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@qo&os(Robert), and suppose that there were also altars to Akamas and Demophon in the group. We are now left with the anonymous hero, whom Pausanias states that local experts identify with Androgeos. Once more Theseus, and this time the immediate reason is apparent: it is the connexion of the Oschophoria, Theseus’ festival at Phaleron, with the return from Crete. This is learned speculation which is unlikely to have affected the hero’s character very much. The name Androgeos has no place in the cult, and a rival theory 1ocated‘Minos’ son in the K e r a m e i k o ~ . ’But ~ ~ Callimachus (fr. 103 Pf) apparently identified Androgeos at Phaleron with a ‘hero at the stem’, qpos K ~ T &npdpvav, thus complicating the issue; without this piece of information we should have expected such a title to belong to Nauseiros/Nausithoos. The extreme solution of identifying all three titles is hardly a possibility, because the Kybernesia and the consequent mythological identifications of Nauseiros and Phaiax were probably still current at the time of Callimachus. Callimachus may have made a slip when perusing his sources on this rather involved group of heroes, which even Pausanias does not list in full. Or perhaps more likely, the description K ~ T &np6pvav really does refer to Pausanias’ nameless hero, for whom some further description is presumably necessary on occasion. The connexion with Andrcgeos represents a final stage of mythological development. Whereas Nauseiros and Phaiax acquire by stages personalities and a myth early enough for them to penetrate into, even to some extent to form, their cult, the qpws KWT:~!npdpvav remains ‘officially’ anonymous, acquiring a mythological character only through the researches of the atthidographers. At all stages except the first, the figure of Theseus is vitally important in determining the character of the myth, and here we can see a number of factors involved: the influence of the local festival, the need and interests of a genos, and the simple desire for a satisfactory historical explanation. It seems likely, however, that the nautical character of the group was formed before the connexion with Theseus. In this respect we cannot rule out the possibility of the influence of some members of this essentially rather disparate group forming the character of others. The This very fact may have given the deme a claim in the 61a61~aoia? Strabo 683. 14h Amelesagoras, FGvH 330 F 2 with Jacoby’s commentary: cf. perhaps Hesiod fr. 146 M-W. 144 fiphov). See p. 90 n. 57. Mythology. Eleusinian chieftain, H . Hymn Dem. 154. Cf. use as epithet of underworld god, A. Suppl. 144, al. ~opcpupiovPorphyrion Place of worship. Cult unknown; at the temple of Aphrodite Ourania at Athmonon? (below). Mythology. In the account of the people of Athmonon, P. was a king (locally?) before Aktaios, and founded the temple of Aphrodite Ourania (but cf. Aigeus), Paus. 1.14.7. More commonly (outside Attica - connected?) P. is a giant (therefore autochthonous?): see RE 22.272. HpaCnYEa, @paolbEa Praxithea, Phrasithea
14s
THE HERO AND THE INDIVIDUAL
41
first stage may have been the festival of the Kybemesia; it seems more reasonable to suppose that this began by having a definite end in view, rather than being merely a commemorative celebration of two of the minor companions of Theseus. The heroes of the festival, then, were not only sailors themselves, but were able to help those at sea, and like Sosineos of Thorikos they received regular sacrifice with this end in view.
Themistocles A hero of very different origins seems to have been located in the great harbour of Peiraeus. According to Diodorus the Periegete, who quotes Plato Comicus in support, the bones of Themistocles were brought back to Athens and buried in an ‘altarlike tomb’ (popoet6Eq zdtcpoq, Plut. Them. 32.5-6). Clearly this denotes some sort of attempt to claim heroic status for the victor of Salamis, and the idea of ‘greeting’ in the Plato passage may also be significant (‘tois Zpnopotq npoopqcnq Eo~at~ ~ v T ~ x o IfO this ) . ~was ~ ~a hero cult, even one of limited appeal, then it is obviously one which places Themistocles in the ranks of the sailing heroes, although awareness of him as a controversial historical figure must have modified attitudes somewhat. How popular he was we have no means of knowing.i48 Phrontis Phrontis was the steersman of Meneleos, who died and was buried at Sounion (Od. 3.278-85): &Ah’ ~ T Xozivtov E ipov hvt~Op~ofi’, & K ~ O VXfiqvEov, h % Y . KUpEpV.ilT?lV MEVEhdtOU @OipOS hOhh6.W Oiq & p V O P < pEGE(3CJLV Z7tOtXO~EVO
There is no completely hard-and-fast evidence for a cult of Phrontis at Sounion, although Picard has made out a generally very persuasive case, based on this passage and on the archaeological evidence.149Later we shall consider this passage in the context of questions of the epic and the origins of hero-cult; here we need to determine whether a cult existed, and if so whether Phrontis belongs with the same group as the previously discussed heroes, as a helper to those at sea. To prove Phrontis’ presence at Sounion, one would prefer some named epigraphic evidence, even a clearer indication of the heroic nature of the shrine, but the case is very much strengthened by the small votive plaque (Picard fig. 3) depicting hoplites on board a ship, and a helmsman; a more appropriate dedicatee than Phrontis could not be found. Sounion being such a conspicuous landmark in the Saronic Gulf (‘would I were where there is a wooded, sealashed See Wachsmuth, nopmpog 6 8aipov (n. 133) 156-8. On this cult see J. Rusten, HSCP 87 (1983) 293 n. 15. 149 Ch. Picard, ‘L’hCrBon de Phrontis su Sounion’, Rev. Arch. 6tme sCr. 16 (1940) 5-20. Picard’s identification of the temenos A as a heroon has not been accepted; it appears to be an outwork of the fortifications. H. Abramson. ‘A hero shrine for Phrontis at Sounion?’ Cal. Sruds. 12 (1979) 1-19, suggests that a small temple north of the temple of Athena and near the pit where the votive plaque was found was dedicated to Phrontis. IJ7
42
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
promontory, jutting out into the sea, under the high cliff of Sounion, so that we might hail holy Athens’I5‘’)one might expect to find here a sailor well-disposed to mariners, to point the way; in fact the hero at the promontory, most often a sailor in myth and pilot of a more famous hero, is a well-attested phenomenon, though not apparently found elsewhere in Attica.’” The Odyssean lines look as though they refer to a pre-existing cult rather than supplying the inspiration for a later phenomenon: why mention Phrontis and Sounion otherwise? If this is so, the cult may be remarkably old. ‘Phrontis Onetorides’ looks like a significant name, suggesting concern and help, and the presence of votives also, such as the painted plaque, leads one to suppose that Phrontis performed useful services and could presumably be responsible for the saving of ships. In fact this votive may be our only real evidence for cult paid to a sailing hero in an occasion of specific need - though we can hardly suppose that this was a rare occurrence, as long as the heroes were venerated at all.
Paralos: a different case To complete our survey of the known sailing heroes of Attica (there were surely many others) we should perhaps consider the case of Paralos, eponym of the trireme Paralos and owner of a shrine perhaps at Peiraeus. His name proclaims that he is the hero who resides by the sea, and it is possible that originally he too was a helper-hero similar to those considered above. He had enough personality to be considered, not unnaturally, a son of Poseidon.I5? But what we know of him shows him in a rather different light from the heroes previously considered. Two fourth-century inscriptions reveal the existence of a group called Paraloi, who sacrifice (196m) to Paralos and place their decrees in’a Paralion.i51Elsewhere the Paraloi are those on board the para lo^;''^ since the trireme was named after the hero, this usage can scarcely be coincidence; we should regard the Paraloi of our inscription as a thiasos or other informal religious grouping of men who had served on board the Paralos. The hero Paralos, for whose worship they came together, functioned as a focus of loyalty and an expression of corporate identity, in a manner with which we shall become familiar. Paralos, regarded in this way, is a more exclusive hero than those sailors who will help anyone, but at the same time his sphere of action is the group rather than the individual. One may speculate that Paralos would help his own, and be invoked by them, in cases of distress and need. It is further possible that since his connexion with the ship was so close, he could usefully be invoked by men while they were actually on board ship. It is perhaps on this score that most other sailing-heroes would have their most marked deficiency. One may take prophylactic measures at the shrines of heroes to prevent shipwreck before sailing, but when a isoiv’ bh&v Emon novzou npophqp’ drhiKhuozov Einoipev A6drvvas. S . Aja.v 1217-22.
ls3
Is4
& K P ~ V6x0
nhdr~aEouviou, zbs iepbs Gnos npoo-
Palinurus is of course the obvious example, but in Greece proper another ~ u P & p v f i qof s Meneleos was buried on the promontory called 6vou yv&6os near Asopos in Laconia (Paus. 3.22.10; lcai o6ros shows that he is aware of the parallelism with Phrontis, as indeed he could hardly fail to be). Of the other major promontories of Attica. cape Zoster was derived from Leto’s loosening of her
THE HERO AND THE INDIVIDUAL
43
storm blows up renewed appeals to some superhuman power are surely necessary. This habit, and the accompanying practice of dedicating votives for delivery, are well enough attested in a divine or semi-divine context; the Dioskouroi in particular are well-known as saviours of ships, and the Homeric Hymn addressed to them (33.6-17) shows that they were thought able to receive sacrifice performed at the moment of crisis. Later, Christian saints could be invoked in much the same way.lSs The hero proper, on the other hand - for the Dioskouroi have the mobility of gods - may suffer from the handicap of close or exclusive association with his tomb. For ships sailing around Sounion, Phrontis might seem close enough to be called from the sea nearby, but would he be of much use halfway across the Aegean?Is6 And what were the chances of the sailor from distant parts knowing the correct local hero to invoke? Travel indeed to some extent breaks down the structure of locality on which the hero largely depends. It is true that sudden apparitions of heroes are a respectable phenomenon, and particularly at moments of crisis heroes can appear or be summoned from their ordinary abodes to give help elsewhere, like Echetlaios at Marathon or Phylakos at Delphi. This occurred at the battle of Salamis, but there the Aiakidai might be considered to have a special interest in defending their own iand, and perhaps to be specially qualified to do this. The sphere of minor heroes is so limited that they were more probably invoked in time of peril only when their tombs or shrines were in close proximity. Within this rather limited area, however, these heroes do seem to perform useful functions. They are important enough to receive annual sacrifices for their continued goodwill. Their origin may perhaps be sought in particular feeling attaching to various harbours, beaches and look-out points along the coastline; this would explain why thev are situated at conspicuous, significant points. From the hero who helps sailors to the sailor-hero is a relatively short step, requiring little more development than occurs in the case of the hero-physicians. As with that group, the development may then continue further with the creation of myth and integration into pre-existing saga. The Phaleron group provides an extreme example of this process, in which many factors are at work, but among the attested Attic heroes of this type we can see almost all stages of development. It would seem likely that all were capable of affording protection; but we hear no stories of malicious heroes who bring ships to grief. satirical description of such a scene, with pilgrimages promised as well as simple dedications, is found in Erasmus’ colloquy Naufragium. For greetings addressed to deities on shore, see Wachsmuth, nOpmpo< 6 6aipwv (n. 133) 156-8.
15s A
Is6
3: THE HERO AND THE CITY: THE SAVIOUR-HERO and benefactor: such titles are not out of place when applied to men,' but in styling themselves thus, the hellenistic rulers were still assimilating themselves to a very old tradition of divine and heroic relations with the city. As long as each citizen still retained a vivid consciouness of the city's collective existence - and this is a condition fulfilled almost throughout antiquity, at least in the Greek world - such considerations, could never be seriously more remote, less 'real', than the relationship of god or hero to individual. Corporate worship and a roughly common apprehension of the beings worshipped can of course be a powerful force for the cohesion of the community. The chapters which follow will be essentially an extended essay on,this proposition, from the point of view both of the polis as a centralised institution and of smaller groups within the polis. But here I wish to discuss the more direct role of the hero in 'saving' and "benefiting' the community - that is, in a crisis, normally the city as a whole. In essence this type of action is simply the beneficial action of the previous chapter writ large. But there are many more complications, and some important distinctions between heroic and divine action. There are not really many different types of crisis which beset the Greek city. Myth and history alike know of only a few: war and foreign attack, famine and pestilence, occasionally natural disasters. To these we might add faction and civil disturbance, which in myth are generally assinlilated in effect to war. War is in fact by far the most usual of these emergencies, although mythologically war and famine are often alternatives. It has even been suggested that a major factor in the rise of hero-cult itself, as of other contemporary religious phenomena, was just such a crisis, a supposed eighth-century drought and famine,' and if it is really the case that the plague of 428 sparked off a renewed interest in several cults it is not improbable that heroic intervention was actually believed to occur. However, it is war which offers the greatest number of instances of intervention on the part of heroes. The simplest type of phenomenon and perhaps the earliest - of itself it does not even imply any form of cult - is the appearance of the hero fighting on the battlefield.' This is a form of action which gods also indulge in, though perhaps (outside Homer) less commonly than heroes, and such epiphanies occur very widely in the ancient world. Often it is some figure particularly associated with the city in a general sense who appears, whether god or hero; thus Poseidon, the city's patron, at Mantineia around 240, or the Salaminian archegete Kychreus, in the form of a snake, at the battle of salami^.^ On other occasions we meet heroes who seem to have a specialised function of this sort; this is strongly suggested by the name of the hero, Phylakos, who saved Delphi both at the time of the Persian wars and during the Celtic invasion of 279.5 But the earliest Attic episode of this type is of a rather different character. The huge figure of a hoplite whose beard shadowed his shield, and who blinded Epizelos son of Kouphagoras and killed the man next to him, was presumably a hero, although Herodotus (6.117) does not use the word. But so far from giving help to the people who saw him, this hero is fighting on the enemy's side. It is perhaps natural enough that the enemy, too, should have its heroes, yet this
)3o.tGp and
E ~ E ~ $ T ~ saviour S ,
See A. D. Nock, Essays I1 720-3. J. McK. Camp 11, Hesperia 48 (1979) 403-4. See Brelich 90-2, and in general on epiphanies W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War 111 (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1979) I 1-46. 4Paus.8.10.8, 1.36.1. Hdt. 8.34-9. Paus. 10.8.7: Paus. 10.23.2. I
44
THE HERO AND THE CITY
45
is an inversion of the usual phenomenon, although it is not unique.h In Herodotus’ account the explanation is left vague, and he offers no theories of the hero’s identity. However, the Marathon fresco of the Stoa Poikile, dating from the mid fifth century, at most fifty years after the battle, already shows a developed mythology of superhuman intervention, and it is one along more conventional lines. Pausanias’ description is quite clear (1.15.3). At the battle are present the hero Marathon, Theseus, Athena and Herakles; they are not shown fighting, for clearest among the fighters are Kallimachos, Miltiades and the hero Echetlos or Echetlaios. Their presence therefore may be purely figurative, as the gods and heroes most closely concerned, or may imply involvement without (necessarily) physical presence, as the iconographic convention of a later age shows the Virgin and saints at the battle of Lepanto.’ There is in fact a clear reason for the presence of each of these figures, Athena and Theseus protecting Attica (although each has also specific connexions with the north-easts) and Herakles and Marathon the plain itself. The first two need no comment. Herakles had a very old cult at Marathon, and the Marathonians claimed to have been the first to pay him divine honours.’ Before the battle the army encamped in the local Herakleion, and sacrificed at the Herakleion of Kynosarges on their return to the city.’O Marathon, or Marathos as he sometimes appears, is an interesting character; according to Plutarch (Theseus 32), whose source is Dikaiarchos, he was an Arcadian who fought for the Tyndaridai in their invasion of Attica to recover their sister Helen from Theseus. In accordance with an oracle, he allowed himself to be killed in battle to ensure victory. But this story can hardly have been in the mind of the painter, as the hero is depicted in company with Theseus himself. The idea that the eponymous hero of the deme was a warrior who had practised devofio sounds rather like a reflex of the battle, so that he becomes a prototype of the Marathon dead. Evidently the complete tradition was not fixed in the mid fifth century. The sole fighting hero of the fresco, Echetlaios, appears only here, to our knowledge. M. H. Jameson supposes that Echetlaios is the hero of the plough-handle, connected with the farmer’s prayer as he grasps the implement before beginning the year’s ploughing.” Although in one sense this fits in well with the general pattern of heroic intervention in battle, where it is the local hero who appears, it seems unlikely that a comparatively minor Marathonian hero would have appeared to the Athenian army in general, unless they had sacrificed to him beforehand; and this possibility is apparently ruled out by the necessity of a Delphic consultation. Athenian bafflement at this epiphany produced the Delphic response to honour the hero Echetlaios, and this can be seen to conform to a contemporary pattern of the oracle’s institution of hero-cults.’? It was only after the mysterious appearance that Echetlaios was honoured as a hero, although we may agree with Jameson that he appeared in agricultural guise because, though previously unknown, he was recognised as the local hero, and therefore a farmer. Philostratus (VS 27) is probably confusing Echetlaios with the hero Marathon in stating that the latter was depicted in (‘Cf. W. Peek, Criechische Vers-lnschrifen I (Berlin 1955) no. 17: drhhdr TI< 6 p q ~ptt3Eov[--I drvridLocx< $Bhcry~v,discussed by Pritchett, op. cit. 26. An example (pl. 2) by Veronese in the Academia (inv. no. 284), S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerio dell‘ A ~ n d e n i i o di Vene-it!. Opere d’arte del secolo XVI (Rome 1962) 82-3 no. 136; cf. G. Mariacher. I1 nirc.sc0 Corwr. di Vene:in (Venice 1957) 193-4. Athena’s connexion with Marathon is attested already in the Odyssey, 7.80: Theseus’ north-eastem connexions are perhaps strictly with Aphidna, but the whole area is rich in Thesean myth: see below, p. I2 I . Paus. 1.15.3, 32.4. “’Hdt. 6.108.1, 116.1. I ’ M. H. Jameson, TAPA 32 (1951)49-61. I z PW I. 340-60, esp. 352-60.
’
46
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
a statue at Marathon as a ‘farmer hero’, f i p q -y~y~opy05. For the painter of the fresco they were distinct. Another tradition is recorded by Plutarch (Theseus 35); his authority is not clear, but he states that many who fought at Marathon thought they saw Theseus in arms. Despite the fact that this is emphatically not portrayed in the Stoa Poikile depiction, it need not be discounted as a later version, for in 490 Theseus was still at the peak of his popularity. His appearance at the battle would lend extra point to the recovery of the bones from Skyros - by Miltiades’ son Cimon. Any heroic apparition without some distinctive feature, such as was found in the case of Echetlaios, could have been identified with Theseus. Herodotus deliberately passes over these more comfortable traditions, implicitly contradicting popular versions and citing instead the eye-witness testimony of a named participant in the battle. Indeed, in the confusion of the fighting several distinct versions of heroic identification co.uld arise. There appears to be a background of a general,, vague expectation of heroic help or even hindrance, but not always any expectation that a particular hero would appear. The logical sequel to these half-expectations would be to make deliberate efforts to win the support of certain heroes. If this occurred at Marathon, the obvious choice of hero would have been Herakles, since the army camped at the Herakleion - but we hear nothing of Herakles’ appearance, whether because no attempt was made or because the hero failei to respond. At Salamis, on the other hand, the army certainly did invoke local heroes; they called on Ajax and Telamon from the island itself and sent a ship for Telamon’s father Aiakos from-Aigina, though it is not clear in what form he was supposed to be brought.”-These \ ,’. efforts weke not‘in vain, for during the battle armed men, taken to be the Aiakids, were seen stretching out their hands to protect the Greek ships.14 Subsequently the celebration of the Aianteia on Salamis was closely bound up with that of the victory.’S Here again it is the local heroes who protect their own; we do not hear of the appearance of heroes belonging to the cities of any other participants in the battle. But it is not only before battle that we find the Athenians attempting to win over heroes to further their cause. The first example we know of an attempt to find heroic allies, if it is to be regarded as genuine, occurs in the early sixth century. Plutarch (Solon 9) relates the incident as part of an ‘alternative version’, but it would clearly fit into either of his accounts. On consulting the Delphic oracle on the subject of the capture of Salamis, Solon received the following reply:
xpxTlyOb< XCbPaS 6 U d a l S fipOCXS 6VOiKOUS ‘iha00,TobS KOhTCOIS xOOlTI&s &FTlK&hUlCT&l, di (pl%F&VO1 &&pKOVTaI & q&hlOV6i)VOVTQ. Placate with sacrifices the heroes who dwell in the land and are its leaders, whom Asopias holds in its embrace, who, dead, look towards the setting sun. Hdt 8.64. These efforts, along with prayers to the gods, were at least partly inspired by an earthquake immediately before. The Aeginetans claimed that it was the ship sent for the Aiakidai which was first into battle: ib. 83. Earlier, the Aiakidai seem to have been literally sent from Aigina to Thebes (Hdt. 5.81. I), though unsuccessfully as far as the Thebans were concerned. I J Plut. Then?. 15. There were several other apparitions of a more or less heroic kind, butkhese were more or less spontaneous. A woman appeared to encourage the Greeks to join battle (Hdt. 5.8 1.1) and a mysterious ship from nowhere, from which the fighters (in the Athenian story) taunted Adeimantos, the fleeing Corinthian general, and prophesied a Greek victory (8.94). A snake was also seen among the ships, which the oracle at Delphi later declared to have been the Salaminian hero Kychreus (Paus. I .36. I), on whom see n. 38. I 5 At least this seems to have been the case for the ephebes; see Deubner 228, quoting IG 112 1028.27.
I’
T H E HERO A N D T H E CITY
47
He then secretly sailed to Salamis by night and sacrificed to the heroes Periphemos and Kychreus. The precise measure of historical truth, if any, which lies behind this story is not really important; what matters is the belief implied. This has a very close parallel in less historically based literature, when Euripides warns that the enemy must not be allowed to sacrifice to the daughters of Erechtheus (below). A sixth-century date does not, in fact, seem impossible for such a tradition. If such an event did occur, or was at the time believed to have occurred, it would be most important that the Megarians should know of the sacrifice and be led to believe that the Salaminian heroes now favoured the Athenians. In a case like this, it is hard to judge how much weight to place on the help which the heroes are believed to bestow and how much on the propaganda effect, and perhaps contemporaries would have made little distinction; both pre-suppose a fairly widespread belief that heroes can intervene directly in political and military matters. Things are taken a stage further in the second incident, in which Delphic authority is also an element. The date is approximately a hundred years later, and the oracle, according to Herodotus (5.89), advised Athens to refrain from attacking Aigina for thirty years, and then to build a temenos to the Aiginetan hero Aiakos. The intention is clearly conceived along the same lines as the previous episode; here, however, not only is sacrifice to be organised on some more permanent basis, but also the hero must in some sense be brought to Athens. It is interesting to note that in this conception a hero’s physical remains are not indispensable to his presence; this temenos is not the only one which did not contain the hero’s tomb, and indeed the whole phenomenon of heroic epiphanies in time of crisis implies that the hero, like other dead, is not firmly confined to his burial place.I6 But in this case the actual posse8sion of the bones would no doubt have been still more efficacious. Perhaps attempts, were actually made on the remains; at any rate, the Aeginetans’ desire to keep secret the fact that Aiakos’ altar was also his tomb suggests that they feared such an event. Our source for this information, Pausanias (2.29.8) is usually scrupulous in not revealing &noppr\~a,and the exception here suggests that he may be aware that the reason for secrecy is no longer cogent. Here we are approaching the Roman practice of evocatio, the summoning away of the gods of an enemy city.” Already in Homer, gods ‘leave’ the warrior who is about to die, and presumably this idea originates as an explanation of the fighter’s death. Once the idea gains acceptance, however, it is logical enough to attempt to induce such an event. But in Greek society, it seems to have been heroes rather than gods who were to be enticed away or removed by force from cities, just as heroes more commonly appeared in battle than gods. The spontaneous help sometimes given by heroes could on occasion be deliberately harnessed, whether it was to defend their own people, as in battle, .or to transfer their allegiance to enemies. The latter was clearly a well-known practice which could be sanctioned by Delphi, and this leads us naturally on to the importance of the possession of heroic bones. Here the well-known case is the episode of the Spartan ‘recovery’ of the bones of Orestes.IX Although there is no exact parallel in Attica to the bringing over of alien bones and the subsequent, or rather consequent, subjection of the territory from which they were taken (the closest thing comparable being the return of the bones of Theseus: below, p. 53), this episode may still throw light on modes of thought which prevailed in Attica as well. The bones of Orestes and the bones of Theseus probably had specific connotations in political propaganda, claims to See Brelich 80- 1. by F. Schwenn, Aid-~iii,fiir.R ~ / i ~ ~ i o / t . ~ ~ ~ i s s ~20/ t (sI c920/1) . h n f i 3 17. with refei-ences to its use among the Hittites and elsewhere. I X Hdt. 1.67.8. Ih
l 7 Discussed
48
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Achaean or Ionian supremacy, mastery of the sea or of the Peloponnese, but it would be a mistake to eliminate the less rational point, that the heroes whose bones rest in one’s country give one their assistance. Heroes could then be persuaded to change their allegiance not merely by receiving sacrifice, but by being physically snatched away; the hero’s bones can approach a sort of impersonal talisman. On one level this sort of phenomenon does not differ very much from the sacred object, like the Palladion, which guarantees the city’s safety while it remains within. Even in much later times, cities might contest regularly over such talismans: according to Pausanias, the Tithoreans would attempt in spring to steal earth from the tomb of Amphion and Zethos at Thebes and place it on the tomb of Antiope and Phokos in their own land, in order to secure a better harvest than the Thebans, who kept guard over the tomb to prevent this.’” Yet here there seems to be a mythological reference as well; so were heroic bones magical objects, or did heroes as personal agents lend their support to one city or another? The relative rarity of cult centring on individual bones and fragments of the body, in contrast with much later practice with the relics of saints, might seem to suggest that the hero as complete being was more important, but even so a whole body might be moved without the hero being presumed to give his consent. An example of the dominance of the personal concept may be provided by Euripides’ Heracleidae, if indeed (which is far from clear) Eurystheus’ speech of prophecy (1040ff.) is to be taken as forbidding only the descendants of Herakles from sacrificing to him; such sacrifice will not mollify him, but he will return evil for good.’O On the other hand in Erechtheus it is the talisman element which is stressed; sacrifice by the enemj .o the Athenian girls will bring trouble to the Athenians willy-nilly (fr. 65.87-9). Both the ‘talisman’ and the ‘personal’ concept figure in Oedipus at Colonus; though it matters where Oedipus ends his life and hence where his ‘grave’, if it c m be so called, is sited, it matters also that his hatred of the TheBans is implacable both in life and in death. Presumably both concepts were widely influential. We can at any rate affirm that the hero’s saving bones represent a common and widespread phenomenon, often sanctioned (at the least post eventurn) by oracles. Arkas at Mantineia, Hesiod at Boeotian Orchomenos, Hector at Thebes: Pausanias is full of diverse examples.” In Attica, it is clear enough that the bones of Theseus are a part of this tradition, but still more illuminating instances are provided by the gravcs of two heroes who came to Attica while still alive: Oedipus and Eurystheus. Our sources are mainly dramatic, which presents its own difficulties. Tragedy, with its frequent emphasis on the links between the heroic past and the world of the contemporary audience, seems to have a special fondness for the heroic grave where past and present actions evoke one another. How far the dramatists reflect real traditions and how far they produce free variations on a theme, perhaps even, like the atthidographers, indulging in learned speculation as to the truth, is clearly extremely difficult to determine, and in the end our decision perhaps depends on subjective criteria. The theme of the heroic tomb conferring. benefits is used not only by Euripides, who had a liking for the related theme of fieiwilliger O p f h d , 2 ’ but also, Paus. 9.17.4. The problem lies in the understanding of lines 1040- I , &hhapfpe poi xokq / pq6’ a!p’ d&o&z;(Reiske: 6 & q < L) E ~ G6pov oz&tai z&cpov (Heath: zorrov L). Is or&Caitransitive, with Xoai and a!pa as its subject? We would then have a general prohibition on all offerings, and a different explanation is needed. Or is it rather causative: ‘do not allow (someone) to make libations drip ...’? In this case the natural ‘someone’ would be the Herakleidai, referred to in the closely linked line which follows, but it is perhaps also possible to understand nva rather than ccdtoG<. Critics are about equally divided on the two main interpretations: see J. M. Wilkins’ forthcoming commentary ad loc. For the consequences of a general ban, see below, p. 49. Paus. 8.9.3,9.38.3,9.18.5. 22 See Johanna Schmitt, Freiwilliger Opferrod hei Euripides (Giessen I92 I); E. A. M. E. O’Connor-Visser,Aspects ofhuniari sacrifice in the rragedies of Buripides (Amsterdam 1987). I‘’
20
THE HERO AND THE CITY
49
and more famously, by Sophocles, in his last play Oedipus ut Colonus. But let us examine the earlier play first. Euripides is not our only source of knowledge about Eurystheus; there were a number of traditions relating to his grave. Strabo’s version is one of the fullest (377); he says that Eurystheus’ body was buried in Gargettos, his head by the spring of Makaria in Trikorythos. Gargettos is more 0; less equivalent to the temple of Athena Pallenis which Euripides gives as the location (6ias n&pot6e nap6Evou rIahhqvi60~,Hcld. 1031),23 but a completely different tradition is represented in Pausanias and Apollodorus, who speak of a tomb in the Megarid.24 In saga, Eurystheus was an Argive, rival and enemy of Herakles, with no Athenian connexions; in mythological terms, then, his presence outside the Argolid should be explained either by exile or by hostilities. The Gargettospallene area does not, however, immediately make one think of an invasion from Argos, which would be unlikely to proceed via Marathon, marching thence southwards to the city, like Peisistratos’ men, and meeting the defending force at the obvious point, just north of Hymettos. Though such a route is not impossible, it seems a much more likely choice for an invader from the north; the tomb in the Megarid is more natural for an Argive invader of Attica. If there was a hero at Pallene, and if he was originally a defeated enemy, his identification with Eurystheus would be secondary; the association could in fact have come about because of the proximity of Herakles’ temple.25 Alternatively, it is just possible that there was no hero at all; lines 1040-1 could be taken as an indication: &hhixpilze pot xoixs pq8’ a!p9 E&oaz’ &is2pov ozdtgat z&cpov. But do not allow either libations or blood to drip down (or, do not allow them to drip , down libations ...) into my tomb.
The purport of these lines depends on whether Eurystheus means that the Herakleidai should not make offerings to him (see above) or proposes a general ban on all offerings; if the latter is the case, Euripides would ’seem to be explaining to his audience why his ‘aetiology’ has no correlative in actual cult-practice. Yet Euripides in this case has been remarkably careful to place his ‘hero’ near a divine temple, in the manner of so many real heroes, and his tradition proved extraordinarily tenacious. Further, he places Eurystheus in what seems to be a genuine tradition of the defeated enemy who exercises a protective function.lb But even if we allow that Eurystheus is a real hero, Euripides is still our only evidence for him as a protector: in the play Eurystheus, about to die, delivers the usual prophecy and aetiology as follows: ~ aooi i p6v eiivouq ~ an io k t o w ~ p t o s ~ E T O I K Oaiei ~ d o o p a t IcaTix x6ovos, 7 0 9 Z ~ V 6’ ~ 6 E q o v o ~ onohepthzazoq t 6zav pohwot G~ijpoobv nohhfi xepi. To you I shall be friendly and a bringer of safety to your city when, having changed my home, I lie for ever under the earth; but to these people’s descendants I shall be the worst of enemies, when they come to this place with a great army.
*’‘In front of the divine maiden Pallenis’.
On the precise location see Vanderpool in Woodford. Ci&s r$Herucles, 223 n. 155. 24 Paus. 1.44.10, Apollod. 2.8.1. See Frazer’s note on the Apollodorus passage. 25 Lucian, O E ~d~~chqoia~ V 7. 26 See below, p. 54.
SO
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
This is a clear statement of a pattern we shall find recurring, not only in Attica: the foreign hero, perhaps an enemy, certainly potentially hostile, becomes in death the city’s protector. A notable parallel occurred in historical times in the case of the defeated Onesilos (‘benefactor of the people’, a significant name) at Amathous, the signs of whose heroisation also appeared at a gate.27 It is a paradoxical pattern, strongly contrasted with the civic hero who continues as his people’s protector after death, just as he was in life, and it reminds us of the ‘maddened athlete’ type of hero, who after terrible deeds is heroised by oracular command.’x In both cases the city is given superhuman help by almost the least likely person; such ambiguity and surprise is not uncommon among heroes. Yet in the case of Eurystheus, as in that of Oedipus, paradox is countered by predictability, for in death as in life Eurystheus remains the enemy of the children of Herakles, and it is specifically Spartan attacks against which he will defend Athens. Eurystheus fits into a pattern, then, but is it tradition or innovation that he does so? Zuntz has shown that the play’s story has a particular aptness for the events of 431/0, so it is possible that Eurystheus’ particular benevolence is a Euripidean invention.’9 On the other hand, Pallene is situated on a major invasion route, and consequently heroes there are particularly well placed to ward off attacks. The important thing is that Euripides consciously or unconsciously recognised a heroic pattern. There are similar methodological problems involved with the figure of Oedipus in Attica. There is much documentation of this subject, but little to confirm Sophocles’ version of Oedipus as saving hero at Kolonos; some traditions are incompatible with what the dramatist tells us, while others could have been influenced by the fame of his work. All are agreed that Oedipus was a Theban king, but there are several traditions of his burial place. The credibility of the Attic tradition is not harmed by reports of his burial in Thebes or Eteonos, for such multiple graves are ~ o m m o n . ~It” is all to the good that Laconia, too, has a cult connected with Oedipus.” Within Attica, however, we simply cannot have two genuine traditions placing Oedipus at Kolonos and under the Areopagos - these places are far too close to have such independent traditions. Both possibilities are in fact open to objections, although it is hard to believe that Sophocles would have invented the Colonean tradition had the Areopagos grave been very well known. (See Appendix 2.) It is of course still possible that there was indeed a tradition which connected the dead Oedipus with Kolonos, but that Sophocles invented the special features which made the hero important. We can hardly deny that he has made of Oedipus’ end a coherent and extremely satisfying dramatic experience, even if it is one peculiarly difficult to analyse. It is necessarily at the risk of sonie literary insensitivity that we emphasise individual points in the play - but it is fair to assume that Sophocles (like Euripides) was building on ideas which would, in some basic form at least, be familiar to his audience, even if they did not associate them with Oedipus. The presentation of Oedipus as protecting hero, capable despite his unpromising appearance and terrible past of conferring great benefits after his death, is the most fundamental of these, and it is clearly akin to Euripides’ Eurystheus: both heroes are foreigners, unlikely heroes for Athens, and furthermore one is an enemy, the other a blind beggar never purified L Hdt. 5.1 14. See M. Visser, ‘Worship your enemies: aspects of the cult of heroes in ancient Greece’, HThR 75 (1982) 403-28. Maddened athletes: above, pp. I 1-12 and J. Fontenrose, Cal. Studs. 1 (1968) 73- 104. 2q G. Zuntz, The political plays of Euripides (Manchester 1955) 8 1-8. 2o Burial at Thebes is implied by the fact that his funeral took place there ( I / . 23.679). Burial in the sanctuary of Demeter at Eteonos (perhaps paralleling the SemnaiEumenides): schol. S. OC 91. ’I Cult of the Erinyes of Laios and Oedipus at Sparta: Hdt. 4.149.2. 27
Ix
THE HERO AND THE CITY
51
from his horrendous if involuntary deeds.72 In contrast to the method of Hevacleidue, where in typical Euripidean fashion the destiny of Eurystheus is revealed i s a surprise at the end, Oedipus’ future is hinted at right’from the beginning and his heroisation (though the word is never used) is the end to which the play is constantly tending. It is clear, too, that as a hero Oedipus will act for Athens in time to come - the play’s future, the audience’s present (616-23), when Athenian-Theban relations had indeed become ‘bitter’. If we accept the tradition relating Oedipus to Kolonos as pre-Sophoclean, there may be a more specific reference here, as with Eurystheus, although the engagement with the Theban cavalry at the time of Agis’ attempt on Athens in 408/7, which is often suggested in this connexion, does not match the details quite a ~ c u r a t e l y .But ~ ~ there is of course much more tq Sophocles’ version that just Oedipus the hero who favours Athens. We should notice the emphasis on the accord of Oedipus’ fate - this man once so apparently accursed by the gods - with the whole of the divine system, just as in prosaic actuality heroisation is often confirmed by divine oracle. But the most unusual feature of Sophocles’ account is that the location of the grave is to be kept secret. This he associates with the mysterious manner of Oedipus’ disappearance. This event seems to be intimately connected with both upper and lower gods (1654-5) and is surrounded with an atmosphere of numinous awe. There is probably more detailed allusion here than we can hope to catch, even perhaps than the original audience could have perceived, but in general terms such things, to Sophocles and perhaps to the average religious consciousness of the age, are hnoppq~asimply because extremely holy. The original reason for the grave’s secrecy - if indeed Sophocles is reporting a real tradition - was probably a good deal more mundane; to prevent the knowledge of its whereabouts reaching the enemy, who may then, like Solon on Salamis, offer sacrifice there. Such ways-of thought could still be recognised in the fifth century, whether or not much credence was given them. While Euripides’ Eurystheus perhaps states his refusal to return good for any sacrifices made to him by the children of Herakles (Hcld. 1040-3), the same author’s Athena, in connexion with the Hyakinthides, who are identified with the daughters of Erechtheus, has (Austin fr. 65.87-9): &paTov a&T&p&VOSnat& za^& &’vat XP&bV &lpy&lvT& p*il n S noh&piov62iq 3La6bv vilqv p&vahoiq, yfj 6&q s e qpov*ilv. These children’s sacred precinct must not be entered, and you must fence it off, lest some enemy sacrifice to them in secret for victory to themselves and trouble to this land.
From an & p a ~ oTv& ~ L E V OitS is a logical step to a secret one, the whereabouts of which only those authorised may know. We have seen that on Aigina the fact that Aiakos’ altar was also his tomb was supposed to be kept secret, and there are even closer parallels for the secret ‘grave’, if it can be so called, of Oedipus. Eunielos, it seems, told the story of the secret graves of Neleus On the patterns discernible in the Oedipus cult, see also Lowell Edmunds, ‘The Cult and the Legend of Oedipus’, HSCP 85 (1981) 221-38. His introduction of the idea of autochthony is particularly relevant to the cult of the protecting hero; see below, pp. 110-12. 33 Diod. 13.72.3-73.2; on Agis’ retreat he camps at Akademeia. Christ-Schmid (Criechische Liiermw6 1.34I ) claim that the engagement happened at Kolonos, though this is denied by Jacoby on Androtion 62 (FGrH 324: IIIB Supp. 170 n. 9). Better evidence, perhaps, is the oracle preserved at schol. OC 57, attributed to nq T ~ 72
Xpqopohoyov: Boioroi 6’ ‘innoto Tconozeicouoi K O ~ W V O V Evba hiboG r p ~ ~ k i p a vEoet o < ~ aX i& ~ K E O <0360<.
V
52
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
and Sisyphos at the I s f h m o ~ ’ ~ a position crucial enough for all possible care in keeping the local heroes on one’s side. As not even Oedipus’ daughters were to know his tomb, so neither was Nestor allowed by Sisyphos to know that of his father. The secret tomb of Dirke at Thebes presents other parallels, and is even more clearly a state concern; there the outgoing hipparch took his successor to the secret spot by night, where they performed certain rites of which they took care to remove all trace.” So too Oedipus instructs Theseus to make sure that the secret is passed down to his successors, one to one ( 1 530-2): hhh’ a.jz05 aiei O@CE, XhTav TOG
is TEA05
7CpOqepTCiTq povq
G+laLv’, B 6’ aiei T ~ 7 C t O V T ~ 8 E L K V i ) T O . But keep [the knowledge] always yourself, and when you reach the end of your life, tell only him you have chosen; let each man hand it on t o his successor. - one
of the passages most suggestive of a genuine tradition.
In this connexion we might mention a sacrifice performed by the polemarchs (who may sacrifice to the heroised war-dead) at Akademeia not far from Kolonos (Heliodorus 1.17).j6 If this account is genuine we have a nearby set of saviour-heroes who receive sacrifice from succeeding officials - but not of course a secret grave. It is of course possible that some of these traditions and literary accounts may have influenced each other, but we can scarcely derive the whole idea of the secret grave from Sophocles; it is far easier to suppose that Sophocles is drawing on, no doubt elaborating, a genuine complex of belief. Further, he can hardly have laid such stress on the secrecy of the grave if its location was known to half his audience. Sophocles and Euripides, then, both present us with a oozfiptos fipos or ‘hero-saviour’, though how far they were referring to specific beliefs about individual heroes and how fa: simply improvising on a general tradition cannot precisely be decided. Aeschylus too makes a less specific allusion to the same tradition, perhaps, when he makes the departing Orestes pronounce a curse on any who should dare to contravene the oaths just sworn, in after generations, and conversely promise his own favour to those Argives who favour Athens (Eurn. 767-74):
1
Paus. 2.2.2. ”Plut. Mnr. 578B. F. Vian, Les origines de ThPhes (Paris 1963) 106, suggests that the Sophoclean ritual is modelled on that of Dirke, and the Theban parallel would clearly have some point. But there are some genuine parallels between Attic and Boeotian cult-forms, and it is also an open question how many Athenians would have been aware of the details of the Theban cult of Dirke. For Christian parallels to the secret grave, see A. J . ’ Festugikre, ‘TragCdie et tombes sacrkes’, RHR 174 (1973) 13. I h Arist. Ath. Pol. 58.1. Maillon (HCliodore, Bud6 edition, ad loc.) equates the heroes of Heliodorus with Harmodios and Aristogeiton on the strength of the Aristotle passage, where we are clearly told that the polemarchs sacrifice to this pair (see below, p. 55). But it is plain from Paus. 1.29.15 that they were buried on the road from the Kerameikas to Akademeia, and not at Akademeia itself.
THE HERO AND THE CITY
53
Then I shall be in my grave, but I shall visit inescapable evil on those who transgress the oaths I swear now, giving them unhappy journeys and luckless paths, so that they regret their labour; but, when things go right, to those who honour this city of Pallas with allied shield, rather I would be favourable. The text presents problems, but the burden of Orestes’ message is clear: after his death (that is, in the present time) he will be favourable to the allies of Athens and oppose her enemies. At last released from the tyranny of suflering, n a 6 ~ i v he , will in death return to the sphere of doing, 6p&v, and like his erstwhile persecutors will possess both beneficent and maleficent powers of action. The reference to the Argive alliance has long been recognised, but what is interesting for our purposes is that the allusion to contemporary events is linked with the past by means of heroic action. In this instance the particular connexion is very likely to have been Aeschjrlus’ own speculation; what we know of Orestes in Attica from other sources does not suggest a oc!.dpto~f i p o ~ All these heroes celebrated in tragedy were non-Attic in origin. Their sphere of action perhaps related specifically to the potential enmities and alliances of their own people with Athens, and the conflicts of loyalty there involved, as well as the linking of mythical past with present, gave such themes a special appeal to tragedy. Certainly we should be far less well informed about these patterns of thought without the evidence of drama. There may, then, have been other heroes of this protective, even talismanic type scattered around Attica of whom we do not hear in detail. Some of them perhaps were more generally protective than the heroes we have been discussing, opposing all the enemies of Attica or of their own locality rather than having a special concern with one other city. Of this type may have been Erysichthon, the hero of Prasiai, whose name is strongly suggestive of such a function; presumably his tomb somewhere on the cliffs or islands around Port0 Rafti37 protected the harbour from attack. Kekrops himself, as the tutelary deity of the acropolis, was its protector; he was closely associated with the acropolis snake, and when the snake refused to eat its monthly offerings, Athena was thought to have left the The name of the genos which supplied the priest of Kekrops, the Amynandridai, is also suggestive; could Amynandros, the warder-off of men, have been an old name for Kekrops himself? The name of Menedeibs at Erchia may also be significant. The episode of the bones of Theseus, brought by Cimon from Skyros around 476, will probably also fit into this scheme. Although we can hardly deny that strategic considerations of a ‘secular’ character will have played their part in the Skyrian expedition, it seems likely that the Skyrian legend of Theseus is old,39and hence it becomes more likely that the simple desire to have the bones of Theseus in his own country was a considerable factor in the episode. Not only was Theseus the Athenian hero par excellence, he had also appeared at Marathon, fighting together with Cimon’s father Miltiades. From Cimon’s own point of view, the return of Theseus could be seen as an attempt to rehabilitate the dead, disgraced Miltiades. But these special considerations do not preclude the possibility of the bones’ talismanic value; if Theseus had once, against all odds, saved the Athenians, how much more would he do if he were physically present in Athens itself? 37
tni npcxcnai<,.Paus. 1.3 1.2.
Hdt. 8.41.2-3. The snake (closely connected, of course, with the hero) as protective genius loci may even appear in battle. We have seen that the Salaminian Kychreus appeared in this guise at the battle of Salamis (Paus. 1.36.I); this is no doubt the reason why Plutarch refers to the divine honours of Kychreus as known to everyone (Plut. Thes. 18). In Elis, there is a very close parallel in the appearance of the child-snake Sosipolis and the subsequent victory of the Eleians (Paus. 6.20.2-5; cf. 25.4). These concepts bring us rather closer to the impersonal, lucky talisman than to the hero who fights as a personal agent. 3v See H. Jeanrnaire, Couroi et CourPtes (Lille 1939) 325.
38
54
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Another type of protector hero is very probably the hero at the gate, a phenomenon fairly well-attested in several parts of the Greek No doubt the sacred guardianship of gates has much to do with ‘goings out and comings in’, with the special quality of boundaries; it cannot be assumed automatically that the reference of gates is to fortifications in general and so to the defence of the city. ‘Gates’ sometimes occur where there is no evidence of such manmade features; thus Pylochos and his associated heroines at Thorikos might relate to a natural However, some of the feature, as in Thermopylae, or even to the gates of the ~~nderworld.~’ gate-heroes seem to have a military reference, such as Onesilos, the defeated enemy turned protector, at Amathous in Cyprus (Hdt. 5.1 14). Both concepts no doubt may figure. In Athens the Apa
55
THE HERO AND THE CITY
often, there were myths relating the exploits of the hero for his city while alive.4x This goes a long way to explain their importance in the protection and prospering of the city, and the strength of the tradition can further be seen in the creation of ‘civic’ heroes in historical times; the dead of Marathon, and the tyrannicides. Aristides, though he may perceive the idea more in terms of sentiment than of literal truth, speaks of the Marathon dead in phrases redolent of the old tradition of the saving hero: they lie ‘under the earth protecting the earth itself‘ (6x0 yilv 6vzq a v yilv cpvhdcszovzq a6Gv). He compares them with Hesiod’s ‘holy daimons under the earth’ (6aipovq & p o i ~ O X ~ O V Land OL brings ) Oedipus and Solon, whose ashes in one tradition were scattered over Salamis, into the c ~ m p a r i s o n .More ~ ~ sober, though still late, evidence for a cult of the fallen, honoured in state contexts, comes from an inscription of the second century BC and from Pausarrias.so Given the almost legendary quality which the battle very soon acquiied (thus the resonance of the word M a p a ~ Y o v o p & later ~ q ~ in the fifth century) and the fifth-century cult paid to the dead of Plataea,s’ we must assume that the heroic honours conferred on the Marathon dead also date from soon after the battle. The men who in life saved their city from the barbarian would continue in death to be powerful protectors. We have more direct evidence for the early heroisation of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, but their case is slightly different. These two, whose killing of the tyrant’s brother was in fact so unhelpful in destroying the tyranny, as fifth-century historians point were patrons not of Athens in general, but of the Athenian democracy. In the fifth century, Solon had become far enough removed to be a safe uncontroversial figure whom everyone could approve (though he might be all things to all men); he had, after all, distinguished himself against a foreign enemy, while the action of Harmodios and Aristogeiton related only to internal Athenian politics. Despite the fact that statues of the tyrannicides were set up in the agora and sacrifices performed to them (significantly, by the pol ern arch^),^^ they did not have quite the same universal approbation, and the ‘Harmodios song’ or songs, the other evidence for early heroisation of the pair, always retained a strongly and specifically democratic Civic heroes they certainly were, but if as heroes they engaged after their death in political activity, it would obviously have aimed at protecting the democracy rather than warding off foreigners from the state, however For it is clear enough that there is usually a very intimate connexion between the mythology and the function of these protecting heroes. Heroes like Kekrops were leaders and protectors of their people in life; naturally after death they would continue the same function. If after death they retained any powers, they were unlikely to give up their former interests. From one point \
See below; but here again qualifications are needed, for as we have seen, heroes sometimes defy their lives or mythology and act favourably in the directions where previously they were hostile, such as Onesilos or Kleomedes. Such a change of loyalty may be accompanied by an explanation relating to the hero’s lifetimes, as with Eurystheus and Oedipus. 4y See above, n. 45. The text of Hesiod does not correspond to,ours; the passage quoted seems like a conflation of the gold and silver races (Op. 141, 122). so 1G II2 1006.8, 1 I , 26 (122/1 BC); the ~ohudtv6pe~ov is crowned and a sacrifice performed. Paus. 1.32.4 attests the heroisation of the dead and the tradition of a ghostly nocturnal battle. 5 1 Thuc. 3.58.4. s2 Hdt. 5.55,6.123.2, Thuc. 1.20.2,6.53-9. s3 Arist. Arh. Pol. 58. I. The testimonia are collected in Agora I11 93-8. s4 C. M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry (2nd edn., Oxford 1961) 378-9. 5s The only evidence we have is an archaising oracle of the second century after Christ, where the pair advise sacrifice to the hero of the Thriasian plain (1G 112 5007). a v d p o ~hvr~xahoiomay refer to Hipparchos: but the oracle is a forgery, probably with no contemporary relevance.
4x
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
56
of view, the presence of foreign heroes as protectors of the land is merely an extension of this, although it can also be seen as an example of the often unpredictable and apparently capricious nature of the hero, who is frequently not quite what he seems. But sometimes the logic is more transparent: to see one’s protecting heroes as foreigners is to claim that they have left the foreign or enemy city. It is the equivalent on the mythological plane of sacrificing to foreign heroes or carrying away their bones, and it has the same effect; the hero Eurystheus will strenuously oppose the descendants of the Herakleidai and Oedipus those of the Spartoi. An event in the hero’s lifetime, followed by changed political circumstances, explains a changed allegiance, so that here too myth and function fit closely together. Some myths mirror a saving function even more closely, those in which the hero or heroine performed one notable act in life to save the city. It was that act which resulted in the deaths and heroisation of such heroes, for we are speaking here of the pervasive myth of the sacrificial death demanded for the country’s deliverance. We have already encountered examples of such myths in the figures of Marathos and the Hyakinthides, both of whom, it seems, follow up their death to secure victory with a continuing protective function. Human sacrifice is a common enough event in myth. It may occur in the formal context of sacrifice at an altar, or the sacrificial element may be less obvious; it may be carried through, or it may be just averted. Not all of these myths can be related to the same pattern, and certainly not all of them are relevant to the present discussion. But a frequent motif in such stories, one which links it clearly but paradoxically with scapegoat ritual, is some sort of public crisis, in response to which the sacrifice occurs; the sacrificial victim thus saves the people. This scheme can further be linked with the mythical human sacrifice as aition for some detail of cult-practice; the hero, or more frequently heroine, of the myth could be viewed as a kind of surrogate victim for the worshippers. Hers was the last sacrifice demanded, and by that sacrifice she averted the necessity for any further repetition. As a heroine, however, she might continue to protect the people against such crises as she had died to avert. Sometimes the myth involves no formal sacrifice, but simply a 8eath to procure safety or victory: unum pro mulris duhirur cuput. Thus Aglauros throws herself off the acropolis, or Kodros voluntarily gives himself to be killed in battle. In Attica these myths divide sharply into two types: the warrior, perhaps a king, who is killed in battle, and the girl or girls who are willingly sacrificed or kill themselves. The first type is perhaps better known in Rome, where devorio was a well-established practice with its own ritual prescriptions, than in Greece. But it is found in Greece also; in historical times, the example of Leonidas springs readily to mind. The relationship between the episode of Thermopylae, with the oracle (surely produced not much afterwards) demanding the king’s death for victory and the similar story of Kpdros obviously demands explanation. It is possible that the Kodros story was polished up and given a new popularity after Thermopylae, so that the Athenian king becomes a sort of protoLeonidas, or less neutrally a rival of the Spartans in courage (‘an Athenian king did it first’) the enemies of Athens in the story were ‘the Dorians’.56 But the tradition was almost certainly known before the Persian Wars, and indeed if the oracle given to Leonidas is to be comprehensible it seems to imply a tradition in which kings die to save their country; the Kodros story may equally well already have been part of this. It adds the further detail that since the oracle becomes known to the enemy, the king must disguise himself as a poor woodcutter in order to get himself killed. In appearance, the city’s saviour is a figure of no account, like Oedipus a most unlikely person to bestow o w q p i a ; appearances are false, of oracle is usually regarded as post c~~aiitum; see PW I. 296-7. Busolt (Griechische Geschichre I* 220.2) suggested that Kodros was entirely modelled after Leonidas, but this idea has not found much favour.
” The
THE HERO AND THE CITY
57
course, and the king, as might be expected, will save his people, but the element of paradox remains in the method of procuring that safety. The death of the king here approaches the death or removal of the scapegoat, the offscourings rejected by This legend, perhaps even practice, reflects the common ‘either-or’ motif of a terrible choice, the victory at a high price made so explicit in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 202-5. More frequently, as here and with Erechtheus, it is not the king who dies but the king’s daughter or daughters. Clearly this demands some explanation. King’s sons in some places may also die sacrificial deaths (Menoikeus and Lophis in Boeotia, for example) but the sacrifice of a virgin girl is far more common. Burkert sees the virgin sacrifice in terms of male aggression and sexuality, but this (presumably) means removing the boys from the scheme entirely.s8 A much simpler explanation, and one which better explains the connexion of this pattern with the ociqpia moGf, is just that the efficacy of sacrifice may depend on the value of the victim; thus human sacrifice is so terrible a remedy that even in myth it is performed only in response to the direst emergencies. Youth and virginity is important in a girl as it is not in a boy, for the girl’s virginity is a precious possession required by her husband. Y,et while she is still a virgin she remains unfulfilled, so that she, rather than the boy, whose virginity is a matter of little concern, is giving up what is due to her in life. Further, since a woman’s sexual experience is seen in terms of her being possessed, her virginity is a sort of guarantee that she belongs only to the deity to whom she is sacrificed. We never hear of the sacrifice of a married woman (Alcestis does not belong in the category of public sacrifice), nor indeed of a man past fighting age. Youth in either sed is precious, though it may not always have identical connotations. Yet the sacrificed virgin is not merely a passive victim. Like any sacrificial victim, she must consent to the sacrifice, and this consent makes her an active o k a p a . As Euripides’ Praxithea implies, the girl gives her life for her city just as the boy gives his in battle (Austin fr. 50.22-5) - more indirectly, perhaps, but more decisively too. As with the beggar-king, deliverance comes from an unlikely source, and this can be compared also with the saving function of the foreigners and enemies. The best-known example of a virgin’s sacrificial death in Attica is of course provided by Iphigeneia, aspects of whose cult we have already considered. Essentially her function at Brauron, apart, perhaps, from acting as a sort of kourotrophos figure, is as paradigm of both priestess and arktoi; her sacrificial death is then explicable in terms of the elements of ritual death in the rite performed by the latter. The case, then, is far from simple. The tradition of Iphigeneia as saviour is of course known outside Attica, as is sufficiently shown by the more familiar mythical versions which make her the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, not of Theseus and Helen, and situate her sacrifice at Aulis, not at Brauron. In these versions she is the saviour of Greece - the Greek expedition against Troy - not of Attica. Although her role in relation to women giving birth remained relatively closely defined, the story which made of her a ohmpa was not echoed by any tradition of Iphigeneia as a present help in trouble, so far as we know. It looks rather as though epic traditions have been tacked onto an originally selfsufficient, aetiological myth which has thus become assimilated to the ohzapa pattern. This assimilation is not completely arbitrary, for there are many points of contact in the patterns. We have not only the human sacrifice, but also the very close relation between the victim and the goddess in many stories of this type -Aglauros and her sisters with Athena we have noted,
’’See further W. Burkert, Structure and History in C r e e l Myrhology and Ritual (Berkeley 1979) 59-77; R. C. T. Parker, Miasma (Oxford 1983) 258-69; and on scapegoats, J. Bremmer, HSCP 87 (1983) 299-320. I am in greater sympathy with the approach of Nicole Loraux. Tragic. Wa\s of’ Killing a Woman (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) 31-48.
’’Burkert, HN 58-67.
5x
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
and we shall come across Androkleia and Alkis in connexion with the Boeotian Artemis Eukleia. Iphigeneia of course stands very close to Artemis, perhaps even originally having been indistinguishable from some aspect of the goddess. If, as seems quite probable, this heroine had also a kourotrophic function, this again links her with the type, for such heroines are very commonly nurses of children, despite their virginal status. In any case, the story of Iphigeneia’s death was obviously well enough known for the existence of some sort of consciousness of Iphigeneia as a saviour-figure, even if her saving action was not thought of as operative still in the present. Stories of virgin sacrifice or near sacrifice are not uncommon outside Attica, often attached to more or less historical events such as the second Messenian war or the battle of Leuktra.’y In such traditions we do not hear of individual named heroines receiving cult after their deaths. But within Attica the only other single heroine we know of whose death assured deliverance is Herakles’ daughter Makaria. Here again we are faced with literary problems, the earliest and fullest source for the myth being once more Euripides’ Her-ucleidae, according to which the unnamed daughter of Herakles gave herself for sacrifice in accordance with an oracle to assure the defeat of the forces of Eurystheus. There is an obvious parallel - and a political point in the comparison - with the quasi-sacrificial death of Eurystheus as expiatory victim, and his subsequent role as saviour, and both ‘traditions’ have been suspected of being Euripidean inventions. While the details of Eurystheus’ heroisation are emphasised, nothing, so far as we can tell from the possibly mutilated state of the text, is said about what will happen to Makaria after death, yet this could be explained by the tendency of aetiologies to occur towards the end of plays; an earlier reference to contemporary cult would interrupt the flow of the play and the pathos of ‘Makaria”s death. More suggestive is the emphasis placed on the sacrifice to , is repeated so often that ismay be more than a ‘Demeter’s daughter’, Ajpqzpo~~ O p q which figure of speech. It is possible ,that a heroic cult of Makaria was atttached to some local divine cult of Kore, but we have no concrete information to this effect. There is some evidence, though, for an Attic tradition of Makaria independent of Euripides: Strabo and Pausanias mention a spring Makaria in Trikorythos, and Strabo further tells us that the area was known as ‘the head of Eurystheus’ (E6puol9io~~~cpahfi, although nothing in the Her-ucleidae seems to suggest that Eurystheus’ head will be buried apart from his body at Gargettosl Pallene).60 The scholia to Plato give us a cult act, relating in connexion with the story that something (the spring? Makaria’s tomb?) was pelted with flowers and garlands, though this may originate simply as a rather perverse explanation of the proverb pk3Lh’ 6~ p a ~ a p i a v . ~But ’ there is nothing outside Euripides to suggest that Makaria was a saviour, and even Euripides’ version
,
Paus. 4.9.4-9, PW no. 361 : Plut. Pelopidus 2 1-2. M, Paus. I.32.6, Strabo 377. Surely also related is Apollod. 2.8.2, stating that Alkmene wrought vengeance on Eurystheus’ severed head. As P. Burian suggests (‘Euripides’ Herucleidue: an interpretation’, CPh 72 (1977) 1) this tradition is likely to have been Euripides’ point of departure for the role of Alkmene in the play. Wilamowitz (Kleine Schriften 1 70) thought the spring Makaria had originally no connexion with the Herakleidai and gained the association through the toponym E 6 p u o 6 E o ~~~cpah4, coupled with the influence of Euripides’ play (which, however, makes no mention of decapitation); the spring’s name then came to be applied to the daughter. Perhaps originally the spring flowed from the severed head of Eurystheus, like the river Lophis in Boeotia (Paus. 9.33.3), or, a closer parallel, the Tre Fontane legend in Rome; here the three springs welled up from the places where St Paul’s head bounced after his decapitation. h ’ Schol. PI. Hip/?.Mui. 293A. It is likely that casting garlands into springs was a known practice in Greece, as it was at the Italian festival of the Fontanalia (Varro, De lingua lutina 6.22). are thrown also at the corpse of the sacrificed Polyxena, E. Hec. 573-4. 5y
THE HERO AND THE CITY
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does not actually require us to believe that the heroised Makaria continued to be a saviour for Athens: her intent in dying was to save her own kin, not the Athenians.62 Makaria and Iphigeneia then conform to broad outlines of mythical thought, but what of specifically Attic cult and belief, a question of particular importance in matters related to the welfare of the polis? It is when we move on to groups of sisters who are sacrificed that a clearer pattern begins to emerge. The pattern, in outline, is as follows: there are three or more sisters, often daughters of a king, one or more of whom are sacrificed or kill themselves in order to save their country; after death they appear still to act in the same capacity, either directly as o h ~ ~ i p m or ,perhaps as nurses and protectors of the city’s potential fighting force. The clearest example of the type is given by the Hyakinthides, identified by Euripides and others with the daughters of Erechtheus. They were also known simply as n:apb&voi,maidens. The lexicographers give their number as six: Protogeneia, Pandora, Chthonia, Prokris, Kreousa and Q r e i t h ~ i a . ~Of ~ these the last three can be discounted, being merely daughters of Erechtheus known from other traditions, and only the first two in this version sacrificed themselves. The connexion with Erechtheus is not necessarily original, and the names of the sisters are not fixed, but the number two or three seems likely from a comparison with similar groups. The sacrifice of the girls (their manner of death is uncertain) assured Athens the victory in the Eleusinian war, and Euripides suggests that as heroines they continued to have an interest in this sort of matter (below). The daughters of Kekrops could be regarded in a similar light, for in one tradition it was the sacrifice‘ of Aglauros (alone) which secured the victory in this way; she threw herself off the acropolis, in a variant of the more usual version where this fall was caused by the sisters’ disobedience and panic. Aglauros’ martial interests are also attested in her cultic and amatory association with Ares, and perpetuated in her role as patroness df the ephebes. The daughters of Leos, Phrasithea or Praxithea (a confusion with the mother of the Hyakinthides seems likely), Theope and Euboule, were also sacrificed for the safety of the city, in the story first found in fourth-century sources.M They probably originate in a false etymology of the building known as AEWKOPEIOV, becoming modelled on a common story type. We know nothing of the cult, if any, of these sisters, but if we accept Thompson’s identification of the Leokoreion6s - which is not without difficulties - it appears that the precinct was formally abaton, being surrounded by a parapet, and that a large quantity of offerings (of a type appropriate to female honorands and to a cult concerned with children) were made at the time of the Peloponnesian war. The date and the type of precinct fit in very well with what Euripides has to say about the cult of the Hyakinthides, and with a special interest in safety and victory. There may have been other groups of heroines of this type, but attempts to identify them are no more than speculation. Outside Attica, however, sacrificed sisters turn up again, though only in Boeotia, so that it would seem that we are dealing with a fairly localised type. There are two certain Boeotian examples. First, the Koronides or daughters of Orion, Metioche and Menippe, probably to be placed in Orchomenos;66in order to stop a plague they stabbed themselves to death with their The chorus, however, represent her death as npo T’ &6~hqhv K C Ly&q ~ (622) - clearly the y& is Attica. See J. M. Wilkins, ‘The young of Athens: religion and society in the Heraclidae of Euripides’, forthcoming in M / w n i o s y e . h3 Photius, Suda, S . V . ~crpbEvv01. 64 [Dem.] 60.29; the names appear later. 6s ‘Some hero shrines in early Athens’, in Athens comes ofage; ‘Athens faces adversity’, Hesperin SO ( 198 I ) 347-8. The fullest account is in Antoninus Liberalis 25, drawing on Corinna and Nicander. Ovid (Met. 13.685ff.). whose account differs in some other respects, calls the heroines Theban, but this is probably poetic licence for ‘Boeotian’; the account in Ant. Lib. mentions a shrine and cult in Orchomenos. In Thebes, the Antipoinides
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
distaffs as an offering to the ~ 6 o v i o Saipove~, i but these, identified as Persephone and Hades, took pity on the maidens and transferred them to the sky as comets (to warn of future disasters?). This brings them very close to the Hyakinthides, who according to Euripides were translated to the aither, probably as Hyades (fr. 65.7 1-4 Austin):
I+fuxaip&vosv z8v6’ 06 p e p w “At61qv ndtpa, 6’ ai6ep’ a k 8 v n v ~ 6 p2’ y h [ K]gTbtclOa, 6vopa 6k K ~ ~ V b O ~V@ o p a~~a [ 6 ‘EA.h]drGa ’ ‘YalclV6i6aGppOTOLOL KLKAti [OK&]iV6E6.S. Their souls have not gone to Hades; I have made their spirit dwell in the aither, and I shall make their name famous throughout Greece; mortals will call them goddesses, the Hyakinthides.
Like the Attic sisters, the Boeotians may have been nurses of Dionysos (below). Another connecting motif is that they were spared death by the deities to whom they sacrificed themselves, though not in so spectacular a manner as Iphigeneia. This links the group of sisters type with the single virgin sacrifice; there is a similar suggestion of unacceptability, and of the ending of the custom. The second Boeotian example is provided by the daughters of Antipoinos in Thebes, again two in number, Androkleia and Alkis, whose heroon was within the precinct of Artemis Eukleia (Paus. 9.17.1). Here the sacrifice was to obtain victory, and the victim should have been the father, as the most illustrious citizen, but the daughters agreed to die instead of him. But from his name Antipoinos can exist nowhere but in this story, which as it relates to him may be a late romantic fabrication. The two daughters, from their nqmes, stand in a very close relation to the goddess, like Aglauros and Pandrosos in Athens. The names suggest a warlike sphere of action, like that of the goddess, but there is no other suggestion of a at for this pair or for the Koronides. In discussing this type continuing function as o h z ~ ~ peither Schachter compares also the nameless daughters of Skedasos at Leuktra, who in the only version we know killed themselves when raped, but who may have an alternative story Since we hear (though with what plausibility may be disputed) of a mooted virgin sacrifice to them as late as the famous battle, it is quite likely that they had some interest in ooqpia, although it is odd that their own sacrifice, if such a story did exist, should be thus repeated with themselves as recipients.hx Schachter mentions also, with some doubt, Henioche and Pyrrha, the daughters of Kreon at Thebes, about whom no story .is known. Yet outside Attica and Boeotia, although sacrifices of single virgins are known, there is no undisputed example of the sacrifice of a group of sisters.h’ The Boeotian examples have two sisters, the Attic usually three, but it seems clear that we are dealing with a common, geographically limited myth type. We have seen that at least some of these groups are comparable in function as well as in myth. The Hyakinthides, especially, will give military assistance to those who sacrifice to them performed a very similar function: they may indeed have been partly modelled on the Koronides, since they gave their lives for victory against Orchomenos. 67 Plut. Pelopidas 21; A. Schachter, Teiresias sup0 I ( 1972) 19-20. hX Compare the scepticism of A. Henrichs (Entretiens Hardt XXVII, Le sacrifjce dam I’antiquite‘ (1980) 208-24) on the supposed human sacrifice after Salamis (Plut. Arist. 9.2, Them. 13.2-5). A possible (rather doubtful) parallel for human sacrifice performed to one thus sacrificed herself exists in the sacrifice said to be made to Aglauros at Cyprian Salamis (Porph. de ahst. 2.54), if indeed this heroine is related to her Athenian homonym. Although a related group may be the Alkyonides or Halkyonides, who like Aglauros and (sometimes) the Hyakinthides threw themselves off a high place to their death. The only reason given for this, however, in our surviving sources (see Philochorus FGrH 328 F 186). is the death of their father. The location of these heroines is uncertain, but they may be connected with the hhmoviq 6khaooa which forms part of the Corinthian gulf (Strabo 336).
