat.
The location of the altar on the Akropolis and the priest's use of a double- edged sacrificial axe (pelekus), well known from Bronze Age Aegean icon- ography, suggest that this ritual has roots in Mycenaean religion. The Swiss ethnologist Karl Meuli, followed by Burkert, would take the origins of this rite back much further, to the time before cattle were domesticated. A later but more detailed source for the Dipolieia says that after the sacrifice, the hide of the dead ox was stuffed and set up as if it were still alive. This reminded Meuli of the customs of tribal peoples who subsist by hunting; often the hunter tries to maintain the goodwill of the animal and its kind by shifting blame for the kill to others, or even to a weapon. Attempts to reconstruct the animal symbolically, so as to ensure its future abundance, are also attested. 8
Under other titles associated with civic functions, such as Boulaios (of the Council) and Agoraios (of the City Center), Zeus preserved order and over- saw the political and legal systems of the Greek polis. He is also associated with victory in battle. After a battle, soldiers honored Zeus Tropaios (of the
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Rout) by setting up an effigy in the form of a pole with armor placed on it. The first literary description of this practice occurs in Sophocles' Antigone 141-47, where the chorus describes how six of the Seven Against Thebes "left behind their bronze armor for Zeus Tropaios. " Such images were normally temporary, but Zeus Tropaios appropriately possessed a sanctuary of his own in warlike Sparta. 9
Cults of Zeus Eleutherios (of Freedom) were instituted on special occasions when Greeks believed they had experienced divine deliverance from tyranny. After the battle of Plataiai in 480, an altar was built for Zeus Eleutherios to commemorate the united defense of Greece against the invading Persians. The poet Simonides wrote an epigram (fr. 15 Page, FGE) to be inscribed on the altar, including the words: "Having driven out the Persians, they set up the altar of Zeus Eleutherios, a free (eleutheron) ornament for Hellas. " The commemorative games instituted at this time, which included a race of fully armed men around the altar, were still observed hundreds of years later. An existing altar in the Athenian agora, most likely belonging to Zeus Soter (Savior), was rebuilt c. 430 together with a stoa, which formed a new sanc- tuary of Zeus Eleutherios/Soter. The timing of the construction suggests that the power of Zeus was now being invoked against the invading Spartans. In Sicily, the cult of Zeus Eleutherios was first established when the tyrant Thrasyboulos was overthrown in 466. The city of Syracuse erected a colossal statue of Zeus and, as at Plataiai, founded games. 10
The cult of Zeus Soter was more geographically widespread, and similarly marked occasions when disaster was averted or battles won.
Zeus Soter was also invoked broadly as a god who saved individuals in times of trouble. At his temple in the Peiraieus, which was shared with Athena Soteira, sailors made offerings upon returning home from dangerous journeys, and the ephebes, or young warriors-in-training, rowed trireme races in his honor at an annual festival, the Diisoteria. Finally, Zeus Soter was an important god of the household. With other deities such as Hygieia (Health) and Agathos Daimon (the Good God), he traditionally received the third libation at symposia. The first libation was poured to Zeus and the Olympian gods, who represent the cosmos; the second to the heroes, who stand for the city; and the third to Zeus Soter, the patron of home and family. In his Suppliants and Oresteia, Aeschylus alludes several times to Zeus Soter as the deity who upholds the authority of the male head of the household, and the physical integrity of the home itself, which were felt to be interdependent. 11
Zeus of the family
Because of his position as head of the divine family of Olympian deities, Zeus was the archetype of the patriarchal father. In myth, Zeus' many amorous alliances with mortal women produced heroes, who gave rise to aristocratic lineages. Thus he was worshiped as Zeus Patroo? s (Ancestor) by Dorians,
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who traced their lineage to his son Herakles, and more generally as a god of familial bonds. At Athens, Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria presided over the enrollment of boys into the phratries, or brotherhoods, that guaranteed their status as legitimate offspring of citizens. Shrines of individual phratries sometimes had altars dedicated to the pair. 12 But most widespread of all were Zeus' many domestic cults. Zeus Herkeios (of the Courtyard) received sacrifices on behalf of the household at an open-air altar. An anecdote from Herodotus (6. 67-68) illustrates the role that Zeus played as the guarantor of the male line. When confronted by his enemies with claims that he was illegitimate, the Spartan king Demaratos sacrificed to Zeus and brought his mother a portion of the entrails. Placing them in her hand, he beseeched her in the name of Zeus Herkeios to tell him the truth about his parentage, and she complied. Zeus Herkeios is attested as early as Homer (Od. 22. 333-37), who mentions that Odysseus and his father sacrifice to the god outside their ancestral home. Zeus' importance to fathers may also explain the unusual votive offerings uncovered in the hilltop sanctuary at Messapeai near Sparta. The sanctuary of Zeus Messapeus contained weapons, armor, and athletic gear, but these were far outnumbered by crude, handmade clay statuettes of males with huge, erect phalloi. The site was frequented mostly by men, who may have sought Zeus' aid in becoming fathers. 13
Zeus Ktesios (of Possessions) was a humbler deity. In Athens, it was customary for the head of the household to wreathe a two-handled jar with wool tufts around its "ears" and "from its right shoulder to its forehead," and to empty into the jar a mixture of pure water, olive oil, and various fruits and grains, referred to as ambrosia. The finished jar stood in the storeroom as a "sign" of Zeus and acted as a charm to increase the household goods. That the ritual has many points of contact with funerary customs suggests a relationship to domestic ancestor cults. Though he had public altars in some cities, Zeus Ktesios was primarily an intimate, family god. The orator Isaeus (8. 16) tells of an Athenian who admitted only family members to the sacrifice for this god, though his practice was not necessarily universal. Like certain other manifestations of Zeus discussed below, Ktesios could be represented as a snake. 14
Chthonian Zeus
Rather surprisingly in view of his origins as a sky god, many cults of Zeus are chthonian or semi-chthonian in character. One of the most widespread was that of Zeus Meilichios (the Mild). Like many chthonian gods, Meilichios bore a euphemistic name. In truth he was by turns angry and kindly, a deity who required regular appeasement in order to keep the beneficial side of his personality to the fore. By calling him "mild" or "kindly," his worshipers expressed their hopes rather than their fears. Because they governed the fruitfulness of the earth, chthonian deities had the power to be givers of good
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things if properly propitiated. Xenophon (An. 7. 8. 3-6) describes how he once fell short of money while working as a mercenary commander in Asia Minor. A seer told him that his financial straits were due to his failure to sacrifice to Zeus Meilichios. Xenophon admitted that, although he had regularly sacrificed when living at home, he had not done so since leaving Greece. The next day, he sacrificed two pigs and burned them whole for the god, and his piety was immediately rewarded with the return of a horse he had been forced to sell.
Personal or family offerings to Zeus Meilichios were the rule in the Greek world, but in Athens there was an important public festival for this god, the Diasia. 15 In early spring, people gathered just outside the city at the banks of the river Ilissos for the rites, which involved bloodless offerings of agricultural produce and pastries shaped like animals. For the average citizen, the festival was a time to gather with family members and to enjoy a fairground atmos- phere. In Aristophanes' Clouds (864), Strepsiades recalls how he bought a toy cart for his young son on this occasion. Yet Meilichios was also an awesome and somber deity. On votive reliefs, he usually appears not in human form, but as a huge coiling snake, rearing up to meet his worshipers. (In Greek art, the snake as companion or attribute often indicates that the deity or hero in question belongs to the underworld. Such theriomorphic epiphanies, in which the gods took animal form, were unusual among the Greeks. ) Zeus Meilichios was recognized in the Pompaia (Procession), another Athenian festival that took place while the fields were being plowed and the crops sowed. At this crucial time, it was important to be sure that the land was purified and free from evil influences, such as those introduced by the shedding of a kinsman's blood. Therefore, a ram was sacrificed and its fleece, known as the Dios ko ? idion or Fleece of Zeus, was carried in proces- sion. 16 We have already seen that the fleeces of rams sacrificed to Zeus carried special powers; their purifying function was one of the most important.
