Spyridon Rangos Magdalene College, Cambridge Ph D. 202.22 Cults of Artemis in Ancient Greece Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, for the Ph.D. Degree CambridKe 1995 Spyridon Rangos Cults of Artemis in Ancient Greece ABSTRACT Artemis was a cruel and wild goddess. Her mythological apparatus was replete with blood and death. Her cults displayed awe-inspiring elements of primitivism. Together with Dionysus, to whom she is mythologically and ritually related, she presents a riddle for the student who tries to understand her place in the Greek pantheon . In accordance with the modern alertness to the dangers of oversimplification lurking behind sweeping general accounts, I have chosen six particular Artemisian cults in three places of mainland Greece (at Sparta, Athens and Patras) upon which to focus my attention. In the aetiological legends of their foundations the Spartan and Athenian cults share a common origin (located by ancient writers in the distant Black Sea), the supervising deity being identified as Artemis Taurike. They also display remarkable signs of remote antiquity or, as has been proposed, of an archaizing process. Cruel rituals and beliefs associated with primitive magic are conspicuous in these cults but also feature prominently in the two cults in Achaia. The cult of Artemis Ortheia is comprehensively studied. All the existing ancient evidence, both literary and archaeological, is taken into account in an attempt to give a unified picture of the goddess without neglecting the di versity of disperse elements. By contrast, in the exploration of the three Attic cults selectivity prevails. Here again the emphasis is on what was common among the rituals enacted and the aetiological myths of their foundation, but not all ancient testimonies are considered to be of equal value. Consequently some sources are omitted and others overlooked in the discussion, for the additional reason that the Attic cults have been satisfactorily explored in recent publications. From the aforementioned local cults the focus is then shifted to the Homeric epics. The distinctive feature of Homeric religion is found in the endowment of divine powers with precise Forms and in the understanding of divine forms in anthropomorphic terms of Beauty. The contrast with the Artemisian cults at Patras is striking. There are of course signs in Homer showing that the gods are conceived as Powers, but the heroic epic tradition seems to have opted for the adoration of beauty as an indication of Excellence. How are we to combine the adorable divine maiden of the Homeric epics with the wild power manifested in local cults? Artemis vacillates between virginity conceived as maidenly exquisiteness and celibacy symbolizing natural wilderness. 2 My hypothesis is that in the eyes of the Greeks, virginity, far from being 'absence' or lack of sexuality (as has often been supposed), was indeed the precondition of fertility. The dynamism of procreation was considered to reside in virginity; hence the strengthening of virginity was regarded as the intensification of procreative power, in much the same way as, in an image drawn from applied physics, the energy to be gathered from a water-stream is enhanced by the use of a dam that arrests the stream's natural course. Such a hypothesis may well be supported by the ancient evidence, and may also account for the second characteristic trait of the Archaic Artemis, namely her wildness. For in wildness , symbolically crystallized in 'forests' and 'hunting-activities', the ancient mind saw , rather than merely a stage antecedent to, and indispensable for, 'civilization' (as the most popular theory assumes), awe-inspiring powerfulness and mighty detachment calling for religious veneration. In the diptych of the complementary contrariety between the Heavenly and the Earthly, the local cults, with their special emphasis on ritual enactment, stressed the maternal side of existence, whereas the Homeric m.vthology chose to emphasize the masculine principle that is operative in the world. This latter principle when applied to a pre-existing feminine deity, assumes the form of potential fecundity, hence of virginity, as opposed to the actual fertility of motherhood. The most recent theory on Artemis is that of 1.-P. Vernant (and his so-called Paris School). The French scholar claims that Artemis is a goddess of marginality, a deity at home where ambivalence, ambiguity and liminality prevail. This , however, relates more to the modern milieu where marginality and the concomitant ambiguity are conceptual missiles of great heuristic value than to the goddess herself. Artemis was primarily mallifested as natural Dynamism. Given the amoral character of natural dynami sm she could be munificent or malevolent depending on the circumstances of her manifestation (implied intervention orfully-fIedged epiphany). But such a duality does not entitle us to speak of marginality in her case, because in the eyes of the worshippers themselves her being was perfectly well circumscribed and very clearly defined. In contrast to the modern deeply-felt insecurity vis-a.-vis the clarity of beings , a distinctive feature of ancient polytheism was the clear-cut delineation of the beings aspiring to the divine order. fJ To A.L. Pierris Ta BE rravTa OLaKCCEl KEpauvos Herael. fr. 64 (Diels-Kranz) III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS From the invaluable help that I have received from Dr P. Cartledge throughout my studies in Cambridge I would like to single out three consequences that have proven to be of the greatest import for the course of my thought. It was he who first made me realize that the ancient sources do not speak for themselves as I had erroneously assumed previously. It was he who provided me with a sense of the historical dimension and of the changes that accompany the passage of time. And it was he who broadened my intellectual horizons, initiated me in the recent trends of academic discourse (of which I was more than totally ignorant) and thus enabled me to escape the constant threat to all research, the danger that comes under the name of provincialism. For his indefatigable availability whenever a problem arose and his unfailing support during the vicissitudes that are part and parcel of conducting graduate research I find no words to express my indebtedness. My wholehearted thanks are due to Dr M. Beard, Prof P. Easterling and Dr Ch. Sourvinou-Inwood for having carefully read and commented on drafts of chapters of the present thesis. Their remarks, even when not incorporated in the text, have always been sources of fruitful thought and have instigated a better appreciation on my part of the problems, methodological or 'substantial', with which the student of ancient Greek religion is constantly faced. Especially when, for polemical reasons, the emphasis was put too strongly on the side to be defended, they have helped me redress the balance- or, so I hope. I would like to thank Dr S. Georgoudi for the hospitality and warmth with which she received me in Paris and the eagerness she showed in making me feel at home in the Centre L. Gernet. The discussions in a cafe near Sorbonne after the seminars, vividly preserved in my mind since, have invigorated my sense of academic community and facilitated my integration in the Parisian life. I would also like to thank Dr R. Osborne for his kindness in sending me a typescript of a paper he delivered at Cambridge of which my deplorable memory had retained only the faintest outlines. In the persons of Dr A. Alexandri, Mr O. van Nijf, Mr O. Timoney, Mr S. Pateras and Ms H. Patrikiou I have found not only valuable friends but also willing and, most importantly, critical readers of pieces of my work. The pragmatic eye of Dr A. Papangelou has now and again spotted verbal inadequacies and his positive sense of clarity has enabled me to bring some of my points more down to earth. To all these people I would like, publicly also, to express my warmest thanks. IV From the recurring (much against his habits) night-long discussions with Mr P. Dalias, a biologist with special interest in ecology and evolution, I have benefited more than I can tell. He would be surprised to be acknowledged for what I would like to call his keen interest in, or rather loyalty to, the Artemisian field of power, but he would readily realize how very close to one another our respective projects are, separated though they appear by the (ultimately artificial) gap that divides Arts and Sciences. More than a result of contingent circumstances as is usually the case, our friendship is rather based on having 'things in common'. Shall I also thank Mr A.L. Pierris for having opened a path into the ancient world which would, perhaps for many years to come, have remained for me an inaccessible ideal? I understand that thanking him would be an all too inadequate expression of my gratitude. Acknowledgement of intellectual debt does not, it goes without saying, alleviate the burden of responsibility which always remains with the author. All the persons mentioned above and countless others of whose influence in shaping my views I am not even aware have a share in the success when the arrow hit the target. But when it fell short of its task, my unskillfulness alone is to blame. There are LAOL but there are also LhaToL. Among the Greeks of the student-diaspora it is customary to thank parents for financial support and continuous emotional assistance. However, if, in his traditional reply to Midas, Silenos were wrong and the spontaneous adoration of life be a sign of its self-justification, who can find adequate words to thank those on whose hands our most precious thing, our very existence, has always depended- its coming-into-being and its continuation to the present? v TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface A. Prolegomena Studying Ancient Greek Religion I. Some Fundamental Concepts of Greek Religion ... (i) Immanence and Thiswordliness (ii) Myth and Cult (iii) A Modification of the Evolutionist Approach (iv) Greek Religion and Nature (v) The Relevance of Myth (vi) Myth, Truth and Being-in-the-World (vii) The Chthonic and the Olympian (viii) Allegory and Symbol (ix) The Historical Archetype as a Work of Art (x) The World as a Whole Seen from a Particular Angle 11 ..... And a Question: Is Historical Theology Possible? B. Legomena and Dromena I. Arle1llis Orlheia (i) The Divine Epiklesis (ii) The Ritual Flagellation (iii) One is the Virtue: Andreia Contents and Games (iv) Spartan Age-Classes Flagellation Again (v) Ortheia as Artemis The Sickles The Cheese-Grabbing Ritual (vi) Ortheia and Aotis (vii) The Horse (viii) The Masks a. What is a Greek Mask? b. An Unfragmenting Heracleitian Fragment c. ITpoCJuHTOV ElT\' eEOU 11 E1TlVUlV. Ta BE AOlTIa [lUSlKWS ijBll TIpOa~KTal TIPOS T11V TIEl Sw TWV TIOAAWV Kat TIPOS TT] V Eis TOUS VO[lOUS Kat TO aV[lEpoV xpfjalV· avSpWTIOElBELS TE yap TOVTOVS Kat, TWV aXXulV (u,iwv 0llOLOUS naL AEyoual, Kat TOVTOlS ETEpa aKOAouBa Kat TIapaTIA~Ula TOtS Ei. Pll[lEVOlS, WV EL ns xwp(aas mho Aa~ol [lovov Tl) TIPWTOV, on BEOUS t\lOVTO Tas TIpc.oJTas ovaLas Elvm, SEOUS UV Ei. pfjaSm VO[lLaElEV, Kat, KaTa TO ELKOS TIOAAaKlS Ei. Pll[lEVllS KaTa TO 8uvaTov EKaaTllS Kal TEXVllS KaL lAoaoLas KaL TIaAlV SElPO[lEVWV Kat Tmhas Tas Bo~as EKELVWV oIov AEL qJava TIEpWEaWaSm [lEXPl TOV vVv. ~ [lEV ouv TIaTpLOS Bo~a KaL ~ TIapa n;)v TIPWTC.t.lV ETIt ToaovTov li[lLV avEpa [l0 vov. Arist. Me/aph. A 1074a38-1074b14 It is indeed an irony that biology which as its name suggests is the science that deals with life cannot properly define its subject-matter. To the prima facie very simple question "what is life?" biology cannot provide a definite answer. Empirically, however, not only the biologist but the layman as well can, in most cases, distinguish an animate being from an inanimate object. Likewise, the study of religion cannot gi ve a satisfactory answer to the question "whati.s religion?" , namely an answer that is broad enough to encompass all known religious beliefs and practices and also specific enough to be meaningful. A provisional answer could suggest that religion is the relationship of man with the divine and furthemlore claim that a particular religion is the particular f orm in which this relationship is manifested in a particular culture. But then the problem seems to be transposed one step farther back, and to be subsequently posed with reference to the 'divine': are we sure that we are making a meaningful statement when we speak, in a rather abstract way, of the di vine? 3 SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF GREEK RELIGION ... To present basic assertions and provide outlines is to make simplifications and 'neglect aspects that can only be accommodated by roundabout arguments. A clear vision is, however, required before embarking on a detailed analysis of particular (and possibly exceptional) cases. A phaenomenological description silently presupposes what lets itself (Gods) - > Mythology - > Gods. The gods in brackets are the vague entities (not yet personalities) which mythology uses in its purely etiological function; the last 'gods' are those created by mythology through this process. By modifying the meaning and applications of 'evolution' we may be better equipped to find a way toward a satisfactory explanation. Human evolution together with its implications and possible inferences may be misleading, even plainly fallacious, when it is applied to a hypothetical human 'substance' which progressively evolves as time passes by. When by evolution we mean the progress of man from the first (hypothetical or 'attested') semi-human anthropoid through stages of hunting and fruit-collection , cattle breeding, horticulture and agriculture, and finally 'high culture' to the last development of the present (i.e. the Western post-industrial era of highly advanced technological equipment), the notion of evolution is wrong. For it co-ordinates different cultures in a unilinear scheme that takes it for granted that in tracing the historical development (by appropriate selection of what seems worthy of mention) the previous stage (or what is assigned to that position) is worse than the next stage which is in principle better. In point offact, Near Eastern art is seen as the precursor of the artistic achievements of the Greek classical period, whereas Greek science is the antecedent of the European seventeenth century and so on and so forth accordingly with reference to the specific subject matter of each particular evolution to be traced. This notion of evolution is less conspicuously false , for it provides a sense of continuity which seems sometimes indispensable for the understanding of historical processes. With modifications and elaborations it is still employed today. But although evolution, we are now in a position to affirm, should not be applied to mankind as a whole, it can nevertheless be applied to each particular culture seen in its entirety. In an Aristotelian way of reasoning, evolution would then mean development and unfolding until a thing reaches the proper actuality of its appropriate nature. Full of potency a culture progresses, triumphally reaches its climax and then declines. Such could, it follows, be the case with religion too. (And this is not in fact an argument by analogy, because I take religion to be the quintessential crystallization of the culture which generates it.) As a consequence, the evolutionary scheme can be modified as follows: Awe-inspiring Nature -> (Gods) -> Religious Experience -> Myth and Cult -> Gods. The temporal precedence of Myth over Cult or vice versa is not a matter of historical process or a matter of principle, but should be decided with reference to each particular mythico-religious couplet in question. The 'Gods' in brackets are the AugenblickGotter of the sensitive Usener. 