No More Learning

Although I devote a chapter to each of the major gods, my intention is not to create the impression of a fully integrated, consistent personality for each deity. The Greek gods were per- ceived in different ways depending on the time, the place, and the individual worshiper, and it is important to let these contradictions stand. At the same time, as a result of Panhellenism, the major gods gained some degree of con- sistency in personality and function by the Archaic period.
The concept of the pantheon
Greek cults can be viewed from the perspective of cultural evolution: the details of each cult are determined not only by the specific god to whom the cult is addressed, but by a plethora of local conditions that change over time. These include the roles of other deities and heroic figures in local and external pantheons, manipulation of cults for the political and social benefit of individuals and groups, and the power of historical events (such as a battle near a sanctuary or a widely reported vision) to capture the popular imagin- ation. In spite of the ancient Greek tendency toward religious conservatism, cults can be said to develop, flower, reach maturity, and wither in a competi- tive process, for people had only limited resources to devote to worship, and their preferences demonstrably changed over the centuries. Lack of evidence makes it difficult to track short-term changes in most parts of the Greek world (with the possible exception of Athens), but any account of Greek religion should acknowledge that gods and rituals were far from static and
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
unchanging. As in biology, the proper application of the term "evolution" to this process implies no directional development from a "primitive" to an "advanced" state, nor a specific end goal.
Jean-Pierre Vernant, followed by many others, has argued that individual Greek gods have no identity outside the framework of the pantheon and that it is only by virtue of their associations with and oppositions to other gods that they achieve a personality and a functional range. 2 Yet there is no such thing as "the" pantheon at the level of individual religious experience as opposed to the artificial synthesis of Panhellenism: pantheons vary by place and time. Therefore, we should speak of a Theban pantheon in the Archaic period, or the Athenian pantheon of the fifth century. Even this formulation is too broad, for within the polis or other political unit, each individual was familiar with a pantheon determined by place of birth, family ancestry, neighborhood of residence, and ethnicity.
Using his recommended method to define Hermes in opposition to Hestia, Vernant achieved a fresh perspective on these deities and the way they con- cretize Greek habits of thought about space and movement. 3 Such structuralist approaches tend to be synchronic and to focus on the relationships to be detected in a set of facts, gathered from different centuries, about a given cult or cultic milieu. The underlying assumption is that cultic systems are predicated on the binary oppositions that are basic to human culture: life/ death, male/female, hot/cold, sterile/fertile, and so on. This method can yield valuable insights, but it may neglect the historical development and local idiosyncrasies of a given cult or deity, and it does not always acknowledge that some aspects of a cult, even quite important ones, may be due more to historical contingencies than to the inner logic of a pantheon. Order and symmetry are not always apparent in systems that have grown and evolved blindly over long periods of time, though we surely have to do with complex systems and not random accretions.
Still, it is certain that the most methodologically sound format for the study of Greek cults is the detailed account of a particular city or region (e. g. Jost 1985, Parker 2005), which permits examination of the interrelation- ships between the deities and festivals, yet also allows diachronic analysis. One drawback of the organizational format I have chosen (cults grouped by deity) is that it does not place in the foreground the interconnectedness of cults in the same sanctuary, polis pantheon, or region. Mindful of the dangers of studying any god in isolation, I have tried to address this issue by pointing out the special affinities between certain members of the pantheon, for example Poseidon's regular relations with Demeter, Apollo's with Artemis, and Zeus' with Athena. Also, each chapter on the major deities includes discussion of selected minor figures whose cults are closely associated.