As an upholder of social norms, Zeus presided over the purification rituals conducted when a homicide took place. Persons who had killed, even accident- ally, could not participate in family, religious, or political life until they were purified. They turned for help to householders in neighboring communities, or to sanctuaries, where they were protected by divine law from the vengeance of angry relatives. The role of Zeus in purifications is illustrated in one of the oldest extant sacral laws, a mid-fifth-century inscription from Selinous in Sicily dealing with procedures to be followed by a man who has killed and "wishes to be purified against the avenging spirit. " The killer is to announce his intentions, provide a meal for the hostile spirit, and sacrifice a piglet to Zeus Meilichios at his own expense. 17 From other sources we know that in such rituals, the piglet's blood was allowed to flow over the killer, since the participants believed that blood could wash away blood.
A person in need of this purification was known as a hikete ? s, "one who comes," but the angry ghost of his victim was similarly a "visitant," hikesios.
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? Figure 2. 2 Zeus Meilichios as serpent, votive relief from the Peiraieus, c. 400. Berlin, Staatliche Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
Zeus Hikesios, the god of "ones who come," protected suppliants and guests from violence, but could himself be a supernatural avenger. He and Zeus Meilichios are invoked in rock-cut inscriptions made by family or clan groups in Thera, Kos, and Kyrene. His importance to the extended family arises from the belief that the religious impurity of one member affected the entire group.
Other manifestations of Zeus as a chthonian deity were common in dom- estic and public cult. Zeus Philios (the Friendly) was similar to Meilichios but more concerned with banqueting and friendship, and his cult was of more recent origin. He is shown on a fourth-century votive relief in a pose usually reserved for heroes, reclining at a banquet and accompanied by his consort, Good Luck (Tyche Agathe). He too can be depicted as a huge snake. 18
Righteous Zeus
In Greek literature and popular belief, Zeus is a righteous god who punishes the arrogant and the wicked. His companion or daughter is Dike (Justice),
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and he is closely associated with the Moirai (Fates) in myth and cult. Many cults of Zeus had a moral dimension, and focused on enforcing behavior that was expected by society. Among the most revered of traditional beliefs was the idea that one was prohibited from harming strangers, guests, beggars, and suppliants, all of whom fell under the protection of Zeus. Instead, one ought to respect guests and strangers, and give aid to beggars and suppliants. 19 According to Plato (Leg. 729e), "being without friends or relatives, the stranger has more claim on the pity of gods and men. " Anyone who refused these obligations could expect punishment from Zeus.
Under the law instituted by Solon in the sixth century, judges at Athens had to swear an oath of office by Zeus Hikesios (of Suppliants), Katharsios (of Purification) and Exakester (of Making Amends). 20 Likewise, there was a Zeus Horkios (of Oaths). Pausanias (5. 24. 9) describes the solemn oaths taken by athletes and their fathers at Olympia beneath a statue of Zeus Horkios brandishing his thunderbolt in a threatening fashion: a boar was sacrificed and over its dismembered body the athletes promised "to do no wrong to the Olympic Games. " A bronze inscription in front of the statue told of the divine punishment in store for oath-breakers.
Kretan Zeus
As we have seen, the Arkadians considered their land the birthplace of Zeus, but there were many claimants to this distinction. In the Peloponnese alone, the Messenians, the Arkadians, and the Achaians preserved myths and cults relating to Zeus' birth, his escape from the evil designs of his father Kronos, and his upbringing. Perhaps the most venerable traditions of the young Zeus, however, were those of the Kretans, who maintained ancient traditions of a youthful god they identified as Zeus. The Bronze Age Minoan civilization, predecessors of the Greeks in Krete, worshiped a young god as part of their pantheon. Though little is known about this god, modern scholars have sug- gested that he was the partner of an older goddess, and that the relationship arose from the same pattern of myth and ritual that gave rise to the Near Eastern worship of Inanna and Dumuzi, Ishtar and Tammuz, Isis and Osiris, and Kybele and Attis. 21
Zeus Diktaios was the most important deity of eastern Krete, and a deity of this name was worshiped in Mycenaean Knossos. He appears in a number of inscribed treaty oaths between Kretan cities in the Hellenistic period, but the oath formulas themselves appear to be of Archaic date. 22 All refer to the god whose cult was localized at Mt. Dikte, where Rhea gave birth to him in a cave and he was protected by a band of youthful warriors, the Kouretes, and nourished with the milk of the goat Amaltheia. There has been much debate in both ancient and modern times about the location of Dikte: modern scholars once linked Dikte with Psychro cave near Lyktos, because Hesiod (Theog. 477-79) mentions this area in his description of Zeus' birth. But this
24
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identification was refuted when excavation of an ancient sanctuary at Palaikastro brought to light an inscribed hymn that begins "Io, greatest Youth (Kouros), welcome, son of Kronos, all-powerful Brightness, here now present, leading the gods (daimones), come for the New Year to Dikte, and rejoice in this song. " The hymn was inscribed at a late date, but its content and style show that it goes back to the Classical period or earlier. 23 It tells how, with the coming of Rhea's divine child, Justice and Peace attend the earth, and it urges the Kouros to "leap into" the herds, fields, and cities. Diktaian Zeus appears to be primarily a god of vegetative and procreative energies who is "born anew" every year.
The excavations also brought to light rich votive offerings showing that the sanctuary was most prosperous from the seventh to fifth centuries. Mt. Dikte, then, is probably the peak overlooking Palaikastro, known today as Mt. Petsophas. Significantly, the Classical site of Palaikastro overlay a Middle Minoan settlement, and on Mt. Petsophas was a Minoan peak sanc- tuary that yielded terracotta figures of a young deity. The most spectacular find, discovered within a hundred meters of the inscribed hymn, was a magnificent Minoan statuette of gold and ivory, depicting a youth in the same pose as the Petsophas figurines. The striking spatial juxtaposition of the Minoan and Greek cults of a youthful god suggests that memories of the Bronze Age persisted into Classical times. At the same time, there is a gap in archaeological continuity at the site from the Bronze Age to the early Archaic period, so the cult was presumably interrupted and re-established. In those intervening centuries, it must have undergone significant changes. 24
Another famous cult site of Zeus was the cave below the summit of Mt. Ida in central Krete, which served as a sanctuary for over a thousand years. Excavated in the nineteenth century, it contained many layers of burnt sacrificial offerings, and an unusually rich hoard of votive objects, including bronze and gold items. Some of the objects from the Idaian cave, including a famous group of bronze shields with orientalizing decorations, date to the time of Homer, the eighth or seventh centuries. 25 The cult here, as at Dikte, was concerned with the youthful Zeus and his band of protective warriors, the Kouretes, who clashed their shields to conceal the infant's cries from his hostile father. Idaian Zeus was a mysterious god into whose rites young men were initiated on the model of the Kouretes, according to a fragment of Euripides' Cretans. 26 The chorus of this play tell how the god's worshipers led a life of purity, wearing only white clothing and abstaining from all meat except the raw flesh of the bull sacrificed to Zeus. The celebrations are described as ecstatic and involved torch-lit processions over the mountain. There is a story that the philosopher Pythagoras was initiated into this cult: after strenuous preparations, he descended into the cave for twenty-seven days and viewed the "tomb of Zeus. "27 This concept of a tomb for Zeus would have seemed reasonable to Egyptians or Syrians, who were familiar with dying gods, but it was alien to other Greeks, who never questioned that
25
ZEUS
the gods were immortal. The poet Callimachus, commenting on the tomb in
his Hymn to Zeus (1. 8-9), concluded: "Kretans always lie. " Oracular Zeus
