1 Temple of
Hephaistos
in the Athenian agora.
Ancient-greek-cults-a-guide
1 Skuphos with an early depiction of Pan, from the Theban Kabirion, fifth century.
Athens, National Archaeological Museum.
Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
? 150
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
fifth century, when his cult was introduced from Arkadia to Athens and rapidly diffused to the rest of the Greek world. Many etymologies have been put forward for his name, which is also known in the compound form Aigipan (Goat-Pan). The most convincing makes it a cognate of Latin pastor, so that Pan is "one who grazes the flocks. "
In Arkadia itself, Pan's myth and cult were not standardized. There were conflicting views of his genealogy, the most common being that he was the son of Zeus and twin of the national hero Arkas, or that he was the son of Hermes and Penelope. His connection with Zeus sprang from their associ- ation on Mt. Lykaion, the sacred mountain of the Arkadians. Pan possessed a sanctuary on the south slopes of Lykaion, where in keeping with his identity as both goat and goatherd, he offered asylum to any animal being pursued by a wolf (lukos). A votive dump excavated here revealed many late Archaic and early Classical bronze figures, cut-out plaques, and terracottas with subjects reminiscent of those at Kato Symi: hunters, men carrying animals for sacrifice, and Hermes. Both youthful and mature males are depicted, and the bronzes include dead foxes, a standard courtship gift presented by adult males to their favorite youths. Inscribed pots show that the sanctuary was sacred to Pan, whose role as a god of the hunt and Master of Animals made him well suited, like Hermes, to sponsor maturation rituals. 16
The Athenians believed that Pan sent them a message on the eve of Marathon (490) via Philippides, who ran 233 km to ask for aid from the Spartans. Passing through Arkadia, he saw an apparition of the god, who asked why the Athenians did not honor him in spite of the good deeds that he had done and would yet do for them. When they learned of Pan's epiphany, the Athenians concluded that he had contributed to the victory at Marathon and instituted his worship with an annual festival including a torch race. Pan's official sanctuary was a grotto on the northwest slope of the Akropolis, but he quickly became a resident of the Attic countryside, where he was worshiped together with the nymphs and other rustic gods in numerous cave shrines. 17 Contrary to the practice in Arkadia, where Pan possessed temples and sanctuaries like those of other deities, the rest of the Greek world viewed the cave as the proper dwelling for this god of the wild places. After 490, the cults at these caves, including one near Marathon, gained a wider and more affluent clientele who dedicated pots, small metal items, and marble votive reliefs. Menander's comedy Dyscolus is set at one such shrine, the cave at Phyle in Attica. In the play, Pan rewards a pious maiden by causing a wealthy youth to fall in love with her, and punishes her neglectful father Knemon, whose sour misanthropy offends against the god's rule of laughter and good cheer. 18
Folk traditions illustrate the less benevolent side of Pan, connecting him with mysterious noises, particularly the echoes heard in mountainous terrain; with "panic," the phenomenon of sudden terror, seemingly without cause, that comes over armies in the night; and with certain types of illness involving
151
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
apparent possession by the god (seizures). Pan's theriomorphism and associ- ation with madness also brought him into connection with ecstatic forms of worship such as the cults of Dionysos and Meter/Kybele, though always as a subordinate figure. Pindar refers to the Boiotian Pan as "the dog of Meter. "19
The nature deities: rivers and nymphs
Most of the Greek gods were connected in one way or another with natural phenomena: Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild beasts. A number of minor deities, however, were truly nature gods in the sense that they personified specific features in the landscape or pheno- mena in the environment. Pre-eminent among these were the river gods and the spring nymphs, whose cults appeared everywhere the Greeks lived. Closely tied to human fertility, the care of children and love of one's home- land, these minor gods made up for their strictly local influence by their great numbers: "it is difficult for a mortal to tell the names of all, but those who dwell near them know their own" (Hes. Theog. 69-70). Babies were often given names evocative of local rivers: Asopodoros, Ismenodoros, Acheloios. In fifth-century Athens, a man named Kephisodotos (Gift of Kephisos) co- founded a shrine to the river Kephisos and other gods, including Hermes and the nymphs. The other founder, Xenokrateia, made offerings for the welfare of her son. She established an altar for a number of gods concerned with children, including the rivers Kephisos and Acheloo? s; the trio Apollo, Artemis, and Leto; Eileithyia; and the local nymphs. In the Iliad (23. 140-51), Peleus similarly directs his prayers for his son's safety to the local river: upon Achilles' safe return to his dear homeland, Peleus vows that a hundred cattle and fifty rams will be sacrificed into the waters of the Spercheios, while Achilles himself will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and offer it to the god. The offering of a lock of hair to the local river was a widespread custom; in Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (6), Orestes calls this offering to Inachos a threpte ? rion, a recompense for his upbringing. 20
Popular taboos and cult regulations protected the purity of rivers and springs against the taint of human dirt, excrement, and other wastes, and rituals such as hand-washing or sacrifice before crossing a river are attested. 21 In the Iliad (5. 77-78, 23. 140-51), the cults of river deities are well developed: Skamandros has his own priest and Spercheios has an altar and sanctuary. Animal sacrifice was performed either on an altar in a sanctuary or at the river bank itself so that the blood flowed into the water. Immersion sacrifices are also attested; Homer speaks of live horses cast into the Skamandros (Il. 21. 124-32).
In the early twentieth century, a Swedish team investigated the sanctuary of the river Pamisos, the major waterway of Messenia. Located at a group of warm and cold-water springs feeding the stream, it was founded in the
152
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
Archaic period and had a reputation as a place for healing. It included a small Doric temple with an unusual feature, a votive pit incorporated in the temple wall, which connected with one of the springs feeding the river. Into this pit were deposited gifts of all sorts, including a number of small bronzes, which can be divided into animal figures (primarily horses, bulls, and goats) and human figures (mainly naked youths of Classical date). There are signs that the god's sanctuary was used in rites of maturation: a number of small lead stars were found, originally attached with wire in wreaths. These are paral- leled at Lakonian sanctuaries and were apparently dedicated by ephebes. According to tradition, the kings of Messenia brought annual sacrifices to the river. If accurate, this would place the origins of the cult as early as the eighth or seventh century. 22
The only river god to achieve Panhellenic status in cult is Acheloo? s, god of the longest river in Greece, who shared many sanctuaries with the nymphs by the fifth century. His popularity was fostered by Zeus' oracle at Dodona, which often recommended sacrifice to Acheloo? s. A boundary stone marking a shrine of the nymphs and Acheloo? s was unearthed in Oichalia in Euboia, accompanied by a bronze of the god (c. 460), shown as a bearded, draped figure holding a cornucopia. The full anthropomorphism of this bronze seems to be characteristic of fifth-century sculpture. River gods are likewise shown in human form on pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, but in other media they are shown as theriomorphic, man-bull hybrids, the bull symbolizing both the terrifying force of a flooding river and the fertilizing potency of its waters. Acheloo? s was also worshiped in the form of a mask, (a marble example dating to about 470 was found near Marathon) and his bearded, horned face was used as an amulet in jewelry. 23
The nymphs, spirits of lakes, mountains, trees, and above all springs, were ubiquitous in the ancient Greek world, and their cult was probably an Indo- European inheritance. Much as described in Homer (Od. 13. 102-12, 349- 51; 17. 205-11), they were worshiped at simple open-air spring sanctuaries and in caves formed by the action of water. Often considered the first inhabitants of the land and cited as divine ancestors, they helped define local identity in the same way as rivers, and were similarly concerned with the welfare of the young. In myth, the nymphs often appear as companions of Olympian gods including Artemis, Dionysos, and Aphrodite, but in cult they are most often linked with pastoral deities including Apollo, Hermes, Acheloo? s, and Pan. They were worshiped as individuals or as pluralities, usually shown in Greek art as triads. Nymph sanctuaries securely dated to the Archaic period include Saftulis cave near Sikyon, where unique examples of Archaic painting on wood were discovered in 1934. Visitors in the sixth century hung painted wooden pinakes in the cave to commemorate their gifts to the nymphs. One well-preserved pinax shows a family preparing to sacrifice a sheep at a low altar; another features a triad of women, probably the nymphs. The terracottas of pregnant women found at this cave, while not
153
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
? Figure 11. 2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
standard offerings to the nymphs, are consistent with the general Greek belief that nymphs aided in childbirth, the nurture of the young, and girls' transi- tion to adulthood at the time of their weddings. Many girls brought dolls and other toys to the nymphs when they entered adulthood, and the nymphs were among the goddesses who might receive formal prenuptial offerings. The word numphe ? means "bride," so it is fitting that the nymphs were always pictured as beautiful women, divine models for mortal brides.
In contrast to the a strictly local cult at Saftulis cave, the Korykian cave of the nymphs and Pan at Delphi was famous because of its location in a Pan- hellenic sanctuary and contained an unusual volume of cult-related deposits. Pilgrims to Delphi brought hundreds of seashells from the Korinthian gulf as gifts for the nymphs. The cave was also a center of divination with astragaloi or "knucklebones" from sheep and goats, which were cast like dice. This form of fortune-telling was associated with Hermes, whose relationship with the Korykian nymphs is mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 552- 68). 24 In the Archaic and Classical periods, the nymphs were credited with the ability to "seize" individuals and inspire them; some of these nympholepts claimed oracular powers. Others withdrew to cave shrines and devoted themselves entirely to the worship of the nymphs, tending their gardens and
154
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
adorning their caves with sculptures. During the Classical period, nympho- lepts lived at caves in Attica (Vari) and Thessaly (Pharsalos). 25
Further reading
The discussion of Hermes in Athanassakis 1989 is most useful for students who have completed an introductory course in ancient Greek. Marinatos 2003 describes the finds from the sanctuary at Kato Symi and includes good illustrations. Osborne 1985 is the first full treatment in English of the origin of herms, the herms of Hipparchos, and the mutilation of the herms in 415. Borgeaud 1988 sensitively explores the cultural impact of Pan's cult through the themes of the Arkadian landscape, the human/animal divide, and the god's reception in Athens. Connor 1988 is the seminal article on nympholepsy, and Larson 2001 is a comprehensive study of the nymphs in myth and cult.
155
12
DIVINE SPECIALISTS Other Panhellenic deities
All the gods discussed in this section appear in the Panhellenic poetry of Homer, Hesiod, or both. All were presumably known to Greeks of the Arch- aic and Classical periods, whether or not they were part of an individual's local pantheon. Popularity in art and poetry did not always translate into widespread worship; Hephaistos is an obvious example. Conversely, a deity such as Hestia, whose cult was indispensable to the polis, seldom found her way into art and played a role in very few myths. Most of the gods described in this chapter have well-delineated functions and spheres that simultaneously ensured their survival, but retarded the development of the complex person- alities and multiple roles characteristic of major deities like Athena, Zeus, and Artemis. Hekate, as so often, is exceptional.