Throughout the book, I stress geographic and ethnic distinctiveness. The importance of ethnicity, already noted by Farnell as a crucial variable in Greek religious practice, has recently received new emphasis as scholars
3
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
investigate the "cultures within Greek culture. " In particular, the work of Irad Malkin and Jonathan M. Hall has demonstrated how different Greek populations defined themselves against others and how the cults of various deities (Poseidon Helikonios, Apollo Karneios, etc. ) contributed to this activity. 4
Sources
Readers should be aware that the sources for Greek cults are lacunose and of widely varying date and reliability; they include the testimony of ancient poets, historians, and scholars; inscriptions; reports of excavated sanctuaries and their contents; and other bits of evidence. Scholars typically reconstruct rituals and festivals by judiciously weighing and combining information from these sources, and this practice has its pitfalls. For example, all scholars of ancient Greek religion are dependent to some degree on the testimony of the antiquary Pausanias, who lived in the second century CE and wrote a voluminous travelogue listing sights "worth seeing" in mainland Greece, with a heavy emphasis on sanctuaries. The accuracy of Pausanias' eyewitness descriptions has been repeatedly verified by archaeologists, and he is generally considered a reliable guide with respect to the places and objects he himself observed. But while Pausanias had a strong personal interest in the Archaic and Classical Greek periods, and a good eye for distinguishing their products, his reports of festivals and rituals as they were practiced and understood c. 160 CE are not necessarily accurate guides to what was done and believed centuries earlier. Therefore, the synthetic descriptions of festivals in this book must be viewed not as established facts, but as "best guesses" based on the available evidence. 5
The remainder of this chapter is a (very) brief introduction to a few more of the terms, concepts, and methodological issues that are most critical for the study of ancient Greek cults. Specialists will already be familiar with these terms and the debates surrounding them; for those new to the discipline, one of the introductions to Greek religion cited at the end of the chapter, or Walter Burkert's classic handbook Greek religion (1985) will provide further context for the cults described in this book.
Ritual
The use of the term "ritual" has been criticized as imposing an artificial distinction between thought and action. Especially in scholarly traditions of religious studies influenced by Protestantism, "ritual" may carry a negative connotation of mindless repetition. "Performance," which recognizes the scripted nature of ritual behavior, yet avoids the baggage attached to "ritual," is sometimes preferred, though I choose to retain the latter term in this book. Established scholarly understandings of religious ritual point to its role in
4
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
transmitting ideas, socializing the young, and creating group solidarity. In these ways, it functions much like a language and similarly has a vocabulary of acts that can be repeated in different combinations to convey different meanings. Burkert and other experts on ancient Greek ritual have stressed the way rituals create temporary disorder, fear, or uncertainty, only to decisively reaffirm order and convention. More recent approaches emphasize human agency in the construction of ritual/performance and view it as a fluid activity shaped by individuals, who use it to create culture. This perspective suggests that while some individuals may be passively indoctrinated by their participation in ritual, people are also agents who may create and modify rituals for their own ends. 6
There is no ancient Greek word for ritual; the closest equivalents are per- haps ta nomizomena (customary things) and ta patria (ancestral customs). The basic components of Greek ritual practice include various forms of sacri- fice, libation, and the offering of gifts to the gods; purifications; processions, dances, and competitions held in festival contexts; hymns and prayers; and divination. Of these rituals, which are common to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, animal sacrifice has attracted the most scholarly attention. Starting in the nineteenth century with Edward B. Tylor and W. Robertson Smith, animal sacrifice was explained by turns as a gift to the gods, a form of communion with them, a method of exchange between humans and gods, a conduit for human contact with the sacred, and so on. The concept of sacri- fice as a gift has been the most enduring of these, for anthropological studies of reciprocity suggest that offerings to supernatural figures can be under- stood as an extension of "secular" gift exchange and systems of food distribution. 7