Zeus was the ultimate source of oracular wisdom, but generally did not give oracles at his own shrines, delegating this task instead to his son Apollo. There were a few exceptions to this rule, including the oracles of Zeus read from sacrificial omens at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia, and the oracle of Ammon in the Libyan desert, where the Egyptian god Amun-Ra was syncretized with Zeus as early as the sixth century. 28 But the most important oracular center of Zeus, established in the eighth century, was Dodona in northwestern Greece. Zeus' cult title here was Naios (the Flow- ing), probably from the abundant springs in the area, and he shared the sanctuary with a consort, Dione, whose name is merely a feminine form of his own. Homer (Il. 16. 233-35) mentions the Selloi, interpreters of Dodo- naian Zeus, who have unwashed feet and sleep on the ground. These early prophets apparently obeyed an ascetic rule designed to preserve and increase their contact with the earth, often viewed as a source of oracular knowledge. But in the Odyssey (14. 327-28), we hear that Odysseus went to Dodona to get Zeus' advice "from the god's high-leafed oak tree. " In some descriptions of the oracle, an oak tree sacred to Zeus speaks with a human voice. Other accounts tell of messages from doves perched in the tree's branches, or from dove-priestesses who presumably replaced the male Selloi. Evidence from the excavations, however, shows that by the Classical period, one consulted Zeus and Dione by writing a question on a ribbon-shaped lead tablet and handing it to the priestess. Most questions dealt with personal matters, such as whether to undertake a voyage or whether to marry. Often, the oracle advised people on which gods they should sacrifice to in order to ensure health, the birth of children, or prosperity. 29
Zeus at Olympia and Nemea
Two of the "big four" sanctuaries that hosted Panhellenic athletic festivals, Olympia and Nemea, were dedicated to Zeus. The younger of the two was Nemea, controlled by Kleonai in the sixth century (when the first temple was built) and later by Argos. The founding myth of the festival linked the cult of Zeus with that of a child-hero, Archemoros/Opheltes, for whom funeral games were established. The recently excavated hero shrine of Opheltes consisted of a long, mounded embankment containing some forty drinking vessels left as foundation deposits. On the broad end of the embankment, from which spectators could view the stadium, was a pentagonal wall enclosing at least two stone altars and a fire pit with the remains of sacrifices. The pottery from this shrine dates no earlier than the early sixth century,
26
ZEUS
when the Nemean games were established, though a few scraps and sherds suggest cult activity at Nemea as early as the eighth century. The Archaic temple of Zeus was destroyed by fire during the late fifth century, probably as a result of warfare to judge from the remains of weapons in the burnt layer of soil. 30
As early as the tenth century, Olympia was a meeting place where local chieftains displayed their wealth by dedicating valuable bronze sculptures and tripods to Zeus. The traditional date for the founding of the games them- selves is 776, and during the eighth century, Olympia gradually developed into the most elaborate and important cult site of Zeus. In place of local Peloponnesian chiefs, it now became the arena for rivalries between devel- oping city-states. 31 The center of the sanctuary was a walled precinct called the Altis (Sacred Grove), where stood the primitive altar of Zeus, a great conical pile of molded sacrificial ashes. Every four years, the high point of the festival was the sacrifice of one hundred or more cattle, whose thighs were burned on the altar by Olympic victors. Zeus' altar was also the seat of an oracle; at its summit a mantis (prophet) drawn from the Klytiad or Iamid families would observe and interpret the burn pattern of the offerings for those consulting the god. 32
An early structure near Zeus' altar was the Pelopion, or tomb of Pelops, an ancestral hero who gave his name to the Peloponnese; his archetypal chariot race was immortalized in the eastern pediment of Zeus' temple. This tomb consisted of a mound on which stood a polygonal enclosure wall (probably the model for the similar hero shrine of Opheltes at Nemea). At every festival the hero received a black ram, whose blood flowed into a pit in the Pelopion, as well as preliminary offerings whenever sacrifice was made to Zeus. There has been vigorous debate over the age of Pelops' cult; though Early Helladic walls were found beneath the Pelopion, they may be unrelated to the Archaic cult, and the stratigraphy is not well enough preserved to draw conclusions about continuity. On the other hand, the mound on which the Pelopion sat was itself prehistoric, and the fact that this site was chosen shows a desire on the part of the sanctuary's founders to forge links to the heroic past. 33
Over the centuries, hundreds of secondary and minor deities became attached to the sanctuary. Among the most important of these were Hera, whose temple dated to the seventh century, Kronos (on the Hill of Kronos), Rhea (in the Metroo? n), and Herakles, who was credited with founding the games. Once a month the Eleans, inhabitants of the surrounding district, made offerings at the roughly seventy lesser altars on the site. In the time of Pausanias (5. 14. 4-10), these included at least eight altars of Zeus in various aspects, including Zeus Katharsios (of Purification), Kataibates (of Descending Lightning), Chthonios (of the Underworld), and Hypsistos (the Highest).
As we have seen, Zeus' cults seldom required a temple or image, and the first temple on the site was that of Hera. None was supplied for Zeus until the
27
ZEUS
fifth century, when the Eleans defeated the Pisatans, their rivals for control of the sanctuary, and began a building program with the spoils. Completed before 457, the Doric temple was furnished with a colossal ivory and gold statue of Zeus, which became one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The god was depicted in a restful pose that departed from the standard Archaic representations of him striding forward with raised thunderbolt, and drew instead on Homer's description (Il. 1. 497-99) of a majestic Zeus enthroned on Mt. Olympos. Seated on an elaborately ornamented, gem- encrusted throne, he held Nike (Victory) in his raised right hand, and his left hand grasped a staff, on which perched an eagle. It was said that when the sculptor Pheidias completed the statue, he prayed to Zeus to make a sign if the work pleased him, and a flash of lightning immediately appeared. Few visitors to the temple failed to be moved with religious awe at the sight of the image, which measured about 13 m in height and could be viewed from a second-floor gallery. But in spite of its huge size, viewers received the impression of a calm and peaceful deity. According to Dio Chrysostom (Or. 12. 51), "whoever is deeply burdened with pain in his soul, having borne much misfortune and grief in his life and never being able to attain sweet sleep, even this man, I believe, standing before this image, would forget all the terrible and harsh things which one must suffer in human life. "
Further reading
Cook 1964 [1914-] is still valuable for its collection of primary sources, but this massive study should be used with caution because its materials and methods are outdated. Much of Burkert 1983b focuses on cults of Zeus in relation to sacrificial practices. Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky 1993 and Lalonde 2006 collect information about Zeus Meilichios and his role in purifications. Parke 1967 is still the best account in English of the oracles of Zeus. Sinn 2000 provides a popular account of Olympia by an excavator and scholar of religion who knows the site intimately.
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3
LADY OF GRAND TEMPLES Hera
Major cults of Hera were not evenly spread over the Greek world, but instead were characteristic of certain regions and peoples. The Dorians of the north- east Peloponnese (Argos, Korinth, Tiryns) and the Peloponnesians who colonized southern Italy honored her the most. A famous Ionian seat of her worship was the island of Samos. Her cult enjoyed its greatest prosperity during the Archaic period, when Argos and Samos were at the height of their power. Hera's origins are generally thought to lie in a powerful prehellenic goddess (or goddesses) whose cult was adopted by the Mycenaean Greeks. Her name has been connected with the word ho ? ra, season, indicating fertility and ripeness for marriage, and appears on Linear B tablets from Pylos (in connection with Zeus) and Thebes. The same etymology makes Hera a feminine form of hero ? s, and this background may help to elucidate the goddess' complex ties to heroes, Herakles above all, and the genesis of the Greek concept of the mythic and cultic hero. 1
Greek poetry and myth tell us of a goddess who vehemently opposes her husband's extramarital affairs and attempts to punish her rivals and their offspring. She is a scheming and vengeful deity, who plots against the Trojans when she loses the beauty contest judged by Paris, but she also has favorites such as the hero Jason, whom she aids in his quest for the Golden Fleece. She is not a tender mother, but Homer describes her sexual union with Zeus as a source of fecund power (Il.
Initiation
"Initiation" is used in modern scholarship to refer to two types of personal transition mediated by ritual. The first and less controversial use describes the rites by which an individual gained access to the secret knowledge and experiences offered by such cults as the Eleusinian or Samothracian Myster- ies. The second type involves rituals performed to mark the transition from childhood or adolescence to adult status, which is to be distinguished from sexual maturity. The Greeks agreed on a specialized terminology to describe the first type (mue? sis or telete? and related words), but not the second. With
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
respect to both types, initiation is conceived as a kind of death and rebirth. Many scholars have detected in ancient Greek culture parallels to the "puberty rites" and "initiation rituals" described in modern tribal cultures by social anthropologists. These rites are characterized above all by a period of physi- cal withdrawal and marginal or liminal social status.