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(fr. 65.87-9) and such sacrifices were perhaps normal before setting out to war (ib. 81-3, where the text is more mutilated). No doubt the details of the various cults would reveal further common patterns, but here again the evidence is incomplete. It appears, however, that the youth of the heroines was often mirrored in the participation in these cults of children and youths of either sex. Although the daughters of Kekrops have parts in several different festivals, it is clear enough that the arrephor-oi, who were very young, pre-pubertal girls, were in some sense performing the acts of the heroines themselves, while Aglauros at least was also connected with rather older boys. The worship of the Hyakinthides also involved napBEvot (again, we may suppose, living representatives of the dead maidens), probably in dances (Erechtheus fr. 65.80). If Thompson's identification of the Leokoreion (above) is correct, the daughters of Leos were offered knucklebones and other children's toys. In Boeotia, we find that the Koronides were the recipients of annual pethiwa~abrought by boys and girls, and if we can believe in the virgin sacrifice story, young girls might also play a part in the cult of the daughters of Skedasos! It is an attractive idea, though unprovable, that like Aglauros, Androkleia and Alkis were protectors of young soldiers. One common factor, then, apart from the emphasis on the protection of the city, seems to be the prominent role of children and young people in these cults. What is the significance of this? Although many rites involving children, such as the Arrephoria, can be explained as survivals of ancient initiation-forms, this explanation may not cover all our cases. The dancing of maidens for the Hyakinthides and the bringing of offerings to the Koronides are not in themselves the sort of actions to be explained in terms of initiation. And in the latter two cases, the heroines are the direct recipients of cults, not the first performers of the ritual like the daughters of Kekrops. One explanation may be simply that the participants are young because the heroines were young - as gods more usually have priests of their own sex. But the parallel between myth and cult goes further, for several of these sisters are involved in childcare in myth. The more familiar myth of the daughters of Kekrops makes them the guardians of the infant Erichthonios; thus like so many functionally kourotrophic figures they are nurses of a divine or semi-divine child. The Hyakinthides may be parallel in this respect also. Euripides in the Erechtheus clearly identifies them with the Hyades, and it seems from the indirect evidence of Philochorus (who connects the daughters of Erechtheus with Dionysos) that he was not innovating in so doing.70 For the Hyades, according to Pherecydes, are the nurses of Dionysos (who has the epithet "Yqs according to Kleidem~s),~' and so we would have another group of sisters who are nurses of a divine child. The name Hyakinthides is also indicative; these Attic maidens are certainly not the daughters of the Laconian Hyakinthos, despite the myth~graphers,~' but though the name is not a patronymic it should be indicative of some connexion. Hyakinthos at Amyklai is a young god, probably a type of the divine child; at Knidos we find Artemis ' I a ~ u v 6 o ~ p o and ~ o ~both , Otto and Mellink have pointed out the Philochorus FGrH 328 F 12 tells us that vqcpdthiai 19u&ai were performed Aiov6oq r&K C L ra?< ~ 'Ep&xB&o< 9uprp&m. Since thereis no evidence for any cult of Erechtheus' daughters other than as the Hyakinthides, and moreover Euripides would hardly have identified the two had there been two separate cults, we must assume that Philochorus means the Hyakinthides; and Euripides too states that the sacrifice is vqcp&htov (fr. 65. 84-6). It can hardly be the case, however, that all sacrifices performed to Dionysos are vq'p&hia, so Philochorus is presumably referring to a common sacrifice to Dionysos and the daughters of Erechtheus. But the festival must remain uncertain. 7 1 Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 90; Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 27. 72 Apollod. 3.15.8, Hyg.fuh. 238; cf. Steph. Byz. S.V.Aouma.
70
62
T H E HEROES OF ATTICA
connexions between the Laconian Hyakinthia and the Tithenidia, undoubtedly a festival concerning ~hildren.~’ The third indication involves the Koronides - like the Hyakinthides apparently named patronymically, but in the developed myth having a father with quite a different name. In neither case, one suspects, is the name a true patronymic, but refers to some quality shared by the sisters. The name Koronis is persistent as one of the nurses of Dionysos: Diodorus gives the names of the Naxian nymphs who cared for the child as Koronis, Philia and Kleide, while Koronis is a Hyad already in H e ~ i o d Whatever .~~ the precise significance of the name, it seems quite likely that the Koronides were also originally nurses of Dionysos, like them a Theban. Hyakinthides and Koronides may then be respectively the Athenian and Theban nurses of the child Dionysos. In cult the sisters are served especially by children, and in myth they protect children, though children of a rather special kind. It seems likely that their protective function extended to the contemporary world of the worshipper, and that this is one of the main purposes of the participation of the young in the related rites. We may have to reject Ervin’s equation of the Hyakinthides with the Geraistian nymphs,75which would give us a clear indication, but the names Protogeneia and Pandora for the two daughters who killed themselves are strongly suggestive of deities presiding over birth and fertility. But what has this to do with their role as saviours of the city? Can it be merely coincidence that there are traces of both functions in all these different groups? We have already viewed the heroines presiding over the care of children as it affects the individual, but there is a public aspect, also, to the mattes. Children ensure the city’s continuance; they are its future, who will (at least in the case of male children) protect it in war and adversity. They are born not only for their parents and kin groups, but for the city as a whole. This is an idea most familiar to us inits extreme form as expressed in the Spartan system, where young Spartiates are taken away from their parents at a very early age and given over to the service of the state - but it is nonetheless important, surely, in every Greek polis. The death of the Hyakinthides is to be seen in just such terms, in the conception of Euripides’ Praxithea (fr. 50.15- 16 Austin): E m z a Z ~ K ~V0 ~0 6 ’E K ~ I XZ ~ K T O ~ E V hq 6 ~ 8 ZE v Popobq xazpi6a ZE buhpe8a.
Secondly, it is for this that we bear children, to protect the altars of the gods, and our country. Children are necessary to the well-being of the city; the birth of children is as,essential as the growth of crops, and failures in these two areas are commonly spoken of together.76To the Greek mind, the two areas of the sister-heroines’ concern, survival in critical times (especially victory in war) and the birth of children are intimately and naturally connected. The two functions of such heroines are really aspects of the same thing. We see this most clearly, W. Otto, D i o ~ ~ y s nMyrhos s. urid Kulrus (Frankfurt 1969) 190; M. Mellink, Hyakinrhos (Uirecht 1943) 53; cf. also GGR l3 317 and Mellink ch. 2 passim. 74 Hesiod fr. 291 M-W; cf. Hyg. Asrr. 2.21. 75 Both Mellink (59-64) and Ervin (nh&zov21 (1959) 146-59) point out that the Hyakinthides met their sacrificial death at the tomb of Geraistos the Cyclops, and on this basis Ervin (149-50) identifies them with the r&pcxtozcxi vdpcpa pv&8h11~1 of IG 112 4547. Nymphs, however, are confined to a particular locality; this will only work if we are prepared to locate the sanctuary of the Hyakinthides at Phaleron where the inscription was found, and a priori a position within the city seem much more likely. Ndpcpcxi ppaton&&q cared for the infant Zeus at Gortys in Crete, perhaps also in Arcadia (Etyrn. M. s.v.), and the place-name is found in Euboea, so it is possible, though not perhaps likely, that Attica had more than one set of Geraistian nymphs. l h Most obviously, S . OT 25-7; see Jebb ad loc.
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perhaps, in the case of Aglauros; as patroness of the ephebes she certainly protects the young, but she protects them in their capacity as a fighting force and provides them with a model of patriotic self-sacrifice. In other cases the different functions have become further separated; at first glance there is no very obvious connexion between the Hyadesrnyakinthides as nurses of the child Dionysos and as protectors of Attic soil. We may assume that they were nurses not only in myth, but also watched over human, contemporary children. Such a function merges into the individual’s private concerns, but remains linked with the polis through the polisoriented myths of the heroines. The daughters of Leos are used as a patriotic exemplum for the men of Leontis by the author of a fourth-century funeral Euripides, we have seen, had a liking for the theme. NO doubt such stories were in the forefront of popular consciousness; we need hardly refer specifically to Greek society to illustrate the power of the patriotic myth to illustrate thoughts and actions. Perhaps the immediacy of such myths helped to retain a concept of the hero as saviour. The Hyakinthides clearly keep after death their ability to bestow victory (Austin fr. 65.87-9). Heroes and heroines, so closely linked to a particular locality, will naturally act as its protectors, extending human activity to a superhuman plane. Kekrops or Theseus, having once helped Athens as kings, now take their places close to the gods of the city, the n o h t o ~ IYEO~, ~o~ and continue their benevolence to the city - always supposing that the city fulfils its obligations. The foreigner, disillusioned with his own city or acknowledging his defeat, protects the city of his adoption. By a further extension, the heroine who once valued her city more than her life could be expected to continue to place a high value on its safety. The functions of all such heroes extend over past and present. 77
[Dem.] 60.29.
4: THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP: GENE AND ORGEONES The hero’s relations with the smaller groups which make up the city are not marked by dramatic interventions, sudden rescues and epiphanies at critical moments. Within the city, deme does not fight against deme, tribe against tribe, nor (except in legal battles) genos against genos. There can be little sudden and dramatic danger besetting such groups which does not affect the rest of the polis-community. Consequently in dealing with such groups and their heroes we must look to different concerns from those which dominate the city as a whole. Groups based on kinship and on restricted localities offer no saviour-heroes, except insofar as their patron heroes may act for the benefit of the whole city. So what functions might the hero fulfil for the smaller group? He might of course still protect the group’s interests. Members of the group might address their prayers to him, either for the group as a whole or for themselves and their families as individuals, although here we should not necessarily expect to find much direct evidence. Another possibility, by no means incompatible with this, is that the hero in such cases acted as a sort of focus of loyalty - a necessarily attenuated form of expression for something which could, conceivably, have gone quite deep. Most gatherings of Greeks, for whatever purpose, would include a sacrifice or some form of communal religious act (such as a series of libations at a symposium or dinnerparty); habitual common sacrifices were an effective bond, or at least a rallying-cry of some force.’ Even independently of such sacrifices, on the level of myth the hero could also, perhaps, be a focal point, expressing in a basic form the qualities most important to the group ’ and those which dominated its common self-awareness. Of course it is unlikely that all cases will conform to the same pattern; such intangible relations as those under discussion are rarely reducible to a formula. In particular, the many sub-groups in the city are only partially comparable, representing in several respects different types of structure and different ways of dividing the polis. The origins of the gene, of the phratries, and of the groups whose members are known as 6 p p h v q is obscure, but they appear to have evolved in some sense ‘naturally’ and are certainly already in existence in some form by the archaic period. What precisely these groups were, how they worked and what place they occupied in Attic society, however, is very far from agreed. It is rather easier to get a generalised picture of the Cleisthenic divisions which from 508/7 cut across these older subgroups and created new, though not necessarily conflicting, loyalties; but e v h here there is disagreement. However, if all these groups divide the community along different lines, then such heroes as they might worship - for their cults will not necessarily include those of heroes - are likely also to fulfil diverse functions. We should remember too that part of the difficulty in defining the precise nature of the pre-Cleisthenic groups may lie in actual disparities in different cases. The word yivos, for example, may not always denote precisely comparable groups. This further confusion suggests that even among groups formally of the same type there may be important differences in the significance of their hero-cults.
’ Groups such as amphictionies and associations of smaller townships habitually
constituted themselves around common sacrifices, whether held at a special common sanctuary or in a holy place belonging to one of the members. In IG IV 679 (late third/early second century) the people of Asine are allowed to participate in the festival of Demeter Chthonia at Hermione 6 n q cpolvepk 6tOu ~ d t vTE my)kvEiCLv ~ o lci p t k v t3[&]hEi dlri xhEiov x p o d t ~ ~ vSee . further Burkert, GR V.3.3.
3
64
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
65
1. The eponymous heroes of the gene We shall begin with the older groups, and of them take first the gene, which although controversial at least present a relatively large body of evidence. The Attic gene were groups based in some manner on kinship, and forming in some sense subdivisions of the community; that much is agreed. But there are widely differing pictures of these institutions. The older view is that of a large, often politically powerful group, bound together by ties of kinship now usually held to be fictitious, and claiming descent from a common ancestor who is worshipped as a hero.’ But more recently this picture has been subjected to a radical attack by F. Bourriot, who by a rigorous examination of the use of the word genos has shown that before the fourth century it corresponds far more closely to our ‘family’ than to ‘clan’.’ In particular, it is used of family groups extending over four generations. It is clear that if this view, confirmed from a rather different perspective by D. R o u s ~ e lis, ~adopted, it will have serious consequences for our picture of the heroes worshipped by these groups; the whole approach of Toepffer, neatly connecting large and more or less stable gene to eponymous ancestors, will have to be m ~ d i f i e d .The ~ place of the genos-hero may be less easily defined. Even in early times, it seems that the word genos might cover groups of different kinds, and the word was much less of a technical term than it is for modern historians. But some lines are clear: Bourriot rightly allows as classical the quasi-technical use of the word for a priestly family like the Kerykes; and as we shall see these priestly functions are often of crucial importance in the development of the genos hero. He allows also the genos as local group, conjecturing that the much discussed word 6 p O y a h a ~ may ~ ~have ~ been the old name for such a group.7 The extension of the word to cover groups like the Alkmaionidai on the one hand and the Salaminioi on the other was a later, fourth-century development, reflecting social changes and perhaps greater self awareness on the part of these groups, stimulated in part by the increasing interest in various aspects of local history in this period.R There is, I think, some overlap between Bourriot’s two original categories and two types of development producing a genos-hero; many ‘sacerdotal’ families possess heroes who mirror their priestly functions, while the ‘local group’ type of genos tends to have an archegete who expresses locality rather more than cult. A detailed examination will show, however, that these divisions are far from absolute: what does seem clear is that the genos-hero is often a much more shadowy figure than the earlier view allowed. The approach through the hero to the problem of the genos has been considered by Bourriot himself; for his argument that elaborate and complex ties of descent were no part of the structure of the early genos, he would like to minimise or eliminate
’
So the standard works of reference, as T. Cadoux in the O.vfor-d Classical Dictionaiy, 2nd edn., 461-2. F. Bourriot, Recherches sur la nature du genos (Lille 1976). D. Roussel, Trihu et citt (Paris 1976) 89. J. Toepffer, Attische Genealogie (Berlin 1889). Bourriot 321-34. Ib. 669-73.683-94. The Alkmaionidai: Bourriot (377-82) denies that they were properly so known in the fifth century. Pindar ( P ~ t h . 7.2) uses pvedt. of them, Herodotus indifferently @vos and oilciq. TEvos. Bourriot maintains, is used in a nontechnical sense. The Salaminioi call themselves a @vos in Hesp. 7 no. 5 line 96 and in IG 111 1232.2.10. Selfawareness: the two writers whose works on gene we know of, Meliton and Drakon, belong to a much later period. hellenistic or Roman, but the wide interests of the atthidographers clearly included such subjects. A fifth-century interest seems to be shown in Euripides’ Hypsipyle, which probably concluded with a reference to the Euneidai as Euneos’ descendants (Bond, Euripide.7: Hypsipyle, 20). It would be interesting to know whether any prominent Athenians at the time were Euneids, especially given the coincidence of Cratinus’ Eirneidai. But Euripides’ Erechtheus could similarly be taken as celebrating a genos; if the cults of the Eteoboutadai are perhaps more central to the polis, the Euneids’ god Dionysos is still relevant to a dramatic context.
66
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
altogether the cult of a heroic archegete. This argument cannot be sustained in its entirety, as there is good evidence for a number of cults of genos eponyms. But the old picture of a genos worshipping its heroic (supposed) ancestor may still be vulnerable, since another possibility is that the cult of the hero did not have much to do with ancestry. There may well be other, more important strands in the relationship of hero to genos. It is usually assumed that the gennetai at every period claimed descent from the archegete, that such was indeed his r-uison d’6tr-e. The patronymic endings of many (not all) gene would seem to confirm this, and it is well known that Socrates traced his descent to Daidalos and Andocides to Odysseus.y But strict ties of descent cannot always have been of primary importance; there are often logical difficulties. Gene are not always named after their first human ancestor. The Lykomidai claimed a connexion with Lykos son of Pandion, but did not therefore name themselves Pandionidai. The Eumolpidai claimed that Keryx, archegete of the Kerykes, was a son of their own Eumolpos, which should have meant a merging of the two families.”’ From another angle, the mythological tradition in some cases weakens the force of the descent theory. Erysichthon, for instance, died young and presumably childless, and yet we hear of a genos Erysichthonidai. The cult of his father Kekrops, on the other hand, was managed by the Amynandridai, yet Kekrops had no son but Erysichthon. Similar is the case of the Charidai, wno were connected with the cult of Kranaos at Lamptrai; the majority tradition makes Kranaos, like so many of the kings, die childless, while a variant gives him Eleusinian connexions, which do not seem to be relevant here. These last two examples show that the chief hero worshipped need not be eponymous, so in these cases there is not even an apparent claim of descent. The Amynandrai should be descended from an Amynandros; the Charidai should perhaps be read as Chariadai, like Pindar’s Aeginetan family (Nem. 8.46), and given an eponym Charias. But no such archegetes appear in the tradition. Should we then suppose that in these cases families which had already acquired names somehow came to preside over the cult of an unrelated hero? Charias and Amynandros are both in fact attested as names of men, though this does not preclude their use as heroic names.” Similar may be the case of the Praxiergidai, the priestly family in charge of the Plynteria and Kallynteria: no hero Praxiergos is known, but a Praxiergos was archon in 471/0.12 The Lykomidai were certainly not named for Lykos, which could not explain the form in -m-. Lykomedes would be a likely eponym, and we find that the name Lykomedes appears to run in the genos.I3 Such families seem to owe their name to some real ancestor who, so far as we can tell, received no heroic honours. Others are apparently named from places: Salaminioi, Mesogeioi, Kephisieis. They, or Some among them, may worship a particular hero, as the Salaminioi worshipped Eurysakes; but the cult of Eurysakes was, though in a sense special, only one of many observed by the genos or its Socrates: Plato, Akihiades I 12IA, and note the whole argument. Andocides: Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 24. A. Andrewes in his important article ‘Philochoros on Phratries’, JHS 81 (1961) 1-15, points out (8 n. 28) similar difficulties concerning the Spartan tribes. I ’ Amynandros a real name: PA 734-6. Another possibility is that Amynandros - ‘warder off of men’ - though nowhere attested as such, was an epithet of Kekrops, as king and defender of city and acropolis. His half-snake nature would lend support to this theory; the acropolis snake was closely connected with the city’s safety (Hdt. 8.41) and the Eleian Sosipolis was a child-snake which had given victory in battle. See above, p. 53. Diodorus I I .54. However, Praxiergos would be quite a suitable name for a hero connected with this family - the ‘doer of the deed’ at the ill-omened Plynteria, which is better not mentioned. Such an explanation, of course, does not necessitate a hero. l 3 AuKopqtiiiSai > AuKopi6ai was suggested by Bossler, De gentibus ef familiis Atticae sarerdoralibus (Diss. Darmstadii 1833) 41, giving as parallel OpaoupiGqS, patronymic from OpaoupqGq~(Etym. M. S.V. ArpeiGqS). A Lykornedes of Phlya is known for the early fifth century (Davies APF no. 9238 pp. 316-7); he made a dedication to Apollo Daphnephoros at Phlya, the sanctuary associated with the family, probably after Artemision (Plut. Then7. 15). lo
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
67
officials, and the factor of common identity which was expressed in their name was local and toponymic. So these cases should put us on our guard against too easy a belief that descent was the salient factor, even in gene where no difficulty is apparent. The (Eteo)boutadai may not have been originally simply those claiming descent from from Boutes. The idea of descent may have come into being gradually, well after the original connexion between hero and genos had been established - in those cases where descent is important at all. But what then was the original connexion? The later example of the Cleisthenic eponymoi, whose introduction is a success story, shows that it is quite possible for even an artificially constituted group to feel a special connexion with a hero without any actual claim of descent. The hero could simply be the patron of the genos, having its interests at heart, while they in turn perform the requisite sacrifices to him - very roughly analogous to the later patron saint, whether of individual or of corporate organisation. This will explain the situation in several of the gene but in others we do not find a relationship definite even to this degree. It is not of course entirely safe to argue from cases where there is simply no evidence of a cult, but even so, in a case like that of Krokon, where Pausanias specifically reports that he was unable to find the hero’s grave, the absence may be thought significant. The Eleusinian cults, in fact, furnish some interesting information in this connexion; the lawsuit between the Krokonidai and the Ko(i)ronidai is particularly instructive. Neither the speech of Lycurgus nor that of Dinarchus opposing him is extant, but we can still glean quite a lot from the fragments, and from casual references to these gene in other writers.I4 It is plain that the issue in question was the allocation of priestly functions, and that many of the arguments used on either side were mythological, going back to the archegetes of each family. They should probably be reconstructed (in part) as follows: the Krokonidai claimed that Krokon was the legitimate, Koiron the bastard son of Triptolemos, thus putting themselves close to the centre of the Eleusinian nexus of cult and clearly having precedence over their rivals. The Koironidai, on the other hand, may perhaps have preferred to be known as Koronidai, thus connecting themselves with the Dionysiac KopoviGq KOPCCI’~and urging their celebration of the related Theoinia in support of this. However, some at least of themi6claimed that Krokon was not Triptolemos’ son at all, but the husband of his sister Saisara. The evidence, admittedly scanty, does not suggest that either genos could produce a cult of an eponymous ancestor to strengthen their case, and what is more, it is obvious that if the above reconstruction is correct, the Ko(i)ronidai would not want to. Their own view of themselves depends on the non-existence of a cult of the hero Koiron, and there is no reason for us to assume that this would be felt as paradoxical. The cult of nymphs, even specific named nymphs, can hardly be in the same l4
l5
The most recent study, with a bibliography, is that of N. Conomis, Klio 39 (1961) 120-5. This is suggested by the connexion implied in the line of tragedy pkc ~kcsO ~ o i v o u~ aKi o p w v i G a ~~ o p (TGrF a ~ 1.208 F I). The situation has recently been complicated by the appearance, probably from late hellenistic times, of a genos Theoinidai (Vanderpool, AJP 100 (1979) 213-6), known previously only from Photius S.V. OEO~VIOV (a piece of evidence which in view of the clear connexion of the Koironidai and/or Krokonidai with the Theoinia. attested in Lycurgus fr. 52 Blass/Conomis, had been regarded as hopelessly confused). The genos appears honouring a priestess 4 s v6pcprls: Vanderpool takes this to be the Nymphe on the Acropolis (Travlos 361-4). but this is perhaps over-confident, as vdpcprl need be no more specific than fipwivq. She might equally well be something to do with the KopwviG~s~ O p a i . As for the form of the name Theoinidai. it is unique among Athenian gene, none of which is named from a god, a divine epithet or a festival. Is it possible that Theoinidai was a new name assumed by the Koironidai after the fracas of the dindikosia. in order to make their cultic affiliations and claims still clearer? Pausanias ( I .38.2) is probably using the speech of Lycurgus for the Koironidai as his source (a reference to the deme Skambonidai occurs in the speech - fr. 3 5 Blass/Conomis, Harpocration s.v.), and the tradition is traced to ‘men of Skambonidai’, perhaps then a branch of a large genos like the Salaminioi. The story is clearly designed to demote Krokon.
6X
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
category as that of a heroic ancestor, however real the connexion between worshippers and worshipped. As for Krokon, the Krokonidai claimed he was a son of Triptolemos, and therefore grandson of Keleos; yet the latter, in the Nikomachos calendar, receives a sacrifice from the Eumolpidai!" We are then on shaky ground if we wish to assert that all gene had as a matter of course a particular hero, an ar-chegetes in whatever sense, to whom they paid cult. There are differences among gene. Koiron and Krokon appear to be no more than speculations on the part of the genos' amateur historians; but others - Boutes, Hesychos, Phytalos, Erysichthon and Eumolpos - were clearly real heroes and recipients of cult, almost certainly administered by members of the relevant genos. Boutes has an altar attested in the Erechtheion, in company with Poseidon Erechtheus and Hephaistos. Hesychos and Eumolpos are both given sacrifice by the appropriate gene while the last three all have known tombs.Ix Arguments against this position do not appear to be well founded, and there are almost certainly other cases too of the cult of an archegete.'" But this does not tell us whether the genos came into being around the cult, or whether, as our earlier, negative examples might tend to suggest, the cult is something secondary. We have seen that many of those groups counted as gene maintain charge of a particular priestly function, and indeed the gentilician priesthood is almost certainly the oldest and perhaps the most'widespread form of sacerdotal structure in Attica. The Bouzygai preside over a ceremony of sacred ploughing associated with Zeus Teleios, also known as h i nahha6icp. The Lykomidai supervise the mysteries of Phlya, and the Eumolpidai, Kerykes, Philleidai, Krokonidai and Koironidai have their several functions at those of Eleusis. The Eteoboutadai, though they may in some ways represent a slightly different phenomenon,?O have charge of most of the cults of the Erechtheion, centring on Athena Polias and Poseidon Erechtheus, whose priestess and priest they supply. Other more or less certain examples are provided by the Semachidai, Hesychidai, Eudanemoi, Euneidai, Phytalidai, Salaminioi, Gephyraioi, Poimenidai, Praxiergidai, Phoinikes and Mesogeioi (see table). In these cases, the eponymous hero very often appears as institutor of the rite or first priest of the god. Boutes received the priesthood when his brother Erechtheus received the temporal power. Bouzyges was the Athenian Triptolemos, the first to plough with oxen; in conformity with the pattern of the culture-hero, he was no doubt given divine instruction. Lykos certainly brought rites from Phlya to Andania in Messenia, though it is an open question whether he or Phlyos, son of Ge, was regarded as founder of the Attic mysteries; one might compare, however,, the diversity of Eleusinian traditions on the foundation." All this is perfectly in line with a very widespread cultic-mythic phenomenon in which a hero or heroine is worshipped in conjunction with a god, l7 IX
I'
?''
LSS no. 10.65. Boutes: Paus. 1.26.5. Hesychos: Polemon fr. X Preller. Eumolpos: LSS 10.65. Phytalos: Paus. 1.37.2. Erysichthon: ib. 31.2. Tomb of Eumolpos: ib. 38.2. Bourriot's objection (1083) that the sacrifice attested to Eumolpos is not genuine hero-cult because not at the hero's tomb is not really cogent; cult of a hero believed to be situated elsewhere is a respectably old phenomenon (Aiakos at Athens, Hdt. 5.89.2). His claim (1081) that pvfipcr in Pausanias suggests an ordinary tomb rather than a heroon can be disproved by the author's practice: thus 8.14.9-10: Eon 6E 6ni hoqou pvfipcc ' I ~ u K ? & o u ~ ... 'IqlKhEi p&V6fl KCti 6< TO&& En &Va$
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP. I
69
while an aetiological myth explains that he or she was the first to perform the rite.22 But we can go further than this, since in several cases it is clear that this is the sole origin of the hero; he is as it were the projection onto the heroic plane of a sacral function, the archetype of the priest. It was the function of members of the Krokonidai to tie a loop of wool around the right wrist and left ankle of the n i . w c s preparatory to initiation. an action known as K P O K O ~ V(KPOKCOCFIS); we may assume that the hero Krokon derived his name from this, and was the first to perform the action. BoGirqs was probably the title of the man who sacrificed the bull to Poseidon Erechtheus. Hesychos too most likely derives his name from cult officiants.” In these cases, among others, hero, priest and genos stand very close to each other. and both hero and genos can plausibly be seen as closely derived from the priestly function. which is primary. It is true that the name-forms often make some attempt at a personal element; the -6qs ending (we may say for the moment) has some force at least akin to the patronymic, and we have Kpo~wviGai, not KpoKiGai, on the one hand, BouzdrGai, not BoGirai, on the other, But the process is even more transparent in those cases where no ‘patronymic’ ending is found, as (H)eudanemoi, Kerykes, Bouzygai, where the genos name is simply the plural form of the hero - or perhaps more accurately, the hero is the singular form of the genos as a collective unit. What matters in the developed system is the intimate relation, almost identification, of archegete and genos members, expressed in the verbal coincidence. A similar case, although the process of development may be different, is provided by the Ionians, love^, who are simply ‘Ions’. Cammon to the gene and their heroes, however, is the paramount importance of priestly functions. What the (H)eudanemoi did is uncertain, but the name sounds as if it is derived from some cultic function. Keryx - a hero almost certainly without a cult, in~identally’~ - is simply the prototype of the herald of Apollo Pythios and perhaps of other sacred heralds. Bouzyges is the title of the holder of the chief gentilician priesthood in the Bouzygai family.’5 It is also relevant that Eumolpos may have been a title of the hierophant; euphonia was, as we might expect, a desirable quality on this priest,’h but a striking statement in Plutarch (Mor.. 607B) can perhaps best be explained if the hierophant was always ECpohnos: [E6pohnos] 2 p G q o ~~ apvA i irobs “Ehhqva<, Eumolpos initiated and initiates the Greeks. We may recall in this connexion that in the later period at least his original name was suppressed on taking office, and so perhaps he actually became the mythical Eumolpos, as certain priestesses may have become the daughters of Keleos.” But this would be a rather later development, and peculiar perhaps to Eleusis. In general, the hero seems to be simply the priest’s mythical prototype. In the cases considered above, the first thing to emerge is the priest’s title, which then gives its name to both hero and family, thus affording a good illustration of the hero as emphasizing See below, p. 126. Krokon: Bekker Anecd. 1.373. Boutes: Hesychius gives poGq< as title of the slaughterer of the ox at the Bouphonia; given that the word is a sacral title, the gentile connexion makes it more likely to refer to the man who sacrifices a bull to Poseidon Erechtheus, a conspicuous sacrifice ( I / . 2.550-1. E. ErecWwu.7 65.64 Austin). The confusion would be an easy one, puce Bourriot (1332 n. 577), who wishes to separate the Eteoboutadai from the type of genos primarily defined by priestly function. But the situation may not be so clear-cut. Hesychos: see n. 18. 24 The long list of the priesthoods held by the family in the Augustan period (Roussel, MP/onges Bide: (n. 37)) does not include a priest of the eponymous hero. 25 IG 112 3177,5055,5075; Hesperiu 9 no. 15. ” Philost. VS 2.20, cf. IG 112 3639.4. On hieronymy, see K. Clinton, The Socrud Ofii‘ciul.7 of the E / e i ~ ~ i n i a / ? Mysteries (Trans. Amer. Phil. SOC.,Philadelphia 1974) 9. He supposes that the real name of one hierophant of the Roman period was Eumolpos, which is odd: p. 40 no. 28. 27 Paus. I .3 1.3.
22 23
70
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
the family's identity, which is sacral; his origins lie in the need for some sort of aetiology, a reference to the first time an action was performed. He ratifies the performance of the .particular cult act. In other cases, while the hero is still mythologically the founder or institutor, his name may suggest rather more complex origins. Such are Semachos, Lykos (of Phlya) and Thaulon, whose myths all show them to have been of this type, but whose names do not seem to imply any priestly function. It is impossible to say in these cases whether the function became attached to a pre-existinj, hero, or whether only the family was already named and the hero acquired name and function from them. In either case, the need for a mythical figure as institutor-archegete is still strong enough to assert itself. The need appears to have been in the sphere of myth, not of cult; enough has been said to show that these heroes, though perhaps insignificant as objects of worship, do fulfil an important function as figure of legendary history, as personal culture-heroes. Some of the gentile heroes do of course go on to develop a cult, as we have seen. But the form of the cult bears clear traces of its origin, for it seems as far as we can surmise to be carried out in the larger context of divine worship. We have the explicit testimony of Polemon (fr. X Preller) that Hesychos received preliminary sacrifice at the rites performed for the Semnai, and in general this was common form for the hero-institutor. We find that Eumolpos received sacrifice together with many other related heroes at the Eleusinia, while the tomb of Phytalos is near to the sacred fig-tree and a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, and the altar of Boutes (who did not, apparently, become humanised enough to acquire a tomb) is in company with those of Poseidon Erechtheus and of Hephaistos. But there are genos-heroes whose origins appear to be quite other. The only cult over which the Chari(a)dai appear to preside is that of Kranaos, localised at Lamptrai, which has no obvious connexion with either the family's name or any divine cult.'R The Euneidai, who held the priesthood of Dionysos Melpomenos, certainly connected themselves with the hero Euneos, son of Jason and Hypsipyle, but the hero is connected with the god apparently only through an obscure piece of genealogy, making him great-grandson of Dionysos.'y The cult of Kephalos at Thorikos - if indeed it has anything to do with the genos Kephalidai, which is far from clear- can hardly be connected with the sanctuary of Apollo at Aigaleos, fairly certainly a Kephalid cult-place.'" We cannot, of course, be sure that further evidence would not substantially alter the picture, but it seems here as though a more random factor is at work. Such heroes, in contrast to those we have considered earlier, seem to be in origin cultic heroes with tombs or shrines, whose worship precedes their acquiring a mythical personality. The cult comes to devolve upon a particular family, perhaps through the hero's tomb Ijeing found upon their land. (Some at least of these cases will concern gene of the village community, rather than the sacerdotal, type, but most of these gene still have characteristic cults.) In these cases, then, the hero is less instrumental in forming a sense of the family's identity. Other factors will do this, and the hero should probably be regarded as fulfilling a different function. However, there are also instances where a hero may embody an important fact about a family other than its sacerdotal role. The Salaminioi, though many things are still controversial about them. show how the large, extended type of genos could worship a variety of heroes while still apparently having a special connexion with Eurysakes, son of Ajax. It is true that Herakles at Porthmos receives a larger sacrifice and Theseus at Phaleron one of the same size,3' but these are different places and different festivals, and not strictly comparable with the sacrifice to Eurysakes. lx Hsych. S.V.
XapiGai.
'"E. Hy/>si/>y/eclearly presupposes the genealogy. Further references in Roscher, Lexicon S.V. Euneos. Paus. I .37.6-7. j ' Bourriot, 1095ff. ?('
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
71
Eurysakes does after all symbolise the claim to be Salaminian, and his shrine at Melite was one of the places - perhaps the only place - where the decrees of the genos were set up.’? The precise view we take of the function of Eurysakes in the life and identity of the genos must depend partly on what we believe about the genos’ origins and constitution, a question too large to discuss in detail.?? Eurysakes is certainly not a hero of the ‘sacral function’ class, but if we suppose, as seems reasonable, that for the Salaminioi (whether they were in reality of Salaminian or Athenian origin) the important thing was to be Salaminian, it is clear that the worship of Eurysakes is of assistance. He helps to define their identity, and so his importance to the genos goes beyond the merely coincidental, whereas other families may well worship only heroes of incidental significance - the sort of figure represented in the Salaminioi decree by the ‘hero at Antisara’. Others still have apparently no hero at all, a further indication that the acquisition of a hero may be a more or less random process. The Alkmaionidai, perhaps not technically a genos at all in pre-fourth-century terms, have no discernible cults, divine or and the same may go for the Apheidantidai and Medontidai, if again they are to be counted as gene. Even some clearly priestly families may have lacked a hero. If, as seems likely, the Kolieis had charge of the cult of Aphrodite Kolias, then the aetiologies of the cult involving ~cQ3La and K O Abut ~ making no mention of a hero might suggest that they had no hero of the priestly type.35 Even Lykos, of the Lykomidai, may have had no existence before the fourth century:36 So there is no uniformity in the pattern of acquisition of heroes; they fulfil different needs to different types of families, and even cases apparently parallel do not always develop in the same way. Nevertheless, in this somewhat vague and cloudy picture some main lines are discernible. Whereas some heroic cults reach some families almost by accident, in a significant number of cases there is one hero, often eponymous to the genos, who has a clear function: that of emphasizing and impersonating the family’s identity. Eurysakes, we have seen, does this for the Salaminioi. Much more often, the family’s identity is expressible in terms of one main cult or priesthood; if one asks ‘Who are the Eumolpidai?’ the answer will be ‘They are the family which provides the hierophant at Eleusis.’ These priesthoods were generally, at least in the earlier period, open to all members of the genos of the appropriate sex, sortition being the method of determination most often The cults served by these gentilician priests were Salaminioi decree, 84-5. main views are expounded in Ferguson, Hesperia 7 (1938) Iff.; Guarducci, Riv. Fil. 76 (1948) 223-37; Nilsson, Cults, myths, oracles andpolitics (New York 1972) 30-6. 34 See Davies, APF 369-70. 3s Two etymologies (one heroic, the other not) could sometimes be current at the same time, as often of deme-names (below, p. 94), but here the cult aitia have no hero-instructor. In this case the feminine character of the cult (Ar. Lys. 2) would produce difficulties in regarding its (female) priestly institutor as archegete; some more indirect relationship is required, as in the case of Hesychos. This hero, worshipped with the Semnai by Hesychid officiants, most probably derives his name from the silence required in their cult. The women officiants seem to have been known as iloux&s (Callim. fr. 681 Pf.), and the name of the genos would have been derived from this. Only then does the hero emerge, or at least become eponymous. 3h It is possible that he owes his existence to the A ~ K O 6pupO~ U at Andania, which should probably be connected with the wolf-cults of this Messenian-South Arcadian region. The Lykomidai reorpanised the Mysteries of Andania some time after the refoundation of Messene. and some genealogical-mythological justification was presumably required for this.
32
33 The
37
Arist. Ath. Pol. fr. 384 Sandys: Harpocration S.V. y ~ v v q ~ aand i : cf. perhaps Isoc. 2.6. Specifically. Salaminioi decree 12- 13. Occasionally a particular priesthood seems more strictly hereditary, passing from father to (eldest) son; thus the dadouchia in the Kallias-Hipponikos family, an instance which .is confirmed in a much later (1st c. BC) inscription (P. Roussel in MPlaiiges Bider (Brussels 1934) 11.8 19-34). Lines 38-52 of the inscription show that the dadouchia has been passed on in strictly hereditary succession at least since the end of the third century (stemma, p. 829). even though the genos is now composed of men with many different deinotics. While some
72
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
(certainly for the most part, perhaps entirely) public cults, part of the divine action of the whole city or deme, so that recognition of the special role of the genos comes not only from its own members but from all who take part.3X On the level of cult, therefore, it is this divine worship which gives the genos its identity; the actions central to such worship can be performed only by members of the group. The function of the hero as archegete-instructor is somewhat different; he operates on the different plane of myth and tradition, and it is not necessary (though it sometimes occurs) for him in addition to receive cult. The hero expresses in a concrete, peisonal form the characteristic activity of the family; he is simply the archetype of the priest, a relation seen most clearly in those cases where hero’s name and priest’s title are one and ‘the same. From this, it is a short step to the concept of the eponymous hero as actual ancestor, and as we have seen it is a step that commonly was taken, with how much seriousness is not clear, in the fifth century, and not only in Athens? It was pleasing to trace one’s descent back to heroes and gods; but this was not the original function of these heroes. Not all the gene, indeed, have patronymic endings; some are simply ideiitical with the name of the hero, while others are toponymic and have no eponym at all. ‘Bouzygai’ certainly seems to imply 5 so something different from ‘Bouzygidai’, but it may be doubted whether the - 6 ~ termination, often considered exclusively patronymic, does not in fact have a rather wider significance in this case. According to the standard authority,j” the termination comes to acquire first a broader meaning of descent, then tribal or ethnic sense, and the examples quoted show a wide range of ‘figurative’ meanings also. In the case of proper names, there are several parallels for the usage implying no notion of descent. The appellation of Horncridui for rhapsodes may be one such; the ‘sons of Homer’ are envisaged as modelled on him, as pursuing the activites which he initiated.“ If indeed there is a genos Pamphidai, as seems likely,‘? we have a very close parallel in the sphere of the genos; these would provide sacred music and hymns, as the mythical Pamphos had done; they need nor be his descendants. Again, it is clear that the names Erechtheidai, Aigeidai, and so on, applied to the ten Cleisthenic tribes - as for instance regularly in [Dem.] 60.27-31 - cannot carry a connotation of actual descent; everyone knew that these tribes were artificial creations. The hero may be hp~qy&q<- the primary meaning being ‘leader’ - without being ancestor. In the case of the gene, it seems that where a hero is important to the family’s sense of identity, it is the present connexion of genos with hero, whether through religious activities or beliefs about its origins, which is significant, rather than any definite notion of the hero as ancestor. Cult paid to the archegete of the genos could in individual gene have become a phenomenon very important to the family, but it was not the starting-point. priesthoods may have been subject to different conditions, and while the lot could, perhaps, have been manipulated. it must also be borne in mind that in small gene of the Bourriot type sortition may well produce results which look hereditary. 3x Cf. Crir.\-:Essci~sIm~selitetlto G. E. M . de Sic. C1.oi.r ( = Histor;\ of Political Thorrkht 6) 205-6 j‘) Extra-Athenian examples are provided by the Spartan kings (Hdt. 6.53-4) and many families in Pindar, e.g. the lamidai at 01.6.7 I . C. D. Buck. W. Petersen. A Rei-erse /17de.r of G w e k Noirlis a17d Adjcctii*e.T (Chicago 1944) 441-2. We might 769B). compare also figurative uses such as rcaT6~g
“’
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
73
2. The heroes of the orgeones The genos is, then, a group whose identity is perhaps most often defined by some sacral function. Commonly this function relates to a more or less public ce‘remony or group of ceremonies, for which the priest or other officiants are chosen from the group in question. There is in fact no certain evidence for private rites, sacrifices exclusive to the genos; such cults may have existed, but if they did were clearly of secondary importan~e.~’With the groups whose members were known as 6py~hve5we have quite a different case; these appear to be in essence organisations constituted around their own private sacrifices. Hence the chief hero of the group signifies something very different to each of these two classes. As with the gene, the groups of orgeones present their problems of definition, and it is probable that the word was not always used to refer to precisely similar organisation~.~~ The significance of the well-known Philochorus fragment (FCr-H 328 F 35), referring to some type of ordinance of uncertain date which lays down that or-geones,along with homogalaktes, must be accepted by ‘the phratores’, has been endlessly debated. From our point of view it suffices to take the broad outlines of what seems to be the most natural picture - that membership of a group of orgeones was to be one sufficient qualification for membership of a phratry. The context of the fragment is entirely uncertain, and the phrase ‘the phratores’ leaves open the possibility that the reference may be to the isolated case of one phratry only, or to several but not all phratries. But even if this were true the picture would remain substantially the same: the orgeones would form well-defined groups which could be brought into connexion with other such associations in the state. The epigraphical evidence, collected and discussed by Ferguson in 1944, is more h e l p f ~ l . ~ ’ The material is composed of various types of decrees belonging to several different organisations whose members describe themselves as orgeones. These decrees date from the fourth century or later, but in one case, according to Ferguson’s argument, incorporating a fifthcentury text. Among this material, Ferguson distinguishes, surely rightly, between ‘old’ groups of orgeones worshipping figures of local significance only, and groups first constituted in somewhat later times, in which a foreign element both of cult and of membership is conspicuous. Only the first will concern us here; the latter class is not concerned with heroes and belongs to a very different religious system, while the workings of groups with such differently composed membership are unlikely to throw much light on those of the older type. The picture of the ‘old’ orgeones which emerges from the inscriptions (less informatively from literary texts)4his one of smallish groups in which kinship was at the very least an important element. A list of orgeones from Prospalta (IG 112 2355, found at nearby Keratea) shows clearly from the nomenclature that the sixteen members are closely related one to another, forming certainly no more than four families and perhaps fewer. This inscription dates from th: third century, but it seems very likely to be representative also of an earlier state of affairs. But it would be forcing the evidence to deduce from this that kinship was the necessary and only formal criterion of membership. Where possible, it is common enough for a father to introduce his son into membership of his own social organisation, so that such associations will come to take on a certain flavour of hereditary groups even where their existence is not founded Crtcr (n. 38) 206; but see above. p. 39. Ferguson (following note) 73, 127-30.
‘‘
S. Ferguson, ‘The Attic Orgeones’. HThR 37 (1944) 61-140. This is supplemented by his ’Orpeonilia‘. Hcsperia supplement 8, 130-63. A further orgeonic inscription (not. for our purposes. very significant) is in S. Dow and D. H. Gill, A.IA 69 (1965) 103-114. lsaeus 2. 1 4.
“ W.
Jh
74
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
on such a principle. In other cases, associations spring up around a core of family membership, in but including on equal terms members who are not kin. If we should read fiphov 6 p y G n ~ < the law in Solon’s code relating to various associations, the groups of orgeones could be classified with phratries and gene on the one hand, and funerary associates or groups of traders on the other; in any case, the text shows many different types of association, comparable to each other in some ways, but in which the importance of kinship must have varied ~onsiderably.~~ So here too, even more clearly than in the case of the gene, we should beware of the assumption that the hero particularly worshipped was the ancestor of the orgeones. We should perhaps look instead for the binding force of common rites. It is hard to imagine that the groups mentioned in the Solonian code, however constituted, did not have some common rites which might be shared by all their members. But it may be that these have a special importance among the orgeones, whose very name seems to indicate an original concern with religious ~~ closer activity; certainly the word appears in poetry with this primary c o n n ~ t a t i o n .Evidence to our purpose comes from the inscriptions themselves, however, and here the overwhelming impression is that of a cult organisation pure and simple; the activities pursued by the group all seem to be concerned with the organisation of the cult of one figure or a group of obviously related figures. These figures, when they are not foreign gods - a rather different case have a clear heroic and local flavour. Asklepios has elements of the heroic: Echelos, Egretes and Hypodektes (Ferguson’s 1, 2 and 3) are not great gods, and even when in later times they may be described as ‘gods’ they are obviously gods of a minor kind, whose importance is personal and restricted. But it is in precisely this restricted nature that their significance lies. Very often these figures are meaningful only to the relevant group of orgeones, and even when this is not the case we may assume that the upkeep of a particular shrine of the deity and the management of his cult was the responsibility of the orgeones a10ne.~’ The cult then essentially defined membership; it was the most important, indeed the only, activity which members pursued together as members. The annual festival of the hero was also the annual meeting of the orgeones, who met to worship the hero. No doubt such meetings were also the occasion for discussion of the group’s business and resolution of decrees. In contrast to the genos-hero the hero of the orgeones was the direct object and focus of cult, a relationship much simpler than that of the genos to its own special hero. It is no accident that Nock was induced by Ferguson’s study of the orgeones and their heroes to speculate on a type of hero who is really indistinguishable from a minor god, for with one possible exception (below) these heroes have a role very like that of a god. Their human past is unimportant; their past acts explain nothing in the present. They do not in themselves represent any one of the orgeones or the group as a whole. It is simply the fact that they are worshipped especially (perhaps exclusively) by a particular group of people which is important. Thus the answer to ‘What sort of group is it which includes x and y?’ will be ‘They meet to sacrifice to such-and-such a hero.’ The group meets to worship the hero; the hero exists, at least partly, to provide a focus for the group. This may seem paradoxical, but is surely explicable in terms of the deep-rooted tendency in Greek society towards the development of many different groups and sub-groups; such small cult associations can satisfy a need different from that associated with larger groups This part of Solon’s code appears in the Digest, 47.22.4; cf. Seleukos FGrH 34 I F 1. Early examples in H. Hyn7r7. Apollo 389, Aeschylus TGrF 144; further examples in hellenistic poetry are discussed by Ferguson (art. cit., n. 45) 131-2, who is somewhat sceptical of this connotation. But there seems to be no example of the word used to refer to a primarily non-religious association. jY See especially IG II2 2499,2501 = Ferguson’s 2 and 3. 47
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
75
on the one hand, and the oikos on the other. So far as the evidence goes it seems to suggest that the orgeonic cults (unlike cults of the genos-heroes) were isolated religious activities, not part of a larger group of sacrifices. But there is one possible exception to this, although it must remain maddeningly speculative.’” The orgeones of Hypodektes celebrated the festival of this god or hero [6]zav i e p o i ~hnavz[6]mv (‘when they meet the Sacred Things’, IG 112 2501), which has usually been taken simply as a calendar indication (giving the date 14 Boedromion). This interpretation depends on a vague ‘they’ as subject of h n a v z h v , but it is equally possible that the subject should be taken as the orgeones themselves. In this case we should have a group of orgeones behaving exactly like a priestly genos, carrying out a specific function at the Eleusinia and having a connexion with a hero who was the first to perform this rite ( ‘ Y ~ O S E K=~ the S receiver, i.e. of the ‘sacred things’ from Eleusis into Athens). (Against this we might argue that Hypodektes is referred to as a god, which does not seem to square well with a priestly institutor-hero, a pattern in which the distinction between god and hero is of the utmost significance.) A group of orgeones connected with the larger system of the Eleusinia would seem to bear a closer resemblance to other groups within Attic society, and although this pattern seems from our evidence to be rare,s’ it may be that the groups of orgeones included both such organisations and the other, more ad hoc type. As with the geni3, we need not expect that all groups with the same name have an identical structure - especially perhaps as in this case it is only the members, not the collective group, to which the name applies. Within such associations, there may too have been degrees of belonging: the third-century decree of the orgeones of Echelos and the heroines (Ferguson 1) shows that there are two associations within the group, devoted respectively to Echelos and to the heroines, although the sacrifices were organised in connexion with each other, and the two groups therefore met together at the same occasion. There may have been many variations on this somewhat more complicated type of structure, but the evidence is so scanty that anything more is mere speculation. The same may be said of the further significance of the hero to the orgeones; it is possible that individual orgeones could have turned to their orgeonic hero for help in cases of need, but the only thing we can safely predicate of the hero is his role in defining group membership. Although the gaps in the documentation of the various groups and associations of Attica are such that negative evidence is not generally of much value, it is perhaps worth remarking what seems at first sight a strange anomaly: there is no satisfactory evidence of hero-cult in the phratries. (The evidence for a hero Ther(r)ikles connected with the phratry Therrikleidai really depends on conjecture.’*) This is the more remarkable because we are tolerably well-informed of certain other religious practices connected with the phratries, most obviously the celebration of the Apatouria and the worship of Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria. Yet in contrast to the religious practices of the gene and the groups of orgeones, these are rites performed by all the phratries, which come together one by one, it is true, but each to perform the same actions. There is nothing distinctive to any phratry in its worship of Zeus Phratrios (even if we
’I
I owe this suggestion to Dr Robert Parker. See Ferguson (n.45) 72; the only comparable case seems to be the orgeones of Bendis, a group of rather different origins. The phratry Therrik[leid]ai appears without doubt in 1G 112 4973, where they appear to have a sanctuary of Apollo Patroos. The Ther[ik]leion of IG I 3 243, situated in the south-eastern part of the agora. may, as Meritt suggests (Hesper-ia 36 (1967) 72-4), indicate a shrine of a related hero Therikles, but other interpretations are possible.
TIHE HEROES OF ATTICA
76
understand this to mean ‘its own’ Zeus Phratrios”) or the other actions of the festival. the feasting and the registration of children. By performing such actions. each phratry is affirming that it is a phratry, in every respect comparable to other such groups. Ritual acts perfornied by genos or orgeones mark off the group from those outside it. a simple division of inside and outside; the Apatouria, on the other hand, marks each phratry as distinct from the others. but belonging to a system which embraces the whole citizen group. This is rather the distinction we would expect if we accept the minimalising view of the genos outlined above: the genos is in some ways a rather specialised affair, quite different in conception from the phratry. We should also remember that Apatouria were celebrated in almost all Ionian cities. and indeed were regarded as a touchstone of lonian identity (Hdt. I . 147). Roussel very properly cautions us against the belief that there were therefore phratries in all these cities. but it seems nonetheless likely that we have to do with some deep-seated system structuring and dividing the whole o f society. Similar divisions appear even in some non-Ionian cities.’’ This being so - the division being presumably accepted and understood by all who were involved in it, the whole citizen body - there is the less need for particular groups of this sort t o define themselves by distinctive rites.” I t is not impossible that the phratries. or some of them, may have had in addition other, particular, cults, but it is clear enough that the main religious expression of the group’s identity was the Apatouria. Evidence such as the iepov ME6uvri8ii)v gets u s little further:”’ this is perhaps most likely to be formally sacred to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria. The lack of a statement of dedication may be support for the view that there was only this one phratry cult, and would incidentally demonstrate that the actual gods worshipped were in a sense secondary to the phratry’s perception of itself and the sacred guarantee of its own identity. One further possible association of the phratries - though it is not exclusive to them - is with the cult of Tritopatreis or Tritopatores. These mysterious figures, though often identified by ancient writers as figures of primaeval antiquity or as natural forces,i7 seem in origin to be rather more specialised and personal deities, very likely ancestors in some sense, as their name suggests.is Worship of unspecified Tritopatreis is attested in Athens itself (a shrine in the Kerameikos area) and at Marathon and Erchia,”’ but we also find specific Tritopatreis with family-type names in the comparable boundary-markers 6pos iepoO T p ~ r o n a r p i o vZaKua6ii)v 51
This scciiis to he the concept implicit i n Plato. E / ~ / h ~ d c / i 3/ ~0/ 3. s- D (esp. h i v Ydrp 001. h<EOlK€V. XTCdhhwv t& K c l i z€bs K c l i Ai’qV@) and Arist. A / / / . P o / . 55.3: E i f o n v ctGr@XTCOhhWV TCclTp@O< Kcti z€b
54 Rousscl
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
77
and Gpos iep6 Tp~~onazp&ov E6~pp&3v,both found in the city.” There is no trace of a genos of Zakyadai or of Euergidai; probably they are phratries. It is true that the (presumed) genos of the Pyrrhakidai, or some part of them, do seem to have a Tritopator (one only) of their own, but this need not be an exact parallel. The shrine is at Delos and may represent a special case; perhaps an ancestral claim to certain rites was more important on pan-Ionian Delos than on home territory? The Pyrrhakidai have also their own nymphs.h1 But in any case, the Tritopatreis of the Kerameikos, Marathon and Erchia demonstrate that diversely constituted groups could have Tritopatreis; they cannot be an exclusive possession of genos or phratry or any other type of group. But normally, if the view adopted above of the distinction in kind between phratry and genos is correct, it must be the case that considerations of heredity and kinship relate primarily to phratry rather than to genos. It is to the phratry that citizen boys and girls6’ are presented, and membership of a phratry is very often used along with deme registration to prove citizenship;63at the Apatouria sacrifices are made for the marriage of girls. Relevant to the latter point may be the statement of Phanodemus that Athenians before their marriage pray to the Tritopatreis for children;M the ancestors thus guarantee the continuity of their line, and very easily come into connexion with the chief concerns of the phratry. This is something quite different from the non-ancestral heroes of the gene. The genos heroes have a special character which is particularly relevant to the individual identity of the genos. The hero of the orgeones is the centre of the group’s existence, that which gives them coherence. The particular concerns expressed by specialised heroes of this sort are of less importance to the phratry than are the principles of heredity and continuance, and hence the Tritopatreis, as ancestors, seem appropriate here - although they cannot of course be as important and distinctive to phratry-organisation as Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria. If these are heroes, they are heroes of a very special kind, being apparently undifferentiated as individuals.6‘ It is not their personality as such that is important, but merely the fact that they are forebears. ‘Boundary of the shrine of the Tritopatreis of the Zakyadai(/Euergidai)’ or ‘of the Zakyad (Euergid) Tritopatreis’, IG 112 26 15; H a p . 30 (1 96 1) 26d no. 80. 6 1 Inscr-.de De‘los 66,67; discussed by P. R o w e l , BCH 53 (1929) 166-79. J. Could ( J H S 100 (1980) 40-2) argues that presentation of girls to the phr-arores took place only in exceptional circumstances, i.e. in the case of eppikler-oi,but this seems unlikely: they could hardly then have been presented at birth, when it would not normally be clear that no male heir could be produced, and marriage would be too late, since the point of presentation would be to ratify the legitimacy and property inheritance presupposed in the marriage. See also M. Golden, CQ ns 35 (1985) 9-13. h’See n. 54. h4 FGr-H 325 F 6. “ Attempts such as that of 6 TO ~ ~ q y q n noiocq ~ o v (above, n. 57) to give the Tritopatreis individual names are purely speculative identifications.
6o
T H E HEROES OF ATTICA
78
Groups known as gene, their heroes, and cults associated with them This is not a complete list; it includes only those gene about which we are tolerably wellinformed, or can make plausible and significant deductions. All those for which there is literary evidence can be found listed in Toepffer (but Hesperia 10.16 no. 1 shows that the Medontidai were a phratry - the name may also, however, have referred to a genos). For each genos I have given the principal hero known or safely assumed to be connected, and the chief divine cults. Much further information about the gentilician priesthoods is to be found in R. S. J . Garland, ‘Religious authority in archaic and classical Athens’, ABSA 79 (1984) 75-123. Fuller evidence on the heroes in the table is provided in Appendix 1.
Genos
Heroes worshipped, or connected in myth
Al kmaionidai
no cults known, divine or heroic
Am ynandridai
Kekrops (cult-place known)
Bouzygai
Bouzyges (grave unknown, plough kept)
Chief divine cults associated
Demeter Achaia, (?)Apollo Daphnephoros
Gephyraioi Erysichthonidai
Erysichthon
Apollo at Delos
Eteoboutadai
Boutes (priest and altar known)
Athena Polias, Poseidon Erechtheus
(H)eudanemoi
? Eudanemos (hero? - altar known)
Eumolpidai
Eumolpos, and other Eleusinian heroes (sacrifice known)
supplied the hierophant
Euneidai
Euneos (no cult known)
Dionysos Melponienos
Hesychidai
Hesychos (sacrifice known)
Semnai
Thaulonidai
Thaulon (no cult known)
Zeus Polieushh
Theoinidaih7
(?)Dionysos Theoinos and nymph(s)
Ionidai
Ion (tomb known)hx
Kephalidai
Kephalos (cult at Thorikos probably not connected)
Apollo at Aigaleos
Kerykes
Keryx (no cult known)
various, providing Eleusinian ministrants and herald of Apollo Pythios
Ko(i)ronidai
Koiron (no cult known, and Koronides probably claimed as eponyms)
celebrated Dionysiac Theoinia
Thaulon is the best-attested name for the institutor of this rite. h7 Vanderpool, AJP 100 (1979) 213-6. Perhaps identical with the Koironidai; see p. 67. hX If this is the Ion it is of course an anomaly that one family in particular should be associated with the ancestor of the Ionians.
hh
79
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I
Krokonidai
Krokon (no cult known)
Kynnidai Kolieishy Lykomidai
? Kynnes (no cult known)
Mesogei~i’~ Metionidai ? Pamphidai Praxiergidai Salamiilioi
Semachidai Philaidai
performed rite of K P O connexion with Hestia Apollo Kynneios
K ~ Sat
Eleusis;
(?)Aphrodite Kolias and Genetyllides cults connected with mysteries of Lykos (no cult known Phlya probably not originally identical with Lykos son of Pandion) Herakles at Diomeia Diomos (priest known) named from king, no cults known ? providers of sacred music ? Pamphos (no cult known)
Eurysakes (sacrifice and priest known) and nameless heroes Semachos (no cult known) Philaios (no cult known)
Erechtheion cults during Thargelion (Plynteria, Kallynteria) Athena Skiras (Oschophoria), Aglauros Pandrosos and Kourotr~phos,~’ Herakles at Porthmos Dionysos
Philleidai Ph ytalidai
Phytalos (tomb known)
Charidai
Kranaos at Lamptrai (priest known)
supplied priestess of Demeter at Eleusis (?)Zeus Meilichios at Kephisos; Demeter and Kore, Athena, Poseidon (all at Lakiadai)
See A. Raubitschek, ‘Kolieis’ in Cpopos: tribute to Benjamin Dean Meritt, ed. D. W. Bradeen and M. F. McGregor (Locust Valley 1974) 137-8. 70 See S. Dow and D. Gill, AJA 69 (1965) 1 13-4. I think this is a deme cult: see Appendix I , S.V. ~ y h o l ~ p o s .
by
5: THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP: TRIBES AND DEMES One of the most distinctive features of Athens, and indeed of most Greek cities, was the facility with which new formally constituted groups, new subdivisions of the community were constantly being created. Not only did new small, private groups continue to spring up, but often enough it was possible to make new official divisions of the population along both tribal and regional lines. In Attica, the reforms of Cleisthenes were both sudden and far-reaching. Although many of the old groups continued to exist (for some religious purposes even the old Ionian tribes continued in use’), a new division of the community now superseded them in general importance. The tribe was the new unit of military assembly; the deme expressed a man’s identity as a citizen, as well as his local loyalties. Naturally the new units received religious expression, whether this occurred in a deliberate and organised manner (as in the case of the tribes) or more haphazardly and spontaneously. This expression was mainly and most obviously concentrated in the sphere of the heroic, whether in cult or myth or both; most often, a particular hero, usually eponymous, sums up the group’s identity and traditions.
1. The Cleisthenic tribes The tribal reforms of Cleisthenes, involving the assignment of the ten new tribes to ten heroes, constitute perhaps the most obvious Athenian example of the state’s role in the fostering of cult. Legislative processes established the tribes, and an official consultation of Delphi determined or perhaps rather sanctioned the assignation of a hero to each tribe. But it is clear from the account in Arist. Arh. Pol. 2 1.6 that this process did not involve the creation of new cults; all the heroes were the objects of pre-existing worship. Naturally, we know pitifully little about the pre-Cleisthenic cults of the soon-to-be tribal heroes; all that can be deduced is the area of Attica to which each cult was native. While Ajax comes from Salamis and Hippothon from Eleusis, the other heroes seems to be chiefly from Athens itself, although some have possible additional connexions with other parts of Attica.’ Aristotle speaks of the hundred pre, although it may be little more than a synonym selected heroes put forward as & p ~ q $ ~ c awhich for ‘hero’ does suggest that like so many heroes these played a part in the mythical foundation or strengthening of their particular area, or of Attica in general. Nothing in this sets the eponymous heroes apart from many others, or suggests that Aristotle’s statement that the Pythia chose the final ten out of a list of a hundred should not be believed. More details emerge only from a study of the post-Cleisthenic, tribal cult. Here perhaps the most conspicuous feature is the close connexion of the tribe’s affairs with its eponym. The hero’s shrine acted as a kind of centre for the whole tribe, as can be seen most I
The Nikomachos calendar, LSS 10,47. Erechtheus: at Marathon or Rhamnous, Nonnus 39.210-3 ( v d q s Mapabhvos), Suda, Phot. S.V. ‘Papvo6ma N&p&a<(E. the son of Nemesis and founder of her temple). Leos: at Hagnous, though this hero appears to be distinct from the Athenian Leos - which one is identical with‘the eponymos is not certain; Steph. Byz. S.V. ‘AyvoOs (quoting Solon’s axones), Plut. Thes. 12. See n. 43. Akamas: possibly in the Tetrapolis. The Tetrapolis calendar has a sacrifice to the &K&paVTE< in connexion with the Tritopatreis. Originall they were probably vague, unpersonified daimones like the other group, but de Sanctis’ suggestion (ArthisIl 13) that they were identified with Akamas and Demophon, the sons of Theseus, becomes more likely in view of the action of E. Heraclidae (set, at least partly, in Marathon), esp. line 119. Kekrops: the Thriasian lain, IG 112 2776.196, but this is late and probably not significant. Hippothon: in Eleusis (and only there), IG I1 1149, 1153, Paus. 1.38.4, etc. Ajax: the Aianteia on Salamis, see references in Deubner 228. The evidence for the cults of all the ten is presented and discussed by Uta Kron, Die zehn attischen Phylenherwn (AM suppl. 5) (Berlin 1976).
