FIOMO NECANS TheAnthropology of AncientGreek SacrificiqlRitual andMtlth bV WALIER BURKERT Translated by PETERBING
UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley LosAngeles London
f-.
-L .; i1, cr
For ReinholdMerlcelbsch
Originally published in German by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, under the title Homo Necans(1972). University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England @ 1983by The Regents of the University of California
Library of CongressCatalogingin PublicationData Burkert, Walter r93rHomo necans. Translationof: Homo necans. Bibliography: p. r. Ritesand ceremonies-Greece. z. Sacrifice. 3. Mythology, Greek. 4. Greece-Religion. I. Title. zgz' .38 77-93423 sr788.a8V3 rg8) rsrwo-5zo-o5875-5
Printed in the United Statesof America 456789 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standardfor llformation Sciences-Permanence of Paperfor Printed Library Materials,ANSI 49.48-r984.
xcti rair'
Eart rd. puarr1pca, cvueltovrt gduut. gouoL xo.i ragoc Clementof Alexandria
et nos servasti_sanguine
fuso
Mithraic inscription,Santaprisca,Rome
Contents
Translator'sPreface xi to theEnglishEdition xiii Preface Listof lllustrations xvii lntroduction xix I . SACRIFICE,HUNTING, AND FUNERARYRITUALS r. Sacrificeasan Act of Killing 1 Explanation: PrimitiaeMan as Hunter z. TheEtsolutionary 3. Ritualization 22 4. Myth and Ritual 29 of Ritual Killing J5 5, TheFunctionand Transformation Funerary Ritual 6. 48 7. TheSexualizationof Ritual Killing: Maiden Sacrifice, PhallusCuIt 58 8. FatherGodand GreatGoddess 72 il. WEREWOLVESAROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
72
83
r. Lykniaand Lykaion 84 z. Pelopsat Olympia 93 3. Thyestesand Harpagos 1o3 4. Aristaiosand Aktaion 1o9 5. TheDelphicTripod tr6 6. A Glanceat Odysseus t3o
m. DISSOLUTION AND
NEW YEAR'SFESTIVAL
r. FromOx-Slayingto thePanathenaic Festiaal t36 Dipolieia q6 Skira 74) IX
a35
Arrhephoria 71'o Panathenaia 754 Excursus: The Troian Horse 1 5 8 2 . Argos and Argeiphontes 16r ) . Agrionia $8 4 . Tereusand the Nightingale a79 5 . Antiope and EPoPeus 185 6 . The Lemnian Women 79o 7. The Return of the DolPhin t96 8 . Fish Adaent 2o4
IV. ANTHESTERIA
Translator'sPreface
273
Testimoniaand Dissemination 213 Pithoigia and Choes zt6 3 . Carians or Keres zz6 i SacredMarriage and Lenaia-Vases z3o ?' 5 . Chytroi qnd Aiora 48 6 . Protesilaos 243 7.
2.
V. ELEUSIS t. Documentation and Secret 248 z. TheMyth of Koreand Pig-Sacrifice256 3. Myesisand Synthema 265 in the Telesterion274 4. TheSacrifice Deathand Encountering Death:Initiationand 5. Oaercoming Sacrifice zg3 and Bibliography 299 Abbreaiations Indexof Cult Sitesand Festiuals 3o9
248
walter Burkert'sstyle is often suggestiverather than explicit, his descriptionsare vivid (at times almost visionary)rather than dryly academic,and he does not hesitateto use colroquiarismsso as to make a point more forcefully. In the processof translation, such featuresinevitably undergo a certain levelling. I have tried, however, to maintain the drama and drive of ProfessorBurkert'sprose.In the German, Homo Necansis remarkable for being both an exemplary piece of scholarshipand just plain good reading. It is my hope that itiemains so in the.English. Among the many friends and colleagueswho helped me at various stagesin this translation,specialthanks are due to fames Fanto, ProfessorBruce Frier, ProfessorLudwig Koenen, Charlotte Melin, ProfessorWilliam Owens, and ProfessorSusan Scheinberg.I was privileged to spend severalenjoyable and productive days revising the manuscript with ProfessorBurkert in Uster. Finally my thanki to Doris Kretschmer of the University of California piess who entrusted this project to me and politely,but firmly, kept my nose to the grindstone. PHILADELrHIA, NovEMBnn rg8z
Index of Namesof Godsand Heroes 3a3 PeterBing
and Things )79 lndexof Persons lndex of GreekWords 33a
xi
Prefaceto the English Edition
It is with some hesitation that I present this book, conceivedin the sixties, to an Anglo-American public of the eighties. An holistic synthesisin the field of anthropology may appear preposterousand inadequateat any time; and changesin approach, method, and interest, which have been especiallymarked in these decades-be it through progress in the individual branchesof study, be it through changes.ofparadigmsor even fashions-make such an attempt all the more questionable.When this book appearedin German in 1972,it could claim to be revolutionary in various respects.To a field still dominated largely by philological-historicalpositivism or by the residue of the Tylorian approach in Nilsson and Deubner, it brought a comprehensiveand consistentapplicationof the myth-and-ritual position; it introduced, after Harrison's Themis,functionalism to the study of Greek religion; it used a form of structuralismin interpreting the complexesof mythical tales and festivals;and it made a first attempt to apply ethology to religious history. In the English-speaking world, ritualism and functionalismhad made their mark long before, and much more on all theselines has beenworked out, disseminated, and discussedin the last decade.What was originally novel and daring may thus soon apPearantiquated.The socialaspectof religion in generaland the central role of sacrificein ancient religion are taken for granted today.Much of the credit goesto the schoolof Jean-Pierre and the Vernant and Marcel Detienne in Paris. Ren6 Girard's Violence Sacred, which appearedin the sameyear as HomoNecansand may be seenas largely parallelin intent (cf. L5.n.r), was also instrumental. More generally,we have seen the swift rise of semiology and structuralism, which, though judged by some to be already past their apogee, still command attention and discussion.We have likewise witnessedthe emergenceof sociobiology,which aspiresto a new synthesisof natural and socialsciences.To keep up with all thesedevelwould virtually require opments and iniegrate them into HomoNecans xlll
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
another book replacing the tentative essay that now constitutes my first chapter. Chapters II through V appear less problematical. They elaborate basic ritual structures reflected in myth, demonstrating correspondences and integrating isolated pie-9gsinto a comprehensive whole. As a description-this *ill prorr. ualid.in its own right. The attempt, however, to extrapolate from this an historical-causal explanation of the phenomena-that is, to derive sacrifice from hunting and religion be condemned by the stern rules of from sacrificial ritual-could I have decided to run this risk rather than Yet methodology. a many limit my perspectives by preestablished rules. In so doing, I have inevitably made use of various hypotheses concerning prehistory, sociology, and psychology that are open to error and to the possibility of attack and falsification in the course of further research. There is no denying that a decisive impulse for the thesis of Homo Necans came from Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, which seemed to offer new insight into the disquieting manifestations of violence, which are so prominent in human affairs and not least in the ancient world. Lorenz's assertions about the innate roots of aggression and its necessary functions have come under vigorous attack by progressive sociologists. Some overstatements no doubt have been corrected, but some of the criticism and subsequent neglect may be viewed as part of the schizophrenia of our world, which pursues the ideal of an ever more human, more easygoing life amid growing insecurity and uncontrolled violence. Fashionable psychology attempts to eradicate feelings of guilt from the human psyche; ideas of atonement appear old-fashioned or even perverse. The thrust of Homo Necans runs counter to these trends. It attempts to show that things were different in the formative period of oui civilization; it arguJs that solidarity was achieved through a sacred crime with due reparation. And while it has no intention of thwarting modern optimism, it tries to warn against ignoring what was formerly the case. Great advances have been made in prehistory and especially in primatology. We now know there are hunts with subsequent ,,distribution of meat" among chimpanzees (seeI.z.n.z3)-showing them to be more human than had been suspected; a chimpanzee ,,rarar,,has been observed, and there are reports of intentionaf kitting by gorillas and orangutans (see I.6.n.5). The picture of evolution hai become ever richer in details but increasingly blurred in its outlines. In reaction to the "hunting hypothesis" of Robert Ardrey and others, specialists are now reluctant to lay claim to knowledge of the importance of hunting behavior. what had been taken to be lhe earliest evidence
for sacrifice has been called into question again (see I.z.n.6). yet the historian of religion still insists that religion must have come into ex_ is.tence at some specific point_chimpir,re"s are apparentlv irreli_ gious-and that it first becomes disceinibre with funera.y uni nrr.,t_ ing ritual. In view of all this it is essential to note that the lor.r" or historical development as delineated in Homo Necqnsdoes not at any stage require that "all" men acted or experienced things in a certain way-e'9., that all hunters feel sympathy for their quairy or remorse over their hunting-but only that ro*" iid indeed instiiute forms of behavior that became traditional and had a formative influence on the high cultures accessible to historical investigation. For the srrange prominence of animal sraughter in ancient rer'igion this still seems to be the most economical, and most humane, exllanation. dealing with tradition, Homo Necanstakes a stance that is . -F hardly popular: it restricts the role of creative freedom a.d fantasy; it reduces "ideas" to the imprinting effect of cultural transfer. on the other hand, modern insistence on ,,creativity,, may simply be an at_ tempt to compensate for the enormous anonymous constraints at work in our society. Nobody wants to question the spiritual achievements of mankind, but these may have it.ung" and opaque substructures. In pointing them out it is perhaps wisest not even to shun the accusation of reductionism, for, though from a structuralist-semiotic perspective one may well describe religion as the relations between men and gods, with sacrifice mediating between them, the term gods nonetheless remains fluid and in need of explanation, while sacrifice is a fact. The thesis that those groups united by religious ritual have historically been most successful seems to conflict *itn tn" modern version of the theory of evolution. That theory now discards the concept 9f qlo"p selection and insists, rather, on ih" self-perpetuation of the "selfish gene" (see I.3.n.9). It may be pointed out bnce more that this is a predictable modern perspective ieflecting the disintegration of our society. whether it applies to the history of culturally dJtermined groups is another question. The thesis of Homo Necansdoes not hypothesize about genetic fixation of ,,human nature.,, It seeks, rather, to.confront the power and effect of tradition as fuily as possibre. In this sense it is radically historical, and factual. pre.paring the translation, I have only been able to rework the ototrography and notes to a limited extent. They still largely reflect the state of the relevant scholarship in 1972. I have, howlver, taken the opportunity to refer to more recent specialized studies and stan-
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
more complete and updard works and to make the documentation to-date. ItremainstothanktheUniversityofCaliforniaPressandPeter Bing, the translator, for their untiring efforts'
List of Illustrations
usrER,yurv r98z WalterBurkert
following pagefi4 r. Sacrificialprocession.Attic black-figurecup. z. Preparation for sacrifice. Attic red-figure bell crater. 3. Leopard men hunting stagand boar. Wall painting from Qatal Htiyrik. 4- Sacrificial feast: roasting and cooking. Caeretan hydria. 5 . Warrior rising from a tripod cauldron. Mitra from Axos. 6. Bulls strolling around an altar. Attic black-figure oinochoe. 'Lenaia-vase'. Attic red-figure stamnos. 8 . Mystery initiation: pig sacrifice. Lovatelli urn. 9 . Mystery initiation: purification by liknon. Lovatelli urn. n
xvll
Introduction
It is not so much the limits of our knowledge as the superabundance of what can be known that makes an attempt to expliin man's religious behavior an almost hopelessenterprise.The mass of available data and interpretation has long exceededthe limits of what an individual can grasp and assimilate.Perhapsthis stream of information will soon be ordered and surveyedthrough a collectiveeffort using computels, but as long as intellectualindependenceprevails and an individual must seek to orient himself within his own world, he may-indeed, he must-take the risk of projectinga model of his situation and reducing a confusing multiplicity into a comprehensible form. A philologist who startsfrom ancientGreek textsand attemptsto find biological, psychological,and sociologicalexplanationsfoi religious phenomenanaturally runs the risk of juggling too many balls at once and dropping them all. And if it is strangefor a philologist to venture beyond scrupulous discussionof his texts, psychology and sociologyare just as reluctant to burden their analysesof contemporary phenomenawith an historical perspectivestretchingback to antiquity and beyond. There is a danger that important biological,psychological, and ethnological findings be overlooked, juit as can happen with archaeologicalfinds, and it is hardly possible for the non-specialistto give the Near Easternevidencethe expert treatment it requires. Yet we must not assumethat all subiectsfii neatlv within the limits of a particular discipline. Even philology depends on a biologically,psychologically,and sociologicallydeteimined environment and tradition to provide its basisfor understanding.And just as biology acquiredan historical dimension with the conceptof evolution,r so sociology,like psychology before it, should uccepfthe notion that 'H. Diels, lnternationale wochenshrift ) (1gog), g9o, discussed the "historicizins of nature" through Darwin's the<-rry
xix
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
understood only by human societyis shapedby the past and.can be of time' periods long examining its"develoim"nf ou"t itself presentsus with probOf course, ttr" uii of understanding If by "understanding" we discussed' lems that have been widely correspondto-our exPecultimately will mean that the outside world tutio"'andthoughtstructures,thenweadmitthatthediversityof thatworldisperceivedasthoughthroughapredeterminedfilterand b" diff"rent kinds of understanding, distinguished ac;ir;;;;r;;fi individuals and groups. But if reality were not anthropo.*d*_-; or at leastintellectuallydetermined, then understanding "iiii?."ify sensewould be altogetherimpossible. The possibility i;;;;rrr;al fully awareof theseproblems,to ,"-uir* of using our consciousness, and to adapt the structures tradition,' received of course unravel the with which we are conrealities ever-new the to of understanding likes it or not, remains tied. he whether man, *tl.t to and fronted our task is to seek the perspectivesthat give us the broadest and clearestview, to project a-modelthat accountsfor the various areasof experienceas comprehensivelyas possibleand that is susceptibleto frequent factualveiification. We cannot hope that our model will be a finiihed product; it is merely an attempt set forward for discussion, with full knowledge of its tentative natureEvery religionaspiresto the absolute.Its claims,when seenfrom within, make it self-sufficient.It establishesand explains,but needs no explanation.Within this sphereof power, any discussionabout religion will almost automaticallybecomea religious Pronouncement, especiallyas the essenceof religion is an attempt at expressionand communication.In this way, however,religion becomesthe agentand the medium of communication rather than its subiect. This is precisely why religious discussionabout religion is effective,for it finds resonancein nearly everyone.Thus, even when the seriousnessof religious practiceis replacedby the ambiguousand non-binding "as if" of emotional understanding, this mode of discourseremains entirely respectableeven in a secularizedsociety. The opposite extreme in the study of religion is likewise generand carriesno risk: this is the lexicographicaldocumenaccepted ally tation and arrangementof the details that have been observed and transmitted to us from the past. And yet a lexiconwill not give us an understanding of the language if the grammar is unknown or disregarded and if the practice under discussion has not been underzFor the fundamental philosophical treatment see H. G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode Q965\').
stood' Thus, preciselybecausereligious phenomenaseemmore and more to elude the modern world's grasp, mere gathering of material can shed no more light on them than can the uncontrolledresonances of emotional understanding. Especiallywhen dealing with foreign or extinct religions, an outsider finds himself confronted, as it were, with a strange and unknown language:to understand it, he must translateit. This means first of all that there should be no ambiguity about the languageinto which one translates.To vacillatebetween transformationand imitation will produce the kind of misunderstandingsthat do, in fact, dominate many controversiesin the study of religion. If one tries to translateone religion into the languageof another, one finds, just as in working with ordinary languagesof different nations, that this is only possible to a limited degree. Equivalent expressionswill frequently be lacking, due to the respectivedifferencesin religious practice and in living conditions. If we take up foreign words such as totem,tabu, and mana,their meaning remains unclear or changesaccording to the interpreter'sintent. If we invent new conceptssuch as spirit or YearDaemon,3 aegetation their legitimacyremains a matter of dispute, especiallyif it is unclearat what point the conceptbecomesa new myth itself. The languagethat has proved the most generallyunderstoodand cross-culturalis that of secularizedscholarship.Its practicetoday is determined by sciencein its broadestsense,its systemof rules by the laws of logic. It may, of course,seemthe most questionableendeavor of all to try to translatereligiousphenomenainto this language;by its self-conception,a religion must deny that such explanationsare possible. However, scholarship is free to study even the rejection of knowledge and repudiation of independentthought, for scholarship, in attempting to understand the world, has the broader perspective here and cannot abstain from analyzing the worldwide fact of religion. This is not a hopelessundertaking.nHowever, a discussionof religion must then be anything but religious. 3W.
Mannhardt, Die KorndiimonenQ868); Harrison (r9z) 31r-34. Especially dangerous is the little word is, which confounds translation, allegory, classification, and onlologicaf or psychological realization. See, for instance, Nilsson jgo6) z7: "wenn der Stier des Zeus Sosipolis ein Korngeist ist, muss der des Zeus Polieus es auch sein.', aE. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theoriesof Primitiae Religion(1965), offers a survey with penetrating criticism that leads to the conclusion that the "believer" is s-.rperiorto the "nonbeliever" (rzr). still fundamental, however, is E. Durkheirn's Les formesilimentaires tlela ttte religieuse(r9rz). Psychoanalytical enterprises-most recently La Barre j97o)-are also to be taken seriously.
xxl
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
We shall examine religion as an historical and social phenomenon, as the medium of tradition and communication among men. This contradicts the common assumptions, if not the practical reality, of the dominant religious tradition in the West, i.e., Christianity, which views the individual's encounter with the one God, and his subsequent salvation, as the onlyrelevant facts. This perspective has determined the common scholarly definition of religion as, for instance, "man's experiential encounter with the sacred and his action in response to the sacred."s And yet individual religions exist in typical and persisting forms precisely because very little unforeseen spontaneity and innovation occur in them. To the extent that we find a "personal encounter with the sacred," it is performed according to a traditional method and with pedagogical intent. Only those who can attest to a genuine encounter are accepted. The pre-Christian religions proclaimed with the utmost conviction that only ancestral tradition could guarantee the legitimacy of religion. Thus, through his oracle, the Delphic god always sanctioned rites "according to the custom of the city"; and the Boeotian was speaking for many when he remarked, in regard to a strange fish-sacrifice at Lake Copais, "There is just one thing I know: that one must maintain the ancestral customs and that it would be improper to excuse oneself for this before others." 6
active,even if in strangetransformations,_irgmsuperstition and liter_ ary tradition to liturgical practice and Christi""'th;;i;;y.t.,ty i., ancient Greek religion do we find an uninterrupt"J;;:iir; of the greatestantiquity in a highly refined culture, unsurpassed in its intel_ lectual and artistic achievement.It was due to this union of antiquity with sophisticationthat the Greekswere the first syst"mati*ri to call religion into question' Seen from that distanceind from c(angrng perspectives,the phenomenon may come into sharper relief. In the following studies, the Greek tradition wiil hold center stage,though it is hoped that we will illuminate important stagesin the mainstreamof human developmentas well. we witt not try to exp]{n nfeigmena by amls.sing,,primitive,,material fo. lo.r,p'u.iror,, stripped of its context and henie utt tn" more difficult to understand. Rathe.r,.we shall proceed from a consistent historical perspective stretching back to man's beginnings. we wit pr"." gi*itweigtt ""tof how on theindividuality of Greericultuie, regardless p?Jr"*or*ry it may be; the anthroporogicalaspectout-weighsthe humanistrc. nut it is preciselyhere that both the primeval rools and the lucidity of the Greekmaterialbecomesevideni. It can serve,as it were, as a mirror in which the basicorders of rife, lying far behind us, become visiblewith an almost classicalclaritv. we shall try to combinethis consistenthistoricalperspective with . a functiorralone. within historicalreality, religion is a sta'uitizr.,gructor of the first order in society.As such it upp"u* in its enduring aspect, always a given tradition which is moaified time and ug"i; u"a never replacedby something entirely new. As it unfords -iihir, th" many-facetedplay of sociarforces, various traditions unite, thereby perpetuatingthemselvesor languishingand dying out. i:t"J,,l"g 1"d while tied to social reality, do", .,ot si"mply :1",:-t:.1":pect,..religion, reflec.t that reality; it takeslittle accountof society'sswift changes, especiallythose regardingeconomicconditions. Ratheait seemsto deal wrth more fundamental layers of communal human life and with its preconditions,which have changedonly ,filf,,ff f.offI.^l:,t"-gi.a.l rne earlresttimes until now If religious forms have ofien iro"iaua u focal point for new social and ecinomic developmentr,ii"y'-"." more.a prerequisitethan a consequenceof these developments., At the core of our study u." th" rituals, together wiih the mythic
Ancient Greek religion is distinguished neither by extreme antiquity nor by a great wealth of source material. It is far younger than either the Egyptian or Sumerian tradition, and in terms of accessibility it cannot even begin to compete with a living religion. In spite of this, the general problems in the study of religion have been repeatedly linked to research on the religion of the Greeks. This can hardly be a coincidental offshoot of the once-ubiquitous humanistic tradition. If, rather, we take both age and accessibility into account simultaneously, the ancient Greek religion assumes a unique position after all: among the most ancient forms of religion, it is still the most comprehensible and the one that can be obseived from the greatest number of perspectives. For it never disappeared entirely, but remained 5G Mglsching, Die grossenNichtchristlichenReligionenunserer Zeit (rg5+), rJ; RGG3 V 6 2mi g a n g m i t 9 & ; c f . F . H e i l e r , E r s c h e i n u n g s t ' o r n r e n u n d W e s e n d e r R e l i g i o n ( r 9 6 t ) ,,5, U dem Heiligen." oAgatharchides, Ath. z97d; u6ptp r6\tueXen. Mem. t.1.t, 4 . 3 . : ' 6 ,a n d c f . H e s . f r . ; z : . ; Eur. Bacch. 2o7-2o4i Plat. Leg. 78b-d,; Cotta in Cic. Nat. deor. 3.5, 9;Cic. Leg.z.4o;Cic. Hat resp. 18-r9. Likewise, early Christianity felt obliged to its ancestors: oix dpels rilv yeipd oou atro roi uioi oou i) dro fi1s tuyarpog oou, ri,\,),ri dtr6 veornros 6r.6ri{srs rdv 96Bov roi Beoi (Didache4.q\.
xxii
TMax weber, in his famous study, demonstrated the influenceof carvinism on capitalism (Dreprotestantische Ethikunider Geistdesxopirotir*ur, Ges.Aufsiitze zur Rerigionssoziologie _,__"6.",I rtrzwt, q-zo6), but [ryzo], L/_zuorl our Lalvlnlsm Calvinis- cannot conversely be explained --^r-i-^r by L.. way -.,--,ol -/ capitalism. "r...*.nn\/p,car'ho
xxiii
TNTRODUCTION
traditions relating to them. Our aim is to identify and to understand relationshipsand structuresthat recur in various guises but always bind certain elementstogetherin the sameway'' We shall consciously refrain from trying to arrangethe materialaccordingto a mathematical model. Theelementsare, on the one hand, so complexand, on the other, so directly understandablethat it would be wrong to reduce them to a yes/no pattern, thus making them so complicatedthat they would be obscured.Killing and eating, virgins, mothers and fathers -these basic configurations of human life are more easily grasped through experiencethan through logical analysis,just as the structure of a ritual and of a mythic tale unfolds in linear time and cannot be representedby a systemof reversiblepermutations.Thus, the sacrificial ritual moves from preparationthrough the "unspeakable"central point to the act of "setting up" an order, a pattern which can be repeatedbut not reversed. The first chapter deals with basicprinciples and could stand on its own, although it would then probably seem too dogmatic and speculative.It pulls together the various threads that appear in the casestudies of the subsequentchapters. By spelling out the consequences,it lays the foundation that is then assumedfor the rest of the book. The hypothesisand the applicationconfirm one another, even though neither is quite self-sufficient.Following this attempt to analyze the complex of hunting, sacrifice,and funerary ritual both historically and functionally, we turn to an interpretation of groups of Greek festival rites under various aspects.We examine, on the one hand, the divisions and interactionsof individual groups at the sacrifice of a ram and, on the othet the sequenceof dissolutionand restoration of the order of life, from the city festivals to the Dionysiac orgies. The sacrificialstructure of guilt incurred and subsequentrestitution also appearsin the consumption of wine at the oldest festival of Dionysus; and the mysteriesof the grain goddessDemeterappear to be likewise organizedby the rhythm of the sacrificialrites. This sequenceis not to be understood as historicalstratigraphy.It is increasingly difficult to separateMediterranean,Near Eastern,and Eurasian elements, and to distinguish Greek from pre-Greek.The structures are perhaps too basicto follow ethnic distinctions. The aim of our presentationis to set out the phenomenain a per6The following analyses were begun and conducted largely without reference to C. L6vi-Strauss'sAnthropologiestructuraleQ958; MythologiquesI-lY 11964-197rl; Anthropologiestructuraledeuxlt971l). For a closer look at structuralism, see Burkert (1979) 5-a4.
xxlv
INTRODUCTION
spicuousand understandableform. This requiresa practicablebrevity and limitation of scope,a selectivetreatmentof the boundlessmassof material. It would be impossibleto discussall questions in detail or refer exhaustivelyto all specializedsecondaryliterature. we have attempted instead to refer to what is basic and what is new The most important sourcesare cited, but the list is by no means exhaustive. we refer the reader to the standardworks of preller-Robert,Deubner and Nilsson, Farnell and Cook for more completedocumentation. -The aspectsof Greekreligion and of humanity that emergein this study are not those which are particularly edifying, not the ideal or the most likable traits of Greekculture. yet we can invoke the Delphic god'sinjuction that mankind should seeitself with absoluteclariry,no illusions: f uio& oaurov.
I. SACRIFICE, HUNTING, AND FUNERARYruTUALS
r. Sacrifice asan Act
of KiIIing Aggressionr and human violence have marked the progress of our civilization and appear, indeed, to have Brown so during its coursethat they havebecomea centralproblem of the present.Analysesthat attempt to locatethe roots of the evil often set out with shortsighted assumptions,as though the failure of our upbringing or the faulty developmentof a particular national tradition or economicsystem were to blame. More can be said for the thesisthat all orders and forms of authority in human societyare founded on institutionalized violence.This at least correspondsto the fundamental role played in biology by intraspecificaggression,as describedby Konrad Lorenz. Those, however, who turn to religion for salvation from this "socalledevil" of aggressionare confrontedwith murder at the very core 'S. Freud Xll in der Kultur (r91o), Ges.Schrit'ten pointed the way in Das Unbehngen (r9$, z7-t'r4 = Ges.WerkeXlv (1948),4:'9-5o6.K. Lorenz (1963)is basic from the standpointof the behaviorist.The sometimesspirited criticismsof his approach-for hstance, M. F. Ashley-Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression (1968);A. Plack, Die Gesellschaftund das BijseGg6go);J. Rattner, Aggression und menschliche Natur Q97o)_.did,indeed correctsome particularsbut sometimesalso displayedwishful thinking and partisanship; cf. Eibl-Eibesfeldtt (r97o) defensive posture. For application to religious studies see P Weidkuhn, Aggressiaiti)t,Ritus, Slikularisierung.BiologischeGrundformen religidserProzesse(1965).
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
the old of Christianity-the death of God'sinnocent son; still earlier, dehad only after Abraham about Testamentcovenant could come fascinatlurk and violence blood cided to sacrificehis child. Thus, ingly at the very heart of religion' -,o Fromaclassicizingpersp"ective,Greekreligionappearedandstill who some as Uiigt t and harmlessly cheerful. Yet those upp"u., (I another on is Cor. r:23) Cross the of ^jir.,tuir., that the skand"alon overlook the deeperdimension that accompaniesthe i;;;il;;iler to draw fri" 3f the gods as portrayed by Homer. If a man is able ""r, i"-,r," god"s,as the priest Chryseswith Apollo or as Hektor or thigh"l^', Oiurr"rr, *ith 2".*, he can do so becausehe has "burnt many piety: of act is the for this r.66), Od. (II. zz.a7o; r.4o, of bulls,, is "i"1", there if no difference makes It eating. slaughter-and tloodshed, no temple or cull-statue,as often occursin the cult of Zeus. The god is. pr"r"r,i at his place of sacrifice,a place distinguishedby the heap of ,,sacred"offerings burnt there over long periods of ashes left from time, or by the horns and skulls of slaughteredrams and bulls, or by the altar-stonewhere the blood must be sprinkled. The worshipper experiencesthe god most Powerfully not just in pious conduct or in pruy"r, ro.g, u.,I dance,but in the deadly blow of the axe, the gush Lf Utooa an? the burning of thigh-pieces.The realm of the gods is sacred,but the "sacred" act done at the "sacred" place by the "consecrating" actor consistsof slaughteringsacrificialanimals, iepeiecv ra iepe{a.,It was no different in Israel up to the destruction of the tempie.' It is prescribed that daily "burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar,""all night until the morning" (Lev' 6:z); these offerings, the remnantsof two one-year-oldlambs cut into pieces,are "a plea-singodor to the Lord." Thus the principal sin of Antiochus Epiphanesagainst|erusalemwas that he ordered that "the continual burnt offeri"g 1U"1taken away" (Dan. 8:rr). Augustus built an altar to 2On Greek sacrificeseeStengel(r9ro), (r9zo) g5-a5, Eitrem (r9r5); F Schwenn, Cebef und Opfer (r9z); L. Ziehen, RE XVIII (ry9), 579-627,lll A (tgzg), 1669-79;Meuli "Die antiken (1946);burkert (1966);Nilsson $95) tlz-t57; Casabona(1966);E'Forster, 'Animal Sacrifice i"ti.trt"" tiber das Opferwesen,"Diss. Innsbruck, r95z;E. Kadletz, in Greek and Roman Religion," Diss. University of washington, t976; Detienne and 121'-45; the pictorial tradition seeG. Rizza, ASAA37l38(195916o)' Vernant (1979).For '(ig6S) :roZ-trfi. On sacrificegenerally see W' R Smith (r89+); H Hubert and Metzger z (1898), M. M-auss,"Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice," Ann6eSociologique le sur historique Essai Loisy, A. (1968), rgJ-)o7; I oeuures Mauss, zg-tlg: M. -sacrifice (iqzoj; n. Money-Kyrle, TheMeaningof Sacrifce(r91o) (psychoanalytical);-E'M' Loeb' ')The Blood SacrificeComplex," Mei. Amer.Anthr. Assoc'1o(:'923\;E' O' fames' Sacri(:.962);Burkert (r98r). ficeand Sacrament 3R. de Vaux, Lessacrifces deI'AncienTestament i96$; cf. n. 4z below'
SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING
celebratethe establishmSnl0f world peace and, together with his family, appearson the reliefsof this Ari pacisur u ru.iiril"., p."."a"a by servants carrying the sacrificiaraxe. Thus, the -ort;;fi;;d gustan art provides a framework for the bloody sacrifices Au_ at the centgl. .. .f$acrificial killing is the basicexperienceof the "sacred.,,HomoreIigiosusacts and attains self-awareness us homonecans.Indeed, this is what it means "to act,"t'6{ew, operari(whence ,,sacrifice,,is Opferin German)-the name merely coversup the heart gf the action with a euphemism.orhe bliss of encounteringdivinity finds expression in ryordr, and yet the strange and extraor-clinaryE;6GTh-at ine parfiaipant in the sacrificeis forced to witness are all the more intense be_ causethey are left undiscussedl Thanks to the descriptions"inHomer and tragedy,we can reconstruct the courseof an ordinary Greek sacrificeto"the olympian gods almost in its entirety. Ihe path that leads to the center or tn" sacred experienceis complex.frhe preparationsinclude bathing and dressing in cleanclothes,sputting on ornamentsand wreaths;Joftensexual abstinenceis a requirement.'At the start, a procession(rrop.rr),s even if still a small one, is formed. The festivalpirticipants depart from the everydayworld, moving to a single rhythm and singing. The sacrifi_ cial animal is led along with them, iikewise decoratet and transformed-bound with fillets, its horns coveredwith gold.'Generally it is hoped that the animal will follow the processioncompliantly or even willingly. Legendsoften tell of animals that offered tiremselves 'The basicmeaning of 8{ew is "to smoke." Concerningthe ancients,plutarch writes Theophrastus?) raparrop.evot xai ietp.aivovres"Ep6ew" {fgllowiig ltiv Exa\ouu xai "t'6(ew"' 6s * ptya 6pdures,rd Biew i;trltuyov, conu. f .; z:ouekrlar.il. 2.4o9,cf. e. 729 r.3r8; Hy. Merc. 436.Likewisein Hebrew and Hittite, the verb to dois usedin the sense of "to sacrifice"; cf. casabona e966) 3or-1o4, who warns against generarizations. sE.g., Od. 4.759; Eur. EL 79t and,J. D. Dennistons Commentary e99), ad /oc.;poll. r'25; Wdchter(r9ro) rt-rz; R. Ginouvds, BAAANEYTIKH; Recherchis surle batndans I'antiquitdgrecqueQ96z), 2993tB. "xen. Anab.7.r.4o;Aeschines3.77;etc.;J. Kochling,Decoronarumapudantiquosaiatque usu (r9t3); K. Baus, Der Kranzin Antike und Chrisientum(r94o);L. Deubner, z{RW3o (ty), 7o-ro4; Blech (1982). ?Fehrle 1r9ro),esp. r55-58; for the coan inscription on the sacrificeof a bull for Zeus r-olreusseenow SlC, to25 = LS r5t A 4t_44. 8E.Pfuhl, De Atheniensium pompissacris (r9ro); Wilamowitz (t932) j5o_54. "od' 3.412-38.This survived in fork custom until modern times; seeU. Jahn, Die deutschenopferbriiuchebeiAckerbauund viehzucht egg4), q6-17, lt5-17, on the proverbial "ox at Pentecost";Megas Q956)t7. On the meanint otfiepeiovrit erozseeArist. fr. ror; t'tut. Uedel.or. 437a:Schol.A. II. r.66;Eust. 49.35.
SACRIFICE, HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS
uP for sacrifice,r0 apparent evidenceof a higher will that commands aisent. The final goit it the sacrificialstone, the altar "set up" long ago, which is to be sprinkled with.blood' Usually a fire is already u[luru on top of it. Olten a censeris used to impregnatethe atmospherewith ihe scentof the extraordinary,and there is music, usually tirat of the flute. A virgin leadsthe way, "carrying the basket" (xavr1gripos)," that is, an untouched girl holding a coveredcontainer (see fieuresr and z). A water iug must be there as well' " fFirst of all, after arriving at the sacred place, the participants ,,'"i-t off a circle; the sacrificial basket and water jug are carried around the assembly,thus marking off the sacredrealm from the profane." The first communal act is washing one's hands as the beginning of that which is to take place.The animal is also sprinkled with waterll"shakeyourself,"saysTrygaiosin Aristophanes,''for the animal'sirovement is taken to signify a "willing nod," a "yes" to the sacrificial act. The bull is watered again," so that he will bow his head. The animal thus becomesthe center of attention. The participants now take unground barley grains (orilal), the most ancient agricultural product, from the basket. These, however, are not meant for grinding or to be made into food: after a brief silence,the solemn eJgqp,eiv, followed by a prayer out loud-in a way, more selfaffirmation than prayer-the participantsfling the barley grains away onto the sacrificialanimal, the altar, and the earth." They are after rorge4lrirou Bo
SACRIFICE
AS AN
ACT
OF KILLING
another kind of food. The act of throwing simultaneously as a group is an aggressive gesture, rike beginnir,g u iight, even if ihJ;; harm_ less projectiles are chosen. Indeed, i.r ,ome ancient rituals stones were used.'u Hidden beneathJhe grains in the basket was the knife, which now lies uncovered.r'The leader in this incipient drama, the iepeis, steps toward the sacrificial animal, carrying the knife still cov_ ered so that the animal cannot see it. A swift cui, uid u f"* hairs from the brow are shorn and thrown into the fire. This is another, though more serious, act of beginning (cipyecgat),rnjust as the water and the barley grains were a beginning. Blood has noi yet been spilled and no pain whatsoever has been inflicted, but the inviorability of the sacrificial animal has been abolished irreversibly. Now comes the death blow The *orn"r, raise a piercing scream: whether in fear or triumph or both at once, the ,,Greek custJm of the sacrificial scream"'n marks the emotional climax of the Lo-._ "rr".ri, ilg-ar4t-th-death:ralfle.Theblood nowrnf out is treated *itn $*i"r care. ft may.not spill on the ground; rather, it must hit the altar, the hearth, or the sacrificial pit. If the animal is small it is raised over the altar; otherwise the blood is caught in a bowl and sprinkled on the altar-stone. This object alone may, and must again and again, drip blood.'o The "act" is over; its consequences are the next concern. The anr_ mal is carved up and disembowelled. Its inner organs are now the main focus, lying revealed, an alien, bizarre, and rri.ur,rry sight, and yet common in the same form to men as well, as is knoin from seeing wounded soldiers. The tradition specifies preciselv what must toOritrolurcs d.ut\ovro I rpoBa\ovro ll. t.449145g, z.4to/42r, and cf. Ori. 3.447; ylputpa r' oi)royirae re xardpyecfiat od. ).++5; cf . Aristoph. pax 96r-67. ro. o;ioJ us tr," ,.ort
ancrentgrain see Theophrastusin porph. Abst.2.6 and schol. Ir. r.44gb; schol. orl. ).44r; Sudao 9o7;Eust. 7)2.25,1,i3.1,2, and cf. Eust. rg59.4g; ur, of a.otru_ rlrqfeia and eigopia seeSchol.A lt.r.449,Schol. Od. ", "*prJrrion 3.4.4t.VngZcLu. . . duri oiiitu Paus.,r.4r.9(cf. III.4 below).For ritual stone_throwing around the altar of l:.t:ro, t'oserdonat the Isthmian sanctuaryseeo. Broneet Hesperia zg (g59),3o1. Cf .L. ziehen,He-rmes)zQgoz),3gr-4oo;Stengel(r9ro)r)-));Eitrem(r9r5) z6r-3og,whorecog,1" eSlivalelle.yith,pur,ropJla una *Lriytoptrra; Burkert lii:l 1ryoo)to7, n. 4o. r1at.Com. lr.9r \CAF l6z6); Aristoph. pax 94gwith Schol.;Eur. El. gto, iph. Aul. 1565;Philostr. V Av. r.r '8Od. 3.4q6,r4.4zz';Eur.Alc.74-76,El. ht;Eitrem (r9r5) roneouslymakesthe "beginning,,into a ,,selbstdndige 344_72_who,howeve,er_ dpfergabe,, (44) 'e'E,\,A1urr
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
l l 'i'
FUNERARY RITUALS
be done with eachpiece." First of all, the heart, sometimesstill beating, is put on the aitar.r'A seeris presentto interpret the lobesof the liv*er..,in general, however, the ozr),d7Xzc-the collectiveterm for the organsl-are quickly roastedin the fire from the altar and eatenat / once.Thus the inner circleof activeparticipantsis brought together meal,transforminqh91o1into pleasure.Only the bile \in ".o*^unal is inedible and has to be disposedof. Likewise, the bones are not to be used for the subsequentmeal, so they are "consecrated"beforehand. The bones, above all the thigh-bones Aqpiq) and the pelvis are put on the altar "in the proper order."'oFrom with the tail (rio<pris), still seeexactlyhow the parts of thgliving animal can one bones, the fit together: its basic form is restored and consecratedJIn Homer, a "beginning," i.e., a first offering, consisting of raw pieces of flesh from every limb, is put on the bonesas well, indicating the entirety of the slaughteredanimal.'{Tne purifying-jire then consumesall these remains]The skulls of buTlsand rams ffigoat-horns are preserved" in the sacredplaceas permanent evidenceof the act of consecration' The flow of blood is now replacedin its turn by the offerings of the planter, pouring libationsof wine into the fire and burning cakes.2'As the alcohol causesthe flames to flare up, a higher reality seemspresent. Then, as the fire dies down, the pleasing feast gradually gives
i1 '?rStengel Qgto) p-78; Meuli (1946) 246-48, 268-72; cvrnrXayTveierz Aristoph. Par rrr5; Eup. fr. ro8 (CAF I 286);Ath. 4rob. zGalen PIac.Hipp. et Plat.2.4 p. 238K; cf. Cleanthesin Cic. Nal. deor.z.z4; Sudax 17o (An. Bekk.lz75.to; Et. M. 49z.tz);Hsch. xap6lo0orlct,xap6cou)\xlat,and cf. Luk. Sacrif. 13; LSSnr.7. tsG.Blecher,De extispicio capitatria (t9o); for the Near Easterntradition seeJ. Nougayrol, "Les rapports des haruspicines 6trusque et assyro-babylonienne," CRAI (t955), jo9- r8. 2aErifsrr:oos Hes. Th. 54r. Meuli (1946)zr5-r7 proved that the p.lpia mentionedregularly in Homer are the bare thigh-bones;6or6,a XeuxaHes. Tir. 54o,sj7.The comic poets normally mention dogus and gall; cf. Men. Qrsc. 45r-52 and cf. fr. 264, Sam. 3gg-4o2;Eub. fr. 95, 1Jo (CAF II tg7, zto); Com.adesp.fr. rzo5 (CAF III.6o6).Vasepaintings (see n. z above) portray the dogris and tail of the sacrificial animal on the altar; cf. Aristoph. Pax rc54 with Schol. T'{lp.o$trlcav ll. r.46r, 2.424; Od. 3.458, rz46r, :^4.427Dion. Hal. Ant. 2.72.t7; Meuli (1946)zr8, 256,z6z. "Theophr. Char.zt.7; Schol. Aristoph. Plut.943; Eitrem gy/ 14-48; Nilsson (1955) 88, r45. For the accumulationof goat-hornsin the templeof Apollo at DrerosseeS. Marinatos, BCHfu Qq6), zz4-25, 24r-44.On the Keratonof DelosseeDikaiarchusfr. 85 W. = Plut. Thes.zr; Callim. Hy. Ap.58-64; E. Bethe,HermesTz(rg), rgt-94. 'z?Oil. 3.459-6o; xpi in.;Biet d){ghav ilpiexrov...LS r57 A, and cf. r5r A zo intBiew.
SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF.KILLING
way to everyday life." The skin of the sacrificiarvictim is generary sord to benefit the sanctuary,to purchase new votive offerLgs and new victims:in this way, the cult insures its own .onti.,uur.,.u.irl This rite is obrectionabre, and was alreadyfert to uu ,o o,.,, becauseit so cleariv and directly benefits "u;rf man. Is the god ,,to whom,, the sacrificeis made any more than a transparent excusefor festive feasting?All he gets arl the bones, th; fa; u"d th" ;;[-Uiuia".r. Hesiod says that the crafty prometheus, the friend of mankind, causedthis to be so in ordei to deceive the gods, and the burning of bones became a standard joke in Cr""t comedy.3oCriticism that damned the bloody act per se was far more penetrating.Zarathustra,s curseappliesto all who rust for brood and slaughter?attr".l,)inuuu had enough of burnt o{fering of rams af.r"fat of fed beasts;I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs ""J or of he_goats,,, saysthe Lord through Isaiah.3,Inthe Greek wortJ, tne pythag%;;;, u]ia O._ phics demanded that the lives of all creatures with souls be spared, and Empedokleswas the most vehement ,r i"-"tt]Jffi.nT.r._ nibalisticmadnessof the traditional sacrificiar "il meal, u, utro?.,-"ip.ursing the desirefor a realm of non_violentlove,on the path toward ,,pu_ rification'"33Ph'osophy then took up the criticism of blood28Ofteneverythingmustbeeatenonthespot1o'oo,ffi 88' st.
,stengel (gzo\ rr6-t7; esp. IG1r': y496ro rtpt'ytuop.evov dudrirnrerveis dvatiltrLarla SIG3rc44, 47 = LSAM 72, 47;cf. LSS'6r,Sz_07,,lA+, StC, 982, z3_zl; tS 69, 85. An exception:16 6eppa dyi[erfaL IS r5r D 6; Li fil ll ro 66ptra'xqrrri(("irq, o tt 66pp'axararyi(e(rar) meaning "is burned" (sokolowski) ,,is or torn apart,,(Hsch. xoraLlaaas and aiyi(et, Sudaat 44; G. Daux, BCI1g7 [ry6j], 61o)? sSee n. z4 above;A. Thomsen,,,DerTrug des prometheu s,,, ARWrz (r9o9), 46o_9o; l. Rudhardt, "Les mythes grecs relatifs i l,instauration du sacrifice,,,MH z7 (r97o) r-r5. The basisof the criticismis the conceptthat d rhrerz Lapekrhaidozy rois rleols (Pla.t.Euthyphr.r4c). Accordingly, tabl".;;;;;;;;;;.. the gods (rpatre{at\: oxilros16 tptTro Bo6srapteuto r6t Bnt Ib_Iy g74= SIC399bitpiauu.ur, fifth century n.c.); cf. L. Ziehen, RE XVIII 6rc-r6; S..Dowand D-H 6iit, .The Greek cultrabti,,, a1ao9 (1969'-rc|-n4' yet it is possibre to sraughter - a -z*iri'ui.,a.r.3.roal3ro; uo., ',for zeusand Helios,,and then throw the cadaverinto the seaeI i9 ro, t*tuo* t,ypothesesto savethe ,,offering,,-interpretaiiofsee Siengel ftgrc1,ry_4). Likewise in "gtority,', th"egod,s ir."t from the subjection of Il:?;ii^T*,rre, ""i "-"l""tio'deriue , Esp. Yasna32.8,rz, ra (G. Widengren,lranische Geisteswelt [r96t-j,t55;H. Humbach, Die GathasdesZarathustra [rySSl,I Si_Sil.Iti, ,n.l"ur, however,to what extent blood_ sacrificewas reiectedon orincipre,-.in." it .onti.,,r"J rn practice:see M. Boyce,/&{S (re66),rro; G. Wideneren . oie'neiigtonen;;i;;;;; 66,92, tos. '21s. r : r r ; c f . 6 6 :r . $The Pythagorean tradition is divided, with ilrg{yav an'yec'atagainst 'marorqrov
SACRIFICE, HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
sacrifice-above all, Theophrastus, in his influential book on Piety. This book explained animal-sacrifice as having replaced--canlibalism' which, in tuin, had been forced on men because of difficult times.y After this, a theoretical defense of sacrificial custom was virtually do hopeless..uBoth varro and seneca were convinced that the gods more spread in the Diaspora noi demand blood-sacrifice.'u Judaism temple easilv because cult practices had become concentrated in one outside making Jerusalema reliJudaism in lerusalem, thus virtually form also helped Christian praceion without animal-sacrifice.r'This On of Greek philosophy. traditions up the take thus iice. which could and a central significance sacrifice the idea of gave it the other hand, raised it to a higher status than ever before." The death of God's son is the one-time and perfect sacrifice, although it is still repeated in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, in breaking the bread and drinking the wine. Folk custom, however, managed to defy even Christianization and was subdued only by modern technological civilization. The Cerman expression geschmilckttpie ein Pfingstocftse("decked out like an ox at Pentecost") preserves the memory of the ritual slaughter of an ox at the church festival (see n. 9 above). In Soviet Armenia the slaughter of a sheep in front of the church is still a feature of regular Sunday service. Isolated Greek communities in Cappadocia celebrated the ancient sacrificial ritual well into the twentieth century: oPPosite the conventional altar in the chapel of the saint would be a sacrificial altarstone, upon which incense was burned when candles were lit; during prayers, it would be decked with wreaths. The sacrificer would bring the animal-a goat or a sheep-into the chapel, leading it three in der Antike (ry5), Buerr (lambl- V. Pyth. 8z). Cf. J. Haussleiter,Der Vagetarismus (1972),r8o-83; Em79-t6j; W. Burkert, Lore and Sciencein AncientPythogoreanism pedoklesB 46-39. sPorph. Abst. 2.22t Bernays, Theophrastos' (1866),86, rt6; SchriftitberFrdmmigkeit J. fiepi ei
SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING
times around the sacrificial stone while ch'dren
threw grass
and flowersonto it. As the prieststoodat the artar,th" k";;;;8iii* mal would make a sign of the cross with his knife thiee "",ii'#, u.,a then slaughterthe animar while praying. The brood *ur *fiolr"a to sprinkle the stone. After this, ortside ihe chapel, the aniriil"woura be carved up and the feast prepared. The priest, like his ancient counterpart, receivedthe animal'sthigh and skin, as well as its head and feet.3echristianity is here .ro *oiu than a transparent cover for the ancient form that underlies it: that is to say,for the sacredact of blood-sacrifice. Animal-sacrificewas an ail-pervasiverearityin the ancientworld. The Greeksa0 did not perceivemuch differencebetweenthe substance of their own customs and those of the Egyptians and phoenicians, Babyloniansand persians,Etruscansuna i{o-a's, though rii.rA a"_ tails varied greatly among the Greeksthemselves.ni one fu."iiu.rty or sacrificepresentsa problem for the modern historian: the comlreef bination of a fire-altar and a blood_rite, of burning and eating, corre_ ,Megas (1956) 15, and cf. 17, 84, 87, zz4. (The name of the sacrifice, youpravt, comes from lslam: Arabic qurban) For animal sacrifice to,'Zeus,,in Albania see Cook III (r94o) t t 6 8 - 7 t . S e e n o w G . N . Aikaterinides, Neoetrl4zrris aip.ar4pis Buoles (Athens. 197q.
{Th.eophrastus(Porph. Abst.z andcf. n. 34 above),in his study of the development of sacrifice,found it naturar to include Egyptians, syrians, caithaginians, Et.r.r.ar,r, Thracians, and srythians. The tradition i-natttre Cyprians invented sacrifice(Ta'an. r, Schwartz)goes back to Asklepiadesof Cyprus, FCrHist lP^ i:.6 Z5zF r : Neanthes, FGrHist84F 3z = potph. Abst. 4.15. arrhe antithesis betweenorympian and Chthonic cu.rtis often regardedas fundamentar (Rohde[fi98) r4B-52; Harrison [ryzz) t_1t; Iessschematically, Meuli [ry46] rgl. zrt, and.cf. Nilsson j9551 4z-y). The antithesisbetween hea.,enlygoa, u#god, of tn" underworld is frequently attestedstarting with Aeschylu s (Hik. ia, ,S+, ,fS. ;gl; u tumiliar distinctionis that between ivali{eJu, "to make tubu,'o. 6rr6:,prirr,,,tosliughter heroesani the dead, and siep (F. pfisrer, Der Retiquienkutt ::,..1T.::::lt:':11,,".f:, tm Atlertunttt l19r2l,466_8o;Casabona 19661zo4_zog,zz5- 29).On the differentways o f s l a u g h t e r i nsge e S c h o l .A p o l l . R h o d ' r . 5 S r , ' p ; . p . 1 1 5M : E r . M . ) q s . z 4 _ "rn 19-.H "'Fritze, ldl 18(r9o3),58-6T.vetbesriesthesacriiicial pits(polpot)tliereare differentkinds of altars (Barpcol, Ecyap.,t,porph. Antr.6; Schol. Eur. phoen.274; Serv. and the complexof Bv
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
of the sponds directly only with the burnt offerings (zebah'iel1rym) oldTestamento,-althoughthedetailsofUgariticandPhoenician from EgyP. sacrificialcults are uncertiin-and thesediffer markedly rites' all of tian and Mesopotamian,as well as-Minoan-Mycenaean' whichhavenoaltarsforburningwholeanimalsorbones.o.Andyet, in cultural tradition unwhatever complexities,layers' .and.9trangfs astounding, details aside, to J;r1," in" l"ai"ia"al peculiarities,it is from Athens to jerusaour"."" the similarity of action and experience ;; io oabyion. A detailed Babyloniantext of which several i;;"; whose skin was ;;;i"; were made-describesthe sacrificeof a bull the membraneof a tympanon in the temple:s an untouched ;'J;, Ufu.t U"ff would be chosenfor the secretceremony,which took place in a room enclosedon all sidesby curtains.The complicatedpreparations included scatteringgrain, offeringbreadsand libations,and sacLikewise,in the Egyptianrealm, sacrificefor the dead and that for the gods have comopferlistenaonder Friihzeitbiszur griech.-rdm' mon roots: seew barta, Die altiigyptischen see II.r.n.z9' On roasting/boiling r53. Epoche Q,g6), R. schmid, {2R.K. yerkes, sacrifcein creekand RomanReligionsandEarlyludaism(11952\; in Israet(1964),therefore assumedthat Israeli burnt offering was a MyDasBundesopfer cenaeanimportviaUgarit(92),butcf.D,G1||,Bib|ica47$966),255_62:Homer,sfamil. iar ptlpiu xaiew is absentfrom Mycenaean. sDemostratedby Yavis(1949);cf. K. Galling, Der Altar in denKulturendesAlten Orients religionedei Semiti di Babi(1925).On Mesopotamia -Mem. seeG. Furlani, "Il sacrificionella in Babylon Linc. VI 4 G%2), 1o1-J7o;F. Blome, D\e Opfermaterie lonia e Assiria," dansIa soci'ti sumirienned'apris und lsraelogl+j; Y. Rosengarten,Le r'gime desot'frandes de I'agas(196o). On Eq/g1see H' Kees, "Bemerkungen zum les textesprtsar_goniques Tieropferder Agypter und seiner Symbolik," NCG (t942),7r-88; Ph' Derchain, Rifes Zandee,BiblOr'zo(t96)' lgyptiensl:Lesaiificedel'oryx(1962),concerningwhichcf.J' opferlisten(n.4r above).on Ugarit seeB. Janowski, iir_sl,w. Barta, Die alttigyptischen n Q98o),4a - 59. Ugarit-Forschungen -For a sacrificial list from Alalakh see D. J. wiseman, TheAlalakhTablets(t951), rz6. For a monumentalaltar for bull-sacrificeat Myrtou Pygadeson Cyprus, including hornsymbols, a watering place for cattle, and bull statuettes(ca. rToolrzoon.c') see AA (t962) 118-19, fig. 84. For a depiction of bull-sacrificeat Pylos seeThePalaceof NestorIl (1959)pl. rr9. The "hearth-house,"out of which the Greek temple developed,is a type known alHomerica O (1969),rz1-28. M. H. ready in Helladic tirnes:seeH. Drerup, Archaeologia (1958), zz3, refers times. Open6z to sacrifice at the hearth in Mycenaean AIA fameson, air sites for burnt offering-ash-altars consistingof piles of ashes and bones-are abundantlyattestedboth for Greece(Nilsson [1955],86-88; cf. ILr below on Lykaion, lI.z on Olympia) and for bronze-ageEurope (W. Kriimer, "PriihistorischeBrandopferpldtze," in Heluetiaantiqua,Festschr. E. Vogtltg66l, r r r -zz). It does not seem possible at this time to organizethe various forms of sacrificeat the "hearth-house,"the stone altat and the ash-altarinto an historicalsystem. qANET 164a8.The main text is Seleucid;others were copied in the seventhcentury n.c. from older Babylonianmodels. They thereby attest to the survival of the ritual over the centuries. On the tympanon and the Kalu-piiest (= Sum. galu),wino"laments" "in
SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING
rificing a sheep.The bulr stoodchainedon a rush mat until it was time for its mouth to be washed. After this, incantations*o.rlJ uJ wnis_ pered into both its ears, after which it was sprinkled with walr, pu_ rified with a torch, and.surrounded by a circle of grain. eoiro*i.," prayer and song, the bull was killed, the heart burriea at once, ani the skin and left shourder sinew removed to string the tymfanon. After further libations and offerings, the priest worrld beni dbwn to the severedhead and say,"This deed was done by all the gods; I did not do it." one version of the text saysthat the cadaver*oitd be buried; an older one forbids at leastthe head priest from eating the meat. Fifteen dayslater,in a largelyparallel."r"^or,y, with prepiratory and closing rites, the new.rycoveredtympanon wis brougnt into the center in place of the bull, thus inauguriting it into its fu"nction. Not even the religious revorutioninihe Near East,i.e., the emergence of Islam, could eliminate animal-sacrifice.The high point in the life of a Moslem.is the pilgrimage to Meccaoswhich"stiil today draws hundreds of thousands of woishippers annually. The central point occurson the ninth day of the holy month, in the journey from Mecca to Mount Arafat, where the pilgiims stay from noon tiil sun"before God." This is-fofowed by the Day of Sacrifice. 1o*l praying o" ,.h."tenth day, in Mina, the pilgrim must throw sevln pebblesat an old stone monument and then slaughter-usualry with his own hands-a sacrificialanimal-a sheep,a goat, or even a camel-which is driven up and sold to him by Bedouins.He eatssomeof the animar, though usually giving-mostof it away or simply leavingit. Saudi Ara_ bia has resortedto bulldozersto remove the carcasses. After this, the pilgrim is allowed to cut his hair again and removehis pilgrim,srobes. Likewise, sexualabstinenceendJafter his return to Mecca. It is the consecratedman who kills and the act of killing is made sacred.,,In the name of Allah" and 'Allah is merciful" ur" ih" Moslem formulas that accompanyeven profane slaughter. Daily routine inevitably made the sacrificialritual an empty formality.ftTherefore,in order to stressits importance,especiallyin the ancient Near East, ordinanceswere createdstipulatingcountiess observances. The Greeks seem to have given most care to the ,,begin_
the language of the female," see E. Dhorme, Les rerigions de Babyronieet d,Assyrte (rg+g'), zo7-2o9,2t7. $Enzyklopiidie
desIslam ll (t.927), zo8-zr1; Encyclopidie de l,tslam III (1965), j3_4o
s.a. HADJDI;ibid. for the proofthatthe busi. of the pirgrimagu i.;'piJ-rrt"*i.. sA "r"me.is sacrificial list from
Uruk notes 50 rams, z bulls, r ox, and g lambs, among many sacrifice: ANET jaa. Croesus had 3,ooo animats sacrificed atbelphi: L,l:.:, r, 1r^:1"_daily rlot. 50; 154 cows were boughtfora festival on Delos: /G IIIIIIr $35, 35. King Seleukos gave t,ooo iepeia lsheef) and rz cows for a sacrifice at Didyma: OGI zr4, 63.
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
as if trying to distract attention from the ning" stages (ctpleorloc), '*ti.f, remained permanently fixed. nonetheless ceniral p"oi"t, the structureof sacrificialritcharacterized Hubert ind Maussn' aptlv -"sacrali "desacralization"; that is and zation" tf .ual with the concepts /to sav. oreliminary rites, on the one hand, and closing rites, on the lotn"i.'fiumins a centralaction clearlymarked as the emotional climax "Ololyg6'" This act' however' is the act of $y a piercing"r.r"u-, the Thus, a threefold rhythm becomes death. of liffi"i, the Jxperience moving from an inhibited, labsacrifice,os the of course evlde"ntin the midpoint, to a scrupulously a terrifying through beginning, vrinthine comeat the beginning frequently offerings Vegetable iidy conclusi,on. are also espelibations when the ceremony, of end at the again and cially iharacteristic. But the offerings can overlap and multiply, enlarging the pattern until a triad of sacrificialfestivalsemergeswhich yet adheresto the sameunchangeablerhythm: the preliminary sacriiice, the terrifying sacrifice, and the victorious, affirming sacrifice. flhe core is always the experienceof death brought about by human {violence,which, in turn, is here subjectto predeterminedlaws. And \this is nearlv alwavs connected with another human-all too human-actio.,, .tu-"Iy, eating: the festive meal of those who share in the sacred.
z. TheEaolutionary : Primitiae Mqn Explanation asHunter Karl Meuli's great essayon "GriechischeOpferbrAuche"(rg+6)' added a new dimension to our understanding of sacrifice.He noted striking similaritiesin the detailsof Greeksacrificeand the customsof n T S e en . z . sCorresponding
to the special case of the initiation rite, as established by Harrison p.os-dvaBiao c. \t927) :r5: rat\orpogia-otapay 'Nilsson's "durchschlagender Einwand" (rgS), 1.45^. z,,,dass nur geziihmte Tiere, fast nie wilde geopfert werden," applies only to a problem of historical change (cf. I.5
PRIMITIVE
MAN
AS HUNTER
hunting and herding societies,.mostly in Siberia. Moreove, he pointed out prehistoric discoveriesthai s.eemed to utt"rt iJ .rmilar customs by Middle palaeorithictimes. This powerful step L"u.t*ura about 5o,oooyears in time.admittedly seemJto explain ibrrurr_ y,r, obscurius. whether the prehistoric evidencemay be taken to indicate belief in a supreme being-a kind of primordial monotheism_is a moot question' It seemedressrisky to state:"sacrifice is the oldest form of religiousaction.", But muci of the oldestevidenceremains controversial. Meuli relied on the "buriar of bears" of Neanderthal times, as described by B;ichlerand others;,-!n"y claimed that they nuJ'forr.,a bears' skulls and bones, especiaty thrgh bones. ."*i"iy'rJt ,rp i., caves,and that thesecorrespondedto ttie ,,skull_ u"d lo;;ior," ,u.ri fice" observedamong.Siberianhunters, who used to"a"porit tn" bonesand skulls of their quarry-in sacredpraces.o r" c*"r.-rii""r, ,"., it,isthe bones,especially-thethigh_bones,that belong to ine goar. Thebear s specialrole further uppEu* in the "bear festivals,,of northern Eurasiantribes, from the Finns to the Ainus and on to America., Yet the findings of Biichler have come under serious uttal liu.." below) and not to Meuli's basicargument.To be sure, the rattercompretetyo,,r".rooil the Neolithic Near Easterncomponentby making an all-too-directconnectionbetween the Indo-GermanicGreeksand the Eurasianh.,ite., and herders.againsrMeuri,sarmagical interpretation, Mtiller-Karpe (ry66\ zz7-28 proposes a rerigious one fg:oty that proceedsfrom the experienceof a "tianscendentar power,,, u"i,iir'ir"p...*ay what the ritual communicates,and any interpretation ot rt-even self-interpretatron_ is secondary(cf. I.3 below). 'zH.Krihn, "Das problem des Urmonotheismus,,,Abh. Mainz (ry5o), zz, r7, whose interpretation follows p W. Schmidl lJrsprungtler Gottesiiee'Vi pq5j','aaa_5a, * .Der well as A. vorbichler, Dasopfer auf den heute'noch'erreichbaren attertrn si-uiin iJr- urnrrt _ heitsgeschichte e956), and MtiLiler-Karpe(1966) zz8. Bl*hf DasalpinePakiot.ithikum.der Schweiz(r94o);Meuti e946) 217_39.For addi_ l! tional finds in Central Franken, Silesia,and Siberia, see tvtLiiler_(aril"(1SOS) .rO; in Hungary, see I. Trencs€nyi-waldapfer, LJtttersuchunSletr zur Rerigionsgeschichte e966) 1 9\ . 7 7 . ".Y;rrr:l:!N.t,^_,YT. Ot: Jagdritender nordlichen Vcitker Asiens und Europas,.,/. So_ c'EL(ttnno-uugrtenne47 (t9i:l: "Kopf-, Schiidel-und Langknochenopfer bei 1 .ci!s, Rentiervolkern," Festschr. p. W. Schmidtg9rli1, 4r_eA; I. paulson, ,,Die Tierknochen im Jagdritualder nordeurasischenVolker,,,'Zeiischr. gC bSSq, 27o_gj; f. Ethnotogie I' Paulson,A Hultkrantz, and K. Jettmar,oi ni,is,*rrn Nordeurasiens und der amertkanischenArktis (:,962\. tA' I Hallowell, "Bear ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere,,, American AntlrolotoSistz8 (t926), t-t75; l_M. Kitagawa,,Ainu BearFestival,,,Historyof Religtons r \196r), 95-r5t; I. paulson,."Die rituelie Erhebung des B?irenschiiders bei arktischen und subarktischenVolkern,,,Temenos, t SOSS,-,io'iz
73
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
assemblageof bones cannot be excludedas an-explanltiolgf the allegedbeai-burials.uIt is saferto rely on the evidenceof the Upper Pala6ofithic, the epoch of homo sapiens.At this period, hunters' customs, including the manipulation of animals' bones and skulls, are clearly attested]Meuli's iniight-about the antiquity of Siberianhuntine riiual is basicallyconfirmed, even if still more ancient layers re^ii" i" the dark. There are placeswhere stag skulls and deer skeletons were gathered,as well as the bones of bison and mammoths.' At a site in Sberia, twenty-sevenmammoth skulls were found set up in a circle around a central point where a female statuette lay buried beneatha pile of bonesand partially worked tusks.'This recallsa frequently reproducedgold ring from Mycenae,on which a row of animal skulls borders the processionto the seatedgoddess'' A stylized pair of horns is the common and omnipresent religious symbol of Minoan-Mycenaeanculture. Much earlier, in the household shrines of Qatal Htiytik, there are genuine cow-horns set up in rows or inserted in plaster heads.'oUpper Palaeolithicdeer hunters had attached a reindeer skull to a pole near a place where they used to throw young roes into the water, weighted down with stones-a "sacrificeof immersion."" There is a life-sizeclay statueof a bear in the caveof Montespan,which had been coveredwith a genuinebearskin, including the skull." Similarly,hunters in the Sudan covered a clay figure with the skins of slaughteredlions or leopards, just as farmers in southern Abyssinia did with the skin of a young sacrificial bull. Hermes the cattle-thiefand cattle-killerstretchedout on a rock 6Against Bdchler's theory, see F. E. Koby, L'Anthropologie5S Ggsr), lo4-3o8; H. G. Bandi in Helaetiaantiqua(1966),r-8; cf. the discussion in J. Maringer, "Die Opfer der palaolithischen Menschen," in AnthropicaQ.968),249-7r; M. Eliade. Histoire des croyanceset desidles religieusesl(t976), 4-27, 391f. 7Mtiller-Karpe (t966) zz5- 26. 8Jelisejevici:see Mtiller-Karpe (19661zz5. 'Corpusiler minoischenund mykenischen Siegel,ed. F. Matz and H. Biesantz,| (196$ #r7; Nilsson (rglS) pl.r7.r; Simon (1959)t8r-83. Even if these were meant to rePresent animal-headedvessels(Simon), they are a further, symbolizing development of the ancient sacrificial structure (seeIV.z.n.39). '0Mellaart j967) r4o-4r, r44-55, r8r.. trMtiller-Karpe(1966)zz4-25, pl. 199.45. LMtiller-Karpe Q966) zo5 pl. to7.r; A. Leroi-Gourhan, Prthistoirede I'art occidentale (1965\, 1t3, figs.646-47. For parallels from the Sudan see L' Frobenius, Kulturgexhichte Afrikas 993\, $; from Abyssinia see A. Friedrich, Paideumaz Og4r), 4-24; Meuli(1946)z4r;cf. l. Paulson,Temenost(l.96),rfu-6r, onstatuesof bearsassubstitutesfor actualdead ones, "the soul'sresidence."
PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER
the skins of the cows he had slaughtert This, too, is "one of the manv sagasabout the origin of ,u..ifi.".jd' One could, of course, try to cut through these correspondences with conceptualdistinctions, and r"purut" r,rnting and sacrificeon principle.'oIn the nylr, might urgu", killing is not ceremonial :"* but practicaland subjectto chance;"it, ^"u',ing. and goal, both quite pro_ fane, lie in obtaining meat for food; a _iia U"urt"^.,st b" sererin op_ position to a tame iomestic u.ri*ur. ana y", the very similarity of huntingandsacrificial
customs ueries^such'"
becomeceremonialevena,monghunters. di;ti"Ji&:riiiilg ."" A wouldhaveto performat thebeir f"rtiuui. tamebear,for instance, we arsoh";;J;.olpr"t"
mammoth skeleton found on a-high ..ug, u place to which it could
only havebeendrivenby men.',o"" *r"
5tn"i hana,
theirr.,ii.,g ,it_ uation is often evoked and actedout in latercivilizations,as if one had to catch a wird beast so as to sacrifice ii at a predetermined prace. Thus' Plato combinesthe hunt u"a ru.riii.e in a semi-barbarouscontext, his fictitious Atlantis,'uand in ru.iurr-nunts are attestedin the marginal areis of Greek curture.'' An Attic myth tells how Theseus subdued the w'd bull of Marathon ir,u, it let itserf be red to the sacrifice-and this is.said ro be the legenaury "o origi., of ii"lJ."r r", tival in Marathon, the Hekaleiu.,, efio"g the Sumerians, a ,,wild bull" was consideredthe most u.,i*ut, oug^ it had long been extinct it', rraesopota-L.'rrr" "."i.,u.,ilu..iri"iut ".r"r,it consecrated horns in the sanctualigsof QatarHriynk ;;.;,-'il;-ever, st'r obtained from genuinewild bulls;bull_and stag_huniine; on sive sivewall-paintings wall-nainrinocrho.a c:r.--^ -, ,;--lpP"ut iff"""ly? the very impresthere/-^^ (seeFi[ure
: ).,
ffi;
il:",ffi _
t",or ' ln i}},?p1l tz4iri (cdd.eui)rriron. the-yq,,ir,";k;;:;;;;.;il;",'ril."l',"J:ljlJ:ffJ:i: "i"i"{I ;'*::rYff,'r"i*;?!'
lHat'7'zi;'xen'
rt rherite-",';l;;;;;
p,".-
^tl:r""l objection,n. r above.on the interrelatronof hunt and slaughterin Aflll^""nca seeStraubee95) r99^2o4. "Mriller-Karpe (t966) zz5(Gravettien). t6Plat. Critiasrrgd-e; H. Herter, RhMrcg O966),t4o-42. t'For raupo$rlpla in Thessalysee IG rX zvs, yt-17; Arch. Dertion76 (t96o), rg5, REG77 Fg6+), rz6: AP o.543; on this and on ilie rrrupo*atorf,rain Asia Minor see L. Robert,Ics gladiateurs ians-l,Orient grcc(rnO"l,lrr_ rn, who alsotreatsthe .un'u,.,,ng and rglpopoldat go913i). foia i'"ia, xuvrly|orcv in Athens seeHypoth. ;#.r::.r" tESoph. fr. z5 P; Callim. fr.259-6o;264;plut. Thes.4following philochoros,FGrHist 3:8 F ro9; Paus.r.z7,ro. For vase_paintings seeBrommer g96o) 19z_96. teOn Sumerianwild bulls seeMtiller_Karpe (196g) ' II -33E;on eatal Hriytik seeMellaart (1967)zoo-2o8,pl. S+_SZ,6r_64; cf . ^. qubo.i".
L4 L5
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
ard men swarm around the bull and the stagin thesepaintingsis perhaps almost more suggestiveof a dancethan of hunting. In Egypt, the sacrificeof bulls and hippopotami, performed by the pharaoh, In many partsof Greece,the animals was entirelvstvlizedas a hunt.20 "set for the god," almost as if they were free chosenfor saciificewere the time appointed for the bloody until land wild beasts on sacred "act,"" The continuity between the hunt and sacrificial ritual aPpears most forcibly in the ritual details that leaveno tangiblearchaeological trace;thesehavebeen set out in detail by Meuli. The correspondences extend from the preparations, with their purifications and abstinences, to the closing rites, involving bones, skulls, and skins. In hunting societiesaccessibleto ethnologicalstudy, hunters are said to have expressedclear feelings of guilt with regard to the slaughtered animal. The ritual provides forgivenessand reparation, though frequently taking on a scurrilous characterwhich prompted Meuli to coin the phrase"the comedyof innocence."The ritual betraysan un- i derlying anxiety about the continuation of life in the face of death."/ iThe bloody "act" was necessaryfor the continuanceof life, but it is fiustas necessaryfor new life to be ableto start again.Thus, the gathbring of bones, the raising of aIIuIIEFstreiihfrg;f a skin is to be understood as an attempt at restoration,a resurrectionin the most concretesense.The hope that the sourcesof nourishment will continue to exist, and the fear that they will not, determine the action of the hunter, killing to live. 20H. Kees, "Bemerkungen zum Tieropfer der Agypter und seiner Symbolik," NGG (1942), 7r-88. 2lBabrius 37 Qtooyos &qeroc in antithesis to the plow-ox). For herds of Hera in Croton see Liry 24.3.2, and cf. Nikomachos in Porph. V. Pyth. 2.4, Iambl. V Pyth.6r. For the cattle of Argive Hera see III.z.n. z5 below; for Ar.tisBo0s at Miletus see Hsch. s.a.; for a donkey sacrificed to the winds at Tarentum see Hsch. d.yep.riras; for the sheep of Helios at Apollonia/Epirus see Hdt. 9.g); for bulls of Dionysus at Kynaithos see paus. 8.r9.2; lor sacred sheep, goats, cattle, and horses at Delphi see OGI 345, t5-rg; for sacred sheep at Delos see IG IIllII? t639, 15; for cattle of ,,Herakles,, in Spain see Diod. 4.r8.3; for cattle of the "Meteres" in Sicily see Diod. 4.h.6; for,,persian Artemis,,, (Anahita) herds on the Euphrates see Plut. Luc. 24; for rd Sptp.p.ara rils Beol at Kleiror see Polyb.4.19.4;scillus,Xen. Anab.5.3-9;fortheherdsofpersephoneofKvzikosseeprut. Luc..ro. Cf. further, in myth, Apollo,s cattle in Thessaly, Uy. Merc.7o_72; and,Helios, cattle, od. rz. For Atlantis see plat. Critias. ngd, and ci. piot. prom. 666. 3zoa,'Aesch. similarly, for the Indian A6vamedha a horse is "set free,,: ,"" w. Kopp". s, wiener Beitr. z. Kulturgeschichte 4 9916), 3o6. 2tMeuli Q946) zz4-52; H. Baumann, "Nyama, die Rachemacht,,, paideuma 4 \agso), 791-2)0. For a psychiatric perspective see R. Birz, "Tiert6ter-skrupulantismus,,, /ahrbuch f . Psychologie und psychotherapie 3 e95), zz6_44.
t6
PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER
These customs are
more than mere curiosities, paraeorithic for the hunt hunter n1t ius,t u.,irriry!T-"* of the -.u.,y Thetransrtion ! to the hunt is' rather'oneof the """ most i'e.iriu" ecorogical changesbetween man and the other primates' Man* ',,rhe
can virtuaily be defi'nuo a, n"k"l';;*_ makes title)'" Thisstatement readsr" ;-;;.;;I indispuiabi"'i..i"#-",r, ";;;;;;eating that the age of the hunter, ,h" p;;;thic, comprises by far the largest part of human history. N;;;il. that estimates range be_ tween 95 and 99 percent:it is iear tn"i."""t biorogicar evorutio.nwas "the huntins ape',(even if
'XT:fi tllTi?*:,:'1f; ,:I' ti'" nv'o-il,',o.',tni|"r oJIi,'".".*,"
::.f,::*:.;'ii;"*{,i!;ii?J",l,T;il{:Fj:;**i
rng vrolenceas deriving from the buhu;;; of the predatory animal, characteristics
h"e."." io
ill;:"
".q;.""rr, ,,","..,u.;;;;"lo_i.,g
Our conceptionof.primitive man and his,societywill always tentativeconstruct;still, there be a ur" ,o.nf,l
conditions *,,ui.u,.,.,ot r,ur," u"", u[;;n*#[:tlil]H'j.:it;
early hunters' The primate's biorrgi;;i;akeup was not fit for this new way of life. Man had to compe?s;i";r, this deficiency by a rour de force of ingenious th";;;-;;,r;; by his culture' arthoueh thatl".l;;;t;;',iri,,r,,o,,r, curture;i;ii;;t.kly becamea means of setec_ i.nportancewas *.,J weapons,without which 1:1 _O^t_frt1u.], man posesvirtually no threat to "r".r beasts. The earliestweapon that was effectiveat a distancewas the '."ooa"r, ,p"ar hardened by fire.r" This presupposesthe use of fire; earlier,Uo..Jnua ,;r;;il ;ffi; Man,s upright posture facilitated,th". But perhaps more im_ portant than alr this was.the "r"-;;";;ons. deverop-""i.r r sociarorder leading to
#;;" become apartor herited ;:il:jT,:iij,,*.:::::i:t:irth biolosical constituiion. A;;;; ffii'ilTr::i:f[T; ourin_ tsMorris
(196) ry-49,
,48-68; A Kor,andt, ,Xi;::,1:;:':':,1,y,!,,'!lZ!!:::::i):f,lF;*n Current i";;';'(';;;;;:;;:"i,ili!":'',t;[::i:;';;,i t;:::i:W:.:1"i1;ti _;;,ti,"",';,"';;ffi ;;.ffi ; #[ sei31,3,-a.,andcrp lr:[*;:: "tr;iil!,i;"'jlT:,,1H,ny.lii r.wirson, ;!i;fl]:f? ,i:::!'!:#:'ican zz8t, Man n.s.ro y;#,'**'fl1l,i,;i';:: ilil :T,l ;n ru$, ",::* :,t;1"":l Xi* 'ot, Burkert(re67)zfi-87.see generaly K. Lindner,Lt chasse
il;'i:r,#r'i:rliTuu' rfi;rt,,fi;l.f
!i.::**'with
theMissing Link(e5o),7e7*2o4; cf. toe-rs,,,rheAnr7
SACRIFICE. HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
man's work-in contrast to all animal predators-requiring both speed and strength; hence the male's long, slender thigh' By contrast' since women must bear children with ever larger skulls, they develop round, soft forms. Man's extraordinarily protracted youth, his tteoteny, which permits the development of .the mind through learning and the transmission of a complicated culture, requires long years of security. Ihis is basically provided by the mother at home. The man institution universal urr,r*", the role of the family breadwinner-an to human civilizations but contrary to the behavior of all other
1i
mammals.'u The success of the "hunting ape" was due to his ability to work cooperatively, to unite with other men in a communal hunt. Thus, man ever since the development of hunting has belonged to two overlapping social structures, the family and the Miinnerbund; his world falls into pairs of categories: indoors and out, security and adventure, women's work and men's work, love and death. At the core of this new type of male community, which is biologically analogous to a pack of wolves, are the acts of killing and eating. The men must constantly move between the two realms, and their male children must one day take the difficult step from the women's world to the world of men. Fathers must accept their sons, educating them and looking after them-this, too, has no parallel among mammals. When a boy finally enters the world of men, he does so by confronting death. What an experience it must have been when man, the relative of the chimpanzee, succeeded in seizing the power of his deadly enemy/ the leopard, in assuming the traits of the wolf, forsaking the role of the hunted for that of the hunterl But success brought its own dangers. The earliest technology created the tools for killing. Even the wooden spear and wedge provided man with weaPons more dangerous than his instincts could cope with. His rudimentary killing inhibitions were insufficient as soon as he could kill at a distance; and males were even educated to suppress these inhibitions for the sake of the hunt. Moreover, it is as easy, or even easier, to kill a man as it is to kill a fleeing beast, so from earliest times men slipped repeatedly into cannibalism.2'Thus, from the very start, self-destruction was a threat to the human race. If man nonetheless survived and with unprecedented success 'oMorris (t967)37-39;LaBarre
(t97o\79-81. Ontheroleof manasbreadwinnerseeM. Mead, Male and Femalej949, r8B-94. 27on the "gesicherten Tatsache von Ritualtotungen" in palaeolithic times see MtillerKarpe (1966) z4o (Ofnet cave), z3z-33 (Monte Circeo), z3o (peking Man). Cannibalism ,A Su.u"y of Evidence is probable: see La Barre j97o) 4o4-4o6, \4 n.)o) M. K. Ropea for lntrahuman Killing in the pleistocene ,', Current Anthropilogy to (196), 422- i1g.
r8
PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER
even enlarged his sphere of influence, it w_as,,bec1useplace naturalinstinctshe developedth" of his -rn ..riesof culturaltradltiin,lnus tificiallyforming and differentiatinj ar_ r.rltiuri. inuorn'u"iu,r'ior. u,o,,rr_ ical serectionrather than consci"ul piun"ir.,gdetermined"t-# *ou.u_ tional processesthat helped fo.".,;;; ,o ihut n" .orrJ f"i, uoup. himself to his role. A man hud i; U"*.ou.ug"ous to take part in the hunu therefore' courage is arways rr,.i]a"a"ir, ;";"-d,ro. or u., ideal man' A man hadlo uu."riJutu, utie tary impulse for the sake of u rong-.u.rgeto wait, to resist a momengoal. He had to have enduranceand keep to his word. il:h;;;.
h.a viorpattern s thatwere. racLing i n un;
;;:liJ: [T" li'*:[* 3; closely analogousto the U"nu"i8, oif"urr, of prey.r,Above all, the use of weapons was controlled by the strictest-if also artificial_ rules: what was allowed una n".""rurf ir'ro.r" rearm was absolutely forbidden in rhe other:,1lrilla;l""."ripf,ri,^ent in one was murder in the other. The decisivepoint is the vlry possibility that man may submitto lawscurbinghis
individu"ri"i"iiis!";;;il";;;,uuiri,y ro. riu: of societar prldi.tubtity i;; powerof tradition il-" at"iu.ur,u" himin an irreversibt" p.ocess anatogous to bioiogical 4il|j,Xf#nd On a psycho,o*l:ullevel, hunting behavior was mainly deter_ o{ qec"lil interpiay Igg.urri,u"and sexuatcom_ ln" 11i.:1 plexes' which thus gave form to "r-tr,? some of the foundations of human society'whereas resiarch on biorog"ui iunu'ior, at reastin predatory animals, carefully distinguisher i"irurp".irrc aggressionfrom the behavior of huntine u.a Ltir.,g,; ;hi#;;_ction obviously does not hold for man. Ra"ther,these"two U".*r""rrperimposed at the time when man unexpectedlyassumed *r" u"rruuiorof predatory animals. Man had to outdo himielf in his transiiio., to the hunt, a transition 28A. Kortlandt, CurrentAnthropolo* U tn6rt,
,n".,TF itit"iortn"rnun,ur dexterty oranarborear rruit ffl ::i": eater withrhe,*i ,"j:.:::::,.r.:;l;";;;il"T:J:?,"TffiXtJj.:1,,::r.'::l $,il'H:",::T_,::i il:|:.' non
On the human tendency to submii to authority see Ejbl_Eibesfeldt(r97o)
the biorogicar factof im.printingseeK. Lorenz,,.uber tierisches und
menschriches ry),);E H Hess, science I;Hll'il;--";:-f:';i#t9i' ' 'lti-+8,'2"-2,"i*i,e ,jo
;ffiffiT.::ffi:-i,,1i".,?"1ffi ;i:''+ll*:iiL*:1, ff1,,:.;3:':j'; iij: ;;;;;ilil;;:H rh;;;"; ;:{:i!,:;}';l;;;# ?,1 ifi;;:ij:jl ;:,tln;
ttdeals with secularm-an, ignorls .":rigi.", .i,""ij. "" 'Lorenz A96:) rc; Eibl-Eibesfeldte97o) 7_g,with a.polemicagainstR. A. Dart (n. z5
:llJi];"?"1_lijl,LTi,i;.',i.';';;:"';''n;;;;;',';ii,",,u,,.". S*rctrii,"Jviousry L9
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
And because requiring implementationof all his spiritual reserves' t h i s s o r t o f b e h a v i o r b e c a m e s p e c i f i c t o t h e m a l e s e x ' t h aintratistosay' ,,men,swork,,,males.o"iJ-oi" easilyadaptthemselvesto,the for courtship fights and the imspecific aggressionptog'u-tud prllr", of JJxualfrusiration (seeI'7)' to cooperate'and especiallythe It is not easy tor adult males out of proportion in order "naked ape," whose '"""uUty clearlygrew insure that the family would be supto bind men to women and thus could be in" n"ignt"ned aggressivenessthus aroused i"rr,J; as redirection, of means by to the ,"rri." of the iommunity i;; demgroup. is precisely it for irll u*" a"scribed by Konrad Lorenz;3' that createsa senseof close onstration of aggressiontoward outsiders oersonalcommunity.TheMiinnerbundbecomesaclosed'conspirthrough the explosjvepotentialof aggressionstoredin;;;i;;;p and bloody ternallli This aggrelsion was releasedin the dangerous enmutually aggression of hunt. The inteinal and external effects by-participadefined is hanced the chancesof success.Community tioninthebloodyworkofmen.TheearlyhunterSoonsubduedthe world. Becausethehunter'sactivitywasreinforcedbybehavioraimed aggresoriginally at a human partner-that is, through intraspecific. quarry' and beast of relationship pf"ce of a biol,ogicallyfixed ,i.i-iri adquasi-human a became quarry something curious occuired: the conHunting accordingly' treated and versary,eiperienced as human centraied on the great mammals, which consPicuouslyresembled their men in their body structure and movements, their eyes and and in attacking fear' in and in fleeing " faces,"their breaih and voices, in recognized to be was man with in rage. Most of all, this similarity bones' like bones flesh' like was flesh the kiilir;g and slaughtering: and, most importantof all' phallis like phaiius,ani heartlike heart,33 could' perhaps' most One same' the was ih" *ur- running blood it died' Thus' the when man to resemblance clearlygrasp the animal's have told of observers Many victim' ouarrv turned into a sacrificial ]rMorris (1967) .roz;putting some limitations on his theses, cf Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) 5o' 749-BZ, esp. 770-72. "Lorenz Q961\ z5l-y8; Eibl-Eibesfeldr (r97o) r87-9o. names from the earliest times' but "Human and animal on\ayyva bore the same whereas the animal's *"." *"il known from slaughter, human entrails became visible only in those wounded in war or during human sacrifice. Their visible Presence was diaphragm, and gall in basic for the consciousness of one's own "subiectivity"-heart, Greek; liver and kidneys as well in other languages (cf. R. B. Onians, Origis of Europ e a n T h o u g h t[ r 9 5 r ] , e s p . z r - 4 3 a n d 8 + - 8 S ) .
PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER
the almost brotherly bond that hunters felt for their game,..and the exchangeabilityof man and animal in sacrifice"r".".r?r-u Lyi^otogi_ J' cal themein many culturesbesidesthe Greek.35 In the shock causedAythe sight of flowing blood36we clearly ex_ th.e of a biologlcal, life-preservinginhibition. f.'"_t::ry But lemlant tnar ls preclselywhat must be overcome,for men, aileast, could not afford "to see no blood,".and they were educatedaccordingly. Feerings of fearand guilt are the necessary consequences of overitepping one'sinhibitions;yet human tradition,in the form or ."rgio.,. clearly does not aim at removing or settling thesetensions. on tle contrary, they are purposefu'y heightened] peace must reign within the group, for what is cailedfor outside,offendswithin. drder has to be observedinside, the.extraordinaryfinds release without. outside, something utterly different, beyona the norm, frightening but fas_ cinating, confronts the ordinary citizen riving withii the tiriits of the everydayworld. It is surrounded by barriers to be broken down in a ,comqlicaled,set-way,correspondingto the ambivalenceof the event: sacrarlzatlon and desacralization around a-centralpoint where weaplons, blood, and deathestablisha senseof human io.^""ity. The irreversibleevent becomesa formative experiencefor aI pariicipants, provoking feelingsof fearand guilt and increasingdesire io make .eparation, the groping attempt at restoration.For t"hebarriers that had been broken before are now ail the more willingly .ecognir"a. th" rulesare confirmedpreciselyin their antitheticaltension. As an order embracingits opposite,^always endangeredyet capableof uauftutior, and development,this fluctuating bara"nce enteredthe tradition of human culture' The power to kilr ind respect for life ilruminate each other. with remarkableconsistency,myths teil of the origins of man in a xMeuli (1946) 248-52,and cf. H. Baumann, paideuma + Fg5o), tgg, zoo;Meuliffi 16o. 3sForan animal substitutedfor a man seethe story of Abraham and Isaacin cen. zz: 11; Iphigenia..inAulis, Apollod. Epit. 1.zz; virgin and goat at Munichia, Zen. Athous r.8 p' 35oMiller; Paus.Att. e Erbse;for Veiovisimmolatur 15 ritu humanocapracer. 5.72.1.a. The reversesituation, that a man dies instead of a sacrificiaranimal, is a berovedmotif in tragedy:see Burkert eg66) n6. substitution, however,also occursin ritual: seethe Bovtucia insteadof human sacrificeat salamis/Cyprus,porph. Abst. 2.54;for the frequent substitutionof child- and animal-sacrifice aiCarthageseeG. Char-les-picard, Les ':l's':": de^t'At'rique antique ft954), 49r; for children designatedas carvesand sacrificed see Luk' syr' D. 58;for a calf treated as a child and sairificed see Aer. Nat. an.12.34 (Tenedos). rFor folkloristic materiar see H. L. strack, Das Brut int craubertund Abergrauben der Menschheit(t9oo7);F. Rrische, BIut, Leben rna SnUlrg3o); J. H. Waszink, R/C Il 11954),
RITUALIZATION SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
violence'"The CreifLiflc"fall,a crimethat is oftena bloodyactof of modestvegetananrsm' latedthatthis wasPr".;;;l;y a'golden19: anthropologists ;fi*-o"''{ccordingly' as,:l:::]ginal endingin the "^rrra"i)lll;; tn" fr"rri"t3' oncesawthe peacefulgatherers':l:.Y-^1 this has'changed piehistory of study The civilizafion' human of form
pi.i,,,g,*u.,b"*-u'liili'13',",,:tllla*.lUf f*,'i,,1,Xff1}$;
I
i
acquired its purely religious function outside the context in which killing was_necessary for life. For the action to be thus redirected and maintained, there had to be ritualization. The concept of ritual has long been used to describe the rules of {r,. religious behavior. Biology's recent usurpation of the term appears, however, to confuse the concept, mixing the transcendent with the infra-human. But perhaps these two do indeed meet within the fundamental orders that constitute life. Thus, we deliberately start from the biological definition of ritual, and from there we will soon be led deep into the nature of religion. Since the work of Sir Julian Huxley and Konrad Lorenz,l biology has defined ritttal as a behavioral pattern that has lost its primary function-present in its unritualized model-but which persists in a new function, that of communication. This pattern in turn provokes a corresponding behavioral response. Lorenz's prime example is the triumph ceremony of a pair of graylag geese, which is no longer prompted by a real enemy. The victory over a nonexistent opponent is meant to demonstrate and draw attention to the couple's solidaritv and is confirmed by corresponding behavior in the paitner, who understands the ritual communication because of its predetermined stereotypy. In the triumph ceremony, communication is reciprocal and is strengthened by the reactions of each side. But it can also be one-sided, as, for example, when a threatening gesture is answered by ritual submission, which thus upholds a hierarchy. This communicating function reveals the two basic characteristics of ritual behavior, namely, repetition and theatrical exaggeration. For the essentially immutable patterns do not transmit differentiated and complex information but, rather, just one piece of information each. This single piece of information is considered so important that it is reinforced by constant repetition so as to avoid misunderstanding or misuse. The fact of understanding is thus more important than what is understood. Above all, then, ritual creates and affirms social interaction.-
111,"ili3:T:::::'T"'rut';i;:"^"TLln::.:":*n"-::n"-' divorcedfrom the gods-anddependent terizedthe state"f t'itti"a' "Such^arethe conflictsand groanon food, by quotingE*p"aon"s:born"' As one of the Old Testament U""n inqs from which yt"itui" if it tne children of Cain' Yet killing' t"ll;;;;nl'e miths seemst. shedthe sametime' "You savedus by was a crime, *u. ,uli-utlon at their savior-god'Mithrasthe bullding blood," the Mithiaistsaddress paradoxhal been iust fact in the slaver.'"What has;;;;;;ystic beginning.
j. Ritualization appearedat its most meAlthough sacrificebegan in the hunt',it city cultures' and at its most grueticulous and brilliant in th; ancient its form and perhaps even some in Aztec civiliz"ii""' ft maintained see G' Devereux' on the shock caused by blood a.qq-7;.For a psychologitutl"-"p"ttlve (t96r\' t4' 4'-!5... Uinii, Ethnopsychiatryand Suicide i --^ !L^ vI' ErisVr. EnumaFti{ the r-.,-e
the irood or areberriousgod see f;:::::;:::;;"';';'"* Ttrawxilg#t''"" Plat'.Le67orc'probn'o)'atcr ANET68,andcf. ANET,*,i"t'*""t Age'the 'lo-X]lnLl thetransitionto thelron ablyfollowingtheOrphic;;;; ;;*t cr' w' R' Smith(r894)3o6-1o8;B'Catz' flishtof Dike,andthe"t"f;i;;i;i;pr'*-o* ';2;;;;;; -7t' vorstettungen $e67)' 165 ;;i;;', 2,,t unasinnuerwandte
te vetxiav $cited by Meuli (1946)zz6; EmpedoklesB ru4 z-in-Porph' Abst l'27 \ilx Plut Cono' sept' sap' traditiori)' parallel the D"l', ftilowing Porph., Ex re crova'11[o, o.onnPiau&p'ipgvov 6 Beds'trettoir.xe' r59c-d: Q 6'dueu*o*arr"',1rr;pou rilv"ainoi "Uber das Tolitt'Lr}erxov'.A' E' tensen's'tieatment' rcinq; rip gitow dpailv Kult yy,thosunil 4Paideuma.41r95.d' "{*atilr.i"i^'"tg," ten als kulturgeschichtlicrre .: : source material His thesis in rich and beiNaturadlkernttrrtl, trl-lri,'ir'it"ta1*""t"1 that he is dependent on organic that this is the expressio. oi ^u.t basic realization it is the ideology of the historical.perspective: an food can be made more specific from zoo-zo4' (t95) hunter, still maintained in the planter's culture Cf Straube SantaPrisca' Rome: of Mithraeum e Et nosseruaEtif . . .1 sanguinefuso:inscription in the of theChurchof Mithraeum the in txcauations ihe van Essen, and C. C. M. |. Vermaseren
santa Priscain RomeQ965), zt7-zo In the lacuna, eternalihad been read, but this cannot have been there: S. Pancierain U. Bianchi, ed., MysteriaMithraeeg7), rqf|. tSir;ulian Huxley, Proc.Zool. Soc.(r9r$,511-15 on "ceremonies"of the GreatCrested Grebe;Lorenz Qg63)89-tz7;'A Discussionon Ritualizationof Behaviorin Animals and Man," Philos.Trans.Roy.Soc.LondonBz5r(t966), 247-526,with articlesby Huxley, Lorenz, and others; Eibl-Eibesfeldt e97o) 6o-7o; p. Weidkuhn, Aggressioiidt,Ritus, Siikularisierung (1965). In defining ritual as "action re-done or pre-di"ne,,,J. Harrison (Epilegomena to the study of GreekRetigionfigztl, xliii) recognized the displacement of behaviorbut not the communicatoryfunction. Now E. R. Leach,for example,finds that "communicativebehavior" and "magicalbehavior" in ritual are not basicallydifferent (Philos.Trans.Roy. Soc.LondonBz5i, l:'966l, 4o)-4o4).
2)
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS RITUALIZATION
Aggressive behavior evokes a highly attentive, excited response. , { P r e t e n d e d a g g r e s s i o nt h u s p l a y s a s p e c i a lr o l e i n r i t u a l c o m m u n i c a tion. Raising one's hands, waving branches, wielding weapons and torches, stamping the feet while turning from attack to flight, folding the hands or lifting them in supplication, kneeling and prostration: all these are repeated and exaggeratedas a demonstration whereby the individual proclaims his membership and place in the community. A rhythm develops from repetition, and auditory signals accompanying the gestures give rise to music and dance. These, too, are primordial forms of human solidarity, but they cannot hide the fact that they grew out of aggressive tensions, with their noise and beating, attack and flight. Of course, man has many modes of expression that are not of this origin and that can be ritualized. But in ethology, even laughter is thought to originate in an aggressive display of teeth., Gestures of jdisgust or "purification" are not far removed from the impulses of ag{gression and destruction. Some of these ritual gestures can be traced with certainty to the primates, from waving branches and rhythmic drumming to phallic display and raising the hand in supplication.! It is disputed to what extent ritual behavior is innate or learned.o We will have to wait for further ethological research. There is even a possibility that specific learning or formative experiences may activate innate behavior. Universal modes of behavior suggest an innate stock from which they are drawn. Yet, building upon these, cultural education creates special forms delimiting individual groups almost as if they were "pseudo-species." Fortunately, in studying the effect of rituals as communication in society, the question of their biological roots is comparatively unimportant. I Ever since Emile Durkheim, sociologists have been interested in the role of rites, and especially of religious rituals in society. "it is through common action that society becomes self-aware"; thus "the . collective feelings and ideas that determine Isociety's] unity and charI acter must be maintained and confirmed at regular intervals."s A. R. 2Lorenz 3Burkert
9963) 268-7o; cautiously, Eibl-Eibesfeldt (rg7o) r97.
OgZq 1.9-+S.On drumming see Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) 4o; on phallic display see I.7 below; on the outstretched hand see Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) zo4-zo5; Morris (1967) r57, 166. oOn the socially learned behavior of the primate see, for instance, L. Rosenkotter, Frankfurter Hefte zt (1966),521-13, and cf. Lr.n. r above. sE. Durkheim, ks formesebmentairesde Ia aie religieuse(rgtz; tg6oa),59g: ,,c,est par l,action commune qu'elle Isc. la soci6t6] prend consiience de soi,,; 6ro: ,,entretenir et raffermir, i intervalles rdguliers, les sentiments collectifs et res id6es coilectives qui font son unit6 et sa personnalit6.,,
Radcliffe_Brownhas been the most tho developing this tional perspu.tir", a society can exist by meansof commonfunccepts and feelingswhich,'in cont;;;";;"'I":?.:fl|': through society's effecton the ini?viuual' "The t"'"-o;'i"Ieloped
il!qHg,I#;i",l.m:mt;t*#*':xif the termsenti ie nt'w ithtnou giir s;rr, ;;iy_::
:,.y9'ld
perha.ps reprace
j.:X",:,:[:?::::'iii:':,:: I,T," r[["xi:,;y,lffiif
existingorder' we maf call it "statut Jtututttu tion,"' uttnount-ulihe is not to say that a rite cannotestablishana aefine a ^;;;,rJl.,his Besidesthis functio"uf_U"f,uriJri,
contra dictingit,is*' p,v.r' ou ff': :i:,ffj'3liii;il1 ixr: :":H "
- A".., too,*-u-iiirl se tbe ?ilJ ;*iJI;:' [**ru fiIjl T I pragmatic ':'"f this view, neurosis b"".,-* function. In ]'rl'::L^l:LU:tary' uarbecome,.",,".,?.::":"';#g!il'fr:'*'i1x?ff lil."o.,,-
avoid anxierd;r"J;;
triestoI
i""l'1,'ji;#iifl :,',,:in".p'y.nca nnot accep t ". o,.l1l. :U;:: :":: tr f gj;:T : alit' it seeksto escape-i:;# ;r,;f,:Tr."l, utter madness.Thus, religion
is seen'asan irrational outburst, a ;ghost " d";;;j;;""' The contrast, however, is more one of perspective than of sub_
observe il:ffi; #:,;:ll,X':r,sy ,;u;;;, ;"";;" onehand, theror_
'*il*1y, :#Hj;?;;:""f"",':'#lff lU:,**J#ri"ffi
forma tionof private tu.r..th; ili ji,::Hk ,.:: l:?",,Hy::ff .ri to e .un.,oig,a,p ,eri;i;'": :T:::il.ilmplement p'v.f,olo$v.
construct".rv.'",',ii"".ffi jn*lri 6:,:*;l:""..".1,;l sands ory"u,r,u,iJ irthey "ven ";r;;",,;T:ilj,lr::il?i"fr;T::?ffilJ,|], :;[';iH f::i: I;';;;: "",.",n",1".,".,,'i.,"^ any,case, are impressive evidenc""fo, ^",
The first of theseru.to.r
ir ,r"gative. A ritual can persistin a com-
'Jll!':::,:,tanders -tA.*.nua.ln"-u.o*nh '7For ee33)44 the ;;,";;:'; * Youns,Initiation c,,r^onir,' i Cross-Cutturat yj,rliirr:iiit;|u",f: studyof status
s Freu ) see d "",(re7o ;?:it$iilti",::TJ-f,#:ff :Hj:T:3 ;:,:,:",T , wes. Jchr. rc (ry24), 2to_2o = Ges.Werke
/ \194t), t2g39.
24 25
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
munity only so long as it does not threatenthat community with extinction. Somereligious developmentshave indeed tended in this direction. The swift fall of most Gnostic movementsand the final fall of Manichaeismwere undoubtedly causedby their negationof life, just as the monks of Mount Athos, who were maintained by the outside world's consciousnessof sin, are dying out today. If, however, practically all human cultures are shaped by religion, this indicatesthat religious ritual is advantageousin the processof selection,if not for the individual, then at leastfor the continuanceof group identity.'Re'/ ligion outlives all non-religious communities; and sacrificial ritual plays a specialrole in this process. .tr Furthermore, those rituals which are not innate can endure only when passedon through a learning process.The impulse for imitation, which is highly developedin man and especiallyin children, is decisivehere, and it is encouragedby the theatricalityof ritual. Children act out weddings and funeralsagainand again.This alone, howevet cannot preservethe form of ritual, which remainsrigid and unchanging over long periods of time. For this, the rite must be establishedas sacred. A religious rite is almost always "serious": somedanger is evokedarousinganxiety,which then heightensattentiveness and lifts the subsequent proceedings out of the colorful stream of daily experience.Thus, the learning processleavesan ineradicableimpression.By far the greatestimpressionis madeby what terrifies, and it is just this that makesaggressiverituals so significant. But even this is not enough to guaranteethe permanenceof the ' f ritual: deviationsare correctedby elimination. Ritull was evidently so important for the continuanceof human societythat it becameone of the factorsof selectionitself for innumerablegenerations.Thosewho will not or cannotconform to the rituals of a societyhave no chancein it. Only those who haveintegratedthemselvescan haveinfluenceand affectaction. Here, the seriouscharacterof religious ritual becomesa very real threat. The psychologicalfailure to meet this threat causes personal catastrophe.For instance, a child who consistentlylaughs during solemn occasionswill not survive in a religious community.-1 Apollonios of Tyana once declaredsuch a boy to be possessedby a demon, but luckily the evil spirit quickly left the frightened young eSoalready O. Gruppe, RML Suppl., ,,Geschichte der klassischenMythologieund Religionsgeschichte" (r9zr), 243. Group selection is not accepted by the molern theory of evolution-see R. Dawkins, fhi Setfish Genei976)-but it is still granted that,,a grudger's strategy" is ,,evolutionarily stable,,: iUii. |99_ ror,.
RITUALIZATION
rascal.loIn the Middle Ages, abbots foug]r^t^:h". d:yil with very real D rrtrrps r ro accounttor the durability of aggressive ritual. The biologicar-functional view of rituarhasa consequence that is serdomrearized'beca.use it seemsto go uguinrt the intention of humanism, which sees,itsmission l" p"."riir",ga phenomenology of the mind or sourand in discrosing ;;";;;;.oncepts or ideas.Eversince wilhelm Mannhardt and Rob"erts";;#;, the study of rerigionshas focusedon ritual' The evidenc" .f th; ii;;;ary tradition no rongersat_ isfied' sinceit had becomeevident that iiwas secondary.Thus, ars looked for its rool: in ,,aeepef;',Lore schorprimitive ideas.,,,,It was, and is' consideredserf-evident'tn"t titr"l, must dependon an anrecedent;i;;;/;{"n especialryrerigiousritual, though it afwaysturns out that those peopl:_lnr,: nlri., hul b"ur.,able to observe practlclngritual ,,no longer,, unaurrtuJir, ,,d""pu. meaning.,, stilt the rationaristic bias in,tfre.coffi After i, instead to'iexperien.":::i-'d;:;f;.*,,t i'rr' ) t_exposed,schorarirooked for .,3 the roots which, as
d"devirr-i ip,,ur#iq::';?:*,;:rii:'LU*:,*::, 1"*r'".'",e
.so".,
j, :;l orosy,however_ nd, in thiiJ:::,J:.lli3lli:, L scase, fl :1: ::1, history-rons aso revoru tioniz";Ti?rtf"$:.ff ali; ".,i .il toPhilostr.
V Ap.4.zo. On the Teufelspeitsche seeA: z8 (1928),8r-ros. Cf. the errn,, y.iEii, f:9Uy, Schweiz. story of the ,,witch..s .r,ira. iil c;,,rr'ila,l"ii:,1; Der Heinrich1r85a),I. ch. sri)ne 5 rrFor instance'Mannhardt Qg7) 6q der primitivisten Entwickelu.;-r;;i#" stateshis concrusionas follows: ,Als Uberlebser ;", -l'r*n,nnen Geisteshat Vorstellungvon der Greichartig"keitil sich . . . die tilil; una a", Baumesgere*et. Die zeugung 'der Baum hat Uber_ ejne.SJele*f" a". V""*h,, und aer Wunsch zu wachsen zu b'ihen wie ein Baum' und sind die ',"."""in". weitverzwei';tenGlaubens mannigfacherGebrauche und gewesen";that is, the conception and wish give rise to the ortr,"ia"u,
iJ'lljl;,*X,"t"lilll,:n:.t
u^p."*"a.," ..ideen, therituar t.aditiJn, die
men tar idea .r,,," _.."0,1".1 tlfr ::;,li1:-a il',i."Tl t.e+8'l'33o)sought ;;*i behind-ttr" r"t1rt"g'";;r',,#
jffi; "r,J#
Geschichteder Vorsterungen., tne building btoiks as of an "Entwickiur!rg.;.*.;ls ''E.g., menschrichenGeistes.,, Nilston (r95) z:,,Es gibt Glaubenssdtze . . aus ihnen entspriessen Hanalunien',; we are obliged ,,die . . . die iujiati,tin allee Vorstellungenzuerst auf o"'religicisei Handrungen t.rlrlrrl.L-,ii"n"T"'n"n ""]11 (ryo7),42, ror instance,_spoke ,,rerigioser a""*l:fr,';^t';{::'":;:":y,'iitze or Vorstellungenund.in Handlung".r.;';t:;ir: Emprin_ rooks to ,,den natLirlich";i1"in In{"ur,
flxi*rk";,"ffu;';n':*:';i; ;*J'iJffi !;x;:i::;'I;f rherite.s in which,r."*lirJ.]r*,riurirl,"* demonstrative.#:,:r.i*,,s1._rog,
" z6
lll
l
i
SACRIFICE, HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
not Produceritual; rather, ritual itself producesand shapesideas, or even experienceand emotions. "Ce ne sont pas des 6motions actuelles,ressentiesir I'occasiondes r6unionset des c6r6monies,qui engendrent ou perp6tuentles rites, mais I'activit6rituelle qui susciteles 6motions."'n'A specificpracticeor belief . . never representsa direct psychologicalresponse of individuals to some aspect of the outer world. . . . The sourceof their beliefsand practicesis . . . the historic tradition."" It is this, by transmittingthe customas custom,that producesideas, shapesexperiences,excitesdesires. This changein perspective,of course,takesus back to a basicassumption of primitive religion which religious studies constantly try to transcend:the sourceof religiouscustomis the "ways of our ancestors."16Ever since the pre-Socratics,people have stubbornly asked how mankind cameto have its religiousideas;and they have done so although all men of the historical era, and certainly countlessprehistoric generations,were taught their religiousbeliefsby the generation immediately preceding them. Plato expressedit thus: children come to believe in the existenceof the gods by observing how "their own parentsact with utmost seriousnesson behalf of themselvesand their children" at sacrificeand prayer.'' Even the most radicalinnovations in the history of religion proceedfrom this basis. To be cautious,let us say that all human action is accompaniedby ideas, surrounded by images and words. Tradition embraceslanBuageas well as ritual behavior. Psychoanalysiseven speaksof "unconscious ideas." But to what extent these ideas, which are then raised after all into the realm of linguistic presentation,are just hermeneutic accessoriesor factorsthat exercisea demonstrablecausality is a difficult question, at best answerableonly in the context of psychology itself. By meansof interpretation,one can attributeideas to any aiiion.flnituil has an undersiandablefunction within society-of course,it often has many, and changing, functions, for, as we know, biologicalselectionfavorsmultiple functions. Human beingscan usually understand ritual intuitively, at least in its constituent parts. Thus, ritual makes sensein two ways. It is quite right to speak of "ideas" or "insights" which are "contained" in ritual and which it can 'uC. L6vi-Strauss, Le totimisme auiourd'hui (1962) tozf . '5A. L Hallowell, American Anthroltologist z8 (:1926), 19. M. Mead, Male and Female (1949\,6r, stresses that even childhood experiences bear the stamp of the adult world, "a process of transmission, not of creation.,, 'oCf. Preface n. 7. l'1Plat. Leg. 887d.
z8
MYTH AND RITUAL
express and communicate_as,
for instance.,.
the reality of a transcendentpower or the ,u.."ar,us higher, of life y;;"ur""",,,.,1 problematicto say thatritual has ro-" ;p.,rqose,,, _o.u since*" t'o* *,ut its courseis predeterminedand tnui u ,ip"iimposed p.r.poru-.un.,o, changeit but can at most provokeii*?t*rr"re. Thereis no lustiti.ution for viewing the ,'idea),"""n ir.ir, fi].guisticmanifestation, as an_ terior to or decisivefor rituar. I" rh; ii;;;ry of mankind, rituar is far older than linguistic communication.,B Neitirer th" ;;;;, ;;;i"r,grrO that can be extractedas a partiar clarification nor the emotionsand,expJanati";r;;;;;rsedby interpreting the rituar by participints in the cult are the basis and, origin ,i ,f,"li'if,ey simply accompany Thanksto its theatrical,minetic it.
;;;;;' tha t its,u..u d, r _"r,y ^ i;;;;;;, "" ""
n"'iil:T-::.::y1 t," :"r": :,ll:$"":l"Lilo*1*,
4. Myth andRituql Ritual, as a form is a.kind of language. It is F 3f .9om-munication, natural' then, that verbarized f ru"g"ugu,'-an's most effective \of communication, system shourd be a;;;Hfi *i*r .it.,ut. Arthough the accomplishment of language resides in communicating some content and in projecting r3a,"i.or reahty,it'irll'tr," sametirie u^""t**"ty " socialphenomenor,,it brings ;;;;;-;;procal personalcontactand
tJth"s';"t i;;;;;',1",p* H:T::::t:;iT;Tr"' *lo u"to"g'
k""p';;;l;,;,;"'*#;L:1,:rlT:il.:Jl].*nTTil.ili,
seemsless important. in everyd;t ltf" i;;; rhat something is in tact *tO roe."th:..i n silenceir'u f_ori'lr.bearabte. ;L:,lg Doubtlesslor this reason, ritual and languagehave gone hand in
ma n.ou,o .ffi :$r"J'"J'.tff ,tffntffi#*,'derthar "o...u.."e'"rr,i;;;;,#; proc. gl"e","
seaenth r""i,, llt:,ti:::;,f',lfu'-u1: *1e","procsnenthi,;C"Ts,";;;;;;;,J""rili?;",?l#:r,,i:y;E:;:,
't",liffl;t.?.,i1:jl;l:t b r-rxr"",a'):,i)i'o,,n*p"tosist zB7-)o7: 74(ts7zt, speech,"Annals.New york yet
r1976). therewas Acatd. sciences zgo nr"r,1Tt_"-"".,and cannibalism, and buriat_b", n. p,.,orili to*".putu"oiiii,r.in,,".,,,.r, ].t_in tt"
oJr*"ir," ir","""'u[:. :io.*#:;':;*"lT[:,f ilUiT.v.3i#,:H,""r '5ee
Morris (t9671 zoz- zo6on ,,grooming talk.,,
29
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
hand sincelanguagebegan. Any number of forms are conceivablefor ',, such a combination,and many are indeed attested;from a responsion of expressivecries during the ritual, to naming that which seems presentin it and invoking it,2 to a more or lessdirect accountof what is happening there.lThisleads us to the problem of myth' The theme of myth and ritual is still the subjectof great controversy. While some see the ritual backdrop of a myth as the only acceptablemeaning for something that at first aPPearsabsurd, others champion the causeof free fantasyand speculation.After Robertson Smith had determined "the dependenceof myth on ritual," which Jane Harrison then distilled into the theory that myth is often just "ritual misunderstood,":5. H. Hooke postulatedon the basis of ancient Near Easternand biblical material that there was a unity, a necessaryconnectionbetweenmyth and ritual: myth is "the spoken part of the ritual." oThe occasionalclaimsthat this thesisresolvedthe question absolutely have caused a variety of strong reactions,sbut these '?Thedivine namesPaian(L. Deubner,"Paian," Nlb zz ftgrgl, 185-4o6;Nilsson [1955] G6rard-Rousseau[1968] t64-65) and 54j; see already the Mycenaean pa-ja-wo-ne, Iakchos (Foucart lr9r4l rrr; Deubner |t%zl 7); Nilsson lt955l 661 aroseout of the cultic cries i'ficeflarov and "IoxX' 6 "Iax1e. 3W R. Smith (1894)t7-zo; for "absurd mythology" seenas "ritual misunderstood" see J. Harrison, Mythology and Monumentsof Ancient Athens Q89o), xxxiii. Cf. Harrison (t927)327-1r, where the meaning of myth is recognizedonce again:"the myth is the plot of the dromenon" b3r). The connections between myth and ritual were already strdssedby F. G. Welcker(Die aeschylische TrilogiePrometheus und dieKabirenweihe zu Lemnos[r8z4l, esp. 159, 249- 50)and Wilamowitz (e.g., EuripidesHeraklesI [1889], 85; "Hephaistos,"NGG 1895,zj4 : Kl. Schr.Y z, 2)-zd. 'S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual Og1;), ), myth is "the spoken part of the ritual," "the story which the ritual enacts."As early as 1910,A. van Gennepstatedthat myth is "eine Erziihlung . . . , deren Bestandteilesich in gleicher Sequenz durch religirismagische Handlungen (Riten) dussern" (lnternationaleWochenschrilt 4. rr74). In the meantime,empiricalethnologyhad arrivedon the scene:B. Malinowski,Myth inPrimitiae Psychology(1926).For an attempt at an overview see D. Kluckhohn, "Myths and Rituals: A General Theory," HThR35 Q94z), 45-79; also S. H. Hooke, Myth, Ritualand Kingship(1958);and Th. H. Gaster, Thespis:Ritual, Myth and Drama in theAncient Near East(rg5o, 196r'?).Lord Raglan, The Originsof Religion(1949),and A. M. Hocart, Social Origins$954\, went so far as to reconstructan Ur-ritual, rooted in ancient Near Eastern kingship. Alongside this debate-carried on almost exclusivelyamong English-speakingscholars-are parallel attempts in the early work of G. Dum6zil (k crimedes kmniennes IrS24l; Le problimedesCentaurs[1929])on the one hand, and, on the other, in Germany where W. F. Otto, Dionysos(tSlt, 44, spoke of the "Zusammenfall von Kultus und Mythos," and O. Hofler (1934)derived the sagasabout hordes of wild men and about werewolves from ritual. sH. Rose,Mhemosyne J. n.s. 3 (r95o), z}r-87; M. p. Ni.lsson.Cults,Myths, Oraclesand
)o
MYTH AND RITUAL
have been unable to dampen
.
the fascinal r,.n and-ritua ;"t a"*.','"ir,";3 l;[Tj?:l'il :i: mvrh Gili to-all than that of ritual, a solutionsatisfacLry
is virtually n.O"r"it:" A radical way out is to say tnat *rJaeri"i"g f;;;;oi"#rrn, u, opposedto saga,fairytale, ur,d ro'.tut", i, i,, connectionwith rituar.o argue
ffi"#::flfacts
against this:sioriesthatare;;vorrir,au"_
inbothancient;oT'""#f,l:i,?".,:J',ff.1:T:*'ffj;?.l sponding' expricatorymyths.'a"a utihough one could attribute the Iack of a correspond;:c; rn antiquiil iJ i.,.o.npt"te documentation preservedby chance,it is hard to'attacf the proofs brought forward by ethnology.*one courd, "r.o.r^",-Jr-gue that myths wit-houtrituals derive nonetheressfrom rost rituurr,'?ilut myth is so much easier to transmit and takes so.much t"t" that tailil;;eud una grow on its own' Butthis hypothesis "*pu.,re iun.,ot be verified. Rituaris far older in the history of evolution; ;il;j;;"es back even to animals, whereasmyth onlv b"crm" posriui" -i r-rine adventof speech,a specificallyhuman auitity.yytn, h";";;;;;nnot be documentedbefore the era in which *.iti.,g *u, i.rt".-#d-,*arthough i;;'.tio.rrty present long before. somewher" rr, u"i*""n, in the vast reaches of the unknowabre,are the 'origins.; il;;; reft with the fact that stories are somethins to Uiofogicallyobservablerituat. "": ll:"{ri". To this extent' myth does not grow directly Lut of ritual. on the other donot
i,fliSiX]ilo"1tic'
a;'put"iiui^'.it"r,.,a-y*, .u^" ," u"
According to the broadest definition, a mythis a traditional tale., This is alreadyienough to airpor" or'tr,l opi.io.,, herd from Xenopha-
"i
o,and cf Ni,sson(,m
?;":;;':,l: ;: :;:;;:,, ::',, (,g66); K,k r,;;;i;;,:;|,lJ:iJ":jr,llS,.i':J?;:I l:Xn:;;;*,,,jlii,irf:,;:
gre(re6t), and K. Ker6nvi. Die Lrofuing ;r;;;g;;;r"rrm only marginalty.Cf. Burkeit :y--"PT"^ t,s8o)l-'''^
,*:iiilpi"t;i;i;;i;,*#:$i*i:r rituars
,;::j:::::
Mythos(ts67), therituatrhe_
,""04ab.ve) and ERLeach,
oierrap ratherthan0",",,",".0"|o"llX'Ll,view seeKirk (re7o)z8:
seeE otto' "DasVerhdrtnis von Riteund Myrhusim d;;:.il:v',rl:;i,:;:,::"t: (1958),r; c. J' Bleeker,Egyptian re't,uats,-r.n srri n i;rt tiio)1,'iri.*'8 in'riir rl o* (r97o)z5_zg. ,rurk ,,rorKirk (r9zo),the ,,tradj
;ffi",T:fti,[:*,ji1'.,'1]1#";1,'i':Tiil:,,'ff i'"1T:I."*#'lily,l',..1 3a
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
MYTH AND RITUAL
FUNERARY RITUALS
the nes up through modern classicists,that myths y:1" :::"":"^1bv poet'sfancy,if not in historicaltimes, then in ?1:hiti"t{:,1"i::1""t^t telltngand reof its origin, myth is characterizedbyits suitabilityfor telling. Although it does not derive from empiri::.t ",b::T:^t1"1:l;i: and can be only partiallyverified'at best'^TI^,t: dividiral t" "*p".i"".." lucid. lts themes are often.surprisingly-::it^t?,"t' extraordinarily unlts shape that spite of the many fantasticand paradoxicalmotifs they return again mistakableidentity; even though slightly distorted' as a projection myth For this reason,psycnoa"utysissees psychologiinborn ""a of "g"f" structuresin the to,'I, utt elaboration of specific however' standpoint' ."ii*p"tiaions." From a strictly evolutionary hollowed valleys like *" -.it, suPPosethat even these archetypei, bes.election of process a out by ancient streams, were createdby ways the if And man' Palaeolithic tween various ways of life open to they of life were determined by rituals, then from the very start shaped the mYthic Patterns. This is speculaiion' We can be certain, however, that myths and is no rituals successfullycombineas forms of cultural tradition. There orientation strict the as ritual, the of part need for the myth itself to be apof the myth-and-ritual school would have it. Continuous stories outside discussed be can ritual The p"u, i., ritual only exceptionally. this it, o*. context,either in prepaiation or to explain it afterward;.in explaining story a with ritual every aimost way, the Greeksconnecteh ineachcasewhyaquestionablecustomwasestablished.''onlythe is oppositequestion, wiether in turn all Greek myths refer to rituals' l0,,DerMythos ' . . entsteht in der Phantasiedes Dichters,,,Wilamowitz (lg3t) 4z' a To be D,ich.tung thesis restatedprogramatrcallyby E' Howald, Der.Mythosals !1SlZ), of a manifestation individual sure, it is perfecity legitimate t; in;estigate eachparticular are the which themes underlying the for to slarch legitimate less ^ytt, U"i it is no given for every Poet historically known to us' ;C. G. (1938),4o3-ro, on archetypesas "Funktionsformen"; idem' 1.-,.,g,Eranos-lb. C' G' ' Symbolin derPsychologie (tg6+); i . iu.oii, Ko^p\", Archetypus Mon oni uii synbols Kultur einer lrg48l, Weltbild (Diasreligi1se frilhen lungs(t95fl. Following A. E. Jensen from Jung. Regardr3rff.), even Kerenyi 1rgO7)xxiii_xxxiii has now distancedhimself ut stated:-,"-ttl-: Knight irig the problem of myth and history W' F Jackson be calledan can ,^tt^ltud The container event. new of some the facts tohold u i.r"ntai container archetypal Pattern" (CumaeanGates1ry161'9r)' 1'?Theearliest examples are Hesiod's Prometheus story (Th 556-57 ' the possibly inthose to Apollo terpolatedverses I/. 2.546-5t, among the Homuic Hymns prirnarily Dichtung [1963])' to Demeter (D. Kolk, Der pythischeApitlonhymnis als aitiologische r3 above)' On cultic n' (cf' I'u at to Hermes and (tgl+l', ARW-3r ZZ-ti+), 1f. W"htti, Il1 Qg4o)' 7o5'7' Literatur griech' der etiologies in tragedy i"e W. Schmid. Geschichte (1955\ . Nilsson z7-29. Cf 776.8.