8 Greek Religion and Nature If the myth is something said and the cult something done, the problem that arises next must concern the stimulus which causes, or rather, has caused since time immemorial, the emergence of myth and cult as the basic elements of religion. The route towards the solution of this riddle should, I think, be sought in the direction of the primal relationship of Man with the World as a whole. It seems that as soon as the Greek mind became aware of itself (as soon as it found its appropriate nature, EUPE T~V oLKELav 9 Cult, different though they are, originate from the same root which is the realization of being-in-the-world on the part of man who subsequently becomes a worshipper of nature. In this sense to oppose the Ritualists' thesis by claiming that "myth and ritual are autonomous phenomena [that are] governed by [their] own [different] structural laws" I I is an exaggeration in the opposite direction. As a result of the emergence of Myth and Cult, religion turns out to be the specific mode of a particular relationship of Man with the Divine. The particularity ofthe relationship is due to, and is summarized by, the fact that divinity is simultaneously different from, and identical with, Nature itself. The fallacy and banality of the naturalist allegorical interpretations of ancient religion (Max Muller's, for instance) lie precisely in their inability to understand such a paradoxical dual relationship of divinity vis-a.-vis Nature. The givenness of the concept of Nature has in recent years been seriously challenged. People are now less willing to accept that there is a Nature that exists out there irrespective of man's intellectual conceptualization thereof. Nature is now regarded as a cultural construction that has been designed and built up by means of a great expense of human mental labour but which, otherwise, does not exist in and of itself. It is true that what has been ascribed to Nature over the centuries since its primal conceptual discovery in Archaic Greece can easily be discredited as nothing but ideology based ultimately on class- and gender-struggles. It is equally true that such a concept ' s unquestionable acceptance can be applied to so many different contexts in so many different ways, and the concept itself can be manipulated in such divergent directions, that its content becomes blurred and meaningless. Finally, it is true that in the modern academic milieu the bringing of nature into a discussion is not met with a spontaneous, if unconscious, response. In most cases, nature is considered to be a hollow word devoid of any significance whatsoever of which we would better, iffor reasons of clarity, dispose entirely as soon as possible. However, Nature's he)lristic value for dealing with questions of intellectual history arising from the study of the culture in which this concept was first given birth is great. We must first understand the intellectual language of the ancient Greeks before we may legitimately seek to translate it into the terms of our own conceptual apparatus. It is commonly assumed that the emergence of philosophy in the early sixth century B.C. with the semi-historical, semi-legendary figure of Thales marked a sudden rupture with the traditional worldview of religion as described in the Homeric epics. The emergence of philosophy is usually linked to the emergence of the Archaic polis and the two features are supposed to be the pointers, on the intellectual and the social plane respectively, of the new outlook that was to be developed in the succeeding centuries.12 In fact, the rupture that occurred in Archaic Greece was not of the sort that we have been Ilara[ Mythology. 116. 12Cf. Vemant Origines ; Snodgrass Archaic 160-200. 10 accustomed to think that it was. The intellect did not emancipate itself from the realm of Objective Being, but remaining, conversely, totally permeated thereby sought to give a rational articulation of the pre-existing experience of Nature. The great triumph of the Presocratics was that they managed to forge a language based on rationality which enabled them to get away from the mythical conception of the world without necessarily betraying its meaning. The transition from religion to philosophy13 (which, it is worth remembering, was never in the ancient world completely victorious for the 'progressive' side14) was an intellectual advance, the significance of which can hardly be overemphasized. But it was primarily a change of the linguistic and intellectual means employed to explain, and relate to, the external world, rather than a change of outlook. In the context of the new language revealed through the creative effort of the Archaic philosophers, the concept of Nature is perhaps the 'discovery' with the most far-reaching consequences. But religion equally referred to Nature avant la lem·e. The 'divine' refers to the primal cause that renders things meaningful, that provides them with an aim and integrates their being. The attempt of the Ionian physiologues to find a common substance in all worldly ,things was a search for the divine, in the sense of the most precious, because unalterable, element which undergoes changes without itself ever being changed. The first among them, who stressed the generative aspect of moisture and accordingly discerned water in everything, is reported to have said that all things are full of gods1S: the spirit of his teaching will not be altered if it be proven that the wording is not his. And the two most eminent representatives of the philosophy that flourished in Italy in the first half of the fifth century, Parmenides16 and Empedocles17, similarly designated the result of their speculations as divine. If their language is, in modem accounts, considered to be metaphorical, this relates more to the perplexity of the modem investigators than to the ancient understanding of what it is to be divine. In a similar spirit the Herac1eitean all-permeating fire and the logos common to all beings are understood to be divine l8, and the 'mythological' Erinyes who prevent the sun from transcending its ordered course19 are the principles of cosmic harmony. It would seem to be a fair, if provocative, assertion to say that the immanence of divinity was never denied in Greece, not even by Plato, the fabricator of the supposedly transcendental Forms. A passage in the cosmological Timaeus, in fact the very end of the dialogue, blatantly states that the existing world is the most beautiful conceivable cosmos 13Cr. Corn ford Religion ; Vernant Pensee 373-410, !4Cf., Dodds Progress 1-25 ; L10yd Magic 226-267 and id. Demyslifying 39-72, SAnst. Anim. 411a7. 16Palll1, fr. 1 (Diels-Kranz) . 17Emped, fr. 6 (Diels-Kranz), ! 8Heracl. fn', 2, 30, 31, 114. 9Heracl. fr. 94 (Diels-Kranz), 11 that could ever have existed.2o Its beauty is the product of the skilful demiurgue that arranged everything in order. Ancient Greek Culture ascribes divinity solely to Nature. Already in Homer, above even the rule of the father of mortals and immortals stands Moira. If translated into our own language, Moira would be both Nature and History. Nature, because it never goes against the predictions and commandments of the natural constitution of beings. Or when it seemingly does, it is only because of a lack of deeper knowledge of what is natural that goes into play. And History, because it is the principle which provides the course of things with their ultimate justification. Nature does nothing in vain, the ancient philosopher proclaimed21 , and the same holds true for History seen from the point of view of the overall harmony of the world. When there appears to be an injustice, it is always for the sake of a larger (ergo, from the limited human perspective, hidden) justice. Greek tragedy insisted thereon to the point of making further justification of the claim sound redundant. The Greek tendency to ban the fantastic and the unnatural from the worldly stage can be illustrated from the way in which the Homeric heroes come into contact with the sphere of the godhead and sense the presence of the various gods: Athena is Whispering her counsel in the ear of her protege, and Diomedes or Odysseus take notice of her presence through the revelatory thoughts that suddenly suggest themselves to them; the flight of the birds is an omen indicative of Zeus ' s will; the tremor that unexpectedly haunts the Achaeans is sent by Apollo as a manifestation of his power; when Paris is unable to harness his desire for the beautiful Helen the intervention is Aphrodite's. In all these instances nothing abnormal happens. The divine epiphany is not a transgression and an aberration from the natural course of things. The miraculous and the extraordinary are natural events of extreme emotional potential, during which another sphere of existence, the powerful existence of the gods, is, as it were, unconcealed, dis-covered, in a flash of light. In contradistinction when the immortal steed of Achilles predicts in human voice the imminent death of the best of the Achaeans and reminds the hero of the yoke of untresspassable necessity that is to be suffered by all things mortal, the same Heracleitean Erinyes intervene to deprive the horse of the semantic voice that is not intrinsically his.22 20Plat. Tim. 92b. 21Arist. Pol. 1253a9. 22Hom. n. XIX, 407-418. 12 The Relevance of Myth Myth is the ordered narrative of something we refer to as real in a specific sense: the commonly assumed historicity of the myth by the members of the society in which the myth is alive, is the expression of its relevance.23 The myth is real, even when admittedly considered to be historically inaccurate24, because the outcome of the mythical deeds, (and, prior to that, the outcome of the mythical naming) is of utmost relevance to our lives. The psychoanalytic concepts of id, ego, superego and the like are, in this sense, mythical persons. They are endowed with particular attributes (resistance, will etc.), although the process towards anthropomorphism has not been completed in their case, because it runs counter to the modern conception of scientific truth. Similarly, the Big Bang is the contemporary mythological event of Creation, and the Optimism of the Enlightenment a specific mythological attitude. The philosophic notion of apx~ comes very close to the way in which myth is perceived and experienced in a myth-permeated society. ' ApX~ is either beginning or principle (or both at once). On the one hand, Myth, as a narrative describing divine and heroic deeds that are well-placed in time, refers to the beginnings of things, to the time when the world as we know it had not yet been fixed; rather, it was the divine and heroic actions that produced the ordered cosmos that we all experience. The relevance of Myth in the present, on the other hand, is its ubiquitousness. A mythological legend, its entertaining aspect aside, is worth reciting again and again because not only do the actions thereby described account for the existence of a particular ritual , institution or physical event and explain how it originally came about, but, moreover, because these very actions as the principles of preservation and stability of an existing reality are operative in the present.25 In the thought that Demeter may have ceased to mourn the disappearance of her daughter, the descent of Persephone to Hades, in the thought that she may have stopped performing the self-same act every year, the efficiency of the Eleusinian Mysteries is immediately shattered. Mythological deeds are at once situated in illo tempore and in the hic et nunc. The assumed historicity of the mythical events is the expression of the relevance of myth in the present. Myth, Truth and Being-in the-World All societies give linguistic expression to their constituent experiences. The result of thi s process is a simple or complex Fundamental Myth in which a society believes, and with ;!cr. Veyne My/hs?; Detienne Illvelllioll . 25 Cr. Brillante "History" and Cartledge Greeks 18-35. Cr. Eliade Aspects and Retollr. 13 reference to which all things become meaningful. But we should stop short of inferring from the apparent diversity of existing mythologies that myth is an arbitrary creation of human imagination of which human progress will sooner or later dispose. The u·niversal distribution of myth is in itself indicative of the indispensability of myth for human existence. But if something is indispensable for the existence of something else, then the former's ontological priority is sufficiently demonstrated. What is ontologically superior and chronologically antecedent to human existence is the world as a whole. The world as whole is called, in philosophical jargon, Being as such. A stage where no world (in the sense of an ordered cosmos) exists is imaginable and conceivable - it may even, under certain circumstances, be meaningful. But a stage where Being as such is entirely absent, as distinct from being hidden, is not imaginable at all. It is Being as such that we cannot escape, rather than the idealistic category of the empty Space it la Kant. Myth is not necessarily opposed to Truth,26 nor is mythos in predetermined conflict with logos. The llu8w8ES of Thucydides27 is no more meant as an accusation (in the sense of the fantastic, exaggerated and unreal) than the AOYOITOLOS of Herodotus28, and the Platonic Protagoras can ask his audience whether they prefer to listen to a logos or a mythos, because he understands that the two have the same heuristic value.29 The interchangeability of mythos and logos in the opening scene of the Trachiniae is a very revealing case in point.3o Plutarch3 1 says that truth relates to myth in the same way as the sun relates to the rainbow; there is, in a sense, a causal relationship, myth being the effect of the dissipation of luminous truth which is the cause. The iridescent variety produced by the mixing of light with what is not light is the sensual world that surrounds us. As the sun is the ultimate cause of the rainbow, so is truth the ultimate cause of myth. Now we can see why Greek intellectuals (as distinct from the laymen for whom the logical inconsistencies of myths did not present a problem) sometimes referred to the llu8w8ES as to a container of lies. It is true to say that unless one ascends to, and perceives, the ultimate cause of the rainbow , i.e . the sun , one cannot fully account for the existence of the rainbow. It is , however, no less true that the rainbow is not a lie (in the sense of a deception) because it is an existent. Here lies the purely meta-physical foundation of truth (which should not be confused with any idealistic conception thereof). And here the assumed tension between truth and myth is resolved. Because myth represents the world of appearances, myth is the outcome (and from an empiricist perspective also the ground) of truth. Unless truth 26Cf. Deti enne "A AHElEIA". 