Nature - Myth - Religion in Ancient Greece: Natur - Mythos - Religion Im Antiken Griechenland

Natur – Mythos – Religion
im antiken Griechenland
Nature – Myth – Religion
in Ancient Greece
Herausgegeben von Tanja Susanne Scheer
Alte Geschichte
Potsdamer
altertums wissenschaftliche
Franz Steiner Verlag Beiträge
67
Tanja Susanne Scheer
Natur – Mythos – Religion im antiken Griechenland
Nature – Myth – Religion in Ancient Greece
POTSDAMER ALTERTUMSWISSENSCHAFTLICHE
BEITRÄGE ( PAWB )
Herausgegeben von Pedro Barceló (Potsdam), Peter Riemer (Saarbrücken),
Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt) und John Scheid (Paris)
Band 67
Natur – Mythos – Religion
im antiken Griechenland
Nature – Myth – Religion
in Ancient Greece
Herausgegeben von Tanja Susanne Scheer
Franz Steiner Verlag

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VORWORT
Wie konstruierten die antiken Griechen ihre natürliche Umwelt in Mythos und
Ritual? Welche Vorstellungen und Handlungsstrategien lieferten mythische Tradi-
tion und religiöses Ritual beim Versuch, sich diese natürliche Umwelt anzueignen
und auf sie einzuwirken?
Diese Fragestellung entwickelte sich im Kontext des Göttinger althistorischen
DFG-Projekts „Wo liegt Arkadien? Arkadienbilder in der klassischen Antike“.1
Sie stand im Zentrum der interdisziplinären Tagung „Nature – Myth – Religion in
Ancient Greece“, die vom 12. bis 14. November 2015 am Althistorischen Seminar
der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen stattfand. Die Erträge dieser Tagung wer-
den in diesem Band vorgelegt.
Entsprechend habe ich allen zu danken, die am Zustandekommen dieses Ban-
des beteiligt waren. Dies sind zunächst die Konferenzteilnehmer aus der Alten Ge-
schichte, Klassischen Archäologie, Klassischen Philologie und Religionswissen-
schaft, die ihre fachspezifischen Perspektiven eingebracht und so eine wunderbare
altertumswissenschaftliche Diskussion ermöglicht haben. Anna Neff und die Hilfs-
kräfte des Althistorischen Seminars haben mich bei der Organisation der Tagung
unterstützt; das Göttinger Centrum Orbis Orientalis et Occidentalis (CORO) hat zur
Finanzierung der Tagung beigetragen.
Dem Herausgebergremium der „Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftlichen Bei-
träge“, besonders Jörg Rüpke, Erfurt, danke ich für die Aufnahme des Bandes in
die Reihe.
Bei der Vorbereitung der Manuskripte für den Druck haben sich besonders Lisa
Schneider, Marte Zepernick, sowie – stets kompetent und lösungsorientiert – Mar-
tin Lindner mit Rat und Tat eingebracht. Von Seiten des Franz Steiner Verlags ist
das Buch von Katharina Stüdemann und Sarah-Vanessa Schäfer professionell und
geduldig begleitet worden. Ihnen sei für ihren Einsatz sehr gedankt.
Göttingen, Althistorisches Seminar, im November 2018

Tanja S. Scheer
1 DFG GZ SCHE 421/3-1

INHALTSVERZEICHNIS
Allgemeines Abkürzungsverzeichnis ................................................................. 9
I BEGRIFFE, KONZEPTE, METHODEN
Tanja S. Scheer
Natur – Mythos – Religion im antiken Griechenland: Eine Einleitung ............. 13
Katja Sporn
Natural Features in Greek Cult Places: The Case of Athens .............................. 29
Richard Gordon
The Greeks, Religion and Nature in German Neo-humanist Discourse
from Romanticism to Early Industrialisation ..................................................... 49
Jennifer Larson
Nature Gods, Nymphs and the Cognitive Science of Religion .......................... 71
II DIE VEREHRUNG DER ‚NATUR‘ BEI DEN GRIECHEN?
Jan N. Bremmer
Rivers and River Gods in Ancient Greek Religion and Culture ........................ 89
Esther Eidinow
“They Blow Now One Way, Now Another” (Hes. Theog. 875):
Winds in the Ancient Greek Imaginary .............................................................. 113
Renate Schlesier
Sapphos aphrodisische Fauna und Flora ............................................................ 133
Julia Kindt
Animals in Ancient Greek Religion: Divine Zoomorphism
and the Anthropomorphic Divine Body ............................................................. 155
Dorit Engster
Von Delphinen und ihren Reitern: Delphine in Mythos und Kult ..................... 171
8 Inhaltsverzeichnis
III NATUR ALS SCHAUPLATZ MYTHISCHEN GESCHEHENS

UND RELIGIÖSEN HANDELNS
Marietta Horster
Apollo’s Servants – Cleaning the Sanctuary and Keeping Things in Order ...... 201
David Gilman Romano

Mt. Lykaion as the Arcadian Birthplace of Zeus ............................................... 219
IV NATUR, MYTHOS UND RELIGION IN DER KONSTRUKTION

VON VERGANGENHEIT
Angela Ganter
Encoding asty and chora: Theban Polis Identity Between Nature
and Religion ....................................................................................................... 241
Anna Christina Neff

Von den Azania kaka zur euhydros Arkadia: Wasser in Arkadien ..................... 251
Tanja S. Scheer
The Ambivalence of Mother Earth: Concepts of Autochthony
in Ancient Arcadia .............................................................................................. 269
Register .............................................................................................................. 291

ALLGEMEINES ABKÜRZUNGSVERZEICHNIS
Grundsätzlich richten sich die Abkürzungen antiker Autoren und ihrer Werke sowie
zitierter Zeitschriften in den deutschsprachigen Beiträgen des Bandes nach dem
Neuen Pauly. In den englischsprachigen Beiträgen wurden die Abkürzungen in
Brill’s New Pauly bzw. ergänzend die des Oxford Classical Dictionary zugrunde
gelegt.
BMC Thessaly P. Gardner (Hrsg.), A Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Brit-

ish Museum. Thessaly to Aetolia, London 1883 (ND 1963).
CIG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, 4 Bde., Berlin 1828–
1877.
DK H. Diels und W. Kranz (Hrsg.), Fragmente der Vorsokrati-
ker. Griechisch und deutsch, 3 Bde., Hildesheim 1906–1922.
DNP H. Cancik und H. Schneider (Hrsg.), Der Neue Pauly. Enzy-
klopädie der Antike, Stuttgart und Weimar 1996 ff.
FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker,
3 Teile in 14 Bd., Leiden 1923–1958, Teil 1, 2. Aufl., Leiden
1957.
I. Alexandreia Troas M. Ricl (Hrsg.), The Inscriptions of Alexandreia Troas,
Bonn 1997.
I. Anazarbos M. H. Sayar (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von Anazarbos und
Umgebung. Teil 1: Inschriften aus dem Stadtgebiet und der
nächsten Umgebung der Stadt, Bonn 2000.
I. Cret. M. Guarducci und F. Halbherr (Hrsg.), Inscriptiones Creti-
cae, 4 Bde., Rom 1935–1950.
I. Ery. H. Engelmann (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von Erythrai und
Klazomenai, 2 Bde., Bonn 1972–1973.
I. EstremoOriente F. Canali De Rossi (Hrsg.), Iscrizioni dello estremo oriente
greco. Un repertorio, Bonn 2004.
I. Kalchedon R. Merkelbach (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von Kalchedon,
Bonn 1980.
I. Priene W. Blümel und R. Merkelbach (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von
Priene, 2 Bde., Bonn 2014.
10 Allgemeines Abkürzungsverzeichnis
I. Smyrna G. von Petzl (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von Smyrna, 2 Bde.,

Bonn 1982–1990.
IEG M. L. West (Hrsg.), Iambi et elegi graeci ante Alexandrum
cantati, 2 Bde., 2. Aufl., Oxford 1989–1992.
IG Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin 1873 ff.
LSAM F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l’Asie mineure, Paris 1955.
LSCG F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques, Paris 1969.
LSS F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques. Supplement,
Paris 1962.
LSJ9 Supp. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones et al. (Hrsg.), A Greek-
English Lexicon, 9. Aufl., Oxford 1940; Suppl.: 1968, ND
1992.
NGSL E. Lupu, Greek Sacred Law. A Collection of New Docu-
ments, Leiden 2005, 2. Aufl., Leiden 2009.
OF O. Kern (Hrsg.), Orphicorum Fragmenta, 3. Aufl., Zürich
1972.
OF Bernabé A. Bernabé (Hrsg.), Poetae epici Graeci. Testimonia et frag-
menta, Teil 1.1. Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia
et fragmenta, München et al. 2007.
PGM K. Preisendanz und A. Henrichs (Hrsg.), Papyri Graecae
Magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, 2 Bde., 2. Aufl.,
Berlin 1973.
PMG D. L. Page (Hrsg.), Poetae melici graeci, Oxford 1962.
RE G. Wissowa et al. (Hrsg.), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Bearbeitung, Stutt-
gart 1893–1980.
RECAM II S. Mitchell, Regional Epigraphic Catalogues of Asia Minor,
Teil 2. The Ankara District: The Inscriptions of North Gala-
tia, Oxford 1982.
SH H. Lloyd-Jones und P. Parsons (Hrsg.), Supplementum helle-
nisticum, Berlin und New York 1983.
Syll.3 W. Dittenberger (Hrsg.), Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum,
4 Bde, 3. Aufl., Leipzig 1915–1924.
TAM Tituli Asiae minoris, Wien 1901 ff.
TrGF B. Snell, R. Kannicht und S. Radt (Hrsg.), Tragicorum grae-
corum fragmenta, Bd. 1, 2. Aufl., Göttingen 1986; Bde. 2–4,
Göttingen 1977–1985.
I
BEGRIFFE, KONZEPTE, METHODEN

NATUR – MYTHOS – RELIGION IM ANTIKEN
GRIECHENLAND: EINE EINLEITUNG
Tanja S. Scheer, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
1. EINFÜHRUNG
„Die Orte auf dem Lande und die Bäume lehren mich nichts, die Menschen in der
Stadt jedoch schon.“1 Dieses Dictum legt Platon seinem Sokrates in den Mund.
Quellenaussagen wie diese haben die moderne Forschung dazu geführt, immer wie-
der den Anthropozentrismus der griechischen Kultur zu betonen.2 Bestärkt erschien
diese Einschätzung durch den Befund in der griechischen Kunst, in der ein Phä-
nomen, welches der modernen Landschaftsmalerei vergleichbar wäre, fehlt.3 Für
die ‚Natur‘, so scheint es auf den ersten Blick, hatten die Griechen weder einen Be-
griff, geschweige denn dass sie ihr besonderes Interesse entgegen gebracht hätten.4
Im vorliegenden Band soll das Verhältnis der Griechen zur Natur aus einer neuen
Perspektive beleuchtet werden: Untersucht werden in unterschiedlicher Schwer-
punktsetzung Aspekte der vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen Natur, Mythos und
Religion. Es geht also nicht um die Auffindung eines vielleicht doch vorhandenen
Naturbegriffs in unterschiedlichen philosophischen Schulen und auch nicht um die
Frage nach der künstlerischen Gestaltung landschaftlicher Idyllen in der griechi-
schen Kultur.5
Der platonische Sokrates erweist sich in seiner Haltung zur Natur einmal mehr
nicht als der ‚Durchschnittsgrieche‘. Schon die griechischen Quellen der archai-
schen Zeit bezeugen die enge Verbindung von Natur, Mythos und Religion: Wenn
Nymphen geboren werden, so versichert die Göttin Aphrodite ihrem Geliebten An-
chises im homerischen Hymnus, so
„wachsen zusammen mit ihnen / Tannen und hochgewipfelte Eichen im nährenden Boden, /
ragen empor im hohen Gebirg in sprossender Schöne: / heilige Götterbezirke; so pflegt sie das
Volk zu benennen; / niemals aber schlägt sie kahl ein menschlicher Axthieb.“6
1 Plat. Phaidr. 230cd: φιλομαθὴς γάρ εἰμι: τὰ μὲν οὖν χωρία καὶ τὰ δένδρα οὐδέν μ᾽ ἐθέλει
διδάσκειν, οἱ δ᾽ ἐν τῷ ἄστει ἄνθρωποι.
2 Cohen 2009: 327.
3 Cohen 2009: 306; Sporn 2015: 342.
4 Zum griechischen Begriff φύσις (physis), der nicht mit lateinisch natura bzw. mit einem mo-
dernen Naturbegriff im Sinne von ‚naturaler Umwelt‘ gleichgesetzt werden kann, s. Loraux
1996: 320; Cohen 2009: 306.
5 Zum Begriff der Natur und des Natürlichen in der griechischen Philosophie vgl. etwa Heine-
mann 2001.
6 Hom. h. Aphrod. 264–272 (übers. A. Weiher): τῇσι δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ ἢ ἐλάται ἠὲ δρύες ὑψικάρηνοι /
γεινομένῃσιν ἔφυσαν ἐπὶ χθονὶ βωτιανείρῃ, / καλαί, τηλεθάουσαι, ἐν οὔρεσιν ὑψηλοῖσιν. /
ἑστᾶσ᾽ ἠλίβατοι, τεμένη δέ ἑ κικλήσκουσιν / ἀθανάτων: τὰς δ᾽ οὔ τι βροτοὶ κείρουσι σιδήρῳ.
14 Tanja S. Scheer
Der Dichter des homerischen Hymnus an Aphrodite beschreibt die Elemente