Ares and Enyalios
In Homer, Ares is both an abstract noun denoting "war" and the deity, blood-stained and bellowing, who personifies the grim and horrific aspects of war (e. g. Il. 2. 381, 5. 859-63). Not surprisingly, Ares enjoyed only a limited worship, concentrated in the Peloponnese and central Greece. Yet he was father to numerous ancestral heroes, and played an important role in the legendary origins of Thebes. As god of war, Ares was early paired in myth and cult with Aphrodite, goddess of sexual desire, and their relations were a favorite subject of artists and poets from Homer on. Their daughter was Harmonia, bride of Thebes' founder Kadmos, and Ares was the patron (or father) of the great serpent that guarded the spring on the site where Thebes was founded. The pair had a double temple in Argive territory, with ancient statues said to be gifts of Polyneikes before his march on Thebes. 1 Cults of Ares were often connected to battle lore, and as the ancestor of the Amazons, Ares was associated with stories of women warriors. In Argos and Tegea, legends told how the women of the city took up arms to battle invading Spartans, and having achieved victory, established cults of Ares from which men were excluded. The Tegeans, who often served as mercenaries, also worshiped Ares Aphneios (of Abundance), in hopes that he would increase the spoils of war. 2
156
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Both Ares and Enyalios appear in lists of deities on Linear B tablets from Knossos, and in later centuries the two were syncretized. Enyalios, a war deity, and his female counterpart Enyo also survived as independent cult figures in many parts of the Greek world. Again, the strongest evidence comes from the Peloponnese, particularly Arkadia and Lakonia. The Arkadian city of Mantineia possessed a sanctuary of Enyalios, which ultimately gave its name to one of the civic tribes designated during the political unification of Mantineia in the fifth century. The Spartans had a thriving cult of Enyalios, whose statue was kept in chains, probably to hold its dire influence in check. The same deity presided over a ritual fight between adolescent boys, who made a preliminary sacrifice of puppies. Finally, an Argive bronze plaque inscribed to Enyalios shows a rider on one side and a spearman on the other; it belongs to the seventh century. 3
Because of their shared functions as deities of war, Ares and Athena (often with the title Areia) could be worshiped together. A decree from the Attic deme of Acharnai (SEG 21 [1965] 519) shows that the demesmen, having consulted the oracle of Delphi, constructed new altars for the local sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia. The sculpted scene on the inscription depicts Athena crowning a youthful Ares in hoplite armor. Several clues suggest that the worship of Ares and Enyalios was an ancient, if minor, institution among the Athenians. Solon is said to have founded a sanctuary of Enyalios, and the Athenian polemarchos, a magistrate who was responsible, among other things, for the funerals of the Athenian war dead, offered sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera and Enyalios. The Athenian ephebes swore an oath to protect their homeland with Enyalios, Enyo, Ares, Athena Areia, and other ancestral deities as witnesses. Though the oath is first explicitly attested in the fourth century, it probably dates back to the fifth or earlier; the preservation of the distinction between Enyalios and Ares is an archaic feature. 4
Ge and Helios
Hesiod (Theog. 117) describes Earth as "the ever-sure foundation of all," a divine progenitor who also plays an instrumental role in bringing about the lasting rule of Zeus. At first portrayed as the enemy of the status quo, she eventually comes to support the hegemony of the Olympians. In the mythic imagination, Earth's primordial status and uncontrolled powers were necessarily superseded by a male-dominated regime representing order and stability. The same idea is expressed in the myth of Gaia's prominence at Delphi as the "first prophet" of the oracle, which was taken over by Apollo (e. g. Aesch. Eum. 1-2). 5
While the Earth is often named Gaia in poetry, in cult she is usually given the more prosaic name of Ge. Her cults were widespread yet rarely promi- nent at the civic level. She is frequently paired with Zeus, a combination that reflects the age-old partnership of sky god and earth goddess. Sacrificial
157
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
calendars from the Attic towns of Erchia and the Marathonian Tetrapolis, inscribed in the fourth century, provide us a glimpse of the rural contexts in which Ge was typically worshiped, presumably in connection with agri- culture. The Erchian calendar specifies that on a certain day the nymphs, Acheloo? s, Alochos (a birth goddess), and Hermes will each receive a sheep, while Ge will receive a pregnant sheep. In the Tetrapolis calendar, Ge is given a pregnant cow "in the fields" and a black ram "at the oracle (manteion). " The offering of a pregnant animal has obvious symbolism, while a black animal is standard for deities who are associated with the underworld. 6
Ge was depicted anthropomorphically, but never fit comfortably into the cadre of Olympians or exhibited as distinct a personality as they did. Her dual ontological status as "Earth" and "Earth goddess" hindered such development. Reflecting this uncertainty, vase painters show her as a woman whose head and torso are rising from the ground. 7 In her cosmic aspect as one of the three great domains (heaven, earth, and underworld), she appears in oaths. In the Iliad (3. 103-4, 276-80) she is invoked with Zeus, Helios, the rivers, and the underworld deities to witness the oath attending the single combat of Paris and Menelaos. Two lambs, a white male and a black female, are sacrificed for the Sun and Earth. The group of Zeus, Ge, and Helios as witnesses to oaths and other official business is also widely attested in Greek inscriptions.
Although Helios, whose name is clearly of Indo-European origin, was an oath deity, occasionally cited as an ancestor (particularly in myths connected with Korinth) and recognized everywhere as divine, worship of the Sun was limited among the Classical Greeks, who tended to associate purely astral cults with the barbarians. Helios began to be syncretized with Apollo as early as the fifth century in philosophical speculation, but widespread identifi- cation of Apollo with the Sun god was a later phenomenon. 8 Just as Ge at Delphi was considered a primordial deity who yielded to Apollo, Helios was the original possessor of the Akrokorinthos, the citadel of Korinth, but gave the land to Aphrodite. The scattering of minor cults in the Peloponnese (Sikyon, Argos, Hermione, Epidauros, Mt. Taleton in Lakonia) and the holy flocks of Helios at Tainaron mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 410-13) suggest that this worship was deeply rooted in Greece. Thus it may be that Helios' cult was carried to Rhodes by Dorian settlers in the seventh century, although Farnell holds that the Sun worship there was prehellenic in origin. Against these theories of early Rhodian cult stands the lack of evidence for worship of Helios on the island before the late fifth century. In spite of this gap, Helios clearly held a privileged place in the pantheon during the Archaic period. Pindar's seventh Olympian ode (54-75) conveys the unique relationship between the Rhodians and their patron god, who chose the island as his portion and fathered the seven Heliadai to whom the Rhodian elite traced their ancestry. 9 With the founding of Rhodes city in 408, the annual festival of the Heliaia drew athletes and musicians from
158
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
around the Greek world, and the cult gained even more fame when the bronze statue of Helios known as the Colossus of Rhodes, some 33 m in height, was erected in 282.
Hephaistos
Hephaistos was a beloved member of the Olympian pantheon by the eighth century, but his popularity was expressed primarily though poetry and the visual arts, not cult. He is unique among the Olympians in his physical imper- fection, which to the Greek mind made him by turns comic and pathetic. A favorite of Homer, who describes both his awesome skills as a craftsman and his role as a peacemaker among the gods, Hephaistos' origins lie in the Bronze Age sacralization of metalworking. His name is certainly not Greek, and most likely his worship was brought to mainland Greece from Anatolia via Lemnos, an ancient seat of his cult where the capital city was called Hephaistia. The pre-Greek Lemnians, known to Homer as Sinties, were credited with the invention of fire and the technique of forging weapons. Hephaistos is similar to craft-related daimones like the Telchines of Rhodes, the Idaian Daktyloi, and the Kyklopes who forged Zeus' thunderbolts, though his individual personality is more fully developed. In certain myths he is a craftsman-magician, creator of fabulous animated statues with talis- manic and apotropaic powers. Corresponding rituals intended to imbue real statues with such powers are unattested for our period in Greece, but were well known in Assyria, Anatolia, and Egypt. 10
Yet Hephaistos is also an elemental deity whose name functions (e. g. Hom. Il. 2. 426) as a synonym for fire. He is perhaps the god of the famous yearly fire festival at Lemnos, which involved the extinguishing of all fire on the island for nine days, until a ship brought new fire from which all the domestic hearths and forges could be kindled anew and purified. In the time of Philostratus of Lemnos (c. 215 CE), our source for this festival, the fire was brought from Delos, but if the festival existed in the Classical period, the new fire may have been the gift of the island's patron deity. In Sophocles' Philoctetes (986), the title character stranded on Lemnos cries out to "Lem- nian earth and the all-powerful flame wrought by Hephaistos. "11
The major locus of Hephaistos' cult outside Lemnos was Athens, where the god was integrated very early into the local pantheon and had a special affinity with Athena. The two were honored in the Chalkeia (Bronzework) festival as patrons of craft workers. As a fire deity, Hephaistos was particu- larly important to those who worked with forges and kilns. People set up clay statues and plaques of the god beside hearths and kilns as an "overseer" of the fire. Local legend also held that the birth of the primordial king Erech- theus from the Earth came about as a result of a comically unsuccessful rape attempt by Hephaistos, who had conceived a passion for Athena. Hephaistos therefore was ancestral to the people and had an altar in the Erechtheion.
159
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
? Figure12.