27Thuc. 1,22. 28Herod. V, 36. 29Plat. PrOf. 32Oc. ~OSOPh. Trach. 60-67. lplut. De [sid. ef Osir. 20 = Mor . 358f 14 becomes emancipated from the existing reality, i.e. from the world of myth, the battles between truth and myth, however cruel, fierce and excruciating they may occasionally be, will always remain quarrels between next-of-kin. In so far as the ancient world goes, in the battlefield ofthe myth-versus-truth antagonism, the matricidal crime of Orestes was never committed. Its destructive consequences (for Athena supplies only a legalistic solution) were thus evaded. In the framework of modem science and Western rationalism, myth is opposed to truth as to its very unreconcilable antithesis (in a non-dialectical sense). But rationalism is just one way of perceiving reality, it is not the only way. Mathematical quantification, the ideal, that is, to which all rationalism aspires, gives an uncontestably fair but limited and one-sided picture of the world. In his reply to E. JUnger's contribution (»Dber die Linie«)32 to the dedicatory volume for M. Heidegger's sixtieth anniversary, the German philosopher wrote33: Reason and its conceptions are only one kind of thinking and are by no means determined by themselves but by that which has been called thinking, to think in the manner of ratio. The Myth of the modem world is the Myth of Science and Rationalism. But since rationalism opposes myth, there is a point (for reasons of clarity at least) in making the distinction between societies that are truly myth-permeated and those that are not. The Chthonic and the Olympian There are two strands to be discerned In Greek religion: the Chthonic and the Olympian.34 The Greeks were well aware of the difference between them. Chthonic deities were worshipped at night, their altars were close to the ground (~68poS', EGxapa), sacrifices to them were all-burnt offerings (oAoKalJTCJ.l \-la) , the victims chosen were preferably black. Olympian deities, by contrast, had large and occasionally very elaborate altars (~(J.l\-l6S'), their worship was a day-light affair performed under the all-seeing eye of the sun, the victims chosen were preferably white and, apart from the portion left on the altar to bum and nourish by the ascending smoke the heavenly immortals, the meat was cooked and distributed to the participants. 32J" P unger assage. ~!Heidegger Question 39. Cr. Burkert Religion 199[f. 15 Various complex combinations of the Chthonic and Olympian elements can be found in particular cults.35 A phenomenological survey of Greek religious practices may blur the distinction which, for the most part, was kept intact. When in a given case the elements are fused, it is worth studying the reasons that have led to the fusion (which must not necessarily be a historical confusion of strata). The Chthonic is essentially beyond good and evil;36 it is unlimited productivity, lack of form, tremendous power of bringing-forth. Its essence lies in unconditioned , unrestrained, almost arbitrary, Procreation. It is permeated by no principle of Form, no Order. It is chaotic eternal outflow. Its justification, which lies outside any ethical mode of being, consists in that it is. In this sense, it has no goal other than being what it is, no aim other than bringing into being. Hence, it is purposeless. When an ethics develops from the Chthonic principle, its sole concern is the tremendous importance of procreation as exhibited in the maternal blood ties. The Olympian, by contrast, is essentially good and beautiful; it is the principle of Order, Form and Individuation.lts essence, the dynamism of which presupposes a telos, consists in Perfection and Excellence. It is essentially purposeful, generating an eros for the Best. So far as our (primarily archaeological) evidence can go, the Chthonic and the Olympian are strata in the developmental sense to the extent that in ancient religion the more 'primitive' outlook in the first place stressed, and dwelled upon, the chthonic principle of reality to the detriment of the Olympian. The chthonic aspect of a deity, almost unilaterally focused upon in the beginning, engenders (and can be held responsible for the emergence of) the Olympian element in due course. What lies under the earth and what by nature resists daylight is the efficient cause of the formidable luminous presence, the flower proper, to come to the fore later. Since such a process is accomplished inside time (whence it assumes the form of a temporal succession), the chthonic element is in historical terms the substratum of that of which the Olympian element is the superstructure (and the newcomer for that matter). However, the Chthonic and the Olympian are not strata in the developmental sense to the extent that the Chthonic was never completely effaced (nor could it have been, for 35-rhe fusion of the Chthonic and the Olympian in many instances of Greek religious experience has caused serious reservations concerning the pertinence and applicability of the dichotomy in doing justice to the available evidence. The discussion has been recently reki ndled by two very interesting articles where a re-examination of the (pre-)conceptions of past explorers of Greek religion has been attem pted. I take sides, of course, with Scull ion ("Olympian") against the skeptici sm of Schlesier ("Olympian") , acknowledging, however, that some of the latter's reservations are more than justified. An organic, as opposed to a stiff, strictl y delineated and rigidly taxonomic, understanding of the two terms as rep:esenting principles of reality (both of which are indispensable for Glly fully integrated being, be it dlVl11e) may overcome most of the pragmatic difficulties that a close examination of the ancient evidence wIll raise. The relationship of the Chthonic-Olympian dichotomy to the two distinct ancient conceptions of godhead (viz. 'gods and men share a common OIigin' vs. 'the gap between mortals and immortals is ~~bndgeable') is brilliantly grasped by Guthrie Gods 113fr. Cr. NIlsson History 152. 16 this would result in the collapse of the entire religious system). When ancient Greek religion reached maturity (i.e. in the Archaic Age) the Olympian principle of. reality, excellently manifested in the Homeric gods, took precedence over the Chthonic. But this can only mean that the bright and admirable sides of divinity were duly emphasized in their radiant splendour; it cannot and should not mean that the chthonic element was forgotten, estranged and had fallen into oblivion. Any individual deity which can be named and perceived in a concrete form, however chthonic its functions are, has within it a tiny portion of Olympianism. However, a tendency to neglect the chthonic foundation of all that is, began to appear with the classical era and seems to have been the primal concern of Aeschylus' Oresteia. The fifth century shows perspicuous signs of what has been pointedly called "the Hybris of Order" .37 The theological instruction that Aeschylus seems to have intended to give in 458 B.C. to his arrogant compatriots who had won Marathon, is that 'chthonicity' is the inalienable support for any kind of Olympian glory. The two elements are, therefore, archetypal principles of the constitution of the world. Their union is symbolically expressed in ritual form as a sacred marriage (iEpOS yciIlOS). All Greek 'theologians' from Homer onwards refer to the primal couple that exists in the beginning of time. The names under which the two primordial beings are known differ from one poetic account to the other. But, in all cases, their copulation is held responsible for the generation of the cosmos. All worldly beings are products of the earthly womb which is impregnated by the heavenly moisture.3 8 What gives actual birth, the maternal uterus, is more procreative and 'parental' than what begets, viz. the fatherly semen. No wonder, therefore, that the masculine principle was originally subordinate to the feminine principle. In the earliest theogony proper that has come down to us, in Hesiod's account of the constitution of the world, the generation of Ouranos is a parthenogenic emanation from the bowels of Gaia. Allegory and Symbol To think the name sometimes suffices for the elucidation of the concept. Allegory is to speak of one thing by means of another.39 And this pertains to all fields of semantics. To paint a beautiful maiden and call the picture 'spring' is to paint in allegorical terms. In allegory the signifier and the signified are kept distinct: the one points and refers to the other, although there is a way of referring to the signified in a more direct way. The entity 'spring' (content) can be referred to as 'spring' (word); and we know that the spring is not 37Pierris "Hellenistic" 144. 3( 8In the Hesiodic cosmogonic account other beings, it is true, interfere for the creation of the cosmos ~uCh as Chaos, Night, Eros etc.), but the importance of the Earth and of her son (the Sky) with whom ~ge copulates is emphatically stressed. Cr. Gadamer Bea((l~f((l. 17 a beautiful maiden, but simply a season. The method of allegoresis in the study of mythology may be said to go back to the sixth century B.C. with Theagenes of Rhegium.4o If Hera is the air and Artemis is the moon, then to speak of Hent and of Artemis instead of what is properly meant thereby is to speak allegorically. By contrast, the symbol is what is immediately recognized as what it is and what can at once express its meaning. There is, of course, a duality in the symbolic no less than in the allegorical. But the difference between the two lies in the fact that the symbolic duality is immanent in the symbol, whereas the allegorical duality disjoins the allegory from the thing meant allegorically. In the original Greek conception of the term, the CJl)f1~OAa are tokens of recognition. A coin or an ankle is cut into two pieces and the two CJuf1~aAA6f1Eva persons recognize one another when they realize that the two CJuf1~OAa fit together. In this sense, Plato and Aristotle could refer to sexual attraction ~s a symbolic union.41 A man meets a woman (or another man, as the case may be) and he 'remembers' her; he recognizes in her the symbol that he has missed and longs for; his desire derives from a symbolic recognition. The symbolic is the expression of something other than the symbol itself which, nevertheless, could not have been expressed otherwise. This leads to a symbolic or tautegorical (as opposed to allegorical) interpretation of mythology, the great significance of which for an understanding of Greek religion Schelling was the first to recognize. In recognizing religion as the field of the symbolic par excellence Schelling acted in accordance with the subject matter: his realization was a realization necessitated by the fundamental law of an immanent religion, the law of the symbolic. Hence, the tautegorical interpretation of religious symbolism is the theoretical (or philosophical) mode of understanding religion that is intrinsic to religion itself. For, by not reducing religion to something else, 'tautegory' seeks to understand religion from within. To say that a symbol is this or that may be misleading, because it assumes that the symbol is used in order to cover things and obscure their meaning. (This may occasionally happen with bad symbolic art, but then symbolism is used homonymously. A symbol that prevents clarity of vision is no symbol in the true sense at all.) If the symbol is what causes recognition, it can be equated with the symbolized, it is indeed identical therewith, because if the symbolized could be expressed by itself, the symbol would never have been used in the first place: it would have been redundant, for the symbolized could have manifested itself without the mediation of the symbol. When the decipherment of a symbol is needed, the symbol seems to be past its prime, to have lost its power to signify the symbolized. The symbol turns out to be a 40Diels-KranzFVS 151-52 41 . Plat. Symp. 1991d; Arist. Elh.ElId. 1239b23-32. 18 riddle when it does not immediately indicate the symbolized, when it no longer finds spontaneous response. The spontaneity of the response to the symbol is established in the original context in which the symbol as such initially emerges. This context is the living culture in which the symbol has the power to conjure up the symbolized, without any need of meditation. The Historical Archetype as a Work of Art The plane where the symbolic naturally thrives the most is the domain of great fine art. What pre-eminently characterizes a work of art - be it transient (like poetry or music) or visual (like sculpture and architecture)- is its naturalness. The great effort made by the artist, the pains he took, during a masterpiece's conception and execution are concealed, or rather demolished by the very presence of the work of art. When this condition is not fulfilled, the work of art is not worthy of the title. Thus, the work of art appears, or rather stands there, as a natural off-spring. Its naturalness is an expression of its harmony: nothing can be added to, or taken away from, it, nothing can be changed without simultaneously jeopardizing its overall perfection. The work of art stands there in the most profound sense of existence. The essence of its profound standing-there is that the work of art is a symbol. The work of art as a symbol can never be exhausted by analytical interpretations regarding its 'meaning'. Its grandeur lies precisely in the mystery that it continues to radiate when all analytical interpretations have failed (i.e. when they have mostly succeeded in accounting for its success). In addition to its other parameters, a Greek myth can be seen as a linguistic work of art: linguistic, because the means employed for its composition and transmission is language, and work of art, because it is the product of a long process of distilled experience with reference to its subject matter, whence its structure and ability to move seem to derive. Similarly, a Greek ritual can be seen as a gestural work of art: gestural, because the means employed for its coming-into-being and stabilization is a bodily action, and work of art, because in the crystallized form in which most rituals are known to us they are products of meticulous attention to what we could call the semantics of body language. Since the language of mythology and the language of ritual are symbolic, the gods to which they refer are symbols. The gods as symbols are, therefore, works of art. But in order to distinguish the symbols of mythology and ritual from the symbols which the gods are, we may say that the gods are the arche-symbols. The Neoplatonists referred to them as Archetypes. 