der natürlichen Umwelt, mit der die Menschen im täglichen Leben konfrontiert
sind, deren Einfluss sie erfahren, und die sie bewältigen müssen: zu diesen zählen
die Bäume im Gebirge wie auch die wilden Tiere, die die Göttin begleiten. Diese
natürliche Umwelt mit ihren potentiell segensreichen aber auch bedrohlichen Ele-
menten erweist sich als erklärungsbedürftig. Die Bäume im Gebirge – so charak-
terisiert sie der Dichter – sind nicht leblose Pflanzen oder verfügbarer potentieller
Holzvorrat. Sie sind vielmehr eng mit übermenschlichen Wesen verbunden. My-
thische Erzählung konstituiert die Elemente der natürlichen Umwelt entweder als
bedeutsames Setting des berichteten Geschehens oder aber gar als personalisierte
Protagonisten eines mythischen Stoffes. Der Bergwald und die lieblichen Höhlen
im Gebirge können Aufenthaltsorte der olympischen Götter sein: Anchises trifft die
Göttin Aphrodite beim Schafehüten. Daneben sind aber die Baumnymphen, die mit
ihren Bäumen geboren werden und sterben, selbstverständliches personales Gegen-
über für Götter und Menschen: für Aphrodite, die ihnen ihr Kind anvertrauen wird,
oder für andere Olympier wie Hermes, den der Dichter des Hymnus als Liebhaber
der Nymphen beschreibt.7 Die Menschen schließlich, und auch dies lässt der Dich-
ter die Göttin Aphrodite höchstpersönlich sagen, wissen um die enge Verbindung
zwischen dem Naturraum und den Göttern und haben hieraus bestimmte Verhal-
tensregeln für sich selbst abgeleitet. Orte in der Natur können „heilige Götterbe-
zirke“ (teméne … athanáton) konstituieren, denen die Menschen mit dem nötigen
Respekt begegnen – entweder weil dort göttliche Wesen wie die Nymphen dauer-
haft wohnen oder aber weil man hoffen kann, dort zumindest zeitweilig einzelnen
Göttern zu begegnen. Diese Orte eignen sich deshalb besonders für die Durchfüh-
rung religiöser Praktiken, mit denen die menschlichen Bewohner des Naturraums
versuchen, die Götter und die lokalen göttlichen Wesen günstig zu stimmen. Die
griechische Landschaft ist voll mit göttlichen Wesen, deren Aufgaben sich aller-
dings meist nicht nur auf die Natur beschränken.8
Das bisherige Interesse der neuzeitlichen Forschung am vielschichtigen Ver-
hältnis von Natur, Mythos und Religion in der griechischen Kultur war allerdings
von wechselhafter Intensität und von sehr unterschiedlichem Erkenntnisinteresse
getrieben. Wenn versucht wurde, universale Konzepte zur Entstehung und Ent-
wicklung von Religion zu erstellen, dann erschien die Kultur der Griechen nur als
ein Beispiel unter vielen. Der Begriff der Naturreligion, früh verwendet von Johann
Gottfried Herder in der Bedeutung einer natürlichen (Vernunft-)Religion, die dem
Menschen seit Urzeiten mitgegeben sei,9 fand mit deutlich differierender Bedeutung
seinen Weg auch in die ethnologische und historische Forschung: auf der Suche
nach der Ur-Religion der Menschheit untersuchte man nun ‚Natur‘ als Gegenstand
7 Hom. h. Aphrod. 262–263. Zu den Nymphen in den frühen griechischen Quellen s. ausführlich
Larson 2001: 20–34, bes. 31–33.
8 Larson 2007: 56; s. auch Polinskaya 2013: 37, die die „interaction between people, land and
gods“ als zentrales Element polytheistischer Religionen hervorhebt.
9 Herder 1820: z. B. 268, 280 u. ö. Vgl. Kohl 1986: 199 Anm. 5.
Natur – Mythos – Religion im antiken Griechenland: Eine Einleitung 15
von Religion.10 Im Vordergrund standen hierbei allerdings vor allem die religiösen
Vorstellungen der sogenannten ‚Primitiven‘ oder ‚Naturvölker‘.11 ‚Primitive‘ Ge-
sellschaften, die als soziale Survivals menschlichen Lebens aus primordialen Vor-
zeiten interpretiert wurden, und an denen man religiöse Rituale und Überzeugun-
gen der frühzeitlichen Menschheit in der Gegenwart beobachten zu können glaubte,
bildeten die Paradigmata, an denen Gelehrte wie Edward Burnett Tylor und Émile
Durkheim ihre Konzepte früher Religiosität entwickelten.12 Hierbei widmeten sie
der Wahrnehmung der Natur bei diesen – im deutschen Sprachraum bezeichnen-
derweise auch als ‚Naturvölker‘ benannten – Kulturen besondere Aufmerksamkeit.
Tylor wies auf Vorstellungen von der grundsätzlichen Belebtheit aller Dinge des
natürlichen Umfelds hin (Animismus)13, Durkheim glaubte im Totemismus die Ur-
Religion gefunden zu haben: Sein Beispiel waren die australischen Arrente, welche
bestimmten Pflanzen und Tieren Macht zuschrieben.14
Auch das Verhältnis von Natur und Mythos wurde unter verschiedenen Vor-
zeichen untersucht. Wenn etwa Christian Gottlob Heyne in den Mythen den Geist
der dunklen Zeitalter erkannte, so erwiesen sich Mythen für ihn als ein Mittel, die
Vorstellungen früher Menschen über Welt und Umwelt zu erforschen.15 Die Inter-
pretation von Mythen als urtümliche Erzählungen über die Natur wurde bei den
Vertretern der sogenannten ‚Naturmythologie‘ im 19. Jh. populär. Hier stand die
griechische Mythologie als Untersuchungsgegenstand stärker im Fokus. In allegori-
schen Erklärungen mythischer Erzählung, wie sie bereits in der Antike vorgebracht
worden waren, wollte man die ‚eigentliche Bedeutung‘ zahlreicher mythischer Mo-
tive (und mythischer Gestalten) in Natur- und Wetterphänomenen finden.16 Spuren
dieser Forschungsströmung, die ebenso zeitgebunden blieb wie Durkheims Tote-
mismus, finden sich etwa in Roschers Ausführlichem Lexikon der griechischen und
römischen Mythologie.17
Die Suche nach universalen Deutungsmustern riss im 20. Jh. nicht ab. Reli-
gionsphänomenologische Ansätze fragten – durchaus in der Tradition der Roman-
tik – nach den Orten religiöser Erfahrung.18 Rudolf Otto postulierte in seinem Werk
über Das Heilige die Existenz heiliger Orte in der Natur, die der Mensch durch
die Empfindung des „numinosen Urschauers“ identifizieren könne.19 Mircea Eliade
10 Kohl 1986: 201; Kohl 1998: 230; vgl. hierzu auch Riesebrodt 2007: 19, 77. Zu den unterschied-
lichen evolutionistischen Konzepten des 19. Jh. s. ausführlich Schmidt 1987.
11 S. hierzu den Beitrag von Richard Gordon im vorliegenden Band.
12 S. Tylors Primitive Culture benanntes Werk von 1871, und Durkheims 1912 erschienene For-
mes élémentaires de la vie religieuse.
13 Tylor 1871.
14 Durkheim 1912. Diese These ist bereits bei Robertson Smith 1880 nachweisbar. Zu Fetischis-
mus und Totemismus als inzwischen überholten Begriffen: Riesebrodt 2007: 23.
15 Graf 2001: 15–16; Scheer 2014: 17–19.
16 Vgl. etwa die Sonnenmythologie Friedrich Max Müllers (Müller 1856); s. hierzu Graf 2001:
30–31; Parker 2011: 74, sowie den Beitrag von Richard Gordon im vorliegenden Band.
17 Roscher 1884–1937: vgl. dort z. B. den Artikel zu Hephaistos: Rapp 1890: 2050.
18 Vgl. hierzu Riesebrodt 2007: 78–79.
19 Otto 1920: 151.
16 Tanja S. Scheer
war von der Idee der Erfahrbarkeit des Göttlichen in der Natur überzeugt: Heilige
Orte dortselbst würden sich dem Wissenden offenbaren.20
Seit der 2. Hälfte des 19. Jh. war die Analyse des Verhältnisses von Natur,
Mythos und Religion außerdem besonders vom Stichwort ‚Fruchtbarkeit‘ geprägt,
welches zu einem neuen universalen Deutungsmuster wurde. Rituale früher Acker-
bauern und die fruchttragende Erde standen z. B. in Wilhelm Mannhardts Werk über
die Wald- und Feldkulte und Albrecht Dieterichs Mutter Erde im Vordergrund.21
James Frazers Entwurf vom sterbenden und wieder auferstehenden Vegetations-
gott, den er bei verschiedensten Völkern aufzufinden glaubte, war von Mannhardts
Vorarbeiten beeinflusst.22 Das Fruchtbarkeitsparadigma prägte auch Martin P. Nils-
sons monumentale und im 20. Jh. über Generationen einflussreiche Geschichte der
Griechischen Religion.23
In der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jh. rückte die Natur allerdings angesichts neuer struk-
turgeschichtlicher Ansätze in den Hintergrund. Die Religion der Griechen wurde
nun vor allem als ‚Polis-Religion‘ oder wie bei Michael Jameson als ‚community
religion‘ verstanden und entsprechend in den politischen und sozialen Strukturen
aufgesucht und untersucht.24 Natur wurde hierbei – wenn überhaupt – nur in den
Außenbezirken der Polis sichtbar, sie markierte das Marginale oder war Zeichen
der Alterität im Unterschied zu den ‚zivilisierten‘ Bereichen menschlicher Gemein-
schaft. Die Götter interessierten entsprechend vor allem im Hinblick auf ihre Po-
sitionierung zum zivilisierten Zentrum: sie konnten in die Götter des ‚Drinnen‘
und des ‚Draußen‘ (d. h. der ungezähmten und unzivilisierten Natur) geschieden
werden.25
François de Polignacs Werk Naissance de citè grecque betonte aus historischer
Perspektive die politische Bedeutung religiöser Orte außerhalb der städtischen
Siedlungen: diese stellten sich für ihn nicht mehr als Orte absoluter und zeitlich
ungebrochener Heiligkeit dar, sondern als wichtige politische Marksteine, die terri-
torriale Ansprüche der Bürgergemeinschaft untermauerten oder den Verlauf der Po-
lisgrenzen markierten.26 Die Auseinandersetzung mit Polignacs Konzept förderte
ein neu akzentuiertes Interesse an heiligen Orten und dem Verhältnis der Polisbür-
20 Eliade 1994: 425; s. die postulierte „Beharrungskraft“ religiöser Stätten bei Lanczkowski 1978:
40–42. Zum „crypto-theological claim“ Eliades s. etwa auch Martin 2014: 3.
21 Mannhardt 1877; Dieterich 1925: z. B. 40 zur analogen Fruchtbarkeit der Fluren und der Men-
schen.
22 Frazer 1890/1907–1915 (3. Aufl.). Hierzu etwa Larson 2007: 57, die der Meinung ist, das Kon-
zept vom ‚vegetation god‘ passe im griechischen Bereich auf keinen einzelnen der Olympier,
aber viele Götter und Nymphen seien verantwortlich für das Wachsen der Dinge und für be-
stimmte Aspekte der Tierwelt.
23 Nilsson 1967: der z. B. 56–58 die Begrifflichkeit Mannhardts und Frazers vom ‚Kornmädchen‘
und ‚Korngeist‘ verwendet. Zum problematischen und lange verbreiteten Konzept des ‚fertility
god‘ s. auch Parker 2011: IX.
24 Sourvinou-Inwood 1990; zur Kritik des Modells der ‚Polis Religion‘: Jameson 1997: 172, der
die Bezeichnung ‚community religion‘ vorzieht: „In sum, polis religion is not the whole story“;
hierzu auch Kindt 2009 und Kindt 2012: 12–35.
25 Vernant 1969: 134, 159; Bremmer 1996: 20–22.
26 De Polignac 1984.
ger zu Natur, Religion und Mythos. Robin Osborne betonte bereits 1987 die Einheit
von Polis und Chora: die natürlichen Jahreszeiten und – von ihnen abhängig – die
Anforderungen der antiken Ackerbaugesellschaft sind für Osborne die strukturie-
rende Basis für das religiöse Jahr des Bürgers mitsamt seinen Mythen und Ritualen.
‚Natur‘ rückte aus der Perspektive des Ackerbau treibenden und (Opfer-)Tiere züch-
tenden Polisbürgers wieder ins Zentrum des Geschehens.27 Ebenfalls angeregt von
den Thesen Polignacs wurde die Diskussion um ‚religiöse Landschaften‘. In einem
von Susan Alcock und Robin Osborne herausgegebenen Sammelband mit dem Titel
Placing the Gods aus dem Jahr 1994 wurde die Frage nach der Entstehung religiö-
ser Landschaften gestellt und ihre Konstituierung als dynamische Konstruktionen
aufgezeigt.28 Diese Dynamik im Verhältnis von Religion und Natur ist in jüngerer
Zeit mehrfach betont worden: wenn etwa Jannis Mylonopoulos die Thesen Eliades
von der absoluten Heiligkeit bestimmter Orte revidierte und die ‚Heiligkeit‘ von
Landschaften in den Potentialis setzte:29 vor allem Orte in der Natur, die Besonder-
heiten aufwiesen, indem sie sich vom ‚Normalen‘ unterschieden, würden Men-
schen zur Einrichtung von Verehrungsstätten anregen.30 Hierbei sei zu scheiden
zwischen Plätzen, die ohne weitere Gestaltung als heiliger Ort gelten könnten (Na-
tur als Heiligtum) und Landschaftselementen, die in architektonisch gestalteten
Heiligtümern weiterhin sichtbar blieben und in die Rituale integriert würden. Katja
Sporn hat kürzlich erneut die Dynamik des religiösen Raums in der Natur betont:
In dem von ihr und Michael Kerschner herausgegebenen Sammelband Natur, Kult,
Raum von 2015 wird deutlich, dass verehrte Naturmale in der griechischen Welt
sich im Gegensatz zu Vorannahmen der älteren religionswissenschaftlichen For-
schung nicht als Survivals aus uralter Zeit begreifen lassen.31 Entsprechend stärkt
der archäologische Befund die von Percy Horden und Nicholas Purcell bereits 2000
formulierte These, dass die Natur die Menschen nicht zur Verehrung bestimmter
Orte zwinge. Religion sei vielmehr ihrerseits Ausdruck der Beziehung zwischen
der mediterranen Landschaft und ihrer Bewohner.32 Diese Beziehung zwischen den
Griechen und ihrer natürlichen Umwelt wurde von Arbeiten zu Kultorten und Ri-
tualen, aber auch in mythologisch ausgerichteten Forschungen deutlich: Richard
Buxton beschrieb bereits 1994 das Imaginary Greece des griechischen Mythos und
zeigte hierbei die Bedeutung der Landschaft und ihrer Elemente in den mythischen
Erzählungen der Griechen auf.33 Die Analyse landschaftsbezogener mythologi-
scher Traditionen spielt schließlich auch bei der Erforschung lokaler griechischer
Identitäten eine wichtige Rolle: „The neighbours do not tell the same stories about
the gods of the same name, the disposition of divine figures in the local landscape
27 Osborne 1987.
28 Alcock and Osborne 1994; s. auch Horden and Purcell 2000: 423: „The punctuated panorama
of cult is constantly coming into being and dissolving.“
29 Mylonopoulos 2008: 56.
31 Sporn 2015: 339; vgl. auch Sporns Beitrag im vorliegenden Band. Sehr diverse Aspekte von
Natur und Religion behandeln die von Olshausen und Sauer 2009 sowie Montero und Cruz
Cardete 2011 herausgegebenen Sammelbände.
32 Horden und Purcell 2000: 408, 411. S. auch Mylonopoulos 2008: 82.
33 Buxton 1994: 80–113.
18 Tanja S. Scheer
is different“, wie Olga Polinskaya in ihrer Lokalgeschichte der Insel Aigina heraus-
gestellt hat.34 Lokale Mythen erscheinen als Erzählungen, deren Funktion es sein
kann, die Bewohner eines Landstrichs mit ihrer spezifischen naturräumlichen Um-
welt und damit auch untereinander in besonderer Weise zu verbinden.35
2. BEGRIFFLICHKEIT
Im vorliegenden Band wird von der Voraussetzung ausgegangen, dass Natur, My-
thos und Religion in ihrem jeweiligen Zusammenwirken zentrale Zusammenhänge
in der Vorstellungs- und Lebenswelt der Griechen abbilden.
‚Natur‘ wird hierbei als der gesamte Komplex der natürlichen Umwelt verstanden,
mit der und in der die antiken Griechen leben, und von der sie als präindustrielle
Ackerbaugesellschaft abhängig sind. Dies schließt die verschiedenen Elemente des
Naturraums mit ein: z. B. Fauna, Flora, Gewässer und Klima.36
‚Mythos‘ meint die Gesamtheit lokaler und griechenlandweit tradierter Erzäh-
lungen über Götter, Heroen und die Menschheit in der griechischen Frühgeschichte,
die in der griechischen Kultur in Wort und Bild tradiert werden.37 Derartige Erzäh-
lungen können religiösen Inhalts und Teil der religiösen Praxis sein, dies ist jedoch
nicht immer der Fall.38 Entsprechend stehen im Kontext dieses Buches nicht nur die
Taten von Göttern und Heroen im Vordergrund, sondern in besonderem Maße auch
mythische Traditionen über den Naturraum, die Elementen der natürlichen Umwelt
34 Polinskaya 2013: 21.