1 Temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian agora. Erich Lessing: Art Resource.
During the Apatouria, the festival at which a man's sons were presented for enrollment as citizens, certain Athenians dressed in magnificent clothing and lit torches "from the hearth" while singing hymns for Hephaistos. 12 A fragmentary decree of 421/20 (IG I3 82) shows that the Hephaisteia was reorganized in that year as a large-scale celebration including a torch race, sponsored by the tribes, and an interesting contest of "ox-lifting" to be per- formed by two hundred chosen youths, with the oxen subsequently sacrificed to the god. 13 In the same year, Alkamenes began work on the cult statues for the new temple of Hephaistos, which overlooked the busy commercial center of the city and, uniquely, was destined to survive into modern times almost fully preserved. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the bronze cult statues, one of Athena and one of Hephaistos, though later copies give us clues to their appearance. Ancient visitors praised this statue of the god because it minimized his deformity. 14
Hestia
The perpetual virginity of Hestia, whose name simply means "hearth," reflects the Greek belief that fire and the fireplace must be kept pure and inviolate. The hearth was the center of domestic cult; it symbolized the integrity of the individual household, and by extension, the chastity of the
160
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
resident women. Hesiod (Op. 733-34) advises men not to expose their genitals before the hearth after sex, and hearth fires polluted by proximity to corpses or violated by enemies needed to be extinguished and lit anew from a pure source. In spite of her great antiquity and her status as an Olympian god, Hestia remained one of the least anthropomorphic of Greek deities, without a fully developed mythology. The newborn child was carried around the hearth and laid upon the ground to indicate its acceptance into the family, while the outcast suppliant crouched at an alien hearth to indicate his homeless state. Hestia as a divine personality appears to have no role in these rituals, yet the hearth, hestia, is no less revered. Homer does not mention a personal goddess Hestia, but in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5. 30-32), she "sit[s] in the center of the house, taking a rich portion" of daily offerings and is honored in all temples. Hestia's priority is the distinguishing feature of her cult. According to a widely observed ritual protocol, Hestia was men- tioned first of the gods when oaths were sworn, and received an offering first when sacrifices were performed. This was the custom followed at Olympia, where Hestia was honored before Olympian Zeus himself. 15
During the Bronze and early Iron Ages, the sacral power of the domestic hearth was extended to the king's or chieftain's hearth as the symbol of civic continuity and integrity. With the development of the polis, this function was transferred to a communal civic hearth, usually located in the city hall or prutaneion. With a few exceptions, state cults of Hestia were conducted in these halls, which often functioned as dining rooms, rather than in separate sanctuaries. The civic hearth was in many ways analogous to the home hearth, for it was here that important guests were brought to receive the city's hospitality. Inscriptions from around the Greek world show that civic officials honored Hestia when they began their service. One such man was Aristagoras, who served on the governing council of the island Tenedos in the fifth century. Pindar's eleventh Nemean ode (11. 1-7), commissioned for his installation, asks Hestia to welcome Aristagoras to the prutaneion, where "they often worship you first among the gods with libations, and often with savory smoke. " Finally, when a city was founded, the colonists brought cinders from the prutaneion in their hometown to light the fires on their new hearths and altars. 16
Hestia's special relationship with Hermes is recognized in the Homeric Hymn to Hestia (29. 7-12), where the two are invoked as dear friends who dwell in and protect the house together. Both are the objects of domestic cult and both are concerned, more than the other gods, with the doings of epichthonioi, those "who live on the surface of the earth. " Also present in this pairing is an implicit recognition of the way the two deities govern gendered space and movement in relation to the home. Hestia, the most immobile of goddesses, marks and anchors the center of the home, just as the women of the house ideally remain indoors and aloof from contact with strangers. Conversely, Hermes guards the door and governs movement in
161
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
and out, just as the masculine role is to work under the sun and deal with strangers. Iconographic convention also linked these two gods. They appeared as a pair, for example, on the altar of Amphiaraos at Oropos and on the statue base of Pheidias' Olympian Zeus. 17
Charites
The Charites (Graces) are familiar in Greek poetry as companions of the Olympian gods. They are beauty experts who bathe, anoint, and dress Aphrodite in her shrine on Paphos, and they ensure the success of every entertainment on Olympos, enthroned beside Apollo or dancing around him while he plays the lyre. Greek charis denotes, among other things, joy in the giving and receiving of gifts, divine favor that results in athletic or military glory, and anything that is beautiful to the senses, as well as the response it engenders. 18 "All things sweet and pleasant for mortals" come about through the Charites according to Pindar (Ol. 14. 4-6, 13-15), whose ode for a victor from Boiotian Orchomenos celebrates the "much-sung queens of the city," naming them Aglaia (Shining), Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thaleia (Blooming). Rather unexpectedly, these paragons of pleasure and beauty were worshiped in Orchomenos as a triad of stones. The city was a Mycenaean stronghold, occupied in the prehistoric period by a Greek tribe known as the Minyai and long remembered for its fabled riches. Later accounts firmly link the worship of the Charites to these early inhabitants, while the founder of the cult was said to be a primordial king, Eteokles. The stones representing the goddesses fell from heaven, and Eteokles was the first to sacrifice to them. 19 The Greeks occasionally used unworked stones as cult objects, a practice that was common in the Near East and is paralleled in the Boiotian cults of Eros at Thespiai and Herakles at Hyettos.
Strabo (9. 2. 40) links the riches of Orchomenos with the cult of the Charites and the strong reciprocal element in the Greek concept of charis: the wealth of the city allowed it to give and receive abundantly. Usually the Charites are considered goddesses of water and vegetation, essentially nymphs in origin, and indeed they were closely associated with both the local river Kephisos and a spring Akidalia (or Argaphia). Orchomenos owed its prosperity to the fertility of the marshy Kopaic plain, and the grateful citizens allotted the Charites a share of its produce. 20 Yet the habit of personifying abstracts was an old one, and the concept of charis, so fundamental to Greek culture, surely shaped the worship from its earliest days. Certainly it was instrumental in the spread of the cult. According to Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1133a), shrines of the Charites were set up to serve as reminders of the special quality of charis: one ought not only to repay favors, but also initiate them. The Classical sanctuary of the Charites at Orchomenos, including their temple, has been identified but not fully excavated. Little else is known about their Archaic and Classical cult, though the dramatic and musical contests of the Hellen-
162
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
istic Charitesia may have begun in the late Classical period when the theater was built. 21
The Charites were worshiped at an early date on Paros, where legend had it that Minos was sacrificing to them when he received word of his son's death in Athens. Because he ripped the garland from his head and stopped the music, ritual law decreed that the sacrifices ever after be conducted with neither garland nor flute. This story has been taken as evidence of the antiquity of the cult (because the islanders associated it with the reign of Minos) and its chthonian orientation (because it was associated with mourn- ing and the ritual was austere). A relief sculpture of the three goddesses from Paros, now in Munich, confirms the Archaic date of the cult and features heavily draped Charites, for the familiar iconography of three entwined nudes is a late development. Callimachus (fr. 7. 11-12 Pf. ), pictures these Parian goddesses garbed in resplendent gowns with unguents dripping from their hair. Colonists carried the cult to Thasos, where Apollo with the nymphs and Hermes with the Charites, sculpted in the fifth century, adorned the entrance to the old city. 22
In Athens, the Charites were worshiped, again with Hermes, on a much- copied relief at the entrance to the Akropolis. Popular belief held that the sculptor was the philosopher Sokrates, whose father was a stonecutter, though scholars are skeptical. While the Akropolis sculpture was produced in the Classical period and showed a canonical triad of Charites, Pausanias remarks (9. 35. 1-7) that in the oldest Athenian cult the Charites were two, Auxo (Increase) and Hegemone (Leader). He mentions a third goddess, Thallo (Blossoming), whom he says is properly one of the Horai (Seasons), another divine plurality often associated with the Charites. Auxo, Hegemone, and Thallo were among the witnesses to the oath of the ephebes, and they represented agricultural abundance, the powers that invigorated the land and ripened the crops. The fact that a secret telete ? (initiation) was conducted at the Akropolis shrine is consistent with this function. 23
Eileithyia
While a Panhellenic tradition made Eileithyia one of the younger goddesses, child of Hera and Zeus, she is one of the few Greek deities who demonstrably existed in the Bronze Age. A Linear B tablet from Knossos mentions a jar of honey sent to Eleuthia at Amnisos, and others record offerings of wool. A large cave faces the sea at the harbor of Amnisos, probably the same one the Odyssey (19. 188) calls "the cave of Eileithyia. " It contained Neolithic, Bronze Age, Archaic, and Roman pottery clustered around a stalagmite used as a focus of worship, but no other identifiable votive objects. Near the cave, however, is a sanctuary constructed over an old Minoan site, which yielded votive objects from the eighth and seventh centuries: bronze bovines and men, Orientalizing nude females, and Egyptian figurines including the fertility
163
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
god Bes. Perhaps both sites were sacred to the goddess of birth pangs. The use of cave sanctuaries was, of course, a well-established feature of Minoan religion. Another Kretan cave at Inatos is assigned to the goddess because of its votives: from the late Minoan through the early Archaic period, people left figurines of pregnant and nursing women, erotic groups, jewelry, and other items. As at Amnisos, Bes figurines imported from Egypt were present; these may have been used as amulets during childbirth. The idea that Eileithyia should be worshiped in a cave seems to have been exported to Paros, where a cave sanctuary functioned from late Geometric through Roman times. 24
Eileithyia's name is not Greek in origin and probably derives from the little-understood Minoan language. Its early diffusion and initial unfamiliarity to Greek ears led to a plethora of dialect forms; the Peloponnesian Eleuthia or Eleusia is closest to the Mycenaean spelling. During the Archaic period, Eileithyia's cult was most prolific in Krete, the Peloponnese (particularly Lakonia, which had close relations with Krete), and the Cyclades. From an early date, she was associated with the Apolline triad. On Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, she was especially honored. Olen of Lykia, a legendary hymnist and prophet, was credited with the suite of ancient hymns, including one to Eileithyia, that celebrated Delian sacred history. None survive, but we know that they told how the goddess came to the island from the land of the Hyperboreans in preparation for Leto's travail. In her hymn, Eileithyia was lauded as the "good spinner" (eulinon), "older than Kronos," and "mother of Eros. " The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 95-116) gives her a less exalted but still indispensable role, and recounts Hera's spiteful scheme to delay her visit to Delos. Summoned at last by Iris, Eileithyia's arrival allowed Apollo to spring forth from the womb. She possessed a temple on Delos, perhaps within the boundaries of Apollo's sanctuary. Hellenistic inscriptions give us information about repairs to the temple, sacrifices and banquets during the Eileithyiaia in the month of Posideion, and an inventory of offerings to the goddess (vases, jewelry, votive plaques of gold and silver), which were given exclusively by women. 25
In Sparta we find the oldest record of Eileithyia's cult on the Greek mainland. Pausanias' description (3. 17. 1) of a sanctuary of Eileithyia near that of Artemis Ortheia was confirmed by the discovery of part of a bronze dress pin and a bronze die, both inscribed with the birth-goddess' name and both from the seventh or sixth century. Other scattered artifacts of Archaic and Classical date, together with Pausanias' description of seven sanctuaries and three temples, complete the picture of a cult well established in all areas of the Peloponnese. At Olympia, Eileithyia seems to be cast as a divine kourotrophos or nurturer of the young. There she was worshiped near the hill of Kronos in an Archaic temple shared with the mysterious infant daimo ? n Sosipolis (City-Savior). According to local legend, a woman guided by a dream brought the suckling child to the Elean army when the city was under attack by Arkadians. Placed at the head of the army, the child turned into a
164
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
serpent as the enemy charged, throwing them into confusion. Eileithyia's kourotrophic function is a natural outgrowth of her concern for pregnant and parturient women, and many of her sanctuaries featured thank offerings made for the survival of children. 26
Whereas in Boiotia and Thessaly the functions and name of this ancient goddess were absorbed by Artemis, worship of an independent Eileithyia continued in Attica, which followed the Delian/Kretan cult traditions. Describing the shrine of Eileithyia near the Athenian Olympieion, Pausanias' informants (1. 18. 5) said that "the women" attributed two of the three ancient wooden statues to Krete and one to Delos. The fact that women were the authorities in this matter is consistent with the sacerdotal arrangements at the sanctuaries of Hermione and Olympia: only women served Eileithyia and access to her inner sanctum, with its sacred images, was sometimes restricted. 27 The orator Isaeus (5. 39) provides an interesting footnote on the significance of this cult for women. In a speech against Dikaiogenes, the narrator tells how the malefactor's mother seated herself as a suppliant in the shrine of Eileithyia and publicly reproached her son for crimes "too shameful to repeat. " Presumably the goddess could be relied upon to punish an ungrateful child.