While Greek initiation rituals for both males and females have been posited, there is much more evidence involving the transformation of boys into men; that this transition might be the focus of greater concern and ritual elaboration is not surprising, since the status of adult male was a necessary prerequisite for citizenship and its privileges in the developing Greek polis. In fact, there is a fair amount of evidence for institutionalized age-classes of young men who were required to undergo a period of marginalization and specialized training before they were considered adults (the Spartan ago? ge? and krupteia, the Kretan agela? , the Athenian ephe? beia). For many scholars, an underlying assumption about this second type of initiation is that it existed as the remnant of a prehistoric initiation rite practiced by the Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks, but this hypothesis is difficult to prove. The Spartan krupteia in particular has the look of an institution that developed relatively late in tandem with the militaristic, totalitarian state. Another oft-noted problem with some of the female "initiations" is that while the rituals appear to follow an initiatory pattern, the participants are not an entire age- class, but only a few representatives of that class (as with the Athenian arrhe? phoroi, girls who served Athena). In the end, coming of age remained a pivotal concept in Greek culture, a fundamental source of inspiration for both myths and rituals. Whether these were the relics of an early "age of initiation" or more recent productions must be the subject of further study. 20
Pollution and purity
Pollution and purity are concepts shared by most cultures, yet the sources of pollution and the means of dispelling it vary widely, as does the significance of being "polluted. " Mary Douglas suggested that the impure can be defined as whatever is "out of order" in a given context: an unburied corpse no longer fits in human society, but belongs with the other dead in the graveyard, which is itself maintained outside the city walls. Rules about pollution and purification are attempts to create order and deal with change, particularly as it relates to events beyond the reach of normal social rules, like birth and death. Among the Greeks, to incur pollution meant that one could not enter a sanctuary or participate in a festival. If the pollution resulted from such common sources as a death in the family or sexual intercourse, it wore off after a prescribed period of time (which varied by city or sanctuary). If it resulted from the killing of another person, its contagious nature made the
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
killer an outcast until he or she underwent ritual purification and was re- integrated into society.
Places as well as people could be polluted and purified. Sanctuaries had to be kept free of the taint caused by sex, birth, and death; purity regulations were common components of sacred laws. Purification could be achieved in many ways. For example, people bathed after sex and sprinkled themselves with water before entering a sanctuary or participating in a sacrifice. Before meetings of the Athenian council and assembly, a young pig was killed and carried around the perimeter of the area to be purified. Its body was then discarded outside the city, taking the pollution with it.
Normally pollution was invisible, but sometimes it was thought to mani- fest itself in the form of madness or disease. Skin conditions and epilepsy were the ailments most often attributed to pollution. In the Archaic period, wonder-working healers and purifiers such as Epimenides and Empedokles were highly respected, but their successors in the next centuries were a lesser breed, offering a regimen of baths, drugs, abstentions, and incantations to the unfortunate, and considered predatory charlatans by the educated. Although the physicians of the nascent Hippokratic school heaped scorn on these purifiers, their own methods were heavily influenced by traditional ideas about purity and pollution. 21
Olympian and chthonian
In the conceptual world of Greek polytheism, divinities took part of their character from the realm where they dwelt. The gods who lived in heaven were sometimes known as Olympian, while those whose abode was subter- ranean were considered chthonian, from chtho? n, earth. The powers under the earth, not surprisingly, included the heroes and heroines, who exerted influence from their tombs, and the dead themselves, as well as the gods and goddesses who ruled and interacted with the dead. Overlapping with this group because of their shared relationship to the earth are the agricultural deities. Demeter and Persephone afford the best example of divinities con- cerned with both souls and crops. Equally, the heroes and other chthonians, such as the Athenian Semnai Theai (Reverend Goddesses) or Eumenides (Kind Ones), have the power to affect agricultural prosperity. Chthonians tend to have dual personalities and manifestations, alternately beneficent and hostile. Their "true" names are often avoided in favor of euphemisms.
Traditional scholarship made the Olympian/chthonian opposition parallel to others, such as Indo-European/Mediterranean, Greek/prehellenic, or even patriarchal/matriarchal. None of these juxtapositions can withstand critical scrutiny, especially given that the categories of Olympian and chthonian themselves cannot be used to construct a rigid classification of supernatural beings. First of all, the traditional Olympian gods have decidedly chthonian
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
personalities in certain cults. Zeus Meilichios (the Mild) is an underworld counterpart of heavenly Zeus. Even an "Olympian" deity such as Athena Polias at Athens may have chthonian features, such as her association with the snake, a creature symbolic of the earth. Second, some deities evolved a cultic personality that blended Olympian and chthonian elements (the hero- gods Asklepios and Herakles are good examples), while others (such as the river gods and nymphs) can be comfortably assigned to neither category.
The other traditional assumption about the Olympian/chthonian distinc- tion is that it corresponds to differences in sacrificial practices and termin- ology: in an Olympian sacrifice (generally termed a thusia), for example, the victim is light in color, the ritual is conducted in daylight on a raised altar, and the participants joyfully share in the meat. In a chthonian sacrifice (denoted by enagismos and other terms), the victim is black or dark, the somber sacrifice is performed at night on a low altar or over a pit, and there is no meal: the animal is burned completely. Chthonians are also thought to prefer wineless libations of milk, honey, and water. These generalizations fail because many supernaturals with a strong chthonian character, especially the heroes, regularly received festive, participatory sacrifices. In the study of Greek cults, it may be preferable to abandon the concept of a strong opposi- tion between Olympian and chthonian deities, since the character of a given deity depends upon the context. The term "chthonian" remains useful as a marker for a set of divine characteristics and ritual acts which are more often than not found together, and which connote relations with the land, the dead, or the underworld. 22
Religious authority
It is often observed that Greek religion possessed no denominations or central organization, no dogmas, no scriptures, and no creed. The lack of these features, which in modern religious contexts provide the basis for religious authority, along with the polytheism of the Greeks, might mislead us into thinking that individuals exercised a great deal of individual choice in the matter of religion. Instead, the gods one worshiped and the manner in which one did so were for the most part predetermined by tradition and enforced by the state. Participation in the cults of one's family, tribe, village, city, and region was an important component of personal identity, while rejection of these cults was considered deviant, and exclusion from them was traumatic. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood argued that the polis (and to a lesser extent, the ethnos or tribal state) "anchored, legitimated and mediated all religious activity. "23 Depending on how "religious activity" is defined, one might argue for numerous exceptions to this dictum, but her main point is valid: the polis not only exercised more religious authority than any group or indi- vidual, it provided the structural and conceptual foundations on which the system of worship was articulated. The construction of monumental temples,
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
symbols of a city's sovereign power as well as its piety, was only the most obvious manifestation of this communal religion. Greek assemblies and councils considered themselves empowered to enact all manner of religious legislation, from rules about dress and conduct within sanctuaries to purity laws and sacrificial calendars. Recent research on religious authority in the ancient world emphasizes that the modern distinction between religious and secular spheres, including the concept of a separate "church" and "state," is anachronistic when applied to the Greeks.
Although the polis controlled the selection of many priesthoods, the oldest and most respected offices were inherited. Certain priestly families, such as the Eumolpidai and Kerykes at Eleusis or the Branchidai at Didyma, exercised special authority over their respective cults. A wide variety of religious specialists, from charismatic sectarian leaders to oracle-sellers and purifiers, operated more or less independently, claiming direct access to the divine and sometimes falling foul of local authorities. Other independent sources of religious authority were the oracles, particularly the Delphic oracle, which played an important role as arbiters of ritual questions felt to be beyond the expertise of citizen bodies. 24
Figure 1. 2 A priest examines a ram's entrails to determine the will of the gods. Attic red-figured skuphos, 490-80. National Museum, Warsaw. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource.
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
Further reading
For introductions to Greek religion organized by concept and theme, see Mikalson 2004, Price 1999, and Zaidman and Schmitt Pantel 1992 (the latter provides a good introduction to structuralist approaches). Bremmer 1994 is valued for its bibliographical notes. On sanctuaries see Pedley 2005. Parker 2005, Parts I and III, offers more detailed discussion of the pros and cons of structuralism in the study of Greek cults.