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clearly from the practice of placing inscribed honorary decrees for the tribe’s officials there, attested for six tribes, but surely common to all.3 The lack of evidence for the practice before the fourth century is presumably due to accident of survival, or to the greater currency of the honorary decree in the later period. In the individual heroon there would be more room, and hence more permanence, than by the statues of the eponymoi in the agora. From a rather mutilated decree of Hippothontis, found at Eleusis (IG 112 1149), it appears that the announcement of the honour was also made in the shrine, which suggests that members of the tribe were assembled there for sacrifice. In the case of Pandionis it is certain that the tribe held an assembly in connexion with a religious function, the Pandia, in the first quarter of the fourth century (IG 112 1140). At the &yop& after the festival, when the tribe was most conveniently gathered at the sanctuary of Pandion, decrees would presumably be moved and announcements made.4 A decree of Kekropis (IG 112 1141) states that it was passed at the tribe’s ~ v p i &yop&, a held on the acropolis (presumably at the Kekropion); thus other tribe assemblies will have taken place during the year, but this one was fixed and r e g ~ l a r .Probably ~ it took place after some public festival. Just so the Pandia are more than an exclusive assembly of the tribe for their own rites; this is a recognised public festival. Apart from Ajax, whose celebrations on Salamis were relatively inaccessible, and whose tribal shrine was in any case in Athens, Pandion is the only eponymous hero we know definitely to be associated with a public festival, but it seems very likely that all or most of them received a subordinate sacrifice at some public rite, at which the tribe would then be present in strength.6 If the Pandia were a festival of Zeus, as the Panathenaia of Athena, it is nonetheless clear that Pandion received a lesser sacrifice and was very probably regarded as the hero-founder of the rite.’ The Pandia, then, although a city festival, were also particularly the festival of Pandionis, so that members of the tribe would be seen by the public in general to occupy a special position with regard to festival and hero. While most of the eponymoi had shrines in Athens, Ajax and Hippothon are in a special position, their cults centring respectively on Salamis and Eleusis. It is interesting that these two eponymoi, along with Oineus, are omitted from the Marathon monument .at Delphi in favour of Theseus, Kodros and the otherwise unknown Phileus (who is often suspected of being a corruption. perhaps of Philaios or Neleus), and it is an attractive though daring suggestion that a revision of the tribal heroes may have been made, incorporating helpful heroes from outside the &mu, subsequently to the original reforms, in the wake of the final victory over the Persians.x There are, however, other reasons for including such heroes in the list, and for the Pandionis: chiefly IG 112 1138, 1157, 1144, 1148; see further D. M. Lewis, ABSA 50 (1955) 22, for a list of texts which may have been set up in the shrine of Pandion. Akamantis: Mitsos, xpx. ’Eq. (1965) 131ff. Kekropis: IG 112 1156 (in addition 1141, 1143, I155 were found on the acropolis). Hippothontis: IG 112 1149, 1153 (found at Eleusis), 1163. Aiantis: Hesperia 7 (1938) 94 no. 15. Antiochis: in the shrine of Herakles at Kynosarges, Karouzos, xpx. Aehz. 8 (1923) 85ff. For the sense of wpia dyopdr as ‘regular meeting’ see Whitehead, Demes 90. In the decree which mentions this assembly it is significant that it is the priest of Pandion who is to be honoured. Such connexions are necessarily speculative. Aigeus may well have played a part in the Theseia or Oschophoria, and as founder of certain divine cults (below n. 5 5 ) he is likely to have received a sacrifice at the related festivals. Erichthonios, a figure close to Erechtheus and possibly identical with him in cult, was credited with the institution of the Panathenaia (Hellanikos FGrH 323a F 2; Androtion ib. 324 F 2; Marm. Par. AIO. See J. D. Mikalson. ‘Erzchtheus and the Panathenaia’, AJP 97 (1976) 141-53). The appearance of the priest of Hippothon in the Eleusinian accounts (IG 112 1672.290) makes his part in a larger festival certain. The lexicographers speak of the Pandia as a festival of Zeus: Phot., Etym. M. s.v., Pollux 1.37. They are followed by Wilamowitz (Der Glauhe der Hellenen 1.277, 2.3 n. 21, and Deubner, 176-7. A Pandion-Pandia connexion would seem to supply an incompatible etymology, but such logical problems are in fact common: see pp. 93-4 and p. 71 n. 35. This is suggested by Mr A. H. Griffiths, in an as yet unpublished paper. In his theory, the presence of Hippothon is to be explained by the divine intervention at Eleusis, Hdt. 8.65, while the relevance of Ajax and Salamis to the
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moment this hypothesis must remain unverifiable. In any case, it is clear enough that Ajax originally had no cult in the city; the Athenian hero was Eurysakes, perhaps at first a nameless hero connected with a shield and only later identified as Ajax’s (post-Homeric) son.’ This identification would almost certainly take place during the long sixth-century quarrel with Megara over Salamis, so that Ajax’s cult was probably introduced at Eurysakes’ sanctuary at Melite well before his adoption as eponymos.“’ It is clear anyway that Aiantis did use the Eurysakeion as its centre in the fourth century,” and it can hardly be the case that the Salaminian sanctuary was ever used by the tribe. Salamis stood outside the local tribal divisions and was not part of Attica. Later, in the late second century, we find references to an Athenian Aianteion,I2 which may or may not be the Eurysakeion; it is clear that Ajax became more established at Athens as time went on. Pausanias refers rather vaguely to his ‘honours among the Athenians’, mpkt X6rpaioy n p a i (1.35.3), but to Herodotus, speaking of the eponymous heroes, he is an outsider, a bit of an anomaly, hozuy~izova~ aoGyya~ov, i ~eivov dov~a.” In the fifth century he was still a Salaminian, accommodated only by courtesy at the altar of his son at Melite.I4 Hippothon, on the other hand, was no foreigner, but unassailably Attic.I5 He was an Eleusinian hero pure and simple; no details of cult or myth connect him with any other part of Attica. Whether he was originally connected with the Mysteries, or, as is perhaps more probable, was only later drawn into their orbit, in the later fourth century sacrifice was certainly made to him in connexion with Demeter and Kore.I6 Pausanias (1.38.4) mentions the heroon of Hippothon, which must be the Hippothontion of inscriptions (IG 112 1149, found at Eleusis; 1163). The tribe follows thecult-organisation of its eponym; it is clear that Hippothontis had its headquarters at Eleusis, where two honorary decrees from the first half of the fourth century victory over the Persians is obvious. Oineus might perhaps be connected with Oinoe towards Plataia. For an alternative (not, in my view, very attractive) solution to the problem of the Marathon monument (Paus. 10.10.1) see P. Vidal-Naquet, ‘An enigma at Delphi’, The Black Hunter (Baltimore 1986) 302-15. ’Thus W. S. Ferguson, Hesperiu 7 (1938) 16; the mythical identification of a hero anonymous in cult is a very common phenomenon, as for instance when two different heroes, at Phaleron and in the Kerameikos, are both thought to be Androgeos son of Minos (see Appendix 1 s.v.). But it is also possible that the cult was founded as that of Ajax’s suitably named son. i0 Contra Ferguson, above. For the use of Ajax and his sons in this quarrel, compare the story that Ajax’s sons Philaios and Eurysakes took Athenian citizenship and made over Salamis to Athens, Plut. Sol. 10, Paus. 1.35.1 a transparent invention; and the famous line in the Catalogue, I / . 2.557 (with 7.198, the only Homeric passage to connect Ajax with Salamis at all, though his cult is obviously old there). I Hesperiu 7 ( 1938) 94 no. 3 (= Agora I 3625), dated 32716. The ephebic decrees IG Il2 1008 (line 87) and Hesperiu 24 (1955) 140-1 (Agora 1286). The latter contains five ephebic decrees: one is to ofloat [6]v r& ~&pEveiroc Akxvzo<, the others to o f l o a ~dv &pp&. IG I 3 426.7 may provide a fifth-century reference to an Aianteion: see Lewis, ABSA 50 (1955) 16 n. 40. I 3 5.66.2: ‘an ally and a neighbour of the town, a foreigner.’ I4A cup of the Codrus Painter (pl. 6A, ARV2 1268.1 = Brommer3 379.B1), dated 440-30, shows Ajax and Menestheus as departing warriors, accompanied by Athena, Lykos and Melite. The precise mythological details are uncertain, but the Athenian emphasis is clear. I s One might at first sight suspect Arcadian connexions: the Tegean Hippothoos was like the Attic hero connected with Poseidon, and son of Kerkyon as Hippothon was his grandson. Moreover, Plut. Thes. 1 1 makes the Eleusinian Kerkyon come from Arcadia. Curiously Hippothoos too was the eponym of a tribe at Tegea (Paus. 8.53.6, confirmed by numerous inscriptions). But there is no sign that the two were identified by Athenians or Tegeans, though if we had Euripides’ Alope we might receive a different picture. As far as we can see, Hippothon was securely Eleusinian: E6pohno~AOhqO< ‘2% ~ c l i‘InnoIYo~vp&ydrIYupo<(from an unknown epic, Hesiod fr. 227 M-W). A bell-krater of the Oreithyia Painter (ARV2 496.5) shows Hippothon as a bystander at the Mission of Triptolemos. But the scholiast to Nicander, Ale-viph. 131 is merely misunderstanding his text in making Hippothon take the place of Keleos as Demeter’s host. lhThe Eleusinian temple accounts of 329/8 record the expenses of a ndhavoq to the priest of Hippothon (IG 112 1672.290).
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have been found (IG 112 1149, 1153). A later decree of the tribe (ib. 1163, now dated 284/3) was found in Athens, and states that one copy should be set up in the Asklepieion and one at the Hippothontion. But this is a special case, as the man honoured was priest of Asklepios; there is nothing to suggest that keeping copies of the tribal decrees in the city was normal practice. In this case at least, cult usage was more important than practical considerations for tribal affairs, and the tribal cult reflects the pre-Cleisthenic, uncentralised situation. Of course there were central elements in the cults; the eponymoi had their statues in the agora, where officials, tribal and other, posted their notices.” It is very likely that some sort of collective cult centred around these statues, at least in the fourth century, as the inventory of an unidentified heroshrine in the agora mentions ten kylikes belonging to the eponymoi, dedicated by the boule in 328/7.18 The ten could own property in close connexion, perhaps in common, and the dedication here suggests that all were in some sense present in the agora.I9 Their cult as a group would clearly be an official matter, the business of the representatives of the state as a whole. But the existing cult-structure, no doubt with new, ‘official’ elements, remained alongside the new groups. Even the innovation in bringing Ajax to Athens probably antedates Cleisthenes. The eponymous heroes were not simply a decorative element designed to lend an air of verisimilitude to the new groups; the corporate life of the tribe was to a large extent organised round the pre-existing cults and traditions of the heroes. The hero eponymous to the group was, of course, a phenomenon already in existence. The gene must already have had their traditions of an eponymous hero, whom in some cases they worshipped. And some localities, as we shall see, almost certainly boasted heroes with names similar to their own. In both these cases, the eponymous hero had a special significance to the group; the coincidence in name signified a coincidence in substance, and the hero was in some senses the projection of the group itself onto the plane of myth or cult or both, and its expression in a unified, individualised form. Even the idea of heroes as tribal patrons was not new, it seems; by the time of Herodotus, and probably much earlier, the four old Ionian tribes had come to be regarded as named after the sons of Ion. Thus it is that Herodotus can speak of the Cleisthenic eponymoi as ‘other heroes’ (Ezepot (poe~, 5.66), although we know nothing of any cult of the four pre-Cleisthenic tribal heroes. With this background it was all the easier for the new heroes, and the new tribes, to fit in and be felt as something more than nice-sounding fictions. Some measure of continuity was important; perhaps rather unexpectedly, it is clear that Cleisthenes did not always choose heroes who had no cult managed by an important family or genos, or even institute a new, nongentilician cult of an important family’s hero, and so weaken that family’s connexion with him. ~ b 6E l yEvq ~ az ib l ~c p p a z p i a ~E‘iao~vEXELV E K C ~ T O U S K ~ T &zbl m k p i a : he allowed everyone to keep their gene, their phratries, and their priesthoods according to ancestral custom. Thus the A f h . Pol. (21.6) testifies to the conservative elements in the Cleisthenic reforms, and it is broadly true that there was more of addition than substitution in the ways society was divided.”’ Aristotle’s statement does not preclude additions to the structure of the priesthoods, and after
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On the history and functions of this monument, see T. Leslie Shear, Hesperki 39 (1970) 189ff., with the references collected in P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athe/?aionPoliteio (Oxford I98 I ) 259. 593-4. S. Rotroff, Hesperia 47 ( 1978) 196-209; see further D. M. Lewis, ZPE 36 ( I 979) I3 1ff. The testimony of Dem. 24.8 and 43.58 is, as Rotroff says, ambiguous, but with the inscription it becomes inore likely that money belonging to the group as a whole is meant. Cf. Cru-v:Essays presented to G. E. M . de Ste. Croi.\-,ed. P. Cartledge and F. D. Harvey. 189-92 with 11. 2. Some material is necessarily re-examined here.
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the creation of the new tribes any of the eponymous heroes could theoretically have been the object of three cults, in the sense of being worshipped by three distinct groups of people state, genos and tribe.*’ So, in the second century after Christ, Dionysos Melpomenos had a Euneid priest and a priest from the technitai (IG 112 5056, 5060). But the epigraphical evidence goes against a parallel situation in the cases of the eponymoi. Kekrops is an eponymous hero, yet still in the late first century BC his priest is a member of the genos of the Amynandridai. The cult in question is surely the major state cult of Kekrops, in which the whole city was involved, but the priest could in theory have performed sacrifice on behalf of the genos only. Did he also perform a priestly function for the tribe Kekropis? A late third century prytany decree of the tribe suggests that he may have done;” there the ‘priest of the eponymos’23 belongs not to Kekropis as one might expect, but either to the deme Potamos, divided at that time between Leontis and Antigonis, or else to Paiania (Pandionis). There is no proof that he was an Amynandrid, but this is surely the most likely explanation. Kekrops, then, was served by one priest only, in accordance with custom before Cleisthenes. The organisation of the hero’s priesthood presents a disparate picture throughout the In six or seven tribes (Aigeis, Pandionis, Leontis, probably Akamantis,*s Oineis, Aiantis and Antiochis) the prytany decrees show that the priest of the eponymos is a member of the tribe in question. The most complete evidence comes from Pandionis, where there are also other types of document which show that the ‘priest of Pandion’ as well as the ‘priest of the eponymos’ was a member of Pandionis; the two titles should certainly be identified.2h But for Erechtheus and Hippothontis, as well as Kekropis, the decrees show that the priest of the eponymos did not necessarily belong to the relevant tribe.17 We know of the important gentilician priesthoods of Poseidon Erechtheus and of Kekrops, while the appearance of the priest of Hippothon in the Eleusinian temple accounts suggests that this priesthood too was an old-established (and therefore presumably gentilician) one. Further, the same man is pridst of the eponymos for Hippothontis in at least two, possibly three, separate years and may be succeeded by his son; this looks like a gentilician rather than a ‘political’ priesthood, where annual tenure and the use of sortition from among a large group are the The case of Erechtheis has been much But there is no actual evidence of cults exclusive to a genos: see p. 73. A,qora XV no. I32 = Dow, P/:vtaneis no. 3 1.
It is difficult to see what function the priest of the eponymos can have if, for example, in the case of Pandionis he is not identical with the priest of Pandion. It is true that the title is not attested until the latter part of the third century, but Feaver (below, n. 24) plausibly connects this with a growing tendency to abandon the name of the hero and call him simply 6 6xbvupoq. (Similarly, a little earlier, the prytany lists cease to have the form of a dedication; the second development at least may reflect a decline in the religious force behind the conventions.) Certainly the priest of the eponymos need not be a member of the tribe in question, and it is precisely the cults we know or securely assume to have gentilician priesthoods where we find that the priest of the eponymos is not a member of the tribe. 14The priests of the eponymos are best summarised in Agora XV 12ff. Priests of named eponymous heroes: R. Feaver, YCS 15 (1957) 135. 25 We have only one piece of evidence for Akamantis, the prytany decree Agora XV 128 (= Pritchett, Hesp. 9 (1940) 116, but cf. his change of mind in Hesp. 10 (1941) 395, Hesp. 15 (1946) 146-7). The reading is dependent on restoration, and the priest of the eponymos may belong either to Sphettos (Akamantis) or to Aphidna (Aiantis); editors generally accept that Sphettos is more probable. I 6 Above, n. 23. I7 A
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disputed, but a prytany decree showing that the priest of the eponymos is a member of Kekropis seems to imply that this priest too was the gentile one - in this case presumably the Eteoboutad priest of Poseidon Erechtheus.” (See Appendix 3.) There was then much diversity in the individual cults of the eponymous heroes, both in cultplaces and more particularly in priesthoods. We are not dealing with the arbitrary imposition of a new set of cults, uniform in their structure. Presumably before 508/7 each of the eponymoi had received some cult on the old gentilician pattern (Ajax is a possible exception, if with Ferguson we believe that he had no cult in Attica proper before Cleisthenes). What other cult could they have had, unless it were completely sporadic and unconnected? This pattern was plainly not abandoned totally; while it is possible that the priesthoods of some cults were transferred to the tribe immediately in 508/7, it is perhaps more likely that the changes occurred disparately during the course of the fifth century, for which we have no evidence, or even later. Religious conservatism played its part in the establishment of the eponymoi; on the other hand, the way the situation changes is consonant with the character of Cleisthenes’ reforms. The simple model which has Cleisthenes taking power out of the hands of the aristocrats by removing their religious privileges will clearly not apply here. The old Amynandrid priest continues to serve Kekrops - but there is a difference. Such cult organised along gentilician lines served as we have seen (among other things) to articulate a special relationship between the god or hero worshipped and the family from whom his priest was drawn. Kekrops was worshipped by and on behalf of the whole city, it is true, but nonetheless the whole city could see his particular connexion with the Amynandridai (for a parallel we need only think of the special place of the Eumolpidai and to a lesser extent the Kerykes in all matters connected with the Mysteries). After Cleisthenes, this special place of course remained, but was overlaid by another connexion, that of Kekrops with the newly formed tribe of Kekropidai, a tenth of all Athenian citizens selected with no regard to immemorial divisions in the citizenry, and the Amynandrid priest will offer sacrifice on behalf not only of the more abstract people as a whole, but for this new motley group as well.3o Again, at the Pandia, a public festival for the whole city - this is particularly emphasized in the prefix Pan- - all participants can see the special status of the Pandionidai, just as before and still after Cleisthenes the Plynteria, for instance, displayed the special status of the Praxiergidai. This kind of relationship had previously been confined to members of genE and perhaps to orgeones; after the reforms, whether deliberately or not, this uniqueness was destroyed and every citizen would experience such special status at one time or another. But did the ‘democratisation’ of the ten cults result in any real feeling of attachment by the phyletai to their own hero? The answer depends on the level at which we look. We know of only one apparently private dedication to the eponymos appropriate to the demotic, made by two brothers from Pergase in Erechtheis to Poseidon Erechtheus in the fifth century (IG I2 580). Moving up to deme level, the evidence remains exiguous, but may suggest a distinction notes to this inscription’s new incarnation as IG I 3 35 we are assured that [61&pi0 iep&rcx]i ‘vestigiis non respondent’. lY A,~or-u xv no. 98. jOBut it is unlikely that the priest’s ability to organise the cult was very far limited by tribal officials. The 6~1pehq~cxi, who belonged to the tribe, do not seem to have had many specifically religious duties. In 1G 112 1152, they are given fifty drachmae towards a sacrifice, but here they are the outgoing officials giving thanks for a successful year in office, and in IG 112 28 I8 they make a dedication in similar circumstances. The prytany board certainly had stated sacrifices to perform, as their innumerable decrees inform us, but not to their eponytnos. and in a state capacity, not a tribal one. An inscription of the second century after Christ (SEG XVI1.81) reveals a <&~oposrhv IYE~OV E ~ K O V W Vbelonging to Akamantis (evidently this cult possessed several images). but this is a minor official.
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between city and outlying demes. Within fifty years of the establishment of the Cleisthenic tribes we find sacrifice performed to Leos in the city deme of Skambonidai. Skambonidai does belong to Leontis, but the connexion is (irritatingly) not quite certainly tribal: the Leokoreion, which (at least in the fourth century) was the site of a cult of Leos’ daughters, was certainly near and perhaps within the deme.” There may be some contamination, but nonetheless the daughters fail to feature in the lex sucm, suggesting that it is indeed Leos the tribal eponym we have to deal with. Again, at the Dipylon gate in the deme Kerameis (the boundary of the inner and outer Kerameikos) we find a third-century altar apparently dedicated to Zeus Herkeios, Hermes and Akamas; since there is no other evidence for a cult of Akamas in Kerameis, he probably owes his presence in this Akamantid deme to the Cleisthenic reforms.’’ But as far as we can tell the outlying demes do not seem to maintain a cult of their tribal heroes, either within their own boundaries or on a deme basis at the hero’s main shrine. At Erchia we find no mention of Aigeus, at Thorikos no trace of Akamas. Such a discrepancy, if indeed it is a real discrepancy and not due merely to the incomplete state of the evidence, is not too surprising; the inhabitants of Athens itself, the &ow, would more easily become familiar with the eponymoi, because they had more or less easy access to the agora and to the heroes’ various sanctuaries, most of which were in or near Athens itself. But on another level it would seem that while the remoter demes, each with its own strongly defined traditional cults and myths,” might take less Interest in the tribal eponymoi, for the individual demesman the position might be different. The heroes in the deme calendars are by and large local ones - the hero over the plain, the hero by the Hellotion - of little interest to anyone outside the deme, but important to those who belonged. Aigeus and Akamas could hardly encroach on their functions. Yet when the demesman came to town, though deme consciousness still no doubt remained strong within him, other groups also claimed his loyalty. His civic and military duties were performed alongside men from quite other parts of Attica, to whom he was however united by the tie of the tribe. As he fought or sat on the prytany board with such men, so he joined them in sacrificing to the eponymous hero he shared with them.’4 For him the cult of this hero was not, could not be, a rival to that of the old deme heroes; as the worship of the heroes back home was essential to the identity and continuity of the deme, the worship of the eponymoi expressed each man’s identity in the larger Athenian context. A changed political situation has added new religious functions to be filled, and the cult in its turn acts as a guarantee of the political system. But the most direct evidence for the significance of the eponymoi occurs in the funeral speech [Dem.] 60.27ff, and the significance lies in myth rather than in cult.’5 The tribal division is location of the Leokoreion (Heqxvia 50 (198 I ) 347-8) has not been universally accepted. is just possible that drrdryavzos is an otherwise unknown epithet of Hermes, but Kohler’s explanation (AM 4 ( I 879) 288) is usually accepted. ‘ 3 Cf. Paus. I .3 I . 1-6. 3J The normal lace for this sacrifice would be at the relevant festival, which would be followed by a tribal assembly (thus IG I1 1140). The prytaneis, on the expiry of their term of office, might make a dedication to their eponymos; thus IG 112 I742 = A g c m ~XV 13, a dedication to Leos by the outgoing prytaneis. Similar documents are collected most easily in A g . XV 1-56. Most fourth-century prytany lists are in the form of a dedication, although it is not always stated to whom, and sometimes it is to figures other than the eponymos. In a military setting, we hear of a sacrifice performed by Aiantis after Plataia, though to the Sphragitic nymphs local to the battlefield, not to Ajax. But silence need not be indicative. 33 See R. Stupperich, Staatshegrijhriis wid P r-i\~ardenkma/ in7 klassisc~henAtheri (Miinster 1977) 49-50, who argues that this feature of the speech is an innovation of the orator. On the dnizdrcpios hoyo5 in general, see N. Loraux, L’irir~~ntion d’AthPnes (Paris 198I ) , esp. 133-56 (= The Iiwention ofArheris (Cambridge, Mass. 1986) 132-55). 31 Thompson’s 3l It
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natural to a military contextjh and here the orator, having praised the dead in general, turns to each tribe and traces a connexion between the courage and patriotism of the fallen and some element in the mythology of the eponymoi. As often as not the connexion is rather forced as the author somewhat desperately picks out for mention the heroes' children or merely mentions their divine fathers. But evidently he thought this suitably stirring stuff, which suggests that similar mythological thoughts may have been in the minds of the phylefai themselves, at least where the less shadowy heroes were concerned. It would be natural to take a sympathetic interest in the exploits of one's own eponymos. But if myth was important in the original choice of the eponymoi, the myths would frequently have been other than those used by this orator. It is only by special pleading that the actions of Prokne and Philomela can be made praiseworthy, and in any case Pandion, with his shrine on the acropolis, is surely more than just the father of these two. When we look at the traditions attaching to the ten figures, there is no completely uniform mythological thread which connects them all, just as their cults show no unity either in place or in organisational form. Nonetheless, we have seen that very broadly the cults of the tribal heroes went some way towards supplementing natural local feeling with a sense of pan-Attic identity which cut across regional divisions, and to some extent this unifying function is mirrored in the myths associated with the heroes. Just as a majority of the cults are centred 0.1 Athens, so too the myths show a greater proportion of 'interesting' heroes than a purely random selection from the hundred names submitted by Cleisthenes should do. There are four Attic kings among the ten, one son of a king, and a sixth, Leos, whose role in myth looks like a king's, though he fails to feature in the king-list~.~'(Of course cult and myth are inseparable here; the heroes who have cult in Athens more easily develop into those who are known all over Attica.) This is not the only factor suggesting that the Attic synoecism is being stressed; although Theseus himself is not an eponymous hero, both his father Aigeus and his son Akamas are.j* For [Dem.] 60, indeed, the salient feature of Aigeus is precisely that his son was Theseus, despite the fact that he was also known as the founder of several The importance of Theseus in the last years of the tyranny and those immediately following is too well known to need further emphasis.$O His significance lies both in his quasi-epic character, with his saga of adventures - an Attic answer to Herakles - anu in his claim to have effected the Attic synoeGism (and perhaps even to have established a proto-democracy). Erechtheus the warrior has also some synoecistic claims, as does Kekrops, whose Dodekapolis foreshadows a united Attica, and both, of course, are directly represented among the tribes. Among the kings Pandion perhaps has special significance, too; he was the hero of the Pandia, which as we have seen was most likely a synoecistic festival of Zeus. Probably he was regarded as the first to celebrate this festival, in which all the inhabitants of Attica were to take part. The tradition of the division of Attica among his four sons$' implying his own rule over the whole of it, may also go back to
'' Funerals and monuments of the war dead were always arranged on a tribal basis: Thuc. 2.34.3, and cf. IG I 2 929. 943. In Thuc. 7.69, a moment of great emotional power, Nikias calls upon each trierarch individually by name, patronymic and tribe. " That is. the sacrifice of his daughters. In Attica it is the king's daughters who die to save their country. as the daughters of Erechtheus and, in some versions, Kekrops' daughter Aglauros (see above, p. 59). jXTheseus does however appear with the eponymoi at Delphi (Paus. 10.10.1) and it is possible that originally he belonged to their number; see above, pp. 81-2, n. 8. Antiochos. as son of Herakles. is perhaps comparable with Akamas the son of Theseus. It is also possible that Hippothon was sometimes thought of as Theseus's son: this seems to be the implication of Istros FGrH 334 F 10. "See n. 5 5 . "' See below, pp. I 17-9. J' Philochorus FGrH 328 F 94; see below, pp. I 15-7.
xx
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Cleisthenic times; the idea that this was a second king Pandion must be the work of later genealogists.
But there were aspects to be stressed other than the Athenian and centralising. Beside Erechtheus, conqueror of Eleusis, is the Eleusinian Hippothon; it is probably no accident that it is the holiest area of Attic soil, the place which conveyed the benefits of civilisation to the world, as the Proerosia ad~ertised,~? which is most obviously represented among the outlying areas of Attica. Some heroes who are primarily Athenian have also extra-Athenian connexions within Attica: Erechtheus in Marathon or Rhamnous, for instance, Leos perhaps in Hagnous (if two heroes of this name were identified4’), Akamas probably in Marathon.44 Thus their newfound importance stresses the bond between Athens and the Attic countryside. Even Ajax the stranger could be brought into connexion with Athens, through the earlier cult at the Eurysakeion. As Ajax reaffirms the Athenian claim to Salamis over Megara, so Pandion and Kekrops can be seen as stressing Athenian primacy over Megara and Boeotia. Although Pandion had a sanctuary on the Athenian acropolis, the Megarians claimed to have his tomb outside their city, and he had another shrine within the walls.45 Elements in the story of Pandion suggest that these facts were explained in such a way as to give Athens the mythological advantage; thus the story that he was banished and fled to Megara where he became the son-in-law and successor of king Pylas.46 According to Hesychius (s.v. 2v 6’ ATI~VUX)Kekrops also had Megarian connexions; Athena as the bird a16uia picked up Kekrops under her wings and took him to Megara. This is probably a careless confusion with Pandion, who according to Pausanias ( I .41.6) was buried ‘in what is called the cave of Athena Aithyia’. Better attesied are Kekrops’ Boeotian affinities; Pausanias mentions his heroon at Haliartos (9.33.1). It was presumably these discrepancies which led to the creation, most likely atthidographic, of Kekrops I1 and Pandion 11. But before such rationalisation was attempted, it was obviously advantageous from an Athenian point of view to claim these heroes for Athens. Making them eponyms of considerable portions of the Athenian population was one way of doing this, and it is tempting to conclude that Pandion and Kekrops as eponymoi were, among other things, a dig at Megara and the Boeotian cities.47 The connexions of Akamas cover a wider area. As the son of Theseus, his function, either singly or with his brother Demophon, is to spread the influence of Theseus’ kingdom to farflung areas of the Greek world. He has clear connexions with Cyprus, which seem to spring from the place-name Akamas for the area between Paphos and Arsinoe (Strabo 683). provisions of IG l 3 78. encouraging all Greek cities to bring firstfruits to Eleusis at the Proerosia, are a clear assertion of the primacy of Eleusis in things agricultural. -)’ The cult of the herald Leos at Hagnous was certainly old, as it was mentioned in Solon’s axones. The connexion with Theseus in his story (Plut. Thes. 13) would fit with a persistent theme amon the eponymoi (see n. 38). But since dedications by officials of Leontis have been found at the propylaia (IG I1 1742) and at Dafni (ib. 2818) a location in the town seems more likely than one at Hagnous, and so the eponymos would be the Athenian Leos, as [Dem.] 60.29 assumes. The two may have been identified at some stage. “ See n. 2. PdUS. 1.39.4. 4 1.6. I h Paus. 1.39.4. Pandion’s son-in-law Tereus also had cult at Megara, ib. 41.8-9, Strabo 423. 47 Ajax also has an obvious relevance to Megara, via Salamis. Kron, Phylenher~wn30, further supposes that the choice of Hippothon was aimed against the Peloponnesian league, Cleomenes having garrisoned his troops in Eleusis during his invasion of Attica (Hdt. 5.74.2); but this seems somewhat fanciful. More pointed may be the selection of Antiochos, the son of Herakles whose descendants led the return of the Herakleidai (Paus. 2.4.3, etc). At first sight such an archetypally Dorian hero seems odd for Athens, but granted that the Spartan ally of Cleisthenes’ enemy Isagoras, king Cleomenes, claimed to be ‘not Dorian but Achaean’ (Hdt. 5.72.4), is it possible that Antiochos was intended to appeal to the anti-Cleomenes faction in Sparta? 4? The
F
THE HERO A N D T H E SMALLER GROUP, I1
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According to Strabo the city of Soloi was founded by the Athenians Phaleros and Akamas, while Plutarch (Solon 26) states that Philokypros’ capital Aipeia, later to become Soloi, was founded by Demophon. Chytroi was also said to have been founded by a grandson of A k a m a ~ . ~The * Cypriot attachments, however, more probably date from the time of Cimon’s campaigns than from the late sixth century. Of more interest in this connexion is Akamas’ presence in Thrace and the Chersonese. Homer, to whom Theseus’ son Akamas is unknown, mentions a Thracian king Akamas (IZ. 6.7), and it is presumably from this tiadition that the Athenian infiltrates the area. The story is first attested in Aeschines (2.31); in its fuller form it is as follows: when Akamas and Demophon had freed their grandmother Aithra from her Trojan captivity, they returned through Thrace where Phyllis, the daughter of the king of the Bisaltoi, fell in love with Akamas (sometimes Demophon). They were married, and as her dowry she brought him the Ennea-hodoi area.4y This, of course, was the part of Thrace which Peisistratos had first taken an interest in; its gold and silver ores led to increasing Athenian interest in the area, although it was never easy to maintain influence. Another version makes Akamas and Antimachos leaders in cultivating the Chersonese; in itself it is late testimony, but it is most likely to originate from a time when Athenian presence in the Chersonese was topical, that is, at the time of the expedition of the elder Miltiades (whose family retained interests there until 493).50Since Thrace and the Chersonese were both areas of great Athenian interest in the decades preceding the reforms, it seems likely that quite a lot had been heard of Akamas, and that when he came into greater prominence as eponymos these northern connexions were his primary association. The Aeschines passage demonstrates how Akamas continued to be used to bolster Athenian claims in those areas. Not all the eponymous heroes had such strictly political overtones, of course. That would not have been very subtle, and besides, other aspects of the life of the polis deserved prominence. Oineus is a very shadowy figure, but from his name and one version of his descent ([Dem.] 60 calls him son of Dionysos)” it is certain that he was originally one of the figures connected with the introduction of the vine into Attica, presumably without the misfortunes of Ikarios or the strong family connexions which seem to belong to Semachos.” Similarly Hippothon as an Eleusinian hero will have had or gained some connexion with the beginnings of agriculture. These two, who may possibly not have been among the original ten (above, n. S), were culture-heroes and nothing more, but the king Kekrops was also credited with many cultural innovations of a more sophisticated sort: the introduction of writing into Attica, the burial of the dead, and, most often, the institution of monogamous marriage.i‘ Many of the details are no doubt relatively late, but the fact that almost all such innovations are ascribed to Kekrops rather than to any other king must be indicative of his original nature. Steph. Byz. S.V. X G ~ p o tfrom , Alexander Polyhistor and Xenagoras. A variant attested in the scholia on the Aeschines passage, makes the marriage occur between Phyllis and Demophon; their sons were Akamas and Amphipolis, the latter of whom can hardly antedate 436. Another version, popular later (e.g. Ovid, Heroides 2) has Demophon abandon Phyllis. who thereupon curses the Athenians; this is surely no earlier than the loss of Amphipolis, explaining the Athenian lack of success in the area. Schol. Thuc. I . I I . Possibly originally the Ennea-hodoi and Chersonese stories were rivals. each with :I propaganda purpose. The Philaid family was not naturally on the best of terms with the Peisistl-atids. 5 1 [Dem]. 60.30; but Paus. 1.5.2 makes him son of Pandion.
4x 4y
’’Steph. Byz.
S . V . EqpaXi6ai. Gijpos xz~im‘js, &no Cqpkixcu ~ arci:< i buyarpdtoiv t!n&~&vC;)i$q Atovuoo~. &cp’ &v cii iipemt a6zo0. 53 Writing: Tac. Ann. 1 I . 14. Burial: Cic. L q g . 2.25.63. Monogamy and other institutions: e.g. schol. Ar. Plrlt. 773: cf. Klearchos of Soloi, fr. 73 Wehrli. In early represeatations of the birth of Erichthonios. Kekrops stnnds by. representing the city to which the child is entrusted.
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Among his innovations are many in the religious sphere, particularly in the cults of the Acropolis (where of course his own cult was centred) but also as instituting the cult of Kronos and Rhea.’4 It was Kekrops who attracted to himself the main developments in religious practice, but Aigeus too was a cult-founder, being credited with the introduction of the worship of Aphrodite Ourania and perhaps’ of Apollo Delphinios.5’ An obscure tradition attributed the foundation of the temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous to Erechtheus,Shwhile Hippothon may have had some connexion with the institution of the Mysteries. These manifold connexions seem to place a question-mark over the tradition that the ten eponymoi were selected by the Pythia from a short-list of a hundred (Arist. Arh. Pol. 21.6). Could the whole hundred have had equally meaningful associations? Apart from the ten winners, the identity of only a few candidates is known (suggesting they retained some special status as a group),” although even with our fragmentary knowledge of the heroes of Attica it is not difficult to draw up a list of a hundred. Cleisthenes must have had many more at his disposal, and so would presumably have been able to exclude many, making his choice in some way selective. But the final choice of ten looks suspiciously ‘significant’, even more so if Theseus and Kodros were originally among the eponymoi in place of Oineus and Hippothon. So how did the Pythia choose them? Sortition from a pre-selected list, K ~ ~ ~ O C2~~~ I~ SO K ~ ~ T is of course the most characteristic democratic form of appointment to office, and if the eponymoi were selected by anything even approximating to this process we can see the‘ interesting phenomenon of potential heroic patrons undergoing the same democratic procedure as the citizens themselves.5x But the parallel need not be exact; though Zx v ~i k vat Ath. Pol. 21.5 certainly implies the use of sortition, this may be based simply on conjecture, and Cleisthenes may in fact have sent along with his list some hints on the criteria to be used in making a selection. Four kings cannot conceivably be due to chance, although whether this predilection for royalty belongs to Cleisthenes or to the Pythia cannot be known. One possibility is that Cleisthenes gave both lists and enquired, according to the oracular formula, whether the choice of ten were ‘better and more preferable’, hQov K& & ~ E I V O V . ” Whatever the detailed criteria and the manner of choice, it is clear from the mythical functions of the eponymoi that there was some method in the selection. These functions are some what we should call ‘political’, others not; but they can all be seen as directed towards the public good, towards state rather than individual, towards the ordered life of the community. There are no magicians, no healing or oracular heroes among them, to confer benefits erratically on the individual. Their benefits were given in the mythical past, and then became the common property of the people of Attica. Kronos and Rhea: Philoch. FGrH 328 F 97. Other cults: Paus. 8.2.3 (non-animal sacrifice), 1.27.1 (statue of Hermes in Erechtheion), Diod. 5.56 (sacrifice to Athena with fire), Euseb. P i m p . Eli. 10.9.22 (naming of Zeus, foundation of first altar, statue of Athena), C h r m . 2.24.27 (sacrifice of ox to Zeus). Some of these accounts may be of late origin, or even fabrications; what is noteworthy is the plethora of cults attributed to Kekrops as institutor: he continued to attract them to himself. Ourania: Paus. I . 14.7. Delphinios: Aigeus was credited with the foundation of the court and his house stood upon the spot, Plut. Thes. 12; cf. Pollux 8.1 19, Bekker Anecd. 1.255. Certain details seem to connect Aigeus further with Poseidon, Theseus’ other father. St, Suda, Phot. S.V. ‘ P ap v o 6 o m NE~EOIS: cf. n. 2. Ardphen (Herodian, n ~ p pov. i GC. 17.8) is well known. P. J. Bicknell, The D e n m ofKleisfhenes (Diss. Monash, 1972). adds (410) Kephalos (schol. E. H ~ J J J455) J . and Polyxeinos (Hsych. s.v.), but his suggestion of Panops does not appear to be well-founded. In the system as it was finally established, Araphen and Kephalos could scarcely have been made tribal heroes. of course, as they were or became eponymous heroes of demes. 5n There are limits, of course; heroes are not 6neut%vo1. ’‘I Nilsson, Historia 7 ( I 958) 243, Kron, Phyle/iher.oe/i29-30. argue against Delphic determination.
’4
’’
’’
O V ,
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I1
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Hence it is that their mythology appears more important than their cult as a criterion of selection. Nonetheless their cult became a important part of Athenian civic life, although always within contexts in which the tribal organisation was naturally emphasized. The same can usually be said of artistic depictions of the heroes, which are sufficient to demonstrate an interest in this group of ten but generally have a particular tribal reference. Some depictions are not certain; thus for instance the ten male figures on the east frieze of the Parthenon have plausibly been identified as the eponymoi, suitably present in the context of a synoecistic festival of the whole state and suitable too of course if the composition alludes to the battle of Marathon.60 For the rest, three vases belonging to the last quarter of the fifth century can resonably be taken as indicating an interest in the more obscure of the eponymous heroes.6' In all three vases, two or more of the eponymoi are grouped together, with no regard for the elaborate chronologies and filiations beloved of the atthidographers. In their capacity as tribal eponyms, these heroes are timeless figures, not characters in an organised mythological-historical past. In a bell-krater by the Dinos painter (pl. 3 , A R v 1153.17) Oineus, whom Pausanias calls the son of Pandion, appears together with him as his contemporary, and Akamas, who should be three generations younger than Pandion, is also present. The coincidence of the three suggests that they are seen R v 13 14.17) in their capacity as eponymoi. Similar is a lekanis of the Meidias painter (pl. 4, A where Pandion and Antiochos are grouped together, apparently in victory celebrations. This could be interpreted as a commemoration of some type of agonistic victory involving persons belonging to Antiochis and Pandionis, perhaps the dithyrambic contest at the Thargelia where tribes regularly competed in pain6* This in turn suggests that the Dinos painter's vase should be taken as alluding to members of the tribes represented by their eponymoi, although not here in connexion with the Thargelia.63 Whatever the occasion, the eponymoi act as a focus of interest. Perhaps too stories about them which are now lost were shown: Oineus is saying farewell, apparently to a girl labelled Choiros." Finally in another, famous, work of the Meidias painter (pl. 5 , A R v 1313.5) no fewer than four of the ten appear, accompanied by Philoktetes, Demophon and two others of uncertain identification, Klymenos and perhaps Chrysis; they comprise not only the possibly royal Oineus and the certainly royal Akamas, but also Antiochos and Hippothon. They all appear as a group of young warriors, with no distinction between the eponymoi and the others, and the main subjects of the vase, the rape of the Leukippides and the garden of the Hesperides, set them in a context of heroic exploit, perhaps a variant of the voyage of the Argo. This looks like Attic mythological patriotism, inserting local heroes into the roster of a panhellenic expedition. Or perhaps the heroes should Eponymoi: the suggestion was first made by A. S. Arvanitopoullos, AM 3 I (1906) 38-49, and by K. Weissmann, Hermes 41 (1906) 619-23. See Kron, Phylenheroen 202-14. The identification has recently been attacked by I. D. Jenkins, AJA 89 (1985) 121-7. Marathon: J. Boardman, 'The Parthenon Frieze: another View', in Festschr~$i f u r Frank Br.omnier, edd. U. Hockmann, A. Krug (Mainz 1977) 39-49. h' On pottery depictions of the eponymoi, see J. Beazley, AJA 39 (1935) 486-7; E. B. Harrison, Hesperin 33 (1964) 78-82; L. R. Burn, The Meidias Painfer. (Oxford 1987) 18-19. A possible example from earlier in the century is ARV2 601.22: thus Hauser in Furtwangler-Reichold, Griec+iwhe Vaserinialer.ri: Ar(.n.t'd?/ ller.i.or.r.o~erider. Vasenhilder. (Munich 1904-32) I1 244, 25 I , but see P. E. Arias-M. Hirmer, A Hisrory of'Gr~~eX \Jose-pniritirig.tr. Brian Shefton (London 1962) 356. Arist. Arh. Pol. 56.3. h3 Regular occasions for tribes to join together in threes and fours are not clear, but in IG l 2 1085 three tribes combine to honour a man who, they say, saved their joint expedition returning from the Megarid at the time of the revolt of 446. Although it is likely that some partially obscure joke is lurking here: on the obscene meaning of xoipo<. J. Henderson, The Mwulate Muse (New Haven 1975) 67 and especially Ar. A d ? . 777ff. Another possible Oineusstory on a vase: K. Schefold, 'Oineus Pandions Sohn', Rev. A d i . 1982, 233-6. ho
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
be seen as enjoying the fruits of their labours in the Islands of the Blest. In any case, the four eponymoi have come into prominence, and can even associate with Herakles, through having been adopted as the eponyms of tribes.
2. The demes The.heroes of the demes are in may ways parallel to the tribal eponymoi. Like the tribes, the demes were created at a definite moment, as part of a wider political and administrative reform; but a significant difference mas that the newly constituted units had in most cases been prefigured by less formal local groups, so that the old self-appointed village now became the administrative deme. Although in some cases the new local divisions appear to be cutting across old traditions,h5in many others the deme must have continued most of the practice8 and narratives of the old village. This greater continuity and yontaneous development is mirrored in the connexion of the heroes with the demes. Strictly as deme heroes, these figures cannot of course be old patrons, yet as local eponymoi they could (and no doubt often do) antedate 508/7. Araphen and Kephalos seem to have been already available to Cleisthenes,66and a later parallel is provided by the hero Titakos, who is found in Herodotus (9.73), although it is not until well into the Roman period that we find evidence of a deme TitakidaLh7 What is clear is that, unlike the tribal eponymoi, the political connexions and official status of the deme heroes were not created centrally, and at a stroke; we are now dealing with a much more complex and varied process than the establishment of heroes to preside over the tribes. In many cases, then, the new deme simply took the name which had come to be applied naturally to the area along with its traditions and characteristics, the place-name having simply undergone a slight semantic shift. Here the factor of a new, artificial creation recedes completely, and the eponymous hero can be as old as one likes. It is thus theoretically possible that the place-name itself is formed from a conspicuous hero-cult in the area, a phenomenon which certainly occurs with divine cults (witness names like Poseidonia, Artemision, and perhaps even Athens itself).hx A possible case would be Hekale, where an obviously old cult including the worship of the heroine Hekal(in)e was the centre of a combined local festival, surely the only noteworthy thing about the small village. 'Hekale' would be the natural way to refer to the place long before the name received official Again, the name Diomeia is undoubtedly formed from the clearly old figure of Diomos, rather than the reverse - but here we should probably introduce a different category. In this case the place-name is not preCleisthenic; the new deme takes its name from its most distinctive cult. Diomeia is a small city deme near the centre which might well have been considered part of Alopeke or Agryle or even Kollytos before the creation of the Cleisthenic d e m e ~ . ~There " follows a third category among those where the hero's name precedes that of the deme, where the apparent connexion is illusory; in this class, the deme is named from a genos which itself had a cult of an eponymous hero, and the hero is not a true eponym to the deme. The obvious example is Boutadai, with See D. M. Lewis, Historia 12 (1963), esp. 30-6. See above, p. 90 n. 57. h7 Trail1 122 (app. C no. 42). hX But see contra, Burkert GR 111.2.4. The point is still contested by Loraux, Enfunts 60-1. '') Deubner 2 17; but contra, Pfeiffer, Callimachus I p. 228. '('In this category should probably be placed some of the demes with 'patronymic' endings. Toepffer (315-6) assumed that these (as Boutadai) were somehow connected with gene of the same names. But some have certainly a heroic origin, such as Daidalidai, a deme adjoining Alopeke, where we know there was a Daidaleion. Ionidai is probably a similar case; it adjoins Gargettos, and Gargettos in one tradition was the father of Ion (Paus. 6.22.7). These names are obviously artificial creations. h5
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I1
93
which Boutes, worshipped on the Acropolis, has no connexion. Semachidai, discussed below, may be another example. The other possible relationships all involve cases where the placename precedes that of the hero. In the fourth category, then, we could place the hero who comes to be considered the local archegetes (whom we find still nameless at Rhamnous), and so acquires a personalised form of the place-name. This may be the commonest occurrence. The Attic place-name Aphidna, for instance, is also attested in Sparta, and so can scarcely derive from the hero Aphidnos - who is, however, certainly an old figure (below). Heroes closely attached to divine cults, such as Erchios and Phlyos, may often belong in this category. The process would be roughly similar whether pre- or post-Cleisthenic. The final category must comprise those cases where a hero is ‘deliberately’ created to be an eponym for the deme; this process suggests that a number of demes had already been supplied with their archegetai by other means. This type cannot now be readily distinguished from the last, although it may well have been a largish group. In some cases, the hero is introduced merely as a learned ~ p f i n o ~6’~&no TOO A ~ a p v fih ~ conjecture for the deme’s etymology: &no A~tpdli30un v o 7 ~ a p a y o y r j .No ~ ~ cult may then be involved, nor any ‘real’ existence. Since examples from most of these categories appear fairly easily, the deme heroes appear to be something of a mixed bag. They arise in response to such different circumstances that one begins to wonder whether they do in fact fulfil similar functions. Even cult was not, it seems, a necessity; actual evidence for cult of the deme hero, eponym or archegete, is confined to (at most) eleven cases,72and although this is hardly likely to represent the whole picture, it is very probably the case that, as with the genos heroes, the importance of cult might vary. On the other hand, where cult did occur, it is not always clear how firmly this type of hero was differentiated from other heroes worshipped in the deme.7’ Yet they did have enough in common to suggest their scholarly treatment as a unity. Part of the third book of Philochorus’ Atthis was devoted to the local history of the demes, including the origins of their names, very often derived (rightly or wrongly) from heroes. We can see that a fair amount of our informatiorl derives directly from this source, and it is likely enough that it is the ultimate origin of much more. Another source probably quarried by the later writers of antiquity was Polemon, who wrote a ‘description of the eponyms of demes and tribes’ (civaypacpfi .thv 2nov6pov .thv Gflpov ~ acpuhhv), i to which Preller assigns a whole book of the description of Attica; and, probably to a lesser extent, Diodorus the Periegete, who seems to have paid rather less attention to e t y m ~ l o g i e s .From ~ ~ the surviving fragments of Philochorus, we can surmise that he attempted to give an etymology for each deme, which usually involved referring to a hero. The simple derivation of a place-name from a hero is one of the commonest types of etymology throughout the topographical writers of antiquity; nothing proves that an eponym merely mentioned by Philochorus was genuinely worshipped as a hero, or even thought of as a historical figure by his demesmen. Ancient etymologies are most often simply conjectures, and there is little concept of verifying then by linguistic or historical methods; this is often beside Steph. Byz. s.vv. Collected in Whitehead, Dernes 210-1 I . However, i t seems doubtful whether the maleficent Anagyros can have played the role of deme hero, at least in the early period, and even whether he received regular cult offerings: see above, pp. 12- I 3. 73 Sometimes it is clear that the eponymous hero was in a special position, as at Thorikos (below. pp. 98-9): on the other hand, which if any of the nameless heroes at Marathon or Erchia should be regarded as ‘Marathos’ or ‘Erchios’ is far from clear from the calendars. 74 Harpocration quotes five etymologies from Philochorus and only one from Diodorus, despite citin,0 the latter under twenty-nine demes and the former under only eight. 71
72
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
the p ~ i n t . ~ ’Heroes may be intoduced simply as guesses in dealing with place-names. Sometimes, however, Philochorus uses other types of etymology, as when he derives the two demes named Oion from their isolated position (F 29); and presumably the Alopeke story would involve a fox (&hunt\: F 24). This would seem at first to be negative evidence showing that no eponymous hero existed, but even here no absolute certainty is possible. If we can trust Harpocration, Philochorus derived the name K ~ p a p ‘&no ~ i ~ zfiq ~ ~ p a p tZ €~X Vf ~i S~~ a ZOO i I%ELV K~pdlp(t) ZIVL q p w ~ ’ Admittedly .~~ here the two possible explanations are not incompatible - Keramos (a real figure in the most complete sense, since cult is mentioned) could be simply the potters’ special hero and hence the local hero already before the Cleisthenic deme was constituted. It would be more difficult to reconcile an eponymous hero with Philochorus’ etymologies for Oion and Alopeke. But there are other, more haphazard, examples of alternative etymologies given together: for instance Stephanus of Byzantium, who does not state his source, on the deme Pithos: K € K ~ T ~ X6kI 15x0 nvos ni60u, T ~ Vni6ov a6zOb~ y ~ v o p € v o vSpeculation .~~ seems to be running rife here.7X But the fact that scholars could use what we would call alternative explanations in conjunction with one another strongly suggests that ordinary people would not have found a difficulty either. If, say, the name Korydallos was supposed to be derived from the larks (~0pu6ahhi6~~,) in the vicinity, this would not be a stumbling-block to the worship of a hero Korydallos (of whom there is in fact no trace). This would greatly facilitate the cult of the deme hero. But what stage do Philochorus and the others mark in the evolution of the deme’s eponym? Are their etymologies their own speculation or genuine tradition? No certainty can be possible in individual cases, but the Aristotelian tradition attests a general belief that demes were named ‘from their founders’ (Arh. Pol. 21.5) and thus suggests the existence of a good number of deme eponyms. Further, the number of pre-atthidographic deme heroes is large enough to show that the process had begun long before books were written on the subject. We have fifthcentury or earlier evidence for ten, perhaps eleven, heroes connected with deme names (the fourth century brings in another two), of varying value and significance, which, however, taken together add up to form some sort of picture. In addition, where cult is found there is a reasonable likelihood that the heroic tradition is of a respectable antiquity; this criterion would give us a further six or perhaps seven.7y Fifth-century cult for Ikarios is directly attested in IG 1’ 253 (lines 6, 9), where the hero is the possessor of a considerable amount of money. The other nine appear in literature and art. Phaleros and Melitex”are both in the Hesiodic poems (Aspis 180; Catalogue of Women fr. 225 M-W), and the otherwise shadowy Eleusis, playing the part of Keleos as Demeter’s host, in Panyassis (fr. 24 Kinkel).x’ The hero Marathon was depicted on the Stoa Poikile fresco of the battle$’ as Marathos his death in battle to ensure ~
On Philochorus’ use of etymology see Jacoby, FG1.H IIIB Suppl. 233-4. ‘From the craft of pottery and from the sacrifice to a hero Keramos.’ 77 ‘It is called from some Pithos [clearly intended as a proper name], storage-jars @ i t h i ) being present there.’ 7x In a different context, we might remark that Pausanias can derive the alternative forms Phigaleia and Phialeia, referring to the same town, from two heroes, Phigalos and Phialos, saying: [@iycthos] I$ noki TO $6 &pxfjs $$VETO oiiaafls ... p&t&pctkv&v& xpovov &no @i&hou BouKohiovos TO 6vopa fi nohis (8.39.2: ‘[Phigalos] was the city’s original founder ... after a while the city changed its name, deriving it from Phialos son of Boukolion.’). Diomos, Hekale, Thorikos, Keramos, Lakios, the archegete of Rhamnous, and perhaps Anagyros; see Appendix 1 and Whitehead, Denies 2 10-I 1. x0 Melite, it is true, is a common name for nymphs and heroines. RE counts seven, one of whom is the Melite of ARV2 1268. I . But the Melite of the Aspis is the daughter of the Athenian Myrmex (below, p. 99). See on this tradition V. J. Matthews, Par?yassis of Halikar-nassos (Leiden 1974) 115-9. xz Paus. I . 15.3.32.4; see above, p. 45.
75
7h
’’)
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP; I1
95
victory is a mythic prototype of the death of those killed at Marathon, and so this part of the story may well date from soon after the battle. Teithras also is attested in art (as is Phaleros), this time on a late fifth-century lekythos by Aison ( A R P 1174-5), fighting the Amazons with Theseus. Two other heroes, Aphidnos and Kolonos, are mentioned by dramatists (E. ap. Phot. S.V. hpfizopo5 (Reitzenstein 91), S. OC 59-60, 65). It is just possible that Sophocles is modelling the hpxqyiyds of his deme on other deme-heroes, although the emphatic and unexpected ~ E O Sis perhaps against this; but the earth-born Aphidnos should be an old figure.87 The final two of the ten, Dekelos and Kephalos, are attested by historians (Hdt. 9.73: Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 34), but since they may also be regarded as the eponyms of gene they present a slightly more complicated picture. Toepffer assumed without question that Dekelos was the hero of the genos and not the deme, but we may now perhaps be able to reject such a rigid d i ~ t i n c t i o n . The ~ ~ Dekeleieis may well have been a largish village community based mainly on kinship, not a rigid and exclusive group bound by (largely ficititious) ties of consanguineity but dependent on descent. Dekelos can then be the local archegetes, and so roughly eponym to the village - though changing concepts of local organisation would tend eventually to dissociate deme and genos, and so create some confusion. With Kephalos, evidently an important figure, the problem is different, for the genos of the Kephalidai is associated not with the deme Kephale in the south-east, but rather with the Pythion at Aigaleos (Dafni), on the way to Eleusis. However, cult is attested only in the south-eastem area, and the Kephalidai are probably irrelevant to this.85 It was more likely the south-eastern Kephalos, not the genos eponym, who was among the hundred names submitted by Cleisthenes to the Pythia, from which the ten tribal eponymoi were chosen (above, p. 90 and n. 57). According to tradition, among these heroes was also Araphen, who cannot but be connected with the deme of the same name; even if our sources do not reflect a real late sixth-century list, Kephalos and Araphen must have appeared to have very respectably old origins. Even apart from the early testimonia, then, some of our eleven heroes have features about them which suggest antiquity. Cult outside (but near) the eponymous deme, such as that attested for Kephalos at Thorikos, would certainly provide very strong evidence for the antiquity of the figure in question. Unfortunately there is not much evidence of this type; the closest parallel for Kephalos is Hekale. We are told by Philochorus that the neighbouring demes participated in a festival of Hekale and Zeus.86 This is obviously an old local custom, a central festival uniting neighbouring areas as did some of the festivals of groups like the Tetrapolis or the Tetrakomoi. Furthermore, the circumstantial evidence in Philochorus is such as to leave us in no doubt of the ancient and hence properly inexplicable nature of the cult. ‘ E ~ a h i v qand ‘ E ~ d t h ~zEZj5 t o ~ are not recent formations. Still in the north-east of Attica, Oinoe may furnish another example, though less clear. No cult is attested for her either in the eponymous deme or elsewhere, but the appearance of two young men said to be her brothers on the base of the statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous (Paus. 1.33.8) indicates at least a more The hero’s autochthonous nature is also attested in Steph. Byz. S.V. Acpt6va. Toepffer 189-90; but see above, p. 65. xs There is no evidence for a cult of Kephalos connected with the Pythion at Aigaleos, which his descendants were said to have founded (Paus. I .37.6-7) and where presumably the Kephalidai supplied the priest. Tradition made him an inhabitant of Thorikos (Apollod. 2.4.7, Ant. Lib. 41), and it is there that we find him worshipped (16-7. Boedromion) together with Prokris, Thorikos and the ‘heroines of Thorikos’. There is then obviously a connexion with the neighbouring deme of Kephale, and the fact that the hero’s cult is not confined to the eponymous deme would seem to suggest pre-Cleisthenic cult in the area; also indicative is the fact that Thorikos was one of Kekrops’ twelve cities (Strabo 397) which suggests old, strong and separate traditions. (It was also the town in Attica where Demeter landed: H. Hymn. D . 126.) “ FGrH 328 F 109 = Plut. Thcs. 14. x3 x4
96
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
substantial reality than we might otherwise have guessed, and possibly some sort of cult perhaps obsolete in Pausanias’ day - occurring in parts of the n ~ r t h - e a s t . ~ ~ Prominent among the stories which give some of these deme eponyms a greater reality are traditions which connect a significant number of them with Theseus. A high proportion of these heroes have already been shown to be pre-atthidographic: Aphidnos, Dekelos, Marathon, Phaleros and Teithras. The Thesean heroes divide fairly easily into two groups, of which the first centres on the north-east and is largely related to the story of the abduction of Helen. Aphidnos kept Helen at Aphidna and wounded Castor when he tried to recover her, but the others were opposed to Theseus. Dekelos protected Helen from him, while Marathos fought in the army of her brothers the Tyndaridai and offered his death for their victory.XXIf Theseus represents the synoecism and more especially (in some sense) the Cleisthenic re-constitution of Attica, these local heroes are clearly far from giving such aims their blessing; but the group is also largely composed of old figures who have grown up naturally, and reinforces our view of an original north-eastem tradition of Theseus.Xy The second group, formed by Phaleros, Teithras and Thrious, is quite different; they appear as subordinate heroes fighting for Theseus in his various exploits. Here the local hero’s deeds become attached not so much to a local saga as to a major mythical figure. The connexion of Phaleros - though it must be borne in mind that here he may not be ap Attic figure at all - with Theseus is already present in the Aspis ( 180) where, in the middle of a quite non-Attic list of those who fought with Theseus in the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs appears Phaleros, which may well be before Theseus acquires new political importance in Athens.”’ He does not again appear until the late fifth century, on two vases, once in company with Akamas, the son of Theseus (Par-.380.5),9’and once fighting with Theseus against the Amazons, this time in company with Teithras ( A R P 1174-5). For Thrious, as well the hero of ‘the Thriasian plain’ as of ‘the deme Thria’, there is no early evidence, only the statement in Stephanus of Byzantium that he was sent by Theseus as an ally of Herakles and became the eponym of Thrious in Achaia or Elis. His Athenian nationality vouched for in this source suggests a connexion with the Attic Thria near Eleusis, and the connexion with Theseus seems to indicate a pre-atthidographic date when the Theseus saga was still in the process of crystallising. Deme-heroes are far from unique in being attached to Theseus; in the following chapter we shall examine other minor heroes who somehow acquire Thesean connexions. In most of these Though perhaps against this is the fact that Rhamnous is not like Oinoe part of the original Tetrapolis, but is joined with Oinoe, Marathon and Trikorythos in a Cleisthenic trittys: its pre-Cleisthenic traditions might be expected to be quite different from those of its neighbours. xx Aphidnos: Polemon fr. X Preller (= schol. II. 3.242). Dekelos: Hdt. 9.73. Marathos: Plut. Thes, 32, from Dikaiarchos. In addition another local hero, Titakos, eponym of a genos Titakidai (the deme of the same name is much later), betrayed Helen’s whereabouts to her brothers (Hdt. loc. cit.). See further below, pp. 1 18-9. xy Among the north-eastern heroes with a Thesean connexion we must count also Hekale, though the status of her connexion is less clear. It may be old, but the pattern of Hekale and Hekaleios Zeus is much more coherent without the presence of the great hero. Although according to Callimachus it was Theseus who founded the cult of Zeus Hekaleios (fr. 230 Pf.), Hesychius may preserve an older version in glossing ‘EKdtkto< zE6< with 6 V ‘E~dtkqiSp6oaTo. Jacoby (IIIB Supp. p. 436, on Philochorus F 109) is of course right to point out that the story as it is told in Philochorus involves a journey from Athens, and hence in its developed form, at least, does not relate to the original north-eastern Theseus. ‘N’Phalerosis certainly more than just the eponymous hero of the Attic harbour and deme. He has fairly clear Thessalian connexions, founding Gyrton in Thessaly (Orph.Arg. 144-5) and perhaps Phaleron at Oita. Indeed, it is more probably a Thessalian Phaleros who is alluded to in the Hesiodic poem, although the coincidence with Theseus is remarkable. y 1 Akamas and Phaleros are probably worshipped together at Phaleron (above, p. 40) and together they colonised Soloi in Cyprus (Strabo 683). which may be the incident referred to on the late fifth-century pelike which is our earliest Attic evidence for Phaleros. x7
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I1
97
cases we can detect somewhere in the process the urge to link the minor, locally significant hero with the universally important name, to gain a wider recognition for the familiar and to explain it in terms of new trends. Phaleros, Teithras and Thrious take their place within this structure. Once a self-awareness on the part of the deme had gained ground it would be very natural for each deme to find a connexion between its own history and that of Theseus. It would be tempting to connect these alliances with the increased popularity and significance of Theseus at the end of the sixth century, especially as the date of the creation of the Cleisthenic demes coincides with this period of interest. The hero of each local area would be brought into connexion with Theseus the synoecist, not indeed through any co-ordinated plan (it is hard to see how that could work), but through the enthusiasm of the local communities for their status as a part of Attica. This would give us a very early date for the significance of the deme-hero. But hard evidence is lacking. The importance of Theseus did not end with Cleisthenes, and faGtors other than the synoecism may be relevant. Some at least of these alliances could have been forged over the course of the fifth century or even later. Indeed, if the two vases we have mentioned are to be connected with any wider phenomenon, we could as plausibly date the interest as contemporary and compare the more certain interest in the tribal eponymoi, appearing at roughly the same time. At this level, and at this stage, we would simply have an interest in the more recondite local heroes, probably because of their closeness and immediacy, which became fashionable at this time, for whatever reason. Once the trend becomes established, it is likely enough that a painter might depict the hero of his own deme (as Sophocles writes about Kolonos) or that of his patron. And what better company for the hero - again Sophocles is relevant - than Theseus? Theseus is still a key figure in the drama of the last thirty years of the century, after all - long after Peisistratus and Cleisthenes. But the alliance with Theseus is obviously not incompatible with a pre-Cleisthenic origin, and in some cases this appears to be demanded. All except one of these heroes are demonstrably in existence well before systematic books were written on the subject, which increases the likelihood that the last, Thrious, was also a real hero before Philochorus and Demon wrote. There are then enough deme-heroes who have clearly emerged and taken shape by the fifth century to make it clear that we are very unlikely to be dealing with an isolated and sporadic phenomenon. If our evidence were fuller, we would probably find many other deme-heroes in this period. We must now ask in what relation they stood to the deme, its cults and its administration. First, we may examine the integration of the cult of the eponym, where such occurs, with other cults important in the deme. If the cult were purely a formality, it would surely remain isolated and separate from ‘genuine’ cults. Yet when, as often, the reverse proves true, the picture is not quite so simple; these heroes may appear in a different capacity from that of deme eponym. Several of them, like so many other heroes, have strong associations with some divine circle of worship. Most widespread is the type where the hero is institutor of a cult, the first priest or the host of a god; it may indicate antiquity, or it may on other occasions represent an attempt to provide an old divine cult with a foundation legend and to place the eponym firmly in the context of his deme and its history. One has only to think of ‘Amynos, Asklepios and Dexion’ to realise that this type was a living formation comparatively late. Consequently, the deme heroes of this type include figures of different stages of antiquity. Diomos is an obvious example of an old hero; he is not actually attested until a third-century inscription, but Aristophanes mentions the ‘ H P & K ~ I C T&V I AiopEioiq (Ran. 65 I ), and the Diomos myth, in which the boy, son of Herakles’ host and loved by him, becomes the institutor of a new divine cult of Herakles, is so obviously basic to the traditions of the Kynosarges
98
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
temple that we must assume his cult is old there." On the other hand, there is no evidence for a connected cult of Diomos' father, Kollytos, who may be just an attempt to extend the story to account for the name of a neighbouring deme. Again Hekale is clearly an old figure linked with the cult of Zeus Hekaleios, perhaps its founder (see n. 89). Similar are the hosts of Dionysos, Ikarios and Semachos, although it is not clear that Semachos is really eponymous to the deme Semachidai in north-eastern Attica; a Semacheion is attested in the Laureion area, and it seems perhaps unlikely that a comparatively obscure hero would have cult in two such diverse places."j But there is a more general difficulty in all these cases, for the connexion of these heroes with major local cults may be very basic to their (pre-Cleisthenic) natures, or else their integration with such cults may indicate only their general importance, and nothing about their status specifically as deme-heroes. More suggestive, perhaps, is the case of Phlyos, who stands in a close relation to the Lykomid mysteries of Phlya; he is a child of Earth, chief goddess of these mysteries. As an institutor-figure he competes with Lykos, neither being demonstrably older than the fourth century. But it is possible that Phlyos' status as deme-hero is primary, and that his integration into the deme's main worship was a consequence precisely of this - demehero competing .with genos-hero, perhaps. The analogous hero Eleusis, son of the mysterious Eleusinian figure Daeira, is perhaps a clearer example.y4 In several versions he takes the place of the better-established Keleos in the myth, and would appear to be a variant substituted as eponym of the deme, in conformity with an already growing fashion. This process was already at work in the mid fifth century, for as we have seen Apollodorus gives Panyassis as his source for this version. Yet it can hardly be original; what we are seeing is a deliberate attempt to incorporate the deme's eponym into its myths. Here too we might also detect an assertion of the claims of the deme, of all the local people, over against a genos, for the daughters of Keleos represent the priestess of Demeter and her assistants.y5 Whether Eleusis or Eleusinos gained enough concrete identity to receive cult is uncertain."' IG I l 2 1247. mentioning a festival of Herakles in which the priest of Diomos takes part. Like 112 1245-6, this is a decree of the group known as Mesogeioi. (On this group see Schlaifer, C f h 39 (1944) 22-7; Lewis, Historia 12 (1963) 34 n. 112: Dow and Gill, AJA 69 (1965) 112-4.) These inscriptions were all found at Bate, near the Acharnian gate, and were to stand 6v T@ iep@ But all our literary evidence connects Diomos with the Herakleion at Kynosarges - in the deme Diomeia, quite a different area. Rather than supposing there were two separate cults of Diomos. we may look for the answer to this puzzle in the nopxfi of the inscriptions. This festival involved two sanctuaries of Herakles. linked by a procession: Diomos then remains firmly at Kynosarges. It is stressed in the foundation-story that Herakles is worshipped as a god: this is the innovation ascribed to Diomos. The erotic element in the story may be secondary. 'J3 Semachos a host of Dionysos: Steph. Byz. S.V.ZlqpaXiGcri, Euseb. Chron. 30. The words of Stephanus (hq' &v a i i&p&iaicr6ro6) make it almost certain that there was a genos Semachidai having the rights to a priesthood of Dionysos. Consequently the deme Semachidai may rather have been named from lands possessed by the genos. The case of Boutes and Boutadai is the obvious parallel: the hero was worshipped on the acropolis, where the Eteoboutadai provided his priest, while the deme Boutadai is north-west of the city. near Lakiadai. The status of lkarios depends on the reading in the deme accounts of Ikaria, IG l 3 252. If the reading there adopted for the second deity. 'IKapio. is correct. as it almost certainly is. lkarios is clearly a major figure in his own deme, comparable to Dionysos. Again his status may be largely due to his significance in the divine cult, rather than to his position as eponym. Another possible candidate for this group is Erchios. who according to Stephanus of Byzantium gave hospitality to Demeter. This surely ought to mean that he founded her cult in the deme. It is perhaps a problem that not only does Erchios not appear (at least by name) in the Erchia calendar, but neither does a local cult of Demeter. But since the scope of the calendar is controversial, we cannot draw any conclusions from this. 'J'Paus. 1.38.7. 'J5 Paus. 1.38.3. "h Unlike Keleos, Eleusis does not appear among the Eleusinian heroes in the Nikomachos calendar (lines 65-74). The festival of course takes place in Athens, but the sacrifice is performed by the Eumolpidai, and many other Eleusinian figures are involved. The list may have been influenced by the Honieric Hymn to Denieter-, lines 153-5; see Korte, Glofto 25 (1936) 137. It seems, incidentally, that according to the hymn, Keleos is the son of
'J2
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I1
99
Elsewhere the deme eponym may appear in company not with gods but with other heroes, a pattern perhaps less likely to be old and somewhat more suggestive of a more or less deliberate integration. Cult of the eponymos is demonstrated in an interesting way by the Thorikos calendar. From the entry in Hesychius which is our only literary source for the hero Thorikosq7 we might suppose that this figure was merely a conjectural explanation for the place-name, but the calendar shows that he was conspicuous in the deme’s cults in the fourth (or late fifth?) century, unlike the other heroes receiving two or possibly three annual sacrifices. But like heroes in the deme, Hyperpedios and Pylochos, he is followed by nameless heroines who receive a table-offering when the hero receives sacrifice. In one of his appearances he is grouped together with Kephalos and Prokris, again local figures. It is impossible to be certain how old a figure Thorikos is, but whatever his origins, he is clearly real enough by the end of the fourth century. Integration into other cults and myths of the area is obviously crucial. We could compare Melite; no cult is attested for this heroine, but it woud be unwise to assume that none therefore existed. Melite was the mistress of Herakles (the Alexikakos whose shrine stood in the eponymous deme)9xand therefore probably the mother of some local hero, ‘for the beds of the immortals do not fail to bear fruit’.uy She was also, as early as the Curulogue of Women (fr. 225 M-W), the daughter of Myrmex, eponym of the M 6 p p q ~ 0 I x~q x x ~ ~inO nearby ~ Skambonidai, and it can hardly be coincidence that Myrmex was the son of Melanippos, whose shrine was also in Melite.’(O Another famous heroon of the deme was the Eurysakeion, and although we know of l ~ omyth linking Melite with the Salaminian heroes, we have a vase showing her in company with Ajax (pl. 6A, ARV2 1268.1) - an allusion to an unknown myth, or a figurative means of showing the deme connexion? In either case the connexion of Melite with other figures of the deme was already being stressed quite early. There is no particular reason to suppose tnat the integration exhibited in these last two cases was unusual, but when we turn from the deme’s religious framework to its more secular affairs, the picture seems more negative. The organisation of tribal matters - meetings, decrees, publication of notices - was all more or less conducted in a context relevant to the tribal hero, occurring at his shrine and often including sacrifice to him. This was natural enough in practical terms: a tribe, whose members were drawn from all over Attica, would need some specifically arranged place in which to assemble. The deme’s identity, on the other hand, naturally expressed itself more clearly in spatial terns. It covered a certain area of territory, and even those demesmen who lived outside that area would accept that place as their deme, necessary to their identity as Athenian citizens, to which they would have to travel if they needed to take part in deme affairs.’O’ There was then less need to create a fixed and artificial administrative centre, and so the eponymous hero, whose sanctuary, on the tribal analogy, might have been expected to fulfil this role, had perhaps less opportunity to become integrated into deme politics and to express deme identity. The deme’s assemblies, which would perhaps Eleusinos (line 105). It is possible that the figure called ap~qy&-qsin the sacrifice list (line 67) is to be identified with Eleusis. But Oliver (Hesp. 4 (1935) 27) takes this to be lacchos. who is given this title in Strabo (468). Labarbe (Thorikos, p. IS test. 12) suggests that the hvopdr019q 6E &no Oopi~oO.K h p i o i of Hesychius (s.v. O o p i ~ o may ~ ) conceal a reference to the Cywia, which would give the hero a less shadowy existence. There were other references to Attic myths in this poem; see below. p. 105. On Melite and Herakles, see Wilarnowitz, Hermes 22 (1887) 126 n. I . ” Od. I 1.249: true, with a very few exceptions; for instance Apemosyne and Hermes on Rhodes (Apollod. 2.2. I ) . Photius S.V. M6ppqn-o~ExrparcoS. “” As for instance in Dem. 57.10. On the mixture o f city and country. & m u and Gfipo~.in the life of the Atheni;in citizen see further Osbome, Denios 183-9.