Hekate
According to the current scholarly consensus, Hekate originated as a goddess in the pantheon of Karia on the west coast of Asia Minor. In Lagina, the home of her largest known sanctuary, she was the preeminent deity, ensuring the security and prosperity of the inhabitants and maintaining close relations with the Karian equivalent of Zeus. So far, none of the archaeological evidence for her cult at Lagina predates the Hellenistic period. Yet a number of Karian personal names contain the Hekat- root, suggesting that it is not Greek in origin, and that her worship was native to this area. In the Archaic period, her cult was apparently adopted by the Karians' Greek neighbors, and was particularly prominent at Miletos, where she had an altar before the prutaneion as early as the sixth century and a shrine at the city gates by the fifth. A single terracotta figure inscribed with her name reveals her presence in Athens by the late sixth century. 28
Her absence from Homer and the paucity of myths about her suggest a rela- tively late entry into the Panhellenic pantheon, and while her role in Hesiod's Theogony (411-52) is substantial, it is also anomalous. For Hesiod, Hekate is a mighty goddess who has a surprisingly wide range of special prerogatives from Zeus: she assists kings and speakers in the assembly, gives victory in battle and athletics, helps mariners, fishermen, and herdsmen, and acts as a kourotrophos. 29 While this portrait of the goddess conflicts with most of what we know about her Classical Greek cults, it closely resembles the Karian conception of her, right down to the special relationship with Zeus.
165
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
One of our few other Archaic sources is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, in which Hekate, together with the sun god Helios, witnesses the rape of Persephone (implicit in these lines is the later concept of Hekate as a moon goddess). At the end of the poem, Hekate becomes the companion of Persephone, who "goes before and follows after" her as she travels between the upper and lower worlds. This is our first evidence of what was to become Hekate's most important role, as a deity who provided protection during transitions of all kinds, which were by nature perilous. It was in the inter- stices between safely defined territories (home, sanctuary, city) and times (new and old month) that dangerous spirits were emboldened to attack the unwary. Her very power to protect, of course, derived from her intimacy with and control over these spirits, the untimely and restless dead. By the Classical period, protective statues of Hekate (hekataia) were ubiquitous in Athens, functioning as complements to the older herms, and monthly garlanding of the family statues was a sign of conventional piety. The triple- formed Hekate sculpted by Alkamenes (c. 430) for the entrance to the Athen- ian Akropolis is the most famous example. A Hekate who simultaneously faced in different directions was presumably a more efficacious guardian; the form also expresses visually the goddess' role as mistress of the crossroads, dangerous transitional spots where one was likely to encounter prosti- tutes and other dispossessed persons as well as angry ghosts. In Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (Root-cutters), Hekate has a place on Olympos but also dwells at the crossroads; she is a terrifying figure crowned with oak leaves and serpents. 30 Aristophanes (Plut. 594-97) and others tell how those who could afford it sent deipna (dinners) to Hekate at the crossroads when the new moon arrived. A related practice was the use of sacrificial dogs for the puri- fication of private houses; the remains were set out at the crossroads for the goddess. Because the Greeks did not normally consume the meat of dogs, these sacrifices were doubly marked as outside the norm. Only extreme poverty or impiety would move someone to eat such food. 31
Just as Kybele was assimilated to Greek Rhea, Hekate was sometimes accommodated in the Greek pantheon as an aspect of Artemis (both were thought to have an interest in weddings, childbirth, and the care of the young). Aeschylus (Supp. 676-77), for example, described Artemis-Hekate as a guardian of women in labor. An important Archaic version of Iphigeneia's myth (recounted by Stesichorus among others) held that when Artemis demanded her sacrifice, the heroine was transformed into Hekate or Artemis- Hekate. 32 Sometime before the fifth century, Hekate was also fully syncre- tized with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (She in the Road) and began to use her name as an epithet. Lacking evidence for the early nature of Enodia, we cannot say which of the two goddesses contributed the many characteristics they share, but given the longstanding association of Thessaly with drugs and witchcraft, it is logical to assume that Hekate's role as a patron of magical practitioners originated here. Hekate's interest in sorcery is attested first in
166
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (fr. 534 TrGF), where she is invoked by Thessalian women as they gather powerful herbs. Enodia also functioned, like Hekate, as a guardian of private houses and a protector of children. Fifth-century Thessalians set up small statues of the goddess in front of or inside houses, asking her aid "for a child's sake. "33
Another relatively early center of Hekate's Greek cult was Aigina, where Myron's wooden statue stood in the goddess' sanctuary. We do not know whether the mysteries of Hekate mentioned by Pausanias (2. 30. 2) were already celebrated in the Classical period, but the Aiginetan cult is unusual in any case because the goddess rarely achieved such full integration into any civic pantheon. Sanctuaries devoted primarily to Hekate were unusual, and the development of civic cult was probably hampered by the continuing growth of the goddess' reputation as a deity invoked for private and nefar- ious purposes. As early as the mid-fourth century, Hekate Chthonia (of the Underworld) and Chthonic Hermes are the deities named in an Attic curse tablet incised on lead, which was intended to bind and neutralize the author's opponent in a lawsuit. 34
Erinyes
Erinys is named in offering lists on at least two Linear B tablets from Knossos. We do not know how much, if any, of the Mycenaean goddess' personality persisted in the Erinys and plural Erinyes of later centuries, but an Arkadian word erinuo ? , "to be angry," seems to be derived from her name. Anger is also an important component in the personality of Arkadian Demeter Erinys, a descendant of the Mycenaean goddess. 35 The Homeric Erinyes (or Erinys), who inhabit the underworld (Il. 9. 571-72, 19. 259, etc. ), are concerned with the punishment of deviant behavior, especially transgressions of filial duty and respect. Outraging a parent, committing a murder of a blood relative, or breaking an oath were all actions that aroused the anger and merciless pursuit of the goddesses. Both dead and living relatives, especially mothers, were thought to have the power to awake the Erinyes through curses. Although by nature inimical to the processes by which the claims of the family and blood ties give way to the demands of larger social groups, they were successfully integrated into polis religion. This process is memorialized in Aeschylus' Eumenides, which shows how the goddesses' enduring powers could be harnessed for the benefit of the state through a program of propitiation.
In local cult contexts, the Panhellenic name "Erinyes" was assiduously avoided in favor of euphemistic titles. 36 The Athenians consistently used the name Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses) in their principal cult, an ancient observance that was closely related to the Council of the Areopagos. A relic of Athens' earliest constitution, the Council lost most of its political clout by Solon's day but remained highly respected as the court before which
167
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
homicides were tried. The abode of the Semnai Theai was a chasm beside the Areios pagos (Hill of Ares), where according to legend the goddesses were persuaded to descend after their unsuccessful prosecution of the matricide Orestes. We learn from the Attic orators and their scholiasts that legal proceedings were limited to the last three days of the month, which were sacred to the three Semnai Theai (and inauspicious days for any other busi- ness to be carried out). Each party at the start of a trial took a solemn oath over the cut pieces of a boar, a ram, and a bull, calling down ruin on himself and his descendants if he lied. When a man was acquitted of murder, sacrifice to the Semnai Theai was required to satisfy their anger. The Athenians also conducted an annual torchlight procession for the goddesses, in which the family of the Hesychidai (the "silent ones," referring to the solemn silence kept during the proceedings) played a leading role. The women of the Hesychidai formed a college of priestesses attending the goddesses. Other citizens, of whom the orator Demosthenes was one, were also selected to serve as hieropoioi (doers of sacred things). Wine was excluded from the worship (a feature typical of old chthonian cults), and offerings consisted of cakes and libations of milk or honey. The grove of the Eumenides (Kindly Ones) in the Athenian town of Kolonos, associated with the hero Oedipus, hosted an independent cult of the goddesses (who were also locally known as Semnai Theai) with its own unique rituals. Both sanctuaries were known as places where suppliants could find refuge. 37
Worship of the Eumenides and similar goddesses was widespread in the Peloponnese, where it was associated with Orestes, or less often, Oedipus. Near Megalopolis in Arkadia was a sanctuary of the Maniai (Crazes), who maddened Orestes until he bit off his own finger. This is an extreme form of expiation, the sacrifice of an expendable body part. The satisfied goddesses, who had previously appeared black, now turned white and Orestes, recovered from his madness, established the custom of sacrifice to each group, enagismos to the black and thusia to the white. That the sanc- tuary was located in a place called Ake (cure) suggests that people sought healing there, perhaps for mental illnesses. 38 Material evidence of an Argive cult exists in the form of several votive reliefs dedicated to the Eumenides. One, inscribed as a thank offering, shows three benevolent-looking god- desses, each holding a flower in the left hand and a snake in the right. They are greeted by a couple approaching from the right side of the relief. These dedications from the fourth century illustrate a more personal, family- oriented cult practice, and show how the actual worship of these goddesses invariably focused not on their dark and threatening aspects, but on the benefits they could provide if properly appeased. 39
168
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Further reading
Harrison 1977a, b reconstructs the interior sculptures of the splendidly preserved temple to Hephaistos in the Athenian agora, while Faraone 1987 shows how the myths of Hephaistos as a maker of talismanic statues reflect ritual practices in the Near East. Vernant 1983a, a classic article, uses structuralist analysis to define Hestia in relation to Hermes. Marinatos 1996 reexamines the traditional identification of the Kretan cave at Amnisos as the shrine of Eileithyia. Johnston 1999 (203-87) includes the fullest recent discussions of Hekate and the Erinyes.
169
13
STRANGERS AND INDIGENES
Latecomer and regional deities
The "latecomers" of this chapter were adopted by Greeks only after the polis system, which implied regulation of the civic pantheon, was established in the eighth century.