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2
PROGENITOR AND KING Zeus
The supreme god of every Greek pantheon, Zeus appears in Greek cults not only as a sovereign god of kings and city councils, the "father of gods and men," but in a multitude of other, humbler and less familiar guises. Zeus Pater, or "Father Zeus" is one of the few Greek gods whose name can be traced with certainty to Indo-European origins; the same name has been recognized in the Indic god Dyaus pitar and in Roman Juppiter or Diespiter. These are deities of the sky, perceived as divine fathers. Bronze Age Greeks knew the god Zeus, a feminine counterpart of Zeus called Diwa, and a month Diwos, which survived to historical times in Aitolia and Macedonia. 1 This proto-Zeus probably bore only a partial resemblance to the Zeus of the Classical period, who took over the functions of a number of prehellenic deities, and also borrowed certain characteristics of Near Eastern deities in both myth and iconography. Like Babylonian Marduk and Hittite Teshub, Zeus rises to become the supreme deity of the divine assembly. Like West Semitic Baal, he is a storm god who wields the thunderbolt.
Early Archaic Zeus was a rain-making, agricultural deity, sometimes paired with Ge or Demeter, and worshiped at altars constructed on mountain peaks. Disturbing myths of child sacrifice were elements in several of his cults. These can be explained as imported Near Eastern themes or as the mythic expression of initiation practices through which symbolic death led to rebirth in a new stage of life. Later, Zeus was drawn from his rural haunts into the city center, where he presided in a general way over the realm of politics, yet rarely became the patron deity of an individual city. Instead, he was acknowledged as the most powerful of the Olympians through the estab- lishment and growth of his Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia, Nemea, and Dodona. His cults typically reinforce traditional sources of authority and standards of behavior, whether in the family, the kinship group, or the city.
Zeus of rain
As a deity of the sky and therefore of rain, Zeus' natural home was the mountain peak where clouds are seen to gather, presaging a storm or shower. In myth, Zeus' home was of course Mt. Olympos, a high peak in northern
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Thessaly, but in cult too he was often worshiped on mountain summits. Eighth- and seventh-century Attica saw a vogue for the worship of Zeus on the local peaks of Hymettos and Parnes. Zeus Ombrios (Showery Zeus) had an altar on Hymettos where local farmers came to make offerings for rain. An excavated site at the summit of Hymettos revealed a cache of cups and jugs inscribed to Zeus, from the period when writing was first introduced to the area. This cult site, which dates back to the tenth century, is one of the earliest attested in Attica. Similar early sanctuaries of Zeus existed on Mt. Parnes and other Attic peaks, but all declined in popularity during the Classical period. 2
Zeus' association with mountains was not confined to his role as a rain god, nor must all prayers for rain be conducted on mountaintops, but the practice was fairly widespread. Another example is the cult of Zeus Hellanios or Panhellenios in Aigina, where the highest peak was known as Oros, "The Mountain. " There, the founding myth of the sanctuary told how the pious king Aiakos sacrificed to Zeus on the mountain and ended a drought that threatened all of Greece. On the island of Keos, a mountaintop sacrifice was conducted for Zeus Ikmaios (of Moisture) and for the Dog-star, Sirius, which heralds the greatest heat of summer. Likewise in Thessaly, Mt. Pelion was the site of a strange ritual performed for Zeus Akraios (of the Heights) at the time of Sirius' rising. The elite citizens of the district sacrificed sheep and donned their fleecy skins, then climbed to the cave of the centaur Cheiron and the associated shrine of Zeus. This poorly understood rite was perhaps an insti- tutionalized version of the old sacrifices for rain. 3
Zeus Laphystios and Lykaios
The Pelion sacrifice also shares certain features with other, more sinister cults and myths of Zeus. A Thessalian example concerns king Athamas, who attempted to sacrifice his son Phrixos and his daughter Helle to Zeus Laphystios (the Devourer) in order to stop a drought. Either Zeus himself or the children's mother Nephele (Cloud) arranged their escape on a flying golden ram, and this miraculous creature was the source of the famous Golden Fleece. Here again we see the juxtaposition of drought, sacrifice to Zeus, and the skin of a sheep that is thought to possess special powers or attributes. A related myth declared that Athamas himself was to be killed as a scapegoat to purify the land, but was rescued in the nick of time, just as Phrixos had been. According to Herodotus (7. 197), the descendants of Athamas in Thessaly were liable to be sacrificed to Zeus Laphystios if they set foot in the town hall, which for some reason they were constrained to do (there are problems with the text in this passage). Herodotus himself seems convinced that such sacrifices took place, but it is also possible that the ritual involved an elaborate "rescue" reflecting the mythic rescues of Phrixos and Athamas, or that a ram was substituted for the human victim. 4
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Rain-making and human sacrifice are associated with yet another of Zeus' mountain peaks, Mt. Lykaion in Arkadia. The inhabitants of this remote area in the central Peloponnese were widely considered backward and primitive, and they preserved a number of customs and rituals that seemed strange to other Greeks. Mt. Lykaion, the birthplace of Zeus and the center of religious life in the district, was an important focus of ethnic unity for Arkadians. Fifth-century coins from Arkadia display the image of Lykaian Zeus, and the annual festival of Zeus, known as the Lykaia, included athletic competitions and attracted participants from other districts. Xenophon (An. 1. 2. 10) reports that the four thousand Arkadian mercenaries who served the general Kyros c. 400 stopped their march to celebrate the Lykaian
Figure 2. 1 Votive bronze from Mt. Lykaion, Arkadia. Enthroned Zeus holds the thunderbolt (left hand) and an unidentified attribute (right hand). Sixth century. Ht 12 cm. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich
Lessing/Art Resource.
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games, even though they were far from home. On the mountain, there was a sacred enclosure of Zeus where none might enter (it was said that anyone who did cast no shadow and would die within the year). During times of prolonged drought, the priest of Zeus made a sacrifice and stirred the waters of the spring Hagno (the Pure) with an oak branch in order to bring rain. 5
But the most mysterious activity of the cult took place on the summit of the mountain. At the very top, a large mound of ashes and blackened soil contained knives, small tripods and burnt bones, while the sanctuary 20 m below included two fifth-century Doric columns topped by gilded eagles. Here, a secret nocturnal sacrifice was held during which participants ate portions of "mystery meat" from a tripod kettle reputed to contain not only entrails of animals, but also a piece taken from a human victim. According to Plato (Resp. 565d) "he who tastes of the human entrails minced up with those of other victims inevitably becomes a wolf (lukos). " Tradition said that at least one person at the sacrifice was always transformed; if during his time as a wolf he abstained from human flesh, he would become human again after ten years, but otherwise he would remain a wolf forever. What are we to make of this ancient story of lycanthropy? And could it be true that people were regularly sacrificed to Zeus Lykaios? The latter possibility is not the most likely, considering that no human remains have been found in the excavation of the site, and that human sacrifice seems to have been far more common in Greek myths and symbolic rites than in actual practice. On the other hand, the participants in the ritual may well have believed that the pot contained forbidden meat. As for the werewolves, it has been suggested that the ritual originally served as a rite of passage, through which youths entering adolescence (girls were apparently excluded) began a period of rugged training as warriors by hunting and living in the wild as "wolves. " After this probationary period, the young men would be eligible to marry and enjoy other rights of full manhood. 6
The Arkadians believed that their ancestral king Lykaon and his fifty sons once played host to the gods, who in those days dined among humans. They incurred the wrath of Zeus, however, by serving a cannibalistic feast that contained the flesh of a slaughtered boy, in some accounts the king's own grandson Arkas. Lykaon's punishment was to be turned into a wolf. Thus, the re-enactment of the meal was an annual reminder of a past epoch in which the savage ancestor of the Arkadians failed to distinguish properly between human and animal, and offended the gods with a perverted sacrifice. The descendants of Lykaon were fated to suffer his punishment, but this special burden of identity with the wolf also set them apart from other Greeks. In spite of the Arkadians' belief in the great antiquity of this custom, the oldest artifacts in the sanctuary are no earlier than the seventh century. 7
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Zeus of the city
As the sovereign and father of the gods, Zeus presided over normative civic, social, and family relationships. He endorsed the power of early chieftains and kings (in Hom. Il. 2. 100-8, for example, Agamemnon's scepter is an heirloom from the god), but in the later age of the Greek polis, Zeus was the upholder of civic authority. Zeus Polieus (of the City) was worshiped in many Greek cities, often with Athena Polias, the citadel goddess, as his partner. The Athenians preserved an ancient and curious ritual for this god, carried out on the Akropolis at his annual festival, the Dipolieia. Already considered old-fashioned by the Classical period, the Dipolieia ritually linked Zeus' Archaic role as an agricultural deity with his civic function as a guarantor of justice. According to Pausanias (1. 24. 4):
They put barley mixed with wheat on the altar of Zeus and leave no guard there. The ox that they have ready for the sacrifice goes to the altar and touches the grains. They call one of the priests the Ox-Slayer (Bouphonos); [after striking the ox] he drops the axe and flees, for this is the custom. And refusing to recognize the man who did the deed, they put the axe on trial.