’)’ ’’
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
mark the climax of the demesmen’s consciousness of their group existence, would most naturally take place in the local agora, where one existed. Possibly the agora might contain the shrine of the deme’s urchegefes - it would be a natural enough place for a tomb of civic significance - and, we might speculate, in some cases the demarch might perhaps open the proceedings with a sacrifice to the founding hero. But these are only wild guesses, with no firm evidence, and in any case a hero with a small shrine in the agora can hardly have occupied the same central position in the group’s consciousness as one around whose sanctuary - large enough to contain its decrees and dedications - the tribe was deliberately assembled. The general contrast is strengthened by the instructions for the placing of deme decrees;“’?the most favoured places were the agora (IG II2 1 174, I 180, ? 1 188), the theatre ( I 185, 1 197, 1 198, 1202), which could also of course have many of the functions of an agora, and major sanctuaries. Demes were not consistent in their practice: fourth-century honorary decrees from Eleusis specify the theatre, the Dionysion, the propylaia of Demeter and Kore, perhaps the dvai ( 1 193). But of the hero Eleusis agora, and, indecisively, oxou &v 8o[c]~i6v cahhi[o~]oi or Eleusinos, no trace. Again, this is quite different from the siting of tribal decrees, which were normally placed in the shrine of the eponymos. The position of the deme hero can never have been a pivotal one like that of his tribal counterpart. ‘Secular’ business was not, it seems, transacted under his supervision, and in the more purely religious sphere (to make a somewhat anachronistic distinction), though he might be important, he was not of primary importance. Especially where demes remained essentially static local communities, there would normally be other cults to express cohesion and community of worship. These came near to the centre of deme life, and at Myrrhinous, for instance, we find that the sanctuary of Artemis Kolainis occupies a quasi-official place in the workings of the deme, at Cholargos the Pythion; these, surely, are the cults which most distinguish the deme. What then was the significance of the deme hero? The importance of such figures may have been in a sense intellectual, as a kind of explanation. This process is apparent in the speculative use of the hero as etymology: is it possible that in some cases even the more ‘real’ heroes developed from such speculation? If so, the explanation of the deme’s identity in terms of a heroic archegete would be an important part of popular historical perspective. Once the hero was established, the coincidence of name would assume a special significance; given the prevalent ancient view on the significance of names, it seems likely that if a hero shared the deme’s name, his link with it would be seen as a peculiarly intimate one. As his name explains the deme’s name, so his existence and past exploits in a sense explain the deme and its past, supplying perhaps a fixed and definite point in a web of different, sometimes conflicting traditions. As archegete, the deme hero was capable of answering for the deme the most fundamental question of all - How did the area come into being? IG II? I 174-1214. A further example is in xpx. A E ~ T2Sa . ’( 1970) 209-10: a decree of the deme Eitea is to stand in the sanctuary of Basile. See also Whitehead. Denies 96-7 n. S I .
THE HERO AND THE SMALLER GROUP, I1
101
Summary of possible deme eponyms Full references and discussions of cult appear in Appendix 1.
Hero, with deme as numbered in Trail1 app. B
Earliest evidence
Whether cult attested in deme
Steph. Byz. Steph. Byz. Steph. Byz. various lexica Pausanias (book 2) Euripides Herodian - referring to 508/7? Pherecydes, Plato Steph. Byz. Herodotus (Aristophanes), 3rd-c. inscription Panyassis Steph. Byz. Steph. Byz. Pausanias Philochorus 5th-c. inscription (5th-c. inscription) Hesychius Hellanikos Philochorus
?
?
Yes
Yes
Yes Yes (Yes) (Yes) Yes
Steph. Byz. Sophocles Polemon Pausanias Steph. Byz. Stoa Poikile fresco Catalogue of Women Philochorus Pausanias Iliad Aspis
Yes
I02
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
? Marathon monument; Steph. Byz.
Pausanias Steph. Byz. Steph. Byz. Steph. Byz. (4th-c. inscription outside deme) Paus.anias (book 2) lekythos by Aison ? Cypria; 4th-c. (?late 5th-c. inscription) Yes 2nd-c. AC inscription Diodorus the Periegete Hesychius
Notes on evidence I Conjectural mention. 10 Evidence very late, but circumstantial.
3 I Conjectural? 33 Aristophanes mentions festival of Herakles at Diomeia. 58 Some doubt on correct reading.
59 This cult apparently not connected with deme. 86 Steph. Byz. affirms the connexion between the Hyakinthid hou&a and the deme houcn&, but we do not know in which deme the Hyakinthides were worshipped, and in any case it seems unlikely that it would have been named from one of the sisters, who probably had no independent existence. Neither is the heroine likely to have been named from the deme, since like her sisters she bears a name reminiscent of Ge, Demeter or Kore. (Lousia is an epithet of Demeter in Arcadia, Paus. 8.25.6. Other names given for the Hyakinthides are Protogeneia (cf. npozoyovocjll Kopq at Phlya and Andania, Paus. 1.31.4, 4.1.8, and l7pozoyovo~fi (Kern, Orphica fr. 47: Sicily, 4th/3rd-c. BC)), Pandora (epithet of Ge, schol. Ar. Av. 970) and Chthonia (epithet of Demeter at Hermion, Paus. 2.35.4-8). The other daughters are given as Oreithyia, Prokris and Kreousa, but these are irrelevant to the Hyakinthides and merely added to reconcile the story with other traditions of the daughters of Erechtheus. 92 Deme reference not certain. 107 Deme reference not certain.
6: HEROIC MYTHOLOGY So far the main emphasis of this study has been on the hero as focal point for a group consciousness - either as object of cult, whose worship brings a certain group together, or as a figure whose mere existence in a sense justifies and explains the cohesion of a particular group of people. The development of myth and saga, of narrative traditions concerning the hero, is intimately related to this function, while it also involves other factors and continues to a further degree, when biographical elaboration eventually becomes desirable for its own sake. The classic hero, equipped with grave, with regular sacrifices, and with a set of biographical traditions, represents the convergence of the hero of cult with the hero of epic.’ Originally these figures performed quite similar functions in different ways. Historical and quasi-historical saga, of a type involving men and women of the past, is a phenomenon which exists in most societies. It gains its point from the implicit relationship of the past to the present; past either contrasts with present or explains it. At a stage anterior to the developed saga, the simplest form of story explaining the present is the religious aition, which explains a contemporary practice by reference to its institution. A practice which seems remarkable, even illogical, is thus set in a past context in which, by contrast, it is the natural, indeed the only, outcome, and the story is not developed to any greater degree than is necessary for this purpose. Civic and political configurations may be explained in the same way. The unity of a group or sub-group may be expressed on the level of cult by shared religious practices, perhaps the worship of a hero; on the level of myth is is expressed either by the notion of a common descent or through the invention of a mythical group dating back to the heroic age and paralleling the present group. Contemporary territorial claims, both among the Greeks and elsewhere, are expressed in terms of the deeds and possessions of one’s heroic ancestors. But social groupings and political. circumstances tend to involve more complexities than the actions of religious ritual. So, in Attica, mythical history reflects a number of features which the Athenians saw as important about themselves and their polis, some interlocking, some almost mutually incompatible. Thus Attica is a unity: it was ruled more or less as such by Kekrops or Theseus. It is essentially composed of three or perhaps four parts: it was divided along those lines among the sons of Pandion. These two views must eventually be reconciled by the introduction of some sort of rudimentary chronology, so that Pandion and his sons are living after Kekrops and before Theseus. In this way a larger picture inkluding a sort of timescale is built up, and gradually a more or less continuous background of mythical history is acquired. A third type of story leads directly to the world of the epic. This is the story which contains an implicit (at times explicit) contrast with the present, where heroes are greater and more privileged that the men of today, and where the main purpose of reporting their actions is to express this superiority - or simply an enjoyment of a world larger than life. Of course aetiological elements may be subsumed among the deeds of these heroes, so that the categories of story cannot be divided along quite hard-and-fast lines. If such ‘epic’ heroes are also believed to be the ancestors of contemporaries, or otherwise connected with them, it is also true to say that they supply a link between past and present, at the same time as they express a disjunction.
’ The contrasting phrases are Nagy’s, in part two of T h Besr o f ‘ h Acbnearis (Baltimore 1979).
I04
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
All these types of story may exist independently of any heroic cult, and a comparison with other cultures suggests that the heroic story is more widespread than the cult, probably older, and certainly very often of independent origin. It is incorrect to take the cult-hero as primary and to ask why some heroes develop a mythology. Rather, both cult and myth in their different ways explain the present in terms of its relation to the past. The developed hero has usually both cult and myth; before we retum to consider the phenomenon of heroes as a whole, we must examine some trends in their mythology. Myths of the Attic heroes often, though not always, relate to some larger whole, whether to panhellenic saga and epic or to patterns of Athenian self-apprehension. Variations on these themes are manifold.
1. The epic and heroes of cult If one of the functions of myth is to establish important truths about the group which nurtures the myth, then i t is clear that for any subdivision of Greeks one of the most important facts to establish in this way will be their Greekness. In the well-known words which Herodotus puts into the mouths of the Athenian envoys, as they explain to the Spartans their reasons for refusing to co-operate with Mardonius, the factors which denote ‘Greekness’ (to ‘ E h h ~ l v ~ ~ d v ) are a common descent, common language, and similar ways of worship and other customs (Hdt. 8.144). He might have clarified the concept of a common descent by adding ‘a common mythology’, for it is through the myths of the heroes that such a notion is established. And although every city had its own local stories and its own variations on more widely diffused myths, the links which unite these local traditions are still much stronger than minor disparities of detail. There is, after all, a conglomerate to which we can give the name Greek mythology. The single most important factor holding these local mythologies together was of course the epic - a much larger body of verse than that to which we now have access, but still dominated in popularity and esteem by the Iliad and Odyssey. Despite the contrast between the worldview, and particularly the eschatology, prevalent in Homer and that of societies for which the great men of the past may still be powerful beings in the present, we can hardly dispute that the epic had at least some direct influence on the way in which heroes were viewed. Indeed a view which commands much acceptance, going back at least to Farnell but in recent times perhaps most notably expounded by Coldstream, is that the diffusion of the epic in the eighth century was a major factor in the rise of hero-cult.’ This proposition has not gone unchallenged, and it is in fact fairly clear that the Homeric poems themselves show an awareness of the phenomenon of special heroic graves.’ We may still concede, however, an intimate connexion between heroes and epic; the epic is likely to have popularised the cults of individual heroes and helped to develop a clearer idea of who these heroes were and what their deeds had been. The hypothesis of a direct correlation between the epic poems and the cult of heroes applies most easily of course to areas like the Argolid with which the heroes of the Homeric poems were associated. If Agamemnon were known from epic tradition to have ruled in Mycenae or Argos (the distinction is not always made clear) the latter-day inhabitants of the area might well be moved to seek out and venerate his grave. But the Attic heroes do not readily find direct sources in either the Theban or the Trojan cycles; Attica gets very little press in Iliad or Odyssey. Most of such references as exist have been since ancient times subjected to a very suspicious scrutiny, while other passages clearly refer to pre-existing cults rather than providing
’ Farnell 284, 340-2; J. N. Coldstream. ‘Hero-cults in the age of Homer’, JHS.96 (1976) 8-17. See also J. M. Cook, ‘The Cult of Agamemnon at Mycenae’, in r&pasXvr. K~papono6hhou(Athens 1953) 112-8. See Th. Hadzisteliou-Price, ‘Hero-cult and Homer’, Hisroria 22 (1973) 129-44, and below, pp. 128-3I .
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
I05
a source for Athenian imagination; thus two references to Erechtheus, and one to the burial of Phrontis at Sounion, singularly pointless if a cult was not already known. As for the colourless leader of the Athenian contingents in the Trojan expedition, Menestheus, there is no sign of a cult for him in his native land. Even the one (reasonably) certain case of heroic tombs in Attica linked to a common mythology, the Mycenaean tombs later identified with those of the Seven against Thebes, links only Attic soil, not Attic heroes, with the larger world of Greece. At first sight the epic does not appear to have offered the Athenians much stimulus for the development of heroic cult, nor much scope for bringing their local figures into connexion with a wider world. Attica figures rather more noticeably in the Trojan Cycle apart from IIiad and Odyssey, but ‘which came first’, epic or local tradition, is far from clear. It may be merely the fragmentary nature of our sources which gives these references somewhat more of the air of insertions of separate, pre-existing traditions than of episodes of a continuous story; but the presumed relatively late date of most of these poems in fact leaves little time in which they might stimulate cult, rather than reflect it.4 The Attic references are various. Kephalos, to us a somewhat obscure figure known chiefly for the romantic interest surrounding him and his wife Prokris, but clearly once one of the major figures of south-east Attica, figured in the Epigonoi as a famous hunter, and was also known to the author of the Nostoi.’ The sons of Theseus, Akamas and Demophon, who are absent from the Trojan story as told in the I/iad, appear in the Iliupersis freeing their grandmother Aithra from captivity in Troy; they are under the leadership of Menestheus, and so Attic heroes as in later timesh The Cypria, possibly the latest of all the poems, has several stories of Attic significance. We have seen that its inclusion of both Iphianassa and Iphigeneia among Agamemnon’s daughters is probably a rationalising device Again, the depiction in this designed to reconcile literary tradition with a pre-existing poem of Helen as daughter of Nemesis may reflect Attic tradition, but can scarcely have stimulated it.x The same may be said for the story of Helen at Aphidna, also seemingly narrated in the Cypria.’ Looking back at the other poems, it is a pr-iori rather more likely that pre-existing cults of Kephalos and of the sons of Theseus could have been given a boost by these poetic descriptions of the heroes and their deeds. So the poets of the Cycle seem to have had at their disposal a body of more or less disconnected traditional material which they then diffused throughout the Greek-speaking world. Attic heroes thus become more familiar outside Attica, and the heroes thus publicised may have increased in popularity in Attica itself; but there seems to be no case where a great character of epic has actually stimulated cult in Attica, nor anything suggesting an assertion of the importance of Attic heroes in the Greek world as a whole. Must we then conclude that Attica, with its strongly independent traditions, remained aloof from the heroic mythology of the rest of Greece? There is one further possibility. one which still takes the epic as its starting-point, but which proceeds more obliquely. The epic does not pretend to describe everything a hero ever did, and so there is room for an investigation of ‘what the heroes did next’. This type of connexion is not of course confined to Attica; almost every part of Greece felt the need to connect local tradition with the panhellenic world of the The evidence for the dates is summarised briefly by J. Griffin, JHS 97 (1977) 39. nn. 5 . 9. Epigonoi fr. 2 Kinkel; Nostoi fr. 4. I/ioupe/:Tis fr. 3. cf. Proclus (Kinkel ad loc.). c j p r i u fr. 12. Ib. fr. 6. Allen fr. X is doubtful, but cf. in Kinkel frr. 7-9. For a possible mention of Thorikos in the C ~ p i t rsee . below. p. 99 n. 97.
-I
’ ’
I06
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
epic in this manner. Often enough heroes turned up in surprising places, given their epic history; we find Diomedes at Methone in Messenia, as well as in various parts of Italy, Penelope at Mantineia, and so on, all presumably backed up by explanatory stories."' Alternatively, it might have been the descendants of the epic heroes who made the move. So, among the Attic heroes, we find such familiar names as Orestes, Adrastos, Neleus and Oedipus (unless the presence of the last-named is a Sophoclean invention.) The foreign hero is a recognisable phenomenon with his own morphological traits (above, pp. 49-50); other factors in the process presumably include the desire to forge a link between the cults of one's own area and the heroes of epic, and sometimes perhaps an instinct for tidying up and reconciling, often rather imperfectly, local names and cults with the more usual associations of these names. Occasionally other, political elements creep into the process. The picture is rarely simple, but we can scarcely deny that the epic played a very important part in fixing local tradition. If we now turn to actual examples, we find several odd comers of Attic heroic mythology occupied by epic and sub-epic characters, often very minor figures. The relationship between the literary character and the local figure may be of various kinds. It is not aIways clear, for. instance, just how much the presence of a particular hero in Attica owes to his appearance in Homer or otber epic; there will often be some element of a genuinely independent tradition. Leaving aside such cases as those of Phrontis where, as I have already argued (pp. 41-2), the epic is merely reflecting a pre-existing cult, specific examples reveal various possibilities. The commonest type of epic influence would seem to be the case where an old figure of cult comes to be identified with an epic or sub-epic character; such an identification occurs all over Greece in the case of Helen. Attica, or its immediate environs, provides us further with figures such as Amphiaraos or Iphigeneia, where some type of daimonic figure has somehow become merged with an ordinary human character of saga. The dramatic manner of disappearance of both these figures - Iphigeneia sacrificed or all but sacrificed to Artemis, Amphiaraos swallowed up in his chariot by the earth - relates both to epic, in that these things are episodes on a wider canvas of events, and to the ritual of cult. The result might not be entirely harmonious; as we have seen, there are some very strange tensions in the resulting character of Iphigeneia, for instance. However, it does seem that here we can trace some stages in the process, for Iphigeneia the daughter of Theseus and Helen is surely an early Attic version and not a mere fabrication of Stesichorus. First comes the impulse to humanise figures like Iphigeneia and provide them with a genealogy; then, perhaps under pressure of conflicting traditions, the fitting of the heroes into a more cosmopolitan pattern. A similar, but not identical, process is at work with a couple of sailing-heroes at Phaleron, whom we know from both literary and epigraphical sources." These relatively minor characters have minor Odyssean names, Phaiax and - in one version - Nausithoos, which is the name of the father of Alkinoos (Od. 7.56ff). Surely this reflects a sort of passion for the epic - a sailor (the cult was presumably already in existence?) must be a Phaeacian, belonging to the race of the best seamen known to Homer. It is interesting that this naming marks only a first stage in the acquiring of personalities by these two heroes, for it is clearly later that they are tagged onto the entourage of Theseus, becQming his Salaminian navigators, handed over to him by the Salaminian king Skiros. (Indeed, despite the link provided by their names, their pairing is not complete: the epigraphical source still separates the two names with that of Teukros.) Thus they enter a complex world of commemorative festivals and political associations - but despite these quite different connexions they retain their Phaeacian names.
I'
Diomedes in Italy: collected evidence in RE V 820-3. At Methone, Paus. 4.35.1.8. Penelope: ib. 8.12.6. Philochorus FGrH 328 F I I (= Plut. Thes. 17.6); Salaminioi decree 91.
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
I07
Presumably the traditions could be reconciled by bringing them to Salamis from the Phaeacian land of Scherie; but the sequence of development is clear, and disturbingly quite the opposite from that of the previous example. Here in the process of identification we get first the world of the epic, and only later the build-up of the local saga. In this case it seems that the arrival of Theseus as a major figure in this part of Attica, attracting minor heroes into his circle, is a relatively late phenomenon. Against the general background of this pattern, more specific motives sometimes come into play. The case of Neleus is an example of political considerations influencing an epic connexion.’* From an inscription dated 418/7 (IG I3 84) we learn of a city shrine commonly called the Neleion, in which were worshipped Kodros, Neleus and Basile, the first-named, who is not mentioned on every occasion, being fairly clearly an afterthought. Basile is a puzzling character, apparently with several facets, but here she is clearly one.half of an old pair of gods, of local significance only; this cult group has then been transformed into something quite different, for the addition of Kodros makes it certain that Neleus was identified with the Neleus or Neileus who in the developed tradition represented by Herodotus (9.47, 97) was the son of king Kodros of Athens and founder of Miletos and other Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor. Obviously the purport of this is that Athens is the natural leader of these cities, and since the Attic claim to Ionian primacy was canvassed as early as Solon,I3 it is possible that the transformation of Neleus may have had its origin in an identification of the Athenian Neleus with a Milesian hero of the same name. The epic element may then have come in indirectly, via Miletos, where it would be claimed that the local Neleus was a descendant of Neleus of Pylos, Nestor’s father. The later Neleids thus leave Messenia for Attica, and from there proceed to colonise the shores of Asia. Attica is a sort of link between the epic past and later, ‘hisforical’ events. Although the Messenian element may not have been of primary importance in an Athens whose citizens were proud of their autochthonous origin, the Messenian names quite frequently found in Miletos and related cities do have their Athenian counterpart in names like Peisistratos found among those who claimed Neleid descent. The backward-looking claim, as well as the claim forward to Ionia, become important. Epic ancestry might, however, be used simply to lend dignity to a family; Andocides, we recall, claimed descent from Odysseus, via the rather unlikely combination of Telemachos and Nausikaa,I4 and the family of the politician Phaiax could well have thought of Phaeacian ancestors. Here there need be no cult element, and aside from genealogies we find other epic characters appearing in Attic narrative tradition, clearly as genuine introductions and not as identifications of figures from Homer and the Cycle with already existing heroes. Such are the Cyclopes, who make several appearances in Attic contexts;ls these characters, frequently equipped with proper names, do not, it is true, necessarily originate from the Odyssey, but after the wide diffusion of the poem they were impossible to dissociate from it. They add a touch of the exotic, but a touch with strongly epic colouring. Examples of epic mythology could be iterated, and they are not always simple. There may be direct political motivation for the importation of epic elements, as it would seem in the See J. Barron, ‘Milesian Politics and Athenian P,opaganda, c. 460-440 BC’, JHS 82 (1962) 1-6. l3 l4
Is
~ p ~ o p u ~ c2oophv i q v p i a v ’Iqoviq<,fr. 4a West. Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 24c. We hear of K k h o q ~ o iAi y p i h o u roc K ~ K ~ Kschol. o ~ ,/I. 18.483 (see below); M~hdrvixnoqroc K ~ K ~ w ~ o ~ 706 Z&U&TKOU,Photius S.V. M 6 p y q ~ 0&~paxO<. ~ It is likely that Agrolas and Hyperbios. apparently the builders of the Pelasgian walls of the Acropolis (Paus. I .28.3) were Cyclopes; this is suggested by the tradition of Cyclopean walls, by their names (cf. Od. 9.106-15), and by the Sicilian and Acarnanian connexions (cf. schol. /I. 18.483).
I ox
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
transformation of the hero of Melite, equipped with a shield, into Eurysakes, son of Ajax of the O&KOS d p i , ( / I . 17.132).’” Or the growing complexity of ritual and its explanation might demand a heroic figure as the first performer - and so Orestes, as the archetypally polluted man of epic saga, is introduced into Attic mythology through such rituals of purification as the But in all these cases it Choes at the Anthesteria, with which his name is regularly as~0ciated.l~ seems clear that the link with the wider world mattered. On the most obvious level -though it is a process still very incomplete in the fifth century - the heroes of Attica should be integrated into the major sagas. They must take part in panhellenic expeditions and perform deeds of valour in company with heroes known throughout the Greek world; they would not prove their worth by remaining isolated from the rest of Greece. (This is a development parallet to the later tendency in the visual arts to group Attic and non-Attic heroes together; see above, p. 9 I .) Such developments place Attica in its own - naturally meritorious - relation to the heroic world, and so in a sense justify it. Attica shared in the common heroic experience, and so may share in contemporary Greekness; this is the general basis underlying more specific mythological justifications of the present. The genealogical factor perhaps assists in this process by introducing a rudimentary timescale, thus making the heroes of Attica contemporaries, in their respective generations, of the heroes of other parts of Greece. It is not until a relatively late date that the more isolated figures of Attica, such as the early kings, were given much chronological organisation; time is extremely vague in the myths surrounding them. But the epic knew quite a precise structure of generations, going down to the sons of those who fought at Troy and extending back to the Trojan generation’s fathers and grandfathers - the pattern shown in Telemachos’ account of his ancestry (Od. 16.1 18-20). The sons of the generation of Agamemnon’s expedition were not such great heroes as their fathers, while the greatest of the heroes - such as Herakles belonged to the previous generation; Herakles’ son Tlepolemos is killed by Sarpedon (/I. 5.627ff). The greatest Attic hero Theseus, who is largely an expression of particularly Attic civic qualities, became firmly anchored to Herakles’ generation, while his sons, we have seen, fought at Troy. Theseus’ monster-slaying exploits not only mimic those of Herakles; he becomes his younger contemporary and kinsman, and stories relate their mutual dealings. Theseus’ son deals kindly with those of Herakles, and Attica is linked, rather ambivalently, with the retum of the Herakleidai. This story, the subject of Euripides’ Her-uclidue, contains a number of formative elements, not least, in Euripides’ version, the expression of anti-Spartan sentiments. But beyond this and similar specific motives lies the more general desire to provide a definite and determined link between one’s own national heroes and the world outside. It is the same national pride which prompts the introduction of references to Athens and Attica into the Homeric poems where none originally existed. Except in instances where obvious political advantage is concemed,Ix this is surely not so much deliberate falsification as an inability to imagine that the major poems of the Greek world might not have a place for Attica. Attica must be explained, as it were, by reference to something panhellenic - Homer in the literary field, and outside this, the vast mass of shifting and unstandardised heroic saga. So Ferguson, Hesperia 7 ( 1938) 15- 17. Alan Griffiths (oral communication) is sceptical, pointing out the Greek propensity, not confined to epic or myth, for naming sons after qualities or achievements of their fathers. The name Eurysakes would not then originate with a previously nameless cult at Melite. This point is not necessarily incompatible with Ferguson’s supposition. l7E.g. Phanodemus, FGvH 325 F 1 I . I XThe obvious example occurs in the Catalogue, /I. 2.558, which justifies the Athenian claim to Salamis.
Ih
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
I09
At this point, as a kind of pendant to this whole group of heroes, we may consider the case of Ion. Ion is not of course strictly an epic figure, and his manner of relating Attica to the rest of the world is almost diametrically opposed to that of the epic hero. Originating at least partly in minor local cults based either near Gargettos or at Potamoi on the east coast,” Ion is an Attic hero - at least in the version which came to predominate - who forces his way into a wider consciousness, rather than a panhellenic hero claimed for Attica. The most obvious political importance of Ion was of course to claim for Attica the primacy among Ionian Greeks; the first and eponymous Ionian (Ionians in Greek are simply ‘Ions’, “IOVES) was an Athenian, the grandson of Erechtheus. As colonists of the Aegean islands and the coast of Asia Minor, Ion and his sons (the eponyms of the four Ionic tribes) overlap functions to some extent with the Neleids; they represent a more confident and self-reliant way of pressing the claim, and one of wider application, too. The main thrust, so to speak, of these figures, would then have been outwards from Athens to other Ionian cities, and we find them occurring in this context in late fifth-century Samos.20 But what of Athens itself - did Ion bring out any aspects of Athenian self-awareness not covered by other heroes? Just as he seems to be an intruder in the genealogy of the Erechtheid kings, so his appearance in cult has something of the air of an afterthought. If Ion really expressed to the Athenians a deep consciousness of being Ionian we might expect him to appear in rituals which also expressed this. Yet the Apatouria, for Herodotus ( 1.147) the quintessentially Ionian festival, have seemingly no place for Ion; the hero of the festival’s aition in Athens is the king Melanthos, a Neleid certainly and so colonist of Ionian cities - but perhaps owing his Neleid identity merely to his appearance in this Ionian festival. It is of course possible, given the incomplete state of our evidence, that Ion had some less central part in the festival and one of later origins; there are some signs that crucial stages in his development were reached only in the fifth century.” By this date we do, however, find that his finances have state connexions,??and he could have been interpolated, as it were, into many different celebrations, as for instance he appears in the fourth century in the Herakleia celebrated by the genos of the Salaminioi. The one city festival which we know Ion did have connexions with was, reasonably enough, an Apoiline ritual, the Boedromia. According to Philochorus (F 13) this commemorated the help given by Ion to Erechtheus and his army against Eumolpos in the Eleusinian war. This can hardly be the ‘real’ reason for the festival, since we find Apollo Boedromios and the month of Boedromion in places other than Athens. But it is unlikely to be mere speculation on Philochorus’ part. If Ion had come to be connected with the Eleusinian war, then what is being stressed is his alignment with native, true-born Athenian forces against an army with a distinctly foreign tinge (below, pp. 114-5.). This would fit in with a picture of Ion which emphasises the purity of his descent and the closeness of his origins to the gods, which perhaps came to be the important thing about this figure to the Athenians themselves.?’ For the tradition claims not that Athens is Ionian, but that the Ionian Ion son of Gargettos, Paus. 6.22.7, cf. neighbouring deme of lonidai. Tomb at Potamoi. Paus. I .3 1.3. J . Barron, ‘Religious Propaganda of the Delian League’. . / H S 84 ( 1964) 35-18. ? I His presentation as son of Apollo is of central importance here; see n. 23. IG l3383.147-9. ?’ Although :I< a hero Ion is closely associated with Apollo, it may be that i l was only in the course of the later fifth century that he came to be regarded as Apollo’s son; there is no unequivocal evidence before Euripides (A. S . Owen, Euripides: /on (Oxford 1939) ix-xiii). Herodotus calls Ion simply son of Xouthos (7.94. 8.44). a tradition which persists, and which should already be presupposed in the verse of Hesiod (fr. 9 M-W) making Doros. Xouthos and Aiolos sons of Hellen (yet this again places Ion in an anomalous position. as grandson. not son. of Hellen; and there are no ‘Xouthian’ Greeks). For the contradiction. we could compare the tradition on the divine or human paternity of Theseus. I’
lo See
I I0
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
race is Athenian.24 Any failure on the part of other Ionians, any degeneracy and weakness conventionally ascribed to the race, could safely be put down to the greater remoteness of the Ionians from the founder of the race and his Athenian ancestors.
2. Traditions of an autochthonous people The myths of a Greek polis, we have seen, must reflect its Greekness. But equally the group must use myth to establish the factors which differentiate it from other Greeks, which give it its own separate, distinct, and - naturally - superior identity. Heroes are the protagonists of myth, and reflect wider perspectives of national selfconsciousness. They and their stories explain and validate a people’s view of itself. In the case of Attica, one of the most important aspects of this self-consciousness was the tradition that its people were autochthonous, sprung from the earth itself. This whole complex has recently been the focus of important studies by Nicole Loraux, who has demonstrated the centrality of the idea to Athenian culture of the fifth and fourth century.? The view was clearly wellestablished in the fifth century: Euripides’ Praxithea gives it as a reason for a greater patriotic feeling on the part of the Athenians than of other Greeks (a topic echoed in fourth-century v the connotation ‘true-born Athenian’, and even oratory), Aristophanes uses o l d ~ o ~ 6 wwith Thucydides, though he avoids the word ab.toX8wv, accepts without question the indigenous nature of the Athenian.’h This was the established view, and a reason for self-esteem; the claims of other Greeks, such as the Arcadians, to be autochthonous were tacitly ignored, and this native origin was seen as the distinguishing characteristic of the Athenians. The reverse of this positive emphasis was a diminution in the number of heroic myths available. Although even Arcadia had its Pelasgos, its Lykaon, and its Arkas, the figure of the founder, the colonist, or god-descended ancestor, to whose heroic exploits the origins of polis or ethnos may be traced, scarcely occurs in Attica - for Ion expresses something wider, and something on a more conscious level. Neither do the myths of Attica reflect large-scale quasi-historical traditions and conflicts between races such as that expressed in the return of the Herakleidai. Consequently Attica is poor in mythical history of the ‘epic’ type; wars and expeditions feature little, obviously in a last-ditch attempt to link Attica with the wider Greek mythical world. Almost the only native ‘historical’ tradition of this sort - an event that seems to demand a specific place in time, whenever that may be - is the war with Eleusis. Other traditions about early Attica exist in an almost timeless world. Kekrops, Erechtheus and Erichthonios, Pandion are cult figures, sacral heroes whose origins lie in the diverse religious practices of the Acropolis. The order of their reigns and their mutual relationships is of no significance indeed the difficulties in applying chronological criteria to such figures are seen in the somewhat desperate atthidographic hypothesis of a second Pandion and a second Kekrops. Nor do the different types of political organisation in early Attica - the Dodekapolis of Kekrops, the fourfold division under the sons of Pandion, and the synoecism under Theseus (clearly a figure of different origins) - present an obvious historical sequence, although it is one which comes eventually to acquire some coherence. Cf. Hdt. I . 147.2: ~ i o l6&navr&<”love<6001 &R’ A6qvEov pydvam. (‘All those who originate from Athens are lonians.’) 25 Loraux, Enjarits esp. 35-73; The //I,-eritioriof Atheris (Cambridge, Mass. 1986: = L’inwntion d‘AthPnes, Paris 1981) 148-51. On Attic mythical history in general, see also Robert Parker, ‘Myths of Early Athens’, in J. Bremmer, ed.: Inteipretarioris of Greek Mytholog! (London 1987) 187-2 14, with which my own account proves to be in substantial agreement. lhE. Erechtherts fr. 50.7- I3 Austin; Ar. Vesp. 1076; Thuc. 1.2.5. ?‘
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
Ill
So much for the negative aspect of Attica’s heroic mythology. But the Athenians’ consciousness of their autochthonous nature also received expression in more positive ways, in the figures of heroes who either literally sprang from the earth or have clearly no ancestry, like Kekrops. Most of these heroes are archegetes who in other ways express central Athenian qualities or traditions. Such stories involve a very literal element; the earth itself, Ge, is an important part of the picture. This is seen most clearly in the myth of Erichthonios, whose name, the very earthy one, proclaims his origin, and whose status as the child of Earth is advertised by the numerous fifth-century representations of the ‘Birth’, in which a female figure, half-emerging from the earth, hands the infant Erichthqnios to Athena.?’ These depictions show the child as an ordinary human baby, but the myth of his tendance by the daughters of Kekrops shows that, as a true autochthon, he could take the form of that most chthonic of animals, the snake.” Aglauros and her sisters, the myth relates, in defiance of Athena’s prohibition, stole a glance at the child under their protection and on seeing the snake around him, or else his own snake-shape, threw themselves off the Acropolis in terror. Had the girls been ordinary human creatures with memories, instead of protagonists in an isolated myth, their panic would have been less, for they would have remembered that their own father Kekrops, the Gupuis or double-natured, was half-man, half-snake. In fifth-century art, the human upper half of Kekrops is regularly joined to large and splendid snaky coils, and despite a few fully human representations, everyone knew how the hero should look; Aristophanes can use his snake-form as the basis of a joke.?’ Although the birth or origins of Kekrops is not part of the structure of the myths of the Acropolis, he too is in a sense autochthonous, for he has no parents. Clearly Kekrops and Erichthonios are figures of essentially the same type, and they are equally clearly related to the guardian snake of the Acropolis; they are protective powers, native to the land, with only limited (and unorthodox) Olympian genealogy. Snakes are very commonly seen as protectors, whether of house or of city; a good parallel to the child-snake Erichthonios is formed by the Eleian Sosipolis, who according to Pausanias (6.20.2-5) fulfilled the promise of his name by turning himself at the head of the army from a baby into a snake, so throwing the opposing Arcadian army into confusion and flight.30 This protective function is due partly to the instinctive fear inspired by the snake in the enemy, but partly also to the creature’s origins in the earth itself, with which it seems to have a much closer relationship than do other creatures, emerging from holes and caves and tombs and disappearing back into them again. If the snake is so close to the earth it must desire to protect the substance or being which gave and gives it birth and nourishment. The serpent nature, then, can express autochthony. and it can express a belligerent protectiveness; the circle is completed by the rationale of the autochthonous Athenian, who fights for his country because it is literally his mother.‘’ If you are not autochthonous you cannot be a true citizen, says Euripides, and Lysias, while praising the dead fallen in battle, that for the Athenians mother and fatherland are the same: a l j ~ O ~ 4 o v ~ ~ i (2.17). Although of the heroes with 6 v ~ rfiv q a h Q v 6KEKrqvro Kai pqt&pa ~ a narpiGa suggestions of autochthony in their make-up only Erechtheus (in so far as he can be distinguished from Erichthonios) actually dies fighting for Athens, they all express the internal Brominer’ 262-3: see pl. 6B. Loraux. E/tftr/rts 62-3 points out that the scene is really a handing over to ;I rpocpoi. not a birth. but conception. birth and handing over form scarcely separable parts of the same myth. ?’ Erichthonios himself is a snake in Hyg. Asti.. 2.13: cf. Paus. 1.24.7. 2y Brorniner’ 265; Ar. Vesp. 438. See F. Brominer in Clrcrritc~s. F c ~ s t s c h r ~Lcrirglot: fi (Bonn 1957) 152-64. ‘(’Another example of a snake associated with a child occurs at Ainphikleia in Phokis (Paus. 10.3.7.9-10): this W;IS presumably also guardian of the city. Compare also Kychreus of Salamis (above. p. 44.) ‘I Cf. Loraux, Enfonrs 66-7. The ambivalence in the motifs of autochthony (the evil giants. ylycxvrcq. were ;rlso y r l ~ v e iand ~ ) of the snake is explored in Euripides’ use of the imagery for his poi-trayal of Kreousa in / O U . ?’
I12
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
necessity of being prepared to do so. So at Thebes, the earth produces a harvest not just of men but of warriors. These are heroic paradigms of the behaviour required from citizens. It is clear that in other ways too Kekrops and ErechtheusErichthonios are more that just heroic beings who happen to be autochthonous, for they each have some claim to be the city’s archegete: Athenians are indifferently Kekropidai or Erechtheidai. But such figures are not confined to Athens itself, for north-east Attica also boasts its autochthons, including Aphidnos and Titakos.’? Again, the autochthonous nature seems to have been literally understood: Aphidnos is addressed as ‘son of Earth who has no mother’ by a character in E~ripides.‘~ Aphidnos was the archegete and perhaps the first ancestor of the people of Aphidna; he expresses in individualised form their claim to be descended from the original inhabitants. It is not random heroes who are autochthonous, but those archegetes who in a sense stand for the whole people. Further, in the case of the Athenian heroes it is clear that both figures, or all three if we separate Erechtheus from Erichthonios, have some attributes other than the ‘ordinary’ heroic ones of dead human beings. Their essential relations are to the cults of the Acropolis, to the protective daimones, to the tkihazra or well of salt water, to fissures in the earth, and to the cult of Athena Polias. They exist to express what are seen as the oldest and most essential traditions of Athens and the Athenians, and not, originally, to provide a coherent chronological sequence explaining the development of Athenian culture. Thus when we read that the Panathenaia were introduced under Erichthonios, this should not be taken, with the atthidographic sources, as an indication of chronology, but as a statement placing Erichthonios in the category of hero-institutor, as the first to celebrate this festival, and as subsequently himself celebrated in it? (Similarly, of other kings, Amphiktyon introduces the cult of Dionysos Orthos and the Greater Dionysia, and Pandion is the founder of the Pandia - that is, indeed, his essential function, from which he is named, as though Erichthonios were to be called Panathenaion.) Again, the attribution to Kekrops of the statue of Hermes in the Erechtheion indicates that its presence is seen as essential to Athenian tradition.35 If the divine cults of the Acropolis - the polis, in fact, in the narrower sense of the word - are central to the Athenian sense of identity, then their hero-institutors, as so often, are the prototypes of the Athenians who perform them. And if the Athenians are autochthonous in the figurative sense, being the aboriginal inhabitants of Attica, then their archegetes, in order to express the same thing in mythical terms, were born literally from the earth.
If the people of Attica were united in their autochthonous nature, if they were effectively one people, then it was necessary that the theme of unity should loom large in the local selfconsciousness; indeed the whole of Attic prehistory could be seen as directed towards an eventual synoecism. At this point a rudimentary chronological element begins to develop. A people’s mythical history must define not only its outstanding and definitive characteristics, but also the historical stages by which its constitution as one people came to be expressed in political terms. We have seen that Attic history has no room for the founder-figure, the oikist of the city; here o u v o i ~ ~ o ptakes o ~ the place of o i n o p o ~as the climactic event defining local history. This is not a simple matter, for the developed tradition contains many complicating Titakos: Hdt. 9.73.3. Photius S.V. &p+ropo<(Reitzenstein 91): AqtGve raias uik q s hpfiropos. .M Cf. J. D. Mikalson, ‘Erechtheus and the Panathenaia’, AJP 97 (1976) 141-53. Erichthonios was also credited with the introduction of honours for the Kourotrophos: this clearly relates to the myth, probably also the ritual, of his birth and tendance. Paus. I .27. I . Cf. also the association of Hermes with two of Kekrops’ daughters, Pandrosos and Herse.
2?
33
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
1 I3
factors. In particular, since Theseus is a relative latecomer on the heroic scene, yet soon becomes credited with effecting the synoecism in its fullest sense, the older tradition of a united Attica has somehow to be modified and accommodated to this version. Kekrops, if not the founder of Athens, is, as we have seen, effectively the f i p q h p ~ q + qof~ the Athenians, expressing their character in himself. Tradition agreed that there had been a time before Kekrops, but it was a time before Athena had taken possession of the city named after her; kings earlier than Kekrops are figures from outlying demes, or belong to a vague and shadowy prehistory with litrle relation to cultic realities; not much agreement could be reached on them. Kekrops himself was an institutor and culture-hero, who invented or brought to Athens most of what a later age considered normative for a civilised, Greek, life (above, p. 89), and as in so much else he was also an innovator with regard to the political organisation of Attica. The tradition found in Philochorus (F 94) and elsewhere in a different version,’(‘ ascribes to Kekrops the creation of an Attic Dodekapolis; the creation, that is, or the denomination, of twelve Attic cities as centres for a dependent surrounding countryside. This has been variously understood as a miniature Ionian Dodekapolis, based on the four Ionic tribes, and thus perhaps a claim to be pre-eminently Ionian, or as a reflex of some preCleisthenic or even Cleisthenic organisation of the state, or mirroring the introduction of cults from these particular cities into Athens.” It is indisputable that the cities given in Strabo’s version of Philochorus do correspond to demes and other areas with old and important traditions, and it is conceivable that they were actually old administrative centres, whether on a formal or purely de fact0 basis. It may be that this organisation represents a convergence of traditions, of these towns as old-established centres and Kekrops as synoecist or similar, a convergence stimulated by the introduction of Theseus as new synoecising figure. Kekrops is represented, in any case, as having the primacy over all Attica, and so as constituting it, in some sense, as a unity. The creation of the Dodekapolis is a unifying move, in contrast to some of the later events. Just as Kekrops was credited with the inventiofi of almost every appurtenance of civilised life, so he also prefigured the eventual unity of Attica. The cultic element, so much stressed by Solders, may be important here as in historical synoecisms; to Kekrops was attributed the introduction of many cults in Athens, almost all of the centrally located cults in fact which had no clear connexion with some other heroic figure, and it is by no ineans impossible that his name might be associated with such cults in the &muas might derive from the local cults of the remaining eleven cities. The important thing is that the Attic archegeres ruled over an Attica essentially united. Erechtheus and the war against Eleusis represent a tradition of a different sort, recording a specific event rather than a condition. Thucydides indeed (2.15) uses it as an example of the disunited state of Attica before Theseus, but it is doubtful whether he knew of further examples. This tradition is certainly not so old as the figure of Erechtheus himself. Erechtheus (as opposed here to the divine child Erichthonios) is an old figure of cult worshipped in conjunction with Athena Polias, and identified by title with Poseidon.3x His burial on the Acropolis is unlikely to have had much to do originally with the Eleusinian war. The attribution of the war to Erechtheus tells us simply that he was the warrior-king; it is significant that Poseidon, in Attic tradition, appears so often in contexts of strife and hostility. The Etym. M. S.V. ZxaKpia Xhpa. Ionian Dodekapolis: Busolt, Griechischf Sfnutskirnde (Munich 1926) 775. Historical organisation: Jacoby in .Philoch. F 9 4 (IIIB Supp. 392-99). Cults: Solders 106-12. 3x E. Erechtheus fr. 65.93-4 Austin.
36
37
I14
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
traditions about Erechtheus are of a very different kind from those about Kekrops, and there is an almost complete contrast of functions between the victor over the Eleusinians and Thracians, and the legislator and introducer of cults. Erechtheus, with his sacrificial daughters, impersonates the Athenian fighting spirit as Kekrops the civilising spirit. The war which symbolises the former disunity of Attica, and the inevitability of Athenian domination, is naturally attributed to him. For the traditions of what must have been many local wars and skirmishes between the towns of Attica seem to have crystallised into this one war between Athens and Eleusis. The fact that the hostile town was said to be Eleusis was doubtless an embarrassment to the great families of the area, especially the Eumolpidai, who had also to contend with the opinion that their archegete was a Thracian. Whatever the historical basis of the tradition of the war, it is not necessary to suppose that a late date accounts for its preservation; Eleusis, situated beyond the Aigaleos range and half-way to Megara, is less obviously part of Attica than many other towns with old traditions, Thorikos and Brauron for instance.” Attica might as easily have been bounded at Aigaleos as it might have included the Megarid. Again, Eleusis has a quite disproportionate number of local heroes, not all directly connected with the Mysteries, which suggests strong independent traditions. Eleusinians oppose Athenians in contexts other than the war, as Kerkyon Theseus. In this war, the epitome of hostilities, there are two main views as regards the protagonists on the Eleusinian side. In the version adopted by Euripides, it is Eumolpos who is killed in battle by Erechtheus; according to Pausanias (1.27.4) it is Immarados his son. The chronology is at variance, too; Euripides distinguished two Eumolpoi, and it is the descendant of Erechtheus’ ~ ) will establish the Mysteries. On Pausanias’ view, opponent (Eiipohno~EGpOhnou y ~ y h who which seems more natural, the Mysteries already exist: the war is settled on the terms of Eleusinian subjection to the Athenians in everything except this. The chief point at i s u e in these differing versions appears to be the extent of the Thracian component in the Eleusinian forces. Clearly the double Eumolpos is not original; this duplication is a rather desperate, but not uncommon, expedient for straightening out discordant or unpalatable chronology. Eumolpos in origin is simply the heroic projection of the hierophant, and his name expresses the melodious singing voice desirable in this priest, illustrated on an early fifth-century Mission of Triptolemos (ARV’ 459.3) by his depiction with a swan. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (154, 475) he appears among the kings or chieftains of Eleusis; nothing suggests a Thracian origin. But whether or not Erechtheus’ antagonist was Thracian by birth, he certainly appears at the head of a Thracian army (in all accounts we know). The name of his son, Immarados or Ismaros, does not seem to be Greek (it occurs in connexion with Thrace in Apollodorus 3.15.4) and the accounts making Immarados rather than Eumolpos the army’s leader would appear to be emphasising the Thracian element among the adversaries of Athens. There are two possible reasons for this Thracian connexion. The suggestion that the Thracian Eumolpos was partly due to the numbering of the Eleusinian hero among the Orphic poets is probably right; this is certainly the gist of Attic genealogies which make him son or father of Mousaios, under whose name verses of Orphic tendency circulated.40 We are here dealing with early syncretistic attempts to place together all rites and precepts of a ‘mystical’ nature as essentially teaching the same wisdom. No doubt the Gphpeva of Eleusis were already capable 3f an Orphic interpretation, however much violence that might do to their original nature. But we must also For the controversy on the date, see Nilsson. Cults Myths 0i.ucle.y uiid Politics (New York 1972) 37-9. JO Hiller von Gaertringen, De Gi.ucc.orrtni fuhulis ad Thruws pertinen/ihus (Berlin 1886) 1 18. Orpheus and Mousaios: Androtion FGrH 324 F 70, Diog. Laert. I .3. 3q
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
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take into account the depiction of the adversaries of Athens - as on other occasions - as foreign and exotic. One account mentions not only Eumolpos' Thracian army but also an army from Acamania led by Phorbas. Among the dead were Klytios, son of Agriopes the C y ~ l o p s . ~ ' Here the specifically Thracian element is subordinated to the bizarre and half-barbarian, the implication being that those who fought against Athens were no true people of Attica, scarcely even Greek. (This was hardly a picture which would commend itself to the Eumolpidai, and it is presumably as a patched-up compromise solution to this problem that the two-Eumolpos theory originates.) From this angle, the tradition emphasizes the threat once posed to Athens by foreign forces. The grave of Immarados was pointed out under the Acropolis, where presumably he had died fighting; one thinks immediately of the graves of those other exotic enemies, the Amazons. An episode relating to the unity of Attica is thus halfway to being transformed into a story of Athenian repulsion of foreign threats; for the war, at least in the form we know, was an Athenian tradition, not an Eleusinian. From the Eleusinian point of view, there was no necessity for the tradition of hositility towards Athens. Such events, if they did occur, were best forgotten, and it is no doubt from the Eleusinian side that we hear contrasting 'integrating' stories, such as that which attributes to the Eleusinian ruler Keleos the institution of free meals at the Athenian prytaneion (Plut. Mot-. 667D). As for the heroes of Eleusis involved in the fighting, the mythical function of Eumolpos is to establish the Mysteries, and this is quite sufficient to justify his existence, while Immarados is not an Eleusinian hero at all. It is noteworthy that none of the other numerous Eleusinian heroes seems to take part in this war. In Athens, however, the tradition of a once disunited and rebellious Attica, subdued by the growing strength of its chief city, was of more interest. The repulsion of foreign threats was also a recumng theme in its mythical history. Finally, it is part of the function of Erechtheus to fight wars; he is naturally a fighting hero, as Eumolpos the proto-hierophant is not. The fourfold division of Attica among the sons of Pandion was also, of course, an event, but as with the creation of the Dodekapolis there is more stress on the eventual product than on the act. The importance of the tradition is that it seeks to explain in mythical terms some sort of distinction perceived between different parts of Attica (seen provocatively here as including the Megarid); it is division, then, rather than unity as with Kekrops, which is stressed. This is a mythological device used elsewhere, for the sons of Pandion are closely paralleled in Arcadia by the sons of Arkas. The kingdom of Arkas was at his death divided between his sons Azan, Apheidas and Elatos, which is simply a way of saying that although at the most general level Arcadia is a unity, it is subdivided into three parts.4' But outside this simple structure of father and sons, the Arcadian genealogy has its complicating factors, with the rival early ancestor Lykaon and his progeny. So too in Attica the statement is not quite a simple one. These are not the sons of some obvious proto-Athenian like Kekrops or Erechtheus, but of Pandion, giving the division perhaps a more emphatic, because more unexpected, place in time, and enabling it more easily to be set in a history of changing organisations of Attica. But the original reason for this may lie simply in processes of mythological rationalisation and tidyingup. Omeus, who in what seems to be the oldest version of the story (below) stands in the place of Aigeus, is recorded elsewhere as a son of Erechtheus,." so that originally it may indeed have been Erechtheus, the warrior-king, whose sons divided the land among themselves. The 'son of Agriopes, son of Kyklops': roc Xypthnou roc K ~ K ~ O R Oschol. S , I / . 18.483. Paus. 8.4.3. Plut. Thes. 32, Paus. 10.35.8.
4 1 Or
42 42
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
substitution of Pandion could have been due to a number of factors: the growth of a tradition attributing only daughters to E r e c h t h e u ~ ;the ~ ~ wish to emphasise a Megarian element, if Pandion already had Megarian connexions; or simply the need to fit Pandion himself in somewhere as ruler of a united Attica. The earliest explicit reference to the tradition occurs in a fragment of Sophocles (TGI-FF 24), presumably from his Aigeus:
6poi pEv a ~ r a < 5 6 p ~ o &narilp v pohEiv> np&ofi&ia veipa5 4 0 6 yFj5.. ~ .Akq rov hvrirchrupov a n o v Etfioia5 v i p a Nioq 6&rev 6pauhov 6caipei Xedva %ipov05 & K T ~ ~ sI. 4 5 6E f i 5 TO npo5 vdrov 6 o ~ h q p o 5o h 0 5 K a i yiyavra~2 ~ ~ p i c p o v ~’ihqxendLhha5. ... Handing out to me of this land the portion of the eldest, my father decreed that I should go to the coastal parts; then he hands to Lykos the garden which stretches out opposite Euboea; for Nisos he selects the land bordering on the coast of Skiron; and the southern part of the land fell to the lot of this harsh giant-begetter,Pallas. But already we find these figures, with the exception of Aigeus, grouped together with Omeus on a calyx-krater dated shortly before 480 ( A N 2 259.l), surely a reference to the same tradition. Despite the relatively late date, this would seem to indicate an earlier version of the story antedating the increased importance which came to be attached to Aigeus following the rise of his son Theseus. But even in this form it still shows an interest in the Megarid, which is allocated to Nisos (clearly a Megarian hero in origin). It is clear that we can further trace the story to an original threefold division of Attica proper, with the Megarid added as a fourth part, one supposes in the sixth century. The idea of a threefold division, as well as producing a closer parallel with the division of Arcadia, has an obvious, if somewhat enigmatic, historical parallel in the parties of Plain, Shore, and Diakria, which were important in political life after the death of Solon. The obvious conclusion would be to identify Omeus (or Aigeus), Pallas and Lykos as mythical prototypes of Lykourgos, Megakles and Peisistratos. Yet even the little we know of the events of these years is sufficient to refute such a simple equation. In Sophocles’ version, Aigeus holds in some sense the primacy; but why should Lykourgos? Again, Lykos, as Peisistratos, should not be so conspicuous in the myths of the brothers’ quarrels, whether the tradition was finally shaped by Peisistratean or Cleisthenic elements. More telling, perhaps, is the comparison of mythical and historical events at Pallene. In the myth, so told as part of the Theseus story, Theseus (who as Aigeus’ son and holder of the ‘town’ (&otu) should correspond to Lykourgos) starts out from the town and defeats the Pallantidai (Megakles - the Shore) at Pallene. In reality, Pallene was the scene of the battle between the invading Peisistratos (Lykos) and the people of the &oru (Omeus / Aigeus / Theseus), in which Peisistratos was victorious. Thus any detailed correspondence has broken down entirely. It might be nearer the truth to suppose that Theseus’ victory at Pallene was a sort of post-Peisistratid ‘correction’ of events; what should have happened, did happen, in an ideal, heroic past, and the seditious invaders were defeated by the legitimate authority. We may compare the defeat of Eurystheus’ invading army in the same area, in the next generation - the story of Euripides’ Hevaclidae. In both cases the parallelism is not exact, merely Praxithea. at least, has no sons in E. EluchthPrrs fr. 50.22-5, but other traditions persisted alongside this: Omeus, displaced from the group of four brothers. remains Erechtheus’ son in Plut. Thes. 32 and elsewhere, while Metion also is very commonly son of Erechtheus (e.g. Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 146).
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
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suggestive. Similarly, the original division in the myth probably corresponds to a distinction of areas perceived at least partly independently of the political squabbles of the sixth century. Certainly any element of deliberate political manipulation of the myth is very minor. Pandion’s sons and their quarrels lead us to Theseus and the final mythical unification of Attica. That Theseus was the author of the decisive act which constituted the synoecism seems to have been generally accepted by Athenians of the classical period. Thucydides (2.15) makes it very clear for us what this involved; Theseus abolished the independent magistracies in the demes and established one bouleuterion and one prytaneion for the whole of Attica. Fifthcentury authors are almost unanimous in this belief, as in their presentation of Theseus (where he appears) as a strong and benevolent ruler. Yet this Theseus appears to be a relatively recent creation. In the first place, the real importance of Theseus as Attic hero can scarcely be placed before the last quarter of the sixth century; secondly, many of the stories told about him depict an arrogant and wilful man, at odds with many of the local heroes of Attica. Theseus was of course in existence long before his phenomenal popularity on Attic vases indicates a phase of new significance. He appears in the Aspis (182) as the son of Aigeus, fighting against the Centaurs in company with other heroes, though clearly of superior rank. The Hesiodic poems know also of his desertion of Ariadne (fr. 298 M-W). Further, his exploits on Crete and Delos are depicted on the Frangois vase, dated about 570. The early evidence does not suggest a particularly Attic hero, in contrast, for instance, to the picture of Erechtheus which we get in the Catalogue ( I / . 2.546-51). On the contrary, Hesiod’s Theseus would more naturally be Thessalian, while the institution of the crane-dance on Delos suggests at first a genuine pan-Ionian c o n n e x i ~ n . He ~ ~ could also, of course, be located at Troizen, a tradition strong enough to influence the formation of the eventually accepted Attic version. However that may be, it is reasonably clear that at some time in the last quarter of the sixth century there began to be a particular Athenian interest in Theseus. To explain the upsurge in visual depictions of the Theseus saga by the composition and diffusion of a Theseid is only to take the question one stage further Evidently until this time there had been no need for an illustrious Attic hero of the epic type. Erechtheus and Kekrops, those un-epic, un-episodic heroes, had sufficed as mythological expressions of Athenian self-awareness. To examine in full the reasons for the rise of Theseus would take us far beyond our present scope, which is Theseus the synoecist. But the synoecism is a vital factor. The theory that Theseus as we know him is in a sense the creation of the supporters of Cleisthenes is too well known to need elab~ration.~’The chronology and the Alcmaeonid connexions point to this conclusion, but perhaps most significant is the appe‘lrance of Theseus as the mythical synoecist, just as in historical times it was Cleisthenes who took the decisive steps towards a functioning Attic unity. Of course, the one-to-one equation of Theseus with Cleisthenes is too simple; Cleisthenes was not born in Troizen, nor did he fight with monsters and brigands on the road 4sSee further H. Herter, ‘Theseus der Athener’, RhM 88 (1939) 258-62: the whole article, together with the companion piece ‘Theseus der Jonier’ (RhM 85 (1936) 177-239) forms one of the fullest treatments of Thesean mythology, but is now partly superseded by the same author’s piece in RE Supp. XI11. 1045-1238: see also F. Brornmer, Theseus (Darmstadt 1982). 46 Aristotle knew of at least one Theseid (Poerics 1451a19ff.). Schol. Pi. 01. 10.83b names Diphilos as author of a Theseid in choliambics; but as West remarks ( / a n h i ef Elegi I1 61) this can scarcely be a serious poem ifearly. ” See the perhaps over-stated article of K . Schefold, ‘Kleisthenes: der Anteil der Kunst an der Gestaltung des jungen attischen Freistaates’, Mus. He/\*.3 (1946) 59-63: more recently, C. Sourvinou-lnwood. JHS 91 (1971) 97ff. with bibliography (97 n. 13); J. Boardman, JHS 95 (1975) 2-3. Vidal-Naquet (The B 1 d Hiriiter. (Baltimore 1986) 313) has argued against the generally accepted view linking Theseus with Cleisthenes on the grounds of his clear association with the family of Miltiades and Cimon. but this underestimates the political flexibility of heroes.
I I8
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
from Megara. If there were correspondences (such as we seem to find between Theseus and Cimon4’) between the two figures other than a general type of political activity, it does not seem that we can now recover them. One may ask, therefore, why it was necessary that the synoecism be attributed to a relarive newcomer to the Athenian mythological scene. Why could not the Dodekapolis of Kekrops or even the wars of Erechtheus be adapted to make them better express a properly unified Attica‘? That these kings did in the developed tradition look forward to Theseus’ achievement is clear enough, and I have earlier suggested (above, p. 87) that Cleisthenes and his associates used a number of mythological figures to stress the unity of Attica. But Kekrops and Erechtheus were ultimately unsuitable to prefigure the political events of the last decade of the sixth century. These timeless, static figures could not really be the protagonists of a detailed saga, and the saga is of crucial importance in the significance of Theseus’ achievement in Attica. It is essential that Theseus encounter difficulty and opposition in Attica, and hence that the synoecism be achieved only after setbacks and with effort. In the account given by Plutarch, and so far as one can see in those of his atthidographic sources, the achievement of the synoecism and the establishment of democracy are chronologically separate from his struggles with his Attic enemies - the sons of Pallas are already overcome, the kidnapping of Helen and its consequences still to come. But even Plutarch is aware, realistically enough, that in the intermediate stages Theseus was likely to have faced strong opposition (Theseus 24). In the earlier tradition, before a chronological sequence was carefully mapped out, it is likely that the struggles and difficulties stood in a much closer relation to the achievement. In particular, the conflict with the Pallantidai marks the change from a state of division into one of unity. In this part of the story, the division of Attica among the sons of Pandion is no longer a way of representing the distinction of the various areas of the country, but has become a distinct phase which can be placed in time. The defeat of the sons of Pallas represents an essential part of the work of uniting Attica under one central government. The synoecism, then, was not accomplished with the ease with which Kekrops introduced writing or instituted certain sacrifices. There was opposition to Theseus just as there was opposition to Cleisthenes. Again, one cannot press the details too far; the operative point in the minds of those who (consciously or unconsciously) framed the comparison was surely that a great and worthy enterprise of this type was bound to provoke some hostile reactions. It is noteworthy too that the favourable picture of Theseus did not entirely succeed in expunging some of his less creditable exploits. The rape of Helen and the attempt on Persephone (among others) are certainly not inventions of this period,‘y but it may well be due to opposition to the political implications of Theseus that such conditions survived. Both supporters and opponents of Cleisthenes might perpetuate in mythical terms the tradition of opposition, but Theseus’ arbitrary behaviour in kidnapping the child Helen and resisting her - Spartan - brothers the Tyndaridai would square very well with opposition on the behalf of the latter-day representatives of the north-eastern Attic heroes who opposed Theseus. In other words, perhaps, the inhabitants of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, dismembered in Cleisthenes’ tribal reforms, regarded the Alcmaeonid’s behaviour as lawless and arbitrary, no better than that of his forerunner. It is also particularly remarkable that the hero Marathos, whose story has clearly been formed by the battle named from his deme, dies in a sort of delporio, fighting against Theseus. North-eastern hostility again, but this takes us beyond Cleisthenes, and is possibly directed against the family of Miltiades and Cimon; Theseus was said to have
-w
J . Barron. ‘Bacchylides, Theseus and a woolly cloak’, BlCS 27 (1980) 1-8. See Herter. ‘Theseus der Athener’ (n. 45) 263-4; Nilsson, The Myccuucmr Urigin of Greek Mythology (Cambridge 1932) 170-4.
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appeared at the battle, and Miltiades' son Cimon has many points of contact with Theseus. Thus if the prototype of the Marathon dead was an enemy of Theseus, this would seem to have anti-Philaid implications: perhaps after all, the story would say, the credit for Marathon did not belong to Miltiades. But the importance of the new Theseus in Athenian self-consciousness outlasted Cleisthenes, and outlasted Cimon. The Theseus, for instance, of the Hel-acles or Oedipus af Colonus is not an isolated dramatic creation, but reflects an underlying and generally accepted picture. There are certain common characteristics in the Theseus of late fifth-century tragedy; unlike, say, Creon or Odysseus, he is not a figure who is varied at will. Theseus the just and merciful patron of suppliants reflects the Athenians' perception of themselves as the most hospitable of people, mirrored (directly or indirectly) in so many suppliant plays set in Athens. His consistent presentation in tragedy may be connected with contemporary reality. As a hero, he continued to offer protection to runaway slaves and other people of the humbler classes of so~iety.~" He is, of course, a constitutional monarch, and reacts indignantly - in phrases of political commonplace - to suggestions that the people of Attica might be 'enslaved' like the subjects of a tyrant (Soph. OC 916-7): K a i PO1 7tOhlV KEVClV6pOV fi 6OchTlV n V a &Sotaqd v a t , ~ & pioov ' ZQ pqtkvi; Did you think that mine is some slave city or one devoid of men, and that I am as nothing?
Sometimes, indeed, he is the patron of a democracy, no longer a king at all. In Euripides' Supplices (406-8) he tells the Argive herald that Athens is an 6heu6dpa nohi<where 6qpO< 6' hV&oo&l61~60XabLV 6V PEPE1 6v1auoia1oLv, 06Xi Z Q nhozj.r@6i60us TO TCXOTOV, &hhb.Xh R&V?l< E X O V 'iOOV. The people are king, ruling by turns in anndal succession; they do not give most power to the rich, but the poor man too has an equal share.
This anachronistic picture carried enough conviction to be put forward in atthidographic sources, and hence reported in Plutarch's Life of Theseus, where (ch. 24) Theseus resigns the monarchy and establishes a democracy. Synoecism and democracy: here again there is an echo of Cleisthenes, who in the tradition accepted by Herodotus established the tribes and the democracy at Athens (5.66). But once again the association survived the more immediate political context. Despite the survival of traditions in which Theseus is the enemy of the more minor and more intimate local heroes, especially of the north-east, and in which his exploits show arrogance and violence rather than benefits towards mankind, it is clear enough that in the main current of Athenian thought Theseus was responsible for the characteristic political form of Attica and expressed in his person the best characteristics of Athenian civic life. Stated in Plut. Thes. 36.4; cf. Ar. fr. 577 K-A, and perhaps Pherecrates fr. 49 K .