19 The World as a Whole Seen from a Particular Angle It is in the essence of polytheism that no god or goddess, no divine personality or heroic figure stands alone. It is in the essence of polytheism that the divine is fragmented or to be more precise (since fragmentation presupposes lost unity and assumes disintegration, which is not the case in Greek religion) that the divine becomes apparent and crystal-clear in a variety of archetypical manifestations. It is in the essence of polytheism that it has many deities with different, even opposite and mutually incompatible interests and claims. However, as the fact that no human leg exists outside a human body does not prevent the medical researcher from analysing the leg's mechanics, describing its function, classifying its known diseases and possible injuries etc., so the fact that Artemis, say, is not the only deity of the Greek pantheon does not prevent us from focusing exclusively on her, if temporarily and for analytic purposes. Here lies the error, indeed the one-sidedness, of structuralism. Structuralism correctly sensed that by studying one particular god, as some earlier, especially German or Teutonic-inspired scholars did in monographs, one loses sight of the whole picture; but the device which structuralism contrived in order to remedy the situation, polar opposition or complementary polarity, is no less narrow. A polytheism consisting of Artemis alone is unthinkable because it is absurd. But equally absurd is a polytheistic religious system that consists of Artemis and Aphrodite, or Artemis and Hera, or Artemis and Demeter, or Artemis and Apollo or Artemis and whatever god you choose as her complementary or antithetical counterpart.42 To resume the medical parallel, the leg, when not studied analytically on its own, is not understood with reference to the arm, but to the totality of the living organism of which it forms a part. Further mistrust is excited by structuralism when one realizes that a god or goddess, unlike any leg or arm, possesses not a part of godhead, but the entire divinity in its fully-blown substance all the time, even in his or her least conspicuous epiphanies.43 Gods and goddesses under favourable circumstances reach maturity. Not all of them, however, are allowed to do so. There are divinities whose role in the pantheon is 42Cr. the (omnipresent, but most reasonably defended by Vernant "Theorie") structuralist antithesis betw~en the Orphic-Pythagorean meat-abstinence and the Dionysian omophagy with properly performed sacnflce as the norm and golden mean halfway through the extremes. One would be justified in raising some questions: i) Was sacrifice unintelligible or meaningless before the emergence of Orphism and Pythagoreanism around the sixth c. B.C.?, ii) Was omophagy a means of feeding the raging maenad, or should the Dionysian ritual be understood with reference to its own symbolic content? iii) Did absttnence from meat and life-long fasting shake the foundations of pagan belief revolving as it so emtnently did around the act of sacrifice which was performed in virtually all religious ceremonies, and if a subversive attitude on the part of the fasters is taken to be proven, how could the report de Abstinentia ~~ so eminent a supporter of traditional practices as Porphyry be accommodate~? Cr. the remarks made about the statue of Zeus at Olympia by Calasso Mamage 17l. 20 from the very beginning subordinate, and whose coming-into-being depends broadly or even exclusively on the needs of pre-existing deities. The second-rate divine beings are destined never to attain anything but a servile status which may even be lowered if the function which they are called to serve disappears. Of all the divinities in a polytheistic religion some, properly named gods and goddesses , become first-rank superhuman beings. What qualifies them to such honour is their pervasiveness. Each and every deity worthy of the title presupposes as it were a religion of his own. The touchstone for the (Jodliness of a deity is his or her holistic attitude with reference to the entire world. All true to gods and goddesses assume a particular stance which fully characterizes them. As a consequence all problems of existence find a concrete answer (which we may be disinclined to call a solution) from each one of them. To make use of metaphoric language, every true god sheds his own distinct light onto things and makes them appear in succinctly-determined configurations. Every divinity seems thus to have his or her particular perspective, which is nonetheless all-embracing. We can therefore speak of a Zeus religion and a Hera religion, of Dionysian religion and Artemisian religion , even perhaps of 'Athenian' religion and surely of Aphroditean religion, but hardly of an Ares (or should we say: Aryan?) religion and of a Hephaestus religion not at all , except figuratively. Moving from one true deity's viewpoint to another's the world is illuminated differently. Relations that are strongly emphasized under one perspective (and the concomitant human obligations deriving therefrom) appear secondary or non-existent under a different perspective. Focal points of reference for one god become eliminated and invisible from another god's angle of vision. What is here of paramount importance as a predicament becomes there anything but a problem. Different gods ask for different things. Their opposite views draw directly on their respective antithetical natures. Hence their conflict is bound by necessity to remain essentially unresolved. Within and amidst such hopeless straits what human beings are left with is to be only negatively defined: they must avoid any major offence against any major divinity at all costs; for minor offences are with almost mathematical precision unpreventable. The opposed divine claims are not merely capricious. Nor do they occur solely when the assigned territories of power among gods happen partially to overlap. It is rather because each divinity that qualifies for the title of godhead holds in a sense sway over the entire world, that whenever and wherever a problem arises the pan-theon in its totality is simultaneously involved. And if mythology in most cases stresses the implication of one ortwo deities alone, it is because the others, less interested for their own reasons as they are, remain unmoved and are thus emphatically kept in the background. The battleground of divine combats is the gods' own abode which they all share, although they, more often than not, decide to resolve their tensions according to the example of the Homeric duels. On their initiative the world of multifarious breathtaking conflicts is rendered more 21 intelligible when the chaotic battles are ordered (and 'domesticated' as a structuralist might say) in the space of a wrestling-ground with varying degrees of interested divine spectators actively or passively participating in the agon. 22 ... AND A QUESTION: Is Historical Theology Possible? The study of ancient Greek religion has been dominated by what could be described as the Legacy of the Enlightenment. The basic doctrine of the Age of Reason was crystallized in its essential humanism which was strenuously opposed to any religious transcendent authority of meaning. Teleology was regarded as the fallacy par excellence of scholastic philosophy, and banned, as a consequence, from the domain of the so-called scientific pursuit of truth. The world as a whole was for the first time beginning to fade away, a process which would eventually lead to its being declared intrinsically meaningless and aimless. The fundamental anthropocentrism of this approach vis-a.-vis the existing reality leaves, as a matter of course, no room for a genuine (substantive, as opposed to functional- psychological, sociological or otherwise44) understanding of religion. For religion is a relationship which presupposes, apart from man who is always posited as an inalienable datum, yet another pole: something which both stands outside man and is powerful and meaningful in its own right. And this is the divine. Religion arises when and only when the divine has somehow manifested itself, because religion, although it profoundly concerns man, yet is not his creation in the way that a hut or ship can be said to be products of human creativity. With some notable exceptions the study of ancient religion has taken it for granted that religion is the indispensable byproduct of the perhaps charming, but surely naive childhood of mankind which will sooner or later be disposed of when Reason and Science become strong enough to penetrate even those misty corners of the human mind which persist in spontaneously refusing to throw their unreasonable childish fears away. It is high time, I think, for religion to be inscribed in what has this century been called thinking (as distinct from traditional philosophy and opposed to traditional science). The task of thinking par excellence is the thinking of Being. But Being has since the end of the previous century declared itself absent. In the historical situation in which we stood until recently, the task of thinking was the thinking of nihilism. The contextualizing method of inquiring into the past can, it is true, be seen as the prime of contemporary relativism.45 The fashionable movements of post-structuralism, deconstruction and the like, whatever their names and honorary titles (i.e all the complex intellectual schools that have been amassed under the rather obscure rubric of postmodernism), may highlight an adherence to the premises of humanism. Meaning for them is a value arbitrarily attributed to a thing (for no other reason than because man deddes that things should be provided with meanings) which must always be contextualized (i.e. viewed from a vantage point together with the whole array of all :~cf. the very helpful Berger "Definitions". Cr. Gellner Postmodemism. 23 possible historically and culturally conditioned relationships with other things and meanings), primarily because it is willy-nilly contextual: since it lacks an essence of its own, it is bound to condescend to any value that may be attributed to it; therefore, if this value does not belong to the society under investigation, it must necessarily be implicitly or explicitly possessed by the explorer' s society. It has been repeated several times, and holds well that the study of paganism was impeded in the nineteenth century by the ludaeo-Christian preconceptions of the explorers. Greek religion could be admired for the exceptional aesthetic value of its products in the sphere of great art but its moral stance was consistently, either explicitly or indirectly, condemned and ridiculed. Usually the accusers traced their disapproving attitude vis-it-vis paganism back to the ancient critique of the traditional gods (and the name of Xenophanes would readily spring to their mind). The death of God has, for some, liberated morality from the confines of puritanism and has made a more approving attitude to the deeds and demands of the ancient gods possible. But the death of God has also created a spiritual vacuum the like of which had not been experienced previously in the history of humankind. If we were to trace the intellectual evolution of the past two centuries of Western history with reference to the fundamental experience that underlies the diversity of apparently divergent intellectual movements, we would perhaps reach a scheme according to which humanism leads to atheism which leads to nihilism. Sartre was right.46 Existentialism is a humanism. Or rather, the unavoidable termination of humanism must be sought in the core of the existentialist myth, according to which man becomes worthy of the title of his humanity only when he realizes the inalienable responsibility posed by his unconditional freedom. Postmodernism may be relativism reduced ad absurdum. But it may also be the final outcome of nihilism. And if postmodernism is an intimate experience of nihilism, it may well sow the seeds for a transcendence of the vicious circle of the humanistic outlook. In the study of religion the fundamental problem that we still face is the legacy of the Age of Reason. Absence of intrinsic meaning equals forgetfulness of the divine. Whether or not the times are ripe for the possibility of what could be called "historical theology" (as not only distinct from , but also opposed to religious history, sociology or anthropology) is very hard to determine. The ripeness of a historical period for metaphysical speculation on first principles the relevance of which is immediately experienced, is, in the terminology of theology, called 'divine unconcealment'. It would be very presumptuous to pretend to know the answer of this very difficult question. What we may affirm, though, now is that the question can now be posed: is historical theology possible? 46Cf. Sartre Exislenlialisllle. 24 In the relationship of man with the divine that constitutes religion, what is given is man and what seems still to be missing is the divine. For an understanding of ancient Greek religion what is needed is not a belief in gods, but the acknowledgemen(ojtheir presence. Presence: What is felt, but defies description.47 What is present as neither an image, nor a concept, but precisely the root from which image, concept and sense of efficiency can and will in due course spring. The acknowedgement of gods is the recognition oj their pertinence. Their pertinence is their ability to endow existence with sacredness qua the fountainhead of meaning. The Aristotelian statement quoted as the motto of this chapter does not, it is true, suffice for an understanding of Greek religion. Yet, it can provide an alternative preliminary assumption for the study of the religions of antiquity. 47Cf. the empathetic (and unscientific for the 'objectivizing' explorer) views of Otto Theophallia and the perhaps equally sym-pathetic remarks of Rudhardt "Comprendre"; cL also the more down-to-earth, but very sensitive descriptions in Versnel "Epiphany". Cornford Thollghl xff. cleverly answered the question 'What IS a (Greek) god?' -to a more specific but otherwise similar programmatic question, now explicitly raised, Loraux "Goddess?" chose 1101 to reply; similarly Bremmer "Myth?" - by stating that the divine is 'something not ourselves and immortal'. This something, however, can be sensed: it is powerful. I prefer th~refore (following the Heideggerian metaphysics and its application to the study of religion) to call thiS 'something' a 'presence'. Legomena and Dromena Artemis Ortheia 'H ' Opell CJOU op.cit. 32l. 6op.cit . 325, 327, 329. 7op.cit. 329 (thrice), 334, 348(?). 8op.cit.333. 90p.cil. 349. ~~OP.Cil. 370; Dawkins "Objects" 214-215 and pI. CIX-CX. WOodward "Inscriptions" 346. 12Droop "Bronzes" 201 and Woodward "Inscriptions" 370. 13Woodward, "Inscriptions" 315,342. For this foml there is a dubious testimony (Alcman fr.l Page = 1 Dlehl) which could take it as far back as the 7th c. B.C., once the scholiast's correction is given place in ~'!f text. For arguments and counterarguments see Page AIClnall 76-78 and below 'Ortheia and Aotis' .. Woodward "Inscriptions" 37l. ~5Woodward's suggestion, (Hondius and Woodward "Laconia" 117) that the original form was . op9aCJla, and his scheme of the word's evolution (Fop6aalCl> Fop6ahia > Fop6ai.a > Fop6ELa) are Indeed very attractive. Cr. Risch "Orthia" . 