35 S. Scheer 1993 und im vorliegenden Band; vgl. auch Hartmann 2010: 93 zur „Historisierung
der Landschaft“ und ebd.: 661 zur mythogenen Art antiker Naturwahrnehmung. Die Autoren
eines von Jeremy McInerney und Ineke Sluiter herausgegebenen Sammelbands haben schließ-
lich kürzlich verschiedene Aspekte der Wertschätzung von Landschaft (‚landscape‘) in der
griechischen Kultur behandelt: McInerney und Sluiter 2016: 2, 4.
36 Die Diskussion zum Naturbegriff würde für sich genommen Bände füllen und soll deshalb hier
nicht vertieft werden: vgl. etwa Sporn 2015: 342–343.
37 Auch der Begriff des Mythos kann an dieser Stelle nicht ausführlich diskutiert werden: s. hierzu
z. B. bereits Bremmer 1987; Scheer 1993: 16–17; Graf 2001: 7–14.
38 Parker 2011: 23.
agency zuschreiben, sie als verehrungswürdige Mächte personifizieren oder aber in

denen der Naturraum den olympischen Göttern dazu dient, ihre Macht gegenüber
den Menschen zu demonstrieren. ‚Religion‘ schließlich lässt sich in Anlehnung an
Martin Riesebrodt praxeologisch definieren:39 als „Praktiken, die auf einem Glau-
ben an übermenschliche Mächte beruhen, die Heil und Unheil bringen oder abweh-
ren können.“ Zu den religiösen Praktiken der griechischen Kultur kann auch die
Tradierung mythischer Erzählung zählen, deren Funktion jedoch im Einzelfall zu
überprüfen ist.
3. LEITFRAGEN
Erzählungen des Mythos und traditionelle Rituale stellen für den Einzelnen und
die Gemeinschaft in der griechischen Kultur Vorstellungen und Handlungsstrate-
gien bereit, welche Individuum und Polis hoffen lassen, den Herausforderungen
der natürlichen Umwelt aktiv und erfolgreich begegnen zu können. Die Beiträge
des vorliegenden Bandes fragen aus altertumswissenschaftlicher Perspektive zum
einen nach den Elementen des Naturraums, die in Griechenland religiöse Verehrung
erfuhren, also nach der Natur als Religion. Zum anderen wird untersucht, welche
Orte in der Natur sich als Orte mythischen Geschehens und religiösen Handelns in
Griechenland bedeutsam erweisen, wo sich also Religion in der Natur auffinden
lässt. Die dritte Leitfrage zielt schließlich auf die Verbindung von Natur, Mythos
und Religion als Basis für die Konstruktion lokaler Identitäten in der griechischen
Kultur.
4. IN DIESEM BUCH …
Der erste Teil des vorliegenden Bandes stellt phänomenologische Aspekte des Ver-
hältnisses von Natur, Mythos und Religion vor und geht auf forschungsgeschichtli-
che und methodische Fragen ein. Katja Sporn zeigt in ihrem Beitrag Natural Fea-
tures in Greek Cult Places: The Case of Athens aus archäologischer Perspektive
das breite Panorama von Naturelementen im griechischen Kult auf. Vor dem Hin-
tergrund aktueller Funde im griechischen Kleinasien stellt sie die Frage, ob sich im
griechischen Mutterland am Fallbeispiel Athen eine chronologische Entwicklung
der Kulte im Sinne von ‚nature to culture‘ nachweisen lässt. Das Material für Athen
bekräftigt diese These jedoch nicht. Sporn kann am Beispiel Athens und seines
Umlandes vielmehr zeigen, dass Heiligtümer, in denen natürliche Elemente zentral
waren, mit vom Menschen gebauten, baulich elaborierten Heiligtümern zeitlich
koexistierten. Manche Götter waren besonders häufig mit natürlichen Kontexten
verbunden, z. B. mit Höhlen, besonderen Felsen oder Wasser. Da im unmittelbaren
Stadtgebiet Athens für große heilige Haine kein Platz war, sind dort kleinere Grup-
pen von Bäumen und Pflanzen mit kultischem Bezug häufiger. Diese waren nicht
39 Riesebrodt 2007: 39.

20 Tanja S. Scheer
auf randständige Lagen beschränkt, sondern lassen sich an zentralen Punkten der
Stadt nachweisen, z. B. auf Akropolis und Agora. Der offizielle Charakter dieser
Kulte wird durch ihre Lage sowie durch die erhaltenen Weihungen von Beamten
der Polis bezeugt. Die besondere Attraktivität dieser Kulte – die de facto nicht älter
waren als viele andere – leitete sich aus ihrer antiken Wahrnehmung als ortsfeste
und uralte Kultorte ab, die den Verehrern Stabilität und damit Sicherheit verspra-
chen.
Forschungsgeschichtliche Aspekte stehen im Mittelpunkt von Richard Gordons
Kapitel. Er legt den Schwerpunkt vor allem auf das 18. und 19. Jh. und beschreibt
in seinem Beitrag The Greeks, Religion and Nature in German Neo-humanist Dis-
course from Romanticism to Early Industrialisation die unterschiedlichen und in
der deutschen Gelehrtenwelt geläufigen Perspektiven auf griechische Religion und
Mythologie in ihrem Verhältnis zur Natur. Die zu Beginn des 18. Jhs. verbreitete
Annahme von der religionsübergreifenden Universalität von Naturkulten führte
zur Entwicklung einschlägiger Begrifflichkeiten (dendrosebeia für Baumkult),
denen jedoch kein Nachleben beschieden war. In der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jhs.
war unter dem Einfluss Rousseaus ‚Natur‘ nicht mehr ‚Landschaft‘, sondern das
‚Natürliche‘ schlechthin, z. B. für Johann Joachim Winckelmann, der griechische
Literatur und Kunst als Repositorium des Natürlichen verstanden habe. Der Be-
griff der ‚Naturreligion‘ wurde für die Griechen allerdings eher vermieden. Ein
wichtiger Streitpunkt war die Zuschreibung von religiöser Autochthonie: Thesen
von der ‚orientalischen‘ Herkunft der griechischen Religion und Mythologie, die
Friedrich Creuzer besonders in ihren naturbezogenen Elementen auf brahmanische
Weisheit zurückführen wollte, wurden vehement zurückgewiesen. Historistisch
positivistische Interpretationen verorteten die Verehrung von Naturelementen bei
den Griechen in deren eigener, aber schattenhaften pelasgischen Vorgeschichte. In
der ‚Sachphilologie‘ des Historischen Realismus galt der Naturraum lediglich als
Ort für primitive, historisch nicht greifbare Kulte; vom Menschen gestalteten reli-
giösen Orten wurde größere Bedeutung zugeschrieben. Vor dem Hintergrund der
beginnenden Industrialisierung lassen sich aber Mitte des 19. Jh. unterschiedliche
Forschungsrichtungen nachweisen: Schüler von Friedrich Creuzer verlegten sich
etwa auf naturallegorische Deutungen der griechischen Religion und des Mythos
und schrieben z. B. Hesiod die Naturelektrizität als Thema zu, während gleichzeitig
Positivisten begannen, Naturelemente in der griechischen Religion auch aufgrund
konkreter archäologischer Objektgattungen systematisch zu beschreiben.
Während Konzepte wie der von Gordon beschriebene Creuzersche Symbolis-
mus nur mehr als forschungsgeschichtliche Phänomene Interesse verdienen, betont
Jennifer Larson in ihrem Beitrag Nature Gods, Nymphs and the Cognitive Science
of Religion die Aktualität des Animismus als Interpretationskonzept. Sie zieht hier-
bei Perspektiven und Methoden der cognitive sciences heran, um die Vorstellungen
der Griechen von Naturgottheiten zu beleuchten: die Griechen hätten animistische
Glaubensvorstellungen nicht etwa in ihrer Frühzeit hinter sich gelassen, sondern
auch in historischer Zeit gepflegt. Bei der Verehrung von Naturgottheiten wie z. B.
den Nymphen sei der Kult oft direkt mit heiligen Objekt (Baum, Quelle) verbunden.
Im Augenblick der Verehrung werde dieses Objekt selbst als mit mind ausgestattet
wahrgenommen – eine animistische Vorstellung. Außerhalb dieses Zeitpunktes do-