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3. Theseus and his entourage: the interaction of cult and myth A third set of factors can be recognised in the creation of heroic mythology, and these are such as can operate only when some heroic saga has already come into being. The type of story we shall now consider is that of the minor figure in the ambience of a greater hero or of greater events. The case of Theseus will serve to illustrate the process, as here our documentation is fullest, and we have already considered some possible reasons for the Thesean connexions of so many local and deme heroes. We have seen that the most important factor lying behind the creation of the Theseus saga was the desire for a heroic figure who would express in himself the developed forms and ideals of Athenian political life. But there was of course some Thesean material in existence before this. There were traditions known to Hesiod and other early writers and vase-painters. Similarly, there were additions to the stock of material after the new significance of Theseus had begun to establish itself. The great hero - and Theseus is not alone in this - begins to attract smaller heroes into his circle. In this he of course invites comparisons with gods, for perhaps the majority of divine cults include subordinate heroic figures within the whole complex of worship. Yet while the pattern of heroes surrounding a god may have influenced the configuration of minor heroes in the entourage of a greater, especially perhaps through the intermediary of ambiguous figures like Herakles who may be either hero or god,5’the picture presents some important differences. In the case of the god, one of the most important functions of the hero is to explain and sanction, in ‘historical’ temis, the whole form of the cult. In the hero’s case, though complexes of divine cult are probably the ultimate model, other factors are at work, and the emphasis is more, perhaps, on myth and saga than on cult, although cult may be influenced by the new mythical connexions which are formed. Figures such as Konnidas, Theseus’ paidagogos, or Phorbas, his charioteer or wrestling teacher,’? spring on the one hand from the desire to fill out what was known of Theseus’ life, on the other from the wish to give minor heroes a Thesean connexion. Konnidas was actually worshipped in connexion with Theseus. Similar in the second respect are Theseus’ steersmen, Nausithoos or Nauseiros and Phaiax. We have seen that their Odyssean names and Salaminian origin reveal that they had an importance before they came into the orbit of Theseus; and I have already argued that their cult is likely to have been the special province of two gene, the Phoinikes and Salaminioi, and that the Salaminioi had a particular interest in establishing a connexion between Theseus and their own cults. The whole complex of heroa at Phaleron of which these two form a part has very strong Thesean elements. Skiros is also represented there; he was the king of Salamis (and in local tradition author of the Salaminian synoecism!) who provided Theseus with Nausithoos and Phaiax. He too is worshipped by the Salaminioi. Skiros retains, no doubt, much of his original character associations, while in the case of the ‘hero at the stem’, it seems that previously independent seafaring heroes became part of a larger circle, influenced no doubt by the propensity of great heroes to have heroic helmsmen.53 We do not know whether Theseus himself was worshipped in the festival of his helmsmen, the Kybemesia. But he did intrude into the pattern of another festival of Phaleron, the Oschophoria. Again we have no knowledge of actual sacrifices in his honour in this festival, Commonly associated with Herakles in cult are members of his family such as Alkmene or Ioleos, while Diomos supplies an example of a hero who stands in a similar relationship to Herakles as he might to a more normal god. v Konnidas: Plut. TIies. 4. Phorbas: Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 152; lstros FGJ.H334 F 31 denies the tradition. E. Suppl. 680, ARV2 1268.1, further testify to the connexion with Theseus. z3 Compare Meneleos (above, pp. 41-2) and Aeneas. 5’
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which is basically a vintage celebration concerned with Athena Skiras and Dionysos, but the aetiologies connecting certain feature of the festival with the return of Theseus and his companions from Crete, if they were at all widespread before being taken up by the atthidographers, cannot but have influenced the general apprehension of the character of the rite. As in same sense the founder of the festival, Theseus is in fact very likely to have received some sacrifice; and the Oschophoria seem also to have fallen on a day very near that on which Theseus’ own festival was celebrated. The major factor in these connexions is likely to have been the eagerness of the Salaminioi to give themselves good Attic credentials, since they needed to prove themselves both Salaminian and Attic. While Theseus was still, so to speak, a rising star, it was possible and advantageous to introduce him into the family cults and traditions; one way of doing this was through the family’s own special heroes. Rather similar, it would seem, is the relationship of Theseus to the Ph~talidai.’~ The cults of this family were concerned with vegetable fertility and with purification; their archegete had been taught how to grow figs by Demeter herself, and theirs was the Sacred Fig-tree at Lakiadai on the road to Eleusis. Naturally enough the complex of cults had been brought into connexion with Eleusis itself, by way of the procession from Athens. A hero such as Theseus was less easy to accommodate; but the story of his journey from Megara brought him conveniently close to Lakiadai, where of course he would require purification from the blood shed on the way. (This sort of advertising technique, appealing to the great men of the past, is paralleled by the Eleusinian initiations of Herakles and the Dioskouroi.) In return for this, Plutarch tells us (ch. 23), the family was entrusted with certain sacrifices to the hero, perhaps also in connexion with the Oschophoria. The pattern of the story surely reflects the reality; it can have been only by virtue of their claim to have purified Theseus that the family acquired this priestly function. In such cases as this, myth clearly precedes and inspires ritual. But as far as the minor hero is concerned, this example differs from the preceding: here we see the amplification of the Theseus story by a genos for their own reasons without the attachment of a subordinate hero.55 Phytalos himself, standing at the beginning of agricultural history, was clearly an unsuitable candidate to purify a figure of the true Heroic Age. Plutarch speaks of the ‘hospitality’ of the Phytalidai (ch. 12), and this is obviously a necessary element in the purification which they performed. But the best-known hospitality story in the Theseus saga was of course, at least after Callimachus, that of Hekale. The festival known as the Hekalesia, celebrated in honour of Hekale and (Zeus) Hekalos or Hekaleios in the village named likewise Hekale, and involving the participation of the neighbouring villages, was presumably quite old in origin; it has no very obvious relations with other cults, and presents features, such as the use of the affectionate diminutive ‘Hekaline’, which puzzled the commentators. Although north-east Attica is one of the places where Theseus is most at home, it is hard to suppose that he had a place originally in this cult of a paired god and goddess. It is far more likely that local tradition as it were humanised Hekale and produced the connexion with Theseus, once the story of the Marathonian bull was established. A minor heroine gives hospitality to a greater hero: here again is the resemblance with a common divine pattern, that of the theoxeny, and again, as Jacoby suggests, Herakles, who was entertained by Molorchos, may be the intermediary.” In contrast with the divine pattern, however - and that of the
’‘ Plut. Thes. 12. I , 23.5 ” Comparable,
although clearly no specific genos associations are involved, is the Troizenian aetiology which relates the cult of Athena Apatouria to the deception (dtrcaq)of Aithra by Poseidon. which of course resulted in the great hero’s birth: Paus. 2.33. I . “Jacoby on Philoch. FGrH 328 F 109 (IIIB Suppl. p. 436).
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Phytalidai - Hekale does not institute a cult of Theseus. What happens is almost the opposite. for it is Hekale, presumably originally some sort of divine figure, who is rewarded with cultic honours. Heroic saga may appropriate some of the forms of the theoxeny, but the hero cannot consistently play all the roles of the god. The idea of the existence of Amazons, and perhaps their heroic cult also, clearly has much wider significance than their appearance merely as enemies of Theseus. The tradition of the Amazon attack on Athens makes perfect sense no matter who the Athenian commander was. It represents the threat posed to established Athenian values by the violent incursion of foreigners whose system of norms is quite other: civilisation against barbarism, in fact. No doubt in its developed form the myth was strongly reminiscent of the struggle with those other easterners. the Persians.” Like other enemies, the Amazons when buried may have offered a protective function to the city which they once attacked; Antiope’s burial near the Itonian gate suggests that she may have protected it, and the regular sacrifice once offered to the Amazons presumably guaranteed their favour. But in the story, the Amazons were the enemy of the whole country, not the special concern of one part of it. N o subdivision of the community can be supposed to have felt itself the special concern of the Amazons, and so the attachment of the Amazon story to Theseus is rather different from that of the figures we have been considering. As the Amazons represent the antithesis of Athenian civilisation, so their opponent must be the man who above all epitomises the qualities of that civilisation. But this connexion with Theseus is quite sufficient to ensure a connexion also in cult, for the sacrifice to the Amazons, though discontinued in Plutarch’s day (Thes. 27.7), occurred before, and so in connexion with, the Theseia. Different again is the connexion of Theseus with the heroes identified with Androgeos, son of Minos, to avenge whose death the annual tribute of youths and maidens was paid. Two separate heroes seem to have been canvassed as Androgeos, one in the Kerameikos, otherwise known as Eurygyes, for whom funeral games were held, and the other at Phaleron, referred to as the fipos K a T a npi)pvav.’x These seem to be two rival identifications, schematised in atthidographic writings, of cult heroes with a pre-existing figure of saga and legend. Presumably Androgeos appeared in the Theseid(s), and it was the popularity of that work or group of works which did much to stimulate these mythological embroideries around obscure heroes. The connexion with Theseus is then a rather tenuous one, and the appearance of Androgeos is perhaps due more to an interest in finding the tombs of the heroes of epic, rather than in connecting heroes specifically with Theseus. 57
5x
See J . Boardman, ‘Herakles, Theseus and Amazons’ in The Eye of Greece: Studies in the Art ofArhens, ed. D. C. Kurtz and B. Sparkes (Cambridge 1982) 1-28. Amelesagoras FGrH 330 F 2 identifies Eurygyes in the Kerameikos with Androgeos; Callimachus (fr. 103 Pf.) and Pausanias ( I . I .4) whose source is unclear, but certainly also atthidographic, think that Androgeos is the q p q KaTa
rrpByvav.
HEROIC MYTHOLOGY
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Where it was desired to connect a hero with Theseus, without any more specific opportunity presenting itself, the simplest method would surely have been to come to the conclusion that your hero was his son. Minor, local heroes might well have no genealogy: one could easily be supplied. Yet the only certain example known to us is the following, pieced together from various sources: Theseus - Perigoune, d. of Sinis I Melanippos
I
1
Myrmex Ioxos, a Carian eponym Melite Herakles 3
The complete genealogy will not do as it stands, of course; any Athenian of the fifth century would have rejected a construction which produces such a chronological discrepancy between the contemporaries Theseus and Herakles. Nonetheless there is a certain logic about it; Herakles, Melite, Myrmex and Melanippos, and presumably also a son of Melite and Herakles are all heroes of the deme of Melite or adjacent Skambonidai. It was natural enough that they should be grouped together genealogically; less obvious that Melanippos should be the son of Theseus and Perigoune, and in fact another tradition makes him son of Kyklops, son of Zeuxippos.59 The Thesean version is merely elaboration, in despite of chronology, for the sake of relating Melanippos, and perhaps the nearby heroes, to the great hero of Athens. Perhaps this device was used more often; it is simple enough. But although Theseus' entanglements with women are well enough documented, apart from Melanippos he fathered to our knowledge only Hippolytos and perhaps Iphigeneia, who each have their own importance in cult, and Akamas and Demophon.h" In the case of these last, Theseus' only legitimate sons, the connexion with Theseus is fundamental to their character. They belong strictly in the circle of Theseus, in a way in which Melanippos, perhaps, does not; despite the colonising exploits of Akamas, sometimes performed in company with Phaleros, another Thesean hero, it is hard to imagine these two existing independently of Theseus.h' The circle of Theseus, then, consists of a number of pre-existing heroes whose relation to the great hero himself may fulfil a variety of functions. There is less evidence for the creation of Thesean heroes P X nihilo; with the possible exception of Akamas and Demophon, the norm seems to be the attachment of 'small' heroes to Theseus by means of a connexion in story; where the cult is related, as it often is, we must assume that it follows, not precedes, the new myth. In contrast with the heroes who cluster around gods, the effect of those in the entourage of Theseus is to fill out the outlines of Theseus' life and to make him a more fully human figure, one who can plausibly be the subject of a biographical sketch (even one where the material is 'full of marvels and dramatic happenings, the province of poets and mythographers'. as his biographer remarks."?) The process is self-perpetuating: once biographical details of the hero become popularised, further detail is almost inevitably added, and other figures gain a new 5v
"I
h?
Photius S . V . M u p p q ~ o &rparr65. i lstros FGrH 334 F 10. mentioning the union of Theseus with the daughter o f Kerkyon. mny indicate ;I les\ common version in which Theseus. not Poseidon. is the father of Hippothon. On Akamas as coloniser. see pp. 88-9. Phaleros 'oined him to colonise Soloi (Strabo 683). In the Aspis (180) he fights with Theseus against the Centaurs, on ARI .J I 174-Swith Theseus against the Aniozons. Plut. 7-hes. 1.3.
-
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
significance from their proximity to Theseus. Even those heroes of the north-east, perhaps also of Eleusis,h’ whose relationship to Theseus is one of hostility, end up by performing the same function; they are figures in the background of Theseus’ life. All over Attica there are figures connected with the great hero of the synoecism. Perhaps Theseus’ enemies, connected as they are with the less favourable tradition of his life, express among other things traditions of separatism; his adventures with Helen were not acceptable. His other relationships represent the more positive side of this phenomenon, the feeling for Attica as a unity - although clearly the process was sporadic and unconscious, operating largely in an individual way for individual heroes.
‘’ Plut. Thes. I I relater that Theseus killed Kerkyon at Eleusis and Prokroustes at Erineos.
7: PERSPECTIVES Now that we have explored the different stages in the development of heroic story and saga, and seen some of the functions of this type of story, it is time to turn from the hero of epic and myth to the hero as a whole, composed of both cultic and mythic aspects. We have traced through many heroic byways functions of explanation, of the summing-up of qualities and identity in a personal form, and such considerations take us close to the inner wxkings of the hero. If it is not possible to find one definition which will fit all heroes, to say precisely and without equivocation ‘what a hero is’, the evidence and the situations so far examined may allow us to say a little more about what the hero does for the people who worship him, at least in one Greek society. In the light of this evidence we may now re-examine some of the more general questions touched on in the first chapter and sketch a little further some possible positions of the hero in the society of gods and men. The belief in beings somehow intermediate between men and gods, or who are a mixture of the two things; even the occasional worship of a dead man or woman as a god or demi-god I none of these is a particularly unusual phenomenon, though they do not in themselves suffice to explain the cult of heroes. Jewish and Christian angels, Gnostic daemons, Vaisnava and perhaps Buddhist avatars, and the figure of Christ, ‘two natures in one person’ - diverse as are their natures and functions, and the systems of which they form part, can all very broadly be placed within this category. It seems likely that it is against such a background that the class of heroes should be viewed: I shall return to this point, which explains much that seems contradictory and paradoxical in the hero’s nature. Heroes, whether individually or as a category, are sometimes approximated to gods, sometimes opposed to them; this will depend on area and on individual cult, as well as on more intangible points of emphasis. Such a polarity seems not unexpected for a group forming the middle term of a series. When the group of three is reduced to two, as not infrequently happens in such a series, heroes may move either towards gods or towards men. Closeness to gods is perhaps the more prevailing mode of thought. Heroes are like gods in that they receive cult, and cult of a sort which is at least directly comparable to that given to gods. In the period before a separate category of heroes is thoroughly established, proto-heroes are described in terms suitable to gods, as Gaipovq, pckapq and so on, although the fact that early texts do not describe such beings unequivocally as &OG may suggest that they were recognised as something slightly different. They may also be seen as men, but men of a past age, a mythical time, whether schematized into a sequence of ages as in Hesiod or merely located in a time before the norms of society were established, as Erechtheus in Homer. Later, however, we do start to find examples of apparent heroes who are termed ‘gods’. The orgeones who worship Hypodektes refer to him as god, and the Athenian hero physician is indifferently f i p q and BEOG.’ Earlier, we have the case of Kolonos in Sophocles’ Oedipus crf Colonus; although he is not called f i p o ~ ,he is clearly the eponymous hero of the deme, and yet he is described as &OS. These examples need not reflect classical usage; the first two are relatively late, and the case of Kolonos might be explained by the play’s own setting (like the Homeric narrative) in the heroic period, so that a reference to a hero in the cult sense would be out of place.’ Nonetheless, they indicate a close kinship between hero and god. I
Hypodektes: IG 112 2501 (late fourth century, just a little early for the shake-up of categories (above. pp. 4-6). but not impossible). ‘ H p q icxrpoS: IG I I 2 839 (third century). This explanation is suggested by Nicholas Richardson.
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T H E HEROES OF ATTICA
Against this we may place the well-known trends, in ritual and elsewhere, which point to a view of the hero as the diametrical opposite of the god (above, pp. 3-4). Some of’the rituals directed towards heroes are clearly akin to the funeral rites, the vopipa, paid to the dead. Yet they also have points of contact with ritual appropriate to chthonic and underworld deities, so that perhaps on this scheme it makes more sense to see an opposition between upper and lower powers than between hero and god. Such a conceptual divide is clearly present in fifth-century thought, even if like most such schemes it is not universally present.’ The same material can be arranged in different ways to produce differing patterns of thought even within the same society, even within the same individual, and this is a further factor in the difficulties we have in placing the hero. Thus it is that sometimes the hero is viewed primarily as a dead man and therefore capable of conveying pollution, while at others he does not pollute and is different from the ordinary dead. Certain cults expressed the opposition between hero and god by forbidding those who had taken part in heroic sacrifices to approach a god until after purification, or by forbidding the officiants of certain divine cults to come into contact with h e r o e ~ . ~Yet even if we set aside a certain degree of carelessness about pollution in actual practice it is clear that these examples do not express a normal and universal way of thought. Pausanias, whose own views on keeping human activities and the gods apart seem to tend to strictness,’ comments on the relevant sacrifice at Olympia (barring anyone who has eaten at the sacrifice to Pelops from entering the precinct of Zeus) by reference to a similar custom at Pergamon, ,which suggests that he found it striking and unusual. Further, some regulations explicitly draw a distinction between the heroic and the ordinary dead; heroes, unlike the rest, are non-polluting, and thus fall on the same side of the divide as gods.‘ Just as it seems that the ‘new’, familial heroes were not equally present in every locality (above, p. 6), it is unlikely that every point on this spectrum was represented in every part of the Greek world. It may not be entirely coincidental that Attica seems to furnish no clear example of a hero conveying pollution;’ after all, it mas also to a large extent Attic examples which illustrated Nock’s demonstration that the hero and the god are not always and inevitably opposed. Attic sacrifice calendars give no indication of a divide between divine and heroic cult: the typical form is rather that one festival will include sacrifices to both gods and heroes. Neither is it the case that pollution in the face of the god is avoided by placing the heroic sacrifice after the divine, for very often it takes the form of a npo8upx, a preliminary offering before the more splendid ritual for the god. It would appear that in Attica the pattern approximating the hero to man and opposing him to god was less predominant than in some other parts of the Greek world. In the case of individual cult figures, even the boundaries between hero and god can be fluid. Hypodektes, if we accept that the usage is old, may be an example of a relatively minor figure who crosses the boundary; so, of course, in a wider context, are such major figures as Herakles, Asklepios, the Dioskouroi. This is perhaps especially common in the case of females, where Polarity is clearly indicated for instance at A. Suppl. 24-5, Ag. 890, E. Hec. 146-7. In actual practice, both upper and lower powers are frequently greeted together, as at A. Pers. 499, Ar. E9. 156 and especially emphatically at Soph. OC 1654-5. Heroic and divine cults separated: Olympia and Pergamon, Paus. 5.13.3. Pollution caused by contact with heroes: LSCG 156A.8-10 (Cos), 154A 22, 37 (also Cos, with reference to the priestess of Demeter). Further examples in Nwk, ESSUYSI1 577-8. Paus. lOs2.13. Thus at Cyrene, LSS 115A.21-5, Battos, Onymastos and the Tritopatores are exceptions to the normal rule that contact with tombs involves pollution. The widespread custom of placing heroes’ tombs in the agora (above, p. 9) also presupposes this notion. ’Pace Sokolowski (LSCG 268) the reason for the labelling of heroa as &paTais not necessarily that they convey pollution.
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Jlpwivq (or equivalent) and v6ppq seem frequently to be used interchangeably (above, p. 22 and n. 69). Terminology is flexible: cult often gives us no clear distinction. So far from expressing a radical opposition in the beings worshipped, the ritual in the cult of the heroine Pandrosos, we are told, is identical to that given to the divinity Thallo.x Yet something separates them, also: most obviously, Pandrosos is credited with a human past as daughter of Kekrops. This would seem further to underline the crucial importance of the development of myth in the formation of a class of heroes; it is myth, narrative, which is usually the plainest statement of a difference between mortal ind immortal. Related to the myth in this case is the role of the heroine in a divine festival, the Arrephoria, where Thallo is not, presumably, her equivalent. In this ritual the leading divine role was taken by Athena, and it was Pandrosos who was chiefly associated with her; this is mirrored in the myth of the tendance of Erichthonios. Whether myth or ritual comes first is of course the chicken-and-egg question of Greek religion, but both the myth and the ritual link with the goddess seem to be important to Pandrosos’ status as heroine. Whether closeness or antithesis is in question, we can at least say that it is often by some sort of relationship with a god that a figure is defined as a hero or heroine. Several of the ‘antithesis’ cases we have touched on express an opposition not so much between the status of hero and of god as between individual exemplars: Pelops and Zeus, Telamon and Asklepios (Paus. 5.13.3). In some ways this pattern is comparable to the much commoner (at least in Attica) system where the hero appears as the god’s s~bordinate.~ One of the most interesting and characteristic forms of this last pattern, the hero as the god’s close subordinate, is that in which he is given instructions by the deity and becomes the first performer of some ‘craft’ (zkxvq) or the institutor of a particular form of worship. Whether it is desired to explain the cultivation of the fig-tree or the worship of Herakles as a god, one of the commonest aetiological patterns is that where instructions are given by a god to a specially favoured individual who becomes the first mortal to practice the new inventions and who, on the cult level, becomes a hero worshipped in the context of the instructor-god. Typically the hero’s tomb is to be found within a divine sanctuary, he receives a lesser sacrifice at the festival of the deity, and in myth he was the god’s first priest in that locality. We have seen in abundance heroes corresponding to this pattern among the archegetes of the gene: other wellknown Attic examples are Iphigeneia, Aglauros, and Ikarios, and the type seems to be common throughout the Greek world. In this scheme, obviously, we have to do with closeness to the divine rather than antithesis, but the hero’s relations with man are also a defining factor. It is the hero or heroine who teaches the generality of mankind the skill imparted by the divinity, and in the case of cult practices, as we have seen (ch. 4), the hero normally becomes the cult’s first priest, and archetype, sometimes even ancestor, for the priest in the contemporary world. Here then we have a true three-term series in which the hero is intermediate between god and man; not only intermediate, in fact, but in one sense mediating, because at some point in the past he conveyed the god’s instructions or benefactions to mortals and (usually) set up a channel of communication between divinity and humankind. One document of Attic relevance, the Homeric Hymn to Demetei., treats this pattern explicitly and at length: it is therefore of particular value in assessing the intermediate position of the institutor hero. The Eleusinian complex of myth and ritual is made more difficult by the existence of several aspirants to this role; the Hymn itself seems to divide the role among several characters, while later ages tend to Substitute Triptolemos for the Hymn’s Demophon as Paw. 9.35.2.
’Erechtheus, as so often, is a case of particular interest here. combining opposition to Poseidon closeness (in cult).
(in
myth) with
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
the child favoured by the goddess. This multiplicity of figures is of course mirrored in the very large number both of heroes and of cult personnel connected with the Mysteries. It is to several of the princes of Eleusis that Demeter reveals the Mysteries: the poet then turns abruptly from past tenses to present, emphasizing that this was the moment of foundation of rites still in use today (473ff.): 4 6t no6ocx 6~p~orondho15 Pcxotk6o~ ~ [ E ~ C E ,T] ~ L K T O TEG A L~OCK~~TEE ~hr&hmp, ~ EGpOhnou TE Pig K E ~ 6’ Q ~ ~ T O hcxhv, P L 6pqOpOO6VTlV 6’ i E p 8 V K(Ti 6K&(ppa6EV6Pylan&Yl, oepva, za T’ 06 no5 con TcapEgipIEv [oiire nu6Eo6a1,I OW&XEELV. p i p y&p TL 6 ~ h ovEPa5 ioxkve~aG6fiv. iihP~o565 ra6’ ~ K ~ K E..V. She went, and to the kings who dispensed justice, to Triptolemos and to Diokles driver of horses, to mighty Eumolpos and to Keleos, leader of the people, she showed the act
of the holy things and instructed them all in the rites, the solemn rites which one may not transgress nor learn of nor utter, since a great reverence for the gods restrains the voice. Happy is he who has seen these things .. .
We are left to assume, therefore, that the heroes conveyed the rites to others and so established a succession, the modem representatives of which legitimately convey Demeter’s benefits to those who present themselves for initiation. As the priest now mediates between the Eleusinian deities and the worshippers, so, even more clearly, did the founding heroes, and the effect of that mediation is still present. But the Hymn also leads us back to the question of the hero and death, for the Mysteries ‘were not Demeter’s first attempt to benefit a member of the human race. At first her gratitude had had a smaller scope, and she had tried to fulfil it by immortalising Keleos’ son Demophon. The interruption of the process by the child’s mother Metaneira evidently made it impossible or undesirable to continue, and as a substitute for immortality Demophon was given heroic honours (263-7): ‘CLpfi 6’ &(p6120
In this tradition, also represented by the myth of Pelops,In immortality is the clear preserve of the gods; heroic honours, as a substitute for this state, are also a negation of it. At some time after the events of the Hymn, Demophon died; and death and mortality are what separate heroes from gods and place them closer to men. But (of course) this is not a universal pattern. Sometimedheroes are thought not to die, but to be translated: cpihror6’ k p p O 8 ~ 06 ~ , ti KO rE6vqKaS.” Such a concept looks back to the destiny of Menelaos in the Odyssey: ‘It is not your fate, god-nurtured Menelaos, to die and Like Demophon, Pelops is a failed immortality candidate, and like Demophon he fails through the transgression of a parent. It may be significant that it is he who provides one of the most striking examples of cultic antithesis to a god (above, n. 4). ‘I PMG 894: ‘Dearest Harmodios, you are not dead.’ In
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meet your end in horse-trodden Argos, but the Immortals will send you to the plain of Elysion, the limits of the earth, where is fair-haired Rhadamanthys, there where life is easiest for men ...’E This privileged existence is not one which happens after death, but instead of death, quite the opposite of Demophon’s case. Lucian’s Menippos might very well have amused himself with such contradictions; rpodem scholars, a little more sympathetically, point out the simultaneous existence of incompatible ideas within the same mind, especially where death and the afterlife are concemed.I3 There is room, too, for uncertainty. What happens to Oedipus? Before his passing, he speaks plainly of dying (06 p~ xpil ~ C X V E ~ V1521), , of his grave and the power he will exercise from it (62 1-3, 1545-6), yet his grave will be not a place of pollution but ‘holy’, k p o ~ (and surely iep05 ~Gpposis an oxymoron), and the messenger leaves open the possibility that he disappeared with an escort from the gods (1661-2). We are not meant to solve this problem: in the hands of Sophocles, as indeed on occasion in religious experience, contradiction and lack of clarity become mystery. Above all, though, Oedipus is not to be lamented (however little his daughters heed this point). He is not to be attended with any of the normal parapherhalia of death, indeed he cannot be, since there is no visible body to which the normal rites can be paid. Here, then, the heroic passing stands apart from the ordinary death; and yet often, of course, laments and other forms of behaviour which are appropriate immediately after the death of an ordinary member of family or community occur also in the cult of heroes.I4 The criterion of death, with no fewer contradictions than that of status, marks out the changing position of the hero on a scale between man and god; not surprisingly, since more than anything else it is death which marks the frontier between the two. At this point it :Is natural, perhaps, to tackle the long delayed question of the hero’s origins. I said at the beginning that the hero is not only an intermediate being: can the circumstances of his origins throw further light on what else he is? The questions of nature and of origins are so closely related that at times arguments about them are in danger of becoming circular, but it is still possible, I think, to advance some way by examining how well the chief theories of the hero’s origins stand up to what we have seen of the situation in archaic and classical Attica. It was Fame11 who first seriously urged the proposition that hero-cult was in a sense the creation of the epic, the response of ordinary people to the awesome deeds of the great warriors of yesteryear, and with various modifications this view until recently was more or less orthodoxy.Is It was put on a firmer footing by more recent attempts, notably that of Nicholas Coldstream, to show systematically that later offerings in Mycenaean tombs, denoting cult paid to the inhabitants, coincide roughly with the supposed period of the wide diffusion of the epic on the Greek mainland.16 If we accept that these offerings occur after a break and are not part of continuous activity around the tombs,” then this gives us a coherent enough picture over the I2
Od. 4.561-5:
ooi 6’ 06 OEocpa~ovEon, 6iozp~qks61MEVE~CLE, YApp Ev imoporcp Oavktv ~ aK iO T ~ O VEntondv, drhha o’2s ‘HhGotov d i o v Kai rceipaTa yaiqs drbavarot ~ d p y ~ o u o i601 v , 5avOoq ‘PaGapavOu< fl KEP f%liOTIl P t O f i K d k t drVbph7COtCTIV. l3 l4
Is Ih
Nock, HThR 25 (1932) 332-3 = Essuy 1.286; Nilsson, Rev. hist. phi/. 4.10 (1930) esp. I 16-9. See Brelich 80-90. Famell280-342, esp. 340-2. , J. N. Coldstream, ‘Hero-cults in the age of Homer’, JHS 96 (1976) 8- 17. Continuity of cult is argued by C. M. Antonaccio, but the summary of her paper in AJA 91 (1987) 297 does not permit one to assess the evidence.
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Greek world as a whole; those areas such as the Argolid and Boeotia, where a change in types of burial between the Mycenaean and Geometric periods might plausibly have caused the people of the latter age to view the larger and more magnificent Mycenaean tombs with awe and veneration, are precisely the areas where such tombs present us with later votives. That the epic may often have been an influential factor behind the awe and veneration seems very likely. But although this theory has sometimes been referred to as a sort of universal explanation of hero-cult, neither Fame11 nor Coldstream has in fact made such claims; Coldstream concludes his treatment of the problem by considering three cults which seem to predate the diffusion of the epic, one of which, that of Erechtheus, is of course mentioned in Homer. Of the three cults, it may be significant for our purpose to note that two are Attic, and Coldstream himself admits that Attica seems to be in a peculiar position. And yet it is of course one of the parts of Greece which does furnish examples of Mycenaean tombs containing Geometric votives. The classic example is that of the tholos tomb at Menidi (Achamai), where the occupant of this particularly impressive burial site was given votive offerings from the mid-eighth century onwards, although there is no trace of cult later than the fifth century, and it is not clear whether the heroic inhabitant was identified with any character of epic.Ix Some other examples of later cult, such as those in certain of the Mycenaean tombs in the Athenian agora, represent a different, though clearly related, phenomenon; later workmen come upon the tombs by accident, and in response make an offering of propitiation.” Regular cult, however, is indicated for instance at the Mycenaean tomb I on the acropolis of Thorikos. A covered bothros in this tomb was found to contain sherds of the seventh to fifth centuries; to the left of the bothros was a large limestone slab, probably a table for offerings.”’ One can scarcely refrain from wondering which of the heroes of the sacrifice-calendar this might represent! But such cases tell us no more than the fact - interesting though this is for the Greek view of their heroes -that tombs of the Mycenaean period could often be thought of as the tombs of heroes and heroines. To illustrate Coldstream’s main thesis, two further factors are needed: the commencement of cult in the Geometric period, coixiding with the spread of familiarity with the epic on the mainland, and a secure identification of the burial with a figure celebrated in epic poetry. Both would appear to be present in a striking case at Eleusis, if Mylonas has correctly identified a group of Middle Helladic tombs containing later offerings as the tombs of the leaders of the expedition against Thebes.?’ Pausanias (1.39.2) describes a heroon on the road from Eleusis to Megara belonging to these leaders, and the monument is also mentioned by Plutarch (Theseus 29). Archaeology reveals a group of nine tombs (An l-9), of which at least three contain evidence of Late Geometric activity, surrounded by a peribolos wall which is clearly of later date than the tombs themselves and y a y very also well be Late Geometric. It is not clear how many of these tombs were visible in the post-Mycenaean era, although tombs 5, 8 and 9 are very much deeper than the others and so may have been hidden from view; neither is it clear how many of the original seven were thought to have been buried there (clearly Adrastos survived, and Amphiaraos was normally thought to have been swallowed up by the earth elsewhere). But the numbers could easily have coincided. Cult and epic influence seem to concur very neatly; but in fact there is no necessity to suppose that the first worshippers of these heroes had already made the identification with the leaders $gainst Thebes. The peculiar legend which gave them burial at Eleusis first appears to our knowledge in Aeschylus’ Coldstream, art. cit. 1 1-12; H. G. Lolling and others, Das Kuppelgrah hei Menidi (Athens 1880). XI11 99, 183-4; Townsend, Hesp. 24 (1955) 2 18-9. 20 J. Servais in Thorikos I (Brussels 1968) 37-41. G. Mylonas, TO GunkOv vekporaqdov fls ’Ekuoivos I1 (Athens 1975) 153-4,262-3. Ix
Iy Agora
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Eleusiniuns, and we are entirely ignorant as to whether or not it was hinted at in the Thebaid. In the developed legend, a prominent part is played by Theseus as the generous patron of suppliants, suggesting an early fifth-century date, and the legend may belong rather in the category of those stories which partly depend on epic and yet almost contradict it (above, pp. 105-8). Yet it is scarcely djsputable that the epic did at least have a formative influence on some cult. The question is redly one of the degree of emphasis it should be given, and of the stage or stages to which its influence should be assigned. If we approach the problem from the other angle - from the hero-cults actually known to have existed from literary or epigraphic sources - we find the ‘epic’ model rather inadequate to Attica. There is really very little overlap, as we saw inJhe last chapter, between the heroes celebrated in the epic and those worshipped in Attica, and where there is such a coincidence the epic seems at least as likely to reflect cult as to have stimulated it. In fact, a major modification to the idea that epic gave rise to hero-cult is necessitated by the occasional appearance of heroic tombs in Homer.Z2 The Catalogue (IZ. 2.546-51) gives us a clear reference to the cult of Erechtheus, who seems to be thought of there as the city’s archegete, and is worshipped there in an annual festival. And a heroic tomb seems to be presupposed in the case of Phrontis at Sounion. already mentioned (pp. 49-50). Why should Homer narrate the death and burial of this relatively unimportant character, if his tomb were not a well-known landmark? On the other hand, very many of the Attic heroes are not really of the type to appear in Homer. Kalamites the reed-hero, Phytalos the cultivator of the fig, Pandrosos the nurse of the snakechild: can the cult of such figures really be inspired, even indirectly, by the popularity of the epic? Their connexions are often more with complex religious rituals, or else they appear to be simply minor efficacious powers dotted about the countryside. Their cults do not, it seems, centre on the impressive Mycenaean tombs which could indeed so naturally be associated with Homer’s heroes. For Attica at least, some other major group of factors must be found. A few of these figures are almost as resistant to explanation in terms of other major theories of the origins of hero-cult. Some of the weaknesses and loose ends in the theories heavily dependent on the epic have been pointed out by A. M. Snodgrass, who prefers to see the root cause of the development of the phenomenon in the apparent land crises of the eighth century. When smallholders settled in the land were threatened with eviction in some form, they turned for help and protection to a former inhabitant of the land, someone powerful with whom they could establish a link. In his later expositions of this theory, Snodgrass is rightly cautious about going further than this and suggesting that claims of descent were consciously made as an appeal to human reason; the focus is more on the hero than on the human adversary.’.’ In cases of such need, cult might be a natural enough development from local saga and legend - as distinct from epic - or even spring into being without any mythological background at all. This explanation has the merit of bringing us close to the hero’s role as saviour and protector and patron of the group - a central feature of the whole phenomenon. But of course there are figures which conspicuously will not fit the pattern. The unpleasant, maleficent hero represented in Attica by Anagyros and elsewhere chiefly by the Olympic victors of the Persian l 2 See
Th. Hadzisteliou Price, ‘Hero-cult and Homer’, Historia 22 (1973) 129-44; ‘Hero-cult in the “Age of Homer‘‘ and earlier’ in Arktouros, Siudies presented to Bernard Knos (Berlin 1979) 2 19-28. 23 A. M. Snodgrass, ‘Les origines du cuke des heros dans la Grkce ancienne’ in Gnoli et Vemant, edd: Lo niort. les m o m duns Ies socik/ks anciennes (Paris/Cambridge 1982) 107- 19. Earlier expositions (Arc~hoer~log~ orid the Rise of /lie Greek State, inaugural lecture, Cambridge 1977; Archaic Greece (London 1980) 37-40) were less restrained, suggesting that the main function of the newly-created hero was to impress the landholder’s claim to his plot on his potential evictors. He goes so far as to speak of ‘crude proprietary propaganda’. In this form. of course, the theory is much less acceptable.
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
War years (above, pp. 11-13), though Snodgrass does touch on their existence, cannot really have been much use to people threatened with dispossession and seeking supernatural protection. One suspects that Kalamites and his like are not particularly belligerent, protective heroes either, while Pandrosos and others are, as I have said, so closely related to particular religious rituals that it seems that a great part of their origins must be found there. The same exceptions stand out as stumbling-blocks to Claude BCrard’s theory, which treads ground very similar to that favoured by Snodgrass, but reaches conclusions in some respects diametrically oppo~ite.?~ BCrard also links the phenomenon with the great changes in social and political organisation brought by the eighth century, but he sees the hero, so far from being the poor man’s protector, as the compensation on the supernatural plane for the loss of power and prestige suffered by the old aristocratic circles. This idea fits very well with BCrard’s own Eretrian, aristocratic protector-heroes at the west gate of the city, and the hero as prince also comes rather closer perhaps than Snodgrass’s model to explaining the important civic and group aspects of the hero. BCrard’s work is a significant contribution which cannot be ignored. But if he, or indeed Snodgrass, is right, the form of the hero was soon enlarged and changed somewhat in character. BCrard contends that the new style of hoplite fighting (so often invoked as a potent factor in historical change!), ruling out as it did the old aristocratic, Homeric emphasis on the single combat, was the ultimate cause of apparitions of heroes in battle - the old role of the living aristocrat having been transferred to the hero, perhaps his ancestor and certainly (so to speak) his social equal. Yet - laying aside the consideration that superhuman appearances on the battlefield are a very widespread phenomenon, hardly confined to Greece or to heroes - beside Theseus and the Aiakids, the Persian Wars can also show us the previously unknown Echetlaios, a farmer-hero with a plough, scarcely a figure of particular aristocratic nuance. But such a ‘democratising’ change is conceivable; more difficult are the groups typified above by Anagyros, Kalamites and Pandrosos. Furthermore, there are chronological difficulties both with this theory and with that of Snodgrass. Although Snodgrass uses the sporadic existence of hero-cults before the eighth century to attack the Cook-Coldstream theory (and recent archaeological work has revealed further possible examples here?5), his own explanation, like that of BCrard and to a great extent that of Polignac also,lh is explicitly based on an eighth-century phenomenon. Yet as these authors tacitly acknowledge, it is naively optimistic to expect a tidy solution to the problem which will fit every case. Regional differences are .one variable; Attica, as we have seen, does not entirely correspond with impressions of norms gained from taking the whole Greek world together, and the same might be true of other areas.27The situation will then doubtless be complicated by cross-fertilisation. Even within one area, it now seems obvious, no one cause will suffice to explain thephenomenon of hero-cult, and the considerations so far advanced suggest that we may be dealing with a complex of causes rather less specific than is often imagined. A further consideration is the nature of the actual phenomenon to be explained; it too may be complex rather than simple. When is a hero not a hero? Can there really be a moment at which a previously embryonic phenomenon ,of hero-cult is suddenly CI. Bkrdrd. ‘Rkcupkrerla mon du prince’, in Lo niorf. /es niort.7 (n. 23) 89-105. Heroic cult from c. 1000 has been suggested at Lefkandi (M. R. Popham, E. Touloupa and L. H. Sackett, ‘The Hero of Lefkandi’. A/itiqi&j 56 (1982) 169-74, though their conclusions have not been universally accepted) and from a slightly later period at Mitropolis on Naxos ( ”Epyov 1984.77-9). ?’ F. de Polignac. Lo uoisso\ic.e de lo citP grec’qiw (Paris 1984). esp. 127-5 I ; a more complex exposition of the relation between hero and city with which I am substantially in sympathy. ?7 Cf. C. J. Whitley. ‘Early States and Hero Cults: a Reappraisal’, J H S 108 (1988) 173-82, although as regards Attica his conclusions may need modification.
l5
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born, or rather perhaps springs forth already mature and fully-armed? Just as the concept of heroes underwent a great change in the latter part of the fourth century, so too it may have undergone important stages of evolution before reaching its ‘classical’ stage. Certain elements present in this classical period may have been in existence long before the complex of practice and belief which we call hero-cult had really coalesced. Erechtheus could well have been worshipped on the Acropolis before a category of heroes was present for him to be placed among; but equally his existence, and the existence of others like him, may have Some bearing on the genesis of the categdry. Figures intermediate between god and man, a phenomenon in many religious systems (above, p. 124), are likely to have existed before the classic hero and to have formed one element in his parentage. Erechtheus indeed in Homer: considered apart from the later religious context, appears more as an intermediate figure of this sort than in the guise of the classic hero. His are the people of Athens; he was born from the earth and brought up by Athena, who placed him in hey temple, where the Athenian youths worship him with sacrifice of bulls and sheep. In the Odyssey (7.80), after a burst of activity on Odysseus’ behalf, Athena returns to the ‘close-built dwelling’ of Erechtheus. It is not at all clear that Erechtheus has died or changed his state and become a hero, and yet his status between god and man is ambiguous. His relation to his city seems to be that of a man, his epithet ~ E ~ X ~ ~ Zgreat-hearted, O P , is applied to humans; yet his parentage**and upbringing are strange, his domicile is a temple, and he is worshipped with animal sacrifice apparently as gods are worshipped. Yet while later on Erechtheus retains a somewhat special character, being worshipped on at least some occasions as Poseidon Erechtheus - raising some questions of definitions and identity - and receiving cult in a conspicuous and important place, with unusually magnificent sacrifices, he is also clearly a hero among other heroes; his selection as eponymos guarantees a certain parity.*’ Can we begin to analyse the difference between the two states, the factors which differentiate the heroes as a class from the sporadic emergence of halfway figures which nevertheless make the heroes a possibility? Already present in the Catalogue passage is the sense of a close connexion between the being who is worshipped and the city. Erechtheus is introduced after all simply to define the city in question; he is the city patron p a r excellence. Later periods and fuller evidence present further complexities: Kekrops as well as Erechtheus appears as archegete, and Erechtheus himself seems to have become divided in functions between Erechtheus and Erichthonios. But there is the same essential characteristic; these are all figures who hake an intimate relation with the whole people of Athens, considered in this capacity as citizens. In the preceding pages we have seen many examples of variations on this theme. The hero may be an ancient leader of his people who continues to protect and encourage the descendants of those he led in the heroic age; his power continues beyond death, exercised through more mysterious and godlike channels, but directed towards the same ends as it was during his lifetime.’O He may be in various ways a figure who unites the community. A group may meet for his worship or define their corporate existence with reference to him; his existence as a present being, interacting with contemporary worshippers, makes the figure who unites the community more vivid and immediate than the story of his past existence. But the latter too has its function, and often the hero sums up and personifies the characteristics which the group perceives as essential to itself. This public, group aspect seems to be something Th. Hadzisteliou Price, Historiu 22 (1973) 136 claims that the birth of Erechtheus demonstrates that he is human. ‘since gods are not born from the earth; but that was not Hesiod’s opinion. lY Cf. Loraux, Enfanrs 54-6. A notable variant on this figure is the foreigner or defeated enemy who nonetheless protects the land (pp. 49-50), Here the element of paradox is clearly important, but even in some of these cases something in the hero‘s lifetime. in his mythical aspect, explains the change of allegiance.
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extremely important in the make-up of the hero; more specifically, what tends to differentiate the hero from the god in this respect is the addition of a historical perspective, the hero as man of a specific time in history, which may be more or less closely defined. Perhaps it is a time defined by epic generations; perhaps, as with heroic institutor figures, it is an apparently earlier time, at the boundary between a world before our own familiar one and the world in which present customs have become established. Whichever is the case, we have in the hero the convergence of cult paid to a sort of intermediate being with narrative traditions and popular history. To revert to a previous example, this is the criterion which separates Pandrosos from Thallo (above, p. 126). There are, of course, similar aspects to be found among superhuman beings outside the Greek world; here both differences and similarities are illuminating. Christian saints, for instance, are often linked very closely with particular communities: thus St Januarius, bishop of Naples, is both expressive of Neapolitan identity (as when transported to New York) and the protector of the Neapolitan people (the failure of his blood to liquefy indicating some impending disaster). A major difference, however, lies in the narrative tradition. Saints may ‘ have favoured their own cities, but they did not take up arms against other saints; again we see the formative importance of myth. Broadly speaking, the holy men and women of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and mainstream Hindu traditions bear a much closer resemblance to Christian saints than to Greek heroes; much more comparable to heroes are some of the figures in the popular religious systems of India. ‘Hero stones’, recording a man’s heroic death (and their female equivalent, sati stones), sited often at the point of death and becoming a focus of cult for the community, are common in several parts of the subcontinent. A particularly good parallel is provided by the hhomia of many of the villages of Rajasthan, a real man who died defending the village herds (mainstay of the villagers’ livelihood) from robbers, has much in common with the saviour-heroes of individual Greek regions: his shrines are placed at points connected with his death, he continues to intervene in events and protect the village, he receives cult and is approached by village, family and individual.” Like the Greek hero, he is close to the community’s sense of identity, and also like the Greek hero he exhibits a close connexion between past deeds and present function, of mythic and cultic aspects.” Other Rajasthani ‘heroes’ were in their lifetime religious innovators or persons of great holiness. Here again we seem to find a correspondence with Greek figures, in this case with those heroes who are instructed by a god or who are the first to perform a particular practice in a religious context. In both systems the hero stands between, even mediates between, the gods and the generality of the human race. Heroes and more particularly perhaps heroines of this type often, though not always, take on something of the qualities of the god with whom they ’I
’?
On Indian ‘heroes’ see R. Thapar, ‘Death and the hero’, in S. C. Humphreys and H. King, edd: Mortality and /mniortality (London 1981) 293-315; on the hhoniia type of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, K. Kothari, ‘The Shrine; an Expression of Social Needs’ in Gods of the B J M ~ catalogue S, from the Museum of Modem Art (Oxford 1982) esp. 14-22. ( I should like to thank Dr J. D. Smith for advice on this poi&) Some parts of India also show cults and myths which are close to the ‘unpleasant’ hero (above, pp. 11-13); a good example in E. Zelliot and M. Berntsen, edd.: The E . v / ~ ~ i e nocfeHinduism: Essays on Religion in Maharashtra (New York 1988) 136-7. Many of these folk-heroes have epics composed about their deeds; recitals of such epics, performed in front of a scroll depicting the hero’s deeds in visual form, are considered to be part of the hero’s cult and may be performed in order to effect benefits. Despite the connexion between heroes and the epic, recitals of epic do not of course form part of the Greek worship of heroes, although it seems probable that where hymns to heroes were used they would have contained narrative elements, as do most hymns to gods. A further parallel to the Rajasthani custom may be found in the occasional use of the lament, no doubt also incorporating narrative (as E. HF 348-441). at heroic festivals, as for Achilles in Elis (Paus. 6.23.3): see Brelich 81-4, with M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge 1974) 55-62. One thinks also of the commemoration of the sufferings of Adrastos which took place at Sikyon. Hdt. 5.67.
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are associated; they may even perhaps, like Iphigeneia, originate as an aspect of the deity and only later become assimilated to the human pattern. But as we have seen, in this pattern the humanity of the hero is also important; the myth makes of him or her an undoubted, ordinary human being whose worship of the deity was the pattern for subsequent cult, the model for the worshippers and more especially for the priest, but also the means of communication between man and god, and the middle term in this series. Broadly speaking, this is true of Rajasthani and other Indian figures also; yet in many ways .they are more like the saints of other religious traditions than they are like the Greek ‘sacral heroes’. They perform great acts, among which may be religious innovations, because they are in a general way close to the divine. With some exceptions, such saints tend to have a much fuller narrative tradition, a vita, in which particular episodes stand out as examples of general principles or themes. In contrast, those Greek heroes who stand in a close relation to the gods or to a god are much more transparently aetiological. It is scarcely over-bold to suggest that they almost never had a historical existence, while the general type of the saint - again individual saints may differ - is based on a real life. The action of Greek sacral heroes is really confined to the single instant when they establish the cult (whether deliberately, thiough divine instruction, or accidentally, when a chance circumstance becomes crystallized into ritual). They do not wander from town to town preaching the cult of a particular deity, or otherwise demonstrating an exceptionally holy life (wanderings are left to the gods themselves, like Demeter and Dionysos). Their closeness to the gods, or rather to one particular god, is a matter of one moment in time, an isolated incident; their existence is relevant only to that instant, though the instant is one of continued relevance. Their mediating role is confined to that moment in the past, kept within the realm of myth and without echoes on the level of cult. In contrast with the ‘saint’, a large part of the role of the ‘sacral hero’ seems to be to supply an explanation. Returning to Greek culture and society, heroes fulfilling this sort of function are also in some ways quite different from heroes of the epic or other narrative traditions. The latter are generally situated as a more definite point in time, often computable in terms of generations by those interested in such matters, whereas the priestly heroes fall into such chronological patterns much less convincingly, and seem to exist in a sort of timeless prehistory when the practices which later prevailed were in the process of being formed. But the aetiological, explanatory role which seems so much more important in the sacral hero than in the ‘saint’ is evjdent among other Greek heroes as well. Not only specific practices but also particular groups might be explained in Greek thought by reference to an individual - ancestor, leader or n p 6 n o ~~ b p (inventor e ~ ~ or discoverer of a craft). In Attica, the typical genos-hero both supplies a religious aition and defines the identity of the genos - genos and rite each having a role in mutual definition. Local communities, groups of orgeones, kinship groups, easily defined themselves with reference to a hero, whose mythology might relate to their own corporate identity or by whose worship they were united. Seen against this background, it was inevitable that the new Cleisthenic tribes should be endowed with heroes. A hero is the natural way of explaining the existence of a group, whether explicitly in the narrative tradition of myth, or implicitly in the action performed by the group in cult. It is somewhat ironic that the hero should have given rise to such demand for explanation, when it seems that originally one of his primary functions was to act as an explanation himself. To generalise very broadly, then, the typical hero seems to represent the coincidence of an intermediate being who receives cult with a narrative, historical dimension - in. its widest sense. This dimension may be formed by the tradition of epic, or by local sacral legend, or by
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
nothing more than the hero’s tomb, statement that the hero once lived and is now dead. Very commonly either cult or ‘narrative’ or both has a close relevance to a group or a custom which from one point of view is justified or explained by the hero’s existence. Of course, gods too can take on such a function, but heroes, being both more numerous and (generally) more local can often do so more exclusively. One cult complex or one group corresponding to one hero is the typical pattern. Even if the hero defies an ultimate ‘explanation’, even if elements of a similar phenomenon exist in other times and places, it seems clear enough that his existence is somehow intimately connected with the structure of Greek society, which forms such an intricate pattern of sets, sub-sets and overlapping groups, of inclusiveness and exclusiveness. It seems also that despite earlier examples the eighth century was somehow critical in the crystallization of the category ‘hero’; can it be coincidence that while the developed hero is so close to the city the two phenomena are in the process of forming at the same time, or that, as Snodgrass points out in a slightly different context,’) areas such as Thessaly where polisorganisation is weak and secondary show only few and late hero-cults? The new form of the, city and all its associated sub-structures may have created the need for a new form of patron, supplying some sort of symbolic yet concrete definition of who was included and who excluded. But such a connexion naturally poses as many questions as it answers; the relationship of hero to city and to individual is complex. The heroes of Attica impress with their sheer number.34 The average Athenian male (about women we can be less confident) came up against many different types of heroes in many different roles in the course of his life. Family, club, deme, tribe, city, colony - all were likely to be marked out by heroes, and there would be only a very limited uniformity in the roles these heroes played.. An offended hero might be responsible for illness or other disaster; a hero might also give prosperity in a small business, or intervene to prevent a battle-line from breaking up and so lead Athens to victory. Different areas of Attica displayed different patterns. If a Marathonian found himself in Thorikos he would notice that the local heroes were accompanied by several heroines, not by just one as at home; if he went to Erchia, he would find single heroes and separate groups of heroines. In Athens itself he would revere Theseus; at home, he would worship heroes who had opposed him. Sometimes he would meet a hero who was worshipped, but who had no myth and perhaps even no name; in that case, if he were interested in local history, he might try to discover the hero’s identity, to identify him with some character of myth or epic. In other cases, the hero’s myth would be well-known, perhaps regarded as a model for patriotic behaviour or else as the explanation for some modern custom or institution. Our Athenian would frequently meet heroes, with or without their myths, in the visual arts and in poetry. Major heroes might be portrayed in major monuments, works designed to celebrate the polis. So we seem to find the group of the eponymoi on the Parthenon frieze, and Theseus and Herakles in.the Stoa Poikile - in the latter case, not simply as august figures from the past, but as a present help in the here and now, Theseus in the typical guise of the cult hero emerging from the earth. These figures of pan-Attic popularity appear also, and very often, in the more private genre of-vase-paintings ‘ I Snodgrass. A d i c i i c G i m w (n. 23) 39. “When I was first working on the material which was to become this book, several people asked me if Cleisthenes would really have been able to send the names of a hundred Attic heroes to the Pythia. Even if we exclude women and those whom mythology declared to be foreigners, Appendix I easily supplies ah affirmative answer - and who knows how many more names have vanished from our sight? I am less certain that the case of Attica is unusual: evidence from both literature (and hence also ancient scholarship) and epigraphy is very much fuller than from other areas. and it is also the case that the physical area of Attica is cmsiderably larger than that of most other poleis. The large number of heroes. as of other local cults,-present throughout the area does of course argue against ‘centralisation’ of religion in Attica (see pp. 85-6).
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(no doubt originally in other domestic works of art as well) where the most popular themes, by contrast, are those taken from their mythology; these works celebrate in epic style the .superhuman deeds of the great men of the past. Already Herakles spans the boundary between Attic cult-figure and panhellenic subject of saga, and many of the heroes on Attic vases are heroes of epic rather than heroes of cult, celebrated in literature throughout Greece rather than important for their local significance. But we also find depictions of strictly Attic heroes, often alongside those better-known figures; the Athenian would realise that the past of his own city was significant. In a similar manner tragedy (no doubt also choral lyric) mixes the local with the panhellenic, and our Athenian would have gained much of his impression of the heroic history of Athens from theatrical festivals (and drama itself was often reflected in painting). Following a well-worn tradition, Pausanias (1.3.3) can still complain that most people have little historical sense;believing what they hear from choral lyric and tragedy, and this is not likely to have been ley true in the fifth and fourth centuries. When the hero has such a variety of roles and presentations, it is idle to look for a simple formula to explain his existence. If it is not quite true that our Athenian would meet a hero round every comer, in every activity of his life, the extraordinary richness of Athenian society nonetheless produced countless images of the heroic. The hero is as diverse and multi-faceted as the society of which he is a part.
APPENDIX 1: CATALOGUE OF ATTIC HEROES The selection of material for this list necessarily involves some problems of definition. Some -of the figures emerging from the epigraphic testimonia - Alochos, Semele, Hypodektes, for instance - might seem to be closer to gods than to heroes; many of the characters important in the mythographers have no heroic cult attested. On the principle that heroes and minor gods are not always easy to distinguish, indeed perhaps should not always be distinguished, I have included most of the former category, and since I have tried to demonstrate some of the important functions of heroic myth, appearances in mythology are also a criterion for inclusion. In other words, all names with a cult connexion appear (I hope), but names which appear once only in genealogies or on vases have been omitted. As for what makes an Attic hero, I have included figures either worshipped in Attica, or with strong mythological or genealogical links with the area; Salaminian heroes, who belong in the last analysis to a different tradition (Ajax was a foreigner for Herodotus), I have included only where there are cultic or mythical links with Attica proper. The references and testimonia are intended as a guide only, with preference given to the earlier. material available. While I have tried to be reasonably complete in presenting the cult aspect, the treatment of mythology is more selective; it does not seem worthwhile to duplicate the exhaustive collections of material found in Pauly-Wissowa, Roscher, and now the Lexicon Iconographicurn. These, as well as less standard works indicated at the appropriate points, may be considered to supplement the mythological details given here, where the emphasis lies on the connexions with Attica. An asterisk is placed before the name of a hero where cult is attested or can be securely inferred; in many other cases cult is likely but not certain. ,
* AyhaupoS
Aglauros (see also Herse, Pandrosos) Place of worship. A.’s sanctuary was in a cave at the east end of the acropolis, G. Dontas, Hesperiu 52 (1983) 48-63; cf. Hdt. 8.53. Outside Athens she had cults at Thorikos and Erchia, perhaps also at Porthmos (Sounion); see below. Cult details. In Athens: Getscvocpopia to the three girls, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 183. The three were probably also connected with the Arrephoria (but see Pandrosos). Aglauros alone is connected with the Plynteria and Kallynteria, Photius S.V. IlhuvGpta, Hsych. S.V. Kahhvvnipta K a i Ilhuvepta. Her sacrifice in connexion with Ares, Helios, the Horai, Apollo and others (eimqnipta) is mkptov, Hesperia 52 (above); for Ares, cf. the ephebic oath sworn in her sanctuary, Philoch. F 105, and see mythology. A TcavvvxiS in her honour (no reason to idCntify with h t v o q o p i a ) , Eioayhymx, a zpdurce~a,Hesperia 52 (above). Her priestess: IG 112 3459, Hesperia 52.48-63, both third century. (These both speak of a priestess of A. alone; the priestess in the Salaminioi decree (lines 11-12,451 is of A. and Pandrosos, probably belonging to a deme cult, see below.) Worship for Kekrops’ sake, and women’s oath in her name, Bion FGrH 332 F 1. Outside Athens. (a) Thorikos. In Skirophorion she receives a sheep at the Plynteria, worshipped together with Athena (lines 52-4). (b) Erchia. On 3 Skirophorion she receives a sheep; Kourotrophos, Athena Polias, Zeus Polieus, Poseidon and one other deity also receive sacrifice. (c) ? Porthmos (Sounion). The priestess of A. and Pandrosos appears in close connexion with (perhaps is identical to) the priestess of Kourotrophos, who is worshipped at Porthmos in the
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Salaminioi decree (line 85). (On the priesthood see also R. Garland, ABSA 79 (1983) 86, who however assumes this is the city cult.) Mythology. Daughter of Kekrops, sister of Pandrosos and Herse: Philochorus FGrH 328 F 106, al.; this is the normal version. Daughter of Erechtheus by his own daughter Prokris, Hyg. fah. 253. With her sisters, daughter of Aktaion, Suda S.V.Q o i v i ~ i ypdrppara. a XyhaupoS or Xypauhos as the wife of Kekrops and mother of the three girls perhaps derives from phrases such as Ayhaupi6q nap6ivot for the daughters, E. lon 23. Agraulos daughter of Aktaion, wife of Kekrops, Paus. 1.2.6. Priestess of Athena, Philoch. F 106 (‘AyhaupoS an epithet of Athena, Harpocration s.v.). Erichthonios (q.v.) entrusted to the sisters in a chest or basket, and their subsequent death: A R P 973.7 (c. 470/60), Amelesagoras FGrH 330 F 1, al. E. /on 267-74 gives the stori without names; for vases with unnamed figures see Brommer3 258. A’s sacrificial death, Philochorus F 105. Weaving: see Pandrosos. Mother of Alkippe by Ares, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 1. Mother of Keryx by Hermes, Paus. 1.38.3 (but compare Pandrosos and Herse). See pp. 23-7,57-63. *Agora, anonymous heroes of Agora XIV 119-21 lists four possible hero-shrines, all anonymous. S.I. Rotroff, Mesperia 47 (1978) 196-209, publishes a fourth-century inventory of a shrine roc fipw, tentatively identified by her with Leos (Ag.1. 7474). Her note 37 conveniently lists six further anonymous heroes of the agora, of various dates. See further G.V. Lalonde, Hesp. 49 ( 1980) 98- 105. Aypohas Agrolas Cult. None known. Mythology. With Hyperbios, A. was builder of the Pelasgian walls of the Acropolis; they were Sicilians who later moved to Acamania. Were they Cyclopes? Seep. 107 n. 15.
A6pqlzos, A h q o n ~ “lnlcaoo~ , Admetos, Alkestis and Hippasos Cult. None certain, but Admetos is linked with Athenian figures in myth. Mythology. Admetos, Alkestis and their youngest child Hippasos were given shelter by Theseus, Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 26. (This may indicate cult for these three somewhere in Attica, although Jacoby (ad loc.) is sceptical, believing Phanodemus’ evidence was the skolion AGpirou hoyov (PMG 897), in connexion with which he is quoted in scho1.V. Ar.Vesp. 1239.) A. the ancestor of the Athenian king Melanthos, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23. *A6paoros Adrastos Place of worship. Heroon of A,, Peirithoos, Theseus and Oedipus at Kolonos Hippios, Paus. 1.30.4, cf. Etym. M. S.V. ‘Ida. Perhaps also at Harma on Pames? See Jacoby on Philochorus FGrH 328 F 112-3. Mythology. A., fleeing from Thebes after the defeat of the Seven, halted his horses at Kolonos and founded the cults of Poseidon Hippios and Athena Hippia (Etym. M. S.V. ‘Isclria).
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? A.’s chariot was smashed up at Harma, where he was saved by the inhabitants (Strabo 404). But does this refer to the Attic or the Boeotian Apya? The latter has another aition in the disappearance of the chariot of Amphiaraos (Strabo loc. cit.). A. was journeying to Athens to enlist the support of Theseus in reclaiming the bodies of those fallen against Thebes: A. Eleusinioi fr. 267-70 Mette, E. Suppl. passim, Isoc. Puneg. 54-5, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 112-3. See C. Collard, ed: Euripides, Suppiices (Groningen 1975) oi h i . 3-8; Jacoby IIIB Supp. 445-8. See also @ijpa~,
* A i a ~ 6 $Aiakos Place of worship. In the agora, Hdt. 5.89; further, Agora 11148-9. Cult. Nothing known. According to Herodotus the shrine was set up by the state, on Delphic advice, to defeat the Aeginetans. It did not apparently claim to have the hero’s bones. Mythology.. A. is an Aeginetan hero in mythology, son of Zeus and Aigina (11. 2 1.189, PI. Gorg. 526E, etc.), whose connexion with Athens dates only from after his death. Later activities. A’s help was invoked by the Athenians against Aigina, Hdt. 5.89; and by the Greek forces at Salamis in 480, ib. 8.64. The tradition that A was a judge or K~TJGOGXOSin the underworld was well-known in late fifth- and fourth-century Athens: Ar. Run. 464ff., P1. Apol. 41A, Gorg. 625E; cf. Isoc. Evug. 15. See p. 47. *A’ia$ Ajax
Place of worship. (a) Athens, probably at the Eurysakeion in Melite (Hesperiu 7 no. 15 (p. 94): a decree of Aiantis set up in the Eurysakeion; see also Ferguson, Hesp. 7 (1938) 18, and cf. A R v 1268.1). Two later decrees (IG 112 1008.87, Ag. 1.286 = Hesp. 24 (1955) pp. 228-31, lines 40-1) record a sanctuary of Ajax, which may be identical. (b) primarily, in Salamis: a temple with an ebony statue, Paus. 1.35.3-4; see also Deubner 228. Temenos in the old capital Ky[chreia], IG 112 1035.31 (c. AD 150). The Salaminian nationality of Ajax is attested in 11. 2.557,7.199, Hdt. 5.66, S . Ajux, al. (c) also as one of the group of eponymous heroes (q.v.). Cult outside Attica: cf. Megarian cult of Athena Aiantis, Paus. 1.42.4. Details of cult. (a) Possibly instituted during the sixth-century quarrel with Megara, or else in the wake of Cleisthenes’ tribal reforms. The priest of Ajax is from the tribe Aiantis in Dow, Prytuneis 28.69-7 1. (b) Aianteia on Salamis: Deubner 228. By the second century the celebrations included a procession, sacrifice, gymnastic competition, torch-race and boat-race, with the special participation of the ephebes - an elaborate festival for a hero. A Khivq y& Tcavonhia$ was prepared for Ajax by the Athenians, schol. Pi. Nem. 2.19; Athens or Salamis? Mythology. Son of Telamon, Iliad passim; and of Periboia daughter of Alkathoos, Xen. Kyn. 1.9, Paus. 1.42.4, al.; or of Eriboia, Pi. Isrhm. 6.45, S. Ajux, a]. Great fighter at Troy, tliud passim. Athenian connexions: I / . 2.557, S . Ajus 861, Philost. Heroicus 35.9. “Onhov K p i o q and suicide: Od. 1 1 S43-60, Aifhiopis (Proclus, Kinkel p. 34; cf. fr. 2-3). Aesch. “Onhov Kpimc,, Op@mai, Cahayivioi (283-30 1 Mette). Madness: tlias P a l w (Proclus, Kinkel p. 36), S . Ajm.
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Father of Eurysakes, S. Ajux 574-5, Plut. Solon 10; of Philaios, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 2, Hdt. 6.35.4. Later activities. Appearance of flower after death, weapons of Achilles washed up at A’s tomb after shipwreck of Odysseus, Paus. 1.35.4. Summoned from Salamis with Telamon to help Greek fleet, Hdt. 8.64. See pp. 46,80-91 (esp. 82). “A’iy~u~ Aigeus Place of worship. A. had a heroon in Athens, Paus. 1.22.5, Harpocration S.V. Aiy~iov. Paus. seems to suggest that the heroon is not at the point by the Nike Apteros from which Aigeus leapt to his death (see below). Perhaps it was at the Delphinion, which he founded (Bekk. Anecd. 1.255) and where he lived (Plut. Thes. 12.6), or at the sanctuary of Aphrodite Ourania, also founded by him, Paus. 1.14.7. (See phahq, fip% h i . ) Cult. As an eponymos, A. received special worship from the tribe Aigeis, but no details are known, other than that in the second century his priest was drawn from the tribe (IG 112 952). He was also worshipped as a member of the group: see drchvuyo~fipwc,. Mythology. Son of Pandion, brother of Pallas, Nisos and Lykos: apparently in Soph. TGrF 24, cf. A R v 1268.2, with Aigeus; he is absent from the brothers in ARV2 259.1 (shortly before 480). Later writers follow this version (e.g. Apollod. 3.15.5), but there was also a tradition that the Pallantidai claimed that A. had been the son of Skyrios (Apollod. loc. cit), or merely adopted by Pandion (Plut. Thes. 13.1). Married Meta (Melite, schol. E. Med. 673) daughter of Hoples, then Chalkiope daughter of Rhexenor or Chalkodon (Phanodemos FGrH 325 F 5 ) , but his continued childlessness was the chief legend associated with him. Consultation of oracle of Themis, A R v 1269.5. Wineskin oracle, E. Med. 677ff., Plut. Thes. 3.5. Arrival in Troizen and sleeping with Aithra, Apollod. 3.15.7, Plut. Thes. 3.6. Foundation of cult of Aphrodite Ourania by him because of childlessness, Paus. 1.14.7. Marriage to Medea, E. Med. I384ff., Apollod. Epit. I .5, Paus. 2.3.8. Return and recognition of Theseus, Plut. Thes. 12.2-6 (see Theseus). Death on seeing black sails of Theseus’ ship, leaping from Acropolis, Paus. 1.22.5, Diod. 4.61.7, al.; or from one of the harbours into the sea, Suda S.V.Aimiov &haps, Hyg.fuh. 43, al. A. was a popular fifth-century subject. Red-figure vases depicting him, usually in company with Theseus, are listed in Brommer3 259. Both Sophocles (TGrF19-25) and Euripides (frr. 1- 13 Nauck2) wrote an Aigeus, and a comedy of the same name was written by Philyllios (Kock 78 1-2). See pp. 80-9 1. Alylhoc, Aigilos Eponymous hero of the deme Aigilia, Athen. 14.652E (Philemon), al. Some confusion with Ion’s son Aigikores, eponym of an Ionian tribe? - &no nvoq cpuhijs fipoos Aiyihou, schol. Theoc. 1.145.
Ai6ahiGqG Aithalides Eponymous hero of the deme Aithalidai, Steph. Byz. name do not appear to have Attic connexions.
S.V.
Ai6ahiGat. Other heroes of this
APPENDIX 1
143
A'i6pa Aithra Cult. None attested, although she has close links with Attic heroes; her worship with Theseus seems a priori not unlikely (cf. Alkmene and Herakles). Mythology. Mother of Theseus, Ilias Parva fr. 17 Kinkel, (Iliupersis fr. 3), Brommer3 214, al. At Eleusis, E. Suppl. Iff. Helen placed under her care at Aphidna, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 20, Plut. Thes. 31.3. Captivity in Troy, II. 3.144, Brommer3 333 B2, Hellanicus F 21 (the Dioskouroi the agents). Or carried off from Troizen to Troy by Hector, Istros FGrH 334 F 7. Freed by Akamas and Demophon, Ilias Parva fr. 17 K, Iliupersis fr. 3 K, Kypselos chest (Paus. 5.19.4), Polygnotos (Paus. 10.25.7), Brommer3 390- 1 (with some conjectural identifications). Aixone, t t p x q y h q ~ Mythology. In local tradition, his daughter was the mother of Herakles by Zeus, Plat. Lysis 205C. If he is serious, the tradition is presumably claiming that Alkmene (q.v.; she had a cult at Aixone) was a native of this Attic deme. "Aixone, anonymous heroine Cult. Her priestess receives i e p h v o r , IG 112 1356. A'ivezo~Ainetos Cult. None known. Mythology. Son of Deion and Diomede, brother of Aktor, Phylakos and Kephalos, Apollod. 1.9.4. ARV 1268.1 depicts Ainetos with Kodros: see Kron, LIMC I 397.