)2
disputed. There have been attempts, of course, to distinguish etiolog_ ical myths referring to cult from"genuine" myths,', bu"t the di.tin._ tion falls apart as soon as one can show in even a few cases that rndis_ putably genuine old myths are subordinate to cultic action, as, for instance, the myth of Pelops is to the festival at olympia. Nor is it generally true that the Greeks saw a correspondence'b"t-u"r, speech and action, Xey6p,eva.and 6ptitp,eva,only in mystery cults.', piety was indeed in the Greek view a matter of ritual, bui myt'h was nonetheless] ubiquitous. The two were transmitted together because they explained and strengthened each other. This.is-not to say that ritual is a theatrical dramatization of myth.rsg Nor can it be seen as arising from magical ideas with an alleged pur-pose. The relationship of the two becomes clear if we take itual for what it is, if we accept that its function is to dramatize the order of life, expressing itself in basic modes of behavior, especially aggression. In its own way, too, myth clarifies the order of iif".'. A, ii well known, it frequently explains and justifies social orders and establishments,r'and in so doing it is related to ritual, which occurs by means of social interaction. The most exciting themes in myth come from the realm of sexuality and aggression, and these are alsb prominent in ritual communication. The most fascinating stories .or,."..r the periis of death and destruction. These have their counterpart in sacrificial
killingrJ
"E.g., A. E. Jensen,"Echteund,dtiologische(explanatorische) Mythen,,,in K. Kerenyi, tff[nuns desZugangszum Mythos (967), z6i-7o : Mythos uid Krrt beiNaturuorkern lie 67-9t' gz-tcn, in which "mythical trurh" is the criterionfor what is \1951'), genuine;cf. I.z.n. 38 above. uThus Nilsson (1955)r4n.. It is true that the generalterms (jepris)I
33
SACRIFICE, HUNTING/
TRANSFORMATION OF RITUAL KILLING
FUNERARY RITUALS
The mythical tale' as "The mvth is the plot of the dromenon'" " withina singleritualtradition' ;;#;;ili;;' L'--""'t.";il behavi-oraldescription of does not, of course, p'ot'id" an obiective are the ritual intends' Rituals what occursthere. It i"t"t ift"t which the with a displaced'*f:t:'11}us' redirectedpatterns orientationand so ";;;;;i";' mythical naming, b;;;i;;otlo*' be perl!::;iginal a quasi-realitvwhich cannot filis the spaceleft vacant'creates ritual' Huis direcfly experiencedin the ceived with the '""'"' Ut't and thus ritual com'o-". man speech naturai]'"re;;l; "'ui"ct'In hunting and then in munication gir'", "'i io-*ytftituf.subjects' behavior between -'"" u1-"diverted sacrifice,aggressivemodes of the other hand' is a human victim''o onto animals; in the myth' on myth names somedisplayedin tire Preparatoryrituals; the ;;;;r;.; shapedby g"tiut"t of guilt and one who is to be feared.tire iit,rat is strongerbeing t"O submission;the myth tells of some :t"It^:"I:t: contain * n*:t gestures. ii" ^ytf, developswhat the : :,\reatenrng out becomesgenuine mourngesturebecomesmurder, so"J* acted elea story of love and death' The as-if ing, erotic -o.'"-"iiJ;;;" conritual ieality; conversely'the ment in the ritual il;;";;ythical *uyiW mutually affirming each this In firms the reality ii" *V*t' "r force in forming a cultural traother, myth and ritual beiame a strong different' ;iii;;, e{,e.,though their origins were in supplant.ritual' even can To some extent myth -especially group' the ot and organization its function of expressingthe unity precision and dexterity' One its in ritual Speech is far superior tJ dance' But becauseof its word, one cry .u,t t"^filtu u tornprttut"d'war It can easilybe abusedor used very flexibility,ra,,g'ula;lt "ft" iitxre' it always returns to riiual' even though -rational to deceive.Thereforesociety An acieleration of communication''o runs contrary to ;h; clearly in words' but it is q"tttty.and agreement.ur, U"'"*pt"""J op"t' *"uponless hands onlv made uff".tr'r" iy a ritual g"'tt""' in a mutual hando"" airother' graiping eachother ;#il;;*uia |
shake-amutualai'pruyof agg"ression-sealing thillilf.leviouslv to conceiveof a relipossible been merely spoken"simitarly' it ^u{.b: using myth without ritual tutigiott u gion without *yttt',L"i ""i"f without ritual''i practice.There has yet to be a community
t'Harrison (:.927) 11r. reSeeI.2.n.35 above; cf' at n z above' auch in Zukunft 20A. Portmann , Das Tier alssoziales Wesen(t964)' 34o:"Das Ritual bleibt sozialen Led'h h6heren' in allem das gewaltige Instrument des Uberindividuellen (r97o) zo7-zo6' U".,.y O" sh"aking hands see Eibl-Eibesfeldt
34
5. TheFunctionand Transformation of Ritual Killing Hunting behavior became establishedand, at the same time. transferablethrough ritualization. In this way it was preservedlong after the time of the primitive hunter. This cannoi be explained simply by the psychologicalmechanismsof imitation and impiinting, whereby customs are inherited. Theserituals were indispeniable becauseof the particular thing they accomplished.The only prehistoric and historic groups obviously able to assert themselveswere those held together by the ritual power to kill. The earliest male societies banded together for collectivekilling in the hunt. Through soridarity and cooperativeorganization,and by establishingan inviolableorder, the sacrificialritual gave societyits form. As ethology has shown, a senseof community arises from collectiveaggression.'A smile can, of course,establishcontact,and a crying child touchesour hearts,but in all human societies,,seriousness,, takes precedenceover friendliness and compassion.A community bound by oaths is united in the "sacred shiver" of awe and enthusiasm-the relic of an aggressivereflex that made the hairs bristle,in a feeling of strength and readiness.This must then be releasedin an "act": the sacrificial ritual provides the occasionfor killing and bloodshed. Whether in Israel, Greece,or Rome, no agreemeit, .,o contract,no alliancecan be made without sacrifice.And, in the languageof the oath, the objectof aggressionthat is to be ,,struck,,and "cut" becomesvirtually identical*ltn tn" covenantitself: foedusferire, 6pxtu trrrrd r6,p.vtcu.3 Familiesand guildsoorganizethemselvesinto 'Lorenz
(1963)esp. 249-318.For criticisms,seeI.r.n.r; Eibl-Eibesfeldt e97o) t45-.48, 1d7-9ois somewhatreluctant;his example of the suddeneffectof a smilein war (rr3r4) shows how shaky these other kinds of bonding are. A new theory of how human communityis founded on aggression has beenset out by Girard 6972\:his model is not rne hunting pack but the scapegoat complex(cf. Burkert bgZgl Sg'_ZZl and Dionysiac a7fapo'yPos-acombinationwhich is questionable.The practiceof eatingin sacrificeis not taken into accountby him. 'On the "sacredshiver" of awe see Lorenz(t961) J75-77.
3^
T s a formula, see ll. 3.73 and 19.r9r; Od. 24.4$; R. Hirzel, Der Eid (r9oz); Stengel
35
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
sacrificial communities; so too cities at a festival, as well as gatherings of larger political groups. The inhabitants of the Peleponnesus, the "island of Pelops," meet at Pelops' grave for sacrifice at Olympia; the islanders celebrate in Delos; the Ionian cities slaughter a bull to Poseidon at Mykale.5 In the time of Cicero, the cities of the Latin League still had the right "to demand their portion of meat" u from the sacrifice of a bull to ]upiter Latiaris. The Ionian League headed by Athens first met at Delos; Iater, Athens exacted a phallus for the procession at the Dionysia at Athens, and a cow for the Panathenaia.'It is in the sacrificial procession that the empire's power becomes manifest. The closer the bond, the more gruesome the ritual. Those who swear an oath must touch the blood from the accompanying sacrifice and even step on the testicles of the castrated victim.8 They must eat the meat of the victim as well, or at least the ozr).c!71ua."It was generally believed that conspiracies practiced human sacrifice and cannibal(tgzo) 46-38; Nilsson (ry55) 49-42. On the Semitic "cutting" of a covenant see E. Bickermann, "Couper une alliance," Archiuesd'Histoire du Droit Orientale 5 Qg5ol5:.), t13-56.A special case of the encounter with death is passing through the severed halves of the sacrificial victim: see S. Eitrem, Synfu. Oslo 25 Og4Z), 36-39; for the Hittites see O. Curney, RHR 97 j95o), 5-25. On the sacrifice of the /efinleswith the sacred silex see Latte Qg6o) rzz-23; R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Liuy | (t9611),trz; Burkert $967\ 287. Calling down a curse on oneself (Livy r.z4; Nilsson [1955] r39) does not explain the details of the ritual; the essential point is that the act, during which the one who swears raises himself above annihilation, is irrevocable. This can be shown, for instance, by sinking metal bars in the sea: Hdt. r. r65; Arist. Ath. Pol. 4.5. For this reason the otov\il can take the place of blood sacrifice (cf. L6.n.z6 below). {The phratries are constituted at the sacrifices of the peiou and xovper.ovat the Apaturia: see Deubner ftg1z) 4z-34. Amasis allowed the Greek merchants to construct "altars and sacred precincts for the gods" at Naukratis (Hdt. r.r78)-the permanent establishment of a trading company; cf. late Hellenistic Delos. 5Hdt. r. r48; Strabo 8 p. )84; :.4p.619; Marm. Par., FGrHist 49 A z7; G. Kleiner, P. Hommel, and W. Miiller-Wiener, "Panionion und Melie," ldl Erg.-H. z1 g967); F. Sokolowski, BCH 94 OgTo), to9-7t2; on Pelops see ILz below. oL\vy 32.t.9, 37.1.4; Crc. Planc. 21. Cf. Latte (96o) t44-46; A. Alfdldi, Early Rome and the bztins Qg6), rg-25. TDelos: Thuc. r.96.2. For the phallus see IG Il/lll? 671. drayeLu B6[u xairavotr)\fiav is flavaSftvata rd pttfya),al haz'cloas lG I' 61 : R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical lnscriptions Q96), #69, 55ff ; #q6, 4r; cf . IC I'? ro : SIGr 4r; Schol. Aristoph. Nuh. 386. EStengel Qgro) 78-85; Hennes 59 Qgz4), 3rr-zr;
36
TRANSFORMATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
ism''" And' in a secularized form among
Athenian hetairiai, killingwasan expression corective of loy"ity.;"riJ", ,n" sacritegium"-r.rr,r, in the sauumno longer ,"*ri., within the confinesof ;il:i-"d
In a sacrificethc circreof participantsis segregated from the outside worrd' Compricatedsocilt st.uitu"r", rina expression in the di_ verse roles the participants assume;il;" courseof the rituar, from the various ,,beginnings,,,, through pruy"., cutting up, to roasting-and, .rtuu't''t"., ,kinn]ig, ur..a a "lord of the sacrific!,, *fl" "U"r?"fi'a1rr.,Ur6ng the meat.Thereis a"-"r"ri
(actuarry ;;;/, potestas,;; ; ;; 9;l;
;;"_, !': :,,:::,: i:::i:;:!", if: power of rife)' And as for tttu .""t, uu.i iurti.lpur.,t has a set function and actsaccordingto a precisery n-"J'Jraer.tThe sacrificiar nity is thus a moJer.of iociety commu_ ;t-;';h;-, divided accordingto occupation and rank' Henge, ,r," rri"r"-iies manifested in th--eceremony are given sreat socialtmportance u.,a r* ,;i.;;;; *.i""Ur1 An ancientepic, the Thebaid,;"i;;;;;.bedipus cursedhis sonsbe_ causehe was given the wrong pi;;" ;;';.rificial meat.,2 Harmodios murdered Hipparchos, tne pJiistratt'a, ,""u.r." his sister had been deniedthe honor of being "burk;;;;;ul" panathenaia.,. in ,hu the Corinthians turned u"gui"riiiu And " a;;;;;r", not reastof alr because "in their common festivaii tr.,ey_ouii'"i, th";;;;;;r;uv privilege of founders and, at ,i"i. r"lriri.""r,"uo* they did not perform the rites of 'beginnine, for,1 ^3r., of Corinth, as the ,nt'$ll1T:i:1y, r.eirteq in thep"r"p,".",iln other coioniesdid,,: war.,n Thesacrificiar mearis particul'rt.tft,1'r-*o
rawsthatreg-
. ;"n:5:fl:il:i:T".fi'"" Lorianos,
r72 see Dio Cass. ^., ,l :.D. 7r.4.r. The pniin;t ;i, , h^,,^r L_. conrains di Phoinikika " ff,il::T ff H:lj; ]^* *::lffii."ir:lT:';J"'#" desLoilianosrro:z); cf. Henri.hr;;p;;;; fiituut,nd Loftian^" ^^hr^:-^ ^ ,::
Earlychristianr,,' in iy,ioton, Frri,;r;;; l'''a;;:;;tlizor,
theAllegedCrimesof the ,u_ts.
"Thuc. 8. 73.3,yripBoiov ..... dzroxreiuouttty,triirw 6L6oyres airois; cf. plat.Apol. 3zc on the request of the Thirty to S..."i"" B"i^O*"rorrir-s atriov' The murilation atrerjorous ir_orxt1oo, of the herms ;;;l;i#;lo"rs, ando.. r .67-and.rikewrse symboliccastration(Aristoph. a Lys. tos4,a;i;fi;;. 'Jebats 6.27). Ct.alsoDiod. r.zr.z. fr. 3 Kinkel/Allen-even the Grammarianwho wf cited the-passage(schol. oC 'vil round this soph. ^;;i"";;;;;r;;::l:i::T '11"" primitive, rtt,e.tos Cf. the 6L1rctpio dodya.sfor the spartal*l:l iu .d.yevits. "aas Xen' Ages' 5'r; the double p".ii".'i.r'ir"#", uet'sratermot"he;';;ff.Ti-'ng' t.-t3Thuc. 6.56. toThuc.
r.25.4 oihe Kopwt enoo.,,,ol,u.,iri.'##,;i fi:rJ, Jff";'ffJ:f; ::::"lf_i[:Hil,_]fl1;:ijJ
37
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
very ulate social interaction in distributing, giving, and taking' The distinguish*,liT:1::l"temonial .'i"utty fact that eating U".*" on the vrchavior from animal. Once the deadly knife has been used accomplished is This aside' tim, intraspecificaggressionmust b! set anxiety and through an eating i"itibiti;; evokedby rituals that excite "Since huriting society must support women and children' aba guilt. of others' Thus' stinencebecomesu.r""*..,,"' we killed'for the sake must refrain himself, the sacrificer there is often a rule that the killer, the Hermes' in human-sacrifice;'u only And this is not so irowere Pinarii "utir,g. the similarly and this rule, .uitf"-f.iff"i must also obey excludedfrom the meal in [he sacrificeat the Ara Maxima. Sometimes way, there is a rule that sacrificialmeat must be sold at once;'uin this somakes tabu The factor. an economic becomes the ritual inhibition intense. more the all cial interaction I The shock felt in the act of killing is answeredlater by consolidaIts ttion; guilt is followed by reparation,destructionby re-construction. simpi-estmanifestation-isin the custom of collecting!o1es, of raising the skull, the horns, or the antlers, thereby establishingan order exwhose power residesin its contrast to what went before' In the nourperiencl of killing one perceivgt t" sacrednessof life; it is ished and perpetuated by death. This paradox is embodied' acted out, and generalizedin th-eritual. whatever is to endure and be effective musipass through a sacrificewhich opens and resealsthe abyss of annihilation.l (rgr2l,91; for can15ForMexico see E. Reuterski6ld,,Die Entstehung der speisesakramente Strabo youngsters' Persian for (rg1g), Kannibalismus 443-44; nibals see E. Volhard, Der and Suicide.Qg6r)' 4z-.41;J' P' 15 p. 734,and cf. G. Devereux,MohaueEthnopsychiatry at-the Attic Gr;pi;, TheTragicParadox(t968), t6t'-6z See Hy' Merc TJo-))) likewise sacrifiBupironia, the Bourtnros,who flees and does not reappeat is excluded from_the zr3-zr' Latte see Maxima Ara at the i96o) sacrifice the ciai meal (cf. III.' below). On Hal' Anl' On Pinarii see Cic. Dom rS4tYerg. Aen. 8.269-7oand Serv' on 269;Dion' II'z besee at Olympia to Pelops sacrifice the On Sit. r.+o; Diod. 4.zt-.2;Macr. 3.O.ra. low. On Egyptian customsseeHdt. 2.48'r' 16IG12rgg = LS ro C :I8,zr; LSAM 54,a-J; Hdt. 2.)g; Serv.Aen.8.t83 dehocbotteimmocausareligionis,et indealter redimebatur-this is not lato Herculi carnescartusztenilebantur evijust an expansion of Vergil's phrase perpetuiboois(Latte lt96ol zt7' z) but' rather' continuand exchange to insure simultaneously it is dence of a crrstomwhosefunitlon to ity. The Manichaeanstransfer the principle of exchangeand assertionsof innocence eis oihe BBN,ltaoe ohe ri)reoo oJ'6i 1qtpwa iyd oi otne ail food, even vegetables: x\i,Bauov E}al,oi
38
TRANSFORMATION OF RITUAL KILLING
Building-sacrifices,for example,are for this reasonwidesprs4cl.rz A house, a bridge or a dam wil stay strong only if ro-"*ri.g t*, slaughteredbeneathit. one of the most detaiieaLatin descripiions of a sacrificedepicts the erectionof a border-stone.'sA sacrificialanrmal would be slaughteredin a pit and burned together with offerings of incense,fruits, honey,and wine. The stonewis then placedon top of the remainswhile they were still hot. Thereafter,neighborswould return regularly on the anniversaryof that sacrificetJ repeat it. similarly, altars and statuescan be set up over a victim in the courseof a ritual." Any new creation,even the birth of music, requiresritual killing. underlying the practicaluse of bone-flutes,turtre-sheillyres, and the tympanon coveredwith cowhide is the idea that the overwhelming power of music comesfrom a transformationand overcoming of death.'?o Thus, a slain man is easily made a hero or even a god, pre_ ciselybecauseof his horribleend.i' In any case,apotheosislsalways precededby death. r?Hock(r9o5) 75-83; Nilsson og55)+o+,ro; Miiiler-Karpe(1968))J6, i57,36r; K. Klusemann, DasBauopferGgry); cf . F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube )nd religiisir Briuci derSildslaaen (r89o), r58-64; B. Schmidt, Das-Volksleben der NiugriecheneSlr\, 196_99.According to the EnumaElit, Ea kills his father Apsu and buil"dshis temple rpo.ri.,i-, ANET6r. However, animal sacrifice is rare, and human sacrifice ,rr,utteried, for a buitdingsacrifice in the ancient Near East: see R. s. Eris, FoundationDeposits in Ancient MesopotamiaQ968), 35-45. r8Gromaticied. Lachmannr 4' lapidesin solidamterramrectos conlocabant . . unguento uelaminibusque et coroniseoscoronabant. in fossis. . . sacrificio i^maoti oiqu facto hostiaque incensa (Lachmann; -i cdd.i sanguineminstillabanteoque facibusardentibusin fossacooperta tura et frugesiactabant,faaosquoqueet uinum . . . consumptisque igie omnibusdapibussuper 'Fasl. calentesreliquiaslapidesconlocabaint. On the festival see Ov. 2.619_7g. orderin€ the constructionof a statueof Apolto to ward off the prague: lT:^ln::.""e ^arbel, tpgr,. ro34.K. Buresch,Klaros(tgg9), gr_g6: a rarnand a sheepare slaughtered in the sacrificial pit and burned; the fire is extinguished with wine and sea-water;the statueis then set up on the remains. 8Hy. Merc.38 r)z 6i Bavylsrore xtv pllXa xa),dv ded6ore; Soph. Ichn. zgr_93. On the I.r.n.44above. On the z
)9
TRANSFORMATION SACRIFICE, HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
the irreversible."act" Sacrificetransforms us' By going through taken consciouslyand we reacha new ptur',"'-wn"tt"""'"u newstepls sicrifice' Thus' when crossirrevocably,it is inevitabfyf""""tt"a with an the \wBarilpca;" when opening ing frontierc o, .irr".rlii;-;t; new a into passing when assembly,there are t;;;;;;P;tifications;" ther-ewill be sacrifice''o societv age grouP or on enteringinlxcl"sive of abstln:":"" 1"9 -'f1-"jt:1-'.:""* Before the sacririce;;;: ;; ;;;iod their limits can grve new reparation' of sort a as erected ;;;;;t-"t" by a predeterminedprlos,or lifestyle, definition to life. Ir it is ioll,owed Tho'u who have undergone the the sacrificebecomesan initiation' consecrated'as expressedin unspeakableare both exoneratedand lifestyleand.thesacrificeat the Greekword 6oro0eis''sThus' the new o*opnagy is {ollowed by its inception are almost complementarv: conscious Killing-t;stifies and affirms life; it makesus i"g;;i""itm of tne new order and brings it to power' have used the folFollowing Rudolf Ott6,'u students of religion Holy: terror' bliss' th" oi lowing concePtsto describethe experient" fasmysterium .tremendum' and recognition of an absolute auihority' combination impressive and cinans, and'augusturr'The most thrilling iitual: the shock of the deadly of these elementso.t"t' in sacrificial spiritual rapture of festive and the bodily ii"* ,"a flowing bl;;,
;;;e,-ih" ttri.t 6'ae"*roundingth: 1ll:tll:::::t:::::: ll: the confront !ffi?- ilil;;;;;Ji"ort.,Aboie alt,theyo,,"smust n I l . t t . 7 z 6 - 1 o . F o r t h e s p e c i a l i m p o r t a n c e o f t h e s e - r i t u a l s f o r s p a r t a n s s e e T h u c5 ' 5 4 -
'{'iir'""""*g"^:"tT i"lt::llll;I"j"llHTX;:; t gtgt,oi'-7r.' 55,n6;Pritchett in thesea:Hdt 7.54'Alexander obJects l.a,u,,r valuabre
ii;*,";ii,lllit:ii#l;
Arr' Anab' r'rr'5-7' *uJ"'"'"t"".o"s sacrificesto the sameend: eict{vat 1-t'6L' rDemosth. 54.19rois dplets rous Ex ritv yotpiav' ois xafio.tpouct6tav Eccl rzS' Aristoph Schol 21; 1 Aeschines \uctv. .. . Cf. Harp. xadapotoviSchol' tnseen. above;V.z below' 4 25Eur.fr.4j2.12-T'rasr'dtp,ogalous8oitasre\eoo.s.plrpit'6peio't6-q6astiva,o1
40
OF RTTUAL KILLING
Holy again and again so that the ancestral tradition will become their own.
Although we can understand the persistenceof sacrificialritual through its social function, this by no means excludeschange as an explanation.Ritual is a pattern of action redirectedto serve for communication, and this means that the terms of expressionare open to substitution, i.e., symbolization-this occurs even in the insect world, when a resourcefulmale offershis bride a white balloon or veil Every communicationis symbolic insteadof an edible wedding gift.'?8 inasmuch as it does not use the real object it wants to communicate, but substitutesa sign that is familiar to and, hence,understoodby the addressee.The object serving as sign is exchangeable.If the sender and the receiverare sufficiently familiar with one another, the complex of signs can be greatly reduced. On the other hand, when in competition with rival communications,the sign is exaggeratedand heightened.Substitutesigns thus used-whether consistingof natural or artific.ialobjects,pictures, cries, or words-may be called syrzbolsin a pregnant sense.They are not chosenarbitrarily,but are taken from a continuous tradition; they are neither independent nor selfevident, but bound to the systemin which they function. Their richness of meaning coincideswith the complex effectsthey produce in predeterminedinteractions.2' In ritual aggression,the ends and the means of aggressionare exchangeable.Even mammalstear up tufts of grassor shred tree bark when performing the threatening rituals that both introduce and postpone a fight.'o The triumphant cries of the greylag gooseare directedtoward a purely imaginary interloper.In human ritual, too, the aggressivegesturecan becomeso important that its objectis unessential. The wildest form of destruction, that of tearing an object to pieces(nnapayp.os),can be carried out on an ivy plant," and instead of a deadly club, a safe and flexible narthex stalk can be used.3,SpiriTLorenz (1963)99-ror. 'This is not far removed from the basic meaning of oiptBo\ov (on which see also W. Mtiri, "Symbolon," BeiL z. lahresberichtdesStadl.Gynn. Bern [ry3]); the biological and traditional roots should not be lost sight of in the more sublimated use of the concePt-see/ for instance, P. Tillich, SymbolundWirklichkeit(1962). rMorris (:.96:) ry3-55. "OJu,. Q. Rom.zgraa[ 1dp Evollotrois paxytxois zrcrfrerltyuvaixes eihig Eri rou xnrdv 9 e povtaL xa i or ap arr ouo t,6pano p"eva t,r ais Xepc [,v. t'On the mock combatof the vapByxogriporsee Xen.Cyrop.2.J.12) Ath.63ra. In myth, the thyrsosbecomesa terrifying weapon: seeEur. Bacih.76z.
41.
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
tual forcesthus find releasein a harmlessgame which heightens the senseof socialordering by meansof dramatization' Yet the theatricaliharacter of the ritual may becomeso obvious here that it imperils its necessaryfunction. In groups shaped by ugin the younger generation, forces that question gression, "rp"iiully of iradition becomeactive. Willfulness stands in the i'he acceptance way of t'he impulse to imitate. Thus, along with its theatricality,human ritual must always have a strong underlying component of seriousness,and this means that time and again there is a regression from symbolismto reality.A non-instinctiveritual, transmittedby human beings, can fulfill its communicatoryfunction only if it avails itself of a pragmatismthat is unquestionablyreal. In the hunting ritual, aggressionbetweenmen was redirectedtoward an animal quarry which was thereby raised to the status of a personality,a blood-relation,even a father.3rIt becamethe object of a "comedy of innocence,"but becauseof the necessityof food, the hard underpinning of reality was never questioned.This all changedwhen mankind took its most important step, its mastery of the environment, in the Neolithic Revolution, the invention of agriculture, some 1o,oooyears ago.' Thereafter, hunting was basically dispensable. Characteristically,however, it was retained even in advanced cultures, as a ritual status symbol." The pharaoh was celebratedas a lSee l.2..nn.33-35above;L8 below. yEarlier cultural historiansthought that an era of nomadicshepherdsformed an intermediate stagebetween hunters and farmers,but this has been made dubious by prehistoric finds, especiallythe discoveryof Near EasternNeolithic sites.Nomads seem, rather, to be offshoots of farming and city culture-see Mtiller-Karpe (1968) uo-zr. support for the position-still held by some, and Likewise, there is no archaeological usually arguedin connectionwith the theory of a matrilinealsystem(cf. P. W Schmidt, DasMutterrecht[r955])-that the cultivation of bulbous plants must have preceded grain-growing;cf. Miiller-Karpe (1968)ll.zt-zz, 249, and P J. Ucko and G. W Dimand Exploitation of Plantsand Animals(1969).ln this rebleby, eds., The Domestication spect, the outlines of a universal history such as A. v. Rtistow's Ortsbestimmungder (1915;r95o'z)have alsKultursoziologie GegenwartI (r95r) and A. Weber'sKulturgeschichte been renderedobsolete. G. Childe coined the term Neolilfticreaolution(Man MakesHimself[1936],ch' V), cf. S. Cole, The NeolithicRevolution1r95g;1963').The term is, however, controversial: see I (196r), zz9; Ucko and Dimbleby, Domestication. R. Pittioni, Propylden-Weltgeschichte sFor Egypt see E. Hornung, Geschichte als Fest(196o),t5-ry;E. Otto, /NES g (1950), 'Assyrische (1958),t, zo-zt. For Assyria/PersiaseeB. Meissner, 164-77; SB Heidelberg jagden," Der Alte Orient 13 z (tgtt). For the reliefs of Assurbanipal see ANEP 626; for seeXen. Anab.r.2.7, HeI\.4.1.15;on the sarcophagusof the animal parks (zrapd6eroor.) ro' Alexander,etc., see F. Orth, RE IX (r9r4) 558-fu+; i. Aymard, Essaisut leschasses (t969\; Vasenmalerei in der griechischen maines(r95r); K. Schauenburg, lagddarstellungen Frevert,DasiagdlicheBrauchtum generally,cf^J.OrtegayGasset,Uberdielagd(1956);W. (r959'o).
42
TRANSFORMATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
hunter, as were his counterparts_inBabylonand Nineveh; the persian kings maintained animal parks for hunting, and Alexa.,a", iotto.'-ua in their footsteps.of course,it was no longer a question of catching one'sdinner, but purely a demonstrationof the ruler,s power io kill. Thus, the most prestigiousquarry was the beastof prey. Through this emphasisthe sport remained pragmatic and serious. Heraklts, the bearerof the club, was more popular as a lion-killer than as thetamer of the bull. we find a transitional phase documentedat eatar Htiytik.s rhe most important religioussymbol in this farming town where goat and sheephad long been domesticatedwas a pair of horns from ihe wild bull, and wall paintings containclear,thriiing depictionsof the ritual hunt of a band of leopard men. We can even tru." th" gradual extinc_ tion of wild cattle in eatal Hriytik, though not the .iiti.ui,i"p tt ut followed: in place of the dwindring bandi of wild animars,at,L"su. ones were now used for sacrifice.The power of the traditironar rituar to bind thus remained intact. The animal must, of course,now be removed from the everyday world; it must becomesacred. Hence the adornmentand the procession,and, sometimes,the animal being set free and recaptured.3'Hence, too, the many stepsof ,,beginning,,r,n" incenseand the music. In addition to the "action,,,whicliis.oiu.,g". dangerous or even difficult, there are also words: prayers to the "stronger" powers and myths that tel of them. rne rearity Lt-aea*, and flowing blood is an unmitigated presence, perhaps ali the more intensebecausethe reactionis now inspired uy a aomestic animal, a familiar member of the househord.The rapture attendant on eating gamein the sacrificialmeal is no lessreal now. Moreover,the domestic animal is a possessionwhich must be given away;* thus, in addilcl
!i ".
ro, 19 above; Mellaart (196) z6g.On domestication see R. E. Z;
r; J;.T'1ry*:
ni,,ory ofrechnorogy I ossl, )27_52; F.E.j:1r""": il.1 ilg A:'nlhal,-A Zeuner, A Historu ofDomesttcated Animars a;;;;;:ir;;;;i;"i!,'il?,]ll,,l7,rii,,
Dimbleby, hoiestication.The ordestdomestic Y-tk: 3na animarsare-apart from the special caseof the ioe-eoats and sheep;shortry thereaftet the pig appears,fotowed tn the seventh mi.ilennirim by the coi.'e.'u"i.l-,t*is (Die Haustiere,,8961, and cf' Ebert, Reatr.d. vorgesch. V zrg) that the domestication of the cow occurred from u"o start for ,".ru'l ."u"ona, i.e., for sacrifice, has recently been resurrected: see ln", E' Isaac,Sciencetrz (to6z\, 195-264; C. A. Reedin Ucko and Dimbleby,Domestication, 3z' lt remainsun op"n questionto what extent the rituar of human sacrificehad deveroped beforeanimal-sac.ifice' The evidencefor ritual sacriiiceof men in the palaeolithic a8eis overwhelming: seeI.z.n.z7 above. ttsee l.z.n.ur ubor"l $In this way' ceremoniesof bartering and buying deveroped.on cos, the owner presents-thesacrificiar bur for Zeus poriius "to tt," dou.,.,.,and Hestia, i.e., the coffersof tne state,gets the proceedsof the sale;,"" Lc;i;': SlG3rc25= LS r5r A z3-27.
43
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
tion to the old fundamental ambivalence of life and death in the sacrifice, there is now also renunciation and gratification. Even more than before, a sacred order is presumed and confirmed in this critical situation. In any case, with the integration of animal-sacrifice into agricultural society, a very stable socio-religious structure was established, which was to survive many thousands of years. No less important was the expanded symbolism brought about by the newfound sources of food from farming_barley, wheat, the fruit of the vine-and added to the themes of ritual killing. The ritual pattern was so strong and inflexible that a festival meal without the preliminary horror of death would have been no festival at all. The farmer had to be just as reliable, enduring, and farsighted as the hunter. In particular, it was no mean task to overcome the inclination to eat the seed grain rather than throw it on the ground in the mere hope that something would grow. Here, too, the individual's desire for immediate profit could be controlled by the sacred tradition of the hunting ritual, which established the old order in a new context: renunciation and abstinence for the sake of long-range success, and with it a new order. Thus, the harvest is celebrated in a hunting festival and in sacrifice.3'Gathering and storing at the sacred place now took on a new reality. Most importantly, the seed grain could not be touched as long as it was stored in sacred granaries, those mysterious, half-buried depositories of wealth.ooAt the same time, aggres"Shepherds today in Crete will dedicate one of their animals to the village saint, selling it by auction on the Saint's Day to give the proceeds to the saintt church": S. G. Spanakis, Crete, aGuide toTrauel, History and Archeology,Iraklion (n.d.) z9r. Those who sacrifice a goat on the island of Leuke must deposit the buying price in the temple of Achilles: Arr. Perip. zz, and cf. n. 16 above. 3eThe researches of Wilhelm Mannhardt (Roggenwolf und Roggenhund 11865l; Die Korndiimonen 1fi681; Wald- und Feldkulte j8751771; thereafter GB VII/VIII), who developed the idea of the "Vegetationsdimon," are basic. The fact that it is precisely the "Vegetationsdimon" who is killed time and again in the ritual has been explained in various ways: the drowning is weather-magic for rain (1fi751 zr4, 4r7), the immolation is a purification (6o7-6o8), the burying is intended for sowing and germination (4r9-zr), the whole process stimulates the annual cycle of the death and rebirth of vegetation. Indeed, in this case the rite cannot be derived from any attested or hypothetical mythology (l.l-4 above)- The sacrificial rites are a given: no matter how great the hopes for increase and harvest are, the ritual can give form only to death and destruction. {For sacred circular structures functioning as granaries ever since Arpachija see MrillerKarpe (1968) 336. The myth of Trophonios and Agamedes (Telegony, p. ro9 Allen; Charax, FGrHist ro1 F 5; Egyptianized in the story of Rhampsinit's treasure house, Hdt. z. rzr) deals with such a Bqaaupog which can be opened only "secretly," accompanied by sacrifice. Cf. the underground r}locupds at Messene: Plut. Philop. 19;Li*y 39.5o.3 (following Polybius).
44
TRANSFORMATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
sion had to look for new_objects.Consequently,farming implements assumedthe characrerof weapons. After all, a plow, u ri.ti",-u.ro u pestle were all used forchopping, cutting, and-tearing apart. Cutting the wheat could thus-become a symbolic substitute"for castration; grinding the grain and pressingthe wine could take the placeof tearing up an animal in the hunt or sacrifice.plowing and sowing could be seenas preliminary sacrificialrenunciations.r' We have already shown how, in hunting ritual, death gives way new a to order of life. In agriculture,the victory of life can bE felt with even greaterimmediacy.The vine that has been pruned will bear all the more fruit; the grain that was buried in the earth sends u,, new shoots toward the light. The sacrificiarritual's power to bind i, p."served on this level as well. Contracts are r"ul"d with libations of wine (trrovDal), and weddings are celebratedby cutting up cake or bread; cutting or breaking must still precedeeating,nr luit as slaughtering precedesthe eating of meat. The symbolisir courd easilyLecome detached were it not for a counterforceguiding it back to the frightening reality. This occurs first of all in the mvtf,, for the most gruesometales of living creaturestorn apart and of cannibalismare presentedin conjunction with the achievementsof civilized life. But the myth is not enough. Blood-sacrificemust be made at the harvest festival and at-thepreparationsfor it. Here the savagerybeneaththe seeminglycivilized exterioris exorcized.In Greece,is iar back as we can see, the victims were animal. But in the tropics, the very regions that had more favorableclimates, the planters regressedto relular human sacrifice,to cultic cannibalism.bnly in thii way, it was said, could the seedgrow and the fruit ripen.nrCivilized rife endures only by giving a ritual form to the brute fbrce that still lurks in men. "See IV and V below. anportioningpresupposesa division, and it is preciselythe latteract that is i"o!,cou1se,' taking/praying/breaking(I Cor. rr:24). Among the Hittites, breaking ::lli:':"d, oreadrs one of the most common sacrificialceremonies(ANEI y5_5r, 36o_6r);at an Attic wedding, the groom cuts (xdry'ar) a sesamecake(Aristoph. pax g6gwith schol. : Men. fr. 9ro) and divides it up (Men. Sam.74,125,tgo;phot. ailoapou). Onthe confar_ reatioseeV, below. 3 {3Polynesian myths, especialrythe myth of Hainuwelefrom west-ceram, abouta being that was killed and out'of which grew edible plu.,ts,;'D"-a," made a greatimpression: ,;:11 Ui"t, Dema:Des,iption ani Anatysi,o1Uor;na Anim Cutture e966);A. E. Jensen, nqtnuuele (tgld; Das relipi1seWeltbild einerfri)hen Kultur eg4g) = Die getitete Gottheit. (ry66); C. G Jung and k. Ker6nvi, Einfiihrung in daswesen !!'!:!i,::r::!'yhen .Kuttir r3j-go. As applied to ancientmyths and riiuals, s*eeA. :':.r.r!,:ro*9"^!r94t), Bretich, t'2utrrnus,"SMSR 3r e96o), 61-n9, followed by I. -hirassi, Elementidi cultureprecereali neimiti e riti Greci(Rome,1969).The notion that this representsa pre-agricultural
45
SACRIFICE, HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
Thus, aggression is once again directed toward human beings. Although the male societiesthat had been superimposedon the family structure lost their ostensiblefunction when the hunt was abandoned, they were reestablishedamong planters as secret,or mask, societies.aAt the center was a secretsacrifice,and if the aggression there did not suffice, it was worked out within the society itself. The contrast between the sexeswas now played up-Miinnerbund versus female power-the more so becausewomen now shouldered the main burden, supporting the family according to the new agricultural method. Likewise, the conflict between the generations became highly dramatized in the initiation rituals. Deprived of its hunting quarry, the secretsociety makes the initiand himself into a victim.as The group's aggressionbecomesfocusedon this man and he is forthwith killed-symbolically, of course;a sacrificialanimal is substituted at the last minute. However, the bloodshedand the refined methods of torture are very real and guaranteethe seriousnessof the ritual. The gruesome "evil" at work in the ritual fulfills a function, i.e., to preserve a social structure over the course of generations.Once again, life rises up from the peril of death. Indeed, the individual experiencesin himself how, after life had been endangered,there is a resurrection,a rebirth. To some extent, this too was still a game, a show. With the progressivegrowth of consciousness,civilization cameto dernand absolute seriousness-one could no longer pretendto kill men. For this reasonthe death penalty becamethe strongestexpressionof governmental power,ft and, as has often been shown, the criminal'sexecustagehas, however, been supersededthrough the excavationsatJericho andJarmo: see n. 34 above. {H. Schurtz, Altersklassen und MiinnerbundeQgoz);H. Webster,PrimitiaeSeoet Societies (r9o8); H
46
TRANSFORMATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
tion at a public festival correspondedto a sacrificialritual. In ancient times, the death penalty was not so much aimed at profane murder_ ers as at those who entered an "untouchable" ru"."d precinct, went into a house of the mysteriesunconsecrated,or laid a branctr upon the wrong altar.47 The tabu almost becamean excuseto find a victim for releasingthe sacredimpulsesof aggression. There is another, far more serious, way to divert aggressionto_ ward the outside world: by integrating large groups of m"e"n in a common fighting spirit, i.e., war.s History, as fir backas we can traceit, is the history of conquestsand wars. Ever sinceThucydides, historians have tried to understandthe_necessityof these events and, if possible, make them predictable.But it is preciselythe irrationar,compulsive character of this behavior mechanism that confronts us more clearly today than ever before. war is rituar, a self-portrayaland serfaffirmation of male society..Malesocietyfinds stabiiity in confronting death, in defying it through a display of readinessto aie, and in the ecstasyof survival. such modesof behaviorare so bound up with the governmental systems and values of our society that even today, when modern military technologyhas made -at so distant that its absurdity is patent, when it is beginning to be the source of discord rather than of solidarity, still final emancipationfrom war lies far in the future. For the ancient y9tlq1 hunting, sacrifice,and war were sym_ bolically interchangeable.The pharaoh and Heraklescould be lord of the hunt, lord of the sacrifice,and warrior. on grave reliefs, Greek yoyjlt appear as hunters, warriors, or athletes.The emphasismay well have varied accordingto the socialreality.A farmer, for instance. eOn the. Lykaion precinctseeII. r. n.7 below; on Eleusissee Lity 3t.t4, and V r be.low; Kallias the Daduchos claimed that ii was v6p"os. . . r,arprcs, is-au i,i1 ixenlpnv y.v_ orlpiots, retvdyat (cf. V.4.n.45below), Andoc. r.rro-16. sA "world-History of war" such as L. Frobenius(r9o3) attemptedcould hardly be ac'palaeolithic comPlished today. on the earliest evidence, that of (?) drawings i.i spui.,, seeF Cornelius,-Geistesgeschbhte derFriihzeitI (196o), 54, pl. J. Today there ire an enorn11be1 of sociologicaland psychological studies or, th" probl"* of war: for inlous stance,B. L. Richardson,Armsandrnsecurity: Thecauses of war ()96"J);G.Bouthour,Les guerres(r95t). K. R. Eissler,Psychezz (t96g),6a5, among others, stated that war is ,,the of the elder generationon the younger.,,Ontreece, see p Vernant, ed., J. ::::lg" de.la.guerre en Glce ancienne (r96g);on the distancingof modern historians "::!r:* nom I hucydidesseeA. Momigliano,"some observationson tlie causesof war in Anci€nt Historiography," in s.tudis in Historiographv
47
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUAL
FUNERARY RITUALS
would put more weight on sacrificial ritual, whereas the nomadic animal breeder, wary of slaughtering his proud possessions, would become a conquering warrior. Amongihe Greeks, a military expedition was Prepared and ended by sacrificiil ritual. There was sacrifice before setting off, then adornment and crowning with wreaths before battle-all as if it were a festival. A slaughtered victim introduced the subsequent deadly action which, in Homer, is simply called Epyov. Afterward, a monument, a tropaion, was set uP on the battlefield as a consecrated, enduring witness. This was followed by the solemn burial of the dead, a privilege the victor could not deny his defeated enemy. The burial, almost as important as the battle itself, was far more lasting in its consequences, for it left an enduring "monument." It almost seems as though the aim of war is to gather dead warriors, iust as the Aztecs waged war in order to take prisoners to use as sacrificial victims.aeThe erected and consecrated monument is what endures, and it embodies the duty of the following generation. For war, necessary yet controlled because it is ritual, has this function above all: it must integrate the young into the patriotic community. The senatusresolves; the iuaentus must fight. As a rule, the Greeks' cnou\ai were for a period of thirty years at most. Each generation has the right and the obligation to have its war.
Ritual 6. Funernry It is a peculiarity of the human race that it caresfor its dead. Hence, burials have been among the most important finds from prehistory. Along with the use of fire and tools, they testify to the process,starting in the early Palaeolithicera,by which man becameman. Frequentattemptshavebeen made to describethe extraordinaryspiritual and intellectual step underlying this process,sometimeseven teSeeI.7 below.On decorationseeHdt. 7.2o8-zo9;Plut. [.4c.inst. 218f.; on the cgayta see Stengel (r9ro) 9z-roz, (r9zo) 4z-33; Casabona j966) r8o-93; Pritchett (1979) 83-9o; Epyov ll. 4.47o,etc.; on burial seeThuc. 2.34.On human sacrificeamong the AztecsseeHornung, Ceschichte,43. For the metaphorof sacrificeappliedto war see,for instance, Pind. fr. 78. On the Delphic oracle for king Philip see Parke and Wormell (1956)#266 : Diod. r6.9t; Paus.8.7.6.
48
to interpret it as a first move toward a metaphysical, transcendent realm.' It is somewhat more certain that we are dealing with a h.r*u. action which may vary from culture to culture but "within a single community proceeds according to the same scheme with great constancy over many generations. Behind every burial there is a funerary ritual.'? However, the Palaeolithic era, in which burial evolved, was also the age of hunting. Thus, the ritual of hunting and sacrificing accompanied the funerary ritual from the start, each influencing tie other. In prehistory and ethnology it generally holds true that deid men and dead animals are treated alike:3 both rituals basically deal with death. It makes little difference whether one says that the quarry is treated like a dead man or whether a dead man is treated like thl sacrificial quarry. Homo sapiens is also homo necans and homo sepeliens. Both rituals are, of course, complex, and one can hardly hope to discover the origins of each detail. Nevertheless we can obierve that essential elements of funerary ritual derive from the ritual of hunting and sacrificing, inasmuch as the necessary functions deal with hun"ting rather than with the death of a member.obid man come to understand death through the paradox of killing?' one's own death always seems far 'Mtiller-Karpe
$966) zz9 speaks of a "metaphysischen Dimension.,, The pavianes do not acknowledgedeath: seeG. Devereux,Symb.Oslo (196), g5, 4z 4. '?w1 here give only a brief indication of the enormous complex of funerary rites. on ;an prehistory seeMaringer (1956)passim; Mriller-Karpe eg66) i9_42, (1968) 348_7r. For Gree_ce see Rohde (1898)z16-58;Nilsson (.SSS)iZ+-SS, 324_84;A. Chudzinski, Tod und rotenkultusbeidenaltenGriechen (rq,g);M. Anogoil; J. wiut.,"., Grabund Jenseits dronikos, "Totenkult," in Archeologia Homeficaw (1968);!. pini, Beitriige'zii iinoische, Griiberkunde (1958);A. Schnaufer, Friihgriechischer Totenglaube (rgZo); u:n cremation see n' 17below. on the particularly complex problem of how belief and ritual are related in runerary custom see R. Moss, The Life after Death in oceaniaand the Malay Archipelago (1925),who concludesthat the two coexistlargely without being related,but that ritual will sooner influence belief than vice ,r".ri i. Meuli,s ,,Ents'tehung und sinn der Trauersitten," schweiz.Archiu vorkskunde (a946), t'. $ 9a-7og, is also of fundamental importance. 3Meuli (r967) r6o on tree-burial; no lessremarkableis the similar bone-interment, usrng and the specialtreatmentof the skull. Seealso H. Baumann, paideuma ll1 ":h*l 4 (r95o),r98, zoo. (1968) cremation; in general, Girard (1972) 152-55. Batsdy ,*;"^y-"]1".:5"rpe (19tto) 1o2 stressesthat in167.on the wild, dead bodies are eaten by icaveng".r. H".r." the fantasies of how the dead are eaten in the underworld, by Eurynome in paus. 2''8'z; and by Hecate in a vase-painting, Vermeule o97il ro9. Modern hunters have the "great Halili" sounded at thelurial Ji a hunter as at the end of a hunt: w. Frevert, DasjagdlkheBrauchtum eg69,o\, 76. "see B' M. F. Galdikas, NationalGeographic ry7 iggo),g32, on an adolescentorangutan,
49
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS
off and uncertain. But, when another dies, the frightening confrontation with death and the pleasurableshock of survival leave a deep impression.J The mo'st widespread element in funerals-so obvious it may seemhardly worth mentioning-is the role playedby eating,i'e', the funerary meal. Ethnology and religiousstudieshave dwelt mainly on the bizarre and more or less unsuccessfulattempts to feed the dead themselves,but it is more often the real and festive meal of the living "in honor of" the dead that is of primary importance. Thus, even while mourning the death of Patroklos,Achilles permits his companburial."oThis unabashedstatement ions to "feastthe heart-pleasing refers to behavior that is offensiveto anyone concernedmerely with the dead individual, yet has not been expunged to this day, namely, that in an environment of grief, pain, and tears, the pleasureof the festive meal will thrive. At first the necessarycombination of death and eating appearedonly in the hunt. Starting here, the ritual meal functioned as a bond within the community.'This is not to say that cannibalismwas the earliestform of honoring the dead.8The ritualization of hunting behavior made possiblea twofold transferral:the dead could take the place of the quarry-a substitute more serious than what it replaces-but in the subsequentfeast,his placecould in turn be taken by the sacrificialanimal.'
FUNERARY RITUAL
funerary meal for patroklosshows very clearly that although Thu feasting follows death, the death must be repeatedimmediately b"e_ fore the feast, through ritual killing. After the mourners circled the corpsethree times while crying out in grief and swearingvengeance, many cows, sheep, goats, and pigs were slaughteredand",,blood pou-r:g from the cups flowed all around the dead man.,,,0The corpse co-uldhardly be placedmore emphaticallyat the centerof a bloody act which, however, at the same time also signals a pleasing m"ui fo, 7o,@oMyrmidons. so too in Athens it was customary to eat at the grave;solon was the first to forbid that cows be slaug'hteredthere.r' There wa_sno thought of burning or burying such a iow whore, for the meat belonged to the living, while the deid man ,,tookhis fill', of the blood. The idea that the dead delight in blood obviously emanates from_the reality of the r'rual: the pattern of hunting calls for the bloody "act" at the placeof death. Becausedeath beconieskilling, and the participant, a killer," death itself becomesan act of the will, subject to performanceand repetition. For this very reasonit can be overcome through the festive meal, which confirms the survivor,s will to live. The sacrificialanalogiesextend to the actions that precedeand follow as well. There is a.periodof preparation,in whicir the corpse lies in stateand is washed and adornedl a processionmarks the transition from indoors to out. This is then foliowed by wild, ecstaticbehavior, bloodshed,and a hearty meal.'3The location in which the action takes place remains sacred forever after-distinguished by a monument as the realm of the extraordinary-whereaJat home, the ordinary order is restored. The most striking resemblancesbetween hunting and funerary customscan be seen in the treatmentof the bones.Tlie funeral cere-
Sugito, who drowned his younger foster-sister,Doe: "Sugito . was staring off into spacewith a funny look that I had never seen before. He studiously avoided looking into Doe's direction. After some time . . . he slowly approached.Then, standing on two legs, he raised both arms over his head and brought them down, fluttering, in front of him . . . flikel a shaman . . . performing rituals of obsequiousnessto his god. . . . Sugito . . knew perfectly well that Doe was dead. He had killed her." On intraspecifickilling with gorillas, seeD. Fossey,NationalGeographic r59 (r98r), 5o8-5r2. 6ll. 23.29,and cf. z4.8or- 8o+;Od. For eating at the tomb in Geometrictimes see 3.3o9. J. Boardman,IHS fl6(t966),z-4; cf. M. Murko, "Das Grabals Ttsch,"Wdrterund Sachen z (tgro), 79-rh.Cregory of Nazianzusrailsagainsteatingand drinking in churchesat the tombs of the martyrs: AP 8.166-69, t72, t7S. After the burial, people met for the festivemeal of the rpha, 6uata, rptaxas, iutaiota: An. Bekk.268.t9rfi rpnxocrfi yup iptpS . , . oi rpotrfixouteg qtrq.vreg. . . oauehflovres xowfi iiei,nvouv iri rQ dtro$avowt. xqi roino xafli|pa iraleiro. TBesidesthis there is the psychologicalexplanationthat the senseof loss is compensated for, in a form of oral regression, by eating. This sense of loss could, however, manifest itself just as well through fasting; it is the ritual constraint that causesNiobe to eat after ten days: Il. 24.62-11. 8Allegedlythe customamong the Massagetai;seeHdt. t.zt6, DissoiIngoi 2.r4. eS. Freud, Totemund Tabu,Ges. Schr.rc j9zg, 66-88 : Ges. Werke 9 Q94o), 66-88, developed the idea of the ambivalencebetween love and aggressionin relationship to the dead man.
great funerary festival of the Dajak on Borneo (Tiwah) is l'Jn:.,::^out."ct.in_the of buffalo-in earlier times, it was a man_whom each parhcrpant ..a ;:::tTq trao to stab with a spear: F. Grabowsky,lnternat.Archia . Ethnographie z (g9g),'ry9; f H. Schiirer, Der Toteikult der NgadjuDajakin Sijd_Borneo (1966), zo. | tsA somewhat different, though no resscharacteristic, sequenceis noted by Herodotus Thracians.(5.8): rpeis p"iu i11.t ipas zrpottBelotrov vexpdv xc.i rrcrvroiacg
5o
57
n 4. For funerary sacrificealready in the Moust6rien see Miilrer-Karpe(1966) \tl' 2Jr-3i.For horse-sacrifice in, and bull-sacrificeat, the royal tomb at Archanes(Crete), see Archneology zo (196), z7g_79 trPlu-t.Solozzr.5;A.Martina, Solone('96g),#465-7o;andcf.n.6above. Forailtaxovpta see ILz below.
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
mony often centers not so much on the corpse as on the bones from individual limbs. These are collected and solemnly deposited' The rhythm of the hunting ritual is, thus, repeated: death/tearing apartl restoration. In Qatal Htiyuk, as among the Parsees, bodies were set out for scavenging birds, after which the bones were carefully deposited in household shrines at the feet of the Great Goddess.'nOften a corpse was intentionally torn aPart, only to be put back together again. In Egypt, the roots of the mummification ritual are much the same." lt was a widespread custom during the Neolithic to sever the head and preserve it in a sanctuary, like a Bukranion; head and thighbones are buried separately at Ugarit.'u Until modern times, ruling houses of Europe used to bury certain parts of their dead in different sacred places. With the development of artisan skills, it became possible to substitute a symbol for the skull: the Roman lararium, for instance, preserved only the masks of the ancestors. Among the Greeks and Romans, even cremation" was used for the avowed purpose of obtaining the bones quickly. The most sacred duty for the next-of-kin is to gather the bones (6cro),oyeiv; ossalegere) from the ashes of the pyre. The fire that burns the corpse is described as a beast of prey, "tearing apart" the dead man with "a furious jaw." '' The remains are then united forever in an urn. This act is at once a joining together and a foundation, as in the Latin word condere.When, as early as Homert description of the death of Achilles, we find the wine jar of Dionysos serving as an urn,'o it is merely the transforma"Melfaart Q967)z4r-45. rsA. Hermann, "Zergliedernund Zusammenfrigen," Numen 1 $956), 8t - 96. 'oOn burying the skull see Maringer 67-7o, Q956) 78-86, rzz-28, 220-22; MtillerKarpe (1966)2)7-34, 239-40; (1968)165-66.The skulls from pre-ceramicJerichothat 16 havebeen formed into portraitsare particularlyimpressive:seeArch.f . Orientforsch. (rgS), l8+; Miiller-Karpe Q968) 349.On skull-burial at Archanes (Crete) see Archaeology zo (t967) 276-77; cf. Hdt. 4.26 on the Issedonians.For Ugarit see H. Th. Bossert, Altsyrien(rg5r),on nr. 154. tTFor post-Mycenaeancremation in Creece, see Mtiller-Karpe (1968) 15r, 166-67; and G. Mylonas, AIA 5z (t948), 56-8r; V. R. d'A. Desborough,The Inst Mycenaeans j964')),71; Schnaufer,Totenglaube,36-45. Cremationis found among Their Successors the Hittites, Hurrians, Troy VI, etc., by the second millennium: see Otten bgSB)S; U. Schlenther,Brandbestattung und Seelenglaube bg6o);Pini, Beitriige,rg-zr, 58-62. 'Oorta '8Lanrrew ll. z1.t81;nvpdsp,aXepa trriTerzalreadyin Tva$osAesch. Cho. 325. ll. 4.239, z5z;ouv$eieEur. Hik. rrz6. Accordingto Andron of Halikarnassos,FGrHist ro F ro = Schol.A IL t.5z, Heraklesat Troy was the first to use cremation,burning the body of the dead Argeios so as to be atr- -, .arry "him" back to his father: see Il. in Schol.S,,d loc.);Thuc.2.34. 7.3J4-j5 (contradicted 'eOd. z4-71-75.Cf. the Dionysiac',ronze-crater from Derveni,which servedas an urn:
52
FUNERARY RITUAL
tion of sacrificial ritual into that of the plant realm. The produce gathered by the farmer replaces the hunter,s quarry; thus, githering bones acquires new meaning. are, of course, aipects of funerary ritual that cannot be fne." traced to the hunt. It is then all the more characteristic that these elements have frequently been taken up in the sacrificial ritual. Above all, lamentallsnro-\^/ggping and wailing, tearing one's clothes and hair, scratching the face and beating the breast; then defiling oneself, p,caiveo9at-smearing one's face, strewing one's head with clay, dirt, and ashes. The large part that aggression plays in these rites is evident.z' It is an inevitable group reflex to offer to protect an endangered member against a hostile force by means of aggressive threats. when faced with the fact of death, this reflex aggression strikes out into a vacuum and hence returns in upon itself. With no enemy nea, the hand raised to strike comes down upon one's own headJ Men, of course, often seek some external substitute as the butt of their rage: hence those funerary sacrifices that are and intend to be merely destructive. When a Hittite king died, for example, a plow ox was sacrificed while the king was invoked: "What you have become, this too shall become."" Achilles slaughters countless sacrificial animals, four horses, nine dogs, and twelve Trojans at the bier of patroklos. Once again, death is mastered when the mourner becomes a killer. For this reason there is often no clear-cut distinction between merely destructive sacrifice and the sacrifice of the funerary meal (cf. n' 13). Unbounded rage can be vented in a life-affirming form through -. fighting, through an agon. Karl Meuli demonstrated the extent and inner necessity of the connection between funerals and competitive contests:23it remains to say that an agon can accompany not only a BSH 8oz, pl. XVI-XX. Bones(unburnt) had been depositedin clay vessels ?Z Gg$\, already at Neolithic Lerna:seeMi.iller-Karpe(196g)165. 'oE. Reiner, Die rituelleTotenklage der Griechen(r91g); E. de Martino, Morte e piantorituale n;,l11ondo antico(Turin, 1958).On puaivecfio,rsee,for instance,the law at iulis (Keos), r t u ' r z r S = L S S Z ,z 4 - l r ; H d t . 6 . 5 g . r . aOn destructiverage in funerary customsseeMeuli (1946)zot-zo7; Antike 77 \7947), 193-92;Schuteiz. Archiuf . Volkskunde $ (ry46), ro6_ro8. 1O1en (1958)g; ll. 4.166-76, and cf. Od. 24.65-66.On btoody sacrificeat the interment_and"opening of the mouth" in Egypt, see A. Wiedemann, .ARWzz (r923t24,1, 7z-86. ts'Der,Ursprung_fer plympischen Spiele,,, Antike ry eg4r), r8g-zog; Der griechische ^! Kampfsp.tel im Totenbrauch, Totentanz,Totenklage und Totenlob (rS68;orig. irY:.fypf rrabUttationsschrif t Basel,r 926).
53
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
Ii
FUNERARY RITUALS
deposition ceremony for human bones but animal sacrificeas well. The Greek agon of historical times was a sacrificialfestival. In Rome, the ancientslcrifice of the October-Horsewas followed by a ritual battle betweentwo groups. Similarly,the Macedonianswould pretend to fight a battle after the dog-sacrificeat their Festivalof Purification,the Xindika.'n Myth applies the same pattern to the hunt, raising it to tragic seriousnessin the story of the war between the Aetolians and the Curetesafter the CalydonianBoarhunt.'uHere, too, as soon as the quarry was killed, the warriors' accumulatedenergy struck into a vacuum; moreover,their bad consciencemade them willing to suffer for their "action." fEven more prominent in funerary ritual than in sacrifice is the to assumeand recognizea pattern of renunciation after willingness .1 'the fact. This willingness is primarily shown by offering food in the form of libations, 1ood.Milk, honey,oil, and wine, the preciouscommodities of a society familiar with dearth and hunger, were poured away irretrievably; similarly, grain was mashed into pap so it could drain into the ground. In southern regions, even water is a precious commodity and henceplayed a part in somelibations.Like the sacrificial ritual, libation would have occurred outside the confines of everyday reality. There would have been a procession,then the restrained attitude of prayer, and finally the ecstaticcry (ritrolu74) at the moment No other act of destructioncan be expressedby gesof the libation.'z5 tures so noble and sublime:Achilles pouring wine for his dead friend Patroklos,an unforgettablepoeticalimage." The artfully shapedlibation vesselsstressthe grandeur of the proceedings.By renouncing personalprofit, man can uplift himself; by humbling himself in spite
FUNERARY RITUAL
p,f hi:needs, hedisplays his wearthor at reasthis freedom. Arexander Greatactedin.thisway in the Gedrosiandesertwhen he emptied Ithe linto the sanda helmetfilted with water.2" Here, the social significanceof renunciation rituar and, for thatr matler,-funeraryritual altogether,is clear.By keeping a space "_pry0 artificially, one can prevent grasping, greedy,ug[."rii.r" individuals . from clashing,or at least pretend to dtso. rhe fi6usure of inheriting possessionshas to be masked and at least part of the dead man,s property renounced. By playing out the breakdown of the socialor_ der, even in the easily neutralizedact of self-defilement,that very or_ der can be gotten under control. such actionspreservethe basicstructure of society,becausedeath is not perceivLdas an ending. Now, human culture needs continuity: to be able to go on, there h"asto be an authority-recognized through the course Jf generations. Man,s neoteny,the lon-gperiod of time he spendsin the irocess of learning, forged a new relationship betweenyoung and old, aboveall between son and father, in which the catastropheof death becameespecially disturbing and.dangerous.And the v-eryelementsthat funerals took over from hunting and sacrificialritual were the ones able to mend the rift, transformingdeath into killing, celebrationinto an eruption of aggressionfollowed by reparation.tr, thir way, there arosea posthumous duty toward the dead. A swing of t"he pendulum transformed symbolic parricide into an obliga-tionto worship one,s ancestors' Thus, fathers, chiefs, and kingJ have the most magnificent funerals;and a pile of stones, the moriument left by collective stoning, will grow until it becomesa pyramid.r" Funerary ritual alone may almost be enough to confirm and in_l in the community. Indeed, among some peoples alllrr :111"_.:",il"ity etsepale; by comparison.Among the Greeks,ruleis characteristicatty expectedtheir vassalgto participatein funerals as a sign of royalty; the spartans demanded it of the Messenians,the Corinthians of the Megarians.'0But a funeral is dependenton circumstance and chance, requires repetition and regularity.Thus, funerary rit_ lllT:r.in"al ual can be repeatedthrough funerary sa&ifice.-The act of kilring re-
'?aOnOlympia see II.z below; on the Isthmia seeIII.7 belowi on the October-Horsesee Marsmythos Latte (1960)7tg-2r; U. W. Scholz, Studienzum altitalischenund.altrdmischen (r97o); on the fight for the head see Festus r9o L. On the Xandika see Nilsson (r9o7) 4c,4-4cf, who correctly compares the Platanistas-fightof the Spartan ephebes (4o64o7),which also occurredin connectionwith a dog-sacrifice(Paus.3.2o.8,14.8-ro). r"For the head and the tufted hide of the boar," lL 9.548;Apollod. t.7o-7t; etc. H. Usenet the first to collect the ancient evidence for ritual combat (ARW 7 lrgoal, 297-1a3 : K. Schr.IV [r9r3], $5'47)' saw in it a fight between Winter and Summer; obiections already in Nilsson Qfi) 44-:^4. The mock-battle among the Hittites (H. Ehelolf, SBBerlinlrg:5l,269-7o;A. Lesky,Ges.Schr.11966l,1to-t7)occursinthe context of a sacrifice,which, however, was not discussedby the editor. bAesch. Cho. zz-163, esp. 149 ff.; Perc.6ro-18; for additional evidence see Stengel (tgro) 178-86, (r9eo)ro3-ro5; CasabonaQg66)4r-97. u Homer ll. z1.zr8-zo; "Giesse, Myrmidone, den funkelnden Wein ins Land," Gottfried Benn, Ges.WerkeI OS6o),rz9. Seealso Lucr. 3.4J4 f .
the Kabylai, a great hunter is buried beneath a pile of rocks, upon which new ljl'q-KS are always thrown: see H. Baumann, paideuma + (rgSo), r9z; and,cf . plat. kg. B. Schmidt, Nlb y e8y), t6g-ss; Baudy (r98oj rasf. :7jb; Dehl = Prato;Schol.pind. Nem. jl 5.4 ,,ll]l"iot 7.r55b = Demon, FGrHist327F rg; ruppias of Erythrai, FGrHist4zr F t.
54
55
^Arr'
Anab. 6.26 ' . ' di
rorov yeviciat
rt&tvtv ixeivo td ou*
^
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
establishes the context of death;" the dead man becomes the focus of attention once again, and thus his power is recognized and renewed. Inversely, the Greeks set a funerary monument at almost every place of sacrifice, a tomb that may or may not have been real: the hero had, then, his place at sacrifice beside the recipient god, the sacrificial pit beside the altar, the chthonic aspect beside the Olympian." We see here how deeply sacrificial and funerary ritual permeated one another. By joining together to honor the dead, the survivors, and especially the young, would have been initiated, integrated into the continuity of the society, and educated in the tradition all at once. The rituals of sacrifice, funeral, and initiation are so closely related that they can be interpreted through the same myths and may even partially overlap. The myth tells of death and destruction, while in sacrifice an animal is killed. By encountering death as symbolized in word and ritual, succeeding generations are molded into successors. In this way society is consolidated and renewe{]f Plutarch provides us with the most detailed description of a funerary sacrifice in Greece." It concerns those who died at Plataea. The cult was active till the end of antiquity, and Plutarch was obviously an eyewitness: just before dawn, a procession was formed leading from the center of town to the outside, from the marketplace to the cemetery. The atmosphere was aggressive and warlike; a trumpeter gave the signal for war. But the wagons were loaded with myrtle branches and wreaths; a black bull trotted along in the middle of the procession. The young men carried amphoras with wine and milk, jugs of oil and salves. The archon of the city brought up the rear. As head of the civil authorities, he would normally have been forbidden to carry weapons and would always have worn white robes. But on the day of the sacrifice he was dressed in a purple mantle and was carrying a sword in his belt. Something extraordinary had replaced the everyday order, and bloodshed was imminent. The archon himself brought a water jug from the Bouleuterion. Thus, the procession 3lJust as "blood is purified through blood," so funerary sacrifice (with an agon) counts as expiation for killing: Fldt. r.166-67. Clytaemnestra alone celebrates the Day of Death in open triumph, with sacrifices (Soph. El. 277-8t); otherwise, the more profound ambivalence (n. 9 above) is concealed in gestures of propitiation toward the dead (per),locew, i)raoxtnOar). Sometimes it is indeed the dead enemy who becomes a hero: Hdt. 5 . 1 L 4 . 2 ;P l u t . C i m o n t 9 . 5 . 32See,for example, Pelops-Zeus (ll.z below), Pyrrhos-Apollo (1I.5 below), ErechtheusAthena (III.r below), Epopeus-Athena (11.5below), Palaimon-Poseidon (IIL7 below). 33Plul. Aristidesz.r, and cf. Thuc. ,l9c6) 3.58.4; Paus. 9.2.5; Nilsson 455-56; on the penteteric agon Eleutheria see Paus. 9.2.6; Philostr. Gymn. 8.24.
56
FUNERARY RITUAL
moved toward the cemetery.No slaveswere permitted: the archon himself drew water from a nearby well, then washed and anointed the-stelesrising up from the gravesof the dead. The myrtle branches and wreaths were also evidently used to decoratethe steles.These monumentshad been set up over the men who fell in battle, and thev were treatedlike guestsof honor in the sacredceremony.yThe remairi_ ing participants had likewise come to the festival turh"d, anointed, and wreathed. In the time of Thucydides,robeswere alsobrought for the dead and presumably laid upon the stelesbefore being birned, for we know that a pyre was built in the center-though Fausanias also mentions an altar and statue of Zeus Eleutherios. Libations of milk introduced the sacrifice:children'sfood, in contrastto what fol_ lowed.'u swiftly drawing his sword, the archon slit the black bull,s throat so that the blood flowed onto the pyre. After this, he calledthe fallen warriors to supper, to "take theii iitK of blood (ai.p"arcoupta). The remaining participantspresumably ate their fill or ine meat, but Plutarchdoesnot say.whatever was finaly burnt on the pyre,3othere were alwayslibationsof wine at the end. T-hearchon mix# a krater of wine from the amphoras that were brought arong, and, in ail rikelihood, poured it over the pyre, which had by riow burned to the ground. He did so, as he announced, ,,for the men who died for the freedom of the Hellenes." In just this way, the lord of the sacrifice poured wine on a flaming altar, and Achilles extinguishedthe pyre of Patroklos. Both battle and burial were reenactedin the bloody ritual. Death and victory alike were presentin the act of killing. The plataeans evihad,alreadyexp-erienced their victory as a sacrificein the year *T]t ot the battle: the votive offering they presentedat Delphi after 479 was a bull''? The ritual celebratingthe defeatof the persians is therefore not a creation of the historicaievent but, rather, a traditional form assimilatingthat event. A unique occurrence was thereby given unisisnfficance and transfoimed into an enduring obiig"ationthat 1111,t nsted through centuries. of course, this could not!r",n"".rt the dexsee
A P r r . 8 ; I . 5 . n .r g a b o v e ^.UU libations see Serv. Aen. 5.78;K. Wyss, Die Milch im Kultusiler Griechen und lP: xoma Q9r4); Eisler (r9:5) is7-gt'w. Deonna, Deux itudes de symborismereligieux U955),2r-11. and seasonalfruits (o)paio)seeThuc. i]3".-"",t 3.58.4,and cf. Od. rc.521: 11.J1. .ee in general Luk' Merc. cond zg on ivayi".ltara, ,i..r.,y6.,*"s ltipov xai rovcregauov irrtfliwes crritoi trivovat xori eiolyoilvrctt.. . . ttPaus. ro.15.r,16.6.
rrl
il
'l
i
,i1
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
sanctuaryof their struction of Plataeain 427,but the victors built a the interchangeable; are actors The own for observance irr" cult.$ "r ritual remains.
irlli ll' ril
lll I I
1 I
i
l
of Ritual 7. TheSexualization Killing:MaidenSacrifice, CuIt Phnllus lfthethemesofkillingandeatingaresointenselyenactedinrit. ual that they are able to g.i!, .not", and transformhuman personality' it is inconceivablethat lhe most powerful human impulse, sexuality, would play no part. On the con1rary,sexuality is always intimately but, involvei in ritual. There is no socialorder without a sexualorder; extraordisomething of quality the retains always ,o, sexuality "rr"r, nary and strange. to Even u-oig primates, sexual behavior is ritually redirected demonstratepower and differencesin rank' Among someprimates' his the male delimits his territory by facing outward and displaying is a gesture as an invitationto mate erectphallus.Rump-presentation responsefrom the stronger aggressive an inhibiiing of suLmission in hupartner.l It is astoundin-ghow correspondingbehavior..recurs Babyloman ritual: the function-of the phallus is "apotropaic." The the nians made their boundary stones in the shape of a phallus; Greeksmarked their territory with herms'' Human sexuality was not alone in experiencing inordinate of growth, even from t(e standpoint of externals'lRather'it was part The existence' X n"* tension brought about by the polarity of human sThuc. 3.68.3. Burkert (tqzg) lg-+r. orr_ rump'on phallic display see Fehling Qg7$ 1_281 167'68; Eibl-Eibesfeldt presentation see Lorenz 6ge17 ioj- 'aa; Morris (t967) ry8' z8-18. (t97$ Fehling (r97o) zor-zoz; On the herms see H' Her'zF.X. Steinmet zer, Die babylonischen Kudutru (t9zz)' l4-r' phallus' apotropaic the on ter, RE XIX $88-9z, r.o i'hullor; lbid' 1713-44, 3Morris (tS6Z\S and Passim.
58
SEXUALIZATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
family's supporter had to be emotionally bound to his wife, though regularly having to tear himself away from her to go out into the unknown and hunt. Separationand bonding are thus two aspectsof a single situation. Sexuality defines the specificallymale role just as much as does hunting and warring behavior.It does so, first, in the expectationsand educativeimpulses of societyin which women play no small part, and, second, in the psychologicalmakeup that the male developed in this context. Hunting is, of course, fueled in part by the powers of aggression,which had their original function in mating fights. That is to say,from the very start it included an undercurrent of sexualmotivation. Male aggressionand male sexualityare closelybound up with one another, stimulated simultaneouslyand almostalways inhibited together. The actions of bangingnand stabbing, thrusting and piercing thus all becomeambivalentin deed just as they do in language.There is no need to enumerate the ubiquitous military metaphors for the sexualorgans and activity. In ancient literature the Centonuptialisby Ausonius takes pride of place, consisting as it does of nothing but Vergilian battle sequencespatched together so as to describea deflowering in great detail. Whether it be a stick or a club, a spearor a sword, a gun or a cannon, as a symbol of masculinitythe weapon has beenequivalentto and almost interchangeablewith the sexualorgans from Stone Age drawings'to modern advertising. Thus, when enthusiastic, aggressivetension reachesits peak, particularlyat the moment of success,it may suddenly turn sexual.If an opponent is defeated,this tension strikesinto a vacuum and must find releasein some other way. Thereforein hunting rituals, sacrifice, warlike fighting, and even in funerary cult, there are frequent periods of license during which sexual impulses stimulated earlier can express themselvesfreely.uSuch practices,which have been observed by ethnologists,were of coursealready suppressedin the Greek ur'See, for instance,Ov. Fcsf.2.425-46,and the evidencethat Mannhardt(1875)z5r-1o1 (esp.256)assemblesunder the title "schlag mit der Lebensrute." sFor the associationsmale/spear, female/being wounded, see A. Leroi-Gourhan, Prlhistoirede I'art occidental (r96j), ng;La Barre g97o) 78,r7o. For hunting as "making love to the animal" among modern primitives, seeG. Reichel-Dolmatoff, AmazonianCosmos \t97t), zzo. African hunters fear that the dying animal's revenge could affect their masculinity-they cover their genitals and perceivethe symbolic castrationin initiation as an anticipatory sacrifice to their prey: L. Frobenius, Kulturgeschichte Afrikas (ry}), 7r*79. 6Thus, after the gruesomesacrificeof the Tiwah festival(I.6.n.rz above):F. Grabowsky, Internt. Archiu . Ethnographie z fi899), r99-2oo. f
59
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
ban culture, but the ambiguity of the extraordinary could not be altogethersuppressed.The girl losing her virginity at a sacrificialfestivalbecame a stock motif in comediesand novels'-an almost predictablefall. When leaving office, the Boeotianpolemarchswere said wife of Ares.' to sacrificeto Aphrodite, the not-altogether-legitimate attacking Menelaus portray artists In depicting theiall of Troy, archaic his threw that he knew everyone Helen witli a drawn sword, but in supplication. breast her bared sword away the moment Helen Thus, whaiwould otherwise have ended in death becamethe start of a happy marriage.' Another especially_well-lovedscene portrays Aias, heavily armed, tearing the virgin Cassandraaway naked from the altar and statue of Athena, the virgin goddess' An apocryphal variant of the myth tells how he raped her as well. It is the ambivalencein the confrontationbetweenwarrior and virgin that makes both pictorial and narrative accountsso thrilling." Suppliants at a sanctuary are inviolable, especiallyat -an-altar, preciseiybecausethat is the place where blood must be spilled. In a si-ila. vein, Greekswere strictly prohibited from "having intercourse in a sanctuary."" The very ritual that gives expressionto the realm of the extraordinaryalso painstakinglycontrols it. Such prohibitions correspondto the pattern at the beginning and the end oi sacrificialritual. Preciselybecausethe act of killing is sexually charged, sexualabstinenceis frequently a Part of preparing for TForexample,Men. Ssm.(Adonia); Epif. (Tauropolia)' 8Xen.Hell. 5.4.4;cl.III.r.n.rr8 below. ,Depicted already on the pithos relief from Mykonos (ca. 67o n.c.), schefold (1964) t35b; fittle lliad tr. t7 Allen : 14 Bethe;Aristoph. Lys. t55; the Kypselos-chest,Paus' 297--g7;furtherelaboratedbyStesichoros(zorPage)andlbykos 5.r8.3;Brommer(196o) et retoursd'H€line$95), V-98' (296Page).L. Ghali-Kahil, Lesenliuements t\lliu Persisp. to8, z-6 Allen; Alkaios, ZPE r (196) 8r-95; SchefoldQ96$ 4t-42, pl. 77; Brommer (196o)z1z-84 the Kypselos-chest,Paus.5.19'5;PR ll, rz66-74' For ih" tup" seeCallim. fr. 35;Lycoph. 148-62;Apollod' Epit.5.zz; PRll, tz67-68; C' Robert, Rom.Mitt. t (tgtB), 15-42rrHdt. 2.64. Myths frequently tell of shocking exceptions:Atalanta with Melanion, Apollod. 3.ro8, or with Hippomenesin the Srottoof Meter, Ov' Met' rc'686-7o4;Laocoon in tie temple of Thymbraic Apollo, Euphorion fr. 7o Powell; Melanippos and Komaitho in the temple of Artemis Triklaria at Patrai, Paus.7.].9.1;Poseidonand Medusain the templeof Athena, Ov. Met. 4.798-8o1;the begettingof Theseusthrough Poseidonand Aigeus in the sanctuaryof Athena, Hyg. Fab.17;etc. The backgroundis determined in pirt by hieros-gamosrituals (A. Klinz, "Hieros Gamos," Diss' Halle' 7gt); on the aniient Near Easiern tradition see H. Schmdkel,"Heilige Hochzeit und Fiohes Lied," Abh. f . d. Kunde desMorgenlandesSzlt 11956l;S. N' Kramer, The Sacred MarriageRile I1969]).
6o
SEXUALIZATION OF RITUAL KILLING
sa$ifice, for war, and for the hunt. Artemis is both huntressand virgin; her servant Hippolytus makes chastity the guiding principle o{ his life. And yet, Aphrodite triumphs in his fall, and her temple In the growth of the individstandsbesidehis sanctuaryand grave.''? ual, life's necessarypolarity, the far-swinging movementbetween renunciation and fulfillment, is in constant danger of becoming onesided and absolute.Beforean agon, which was itself also a sacrificial festival, athleteshad to go on a vegetariandiet and abstainfrom sex; victory and sacrificeat the altar were frequently followed, according to mythic fantasy,by a wedding festival." Many mysteries required sexualabstinencefor a certain period precedinginitiation; some form of sexualitythen would accompanythe blissful shockof the concluding ceremonY.r{ The preliminaries correspond to the order reestablishedin the closingrituals. And just as the realm of the extraordinary-the experience of hunting, sacrifice,and death-is sexualized,so the everyday order is desexualizedbythe tool of civilization, that is, by ritual. In all human societies,even among "primitives," there is some kind of sexualtabu, though observersof foreign culturesmay at first notice only the violation of tabus that they share.Above all, the prohibition againstincest is universally recognizedby mankind and is the basis t'Paus. z.3z.r-3. For the sanctuaryof 'A9po6i"rqsdlri'Irro\it
6r
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
for our conceptof the family.'5On the other hand, aggressionplays a prominent part in erecting thesebarriers, in providing motivationprimarily that of jealousy-and in the methods of regulating them. Mockery plays a specialrole here. Man cannot afford to exposehimself in an aggressivesocietyas out of control and helpless,"the beast with two biiks.,, Therefore,all permissibleand necessarysexualactivity is restricted to a permanently defined area which is, in turn, coniecratedand tabu, almost as though the wild outdoors were Present within: such is the immovablebed of Odysseus,"built into a wild tree rooted in the earth, the lectusiugalis' Marriage is a Oeopds,an institution, and, once instituted, it endures in its sacrednessand cannot be abrogated. Of course,this order will be violated again and again, only to be reinstituted.The older generationdies out and the younger one takes its place.Here, too, sacrificialritual is the meansof reestablishingan order of the extraordinary. Even marriage, as initiation, is the product of sacrificial rites." The sacrificialmeal that sealsthe new bond is permeated by rituals making the bride and groom the butt of makebelieveaggression.By hurling flowers" and smashingpots, outsiders come to grips with the couple'snew status.Above all, the bride must suffer the male act. Defloration turns into sacrificemainly becauseof the exclusivelyhuman phenomenon of sheddingblood in first intercourse.The bride's alienationand anxiety can be easedthrough temporary ritual substitutes.In Rome, for example,a spear was used to part the bride's hair, a spear that had dripped with blood and had killed men." Greek brides had to make a sacrificecalleda rpor6),oca, in which they apparently appeasedthe anger of the virgin Artemis,
SEXUALIZATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
giving,her.a life for.a life.'oIn the cult of Aphrodite, deflowering occurred in the sanctuary itself-admittedly a custom that remained foreignto the Greeks.2'Andif, on this occasion,virgins had to spend their first night with total strangers,this too servedto removeresponsibility in a way familiar to us, once again, from sacrificial rilual. gometimesit was the groom, in disguise,who assumedthe stranger,s role. Reparationsfollowed the wedding "sacrifice,"just as they db in a normal sacrifice.After the fact, the husbandbrought gifts and started supporting the new family.,,Thus here too the new order was based on sacrifice.The rituals do not mitigate the transition; rather, they stressit by creatinginhibitions and guilt. It is unimportant whether or not an individual leads a placid existence,as long as the continuance of societyis guaranteedby a durable structure.And the human soul is suited to such structurespreciselybecauseof its capacityfor inhibition and resignedobedience. To succeedin the tensionbetweenthe indoor and outdoor worlds, man must practicerenunciation.In renouncinglove, one'sfrustration canbe transformedinto aggressiveability.'?3 The only activity that cannot under any circumstancesbe renouncedin a hunting soiiety is the hrrnt itself, and yet hunting is not innate-it has to be taughi. Each
t" Od. 23.:.84-2o4,296\rixrpor.oro,\atdv Beop'ov. @eop'osis likewise the name for sacrificial remains which have been deposited: see LS 44 B 17 = Abh Berlin i9z8), 8' zz. Deubner (tglz) U derives the name Beop'ogoposfrom the latter meaning, the ancient tradition from the former. Yet in the act of securing the order the two virtually coincide. tTon wedding rites seeK. F. Hermann and H. Bluemner, Lehrbuchdergriech.Priaatalter' thiimer t.8823), 268-78; V. Magnien, "Le mariage chez les Grecs," Mtl Cumont Q916), 3o5-2o M. P Nilsson, "Wedding Rites in Ancient Greece," OpusculaIII (196o),24t-5o; L. Deubner, "Hochzeit und Opferkorb," ldl 4o (t925), zro-23. This is not the Placeto give more than a few references;seealso I.5.n.42 above. tEOn xaraTigl.taro and related topics seeE. Samter,Familienfeste derGriechenund Rdmer (rpr), t-t4; his animistic interpretation, however, is not compelling: cf. I.r.n.r6 above. rsCaelibaris hasta:seeFestus 6z-63M.; Ov. Fasf.2.56o;Plut. Rom.t 5.7; Q. Rom.z85a-d; Arnob. 2.67.'
mPoll. 3.38i1 6i rpd yap"ouBuoia rport\etrr. . . and cf. plat. Leg.774e;Men. fr. 9o3 Koerte;Hsch. yaptuv EBq;for Artemis see Eur. tph. Aul. 433 and cf. 7rg rporilten cacirter'v;depending on local customs,Hera, Aphrodite, nymphs, and Iocal heroines can also be recipients of the preliminary wedding sacrifice.sacrificing the bride,shair is common:at Troizen (Hippolytus), seeEur. Hipp. t4z3- z7;at Delos (Opis and Hekaerge), seeHdt. 4.34, Paus.7.41.4;at Megara(Iphinoe), seepaus. r.43.4, and cf. paus. 2.33.r (Troizen),z'34'rz (Hermione);Plut. Am'. narr. vzb (Hariartos);prut.Aristides:o (pra!a9a);Agathocles,FGrHist 472F r (Praisos);procl. 1n Tim. ril 176.26Diehl (Athens). Likewise, the d.pxreia for Artemis of Brauron and a parallel rite in Munichia aie preliminary wedding sacrifices:seeHarp. dpxreiew = fC)Hist :,42Fg, Brelich(1969))+o_Zg, with a goat as substitutevictim iee I.2.n.35 above.characteiistically, npor'6,Irero can Harp. s.o., An. Bekk. 291.5,LS 4.2), ilT T:3"-"pteliminary sacrifice"generalljr-1see especially for the mystery initiation (Kratinosfu. r&,, Caf t O7y. per se, only in southernItalian Lokroi: seeKearchos fr.43 aW.,Just.zr.3; -t1_":":* rr' l'nicknet Die LokrischenTonreliefs (1968),g-r3, who connectsthe votive reliefs (fifth with the cult of Aphrodite, and also considerswhether the Ludovisi and :enfury) rn-n::might belong to this temple of Aphrodite (8S-gr). Seealso the legend Sllo^n vr .ne heroof Temesa,Paus.6.6.7_rr.On Cyprus seeHdt. r.r99; Justin.rg.5.4;NiIs_ (t9ro) 4o-42. On'ttre presentation to strangers see also loi_!1?:6)^i65_!Z; fetr_rle o' r'reud, Das Tabuder Virginitiit, Ges.Schr.5 Og2i, 212_)7 : Ges.Wike e e94), r6r*8o. bAvoxa)ruzrripra: see PhererydesvS 7 B z;A. Briickner,Anakarypteria(g4. winckermannsProgr.rgg); AM t2 (lwil, 7g-r22. -J'^Dollard, ed., Frustrationand Aggressionugls);L. Berkowitz, rnternat.Encycr. sociar Jctencest e96g), r6g_7a.
6z
63
tsM. Mead, lnternat. Encycl. SocialSciences 0S68), rr5-zz with lit.; La Barre (r97o) Z
@'sss.
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING/
FUNERARY RITUALS
new generationmust be forced to hunt, just as, much later, with the /'progress" of civilization, eachis forcedinto military service.Hunting and war are sanctionedby social custom as tests of manhood, and they take precedenceover courtship and marriage. Man declinesto love in order to kill: this is most graphicallydemonstratedin the ritual slaughterof "the virgin," the potential sourceboth of a happy union and of disruptive conflict within the group. In the maiden-sacrifice, all the tensions-the jealousy of the elderly, the strivings of the young-are released.An irreparableact transformsan erotic game into fighting fury. Desperate"searching"turns into "hunting." In the period of preparation, maiden-sacrificeis the strongestexpressionof the attempt to renounce sexuality.It comesat the start of fighting expeditions and war, and it precedesthe great sacrificialinstitution in In hunting myth, the sacrifarming, namely, the harvest festival.'?a the the whether it is a bear, a virgin becomes bride of quarry ficed in she is connectedwith the a whale;'s agricultural myth, buffalo, or insure the return of the in order to that must go beneath earth seed maiden-sacrifice as a stands in crops. in any case, preliminary, the to main that provides a balance, the sacrifice supplies and contrast, the food. It is a ritual of giving in order to get: in the main sacrifice, in cutting up and eating; during fulfillment comes in the sparagmos, the preliminaries,however, there is an anticipatoryself-denialwhich consequently requires other forms of destruction-submerging in water, hanging from trees.tu 2aForthe sacrifice of a virgin before fishing see GB II r47 (Algonquins and Hurons), II r58 (Guinea), II r49 (lndia), II r5r-52 (Egypt.' cf. E. Mader, Die Menschenopferder alten Hebrtier und der benachbarten Vdlker lr9o9j, z6-27); before the harvest, see GB VII 237 (Mexico), and cf. the virgins sent to the dragon at Lanuvium, Prop. 4.8.3-r4. The sacrr fice of a virgin appears atavistically especially during famine and drought. It may be conducted symbolically or in actuality: see Mannhardt ($7) )27-Jj, and cf. the legKorinna and Nikander in Ant. Lib. 25, and Ov. Met. end of the [IapSivotKopavi|es, 4.692-99; for Aio xcipar see n. 33 below. See, in general, D. Wyss, Strukturen der Moral (1968), g6If ., on "die Verschriinkung von Inzestverbot und Opfermythologem." '?5Onthe bride of the bison, a myth of the Blackfoot Indians concerning the origin of the bison dance, see J. Campbell, The Masks of God. I: PrimitizLeMythology (t95), r$-86. On the bride of the whale, a myth of the Chukchis, see I. Trencsdnyr-Waldaptel, Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte(t966), z8-29. ln a similar way Andromeda and Hesione are given to the sea monster. '?6C.Gallini, "Katapontismos," SMSR "Apreprs )4 0963), 6r-9o; cf .lll.7-8 below On d.ncryyo1r,6vr7 see Paus. 8.21.6-7; Callim. fr. r87; a hanged woman becomes Hekate, Callim. fr. 46r; on Helena Dendritis (Rhodes) see Paus. 3.tg.ro; on Ariadne hanged see Plut. Tftes. 20.1; on goats hanged in the ritual in which the myth tells of the maiden's suicide (Melite) see Ant. Lib. 4.7.
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Ethnology has shown that maiden-sacrificeoccurred, with disconcerting frequency,from Mexico to polynesia. perhaps it was not unknown even among the Greeks,although usually a s mbolic (animal) substitute was used here as well. Maybe thaf is how we must understand the early Palaeolithicsubmersion sacrifices:2'a young doe, after being killed and weighted down with rocks, *o..ld b" pushed into the water in springtime. In Greece,the maiden would be represented-bya goat-for Artemis, a pig for Demeter.2o The myths, however, call them Iphigenia and Kore and, at least in some rituals (initiation and mystery rites), the substitution is made explicit. The great sacrificethat followed, the departure for hunting and war, could thus be psychologicallymotivated as a punitive exlpedition, as vengeancefor the maiden'sdeath. The maiden-sacrificeprovided the basisand the excusefor the subsequent kilring, and the restitution that foliowed referred mainly to her ,,disappearance,,: she returned, symbolicallyand ritually restored,as the fbius of the company of youths brought togetherby the double sacrifice.For this reason, a city goddesscould also serveas ,,thevirgin.,,rn Among the Greeks,preliminary maiden-sacrificeis for the most part a prelude to war.30when beginning their military service,for example, the Attic ephebesmarchedin a processionand made sacrifice in honor of Artemis, the "goddess of the outdoor world,,, Artemis Agrotera;3'they swore an oath in the sanctuaryof Aglauros, a king,s daughter who met with a mysterious death.3rw" t.,o* no details of "Maringer (1956)48-42 on the prelude to the hunt; cf. Mtiller-Karpe(1966) 224_25. rCf. n. zo and I.2.n.35above;V.z below nThus, a myth about the sacrificeof a virgin was linked to the Tycheof Antioch and the citygoddessofLaodikeia:seepaus. Fcr|iistg54Fro;porph.Abst.2.56;cf.paus.3.16.8. about the (willing) sacrificeof a maiden are mainly connected with particurar l$n" sanctuaries and their rites: Agesilaossacrificedat Aulis (xin. Heil.3.a.3;Rlui. Ages.6) Pelop'zr; on the ritual see pJus. j.9.4,9.rg.6-7). on the sacrificefor the,,Leuktrian maidens,"where a colt was substituted for the maiden, see Xen. Hell. 6.a.7; Diod. Pet.z.'-zz; paus.9.r3.5, 743, ,'ptut.. Am. narr. :.?iry 1-"1 774d.Forthe sacriiiceof the vtrgin Makaria see Eur. Heracr.4o8-6or; schol. plat. Hp. Mi. 291a.For the sacrifice of a vrrgin at Thebessee Paus. 9.17.r (in conjunction with the pre-wedding ritual, n. ro Sbvo; during the Messenianwar, seepaus.4.9.4(followingMyron). cf. arsothe tearrn8apartof a dishonored woman as a call to war, Ot;ud gi ,g,r9. rcris Eylpagais ... inoprev
65
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l
ii i1
i ri
FUNERARY RITUALS
the sacrificethat surely accompaniedthe oath. Beforesetting off for war, moreovet the army sacrificedat the sanctuaryof the Hyakinthides, who, in mythology, were often portrayed as king's daughters who had been killed: in the war between Erechtheus,first king of Athens, and Eleusis, Erechtheus'daughters, of their own free will, offered themselvesup for sacrifice."Their death, which was repeated in sacrificebefore setting off for war, guaranteedsuccessin the subsequentbloodshedand victory in battle. And again, immediately before battle, animals were slaughteredin great numbers as the enemy looked on. The Spartanssacrificeda femalegoat to Artemis Agrotera:v thus beganthe deadly activity that then continued in the human slaughter of battle. A victory meant there had to be restitution, so a stakemade of oak would be set up and adorned with a captured helmet, shield, and spear.Through this tropaion,3s a monument to the enemy'sflight, those who were conqueredwere made to attest to their adversary's victory. So, too, hunters already hung up their "hunting trophies"horned skulls and, aboveall, skins-on a tree or a stake.3u By adding to the tropaion the skin of the goat, t}l.eaigis,which had been slaughtered before battle, the stake came to representthe goddessAthena with her helmet, shield, and aegis.3'The "virgin" thus came into
SEXUALIZATION
OF RITUAL KILLING
being through the battle, just as her symbolic substitute had been slaughteredin the preliminary sacrifice.similarly, there were tales Flling how the statueof Athena, the Palladion,fell from heavenduring the primordial war between the gods and the giants,3sand how Pallaswas named after a creatureof that name whose skin had been removed to serve as her attire.3eIn the paradox that both the god of the hunt and the god of war were "virgins" we observethe sexuil tensions,the frustration and symbolicsubstitution,upon which hunting and warring behavior feeds. If the preliminariesand the aftermathof the greatexperiencecorrespond, the sequenceof guilt and atonementcan be reversed,that is, the sacrificeof a maiden or woman can follow the battle. This occurs mainly in funerary ritual, although there are analogiesin sacrificial ritual. The demands of the dead man may, for instance,be recognized through an irrevocableact of renunciation,which mav in turn havea symbolicsubstitute.In this way, feelingsof guilt and ieadiness to atone cT !9 expressed,just as death previously had been given the form of killing, of an aggressivelyand sexuallymotivated act. If the sacrificeof Iphigenia precedesthe Trojan war, the sacrificeof Polyxenafollows it. That is how Achilles gets his share of the captured women. A dead father can demand renunciationfrom his son; his wishes are carried out by youths, veot.e rhe most detailed description of a cremation with maiden sacrificewas given by an Arab e.mis9aryto the Rus on the Volga. There, before belng strangled on the dead man'sbiet the victim, a volunteer,had to offJr hersif to all the participantsin the funeral.o'Doesthe namepolyxenapointto similar practices?"A period of licensegives vent to thJ extraordinary;anotheract of killing ends and transformsit into an order of renunciation. sexually colored fighting and killing can give rise to yet another
33See Euripidea,fr. 65.65-89, on annual Eur. Erechtheus, in C. Austin, NoaaFragmenta with chorusesof maidens,burnt offering without wine at the start of a cattle-sacrifice war. In addition seePhanodemos,FGrHisfJz1 F 4; Philochoros,FGrHist328F rz. The third group of heroic sistersat Athens is that of the A.ta xopat, honored at the Leokoreion; the motivation for their willing sacrifice was a plague (cf. n. z4): Kock, RE XII 2000-2001. vXen. Iak. Pol. 4.8; Hell. 4.z.zo;Plut. lyc. zz.z; for the most part, the brief reports do not even mention a divinity. In this contextthe art of the seeris of decisiveimportance: see Hdt. 9.18.r, 4t.4,45.2;Thuc. 6.69.2;Eur. Phoen.ry1-74, rTog-tr; Stengel(r9ro) 92-rO2. $K. Woelcke,Bonn. lbb. tzo (rgrr), 727-2)5, F. Lammert, RE VII A (rg1$, 6$-71; Cook II (rgz5) to8-4; A. J. Janssen,Het antieketroryion 9957\. On depictionsin art see Metzger Qg65)rt5-r7. The tropaion is called ArdsBpiras, Eur. Phoen.rz5o, Aros dyaXy.ara, Corg. VS 8z B 6, becauseZeus bestows victory (cf. the inscription from Selinus, /G XIV 268). &Meuli (ry67) t59-6o; Callim. fr. 96; Yerg. Aen. 9.4o7;etc. For depictionsin art and epigrams,seeI.z above. 37Thismust havealreadyarisenin prehistorictimes;it is symbolicallyreproducedin the Palladion (G. Lippold, RE XVIII z, t99-zo:^; on a gold ring from Mycenae, see Nilsson und mykenischen SiegelI [1964l,#r7; Simon [1969] Ir955),T.r7.r = Corpusderminoischen r83; on a stucco dish from Mycenae, see Simon [1969]r8r). The old cult-statueof Athena Polias at Athens is different, as it is seated (A. Frickenhaus, AM y lt9o8l, 17- jz; C. J. Herington, AthenaParthenos and AthenaPotias[t9551, 16-27; Simon 11969]
-r94);different too is Athena's head-birth, which is linked to the sacrificeof a bull (Cook III [r94o], 556_ZJ9). sPhylarchos, FGrHistgt F 47; F. Vian, Ia guerre desgtants(rg5z), z7g. as the skin of Gorgo after she had been killed in the gigantomachy see Eur. l"l"::^ Di,od.3.7o.3-5: DionysiosSkytobrachion , FGrHisllzF 8 (Ad7tsas a fire::27.-97; monster like the xip.atpa). For Alhena killing her father pallas, who wanted ijil'\g tu rapeher, and on his skin, seeCic. Nat.deor.J.59;Clem. pr. z.zg;Schol.Lyk. l"ttjlg 16.z;Ker6nyi (t952) 57-64. For pallasas a maiden slain by Athena and ijl:jllT .t:t rEconstifuted as a (oavov, seeApollod. ).144_45. *?_R II ru75-79; Ibykos fr. 3o7page;Simonides fr. 557page;Sophoclesfr. 5zu_zg pearso$ Eur. Hec. ul7-582 (veav,iat5z5);Brommer gft) z9t_99. ibn Fodlan,quoted by Jaqut,English transl. in AntiquityI (rg14), 58_62. rro^ufeyd. veavt'es, pind. ":nlud fr. rzz.r.
66
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cycle of destruction and reparation. When stimulated by sexual jealousy, the destructive rage operating in the battle of man against man wili turn against the adversary's masculinity: when killed, a warrior is immediaLly castrated. This has occurred regularly in wars up until recent times,i, and it appears to be a basic element in man's fightins instinct. lt can also, without further ado, be translated into the ,'battle" with his quarry.# In mammals, the significance of hrinte.t the male reproductive organs is obvious. They stimulate aggression and hence are accorded special treatment when the quarry is cut up and distributed. It is certain that castration rituals play an important role in sacrifice,nubut because they largely belong to the "unmentionables," the cippqroz, we hear of them only exceptionally or by chance. For instance, only by virtue of a gruesome joke in Martial* do we know that the goat sacrificed to Dionysus was castrated by an assistant at the very moment it received its death-blow. The pseudoexplanation that in this way the meat would be freed of its goat odor and thus be made edible, simply shows that the procedure was the same at every he-goat sacrifice, whether to Dionysus or to Aphrodite. Thus, Clement of Alexandria gives prominence to an apocryphal myth telling of the ram's castration;*'and the frequent association of a
SEXUALIZATION OF RITUAL KILLING
sacrificialram and the phallic Hermes is surely no accident. Thus, too, when the October-Horsewas sacrificedand its tail carried bleeding to Regiafrom the CampusMartius, we may suspectthat the "tail" representedthe genital organ; and our suspicionsare raised to the Ievel of probability by the fact that a horse'stail has too little blood Donkeys are sacrificedto the phalto be of use in the ceremony.as hc god Priapos, and one etiologicalmyth clearly statesthat the donkey's death is due to its remarkable and proverbial lust.aePindar incorporatessuch associationsinto his description of the Hyperborean donkey sacrifice:Apollo laughs at seeing the animals' "upright presumPtion."s The ritual reparationcorrespondingto ritual castrationevidently consistedof an especiallystriking, provocativecustom. A singlephallus was set up for worship and carried through the city as if in a triumph. If this worship entailed submission, the worshipper was forced to assumea female role and appearance-padding his body, presenting his rump. Just such practicesare known to us from DiScholarshave sought an easy explanationfor onysiacprocessions.sr
€G. Devereux,MnemosynelYz1 jgTo), 2g1-3o7,and cf. Eitrem Q9r) z8-34; H. Wagenvoort, SertaPhilologica Aenipontana Q962.\,z7-87; U. Scholz, Studienzum altitalixhen und altrdmischen MarskultundMarsmythos(r97o), tz6- 4o,but cf . C. BennetPasarTheinterpretationof Tyrtaiosfr. 7 Diehl/Pratoproposedby F. Dtimmler, Philologus 56 cal, HSCP35 (r98r), 276,2.82.For worship of a horse'sphallus, V6lsi,in the Edda, see 119l,61, F. Genzmer,Edda$979'), r85 nr. 3r; A. Heusler,Zeitschr. (r8g), 11,has not stood up to criticism(Wilamowitz, Die llias und Homer 95't; t3 g9o), z5-39. f . Volkskunde 'e"Eral."Cat.p.9o Robert= Schol.Germ. p. F. Jacoby,Hermes51 lrgt}l, 24, ri R. Nierhaus, ldl Sl [1938],9o- r r3), but the non7o-p. rz9;Lact. Dia. inst.r.zt.z8, quonnE Greek evidenceis cleat especiallythat from Egypt (Nierhaus9o);for the oT seeI sam. from Philiskos(fr. z, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta p. 8r9 Nauck,); Ov. Fast.t.3gt18:25-27; cf. A. E. Jensen,ed., AltodlkerSild-Athiopiens 095il, 3zZ'For castrationin 44o,6319-48; H. Herter, De Priapo(rg1z), 78-85, 264-67. sPind. Pytft. connectionwith torture and the death penalty see, for instance,Plat. Gorg.471ciin rc.13-16; Callim. fr. :186.ro, 4gz;Simmiasand Boiosin Ant. Lib. zo; Apolconiunctionwith lynch law seeWilliam Faulkner,Lightin August lodorus, FGrHist 244 F rz6. Aristeas' 'Arimaspeia" may possibly have been pindar,s *'As any big gamehunter knows, at the moment of death a maleanimalt sexualorgan source.This work may have connectedthe horse-sacrifice of Asiatic rider-nomads4' 2) \7970)' which has been linked to the EquusOctoberand the A6vamedha(W. Koppers, Wiener becomestumescentand emits semen,"writes G. Devereuxin Mnetnosyne among the Beitriige 299,though there is no detailedverification.At the great elephant-sacrifice zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik+Itgl6l,279-477; for sourcei-seelJdG IX 278-96)-with the donkey-sacrifices Pygmies,cutting off and burying the Procreativeorgan plays a large role: R. P. Trilles, of Asia Minor. During the castrationof an animal, the Moi-Sedang(Vietnaml habituallylaugh (unpubl. note by G. Devereux). LesPygmlesdela for^t iquatorialeQy), 46o;UdG IV 88-9o, 95-roo; O. Eberle, Cenalora srFor go-5r,88-9o, ro9-rro; seealsoMeuli (1946)247-48,256.During the festivalof O,gSi), the one Attic black-figure bowl with a phallic procession see Deubner (1932) the bull at Drdmling (Mark Brandenburg),the genitalsof the slaughteredvillage bull pl. zz, Nilsson (rglS) pl.J5, a new photograph in Pickard-Cambridge(1962) pl. IV were hung from the loft: A. Kuhn, MiirkischeSagenund MtirchenQ84), 168-69. (rrorence3897).For the figureson the phallus (one of them xvB6'dro|upaivuu ttvi, nsDuringthe sacrificeat an oath and funerary sacrifice:Stengel (r9ro) 78-84, and t*lln:descriptionof asimilarsatyr'sgestureinSoph. I c h n . n z ) , s e e L u k .S y r . D . z 8 gctr)toug6oot Arcvtv
68
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these phallic processionsin the term fertility rlfes, Ieaving open the question of whether this fertility is animalic or vegetal, or both at once. The act which alone producesfruit, that is, the union of male and female, is preciselywhat the phallusesdo not indicate: they do not stand with their headsin the earth but, rather, upright. They are "erected," "aroused,"" impressive rather than reproductive. It has caused some puzzlement that those carrying the phallus are not ithyphallic, that Dionysus riding the lewd donkey is soft and effeminate. This polarity is understandable,even necessaryin view of the tensionsand inhibitions containedin sacrificialritual. The phallophoria presupposessacrificialcastrationand assumesthe characterof a restoration and reparation consonant with the transition from seriousnessto merriment, the period of license. The etiologicalmyth clearly shows that setting up the Dionysiac phallus is a restorationafter somekind of death. Dionysushimself, as the archetypeof his worshippers,promisedProsymnosthat he would submit to him like a woman. Returning from the dead when Prosymnos had died, the god set up a phallus made of figwood. Once again, Clement of Alexandria exposedthis myth in a polemic," but Lukian clearly alludes to it, and his allusion is explicitly substantiatedin sixth-centuryvase-paintingsof the phallophoria. Inscriptions from the Delian Dionysia have provided us with a
SEXUALIZATION OF RITUAL KILLING
rather detailed picture of the ritual. A large phallus would be built from a beam, painted with wax colors, and equipped with large wooden wings. The phallus-bird has long been known to us from an often-reproducedvotive offering on Delos and from the art of Attic vase-painters.In the Delian ritual, however, it was driven on a leadweighted wagon down to the "river"; while the wagon sank in the water,the phallus-bird floatedout to seaand out of sight.s This phallagogiais clearly a closing ritual, for the act of worship includes disposingof the objectof worship. In the mythologicalversion, the same eventsoccur in the fate of Thoas, son of Dionysus and king of Lemnos: after the Lemnian women had exterminatedall other men, Thoas was brought down to the beach in a Dionysiac processionand set afloatin a wooden coffin." There is an even earlierexampleof a phallus floating away on the sea in Greek mythology. When Kronos, at Earth'sinstigation, castratedthe father of the heavens,he threw the severedportions behind him into the sea-plainly a ritual gesture embeddedin a speculativemyth, even though we are no longer able to localizethe ritual.* The larger the phallus, the greaterthe element of humor, of the yel'oiov.For man, the inventor of seriousweapons, the lighthearted threats in obscenegesturesare all too transparent.Aggression disaThe decisivecontribution is
i
li, lii
lii
li'l
elephant's phallus, the Pygmy chieftain is dressed as a bride (cf. n. 44 above). At the ASvamedha,the queenlies with the horsewhich had been killed; seealso I.8.n.15below. A phallic rite was observed at the Altaic horse-sacrifice:D. Zelenin, lnternat. Archiaf . Ethnographie z9 QgzB),$ff .; UdG lX 399-411.It takes place partly before, partly after the sacrifice. 52Oclrlrousdyeipew: see Luk., n. 5r above; cf. the black-figure lekythos, Athens 969o (ABV 5o5.r) in Metzger Q96) 5r-52, pl. 25, where satyrs dance around a phallus as they would for an ascending goddess (cf. Metzger [1955] 5o). Cf. W. Wickler, Sfanund RitualisierungQ97o) 253 on the herms: "keine Fruchtbarkeits-, sonmesgeschichte dern soziale Drohsymbole." $Clem. Pr. 2.34, and cf. Paus.2.37.5(Ilo)'up"vosCdd. Tzetz. ad Lyk. zrz (flot ivltvos); ); Schol. Luk. p. r87 (KoporBos).Dionysus 6z,i p.6cqs (scil. r4s orxfis) 6tiBl Et. M. 455.25. There is a different etiology for the phallus-cult in the legends about Archilochus (Archilochus-monument EIIII, Arch. Eph. lt95zl, 4z-43; M. Treu, Archilochos [tgSgl, +Z-+8; I. Tarditi, Archilochuslrg68], 6-Z), Pegasusof Eleutherai (i.e., city Dionysia; cf. Schol.Aristroph. Ach. 243,Paus.r.2.5), or Ikarios (Schol.Luk. p. 2lr.r4zrz.g; z8o.r-rz): the god punishes those who scorn his prophet by making them ithyphallic, a condition that ends only with the production of artificial phalluses. That which rises out of the unconscious as something overwhelming and oppressive for man is rendered "do-able" in the rite and is thereby overcome. The third, Egyptianizing, etiology.-since Isis cannot find Osiris'sorgan, she erectsartificial phalluses (Plut. ls. 358b; Diod. r.zz.7; Euseb. Praep.Ea. z.r.zt)-situates the phallus-cult squarely in the context of restitution following the act of tearing apart.
7o
R. Vallois,"I/agalma des Dionysiesde D6los,,,BCH 46 (:gzz), 94-rrz. G. M. Sifakis, Studiesin the History oi HellenisticDrama(ry67\, 7-r1, gives an overview of the Delian Dionysia. He is hasty, however, in speaking of the god's "epiphany" (rz\, and overlooksthe phallus swimming away. The inscriptions clearly show that the cart remains and is repaired from time to time, but that the winged agalmais producedanew everyy"ur. ih" topographyis uncertain;the inscnptions mention the "Leukothion" and a "river." For the votive offering of Karystios see BCH 3r (r9o7\, 5o4,fig. r8; for an archaicdepiction of the phallus-birdseeCh. Dugas,"Les vasesde l'Heraion," DilosX (t928), rz, #28; cf. C. Berard,AK 9 e966), %-96;8. Vermeule,AK tzfr969), pl. :_r.4t5. $Val. Flacc. Arg. z.z4z-3oz; a red-figure bowl, Berlin z1crc: ARV24o9.43;Burkert 1r97o).7-8;III.6 below.Megas(1956)rr7-18 reportsfrom TyrnabosiThessaly that, after a testival meal on a mountain, a "king" is consecratedand led, sitting on a donkey backward, with a phallus through thelillage, and that in the evening-he is dumpei mto the,water.The zrAocogioroin the cult oilsis (Apul. Mel. u,.t7;L. Vidtnu.t, Isisund Jarapisbeiden Griechenund Rdmern(r97ol, 76-87\ aie probably a sublimated version of the same ritual. $Hes. Tft. t76-zoo. Both Anatolian and Cypriot ritual may be in the background;the presupposesthe sacrificeof a goat for Aphrodite (if. n. 46 above) liie those for lu":ug: itr':,payia (cf. Simon [r96fl z5z; for an archaic depiction from Argos see l*tt.di* ggq. On the strange clay figurine from Perachora,a bearded Ap-hrodite 1* ?i bg6gl, payne, perachora I eg4o), 2.,r' 32, So*i.S-.!p_out of testicles(67515os.c.), see H. W. Sale,TAPA9z (196r), 5o8-zr . Cf . alsoC. devereuxin Echanges e:tcommunil:.1o2; catons,Mil. Lioi-strauss(tg7o), rzzg_52.
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solvesinto laughter. It is characteristicthat rituals requiring seriousness could once again symbolicallysubstitutea weapon for the phallus-the weaponof the hunted animal,the horns of the goat or bull. According to the myth, for instance,Heraklesbroke off the horn of the bull-shapedAchelooswhile fighting for his bride Deianeira.u'The broken-off horn turned into the "horn of plenty," brimming with flowers and fruit (it is hardly accidentalthat, in one instance, phalAlready luses rather than fruits project from Herakles' cornucopiae).'" Venus Laussel, the of the of representation Palaeolithic in the Upper it is And perhaps significant in her hand.'o a horn holding goddessis that on Corinthian vases, Dionysiac padded dancersso often carry horns from which they drink wine. This too is a horn of plenty; sacrificing a bull is after all also part of the dithyramb."' Sexualreproduction and death are the basic facts of life. Mutually determinant and interwoven, both are actedout in the sacrificial ritual, in the tension between renunciationand fulfillment, destruction and reparation.The stelebuilt on a gravecan take the form of a phallus.u' Orgies and death are close neighbors. Thus, ritual itself serves in the processby which the group perpetuatesits existence through death.
B. FqtherGodand GreatGoddess Trying to reconstructthe ideasor conceptsof preliterateagesis a game in which nothing can be verified. The earliestpictorial repre5TArchilochus fr. r8r Bergk : Hsch. pouuoxepa;Diod.4.35.4;Apollod. 2.l.48;Ov. Met. (r97o), rr-28, 115-19. 9.7-92; cf. H. P. lsler, Acheloos nGazetteArchiologique (fi7il, pl. z6; P. Baur, AIA 9 O9oil, 159; Furtwangler, R.&ll ) | 2176. vMtiller-Karpe Q966)z5z, T. 93.r. osee n. 5r above;III.7 below. For the sacrificeof a bull seePind. Ol. r1.r9; Simonides fr. 79 Diehl; Burkert Q,966)98. 6lForAsia Minor seeG. Perrotand Ch. Chipiez, HistoiredeI'artY (r89o), 48-5r; Herter, RE XIX r7z8-13; F. Poulsen, DelphischeStudien Qgz4), fig. 8; AA (1919), t7t-74. For dergermanischen Altertumskundelll, 4t5. Scandinaviasee E. Mogk, Reallexikon
72
FATHER GOD AND GREAT GODDESS
sentationsallow us to draw only uncertain conclusionsabout visual conceptsin early times, and these are no older than Upper palaeolithic. But already in Lower Palaeolithicfinds there is evidenceof ritual activity in hunting and funerary custom. Under these circumstances,any attempt to discover the Ursprung der Gottesideewlll simply reflect one's own assumptions;it will be an act of faith. The only certaintyappearsto be that from the very start, the rites of hunting, sacrifice,and funerals played a decisivepart. Studentsof religion havelong attemptedto graspand reconstruct of religion without gods, a pre-deistic level; belief in gods stage a precededby animism and this, in turn, by a pre-animism be would characterizedby formless notions of Mana and "simple" magical rites. "God is a latecomerin the history of religion."' It has sincebecomeclear that the assumption on which this theory is based comes from modern preconceptions.Scholarssaw their own religion as the culminationof a development,as though it containedno primitive elements,and assumedthat this developmentproceededfrom "the simple" to the complex-as though life, even in its earlieststages,were not a vast and intricate systemof balances.Against these tendencies, Wilhelm Schmidt'gathered impressiveevidence for his theory that there was a belief in a single, father{ike god at the very start of human evolution, as it appearsamong the most primitive hunters. He did not see how this coincided with Sigmund Freud's theory developed almost contemporaneously,which likewise posited a father-like god at the beginning of man'sdevelopment.Of course,what Schmidt saw as a primordial revelation,Freud viewed as a primordial catastrophe: patricide. rG. van der Leeuw Phiinomenologie der Religioneg1),87; cf. the survey in Nilsson (tg5:).36-67. The theory of animism goes bick to i. S. 'fylor,s primitioe Culture eBTr) and affectedthe study of Greek religio-nprimarily througtrJ. Harrison's first great book ed. r9o3). The thesis of pre-animismwas formulated by R. R. Marett (see l*ttJ:t rne labu-Mana Formula as a Minimum Definition of Religion,,' ARW rz lr9o9l, rfl6_ 94)and was followed by Nilsson (seeesp. lrSSSl +Z-60, 68-7r), Deubner liee t.a.n.z in Chantepiede la Saussaye,Lehrbuchder Religionsge:f-","j Y{b-t7 ltytl,3zr-35; Latte ([1959] iz-t4). The posiiion drew protest froin watYYt:ll'lryz5l,4zt-3o); ter !' otto (Die GdtterGriechenlands [1929])and his school. Recently,La Barre (r97o) still suPPosesthat the belief in god came iaie and was precededby shamanism(ro, +lg, etc.). 'zud-G; applied to prehistory by H. Ktihn, Dasprobremdesr-Irmonotheismas (Abh. Mainz, :z;-criticized by R. Pettazzoni, ,,Das Ende des Urmonotheismus?,, Numen ,i]f_oJ1 3 tS0-Sl; 5 Q958), r6t-63. The concept of an Urmonotheism is suspect, but the ;11^9, wuet m a supreme god is more widespread ind older than the proponents of evolution had supposed.