miniere jedoch eine andere, stärker mythologisch geprägte Welt, in der die Nym-
phen einen physisch menschengleichen Körper besäßen. Für den Einzelnen sei es
möglich gewesen je nach Kontext zwischen beiden Konzepten zu wechseln und auf
diese Weise einem scheinbaren logischen Konflikt auszuweichen.
Im zweiten Teil des Bandes steht die Frage im Vordergrund, welche Elemente des
Naturraums bei den Griechen mythologisch gestaltet waren bzw. unmittelbare re-
ligiöse Verehrung erfuhren. Dies schließt sowohl Gewässer und klimatische Ele-
mente als auch Flora und Fauna ein.
Jan N. Bremmer untersucht Rivers and River Gods in Ancient Greek Religion
and Culture, nimmt hierbei die mythologische Hydrologie des Mittelmeerraums
in den Blick und analysiert die Rolle von Flussgöttern im griechischen Mythos
und Kultus. Die göttliche Natur von Flüssen erweist sich bereits in den frühen li-
terarischen Quellen als vollständig ausgebildet, ihre kultische Verehrung etwa im
Kontext von Eiden und Schlachtopfern ist bis ins 3. Jh. n. Chr. vielfältig belegt.
Bremmer hebt die potentielle Bedrohlichkeit der Flüsse als Naturgewalten hervor:
ihre Namen (z. B. „Wilder Eber“) und ihre bildliche Gestaltung etwa als Stier illus-
trierten diese Gefährlichkeit. Allerdings konnten die Flussgötter nach Meinung der
Griechen auch in freundlicher, menschlicher Gestalt erscheinen. Es war verbreitet,
griechische Kolonien nach lokalen Flüssen zu benennen. Im lokalen Kontext avan-
cierten sie zu Stammvätern der Einwohnerschaft und wurden als Beschützer von
Kindern gedacht, denen die Knaben ihr erstes Haaropfer darbrachten und deren
Kult von lokalen Gene oder Phylen gepflegt wurde. Insgesamt erscheinen die Fluss-
götter in der göttlichen Hierarchie jedoch deutlich niedriger gestellt als die Zwölf
Götter. Ihre Heiligtümer lagen nicht im politischen Zentrum der Gemeinden und
ihre lokale Gebundenheit ließ sie auch in den panhellenischen mythischen Erzäh-
lungen der Griechen schattenhafter bleiben als die Olympier.
Die Ambivalenz verehrungswürdiger Elemente der Natur kommt auch in Esther
Eidinows Kapitel zum Ausdruck: They Blow Now One Way, Now Another. Winds
in the Ancient Greek Imaginary. Sie geht aus vom berühmten Beispiel der Athener,
denen der Nordwind Boreas in den Perserkriegen zur Seite gestanden haben sollte
und die ihn zum Dank dafür kultisch verehrten. Obwohl die Winde bereits in den
frühesten griechischen Quellen als Bringer von Gutem als auch Schädlichem wahr-
genommen werden, und man ihnen z. B. in der medizinischen Literatur Einfluss auf
Landschaften und deren Bewohner zuschreibt, treten sie im griechischen Mythos
kaum als Protagonisten elaborierter Erzählungen auf und werden nur unvollständig
personifiziert. Kultische Rituale für die Winde sind hingegen in der griechischen
Welt verbreitet; sie können manchmal ungewöhnliche Formen annehmen. In My-
thos und Kult seien die Winde allerdings weder als Fruchtbarkeitsbringer noch als
Geister der Toten (wie in älteren Thesen behauptet) charakterisiert. Entsprechend
der gelebten Erfahrung stünde vielmehr ihre schwer kontrollierbare Gefährlichkeit
im Mittelpunkt der Wahrnehmung, auf die einzelne Gemeinden mit unterschiedli-
chen lokalen Besänftigungsritualen reagierten.
22 Tanja S. Scheer
Die Bedeutung von Tieren und Pflanzen im Umfeld des Göttlichen untersucht
Renate Schlesier in ihrem Beitrag Sapphos aphrodisische Fauna und Flora. Sapphos
Darstellung von Tieren und Pflanzen macht griechische Vorstellungen vom Verhält-
nis der Götter und Menschen zur Natur deutlich. Zum einen haben die Götter im
Gegensatz zu den Menschen die Kontrolle über die Naturgewalten, zum anderen
aber – und dies sei Menschen und Göttern gemeinsam – hätten beide mit Tieren
und Pflanzen zu tun. Sappho stelle in ihrem erhaltenen Werk keine direkten Verbin-
dungen zwischen Tier und Gottheit her. Tiere seien aber implizit mit dem Bereich
der Aphrodite verbunden – etwa durch die sinnlich erfahrbaren Materialien, die sie
lieferten wie Pelze oder Elfenbein. Noch deutlicher werde die synästhetische Sinn-
lichkeit von Sapphos Stil in ihrer Verwendung von Pflanzen: Blumen, die sogar im
Mondschein blühen, Eichen, vom Sturm des Eros geschüttelt bis hin zu duftenden
Blumenkränzen, mit welchen Frauen – wie Aphrodite im Homerischen Hymnus –
ihren zarten Hals schmückten, verwiesen auf den Bereich der Liebesgöttin und das
erotisch konnotierte Symposion. Wenn Aphrodite zum kretischen locus amoenus
gerufen werde und im weihrauchduftenden Hain schließlich selbst als Mundschen-
kin aufträte, manifestierten sich in diesem Gedicht die Vorstellungen von göttlichem
Anthropomorphismus und menschlicher Götternähe auf eindrucksvolle Weise.
Mit dem Verhältnis von Tieren, Göttern und Menschen befasst sich Julia Kindt
im Kapitel Animals in Ancient Greek Religion. Divine Zoomorphism and the An-
thropomorphic Divine Body. In der griechischen Religion werden – anders als in
Ägypten – keine Tiere verehrt, auch sind einzelne Götter nicht fest mit verschiede-
nen tierischen Erscheinungsformen verbunden. Tiergestaltigkeit ist vielmehr eine
zeitlich begrenzte oder nur partielle Abweichung vom grundsätzlich menschenge-
staltigen Götterkörper. Zeitweilige Tiergestaltigkeit, so Kindt, betone die grund-
sätzliche Alterität einer Gottheit besonders in deren unheimlichen oder bedrohli-
chen Aspekten. Tierkörper hätten hier (im Gegensatz z. B. zu Pflanzen) besonderes
Potential, da die Götter in dieser Gestalt weiterhin grundsätzlich zur Interaktion
fähig seien. Außerdem verliere die Gottheit durch die Verwandlung individuelle
Züge, die Tiergestalt lasse ihre Gedanken und Absichten für die Menschen nicht
mehr erkennbar sein. Darstellungen der Götter in Tiergestalt stellten also einen
„supplementary code“, ein ergänzendes Set von Symbolen bereit, zusätzlich zur
gewohnten anthropomorphen Darstellungsform des göttlichen Körpers. Sie zeigten
einmal mehr auf, dass die Götter im Gegensatz zu den Menschen fähig seien, die
gewohnten Ordnungsstrukturen der Natur zu überwinden.
Eine besondere Beziehung zwischen tierischer, menschlicher und göttlicher
Welt beschreibt Dorit Engster. Unter der Überschrift Von Delphinen und ihren
Reitern: Delphine in Mythos und Kult zeigt sie die Sonderstellung von Delphi-
nen seit archaischer Zeit auf. In den mythischen Traditionen können sie sowohl
Manifestation einer Gottheit, aber auch deren Attribut oder Helfer sein. Im Heroen-
mythos werden Vorstellungen von menschlichem Verhalten dieser Meeresbewoh-
ner spezifiziert. Delphine lieben Dichtung und Musik und suchen die Nähe von
Sterblichen. In alten Zeiten haben sie schiffbrüchige Heroen oder legendäre Sänger
gerettet und an Land gebracht: das Motiv vom Delphinreiter, der als Heros konkrete
kultische Verehrung erhalten kann, findet sich in zahlreichen Kontexten. Seit dem
Hellenismus wird die Menschenähnlichkeit der Delphine noch stärker betont. Sie
schätzen nun nicht nur Musik, sondern auch schöne Knaben. In der hellenistischen
und kaiserzeitlichen Gegenwart ereignen sich Aktualisierungen, Neuauflagen der
mythischen Tradition. Gelegentlich inszenieren sich reale Knaben an realen Or-
ten als Delphinreiter und holen für ein fasziniertes Publikum den Mythos in die
Gegenwart. In der griechischen (und auch der römischen) Kultur sind Delphine
nicht unmittelbar Objekt kultischer Verehrung. Die aus dem Homerischen Hym-
nus an Apollon bekannte Vorstellung, ein Gott könne die Gestalt eines Delphins
annehmen, ist aber noch in der Kaiserzeit präsent: ein Delphin, der sich wunderbar
verhält, wird vom römischen Statthalter durch ein Ölritual geehrt.
Im dritten Teil des Bandes erweist sich die belebte und unbelebte Natur in der grie-
chischen Kultur nicht nur als potentielles Objekt kultischer Verehrung und mitunter
personalisierter Stoff mythischer Erzählung, sondern als ein natürliches Umfeld,
welches entweder Schauplatz mythischen Geschehens sein kann oder aber in sei-
nen elementaren Funktionen Auswirkungen auf die Umstände religiösen Handelns
hat. Dies zeigt Marietta Horster im Kapitel über Apollo’s Servants – Cleaning the
Sanctuary and Keeping Things in Order: es ist Pflicht der Verehrer, „die gute Ord-
nung der Dinge“ in den Heiligtümern auch im physischen Sinn aufrechtzuerhalten.
Besucher hinterlassen unerwünschte Spuren, aber auch reine Natur stört mitunter
die Ordnung – in Form von fallenden Blättern, welkenden Blumen und verrotten-
den Früchten. Besonders Tiere gilt es im Heiligtum zu kontrollieren: Packtiere, die
Bäume im heiligen Hain beschädigen, oder Vögel, deren Exkremente Bauwerke
und Weihgeschenke beschmutzen. Es ist Aufgabe der Menschen mit entsprechen-
den Richtlinien für Reinheit, Sauberkeit und Ordnung zu sorgen. Dies lässt sich
auch im Hintergrund der Handlung dramatischer Texte beobachten: in Euripides’
Ion kehrt der gleichnamige Protagonist das Heiligtum mit Lorbeerzweigen, be-
sprengt den Boden mit Wasser und vertreibt die Vögel vom Dach des delphischen
Tempels. Konzepte von der richtigen Ordnung der Welt zeigten sich sowohl in den
unmittelbaren heroischen Taten tragischer Helden als auch in den Narrativen über
die natürliche Umwelt, in der diese Taten stattfinden.
Die Bedeutung besonderer Orte in der Natur als Schauplätze des Mythos und
des unmittelbaren Kultus in der griechischen Wahrnehmung macht David Gilman
Romanos Beitrag Mt. Lykaion as the Arcadian Birthplace of Zeus deutlich. Der
Kult des Zeus am arkadischen Berg Lykaion war bis in die Kaiserzeit berühmt; der
Göttervater Zeus persönlich sollte am Lykaion geboren worden sein – und nicht
etwa in Kreta, wie andere Traditionen wissen wollten. Zum Teil unheimliche My-
then etwa über Tierverwandlungen menschlicher Protagonisten in Wölfe und Bären
rankten sich um das Heiligtum. Sowohl die mit dem Ort verbundenen Mythen als
auch Behauptungen über Menschenopferbräuche in historischer Zeit vermittelten
bereits in der Antike den Eindruck großer Altertümlichkeit. Die neuen Grabungen
am Lykaion zeigen nun, dass der Berggipfel tatsächlich seit neolithischer Zeit von
Menschen besucht wurde und am lokalen Aschenaltar seit der mykenischen Epoche
festliche Rituale mit Schlachtopfern stattfanden. Damit stellt sich die Frage, wel-
che Naturmerkmale diesen bestimmten Ort ursprünglich ins Zentrum menschlicher
24 Tanja S. Scheer
Aufmerksamkeit gerückt hatten. Könnte mythische Erzählung in diesem Fall viel-