16Rose "Cult" 400. 28 rare as they are, can either be considered to be misspellings, or justified by the donor's attempt to elaborate the sacred epitheton of the goddess by spontaneously lengthening it. But what does the name mean or, to put it correctly, what did it primarily denote for the worshippers of the goddess? The etymologies concerning the name Ortheia that have been proposed so far can be divided into two groups according to whether or not they derive the name from the verb opeoun~ . The etymologies which do so, by far outnumber the rest and seem to be more reliable (and popular) because they take into account the unequivocal evidence ofthe ancients who always saw close affinities between the divine appellation and the various semantical ramifications of op8wCJLS' and op8w. By contrast, the modem philologists who propose a different origin for the epitheton argue against the traditional and 'authorised' derivation on account of the frequent cases of misleading etymologies to be found in the ancient texts. They blame the tradition's error on the incapacity of the ancient authors to deal scientifically with word-origins and lexical roots, and regret their lack of linguistic skills. They thus assume a very loose connection ofthe ancient speakers with their language (which is wrong) and a lack of conscientious and scientific (i.e. abstract and 'objective') method in enquiring into the meaning of words (which, in so far as modern linguistics stands as the model, is right). The notion of 'sign' and the thereby resulting sharp distinction between the 'signifying' and the 'signified' had not yet been established I 7, nor had the concept of Ur-Ianguages (which proved to be the most important discovery of his to rico-comparative linguistics) appeared. The ancient Greek conceptualization of language can be seen in the context of ancient Greek culture as a whole. Instead of being primitive and unscientific, it turns out to be another aspect of that particular worldview, shared by many civilizations, which has been termed 'mythological'. Drawing on this distinct mode of Being it is convergent with other aspects of the same culture and could perhaps be illuminated with recourse to the context in which it made its appearance. The ancient attempts could then be regarded as essentially (though not formally) mythological , provided that we deprive the term of any pejorative connotations. They then can procure interesting insights into the meaning of the words in question. In the case of Artemis Ortheia, both the aetiological myths of her cult and the rituals practised in her shrine could help define the meaning of the cui tic epitheton. The first group of the proposed etymologies concerning the name of the Spartan goddess, mentioned above, seems to take into serious consideration the principle of 'contextuality'. The etymologies suggested try to establish a continuity between the sUpposed origin of the epithet and the several meanings which it later assumed. They thus aim at designating the semantic field of the word as it can be traced through the centuries of its cultic history , without assuming any noteworthy alienation between the primary 17With the exception of the Stoic di stinction between OllllaLJ..Io J..l and allllQLJ..I6 IlEJ..IOJ..l which, however, subserved in the Stoic philosophy a function different from that in modern semiology. 29 meaning and the subsequent uses. According to the specific attribute or aspect emphasized, whereby in each case the goddess was thought to have been named Ortheia, the group can be sub-divided into four categories. In the first category the etymology is based on an aetiological passage of Pausanias which assigns the divine appellation to the form of the cult-statue of the goddess l8. The name is thought to derive from the uprightness of the statue representing Ortheia, so that the meaning of the divine epitheton is supposed originally to be 'She who stands upright' or 'She whose statue has an upright position'. The idea, which seems to have been very popular during the second half of last century and the beginning of this, was advanced by Preller in 185419 and followed with modifications by Welcker20, Mayer21 ,Famell22 and Rose23. Prior to that (and to Freud!), Gerald24 and Curtius25 had seen a sexual implication in the epitheton, which was promoted by Schreiber26 when he compared it to the erection of Dionysos Orthos and the op8i.a U~PLS mentioned by Pindar27. According to this view, which was accepted and further enhanced by Ziehen28, Ortheia was the deity that caused erection to the adolescents scourged around her altar and the name indicated this primary function ascribed to her. The etymological interpretations that focus on the particularly phallic significance of the verb op8w are typical of the second category29. This etymology, to which what follows adheres, has not been sufficiently elaborated, nor does it seem to have been driven to a full exploration of its significance. There is a whole array of implications which would possibly deserve further elucidation. A derivative, if not metaphorical, sense of the verb is employed to account for the divine appellation by the proponents of the theory which sees in Ortheia primarily a birth- 18Paus. Ill, 16, 1l. 19preller-Robert Mythologie 309: "Der Name ' Op81.u oder 'Op8c.u0"1.u, der si ch auch in Arkadien, Argos, Epidauros, Elis, Megara und von da in Byzanz fand, wird am besten durch die aufrechte Haltung des alterthUmlichen Bildes erklart, welches wie andere Idole der Art von einem ungebenden Weidenflecht zugleich untersttitzt und den Augen entzogen wurde, daher ein gleichartiges Bild zu Rhegion in Italien, denn auch dahin hatte sich dieser Dienst verbreitet, das der Artemis Phakeliti s hieS." (n.3: "Dies scheint die in Sparta Ubliche Deutung des Namens zu sein. "). 20Welcker GO·f1erlehre I, 584. 21Mayer "Amphiktyon" 269 (in relation to the huge Dionysus-mask found at Ikaria). Cf. L. Ziehen in RE s. v. Sparta (Kulte) IlIA, 1470, 23ff. 22Farnell Culls II, 453 , n. b. 23Rose "Cult" 403. 24Gerald "Elaphebolos" 77. 25Curtius "Gygaia" 150. ;~: Schreiber s.v. Arlemis in AL I, 586, 57ff. Plnd. Pyth. X, 32 [op81.uV is an emendation for op8LClv of the manuscripts, but either way the passage refers to bestias sese erigellles]. 28L. Ziehen s.v. Sparta (Kulte) in RE IIIA, 1470, 33ff.: " sondern wenn man an den eigentlichen Sinn der offenbar doch mit den wichtigsten Teil ihres Kultes bildenden GeiBelung denkt, dragt sich meines Erachtens die Deutung ' Op81.u = 'die Erigierende' trolz dem Peinlichen, was fUr uns darin liegen mag ~~d warhscheinlich auch fUr die spateren Spartaner darin lag, von selbst auf." Cf. also Eitrem Hermes 27. 30 goddess or a fertility-deity3o. The epitheton indicates her power to provide mankind with offspring, to help women in labour and to preside over the nurture and well being of newly-born infants. A precinct dedicated to Eileithyia situated close to the shrine of Ortheia31 has facilitated the approximation of the two. No phallic connotation is assigned to the opewov; effected by the goddess and , as Ziehen so well noticed32, an abstract notion was allowed precedence over the concreteness of the word, and supposed to reveal the original religious meaning of the divinity discussed (third category). Finally, there is the case of Ch rimes who alone forms the fourth category because her interpretation relies on a scholium on Pindar, never before (and since) thought to convey valuable historical evidence, which claims that Artemis was called Ortheia from the Arcadian mount Orthosion. Chrimes takes it to indicate that Ortheia was '''the lady of the straight-sided mountain' [ ... ] in the Arcadian-speaking part of the Peloponnese" and establishes a connection based on Nilssonian premises between the Cretan goddess and the Spartan Artemis33 . In the second group of etymologies concerning the epitheton Ortheia, there are two tempting, but rather ill-founded suggestions which neglect the uncontroversial evidence of the sources by ascribing to them a misunderstanding on account of the original meaning of the divine appellation. Thomsen34 derived the name from a hypothetical Indo-European root (*Vardh-) which, according to the rules established by historico-comparative linguistics, would give in Greek the unattested root *Fa pe-. This root would mean something like 'to make grow up, to strengthen, to develop' and, as a consequence, Ortheia would denote 'She-who-raises-(up)'. There is, however, no particular reason for inventing a hypothetical lexical root, since the existent uses of the adjective apeaS by the ancient authors can nicely account for the meanings attributed to the word by Thomsen. Reasonably enough, this theory was received with understandable scepticism, when no major criticism was involved35. The second attempt at an 'untraditional' interpretation of 'Ortheia' was made by Lypourles36 who suggested that the primal form of the di vine name would have been Orthria instead of Orthia. If that were so, then the meaning of the epitheton would be 'the one of the dawn' and Artemis would be at Sparta the goddess of the morning sun who made her epiphany in the astonished eyes of the participants in her cult. The argument is based on a well-known poem of Alcman, in which a goddess called Aotis is addressed by a chorus of maidens. However, although the 30Wide Klllte 113-114: "Naeh dieser Erklarung [se. the interpretation of the epitheton found in seW . ad Plnd. Olymp. IIJ , 54] ist Artemis 'Op9lU oder 'Op9wO'la also eine Heil- oder Geburtsgottin der Eileithyia j1rwandt, und so ist in der That der Beiname zu deuten". Cr. Harrison Themis 504 and n. l . Paus. IlI, 17, 1. 32Loc.cit. 33Ch ' 3 nmes Sparfa 257-259. 3;homsen "Orthia" 411. 36 Cr. e.g. Ziehen Loc.cif. and Rose "Cult" 403. Lypourles" 'Op8pla;". 31 identification of Aotis with Ortheia has been reasonably proposed and is , in fact , very plausible37, Lypourles' thesis, challenging though it may appear, cannot provide firm ground for the apparent 'loss' of the primal meaning in the ancient evidence, nor can it fit with the Artemisian character of both cult and myths of Ortheia in Laconia. Two eminent classicists of this century, Wilamowitz and Nilsson, have conceded that the actual meaning of the Artemisian epitheton has not yet been satisfactorily construed, and their views seem to be equally applicable more than fifty years after they were initially expressed38. As has been the case in most of the above-mentioned etymological attempts, the examination of the entire mythological and cultic apparatus leads to a deeper understanding of the functions ascribed to the Spartan Artemis. An inquiry into the ways in which the worshippers themselves conceived of the goddess is, therefore, necessary before we can reasonably try to find out what the epitheton actually signified. Some questions are bound to be left open or totally unanswered, for several reasons of which the fragmentary form of the evidence that has come down to us is not, perhaps, the least important. However, only if the problematic issues by far surpass the resolved puzzles, and the most substantial aspects do not fall into place in an overall picture, are we entitled to make suggestions that straightforwardly disregard a great amount of the available testimonies. It is then that we may proceed to formulate a theory which turns the focus to a chronologically more remote era and which is, hence, doomed to be rather speculative and beyond actual proof. 37See below 'Ortheia and Aotis'. 38Wilamowitz Glaube I, 183. Nilsson Geschichfe 1, 487. 32 THE RITUAL FLAGELLATION The most striking aspect of the cult of Artemis Ortheia in Sparta as reported by authors of late antiquity is undoubtedly the flagellation of epheboi at the goddess's altar. This cruel and seemingly barbaric custom is revealing of the horrendous character of Artemis Taurike whose original xoanon brought by Orestes from the land of Tauroi was identified, according to Pausanias' view, with the cult statue of the Spartan dei ty. It has been supposed that the flagellation rite was a later addition to an originally 'peaceful' cult, which was introduced in the Hellenistic or Roman period. It acquired great fame , so the argument goes, because people at that time rejoiced in watching spectacular bloody scenes and "there were not a few who took a sadistic pleasure in witnessing the flogging"39. However, the conservative character of the Spartan society, reported cases of religious flagellation or similar ritual beating elsewhere in the ancient (and modern, though not modernized) world4o, and a reference to the flogging of the youth in Lacedaemon which goes back to the fourth century B.C.41 refute this view. A plausible explanation should be given of the conditions under which the innovation took place in the domain of religious practices, which by their nature are very traditional and slow in changing and, moreover, why it assumed such an antique form reminiscent of age-old magic rituals. A view stressing the theatrical features of the rite which would facilitate its transformation into a spectacle and account for its becoming a touristic attraction, must also justify the sacred, as opposed to profane, character unanimously ascribed to it by the ancient evidence. In order to support his opinion as to the identity of the xoanon of the Lacedaemonian Ortheia with that of the Tauric Artemis, Pausanias gives two legends, compatible with one another, which both emphasize the irritable and furious character of the goddess. The one refers to the original EupETaL of the cult-statue, while the other accounts for the ritual henceforth performed. According to the first , no sooner did Astrabacus and Alopecus find the agalma than they went mad, thus revealing the wild and frenzy-casting power of the statue, hence of the goddess herself. According to the second, a plague afflicted the Spartans after people from the 'original four villages'42 that constituted Sparta (before the incorporation43 of Amyclae) had quarrelled to the point of beginning to kill one another during a sacrifice to Artemis. The sprinkling of the blood of some human victims on the altar of the goddess provoked her wrath, which resulted in the sending of plague and which was later appeased by means of the institutionalization of an (annual?) human sacrifice. Pausanias's passage continues as follows: 39Rose "Cult" 405 40Cf. ego Hesych. S.V. [10POTTOV ; Paus. VIII, 23, 1; Plut. ROil!. 21; Caesar 62; Ovid Fasli II , 425. : lSee below. 2Cartledge Sparla 106. 43 A complete EVVO~KlCJ[10S' of the fi ve villages was never attained in Sparta, according to Thucydides (I , 10, 2) . 33 8uollEVOU 8E 0VTWU 6 KAfjpO:;- (bTEAcill~UVE, AUKOUPY0:;- IlETE~UAEV ES Ta:;- ElT!, TOlS EWcl.IlEVOL BE oL AaKEBmllovLOl TO ci::rrapal TT)TOV Tils 8ualas ETIL TOV KapTEplas aywva ~Koval, a' ~S Ean Il~TE aTIo8v~a\(Elv Ka!, aTIcl.PXEa8m Tfl 8Ec{l TOU awv a'LllaTos. The endurance competition is here related to the divine petition. What is more, the shedding of blood is seen as an all too necessary part of the Ortheia cult besought by the goddess herself. The necessity of sacrificing to the deity (TO aTIapal TT)TOV Tils 8ualas), on the one hand, and the Spartans' unwillingness to do so properly (i .e. by offering human victims) (aoWcl.IlEVO l), on the other, have led to the institution of the flagellationrite,not explicitly referred to as such but easily recognised in the KapTEplas aywva. The most interesting aspect, however, of Philostratus's passage is the particular 5lCf. Murray Epie BliT.; Bowra "Composition" 68. 