73
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
I
FUNERARY RITUALS
Freud'sfascinatingconstruct,developedmainly in his book Tofem andTabu,'proceedsfrom Darwin, on the one hand, and from Robertson Smith'sdescription of sacramentalsacrifice,on the other. Among the primitive hominid hordes,brothers joined togetherto kill and eat their father becausehe jealously prevented them from sharing his women. Yet, this crime was avengedby an inner compulsion within these now-human brothers. Obedient to the dead man, they submitted to the newly createdorder of renunciation and sexualtabu' The father becamemightier than before and was worshipped as a god. Freud seesthe reenactmentof this primordial crime in sacrificialand funerary ritual. So, too, within the individual's soul, repressedwithin his subconscious,stirs the desireto commit the crime of Oedipus: to kill his father and marry his mother. Regardlessof the psychologicalsignificanceof the Oedipus complex, Freud'sconstruct is, as has long been recognized,a myth, impressivebut unverifiable,oand, in this form, under no circumstances correct.Even if one assumesmatricideor infanticideas the primordial crime, the samebasicproblem remains:a unique occurrence,no matter how gruesome, could not assume such formative significance, stretchingover thousandsof generations,if there were no genetically predeterminedtendency for such imprinting, and this can be understood in biological terms only as an adaptation within a long evolutionary process.Patricide assumesthe existenceof fatherhood and father-bonding,although both are specificallyhuman, civilized innovations. It is characteristicof modern biasesabout man that Freud and his schooldid not even considerthe areawhere killing had a necessary function-a function which in fact determined the course of evolution. It was at the time when Australopithecineprimates were killing and eating baboons, and sometimeseven one of their own,'
FATHER GOD AND GREAT GODDESS
that spiritual and-socialstructuresbeganto evolvewhich made killing the foundation of cultural order. In hunting, intraspecificaggressionfocuseson the hunted animal and is thus deflected from man. But in order for this aggressionto achieveits goal, instincts that inhibit aggression-namely, responses to female sexualityand infant behavioru-have to be blocked. In the hunter'simaginationand in mutual actsof encouragement,the quarry could not appear as woman or child but, rather, had to seem-,,big;, and "masculine," even when it was only a rabbit. The fact that tfie most profitable game was the largest mammals-cows, bears, mammoths-and that the largest, though not the tastiest, specimensin eachcasewere male, plays into this as well.'The hunter'saggressivenesswas, however, modified in a remarkableway. It was not his aim to drive the quarry away or destroyit, but, rather,to catchit and make it his own. Thus, in a sense,the "big" and "masculine" prey was part of the group/ gltros in the basic senseof the word.s Masculine, big, both a member of the family and doomed to die, the quarry becomes a kind of father, a father-symbol,a father-substitute.conscious killing is a kind of patricide. Such stylized hunting behaviorbecamevery significant,because the outwardly directed societalactivity combined here with its inner tensionsin a specialway. Man's neoteny,the long period of dependencyand learning, causedgravetensions,especiallysince-at.ulir," aggressiveness was cultivated at the same time. yet boys must learn identify with their fathersif they are to be able to perpetuate fym 1d the achievementsof culture as dictatedby tradition. The human tenO."l.t to respect authority offsets aggreisive impulses, as does the older generation'shead start, which itto*s it, at least temporarily, to assertits power. The rising generation'slatent rebelliousness,however,-andits Oedipal inclinations toward patricide are deflectedand ritually neutralized in the hunt, sacrifice,and war. Freud's intuition that a patricide stands at the start of human development is thus to some extent confirmed, although not in the sense of an historically fixed crime but, rather, in the function of rituar symbols and the correspondingstructuresin the soul. For ritual emphasizesand guides individual fantasies. In the -
3(tgrzlr3); Ges.Schr.rc jgz4), r-a94 -- Ges.Werkeg (rg4o); enthusiastically taken up to theStudyof GreekReligion(r9zr), xxiii; seealso Karl Meuli, by J. Harrison , Epilegomena Agon (1968;written t9z6), zo; criticized by A. L. Kroebet AmericanAn' Der griechische thropologistzz (r9zo), 48-55. aSeeR. Money-Kyrle, TheMeaningof Sacrifice QgSo),rg4; A. L. Kroeber, "Totemand Ta' booin Retrospecl," Americanlournal of Sociology 45 Ogiq, 446-5r; R. Fox, "Totemand TabooReconsidered," in E. R. Leach, ed.., The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism (t967\, r$-75. In conscious conflict with the teachings of biological herediry Freud found himself constrained (Ges. Werk $ lr95ol, zoo-zo8) to postulate some archaic heritage in man, "Erinnerungen an das Erleben frtiherer Generationen" (zo6).J. W. M. Whiting considered the desire for matricide, rather than patricide, to be central (Fox, "Totem,"r73), whereasG. Devereuxdemonstrates"The CannibalisticImpulsesof Parents" (Psychoanalytic Forumr [19661,t73-24) in conjunction with actual casesof infanticide. Are the aggressiveimpulses more constant and hence earlier than their object? sSeeI.z.nn.z5, z7 above.
(196) fio-95, 2o'L-2o4;Eibl-Eibesfeldt(r97o)esp. U5-38. ,lolun, -rrntmal friezes on archaic Greek vases frequentry contain confrontations between 111aator1animals (mainly lions) and their prey; the prey (cow, sheep, goat, boar) is armost alwaysclearlydepictedas masculine,the'predatoras sexless. vn gd)tosas possessive DronounseeM. Landfester,Dasgriechische Nomen',phitos,, und setneAbleitungen eg66).
74
75
ot
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
hunter's"comedy of innocence,"the quarry is frequentlyinvoked and appeasedas "father."' Ritual restitution includesexpressingone'sbad conscienceand renewing renunciation, submission, and worship; preparatoryritual includesanticipatoryrenunciationand giving things away in the hope of success.The gestures-kneeling, Prostration, folding or raising one's hands, solemn presentation,sighing, crying, and wailing-are taken from behavior found in human interaction. Their particular function is in relation to one'sfellow man, promoting unity and trust rather than aggressivetension. As ritual, as demonstrativecommunication,they are severedfrom any real objectand instead oriented toward something imaginary.This conduct is consolidated and grows with the urge to imitate and with the pressuresof tradition: people act collectivelyas though an invisible, quasi-human being were present whom they must worship."'The experienceof a transcendentpower is mediatedby the community.At the sametime, in worshipping this power the individual acquiresa specialfreedom and independencefrom his fellow men, since the inescapableconfrontations that result from selfish interestsare replacedby a collective orientation. When languagecomesto name this imaginary object and attemptsto describeit, there is at leasta rudimentary "conception of.god," basedon the experienceshapedby the ritual. Yet, by describing the ritual experiencethrough language, by consciouslyrendering it concrete,great problemsarise.It was certain that the god was intimately linked to sacrifice;in classicalantiquity this is self-evidentin the complex of [ep6vliepeiov,sacerlsacrificare.lt was possibleto play with the idea that the god and the sacrificialanimal were identical; accordingly,the god would be killed, eaten," destroyed, and yet later, when the ritual was repeated,miraculouslybe present once again. The closing rituals could be stagedas a resurrection or revivification.'2Certain Greek myths indeed give some indica'E.g., the elephant among the Pygmies (I.Z.n.++ above); "lieber Vater Nilpferd, lieber kfeiner Vater, lass dich von deinen Kindern fressen" (Abyssinia, Paideumazlry4rl, z). roMorris (tg67) t78-8t thinks that when the cooperative hunting society reduced the actual superiority of the individual father, it created the concept of an almighty Father as a substitute-a reprise of Freud's ideas rendered harmless. M. Mauss wrote: "La cr6ation de la divinitd est l'oeuvre des sacrifices ant6rieurs": OeuuresI (1968), 288. "The idea of a god eaten as a sacrament was spread primarily by J. C. Frazer (GB VIII 48-ro8), following W R. Smith (1894). The provocative problem in this context was, of course, the relationship to the Christian communion; cf. E. Reuteskicild, Die Entslehung der Speisesakr amente (rgrz). 12The focus of myth and ritual is characteristically the death-i.e., the sacrificewhereas the "resurrection" is seldom explicit: cf. Dumuzi/Attis, and Adonis/Osiris; on Aqhat see II.4.n.34 below; on Dumuzi see V.z.n.3o below. Even in the Gospels, the reports of the resurrection are mere appendices to the Passion.
76
FATHER GOD AND GREAT GODDESS
tion that the god is identical with his sacrificialanimal. Zeus, for in_ stance,transforms himself into a bull,'3 Dionysus into a kid.rnBehind the story that Prsipha€ copulated with an exceptionalsacrificialbull are rituals in which a woman offers herselfsexuallyto the victim.'s Is Pasiphadto be seen as identical with Europu *uti.,g with Zeus in form of a bull? The women-of Elis call upon DionysuJto appear as a bull:'uthe real bull is doubtresspresentin the sacrificialmeai. But the assertionthat the father-likegod was relatedto the patricidal charac_ ter of sacrificeprovoked strong resistance,especiallyin an extremely patriarchalsociety such as that of ancient Greece.Fionoring one,sd_ ther was central to the consciousmorality, patricide almost unthink_ able.Thus, the crime of Kronos againstutu.tos entered official Greek literature only once under the impact of an orientalizing fashion.'' The-complementarycharacterof extraordinaryand ordina[, behavior could otherwise be expressedonly in the context of secretsocieties and secretmyths, that is to say,in the mysteries.Hence, it was sim_ pl,9r1ostyle the sacrificialanimal an //enemyof the god.,; The goat is killed for Dionysus becauseit gnaws at the vine;'. HJra,sanger?rives Io the cow away. But in characteristiccontrast to the Egyp"tians, for example,the Greekswere not consistentin this ideology"Lidesignating the victim as an enemy: Io was simultaneouslytte priestess of Hera,.representing the goddessherself,and Artemis kilred the sheoearKallrstowho was, howevet consideredthe "most beautiful,, and hencethe perfect likenessof Artemis, the ,,most beautiful.,,ro In the picturesshowing the god and his sacrificialanimal side by side in almost inner communion, we recognize that heartfelt ambivalence of myth, seethe largeamount of evidencein Cook III (r94o) Ar5_ra; ,"" i,lt.,ll"_Eylpa afso W. Btihler, Europa\196g). '{Apollod.
3.29; Ltouunos"EpLgos at Sparta, Hsch. eipaqu}tn1s. Cretans; C. Austin, Noz,aFragmenta Euripiden (196g), fr. gz; Apollod. 3.g_ro, where Poseidon himself tne btirt emerge rio. tn" sea as a sacrifice for poseidon; 1a!; pRrI tsEur.
rut lutfl medha,
rlr 666-n;
gr-64. cr. tfr" ritualor the queenat the VedicASva-
I.7.n.sr above. zzgb: aV Page(Poetae Oa MeticiGraeci);cf.Ath. 476a. Onthe bull-Dionysus "^O^'::: r. ". Bacch. 9zo, 7077)Soph. fr. 959pearson;Euphorion fr. 14 powel; Hor::: *: qw f :oo, Ldrrn.2.r9.)o; Bovyevqsplut. Is. 264f. (Argos-Lerna). "-on the long-discussed rerationbetween Kumarbi and Kronos (ANET no, Hes. f/r. r54-:oo), seeM. L. West, HesiodTheogony (1966),fi_1t;Kirk (r97o) 214_2r-. rleonidas of.Tarenrum. 11 99*-page : Ap g.gg;Euenos.Ap g ZS(fora Near parallel see M. L."?ig. West, gSCt, ZtirS6Sl, ,lL_r71; Eratosthenesfr. zz [,owell. ;:*1" - un lo seeIII.z below.On Kallistoand Artemis Kalliste(paus.g.35.g)cf. already K. O. Mtilfer,^Prolegomena zu einer wissentschaftlichen iytio,ogr, (rgz5), 75; pR I y4_3o5; tt below.On the themeof the muriered maiien :goddess seealsoI.7.in.eo, 39 :,;il
SACRIFICE/ HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
sacrificewhich made it possible for the Greeks to create tragedy.2o Strangely,mythology often reversedthe crime of Oedipus so that the father sacrificedhis own son and even ate him, due to some gruesome madness. In reality, child-sacrificeis attestedwith frightening frequency2'as a horrible but easy form of substitution, as a deadly solution io the conflictsarising from the generationalgap. Myth itself sometimes seemsto indicate uncertainty: was Athamas or Phrixos, the father or the son, the sacrificialvictim for Zeus Laphystios?" In reality, some kind of substitute,a perfect-and, accordingto myth, was given to Zeus "the glutton." golden-ram, The successionof male generationsis characterizedby conflict and death, and yet culture needsa continuity that can survive catastrophe. In order to attain such continuity and demonstrateit, ritual, starting in the Upper Palaeolithic,apparently found a specialdevice: the symbolizing of the feminine. Besidessacrificialand burial rites, remarkableevidence for the continuity betweenthe age of the hunt and the agriculturalera is provided by the female statuettesthat have come to be known as "Venus statuettes,"although that name has long been recognizedto be inappropriate. They make their appearancein the Upper Palaeolithicfrom Siberiato Spain and continue, sometimesin further developedvariations, sometimesin quite "primitive," simple form, throughout the Neolithic and on into the high cultures." At that point they are not easyto interpret, and it is even harder to postulatea unity or clarity of meaning and function for them during the Palaeolithic.In Siberia mseealso E. Buschor,Phidiasder Mensch(t948\, esP.47-50, 5z-56 on the "gemeinsamen geistigen Raum" in the look and the gesture of the Phidian fighters involved in single combat. 2lSeeDevereux,"CannibalisticImpulses."It is characteristic that Empedokles(VS 3r B r37) describesin detail the eating up of the son, not of the father' zSee II.4.n.z7below. aMtiller-Karpe (1966) 249_52, z:.6-:^9; (1968) 289-3or, J8o-95; F. Hancar, Priihistor' Zeitschr.lol3r (r91gl4o),85-156;K. |. Narr, Antaiosz(:'96r), 4z-57; R' Lery, TheGate ol theStoneAge lt9$))' 54-$, 78-8t; Maringer Conceptions of Horn (l;g49l : Religious dela cioilisationen Grice (1956)r93-zor. On the Greek Neolithic seeC. Zervos, Naissance II (t9$), 565-68,575-79.For the Near East see E. D' van Buren, Clay Figurinesol Babyloniaand Assyria(rgJo); I. B. Pritchard, PalestinianFigurinesin Relationto Certain Known throughLiteratureOg+); J. Thimme, "Die religiose Bedeutung der KyGoddesses kladenidole," AK8 ('96),72-86, criticizedby K. Schefold,ibid.,87-go; P J. Ucko, AnthropomorphicFigurinesof PredynasticEgyptand NeolithicCretewith comparatiaeMate(tg68), conteststhe interpretation of rial from the irehistiric NearEastaid MainlandGreece the figurines as mother-goddessesand argues for a plurality of functions and meanGtjttin (r97r), seesher primarily as a goddess zur Grossen ings. W. Helck, Betrachtungen of female sexuality.
78
FATHER GOD AND GREAT GODDESS
theseidols are a part of the femalerealm, but they are also connected with hunting quarry, as indicated aboveall in a statuettefound at the center of a circle of skulls of mammoths.raFurther, in eatal Huyrik there are large plaster statuesof a goddess,or sometimestwo goddesses,set up in household shrines over the bones of the dead. The goddessis portrayed with her legs spread wide so as to give birth; next to her, bull horns and boar skulls dominatethe room.ruIn several instances,bull skulls-and, in one case,a ram's skull-are emerging from between her thighs.'ushe is the mother of the beasts2'that are hunted and sacrificed,a life-giving power governing the dead. On the murals, men clothed in leopard skins swarm around a stag or a bull; in a statuette, the goddessappearsflanked on either sidJ by a leopard:" she is attendedby the hunting community, the homonecans, assimilatinghimself to a beastof prey. The iconographyleadsdirectly to the image of Kybele sitting upon her throne between two lions. Could tl" ygylg boy who is intimately connectedwith the greatgod_ dessat QatalHtiynk perhapsbe a predecessorof Attis/Ado;is?,n In the Neolithic and Bronze ages, the female idols becamein many ways more developed and differentiated.one cannot simply equate the statuettesfrom sesklo and Lerna, the beautiful mar-bl-e statuesfrom cycladic graves,and the consummatelysplendid statues of goddessesfrom Minoan palaceshrines.But it cani uiaty uu doubted that they reflect a continuity and differentiationgrowing from a common root' The goddessesof Greek polytheism, so diffeient and complementary are, nonetheless,consistentlysimilar in appearanceat an earlierstage, with one or the other simply becoming dominant in a aSeel.z..n.8 above;on the femalerealm seeL paulson,A. Hultkrantz, and K. Jettmar, Die ReligionenNordeurasiens und deramerikanischen Arktis(1962), 3og_ro sMellaart Q96) q3-34, 49, a44-45, 46; cf. (rg7o)I 166_85. 26Mellaart Q96) :-16-y (sanctuaryVil !, r4o- 4r (VI B 7), 144-46(yl B rg, r47_48 (VI B 8), r48-5o (VI B'ro, ramy;summary on ro6-ro7. For the goddesson her throne givin8 birth to a boy seepl. IX (y.+.n.75berow).Miller-Karpe igiores the animarbirths 11t968) 382-83], so as to contestthe identificationof the figure as a goddess. Rrimarilf the Eskimos who have a mother of hunting prey, namely, Sedna, i"Il^r; Iuother of seals, a sacrificedmaiden in the myth (F. Boas, sixth innuat Reportol the of ern"obgy, K. Iiasmussen 5, [1888], 583-9r; , rhurefahrtlryz5l,69-7), as !^y11ou wefl as a mother of.t884reindeer(Rasmussen,Thurefahrt,245-46;I. paulson, schutzgeister (der lagdtie.re und Fische) in Nordeurasien[Uppsata,ry6!, 266-69),a mother of lf^*rr!r: the Chukchis(paulson,Schutzgeister, 6+_6il. For Rhea/Demeteras l:.:vnat:s_among motherof the horseseepaus.g.g.z(Nestane). 4Mellaart (ry67\ pl. 67t68;tX and plL. 54t55,6rt63. rne statuetteof the goddessand the boy from Hacilar(Anat. Stud. rr I196r],59)does h howevet rrur, depict sexualintercourse;cf. Mellaart e97o)I r7o.
79
SACRIFICE, HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS FATHER GOD AND GREAT GODDESS
l
1ir
itll iijl
sanctuary or city. Each is the Creat Coddess presiding over a male society; each is depicted in her attire as Mistress of the Beasts,3,'and Mistress of the Sacrifice, even Hera and Demeter. Artemis enjoys the closest ties to the hunt, but at the same time Artemis of Ephesus is very much like Asiatic Kybele.3' Aphrodite3'?recallsOriental origins, the naked goddess, who was herself a transformation of the ancient "Venus statuettes," becoming more sexual and less dangerous in the course of civilization. The goddess I5tar, however, remained a goddess of war, and Venus could bring victory to a Sulla or a Caesar.r3 Bachofen's ingenious but fantastic theory of a prehistoric matriarchy has hindered the understanding of these female deities. Female dominance is no more possible in Neolithic farming cultures than it is among Upper Palaeolithic hunting societies.y Moreover, these goddesses are characteristically savage and dangerous: they are the ones who kill, who demand and iustify sacrifice. lOn the Potnia Theron (ll. zr.47o) see F Studniczka,KyrerreeSgo),151-65; Nilsson (t95) 3o8-3o9;E. Spartz,"Das Wappenbilddes Herrn und der Herrin der Tiere,,,Diss. Munchen, ry64; Ch. Christou, PotniaTheron(Thessaloniki,1968).Argive Hera appears as mistressof the beasts(simon [1969]4r-45; Hera Argeia with an animal park among the veneti-strabo 5 p. z't5),as does Hera Lakinia (l.z.n.zr above),Artemis orthia (R. M. Dawkins, TheSanctuary of ArtemisOrthia, IHSSuppl. 5 ltgzSl), Demeterof phigalia, the Despoinaof Lykosura.or Athena Alea (R. stiglitz, Die grossen cijttinnenArkndiensft967J,rz5, 16,9o),etc.; Pandora(Hes. Th. SZS-8+). At least in Greece,the Master of the Beastsis less prominent (J. Chittenden, "The Master of Animals," Hesperia$ [ry47], 89-rt4); one ought not to call him in pseudoGreek +zrjryros,|qpdv (sicNilsson j9551 1og-to). SeegenerallyH. Wozak,,,Herr und Herrin der Tiere in Vorderasien"Diss. Wien, ry62; A. Hultkrantz, ed,.,TheSupernatural Ownersof Nature(Uppsala, r96r); Paulson, Schut;geister; La Barre (t97o) t$-69, r89-gr. 3rOn Artemis of Ephesussee Ch. Picard, Ephiseet Claros(r9zz), 45r-53g (who hypotheticallypositsan origin in the "earth-goddess"). 32G.contenau La diessenuebabylonienne , Q9t4);H. Herter in Elimentsorientauxdansla j96o),6t-76; Nilsson 995) 5ry-zt. religiongrecque ancienne 3tOn Venusaictrix seeC. Koch, RE VIII A 86o-6+. For the Near EastseeM. Th. Barrelet, "Les d6essesarm6eset ail6es,"Syria32 (1959, zzz-6o. For an armed Aphrodite see Paus.2.5.r, 1.r5.ro(Sparta:cf. Plut. btc. inst.z39a);Paus.3.zr.r (Kythera).The special cult of Aphrodite at Lokroi (1.7.n.2rabove) was establishedin thanks for a victory ln war. ySee I.5.n.34above.Seealso S. Pembroke,"Women in Charge:The Function of Alternativesin Early Greekrradition and the Ancient Idea of Matriarchy,"lournalof thewarburglnst.3o(196),r-15;F.Cornelius,CeistesgeschichtederFri)hzeitl(r96o),67-7t,t7B79l seesthe priority of the patrilinealfarmer,but wants to fit matrilinearityin as a later transitionalstage(83-86). one doeswell to rememberthat in spiteof their tremendous honor for the mother of god, both Easternand Westernforms of Catholicismare purely male organizations.
It is the hunter,sjob ,9 :-upporathe family. He actsfor the sakeof and his mother. When wife his this merges.with feeling, oiu.,"i"ty and guilt, it is comfor,tlq ,o. shift responsibility ,o ur.,Jrn"i higher will. The hunter sets out to do his deadly work ,,for the sake of the Mother'" For the time being, this long-rangeobjectiveforces him to abstainfrom sexualintercourse.whei sexualfrustration is added to the hunter'saggressivity,it appearsto him as though a mysterious female being inhabits the.outdoors. Thus, this highEr wil'i"'*i,,.h rr" submits becomesconsoridatedin the conceptionsand artistic reproductions, even already in language,as the figure of the C."", Coa_ dess,the wife and mother, the bearerof childrlen,the giver oiilf", b.ra the one who demands death; in her hands, she holds"the irot"rr_on Horn of P]9nty.$primitive man saw and realizedthat the mvsierious processof birth, a woman releasingnew life fro- n", *o"ii, .o"fa shut the jaws of death. Thus, it was"thewoman who insured continuity beyond death. Blood sacrificeand death provided the ,"."rru.y complement.Next to the gocrdesswas her dfing partne., the sacriri'Beside cial animal' the.anlhropomorphic goddJss i., qaiai iriy,it,. and in Minoan Crete is the bull represlnting masculinity, the bulr that must die' while Isis representsfhe permanence -Horus, of the throne, the pharaoh takes office as but always dies as osiris.37Man, the paradigmof mankind in a male society,u.,t"r, the permanu.,to.a". ,, y.gy"g man, ritually and symboricarytransformeb : i.,to "trrr *oih"., bull," as we learn from ongof the pharaonic epithets,$and sooneror laterhe must die, iust like the sacrificiai u"t,,.,ut Thr;, ;t; f.oviaes the GreatGoddesi with a chosen.;;;;;" who is both her son and ,,father,, lover;he is known as attis,r'irhoi the goddessloves,emas_ culates,and kills. . Th" unspeakablesacrificefollows the maiden-sacrificeand is thus simultaneouily a restitution of the maiden according to the Great sSee
I.7.n.59 above.
$Mellaart (tg6il zt5and passim. "On Isis and the throne see,H. Frankfort, Kingship andtheGods(ry4g1, 43_45,TheInteltectualAduenture of Ancient.ManQg46),r0. rri" priurt-of_sarapis is changedannuary, thepriestess or rrir toiar-oni;,;;;:;;: vidman, rsisund sarapisbeiden X*l-"-.,:"t unechenund R\mern(g7o\, 4g_. r. rramutef:see Frankfort. King,ship and the Gods e94g), t77_go. The ,,marriage mother" after the of the father'smurJer is a routine ^o,ii o?.u..".sion in a Babylonianmyth: t-"rnbeft,
ii^l;, ror the "
Kadmos + (ts6g,64-72= ,tiii'5r7_ra.
evidence see Heodingegq);
awtRonanArt (tg66t. o., it rtonnaire
;ij.";,,
M.;.
vermaseren, fhe Legendof Attis in Greek
*.;a ;iii"ji
(tymologiquede Ia " languegrecqut,l (tg6g), s.zt.
8o 8r
"a"aay,.,seep. chantraine.Dic-
SACRIFICE. HUNTING,
FUNERARY RITUALS
Goddess'swill. The mother and the maiden, Kore, stand side by side, meeting in the course of the secret rituals of the Miinnerbund.In mythology, the two may become indistinguishable and overlap,noin which case the Great Goddess is maiden, lover, and mother at once. But the maiden has her share of sacrificeas well: the ram, an animal considered a kind of father, was sacrificed to Kore.o' Thus, what appears, when following up the myth by logic, to cause the most severe contradiction, actually has a necessary function in the drama of human society in the counterpoint of familial bonds and male activity. In the religious ritual and the resultant worship of a god, the cohesiveness and continued existence of a group and its culture are best guaranteed through one supreme and permanent authority. The ritual provides the orientation that transforms confrontation into unity. In the storm of history, it was always those societal organizations with religious foundations that were finally able to assert themselves: all that remained of the Roman Empire was the Roman Catholic Church. And there, too, the central act remained the incredible, one-time and voluntary sacrifice in which the will of the father became one with that of the son, a sacrifice repeated in the sacred meal, bringing salvation through admission of guilt. A permanent order thus arosecultural progress that nonetheless preserved human violence. All attempts to create a new man have failed so far. Perhaps our future chances would be better if man could recognize that he still is what he once was long ago, that his existence is defined by the past. a0Hekate(at Ephesus) comes into existence when Artemis puts her own ornaments on a hanged girl: see Callim. fr. 46r (1.7.n.26 above). So, too, in the Eskimo myth, Sedna is made a sacrificed maiden. For the sacrifice of a virgin for the Great Goddess see Steph. Byz. s.t,.Lemnos. o ' S e eV 4 . n . 4 o b e l o w .
8z
II. WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPODKETTLE
In the first chapter we tried to see man's basiccondition from a biological,p-sychological, and sociologicalperspective,as indicatedin Greek sacrificialritual. However, in spite of ihe evidence adduced from prehistory and folklore, we were unable to proceedwithout hypotheticalsupplementsand generalizations;moreover, since the examples used to illustrate the thesis were chosen selectively,doubts couldbe raisedas to our methodology.The following chaptersreverse the procedure.we will examinet u.io,rs individuariurt-complexes as exhaustivelyas possible,then ask to what extent the detailsfit the perspectivedeveloped in Chapter I. If in so doing we find ourselves confronted again and again by sacrificialritual with its tension beY:."" encountering death and affirming rife, its external form conot preparations,a frightening centralmoment, and restitution, :lsttng tnen we may seein this a confirmationof our hypothesis. Ancient Greek rituarswere b,oundto permanbntlocal groups and henceto specificlocalitiesas well, i.e., the sanctuaries and altarsthat O::" set up for all time. yet, in studying such complexes, one al_ l1o waysdiscoverssimilaritiesto other rituais iriother places,jusias various myths often reflect a single structure.Thus, reiatedriiuals can be they need by no meansinvoke or worship the samegods in ::::|.e91 urqer to be consideredsimilar. By comparing reratld phenomEnawe shall find that details wilr ilruminate each other, thai we can bridge gaps in the transmission and surmise certain lines in the tradition *nt.I_l: notalways correspond to ethnic or linguistic categories. rrrst of all, we shall.examinea complex thit appearslspecially it reflectsthe ideology or i[" predatory animat pack at ilt"*;:ilce meal,and this in spiteof the faci that cookingin a kettle, "s sacrrtrcial a clearlyculturalachievement, is an essentiar part of the rite. Antithe83
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
ses and tensions are the stuff of ritual-hence, individual rituals cannot be explained by their momentary aims; rather, we must understand them in the larger context. Not just the religious cult, but the order of society itself takes shape in sacrifice.
1,. LykniaandLykaion When the wave of Sea Peoples and Dorian migrations destroyed Mycenaean culture, only the mountainous region of Arcadia was able, as a retreat, to assert its pre-Dorian individuality. Later, too, it was slow to join in the rise of the city cultures; it developed an urban center only after 37t, at the newly founded city of Megalopolis. The Arcadians themselves were as aware of the antiquity of their race and customs as were their neighbors: long before the Hellenistic Age discovered pastoral Arcadia as the setting for its romantic yearnings, the Arcadians had been known as "acorn eaters" and "older than the moon."I Rumors of terrible, primitive activity especially surrounded the main Arcadian festival to Zeus,2 celebrated in the mountains of Lykaion in the heart of Arcadia. There were tales of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and werewolves. Plato is the first source we know who mentions this as a current story (mythos) "that is told of the sanctuary of Lykaian Zeus in Arcadia, namely, that he who tastes of one bit of human entrails minced up with those of other victims is inevitably transformed into a wolf ."'Plato compares this eerie metamorphosis with the development of a tyrant who, once having killed, can no longer stop. Bloodshed has its consequences. The pseudo-Platonic 'Balavqgayot:
LYKAIA AND LYKAION
Minos'mentionshuman sacrificeat the "Lykaia festival,,as certain fact, and Theophrastus5comparesthe sacrifice"at the Lykaia in Ar_ cadia"with Carthaginiansacrificesto Moloch. Pausaniassaw and describedthe altar of Zeus at the summit of Mount Lykaion, but he did not participatein the festival, for the sacrifice there took place "in secret."To this Pausaniasremarks: "I could seeno pleasurein delving into this sacrifice;let it be as it is and as it was from the beginning."uPausaniasalso named and describedthe other cult sites of Zeus Lykaios: the mysteriousprecinct where none may enter, on the mountain slope somewhat below the summitanyone going in would have to die,' and inside he would cast no shadow;then the Caveof Rheaand the precinctcalledKretaiaon the mountain where, it was told, Zeus was born, and fed and caredfor by the Arcadian nymphs;'finally, the Stadium, the Hippodrome, and the sanctuaryof Pan further down the mountain.nrhis is where the athleticcompetitions took place during the Lykaia festival. other literary sources supplement Pausanias'indications, and excavations have confirmed and expanded our knowledge. votive offerings dating back to the seventhcentury n.c. have come to light near the altar of Zeus, a simple mound of earth and ash.'o But what Pausaniaspiously conceaiedin his description of the altarof Zeus, he mentioned in relating the story of Damaichosof parrhasia, who won the boxing competition at Olympia in about 4oo n.c'" It was claimed that he "turned into a wolf at the sacrificeto Zeus '315c. sln Porph.
Abst.2.27. cf.8.2.6,4.22.7;Kallisthenes,FCrHisttz4F z1;pind.O/. r3.ro8. "8.18.2; 7Pa rs.8.38.6; cf. Theopompos,FGrHistt..5F 141: potyb. t6.rz.7;Architimos, FGrHist 3r5T r (cf. JacobyIII B Notes p. 48 n. 8) : Plut Q. Cr. 3ooa-c;Schol.Callim. Hy. Zeus rJ; Strabo8 p. 388;Pliny NH 4.zt; n.y below;Schol.Theocr.r.tzle-f rd eiotpyoltcv
see the oracle (#1r Parke and Wormell [1958]) in Hdt. r.66; axpov yeipa Lyk. 483 with Schol.; Verg. Ecl. rc.zo; Plut. Es. carn. indicates a festival: i1opeicrap.ev i9' i16oui1s.ITpoctiqvot: see Hippys, FCrHist 554 F 7; Eudoxos fr. 4r Gisinger : Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 4.264; Schol. Aristoph. Nub. Jg7; Callim. fr. t9r.56 and Pfeiffer ad loc.; Lyk.48z with Schol.; etc. 2W Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens (r8gr), r-24; Nilsson (19o6) 8-ro; (r95) 397-4or; Farnell I (1894) 4t-42, 144-46; Cook I (t9r$ $-9g; Schwenn 1r9t5) zo-25; loh. Schmidt, F.E XIII (t927), zz48-52; G. Piccaluga, Lyknon, un tema mrtrco (r968). 3Resp.565d.
Honourof W. A. Oldfathere94), rzz-33. On the type see W. kriimer, ,,prihi:j:l':.t,t, srorrsche Brandopferpliitze,,, in Heluetiaantiqua(t966), t77_22. a Moretti, Oly-mpionikai (Rome,1957),#359. The name appearsas Demainetos ,,U:t \''c., :uamainetos)in Skooas(?), FGrHist 4r3 : Varro in ptiny NAS.Su; Aug. Cia. Dei ,6.r7.
84
85
iT;tu\
- 44;G. Mytonas, Crassicar I iy | 6.1ee;cf.E.'veyei e nIi Oiizl, 22)5
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
LYKAIA AND LYKAION
Lykaios, and changedback into a man againin the tenth year thereafter." The condition for being transformed and changed back is just that: "someonewas always turned into a wolf at the sacrificeto Zeus Lykaios, but not for his whole life; if he refrainedfrom eating human flesh while he was a wolf, they say he would turn back into a man in the tenth year;but if he ateit, he remaineda beastforever."12Pausanias probably found the legend of Damarchosin a localHellenistichistory; but if it is tied to the victory at Olympia, it goesbackbeyond Plato. The accompanyingmyth is found already in the Hesiodic catalogues" and reflectsthe ritual in a particularly transparentway. What was only a vague rumor among Plato'scontemporariesis told here as the crime of the ancestralking of the Arcadians;he is related to the wolf even in his name, Lykaon. Once upon a time, the gods, including Zeus himself, came to visit him and be entertainedin a common sacrificialmeal. But the sacredmeal turned into cannibalism,for Lykaon slaughtered a young boy upon the altar at the summit and poured out his blood on that altar; then he and his helper "mixed the boy'sentrailsin with the sacrificialmeat and brought it to the table."" Of course, divine punishment followed. Zeus overturned the table, graphically putting an end to the newly formed community, and hurled a bolt of lightning into Lykaon'shouse; most importantly, Lykaon himself turned into a wolf. In another, frequently told version, the gruesomesacrificewas followed by a flood that destroyedmost ol the human race,ttyet Lykaon'sdescendants,the Arcadians,survived to come togetherat the altar again and again for secretsacrifice. Opinions differed as to the identity of the boy whose entrails were slicedinto the sacrificialmeat.The Libraryof Apollodoros speaks of an anonymous"native" boy; Ovid callshim a "hostage";Lycophron gives him the name "Nyktimos," the "night-like,"'u and makes him Lykaon's own son; the EratosthenicKatasterismoi, by contrast,invoking Hesiod as its precedent,lTsaythat he was 'Arkas," the eponymous hero of the Arcadians,who was Lykaon'sgrandson.His mother was
Kallisto, Lykaon's daughter, who during her amorous encounter with Zeuswas turned into a bear." Thus, the Arcadian par excellence is the "sorrof abear," on the one hand, and a victim at the altar of Zeus, on the other. This death does not end the story for both Arkas and Nyktirnos were included in the genealogies as ancestral Arcadian kings.r, ZeUsbrotght his victim back to life,2" according to the myth, or,ly to have him come full circle and return to the sacrificial situation: Arkas was brought up by a goatherd, but upon becoming an ephebe he turned to hunting. Once, while in the region of Mount Lykaion, he came on the track of his own mother. According to one text, he hunted her down; according to another, they mated.2, These mythical variants attest once more to the ambivalence of weapons and sexuality in hunting behavior. The gruesome act occurred in that very precinct on the mountain into which none could enter. For this reason, Arkas and the bear had to be sacrificed again "according to the custom,, at the altar of Zeus Lykaios. At this point the myth fades, allowing the victims to be translated to heaven as stars. The ritual, however, goes on in the same place, and in the circuit of time, it is to form an important junction in the lives of the Arcadians. some curious details were reported by a Hellenistic author called Euanthes,22who was read by Varro. Admittedly, his concern is not with the Arcadians as a whole but with a single family descended from Anthos, whom the author seems to count as one of his own u.rcestors' A young boy of the family would regularly be selected by lot and led to a lake. He had to strip, hang his clothes on an oak tree, and swim across the lake; thereupon he would disappear in the wilderness and turn into a wolf. He would have to live as a wolf among wolves for eight years, after which time, if he had abstained from human meat, he could return to the lake, swim across it, take down his clothes from the oak tree, and turn into a human again, though he was now nine years older and a grown man. Thus far, Euanthes. this
12Paus. 8.2.6. r3Hes.fr. 163 M.-W., and cf. fr. 354;Apollod. 3.96-97; Eumelos. FGrHist 45r F 8 = Apollod. 3.roo;Lyk. 48o-8r with Schol.;a tragedyby Xenokles,TGF p. 77o;Ov. Met. r.rg8-219; Clem. Pr. 2.36.5;Nonnus r8.zo-24; RML Il z165-68; PR I rz7-29; Picca' luga, Lykaon,zg-98. '{Apollod. 3.98;cf . Nikolaos, FGrHist90 F 18. '5Apollod. 3.98-gg;Tzetz.ad Lyk. 48r; Ov. Met. t.z4o fl.;Hyg. Fab.q6. 'uApollod. Lyk. 48r. 1:98;Ov. Met. 1..227; t7Fr.:63 M.-W = "Eratosth."Catast.FragmentaVaticana, ed. Rehm QBg), p. z.
86
r8R' Franz,"De Callistus fabula,"Leipz. Stud.tz (rg9o), 45- j65; RMLII 9y-35; RE X t7z6-29; W. Sale, RhM rc5 ro8 (t965), n15. e96z), 43-4r; ItPaus. 8.3-4, g.z4.r. b"Eratosth." Catast.:rd.Xw dvatrXaoasdprrcv thrTxev. " C^ot,.ppa Robert irrd 6i roi i6iou uioi 6taxop,6vt1v . . . ; dyvoiloas rilu ,,-11 'vi11t'o,t 5z-53 in Fragmentavaticana(seen. r7), where the last word is written Letween fi|:f" rrtsrrh€simatri inscius uimt'erreaoluitSchol.Germ. p. 64.2r Breysig. : Varro in Pliny N.H. 8.8r; Aug. Cio. Dei $.t7.For the Arcadiansbeing 1'^9rr:r lzo qescended from the oak seeiyk. aso; plut. elRon. zg6a;tor Dryas as the wife of Arkas seePaus.g.a.z.
87
LYKAIA AND LYKAION
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
iii
is not identical with the versions reported by the earlier authors.2l Any link with the pan-Arcadian festival, the Lykaia, is missing; there is selection by lot instead of the sacrificial meal. But the combination of a transformation into a wolf, a nine-year period, and an injunction to abstain makes the connection very close. Did pan-Arcadian werewolf practices and familial customs run a parallel course? It is more likely that some sort of development took place. With the founding of Megalopolis, urban culture arrived in Arcadia, and there in the agora Zeus Lykaios was given the most prominent temple.'n Thus, the Lykaia festival was now organized here, and although, as Pausanias tells us, the Arcadians still sacrificedupon the altar on the mountain, it is safe to assume that some aspects of the cult were changed at that time and, to some extent, civilized. After this reform, the old ways could no longer be carried on officially, but only in the tradition of a particularly conservative family. Plato's testimony comes from before this time, as does the legend of the boxer Damarchos. Regardless of how we conceive of the relationship between family customs and pan-Arcadian rituals, Euanthes' report at least gives us some idea of how such wolf-metamorphoses were accomplished. Both Pausanias and Pliny considered these werewolf stories to be clear examples of shameless braggadocio and the shameful gullibility of the masses," and when Plato uses the word mythos he is already expressing a certain skepticism. Paradoxically, the modern researcher cannot assume the same critical, enlightened stance. There is no doubt that werewolves existed, just like leopard men and tiger men, as a clandestine Miinnerbund, a secret society, wavering between demonic possession and horseplay, as is common in such a Miinnerbund. In Europe, there is at least one case of a "werewolf" on record in sixteenthcentury Livland. There, the werewolvish activity consisted for the most part of breaking into other people's cellars at night and drinking any beer found there.26More dangerous and perhaps more ancient were the bands of leopard men in Africa, who conspired to assassinate others and practice cannibalism. Leopard m"n uppear on the 23Stressed by Nilsson j9o6) 9, ,lg5) 4ut;cf. Cook | (r9rg 71. 2aPaus.8.3o.z. 5Paus.8.2.6;Pliny N.H. 8.8o. 'z6Ftrofler Qryg y5ff .; L. Gernet, "Dolon le loup," M6l. CumontQ936\,t89-zo8 : Anthropologie de Ia GriceantiqueQ968), t54-27 W E. Peuckert,Geheimkulte (196r), roor 17;R. Eisler, Man into Wolf(ry5t); I. z above. Seealso B. Lindskog, AfricanLeopardMen (Uppsala, 1954).For werewolvesin Wallis still in the eighteenthcentury see H. G. Wackernagel,Schweiz. Arch.f . Volkskunde 35 j916), r-rz; 46 (rS+q, Z+.For "dog-men" in Hittite ritual texts see.ANET36o.On the Hirpi SoraniseeServ.Aen. n.785.
88
rnuralsin QatalHtiyuk as well,?7and their costumesrecall thoseof the later Greek centaursand satyrs,those ,,wild men,,who fell upon wine jars much like the werewolves in Livland. The leopard, one of the gfat t,,r and a climbel was.the primate,sarch-enemy.By training himself in the ways of the wolf, man becamea hunter and iord of the earth. Could it be that thesebands of leopard men and wolf men were the direct result of this decisive step? werewolves are, in any case, attestedin antiquity not only in fairytalesbut in a doctor,sclinical report. Markellos of sidon treated casesof "lykanthropy" as a mental special form of melancholy, by the cui!-all of letting disorder,'?8,a blood' He knew patients who "run out at night imitating wolves and dogs in every way and gadding about for the most part i"ncemeteries until dawn." Their legs usually bore the scarsof dog bites. strangely, thesefits of madnessoccurredwith great regularityl accordingto the calendar,in-February,the month of the Lupercalia:even in lati antiquity, then, the so-calledmental disorder wis regulatedthrough ritual. By combining rumors about Arcadian sacrificewith locaimythology,we arrive at a description of an entirely real, institutionalizedritual. At its center was the secretsacrificialfestival at the ash-altarof Zeus Lykaios. we gather from the name, Nyktimos, that it occurred at night. The entrails of many sacrificialanimals were, so they say, slicedin together with those of a man, so that what each persJn ate was seemingly a matter of chance.Apparently, everything would be stirred together in a large tripod kettle., and each person"t,adto fish usee
I.z.n.r9 above;I.8.n.28.For Indians hunting in wolf'.sclothing see F. E. zeuner, Geschichte der Haustiere(rg6Z\, S+. afn A6t. Amid. 6.rr (Oribas.8.9;paul. Aeg. Graecillzg:),cf. W H. 1.t6; physrognonr. Ky::::throp:iehardetndiFiagntentttesMarceltusuon Side,Abh. Leip):^t:l"",rjr ?or^d:, zrBt7.j (1897);Galen XIXVg Krihn; zepdAuxcloyos ij \uxaugp
89
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
LYKAIA AND LYXAION
out his portion with the sacredfork (the trident?)(seeFigure 4).'For all must partake of the sacredobject; no participant was allowed to decline.The sacrificialmeal separatedthe "wolves" from the "sons of the bear," the Arcadians, just as Lykaon had divorced himself from the circle of the gods. Excavatorsat Mount Lykaion, however, have discoveredno human bones among the sacrificialdetritus. Yet, even by daylight it is hard to distinguish a piece of human heart, liver, or kidney from that of an equally large mammal; modern surgeonshave even pondered the feasibilityof transplants.In the flickering flamesat night, only the innermost circle of sacrificialservants could know what was really floating about in the kettle. The power of suggestion comes from tradition, from social constraints.Human entrails may well have been thought to be present.The proof lay in their effectson the participants:each time one or more would be struck with "wolf's frenzy,"whether spontaneouslyor becausethey were somehow manipulated. The "eaters" and the "slaughterers"were not the same. The "wolves" disappearedinto the dark and had to avoid human settlements for years. By the time the dawning rays of sunlight hit the golden eagleson top of the columns eastof the altar,the sacrificewas long over. The wolf metamorphosis,as describedby Euanthes,can easilybe seen as an initiation ritual, for stripping off one'sclothes and swimming acrossa lake are clearly rites of passage.If Damarchoswon an Olympic victory after his time as a wolf, he could have been no older than 16 at the time of his transformation.Now it is surely the novice, the first-time participant in the nocturnal festivities,who would be most susceptibleto suggestion,and henceto the shockingrealization that he had eatenhuman flesh. From this we surmisethat the separation of the "wolves" from the "sons of the bear" reflecteda division accordingto age. The myth alwaysspeaksof a "young boy" to be sacrificed, that is, a representativeof preciselythat age-classwhich the
ephebesmust leave.The boy must die if they are to enter the sphere of manhood. But expulsionhas to precedeinclusion. Life as a wolf in the wilderness, occurring, as we-seerroughly between the agesof 16 and 25, was thus analogousto the spartin krypteia which,in turn, later corresponded to military service.3rAccording to Myron in his history of the Messenianwar," Arcadian warriors carried ihe skins of wolvesand bearsinsteadof shields.This behavioawild and primitive though it was, was enough to preserveArcadian independence. In discussingthe preparationsfor the sacrificialfestival,the myth , makesmention of the precinct "that none may enter.,,Becauseboth Arkas and the bear went in, they had to be sacrificed.33 Those who breakthe tabu are damned and consecratedat once, destined for sacrifice. Predatory animals, it was said, would not follow their ouarrv pastthis line.v rhus, within this small area they were free utthorrgh .lygry.i" an inescapabletrap, for the wolves were waiting just out_ side. The tabu was evid_entlycreatedonly as an excuseani justification for the sacrificialkilling. presumablythe sacrificialanimals were set free'only to be caught all the more certainly when thev would crossthe line "of their own free will.,, The Arcadians,own .u.rr" *u, indicatea"bear festival,"which would easilyfit the well-known type.l' It is, of course,doubtful whether bearsstill lived in Arcadia in historical times; perhaps a shaggyram could havebeen used as a substitute quarry. It is clear that women would have been excludedfrom the Arcadians' nocturnal sacrifices.Instead, there is a female realm that is closedto men. only "consecratedwomen" could enter the cavewhere l(hea bore Zeus,u for they representedthe Arcadian nymphs who took careof him. whereas the men gatheredfor sacrifice , ,'for'the " act of killing, the women attendedto n"ewbornlife. Thus, the polarity of tJeanmaire
p.iy6nrdv, Arist. Probl.ined.S.4l Bussemaker(Paris,r857),and cf. Iambl. V. Pyth. t54; Ath. 656b;DetienneQ977)t63-2r7. For boiling a ram seelG Xll7, 5r5.78;tor its place in Roman ritual see Varro Ll. 5.98; for the boiling of meat in Germanic sacrificessee I Q956'}), 416-zo; for the Hittites see J. de Vries, AltgermanischeReligionsgeschichte ANET 348/49;for referencein the OT seen. lo below.It is not certainwhether the invention of boiling presupposesthe invention of ceramics;boiling is also possiblein stretched-outhides, into which hot stoneswould be thrown to heat the water. rFor the trident as a fork for meat seeI Sam z:13 (cf. Exod. 27.t;8. D. van Buren, Symbols of theGodsQ94), 48. The trident alsoappearsas a harpoon:Aesch. Sepf.r3r; cf. Bulle, RlfL III 2855;Simon jg6) 8z; J. Boardman, CR zt (rg7t), t41; lll.8.n.zr below.
(ty1) 55o-69. Alcaeus, in exile, calls himself ),uxatpiate(r3o.z5 Lp). Paus.4.tr.3; cf. yerg. Aen. g.zgz, Stat. Theb. f. 4 . 1 q Bur -,. Erar. L4f. r pp. 5z_53 Robert. sAel' Nal. an. tt 6, who mentions an AJr4 of pan at Mount Lykaion; it is presurnably identical w-ith the aparcv ^ . 7, )iabove, in accordance with the paraller of the sanctuaryofApolloHylatasatKurion(Cyprus).Cf.Ael. Nat.an.rr.7:there,too,thedogsdo into the sacred'grove, and whoever touches Apollos altar is i"""ly:"",n":.llr:, 'rrror^r'^n trom a cliff; cf. strabo r4 p. 693. Anyone who entered the precinct on Mount Ly(alon was considered ,,deer,,: a see plut. e. G;: 3ooa_c (n. 7 above). t^:1,:^:il_: rather than cipr
90
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KETTLE WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD
assuredperpetuity in the sexesbound together the courseof life and the face of death. to the rift in Thus, too, there must be a new unity correspon-ding the sacrificeat the altar on ^ur"-uo.i"tf due to the sacrifice:following further down the mounthe summit, there was the inevitable agon Arcadian "performed the i"i". e..".aing to X"t'opnott, Xenia-si-he in foreign lands' ln enuivtuiorl sacrifiie and heid an agon"'-'even pindar mentions the "festive fe"stivals, ;;;;',r.g ,n" C.""t agonistic ,,the race-trackof Zetts," severaltimes.s ;;;-h";i""g of zeus Lyliaios,,, was a the oldest of all Greek agons." The prize there iii, that of reminder ".r"^".ulled implement, probably a tripod' i. constant bronze course of were f'"stival.those wnb naa turned into "wolves" who had returned "igi.,ti*" not allowed to participate in the agon' but those for Damaryears"abstinencewere peim-ittedto enter' Thus' ;;i;;i"" for.the agon' and chos, his time as u *otf was a time of preparation won-the victory that even for the Olympic victory which he tnen him pan-Hellenic lifted him out of his Arcadian context, bringing f a m e . I n t h e a g o n f o l l o w i n g t h e s a c r i f i c e ' s o c i e t a l r o l e s w e r etoreasfor others went rt*O- The exiulsion of soire and the new start had to be eether. The younger members of the rising generation i",;;lli. wild,.outdoors,, white the twenty-five-year-olds, il; now TheY ";;; io." *ut.iugeable, entered athletic competitions'n". -were of beasts true Arcadians, "acorn-eaters"u' oppot"d to carnivorous sacthe in participate now pruy. fn"y had found their way and might the altar and dedicatfrom wrealhs their taking danger, rifice without ing their bronze triPods' who was inStrangeto say,there was another god besidesZeus grove His sacred volved in the agon-Pan, the lewd goat-like god' official eponymous and sanctuarywere next to the stadium'o'and the then a priest of of Zeus' priest a alternately was Lykaia the oijur,iri.,g one side and on Pan." Arcadiar,coins, moreovet display Zeus'shead yXen. Anab.r.z.to ra A'uxolaii$uoe xo.id76va E#rlxe' BOl. ; l ' 7 . 8 1 - 8 4 r, 3 r o 7 - r o 8 ' 9 . 9 6 ;N e m .t o . 4 5 - 4 8O 3ePaus.8.2.r; Pliny NH 7'zo5' Fot a prize of 1atrrds see Pind' Nen ro 45; Polemon Ol' l'8+; Arist fr' 6y; Mann Par'' Schol.Pind. Ol.7.t51d 1r.if,i +l.t, cf' Pini' Pind' OI 9 r41a' For inscriptions Schol' ara," u"ii iirluirt a9 e. t7;riiophanes, (new foundation ca zr5 n c ) see IG V 2.4q, 549,SS",li' i'5, 671,lY'12 629'lllll.I'1993 (1886)ro5 Imhoof-Blumer see AYKAIA For coins with the superscription noFor above' t3 I agonand weddingsee 7'n r'rz1c' arpaus.g.38.5(,,Zufall,"Nilsson bgo6l,+4+.2\;pavrtiouflavosSchol'Theocr' o ' I G Y2 , 5 5 o .
In genealogicalmyths, Arcadian Pan is said to be pan'son the other.a3 hence, the brother or half-brother of Arkas.* Zeus and, of son the it is told that Arkas was raised by a "goatherd,"nsit when Similarly, evidently reflects the role played by the cult of Pan in the life of a erowing boy. It is thus the polar oppositeof the world of the huntress irtemis, to which Arkas' mother, Kallisto, belongs' Zeus and Pan alrnost seem to embody the antithesisbetween aggressionand sexualitv, or at leastbetween order and wild living. The serioussacrificethat divides the group is the antithesisof the unification during a period of license.But the details of the Program, and its sequencein time, escaPeus. A strange abundanceof antithesesis thus impressed upon the animals, celebrantsat the Arcadianritual: predatoryanimals/sacrificial night/day,sacriwolves/bears,wolves/stags,meat-eaters/acorn-eaters; ficelagon, ZeuslPan; the old/the young, men/women, killing/giving birth. Characteristically,theseantithesesdo not merely collapseinto a uniform duality.They are,rather,generallytransformed,eachinto the other,like night into day: the hunter becomesthe hunted, the cannibal turns ascetic,the living are killed, the dead come back to life-the "secretsacrifice"revealsthe primordial situation of the hunt'
2. Pelopsat Olympia Although they were of the greatestantiquity,the Lykaia remained abasicallyprovincial, purely Arcadianevent.Theywereclearlyeclipsed by the Olympic games,held every four yearson the banks of the Alpheios,at the foot of the Hill of Kronos, in the sacredgrove of Zeus.' sCook
I (r9r4) 68-7o. On the statueof Pan in the sanctuaryof Zens Lykaiosat MegalopolisseePaus.8.1o.z- 3; for altarsof Zeus Lykaiosand Panat TegeaseePaus.8.53.r r. *Epimenides, FGrHist 4:,ZF g : Schol.Theocr.r.1-4c, and cf. Schol.Theocr.r.rz3b; Aristippos, FGrHist317F 4.For Panas the son of Aither, seeAriathos, FGrHisty6 F 4; asthe son of Hermes, seePind. fr. roo. For Panas the inventor of astronomy,i.e., putting an end to the primitive rpoat),nvot seeSchol.Lyk. 482. # "Eratosth." Catast ., p. z : Hes. fr. 163;accordingto anotherversion("Erat." Cat.p. 5z Robert),the she-bearand her baby are caughtby aizdtror. 'E. N. Gardiner, Olympia, lts Historyand RemainsQ9z5);W. Hege and E. Rodenwaldt,
93 92
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
Thesegameswere the most important expressionof unity aboveall in the Peloponnesus,but also for all of Greece.Their enormous importance in giving the Greeks a senseof identity in sports and politics, and even in their spiritual existence,is well known. Long after Pindar, the Greekswere still awarethat this athleticeventwas simultaneously a religious festival, even if only through the Zeus of Phidias, which was consideredthe most important expressionof their conception of god. But the fact that both the religious experienceand the socio-athleticevent were imbedded in a ritual with a striking resemblanceto the Lykaia, a sacrificialritual that centeredon the precinctof Pelopsand the altar of Zeus, receivedfar less notice and hence has come down to us only in scatteredfragments.'z Although there are signs of a pre-Doric tradition, the history of the sanctuaryat Olympia3 seemsto start in the Protogeometricera. From then on, the significanceof the gamesconstantly grows. It is probably just chancethat the list of victors beginsin the year 776, for it was about then that the Greek alphabetwas introduced.oPisaand Elis fought to possessthe famous site over many generationsuntil, in the sixth century,Pisa was destroyedand the pan-Hellenicorganization of the Hellanodikaiwas established,with Elis presiding.sThanks to the excavations,we have detailed knowledge of the sanctuary's glorious architecturalhistory aswell as its declinein late antiquity until the emperor Theodosiusabolishedthe games.6But it is far easierto
lri
I
I
OlympiaQ916);L.Ziehen and J. Wiesner RE XVIII (ry$, r-r74; A. Mousset,Olympie et lesjeux grecs(196o).On the excavationssee E. Curtius and F. Adler, Olympia Q89oin Olympiat-5 Q944-6$; 97); W. Wrede and E. Kunze, Berichtilberdie Ausgrabungen E. Kunze, Olympische Forschungen fif . $944ff.). For the lists of victors see L. Moretti, Olympionikni(Rome, 1957). '?A.B. Cook, "Zeus, Jupiter,and the Oak," CR t7 Qgq),268-78, interpretedthe ritual as a battle between the young and the old priest-king; he was followed by F. M. Cornford in Harrison Q.927\279-29. L. Drees, Der Ursprungder OlympischenSpielejg6z) sees"pre-Doric fertility cults." rF. Mezo, Geschichte der OlympischenSpiele(r93o); for a hypercritical account see U. Kahrstedt,"Zur Geschichtevon Elis und Olympia," NGG j9z7),157-76; cf. F. Jacoby, FGrHist III B: Kommenlar zzr-28. fL. H. feffery, TheLocalScriptsof ArchaicGreece(t96r), zo-zr. sThetradition is late,confused,tendentious,and unverifiable;Paus.6.22.3-4 (destruction of Pisaafter 588),5.9.4;StraboZ p. 351,(cf. F. Bolte, RE VII A t96-97): destruction of Pisaby Elis and Spartaafter the (Second?)MessenianWar.On the discusof Iphitos and Lykurgus, seeArist. fr. 533,and cf. F Jacoby,Apollodors Chronik(tgoz), u6 n. 1o' tzz-26. 5On the protubitionagainstpagancults seeCod.Theod.XYl.to.ro-rz (lgrlgz); the last Olympic gamestook placein 393.
94
PELOPS AT OLYMPIA
sift through the archaeologicallayers than to organize and evaluate the literary evidencefor the cults and gamesat olympia, for here the rnost diverse traditions have become superimposed:pre-Doric and Doric, Pisan and Elean,-localand pan-Hellenii. Morebver, they are frequently distorted by local patriotism or politics or becausegenealogieshave becomesystematized.'wecan often do no more than combinethose items that necessarilybelong togetherbecauseof their function' In so doing, however,we must omit the most famous foundation of the olympic games.Although the story of pelops,abduction my_t_h from her father, oinornaos, in the chariot race and Hippodameia of death in the processwas already a part of the pseudooinomaos' HesiodicGreat Ehoiai and appearedon the liyps^eloschest about 57o 8.c.,and althoughthe pedimentalsculptureo.t the easternsideof the greattemple of Zeus depicted the preparationsfor this chariot race,E the myth only becameimportant for olympia oncechariot-racinghad becomethe most prestigious and costiy sport and thus becomethe focal point of the games.However, accordingto the olympic victory lists, chariot-racingwas only introduced in the twenty-fifth olympiad, that is, in 68o n.c.'Until then, only victors in the ftot-race were recorded.There are, admittedly,reproductionsof war chariotsamong the votive offeringslong before6go-as there are in other Greeksanctuaries as well-and perhaps even the name of the wily charioteer, Myrtilos, can be tracedto Hittite roots, which might thente related to the introduction of the war chariot in the middle of tne second millennium n.c.'oBut all this does.nottouch upon the heart of the olympic festival. Rather, in its detairsthe myth of Hippodameia reflects the strangetabus of Elean animal-husbindry rites;r1 and the fact that it penetratedto olympia testifiesto growing Elean influence in the sevt:]t:*s we will not deatwith the traditionsthat attribute the founding of the
p"i.., irni"e""lii:;;;;;;;';?y, n"._ 6.zo.e), 5.r.4, :l1:j:,Tdy^i:"aactrl 1p.ul_. ^i' 5.8.r, "1:::l
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tp s-)le,s'4.' :;.'i;.;,' ; ;; ;);;;%;' ;ff ilil#
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thepedimental sculptures
7.on seeM. L ; !'l;;;;;?';;2i;J';3;;I;;'il;;:i: i'iJiJlJ"i"'i"[ ::*:* :l:.,::::::i:;;; "',ifi,13*fl,*s;f1..:set,-w
teady an alfusion at ll. z.ro4lli)rotrt A,q{int
95
TRIPOD KETTLE WEREWOLVES AROUND THE
ii, iiiii
locatedfar from the Altis of enth century.But the Hippodromer'rras stadium'by contrast'was inZeus, in the plain of ii"ifpfteios' The toward the altar of Zeus'l'?The side the sacredp.".littand oriented the foot-racein the stadium' and it preeminent agon at Olyfi;;;t ilone had a sacralfunction' the precinct.ofPe.lops.are The altar ot,".,,, ..n"",,udi,., and.the that saying at Olympia. If goeswithout cultic centersof the;;;l;^;y 'mainly 'sacrifiie' Of course' in such a of the cultic activity t";;i;i;J be a considerablediversity would there highly frequentedt;;A;;t ofritualscurrentutu"yot'"tit"'private'occasionalsacrifice;daily becausethe city administration and annual ,tut" ,ut'i#e-important fina-lly'once intimately involved in running Olympia;.and ffili;;;; yet' to the And the gieat fesiival' every four years,uUitt" 'ut'ifices at slte' we same god the at hero or extent that they concernedthe same sacrismaller the belween may assumethat there was someanalogy exwould they and the rare; fices and the larger ones, the frequent elaborated' or press essentiallythe same thing' whether abbreviated than the other heroes "The Eleansno"ot"a Pelopsas much more says than the other gods"' 'Now he at Olimpia as they honored Zeus mote rs: stat his unique Pausanias."e"a urt"ulf fitta- a"tttibes by the'ford of the Allying is drenched in glorious'blood-offerings' altarwhich the most peopn"i.t, -ian his busy tomb right next tothe true center of the Altis' ple come to visit."'o'The alta;of Zeus is the heap of ,n" very end nothing more than a primitive i;;r"*g;n,il through height an impressive earth and ash, though it had risen to far off' toward the west' was Not visitors'" .ou'itless the sacrificesof of stones'Beforesacrificing the precinctof n"foft, u*losed by a circle thus got the samenumber of to Zeus,or," ,u.,irilla-io n"ropt'1"tho white ;"t; tt'ot'u' large' Inloth cases'only sacrificeseven if d;
bff"::; and.i'J: 4.:P:: :Yl":::"',*: 1' ;;;i;; ;"; J .o"rau'"used, Whereas ({urerls)'" thewoodman servant'
PELOPS AT OLYMPIA
the entranceto the precinct of Pelopsis in the west, the altar of Zeus from the stadium,i.e., from the east.Whereasblood was aPProached into the sacrificialpitl8 for Pelops,that is to say, downpoured was of Zeus grew higher and higher. Thus, the two sacrifialtar the ward, were united in a polar tension. The hero and the god cial recipients and day. The name Pelopscan be interpreted night like together went the antithesisof the god of daylight. The agon "dark-face,"te to mean could not be continued into the night.'o and the daytime in place took to get too long, the pentathlon and the started schedule the When be followed by the sacrifices,"which moved up, to were horse-racing in the stadium. Thus, the prefoot-race the followed by turn, in were, paratorysacrificeto Pelopsoccurredat night' "When the Eleanshad slaughteredthe sacrificialvictim accordingto their custom, its consecratedparts would lie on the altar, though not as yet set on fire' The runners would stand at a distanceof one stadefrom the altar, in front of which there was a priest signalling the start with a torch. And the winner would set fire to the consecratedparts and then depart as an Olympic victor." Thus, following ancient sources,Philostratus" derciiUusthe foot-raceto the altar; one stadelong, hence stadium.And in fact, the early stadium ended at the altar. Philostratusalsoconnectsthe double coursewith sacrifice:"When the Eleanshad finished their sacrifice,all the Greek envoys present had to sacrifice.But in order that their processionnot be delayed,the runners ran one stade away from the altar, calling on the Greeks to come,then turned and ran back as if to announcethat all Greecewas presentrejoicing. So much for the double course."2'It started at the altar and returned there in the end. Pausaniasdescribesthe altar more exactly:"The custom is to slaughtervictims in the lower part of the altar, the so-calledprothysis. Then they take the thighs up to the very highest point of the altar and burn them there. . . . But only men may climb up from the prothysis to the top."zt Thus, the foot-race
Hfi;ffii,"il*ttr*ial
,
r11
ilii
iiii lilll illj
rlli
(956), rc.rz; A|A 5z j948)' in olympia l2E. Kunze, 5' Berichtiiberdie Ausgrabungen "9 ''o'o' 675c;cf' Paus'5'8'6' 8'26'4; Plut' ':i^t ' 'ii ipJlio' 492-gJ.flawa npoohil-, Philostr. GYmn. tz ! - .xltt9eis' , \ . o ^ : ruP'A\geoir^ r6pot p6y'exrct'' viv 6' iv aipcrxortpicrtsd1Lclaiat rot'u(evottarq rapd BallQ' Bov d4'gitot ov i1lrl,v see lI'r'n ro above' 15paus. 1 4 .t- t;cf. Thuc. 5.5o.r. On the tyPe, 1 7 , 5.t3.8'H)telous Biew' On the Pelopion' rois r6Schol. pind. Ol. t.r49a xai npd toi Atos arhQ
"s.tJ.t. t,Ol. t.g-93
see Paus. 5.a3.r-). (1896)' #62' 64' 72r' r22' in inscriptions see Olympia V tzpaus. 5.r3.3, r4.z; torfutreus 724.
llt
96
ttEds r,iy BofipouPaus.5.r3.2. ttl. B. Hofma.,n, Etvmologisches (r95o), s t' rre)ttrvcis;RE Wbrterbuchdes Griechischen luppl. VII 849. Even if Pelopswere-as is more probable-the ePonym of a people, ll6)\oaes (like Ari,\oaes. Apitotres),the associationwould not be without significance. aPaus. 5.9.3. trPaus. 5.9.3:472r,.c. uGymn.5. Cf . Eumenes'foundationat Delphi, LSS44.r5 6 6i Dp
97
PELOPS AT OLYMPIA
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
I
tllii
presupposesthe bloody act of killing; likewise Pelopswas "drenched with blbod,, in the preliminary sacrifice.The end of the race, its goal, is the top of the aniient heap of ash, the place where fire must blaze and burn up the thigh-bones. The race marks the transition from blood to pn.ifyir,g fire, from encounteringdeath to the joyful satisfaction of surviving is manifestedin the strength of the victor. Thus, the most important agon at Olympia is part of a sacrificialact moving between the Pelopionand the altar of Zeus. The propei victim for Zeus is a bull;" for Pelops,however, it is a blackram-this, too, stressesthe dark sideof the ceremony'Pausanias describesthe annual sacrificeoffered to Pelopsby the Elean officials: ,,Fromthis sacrificethe prophet gets no share;rather, it is customary ' Anyone, to give only the ram's neck to the so-calledwoodman. whlther El-eanor foreign, who eatsthe meat of the victim sacrificedto 26-that is, he may not enter his Pelopsis not allowed to go in to Zeus" precinct or draw near to the altar. Pausaniasstatesthis rule in a 8enLral way; it was surely not restricted to the annual sacrificebut applied toevery Pelopssacrificeprecedinga sacrificeto zeus, especially during the great pentetericfestival. C-iraracteristiially,the sacrificeof a ram is also present in the myth linking Pelopsto Oinomaosand Hippodameia. Oinomaos, so it is iold, ,rsed to sairifice a ram, Ietting the suitor get a head start until the "consecrated"parts of the victim were burned; thereupon he would chaseafter the fleeing suitor and, upon catchinguP with him, kill him.r' A series of vase-paintingsdepicts the sacrificeof a ram, admittedly,theserams are white, but basedon scenesfrom tragedy;'?8 this is probably just an iconographicalshift causedby someintervening facior. Even the tale is quite far removed from ritual; yet, in the seienth century, those who told the myth were moved to combine Pelopswith a race and the sacrificeof a ram, just as these had been combined in ritual until the time of Pausaniasand Philostratus. 6Do Chrys. Or. rz.5r. On Milon's sacrificeof a bull at olympia seeAth. 4rz-t3a Phy' larchos, FGrHist8rF 3. 26Paus. There, the 5.r3.2. Cf. the sacrificeof a ram at the BabylonianNew YearFestival. priestsand those who do the slaughteringmust leaveBabylon: ANET 111' 2'Diod. xprcv . . . dyw$iurav 6i riov bpdv rore dpyeoSat 4.73.46 ptivOivop.aogE.f.ue roi 6po1.tou. : BM F aBrommer Qg6o)37o:Calyx-craterBM F z7r D 6, Cook I (r9r4) pl 5; amphora l ( r 9 t 4 ) C o o k 4og:Bl= 3 -iRV' ) r : D 7 , C o o k l i r g r a ) p i . 3 ; b e l l - c r a t e r i n N a p l e s zHz. o o : : D ,44o.t, FR III i5r, ilarrison (1927)zt8;amphoraat Ruvo : Cook | (tgt4) 4oB the as appears Zeus u5f 4, Anna\i 4 $85r), Pl. QR. For Etruscanurns see EAAY recipient of the sacrificeon D 7, Artemis on B 3.
lllllllr ll
98
The sanctuaryof Pelopswas no ordinary grave. It was said that his bones were preservedin a chestnot far from the sanctuaryof Artemis Kordax;" an outsized shoulder blade, however,was kept separately for display, though it no longer existed during Pausanias'lifetime.r Pelops' severedshoulder blade belongs, of course, with that other gruesomemyth of Pelopswhich Pindar mentioned in his first OlympianOde, only to rejectit indignantly as a maliciousinvention of the poets.3lThis myth runs directly parallel to the myth of Lykaon: with Zeus leading the way, the gods came to visit Tantalosfor a festive meal. Tantalos,however, for whatever reason,turned the divine banquet into cannibalism: he slaughtered his own son Pelops and offered him to the gods as food; and Demeter, unaware becauseof her intense mourning for Kore, took the shoulder and ate it. Here, too, the justice of Zeus was quick to folloW even though there is little agreementas to the form it took. In any case,Pelops'limbs were put back together in the sacrificialkettle and he was brought to life once more; only the missing shoulder had to be replacedby a piece of ivory." After Pindar, the Greeks often changed the setting of this cannibalistic banquet of the gods to Sipylos in Asia Minor.r, Modern mythologiststhink that the myths of Tantalosand Lykaon must have influencedeachother. But becauseboth clearlydepict a sacrificialact, from cutting the victim up and cooking him in a kettle, to the typical closing "revival" by putting together his bones, both are therefore bound to a specificlocality through ritual. pelops' shourderwas disat Olympia, not in Asia Minor. And jusi as the pelopion, the P.layedaltar of Zeus, and the stadium were all'u"ty clor" to eachothbr, so too the only woman allowedto enterthe stadiumwas the priestessof DeDPaus.5.zz.r. 5ar3+-6, cf. Lykcoph. 52-56and Schol.54;Apollod. Epit.5.to- rr; Schol.LV ],P1us tt. 6.92,Dionysios, FGrHist15 F Firm. Err. .-5.r.pelops, shoulier guaranteedthe 3; vlctory of the pelopids over Trov. )Pind. ol. ,.ro-r), a7-53. tl Bacchyl.fr. 4z; Eur. Iph. Taur.186-88; Lyk. r5z-55;Apollod. Epit. ^fn 1eo_-22, 2'2-l; etc. F. M. cornford in Harrison (ry2.) z4-5r interpietedirt" *y*r ur belongrng to an initiation and New year's festival.the -t
99
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
PELOPS AT OLYMPIA
meter Chamyne, who took her place at the gamesuPon an altar opposite the Hellanodikai.'Thus, the Olympic ritual combinesthe very gods that went together in the myth-Pelops, Zeus, and Demeter. ihe cannibalisticmyth of Pelopsthat so shockedPindar clearly refers to the Olympic festival. The hero's mythical fate is strangely connected with the ram slaughteredin the Pelopion-on accountof that sameshoulderblade. In Greece,as elsewhere,a ram's shouder blade played a specialpart in the sacrificeof a ram. In such a sacrificefor Poseidonon Mykonos, it is expresslystatedthat "the back and the shoulderblade should be cut up, the shoulderblade sprinkledwith wine"3s-i.e., destruction first, then sacredhonors. In Slavicand German folk-religion, a ramb shoulder blade is used for making predictions,'owhile at Olympia a seer would have been present at the sacrificefor Pelops.We do not know what was actually done with ramt bones in historical times. Philostratuswas content to avoid the problem by simply saying that they did "whatever was customarythere" 3tand we too must be satisfied with the realizationthat, in both the sacrificeof the ram and the myth of Pelops,the tracesof ancient hunting and sacrificialcustoms shine through preciselyin the way in which the bones are treated. One thing is certain-and once again this connectsthe sacrifice at Olympia with the Lykaia-the big tripod kettle was extremely important in thesesacrificialcustoms.At leastpart of the sacrificialmeat would be collectedin such kettles ()'eB4res)and prepared in them, although at first without fire. This is apparent from a legend current in the time of Peisistratosand retold by Herodotus: Hippokrates, the father of the future Athenian tyrant, "as yet held no public office, when a greatmarvel happenedto him while he was at Olympia to see the games. When he had offered the sacrifice, the tripod kettles, which were full of meat and water, began to boil without fire and to overflow."" Hippokrates was evidently one of those envoys who, according to Philostratus,would sacrificeafter the double course. The fact that the kettlesbegan to boil by themselveswas a sign of the vic-
torious strength emanatingfrom Hippokrates,a sign of the future tyrannyof his son, who had yet to be born. Such was the importanceof cookingin a tripod kettle at the pan-Hellenicfestival at Olympia. It is no surprise,then, that-as the excavationshave shown-great numbersof tripods were dedicatedthere from the tenth century on.rnAnd when, in the fifth century,the great temple of Zeus was constructed, the architectschosefor the acroteriathis very symbol of Olympic sacBetweenthe tripods was the battle of the rifice, namely, the tripod.nO Lapiths and the Centaurs, and the start of the chariot race between Pelopsand Oinomaos. fust as Arkas was the ancestorof the Arcadians, so pelops was the eponymoushero of the whole "island of Pelops"(peloponnesus). fust as the Arcadiansgatheredfor the festival of ZeusLykaios, so the inhabitantsof the "island of Pelops"and, later, all of Greecegathered for the Olympic festival "in the wooded valleys of Kronos in pelops, land."n'And just as the sacrificefor Zeus Lykaiosdivided Arcadian society,thereby shedding light on its workings, so too the sacrificial ritual at olympia accentuatedthe distribution of roles in society.The division is most noticeablein those participatingin the sacrificeof the ram to Pelops.This chthonic, dark, nocturnal sacrificeis for eating, but the "eaters"must subsequentlyshun the daytime sky god, Zeui; their expulsion is comparableto that of the wereworveso1 Lykuio.r. of age groups and initiations were no longer part of tire pan.course, Hellenicfestival; thus, perhaps the meat was given to any socialoutcastswho happened to be there. There was one person of sacredstatus who ate of the ram, namely, the ',woodman,,;consequentlyhe was permanentlybarred from the precinctof Zeus. The otherswere probably allowed to purify themselvesand return, as in the parallel case,cited by Pausanias,of a purificatory bath in pergamon.o2 Nevertheless, the "woodman" supplied the wood for buint offerings to 7.euswhereby the ash-altargi"* higher-a typical distribution ot roles.ina comedy of innocence."'u", In sacrificingthe ram, fasting was required of the seer taking part, anJ was also requiid of *tt"il:ty the athletes.we know with certainty itrat at least until the late sixth
yPaus.
6.2o.9, 6.zr.t; 8. Bericht iiber die Ausgrabungenin Olvmpia Q967), 69-74. 35SIC3 roz4.5 -- LS xonrero,t, i1 trXarq cneu6erar'. Tearing off the 96.7 vGtroy xai r\arq arm together with the shoulder blade plays a special role in the crapayp'os; see Eur' Bacch.trz5-27; Theocr. z6.zz; cf. Hdt. 4.62. sF. S. Krauss, Volksglaubeund religi1serBrauchder Sildslauen Q89o)' 166-67' I'Philostr. Gymn. 5. $Hdt. r.59. Accordingtothebequestof Kritolaos, lGXll7.5r5 = LSS6r, TS,asacrificial ram is cooked and prepared so as to be eaten after the games.
"F.wil|emsen,,,Dreifusskesselvono|ympia,,,o,,*ffi the olderpiecesfound *"i" i"-urkaLly numerousaroundthe pelopron; l]:: 'r'-v' :1",
tlerrmann, "Die Kesselder orientalisierendenZeit," orympische Forschungen 6 (1966);rr (rgZq) sPaus. 5.ro.4. "Pind. o/. 3.r3. '5.t3.3. On the futrerisseen. 17 above.
illl
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
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century athleteshad to undergo a thirty-day period of preparation with a strict vegetariandiet of cheeseand figs. This was likewise a time of sexualabstinence.€Such renunciation and focusing of one's strength was meant to lead all the more certainlyto a final goal, to the competition, to victory, and to sacrifice.For many kinds of sacrifice followed on a victory, with banquets at the state'sexPense;the victory celebrationalso included an eveningprocession;and in the story that Artemis Kordax was given hs1112ms4-a name that reflectsa lascivious dance-because Pelops'companionsheld their processionwithin her precinct, we get some indication of the sexualurges that, having built up inside, would now break out into the open in the festivalcelebration. Yet, Pelops'bones were kept in the precinct of Artemis Kordax-that is, sacrifice underlay this uninhibited celebration. After this, military symbolism would mark a return to order: trumpets instead of flutes, armor instead of athletic nudity;osthis was the norm for all Greek men. Women,though not virgins, werebarredfrom the Olympic games, under threat of death.* The festival divided the family in order to illuminate its relationships.At Olympia, the women had to play their part beforeand after the games.On an eveningat the start of the festival, the women, weeping and wailing, would gather in the gymnasium for sacrifice:this was said to be in honor of Achilles,n'though it may just have been a secondarymotivation for the comedy of innocencepreceding the sacrifice.After the games,they had an athletic festival of their own, the Heraia.€The temple of Hera was built much earlier than that of Zeus, not becauseZeus was any less important but, rather, becausethe men gathered around the site where killing took place, the ash-altat whereas the goddessof women stayed at home, in her vads. On the other hand, the men were barred from the sacredcaveof Zeus Sosipolisand Eileithyiaon the slopesof the Hill of
Igonos.onAn aged priestessand a virgin choseneach year, the ,,lou_ trophoros,"were responsiblefor ministering to the cuit of the divine child in the room of Eileithyia.The child'sname seemsto havebeen of little importance. Olympia was unable to establishitself as the birthplaceof Zeuseven though Pindarhad mentionedthe "IdaeanGro tto,',n ind a temple was built for the mother of the gods in the fifth century. Yetit was evidently not so much a question of the child's name as the expectationexpressedin the ritual act, that the incessantkilling in the male sphere where Pelopswas "drenched" with blood must have its counterpartin the female sphere in the mysteriousbirth in the cave. How else could the "city be saved," as the name Sosipollssuggests? Thus, Rhea'scave on the slopesof Mount Lykaion has its .eierru.y counterpartat Olympia. By combining those aspectswhich the festival divides, the power of men and the power of women, the circleof life is sealed. Theseconnectionswere no longer so obvious when the games grew into a highly organizedbusinessand when sport becameimportant for its.own sake,yet the two managedto survive side by side for a thousand years. An olympic victory was a unique socielalevent, but the victor's status and the order in which the participating cities wereranked becamevisible mainly in the sacrifice.The winneiof the foot-racewould be the first to ligtrt the sacrificialfire, after which the envoyswould sacrificein a specificorder set by the Judgesof the Hellenes' Pride in individual achievement,and divine gIory radiating from.the sanctuary were inseparablyunited. The part"icipatingcommunities demonstratedtheir renewed strength each time in the festive -competition,the racebetween the "darK, sacrificeto pelops and the fire of Zeus, past death to the sovereignorder of life.
aTupov ix r6v ra),apotvPaus. 6.7.ro, until the victory of Dromeus (#r88 Morettt, r.c.), for whom the sculptor Pythagorasof Rhegionmade a statue; Olympionikai,484 thence, perhaps, the tradition that Pythagoras of Samos introduced a diet of meat rather than cheese,Porph. V Pyth. 15 (from Antonios Dogenes), Iambl. V Pyth.25' 'Agpo}';aiti,u dtiyecflol seePhilostr.Gymn.zz; cf .1.7 at n. 13above.For the thirty-day period see Philostr. U Ap. 5.4J; JohannesChrysostomos,Migne PG 5r, 76. For a training period of ten months, seePaus.5.24.9,i.27.r1,6.2+.3. sPaus. 6.:u.r; cf. Schol. Aristid. lll 564,ro Dndorf ht ivrfi lli)roaos xpeovpyiqdp/1oa7o 6 [ld.v. asPhilostr.Gymn.7; Plut. Q. cona.63ge;Artemidorus r.63. BPaus. 5.6.7,5.2.2;Ael. Nat.an. 5.r7; PNostr. Gymn.ry (II z7oed. Teubn.) 47Paus. 6.23.3. sPaus. 5.16.2;Nilsson Ogcr6)6z; on Hera at Olympia see Simon (r$) 36-18.
LO2
j. Thyestes andHarpagos The third and most famous, indeed, proverbial, cannibalistic rnealin Peloponnesianmythology is directry preservedonly in litersPaus'6.zo.z-q,6'z5.4.Onthearchaeo,o,,.u,p,on,"-@ studres/orS. M. RobinJon I (r95o), yo_5ol "Purd. Ol. 5.rg, and cf. Schol. lza
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ary sources: it is the feast of Thyestes (@ueoreca 6eirrva).' Thyestes and Atreus were sons of Pelops, and the parallels to the crime of Tantalos were drawn already in tragedies. Unfortunately, the Atreus of Sophocles and the Thyestestragedies of Sophocles and Euripides have noi survived, nor have the imitations by Ennius and Accius;'only the late version of Thyestesby seneca remains, along with allusions in surviving tragedies, above all in Aeschylus' Aganrcmnonand in the Electra and orestesof Euripides.r on the basis of quotations, it is clear that the myth appeared already in ancient epic, in the Alkmaionls, and in early mythography, in Pherekydes of Athens.' The essential part of the "act" is the same in all versions; variation occurs only in the preceding sections and in the motivation. The two brothers struggled for the throne of Mycenae; Atreus slaughtered Thyestes' infant sons and served them up for dinner, so that Thyestes unsuspectingly ate the flesh of his own children. Of the brothers, one was a killer, the other an eater, but the worse pollution belonged to the eater. After this meal-all versions agree in this detail as wellThyestes had to abandon the throne forever and flee the land: thus Atreus became, or remained, the Mycenaean king. Another set detail in the story is that Thyestes had previously committed adultery with his brother's wife, Aerope, whence the motivation for Atreus' dreadful deed: the "eater" could not restrain himself sexually either. Therefore, Atreus, the killer, hurled his unfaithful wife into the sea's It is clear once again how the myth repeats the course of the sacrificial ritual and adds gruesome details. It is hard to tell how much in Seneca's fantastic description derives from ancient tradition-the children were sacrificed, according to the letter of the ritual, in a secret sacrificial grove in an obscure corner of the palace groundsnthus, effective theatrical pathos springs from the religious mystenum tremendum. According to Apollodorus,T the children fled to the altar of Zeus, only to be torn away and slaughtered. It is certain that the
feastof Thyestesfollowed the form of a sacrifice,as did any meal with rneat.In Aeschylus, Atreus servesThyesteshis meal "under the prea name tenseof happily celebratinga feast day" (xpeoupydvfip.o.p),, clearlytaken from sacrificialritual.' At this unusual meal, Thyestes sits alone at his own table, as do all the others, "man for man." it *", in just this way that the men of Aegina sacrificedto poseidonas ,,solitary eaters," and this separation of the participants recurs at the PitcherFeastin Athens.'Some of the entrails were roasted, and the maiority were boiled in a bronze kettle, accordingto Accius and Seneca.'oHere, then, as at Mount Lykaion and Olympia, the tripod kettle makesits appearance.Lykaon, too, it is said, preparedthe meat of his human victim partially by roasting,partially by boiling. The head and feet were kept intact, and that is how the father later realizedwhat he had eaten.This specialtreatmentof the head and feet, recurring several times in Greek sacrificialritual," evidently goesback to primitive hunting customs. Finally, Thyestesoverturns the table, just as happened after Lykaon's crime.'2But the most transparentlink between sacrifice(duos)and the man who ate this feast, with which he remained proverbially associated,is his very name, Thyestes. This dreadful sacrificestirred the powers of the cosmos:the sun reversedits course. During the height of fifth-century speculation about nature, this wondrous changewas variously rethought and rationalized.Theseinterpretationsassumethat at that time the sun began to follow the course which it demonstrably follows todav; the world was organized differently beforehand.r3Thus, the crime as-
= I PRII 291-98;Cook I (r9r4) 4o5-4og;@uicreta 6eir'ra Achill. Isag.p. 55.18Maass roo8. VS ar.ro, and cf. Eur. Or. 2Sophoclespp.91-94 and ft. 247-69 Pearson,Eur. fu. 39t-97; Ennius Scaen.14o-65 Vahlen2,Accius w. 197-2J4cRibbeck. 3Aesch. Ag. togo-97, tr85-93, 't277-2), t581-t6o2 Eur. El. 6gg-n6; lph. Taur' 9tz- 17; Or. 8rt - 15, 997-'to7o. aAlkmaionisfr. 6 p. : Schol.Eur. O'' 995' 77 Kinkel, and Pherekydes,FGrHist) F t)i Cf. Apollod. Epit.z.ro-rz. 'Soph. Aiasng5-g7, Schol.rz97 = EuriPides,TCF pp.5o7-5o2. oSen.Tlry.64t-788. 7Epit.z.rl.
ro4
6Aesch.
Ag. rygz, and cf. Fraenkel ad loc.; i1 fldtronos xpeoupyia Luk. De salt. 54; II.z.n.44above. eAesch. Ag.t15g5, and cf. IV.z.n.z3below roAccius :zo-zz Ribbeck;Sen.Thy. 765-62;ILr.n.z9 above. = L S 5 5 . r o ; f o r t h e p r i e s t s , s e e L sns5 , B 1 6 ; ]tHLaa3nafeetforthegod,seeSlGrro4z ror the king, seeDemon, FGrHist 3z7F r. Cf. porph. in Euset. praep.Ea. +.g.2;Hsch. e-vlP.ata, Hy. Merc. ry7;Luk. Syr.D. 55;L55 4o B z; LSSrzr; Eitrem (r9r7) 43-48; Stenget.(r9ro)85-9r. For this practicein hunting customs seeMeuli e946) z4i; A. Gahs, restxhrift P. W. Schmid(ry28), z4o; Lldc lX zgz. t'S"" II.t..,.14 above;Aesch. Ag. ..6or.On Lesbos,there areas the parentsof Dionysus and ,,meal,,):Schol.Lyk. zrz. "'opxqt the coupleThyestesand Daito (,,sacrifice,, ,Arpei p.e#Batrev aird i_linopiaes, VS 4r.ro; Plat. Soph. z69ap.apnpilocrs dpa 6rleds e:.r:vivtxipa;Sophocles, AP9.98;Hyg.Fah.88;Serv. Aen.r.568;Schol.Stat.Tfteb. 4-3o6;cf.-3;5oHdt. z.r4z. For the sun travelringfrom west to east see Eur. or. roort^d cf. schol. 8rz; Apollod. Epit. z.rz. ior the scientificreinterpretation that lTl astronomer,discoveredthe sun'sretrogrademotion in the zodiacseeEur. ltllut,jt_ul rr'd6r; Polyb. -tt.z.6 Strabor p. z3; Soph. fr. T3g"pearson; Schol.Eur. Or.99g; Serv. A e n .r . s 6 g .
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sumes an almost cosmogonicfunction: ever since that unspeakable sacrifice, and becauseof it, the sun has kept to its familiar and reliable course.|ust so, the Old Testamentcovenantfollowed the crime and the flood to guaranteethe order of "seed-timeand harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night."'n The kingship of Mycenae was legitimizedby the sun; Thyesteshad to flee. The great feasttook place at night; the next day at dawn the miracle had occurred. Once again, the transition of night into day-the Greek conceptionof time always follows this order-corresponds to the dark and the light sidesof sacrifice.And just as we saw at Olympia," the man who eats the meat at night is forced to leave;at dawn, the other man, even if he killed, becomesthe victor. From the very start, inthe Alkmaionis,the myth relatesthe brothers' quarrel to an animal, a sacrificial animal-the golden ram or golden lamb. Ever since Euripides, thii lamb was referred to in the feminine, reflecting a familiar tendency in the Greek language;'uthe likelihood that it should, rathet be a ram-referred to once in this context with the archaicword dpvet
r,o6
THYESTES AND HARPAGOS
actionsare exactly the samein both acts:Atreus kills something and hides it; Thyestesgreedily snatchesit up and exposeswhat had been hidden. Similarly, we saw that the Tantalos myth reflected the sacrificeof a ram at Olympia and that the Arcadian myth was a gruesome elaborationof the sacrificeon Mount Lykaion. There are two roles at this sacrifice, kept strictly apart yet closely related; in the Argive myth, they are played by two hostile brothers. The nocturnal "sacrificer" wins only a temporary victory for the sunrise determines who has won the day: his is a mediating role at an exceptionaltime. Already in the lliad-even though heroic epic abhorsritual atrocitiesThyestes'reign is seen as merely provisional. Agamemnon, though known to all as the son of Atreus, did not receivethe king's scepter from his father; rather, it cameto him via Thyestes."Thus, the societal rift causedby sacrificehelps to achievethe successionbetweenthe generations-and what happened at Mount Lykaion and at Olympia was no different. WhereasArgive mythology becameliterary early on, Argive cults sank into oblivion. The only indication that Thyesteswas anything more than a characterin tragedyin the Argolid is given by Pausanias, who describes"the grave of Thyestes"on the road from Mycenaeto Argos. 'A stone ram stands on top of it, becauseThyestestook possessionof the golden lamb." Peoplecalledthe site "the rams" (xprci), even though there was only one stone ram. Could the multiple rams in the name point to a custom still in practice,consistingof repeated ram-sacrificeat Thyestes'grave?In the samecontext,a bit further on toward Argos at the crossingof the river Inachos,Pausaniasmentions an altar of Helios." Sacrificinga ram at night, crossing a river, and then sacrificing to Helios at dawn: the conjunction of these acts would be most attractive.But there is no proof. Other sources,however,point to an Argive sacrificialfestivalthat was named after a lamb, and even lent its name to a summer month: the "days of the lamb," 'Apw1i6esi1p.6po:r,, in the month Arneos.r,The testival began with the mourning cries of women and girls-just as tne women and girls gatheredfor lamentationat the gymnasium on 21I/. z.ro6-ro8; cf. Schol.A ro6, where AristarchusarguesagainstLikymnios that Homer did not "yet" know of the fraternal strife between Atreui and Thyestes. zPaus. z.18.r-3. Crossingthe river would correspondto swimming acrossthe lake;cf. u.t.n.:z above. alor the_month "Apz4oe see Schwyzer 9o.1; SEGJ Og2g),#112.3; Nilsson (19o6) 43j-38; Callim.ft. z6-3r; Konon, FGrHistz6F r #r9;paus. r.43.7,z.r9.g;Ov. lbis 573 with Schol.The story of Poineand Koroibos(paus. i.43.7-g; ip 7.r5a)belongsto the ntnonia-type: seeIIl.3 below.
a07
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WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE ARISTAIOS AND AKTAION
the evening before the Olympic games. The refrain of their lament, the ai),czov, gave rise to the myth of the death of the young boy, Linos. According to the tale, he was Apollo's son by Psamathe,the daughter of king Krotopos, and grew up among the lambs of the royal flock. But he was torn apart by the hounds of his grandfather Krotopos. The aijtrcvozlament is sung in his honor at the Festivalof the Lamb, which is held to commemoratehis name and "his youth among the lambs."" It is, of course,only an appealingconjecturethat the main sacrificialvictim at this festival was a lamb, but an ancient Argive tradition speaksof a "lamb-singer,"dpvq\os, so calledbecause he was awarded the sacrificiallamb as a prize." Thus, it was not Argive dignitaries but a wandering strangerwho would eat the victim. Callimachus,at least, apparently made the connectionbetween this lamb-singerand the Festivalof the Lamb.'uBut another aspectof the festival made a far greaterimpressionand hencebecamethe focus of our sources:"If a dog happenedto enter the marketplace,they would kill it."'z?The myth explainedthis as vengeancefor Linos; the proponents of nature-allegorysaw it as a symbolicbattle againstthe deadly heat of the dog-star,Sirius; the "dog-days" coincidewith the "days of the lamb"-which are close, too, to the time of the Olympic games. Yet how are we to understand the peculiar role of the boundaries of the marketplace,in that a dog would be killed only if it crossedthem? This is not an event in nature but a social ordinance. The market of Argos stood under the protection of Apollo, worshipped here as "Lykeios," a name which was taken to mean "wolf-like"; in this context Sophoclescalls him the "wolf-killer," ).uxoxrovos,"possibly a direct allusion to that "day of dog-killing" (the closeaffinity of dogs and wolves needs no elaboration).Apollo the "wolf-like" was Linos' father; the boy-the lamb-was torn apart; thereforethe greedy predators were henceforth barred from the kingdom of men, that is, from Apollo's agora.Likewise, Sophoclestells us inhis Electrathat Orestes, protected by Apollo the "wolf-like," killed Aegisthus, Thyestes'son, at Argos, and the impious Aegisthus had also been a provisional king, between Agamemnon and Orestes. In his history of the Persians,Herodotus constructeda story in the Median-Persianmilieu that correspondsin all its details to the feast of Thyestes.fust as Atreus had taken dreadful vengeanceon Thyestes, so Astyages avenged himself on Harpagos, for the latter 2fKonon, FCrHistz6 F r.ry. sDonysios of Argos, FGrHist 3o8F z. '?7Ael.Nal. an. 1.2.)4(on Klearchos,fr. ro3 W); Ath. 26Fr.z6.r-5. 99e. u S o p h .E / .6 , a n d c f . 6 4 5 , 6 5 5r, j 7 g .
I
I
had not obeyed his orders to kill Cyrus, the child of Mandane. Therefore, Astyages sent for Harpagos, thirteen_year_oldson, whom he slaughtered, tearing him limb from limb; some of his subgegugnlJy flesh he boiled, some he roasted.He then servedit to Harpagosat his special table while the others-significantly-ate lamb.'Tfie head, hands, and feet were coveredin a basketwhich Harpagoshimself had to uncoverat the end of the meal." The detailsof thl iory were probably taken Jrom the feast of Thyestes,for we know thai Herodotus was preceded by the versions in the Alkmaionis,pherekydes, and Aeschylus'AgamemnonBut the gory feastis typically connectedwith the theme of the dog, or, rather, the wolf, in thii Median-persian milieu: Cyrus, the king's son, was brought"ue.r up by Kyno, ,,thebitch,,_ i.e., almost exactly like Romurus and Remus.rdMoreover, the wolfboy was helped in carrying out his appointedtasksby Harpagos,,,the rapacious,"i.e., the wolf, as his name must have Uee.,,r.aerlstoodby the Greeks.They knew him as the persiangeneral who relentlessly subduedthe cities of Asia Minor, a terrifyin! characteron whom fitting storieswould be fastened.The "woli-like" man had becomethe eater of human flesh, and this meal transformed him, if only in_ wardly- invisibly: for under the mask of the devoted servant, he was henceforth the inexorableenemy of the king, unwilling to rest until Astyageshad been overthrown. "By reasonor thut ban{uet,,, according to Herodotus (r.rz9), the Median empire fell to the irersians. The parties were divided through the sacrifiiial meal, and their division determinedthe dynastic succession.
4. AristaiosandAktaion - on the island of Keos there was an animar-sacrificeto ward off the deadly power of Sirius, ,,tne J*.;,--Our evidence dates from the fourth ur,d thira centuries a.c. and is provided by Aristotre and his students and by the poets c"iri-".n"r and Apollonios.r rhe rite DHdt. r.rog_ro. tHdt. ,. , ro- r-r; Jr.t r.4.ro-t4; G. Binder, Die Aussetzungdes Kdnigskindesg964), r7-4, 45-57. 'Theophr' De uentisr4,and cf. Arist. fr. 5n,6n.27;Heracrides fr. r4r wehrli : Cic.diu
ro8 Lo9
WEREWOLVES AROUND
i:
llt
II
THE TRIPOD KETTLE
was not accompaniedby the sort of rnyth that would be used in tragedy, but only by a foundation legend: once, when the people of the Aegean islands were threatened by drought, they sought the advice of in oracle,which ordered them to summon the priest and prophet Aristaios, son of Apollo. When he came, he brought with him Arcadian priests, descendantsof Lykaon,2 and built an altar on a mountaintop to Zeus Ikmaios, "Ze1Jsthe rain 9od";'then he sacrificedto the dog-starand to this Zeus. Suddenly the cooling north winds began to blow, just as they do today in July, the "Etesian" winds that make the summer heat in Greece bearable. and it Aristaios' activity has been interpreted as weather-magic,o coolfor yearning desperate with a passionate, to empathize is easy nessand moisture in the arid Greek summers. But the corresponding cult is not mere wish-fulfillment or symbolic rain-making;it is, rather, a sacrificein traditional Arcadian stvle, by "the descendantsof Lykaon." Its specialform derives from a ritual handed down since ancient times. Even in the little we know of the Kean festival we can recognizeanalogiesto the Lykaia. Like the Lykaia, the Kean sacrificial ritual moves between two poles, oriented on the one hand toward the dangerous"dog," on the other toward Zeus; the one brings searing heat, the other coolness and rain. The dog-starfirst appears in july, just beforedawn' The sacrificerswaited on the mountaintop for this, the brightest star,to rise.5 Thus, the ritual began at night and would have been continued in the rnorning and into the day. The first sacrifice was for the dog; thereafter, for Zeus. But only Zeus had an altar.uAccordingly, the preliminary sacrifice to the " dog" would have used a sacrificial pit, a Botpos. And since Aristaios was commonly portrayed as a shepherd-specifically, as Agreus and Nomios,T hunter and herdsman, r.r3o; Callim. tr. 75.12;Apoll. Rhod. 2.5:^6-27with Schol.498;Diod. 4.82.r-1; Clem. Strom.6.z9;Schol.Pind. Pyth.9.tr5; Nonnus 5.269-79.For the head of Aristaios,a stat and a dog on coins from Keos, see HN'1 484;Cook III (t'g4o)z7o' Cf. Nilsson (19o6) 6-8. Aristaiosappearsin myth already in Hes. Ir. zt6l7 M.-W. 'Apwtrlaotfi (= 'Apt'?Apoll.Rhod. z.5zr and Schol. 498. For a cult organizationof ataccrotai) in Boeotia seeZPE 4 Gg79, z5tf.; z5$gV), 45f . 'lxpr.os 3Apoll. Rhod. z.5zz and Schol. Callim. fr. 75.34;Schol.T ll. r4.tg. 498; {Cook III (r94o)265-7o; GB VI 15. 5'AwcDrirovnpotrapotfieApoll. Rhod. 2.527, and cf. Schol. 498alw;Heraclidesfr' r4r' 6Apoll. Rhod. z,5zz_,b:ut a sacrifice "for Sirius and for Zeus." "For Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon and the Winds" Nigidius fr. 99 Swoboda. ?Pind.Pyth.9.65.For sacrificeof a black lamb for a typhoon, seeAristoPh. Ran'847'
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ARISTAIOS AND AKTAION
killer and keeper-we must presumethat his sacrificialvictim for the ragingdog-starwould have been, once again, a ram. Nonnus, on the other hand, mentions a bull-sacrificeat the altar of Zeus, and a honey rnixture.8Aristaios had "discovered"oil and honey in Keos-so it was told-and libations of oil and honey were clearlylinked to the sacrificial ritual, even though we know nothing of the order-so important for understanding the ritual-in which they occurred. In any case, the ritual's nighttime aspectwas followed by a daytime aspect,analogous to the polarity of Pelopsand Zeus at Olympia; and just as Lykaon'ssacrificeprovoked a flood, and the feastof Thyestesmade the sun changeits course, so the sacrificeof Aristaios set cosmicpowers in motion: the supremacyof the "dog" was overturned and the rising winds renewed the forcesof life. The Keansawaited the appearance of the dog-star and the sun "in arms."' It was the men of armsbearing age who became consciousof their solidarity and identity at this sacrificialfestival; they would naturally have identified with the daytime ordet the winds that dispelled the danger. And they conceivedof their tiny island as the center of the world: the Keans claimed that they celebratedthe festival, which Aristaios founded, "for all the Greeks."'o Lykaon sacrificedan Arcadian boy, his son or nephew, as a wolf; similarly,Aristaios, the herdsmanwho discoveredoil and honey and establishedthe sacrificefor the "dog,"was the father of Aktaion, who was torn apart by dogs. This leadsus from ritual back to myth, to one of the most famous of all Greek myths, a frequent subjectin art from archaictimes." As is often the case,the motivating forcesin the story are unclear. The only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his zriBoi, and what Artemis did: the hunter becamethe hunted; he was transformed into a stag,and his raging hounds, struckwith ,,wolf,sfrenzy,, (\!oay), tore him apart as they would a stag. The regal anger of an ottended goddess is at work here, demanding a victim. Her wrath was stirred by an oversightwith regard to sacredlaws, by trespassing 5.27o-7j.For the invention of oil and honey on Keos seeSchol.Apoll. Rhod. z,49gb. 'fthol. Apoll. Rhod. u.498alw. toDiod. 4.gz.z. u_PR I 458-6r; Hes. Tft. 977; a ^ew fragment of Hesiod,s Cataloguesin T. Renner, HSCp u2 (1978),282;Stesichorus46 page j pars. 9.2.3;Akusilao FGrHistz F 33; Aesch. toxotidesfr. ") Diod. 4r7-z4Mette; Eur. Baich.,g; Callim. Hy. 5.7to_a5; 4.gr.4 Apollod. 3^tl For depictions in art see p. Jacobsthal,Maiburger lahrb.f. Kunstwiss.5 \rg29), ? * Ul:.^t""r(-196o) 1;l6-t;7.On polygnotus,depictionseepaus. 1o:io.S.nU,{ ipI_? pears with a wolf's-head cap on the Boston bell-crateroo.J46= ARV, t'o+5.2.
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WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
ARISTAIOS AND AKTAION
on an "untouchable" precinct, by sexualdesires,or, from an ethical perspective,by behaving presumptuouslytoward a divinity'" The stag-metamorphosisrecalls the"untouchable" precinct on Mount Lykaion: all who enteredwere forthwith regardedas stagsto be hunted and killed." Even the Delphic god orderedsuch a "stag" to be given up to its pursuers. And, accordingto mythic fantasy,Arkas und hir mother mated in that very precinctlo-the same motifs, the sameexcusesare always superimposedon the act of killing. The fact is often enactedby Arthat in storiesand art this stag-metamorphosis not so much a is perhaps Aktaion" temis throwing a stag'sskin over though of course coma mask, ritual, rationalizationas a feature of the examGreek Whereas masked participant. pletely seriousfor the by real hounds, attacked being as a stag ples show a man disguised the wall paintings at Qatal Htiyrik depict the masked leopard men surrounding a realisticallypainted stag.'u In fact, there is something peculiarabout Aktaion'sdogs as well. It is probable that already Hesiod gave a catalogueof their names/ thus making them virtually individuals;" and the end of the myth, as told by the mythographers,has a particularly ancientquality: "When Aktaion was dead, his dogs searchedand howled for their master. Their searchtook them to the caveof Cheiron;and he made an image of Aktaion which stilled their grief."'8 This description of the dogs' behavior doubtlessgoes beyond anything that could be observedin nature; real dogs cannot be comfortedby an image.Rather,these animals are performing a human ritual of the sort we find attestedagain
and again: the "search" for a torn-up victim ending in a symbolicrestoration.leAktaion's death is a sacrificiarritual oI the hunt, consecratedby the Mistress of the Beastsand performed in the form that had been standard sincePalaeolithictimes. The actorsare dogs struck mad by "wolf's frenzy," werewolves whose shrine is in a riountain cave.one mythographer even identifiesAktaion'sdogs with the Rhodian Telchines,''the magicalbronze-smiths;in so do.-ing,he equates one secretsocietywith another. The literary myth probably combines various local cultic traditions' Aktaion's death, for instance,is situated at the spring Gargaphia near Mount Kithairon;r' the cave of Cheiron, howev6r, is on Mount Pelion in Thessaly.Almost by chance,a few details about the cave of Cheiron in Thessaly happen to have come down to us in a note by the Hellenistic periegete Heraclides:,,On the heiehts of Mount Pelion, there is a cave, the so-calledcave of Cheiron,"and a shrine of Zeus Aktaios. At sirius' rising, which is the time of the greatestheat, the most prominent citizens,thosein the prime of their lives, climb up to the cave.They are chosenby the priest and girded with fresh, thrice-shorn sheepskins.This shows how cold it must be on the mountain!"2'?whatthe witty author considersa geographical curiosity is_obviouslya-sacredritual performed by *re rrilin[ cliss of Magnesia' It was introduced by the sicrifice of a iheep or rul*; participanthad to slaughteran animal. Then camethe strangest "rr"ry part of the ritual: eachman put on the skin of his victim, and thuJthe processionclimbed the mountain to the caveof Cheiron and the shrine of Zeus. The sacrificeridentifies with his victim to the point of wearing its skin, tries in effect to undo his own deed; yet he remains a wolf in sheep'sclothing. With its expiatory character,the journey to Chei_ following the sacrifice obviously corresponds to the jour_ lo"b :uy: Aktaion's dogs to the mysterious mountain cave where ihey II_:f round comfort in the restoredimage of their victim. The connection with Aktaion would be direct if tie transmitted text, which names "zeusAktaios," were reliable;but the inscriptions from Magnesia near Mount Pelion speak only of ,,ZeusAkraios,,,,,Zeusof theieights.,,, -
l.i;llillll l
12According to Hesiod (new fragment), Stesichorus, and Akusilaos, Aktaion wanted to marry Semele; according to Eur- Bacch. 339 he boasted that he was a better hunter than Artemis (cf . Soph. EI. 56). There is no certain attestation before Callimachus that Aktaion saw Artemis naked. I3Architimos, FGrHist Plut. Q. Gr. 3ooa-c; ILr.nn.7, 14 above. 3t5F t: r a S e eI I . r . n . z r a b o v e . 'sstesichorus : ARV2 287 24, f.ig.8 : ARV' 46Page;Jacobsthal, Marburger lahrb , fig.6 285.r, fig. g : ARV'155z.zo;cf . the metope from Selinus, fig rr. Similarly, in Dionysios' Bassarika,the god clothes the victim, who is to be torn apart, in the skin and horns of a -- fr. r9.9 Heitsch. For newly slain stag; cf. D. L. Page, Literary Papyri (r94t\, fi6-4o d e e r - m a s q u e r a d e sa m o n g t h e B u k o l i a s t a i i n S i c i l y s e e S c h o l . T h e o c r . P P . 3 . 6 , 7 ' 1 4 ' 14.2,5Wendel; cf. an early Greek gem in D. Ohly, Griech. Gemmen Q95), fig. z4; for 'Axrc,icou xepaogopos as a theater mask see Poll. 4.r4r. r 6 S e eL z . n . 1 9 , I . 8 . n . 2 8 a b o v e , a n d F i g u r e 1. r T S e eA p o l l o d . 3 . 3 2 ; A e s c h . f r . 4 z 3 M e t t e ; O v . M e t . 1.2o6-zz4;Hyg. Fab.r8r. tsApollod. Hesiod. Cf. A. Casanova, RFIC 97 Og6q, 3.y; POxy 25o9, going back to )r-46.
teSee I.z.n.rz uro eArmenides, FCrHist37gF g; Eust.77r.59. "Vib Sequ.r7z, andcf. Stat. Theb.7.z74withSchol; REyll757;for,,on Kithairon,,see Apollod. 3.3o. aHerakl. 2.8 (F. Pfister, Die Reisebiliter desHerakreides[r95r].gg). on hunters masquerading in animals'skins see Baudy (r9go)4oJ n.ro2. o'A*'6t ,'Axr<7otv-zeusAktaios,like Lykaon-ZeusLykaios.For Zeus Akraios as su-
r13
ARISTAIOS AND AKTAION
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
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They do, however,mention a cult of Pan in the caveof Cheiron, and Thus, the parallels to there were even rumors of human sacrifice.2o the Lykaia becomecloser. The sacrificeson Mount Lykaion, Keos, and Mount Pelion have long been connected from the standpoint of weather-magic'" The proverbial "prayer of Aiakos" at the altar of Zeus Hellanios on the highest mountain in Aegina, said to bring storms and rain,'ufalls into this categoryas well, as does the sacrificeto Zeus Laphystios in the myth of Phrixos and the golden ram." In order to prevent famine, king Athamas (whether in Orchomenosor ThessalianHalos) wanted to sicrifice his son to Zeus Laphystios.When he was alreadystanding at the altar, the "cloud," Nephele, suddenly camedown and a golden ram appeared.Thereupon both Phrixos and the ram vanished. The old connectionwith the Argonauts, and the removal of Phrixos and the ram to Aietes, more likely reflecta poetic combinationthan a cult legend. But even in this version of the myth, the ram is sacrificed, and all that remainsis the golden fleece. Herodotus tells us that a similar human sacrificefaced the descendantsof Phrixos (that is, Athamas) in ThessalianHalos down to left to the victim his own time.28The crucialstep was characteristically family set foot of the member if the eldest innocence: in a comedy of entering a again, to die. Once "Le7ton," he had the prytaneum, in the If the victim for sacrifice. used as an excuse is to be entered place not he is led back into later on, to be caught but happens to flee manages preme god and god of oaths see IG IX 2.71oJ,rto5, tro8, rro9.54,77, 1770,rrz8. For 'Axroios seeStrabo 'Ar
the "Leiton" to start,the sacrificialprocessionaccordingto the rules. The descendentof Phrixos, "completely coveredwith rioolen fillets,,, would be led to the shrine of Laphystian Zeus. The equationwith the ram could hardly be more obvious. Presumably,a ram would normally take the place of a human victim for Zeus Laphystios, as it would for other deities. But here, too, the motif of the wolf accompanies-themyth of human sacrifice:Athamas became,just as the oracle had proclaimed,a companionin the meal of the woives, beforehe ascendedthe Thessalianthrone.2" The motivation for sacrificialritual in weather-magicmust have seemedquite convincing to early farming and urban communitiesalways living in the shadow of famine. But the elementof the werewolf cannot derive from this source,nor the ritual's persistence,given the undoubtedly frequent failure of the weather to cooperate.frhe.eve, we can grasp details, we seethat the festival accentuatesand restructures the distribution of societalroles;there are hints of this in the domestictragedybehind the Phrixosmyth-women againstmen, father against son, brother and sister against everyoneelie. what actually setsthe "unspeakablesacrifice"in motion is not nature but the order of the community and its spiritual life. The sacrificecausessuch a shockthat the cosmosmight well seemto move to the rhythm of the sacredaction.r scholars have tried to relate this weather-magicsurrounding 3:":,o-the_concept of an Indo-Europeanstorm god, but the parallels lead rather toward Asia Minor and th" semitic realm. A strange sheep-sacrifice, attestedfor Cyprian Aphrodite, has been the subje-ct of detailedstudy by RobertsonSmith: ,;Theysacrificesheeptogether, while they are themselvescoveredwith sheepskins"','then thlre is a sacrificeof wild pigs, which is seen us trengear,.efor Adonis, who was killed by a boar. Thus, the preliminary Jheep-sacrifice, in which tne participants disguise themselvesso strangely,probably repeats the death of the Great Goddess's,,lord,,and lover. At Hierapolis, in the temple of the "syrian Goddess,,-another placewhere the Adonis tegend was at home-a worshipper,spreliminary sacrifice consisted a black sheep, in"., prortrating himself on its skin, l..llaughtering wtth the head and feet wrapped around his body.r, But the Great Goddesscan bring about a woif-metamorphosisas well. Gilgamesh's sSchol.
Plat. Minos3r5c;Apollod. r.g4. "Thus, Seneca, Thy. 696,has the earth quake during the sacrificeof Atreus. llt Mens.4.65p. tt9.r9-zz Wuensch;Smith(rg94) +65_Zg. xl-ydus LuK. Syl. D. 55, and cf. Porph. V.pyth. t7 (Idaeancave,Crete). 115
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
complaint against I5tar has long been known: "Because you loved the herdsman, the keeper . . . you smote him and changed him into a wolf: now he is hunted by his own shepherd boys and his dogs bite his ankles."'3 Although the distribution of roles is somewhat different, the context is reminiscent of both Adonis and Aktaion. In Ugaritic mythology, there is the story of Aqhat the hunter, who was torn apart by birds of prey, at the bidding of the goddess Anat, who wanted his bow; his father managed to retrieve from the belly of the vulture-mother his remains-bones and fat-and to bury them.'It would be tempting to equate the names Aktaon, Akteon, Aktaion with Aqhat," but even in the Babylonian and Ugaritic versions we are nowhere near the "origins" of the myth. The wall painting at Qatal Hriytik has already been mentioned:* here, some four to five thousand years earlier, we find the leopard men, servants of the Creat Goddess, a Miinnerbund and mask society, dancing around their victim, the stag. By changing himself into a predatory animal, a hunter, man single-handedly guaranteed the continuance and development of the human race in Palaeolithic times; he lived on in this form through the Neolithic period in the rituals that shaped society, and on into classical Greece in the sacrificial rites and myths about the stag and the werewolf.
a whole.' Moreover, like Olympia-or even more so, becauseof its greatpopularity-the sanctuarywas repeatedlyentangledin political and military disorders, and each SacredWar brought new forms of administrationwhich influencedthe function and senseof identity of Apollo's servants.Thus, as at Olympia, various traditions becamesu_ and disentanglingthem is no mean task. The most sigperimpo-sed,. nificant break probably came with the first sacred war, shortlv after 6oo n.c., in the course of which the Pylaic Amphictiony of Anthela took over the supervisionof Delphi from the inhabitantsof Krisa and, aboveall, organizedthe Pythian games,starting in 586.,Nonetheless, the oracle'sauthority was undiminished by the crisis. The cult of the Delphic priesthood was virtually untouched, just as, later, it would survive the sanctuary'ssudden decline in late Hellenistic timesStrabo called Delphi "the poorest sanctuary", of his time. yet the detailed information about the cult, which we find primarily in plutarch, consistentlycorrespondsto more ancient allusions or indications. Thus, we may conclude that the Delphic rituars maintained essentiallythe sameforms at the sameplacefor at leasteight hundred years. Delphi was set apart from the normal Greek polis: since it was isolatedon a steepmountain six hundred metersabove the valley of the Pleistos,nestled by the Castalianspring between the grandiose Phaedriadiccliffs, Delphi could never be a farming community. Already the HomericHymn to Apollonstatesin no uncertain termi that the Delphianshad lived for, as well as from, the sanctuaryever since the most ancienttimes. There may be sometruth to the tradition that the Delphiansoriginally camefrom Lykoreia,sinasmuchas it is possible for a community to exist there bn the large plateau above the
5. TheDelphicTripod The first sanctuarythat comesto mind in consideringthe sacred tripod is, of course, Pytho, the Delphic sanctuary,the far-famedoracle of Apollo which, simultaneously,was the centerof the PylaicAmphictiony and site of the Pythian games.Delphi played such a significant role in Greek religious, intellectual, and political life that it is impossibleto do justice in a few pagesto the Delphic phenomenonas 33Gilgamesh Vl i, 58-63, ANET 84. vANET r49-5j.lt has been postulatedtime and again that Aqhat is revived-ANET (r96r'1),323-but the heart of the myth consistsof death by r55; Th. Gaster,Thespis being torn apart, "collecting,"and burying; cf. l.8.n.rz above. 35Astour $96) t$-68. aSeeaboveat n. 16.
t16
'See
Nilsson Q9o6)15o-62,283-88,46t-62; (t955) t7o-74,6r5-fi; Farnell IV (r9o7) t79-zr8,2ga-911,;H. Pomtow REIY z5r7-z7oo;RE Suppl. ly rrSg-r412; F. Schober, R! Suppf Y 6r-ry2; G. Daux, Pausanias d DetphesQ976);p.Amandry Ia mantiqueapollinenned DelphesQg5o);f. Defradas, Lesthimesde la propagande delphique(1954);M. Delcourt, L'oraclede Delphes(1955);Parkeand Wormell (rSSg);G. Roux, Delphi: Orakelund Kultstiitten (r97r). on the myth seeFontenrose(1959);on the resultsof the excavations see Foulllasde Delphes(r9oz and after). 'zThe most accuratetradition is to be found in the hypothesis to pindar's pythian odes, fthol' Pind. ILr-5 Drachmann,basedon the archivalresearches of Aristotle and Kalusthenesat Delphi, SIC) 275= FCrHist rz4T 23. tf 4zo.wvi ye ror neuicrarov icrw 16 Ev A,ehgois iepdv11pr11.tarorv "yeyapw. ltO:?: .rut. ue yyth. or. in whose time the pythia was the daughterof poor farmers. 4o5c, ]'. oSee n. 7 below. ssee n. zz below.