leicht „more than a story“ sein und historische Erinnerung konservieren? Romano
denkt darüber nach, ob der Mythos von der Geburt des Zeus am Berg Lykaion
gemeinsam mit den neuen archäologischen Funden vielleicht auf den Beginn des
lokalen Zeuskultes bereits in mykenischer Zeit hinweist und schlechthin als Meta-
pher für die Anfänge griechischer Zivilisation verstanden werden kann.
Das Zusammenspiel von Natur, Mythos und religiösem Ritual bei der Konstruktion
lokaler Identitäten und Vergangenheiten steht schließlich im Zentrum des vierten
Teils: Angela Ganter untersucht unter dem Titel Encoding asty and chora. Theban
Polis Identity between Nature and Religion den Beitrag von Mythen und ihrer Ver-
ortung zur Identität Thebens. Die thebanischen Gründungsmythen trugen maßgeb-
lich zum (Selbst-)Bild der Böoter bei und beschrieben die Beziehung zwischen
Zentrum und Peripherie, Natur und Kultur sowie Natur und Religion. Die Verbin-
dung von asty und chora – städtischer Siedlung und umgebendem Ackerland –
spiegelt sich auch im Kult, wenn man etwa in Theben Demeter, die Herrin des
Ackerbaus, als städtische Gottheit verehrte. Mythisch aufgeladene Gewässer prä-
gen Theben und sein Umland und verbinden beide miteinander: die Aresquelle, an
der der Stadtgründer Kadmos den Drachen getötet haben soll, liegt als Nukleus der
wilden ungezähmten Natur in der Stadt; der Fluß Asopos, Vater der (homerischen)
Stadtgründer Amphion und Zethos fließt an der Peripherie der chora. Amphion und
Zethos waren als Kinder des lokalen Flusses besonders eng mit der Landschaft ver-
bunden und konnten im Gegensatz zum fremden Zuwanderer Kadmos den Vorzug
der Autochthonie für sich in Anspruch nehmen. Allerdings wurde auch die Tradi-
tion von Kadmos mit autochthonen Elementen ausgestattet: der Zivilisationsbrin-
ger Kadmos überwindet nicht nur die Natur in Gestalt des erdgeborenen Drachen,
sondern durch das Aussäen der Drachenzähne lässt er die Sparten als Stammväter
späterer thebanischer Geschlechter buchstäblich aus dem Boden wachsen.
Identitätsstiftende Traditionen von lokalen Wassern und Gewässern stehen auch
bei Anna C. Neff im Vordergrund: Ihr Beitrag Von den Azania kaka zur euhydros
Arkadia. Wasser in Arkadien macht am Beispiel dieser Landschaft deutlich, dass
sich die Griechen ihre natürliche Umwelt nicht als gegebene Konstante vorstellten.
Flüsse und Gewässer erscheinen als veränderlich. In Arkadien bringt erst die Erd-
göttin Gaia auf Bitten ihrer Tochter Rhea die Flüsse an die Oberfläche. Gaia und
Rhea (die letztere bedarf nach der Geburt des Zeus reinigenden Wassers) machen
das Land erst für die Menschen bewohnbar. Die Lokalisierung von Göttermythen
und der zugehörigen Reinigungsrituale schreibt beide in die Landschaft ein und
macht sie für die Bevölkerung erfahrbar, zum Teil des kulturellen Gedächtnisses.
Außerdem sind mythische Traditionen von Überschwemmung und Dürre für Ar-
kadien besonders spezifisch. Arkadische Frevel sollten etwa die Deukalionische
Flut verursacht haben. Im Hintergrund dieser arkadischen Überlieferungen stehen
die lokalen Naturerfahrungen der Bewohner der abflusslosen arkadischen Becken:
Natur und Umwelt seien in Arkadien als unberechenbar wahrgenommen worden,
durch Naturphänomene drückten die Götter ihr Wohlwollen und ihren Zorn aus.
Natur, die sich als nicht technologisch regulierbar erwies, habe man durch den My-
thos zu erklären und durch die rechte Verehrung der Götter einzuhegen versucht.
Arkadische Diskurse über die Erde in Mythos und Kultus analysiert schließlich
Tanja S. Scheer in The Ambivalence of Mother Earth. Concepts of Autochthony
in Ancient Arcadia. Die Selbstbezeichnung der Arkader als autochthones Volk am
Arkaderdenkmal in Delphi signalisiert eine besondere Verbindung der Stifter zu ih-
rem natürlichen Umfeld und zum Land in dem sie leben. Diese Verbindung hat sich
in Arkadien allerdings nicht in einer besonders intensiven kultischen Verehrung
der ‚Mutter Erde‘ niedergeschlagen. Auch die mythischen Traditionen vom erd-
geborenen arkadischen Stammvater Pelasgos sind überraschend unscharf. Allge-
meine Vorstellungen von der Entstehung menschlichen Lebens aus der Erde waren
in Griechenland nicht auf Arkadien beschränkt und sie waren nicht immer positiv
konnotiert. Wenn die Arkader in Delphi ihre Identität als ‚erdgeboren‘ präsentier-
ten, so rekurrierten sie auf Autochthoniediskurse, wie sie seit dem 5. Jh. v. Chr. in
Athen geläufig waren: autochthon war, wer sich seinem Land und seiner Umwelt so
hervorragend angepasst hatte, dass er sich seit Urzeiten in diesem Land hatte halten
können. Während athenische Autochthonie exklusiven Charakter besaß, wirkte das
Konzept in Arkadien inkludierend und identitätsstiftend. Es bot den Bewohnern der
zahlreichen arkadischen Poleis, die sich in Abgrenzung zu Sparta im 4. Jh. v. Chr.
erstmals zum Arkadischen Bund zusammengeschlossen hatten, die Möglichkeit,
sich als uralte Gemeinschaft mit dem ältesten Recht auf ihre ‚Mutter Erde‘ zu be-
greifen.
Die griechische Religion, die als ‚eingebettete Religion‘ das Leben der Griechen
als Individuen und in den verschiedenen Formen von Gemeinschaft prägt, macht
also nicht an den Grenzen der asty, der städtischen Siedlung Halt.40 Mythen und
Heiligtümer durchdringen auch die chora, verbinden Siedlung und Hinterland. Un-
abhängig von der universalen Frage, ob Religion als solche „in Auseinandersetzung
des Menschen mit seiner Umwelt entstanden ist“,41 lässt sich für das antike Grie-
chenland zeigen, dass die Mythen als traditionelle Erzählungen und die Kulte als
religiöse Praktiken hier Instrumente sind, die den Menschen in seiner natürlichen
Umwelt heimisch zu machen helfen. Mythen als traditionelle Erzählungen erklä-
ren und begründen die Unwägbarkeiten des natürlichen Umfelds und sie geben
den in der Natur und durch die Natur wirkenden Mächten Gestalt. Lokale Mythen,
die Elemente der Umwelt wie die Erde oder die Flüsse auch genealogisch mit den
menschlichen Bewohnern des lokalen Umfelds verbinden, konstituieren auch po-
litische Zugehörigkeit; sie schaffen familiäre Vertrautheit und mildern die poten-
tielle Bedrohlichkeit der Naturmächte ab. Religiöses Handeln, das sich an diese
Gegenüber wendet und vom Brauch, also der Tradition gespeist ist, erweist sich als
40 Der von Nongbri 2008 problematisierte Begriff der „embedded religion“ trifft durchaus we-
sentliche Aspekte der Götterverehrung in der griechischen Welt und erscheint in der jüngeren
Forschung zu Recht eingeführt. Siehe die von Nongbri aufgeführten Literaturbeispiele: Nong-
bri 2008: 441 Anm. 4.
41 Riesebrodt 2007: 24; vgl. zu dieser These bereits Schlesier 1988: 465–466.
26 Tanja S. Scheer
menschliche Strategie, möglichst aktiv Einfluss auf Unwägbares zu nehmen und es

sich freundlich zu stimmen.
Platon lässt seinen Sokrates sagen, von den Bäumen könne er nichts lernen
und darum verlasse er kaum einmal die Stadt.42 Seine athenischen Mitbürger wa-
ren anderer Ansicht. Sie machten ihren jungen Männern, die an der Schwelle zum
Erwachsensein standen, die Vertrautheit mit den lokalen Heiligtümern in Attika in
ihrem natürlichen Umfeld zur Pflicht. Und sie ließen sie schwören, die Pflanzen
und Bäume Attikas, das Getreide, die Feigenbäume und die Oliven ihres Landes
zu schützen.43
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NATURAL FEATURES IN GREEK CULT PLACES:
THE CASE OF ATHENS
Katja Sporn, DAI Athen
1. INTRODUCTION
In ancient Asia Minor, as recent research at various sites has shown, natural fea-
tures were places of cultic practices – especially at the edges of the city space and
in Hellenistic times. These natural cult places were mostly associated with rocks,
sometimes with water. Prominent examples such as Pergamon, Ephesos and Priene
may be found along the Western coast of modern Turkey, mainly in Ionia and Caria;
many similar places are known in Phrygia, Pisidia and Lycia. To name but one
example: close to a watercourse in a suburb of Priene, a rock sanctuary was estab-
lished in the Hellenistic period. According to the excavator Axel Filges, the cult
was not institutionalised (i. e. organised from the civic community), but instead
was run by women and girls. Terracotta figurines depicting Cybele, female dancers,
and peculiar “talking hands” as well as specific spherical bronzes corroborate this
interpretation.1 In Asia Minor, these rock sanctuaries were often connected with
Cybele, whose cult is found mainly in Phrygia. Outside the Hellenistic city walls
of Ephesos, a recently discovered rock sanctuary provided a number of reliefs set
up for Cybele.2
In January 2012 we organized at the University of Salzburg the conference
“Nature – Cult – Space”.3 We chose a comparative approach, covering the ancient
Mediterranean world from Asia Minor, Greece and Italy to the regions north of
the Alps. Topics covered included the types of natural features involved in cult
practice, the manner in which they were involved (main and distinctive or minor
feature), natural versus constructed natural features, the reasons for initiating a cult
at natural spots, diachronic, regional and gender differentiations, the setting in re-
lation to a settlement/town and, finally, connections with certain gods or heroes.
Regarding Asia Minor, the consensus of the Salzburg conference was as follows:
in the regions in the hinterland of Asia Minor, cults connected with rock and water
in the vicinity of fortifications were already established in Archaic and Classical
times. On the Western coast of modern-day Turkey, however, there seems to have
been an increased interest in using these older cult places or establishing new ones
1 Filges 2015, referring to further examples for comparable sanctuaries.

2 M. Kerschner discussed the sanctuary at Panayir Dagi at the Salzburg conference 2012, but the
paper was not included in the proceedings Sporn, Ladstätter, and Kerschner 2015. For compa-
rable rock-cut sanctuaries of Cybele on the islands off the coast of Asia Minor, see e. g. the
sanctuaries spread over the slope of the acropolis of Pythagorion on Samos: Giannouli 2005.
3 Proceedings published as Sporn, Ladstätter and Kerschner 2015.
30 Katja Sporn
in Hellenistic times. Based on this overall picture, I am going to discuss the natural
features involved in cultic spaces and used for cultic practises in ancient Athens in
a diachronic perspective.
In general, natural features in cultic space could mean any kind of unworked or
worked walkable rock depressions – caves, grottoes, rock shelters, and gorges – or
distinctive rock formations: crevices, rock walls, niches, cavities, rock-cut thrones,
reliefs and inscriptions. Natural cult features in vegetation include groves, trees or
gardens. In addition, both stagnant (bogs and marshes) and fresh water (springs,
rivers, lakes, seas) as well as ‘unnatural’ water features (suddenly vanishing wa-
ter in katavothres, ‘sinkholes’, hot or cold water spots etc.) can be attractive focal
points for ritual behaviour. Taking a wider view, all sanctuaries are situated in one
part or the other of the physical landscape; they are built into the earth, onto rock, or
set next to a river or a water source. Nevertheless, one has to discern – or at least at-
tempt to do so – the setting of a cult place in a natural space, e. g. architecture using
the existing rock simply for economic reasons and without a cultic background,4
from natural features clearly integrated into cultic and/or ritual space or even into
the aitiology of the cult. Beyond that, it is necessary to differentiate between natural
features forming cultic spaces themselves (mostly cave-sanctuaries) and the inte-
gration of these into a broader architectural setting. The natural features can even be
imitated, which again seems to have been common from Hellenistic times onwards,
though less so on the Greek mainland than in Eastern Greece and Asia Minor (and
later in Rome and Italy).5
Athens provides an excellent case study for exploring different kinds of natural
features, because both the ancient textual sources and material culture have been
recorded more systematically and have received more scholarly attention than those
of any other ancient Greek polis. Especially in Archaic and Classical times, Athens
as the polis par excellence was adorned with outstanding buildings designed by the
best architects available. The usual assumption is that there was a development in
cultic space ‘from nature to culture’, with Porphyry and especially Lucian being
used as references.6 How can the relationship between nature and culture be defined
in Athens? My analysis will focus on the area enclosed by the Themistoclean city
walls of Athens and the nearby suburban areas. In doing so, I will concentrate on
evidence from Archaic to Hellenistic times without neglecting later sources. The
overview, however, has to start with the surroundings of Athens.
4 An excellent example is the use of trimmed rock as the back wall of a temple at Antikyra in
Phokis. This was probably done for the sake of economy of time and/or space; for the temple,
see Lolling 1889: 229–232; Raptopoulos 2005; Sideris 2014: 125–129.
5 For artificial grottoes and various kinds of their use, with an emphasis on Rhodes, see now
Neumann 2016.
6 Porph. De antr. nymph. 20; Lucian. sacr. 10–11; Mylonopoulos 2008; Sporn 2015: 339 with
further references.
Natural Features in Greek Cult Places: The Case of Athens 31
2. THE NATURAL SETTING OF ATHENS
2.1. Mountains and Hills
The plain on which Athens is located covers an area of 22 by 12 kilometres and is