The ritual has received attention for its special focus on the ox: many sacrifices included oxen, but only this one had a special priest known as the Ox-Slayer, and the alternative name of the festival was the Ox-Slaying or Bouphonia. This indicates that the festival was concerned with the value of the ox as a domesticated animal. The ritual expresses tension between the ox's value as a meat animal and the need to keep oxen alive as draft animals, vital for agriculture. Hence, the man who kills the ox commits a "crime," but also re- enacts the first sacrifice and the pleasurable sacrificial meal of meat.
The location of the altar on the Akropolis and the priest's use of a double- edged sacrificial axe (pelekus), well known from Bronze Age Aegean icon- ography, suggest that this ritual has roots in Mycenaean religion. The Swiss ethnologist Karl Meuli, followed by Burkert, would take the origins of this rite back much further, to the time before cattle were domesticated. A later but more detailed source for the Dipolieia says that after the sacrifice, the hide of the dead ox was stuffed and set up as if it were still alive. This reminded Meuli of the customs of tribal peoples who subsist by hunting; often the hunter tries to maintain the goodwill of the animal and its kind by shifting blame for the kill to others, or even to a weapon. Attempts to reconstruct the animal symbolically, so as to ensure its future abundance, are also attested. 8
Under other titles associated with civic functions, such as Boulaios (of the Council) and Agoraios (of the City Center), Zeus preserved order and over- saw the political and legal systems of the Greek polis. He is also associated with victory in battle. After a battle, soldiers honored Zeus Tropaios (of the
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Rout) by setting up an effigy in the form of a pole with armor placed on it. The first literary description of this practice occurs in Sophocles' Antigone 141-47, where the chorus describes how six of the Seven Against Thebes "left behind their bronze armor for Zeus Tropaios. " Such images were normally temporary, but Zeus Tropaios appropriately possessed a sanctuary of his own in warlike Sparta. 9
Cults of Zeus Eleutherios (of Freedom) were instituted on special occasions when Greeks believed they had experienced divine deliverance from tyranny. After the battle of Plataiai in 480, an altar was built for Zeus Eleutherios to commemorate the united defense of Greece against the invading Persians. The poet Simonides wrote an epigram (fr. 15 Page, FGE) to be inscribed on the altar, including the words: "Having driven out the Persians, they set up the altar of Zeus Eleutherios, a free (eleutheron) ornament for Hellas. " The commemorative games instituted at this time, which included a race of fully armed men around the altar, were still observed hundreds of years later. An existing altar in the Athenian agora, most likely belonging to Zeus Soter (Savior), was rebuilt c. 430 together with a stoa, which formed a new sanc- tuary of Zeus Eleutherios/Soter. The timing of the construction suggests that the power of Zeus was now being invoked against the invading Spartans. In Sicily, the cult of Zeus Eleutherios was first established when the tyrant Thrasyboulos was overthrown in 466. The city of Syracuse erected a colossal statue of Zeus and, as at Plataiai, founded games. 10
The cult of Zeus Soter was more geographically widespread, and similarly marked occasions when disaster was averted or battles won.
Zeus Soter was also invoked broadly as a god who saved individuals in times of trouble. At his temple in the Peiraieus, which was shared with Athena Soteira, sailors made offerings upon returning home from dangerous journeys, and the ephebes, or young warriors-in-training, rowed trireme races in his honor at an annual festival, the Diisoteria. Finally, Zeus Soter was an important god of the household. With other deities such as Hygieia (Health) and Agathos Daimon (the Good God), he traditionally received the third libation at symposia. The first libation was poured to Zeus and the Olympian gods, who represent the cosmos; the second to the heroes, who stand for the city; and the third to Zeus Soter, the patron of home and family. In his Suppliants and Oresteia, Aeschylus alludes several times to Zeus Soter as the deity who upholds the authority of the male head of the household, and the physical integrity of the home itself, which were felt to be interdependent. 11
Zeus of the family
Because of his position as head of the divine family of Olympian deities, Zeus was the archetype of the patriarchal father. In myth, Zeus' many amorous alliances with mortal women produced heroes, who gave rise to aristocratic lineages. Thus he was worshiped as Zeus Patroo? s (Ancestor) by Dorians,
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who traced their lineage to his son Herakles, and more generally as a god of familial bonds. At Athens, Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria presided over the enrollment of boys into the phratries, or brotherhoods, that guaranteed their status as legitimate offspring of citizens. Shrines of individual phratries sometimes had altars dedicated to the pair. 12 But most widespread of all were Zeus' many domestic cults. Zeus Herkeios (of the Courtyard) received sacrifices on behalf of the household at an open-air altar. An anecdote from Herodotus (6. 67-68) illustrates the role that Zeus played as the guarantor of the male line. When confronted by his enemies with claims that he was illegitimate, the Spartan king Demaratos sacrificed to Zeus and brought his mother a portion of the entrails. Placing them in her hand, he beseeched her in the name of Zeus Herkeios to tell him the truth about his parentage, and she complied. Zeus Herkeios is attested as early as Homer (Od. 22. 333-37), who mentions that Odysseus and his father sacrifice to the god outside their ancestral home. Zeus' importance to fathers may also explain the unusual votive offerings uncovered in the hilltop sanctuary at Messapeai near Sparta. The sanctuary of Zeus Messapeus contained weapons, armor, and athletic gear, but these were far outnumbered by crude, handmade clay statuettes of males with huge, erect phalloi. The site was frequented mostly by men, who may have sought Zeus' aid in becoming fathers. 13
Zeus Ktesios (of Possessions) was a humbler deity. In Athens, it was customary for the head of the household to wreathe a two-handled jar with wool tufts around its "ears" and "from its right shoulder to its forehead," and to empty into the jar a mixture of pure water, olive oil, and various fruits and grains, referred to as ambrosia. The finished jar stood in the storeroom as a "sign" of Zeus and acted as a charm to increase the household goods. That the ritual has many points of contact with funerary customs suggests a relationship to domestic ancestor cults. Though he had public altars in some cities, Zeus Ktesios was primarily an intimate, family god. The orator Isaeus (8. 16) tells of an Athenian who admitted only family members to the sacrifice for this god, though his practice was not necessarily universal. Like certain other manifestations of Zeus discussed below, Ktesios could be represented as a snake. 14
Chthonian Zeus
Rather surprisingly in view of his origins as a sky god, many cults of Zeus are chthonian or semi-chthonian in character. One of the most widespread was that of Zeus Meilichios (the Mild). Like many chthonian gods, Meilichios bore a euphemistic name. In truth he was by turns angry and kindly, a deity who required regular appeasement in order to keep the beneficial side of his personality to the fore. By calling him "mild" or "kindly," his worshipers expressed their hopes rather than their fears. Because they governed the fruitfulness of the earth, chthonian deities had the power to be givers of good
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things if properly propitiated. Xenophon (An. 7. 8. 3-6) describes how he once fell short of money while working as a mercenary commander in Asia Minor. A seer told him that his financial straits were due to his failure to sacrifice to Zeus Meilichios. Xenophon admitted that, although he had regularly sacrificed when living at home, he had not done so since leaving Greece. The next day, he sacrificed two pigs and burned them whole for the god, and his piety was immediately rewarded with the return of a horse he had been forced to sell.