477
IOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
*1r
Phaedriadic cliffs between the Korykian cave and Mount Parnassus, but already before 6oo n.c. Delphi was governed by Krisa down on the gulf of Corinth, for the envoys who came to the isolated slopes seeking the counsel of the god generally came by ship. Delphi was the only Greek community to make religion its main occupation; the basisfor this unique role was the oracle'span-Hellenicand even international fame. It was this, too, that prompted the intervention of the Amphictiony. And the Pythian gameswere all the more glorious becausethey were connectedto the sanctuary.The god spoke at Delphi: here, piety was firmly imbedded in the transcendentalworld. However,the worldly actionthat gaverise to the oracle,and which we can grasp, was a specialform of sacrificialritual. The siteof the oracle,the place of pronouncementsand liberating purifications, was first and foremost a placeof sacrifice,outdoors, high on the mountain. The excavatorsof the temenosfound "the earth fat with organic remains mixed with ash and burnt bones, and filled with countless Mycenaeansherdsand terra-cottas."uHouseswere even built in this terrain that would normally have been considered unfit for habitation. The HomericHymn to Apollodescribeshow the god himself built his sanctuaryamong the cragsof Mount Parnassusand in the form of a dolphin personallyled his priests,the Delphians,from Crete. "How shall we live now?" they ask in fright on seeingthe temple high up on the slope. But the god comforts them with a smile: "Each of you should carry a knife in your right hand and slaughter sheep continually; for they will be there in abundance. . . . But guard my temple and receivethe tribes of men."'Thus, Apollo's worshippers brought their sheep up from the fertile plain to the mountain to be slaughteredwith the assistanceof the priestswith their knives. These priests were then allowed to enjoy themselvesat the meal. The sacrifice was accomplishedin a most peculiar way: "Whenever someone enters the sacred precinct to sacrifice to the god, the Delphians surround the altar, each of them carrying a knife. And when the lord of the sacrificehas slaughteredthe victim, skinned it, and removed its entrails, then all those standing around cut off as much as they can for themselvesand go away with it; thus, the sacrificerhimself is often left empty-handed."'For this reason,a versefrom comedy be-
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6Nilsson (rgSS\ llg. 'Hy. Ap. 528-38; pr4lo6dx9 flistizrPind. Pyth. yz7. EForthe legerid of Aesop see POxy r8oo fr. z col. ll 3z-46 = Aesopica, ed. B. E. Perry (1952), Test. 25 p. z2r, and cf. Schol. Flor. Callim. Ir. 19r.:^6-25;Schol. Pind. Nem. 7.62a; Pherekydes, FGrHrst3 F 64; in addition see Achaios ft. 4, TGI p. 249 = Ath. r73d; Burkert, Gnomonl8 (t966), 4)g-4o.
rr8
THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
cameproverbial: "When you sacrificeat Delphi, you will have to buy extra meat for yourself to eat."oThe Delphic knives were made in a specialform which we are unableto reconstructwith certaintyin spite of numerousironic allusions.'0In any case,rather than a transcenden6l piety, the Delphic sheep-sacrificeexhibited all-too-human traits. "Like flies around a goatherdor like Delphiansat sacrifice:,,'rthis is a picture of shamelessobtrusion. But no one ever tried to reform what acruallytook place in the sacredprecinct,for it was an unchangeable, sacredcustom. Preciselythis form of Delphic sacrificeis reflectedin the heroic myth that reconstructsthe action as a human tragedy: NeoptolemosPyrrhos, the _son of Achilles, suffered a horrible death ai Apollo,s hearth in Delphi, and his grave in the sacredprecinct was ilways pointed out.12The motivation for the act varies accordingto whether or not the specific version presents Pyrrhos in a good light. Some makehim a temple robber whom the god justly punishes;'rbthersdescribefrim as a pious worshipper of the oraclewho was perniciously killed by Orestes.laWhat actuallyhappenedthere, the ,,act,,itself, remains unchanged. Neoptolemossacrificedto Apollo at the ,,hearth,, in his temple; there he was surrounded by Delphiansand, in the confusion of carving and snatchingup the sacrificialmeat, he was killed with a Delphic knife.lsrhus, in sacrificing,he himself becamethe vict-t- i" this specificallyDelphic ritual. The genealogiescall the murderer "Machaireus," "the knife-man," son of Daitis, ,,the feaster,,; and,-far from making him a criminal, they give him priestly status. His descendantis Branchus,the founder of the other famous'oracleof Apollo, at Didyma near Miletus.16As for Neoptolemos-pyrrhos,he is eCom. ailesp.4fu; CAF lll 495: Plut. e. cono.Toga;App. prov. t.95, paroem.Gr. | 3g1. mArist. Pol. rz5zbzand in Hsch. Aelgrr4 p,ayarpa,prov. Coisl. to5 : App. prov. r94, Paroem.Gr.I 393.The knife is alsomentioneJrn Hy. Ap.535 and Aristoph. fr. 6a4. ttCallim. fr. 19r.z6-27. r2J' Fontenrose, The Cult nnd Myth of pyrrosat Derphi(196o);M. Delcourt, pyrrhos pyret rhn$96); J. Pouillouxand G. itoux, inigmes a Oapiu (r9g);L. Woodbury,phoenrx33 Gg7il,^gS-_tll.For the tomb seepaus. i.U.e, r.4.4; Schol.pind. Nern. 7.62c;J. pouilde,DelphelII: La rtgion nord du sanctuairee9tu),49_6o. For the myth see ;::1, :-Uryr Nem.7.4o-47with Schol.5g,62;Eur.Anir. 49_55,trzz_57;Eur. Xo .nor.6.rr6-zo; Hermionepp. 14a-43pearson;pherekydes,rC,iUii 1F Oa;esklepi ]:lo1!-y., .9tl"j .Soph. r: F r5; Apotlod. Epit.6.4-14. On the Ruvo crater(Jatta239)see pouil_ ljlt J. G. Roux, Enigmes d Detphes fugg) r:.9.3,and cf. G. Roux, AK i (9Oa)-,y_q. ;:t:"o 9 p. 421;Schol.Pind. Nem.7.5g,r5oa;and cf. paus.1.73.g,4.1.7.4. ..Dtrabo t.'-Eur. Andr. 9g5-9g, rocrcIf . '"Ma1odpq pind,. Nem. 7.42. '"Asklepiades, FCrHist tz F t5; Callim. fr. 229.7;Strabog p. 421.
r19
I
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
honored eternallypreciselybecausehe died: he now has a place in the sanctuary"seeing to law and iustice in the heroes' processions amid much sacrifice."" Pindar assuresus that it was necessaryfor such a heroto be situatedin the sanctuary.Admittedly, the excavators did not find at the site a grave consecratedto Neoptolemos-Pyrrhos, but, rather,a Mycenaeanpithos, filled with ashesand the remains of bones."Thisis, however,a placeof sacrifice,with its double aspectof killing and renewinglife. fust as Zeus was united with Pelops,so Delphic Apollo is associatedwith his chosen victim, whom the poets made into the son of Achilles. His death occursin the sacredprecinct in a violentritual which the Delphiansregularly repeat. Once again, two grouPs confront each other in the sacrifice: Apollo'sworshippercoming from afar,and the native Delphians. The one brings a sacrificialanimal and slaughtersit, the others "steal" the meat and eat it. Thus, man searchesfor god in the wilderness, far from the world of peacefulcommunitiesand farms, and there he encountersthe god'swild servants,a group of greedy gluttons. The first inhabitantof the ravines of Mount Parnassusto be attestedin Greek literatureis none other than Autolykos, the "werewolf." His grandson was Odysseus,whom he taught how to hunt, and it was there that Odysseussuffered the wound that was to reveal his identity." The Delphianspointed out the site of the boar hunt, and the place where Odysseusreceived his wound, in their gymnasium20not far from the Castalianspring. This early legend is not the only link between Delphi and the wolf. "The Delphiansworship the wolf" was Aelian'sstraightforward in referenceto the bronze statue of a wolf that the pronouncement2' as a votive gift beside the great altar; moreover, up Delphians set that a wolf caught and killed a temple robber. If story there was a was a temple robbet he sufferedthe samefate Neoptolemos-Pyrrhos In any case,in stealing the sacrifice, Delphians. the of at the hands The name of the wolf is linked wolflike. was distinctly behavior their the Delphians were said where place the Lykoreia, with primarily mean "howling of the to was taken The name to have originated. more acbe etymologically would "wolf-mountain" wolves," though Deucalion beings, human the first legend, to the curate. According and Pyrrha,landed on Mount Parnassusafter the great flood and, '8Pouilloux,Fouilles11,57-59. '7Pind. Nem. 7 44-47. teOd. ry391-466. nPaus.ro.8.8.On Apollon Lykeios at Delphi, seeJ. Bousquet'BCH p (t#), 2tNat.an. ru.4o;Paus.7o.r4.7,and cf. Plut. Pericl.zr.
120
gr
guided by "howling wolves," they founded their city and named it accordingly.'The Delphians, or at least the most prominent Delphic families, traced their ancestryback to Deucalion;r,in u se.rse,fhey were still following the footstepsof the wolf in the ritual of robbing the sacrifice.There was even a story that Apollo was borne by a shewolf;'oand modern scholarsdispute whether the name Apollo Lykeios has to do with Lycia, "light" or the "wolf"'u-most Greeks, in any case,took it to mean "wolf ." Opposing the she-wolf'sson was the son of the ,,ram,,:one tradi_ tion claimedthat the Pythian gameswere establishedbecauseApollo killed a robber from Euboea,the son of Krios,ruHere, the sacrificeof a sheepin Apollo's precinct has becomepart of the legend almost undisguised. By contrast, the official myth, which becamewidespread no later than the first Pythian gamesin 586when Sakadasincluded it in his performanceof the "Pythian nome,",'names python, the earthborn dragon, as Apollo's opponent and victim.rsBut already plutarch noticedthat the fight againstthe dragon has very little to do with Delphic ritual-'?e'Rather, it is a favorite motif of the orientalizing era, a period with a distinct preferencefor such monsters,and it waJprobablytransposedto Delphi by the poetswithout affectingthe cult or entirely supplanting rival traditions. still more ancient,and immensely popular, is the story of how Herakles fought Apollo for the pythian tripod.s rhis may or may not reflect the memoriesof a Dorian invasion and the take-overof a pre-Dorian cult-site;in any case,the fact that two polarized groups arosein the Delphic ritual, each struggling ,Paus.
ro.6.z. and cf . Marm. Par., FGrHist z1g A 2,4; Andron, FGrHist ro F g; Callim. fr.5'; Strabo gp.4r8; 'Azrdtrtrary lruxaptis Callim. Hy. z.r9; Apoll. Rhod. 4.r49o; Euphorion fr. 8o.r powell. BSee n. 47 below. xArist. Hrst.-an. 58oar8; Ael. Nal. an. ro.z6; cf. Ant. Lib. 15. The meaning of Apollo nvxrlyevils, ll. 4.tor, was disputed even in antiquity. ECook I (ryr4) g-68, who argues for ,,light.,, xPaus. ro.6.6. 27Paus. :.22.8- e; poll. 4.7g; cf. Strabo 9 p. 421. 'For the most detailed discussion see Fontenrose (1959); in the Hymn to Apoilo, the dragon is female and nameless. nPlut. De def. or. 4t7f -4.l8a. "There are reliefs and vase-paintings with the fight for the tripod starting in Geometric times, but the identification of Herakles and Apollo becomes a certainty only in the ffi""n,ury, r"1Sj.P...Lr.", AlAl4eyo), )73-:;l;E. Kunze, OlympischeForschungenz \1950), Lt)-77; F Willemsen,ldl 7o (:'gS), gl_gg; Brornmer (i96o) 3o_38; Schefold (rg6+) T.ab.
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in for the sacrificialmeat-which, of course, would have been kept those the tripod-and the fact that the "robbers" in this ritual were the that goo-d.indications are god the to *t o .i"r" truly obedient just a not was it that and structure basic storyb ritual provided the p'oa,''.tofchance.Transcendingthesacrificialstruggles,however, order Prevailed. Apollo's ' Deliogethu, *ittl the tripod, the act of.cutting up the ram links phitot"heLykaiaandolympia.AsatOlympia,moreover/afoot-race was ivas held in ihe stadium. The temple'sspecialfunction, however, consew9m11 th9 Pythia, the of role the was as unique to Delphi, home cratid to Apolio. Inside, there was the famous hearth (ioria)' ordinary the to alien feature,32 ancient very flxms3r-a of the eternal Greek temple. The tripod was kept in the temple'sinnermost area, the adyton,'3which *it oputt to only a few' Thosewho came for advice could probably have ieen what was happening only from a distance; they would have seen the consecratedwoman sitting on the tripod, would have heard her alteredvoice and thus have known that Aiollo's word was passingthrough her lips' The Stoic"pneuma" doctrine gave rise to tire theory-eagerly taken up by rationalists-that .,rupor:,rising from the depihs of the earth in the adyton would have But this theory induced the"Pythia'stranceand her prophetic Powers' v has not stood up to archaeologicalexamination: there is simply no trace of a chasrrlor any volcanicactivity whatsoeverbeneaththe temple at Delphi. There were, of course,vaPors surrounding the tripod as the nyihia entered the adyton and took her place on the sacred seat:lauiel leaveswould have been burned, with barley grains" and
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THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
perhaps-othersorts of incense.But it was simply subjectiveopinion lnd traditional belief.that the tripod rocked and shook in the murky 1eofllr that a power from the depths was at work when the pythia spokeot rather "sang" and "screamed."$The tripod and the vapors rising from a fire go hand in hand in any case;at Olympia, too, we encounteredthe tale of the tripod mysteriously starting to boil.3' The Delphic tripod had a cover,on which the pythia sat.s It is no wonder that all sorts of rumors circulatedas to its secretcontents,but all of them pointed basicallyin one direction: the remains of some slaughteredcreaturewere gatheredinside-"the bones and the teeth of the Python snake,"" accordingto one version in keeping with the official myth of the fight and death at Delphi. An apocryphal tradition, by contrast,inverted the victor and his victim: 'Apollo was the son of Silenus;he was killed by Python; his remains were deposited in the so-calledtripod."a The majority, however, also unofficial and relatedto sectarianmysteries,spokeof Dionysusslain: ,,Whenthe Titans had torn apart Dionysus, they gave hir li-bs to his brother, Apollo, having thrown them into a kettle, but he preserved them closeto the tripod."n' This was surely not Callimachus'own inventicin. We find his statementconfirmed by Plutarch: ,,The people of Delphi believethat the remainsof Dionysus rest with them besidethe oracle,and the Hosioi offer a secretsacrificein Apollo's shrine whenever the Thyiades wake Liknites [sc. Dionysus].',0,Thus, plutarch placesthis tradition in the contextof a sacrificialritual. Starting with Aeschylus' Eumenides, there is a great deal of evirPythia
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WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
dence that not only Apollo was worshipped at Delphi, but Dionysus as well.n3The Leningrad vase-painting on which Apollo offers his hand to Dionysus at Delphi has often been used as an illustration. The pediments of the fourth-century temple presentedApollo in the circle of the Muses in the east, Dionysus among the Thyiades in the wests-a studied antithesisof morning/evening,light/darkness, the two were in fact conceivedof as brothers. Plutarchastestifiesthat three winter months were consecratedto Dionysus, but Apollo resumed power in the month Bysios in spring. This pairing has been seen as a result of a religious-historicalprocess,a shrewd balance, permitting the Delphic priesthood to assimilatethe religious movements of the sixth century and at the same time to soften their impact.e There is undoubtedly some truth to this. But it is not a question of diplomatic compromise or give-and-take,but, rather, of a polarity in which the contrary elements determine each other, like east and west, day and night. It comprisessavageryversus clarity, lack of inhibition versusawarenessof limitations, femaleversusmale, proximity to death versusaffirmation of life: this is the circularcourse that sacrificialritual charts again and again, renewing life by encountering death. The circle of the "werewolves" around the tripod kettle is a form of the ritual especiallyrich in antitheses.In the Delphic context, Dionysusis more likely a new name or accentuationof the one pole than a foreign intruder; in the sacrificialritual, the polar tension is present from the outset. Plutarch mentions two rituals, simultaneously performed and mutually determinant, that he associateswith the dismembermentof Dionysus. The Hosioi would offer an "unspeakable"sacrificein the a3Aesch.Eum. zz, z4; Soph. Ant. rrz6; Eur. Ion 150-51, 7r4-t8, t:'z5; Iph. Taur. tz41; Phoen.zz6 with Schol.; Bacch.3o6-1o9; Hypsipylefr. 752; Aristoph. Nrh. 6o5; Philodamosp. 165Powell. sleningrad crater,St. $o7 : trpyz n85.7, Metzger(r95r) T.25.3;Ior the pedimentsee Paus. ro.r9.4. The sixth century temple was different: see FD IV 3; P. de la Costesculptures destemplesQgSt),15-74; J. Ddrig, Festschr. K. ScheMesselidre,Art archailque: fold (,\K Beih. 4, 1965),r.o5-rog. For "Delphos" the son of Apollo and Thyia see Paus. ro.6.4; cf. the Vienna crater 9J5 : ARV2 r44r; Metzger Qg5r) pl.zz.4: Aphrodite, Apollo, Omphalos,Thyiad. asPlut. De E 389c;for the identificationof Dionysuswith Apollo seeMenander Rhet.Cr ' III 446 Spengel,and cf. Aesch. fr. 86 Mette and Philodamos.On Dionysusas the first to give oraclessee Schol. Pind. Pyth. p.2.7, t) Drachmann. See also'Atr6Mruv 6tovuoo}orosat Phlya, Paus.r.3r.4; in Asia Minor seeApollo and Marsyas(linked with the sacrificeof a ram in the Louvre statue542). *Rohde (1898)II 54-55;cf . H. Jeanmaire,Dionysos(rg5r), r87-9r.
r24
shrine; and_theThyiades would "wake" the child in the winnowing ;a1.47The Hosioi were the m-ostdistinguished sociargroup at Delphi direct descendantsof Deucalion.By undergoing a special,seemingly ancient,initiation sacrifice,they attained the stitus of ,,the purified,, and were hence able to deal with "the unspeakable,,on i regular basis.This probably entailed a sacrificialdismemberment.Euripides combines a similar "consecration"with omophagy in Crete.d The Miinnerbundis juxtaposedto the company of "iaviig" women; the act of killing in the shrine correspondsto caring for thJnewborn child in the female realm, a secretaction performed in the mountain wilderness,ason Mount Lykaion or at olympia. The Thyiadeswould have roamed Mount Parnassusin ecstasyduring the winter;{, accordingly, the Hosioi must have offered their unspeakablesacrificeat this time. Plutarch indicates,as.clearlya_sone possibly could with something "unspeakable,"that the sacrificecorresponded to the dismember_ ment of Dionysus. Thus, it probably followed the main lines of Dionysiacmyth, i.e., tearing apart, gathering, and preserving in a sa_ cred container.This in turn correspondsto the aniient closiig rite in hunting and sacrificialritua_I,The myth tells us that Arkas u.jp"lop, emergedfrom the sacrificialkettle revived. And at Delphi, the advent 9f Apollo marked the closeof the Dionysiacperiod. Apollo,sbirthday falls on the seventhday of the month of nysios in the spring,. which likewise signalsApollo's return to power. "In ancienttimes--the oracle spoke only on this day. Death, as embodied in the previous un_ speakablesacrifice,was finally overcomeby renewed divine life when the Pythia took her placeon the coveredtripod. Ecstasyis a phenom_ enon sui generis,but its placeis fixed by the sacrificialritual. Yet another sacrificehad to be made before the pythia might enter the-adyton-this time, a goat-sacrifice.Beforeit could be iaughtered,however,its entire boay had to be made to shudder;sr therefore rPfut.
k. )6sa; cf. De def. or. 4JBb;e. Gr. z9zd. fr a7z.rz -ry; cf. 1.5.n.25above.Lyk. zo7alludesto a secret sacrificeto Donysus ,".E;1 at Delphi Oltl t'rig. 9yd; De uir. z49e-f;paus.ro.4.z-3 (everysecondyear),and cf. l^Ol"r. .mul. '!_-?r...Z,Hdt. 7.t78; philodamos 27-2'),p. 166poweil; Aiirto.,oos I 37,p. 16l powell; Latullus 6+.3go-Sl. On Liknites."u Niilrror,(rSSil lg_+5. O. Cr. zgze-f, with referenceto Kallisthenes , FGrHist 124F 49. "llt, O. def. or. i1u aiya; r6L Be6fuyp4orilpbo, . . .aiya x[c.*rtprevona 65c, 4.37b ,ll'l\er 41'21. t'or a qoat'shead on Derphiccoins see HN2 34o;Hsch. ripgal,dsAiTcaosis cf. stepi. Byz. Aiva. on ihe shudder of the sacrificiaranimal ::rrupu ,"" Lr..,.r3 above.
125
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
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it was it was doused with cold water' When the goat then quivered' nottakenasanodofconsent-aswouldnormallybethecaseina fe-ar'I 'egends comedy of innocence-but, rather, as a sign of quaking but also of speak oi t o* Aix, ihe "goat," mourned its father' Python'u2 insane by the n'.r* g"",r aiscoveredti'e oraclewhen they were driven apors." Thus, the goat is clearly made to correspond-to the ;;ti;'t was offering Fytf,i" heiself. When the pylhia mounted the tripod, she r,!ir"rr up to death in an expiatory act-of mourning for the_previous Python or Uttifu lt'made no difference whether the victim was called yet Dionlsus or even Apollo himself' The Pythia, a mature woman' somale dressed and adorned like a virgin,s the only woman in-a oracleno other woman wal permitted to approalh thg .i"ty-fo. the tripod almost like a sacrificial victim herself. She too to *ui l"d would shudder, her entire body would quake, but the divine presencewelledupoutoftheanguishandfear:Apotlowouldbethere and would speak. Christian polemicstried to denigratethe imageof the woman sita ting atop rising vapors by embroidering-it with sexualdetails'usEven as ouiun like pausaniascalied the Sibyl "the god's consecrated_wife," L""rct yt"r had made Apollo's relation to-Kassandraa sexualencounter;r similar ideaswere ipplied to the Pythia consortingwith Apollo.5' simulYet, in the contextof saciiiice,offering oneselfup to the god-is the.reproawakens taneouslyan encounterwith death. The "virgin" it' ductive po*"r, in what had been dead and, being posse-ssedby winof sacrifice makes this new life manifest. After the unspeakable in the shrine beside the hearth and the tripod, the t"i p"*"r^"d divine uua^sor spring mark the advent of Apollo, the embodiment of guidance. wisdom and cllarity,the source of potentially crucial Besidesthe hearth and the tripod, and even more prominent' wastheomphalos,the,,navelofttreearth,,,thesacredsymbolofthe s'?Plut. Gr' 293c. Q. s3Dod. 16.26;Plut. De def.or. 415d. aDiod.t6.z6;yuwlEur. longr;ypair'Aesch. Eum. 18;d7vi16r'oBiouPlut'Dedef'or' 4J5d'$k. sorig. cels. xo\tav;Joh. Chrysost.,Migne PG T.S66yerrlt.rrueipa6urr6tvyvvaweiav zr Suda Ptuti.19, 3r4o;cf. Fehrle(tgro)7-8,75-76; 6r..{., followedby Schol.Aristoph. (r94o), Latte, HThR K. 9-r8. Y spaus. ro.rz.z; Aesch. Ag. L2o)-L2. The prophetessat Patarais shut into the temPleat night: Hdt. r.r8z.z. Seealso Pap.Gr.Mag' r'z9r' sTplut.De pyth. or.4o5c, and cf. De sera566d;Ps.-Long.t!.z Eyrup,ovafis 6o:r'tt'oviott xafl wt a p"6v4v 6uvti P'eas.
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THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
Delphicsanctuary.$The actualomphalos was probably locatedin the adyton of the temple, next to the tripod. It was coveredwith a net-like fabric made of raw wool." Both in antiquity and today, there have beennumerousinterpretationsof this symbol. The conceptof a center of the world, expressedanthropomorphically in the image of the navel/ characteristicallydesignatesa place where sacredactions oc* c!,r; every sanctuaryis in some sensea "center." Nevertheless,the the Delphic of stone was matter a for debate.Was it a grave function Whatmonument, for Python,5lfor instance;was it a chthonic altar?62 everthe standardinterpretationsor designationsmay have been, the omphalos had one primary function in the ritual: it was the stand over which the woolen net was draped. In just this way Palaeolithic huntersspreada bearskinover a clay model, and Hermes laid out the cowskinson the rocks.u'Theomphalos,as a sacrificialmonument, belongs in the category of ritual restoration, a practice spanning the time from the ancient hunter through Greek sacrificialritual. Slaughtering the victim at the "hearth" and tearing it apart like wolves are combined with "gathering" the piecesinto the tripod kettle and spreadingthe fleece,or the goatskin,out on the stone:in the temple at Delphi, the symbols of the oracle are Hestia, the tripod, and the omphalos.The stone set up for sacrificeis the centerof the world. Every eighth year there was a festival at Delphi, which Plutarch alone describesin all its curious details.d However, becauseboth $See Harrison Qgzz) 396-4o6;Cook II (r9zl :169_93; Fontenrose Q95g 376-77;H. Y. Herrmann, Omphalos (r1Sil; J.Bousquet, BCH 75 g95r), zro'23. There is rich comParativematerialin the essaysof W. H. Roscher,Abh. Leipzig29.9g9t1l,3r.r (r9r5); Ber.kipzig 7o.z (r9t8). tlts name could be aiyis, Ael. Don. c 48, Paus.Att. a 4o, but J. Harrison called it ayprlvovwith referenceto Poll. 4.r16: BCH z4 egrn), 2.54-62. 'Ci M Eliade, Das Heiligeund dasProfanej957), zz-zg. The omphalos appears as the centerof the world in the myth of the two birds who come from either end of the world and meet there;cf. Pind. fr. 54 = Strabog p. 419;paus. ro.16.3;plut. De def. or. 4o9e. 6 Varro L.l. 7.r7; Hsch. T of iou Bouvos.Forfrescoesfrom the house of the Vettii see R.Ull ttt 3407;Fontenrose ,,tomb Diof OgSil tZS; Harrison Ggzil 4z+;EAA Vl 315.For the onysus"seeTatian8 p. Schwartz (cf. n. above). 9.t7 4r *Herrmann, Omphalos (n. 5g above). asee l.z.n.rl above. {th sourceis Plut. De def.or. 4r7e- 4r8d; seealso e. Gr. z91c;De mus. tt36a; .'^u."itt FGrHist 7oF 3tb: Strabo9 p. 4zz; Theopompos, FGrHist rrTF Bo = Ael. VH lllT..:: J'r, \-afum. h. 86-89, ry4.j4-36; cf. B. Snell, Hermes73 OSlg), +lg on pind. pae. ro; L27
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THE DELPHIC TRIPOD
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
had' Ephorus and Theopompusallude to it, we know that the festival even evidently was it in existence; been Uy ttre fourth century iong to the Pythian oider than the first Sacredfrar, for it was closelylinked year until in eighth in every held games, which were also originally a establishes ritual The fourth. every !g6 ah"V began to be celebra"ted Thesin Tempe of valley the and Delphi - t"h?ionship between ii.if.itrg was brought ;;lt f -", from ihere that the sacred laurel branch In the games' Pythian at the victor the *frich was used to crown group of large a "sacred" route' the on courseof the long pilgrimage to the festival, common to the be s-ummoned tribes and cities woul"cl the festival which Plutarch called the agon, which was precededby ;;3"pi"rio.t,"u' the festival of 'dread" ot "flight'" One might consider whether or not this was actuallya festival of the PylaicAmphictiony' to sinceit was originally centeredat Thermopylae,considerablycloser have cannot however'* period, eight-year The the valley of Tlmpe. been introduced into Delphi at tire time of the first SacredWar, for it have was then that the four-yeir interval was established.There may of an b"". u more complicatedoverlapping,basedon the foundations sepessentially ritual structure, for- even the rare and exceptional terion fiti the structure of the normal Delphic sacrificialritual: there, and too, we find a sacrificeto incur guilt, marked by flight' expiation' the return of the god. For this festival, a wooden building, a "hut" (oqvi)' which' however, "looks like an imitation of a king's or a tyrant'spala-ce"'was the circular sPacea short disbuilt on the "threshing floor" (
"dangerouscunshrine. The attack was calledthe Dolonia,* and the ning" in this name recalls the cunning and murderous exploit of Odysseusand Diomedesat Troy, when they slew Rhesus,the barbarian king, guided by the information wrested from Dolon, who was dothed in a wolfskin. Thus, at Delphi, a young boy whose Parentsare still alive, who has not as yet faced the spectreof death, is made the instrument of destruction. Mythographers tried to link this ritual to Apollo'svictory over the Python dragon,u'but, as Plutarchnoted, the detailsare incongruous. If there was a table inside the "king's building," there was surely a meal on top of it, a sacredmeal at a festival in the sanctuary-i.e., a sacrifice-a meal which was then violently destroyedand obliteratedso that no trace remained to attest to its existence. The act of overturning a table, documented here in ritual, appearsin the myths of Lykaon and Thyestes.'nLykaon's"act" is followed by the all-consumingflood; and Delphi is the other site linked to the myth of the flood,'' An exceptionalperiod, and an unsPeakable sacrifice,end suddenly and radically in ritual fire. But the rjtual here is only beginning; it must still travel a wide arc beforeit can finally overcomethe catastropheand reestablishdivine purity in the sanctuary.Thus, the young boy setsout with his retinue in the long processionto the valley of Tempe. His journey is an "erraticwandering," "a slave'swork," but at the sametime an "orgiastic" march through the land"-this could mean something like armed dancesor torch-waving. It was then taken up in the Python myth. According to the story the wounded monster fled from Apollo; the god chasedit to the valley of Tempe,where he finally killed it.'3It is a "sacredroute," uniting the Thessalians,Pelasgians,Oitaeans, Anians,Malians, Dorians, and Locrians.Finally,there was a "splendid" sacrificeat an altar on the Peneiosin the valley of Tempe, together with purificatory rites, as if a terrible stain, an unthinkable crime, had to be blotted out.7oIn the myth, this too is accomplishedby the god EPlut.
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De def. or. i1 6n r4s Aotr
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4Plut. e. Gr. rs1r. r'l"p.i 66,isHat. e .3a.2;Plut.Q. Gr. z93c.Fora list of the stopping-places and sacrifices tn Tempesee Ael. iu 3.r; cf. plut. Dedef. or.4r8b;Callim.f;.'s7,89;schol.pind. pyrft. PP.4.rr-r+Drachmann.
A GLANCE AT ODYSSEUS
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
Apollo in person.'sThe purificatory god was himself in need of purification, ior he had killed. After this, the young boy would break off a laurel branch and carry it back all the way from the valley of Tempe. Accompanied by the music of the flute, he was led through all the lands ind was received everywhere with reverenceand esteem.76 When the processionarrived in Delphi, the gamescould beginTT-the women had in the meantimeapparently performed closing rituals of their own." Apollo himself would return to Delphi at midsummer from the land of the Hyperboreans,as celebratedin the hymn by Alcaeus." Music was the primary mode of experiencingthe Delphic god's epiphany,and the musicalagon was the most important at Delphi. The violent act at the "place of putrefaction"-the ancient etymology of Pythoe-was surmounted and overcomeonce and for all through luminous order, through the beauty of art. But the order and the art themselveswere suspendedover an abyssof dread that was continuously torn open in feelings of guilt and sacrificialexpiation. Apollo would speakonly through the raving woman sitting on top of the coveredtripod.
6. A Glanceat Odysseus The oldest story of cannibalismin Greek literature is Odysseus' adventurewith the Cyclops.The extraordinarypopularity of this unforgettable,pithy tale is already attestedin the seventhcentury n'c' thr6ugh a wiroleseriesof vase-paintings.Moreover,the great massof parallels collectedby folklorists-mainly related to the odysseybwt in TsPind.fr. z49a: Tert. De cor.7.5;Callim. fr. 89;Aristonoosl:'7, p. l^6l Powell. 76Ael.VH 3.r; cf. Plut. De mus.rr36a;Callim.fu' t9436. TBefore 586, they were ennaeteric:see Schol. Pind. Pyth. P. 4.14 Drachmann;Censorinus 18; Schol. Od. 1.z67.The cettilptov took place "shortly before" the Pythian games:seePlut. De def. or. 4toawith 4r8a. ^Tpeis . . . ivvaer1piias xcrd ro if4s, Septerion,Herois, Charila, see Plut' Q Gr zg3b-f. Plutarch,simprecisestatementmakesit possible,though not certain, that the Herois and Charila were celebratedbeforethe Pythian games(Fontenrose[1959]458) DAlcaeus 3o7Lobel-Page: Himer. Or. 48.ro-rr. nHy.Ap.163.
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part also exhibiting more primitive featuresl-g2n hardly be overiooked. One might be tempted to considerthe story of the man-eater an almost universal folk motif, and hence not look for closeties with such myths as those of Lykaon, Thyestes, or Tantalos. But more carcfulconsiderationuncoversa whole seriesof strange correspondences,leading us to suspect a specific ritual structure underlying this masterpieceof early Greek song. First of all, we notice the decisiverole played by a ram, a sacrifiClinging to the ram'sfleeceand hidden beneathit, Odysanimal. cial able to escapethe terrifying cave. The fact that he pro-p1ly is seus his rescuer to Zeus must gravely offend any animalJover; sacrifices acted no differently.The idea of tying men under the belPhrixos but is worthy sheep of the mind that conceivedof the wooden of fies just as impractical. Here, a whole group of those parallel horse-and versionsseemto offer us something more ancient:threatenedby the man-eater,men concealthemselvesin the skins of slaughteredanimalsand thus, disguisedas animals,escapethe groping hands of the blinded monster.2In this case,necessityforced them to kill their rescuers, and it had to be done before the escape.Here, in order to achievefreedom, man must identify himself with the slaughteredanimal. If we presume this version behind the adventure oi odyste.,s, the correspondenceswith the cult in the cave of Cheiron on Mount Pelion,and with the sheep-sacrifice for Cyprian Aphrodite,, are quite close.The fact that Odysseuswas named by hii grandfather, who in so doing attempted to fix his own nature i., -otds, also becomes significant,for his grandfather was Autolykos, the wereworf from Parnassus.n The poet of the Odysseydid not understand it in this way. But eventhe name Odysseus, Olytteus,is clearly non-Greek.sThe myth of uclysseusleads us back not just to pre-Homeric times but to sources outsideGreece.Now, a Greek inteipreter once made a strange conifor.ltr;-vase-naintings
see Schefold e96g pl. r (Eleusinian amphora found ry54);45
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WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
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] r 6 i'
llfrl l ll,
nection between the Odysseyand the Samothracianmysteries:"They sav Odvsseuswas initiated at Samothraceand thereforewore the veil of-Leucotheainsteadof a fillet. For the initiatesat samothracetie pur6 ple fillets around their abdomen." It was commonly believedthat the gods of Samothracewould save their initiates from drowning.? Alihough virtually no details of the secret initiation are known, the coins point us toward one fact: the centralevent was the sacrificeof a ram.'-Wearingthe woolen fillet was linked to a bath' Aside from this, there are only various myths connected with Samothrace.These, howevet reveal a series of striking analogiesto Odysseus. Just as Dardanus came from an island on a raft (o1e6ta)nat the time of the great flood to found llion-Troy, so Odysseusleft Calypso's"Ogygian" island-a name still unexplainedand enigmaticin the context of the Odyssey.Ogygos, however,is elsewhereknown as Boeotia'sancestral king, who lent his name to the most ancient Greek flood legend."' This makesthe parallelbetweenthe journeys of Dardanusand Odysseus on the raft even closer.Ever since the most ancient times, the sanctuary of the Cabiri played a central role in Boeotia. One can hardly separateCadmus from Cadmilus;" moreovet his wife Harmonia" links the myth directly with Samothrace'Among the grotesque vase-paintingsfound in the BoeotianCabirion, scenesfrom the OdrTssey crop up with surprising frequency.The best known is a vase on which "Olyteus," driven by "Borias," sails the seaon a primitive raft, with Poseidon'strident in hand." Are Poseidonand Odysseus, the 6 S c h o l .A p o l l . R h o d . r . 9 r 7 x c i ' O 6 u o o i o 6 i , p a c t p e p ' u r l p t v o u i v 2 a p ' o S p g x p y p 1 ' r u oBat rQ xpniip,vtp dvri raruias.llepi yap rilv xot),iau o[ pep"vqp'6votrawias rirrotxrt ropgupds. Schol. P Od. 538t mentions a "goat island," Aiyo.i. r),qoiov2apotpQxns' According to Aristotle ft. 57g = Schol' Apoll Rhod' t 9r7, Samothrace was called 1\euxoaia. TSee the anecdote of the atheist Diagoras or Diogenes, Diog. Laert. 6.59. On Samo' thrace see N. Lewis, Samothrace:The Ancient Literary Sources(1958); Hemberg (r95o),
1
,I
49-737. sHemberg (t95o), toz, to9. 'Lyk. 74-8o with Schol. 7l; Schol. Plat. Tim. zza. 10N4oou dr''Ayvyirls Od.6.:,7z, and cf. r.85,7.244, 254, t2..448, 4.111; U'v Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Homerischt Llntersuchungen$88$, 16-17. On Ogygos see Korinna 67r Page; Paus. 9.5.r; as Cadmus' father see Suda ro rz. On the OgyS'ln flood see Schol. Plat. Tim. zza; Varro in Cens. zr.r; cf. Jacoby in Philochoros, FGrHist 3z8F 92. "Hemberg GgSo) gS, 3r6-t7. l'?Hellanikos, FCrHist F z3; Ephoros, FGrHist 7oF rzo; cf' RE VII 2179-88. 4 '3Oxford skyphos, Cook III (r94o), r.6o.R. StiSlitz, "Herakles auf dem Amphorenfloss'
r32
A GLANCE AT ODYSSEUS
god and his victim, paradoxicallyequatedhere?since archaictimes, odysseus' iconography has, with strange consistency,included the circular,pointed hat, the pilos, otherwise worn by Fiephaestusand his sons, the Cabiri, and further by the Dioscouii, ,"iro ur" them_ selvesGreat Gods. was odysseus involved in the mysteries of the Cabiol?In any case,the Cyclopeswere also among Hephaestus,com_ panions.rnAnd the pilos was made "from the wool of i sacrificialani1s tnal," rhe initiate remains clothed in the symbol of the sacrifice. Whatever these sp_ecific parallelsprove or make probable, more important yet is the fact that the structure of odysseus, ,,sufferings" quite obvior ^ly correspondsto the werewolf pitt".., that turns up again and again from Delphi to Mount Lykaion. Odysseus,life reachesa turning point when he witnessesthat "unspeaiable,,cannibalisticmeal in the cave, far from human civilizatibn. In a series of parallel versions, the hero is forced to share in the meal of human flesh''6After con-tinuingas a symposium, the gruesomefeast is swiftly and violently brought to a closl by fire undth" invention of man'sprimordial weapon, fhe spearhardenedby fire." odysseus escapesbeneaththe fleeceof the ram, but his homecomingis now delayed.Like the Delphic boy, he too must go far u-uy; ur,jlike the Arcadianwerewolf, he must Jinger in unknown lands for nine years beforebeing able to return home. The fact that odysse.rr, ."r..r" u.the Cyclops' curseand poseidon,sangea an incompre_ IT-y'r:ron"s nenslblemoral paradox, rests on a ritual foundation. The raft carries Odysseusto new shores, and, finally, homeward through the sea. His arrival establishesa new order in ilace of cha os,"atthE waning of the old moon, and the start of the new,, 1sThe king regains po*". ut Osterr.lahresh. ++(rSSg),712- 47.At Erythrai, Heraklesappearedon a ole6rla: paus. 7.5.5. tOt ..IO,. portraysthe Cyclopesalreadyas smiths;the relationshipof theseCyclo_ 3:t with pe^s those of od. 9 is an old ii1n'pa. ody.se,-,, already appears with a p'os on the re8of a tripod at Olympia ca. 6oo n.c.: seeSchefold(ry6g tig. zg p. 7r.The man who vanquishesthe ogre is, in many parallelversions,a smith (#+6, +2, f, 6j, 64,73, 74 Polyphimsag:e), and the blinding is often carriedout with morten rnetal;the Xackman, \ablri are smithv-eod.s. Dso with the pitreJs,sometimes calledgalerus,of thelramenDiaus:see Varro in Geil. 10'ts 3t; suetoniusin serv._a.ct.Aen.2".6g3;Festus s.rr.arbogarerusp. ro M.; E. samrer, ramilienfeste derGriechen und Rijmer(reorl, ia_3,r'. t",.ut and cf. #8, :'9, 58,7t, rro Hackman, poly1tnsasage. "1l."_] (1196),zg _ 85. oiu.."u., ua. r4.t62, 79.Jo7.
733
til )
/rlr "'l
I lil,lI
lh,
li',1 1,,
1t
i L L
l
i
WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE
the festival of Apollo,'n by fighting with his bow In his transformation, Odysseusjburneys between the antithesesof Poseidon'srealm and Apoilo's. Opposing the wild and far-offlands is the power of justice at home; opposing the man-eater'sgreed, the cruel but just vengeanceiopposing the predator'sattackat closequarters, the technol6gy of *eapo.rs lhat cun be used at a distance.In either casethere is, oI.onrr", lilling, whether it be that of Poseidon'sson or that in the grove of Apollo. Evenculture, in its antithesisto anti-culture,is based on sacrifice. Eduard Meyer2odemonstratedlong ago that a whole seriesof cultic reminiscenceslink Odysseusand Penelopewith Arcadia. There, too, in the cult, we find the antithesisof Poseidonand Apollo, an antithesis also present in one version of the Delphic legend'" The connectionsthat have cropped up simultaneouslywith the Cabiri, Samothrace,and Troy point to pre-Helleniccultural levels,remnants of which persistedboth in a non-Greekform in Samothraceand Lemnos and in a Greek guise in Arcadia and Delphi. It is hardly feasibleto try to determine a more specificnationalorigin, for if we find tracesas far back as Qatal Hriytik and beyond, then the patterns themselves must be older than any national differentiationaccessibleto scholarship. what we find is the antithesisof agricultureand city culture to the societyof the predator,which breaksin upon the everydayworld on sacredoccasions,only to disappearagain:humanity assertsitself againstthe wolves, and civilization risesuP out of perversion,as day follows night. For that very reason, daylight PresuPPosesthe existenceof night. Ritual must constantlyreestablishthe deadly outdoor realm of the hunting era within the circle of civilization, both to call that civilization into question and to renew it. Both are divine, and perhapsboth aspectsof sacrifice,the dread of death and the certainty of life, are subjectto the samegod. t'Od. zo.z76;cf . 18.6oo,zo.t56,z5o,zt 258-59;Wilamowitz, Llomerische Untersuchungen (n.ro above),1.77-14. nHermes (1895), 261-7o;E. Wtist, RE XVII agro-t'2. Cf. PR II 1o5o-59' For the 3o horsesof Odysseusat Pheneossee Paus. 8.r4.5, and cf. 8.44.4;in addition see the strange genealogy of Penelope-Panin Pind. fr. roo. 2rForthe myth of Thelpusa see Paus. 8.25.4-5; there is a correspondingmyth ot Poseidon(*hol. A lt. 4346) and cult of Apollo (Strabo9 p- 4t:'; Hy. Ap. 244-76' j75-8il at Boeotian Tilphusion; see also Burkert i97g) rz5-tzg. For Poseidon as the patron god of the Delphic oracle, who exchangedDelphi for Kalaureia, Eumolpia,see Faus.ro.5.6,2.33.2;Callim. (r. 593.For an altar of Poseidonat Delphi seePaus'70'24'4'
134
Ir
[,tr,
il. DISSOLUTIONAND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
We have traced the two-sided nature of sacrifice-the encounter with death and the will to live-in a group of rituals characterizedon the one hand by the act of cooking a ram in a kettle, and on the other by the oppositionsamong the participantsand the play between exclusion and membership. A similar dramatic structure occurs when the two parts follow sequentially; only the terrifying central act answeredby an affirmation of order must be constant.In one group of rituals centeringon the sacrificeof a bull, women and girls uis,rrn" u specialrole in which they move from lovely to gloomy ispects. Here, the three parts of the sacrificialaction-preparation, ,,act,;,restitution -are expandedinto three related festivalsthat can be characterized as.:(r) a symbolicsacrificeof a girl; (z) an "unspeakablesacrifice,,;and $) a sacrificeof renewal. The rhythm of anticipatory renunciation, followedby the savage"act" artd.,iinally,pleasurable fratification, reuectsthe age-oldsituation of the hunter. In the city-culture,however, tj_t..ty-|glically transformed into a New year'sfestival following a period of dissolution, that is, a breakdown of the normal order. The same.structureappearsin Dionysiacorgies, almost as an atavisticregression.And, further on, we encounter the customs of fishermen w-ho, although situated somewhere between hunting and city culrures, adapted themselvesto the same tradition. Thr6ugh changing economicand social conditions, the fundamental structure of rituar remains.
135
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
to the r. FromOx-Slaying Festiaal Panathenaic DIPOLIEIA The polis of Athens plays a unique role in Greek literature. This city, with its love of writing, has left us by far the greatestnumber of inscriptions. For a time, it attractedthe best artists, and it dominated the production of painted pottery for centuries.Thus, nowhere are cults so well documented.But the confusingvariety of religious phenomena makes us all the more consciousof the limits of our knowledge. People talked about far less than they experienced-either becausethey thought it self-evident,or becauseof a certain apprehension. Moreover,those books that dealt specificallywith Attic cult survive only in a few fragments.Our picture of festivalsin Athens is richer and more varied than that of festivalselsewhere,but for that very reasonit is more confused,and it is still only fragmentary. In Athens, almost every day had its festival or sacrifice.lOut of all these sacrifices,one stood out by virtue of its singular, even grotesque, features:the Buphonia, "ox-slaying," for "Zeus of the City" (Ard[Io),r.ei).This occurred on the fourteenth day of Skirophorion in midsummer, at the altar of Zeus on the highest spot of the Athenian Acropolis.'The festival, though distinguishedby its date in the midlOn the Athenian sacralcalendar,recordedby Nikomachosat the end of the fifth cenHistoricalSociety7r (tgSllSZ), 3-36; Hesperia tury 8.c., see S. Dow, Proc. Massachusetts (196r), 58-71. 3o 20. Band, De Diipoliorum sacroAtheniensium$87); Smith (1894) 3o4-3o6; H' v' Prott, RlrM 5z(t8g), r87-zo4; Farnell I (t896) 56-58,88-91; Nilsson (19o6)r4-$; (rg5) r5z-55; Harrison (rgzz) rrr-t3; $927) r4z-5o; Deubner(rg1z) t'58-74;Cook lll DasWort ggais 57o-s71;Meuli (1946)275-77;w. F. otto, Paideuma 4Og5o),ttt-26: der Antike Q96z), r4o-6u U. Pestalozza,"Le origini delle Buphonia ateniesi," Rend' I (1968),274-BJ'On the name deII'Inst.Lomb.89l9o(tgS6),+ll-S+, M. Mauss, Oeuures Lmo|ieta (on Ardzrotrr.eisee Deubner lrq6zl r58) see IG I'?841 : LS 17 Ab (taken from the official festival calendar recorded by Nikomacnos; cf . J. H. Oliver, Hesperia+Itglr/l,. y); lG 12r88 : LSSro A 16 (IG I'?839 : LSSz Ac is uncertain;Aristoph' Pax 4zoshodd Nub. q8+).For the date see lS r79; Schol. Aristoph' iead Arno)rlet';but cf. Arzrotrrrir6, Pax 4rg; Et. M. zro.3o= Et. Gen.(ts' ratherthan t6' An Bekk.48'zr)' The idea that the 'A1rtvq, Schol. Aristoph. lVrb. of 985, is a misreading Buphonla were celJbrated, d1
a36
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
dle of the month, by its high location, and by the name of the highest god, was anything but bright and cheerfully devout. Its very name iugg"rtr what the ritual subsequentlymakes tangible: a guiit-laden crime-but one which could not be taken seriously,and so becamea farce which seemed to fit neither Zeus, nor the Acropolis, nor the prytaneum, Tgr-y"Ja glorified picture of the primordial age. yet people kne* and felt that the custom was old. Ai early as Ariitophanes,3 ihe epithets "Dipolieia-like" and "full of Buphonia,, signified antiquatedhabitsand old-fashionednonsensethat modern youths wished to discard.But (though modified in its details)'the Dipolieia survived until the time of the Roman emperors.s Thanks mainly to one report, probably going back to Theophrastus,5we can trace the details of this sacrificein a way that is seldom possible.A whole group of oxen would be driven up to the Acropolis. As always, the processionincluded water carried by young girls (66po96pot),sacrificialgrain, and the sacrificialknife. At the saired place,the sacrificialanimal would not immediately be placed at the center.Rathe.r,the oxen had to circle the altar' on which the grainsacrifice-a kind of meal or cake-had been set (seeFigure 6).; One would think the god was being offered the fruits of agriculture.There 'A$fiu'4cru Schol.Aristoph. Pax 4r9, just as the puzzlingp"erard p.vorilpn (Deubner [r91zl 16.) in the samescholioncomesfrom pax 4rgwith its scholion. 3Nab' 984-85 dpyo,ia ye xai auro\uit}q xai rertiyav duap.eora xcd K4xel6ou xai pougovi-av.The myth attributesthe sacrificeto Kekrops(Euseb.Hieron. chron. a. Abr. 472; Hsch.Ads Bdxor.)or Erechtheus(paus.r.z8.ro). For the oldestinscriptionalsource see lG I'?839: LSSz (ca.5oon.c.). 'Cf. n. 8. sPaus. r.24.4,z8.ro; for a calendarfrieze seeDeubner : t;'z) zy pl. 39. Abst..z.z8-1o;tracedback to Theophrastusby J. Bernays, Theophrastos' Schrift ,.|..p-h: uw. frdmmigkeit(1866), 127_24;cf. F. Jacobyon FGrHist 3z4F 16 (Supplement: Notes Pritscher,Theophrastos LEPI EYL'EBEIA2 es64), 84-86, tz}-32. Following l:?11t rrott, Deubner (1932),who felt ill at easewith this text, discountediis importance "skrupellos fingiert" r69. This skepticismis refuted by newfound evidence !1ol7o), o-r, rather,by evidencethat Deubnerdid notiake into account;cf. n. 7 below. on a seriesof black figure vasesby the Geta painter (ca. lD^:Yt:j:, 5rol48on.c.):see t-ook III (r94o)58r-82; G. Bakalakis,AK tz (ig69),56-6o. Further, H. Oliver read in J. a rragmentof the Nikomachean calendar(seen. r above),IG lr gg : Hesperia 4 \a%il, 3z ciz
137
DISSOLUTION
il /1li , , 1
Nr rim
I]III ;l t'
I
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
was indeed a time "when people shrank from eating oxen, and offered no animals in sacrifice,but, rather, cakesand the fruits of the earth soakedin honey and other such pure sacrifices"'-or such was the conclusion drawn already by Plato and more consequentlyby Theophrastus from the introductory part of the sacrifice' Yet this "pure offering" was merely a prelude, if not actuallyan excuseor bait for the violent act. By now the axekept in the shrine would have been polished with the water brought for the occasion.[t was simply a question of waiting until one of the animals turned to the altar and, following its instincts,ate the grain. The ox itself thus broke the tabu "' and sinned against the god and his altar. After this, the "ox-slayer" would swing his axe, the bull would fall. There are severalversionsof the legend telling how the first "ox-slaying" resulted from the spontaneous rage of a devout farmer when a greedy ox disrupted the sacred act. The killer's name varies-Thaulon, Sopatros,Diomos-but the motivation and the act remain constant,for they are played out in the ritual." To Aratus. this bull-sacrificemarked the closeof the Silver Ag";" the seeming idyll ended in "sacred" bloodshed.We know today that Theophrastus and many other romantics were deluding themselvesabout the development of mankind: it was far more a question of old hunting instincts breaking through the thin crust of civilization. Aggressionhad long been held back behind the sacredness of the altar-sacrifice was expectedand finally done. But this new step recoiled at once upon the actors. The "oxslayer" (Bovrvros) who administeredthe fatal blow then threw away his axe and fled. Pausaniasdescribesthis as the normal custom, as
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
doesthe legend, whether speakingof Sopatrosor Thaulon.13Banish_ rnent had been the price for spilling blood since ancient times; the Greekscalled it "flight," 9u74. Thus, the biologicalmechanism that rnakesaggressionchange to flight was institutionalized as law.'nAt the Buphonia, the one who performed the sacrificial"act" would run away and not return. The remaining participants,happy to be rid of him, could now enjoy the fruits of his action: after the animal had collapsed,the''carvers" would skin it with a knife, cut it up, and remove its bowels. The meat was evidently roastedand eatenit once. In this way, all participantswere irrevocablyimplicated in the sacrifice.The most detailed of the etiological legends, however, was unable to stomachthis meal. In this version, Sopatros"buried,, the bull whole, but the full offenseappearsonly in what follows: an oracleinsertedin the narrative ordered the Athenians not to atone for the crime, but insteadto repeatit and, what is more, to eat the sacrificialanimal.'sBy making the "act" a collectiveundertaking, Sopatroscould ease his Thus, everyonenow participatedaccordingto his group, conscience.'6 which represented one of the old Athenian familieJ: the ,lvaterbearers,"the "goaders" driving the ox to the altar, the ,,ox-slayers,,, and the "carvers."1'ZAllwould work togetheraccordingto theirioles;
'Plat. Leg.78zc. roThesacrificialbull for Zeus Polieuson Cos is chosen(rprrlels)from many which are driven through the marketplace:SIC ao25= LS r5r A r9: Bietat 66, ai p"67xa iro' xi$et r&t,'loilat; this is usually understoodas though a secondsacrifice,for Hestta, But the larger were inorganicallyinserted(E. FarmerCraik,Par.del Pass.zz11967),442). contextof the festivalfor Zeus Polieussuggeststhe translation"it is sacrificedif it bows its headto Hestia,"i.e., turns toward the statehearthat the market.Afterward, "Hestra is reimbursed"(z) for the price of the bull, that is, the sacrificialanimalis bought from the goddess(L 5. n. 38above).In this interPretationwe must accePta doublet, 20-22 + 49-.54,in which the ytptl areoncepresentedbriefly, oncein detail. ttFor Thaulon see Androtion, FGrHist 3z4F 16 with the parallelscited by lacoby; for SopatrosseePorph. Abst.z.z8-3o; for Diomos seeibid. z.ro, repeatedin 2.29,which, for Heraklesat the Diomeia (Aristoph howevet belongsclearlyto the cattle-sacrifice Everysacrificeof a bull is a "primeval crime." Ran.65r;Steph. Byz. s.u. Kynosarges). r2Aratus7Jr-J2. To kill a plow-ox was considereda crime at Athens:Ael. VH 5.74;Co' lumella 6 praef. 7; Schol. Od. 12.351.
r3Paus.r.24.4;for the legend see Porph. Abst.z.z9; Thaulon guTa6eurleisschol. T I/. 18'483'on ritual flight after the sacrificesee Tenedos,IIr.4.n.zobelow; Delphi, II.s '6iuypa; fithorea, Paus. ro.3z.r7;Tegea,paus. 8.53.3;Thesmophoria,Hsch. 1.58; Crete,Zenob. Ath. 2.7 = Zenob. Par.5.5o (paroem.Gr. I r+r); tl. 3/4 below. In paint_ ings, Hephaestusfleesat Athena'sbirth: seecook III (rg4o) 656-726-philoktetes flees after_havinglit Herakles'pyre; Cook III (r94o) 5t6 = ARV, r-4zo.5.ForRome see the Ke$tugium and Poplifugia.Cf. Meuli (1946)277;Burkert, Historian (t962), 36g_69. rites concerningBuzygesand the palladion processionat Athens: Burkert, :91' lh:und Geistesgeschichte zz (rg7o), 356-68, reflected in the ,,flight,, ::t:schrif:..fiir.Religio.nsano purificationof king Demophon. Abst. z-zgl"rclc.1"irors rt. rott reBveuros xai p.i1 xrtrrrcyoiotv-"to restrain i}tqL, oneself" (xo.raoaeiv)or abstainis explicitlyforbidden at this sacrifice.Deubner found tnts "ungeheuerlich"(t6Z; cf. n. 6 above). toino rp
88
r39
I Itrr ill
DISSOLUTION
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
all ate the meat except the one who killed. The bones were subsequently burned on the altar; only the skin remained' releThere followed an epilogue emphasizing the event,ssocial state at the is' vance. A trial was held ai the center of the polis' that altar' hearth in the prytaneum, for the crime of having kille-dat the sharphad who "Here, the women water-bearerschargedthat those these in ened the axe and the knife were more guilty than they' and the charged he i.tt" .nutg"d him who had handed them the axe' and the charged this man whJhad cut up the ox, and he who had done murder'" of " knife which, sinceii could not speak,was found guilty The "ox-slayer," who would otherwise have been the first to be blamed, naa Rea and could not be found' Allegedly' no one-knew him. According to Pausanias,the axe was made to stand trial' but acquitted; accordingto porphyry the knife was castinto the sea.These two acts seemmore complementarythan contradictory'Both the axe and the knife play a part in the sacrifice:"the knife alone cannot kill the bull, nor tlre u*" rkir, it. Becausethe life-forcesseemto ebb away with the blood, it is natural that the knife should be found more guilty than the axe. The knife was, moreover,smaller and more easily obtainable.The axewould presumablyhavebeen kept elsewhere,in the the shrine, as a primordial iymbol of consecratedviolence' A plow' on just this-way in kept be primordial piow of its inventor,was said to and it, front of out in ih" R.ropoiis. The stuffed ox_skinwas spread thus the iacrificial animal had "risen from the dead."'oOstensibly,the 18'483; Eust r156 59; Hsch (Dautrovidat; Suda r9 67)' 1z4F r6(cf. Agallis Schol. T Il. in Thessaly: cook III which links the Bouriros to the Thaulonidai (cf. Zeus oautrtos Ir94ol,z77-$;Hsch.(9au\ros,Cd.Oo0g'os'z)@aulos"'{p4sNlaxe6dutos'(Dcu}ta' How this competition between the two families is to be smoothed iopr1.Toporrivot...\. (1889)' r49*58; Cook over is stiil a problem: see A. Mommsen (1898), 521'-22i Toepffer has probably been III (r94o). 596'.97. Hsch. pour4s' 6 rois Atzotrlors ra Bougovn 6priu the Roman During lll Cook [r94o] 589) .onf.rsea *ith Bor",ltos (Deubner lr91zlt6z; lIlIIl2 zrz8.z, ztzg.z, ztg.'a.^. F<>r 1G attested: is Aaxparci6ris peis ie a Empire, Bourinros a seat [epdos ALosflo)rrios in the theater, see IC ll/lllr 5oz4' t8Porph. Abst.2.1o, and cf. Ael. VH 81 (probably taken from Theoprastus); Paus' r.zS.rooEizetrerusrc.pavrtxad.gd}tlxplt}eisxaieisro6edvar,elvttosxptvetat. The pounlros is "not known": see Paus r'24 4' rrCook III both zitrerus and ptllarpo. Both [rg4o], 585. Porph. Abst. z.1o mentions the court at the upp"u. o. ui"lief-depicting a sacrifice: Cook III (rg4o) z8 fig' 7 On knife see Eur' Hik prytaneion see Demosth. i3.76. For the burying of ihu ru.*i.ial Izo8. rz,<-r52oThisonly in Porph. Abst.z.zg, 3o.A pou{irnls i( dxpono\eas is mentioned in Aristro' Serv auct Aen 4'4oz' For Or. z I zoDindorf. For Athena as inventor of the plow see Hdt' Scyihians' victim: 4 72; at the Altaic horse' sacrificial the of the skin spreading out
"1,
r40
IHE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
pre-sacrificialsituation was restored.But even if the famous mealsin ihe prytaneum were essentiallyvegetarian,2'nobodycould forget that he was no longer living in a Golden Age. The extraordinary featuresof this sacrificialfestival seem to require extraordinary interpretations:is this bull a totem animal, or a vegetationdemon which must be killed at the harvest festival, or Perhaps even Zeus himself?" There is doubtless some truth in all of theseexplanations,but by following any one of them, we risk becoming entangled in the religious-historicalproblem of what something ti"t'_-vrrd is that not simply inventing a new mythology to explain the old? Evidencefor the identity of the god and the sacrificialanimal can be adducedfrom the outer limits of the Greek world and, in allusions, even from Greece itself. But in this case, as long as Athenians spoke Greek, they referred concretelyto an "ox" that would be "killed" for "Zeus of the Crty," LLi flo),rei. Karl Meuli lodged a strong protest againstisolating the Buphonia ritual and interpreting it in exceptionalways," for he saw that the festival'sbasicrhythm was absolutelyparallel to that of a more straightforward, "normal" sacrifice, from its "beginning" with water and grain to the final "setting-up" and consecrationof the remains, The comedyof innocencewas merely broader-a fact which incidentally confirms that something very ancient and fundarnental is surfacing here, not a "new custom," the creation of a refined sensibility,as Deubner2n claimedin reactionto the bold theoriesadvancedby historians of religion. The strange and eccentriccharacterof this ritual remains," but sacrifice,UdG IX 287;at the bear festival,Meuli (1945)zz9, and cf. Cook I (r9r4) r85. The Coan LexSacradictatesthat iu6opa Euitperat, on which see Stengel(r9ro) 85-9r. SinceIG I':843 1: LS r7) mentionswood in connectionwith KHPYKEI and Dipolieia, the remainswere probablvburnt. 2'Ath. r37e, u.rd .i. .r. 48 telow. zFor "the specialdeity of an ox-clan"seeFarnellI (1896)58.For the vegetationspirit see W. Mannhirdt, Mytiotogische (fi84), 58-7t; GB VIII 4-7. fo, tne Uutt : Forschungen z.eusseeCook IIf (r94o)6o5-6o6,and cf. P.Philippson, Thessalische Mythologie994$, 5r-53. 8i946) 275-76. 2o(tg1z) r71. b.Hunters and nomads too, besidestheir "ordinary" rituals, have extraordinarysacrificialfestivalsat which the actsof incurring guilt anclmaking reparationare playedout in detail;this appliesto the elephantfestivalimong the Pygmies(seeI.7.nn.44, above), !r Uu". festival(seel.z.n.5 above),the horse-sacrifice among the Indo-Europeanpeollu ples,the Altaiansand the Mongols (seeI.7.n.5oabove).
L47
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
iill
ii,l
rlill
llli l
we can come closerto understanding it by taking a look at the officia Attic calendar.The Buphonia fell on the fourteenth day of Skirophorion, at the full moon in the last month of the year' It was thus the year's last major festival. Since the calendarat Athens, as in many parts of Greeceand the Near East,was ordered accordingto the agricultural year-wherein the New Year comes in the summer, in the interval betweenharvestand sowing time-the celebrationof the DiBut the predominanceof polieia presupposesthe end of the harvest.26 such paradoxical,uncanny featuresat a "harvest festival,"where gratification and joy would ordinarily prevail, cannot be explainedas agricultural. We must look, rather, to the very serious concept of an "end." Even for modern man, the end of the year, hovering between transitory past and uncertain future, is a peculiarly stirring experience. Its impact on ancient man as a time of transition, uncertainty, and crisis was far more immediate. Ever since calendarswere invented, the beginning that accompaniesthe New Year has been simultaneously actedout in city government. In Near Easternmonarchies, for instance,the king temporarily abdicated." In the Greek polis, new officialscame to power-at Athens, this means the archon, the king, the polemarch, as well as the guardiansof the laws and the generals.Trials in criminal court-the most stirring eventsin the field of law-could not be carriedover from one year to the next.28 There was a caesura.The new archon began by proclaiming that "whatever possessionsanyone held before his entry into office, he shall have and keep until he stepsdown from his office."'"This proclamation of such continuing security simultaneously curtailed and limited it to the archon'sterm of office. It almost sounds as though anything was allowed in the break between the old and the new: whatever anyonecould quickly snatchup, he could forthwith keep; and the remnantsof such customsdo indeed exist.m 26Theconnectionwith the harvest is more evident in the sacrificeof a bull for zeus Sosipolisin Magnesia,SIGr589 : LSAM 32, inasmuchas the bull is brought beforethe god "at the start of the sowing" in order to be sacrificedin early summer (after the harvest?);seeNilsson$95) t55-56. 27Forthe BabylonianNew Year'sritual see ANET yr-14; S. A. Pallis, TheBabylontan Akitu Festiaaljgz6). 'z6Antiphon6.4r, 44. n Arist. Ath. PoI. 56.2. sThus, Ptolem'ylV absolvedall debts and gaveamnesty for all crimeson New Year's Day (Oct. 91, rb6" c., after the victory and birth of the successorto the throne' The a42
THE PANATHENAIC
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Even when civic life becametoo stableto permit such legal vagaries, the cleft between the old and the new remained; ind"eed,it was ritual that marked it out. In the Inws, plato wanted the last month of the year dedicatedto Pluto, the god of death. He too had to be honored, for dissolution is no less good o. necessarythan new life.3'what in Plato'shands becamea belief in individual immortalitv was first applied primarily to society,which renewed itself through periodic dissolution. Such an act of "dissolution,,was performed 6y the_com,munity in the ceremonyof slaughteringthe ox, where, at the end of the agricultural year, the farmer's animal helper becamethe victim. Here, far beyond the capacitiesof normal saciifice,the ritual illuminatesboth the horror of killing, from which man tries to escape by fleeing or throwing the blame on others, and the sacrednu."rrity that is ineluctable.All must play their parts until the communal meai, for life can assertitself only through food taken from life: hence the blood spilled on the heights in honor of Zeus of the City.
SKIRA The contextin which the Dipolieia festivalis thus set extendsyet further. At Athens, the last month of the year was not called Buphonion32but skirophorion, after the skira festival.33 It was cerebratedon the twelfth day of Skirophorion, i.e., immediately precedingthe Buphonia;y and, on closeinspectionit turns out that the skirais almost the mirror-image of the Buphonia. To be sure, the former refers to Athena, Erechtheus,and Demeter,and the latter to Zeus, but it will new order of law in the ancientmonarchieswas thought to start with the king'saccession to the throne, which was renewedon New yeari Day; cf. L. Koenen, Aich. pa_ f. pyrusforschung 17 Q96o),r r - 16.For five days' dvopia at the deathof a persianking, see Sext.Mafh. z111,; Stob.4.2.26. 3tLeg. 8z8c-d. 32For the month Buphonion on Delos see IG Xl z.zo3 A 32, 5z;on Tenos see 1G XII 5.842.r,826;at Karystossee IG Xll 9.2o7.39. $C. Robert,'Athena Skirasund die Skirophorien,,, Hermeszo(18,85), )4g-7g;A. R. van der Loeff, "De Athena Scirade,"Mnemoiynen.s. 44 (1916),7o7-72;,,DeSciris,,,ibid., 322-37;E. Gjerstad,"Das attischeFestder Skira,,,ARW z7 ,.9z), rg9_z4o;Deubner (193-2)/ 40-50; Burkert, Hermes94 eg66), 4-24; all sourcesin Jacobyon FGrllisf 3zg F t4 (III B Supplement286-89).For the date see Schol.Aristoph. Eccl'.rg. t: oJtena free day betweenconsecutivefestivals(forthis principle at Romesee , Il": fl:to], r99): the middle day at the Thesmophoriais free-N4o""io, preparatron TT" or the KcA,lttTiy*a sacrifice(Deubner 'rq6zl 5z).
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not do to separatethe festival rituals accordingto the individualized namesof the gods. only the ritual'stotal rhythm can communicateits message,just as it takes the totality of gods to make the world. The most prominent featurein the Skirais a processionwhich, in its way, is once again peculiar. Beneatha canoPy,"the priestessof Athena and the priests of Poseidonand of Helios set off from the Acropolis toward a place called Skiron. The Eteobutadaicarry the canopy."" The priests are those of the central gods of the Acropolis: Poseidon-Erechtheusand Athena Polias. Accordingly, the priestess and the priest enjoyed a specialposition-the latter always belonged to the family of the Eteobutadai.After being destroyedin the Persian Wars, the joint temple of Athena and Erechtheuswas finally replaced by the Erechtheum.Already in the Odyssey,Athena was said to have entered the "house of Erechtheus."" The Skira procession,by contrast, is strangely reversed. It does not go toward this most holy shrine, but away from it to Skiron, on the city limits in the direction of Eleusis.The priests walk beneath a canopy,conspicuous,sheltered, and isolated. The king and the goddessof the city forsake Athens, leaving it abandoned.The fact that the priest of the sun accompanies them may be a Hellenistic innovation, yet it is even more an exPression of the idea of departure: the summer solsticeis past and Helios begins to decline;the year is gradually drawing to a close.About the same time, the emperor Elagabal,a Syrian sun-priest, celebratedhis main festival with a processionin which the sun god departed from his main shrine in the city and moved to one outside it'3'At Skiron 3sLysimachides, FGrHist : Harpokr' s.a 2xipov, who found mention ol2xipov 366F 3 (tr. schol. (R) Aristoph. Eccl. tS2xipa Eopril iortu ri1< B.-s.). Lykurgos orator in the a7 'Ar94uris . . . oi 6i Lilpqrpos xcd Kdp4s- iv i1 6 tep6ys roil'Epeyfltas giptt lrrpc!$os
there was a shrine of Demeter and Kore and one of Athena. There rnust have been some sort of ram-sacrifice at the skira like those often attested for the cult of Kore, for those leading the procession, the Eteobutadai, carry the mysterious "ramskin of Zeus,,, the Aros xQitov, in which the complex of guilt and purification seems to crystallize.38 The few remaining descriptions of the festival agree, inasmuch as they point to a dissolution, an inversion of the normal order. Skiron was proverbially the site of dice-games and general licenser'-in this way the men would while away the hours in the period of fasting,^ for dice is of course a men's game. The Skira was an even more exceptional time for women. It was one of the few days in which they were allowed to leave the isolation of the women,s quarters and gather "according to ancestral custom"or at one of the special female shrines. They formed their own organization, to preside over which was the greatest distinction possible to a woman. They sacrificed and feasted, all at the men's expense. The fact that they ate garlic in large quantities so as to be odious to the men is, as far as the explanation is concerned, a scurrilous feature, but it fits well in a day when all is reversed: the domestic and the family orders are abolished, marriage suspended.o'?InAristophanes, the women seize the opportunity provided by this day to hatch their plot for overthrowing male domination with an "assembly of women."n, The name Skira was associated cession among the Hittites see o. R. Gurney, The Hittites og5+I, r55. It could be an old ritual that the king-priest walks backward in front of the wagon of ihe gods in the procession, and as a comedy of innocence it may be distantly related to thelrick of Hermes the cattle-thief sPaus. Att. 6 18 Erbse (: Suda 6 rzro, etc.); cf. Nilsson (1955) tro-r1;11.4 above; V3, p,' 267' n. rz below. 'EpcxDei dpveos is the dictate of the sacrificial calendar of Nikomacnos at an unknown date for the fifth of a month (IG IVIII , ry57a : LS q B 5) FGrHist rr5 F zz|: Harpokr. 2xtpcrgn (dice games iz lxrp
{lr
at yvvalxes xaro ta rarpta IG lllltl, .tr77 : LS )6.ro_tz. The meeting^:::!X"rr", at the Piraeus is the Thesmophorion. Cf. Aristoph. Thesm. 834_35; [iil lo...*o-en "ren. tprtr. 522-2); Pherekrates fr. 4r (CAF I io6) = phot. cxipou. FCrHist 328 F 89 : phot. rporqh6. iu 6i rois lxdpots r!1 6opri1 iiohtov ]fflto5lro-ros, v(opotia 6utxa tois dn|,yenflat dgpoioiav, 6s civ 1ti1Lt{pav dzrotrv|,orcv. "Eccl. rg.
I
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145
tlt li
',ri' |{l,,,,, '
{lfi1 lr irl'''l
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR S FESTIVAL
with "white earth."* We do not know in what form the "white earth" indicates;at best, there may was "carried," as the name Skirophorion be a clue in the etiologicallegend of how Theseus, when leaving Athens, had a small plasterstatueof Athena made, which he carried along with him.ouThe namewas alreadya mystery to the ancientcommentators,who hit on the thought that Skiron could mean that strikWhatever the name means, the ing canopy,or any sort of parasol.nu function of the Skirais clear:it marks the dissolutionin the last month of the year. The Buphonia continuesand supplementsthe Skira-it virtually inverts the inversion. The priest of Erechtheusand the priestessof Athena, standing, respectively,for the original king and his goddess, would leavethe Acropolis.Two days later a sacrificetook place there, though not to Erechtheusor Athena, but to Zeus; and not in "the solid house of Erechtheus,"but in the open air. Whereasthe priestsof the Acropolis would go off in the direction of Eleusisto the Athenian city limits, those who "goaded" the oxen onto the Acropolis two days later belonged to the great priestly family of Eleusis, the Kerykes. 'A34ua sIn the explanation of the place name, An. Bekk.| . . . azro rozrou 3o4.8lxerpas Skiras, Schol. Aristoph. rpos . . 6, 6 yn itrapyeL treux4, as in the epithet, Athena below);however, Vesp.9z6:'AfqvdZxtppas,iirty!1 fti1 Cdd.) Ieuxg ypittat(c|.n.45 Deubner jyz) 46 (with n. 7) in conjunction with van der Loeff ("De Athena Scirade") tries to separate the festival 2xipa(i is certain because of Aristoph. Eccl. t8; Thesm,834; Men. Epitr. 54; Et. Cen. p. z67Mlller) from the place Lxipou and Athena Skiras. Iripos or oxippos meaning "white stone," "plaster," "stucco" is well attested; yi tl-xrpas IC lll lll'? 1672.:.96;Schol. Aristoph. Vesp.926. Long iota, i, according to Herodian, Gramm. G r . I I I r . 3 8 5 , r - 4 ; l l l 2 . 5 8 ' t, z z - 3 r ; S t e p h . B y z . 2 x i p o s ( p . S Z 6 z M e i n e k e ) . B u t , a s i n t h e case of orpos "silo," we may well have to reckon with changes in quantity, especialiy since even the vowel seems to change: oxupos "white stone," "paving-stone" (Oros El. M. 7zo.z4 : Et. Cen. on the island Skyros), trxupoioSac. oxup66r7s, oxupura 66os Pind. Pyth.5.93. This brings us quite close to Skiron, who hurled travellers from the cliffs, and the Skironic Way. Cf. Brumfield .r98t) 156-58, who suggests that orlpo may have been "the preservative lime mixture which was used to line the pits and cover the seed" (r73) for storage. Against Deubner, see also Jacoby on Philochoros , FGrHist 328F 14. facoby connected the seer Skiros with Athena Skiras, iust as Schol. Aristoph. Eccl 18, Phot. 2xtpogoptritv connected the festival with Athena Skiras. There was another shrine of Athena Skiras at Phaleron, administered by the Salaminioi (LSS tg.:.o, 52.92), who also sacrifice to Skiros (92). {sSchol. Paus. r.r.4 p. zr8 Spiro (cf. Wilamowitz, Hermes z9 lr894l,241):Zxtpogopn rapa ro gipetu cxipa iv awfl rou @qoea i) yi{tov, 6 ydp Oqceis dtrepyoptuos xara roi Mwaraipou rfiv'Afir1v&v troti1oas drd yurpouEBacrtaoeu (Et. M. 7l.8.6 : Et. Cen' is corrupt, as also then Phot. lxrlpos : Suda a 6z+' p. 267 Mlller perdMwuraipou which thereby turns Theseus' departure into his return). sN. 35 above; Poll.7.t74; Attic gloss in Schol. T Il. 21.13r; Schol. Theocr. r5.18lqb: Phot. lxlpos; Suda o 624; An. Bekk. | 3o4.1.
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And, at least accordingto one tradition, the Kerykeswere connected with the ox-slayersand carvers as well.47This reciprocal arrangement between Eleusisand Athens goes yet further. In the myth it is claimed that Celeos of Eleusisfounded ihe prytaneum,o'ani it is a fact that the famous meal there, a vegetarianfeastin the spirit of Demeter, was presided over by the Eleusinianhierophant. it was also there that the extraordinary,scurrilous trial took place after the Buphola' Though the Kerykes traced themselvesback to Hermes, the herald of the gods, they consideredtheir human ancestorto be one of the daughtersof Cecrops,sayingthat the god mated with her-thus, once again the Eleusinian family derives from the Acropolis.a,with the evidenceat hand, we cannot tell how old this deep involvement betweenAthens and Eleusisis, nor whether it developedgradually or was in^stitutedby a consciousact.s.It already existed, ii u.,y .ur", when solon codified the sacrificialcalendar.]ust as the festivalsand namesof the months antedatesolon considerabry,so the interaction between the two neighboring cities may well have stretchedback to very early times. The citiesunited preciiery for the strangeyet necessary sacrificethrough which the "dissolution" at the eni of th" y"u, cameabout. Erechtheusset out against Eleusis,and in his place the Eleusiniansbrought a bull to the heights of the Acropolis ftr an extraordinarysacrifice.At skiron itself, lhere is a coincid-ence of shrines to Athena and Demeter.It is tempting to assumethat the cattle were brought directly from skiron, afier t"he "sacred plowing at skiron,, was over," but there is no solid evidence.In any.ur", t"h" Butades, "neatherds," left the Acropolis; the ox-slaye., iame in their place. Suchis the extent of the comedy of innocence. exchangeof roles between the Acropolis and Ereusisfinds .-Themythical expressionin the legendof the war betweenErechtheus and Eumolpus,s'the leader of the Eleusiniansand first ancestorof the family of hierophants. Erechtheusdied in this war, and yet was vicntN.
r7 uborre.
cona'667d;for the hierophantat the head of the rirotzor(deicnot)see Jty.l ,9 1GI, n, \fiIl'?678.:'2,t773-76, r78r-82, ryBB,rygz, 1794_98,r8o8;n. ur above. 'il.:tff* ('1889) 8r-85; Hellanikos,FCrHist 74aF z4,Androtion, FGrHist 1z4Fr;Eur. t rechtheus fr. 65.t t 3- t 4 Austin. $On the history of EleusisseeMylonas (196r); Ch. V below. 5fFor sacredplowing ir;iZxiptpsee plut. praec. coni.r44a. ,,-r""""",.t:T*.,t8z9\ zo5-r4; Engelmann, RMLI n98-t3oo, r4o2-1.4o3; ch. picard, .&csruttesprmitivesd'Athdnesetd,Eleusis,,, Rea.Hist..,66e93t),r_76(largelyhypo_ metical);as a fixed part of Athenian history ,"" ur."uJy Thuc. z. r5. r; then prat.Menex. 239b;Isocr. 4 eanig.) 6g; tz (panath.),91; ,,D"^.,, 6o.g. For Erechtheuskilline Eu_
r47
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
I'l
1l I
li I
torious. To be sure, the ritual could not easily be transformed into a consistent quasi-historical narrative; moreover, details from three separate festivals-the Skira, the Boedromia,53and the Mystery prosgssislsa-1,yere woven together to form a seemingly unified account. But poets and local historians agree that this was the first war that Athens had to win, that the Eleusinians posed a serious threat to the city, and that Erechtheus mysteriously died in battle, rammed into the earth by Poseidon's trident. Athens was victorious, but Eumolpus must have penetrated deep into the city, for the tomb of his son, Imarrhados, was regularly pointed out in the Eleusinion beneath the Acropolis, high on the Panathenaic Way." Could the mark of the trident, that little bit of "sea" in the Erechtheum, perhaps be the place where Erechtheus sank into the earth? There was, howevet also a story about the seer Skiros, who, together with Eumolpus, led the Eleusinian attack. His grave was pointed out "at Skiron";'o thus, the battle must have taken place there, just as the stele of the seer Megistias could be seen at Thermopylae." The place and mythical name Skiros point to the procession of the Skira. Erechtheus set out from his "house" on the Acropolis to this place to fight the Eleusinians, and he subsequently disappeared. Euripides described the events leading up to Erechtheus' death in the tragedy Erechtheus,the conclusion of which has recently been discovered on a papyrus." Athena herself resolves the play at the end when she addresses Erechtheus' widow, Praxithea, saying, "and for your husband I command a shrine to be constructed in the middle of the city; he will be known for him who killed him, under the name of 'sacred Poseidon'; but among the citizens, when the sacrificial cattle are slaughtered, he m o l p o s s e e A p o l l o d . 3 . 2 o 3 ; S c h o l . E u r . P h o e n . 8 5 4 ;k i l l i n g I m a r r h a d o s , s e e P a u s . r . 5 . 2 , 27.4, 38.1; cf. Agallis Schol. T Il. 18.483, Schol. Eur. Photn. 854. 5rPhilochoros,FGrHist 3 2 8 F r j ; A e l . A r i s t i d . z z . : z K e i I ; P a u s . r . 3 r . 3 ; E t . M . z o z . 4 9 ;P R | 261.1. vPaus. r.38.3; Schol. E u r . P h o e n .8 5 4 . O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , t w o s e p a r a t eE r . i p o t r r o rh a v e been posited ever since Euripides (Erechtheusfr. 65. tcro-rro; Andron, FCrHist tctF rj; Istros, FCrHisl 314F zz); cf. Jacoby on the Marmor Parium, FGrHist 49 A t5. s s C f e m .P r . 3.4s.t. 5 o P a u s .r . 3 6 . 4 ; n . 35 above 5'Hdt. 7.228. sColin Austin , Recherchesde PoTtyrologieq (ry6il; Nttz,aFragrnenta Euripidea Q968), fr. 6 5 . 9 o - 9 7 .O n t h e d a t e o f t h e E r e c h t h e u s ( 4 z 3 o r 4 z z n . c . ) s e e WM . .Calder, Greek,Roman and Byz. Studiesrc (1969, 147-56 and ibid. o (r97t\, 485-95; M. Treu, Chiron rz (r97t), 'Er, govaiot povz\iroLs in Euripides (9+) can r3r. On the Erechtheum see n. 98 below. hardly be an allusion to the Buphonia; ct. Eu eovais Sqpoxrrizots Eur. Hel. t54.
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'Erechtheus.'To you, however, sinceyou have re_ shall also be called built the city'sfoundation" (Praxitheahad given her assentto the sacrifice of her own daughter before battle), "I grant the duty of bringing in preliminary fire-sacrificesfor the city, and to be called my priestess."Thus, the founding of the Erechtheumand the institution bf the priestessof Athena coincide. The marriage of Erechtheusand Praxitheacontinuesin the combination of the cult of Poseidon-Erechtheusand the priestess of Athena. And in fact, the priestess was always a mature, married or widowed woman.unHer connection with Erechtheusis manifest above all in the Skira procession.There, the departure from the Acropolis and the journey toward Eleusisrepeat Erechtheus,march againstthe Eleusinians,toward Skiron and death. With the ,,dissolution" in the last month of the year, there is, mythically speaking,the mysterious yet violent disappearanceof the first king-a ,,king,s death." In ritual, this correspondsto the act of killing, the intense, disquieting sacrificewith its inversions, its peculiar assignment of parts, drawing each-if it can-to his particular place in the circle of participants. Thus, inasmuch as sacrifice is an act of killing, it is propel to speakof a king symbolicallykilled at the end of the year. That Poseidonand Erechtheuswere merely two names for a single god, a fact that is statedby Euripides, is also clearlyvisible in the cult. In the temple itself one altar stands for both; there is only one priest; consecrationsand sacrificeare dedicatedto ,,poseidonErechtheus."d An historian would say that a Homeric, pan-Hellenicname has been superimposedon an autochthonous,non-Greekname. The myth distinguishes between the two as victor and the vanquished: Poseidon with his trident, against Erechtheus who sank into the depths. Yet in Euripides' play, the conflict produced a paradoxical identity.The victim issumed t-hegod'sname, and destructionbecame a blessing.Whereas the mythogiapher made a clear distinction betwgen the god and the hero, thelragedian recognizedthe unity in the -higher, polar tension of sacrifice. Here, igain, the ,rrru*big.ror* Poweris the female divinity, the ,,city goddess,Athena.,, 9.rr; Fehrle :9rc) 95; Ker6nyi (t952) zo-zt; from the family of the ll^",, .tlr" creooutadai, see Drakon, FGrHist1'44F r : Harpokr. 'Ereopouraiat;Apolloi. 3.196; u . M L e w i s .B S A ( t 9 5 ) , r _ 1 2 . 5o -P_aus. r.26.5; iepeJs llooer6itvos'Epeylios IG IIilII. y1g, 4o7r;,,piut.,,Vit. X or. r; for consecrationflooer66vr'Epex,tei-see,"'rz 58o,but re flooerllll-t,lth:!ug, 'Epelrger]s. rrir'Epc[xDeill lll2 tr46, and cf. 5o5g.Hsctr. flooer.6ri,y6'v'A}trviflvt^xa! qts; Cook lll e94o) r2.1.
149
';1il
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
ARRHEPHORIA The ritual arc extendsto yet another festival, indeed, the first attested for the month of skirophorion, coming right at the start-the Arrhephoria.u'Thepreparationsfor sacrifice,which the myth depicts as the death of the king and father, hint at a drama of sexualityand incest in which the king's daughters become the victims. The Arrhephoria takes its name from two small girls, aged sevento twelve, chosen by the "king" himself from prominent families. During the year, they lived in a houseon the Acropolis, playing and starting to ,""u,u" the peplos of Athena.u,They would probably have helped in sacrificialduties as well, and in caring for the olive tree' "But when the festival comesround, they perform the following rites during the night. They carry on their headswhat Athena's priestessgives them toiarry and neifher shewho givesit nor they who carry it know what it is shl gives them. Not far away in the city is the sacred,precinctof Aphrodite in the Gardens,'with a natural entranceheading undergrbund: this is where the virgin girls descend. They deposit there iuh"t th"y were carrying and take something else and bring it back coveredup. They are then sentaway,and other virgins are brought to the Acropolis instead." Pausaniashimself, in describing this ritual, We can only guessat what statesthit it is little known and obscure.u3 was contained in the coveredbaskets, the xicrat, that the girls carried down and what it was they brought back covered.Even if Arrhephorosmeant "dew-carrier,"il this clue does not take us very far' However, the date at the end of the year makes one Point clear: in sending thesegirls, or "virgins," to Aphrodite and under the earth at night, Jomethingendedwhich had endured over the courseof ayear; an order was broken.
it
(r94o)r65-88; Burkert, Hernes "rHarrison11922)aja-)4; Deubner(1932)9-ry; CookIII "or there94 0966), r-25; Brelich i96g) zz9-18. The date, the third of Skirophorion deducedby M. jameson, BCH89 (t96), t57, from the Erchiacalendar(LS "bo.rl,"'-ut t8); cf . Hermes$966), 5.2; 6v2xtpogopr'6vr, 1t'qvi Et. Gen.(R Reitzenstein, lnd' Rostock g); M. r49.r1. Et. [r89/9r], 52Callim.fr. Suda a 7848'y 5zo; Harpok r. dpprlgopeiu;Et M' t49.t8; An' Bekk'I zoz'3; riPin orthography' 35; Aristoph. Lys.64iwith Schol.The Grammarians note variation ptlgopeiv'and ipprlgopeiv; the dedicatoryinscriptions on the Acropolis have' with two exceptions, only ipp4gopilcaoav; tor a detailed treatment seeHermes(t966) 3-d' ur.zZ.3.The conjectureoix is &rqwa\s) yu
ll I
ll
150
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
Excavationson the northern slope of the Acropolis have allowed us to follow the path of the Arrhephoroi over a steepstairway that in late Mycenaeantimes led to a spring, but in historical times led over the slope to a small shrine of Eros nestled among the crags of the northern side.'u The myth tells how the daughters of CecropsAglaurus, Herse, and Pandrosus-could not restrain their curiosity; one night, by the light of Athena'slamp, they opened the basketthe goddesshad entrusted to them. Inside they saw the mysteriouschild Erichthonius and a snakeswiftly darting up toward them. In horrot, they leapt to their deaths, down the steep northern slope of the Acropolis.* In the fall of the king's daughters, the myth obviously mirrors the ending of the Arrhephoroi's duties on the Acropolis, as well as their journey underground. Moreover,the image of the snake and the child Erichthonius points to the contentsof the basket.Erichthonius was born in an unheard-of way: he was begotten by Hephaestus,who, while chasing after Athena, dischargedhis seed on the virgin goddess'sthigh. After Athena had wiped off the seedwith wool, she hurled the wool to the earth, which subsequentlygave birth to the child." The etymology of the name Erichthoniusgiven here-"wool" and "earth," Epiov and ldrirz-likewise points toward cult. Hephaestus, the power of fire, is present in Athena's temple, harnessedin the form of the eternally burning lamp whose woolen wick is kept alive by Athena's oil.* The fire is renewed only once, most likely at the end of the year, when the new oil stands ready. Elsewhere,wool and oil were among the sacrificialofferingsthat were carried solemnly in the kernoi, earthenwarevesselswith many small cups fitted to the rim.6'Perhapsthere was oil and wool in the kistai, 60. Broneer.Hesperiar Q93z), j7-55; 2 (tg1), 329-4rZ; + Uglil, ro9-88; 8 (tSlS), )r7-4)1; G. P Stevens,Hesperia s Ggl6), 489-97. 6PR I r98-zoo; ll and the ThreeDaughtersof Cecrops 47-4o; B. Powell, Erichthonius (19o6);]acoby on FGrHisl 328 F ro5 (Supplement +24-zZ\; for depictions in vasepaintings see Brommer Q96o) r99-zcn; M. Schmidt, AM 81 Q968), zoo-zo6; Eur. lon 2L-26, t427;Apollod. 3.r89. 6TDanais fr. z : Harpokr. ariz
151
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
l.l
Il]
the remnants of the purification of the sacred lamp. Yet both ritual and myth add a terrifying dimension to what would otherwise be harmless-a dimension about which neither Athena's priestess nor the virgins may know. Of course, the life-force of fire is experienced again and again as sexual and phallic, and the snake, that terrifying animal which excites fear even in primates, probably instinctively,'0 also represents phallic impregnation. Fascinating and dreadful at once, this animal belonged to the virgin goddess Athena, and it was both stated and believed that the snake on the Acropolis was actually Erechtheus or Erichthonius; it was also said that Athena made the snake dwell with Cecrops' daughters, or that one of the girls on the Acropolis spent the night with the snake." In the realm of the powerful virgin goddess, sexuality took on a terrifying dimension. But how could the child emerge if the "basket" remained closed? The young girls' way of life had to end, and the priestess herself sent them away to Eros and Aphrodite beneath the earth' The encounter with death, ending the sheltered life of the "virgin," may be interpreted as an initiation ritual, the exemplary consecration of a maiden in the middle of the polis." The facts that necessary transitions in life are here played up into deadly crises, however, and that the "virgin" faces death derive from the more general function of sacrifice in society. The drama of the maiden's initiation performed as a symbolic maiden-sacrificeT3opens the great sacrificial festival that embraces the end and the beginning of the year at Athens. Animal-sacrifice was undoubtedly part of the ritual in the nocturnal festival. Varro mentions a most unusual goat-sacrifice on the Acropolis: it was customary "that no member of the goat family be sacrificed to Athena on account of the olive, because it is said that any olive tree which they bite becomes sterile; for their spittle is poisonous to the fruit. For this reason they are not driven onto the Acropolis at Athens except once a year for a necessary sacrifice'"" 70A. Kortlandt and M. Kooii, Symp. Zool. Soc.London rc i96), 7o; Batdy (t98o) z9t' 7 \ P a u s .t . 2 4 . 7 ; H y g . A s t r . z . r 3 ; P h i l o s t r . v . A p . 7 . z 4 ; t h e a n c i e n t c o m m e n t a t o r s o n 6 p c l x au),os Soph. fr. 643 Radt. zJeanmaire (ry9) 264-67; Burkert, Hermes (t966\, 13-zr; Brelich (t96$ zz9-18' t3SeeL7 above. 7aR. r. r.z.zo . . . praeterquamsemelad necessariumsacrificium. For the prohibition, without mention of the sacrifice, see Ath. 587a; Pliny NH 8.2o4. The priestess of Athena does not eat cheese (strabo g p. 3g5;Ath. 375c), probably because it is made with rennet from a goat,s stomach. Horses may not enter the grove of Diana of Aricia (Yetg. Aen. horse-sacrifice took place Z.ZZ8-ig; Ov. Fast. 3.266) precisely because an exceptional
l
(Ambros. Virg.3$.
a52
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
Once again the tabu and its infringement are connected.Becausea goat is never otherwise allowed on the Acropolis, the sacrificeassumesa disquieting gravity; its "necessity"is stressed.The olive tree the sanctuarybeneaththe winof Athena standsin the Pandroseion,T' of the Erechtheum, which in mythology was connectedwith dows Pandrosus,the daughter of Cecrops. The arrival of the olive tree,s enemy, and its death in sacrifice,fits well in the crisis-reflected in the myth of Pandrosus' sisters-that the religious servants on the Acropolis.undergoat the Arrhephoria. A goatskin, the aegis, is the terrifying armor of the warlike virgin Athena. It is clearthat the memory of a real goatskin,hung after the sacrificeon a sacredtree, or pole, or roughly carved wooden image, is preservedhere,76even though genuine goatskinswere in historical times no longer hung about the ancientwooden image of Athena Polias.At the Plynteria, the ,,washing festival" a few days before the Arrhephoria, this statue'sclothing was removedand washed. Athena got a new cloak(gdpos)..It would thus have been appropriate to have given her a new aegisas well. In Corinth too, young boys and girls from prominent families servedfor a year in the temple of Hera Akraia until the sacrificeof a black goat terminated their duties.78In the myth, this appearsas the death of Medea'schildren. Everything suggeststhat-along with the journey beneath the earth-an extraordinary goat-sacrificeoccurred at Athens once a year, at the end of the Arrhephoroi's duties. According to one myth Athena, after having killed Gorgon, skinned her and plunged into the battle againstthe giants wearing the aegis she had thus newly acquired.'nThe goat-sacrificeis a mere prelude to subsequent acts that are greater and more deadly. The first war in early Athenian history was the battle of ErechtheusagainstEleusis.Here, too, Erechtheus'death was precededby sacrificeof a maiden-the sacrificeof his own daughteiat his own hands. There is, of course,a greatabundanceof such myths describingthe preliminary death of a girl, and the connectionbetweenmyth and ritual is flexibie. If, for inttPaus. r.z7.z. roSee-L7.n.39 above;for the aiTle as made of plaitedwool (ir rCov rrrep.p.araur\typ.a) seeHarpokr. ai7ds,Suda ar 6o. ztfs ro A 5 seemedto establish-against Deubner e93z) rg-the zgth of Thargelion as the date of the Plynteria,but cf. Mikalson ., and the Lexsacraof rhorikos e97) r6,off Stves."skirophorion," zPE 25 F97il,2,45 line 52. The palladionprocessionto phaleron rs to be kept distinct: see Burkert, ZRGGzz (rg7o), 356-6g. n_Phot..ed. Reitzensteinaiyds rpotrov;Zenob.Ath. z.3o p. l6rMiller; Markellosin Euaar. Marc.t.1; Burkert(1966)rtg.7t. l.b. DSee L7.n.39above.
r53
DISSOLUTION
il t ,,1' l
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
stance,the deaths of Cecrops' daughters becamethe mythic equivalent of the Arrhephoria, Euripides could shift the deaths of Erechtheus' daughters to the cult of the Hyakinthides, which was located elsewhere.e In any case, the anticipatory function of the maidensacrificein guaranteeingvictory is certain.slThus, the Arrhephoria points toward a greater"act of killing" through which the dissolution at the end of the year comesto a climax. Perhapswhen the girls carried back from the depths something covered like a baby it was meant to signify birth-giving in the mature woman, and so balancethe masculine "act of killing." PANATHENAIA The Panathenaiacelebratethe birth of the polis Athens at the end of the first month of the Attic year.82 Whereasthe previousmonth had brought dissolution, the Panathenaiareestablishedorder. To be sure, the period over which this occurred was unusually long: forty-five days separatethe Skira from the New Year'sfestival. Moreover, the dissolutionwas repeatedin anotherway at the Cronia,83 on the twelfth day of Hecatombaion,when the order of master and slave was reversed in a lighthearted festival. But it may be that these are compromisesbetween rituals of different origins in an already pluralistic urban society.They could exist side by side so long as they performed a similar function, especiallyas ritual inherently fostersrepetition. Once again, the complexity of the Panathenaiapreventsus from being able to reconstructit in all its details. Every four years, starting in about 57o, the festival would be magnificently enlarged into the GreaterPanathenaiawith its pan-Hellenicagon.* The basicelements eSeeI.7.n.33above. 8lTheAttic ephebessweartheir oath at the shrine of Aglauros:seeI.7.n.32above. 82A. Mommsen (1898) 41-t5g; Deubner Q93z\ zz-35; Ziehen, RE XVIII z (tg+g), 457-93;J. A. Davison, IHS 78 (1958),z3-42;82 (196z)r4t-42; H. A. Thomson, ,44 (t96r), zz5-y. t3SeeDeubner Qq6z)r5z-55. &Pherekydes,FGrHist F z; Euseb.Chron.a. Abr. r45r (566u.c.); Schol.Aristides p. 3 323.29Dind.; dedicatoryinscription of the first Agonothetai(. . . rou dfy6fva 86,cpv rp6ro[r,] y],ou[x]
754
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
of this celebrationinaugurating the year must have been appropriate to the Lesser,annual Panathenaiaas well. It consisted,natuially, of a sacrificialprocessionand an agon. Before this, however, there would be a preparatory festival at night, a Pannychis. By contrast, the main procession, which was enormous, formed "at dawn."s In the parthenon frieze, this great pageantof the polis at its festival was transformed into an enduring work of art.e Every member of the community had his place herel from the youthful horsemento the elders "beaiing branches,,,"from the young girls, who were carrying the sacrificialtools, to the matrons' Above all, even in the LesserPanathenaia,the processionincluded over a hundred sheep and cows bound for sliughter at the "great altar."88Thus, there was enough meat to give the popu_ "rrtlre lacea portion, its festival meal, at the marketplace. It was the beginning of something new. Starting at dawn, a run_ ner would bring new fire in a torch from the grove of Akademos to the Acropolis.se rhe processionwas accompaniedby a ship on wheels, upon whicf the now-finished peplos of the goddess *as brought, like a sail, to the Acropolis.'The coming of something new, the arrival of a goddess in a-ship-these are primordial -otifs stretching back over thousands of years and echoing even today in song as the theme of advent. A whole seriesof detailJ shows how the fesiival sequence-Arrhephoria, skira, Buphonia-points to the panathenaia, which in turn correspondsto and fulfills the previous festivals.Even the choice of sacrificialanimals was not arbitrary.Neither goats nor rams nor bulls joined in the procession,but, rather, ewes and cows.er The proud horse was there as well, as no one who has seen the parthenon frieze can ever forget, but not as a sacrificialanimar.The horse was a living symbol of speed and strength, the essenceof ready Power.The young men, the ephebes,stood out as those actuallysup_ regrrlationof the LesserPanathenaiasee lS 33 (: IG II/III, :1J4+ Hesperia z8 l-f:rln" It9s9l, z)g\ B 3z-J+. esee Lippold (r95o)148-5r. e-Phifochoros, FGrHist328F 9 : Schol.Aristoph. Vesp.544.: Xen. Symp.4.t7.For the armed danceof the z.ai6ssseeAristoph. Nub. 9ggwith 6chol.;for tire thck garments of the ephebesseePhilostr.V.Soph.z'.t.5(l59 ed. Teubn.;.SeealsoI.5.n.7jove. sLS 33 1n.85 above)B 16;more than 16ocows could be bought for 4r minai. eAristoph. Ran. rc9o-g8 with Schol.;the one who comesin last gets beaten. 90n cxapt1 IC ll/lllr 3198: S1G3g94;Strattisfr. p (CAF I7r9); Deubner t:tav,adnvdis je #32; Himerios 47..12-17. On the goddess,s arrivatin the ship see i1?:1 ll-f.o,.t Durkert (1967\295_96. u ll' 2.55t>:}i1xea fi1 'A}qua Biovtw. we do not know what position was oclf?tl"J, cupiedby the sacrificeof "bullsand rams" to Erechtheus, rt.2.55o,at the panathenaia.
r55
THE PANAT}IENAIC
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
il
,dit.i, iir*lrl ,ll'lt ri" 1,,,
porting the community. On the peplos begun by the Arrhephoroi (who in the meantime had been dismissed)were woven pictures of a triumphant reminder of the crisis for which the gigantomachy,n2 Atheni armed herselfwith the skin of the Gorgon-goat'Likewise, the myth of Erichthonius spansthe two shoresthat embracethe abyssof "dissolution": it tells of the child Erichthoniuswho brought death to the Cecropids, and of the adult Erichthonius who establishedthe Panathenaia.Erichthonius had, it was said, inventedthe four-horse It was this chariot, which he drove in the first Panathenaicagon.o3 the Panaat sPort distinctive and most characteristic that was the the armed leap of the apobates, the including thenaia: chariot-races king and way warrior the In this chariot.'n moving his warrior from his advent. land at of the possession took and Erichthoniusareobviously merelyvariants.'5Only Erechtheus in cult, as it is the original, probablynon-Greek, is used Erechtheus who is "peculiarly of the earth," is a Hellenizing Erichthonius, name. neologism, perhaps taken up in Attic epic becauseof the etymology. The myth then differentiatesbetween the two by telling of Erichthonius' birth, but Erechtheus' death. So, too, the genealogiesmade Erechtheusking after Erichthonius, who, as the "earth-born" child, had to come at the start. In the festivalcycle,the mysteriouschild and the king's sacrificialdeath confrontedeachother in the last month of the year. The new king was inaugurated at the subsequentPanathenaia: Erechtheusis dead, long live Erichthonius!What the Arrhephoria, the Skira, and the Buphonia had dissolved,the act that celebrated the polis'sbirth restored. Above the Parthenon frieze, with its Panathenaicprocession winding around the cella,abovethe battlesceneson the metopes,the pedimental sculpture portrays the epiphany of Athena in and for Athens. It is hardly accidentalthat the depiction of Athena'sbirth on ezEur. Hec. des 466-74 with Schol.; Arist. fr. 617; Orig. Cels 6 4z; F Vian, La guerre gtants (t952), 251- 5i.Since the establishment of the greater Panathenaia, the peplos was apparently woven only every four years; see Deubner (tqz) 3o; Davison, /HS 78 (rg58), z5-26; the custom itself is certainly older. esSeen. 84 above. qDion.
Hal. 7.73.2-3; Harpokr. dnopctrrls; Reisch, RE I z8r4-t7; on the pictorial tradition see Metzger Qg5t) 359-6o; (t965) 7r-72; already on late Ceometric Attic amAthenians dedicated the phoras, AA 78 (rg$), 27c'-25; Philadelphia Jo-3)-1)).The place where Demetrios leaped from the wagon to Zeus Kataibates:Plut. Demetr. rc' '5PR I r98; E. Ermatinger, "Die attische Autochthonensage bis auf Euripides," Diss' Z u r i c h , r 8 g 7 ; E s c h e r , R E V I 4 o 4 - r r , $ g - 4 6 . F o r E r e c h t h e u sa n d E r i c h t h o n i o s o n a n Attic bowl (with inscriptions) see Berlin F 25i7 = ARV? rz68; F. Brommer, Chatites L . I - a n g l o t z( 1 9 5 7 ) , t 5 z - 7 , p l . z t .
15b
FESTIVAL
the easternpediment, with the flight of the axe-bearer,looks down on the altar of the Buphonia.'6The contestbetween Athena and po_ seidon for AtticaeTon the western pediment-the first sight greeting the visitor as he approachesthe temple-embodies the sameconflici that is acted out in the ritual and marks off its beginning and end. Two cultic monuments made the sanctuary toward which the prothe first was the bit of ,,sea,,,the cessionmoved, peculiarly sacred:es depressionmade by Poseidon'strident and filled with salt water. Locatedin the northern hall of the Erechtheum,yet exposedto the open air, it was the site of "sacrificiallibations."'The second is Athena,s olive tree in the Pandroseion,upon which the western windows of the Erechtheum seem to look out. The "sea" and the olive were the pledgesthe two great gods offeredto the city as proof of their power. Poseidonlost by the decisionof Cecropsor Zeus; yet he-or, rather, Erechtheus-was as much a part of Athens as was the goddess Athena herself.In cult, Poseidonwas identified with Erechtheus.The myth turns this into a temporal-causalsequence:in his anger at losing, Poseidonle.dhis son Eumolpus againstAthens and killed Erechtheus.'mEven here, the correspondencebetween poseidon,sdefeat and Erechtheus'sinking into the earth was perceived.It was said that Athena expressedher gratitude to her father Zeus for his favorable decision by establishingthe Buphonia on the Acropolis'nr-yet another reflection of the sequenceskira-Buphonia.Thus, the mythical contestbetweenPoseidonand Athena merelyvariesthe basicthemetransposedto an Olympian level-that set the tone for the ,,houseof Erechtheus"already in the most ancient tradition: the theme of the goddessjuxtaposed with a god or ancestralking who is active as a victim in the bowels of the earth. At the city'shighest point, atop the Acropolis, there is also that bit of sea that lurfaies in the sanctuary. Likewise, the Babylonian temples contained a bit of Apsu, the primordial Ocean,'o,who was murdered by his son Ea so that Ea could %On
Athena's birth and cow-sacrifice see Cook III (r94o) 656-62. I :oz-zo4; H. Bulle, RML III z86r-66; Apollod. ).a77-7g. $Hdt. 8 . 5 5 ; S t r a b o p . 3 9 6 ; P a u s . t . z 4 . j , 2 6 . 5 ; J . M . p a t o n , e d . , T h e E r e c h t h e u m( 1 9 2 7 ) , ro4-10; N. M. Kontoleon, To 'Epelrlercv dts oixo66pqpa Tfovias Larpedas (Athens, 1949); Bergquist (:196:) zz-25. eBop.ds fi BueX6lG l'? 172.79,zo3; theater seat, /G Il/lll'_roz6: Bwlyoou. nrur' Ereclilfters; a vase-painting depicts poseiclon and Eumolpos riding toward rrtnena and the olive tree: L. Weidauer, AK rz (t969), 9r-93, T.4t. torHsch. Alds rgdxor. *E. Dho.m", Les religionsde Babylonieet d,Assyrie eg+g), )2. For a,,sea,,-basin in the rempfe at Jerusalem see I Kings 7:23-z6,ll Chron. 4:z-6. For lclopo beneath the temple of }iierapolis, see Luk. Syr. D. tz,. tPR
r57
DISSOLUTION
ii'l
r lll ,,,1
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
build his palaceand temple on toP of him. Ariel's song, "Full fathom five thy father lies,"'03seemsto echoaround this temple. Over that bit of seaihe olive tree of the goddessgrows, eternally 8reen, surviving the courseof generationsand providing food.
' Jitrut'l
iillr ]"
EXCURSUS:THE TROJAN HORSE
1'
According to Attic tradition, Troy fell on the twelfth day of skirophorion,'* the day of the skira. Among the Dorians, the lliupersiswas ionnected with their specialfestival, the Carneia.'o'Theseseem no more than arbitrary, unverifiable conceits, but, considering that ancient etiologistscould at leastbegin from personalexperienceof their festivals,it might ue well to askwhat thesebold assertionscould mean. In point of fact, the Skira is a festival of "dissolution'" The city goddesi and the king disappear;in their place appear hostile neigh6ors, the Eleusinians.In the myth, Athens comes to within a hair's breadth of being conquered.And in the ritual, the EleusinianKerykes do indeed scalJthe Acropolis, bringing a bull for sacrificeafter Athena's priestess leaves the Acropolis, bound for Eleusis' If a "sacred city,, can be conquered at all, it is only during this period of crisis at year'send. Troy was similarly forsaken by Pallas Athena when Odysseus and Diomedescarried off the Palladion.'* However, a strangeanimal went ahead of the Greeks who conquered Troy, a sacrificialanimal for Athena, madeby the goddessherself:the wooden horse.The Trojans themselvesbroie through the walls to consecratethe animal to the goddesson their u..opolis.'o'Indeed,a priest drew near the horse and Jtro"t it with u tp"ui on the side, the priest Laoco6n,who quickly
l
r03W.Shakespeare, TheTempest, I.z. leClem. strom. r.ro4. Becausethis month existsonly in Athens (RE III A 547;for the cleruchy of Lemnos see ASAA 315lrg4t l 411,76), it must be an Attic tradition. rEEvidentlyalreadyin Alkman 5zPage;Demetriosof Skepsis,in Schol.Theocr.5'8'zb' Theocr.5.82b-c, etc') and cf. d; the Carneiawas linked toihe Doric conquest(-Schol. (rgoo,t and to the founding of Cyrene (callim. Hy. Ap. 2.65-96); see generally Nilsson II rz88-89' PR see destruction Troy's rr8-29. On the date of 16F.Chavanne.s,"De Palladii raptu," Diss. Berlin, r89r; PR ll rzz5-27' t'213-)7' D' Ziehen, RE XVnl z.r7t-89. w PRll rzzTto be found tn 1(., 7237-54.New fragments of stesichorus' lliu Persisare horse being the of a description with West, ZPE POxy 26r9,lv1.L. ai969),45-42, taken into Troy, rpds va6v is dxplottoft w' . . . dyvdv rilo,l'p'a Oe&sz'6' to'
158
THE PANATHENAIC
FESTIVAL
paid a dreadful price for his act.lmHis gruesomefate notwithstanding, the Trojans went on to hold a collectivefeastlasting well into the night. Thereupon, warriors climbed out of an opening in the horse,s side and killed the defenselesscelebrants. Ever sincethe eighth century n.c. the Trojan horse has been depicted as riding on wheels.'@To this extent, this, one of the most iliustrious themes of the oral epic tradition, is quiie comparableto the fantastic-and technically impossible-escape of Odysseusbeneath the ram. But the relics of other versions remain: according to apocryphal traditions, Odysseushimself was turned into a horse."oThis looks as though the rrrdtcnoprlos, the sacker of Troy, was actually identicalwith the Trojan horse. Odysseusdied when his son Telegonos stabbedhim with an extremelyancientspearof the Upper palaeolithic type-according to one version,r" while Odysseuswas still a horse.This is clearly the tale of a sacrificein which u horr" was killed with a spear. Preciselythis form of sacrificewas customary in Rome, in the sacrificeof the Equus October,',2the striking featuresof which have long fascinatedstudents of religion. But little attention has been paid to the aition of this sacrifice,even though it was already attestedby Timaios:stabbing a horse was how the descendantsof Troy avenged the fall of their ancestralcity, destroyedby a horse.whatever the real tGPRII rz46-52;Verg. Aen.z.5o-56;cf. Od.8.5o7. roR. Hampe, Frilhe griechische Sagenbilder in B\otien eg16), pl. z; Schefold (196g pl. 6a. rroSextus Math. t.264,2.67;PtolemaiosChennos,phot. Bib. r5oar6. urServ.auct. A e n . 2 . 4 4 ; o n T e l e g o n o s ' s p e a r s e e s c h o l .O Hd e. r r . r 1 4 ; E u s t . t 6 7 o . 4 5 ; Burkert Q96) 285-86; A. Hartmann, intersuchunpenirberdie sasenuom Tod desodusseus(rgr7). Ed. Meyer (Herntes 3o [1895],263)saw tiat the metaniorphosisinto a hoise ts connectedwith the horse-shapedPoseidonin Arcadia(paus.8.25.5);poseidonHippios and Athena Tritonia were lionored on the acropolis of pheneos;there was a herd of horses,allegedlygiven by Odysseus,at the sanctuaryof Artemis Heurippa: paus. t.r4.4-6, and cf. the coins in HNl poseidon und dieEntslehungdes 452.F Schachermeyr, grtechis-chen cdtterglaubens (r95o),r89-:.o3,thinks thatihe Trolanhorse = poseidon,the 8od of the earthquakethat destroyedTroy VI; such nature-allegorydoes not explain the ritual detailsin the mvth. 'DTimatos, F C r H i s t 5 6 6 Fj 6 : P o l y b . r u . 4 b ; t h e c o n n e c t i o n w i t h t h e E q u u s O c t o b e r i s confirmedthrough the etiologicalderivation from the Trojanhorse;it w;s still believed oy_the"vulgus" in the time of Verrius, Festusr7glgr M. polybiuspolemicizesagarnst by pointing out that many barbarianpeopleswho had nothing to do with Hlt_Yi"* jl_"J,|"y" horse-sacrifice,and precisely when going-off to war. U. scholzlstudien zum und altrdmischenMarskultund Marsiythoi 1rg7oy,89-9r,wrongly concluded T'l!!,r:,r!* nom this that Timaioswas likewise speakingof a sacrificebeforegoing of io war in the una not of the october-Horse.see a'isoI.7.n.48above.Ar the Taurobolion,the llf1s,. vuu ts killed with a spear:see prud. peristeph. 7o-.7o27.
a59
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
It
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connectionsbehind the old Trojan tradition among the Etruscansand Romans,"' the fact that Troy's fall, at the fateful feast when the Trojans acceptedthe wooden horse,was linked to the sacrificeof a horse by means of a spear"oatteststo a deeper understanding. Although, over the course of many generationsof singers, literary epic transformed the cultic elementsinto a mechanicaltrick, an inkling still remained of what had once been a sacrificeof dissolution-perhaps even at Troy-Ilion-with the stabbingof a horse. The well-known legend of Gyges"ualso depicts how one who climbed out of a horse seizedpower: contrary to all custom, the queen removed her clothing in front of Gygesand then aided him in killing the king and wresting his power away.She is obviously a manifestation of the king's divine lover, whom the Greeks called Aphrodite. The Greeks still knew of stories about Gyges' deified hetaera."oIn Abydus, there was even a shrine of 'Aphrodite the whore," "7 whoin spite of her name-was duly worshipped and had a festival. There was, moreover, a story of how the city was once freed from evil tyrants: these tyrants offered up a sacrifice,feasted,grew drunk, and slept with their hetaerae,one of whom thereupon opened the gates. The armed citizensthen rushed in and slew their defenselessoppressors.Normal order and morality could be restorede contrarioprecisely becauseAphrodite had dissolvedthem at her festival. When Pelopidasmurdered the Thebanleaderswho were loyal to Sparta, thus overthrowing the government in 379, his contemporariestold the story accordingto the samepattern:"'the polemarchs rrrA. Alfdldi, Die troianischenUralurcn der Riimer (1957), demonstrated that the tradition goes back at least to the fifth century B.c. lraLater, the Greeks occasionally associated 6oupetos iz'n'os with "speat," Eur. Tro. t4; but in the oldest literary source, Od. 8.491, 5rz, the idea of a wooden horse is already long established. tt5Plat. Resp. 35gc-6ob, on which cf. W Fauth, RhM tr1 QgTo),'t-42; the horse in the Gyges saga was linked to the Trojan horse by P M. Schuhl, RA 7 Qy6), r83-8t{; G. M. A. Hanfmann, HSCP 61 j958),76-79; Fauth, op. cit., zz. Cf. also G. Dumdzil, Le problime des Centaurs (1929), 274; N. Yalouris, MH 7 j95o), 55-78. 116On'Erarlpr;s p.ufip.a see Klearchos fr. z9 Wehrli = Ath. 57)a; Strabo 13 p. 627;Fauth' RhM n1 $g7o), 38; cf . W Fauth, Aphrodite Parakyptusa[Abh. Mainz, t966], 6. 'Eraipa rrTNeanthes, FGrHist 8+ F g : Ath. at Ephesus see Atn' 57ze-f. For Aphrodite tep6u. at Athens see Hsch. Phot.'Eraipos 57ze; 1 1 8 X e nH . ell. 5 . 4 . 4 - 6 ; n o t i n P l u t . P e l o p .t 9 , G e n . S o c r . 5 7 7 c . l t i s t h e r e f o r e c o n t r o v e r s r a r whether the Theban festival of Aphrodite is historical, and whether it was a privatt' celebration or an established custom; see Nilsson i9o6\ 374-77. Plut. Comp Cin tt. Luc. t'Agpoii
r6o
ARGOS AND ARGEIPHONTES
were celebrating the Aphrodisia at the end of their term of office when the conspiratorssmuggled themselvesin, disguised as hetaerae.They then unveiled themselvesand killed their unsuspectingvictims. Another, more realistic, tradition was briefly cited by Xenophon, but he preferred the mythical versionwhich set the calamitous in the context of a festival of dissolution. peripeteia ' A particularly strangelegend tells of the foundation of Erythrae by conquestthrough Cnopus,son of Codrus."nCnopus had brought alonga priestessof Hecatefrom Thessaly,who now preparedto sacrificea bull in full view of the enemy, the former Erythraeans.After its horns had been gilded and its body adorned with fillets, it was led to the altar. However, the bull had been given a drug provoking madness:it tore itself loose and ran toward the enemy,bellowing loudly. The enemy unwittingly seized the bull and sacrificedit themselves, using its meat for their feast. They were thereupon all struck mad, easyprey for the attackingCodrides. Sacrificersand eatersmust succumb to those practicing renunciation and aggression. The guilt causedby sacrificesignalsan end and a fall-for others; a victoryfor one'sown triumphant order.
2. ArgosandArgetphontes Nowhere in Greecehave traditions survived in such detail as at Athens. For other cities we often have no more than a few scanty, scatteredindicationsabout cult, and the literary myths that were able to achievepan-Hellenic status. But even fragmentscan be evaluated and classifiedif we have a fully preservedmodel. The rhythm of dissolutionand a new start, which it Athens leadsfrom the Arrhephoria custom.Even the sailors'revels(Plut. An seni785e;Nonposse ro97e)have their tradi.t, the-Argonautson Lemnos(Burkert [t97o]8-l;.. A quite similar story of a young 111 disguiseshimself is a girl rn ordei io assissinatea tyrant is the aition of a I_11 ih. restival at ThessalianMelite: seeNikander in Ant. Lib. 13.There is a similar aition for re\erai, the Boeotianfestivalof Dionysus,in Heraclidesfr. r55 Wehrli; cf. iilinJ"-: 'u.7.h.24below. t or; seenow Burkert (gZq Ss-6+,72-77, wherethis pattern is discussed i,-l1f:. the heading "Transformationsof the Scapegoat.,, To the sending away of the :]::t {aPeSoaton the one side correspondsthe festivalJf dissolutionon the other.