encircled by three mountains (fig. 1):
Fig. 1: The Setting of Athens in Attica, adapted by author, graphics by H. Birk.
to the west lies Parnes (with a height of 1,413 metres), to the east Pentelicon
(1,109 m), and to the northeast Hymettos (1,026 m).7 Right through this plain, the
Anchesmos ridge – today called Tourkovounia (302 m) – crosses in an east-west
7 Reference maps for Athens and Attica, including all ancient remains known at the beginning of
the 20th century, were edited by E. Curtius and J. A. Kaupert in 1904; see the recent edition
Korres 2008 (with useful commentary). The old but still influential analysis of Judeich 1931 is
based on these maps (see pp. 43–49 for the setting of Athens); for the excavations Travlos 1971;
see now Greco 2010: 45–49 (E. Fouache – K. Pavlopoulos) with figure on p. 47.
32 Katja Sporn
direction. A famous passage from Pausanias8 mentions a number of single statues

of gods set on these mountains: on Pentelicon, there was an agalma (a statue of a
god, or at least a statue in a cultic setting, usually executed in bronze9) of Athena.
On Hymettos stood an agalma of Zeus Hymettios as well as bomoi (altars) for Zeus
Ombrios and for Apollon Proopsios. On the Parnes, an agalma of Zeus Parnethios,
an altar of Zeus Semaleos and an altar for Zeus Ombrios or Apemios had been
erected, while on mount Anchesmos, there was an agalma of Zeus Anchesmios.10
On the Hymettos, the Parnes and the Anchesmos, cult places (of Zeus) could be
identified in the archaeological record. On mount Parnes, an altar and cave lie close
below the summit. The earliest finds date into the late Protogeometric period. From
the late eighth/early seventh century BC onwards, however, we see changes in the
votive patterns and Protocorinthian pottery starts to dominate. The excavations also
revealed a remarkable amount of iron knives: around 4000 indicate a large-scale
number of thysiai. The veneration of Zeus Parnesios and Hikesios is furthermore
attested through vase graffitti found on the site.11 There were even processions from
Athens to Mount Parnes and Mount Hymettos, begging for rain, taken to indicate an
agricultural appeal to these sanctuaries.12 Studies have assumed that all these sanc-
tuaries had been in use until the eighth and seventh centuries BC, with the material
from Parnes and Hymettos reaching back as far as the ninth or even tenth centuries.
For Classical times, the evidence is sparse, and there are no signs for activities
beyond Hellenistic times. R. Parker has therefore called the mountain shrines a
characteristic of the pre-classical polis.13 These sanctuaries were usually set on top
of a mountain or hill, with many – but by no means all of them – dedicated to Zeus.
Apart from the altars, possibly some statues of the gods in question and a delineated
precinct, these sites are characterised by a lack of large-scale temple architecture.
Admittedly, this corresponds to a general development in Archaic and Classical
times; therefore, the gap might be more of a chronological issue. As we will see,
however, this is probably not the case. Some hills are located rather closer to the
asty of Athens (fig. 2).
The Acropolis, of course, which the Areopagus (115 m) adjoins to the north-
west, is to be found in the centre of the city (156 m). In the west and southwest
direction lies the ridge called the Pnyx, comprising the Hill of the Muses (Philopap-
pos, 147 m), the proper Pnyx (109 m) and what is nowadays called the Hill of the
Nymphs because of the sanctuary of the Nymphs (105 m, fig. 2,12) – although its
ancient name remains unknown. To the northeast of the Acropolis, there is Mount
8 Paus. 1.32.2; see extensively Cook 1925: 868–897; Parker 1996: 29–33 with map fig. II.
9 For the meaning and use of agalma compare Sporn 2014: 118, 128 with n. 72.
10 Rocchi 2005: 59. For the cult place on the Tourkovouni, possible to be identified with the An-
chesmos, see Lauter 1985.
11 For the cult place on mount Parnes, see most recently Palaiokrassa-Kopitsa and Vivliodetis
2015.
12 For the sanctuary on mount Hymettos see Langdon 1976, for processions to mount Parnes and
Hymettos begging for rain see Langdon 2000: 469. Parker 1996: 31–33 rightly points out that
the cult might not have been restricted to the rain-giving and agricultural aspect, but that wor-
shippers included a well-educated clientele, as can be deduced from the numerous graffiti.
13 Parker 2005: 29–30.
Fig. 2: Based on the map of Kaupert/Curtius, kept at the DAI Athens, adapted by author,
graphics by H. Birk.
Lykabettos (277 m) with the small hill Schisto or schiste petra (171 m) on its west-
ern side. In the northwest follow the hills Strephi (163 m) and the lower Kolonos
Hippios (57 m, in the area north of the map). We know of cult places situated on
some of those hills, such as the one of Poseidon Hippios, which gave the name
to the Kolonos Hippios.14 Their physical appearances, on the other hand, mostly
remain unknown – leaving the question of their relation to natural features un-
answered. Older philological studies had discussed whether the Lykabettos itself
14 Paus. 1.30.4, compare Judeich 1931: 45 n. 4; Mikalson 2005: 33; Greco 2014b: 1516–1519
(D. Marchiandi); for the connection of Poseidon with horses and its meaning, see Mylonopou-
los 2003: 365–369. For this sanctuary, Pausanias refers to an altar of Poseidon Hippios, whose
temple was burnt by Antigonos.
34 Katja Sporn
was considered holy, yet sacred mountains were extremely uncommon in Greece.
Mountains were “holy” for the cult places of gods or heroes located on them, not
in their own right.15
2.2. Rivers and Springs
Athens has only few rivers, but there were three important ones.16 The longest of
them is Kephisos, with its main spring on Mount Pentelicon, leading all the way
through the plain of Athens and eventually opening out into the bay of Phaleron.
The Ilissos originates from the northwest side of Mount Hymettos and delimits the
Athenian asty to the south before – in antiquity – flowing into the bay of Phaleron as
well. The Eridanos, with its source east of the asty at the foot of mount Lykabettos,
is more of a stream. Out of the three rivers, it is the only one leading west through
Athens, and leaves the city again at the Dipylon.17
There were probably cult places at all the springs of Athens’ main rivers. Lit-
erary evidence confirms this assumption for the sources of the Ilissos and the Ke-
phisos, which were also venerated themselves. As for the Ilissos, the spring lay
beyond Agrai and the Lyceum. It became famous through Plato, who wrote:18
“By Hera, it is a charming resting place. For this plane tree is very spreading and lofty, and the
tall and shady willow is very beautiful, and it is in full bloom, so as to make the place most
fragrant; then, too, the spring is very pretty as it flows under the plane tree, and its water is very
cool, to judge by my foot. And it seems to be a sacred place of some nymphs and of Acheloos,
judging by the figurines and statues. Then again, if you please, how lovely and perfectly charm-
ing the breeziness of the place is! and it resounds with the shrill summer music of the chorus of
cicadas. But the most delightful thing of all is the grass, as it grows on the gentle slope, thick
enough to be just right when you lay your head on it.”
The sanctuary’s location is still unknown. At a place called Pera, however, near
one of the sources of the Ilissos on Mount Hymettos and outside the asty close to
the modern-day monastery at Kaisariani, there was a sanctuary of Aphrodite where
women drank from the water hoping for fertility.19
The Kephisos was also venerated in its own right. At the river’s spring at the
foot of Pentelicon in the deme trinemeia, a small temple was found, which was
probably dedicated to the river god.20 At the source of the Eridanos at the foot of
15 Langdon 2000: 463–465 (this seems to be a topic only discussed by philologists); on the rarity
of cults of mountains in Greece, see Sporn 2013. See also Greco 2014a, 603 (D. Marchiandi)
for the mythological tradition, according to which Athena had dropped the hill at this location
to create a physical barrier in front of her sacred hill, the Acropolis (Amelesagoras FGrH 330
fr. 1 apud Antigon. Hist. Mir. 12).
16 Compare Judeich 1931: 47–48.
17 See also Stroszeck 2014: 26–27.
18 Pl. Phd. 230 bc (transl. H. North Fowler).
19 Hes. K 4521; see Dunant 2009: 280–281. For (very vague) suggestions of depictions of Ilissos
in Greek art, see Proskynitopoulou 1990: 649–650.
20 Dunant 2009: 279–280.
Lykabettos hill, we may assume the existence of a former cult place (fig. 2,1).21
These days, the area is overbuilt and preserved in the courtyard of a complex by
the famous Greek architect K. Doxiadis, which has recently been refurbished and
is now called ‘Athens One’.
Not merely at the source, but also along the course of the rivers, cult places
were established. In some cases, they were connected with a river god, but cults
for other deities occur as well. The sanctuary of Herakles Pankrates on the bank of
the Ilissos (fig. 2,2), a short distance upstream from the modern-day Panathenaic
stadium, clearly integrated the river into its outline. The layers of bedrock formed a
natural theatrical setting with an opening towards the river. Another natural feature
in the sanctuary is a cleft in the ground. The built architecture, on the other hand,
might have been confined to an altar or some kind of small building, of which only a
pebbled floor of three by four metres has been identified.22 Further along the course
of the Kephisos, in the area of modern-day Neo Phalero, there was a sanctuary
with an altar dedicated to Kephisos. At the same site, the famous votive relief with
an accompanying inscription of Xenokrateia, dating to around 400 BC, has been
found – together with a second relief and an altar.23 As Emmanouel Voutiras has
recently pointed out, the first relief is a dedication to Kephisos by Xenokrateia for
the sake of the didaskalia (education) of her son. Cults at rivers are often connected
with petitions for the well-being of children, whose hair curls – as literary sources
attest – could be dedicated and thrown into the river as part of the ritual.24 Other
cults linked with the river, however, can have a different connotation: the weapons
that were found all along the Alpheios at Olympia rather seem to indicate warrior
dedicants.25
There were also cults at wells. As recently as 2015, Jutta Stroszeck has exca-
vated and studied two wells in the Kerameikos of Athens (fig. 2,3)26. One of the
wells was dedicated to Pan, Men and the Nymphs. The other one was situated in a
sacred precinct (the so-called Hekateion, now called the Sanctuary of Artemis So-
teira and Apollo), formed at some time in the later Roman imperial period. The well
in this precinct carries the similar inscription ΕΛΘΕ ΜOΙ Ω ΠΑΙΑΝ ΦΕΡΩΝ ΤΌ
ΜΑΝΤΕIOΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΣ in slight variations on all its cylinders, which refers to the
giving of an oracle or possibly the existence of a water oracle site. The Paian men-
tioned in the inscription can likely be identified with Apollo, since oracles of Apollo
21 Compare Greco 2014a: 606 (D. Marchiandi); Stroszeck 2014: 26 fig. 3.1.
22 The sanctuary is not visible any more, lying below modern-day Vas. Konstantinou Street at the
site of the Truman statue; for the outline of the sanctuary, see Vikela 1994: 1–3, 225 addendum
1–2; Parker 2005: 419–424; Dunant 2009: 284–285.
23 Comprehensively: Dunant 2009: 279–280. For the votive relief, see Edwards 1985: 310–338
no. 3 pl. 2; the votive inscriptions: IG I3 986–987; cult regulation: IG II2 4547; for the interpre-
tation of the inscription, see now Voutiras 2009.
24 Paus. 1.37.2; see Pilz in preparation.
25 See a yet unpublished presentation by Aliki Moustaka at the Greek-German doctoral seminar
“Sanctuaries and Cults in Ancient Greece”, held at the DAI Athens, 30th–31st October 2014.
26 See Stroszeck 2015/2016.
36 Katja Sporn
are particularly common.27 But so far, there is little evidence of oracular sites in At-
tica, the prominent exception being the Amphiareion at the Attic/Boeotian border.28
Oracles can thus not be considered typical for Athens, although inspired oracles
associated with water are very common in Greece. One might think of the priestess
of the oracle of Apollo at Didyma who entered a mantic condition when touching
the water of the holy source with her feet or the hem of her dress; the priest from
Klaros drank the water of the source.29 Connections between oracles and funnels or
caves are common, sometimes even using artificial caves.30
3. THE HEART OF ATHENS: THE AKROPOLIS
To concentrate on the asty of Athens, the connection with natural features is already
present in the myth of the dominion over the city. Two rival gods offered to gener-
ate different natural resources on the Acropolis. Poseidon was to open the sacred
salt source with his trident, Athena to let the olive tree grow. Athena’s victory is
common knowledge.31 Pausanias tells us that the tree grew again, after the Persians
destroyed it together with the whole site of the Acropolis. In modern times, an olive
tree has been planted close to its original place at the Erechtheion.
The olive tree brings us to a small digression about sacred trees. These could be
found in sanctuaries, both natural and planted, as in the case of the so-called The-
seion in Athens32. The fact that they were integrated into a sacred setting does not
necessarily mean the trees themselves were considered sacred. Even the hanging of
clay pinakes on the branches, as shown on vases,33 cannot be used as an argument
for the holiness of the tree. Single trees were often connected with the cult places
of heroes, for example at the Tritopatreion at the Kerameikos.34 A tree sacred in its
own right may have given its name to the suburb Hiera syke (holy fig tree) in the
deme Lakiadai35. Apart from that, we know of no larger sacred groves in the centre
27 For the most prominent ones at Delphi and Abai in Phokis, Klaros and Didyma in Asia Minor
compare Friese 2010: 30–36, 363–365, 371, 387–388, 390–392 and passim for other oracles of
Apollo.
28 For the Amphiareion, see Friese 2010: 367–368; Renberg 2017: 272–295, 310–315, 660–676.
The existence of an oracular shrine at the site corresponds well with the fact that in Boeotia,
contrary to Athens, oracular sanctuaries occurred very frequently, see Bonnechère 1990. For
the inscription on the Acropolis of Athens referring to an oracle and for the setting-up of a
statue to Gaia, also in the Roman imperial period, see below n. 41.
29 Friese 2010: 161.
30 Neumann 2015.
31 Paus. 1.27.2, 8.23.5; Birge 1994: 234.
32 On sacred trees and sacred groves, see Boetticher 1856; Birge 1982; De Cazanove and Scheid
1993; Demandt 2002; Bonnechère 2007; Calame 2007. For the planting pits and flower pots at
the so-called Theseion, see Thompson 1937.
33 See Sporn 2015: 344–345; examples of displaying pinakes in trees: Karoglou 2010: 10–14.
34 Stroszeck 2010; Stroszeck 2014: 104–106. The final publication on the findings from the sanc-
tuary is being prepared by Jutta Stroszeck.
35 Judeich 1931: 177.
of Athens similar to the above mentioned Poseidon sanctuary at the Kolonos Hip-
pios, but gardens in cultic settings were known, a fact to which I will return later.
Speaking in general, the Erechtheion is the place to see a variety of natural
features (fig. 2,4).36 In its interior, there was a sacred spring connected to the tri-
dent-mark of Poseidon (in earlier sources, such as Apollodorus, named thalassa,
the sea, in later ones phrear, the well). Furthermore, there was a hole in its northern
stoa, where the thunderbolt of Zeus was said to have torn up the ground. According
to one tradition, Erechtheus was struck down by Zeus’ thunderbolt (following a
plea by Poseidon) and later worshipped as a god on the Acropolis.37 The supposed
spot in the northern yard of the Erechtheion was known as the Grave of Erechtheus.
In the ceiling above it, an area was left unroofed, in accordance with the idea that
the impact site of a thunderbolt should not be covered.38 Places struck by lightning
were considered holy, because they were regarded as a sign of Zeus. It was even
possible to think of Zeus himself as the thunderbolt. Two inscriptions of the Athe-
nian Acropolis refer to an abaton of Zeus Kataibates, bearing the epikleseis of Zeus
of the Thunderbolts, but the site of the cult remains unknown.39
The underground of the Acropolis consisted of the same plain rock sometimes
used for establishing a cult place. One of the approximately twelve rock-cut inscrip-
tions known from Athens (a small number compared to the evidence from Attica),
is situated on the Athenian Acropolis, just north of the Parthenon (fig. 2,5). Next to
a rectangular cutting in the rock, we find the inscription “of the fruit-bearing Earth,
in accordance with an oracle”. The text, dating from the second century AD, iden-
tifies the place as sacred to Ge Karpophoros.40 In the rectangular cutting, a statue
must have been set up, possibly the one of Gaia seen by Pausanias on the Acropolis.
According to his testimony, it showed the goddess begging Zeus to send rain down
on her.41 Of course, the location of the oracular shrine itself may still be debated and
does not necessarily have to be situated in the vicinity of this inscription. Perhaps
just the act following the oracle was fulfilled there. Nevertheless, there is evidence
for a sanctuary of Earth as a goddess of natural fertility (consisting simply of a
statue) next to the Parthenon in Roman times. We know nothing about the cult
involved.
All these cults are connected with fertility. Although the rock is the place where
the cult was conducted, the contents of the prayers are related to what came from
the sky above. More precise, they focus on what one would like to avert (rain, thun-
der, trident), so that something could arise in the plain ground or something bad
could be averted (thunderbolt).
36 See comprehensively Hurwit 1999: 200–209; Greco 2010: 132–136 (M. C. Monaco).
37 Elderkin 1941.
38 See Speyer 1978: 1124–1127.
39 IG II2 4964–4965; Cook 1925: 13–23 on Zeus Kataibates; on thunder in antiquity, see also
Sporn 2011.
40 IG II2 4758: Γῆς καρποφόρου κατὰ μαντείαν; Paus. 1.24.3; Hurwit 1999: 276 fig. 225.
41 Heydemann 1870; recently discussed by Wallensten 2014.
38 Katja Sporn
The last of the cultic spaces associated with the rock of the Acropolis was the
one of Zeus Polieus (fig. 2,6).42 At the feast called Dipoleia, offerings of Bouphonia
were made for Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. The cult is extraordinary in many re-
spects, e. g. in bringing the butcher’s dagger to trial after the feast. In all likelihood,