Personal or family offerings to Zeus Meilichios were the rule in the Greek world, but in Athens there was an important public festival for this god, the Diasia. 15 In early spring, people gathered just outside the city at the banks of the river Ilissos for the rites, which involved bloodless offerings of agricultural produce and pastries shaped like animals. For the average citizen, the festival was a time to gather with family members and to enjoy a fairground atmos- phere. In Aristophanes' Clouds (864), Strepsiades recalls how he bought a toy cart for his young son on this occasion. Yet Meilichios was also an awesome and somber deity. On votive reliefs, he usually appears not in human form, but as a huge coiling snake, rearing up to meet his worshipers. (In Greek art, the snake as companion or attribute often indicates that the deity or hero in question belongs to the underworld. Such theriomorphic epiphanies, in which the gods took animal form, were unusual among the Greeks. ) Zeus Meilichios was recognized in the Pompaia (Procession), another Athenian festival that took place while the fields were being plowed and the crops sowed. At this crucial time, it was important to be sure that the land was purified and free from evil influences, such as those introduced by the shedding of a kinsman's blood. Therefore, a ram was sacrificed and its fleece, known as the Dios ko ? idion or Fleece of Zeus, was carried in proces- sion. 16 We have already seen that the fleeces of rams sacrificed to Zeus carried special powers; their purifying function was one of the most important.
As an upholder of social norms, Zeus presided over the purification rituals conducted when a homicide took place. Persons who had killed, even accident- ally, could not participate in family, religious, or political life until they were purified. They turned for help to householders in neighboring communities, or to sanctuaries, where they were protected by divine law from the vengeance of angry relatives. The role of Zeus in purifications is illustrated in one of the oldest extant sacral laws, a mid-fifth-century inscription from Selinous in Sicily dealing with procedures to be followed by a man who has killed and "wishes to be purified against the avenging spirit. " The killer is to announce his intentions, provide a meal for the hostile spirit, and sacrifice a piglet to Zeus Meilichios at his own expense. 17 From other sources we know that in such rituals, the piglet's blood was allowed to flow over the killer, since the participants believed that blood could wash away blood.
A person in need of this purification was known as a hikete ? s, "one who comes," but the angry ghost of his victim was similarly a "visitant," hikesios.
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? Figure 2. 2 Zeus Meilichios as serpent, votive relief from the Peiraieus, c. 400. Berlin, Staatliche Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
Zeus Hikesios, the god of "ones who come," protected suppliants and guests from violence, but could himself be a supernatural avenger. He and Zeus Meilichios are invoked in rock-cut inscriptions made by family or clan groups in Thera, Kos, and Kyrene. His importance to the extended family arises from the belief that the religious impurity of one member affected the entire group.
Other manifestations of Zeus as a chthonian deity were common in dom- estic and public cult. Zeus Philios (the Friendly) was similar to Meilichios but more concerned with banqueting and friendship, and his cult was of more recent origin. He is shown on a fourth-century votive relief in a pose usually reserved for heroes, reclining at a banquet and accompanied by his consort, Good Luck (Tyche Agathe). He too can be depicted as a huge snake. 18
Righteous Zeus
In Greek literature and popular belief, Zeus is a righteous god who punishes the arrogant and the wicked. His companion or daughter is Dike (Justice),
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and he is closely associated with the Moirai (Fates) in myth and cult. Many cults of Zeus had a moral dimension, and focused on enforcing behavior that was expected by society. Among the most revered of traditional beliefs was the idea that one was prohibited from harming strangers, guests, beggars, and suppliants, all of whom fell under the protection of Zeus. Instead, one ought to respect guests and strangers, and give aid to beggars and suppliants. 19 According to Plato (Leg. 729e), "being without friends or relatives, the stranger has more claim on the pity of gods and men. " Anyone who refused these obligations could expect punishment from Zeus.
Under the law instituted by Solon in the sixth century, judges at Athens had to swear an oath of office by Zeus Hikesios (of Suppliants), Katharsios (of Purification) and Exakester (of Making Amends). 20 Likewise, there was a Zeus Horkios (of Oaths). Pausanias (5. 24. 9) describes the solemn oaths taken by athletes and their fathers at Olympia beneath a statue of Zeus Horkios brandishing his thunderbolt in a threatening fashion: a boar was sacrificed and over its dismembered body the athletes promised "to do no wrong to the Olympic Games. " A bronze inscription in front of the statue told of the divine punishment in store for oath-breakers.
Kretan Zeus
As we have seen, the Arkadians considered their land the birthplace of Zeus, but there were many claimants to this distinction. In the Peloponnese alone, the Messenians, the Arkadians, and the Achaians preserved myths and cults relating to Zeus' birth, his escape from the evil designs of his father Kronos, and his upbringing. Perhaps the most venerable traditions of the young Zeus, however, were those of the Kretans, who maintained ancient traditions of a youthful god they identified as Zeus. The Bronze Age Minoan civilization, predecessors of the Greeks in Krete, worshiped a young god as part of their pantheon. Though little is known about this god, modern scholars have sug- gested that he was the partner of an older goddess, and that the relationship arose from the same pattern of myth and ritual that gave rise to the Near Eastern worship of Inanna and Dumuzi, Ishtar and Tammuz, Isis and Osiris, and Kybele and Attis. 21
Zeus Diktaios was the most important deity of eastern Krete, and a deity of this name was worshiped in Mycenaean Knossos. He appears in a number of inscribed treaty oaths between Kretan cities in the Hellenistic period, but the oath formulas themselves appear to be of Archaic date. 22 All refer to the god whose cult was localized at Mt. Dikte, where Rhea gave birth to him in a cave and he was protected by a band of youthful warriors, the Kouretes, and nourished with the milk of the goat Amaltheia. There has been much debate in both ancient and modern times about the location of Dikte: modern scholars once linked Dikte with Psychro cave near Lyktos, because Hesiod (Theog. 477-79) mentions this area in his description of Zeus' birth. But this
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identification was refuted when excavation of an ancient sanctuary at Palaikastro brought to light an inscribed hymn that begins "Io, greatest Youth (Kouros), welcome, son of Kronos, all-powerful Brightness, here now present, leading the gods (daimones), come for the New Year to Dikte, and rejoice in this song. " The hymn was inscribed at a late date, but its content and style show that it goes back to the Classical period or earlier. 23 It tells how, with the coming of Rhea's divine child, Justice and Peace attend the earth, and it urges the Kouros to "leap into" the herds, fields, and cities. Diktaian Zeus appears to be primarily a god of vegetative and procreative energies who is "born anew" every year.