? 150
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
fifth century, when his cult was introduced from Arkadia to Athens and rapidly diffused to the rest of the Greek world. Many etymologies have been put forward for his name, which is also known in the compound form Aigipan (Goat-Pan). The most convincing makes it a cognate of Latin pastor, so that Pan is "one who grazes the flocks. "
In Arkadia itself, Pan's myth and cult were not standardized. There were conflicting views of his genealogy, the most common being that he was the son of Zeus and twin of the national hero Arkas, or that he was the son of Hermes and Penelope. His connection with Zeus sprang from their associ- ation on Mt. Lykaion, the sacred mountain of the Arkadians. Pan possessed a sanctuary on the south slopes of Lykaion, where in keeping with his identity as both goat and goatherd, he offered asylum to any animal being pursued by a wolf (lukos). A votive dump excavated here revealed many late Archaic and early Classical bronze figures, cut-out plaques, and terracottas with subjects reminiscent of those at Kato Symi: hunters, men carrying animals for sacrifice, and Hermes. Both youthful and mature males are depicted, and the bronzes include dead foxes, a standard courtship gift presented by adult males to their favorite youths. Inscribed pots show that the sanctuary was sacred to Pan, whose role as a god of the hunt and Master of Animals made him well suited, like Hermes, to sponsor maturation rituals. 16
The Athenians believed that Pan sent them a message on the eve of Marathon (490) via Philippides, who ran 233 km to ask for aid from the Spartans. Passing through Arkadia, he saw an apparition of the god, who asked why the Athenians did not honor him in spite of the good deeds that he had done and would yet do for them. When they learned of Pan's epiphany, the Athenians concluded that he had contributed to the victory at Marathon and instituted his worship with an annual festival including a torch race. Pan's official sanctuary was a grotto on the northwest slope of the Akropolis, but he quickly became a resident of the Attic countryside, where he was worshiped together with the nymphs and other rustic gods in numerous cave shrines. 17 Contrary to the practice in Arkadia, where Pan possessed temples and sanctuaries like those of other deities, the rest of the Greek world viewed the cave as the proper dwelling for this god of the wild places. After 490, the cults at these caves, including one near Marathon, gained a wider and more affluent clientele who dedicated pots, small metal items, and marble votive reliefs. Menander's comedy Dyscolus is set at one such shrine, the cave at Phyle in Attica. In the play, Pan rewards a pious maiden by causing a wealthy youth to fall in love with her, and punishes her neglectful father Knemon, whose sour misanthropy offends against the god's rule of laughter and good cheer. 18
Folk traditions illustrate the less benevolent side of Pan, connecting him with mysterious noises, particularly the echoes heard in mountainous terrain; with "panic," the phenomenon of sudden terror, seemingly without cause, that comes over armies in the night; and with certain types of illness involving
151
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
apparent possession by the god (seizures). Pan's theriomorphism and associ- ation with madness also brought him into connection with ecstatic forms of worship such as the cults of Dionysos and Meter/Kybele, though always as a subordinate figure. Pindar refers to the Boiotian Pan as "the dog of Meter. "19
The nature deities: rivers and nymphs
Most of the Greek gods were connected in one way or another with natural phenomena: Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild beasts. A number of minor deities, however, were truly nature gods in the sense that they personified specific features in the landscape or pheno- mena in the environment. Pre-eminent among these were the river gods and the spring nymphs, whose cults appeared everywhere the Greeks lived. Closely tied to human fertility, the care of children and love of one's home- land, these minor gods made up for their strictly local influence by their great numbers: "it is difficult for a mortal to tell the names of all, but those who dwell near them know their own" (Hes. Theog. 69-70). Babies were often given names evocative of local rivers: Asopodoros, Ismenodoros, Acheloios. In fifth-century Athens, a man named Kephisodotos (Gift of Kephisos) co- founded a shrine to the river Kephisos and other gods, including Hermes and the nymphs. The other founder, Xenokrateia, made offerings for the welfare of her son. She established an altar for a number of gods concerned with children, including the rivers Kephisos and Acheloo? s; the trio Apollo, Artemis, and Leto; Eileithyia; and the local nymphs. In the Iliad (23. 140-51), Peleus similarly directs his prayers for his son's safety to the local river: upon Achilles' safe return to his dear homeland, Peleus vows that a hundred cattle and fifty rams will be sacrificed into the waters of the Spercheios, while Achilles himself will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and offer it to the god. The offering of a lock of hair to the local river was a widespread custom; in Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (6), Orestes calls this offering to Inachos a threpte ? rion, a recompense for his upbringing. 20
Popular taboos and cult regulations protected the purity of rivers and springs against the taint of human dirt, excrement, and other wastes, and rituals such as hand-washing or sacrifice before crossing a river are attested. 21 In the Iliad (5. 77-78, 23. 140-51), the cults of river deities are well developed: Skamandros has his own priest and Spercheios has an altar and sanctuary. Animal sacrifice was performed either on an altar in a sanctuary or at the river bank itself so that the blood flowed into the water. Immersion sacrifices are also attested; Homer speaks of live horses cast into the Skamandros (Il. 21. 124-32).
In the early twentieth century, a Swedish team investigated the sanctuary of the river Pamisos, the major waterway of Messenia. Located at a group of warm and cold-water springs feeding the stream, it was founded in the
152
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
Archaic period and had a reputation as a place for healing. It included a small Doric temple with an unusual feature, a votive pit incorporated in the temple wall, which connected with one of the springs feeding the river. Into this pit were deposited gifts of all sorts, including a number of small bronzes, which can be divided into animal figures (primarily horses, bulls, and goats) and human figures (mainly naked youths of Classical date). There are signs that the god's sanctuary was used in rites of maturation: a number of small lead stars were found, originally attached with wire in wreaths. These are paral- leled at Lakonian sanctuaries and were apparently dedicated by ephebes. According to tradition, the kings of Messenia brought annual sacrifices to the river. If accurate, this would place the origins of the cult as early as the eighth or seventh century. 22
The only river god to achieve Panhellenic status in cult is Acheloo? s, god of the longest river in Greece, who shared many sanctuaries with the nymphs by the fifth century. His popularity was fostered by Zeus' oracle at Dodona, which often recommended sacrifice to Acheloo? s. A boundary stone marking a shrine of the nymphs and Acheloo? s was unearthed in Oichalia in Euboia, accompanied by a bronze of the god (c. 460), shown as a bearded, draped figure holding a cornucopia. The full anthropomorphism of this bronze seems to be characteristic of fifth-century sculpture. River gods are likewise shown in human form on pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, but in other media they are shown as theriomorphic, man-bull hybrids, the bull symbolizing both the terrifying force of a flooding river and the fertilizing potency of its waters. Acheloo? s was also worshiped in the form of a mask, (a marble example dating to about 470 was found near Marathon) and his bearded, horned face was used as an amulet in jewelry. 23
The nymphs, spirits of lakes, mountains, trees, and above all springs, were ubiquitous in the ancient Greek world, and their cult was probably an Indo- European inheritance. Much as described in Homer (Od. 13. 102-12, 349- 51; 17. 205-11), they were worshiped at simple open-air spring sanctuaries and in caves formed by the action of water. Often considered the first inhabitants of the land and cited as divine ancestors, they helped define local identity in the same way as rivers, and were similarly concerned with the welfare of the young. In myth, the nymphs often appear as companions of Olympian gods including Artemis, Dionysos, and Aphrodite, but in cult they are most often linked with pastoral deities including Apollo, Hermes, Acheloo? s, and Pan. They were worshiped as individuals or as pluralities, usually shown in Greek art as triads. Nymph sanctuaries securely dated to the Archaic period include Saftulis cave near Sikyon, where unique examples of Archaic painting on wood were discovered in 1934. Visitors in the sixth century hung painted wooden pinakes in the cave to commemorate their gifts to the nymphs. One well-preserved pinax shows a family preparing to sacrifice a sheep at a low altar; another features a triad of women, probably the nymphs. The terracottas of pregnant women found at this cave, while not
153
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
? Figure 11. 2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
standard offerings to the nymphs, are consistent with the general Greek belief that nymphs aided in childbirth, the nurture of the young, and girls' transi- tion to adulthood at the time of their weddings. Many girls brought dolls and other toys to the nymphs when they entered adulthood, and the nymphs were among the goddesses who might receive formal prenuptial offerings. The word numphe ? means "bride," so it is fitting that the nymphs were always pictured as beautiful women, divine models for mortal brides.
In contrast to the a strictly local cult at Saftulis cave, the Korykian cave of the nymphs and Pan at Delphi was famous because of its location in a Pan- hellenic sanctuary and contained an unusual volume of cult-related deposits. Pilgrims to Delphi brought hundreds of seashells from the Korinthian gulf as gifts for the nymphs. The cave was also a center of divination with astragaloi or "knucklebones" from sheep and goats, which were cast like dice. This form of fortune-telling was associated with Hermes, whose relationship with the Korykian nymphs is mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4. 552- 68). 24 In the Archaic and Classical periods, the nymphs were credited with the ability to "seize" individuals and inspire them; some of these nympholepts claimed oracular powers. Others withdrew to cave shrines and devoted themselves entirely to the worship of the nymphs, tending their gardens and
154
HERMES, PAN, AND NATURE DEITIES
adorning their caves with sculptures. During the Classical period, nympho- lepts lived at caves in Attica (Vari) and Thessaly (Pharsalos). 25
Further reading
The discussion of Hermes in Athanassakis 1989 is most useful for students who have completed an introductory course in ancient Greek. Marinatos 2003 describes the finds from the sanctuary at Kato Symi and includes good illustrations. Osborne 1985 is the first full treatment in English of the origin of herms, the herms of Hipparchos, and the mutilation of the herms in 415. Borgeaud 1988 sensitively explores the cultural impact of Pan's cult through the themes of the Arkadian landscape, the human/animal divide, and the god's reception in Athens. Connor 1988 is the seminal article on nympholepsy, and Larson 2001 is a comprehensive study of the nymphs in myth and cult.
155
12
DIVINE SPECIALISTS Other Panhellenic deities
All the gods discussed in this section appear in the Panhellenic poetry of Homer, Hesiod, or both. All were presumably known to Greeks of the Arch- aic and Classical periods, whether or not they were part of an individual's local pantheon. Popularity in art and poetry did not always translate into widespread worship; Hephaistos is an obvious example. Conversely, a deity such as Hestia, whose cult was indispensable to the polis, seldom found her way into art and played a role in very few myths. Most of the gods described in this chapter have well-delineated functions and spheres that simultaneously ensured their survival, but retarded the development of the complex person- alities and multiple roles characteristic of major deities like Athena, Zeus, and Artemis. Hekate, as so often, is exceptional.