the cult place itself hardly altered the natural rock. The fence, which probably has
to be imagined as a huge peribolos according to the post-holes cut into the rock, was
to house the cattle brought up to the Acropolis for the feast and slaughter. Therefore,
the rock was simply the ground used for the cult, but not an essential part of its
content, unlike the example mentioned above for the temple at Antikyra in Phokis.
4. THE SLOPES OF THE ACROPOLIS
Underneath the Acropolis, there are a number of cult places, both open-air and
architectonically designed; I will focus for my analysis on the caves and one rock
sanctuary.43 The slopes around the Acropolis could be approached by a path, the
peripatos, whose dedicatory inscription from the mid-fourth century BC remains
visible at the north side of the hill next to the track.44
In the northwest section, three caves have been identified: one each for Pan,
Zeus, and Apollo Hypoakraios (fig. 2,7).45 The cave later dedicated to Apollo seems
to have been in use since the thirteenth century BC. It was said to be the place
where Apollo made love to Kreousa, the daughter of Erechtheus, and where Ion
was born from that union. The twelve inscriptions inserted into the niches date
from the 1st–3rd century AD. Since Apollo ὑπὸ Μακραῖς seems to be mentioned in
the cult calendar of 403–399 BC found in the Agora, his cult apparently had been
established by then.46 Many dedications have been made by office-bearers such as
thesmothetes, an archon basileus, or a polemarchos. It is still disputed whether or
not this sanctuary was an offshoot of the one of Apollo Pythios south of the Olym-
pieion.47 In any case, the ship carried in the procession of the Panathenaia passed
along this spot. According to Strabo, it was connected to the eschara of Zeus Astra-
paios, another god associated with thunderbolts. It is possible to identify the second
cave, the one of Pan, thanks to the literary tradition as preserved by Euripides and
Pausanias and to a relief of Pan and the Nymphs. The cave is divided into three
parts, the easternmost of which was converted into a chapel of St. Athanasios in the
fifth century AD. The identification of the cave of Zeus dates to the fifth century BC
and is based on Thucydides and Strabo.
42 Hurwit 1999: 207–210; Greco 2010: 122–123 (M. C. Monaco). Both with discussions of the
feast.
43 Wickens 1986: 361–392; Kavvadias 2004: 19; Greco 2010: 151–157 (S. Savelli).
44 Peripatos: IG II2 2639; Korres 2009: 79–81; Greco 2010: 156–157 (S. Savelli). It is unknown
when the path was first established; Korres supposes a start before the fifth century BC.
45 Nulton 2003.
46 Gawlinski 2007: 40 l. 4, 44. He was given “a full-grown offering”.
47 See the summary of the arguments in Greco 2010, 151–152 (S. Savelli).
Further to the northeast lies the hypaethrial shrine of Aphrodite and Eros
(fig. 2,8).48 This is not a cave, yet the rock was used as a façade, in front of which
a marble parapet depicting a series of Eros figures in relief was set in Hellenistic
times. Many small votive niches are cut into the rock, resembling those at the sanc-
tuary of Aphrodite at Daphni along the road to Eleusis.49 This place at the northern
slope of the Acropolis may have been dedicated to “Aphrodite in the gardens”, but
the true sanctuary of this goddess lay on the opposite side of the town, in the south-
ern area Kepoi in the Ilissos area outside the walls.50 The sanctuary on the northern
slope was perhaps connected with the Arrhephoroi, as during the night, the Arrhe-
phoroi brought the arrheta (“things which cannot be talked about”) to a sanctuary
of Aphrodite in the gardens. The sanctuary itself is attested since the mid-fifth cen-
tury BC. Only recently, Helga Bumke has emphasized the frequent link between
sacred groves or gardens and sanctuaries of Aphrodite.51
At the eastern slope on the far end of the area, a large cave (about 22 by 14 me-
tres) is visible from a long distance (fig. 2,9). It has been identified by Georgios
Dontas as the sanctuary of Aglauros thanks to a decree found in situ, which is
thought to date from the mid-third century BC.52 The cave was located above the
old Agora and housed – as the cave of Apollo Pythios – an official cult of Athens: it
may be the place where the oath of the ephebes was sworn.
5. AREOPAGUS: ARES AND ATHENA AREIA
Near the western entrance of the Acropolis, there lies a small hill (115 m) overlook-
ing the Agora.53 It was and still is named “Areopagus”, the hill of Ares (fig. 2,10).
This was where Athens held its trials, and Aischines refers to offerings to Ares54.
Pausanias on the other hand knows of an altar of Athena Areia on the Areopagus,
dedicated by Orestes after his absolution from the murder of his mother.55 The altar
is not preserved, but is hypothetically marked on Kaupert-Curtius’ map of Athens;
the rock-cut stairs leading to the top were well visible in the last century.56
48 Broneer 1935; Rosenzweig 2004: 37–39; Greco 2010: 154–156 (S. Savelli); Bumke 2015:
50–53.
49 For that sanctuary, with a series of rock-cut niches, see Machaira 2008.
50 The sanctuary could not be identified, see Rosenzweig 2004, 28–58; Greco 2011, 436–437
(D. Marchiandi) for the discussion of the evidence.
51 Bumke 2015.
52 Paus. 1.18.2; for the swearing of the oath, see Dem. or. 19.303 with Schol.; for the sanctuary,
see Dontas 1983; Greco 2010: 159 fig. 80 (M. Saporiti); recently Ekroth 2010.
53 See now conclusively Greco 2010: 209–218 (F. Longi – M. G. Tofi).
54 Aesch. Eum. 689–695.
55 Paus. 1.28.5.
56 See D-DAI-ATH-Hege-2268, also shown on the maps in Greco 2010: 211–212 fig. 111–112
and referred to on p. 219, because they give the way up to an Ionic temple situated there, built
onto the rock.
40 Katja Sporn
6. THE CIVIC AND POLITICAL CORE OF ATHENS: THE AGORA
While the Acropolis was the religious centre of Athens, the Agora constituted its
civic and political core. It was full of all kinds of significant buildings. Neverthe-
less, it is here, on the north side of the Agora, that we encounter one of the most
obvious cult places of Athens that used a natural feature as a focal point. It had been
named Leokoreion, but it is now mostly called ‘crossroads enclosure’, for reasons
mentioned below (fig. 2,11). The rock may have been a place of deposition since
the mid-fifth century BC, but around 430/420 BC, it was enclosed within a parapet
of 3.95 by 3.65 metres width and a height of 1.20 metres. The votives and the of-
fering debris include ceramics, domestic items and burnt bones, hundreds of which
have been found on site. It is unclear whether it was understood as an altar; in any
case, the spot was considered special. By the end of the same century, the structure
was sealed with a clay floor leaving visible only the upper part of the rock. Over
the next 100 years, the place ceased to be used. The earlier identification with the
Leokoreion is unlikely, because it must have existed already in the sixth century
BC, while the crossroads enclosure shows no signs of activity during that period.57
To date, the results of the excavations have not been fully published. The major-
ity of the 360 objects found here, mostly ceramics, were drinking vessels (mainly
skyphoi) and lekythoi, but there were also a large number of miniature vessels. The
pottery is of high quality, either red-figure or clack-glazed stamped ware. The other
objects include loom-weights, spindle-whorls, astragals, some gold jewellery and
a mirror. The find material and the iconography of the vases suggest a connection
with offerings made by children (askoi, chous) and ephebes or young women; the
identity of the god or hero worshipped here remains unknown.58 Due to its position
at the main meeting point of the Agora, we should probably not think of a private
cult place but an official cult of Athens.
7. SOUTHWEST AREA: HILL OF THE NYMPHS/PNYX
Various cult places connected with natural features are known on the Hill of the
Nymphs (fig. 2,12 and fig. 3).59
First of all, there is a large inscription from the mid-fifth century BC read-
ing Ieron Nymph(o)n Demo(u) on the top of the hill, close to the Old Observa-
57 For the identification, see Wycherley 1972: 121–123; Shear 1973 (excavation); Camp 1990: 86
fig. 46–48. Today, the research is against the identification with the Leokoreion (Thuc. 6.57;
Arist. [Ath. pol.] 18.3); for argumentations, see Kron 1976: 199–200; Rotroff 1978: 207 n. 53;
Gaifman 2012: 158–613; Biehl 2016. According to Rupp 1983: 102, the integration of such
uncut rock-formations into a cult place is at least better known since Archaic and Classical
times. He calls the sacred enclosure a rock altar. For parallels, see Bruns 1960.
58 It is normally connected only with women, see Gaifman 2012: 161 (offerings point to a female
sphere, possibly at the site of a cult to a female goddess); Biehl 2016.
59 See in general on that area Forsén 1993; Forsén 1996; Greco 2011, further bibliography in the
following footnotes.
Fig. 3: View from the Acropolis to the East, towards the hill of the Nymphs;
D-DAI-ATH-Akropolis-0498 (photographer: unknown).
tory.60 It is situated on a partly smoothed vertical rock, the top of which bears a
sloping, but smoothed area of 2.81 by 2.04 metres with a rock-cut depression of
30 centimetres in diameter and a depth of 80 centimetres – probably a bothros.
Rising above that smoothed area, we find an almost oval rock riddled with fissures,
which may have been the centre of the cult place. In a recent excavation by the
Greek Archaeological Service in 2000, a large number of terracotta figurines were
found, indicating a cultic use of the area from Archaic times until the end of the
fourth century BC.61 The meaning of the inscription is still subject to debate.62 It
has been regarded as early evidence for a sanctuary of the Nymphs and the deme
(the translation of the inscription would thus be “the sanctuary of the Nymphs and
the Deme”). In recent times, however, this view has been challenged by Eugenio
Lanzilotta. His interpretation supposes a horos inscription of a deme, which accord-
ing to the physical position of the inscription which suggests it would be Melite/
Kollytos. The idea has been adopted by Lalonde and Papazarkadas, but the meaning
of the inscription remains uncertain. In any case, the inscription is the only evidence
surviving from the sanctuary. Considering the lack of surrounding rock cuttings, it
seems safe to assume a hypaethrial cult place.
60 IG I3 1065 gives the reading hιερόν Νυμφῶν Δέμω. The site has been known to early travellers
in Greece since the 1820s, but the first extensive publication was done by Kron 1979: 63–75
with fig. 1–3 pl. 10–11; compare the general remarks on the site in Greco 2011: 332–333
(M. C. Monaco).
61 Dakoura-Vogiatzouglou 2008: 256 n. 63.
62 Lanzillotta 2000; Lalonde 2006: 110; Papazarkadas 2011: 158–159.
42 Katja Sporn
In the vicinity of this hill, there are many other sanctuaries using the bare rock,
such as the one of Zeus Meilichios on the rock below the church of Aghia Marina,
recently fully published by G. Lalonde (fig. 2,13).63 It comprises a whole system
of different rock-cut features, including an altar and a lustral basin. Two rock-cut
inscriptions of the late sixth or early fifth century BC reading ὅρος Διός and ὅρος
attest to a cult of Zeus.
Another famous sanctuary is the one of Zeus Hypsistos on the Pnyx (fig. 2,14).64
On the rock on the western side of the front of the cavea on the Pnyx, we find a large
number of niches varying in size and height. Most of them were used to set up vo-
tive reliefs with anatomical depictions and inscriptions referring to Zeus Hypsistos,
dating from the late 1st–3rd century AD. The statue of the god was probably set up
in the large niche in the centre.
In the late nineteenth century, a rupestre inscription has been located ten me-
tres above the Roman grave, the so-called Grave of Kimon, and thus near the way
of Koile (fig. 2,15). It reads ἱερὸν Μητρός and has been dated to the fourth cen-
tury BC.65 Unfortunately, the exact spot can no longer be identified, but a cast of
the inscription kept in the Epigraphical Museum has been published by D. Peppas
Delmousou translating it as “Sacred to the Meter”. According to her interpretation,
the inscription denotes the border of the sanctuary of Meter, which comprised the
near-by ‘Heptathronion’ (fig. 2,16).66 This is an area of 13 by 10 metres, with seven
rock-cut seats next to each other on the southern side and an exedra in the eastern
wall, comprising a natural floor and staircases. This area has been called the bouleu-
terion, in which the dead body of Metragyrtes, who had introduced the cult of the
mother of the gods to Athens, had been collected. His murder by pushing him into
the barathron could have happened in this cliffy area. Convincing evidence for
that interpretation, and for the one concerning the ‘Heptathronion’, is still missing.
Rock-cut single seats, sometimes in sets, are familiar from many parts of the Greek
world.67 They can sometimes be seen as the seat of Zeus, as an empty throne. But
these seven seats must mean something different. They are of modest size (and
could not be called thrones), so they actually may have rather served a secular
function as a meeting place. Their religious purpose remains unclear, since their
connection with the sanctuary of Meter is not convincingly attested.
63 Lalonde 2005; Lalonde 2006a: 86–93; Lalonde 2006b: 110; Greco 2011: 333–335 fig. 167–168
(M. C. Monaco).
64 Forsén 1993; Forsén 1996: 47–55; Dakoura-Vogiatzouglou 2008: 250; Greco 2011: 342
fig. 175.
65 SEG 41:121; recent literature: Peppas Delmousou 1996: 105–107 (length of first line: 0.32 m,
second: 0.43 m, height of letters: 0.05–0.10 m); Lazaridou and Dakoura-Vogiatzouglou 2009:
15; Greco 2011: 359–360 (M. C. Monaco).
66 Judeich 1931: 397 (without calling it bouleuterion or connecting it with the cult of Meter);
Dakoura-Vogiatzouglou 2009: 233.
67 Gaifman 2012: 163–169 fig. 4, 17–19 (example of a double-throne in Chalke with inscriptions
to Zeus and Hekate, regarded as denoting a liminial space).
8. ILISSOS AREA
As mentioned above, several sanctuaries with strong natural features were located
in the Ilissos area, e. g. the one of Herakles Pankrates (fig. 2,2) – but there was also
a Spring of Kallirhoe. The latter site must have housed a very old and honourable
sanctuary. Its cults were related mainly to bridal baths, yet included other sacred
rites mentioned by Thucydides without further specifics. Unfortunately, the exca-
vations undertaken by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1893 yielded no signs
of the fountain building, which is depicted on Archaic vases, or a cult place in the
area.68 In its vicinity, on the southern bank of the Ilissos close to the modern-day
church of Ag. Photeini, there was a small cave-sanctuary with a rock relief of Pan
(fig. 2,17).69 The rock shelter itself is of modest dimensions, while in its interior,
a Roman grave has been found. The rock above is flattened on the southern and
eastern sides, creating two vertical walls meeting in a rectangular angle. A shallow
relief of Pan, 96 centimetres in height, is carved into the southern side. In the upper
part of the eastern side, there is a small niche. The relief was far more visible at the
beginning of the twentieth century than it is now (fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Pan at Ilissos; D-DAI-ATH-Athen-Varia-0311 (photographer: unknown).
Some cuttings on the southern side above the vertical rock wall can be interpreted
as the beddings for a built wall above. However, the area needs to be studied further
to establish whether the cuttings in the surrounding rock (steps and a quadrangular
68 Thuc. 2.15.4–5; compare Judeich 1931: 194–196; Wycherley 1972: 137–142; Greco 2011:
476–479 (D. Marchiandi / L. Mercuri).
69 Dimensions of the smoothed area: north-south: 9 m; east-west: 6 m; height: 3.5 m, cave: en-
trance width max. 2 m, height max. 1 m, depth max. 4 m; Rodenwaldt 1912; Wickens 1986:
313–319 no. 58; Greco 2011: 485–486 fig. 266–267 (D. Marchiandi / L. Mercuri).
44 Katja Sporn
opening) are ancient or part of the houses that stood there until the beginning of
the nineteenth century. The date of the relief is disputed as well. It surely cannot be
older than the fifth century BC, with the fourth century BC being the likelier option.
According to Rodenwaldt, there may have been a spring in the cave once, so the
trimming of the rock might have been done in order to offer a better view of the
spring. Pan, in combination with water, was often connected with the Nymphs.70
We neither have portable finds from the sanctuary, nor do the ancient sources give
us its name. Therefore, we cannot say whether the sanctuary had any official role;
due to its humbleness, I would rather doubt it.
According to tradition, one of the oldest and most venerated sanctuaries
of Athens was the one of Ge Olympia, located in the area of the Olympieion
(fig. 2,18).71 Pausanias described the temenos of the goddess with a chasma in the
ground, into which the water vanished, deviated by Zeus after the deluge in the
time of Deukalion. Every year, the Athenians made offerings there, throwing grain
with honey into the cleft. This feast was probably connected with the one called
Hydrophoria, commemorating the victims of the flood on the first day of the month
Anthesterion.
9. CONCLUSIONS
This overview of cult places linked to natural features in Athens has led us to several
conclusions. Apparently, there was no linear development ‘from nature to culture’,
but rather a coexistence of both. However, it has to be stressed that there are no defi-
nite cult places in the caves around the Acropolis dating to the Late Bronze Age or
the Early Iron Age. The cult places on the slopes seem to have been established no
earlier than in Archaic times. There was an ongoing increase of cult commitments
or re-structuring in Hellenistic times, as was the case with the sanctuary of Aphro-
dite and Eros on the northern slope – or even in the Roman imperial period with the
intensification of the cult of Apollon Hypoakraios. Generally speaking, some gods
are frequently connected with natural settings, including Pan, the Nymphs, Gaia,
and Aphrodite, as well as heroes and heroines. Quite often, cults of fertility were
located at these sites, both referring to the fertility of nature and of vegetation, as
well as the rites de passage of both young males and females. Nevertheless, the
rites were not only of a personal nature. An official context is to be understood in
the Aglaureion, where the oaths of the ephebes may have been taken, and in the
sanctuary of Apollo Hypoakraios with its numerous dedications by officials.
70 Compare Larson 2001.