The excavations also brought to light rich votive offerings showing that the sanctuary was most prosperous from the seventh to fifth centuries. Mt. Dikte, then, is probably the peak overlooking Palaikastro, known today as Mt. Petsophas. Significantly, the Classical site of Palaikastro overlay a Middle Minoan settlement, and on Mt. Petsophas was a Minoan peak sanc- tuary that yielded terracotta figures of a young deity. The most spectacular find, discovered within a hundred meters of the inscribed hymn, was a magnificent Minoan statuette of gold and ivory, depicting a youth in the same pose as the Petsophas figurines. The striking spatial juxtaposition of the Minoan and Greek cults of a youthful god suggests that memories of the Bronze Age persisted into Classical times. At the same time, there is a gap in archaeological continuity at the site from the Bronze Age to the early Archaic period, so the cult was presumably interrupted and re-established. In those intervening centuries, it must have undergone significant changes. 24
Another famous cult site of Zeus was the cave below the summit of Mt. Ida in central Krete, which served as a sanctuary for over a thousand years. Excavated in the nineteenth century, it contained many layers of burnt sacrificial offerings, and an unusually rich hoard of votive objects, including bronze and gold items. Some of the objects from the Idaian cave, including a famous group of bronze shields with orientalizing decorations, date to the time of Homer, the eighth or seventh centuries. 25 The cult here, as at Dikte, was concerned with the youthful Zeus and his band of protective warriors, the Kouretes, who clashed their shields to conceal the infant's cries from his hostile father. Idaian Zeus was a mysterious god into whose rites young men were initiated on the model of the Kouretes, according to a fragment of Euripides' Cretans. 26 The chorus of this play tell how the god's worshipers led a life of purity, wearing only white clothing and abstaining from all meat except the raw flesh of the bull sacrificed to Zeus. The celebrations are described as ecstatic and involved torch-lit processions over the mountain. There is a story that the philosopher Pythagoras was initiated into this cult: after strenuous preparations, he descended into the cave for twenty-seven days and viewed the "tomb of Zeus. "27 This concept of a tomb for Zeus would have seemed reasonable to Egyptians or Syrians, who were familiar with dying gods, but it was alien to other Greeks, who never questioned that
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the gods were immortal. The poet Callimachus, commenting on the tomb in
his Hymn to Zeus (1. 8-9), concluded: "Kretans always lie. " Oracular Zeus
Zeus was the ultimate source of oracular wisdom, but generally did not give oracles at his own shrines, delegating this task instead to his son Apollo. There were a few exceptions to this rule, including the oracles of Zeus read from sacrificial omens at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia, and the oracle of Ammon in the Libyan desert, where the Egyptian god Amun-Ra was syncretized with Zeus as early as the sixth century. 28 But the most important oracular center of Zeus, established in the eighth century, was Dodona in northwestern Greece. Zeus' cult title here was Naios (the Flow- ing), probably from the abundant springs in the area, and he shared the sanctuary with a consort, Dione, whose name is merely a feminine form of his own. Homer (Il. 16. 233-35) mentions the Selloi, interpreters of Dodo- naian Zeus, who have unwashed feet and sleep on the ground. These early prophets apparently obeyed an ascetic rule designed to preserve and increase their contact with the earth, often viewed as a source of oracular knowledge. But in the Odyssey (14. 327-28), we hear that Odysseus went to Dodona to get Zeus' advice "from the god's high-leafed oak tree. " In some descriptions of the oracle, an oak tree sacred to Zeus speaks with a human voice. Other accounts tell of messages from doves perched in the tree's branches, or from dove-priestesses who presumably replaced the male Selloi. Evidence from the excavations, however, shows that by the Classical period, one consulted Zeus and Dione by writing a question on a ribbon-shaped lead tablet and handing it to the priestess. Most questions dealt with personal matters, such as whether to undertake a voyage or whether to marry. Often, the oracle advised people on which gods they should sacrifice to in order to ensure health, the birth of children, or prosperity. 29
Zeus at Olympia and Nemea
Two of the "big four" sanctuaries that hosted Panhellenic athletic festivals, Olympia and Nemea, were dedicated to Zeus. The younger of the two was Nemea, controlled by Kleonai in the sixth century (when the first temple was built) and later by Argos. The founding myth of the festival linked the cult of Zeus with that of a child-hero, Archemoros/Opheltes, for whom funeral games were established. The recently excavated hero shrine of Opheltes consisted of a long, mounded embankment containing some forty drinking vessels left as foundation deposits. On the broad end of the embankment, from which spectators could view the stadium, was a pentagonal wall enclosing at least two stone altars and a fire pit with the remains of sacrifices. The pottery from this shrine dates no earlier than the early sixth century,
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when the Nemean games were established, though a few scraps and sherds suggest cult activity at Nemea as early as the eighth century. The Archaic temple of Zeus was destroyed by fire during the late fifth century, probably as a result of warfare to judge from the remains of weapons in the burnt layer of soil. 30
As early as the tenth century, Olympia was a meeting place where local chieftains displayed their wealth by dedicating valuable bronze sculptures and tripods to Zeus. The traditional date for the founding of the games them- selves is 776, and during the eighth century, Olympia gradually developed into the most elaborate and important cult site of Zeus. In place of local Peloponnesian chiefs, it now became the arena for rivalries between devel- oping city-states. 31 The center of the sanctuary was a walled precinct called the Altis (Sacred Grove), where stood the primitive altar of Zeus, a great conical pile of molded sacrificial ashes. Every four years, the high point of the festival was the sacrifice of one hundred or more cattle, whose thighs were burned on the altar by Olympic victors. Zeus' altar was also the seat of an oracle; at its summit a mantis (prophet) drawn from the Klytiad or Iamid families would observe and interpret the burn pattern of the offerings for those consulting the god. 32
An early structure near Zeus' altar was the Pelopion, or tomb of Pelops, an ancestral hero who gave his name to the Peloponnese; his archetypal chariot race was immortalized in the eastern pediment of Zeus' temple. This tomb consisted of a mound on which stood a polygonal enclosure wall (probably the model for the similar hero shrine of Opheltes at Nemea). At every festival the hero received a black ram, whose blood flowed into a pit in the Pelopion, as well as preliminary offerings whenever sacrifice was made to Zeus. There has been vigorous debate over the age of Pelops' cult; though Early Helladic walls were found beneath the Pelopion, they may be unrelated to the Archaic cult, and the stratigraphy is not well enough preserved to draw conclusions about continuity. On the other hand, the mound on which the Pelopion sat was itself prehistoric, and the fact that this site was chosen shows a desire on the part of the sanctuary's founders to forge links to the heroic past. 33
Over the centuries, hundreds of secondary and minor deities became attached to the sanctuary. Among the most important of these were Hera, whose temple dated to the seventh century, Kronos (on the Hill of Kronos), Rhea (in the Metroo? n), and Herakles, who was credited with founding the games. Once a month the Eleans, inhabitants of the surrounding district, made offerings at the roughly seventy lesser altars on the site. In the time of Pausanias (5. 14. 4-10), these included at least eight altars of Zeus in various aspects, including Zeus Katharsios (of Purification), Kataibates (of Descending Lightning), Chthonios (of the Underworld), and Hypsistos (the Highest).
As we have seen, Zeus' cults seldom required a temple or image, and the first temple on the site was that of Hera. None was supplied for Zeus until the
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fifth century, when the Eleans defeated the Pisatans, their rivals for control of the sanctuary, and began a building program with the spoils. Completed before 457, the Doric temple was furnished with a colossal ivory and gold statue of Zeus, which became one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The god was depicted in a restful pose that departed from the standard Archaic representations of him striding forward with raised thunderbolt, and drew instead on Homer's description (Il. 1. 497-99) of a majestic Zeus enthroned on Mt. Olympos. Seated on an elaborately ornamented, gem- encrusted throne, he held Nike (Victory) in his raised right hand, and his left hand grasped a staff, on which perched an eagle. It was said that when the sculptor Pheidias completed the statue, he prayed to Zeus to make a sign if the work pleased him, and a flash of lightning immediately appeared. Few visitors to the temple failed to be moved with religious awe at the sight of the image, which measured about 13 m in height and could be viewed from a second-floor gallery. But in spite of its huge size, viewers received the impression of a calm and peaceful deity. According to Dio Chrysostom (Or. 12. 51), "whoever is deeply burdened with pain in his soul, having borne much misfortune and grief in his life and never being able to attain sweet sleep, even this man, I believe, standing before this image, would forget all the terrible and harsh things which one must suffer in human life. "
Further reading
Cook 1964 [1914-] is still valuable for its collection of primary sources, but this massive study should be used with caution because its materials and methods are outdated. Much of Burkert 1983b focuses on cults of Zeus in relation to sacrificial practices. Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky 1993 and Lalonde 2006 collect information about Zeus Meilichios and his role in purifications. Parke 1967 is still the best account in English of the oracles of Zeus. Sinn 2000 provides a popular account of Olympia by an excavator and scholar of religion who knows the site intimately.
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LADY OF GRAND TEMPLES Hera
Major cults of Hera were not evenly spread over the Greek world, but instead were characteristic of certain regions and peoples. The Dorians of the north- east Peloponnese (Argos, Korinth, Tiryns) and the Peloponnesians who colonized southern Italy honored her the most. A famous Ionian seat of her worship was the island of Samos. Her cult enjoyed its greatest prosperity during the Archaic period, when Argos and Samos were at the height of their power. Hera's origins are generally thought to lie in a powerful prehellenic goddess (or goddesses) whose cult was adopted by the Mycenaean Greeks. Her name has been connected with the word ho ? ra, season, indicating fertility and ripeness for marriage, and appears on Linear B tablets from Pylos (in connection with Zeus) and Thebes. The same etymology makes Hera a feminine form of hero ? s, and this background may help to elucidate the goddess' complex ties to heroes, Herakles above all, and the genesis of the Greek concept of the mythic and cultic hero. 1
Greek poetry and myth tell us of a goddess who vehemently opposes her husband's extramarital affairs and attempts to punish her rivals and their offspring. She is a scheming and vengeful deity, who plots against the Trojans when she loses the beauty contest judged by Paris, but she also has favorites such as the hero Jason, whom she aids in his quest for the Golden Fleece. She is not a tender mother, but Homer describes her sexual union with Zeus as a source of fecund power (Il.