Ares and Enyalios
In Homer, Ares is both an abstract noun denoting "war" and the deity, blood-stained and bellowing, who personifies the grim and horrific aspects of war (e. g. Il. 2. 381, 5. 859-63). Not surprisingly, Ares enjoyed only a limited worship, concentrated in the Peloponnese and central Greece. Yet he was father to numerous ancestral heroes, and played an important role in the legendary origins of Thebes. As god of war, Ares was early paired in myth and cult with Aphrodite, goddess of sexual desire, and their relations were a favorite subject of artists and poets from Homer on. Their daughter was Harmonia, bride of Thebes' founder Kadmos, and Ares was the patron (or father) of the great serpent that guarded the spring on the site where Thebes was founded. The pair had a double temple in Argive territory, with ancient statues said to be gifts of Polyneikes before his march on Thebes. 1 Cults of Ares were often connected to battle lore, and as the ancestor of the Amazons, Ares was associated with stories of women warriors. In Argos and Tegea, legends told how the women of the city took up arms to battle invading Spartans, and having achieved victory, established cults of Ares from which men were excluded. The Tegeans, who often served as mercenaries, also worshiped Ares Aphneios (of Abundance), in hopes that he would increase the spoils of war. 2
156
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Both Ares and Enyalios appear in lists of deities on Linear B tablets from Knossos, and in later centuries the two were syncretized. Enyalios, a war deity, and his female counterpart Enyo also survived as independent cult figures in many parts of the Greek world. Again, the strongest evidence comes from the Peloponnese, particularly Arkadia and Lakonia. The Arkadian city of Mantineia possessed a sanctuary of Enyalios, which ultimately gave its name to one of the civic tribes designated during the political unification of Mantineia in the fifth century. The Spartans had a thriving cult of Enyalios, whose statue was kept in chains, probably to hold its dire influence in check. The same deity presided over a ritual fight between adolescent boys, who made a preliminary sacrifice of puppies. Finally, an Argive bronze plaque inscribed to Enyalios shows a rider on one side and a spearman on the other; it belongs to the seventh century. 3
Because of their shared functions as deities of war, Ares and Athena (often with the title Areia) could be worshiped together. A decree from the Attic deme of Acharnai (SEG 21 [1965] 519) shows that the demesmen, having consulted the oracle of Delphi, constructed new altars for the local sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia. The sculpted scene on the inscription depicts Athena crowning a youthful Ares in hoplite armor. Several clues suggest that the worship of Ares and Enyalios was an ancient, if minor, institution among the Athenians. Solon is said to have founded a sanctuary of Enyalios, and the Athenian polemarchos, a magistrate who was responsible, among other things, for the funerals of the Athenian war dead, offered sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera and Enyalios. The Athenian ephebes swore an oath to protect their homeland with Enyalios, Enyo, Ares, Athena Areia, and other ancestral deities as witnesses. Though the oath is first explicitly attested in the fourth century, it probably dates back to the fifth or earlier; the preservation of the distinction between Enyalios and Ares is an archaic feature. 4
Ge and Helios
Hesiod (Theog. 117) describes Earth as "the ever-sure foundation of all," a divine progenitor who also plays an instrumental role in bringing about the lasting rule of Zeus. At first portrayed as the enemy of the status quo, she eventually comes to support the hegemony of the Olympians. In the mythic imagination, Earth's primordial status and uncontrolled powers were necessarily superseded by a male-dominated regime representing order and stability. The same idea is expressed in the myth of Gaia's prominence at Delphi as the "first prophet" of the oracle, which was taken over by Apollo (e. g. Aesch. Eum. 1-2). 5
While the Earth is often named Gaia in poetry, in cult she is usually given the more prosaic name of Ge. Her cults were widespread yet rarely promi- nent at the civic level. She is frequently paired with Zeus, a combination that reflects the age-old partnership of sky god and earth goddess. Sacrificial
157
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
calendars from the Attic towns of Erchia and the Marathonian Tetrapolis, inscribed in the fourth century, provide us a glimpse of the rural contexts in which Ge was typically worshiped, presumably in connection with agri- culture. The Erchian calendar specifies that on a certain day the nymphs, Acheloo? s, Alochos (a birth goddess), and Hermes will each receive a sheep, while Ge will receive a pregnant sheep. In the Tetrapolis calendar, Ge is given a pregnant cow "in the fields" and a black ram "at the oracle (manteion). " The offering of a pregnant animal has obvious symbolism, while a black animal is standard for deities who are associated with the underworld. 6
Ge was depicted anthropomorphically, but never fit comfortably into the cadre of Olympians or exhibited as distinct a personality as they did. Her dual ontological status as "Earth" and "Earth goddess" hindered such development. Reflecting this uncertainty, vase painters show her as a woman whose head and torso are rising from the ground. 7 In her cosmic aspect as one of the three great domains (heaven, earth, and underworld), she appears in oaths. In the Iliad (3. 103-4, 276-80) she is invoked with Zeus, Helios, the rivers, and the underworld deities to witness the oath attending the single combat of Paris and Menelaos. Two lambs, a white male and a black female, are sacrificed for the Sun and Earth. The group of Zeus, Ge, and Helios as witnesses to oaths and other official business is also widely attested in Greek inscriptions.
Although Helios, whose name is clearly of Indo-European origin, was an oath deity, occasionally cited as an ancestor (particularly in myths connected with Korinth) and recognized everywhere as divine, worship of the Sun was limited among the Classical Greeks, who tended to associate purely astral cults with the barbarians. Helios began to be syncretized with Apollo as early as the fifth century in philosophical speculation, but widespread identifi- cation of Apollo with the Sun god was a later phenomenon. 8 Just as Ge at Delphi was considered a primordial deity who yielded to Apollo, Helios was the original possessor of the Akrokorinthos, the citadel of Korinth, but gave the land to Aphrodite. The scattering of minor cults in the Peloponnese (Sikyon, Argos, Hermione, Epidauros, Mt. Taleton in Lakonia) and the holy flocks of Helios at Tainaron mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 410-13) suggest that this worship was deeply rooted in Greece. Thus it may be that Helios' cult was carried to Rhodes by Dorian settlers in the seventh century, although Farnell holds that the Sun worship there was prehellenic in origin. Against these theories of early Rhodian cult stands the lack of evidence for worship of Helios on the island before the late fifth century. In spite of this gap, Helios clearly held a privileged place in the pantheon during the Archaic period. Pindar's seventh Olympian ode (54-75) conveys the unique relationship between the Rhodians and their patron god, who chose the island as his portion and fathered the seven Heliadai to whom the Rhodian elite traced their ancestry. 9 With the founding of Rhodes city in 408, the annual festival of the Heliaia drew athletes and musicians from
158
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
around the Greek world, and the cult gained even more fame when the bronze statue of Helios known as the Colossus of Rhodes, some 33 m in height, was erected in 282.
Hephaistos
Hephaistos was a beloved member of the Olympian pantheon by the eighth century, but his popularity was expressed primarily though poetry and the visual arts, not cult. He is unique among the Olympians in his physical imper- fection, which to the Greek mind made him by turns comic and pathetic. A favorite of Homer, who describes both his awesome skills as a craftsman and his role as a peacemaker among the gods, Hephaistos' origins lie in the Bronze Age sacralization of metalworking. His name is certainly not Greek, and most likely his worship was brought to mainland Greece from Anatolia via Lemnos, an ancient seat of his cult where the capital city was called Hephaistia. The pre-Greek Lemnians, known to Homer as Sinties, were credited with the invention of fire and the technique of forging weapons. Hephaistos is similar to craft-related daimones like the Telchines of Rhodes, the Idaian Daktyloi, and the Kyklopes who forged Zeus' thunderbolts, though his individual personality is more fully developed. In certain myths he is a craftsman-magician, creator of fabulous animated statues with talis- manic and apotropaic powers. Corresponding rituals intended to imbue real statues with such powers are unattested for our period in Greece, but were well known in Assyria, Anatolia, and Egypt. 10
Yet Hephaistos is also an elemental deity whose name functions (e. g. Hom. Il. 2. 426) as a synonym for fire. He is perhaps the god of the famous yearly fire festival at Lemnos, which involved the extinguishing of all fire on the island for nine days, until a ship brought new fire from which all the domestic hearths and forges could be kindled anew and purified. In the time of Philostratus of Lemnos (c. 215 CE), our source for this festival, the fire was brought from Delos, but if the festival existed in the Classical period, the new fire may have been the gift of the island's patron deity. In Sophocles' Philoctetes (986), the title character stranded on Lemnos cries out to "Lem- nian earth and the all-powerful flame wrought by Hephaistos. "11
The major locus of Hephaistos' cult outside Lemnos was Athens, where the god was integrated very early into the local pantheon and had a special affinity with Athena. The two were honored in the Chalkeia (Bronzework) festival as patrons of craft workers. As a fire deity, Hephaistos was particu- larly important to those who worked with forges and kilns. People set up clay statues and plaques of the god beside hearths and kilns as an "overseer" of the fire. Local legend also held that the birth of the primordial king Erech- theus from the Earth came about as a result of a comically unsuccessful rape attempt by Hephaistos, who had conceived a passion for Athena. Hephaistos therefore was ancestral to the people and had an altar in the Erechtheion.
159
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
? Figure12.