Akademeia, anonymous heroes Cult. 'Evayoyo~into a po6po< performed by the polemarchs, Heliodorus 1.17 (factual?) Mythology, activities. Unknown. Did Heliodorus have in mind Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who received sacrifice from the polemarchs (Arist. Arh. Pol. 58. I)? But according to Pausanias (1.29.5) their graves were on the way to Akademeia.
* X~drya5Akamas Places of worship. (a) Kallithea (Xypete or Alopeke). This was the tribal shrine of Akamantis, Mitsos Xpx. 'Eq. 1965 131-8 (EM 13354, 13354a, 36 UO). (b) Phaleron, shrine of the children of Theseus, Paus. 1.1.4. See pp. 37-41 and compare the mythological connexions. ( c ) Dipylon. Third-century altar to Zeus Herkeios, Hermes and Akamas, IG 1124983. (d) Are the IwKdrpavTeS of the Tetrapolis calendar (B 32) connected? Cf. the Marathonian location of E. Heraclidae. Cult details. A. was an eponymous tribal hero; whether or not his priest was taken from Akamantis is uncertain from the fragmentary state of IG 112 917 = Agora XV 128 = Hesp. 9 p. 116. See also Hesp. 10 p. 396; the balance of probability favours a tribal priesthood. Mythology. With Demophon, son of Theseus, Ilias Parva fr. 17 Kinkel, Iliuper-sis fr. 3 K; and of Phaidra, Diod. 4.62, Apollod. Epir. 1.18; and of Ariadne, schol. Od. 11.321; and (Demophon) of Antiope, Pindar fr. 176 Sn-M.
THE HEROES OF ATTlCA
I44
Both brothers sent to king Elephenor or Chalkodon on Euboia, Hellanicus FCI-H 323a F 21, Plut. Thes. 35.5. Cf. Soph. TGrF 555b.15 (Skyrioi). Freeing of Aithra, Ilias Par-va fr. 17 K (see Aithra). A son Mounitos (q.v.) born to him in Troy by Laodike, Parthenius 16, Lycophron 495-8; but cf. Demophon. Married Phyllis daughter of the king of the Bisaltoi, whose dowry was the Ennea-hodoi area, Aeschin. 2.3 1 (but the scholiast names A. and Amphipolis as sons of Phyllis and Demophon). Return to Athens, mistaken homicide at Phaleron, and trial at the court h i nahha&q, Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 20, Phanodemus ib. 325 F 12. (The Trojan Palladion, ARV2 460.13; Antiochus ib. 333 F 4.) Colonisation of Chersonese, with Antimachos, schol. Thuc. 1.1 1. Colonisation of Cyprus, Lycophron 494ff. (with Phaleros), Strabo 683 (but cf. Demophon). Despite some interchangeability between the brothers, usually A. appears to colonise while Demophon rules at home. See pp. 88-9. * X ~ p a ~ o x d qAkratopotes 5
Place of worship. Mounychia, Polemon fr. 40 Pr. Compare the following. * X ~ p a ~ 0Akratos 5 Place of worship. At the sanctuary of Dionysos Melpomenos, where his image was only a face carved in the wall, Paus. 1.2.5. P. calls him a 8aipwv zhv dpqi Atovuoov. See Linant de Bellefonds, LIMC 1449; apparently not an exclusively Attic figure.
*Acropolis, anonymous hero Place of worship. South slope. Cult. Recipient of a private dedication in the second half of the fourth century, IG 112 4599.
X K T C ~ ~(Xmaiwv) OG Aktaios (Aktaion) Mythology. Lived before Kekrops, Mar-m. Par. A 2-4. First king of Attica, whose daughter Agraulos Kekrops married, Paus. 1.2.6. Attica (Akte, Aktike, Aktaia) named from him, Steph. Byz. S.V. d ~Strabo ~ 391, , 397, Paus. 1.2.5. Father of Agraulos, above; of Telamon by Glauke daughter of Kychreus, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 60. Aktaion father of Aglauros, Pandrosos, Herse and Phoinike, Suda S.V. @otvtcilta ypappaza (Skamon). (The form Aktaion is used here and at Strabo 391,397.)
*big,f i p q tni fl ‘Hero at the saltmarsh’ Cult. Worshipped at the Herakleia, receiving a victim of greater value than the other two anonymous heroes. His priest is to be the priest of Eurysakes, one of the Salaminioi (Salaminioi decree lines 37-9,52-4, 86). Mythology. Unknown, perhaps non-existent. ‘Ahtppo6toc, Halirrhothios
Place of worship. By the salt spring of the Asklepieion, or at Akademeia? (see mythology). Cult details. No cult for H. is attested, but E. Schmidt (AM 38 (1913) 73-77) identified him with Halon (q.v.), whose priesthood Sophocles held. Cf. 0. Walter in rkpas K~papoxo6hhou (Athens 1953) 469-79. Cf. also the Heroa in the Asklepieion, IG 112 974,975.
APPENDIX 1
145
Mythology. Son of Poseidon, E. Ef. 1258-60, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F I , 22, Philochorus ib. 328 F 3, al.; and of Euryte, Apollod. 3.14.2; or of Bathykleia, schol. Pi. Of.11.83. Raped or attempted to rape Alkippe (q.v.) daughter of Ares by a spring in the later Asklepieion, and therefore killed by Ares; the subsequent indictment of Ares by Poseidon led to the first trial in the Areopagos court, E. El. 1258-60, Hellanicus F 1, Philochorus F 3, Paus. I .2 1.4,28.5, al. In An obscure alternative tradition Poseidon, angry at losing the contest with Athena, sent his son H. to cut down the olive trees in Akademeia, and H. accidentally cut off his leg and died: scholl. recc. Ar. Nub. 1005. The Akademeia area has connexions with both olives and Poseidon, but not all the scholia give the name H., and this may perhaps be a mistaken identification. See pp. 19-20.
A h d x q Alkippe Place of worship. Cult unattested, but she is associated with one of the Asklepieion springs, Paus. 1.21.3-4; cf. IG I* 874, 875: hopos K ~ ~ V E G . Mythology. Daughter of Ares, E. El. 1258-60 (unnamed), Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 1, Philochorus F 3, al.; and of Aglauros, Hellanicus loc. cit., raped by Halirrhothios (q.v.). Wife of Eupalamos and mother of Daidalos (Apollod. 3.15.8. is ambiguous on the genealogy, but this seems to be correct from schol. Plat. Zon 121A and Tz. Chil. 1.490; cf. Frazer ad loc.). Is this the same Alkippe? * A h ~ p i v qAlkmene Not normally considered an Attic heroine, and appears only with her son Herakles, though often enough thus. Places of cult. (a) Athens, Kynosarges: altar to A. and Ioleos in the Herakleim, Paus. 1.19.3. (b) Aixone, sanctuary of Hebe: the priestess of Hebe seems to have been priestess of A. also, IG 112 1199 (325/4). (c) Thorikos: sacrifice in connexion with Herakleidai or Herakles in Elaphebolion. (d) Porthmos (? Sounion): sacrifice of sheep in Mounychion; Kourotrophos, Ioleos, Maia, Herakles and three nameless heroes receive sacrifice at the same festival. (Salaminioi decree lines 85ff.) Outside Attica, A. had tombs in Megara (Paus. 1.41.1) and Haliartos (ib. 9.16.7, Plut. Mor-. 578B). Mythology. Mostly belongs to Theban, not Attic tradition; but Plat. Lysis 205C states that ~ Aixone was mother of Herakles by Zeus, presumably meaning the daughter of the h p x q y d q of that A. was an Aixonean. ‘ ~ ~ K O Alkon V
Cult. The hypothesis of a cult for Alkon depends on Meineke’s emendation A ~ K O V Ofor G Ahavos (q.v.) in V. Soph. 1 1. Mythology. Father of Phaleros, an Athenian, Ap. Rhod. 1.95, Hyg. fuh. 14 (lists of Argonauts). Son of Erechtheus, father of Chalkiope, Proxenos FGr-H 425 F 2. Fled to Euboea, ib.
I46
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
A h o q Alope Place of worship. Cult unattested, but her tomb was shown by a spring on the road from Eleusis to Megara, Paus. 1.39.3. Alope a place in Attica, Steph. Byz. S.V. X h o q . Mythology. Daughter of Kerkyon (q.v.) and mother by Poseidon of Hippothon (q.v.), E. Alope (pp. 389-90 Nauck2), Choirilos, Alope (ib. p. 719 = Paus. 1.14.3), Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 6, al. (Also mentioned in Pherecydes FGi-H 3 F 147.) She was killed by her father (Paus. 1.39.3, Hyg.fah. 187) and turned by Poseidon into a spring (Hyg. loc. cit.).
“Ahoxos Alochos (goddess or heroine?) Place of worship. Pagos (the hill) at Erchia. Cult details. On 27 Boedromion receives a sheep; sacrifice group includes nymphs, Acheloos, Hermes and Ge. Mythology. Unknown; even the status of this personage is unclear, and she may equally well be goddess as heroine. The Wife whose name one might hesitate to speak is of course she who is no longer Kopq. See also p. 23 n. 7 1. *Ahov Halon Cult. This hero’s priesthood was apparently held by Sophocles, V. Soph. 11; but the reading has been questioned (perhaps unnecessarily), Meineke emending to Alkon (q.v.). Schmidt and Walter identify him with Halirrhothios (q.v.), while the heroised Sophocles (see Dexion) was apparently worshipped in connexion with Amynos and Asklepios. Mythology. With Asklepios, learnt the art of healing from Cheiron, V. Soph. 11. See p. 20. *Ap&
A p P q Ambas See Askalabos.
APPENDIX 1
147
*Apuv05 Amynos Place of worship. South slopes of Areopagos, an open-air shrine with a well: see Travlos 76-7, with bibliography. Cult. A healing hero, recipient of related private votives, none earlier than fourth century discovered (although the shrine itself is sixth-century). IG 112 4365, 4385, 4424, 4435, 4457 = Kutsch 8, 10, 12, 17, 20. Kutsch 11, 13 (= IG 112 4387, 4386), 9, 19 do not mention A. Asklepios was also worshipped in the shrine. Orgeones of A., Asklepios and Dexion: IG 112 1252, 1253, 1259 (= Kutsch 14, 15, 16). The shrine of Dexion was separate. Mythology. Unknown. See pp. 14-21. *Xpcptdrpa05, Xycpidrpeo~Amphiaraos, Amphiareos Places of worship. (a) Primarily, in Oropos: testimonia and discussion in A. Schachter, Cults ofBoiotia (BlCS supp. 38) 1.19-26. (b) Athens. Third-century altar to A. and Hygieia, IG 1124441. (c) Rhamnous. The old fip% iatp05 (q.v.) comes to be identified with A. in the course of the fourth century. See Pouilloux, Forteresse, nos. 31-4 (IG 1124426,4436,4452, 1322). (d) Peiraeus. Third-century festival, IG IL2 1282.12. (e) SE of Acharnai: context uncertain in IG 112 1344.10 (AD 28/9). Cult details. (a) An oracular healing shrine with incubation practiced. See the description of the sanctuary in Paus. 1.34; also Schachter, loc. cit., and V. Chr. Petrakos, '0 'Opono5 ~ atoi iepov toij Apcp~apdrou(Athens 1968), and above, pp. 14-21. (c) See Pouilloux 93-102. Mythology. The living A. was a prophet, Pi. 01.6,13-17. On his flight after the defeat of the Seven at Thebes, the earth opened and received him in his chariot, Pindar loc. cit.; at Harma in Boeotia, Strabo 404 (Philochorus (?) FGrH 328 F 113), Paus. 1.34.2. His anodos as a god at the Amphiareion spring, Paus. 1.34.4. A god rather than a hero, ib. 34.2.
Apcpt~zi)ovAmphiktyon Place of worship. Cult unattested, but he is associated with the sanctuary of the Horai, and the altars there of Dionysos Orthos and the nymphs; he seems to be a typical institutor-hero. Mythology. An autochthon, Apollod. 3.14.5; or a son of Deukalion (which could be much the same thing), ? ib. 1.7.2; a contemporary of Deukalion, Marm. Par. 8, Apollod. 3.14.5. King of Athens (all sources). In his reign the cult of Dionysos came to Athens from Eleutherai (see Pegasos, Semachos), and he himself gave hospitality to Dionysos (Paus. 1.2.5, reliefs in the sanctuary of D. Melpomenos) and was taught by him how to mix wine, Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 12, Philochorus ib. 328 F 5. Consequently he established altars to Dionysos and the nymphs (= water) in the sanctuary of the Horai, schol. Od. 17.205, cf. Philochorus loc. cit. Deposed his father-in-law Kranaos and was in turn deposed by Erichthonios, Marm. Par. 8- 10, Apollod. 3.14.6. An unnamed daughter was mother of Kerkyon and Triptolemos (qq.v.), Paus. 1.14.3 (Choirilos, Alope). A. as founder of proto-amphictiony, Marm. Par. A 5 , Theopompos FGrH 115 F 63.
I48
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Apcpihoxoc; Amphilochos Place of worship. Altars at Oropos (with Amphiaraos) and in Athens, Paus. 1.34.3. The Athenian altar is probably that of the Athenian tip% iaTpoc; (q.v.), identified with Amphilochos in Kutsch no. 4 ( I st cent. BC). Cult. Presumably a healing hero. Mythology. There are no Attic connexions, as far as is known; the appearance of A. in Athens may be due simply to a conjectural identification. A. was the son of Amphiaraos and Eriphyle (Od. 15.248) and his history relates to that of the Epigonoi. [Appizp6ov Amphitryon
A. is a false reading in the Thorikos calendar and has no obvious claim to be an Attic hero, although mythology connects him with Kephalos, who is at home in south-east Attica: Ant. Lib. 41, Apollod. 2.4.7. Cf. also E. HF 1421.1 Avayupoc; Anagyros
Location. Anagyrous (cult unclear). Mythology. When a man cut down his grove, A. in revenge made his mistress fall in love with his son; when rejected she denounced him, resulting in the deaths of all three. Alternatively he threw houses from their foundations. Suda S.V. Xvayupamoc; (Hieronymos), Zenob. 2.55, etc. See pp. 1 1- 13; J. Fontenrose, Cal. Studs. 1 ( 1968) 90. * ' A v a q , Aioc; KoOpot Anakes, Dioskouroi
Places of worship. (a) in Athens, in the agora on the way up to the Acropolis, Luc. P i x . 42, al. (See Agora I11 6 1-5,test. 133-51.) (b) Kephale. A conspicuous cult of Mq6Aot &oi, Paus. 1.31.1 (he identifies them with the Dioskouroi). (c) Thorikos (calendar). (d) near Vari, IG 112498 1 (4tW3rd-century altar A v ~ K o ~ v ) . (e) Plotheia, IG 112 1172.6, c. 400, festival Avdlma. (f) Phegaia, IG 112 1932 (first half of fourth century), Aioc; KoOpot. Cult details. (a) The priest was shared with the 6mzbo<, at least in the imperial period, IG 112507 1. There were also parasites, Athen. 6.235B. A morning meal prepared for the Dioskouroi in the prytaneion, consisting of cheese, barley-cakes, olives and leeks, as h o p q m v qc; & p x a i q &mc Chionides ;, fr. 7 K-A. (b) A procession held in connexion with this, which the ephebes attended? IG 1121006.29. (c) Receive a full-grown victim in connexion with Helen (q.v.) in Elaphebolion. Mythology. The title 'Avamspresumably referred originally to godlike figures ather than to specific heroes, but the Anakes came to be identified with the Dioskouroi or Tyndaridai, Kastor and Polydeukes. In Athens, Anakeion was the official title of the shrine, but Dem. 19.158 names it Dioskorion, and paintings by Mikon and Polygnotos depicted the Dioskouroi, Paus. 1.18.1. The Attic mythology of Kastor and Polydeukes, most often called Tyndaridai in this context, refers to their invasion of Attica to reclaim their sister Helen (see (c) above), kidnapped by Theseus, Hdt. 9.73, Plut. Thes. 31-3, al. They were then initiated at Eleusis, Xen. Hell. 6.3.6, being adopted by Aphidnos (4.v.) for this purpose, and subsequently receiving npai ioO&oi, Plut. Thes. 33.
APPENDIX I
149
Avacphwrro< Anaphlystos Location. Presumably the deme of Anaphlystos, if any cult observed. Mythology. With Sphettos, A. was a son of Troizen who arrived in Attica from the Argolid, Paus. 2.30.9. A v t i p o y ~ qAndrogeos
This was the mythical identification of two separate heroes, whose cult names were Eurygyes (at the Kerameikos) and q p q m z a ltpZipvav (at Phaleron) qq.v.). A. was the son of Minos whose death in Attica led to Minos’ demand for an annual tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, Apollod. 3.15.7, Plut. Thes. 15, Paus. 1.27.10. See pp. 40,122. Avtkpoqxzo~Anthemokritos
Cult. A. is not stated to be a hero, but his burial at the Dipylon (Plut. Per. 30.3, Dem. 2.4) and the existence of a statue (Harpocration s.v.) suggest heroic honours. Events of life. A. was the herald sent to the Megarians about the k p k 6pydy in 431 and killed by them. See p. 54. Avn07q Antiope See Amazons. . * A v n o ~ oAntiochos ~
Place of worship. At the Herakleion of Kynosarges. See Ch. I. Karouzos, Apx. At%. 8 (1923) 85-102 (late fourth-century decrees of Antiochis found there; no. 4 (p. 98) refers to a kpov 700 Avnoxou, presumably part of the Herakleion complex. Also as one of the eponymoi (q.v.). Cult details. A. was an eponymos, A d it is possible that his cult came to Kynosarges only after 508/7. Pausanias does not mention A. in his brief description of the sanctuary, 1.19.3. The priesthood was held by a member of the tribe, Dow, Prytuneis 71 (169/8). Mythology. The only connection of A. with Attica seems to be his appearance as a boy among those destined for the Minotaur, ABV 76.1; but is this the same A.? [Dem.] 60.3 1 cannot produce any of his inspiring deeds. He was the son of Herakles ([Dem.] loc. cit, Apollod. 1.8.3) and Meda, daughter of Phylas, Paus. 1.5.2. His son also Phylas, Paus. 2.4.3, al. His descendants led the return of the Herakleidai, Paus. 2.4.3, Apollod. loc. cit, D i d . 4.37, and had connexions with both Corinth and Boeotia. On the possible significance of this, see p. 88 n. 47. In general, pp. 80-91. *avnaapq, f i p q 8lt ’
Cult. Receives a sucking-pig at the Herakleia at Porthmos, Sal. decree line 86. Mythology unknown, if any. *Apaqniv Araphen
Place of worship. Presumably the deme of Araphen. Cult seems to be attested by the fact that A. was one of the hundred heroes picked by Cleisthenes for selection to the final ten tribal 17.8. eponymoi, Herodian =pi pov.
150
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
No cult details or mythology are known. Apstjrqs Ardettes Place of worship. At the Ardettos lawcourt, if anywhere (cult not attested). Mythology. A. reconciled the people at a time of stasis, and the court was named after him: O ~ , 8.122. Harpoc. S.V. A P ~ ~ T TPollux ApimopaXoS Aristomachos
See iazpos, fipq: Rhamnous. *‘Appo6ios~ aAp~mopizov i Harmodios and Aristogeiton Location of cult. Presumably on the road to Akademeia, where they were buried, Paus. 1.29.5; perhaps also in the agora, where they had statues: Ar. Lys. 633, IG 112 4506.7-12, Paus. 1.8.5; see Agora I11 93-8. Events of life. They were killed after assassinating Hipparchos the brother of Hippias, a deed which Was subsequently remembered as tyrannicide, Hdt. 5.55, 6.123, Thuc. 1.20.2, 6.53.9, PMG 893-6. See L. Weber, AM 50 (1925) 148-56; M.W. Taylor, The Tyrant Slayers (New York 1981); and above, p. 55. Archegetes This is a title meaning little more than ‘patron hero’, and is therefore particularly applicable to deme heroes: see under Aixone, Eleusis, Rhamnous. A city hero with this title appears in IG 112 4686, a fourth or Kid-century Totenmahl relief (Thonges-Stringarisno. 110) from the Odeion of Herodes Atticus, with the inscription ‘Hy~pbv XPXWhS. See also IG I3 255.B8 (?), of uncertain provenance: Marathon area? *ApXq+qs
*Ao-
As---w Place of worship. Peiraeus, IG 112 4600 (second half of fourth century): [ f i p ] ~Ao[--~-]w ~ T&m[-] &v&l9qlc&
AOK&@S
Askalabos Cult unknown, and perhaps unlikely. Mythology. The mother of the child A., Misme, gave Demeter hospitality in her wanderings in Attica and gave her a ICUICE~Vto drink; A. mocked D. for her eager drinking of the potion. and was turned by her in anger into a lizard (&OK&@<), Ant. Lib. 24 (Nicander). Alternatively, the child was originally called Ambas and was son of Metaneira and brother of Triptolemos, schol. Nic. Ther. 484 (Dubner 187). Cf. perhaps Askalaphos, an underworld daimon dso punished by Demeter, Apollod. 1S.3 turned by her into an owl, id. 2.5.12. A26i5 Atthis Mythology. Daughter of Kranaos, from whom Attica is named, Paus. 1.2.6. Died a virgin, Apollod. 3.14.5. But.some say she was the mother of Erichthonios by Hephaistos, ib. 3.14.6 (i.e. A~l9i)isfl?).
APPENDIX I
151
Aqxiw Apheidas Mythology. A king of Athens (cf. Paus. 7.25.1), son of Oxyntes who was deposed and killed by Thymoites, his younger bastard brother, Demon FGrH 327 F 1; or was killed by Tymoithes apparently before his accession, Nic. Damasc. FGrH 90 F 48. Apheidantidai: Toepffer 103, 169. 'AqnGvos Aphidnos Culi. Unattested, but may have existed in the deme of Aphidna. Mythology. An autochthon, Euripides in Photius p. 91 Reitzenstein, Steph. Byz. S.V. TAqtGva. Theseus entrusted Helen to him and Aithra, Plut. Thes. 31.3 (cf. Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 20-1, Hdt. 9.73, without mention of A. by name). He was king of Aphidna, and wounded Kastor in the subsequent fighting, Polemon fr. 10 Preller (schol. Zl. 3.242). He adopted the Tyndaridai as his sons for their initiation at Eleusis, Plut. Thes. 33.2. see pp. 94-5. Acharnai, anonymous hero Offerings from about the mid-eighth to the fifth century in a Mycenaean tholos tomb suggest that this was a hero cult: see p. 129. A~ccpvdgAcharneus A hero A. is the conjectural explanation of the name Achamai, Steph. Byz. S.V. Axapvai. B&poq Baros See "QtSapos.
*Ba&hq Basile Places of worship, cult details. (a) In Athens, the sanctuary of Kodros, Neleus and B., where Neleus and B. may represent original underworld gods (see Neleus), IG I3 84. Hesp. 7 (1938) p. 123 no. 25 (239/8) probably refers to this Basile, but adds nothing. Plat. Charmides 153A 'the sanctuary of Basile' may also refer to the city shrine, in which case B. seems to be the chief deity. E v a 6 h d ~ a w 0 vqcpdAto$, 5 not grouped with (b) Erchia. Receives on 4 Boedromion dtpvil h other deities. Zv zih q s BaIOihqs k p @ (c) Eitea. In Apx. A&. 25 (1970) 209-10 the restoration *[Gal seems likely, in which case the cult would have occupied an important position in the deme. In IG 1124546, the reading Iasile (q.v.) is certain, although the spacing of the letters is odd. IG 1124645, a dedication to Zeuxippos and Basileia, has also been thought relevant, although a late fifth-century vase (below) seems to distinguish B. from Basileia. Mythology. Unknown, which is remarkable for a figure so prominent in cult; it is not even clear whether all these cults were thought to refer to the same being, or whether B. is closer to goddess or to heroine. B. could be viewed in close association with the central myths of Athens; a red-figure pyxis close to the Meidias painter, dated c. 410/400, shows her present . with Kekrops, Hermes and Soteria at the birth of Erichthonios: Alexandri, Apx. A E ~ 31p (1976) 130, pl. 35. See H. A. Shapiro, 'The Attic deity Basile', ZPE 63 (1986) 134-6.
IS2
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
*Bhaiyn;l, iipos 67ti Place of worship. Obviously by a shrine of Blaute; see IG 112 5183, from beside the Nike Apteros: EICFOGO~npos ~ K O BV k 6 q K~a i Koupozpocpou. Cult details. Dedication of a sandal at the shrine, Pollux 7.87. (Cf. dedication with relief of sandal, found south of theatre of Dionysos: Tsountas, ’Eq.Apx. 1W.243-7 ( = IG I124423).) Mythology. Unknown. Keramopoullos, Apx. &hr. 12 (1929) 79-83, Elderkin, Hesp. 10 (1941) 381-7, identify the hero with Aigeus on topographical grounds. Aigeus (q.v.) has connexions with Aphrodite (with whom Blaute is identified) in the aetiological context of his childlessness (cf. Kourotrophos, above), but the shrine of Aphrodite Ourania associated with him is in the Kerameikos area. [Baufkb Baubo See Dysaules] BouC6yq~Bouzyges Place of worship. Worship of B. himself is not attested, but his plough was dedicated on the acropolis (slopes?), schol. Aeschin. 2.78; Polyaen. Strut. 1.5 perhaps connects it with the Palladion (see IG 1123 177, below), and a sacred ploughing connected with his name took place 6nO nohw, Plut. Mor. 144B. Cult details. Sacred ploughing, Plut. loc. cit. BouC6yqq was the name of the priest of Zeus Teleios or 6m I-IWicy, IG 112 3177, 5055, 5075. Curses pronounced by this pOuC6yqq against those who commit certain acts: Eupolis fr. 113 K-A, App. Prov. 1.61 (Paroem. Gr. I 388), schol. S. Ant. 255, and cf. Aelian VH 5.14. Mythology. A legislator, Lasos PMG 705. First to yoke oxen for ploughing, schol. Aeschin. 2.78, Etym. M. S.V. PouG6yqs. Received the Palladion from Demophon and took it to Athens, Polyaen. Strut. 1.5. Identified with Epimenides by Aristotle, Serv. Georg. 1.19, cf. schol. Aeschin. loc. cit. See B. Ashmole, JHS 66 (1946) 10 n. 14 (on ABV 90.7); D. Robinson, AJA 35 (1931) 152-60 ( A R P 1 15 represents B.?); on both these, C. BCrard in LJMC III 154-5; W. Burkert, ‘Buzyge und Palladion’, ZRGG 22 (1970) 356-68. Bo61YovK a i EbGOOia Bouthon and Eudosia Cult. The place is uncertain, although IG 1124591 is certainly Attic. It is a Totenmahl relief I c E Bo6tkom K& f i p o i q of the mid-fourth century, with the dedication A ~ & O V& v ~ ~ + ~fipm E156oaiq. It is unclear whether these are ‘genuine’ heroes, which may be suggested by the relatively early date, or the dead relatives of Agathon. *Bo6qs Boutes Place of worship. The Erechtheion, where he had an altar in close company with Poseidon Erechtheus and Hephaistos, Paus. 1.26.5, cf. IG 1125 166, found nearby. Perhaps in the eastern section of the building, Travlos 2 13-8. Cult details. Bohls was probably the name of the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus (see p. 69 n. 23), making IG 1125 166, k p d q Bo6~ou,ambiguous. This priesthood was in the hands of the Eteoboutadai, whose archegete was clearly Boutes; it is unclear whether the priest of B. himself was the same as that of Poseidon Erechtheus.
APPENDIX 1
I53
Mythology. Son of Poseidon, Hes. fr. 233 M-W, of Pallas, Ov. Met. 7.500; of Teleon and Zeuxippe, Hyg. fib. 14.9, Apollod. 1.9.16; of Zeuxippe and Pandion, Apollod. 3.14.8. The last version makes him brother of Erechtheus, with whom he divided power so that he received the priesthood, Erechtheus the kingdom. Married Chthonia the daughter of Erechtheus, ib. 3.15.1. An Argonaut, Hyg. loc. cit, Ap. Rhod. 1.95, Apollod. 1.9.16. Settled by Aphrodite at Lilybaion, Apollod. 1.9.25, Diod. 5.50.2. The Argonaut is perhaps to be distinguished from the priest. Non-Attic figures of the same name are listed in RE III 1080-3. *Tc&os Galios Place of worship. Marathon; see below. Cult details. Receives a ram every other year before the Skira (there is a sacrifice also to the Tritopatreis), Tetrapolis calendar (IG 112 1358) B 5 1. Mythology. Unknown. rapyqrros Gargettos
Locality. There is a deme Gargettos, but cult is unattested. Mythology. Father of Ion, Paus. 6.22.7 (cf. nearby deme Ionidai), and of Alesios, founder of an Elean city, Steph. Byz. S.V. Ahtjmov (cf. Ion in Elis, Paus. loc. cit.).
* h i k ~ Glaukos s Place of worship. Perhaps the Marathonian Tetrapolis, IG I3 255; several other sacrifices are relevant to that area, but see Lewis ad loc. Cult details. Receives lamb -in company with Xouthos? Mythology. There were several heroes called Glaukos; this is presumably one of the Boeotian figures so called, although Schachter, Cults ofBobria (BICS Supp. 38.1, 1981) 228, points out that there is no evidence of actual cult in Boeotia. Nothing in myth connects him with Attica. See RE VII 1408-13; Schachter loc. cit. *A&ipor, AOripa Daeira, Daira
Place of worship. Clearly at Eleusis (see below). Also at Marathon (Tetrapolis calendar Bll-12) and at the Eleusinion at Paiania (IG I3 250.15-16). Cult details. A priest Go?Eipiqs,Pollux 1.35 (presumably at Eleusis). Priestess of Demeter is absent at sacrifices to D., and must abstain from the offerings, Eustath. Il. 6.648 (see Tresp 12); also presumably refemng to Eleusis. At Marathon she receives a pregnant sheep (fertility) in Gamelion (month of marriages). At Paiania she receives a female lamb. Mythology. D. is much more a goddess than a heroine; Pherecydes (FGrH) 3 F 45 called her sister of Styx, and Aeschylus apparently identified her with Persephone (fr. 277 Nauck2). Aphrodite, Hera and Demeter are other identifications, as also the guardian placed upon Persephone in the underworld. See RE IV 1980-2. Her claim to be a heroine must rest on her place in Eleusinian genealogies: she is mother of the hero Eleusis by Henries, Paus. 1.38.7, and still more significantly, wife of Eumolpos and mother of Immaros, Clem. Alex. Protr. 3.45. See G. Sfameni Gasparro, Misteri e culri misrici di Demerru (Rome 1986) 1 1 1-1 14.
154
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Daidalos Place of worship. The Daidaleion at or near Alopeke, Hesp. 10 no. 1 (367/6) 1 1- 12. Cf. the apparently neighbouring deme Daidalidai. Mythology. Descent from Metion is generally agreed, cf. Paus. 7.4.5 and see Toepffer 161-9. Descent from Hephaistos, Plat. Alc. 1. I2 1. Son of Metion, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 146, Plato /on 533A; son of Eupalamos the son of Metion, and of Alkippe (q.v.), Apollod. 3.15.8. Son of Palamaon, Paus. 9.3.2. His mother was Merope daughter of Erechtheus, Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 17; or Metiadousa, Tz. Chil. 1 1.884; or Phrasimede, schol. Plat. Rep. 529D. A craftsman (all sources, typically Pi. Nem. 4.259); many divine statues attributed to him throughout Greece. Maker of stool in the Erechtheion, Paus. 1.27.1. He taught his sister’s son Kalos, Talos or Perdix (9q.v.). and killed him in jealousy of his talent, Hellan. FGrH 323a F 22, Soph. Kamikoi, Apollod. 3.15.8, Paus. 1.20.4, al. This led to the third of the mythical Areopagos trials (Hellan. loc. cit.) and Daidalos was banished to Crete, later going to Sicily (Soph. Kumikoi, Apollod. loc. cit., Epit. 1.13) where he passes out of Attic mythology proper. (Cretan origin perhaps suggested by a possible appearance in Linear B texts, M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek (2nd edn., Cambridge 1973) no. 200, but cf. Gerard-Rousseau 5 I .) See further RE IV 1997-2006. *Aa&xhS
Aaiz05 Daitos See Chalkinos. Aam&q Datyllos (?) A hero of this name may be recorded in state accounts of 429/8 (IG I3 383.76). but reading and interpretation are uncertain. &tpc%q~ Deirades
Locality. Cult is not attested, but the hero is mentioned, perhaps conjecturally, in connexion with the deme, Steph. Byz. S.V. &tp&s. AiKEhos Dekelos Locality. The deme of Dekeleia? -cult not attested. Mythology. During their invasion of Attica, D. told the Tyndaridai Helen’s whereabouts and led them to Aphidna, Hdt. 9.73, Steph. Byz. S.V. &&ia. Toepffer 289-91, links D. with the group known as Dekeleieis, rather than with the deme Dekeleia; see above, p. 95. See also p. 1 18.
**iov Dexion Place of worship. Presumably somewhere near the Areopagos sanctuary of Amynos, although separate from this: see below. Cult details. Worshipped by orgeones in connexion with Amynos and Asklepios, IG 112 1252, 1253, 1259 (fourth century). Events of life. D. was the name of the heroised Sophocles, who on the arrival of the god Asklepios in Athens in 421/0 had received him into his house and set up an altar, Etym. M. S.V. A&ov. (The objections of M. Lefkowitz, Lives ofthe Greek poets (London 1981) 83-4, do not seriously injure the credibility of this tradition.) Thus an institutor-hero.
APPENDIX 1
155
See 0. Walter in r d p q KEpa.polt019.A.0~ (Athens 1953) 469-79. &VKC&~OV Deukalion Place of worship. His grave was shown in Athens, Strabo 425; probably in the area of the temple of Ge Olympia (cf. Paus. 1.18.7) and Zeus Olympios (Murm. Par. A4). Cult details. The Hydrophoria commemorated the Great Flood,Apollonius FGrH 365 F 4; so did (as part of the same rite?) the pouring of flour and honey mix into a chasm near the Olympieion, Paus. loc. cit. But it is not clear whether worship of D. himself was involved. Mythology. D. is the hero connected with the Flood,and most parts of Greece haye special legends concerning him. In Attica, he arrived in the reign of Kranaos and founded the temple of Zeus Olympios (?), Murm. Par. A4. His son was (Kranaos’ successor) Amphiktyon (q.v.), ib. A 5, Theopompus FGrH 115 F 63. Aqt6n-q Deiope Location. Eleusis, where her tomb, with a bronze inscribed stele, was said to have been found, [Arist.] Hist. Mir. 131 (843B). Worship is not specifically recorded. Mythology. Daughter of Triptolemos and mother of the Eumolpos who founded the Mysteries, Istros FGrH 334 F 22; Mousaios her husband and father of her son, Phot. S.V. E6poM&xt, [Arist.] loc. cit. Aqtbv Deion Location. Deion is normally associated with Phokis, but he appears in separate traditions as father of Attic heroes. Mythology. Son of Aiolos, husband of Diomede daughter of Xouthos, Apollod. 1.7.3, 9.4. Father of Ainetos, Kephalos (qq.v.) and others, Apollod. 1.9.4, al. Father of Philonis (q.v.), Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 120.
*Aqpo@v (6 Qqodq) Demophon (son of Theseus) Place of worship. D. (on his own) possessed an important sanctuary with close state connexions, IG I3 383.159, 369.69, 87; but the location is not known. Perhaps near the Palladion (see mythology). At Phaleron D. probably possessed an altar together with Akamas, Paus. 1.1.4 (see p. 40, and cf. the Palladion tradition, below). Marathon: see Akamas. Mythology. See Akamas, with whom he is most usually paired. Together with him, D. was a son of Theseus, was sent to Euboea for safety, went from there to Troy, freed his grandmother ~ at Phaleron, for which he was tried Aithra, and on return to Athens committed & K O ~ G L OCpdvo~ at the court Ed fl-iy. Father of Mounichos (?Mounitos) by Laodike at Troy, Plut. Thes. 34.2; of Akamas and Amphipolis by Phyllis in Thrace, schol. Aeschin. 2.3 I ; connexion with Phyllis, Apollod. Epit. 6.16, al. But cf. Akamas. Went to Cyprus, Apollod. Epit. 6.16, Plut. Sol. 26, al. King of Athens, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 84, E. Heruclidue (connexion with Tetrapolis?), Plut. Thes. 35, al.; see below. As king, decided at the festival of Choes to allow Orestes to partake, but set him apart from the others to avoid pollution, Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 11. (Plut. Q.C. 2.10 = Mor. 643A attributes this to
I56
THE HEROES OF A7TICA
his descendants, schol. V. Ar. Ach. 961 to Pandion.) The Palladion came to Athens in his reign (several versions), Dionysius FGrH 15 F 5, Paus. 1.28.9, Polyaen. Strat. 1.5; see Akamas.
*AqpoNv (6 ’Ekwivios Demophon (of Eleusis) Place of worship. Eleusis, Athen. 9.406D. or perhaps Athens, Hsych. infra (but he is probably using the word loosely). Details of cult. BaUqnis, probably a mock battle, celebrated in his honour, Athen. loc. cit., Hsych. S.V. @x,AAqds,H . Hymn Dem. 263-5 (see Richardson ad loc.). Perhaps receives sacrifice at the lesser Eleusinia in Athens; this depends on his identification with Bp~xzos,Nikomachos calendar line 69. Mythology. Son of Keleos and Metaneira, nursling of Demeter, who attempted to make him immortal by feeding him ambrosia and holding him in the fire, but surprised by Metaneira substituted the @xAAqnjs in his honour, H . Hymn Dem., 233-67. Aimus, Khupkq Diktys and Klymene ~ See m p e flepoEq. *AioKbc/AtoKhijq Dioklos/Diokles Place of worship. (Primarily in Megara, where games, perhaps with erotic homosexual content, were held at his tomb, Theocr. 12.27 with scholia; cf. Ar. Ach. 774. This hero Diokles.) In Athens (-klos) at the lesser Eleusinia, Nikomachos calendar line 71. Cult details. In Athens, apparently receives a sheep in company with other Eleusinian heroes, ib. Mythology. Dioklos (-kles) an Eleusinian chieftain, H . Hymn Dem. 153, 474. Diokles the Megarian ruler of Eleusis, driven out by Theseus, Plut. Thes. 10. But Theocritus and the scholia (loc. cit.) make him an Attic stranger in Megara, killed defending his dphpvoq. *Aiopos Diomos Place and style of worship. Presumably D. was worshipped at the Herakleion at Kynosarges (see below), but IG 112 1247 (with 1244-8) appears to connect the priest of D. with a Herakleion of the Mesogeioi at Bate (cf. Dow and Gill, M A 60 (1965) 103-114). Should we think in terms , 112 1247.7) between the two sanctuaries? (see p. 98 n. 92.) of a procession ( x o p ~IG Ar. Ran. 65 1 attests ‘ H p a h i a z&v Aioj~iots. D. was also the eponymous hero of the deme Diomeia. Mythology. Son of Kollytos, who was a host of Herakles; Herakles fell in love with D., who sacrificed to him as to a god; a white dog ran off with the meat, and in accordance with an oracle an altar was founded at the point where it dropped it. Hsych., Suda (etc.) S.V. Kuvooappq, Steph. Byz. s.vv. Atopa, Kuvdoapp5. First to kill the ox in the Bouphonia aition, Porph. de abst. 2.29 (Thaulon is more usual). *AOhtxoq Dolichos Place of worship. Eleusis, IG 112 1672.25: Aohixou or 6ohixou? D. does not appear at the Lesser Eleusinia in Athens, pace Sokolowski’s text of the Nikomachos calendar: see F. Graf, ZPE 14 (1974) 139-44 (see Melichos).
APPENDIX 1
157
Cult details. Together with Plouton and the Goddesses receives a z p m o a poapxos in some agonal connexion ( 6 6 k x o = ~ the long race?), IG I3 5. Mythology. An Eleusinian chieftain, H. Hymn Dem. 155, Hes. fr. 227 M-W. (Dolichios) son of Triptolemos, Steph. Byz. S.V. Aouhixtov, Eustath. 11.2.629.
[AwadkqS Dysaules This hero, although described as an Eleusinian and clearly related to the cult of Demeter, appears to have cult only in Keleai, Paus. 2.12.4. The only mention of D. in an Attic writer is Dinarchus fr. 35.2 Conomis, where the context is unclear. D.’s wife Baubo (Asclepiades of Tragilos, FGrH 12 F 4) is clearly not at home in the Eleusinian circle, where her place is taken by Iambe (q.v.). G. Sfameni Gasparro, Misteri e culti mistici di Demetra (Rome 1986), 165-9, suggests the name belongs in an ‘orphic’ version of the myth of Demeter and Kore.]
* ’Eykp-
EglemPlace of worship. Kephale, IG 112 2612: Gpos z~pkvousfipo ’Eykp[--
* ’Eypkqs Egretes Place of worship. Probably on the slopes north of the Hill of the Nymphs, where was found IG 112 2499 (to stand in the precinct, lines 40-2). Cult details. E. was worshipped by orgeones who sacrificed to hini in Boedromion. The precinct, let out in IG 1122499, contained trees and buildings, including a chief cult building with equipment for dining. Mythology. Unknown.
*‘
E K ~ ~ / oXs ~ w p o sHekademos or Akademos Place of worship. Akademeia (‘the Academy’), Diog. Laert. 3.7 (Eupolis fr. 36 K-A). Cf. Stavropoullos, Xpx. ’Eq. 1958 5-13, who supposes that an elaborate and early cult building there belongs to H. seems to be early testimony (second quarter of sixth Mythology. ABV 27.36 h&~a[&po<] century) but reveals no narrative details. A. founder of the gymnasium (?), Hsych. S.V. X ~ ~ p i A. a .revealed to the Tyndaridai during their invasion of Attica that Helen was at Aphidna, Plut. Thes. 32. (?) Echedemos (Korais: Echemos codd.) was an Arcadian in the army of the Tyndaridai and gave his name to Echedemia, now called Akademia (Plut. Thes. 32, an alternative version from Dikaiarchos, fr. 66 Wehrli). But an Arcadian Echemos also appears in Diod. 4.58.3, Paus. 1.44.10. See L. Weber, AM 50 (1925) 142-8; J. N. Coldstream, JHS 96 (1976) 8- 17. * r E ~ i t A qHekale
Place of worship. The deme Hekale. Cult details. H. was honoured with the diminutive from Hekaline at the Hekalesia, a festival of Zeus Hekal(ei)os, Plut. Thes. 14 (Philochorus? See FGrH 328 F 119). Mythology. H. gave Theseus hospitality before his fight with the Marathonian bull, and made vows to Zeus for his safety. Theseus found her dead on his return, fulfilled the vows, and instituted honours to H. herself as well: Philochorus FGrH 328 F 109, Callimachus, Hekale (epitome, fr. 230 Pf.).
THE HEROES OF ATT'ICA
I58
H. herself the founder of the Hekalesia, Hsych. S.V. See Jacoby on Philochorus F 109, Pfeiffer on Callimachus fr. 230; above, pp. 92,95, 121. Helen Place of worship. Thorikos (calendar, lines 37-8). In mythology she has connexions with Aphidna, Rhamnous and the island Helene, see below. Cults of Helen are of course very widespread outside Attica, the best-known being her joint cult with Menelaos at Sparta. Cult details. At Thorikos, H. ([ 'EMlvqt) receives a full-grown victim in Elaphebolion, as do the Anakes (identified with the Tyndaridai, her brothers, who sought her in Attica); cf. Paus. Att. in Eustath. Od. 1.399. Mythology (Attic). H. was the daughter of Nemesis (Cypriu fr. 6 Kinkel) but brought up by M a , Paus. 1.33.7. Cf. Pheidias' statue-base at the sanctuary of Nemesis at Rhamnous, Paus. loc. cit. Theseus carried off Helen at a very young age (seven, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 19; ten, Diod. 4.62.3; twelve, Apollod. Epit. 1.23) and took her to Aphidna, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 18, al., where shC was put under the care of Aithra (ib. F 20), and the place defended by Aphidnos, Plut. Thes. 32. The Tyndaridai invaded Attica to look for her, and were helped by many local figures (see Dekelos, Hekademos, Marathos, Titakos). They succeeded in taking her back to Sparta (all sources), still a virgin, Diod. 4.62.3; but H. and Theseus are named as the parents of Iphigeneia, Stesichorus PMG fr. 191, Douris FGrH 76 F 92, Euphorion fr. 95 van Groningen. After the fall of Troy, Helen paused on the return journey at the island 'EAAq (= Makronisi), Paus. 1.35.2. The wife of Antiphemos and mother of Mousaios (Suda S.V. Mouoaios) was presumably considered to be distinct. See p. 34 n. 121, p. 105. 'EkutYtip Eleuther
Place of worship. Cult not attested, but myth places him at Eleutherai (below). Mythology. Son of Apollo and Aithousa (daughter of Alkyone and Poseidon), Apollod. 3. lo. 1, Paus. 9.26.1; father of Iasios, grandfather of Chaeresileos, great-grandfather of Poimandros (of Tanagra), Paus. loc. cit., Steph. Byz. S.V. 'EhE'utkpai. Founder of Eleutherai, Steph. Byz. S.V. 'Ehm9~pai. Institutor of the cult of Dionysos Melanaigis there, Suda S.V. M&uv, Hyg. fub. 225 ('Liber pater'); cf. Callh. fr. 305 Pf. His daughters made fun of a representation of Dionysos in a black goatskin, and were driven mad by the god; in accordance with an oracle, the madness was stopped by the institution of a cult * of Dionysos Melanaigis, Suda S.V. M t h (but see Melanthos for an alternative aition of the Melanaigis cult).
'EAAmos, 'Ekwivos Eleusis, Eleusios, Eleusinos Place of worship. Cult not attested, but if it existed it took place at Eleusis. Mythology. Eleusis was son of Hermes (cf. Hyg. f i b . 275) and Daeira (daughter of Ocean), or of Ogygos, Pays. 1.38.7. Father of Triptolemos, Panyassis fr. 24K, Apollod. 1.5.1, al., whom he fed luxuriously while the people were starving, and was killed by them, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 104 (Boccaccio); or he was killed by Demeter for interfering with her attempt to 'Ekmk,,
APPENDIX 1
I59
make Triptolemos immortal, Hyg. fub. 147. Eleusinos father of Keleos (?), H . Hymn Dem.
105. See pp. 94,98and n. 96. *Eleusis: f i p q drp~qyhqs Place of worship. In Athens, but with Eleusinian heroes, Nikomachos calendar line 67. Cult details. Receives sacrifice at lesser Eleusinia, ib. Mythology. The identification of the title is uncertain, it is perhaps more likely that the hero is Iacchos (Oliver, Hesp. 4 (1935)27)than Eleusis or Eleusios, whom one would expect to be more closely tied to the deme. 'Ehiq Helike Worship (?) IG I2 864, hopos h a i q s , probably found outside the Hippades gate, was taken by early editors to refer to a sanctuary of the heroine Helike; but Meritt, Hesp. 8 (1939)77-9, refers it to a conspicuous willow-tree, Vanderpool, Hesp. 35 (1966) 176-7,to an ordinary gravestone. Mythology. Daughter of Selinous, wife of Ion, Paus. 7.1.3,Steph. Byz. S.V. BoOpa.
* 'Ehhr;mov, fipq/fipaivq
xapk 26
Place of worship. By the sanctuary of Athena Hellotis at Marathon, Tetrapolis calendar B25. Cult details. In Mounichion the hero receives a r a m and table-offerings, the heroine a ewe. wEppapos/ Bkos EmbarosBaros Place of worship. If anywhere, Mounychia at the shrine of Artemis (see below). Mythology. The story is told to explain a proverb. When famine followed the killing of a bear sacred to Artemis, an oracle demanded the sacrifice of a virgin. Embaros disguised a goat as his daughter and sacrificed this, thus obtaining the priesthood, Suda S.V. "Epfkxpos~fpt, Eustath. 11. 2.732 (Paus. Att.). Or he really sacrificed his daughter and so obtained the priesthood, Apostol. 7.10. See W. Sale, 'The temple legends of the arkteia', RhM 118 (1975)265-84;above, pp. 29-30. f i p q 6mzEyos Epitegios (or 'hero of the rooftop')
Place of worship. In Athens; near the Anakes in the agora? IG I3 383.347: AV&KO[tV] o 'E~z[--] Lewis is cautious, finding no trace of the second epsilon; earlier editors supplement KC^ 26 Cpoos 230 dmze[yio] from IG 1125071 (theatre-seat, Roman period). See Hiller von Gaetringen, Philologus 60 (1896)180-1.
*'Enow Epops Place of worship. Erchia (calendar). Cult details. On 5 Boedromion, receives a pig 6khcau.roS.qqiAtos. (The same sacrifice received by Zeus Epopetes.) Mythology. The reference is not clear. An Epops may have killed the Eretrian Narkissos, eponym of the flower, Prob. Virg. E d . 2.48 (the text is uncertain). Or he may have to do with Tereus the hoopoe (bov)? -cf. Paus. 1.41.9(Megara).
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THE HEROES OF AI'TICA
* 'E&VU~OLf i p o ~ sEponymous heroes (as a group) Place of worship. In the agora, where the statues of the ten were situated, Ar. Pax 1183-4, al. Cult details. A collective cult is suggested by the mention of ten kylikes dedicated to the eponymoi by the boule in 328/7, Rotroff Hesp. 47 (1978) 196-209.
* 'EqqI9~6jsErechtheus (See also Erichthonios, from whom' he appears not always to be distinguished.) Place of worship. (a) The Erechtheion (usually taken to be a part of the temple of Athena Polias), Paus. 1.26.5. His worship in the chief temple of Athena at Athens seems to be attested in 11. 2.546-51; on the acropolis, Hdt. 8.55, E. Erech. fr. 65.904 Austin, al.; cf. IG I2 580. Identification of Erechtheion and temple of Polias is challenged, not completely convincingly, by Kr. Jeppesen, The theory ofthe alternative Erechtheion (Aarhus 1987). (b) as eponymos, in the agora: see txhvupoi fipms. (c) also in Marathon? Nonnus 39.210-3: 'E. ... v&qs Mapabhvos. See also Robertson (below, Erichthonios) 243-5. (d) perhaps in Rhamnous, at the temple of Nemesis: see mythology. Cult details. (a) Annual worship with sacrifice of bulls and rams, 11. 2.550-1; cf. IG 112 1357, E. Erech. fr. 65.94 Austin. Worshipped in close connexion with Athena Polias, Hdt. 5.82. (Presumably this chief festival was the Panathenaia? - but see Erichthonios.) Cf. the role of his priest in the Skira, Harpoc. S.V. olcipov, schol. Ar. Eccl. 18 (whence Robertson (below, Erichthonios) argues that the festival referred to in Homer and Euripides is the Skira). Cult title Poseidon Erechtheus, E. Erech. fr. 65.93-4; cf. IG I2 580, and see Austin, Recherches de Pupyrologie 4 (1967) 59-60. But E. sometimes even in cult regarded as separate from Poseidon, IG 112 1 146, Paus. 1.26.5 (the two share an altar according to oracular prescript). See appendix 3. Eteoboutad priesthood, [Plut.] Mor. 841B, 843A-C, Harpoc. S.V. 'E~~opOuz12ica. Mythology. Born from earth, 11. 2.546-5 1, Hdt. 8.55, cf. Soph. Aj. 202 (cf. Erichthonios). Or his mother was Nemesis at Rhamnous, where he founded her temple and was king, Suda S.V. 'Poylvoha NEpoq. Or he was son of Pandion, Murm. Par. 28ff, and of Zeuxippe, and twin brother of Boutes (q.v.), who took the priesthood while E. became king, Apollod. 3.14.8, 15.1, al. Married Praxithea, E. Erech. His sons were Kekrops 11, Pandoros and Metion (q.v.), Apollod. 3.15.1. His daughters: see under Kreousa, Prokris, Chthonia, Oreithyia, Hyakinthides. Father of Aglauros by his own daughter Prokris, Hyg. fib. 253. Fought against Eleusis, E. Erech., Thuc. 2.15.1 ., al. (see under Eumolpos, Immarados). The voluntary sacrifice of his daughters gave him victory, see under Hyakinthides. He killed' Eumolpos, Apollod. 3. 15.4, and was killed in revenge by a blow from Poseidon's trident, E. Erech. fr. 65.60, 92(?), Ion 281-2; or by Zeus with a thunderbolt at the request of Poseidon, Hyg.fub. 46 (cf. G.W. Elderkin, Hesp. 10 (1941) 113). See pp. 113-5. 'Epq66q t h y d p q Daughters of Erechtheus See Hyakinthides.
'EpqMvtos Erichthonios See also Erechtheus, from whom he is not always easy to distinguish.
APPENDIX 1
161
Place of worship. The Acropolis, to which all his cults relate. Clem. Prow. 3.45 states that his tomb is in the temple of Athena Polias, which may indicate that he identifies E. with Erechtheus. Cult details. Worship is not attested unequivocally under this name, and there is some difficulty here since early sources appear not to distinguish E. from Erechtheus. But as the founder of the Panathenaia he may have received sacrifice at this festival (see Mikalson, AJP 97 (1976) 141-53, refemng to Erechtheus, and see above), and the ceremony of the Arrephoria (Paus. 1.27.3, etc., see Deubner 9-17) appears to relate to the myth of his birth. Mythology. Again there is some confusion with Erechtheus. Erichthonios the son of Earth, Pindar fr. 253 Sn-M, Danais fr. 2 K (both from Harpocration S.V. a6zo@ovq; it is possible that the original texts may have referred to Erechtheus), vases in Brommer3 262-3 (Br B8 = A R v 1268.2 is the first to name Erichthonios), E. Zon 20-5, al. Son of Hephaistos, ?Pindar, Danais (see above: but text uncertain), Hellanicus FGrH 323a F2, Isoc. 12.126, cf. ARV 1268.2, 1339.3 (= Brommer3 B8, BlO). Son of Hephaistos and Atthis, Apollod. 3.14.6. Hephaistos attempted to rape Athena, but his seed falling on Earth produced Erichthonios, Eur. fr. 925 Nauck2, Amelesagoras FGrH 330 F 1, Callim. Hekale fr. 260.19ff. Pf., Apollod. 3.14.6, al. Athena took charge of the child: vases, Brommer3 262-3, E. Zon 20-5, al., placing him in a basket guarded by snakes, A R v 1218.1 (= Br3 B7), E. Ion loc. cit., al.; or he was himself a snake, Hyg. Astr. 2.13 (cf. Paus. 1.24.7). The basket entrusted to the daughters of Kekrops, see under Pandrosos. E. married ?Prasithea (cf. Erechtheus), and his son was Pandion, Apollod. 3.14.6. He became king (all atthidographic sources) and expelled Amphiktyon, Apollod. loc. cit. He instituted the Panathenaia (but cf. Theseus), Hellan. FGrH 323a F 2, Androt. FGrH 324 F 2, and cf. Marm. Par. A10 (he yoked chariots [cf. ARV2 11 10.43?1, instituted games, and called his people ‘Athenians’). Dedicated statue of Athena in the Erechtheion, Apollod. loc. cit. In his reign there were first Kavqcpdpoi (as at the Panathenaia), Philoch. FGrH 328 F 8. He instituted the custom of preliminary sacrifice to Kourotrophos, Suda S.V. K O V ~ O T ~ O ~ C , . See above, pp. 110-2; also N. Robertson, ‘The origins of the Panathenaea’, RhM 128 (1985) 23 1-95. * * E p q Herse Place of worship. It is not clear whether Herse received cult independently from her sisters (see under Aglauros, Pandrosos), but she did, presumably, as one of this group. In any case, the cult-place will have been on the Acropolis. See p. 26 n. 84. Cult details. The Arrephoria were connected with all three sisters (see Pandrosos). A procession for Herse (Istros FGrH 334 F 27) probably refers to this festival, sometimes spelt 6pqcpdpia; but Jacoby ad loc. considers that there is a genuine cultic conliexion, and that this is not merely etymological speculation. Mythology. H. was one of the daughters of Kekrops, with Aglauros and Pandrosos (qq.v.), Philochorus FGrH 328 F 105, Apollod. 3.14.2, al., (cf. ARV2 1268.2); hence involved with them in caring for Erichthonios, A R v 1268.2. Unlike her sisters, she obeyed Athena’s instructions, Amelesagoras FGrH 330 F 1 (but other authors name Pandrosos). Perhaps a latecomer to the group of sisters? -Jacoby IIIB Supp. (notes) p. 327, Kron in LIMC I .294.
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THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Mother of Keryx (q.v.) by Hermes, Marcellus in Kaibel 1946 (= IG XIV 1389) 30ff. (again this is told of the other sisters), or of Kephalos by Hermes, Apollod. 3.14.6; cf. Ov. Mef. 2.708ff. (Hermes Herse's lover). See pp. 23-7.
* 'Epudxt3.o~Erysichthon Place of worship. Prasiai, where he had a tomb, Paus. 1.31.2. Also on Delos? (see mythology). Cf. also connexion with temple of Eileithyia in Athens. Cult details. Unknown. Mythology. Son of Kekrops, Apollod. 3.14.2, Paus. 1.2.6 (cf. ARV2 386? - unnamed). Name preserved but not deeds: among list of kings? - Plat. Critias 1 IOA. Judged contest of Athena and Poseidon, a view rejected in Apollod. 3.14.1. Travelled to Delos, Phanodemus FCrH 325 F 2 (see Jacoby ad loc., who believes that the Delian story was an invention of Phanodemus). Led theoria to Delos, Paus. 1.3I .2; constructed temple of Apollo there, Euseb. Chron. a. Abr. 528; brought cult statue to temple, Euseb. Praep. Ev. 3.8.1. Cf. Znscr. de De'los 2516-8. Died on return journey, Paus. loc. cit.; in his father's lifetime, id. 1.2.6; and childless, Apollod. 3.14.3. Brought back from Delos statue of Eileithyia, Paus. 1.18.5. An identification with the E. of the insatiable hunger, normally located in Thessaly, might seem to be suggested by Hes. fr. 43.66-7 M-W, where E.'s daughter Mestra evidently returns to her native land of Athens. See pp. 53,66. "E~XLOS Erchios Place of worship. Presumably Erchia, but he does not appear in the calendar. Mythology. A host of Demeter, Steph. Byz. S.V. 'EpxtCx. Callim. fr. 521 Pf. is probably not relevant. See p. 98 n. 93.
*E6pouhocjE6pouh~Euboulos/Eubouleus Place of worship. Eleusis, IG I3 78.39 (-os), IG 1124615,4701 (-eus). Cult details. E. was apparently worshipped in close connexion with the t 3 ~ and o ~ fie&,IG I3 78, IG 112 470 I . Together with Triptolemos, they each receive a full-grown victim from the firstfruits tribute in IG I3 78. The pig-throwing at the Thesmophoria was said to be performed in his honour, Orph. fr. 50 Kern = schol. Luc. Dial. Mer. p. 275 Rabe, etc. Mythology. Eubouleus was son of Dysaules, brother of Triptolemos; the brothers gave Demeter information in her search for Kore, and were rewarded by her with the knowledge of agriculture, Orph. fr. 51 K = Paus. 1.14.3. Or he was an Eleusinian autochthon (and a swineherd) similarly connected with Demeter, ib. fr. 52. A swineherd whose pigs were swallowed up in the earth at the rape of Kore, ib. fr. 50. Outside Attica, the name is frequently found in connexion with Demeter and Kore, either as a hero or as a divine epithet, e.g. Eubouleus the son of Demeter in Crete, Diod. 5.76.3; Zeus Eubouleus worshipped with Demeter Thesmophoros on Paros, IG XI1 5.227 [?I. See RE VI 861-9; G. Sfameni Gasparro, Misteri e culti mistici di Demetra (Rome 1986) 169-75.
APPENDIX 1
I63
* E 6 G ~ v e p 0 ~ 6 G a v e p(H)eudanemos o~ Place and style of worship. Worshipped at Eleusis (?) at altar on the ground, Arr. Anah. 3.16.8: Sons 6h pp6qzai zatv &aiv 6v 'Ekudvt o& ~ o vE66avEpou Popov [?I d d TOO 6arcd60u 6vza. There was also an altar of 'the Eudanemoi' near the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton in the agora, ib. The Eudanemoi were a genos, probably with Eleusinian connexions, Dion. Hal. Dinarchus 11 (Gt~~Gt~aoia E6GavEpov npos KGpu~as6nhp ZOO K ~ v Q ) . The relationship between these facts is obscure, and Hsych. S.V. E6Xxvepos does not help. Mythology. Unknown. E6Go&a Eudosia See Bouthon. * E ~ K o ~Eukolos o< Place of cult is uncertain. An Attic Totenmahl relief, IG 1124568, has "HGuhos &[vE]I~~IcE E6Koho[t]. Cf. Thonges-Stringaris 174 (AZ 33 (1875) 48), of uncertain provenance: ---]fipot &vEI9qmv E6~Ohot. E. is a common divine epithet; see RE VI 1055-6. *E6pohnos Eumolpos Place of worship. Eleusis? Athens? - Paus. 1.38.2 (his grave). Cult details. Receives sheep at lesser Eleusinia in Athens, Nikomachos calendar, line 65. Mythology. An Eleusinian chieftain, H . Hymn Dem. 154, 476; cf. vases, Brommer3 263. Introduced viticulture to Athens, Plin. NH 7.199. But many writers distinguish the Thracian E. from the founder of the Mysteries: E. Erech. fr. 65.100f Austin, [Androtion] FGrH 324 F 70 = Andron FGrH 10 F 13, Istros FGrH 334 F 22, Murm. Par. A 15. But contrast, e.g., Plut. Mor. 607B. See above, pp. 114-5. The Thracian E. was son of Poseidon (testimonia in Austin, Nova fragmentu pp. 22-3, ARV2 459.3) and Chione (q.v.), Paus. 1.38.2; his mother threw him into the sea, but Poseidon saved him and brought him to Ethiopia, Apollod. 3.15.4, cf. E. Erech. fr. 39. Misadventures and flight from Ethiopia, Apollod. loc. cit. He led the Eleusinians in battle against the Athenians under Erechtheus, E. Erech., Thuc. 2.15.1 (but see under Immarados). Killed by Erechtheus, Apollod. 3.15.4. The founder of the Mysteries was son of Deiope (daughter of Triptolemos), Istros FGI-H 334 F 22; and of Mousaios, Phot. S.V. EZipohniGat. Andron FGrH 10 F 13 gives the genealogy Eumolpos the Thracian - Keryx - Eumolpos - Antiphemos - Mousaios - Eumolpos the first hierophant. See pp. 68-9, 114-5. E6vew Euneos Cult. Unattested, but the genos Euneidai had strong connexions with Dionysos Melpomenos, IG 1125056, cf. Cratinus fr. 70 K-A, Phot. S.V. EZivei6at. Mythology. Son of Jason and Hypsipyle, 11. 7.468-9, Hypsipyle being daughter of the Lemnian Thoas, Apollod. 1.9.17, and Thoas son of Dionysos, Apollod. Epit. 1.9. Brought wine to the Greek troops at Troy, 11. 7.468-71. With his brother Thoas he freed his mother from captivity at Nemea, E. Hyps. (see Bond's edition pp. 17-9), Myth.Vat. 2.14 1. See p. 65 n. 8.
164
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Eh&Lapos Eupalamos Cult. Unknown; the name shows the connexion with Daidalos, and he may exist only as a genealogical link. Mythology. Son of Metion, husband (?) of Alkippe (q.v.), Apollod. 3.15.8. Father of Daidalos, ib., and of Metiadousa, id. 3.35.5. Father of Metion and grandfather of Daidalos, Diod. 4.76; but cf. Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 146. *EGpuYjqs Eurygyes Place and style of worship. In the Kerameikos, where games were held to honour him, Amelesagoras FGrH 330 F 2. Cf. Hesiod fr. 146 M-W. Mythology. Amelesagoras identifies E. with Androgeos, son of Minos killed in Attica (Plut. Thes. 15: Philoch. FGrH 328 F 17 does not connect Androgeos with Athens), but this opinion was not universal. See p. 122. *E6pup&ov Eurymedon
Place of worship. Peiraeus, IG 112 4567 (first half of fourth century). Mythology. E. is common both as man’s name and as divine epithet, and identifications of this hero can only be speculative; but in Od. 7.58 an E. was king of the Gigantes and grandfather of Nausithoos (q.v.), who had a shrine in Phaleron.
*E6p6oaqs Eurysakes cf. Plut. Sol. Place of worship. The Eurysakeion at Melite, Harpoc., Suda S.V. E~~UO&KEIOV, 10 and Hesp. 7 (1938) p. 95 no. 15. Cult details. The priest of E. belonged to the genos of the Salaminioi, Salaminioi decree line 1 1, etc; he was also priest of the hero Zni @ iXhfj, line 54. Decrees of the genos might be placed in the Eurysakeion, lines 84-5. E. received a 40-drachma pig on 18 Mounichion, line 88. He probably also received private sacrifices; Ferguson, Hesp. 7 (1938) 42. Mythology. E. was the son of Ajax (named for his father’s most characteristic weapon), S. Aj. 340,575. He and his brother Philaios (q.v.) conceded Salamis to the Athenians, and then E. settled at Melite, Plut. Sol. 10. See Ferguson, art. cit. 15- 17; above, pp. 66-7,82 and n. 9, 107-8. E6puo9e65 Eurystheus
Place of worship. Cult is not attested, and on one interpretation of E. Heruclidae 1040-3 it may actually be denied (see above, p. 49), but E’s burial near the temple of Athena Pallenis at Pallene/Gargettos is well-known: E. Hcld. 1030, Strabo 377, Steph. Byz. S.V. rapyqzzos. The reference to the temple of Herakles in Luc. OEBVBmLqoiai 7 is not quite certain. His head, however, was buried by the roadside at the spring Makaria in Marathon, Strabo loc. cit. E.’s tomb was also shown in the Megarid, Paus. 1.44.10, Apollod. 2.8.1. Cult details. According to Euripides, E. was a saviour-hero for Athens; but either Dorians/Spartans, or people in general, were not to sacrifice to him. See above, pp. 49-50. Mythology. E. belongs in the myths of Herakles, and first appears in Zl. 19.95-133 (the birth of Herakles and his servitude to E.). The Attic connexion occurs after the death of Herakles, when his children took refuge in the Marathonian Tetrapolis. E. folloked them; battle ensued, in which or after which E. was killed, Hdt. 9.27, E. Heraclidue, al.
APPENDIX 1
165
E6hvupos Euonymos Place of worship. Cult not attested, but E. is eponymous to the deme Euonymon. Mythology. Son of Ge and Ouranos, or of Kephisos, Steph. Byz. S.V. E6ovupiol; father of Aulis, id. S.V. A6hiq.
* "Ex~hosEchelos Place of worship. (a) Echelidai, near Neon Phaleron, Etym. M. S.V. " E ~ ~ h oIG s , 1124546. (S. Benton, ABSA 67 (1972) 13-19, objects to assuming a cult of Echelos at the find-spot of the stone and places Echelidai in the Kolonos area, but this seems to be ruled out by the entry of Stephanus of Byzantium S.V. 'Ex~hiGat.) (b) The Areopagos, Meritt, Hesp. 1 1 (1942) 282-7 (= LSS 20). Cult details. (a) E. had a statue, Etym. M. loc. cit. Probably he was worshipped in connexion with Iasile (and Hermes and nymphs), IG 1124546; see Meritt loc. cit. (b) E. was worshipped by orgeones in connexion with nameless heroines; the heroines received a pig on 17 Hekatombaion, Echelos a full-grown victim on 18 Hekatombaion. The meat was shared among the orgeones. See Meritt, art. cit; Ferguson, 'The Attic orgeones', HThR 87 (1944) 73-9. Mythology. Unknown; according to some, E. is a hero's epithet, not a proper name, Hsych. S.V. $v 'Ex~hiGbv.The relief in (a) suggests E. abducting his bride Iasile (q.v.).