52Hom. n. XVIII, 336-337 ; XIX, 26-32; XXII, 19-23; 161-183; 241-242. 53Cic. Tuse.Disp. I1 , 34; Luc. Anaeh. 38;Plut. Lye. XVIII, 2 (=51b). 54H erod.I,31. 55Sex t. Emp. Pyrr . .Hyp. Ill, 208: TO TE aV8pul1TEl,41 ~uaLvELv a'L~an ~wW')V eEOU lTap T]~LV ~EV TOlS lTOAAOlS c'i8ECJ~ov, AaKwvES 8E ElTL TOU ~w~ou TfjS ' Op8cllECJT11KE. TO BE ECJTLV aAAwS' llEV KOUtj:>OV lmo CJllLKPOTllTOS', ~v BE oL llQCJTL yOUVTES' nOTE lm0i]~oU KciAAOS' ~ a~LWllQ, TOTE 11B11 Ti.1 YUVaLKl TO ~OQVOV YLVETaL ~QPU KQl OUKETL EUllCJLV. 01JTW Tc.i3 ayaAllQTL ano TWV EV TD TQUPLKD 8uCJLWV EllllEllEvllKEV av8pu'mwv dLllQTL ilBECJ8aL. As Frazer has pointed out in his extended anthropologically-oriented commentary on Pausanias71 , "this mode of divination by weight is very widespread" all over the world and several examples of similar divinatory practices ranging from the Esquimaux to tribes in Loango (West Africa) have been recorded by field ethnographers. If we cannot speak of divination in the strict sense of the term, what was felt by the priestess was definitely a divine sign. The method is also attested in other religious instances in ancient Greece72 and seems to draw on age-old magic. (For the attribution of a supernatural sign to a god has been seen as a later addition to what originally was the thing itself as immediately experienced without any reference to a particular divine being.) As it stands, however, it indicates how much the flogging was thought to be an integral part of the cult of Artemis to the extent that her 'supervising' statue (by consequence the goddess herself) directly intervened when the execution of the rite was not meticulous enough. The flagellation seems, therefore, to lie at the core of the Ortheia ritual, at least in so far as the epheboi were concerned. But what was the significance of that religious scourging? The analogy with the ritual of the Pharmakoi 73 who in some cities were beaten with rods while being expelled outside the boundaries of the state territory 74, does 70yhe exception of the aetiological myths given at the epilogues of some Euripidean dramas to account for 'strange' and bizarre cults, rather, proves the rule, if it be an exception at all. For it is to be expected, on the one hand, that in tragic drama where gods so often play such a dominant role, myths 'justifying' particular cults would intrude, and, on the other, that theatre as a genre (whose religious origins were not denied by the Greeks), could be very suitable for 'discussions' concerning religion. Furthermore, aetiological myths in Euripidean drama also subserve the important function of integrating the characterization, or~8oypa uyvoS') SE Kat TaS' TIPOS' a a uyVOS' , ~8Tj 8E KGl oPllils U ayvoS' , [add. Pack] oS' E80~EV imo TOU 8Eumhou 8E0IlEV(tlV TO 8EP lla (l1TEPXETal oihw Kat HJv mJTOllOAOUVHtlv. The aUTollOAOUVTwv, if not corrupt, should be understood as lTPW6U(JTEPOV and taken to mean 'those who are beaten as a result of being deserters'. 92Furtwangler AA fig.7. The drawing of this figurine is reproduced in Lebessi "Flagellation" 112, fig. 10. ~f also the Oagellant figurine in JHS Archaeological Reports 1976-1977,64, fig. 114. Lebessi op.cit. 104-106 Cfig.I-3), 113. 44 They both represent self-flogging persons. What is more interesting, however, in the Cypriot figurine is that the self-flogging man has an erection: he is ithyphallic. The rich iconographical evidence from the shrine of Artemis Ortheia in Laconia does not allow us to proceed any farther. No similar depiction of flagellated or self- flagellated man has seen the light of day during the excavations at the site. The closest we can get to the Cypriot figurine is a small figure (in ivory?) laconically described by Dawkins94 as"figure of nude man" dating from 740 to 660 B.C. or, if we accept, as we must, the 'revised' chronology proposed by Boardman95, to 620 B.c. He holds something which could be a whip around his neck and the expression of his face is reminiscent of the Cypriot figurine in that it shows surprise, or, more likely, pain. He does not, though, seem to be ithyphaUic. However, lack of iconographical evidence need not be decisive at this juncture, since it is well-known that not all ritual practices were depicted on cult objects. Worshippers dedicated to the goddess items which were, of course, considered to be relevant to, and indicative of, the character of the cult. But it should by no means be inferred from that, that actual scenes of rituals formed an indispensable part of those dedications. In fact, there are some phallic representations among the archaeological finds which were taken by Rose96 to indicate that Ortheia was a fertility goddess. It has further been argued that she was a kourotrophos deity, and some inscriptions dedicated to Eileithyia found in Ortheia's shrine were regarded as indicative of her being a lochia deity as well, who presided over, and protected, child-births. Kilian97 went as far as to claim that Eileithyia received cult in the sanctuary of Artemis Ortheia, thus implying that Ortheia herself was a birth goddess. Poulsen98 had already identified a pair of seated persons carved in ivory99 with the divine couple Ortheia-Eileithyia, but the identification was founded on purely hypothetical grounds. Pausanias lOO was well-aware that an Eileithyia shrine was located very close to the precinct of Ortheia, and Dawkins 101 moderately saw in some tiles stamped with the name EAETIIA verification for the ancient traveller's remark. We should not, however, be led astray by an assimilation which goes back to the Hellenistic era102. To be more precise, Artemis under the epiclesis AOXlU was, indeed, worshipped as a birth goddess in many places in ancient Greece 103, but this aspect of 94Dawkins "Objects" 240, pI. 170,5. 95Boardman "Orthia" 4. 96Rose "Cult" 402. ~7Kilian "Weihungen". 8Poulsen Orient 165. ~9pl. CXXIV in AO (cf. pI. CXXV). OOPaus. Ill , 17, 1. 10 1 Dawkins "History" 51 (cf. Woodward "Inscriptions" 370). 1~2The veterius sellol. ad Pind. 01. III ,54 (according to the distinction of A . Boeckh's major edition P~ldari Opera, Lipsiae 1819, vol.II) says ' Op8wai.a· Tfl 6p8ouO"l~ TaS' yuvalKaS' Kat. ELS' aWTl)pi.av EK T(~V TOKETWV ayouO"l] and a reeel/tius sellol. ad lac. adds EOpOS' yap AOxEl.as . cf. Call. H ymll. ad Dtan. 126- 128. I03Cf. e.g. Eur. Suppl. 958; Plut. Quest.Col/v. 658f. See also Papachatzis "EL\Ei.8vLm". 45 hers, although it directly draws on her received character, seems to need further elucidation, before it can readily fall into place in the overall picture of the goddess at Sparta. In this sense, to say that Ortheia is a child-birth goddess is to beg the questions that are bound to arise once one takes notice of all the existing evidence concerning her cult in Sparta. On the other hand, the child-birth function of Artemis in Sparta does not seem to have been particularly pronounced. The ithyphallic images dedicated in her Spartan precinct could then, instead of making of her a deity securing fertility as such, rely upon, and emphasise, the divinity's chastity-protecting 'essence'. For, as argued above, the dynamism of chastity seen from the viewpoint of potentiality points to, and assumes, procreation. 46 ONE IS THE VIRTUE: ANDREIA What Sparta was pre-eminently glorified for in ancient times, what gave her a status of excellence in political (i.e. military and constitutional) affairs was the fact that her 'TTOALTELamanaged to inoculate all citizens with bravery and virtue l04. She could not boast of elaborate and highly sophisticated temples, nor of statues and paintings of great artistic skill. Mnesiclean Propylaia and Callicratean Parthenons, chryselephantine Athenas or Zeuses were not among the things which her flowering offered to the ancient (and the modem105) world l06. She inherited no spirit of critique, no intellectual discussions putting at stake traditional beliefs, no innovations and reforms aiming at suspending and 'moving'Ta 'TTciTpw, no Ionic 'curiosity'. Her legacy consisted primarily of the virtue wherewith all citizens were imbued. And this virtue was a kind of Homeric apET~107, according to which the aya80s avr)p was ~u8wv TE PT)TllP' E~Evm 'TTpT)KTllpa TE Epywvl08 with the emphasis put on the second pole, on av8pda as opposed to d.80AECYX La 109. Contrary to Athens' architectural constructions and plastic artifacts which were destined to become the 'rule' of high culture, Sparta 's KTlllla ES ad was the cyxoAil llO (as opposed to aoxoHa) whereby free citizens managed to become virtuous in speech and deed. This incongruity between ~80S and 'TTOALTELa, on the one hand, and material proofs of success, on the other, had not escaped the attention of the ancients themselves. Thucydides, in an attempt to elaborate upon the strength of Sparta which, as other ancient authors emphasized, had reached the notorious point of subjugating cities and gaining victories against enemies without moving a shield, juxtaposes Sparta to Athens with reference to what future generations would think of the two cities, judging from the existent remains that would have, more or less, come down to them, surviving, as it were, the destructive power of time. 11 I (Although, when he referred to the future, the ancient historian had not, in all likelihood, in mind either a time-span extending beyond a 104Arist. Pol. (VII, 14) 1333b 12-21. As a matter of course I refer here to what has been called the S8artan mirage or the Spartan myth (cf. Murray "Cities"). 1 5Interestingly enough, the influence of the historical and mythical Sparta has been regarded as too Important to be neglected, and chapters have been devoted thereto in even histories of philosophy (cf. ego Russell History ch. XII). A general view on the issue is given in Rawson Traditiol/. l06However, in so far as development of art is concerned, Sparta was not below the average Greek city; Athens, rather, was exceptional. Cf. Cook "History". 107Cf. Athen I 8e-llb and Suid. S.V. "OllllPOS' (p. 526 Adler). The belief that Lycourgus first brought ~he hitherto neglected Homeric poems to Sparta (Plut. Lye. IV, 5-6) - a legend that must have originated III Laconia - may reflect an ideological constuction of the Spartiates according to which they pursued the type of virtue pre-eminently glorified by Homer in the person of Achilles, the best of Achaeans (cr. N~y Best 26-41). : 0 Horn 11. IX, 443. 09Cf. the short but witty verbal replies to various situations attributed to the Spartiates by Plutarch fneon.iea Apophthegmata and the entire ancient tradition . . 10Plut. Inst.Lae. 41 (=239d); Lye. 24, 2 (=54d-e). For a more down-to-earth perspective refuting the ':dealization' of ancient literary evidence see Cartledge "teklllle?". IlThuc. I, 10, 2. 47 few hundreds of years or any purposeful digging of the soil, modem achaeological expeditions seem to have supported, and corroborated, his foresight). The 8uva/-us of Sparta was successfully effected by means of an array of institutions, legendarily introduced by Lycourgus, which forced the entire citizenry publicly to exercise virtue. The obligation (or rather, compulsion) of the free population, women to a certain extent included, to become and always remain a:ya8ol, on account of which Sparta excelled, is particularly praised in the ancient texts. I 12 The way in which apETT} was established in Sparta, in so far as prowess and tenacity are concerned, was through life-long training. Especially in the case of the young Spartans, the i}~WVTES, the apETl)S aGKT)GLS involved such crude and extreme exercises as the KpU'TTTELa 113 which consisted, among other things, of occasional killing of the E'C\WTES, lack of food and a nocturnal foraging existence. The competitive character of these and similar practices was so important for Sparta's well-being that the philo- Laconian Athenian historian was right to see in competitive emulation the very foundations of the Spartan eclat. I 14 Love of victory and crude antagonism reaching the point of hateful envy stand out in Xenophon's description. These are considered virtues not only 'political', i.e. constitutive of the Spartan social arrangement and public order, but strangely also pleasing to the gods. It is not, therefore, surprising that the religious flagellation of the youth in front of the altar of Ortheia was regarded as a competition in endurance, that is to say as an additional contest undergone by the adolescents during their aywyT} . The same, on a larger scale, happened with an aspect of the cult of Apollo Karneios: the originally religious construction of tents and the fact that the Spartans stayed in them for a few days while celebrating an Apollinian festival (a ceremony perhaps similar to the Jewish Succot 112Cf. e.g. Xen Lac. Rep. X, 4. 113In a henceforth very influential article ("Cryptie") leanmaire interpreted the KpVITTEt.a as an initiation- nte through which the young Spartans entered the society of O~OLOL. Based mainly on ethnographical evidence and only secondarily on ancient testimonies (Plut. Lyc. and Schol ad Plat. Leg. 633b), Jeanmaire's interpretation refuted the idea that KpVITTEt.a was a part of the military training of the Spartans: "Rien ne me paraJt plus faux qu' une telle conception (i .e. cryptie=embuscade) de la preparation a la vie guerriere a Lacedemone" (142). Contrary to what had been hitherto argued (e.g. in H. Wall on Explication d' un passage de Pllltarque sur line loi de Lycourge nommee la cryptie, Paris 1850), Jeanmaire thought that "la puissance militaire fut la consequence des institutions" (145), the term 'mstltutions' here referring to the age-class organisation (and the litual passage from one age-class to the next) of the Spartan society (cf. leanmaire Couroi 540-569). leanmaire's interpretation seems to have been very persuasive. Cf. Oliva Sparta 45-47; Finley "Sparta" (1968) in Use 161-177 (165) ; Vidal- Naquet "Le chasseur noir et I'origine de I'ephebie athenienne" (1968) in Chasseur 151-175 (162ff.); CartJedge Agesilaos 30-32. A re-examination of the ancient evidence conducted with a sufficient amount of fair scepticism is offered in Levy "Kryptie". 114?Cen. Lac. Rep. IV, 1-5: ITEPt. yE Il~V TCDV ~~WVTWV ITOAU ~aALaTa EaITov8aaE [sc. AVKOVPY0S'], V~~1L(WV TOVTOVS', El YEVOLVTO O'i.OVS' 8El , ITAElaTOV PEITELV EITt. TO ayaeov Tfl ITOAEL. opwv oD\!, o~S' ~v ~LAOVELKt.a which would well suit the following ELS' EPLV, but since the passage directly refers to choral and gymnastic contests, Xenophon may have wntten LALVLKl.a instead] EYYEVT)TaL, TOlJTWV Kat. XopovS' d.~LaKpOaTOTaTOVS' YL'YVO~E \!OVS' Kat. ~U~VLKOUS' d.ywvaS' d.~LOeEaTOTaTOVS', EVO~L( EV, EL Kat. TOUS' ~~wVTaS' av~~aAAOL EL S E P L V ITEPt. apET~S', OUTWS' QV Kal TOVTOUS' EITl ITAElaTOv d.LKvEla8aL av8paya8t.as . [ ... ] Kal aUTT) 811 YLYVETaL ~ 8EOLAE(YTaTT) TE Kat 1TOAL TLKWTaTT) E' PLS'. 