1 Temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian agora. Erich Lessing: Art Resource.
During the Apatouria, the festival at which a man's sons were presented for enrollment as citizens, certain Athenians dressed in magnificent clothing and lit torches "from the hearth" while singing hymns for Hephaistos. 12 A fragmentary decree of 421/20 (IG I3 82) shows that the Hephaisteia was reorganized in that year as a large-scale celebration including a torch race, sponsored by the tribes, and an interesting contest of "ox-lifting" to be per- formed by two hundred chosen youths, with the oxen subsequently sacrificed to the god. 13 In the same year, Alkamenes began work on the cult statues for the new temple of Hephaistos, which overlooked the busy commercial center of the city and, uniquely, was destined to survive into modern times almost fully preserved. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the bronze cult statues, one of Athena and one of Hephaistos, though later copies give us clues to their appearance. Ancient visitors praised this statue of the god because it minimized his deformity. 14
Hestia
The perpetual virginity of Hestia, whose name simply means "hearth," reflects the Greek belief that fire and the fireplace must be kept pure and inviolate. The hearth was the center of domestic cult; it symbolized the integrity of the individual household, and by extension, the chastity of the
160
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
resident women. Hesiod (Op. 733-34) advises men not to expose their genitals before the hearth after sex, and hearth fires polluted by proximity to corpses or violated by enemies needed to be extinguished and lit anew from a pure source. In spite of her great antiquity and her status as an Olympian god, Hestia remained one of the least anthropomorphic of Greek deities, without a fully developed mythology. The newborn child was carried around the hearth and laid upon the ground to indicate its acceptance into the family, while the outcast suppliant crouched at an alien hearth to indicate his homeless state. Hestia as a divine personality appears to have no role in these rituals, yet the hearth, hestia, is no less revered. Homer does not mention a personal goddess Hestia, but in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5. 30-32), she "sit[s] in the center of the house, taking a rich portion" of daily offerings and is honored in all temples. Hestia's priority is the distinguishing feature of her cult. According to a widely observed ritual protocol, Hestia was men- tioned first of the gods when oaths were sworn, and received an offering first when sacrifices were performed. This was the custom followed at Olympia, where Hestia was honored before Olympian Zeus himself. 15
During the Bronze and early Iron Ages, the sacral power of the domestic hearth was extended to the king's or chieftain's hearth as the symbol of civic continuity and integrity. With the development of the polis, this function was transferred to a communal civic hearth, usually located in the city hall or prutaneion. With a few exceptions, state cults of Hestia were conducted in these halls, which often functioned as dining rooms, rather than in separate sanctuaries. The civic hearth was in many ways analogous to the home hearth, for it was here that important guests were brought to receive the city's hospitality. Inscriptions from around the Greek world show that civic officials honored Hestia when they began their service. One such man was Aristagoras, who served on the governing council of the island Tenedos in the fifth century. Pindar's eleventh Nemean ode (11. 1-7), commissioned for his installation, asks Hestia to welcome Aristagoras to the prutaneion, where "they often worship you first among the gods with libations, and often with savory smoke. " Finally, when a city was founded, the colonists brought cinders from the prutaneion in their hometown to light the fires on their new hearths and altars. 16
Hestia's special relationship with Hermes is recognized in the Homeric Hymn to Hestia (29. 7-12), where the two are invoked as dear friends who dwell in and protect the house together. Both are the objects of domestic cult and both are concerned, more than the other gods, with the doings of epichthonioi, those "who live on the surface of the earth. " Also present in this pairing is an implicit recognition of the way the two deities govern gendered space and movement in relation to the home. Hestia, the most immobile of goddesses, marks and anchors the center of the home, just as the women of the house ideally remain indoors and aloof from contact with strangers. Conversely, Hermes guards the door and governs movement in
161
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
and out, just as the masculine role is to work under the sun and deal with strangers. Iconographic convention also linked these two gods. They appeared as a pair, for example, on the altar of Amphiaraos at Oropos and on the statue base of Pheidias' Olympian Zeus. 17
Charites
The Charites (Graces) are familiar in Greek poetry as companions of the Olympian gods. They are beauty experts who bathe, anoint, and dress Aphrodite in her shrine on Paphos, and they ensure the success of every entertainment on Olympos, enthroned beside Apollo or dancing around him while he plays the lyre. Greek charis denotes, among other things, joy in the giving and receiving of gifts, divine favor that results in athletic or military glory, and anything that is beautiful to the senses, as well as the response it engenders. 18 "All things sweet and pleasant for mortals" come about through the Charites according to Pindar (Ol. 14. 4-6, 13-15), whose ode for a victor from Boiotian Orchomenos celebrates the "much-sung queens of the city," naming them Aglaia (Shining), Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thaleia (Blooming). Rather unexpectedly, these paragons of pleasure and beauty were worshiped in Orchomenos as a triad of stones. The city was a Mycenaean stronghold, occupied in the prehistoric period by a Greek tribe known as the Minyai and long remembered for its fabled riches. Later accounts firmly link the worship of the Charites to these early inhabitants, while the founder of the cult was said to be a primordial king, Eteokles. The stones representing the goddesses fell from heaven, and Eteokles was the first to sacrifice to them. 19 The Greeks occasionally used unworked stones as cult objects, a practice that was common in the Near East and is paralleled in the Boiotian cults of Eros at Thespiai and Herakles at Hyettos.
Strabo (9. 2. 40) links the riches of Orchomenos with the cult of the Charites and the strong reciprocal element in the Greek concept of charis: the wealth of the city allowed it to give and receive abundantly. Usually the Charites are considered goddesses of water and vegetation, essentially nymphs in origin, and indeed they were closely associated with both the local river Kephisos and a spring Akidalia (or Argaphia). Orchomenos owed its prosperity to the fertility of the marshy Kopaic plain, and the grateful citizens allotted the Charites a share of its produce. 20 Yet the habit of personifying abstracts was an old one, and the concept of charis, so fundamental to Greek culture, surely shaped the worship from its earliest days. Certainly it was instrumental in the spread of the cult. According to Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1133a), shrines of the Charites were set up to serve as reminders of the special quality of charis: one ought not only to repay favors, but also initiate them. The Classical sanctuary of the Charites at Orchomenos, including their temple, has been identified but not fully excavated. Little else is known about their Archaic and Classical cult, though the dramatic and musical contests of the Hellen-
162
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
istic Charitesia may have begun in the late Classical period when the theater was built. 21
The Charites were worshiped at an early date on Paros, where legend had it that Minos was sacrificing to them when he received word of his son's death in Athens. Because he ripped the garland from his head and stopped the music, ritual law decreed that the sacrifices ever after be conducted with neither garland nor flute. This story has been taken as evidence of the antiquity of the cult (because the islanders associated it with the reign of Minos) and its chthonian orientation (because it was associated with mourn- ing and the ritual was austere). A relief sculpture of the three goddesses from Paros, now in Munich, confirms the Archaic date of the cult and features heavily draped Charites, for the familiar iconography of three entwined nudes is a late development. Callimachus (fr. 7. 11-12 Pf. ), pictures these Parian goddesses garbed in resplendent gowns with unguents dripping from their hair. Colonists carried the cult to Thasos, where Apollo with the nymphs and Hermes with the Charites, sculpted in the fifth century, adorned the entrance to the old city. 22
In Athens, the Charites were worshiped, again with Hermes, on a much- copied relief at the entrance to the Akropolis. Popular belief held that the sculptor was the philosopher Sokrates, whose father was a stonecutter, though scholars are skeptical. While the Akropolis sculpture was produced in the Classical period and showed a canonical triad of Charites, Pausanias remarks (9. 35. 1-7) that in the oldest Athenian cult the Charites were two, Auxo (Increase) and Hegemone (Leader). He mentions a third goddess, Thallo (Blossoming), whom he says is properly one of the Horai (Seasons), another divine plurality often associated with the Charites. Auxo, Hegemone, and Thallo were among the witnesses to the oath of the ephebes, and they represented agricultural abundance, the powers that invigorated the land and ripened the crops. The fact that a secret telete ? (initiation) was conducted at the Akropolis shrine is consistent with this function. 23
Eileithyia
While a Panhellenic tradition made Eileithyia one of the younger goddesses, child of Hera and Zeus, she is one of the few Greek deities who demonstrably existed in the Bronze Age. A Linear B tablet from Knossos mentions a jar of honey sent to Eleuthia at Amnisos, and others record offerings of wool. A large cave faces the sea at the harbor of Amnisos, probably the same one the Odyssey (19. 188) calls "the cave of Eileithyia. " It contained Neolithic, Bronze Age, Archaic, and Roman pottery clustered around a stalagmite used as a focus of worship, but no other identifiable votive objects. Near the cave, however, is a sanctuary constructed over an old Minoan site, which yielded votive objects from the eighth and seventh centuries: bronze bovines and men, Orientalizing nude females, and Egyptian figurines including the fertility
163
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
god Bes. Perhaps both sites were sacred to the goddess of birth pangs. The use of cave sanctuaries was, of course, a well-established feature of Minoan religion. Another Kretan cave at Inatos is assigned to the goddess because of its votives: from the late Minoan through the early Archaic period, people left figurines of pregnant and nursing women, erotic groups, jewelry, and other items. As at Amnisos, Bes figurines imported from Egypt were present; these may have been used as amulets during childbirth. The idea that Eileithyia should be worshiped in a cave seems to have been exported to Paros, where a cave sanctuary functioned from late Geometric through Roman times. 24
Eileithyia's name is not Greek in origin and probably derives from the little-understood Minoan language. Its early diffusion and initial unfamiliarity to Greek ears led to a plethora of dialect forms; the Peloponnesian Eleuthia or Eleusia is closest to the Mycenaean spelling. During the Archaic period, Eileithyia's cult was most prolific in Krete, the Peloponnese (particularly Lakonia, which had close relations with Krete), and the Cyclades. From an early date, she was associated with the Apolline triad. On Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, she was especially honored. Olen of Lykia, a legendary hymnist and prophet, was credited with the suite of ancient hymns, including one to Eileithyia, that celebrated Delian sacred history. None survive, but we know that they told how the goddess came to the island from the land of the Hyperboreans in preparation for Leto's travail. In her hymn, Eileithyia was lauded as the "good spinner" (eulinon), "older than Kronos," and "mother of Eros. " The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3. 95-116) gives her a less exalted but still indispensable role, and recounts Hera's spiteful scheme to delay her visit to Delos. Summoned at last by Iris, Eileithyia's arrival allowed Apollo to spring forth from the womb. She possessed a temple on Delos, perhaps within the boundaries of Apollo's sanctuary. Hellenistic inscriptions give us information about repairs to the temple, sacrifices and banquets during the Eileithyiaia in the month of Posideion, and an inventory of offerings to the goddess (vases, jewelry, votive plaques of gold and silver), which were given exclusively by women. 25
In Sparta we find the oldest record of Eileithyia's cult on the Greek mainland. Pausanias' description (3. 17. 1) of a sanctuary of Eileithyia near that of Artemis Ortheia was confirmed by the discovery of part of a bronze dress pin and a bronze die, both inscribed with the birth-goddess' name and both from the seventh or sixth century. Other scattered artifacts of Archaic and Classical date, together with Pausanias' description of seven sanctuaries and three temples, complete the picture of a cult well established in all areas of the Peloponnese. At Olympia, Eileithyia seems to be cast as a divine kourotrophos or nurturer of the young. There she was worshiped near the hill of Kronos in an Archaic temple shared with the mysterious infant daimo ? n Sosipolis (City-Savior). According to local legend, a woman guided by a dream brought the suckling child to the Elean army when the city was under attack by Arkadians. Placed at the head of the army, the child turned into a
164
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
serpent as the enemy charged, throwing them into confusion. Eileithyia's kourotrophic function is a natural outgrowth of her concern for pregnant and parturient women, and many of her sanctuaries featured thank offerings made for the survival of children. 26
Whereas in Boiotia and Thessaly the functions and name of this ancient goddess were absorbed by Artemis, worship of an independent Eileithyia continued in Attica, which followed the Delian/Kretan cult traditions. Describing the shrine of Eileithyia near the Athenian Olympieion, Pausanias' informants (1. 18. 5) said that "the women" attributed two of the three ancient wooden statues to Krete and one to Delos. The fact that women were the authorities in this matter is consistent with the sacerdotal arrangements at the sanctuaries of Hermione and Olympia: only women served Eileithyia and access to her inner sanctum, with its sacred images, was sometimes restricted. 27 The orator Isaeus (5. 39) provides an interesting footnote on the significance of this cult for women. In a speech against Dikaiogenes, the narrator tells how the malefactor's mother seated herself as a suppliant in the shrine of Eileithyia and publicly reproached her son for crimes "too shameful to repeat. " Presumably the goddess could be relied upon to punish an ungrateful child.