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
through the Skira and the Buphonia and finally to the Panathenaia,is anything but unique. Though greatly expanded, it basicallyfollows the "normal" sacrificialsequence,from the preparatorydrama of the maiden, through the uncanny sacrificeof the bull, to the crowning feastin the "hecatombs"of the New Year'sfestival' The samefestival rhythm appears in many other placesand in the cults of other city gods. To be sure, we must reckon with different forms, local variants and combinations,but the basicstructuresare analogous,and details often show a striking correspondence.The rnyths representingthe oldestliterary tradition are especiallyilluminating' Once one has recognized the various stagesof sacrificethat organizetheir peripeteia, they becometransparent. Becauseof Sparta'ssuperior power, the city of Argos' was relegated to a secondaryrole in the history of Greece,while its cultural significancewas overshadowedby that of Athens. Accordingly, the strong developmentof Argos from the Geometricto the Archaic period contrastswith the stagnationand constantcrisiswhich besetit in historicaltimes. In the Homeric epic, the Greeksare simply calledAror Danaans,and a particularly large array of Greek myths fogirses cuseson the Argolid. There were three Mycenaeanpalaceshere in closeproximity: Mycenae,Tiryns, and Argive Larisa. There are even tracesof more ancient,Neolithic traditions here. An important settlement, for instance, was Lerna,' site of myths and mysteries,which may have derived its name from Anatolia. Another Neolithic settlement was locatedon a hill which, in historicaltimes, becamethe site of the central shrine of the Argolid, forty-five stades from Argos, and actually closerto Mycenae:that is, the Heraion,'the major sanctuary of the goddessHera already in Homer. The goddessis called 'Apyeiq, just as Pallasbelongsto Athens, flatrkis ArgiaeHera,"Hprl 'A$qvair1. The main festival at this shrineo-one of the greatestfor the city rM. Mitsos, llotrr.zr4 ioropia roil " Apyovs(rg45)iApyoXtxi1rpotrazroypapia (1952). '147-77;z6 (t957)' '?|.L. Caskey,Hesperia 4 0954, |-Jo; 24 $95), z5-49; z5 Q956), j958), (t95$, 2o2-2o7. r25-44; z8 14z-62;z7 3Ch. Waldstein, TheArgiueHeraeumllll (tgozl); C. W. Blegen,Prosymna: TheHelladic SettlementPrecedingtheArgiueHeraeumOnZ); A. Frickenhaus, Tiryns I ltgtz\, n4-zo' aSchol.Pind. Nem. ro inscr.;Schol.Pind' Ol. 7.r5zc-d,9.r3za; Schol.Pind. Pyth' 8.rr3c; Schol. Pind. Nerr. rc.)5, :19;Nilsson i9o6) 4z-45. A. Boethius, Der argiaische Kalender(uppsala universitets Arsskrift tgzz), r, found it probable that the Heraia occurred in the month Panamos(66).An inscription shows, surprisingly,that this was the first month of the year: seeP Charneux, BCH 8t (t957\, zoo; 8z (1958)7. In Ept' daurus, the month Panamosis precededby Agrianios:SamuelQgTz)9t.
t6z
ARGOS
AND
ARGEIPHONTES
We know that it of Argos-was called both Heraia and Hecatombaia. moving from Argos to the shrine, a sacrificial procession, included with the priestessof Hera riding in her ancient ox-drawn cart. Our knowledge comesfrom the story of Cleobisand Biton, who, in place of the oxen, pulled their mother, the priestessof Hera, all the way to the temple.sAlready by 6oos.c. this exampleof Argive piety became known throughout Creece, becausethe Argives dedicated Kouroi, imagesof the youths, at Delphi. As Callimachustells us,uthe Argive maidens also wove a peplos for Hera, and the presentationof this As at Athens, the peplos formed a part of the Hecatombaia-Heraia. processionwas followed by an agon that took place inside the city limits. It is mentioned severaltimes by Pindar, even though it never becamea pan-Hellenicagon of the first order. The prize was a bronze shield.' This links the agon to the procession,for there a shield was carried along: "Those who had spent their boyhood purely and blamelesslytook up a sacredshield and thus led the procession:this was their honor."8Boyhoodwas over;it was time to beararms.Thus, the festivalprocessionmarked an initiation. The ephebeswere now capable of bearing arms; the agon repeatedthe process.It is not known where this shield was stored and from whence it was "taken down" for the procession.The only certainty is that it was sacredto Hera. It becameproverbial to call someone"proud as one who has taken on the shield in Argos."eAccording to a myth, Lynkeus gavethis shield 'Hdt. r.3r; for the statues see Lippold Q95o) z5; SIG35; cl. Paus. z.zo.3; for coins see I m h o o f - B l u m e r ( 1 8 8 5 )) 2 , T . K . X X X I V ; M . G u a r d u c c i , S t u d i L I . E . P a o l i , t 9 5 ) , ) 6 5 - 7 6 . Cf. also Palaiphatos 5r and Aen. Tact. t7. oCallim. fr. 66; Agias and Derkylos, FGrHist )o5 F 4.Demetrios Poliorketes celebrated his wedding at the Heraia: Plut. Dem. 25. '"O lEu "Ap7er 1a),x
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR-S FESTIVAL
to his son, Abas, when the son announcedthe death of Danaus.r(' Lynkeus thereby becameking of Argos, supportedby the armed.companies of youths. A new king following the old, a shield transferred from father to son: these reflect the situation of the New Year'sfestival, which the Heraia sharedwith the Panathenaia'The coincidence is no accident.The myth of the names Hecatombaia/Hecatombaion a priestess of Hera." The new orHypermestra wife makesLynkeus' the power of Argive Hera. under came about Argos der in the polis If the Heraia was a New Year'sfestival, it must have been precededby a festival of dissolution, perhapsin the form of the sacrifice of a bull. There is little more than allusions to this in Argos. Pausanias, for instance,mentionsa spring calledEleutherionon the road to the shrine of Hera, which the priestesses"use for purification of the sacrificeswhich are not spoken of ."'2 Thus, there were unspeakable sacrificesfor which water had to be carriedup from this source.Varro mentions an Argive hero who corresponds to the Attic "yoker of oxen," Buzyges. His name is 6poyupos,"he who goes along in the circle,"'3 which recalls the manner in which the bull was "driven around" the altar at the Buphonia, especiallyas Buzyges was also linked to the sacrificeof an ox. But given the abundanceof parallel cults in a city, it is impossible to isolate any combination with certainty. The myth, however,takes us further. Just as the Attic Buphonia was depicted as a primordial crime, ending a Golden, vegetarian age, so, too, the Argive myth included a primordial crime, namely, the first murder among the gods, when Hermes killed Argos, guardthis ianof Io, thebelovedof Zeus,whowasturnedintoacow.'aThus,
Figure1. Sacrificialprocession:goddessAthena (damaged);priestess;altar with wood and fire; sacrificerpouring a libation; maiden carrying basket, attendants with branchesdriving bull. sow. sheep;flute-player. further participants.Attic black-figurecup, about 560 BC. Private collection, photo D. Widmer. Munzenund Medaillen AG, Basel,Auction 18 no. 85. Courtesy. H. A. Cahn. (Seep. 4.)
)oHyg. Fab. t7o clipeunr quen Danaus consecrateratlunoni . . . reftxit et donaoit Ahanti "ApTet (i.e., qui quintL)quoqueawlo agu,rtur, qut appellantur dryris Ev ludosqueconsecraztit in Nilsson missing the foundation myth of the Heraia agon; 119o614z-45\; similarly' H y g . F a b .2 7 1 .C f . S e r v . a u c t . A e t t . 1 . 2 8 6 . r t E u s e b . H i e r o n . q . A b r . 5 8 z f o l l o w i n g H e l l a n i k o s , J a c o b yl - C r H i s f I a 4 5 5 . t2Paus. z.r7.r. It is uncertain whether Hera's bath in the spring Kanathos, whereby she becomes a virgin again (Paus. 238.2-1; "Ilpa[lc.p9evio Schol. Pind. Ol. 6.1499), has anything to do with the Heraion. For Hera Akreia at Argos see Agias and Derkylos' FGrHist Jo5F 4; Callim. fr. 65;Paus.z.z4.t. 13Varroin Aug. Cia. Dei fi.6; R. r. 2.5.4. Cl. Z$s yupa'ltrcsat Chios, Lycoph' fi7 wtth Schol. laPRIlg4-g7;Ilz51-66;8.
r l t e n G e s c h i c h t Ie ( 1 8 9 2 ) ,6 7 - t o r . F ' M e y e r , F o r s c h u n g e n z uA alWehrli, lo. )irhtrrrg und Kultlegende(, K Beih. 4, 1967\, 196-9g. The myth was told ready in the old epics at least four times, in tne Danais, the Photronis(fr. 4-5 Kinkel, and cf . Klnkel p. r.t r; Pho.oneus founds the cult of Hera in Hyg. Fah z74, r43), the H"tiodic -*'), then in Aigimios (ir. 295-96 M.-W) and the Hesiodic Catalogues(fr. rz4-26 t etc ' z9r-1o5, Hik' Aesch 67; FCrHist Akusilaos, FGrHist zF z6-27; Pherekydes, 1F and cf. nn.zr, zt below.
164
Figure2. Preparationfor sacrifice:fluteplayer,attendant holding ram, sacrificer washinghis hands,altar with wood and fire, and with marks of blood, bukranion above, attendant holding water vesseland tray of offerings, dignitary (seer?)Attic red-figurebell crater by the Kleophon painter (ARV, 7749.g),440/30 B C Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.25, Catherine Page Perkins Funcl. Courresv, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (Seep. 4.)
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bI F i g u r e4 . s a c r i f i c i a l e a s ti n h o n o r o f D i o n y s u s :r o a s t i n g . r at n a l t a r a n d c o . k i n g i n a tripod kettle. caeretan hyclria,about 530 B.r . Museo Nazionaledi Villa citrlia. Rome. Courtesy,Museo Nazionaledi Villa Giulia. (Seep. g9. n.29.)
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from a tripod cauldron (PeloPsi Figure5. Warrior with shieldand sword rising Crete, a b o u t 6 3 0 u . C C o u r t e * Lion on either side. Bronze mitra from Axos, Museum of Iraklion. (SeeP. 9 9 . 1
Figure6. Buphonia:bulls strollingaround an altar. Attic black-figureoinochoeby the Gela painter (ABV 473.785),510/480 n.c. Munich 1824' Courtesy, Vereinigung der FreundeAntiker Kunst, Basel,and Staatlich Antikensammlungen und Clyptothek, Munich. (Seep. 137,n.7.)
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offerrr 'Lenaia vase': mask of Dionysus fastened to a column' table of Figure 7. the Vr by stamnos red-figure wine' Attic with two stamnoi, woman tasting Arts 90 l 450 B C Boston' Museum of Fine Giulia painter (ARV'61,I.34)' abo"t p' of Fine Arts' Boston' (See 235 ) anonymous gift. Courtesy' Mu*turn
altar, priest Figureg. Mystery initiation:pig sacrificebv Heracles(lion-skin)at a low Terme' delle Nazionale Museo with offering tray pouring a libation. Lovatelii urn, (See p' 257') Rome' Rome. Courtesy, DeutschesArchliologischeInstitut'
ARGOS AND ARGEIPHONTES
epoch-makingact of violencewas associatedwith the Heraion. "When Hermes had killed Argos, the guardian of Io, at Zets' behest,he was brought to trial. He was arraigned by Hera and the other gods becausehe was the first god ever to be stained with death. Now when the gods were holding this trial, they were afraid of Zeus, for Hermes had acted on his orders. They wanted both to remove this stain from their presenceand acquit the god of murder: agitatedas they were, they threw their voting pebbles at Hermes, so that a pile of stones at his feet": thus Anticlides following Xanthosthe Lydian.'u grew 'The killer is freed through symbolic stoning. Thus, the pile of stonesin which Hermes is present atteststo the first bloodshed and how it was overcome.'uLikewise, in the HomericHymn bearing his name, Hermes is the inventor of sacrificeand is calledBov96uos.'7 the Greeks believed that his Starting with the Hesiodic Catalogues, killing Argos. Modern skepticism won by was epithet, Argeiphontes, becauseof the probhas arisen partly concerningthis interpretationls "killing of Argos" is the because but above all formation, lem of word however,adds anThe myth, detail. a minor insignficapt, taken to be divine shedding of this first surrounding to act, this other dimension ininnocence of a typical comedy with sacrifice, the first blood, i.e., at the On Tenedos, stoning. apparent and sentencing, cluding trial, sacrificeof a calf for Dionysus Anthroporrhaistes, the participants shower the killer with stones "in order to remove the stain from themselves."" In Aeschylus' metaphor of the Sipta Ireioclt'ov,the "sacrificethat ends in stoning," there may be a hint that such occurAbove all, the courtroom comedyrecalls renceswere not infrequent.'?o
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FGrHist 765F z9; Anticlides, FCrHist r4oF 19; Eust. r8o9.38-43. Hermes, the pile of stones, see Nilsson I OgSil, 5o7-5o5;1.6.n.29 above. The Argives held trials at a place where, according to the saga, traitors had been stoned: see Deinias, FGrHist 1o6 F 3. Voting with stones at a trial can probably be traced back to stoning rituals. ItOn
veti' 't by a priestessholding a liknon' Figure9. Mystery initiation: purification Lovatelli urr' Mus"' fl*t" (nott beneath his foot)' initiand seatedon u.,*'' lnstrttrt Archiologische Deutsches Nazionale deile Terme, Rome. Courtesy, R o m e . ( S e ep . 2 6 7 . )
" 4 1 6 ;c f . I . z . n . r 3 a b o v e . I8P Chantraine, MAL O. Naaarre (tglil, 6g-ZS (Pre-Greek); J. Chittenden, AIA 5z (1948). z4-28 ("dog-killer"); A. Heubeck, Beitr. z. Namenf. 5 U95d, 19-3r ("Im Glanz prangend"). Argos ("plain", Callim. fr. 299.2; Strabo 8 p. 172) and the eponymous Argos can hardly be distinguished; the fact that the mythical character changes over into the o-declension causes no problem (cf . Aiohos beside Aioheis); however, the word formation is problematical. The epic epithet comes perhaps from the locative (ll. 6.224, t4-rr9; Od . r74) " shining at Argos," then the "killer at Argos." Ever since the lliad, the 4. latter part of the word has, with certainty, been understood as "killer" (like riu6Peryovrns. floXugovn1s). teAel. Naf . an. 12.J4)III.4.n.zo below. eAesch. Ag. rrrS; Burkert Q966) rtg.
165
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
the Attic Buphonia. There, in Athens, Hermes' descendants,the EleusinianKerykes, are the ones who kill the bull. Correspondingly, the act of HermesArgeiphontes,"killer of Argos," reflectsa Buphoniarite at Argos. Moreover, the myth identifies Argos, the "neatherd," as closely 'Argos killed the bull that ravaged as it possibly could with the bull. Arcadia, and clothed himself in its skin."" In severalvase-paintings he can be seen wearing the bullskin. The conqueror of the bull becomesvirtually identical with his victim by covering himself with its skin. Hermes, the "ox-slayeg"thereupon lulls him to sleep and kills him, as the myth relates,2'byhitting him with a stone.Thus, the subsequentstoning was payment in kind. To sacrificea bull, one needs an axe, an instrument once made of stone. Hermes' act-because it is linked to the myth of lo-is, once again, combined with the preparatory drama of a maiden. Io, the king's daughter and beloved of Zeus, was confined within Hera's sphere of power, guarded in the Argive Heraion, chained to the sacred olive tree.a With Argos' death, these chains were broken: and the cow fled into the wide world, goadedto far-offlands by the sting of the gadfly.There seemsto be a twofold cultic reality underlying the mythical play between the daughter of the king and the cow: already was a priestessof Hera. And the priestess's in Hesiod'sCatalogues,Io place is in the sanctuary tending the eternal flame of the sacred lamp'o-this, too, is common to the Heraion and the Erechtheum'But if at the Heraia the priestessis led in solemnprocessionfrom Argos to the shrine, we must assumethat she previously left that shrine in an act of "dissolution." Was the lamp extinguishedduring her absence? The drama is played out in a more sharply articulated,drasticform on the animal level: when the bull dies in the unspeakablesacrifice,it leavesthe cows in its herd without a leader.Peopleat Argos spokeof the "cattle of Argos" which were "sacredto Hera." The hill on which
ARGOS AND ARGEIPHONTES
the Heraion was set was calledEuboea.2. The cattlewere ,,setfree,,to for caught sacrifice. At the be bull's death-for thus we may conclude from the myth-a cow would be chasedaway ,,asif it were mad.,,But even the mad cows did not escapethe festivil of the Hecatombs. The processionat the Heraia responded in a specialway to the sacrificeof the bull in the "dissolution." It does so by means tf a singular feature:the act of bearing the sacredshield. In historical times, of course,as we know from Pindar, at leastthe shields that servedas prizesin the agon were made of bronze. They were hoplite shieldsof the sort common after approximately7ooB.c.lts more lncient predecessor/howevet would have been a shield made of cowhide, which thus, in its source, was so directly linked to the cow that in an especially ancient Homeric verse the shield is simply designateduy ine Indo-Europeanword for cow, B6v.ru One musf kill the bull ii one wants the shield. But preciselyin this form-as a stretched skinthe Bo0sassumesa new existence,becoming the warrior's trustiest comrade-in-arms,a protectiveskin for his own skin. Thus, the dead bull is security for the living; and thus, in taking up the shield, the young man who has outgrown boyhood entersthe-shadow and the shelter of the dead. To this extent the armed warrior himself plays the role of Argos, who killed the bull to wear its skin. away, then, the power and order of Argos the city are embod_ ied in Argos the neatherd, lord of the herdlnd lord of the land, whosename itself is the name of the land. In the myth, Argos is Zeus, oPponent,but it has long been seen that he is nonethelessclosely identifiedwith Zeus.2'fustas Argos is called,,panoptes,,, the one who -is "seesall," so Zeus, the omniscient sky-god, invoked as Zeus pa_ noptes. And just as mythographers describeArgos as having four eyes or three, so there was an image of Zeus ui Argos with"three eyes."In the countless,starlikeeyesof Argos,2e poets ,i* ur, imageof 6Paus.
'rApollod. 2.4;Schol.Eur. Phoen.rr16. For vase-paintingswith Argos in a bullskin see the black figure amphora BM B :^64= 13y 148.2, Cook III (r94o) 632; lor red figure hydria, Boston o8.4r7 : ARV'1579.84, Cook III (r94o) 661; for rdd-figure-crater from Ruvo, fatta 498 : ARV'r4o9.9, Cook I (r9r4) 46o;for a catalogueof depictionsof Argos seeR. Engelmann,Jdl 18(ry3\, 17-58. zApollod.2.7. sApollod. 2.6; Pliny NH 16.49; cf. black figure amphora, Mtinchen 5n l. = Cook lll (r94o) pl. 49.4 red figure stamnos, Wien 3729= ARVz288.r, Cook III (r94o) Pl. 49 2' "Hpas For lo is a priqrtess of H"tu see Hes. fr. rz4 M.-W. = APollod. 2.5; xLn}oixov Aesch. Hik. z9r; Hellanikos, FGrHist| ^ P. 455. 2rPaus. 2.t7.7,and cf. 3.15.6.
t66
z.t7.r. The name Nemea was etymologized from the ,,grazing,, of Argos, cattle: see-A'rrian,.FGrHist .^56F 16 = Ef. M. r76.y (it would be temp"ting t6.o.,.,"Jt the altar
meirtioned herewith
A. snodgrass,EarryGreek Armourandweapons
theEndof the
Bronze from ill to 7'')tt-cf. t78e 600B.C. (1964\,17_69,r7o_7t. E-.Meyer, Forsch. z. alten Gesch. I (figz),72, is criticalof this view; rirZeu lln.t nO.u Eum. rc45. For an altar AIFO: IANOIITA at Argos seeBCH y gcr), ;:T:l,t",r.n. ar); \-oor(I (1914)452_62;lll (ry4o)gr. with.four eyessee,,Hes.,,Aigimiosfr. 294M.-W.;two-headed on vase_paint, l":t 1f:: qrES, s€€black figure amphora, BM B tZa (n. zr above), bell_craterfrom Ruvo, Genoa 167
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
the universe-just as Zeus himself was the universe. Moreover, this two-faced quality of Argos recalls the myths of double beings who had to be killed and cut up so that our world could come into exisIndeed, in the context of the city Argos, the mythical Argos tence.3o was virtually the embodimentof the cosmos,the all-embracingorder. This order, so as to endure, had to be securedwith a death; it was dissolved for the sake of being reestablished.Argos died in the unspeakablesacrificeof the bull so that the youthful warriors might carry the sacredshield on their shoulders,thus carrying the city'soret fata der on into the future, like Aeneas: attollensumerisfamnmque nepotum.st
3. Agrionia In the myth, Argos' death causesIo, the king's daughter, to be driven off into distant lands as a mad cow. This pattern of kings' daughters roaming like cows, distracted,through forest and mountain, is better known through a myth from a place directly adioining Argos-Tiryns, where Proitos was king. Here, too, Hera is active, Hera of Tiryns, whose small seated statue made of wood from the pear tree was reckoned among the most ancient and venerableof Greek statuesof the gods. When Argos destroyedTiryns, the image was brought to the Argive Heraion, where Pausaniasstill saw it set up
AGRIONIA
on a column. The periegetefound it "insignificant,"r and it was perceivedso already in the fifth century,when legend had it that proitos' daughters had mocked the wretched image and thus incurred the goddess'swrath.2Hera'sanger was sometimesascribedto other motivations, but it was always the encounterwith Hera in her sanctuary that suddenly wrenched the daughtersof the Tirynthian king out of their shelteredexistence.The goddessdrove them to "frenziedroaming," fiLooiz4, accordingto the HesiodicCatalogues,3 causingthem to break out of the sanctuaryand city and to wander the earth. There were stories of "all sorts of indecent behavior,"a of shamelessnudity and of the madnessthat causedthem to take themselvesfor cows and roam the Peloponnesusmooing.' Our oldest source, the Catalogues, presentsa somewhat different picture: "becauseof their loathsome lewdness, the goddessdestroyed the tender flower of their youth," "over their headsshe poured a dreadful itching substanceand spread white leprosy over their whole skin, and now the hair fell out on their scalpsand their beautiful headswere bald."6This is both lust and the repulsivenessof sicknessand old age,a radicalantithesisto the image of lovely and modest virgins-redolent of a witch's sabbath. The myth of Pandareos'daughters,to which the Odysseyalludes, is comparable: their girlhood, which had stood under the protection of Athena and Artemis, comes to a violent halt when, shortly before
New Year's festival at Philadelphia, Saturnus aPPears as a mask with two heads, representing the period of dissolution before the new beginning: see Lydus Mens. 4.2 p' 65 Wuensch. 3tYerg. Aen. 8.73r.
'Paus.2.r7.5, 8.46.3.On this image seeAkusilaos, FGrHistz F z8; Demetriosof Argos, FGrHist 3o4F r; Simon (1969)3zo.z9.The fact that the image was made from the wood of the pear tree probably has to do with the festival of the ,,pear-throwers,,and the myth of the pear as the first food after the great flood: seeplut. e. Gr. 1qa-b. At Tiryns therewas a hero named Argos with a sacredgrove,Argos: seeHdt. 6.ZS-9o.For Argos as the donor of the imageof Hera seeDemetrios,FGrHist 3o4F r. Cf. A. Frickenhaus, Tirynsjgtz), T.z; F. Oelmann, Bonn.lbb. ry7 e95), :.8,pl. r, 3ta. 2Akusilaos of Argos, FGrHistz F z8; cf. Bacchyl.rr.4o-58, Bz-trz; accordingto Serv. alct. Ec/.6.48,they took the gold of Hera for their own use, i.e., they probablydressed them_selves up like Hera. The Arrhephoroi of the goddessat Athens got gold jewelry: see Harpokr. dppqgopeiv. 3Hes. fr. 37.70-75, and cf. fr. go-33 14.-W.;J. Schwartz, pseudo-Hesiodeia eg6o), cf. PR II 246-52;F Vian, "Melampous et les Proitides," Reauedes !9.n,545-48; ztudesAnciennes 67 (1965),2j_Jo. 'Met' dxocltic,s
r68
r69
ARV') ro54.48, Cook II (1924) 18o. Marduk has four eyes and four ears: see Enal4i: uma Eli5, ANET 62. For Argos with three eyes see Pherekydes, FGrHist 3 F 66 (the third is on the back of his head). For Zeus with three eyes (the third on his forehead), allegedly Priam's Zeus Herkeios, in the temple of Zeus Larisaios at Ar8os, see Paus' 2.24.). EEur. Phoen. nr6-r7 ra p,iv civ &crput' itrso\ai
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
i,,ll L
I
their weddings, they were abductedby the Harpies and given to the "hateful Erinyes" as servants.'Thedaughtersof Proitoswandering in the wilderness also becameErinyes-likebeings. Athenian critics found a similarly affectedrepulsivenessin the gatheringsof the garlic-eatingwomen at the Skira.8In Aristophanes' Lcclesiazisae,the realization of the plot hatched at the Skira is dominated by the image of a lasciviousold hag' Old age, repulsiveness, throwing custom to the winds, and deviation of all kinds belong to the period of dissolution both in the Attic ritual and in the myth of the daughtersof Proitos.Accordingly,the latter probably reflectsthe The description of the dreadful transformation ritual of a weiberbund. of the daughtersof Proitosis basedon the symptoms of real illnesses, and thesesymptoms are imitated in the ritual, where virgins must actually appear covered with white soot. "Rubbed down with white meal like the basketcarriers" is how one comic playwright in Athens describesit, referring to somesacrificialritual.'Likewise, accordingto the Homeric Hymn to Hermes,the prophetic Thriae, servantsof Delphic Apollo, are "virgins, their headsbesprinkledwith white meal."r0 According to the cult-legendof Letrinoi, Artemis of Alpheios and her nymphs maskedthemselveswith clay.The grotesquemasksfrom the shrine of Artemis Orthia at Sparta confirm that this reflectsa ritual custom, and similar maskswere found in the Heraion of Samos'The oldest representationsof the Gorgon are the larger than life-sizepotshaped masks, which were votive offerings to Hera of Tiryns." The transformationof the daughtersof Proitosis a ritual masking, forced on the virgins by Hera. Hera'swrath, howevet competedwith the Power of Dionysus in this myth-and here again the authority cited is a sourceas early as MelamPus, the prophet and Hesiod, presumably the Melampodia.'2
AGRIONIA
purifying priest, was also considered to have been the founder of the iutt of Dionysus." In this version, Dionysus struck the daughters of Proitos with madnessbecausethey were unwilling to accept his orgies.Yet the presenceof the Dionysiacelement is not radicaliy different here, but is only a slight changeof emphasisin structurescomrnon to non-Dionysiacrituals as well. The dissolution of the normal order, which otherwise signifiesthe wrath and alienationof the great goddess,is here transformed into a show of strength by the god of rnadness.This madnessbecomesambivalent:is it a blessingor a curse? The Melampodiais probably later than the Catalogues, so it permits us to tracethe inroads made by the cult of Dionysus in the sixth century. And yet the new interpretationfollows the old rhythm of dissolution and new beginning. Whether causedby Hera or Dionysus, raving goeshand in hand with sacrifice.This is evident only in the Melampus version of the saga,in which the madnessis raisedto a secondlevel. Proitosrefused Melampus'first offer to cure his frenzied daughters,whereupon,,the maidensgrew even more frantic and were now joined by all the other women as well; for they too forsook their homes, killed their own children, and ran off into the solitude."1aThus, once again, an unspeakablygruesome act took place-the murder of one's own children. Dissolution turns into perversion,and in addition to the antithesisof the lovely virgin comes that of the loving mother, for she too has becomea witch, murdering and even eating her children. In the "slaughteringof the bull" which we saw reflectedin the myth of Argeiphontes, the ancestralking or universal father was the victim. Here, it is the child. Yet this distinction is in fact part of a polar re-between lationship. Patricide and infanticide are the two variants which the unspeakablesacrificecan shift at any time. Thus, we can postulateeven now that a young animal, a bull-calf instead of a bull, could be used as a substitutein the ritual. Once again, it is the Melampus versionthat givesa full accountof . how this dreadful tale could yet end happily: "Melampus took along the strongestyouths and puisued the women and giils with battlecries and a specificecstaticdance, out of the mountains and on to
'/Od. 2o.66-78-an isolatedbit of the tradition for this story; the scholionto v' 66 calls the "sickness"of the daughtersof Pandareosxuvc, which W. H. Roscher(Dasaonder KynanthropiehandelndeFragmentdesMarcellusaon Side,Abh. Leipzig r7.3 lr897l) con' nectedwith Kynanthropy; cf. M. C. van der Kolf, RE XVIII z, 499-504. 8SeeIII.r.n.azabove. 'Hermippos fr. z6 (CAF | 4t). toHy.Merc. Sfi-55.Cf. the Graiai in the myth of Perseus. rrFor Artemis Alpheiaia see Paus. 6.zz.9; cf. Harpokr. dtop'arron, fiIretgovyap rtp For Artemis Orthia see /HS Suppl' 5 $gzg)' 161' a4)rQ rai rQ rrtpq rois 1.tuou1t'ivous. pl. 47-62;Nilsson (1955)16r. For SamosseeH. Walter,Dasgriech.Heiligtum{196), z8' For Tiryns see RE VI A 1465;Pickard-Cambridge(1962)pl. XII b. r2Hes.fr. r3r = Apollod . z.z6;1. Liiffler, Die Melampodie,versucheiner Rekonstruktion des lnhalts(rg$), )7-Jg. The reconstruction on the basisof the various Hesiodic fla8ments
and testimonia is, however, most uncertain; cf. R. pfeiffer, Ausgew.Schriften e96o), t" any case,the separationof the myths of the proitids unJ M"lu-prr, (Nilsson lo-11 U9551611.2)is disprovenby Hes. fr. 37. "Hdt. 2.49. kAP-ollod. 2.28,1.37 tovg ittpaorriious Eyoucatzoldasrris oapxas aitiaui<-rnoiuro. ut. Paus.2.r8.4;Nonnus 47.484-95.
170
477
ill
It'
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
t
Sikyon."'s Strange,how the myth here leaps from Tiryns to Sikyon. In the most common versions,the daughtersof Proitosare purified at yet a third place, the sanctuaryof Artemis Hemera in Arcadian Lusoi.'6The myth seemsto combine various local traditions; there must also have been a Tirynthian conclusion,'7or at least a closing rite at Tiryns which, of course, could not have survived the annexationof Tiryns by Argos. In any case, the raving of the maidens and the women is merely an exceptionalstatefollowed by the reestablishment of order in the polis, the antithesis of perversion. The women who have gotten out of hand are made to feel the men'ssuperior strength. It is the youths, the ephebes,who prove themselveshere, and their leader, Melampus, thereby becomes the new king." He forthwith marries one of the successfullyhealed daughters; thus Dionysus' priest returns again to Hera'ssphereof power, for she is the goddess of marriage. Demetrios Poliorketescelebratedhis marriage in Argos at the festival of the Heraia." But even this last phasedid not occurwithout sacrifice:"Iphinoe, the eldest daughter of Proitos,met her death in the pursuit." Her gravewas pointed out in the marketplaceat Sikyon.'oNaturally,there was as little question of an actualhuman sacrificein the ritual as there had been in the infanticide. The fact that the raving daughter identifies herself with a cow makes it probablethat a cow-sacrificeaccom-
II
'sApollod. 2.29. 'oBacchyl. ar.)7-)g;
Jt,r,,t l l,$tl
llii
I
il
Eudoxos fr. z617 Cisinger : Steph. Byz.'A(auia, Pliny NH 1r.16 (cf. Theopompos, FGrHist rr5 F 269; Phylarchos, FGrHist 8t F 63; "Arist." Mir. ausc 842b6; Paus. 5.5.10); Callim. Hy. 3.23-s; Paus. 8.18.7-8; R. Stiglitz, Die grossenGdt' tinnen Arkadiens (1967), 1o1-1o5. For the purification at Elis see Strabo 8 p. 346; Paus. 5.5.70. rTThe numerous votive statuettes of women with pigs that were found at Tiryns indicate a rite of purification (cf . V z. nn. 3 - 5 below) : see A. Frickenhaus, Tiryns | (r9rz) ' t7 For a sanctuary of Artemis in the Argolis founded by Melampous see Soph. fr. p9P.: Paus. 2.25.1; Steph. Byz. Oiua. rsApollod. 2,.e9; Schol. Pind. Nem. 9.3o; Paus. 2.18.4; PR II z5z. Only Pindar (Pae. 4.28-J5) has Melampus turn down the kingship. ' e S e eI I I . z . n . 6 a b o v e . rApollod.
z.z9; for the tomb of Iphinoe with the inscription at the marketplace of SEG 15 ig58\, #t95. For dramatic pictorial repreSikyon see Praktika OgSz), lg+-gS: sentations of the purification of the Proitids through the sacrifice of a pig, see the crater from Canicattini, Boll. d'Arte 35 Q95o\, 97-to7; E. Langkrtz and M. Hirmer, Die Kunst der Westgriechen Q9$), z4; Trendall (t96) 6oz #toz; AK t3 Q97o), 67, pl. 3o.z; on which cf. a vase from Naples (H. t76o) and a cameo, RMLII 2571. On purification through Melampus see also Alexis fr. tz (CAF II 337); Diphilos fr. rz6 (CAF Il 577); Bucriats te dnoppfirots xai xaSappoi.s Paus. 8. r8.7.
172
brl,i
ACRIONIA
panied-the_rescueand the cure. Thus, the circle of correspondences with the Hecatombaia-Heraiais closed. The ecstaticdance of the led by Melampus is obviously a ritualized hunt to help catch ephebesthe wild animals. The hunt is repeated and fulfilled in the inimalsacrifice,which marks and surmounts the crisesof society.The myth of Proitos' daughters is the story of an initiation, the paih from the virgin to the queen, in the course of which the old order is dernolished in a transitionalperiod of madness,and one must passthrough death before reaching one's goal. In overcoming perversion, the youths establishthemselvesand their king. Our only evidencethat the myth of proitos' daughterswas con_ nected with a festival is a gloss in Hesychius: 'Agrania, festival in Argos in honor of one of Proitos' daughters." "Honoring,, a heroine presupposesher death: the festival was thus for lphinoe, whom Melampus and his ephebeshad killed, nay, sacrificed.In the same breath,Hesychiusnotes the 'Agriania: festival of the dead among the Argives."2lAt a festivalof the dead, a Nekysia,the spirits or masks swarm up, dema4ding their rights for a certain time, but then give yay to normal life again. One must propitiate them so that they will leaveone in peace.Frequently,various meansare used to chasethem away.22 The exceptional period in the myth ends with the death of Proitos' daughter in the wild hunt; and an exceptionalperiod recurs annually "in her honor," only to be overcome.Thus, the antithesisof death must aid in establishingthe thesis of life. Agriania/Agrionia is one of the most widespreadof all Greek festival names, in many placeseven lending its name to a month, Agrionios.23The evidence is especiallyplentiful in Boeotia,and a Boeotian, Plutarch, has provided us with somecharacteristicdetails of the 21'Aypavn.
6opr.i1 Ev "Apyet, Etri p.r,Qt6v flpoirou Bvyar|puv.'Aypnun. uexiota napa'Apyeiots xai dyioves 6v @i1Ba'f-. 2See IV.3 below. aNilsson (ryo6) 277-74, who would like to make the festival, as a,,gathering,, of the clead, parallel to the Anthesteria; more likely, however, is the .onn".iion with dypros. '-,rlpLa@v (Thracian tribe'Ayptd.ves, Hdt. 5.r6). For the Agrionia at Thebes see n. 21 above;.IG YII 2447;L. Robert, BCH 59 eg5), ry-9g (in honor of Artjyuoos Kcl6petos); at Orchomenos see Plut. Q. Gr. zg9 I.; ui-Cnaiior,"iu see plut. e symp.7rya; IG vll 3348; etc. For the month-name Agrianios/Agrionios see Samuel (tg7z)- Ind,ex s.a.; 'Ayeppavt'os at Eresos (cf . rleppap.is instead of priamos, Arcaeus 4z.z Lp); see 1G XII 45; Ltovuoos t)pqc.rrTs xai dypuivtos plut. Anton. 24.5, and cf. Dionysos i2:? !, \-'mestes at Lesbos besides Hera and Zeus, Arcaeus tz9;'Aypt
773
j
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,s FESTIVAL
ritual. At Orchomenos,an accompanyingmyth directly paralleledthe myth of Proitos' daughters.In Boeotia,of course,Dionysus took on the most prominent role. There were storiesof a Dionysiacepiphany and frenzy, in keeping with the central role of the priest of Dionysus in the cult. Orchomenos,the city of Minyas, is yet another place with especially old traditions. Here, it is the daughters of Minyas who are driven to madness and infanticide before their frenzy is calmed in a no less frenzied pursuit.2a"The only ones to abstain from the Dionysiac dances were the daughters of Minyas, Leukippe, Arsippe, and Alkathoe. . . . But Dionysus was angered.And they were busy at their looms, vying with each other in their work for Athena Ergane, when suddenly ivy and grape vines began to coil around the looms, snakes were nestling in the baskets of wool, and milk and wine The epiphany of Dionysus brings about dripped from the ceiling."'?s Dionysiac madness: "They threw lots into a pot, and the three of them drew lots. And when Leukippe'slot appearedshe spoke, vowing to bring the god a sacrifice.And she and her sisterstore her son, Hippasos, apart"26"like a fawn," 2' "and then dashed off to the original maenads, who chased them away, however, because they were polluted with murder. Thereupon they turned into birds"'8-into owls and bats, animals of the night. The unspeakablesacrifice(rl0;.ra),offered at the peak of madness,is here in every way a Dionysian sparagmos.Maenadswith dismembered fawns were a frequent subject of vase-paintings."The gruesome act causesa rift: in the face of this deed, the Dionysiac horde splits in two, with the "original members,"the pure ones, repudiating the polluted ones. The myth closeswith a metamorphosis in which the situationof flight and pursuit is forever fixed in an image from nature: the creaturesof the night are alwayshated and pursued bv the birds of dav. tnR"pp,R.&lLII
25Ael. VH 3orz-r6; PRI69o. 7.42. 26Ant.Lib. ro.3 following Korinna (665Page)and Nikander. 27Ael. VH. 3.42. '?6lbid.;cf.Plut. Gr.zgge-f;Ov.Met.4.tgg-4r1'. ThenamesofthethreeMinyadsare Q. Leukippe(Leuconoe,Ov. 4.168),Alkathoe(Plut., Ant. Lib.) or Alkithoe (Ael., Ov )and Arsippe (Ant. Lib., Ael.) or Arsinoe (Plut.);Ant. Lib. endswith the transformationinto wxrepis, y[afi{, pnfa (a kind of owl), Ael. with xoptivr1,7Xa0(,vuxrepis;Ovid speaks only of bats. Aeschylus' Xantriai dealt either with the myth of the Minyads or of the Proitids. nE.B., u skyphos, Athens 3442, Harrison Qgzz) 452;cf. H. Philippafi, ReuueBelgede = Philologie 9 (19jo), 5-72.. For Donysus tearing apart a deer see a stamnos BM +lg ARV'z298,Harrison Q.gzz)45o.
a74
AGRIONIA
Plutarch explicitly links the myth of Minyas' daughterswith a ritual that included pursuit. "The husbandsof the daughtersof Minyas, becausethey wore black clothing in grief and soriow were called 'looty,' rlotrdecs,but the Minyads themselves were called Oleiae, the 'rnurderesses.'And even today the people of Orchomenosgive this name to the women descendedfrom this family; and every other yea\ at the Agrionia, there takes place a flight and pursuit of t'hem by the priest of Dionysus with sword in hand. Any one of them that h-e catcheshe may kill, and in my time the priest Zoilus killed one of them."s ?recisely the role that Melampus played in the myth_ namely, that of archegeteof the Dionysian cult-is played here by the real priest of Dionysus at Orchomenos.Like the armed ephebei, he carriesa sword; and the act of killing a woman of the oleiae correspondsto the death of Proitos' eldestdaughter.The seriousnature of the ritual is here raised to the highest pitch of intensity. plutarch subsequently describeshow this, our one securelyattejted instance of human sacrifice, led to a crisis, indeed, to reform of the custom. Zoilus died a painful.death, and the people of orchomenos, after internal disorder,deprived his family of the priesthood. with the fanaticism of a zealot, Zoilus apparently failed to recognize the theatrical, playactingnature of the ritual and thus pursued it adabsurdurn. In the Dionysian realm, as elsewhere,animal-sacrificeguaranteesthat the ritual functions sensibly.we can gather from the myth that a mysterious_andunspeakablenoctural sacrificefor Dionysus-the eater of raw flesh and nocturnal god of the Agrionia-preceded the flight of the "murderesses,"and, likewise, thal the puriuit culminated in an animal-sacrifice. The-communityis divided into two groups at the Agrionia sacri.. Itce, each serving Dionysus. The opposition of the sexes,of women and men, is emphasizedby the men being called "sooty," pointing Deyonclthe mourning custom to a ritual masquerade,whereas the leaderof the women is named Leukippe, .n"arri.,g ,,thewhite mare.,, this way, Melampus, the "black foot,,, puriued the daughters 11Lttl of Proitos, who had covered themselveswith white meal-a i,.,*mery of black soot versusone of white meal, The fact that those with the light color are actually stained,and those who are sooty and black ate actually pure inside-an inversion of interior and ext-erior qualittes-reflects the polar tensions that find expression here. The one would be unthinkable without the other; indeed, the one embraces In^ -Toepffer_(1889) :99e-f. r89-9o defendedthe text Ado,\eiaragainstButtmann,s 'o)reiat, tun;ecture "j,_"1 which, however,is supportedby plutarch'setymllogy oioy
175
t
l,,l fl j ,
iil
li
I
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
AGRIONIA
the other. Those in white turn into flying creaturesof the night, yet the triumphant daytime order still preservesthe memory of darkness.The Attic ephebeswore black robesat the Panathenaicfestival,r' and Theseus returned from Crete with a black sail, thus becoming king. It is alwaysastoundinghow much light the report of a contemporary can shed on rituals still activein his time. Plutarchspeaksbriefly of the Agrionia festival in Chaironeia, his home town. "In my own region at the Agrionia, the women searchfor Dionysus as if he had run away; then they stop and say that he has fled to the Muses and is hidden with them; a bit later, after the meal has ended, they ask each other riddles and conundrums." According to Plutarch, this means that, becauseof the presenceof the logos, "the wild, frenzied behavior is hidden away,kept in the kindly careof the Muses."" Here, everything happens between women, and they themselvesdirect the shift from wild behavior to that controlled by the Muses. Wildness and frenzy have disappeared;the restlesssearching,as after something lost, has ended, resolvedunexpectedlyinto a "meal," a sacrificial feastin which oppressiveanxiety givesway to cheerful sport. We do not know in what way other societalgroups took part in this festival, but even Plutarch'sbrief sketchrevealsthe samefamiliar pattern of dissolution followed by the order of the Muses. In Argos there were tales of king Perseus'deadly pursuit of Dionysus and his femaleservants.Peoplewould point out the gravesof the fallen maenads, the "sea-women," sometimeseven speaking of the death of the god himself. Yet this event was linked to the founding of Dionysus' temple and his cult.a'As early as the lliad we find a description of the flight and disappearanceof Dionysus. The powerful Lykurgus, son of Dryas, once "drove the nurses of raving Dionysus over the sacredplain of Nysa, and all of them scatteredtheir sacrificialimplements on the ground, stricken with an ox-goad by
lnurderous Lykurgus; while Dionysus in terror dove beneath the ocean waves, and Thetis took him to her bosom, frightened, with strong shivers upon him at the man's threatening ihouts.,,. An armed man bursts into a Dionysiac sacrificeprepared by the women who protect and care for the frenzied god. He pursues them to the sea, swinging the axe as one would to kill a cow-later versions depict him pursuing the frenzied god, himself in a frenzy, and, in this state,cutting down his own childrenwith the axe:a victim for a victim. In the logic of the story Lykurgus is Dionysus, enemy, and Di omedestells the tale in the lliad to warn of the dangerswhen men try to fight with gods. The myth of Lykurgus has often been interpretedas testifying to the resistancemet by the expandingcult of Dionysus,3'butwhen related, as it surely must be, to the Agrionia ritual at Orchomenosand the myth of_Melampus,we find that Lykurgus actually occupiesthe position of the priest of Dionysus. Thus, it is not an historicaiconflict that is attestedhere, but the polar tension between divine madness and human order as acted out in a single ritual. The antagonistsare linked to one another by serving the same god,3uor at least at the same festival, the different stages of which could be named after antithetical gods. The Minyads, who had struggled against Dionysus, becamehis priestesses,performing the dreadful sacrificein his honor. Those,in turn, who chasedthe Minyads away were Dionysian maenads.Pentheus,the enemy of the new god, is himself made to take on the appearanceof Dionysus,3'onlyto be torn to piecesby the raving Bakchai.In one version of the myth, Lykurgus too is torn to
for the tempfe of DionysusKresioswith the tomb of Ariadne seePaus.2.21.7-8, referring to Lyseas(FGrHist3rz F $. The detailsof what Deinarchosof Delossaidare uncertain (FGrHrsl)ggF r), but the testimoniaspeakof the god'sdeath (cf. II.5.n.4r above). Accordingto Schol.T II. t4-1tg, Perseushurled Dionysusinto the lake at Lerna. Nonnus 47.475-74rcombinedthe Perseusand Melampusversions;it is uncertainto what extent he is following. Euphorion (fr. 18 Powell).
tll. 6.r1o-4o; EumelosEuropiafr. ro Kinkel : Schol.A IL 6.4'; thereafterthe Lykurgia by Aeschylus, fr. 69-roo Mette; Soph. Ant. 955-65; Hyg. Fah. 242, 732;Apollod. 3f'.4-)j; hymn to Dionysusin Page,LiteraryPapyri(ry41, 52c-25 = fr. 56 Heitsch, Die griech.Dichterfragtnente der rdm. Kniserzeit('961); PRI 688. For vase-paintingsseeBrommer (196o)355;for mosaicsseeP Bruneauand C. Vatin, BCH go (tg66), 39t-427; Ior a new mosaicfrom Trikka, see BCH (tg69), 867-88.It was disputed whether 9z Bour)\4{ ,.rtt was an axe(LeonidasAnt'h.pai.9.35ri ora whip: seeSchol.T !!. sWilamowitz (rgjz\ 65f.; Nilsson I (rSSS)565,6rr-rz; Harrison (r9zz) 369; Rohde II 39-43 interpretsthe myths of the proitids and the Minyads in this way, but 11U98) leave out Lykurgus (4o.2).Besidesthis, it was fashionableto interpret the ::-1,,t.," myth in terms of nature, with Lykurgus representingwinter (pR I 6g7-gs) or ihe heat ur summer (Rapp, RMt ll zzq) in opposition to the vegetationspirit. * F. Otto (1931)roo on the sacrificeat Tenedos(III.4.n.zobelow): ,,DerSinn des l,t:: Mythos ist, dassder Gott das Furchtbare,das er tut, selbsterleidet.,, 3'Eur. Bacch.8zr- 35,and cf. E. R. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae (r96oz)on g54-55.
a76
177
3tSeeIILr.n.87 above; also the victory of Melanthios over Xanthos (on which see P Vidal-Naquet,Proc.Camhridge Philol.Soc.t4 [t9681,49-64) 3'Q.symp. 7t7a. 33Forthe tombs of the "AtrrarseePaus.z.zz.r; for the tomb of Xopeia seePaus.z.zo.4;
DISSOLUTION
t,,l
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I
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
bits as a victim for Dionysus. In the ritual, the roles are variable. As Strabosays,some actually identified Lykurgus with Dionysus.$ And as late as the Roman Empire we still find a Dionysian mosaic with Lykurgus in the middle, striking his daughter with the axe,3e for this act of violence is also a Dionysian sacrifice. Dionysus' nurse being pursued with the axe, and the leap into the sea, are the motifs that determine the other Dionysus-myth known to the Homeric epic, the myth of Ino-Leukothea. Formerly the mortal daughter of Cadmus but "now" honored as a goddessin the sea,she savesOdysseuswith her veil.€ The transformationof the king's daughter into a goddessis alwayslinked to the birth of Dionysus in Thebes:Ino took careof the young Dionysus and brought him up. To avenge herself for this, Hera struck Ino and her husband Athamas with madness.The story normally goes on to tell of a double infanticide, through which the family of Athamas was annihilated. Athamas slew his own son, Learchos,"hunting him down like a stag."n1Ino then fled with her secondson, Melikertes-alternately, she killed Melikertesherselfin the boiling water of a tripod kettle and fled Athamas' rage with her dead child;n'zin any case, she finally threw herself with her son down a steepcliff into the sea. Once again, a child is sacrificedin a moment of madness,with flight and pursuit coming after. The motif of the tripod, the stag comparison, even the namesAthamas and Ino establisha closelink with the werewolf motif from Lykaon to Phrixos.a3"Wolf's madness," )titcca, is at work here, as it was with Lykurgus. And as with him, Athamas wields the double axe in his pursuit. Moreovet as before, the nurse and child leap into the sea. There can be no doubt that there is cultic action underlying the
TEREUS AND THE NIGHTINGALE
myth. of Leukothea. Leukothea was a goddessworshipped in many temples,* but preciselybecauseher cult was so widespiead, stretchng far beyond the Greek world, its contours are indisfinct. It is hard to say for which local cult the most common version of the myth was intended' (of the return of Melikertes-Palaimonat the Isthmiin sancruary, more later.)asXenophanesmentions what seemed to him a sffange combination of sacrificeand mourning in the Elean cult of Leukothea,* which was perhapstaken over from phocaea.He mocks this paradoxicalcombination, although in its tension between killing and surviving it is the direct successorto the hunter'scomedy of innocence.on Delos we find the sanctuaryof Leukotheacombined with Above all, Megaralaid claim to Leukothea:Ino,scorpse phallagogy.oT was said to have been found and buried there, and that was wh-ere shefirst receivedher divine name, Leukothea.srhe rocks from which she leapt were pointed out not far away.Moreover, there was a ,,white plain" through which Athamas had pursued her..'From the standpoint of the story setting the pursuit within a fixed area is paradoxical, but it makes'senseif we are dealing with a ritual analogousto the Agrionia of Orchomenos, where the release of aggressi,onis kept within set bounds. The pursuit across the "white plain,,, projected into the cult of the "white goddess,"provides the link to the daugh_ ters of Proitos,to Leukippe-perhaps indeed to the Skira.
andtheNightingale 4. Tereus
sStrabo 70p.
471;Arabia:Nonnus zr.16of. For dedications&eQ lrilxoitpyqtseeD. Sourdel, Lescultesd'Haurand I'epoque romaine(1952),8r-88; for an altar of Au]xoi,p7osfrom Cotiaeum (Phrygia)seeJournalof RomanStudiesry Qgz), rg-64, pl. zz. sCuicul (Algeria),in Nilsson Qg5) tr4. *Od.5J33-j5; Alkman Page; Evr. Med. n8z-8g with Schol.Hyg. Fab.z;Ov. Met. 5ob 4.539-42;Apollod. 3.28;PRl6ot-6o5; Schirmer Rlll II zorr-r7; Eitrem, RE XII (rgzl) zz93-4c6. f''Os ildpou OqpeirrasApoltod. 3.28,and cf. Schol.Od. 5.ll1; Schol.Luk. p. 266.t1; Ov. Fasl.6.48r,-98;Serv. Aen.5.z4r;vase-paintings, AK z1 Q98o),31-43. oApollod. 3.28, and cf. Eur. Med. n84-89; Schol. Pind. III p. 192.8, r94.zz Drach' mann. A peculiar dedication is that of one Menneas rleg Aeuxorldg 2eyeipav with reference to his great-grandfather, rci dno$eutiutos iv rQ LdBryt, 6t' oi ai oprcti d"yavrar,OGI 6t: the lebes, as a funerary urn, signifies both death and deification. sSeeII.r-4 above.
r78
The abominationof a mother killing her own child, projectedinto the bird world, as with the Minyads, iJthe subjectof the myth of the t1rem, RE XII zz93-23o6. Nilsson does not discussLeukothea, even though ]_Se1 cunctaGraecia (Cic. Naf. deor.3.39)worshippedher. 'sSee IIL7. {VS zr A rJ = Arist. Rhet.rtoobf,. ttSee I.7.n.54above. sPaus. r.42.7;Zenob. Par.4.38.Motroupisrltpapaus. a.44.2-g;Schol.pind. lll p. ry4.9 Dachmann;'Schol. Lyk. zz9. sAeurdu ze6loy Schol. Od. 53J+;Eust. 1543.:.6;Nonnus rc.76; Et.M. 56r.44;Steph. Byz. lepave.rc.;probably : roi4s Dpdpoepiut. e. cona. 675e.
179
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
,,i 'l{,,,. rilrl '
rfll
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nightingale, which, like those of Lykurgus and Leukothea, already appearsin the Homeric epic. The nightingale mourns incessantlyfor Itylos or ltys, the son whom she killed with her own hands. Nightingale poems have appearedin an unbroken stream from Homer up until modern literature.And sincethey have in large part shapedour conceptions,no one has had any difficulty imagining that "the beautiful but sad song of the nightingale" "could stir one to thoughts of the bird's heavy guilt and deep sorrow"' Nonetheless,it requiresonly a little objectivity to realizewhat a misunderstanding,indeed, what a perverse supposition this is on the part of the human fantasy with respectto the song of the bird. This conceptionwas not drawn from the reality of nature, but from the human tradition of horror in a nocturnal ritual. In the Odyssey,Penelopeturns to the myth of the nightingale as the primordial image of mourning: 'As when Pandareos'daughter, the greenwoodnightingale,perching in the deep of the forestfoliage, sings out her lovely song, when springtime has just begun; she varying the manifold strainsof her voice,pours out the melody,mourning Itylos,son of the lord Zethos,her own belovedchild, whom sheonce killed with the bronze when the madnesswas on her."' Pherekydes supplementsthe story, expanding it to include Zethos' brother Amphion of Thebesand his wife Niobe.'Seething jealousyover Niobe's greaternumber of children drove Aedon, the wife of Zethos, to murder. One night she took up a weapon to kill one of her nephews, but in the dark she struck her own and only child. Her flight after the deed and her transformation into a bird was presupposed in her name, Aedon, "nightingale." The form of the myth that joins the swallow to the nightingale is yet richer in charactersand relationships.It becamethe canonicalversion at Athens, though it had alreadybeen part of a work ascribedto Hesiod,npresumably the Ornithomantia.As early as the seventhcentury 8.c., the metopesin the templeat ThermosdepictedAedon and Chelidon with the child, Itylos, betweenthem.5Hesiod and Sappho knew the swallow as the daughter of Pandion,oand "many poets" called the nightingale Daulias, as Thucydides attests.'In his Tereus, rRoscher,RML I85, and cf. ibid. II 569-71;Hofer, R.LILlll 444-48,Y 17r-76; PRll t54-62; Sophocles,Fragntnts,ed. A.C. PearsonII (r9t7\, z.zt-18; for vase-paintings seeBrommer(t96o)j7z, esp. ARVr 456.ro. 3FGrHist n4. zOd. g.5r8-21; translationby R. Lattimore. 1F sSchefold aFr. : (1964\1114,T.2o. 1rz M.-W. Ael. VH rz.zo. 'Thuc. 2.29. cHes. Erga Sapphor35 LP _168;
r8o
TEREUS AND THE NIGHTINGALE
which influenced most of the later sources, Sophocles probably did not introduce many innovations.8 Tereus, king of Daulis and a Thracian by birth, was the son-in-law of Pandion, king of Attica, having rnarried his daughter Procne. The fateful tale begins with a maiden's ftagedy and a king's guilt. Procne's virgin sister, Philomela, came under the power of Tereus, who raped her and cut out her tongue so that his deed would remain secret. He imprisoned her on an isolated farm.'There Philomela wove a peplos in which she depicted the story of her sufferings. When she was finished, the peplos was brought to the queen. In this way Procne learned of the crime, which led to an uprising of all women and a reunion of the wife and the dishonored maiden. Their victim, however, was not the father, but the son. Ityshis usual name in this version-was torn to pieces, partially boiled, partially roasted, and set before his father for supper. When Tereus afterward discovered what had been done to him, he grabbed a double axe and pursued the dreadful sisters-at this moment, the story shifts to the bird realm: Procne becomes the sorrowing nightingale, Philomela the swallow which, because of its maimed tongue, can only twitter. Tereus, however, the wielder of the axe, turns into an "epops," the woodpecker-like bird that can split wood'o and which is usually somewhat incorrectly translated as the "hoopoe." It is patent that flight and pursuit are being staged here, as in the Agrionia ritual. And in fact, the myth is rooted in the Dionysian realm: Ovid describes how the women's nocturnal rising occurs on the pretext of being a festival of Dionysus. Procne comes to philomela as a maenad." The horrible meal corresponds to a Dionysian sacrifice in the detail that the meat is "partially roasted, partially boiled.,,', This is just what the Titans did to the child Dionyius after thev had killed him. Thus, among Dionysiac-orphic initiatbs it is forbidden to 8Fr. 58r-95 Pearson.Cf. Aesch. Hik.6o-68;fr. 6o9Mette; Apollod. ).7g)-g5;Hyg. Fab. 45. Among the Romans(Philokles?seeRadke,RE XXIII z4g-5o),philomelaturns rnto the nightingale.A peculiarversionof the Aedon myth is found in Ant. Lib. rr, quoted trom Boio. e,'Eri r6v yupiav Apollod. 3.194; 'i6puneviv xrit1t"71 puiaKiv TLvdn..p..K..r.,criloas Liban. Narr. 18 (VIII Foerster);stabulaOv. Met. 6.52t, 45 S7), 59t.. top'Arcy Thompson, Glossary of GreekBirds e936r),95-1oo. uOu.. Met. 6.587-&t5. The Donysian elementis certainly there alreadyin Sophocles; ct' Acc. trag. 642.L. Koenen,in Studien zur Textgeschichte und Textkritik(iestschr.G. lach\o,n [tgSgl, 8l-BZ\, accordingly conjectures Spuq i-y6uu' ix r6n 6p7iav Aristoph. Ao. 16. ]]Ou. t.t. 6.645-46 calls it a "sacrificeaccording to ancestralcustom,, (648); see I I . r . n . z qa b o v e .
r8r
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DIssoLUTIoN AND NEw yEAR's FESTIvAL
"roast that which has been boiled." The samemotif accompaniedthe unspeakablesacrificesof Lykaon, Thyestes,and Harpagos. Preciselybecauseof the myth's wide circulation,it is difficult to localize the corresponding rituals. Pandareosbelongs in Miletus, Zethos in Thebes,Pandion in Athens, and Tereusin Daulis. But the hadition clingsto this last placewith particular doggedness.This was where the gruesomemeal took place, Pausaniasassuresus,'3and his referenceto the ornithological miracle that swallows do not nest at Daulis indicateslocal tradition. When he adds that this meal "started the defilementof the table among men," he raisesthe Daulian meal to the status of a primordial crime, to the very first meal of meat. This thus competeswith the myth of the Attic Buphonia, of Lykaon and Tantalos,of the killing of Argos as the first murder, and probably reflectsa local Daulian claim. Furthet Pausaniasmentionsloa sanctuary of Athena at Daulis where the most ancient cultic image had been brought by Procnefrom Athens. Procne,the queen,thus appearsas a priestessof Athena at Daulis, just as queen Praxitheahad in Athens. Philomela'swork on the peplos belongs to the realm of Athena Ergane, to whom the Minyads had likewise been so exclusivelydedicated. The Arrhephoroi worked on a peplos as well, and the end of their duties in the encounter with the snake of the Acropolis corresponds to Philomela'sfall. Through his connection with the family of king Pandion, Tereus is also linked to Athens.lsAdmittedly, virtually nothing is known of the Attic festival,the Pandia,exceptthat it followed closeon the heels of the Great Dionysia.l'This could just be coincidence,especiallyas there is a sacrificeto "Epops" attestedfor the fifth day of Boedromion, in the fall." There is an even closerconnectionof the cult of Pandion and Tereuswith Megara, about which Pausaniasprovides us with a few details.There was a memorial to Pandionat Megara," and he was '3ro.4.8;cf. Skabo g p. Apollod. 3.r95. On the 42, Et. M. z5o.r;Steph. Byz. Aa0)rr.s; other hand, 6cir)rovis explained as a "thicket" (Paus. ro.4.7). Hsch. Ac0)tr.s'6opri iv 'Ayyet, pipnpo rfis flpoitov rpds'Axpiotou p"ayr1sindicates a sacrifice with mock combat. t':o,4.g. rsTherewas a statue of Procne with ltys by Alkamenes on the Acropolis: Paus. r..z4.l; G. P. Stevens,Hesperia ry $946), to-tr. '5Phot. flcivdto; Deubner (ry32) 176. rTIn the sacrificialcalendar of Erchia, LS r8 A zo, E t z. rsPaus.r.5.3, jg.+, the shapeof a waterfowl +t.6 at the cliff of Athena Aithyia, who in 'Ev 6'Ai0ur.a).Cf . 1.7.n.54 carried an Attic king under her wings to Megara (Hsch. above;III.6.n.8 below.
r8z
TEREUS AND THE NIGHTINGALE
the obiect of a cult there. The grave of Tereuswas likewise located there, and it was connectedwith an especiallyodd sacrificalcerernony: "every year they offer him a sacrificeusing pebblesinstead of barley-grains."" We are ignorant as to how, and on what sort of sacrificial animal, these pebbles were thrown, but this much is clear: although rendered harmless, this is a symbolic stoning ceremony, showing that guilt was incurred and pardoned. In just this way, by symbolically stoning Hermes, the gods extricated themselvesfrom any guilt for the killing of Argos. In Megara, too, Tereusis linked to an unspeakablesacrificethat appearsin the myth as the primordial guilt that establishedkilling and the eating of meat among men. At Tenedos,a newborn calf was sacrificedto Dionysus Anthroporrhaistes,the man-destroyer,after cothurnoi were put on its feet, apparentlyin order to identify it as closelyas possiblewith the god of tragedy.The sacreddouble axe was used to slaughter it. The sacrificer,however,then fled to the sea,pursued by the participants,who hurled stones at him, thus purifying themselvesof guilt.r0For plutarch, Dionysus Omestesis identicatwith Dionysus Agrionios.rl The circleof comparablerituals thus comesto a close. According to the myth, Tereuswas a Thracian.But the namesbecome transparent from the perspectiveof Greek: Epops, the ,,overseer,"is certainly the name of a bird, but it cannot be set apart from such similar forms as Epopetesand Epopeus.All thesenamesappear as epithets of Zeus" and indicate an "overseeing"universal god or sky god. At Erchia, sacrificeswere made to Zeus Epopetesin exactly the sameway that they were to the Epops.Thus, fromthe standpoint of the name, Tereusthe Epopsbecomesthe exactequivalentof Argos Panoptes.Even the name Tereu.s begins to sound so Greek that it could be taken for a translation or paraphraseof Epops. He is the "watcher,"guarding Philomelaas Argos did with Io. He is the custodian of power who, like Argos, is nonethelessdestined to fall victim to an uprising, a dissolution. Does the name Philomelapoint to an intoPaus. r.48.8-9.and cf. I.r.n.16 above.Strabo 9p.423 knows of a MegarianTereus hadition, which he incorrectly ascribesto Thucyiiies 12.29,y. bAel. N a f .a n . 7 2 . J 4 ;N i l s s o n ( r S 0 6 ) f o 8 - f o 9 ; ( r g S S ) 1 5 6 ; C o o k l ( r 9 r645) 9 ; I l | 1 9 2 4 ) o-54-Ti.Euelpis of Karystos spoke of human sacrificeat Tenedos:porph. Ahsl. 2.55. 2tPlut. Anton. 24.j. aHsch. 'Ez
183
lll'' li,.i,
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
troductory sheep-sacrifice,just as a preliminary sheep-sacrificewas linked to Pandrosus, the daughter of Cecrops?" There can be no peplos without wool. And ltylos, this more anciently attestedforrx of the name, was already connected with the Latin aitulus, "calf.," irdros, "bull," the word that gave Italy its name. The boy's name would then be an indication of the animal used in the unspeakable sacrifice,the bull-calf.Admittedly, if this is so, we cannot clearup the question of which non-Greek language forms the background for the myth.'?n We have seen how the rituals of the Agrionia correspondto the rhythms of the New Year'sfestival in the citiesof Athens and Argos. In the myth of Proitos' daughters, as in that of the nightingale, the Dionysian element is presentonly in the later versions.Here we can probably grasp the growth of the cult of Dionysus starting in the seventh century s.c., which followed in the footstepsof the old ritual. We now find the private group, the familial order, rather than the community as a whole, coming to the fore, just as we saw the bull-calf replacethe bull; private groups could alsomore easilyafford a smaller victim. Although the festivals of the polis seem older, this does not excludethe possibility that cultic societiesrevived the clan traditions of the pre-polis era. What sets Dionysus apart, even in a predeterminedframework, is the "frenzy," the individual experienceof ecstasy-which, of course, is not clearly distinguished from drunkenness.It occurredin the sacrificial ritual, during the transitional period when the normal order was inverted and there were wild outbursts.The god here desiresthe rupturing of the establishment:it is his epiphany.,sIt is still linked with sacrifice,but this appearsas an initial step to ignite the frenzy which is then experiencedfor its own sake. In the private sphere,marriageis the principal order that is overturned. This is repeatedly stressedin the myths. Out of loyalty to their husbands, the Minyads refused to follow the horde of mae'?rHarpokr.itiBotou: Philochoros,FCrHist 328F ro, 'z{Thegloss tra).os, oiirovtros was known to the Creeks at least since Hellanikos (FCrHist4 F rrr). Timaiossaid that the word was Greek(FCrHist 566F 4z),others that it was Etruscan (M. Pallottino, Testimonia linguaeEtruscaeIryS+], #839); cf. M. Leu' mann, Glottaz7 jg18),9o. The version in Ant. Lib. r1 suggestsLycia, whereasthere may be a Phrygian variant in the Bixxos story (Schol.Aristid. lIl 36r.t3 Dind.; Egyptianized Hdt. z.z), inasmuchas the mute nurse at the isolatedfarm recallsPhilomela. 5D. Sabbatucci,Saggiosul misticismo greco(196),55-68, also brings out the distinction between possessionthat is perceived as an illness and "mystical" possessionthat is perceived as salvation. The identification of Orphic with "mystic" (65) is, however, questionable.
,il,'il
184
ANTIOPE AND EPOPEUS
Aedon, the nightingare,incurred the wrath nads.26 of Hera in boast_ ing that hermarriage was-happierthan that of the quee.,oiihe goas.. whenever the human order is consideredso stable,it will all the more certainly be broken by a higher power and changedinto ils opposite. Dionysus provides the antithesisto the family: i,h"."u, u-*il -,rr, tend the house, the maenadsroam the wilderness;whereasa wife is modestlydressed,the Dionysiacmob ravesin wild, lascivious,shame_ Iessnudity; whereasu,*if: must work, especiallyat the loom, bio.,y_ sus scareswomen and girls "away from the looms and the spindle;,; whereasa wife must love her husband and provide for her.iita."r.,, in the night of the Agrionia the mother kills her child to *o""a n", husband' Hate and murder, instead of affectionut" ,rr,ioi,-i-,t" trru night, which revealswhat the day-suppresses and hides. In precisery this way, the frenzied outburst leads to a purification. ,,foadness delivershim who was maddenedaright and p'ossess"ar.o^ rri, t.orrbles."2.If Hera and Dionysus becom6antagonists,they are nonethe_ less mutually determinant. The maiden'stiagedy becomes an initiation, a preparation for marriage. The battle be"tween ^". urrJ -,r.n"., at the Dionysia on Chios ended in a marriagewhich, accordinsto the legend, produced the most famous of ail bhianr, H;;;;l;^fnu r"rtival room at the villa dei Misteri at pompei was adjacent to the matrimonial bedroom.{
5. AntiopeandEpopeus At Sikyon, the mythicalking Epopeus,whose name so clearlyre_ callsthat of Epopsu.,d Zuv, Edp"Ar;;;;worshipped as a hero. His Sravewas in the sacredprecinci of Athena, beside'*r" jral"rrt "rj.1etvrr3.4z.PriestsofDionysusandHera-"."ffi anl .;. ; Kotn.z9ra. ;':_": "-,.lrn*s: seePlut.f.. t57s"r,auu.r,,
"Ant. Lib. rr.r. aPlat. phdr. z44e ,'sefe.ukos in Harpokr. 'Op.4pi6at(missingin Nilsson . . . ,iyvvaixee rote iv Arowcloc trap...qp.ovil.,a",atei5payrlu Ir9o613o6): 1l:r{Aors I* i1)r*ov rois dv'p.,.,t,xad 'dyzes
r85
lil
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
hero is tar.l The combinationof the goddess'scult and the graveof the The anreminiscentof the relationshlpof Attic Athena to Erechtheus. Olympian cestral king who was killed itands beside the victorious to the is dead the propitiating of iuxtaposed act eoddess, i, tft" 6f y^pi"" fire-sacrifice.E.ec'hthe"slshrgely identicaliill lt^::Jd"t the double of I" it myth, however, Epopeuso{ Sikyon is virtually EpoEpopsios' " Epops' series: the of unity the Zeus, thus confirming petes, EPoPeus.' In th. corn-on version, howevet Sikyon is linked to Boeotia through the marriage of Epopeus 1nd- Antiope,. a king's daughter from boeotian Hyrii, whosi ions, Zethos and Amphion' built the walls of Thebes.,whether this indicatesan historical connectionbet*""n Hyria-Thebesand Sikyon or whether epic singers.combined thesestoiies and namesaccordingto their own fantasiesis impossible and to say. In our oldest sources,thi connection between Boeotia OdysSikyon is not present.Thus, in the catalogueof women in-the Antiope is the daughter of Asopos, wife of Zeus and sein Nekyia,o A dimother of Zethos and Amphion, in a purely Boeotiansetting. because gressionin the Cypriastellshow "Epopeul lost his city in war te had seducedthe daughterof Lykos'" The fragment does not even by contrast, mention the daughter'sname. In the Hesiodic Catalogues, Antiopewasthe"subjectofherownEhoie,which,alongwiththeplay summary'uHere' by fuiipides, presumably ^Sikyonian determined Apollodorus' elements are linked, as is assumedby the Bteotian and bore sixth-century poei Asios.'There Antiope, daughter of Asopos' peothe Zethos and Amphion, "pregantboth by Zeus and Epopeus'
li,,,r, 1 $fll . lhr ll:jl
1
of a virgin, regtfestivalof Hera Akraia, alsodepicteda.woman'srevolt, with the killing (tg66\ r:l7-9, and cf Burkert see flight: *oma.t', ti,e finally and infanticide cide, lILr.n.78. r85; rpaus.2.rr.r,6.3.Cf. P. Odelberg,sacraCorinthiasicyoniaPhliasia(tJppsala,t896)' H. Skalet,AncientSikyonQ9z8),t71. 2SeelII.4.n.zzabove. 3PRII rr4-r9; Cook I (r9r4) n4-J9. ood.tt.z6o_65'ThetwoversionsofthefoundingofThebes-ZethosandAmphionon ways: see Phe' the one hand, Cadmus on the other-were reconciled in different (tg$)' 69-75' Thibes de Les origines F Vian, Apollod. F FCrHist rekydes, l'4o; 3 4r; 5Prokl.Chresl' ro3.zoAllen. P. Euripideum(r9t1),9-zz; ,Hes. fr. rgr-82; Eur. Antiope; H. v. Arnim, supplementum nnoa' epoh 4 rogo The Paestancalyx' eptlr.a. 3.41-+4,.td.f. Hi;. Fab S; Schol' by Euripides' For was inspired 2ol' Trendall RMLII'iI86, F \196') crater,Berlin 3296, AM 71 Q958)' 5o-72' Hellenistic relief cups see U. Hausmann, 7Fr.r Kinkel : Paus' 2.6.4-
I
iil
r86
ANTIOPE AND EPOPEUS
ple's shepherd." Euripides is the first sourcein which the Dionysiac ntmosphereplays a part in the myth of Antiope, and it was perhaps invented by him in honor of the god of tragedy. In spite of the story'scomplexlayers, the familiar basic structure intact. At the start is the maiden'stragedy:Antiope loses preserved is her virginity in Zeus' arms and then marries Epopeusof Sikyon. In the Dionysian version, Zeus himself appearson Mount Kithairon in the shape of a satyr.'The realisticepic has Epopeus,unattended by any divine double, as the seducer.Whether seducer or savior, the 6ale partner who seizesthe maiden thereby sealshis own fate. Antiope'srelative-either the father Lykurgos, the father Nykteus, or the uncle Lykos'-marches against Sikyon and conquers it. Epopeus falls, and Antiope falls into the hands of the "wolvish" powers. She secretlygives birth to twins and exposesthem. All that is left for her is slavery dishonor, and abuse. At this stage in the story her Iife is governedby a witchlike stepmother,Dirke, the queen,who in the Dionysian interpretation is seen as an initiated maenad'owhose duty it is to lead the young, uninitiated woman through a course of sufferings to a final goal. Antiope's passionends with a dramatic inversion of roles:just as Dirke tries to kill her with a wild bull, Zethos and Amphion, now grown into youths, storm the farm. Now Dirke in turn is chained to the bull and dragged to her death. Lykos then abdicates and, with the kingship now falling to them, the twins take power and build the walls of Thebes." Whereasin the Agrionia myths the maidensand women banded together to rise up against the men-Proitos' daughters with the women of Argos, Philomela with Procne-here, the wild women, with Dirke as their leader,direct their aggressiontoward a young girl, a slave. Similar things occurred in ritual. A slave would be led by women into the shrine of Mater Matuta; they would "box her earsand beather with rods." " A beatingwith a rod is depictedin the Villa dei Misteri. In this way a young woman would be introduced into the cirEEuripides according to Malalas p 49 ed. Bonn. (TGF p.4ro); Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 4'1o9o;Ov. Met. 6.tto. For two mosaicsfrom the RomanEmpire seeCook lll (r94o) 467 Pl' 4@; rationalizedin Kephalion,FGrHistqF 5. 'Antiope's father is called Lykurgos in the Cypria,Nykteus in Euripides. The latter makesLykos the cruel king in the interregnum. '"Hyg. Fab.7 baccha to Antiope'srefuge (accordfuerat;8:Dirke comesperbacchationem ln8 to Euripides);Paus. 9.17.6. rrFor the closingsceneof the Euripideandrama seePPetr.1 = p. 27vonArnim, and cf. h. 6 above_ trPlut. Q. Rom.267d.On the Villa dei Misteri seeIII.4.n. 3o above.
a87
DISSOLUTION
cle of matrons. ln the myth of Antiope, this abuse,which can alsobe an initiation, occursat an exceptionaltime. Nykteus and Lykos, "the nocturnal one" and "the wolf," are in power, but in the time of the wolf, the woman Dirke is likewise active and dangerous.Her end, the end of the reign of women or witches, leads to the foundation of the city and reestablishmentof the daytime ruler. The sons of Zeus Opposedto them are calied"those of the white horses,"l\euxot
It
i!r,,, j J,ltl.t'l
rl]lll
ANTIOPE AND EPOPEUS
AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
beforethe city, in the sign of the bull. This can hardly be unrelated to that other solitary nocturnal rite, the hipparch'sinauguration at the tomb of Dirke, who was killed by Amphion and ZethoJ. so, too, in ail [kelihood, at Lemnos digging up earth with curativepowers was part ef a festival of renewal.'6At Athens, the skirophoria seemsto have involved "carrying white earth." None of theie associations,however,can be conclusivelyproven. The cultic situation at sikyon is perhaps clearer.Epopeus dedicatedthe temple of Athena, which "su.pussld all other templesof the time in sizeand ornamentation,"tzwith a victory sacrifice.The valiant gikyonianssaw a reflection of themselvesin the image of the armed goddess.But next to Athena's altar is the tomb or tni founder, Epopeus, and close at hand the "gods who ward, off," the rleor drrorpowere worshipped. "In front of them, they perform the rites lfo.LoL, are thought among the Greeksto ward off evji,"'s gloomy sacrithat fices,apparently,expressingvexation and anxiety.Dang-erand death were signalled beside victory and immortality. f'he cul't would have performedits.functionof renewing life and viial energiesby stressing the sequencefrom the king's death and warding olr of evit to the triumphal sacrificefor Athena. The analogy with Athens, with the festivals involving Erechtheus and Atheni polias, bears up under analysis' whereas at.Athens the myth split up a single figlre into Erechtheus,the dead king, and Eric-hthonius,the fouid", Jf th" punathenaia,-the Sikyonian story is somewhat more complex, accom_ modating both stages.in the-life of Epopeus: first he was mortally wounded, then he celebratedhis triumph and died of his wound thereafter.'nEpopeuscould be at once thf victim and the founder of the cult. There was a statue of Antiope at Sikyon in the temple of Aphro_ temple so important thai in the Classicalera a .nryr"tupt ur,_ $]:,'ia. trne statueof the goddesswas made for it. only one priesiess,an elq€rly woman, was allowed to enter the temple itself, with a maiden annually and given the titre of Lutropioros.This recallsthe cult lfoj"" ot Zeus Sosipolis at Olympia,2' and perhaps the statue of Antiope r6Burkert
lrTdrAeuroz6)ro Eur. HF zg; Phoen.6o6;Hsch. Ar.osxoi,por.Aeuxd zrci\o Eur. Antrttltt: PPetr.r.7t, p. zz v. Arnim. ,aGen.Socr.578b. The method for coveringup the tracesof a sacrificeis describedin HV' Merc. r4o. Oedipus'tomb at Kolonos Hippios at Athens was known only to Theseus and his followeis (Soph. OC ryfi-y), and that of Sisyphusat the Isthmus was also below). secret(seeI11.7.n.39 V (1898),57;Cook l(rgt$716' "g.t1.4-7, and cf. J. G. Frazer,Pausanias
r88
I I
Q97o) ro;lll.6.nn.zr, zz below; III.r.n.44 above. 2 . 1 1 . 1 .F o r a S i k y o n i a n c o i n o f A t h e n a s e e I m h o o f _ B l u m e r (rgg5) 3r. tr t. rP- a u s . z.rr.r l7b
r , Sikyon is the son of Erechtheus in Hes. fr. zz4, b'the E p o P e u si9n a n o t h e r genealogy (paus. 2.6.5). "3::, D Paus. z.ro.a. 2rSee II.z.n.49 above.
r89
is the nephew of
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
is an indication that there was a similar polarity at Sikyon between Antiope/Aphrodite and Epopeus/Athena, i.e., the feminine realm against the masculine. The sacrificesof the men, establishing the order of the warlike goddess,obviously could not exist without the power of Aphrodite constantly creating new life. The end of the vir_ gin's duties, the advent of an exceptionalperiod, the death of the king: these were the conditions for the younger generation's accession to power.
6. TheLemnianWomen Just as, in the figure of Leukotheaand in the name Skira, the festivals and myths of dissolutionpointed beyond the bordersof Greece, so the most famous myth of a femaleuprising takesus back to a city in which the pre-Greekpopulation and culture remained independent until the sixth century n.c. and continued even longer in the cult, that is, in Hephaestiaon Lemnos,the city of Hephaestusand the Cabiri. The Greekscalled the inhabitants Tyrsenoi.They spoke and wrote an unknown language, presumably of the Anatolian type. Even their defeatat the hands of Miltiades and the colonizationby Attic kleruchs was not sufficient to break all continuity.r 'Of all legendaryevils, that of Lemnos comesfirst": so sang the , chorus of ChoEhoroiin Aeschylus.,But the story of the man-killing Lernnian women had long been known through the legend of the Argonauts. It starts in the typical way, with adultery. This time, howtOn the history of Lemnos seeC. Fredrich,AM 3t (lqn6), fu-86, 24a-j5; F. L. W. Sea. ley, BSA z1 Q.9r8lrg),148-74;C. Fredrich,Ic XII 8 pp. z-6; RE XII r9z8-3o. The ltalian excavationsbrought to light important new information: seethe preliminary report in ASAA rylfi Qgz/33), but they were interrupted in 1939;cf. EAA lll z1o-y, l\l 542-45.On the Athenian conquestseeHdt. 6,117-4o;cf. Philochoros,FCrHist SzBf roo/ror. 2Cho.63r; cf. PR II 8+g-Sg.On reconstructing the ancient Argonaut myth see P. FriedLaender,MM 69 (t9r4), zg9-y7 = Studienzur antikenLiteraturund Kunst(tg69), :19-11; K. Meuli, Odyssee undArgoruutika(r9zr); U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtungll(r9zg,4z-48. Forthe myth as relatedto the festivalseeF. G. Welcker,Dre re*hylixhe TrilogiePrometheus und dieKnbirenzoeihe zu bmnos (r1z4), 755-304;G. Dumdzil, Iz qime desLanniennes(1924);Burkert (r97o).
rw
THE LEMNIAN
WOMEN
evet the entire male population_isimplicated. The wrath of Aphrodite-here taking the place of Hera, tire goddessof -urriue"_falls upon .the womery who develop a sickering body ;;, i;:i drives away tl: -:r,.'th-"I, tl turn, tlke up withihruc"an slave_gi.ls,un_ affectedby the goddess'sanger.The women then form u .J.,rpi.r.y that erupts in a nocturnal uprising. In a single bloody nighi they murder the entire male population of the islind, pJ-?i" n"r"ot than procne,s. bandsbut fathersand sonsas wel,o an act more radical The island henceforth berongs to the women, who govern it like Amazons' Yet, this can onry be a transition, an intermJdiary period. Only one man has a specialfate, the one who acfually."p'r"ru.t, the patriarchal society, king Thoas. He is saved by his au"ghi", Hypsipylg, who hides him in a wooden, coffinlike.r,!st rraprlij, *rrict Hypsipyle-alone, or with the aid of those trying to discover'her secret-pushes into the sea.uvalerius Flaccusfiits iln the detail that the king was first hidden in the temple of Dionysus, beneath the god,s robes,and then led to the sea,in ihe mask ofihe god, uy ,t u-iut.nui uldel Hypsipyle'sguidance.5Itis impossibleto salyho#*".n of tni, reflectsthe more ancient local tradiiion, but as early u, Euriplau.,
to Dionysus_indeed, n" iJ ti" gJt ro.,., ll'lately,tinked IT,t.ll Lunously, the death of osiris
is tord in preciserythe same"wav:seth lockshim up in a larnax and the N'e carrieshfu il;;u.;'ny,rr" fiffh c-enturyu'c., the Greeksconsideredosiris and Dionysus identical' Things both sacredand evil disappearmysteriously in the vast reachesof the sea. As the king disappearedat sea,so from the seanew life returned 3Kaukalos? FGrHistJ8.z; Apollod.
Schol.Apoll. Rhod. r.6o9(Apollonloshi-T
^r.r14; 6uoa,6ta); schoi.n ,. irr'. e;z,Zenob. Ath.r.re ^rIr' r'19 p. Mileu 35rMrller; ii,:1":::::.":ilngihe P l51 Errst. r58.17;Dio. Ehrys. or. y.5o;see
at n. ,oiaorl'Ls'vu' '[7&v dpcvev6uoi yeuocAooll. Rhod. r.6rg; ,,fathers and husbands,,Apollod. r.rr5; for the most detalledaccount'see Stat.Theb.S'.gS_ll+;Vul. Flacc.Arg. 2.7o7-422. sApoll. Rhod. t.6zo-26:Theolytos,-FG rHist 47gF3, Xenagoras , FGrHist z4oF 3r, and Kleonof Kurion, Schol.Aooft. Rt oa. r.6z116a;cf. iu,r. Hypstpylefr. 64,74_g7,rc5_trt Bond (1963);schol. Pind. III p. :.g-r3 oiu.t*".,.r.-n.npor the)wpva{on the red figure Dowl Berlin 4n = ARV2 4a9.$, s; c. rta. a. ftr, The Furniture of thc Greeks, Etruscans and Romans {ro66), 3-g5.This is nortie dear further with the widefL."," spreadmotif of the ark [Dunu", Auge, Tennes,Osiris, etc.). z.z4z-3o2,and cf. lmmisch, RML V g06. ,4r8. nypsrpyleft. 64.ttr, and cf. H. Lloyd-Jonesin G. W. Bond, EuripidesHypsipyle eg6), AP 3'ro' For the Euneid.ai;piiests or oi""yr", :27ft'! Merpomenos, at Athens as descendants of Jasonand Hypsipyle seeToepffer frdAq)',S, _roO. rtut' Is' 356c'osiris : Donysus in Hdt. z.4z and probablyalreadyin Hekataios.
r91
DISSOLUTION
i.i, lr I
rl
ri I
AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
to Lemnos. one night, the ship of the Argonauts-the primordial ship-on which the most valiant men of Greecewere united, appeired on the coastsof Lemnos.'Its arrival transformedthe would-be Amazons' hatred of men into its opposite. According to Aeschylus, they made the Argonauts, even before landing, swearto help them ."rri,o"the work of Aphrodite.'oAn agon in honor of the dead was held The Lemnian women proto test the strength of the living successors. attire is linked with marThe cloak.'r vided a prize foi the winner-a of the nuptials, endmass celebration riage or, rather, a disorganized and the lack of the sexes between hate in{ e contrariothe period of "good ship," the of Iord Euneos, of hear min. Already in the lliad we Lemnos." of ruler and son of fason and Hypsipyle Once again, it is only by a coincidenceof locality-and that in late antiquity-that we are informed about a ritual celebratedannually "because of the crime of the Lemnian women against the mer,,;' a festival of purification and new fire. The myth gives the aition of the rite and reflectsthe detailsof this festival.Philostratusof Lemnos provides us with an eyewitnessaccount-for at Hephaestia, he himself or a close relative was "the priest of Hephaestus, after whom the city is named"-"Lemnos is purified at a certaintime in the year and the fire on the island is extinguishedfor nine days. A sacred ship bri.,gs fire from Delos, and if it arrivesbefore the funerary sacrifices are over, it may not be brought to anchor on Lemnos; rather, it rides on the open sea before the promontories, till, accordingto sacred custom, it is permitted to sail in. For at this time they call upon subterraneanandlecret gods, and thus, as I think, they keep the fire pure on the sea.But when the sacredship has sailedin and thev have hirttibrt"d the fire for all other necessitiesof life and especiallyfor the crafts that need fire, they say that from then on a new life begins for them." " 'Apoll. Rhod. r.61o5z;Stat. Theb.5'r5- 47. r0Fr. Mette, and cf. Pind. Pyth.4.254;Herodoros, FGrHist3r F 6. Thenceltfiputar'as 40 a title and theme in comedy:-Aristoph.fr. )56-75; Nikocharesft. rt-r4 (CAF I zzz); Antiphanes fr. 144-45(CAF II 7o), and cf. Alexis fr- 44(CAF II 345);Diphilos fr' 14 (CAf II 558);Turpilius 9o-99 Ribbeck. Apoll. Rhod. 2.)0-32, ).7204' "simonides 547Page;Pind.Pyth. 4.zy with schol.; cf. tzo6, 4.421-14. t2II. 21.747;cf. 2t.4t,7.468-69, a4.2)o;n. 7 above. ,rHer.p. z3z Boissonade(Paris 1806)= p.325 Kayser (Ziirich 1844: r853'z): ed reubn. lrair; ll zo7: L- de Lannoy,ed' Teubn' (rgn) P' 67'7' On the corrupt passage Wien xai xcrB'Evarofrdrousagainst A. Wilhul- (xafl' Evarou irous, Anz- d' Ak' d' Wiss' (?); cf' xal' Eua xar'pov toi irous xanl' 6va (t97o) xatpdv Burk-ert see 1: |19191, 4r-461, 192
THE LEMNIAN
WOMEN
This is one of the clearest,most impressivedescriptionsof a time and exception,in which normal life almost comesto an dissolution of is there no fire, no normal food, no sacrificesto the gods, and no end: pyre; the bakers and smithies lay down the tools of their funeral and the family breaksapart. The Hellenistichistorian Myrsilus trades, of Lesbosclaimed that Medea casta spell on the Lemnian women out of jealousy of Hypsipyle, "and to this very day, there is a certain day every year on which the women keep away from their husbandsand sons on accountof their sickening smell."'aThe fantasticstench that broke up all the marriageson Lemnos returns regularly every year; the most grotesquefeaturein the myth becomesreality.This is clearly a ritual that belongs to that exceptionalperiod. We can gather how that sickeningsmell cameabout by turning to the parallelof the Attic Skira:there, when the women gatheredtogetherthey chewed on tarlic "in order not to smell of salves."ls Whatever their Lemnian sisters did to produce the same effect,1uthey too disgusted the men and drove them away, the wives their husbands, the mothers their sons. In the myth this is raised to the level of a man-killing hatred, transforming a day on which the sexesare separatedinto a transitionalperiod of matriarchy. This links the Lemnian festivalto the Skira;and what the myth of Thoasimplies is attestedin ritual at Athens-that is, the departure of the king.l' To be sure, the road to Skiron is less dramatiCthan the coffinlikechest on Lemnos. We do not know what actually happened at Lemnos-,but perhaps the phallagogy at the Delian Dionysid'presentsanother possibleway in which a disappearancecould be ritually enactedat a Dionysiac sacrificialfestival. In any case, sacrificewas clearlya part of the exceptionalperiod at Lemnos, sacrificewithout tue, so that one could eat at most only raw piecesof meat, burying the rest o1 throwing it into the sea.Subterraneanpowers seemto rise up out of the sacrificialpits into which the blood flo*s, powers that tak-e U, lSod (: FGrHist6o9F zz).Cf. Nilsson j9o6) 47o-7r.For the priest 11".,; !ray9!rro, or Hephaestuscalled Philostratossee IG Xll g.z.t. ttFcrHist 477F r. '5Philochoros, FGrHist3zgF g9:seelll. r.n.4zabove. glossin Antig. Mir. rr8 = Myrsilos, FGrHist477F tbmentions ri1^yavov, ,j.m*sinal dn herb_whosesmell repels snakes(Arisi. Hist. an.6nazg) and causessexualabstirence-(schol.Ni-k.A/ex. perhapsthis herb was used in the Lemnian rituar,,ust as 4ro); accordingto Schol. Nik. ,Alex.-4roiiwas used in the mystenes. "SeelII.r.n.ts above. tts"u I.7.r,.5j uborr".
193
It
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR-S FESTIVAL
f
ll11t
over the island. A pacing ram is often depicted on the coins of Hephaestia;" it may be assumed,then, that sacrificeof a ram formed a part of the city'smain festival' Erechtheus,too, is offereda ram.'o The act of digging sacred"Lemnian earth," as performed by the priestessof Artemis at Mount Mosychlos, where Hephaestusfell to earth, played a specialrole in Lemnos. "Lemnian earth," slabsof redt dish cliy stampedwith the picture of a goat,was reputed to have medicinal properties useful for many different ailments,and continued to be so viewed in the Near East until the twentieth century.2'Galen personally travelled to Lemnos to observe the mining of Lemnian earth.'In modern times this took place on the twenty-eighth of August, under the supervisionof the localpriest. Dioskouridesmentions a goat-sacrificeat this occasion,2'butby the time of Galen the Lemnians no longer had anything to do with such a practice.The connection between the digging at Hephaestus'mountainand the festival of fire in Hephaestus'own city is indisputable.The fact that a priestess of Artemis participates,instead of Hephaestus,indicatesthe absence of the god, the transitionalperiod in which the subterraneanPowers are conjured up. Moreovet the festival occursin August, at virtually the same time as the Attic Skira. Even the name Skiradenotesa sPecial white earth that is carried. When the intermediary period ended, the men crowded at the shore to keep watch for the ship bringing back new life, the new, pure fire: thus, Hephaestusreturned to his city. So, too, Argo, the primordial ship, brought new life back to the land of women' Above all, it was the fire-using artisans, as Philostratusstresses,the bakers and the smithies, who got a share of the new flame. According to myth, the Cabiri, the children or grandchildrenof HePhaestus,were themTheir shrine, the Cabirion, has been excavatedon selvesartisans.2o Hephaestia,and the continuity of cult from the far from not Lemnos the Greek era is astounding' A community of initiates to pre-Greek
I
I I
fli r,,i '$rl
, li
DKoniglicheMuseen zu Berlin, Beschreibung der antikenMiinzen(1888),279-83; HNr (tg5o) r6t, and cf' roz, 284on Samothrace' (rg4o) Hemberg III Cook z6z-63; 43-14; 20See IIl.r.n.38above. 2rC.Fredrich, AM Ill 1r (rg6), 7z-74;F. W. Hasluck, BSA16 (t9o9lto), zzo_3o;Cook (r94o) zz8-14. zXII 169-75 Kiihn. u j.ttj.
2nAkusilaos,FGrHistuF zo; Pherekydes,FGrHist3 F 48 For the excavationreport see ASAA tlz (r99l4o) 22)-24; 114Qg4tl4p.),75-toJ; :'5lt6 (r95zl5$, J77-4o;D. Levt tn A.K. OrlandosIII (Athens, t9f6), r:,o-32; Hemberg Q95o)t6o-7o' Charisterion L94
rh
I
THE LEMNIAN
WOMEN
would gather there for secretcelebrationsin which wine played a mal"r,:?)_":_o:,::::f i p pers of t h e m y t h i caI sm i t h i es, t n *!."' f robabry "y according " which modeled itself on a smithy guild. 6 Mannerbund to myth, the Cabiri fled from Lemnos in horir at the women,s the abominabledeed.'uBut if their cult survived, they must rrarre,eturned when the fire was brought back and the artisins courd go tack to work. The Dioskouroi were among the Argonauts, and as Great Gods they have been compared to the Cabiri time and again, even to the point of identification.'?6 Hephaestus,the Cabiri, tne biostouroi-and odysseus-wear the circurar peaked cap (zrir,os).The leader of the Argonauts is Jason,whose name can hirdly be distinguished from Iasion,the husband of Demeter,and lasion, the brotheiof Dardanos on samothrace.2'The Argonauts' goal was to retrieve the fleeceof a ram mysteriously sacrificedin the land of the sun. Just as the herald who conductsthe negotiationsbetweenthe Argonauts and the Lemnian women is calledAithalides,28 the ,,sootyorre,,,so Lemnos, as the islandoJHephaestus,is calledAithale. such are the intimate links between the detailsof the Argonaut sagaand Lemnos. From the standpoint of the cult and the pre-Greekperspective,the Argo is the ship of the.Cabiribringing new fire and new rife. According io pindar, the Lemnianagon was won by the white_hairedErginor, ti" ,,*o.tur,,, ut whom the others had laughed.r, Here, thougt in Greek j"ir", i, u Hephaestus'victory in his own city tJthe \i"t:l of ritua-llaughter such us was required by medievar "..o-pu"r,ir.,ent custom at Easter.. In spite of the similaritiesbetween the Lemnian festival and the festivatsat Athens, Argos, Thebes,and Sikyon in the ::]::r_!.idlng rnythm ot dissolution and starting anew, there is a charactlristic dif_ f:l"l:". At Lemnos, the masculi"neorder was not reestablishedby shield-carriersor white riders-i.e., not ty a miritary orgu.,irutior.,perhaps tt i, *u, why Lemnos lut !r an artisan society. feil to the Greeks.Yet there were powers at work in the lower crasses-as seen from the perspectiveof thu Greek aristocracy-that found a certain resonanceeven among the Greeks and playei a part in the socialcribPhot.
KclFerpot.
25r,
Oliill"tt
tCf.
(r95o)Passim;F.Chapoutier, LesDioscoures au seraice d,unediesse (ry35),
alro the Cariancitv Iasos.
Rhod. r.64r-5:; Pherekydes,FGrHist ]fn(]tt 3F rcg:Schol. ad loc.; Ai2,.1ri.'polyb Steph.Byz. n;ua,ra. ::,:'.0, 4 19-23; cf. Schol.3zc;Callim. fr. 66g. $vr r : s a r t o r i ,S i t t e u n d B r a u c h l l l ( r 9 r 4 ) , 1 6 7 . C f . M a n n h a r d t ( r 8 7 ) 5 o z _ 5 o g ; G B X r z r _ r r
795
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR S FESTIVAL
ilt
ll|frir
sis and reform of the polis. Besidesthe ram mentioned above, the coins of Hephaestia dilplay the felt caps of the Cabiri, the herald's staff of Hermes Aithalides, and grapesand vines as well." That the Cabiric element is closely related to the Dionysian, indeed, that it overlaps with it smoothly, is shown by the drinking cups from the Cabiribn at Thebes,r'and also by the Lemnian myth which so closely connectsThoas with Dionysus-osiris.Hephaestus'return in the Dionysiac processionwas one of the most popular themes in vasepainting,r.itarting when the aristocraticgovernmentat Corinth gave way to lyran.ry. Alcaeus of Lesbosintroduced the theme into literaturl, echoing i., a characteristicallyGreek fashion a theme from the non-Greekisland of Hephaestus.
7. TheReturnof theDolphin Again and again the path from destruction to a new beginning leads through the sea,perhapsmost clearly on the island of Lemnos, but also in Leukothea'sleap into the seaand Lykurgus' pursuit of Dionysus. The Attic etiologicalwriters even thought that the Skira reflected Theseus'departure for Crete.' This connectionis quite natural for those who live by the sea:so many things disappearinto its vastness never to return again; other things wash ashore,bringing unforeseenbenefits. The fear of death and happy deliverance,loss and recovery,are closelyrelated.Wheneverthe seareceivesthe unspeakable sacrifice,purity and innocenceseemto be reestablished.And yet there must be consequences:the sea is just; it receivesand it gives' The return from the sea was almost stereotypicallyaccompaniedby the image of the most beautiful, the nimblest, the most nearly human of all the inhabitantsof the sea-the dolphin. Although they were only fourth in importance, the Isthmian games at Poseidon'ssanctuary near Corinth achieved pan-Hellenic Trilogie' " Seen. r9 above;mentioned alreadyby Welcker,Aeschylische Aus' r2P.Wolters and G. Bruns, DasKabirenheiligtum (rg4o); Neuedeutsche hei Theben (t967\, zz8-71' AA Bruns, (r95o) G r84-zo5; Hemberg grabtrngenQ95$, 47-48; 33F.Brommet Alcaeus149 Jdl 5z (rg), r98-z:^z;A. Seeberg,IHS 85 Q96), ro2-1og; L.-P tSeeIII.r.n.45above.
L96
THE RETURN OF THE DOLPHIN
status.2For the most part, its cult legend was linked to Leukothea,s leap into the sea:here, at the Isthmus of Corinth, the body of young Melikertes had been brought ashore by a dolphin. Sisyphus, the shrewd founder of Corinth-and coincidentallythe "inventor" of the burial ritual-buried the dead boy, who was henceforth known as Palaimon,and establishedthe Isthmian gamesin his honor.3The boy on the dolphin was a frequent subjectin sculpture, and he appeared on Corinthian coins as the emblem of the Isthmian games-sometimes as a limp corpse, sometimesas a merry rider.oWas it possible that a hero worshipped in his own shrine, the Palaimonion, could really have died? As often, there are two cult centersthat give the sanctuaryat the Isthmus its shape: that of Palaimon and that of Poseidon, the hero and the god, chthonic versus Olympian ritual, the tholos and the temple. Between the two, the stadium for the foot-racebegan and ended. To be sure, the tholos in the Palaimonionwhich Pausanias saw,and which was depictedon the coins of the Roman Empire, was first built in Roman times,sand in the processa new stadium was constructedover the old. Thus, it is not known what the original precinct of Palaimonlooked like. But we can tracethe cult of Palaimonat least as far back as the etiologicallegend in Pindar, and it is likely that it appearedas early as the ancient epic of Eumelos.6Perhapsat first a simple sacrificialpit was enough for the nocturnal sacrificialritual. For a black bull was slaughteredat night for Palaimon. And to Plutarchthis seemedmore a mystery initiation (re}.err1)than an athletic and folk festival.?Philostratus mentions an ecstaticdirge like '!K. Schneider,
REIX zz48-55, supersededby O. Broneer'sexcavationof the sanctuary, Hesperiazz (t9y), t8z-95; z+ (ISSS), tto-47; z7 9958\, r-37; z8 (rg5q,, 29814i,; y (196z),r-25; Roux (r95g) 9j,-1,o3. 3Pind. fr. 56;Arist. fr. 637;Prokles(a studentof Xenokrates)in Plut. Q. cona.677b;Musaios,FGrHist455;Aristid. Or.6.1z-35Keil;Apollod. 3.29;Schol.Pind. III pp.r92-g4 Drachmann;Schol.Eur. Med. e84; probablyalreadyin Eumelos, Jacobyad FGrHist45r F 4, A. Barigazzi,Rio.di Filol. 94Q966),tzg-4$ on "Dio.," Or. 17.tt-t4. "Paus.e.r.8, 3.4. For coins seeImhoof-Blumer(t885) ro-rz,T. B I-XII; cf. Philostr.In. 16(ll 362.24ed. Teubn. r87r). 'P-aus. z.z.r; Imhoof-Blumer(1885)T. B XI-XIil; Hesperta z7 eg58), ,r5- r7; b. Robert, Thymdli Qy9,, 156-59;Roux (1958) aoo-ao2,fig. rr; O. Broneer, Isthmiall (r97), t"?tf', lC IV zo3. Philostratos(II 162.27)hasPoseidonhimself dig up the subterranean aOrr7or/ fgr Palaimon. uSee n. 3 above. 7Thes. z5;cf. pworilpnliban. Or. 14.j.67;raipov pl\avaphilostr. Im.363.r;tatpogovtlt tpt"erqpiil Pind. Nen. 6.4o. For coins on which a bull movestoward the palaimonion seeImhoof-Blumer(1885)pl. B. XI, XI[; philostratosII 363.r mentionsa herd of cattle oelongingto Poseidon.
r97
)1,I
!{,,
il
J,'gll
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
THE RETURN OF THE DOLPHIN
those in the mysteries,'and Aelius Aristides speaksof "initiations" and orgiesand, prior to that, an "oath." nPausaniasrefersto the Palaimonion as the site of sacredoaths;'othe oath that the contestantshad to take before the gamesmost probably occurredright there-an encounter with Palaimon at night in the underground vault preceded the days of competition. Here, too, the path leads from grief to vitality, from death to the order of life, from Palaimon'ssacrificialpit to the altar of Poseidon. The god of the seapresidedover the placewhere searoutes and land routes cross. The dolphin and the dead youth came from the sea.The myth, then, makesthe Isthmian gamesonly the last step in a tragedy whose gruesomecentralact it locateselsewhere,in the house of Athamas and at the Molurian cliff near Megara." As in the caseof Antiope and Epopeus, the wandering bards presumably combined various local traditions. In that case, we should postulate an unspeakablesacrificeat the Isthmus itself on the shore,to which the return of the dolphin-boy would then correspond. And in fact, on the beachbelow the sanctuary next to the altar of Melikertes, a spruce would be pointed out which was linked to the This Siniskilled his story of Sinis, the "spruce-bender,"pityokamptes." to victims by tying them a spruce on either side and then sacrificial letting the treessnap back up, thus tearing the victim apart or smashing him. This went on until one day Theseusdid the same to Sinis, and "becauseof" this bloody victory, this killing of Sinis, Theseus founded the Isthmian games,at leastaccordingto a tradition with Attic bias.'3A victim torn apart and hung on a tree that bearsno fruit is a terrifyingly clear image of an unspeakablesacrifice.Indeed, such a sacrificialritual using two recoilingtreesis actuallyattestedin Gaul." (Poets and interpreters, of course, preferred to substitute another story at the start, the story of Leukothea.) The victor's prize at the Isthmian gameswas a spruce wreath. Following the example of Ne-
6ea, the sprucewreath was replacedby a celerywreath from Classicaluntil Hellenistictimes.'sLater,the sprucewreath, the wreath from t'mystery-like" 1[e sacrificialtree, was restored. The dirge for palairemained always part of the Isthmianfesiival. rnon Releasedfrom this gloomy background,the cheerful and liberati"q 1."9""9.of the sixth century further developed the image of the dolphin-rider under the colorsof the renewedcult of Dionvsus, even usingalmostthe samelocation.In this version,Arion, the Dionysiac poej, is rj":d PI a dolphin and comesashoreat the sanct.ru.yof po_ seidon.corinthian sailorshad wanted to rob him of gold and his life while he was travelling with them from Tarentum to Corinth. In full singer'sgarb, Arion plu{"g. his las-tsong on the cithara and sprang into the sea,where a dolphin suddenly appearedand carried hi* to Tainaron.There-surely in the famous sanctuaryof poseidon-Herodotus saw the statue of a dolphin-rider. The itory actuallv ends. howevet in Corinth, where Arion goesto the palaceof the tyiant perianderand provides testimony to convict the iriminals. According to Herodotus,this story was told by both Corinthians and Lesbians.," It has long been recognizedthat this pretty tale has a most spe_ _ cific meaning." As Herodotus attestsin this contextand as even pindar alreadyknew, Arion is the "inventorof the dithyramb.,,r8 This in_ troduction of Dionysiac choral songs cannot be separatedfrom the :mergenceof Dionysiac motifs, of the thiasoi of padded dancerson corinthian pottery starting preciselyat the time of periander.reAfter the fall of the aristocraticr-egimeof ine Bakchiadai,who claimed that they were the direct descendantsof Dionysus,2.the cult of the god
8HerIIzo7.zt ed. Teubn.(r87r): p. 3u5ed. Ztirich (1844: r85l'). 'Or. Keil. 46.4o \ o2 . 2 , 1 . rrSeeIII.3.nn.4o-42. above. r2Paus. 2.r.3-4; cf. Bacchyl.17.r9;Eur.Hipp. 977-78;Diod. 4.59;Schol.Pind. lll 191.1' r95.3 Drachmann.On the pictorialtraditionseeWcirner,kMLIY gzr-34; Joh.Schmidt, RE III A 48-44; Brommer(196o)r89-9o. '3Marm. Par.',FGrHist239A zo;Plut. Thes.z5; Schol.Nik. A/er. 6o5. taComment. Lucafl.7.445;E. Thevenot,Hommages d W. Deonna(ry57),++z-49. Alexander had Bessoskilled this way: Plut. Alex.43. Cf. the fir tree of Pentheus,Eur. Bacrh to64 ff .; for imagesof Dionysusmade from this fir tree seePaus.2.2.7.
198
1
fr.5e;Schol.Apoll.Rhod.3.rz4o.remporarilyreptaced by ,o1f;f3ttin o{ t3.33;Nent.
"ojT:!.:::r; lTi"):^: ,PildSchol. pind. Iip. 6o5;Schol.
isthnt.,.r0,'a o+l"ruLi."';;;:'il;":;#';:J +.88;
.rg3.rr.
cf. the allegedsong of thanksgivingby Arion, poetae MeliciGraecig39l,age. ,rldl .t _a, "G. M. Bowra, 'Arion and the Dolphin,,, MH zo (1961), t27_)4: On CreekMargins (rg7o), roa-8r. O, 13.r8-19 with Schol.; Hellanikos, FGrHist F 86; Arist. fr. 677: p1or1. 4 Dikaiarchosfr. 75 W.; Schol. plat. Resp. "l* 3g4c;Tzetz. ad Lyk. p. z.r5 ,Lffesf.lzoa3r; PTne, Necrocorinthia (t93t), ug-24: F. Brommer, Satyroi(t97), zo_zz;L. Breit_ :Y donscheFarceirn griech.Mutterland(Goteborg, ry6o);Webster in pickardlltj,"-?1. ,;;:'lt'rloge.(r962)roo- ror, ryr-7). For paddeddancersat Athens seeA. Greifenhagen, schwarzfig_urige Vasengaitungund die Darstellungdes Komosim 6. .,t::" l;tl-t.h: Jh.,,, "$s' ^onrgsberg, ry29; H. seifert, "Dithyrambos und Vasenmilereiin Athen,,, Diss. J-u?burg, t97o. For the picture of Dionysuson the amphoriskoswith the return of dePhaestus, Athens N.M. ro9z, see G. Loeschcke,AM t9 jg9$, 5ro; payne#rc71; ti, Websterin Pickaid-Cambridge 1i962;,'Listof Monuments #38. ;:::^"t ratyros POxy 2465fr. 3 col. II; H. Lloyd-Jones,Cnomon35 1915), 454. Lgg
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
.t
'1i11 tl ilii"l' 'iln+it'r ,lilr lri
had to develop new and more democraticforms. It is quite conceivable that a Lesbian poet and musician establishedthe musical forq for these crude folk-dances.On one of these vases,the dancersare busy with a dolphin. Is it wine that they are pouring into the water?2' In any case,the associationof Dionysiacdancesand dolphins is thus attested to virtually within Arion's lifetime. A bit later, in the early forms of Dionysiac comedy, dolphin-riders and dolphin-masks became popular at Athens as well." Whereasthe Lesbiansand the Corinthians told of the adventure of Dionysus' poet, the HomericHymn makes the hero the god Dionysus himself. He is seizedby Tyrrhenian pirateswho want to enchain him while at sea.But the chainsfall off, vines start to sprout and wind around the mast and sail, and the mast is coveredwith ivy. The sailors leap into the seain terror and are transformedinto dolphins. Only the pilot is spared by the god, for he alone had spoken against the pirates;indeed, the god makes him "entirely happy" by putting him in the god's own service." Our earliestsourcefor the accompanyingritual datesto the Roman Empire: in Smyrna "in the month of Anthesterion, a trireme is raised up and carried to the marketplace.The priest of Dionysus steersit like a pilot as it comes from the sea, having cast off." 20The image of the ship of Dionysus, carried or driven on wheels, is known 2rParis,Louvre MNC 674; Payne#98g; Websterin Pickard-Cambridge(1962)t7z, List oI Monuments #43. zSee a black figure skyphos, Boston zo.r8, in M. Bieber,TheHistoryof the Greekand RomanTheatreQ96r), fi.g. rz5a; black figure bowl, Louvre CA ry24, AA tg4z, 7t pl. 3; black figure lekythos, Kerameikos, ibid. pl. 415;red figure psycter, New York, Norbert Schimmel Collection:G. M. Sifakis, BICS 14 i96), 36-37, pl. VI-he susPectsthat the inscription EIII AEAOINO! is the beginningof a choral song. For satyrsand dolphins see,e.g., the black figure rylix, Louvre F r38 = ABV $5.14. BHy. Dion., esp.53-54; then Pind. fr.216;Eur. Cyclopsrr; Aglaosthenes,FGrHist 499 F 3; Apollod. 3.J7- 38;Ov . Met. 1. 582-69t, etc.; cf. the Lysikratesmonumentat Athens: r (r98o), 1o1-J4. H. Herter Archaiognosia 2 a P h i l o s tVr .. S o p h . t . z 5 . r , l l i dr.' q 6 4 2 . 2 4 - 2 Z , a n d cIfI.5 4 . 8 e d . T e u b n . ( r 8 7 r ) ; A r i s tO Keil = I 373 Dindorf (with a characteristicaition: the hostile Chians intended to conquer the city while the people of Smyrna were celebratingon the ntountain, but they tiremselveswere destroyed together with their ships by the returning Smyraeans:for the Donysia as the retakingof the city seeIII.r. Excursusabove,esp. P. rou^);Or' zr'4 Keil : I 44o Dindorf. Nilss-on Qgo6) 268.On coins from Magnesia, four men are de' picted carrying the bow of a ship with the child DionysuJ (?): M. Bernhatt, lb l' t (rg+g), zz. Karaytit:|lrr of Dionysus are attested at Miletus' Numismatiku. Geldgesch. LSAM 48,at Priene: S/G'roo] = LSAM 37, at Ephesus:Acta 5. Timotheied. Usener (Progr.Bonn I1877];Nilsson lt9o6l 4r6.5with ritual combat). For the arrival of the dol' phin-rider and the founding of the city in the Tarentine tradition of Phalantos-Taras' especiallyon Tarentine coini, see RE IV A zzfJ6-87.For Dionysia at Tarentum seePlat'
THE RETURN OF THE DOLPHIN
to us already from the sixth century B.c., from a Clazomenianvase found inEgypl,zs with men dressedin strangely EgyptianJike aprons carrying the ship, and from three Attic vases, dated to between 5oo and 48oB.c. In the latter, the ship has a very ancientkind of wheel.26 flre sacrificial bull that is led along in the procession suggests a dithyramb at the festival of Dionysus. The Greater Dionysia were foundedat Athens in the courseof the Dionysiacreforms around 56o, and were subsequently expanded.,, Ultimately, the dithyramb acquired its classicalform near the end of the sixth century through Lasosof Hermione. To be sure, the god of the Dionysiais Dionys,rsof Eleutherai in Kithairon, and to begin the festival his image would be carried in once again from the direction of Eleutherai. But the advent of new life, with all its high spirits and voluptuousness,is so graphicallyembodiedin the image of the ship that, at leaston occasion,the centralplace in the processionwas held by the wagon-ship, which was even introduced into the Panathenaicprocession.2'Indeed,the image of the god surrounded by dolphins on his ship of vines is the epiphanyof the "god who comesfrom afar" par excellence,an image most beautifully depicted on the eye-cupby Exekias.,n kg. 617b;for Tarentum: SatyrionseeDiod. 8.zr; Verg. Aen.7.Bor;prob.Georg.2..197; Steph. Byz. 2ariptov. aOxford J. Boardman,IHS78 (rg5}), z-rz; pickard-Cambridge(1962)84, List ry24.264; of Monuments#82. For men carryinga boat in Egyptianart see, AOn 494,4gZ;for ".g., the wagon-ship see, e.g., AOB ry9; E. Panofsky,Grabplastik096a\, fig.8. Foi the god s arrivalon the ship seealso ANEP676,677,686;Burkert eg6) 295-96. bBlack figure skyphos, Acr. rz8ra. Pickard-Cambridge(1968)fig. rz; black figure skyptros, BM B 79, Pickard-Cambridge(196S)fig. 13, Deubner e9\z) T.r4.z; Utit nguie Bolognar3o, C. H. E. Haspels, Atiic Black-FigureaLckyttroi(ty6), 253#r5, lkyphos, Pickard-Cambridge (1968)r3, Deubner(r 932)pl. n.r; ci. alsothe black figure amphoiu rn Lorneto," ldl z7 Qgrz),76-77: Tarquinia 678,Simon j969) zSafig.276,where the samestatuesque,seated,outsizedDionysusis depictedtravellingin the ship. Because of the parallel from Smyrna (n. z4 above), the processionwith the *ugo.r-ri,ip i, ,rr.rauy assignedto the Anthesteria (Nilsson {ryo6) 269;IrgSSlSZz,5g3;beubner [r93zJ hesitantly,Pickard-Cambridge[1968] rz-4), even though the festival at ::2-1o3; is called Dionysia and the Dionysia at Priene (SIGJroo3.zo-24)do not take :Ty.l" Pfacein the month Anthesterion;A. Friikenhaus, ldl z7 .lgrl,Zr-69, and E. Bethe, et-)tez6'1,463, ar}ue in favor of the Greater Donysia. on the primitive "cross!yn2 oar-wheel"seeH.L. Lorimer, JHS4egq),42-5r;G. CirildeinC. Singer,E.J. Holm_ yard, and A. R. Hall, A Historyof fecttnotog1 I (tSS+),2r4; Burkert 6{e71 295. ba ,nu Dionysia see Deubner (ry32) 48-42; pickard-Cambridge(1968) 57_7or;o , Yl rasos see Pickard-Cambridge (196.2) rz-r5. BSee III.r.n.9o above.On pegasosof EleutheraiseeI.7.n.53above. "Mi.inchen 2c,44= ABV t46.zr;cf. n. z6 above; Hermippos fr.g (CAF I 243);Nilsson \r$06) z7s; {. Lesky, Gnomonz6 (1954),zrr. On Dionysus as the ;,god who c-omesfrom qrar"see Otto (1933)75_gr.