48 or 'tabernacles') were, even by the ancients themselves, considered to display yet another indication of the hard military life which any Spartan citizen was compelled to adoptlls. In a passage cited above, Xenophon draws from the flogging a moral concl~sion of general application, and Plutarch, following Cicero in putting the emphasis on the athletic character of the rite, elaborates on the subject all the more. He informs us that the flagellation of the youths lasted for a whole day and was held once a year. The participants, being arrogant yet cheerful, competed with each other for the victory which went to the most enduring and brave amongst them who thus achieved great glory: 116 ot iTal8ES' iTap' allTOlS' [sc. TOlS' AaKE8mlloVloLS'] ~mvollEvoL IlciaTL~L 8L' OA11S' TllS' ~IlEpaS' EiTL TOU ~WIlOU TllS' 'Op8LaS" ApTEIlL80S' IlEXPL 8avciTou iTOAAciKLS' 8LaKapTEpouaL LAapoL KaL yaupOL, djlLAAufjlEI/OL iTEPL VLKllS' iTPOS' w..A~AOUS', oaTLS' almDV EiTL IlQAAOV KapTEpliO"EL TUlTTOIlEVOS" KaL ° lTEpL YEVOIlEVOS' EV TOlS' IlciALaTa EiTl8o~oS' EaTL. KaAELTaL 8E 1i allLAAa 8LallaaTlywaLS" YLVETm 8E Ka8' EKaaTOV ETOS'. We need not accept Plutarch's precision as to the duration of the rite, which could be a rhetorical exaggeration, but we have no reason to deny the agonistic character that the rite must have assumed at a later stage of its long history. A scholium on Libanius states: Ot AaKE8aLIlOVLOL iTpoS' KapTEpLav YUIlVa(0IlEVOL T1J' ApTEIlL8L [T~V "ApTEIlLV cod.] EOPT11v EiTOLOUV, EV D Ellcian(ov w..A~AouS' , KaL av8pELav nva EK TOUTWV ElTaL8EUOVTO, '(va av8pLKwS' EXO LEV lTEPL TOUS' iTOAEIlOUS' I 17 and an Hesychian gloss 118 corroborates the athletic character of the event by mentioning a training of the youths before the contest. The name of this bodily training (awllaaKla) derives from llwha> Ilwa 125), was a musical contest which focused, in all probability, on the vocal (as opposed to instrumental) musical aptitude, and the singing talent, of the participants. Now, as to the KEAola, it has been suggested that this contest too was musical (or recitative) in character l26, but somehow or other to be differentiated from the Ilwa. (For instance, the former could have been instrumental whereas the latter vocal, or the one performed with a lyra, the other with a flute). This assumption was based on a supposed derivation of KEAola from KEAOllaL, to invoke, and on an inscription which reads: 121I.G. V, 1,290 (= AO 316-317, insc. 37). Woodward, ("Inscriptions") notes that this is "the only s~cific dedication by a victor in the KapTEpLas aywv". 1 2Cr. the LEPOV KUVTlYEGlOV at Brauron (Scanlon "Race" and Peppas-Delmousou "Theoria"). ~23Cr.Xen. Cyn. I, 18; II ,I ;Lac. Rep. IV , 7: [ ... ] 6 8E AUKOUPYOS TOts TllALKOlJTOLS [sc. TOtS T11V ll~llnK~v ~ALKLav 1TE1TEpaKoOL] V0l:lLl..l.OV E1TOLllCJE KaAAwTov ELvm TO ellpaV, El ~~ TL 81l~OCJLOV KWAUOL, 01TWS 8uvmvTo KaL OlJTOL ~1l8EV ~TTOV TWV ~~WVTWV CJTpanWTLKO-US 1TOVOUS U1ToEpnv. 124rhus Woodward "Inscriptions" 288-289. For KaOOllpaTOpLOv, together with KUVllYETas and El'clAKllS ~~ dances or dancing competitions see Chrimes Sparta 123-130. I 5Cf. Hesych. s. v. ~wa: clJ811 1TOLcl. 26Woodward loc.ci f. 50 EUCJTO[lOV EiJTPOXc1AOU YAu)CJCJllS' To8' aEeAOV CtELpaS', TIap8E:VE, CJOL 8pETIaVOV Tl[lOKpaT11S' EeETO. 127 "Since the dedicated sickle is referred to as 'the prize of a nimble tongue', we may conclude that the KEAola was some kind of recitation or invocation", claimed Chrimes l28. In a similar line of argument, Rose 129 had supposed that "the competition was one of oratory or declamation of some kind". Yet, Chrimes does not seem to have understood the meaning of the inscription perfectly well when she considered EUCJTOI10V to have been a mistake for EUCJTO[lOS'.130 For EUCJTO[lOV refers to aEeAOV and characterizes the 8pETIaVOV of line 9 by attributing to it 'sharpness' and 'knife-edgedness'; it does not attribute the quality of 'reciting-well' to the subject of EeETO, the agent of the dedication Timocrates. On the other hand, the second part of the inscription (11.6-10) written with smaller letters than its previous lines 131 need not be contemporaneous with the engraving of the former part (11.1-5)132. Therefore, one is tempted to suppose that the two parts do not actually refer to the same contest133. The superfluous repetition of the name of the donor in a definitely not-too-Iong inscriptional text seems to actually support such an assumption. If this view is right, the donor can then be imagined commemorating his victory in KEAola first , and, at a later stage when he also won a [lwa (for what else could be better described as ElJTpOxaAOu YAu)CJCJllS' aEeAOV?), adding his second victory on the available space ofthe same dedicatory stele. In my view, the KEAola was an equestrian competition. It must have owed its name to KEAllS', the racing horse, and could have been either a horse-race or a kind of game aiming at the exhibition of the dexterity of the young Spartans in dealing with, and perhaps manipulating, horses. The expression Ta KEAola KpaT~CJaS' found in another inscription (if the restoration of the text is accurate) 134 points to a physical, rather than 'spiritual' contest. Moreover, Ortheia seems to have had a particular, that is to say closer and more specific, association with horses than with other animals. Several objects which came to light during the excavation of her sanctuary depict the goddess with, indeed surrounded by, two horses l35, and, as Dawkins pointed outl36, amongst the numerous 1271.G. V, 1,264 (= BSA XlII, 1906- 1907, 199 = Woodward "Inscriptions" 298, insc. 4) . The inscription dates from the second half of the first century B.C. 128Chrimes Sparfa 120. 129Rose "Cult" 406. 130 . 1 0 op.cLl. 2 , n. 2. 131The respective size of letters given by Woodward ("Inscriptions" 298) are: ·01 (I. 1-6) and ca ·006 (I. 6-10). 132Cf. the uncertain dating of the entire inscription implied by Woodward, loc.cif., : "In view of its neat lettering this may well belong to the Augustan period (Kolbe), and not, as was previously thought, to the second century of our era". 133Cf.I.G. V, 1, 279 (= Woodward "Inscriptions" 313, insc. 31) where the dedicatorOnasikleidas ~ommemorates hi s two earlier victories in KaaCHlpaTopLV (when he was 1TPWT01Tci~TTaLS' and BP01Tci~1T(llS') and his later victory in KEAOl.U when he was an ELP ll V. 1341.G . V, 1,258 (= Woodward "Inscriptions" 301, insc. 8). 135See e.g. AO pI. XXXII, 4; 5; CLXXII, 1. 6Dawkins "Terracotta" 157. 51 terracotta ,figures of animals that were found at the shrine "the horse enormously preponderated". Having given the respective numbers of the terracotta figures (according to which animal they depict) the same archaeologist is amazed to realize that '''[t]he number of horse is thus greater than of all other animals put together, and when to this are added all the equestrian figurines, and the reliefs in limestone, the preponderance of the horse amongst the animal votives becomes still more conspicuous". Regardless of the reasons which may account for Ortheia's being so fond of equine nature (of which some indication will be given below), one thing seems quite certain, namely that the iconographical evidence pays great attention to this fact and perhaps also suggests that horse-races took place in Ortheia's festival. It does not, therefore, appear improbable that the KEAOLa were precisely these horse-races or related games of a similar nature. 52 SPARTAN AGE-CLASSES The age-class organization, and the related nomenclature, typical of the Spartan ephebeia appear also in the inscriptional evidence referring to the above-mentioned contests. Participation in each (or all) of these agones seems to have been arranged in groups according to the age ofthe competitors. The terms found on inscriptions classify the boys in five such groups which has caused modem philologists and historians much trouble when they have tried to reconcile the inscriptional evidence with literary testimonies indicating a more numerous, but also more clear-cut and understandable classification 137. In a scholastically meticulous and exceedingly analytical article, CM. Tazelaar138 thought that he had found a way out of the riddle presented by this disparity with recourse to a supposedly necessary distinction between a classification that alluded to the physical development ofthe young Spartans and a more technical terminology that followed legal lines. According to his view, the crucial stages of the seventh and fourteenth years in a boy's life, and the subsequent passage from boyhood to puberty and therefrom to adulthood, did not coincide with the prerogatives of the state which, in arranging the education of the youth, emphasized (apart from the seventh year when the polis took hold ofthe child's training) the twelfth and eighteenth years instead. This does not seem to me to have been the case. The dedicatory inscriptions found in the sanctuary of Artemis Ortheia, firstly, distinguish between TIaL8ES' and ElPllVES' and, secondly, classify the former into four categories: IlLKKL(OIlEVOL, TIpaTOTIclIlTIaL8ES', (lTPOTIclIlTIaL8ES' and, finally, llEAAEi.PllVES'. The problem arose when scholars realized that this classification did not conform to the classification of the Spartan adolescents preserved in literary texts 139. The Scholiast of Herodotus140, in an attempt at explaining the word ElPllV used by the ancient historian, commented: Etp~v' TIapa AaKE8 del. Bryan] El'ITWlI, "Ou8E yap E).1ol au TOll U'lTEL~oVTa YEyElIlIllKaS'''. 154Den Boer Sflldies 217. 155Jacoby FGrHisl Nikolaos von Damaskos F 103z6. 156Arist. Hisf.Allim. I, 1, 18 (=488b) . Aristotle, to be sure, juxtaposes YElIlIa'ioll with EUYEVES' in his classification of animals KaTa TO ~eoS', but this juxtaposition is of a very limited scope and aims pnmarily to distinguish the lion (EUYElI~S') from the wolf (YEvva'ioS' ). In normal speech TO E~ clya8o\) 57 eminently revealed in excellence, semen 's nobility presupposes the excellence of the bearer and simultaneously points to the perfection of the eventual offspring1s7. Thus the phallus as the symbol of potency becomes the sign of both exc(dlence and fertility. It is by means of the phallus that the propagation of virtuous perfection can be confirmed. The two main duties of the future citizens are to be manifestly found in the ritual erection which they ought to have whilst undergoing the religious flagellation. Such a symbolic significance could only be reasonably effective if the Spartan youth were flogged just once in their lives, precisely prior to their introduction to the citizenry; hence when they were no less than nineteen years old. Such precise specification of the age at which the ritual flagellation took place conforms with evidence for the received and institutionalized age-class distinction in other Greek cities1s8. Moreover, it is in perfect agreement with the Panhellenic classification as it is exemplarily shown in the Pindaric Odes: participation in any of the great Greek athletic contests was basically organised according to three well-defined and distinct age groups (although subdivisions and alterations were occasionally possible): nu18E5", ciYEVElOL and Civ8pE5" 159. The 'beardless ones' of this classification (once again 'negatively' defined as opposed to bearded men) were normally aged between sixteen and twenty. From their twentieth year onwards they were regarded as men. The growing of their full beard which must of course have slightly varied from one individual to another, was considered to be the sign that they had reached maturity160. And the threshold of maturity was commonly set around the nineteenth or twentieth year of age. Apart from the existence of exceptional local variations, the lack of absolute congruity can be perfectly well accounted for by the looseness provided by the two different ancient modes of measuring time: the 'inclusive' and the 'exclusive' 161. However, since the young 'men' while participating in the flagellation ceremony, were defined by what they were not, they were as a consequence thought of as standing on the very borderline between two different modes of being. And it is a by now well-known ethnographical fact that, instead of looking at the development of human beings in a linear evolutionary way, as modem man mostly does, cultures other than the Western conceive YEVOUe; (EuYEVT)e;) and TO Ill] E~WT(iIlEVOV Tile; uiJTOU uuEwe; (YEvva'iov) were hardly distinct. Cr. Aeschin. 1,42 where YEvvu'ioe; is related to EAEUeEpoe;. 157The YEvvu'iov UlTEPIlU viewed from the perspective of the as-yet unborn child may, within the framework of ancient semantic associations, indicate another legitimate, albeit derivative, interpretation of the OpeWuLe; provided by Ortheia (cr. Call. Hymn. ad Artem 128; Schol. ad Pind. 01. Ill , 54). ISSThe introduction in the Hellenistic era of an organised age-class called vEOL (in a rather technical sense as opposed to the previous unspecified use of the term) referring "to youths older than the ephebi, ranging from a minimum age of nineteen to an indeterminate maximum" (Forbes NEOl2 and n.6) nicely C~)ITesponds to the Spartan eirenia. The inscriptional evidence studied by Forbes plainly shows that the runeteenth year of age was an almost unanimously accepted lower limit. IS90ardiner Athletics 41. A different tripartite division included the senior members of the community. But this referred mainly to dances (Plut.lnsl.Lac. 15 (=238a-b); Pollux IV, 107). ~,60Cr. Muson. Rur. (Hense) p.114, 15: TOV 8E 1T!..Jywvu KUL uUIl~OAOV yqOVEvUL TOU appEvo5, WUlTEP aAEKpTVoVL AOOV KUt. AEOVTL XUl.TllV. ; Clem. Alex. Paed. III 3, 19 p. 263 P. : TOUTO ouv TOD av8pos TO aUvellllU, TO YEVELOV, 8L ' QV KaTUUl.VETUL 6 aV11P. 61Cf. C.M. Tazelaar "nAIt.E~" 128. The commonest example of the inclusive method is lTEVTETllPl.S to refer to athletic contests taking place every fourth year. 58 those bor~erline periods as intermediary states of being which consequently involve danger. Any transition from one mode of being to another (or to the next) is a very crucial point for an indi vidual's life, because the transitional period per se, since it cannot be determined by either the pre-existing state (which has passed by), or the coming one (which has not yet appeared), is assumed to be very unstable and indeterminate. The success of the outcome cannot be assured through human agency, hence it is thought to depend entirely on the benevolence or munificence of natural or supernatural forces. The instability of any situation and the dangers lurking underneath are usually conceived with reference to an external entity which, as it were, blocks the unrestrained unfolding of a being's power. Even if the regularity of the phenomenon has been observed and thus assumed to be natural , because recurrent, the supposed existence of that external entity is not annihilated, but, on the contrary, strengthened through its regular reappearance. For the Greek mind, the existence of such an entity, the consequences of its imposition on a body (in the broadest sense of any real thing) and the danger involved therewith are all interpreted with recourse to the fundamental notion of pollution. And since pollution was originally conceived in the very pragmatic terms of a physical intervention, it is understandable that it pre-eminently manifested its presence in those critical points when the unimpeded development of a being appeared to have been suspended. Thus pollution was both the cause and the effect of any discernible recalcitrance, obstruction or instability to be seen in the course of a being's spatial or temporal development. Ambiguity as such was polluted. Flagellation again To come back to the present case, if the epheboi at the end of their adolescence were seen to be polluted, then the ritual which ceremoniously terminated their boyhood and initiated them into manhood must, in addition to its other aspects, also comprise an element of purification. Such an element can, I think, be found in the flogging itself. An Hesychian gloss reads: Kaeape~VaL' ~a(JTL 'Yw8~VaL 162 and a scholium on Theocritus says: 162Hesych. s.v. Ka8ap8~vm ; cf. Hesych. s.v. Ka8a[,pwv (coni. Schmidt?; Ka8mpwv cod.)' [ ... ] ol 8E l1aaH),wV. (The accent given by the manusclipt is certainly corrupt, because both alternative explanations of the word would not fit. Ka8wTwv KaTa8lKu(wV apparently means 'restoring through judicial ~~nviction' which can be an explanation of a particular use of 'purifying' , but hardly so of 'destroying' or killing'.) 