Karl Meuli and Burkert sought the origins of sacrifice in the transition from Paleolithic hunting to the raising of domesticated animals, and in the fundamental anxiety produced in human beings by slaughter, while Rene? Girard saw in the ritualized killing of animals an outlet for human aggression and even the substrate of all later culture. These influential theories have lost ground in recent years. Anthropologists no longer place hunting at the center of Paleolithic life, and the emotional impact of killing an animal is difficult to detect among many modern practitioners of sacrifice. The abundant evidence for sacrifice as a joyous and festive occasion in antiquity also seems to out- weigh the hints of guilt and anxiety, though these are indisputably present. 8 A different approach is represented by Vernant and Marcel Detienne, who focus on the role of sacrifice in articulating the relationships between gods (who enjoy only the savor), humans (who carve and cook), and beasts (who consume raw food). Sacrifice also involves a formal distribution of food that reflects social and political structures: for example, meat may be divided into strictly equal portions among a group of political equals, or portions of honor may be allotted to certain individuals, while others are excluded from participation. 9
5
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
? Figure 1. 1 A sacrificial bull is led to the priest at the altar, overseen by the cult statue of a goddess. Attic red-figured pelike? , fifth century. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
The religious experience of the Greeks was organized by a lunar calendar of festivals and sacrifices unique to each place and time. Such calendars were in use as early as the Mycenaean period, for the Linear B tablets contain the names of months (including a month named after Zeus) and festivals. Festival calendars and month names correspond broadly to the ethnic background of a given city or region: Karneios and Agrianios are common Dorian months, while Anthesterion and Poseideon are found among Ionians. The month- names typically refer to gods and festivals (which allowed for arbitrary changes in order), rather than seasonal events or the rhythms of the agri- cultural year. 10
A standard feature of Greek communal worship was the pompe? or pro- cession. While the endpoint was usually the sanctuary of the deity to be honored, the starting point varied. Starting at the city gates and moving toward the citadel emphasized that a deity on the akropolis was at the heart of the city. Starting at the prutaneion (city hall) emphasized the state spon- sorship of the cult in question. Because most processions culminated in sacrifice, the participants led the victims and carried certain items to be used in the ritual. They might also escort the cult statue of the god on a given route.
6
METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
While processions often included members of different social classes and categories, they were typically organized so as to draw attention to these differences and to highlight the gulf between citizens and noncitizens. 11
Prayers were offered, above all, at the beginning of any endeavor, large or small: a season's ploughing, a meeting of citizens, the start of a journey. Greek worshipers usually prayed standing, with one or both arms raised. Prayers were spoken aloud rather than silently. Communal worship often involved the singing of hymns, and hymnic genres developed with respect to specific deities and occasions. An aspect of Greek worship far less familiar to moderns is the constant emphasis on ago? n, competition. Many festivals, especially those that gained wide popularity and drew a Panhellenic audi- ence, involved contests. The best drama, song and dance by a chorus, flute composition, display of horsemanship, or athletic performance would please the god or goddess, and the winners dedicated statues and other gifts in thanks for their victory. 12
Myth, ritual, and cult
In the early twentieth century the "Cambridge ritualists," as they are known, shocked Classicists by pointing out the similarity of certain Greek religious practices to those of so-called "primitive" tribal peoples. Insisting on the priority of ritual in the study of Greek religion, they argued (in the most extreme form of the theory) that myths were nothing more than "misunder- stood rituals. " Although much of their work is outmoded today, the work of the ritualists (James G. Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray, and others) coincided with the great surge of interest in folklore and popular culture that influenced continental scholars from Wilhelm Mannhardt to Martin P. Nilsson. Their influence endures in that "Greek religion" as a discipline now has a strong anthropological/comparative strain, and focuses on rituals and material culture as much as (if not more than) myth. Counter- ing this trend is the continuing impact of the "Chicago school" founded by Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade. Their phenomenological method empha- sizes the importance of myth, symbol, and the experience of the sacred, and sees ritual as a response to myth.
The fact that there are no broadly accepted definitions for either "myth" or "ritual" complicates the continuing discussion about their relationship. If we think of ritual as "performance," it may include a retelling of a myth or pre- suppose knowledge of it, so that the assumed distinction begins to dissolve. Many rituals were perceived as recapitulations of acts originally performed by a founder: Theseus and the youths he rescued from the Minotaur were the first to perform the crane dance on Delos. Often, a rite had to be performed as expiation for an ancient offense against a god (thus, the Attic Arkteia appeased Artemis' anger at the slaughter of her sacred bear). Still, many tradi- tional narratives about gods and heroes appear to have no corresponding
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
rituals (in the sense of acts to be performed with reference to the narrative), and vice versa. In this book, "cults" are understood to include both rituals and, where applicable, corresponding myths.