DISSOLUTION
Arion camefrom Lesbos,and a myth locatedin Lesbosdescribes how, after a bloody catastrophe,new and consecratedlife arosefrorn the sea.According to the story,after Orpheus had been torn apart by the Thracianmaenads,his head and his lyre floated acrossthe seato Lesbos.There, fishermenfished it out of the water and depositedit in an underground caveat Antissa, "there where now there is a sanctuary of Bakchos."'o(Jpon burying the head, which had been torn off in Dionysiac frenzy,there was a celebrationin which the dead man'slyre would sound anew. The story of Terpander,who brought Aeolic music to the Greek mainland in the seventhcentury was linked to Antissa.3'And, as the vase-paintings show the Lesbian tale of Orpheus was known at Athens starting at leastas early as the fifth century n.c.32 A parallel legend reflecting a neighboring ritual leads us to Lesbian Methymna. There, fishermen netted a strangestatueof the god made of olive wood-a phallus and a head at once. With an oracle's approval, it was given a cult and sacrificialfestivalsas Dionysus Phalten. a bronze copy of the log was seenby Pausaniasat Delphi.'3"Carin a Methymnian rying the god'simage at the Dionysia" is mentioned Although the year? every the sea insciiption.'Did they fish it out of force of the fructifying or idea of a head or phallus, the personality less sublimated and is cruder life, new dead man, raisedto the core of most nonetheless are the two orpheus, than the Antissan tradition of
1,,rr ,rl
iit
THE RETURN OF THE DOLPHIN
AND NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL
rLuk. Ada. ind. tog: OF T.rr8; Phanoklesfr. r Diehl/Powell : Stob. 4-2o.47= OF Gsr ,H i s t 4 T T F 2 , a n d c f . P h i l o s t r . H e r . 5 . S l l T.77;forthedistrictofAntissaseeMyrsF ilo r7z.tz ed. Teubn.), ro.7 (11t8l..r7); V.Ap. 4.t4; Aristid. Or' 24.55Keil : I 84r Dindorf; Resp.lrT4Kroll: OFT.rrg;Nlk. Harm.Exc.tpp z66.8-nJan= Hyg. Astr.2.7;Procl. Deonna, REG38 (tgz)' 44-69; Oi1.fi1. On the motif of the prophesyingheadseeW.,186), r49. Seegenerally PR II in a secretcult in New Zealand-(r864)see Globus7 '12.9). 7242, RE XVIII Ziegler, 4o6-4o8; 3tPhot.perd l\icrBtovtir6du: Arist. fr.545. 3?See two red figurevases,ARV2rr74.r (CookIII [r94o]pl. 16)and ARV2r4or'r lCook III Ir94o] ror), Brommer(196o)358;a red figure hydria in Basel,AK t5 QgTz),rz8'17 Cf. Cook III [r94o] 7o7-7o2,pl. 17, t8. 33Paus.ro.r9.3 (Adwoov Kega\fiva Mss., Oa),tr424Lobeck [1829]ro87);cf Nilsson Wormell US55)5gJ.6;Oinomaosof Gadarain Euseb.Praep Ea. 536.r-3: Parkeand (1958)fi37: Qc.\)oydv rtlt'irrvtL,tavuootoxap1uov.On fantasieswhere phallus = head see Herter, RE XIX t7z7-28. For an image of Dionysus coming frorn the sea at Dionysopolis(Pontos)seeSkymnos 753-54;yet there are other divine irnagesthat come from the sea: see Nilsson i9o6) zz6 1Cf. J. Kroll, "Das Gottesbildaus dem Wasset y-6o' F. uonderLeyenQg66),z5r-68; G. Beccatti,Boll.d comm.67iy), Festschr. ,IG XII 2.5o3;Nilsson (19o6\ z8z-83;on coins from Methymna and Antissa see HNt s6o-6r; Imhoof-Blumer,Zeitschr. f . Numism.zo (1897),285,pl. X 414'
intimately related on a structural level. Inversely,a legend at Ainos speaksof an image of Hermes driven acrossthe seafrom the Troad to Thrace."lt is found by fishermenwho tossit backinto the sea,only to catchit a secondtime. They thereupon sacrificethe first fruits of their catchto the image while passingit around from man to man. Finally, they "set it up" in a temple in the city. The act of "carrying around" seerrs to provide an especiallyclose link with the Phallen of Methymna. The cult's lower-classmilieu extends to Ainos as well, and this prompted Callimachusto use the legend. pricisely ' The story of the death of Hesiod leads us back to the realm of high poetry and to a gloominesscomparableto the myth of Palaimon. His death in a sanctuaryof Zeus Nemeios, not far from Oineon and Naupaktos,was already known to the Athenians at the time of the Transferredto the sacralsphere,the story of his PeloponnesianWar.36 deathbecomespart of the pattern of sacrificialritual. It starts with a maiden'stragedy.The poet was accusedof having disgraceda virgin; her brothers slew him in the temple of Zeus and hurled him into the sea.On the third d.ayfollowing, however, just as the Locrians were going toward the sea at Rhion to celebratethe festival of Ariadne, a schoolof dolphins brought the corpse ashore.37 Hesiod'sbody was then depositedin the sanctuaryof Zeus Nemeios-though the location of his gravewas known only to initiates.38 The murderersfled but did not escapepunishment. WhereasPausaniasspeaksof a festival of Poseidonat Rhion, the festival of Ariadne suggestsDionysus:the legends of Palaimon and Arion were likewise shaped by the polarity $Callim.
fr. r97, above all the Diegesis; for Ainos as xritrp.aMtru\quaiav xaiKupairirv see Strabo 7 p.331 fr. 52. On coins from Ainos see H. A. Cahn, Schweiz. numismat. Rundschau31 (1944, 59-63; cf. Nilsson (1955) 8r-82. sThuc.3.96.r. eCertamen Homeri et Hesiodi 14, p. 4z Wilamowitz: p.234 lines zz4-53 Allen, followtng Alkidamas (M. L. West, CQ ry 1ry671,446)and Eraiosthenes (fr. ry-zt powell); plut. uona. sept. sap. rbzd; Paus. g.jr.6. On the fate of the murderers see Plut. De soll. an. P o l l . 5 . 4 2 . T h e f e s i i v a l o f A r i a d n e i s m e n t i o n e d i n t h e C e r t a m e n ,p . 4 2 . 1 1 3f2e, f8+d; = t 234 Allen; Plut. r6ze speaks of i1 ritv'Piau fvoia, a festival for poseidon Iil. (r?us. 10.r1.6; Arcviota of the Nauzrclxr.or are attested in Schol. Aristoph. Ach. ry). On Poseidon-Dionysus see also Taras (son of poseidon, Arist. fr. 59o, and ,,Satura,,, Antipater Ir. j5 Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae).Cf. Nilsson (19o6) :fl.v . W i l a m o w i t z - M o e l l e n d o r f f , D i e t l i a su n d H o m e r e 9 $ ) , 4 o 6 - 4 , E. Vogt, llL.80,U. roz (1959\, rgg-zoj; R. Merkelba ch, Miscellanea A. Rostagni(1963),5r9-zr. In conffM rrast to Thucydides, Plutarch, and Pausanias, the locale in the Certamenis the land of the Opuntian L o k r i a n s a c r o s sf r o m E u b o e a . oPlut. ,6ze-f. A tomb of Hesiod was, however, displaved at Orchomenos: see Arist. fr. 5 6 5 ,C e r t a m e np . 42.2JWtl. : 1.247-5j Allen.
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of Dionysus and Poseidon. At the Isthmus, too, there were secret gave the graves.3'Thus,the death of the poet who with his Theogony Greekstheir gods was subsumedinto the structureof the sacredand of sacrificewith its ambivalence.In the end he found pardon and permanencein the sanctuary.Indeed, his fall assuredhim of a successor, for the product of that deadly union was/ according to the story, Stesichorus,the next great molder of myth.4
8. FishAdaent In Greek myth, the dolphin of Poseidonis a symbolicemblem:it is the sea-god'sattribute, an expressionof playful, elegantbeauty and friendly companionship.At a deeper level it perhaps symbolizesthe mother's womb, receiving and bringing to birth.l The fish has a far more concretesignificanceas fish in the Anatolian-Phoeniciancounterpart to the myth of Leukothea,the myth of Atargatisand Ichthys. Already in the fifth century Xanthus the Lydian told of how the evil queen Atargatis "was captured by Moxos the Lydian and becauseof her haughtinesswas drowned together with her son, lchthys, in the lake of Askalon, and eaten up by the fish."'|ust as Athamas had
J il
3ePaus.z.z.z: Eumelos, FGrHist 45rF 4 on the tombs of Sisyphusand Neleus; cf III.5.n.r4 above,the tombs of Dirke and Oedipus. {Philochoros, FGrHist 328F zr3. The dead man's return from the seaas a sign of Dionysus' favor appearsalsoin the legendof Alexanderof Pherai,who was killed in 358: seeTheopompos,FGrHisttr5F 352-Alexander especiallyhonoredDionysusPelagios of Pagasai;following the god's instructions,a fishermanfished the bones of the dead man out of the seaso that they could be buried. Accordingto a cult legendfrom Brastat (Lakonia),Semelewas washedashorethere in a larnaxand was given a solemn burial; Donysus, however,was brought up by Ino in a cave(Paus.3.24.3-4 without details concerningrites);for the cult of Myrtilos, washedashoreat Pheneos,seePaus.8.r,q.tr; for Knopos at Erythrae,seeHippias, FCrHist4zr F r. tE. B. Stebbins,"The Dolphin in the Literatureand Art of Greeceu.d Ro-"," Ditt' Baltimore, ry29; M. Rabinovitch, Der Delphinin Sageund Mythosder Griechen(t947). 'zFGrHist 765F t7: Ath. j46e. The form of the name, Moxos, going back to Xanthos' ct. FGrHist9o F t6, fits with the Hittite MuksusiMuksas;cf . H. J. Houwink Ten Kate' TheLua,ianPopulation Groupsof Lyciaand CiliciaAspera1lg6t),44-5o. On Atargatissee P. Perdrizet,MilangesCumont$y6\,885-9t; P Lambrechtsand P Noyen, Nrur. CIto 6 (rgS4, 2j8-n.
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driven Leukothea and Melikertes into the sea, so here the king had both mother and son thrown into the sea.And like Leukothea,Atara goddess becauseof her sufferings:she g"rir ::qr,T::.l1tll".."me becamethe Great Goddessof Askalon. The Greeksalso calledher Derketo.Her sanctuaryis rocatedby the lake of Askalon, u.,d "uu.u fish it contains is sacredto the goddess.3Ktesiasfurther neile"izei the myth and rendered it harmleJs:Derketowas not eatenby the fish, but was instead savedby them when she hurled herself inio the waters in shameand despair after the birth of her illegitimuie J"ugt t"., semiramis.since she was carried ashoreby a fish,"all fish aie sacred to her: the syrians may not eat them. In thii context,Ktesiasattests_ asLukian did later-that the goddesswas portrayedas half-fish, halfhuman.o The Syrian fish-tabu was-noted by the Greeks time and again.s The.detailedreport g-rvenby Mnaseasof pataraproves ,rruiir,i, -u, not just a-simple prohibition but, rather, the typical ambiguity of sacredritual. "-Everyday the priests" of Atargatis tfie goaaess ",bringto real fish and set it before her on a table, nicely cooried,botfi boited and roasted, and then the priests of the goddessconsume the fish 6 themselves." For, accordingto Antipater o"fTu.r.rr, ,,Gatis the q,.,een of the syrians was such a gourmet that she issueda proclamation forbidding anyone to eat fish without Catis',.7or, as Mnas"* p"ii,, ,n" decreed"that no one might eat fish, but, rather,must brint itloi". ir", the temple'" Thus, it is not that one may not eat fish becarisethey are holy; rather, they are holy becausetheyire eaten in a sacredsacrificial com.pany_ of Atar-Gatis,the GreatGoddess,the mother of jry T:.lil ure, nsn," lchthys, herself. Mnaseaseven goes on to say that her son'sdescendantswere the fish Galene, Myiraina, and the Elakate_ fish, prized for eating.sThey weri presumablykept in the l-.,t ,tirq" sacred lake. In the temple of the Syrian Goddessat Bambyke_Hierapolis, too, there was a pond with saired fish.'Their astonishingtamenesswith 3Dod. :.4.3. 'Ktesias, FGrHist6ggF r : Diod. 2.4; Strabo16 p. sEver 7g5;Luk. Syr.D. t4. since xen. Anab. t.4..9,;LSS_54; wachter (ryro) 97-98;cf. R. Eisler, orpheusthe rtsher(r9:r)passim; F. l. Dolgea titilrysllrgroi,ir|_ar;II(rgzz),175_4476ln Ath. 346d-e. ,ln Ath. 346c_d. -ln Ath. rord. 'Luk. Syr.D. rt, as-r8: Ael. Nai. NH 3z.t7.Diod.2.4.2, relerrngto t\tesias(FGrHiri o8-gF r). speaksofT:r1.1;pliny the lake at Askalon, ,,Eratosth.,, Catast.3g p. fio notrertof the lake at Bambyke.Thereare fish that .o,,",",o sacrifice to the sound of the
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR S FESTIVAL
11
the priests-did they pressup willingly for the sacrificialmeal?-was famous. Sacrificeswere brought down to the lake, and it was told that Hera led the way, holding back Zeus so that he wouldn't seethe fish, since otherwise they would die.'oThus, for the king of the gods this sacrificeis hidden, it is a sacrificeof aversion,frightening yet necessary the domain of the divine wife. Nonetheless,we can still clearly make out the pattern of the unspeakablesacrifice,here performed at the lake of the sacredfish. The Greeksequated the Syrian Goddess with Aphrodite. It was said that an egg fell from heaveninto the Euphrates and that it was carried ashoreby fishermen and hatched by doves. Inside the egg was Aphrodite." There was also a story, elaborating on Hesiod, that dolphins and escortingfish, Top"ni\ot',"wers born togetherwith Aphrodite from the blood of Uranos": ''?the epiphany of the goddessthus coincideswith the arrival of the sacredfish. There is almost no need to call attention to the structuralidentity between the Syrian fish tabu and the normal bloody sacrificialmeal: that which is consecratedis used for food, and thus the meal itself is a strictly regulated, sacredact. For the Syrians, every meal of fish becomes a sacrificialmeal, just as each act of killing is a sacrifice.And just as every dinner of meat is precededby the bloody businessof killing, so the ostensiblybloodlessact of catching fish PresuPposes violence and death, above all in the plunge into the watery depths. The myth of Uranos reflects the castration of a sacrificial animal whose genitals one would throw over one's shoulder into the water flute at the sanctuaryof Apollo at Sura near Myra in Lycia: see PolycharmosFGrHist 77oF rlz: Ath. 333d-f;Plut. 5ol/.an.g76c;Pliny NH 32.t7;Ae|. Nat.an.8.5,rz.r. For "Lydia" see Varro R.r.3.r7.4. The well-known fable of the piper and the fish comes from a relateddistrict: see Hdt. r.r4r; Ennius Saf.65 Vahlen.Fora pond with sacred fish at Smyrna see SIG3997. toLuk. Syr.D. 47. 1'NigidiusFigulusfr. roo Swoboda: Schol.Germ. pp. 8r, r45 Breysig;Hyg. Fab.t97 Others told of how Aphrodite leapt into the Euphrateswhile fleeingTyphon (cf. Pind fr. 9r), and changedinto a fish: seeDiognetosof Erythrai, FCrHistrzo F z = Hyg. Asv' z.3o;Ov. Met. 5.33r; Fast.2.459;Manrl.4.579-82.At Aphakaby the Libanon,there was a sanctuaryof Aphrodite with a sacredlake in which sacrificialofferingswere submerged (Zosimosr.58; those offeringswhich are pleasingto the goddesssink, as rn "lnot water," Paus.3.21.8);on the festival day fire falls from the mountain into the river Adonis, "this is Aphrodite Urania" (Sozomen.2.5.5;Zosimosspeaksof a fire-ball in the air). The mention of the mountain insteadof the sky revealsthe true characteroI the rite: a fire-wheel would be rolled down the mountain (see Mannhardt | 118751 5o7-5oB). t:Epimenides, FGrHist s6 45TF zz = Ath. z8z,e-f. On the birth of Aphrodite seel. T n above.
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FISH ADVENT
withorrt-turning around to rook. At Bambyke, the sacrificiaranimals were led to the lake. In the myths of Askalbn, too, submerJ., ,, p."_ supPosed.When rationalized,this npp"urs to.be tui ieeding "otning the fish, but the sacred,festivarchaiacterof the action ;;;;be de_ rived from this function. Rather,in this fishing we see*,"p.o;".tror., of somethingdevelopedin another sphere:*r! u"urote" tiua"ition or hunting and sacrificingritual in whiih the.prerequisitefor acquiring food is the guilt-ridden act of kilring. And in fact, in tne t isio.y or mankind, fishing is far more recent"than hunting uig ;urr,;";, though it is already y_r:,Tll""lin the.Uppe. palaeitthic,lnJor "rr"r, great importanceby the Neorithic. As a rule,'only a meal of meat *a, consideredsacralby the Greeks.Fish was the iveryday, profane garnish for Demeter'sbounty. whire this reflectsthe tradiiion li'i-,?.,igrun, peopleswho originally lived far from the sea,'athe coastarinhabitants around the Mediterraneansacrarizedthe meal of fish itserf. As fishing supplantedthe hunt, hunting customs turned into fishinj.rlto-r. Preparatorymaiden-sacrificesare documented in fishing ?rrt*."r, u girl would be thrown into the seaat the start of the seasJn,,sand the terrifying act of symboric parricide or infanticide is found r,"." u, a preparatoryevent. (There.is no analogy, however, to the peculiar structureof the "exceptionar"period.) ffotn", and son *r" catastrophe,throwing themselves to the fish, but tn" ""itilr, ^ott",". or he11e]fresponds.by sending forth the bl"ssi.f o7 1i1als ment, to which she herself gives birt-h,for Atargatis "o.r.tn_ is tie rnother of the fish. what we have encounteredat Bambykeand Askaron readsus to the high civilizationsof the ancie"t N;;;ii;rt, but arsoto various customs amons the fishermen of Greece.In the Babyronian-iu.r,ir" or Marduk, sacredfish were brought u, off"rir,g, to the god. The ,,Weid_ ner Chronical" relates how "tf,e fishermen-of Esagia,, set forth to catchfish "for the tabreof Bel"; an evil king tried to prevent them, but U,"'.r"gave the fishermenbread, gave them water,,,and therefore 5l Marduk made Ku-Ba'u queen.ruwhe"therqueen Ku-Ba'u, the fishermen'sfriend, has something to do with the goddessKubaba,Kybebe_ ''Mtiller-Karpe (t966) fiz '"See I.7.n. z4 above.
laA. Leskv
ThatattatrrOrl, ,-r,
""r. O_*
u.ri .o--".tary seeH. G. Giterbock,Zeitschr. .,f11_tt1rf"1ir.r f . Assyriol. (tg3d, l-!-5s Forpicturesof the sacrifice of thesacredfishon cylindersearsseeF. +zDorger, J. I (r9ro), ;;ntnvs t8; n. Eiri".,"b)pneus qreteeding 4u8-zo;IIr (r9zz).p1. theFisher (t9zr), pr.zz; ror of the fish see ibid., pl. zo. For p.i"rt, ar"rr"a r,rn1"" iig",, rtrrpi ,r., - ttsrer pf. r6;Dorger lt pt.ry.\tz.cr. ooig";ill5_3r. ", 207
TT I'l'
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DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR-S FESTIVAL
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Kybele, is a matter for debate." In any case,at Babyloncatchingand offering fish in the temple was a centralact of piety without which no governmentcould endure. A bit later in the "Chronical,"another fisherman who catchesa "fish as a gift" for the "great lord Marduk" becomesking himself. A similar system is presupposedin the myth of Adapa for the temple of Ea at Eridu.'8 Adapa, createdby Ea as "guardian of the rites," "went fishing for Eridu as prescribed"; "he caught fish in the middle of the lake for the householdof his lord." He then did battle with the South Wind and broke his wings, for which he had to defend himself before the court of Anu. In mourning robes he did penance, until finally, newly attired and anointed, he became the priest of Ea at Eridu. Here, though abstractspeculationis combined with poetry to produce a complex and ambiguousepic/ it seemsthat the theme of the fisherman as priest, of the priest as fishermanin the context of guilt incurred and expiation, points back to the sacrificial rites of the temple and to the theme of sacrificeas a whole. In Ugaritic, Athirat is called"mistressof the sea,"and her servant Qds-w-Amrr is a fisherman, the "fisherman of mistressAthirat of the sea."" Nothing is known of the appertainingritual. But even the title links the goddessboth to the sanctuariesof the Syrian Goddessand to the temple systemsof Mesopotamia. Among the Greeks,correspondingcustomsare to be found not in the great templesbut in the geographicaland socialfringes of the Greek world. fust as the fishermen of Methymna or Ainos pulled their Dionysus-or Hermes-logout of the sea,there was another place where Dionysus was annually immersed in the sea. This place may have been Halai Aixonides in Attica'o where, when tuna-fishing began, the first tuna would be sacrificedto Poseidon,that is to say,eaten by the priest and distinguished citizensin the sanctuary.2l
A 19Ro1tby Hegesandrosabout Apolronia,on the peninsuraof chalcidike by Lake Bolbe, exhibits a stiange correlation of funerary sacrificeand fishing. The lake was named ifter Bolbe,tt moilre. or " olynthos by Herakles. orynthos' tomb is on the otyr,tt,iu. nirr"a which flows into Lake Bolbe.In the months of Anthesterion and Elaph:bgfio,":,in.spring, the peopleof Apollonia sacrificeto their dead, inctudtngrherrHero, at his tomb by the river. Then, they say,,,Bolbe 'broiler' to olynthos and at this time countlessfish go sends a up from the lake into the Olynthiac River . , and all the inhabitants from the surrounding a1el cal put up as much preservedfish as they The goddessof the rake wiir send the peopruu-piu?ood need.."22 if they honor her dead son with sacrifice.The groornyrituar J^ ,ior" i, answeredby the advent of the fish. The peopleof Lesbos,in legend, sacrificeda maiden to poseidon, Amphitrite, and the Nereids. A youth, providentiary calredEnaros, "m11 of the-sea," jumped down with her into the sea; he survived, and later, when he went to the shore, a huge wave brought forth a crowd uis octopuseswho willingry followed him to the"sanctuary 9{ of Poseidon23-f6 sslys for a meal, nb doubt. In ClassicalGreek literaturewe encounterDictys, the ,,net_man,,, the fishermanon the island of seriphos who one diy netted a chestin which Danaeand the young perseuswere hidden.'Mother and child had been hurled into ihe sia, just rike Ino and Merikertes,just rike Atargatisand Ichthys-except ihut h"r" the coffin-chest, which arso lPPearedin the Lemnian myth, becomesthe ark that savesthem.,nIn lrc Diktyoulkoi,the "net-drawers," Aeschyrus translatesDanae,sarrival into- a Dionysian milieu: wine-growers and coal burners surby satyrs draw the net out oJ th" water.,,The arrival of the lo",lq"d bride and the divine child in the ark has been taken simply as too-s a story motif, but the myth of perseus had a more concretesignificance for the fishermen of seriphos. a..o.Jr"g to Aerian, they made it a point never to catchu rp""ifi. kind of fishlthe r6rrg ivaxios,and if it
'7Cf. W. F Albright, Arch. . Orientforsch. (9z1lz9), zz9-3t; Th. jacobsen,TheSumer5 f ian King-List (t939), ro4-ro5; E. Laroche, in Eldmentsorientaut dansla religiongrecque ancienne(ry6o), r 4 - z8;R. Gusmani, Kadmos8 (1969),r 58- 6r. t8ANET1o1-1oJ(thequotes: Ag,t5; B 5o)= 491 14J-46;cf. ANETAddenda6Tt-72' the possibility of identifying Adapa with the fish-man Oannes in Berossos,FGrHist 68o F r.4, is discussed. reM. H. Pope and W. Rollig in Wdrterbuch derMythologie,ed. H. W Haussig,I Qg65)' 246-49; M. C. Astour, Hellenosemitiu(196), zo6. zoOracle in Philochoros , FGrHist32.8Fr9t: Schol.T l,1.6.ry6andPlut. Aet.phys.9t4d; 'Atrar.ei,orv Wilamowitz and Maass' Schol., dX,;aiawPlut., cf. |acoby ad loc. (atrtever.v 'A)trcisat Argos should also be considered,seeSteph. Byz' and cf. Jacobyad loc.;b:ut 'Atrreris," Philologus s.u.);K. Tilmpel, " Alovvcos 48 (1889),68t-96 2lKrates, FGrHist in Ath. z97e.Thetunafish hunt of Karystos 16zF z; cf. Antigonos
beginswith a prayer, as it stiil does today in sardinia: Aer. Naf.an. t5.1-6.rne triaent z 5r .5 \ ; A p o s t . 8 . 9(6p a r o e m . G r . t l I459; l i " , ,II.l.n ? , d _ t : r d u n i i n g t u n a : s e e D i o g . 5 . i z ( p a r o e m .I G 3o-above]For a vase-pictureof a tuna-sacrificesee Detienne urrd v".rru.rl r197il t7g with fig. 16. 'Hegesandros in Ath. rrae; the word dr6truptsfor Iish-sacrifice appearsin the coan tnscription SIC. r ro6 :'Li ry7.az, oz. 'Plut' Cozu. sept.sap. $3a-d,; cf. Myrsilos, FGrHist 477 F a4; Anticiides, FGrHist r4o F a. uo,n Ou*" seeHes. fr. 45.3-5; RML | 946-49;lll ry86-zo6o;pR ll zzg_33;Brommer (1960)2os_206 8Fr. 464-74 Mette.
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FISH ADVENT
got caught in their nets, they threw it back into the sea:"they say that the fish are the playmatesof Perseus,Zeus'son."" A specialrenunciation distinguished the fishermen of Seriphos from any common fishermen, and this tabu was linked to Perseus,who played among the fish, a fish-prince among the denizensof the sea. It is surely no the coincidencethat fish-sacrificeis attestedfor the cult of Hekate,27 daughter of Persesor Perseus.To be sure, this leads us once more to the fringes of the Greek world: Themistokleshimself would have languished in obscurityhad he been born on Seriphos." Pankrates,a poet of the secondcentury A.D., narratesa legend who was especiallyhonored about the sacred"escort-fish," zrop'nOtos, gods." During the goldenage, Epopeus,a among the Samothracian fisherman from the island of lkaros, caught thesesacredfish, and he and his sonsate them in a festivemeal. Shortly thereafter,a seamonster swam up to the old man'sship and devoured Epopeusbefore the eyesof his sons. He who eatsthe sacredfish is himself eatenby a sea monster-this is an inversion of what, in the recurrentcycleof ritual, is understood the other way around: becausethe old man sank into the sea,fish can be caught and eaten.Once again, the mention of the Samothraciangods takesus beyond the limits of the Greekworld. A1ready Hipponax combinedthe Cabiri, soot, a period without fire, and a particular fish, d.Bepiv4,although we cannot make senseof all the fragment's details.r And judging by pictorial representations,fishsacrifice played a special role in the mystery cult of the Thracian riders," which seems, in turn, to be related to the Great Gods of Samothrace. Among the Greeks themselveswe find the remnants of a leap
into the_water,though in humorous guise. At Hermion€,., people ,,Dionysus spokeof i _dry]ngcompetitionin the cult of of the black Melanaigis- The expression "Deiian diver,,.. suggests a [oatskinl' iimilur situation on the island of Apollo-on the FranEois"iase,a swimmer or diver accompaniesTheseus'ship as it lands. The myth of Theseus'leap into the sea to retrieve the ring reflectssuch a ji.ri.rg test.v At the Maiuma in ostia,3sa boisteroui festival celebratedb| provincials but attended by genteel Romans as well, participants ihrew each other into the water. Analogous motifs frequently surfacein Greek myths. skiron fell from the skironic rocks into the sea and was eaten by an enormous tortoiser-indeed, the tortoisewas so important to the coastalinhabitants that Aegina took it as its emblem. Andromeda and Hesione were set out almost like bait to lure the great sea beast, the Ketos, whom the hero then slew.3'At Tanagra, the women,s procession down to the beachprovoked an attackby the seamonster,ihe Triton, who was subsequentlycaught with wine and killed in a Dionysiac hunting ceremony.3s The imageof the Ketoswas presumablyinspired by seal-and whale-hunts, hunts for a sea mammal with ,-"d, *ur,,' blood.'eThis brings us back to the dolphint realm. Of course, the
z6Nat.an. t3.26. Cl. Paus. z.r8.r: Perseus tyet . . . ttp"as . . . peyioras Ev re \epi6qt l.at.an.3.zS.Thepicturesonthe . . . . F o r a f i s h c a l l e d l l e p o e u s i n t h e R e d S e a s e e A eN coins of Tarsos are peculiar: for Perseus with a statue of Apollo Lykeios facing a fisherman, see F Imhoof-Blumer, IHS 18 (1898), 177-78; RML III zo59; P. R. Franke, Kleinasien zur Ritmerzeit(tg68) #t27. For Perseus with a tuna on the coins of Kyzikos see RML III 2o58. 27Eust.87.3t, 71,97.2);Apollod., FGrHist z44F tog: Ath. lz5a-b. For Hekate llepolis see Hes. according to Schol. Od. r.o.r19; Apoll. Rhod. 3.467, etc., flepatus tap9tvos Lyk. rr75. For the fish-sacrifice of a masked woman to Artemis or Bendis on an Etruscan stamnos see G. Schneider-Hermann, AK t1 i97o), 5z-7o' For a phlyax player eating a fish on an altar see A. D. Trendall, Phlyax Vases(t'967'z)pl. 4c. 'zEPlut. Them. :'8. "ln Ath. 283a. rFr. 78 Masson-West, and cf. fr. 43'F. Dolger, lchthysl(rgto), t41-5o, 4$-46;ll(t9zz) J. mentorum religionisequitum danuainorum Q969I 75)'
270
42o-47; D. Tudor, Corpusmonu'
IP_a_us. 2.35.r, and cf. z.34.ro-rr: cult of poseidonand Aphrodite frouria xai h,tpevi"a at Hermione. $sokrates-Apophthegma Diog. Laert.2.22,9.72;Herondas 1.5r. Cf. the pictureon the FranEoisvase(ABV 76.t), e.g., in Schefold(r96a) pl. 5ra. 3Bacchyl. rp Brommer e96o)165,rg5. The Glaukosis, in the myth, the metamorphosisof a fishermanwho leapt into the""u-god ,"u] pR I6rc_1.3) nUf l rc7A_AO. sCod.-lust. '.46;Lydos, Mens.4.gop. r33 Wuensch;Sudap Festus 4Z;.piscatoriilr,rli 238M. $Apollod' Epit. r.z; Diod. 4.59;in vase-paintings,with rheseus overthrowing skiron fio-62. r9o-9r). At Elis, Aphrodite Urania setsher foot on a turtre: lr'96o1 !T.:tI"' co.nt.r.4zd;Is 38re;Paus.6.25.r.It was saidthat Lais was beatento death :.::i ,:.*':, "ttrt tur'€s"i Ath' 598a;Schol.Aristoph . prut. t79. For the turtreas the enemyof and for Re in Egypt seeH. G. Fiscler, Buil. ietr. Mus. z4 e966), r93. ;".:::" 542.5? The myth of Andromecta,set near Jaffain palestine(Konon, ',ii,l!^117:ort urnrsr26I r.4o;Strabo$p. Belt.lud.3.42o;paus.4.35.9;pliny NH5.69, rz8) 759;Jos.
ff_T lgtrJ'T
.:rn,51nu.tin pAmh.(A.Erman,oie t;t'eiiturair'Agy7,t';'Ire41,
Bibtiotheca Orientatis g l1g52l,8z_85;S. Morenz, Folschungen und 'wrLrcnntteT . "1,,"r i"irJi:,,r,i t6 Iro6.zl_?'ot_3o9):yam, the sea, demands tribute; Astart" go", do*n
ilql{j:: versionor a caanXnite myth lJ.-evidentry il,.-|" :^"1_::.,^l aDove). lbr a Hittite counterpart ""'Esffii".
see J. Friedrich , Architt Orientdlni ;;;_;.1, ry e949), *-Paus' 9 ' : o 4 - 5 ; c f ' D e m o s t r a t o s - i nA e l . N n t . a n . r 3 . z r ; E p h o r o s F c r H i s t -Tanag.a , 7 o Fz z 5 ; A t h . Tritons on an ancient clay figurine f.om see RML y n64. ::: .:". m o t h e r o f t h e s e a l sa n d t h e E s k i m o m y t h o f t h e s a c r i f i c eo f t h e v i r g i n , 1 . 8 . n . 2 7 ;t;j:"
I
DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR,S FESTIVAL
hlr
Greek myths and a large share of major Greek cults have become characteristicallydetached from the fisherman's everyday Pragmatism and needs, playing out their socio-psychologicalfunction in a purely symbolic fashion. However, such culturally refined developments are always in danger of growing anemic' We have seenthat the samestructureof sacrificialritual presents itself at different levels. The most detailed picture of the New Year's festival of the polis, with its dissolution in the unspeakablesacrifice and its restorationof order in the festivefeastand agon, was provided by Athens and Argos, but we were able to detect hints of it at Sikyon and Thebesas well; in the non-Greekrealm, there was the parallel of the Lemnian fire festival, where an artisan guild supplantedthe customary Greek military organization.The samestructureswere given a new emphasis in the expanding cults of Dionysus, in the Agrionia type on the one hand, where the period of exceptionbecamethe setting for ecstasyand the sacrificialsparagmosoutdoors, and in the type of the Dionysian advent on the other, where the god enteredthe city from the sea.Fishing rituals and legendscameinto play here too, especiallyin non-Greek areas.The sacrificeof the maiden and the plunge into the seaare answeredby the arrival of food from the sea. It is impossible to trace just how the rituals of hunters, fishermen, nomadic animal-breeders,and city dwellers Brew apart, influenced eachother, and overlapped.We may thereforewonder all the more at the structural unity that rendered that reciprocalexchangepossible. The basic structure of sacrifice,with its preparations,bloody central act, and restitution, grows into a great arc of myth embracing the maiden's tragedy, regicide/parricideor infanticide, and the younger generation'saccessionto power. Nourishment, order, and civilized life are born of their antithesis:the encounterwith death. Only homo necanscan becomehomosapiens.
ry. ANTHESTERIA
L. Testimoniq and
Dissemination The importance of the Anthesteria, celebratedin the spring in honor of Dionysus, is immediately shown by the fact that it lent its name to a month, and not only at Athens; the name of the month Anthesterionis attestedfor the entire Ionian region, for Eretriaon Euboea,for the island Tenos,from Miletus to Prieneon the coastof Asia Minor, Ephesus,Teos,from Erythrai to Smyrna, and in the Ionic colonies of Thasos,Kyzikos, and Massalia.'This agreementwas noted alreadyby Thucydides, who drew the conclusion,still irrefutable, that this festival and the name of this month must antedateIonian colonization of Asia Minor.' That makes the Anthesteria one of the earliestattestedof all Greek festivals.And inasmuchas the festival deals with Dionysus and wine, one may conclude that the wine-god Donysusmust already have been long familiar by rooo n.c. The Linear B texts from Pvlos that refer to Dionvsus'befoie 12ooB.c. make this f See
Samuef (1972)Index s.a.) for the festival at Teos, see SIGs 38.11; SEG4.598; r n a s o s , L S S 6 9 ; S m y r n a , P h i l oVs.tS r .o p h . t . z 5 . r ( l I 4 z . z 4 e d . T e u b n . ) ; l a s o s , B u l l . e p i g r . r97l nr. 7o;Massalia,Just. 43.4.6(lV3.n.rz below). For Syracuse,seeTimaios, FGrHist 566F r58; Diog. Laert. 4.8;Antigonosin Ath. 437e.Cf. FarnellY (r9o9)zt4-24, i77-2o; r\usson, Studiade Dionysiis Atticis (Lund,, rgo), tr5-38; idem (19o6)267-7r. For the rinthesteriaand the Aiora see Eranos14 (1916), r8r-zoo = OpusculaI ,l95:r), 745-61:,; GSSS),S8z-8+, 5g4-g8; Foucart Qgo4) ro7-63; Harrison egzz) 3z-74; egz) 275-94; r-tubner jglz) ,1969\r-25. 93-rz1; van Hoorn (r95r); Pickard-Cambridge with the ScholiaPOry YIp. o4 #853;Deubner(t932)rzz-23. -rnuc.2.1j.4 'PY Ya roz; Xb 4t9; Gdrard-Rousseau(1968) 74-76;L. R. palmer, TheInterpretationof MycewaanGreekTexts(rg$), z5o-58. Of no less importance is the excavation of the rernPleat Agia Irini on Keos:sincer5ooB.c. it was continuouslyused as a cult site,and
272
I
243
TESTIMONIA AND DISSEMINATION
ANTHESTERIA
that the god's conclusion easier to accept, even if it is conceivable The Creeks festival' wine name may be a secondaryaccretion!o tfe. ut*uy,connectedthenameAnthesteriawith,,blossoming,,,inparticuno reasonto deviate lar with the blossom of the vine,oand there is from this simple interpretationof the-name' ^^material to O^." uguir,, only ,tthens provides us with enough in addiHere, festival. form a comirehensi,J",aetaitea'picture.of.the we poets' Attic by tion to accountsby local historians and allusions Choes the pottery of have the evidenceof a clearly delineatedtype doubt that it was used on the main day of fit.f,"t-'fnere can be no the."pitchers'" the festival, whose very name was Choes, the day of events' festival the to it p"ir,ti.,gs on thesepitchersare also related centuries " fourth and fifth Mosi of the-evidenceisioncentrated in the later times as 8.c., but there are isolateddocumentsin Hellenisticand years' 1/ooo over well, so we know that this festival spanned fell on the Thucydides tells us that the *iin day.of the.festival the most Choes' the of twelfth day of Anthesterion.'This was the day seeJ. L' caskey,Hesperia 1 sinceArchaictimes the cult was certainlythat of Dionysus: j964), 126-15; Simon (tg6g) 289. alstros,FGrHistSl4FrJ=HarPokr.'Av$eonlpttilz;cf.Macr.Sat.t.tz.4;Et.M' "Avrltos IC Stovvcros rog.rz; An. Bekk.| 4o1'32;translited "Floralia" by Just' 41'4'6; cf Eutz' and F FGtHist Phanodemos' 325 llllll2 {J56and Paus' r.3r.4. L. Eiavtltls 6' 218;.'Av.BLorlp Od. Maron, wine, of 9-:.97;Hes' lhe'6ver of father the unth"si-s 'z\' Unconnectedwith Dionvsus ihera tC Xll 1329( "BekranJer," Wilamowitz lr91zl77 are'Hpa'g,rit"tc.-,'Hpoctiuten,duf'eo96potatArgos(Nilsson119o61357),dvBetrgopot Hsch avfleanlpLa}es'An in Sicliylnol. t37),'Avleorpl8es in Rhodes(LSS96'and cf +dva-rgioooorlat(A' W from "f,r1eroat derivation The (LSS 18) Paiania S,ek*.iri...d), be rejectedalreadybecause Verrall,iHS zo Lgrr|, t5-17; Harrison lgzzl +Z-+g)must the suffixfor festivalnames as ']no'o Aiticlonic not is precisely which apocope, of the itre1"o"parilpn G6rard-Rousseau (1968)2o7-20)' go"s back toMycenaeantimes' sstudied by Deubner (t912) 48-47, and comprehensivelyby van Hoorn (r95r); see "Choes"' AlA5o(t946)' 722-)9; J. R. Green, B/CS8 (196r), 4lz7' Cl' S' P' Karouzou' ,'946)' 245-tu; E' Simon' "Ein TAPA Cnyt.oi," 77 H. R. Immerwahr, "Choes i.i 55-76;E Sv des Polygnotos," AK 6 i9$),6-zz;Metzger (tg6) Anthesterien-Skyphos 'Attische.FesteA Rumpf' see view a skeptical For mon, Gnomon4z(t97o), Zto-ii' by no meansall' depicAttische Vasen," Bonn. lbi. r6t (t96tl, zo8-r4' Many' though confirmedby a Choes is often This Anthesteria. tie tions on Choes pitchersrefer to has a grafhto XOITI even painting itself:one chous pitcherbeing depictedug"*i,tlhu -ft other sortsof vases on Anthesteria of the depictiois fnlectr1r9Sz[3o7.,. 1791. ure are in southern Anthesteria an as well. Typicalchoes pitchersindicatethat there was also rr n'rabove;IV'5'n Cf AKzz(tg7g)'38f McPhee, Italy:seeu"r,Hoo..,(l95tl 5o-52;I' below. and;acoby 62.t5.4; ri1 6a6exat71isdeleted as an interpolation by Torstrik' trd"' and thus POxy^853 in already appears but (FGrHisttII b Suppl., Notes PP. r6-6t), A HtsGomme' W A' by representsan anoent traditioi; the received text ii defended "Demosth'" (1956),52-53' 59'76' ll on Thucydides to)icalCommentary
no9ulat and often the only part of the festival that is mentioned. It Lr^isprecededby the day of "opening the casks,"the Pithoigia,on the day of Anthesterion, and it was followed by the day of the "i""enttrthe Chytroi, on the thirteenthday of the month.?One must i,notr," ,Icall that, accordingto the old religiouschronology,sundown sigand night were reckoned as nufedttt" end of a day and that evening and the Choes meet Pithoigia the Thus, day. of the following ,f," "u" and the Chytroi on the evethe Choes eleventh, on the eveningof the distinction occahazy this antiquity, in Already nine of the twelfth. sionallYcausedconfusion' "iasks," "pitchers," "pots"-the earthy, popular characterof this was a festivalmay be seenin thesedesignations.Indeed, this festival with, when compared the polis' of the finances for auantittnigligeable It ocDionysia' the Greater or Mysteries, the sav,the Panathenaia, reto more the in contrast custom, of folk level the curred largely on by the century in the sixth were established which cent Dionysia, tvrants and the polis. Moreover, the sanctuary of Dionysus in the trarshes,' which Thucydides consideredto be one of the oldest in Athens, was apparentlyuntouchedby the monumentalbuilding program at Atheni. It has not been identified with certaintyand had apof Pausanias-perhaps it larently already disappearedin the time It probably lanIobakchoi. the of site cult pii.rute the by *ur r"plu."d guisheddue toan especiallysacredcommandmentthat was enjoined ipon it: it could be opened only on a single day in the year, the day TPhilochoros,
FGrHist 3z8F 84 (cf. Jacoby ad loc.); Cal1m. fr. r78; Apollod., FGrHist 244 F rj3; S.hol. Thuc. p. rzr.zo Hude; cf. Nilsson (rg5il SS+.Aristoph. Ach roT6 rind rous Xoas Tzlp xai Xritpous led Didymos (Schol. ad loc., Suda 1 6zu) to claim that the Choes and Chytroi were on the same day. 8In the account of sales of sacrificial hides, 1G llllll2 1496,the Lesser Dionysia brings in 3rr Dr., the Greater Dionysia 8o8 Dr., the Anthesteria nothing' 'Called rti (ro0) iv ltipvats Arcvicrou Thuc. 2.r5.4; Isaios 8.35; "Demosth'" 59'76;Philochoros (?), FGrHist 3zBF zz9; Callim. fr.3o5; Strabo 8p 161; Schol. Aristoph' Ran' z16 (iv dr xai oixos rai vetirsro0 rleoi'); Steph. Byz. lripvat' Not mentioned by Pausanias, who describes the shrine at the theater of Dionysus as the oldest shrine of Dionyroi ALpvatou; s u s : 1 . 2 o . 1 .P h i l o s t r . V A p . l.t4 also mentions an riTaApa roi Jtovioov cf. van Hoorn, RA z5 j9z), 1o4-zo. The fact that there were no marshes at this sanctuary is discussed by Strabo I p 16l and Schol. Thuc. POry Yl #8y. W Dorpfeld excavated a small shrine between the Areopagus and the Pnyx, which was later the cult site o f t h e l o b a k c h o i ( l G I I i I I I ' : r 3 6 8 : s I G 3 1 1 0 9: L s 5 r ) l t h a s b e e n h y p o t h e t i c a l l y i d e n t i tied with the Limnaion: see AM zo (1895), r6t-76;46 (tgzr) 8r-96; Judeich (t91r) zgt96; Pickard-Cambridge (1968) zr-25. G. T. W Hooker, /HS 8o (rq6o), 7't2-'77, pleaded for the area u.o,r.,d ih" llissos; Gu6pin (1968) 283 seeks to locate the Limnaion in the Ilissos temple (V.3.n.2 below). There may be a picture of the temple on the Chous: Mtinchen r+e+; uutr Hoorn (r95r) #699pl.6t.
245 2a4 I
ANTHESTERIA
Dionysusin the of the Choes. Another riddle is posed by the name scarcelybe lvlarshr;in historical times, marshesand swamps could foundinAthens.lfitcorrespondssopoorlytoAthenianconditions, There is no ii r.,rrt have come from a more ancient, alien tradition' such thing as an autochthonousorigin for religion'
z. PithoigiaandChoes
ll
I
The Anthesteria has lcng attractedattention for three reasons. all threeThe first is as a children'sfestial.' On the day of the Choes' fo".-y"ar-old children were given presents' The depictions on tablos' and ".,J ,tr" ti,,t" bho", pitchers of the cfiildten, their offertory for the histoys are a unique record of Athenian private life' Second' of the i;i-" of religion, the Anthesteria was fascinatingas a festival the from dead: it wasiaid that ghosts or spirits of the dead emerged be chased underworld on theseiays and entered the city' only to marut the end of the festival'' Third, referencesto a "sacred "queen" of "*uy iiug"" at this festival have provoked great curiosity: the tn Dionysus Itfiu.,r, wife of the archon basileus,was presentedto play' into marriage.3Thus, animism and fertility -magicboth came as well olr"rrhldor"ing that which, judging by the namesof the days central the as by the statementsof the Athenians, was fundamentally simple These ' opening the casksand drinking the new wine' the interpreting "*r"ri actionswere h"eregiven a set, ritualizel form, and in ritual' Anthesteria, our main goal must be to understand this 'At Athens, ,n" p""opf" start with the new wine on the eleventh the day pithoigia." so Pluday of the month Airthesterion, calling ;And since long ago tl"y h,1: tarch, who adds a pious interpretation: and prayeo uppa."r,tty porrr"d a libation of the wine before drinking rather' be but' that the use of this Jraught would not harm them' on this g..a i". th"*."0 Thus, itTs the wine caskswhich are opened tSee n.z7-29 below. ad,See IV.1 below. The interpretation of the Anthesteria as a festival of the dead was (rgSS\ Nilsson cf' Sg+-sZ,' yP (rgzz) 3z'49; vanced mainly by Harrison it^::Tt";i extrinsicbutveryoldconnectionbetweenDionysusandthefestivalotthesouls\)Y/'' 3See IV.4 below oQ. cona.655e.For the month fltfioryuiv at Peparethos see IG XII 8'6+S'S'
zt6
PITHOIGIA
AND CHOES
day,or, more precisely, the great clay iars (niflot), which were sealed after the wine had fermented. The rule that the wine must then lie untouched for several months until spring is certainly strange and ar$ficial, but it was observed even outside of Greece,among the Rornans.sDrinking the wine is not left to the whim of the individual; the gernmunity comes together and celebratesthe god. The beginning seemsbound up with danger:it was possiblethat this drinking could "4sharrfl." Even today, the growers of wine follow set customs,starting - the harvest together, pressingtheir wine together. Here, tasting the new wine is a collectivecelebrationwithin the of the Atthidographer Phanodemos can only sanctuary.The report 'At the temple of Dionysus in the marshes,the referto the Pithoigia: Athenians mix the new wine which they bring from their casks for the god, and then drink it themselves.Hence Dionysus was called the god of the marsh, becausethe new wine was mixed with water and drunk on that occasionfor the first time. . . . Delighted then with the mixture, the people celebratedDionysus in song, dancing and calling upon him with the names Flowery, Dithyrambos, the Frenzied One, the Roarer."u It is unthinkable that wine would be mixed and poured out to the wine-godat a closedtemple. For this reasonalone,Phanodemosmust be referring to the Anthesteria. However, the temple iu Adpuarswas open only on the Choes, on the twelfth day of the month.? The fact that the eleventhday was alreadycalled "the opening of the casks"is due to the sacralchronology. In the evening, the day of the Pithoigia Passesover into the Choes, so that the caskswould have been opened iust beforenightfall, and the temple would have openedat sundown. Plutarch attests that, in his native Boeotia, the new wine would be sThe Vinalia on the twenty-third of April are degustandis uinis instituta:Pliny NH r8.287, and cf. Varro r.r.6.:16;Festus65 M.; Ov. Fast. Wissowa(r9rz) rr5.8. 4.863-9o<;; 6FG/Hrst = F tz Ath. 125 465a: r.pdsre iepe 9t1
ANTHESTERIA
1.1
,rl
PITHOIGIA AND CHOES
opened in honor of the Agathos Daimon "after the evening wind.,,' Throughout the day, people flocked together from vineyards all over Attica: freeholderswho seldom enteredthe city, slavesand laborerss1 the landowners who lived in the city-a colorful crowd of strangers and friends with greatzlrlor loaded on clatteringcartsdrawn by don_ keys: they gatheredat the placein front of the temple, waiting for it to open at sunset, and to pour the first libation to the god from the newly opened casks.After holding out for months, despitelongings and anxious curiosity,they finally broke the resinatedseals.The ten_ sion of testing the results of a year'swork dissolvedinto pleasurereasonenough to praise the god of wine. The fact that the wine-tasting grew into a drinking competition on the following day of the pitchers, and that everyonegot his own jug-slaves and laborers, too, indeed, even children-seems to be such a simple form of collectivemerriment as to require no explanation.e In Aristophanes' Acharnians,the good fortune of the peacemaking anti-hero, Dikaiopolis, culminatesin a drinking bout at the Choes. Here too, Dikaiopolis wins and gets a wineskin as a prize, enough to fill dozens of Choes pitchers. Thus, the guzzling is selfperpetuating-no wonder scholarshave been satisfied to state that the Choeswas an undeniably merry festival.'0Yet the backgroundfor this day'smerriment seemsstrangeand even uncanny. There is unambiguoustestimony that the day of the Choeswas a "day of pollution" (p,npa iptpo).r, People would start the day by chewing-contrary to all natural predilection-on leavesof a particular hawthorn variety,pap"vos,which were otherwise used to ward off ghosts.l?Doors would be painted with pitch-a normal way to water-
when all the doors o{ the city shone, sticky pl"gl ,l^" I::1,:::l and that so a door-co rld be opened only with care, it was a black, most sfiking expressionof a diesater. All temples were shut on this day ro so that normal life was largely pararyzed:since there corrlJ-be ,,o oaths sworn in the temple, no important businesscould occur, no marriagebe settledon. There could be no "normal,, sacrificeat any of the altars' Nevertheless,jhe tempreswere not barricaded,j"rt ,rr.round€d with ropes. Each individual had to construct the symbolic boundaryin his mind:.on this day accessto the gods was inte-lrupted. onlythat temple which was otherwiseshut waJno* open-the temple of Dionysus iz Aipvats. In observanceof the diesater,far from the gods, people gathered behind.dogrgfleshly coveredwith pitch to eat togeihei u.,i, above all, to drink.'s rhe family, incruding ail relatives-itnorgh frouuury without women-assembled at the house of the head oFth'e family. officials gathered at the office of the archons, the Thesmotheteion near the Areopagus.'urhe "king," basileus,would preside. The people probably came.togetherat the usual mealtime, in the late after_ noon. what followed, however, was the clear antithesis of the usual festivalmeal' Eachparticipant had his own tabre,''and whereaswine and water were norma,y served in a great mixing bowl out of which the wine-pourers would fiil the cups"ail around,"eachparticipant at ,h:.9h.o".r.-_usgiven a pitcher that would be f,ir'foreue;-rh" 61""r, which held about two and a half ritersof mixed wine.,8 This is the preL 4 o s K o r .r . 9 o ; O v . F n s t . 6 . r z 9 - 6 g o n s p i t r oa / b a ;R o h d e ( r g 9 g ) I z l z . , ] ; H a r r i s o n ( r 9 z : ) 39-40. '3Phot' frlpruos' ' ' xai rrirrTl iypiovr
8On the sixth day of the month Prostaterios: Plut. e. conu. 655e. 'Procl. Schol. Hes- Erga 368, on Pithoigia: oire oix6r4u oilre pto\arou eipyep ris dnoXauoeug roi oilvou Bep,ndv iyv . . . Cf . Antigonos of Karystos, Ath. 437e. That is why the "black" day of the Choes is a "white" day for slaves: see Callim. tr. ryg.2. On the children see nn. 27-29 below. For expenditures for state slaves at the Xdes see /G llllll' fi72.2o4. l0Aristoph. Ach. t o c n - r 2 1 4 . " T h e A n t h e s t e r i a . . . p l a i n l y a c h e e r f u l f e a s t , , :p i c k a r d Cambridge (1968) r5. ttPhot. ,nrapzi ilpttpa' iu tois Xouoiv'Avfeo"zlpiovos 1,tt1vos.More concisely Hsch, pnpai i11t"ipat' toi'Av&ennlpuituos p.nv6s (cf. Eust. 456.6). There is a tendency, contrary to Photios' clear indication, to treat the Chytroi as the actual p.npd fip.epa: see Farnell V (tgog) z16; Pickard-Cambridge (1968) 14. 1'zPhot. t'ap.vos' pwou 6 iv roi.s Xouoiy 6s d[e(tgdpp"axov |p,aodvro 6a\eu; Phot. p.capa fip.6pa. On t'aptuos see Nik. Ther. g6t-62: p,oivq yap v.fioretpa Bporiov ano xipas Epixet (862) with Schol. 86o = Sophron fr. 166 Kaibel, Euphorion fr. r17 Powell;
,""pr,u.,oi"*x","f;":;;r;?:;:ii,i::,;:#:r:::iliJ,i""l'i;,,J,ii:f.::1f * hg67l, r7s-g8 (who incorrectly speaks of the ..chytroi,,). l,'is,tJ' Suests brought food in baskets;.seeAristoph. Ach. ..r-ne rcg5- rt4:r, Schol. ad,96r; for a qrfferent view seetratosthenes, I GrHist z4 r F r6.
;,ilti.?"i"'
64)a;Eratosthenes, Q. cotrz,. ,,i:: lry !u, non,Plut. FGrHist z4rF ft. tpn laur' 9s\,q6o:phanodemos, ^-"'' FcrHist1z5Frt;Apolrod.,FcrHistz44Ft11. \Jn.thepitcher. r"e (rut", in Ath. 495b.At Ath;; they were sold '{Y-laxrrz at the choes: see on a sacrificiaraninral, iip,aprou;J;;"" 5 for the stateslavessis xdas see ,r,Ifllll2 t67z.zoa.
zrB
iir
613b; Alkiphr'4 t8,tt;cf Arist AthPol.,l.5; Aristoph.Ach.rzo1,rzz4
219
I
PITHOIGIA
ANTHESTERIA
';,1
flr,.,, lliltl . '',Jlll
requisite for the notorious drinking competition: crowned with ir,y wr'eaths,"the people would wait for the trumpet slsna-l'iblown frorx the Thesmotheteionat the king's order to initiate the drinking. Then all those assembledwould drink "in silence,"" without a word or q song-indeed, apparently,without prayer-filling and refilling their titt the Chous was empty. glt oj all the odd customs on this ",rpi "d'ay of pollution," the silencewhile drinking probably seemedthe most peiuliar to the loquaciousAthenians. To them, wine and song went iogether, and drinking to one another with song and speech was a highly refined socialgame.on the day of the choes-,people sat togetheiunder one roof but as if enclosedby invisible walls: seParate known tailes, separatejugs, and ali surrounded by a-general.silence eigrlp'eire. his out calls herald the when otherwise only at sacrifice The languageof the ritual is clear:the so-calleddrinking competition bears th" Jtu*p of a sacrifice.The peculiaritiesof the Choesdrinking are the noim at the bloody sacrifice:not just the silence,22 but theindividual tables'3and the distribution in portions as equalas possible;r,aboveall, the atmosphereof pollution and guilt. From this perspective,the drinking competitionrevealsits original function: evstarts together so that no one can say another_startedfirst.'?s "ryotru Lilewise, when the day begins, the act of chewing the leavesto avert evil, rather than carrying them or hanging them up, is a cathartic preparation for the ruitud meal, handed down from hunting rituals''u IV.4.n.zbelow 4.r8,tr; frequentlydepictedon the Choespitchers-cf. 20Aristoph.Ach. roor; cf. IV.5.n.15below. ,1pfut. to Phanodemos, Q. cona. 6r1b, 641a;Eur. Iph. Taur.g5r. The prize, according Aristoph' Ach' rooz, rzz5 has a wineskrn-a FGrHist3z5F tr, was a cake (zr)\axo05); of the drinking competition:besidesthe Chous, Dikaiopolisimmecomic "*agg".ation doxos diately dririks a bowl of unmixedwine (ruz9); he thereupon receivesa whole on a competition-depicted drinking the in victory For lriike with a Chous-i.e., (r97o)' : ' Simon, Gnonron 7rt" 4z Chous seeWiirzburg 4917 ARV'?87t'.95;E 2zEigqpeiv:seeStengel(tgzo) ttt; among the RomansseeG. Mensching, DasHelig! gen (t 926\, tor - toz Schwei 23Movogayotinthe cult of Poseidonat Aegina, xao' airois i9' i11t'ipas6xxai6exa pera Plut. Q. Gr. 3ord-e Gf. etn. 588e);riz6paxcisxof4pezos Aesch' otuzrils 1.,rtCour,.t (cf Ag.,5g5 at the feast of Thyestes-the text, howevet'is fragmentaryand corrupt E. Franekelad loc.). 'Irro8alr4s' 2oA,tovuoog iooiaittls Plut De E 389a,Harpokr', Hsch' ,5For,,dividing up the guilt" in sacrificialritual seeMeuli (t946)zz8; at executions'see (r9zz)' zz6' zz8;at a Plot K. v. Amira, "GermanischeTodesstrafen,"Abh.Mi)nchen3t'3 of murder, Hdt. 5.92y4' 26Forlaxativesand the like, see GB VIII 81;beforethe "festivalof the first fruits" (lndians)seeGB VIII n,75-76.
AND CHOES
eating food, one incurs guilt which must be distributed equally Sy -uinonsall. And only_thosewho receive their share can belong, bound the act they have committed. by together precisely this reason,the meaning of the Choes touches the For When a child was no longer a baby, at the age of children hvesof would be presented to the family clan, the phratry ur,a it it tyee, in the Choes festival for the first time that same year.r, participated iqrtth, Choes, adolescence,and marriage,,za are the basic stagesin the development of a young Athenian. The child was given a wreath of blossomt his own table, and his own pitcher, of a size appropriate to his age. Sharing in the wine signified the first step toward shlring in the life of the society,in adult life. A little Choes pitcher was placed in the grave of any child who died before it was three, so that if could at leastreach the goal symbolically in the next life which it had failed to reach in this one.2eThis was analogous to the placement of the Loutrophoros, the water jug for the bridal bath, on the tomb of one who had died before marriage.sMost of the Choespitchersthat have survived come from such grave offerings, a custom which appears to havebeen especially fashionable for a time in the second hlfu of the fifth century. This interpretation of the Choes ritual as an initiation, a bond madeby-symbolically incurring guilt, is confirmed by the etiological flths tgld by the Athenians to explain the customs. ihough *ruryirrg in detail, they agree in speaking of a murder and blood glritt tt t"it its mark upon the drinking of wine. And they forged"a link "iwith
rrAlkiphr.
I
TPhilostr. Her. tz.z(rlr87.zred. Teubn. fi7r)'A*"ilut]trr,voiraiies iv 1rr]ui'Auheot4pti'tvtota?avoivrat r6ry dv06av rpir<|tdrd yevedstret. For membership in ttre phratry in_the"third or fourth year" seeProcl. /n Tim. I88.rg Diehl; Deubner^eg1z),i0,44. yewiloerl,s, yo,bu, EgrlBeias:see IG lIlIIIl 468.4o; cf. the relief, KoumanouItau"ov' llq-l Deubner(1932)pl. 16.r with the epigramflrxtas Xotxi,tv, 6 6i iaipav EgBa1!t oc tois Xoi,s(#r57 Kaibel = /G Illlll'? r3r39). On the wreath of blossomsand oftertory t:u.uuiHoorn (r95r) passim. The oft-depictedlittle cart was given to pheidip11,-" the Diasia (Aristoph. Nub. 864),but an Athenian terracotta has a silenus puillt::: * *t.t, F Eckstein,and A. Legner,AntikeKleinkunstim Liebieghaus (Frankfurt, ry69i, pl. 4r.The insqliption'Axpitrrot 6 narilp on a Chous in Baltim;re, Cjy USA 3o6.3,shows presentfor a child. For teachersreceivingpresentson the day of the choes H'lt Y":. i 'e€_hubulides fr. r (ClF II 43r). on Keos, one could only drink wine once one had qurried: seeArist. ft. 6tt.zg.
Re-
H : ^ T t : u r o " , A l A 5 o ( 1 9 4 6 ) , r z 6 , t 3 o ; A . R u m p f , B o n n l.b b . : 1 6 r ( : 1 9 6 r ) , 2 7 i _ 7 4 ; v a r . 'ruorn (r95r) #rt9, for instance,comes from the tomb of a child; #n5; fig.l5 por_ -.,u.r",,
;goJd illlj^i.,eJ:-y":'-,:.1:l !{ !!: stoneChous,Deubnereyz) pt. r5. rhe ;:: -w
:TMH
r4rnosth.
TI.Q.HNHXPH>TH is shown holding a Cirtes pitctrer on heigrave_stele:
44.18,1o;Eust. rz93.g;Cook III (rg4o) 37o_go.
ANTHESTERIA
heroic epic by introducing orestes: after killing his mother, Clytaernnestra, Oresies cameto Athens pursued by the Erinyes, in searchof the supexpiation. Demophon, the Athenian king, did not dare turn q11ihis fellow and himself polluting avoid ptilnt away, but ire had to Hence polluted. himself the was who lens through contactwith one given was but house' the his enter curious ,oiirtior,t Orestesmight Both him' to word a insaid one no own table and jug of wine, and Choes the first fescelebrated Orestes cluded und e^iuled at once, iival together with the Athenians.3'All behavedas though they had been stiined with murder, and on this day all Athenians are Oresteioi.3,As artificial as the inclusion of Orestesin the Athenian custorl may be, the ritual,s inner tension is appropriately expressedin the .o.rfli.t of duties and the shrewd solution found by the king: a communal meal in which community is simultaneously abolished;the murderer,stabu, paradoxicallyextended to all Athenians. The murderer may not enter the tempies-on the day of the-Choes,the temples are llosed; the murderer must be kept 1ryuy ft9*. hearth and iable-at the Choes, people eat at separatetables;it is forbidden to speak with the murderer-the Athenians emPty their pitchers in sinfepalence. The day of the Choes is a "day of pollution-,"..1'r't'apa p'capos'" "polluted," is who one is the aboveall, the murderer The new wine is imbibed as though it carried blood guilt. This is the expressedeven more forcefully in another etiologicalmyth about Choes festival, in which the wine is brought to Athens by Aetolians' be esThey were killed, and the oracleordered the Choes festival to least at tablishedin atonement.vAetolia was a centerof viticulture, or of myths about wine: the ruler there was Oineus, the wine-man' 3rEur.Iplr. Taur. 947-6o-Phanodemos,FGrHist1z5F rt = Ath' 4l7c-d is the one rvho z11I j.?:t mentions O"rnopiion; cf. Plut' Q. cona' 643a,6t1b' Apollod ' FGrHist 'dlil'*t'",#';:;;" F rr, III b suppl on cf of Pandion; facobv 325 speaks E4. e5 tZ';, zz Marm. Par', p. rg4. For Orestes,tril at etier* seealso Hellanikos,FGrHist 3z1aF S.hol. Lyk' 474' lt uiro ,"" Anthesteriu the with connection the 25. For A FGrHist49 centuryand that is assumedthat the Orestes-aitionfor the Choesgoesbackto the sixth lll b Suppl ' Notes see it: rejlcts Jacoby implicitly Eum. Aeschylus, 448-52,474-75, (r9zz), 7o4-72' pp. z8-zg; cf. R. Pfeiffer,Kallimachossludien 32Callim.tr. t78.2. des swachter dansIa pensteet ta sensibilift igro\ 64-76;L. Moulinier, Le pur et l'impur Aesch see silence grecs(r95o),8r-92; esp. Soph. OT 236-41-;-PlatEuthyphr'4b; on the "eu^. rr5 B 54 (Cyrene)' 44il;Eur. HF rzig; Or. 75; tr. 427;LSS vAel. fr. = Schol.Aristoph. Ach.96t.fn"t" it ^,tfli73 Hercher Suda 9 428,X364;cf. ru' as-the aition of a goat-sacrifice,at Dionysus & a pii"st of death the lar story about Leukoof lanctuary the from niai: seePaus.9.8.u"slavesand Aetolians" are "xcl"ded thea at Chaironeia:seePlut. Q. Rom'z67d'
PITHOIGIA AND CHOES
whosegrandfather,Orestheus,planted the first vine, the offspring of It has rightly been suspectedthat the Attic myth of the o'bitch.35 it o"r festival confusedOrestheusand Orestes.*Beyondthe similar,r' in nu^"t, however,they are linked by the theme of bloodshed.In tlie uerrior,of the myth that points toward Aetolia, the Athenians are not just Orestes'companions,but the murderers' descendants,sharitt" guilt for his act' ine " There was a parallel myth from Ikaria, the modern Dionyso, an Attic village famous for its vineyards and the customs of its vineqrowers.Dionysus himself cameto the house of Ikarios,bringing him ihe vine and instructing him in cultivation, harvesting,and pressing of the wine. Ikarios happily loadedthe casksfull of the god'snew gift ontohis cart and brought it to his fellow villagers.But the "opening of the casks"turned into a disaster:when the revellers,unfamiliar with wine, grew drunk and sank to the ground, Ikarios was suspectedof havingpoisonedthem. The angry crowd thereupon killed their benefactorwith clubs, and his blood mixed with the wine. His daughter, Erigone,led by her dog Maira, searcheddesperatelyfor her lost father till she found his body in a well; she subsequentlyhanged herself." Thus, in the land of wine, in Attica, the myth of the wine overflows with gruesomedetails:this wine is a very specialjuice and anything but harmless. What we found expressed in the ritual is confirmed in the myths of violence and murder surrounding the first wine: drinking the new wine fulfills the function of a sacrificial meal, consecrated as something bizarre, a disastrous inversion of the norm, on this day when $Hekataios, FGrHistI F 15;Apollod. r.64. 3F. G. Welcker, Nachtragzu der Schriftiiber die Aeschylische Trilogie e}z6), :186,ztt; S. Wide, Iakonische Kulte(i8y1, 8z-Bj. 37The later authors(esp.Hyg. Astr.2.4 : ,,Eratosth.', Catast.pp.77-gr Robert;Nonnus 47'34-264depend for the essentialson EratosthenedErigone(fr. zz-26 Powell;R. Merkelbach,Misciltaneadi Studi Alessandriniin memoriadi A. Rostagni[1961], 469-526). Dionysus'visit is depictedon black figure vases(Brit. Mus. B t+S : ABV 245.6o; B r jJ = ^,Dv 243'45\without names being inscribed;the host could thus alsobe calledAmphit
and oI IIpoToI olNoN IIIdNTE: from paphos see ^rchaeology zr ( I 96g)4g_5-1. 223
Tlfr' r'il I 1,, 'fil ri l-ti.
''l i l { l 'lli
''
ANTHESTERIA
the normal order is inverted. The associationof wine and blood, especially around the Mediterraneanwhere red wine predominates,i, natural and is attestedoutside of Greece,in the Semiticrealm.s J11, is clearly not just a metaphor: the drinking of wine becamesacred when a whole complex ritual of bloody sacrifice was transferred to the laborsand pleasuresof the wine-grower.'eFor it is certain that the sacrificial rites, rooted in the life of the hunter, are far older than these, even though the history of the origin and disseminationof intoxicating beveragesin the Neolithic and in the early civilizations is still unclear. Various kinds of beer, the fermented drink made fro6 barley,probably existedbeforewine; and we must considerthat other kinds of narcoticsmay have served similar functions in the religious ritual.{ Here, the male society discovered a new overpowering area of experiencein which the burdens of reality were swept away by the flood of something utterly different. And just as groups had always found their identity and inner solidaritythrough a sacrificialritual, so this new pleasurewas actedout as a secret,unspeakablesacrifice.By simultaneously liberating and binding, the god of wine offered a new and stable form of community. Among the Indo-Aryans, the sacredintoxicating drink is called Soma,a god who descendedfrom heaven, was mashed, trampled, and squeezed-a sacrificialvictim, but still a god, regardlessof his form-and leads the pious back to heaven.a'TheGreeks tended to equate Dionysus and the wine already in Classicaltimes.' Conse$"Blood of the vine" in Ugaritic:BaalII iv 37, ANETr33; Gen. 49:tr;Sir.5o.r5. "Blood of the earth," Androkydes, Pliny N.ft. 14.58. sAbove all, pressingthe grapes turns into the bloody sacrificialact of tearing aPart, ! alreadyamong the Egyptians:seeS. Schott,"Das blutninstige Keltergerdt,"Zeitscht. iigypt. Spracheu. Altertumskunde74 Q918''1,88-93;D. Wortmann, ZPE z (1968),zz7-to; Eudoxosin Plut. Is. )5)b-c; Israel,Isaiah63:z; then via the Apoc. ofJohn 14.r8-zoup through late medieval depictions of wine-pressing;cf. Eisler j9z) esp. zz6-35, 246-48,269-Z9, )J4-44. The Greek "eye-cups"are possiblya continuationof the Palaeolithic"skull-cups"(Mtiller-Karpe[t966] z4t; Maringer j9561t4-28, rz-5:still pres' ent at Pompei). sFor conjecturesconcerningbeer and Dionysus seeHarrison (rgzz) -G. 4t1-25; for wine made from sadar-fruit at Qaial Hriytik seeMellaart Q967\ 269.R. Wasson, Soma'Di'aineMushroomof lmmortality(1968),tries to prove that "soma" was an hallucinogenrc mushroom (fly-agaric);he is criticizedby J. Brough, Bull. School Or.Afr. Stud.)4 Oq71t' La 13t-62. For a detailed discussionof drugs and ecstasyespeciallyin America, see Barre (r97o) 1$-49. "Rig-VedaIX (for German transl. seeK. F. Geldner III Ir95r], r-rzo). aEur. Bacch.284;Cyclops 519-28; Plat. Leg. V3d, (wine as patuop.euosde
PITHOIGIA AND CHOES
qtently,the.drinker of the wine would be drinking the god himself, ,1d ttre.myths about the death of the inventor of wine came to be of the sufferings, death, and transformation descriptions, of the god regard, the ClassicarGreekshad virtuaily rrirnsetj'.J11his ir,*.*o,rr,tableinhibitions:ever,sinceHomer, gods had been immJrtal bv iefini_ could a god die o.-be.orr,"the victim oif.Ji.,'iuurir_ tion. Hg_w,_then, Such myths become themselves,,unspeakabr",,,-'6,.O'prlros. meal? tic usingle there god of whom this story was told: Dionysus. But ryar lured the Titans child Dionysus away from his tni.i", i.rl r,i^ The
wecangatherfromallusio"r,,,*,ir*yit, up_ il*_,Tl:::ij. ,lg.y" in the Orphic mysteries, was known p_?r:ntty.nandecl in the
fifth century even if it was officialry ignoied. To be sure, it describes not the preparation ._f-.:h" *1","*:i:g.urdless of larer interpretations- but, rather, a broody initi ation sacrifice *-irr,"ioiling "if"g.riri"g and roasting. The rite of the Anthesieria impries u ,o-u-hlt differ_ ent, though largely analo€ous,myth of the god torn apart, *horu blood is representedin the sacramentardrinling of thi ,i.,".* or
course/ thishypoth"rl:,i1-y,l.mayalwayshaveJxistJ
sThe oldest
certain source known for the myth of Dionysus, death is catim. frl
iivuiit,gr i ri-*'";g.,"0 ov wilamowitz {ffijli;lJi,:lT1l":l;l *':"1-ol,'l:'lG, (re3z) and, arterhim,L. u""tt"o.r,"'drini,{',,)itirl^i'fi:;";1, 378-8o classique
ugsi, +6-6. that this myth was invented in the earry Hellenistic age. But thereare earrieratusions to it: (r) rr 13).7.roLu(tuTa^.,Loi r6v'eos;cf. p. Tannery,Reu.Phitot.zt h*oo\, r.z9; !i1a Fi. ;. Ror", iinn'lZ Gg+r, Uz. e)The identi(rcatron with osiris, and Fierodotus' emphatic sil"nce conJ".ning the ta'tl olosiris-which wereby no meanssecret in Egypt, , er, ,3r,, ,ig,'uJ .f. G. Murray in Harrison 11927) 3lz-+t.G)Plat. Lec.ror,rTrr&r*t1 gt".rr'uni'i.Jir,,gopiltrtrns (4) Isocr' rr (Bus tuxrts rtlvyv
ffi ;:;1',gT*:i#*x#fi',,"H-ff:?#ti*'
rot the ra$q of Dionvsus as.anallegoryof wine_preparatron rwr, ohd cf.4.5.r; see Diod.3.62.7 : el skori'onin plut. O.i;;;A;;:;"fu pr"rr,.,g-rong seeschol. Ctem.
lfiFr*:#r?i.'"i,itT--r#r=**rfr#i :ft;$"ru.,;;::"a-;nr,g:;1lii:xff j .."l,?Tf ::ff,ilff;""H:t
I 224
i"
sionsanddisguises, whereas the story once again "ff"_ made""if distinctions betweenthe god and the victim. Nevertheless, philostratus claimed
225
ll
),, :llir
/ ir.r , 'iltrrt .fr,r i ll|
CARIANS OR KERES ANTHESTERIA
at the Anthesteria' qtq that the Athenians performed masquerades and hoiai "amid the Orphictheology""u fresented Bakchai,nymphs, of the orphic h; was thinking of recitationsor performances iil;;, this evidenqs ;" the"day of the choe.s..Admittedlv, il;il;d* comesfromlateantiquity,'buteventhedrinkingcompetitionlf.Ctu'a symbolicreprise of a bloody sicaltimes was an "initiation," re\eTi1' guilt for death' to estabiish ,ii" p"if"t*ed in sacredsilence'incurring the order of life.
3. Cariqnsor Keres Whenmenbecamerambunctiousandtriedtoclaimastheirdue one could rebuff them what had been granted simply as an excePtion' 'tG-etout' you ' ' ' ! The Anwith the verse quoted from a comedy, as precisely thesteriais overJ" However, ot" so"ices do not agree -to Some.speak "gel outt'". that ^haunt which vocativedesignationaccompanied Anthesteria";2 the at city the of "Keres," "as though dead souls in the Anothers of "Carians,"ilu'u"s who were allowed to participate aboriginal the cottsidered w"'e in"rt"riu by way of exleption, or else way/ our Either part' take to inhabitants of Attica u.td h"tt"" entitled ,orrr"".areagreedthattheywereintimatelylinkedtotheAnthesterta' --both Otto Crusius and Ertrrfl.r"r,."a Uy the theory of animism' ,,deadsouls,,explanation.3There win Rohde strongly ad,uocutedthe soon a whole was the immediateparallel of the Roman Lemuria,n-but *V. Ap. 4.2t. Cf. Luk. De salt.19. tdr roi alrtr rZenob. Ath. 1.lo p. 152Miller : Zenob. Par' 4'31,Psroem'Gr' I 91 irri appeartn often quotationsfrom drama' ent(qrouuravravrote xo1"'Ba'"" 'Proverbs'as , ' emakinS .6-,7tc;bl v e r s e , a b o v e ailnl t r i m e t e t e ' g ' , z e n o b ' P a r ' r ' 5 o ' ? " ' , ' ; ; : ' ; ; : U ' 8 6 ' o o . ' 9 2itr ,.noiu* we-reover-hasty overlookingthe function of the verseas a proverb, [1968]t4)' Pickard-Cambridge it into a ritual cry 1r"" O".,tt'"' lrg3zl ttl-r4; t*ti;rii o suda ,Mentioned secondin Phot. Bripa(a r&pes, tni.:..*:j +lt :.'.: ' ' ' Knp' VuXn Hsch' Cf' Par' Zenob at 4')J an addition in some manuscripis tt-tt' K."::"-'^'-Z,t:lt-o];. derWissenschatten',:o Enryclopiidie in Al[gemeine fffru.,u, az-'+g; l+-*' ,t48, 'ie', Rona" (1898)L',"l'iii'itt"-(tg22i RVIL II 1136-66, "rp.
*.,.tg of relatedfolk-customswere marshalledand it was found that /..&ult of the dead appearedtime and again in which the dead were ilritaa in, entertained, and finally, more or less drastically,chased "^^"^uagain.Thus, the Anthesteriabecamean All Soulsfestival; even "conjuring up" of the souls,sand the li" i,^i" was seen to reflect a Pithoigia was thought to contain the souls. In this at.the. casLop"nea drinking became strangelyunconnectedaccessories, and il"w, wine whether to consider Dionysus here as the god of arose aouUt ""a "lord the souls'" of tn" ot as Against this, there were philological misgivings that the souls of the dead were ever Keres, or the Keres souls of the dead, among to be independent, "harmful the Greeks.Rather, they were thought u for whom no connection with any "spirits," most at or demons," deadancestorswas attested.Moreover, it was pointed out that the ,'Carian"explanation,which had been set asidewith scorn, reflected an ancientand securetradition, the only one to apPearin the old versionof Zenobius' collection of sayings.'Crusius traced it back to the AthenianDemon, who was writing before Philochoros,in the fourth cenfury n.c.'The "Keres" version, by contrast, was a late addition which, accordingto Crusius, was a polemic againstDemon by Didymus.Thus, the Athenians themselveswere speakingof Carians, and it is hard to explain how such a misunderstanding,if it is such, could havearisen there. The Paroemiographers'claim that there was an especiallylarge numberof Carian slavesat Athens'is, of course,unsatisfactory.According to all other testimony, Thracian and Getan slaveswere far morenumerous.But this approachtoo comesfrom the perspectiveof theChoesritual: this "black day" is a "white day" for slaves'o-a sign thatall is topsy-turvy-when they too may celebrateand participate m drinking. Still strangeris the story attributed to Demon: "Once, the Cariansin-habitedpart of Attica and, when the Athenians celebrated 'See
IV.r.n.4 above. 'Wilamowitz (tg1r) z7z. '&nob. Ath. r.3o p. 352Miller : Zenob. par. 4.33 (n.rr below). -A_talecta criticaad Paroemiographos Cralcos (r881; reprinted in Corpus Paroentit'tgraphorum uroecorum, Supplementum[i96r], II), 48-49, 146 "dremonis mira inventa" (+g). On DeFGrHist 327. The fact that the older tradition speaks of Carians was stressed by ;ro:see '\obanszyniec, Eranos45 g947), roo-tt1; M. H. A. L. H. van tler Valk, REG 76 (t9o31, aro*2o,_tried to show that Demon was wrong. Pickard-Cambridge (1968)r4-r5 and '' srunel, R P h4 t 1 9 6 7 1 , 9 8 - r o 4 , a r e u n d e c i d e d . AU r9 zo (n. z above); Zenob. par. ,ot^tut 4.33 mentioned first. *e IV.z.n.q above.
.:,i:::,;f;,::1,!'oii, u:u^,,l::,,o,r :"::H:li:lilil1,13:1,-,:lll''::;::""T:*: cit'; cf C'Dtmdzil' Lepro0L II (r87r; r9t15), 4o;Rohde,Crusiu'' D"ubtt"t-opp Centaurs(t929'1,3- 5z'
227
zz6
ANTHESTERIA
CARIANS OR KERES
the Anthesteria, they made an agreementwith them, taking theh into the city and into their homes. If, however, after the festival. someoneshould meet such Cariansstill lingering in Athens, he would say jokingly: "Get out, you Carians!The Anthesteriais over!" 1' More important than the astounding claim that Carians ever inhabited Attica is the information concerninga custom which clearlv underlies this report: during the festival, aliens, "aboriginal inhabi tants," come to the city, indeed, they enter the housesas entitled fy an agreement.But they may stay no longer than the duration of the festival. Preciselysuch a custom is attestedfor the Anthesteriain t\s city of Massalia." On this day, in accordancewith the "right of guest_ friendship," many Gauls living in the surrounding areascould enter the city, and others smuggled themselvesin on carts driven into the city from outside and clearly used for transporting casks.As it turned out, this open-door policy very nearly proved the ruin of Massalia. The motif of allegedly aboriginal inhabitants appearing on certain days only to be chased away afterward is found especiallyin one areaof folklore-the masquerade.'3 By approachingthe problem from this perspective,we can resolvethe contradictionsof the tradition. In mask customs such as those practicedin isolatedAlpine valleys well into the twentieth century the grotesquelymasked beings that invaded a village had, above all, the right to be entertainedas guests. The respectaccordedto them was explainedby their statusas the ancestorsof the human raceor as earlierinhabitantsof the country.The belief in spirits is intimately and reciprocally related to mask customs. In the caseof Athens, this prompts the hypothesis that the "spirits," Kfipes,and the "aboriginal inhabitants,"K&.pes,who filled the city on the day of the Choeswere identical.They were mummers-probably called K&pes in Attic. It has been suggestedthat there may have existed an old inflectionKnp, Kcp
been dialect variants even within Attica. At any rate, ,,harm_ fLayhave "bogeyman" would fit the mummers equally'ut*uy, tul'd"^on." .and well.
nZenob. Ath. r.3o p. 352Miller has only this version,which appearssecondin Zenob. Par.4.13. l2Justin. 6q Fg67), $.4.6; l. Brunel, "D'AthEnesi Marseille," ReouedesEtudesAnciennes 15-30, recognizedthe structuralcorrespondencewith the visit and expulsion of the Carians,and also comparedthe legendof the murdered Aetolians(IVz.n.34 above). z8 (r9z7lz8,\, "K. Meuli, SchweizerMasken Qg43), r)-64; Schweiz.Arch. f . Volkskunde 2j-zg, esp. z7; on the "schurtendiebe" in the Lotschentalsee L. Rritimeyer, Ur Ethnographie der Schweiz(r9zg, 364. I{E. Schwyzer, Glottan ,rg4), r7-t8; Ev xaposakrn lt. 9378, the meaning of whicn was disputed in antiquity (see Schol. AB, Eust. 757.te-'51jnsch. Krip); ciltlcism b/ R S. P Beekes,MSS 16 (rgZZ),5-8. As one meaning for Kap, Hesychius has nPo' parov, thus forging a link with xdpvos, Kapueta.
zz9
I
Th" i:tT1?.,:.i.Y^trl the barbarous Carians, however, *u, eas!-to -jf": lt is.hard to say which way we should, for instance, a Zeus Kariosrsor the aboriginalMegarian, Kar.,6 explain The Attic Ktipes correspondat ieastin prrt to the Ionic Krpes, if only becauseboth are "chased away.,,On ihe day of tf,u .i]f,u.,r,,, the people chew on hawthorn, which keeps awiy the Keres.,'The festivalnow becomescomprehensible:during the Anthesteria,masked and menacing mummers il."u9" the city u.,d it, homes, .ornlnf f.ooutlying areastogether with the new wine-perhaps even ridi"ngon the wlg-on+at carry the casks.At any rate, it is atiestedthat on the day of.the Choes, mummers would ride around in the city on carts, pursuing, with lewd jests, anyone they met.1srhe Chols fi,.n"r, oftencontaindepictions of grotesquemisks in various forms that in_ duced reactionsof terror and even aggression.',whereas the more artisticmasqueradebecamecenteredai the GreaterDionysia,i;;o*edy and tragedy,the Anthesteria remained a more pri^itirr",-i*pro_ visational,parodisticform of mummery. The mixture of merriment and seriousnessis particurarly striking in the masquerade:wild laughter is actedout against the backdrop of terror and fright. To this extent, driving u*uy tlr" alien ,,Cariarrrl,tit, for Apolro Kriperosat Hierapolis see G. pugriese carrateri, or^o-n* iHdt',.s'66; \t961/6$' i5t-7o; for a tepdv roi Kapiiu at Torrebis/Lydia see Nikolaos, FGrLIist
90 F 15. ttPaus' r'39'5; steph. Bvz. Kapia; see Paus. a.44.2. ttSee IV.z.n.rz above. tEPhot. rci ix rdv dpat6tv. Suda r xrolt"d(ovteg iti rirv duat:6u roig xairois \nvqio's tio'"'ooJ ioorouu. of Ltovvctaxai toltrai, 8lti:1lt
for ApoiloKapw6s in the form of a pyramidar stone
19 : paus. Att. r 4Erbse: iy t!1 r,itv yoCou 6opr71 oi dtrcrvr(ovtas ioxatrrovre rad iAol6
rffi?.fi aTiliir*,r*:rurirumi::nl s,?;:fi,tiH
l*.llilifi;
l!:,&J,
oem.ostlr8.rzz;plat.r'{ otza,Men.perittthiarr.philemon 4;
:*;Tol,f,T."l;,of ,l;B^ffi *i::;;;;,:::,'ill?-,1'fi il;,!;^,ii,',#;; ui vv
f!"Y:{;;:::"::
r*i:t#;ft"'r**ffi d,rffi##,;,*+t, 229
ANTHESTERIA
It is Precisely in with the sacrificialcharacterof drinking at the Choes. th.alone action' in sacrifice,in the centralmoment of the unspeakable of innocomedy fi"Jr ,n" intrusion of aliens,integratedas part of the therefole withmust cence,who seze a portion for themselvesand people the s1 draw again. We may recall the bands of werewolves' sacramental the at so Sorani.'zo hirpi the fust ind Oelpniit sacrifice, presentbeside arinking of the wine, unfamiliai uncanny guests^were day, no one the frieids and family who had been invited. On this yet eachman -ignt be turned away,eachreceivedhis pitcher of wine; Thus' one ,uiulor," at a separatetable, behind pitch-covereddoors' is uncanny' which that through sacred the encountered A pan-Heilenicmyth tells of anotheropening of a caskwhich likewise atiractedwild guests:Heraklesstoppedat the houseof Pholosin bi* old the Pholoe Mountains, and in his honor, his host opened the down stormed caskthat was sunkin the floor. Thereuponthe centaurs ended that fight the from the mountains.They grew drunk and started in their bloody defeat." T-hiswas a favorite theme in Archaic vasesubsepainting: centaurscomefrom outsideto tastethe wine and are quently"drivenaway.ThismythisaPeloponnesianversionoftheAttic nithoigia and Choeson a heroic level'
Marriageqnd 4. Sqcred i
.
f
7
LCNAM-VASCS with Even though the topsy-turvy order of the day of the-C-hoes' goal the full' the io was enjoyed its license, its drunken'*o.tery 2oSeeCh. II above.
,rApollod. pRLt 499-5oz; (tS!g)tfS-19.Dumezil Brommer 2.81-85; tlr:l.j:t,liwr"' animal masquerade' show that centaurs existed as masks: see his pl. r. This sort of
tft" yt"tt-,n"titiifi the animal's hind part fastened on, is now aiready attested through lekythos from Je'* of Qatal Hiiyiik (seeI z.n.rg,I.8.n.z8 above)'The Picture on the bY been coniured (ARV'z76o.4t;Harrisonlgzzl 4) in which the ry'u1oi,which have
.ltygl th:,tu,tt":t-:i:f-1::::ir:ft it"r^"r, swarmoutof th" iitt JJiur,Uuexplained tol-t^1l,:-.",,,vases,or round clay rings, at libationsfor the dead; cf' the black f1gut" (tSrS), Omphalos Pl 5't 1::*.i.1,1,?jl1'i:;;rt in H. V Herrmann, fromFrankfurt has no direct connectron wlth tne uru' men (rgoo), pl. zo.1zi pace Harrison, this rtBoiyta.
2)o
SACRED MARRIAGE AND LENAIA-VASES
mustalwayshavebeen to overcomethe "day of pollution," to end the neriodof godlessness:the Chytroi follows the Choes. Sundown on [ne welfth of Anthesterion signaled the end of the "day of pollu1isn."Bf this time, the Choespitcherswere empty,but they could not ft simply put away. At other festivals,after the drinking was over, oiousrevellerswould bring the wreaths that they had worn to a temble and deposit them on a statue.rOn this day, however,the temples i,vereclosed,exceptfor that of Dionysus "in the Marshes."Hence the peculiarritual that closedthe day of the Choes.According to the tale, it wur orr." again begun by king Demophon when he was entertaining Orestes:"He ordered that after the drinking was ovet they should no"tdepositin the templesthe wreathswhich they had worn, since thev had been under the sameroof with Orestes.Rather,eachshould lay his wreath around his Choespitcher and take it to the priestessat the temple'in the marshes,'and then perform the further sacrificesin 2 the sanctuary." Thus, on the evening of the day of the Choes, the streetsand alleys of Athens came to life with people flocking to the temple"in the marshes,"holding their empty pitchers,crowned with wreaths.After drinking two and a half liters of wine, not every reveller was quite steadyon his feet, and there could be no more question of sacred silence. Aristophanes has his watery chorus of croaking frogssing of the eventsat the temple "in the marshes":"Let us strike up the hymn to the sound of the flute, my lovely sounding song, koax, ko-ax, which we sing in the water to the Nysaean son of Zeus, Dionysus,when the drunken crowd staggersin processionto my sacredprecinct at the sacredfestival of pots."3The word xpatna)toxa&os, "rambling in drunken revelry,"captures the mood of the evening. On a visual level, it is brought to life in the depictions on the Choespitchers.4There we see thesomewhat unsteady figures, their 'See Timaios, FGrHist566F r58. 2Phanodemos, FGrHist325F n; Deubner 0%z) gg, roo paraphrasesthe last words, erretta&tew iv rQ iepQra ini\onra, as "die Neige zu spenden"-but Buerz is not ottdvtew. 3Rnn. urr-r9. lDgubler Q93z) 244;H. R. lmmerw atu, TApA 77 C946),247-5o;cf. van Hoorn (r95r) ry3; #385 fig.85; #328 fig. 5o1;#611 iig. qs;++o fig. 97; xs16fig. 88; pelike Y6i qser 1t8 tr8. rog #6oz fig. ro7; #65r fig. t68; #58t fig. 527,etc.; #B4z f\g. 87 : Deubner (r9l:) pl. 9.: = Metiger -E. eg65) 68.26:a "priesteis'; receiving *."uii-,, ior Basilinna Donysus; cf. simon, AK 6 [rg({,j, zr?). Plato Critiai l;robsaysthat in Atlanll:iHtg s tn€ bowls out of which people drink at the sacrificefor an oath are consecratedin qe shrine. For the breakingof pots in funerarycult seeW. Helbig, SBMiinchen(rgrn), 'u24.7-5t (against this cf. LS 97.9;frcl 6e tilTTeio dnogtpurbal; in Hebraic sin-srurg,see at Lev. 5: zr.
237
SACRED
MAI(XIAGI,
AAIIJ
LE,I\I
ANTHESTERIA
long empty) in hand or eventtung wreath-coveredpitchers(obviously torches' reeling and caperthe-lighrof ;; ,h" lyre, striding along by Chvtroi'forwit\
;;;.f;l^g
t. eii'ioPfi"l":'l,Ll':::l:"d
atthe
the new phasehadalready begun th"e "'' evening to the centralact j;J;ahe drinking at the Choescorresponded hunting rltua-l'9f'the closing the of the bloody ,r.'ifit",'*" '"tog"it" and eatKilling assembly' evening and sacrificing compiex in thii to makea svmorder remiins'in the i;il"i""a uvg"ihering ;;;;;; wine was distribanclu"p"tt"""!nt order' The sacred restitution bolic portions: everyonehad the same uted in the Choes p*["tt i" equal gatheredtogetherat a conamount to drink. Now au theselugJwere thJ remnantsof a victim torn secratedplace.Time ;J ;"i" in ilytn brought back to life in iust this way' apart are collected,;;;;f;;e' resardlessof whether the Suchwas the story oidio"yt"t tornipart'" oi *e'" mlved to Crete' Perhaps eventswere said to occur ut O"tptti tn" nameDionvsusin theMarshes'which t'ap"L'iiv ;#;;;;;;,i"" conditionsat Athens: marshesand seemsso inapproptlt"i" if1" focal where i"nuuitunt' the sea-are the places bt in" ;;;t-;., vicwhere is """'tut miraculously'This things disappear uiJ *tfut" again timsaresubmerged.rni'i'wh"erestoriesappearofthegod,sreturn whcre Dionysus-revealshimself as from the depths.'fitit it tn" phce bloodshed,death' and the sacralmeal' ;;il;il a priestessexThe tempte *u' ua^ittistered by a priestess-not by a woman but dosed' .f.rri""iy i , o*.,, fot tni' temple wasnormally were women dt'ties for this daY'Fourteen who assumedthe p'i"'tly ;i r'e "li"; ; th"t-"nPl: 'v the d by ointe apPornteq app :1"-5'-:*L ' A r :L r " - "queen,"' ! ' e v the r r L q v was t their r r r s r r head "}"JJ::: eneraDle ones' c a l l e d s i m p l y " t h e vT";;;;;;:;;;'Ai
;nli"*T;
'Priasrc pt'hr1ottvl,elolsriveFio;Diod' piet.2 P' 16 col' 44Gomperz Cf ' cf ' ll'5'n'4t' above Li11't'qrposT6r p'e\6u ou.'o'*i[ii"av;
rrts HiPP-9lvlu-' fire"'pno'a*'i+za1' n56-7il' osiris ihe mythsof Aktaion(Il';;';t uuo""1' " [o'" ''app'r4o-4iRobert)' (Etr.Bacch't;-;ilo'pr't""J1'rlt Pentheus up" (Plut' andis "called lltii'jl,'J#irring in LernaDionvsus.'ill-':'dreaPPears' t.62.6 mtxtu6'riad
cf' alsoIII 8 above' tr.' lO+f., and .f. tlt-'3'n 33 above); confirrnedthrough sThe form yipatpalreminine of yepapos; ct' yipatpalltlt'opos)'is tttnot ''-! t"ua'ily"{Jtut;lit.",t *u' and :1: Art inscriptions (/c II/II'? 6288;XII 3.42o) = t't M' zz7'35'and Cen L't' at A); it is transmittediwltfr-iifferini accentuation) (= Ael Di:t; , 7 E'bt";;t;h;"t9 9: : i:11 4i:t'0"n" cf. 228.9 clasr z1t.1z,and Bekk. (incorrectly zailoll S'ro8;Hsch' o' s.u. (Cd. yepatai ,"popii)'"Demosth'" sg'zl'
Phrrnlchf,l pacrir.,oca,which :ffj1,::1Ji:ilil3lli*"i":?;;l;T'lit between poirlrecognize'and7atrL' (p. zz5Lobeck),Aeliusrjt""y"YJtiil )rtvva, which
upp"u'"i"'tf'u
rit"l'.""a
ia'q")
*"rf:1,'51'$?l3i::',",ry,*H:'1"'.51trJ:ix ii;
ff*; fjiti::l;:n:'H:E1lIriHffiiX";H"Hf,T:li: in love'.'o tnottut woman came together fr". ,n"'O"n this occurred is not recorded. ,{nthesteria of the day *nrch ,'d.ay of pollution" at least would be out be clear that the y"t i;ri;"il to the -, +hpouestlon, anctsince the "qtt""ttt' was formally delivered by coupling trii", there is no possibility of shameless :t^:';.til; works the do as night' 9ll'*ir. t"rarriageprocessionsbelong to the preliminary in nais clearly Pithoigia the Now,'because llt^",irr..ait". possibletime left in the festivalis the night of transition i,ii,t* ""ty r'nmtheChoestotheChytroi.llThisisconfirmedbyvase-paintings, Dioahoes pitcheiin New York on which the marriage of :::":i;lil of day the from *iuan"'is shown, framed by the revellers mark pitcher.clearly. "?O Choes ":i*r ii{"ino"r.,, The torch and the dangling "tipsy crowd" marched to the whiih of start the at night, as ;'h; G" it. t i^t uionlo celebratethe "sacredChytroi'" Hsch Arozuooulap'os' That this act was ro,,Dlemosth." Sg.n,76; Arist. Afft. Pol.).5;
Ai selryz.8l'-1'.'"-1il:"'lljl::i:t^l-::"T::::: (E,Bus.choL a"ir,"rt".iu p"* "iii" statingwhat wasrequiredof the "queen" ,iL i*, that the zdtrtos ffi::ff#ir.^
open only on the day of the was written on a stele kept in the Limnaion, which was ,,Demosth.,, oath of the Tiporpar menthe for altar, the likewise, it o"r, ,"" ss.zs_26; tionedthereafter(79),cano.rtyU"theoneintheLimnaion'TheEleusinianHierokeryry men(ibid.)assiststhe women at the (bloody) sacrificefor the oath On the rleocztd tionedin the oath seeJacobyon FGrHisf,+F l' (rq68) rr' conlra.Deubner "Thus also E. Simon, AK 6 (rg$) rr; Piikard-Cambridge (1932)rog, who suggests"d"., Vormittug und vielleicht den Beginn des Nachmittags" cf' of the day of the Choes. Fory.e}rlpepwoi yapotas scandalousseeDemosth' t8'tz9; LSSrr5 A rr-14. : Metzger (1965) r2NewYorkMetr. Mus. o6.rozr.r83: van Hoorn (r95r) #745 fig. ro5 gibt Szenen' in "Es comments: rz, correctly 6z-63, pl. 27.2.E. Sinron, AK 6it961\, Did""; i; tl.,r.n"iJ""g, Ariadne oder Basilinna, nicht gefellt werden darf." For onysus and Ariadne inlhe bower see Chous Leningrad zo74St' = van Hoorn #579' Metzger(rqsr) pl. Xlll, r. For reveilerswith ChousbesideDionysus,Ariadne, F'ros'see
f,
i;il;;
weddingof sitg = env' to57.e.,AK 6 (rs$), pl. 5'r' rhe
""ly;il in VerDionyrus on'in oi.'o.1toefrom the Villa Giulia: see L' Curtius ;;;;;r o(966)' "i; Abendland nachin* aerintiiiir,rrt und Antike Marwitz, (tgso), fig. 37- 4r;H. fig' z. For Dionysus rt"ppi"g towird a woman on a throne see the oinochoe (not the normalform oltn. Cno,m)in the Brit. Mus., Deubner Q91z) 7oa-1'o2,Pl' ro For Dionysus, escorted by torchbearerswith Chous, moving toward a door behind which a womanwaits, s"e caly,.-.ruterTarquiniaRC 4r.97= ARV'?ro57'96, AK6(t96)' pl 5'1 (of the Komos-"."n"'tuo", r"" uu.t Hoorn Ir95rl #76 ftg' rr7, Immerwahr' !!nA n Chous at Ll946l,25o).For a satyr-childnext to a recumbentcouple on a South ltalian Erhdisi see Mitteitungen7o (r9$), 98, Pl' +l'An Italic v?se PorK. Ker6nyi, Rdmische hayrng pionysus *itfi ih" ho.r,. of a bull beside Ariadne (E. M. w. Tillyard, TheHope
fr' 652' tottt"*t of a child's game: Men'
"tro
23J 2)2
Ifl
.t
ti, il i lr ;lr
. 'illfi,{l r ,llr r,ti
ANTHESTERIA
The details of the sacredmarriagewere kept a secret,"unspeqftable." Our sourcesare uniformly silent and offer no assistancein de_ ciding between the two possibleexplanations:was there a symbolic union with a statue, a herm," or did a mortal representthe god-most likely the "king" himself?'oEvenin one of the surviving speec\ss of Demosthenes,that of the prosecutionagainstNeaira, which deah with the scandalthat the daughter of a hetaera-herself not blameless-rose to the statusof "queen," we are provided with little more than vague indications."This woman offeredup the unspeakablesacrifice on behalf of the city; she saw that which a non-Athenian should not have seen;such a woman enteredthe room that none of the manv other Athenians enters, but only the 'king's' wife; she administerei the oath to the 'venerable women,' who assist in the sacred acts; she was given to Dionysus as a bride; she performed the ancestral customsbefore the gods on behalf of the city, many sacredsecretcustoms."'s In spite of its lack of clarity in the details,this report givesus the outline of a set program. Enteringa placethat may not be entered: next to the temple in the sanctuary"in the marshes"there was a subterranean "house"'u which obviously came into play here. Whatever was carried down into it and whatever was then taken out of it-we recall the night of the Arrhephoroi-it was followed by a sacrificial oath by which the "venerableones" were bound together; the oaths were taken "over the sacrificialbaskets."There were fourteen "venerable ones," corresponding to the fourteen Athenian altars of Dionysus." This indicatesa large number of sacrificesto Dionysus. The Vases lrgz3l, pl. 3r.zr8; van Hoorn [r9:r] p. 5r; Kerdnyi, op. cit.) has been linked with the marriagein the Bukolion.H. Marwitz, AntikeundAbendland rz(1966),97-tro, trres to explain the 'Aldobrandicwedding" as referringto the Attic Hieros Gamos. "H. Goldmann, AJA a6 Q94z),64-67. raFarnellV (r9o9) zr7 (with doubts); Deubner (:'g1z) ro7-tog, r:.6-:.7; cf. GB Il r48 'fheseus:the Against this cf. E. Simon, AK 6 (rg$), rz with referenceto the myth of king must defer when Dionysus appears.In a similar way Oineus leavesDeianeirato Dionysus: Hyg. Fab.rz9. The myth of Kephalosand Prokris (Pherekydes,FGrHist)F 34), however,containsthe motif that the king departsbut comesback in disguise.For coupling with a statueof Leukipposbeforethe wedding at PhaistosseeAnt. Lrb. t'76 " jg.7), and cf. 85. 1 6 S eIeV r . n . 9 a b o v e . t7An. Bekk. 4r.32; Ael. Dion. 7 7 Erbse(n. 8 above);it is not statednor is it probable that all of these altars were in the Limnaion. Foucart @go4)r1B-4r brought orrt the strangecorrespondencethat Osiris was torn into fourteen parts (Piut. ls.j58a; for zb parts, cf. Diod. r.zr.z), and that accordinglythere were tombs of Osiris in equal nufltJ ber. For two komasts-a woman at an aliar, besideher a man with two torcheso!1 Chous-see van Hoorn (r95r) #87o tig. 69;for aman with Chousand sacrificialbasket' 2)4
SACRED MARRIAGE AND LENAIA-VASES
when the "queen" was presentedto the god and the rite dtmaxcame gas accomphshed-precisely what Aristotle unabashedlycalls the sexualact' If the sacramentaldrinking on the day of the Choessymbolizeda bloody sacrifice,the sacred marriage thit followed the fathering of the remainsmust likewise belong in the context of rituai-restitution. And this_isseveraltimes attestedin myth and custom. The victim is appeasedb{ b:1"9 given a woman;ls indeed, he is revitalized in the etnbraceancl.obtalnsnew regenerativepowers. Thus, Isis conceives Horus afterosiris' scatteredremains have been gathered together;re and the god enters the Pythia sitting on the trifod.ro Herejtoo, of course,the "sacred" in the sacredmarriage .u.rie, the greaiestdanger:just as the woman can revive her dead partner, he"can kill the woman' Theseoutlines would have to suffice,were it not for the pictorial hadition which in all probability provides us with a precise inhication of the form in which Dionysus appearedon that nigit. Dozensof Attic vasesexhibit an utterly primitive form of Dionyslacstatuethat has sparkedthe curiosity of religioushistorians for a iong time. This was no anthropomorphicgod. There was simply a mask"suspended on a column.sometimes there are two masks peering in either direction, likeJanus.A robe was hung around the column, the crude indication of,a body, though lackinglrms and legs. Instead of these, we see caKes skeweredonto it; branchessprout from the body; a threeJegged sacrificialtable is set up in front of th" ,tutrr", covered with all sorts of bul, most importantly, two jugs of *ir,", the stamnoi. With !9od, *:T"" move about the whole scene,d.awini wine lT]T:f,t_l:q:, it-at least when the painter restrainshis fantaly and l.::-_ott"ltlg teaves out the usual horde of intruding satyrsand maenads 1r"'eFigure 7).21 a statue (of Dionvsus?), and a man in front of an artar see a fragment from the Agora pL . T a l c o t t, ' A I A + s ( 1 9 4 5 1 ,5 2 6 _ 2 7 . f|,
l]h,tnno-or,;;";;;: in PIut. Is. 358e, and cf . 357d;H. Bonnet, Reallexikon der rigyptischertReli_ wnsgesch ",Iltatd ichte trgSz), Sig_ Zo. II.5.nn.55, above. ,.D€e 56 -'A' Frickenhau s, Lenlienaasert (72. .Winckelmannsprogr.rgrz), describedtwenty_nine Il*t; fot a supplementseepickard-cambridge tliogi l".r.The depictionon the brack "Burelekythos-Mtinchenr}7t, inwhich R. rj".ti af<w n egog),195,saw Egyptian
d;Tn,::ff *qjk'*irffi *l*#t*l#:':,-: trtrfi "tr",fif 235
ANTHESTERIA
It is impossible to decide which Attic festival of Dionysus this the most corlmask-worship reflects. August Frickenhaus, who made Since "Lenaia-vases'" them called or-"fa"r,riu",.rru"y of these vases, be conclutheory his gTtlot Lenaia, ..it ing is known of the l"-ii" the Choesvaseshave recentlyyielded uP someeviAnthesteria', A similar "'i""fy,"f"t"a."Aut ;;;'" ,h"t speaksfor a connectionwith the and another Choes pitcher"3 depiction has appeared on a Choes here we see the the ritual: in an earlier stage .f""rty "*ttiUitt with the winetwo women by "itLf,". ,n" goa i" the Liknon, flanked Il"rt any case/part in not' "f is This kantharos uid u ttuy containing fruits''o into the.stampoured been pithoigia, already for the wine his oi tt wine-drinking a " Greeks, the For noi- where it was storedfor daily use. are evi*o-un was scandalous,but the women on the Lenaia-vases that they then' likely; is lt duty' dently performing a solemn, sacred ,"pr"'r*t-asthemortalcounterpar-toflhemythicalmaenads-the office on the ,*i"ty of the "venerable ones," administering their theAnthetl".,titY"!:,f listing text is a the Chytroi. There ropes temple-wtth. the of "igta'.f "tying" the stJria which mentions, between 'i6puots''uThis word could iust "setting-up," Chytroi itself, a "iJrt "
l
betakenlightly:thedepictionthusbecomesafurtherexampleforthesyncretismof The main argumentfor OririrlOioiyr,rs at the iime of Hekataios(cf lII'6'n 8 above)' is linked to Arluar = which itself, the attribution to the Lenaia is the name of the festival is literary evidence for Dionysus fleprxtourosat Bcrxlgt (Frickenhaus z7-zB)' There phoen. 65r;as a column, orDtros,encircledby ivy, see ir,"f"., seeMnaseu, schol.'Eur. Stront't z4't67' in Clem zq TGF the oracleand Eur. tr' zBesides Frickenhaus, those advocating the Lenaia were Deubner (rg3z) tz7-12; (1968)1o-34; undecided' Metzger Simon (1969)276; hesitantly,Pickard-Cimbridge with referenceto Phanodemos' the-Choes' of day for the
SACRED MARRIAGE AND LENAIA-VASES
ocwell refer to the strangestatueof Dionysusas to the two stamnoiin L]ni.tr th" wine is set up before the god of wine' In either case,that a previously been dismemberedand destroyed in an un,nt i.t n sacrificewas now given shapeagain. "oeakable The statuebetraysits origins. It is not a permanenttemple-statue but is simply improvised for an annual ceremony.We can virtually see low it was done: the most important thing was the mask, which was Lroughtand raised up, fixed and adorned. The table would then be broughtand food and wine set on it. The "queen" had to enter a room which no one otherwise ever entered. One of the oldest Lenaia-vases depictsa woman dancing in front of a great mask of Dionysus set up Did the "queen" carry it up out of the subterraneanOikos in'a cave.z? in the Limnaion?And what was the sourceof the regenerativepower soirnportantfor the subsequentmarriage?It is curious how the statue of Dionysus on Lesbos combinesthe head and the phallus." Yet at Athenswe find nothing more to illuminate the dark abyssof the unspeakable.Only this much is clear, that amid prayer and sacrifice, running blood and flickering fire, the mask was raised, clothed, and adorned,that amid the singing of hymns, the drinking of wine and dancingwith ever greater frenzy around the column, the god would suddenlyappear in the middle of the night to celebratehis sacred marriagewith unparalleled vital power. Werecognizehere too the enduring elementsof those prehistoric restitutionrituals. ]ust as the animal's bones-most importantly, its skull-had beendepositedat a specificsite-or, rather,raisedand consecrated-so here the mask, the equivalentof the skull,2'was set up afterthe sacredwine had been consumed:the deity was present. In this way, the ritual attempted to document the restoration of order after its violation, the continuance of life through death. The Greeksdid not subject this phenomenon to any sort of sociologicalpsychological analysis,nor in Classicaltimes did they speakdirectly of the god's death and resurrection.Rather, they told the simple myth thatDionysusdisappearedand returned from afar.One of the Lenaiavasesdepictsthe arrival of Dionysus,led by Hermes,at the altar of the venerablewomen.,,r We can surmise the course of the nocturnal celebrationonly in vaguesteps. The god and the bride must have been led in a double oBerlin r91o,Frickenhaus#, p. j; BCH87 r 9g\, 3r9;EAAIv rrc4 _DeeIII.7.n.33above.
a^ 1.6.n.16 above; H. Baumann, Paideuma jg5o), zo5. -ree 4 = ARV? ttt Frickenhaus p. zz, Cook I (r9r4) 7o7 @f. 7oB),B. Graef and 46o.zo, *S *' Langlotz, Die antiken Vasenuon der Akropolis zu Athen II (1933), pl. zo.
237
ll[1 ,i
ii, Il
ir{rLli ' 'lfi{"I ll,r 'l'" i
ANTHESTERIA
bridal processionfrom the Limnaion, whose gateswould thereupol closefor another year, to the Bukolion in the Agora.3'Who took the mask down from the column, perhaps to put it on and embody t\q god for a night, is unknown.3'The doors of the Bukolion likewise closed after the god's bride went in. Of course, the revellers'merrvmaking and turmoil continued in the streetslong into the night, ju;t as the Pannychis would accompany a wedding until sleep finallv brought this long and many-facetedday to a close.
5. ClrytroiandAiora The "day of the pots" took its name from the specialfestivalfood prepared for it: grains of all sorts were cookedtogether in a pot until they were soft, and then sweetenedwith honey.'This meal, which 3tBoththe skyphosBerlin F z58g= apyz r3or.7, Deubner Q93z)pl. r8.2, AK 6 Qg$), pl. 3.3, and the skyphosin Basel,E. Simon, AK 6 (rg$), 6-zz, pl. z, havebeen linked to the processionof the "queen"; seealsothe bell-craterLouvre G 4zz: ARV'z1.ot9.77, AK 6 (r9$), pl. 7.5; the volute-craterVatican, ARV'z59o.5,AK 6 (196), pl. 5.r, etc.A nopnfi beginning alongsideDonysus, i.e., perhapsin the Limnaion, is allegorically depicted on the Chous, New York z5.r9o, Deubner Q93z) pl. 9.4; Metzger Q96) 66, O. Brendel, AIA 49 j9a), 579-25; cf. van Hoorn jg5r) #zp fig. z1 = ARV'z4436 The wagon-ship belongs in the Dionysia rather than in the night of the Chytroi: see lll.7.n.z6 above.The little Choes pitcher to which Deubner Qglz) 7o4-LoZ,pl.rr, attached such importance must be reevaluatedin light of the bell-craterCopenhagenNM 13829:see K. Friis Johansen, "Eine Dithyrambos-Aufftihrung in Athen," Meded.Da Vid. Selsk.4lz (t95), Pickard-Cambridge (1962)pl. r, in which festively attired men sing while standing around a three{egged "maypole." If the identification of the ditiyramb is correJt, then the festival iJ probabiy the Dionysia. The processionof Donysus underneath the ivy-canopy on thu -ugon recurs at Alexandria, axns ix xtaooi xcri dpn6\.ov, Kallixeinos, FGrHist 627 F z (p.r.6g.zo\,cf. Eust. 857.16;Hsch oxtds; Poll. 2.t74. 32See nn.13,r4above. tfldv arippa eis yt'lpo:vE$tloavres Didyrnos Schol. Aristoph' Ach. ro76; yi:rpav nav' Cf. Sosibiosin Ath. 648bEcti 6i to na' orepp.ias Theopompus, FGrHist rr5 F 3147a. vLou. . . navoreppia iv y\uxei i{ltpdvn.On the panspermiasee Nilsson (1955) (t'87l' 6o; derNeugriechen 722- zg;amongmodern GreeksseeB. Schmidt, DasVotLslebin E. Gjeistad,', RW z6 (rgzi), a54-7o;among Serbiansand BohemiJnsseeJ. Lipperi uxu Chriitentum, Volkglaubeund Volkbrauch(r88i), 42r,635;among Russianssee Wtiter seine in jeder Sachenz (r9ro), roo. Even today at a funeral in R,rs-sia,"D#n bekam jede Schtisselein klein wenig Honiggrtitze, die wir, der Seelezum Gedenken, ohne (r97ot), der Sache Zutat ausloffelten," A. Solschenizyn, lm lnteresse 5z
48
CHYTROI AND AIORA
nlaysd significantrole in folk customoutside Greeceas well, has been ,.^i"d "u supper for the souls,"2and it certainly does reappearin the dead as-well,though only becauseit is part of an especially iotot the Simply put, it representsthe most primitive of ail tradition. ]"aent coming from a time when the arts of grinding grain meals,. lestival into flour and baking bread or cakeswere as yet unknown: all edible uruitrr thut could be found in nature were put fogether to allay hun"""r, pt"put"d with honey, the one seasoningfound whole in nature: ihir ir th" "PansPermia'" The historian Theopompus has a report on this in a passage bansmittedin two versions.The shorter one claimsthat "no one ate" from these pots,3 and this gave rise to the theory of a meal for the deadfrom which the living were excluded,the more so becauseit was by talk of sacrificesfor Chthonic Hermes-at the Choes. accompanied Themore comprehensiveversion, however, saysthat "it is their (the Athenians')custom at the Choesto sacrificeto none of the Olympian gods,but, rather, to Chthonic Hermes; and none of the priests eats from the pot which everybody in the city cooks."oThus, the food in the pot was eaten on this day by everyone in the city except the priests.They, for their part, sacrificedto Hermes, not to the Olympiangods,whose temples,as we recall,were closedon the day of the Choes.On the one hand, then, we have the priests and bloody food; on the other, a vegetarianmeal. The antithesisis maintained all the waythrough. Hermesis the mediatorbetweenthis world and the next, thegod who carriesDionysus awayand brings him back.Whereashis sacrificewould probablyoccurin the night betweenthe Choesand the Chyhoi, the "food in ihe pot" conclusivelyestablishedthe daytime order.t As the etiology of the Chytroi, Theopompustells the myth of the 2Harrison(7g22)37;cf.Deubner(tg3z)ltz:Nilsson.'F schol.Aristoph. Ach. rc76, Suda 16zz = Theopompus, FGrHistrr5F 347a,rils 6i ,,no man yeioa
.i:ffi1",;"#f ,e:.i:';,,*;"; trftt j,T,'#1,#t?;,,*X;J;*iliff 239
ANTHESTERIA
flood. The few men who were able to save themselvescooked t\u1 meal of grains in a pot into which everything which could be founq was thro'wn together. In this way they regained their strength and ,,named the whole festival after the name of the day on which they regainedtheir courage."At the same_time,"those who then survive4 tri"edto appeaseHermes on behalf of the dead," by meansof the sacrifice to He]^"s mentioned above.'Thus, the Chytroi is indeed linked with the dead, but our sourcesare unambiguousin calling the Choes "the day of pollution'" According to Theopompus, the Chytroi signified the .elorery of the solid earth after the flood, the return to a normal way of hf;. The memorial to the dead is like a departure,1 turning away:Bvpa(eK&pes.The slavesand laborersare sent backto work; the masqueradersno longer have rights. The story of orestes can also be concluded in this way: orestes was purified during the night-the Areopagusmet at night'-and after being given one last sairifice, the "venerable"Erinyes disappeared' The story of the flood complicatesthe picture becauseit brings in an entirely new myth. Yet the flood is not infrequently linked to an unspeakatle sacriflce,which functions as its cause.In just this way the hood began after Lykaon's cannibalisticmealsor after the killing at Samothrale.nIn the great flood that coversall, both the crime and criminals go down into permanent oblivion, and new life can begin on new sh-ores.Thus, evin if it was a later addition in Attica, the saga the of the flood provides a structurally appropriatecaesura.between the of the day on start new ih" attd Choes the sacramentaliacrifice at pots. for Just as an agon ends a sacrifice,so there are agons attested the bhytroi.'o I; spite of occasionalattemPts to make them more itap, FCrHist t5 F 147 b: 6taoot)6was oiy rous dvBp
7Luk. Hermot. 64; De domo t8. 8 S e eI I . r . n . r 5 a b o v e . 'qSeeII.6.nn.9. ro above. Cf. Gu6pin i968) 287' roPhilochoros, FGrHist or.84r f .: restitution through 1z8F 57,and cf . F 84; "Plut." vit. X inscription r9z 9) Lykurgos; Ath. r3od; Diog. Laert. 3.56; lGIllIII'?zr1o69 (ephebic on Choes-pitchers e.o.): iaeri)te cav rois Kurlpous. Agons are frequentiy represen.ted with the connected all means no by they are, however, (van Hoorn rrgSrl lyy); dybues Xirpt'vot.
240
CHYTROI AND AIORA
rrrorninent,they remained hopelesslyovershadowedby the Dionysia Irrd ttt" Panathenaia.But even so, the evidencecontinuesup through lie second century e.n. It was, of course, the ephebeswho played role here. The newly won order is, after all, the in" *ort prominent the younger generation. of business the Chytroi of contained a specialdelight for children, day The that swinging virgins: is, on a swing. For us, this is unsfls, and fun, but, as the pitchers show us, it had a solemn Choes Sroblematic 'rid" Athenians. A throne was up and coveredwith elegant set the fot was lit; an open rifios beside it in the groundstood fire a clothes; as wine-cask was seen an opened or meant to receivelibait whether uncertain." too, the with death dead is Here, encounter the for tions joy another: we see a satyr,or of life permeate one sometimes andthe a girl. energetically swinging himself, Eros even The myth that the Athenians told in connectionwith this custom gloomy: a "wandering" maiden hanged herself; to surprisingly is propitiate her, the maidens and women of Athens must likewise ;'suting,"r'zthoughof course just on a swing, thereby replacinganxiDEt. M. 42.1 Akipa' 6opri1'AAnrycw l'Afr1uas Cdd., 'AB4zais [sic] Gaisford) fiz xa\oiow eii\eurvov; Hsch. erlDelzvots'Bu
247
PROTESILAOS
ANTHESTERIA
lrl,lf
T|,I Itrr
ety with high spirits. There were various explanationsas to who Aletis, "the wanderer," was. According to one version she was Erigoxp -' the daughter of Aegisthus, who pursued her father'smurderer, otes, all the way to Athens to aicuse him. When he was ""q;i-:l however, she took her own life." In another version,Erigone was th; daughter of that Ikarios who was visited by Dionysus and given 16u first wine, which, howevet caused his dreadful death. When shs found her father dead, she hanged herself. It was this version t\u1 dominated Hellenistic and Roman literature through Eratosthensr, poem Errgone.ta The other version was presumably used by Sophocles,but goesback to the sixth century.Another version, though halfincomprehensible,perhaps preservesthe most authentic tradition. Here, the "wanderer" was the daughter of a tyrant-king who 1nvented the trumpetrs-the Tyrrhenian trumpet played a part in the drinking at the Choes. Finally, she was sometimesequatedwith Medea or Persephone.tu Thus, the name Erigoneis solidly attestedand evidently usedin the cult. There is mention of songs about the "wanderer," Aletis,''
perhaPswere sung at the swinging festival.The associationbe,^rhich 6^/esnswinging and suffocating is likewise solidly attested.lsEven it i, umur"rnent symbolizesan act of violence,a sacrifice.The father,s his daughter to despair is a motif that the two familiar ieattr driving have in common: murdering the father leads to the E igon"-^yths Thus we see the sacrificialpattern of the Anthe of deitn _maiden. one confirmed last time: the maiden'ssacrifice-of the polythesteria a final ceremony of propitiation for what happened typele-is xena the Choes. of. Erigone, day the daughter of Ikarios, wai-made the on Dionysus of when he visited her father.r0She is thus the bride the "queen" of the counterpart who, as the most preeminent of mythic Athenianwomen/ was given to the god on the night beforethe swingingfestival.The terror retainedby the myth is transformedinto something charming in the ritual: in honor of Erigone, the "one born eatly,"the act-of swinging in the morning breeze,rising and falling, no longer tied to the earth, removes the final impurities still to b1 overcomefrom the "day of pollution." After having passedthrough theunspeakable,one can rejoicein the flowers of spring, which gave the Anthesteriatheir name.
t3Marm. Par., FGrLIist 239 A z5; Apollod. Epit.6.z5, z8; Schol. Eur. Or. 1648; Accius Erigona, perhaps following the model of Sophocles' Erigone, and cf. Pearson on Soph. tr.45-16. According to Kinaithon (Paus. 2.r8.6), Orestes married Erigone; according to Hyg. Fab. tzz, she became a priestess in Attica. "See IVz.n.37 above. 15Hsch. Addrpc' 6opri1 ' A$fiut1
242
6. Protesilaos As early as the Iliadic "Catalogueof Ships,,we find a story, pres. ent.also in the Cypriaat the beginning of the Trojan War, of how the 1Tll9l*k leaped from the ships onto the Trojan shore and immeQately becamethe first Greeksliin. This was protesilaos,rwhoseverv rPa-u_s. ro.29.] on Polygnotos,picture of phaedra swinging; Serv. Aen.o.7ar; X*. '-lef; seealso i.t-D*uu."rr", Milanges C. Lizti-Strauss (t97o), t246n.55:,,certarns !t!tf
Eki."'6;l;;";;il;.;;;";;1:'5i;"1""'J;TJ#;:'jl:'fi?:"1:il::':T rarsrr' (lvresse d,anox6mie).,, " S e eI . 7 . n . 4 o above. in Ov. Mef . 6.r25. Cf. E. Panofsky, A Mythotogicarpnitrting by poussin in the ^#::::y tut^ut, u^ St ockl tol (Stockhol nt m, r 96o), z3 _ zg. r r-"'"'
,fi l'pS-ZozlCVpria fr. ry Atten: r5 Bethe: paus.4.2.7; ct.Hes.fr. 199.6;Tnrk, RML ,,Hippolytos und Thekla,,,SB Wien fi2.3 (roiiir^7t, I'R I6o-64; L. Radermachea G. Herzog-Hauser, Milangrt iliiroiq eq7), 47r_78; T. Mantero rn ,fl'riil.?-:trr -'"tus: Scrtptain HonoremMarii lJntersteiner e97o), ,g7_rro.