* ' E X E T ~ ~ O%x~zhoc, C) Echetlaios/Echetlos Place of worship. Probably Marathon, Paus. 1.32.5. Mythology and cult details. At the battle of Marathon, a man with a plough was seen killing the Persians; afterwards, Delphi commanded the Athenians to worship the hero E., Paus. loc. cit., cf. 1.15.3 (Stoa Poikile fresco). See Fame11 88; M.H. Jameson, TAPA 82 (1951) 49-61; above, pp. 45-6. ''E~epoq See 'E~dlthlp~s. *Zitpq& Zarex
Place of worship. At Eleusis, where his heroon was next to that of Hippothon, Paus. 1.38.4. Mythology. Z. was a musician taught by Apollo, ib.; Paus. speculates that he came from the Laconian city of Zarax, but knows no further traditions about him. The eponymous hero of Zarax in Euboea was son of Petraios son of Karystos, Etym. M. S.V. %pas, Tz. Lyc. 373; or son of Karystos son of Cheiron, and married Rhoio daughter of Staphylos, mother by Apollo of Anios, father of the Oinotropoi, Tz. Lyc. 580. *B6&mos Zeuxippos Cult. It is perhaps more probable, because of the early date, that the fourth-century Attic i~u[&]~scscoKCY~ i .till Baa[h]&iairefers to oldTotenmahl relief IG 112 4645 ---]mos ~ b Z established heroes than to dead relatives. Mythology. (a) son of Eumelos son of Admetos (q.v.) and ancestor of Melanthos (q.v.), Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23.
T H E HEROES OF ATTICA
I66
(b) Grandfather of Melanippos the father of Myrmex, Phot. S.V. M I $ ~ ~ K Ohtpanoq G (p. 123 n. 58). A Zeuxippos was also king of Sikyon, Paus. 2.6.7. 'Heriov Eetion Place of worship. E. is eponym of the Peiraeus promontory Eetioneia: a 6iaoos [ 'E]rtovt66v (A. Papayiannopoulos-Palaios,IIoAipov a '[ 19291 107-8) may perhaps indicate cult. Mythology. E. took possession of the promontory and fortified it, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 72 (Harpoc., Suda, Steph. Byz. S.V. 'Hmoveia). E. is a common heroic name; its bearers include Andromache's father, I l . 6.396, and one of the Kypselid ancestors, Hdt. 5.92. See RE V.1976-8, and Jacoby IIIB Supp. p. 351. It is unclear whether the Attic hero was identified with any of these.
* 'HpaKhfjS
Herakles Cult. Divine and heroic cults of Herakles are extremely common throughout Attica. They are listed and discussed in Susan Woodford,'Cults of Heracles in Attica' (Studies presented to George M. A. Huefhunn, edd. D. G. Mitten, J. G. Pedley and J. A. Scott (Mainz 1971) 21 1-25); to this list might perhaps be added cult at Thorikos (line 28) where Herakles receives sacrifice together with Alkmene in Elaphebolion, but see below (Herakleidai) for a preferable reading. Note also the general statement that H. had a special connexion with the fsurth day of the month, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 85. Mythology (Attic). See H. Dettmer, De He/-cule attico, Diss. Bonn (1869) 52-69. Plato, Lysis 205C is an attempt to make H. Attic by birth: see Aixone, heroine. In the more normal tradition, H. came to Athens with Theseus, either on being treated kindly after his madness (E. H F 1214ff.) or when he had freed Theseus from the underworld, Plut. Thes. 35 (Philochorus?). Theseus made over all his rep6vq (land, and later sacred precincts) to him, E. H F 1328-33; all except four, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 18 (see Jacoby ad loc.). He was initiated at Eleusis, E. H F 617, Xen. Hell. 6.3.6, vases in Brommer3 151. For this purpose he was adopted by Pylios, Apollod. 2.5.12, Plut. Thes. 33. He was first purified and then initiated, Plut. Thes. 30, Apollod. loc. cit., the lesser Mysteries being instituted for this purpose, Diod. 4.14.3. He was initiated by Eumolpos, Apollod. loc. cit.; by Mousaios, Diod. 4.25; or by Triptolemos, Xen. Hell. 6.3.6. The initiation took place before his descent into the underworld, E. H F 6 13, [Plat.] Asiochus 37 1D. H. was the father of Antiochos (q.v.), [Dem.] 60.31, by Meda daughter of Phylas, Paus. 1.5.2. For his relations with Diomos and Melite, see under those heads. See pp. 35-6.
* 'HpaKki6at
Herakleidai or children of Herakles See also under Makaria. Cults. (a) Aixone: there was a priest of the Herakleidai at the sanctuary of Hebe, IG 112 1 199. (b) Erchia: on 4 Mounichion (the fourth of the month being Herakles' day, see above) they receive a sheep; later is added 06 cpopk. (c) Porto-Rafti, IG 1124977.
APPENDIX 1
I67
(d) Probably at Thorikos: Parker, ZPE 57 (1984) 59, suggests the reading ‘ H ~ ~ K ~ % c x [ ~ s TELOV],giving them a full-grown victim in Elaphebolion, in connexion with Alkmene (cf. Aixone). (e) The Pyanopsia were sometimes connected with the Herakleidai in Attica, Plut. Thes. 23. Mythology. On the death of Herakles, Eurystheus tried to get hold of his children; they fled to Athens (the Marathonian Tetrapolis, Eur.), where they were protected by Theseus or his sons, who defeated Eurystheus in battle, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 84, Hdt. 9.27, E. Heruclidue, al. See Makaria. Nothing is known of the plot of Aeschylus’ Heruclidue. Seep. 108.
* ’Hptydvq
Erigone Place of worship. Ikaria? (E. was Ikarios’ daughter; sacrifice to them both is mentioned in Aelian HA 6.28). Or Athens? (where the aihpa seems to take place, unless it is widespread). Or both? See Deubner 1 19-20. Cult details. The myths of E. form two of the aitia for the alhpa, a rite in which girls sat on swings, supposed to be in her honour, Hyg. Astr. 2.4. The name h h i j n ~also occurs for the festival, Hsych. s.v., and it was also applied to E. herself (cf. her brother Aletes, Hyg. fab.122), Hsych. S.V. aihpa, Athen. 14.6 618E, and to a song sung at the festival, Pollux 4.55, cf. Athen. loc. cit. (= Arist. fr. 5 15 Rose). Perhaps wandering and searching formed part of the action. The festival was probably connected with, even part of, the Anthesteria (cf. E.’s half-brother Orestes?), Callim. fr. 178 Pf. 3-4; see Maass, Philologus 77 (1921) 3, Deubner 118-9, and cf. Hyg. fub. 130: ut per vindemiam de frugibus Icario et Erigonae (cf. Aelian, above) primum deliburent. Like that festival, the myths of E. have both gloomy and vinous aspects. Mythology. Two stories were told about Erigone (corresponding with two cult-places?), both in connexion with the aihpa and having certain points in common. (a) E. daughter of Aigisthos (and Klytaimestra, Etym. M. s.v.aihpa), who brought Orestes to trial at the Areopagos, Marm. Par. A25 On his acquittal she hanged herself, Etym. M. S.V. aihpa, Apollod. Epit. 6.25, al. Or Orestes killed her brother Aletes in Mycenae, and attempted to kill her, but she was saved by Artemis and made her priestess in Attica, Hyg. fab.122. (Cf. the tragedy Aletes, TGrF I1 fr. 1b). Or Orestes married her, Kinaithon fr. 4 Kinkel, al. (b) E. daughter of Ikarios (q.v.), host of Dionysos; when her father was killed by shepherds to whom he had given wine, she went about searching for him with her dog Maira. On finding his body under a tree she hanged herself and called down curses on the Athenians. Girls began to hang themselves; an oracle was consulted, and the rite of the aihpa instituted. Eratosthenes, Erigone (see E. Maass, Analectu Erutosthenea [Berlin 18831 59-138; F. Solmsen, TAPA 78 [1947] 252-73, Apollod. 3.14.7, Hyg. Astr. 2.14, fab. 130, al. Sophocles wrote an Erigone, but it is not clear which of the two stories he followed. E. clearly belongs with a widely diffused group of ‘hanging’ heroines and goddesses, such as Helene Dendritis in modes, Paus. 3.19.9-10, and Artemis Apanchomene at Kaphyai in Arcadia, id. 8.23.6.
* “Hou~oqHesychos Place of worship. Near the Areopagos, where were the Z~pvai&ai, Polemon fr. 49 Pr. Cult details. Receives a ram as npofiupa before the sacrifice to the Semnai. The priesthood was in the hands of the Hesychidai, ib. Presumably the rite was performed in silence.
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
I68
Mythology. Unknown. C. Robert (Oidipus [Berlin 19151 42-3) conjectured that H. might have been identified in Roman times with Oedipus - this is his solution to the 'two Oedipuses' problem, pp. 50-2 and appendix 2. See p. 71 n. 35.
Oa6Aov Thaulon Cult. Not attested, but Th. is connected with the Dipolieia or Bouphonia, which took place on the acropolis. Mythology. Th. was the first man to sacrifice an ox, thus instituting the custom of the Bouphonia, Androtion FGrH 324 F 16, Agallis schol. I l . 18.483. Eponym of the genos Thaulonidai, Hsych. S.V. fl06~unov:cf. Paus. 1.24.4, 28.10. See also Diomos and Sopatros, although Th. is better attested than these as the first killer of the ox. Etymology: F. Solmsen, Hermes 46 (191 1) 286-91. On the ceremony, Burkert HN 151-61. O E ~ L ~ T O' Themistocles KA~~~
Place of worship. Apparently there was some attempt to give Themistocles cult in the great harbour at Peiraeus, Plut. Them. 32.5-6. Events of life. The claim to heroic status would rest on Th.'s role in the battle of Salamis. See J. Rusten, HSCP 87 (1983) 293 n. 15; above, p. 41.
C h l p t ~ A f jTherikles ~ Place of worship. Perhaps in the south-eastem part of the agora, the find-spot of IG I3 243: line 30 attests a O~p[t~]hEiov,perhaps a shrine of a hero Therikles/Thersikles: see Meritt, Hesperia 36 (1967) 72-4, with C. J. Hedrick Jr, Hesp. 52 (1983) 299-303. Cult details. Meritt connects this hypothetical hero with the phratry Thenikleidai, attested in IG 1124973. But see p. 75 n. 52. Mythology. None known.
*&@as,oi 6ni (Seven) against Thebes Place of worship. By the Avthov cppdap on the road from Eleusis to Megara, near the sanctuary of Metaneira, Paus. 1.39.2. See Mylonas, TO GUTIKOV V E K ~ O T ~ ~ ~ 1E175~ O 'VE h E w t v o ~ I1 (Athens 1975) 1534,262-3. Mythology. Kreon had refused to give back the bodies of the defeated leaders of the expedition against Thebes; Adrastos took refuge with Theseus, who persuaded Kreon to cede the bodies (Aesch. Eleusinioi, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 112 = Plut. Thes. 29.4-5), or he defeated Kreon in battle (E. Supplices, Hdt. 9.27.3), and the bodies were buried at Eleusis. See pp. 129-130. *@qo~zi~ Theseus
Cults. Philochorus FGrH 328 F 18 enumerates four precincts not handed over by Theseus to Herakles (q.v.); that is, these are the Theseus cults he regards as the oldest and most important. Jacoby ad loc., followed by Wycherley, JHS 79 (1959) p. 153 n. 20, identifies these as follows: (a) The town Theseion near the agora, Arist. Ath. Pol. 15.4 (time of Peisistratus), Thuc. 6.61.2, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 117, etc.; cf. IG 1122865, al. Here were placed the hero's bones when brought back from Skyros by Cimon, Plut. Thes. 36.4. It was a place of asylum for slaves and others, ib., cf. Ar. fr. 577 K-A. Here the Theseia were celebrated on 8 Pyanopsion,
APPENDIX 1
169
Plut. loc. cit. Among the noteworthy features of the festival were preliminary sacrifices, a procession (IG 112 956.4) and the consumption of soup using a special kind of bread-roll as a spoon (pumihq: Ar. Plut. 627 with the scholia): see Deubner 224-6. (b) The Theseion in Peiraeus; IG 1122498, where the deme lets out the precinct. (c) By the Long Walls, in the western suburbs, Andoc. 1.45 (though see MacDowell ad loc. contra), IG 112 1035.48 (Roman period). This is somewhat uncertain. (d) The heroon of Th. and Perithoos at Kolonos Hippios, Soph. OC 1590-4, Paus. 1.30.4. Other probable or possible cults are at (e) Lakiadai, where the Phytalidai purified Theseus and received in return cultic privileges from him,Plut. Thes. 12.1,23.5. (f) Phaleron, where Thesean connexions seem to be better established than at Peiraeus; the description of Pausanias, 1.1.4, reveals heroes with Thesean connexions (above, pp. 37-40), and the Oschophoria celebrated at Phaleron are linked in myth with the return of Theseus from Crete (as are the Pyanopsia, Plut. Thes. 23.4). The Salaminioi, who are connected both with the Oschophoria and with the heroes of Phaleron, as the inscription shows, sacrifice to Theseus on 6 Pyanopsion (line 92); the place is not specified. Can it have been Phaleron, and somehow connected with the Oschophoria? 7 Pyanopsion is perhaps a more likely date for the festival, Deubner 146, so this could have been a preliminary or private rite. Despite the mythological connexions of Theseus with north-east Attica (Helen, Hekale) there seems as yet to be no trace of a cult there. In general: Th. was especially honoured on the eighth day of the month, Plut. Thes. 36.4. Mythology. The rich and detailed narrative traditions about Theseus are of very varied origin, much being clearly comparatively recent. The most accessible summary of the myths is Plutarch’s Life of Theseus. They are analysed in H. Herter, ‘Theseus der Jonier’, RhM 85 (1936) 177-239, ‘Theseus der Athener’, RhM 88 (1939) 289-386, and RE supp. 13.1045-1238. They have also been examined by F. Brommer, Theseus (Darmstadt 1982), who lists the literary and artistic sources for each. See also pp. 117-23. *Oopt~O<,fipwivat O O ~ ~ K O Thorikos, G heroines of Thorikos
Place of worship. In the deme of Thorikos (calendar). Cult details. Boedromion: O O ~ L~ pKt z~b ov h , fipwivqtcn 0 0 ~ 1 ~p&rc&Cav. ~6 Maimakterion: O o p i ~ h t . PoG[v p~?jhaz]~ov fi zezzap&~ovzaGpaxp65 [pExp~ne]v~~‘l~ovza, fipC0iVqI.aOOPtK6 Z[P&?t&@V.] It is noteworthy that Th. receives two annual sacrifices; cf. Kephalos. Mythology. Unknown; eponymous hero of the deme’Thorikos, Hsych. S.V. Perhaps in the Cypria? -see p. 99 n. 97. *Opao- Thras-
Place of worship. Thorikos. Cult details. Receives sheep in Thargelion, perhaps as part of a larger sacrifice group (see Hyperpedios). Mythology. Unknown. Cf. perhaps the mines or quarries 6d O p a d p q , IG 11’ 1582.68, and 8ni OpaOZihh~,, Dem. 37.25.
I70
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
*Opemo~Threptos
Place of worship. Athens. Cult details. Receives a ram (?) at the lesser Eleusinia, more expensive than the regular victim, Nikomachos calendar line 69. Mythology. Operczo~,the nursling, is presumably a title of another hero, Triptolemos or less probably Demophon. See Oliver, Hesp. 4 ( 1935) 26. OptoGs, 0ptdtot0~Thrious, Thriasios
Place of warship. The Thriasian.plain, see below. Cult details. IG 112 5007, from Chasiotika (Thria), dated before AD 150, an archaising 'oracle of Harmodios and Aristogeiton', begins by advising sacrifice to the hero of Thria: 0ptaoi018pot h i popoi~ipix ~capovze~ . . . But in the context this is not sufficient to prove that a cult really existed; see p. 55 n. 55. Mythology. Th. was an Athenian sent by Theseus to be an ally of Herakles; he became eponym of Thrious in Achaia/Elis, Steph. Byz. S.V. 0~100s.The Athenian origins show the connexion with the Thriasian plain. See p. 96. Oupoiqs Thymoites Cult. Unknown. Diodorus the Periegete, FGrH 372 F 28, makes him eponym of the deme Thymaitadai (Thymoitadai), which formed part of the Tetrakomoi. Mythology. Th. was son of Oxyntes, and the last Theseid king, Paus. 2.18.9, al. He was the younger bastard brother of Apheidas (q.v.), and deposed and killed him and ruled in his stead, Demon FCrH 327 F 1; or he (Tymoithes) killed Apheidas before his accession, Nic. Damasc. FGrH 90 F 48. In his reign Melanthos (4.v.) came to Athens, Demon loc. cit. He refused to fight Xanthios the Boeotian; Melanthos then took him on, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23, and reigned instead of Thymoites, Paus. loc. cit.
* " l a q o Iacchos ~ Place of worship. I. was particularly associated with the procession of mystai from Athens to Eleusis (npozipmv zov "laqov, IG 112 1006.10, cf. Plut. Phoc.. 28). A building in Athens called the Iaccheion was presumably on this route, Plut. Arist. 27.4, Alciphron Ep. 3.23.1); this could have been an alternative name for another building, or an otherwise unknown structure. His role irl the Mysteries is impossible to define with any certainty, but he appears in close connexion with the Eleusinian goddesses (e.g. Artem. Oneir. 2.39: Aqpljqp K& Kopq ~ abi hEy6pvos "I.: hEy6pevo~showing identification with another figure?) and Strabo (468) calls him OIpxqy2q5z&v puoqpiov. Paired with the Eumolpidai in Cic. De Leg. 2.14.35. He may also receive cult in Athens at the lesser Eleusinia, if the title O I p ~ q y 2 refers q ~ to him (Nikomachos calendar line 67); see Oliver, Hesp. 4 (1935) 27. Mythology. As with many Eleusinian figures, it is difficult to say whether Iacchos is hero or god; perhaps the divine features are more prominent. He is generally considered to be in origin the personified shout of the initiates (e.g. Etym. M. S.V. k q o s ; cf. Hdt. 8.65, Ar. Ran. 395-416). Identification may have been almost a matter of personal choice; in the ritual of the Lenaia the name clearly refers to Dionysos, as son of Semele (schol. Ar. Ran. 479), and he is identified with Dionysos also in S. Ant. 1120, as very commonly in later times. Nursling (child?) of Demeter perhaps there also, and Lucr. 4.1 160. For further identifications, see
171
APPENDIX 1
Roscher 2.1-4; and in general, F. Graf, Eleusis und die orphische Dichrung Arhens in vorhellenisrischer Zeir (Berlin 1974) 5 1-66; H. Versnel, 'Iakchos', Talanru 4 (1972) 23-3%. d
'IcipPq Iambe Cult. Unknown, but the myth is the aition for the aio~pohoyiaat the Thesmophoria, Apollod. 1.5.1 (cf. Diod. 5.4.7). She is also connected with Halimous (below). However, the myth places her at Eleusis, not at Athens or Halimous: and aischrologia also took place on the Eleusinian procession, Hsych. S.V. ~ q v p ischol. ~ , Ar. Plut. 1014. Mythology. I., a serving-woman in the household of Keleos, succeeded in making Demeter laugh by her jests, H . Hymn Dem. 202-5, which were of an obscene nature, schol. Nic. Alex. 130. (Similar story of Baubo, Orph. fr. 52 K.) She was daughter of Pan and Echo, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 103 (see Jacoby ad loc.). She was from Halimous, Philikos, Hymn to Demeter, Korte, Hermes 66 (193 1) 447-8; for the Thesmophoria at Halimous, see Deubner 52. See Richardson, Hymn 213-7.
* 'Iaoihq Iasile Place of worship. Echelidai, near Neon Phaleron: Meritt, H a p . 1 1 (1942) 282-7. Cult details. Worshipped in connexion with Echelos (q.v.). Iasile, not Basile, is the reading of the stone, see Meritt loc. cit. Mythology. Unknown; abduction by Echelos is suggested by the relief. A daughter of Kephalos? (0.Walter, kpx. ' E q . 1937, 107-119.)
* " H p w i~a z p o ~Heros Iatros, the hero physician (Athens) Place of worship. Some way NW of the agora (off 66. kIYqv&s),where IG 112839-40 were found? -Travlos p. 573. But Hesp. 17 (1948) p. 39 no. 26 (an eye, third or second century): filpwi ia[zp&i] was found in the agora. Cud details. IG 112839-40 (= Kutsch 1 and 2) contain third and second century inventories of the (private) dedications in this shrine. The hero is referred to as 6 ~ 6 5 839.33, , 45-6, a decree aimed at the making of a new oinochoe from old votive offerings. The hero's priesthood was for life, Kutsch no. 4. Mythology. By the Roman period, this hero is identified with Amphilochos (q.v.). See in general pp. 14-21.
* " H p q i a ~ p oHeros ~ Iatros (Eleusis) We learn of the existence of this hero (but no more) from IG I3 393 and IG I3 395. He was named Oresinios, at least in later times: Bekk. Anecd. 263.1 1.
* " H p w i~a z p o ~Heros Iatros (Marathon) Place of worship. By the Dionysion (otherwise unknown), Bekk. Anecd. 262, schol. Dem. 19.249. 'EK~T$+T~ 6k q p q St& TO pEvt+os700 ohpa~osin schol. Dem. seems to indicate the discovery of a tomb and subsequent worship of the occupant. Mythology. His proper name was Aristomachos, ib. Are these details correct? The name Aristomachos is epigraphically attested for the q p q iazpo~ at Rhamnous; could there have been some confusion? See p. 18 n. 49.
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
I72
* "Hp%
i a ~ p oXp~ozopaxos ~, Heros Iatros (Rhamnous), Aristomachos
Place of worship. On a hill to the SW of the acropolis, Pouilloux, Forteresse 93-103. Cult details. There was a roofed building, an altar and an offerings-table, and a cistern near the precinct walls or other enclosures; much of the cult-building was in decay in the late third/early second century, IG 112 1322 = Pouilloux no. 34. At this time there was a society of Amphieraistai, who undertook the repairs; they appear to come from the garrison. There are private dedications from the fourth and third centuries, Pouilloux 30,32-3. Mythology. The hero was nameless in the early fourth century (Pouilloux 30). But he was identified with Amphiaraos in Pouillo.ux 32 (= IG 1124436) and apparently called Aristomachos in Pouilloux 33 (= IG 112 4452). See Pouilloux 93- 103, and in general pp. 14-21.
* 'IKC~PLOS
Ikarios Place of worship. Probably in the deme of Ikaria; 'IKIXP~O seems to be correct in IG I3 253.6, 9 (third quarter of fifth century). See p. 94. Cf. Steph. Byz. S.V. 'I~apia. Perhaps also in Athens, if like his daughter he was celebrated in the aicbpa; this may be suggested by Kel ian, below. Cult details. If the reference in IG I3 253 is correct, the hero was rich - comparable to Dionysos. Sacrifice to I., his daughter Erigone and her dog, Aelian HA 7.28. See under Erigone. Mythology. I. received Dionysos, who taught him how to make wine. He then gave some to a group of shepherds, who on becoming drunk thought that he had,poisoned them, and killed him, Apollod. 3.14.7, al. See Erigone. There is no certain treatment earlier than Eratosthenes.
* 'Ipp&paGoc/Ylppapoc/"lopapos Immarados/Immaros/Ismaros Place of worship. Buried in the precinct of the Eleusinion at Athens (Clem. Alex. Protr. 3.45 (where he fell fighting against Athens?). Mythology. Immarados son of Eumolpos led the Eleusinians against Erechtheus and Athens, Paus. 1.5.2 (cf 1.27.4), schol. I l . 18.483, al. Immaros (thus codd.) son of Eumolpos and Daeira, Clem. loc. cit. Ismaros son of Eumolpos married the daughter of Tegyrios king of Thrace, but died before the Eleusinian war, Apollod. 3.15.4. See pp. 54, 113-5.
* ' I o k q , 'Iohclo~Ioleos, Iolaos Cults. (a) At the Herakleion at Kynosarges he shares an altar with Alkmene, Paus. 1.19.3. (b) At Marathon, he receives a sheep in Gamelion, in a group with Ge, Zeus Hypatos and Kourotrophos: Tetrapolis calendar B 13-14. (c) Porthmos (Sounion?). At the Herakleia in Mounichion he receives a sheep ~ ~ O K ~ U Z O V , Salaminioi decree 85. (The rest of the group are Kourotrophos, Alkmene, Maia, Herakles, three anonymous heroes, and Ion every other year. See p. 35.) Outside Athens, I. had a heroon at Thebes, Paus. 9.23.1, and he was a significant figure in Sardinia and Sicily, Paus. loc. cit. (cf. 1.29.5), Diod. 4.24.4,4.30. See R E 9.1844-6. Plut. Mor. 492C tells us that I. in many places shares an altar with Herakles and is addressed as his Scapaoz&qs.
Mythology. Son of Herakles' half-brother Iphikles, Apollod. 2.4.11, al. Charioteer of Herakles, Hes. fr. 230 M-W, Apollod. 2.5.2. After the death of Herakles he came with the
APPENDIX 1
173
Herakleidai to Athens and defeated and killed Eurystheus, Paus. 1.44.10, Strabo 377; or he was too old to fight, but accompanied the forces; he prayed to Zeus and Hebe to be made young for a day, and took Eurystheus prisoner at the Skironian rocks, E. Heruclidue 843-63. Death in Sardinia, Paus. and Diod. locc. citt.
* ‘Inno6oov, ‘Inno6hv
Hippothoon, Hippothon Place of worship. Eleusis, IG 112 1149, 1153 (fourth:century honorary decrees). Paus. 1.38.4 mentions $heroon of H. (cf. IG 1121163 Ev T&I ‘Inno6ovZio1). As an eponymos, H. was also worshipped with the other members of the group in the agora at Athens. Cult details. Despite H.’s tribal status, the priesthood was a gentilician one: see Agora XV 132, 261 and above, pp. 84-5. The priest receives the expenses of a pelunos from the Eleusinian treasury in 329/8 (IG 1121672.290), suggesting a connexion with the Mysteries (cf. ARV 496.5). Mythology. H. belongs among the Eleusinian heroes; he is mentioned with Eumolpos and Dolichos in Hes. fr.227 M-W, and pictured on a Mission of Triptolemos, ARV 469.5. But schol. Nic. Alex. 131, making him Demeter’s host, is due to a misunderstanding of the text. H. was the son of Poseidon and Alope (q.v.), daugher of Kerkyon, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 6, Hyg. fab. 187, Paus. 1.39.3. The story of his birth and his mother’s death was certainly narrated by Euripides and Choirilos in their tragedies Alope; cf. Ar. Av. 559. (Alope mentioned in Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 147.) Jacoby (IIIB Supp. notes p. 32) uses Istros FGrH 334 F 10, Theseus and Kerkyon’s daughter, as evidence of a tradition that Theseus was father of H. H. (Hippothous) was suckled by a mare, Hyg. f i b . 187, 252, cf. Brommer3 264 B1 (= Watzinger, Gr. Vusen in Tubingen pl. 39); when Theseus had killed Kerkyon, H. went to him and received from him his ancestral lands, Hyg. fab. 187. See in general pp. 80-9 1.
* ‘Innohu~oqHippolytos Place of worship. Cult in Athens itself is not quite certain, but H’s tomb was shown on the south slopes of the Acropolis, near the temple of Themis; nearby was a temple of Aphrodite o ~ ] suggestive known as Ecp’ ‘Innohzizq, E. Hipp. 31-2, IG I3 383.233-4, or Ev h i n n o h u [ ~ ~ i(more of a cult precinct for H.), IG I3 369.66; said to have been fcunded by Phaidra, E. Hipp. loc. cit. Cult elsewhere in Attica, IG I3 255.7 (Lewis is cautious about the traditional ascription of Marathonian origin to this stone). Details of cult. Worshipped in connexion with Aphrodite, as victim of the goddess? Cf. Xcppo6iq K ~ T C X C T K (at O ~ Troizen). ~~ E. Hipp. 1425-30 refers to H’s cult in Troizen, where he was a much more important figure than in Athens. See also Paus. 1.22.2, 2.32.1-4 and RE 8.1865-7. H. also in Sparta, Paus. 3.12.19. Mythology. The story of H. and Phaidra (see E. Hipp.) is clearly located in Troizen, and the only Attic connexion is that H. is Theseus’ son. For the development of the legend see W. S. Barrett, Eur-ipides: Hippolytus (Oxford 1964) 6- 10.
I74
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
* 'Icpt$veta
Iphigeneia Place of worship. At Brauron, E. IT 1462-7, Euphorion fr. 95 van Groningen, al. Outside Attica, I. had a heroon at Megara, Paus. 1.43.1. Cult details. I. was very closely linked with Artemis and the ritual of the arkteia. The clothes of women who had died in childbirth were dedicated to her, E. loc. cit. I. is often linked with the cult of the Taurian Artemis or Artemis Tauropolos (see below), but Euripides is precise in separating I. from the cult of Artemis Tauropolos at nearby Halai Araphenides, which he connects with Orestes (q.v.). Mythology. As well as the tradition that I. was the daughter of Agamemnon and Klytaimestra (first in Cypriu fr. 12 Kinkel, with Proclus, p. 19 K) another version made her daughter of Theseus and Helen, Stesichorus PMG 191, Douris FCrH 76 F 92, al. For the normal version that I. was to be sacrificed at Aulis and that Artemis substituted a deer (Cypriu: Proclus, Kinkel p. 19), versions of more Attic flavour replace Aulis with Brauron (Euphorion fr. 95 van G) and the deer with a bear (cf. the arkteia), Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 14; or a bull (hence Tauropolos), Ant. Lib. 47 (= Nicander fr. 58). Artemis removed I. to the land of the Taurians, where she became her priestess, E. IT 1462-3, cf. Hdt. 4.103: the Taurian rIapf3Evo~ is Iphigeneia. According to Nicander, Artemis made I. into a goddess Orsilochia, and she lived with Achilles on the island Leuke, Ant. Lib. 27 (Nicander). She practised human sacrifice, E. IT, Diod. 4.44. With Orestes she went to Attica and became priestess at Brauron, E. IT; or went on further to Athens and Argos, Paus. 1.33.1. See pp. 27-33,57-8. 'Icptvoq Iphinoe No cult known; she may be merely a suitable name for the mother of Daidalos. Mythology. Wife of Metion and mother of Daidalos, Pherecydes FGi-H 3 F 146. I. is a common heroine's name, but Attic connexions seem not to exist in other occurrences.
'IqionoS Iphistios Cult unattested; eponymous hero of the deme Iphistiadai, Hsych. S.V. 'Icpionos. *"lev Ion Cult. (a) Probably somewhere in Athens: "Iovos 6~ Ilkton~iiov,IG I3 383.147-9. Cf. IG 112 47 1 1, 1st cent. Attic private dedication of uncertain provenance. Connexion with Boedromia, see below. (b) Tomb at Potamoi, Paus. 1.31.3. (c) The deme Ionidai is close to Gargettos, see below. (d) At Porthmos (Sounion?) he receives a sheep every other year at the Heqakleia in Mounichion, Salaminioi decree line 87.
Mythology. Son of Xouthos, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 13, Strabo 383, al; this version should also be assumed in Hes. fr. 9 M-W. Son also of Kreousa, Strabo loc. cit., al.; son of Kreousa and Apollo, E. Zon, and probably Arist. Afh. Pol. fr. 1 Sandys. Son of Gargettos, migrated to Elis, Paus. 7.22.7. He helped Erechtheus in the Eleusinian war, which is commemorated in the Boedromia, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 13. He was polemarch in the war, Paus. 1.31.3. Partially responsible for the synoecism, Arist. Afh. Pol. 41.1. His wife was Helike, daughter of Selinous, Paus. 7.1.3, Steph. Byz. S.V. BoGpa; his sons were eponyms of the four old Ionian tribes (at Athens
APPENDIX 1
175
and elsewhere), i.e. they were called Geleon, Aigikores, Argades and Hoples, Hdt. 5.66; they colonised Asia and the adjoining islands, E. Zon 1576-81. Divided the people into tribes, Arist. Ath. Pol. 41.2; on a caste basis (vopyoi, 6TlptoOpyot, i&pOnOtOi, @hams),Strabo 383. See pp. 108-110. *Kahap~'qsfipw Kalamites Place of worship. In the agora, schol. Patm. Dem. 18.129; near the Lenaion, Hsych. S.V. ~ d a p i fipoc,. q ~ The Demosthenes passage is uninformative beyond using the shrine as a direction-marker. i Cf. Schoinous? *Kahhtoz&pavo~Kallistephanos Place of worship. The agora, Ag. I 7396; a summary of a paper on the inscription given by J. McK. Camp I1 is in AJA 77 (1973) 209. Fuller details in Camp, The Athenian Agora (London 1986) 147. Cult details. K. was apparently a hero amenable to the general requests of individuals, even of low degree (the dedicators are a cobbler and his assistants), and who might send or be the subject of dreams. See p. 11.
K&vfiapo~Kantharos Cult unattested; he was a local hero who gave his name to the large harbour at Peiraeus, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 203.
I
*K&K~OVKekrops Place of worship. (a) On the Acropolis, E. Zon 1400 (a cave), IG 112 1156, Clem. Alex. Protr. 3.45 (a tomb); with a comer next to the south wall of the Erechtheion, IG I3 474.59-63. (b) as eponymos (q.v.) in the agora. (c) in the Thriasian plain, IG 1122776.B 11 (Hadrianic). Outside Attica: in Haliartos, Paus. 9.33.1 (he identifies this hero with Kekrops II), and perhaps in Megara, Hsych. S.V. 'Ev 6' A16uta; but cf. Pandion (p. 88). Cult details. The Acropolis priesthood belonged to the genos of the Amynandridai; it was not tribal. IG 1122388. Mythology. K. was half-man, half-snake, his body ending in serpent coils, Ar. Vesp. 438, E. Ion 1163-4, A R V 1268.2, al. (Brommer3 265 B4-8). No parents are recorded; he was autochthonous, Apollod. 3.14.1. He was king of Attica; either the first king, Marm. Pal-. A 1, or the successor to Aktaios, Paus. 1.2.6. His wife was Agraulos, daughter of Aktaios, Apollod., Paus. 1occ.citt.; his daughters Aglauros, Pandrosos and Herse (qq.v.), (E. Zon 270-2), Philochorus FGrH 328 F 106, al.; his ssqErysichthon (q.v.), Apollod., Paus. 1occ.citt. Introduced cult of Kronos and Rhea, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 97; non-animal sacrifice (Zeus Hypatos), Paus. 8.2.3; other cults, see p. 90 n. 54. Constituted the Attic Dodekapolis, Philoch. F 94, Etym. M. S.V. Q a ~ p i axhpa. Introduced writing, Tac. Ann. 11.14, with many other customs, schol. Ar. Plut. 773. Presided over contest between Athena and Poseidon, Xen. Men?. 3.5.10, al.; rejected in Apollod. 3.14.1. Counting of the population by stones, Philochorus F 95.
176
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
A second Kekrops is father of Pandion I1 and apparently successor to Erechtheus in Mar-m. Par. A 16, 17; this figure is standard in later writers, e.g. Paus. 1.5.3, Apollod. 3.15.5 (where his wife is Metiadousa daughter of Eupalamos). Father of Metion, schol. I l . 2.536. See pp. 80-91, 1 10-2.
*K&hEOs Keleos Place of worship. Presumably at or near Eleusis; his worship with Metaneira (q.v.) is attested in Athenagoras, I I p E o p ~ t am p i ~ p t o z t a v h v14, SO perhaps he was worshipped in the sanctuary of Metaneira on the road to Megara, Paus. 1.39.2. See below for his daughters. Also in Athens at the Lesser Eleusinia, Nikomachos calendar line 72. Mythology. Host of Demeter, H . Hymn Dem. passim. Eleusinian chieftain, ib. 153-5, 475. Son of Eleusis (?), ib. 105; of Raros, Suda S.V. 'Papibs. His wife was Metaneira, Hymn and most other sources; Neaira, Mar-m. Par. A 12; his son Demophon, Hymn; or Triptolemos, most later sources. He ordered a temple to be built to Demeter, Hymn 292ff.; began the custom of giving free meals at the prytaneion in Athens, Plut. Mor-. 667D. He came to power after Eleusios (q.v.; not his father, therefore) was killed, but was deposed by Eleusios' son Triptolemos, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 104 (Boccaccio). * K & k o G buyazEpq Daughters of Keleos Place of worship. Their tomb was at Eleusis, Clem. Alex. Pr-otr-.3.45.2. Mythology. In the Hymn to Demeter (109-10) they are Kallidike, Kleisidike, Demo and Kallithoe; in Paus. 1.38.3 (quoting Pamphos and, oddly, Homer) Diogeneia, Pammerope and Saisara. They met Demeter by the well Parthenion (= Kallichoron? Richardson, Hymn pp. 326-8) and take her to their father's house, Hymn 98ff. The Mysteries were entrusted to them, Suda S.V. E6pohnos; with Eumolpos they performed the sacred rites, Paus. 1.38.3. *KEpapos Keramos
Place of worship. In the deme Kerameis, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 25 (suggesting cult); Paus. 1.3.1 connects him with the Kerameikos, which is much the same. Mythology. Son of Dionysos and Ariadne, Paus. loc. cit. (? - Kerameus, codd.). Son (Suda S.V. ~ ~ p a p ~ bor ~ tfather v ) (schol. Ar. Eccl. 253) of Kephalos (uncertain whether this really refers to the relevant heroes). KEPKUOV Kerkyon
Place of worship. Cult not attested; near the tomb of Alope (q.v.) outside Eleusis was the nbhatozpa K ~ p m o v owhere ~, K. was defeated by Theseus. Mythology. Son of Poseidon and of the daughter of Amphiktyon, half-brother of Triptolemos, Choirilos fr. 1 Nauck2 (= Paus. 1.14.3). Kerkyon son of Brancho(u)s and Argiope, Apollod. Epit. 1.3 appears not to be Attic; closer to our K. is the Arcadian Kerkyon, son of Agamedes (Charax FGi-H 103 F 5 ) and father of Hippothoos (cf. the Attic Hippothon, grandson of Kerkyon), Paus. 8.53.6; the Kerkyon at Eleusis came from Arcadia, Plut. Thes. 11.1. Father of Alope (q.v.); killed his daughter on the birth of her child. This was the story of the dramas of Choirilos, Euripides and Karkinos. Father of Ekphantos and ancestor of Mousaios, Suda S.V. Mouoaio~.
APPENDIX 1
I77
K. challenged passers-by to wrestle with him, and then killed them; Theseus, however, defeated and killed him, Plut. Thes. 1 1.1, Paus. 1.39.3; the encounter must be implied in Istros FGrH 334 F 10. *Kdcpcxho~ Kephalos Place of worship. (a) Thorikos, calendar lines 16-17. (b) Perhaps at the temple of Apollo at Aigaleos, founded by his descendants (Paus. 1.37.6) ? See pp. 70,95 n. 85. Cult details. At Thorikos K. receives a ram m Boedromion; his wife Prokris also receives cult, and the hero Thorikos and his heroines may also be part of this sacrifice group. He may also receive a 40-50 dr. ox in Skirophorion; Daux proposes [K&&]hwt. Two annual sacrifices would be paralleled in this calendar by Thorikos (q.v.). In general, K.’s cult is old; he appears to be o5e of the hundred heroes picked by Cleisthenes as potential tribal eponymoi, schol. E. Hipp. 455. Mythology. There were two main traditions regarding K.’s parents: (a) He was the son of Deioneus, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 22; or Deion, Paus. 1.37.6, Hyg. fubb. 188,241, cf. schol. E. Hipp. 455. (b) He was the son of Hermes and an Athenian princess. Son of Hermes, Hyg. fub. 241; of Hermes and Herse (cf. Keryx), Apollod. 3.14.3; of Hermes and Kreousa, Hyg. fub. 270. Other versions: son of Pandion, Hyg. fub. 270. Perhaps son of Kerameus (may not refer to hero), schol. Ar. Eccl. 253. K. as baby, but mother unnamed, in ARV2 1248.8. Inhabitant of Thorikos (cf. cult), Apollod. 2.4.7, Ant. Lib. 41; perhaps of Thorai, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 34. Eponym of Kephallenia, Arist. fr. 504 Rose, al. Snatched up by Eos or Hemera, Hes. Theog. 985-7, E. Hipp. 454-6, A R v 1268.2, Paus. 1.3.1 (Stoa Basileios); father of Phaethon by her, Hes. and Paus, locc. citt.; or of Tithonos (himself father of Phaethon), Apollod. 3.14.3. Husband of Prokris (q.v.; cf. sacrifice calendar, above); his testing of her and accidental homicide, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 34, and presumably Soph. Prokris (but see Radt ad loc.), al. His trial for this was one of the early Areopagos trials, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 22. After Prokris’ death he married Klymene daughter of Minyas; his son by her was Iphiklos, Nostoi fr. 4 Kinkel. Also father of Oie (q.v.), Philochorus FGrH 328 F 28. He was a famous hunter with an unbeatable hound, Epigonoi fr. 2 K. See M. Broadbent, Studies in Greek genealogy (Leiden 1968) 251-92; and above, p. 105. KfipuC Keryx Cult unattested, even in the long list of priesthoods held by the genos of Kerykes in Roussel, Me‘langes Bidez 819ff.; see p. 69. Mythology. Son of Eumolpos, Andron FGrH 10 F 13, Paus. 1.38.3. Or (the Kerykes’ own version, Pms. loc. cit.) son of Hermes and a Kekropid: of Pandrosos, Androtion FGr 325 F 1; of Herse (cf. Kephalos), Kaibel 1046.32-4 (Marcellus for Herodes Atticus); of Aglauros, Paus. loc. cit. K. is apparently son of Hermes also in E. Erech. fr. 65.1 13-4 Austin.
Khupdvq Klymene K. as founding heroine is suggested by Porph. De ubsr. 2.9, where it is stated that she was the first person in Attica to sacrifice a pig (probably in some rite connected with Demeter). Also see C @ p q llepoduy.
I78
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
"KoGpoq Kodros Place of worship. (a) His body was entombed at the foot of the Acropolis, IG 112 4258 (Roman period); near monument of Lysikrates where the inscription was found? (b) At the Neleion, in company with Neleus and Basile, IG I3 84. The location is uncertain, so that this could, perhaps, be identical with (a). See Travlos 332. R. E. Wycherley, ABSA 55 (1960) 60-6, and G. T. W. Hooker, J H S 80 (1960) 1 15, argue for a site outside the city. Mythology. Son of Melanthos, Hdt. 1.147, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23, IG 112 4258, al. Father of Medon and Neleus, Hellanicus loc. cit. Appears with Ainetos in ARV2 1268.1. Attic king whose death secured victory, Plat. Symp. 208D, al. Oracle predicting this, subsequent disguise as a woodman, and death: Hellanicus loc.cit., and probably Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 154. Killed outside the gates, Lycurg. Leoc. 86; on right bank of Ilissos, opposite Agrai, Paus. I . 19.5. See J. Barron, JHS 82 ( 1962) 6; above, pp. 56-7. Koipwv Koiron Cult unknown; the Koironidai presumably did not maintain one. See pp. 67-8. Mythology. Bastard brother of Krokon (q.v.), Istros FGrH 334 F 14 (cf. the lawsuit of the Krokonidai and Koironidai, Harpocration S.V. KoipwviGa~). They were sons of Triptolemos, Bekk. Anecd. 1.273.27. Kdhaivoq Kolainos Place of worship. If anywhere, at the temple of Artemis Kolainis at Myrrhinous. Jacoby, FCrH IIIB Supp. p. 178 believes that he is an atthidographic invention, but although there were other aetiologies to explain the cult epithet, K. could be a genuine founder-hero and archetypal priest: the cult had a priest, not a priestess, Metagenes fr. 1 Kock. Mythology. In the Myrrhinousian account K. ruled before Kekrops, Paus. 1.31.5. He was a son or descendant of Hermes who founded the sanctuary of Artemis Kolainis in response to an oracle, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 13 = Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 3. An Attic Kelainos (one letter changed) in Messenia, Paus. 4.34.8; see Toepffer 2 17. Kohwvo~Kolonos Cult. Unknown, but he is connected with the deme Kolonos Hippios. Mythology. Horseman, Enpxqyj~,and eponymous hero of the deme, Soph. OC 59-61, 65. (Kolonos at Plut. Mor. 300D must belong in Tanagra and be the son of the Boeotian, not the Attic, Kephisos.) Kohhu~oqKollytos Cult. Unknown; eponym of the deme Kollytos. Mythology. Host of Herakles and father of Diomos (q.v.), Hsych. S.V. Aiopcia.
S.V.
Aiopci~,Steph. Byz.
*KovviGaq Konnidas Place of worship. Probably near the town Theseion. Cult details. Receives a ram one day before the Theseia, i.e. 7 Pyanopsion, a sacrifice still current in Plutarch's day, Plut. Thes. 4.
APPENDIX 1
I79
Mythology. Tutor of the young Theseus, ib.; cf. Hsych. S.V. Kov~iiGq~ (whence Toepffer 3 10 connects with the genos Kov~Zkxt). Seep. 120. [fipot]v@nv Kopov&[iiotv] Korone- heroines Place of worship. In Thorikos (left side 58); the reading is uncertain, but groups of heroines are common in this calendar. On the analogy of Thorikos, Pylochos and Hyperpedios one might think here of a Koroneus. (Koronos king of Lapiths, Zl. 2.746.) Cf. also the Koronides of Orchomenos, Ant. Lib. 25: and the KopoviGE~~ O p a tof TGrF 1.208 F 1, with p. 67 n. 15 above. *Kpavao~Kranaos Place of worship. Lamptrai, where his monument survived in Pausanias’ day, 1.31.8. .Cult details. The priesthood was in the hand of the genos Charidai, Hsych. S.V. XapiGat. See p. 66. Mythology. K. was an autochthon; he married Pedias, a Lakedaimonian woman, and his daughters were Kranae, Kranaichme and Atthis (q.v.), Apollod. 3.14.5. His son was Raros (but q.v.), Hsych. S.V. KpavaoO do<. He judged the contest of Athena and Poseidon, (a view rejected in) Apollod. 3.24.1. In his reign Deukalion came to Athens and established the sanctuary of Zeus ?Olympios, Murm.fur. A4. Amphiktyon (q.v.) was his son-in-law, Paus. ‘1.2.6, but nevertheless deposed him, ib. 1.31.3, Apollod. 3.14.6; whereupon K. fled to Lamptrai, Paus. 1.3 1.3. Kpiovoa Kreousa Place of worship. Cult unknown, but legend connects her with the cave of Apollo dno p a ~ p a iPaus. ~ , 1.28.4. Mythology. Daughter of Erechtheus, seduced or raped by Apollo, to whom she bore Ion; later she married Xouthos, E. Zon. But some (earlier?) versions appear to make Ion Xouthos’ own son: see under Ion. The context of Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 19 is confused, but it seems clear that K. married Xouthos. Mother of Doros and Achaios by Xouthos, E. Zon 1589-94. Mother of Kephalos by Hermes, Hyg.fub. 160 (but cf. Herse). K p t o ~Krios Cult unattested; he is the eponym of the deme Krioa, Polemon fr. 9 Pr. G. Kirchner, Atticu et Peloponnesiaca (Diss. Greifswald, 1890) 36-7 wishes to relate K. to Pallas; he is the son of K. and Eurybie at Hes. Theog. 374-5, but the Attic P. is firmly.son of Pandion. K~OKWV Krokon
Place of worship. In the area beyond the Rheitoi (coming from Athens) was said to be the paoikta K ~ O K ~ V O Sbut , Pausanias was unable to find the hero’s tomb, 1.38.2. Cult details. With the Krokonidai were associated certain of the preliminary rites of the Mysteries (above, p. 69), but it is not clear that K. himself was honoured in this connexion.
1x0
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Mythology. K. was the legitimate brother of Koiron, Istros FGrH 334 F 15; Triptolemos was their father, Bekk. Anecd. 1.273.27. ‘Men of Skambonidai’ (a branch of the Koironidai?) say he married Saisara daughter of Keleos, Paus. 1.38.2. Father of ?Metaneira or Meganeira (wife of Arkas), Apollod. 3.19.1. See above, pp. 67-8.
* K u a p i q ~K yamites Place of worship. On the Sacred Way, where he had a small temple by the tomb of Theodektes, Paus. 1.37.4, Phot. S.V.K u a p i q ~ . The mapizq, a bean-market, was nearby, I Plut. I Mor. 837C. See Fame11 89; 0. Kern, Die Religion der Griechen I (Berlin 1926) I 15. But the hero may owe his name simply to the physical proximity of the bean-market. K6haviYoS Kylanthos Cult unknown. Mythology. Son of Leos; Suda, Phot. S.V. AEWKOPEIOV. KGvvqc, Kynnes Place of worship. If at all, at the Kynneion or temple of Apollo Kynneios: at Halai, ? Crates fr. 2 Tresp (= Phot., Suda S.V. K6vvq~).But the myth connects K. with Hymettos and Pames. Cult details. (The Kynnidai provided the priest ,of Apollo Kynneios, Hsych. S.V. KuvviGai; this need not involve cult of K.) Mythology. Son of Apollo and a nymph Parnethia (or a nymph of Parnes); he was named from the dogs which found the child exposed on Hymettos. Socrates of Cos fr. 2 Tresp = Phot., Suda loc. cit. *KUXPEGS Kychreus Place of worship. In Salamis, Plut. Sol. 9, Paus. I .36.1; he was connected with a hill, Steph. Byz. S.V. K u ~ p ~x&yo~. i o ~ Perhaps connected with Eleusis; see below. Mythology. Son of Poseidon and Salamis, Apollod. 3.12.7, Steph. Byz. loc. cit. He reared a snake to ravage the land, which was expelled by Eurylochos and took refuge at Eleusis, Hes. fr. 226 M-W (= Strabo 393); or he was himself called ‘snake’ because of his cruelty, and suffered the same fate, Steph. Byz. loc. cit.; or he killed a snake which was ravaging the land, and so became king, Apollod. 3.12.7. His daughter Glauke married Telamon, Diod. 4.74, or was the mother of Telamon by Aktaios, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 60; he left his kingdom to Telamon, Apollod. loc. cit. Later activities. Solon sacrificed to K. and Periphemos in order to win them over for Athens in the war with Megara over Salamis; presumably he was successful: Plut. Sol. 9-10. Appeared as a snake at the battle of Salamis, Paus. 1.36.1; cf. Plut. Thes. 10.3. See pp. 46-7, p. 53 n. 38. * A a m o ~Lakios Place of worship. On the Sacred Way, just on the Athens side of the Kephisos, Paus. 1.37.2. Cult details. Eponymous hero of the deme Lakiadai.
APPENDIX I
“Laureion, anonymous hero Place of worship. ‘Prope Laurium meridiem versus a portu dpymqpta’. dedication to hero, second half of fourth century, IG 1124598.
181
Base with
*AEi)KacTmS Leukaspis
PlaFe of worship. Erchia. Cult details. On 20 Mounichion, receives a 13 dr. sheep/ram, offered without wine, to be consumed on the spot. Mythology. Unknown. G. Dunst, BCH 88 (1964) 482, suggests that L. is a Sicilian hero (Diod. 4.23.8) brought back by survivors of the Sicilian expedition; see RE 12.2258. But this is not necessary, for the name could equally well be that of an Attic hero. *A&& Leos (the herald)
Place of worship. Hagnous, Steph. Byz. S.V. hyvoO~,quoting Solon’s axones. Mythology. L. was a herald and native of Hagnous, who betrayed to Theseus the ambush planned by the Pallantidai, Plut. Thes. 13. From this figure should perhaps be distinguished *AEC;Y Leos (the eponymos)
Place of worship. Uncertain. Documents of the tribe (which normally stand in the sanctuary of the eponymos) have been found on the acropolis (IG 112 1742), in the agora (Hesp. 9 (1941) 59-66 no. 8) and at Dafni (IG 112 2818). He was certainly worshipped in the deme Skambonidai, IG I3 244.C4-5. It is not clear whether he was connected with the Leokoreion. See S. Rotroff, Hesperia 47 (1978) 206-3. The priest of the eponymos was a member of Leontis in 212/1, IG 112 847 ( = Dow, Pryt. 36) 51-2. Mythology. This Leos, if separate from the preceding, has no real myths attached to him, only to his daughters: cf. [Dem.] 60.29. But he is son of Orpheus in Bekk. Anecd. 1.277.14, and in addition to the daughters he has a son Kylanthos in Suda, Phot., S.V. AEWKO~ELOV. See pp. 80-91. (*)A& ~ O p a tDaughters of Leos
Place of worship. Presumably the Leokoreion, although this name cannot actually be derived from A E ~ )~Opat.The location of this building, oddly neglected by Pausanias, is uncertain, though it was somewhere in the agora. See Wycherley, Agora I11 109-13; Thompson’s suggestion in Agora XIV 123 and Hesperia 50 (1981) 347-8. Mythology. The daughters’ names were Phrasithea or Praxithea, Theope or Theopompe, and Euboule; Suda, Phot. S.V. AEWKO~E~OV, Ael. VH 12.28, Bekk. Anecd. 1.277.14. They gave their lives to save their country, [Dem.] 60.29, Diod. 17.15, al.; and the sources above. Aov&a Lousia Place of worship. Uncertain; Steph. Byz. S.V. Aovda makes her eponymous heroine of the deme Lousia. Mythology. She was one of the daughters of Hyakinthos (see under Hyakinthides), Apollod. 3.15.8, Hyg. fab. 238. This is a rival identification of these heroines to that adopted by Ewipides and Philochorus, who make them daughters of Erechtheus. Whether a single one of
1x2
T H E HEROES OF ATTICA
these sisters should really be identical with a deme eponym, as Stephanus makes her, is doubtful: see p. 102. *AGKOS Lykos
It is not clear how many heroes of this name we are dealing with; cf. the list in R E 13.2393-2403. Cult is attested only for the L. near a city lawcourt (&ti A ~ K Y Pollux , 8.21), Ar. Vesp. 387; the location of this is quite uncertain, despite A. L. Boegehold, Hesperiu 36 (1967) I I 1-20. Different topographical indications supplied in the myths are the Lykeion, Phlya, and the Diakria. Cult details. The L. of the lawcourt was pictured in animal form, Harp. S.V. ~EEK&C,OV (Eratosthenes). Mythology. The clearest figure of this name is L. son of Pandion, who at the division of Attica received the Diakria as his portion, Soph. TGrF 4.24; cf. ARV2 259.1. He founded the Lykeion and was the first to call Apoilo A~KEIOS, Paus. 1.19.4. (Cf. tomb of his brother Nisos near the Lykeion, ib.) He was banished by Aigeus to Asia, where he became the ancestor of the Lycians, Hdt. I . 173, Paus. loc. cit. With this figure Pausanias (4.20.6-8; quoting a Messenian epigram) identifies a Lykos connected with the Lykomidai of Phlya, author of oracles to the Messenians and related to the Mysteries of Andania. See p. 7 I and n. 36. The reference of A R v 1268.1, showing L. with Ajax, Athena, Menestheus and Melite, is not clear. See pp. 1 15-7.
* M a i a Maia (heroine?) Place of worship. Porthmos (Sounion?). Receives sacrifice at the Herakleia in Mounichion, together with Kourotrophos, Ioleos, Alkmene, Herakles and three anonymous heroes. Mythology. It is very doubtful whether this figure should be identified with Maia the mother of Hermes; rather, she may be the nurse (paia) of Herakles, or similar. See Nilsson, AJP 59 (1938) 392; and above, p. 35. * M a K a p i a Makaria Place of worship. A+the spring called Makaria in Trikorythos, Paus. 1.32.6, Strabo 377. Cult details. Flowers and garlands cast at her grave, or at the spring, schol. PI. Hipp. Mui. 293, al. Mythology (Attic). Daughter of Herakles (name not attested until late sources) and of Deianeira (Paus. loc. cit.), who after Herakles’ death took refuge in Attica along with the rest of his dependents, and in response to an oracle gave herself to be sacrificed in order to save her brothers from Eurystheus; the story, but not the name, in E. Hcld. 381-607, whence other accounts. The story in Douris (FGI-H 76 F 94) that she put out Herakles’ pyre seems to be a Madedonian aetiology. See p. 58.
APPENDIX 1
183
*M&paOocjMapa6hv Marathos (a), Marathon (b) Place of worship. In the deme of Marathon, Paus. 1.32.4 (b), Philost. VS 238 (b). Mythology. M.(a) was son of Apollo, Suda S.V. Mapa6hv; or M.(b) was son of Epopeus son of Aloeus son of Helios, who settled on the Attic coast, Eumelus FGrH 451 F 1 (Paus. 2.1.1). M.(b) was father of Herakles by a pvfi pozi~oho5,Philost. loc. cit. He (a) was an Arcadian who joined the army of the Tyndaridai together with his brother Eche(de)mos (see Hekademos); in response to an oracle he gave himself to be killed in battle to secure victory, Plut. Thes. 32 (Dikaiarchos). He was depicted on the Stoa Poikile fresco of the battle, Paus. 1.15.3, 32.4; at Marathon his statue was that of a farmer-hero, Philost. loc. cit. (confusion with Echetlos?). See p. 45. *Marathon dead Place of worship. At the battlefield of Marathon, Paus. 1.32.4. Cult details. The monument was crowned and the heroes received enagismos from the ephebes, IG 1121006.26,69 (122/1). Cult at an earlier date is suggested by the parallel with the dead of Plataia, Thuc. 3.58.4. See p. 55. *Marathon, anonymous heroes The Tetrapolis calendar contains several heroes known by description rather than by name. The following, all from the Marathon section, cannot be classified further (the paired hero and heroine are typical of this calendar): (a) B 3-4: a hero and probably a heroine receive a pig and a table offering. (b) B 9: in the second decad of Posideon a heroine, probably paired with a more important hero, receives an offering. (c) B 24-5: a hero 2v [.]paakiqreceives a sheep and a table-offering, and a heroine receives a sheep. (Other Marathonian heroes are listed under their epithets.) MEGov Medon Place of worshjp. Unknown. IG I2 872 from Kephale, [hltepov M ~ h v n M vperhaps refers to a phratry shrine: the Apollo Patroos of the Medontidai? See p. 76 and n. 56. Mythology. M. was the eldest son and successor of Kodros, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23. He was lame in one foot, and his younger brother Neleus or Neileus therefore challenged his right to rule; but Delphi found for Medon, and Neleus went to Asia (eventually founding Miletos), Paus. 7.2.1, Ael. VH 8.5. Mihavfio~Melanthos Place of worship. Worship of M. is not attested, but he is connected with cults of both Melainai (or Eleutherai, or Oinoe - the variant versions perhaps suggesting that his own worship was not known?) and of Eleusis. Mythology. M. was a Neleid from Pylos, king of Athens, Hdt. 5.65.3. He was the son of Andropompeus and Henioche, being descended from the Neleids of Messenia on his father’s side and from Admetos and Alkestis on his mother’s. He came to Athens as a refugee from Messenia: Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23. When he left Messenia, he was told by the Pythia to
I84
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
settle wherever he was first offered the head and feet to eat; this happened during a particular festival at Eleusis, Demon FGrH 327 F 1. He fought the Boeotian leader Xanthios in single combat at Melainai when the king Thymoites refused to do so, and defeated him by pretending that someone stood behind his opponent, so that he looked round and was killed; this deceit was commemorated in the Apatouria, Hellanicus loc. cit. Or they fought at Oinoe, M. laying down the condition that he should succeed to the kingship, and M. really did see a figure behind Xanthios, the story explaining the worship both of Dionysos Melanaigis (though this cult seems to be located at Eleutherai, Suda S.V. pihav) and of Zeus Apatourios, Conon FGrH 26 F I .39; cf Euphorion, Supp. hellenisr. 418.25-7. M.’s son was Kodros (q.v.), Hellanicus loc. cit., IG 112 4258, al. See P. Vidal-Naquet, The Bluck Hunter (Baltimore 1986) 106-28. *ME~&VLKKOS Melanippos Place of worship. A Melanippeion in Melite, Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 2. Mythology. Sbn of Theseus, Asclepiades FGrH 12 F 8; and of Perigoune, daughter of Sinis, Plut. Thes. 8; father of the Carian eponym Ioxos, ib. Or son of Kyklops son of Zeuxippos, Phot. S.V. M 6 p p q ~ 0dtzparco~. ~ Father of Myrmex, Phot. ib. (hence grandfather of Melite, q.v.). Won the running at the second Nemean games, held by the Epigonoi, Paus. 10.25.7. A R P 1185.12, by the Kadmos painter, shows [M&h]&vimoqwith a horse. The Theban M., son of Astakos (Hdt. 5.67), is probably not related. See pp. 99, 122-3. M ~ h i qMelite Place of worship. Cult unattested, but she is the eponymous heroine of the deme Melite, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 27. Mythology. M. is a very common name for heroines and nymphs, and far from all traditions relate to Attica. The Attic M. was daughter of Myrmex (q.v.), Hes. fr. 225 M-W, or of Dios son of Apollo, Musaeus DK I1 B9, or perhaps of Trikorythos, Serv. Aen. 6.21 (though this passage is corrupt, and even if this emendation is correct we may have here another, Tetrapolitan, Melite). Daughter of Hoples (q.v.) and first wife of Aigeus, schol. E. Med. 673 (Apollod. 3.15.6 has Mfiza). When a girl went to Crete with Theseus as tribute (?), Serv. Aen. 6.21 (milita F , Melite Thilo). Mistress of Herakles, schol. Ar. Ran. 501, therefore presumably mother of another hero. (Cf. shrine of Herakles Alexikakos in this deme.) We do not know whether the juxtaposition of Melite with Lykos, Ajax, Athena and Menestheus in ARV2 1268.1 refers to any myth; the shrine of Ajax’s son Eurysakes was also in this deme. See pp. 99, 122-3. See also under Trikorythos. *MdhiXoc/M&ihiXoSMelichos Cult. Receives sacrifice at the Lesser Eleusinia in Athens/Agrai, Nikomachos calendar line 66. That MEhiXwi not AEhixwi (i.e. Aohipi, q.v.), is the correct reading is shown by Graf, ZPE 14 ( 1974) 139-44. Mythology. Unknown. M. must be related to the divine epithet p ~ i h i x i qespecially common of Zeus; Graf sees M. as the heroic form of Zeus Meilichios, prominent in the rites of Agrai. R. F. Healey, Elnrsinian sacrifice in the Athenian IUM* code (Diss. Harvard 1962) 142-4 (summary.in HSCP 6 (1962) 257), tentatively identifies M. with Eubouleus (q.v.).
APPENDIX 1
185
*M~veGEioq Menedeios Cult. Receives a sheep at Erchia on 19 Thargelion, to be consumed on the spot. Mythology. Nothing is known of this figure, and it is not clear whether or not he is a hero; Jameson, BCH 89 (1965) 158-9, argues that he is the consort of Bendis, but see also above, p. 53. * M ~ v E k qM~vdhaoq , Meneleos, Menelaos Place of worship. Phegaia; the sanctuary appears to be well supplied financially, IG 112 1932. Mythology. The only apparent connexion of Meneleos with Attica is the death of his helmsman Phrontis (q.v.) at Sounion (Od. 3.278-85); but no cult of M. is known at Sounion. M E V E O I ~Menestheus E~~ Cult unknown. His epitaph in Athens, [Aristotle] Peplos (fr. 640.34 Rose), is probably imaginary. Mythology. Son of Peteos, leader of the Athenian forces at Troy, Zl. 2.552, 13 passim, etc. (Peteos son of Omeus son of Erechtheus, Plut. Thes. 32.1, Paus. 2.25.6.) Organised the army against Eumolpos, Alcid. Odysseus 23 (Radermacher, Artium scriptores pp. 145-6); this more often of Ion, q.v. More frequently M. is ~00pqqi)spdlxqq at Troy, Plut. Cimon 7, al.; his skill in warfare, Xen. Cyn. 1.12, al. .M. stirred up the people against Theseus; his plans were helped by the invasion of the Tyndaridai, Plut. Thes. 32-4; and after Theseus went to Skyros and died, M. succeeded him as king, ib. 34.4-5. (Theseus sent his sons to Euboea to protect them from M., ib. 35.3; or they went there themselves to avoid his rule, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 21. They fought separately from him, Plut. Thes. 35.5; but appear together with him at Zliupersis fr. 3 Kinkel.) He was a suitor of Helen, Hes. fr. 200 M-W. He spoke the funeral oration over Ajax, Philost. Her. 188; he was in the wooden horse, Paus. 1.23.8. He founded Elaia in Asia, Steph. Byz. S.V. 'Ehaia; other extra-Athenian connexions in RE 15.851-2. Death in Athens? See ps-Arist. above. A Menesthes son of Skiros' daughter went with Theseus to Crete, Plut. Thes.17.6. * M ~ z d l v ~ i pMetaneira a Place of worship. Beyond the "AvI3iov qpEap on the road from Eleusis to Megara, Paus. 1.39.2. (Keleos and M. are worshipped as gods in Athens, Athenag. FIpEop. xpioz. 14.) Mythology. Wife of Keleos and mother of Demophon, H. Hymn Dem., al. Her fatal error with Demeter and Demophon, Hymn 242ff. Mother also of Triptolemos, Paus. 1.39.1, Apollod. 1.5.2, al. Her daughters: see Keleos, daughters of. ? Cf. Meganeira, daughter of Krokon (another Eleusinian hero) and wife of Arkas, Apollod. 3.9.1. MfiGa Meda Cult unknown. Mythology. Daughter of Phylas and mother of Antiochos by Herakles, Paus. 1S.2, 10.10.1. (The sister of Penelope and wife of Idomeneus is not related, schol. Od. 4.797, schol. Lyc. A1e.v. 1093, 1218.)
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THE HEROES-OF ATTICA
[ Mfiozpa Mestra
Cult unknown; a speculative cult connexion in N. Robertson, TAPA 113 (1983) 166-9, but it seems more likely for Cos than for Athens. Mythology. M. was daughter of the hungry Erysichthon, who bore the Coan hero Eurypylos to Poseidon and was given the gift by Poseidon of changing into any shape she pleased. Athenian status seems to be suggested in Hes. fr. 43.66-7 M-W.] M f i w Meta See Melite.
MqztciGouoa Metiadousa Cult unknown. Mythology. Daughter of Eupalamos (hence a sister of Daidalos?) and mother of Pandion 11, Apollod. 3.15.5, Tz. Chi/. 1.178. Or wife of Eupalamos and mother of Daidalos, Tz. Chil. I I .884. Mqziov Metion Cult unknown, but cf. the genos of the Metionidai. Mythology. Son of Erechtheus (this is usual) and Praxithea, Apollod. 3.15.8. Son of Erechtheus and father of Daidalos (this is very frequent) by Iphinoe, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 146. Father of Eupalamos, grandfather of Daidalos, Apollod. loc. cit. Or son of Eupalamos and father of Daidalos, Diod. 4.76.1; or son of Kekrops and father of Chalkon, schol. I l . 2.536. Father of Mousaios by Sterope, Bekk. Anecd. 2.783.12. [M v T ~ L ~ &Mnesimache x~ (?)