59 11 Exa8T)pEV, aVTL TOU ETUTITE KUL E~E8EpE. Km ' ApwTocpaVT)S (fr. 911b Kock Corn. alt. 111726) "lTE8OL [TIm8L Wilamowitz; Ecm68EL Jacobs; (JlT08wv Ahrens]163 TUS TIAEUpUS EKa8T)pEV" 164. The purification effected through flagellation may be perceived in a twofold manner, one aspect of which is rather mechanical, the other more organic. Beating, in general, and whipping, in particular, by powerfully shaking the person beaten or whipped are considered to purify him. For, by means of the physical shock which they forcefully cause, any alien (ergo polluting) physical entity is regarded as bound to drop. In this sense, the purifying method resembles the actual cleaning of a thing (say, a carpet) through beating it, a process which, in fact, removes all external entities which stick to it and thus dirty it. On the other hand, the very same shock which beating and Whipping provoke, seen from the perspective of the body that receives their power, induces an intensification of the organism in question. The body reacts to the attacking force and drastically brings its own energy together in order to efficiently oppose the outside power that challenges its integrity. Thus, the external attack causes an internal crisis, the successful outcome of which purifies the body. For the intensification of the body's power drives away or extinguishes all particles (of a more corporeal or a more spiritual nature, as the case might be) which inhibit its development and prevent it from fully realizing its potential strength. The ancient admonition offered to medical practitioners that, when all other methods and attempts at restoring a patient's health had failed, they should cause a serious shock to the sick organism (which would either be overcome and the disease simultaneously taken away, or prevail, inducing death) ultimately comes down to this primal view concerning purification 165. And, since no sharp, if any, distinction was drawn between the biological and the psychological planes in ancient times, both aspects of the purificatory method applied to the soul and its turbulences as much as they did to the body and its diseases. 163The TTm8[ proposed by Wilamowitz is, I believe, entirely out of question. Ahrens's suggestion is the most plausi ble; cr. Hesych. s. v. OTT08El,V ' TTal.HV, OU'Y'Yl 'YvECJBm and s. v. oTTo8EOVTO' El1clXOVTO, ET\JTTTOVTO. If it is correct, as it seems to me to be, the passage is better equipped to display some characteristically Aristophanic humour; for a sexual implication (cr. Arist. Ecc!. 908; 942; 939; 1016) a~ears close at hand. On the other hand it best explains the ETVTTTE and E~E8EPE which precede. 1 4Scho!. ad Theocr. V, 119. Theocritus (VII, 106-108; cr. Gow Theocritlls II, 114 and 158) seems to refer to ritual flogging. Interesting parallels to the present case are provided by the flagellation at the Roman Lupercalia (Dion. Ha!. 1,80, 1; Plut. Ant. 12; Caes. 61 ; Rom. 21; Ovid Fasti II, 19-36; cf. Ulf Lupercalienjest ). l650ne may find a few 'remnants' of those primal notions on pollution and purification that have come down to us and seem to have survived amidst our otherwise rational thinking which accepts pollution only when viruses and the like are involved. Moving the arm in front of, or in a certain angle to, the face In order to avert an evil, or simply torturing, thought (as if it were an embarrassing fly) may mutatis m~lla~ldis be an example of the mechanical mode of understanding purification; whereas, shaking one (or thinking that one should be dealt a blow) when one talks nonsense, or is inconsistent, or just appears to be too emotionally involved in one's conversational subject, may be a contemporary parallel to what I ~alled 'organic' perception of purification. As a matter of course, the two modes are so indistinguishably !nterwoven with one another that determining which one prevails in each case is simply a matter of tnterpretation. 60 Interestingly enough, flagellation qua purification brings the inquiry back to pausanias and his mythological account of the cult. Viewed from the perspective of pollution ascribed to the intermediary and not well-defined stages of life, the legendary human sacrifice executed in Ortheia's festival can be seen as a kind of 'first-fruit offerings' which would primarily be thought to avert pollution, therefore to purify, and secondarily supposed to appease divine wrath. The Ortheian wrath in question is the archetypical aversion to the future expenditure (hence diminution) of the virginal power. The well-documented prenuptial offering of locks of hair to Artemis166 is merely a substitution of what originally was (or rather was considered to have been) a human sacrifice. For in the continual and autonomous growing of hair one can see the external manifestion of the perpetual development of a being's internal and constitutive dynamism 167. The reference to human sacrifice is still more evident in the ritual of an Athenian cult devoted to Artemis who, like Ortheia, legendarily derived from the land of Tauroi. The ritual incision of a man's neck there168 is meant to be a reminiscence of a previously performed sacrifice. For the precise indication of both the body part to be cut (i.e. close to the throat where sacrificial victims were slain) and the implement to be used plainly shows that the resemblances between this rite and any sacrificial ritual cannot be coincidental. The outflow of human blood pays due honour to Artemis Taurike in much the same way as the sprinkling of the Spartan altar pleases Ortheia. The religious meaning ofthese symbolic acts is the expiation of a deity, the transgression of the limits imposed by whom is imminent. :~6Cf. Eur. Hipp. 1423-1427; Luc. DeaSyr. 60. 7The hair "comme symbole et siege de la pulsion sexuelle" (Ghiron-Bistagne "Phedre") is therefore derivative. I 68The reference is Eur. [ph.Tallr. 1456-1461 cited in the next chapter. 61 ORTHEIA AS ARTEMIS It has been argued that the association of Ortheia with Artemis is very late and that for the longest period of her cult in Sparta, the goddess was called simply Ortheia. To be more precise, this was, in fact, the view of Rose who, relying on Woodward's assertion that "the addition of the name of Artemis to that of Orthia [ ... ] seems unkown before the Flavian era, approximately" 169, thought that "the two were not always identical even in the minds of their worshippers in comparatively late times" 170. Chrimes took some pains to show that a very late identification cannot hold true, but her efforts, praiseworthy though they are and to a certain extent convincing, are spoiled by her attempt, based on Nilsson's work on the supposed origins of Greek religion, to trace Ortheia's origin back to Minoan times. In a more substantial way, Page argued for an earlier identification of Ortheia with Artemis (going presumably back to the sixth century B.C. or earlier when Alcman, on whosePartheneion Page's study is focused,jloruit) and rightly concluded that "there is little among the relics of Ortheia which might not have been expected from a shrine of Artemis" 171. Conclusive evidence proving that in the fifth century, if not earlier, the identification of Ortheia with Artemis was already firmly rooted is provided by both Pindar and Herodotus. The Theban poet refers to the goddess in a context which does more than simply imply that the process of the eventual identification of the two has begun: it takes the association for granted and more or less assumes that the identification has already taken place. Heracles offers to Artemis a female golden-horned deer which was previously consecrated to Orthosia by Taygete. That the daughter of Lato is identical with the goddess to whom the sacred deer of Artemis was dedicated is easily inferred: EVea AaTous L TTTroaoa 172 9uyciTllP OE~aT' EA90VT' , ApKaOlat;; cbra OELpdv Kat 'TTOAUyvcil1'TTTWV I1UXWV, dJTE I1LV ov 9~AELaV a~ov9 ' , clV 'TTOTE TavYETa a'Ls OPEUlV, OKa CJloLO'l F a8lJ TIOAUavoS EopTa, XPUO'lOV ayyoS Exowa, ~Eya O'KUOV, ol a TE TIOl~EVES aV8PES EXOWLV, XE PCJl. AEovnov EV yaAa 8E'LO'a, TUPOV ETUPllCJaS ~Eyav ch puov ' ApYEloVT<;C The fact that the person in the poem is addressed in the second singular person makes it highly unlikely that it refers to a mortal woman as suggested by Garzya 19 1. Moreover, the reference to Hermes corroborates the view which places the poem in the mythological context of di vine, rather than human (i.e. cultic), acts. The powerful goddess manifests her sovereignty over wild beasts by drawing their milk, by appropriating, that is to say, the substance that nurtures their offspring. Hermes at this juncture represents the divine Consort of Ortheia, although as is always the case in Archaic cults , he is subordinate to l88X en, Resp .Lac. I1, 9, ~~~Den Boer Studies 261-274, 19l ~~~~:~, ~~~e~,.(Page) , 68 her. The role that Hermes could have played in pre-Homeric religion as a Master of Animals (ITOTVlOS 81lPwv is the term coined by Nilsson by analogy with the Homeric TIoTvLa 81lPWV) is more than adequately studied by Chittenden l 92. She has shown that one of the original aspects of Hermes' s 'protectiveness' which went back to Minoan times was his power over wild animals, and that the god seen from the viewpoint of human benefits derived therefrom was transformed into the Protector of both wayfarers and flocks. The orator Aristeides193 who, though he apparently misunderstood the deities involved in the poem and ascribed the divine action to Dionysus instead, nevertheless stressed the 'invincible power' of the god over wild animals, bears witness to the symbolic meaning that the drawing of lionesses ' milk must have had. What is more , the transformation of the wild substance into a cheese appropriate to feed mortals may be seen as parallel to the necessary transition of the Spartan epheboi from the potent natural virginity exemplified in their erect male organs to efficient, and effective, procreation. Thus the cheeses consecrated on Ortheia 's altar seem to have been the cultic representations of a religiously speaking originally divine manifestation and must have been considered to be prepared by wild animal milk normally inaccessible to ordinary human beings. Their fermentation could then be the observable aspect of a divine activity (which in a secret manner transformed the intrinsic wildness of the milk into a digestible mild food) , and their easily assumed consumption on the part of the Spartan youth (following their ritual stealing) must have signified a holy partaking and strengthening of the properties of the goddess under whose protection they hitherto were. The Spartan adolescents 'eventual abandonment of Ortheia's domain of influence should have been accompanied by a culmination of the divine endowments which she could offer, lest their transition (which in a sense was a collective hybris , hence highly dangerous) be suspended. 192Chi ttenden 11 Master ". 19: Arist. Or. XLI, 7 , 11 331 (Keil): lTOAA~ TLS' KaL a llax0S' ~ 8uvallLS' TO\) eEO\), Kal 8UVaLT' av K~L OVOV S' lTTEpoDv, OUX 'LrrlTOVS 1l0 VOV' WCJlTEP Kal AEOVTWV YUAa UIlEAYELV dVEellKEV TLS' aUT0 AaKwvLKoS' lTO LllT~S' . The Laconian poet referred to must in all likelihood be Alcman. 69 ORTHEIA AND AOTIS It is a well-known fact established by the modern study of Greek religion and ' often emphatically stressed by the ancients themselves, that in Artemisian festivals dances and songs performed by young persons of both sexes, played an important, usually central, role l94. Such was, in all likelihood, the case with the cult of Ortheia too. Plutarch 195, for instance, in a purely mythological narrative anachronistically says that the abduction of Helen (not yet of Troy) by Theseus and Peirithous took place while the maiden (KOPl) executed a dance in the sancuary of Artemis Ortheia. This precision would of course be of no avail, if the dance mentioned by Plutarch were not substantiated by an earlier and more trustworthy (albeit by no means secure) evidence. The source of the evidence in question is none other than the Laconian seventh-century B.C. poet A1cman. In one of his Partheneia or 'songs of maidens' an otherwise unknown divinity is named ( ' AWTLS') to whom the young girls dedicate a garment. The passage that concerns us here runs as follows: 60 63 Tal. TIEAl)clOES' yap allLV 'Op8L<;t a(J\l-a OUTW KaAEL [ ... ]' OUTW Kat TO apoS' Kat TO (JTTElpov ELw80Ta ETTt L\l-aTl.WV AE~Ea(J\l-aTWV Tl.811(JLV. 20 Herodian. ITEpt \l-2.~pous- AE~EWS' 13 36, n, 942.9 (Lenz): TTapauAaKTEOV on TO apoS' TUXOV ?,U(JTEAAO\l-EVOU TOU a ava8EXETUl Ttl Tpl.a YEVTJ [ .. . ] OU8ETEPOV OTTOTE (Jll\l-aVTLKOV TOU l\l-aTl.OU 11 TOU apOTpou, WS' TTap' 'AA\l-aVL , ciAM Kat TTap' 'AvTl\l-aX4l (fr. 119 Wyss)' cid apEoS' ~aT(OU(Jl EXOVTES' [correxi; xaTEuou(JL EXWV codd.; xaTEOU(Jl EKOVTES' Lehrs]. 10Anth.Pal. VI , 104. Two precisions are needed in order to duly differentiate this instance from the case of the girls in the ParliJ.eneion: i) the donator is himself an old ploughman and ii) the dedication is meant to be an offering to the pre-eminently agricultural divinity, Demeter herself, for the support she had provided over the years. Hence, no real similarity with Alcman's poem. Even if it be proved in the future that apoS' means apoTpov, one must see in this symbol the whole array of its sexual as well as agncultural connotation (cr. DuBois SOlVing 65-85). 72 garments to deities (esp. TIETIAOL to goddesses) were so widespread211 in ancient cults that the interpretation of i) (Wilson "Partheneion") for the improbability of which one may point out a) the assumed strange alteration of eta to alpha in Laconic, b) that Hesychius has something like all~pOal.a in mind; whence supplied could this be an offering by mot'tals?, and c) that uaKoas TOV xopov TOV BE • IiTiTOBal1Elas KaAOUUuaKoav Lllovuaov ulwl.aV TO QVOlla aUTWV ETTlEPOUP08WlU(E