243
ANTHESTERIA
name reflectshis fate, "the first of men." It is only in the fifth century that we learn that Protesilaos'influenceby no meansceasedwith fiig the young-widow Laodameia death. In Euripides' tragedy Protesilaos,' death' With slight varihusband's her to herseif is unable to reconcile Laodameiasets up in story: same the tell all sources ations, the later of wax or wood. either made man, dead the of image her bedroom an into a Bacchicfrenzy, flies even him, of front in cries she talks to him, is enough to agony Her image. the of in front a wreath crowned with to her and apPears Protesilaos Hades. of up out man compel the dead the imageis version,3 one to According night. for one sharls her bed takes her Laodameia the sources, all in morning; next burned the own life.o This vampire-story also told by Phlegon'*rt! the male-and female roles rev-ersed-ihe inspiration for Goethe'sBrautaon Korinthis generally held to be a folk-tale motif. However, Protesilaoswas mo"rethan an epic hero. A sacredprecinctat Phylakein Thess.alywas dedicatedto him, and agons (mentionedby Pindar)uwere held therc in his honor. Most impoitant was the greatand rich sanctuaryof Protesilaosin Elaiuson the ThracianChersonnesus,where his tomb was displayed. He was worshipped as a god'' Of course,by the time of Phijosiratusnothing was left but the foundations with a statuerising up out of them, st-ill worshipped by the populace' In the time of Xerxes,invasion, by contrast,-thePeisiangovernor Artayktes carried off great treasures fro- utr,o.g the votive_offerings, for which act his g*Ero-" demiseafter the victory of theGreeks was considereda iust all that he brought women into iunishment. The story stressedabove
I
J
r
zTGFp.561; Schol.Aristid p- 67r'1oDindotf' tHyg. Fab.ro4, and cf. ro3 {Apollod. Epit. Luk. Dial. mort. z3; ct. O't' 3.3o;Eust.)25.22-26;Phitostr.lm. 2.g.5; in the Louvre, seeAt(h' pyxis Corinthian a on rider ai a Ui.,3. nornptriftt1Al Protesilaosis deK' Sihauenburg, Zeitg.\$6$, pl. r84, R.&'LIII 3163;accordingto 68-7o; Bonn' see Mainz: in sherd i958)' ldl 71 an Apulian pl.tia i., f"d", o.t ioti".y lb. 16r Qg6r), z16. 5O. Keller, Rerumnaturaliumscriptores GraecimtnoresQ87), 57-62: FGrHist257F 361' 6pind. Istlrrn.1.58-59withschol.;Philostr.Her.z.3(Ilt41.rged. Teubn.);2.8-(11148t4 Thebesse€ ed. Teubn.);cf. Konon, FGrHist,5F ,.r,3on skione. For coinsof Phthiotian RML lll 1t66. lHdt. Strabo 7 p. :.;.1,73 p' 5g5;Pliny 7.13, g.tr6, rzo; Thuc. 8.roz; Lyk. 512-34; a philostr. (II r4o-4r-ed Teubn;: only z't Her' t.rt'5; Arr. Anab NH +.+g, 16.218; cotns: also See survive' worship, foundation-walland a statue,defJrmed by time and rca W. Drexler, Zeitschr.f . Numism.r4 (1887), :Jo-)2' For Protesilaoshonored as 8oo Pats. r. 14.z; Tzetz. ad LYk. Sll.
244
PROTESILAOS
rhe holy of holies for sexualorgies;8for the Greeks, sex in a temple excellence.e But there must have been some wasthe abominationpar that gave the Persians the idea of turning the arrangement of sofi a harem. Artayktes' sacrilegious into marriage presupposes iemple of custom at least or a fantasy of a sacred marriage in the kind sorne In that Protesilaos. case, Protesilaos' of tomb and Laodameia's temple love would not of merely stand within a novelistic context. night fatai that confronted the sinner is most significant: pickled miracle The came back to life-a dangerous force, burst forth from raptyor", fisfi, "embalmed." and dead the The rite that we saw reflectedin the Lenaia-vaseswith their depictionsof wine-drinking women marching around a mask of Dionysusentaileda statuebeing setup, with a woman dancingin front of it in ever-greateragitation until the statue cameto life. This sameact is presupposedin the myth of Laodameia.In both casesthe setting-up of an image is an act of restitution precededby a sacrifice.Likewise, the death of Protesilaosbelongsto a specifictype with ritual equivalents:in order to reacha new stageor win a new land, there must be a Death itself establishespermanent worship equal to that envictim.1o ioyedby the gods. Similar storiesof restoringthe dead man by means of a statuewere told of Aktaion, Attis, and, of course,Dionysus.r' It is no surprise that the cult of Protesilaosthereby takes on a somewhatDionysiac complexion. Protesilaos'father, lphiklos, was linked to the story of Melampus. And in the Cypriahis wife was the granddaughterof Aetolian Oineus." Philostratus,moreover, made him the wine-grower'smost faithful friend. A sarcophagusfrom the Koman Empire depicts the return of Protesilaosfollowing directly uPona sacrificeto Hermes Chthonios. On another,the dead man departs,as Laodameiabreaksdown in front of d rn?skof Dionysus.'3 In the third centurv n.c. Phylarchus told a curious storv about rHdt. 9.116-zo(followedby Paus.3.4.6;Philostr.Her. z.r [l r4r.rr ed. Teubn.]) tSee I.7.n.rr above. tosee I.5.n.zzabove,and cf. n.rz. Apollod. 1.1r; ll.4.n.r8above.Attis: Diod. 1.59.7.Donysus:Firm. Err. 6.4. ,,4l(taron: "PR Il n.r above. s8-6o; lla sarcophagusfrom S. Chiara, Naples, WienerVorlegebliitter B rr-4, R-&lLIII ,)_",h" the sarcophagus,Vatican,WienerVorlegebliitter B u.1, RtufLIII 3r7o; C. Robil|^i"d "' -u.teanfikenSarkophag-Reliefs III 3 (r9r9), 4g6.5cr.,pl. 42. For protesilaosas the Donysus r"" M. Muy"r, Humes i g'at5y, r21-rg. ior a demonic image com,'"lt}:l qtJo life during a song sung by women in a medievalstory from Denmark (,Canta -"r ), see R. Wolfram, Zeitschr. f . V\lkerkunde 4z(t912), t45.
245
il'
ANTHESTERIA
It'
li,.,,
[{r"l ]l i ,|l']
]
this sameciry Elaius.He did not fail to mention that it was the sites1 Protesilaos'tomb. In this city, a virgin had to be sacrificedannually1o the Penates.A dispute between the king and a father, over whs,e daughter should die, ended in a particularly gruesomesacrifice.yutusios "killed the daughter of the king and, having mixed her blood with wine in a mixing bowl, offered it to the king to drink on hrs arrival." When the deed was discovered,Matusioswas hurled into the seaalong with the mixing bowl. This was the origin of the name "15u Matusian foothills"; the craterwas translatedto heavenas a constellation.laIn this way the memory of the gruesomeact was made permanent and sacred. Drinking wine from the sacredcraterof Dionysusis here seenas drinking blood and is linked to the sacrificeof a girl. Preciselythis is the will of the gods, here calledPenates in the Latin translation,but evidently the Great Gods or Cabiri, as associatedwith Samothrace, Lemnos, and Troy.'uThe drinking of wine played a major role in the mystery rites of the Cabiri. Phylarchus' horror-story reflects analogous mysteriesfor the Great Gods. Further, the plunge into the sea after an unspeakablesacrificebelongsto the set type of the Leukothea
PROTESILAOS
d.rFa:Tsposed into the heroic,milieu, th" f::tt.r:^ he is protesilaos, r10y. Dionysus first dismembered the was n e*ise'.o.,1? l1u 1t nr.fd *tjl_T:n-s origins. Theseare, of course,only conject.r.ulurro_ datlo\s,.but ln any casethe rituar of the Anthesteria reudsus o.,.e uglil,i"l: ll: ql:/ areabetweenthe Greek and the pre_Greekworld. whetherwe must reckonwith rhracian or pre_Thraiianmaterial,im_ pofiedby way of Asia Minor, is yet anothei question.
myth.16
There is no simple way to connectthe cult of Protesilaoswith the ritual underlying the story of Matusios, even though both individually reveal striking correspondencesto the Attic Anthesteria:the one in the setting-upof the statue,the sacredmarriage,and the deathofa young woman, the other in the drinking of wine as blood in connec' tion with the sacrificeof a girl. But whereasin the story of Matusios the girl's death comes first, in the myth of Protesilaosit comesafter' ward. Moreover,we cannotassociateProtesilaos'deathwith the drink from the crater. Additional myths that have come down to us thirdhand are too distorted for us to form any securejudgment, but there is a strangebridge from Protesilaosto the Cabiri: an inscribed vase from the Cabirion of Thebesportrays Pratolaos"beside the Dionysusllke lGbirosand his pais.The "first man" is the first mortal altogethet laFGrHist8r F 69 = Hyg. Astr. z.4o; Mo,{ouoia(dxpa) Lyk. 514;Strabo7 p. 1y ir.52 For Matusia, seePliny NH +.q9. r5SeegenerallyHemberg (r95o), who does not discussthis source;cf. II.6, IILb n 2l above. t6SeeIII.7 above. lTNilsson (rSSl) pl.
Fol 48.r; AM 13 (1888), 4zt, pl. 9; O. Kern, Hermes z5 GBgo), 7 Protesilaos as an epic modification of *Protolaos see A. Fick and F. Bechtel, D1t griechischen Personennamen(1894?), 4o8.
246
hi
247
' lJ,
DOCUMENTATION
I
I
V. ELEUSIS
$,it tf. ir:
andSecret r,. Documentation common today' The words mystical,mystery,mysteriousare still the most faparticular in Their origin, ur" i. the ancient'Greekcult' of these usage modern the Yet' mous one, the Eleusinianmysteries' the introspection' personal t"r*, is misleading.' If mysiicisrrmeans forth shines a light until soul openins of a deeper dime"nsionin the in"'Eleusinian mysteries were precisely un-mystical' #,ht :,h"i in a sealed Thev were celebratedin front of thousandsof participants doubtwas there, seen be to was rign., the fire that *i;,il;;;;il.ii" appropriatPlato' when arose first less real. Ou, con.elt of mysticism in the Phaedrusand ing the metaphors of the irysteries' used them of the.philosopher' Symposiumtoexpressthe spiritual contemplation Neopliton-ism and through down a concept which then was iranded to outsiders'Inimysteriousinly Monasticism.The celebrationswere but a holy oath prevented them from tiates were gl.,"r, "*fiu.,utiott', bisic phenomenonadrevealing anything ;,h" outside world' The pveiv"'to initiate"' 1'nadressed in the wo.as pciatqs, "the initiate i' by meansof specific ittit' it initiation"' rrlpcov,"ceremony.;;i;';i of a cult group/ member new a ritual ceremonies,u -un was made The Roceremony' initiation very the main function ot which was this p'irlocsas initiat.io'l}11: mans renderedthe wtord'puarilplq as initia' -t,".'wespeakoftheGreekmysteriesasinitiationsweareSlmptyt"' A.a"
...-t*t
-t"asm
' Mystikin den Religionen seeH' Schloetermann l':-''o'r'
Profanet'rfz!' ruryriii,-iou'dand R.C.Zaehner, (re58); 9- 1113;::::1,::i:'::1J; v (1958); R. C. Zaehner, Mysttc$m, racreuunu rrutq'K \Lv) / t' _.:::;::-:r.-; ,rnderly' mystical experience utt a genuine however, Postulates iiiir i grrrn(r965)-who,
ing the exoterictestimonies(t55-6t)' t'29t , l n i t i a . . C i c . L e g . z , 3 6 ; V a r r o R2r ,. 4 , g ; i n i t i a r i : T r a g ' i n c4 S R i b b e c kC; i c ' T u s c Nero 34'4' iiitia,Varro L.L. 5 58; initiatioin Eleusis:Suet' Samothracum
248
AND SECRET
- ,..traothis ancienttranslation.The esotericelement,the secrecy,is a plLt"ote of the fact that admission depends on individual initiation T.)i,I.,rt, initiatio).In Christianity, too, a consecration,the first comW-l],^r, or confirmation, is the condition for admissionto holy comindeed, the early Christian authors found it natural to dei#;, ljrr" Uaptismand holy communion as the "mysteries"of their faith.' except for those of the Gnostic sect, gave up the i'ri-it ri;tiuns, gcrect' Thereis no lack of documentsfor the cult of Eleusis;on the conrraw.no other local cult in Greeceis so richly attested.The sanctuary riJff wfrictt Pausaniusdemurred to describe,ois there for all to see, of initiation, the Telestetiruntr to careful excavations.The great hall to the Parthenonela the Peisistratean from ,iot, una its development placed asymmetrically strange, are the as known, well areparticularly offerhave votive We the hierophant.s throne the of and nolv of holies with that, together and vase-paintings reliefs sanctuary in*, ftorn the Eleusinian copious a yield up elsewhere, found urrilogo,rspictures iconofoaphy..Whple inventoriesof Attic vasesexported especiallyto Russiaportray Eleusiniangods and heroes.A large number south-ern of inscriptions,including governmentaldecrees,accountingreports, and honorary and funerary inscriptions, familiarize us with the detailsof administration, priesthood, financial conduct of the sanctuary and even, in a few lucky cases,the mystery celebrationitself' A plebiscitefrom ca.22o e.n.'records the entire festival program as it was tAlreadyin the New Testament,the Gospelis a p'ucrrfiptov:Matt. 1l:11; Rom. 16:25; Coloss. r:26-u7; Ephes.6:rg, 1:g; cf. I Cor..r4:z;Il Thess.z:7. Cf. Bornkamm,Kiffels Theol.WiirteftuckIV 8o9-34. On Clement seeat n.12, 13below. Ambrosius De mysteriis (MignePafroJogia LatinaXVI 389-4ro) deals with baptism and holy communion; see alsol. C. M. Fruvtier, "Het woord MY>THPION in de Catechezenvan Cyrillus van ferusalem,"Diss. Nijmwegen, rg47. ty2B.Z. 5The thorough, comprehensive study by Foucait (r9r4) was written before the more recentexcavations;F. Noack, Eleusis,die baugeschichtliche Entwicklungdes Heiligtums 1t927),has alsobeen supersededby subsequentfindings, on which seeMylonas (196r) ror a summary description;an important step was N. Travlos,"To d.vaxtopovrils J. Ephem.f95ol5r), t-t6. The most important surveysare Deubner (1932) .1-Aeuoivos," o9-9u O. Kern, RE XVI 11934),rzrr-63; Kerdnyi Qg6z)and (ry6). rnngsheim (r9o5); B. Crossmann,"The EleusinianGods and Heroesin Greek Art," qss' Washington Univ., SaintLouis (Missouri),1959(microfilm);Ker6nyi (1962);E. Si"N"u" Deutung zweier EleusinischerDenkmiilerdes 4. lh. v. Chr.," AK g (tg66), lon, /'_-92;Metzger O9-,l\ 41-6, (t965\ t-51. lG uAil, ,"is = sIG, aj5 = rs g. For other important inscriptionsseeplebisciteon the geater and iess". -yst"-.ies before 48o(Hespiria ry lr948l,'92 = SEG rz lr955l, #z :
it
ELEUSIS
the procession determined "accordingto ancientcustom," right up-to night was the that and Boedromion, of to Eleusison the nineteenth night of the mYsteries. Inaddition,wehavetheliteraryevidence.TheancientHomeric the myth' Uy^" ti Or*eter aheadyweavesan Eleusinianepisode-into even historians ritual.'Local the of aspect d6ubtlessreferring to some viocourse' of without' mysteries' Eleusinian wrote books aboul the enolq!,.Tospeak plentifut were details lating the secret;"speakable" itell, became of th"emysteries inallusions, while avoiding the secret for the speech fictitious Sopatros, orators. almost a sport for the dream a in initiation whole the had experienced friend of a man who approthe is still important More irend.'o this was the culmination of ali priation of the mystery languageand imagesto philosophy'.above of as is conceived path philosophical The in Platoand his ,rr.."rrorr.i to is compared mind pure the of contemplati,on the an initiation, and to impossible entirely be not should It mysteries. the epopteiaof the taken. was it which from reality the into retranslatethe metaphor Christian Platonism, then, describedChristianity as a mystery LSSr);cultstatutesca.46o(IGl'6:SIG'42:LSSI);fourth-centuryregulationofthe (Hesperia 49lt98oi, mysterres,esp. announcementand selectionof the aais d9' ic.:ios a.c. (Hcsperia century first the procession, regulation_of ru); LSS ,a-ddrpart of thls in andcf'thehonorarv , o 1 l 9 4 r i 6 4 - 7 2 = L 5 5 r 5 ) ; u . . o . r i t ,( I G 1 2 1 t r - r 3 ; l l l 1 I ' z $ 7 t - 8 r ' llllll'1 t666' t668; bridge; a (IG 8r, lr : accounts SiG'S+o\;building a".r"" f'C li,tti'Aa7 -,,KoirobosInscriptrori,j,ii.Ko1,ro,].liotis,Eleusiniaka I IAthens, rg1zl, t77 sEC cf. the : Kaibel add' 97a: ro [1949]#24); funerary epigramsfor hierophants(IG ll/lll'] 3639 concerninggrain taxes (ciacpyir':'v""u s79; Sgrr;-hiero-phantis: 17og);,plebjscites : SiC' 83 : LS 5, ca. 42J)IG li/lll' r4o : 5IG3zoo : LSS:'1' 35zn'c');a x"il, UCI'70 : LS 7; S Dow and R' F Healey' HThRzr ,"..ifi.i"f calendarfrom Eleusis(IG lJ' 4$ LS4,ca'5ooBc"Ontheentryinthe itg66l,t-Sgl;ontheEleusiniu.ugont""tGl'5-= above' .ui"nd", of Nikomachossee /G llllll? 1157: LSSro A 6o-76; III'r'n'r ARW 8Hy. Dem.96-1oz; F Wehrli, "Die Mysterien von Eleusis"' 3t (tg1$' 77-to4; of washing(University at Eleusis Her sanctuary and to Demeter G. E. Mylonas, TheHqmn rz, r94z) ton Publications ,Philochoros,llepi pucrrlpiav rtov'ABi1ur1cw,FGrHisty8T t; Melanthiosllepi.tau ev 'Etreuoivr.puornlpirr, FCrHist 1z6F z-4; Theodorus'O llauaTris rpocayopeuoltt'vos' to what extent flepi roi k 1pt,*rr ysvors. fCiUist 346F t' It cannot be determined f|tpi rtt,*ilv Neanthes z6-28\, F tz_zo, (FGrHist to7 rtl,er6v Stesimbrotos||epi (Clem' Pr' 564'5\ touched upon [lepi Hikesios, and F ri;, 1t'uorrlpiaz Aa GCrHist Eleusis. t0Rhet.Cr. VIII rro-24 Waltz; [tr
DOCUMENTATION
AND SECRET
the "false" heathenmysterieswere natand Christ asthe hierophant;12 urally the more vehemently attacked.Clement of Alexandria, above of tearing the veil away from all, set himself the task inhis Protrepticus the secret.He would exposewhat the night of the mysterieshad hidden" and set it out in all its wretchedness:murder, indecency,sex, and crime. Scholarshiphas been justly skeptical of these accounts presentedby a hostile party cum ira et studio;'ayet, effectivepolemics must contain at least a kernel of the truth, and besides, Clement's hatred is combined with a Platonic sympathy for the mystery language.The situation is different-which oddly is almost always overi=ooked"-in a document preservedby Hippolytus of Romein his RelIt is not the Christian bishop speakinghere; he utntionof AII Heresies. quotesthe sermonof a Gnostic,a "Naassenian,"who claimsthe basic identity of all mysteries with Gnostic Christianity. The mysteries of Attis have a decisiveinfluence in this case.Presumablysuch a Gnostic, like other hominesreligiosiof late antiquity, had himself initiated in as many mysteries as possible;at the same time, consciousof the "freedom of god's.children," the Gnostic felt himself above all traditional commandmentsand prohibitions.16Although it is almost inconceivablethat an initiate, sympatheticto the rite, would tell about it, such seemsto have been the casehere. Sincethat time, "the great, wonderful, most perfect epoptic secret" of Eleusishas been openly known-the hierophant displayed an ear of cut wheat.'7Was that, then, all there was to it? Clearly this secretis a specialcase.It is surely more devout propandreiaQ93r), who, howevet attempts to trace Philo's mystery language all too directly back to the actual mysteries. t2Clem. Pr. rzo.r 6g6ou1oup,at tois oipavois xai rdv Seov inorteioat,, &ytos yivopat l.tuoip.evos'[epotpaurei 6e ri xupros xairou picrrlu ogpayi{erat ganaTayin. . . . cf. r2o.5, 1,1O.3. 13Pr, z:rz.t, 14.r, 22.4t 7. raThe most radical skepticism about Clement and Hippolytus is exercised by Mylonas (196r). The position that Clement's statements can refer only to Alexandria is defended by Ker€nyi is well: (ry621 ro7-tz; (:,96) tt6-tg. For the rest, he stresses the uniqueness of the Eleusinian mysteries and does not question the significance of Hippolytus: ,ls67) (1962) 98-99, 9z-g3. rsThe text is discussed as "Hippolytus," for example, by Foucart (t9r4) 4zo, 433, and cf. 479; Deubner (tqlz)85; Kern, Rf XVI 1236, rz4o; Mylonas (1961)3o5-ro; Kerenyi (1962) 98; Des Places j969) zrz. The "Naassenian's" sermon as a Gnostic document is oealt with thoroughly by R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres(r9o4), 8r-toz; Studien zunr antiren Synkretismus(tgz6), 7o5-7o9, 16:--73. eOn the pathos of the Gnostic's "freedom" see Porph. Abst. r.4zBurlds ifouolas. . . . " H i p p o l . R e.f 5 . 8 ; 9 ; c f . V . 4 . n . 7 7b e l o w .
251
ELEUSIS
agandathan fact that the secretof the mysterieswas never violated. lideed, how could somethingbe kept a secretwhen it was shown to thousands every year? At the time when the great Telesterionwas viobeing built, the secretof Eleusiswas flagrantlyand_provocatively of-Melos. Diagoras poet philosophizing the atheist, f*"iUy ttre first and mean' H"'toia everyonethe mysteries,thus making tfrem-vr1l-Sar the street, Told on initiated." to be wished " who and dissuadedthose it is a rather' ga,inl no blessinE, no is mysteries the of then, the secret Athenothing, like faerie-goldihat turns to charcoalby daylight. The nians c"ondemnedDiugorus to death and pursued him throughout their realm. The Eleusinianmysteries,however,continued to be celerePorts brated until eight hundred years after Diagoras._Diodorus. and samothracian, Eleusinian, the in found mysteries that the same ,,are handed down openly to all, according to ancient rites orphic ..rrto*, in Cnossoson Crete. What others transmit under the sealof secrecyis hidden there from none who wants to learn."leNevertheless, ii was to Eleusis,not to Cnossos,that the people went' opinions differed about the extent of the Eleusiniansecret.The poet Aeschylus was brought to trial for profaning the mysteriesbe.urrr" u stage prop had reialled the rites. He claimed in his defense In the course of time, that he nal not known that this was secret.2o scruplesbecameeven greater.Pausanias,for instance,claims that a a.ea.n prevented him fiom describingthe sanctuaryof Eleusis," and the NeopythagoreanNumenius dreamt that he had seenthe Eleusinas prostitutes standing in front of a brothel. ian goddesses"dressed tnei tota him that he had prostituted the secretsof Eleusisin a book of ,,interpretations,"that ii, philosophical explicationslike those of Plato.'2Numenius surely had not gotte us far as the "Naassenian." = schol. Aristoph. Aa. rc71, and cf. Melanthios, FGrHisf rEKrateros, FGrHist 14zF t6 "Afeoc (Abh' Berlin, 1959, ) 1z6F z-4; F. Jacoby, Diagoras6 t"Diod. 5.77.3. 20Or)x ei6iyar. 6rt anropprlta du Arist. EN r r r ra9; for tumult and accusation iri rQ r6v = Comm' in Arist' Cr' ru'a6oxt7v see Heraclides Fr' r7o Wehrli pvnrrt(i,tu reptgipew 'XX *ith clem. sfrottr' Together vH Ael. 'papo(rt iri, tcut 5.r9. r45; Expivero dcf,Belas actually tt z.6o.,lwho, vulgarizing Heraclides, speaks of a trial on the Are.pagus when on the may, we r.3r) Andoc. trial: a mystery flr initiates of *us o.rly a special co.rit was not an whole, undeistand Aristotle's statement to mean that Aeschylus proved he were difinitiate (differently, Aristoph. Ran.886-87);it is possible, however, that there Ct' ferences of opinion among initiate, ,"gurding ih" li^itt of t'qra and droppqta 1249. RE XVI Lobeck (1829) 76-84;Kern, ",.].8.7 22Fr. Leemans : Macr. Somn. Sc. t z.r9 39
252
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More and more the rule obtained that the hierophant was ,,hieronyrflou:, that his private name should not be menlioned.B The heightened secrecyveiled the sinking power of the mysteries. It is in this absoluteobservanceof a secrecyno longer rerated to its content that one of the secret'sfundamentai charactEristicsis betrayed: a secretis not-very significant when seen by the light of day. It is essentialthat it be kept a secret.The mystesis distinguishedbyihe fact that non-mystai, the uninitiate, Iive aiongside himlthe inner circleof initiatescontrastswith thosewho standlutside, and man reacts to this- dichotomy of "in" and "out" with an almost instinctive urge toward the inner circle.Even children discoveragain and again spontaneously how keeping a secretevokesrespectarid a feering"ofpower: blessedis he who belongs. Thus, presu-iuty since the m"ostancient times, groups that have separated themselves from society and its culture have invariably established themselves as secret societies. There is no imperiumwithout the arcanaimperii; there is no exclusive societywithout its secret.This determineswho belongsto the group and who is to be driven away; excrusivenesson the inside correspondsto aggressionon the outside. A group can endure only so long as it continues to admit new members;the harder and more irrevoiabre the admission, the more strong and durable the society.Constructionand penetration of barriers through the ritual of initiation are mutually determinant: secret and initiation are features of one of the most successfulstructural forms in the human community. By referring themselves to the superhuman authority of the holy, suih gtonps-hu,nusurvived for thousandsof years. grou.p,_the community of mystai could be virtually ,,lt,u.l:r"9 tclentical with the polis. In Mykonos, femaleinhabitantsand initiated rorergnerswere consideredequalsin a cult of Demeter,r, and in Athens the polis stood in the closestielationship with Eleusis. The mysteries r:ry.yised by the king, basileus,"who had always,therefore, to I:1" oe an initiate. The samewas true for the ephebeswho organizedthe festival procession.The story that Heraklls was adopted by pylios Lrrnton('qzrl qf.: Luk. Lexrph.ro; Eunap. p. 5z Boiss;rG ilrrrr 3grr; first applied in /G trro iiu. r* n.c.), but there are many exceptions to the rule down to Roman lll" tlmes. Zl-,^-
=^LS g6...a-zl The meaning of rereXecpl,vos, dtetrris, retrloxeorgcr LSS ,i'l'_i"* -.') o 4o-4i (cvrene) is disputed. After the liberation of Messene, the mysteries of An_ Qania were renewed ,,heritage as the of Aristomenes;,: paus. 4.26.g. .rrrst. Afft. pol. q.z..t.
253
ELEUSIS
{
1l
llr
lil
before being initiated at Eleusis2uclosely relates adoption into the family-struciured polis with initiation into the mysteries. With the exception of one boy at each celebration,only adults were injtiated.'?T Thus, the celebrationstill marked the transition into the adult world. The Athenians were, as a rule, mystai. Demonax the Cynic struck people as disagreeablebecausehe exemptedhimself from the mysteiier." And yet the mystical community of Eleusiswas sufficientlydetachedfrom the polis that it could be effectiveoutside it: women, too, were initiated, ai were slavesand foreigners.In Rome, Eleusisbecamefashionablefor a time, and the emPerorsfrom Hadrian to Commodus brought the sanctuaryits last period of grandeur'" The festival,for all its internationalappeal,remainedbound to its setting and to the families of the Eumolpidai and Kerykes,the traditional providers of hierophantsand dadouchoi.Eleusisowed much of its characterto this carefully poised balancebetween worldwide and local ties. Becauseit offered accessto all, it could spreadthrough the whole ancient world, yet, thanks to its local tradition, it could maintain its identity through all the changes in time and fashion without relying on books, that is, on philosophicallyformulated dogma' Trade had long brought many peoples to the market at Eleusis,for there the three roads met from Attica, Boeotia, and the Peloponnesus.mThe educative power of Athens" then did its part by frequently portraying the gods of Eleusisin its philosophy and poetry. The sociologicaland structural description of the Eleusinianfestival as the self-renewalof a secretsocietythrough initiation describes only a superficialfunction. Of course,not iust any Passwordor token could becomea secretof the mysteries,but only that which could release,shape,and guide the force of the human soul' In the tradition, the gifts of the goddess Demeter make up a two-part Eleusinian
rtrl l i1
ii
26Plut.Thes. 33.2;Apollod. z.rzz (interpolation);Luk Scyth.8.Jul Or. 7.z18bTouptuou' pevov 67pi1urot niypagrlIfivat rporepov xo.i'Afquaiouyeu\o$at could not generallv haveheld true: Lobeck(t8zg) 2o,38-39; Hdt. 8.65.The emPerorsVerusand Commodus were adopted into the iamily-of the Eumolpidae:IG Il/lll'? 1592: SIG3869'25;IG lI/III'?rrro = SlG387J. 2'LSS zrhiv 16 dp Elotias puolt'iufo lci' 1C zo-zz p)iorcp, p.i 6v6l\t'xa p'uEv pr,e66fva V.4.n.3rbelow); cf. F. SokolowskiHTftRSz (rgSil, l. 2ELuk.Dem. tr. nSeeRE XVI rz55-58;cf. V.5.n.zbelow.
l
rThe market in Eleusisis brought to life in th.eSikyonios of Menander,Act 4 3'SeeWilamowltz (tq6z) 59.
254
I
DOCUMENTATION
AND SECRET
theme:32on the one hand, the nourishment from grain turning crude cannibalisminto tame custom, and, on the othef ,h; "b"i;;hope,, for the life after death. In the HomericHymn to Demeterit is said that ,,whoeveron this earth has seen theseis blessed,but he *ho hus ,ro part in the holy rites has another lot as he wastesaway in murky darkness."Theselines are echoedby sophocles:,,Thriceblessedare those that have seentheserites and theniome to Hades: there is life there for them alone; for the others, everything there is evil.,, The Ji.notomy of "in" and "out" is quite naturally-projectedinto the afterlife. scholarship has been tempted to divide these two gifts of Demetea viewing the nourishT,u"lfloT grain as primitive agiarian _u!i., th" victory over death as the raterhope for the next life]..Indeed, Jmpnasis shifted in the course of history between the introduction of agriculture into Greecein the sixth millenium and the ,,discoveryof the individual" around 69on.c. Nonetheless,even agricultureis , young,, in terms of human history and the themes of"nourishment, death and survival are found arreadyin palaeolithicrituars, in the complex of hunting and sacrifice.Similarly, the secret male society is very ancient.sacrificialrites, indeed, animal-sacrifices, punctuate'themys_ teries of Demeter. As.elsewhere, symbolir- pi"rrrppor", u p.o_ grammedschemeof action that has becometransferabie': the symbolthe grain grows out of the sacrificialritual, just as thJ Great !*.?f Goddessseemsto have sprung out of the palaeolithic.! For the time being this miy stand as an anticipatory conjecture. In 3ny case,we shall not attempt to isoratethe phenom".,o.6f Er"rrsisbut, rathel, seeit in historicaiperspective,with referenceto rerated mystery.cults. Mysteries of Demete. we.e among the most wide_ spreadrituals in Greece:those in the towns of Anlania in Messenia and Lykosura in Arcadiu, by. chance,known *itf., ,oi" f.".i tlol,-l' southern Itary and 1l"tsicily'furnistr iicn material, tto.,jri-ritue clarificationin the details.* Beneath all the local differenceswe can Qaryp).28,and cf. Cic. Leg.z ..6;Hy. Dem. 48o-82;Soph. fr. a37n"*ro.,; l}::l f Nnnagoras, Ap rt.az.
sSee, e.g., Nilsson(rqss)66r qsee l.g abov".
q:.: SIG] = IG V LS68 : SrC3 lT e99: tc y 2.514;paus. o37;Nifsson 736 1..t39o,and 4.33.4_6, eg5) 478;Stiglitz(196n 3r-_46. ,-rre9uentlyreproducedare the golden ears of wheat from a Siciliantomb-Nilsson (1955) pl' 4r'r; P wort".s Festschi bea r. trgrol, rrr-rs-uno the temprewith earsoI wheat on an Apulian funerary vase-Nilsson (ISSS) pl. 42.1; Keftnyi (196z) t5g.
255
I
t;
ELEUSIS
THE MYTH OF KORE AND PIG-SACRIFICE
assumea common structural base stretching out beyond Greece16 the Meter cult of Asia Minor. Sinceit was discoveredthat agriculture cameto Greecefrom Asia Minor and that Kybele is a continuation of the Great Goddess of Qatal Htiyiik, historico-religiousstudies have had to take such matters into consideration.The ancient world saw the specialquality of Eleusisin the unique seriousnessand purity of its divine services,t'characteristicsthat modern realists dismiss as Athenian cultural propaganda.In whatever way merits and chance came together, Eleusisis for us the most prominent and impressive exampleof a more comprehensivecomplex' The existenceof the secret gives the skeptic almost unlimited power over the mysteries.Whatever can be learned from testimony is, he can argue, not the secret,preciselybecauseit is known's No critic, of course,can be preventedfrom claimingignorance.But if one patiently collects the surviving fragments from the larger context, laaing the diverse reflectionsin myth and philosophy, then in the conveigenceof lines one can recognizeforms that yield a sociological, historical, and psychologicalsense. Such an endeavor is to be prethe reconstructionattempt is worthwhile ferred to the ars nesciendi: visible. becomes even if only a torso
BeforeI die I have to get initiated."' A slavegets a tantalizingwhiff of roastpig when he hearsthe lakchos-songof ihe approachinimystai,2 6nd pictures show how- the little pigs are broughi by worihippers, especiallyby Herakles,the mythical archetypeoith" Eleusinianinitiate (seeFigure 8).3 The pig-sacrificefor Demeterwas the most common featureof all forms of the Demetercult. votive statuettesof worshippers with sacrificialpig_sor pig statuettesappearin sanctuariesof Demeterthroughout the Greek world, from Asia Minor, over Crete, to Sicily.apig_ sacrificewas above all part of the Thesmophoria, the widespread form of the Demeter festival in which women celebratedamong themselvesapart from the men. Here, though, there was no roast pig. Instead, the pigs were thrown into undlrground chambersor pits (p"6yapa).There is literary evidencefor thiJ in Athens and potniai, and a sacrificialpit of this kind was excavatedin priene.s The pig was the cheapestsacrificiaranimal and the easiestto raise-inquantity, but for this very reasonit was not the final perfect sacrifice. The megarismos occurred on the first introductory iay of
z. TheWth of Koreand Pig-Sacrifice All who celebratedthe initiation of Eleusishad to bring a sacrifi(loipos). This was not a part of the secretand even Save,riseto pig cial with lokei.lhus the Aristophanic antihero answersa threat of death pig' a little for three drachmas "Lend me panhandling: nimble some G. Giannelli, Culti e miti dellaMagna Grecia(r963':), J1-15, 48, 65-67, rtl, rz7-28' on Religionand Cult in MagnaGraecn ThreeEssays 1j4- j5; t87-zo4; C. Zuntz, Persephone: (rg7r). 37Diod. 5.4.4. rE.g., Mylonas (196r) 22g,275 P Roussel,BCH (tyo\,65, and cf' Ker6nvi (1962))9' ldurch den Mythos in Wort 62,67-68, who, however,gives a different formulation: und Bild fiihrt der Weg iiber das Wort und das Bild hinaus" (4o).
256
tAristoph. Pax 374with Schol.; cf. plat. Resp.17ga;Epicharmus fr. roo Kaibel. The full price of myesis was 15 drachmas: lG lllill2 $72, zo7;1671, 24. 'Aristoph. Rnn. 337-the mystai apparently also ate the pig, i.e., tasted it (cf. n. ro below). sRelief-hydria from Cumae, Leningrad51659,Metzger(1965)pl. z,r, Nilsson (rSSS)pl. 47; Lovatelliurn (cf. v.3.n.rz berow).For a aois a9' eorai seeJ. Leipoldt, iiiarro[to, zur Rel.igionsgeschichte g-n,(:19z6), fig. r9o (restored), and,cf . tg7; Clinton e974) tq. For U€meter with a pig, see the terracotta statuette from Eleusis, RMLII y6ili; for votive pigs,see Antil<e fi ir'g4z),25, ( 196r) pl. 66. For a pig and ,t u tu.i.n oii*,g, on .Mylonas (1924)pl. ro1; HN,39r. Cf. Atheniin votive relief ro16, Metzger ;.-"::l ::"..t".:o.nos (1965)l8 #:4; Nilsson, opusculaII (r95r), 554.19.For anadurtpig sacrificedto the Eleustntangoddesses,seethe votivereliefLo uvre grecque 752;l. CharbonneJux , Ia sculpture et romaine au Mus6edu Louore(1963),tzt. tE'8', toti'e statuettesof worshippers with pigs or the goddessherself with a pig, found in sanctuaries of Demeter: see F wintlr, Die Typender t'igiirlichenTerrakottenI (r9 ), Sz-Sl, rr5-r8; for Corinth, seeHesperia 34 Og6il, zz pl. rra. 5The peTapl(ervis describedby crem. pro. z..t7.rand more thoroughryin schol. Luk. PAP'_275'.J-276 z4; otherwise the sources give onry indications of the fi.,.s 16r, Schol. Aristoph. Thesm.585,and cf. phot. p.tyapov; Ael. Dion. p z i:{poeopiuv, Erose'counter to Clementc explicit stalement,Deubner (ryz) 4o mistakenly conrtltemenr of the Lukian scholion to the skira, which'is there compared to ir"jTll^T 'xs rnesmophoria: seeBurkert, Hermes(1966),7-g. Forpotniai seepaus. for pri9.g.r; Th. Wiegand and H. Schrader,iriene'(r9og, 154-55; M. Schede,Die Ruinen lff::: tis. ro7, rro. For the rhesmophoriaas ,,themost widespread ;:::::::::,t2u4'). 2t.,?.!, lrsssl +6, we may in addition refer to Nilsson (reo6) ;;",::"j :.:":u" !f":*l r'5-25, :l\1955\ 46j-66, for the Thesmophorionin Thasossee BCH g9ft965),470_71.
257
ELEUSIS
THE MYTH OF KORE AND PIG-SACRIFICE
the Thesmophoria. At other times as well, the rite of casting-down had the function of compelling a greater fulfillment through selfdenial and submission. There is no evidence that pigs were taken along on the great procession of the mystai on the nineteenth of Boedromion; they would have been bothersomeon the long march. Thus, the pig-sacrificebelongedto the preliminary ceremoniesof the myesis, performed "for those initiated in Eleusis,in the courtyard of the sanctuary and, for those initiated in the city, in the Eleusinion," above the Agora.uBut "as long as you have not reachedthe Anaktoron, you have not been initiated."'The fulfillment of the initiation first came in the great processionto Eleusis.The pig-sacrificeat Eleusis was a preliminary. The mystery sacrificedistinguished itself from "normal" sacrificial rites in that the sacrificialanimal was individually assignedto the initiate, that is, everyonehad to provide his own sacrificialpig. A passagein Plutarch even depicts an initiate bathing in the sea together with his pig.'We do not know if this was the rule on that day of preparation, the sixteenth of Boedromion, when the mystai were called "to the sea,"n but we do know that the pig had to be as clean as the initiate who was to approach the sacred.The Greeks mentioned explicitly that the initiate surrenderedthe animal to death "in his stead" and that a life was exchangedfor a life.'oThis, too, was no secret.The pig-sacrificeas a substitution is very widespreadin initiation festivals among the agrarian cultures of the South Seas;" a distant historical connection with the Demeter mysteriesis altogetherpossible. Among the Greeks, the word and image of the loipos had defi-
nite associationsthat Aristophanescould not resist:loipos is slangfor the femalegenitals;the naked pig and the sexualobjectmerge. Thus, inthe Achnrnians,the Megarian sellshis daughtersin a sackas,,mystery piggies."12Here, associativeundercurrents surfacein laughter. The animal that is to die in the preliminary sacrificein place of the initiate himself was experiencedas a female entity: the pig-sacrifice had the characterof an anticipatorysacrificeof a maiden. Greek mythology in fact explainsthe pig-sacrificeas the maiden,s descentinto the underworld, that is, as the rape of Kore bv Hades. When the Lord of the Dead sank into the earth with his stolln bride, the pigs of the shepherd Eubuleuswere pulled along into the depths. The women in the Thesmophoriatherefore throw pigs into the underground p.6yapa." In another version, Demeter could no longer find the tracksof her stolen daughter,becausea herd of pigs had run over them.11Kore had disappearedand in her placepigs were rooting about, therefore pigs had to die in the sanctuaryof Demeter,just as Persephonehad fallen to the god of the dead. The rape of Kore-Persephoneis one of the best-known and most widespreadof the Greek myths.lslt is by no meansspecificallyEleusinian. A fig tree where Kore had descendedwas shown at Eleusis,l6 but there were far more famous placeswhere Hades was thought to have driven into the earth with his bride, as, for instance,the Ennian Lake" or the spring of Kyane near Syracuse.'8Like the pig-sacrifice, this myth is one of the generalfeaturesof Demeter-worshipthroughout the Greek world and even beyond it. Sinceantiquity, the myth of Kore has been regardedas especially
6LSS
3 C 19-42, according to Sokolowski's admittedly uncertain restoration. An ic'E),euoivt ycrpa, Ev r!1aJI1 is mentioned by "Demosth." 59.116. 7Max. Tyr. 1g.3k; pveioBar in the Telesterion: Dio Chrys. Or. t2,11; E(a roi; ved ro trporilreta puncas Themist. Or. 5.7ra. EPlut. Phoc. 28,6.
e'A)ra6e i)raors IG llll,J|'1847.2o; the gate 6[t] cila6e ily]oe],aiuonw oi pi
258
t2Aristoph. Ach.7z9-8r7; for "mystery pigs," see 747,764; for the word-play on loipos, s e e 7 6 7 - 7 5 ; c f . A r i s t o p h . V e s p . t 3 5 3 r, 3 6 4 w i t h S c h o l . ; V a r r o R . r . z . 4 . r o . S e e a l s o t h e s o called "Baubo" statuettes (a woman on a pig): e.g., Cook lI|1924) r3z; O. Rubensohn, AA Q9z), 7g5-2o4. t3Schol. L u k . p p . 2 7 5 . 2 3 - 2 7 6 . 2 4C ; lem. pr. z.17.t; cf. n.5. above. HOv. Fasf. 4.465-66, following Callimachus; the pig as enemy of the sown field: Hyg. fab. 277: Serv. Geors. 2.38o; Schol. Aristoph. nan. 3AS. There is a strange tradition in Porph. Absl. 2.9, in which Klymene (a name that recalls persephone) ,,mi"stakenly,, kills the first pig. tsThe most thorough discussion is in R. Foerster, Der Rau[tunrl dit, Rilckkehrdar persephoneQ874). Cf. PR I 747-8o6; L. Bloch, RML Il tz14-t179. The oldest and most imtestimony is the Homeric Hymn to Derneter:see Vr.n.8; on Orphic versions, see lorlant \'rat (r974) r5r-8r. on the versions of the myth in callimachus and Nicander, as they can be reconstructed from Ovid, see H. Herter, RhM 9o (r94r), 46-6g. ttPaus. r.38.5, and cf. Phanodemos, FGrHjst 3z5F 27. ItFirm. € r r . 7 . 3 , a n d c f . O v . F a s t4 . .445- ro. rEDiod. 5 . 4 ; C i c . V e r r . 4 . r o 7 ; O v . M e t . 5 . 4 1 2 . - 2 4 .C f . p / t I 7 5 8 - 5 9 ; k M L I I t 3 t 1 - . t 5 .
259
I
ELEUSIS
THE MYTH OF KORE AND PIG-SACRIFICE
transparentand comprehensibleas a description of the agriculturnl cycle: Kore is the grain that must go under the earth'e so that, fro6 this seemingdeath, the new fruit can aPPear'Hunger threatenswhen Kore disappears,but to the delight of gods and men, she returns, and with her the blessing of grain from Demeter. In Athens there was even a popular metonymy that allowed grain and flour to be adYet the details,as they occur for instancein dressedas Persephone.2o agreewith the agriculturalinterpretation.2l do not Hymn, Homeric the Kore is said to spend four months in the underworld, eight months in the sunlight; the grain, however, sprouts just a few weeks after sowing. Around the Mediterraneanit does not stay in the earth for four months: it sprouts in autumn, not in spring. The Eleusinian mysteries,on the other hand, were celebratedneither at sowing time, nor sprouting time, nor harvesttime, but about one month beforesowing in the aufumn. Martin P. Nilsson therefore advocatesan interpretation more in Kore'spath into the underworld is the storageof accordwith nature.22 the grain, specificaily,the seed grain, in subterraneangranariesduring the summer months. At this point in the Mediterraneansummer all vegetablelife seemsto die. Then during the first autumn rains the stocks of the state are brought from their underground containers: Kore returns to the upper world and the vegetationcyclestartsanew. The great and very probably sacral role of the granary in Neolithic towns23accordswith this interpretation, as does the connectionbetween storage vesselsand the concept of the underworld as seen in the great buried pithoi'?aof Minoan-Mycenaeantimes. The four
rnonths 9an !e explained thus. There is no evidence,however, that the Greeks of historical times understood the myth in this way. The Hymn explicitly setsKore'sreturn in the spring." Thus, Homeri,c Nils_ thesis has been generally, although perhaps toJgenerally and son's hastilY,rejected. The myth can, as we have seen,be related to the actualeventsof the year in two or more ways, gaining thereby each time a particular relevanceand transparency.on the whole, however,it cannot be derived from natural conditions. what actionsof the farmer could give rise to such essentialand penetrating featuresas, on the one hind, Kore'sfl_ower-pickingin the meadow and, on the other, the wanderings of Demeter in searchof her daughter?The myth is shaped not by natural phenomena but-by purely human themes: marriage and death,-grief and anger, and final reconciliation.It is certain,Ir, u.y case,that the festivalsof the cult of Demeter-Korewere in accordwith these themes. FestivalsoI flower-picking, ,,the journey down,,, and "thejourney up" (Kathodosand Anodoi), ure f.eqtreniryattestedin the Greek world" and are only loosely connectedwittr ihe seasons. The Thesmophoriacould be neta immeaiately before the sowing, as in_-Athens,but they could also occur in the middle of the summer.,, wherever they were held, the festivals were set according to a calendar.Even those fixed "four months" wourd correspondEetter to a sacralcalendar than to a vegetation period. The rituals were established by tradition as self-sufficient in their interpersonal function; thus the myth, although aiming both at festivar .it ur, and naturar events,preservedat its core a human drama. contrarl to all vegetationinterpretations,the myth does not .^,, T" tell ot a cycle. what occurs proves to be irrevocabre.There is no victory over death: Had-es aciomplished his goal. The opposition of Zeus ju.stifiesa douLle existenceietween tnl,Lpp", u"a *|1 :q tower world in which the latter'srights are not infringed upon. Life has gained the dimension of death, but this also means that death containsa dimension of life. To be raped by Hades, to enter into a marriage with him, means
1i{i i'11{ ll''l
irl
tlt,i ili ltl
li,
iii
leVarroinAug.Ciu.7.zo,andcf.Kleanthes,SVFI#547: Plut. Is. J77d;Cic.Nat.deor' 2.66;Plut. ls. j78f; Schol.Aristoph. Vesp.1438;Cornutus z8; Porph. lTepi&7o').paruv fr.7 p.g* Bidez : Euseb.Praelt.Eu. 1.rr.9; Arnob. 5.32,5.43;Hymn. Orph.zg.t1-t4; assumedin Epigenes,OF ll : Clem. Strom.5.49.1. 20Eubulos make the fr. 75.to (CAF ll rgr); Antiphanestr. 52.9(CAF II 3r). Vase-painters head, e.g., Hydria Athens t443, Metzger (r95r) earsof wheat crossover Persephone's pl. l+.1, Hydria Tyskiewitz(Lyon), Metzger Q95r) pl. 31.t. 2tLines 339-4oJ,445-42;Apollod. r.33;half a yearin each:Ov. Fast.4.614;Met. 5.567; Hyg. Fab.t46. DARW 1z(rg3), ro6-l^4 = OpusculallQg5z),577-88,and cf. (1955)472-74;oPPoseo rzr;BrumbyK. Kourouniolis,Deltionryiysll),6-t5;L. Malten,Gnomonzo(tg44), ond StudiesWRidge' field (r98r) zrr-:'6; precedingNilsson was F M. Cornford, Essays way j9r1), 151-66.tn factSchol.Arat. 15oPuts the rapeof Kore in summer,with refer' enceto Egypt. 'z3See I.5.n.4oabove. t'SeealsoIV.3.n.zr,IV5.n.rr above.
z6o
[,l,
Llne 4O1.
. dvleosopnP_olluxr.37 (Sicily);Strabo6 p. 256(Hipponion);paus. 2.35.5 Irl'::: .. tnermisng;i XpucauBen K6panl" Suraii, BMC Lydia pp. cix_x. ,H dvaB..o"- n1s 6riorsrzls rleor)(sc.of Kore) r. O".i"".riziic Lio xnsuppl. z9 = LS rz8 in rnteru-d" of_, months' 9 For Krio4s Karayarn (corresponding to the Dionysiac xaraydtyai, "entry" rather than a ,descent.,)in Sicily, seeDiod. 5.4.6, atharvest_time. :T,:,tt "" rrusson e955) 465_66.
z6r
ELEUSIS
THE MYTH OF KORE AND PIG-SACRIFICE
simply to die." The Kore myth relatesa maiden'sdeath that has the approval of zets; it describesthe sacrificeof a maiden. As almost always in sacrificialmyths, the tragedyof the maiden is only a preParation for what is to follow: for the hunter, it is the great hunt, the dreadful and liberating act of killing; among fishermen, it is the arrival of the fish and the greathaul. If Demeteris the goddessof grain, then, for her, the nourishment from grain is the goal answeringto the surrender of the maiden. The myth and cult of Demeter are a symbolizing transformation of the older sacrificial ritual into agrarian terms; iccordingly, the harvest festivaltook the placeof the sacrificial meal. The new themes functioned, of course, only as substitutes within preestablishedstructuresand, for this very reason, the connection with practical agriculture is only partial and loose. The festival rituals could sever themselvesagain from the seasonsand accomplish on their own strength what they had alwaysaccomplished, that is, order and renewal of society;with the development of personal initiation, they could even shapethe faith of the individual confronted with the problem of death. There are, significantly, variants of the Kore myth in which the agricultural connectioncompletelydisappears.A strangeform of the "rape" appears on some votive reliefs from Lokroi Epizephyrioi in Southern ltaly. A young man (a local hero?)abductsthe maiden but then hands her over to a solemn, bearded old man, the god of the underworld.'nThe characterof renunciationin the maiden-sacrificeis quite clear:the maiden, whom the young man was alreadyholding in his arms, is surrendered to the god of death. In Lokroi there was a strangerite of maiden-sacrifice.In the magnificenttemple of Aphrodite, the young women of the town had to give themselvesto foreigners.This too signifiesa renunciation,an exchangeof roles in the critical transition from virginity to womanhood. Naturally the foreigners' nighttime privilege was limited; the daytime order lay in the hands of the Lokrians. Accordingly,in Abydos they told of the defeat and expulsion of those who had enjoyed the pleasuresof Aphrodite in the temple of Aphrodite Porne.r The Lokrians believedthey owed their militiry victoriesto their Aphrodite. Here, then, the sacrificeol
3 rnaiden,accomplishedin the form of an initiation, was again an an_ 1cipatory sexual renunciation guaranteeing great success. In the Sumerianmyth of Inanna,sjourney to the underworld, the oldestliterary example of a Kathodos, there is no direct tie to grain, yet it is not unrelated to the Kore myth.31When, in rg5r, the end of ihis myth becameknown, it was a gieat surprise.Untiithen scholars had connectedI5tar'sdescentinto hell with the coniecturedresurrection of Dumuzi-Tammuzand had seentherein onceagaina reflection of the vegetationcycle. Now, however,the myth takesa far more ag_ gressiveturn, the main part describinga ritual leadingto death, a sacrifice of a maiden. The "pure Inanna" decidesof her own free will to go to the underrryorld.she adorns herself and setsoff for the Land of No Return. The seven gatesof the underworld open for her and, as she passesthrough each gate, a piece of her attire is removed: the crown, the staff, the necklace,the chain about her chest, the ring, breastplate,loincloth. The sevenjudges of the underworld gazeat her with the eyesof death, after which she is hangedupon a belm. In the upper world, her servantcarriesthe lament for Inanna from town to town, to Ekur, Ur, and Eridu. Then magical beings created by Enki call Inanna back to life. The words "Inanna ascendsfrom the underworld" are repeatedover and over like a password,and she rises, accompaniedby the Gallu, dangerousarmed underworld beings who neithereat nor drink but only destroy.Beforethem, all men p6strate themselvesin the dust. only Dumuzi stays seatedon his throne, whereupon the Gallu seizehim and carry him off to the underworld. In this casethere is no mother-daughterdrama, only the death, transfiguration,and refurn of the one ,,pure goddess.,,Lintil now no ritual has been adduced that could correspo.,dto this myth, and yet the bridge to the Greek world seemsto be forged by the Anatolian Mother, Kybele, and her retinue of maddened Lailoi.r, It is she who
a S e e E u r .H e r a c l . 4 8 4T r o . 3 o 7 - 4 t ; O r . t o 9 ; l p h . A u l ' 4 6 r ; S o p h .A n t . 8 1 6 , 8 9 r ' r z o 4 ' rz4o; AP 7.r3, r8z, 186,zzt, 489, 5o7b,599. nP Zancani Montuoro, "Il rapitore di Kore nel mito Locrese," Rend.Acc.di Archeol' Napoli z9 $954), 79-86; H. Priickner, Die lokrischenTonreliefsQg68), 7z-74. CI' on Lokroi l.7.n.zr above. rSeeIII.r.n.r17.
t:, S,.N. Cuneif. Stud.5 j95r), r-t7. tnaddition, the pursuit of ^1ltt fr.1me1 lourn. uumuzi by the Gallu; B. Alster, Dumuzi'sDream(tg7z). All versionsnow in S. N. SacredMarriage Rite eg69), to7-a32. Cf. O. R. Gurney, ,,Tammuz Recon, :11t"":,..T. Itqered," lourn. Sem.Stud.7 O962),147_6o;A. Falkenstein,,,Dersumerischeund der Mythos von Inannas Gang zur Unterwelt,.. Lestschr. W. Caskel e968), 96_ :ff"gi*|" of Daikness(1976),55_.(4.The paraltelto the myth of l'^":11]":"O.en,.ThlTreasures Gu6pin (1968)rzo-27. At the beginning of the Sumerianioem X:"_l"t 3'Tl .ly utrgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld" are the words: 'Alter Ereshkigarhad been Kur as its prize,'(5. N. Kramer,Sumerian Mythotogy[r96t,), 37; Htstory ;1::"0^:Tt"a 1ry561,t7r), i.e., the queen of the underworld is a maiden who was ::Ys .qt.S.umer -*t.,"d trom the upper world. -see Hepding (r9oj); Burkert OSZS)9g-tt7; cf. IILg.n.17 above.perhapsthe Greek
z6z
263
ELEUSIS
of brings castrationand death to the unfaithful Attis. The mother the attendants, is wild her gods',storming through the mountains with only wrath abates Her itill more the fruntress"thanthe giver of grain. when she receivesthe tympanon that comes from the sacrificeof a bull (in Babylon,the kalu-piiestswere entrustedwith the knowledge of how to make the tympanon in secretsacrificialceremonies).'3As with Demeter, the mother's fury and the wild hunt are motivated before, x uy tt'e loss of the daughter: the virgin-sacrificeis, now as a sacritoward p'reparation,freeing feiocious powers and pressing a tension-filled ii." tttro.rgh which uPPer und lo*"t worlds reach equilibrium. when the American Indians tell of the death of the maiden, the mother's wrath, the unsuccessfulreturn from the underworld' the successfulestablishmentof death and, at the sametime, certain tambourine dances among the men;s when a theme of fapanese and Polynesianmyth is the death of a goddessas a condition for the gift of nourishmentfu when already in Neolithic Qatal Hnytik the two goddessesseemto aPPearas mother and daughter,the former connected with grainft-orL'begins to sensethe dimensionsof a theme that has surv#ed only in isola'iedindications,islandslike the peaksof sunken mountain .u.rg"r. Eleusis,for all its peculiarities,is not alone in the theme of deat-h,pain, and expectation;seeking, failing to Jind' and discovery. And, ftr the receptlve initiate, the routine sacrifice of the "mystery pig" could always assume a deeper dimension: standing the'reat'theiage of death, he destroysa liie in his stead; the act of killing is irrevoiable and yet must prbvoke an answer' The scalesof [fe,s lquilibrium have been tipped and, if an equilibrium exists at all at the centerof being, the scaleimust swing back again.It is the hope of the initiate that the path into death will lead to life' in Kopayca,a processionof men (Mantineia: IG Y z'265't6, 27, 266'4r xopa7ory6s a as taken be should rilvKoprlv) dvaytw to Hsch. ropayeiv Ati urrr, IG li/lll, 7247.2o; indepen' de-onic processionsimilar to that of the Gallu with Inanna.Againstthis, the_ w. u. soden(969), dence of Dumuzi is stressedby C. colpe, "lisan mitlrurti ," Festschr. 2).
sSee I.r.n.44. On Meter and Tympanon:Eur' Hel t346-52; Bacch'rzl-29; Epidaurian Hymn IG lY t? r3r , PoetaeMeI. Gr' 935Page' nA myth of the Cherokeesin C. L6vi-Strauss, Mythologiqueslll(t968)' zz9' (rgr9), 4r-42' 144-47' $fapan: K. Florenz, Die historischen Quellender Shinto-Religion On PolynesiaseeI 5.n 43 above' $Mellaart (t96) 46, 218;(r97o)I r7o-7t; cf. V'4.n 75 below
264
MYESIS AND SYNTHEMA
3. MyesisandSynthema The few indications that we have concerningthe Eleusinianmystery rituals are the more problematicalbecausethere were various sitesand various stagesin the mysteries.The community permitted to participatein the festival at Eleusisis broken up into mystai and epoptai. One could becomean epoptesiby participating in the great festivalfor a second time one year later. A distinction was also made betweenthe Lesserand GreaterMysteries.They were divided according to time, place, and sanctuary.The LesserMysteriesoccurred "in the city," in the precinct of Agra by the banks of the Ilissos,where a small temple of Meter, the mother of the gods, stood until modern times. The date on which they were celebratedwas the twentieth of Anthesterion/ seven months before the GreaterMysteries.,Virtually no detailshave come down to us about what took placeby the llissos; there are only general statementsconcerninga "purification," a "preliminary consecration."' Though the story of Herakles' initiation at "Erdnrreuov 6i rodtrripcrou d.r6rdu pteyaXau |vnnndu 6la,l,edzrozresPlut. Demetr. z6; Philochoros, FGrHist lz9F 6917o;Schol. Aristoph. Ran.745.Miorat-Er6trzal already ICI'?6.49:LSS3B5.Cf.Plat.Symp.zo9e;Phdr.u5oc;Plut. Alc.zz;Sen.Q.nat.73o.6 Eleusisseruatquod ostendatrexisentibus.Of course, Cicero only lived at Athens for half a year (RE VII A 838; Lobeck ll^8z9j 3), and Romans thereafter would rarely have gone to Eleusis twice. Theon Smyrn. pp. t4-75 Hiller mentions the following steps: rarlappos, zetrezis rapa\octs (: p,unrrt"s?), |rottreia, civcideors xai orepp,<1rav Erifleors, ticre xcti Er6.pots rapaioivat 6ivaa$at,, just as Plut. An seni 7g5d mentions pucrayul[ov as th-econclusion, pvo{p.evos as the beginning. The ;,r.J?orswas accomplished on a specific day of the ptuortlpta, as is shown by Plat. Meno 76e, and cf. V.e.n.7 above. Crassus came too late: see Cic. De ol. ).75; for an emperor, of course, the mysteries could be repeated: IG ll/lll, 3592 = SlG3 869.24. z,\4wrriyptara p6(ova-ra ri),ri(oua LSS r; LSS 3 B 3e. Since the time spans mentioned nere for the orroy6arj at the Lesser and Greater Mysteries correspond to each other exactly (mid-Gamelion until the tenth of Elaphebolion, and mid-Metageitnion until the tenth of Pyanopsion), the actual festival day in both casesmust also come on the twentteth of the intermediate month (A. Mommsen [t8981 4o6, ignored by Deubner). Td le}aAo-rri rpos' Af pav pLvorilpn /G IylII'z 66t .9.2r;847.zz, iz1l; 6v " Aypas An. Bekk. r"zoz+, and cf . Steph. Byz."A7pa, Suda c a39. For the temple of Meter see IG 12 ?'To.rjz; = Studia ldl jr (:,9t6), :^69-z3o; H. Mobius, AM 6o16r (ty5l36), 44-j7 i.r.tudniczka, varn j967), ro8-37. ''thol Atistoph. PIut. B45 tionep rpoxatgap..c xai rpoayveucr,s; Jul. Or. 5.r73b-c: "PoraAata; rapa rou'lkocdu . . . xa9appdv re\oiow polyaen. 5.r7.r. Athena pu-
265
ELEUSIS
Eleusisis very common, it is sometimessaid that the LesserMysteries were establishedespeciallyfor Herakles.oIn Classicaltimes the festival was administeredby the Eleusinianpersonnel' The hierophant, the dadouchos,the hierokeryx,and the priestessof Demetereachgot their fee.'Slavesneededto clean the shrine could be hastily initiated at the Lesser Mysteries for this purpose.' By the fourth century at least, initiation in the Lesser Mysteries was mandatory before proceeding to the Greater.'Yet in later times this requirement was obviously no longer observed.In Agrai there was neither a Telesterion nor Epopteia;but there was a cult of Artemis Agrotera, the Hunhess, and this is hardly coincidental,' since Meter, in Anatolia and elsewhere, has stronger connections with hunting than Demeter. The associationwith the Eleusinian mysteriesmay also representa balancing between the municipal Athenian cult and the far more extravagant neighboring cult. For the Athenians, "the Mysteries" were and alwaysremained primarily those celebratedat Eleusis. We can say with certainty that the Greater Mysteries included an initiation, a myesis,and that there was a pig-sacrificeassociatedwith Eleusis.'A further preparatoryact belongingto the Eleusinianmyesis is mentioned in a glossby Hesychius:"Bp6vacts, introductory cere-
MYESIS AND SYNTHEMA
rnony for those to be initiated." Plato relates the term to the Korybantesin the cult of Meter.'0The pictorial tradition, however,portrays suchan act of "sitting on a seat" preciselyin connectionwith the initiation of Herakles.r'This mythical initiation appearsin three scenes on two reliefs made during the Roman Empire, on the sarcophagus flgrn lbrre Nova and on the so-calledLovatelli urn (seefigures 8 and q). Theseecho a common model from which individual sceneswere reproducedon Roman architectural,or so-calledCampana,reliefs.'' The preliminary sacrifice of a pig is followed by the Bpovaoc in the centralscene:the initiand sits veiled and barefoot,on a strangely shapedstool coveredwith a skin. One of the copyistsmisunderstood but a ram'shead or horn underneath it as the liont skin of Herakles,13 the initiand's foot clearly shows that a ramskin is meant. A priestess approachesthe veiled candidatefrom behind. On the urn she is holding a winnowing fan over him; on the sarcophagusshe passesa burning torch very closeto his hand. The ancient name for such rituals is
V.3.n.3 above; for the lakchos-song and the aroma of roast pig see Aristoph. Rnn. 378-' Ker6nyi (1962) 68-69, Qg67) 55-56 discusses the pig-sacrificeonly in connection with Agrai.
1"Plat.EuthyLl.z77d (ct. Leg.79od-e; Dio Chrys. Or. t2.33; for Spovtoltcti M4rpQot as a 'Anaktoron" work of "Orpheus" see Suda o 654). The finds in the at Samothrace may indicate a corresponding rite there; see A. D. Nock, AiA 45 b941), 577-81. 1'Herakles'initiation at Eleusis is now attested already in Pindar, POxy z6zz and P51 t39t;H. Lloyd-Jones, Maia ryQ.967), zo6-29; thereafter Eur. Heracl.613; Kallias in Xen. Hell. 6.3.6; Diod. 4.25.r; "Plat." Axioch. 3Ve; Pa1t.d. R. Uniu. Milano zo ('t917), zo (V4.n.58 below); Apollod. z.t2z; o^ Agra see n.4 above. See also Attic vases of the f i f t h a n d f o u r t h c e n t u r i e s : " S k y p h o s S o m z 6 e " B r u s s e l sA r o = A R V : 6 6 r . 8 6 , M e t z g e r (t965)pl. r3; CV Belgique 7r.r. Pelike, Leningrad ry92 - ARV11476.r, Nilsson (1955) p l . 4 6 , K e r 6 n y i ( 1 9 6 2 )p l - 3 8 . P e l i k e , B r u s s e l sR z l 5 = A R V ' t r z r . t t , C L l B e l g i q u e 7 2 . 4 . " P o u r t a l d s - V a s e ,b" e l l - c r a t e rB M F 6 8 : A R V ' } 1 4 4 6 . r , M e t z g e r ( r 9 5 r ) p l . y . ) , j 7 ; c o v e r for a bowl, Tiibingen E r83 : ARV'1 477.7, Nilsson (rSff) pI.45.1; Ker6nyi (1962) Pl.+:. Cf. D. Feytmans, ACI4i94),285-318. r?For the sarcophagus (more exactly, an ossuary length r3o cm; Asia Minor second century a.o.) see G. E. Rizzo, RijntischeMitteilungen z5 ,lgro), 89-167; Deubner (1932) Pl 7. r; Mylonas (196r) fig. 84; Ker6nyi (1962) pl. 7. For the urn (Museo Nazionale Rom a n o , R o m e ) s e e E . C . L o v a t e l l i , B o l l .d . C o m m . Z 0 8 2 i l , _ s - 1 8 ,p l . r / 3 ; D e u b n e r ( 1 9 3 2 ) P l 7 : ; N i l s s o n ( r g S S )p l . 4 1 . 2 ; t h e b e s t r e p r o d u c t i o n s a r e i n K e r 6 n y i ( r 9 6 2 ) p l . 8 - r r . ror the Campana reliefs see H.r'on Rohden and H. Winnefeld, Architektonischertim. I o n r e l i e f sd e r K q i s e r z c i(tr 9 r r ) , 7 - 8 . T h e t h r o n o s i s ( a s o n t h e s a r c o p h a g u s )a l s o a p p e a r s on a marble relief in Naples: see Cook I (r9t4) 426; kM z5 ggto), ro4; cf . Ephem. tgrr, On the interpretation see Pringsheim (r9o) g-rz; P. Roussel, BCH 54 eyo), !f-jS )o-b5; Mylonas (1961)zo5-zo8 (hypercritical);Ker€nyi \tg6z) 68-7r (in reference to A figure on the side of the sarcophagus corresponds to a figure on the relief lSra')trth the llissos temple (n. z above): see F. Siudniczka, ldl 3t (t9t6), r7z-73; for this H Mobius, AM 6o16r (t95t16), z5o - StucliaVaria (1967), 71g-2o, considers ::it:.", wnether the m o d e l f o r t h e w h o l e s e r i e so f p i c t u r e s m i g h t n o t c o m e f r o m t h e r e - a v a r i atlon of the Eleusinian version on the urn. "On the Lovatelli urn: see Figure 9.
266
267
rified herself at the Ilissos with mystica lampas: Stat. Theb. 8.765. pipnpa rdv repi rov Ltouucov Steph. Byz.'A7pa. The allegorical interpretation of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries given by the "Naassenian," Hippol. Rel. 5.8.42-44, contaminates Plat. Gorg. 497c (Greater/Lesser Mysteries) with Plal. Symp. zoge (Myesis/EpoPteia). The statement that the Lesser Mysteries were held for Persephone, the Greater for Demeter with (Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 845) comes from associating iLarrovo.l p.ei(ova ;tuorfipn vearEpa (IG IyIII'? ft73.1vc, and. ct. 1546, 158). Oed fi rpecBwipa-fi aDiod. 4.t4.3; Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 5or; Plut. &q5,1011; see also the relief from llissos. Athens q78, Ephem. 1894 pl. 7, Ker6nyi (t962)65 pI.6. Cf. n. rr below. s L S Sr , C . 3 6IG MII'? 167z.zo7, t671.24, after the Anthesteria (eis Xo,is t67z.zo4). 7Plat. Corg.497c with Schol. (the first part of the Scholion follows Atthidographic tradition; see Schol. Aristoph. PIut.445; ine second part is an abbreviated paraphrase of Clem. Pr. r5); Plut. Demetr. 26. The Lesser Mysteries are no longer attested in Roman times. 8Ker6nyi (1962)64interpretsthedesignationof thelocale iv"Aypas (e.g., IGI'3ro.t3z, 324.96; LS r8 A 39) as "auf dem Gebiet der Gottin namens Jagdbeute"; for a different interpretation see P Chantraine, Classicaet Mediaeualiat7 Qg56), r-4; RPh 4o $966), Pr.z.r3'r' 37-lg.ApollodorosobviouslyreferstoAgrainFGrHistz44Fr4z:Clem. ' the p"ucrrfipn are named dr6 Mvoivtos ttvos Arrtxoi, 6v iu xuuqyiq \nqSapilvat' eThere is explicit reference to the mysteries in Boedromion at Plut. Phoc. z8; cf . Y z.n'8'
lilrr
MYESIS AND SYNTHEMA
ELEUSIS
clear: purification by air-just as the grain in the winnowing fan is purified by the wind-and purification by fire.'n The psychological effectis alio at once clear.The recurrentbinding or veiling of the eyes in initiation is not fortuitous. Blind, helpless, and abandoned, the candidatemust suffer the unknown. He is captiveand ignorant, surrounded by those who are active and knowing. Having previously been isolated, made insecure, and frightened, he must now experience the unveiling, his new sight, as a blissful liberation. His new contactwith reality prepareshim for contemplationof the divine. The connectionof the Thronosiswith the Eleusinianrather than the Lesser Mysteries is attested by the HomericHymn to Demeter' Here, on coming to Eleusis, the goddessDemeter herself performs this act. Her conduct, which apPearsunmotivated both psychologically and artistically,is the model for those who enter her mysteries. As she entered the hall of king Keleos, "she refused to sit on the shining seat,but, rather, remained silent, with downcast eyes, until Iambe, knowing her duty, set up a stool and over this she spread a shimmering ramskin. Then she sat down, holding the veil over her face in her hands. And she sat silently on the stool for a long time in sorrow."tuHere, too, there is a seat,a ramskin, the bowed head, and the veil; the only differenceis that whereasthe representationsdepict the mystai, the myth speaksof the god. Aristophanesparodiesthis act by having Socratesas a falsepriest initiate the novice, Strepsiades,into his newfangled meteorological mysteries. "Sit down on the sacredseat," "take this wreath"-"$111 pleasedon't sacrificeme!" cries the mistrusting candidateworriedly "Bequiet!" Dust trickles down on him, a festivePrayeris sung, and Strepsiadeshastily pulls his cloakup over his head in order not to get wet, for now the gods-the clouds-appear." A few yearslater, after the great Mystery scandal,Aristophaneswould presumablynot have ' n S e r v . A e n . 6 . 7 4 t ; C e o r g .r . t 6 6 . 15rgz-98; F. Wehrli, ARW 3t (rql}, Z8-Zg. t5A. Dieterich, RhM Kl. Schr. (tgrt\, rt7-24, recognized that Aris48 (r8g1\, 275-$: toph. Nrb. 254-68 was a parody of a ritual; to be sure, he spoke of "Orphism" (following him cf. Pringsheim [r9o5l z6; Harrison igzzl 5tt-t6), since a parody of the Eleusinian rite seemed unthinkable to him. But a precisely corresponding rite seems to be 6 attested only at Eleusis; cf. the use there too of the Atos x
268
dared to write such a scene.Yet this veiled sitting was still only the beginning of the initiation, coming before the secret.It could be seen 35a general,outer form of initiation revealingnothing of its content, and for this reasonit could be portrayed in the visual arts. The third and last sceneof this initiation frieze is a different matter:" the initiate approachesDemeter.He is splendidly dressed,his bundle of twigs showing that he is a participant in the Iakchos procession.The goddesssits on a plaited basket (rciorq), about which a snakemay be seenwinding. Demeter looks back in the direction of a young woman hurrying toward her with a torch: this is Persephone comingback from the underworld. The divine myth is presentedhere in connectionwith a ritual instrument, the kiste, and a very general symbol, the snake. These hints for those with knowledge betray nothing to the uninitiated. The basket remains covered. The snake arousesboth a fear of death and a secretsexualfascination.For the initiate, however, the snake is no longer dangerous. He can touch it without fear. Approaching Demeter, experiencing Kore's return, transforming the fear of death into quiet confidence-these are the themes of the night of the mysteries at Eleusis. But what actually happened is hidden behind the glorious artistic facade of Greek mythology. We know that the encounter with the kiste, the cistamystica,ls was part of the initiation, becauseof a much-discussedsaying transmitted by Clement of Alexandria. He describesit as the "watchword" krtvBTpa) of the EleusinianMysteries: "I have fasted, I have drunk the kykeon, I have taken from the 'kiste,' worked, depositedinto the basketand out of the basket into the 'kiste.""e It has been obiected ''lt
is widely assumed that the frieze, taken in this order from right to left, portrays the sequence of steps in the initiation: e.g., Dieterich, R/rM 48,276; Harrison Qgzz) 546; Kerenyi (7962) 70. The identification of the initiate in the third scene with Herakles in the first has been disputed, e.g., by Pringsheim Q9o5) z1-24 and Mylonas e96t) zo7, wno wrongly identifies the candidate on the urn and on the Campana-reliefs (Ker6nyi 1196zl pl. rz) with the iconographically completely different "lakchos." The latter is added on the left of the sarcophagus, whereas the candidate is left out. On the snake s e eI I I . r . n . 7 o a b o v e . "On the xicnl at Eleusis see Pringsheim (r9o5) 49-64; Metzger g965) 11-36;4r-44; see generally O. Jahn, Hermes 3 Q869), 1t7-34. The xlor4 is connected mainly with mysteries of Demeter and Dionysus (see Nilsson U1SZI 5il, but also with those of Attis (Hepding lr9ql, ry5.r; Cumoni [r93o] pl. I.3i, fsis [V Tran Tam Tinh, Essal sur Ie culte u tstsa Pompei [1964), ro7, ry), Ma Bellona (Cumont [r93o] pl. II r). Pr. u.zr.z (followedbyArnob. 5.26) xriortroaiv$rlpa,E\euowiau pucrqpiav. ,,"-rem. cru-n:rtuaa, irov rov xuxefoua, E),aBou Ex xi
269
ELEUSIS
MYESIS AND SYNTHEMA
that Clement was unfamiliar with Athens and could hardly have obtained such specializedinformation. The mention of the "basket" (rc
one can marshal support for all these interpretations. Inter6e!fs€ as a mystery is a common metaphor,or more than a metaphor. Aphrodite lvtysterieswere intimately connectedwith marriage pi"pu-organri$ons.n rhere is a tradition in which the reproductive of the dismemberedDionysus is hidden in a kiste.'?iTheunveiling*ofthe phallusin-a winnowing fan is a centralevent in the mysteriesbf Dionysus.'nEleusis,however, was famous for its specialpurity and the celebrationstook place under the aegis of the ii'ni.,"'po*ers of the female.Thus a late authority speaksof the femalegenitals, rczele,as the emblem of Eleusis,and an almost over-obviouJallusion in Aristophanespoints to such associationswith the kiste:when the women makepeacewith the men, Lysistratasaysto the sexuallyafflictedrepof the oppositesex,"Now keep yourselvesnice and clein resentatives sothat we women can then entertainyou in the city with the contents of our xiaran."'s rhe religiousmetaphor of self-purificationand abstinencepoints to the marvelous festival to come. Genital symbols are leastappropriatefor the representationof a birth. since no one experienceshis birth consciously,a rebirth likewise does not lend itseli to impressivesymbolization. The controversy surrounding the interpretation reflects how uncertainthe interpretersare as to what degreeof explicitnessthey must utrrr1g in ritual symbolism. For a puritan, naked sexuality ii overwhelmingand transforming, somethinglike a mystery ,".."t. Repeti_ tion, however, quickly exhaustsits fascinatior,. f'h" phallic herms on the streetsof Athens becamea matter of concernoniy after they had beenmutilated. A far longer-lastingeffectresultsfrom something indirect,allusive, and ambiluous. In"one case,Clement found orri thu
Hdt.9.98; etc.;meaning the same, cilt'po\ov Eur. Rftes.57211'Fora parody of the srgnun of the BacchusMysteriesseePlaut. Mil. rcr6 cf. Plut. Ad. ux. 6ttd. For srgnaand Err.tS.t.Forthemost recognitionforinitiatesseeFirm. responsaasthemutualsignsof pait, scholarsha.resougf,ta specifii part of the ritual in which the synthemahad to be Ker6nyi[196z17)' But the Acarnanianscameunasked .poken (e.g., Deubner l9l8o; their lives (Livy 3r'r4); Arnob' 5 26 quaerogatiin with into the TJesterion, and paid usesthe concePtof the cuppo\ou following the model respondetis sacfofumacceptionibus of the Christian symbolon:seeDelatteQ955)tz-23' 20Pringsheim (ryo) +g, )oo-Jot; Nilsson (rgS) 6Sgassumesan Alexandrianelaboration oi the Eleuiinian synthema.The kalathosis connectednot only with the D€meter processionat Alexandria(Callim. Hy. 6.r-7; for coins seeACl zo Ir95r], 359,36r),hlat goddess *itf, tn" mysteriesof Demeter o., i'uro, (Apollod', FCrHistz++F 89\; for a Chalthe (.196)' 89 BCH Thasos, on 469; the Thesmopho,iott see sitting on the kalathos south kis Museum (ca. z8o u.c.). For a largekalathosflanked by bladesof wheat_ona pres' Italian lekanisseeTrendall Qg6) 552.882,pl- zr5'5' ln the myth, the kalathosis re ent when Persephoneis picking flowers:Clem. Pr' 2'1'77; seealso the sarcophagus (r9r9), #162-$, III ln-78' Sirkophag-Reliefs 3n-74' antiken Die 3 liefs, C. Robert, The grave-steleof Nikarion -kalathos 472-1J, 475,479' $l-8+, J87, J89,)%-g4, Jgg, 4o5- 4116, in_itspediment' The a large depicis Eleusis at gZg6) tt muse,rin (IG II/III, " Deubner(rglz) are bakchos-rinss:see objectson coinswhich zg.gidentifiedui kuluthoi to(OF i' :rro)' Fidei Expos' (r.94r), r-T. Epiphanios Chton.Yh Ntrrrrism. J. D. Beazley, Clern' paraphrasing is evidently who mentions the kalathosin the contextof Eleusis, Pr.
,rA. Dieterich, Eine Mithrastiturgie (lr9o3; lgz12l, tz4-zb) suspected that the_kiste con' ','
in-tl" taineda phalluson the analog|oiii"-O"i.6tri r
i'rt",. Err. ro, andcf. Ker€nyi (rs6z) 78, affi;"t.ti.t, ffi;. occurred ARW 18 (t9t5), $-z6,inferred from Theodoret Gr'aff' cur' 7'17 that-arebirth ti::i* howevet u.t el'ti"' xreis with a contact into of coming fu"ug", 1i., by means Thesmophoria, 3.84);agreeu'o T'heodoretfirst explainsthe word xreds,he speaksof
270
^0.j" cf..Kern, RE XVI rz39; disagreeing,cf. Deubner e93z)8r-83. Ch. picard, lfl 95 (1927),,?o-55, suggesteda phallus in the kiste, a cunnusin the kalathos;cf. l)nK Lagranse, rvr. J Rea.Bibl. 78 (r9zg),7t_gr;L. Ziehen, Gnomon 5 0929), r5z_54;S- Ei_ trem,Symb.Osl.zo (r94o), 140-44. mysteriesof Dionysusand marriageseeIII.4 above.For lrueicBaL,etc.,used "Pl ln: seeAlicphr'-r'4'3;charito 4.4.95;Helidorus 7.77,etc.For marriagerites in ;: ::.::li8 'rc-mysteries see Firm. Err. z.r; Dieterich ('921) ."r-14; R. Merkerbach,I{omantrnd I.utYsterum (196z), 16 _ tg.
2.r9.4 with Schol., in referenceto the cabrri. The adDoiaof the Gailorare ,l:* tt after having beencut off: seeSchol.Nik. Aler. 8; there is a rgatrripr4 rn . fillll"'_:.1rf:t ,,.,;'ll"j.ll"iftn,Polemon, Ath._478c(pringsheim[reo5l7z_y). Cf. Meuli j946) 256, ot a butcheredreindeerburied in a box made of bark; and cf u o^-u.'l',ru,. . I.7 above. ^;:s,t,known from rhe painting in the Villa dei Misteri; F.Matz, AIONY>IAKH TE_ ,ll,H toUt, Mainz, ry6\, t5)7_zt. {nstoph. Lys. rr1z-84; G. W. Elderkin, Ctph 35 $9+o), lgS. 271
ELEUSIS
contents of a cistamysticn-in the mysteries of Dionysus Bassaros.ze They consistedof sesamecakes,pyramid cakes,globular cakes,pslyomphalos cakes, lumps of salt, Pomegranates,fig branches, a narthex, ivy, round cakes, poppyseed cakes, and on top of it all, of course, a snake. Thus too TheocritusPortrays the Bakchaitaking all manner of baked goods out of their kistai and depositingthem on the altar." The contents of the kiste are thus related to food and to sacrifice; the function of the kiste itself is to store and conceal.It is, as it were, a primeval receptacle,older eventhan the invention of pottery.zo The contents of the Eleusiniankiste were probably also manyshapedand ambiguous.The only specificindication may,perhaps,bg contained in the word ipyaoay.evos, "I worked." Spinning or weaving comes to mind, since both often appear as Preparatorycontrasts prior to a departure from the everyday to the mythic world. Kore worked at a loom before the snakeattackedher.'nAristotle's student Theophrastus suggestsanother interpretation, more plausible with respect to Demeter as a goddess of grain. In his cultural-historical work Or Piety, Theophrastus writes that when men discovered agriculture and the grinding of grain, "they hid the tools with which they worked [sc. the grain] as a secretand encounteredthem as something sacred."r In talking of things hidden yet encountered,sacredthings
MYESIS AND SYNTHEMA
connectedwith grain, Theophrastuscan only mean the mysteries of Derneterand, becausehe is writing in Athens, the allusion must be to Eleusis."The tools with which they worked" are, in their simplest 191p, the mortar and pestle. The grain, once ground and cooked in water with a seasoning,produces the kykeon which the initiate drinks, just as Demeter did in the house of Keleosafter sitting veiled and in silence.3lAccordingly we may presume that some ears of wheatand a mortar and pestlewere among the objectsto be found in the covered and uncovered baskets. The initiate had to grind the wheat, at ]east symbolically,in order to help in producing the next kykeon.This may seemrather banalby the light ol duy,but this too is an act of destruction-necessary nonethelessfor nourishment. The sexualassociationsof stamping and grinding are obvious. Here again the basic human themes of aggression,the need for food and sexuality are addressed.In proper frame of mind one can experience what would otherrryisebe simple as something fundamental. The rite performedby the priest as the highest mystery of Christianity is very similarto that which can be tracedback far into Anatolian-Hiitite cuiture-that is, the breaking of the bread.32 A curious parallel to the Eleusinianmyesiscomesfrom a Roman initiation custom, that of the most solemn form of marriage contract, the confarreafio.This rite was performed "through a kindlf sacrifice offeredto fupiter Farreus,for which spelt-breadwas used.,,r.A sheep wasslaughteredas the sacrificialanimal, and it was customary ,,to set up two seatsconnectedby the skin of the sheep that had been the sacrificialanimal, and there the marriagecouple,Th" pomenand flaminicy, yverepermitted to sit during thi confirreatio with their heads veiled."l Here, too, we encountei the sitting on the sheepskin and veilingof the head, and it is followed by a communalrite with a bread rnadefrom the most ancientNeolithic frain; the bread is broken, then eatencommunally; thus, collective saciifice brings about social coheston' The correspondencewith Eleusis is yet gieater if we consider varro'scommentson pig-sacrifice:,As u p."trra""to the marriage, the
26Pr. z.zz.4: oqcap,ai . . . xcrl rtpap,t}es xqi roltvtrat xai rorq.ua ro)ruop'gahay6v6pot rc a\6v xai 6paxoiv,dpytov Arcvutrov Baoc<1.pou. 2tTheocr.26.7.ln Dionysios' Bassarika, the remains of the omophagy are hidden in xlorar beforedaybreak,9 v. j9 (D. L. Page,LiteraryPapyril95ol,54o; E. Heitsch,Dit der rijm. Kaiserzeitlrg61'zl, 66). griech.Dichterfragmente zEBurkert(1967)zgz-91. nEpigenes in Clem. Strom. 5.49.1 : OF lj; Diod. 5.1.4; Porph. , nfr. 14; Nonnus 6.t21-64. For kalathos, ioros, Epyaflepoeg6vrlsin Parianmyth seeApollod., FGrHist z44F 89; Ior Epnv d.ilsrou in the kernos seePolemon in Ath. 478d. sTheophr. in Porph. Abst.2.6 (W Potscher,Theophrastos IIEPI EY:EBELA2 1ry6+1, p. r48): rd 1.tiv rils ipyaoias opyava Beiav rois ploc in*oupiav napatqlovta xpw rlavres eis dnoppqrov
Schol.484; Ov. Met.5.446_'6t; Delatte (1955) 3o_35. "See l.5.n.az above. ll^ uatus 1 112; xowauia roi gapp6s Dion. Hal. Ant. z.z5.z-1, xowuuoig rils itporarrls rposils yeu|o\ar. This presumes-counter to the skepticism of WisllJ:t,:ji:rt^ (r9r2) communal meal. on the Attic sesame cake ai weddings see 387.J-a 'i"rc .5.n.42 above. 'Serv. auct. Aen. 4.374,and cf. Festus rr4 M., plut. e. Rom. z7r f .
272
273
')!1.roen
zo6-rr; for the orphic version see Clem. pr. z.zo-zr = OF 52.witi theinto a lizard (Askatabos),seeNikander in r r r Ant. ^rr(. Lib. L ru. z4 2 4 d and tl( Ther. ')iln:"*,lllrjr:mation to4-67 with .a.
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SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
ancient kings and nobles in Etruria, both bride and groom, used to sacrificea pig to sealthe bond; the ancientLatins and the Greekswho lived in Italy appearto have celebratedit in the sameway."3sThe marriage contractand the mystery initiation thus have the following seque.tce in common: a preliminary pig-sacrifice,sitting on a sheepskin, and the collectivemeal of grain. Varro does not neglectto refer to the initia Cereris.In Greece,too, the polarity betweenDemeter and Hera, between transforming and maintaining the societalstatusquo, is firmly attested.sIn the Neolithic, establishmentof the community through sacrificeassumed various basic forms. The marriage bond and the mystery community are two relatedproductsof the ritual that elevatesthe individual into a new, socialexistence.
dication that it probably belongedto the secretcentral portion of the festival. The juxtaposition of mystai and epoptai complicatesthe reconstruction even more. It should be emphasizedthat the step that was the decisiveone in a man'slife was his myesis,which occurredonly once.All promisesrefer to the mystai. The Epopteiarepeats,renews, and deepensthat which had been laid as a foundation in the myesis. Already the mystai were permitted to see the blissful "sight.", The epoptai may simply have seenmore ot more importantly, differently. For whereasthe mystai must "suffer" and were passivelyaffectedby the events,the epoptai were "observers"with a broader,calmerview. No evidencehas survived to tell us how this juxtaposition of myesis and epopteiawas organized.It is conceivable, on the one hand, that the mystai had to leavethe Telesterionbeforea secondact in the ceremony/ but being sent out would make one all too aware of one'sdeficient status; an Eleusinianinitiate was no longer a katechoumenos. Only one possibility seemsto remain: during a specificcentral ceremony, the mystai had to be veiled and allow the priests to do to them whateverit was they did. The epoptai, on the other hand, could view the sacred events freely for the first time. The initiate was accompanied into the Telesterionby his sponsor, the mystagogue,owho would direct him in conducting himself properly. Insteadof too few there are almost too many indicationsof what went on at Eleusis. What is missing is the relationship among the parts and their inner cohesion.The myth is an essentialaid to our understanding. Demeter cameto Eleusissearchingfor her daughter; the mystai, following in her footsteps, do the same. The departure from the everyday world in the great processionto Eleusis corresponds to the searchfor Kore. This is followed by the act of finding: Demeter found her daughter again at Eleusis;s"Proserpinais sought with burning torchesin the night; when she is found, the entire cere-
in the 4. TheSacrifice m7
rcrcfiernn
The goal of initiation is the path to Eleusisand to seeing what occurred in the great chamber of initiation on the sacrednight. It is hard to say how the individual myesis and preparations,including instruction,' were related mythological and philosophical-allegorical to this mass ceremony.The pig-sacrificeand the thronosis belong to the individual's purification and accordinglyprecededthe procession of the mystai. If, on the other hand, the synthema, once consummated, is supposedto guaranteean initiation, then the gesturesinvolving the basketand kiste must come at the end of the celebration. There is no evidenceto suggestwhen the kykeon was drunk'-an in-
4.58 cum EleusineCererissacrumfit, aedeslunonisclauditur;item cum IunonislicetgustareundeCereri IunoniEleusineftt, templumCererisclauditur,necsacerdot[ sit libatum. rTfs re)rer4s f,Lr,aioor,sTheon p. r4.26 Hiller; 6rDarflxriy-re)recrrtxov Arist. Ilepi gtXooogio5fr. r5 Ross.The uninitiated Aetolians betray themselvesin the Telesterion quaedam percunctantes, Livy 3r.r4.8. absurde '?Ker6nyi Q96z)77, $967\ 65 placesthe drinking of the kykeon immediatelyafter the yeguptoltoi (n. r9 below);on the vesselsin which the kykeon was perhapscarriedsee
Kerdnyi (1967) r8r-86 and Initiation, Nurnen Suppl. ro (1965) 6z-61. Tentpttshnbantmrq staesideraoisa cibi, Ov. Fast.4.536-which cannot follow the yegvpxrp,oL "Eorepos, 6s re rrciv A,aptarepa y.GtvosEreureu Callim. Hy. 6.8-Ovid,s aition mentions not the kykeon, however, but the poppy $lt-S+). 'The "sight" (Hy. Dem.48o; Pind. fr. r17; Soph. fr. 837 pearson) is identified with the Epopteia by, Deubner eyz) g; but 6p&v does not equal 6,9opdv. Cf . 6et ydp p.ur1Bilvai p"e rpiv".8., re$uqxtvat Aristoph. Pax 175; 6oot p.ep.ui1p.efiaAristoph. Ran. 456. {LSS 15, esp. 40-41. -Atlpqrtp . . . a i r o t g t r i 1 v x o p t l t ,e i p e s A r i s t i d . O r . z z . r r K e i l ( l 4 z z D i n d . ) , a n d c f . : . 2 . 4 (l 4r7 Dind.); Himer. Or. 6.5 Colonna; Tzetz. ad Hes. Erga 1z;Hyrnn. Orph."tg.t4:pluton brought Kore rjz.' 'Arrll8os ciurpov.
274
275
3sVarro R.r.2.4.9. rServ. auct. Aen.
i i
VI ELEUSIS
I I
mony is ended with rejoicing and waving of torches."6Anxious wandering is transformed, through the terror of death, into blissful joy. Moreover, it is certain that this transformation went hand in hand with the transition from night to light. The hierophant completed the initiation in the Telesterion"amid a great fire."'It must have been here that the permanentlittle room, Iocatediust off center in the great hall, played its part. The more precisewriters calledit the Anaktoron,a name which in the more impreciseusagewas applied to the whole Telesterion.'There was an entrance at the side, next to which stood the throne of the hierophant.He alonewas allowed to go inside it.'And the mystai then saw him "emergefrom the Anaktoron, 6Lact. Inst. epit. :^8(4).7 lacibus accensisper noctem Proserpina inquiritur, et ea inuenta ritus omnis gratulatione ac taeilarum iactatione finitur; stated more briefly in Lact. Diu. lnst. r . 2 1 . . 2 4 .C f . V a r r o i n A u g . C i a . 7 . z o ; F u l g e n t . M y t h . t . r r . TNurrds iu 'E\euoivt dz'ti a-otrtrQ nupi ra p.eya),a xoi dppqra puorilpta Hippol. Rel. 5.8. 4o;
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
in the shining nights of the mysteries."'0A "great light" would become visible "when the Anaktoron was opened."1'This was, then, the location of the greatfire; the smoke escapedthrough a hole in the roof aboveit." In other placespeople referredto Demeter'sMegaronan ancientword for "palace"-and this was likewiseprimarily the site of a great fire. Such a Megaron was found in the open air at LykoBurn marks are the most ancientevidencefor the cult at Eleusura.13 and there too the celebrationoccurred at first in the open air, sis,ln as though, at Lykosura, it was certainly screenedoff from the outside y/orld by walls. At Lykosura, moreover,we have evidenceof something that was natural to all Greek cults, but unattested (and hence unconsidered)'ufor Eleusisalone: i.e., that the great fire at a festival for the gods does not burn for its own sakebut for its purificatory and its destructive powers. Offerings for the gods, sacrificial remains, corpsesare purified and dispensedwith by fire. Thus, the fire in the EleusinianTelesterionmust likewise have formed the centerof a sacrificial ritual. And if our sourcesdo not mention it, this must be becauseit was an dppqros$voia. With this hypothesis, the Eleusinian ritual falls into place in the larger contextof Greekcult and gives us a further clue by which to grasp the rhythm of the nighttime events. The great processionmarching the more than thirty kilometers between Athens and Eleusison the thirteenth of Boedromion'ufollows the path of the enragedDemeter.Here, too, the enthusiasmfor l
1 o / Gl l / l l l ' ?
38rr, n. 8 above. ''Plut. 8re, n. 8 above; n. 8: below.
tiation: see Max. Tyr. 39.1k, Sopatros p. rr8.zo. 'Ael. fr. ro = Suda e : duaxropoy Hsch. dvaxropov; cf' 36o4, t rg5, p. 38r; piyapov = Suda a 1924. For a different view see Ker6nyi (1967) to9-rro. Poll. r.9 Xupiov clBarou 8 above. n. dvaxropou (but cf. r.r7 dvaxropov-yprlorilptov); see iG llllll']38rr,
"'ld itraiov itri rot dvaxtopou Plttt. Pericl. r3.7; Mylonas (196r) rr9-zo. There is no certainty regarding an 6traiov in the older Telesterion (Mylonas j96rl 7o.38, rtz); yet from the oldest times, da'aia served as openings for smoke-see C. S. Korres, Affi e n t e m o r idee l l C o n g r e s s o l n t . dM i i c e n o l o g i a l Q g 6 S ) , 8 r - 8 6 , o nO d . t . 3 z o . T h e r e i s n o m e n tion of daylight breaking in; it is a nocturnal light. rrK. Kourouniotes, Ephem. rgtz, t4z-6r; Paus. 8.37.3; Ammonios rr3 ro 6i ptyapov repu4txoiop,rlltturl Eoria, ivBa ra puort xri rfis Lrlpqrpos. 'o Mylonas Q96t) 57-58; Ker6nyi (tg6il gl. r5Ker6nyi did associate the Eleusinian fire with the burning of the dead on a pyre, and referred to the self-immolation of the Brahman Zarmanochegas at Eleusis (Strabo l5 p. 7zo;Dio Cass. 54.9.ro), and cf. (1962) 7o2-7oj, Qg67) tor; and Ch. Picard, RHR ro7 (t9)), 4Z-5+, saw a connection between the cremation at Eleusis portrayed in Euripides' Hiketidesand the mysteries; Ailpqrep iortoiy' 'Etreuoivos lrlouris Eur. Hik. r. '6"At\ouctuyotvrdu"Iaxyou Aristoph. Ran.3zowithSchol. )g5, j9g,4o8; Polemonof Ifion rlepd rfis iepds 66o0, and cf. Harpokr. depci66ds. For the program of the preceding days (IG lll[l2 ro78 is the main source) see Ker6nyi (tg6z\ 71-75, (1967) 6o-66; for the sacred eirriDes see already E:ur. lon ro76.
276
277
1l ii
lll' rt
I
{
I
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ELEUSIS
Y
the collectiveundertaking is basedon aggression.The emblem of thq mystai, depicted time and again on the monuments, is a bundle of branches perhaps called Baxyos." Such carrying and waving of branchesis found with great frequency at festivals of the Sods and basically reflects the most primitive, virtually pre-human kind of weaponry: a branch broken off from a tree greatly enhances the strength of one'sbare hands, and even more so the impressionmade by a threatening gesture. It gives one superior standing.l'This aggressiveposture is turned against the novices who, frightened, are led about by the nose by those long initiated. The place for vulgar mockery was the bridge acrossthe Kephisosat Athens. Thereis mention of a prostitute who stood on the bridge, a custom evidently parodied by Aristophaneswhen he has the drunken Philokleonstationa scantily clad hetaera with two torches, to joke with as "before the mysteries."'nThis has often been linked to that part of the myth in which Baubo, by exposing herself obscenely,made the grieving Demeter laugh.'o But perhaps we must reckon with a variety of referencesin the myth here too. The joking on that first bridge (yegvpt"og,ris) does not serve to liberate; it is, rather, a contrast to what is to follow; one must tear oneself loose from this in order to cross the mountain and reachthe plain of Eleusis. 1'Hsch. pclx1os . . . rod r),d6os iz rais relterais; Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 4o8 paxyovs 6xa)touv . . roi roris x),cl6os oris oi piorat g|,poucrtu (citing Xenophanes, VS zt B t7, who, however, does not refer to Eleusis); Serv. Aen. 6.t36. Cf. Pringsheim (r9o) 16-19; H. Seyrig, BCH 5r (rgz), zo1-zo5;1. D. Beazley, Num. Chron, VI r (r94r), r-7; K. Kourouniotes, Ephem. g17, 242-43.For corresponding obiects in other cults cf. a woman with a bundle of branches raised in the air before Priapos, "Cameo Morgan," EAAVI 389; the bereSma of the Magi, reproduced, e.g., in Cumont (r93o) pl. V 5, Strabo 15
P. 733. '8See I.3.n.3above; Burkert(ry2il +1. t'Aristoph.
Vesp. g63 and Schol. :.36r: rois ydp p|\\ouras p.ueioSat rpo\aBovres 6e' iirrovrat, and cf. J. S. Rusten, HSCP8T $97), 157-6r; Strabo gp.4oo on the Kephisos: ig' of xc,i i1 yiqupa xai oi "yegupurpol; Hsch. yegvpis' ropvrl rts. . . dtr)tor 6i ot' yuvaixa, titr)rri riz6pa ixei xafle(opevov . . .ovyxa\utrtop,evov . . . ox
278
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
I
'"larcy' to"laxy6zt united the crowd of young The rhythmic cry of free, Athenian and foreigner. Priestessesaccomslave and old, and the processioncarrying "the sacred" objectsin the covered panied 'xiorqt on their heads.tt"Iakche" is merely a cry with which the departing crowd would whip itself into ever greaterexcitement.In Clasiical times Iakchos was considereda divine or demonic personage, frequently identified with Dionysus.23In later, times, an Iakchosstatuewas evidently brought along as well.24By the time the procession reachedEleusis,the sun would be going down. Torcheswould flareup. The people enteredthe sanctuary"together with Iakchos."2s We do not know the details of what happened at the spring, at the suggesta gate,aI the grotto of Pluto. "The wanderings" mentioned26 ,lAristoph.
Ran. 316-17; Hdt. 8.65.r d1v pavfiv eiuat rdv p.vrrrwdv taxyov; cf. metaphorically, Himer. Or. 69.7 6trrc pi.u d.xoiet xai reiBerat, ro\iu ilyiloet rdu"Iaxyov. S e eI . 4 . n . z a b o v e . l'?IG I'? 8t.9- rr hos ciu hrepcl,pipoc t hat hte peat dfo]9a\ecrara. For the statues of the Kistophoroi from the inner Propylaea see, for instance, Ker6nyi (196z) pl. zolt. '?]Tfis L'i1p4rpos \aipova Strabo ro p. 468; as son of Persephone, see Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 124; of Demeter or of Dionysus, see Schol. Aristid. p. 648.t5; zr*23 Dindorf; for lakchos : Dionysus, see Soph. Ant. 7779, tt5t; ft.959 Pearson; Eur. Ion rc75-86; Bacch.725; Philodamos 27-36 p.r66 Powell; Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 343, 395, 3gg, 4o4; therefore, probably, Dionysus'increased prominence at Eleusis in the fourth century (on which see Metzger j95rl 248-57; [196512r,53; C. Mylonas, Ephem. ry6o, 68-l.18; G. Daux, BCH 88 11964l,93; A,touiocov IG Il/lll'? 1672.67;dedication 46o4). 2aThereis an'laxyayay6s, IC IIlllI'? togzB 1t, theater seat IG Il/lll'? 5o44,Poll. t.35; roi 'lc!r1ou inoioyil IG Il/lll'? 847.2t, and cL 167z.8. Paus. r.2.4 mentions a statue of Iakchos by Praxiteles. Scholars have identified the figure of the youth with the two torches and hunting boots-typical of Eleusinian pictures-as Iakchos (Pringsheim Irgo5l 67-68,78-89;Metzger [r95r] 757-58; idem [1965] 5z; Mylonas [196rl zrr; etc.). But the inscription on the fragmentary stamnos by the Meidias Painter, Boston o3.84: = ARV2 1J15.2, was read i.e., the mythical hierophant; contra, [EYMOA]IIOI, H. Metzger, REG 9r (1978),5r2. Yet confirmation came from a votive relief with a hierophant in the same costume: AIA 64 j96o), 268, pl. 73; Grat jg74\ 6o-66; Clinton (1974) 3z-35. In cases where two such figures are portrayed, as on the bell-crater, BMF 68: ARV')466.r (Ker6nyi lrg6zlT.z, "Pourtal0s-Vase"), they may represent Eumolpos and tubuleus (combined with Eumolpos in the Orphic version: Clem. Pr. z.zo.z), or rather hierophant and daduchos. Cf. FR II 56; E. Simon, AK 9 Qg66), 8g-9o. tt'Ez'E).euoeyr rQ'lo,xy<1tcruvetc:etr crivew LSS ry. 42. '?6Plut. fr. r78 Sandbach: r)rc:uc.t rd rpina xcli repripop,ai xoz66ers ral 6rci oxorous rryes iirorrroL ropeiat xo,i d,r6)*earoq cf. Plat. Phaedo rola: the path to Hades Eo'xe cyio6ts re xad rpr
279
Y ELEUSIS
lengthy route leading this way and that. Finally the celebrantswould reachthe end of their journey: the "house that receivedthe mystai"In the pressingcrowds, the i.e., the Telesterion-opened its doors.27 torchesmust havebeen extinguished.Darknessenvelopedthe multitude of many thousandsand only a few small flamesprovided a bit of light, in front of which the priests-hierophant, dadouchos,priestess played their parts. The iourney into the underof Demeter world suggestedin some literary sources'8was not realized in any concretesenseat Eleusis.Yet the darknessof the sealedroom may well have evoked a senseof nearnessto Hades. It was what occurredin that room, however,that was truly frightening. Demeter'swrath demanded a victim. The myth tells how Demeter took the son of the Eleusinianking-in the hymn his name is Demophon, in later tradition, Triptolemus"-and held him in the fire. According to the myth, she wanted to purify him for immortality, and religious studieshave gathered much corroborativeevidencefor such beliefs in fire-magic.' However, the boy's mother has an unerring senseof reality: this way lies certaindeath. The goddessrebukes her "lack of understanding" becauseshe shrinks from this path. The notion that the myth correspondsto something in the mystery celebrationfinds support in the fact that a child, usually a young boy, had a specialrole at Eleusis:among all the adult mystai, there was always one child chosen for initiation. He was subsequently called the boy "who was initiated from the hearth."3l Being thus 27Muoro6
z8o
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
chosenwas a greatdistinction, and proud parentsoften set up statues of their children in the sanctuary if they were honored in this way. The "hearth" "from which" the child was initiated was probably the shows that the statehearth of the Prytanesat the marketplace.3'zThis child represents the community, and makes it very probable that he was meant to correspond to the mythical Demophon, whose very name reflectsthe "people." The child must pay closeattentionto what he is told, for he must "appeasethe gods in placeof all those who are being initiated."" A relief (which, unfortunately, is severely damaged) depicts two figures next to Demeter on her throne, holding torches very closeto a child cowering between them.3 Thus, a torch ritual reminiscent of the depiction of Herakles' initiation is here superimposed on the mythical image of Demophon-Triptolemosin the fire. Such is the reality of the child's "initiation in the fire," which was, then, not without danger. What Callimachusand Ovid said that Demeter did to the child Triptolemos was perhaps actually part of the rite: she put him to sleepwith poppy juice.3'Thetranquilizing opiate could thus be used to still the children's fear. At Eleusis, too, the poppy is an emblem of Demeter.s s2Foucart Q9r$ z7g. "Porph. Abst.4.5dvriravravrtovltuoul.t6,uaudrop,ei)i
z8r
ELEUSIS
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
Thus, though sublimated in the myth and symbolized in rifual, the theme of infanticide3'ispresentin the mysteries.This is the theme that forms the core of so many other sacrificialfestivals-the Lykaia, Pelopsat Olympia, the Agrionia rituals, and Procne:the mother s1 the nurse kills the young boy in order to hurt a man, or does so simply in madness.This tale is repreatedtime and again as the explanation and counterpart of the unspeakablesacrifices.At Eleusis,too, 1 second sacrifice appeasesthe wrath provoked by the preliminary maiden-sacrifice. This was of course accomplishedthrough an animal-sacrifice, leaving human beings untouched yet maintaining the seriousnessof the ritual. It is here that the realm of the dppqrov, the unspeakable, begins,but we can make an educatedguessas to what occurred.The ramskin upon which Demeter and the mystai would sit could only have come from a sacrifice.* The candidite fot initiation was thus confrontedfirst of all with a fait accompli.What had happenedwould becomeclear during the Epopteiaat the latest:a ram would be killed, skinned3n-the job of the Kerykes,who followed the exampleof Hermes-and finally burned in the "great fire" in the Telesterion.In another context, but also at Eleusis,the ram is attestedas a sacrificial victim for Kore.'We know from sourcesas early as the Odysseythat the sacrificeof a ram was used to establishcommunicationwith the
world of the dead. The decorationsat the corners of the Telesterion were rams' heads.o'It would not occur to the uninitiated why rams' headswere gazingdown on them rather than lions'; the initiate, however, understood. In connectionwith the Anatolian mysteriesof Demeter,Clement Demeterwas enraged relatesa myth reflecting certainritual details:42 reason that Arcadian Demeraped her-the same for having at Zeus at Poseidon'3-thus supplication ceremonieswere been angry ter had (a familiar in which branches hung with wool were carried for called "a "bile heart torn out," Then would be drunk," to the Greeks). sight "unspeakable would make touching." Evidently a priest by followed and drink a bitter thereafter the drink; sacrifiof supplication gestures cial animal was killed and its heart was torn out. Then came the unspeakableact, which Clement lays bare: "Zeus tore off a ram's testicies. He brought them to Demeter and threw them into the folds of her dress,thus doing falsepenancefor his rape, as if he had castrated himself."* It is clear that the very thing done to the sacrificialanimal in ritual is here raised to the sphere of the gods in the myth. In the process,guilt and expiation are played out on two levelsat once:the aggressiveact is motivated as punishment for a sexualcrime but, becausethe genitals fall into the goddess'slap, it turns into a sacred marriage. Nothing compelsus to make similar assumptionsfor Eleusis,but the mysteriesof Meter and Demeter are related,and there are parallels in detail that go beyond the sacrificeof the ram. On the day of the mysteriesat Eleusis,for instance,the supplicant'sbranch is the symbol that sealshis death.o'Andit was not only the "Naassenian"who
Hellas Q959), fig. t1o-3t. For the Neolithic evidence see G. R. Levy, The Gatesof Horn (1948), ro5-ro6 (a human sacrificial victim lulled to sleep?). rzSee 1.8.n.4 above. In Egypt, the corresponding myth is that'of the burning child Horus-the fire is extinguished by the Nile: see L. Koenen, Chronique d'Egypte 77 (1962), 167-74. On the identification of Isis and Demeter see Plut. ls. 157b-c. rSo also Ker6nyi (l^962)69-7o, (tg6) 6o, and cf. V3.n.16 above. rOn the daduchoi and the Ar.tisx{r6roz see Paus. Att. 6 18 Erbse (cf. IILr.n.38 above). Perhaps Xenokrates fr. 99 Heinze : Plut. De es. carn.996a ('AtrlvaiotrQ {towardu xptov ixlelpaurt6[,xqu Enifl4xoz) refers to a rite (elaborated as an anecdote by Helladios: Phot. Bibl. y4b38); see also II.5.n.45 above on Marsyas. For a bloody sacrifice with castration in initiation see J. von Ins, "Ekstase, Kult und Zeremonialisierung," Diss. Ztirich, ry7g, 47f ., following J. Jahn, Muntu, Llmrisseder neoafrikanischen Kultur (1958\, 74-Br, on the Nilnigos in Latin America. {See the account of the epistates, IG II/III'? 1671.72rois 64g.oolors . . . rpoBip,aia6o' Btvraeisp.irytrwois...Lilptqrprois...Kopr'ltxptos.Therewasalsoasacrificeatthe Eleusinia: see the calendar of Nikomachos, ISS ro.63 Qeppegarrp xptos, and, cf.. ln' schriften uon Erythrai und Klazomenai OSZ), 2o7.47.78. According to the EleusinianOrphic myth, Clem. Pr. z.zo.z, Eubuleus was a swineherd, Eumolpos-ancestor of the hierophants-a shepherd, Triptolemos a neatherd: su/ove/taurilia. There is a statue of Demeter with a pig, a kiste, an altar covered with a fleece and tympanon, and an ox (or cow): M. C. Vermaseren, Corpus Cultus CybelaeAttidisqueYll (1977), nr. 65.
zBz
"'Mylonas (r96r) fig. zr, p. 8o. n 2P r . z.15.r-2. Clement Q5.r -17.r) tells the myth of Demeter and Kore in a continuous narrative, inserting intermittent references to the cults: raira (raira Mond6sert) of OpuTes r e|io xouo tv''A1116r rad KuBiIn xai Ko pi Barr t u t 5. r ; ra oJ p Bo),a rfi s p,utla t,a's rairqs t5.1; 2aBa{iav yoitv pucrqpiav cilt"po},ov t6.z; raitqu d1v puSo}royiau . . . t o p r a ( o v o t u r 7 . r . T h e f i r s t e x p l i c i t r e f e r e n c et o E l e u s i s i s i n z o - z r . A r n o b . 5 . z o - z r f o l lows Clement, but gives additional details,e.g., the metamorphosis of Zeus into a bull. He too mentions mysteria,quibus Phrygia initiatur atque omnis gensIIia. ''Paus. 8.25.5-7, Schol. Lyk. r51 (Demeter Erinys, Thelpusa), and cf. Callim. fr. 652; Paus.8.42.r (Phigalia). * Pr. z . t 5 . z ( A r n o b . 5 . z o ) . P a u s a n i a sc l e a r l y a l l u d e s t o a p a r a l l e l v e r s i o n ( 2 . 1 . $ : r o u 6 i i v rel'erp Mlrpos iri'Eppi1 ),eyop.evov xai rQ xptQ Xoyou irtcraptvos oi Lty,o (Lobeck Ir829] r5r); seealso Hdt. 2.42. On "tearing the heart out," see I.r.n.zz above. n'Andoc. t.rt3-t6;1.5.n.47 above. The murder of the suppliant, which is demanded by the hierophant at the rnysteries, is evidently a sacred form of sacrilege, a type of aqpnros $uaia.
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ELEUSIS
claimed that the hierophant becamea eunuch by drinking hemlock.s On the other hand, a much-disputed Passagein Bishop Asterios mentions a "sacredmarriage": at Eleusisthere were "sacredencounters between the hierophant and the priestess,each alone with the other; are not the torches extinguished and does not the crowd believe that its salvationdepends on what these two do in the dark?"e A much earlier example of sexualinnuendo surrounding the Eleusinian priesthood was Andokides' cutting accusationagainst the dadouchos Kallias that he had seducedhis own stepdaughter,thus becoming in truth "the priest of the mother and the daughter."* The contradictionbetweenthe sexualfantasiesand the idea of becominga eunuch cannot be removed but must, rather,be seenas a polarity. For preciselythis reasona sacredmarriageis not a normal marriage,bu1 something unheard-of and impossible that occurs in the context of the sacrifice. We can make out only the bare outlines of what happened after the unspeakablesacrifice:gruesomenessand sexualoutbursts finally overcome in the establishment of a divine order. We know nothing of how this was accomplishedin practice.The sacredritual acquiresits stability precisely by symbolizing and sublimating that which is all too *Hippol.
Ref. 5.8.4o eiuouytopteuos 6i 6td xaueiou; Serv. Aen. 6.66 qui maxima sacra accipiebant. . . herltis . . . tluibusdamemasculabantur;Hieron. Atlzt. lou. r.49, Migne Patrologia Latina 4.zg5f. HierophantasquoqueAtheniensium usquehodiecicutaesorbitionecastrafi, et postquam in pontificatum fuerint allecti, airos essedesinere; Iul. Or. 5.t7)c-d; Orig. Cels. 7.48 xorveraor9eisra titpoeva pipl; Schol. Pers. 5.r45 Sawdotes Cereris Eleusiniae . . . hoc liquoris genere(sc. cicuta) unguebantur,ut a concubitu se'abstinerent,and cf. Pliny NH 25.95.It follows from Paus. 2.14.1 that the Eleusinian hierophant was not allowed to marry yet there were married hierophants: see Isaios 7.9; Hypereides fr. z3o BaiterSauppe; IG Iylll'1628; Clinton (tgZd ++f Their marriages were evidently consummated before they took office: see Paus. 7.25.13. aTAsterios Hom. to, Migne Patrologia Graeca 4o.324 (new ed. by C. Datema, Leiden, r97o).lt has been argued against his testimony that the "two temples" he mentions were in Alexandria (Ker6nyi lt96z) rog, ['t9671 tr7) and that there was no xaraptTotov at Eleusis (Mylonas j96rl 3r4\; but as to the former obiection, his comments start applying to Eleusis only in the next sentence, and, as to the latter, the Anaktoron, where none could enter, could with some imagination be depicted as a gate to the underworld. ttAndoc. t.rz4 tepeis tiv rfis p7rpds xai rfs Buyarpos; L. Koenen in Studicn zur Text' geschichteund Textkritik (t96o),87. Further evidence for a sacred marriage at Eleusis has been sought in the imitation by Alexander of Abonuteichos (Luk. Atex. 38-1g), and cf ' Harrison Qgzz) 55o, Deubner Qqz)85; disputed by Mylonas (196r) 1t5. Schol. Plat' Gorg. 497cis basJ on Clement: see V3.n.7 iborr". Syt"t Calu. laud.7 (on the ripened blade of wheat) presupposes Demeter's wedding: itri toitots'E).euois tiTet td Li11tt1' rpos &uaxauutrrtlpr". iirt. Ad. nat . (cur rapitur sicerdosCereris, si non tale Cerespassa est) seems to associate what Asterios describes with the myth of Kore's abduction.