Cult unknown, but she had a statue on the Sacred Way just on the Athens side of the Kephisos, Paus. I .37.3. Mythology. M. was the daughter of Dexamenos at Olenos, saved by Herakles from marriage to the centaur Eurytion, Apollod. 2.5.5; but it is not at all clear that this is relevant to the statue.] *MohnaGia Molpadia See under Amazons. M.'s tomb was shown separately, Paus. 1.2.1. She killed Antiope and was killed by Theseus, ib.; cf. Plut. Thes. 27.6. *Mo6vtXoS, Mo6vuxoq Mounichos, Mounychos Place of worship. Peiraeus, IG 11' 4590: mid fourth-century private dedication Mouvixot. Cult type. Eponym of an age group? Chr. Habicht, AM 76 (1961) 143-6. Mythology. Son of Pantakles, an Attic king, eponym of Mounychia in Peiraeus, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 5; received there refugees from Boeotian Orchomenos, which had been attacked by Thracians, ib. (= Diodorus FGrH 372 F 39). Founder of temple of Artemis Mounychia, Suda S.V. "Eppapo~dpt. Cf. E. Hipp. 761. With Phaleros, Phylakos and Teithras accompanied Theseus against the Amazons, A R v 1174.6. (Distinct is the Molossian M., Ant. Lib. 14; but his son Philaios also shares a name with an Attic king.)
APPENDIX I
187
M. appears as son of Demophon and Laodike in Plut. Thes. 34.2; but here he may be a textual error for another Thesean hero -
Mo6vno~Mounitos Cult unknown. Mythology. ? Son of Demophon by Laodike at Troy, Plut. Thes. 34.2 (see above); or son of Akamas similarly, Lyc. 495-8 with scholia, Euphorion fr. 63 van Groningen, Hegesippos FGrH 391 F 14 (= Parthen. 14).
Movoaio~Mousaios Place of worship. Cult is not attested unequivocally, but possible cult-places are: (a) Phaleron, where his grave was shown, Diog. Laert. 1.3. Perhaps a healing-shrine: above, p. 17 n. 46. (b) The Hill of the Muses in Athens, where he was also said to be buried, Paus. 1.25.8. Mythology. Mousaios the ancient, mystical poet, comparable with Orpheus, is a figure of much wider significance than the purely Attic; see RE 14.757-67. He is an Attic hero in [E.] Rhes. 945-7, and specifically Attic are the genealogies which connect him with Eumolpos; M. is Eumolpos’ son in Diog. Laert. loc. cit (epitaph), his father (and son of Antiphemos, as more usually) in Andron FGrH 10 F 13 (= Androtion FGrH 324 F 70). Or he may be descended from Kerkyon and son of Antiphemos and Helen (2), Suda S.V. Mouoaio5. Or son of Metion and Sterope, Bekk. Anecd. 2.783.12. He demonstrated cures at Phaleron, schol. Ald. Ar. Ran. 1033; he sang and died at the Mouseion, Paus. 1.25.8. He was hierophant at Eleusis, Diod. 4.72 (cf. Andron’s genealogy above). M6ppqS Myrmex Place of worship. Cult is unattested, but M. was the eponym of the MZjppq~os& ~ p a x oin~ Skambonidai, Phot. S.V. M 6 p p q ~ 0&~~ p a x o ~ . Mythology. Son of Melanippos, ib. Father of Melite, Hes. fr. 225 M-W. See pp. 99, 122-3.
*Na6o~ipocjNauoi1900~, O a i g Nauseiros/Nausithoosand Phaiax Place of worship. Phaleron, near the sanctuary of Skiros, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 11 (= Plut. Thes. 17.6: Nausithoos). In the Salaminioi decree (90-131: Nauseiros) the proximity of Poseidon Hippodromios may suggest the hippodrome at Echelidai in the Phaleron area, Ferguson Hesp. 7 (1938) 25-6. See also p. 38 n. 137. Cult details. The Kybemesia were celebrated in their honour, Philochorus loc. cit. In Boedromion, the Salaminioi sacrifice to each a small pig, as to Teukros; Poseidon Hippodromios receives a larger pig, lines 90-1. Is this the same festival? See pp. 38-9. Mythology. Nausithoos was son of Poseidon and Periboia (Jacoby FGrH IIIB Supp. 440-1 suggests that this inspired the Thesean connexion) and father of Alkinoos, Od. 7.56-61; the name Phaiax is simply the ethnic for the same race. The heroes Nausithoos and Phaiax came to Theseus by gift of Skiros, king of Salamis (q.v.); N. was npupva6~,Ph. n p q p ~ 6 on~Theseus’ joumey to Crete, Philochorus loc. cit. See S. Eitrem, ‘Heroen der Seefahrer’, Symb. Osl. 14 (1935) 53-67; and above, pp. 37-41, 106-7, 120-1.
188
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
* N ~ a v i a
* -VEXO<
-nechos (?) Place of worship. Marathon. Cult details. Receives a bull or ox and sheep in Mounichion; a related heroine receives a sheep, Tetrapolis calendar B 20. Mythology. Unknown. The name is unlikely to be complete in this form, but the often favoured emendgtion (Sokolowski, al.) to (line 19) Ap[tozopci]
S
APPENDIX I
I89
Zdvo5 i a ~ p oToCapq ~, Toxaris Our only evidence for this hero is the quite possibly fictional account of Lucian, Scythes 1-2 (cf. Toxaris). Certainly, the story of Toxaris’ life is likely to be Lucian’s invention. See p. 18 n. 48. Place of worship. His tomb with a stele depicting a Scythian horseman was near the Dipylon, on the left as you go to Akademeia, Luc. Scyth. 2. Cult details. Sacrifice of a white horse at the tomb in thanksgiving for cures; this was a healing-shrine, especially useful for fever, ib. EEvo5 iazpo5 the cult title, ib. Mythology/narrative. Toxaris was a Scythian who settled in Athens and effected cures in the great plague by the (typically Scythian?) use of wine, ib. *Eo060< Xouthos Place of worship. Perhaps in the Marathonian Tetrapolis, IG I3 255.13 (place of origin of this inscription is not certain, see Lewis ad loc.). Cult details. Receives a ram, ib. Mythology. Son of Hellen, brother of Doros and Aiolos, Hes. fr. 9 M-W (this seems to presuppose his paternity of Ion); son of Hellen and Othreis, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 23. Son of Aiolos, father of Doros and Achaios, E. Zon 63-4, 1589-94. Married Kreousa, Kleidemos FGrH 323 F 19, having helped her father Erechtheus against the Euboeans, E. Zon 57ff, 294-6. On the death of his father, fraternal strife caused him to flee to Attica, where he married a daughter of Erechtheus, his sons being Ion and Achaios, Paus. 7.1.2, Strabo 383 (further adventures and death of Erechtheus, Paus. loc. cit.). Father of Ion and Achaios also in Apollod. 1.7.3; father of Ion, Hdt. 8.44; but contrast E. Zon (see under Ion). Father of Diomede (wife of Deion, mother of Ainetos, Kephalos, Phylakos (qq.v.) and Aktor), Apollod. 1.9.4. Founder of Marathonian Tetrapolis, Strabo 383.
(*)Oi6i.rcous Oedipus Place of worship. See appendix 2. Cult details. Sophocles seems to imply (OC 1530-2) that rites were performed in secret by a state representative (= Theseus) in the presence of his successoj, and the procedure thus passed on. Mythology. Cast out or self-exiled from Thebes, Oedipus came to Kolonos Hippios, where he was received as a suppliant (E. Phoen. 1706-7: genuine? See Appendix 2) and protected from Creon by Theseus, whom he eventually instructed to keep his tomb/place of disappearance secret, Soph. OC, Androtion FGrH 324 F 62. Mysterious disappearance, Soph. OC 1579-1669. See pp. 50-2. Oiq Oie Cult unknown; eponym of either Oa or Oe (hence mentioned by Philochorus, below). Mythology. Daughter of Kephalos and wife of Charops, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 28 (Charippos, Charopos, al.; see under Charops).
I90
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
*01v&5 Oineus Cult unknown, but it clearly existed, since he was a tribal eponymos. As suck he was venerated with the other nine in the agora: see ARV2 1153.17, 1313.5, which show him in company with other eponymoi. Mythology. Son of Dionysos, [Dem.] 60.30; or illegitimate son of Pandion, Paus. 1.5.2. [Demosthenes] seems to know no deeds of 0. More famous than the Attic O., but apparently not connected, is the Aetolian, father of Meleager and Deianeira. See pp. 80-9 I . ,.
Oivoq Oinoe Cult unknown; presumably 0. was eponym of one of the demes Oinoe, the evidence of Pausanias suggesting that the north-eastem area is more likely. Mythology. Sister of Epochos and another young man; the brothers appear on the base of the statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous, Paus. 1.33.8.
"OnAqs Hoples Cult unknown. Mythology. One of the four sons of Ion (the others being Geleon, Aigikores and Argades), eponyms of the old Ionian tribes, Hdt. 5.66, Strabo 383. Father of Meta or Melite the first wife of Aigeus, Phanodemus FGr-H 325 F 5. 'Opmivto~Oresinios See f i p y iazpos (Eleusis). 'Oploqs Orestes
Cult. Unknown, but he is connected aetiologically with the rite of the Choes in the Anthesteria, and with the cult of Artemis Tauropolos at Halai Araphenides. Mythology. 0. had returned from Athens when he killed Aigisthos, Od. 3.306-8; this puzzled ancient commentators. More usually his trial for the murder of Klytaimestra took place in Athens, A. Eum., Hellanicus FGI-H 323a F 22, al.; it was one of the standard mythical Areopagos trials. (See also Erigone.) Because of 0.'s possible pollution, Demophon (or Pandion, schol. Ar. Ach. 961, Eq. 95; or the sons of Demophon, Plut. Mor-. 643A) decided at a festival of Dionysos Lenaios that each participant should have his own wine-vessel, thus instituting the special form of the Choes, Phanodemus FGr-H 325 F 11, Mar-m. Par-. A 25; cf. E. IT 942-60, Callim. fr. 178 Pf. After his journey to the land of the Taurians and his return with Iphigeneia (q.v.) he founded the temple of Artemis Tauropolos at Halai Araphenides, E. IT 1446-61. 0. in Athens, Brommer" 453. 'Opve6~Omeus Cult unknown. Mythology. Son of Erechtheus, father of Peteos and grandfather of Menestheus, Paus. 2.25.6, Plut. Thes. 32, al. But ARV' 259.1 suggests that like Pallas, Nisos and Lykos he was a son of Pandion and took part in the division of Attica; or did the painter regard them all as sons of Erechtheus?
APPENDIX 1
191
Founder of Orneai in the Argolid, Paus. 2.25.5. See pp. 115-7. *TIay~p&qsPankrates
Place of worship. On the east bank of the Ilissos, near the stadium: Miliadis, IlAE 1953 47-60, 1954 4 1-9. Cult details. This seems to be a healing shrine: see HAE 1953 pl. 6. Mythology. The votive reliefs, over thirty in number, still have not been published in full, but the names found on them are those of Herakles, Pankrates and Palaimon. A dedication to Herakles Pankrates (BCH 79 [I9551 220) suggests that P. could be viewed as an aspect of Herakles rather than as an independent hero, but it is not clear whether this was always the case. (Compare Erechtheus and Poseidon.) Miliadis’ pl. 5 (1953) suggests at any rate that there were at least two heroes, (Herakles) Pankrates (with attributes of Herakles here) and *Hahaipov Palaimon Place of worship. In Attica, P.’s cult is known only in the same shrine as the above on the banks of the Ilissos: Miliadis HAE 1953 p. 58 pl. 9. (IG 1121368 is late and idiosyncratic.) Mythology. Unclear. The best-known P. is the deified Melikertes, worshipped at the Isthmos (Paus. 2.1. l), but more relevant to the Attic P. may be the occurrence of the name as an epithet of Herakles in Lyc. Alex. 663, and at Koroneia in Boeotia, IG VII 2874. On the sanctuary, see p. 17 n. 47. flcihhas,Hahhavzi6at Pallas, sons of Pallas Cult unknown; in myth he is associated with Pallene (Plut. Thes. 13) and with the Paralia. Mythology. P. was son of Pandion, brother of Aigeus, Lykos and Nisos, among whom Attica was divided, clearly in Soph. TGrF 4.24; (atthidographers) FGrH 329 F 2, al. The brothers took Attica by force from the Metionids after the death of Pandion, Apollod. 3.15.6. In the division of Attica P. received the area south of the city, the Paralia, Soph. loc. cit = Strabo 392, al.; the Diakria, Steph. Byz. S.V. A t a ~ p i a ,may be a mistake (cf. Lykos). A R v 259.1 depicts P. with Lykos, Nisos and Omeus; A R v 1268.2 with Aigeus; and Graef-Langlotz I1 pl. 30 n. 412 with Lykos. P. was father of giants, Soph. loc. cit; father of Boutes and Klytos, Ov. Met. 7.500. Conspired with his sons against Theseus and attempted to ambush him near Gargettos, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 108, Plut. Thes. 13. The plan failed because of the treachery of the herald Leos (q.v.), and they were killed by Theseus, ib. See pp. 115-7.
*Hav6iov Pandion Places of worship. (a) On the Acropolis, IG 112 1138, 1144, 1157 (fourth-century), Paus. 1s.4. (b) At Plotheia? Pandia were celebrated here, IG I3 258.9. (c) As eponymos, in the group of eponymoi in the agora. Outside Attica, P. was worshipped in Megara, where his tomb was in the cave sanctuary of Athena Aithyia, and he had also a monument in the city, Paus. 1.41-6.
I92
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Cult details. The Pandia, although a festival of Zeus (Phot. S.V. IEtvIiicr), were connected also with Pandion: probably he received preliminary sacrifice as founder, above p. 8 1. Mythology. Later mythographers distinguish two kings of this name; cf. Kekrops. The first was successor of Erichthonios, Marm. Par. A 1 I , al.; son of Erichthonios and Praxithea, Apollod. 3.14.6. His wife was Zeuxippe, ib. 8. His son and successor was Erechtheus, M u m . Par. A 15; Boutes, Prokne and Philomele the rest of his children, Apollod. 3.14.8. The second P. was son of Kekrops 11, M u m . Par A 17, al.; and of Metiadousa, Apollod. 3.15.5.; Paus. 9.33.1 reverses the order. He was expelled by Metion and went to Megara, where he married the daughter of king Pylas, Apollod. loc. cit., Paus. 1.5.3; his sons were Lykos, Pallas, Nisos and Aigeus, ib. (These are P.’s sons also in (atthidographers)FGrH 329 F 2 and probably also in Soph. TCrF 4.24, but it is not clear whether these authors attributed them to Pandion 11.) Of these details much is laboured genealogy; originally there was only one Pandion, and of the above, the older traditions relating to him are fairly obviously his Megarian connexions, his fathering four sons among whom Attica was divided, and two daughters, Prokne and Philomele (the nightingale daughter of P. already in Hes. Op. 566; but cf. the nightingale daughter of Pandareos, Od. 18.5 18). Pandion and Prokne (q.v.), ARV2 1249.21. Oineus (q.v.) is also named as bastard son of Pandion, Paus. 1.5.2; but they are shown as contemporaries on A R P 1 153.17. P. was father also of Teithras, schol. Ar. Run. 477, and in one version of Kephalos, Hyg.fuh. 270. In the reign of Pandion I Demeter and Dionysos came to Attica, Apollod. 3.14.7. He received Orestes (9.v.. in some versions) and instituted the form of the Choes, schol. Ar. Ach. 961, Ey. 95. See pp 80-9 I , 1 15-7. *n&vIipoooS Pandrosos (see also Aglauros, Herse) Places of worship. (a) the Acropolis, near or adjoining the Erechtheion, Paus. 1.27.3; see Kron, Phylcnhcroen 40-2,22 1 n. 2. (b) Perhaps at Porthmos (? Sounion), with Aglauros: see below. (c) Possibly at Erchia. Cult details. (a) Worshipped with Thallo, Paus. 9.35.2. Sacrifice of a cow to Athena requires a sheep to be offered to Pandrosos (v.1. Pandora) - which festival? - Philoch. FGrH 328 F 10. Arrephoria connected with Athena and P., IG 1123472, 3515 (2nd cent.); clearly she was the dominant sister in this rite. Ephebes sacrifice to Athena Polias, Kourotrophos and P., IG 112 1039.58 (early 1st cent.). Priestess, IG 112 348 1 (2nd cent.). P. an epithet of Athena, schol. Ar. Lys. 439; a woman’s oath, Ar. Lys. 439. (b) Salaminioi decree, lines 12, 45. The priestess is connected with Aglauros, which is not the case, apparently, with the city cult; we are probably dealing with a joint cult elsewhere, possibly at Sounion with which the Salaminioi had strong connexions, and where there was also a cult of Kourotrophos, whose priesthood is related. (c) Jameson (BCH 89 [1964] 156-8) conjectures that P. may be the missing deity in the sacrifice on 3 Skirophorion at Erchia: see pp. 26-7. Mythology. One of the daughters of Kekrops, along with Aglauros/Agraulos and Herse, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 105, al.; this is the normal version. Or they were daughters of Aktaion (q.v.), Suda S.V. @oiviniicr yp&ppaza. With her sisters she was entrusted the infant Erichthonios in a chest (cf. ARV’ 1268.2), E. Zon 267-72, Brommer3258 (without names). She was the only one to obey the injunction not to open it, Paus. 1.18.2, Apollod. 3.14.6, but cf. Herse. P. and her sisters were the first to practise weaving, Suda, Phot. S.V. rcpozoviov.
APPENDIX 1
I93
Mother of Keryx by Hermes, Androtion FGrH 324 F 1, al. (but cf. Aglauros, Herse); cf. ABV 40.17? See W. Burkert, ‘Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria’, Hermes 94 (1966) 1-25; N. Robertson, ‘The riddle of the Arrhephoria’, HSCP 87 (1983) 241-88, with bibliography; and above, pp. 23-7. *nixvo\v Panops Place of worship. At the postern on the road from Akademeia is a spring of Panops, Plat. Lysis 203A. Cult details. P. was a hero with a temple, statue and spring, Hsych. S.V. II&vo\y. Photius S.V. says that he was one of the dnhvz)pot - i.e. one of the eponyms of year-groups? ijp% 7tapayv&/q--
Place of worship. Probably in the city, uncertain location: IG I3 234, line 20 and perh. 1 1. *IIixpaho~Paralos Place of worship. A Paralion occurs in IG 112 1254, but the provenance of this inscription is unknown (though it is clearly Attic); cf. Phot. S.V. II&pahos. Peiraeus would be logical. Cult details. P. received sacrifice (fiz)Oia)from a group known as Paraloi, IG 112 1254, second half of fourth century. (Another decree of the Paraloi, ib. 2966.) Paraloi were those on board the ship Paralos, Thuc. 8.73.5, Harpoc. S.V. l-I&pahos, al. The ship named from a hero, Harpoc., Suda s.v., schol. Patm. Dem. 8.29. Mythology. Son of Poseidon, schol. Patm. Dem. 8.29. See p. 42. IIapt+&ot Parthenoi, maidens A cult title of the Hyakinthides (q.v.) * q p m i%m6iq The two heroes in the plain
Place of worship. Which plain is not clear. IG I3 246.33-6 prescribes sacrifice h6potv dp neijiot. Relevant also may be IG I3 234.12 [hlepoivet dp n[--*Peiraeus, anonymous hero Place of worship. Between Zea and Mounychia, IG I2 855: hdpoto hopos. Identified by Dragatsis with Serangos (q.v.), IIAE 1917 p. 20. *IIetpi600~,IIetpifious, I ’ I e p k 9 0 ~Peirithoos, ~ Pe(i)rithous Place of worship. At Kolonos Hippios a heroon of Adrastos, Oedipus, Theseus and P., Paus. 1.30.4, cf. Soph. OC 1593-4. This would seem to have underworld associations. P. is eponym of the deme Perithoidai, Ephorus FGrH 70 F 23, but no cult there is mentioned. Mythology. In the Iliad (e.g. 1.263) P. is localised in Thessaly (son of Zeus, 14.317-8, cf. Od. 11.630), and even in Attic versions he remains Thessalian. As the comrade of Theseus, he was given land in the deme Perithoidai, Ephorus loc. cit. Formal bond of friendship between P. and Theseus, Soph. OC 1593-4, Plut. Thes. 30-2. Accompanied Theseus in his abduction of (fr. Helen, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 18, and to the underworld, [Hesiod] netpifiov ~~~~ixXpaots
I 94
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
280 M-W), Hellanicus loc. cit.; and against the Amazons, Pindar fr. 175 Sn-M (= Paus. 1.2.1). His detention in the underworld, ? Od. 1 1.631, Apollod. Epir. 1.24.
*nipst5 Perdix Place of worship. Near the Acropolis, Suda, Phot. S.V. Ilip6iicoS iepov. Mythology. P. was sister of Daidalos and mother of Talos (q.v.), who hanged herself on the boy’s death at the hands of Daidalos, ib., Apollod. 3.15.8. Or P. was the name of Daidalos’ nephew, Soph. TGrF 323 (Karnikoi) (Phot., Suda S.V.l l i p 6 i ~ 0iepov); ~ he was metamorphosed into a partridge, Ov. Met. 8.236-59. The traditions of the sanctuary may therefore have become unclear: was a hero or heroine being honoured? HepicpaS Periphas Cult unknown, but myth suggests connexions with both Apollo and Zeus. Mythology. P. was an autochthonous king of Athens before Kekrops. He was just and pious, being especially devoted to Apollo. His subjects gave him the honours due to Zeus and called him Soter, Epopsios and Meilichios; Zeus in anger wished to destroy him, but was persuaded by Apollo to turn him into an eagle (a bird which became particularly associated with himself) and his wife into a vulture (cpljvq). Ant. Lib. 6.
neppeziS (nepoe6G) Perrheus (Perseus)
Place of worship. Hsych. S.V.neppezijs attests the worship of this hero in Athens; it may have taken place in the area of Perrhidai, around Aphidna: see Trail1 88-90. A temenos of Perseus nap’ ;4IYqvaioi~is mentioned in Paus. 2.18.1, which may be identical. Cult details. The temenos of Perseus included an altar of the ‘saviours of Perseus’ (qq.v.), Diktys and Klymene, Paus. loc. cit. Mythology. Perseus had no Attic connexions, but a local hero Perrheus, about whom nothing else is known, might well have been taken to represent the Attic form of his name: see Famell 337. HjWooS Pegasos Place of worship. Cult not attested; he is connected with Dionysos Eleuthereus, and pictured in the temple of Dionysos Melpomenos. Mythology/narrative tradition. P. was a man of Eleutherai who (in accordance with an oracle?) brought (the statue of) Dionysos from Eleutherai to Athens, Paus. 1.2.5, schol. Ar. Ach. 242 (the latter adds an aition for the use of phalloi in Dionysiac worship).
nin9o5, Hi~YosPit(t)hos Place of worship. Cult unattested; eponym (conjectural?) of the deme Pithos, Steph. Byz. S.V. Mythology. Unknown. The name appears in a Dionysiac connexion in Nonnus: 18.205, 30.138, etc. * n o h 6 ~ e v onoh~&ivos ~, Polyxenos, Polyxeinos Place of worship. Receives sacrifice in Athens, at the Lesser Eleusinia, Nikomachos calendar line 68.
APPENDIX I
195
Cult details. One of the ? hundred heroes - those preselected by Cleisthenes? (Hsych. S.V. noh6&vo~:d 5 zhv
Cult unknown; a persistent name among Athenian queens and princesses. Praxithea wife of Erechtheus, E. Erech., Apollod. 3.15.1 (daughter of Phrasimos and Diogeneia daughter of Kephisos). Prasithea (Apollod. 3.14.6) or Phrasithea (Tz. Chil. 1.574) wife of Erechtheus and mother of Pandion. Praxithea or Phrasithea one of the daughters of Leos, Ael. VH 12.28, Suda, Phot. S.V. AECOK~~EIOV, Bekk. Anecd. 1.277.14. Praxithea wife of Erechtheus, who gave her daughters for sacrifice, became priestess of Athena (Polias), E. Erech. fr. 65.95-7; this may have some cultic relevance. Hpowq, Qthopqhqla Prokne, Philomele/a
Cult unknown. Mythology. The nightingale the daughter of Pandion, Hes. Op. 566, Sappho fr. 135 Page; Prokne daughter of Pandion, ARV2 1249.21. Prokne and Philomela daughters of Pandion, Prokne’s marriage to Tereus, his violation of Philomela, the sisters’ revenge and their metamorphosis into birds, S. Tereus, A R P 472.21 1 , Apollod. 3.14.8, al.; cf. [Dem.] 60.28. See Burkert, HN 201-7. * n p O ~ p tProkris ~
Place of worship. Thorikos, where in Boedromion she receives a table-offering when Kephalos receives a ram, line 17. She may also receive a sheep in Skirophorion, where one missing name follows [Kephallos: see under Kephalos. Mythology. Daughter of Erechtheus, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 34, Hellanicus 323a F 22, Istros 334 F 14; by Praxithea, Apollod. 3.15.1, al. Mother of Aglauros by her father Erechtheus, Hyg. fab. 253. Married Kephalos (q.v.), Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Istros locc. citt., who tested her faithfulness and found it wanting, Pherecydes loc. cit., al. Or she was bribed by PteleonPteleos to sleep with him, Apollod. 3.15.1. She then fled to Minos in Crete; divergent accounts of her adventures there; and returned to Athens, Apollod. ib., Ant. Lib. 41; where she was reconciled with Kephalos, Apollod.; or tested him and found him unfaithful, Ant. Lib. She was accidentally killed by him while spying on him to test his fidelity, Pherecydes; or on a hunting expedition herself, Apollodorus. She was buried by her father with a spear on the grave to signify murder, Istros FGrH 334 F 14 (for the trial, see under Kephalos).
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
IY6
* q p q ~ a ~xpGpvav ix The hero at the stern Place of worship. At Phaleron, Clem. Protr. 2.20.2, cf. Paus. 1. I .4: an altar.
Mythology. The hero was identified with Androgeos son of Minos, schol. Clem. loc. cit. (=Callim. fr. 103 Pf.); Pausanias loc. cit. mentions an altar of Androgeos under the name simply of 'hero'. A. vanquished all competitors at the Panathenaia and was sent by Aigeus against the Marathonian bull, Apollod. 3.15.7, and was killed by it, ib., Paus. 1.27.10 (hence the tribute to Crete, Plut. Thes. 15). But Eurygyes (q.v.) was also identified with the Cretan Androgeos. See pp. 40, 122. *nuhoGXoS,fipoivat nuhou~i&5Pylouchos, Pylouchides Place of worship. Thorikos (calendar, 50- I ). Cult details. Thargelion: H u [ h o p ~xopov, ] fipoivyoi nuhoxioi fp&x&Cav. Mythology unknown; Dunst, ZPE 25 (1977) 253, summarises suggestions on the significance of,these heroes. See also Parker, Boreas 15: Gifs to the Gods I39 n. 25.
+I
*fipoivat nuhkvi Place of worship. Erchia. Cult details. Receive sheep, to be consumed on the spot, on 14 Pyanopsion. * f i p o ~E K ~nupyhiq
Place of worship. Porthmos (Sounion?). Cult details. In Mounichion, receives a small pig at the Herakleia (Salaminioi decree line 85). IlGppaKoS Pyrrhakos
Cult unknown; the Pyrrhakidai are associated with Delos, BCH 53 (1929) 171-3. Mythology. P. was a hero who lived at the time of Erysichthon, Hsych. S.V. n6ppa~os.That is, he was associated with Erysichthon'(q.v.) in the cult of Apollo at Delos. "Rhamnous, f i p q ckpxq$~qs Place of worship. Uncertain; a circular construction in the fortress? (Pouilloux, Forrevesse 69). Pouilloux no. 26: hpp$zet hipot &[y]ahpa,late 6th/early 5th cent. No. 25 (= IG 112 2849), 4th-cent. dedication to Dionysos in theatre by priest of f i p o ~ ckpxq$~qs. Mythology. Unknown. See p. 93. 'P&pos. 'Pkp Raros, Rar
Place of worship. Cult not attested; he is the eponym of the Rarian plain at Eleusis. Mythology. Son of Kranaos, Hsych. S.V. Kpavaoij 1305. Married a daughter of Amphiktyon and was father of Triptolemos, Paus. 1.14.3 (Choirilos, Alope fr. 1 Nauck2; cf. Hsych. S.V. 'P&pos, Phot. S.V. 'Pcip). Father of Keleos, grandfather of Triptolemos, received Demeter at Eleusis, Suda S.V. 'Papicis.
APPENDIX 1
I97
* ‘Poytos Rhogios Place of worship. Thorikos. Cult details. Receives a sheep in Thargelion. Mythology. The version ‘Poyto5 for earlier conj. ‘Po
*cEplhq Semele (heroine or goddess?) ~ the Place of worship. (a) ? In Athens. The invocation of Dionysos as Xq~hfii’“ I a q at Lenaia (schol. Ar. Ran. 479) may possibly indicate some sort of cult for S. at this festival (if it is not merely to distinguish ‘Iacchos son of Semele’ from an Eleusinian figure: see under Iacchos). (b) Erchia. Receives a goat, as does Dionysos, on the same altar, on 16 Elaphebolion (two days after the end of the city Dionysia). Both sacrifices are to be consumed on the spot, and (?) by women only.(napa66apoq yuvaitj: see G. Daux, BCH 87 [ 19631 630-1 n. 4). Cults outside Attica (esp. in Boeotia), RE 2A 1342-3, Schachter Cults of Boeotia 3 (BZCS supp. 38.3, forthcoming). Mythology. S. is mother of Dionysos by Zeus already in Zl. 14.325, and consistently thereafter. Being a Theban, daughter of Kadmos, she has no Attic connexions, appearing here only as mother of Dionysos. *Cfipaxos Semachos (and his daughters) Place of worship. ? A Cqpdcxeiov near Laureion, IG 112 1582.53-4 (mid fourth cent.). But Steph. Byz. S.V. CqpaxiGa~makes him eponym of that deme, in northern Attica. See p. 98 n. 93. Mythology. S. and his daughters gave hospitality to Dionysos, who rewarded the daughters and their descendants with his priesthood, Steph. Byz. Or S. had one daughter, to whom Dionysos gave a fawnskin, Euseb. Chron. 30. *Cfipayyos Serangos Place of worship. The Serangeion in Peiraeus, an area established by S., containing a heroon, Phot. S.V. Cqpdcyy~iov.It also contained a bath-house, Isaios 6.33, Alciphron 3.7. A cave-like structure? (Phot., Suda S.V. &p~$ ,). Dragatsis, n A E 1917.20, connects IG I2 855, hdpoio hopoq, with these references, and adds [A~co]hh[ovos&no[.rpo~c]a~ou (= SEG 1.26) from the same area. Mythology. Founder of the area, Phot. S.V. Cqp&yy~~ov. *Cdpos, Zepos, CKipov Skiros (and Skiron) Places of worship. (a) Phaleron (or general area), Philochorus FGrH 328 F 111 (= Plut. Thes. 17.6-7); cf. Salaminioi decree, line 93. See also p. 38 n. 137. (b) Buried at Skiron on the Sacred Way, Paus. 1.36.3. Cult? This was the destination of the Skira procession. Cult details. (a) Receives a sheep (ram?) in Maimakterion, on the same altar as Athena Skiras, who receives a pregnant ewe, Sal. decree line 93. Other sacrifices? - Ferguson, Hesp. 7 (1938) 28.
I98
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Mythology. In the developed tradition, there are three more or less clearly distinguished figures, although they have obvious points of contact. (i) Skiros king of Salamis. Son of Poseidon, husband of Salamis, Hsych. S.V. X n p i x ~ h19qV&. Synoecist of Salamis, Phot., Suda S.V. X d p o ~ . Entrusted Nausithoos and Phaiax (qqv.) to the services of Theseus for the journey to Crete, Philochorus F C r H 328 F 1 1 1 (= Plut. Thes. 17.6). This figure is close to: ( i i ) Skiron or Skeiron the Megarian; a brigand killed by Theseus, hurled into the sea on the road from Megara, Bacchylides 17.24, al. (see Brommer, Theseus 14-18); but in the Megarian account a just man, son-in-law of Kychreus, father-in-law of Aiakos, Plut. Thes. 10.3; or sonin-law of Pandion, Paus. 1.39.6 (also quoting Megarian tradition). Gave his name to Athena Skirds, Praxion F G r H 484 F 1. Less close is: (iii) Skiros the prophet. An Eleusinian prophet who gave his name to Athena Skiras, Philochorus F C r H 328 F 14. Or a Dodonaian who came to Eleusis and helped the Eleusinians against Erechtheus, Paus. 1.39.6. C6hov Solon Heroic cult for Solon is nowhere specifically attested, but Ael. V H 8. I6 records that his tomb was at a gate 2v &@q Eiotovrov, recalling heroes at gates, such as Chalkodon, Antiope (qq.v.) and the heroes of Eretria; see above, p. 54. But Plut. Sol. 33 records that S.'s ashes were scattered over Salamis; cf. Aristides dnEp rQv rerrCxpov 46 (p. 130 Dindorf), indicating that this version too regards him in some sense as a protector-hero. *Zrecpavqcpdpo~Stephanephoros Place of worship. Uncertain. Apaxpai orecpavqcpopou are not connected; see L. Robert, Etudes dc tiimisniuriyire ,qiwyire (Paris I95 1 ) 103-35. Mythology. Harpocration S.V. attests a heroon in Athens, and suggests that the name S. may refer either to an Attic hero or alternatively to a son of Herakles by a Thestiad, quoting Hellanicus: respectively F G r H 323a F 9, F G r H 4 F 3. Croixo< Stoichos Cult unknown. Mythology. An Athenian autochthon, inventor of ? letters (oro~xeia),Dionysius Thrax 192.13 Hilgard. *Crpaqydq Strategos (the hero general)
Place of worship. The agora near the Metroon, Hesp. 15 (1946) no. 48 (c. 200). The other epigraphic evidence relating to this hero is also late (IG 11' 1035.53; Hesp. 29 [ 19601 no. 80, a dedication by a man who had been strategos); but Thompson, Athens conies of age 99-100, points to eighth-cent. graves with roughly contemporary offerings underneath the shrine and conjectures that this may have been an old cult. Mythology unknown.
APPENDIX 1
199
Ccpfjzzos Sphettos
Place of worship. Cult unknown; eponym of the deme Sphettos. Mythology. A Troizenian, son of Troizen, who with his brother Anaphlystos (q.v.) settled in Attica, Paus. 2.30.9.
*CxoivoCs Schoinous Place of worship. Peiraeus; the sanctuary is let out, along with others, in IG 112 2498. No cult details or mythology known. *fipwivai EKi Cxoivq Place of worship. Erchia. Cult details. On 19 Metageitnion they receive a sheep, to be consumed on the spot. Mythology. Unknown. C h a z p o s Sopatros
Cult unknown. Mythology. Institutor of ox sacrifice (Bouphonia), alternative name to Diomos; not a native Athenian, Porph. de abst. 2.29 (Theophrastus, ~ e pdoEP&~a). i But cf. Thaulon.
*Cooiv~w<Sosineos Place of worship. Thorikos. Cult details. Receives a sheep (ram) in Thargelion. Mythology. Unknown, but presumably a seafaring hero: see above, p. 37. C m 3 j p ~ sHepod% Saviours of Perseus
Place of worship. In the temenos of Perseus (q.v.), of uncertain location, Paus. 2.18.1. Cult details. They shared an altar, ib. Mythology. This was the cult title of Diktys and Klymene, who found and brought up the child Perseus after his grandfather Akrisios had cast him adrift with his mother Danae, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 10 (Klymene attested only in Paus. loc. cit.). T&h%, K&hws Talos, Kalos Place of worship. His grave was at the foot of the Acropolis, LJC. Pisc. 42; on the south slopes, Paus. 1.21.4 (K&hw,). Cf. Perdix: is the shrine the same? Mythology. T. was the son of Daidalos’ sister, killed by him from jealousy of his talent, Hellanicus FGrH 323a F 22, Paus. loc. cit., Phot., Suda s.v. nJip61~0skpov. Called also Perdix (4.v.) and Attalos, Tz. Chil. 1.490. His invention was to make a saw from the jawbone of a snake, Apollod. 3.15.8, al. The Cretan Talos (cf. Daidalos’ Cretan connexicns), RE 4A 2080-6.
T ~ i B p a qTeithras Place of worship. Cult unknown; eponym of the deme Teithras, schol. Ar. Ran. 477. Mythology. Son of Pandion, schol. Ar. Ran. 477. Companion of Theseus (fighting Amazons, with Mounichos, Phaleros and Phylakos), ARV2 1 174-5 (Aison). Teuthras (thus codd.) son of Pandion was father of Thespios, Steph. Byz. S.V. OEone~a.
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
200
*T~heoiGpoyo~ Telesidromos Place of worship. Eleusis, IG I3 5 . Cult details. Receives a ram (?) shared. with Triptolemos, in an agonal context (cf. name, as of Dolichos). The precise occasion is not clear: cf. Lewis’ bibliography ad loc. Mythology. Unknown. *T&GK~oG Teukros Place of worship. Phaleron, or general area, Salaminioi decree line 91 (with Philoch. FGrH 328 F 1 1 I). Cult at Xypete may be suggested by Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 13. See p. 38 n. 137. Cult details. Receives in Boedromion a sacrifice of a pig; Nauseiros, Phaiax and Poseidon Hippodromios also receive sacrifice. Was this the Kybernesia? See above, pp. 38-9. Mythology. Son of Telamon, brother of Ajax, lliud (e.g. 8.330); bastard son, 8.284 (as S. A,jux and later tradition), apparently not in 15.439. Son of Hesione, S. Ajux 434. Telamon accused him of complicity in the death of Ajax (cf. S. Aj. 1008-10)and he defended himself from on board ship at the Peiraeus court of Phreattys (the first to do this), Paus. I 28.1 I . Lived in Attica and ruled Xypete, Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 13 (= Dion. Hal. 1.61). Colonisation of Cyprus, Pi. Nem. 4.46, al. Alternative tradition of T. first king of Troy: Roscher 5.403-7. To (partially) reconcile the traditions: colonisation of the Troad by T. from Attica, Phanodemus loc. cit., al. (Xypete once called Troy, Strabo 604.) T i r a ~ o 5Titakos Place of worship. Cult unknown; the area Titakidai in the north-east must be connected. (Cf. also the genos or phratry Titakidai, Etym. M. s.v.) Mythology. T. was an autochthon who betrayed the town Aphidna, where Theseus was keeping Helen, to the Tyndaridai, Hdt. 9.73 (cf. Steph. Byz. S.V. TtradGai). Comparable is: T L ~ ~ ~ VTitenios LOS Cult unknown; connected with the Marathon area. Mythology. One of the Titans who lived near Marathon, who alone did not fight the Tyndaridai, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 74, Istros 334 F I (= Phot., Suda S.V. TtraviGa yijv). Cf. Titakos; Jacoby, IIIB Supp. p. 335, suggests that this is atthidographic speculation on the phrase T i t a v i ~yij, or else that Titenios is an epithet, e.g. of the hero Marathon. On the opponents of Theseus, see above, pp. 1 18-9. T o c a p i ~Toxaris See &v05 iarpos. TptKopuvt3o~,Tpt Koput3o~Trikory(n)thos Cult unknown; clearly the eponym of the deme Trikorythos (Hsych. S.V. Tpt~Oput30~. hvGp&io~ fipq). Mythology. Radke (RE 7.154) suggests that T. is Ajax, citing E. Or. 1480, rpiKopu6o$ A ’ i a ~ ; but cf. E. Ba. 123 where T ~ I K O ~ U ~is~ Eused S of the Korybantes. Emendations by Thilo in the corrupt passage Serv. Aerr. 6.21 would make T. father of Melite, one of the maidens who went to Crete with Theseus.
APPENDIX 1
20 I
*Tpinzoh&po< Triptolemos Place of worship. (a) Eleusis, IG I’ 5 , (a temple) Paus. 1.38.6. (b) Athens, a temple near that of Demeter and Kore (in the Eleusinion precinct), Paus. 1.14.1. (See also under Threptos.) See M. M. Miles, ‘The temple of Triptolemos in the city Eleusinion’, summary in AJA 86 (1982) 276. Cult details. With Telesidromos T. receives a (ram), IG I’ 5 (context? - see bibliography ad loc.). With others he receives a r p i z ~ o i apoapxo5 from the firstfruits, IG I’ 78.38, IG 112 140.20. His priest (?), IG 112 3705 (mid third cent. AC); priest of Demeter and Triptolemos, schol. Ar. Ach. 47. Mythology. An Eleusinian chieftain, H . Hymn Dem. 153, 474; here Demophon plays T.’s later part of young protCgC of Demeter or of the two goddesses. In the fifth century T. becomes younger: see Miles (above). There are many variations on T.’s descent, suggesting a late tradition; see further RE 7A 229-30. The following are the chief Son of Ge and Okeanos, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 53, Mousaios fr. 10 DK (= Paus. 1.14.2). Son of Eleusis or Eleusios, Panyassis fr. 24 K, Hyg. fah. 147, al. (for the connected story see under Eleusis). Son of Raros and a daughter of Amphiktyon, Choirilos fr. 1 Nauck2 (= Paus. loc. cit.). Son of Dysaules, brother of Eubouleus, Orph. fr. 5 1 K. Son of the Argive Trochilos, brother of Eubouleus (Argive version), Paus. loc. cit. Son of Keleos and Metaneira, Apollod. 1.5.2, Paus. 1.14.2, al. Which version Sophocles adopted in his Triptolemos is not known. T. was given corn by Demeter and travelled the world in a winged chariot, S. Trip., TGrF 4.596, see also Pearson ad loc.); cf. Philochorus FGrH 328 F 104, a rationalisation), teaching the arts of agriculture: this is shown on many sixth and fifth century vases; see Ch. Dugas, Me‘langes d’archhologie et d’histoire 62 (1950) 1-3 1, and Brommer, Giitrersagen in Vasenlisten (Marburg 1980) 42-3. To T. as to other Eleusinian princes Demeter showed the Mysteries, H. Hymn Dem. 474-8. T. initiated Herakles and the Dioskouroi, Xen. Hell. 6.3.6 (but cf. Eumolpos). He was a lawgiver (cf. Demeter Thesmophoros), Xenokrates fr. 98 Heinze; and became an underworld judge, P1. Apol. 41A. See further N. J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974) 194-6, RE 7A 2 13-3.
*TGvapo< Tynaros (hero?) Place of worship. Peiraeus, where was found IG 112 1262, a decree of 6taoh~atTOO Tuvcipou. The find-place and the un-Greek name suggest that T. may have been a foreign god rather more than a hero. *‘YarnvOiG&~, nap6Evot (or napi9Evot6amv6iG~~?) Hyakinthides, Parthenoi Place of worship. A Hyakinthion of uncertain location, IG 112 1035.52. Sacrificed on the hill called Hyakinthos, at ? Sphendonai, Phanodemus FCrH 325 F 4; at the tomb of Geraistos the Cyclops, Apollod. 3.15.8. They were buried at the spot where they were sacrificed, E. Erech. fr. 65.67 Austin. Cult details. Their temenos was & ~ C X T O VE. , Erech. fr. 65.87. They received annual sacrifice of bulls (?), and young girls danced in their honour (ib. 78-80). No wine was used in their cult, only water and honey (84-6); connexion with Dionysos, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 12 (see p. 61 n. 70). Cult title Parthenoi, Suda, Phot. S.V.nap6ivoi.
202
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
Mythology. In all sources these figures are maidens who gave themselves to be sacrificed for the sake of Athens. There are two versions: (a) They were the daughters of Erechtheus, E. Erech., [Dem.] 60.27; probably in Philochorus FGrH 328 F 12 and (?) Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 4 (= Phot., Suda S.V.napdEv01). Of the daughters, Protogeneia and Pandora gave themselves for sacrifice, Phot., Suda. There were three daughters, E. El-ech. fr. 47; in this version one daughter only was to be sacrificed, the rest killing themselves, fr. 65.68-70. Only the eldest daughter was sacrificed, to Persephone, Demaratos FGrH 42 F 4. One daughter, Chthonia, was sacrificed to Poseidon, and the rest killed themselves, Hyg.juhh. 46, 238. The occasion was the Eleusinian war, E. Erech., Lycurgus Leoc.. 98, Hyg. 48; or the enemy was Boeotian, Phanodemus loc. cit. They were translated to the aither and became goddesses, E. Erech. fr. 65.7 1-4; as Hyads, line 107, schol. Arat. Phucn. 172. (b) They were the daughters of Hyakinthos, a Laconian living in Athens, Harp., Suda S.V. ‘ Y ~ K L v - S ~they G E ~were ; sacrificed in response to an oracle when Minos was besieging the city, and famine and pestilence had struck, but to no avail; their names were Antheis, Aigle, Lytaia and Orthaia, Apollod. 3.15.8. Hyakinthos, a Spartan, sacrificed his daughter Antheis in response to an oracle, Hyg.juh. 238.2. One daughter of Hyakinthos was called Lousia (q.v. cf. Lytaia), Steph. Byz. S.V.A O U O I ~ . See pp. 59-63. ‘Ynipp~oqHyperbios Mythology. With Agrolas (q.v.), built the Pelasgian walls of the Acropolis, a Sicilian, Paus. 1.28.3. A Cyclops? See p. 107 n. 15. *‘Yn~pn&S~oq, fipoivai Hyperpedios and heroines Place of worship. Thorikos. Cult details. In Thargelion, H. receives a sheep, the heroines a table-offering. His name leads a sequence of heroes, but it is not clear whether they all form one sacrifice group.
* ‘ Y ~ o G ~ KHypodektes T ~ ~ Place of worship. West Athens, find-place of IG 112 2501 (late fourth century). Cult details. The precinct contained a sanctuary and an oiKia; the festival of H. was on 14 Boedromion, when the shrine was to be opened and garlanded at dawn and the statue of the hero or god (-S~oqin inscription) oiled and unveiled. H. was worshipped by orgeones, who let out the precinct in perpetuity, ib. Mythology. Unknown, but two possibilities suggest themselves. (a) H. was (at least originally) an underworld god, cf. ~ O ~ V G E K T ~ H. S , Hymn Dem. 9; nohuGiypov, ib. 17, 3 I , 404,430; noh~@voq, A. Suppl. 157. (b) Or he was the original ‘recipient’ of the k p k of Eleusis in Athens. See above, p. 75.
APPENDIX I
203
*‘Yrrljvios Hyttenios Place of worship. Marathon, Tetrapolis calendar B 30. Cult details. Before the Skira, H. receives a sheep (ram), in connexion with a sacrifice to Kourotrophos and perhaps to the Tritopatreis and the Akamantes. Mythology. Unknown. The Tetrapolis was earlier called ‘Yrqvicr, Steph. Byz. S.V. Tcrpchohis.
*@cria{Phaiax See Nauseiros/Nausithoos. *O&hqpos, @&hapo
Place of worship. Phaleron, where he had an altar, Paus. 1.1.4. Mythology. Son of Alkon (q.v.), Ap. Rhod. 1.96-7, Orph. Arg. 144 (Alkon’s flight to Euboea, Proxenos FGrH 425 F 2; Ph.’s Euboean and Thessalian connexions, see p. 96 n. 90 and RE 19.1665). Fought with Theseus against the Centaurs (Aspis 180 - an Attic Ph.? The Attic hero does often appear in connexion with Theseus). Fought the Amazons with Theseus (and Mounichos, Teithras and Phylakos), ARV2 1174-5 (Aison). An Argonaut, Ap. Rhod. 1.95-7, al. Colonised Soloi with (Theseus’ son) Akamas, Strabo 683; cf. Par. 380.5 (Ph. with Akamas, Demophon, Pompeus and Dosip(p)os). “ijpoq @qpaio<, fipoivq Pheraios and heroine
Place of worship. Marathon, Tetrapolis calendar B 15. Cult details. Ph. and the related heroine receive sacrifice in Gamelion (perhaps in connexion with Ge, Zeus Hypatos, Ioleos and Kourotrophos). @tmios Philaios Place of worship. Ph. is connected with Brauron/Philaidai, but there is no evidence of his cult there. Mythology. Son of Ajax, Hdt. 6.35, Plut. Sol. 10; and of Lysidike, Tz. Lyc. 53, or of Cheirobaphia, schol. Il. 15.439. Or son of Eurysakes, Paus. 1.35.2. Gave Salamis to the Athenians, Plut., Paus. locc. citt. Settled in Brauron (as Eurysakes in Melite), Plut. Sol. 10. For the unknown Phileus or Phyleus (q.v.) on the Marathon monument, Curtius proposed to read Philaios (Gesamm.Abhdlg. 2.366); but several other suggestions have been made. Ph. son of the Molossian Mounichos and Lelante (Ant. Lib. 14) is presumably not related. ? *Othovis Philonis
Place of worship. ? Thorikos. (@th[oviFi].) Cult details. ? Receives table-offerings in Mounychion. Mythology. Daughter of Deion, native of Pamassos, mother by Apollo of Philammon and of Autolykos by Hermes, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 120, cf. Hes. fr. 64 M-W. A native of Thorikos, Konon FGrH 26 F 26.
Oh6oq Phlyos Cult unknown; clearly he is eponym of Phlya.
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
204
Mythology. Son of Earth, Paus. 4.1.5, quoting Athenian tradition and the Lykomid hymn to Demeter attributed to Mousaios; father of Kelainos, ib. (Connexion with Andania, see Lykos.) Founder of Phlyan mysteries? See p. 68. O o t v i q Phoinike Cult unknown. Mythology. Daughter of Aktaion, sister of Aglauros, Pandrosos and Herse; when she died a virgin, Aktaion named the letters of the alphabet Ooivilcriia ypappara in her honour, Skamon FGrH 476 F 3 (= Phot., Suda S.V.OoiviKilia ypdrppara). This figure is presumably an invention, but Ph. is known as a heroine’s name in other contexts. “ O o i v i ~Phoinix Place of worship. Thorikos (right side, 11). Cult details. Receives a full-grown victim, perhaps in Metageitnion. Mythology. Two mythological figures go by this name: the ~ p o c p oof~ Achilles (11. 9) and the father of Europa (Hes. fr. 140 M-W), but the hero may equally well be simply ‘the Phoenician’: see R. Parker, ‘Festivals of the Attic demes’ in Gfts lo rhe Gods = Boreas 15: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 147. “OoppaS Phorbas Place of worship. A Phorbanteion somewhere in the city, Andoc. Myst. 62, Hyperides fr. 145 Blass, al.; see Judeich? 353. Mythology. Ph. is a common heroic name; it seems that there were two main traditions relating to the Athenian Phorbas. (a) Ph. king of the Kouretes killed by Erechtheus (in the Eleusinian war?), Andron FGrH 10 F 1. Son of Poseidon, Hellanicus FGI-H 323a F 3. From Acamania, schol. ZI. 18.483 (see pp. 1 14-5). (b) A Thesean hero. Charioteer of Theseus, Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 152; cf. E. Suppl. 681 and RhM 27 (1912) pl. 7. Tutor of Theseus, inventor of wrestling, Polemon fr. 55 Preller; Istros FGrH 334 F 31 seems to deny that he taught Theseus wrestling. Fighting companion of Theseus, E. Suppl. 680-4; fought with Theseus against the Amazons, Pherecydes loc. cit.; cf. A R v 1268.1, Theseus leaving home with the older Phorbas. Opaot6ia Phrasithea See Praxithea. OpiapoS, OpiappoS Phrearos (Phrearrhos?)
Cult unknown; eponym of the deme Phrearrnioi, Steph. Byz.
S.V.
@pe&pioi.
QpiazzoS Phreattos
Cult unknown; eponym of the lawcourt i v Qpearroi in Peiraeus, Harp., Suda Opeamo’i (Theophrastus).
S.V.
2v
APPENDIX 1
205
*@pOvzq Phrontis Place of worship. ? At Sounion, in the temenos of Athena; see H. Abramson, ‘A hero shrine for Phrontis at Sounion?’, Cal. Studs. Class. Anr. 12 (1979) 1-19, modifying Ch. Picard, ‘L’hCro6n de Phrontis au Sounion’, Rev. Arch. 65me sCr. 16 (1940) 5-28. Cult details. Presumably a seafaring hero; above, pp. 41-2. Mythology. Ph. son of Onetor was the helmsman of Meneleos, who on the return from Troy died off Sounion and was given burial on the cape, Od. 3.278-85. See pp. 4 1-2, 106, 130.
@G~uKo< Phylakos Place of worship. In myth Ph. is connected with Phylake in Thessaly; his claim to be Attic rests on the company in which he is found below. Toepffer 256 speculates that he may also be eponym of Phylakia in Attica (Plut. Arut. 34). Mythology. Son of Deion and Diomede, brother of Asteropeia, Aktor, Kephalos and Ainetos (the last two being Attic heroes), Apollod. 1.9.4. Fought with Theseus against the Amazons? - he is depicted thus in company with the Attic heroes Mounichos, Teithras and Phaleros, A R v 1174-5 (Aison). Other traditions relating to Ph. and his son Iphiklos seem not to be Attic: RE 20.988-9. ? @ukG< Phyleus
The name cptheG
* @Gzaho~Phytalos Place of worship. His tomb was at Lakiadai, near the temple of Demeter and Kore, Athena and Poseidon, Paus. 1.37.2; presumably at the Sacred Fig-tree, Plut. Mor. 703C, al. (H. van Herwerden, Mnemosyne 15 [ 18871 52 points out that the epitaph quoted in Pausanias cannot be early.) Mythology. Here Ph. received Demeter, and as a reward was taught by her the cultivation of the fig, Paus. 1.37.2. Xahtcivo~Chalkinos Cult unknown; perhaps at the Pythion at Aigaleos? Mythology. Ch. was a descendant nf Kephalos in the tenth generation who together with Daitos after purification at Delphi was allowed by Apollo to return to Attica and told to found a sanctuary ‘where they saw a trireme sailing on land’. This happened at the Poikilon Oros, where they saw a snake running into its hole. The sanctuary became the Pythion at Aigaleos. Paus. 1.37.6-7.
THE HEROES OF ATTICA
206
X a h ~ ~ O nChalkiope q Cult unknown. Mythology. Daughter of Alkon (q.v.) and fled with him from Attica to Euboea, Proxenos FGrH 425 F 2. Or daughter of Rhexenor and second wife of Aigeus, Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 5 ; o r (?) daughter of Chalkodon (q.v.), second wife of Aigeus, Istros FGrH 334 F 10. * X ~ ~ K ~ G CChalkodon OV
Place of worship. At the Peiraeus gate, near the tombs of those who fell against the Amazons, Kleidemos FGrH 323 F I8 = Plut. Thcs. 27.2. Ch. also had a tomb near Teumessos in Boeotia, Paus. 9.19.3; in myth he is always Euboean. Mythology. Ch. was descended from Erechtheus, Eustath. 11. 28 1.37 (on 2.540- I ) , schol. /I. 2.536; but Eust. / I . 281.43, a different genealogy, has no Attic elements. He is son of Abas in both traditions. He was father of Chalkiope (?) - at any rate father of the second wife of Aigeus, Athen. 13.556F. He received the young Akamas and Demophon when they were sent to Euboea for safety, (?) Hellanicus FCrH 323A F 21 (elsewhere this part is taken by his son Elephenor). The reference of S. Skyrioi, TG;.F 555b. IS), is not clear, and the myth relating to the Athenian heroon is not known. X d r h ~Chalkon ~
Mythology. Ch. seems to be simply a genealogical link, of Attic descent. He was son of Metion, father of Abas, grandfather of Chalkodon, schol. II. 2.536. X190via Chthonia
Cult unknown (though she was sometimes identified as a Hyakinthid, q.v.). Mythology. Daughter of Erechtheus, married to her uncle Boutes, Apollod. 3.15.1. Or she was the daughter sacrificed to Poseidon by Erechtheus, whereupon her sisters killed themselves, Hyg.jirhh. 46, 238. Or she was a daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia, schol. Ap. Rhod. I .2 I I - perhaps a confusion with: Xtovq Chione
Cult unknown. Mythology. Daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia (q.v.), mother of Eumolpos (q.v.) by Poseidon, Paus. 1.38.2, schol. E. Phoeii. 854. She threw her child into the sea to escape detection, but Poseidon took him to Ethiopia, apparently in E. Ercch. (fr. 39 Austin); also Apollod. 3.15.4. Cf. also Chione daughter of Arktouros, carried off by Boreas and mother by him of the Hyperborean priests of Apollo, Hecataeus of Abdera FGrH 265 F 12, [Plut.] deflmni. 5.3. * Y i O u p o ~Psithyros (?)
Place of worship unknown. Hsych.
S.V.
+6upa: .. . ~ aijpoos i X6ljvqoiv 6vopa.
APPENDIX 1
207
Cult details. Ps. was also an epithet of Aphrodite and Eros in Athens, as p O u p a o r i \ ~of Hermes, Harp. S.V. pnbupiorii< 'Eppqq, Eust. Od. 1881.1 (on 20.8, from Paus. Att.); Ps. may have been worshipped in connexion with one or more of these deities. Cf. the hero Psithyros at Lindos; see Usener, KIeine Schriften 4.467-9 (= RhM 59 [1904] 623-4). *'Qpeibuia Oreithyia Place of worship. Boreas had an altar at the Ilissos near Agrai, where he was said to have carried off O., P1. Phaedr.. 229A. Very likely 0. was worshipped there also; they were both invoked by the Athenian fleet in extraordinary circumstances off Euboea, Hdt. 7.189. Cult details. (Festival with a banquet for Boreas, Hsych. S.V. popeaomi [popeaopoi].) The pair invoked for favourable winds, Hdt. loc. cit. Mythology. Daughter of Erechtheus (as always), wife of Boreas, Hdt. 7.189. Carried off by Boreas, either from beside the Ilissos or from the Areopagos, Plato loc. cit. Or she was sent by her father as kanephoros to Athena Polias and then carried off, Akousilaos FGrH 2 F 30. Mother of Chione (q.v.), Paus. 1.38.2, al.; and of Kleopatra, Zetes and Kalais, Apollod. 3.15.1-2. The rape is a popular subject for vase-painters; see Brommer, Gottersagen 1 1- 16. A R v 496.2 is the earliest example with names.
APPENDIX 2: THE TOMB OF OEDIPUS Contemporary, independent traditions placing the tomb at Kolonos and under the Areopagos are clearly not possible; we must make a choice, or reach a compromise solution. Most scholars have taken one of two points of view: that Sophocles is using poetic licence and inventing details, or that the Areopagos version is of later origin (it is attested only in Paus. 1.28.7 and Val. Max. 5.3.3) - both equally unprovable. An attempt to reconcile the two locations was made by Wordsworth (Athems arid Attica, ch. 30). According to t h i s view, which is supported by Frazer in his commentary on the Pausanias passage, the Sophoclean Oedipus on leaving the stage must be supposed to make towards the Acropolis area, there to die and to be ‘buried’ somewhere nearby. The ~ . a . s c x p p & ~b qs ~d ~is then the cave on the north side of the Areopagos, the 63qoEo~h p i i 9 o u ZE @Vi%jpCrZOlto be placed somewhere north of the Acropolis (Paus. I . I8.4), and the ~iUxh6ouAfipqzpos xpoodyliog x&p5- to be translated then as ‘hill in view of Demeter’ - is the Pnyx, looking towards the sanctuary of Demeter Chloe, called &&xh&lin an inscription of the first century (IG 111.191; this section not transcribed in IG 112 3892). The coincidence is striking; especially persuasive is the case of Demeter Chloe or Euchloos, for ‘whom there is no evidence at Kolonos. (The evidence could in any case only be literary, as the usual identitication of SkouzC with this hill is purely conjectural.) But there are difficulties in this view. The duplication of the EumenidedSemnai at both places is an awkward anomaly - at the play’s beginning Oedipus wanders unknowingly into a sanctuary of the Eumenides at Kolonos, while the Areopagos grave is also within the precinct of the Semnai. The Oopimos m%pos, if that is indeed the correct reading, also presents difficulties; surely this should be identifiable, if it is a feature in central Athens? Furthermore, the K O ~ T C X P ~ & K66ov TT~ x ~ l h ~ op&iYpoioi ’i~ yilikv 6ppL,opEvov ( 1590-I ) is obviously identical with the ~ ~ K O ~ O6665 U S of line 57, which the context shows to be at or very near to Kolonos; the scholiast on the former passage refers to Istros for the XCX~KO%V660s as a boundary near Kolonos (FCr-H 334 F 17). Despite the seductive likenesses in topography, then, it looks as though we must conclude that Sophocles means us to think of Oedipus’ mysterious disappearance and ‘burial’ as taking place somewhere in the neighbourhood of Kolonos. But the evidence for a connexion of Oedipus with Kolonos independent of Sophocles IS not really conclusive. E. Phoen. 1706-7 would. if genuine, establish the connexion, since the play was produced between 41 I and 409, roughly four years before OC was written and nine years before it was produced: ANT. xo6 zis (TE n6pyos X ~ 6 i 6 0 5xpoo&l$.roti: OIA. k p o Kohovos. ~ 6cbpcr19’inniou 6~00. But there are good reasons for believing these lines to be an interpolation, based on knowledge of Sophocles’ play (Fraenkel, Zu den Phoenissen des Ellripides (Munich 1963) 97-100 cf. Reeve, GRBS 13 [1972] 467-8). Also post-Sophoclean is the testimony of Androtion (FGrH 334 F 62). who has Oedipus making supplication at Kolonos, but at the otherwise unknown sanctuary of Demeter and Athena Poliouchos, not the Semnai; this may be independent tradition, or it may be simply a personal ‘correction’ of Sophocles based on knowledge of the local sanctuaries. Otherwise it is not until Aelius Aristides (46, 6xbp T&V ZEZZ&~WV, Dindorf 2 p. 230) that we find an unequivocal assertion that Oedipus was buried at Kolonos, and his source was surely Sophocles rather than local tradition. Even the inclusion of Oedipus at the heroon at Kolonos (Paus. 1.30.4) could conceivably have come about because of the fame of Sophocles’ play.
208
APPENDIX 2
209
The Areopagos version is not unassailable, either. It is not attested before the first century after Christ, and although Pausanias ( 1.28.7) demonstrates that there was a story explaining the presence of the bones, it is far from clear that this version was already current in the time of Sophocles. There is nothing inherently implausible in the suggestion of Carl Robert (Oidipus, Berlin 1915, 42-3) that the Areopagos story originates in the identification with Oedipus of the hero Hesychos, who received a 7cpo8up at the festival of the Semnai; this identification would itself be influenced by the play, in the close association of Oedipus with the Eumenides (cuppop&< cGv6qp’ Cpfjs, 46) and the stress on silence in the cult of the latter ( & ~ & ~ K T C O S , &cphvos,&hoyoqTO T&S E ~ ) ( P & ~ozopa ov cppovzi6os ~ E v T E ~30-3: , &nvo~a cpovOv yq6k yqrcuvhv Po+, 489). We are forced therefore to rely on probabilities, and here one’s choice can only be subjective. I am inclined to feel that there is a little too much evidence connecting Oedipus with Kolonos to be explained simply by the influence of Sophocles’ play. In particular the oracle cited by the scholiast on OC 57, which speaks of Boeotians coming against Kolonos Hippios (p. 51 n. 33), seems unlikely to have been inspired by the play: it makes no mention of Oedipus, but does supply some evidence for Athenian-Boeotian conflict in the Kolonos area. Any Theban defeat in such conflict could easily have been explained by the intervention of the Theban Oedipus on the side of the Athenians, even if there had been no cult of Oedipus in the area before.
APPENDIX 3: THE TRIBAL PRIESTHOOD OF ERECHTHEUS The prytany decree Ag. XV no. 98 (Erechtheis) shows that the priest of the eponymos was a man of Kekropis. This suggests that the situation in this tribe was similar to that i n Kekropis and Hippothontis; one priest served for both public and tribal cults, and he was selected on the old gentilician pattern. (A newly-established tribal priesthood would surely draw its candidates from within the tribe.) But there are complicating features; the cult of (Poseidon) Erechtheus was rather more conspicuous in the state than those of the other two heroes, and the priesthood was held by the prominent family of the Eteoboutadai. Further evidence confuses the picture somewhat. The chief difficulty is the fragmentary fourth-century inscription IG 112 1 146, where although restoration remains problematic (contrast Kirchner's text with that of Sokolowski, LSCG 31) it is clear that the tribe Erechtheis is somehow involved (line 6, [ q s cpuhfjc,] rfjc, 'Ep&x~Yqi[Goc,]). Thus the priest mentioned in line 3-4 ([rov . k p & a rov &&i] hdnxovza) is clearly the priest serving the tribe. This phrase does not, however, imply an annual term of office, and the mention of sortition does not contradict the testimony of [Plut.] Mor. 843F, although this passage has sometimes been adduced as a problem in the identification of the Eteoboutad and .the tribal priesthoods. In the literary text, dealing with the life of Lykourgos, we are told that Habron, haxhv 2~ TOG gvous -cilv kpo06vqv, surrendered the priesthood to his brother Lykophron. The irregularity of this surrender should not be a stumbling-block in our view of the normal procedure; as for Habron's becoming priest in the first place, the natural meaning of the Greek is 'having received the priesthood by sortition from among the eligible members of the genos'; it does not imply that he obtained it by strict inheritance from his father. Sortition is the most characteristic from of appointment of a gentilician priesthood, although the numbers of those eligible might not be large (see p. 71 n. 37). More intractable is the separation of two recipients of cult in lines 2-3: [ r h noo&.tFO]v~ KCC~ r01 'Epr[xd&i]. The official title was Poseidon Erechtheus, not Poseidon arid Erechtheus; this is confirmed by fifth-century usage (1G I2 580) and made explicit by Euripides (Austin, Nova fbagmeiita euripidea, Erectheus fr. 65.90ff.: Athena to Praxithea): 6i& T 6 I O & l W K O V 2p p&CfTllTcdkl t&6kalK&hEi)O 7C&plpOhOlolh d V O l s , K E K ~ T ~ ~ E T 6k C X TOG I KTCCVOVTOSO ~ ~ V E K C X oepvos nooe16hv h o p ' Enovopaop&vo< &orois ' E p q 6 ~ i 2p ) ~ cpovaioi pou66zois. For your husband I bid a sacred precinct be built with stone surrounding-walls in the middle of the city (acropolis), and because of his killer, Erechtheus will be named dread Poseidon by the citizens amidst sacrifice of bulls. TcOoEI
Otherwise it is not until the time of Hadrian that we find iepEos nooa68voS Ikiqoxou ~ a i ' E p q d & o < (IG 112 5058). Even in that inscription the K& may merely separate the two epithets; Pausanias, however, adopts a tradition which clearly regards Poseidon and Erechtheus as separate ( I .26.5). But this is very much later; for the classical period IG 112 1 146 is unique. For this reason and that outlined above, Kirchner, followed by Toepffer (AG 125-6) and Schlaifer ( H S C P 51 [1940] 255-6), supposed that the reference was to a separate tribal priesthood, unconnected with the Eteoboutadai. But these conclusions will not stand in the face of the prytany decree mentioned above.
210
APPENDIX 3
21 1
Instead of two different priests for the tribal and the state cults, what we may perhaps have is two different sacrifice customs and two different pictures of the recipient(s). Although ‘Poseidon Erechtheus’ features in an apparently private, early to mid fifth century dedication by two men of Erechtheis, it is apparent that the concept of Poseidon Erechtheus is already a difficult one in the 420’s. For Euripides, the Poseidon element is simply a name. Figures of this type may represent an early and hence anomalous stage in the hero’s development, their titles preserved in cult but enigmatic to the worshippers. The enigma may have led to changes in cults of a slightly different complexion. Loraux has pointed out the double significance of Erechtheus, as both the figure on the Acropolis, the autochthonous ancestor of all Athenians, and the tribal eponym, taking his place in the agora, one among ten (Enfunts, 53-7). This double nature is reflected not in a double priesthood, but in two different styles of cult complex. In the old state cult, there is one recipient, receiving a sacrifice more appropriate perhaps to god than to hero. In the tribal cult, it is much clearer that Erechtheus is a hero with a human past, an early king of Athens. He may perhaps be worshipped, as Pausanias says, in connexion with Poseidon, but he is not identified with Poseidon. Rather he would stand in a typical subordinate relation of hero to god, as among the other eponymoi, Pandion to Zeus. Hence ‘Poseidon and Erechtheus’ in the tribal cult, a concept which eventually comes to predominate even in the state cult.