Sanctuaries
From the eighth century at the latest, most Greek gods were worshiped in a temenos (from temno ? , cut), a space set aside for sacred use. These sanctuaries were typically marked by a low wall (peribolos) or inscribed boundary stone (horos). At a minimum, they included a space set aside for sacred use, and an altar (bo? mos or eschara), the indispensable point of contact with the divine. Sanctuary altars were nearly always open to the sky rather than indoors. They varied from simple fire pits on the ground, to marble blocks the size of a piece of furniture, to elaborate stone monuments hundreds of feet long with sculpted relief decoration. The altar served as a platform on which to deposit and burn offerings: incense, cakes, blood and other liquids, or animal flesh. To the altar also came suppliants, outcasts seeking refuge within the inviolate boundaries of the sanctuary. Certain sanctuaries were renowned as places of asylum, and it was possible (though presumably not very comfortable) to live on their grounds for months at a time. 13
The structures most often found in sanctuaries are the temple and the dining room or hestiatorion. Common meals taken in the sanctuary were central to many cults; usually the participants consumed boiled or spit- roasted pieces from sacrificial animals. The number of people who could be accommodated in such a dining room (or even a series of rooms) was quite limited, which suggests an inner circle privileged to partake of the food. Dining rooms of the Classical period typically had couches positioned against the walls, and might include kitchens and drains. Earlier examples, built before the introduction of reclining banquets, are more difficult to identify; recently, a number of early Archaic structures first classified as temples have been reinterpreted as dining rooms. 14
Some Greek deities, such as Hermes, only rarely occupied a temple. Other gods like Apollo, Artemis, and Hera were temple deities from at least the eighth century, and cult statues played an important role in their worship. The Greeks had no regular word for "cult statue" but instead used a variety of terms such as agalma (delightful thing), xoanon (carved image), hedos (seated image). As substitutes for the deity, Archaic cult statues were bathed, clothed, oiled, garlanded, paraded about the city, and otherwise ritually manipulated. During the early Classical period, a new trend toward colossal cult statues emerged in tandem with the fashion for ever-larger and more elaborate temples. 15 The temple (na? os, Attic neo? s) was not a house of wor- ship, but a dwelling place for the deity and a storehouse for the god's possessions, to which access was often restricted. Many surviving inventories list the contents of temples: wooden furniture and sacrificial implements;
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METHODS, SOURCES, AND CONCEPTS
armor and war booty dedicated to the deity; statues and figurines of the resident deity and other gods; caches of coins and jewelry; and valuable textiles. 16
Over time, sanctuaries grew more and more crowded with votive gifts to the gods. Strictly speaking, a votive gift was offered to the deity in fulfillment of a vow made in a time of trouble: travelers caught in storms at sea and people who became ill promised a gift if the god provided assistance. In the broader sense, votives include all the items dedicated to a god. Visitors to large sanctuaries purchased clay, wood, or bronze votive objects from arti- sans who worked nearby. The most common gifts were ceramic vases and figurines, but almost anything could become a votive, from personal items such as rings to captured warships. Sculpted votive monuments of various types dotted most large sanctuaries, and because the property of the gods could not be discarded, excess or damaged offerings were deposited in pits inside the sanctuary. 17
Around 700, people in central Greece and the Peloponnese began to allo- cate fewer gifts to tombs and more to sanctuaries, a change that roughly coincides with the advent of monumental temples. The increased investment of resources in sanctuaries, which were emblems of the emerging poleis, implies new ideals of citizenship and state-regulated, communal worship. 18 Franc? ois de Polignac's work has given a further stimulus over the past two decades to the study of the relationship between sanctuaries and civic organ- ization. De Polignac argued that sanctuaries, particularly those located on frontiers and political boundaries, played an important role in the develop- ment of the emergent polis, and suggested a "bipolar" model of interaction between an urban nucleus with a civic sanctuary (usually of Athena or Apollo) and a major rural sanctuary. 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. 19
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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ZEUS
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.