284
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
direct. At the Thesmophoria,the women'sfestival,the dark red juice of the pomegranateevidently representsblood.o'At Eleusis,a pecufiar role is played by the bean as the antithesisto the "precepts" of Demeter.Of course,Pausaniastells us only "that the Athenians were unable to attribute the invention of beans to Demeter; he who has seen an initiation at Eleusisor read the so-calledworks of Orpheus will know what I mean."50Some abstrusedetails on the symbolism and fantasiesrelatedto beanshavebeenpreservedin the Pythagorean tradition: beans were associatedwith human flesh and male semen, the female womb and a child's head; eating beans was considered cannibalism.slBut beansbelongedto the world of the dead as well. The bean fantasiesrecall the Orphic tale of Baubo,who exposed genitals to Demeter in such a way that they looked like the faceof her a child-Iakchos.s2We find this illustratedin statuettesfrom Demeter sanctuariesin Asia Minor, on which a female abdomen appearsas a Such, scoffed Gregory face between two upward-pointing torches.s3 of Nazianus,were the gesturesused by Demeter to initiate her mystai.il It must be said that no Baubostatuetteshavebeen found at Eleusis; on the other hand, there is the strange remark that the small shark (7atre
285
ELEUSIS
a specializedsenseof "unspeakabletouching"-thus seemsto have played a part at Eleusisafter all. And a variation of the myth points in this direction as well.* The prerequisitefor Demeter'srlecrg.ol,her "thesis," is an "antithesis"which borderson the Perverse.To be sure, in the context of the pure ritual, a symbolic gesture is enough, for example, exhibiting or eating a bean. The "unspeakable"was acted out in semi-darkness,sometimes in total darkness.But the uncanny atmosphereled to an epiphany. Kore's return from the underworld was a high point in the celebrations. Apollodorus of Athens wrote: "When Kore is called up, the hierophant strikes the bronze gong" sT-in his view this was clearly not yet a part of the secretritual-and the call did not go unheard. Walter F. Otto and Karl Ker€nyi compared the text of a rhetorical exercise from Hadrianic times in which Herakles argued with the hierophant. Herakles no longer needed the Eleusinian mysteries, for he had been supremelyinitiated through his journey to the underworld. "Lock up Eleusisand the sacredfire, dadouchos.I have experienced far truer mysteries. . . . I have seen Kore."u'Walter F. Otto took this for a confirmation of his fundamentalconvictionthat the Greekswere able to experiencetheir gods directly as personalentities. Here is no trace of touching crude sexual symbols: seeing the goddess is the high point of the mysteries.Karl Kerdnyi made this the heart of his interpretation of Eleusis,postulating a genuine vision, a ghost-like sSchol. Aristid. p. 53.15 Dind. (Demeter gives the grain) rpdrou dB6<rpus ouy"yevoptvqKe\eQ. Luk. Lexiph. ro (6g6ori1grze rad rois ci|,trorsdppqrozorois) is meant obscenely. See also Hymn. Orph.4r.6 (Demeter) Eiipou),ov r6{aoa Seov Bvtpils in' dva' 7x4s. Iambe (Hy. Dem. zoz) and Baubo are often associated with the Gephyrismoi (n. 19 above), but if the drinking of the kykeon or the giving of the grain follows immediately thereafter, it cannot be just an incidental preparation that accounts for Demeter's anger being assuaged; 6olqs \vexeu (Hy. Dem. zr r) points to the desacralization after the dppqrou. A harvest custom in Normandy gives us an inkling of what really occurred in the rite (W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. lt884l, 186): at the threshing feast a ram is slaughtered, the tail is cut off and specially roasted, and every young girl in the company is given a piece of it "mit vielem Geliichter." A. Heusler, Zeitschr. f . Volkskunde t1 Qry3), z9-1o; cf .1.7.nn.44-5o above. 57Apollod., FGrHist 244 F rro; cf. Pind. lsthm. 7.3 Dionysus ya),xoxporou *7pe6pov A,aprarcpos;1a),xoirr'aJ6civ a$oviav in the song to Meter, Eur. Hel. 1346;Vell. Pat. r.4.r nocturno aerissono,qunlis Cerealibussacriscieri solet;Schol. Aristoph. Ach. 7o8. For Kore's coming in the visual arts see Y.1.nt7; cf. the lekythos from Sofia, Metzger i96)pl' z3.rlz, where Kore appears on Demeter's lap, between Hermes and Eumolpos. *Pap. d. R. Ilniu. Milano (ry), #zo pp. t76-77 dnox\etloov rilu'Ef)'eurreiva xo.i rd
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
apparition on the night of the mysteries.However,in order to explain a vision repeatedannually by the mystai, he was forced to consider whether the seasoningin the kykeon miSht be a hallucinogense-a dubious borrowing from chemistry. Lobeck, on the other hand, Pointed out long ago that Christian songsand sermons sPeakof the unmiti8ated Presenceof the god in the massas if it were a foregoneconclusion.6Yet on the surfacethere is nothing there but the priest and his ministers, bells and candles, water,bread and wine. So too at Eleusiswe need expectno more than the presenceof the hierophant and dadouchos,who were seen "together"6rat the gong and the fire, performing with the kiste and the wheat, the implementsand containers.An individual'swillingness to undergo an experiencevaries,yet it can be heightenedby such means as fasting and keeping vigil through the night. The collectiveritual which, in the history and tradition of man, has become associated with the soul is able to pull that soul into its rhythm so that many actuallyexperiencewhat is expectedof them, and the remainder feel ashamedin their isolation. Realistshave suggestedthat a divine image, perhaps an esPecially old, primitive, and hencesacredone, would be displayed.SimiYet in the year 4758.c., lar things did indeed occur in the mysteries.62 without cause/as entirely were accused-not clubs when aristocratic it seems-of having "performed the mysteries"in secretmeetings, it occurred to no one to ask about a statuetteas a corPus delicti." In playing the part of the hierophant, there was no need of special instruments. We cannot guesswhat appeared-perhaps only for an instantin the flickering firelight. Orpheus, who was himself a hierophant, ieKer6nyi (t962) too, (196) 96. On 7trr11
ffipftd iepdv],6g6o01e, . . . ltuorilpn [z'ol},rir ri]Iar]i
"'Lobeck (t829) tr9. 6'sopatros Rhet.Gr. Ylll tr4.z4 irei oitv etou rbv dvaxtopav yey|w1p-at xai picrqs av [epogavtrlv d.pa xai 696o01oz te36apat. n2 Lobeck (tlzg) S7; there is evidence for mysteries in which the images of the gods were stripped naked, in the metaphorical language of Themistios, who praises his father as follows: ci . . . iyit lwove ta dya\pata (Or. zo.45a). Mylonas Q96r) 271-7 4: "small relics frorn the Mycenaean age." 63SeeKer6nyi (196)rrr. Themalorityof sourcesontheMysteryscandalof 4r5refer not to an "imitation" but to a "performance" of the mysteries. ta sluorfipw rotoivra A n d o c . r . r r , a n d c f . r z , t 6 , 1 7 ; r d l t v o r n p t a . . r i s n o t e i r o . ti 9 ' { B p e t T h u c . 6 . 2 8 . 1 ; drroptltoip.evov ra pucrfipta xai ietxvioura in the eisangelia of Thessalos. Plul. Alc. zz.4; Lys. Or. 6.5r (concerning Andocides): oitos yap ir6Js otohlu, trtttrtoiy'evosra tepa ireieixvu rois dp,vqrots; the imitation here probably refers to a gesture.
286
2.87
ELEUSIS
I I I I I
was only able to see Eurydice, the "far-rvle{' from the underwq114, for an instant beforeshe vanished.* Perhapsit was itself only a sitn, a gesture. A seriesof sourcesmentions secret"figures," ayfip.ara, of the mysteries-gestures or dance steps,Mysteriescan be revealedqs clearly in deeds as in words; one can "dance" them.usThere are vasepaintings on which the mythical hierophant Eumolpos appearsto bs dancing.* As indicated in the rhetorical exerciseof Sopatros,the El_ eusinian mysteriesconsistedof "figures" and "calls."o'Much earlier, the Stoic Cleanthescompared the cosmosto a chamber of the rnys_ teriesin which the sun gives off light as the dadouchos,but the gods are "mystical figures and sacredcalls."* The author of the Epinomis expectedphilosophicalpiety to insure a proper attitude toward sacrifices and purificationr "1o! by making subtle use of figures, but by truly honoring virtue."u'Like Cleanthes,he wrote at Athens. Besides the "figures," there were the "sacred calls." Only the "Naassenian"relateshow the hierophant "at Eleusis,when periorming the great, unspeakablemysteriesamid great fire, calls out at the *There are numerous allusions to gdopara which were seen in the mysteries, cf. plat. plut. fr. r7g sandbach Phdr. z5oc eiiaip,ova gaopara pvoiltevoi re xai irorreiovres; aep.v6nlras dxouap.arav iep6v xai ,paop.tTrav dytou; Aristid. Or. zz.1 Keil (I 416 Dind.) iy toig dppv1a66 gaopaow; Procl. Resp. II 185.4 Kroll gaopara . . . "ya\ivns peora, and cf . r 3g.t-t7. For gaopara xo.i 'eipara in the mysteries of Dionysus see orig. Cels. 4. ro. For a priestess as the spirit 'T-p.rouoa in the mysteries of sabazios, rizd cxorepfiv r6trav avetpa[uero rois 1.tuovpeuo6, see Idomeneus , FGrHist yg F. z. u5SopatrosRhet.Cr.VIIrr-5.rr pi1 Xoyoveitriu,pilcyilp.artD4ldoaerilvre)rerilv,and cf.r15.3o.Td.pucr.fiptai(opyet
see n. 24 above; portrayed dancing, see, for instance, the bell-crater BM F 68 : ARV'1 446.r, Ker€nyi (1962) pl. z; a hydria from Istanbul, Metzger (ry5t\ pl. 32, Ker6nyi (t962) pl. 17. 67Rhet.Cr. YIll 14.26 du 6q6ovyiav Bed
288
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
rcp of his voice:the mistresshas given birth to a sa.red boy, Brimo to Brimos. That is," he adds, "the strong to the strong."70The name Brimois used for Demeter, for Hekate, and for an independent goddess.'rIt is otherwiseunattestedat Eleusis,and it is even harder to say who the boy may have been to whom the mistress gave birth. Evenamong initiatesthere seemto have beenvarious interpretations. We hear the name lakchos-Dionysus,son of Persephone,T2 or Plutos, Or were the "two goddesses"-who in pictorial repson of Demeter.T3 resentationswere intentionally made to resembleeach other, almost to the extent that they cannot be told apart-in fact identical?'nThe differencein their names proves nothing: mythological systematizations are secondary.'A child is born." Side by side with the peril of death and blood we find the miracle of new life in birth. This is ?0Hippol. Ref. 5.8.4o wxrds e.v'Ehevoiut Jz
289
ELEUSIS
SACRIFICE IN THE TELESTERION
the sacrificialritual'snecessarysupplement,which makesthe cycleof life a possibility.In just this way at Mount Lykaion, in Olympia, en Mount Parnassus,the birth of the child standsside by side with sacri_ ficial killing, the woman's achievementnext to the man's. Already in the domestic shrines of Qatal Htiytik it was customary to depict the Great Goddess as giving birth. For the most part, she appears as mother of the animals,but a statuettefound in a grain bin represents her sitting on a throne between leopards, giving birth to a human child.'uIs this already the grain-mother?The Mexicansportrayed the Great Goddessgiving birth to the corn-godin a frontal posture much like that of the statuesat Qatal Htiytik.,6 Whether this reflectsan historical connection or mere coincidence,the image, the appurtenant thought, experience,and ritual action all serve the same necessary function in the balanceof human life. "Plutos," wealth in the form of grain, is the primary yield of the agricultural year,the sourceof people'sfood. Following in the footstepsof the more ancienthunting festivals, this processis dramatizedin the sacrifice. The blade of cut wheat was made visible at Eleusis,displayedby the hierophant amid general silence.zThe "Naassenian's"explanation that the blade correspondedto Attis, who was calledby his mystai the "sprouting, cut blade of wheat," has rarely been taken seriously, has at most been used to call the report's authenticity into question. But-unbeknownst to the Gnostic-already Dumuzi, the victim of Inanna who rosefrom the underworld, was representedas a blade of wheat.'8And when Hesiod tells the well-known myth of Uranos' castration, he uses the word "he mowed.". Kronos wields a sickle,just like Meter-Demeter.'e Historically seen,the seeminglyfar-
fetched fantasy, equating the cutting of the blade with castration, is rnerely a transposition of hunting behavior onto agriculture-which also explains why an animal sacrifice is still included in the harvest festival. Of course, this was long past by the time the hierophant displayed the blade, which attested to a liberating transformation: for what had appeared in the darkness as the castration of a ram is disclosed in the gleaming fire as the cutting of the grain. The uncanny/ provocative source of reproduction is transformed into the fruit of the earth, which itself holds the power of perPetuating life. A regular feature of the Mithras reliefs is the bull dying in the sacrifice, its tail turning into a blade of wheat.m Even "domesticated" food must reach man by way of the unspeakable sacrifice. And to be eaten, a blade must once more go through fire.81 The virgin's return, the birth of the child, and the blade are, in three gradations, symbols of the restoration and renewal of life. It grew light in the middle of the night when "the Anaktoron was opened" and the hierophant came from the door,8'?with the "great fire" blazing inside. Of course, the sequence of events is uncertain, and we are surely missing many details. Perhaps the kykeon was only drunk now and now the mystai would touch the kalathos and the kiste. But as soon as the objects were returned to the kiste, a seal of secrecy fell once again on that which had happened. The collective experience that life and nourishment result from terror, the encounter
TsMellaart
Q96) 44, pl. 67-68 and pl. IX; cf. I.8.n.26 above. %K. Th. Preuss. Bilderatlas zur Religionsgeschichte fi (r93o), XII, fig. 64. ln the Egyptian Book of the Dead 78.1o it says "ich wurde in die heiligen verborgenen Dinge . . . eingefiihrt, als man mich die Geburt des Gottes, des Grossen sehen liess,,: see J. Bergmann, Iclr bin lsis (Uppsala, ry68), 2Jo n.2. zHippol. Rel. 5.8.39'A}qvaZot" ltuoivreg'E\evoiuta xoi ilrr,Detxviureg rois inozrreiouot to p.Eya xai Baupatrrdv xai re)rerotarov Etrotrrwdv ixei pucrfipr,ov, iv otarfl reBepurltivou crdyuv. Mylonas Q96r) 275 assumes that the Phrygian and Eleusinian cults have been confuseC; he notes that blades of cut wheat are often depicted. Nobody would deny this. The secret is hidden in what is familiar. For Attis and ihe blade of tut w h e a t s e e J u l . O r . 5 . r 6 8 d . ( e i r . p p r y o v B t p o sF) i;r m . E r r . 1 . z , a n d c f . z . 7 ; P o r p h . p . r o * Bidez = Euseb. Praep. Ea. 3.rr.rz. 788.D. van Buren, Symbolsof the Godsin MesopotamianArt Q94), 4; Anal. Or. e (r93), )27-j5; cf. V.3.n.3oabove. DTh. r9r. Cf . Apoll. Rhod. 4.986-9o: Corcyra was called Drepaneafter the sickle of Demeter, who taught the Titans how to reap-or after the castration of Uranos. For the
290
island named after the castration of Kronos by Zeus see Timaios, FCrHist 566 F 79. For lamentation for Osiris while reaping in Egypt see Diod. r.14 (Foucart ltgt'4| 44t,44). 'lorv Mesomedes Eis rilv indicates the stages of the mysteries of Isis-Demeter: an underground wedding (lBriuros itp.{varcs, rr) and the birth of a child (uqnnyou yovtl. r4), rip r6)reov dppqrov (r5), ii rt Kp6vrcs citlttlros (r7), navra 6t' duaxropav "lot6t yopeierat (r9l zo). The cutting of the wheat is given a poetic/universalizing guise in the w o r d s o f c o m f o r t f o r t h e c h i l d ' s d e a t h i n E u r i p i d e s ' H y p s i p y l e ,f r . 7 S 7 . S - Z T G F : f t . 6o.Sl-gS Bond: dzoTxal
291
INITIATION
ELEUSIS
together and adds a with death and destruction, binds the new dimension to their lives. The nighttime festival was brought to a close outside the Telesterion, perhaps even outside the sanctuary.The narrow confines were too small to hold in such an experience.The waving of torches and the exultant dancing of the mystai, so impressively evoked in Aristophanes' choral song, occurred on the "meadow."" The crowd perhaps flocked to the field called Rharion, where the first grain was sown and harvested.In Hermesianax,Eumolpos'mother, the mythic model for the priestessof Demeter,"performs the powerful cry of joy of the mystai, panting through Rharion, site of the orgies, according to the custom."* The dancewas possiblystill set off by the gesturesof the hierophant, but one had to be careful at this point not to "dance out" the mysteries themselves.The waning moon would by now have risen and could illuminate this festival until dawn, as a celestial torch. Large sacrificeswith ample meals of meat would still take place-the normal form of cult was reestablishedwith the return to normal life. The ephebicinscriptions mention bull-sacrificesin Eleusis "at the mysteries""-this was no longer secretand must have occurred after the initiation was over: one could not be a proper "spectator" on a full stomach.The ephebeswould show off their youthful strength by "lifting up" the bull for sacrifice,a custom that virtually developedinto an agon, a bullfight.* The role of the younger generation within the framework of the ancientcustom was likewise part of the festival's conclusion. Those who had won special honors were given the sameportion as the Eumolpidai when it cdme to distributing the meat.87 In worldly pleasures,it is hard to be contentwith only
= S c h o l . A r i s t o p h . R a n . 1 4 4 ;A r i s t o p h . R a n . 3 4 o - 5 1 , "Soph. fr. 89r P J72-76,Eur. lon ro74-86 xai Ltds dcrepatros dveyopeuctv o.i:Bilp . . rotrot xaBapoi xai )ret1t"6vesi66(avro Plut. fr. r78.tt Sandbach; Lact. lnst . epit. 4.7, n. 6 above. eHermesianax fr. 7.r7 Powell on Antiope, mother of Eumolpos, ij re toliu lt"icrptrw 'Etreuaivos rapa r6(au eiacsrov xpugiav i(egopet ttoyiuu'Paptov ipyei'tua uopq 6r/ronrutouoa (\tarourvorcuaa A,iLatrop.treiouvu Powell) Lnpnrpq. . . . 8 s H e s p e r i a 2 4 O g 5 5 ) , 2 2 o - ) 9 :S E G r 5 ( 1 9 5 8 ) , .rois #to4Qz7lz6v.c.)tt-rzliipavro. 'E].eu' 'E],euoivt; cf . IG II/III'? roo6.ro Bv B]o0s 6r'iaur[ti v]rcie Mvc.nlpioc
AND SACRIFICE
the gift of Demeter.And thus the sacrificialcycle ended with the familiar group of three: Su/ove/taurilia. A solemn libation is the last ritual, performed by daylight. Two speciallyshapedjugs, plemochoai,are filled and poured out, the one toward the east, the other toward the wests-a gesture embracing the whole world. Demeter'sgift is indeed spread acrossthe whole world, as told in the myth of Triptolemos.Perhapsin the process,the people called out "Rain!" to the heavens, and "Conceive!" to the earth, ije-rue." Thosethings that had been experiencedin their essenceduring the night of the mysteriescontinued to affect the cycle of life. Even grain comesfrom the dead.'Without this supplement, life would be incomplete:the initiation is a consummation,a zi).os.
Deathand 5. Ouercoming Encountering Death: Initiqtionand Sacrifice Now as before, the secret of Eleusis leaves room for many conjectures and hypotheses in its details, but we can survey its basic dimensions. Even if we could make a film that exhaustively documented the celebration in the Telesterion, we would still be no closer to explaining the "thrice blessed," the basis of the initiate's hopes for the other world.lThe way in which men mold themselves into a community by means of tradition is a basic phenomenon, easier to reproduce than to illuminate rationally. *Ath.
496a; Deubner i91z) 9r; Ker€nyi (1962) t15, (1967) t4r. "'Kerdnyi(tg6z)t35,g96)t4t;Hippol. Rf.S.Zl+ropreyaxaidppqrov'E),euotviav ltuorilptov. rie rue.Procl. lnTim.lll rT6.zSDiehliyrois'Etreusviotstepoiseisp.ivrdv oipav6v d.vaB\irovres ipoav "$e" , xarap\|gavres 6i eds rilv yilv rd " xue" (the same Sestures occur in the Roman devotion: see Macr. Sat. r.9.rz); in the time of Proclus, the mysteries were already part of the past. Cf. the inscription from a well at the Dipylon gate, IC llllll'z 4876'O II&y. 6 Mfir yai.pere Niugat xcAod. rie xie itrepyue, not, however, "open to the public view" (Mylonas [196r] z7o), but on the inside, "invisible" (BCH zo I18961,8o). {Hippokr. De oictu 4.92. lSee V . r . n n . 3 z - 3 3 a b o v e ; s e e a l s o E p i c t e t u s1 . 2 r . 4 - . 1 6 .
29J
ELEUSIS
We tend to assumethat there must have been a specificEleusinian message,a secretbut distinct declarationof death overcome.But no matter how surprising it may seemto one Platonicallyinfluenced, there is no mention of immortality at Eleusis,nor of a soul and the transmigrationof souls,nor yet of deification.Roman emperorsidentified themselveswith Triptolemos,Gallienuseven with Demeterherself;'yet during the Creek period at Eleusisthe distinction between the immortal gods and mortal man was apparentlymaintained.Eleusis had already been shapedbefore Pythagoras3and Plato. All attemptsto reconstructa genuine Eleusinianbelief havebeen thwarted by the diversity of ancientinterpretations,reflectinga genuine ambiguity in the eventsthat took placeat Eleusis.One could cite Varro for the belief that Eleusinianmysterieswere concerned"only" with the invention of grain;none could understand the myth of Demeter'sarrival in the manner of Euhemerus,saying that it contains the recollectionof the transition from culturelessness to culture in the festival.sThose philosophically educatedcould offer a spiritualizing explanation, arguing that the vital force, the pneuma, in the grain, was the actual divinity revealedat Eleusis.6The Platonistswent further, setting nature aside to seek the drama of spirit and matter, its rise and fall, within the mystery celebration;thus too the "Naassenian" in Hippolytus.'The explanationsgiven to the mystai through oral instruction probably underwent greater changesin the course of time than did Christian theology or religious instruction in the church. There was no dogma at Eleusis. '?Ch.Picard,"La patEred'Aquileia et l'dleusinismeA Romeaux d6butsde l'6poqueimpdrrale,"ACI zo (t95r), 35r-8t; cf. the cameo,Paris,Cab. Med. 276,Cook I (r9r4) zz8; an onyx vessel,Braunschweig,A. Furtwiingler,AntikeCemmen lll (r9oo),318-y;GAL' LIENA AUGUSTA,A. Alfoldi, Zeitschr. f . Numism.18 (1928),774-94. 3TheDoxographerstracethe teachingsabout immortalityback to Thales(VS tr A r.24, A zza)or Pherekydes(VS 7 A 5); on the transmigrationof souls and Pythagoreanism seeW. Burkert, Loreand Science (tg7z), rzo-16. in AncientPythagoreanism aAug. Cio. Dei 7.zo: multa in mysteriiseius(sc. Cereris\tradi, quaenisiadfrugum inaentionemnonpertineant. Seealsothe interpretationof Proserpina-Moon,Varro L. l. 5.68= Ennius, Epicharmus59 Vahlen'?, and cf. Plut. Defac.942d, etc. sVarrointerprets the secretconcerningthe gods of the mysteries,ut homines eosfuisse taceretur,Aug. Cia. Dei fi.5, and ct. 4.3r; Cic. Trsc.r.z9; EpictetusJ.2t.75;Serv-Aen. 4.58. 6KleanthesSVF | #547 = Plut. Is. 377d, and cf. 167c. ?Hippol. Ref. 5.8.4r-44, and cf. Sall.4.7-g on the myth of Attis; Plat. Symp.2o9e-2r2a is in the background.Plutarch,Delsideet Osiride,and Iamblichus,De mysteriis,genet' ally argue for the Platonic/transcendental interpretationof the mysteries,and against the nature interpretation.Cf. also Numeniosat Vr.n.zz above.
294
INITIATION
AND SACRIFICE
Indeed, even the pre-philosophic formation of Greek religion, the anthropomorphic, "Homeric" mythology, seems to provide only a superficial account of the point of the mysteries at Eleusis. There were indeed gods at work here, but what they were called and in what relationship they stood to one another remained undetermined and ambiguous. Eubuleus, Daeira, Iakchos'-there may well have been secret myths, but the essential element apparently lay beyond myth, or, rather, did not reach the level of spoken language, nor that of philosoPhical thought. The place, tradition, priestly families, and ritual as the characteristic communication and formative experience remained constant. Everything revolved around the encounter with death, which was celebrated in the sacrifice. Even for the mystai, death was a fact and could not be shrugged off. The hope of the initiate was that in that self-same death he would be "blessed"; he had learnt that, as a funerary epigram from the Imperial epoch puts it, both simply and memorably, "for mortals, death is no evil, it is, rather, the good."'g Surprisingly, the dreadful gods of the underworld put on a friendly face. The mysteries effected a reconciliation with death; hence that "blessed" with which the mystai mutually reinforced their faith. The festival bond is archaic, as is the concept of an elite group that sees the "bliss" of the initiate only in contrast to the uninitiate, who "will lie in the mire."'o Ironically objective, Herodotus gives a similar description of the belief in immortality among the Getai, who were convinced by Zalmoxis "that he and his drinking companions and their descendants would not die": " membership in the tribe and participation in festive eating and drinking guaranteed one's hopes for the next world. Examples can be adduced from primitive societies showing how initiation, puberty rites or induction into a secret society determine one's status both in the here-and-now and after death.l2 After all, cohesive archaic societies naturally conceive of
"SeeV4.n.z3-24 above; on Daeira see Nilsson, OpusculaII (r95r), 545-4T Kerenyi (t962) r7t, 368,(r96fl 2.r3,t6o. SeealsoKer6nyi (tg6z) r36-5t, (t96) 144-69. 'iG II/III'?366r.5-6oi p,ovoveivatrdy Bauarov Bvnroisoi xax6v.d),X'dyaB6v. '0Plat. Plrd. 6gc;Resp.g63c-d;Dog. Laert. 6.39;Plut. Ir. ry8.ry Sandbach;cf. Vr.n.3z above. " Hdt. 4.95. 'tSo especiallyin the initiations and "Totenfahrt" in Malekula (Melanesia):cf. f. Layard, StoneMen of Malekula(t942);"Totenfahrtauf Malekula," Eranos lb. 4 j%il 242-gt. This is not the placeto describein detail the developmentof initiation, kingship, and funerary ritual.
295
7 ELEUSIS
themselvesas living among their own dead, who play a determinant role in their lives. In order to reach a new plane of existencein the initiation ritual, one must normally undergo "sufferings,"13 an en_ counter with death, through which death is overcome:in sacrifice,i1 the act of killing, the will to live rises triumphant over the fallen vic_ tim.'n After this, a real death seemsno more than a repetition, antici_ pated long ago. The ritual shifts anxiety in such a way that the resul_ tant formative forces work toward the continuance of our societal forms in the present. Interpretationson these lines that proceed from initiation ritual havedeeperfoundationsthan thosebasedonly on agriculturalmagic. Neolithic agriculturewas, after all, shapedby older traditions.For the cultivated, city-dwelling Greeksor Romans,the path to Eleusiswas a regressionto the goddessof grain, to the growing forcesof the plant world, At its core, this regressionwent backyet further, beyond agriculture to the hunting and sacrificingritual. If we use the word primitiae in this regard, it is not in the sense of "imperfect," "silly,', or "defective,"but, rather, "basic." It connotessimple, self-evidentsuppositions:that an individual cannot live in isolation, that he is dependent on the societalgrouping from which he came;that the death of the individual is an integral part of communal life, for which reason the encounterwith death is unavoidable.This, in turn, can elicit both the triumphant ecstasyof survival and the willingnessto die. The fact that, in the courseof life, one can take the other'splace,feedingitself, begetting and dying, is unalterable-indeed, to the Greeks it is "divine"'" one can only hope that the gods will be.merciful in the Process. The amazing variety of rituals and cult sites, myths and names which we have examinedmay seemconfusing,but the samedynamic structures recur with almost monotonous regularity. Sacrificeas an encounterwith death, an act of killing that simultaneouslyguarantees the perpetuation of life and food, grew up out of the existenceof the Palaeolithichunter and remained the formative core of the sacredritual. It was, moreover,a point of referenceand a moving forcebehind stories of myth. This core finds expressionin the cannibalisticfan-
INITIATION
AND SACRIFICE
tasies,or even practices,of werewolf societies,in "murdering" the bull at the end of the year and alsoin the sacredyet uncanny drinking of the wine and in the sacrificesthat accompany the night of the mysteries.This core likewise determinesthe prelude and the conclusion, the hesitantbeginning and the painstakingending, preliminary renunciation and joyous, victorious gratification. Included in the prelude and renunciation is the maiden's tragedy-Kallisto and Io, i'hilomela and Ino, but above all Kore-Persephone.The closing confirmation occursin the processionof armed ephebes,and in the agon from the Lykaia and the Olympics, through the Panathenaiato the Chytroi and the Eleusinian"bullfight." This, in turn, is linked to eating the food now happily secured,whether it be manifestedin hecatombsof cattle, in a haul of fish, or in the gift of Demeter.The differentiationsare old and significant,and yet all encompassedby the overarchingspan of the ritual, which is neither self-evidentnor banal, but frightening and yet incomparablypowerful. The modern world, whose pride is in the full emancipationof the individual, has gradually allowed the ritual tradition to break down. At the same time, it has relegateddeath to the fringes of existence and thought. As the idealistictradition deteriorates,however, secret societies,ecstaticbehavior, love of violence and death spring up all the more wildly and destructively amid seemingly rational orders' Ritual cannot be produced artificially,much less its transcendentorientation, which is no longer shrouded in superstition and secrets. The ideal of a new, non-violent man is a protest of hope against the tradition of violenceand anxiety.But it is hard to foreseehow the individual, egocentricintelligencecan be subordinatedto the collective need in order to make possiblethe continuanceof mankind over the breachbetween the generations.In the end, societalforms in which man'sarchaicpsychewill be granted its rights will presumablyassert themselves.We can only hope that primitivism and violencewill not be releasedunbridled. In any case,our knowledge of the traditions that proved themselvesin the past and thus survived in the various experimentsof human development should not be lost as we Proceed,by trial and error, toward an uncertain future.
"Cf. L5.nn.44-45above. '"Such is the teachingof the ancient Acherunticilibri of the Etruscans:certorumanimalium sanguinenuminibuscertisdato dioinasanimasfieri . . . et ab legibusmortnlitatiseducr (Arnob.z.6z). r5Nilsson Q95) 675-76 rightly citesPlat. Symp.zo7d,zo8b.
296
297
Abbreviationsand Bibliography
AA ABV ACI AIA AK AM ANEP ANET AOB AOT ARV' ARW ASAA tsCH bi. tsICS BMC BSA CAF CAG CIG CIL CIPh :9 Ll\ CRAI CV EAA fD FCrHist
Archiiologischer Anzeiger Vase-Painters. Oxford, 1956. J. D. Beazley,Attic Black-Figure L'Antiquiti Classique Americanlournal of Archaeology AntikeKunst Athenische Mitteilungen TheAncientNear Eastin PicturesRelatingto theOId Testament, ed. J. B. Pritchard. Princeton,1954.Supplement1968. AncientNearEasternTextsRelatingto theOId Testament, ed. f . B. Pritchard.Princeton, 1955'.Supplement(pp. 5or-7to), 1968. Altorientalische Bilderzum Alten Testament, ed. H. Gressmann. Berlin, r927':. Altorientalische Textezum Alten Testamenf, ed. H. Gressmann.Berlin, t9z6'. Oxf.ord, 1963'. J. D. Beazley,Attic Red-FigureVase-Painters. Archiofitr Religionswissenschat't AnnuariodellaScuolaarcheologica di Atene Bulletinde Correspondance Hellinique black figured Bulletinot'thelnstituteof Classical Studiesof theUniaersityol London British Museum, Catalogueof Greek Coins at Athens Annualof theBritishSchoot AtticorumFragmenta, Comicorum ed. Th. Kock. Leipzig, r88or888. Commentaria in AristotelemGraeca CorpusInscriptionumGraecarum CorpuslnscriptionumLatinarum ClassicalPhilology Cl.assi.cal. Qua.rte\iy LlasstcalKeurcw ComptesRendusde l'Acad(miedeslnstiptions et Belles-lettres CorousVasorum Eniiclovediadell'Arte Antica Classica e C)rientale Fouilteide Delphes F. facoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.Berlin-Leiden, r9z3-t958.
ABBREVIATIONS
FR GB GDI HN' HRR HSCP HThR
rc Idt
IHq
/NES IRAS LGS LS LSAM
rss
MH MSS NGC N/b OF
oct PR PSI RA RAC RE REG rf. RFlC RGG' RhM RHR RML RPh SEG
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307
Index of Cult Sites and Festivals
Abydos, Aphrodite Porne, t6o, z6z Aegina, Zeus Hellanios, r14; Poseidon, Monophdgoi, 7o5, 220.2) Agra, Lesser Mysteries, 265; and Dionysus, 33.14; Temple of Meter, 2t5.9, z67.rz Agrionia, name and dissemination, t73; the ritual at Orchomenos, 775, at Chaironeia, r76 Ainos, Hermes, uo3 Alalakh, sacrificial lists, ro.43 Alexandria, Demeter, z7o, 284.47 Andania, Mysteries, 255 Anthesteria, 2ry-4J: name, zr3f ., 227.5; testimonia, 27J.t; at Massalia,zr3.r, zz8; at Syracuse, 2r).7; and Dionysia a t S m y r n a , 2 o o ,z t ) . 7 Antissa (Lesbos), Bakcheion, zoz.3o, 2o2.J4 Apaturia, 36.4; seealso Index of Persons and Things, s.v. Phratries Aphaka, Aphrodite, zo6.rr Apollonia (Chalkidike), Olynthos, zo9 Arcadia, Lykaia, 84-93; Demeter and Poseidon, 283 Argos, Calendar, t62.4; Heraia, ftz-68; Arneides, ro7f.; Daulis, r8z.r3; Herosantheia, 214.4; altar of Helios, ro7; grave of Thyestes, ro7; Aphrodite epitragia, 7t.56 Arrhephoria, 75o- 54; date, r5o.6r; name/ 151 Askalon, Atargatis, zo4f. Athens, Calendar, r36.r; Anthesteria, 2t)- 4); Diasia, zzr.z8, z4z.16; Di-
omeia, r38.rr; Dionysia, 16, zor.z6; Dipolieia and Buphonia, 46-41; Lenaia, zz9.r8, z31.ro, z35.zt; Munichia, zr 35, 63.2o; Panathenaia, 16, 154-58; Plynteria, r53; Skira, 143- 49; Aphrodite Hetaera, t6o.rt7, in the gardens, ryo, ePi HiPPolYtoi, 6r.rz; Athena Polias, 66.37, t44, 749, 7113,ry5f ., fi6; ErechtheusPoseidon, r44, r48; seea/so Eleusis; Marathon; Phaleron; Piraeus Aulis, Artemis, 65.29
Babylon, New Year's Festival, 98.26, r 42.27, 279.a3; Fish-Sacrifice, zo7t. Bacchanalia, 6r. r4 Bambyke, Dea Syria, 2r.35, :,r5, zo5f' Boedromia, r48.-51 Boeotia, Aphrodisia, 6o' t6of .; Lysioi teletai, t6rl(f .).rr8 Brasiai, Semele, zo4.4o Brauron, Artemis, 63 zo Buphonia, t36-41 ct' 18.15, t57, 164' r65f.; and Skira, 146; and the birth of Athena, r56f.
Carneia, 58.to5, zz8.t'4 Chaironeia, Agrionia, t'73.21, 176; Leu' kothea, zzz.34 Cheiron's cave, Pelion, rrz Chios, Dionysia, r85; Dionysos Aktaios,
)o9
t4(f .).23
Y INDEX
Choes,zr7-zg, miardhemira,zr8, drinking contest,ro5, zt8, sacrifice,219 Chytroi, zt8.n, zt9.l^4,4o1., zJ7-43, agon, z4of. Corcyra, sacrifice,3T Corinth, Dionysus, r99f.; Demeter, 257.4;Hera Akraia, ry', $5.3o Cos, Zeus Polieus,J.T, 43.)8, 7j8.7o, 140(f.).20
Cyrene, purification rilual, 251.z4
Daulis, Athena, r8z; myth of Tereus,r8r Delos, Keraton,6.26,sacrificialanimals, tt.46, t6.2L,16.4;Opis and Hekaerge.63.2o;Dionysia,7of., 1g); Leukothion, 7r.54, r78f.;Delian diver, zrr; and Lemnos, r9z Delphi, Temple of Apollo, tLg, 722; pediment, P4; hestia,ng, rzz; tripod, n3; tomb of Dionysus, rz3; omphalos, 122;precinct of Neoptolemos, rzo; gymnasion, 12o;sacrificial ritual, rr8f., herds, r6.ur; oracle,rr7, rz5f.; agons, rz8, t1o; Septerion,r27-)o; Herois, Charila, 4o.78; Hosioi,40.25,121.,rz4f.; Thyiades, n4f .; Cleobis and Biton, 163 Diasia, zzr.z8, z4z.16 Ddyma, Branchus,119;sacrificiallists, rr.t6 Dionysia,Athens, 36, zor.z6;Chios, r85; Delos, 7of., r93; Naupaktos, 2o).J7; Priene,zor.z6;Smyrna,zoo.z4, zor.z6;Tarentum, zrn(f.).24 Dipolieia, 136-43
Elaius, Protesilaos,244;"Penates," 246 Elea,Leukothea,ry9.46 Eleusis,Mysteries,promise, 255, 291,, 295; the "two gifts," z54f.; mystai and ep6ptai,266,275;Eumolpidai, Hierophant, 254,266,his costume,279.24, his throne, 249, 276.8,secrecyconcerning his name, 253,asexuality, 284, song,288f.,dance, 288,292, meal in the Prytaneum, 47.48; Kerykes, 4g(f .).r7, t46f., t 66, z5o.g, z8z, Daduchos,2.54,266,279.24,
z8o.z8,Hierokeryx, 2J).7o,266;pais aph'hestias,254,257.3,z8of.;Telesterion, 249,226,z8o, Anaktoron, 276, 29L;the spring, 279;Rharion, - 59, 292; mliesis,pig-sacrifice,2;56 266f., price,257.t, thrinosis,266-69; festivalprogram/ z4g(f.).7;spondai, 265.2;procession,r48, z4g(..).7,275, 277, mystagogue, 225,Iakchos,257, 279,gephyrismoi,278, 286.56;burnt offering, 227-8j; hierdsgdmos?,284, z8o;birth of the god, ^o katdbasis, 289f.;kykedn,269,273, 2741.)dparchai, 249(f.).7; pictorial representations, 249.6;Demeterand Hera, 274.36;Eleusisand Athens, r46f., and Skira, 44f ., t46 Eleutherai,Dionysus,zor Eleutheria,Plataea,5631 Elis, animal tabu, 95.rr; seealso Olympia Enna, Kore'skatabasis,259 Ephesus,Artemis, 8o.3r;Aphrodite Hetaera,t6o.tr7; Dionysus,zoo.z4; Hekate, 8z.ao Erythrai, foundation legend,16r; Herakles,r3z(f.).r3 Eryx, sacrifice,4.ro
Gadeira,sacrifice,4.ro Gargaphianspiing (Kithairon),rr3.zr
Hagno, spring (Mount Lykaion),85.8 Halai Aixonides,Thynneion,zo8 Halikarnassos,sacrifice,4.ro Halos (Thessaly),Zeus Laphystios, rr4 Hekaleia,Marathon, r5 Hephaestia(Lemnos),fire festival.lgot', r9z, r95f. Hermione, diving festival,zrr Hierapolis,Apollo Kareios,229.15
Ida, caveof Zeus, rr5.1z,cf. lo1.5o Ilissos,temple,2t5.9,z67.rz Isthmus, sanctuaryof Poseidon,ag6-99, Palaimonion,t7g, 797,a1on,a98, stone-throwing,5.r6
INDEX
Keos,Donysus, z4(f .)3, cf. zzr.z8; Sirius and Zeus, ro9-rr Kleitor (Arcadia),sacredherds, 16.zr Kretaia (Mount Lykaion), 85 Kronia, Athens, r54; Rhodes,46.46 Kurion (Cyprus),Apollo Hylatas,9r.34 Kyane, spring near Syracuse,259 Kynaithos(Arcadia),Dionysus, r6.zr Kyzikos,Persephone,4.ro, 16.zr;Per seus,zro.z6
Lanuvium, 64.24 Laodikeia,city goddess,65.29 Lemnos,fire festival, 192-95;Artemis, 194;Cabirion, r94f.; GreatGoddess, 82.4o;Lemnian earth, r89, r94 Lemuria, zz6 Lenaia,zz9.18,2Jj.to, 235.zl Lerna, Donysus, V.16, 176.11,232.7; neolithic. 16z Lesbos,Donysus Phallen(Methymna), zoz;DionysusEnorches,ro5.rz; Bakcheion(Antissa),zoz.3o Letrinoi (Elis),Artemis Alpheiaia, r7o Leukas, Apollo,46.46 Leuke (Pontos),sacrifice,4.ro, 41(f.).18 Leuktra, sacrifice,4.ro, 65.1o Lokroi. Aphrodite, 63.2t, b.33, z6z; Kore. z6z Lupercalia, 89 Lusoi (Arcadia),Artemis, r7z Lykaia, 84-93 Lykoreiaand Delphi, u7f ., tzo Lykosura,mysteriesof Demeter,8o.3o, 255,277
Magnesiaon the Maeander,Dionysus, zn.z4, 285.52;Zeus Sosipolis, r4z.z6 Magnesia (Thessaly),Zeus Akraios, rr3 Maiuma, zrr Marathon,Hekaleia,15 Massalia,Anthesteria, zr3.r, zz8;Saturnalia, 4.ro, 46.46 Megalopolis, Zeus Lykaios, 88.2+,gl.+l Megara,Athena Aithyia, r8z.r8; Kar, zz9;Leukothea,r78f.; Tereus,r8:, cf. s.r6
j70
Ja7
Melite, goat sacrifice,64.26,ftt.ng Messene,legendsof human sacrifice. 4.to, 65.1o;rites of mourning, 55;see alsoAndania Methymna (Lesbos),Dionysus Phallen, Miletus, Dionysus,eoo.z4;Molpoi, 89.29 Munichia, Artemis, 2r.35, 63.2o Mykale, Panionion,36 Mykonos, Demeter,253;Poseidon,roo Myra (Lycia),fish, zo5(f.).9
Naukratis,36.4 Naupaktos,Dionysia, 2o3.37;Zeus Nemeios,zo3 Nemean games,767.2j Nestane(Arcadia),Rhea,79.z7
Olympia, agon,gJ-lo7; altar of Zeus, 96f., rcr, stadium, 96.t2, temple of Zeus, ror, pedimental sculptures, 95.8;Pelopion,96f., gg, xyleils,96f., ror, myth and ritual, 33; history of the games.94f., chariot race,95) temple of Hera, Heraia, roz; Sosipolis,ro3 Orchomenos,Agrionia, 171.21,t75; Zeus Laphystios,rr4 Ostia, Maiuma, zrr.
Pagasai,DionysosPelagios,zo4.4o Panathenaia,36, t54-58; Createrand LesserPanathenaia,ry4f. Pandia,r8zf. Paros,DemeterThesmophoros,27o.2o, z7z.z9, 285.52 Passover,8.37 Patrai,Artemis, 6o.rr Pedasia,sacrifice,4.ro Pelion,Cheiron'scave, r13 Pergamon,purificationrite, ror Phaistos,Leukippos,234.r4 Phaleron,Athena Skiras,146.44 Pheneos(Arcadia),horse herds, r34.zo, 1 5 9 . 11 1
Phigalia, Demeter, 8o.3o Phlya, Apollo Dionysodotos,124.45
Y INDEX
Phylake (Thessaly), Protesilaos, 244 Piraeus, ThesmoPhorior., 745.47 Pithoigia, 275, 277, 227, 2)o, 4b Plataea, sacrifice for the dead, 56f' Plynteria, r51 Potniai, Demeter, 257 Priene, Demetet, 297.5t Dionysus, zor'26 Pythian festival, agon, t7f ', tz8-1o
Rhion, Poseidon and Ariadne, zo3 Rome, Ara Maxima, 38
Salamis (Cyprus), human sacrifice, 27 )5 Samos, Heraion, l7o Samothrace, mysterles, 7)2' a9t' 27o, 267.7o Septerion, DelPhi, rz7 Y: Seriphos, fish tabu, zo9f. Sicily, Demeter and Kore, 255, 259, z6l.zC seearsoEnna; SYracuse Sikyon, APhrodite, r89; Athena and Epopeus, r86, r89; IPhinoe, rTzf' Skira, r41-49, 158,r94',i, r44'15, t46'44; and ThesmoPhoria, 257'5 Skiron, Athena and Demeter, r44, 46.44, r47; sacred Plowing, r47 Smyrna, Dionysia, 2oo.24, 2o1.26, 2LJ' r; sacred fish, zo5(f.).9 Syracuse, Anthesteria, zt)'u Kyane, sPring
seealso
Tarentum, dolphin rider, zoo(f')'24' zo1.17; Diony sia, zoo(f-)'z4; donkey sacrifice,r6.zr Tarsos,Perseus,210.26 Tegea,ritual flight, r39.t3 Temesa,Hero, 63'zr Tempe,valleY,SePterion,rz8-3o Tenedos,DionysusAnthroporrhaistes, 2t.)5, 8g.7), t65, r83 Thasos,Thesmophorion,257'5' 27o'2o Thebes,Dionysus,777,277'7,45(f ')'zt; Agrionia, l^73.21;Cabfuion,t3z' t96; r88; Aphrodisia, 6o, 16oI'; hipparchoi, maiden sacrifice,65'3o Thelpusa, :'14.zt,281 Thesmophoria,257,z6l; Nesteia,Kalligeneia, 14134;kteis,z7o'zr; diogma, .39.t1; Po*"granate, 285)seealso Paros;Piraeus;Thasos Tilphusion, r34.zr Tiryns, Hera, $8-7t, Pig sacrifice, 772.77 Tithorea,ritual flight, r19'r3; and Thebes,r88 Torrhebis(LYdia),Karios, zz9'r5
Yinalia, zr7 5
Xandika, 54.24
Tainaron, Poseidon, 199 Tanagra, DionYsus and Triton, zrr
372
Index of Namesof Gods and Heroes
Acheloos, 7z Achilleus,mourned at OlYmPia,roz Adapa, zo8 ,q.donis,resurrection?,76.12,sheepsacrifice in Cyprus, rr5; cf. 79 Aegisthus, 1o8,242 Aerope, ro4, t'o6 Agamemnon, 19.2r Agathos Daimon, zr7f. Aglauros, 651.,t5r Aiakos, sacrificefor Zeus Hellanios,lr4 Aithalides, r95 Akademos, r55 Aktaion, 7Lr-r4, 716'2)2.6 Aletis, 242f. Amphiktyon and DionYsus,223.37 Amphion and Zethos, 186-88 Anahita, sacredherds, 16.zl Anat, r16 Andromeda,zrr.J7 Antiope,r85-89 Aphrodite, birth, zo6, cf. 7r; oriental Aphrodite, 8o.3e,armed, 8o'13, bearded,7r.56; sacrificeof a he-goat, 68, 7t.56;sheePsacrifice(CYPrus), rr5, sacrificeof the BoeotianPolemarch, 6o, r6of.; mYsteries,277, rtt^ ual defloration,63; APhrodite Hetaera(Athens,EPhesus),a6o'117, in the gardens(Athens), r5o, Pontia, Limenia (Hermione),zrr.3z, Porne (Abydos), :'6o, z6z;at APhaka, zo6.rr, Argos,7r.56,Lemnos,r9o, Lokroi, 63.2r, 8o.33,z6z, SikYon,
r89; APhrodite and GYges,16o,and Hippolytos, 6t- tz, and Dea SYria, z6 Apollo, at DelPhi, 72!, r2), with Dionysus, rz1f.; Apollo Dionysodotos. HYlatas 124.45,Aktaios, 11'3.2J, (Kurion),9r.34,LYkeios(Argos), LYkoreus, ro8, Lykegenes,121'.24, rzr.zz, Kareios(Hierapolis),zz9 r5, Karinos, zz9.16,ThYmbraiosand Laokoon,6o.rt; and Poseidon,r31f', festivalin Ithaka, 113f.;statueto ward off plagte, 39.19 Apsu, r57f. Aqhat,76.rz, 116 Argonauts, 714,r92 Argos, hero at Tiryns, 169.r Argos PanoPtes,r64f.; and the bull, r65f., and Zeus, 167,and the city Argos, 165.r8 Ariadne, festivalat Rhion, zo3;hanged, 64.z6; grave(Argos), t76 33; dePictions, u31 Aristaios, rrof. Arkas, and LYkaon,87, and Pan,gz; and Arcadians,tor; resurrection,rz5 Artemis, huntressand virgin, 6r, 8o;Artemis Agrotera, 65f., 266,AlPheiaia, t7o, EPhesia,8o, Hemera (Lusoi), r72.,HeuriPPa(Pheneos),r59 7r1, Kallisteand Kallisto,77.r9, Kordax (Olympia), gg, 7o2'Orthia (Sparta), 8o.1o,t7o, Triklaria (Patrai)'6o'rr; on Lemnos, r94; in the mYth of Pel-
343
INDEX
INDEX
ias, 99.32;and Aktaion, lrz; Proteltia, 64.26 63.2o;Artemis apanchomdne, Astarte,zrr.37 Atalante,5o.rr Atargatis, zo5 Athamas, and Phrixos, 78, rr4; and wolves, rr4; and Ino, r78 t56f.; Athena,birth, 66(f.).37,'t39.11, tropaion and aegis,66f.; Athena Polias(Athens),6.12, 144.36,:^49, 42f., r85f., peplos,156,priestess, U4, r4g, r5o, and Poseidon,r57; and Buphonia,g6(f .).2,and the plow, r4o.zo; Athena Alea (Tegea), 8o.3o,Skiras,146.44,Tritonia (Pheneos),r59.rrr Athirat, :o8 Atreus and Thyestes,1,o)-to7 Attis, name, 8r; iconography,28t.15;and the blade of wheat, z9o; and the Galloi,263f,.,and the kiste,z6g.t8.. resurrection?, 76.rz; Platonic interpretation, 294.7;and Qatal Htiytik, 79 Autolykos, r2o,7j7
Dardanus, and Samothrace,132, 795 Demeter, Kore myth, 259f., 275f.; and. Poseidon, 283, Brimo, z8g.7r, Hera, 274, Donysus, 232.6;mYsteries,255, preparation,h.r4, Pig sacrifice,65, 257,seealsoIndex of Cult Sitesand Festivals, s.v. Eleusis;Thesmoat Andania, 255.35, phoria, 257,261.; Lykosura, 255.35, MYkonos, 25J, Paros, z7o.zo, z7z.29, 285.52,Phigalia, 8o.3o, Potniai, 257, Priene, 257,Sicrly, 255.16,Skfton, 44.35; Demeter Chamyne at OlYmPia, 99f. Demophon, at Eleusis, z8o; and Orestes, 222, 2)7
Derketo, zo5 Deucalion and Pyrrha, rzof., :.z5 Diktys, zo9 Diomos,r38.rr Donysus. age of cult, zr3f., growth of cult, r84, t86f., ry6, r99f.; and Poseidon,zo3,Apollo (Delphi), n3f ., Cabiri, 196,Proitids, r7o-7J, Melampus, ryof ., Lykurgtts, r77, Iakchos, 279.23,289,Protesilaos, 245; sacrificeof a he-goat, 68, Vf ', bull sacrifice,$.2r, 43(f.).r2; Phallophoria, 7o, on Delos,Zr; immerBartbo,z5g.rz, 278,285;on Paros,285.52; sion in sea, zo8; and wine, zz4f., statuettes,285f. masks, 2.15-17,t4 altars, z)4, Brimo, 289 236.26,Herms, z16.zz,46.26, 24o.6, hierdsgdmos,'232,275,pomP6,2183r; mysteries, t85.1o,z7r.zz, 288.64, Cabiri, on Lemnos, r9o, ry4f.; in Thebes, and funerary urns, 52;birth, r78, 1J2f., tg6; in Hipponax, zro; "Penz8g-72,and.Hermes, 2jZ; and ates" at Elaius,246;and Dionysus, Ariadne, 233; visit with lkarios, zz3, t96, z7r.z3 z4z, and,Erigone, z.+i;killed, t76, Cadmus, r3z, 186.4,cf. 171.21 torn apart, 121,r25, 225,2)2,277' Cain. zz boiled and roasted,89.29,;8l(,';A' Cassandra,and Aias, 6o onysosAktaios, :-7)(f.).2J,Anthios, Centaurs,as masks,89, z3o 2r4.4, Anthroporrhaistes (Tenedos), Cleobis and Biton, 163 fi5, :'87,cf. 2t.15, r39.13,Bassaros, Cnopus, 16r z7z, Bugenes(Lerna),77.ft cf.7o, Cyclops,and Odysseus,r1o-14; and 232.7,Eleuthereus,70.5), 2o7, Hephaestus,r33 223.37,Enorches (Lesbos),ro5.rz, Eriphos (Sparta), V. 14, lsodaites, 2zo.24, Kadmeios (Thebes), r73.21, Daeira, 295.8 Kresios(Argos), r76'33,Liknites Danae, and Perseus,zo9f. (Delphi), rz5 cf. 236,Limnaios Danaos,and the shield of Argos, r63f.
)L4
Gallu, ro.44, 267,cf . z7r.z3 (Athens), zr5, zt7t., z3r, LYsios Glaukos,seagod, zrr.34 (Boeotia),r6o(f.).r18, Melanaigis Gorgo, 67.19,r53, 156;Gorgonsof (Hermione),zrof., MelPomenos Tiryns, r7o (Athens),r9r.7, Omestes,q1'z), Gyges, 16o r83, Pelagios(Pagasai),zo4.4o,Perikionios(Thebes),2)5(.).21;at Agra, 33.r4, Brasiai,zo4.4o,Corinth, 199f., Hades, rape ofKore, z6z Dionysopolis,2o2.JJ,EPhesus, Hainuwele, 45.43 zoo.z4,Lemnos, rgtf ., Methymna, Hekate,as hangedmaiden,64.26,82.4o; 2o2,2J7,Miletus, 2oo.24,Otat Erythrai, 16r; Hekate Perseis,zro; chomenos,t75, Potniai,zzz.34, and Brimo, 289.V; and Artemis, Smyrna, zoo,Thebes,2r7.7;Dionysusand Osiris, t9r.8, 225.41, 99.32 Helen, Dendritis, 6+.26;and Menelaus, 45(f .).zr h Dioscuri, and Cabiri, 7J), r95 Helios, herds of cattle,r.6.zr;priest in Dirke, and Antiope, r87, grave, r88 Athens, t44; altarat Inachus,ro7 Dumuzi, and Inanna, 263,and a blade of Hephaestus,on Lemnos, t9o, t9z, t94t.; wheat, z9o;resurrection?,76.12 and the birth of Athena, 119.4; and Erichthonius,r5r; return, 196, tg9.r9; pilos,t33 Eileithyia,at Olympia, roz Hera, of Argos, Heraion, t6z, 166,herds, Fndymion, 95.7,z9r.16 16.zr, mistressof animals,8o.3o, Enkidu, taming of the hunter,6r.rz priestess,161,166.21,shield,163.9; Epopeusof Siykon, r85f., r89; fisherand the myth of 1o,77, 165;and man, 21o Phoroneus,164.14;of Tiryns, 168;of Erechtheus,death and cult, r47f.; and Samos,r7o; Hera Akraia (Corinth), Poseidon, 48, :^49.6o,t57; and r51, r85(f.)3o,Akreia (Argos), Erichthonius,156, r89; and Athena, 164.rz,Antheia, 2L4.4,Lakinia, 144.16,t49, r1.;, fi5f .; priest, r44; t6.zr, 8o.1o;at Olympia, roz; bath in and Dipolieia, r17.3;daughters,66, the Kanathosspring, 164.rz;and a4g,r5); and Sikyon, r89.19 Demeter, 274; and Dionysus, r78; Ere5kigal,263.3r and Dea Syria, zo6 Erginos,r95 Herakles,hunter, warrior, sacrificer,43, Erichthonius,and the daughtersof Kekrops, r51, 156;and Erechtheus,156, 47; inventor of cremation,52..r8;and Acheloos,7z; stealingtriPod, rzrf.; r89; and Panathenaia,154.84 and Pholos,z3o;Keramyntes, Erigone, zz1, z4t.tr, z4zf. 22g.rg;at Eleusis,253f., 257,265f., Erinyes, ftgf ., z4o 266-69,286;pyte, r19.r3; cult in Eros, sanctuaryat the Acropolis, r5r Erythrai, 4z(f .).4; IdaeandactYl, Eubuleus,25g,279.24,z9z.4o,zg5;see alsoZe,ts, Eubuleus 95.7 Hermes, ram sacrifice,68f., 283.44;cattle Eumolpos,name, 289.7o,homonymns, sacrifice,r4f.; stone piles, 165;Arr48.54;iconography,279.24,288; geiphontes,165;and Brimo, 289.7r; shepherd,z8z.4o;war against Hermes Chthonios,2.19,245;and Athens, 47f ., ry7; Eumolpidai, Dionysus,217;PsychoPomPos, 254.26,292 Euneos,tgt.Z, r92 2)o.21;at Ainos, 2oJ;ancestorof the Europa,77.t1 Kerykes, r47 Eurydice, 287f. Hesione,zrr
375
INDEX H e s t i a , 4 3 . 3 8 ,r 1 8 . r o Hippodameia, 95, 98 Hippolytus, 6r, 63. zo, 232.6 Horai, sacrifice, 89.29 Horus, conception, 2J_5;burning, 282.37 Hyakinthides, 66.y, t54 Hypermestra, as priestess of Hera, 164 Hypsipyle, r9r
Iakchos, cultic cry Jo.2, 279, 295; iconography, 269.17, 279.24; birth, 289.72; and Baubo, 285; and Dionysus, 279.23 Iambe, u68 Iasion, and Demeter, r95 Ikarios, visited by Dionysus, 221,,242;rcliefs, 223.37; phallus cult, 7o.53 I m a r r h a d o s , r 4 7 $ . ) . 5 2 , r 4 8 .5 5 Inanna, katabasis, 263 Ino, and Leukothea, r78{.; Ino,s water, zo6.rt; and Phrixos, z9r.8t Io, and Hera, 77, 164-67 Iphigenia, 21.35,65 Iphinoe, Proitid (Sikyon), r7z; sacrifice of hair (Megara), 63.2o I s a a c , s a c r i f i c e ,4 . 7 c , 2 7 . j 5 Isis, and throne, 8r; and Osiris, 7o.53. 2j5; mysteries, 6r.r4, 288.67, z9o(f.).79, ktste, 269.:r8;Ploiaphesia, 7r.55; and Demeter, 282.37 I5tar, katabasis, 261; Gilgamesh's accusation, rr5t.; and Aphrodite, 8o Itylos, r8o, r84
Jason, r95
Kallisto, 27,86f . Karios, zz9. r5 Kekrops, aJ7.), 157 daughters, 747, 757, 153 Keleos, 147.48, 268, 286.56 Kephalos and Prokris, 6r.tz, 214.t4 K l y m e n e , 2 5 9 .r 4 Kore, myth, z59f ., at the loom, 272; return, 269, 275f., 286, season, :59f.; and grain, z6o; maiden sacrifice and restitution, 6-5,8rf.
316
Koroibos, ro7.z3 Korybantes,267 Kronos, and Uranos, 2r,77, 2go;at Ofympia, gj,95.7, ro1 Krotopos and Linos, ro8 Kumarbi,77.17 Kybele, and Qatal Huytik, 79, 256; and Calloi, 263; and Artemis, 8o; and Ku-Bau, zo7
Laodameia, 243-45 Laokodn,6o.rr, r58 Leukippos, at Phaistos, 214.14 Leukothea, myth, t78f .; at Chaironeia, zzz34, Delos, 2t.54, 77g,lsthmus, r97, Megara, 179, Samothrace. 1J2; dedication of Menneas, t78.42 Liknites, 125.49 Linos, ro8 Lykaon, 86, 89.29, 1o5, 110 Lykurgus, pursues Dionysus, r76f.; as god, t77f .; father of Antiope, r87 Lynkeus, r63f.
Ma Bellona,269.r8 Machaireus, tr9 Makaria, sacrifice of , 65.3o Maleos the Tyrrhenian, z4z.r5 Marduk, fish sacrifice, zo7 Marsyas, and ram sacrifice, r24.45, z9z.39 Mater Matuta, 187 Matusios, 246 Medea, and the daughters of Pelias, 99.32; infanticide, r85(f . ).3o; and Lemnos, 1g1.;andEfigone, z4zt. Medusa, and Poseidon, 6o.tr Melampus, t7o-72, 175, 2411' Melanthios and Xanthos, r76.3r Melikertes, q8, ry7 Meter, ram sacrifice, zSzf.; thaldmni, z7r.z3; thr6nosis,z66f . ; Taurobolion, 68.45; at Olympia, ro3; and Demeter, 255f. Mezentius, z4u.r5 Minyads, t74f . Mithras, bull sacrifice, z9r Myrtilos, 95
INDEX
Neoptolemos,death at Delphi, rr9 Nephele,and Athamas, r14 Niobe, 5o.7 Nymphs, in Arcadia, 85, 9r; and Artemis Alpheiaia, r7o; dedicationat Athens, 29).89
Odysseus,name, 1J1,wounding, rzo; Dolonia, 129;theft of the Palladion; r58; Cyclops, r3of.; marriagebed, 6z; his death as a horse, r59; and Arcadia, a3j, t59.771;and the Cabiri, 42f., ry5 Oedipus, clrrs,e,37,grave, r88.14 Ogygos, r3z Oineus, 222,245 Oinomaos,95, 98 Opis and Hekaerge, hair sacrifice(Delos),63.2o Orestes,at Argos, ro8; at Athens, z:2, 2jr, 24o, 241.17,242;kills Neo_ ptolemos, rr9 Orestheus,zzzf. Osiris, as dead king, 8t, resurrection?, 76.12,death, r9t, 212.6,2J5; and grain, z9o(f.).79;and Dionysus, r9t.8, 225.41,z15.zr
Palaimon,r97f. Pallas,father of Athena or a murdered maiden,67.19 Pan, at Athens, 293.89;Cheiron,scave, r14; Mount Lykaion, 85, gt.J4, g],;at Olympia, 7c.2.44;and Penelope, rJ4.20 Pandareos'daughters,169,rh Pandion,at Athens, r8tf., zzz.lr; at Megara,r8z.r8 Pandora,mistressof animals,8o.ro Pandrosus,:'51, r84 Pasiphae,77 Patroklos,burial, 5o Pegasosof Eleutherai,7o.53 Peleus,6r.rz Pelias,99.3z Pelops,cult at Olympia,y,36, 1g.t5, 96, gg, ram sacrifice,gg_ror; myth of dismemberment,99,
125;and Hippodameia, 95 Pentheus,r77, r98.r4, 232.6 Persephone,and Erigone, z4z, seealso Kore Perseus,and Seriphos,zro; and Hekate. 21o;pursuesDionysus, r7d Phaedra,243.r8 PhiJoktetes,r39.13 Philomela,r8r, r83f. Phoroneus,r64.r4 Phrixos, 78, tr4, zgr.8r Plutos, birth, z89 Polyxena, 67, 243 Poseidon, in Aegina, zzo.z3, Arcadia, 283,Athens, a44, a49,r57, Delphi, r34.zr, Halai Aixonides, zo8, Hermione, 211.32,Isthmus, r97, Rhion, zo3, Tainaron, r99; Poseidon Hippios (Pheneos), t1g.71,L;poseidon and Apollo, r34, and Dionysus, 203.37 Pratolaos, 246 Priapos,6r.r4, 69, 278.17 Procne, r8r, r8z.15 Proitids, 168-73 Prometheus, division of sacrifice, z, 32.12
Prosymnos, 7o Protesilaos, 24j-47, at Elaius and phylake, 244;and the Cabiri, 246 Pyrrhos-Neoptolemos, death at Delphi, r r9f. Python, myth, rzt, tz6, rzg; and tripod, omphalos, a21,,r27
Rhea, on Mbunt Lykaion,85, gr, toz|.; and Dionysus, :32.6; and horse, 79.27 Rhesos, 4.7o, 319.27,tz9 Romulus, and Cyrus, ro9
Sabazios, mysteries, z7o.zt, 288.64 Semachos, receives Dionysus, 223.37 Semele and Aktaion, rrz.rz; death, 2o4.40 Sinis Pityokamptes, r98 Sisyphus, inventor of burial, ag7; grave, 2o4.)g
317
-Z INDEX Triton, at Tanagra, zrr Trophoniosand Agamedes,44.4o Tycheof Antioch. 65.29
Skiron, zrr Skiros, seer, 46.44, t48 Sopatros, r38f. Syria Dea, 2t.15, rt5, zo6
Index of Personsand Things Uranos, castration, 7t, V, zo6' zp
Tammuz, mourned by the Ssabians, 27z.1'o;seealsoDumuzi Tantalos,99 Telchines,rr3 Telegonos, r59 Tereus,89.29,r8r; name, r83; in Megara, rBz Thaulon, t38.rr, r39.r1, r9(t.\.r7 Theseus,concePtion,6otr;leap into the sea,21L;Ariadne, 234.14;black sail. q6; and.Athena Skiras, 46.45, 196; and the Panathenaia,154.84;and the Isthmian games,t98 Thoas,king of Lemnos,7r, r9r Thracian riders, 21o Thriai, at Delphi, r7o Thyestes,banquet, 89.29,ro3-ro7, zzo.z3;tomb, ro7; on Lesbos, 7o5.72 Titans,and Donysus, 22.37,r8r, zz5 Triptolemos,mission,293;neatherd, z8z.4o,threshing,z9r.8r; iconography, z8o.z9;initiation by fire, z8o; and emperors, 294
Venus victrix, 8o.33
ZalmoAs,295 Zethos and Amphion, 186-88,grave. r88; and Aedon, r8o Zeus, birth (Mount Lykaion),85, 9r; and Demeter,u83;and EPoPeus,186; and Dea Syria, zo5f.; andbrtll, V, r4r.zz, 281.42;altar at OlYmPia, 96-98; Zeus Akraios/Aktaios,rr3, Epoptes,Epopsios,EPoPetes, r83l.zz,Eubuleus,285.52,Hellanios, r14, Herkeios, r67(f.).28,Ikmaios, rro, Karios, zz8f., Kataibates, 156.94,Laphystios,78, tr4, Larisaios,167$.\.28,Lykaios,85, 88, Nemeios, zo3, Panoptes,t67, Polieus (Athens), t6-43, r39.t7, (Cos), 3.7, t18.to, Sosipolis(Magnesia), r4:. 2.6,(Olympia), roz, Thaulios. 4s(f .).r7
Abstentionrites, 54, 61f.,67,74,76, z6z Abstinence from meat, 7; among athletes, 6r, 1o2;at ram sacrifice,Olympia,98, ror; at bull sacrifice,37f., 161;abstinencefrom human meat, 8zf. Acorn eaters,84.t,92 Advent, 156 Adyton, in the temple at DelPhi, rzz Aeg;s,67.19,t53 Aeschylus,and Eleusis,z5z Aetolians, and the Choes festival at Athens, zzzf.; and the sanctuary of Leukotheaat Chaironeia,zzz.34 Age groups, and sacrificial ritual, 4o; in Arcadia, 9of.; seealsoEphebes Aggression,r, ritualized, 26,15, and transferred, 4a, 44f., 27t) creales community, 24, 34; inhunting, r7f., ry, 58f.,75; in sacrifice,S, )5-46, r38; procession, zVf .; funerary r\t' ual, 51,55f.;initiation, 46, 253;marriage,61;waL 47;and sexualiry59, 62,67f.;and frustration,63, 8r; inhi bition, 58, 75; in myth, 33 Agon, and the encounterwith death, 51, 55;and marriage.6r.r1, gz;ChYtroi, z4o,Heraia, 161,164.ro,Isthmian games,r95f., Lemnos, 1'92,1'95, Lykaia,85, 92, Olympia, 96-98, Pan' athenaia,r54, Protesilaos,'41 Agrarian magic, seeAgriculture Agriculture. invention, 17, 4z; farming culture and matriarchy?,45.$,8c; sacrificialrituals, 44f.; and mysteries of Demeter. 255, z59f., 294 Alexander the Great, hunt, 43; sacrifice, 40,22
T8
Alexander of Abonuteichos, sacredmarfia6e,284.48 Alexander of Pherai, death, zo4.4o Alliance, 35f. Ntar, z, 4f ., 9t.; Olympian and chthonic, S(f.).+r, 56; seealsoAsh altar; Sacrificial pit Amphictyony, r17 Ancestors,and Kares,zu7l. Animal and man, equivalence, zof., 49, 56, substitutionin sacrifice,2r.35, 46, 65, z8z, in myth, ro6; transformation into animal, r69f .; seealso Werewolves Animal bride, 64.25,V.t5 Animal tabu in Elis, 95.rr Animism, 73.r, zz6 Anointing of stones, 57 Anxiety and ritual. z5 Apollo hymn, 3z.rz, trTf .,'tzr Apollonios of Tyana, and the possessed boy, z6 Apotheosis,and death, 39 Arcadia, as retreat,84,87f.; seeclsoIndex of Namesof Gods and Heroes,s.v. Demeter; Odysseus Archetypes, 3z Archilochus,cult of Dionysus, To.5) Archon, Athens, 142;seealsoBasileus Areopagus,24o,2i2.2o Arion, r99 Aristeas,Arimaspeia,69.5o Aristophanes, parodies of cult, 259, 268, z7r, 278 Ark, seeChest in water Arpachija, gtanaries,44.4o Ash altar,2, 70.43;Mount Lykaion, 85; Olympia, 96f., tot
319
lr
Y INDEX
Assyrians, sacrifice, ro; hunting, 43 A6vamedha,r6.zt, 69.5o,69(f.).5r Atlantis, sacrifice,ry, 2)r.4 Augury, 6, (S.j+ Axe, seeDouble headed axe Aztecs,human sacrifice,38.15,+8,6+.2+; war as ritual, 47.48
Baba,285.52 Backwards going, r 44(d.).17throwing, 7r, zo6 Bakchiadai,r99 Baptismat Eleusis?,z8o.z9 Barley grains, at sacrifice, 4f., rzz Basileus,at Athens, and the Choesfestival, z16, 2tg, 2)4; and Eleusis,253 Basilinna,at Athens, and the sacredmarriage, zt6, z3zf. Basket,at sacrifice,4, 234;seealso"Kiste" Bath, as purification, j, ro7, 764.1,2,2;28 Beans,and Eleusis,285 Bear,palaeolithicburials, r3; figure in the caveof Montespan,14;bear festivals, 13, ry, 4o(f..).2o,r4r.z5; and, A r c a d i a n s8, 7 , 8 9.f, 9 r Beer,zz4.4o Belief, and ritual, 27f., 49.2 Bile, at sacrifice, 6 Birth, through the GreatGoddess,79, 288-9t; symbolic birth in ritual?, 75Jf., 22L;birth of Athena, 66(f.).17, t3g.r3, 156,of Dionysus, r78, z8g.7z,of Zeus, 85, 9t, :ro1 Bisectingthe victim, 15(f.).3 Blackclothing, t55.87, r75t. Blacksacrificialanimal, rc, 98, r53, rg7 Blood, and shock,zr, 4o; in sacrifice,z, 4, 5, fu; in funeraryritual, 5r, 56; and defloration,6z; in cosmogony, zt36; and wine, 224, 246;and pomegranate,285 Bloodlesssacrifice, 12, 44, seealsoCakes; Libation Bfows, ritual, 59.4,t55.89, r87.rz Boiling in a kettle, 83, seealsoRoasting and boiling; Tripod kettle Bones,gatheringtogether of,6, 13,16, 38,99, roz; and burial, 49.J,51t., 12.18
)20
Boundary stone, 19, 58 Branches,swinging, 24, r55, 2573, 26q., z7o.zo,278,287f. Breakingbread, 45.42,273 Building sacrifice, 39 Bukoliastai,masking, 112.15 Bukolion, at Athens, 233 Bulbous plants, and matriarchy, 42.)4, cf. 45.43 Bull, and Donysus, 77.16,Dirke, $7, Great Goddess,8r, Pharaoh,8r, Zeus, 77.r1, r4r.zz; dedicatoryofferin8, 5z Bull sacrifice,tr.46, 66.17,77.t5, t55.gr, 16r, r65f., ry7; for Dionysus,4.r4, 16.zr, zor; at Eleusis,z9z;tor Mithras, zgr, Zeus, 98.25,rrr, \6-4); in funerary cult, 57; in Babylon, ro; bull hunting, l^5,4); see alsoTaurobolion Burial, since palaeolithic times, 48; in war, 48; Sisyphus as inventor, r97; seealsoCremation Burnt offerings,9.4r Buying ceremonies,and sacrificialanimal, 18.16,6.18
Caesar,apotheosis,39.2r Cakes, at sacrifice,6, 45,z7z, ct. zzo.zr Calendar,and seagons,z6r; Athens, rJ6.1, 249.7;Eleusis,249.7;Argos, 162.4 Calf, sacrificeof. seeIndex of Cult Sites and Festivals,s.v. Tenedos;and Itylos, r84 Calydonianboar hunt, 54 Cannibalism,palaeolithic,r8; and planters, 18.r5, 45; and the dead, 5o; in secretsocieties, 16f., 272.3c;Lykaia?, 84-87, 9o; symbolizedthrough beans,285;in myth, 24.4,gg, ro)ro7, r1r, t34, r&of.;overcome, z4z.r5,254f. Carians, 226-29 Carthage,and human sacrifice,2r.35, 85 Castration, in war, 68; Meter cult, z7r .z3; of Uranos, 7r, 2c6,29o;of hunting game, 68.44;of the sacrificialanimal,
INDEX
)6.8, 4o.2),68.+5-+2, 283;symbolic, 45, 59.5' 290f. Qatal Hi.iynk, bull hunt and leopard men, 14l 6; dead left for birds of PrcY,52;Soddessgiving birth, 79, 256,male partner, 8r; two goddesses,264;wine, zz4.4o Catilinarians,sacrificeat oath, 37.ro Cattle sacrifice,and domestication, q36, in funerary cult, 5r, 53; on Delos,rr.46, Salamis,zr.15,Mykale, )6; for the Hyakinthides,66.13, at the Heraia, fi1, $6, Panathenaia, Cave,-ofCheiron (Pelion),rrz; of Dionysus/ a1a.2,2)7, 289.72;Idaean, loJi;of Sosipolis(Olympia), roz; of Pluto (Eleusis),279 Celery r99 Censer,4 Center,notion of the, lz6f. Chariot racing, Olympia, 95; Panathenaia, r55f. Charter myth, )).tz Chestin water, Danae,zog;Semele, zo4.4o;Thoas,7t;and Osiris, r9r Child, born, z8q Childhood experiences,and society, 28.15 Children'sgames,26,z16, zzl Choespitchers, 274,2Jr, as graveofferings, zzr; depictions,zz9,236, 24O.1O, 24L.77 Christianity, and sacrifice, 8, 8z; and mysteries, 249, z5ot. Chthonic and Olympian, 9.4r, 56, r97 City, "sacred,"r58 Clementof Alexandria,on the mysteries, z5r, 269f. Clothing, taking off and putting on, 87, 90; prize in an agon, r9z; offering for the dead, 57 Club, t7, cf. 43 Combat, ritual, after sacrifice,54; Daulis, r8z.13;Dionysia, r85, zoo.z4 Comedy of innocence,4, rr, 16, 42, 46.46,76,roz, rz6, t4o, 744.j7, 147, 165,r7g, z3o Communal meal, suspended,ro4, zzo Communication,in ritual, 2J, 28,75f.
J2L
conaere,52 confarreatio,271 Conflict between generations, and initiation, 46,hunt, 75, war, 47.48,48; and virgin sacrifice,64,66f.; seealso Infanticide Continuity of culture, and ritual, 25, 55; and belief in gods, 78; symbolized through the female,8r, 9r Contractsratified, 35f. Cosmogony,and primordial crime, ro5 Craftsmen, and fire festival, 195 Crater, with wine and blood, 246; as urn,
52f. Cremation, 49.2,49.4,53,227.a5 Crete, mysteriesnot secret,252 Cry, ritual, and god, 3o, 288 Cudgel, againstdevil, z6f. Cyrus, raised by she dog, ro9
Days, systemof reckoning,zr5 Death, experiencedand overcome,12, 2r, 33, 49f.,295f. Death of the god, 167,t76, zz5 Defloration,5gf., 62, 61 Dema,45.41 Demeterhymn, 3z.rz, zjo, 268 DemetriosPoliorketes,ry6.94, 16j.6, 172
Diagorasof Melos, z5z Dice games,r45 Distribution of meat, 36, z9z Dthyramb, bull sacrifice,4.i.4,72.fu, zorf.; "invention," 799;on vase painting, 238.3r Dogs, killed at Argos, ro8; and Aktaion, rrz; dog star, seeSirius Dolonia, r29.68 Dolphin, and Apollo, rr8, Arion, r99, Dionysus, 199,Hesiod, 2oj, comedy, 2oo, Palaimon.r97, Phalanthos, zn.z4, Taras, 203.37,cf . 2o4f. Domesticanimals.at sacrifice,rz.t, r41., 43;seealso"Setting free" Domesticationof animals,43 Donkey, and Dionysus, 70; sacrifice, t 6 . z r , 6 8 .f Double headedaxe,Buphonia, r38, r4of.; buplix, r77.14; Athamas, q8;
I
INDEX Tereus,r8of.; Tenedos,rB3,cf. 2t.35,139.4, 165 Dragon, fight against, at Delphi, rzr Drama, and ritual, 33.t5 Drinking contest, ztl, zzo Drowning, as preliminary sacrifice, 64.26; Aerope, to4; Atargatis, zo4; Vegetation daimon,44.19 Druids, human sacrifice,46.46 Drukheim, Emile, z+
Etruscans,Acherunticilibri, z96.14;and the Trojans,r6o Euhemerism, and the mysteries, 294 Execution, and ritual, 46f., zzo.z5 Experience,and religion, tz.t, 27f., 75f. Exposing oneself, Proitids, 169, Baubo, 278, 285 Eye cups, 224.39
Earth, carrying, on Lemnos,r94, Thebes,r88, Skira. r45f. Earth-born,Erichthonius,t5t, 156 Eating,as ceremony,e, 17f., 4of., zo6, as ritual duty, fuf., r39.15,in funerary ritual, 5o; eating the god?,76f.; eating and abstaining,7o4,23g Ecstasy,of the Pythia, e3.38, rz5 Egg, tabu, 4o.:5; birth of the Dea Syria, zo6 Egypt, ritual and myth, 3r.7; sacrifice, ro.43, t6, 5).22,77; hunting, 4z; mummification,5z.rj, 2)5.21,;war as ritual, 47.48;seealsoIndex of Gods and Heroes,s.v. Horus; Isis; Osiris Eight year periods, t28.66, r3o.77 Elagabal,Sol procession,r44 Elephantsacrifice,among pygmies, 8.44, 69.5r,r4r.z5 Empedokles, against animal sacrifice,7, 22, 78.2r Emperors,and Eleusis,254.26,254.29, 265.r, 294.2 Enuma Eli5, creation of man, 22.37 Ephebes,at Athens, oath,65.3z, r54.Bt, Panathenaia,r55.87,mysteries,253, zgz, Chytroi, 24of.; at Argos, Heraia, 16J;againstthe Froitids. ry{.; in Arcadia?, 9o Epiphany, of Apollo, r3o, of Aphrodite, zo6, of Donysts, 774,t84, zor, 217, of Kore (Eleusis),286;and divine images, 286f. Erechtheum, Athens, a44, 748t., tSJ, 157 Eteobutadai,744,t47, 74g.Sg Etesianwinds, and sacrificeat Keos, rro Etiology, in myth, 33
Family, and the role of the male, fi, 58f., 8r; ritual dissolution,t7r, r85 far, 273, z9r.8r Fasting,745.40,269 Father and sacrificial animal, 42, 55; dead father,243 Fertility ritual, 7o, 94.2 fetiales,35(f.).1 Fig tree, and katabasis,25g,a\d phallus, 70f. Fire, and sacrifice,91.,39,272,brought to the altar, gZ, 7ao,155;new fire, Lemnos, rgzf.; fire at Eleusis,267f.. 275f.,zV, zSof., z8z,288;eternalfire at Delphi, l.zz; lire rolled down mountain, zo6.rr; sacrificewithout fire, r88, tg3,2ao Fir tree, and Pentheus,r98.r4 Fish, tabu and sacrifice, zo4f.; and. Atargatis. zo4f..,SyriaDea, zo6, Hekate, zro; Myra, Smyrna, zo5.g, Babylon, zo8, Ugarit, zo8, Lake Bolbe, :o9; origins of fishing, zo7 Fishermen,find divine image,zoz; fishing festivals, zo7f. Flight, as ritual, r39.r3; at the Agrionia, rVf ., ry4f., rT6;Letkothea, t78, Procne,:.8r, Tenedos,r87 cf. 165; Dpolieia, r38f.; Septerion, r28 Flood, following gruesome banquet, 86, 732, 2J2;and new order, ro6, rzo, rz9, r6g.t, 24o.6,z4z.t6 foedusferire, 35 Food sacrifice, 1.rt., 54 Formative influence of ritual, fif., 24, 25t., 56,74 Freud,Sigmund.,t.r, 5o.g,73,75 Funerary meal, 5o
)22
INDEX
Funerary rituals and sacrifice, 49, 2og, 237.4 Funerary sacrifice, 551.,24o
Garlic, r45.42,t7o, t9j Gathering remains, 2Jz, seealsoBones, gatheringtogetherof Gigantomachy,67, t51, l^56 Gilded horns, 1.9, 16r Gilgameshepic, the taming of Enkidu, 6r.rz; accusationagainstl5tar,rr5f. Gnosis, secrecy,249;the Gnostic'sfreed,om,z5r.16;cannibalism?,z7z.3o; decline,z6; seealsoNaassenian Goat horns, 5 Goat sacrifice,2r.35, 63.2o,65-67, n5f ., r5t, 194,222.34 God, conceptionof, and sacrificialritual, 75-78, cf. 1of., r67f.; function, 8z Goddess,Great,and victim-paredros, &of.,t57; giving birth, 29o;and sacrifice of a virgin, 64.26,65.29,67.19, 77 Golden Age, and sacrifice,zrf. Golden ornaments,of the Arrhephoroi, 169.2 Granary sacral,44, z6o Grave,kept secret,r88. zo4 Grave offerings, Choes pitchers, Lutrophoroi, zzr Grinding grain, 45,z7z Guilt-consciousness,and sacrifice,r6, z o , l , 4 ,3 2 f . , 6 7 , 7 5 f . , 8 oz,z o
Hair-cutting,beforemarriage,6).2o;of sacrificialanimal, 5; in Islam, rr Hands, raisingof, 24, 76; holding out, 24; shakin8, 34 Hanging, by a tree, 64.26, and swinging, 241.18;Ariadne, Artemis, 64.26, Erigone, 22), 242,Hekate, 64.26, 82.4o,Inanna, 263,Phaedra,243.t8; goat sacrifice,64.26 Harmodios, 37 Harpagos,banquet, 89.29,tog Harrison, lane, n.48, 3o.J, 74.j Harvest festival, as sacrificialfestival, 44, 64, r4z, zlJ6.56
Hawthorn, 278, 229 Head, and feet of sacrificial animal, ro5, 1og, fl5; prophesying head, zoz; head and phallus, 2o2.1J,2J7 Heart, at sacrifice, 6, 20 Hearth house, rc.4J, t22.)2, cf. rrgf., 122 Hecatombs, t54, t61 He-goat sacrifice, and castration, 68.46; and Dionysus,77.r4 Hermes hymn, 14, 1z.tz, 38, 19.2o, 145.37,765.r7 Herms, phallic, 58,7o.52, defaced, 37.tr, Heroes, and sacrificial meal, 9.4r; polari t y w i t h g o d , 5 5 f . , 9 6 - 9 8 , t z o , r 4 8 f. , r57, t85t., r8g, tg7 Hesiod, death, zo3 Hetaerae, r6of. Hetairoi, 17 Hide of sacrificial animal, put on, rrzf., 115, 1-37 Hierokerlx, Hierophant, seeIndex of Cult Sites and Festivals, s.v. Eleusis Hippodrome, on Mount Lykaion, 85, at Olympia, 96 Hippolytus of Rome, on Eleusis, 251 hirpi Sorani, 88.26 Hittites, breaking bread, 45.42; bisection at sacrifice, y(f .\.1; dog men, 88.26; boiling meat, 89.u9; funerary ritual, t 9 . 2 1 , 5 2 . 1 7 , 5 3 ;m o c k c o m b a t , 5 4 . 2 5 Homer, birth legend, r85; description of sacrifice, 3-7 Honey, as libation, 54, 71t; and Panspermia,48L Hope for after life, 255, z93f . Horn of plenty,72 Horns, as trophies, 2, especially at Qatal Htiytik, 14, 4J,7gi breaking off the horns, 72, 8r; Keraton (Delos), 6.26 Horse sacrifice, in funerary cult, 5r.ro, 53; before a military expedition, at Leuktra, 65.3o; among 1.59.1.1.2; Asiatic nomads, @. 50, 69. 5r, r4o.zo, L41.25;seealso ASvamedha; October equus Hospitality for mummers, ez8 Human sacrifice, like animal sacrifice, 4.ro, 2o.3), 27.35, J8,41.16; in se-
323
INDEX
Keres, zz6 Killing inhibition, r8, zr King, deposed, 742.27, taken away, r44, 191, symbolically killed, r49, 156; and succession, t6o, 164, t85.3o "Kiste," and Arrhephoroi, r5o, r5rf.; and Eleusis, 269, z7g, zgr; and Dionysus, z7r; and omophagy, z7z.z7; and cakes, z7z Kneeling, as gesture, 24, 76 Knife, in sacrificial basket, 5; of Pelops, 99.32; Delphic, tl,g; at Buphonia, 137, L40 Kriobolion, 68.45 Krypteia, 9r Kykeon, Eleusis, 27), 274, 286.56, 287, 29r
cret societies, )7; A9rionia, a7j; Cheiron's cave, 71.4;Lykaia, 84-87, 9o; Zeus Laphystios, r r4; criminal used as, 46.46, seealso Execution; poppy juice?, 28r.36 Hunt, significance for the history of mankind, 16-zr, and kllling, 22.17, and war, 47f., and sexualiry 75, and women, Sofr; and fishing, zo6f.; treatment of dead animals, rz-16; ritualization, 34, 4z; in rnyth, r66f ., rTzL; in cult of Meter, z61f ., 266 Hunting ape,77 Hyperboreans, donkey sacrifice, 69; and Delphi, r3o
Ideas, and ritual, z6-zg Image as substitute, 14.rz; Aktaion, rrz, Attis, z45.rr, Dionysus, z)5-)7, 245.t, Pallas, 67.39, Protesilaos, 243-46 Immersion sacrifice, 4, 35$.)3, 65, zo6.rt, seealso Drowning; Sea Immortality, 294 Incest tabu, 62.r5 Infanticide, 74.4, 78; in myth, 77L, 1.74, r77, r78, r79f., r853o, z9z Initiation, sequence/ r2.48; and sacrifice, 40, 1,25,258;overcoming death, 295; in funerary cult, 56; and secret societies, 253; transformation into a wolf , go; initiand as victim, 46, 268; and the conflict between generations, 46, 99.32; symbolic castration, 59.5; and Arrhephoroi, r5e; Choes, zzr; Proitids, r7zf., t85; mysteries, 248, Villa dei misteri, fi5.1o, t87 Innate behavior?, za Iobakchoi, 2,r5.9 Isaiah, against animal sacrifice, 7 Islam, pilgrimage to Mecca, rr l s r a e l , r o l e o f a n i m a l s a c r i f i c e ,z , r o Ivy, torn apart by Maenads, 4r; wreath, zzo, 23il.; canopy, 238.31
Jericho, portrait-skulls, 52. r6 Jesting and mockery ex hamaxbn, zzg; gephyrismoi, 278 Judaism, end of sacrifices, 8
)24
Labyadai, rz8 Labyrinth, 279.26 L a m b s a c r i f i c e ,u , . 4 6 , r c 7 f . , r r o . 7 ; i n t h e myth of Thyestes, ro6f. Lamentation, and sacrificial ritual, roz, ro7, 779, 97f .; for Inanna, 26), Tammuz, 272.jo, Osiris, 29t.79; lamentation for the dead, 53 Lamp, in the temple of Athena, t5r; in the Heraion (Argos), 166 Language and ritual, 29f., )4 Latin league, sacrifice, 36 Laughter, and aggression, 24, 26,62, 7tf .; in cult, r95, 278, cf . zzgf .; smilrng, 35'1 Lauref, and Delphi, 722,1)o Lenaia-vases, 2)5-)B Leopard men, at Qatal Hnynk, 75,$,79, 88f., rtz, r16; ethnological reports, 88f. L6vi-Strauss, Claude, xxiv.8, z8 Libation, as preparation and conclusion, rof., rz; as abstention, 45, 54f.; tor the dead, 57, 2jo.27, z4r; wine libation, 45, 1oo, ct. 7t7, 157, 29) Liknon, winnowing fan, tz5, 46, 267, 277 Liver, at sacrifice, 6 Long bone sacrifice, r3 Lorenz, Konrad, 7.7, 79, 20, 2) Lovatelli urn, 267 Lycanthropy, seeWerewolves
INDEX mactare,7.3o Madness, sent by Hera or Dionysus, t68-7r, 774, 177-79; as epiphany, 184; cathartic, r85 Maenads, t74, r8t, 235, 285.52 Magi,278.t7 Magic, n(f .).r, 69.5r Maiden sacrifice, seeVirgin sacrifice Mammoths, 15 Manichaeans, 26, )8.76 "Mdnnerbund," 18, zo, 46, r95; and Great Goddess, 79f.,82; seealso Leopard men; Werewolves Mannhardt, Wilhelm, 44.39 Market place, at Argos, ro8 Marriage, as sacrifice, 45.42,621., 271f., as mystery 2Zr,2Z); to statue, 234.74, to the dead, 235, to Hades, z6rf.; ritual disruption, r84f.; seealso Sacred marriage Masks, mummers, and skttlls, 52, 217; of Dionysus, 2)5-7 cf. r9r; of the executioner, 46.46, of the victim, rrrf.; masks and spirits of the dead, r73, at the Anthesteria, zzg, and aboriginal inhabitants, 228; a dArtemis, Hera, Orthia, 17o; cenlaurs, 230.27; dolphins, 2oo; seealso Leopard men; Werewolves Master of animals, 8o.3o; mistress of animals, 791. Matriarchy, 42.J4,80 Matricide, 74.4 Meaning of rituals, z8f. Metamorphosis, r74, r8r Meuli, Karl, 72, 74.), r41 Milk, libation, 54, 57 Minoan and Mycenean sacrifice, ro Mopsos-Moxos, zo4 Mortar, 45, 273 M o t h e r , m a r r i a g e t o , 8 t , 8 7 . z r , 7 1 2 ,s e e nlso Oedipus complex Mother goddess, 78-8o,8{.; mother of animals, 79.27, 2o7, 277.J9 Mourning, rites of, compulsory 55 Mummies, 52,2J5.2l Murdet tab,a, zzrl.. Music, from sacrifice, 39, r3o Myrtle, 57, t6j.z Mysteries, concept of , 2481.;seset,7Z, 25a-53, 256, 29); preparation, 6r,
63.2o; mystai and citizens, 253f.; Greater and Lesser mysteries, z6sf.; r o l e o f s e x u a l i t y ,6 r . : r 4 , 2 7 r ; p r o s e c u tion because ot, z5z, 268, 287; agricultural interpretation, 294; philosophical interpretation, z5of., z5z, 288 Mysticism,248 Myth and ritual, zg-34, 45, 56,76f., ro6f.
Naassenian, on Eleusis, z5t, 265(f.\.3, z88f.,2go Neolithic revolution, 4z New Yeat 142, r54,762.4, 164 Night and duy, q7, ro6, rrot.,724, r55, r74, r87f., zt5 Nightingale, r8o Nikomachos, sacrificial calendar at Athens, 46.r, z4g(f .).7, z8z.4o Nomads, 42.j4, 48
Oak tree, and the Arcadians, 87.22,87f . Oath, 15; of the ephebes, 65, t54.h; of the gdrairai, 4)f ., at the Isthmus, r98; in the mysteries, 248 Octoberequus, 54,69, r5gf. Oedipus complex, 74-76,78, seealso Mother, marriage to; Patricide motif Oil, libation, 54, 56, rrt; and Athena's lamp, r5r Olive tree, Acropolis, r52, 757; Heraion, 166; image of Dionysus, zoz Olympian and chthonic, 9.41 Omophagy, 40, 725, 272.27 Omphalos, Delphi, rz6f. Onomakritos, 225.43 operari, 1 "Origin" of religion, nf ., z7f ., 3rf ., 72f. Ornamentation of victim, 3 cf. 263;before battle, a8 Orpheus, torn apart in myth, 2o2, 2J2.6; and Eurydice. 287f. Orphism, vegetarianism, 7, 4o.25, 6r.tz; initiation, 268.r6; Dionysus myth, 22.J7,89.29, r8]l., zz5; Demeter myth, 259.15, 229.24, 282.40, 285
325
Y INDEX
INDEX Paddeddancers,69.5r,72, r99 Paean,3o.z Palaeolithicera, sacrifice,:e-ry, 65; tunerary ritual, 48f.; representational art,7z,78 Palladion,66.17,r58 Pallasprocession,Athens, 739.\4,a5J77 Panspermia,:19 Paraiol, t44.35, 146 Parthenon, 44f., ry6f. PatriciderIrolif,7i,74,76f ., 171,zo7 Peartree, and Hera of Tiryns, r68f. Peisistratos,legendfrom Olympia, loo Peloponnese,and Pelops,94, ror for Athena, r5ot rs5rHera, 161; Pepl-os, of Philomela,r8r Periander,and the cult of Dionysus, t9g Persians,hunt, 43 Phallus, display, z+, 58,6gt.; of the sacrificial animal, zo, 68.44,69.48;seealso Castration;and boundary stone, 58, tomb stone, 72.61;Procession,36, 69-72; in mysteries,6r.14, zV; and fire, r5:.J,.;horn of PlentY,72 58; and head, zoz.31,237;Phallusbird' 7r Philostratosof Lemnos, r9z Phoenicians, sacrifice,9, seealso Carthage Phratries,16.4,zzr Pig sacrifiie, 65, rt5,172.17, 1'72.2c., 256-58,274 Pinarii, at the Ara Maxima, 38 Pisa and Olyrnpia, 94, g5.7 Pitch, zr8 Planter, seeAgriculture Plato, on religion and tradition, z8; on the end of th" y"ut, 143;on mysteries, 248 cf. 288 Plemochoai, 293 Plow, on Acropolis, r4o; sacredplowing, r47.5t; plow-ox sacrificed,r6.zt, 53 Plutarih, as Delphic priest, rr7 Poet and myth, 3z Pomegranate,285 Poppy,274 (f..).2,z8t Potiphar inotif, 5r .rz Pots, smashed, 6), 4t.4; "setting uP", 2)9.5 Precinct where none may enter, 85' f36f.' 9L
Pre-deism,73 Prirnates,77, 24, 4g'1, 4g'5'74' 89 Primordial monotheism,r3, 73 Procession,at sacrifice,J, funerary ritual, 5rf', 56f';at the Heraia'163' mysteries,r47' 249(f)'7' zVf';Panathenaia,r55, Skira, r44' wilh Palladion, r3g'r4, 15J'77,to the valley of Tempe,rz9; at the sacredmarriage' 47f;Elagabal, Hittites, r44 Prytaneum,court, 14o;meal, r4r; Hierophant, 147'48 rxi'4, 25, 28, 32, 5o'7, Psychoanalysis, 5o'9,nf ' Purificationrites, 16, 24, 4o,164,268 Purity, in clothing, 3, 57 "Purpose"of ritual, 29, 33 Pygmies, seeElephant sacrifice Pyramids, 59,zz9't6 Pythagoras, teachingson immortality, 294;abstention from meat, 7, 1'o2'4J, z58.ro;on beans,285 Pythia, and tripod, rz3, tz6, 235,asvirgSn,n6 cf. n7'3
Radcliffe-Brown,A' R', z4f' Ram sacrifice, in Arcadia?, 91, DelPhi. rzr, Eleusis,z9z, tor Erechtheus, t45.18, r55.gt, r94, in Keos?,rrr, for Kore, 8z; Cyclops,r3r; on CyPrus, 115,Lemnos, r94, and Marsyas, 1'24.45,for Meter. 283, at Olympia, 98, gg-toz, and Pelias, g9.)2,on Mount Pelion,113,on Samothrace,r3z, at the Skira. r45' and Thyestes. rc7 cf' rr'46, 98'26 Rarn'sskin, on Mount Pelion, rr3; "Ramskin of Zeus," r45, at Eleusis, 268, z8z Rebirth, 46, 245,z7o'zr, seealsoRestitution ritual Reindeer,bones gathered, r4, submer' sion sacrifice, 65 Religion, definition, xxii, cf' 4o Respectfor life, zt Restitution ritual, after sacrifice,16, zt, 39, j1f ., @, 9rf ., a4of.; death, 55, 244;battle,66; seealsoImage as substitute Resurrection, after sacrifice,t6' 76' r4o;
Seer,in wat, r48, at Olympia, 98, ror Selection,natural, through ritual, 2.6 "Setting free" the sacrificial animal, 16.zr, 47, 9t, 167 Sexof sacrificialanimal, r55'9r Sexualabstention,before sacrifice,3.7, 6of., agon,6r.t3, toz.43,mysteries, 6t.r4, rg3.t6; at the Skira, 45.42, oI the Hierophant, 284; in the sanctuary,b,245 Sexualiry,58-72, and aggression,zo, 13, 11, 21 Sacralization,and desacralization, 75, and ecstasy,rz6; in funerary cult, Sacred,the, and sacrifice,4of' 6o'rr' 59.6, afrer a1on, 9), roz; sexual sYmSacredmarriage(hierdsgdmos), zTrf', bols,z7of.,271,in mYsteries, 216, Anthesteria, the and n.$; weaPon, r5t, 269, snakes, 284, 59, 245; 2)2- 35,238;with Protesilaos?, 62,72; goddessof sexualiry 78'23, Meter, 283;Eleusis?,284 seealsolnd'ex of Names of Gods and Sacrifice,generalform, xxiv, rz, t4r, 16z; Heroes,s.v. APhrodite sacralizedkilling, z, ,, !, t)'a4; a d Shadow,lost, 85 communiry 17, order, 44' 55,61,75' Shamanism,73.r 82, :,68tand the dead, 5r; and god, Sheepsacrifice,rcf ., fl.46, 39.19,rfi' 76f., ry5, $f ., z7); seealsoLamb sacriIslam; lsreal;Minoan and MYRam sacrifice fice; Phoenicians; cenaeansacrifice; Shield, sacred,at Argos, fi1f ., t66-68 l)garit; seeunderindiaidualanimal: Ship, arrival, 755,192 bull, cattle,donkeY,he-goat,horse' Shoulderblade of victim, 99, r@35 lamb,pig, ram, sheeP Sickle, z9of. '' llof pit,5,9.4r, 19,56,96f., Sacrificial Silence, 22o, 222.33,29o 198 Sirius, sacrificeon Keos, to9-ttt, cf' r46.44 Salaminioi, ll8, tt1 Samnites,Iegiolinteata,46.45 of sacrificialanimal, spread out, Skin 1o2f., enter, maY none where Sancfuary tlf., 16, 66, rz7, r4t cf. ro; Put on, a89, 2J4 6Z.Jg, tsJ, :,66,t67; sold,7; seealso Sarapispriests,8r.37 Hide of sacrificialanimal Satyrs, and Phallus, 7o; dePictions' Skulls,exaltedand Preserved,z, 6, 14' zjj.l2, 2J5, z4t.tt; Zeus as satYr, ft, 18,217;seParateburial, 4g'1'5z; r87; and Qatal HiiYtik, 88f. skull cuPs, 224.19;and masks, 52, Schmidt, P Wilhelm, T3 2J7 176-78, Sea,in temple, r57; fall into sea, Slaves,temPorary freedom, t54, zt8' r9g, 2ar,246; driving something zz6, zz7f.,24o;excluded,57' 222't4; away into the sea,77, 1g1,'r91,tg6, initiated at Eleusis, 254 z1z; sinking something into the sea, W. Robertston, 74 Smith, divine J5&).J, purification in, 258, SmithYgods, 1'3).14'r95 image from, zo3 Snakes, t5z, and Demeter. z69,Di' "searching" in ritual, rt3, t76, z75f., xe onysus,z7z, Erichthonius,r5r, alsoGatheringremains Korc, z7z Seasonsand festivals,259-6r Socrates,and Leon of Salamis,37.11 Secrecy,in the mysteries, 248, 251-5)' Solon, sacrificialcalendar, t44.16' r47; 256, 291 burial law, 5r Sedna,Eskimogoddess,79.27,82.4o' Solstice, r44 21r.19 Soma. intoxicating drink, zz4 Seedgrain, stored up, 44t., z6o
of Arkas, 87, PeloPs,99, DonYsus, rz5, of the virgin, 66f' Rampsinit, treasure house, 44'4o Rite and ritual, concept of, 23, function, 24f., 14,75t., and mYth, 1of' rite depassage, Y Roastingand boiling, 89.29,:'o5,ro9, r8r Rome and TroY,t6o.tt1
)27
INDEX
Soot, for mummery 775, 795, 27o Soulsof the dead, r73, 216,zz6;belief in soul, 294 Sowing, and sacrifice,45, t4z'26 Sparta,sacrifice,4c.22;andking, 17.r2 Spear,hardenedwith fire, 77, r33; ol Telegonos,r59; in Roman marriage customs,62 Spruce,at the Isthmus, r98 Stadium, Argos,163.7,Isthmus, r97, Mount Lykaion,85, 92, OlYmPia'95, 96.12,97, 99 Stag,antlersas trophy, r4; transformation and killing, 9r.34, ttz, r78 Statue,set up on placeof sacrifice,39 Statuettes,female,4, 78-8o Stesichorus, zo4 Stones,anointed,57, throwing, 5.a6, 55.29,165, t83 Stoning, 55, r83 in sacrifice,to7, ro9, 164, Succession, t7z, r87f., zo4 Sumerians,sacrifice,1o.4),15 Sun, changesdirection, ro5 z8z.4o, :91 suouetaurilia, Survival, as shock, 50 Swamp, z3z Swinging, z4r, 243.fi Symbol, 4o-42; beans, 285, dolPhin, zo4, zrz, grain, 45, 255,260,weaPon,59, 62,72, wine, zz5, z3rf.,235 Syrians, fish tabu, zo5
Table overturned, 86, ro5, rz8 Tabu, and breaking tabu, 46, 91, 15); "Totem and Tabu", 74; seealsoMut' der, tabu Tail of sacrificial animal, 69, 286.56,z9r Taurobolion, 68.45, t59.rrz Tearing into pieces, tearing apart and in cult and slaughtering,5, r^2.48,64; myth of Donysus, rr2.r5, r2), a25; Pentheus,r98.r4; symbolic, 4r; Pel' ops and Pelias,99;Aktaion, rrr, Minyads, r74, Pityokamptes,r98 Temple, developed relatively late, z, :'o.41,tozf.; seealsoHearth house Theft, at sacrifice, rr8, rzo Theophrastus,on piety,8, on Buphonia, 48-4r
Thigh bones,6,r3 Throne, setting uP, 241 Thyiades,DelPhi, rz4f. Thyrsos,4r.3z Tiwah festival,Borneo, 5t.tz, 59.6 Torches,24, at Eleusis,267, 268.t6,275f., z7g,28t,285; torch raceat the Panathenaia,r55 267 Torre Nova sarcoPhagus, Tortoise,zrr Totemism, 18.16,r4r.zz Tradition, through ritual, xxii, r7, 19, 27f.,32, )4, 41,75,8) Tragedy,descriptionsof sacrifice,3-7 Transferred behavioral Patterns, J5, in funerary ritual, 5r, 53, and worshiP of the gods, 76 Transitional king, ro7, r87.9 Tree, for trophies,66, for hanging, 64, cf. 198 Trident, go.3o,zo8(f..).zr, cf. r4o, 157 Tripod kettle, at Delphi, 121-23;atthe Lykaia, 89.29,at OlYmPia,gg,a@, rz1; and Thyestes,ro5; and Melikertes,r78 Tropaion, 48, 66 Troy, and Dardanos,r3z; conquestof, r58f.; and Romans,r6o.rt3 Trumpet, z2o, z42 Tuna fish, eo8f. Tympanon,t,39,264 Tyrannicide,r6o(f.). r18 Tyrrhenians, and Donysus, 2oo, 242;o Lemnos, r9o
INDEX
tithesis, 169;goddessas virgin, 6of., 65,66f., 164.rz;Pythiaas virgin, rz6 Virgin sacrifice,64-68,245f.;beforeharvest, z6z, fishing, 64.24,zo7, war, 65, t48f., 157,;after war, 66f.; at burial, 67; symbolic, r5z, t84, 243, 259; and goddess,64.26,65.29,67.19, gil.
Wegonride, of Dionysus, 218.y; of Hera'spriestess,163;in the Anthesteria,229 Wagonship, Dionysia, zm.f.,238.y; Panathenaia,L55, 2or; Egypt, zor.z5 War, 47, cf . 35.r, 64; in myth, r47f . War chariot, 95 Watet as libation for the dead. 54, 56; sprinkling with water, 4, r1, 725f. Weapons,ritually controlled, q, a9, 24; carrying weaPonsin cult, roz, rrr, 155.87;sexualsymbolism. 59,71t., 87 Weatherma$c, 44.39,85.8,rro, r;.4 Weaving,of the Arrhephoroi, r5o, Minyads, r74, Philomela,r8r, Kore, Werewolves,84-9o; and Aktaion's dogs, rrzi and Autolykos, rzo; in medicine, 89.2.8,t7o.7;in ethnologY,88 Wheat, bladesat Eleusis,z5r, 28t.16, 29o;and Kore, z6o.uo,and Pluto, 289.73;cutting as castration,45, z9r White earth, r45f. White goddess, r79 White hair, r7o
White horses, r88 Whites againstblacks,r75f. Willingnessof the victim, 4.to, 66, 263 Winds, sacrificeto, 16.zr, rrof. Wine, ofdest, 224.4c;preparation of wrne, 277,zz4f.; rltual drinking, zzr, 235;fibation,6, 54,56f.;and Eleusis, z9r.34; and Dionysus, zz5; and blood, zz4,225.44,246;and the Cabir| ry5; and Mezentius, 242.15; sacrificewithout wine, 66.11 Wine pressing, as tearing apart, 45, 224.)9 Winnowing fan, seeLiknon Wolf, and Mdnnerbund, 17.21,18,88,cf. tt5, rzof.; transformationinto wolf. l-t5f., seealsoWerewolves;and dog, ro8, rrr Women, supportedby men, fi, 38,63; as opponents,46, in uprising, r45, 77o, t7L, r8t, r87, r9z; excluded,9t, roz Wooden horse, r58f. Wreath, at sacrifice,3, at initiation into mysteries, 268, z9r.gl; at Choes, zzo|, z3r, battle, 48, funerary cult, 56; ivy, zzo, spruce, 99, myrtle, 56, r6j.7
,i
1
"Year Daemon". xxi Year'send, 42, 749
Zarathustra, and animal sacrifice,7
Ugarit, sacrifice,1o.4);"blood of the vine" , 224.18;seealsoIndex of Names of Gods and Heroes,s.v. Aqhat; Anat; Athirat
r
Vampire, .41 Vegetationspirit, xxi, 44.J9,r47.22, t77.15, z6o, 261 Veilingthe head, 268,27),275 Venus statuettes, 79 aictima,7.3o Villa dei misteri, t85, r87 Virgin, in cult,4, roz, r37, r5o, cultican-
)28
11
)29
Y
Index of GreekWords
&Barou (dbaton),9t.34 ' A7 t p pav rcs (Agerrdnios), t7 3.z3 dyeucror. Buoiat (dgeustoithysiai), 9.4r, ct. 219 ' Ay pavr.a (Agrdnia), ry3.2r 'A7peus (Agreis), tto dy pqv6v (agrendn), n7 -59
dpyetg6vnls (argetphdntes), 165.18 d.pxosI dp xtos (drkosI drktos),9r. 35 dpxr eia (arkteia),63.zo 'Apzql6es fip.ipat (Arneideshemirai),ro7 (arnod6s),t o8 dpv<1t66s dppqronorcs (arrhetopoi6s), 286.56 tippqros (drrhetos),288.64,288.67, z9o(f.).79,2y.89 ti.ppq'rosSvcia (drrhetosthysia),zz5, 277, z8z appr19op tiv (arrhephorein),r 5o.6z cipyeo$at(irkhesthai),5, rz dre),fis (atells), 253.24 cigera (Qa (dphetaz6a),16.zr, 167.25
BaxTps(bdkkhos),278 pccilu vva-pac i\tooa (basilinnabasilissa),42.9 Bios (bios),4o Bo$pos(b6thros), 9.47, 77o Bou{tryns (buzyges),r 4o.zo pourritror. (buk6loi),17.ro 6 Bouxpavnv (bukrdnion), Bour|rl( (bupl6x),t77.34 Bons@trs),167 poinrs (bites),ry(f .).r,7 Borrtnos (butypos),ry8 - 4o Bougour.
yaleos (gale6s), 285 Teloiou (geloion),7t Tfpatpa (gdraira),232.8, z33.ro y egvp to 1.t oi (gephyrismoi),z74.z, 278.tg
334
INDEX
7)te0xos(gb[kos),2r7.6 y\fiyau (gl6khon),287.59 youpr avt (gurpdni),9.19
Sipa ),evctltov (thyma leilsimon), fi5 Bipa(e Kd.pes lKfi pes (thyraze Kires I K4res), z4o
6arr pos(daitr6s),49. 17 it<tparfi pn (diabatiria),4o Ards x<,r6roy(Dids k6dion),45, 268 16, 282.j9 Lur olrie w (Dipolieia), 46. z 6taoyp.a (diogma), l1.9.t3 Doriperos tnros (dilreios hippos), 6pdp"eva (dr6mena\,33
irrxycryco"yos(iakkhagog6s),279.24 iipuots (hidrysis), 46, 49. 5 iepa (hieri), 4o,76 iepeier,v (hiereilein),z iepeis (hierefis), 5 rlep
rfu.rr4
E)'o.gos(dlaphos),9r. 34, r78.4r ivay i(ew (enagizein),9.4r iv\opa (6ndora), 4o(f .).zo 6vr 6puew (entimnein), 9.4r i( dp"a(t'tv (ex hamax6n), zzg.t8 E{o pyeioflat (exorkhetsthai), 288.65 in orr eia, Etrorr ei ew (epopte{a, epopteitein), 275, 288.64 itonrrls (ep6ptes), 265.t Erog (epops), r81.zz i py aca pe uos. i py ao ia (ergasdmenos, ergasia),z6g.t9, z7z Epyou(6rgon),48 Eprcv (6rion), t51, 272.29 6p pqgo p eiu (errhephorein), ryo.62, t5 r. 67 Ecria (hestia), 5.2o, 277.7) Ecyapa (eskhdra),5.2o, 9.4r, 258.6 eigqp.eiv (euphemein), 4 ei)yeofiat (efikhesthai),4.r5 69$du p"i1 h&u (hephthdn mi optkn), 89(f.).29
xa$aipew (kathairein), 4o.z3 xcltrorlos (lailathos), z7 o xauqgopoe (kaneph6ros), 4 Kap (Kdr), zz8.r4 xap6rou),rda (kardiulkia), 6. zz xar a B do ov (katabdsion),z84. 47 xaray <'ty'i1(katagogt), z6r. z6 Kar ay
{6a (zta), z9r.8r
So'Xapq (haldme), z7r.z3 Oau).rcs (Thaillios), 49(.\. 17 B eoiv ta (theoinia), 41. to Beopos (thesm6s), 62, 286 B eo p.ogopos (thesmoph6ros),62.16 Blaau pos (thesaur6s), 44.4o B p6van6 (thr6nosis),266t. Bnecv (thyein), 3.4 Bu41
)tapva[ (ldrnax), ro6, tgt, zo4.4o XiBns (l6bes),rco, 178.42 Xey6p-eva xo.i 6pdp.eva (leg6mena kai dr6mena), 31
3)2
INDEX )rer,p.tbu(leimbn), zgz.83 ),euxou reilov (leukdn pedion), t7g.49 It eu xotr
rais dg' icrias
(pais aph' hestias), 257.3,
z&s.3r nauvuTis (pannykhis), t55,4g
nduoTrrne (pan6ptes), $7 n dvcn ep pLa \panspermia), z3g.r trelrauos (pelan6s),q7.8 ze).erus (p4lekys), r4o. l^8- t9 tz6trlos (peplos), r5o, r55, l'63 n epd,),ao ts (perillasis), 97.7 tr eptoyoiv to p.a (periskhoinisma), zr9.r4,
46
p.aiv eoBat (mainesthai), t4. 38 p.6yapou (mdgaron), 257, z5g, 277 pe tlrio o etu (meil i ssein), 56.3t lttlpia (meria), 6 M4zepes (Mdteres), t6.zr p.taiveoBat (miainesthai), 51 p,tapa i1p.6pa (miari hemtra), zt9f ., zzz lt ovogayot (monophdgoi), zzo.z3 p,ueZv, pcvrlots, pucrrlprcu (myein, fiyesis, mystirion), 248, 275.J p,utrrayayos (mystagog6s), 265.r, 275
trfiyavov (pdganon), 193.16 ntBoiy w (pithoigia), zr5 tri.Bos (pithos), z4r, zfuf . nilros (pilos), l1J, rg5 niorts (pistis), 37.rt r nuo xtTlt lzrqs (pityolaimptes), t98 n)ravq (pline), 279.z6 r \rotag 6
vaos (nads), roz utlp$n{ @drthex), 4t NexJora (Nekysia), q3 N4arela (Nesteia), r43.14 Ndpros (Ntinios), rro Nuxri),ra (Nykteha), q3. z3
{u}reus (xyleils),96f.
fatrtuos (rhdmnos), zr8 t'6(ew (rhizein), 1 t'on (rhoid\, 285.49
oixos (oikos), zr5.g, 276.8 'O)teiar (Oleiai), r75 6)rp.os (hblmos), l4. 38 riloluTri @lolygt), 5.79, 54 6 trt"oyvpos(hom6gyros), 164 itraiou (opaion), 277.rz tipxta (h6rkia), 35 6pyec (6rkheis), 4o.zj 6ci4 (hosie), 286.56 6orct, (h6sioi), 4c.25, t21., 125 6ctoiu (hositrn), 4o 6oro\oyeiv (ostologein), 5z dcgis (osphys), 6 oihoi (ulai), 4, 5.16 oi gopa (u phord),7.28
o t)rwou (stlinon), ry9. t 5 cerril pt"ov(septirion), o8 aqxos (sek6s), 276.8 orlcapoiu (sesamitn), 45.42 crct1ui1$keni), tz8 trxr,as (skids), 48.3t cxipos, oxipov, trxippos (skiros, skiron, skirrhos), 146.44 trtrapayp.6s (sparagm6s), t2.48, 4r, 64, 99, 172.15,125,774 atr),a"yyva (spldngkhna),6, 2o.33, 16 crovi'fi , criv6
)33
L
Y INDEX aeaf eiov (sphageion), 5.zo ogayta (sph,igia),9.4r, 48.49 aaedia (skhedia),42, 4z(f .).t1 ayfi p.a (skhAma),285.54,'288
gi\os (philos),75 evti @hyga),11.9 gu)tloBotrrio(phyllobolia),5.t6
yfiovrcr Beoi (khthdnioitheoi),9.4r aoai (khoai),54 Toipos (khoiros\, 256, 258 z6t. z6 XpucavBen (Khrysdntheia), ytnpot (lihytroi), zr5, 481.
T av po8qpia (Taurotheria),ry. ry r elteiv (telein),253.z4 rileros (tdleios), 1.9 relretai (teletai),3).14, 197,21o.g Tnavtxil tptcts (Titaniki ph,!sis),22.37, 225.43 fipa (t6mia),$.8 t pdr e(a (trdpeza), 7 30, gZ.8
r75 Vo),
i6 pogop ia (hydrophorin),z4z.t6 i6 pogopot (hydroph6roi), 47 ije - xie (h!e - h!e), 293
ri p.oBereiv (omothetein), 6.z5 tittrrogayia (omophagia),4o.z5
,pdpos(phiros), r53 9t7op,a (phdsmn),288.64
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