Hekate
According to the current scholarly consensus, Hekate originated as a goddess in the pantheon of Karia on the west coast of Asia Minor. In Lagina, the home of her largest known sanctuary, she was the preeminent deity, ensuring the security and prosperity of the inhabitants and maintaining close relations with the Karian equivalent of Zeus. So far, none of the archaeological evidence for her cult at Lagina predates the Hellenistic period. Yet a number of Karian personal names contain the Hekat- root, suggesting that it is not Greek in origin, and that her worship was native to this area. In the Archaic period, her cult was apparently adopted by the Karians' Greek neighbors, and was particularly prominent at Miletos, where she had an altar before the prutaneion as early as the sixth century and a shrine at the city gates by the fifth. A single terracotta figure inscribed with her name reveals her presence in Athens by the late sixth century. 28
Her absence from Homer and the paucity of myths about her suggest a rela- tively late entry into the Panhellenic pantheon, and while her role in Hesiod's Theogony (411-52) is substantial, it is also anomalous. For Hesiod, Hekate is a mighty goddess who has a surprisingly wide range of special prerogatives from Zeus: she assists kings and speakers in the assembly, gives victory in battle and athletics, helps mariners, fishermen, and herdsmen, and acts as a kourotrophos. 29 While this portrait of the goddess conflicts with most of what we know about her Classical Greek cults, it closely resembles the Karian conception of her, right down to the special relationship with Zeus.
165
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
One of our few other Archaic sources is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, in which Hekate, together with the sun god Helios, witnesses the rape of Persephone (implicit in these lines is the later concept of Hekate as a moon goddess). At the end of the poem, Hekate becomes the companion of Persephone, who "goes before and follows after" her as she travels between the upper and lower worlds. This is our first evidence of what was to become Hekate's most important role, as a deity who provided protection during transitions of all kinds, which were by nature perilous. It was in the inter- stices between safely defined territories (home, sanctuary, city) and times (new and old month) that dangerous spirits were emboldened to attack the unwary. Her very power to protect, of course, derived from her intimacy with and control over these spirits, the untimely and restless dead. By the Classical period, protective statues of Hekate (hekataia) were ubiquitous in Athens, functioning as complements to the older herms, and monthly garlanding of the family statues was a sign of conventional piety. The triple- formed Hekate sculpted by Alkamenes (c. 430) for the entrance to the Athen- ian Akropolis is the most famous example. A Hekate who simultaneously faced in different directions was presumably a more efficacious guardian; the form also expresses visually the goddess' role as mistress of the crossroads, dangerous transitional spots where one was likely to encounter prosti- tutes and other dispossessed persons as well as angry ghosts. In Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (Root-cutters), Hekate has a place on Olympos but also dwells at the crossroads; she is a terrifying figure crowned with oak leaves and serpents. 30 Aristophanes (Plut. 594-97) and others tell how those who could afford it sent deipna (dinners) to Hekate at the crossroads when the new moon arrived. A related practice was the use of sacrificial dogs for the puri- fication of private houses; the remains were set out at the crossroads for the goddess. Because the Greeks did not normally consume the meat of dogs, these sacrifices were doubly marked as outside the norm. Only extreme poverty or impiety would move someone to eat such food. 31
Just as Kybele was assimilated to Greek Rhea, Hekate was sometimes accommodated in the Greek pantheon as an aspect of Artemis (both were thought to have an interest in weddings, childbirth, and the care of the young). Aeschylus (Supp. 676-77), for example, described Artemis-Hekate as a guardian of women in labor. An important Archaic version of Iphigeneia's myth (recounted by Stesichorus among others) held that when Artemis demanded her sacrifice, the heroine was transformed into Hekate or Artemis- Hekate. 32 Sometime before the fifth century, Hekate was also fully syncre- tized with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (She in the Road) and began to use her name as an epithet. Lacking evidence for the early nature of Enodia, we cannot say which of the two goddesses contributed the many characteristics they share, but given the longstanding association of Thessaly with drugs and witchcraft, it is logical to assume that Hekate's role as a patron of magical practitioners originated here. Hekate's interest in sorcery is attested first in
166
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Sophocles' Rhizotomoi (fr. 534 TrGF), where she is invoked by Thessalian women as they gather powerful herbs. Enodia also functioned, like Hekate, as a guardian of private houses and a protector of children. Fifth-century Thessalians set up small statues of the goddess in front of or inside houses, asking her aid "for a child's sake. "33
Another relatively early center of Hekate's Greek cult was Aigina, where Myron's wooden statue stood in the goddess' sanctuary. We do not know whether the mysteries of Hekate mentioned by Pausanias (2. 30. 2) were already celebrated in the Classical period, but the Aiginetan cult is unusual in any case because the goddess rarely achieved such full integration into any civic pantheon. Sanctuaries devoted primarily to Hekate were unusual, and the development of civic cult was probably hampered by the continuing growth of the goddess' reputation as a deity invoked for private and nefar- ious purposes. As early as the mid-fourth century, Hekate Chthonia (of the Underworld) and Chthonic Hermes are the deities named in an Attic curse tablet incised on lead, which was intended to bind and neutralize the author's opponent in a lawsuit. 34
Erinyes
Erinys is named in offering lists on at least two Linear B tablets from Knossos. We do not know how much, if any, of the Mycenaean goddess' personality persisted in the Erinys and plural Erinyes of later centuries, but an Arkadian word erinuo ? , "to be angry," seems to be derived from her name. Anger is also an important component in the personality of Arkadian Demeter Erinys, a descendant of the Mycenaean goddess. 35 The Homeric Erinyes (or Erinys), who inhabit the underworld (Il. 9. 571-72, 19. 259, etc. ), are concerned with the punishment of deviant behavior, especially transgressions of filial duty and respect. Outraging a parent, committing a murder of a blood relative, or breaking an oath were all actions that aroused the anger and merciless pursuit of the goddesses. Both dead and living relatives, especially mothers, were thought to have the power to awake the Erinyes through curses. Although by nature inimical to the processes by which the claims of the family and blood ties give way to the demands of larger social groups, they were successfully integrated into polis religion. This process is memorialized in Aeschylus' Eumenides, which shows how the goddesses' enduring powers could be harnessed for the benefit of the state through a program of propitiation.
In local cult contexts, the Panhellenic name "Erinyes" was assiduously avoided in favor of euphemistic titles. 36 The Athenians consistently used the name Semnai Theai (Revered Goddesses) in their principal cult, an ancient observance that was closely related to the Council of the Areopagos. A relic of Athens' earliest constitution, the Council lost most of its political clout by Solon's day but remained highly respected as the court before which
167
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
homicides were tried. The abode of the Semnai Theai was a chasm beside the Areios pagos (Hill of Ares), where according to legend the goddesses were persuaded to descend after their unsuccessful prosecution of the matricide Orestes. We learn from the Attic orators and their scholiasts that legal proceedings were limited to the last three days of the month, which were sacred to the three Semnai Theai (and inauspicious days for any other busi- ness to be carried out). Each party at the start of a trial took a solemn oath over the cut pieces of a boar, a ram, and a bull, calling down ruin on himself and his descendants if he lied. When a man was acquitted of murder, sacrifice to the Semnai Theai was required to satisfy their anger. The Athenians also conducted an annual torchlight procession for the goddesses, in which the family of the Hesychidai (the "silent ones," referring to the solemn silence kept during the proceedings) played a leading role. The women of the Hesychidai formed a college of priestesses attending the goddesses. Other citizens, of whom the orator Demosthenes was one, were also selected to serve as hieropoioi (doers of sacred things). Wine was excluded from the worship (a feature typical of old chthonian cults), and offerings consisted of cakes and libations of milk or honey. The grove of the Eumenides (Kindly Ones) in the Athenian town of Kolonos, associated with the hero Oedipus, hosted an independent cult of the goddesses (who were also locally known as Semnai Theai) with its own unique rituals. Both sanctuaries were known as places where suppliants could find refuge. 37
Worship of the Eumenides and similar goddesses was widespread in the Peloponnese, where it was associated with Orestes, or less often, Oedipus. Near Megalopolis in Arkadia was a sanctuary of the Maniai (Crazes), who maddened Orestes until he bit off his own finger. This is an extreme form of expiation, the sacrifice of an expendable body part. The satisfied goddesses, who had previously appeared black, now turned white and Orestes, recovered from his madness, established the custom of sacrifice to each group, enagismos to the black and thusia to the white. That the sanc- tuary was located in a place called Ake (cure) suggests that people sought healing there, perhaps for mental illnesses. 38 Material evidence of an Argive cult exists in the form of several votive reliefs dedicated to the Eumenides. One, inscribed as a thank offering, shows three benevolent-looking god- desses, each holding a flower in the left hand and a snake in the right. They are greeted by a couple approaching from the right side of the relief. These dedications from the fourth century illustrate a more personal, family- oriented cult practice, and show how the actual worship of these goddesses invariably focused not on their dark and threatening aspects, but on the benefits they could provide if properly appeased. 39
168
OTHER PANHELLENIC DEITIES
Further reading
Harrison 1977a, b reconstructs the interior sculptures of the splendidly preserved temple to Hephaistos in the Athenian agora, while Faraone 1987 shows how the myths of Hephaistos as a maker of talismanic statues reflect ritual practices in the Near East. Vernant 1983a, a classic article, uses structuralist analysis to define Hestia in relation to Hermes. Marinatos 1996 reexamines the traditional identification of the Kretan cave at Amnisos as the shrine of Eileithyia. Johnston 1999 (203-87) includes the fullest recent discussions of Hekate and the Erinyes.
169
13
STRANGERS AND INDIGENES
Latecomer and regional deities
The "latecomers" of this chapter were adopted by Greeks only after the polis system, which implied regulation of the civic pantheon, was established in the eighth century.