71 Paus. 1.18.7 for the location of the temenos and the chasma; see also Thuc. 2.15.4; Plut. Vit.
Thes. 27.6 on the cult in Athens, for the area of the Olympieion see Travlos 1971: 290–291
fig. 379 no. 187 (locating it at the rocky outcrop outside the southwest corner of the Olym-
pieion); for the Hydrophoria, see Parker 2005: 276, 474; for a general commentary, see Greco
2011: 463–464 (D. Marchiandi). It is generally disputed, whether her precinct lay in the pre-
cinct of the Olympieion (therefore the epithet: Wallensten 2014: 195) or adjacent to it. The
chasm still remains to be identified.
Regarding the types of natural features, the most common ones in Athens seem
to be those connected with rock and water, similar to the findings from Asia Mi-
nor. This is hardly surprising, since rocks and caves are dominant features of the
geology of Athens, and water is the most important resource for human life. It is
only natural that in a densely built city, such as the asty of Athens, one would rarely
encounter larger spaces in the form of sacred groves or gardens within the urban
centre. Much more common is a limited number of trees and other plants.
The natural features possess an attraction of their own. They were viewed as
old and unmovable, the only things that were always in the same location. Official
oath-taking at these sites may thus be compared to the oath-taking at the lithos by
the archons, where the meat of the sacrificial animals was left. This lithos still lies
in front of the stoa basileios, and according to one theory, it is the lintel of a tholos
tomb.72 Natural features should therefore be seen as physical and old structures,
on which people could rely in both personal and civic instances. For these reasons,
they were integrated into architectural settings as well as venerated in their own
right. The above comparison to the poleis of Asia Minor demonstrates that Athens
as the much older city had been constantly drawing upon natural features ever since
it became a polis – or at least since the Archaic period. Cult places connected with
natural features were to be found at the margins of the city, suburban, intramural
or extramural. However, they could also be located right in the middle of the vi-
brant polis: on the Acropolis and in some of its cult buildings, at the slopes of the
Acropolis (therefore visible from all the lower lying demes), and in the centre of the
Agora. This guaranteed a permanent and direct contact with nature and thus ensured
reliability and steadfastness.
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THE GREEKS, RELIGION AND NATURE
IN GERMAN NEO-HUMANIST DISCOURSE
FROM ROMANTICISM TO EARLY INDUSTRIALISATION1
Richard Gordon, Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt
This contribution to the volume was written on the assumption that there would
be at least one other complementary paper devoted to intellectual history, dealing
with the first half of the twentieth century. In the event, however, this expectation
was not fulfilled. The paper makes no claim to provide an ‘objective’ overview of
neo-humanist views of the place of nature in Greek religion prior to 1860, let alone
a thumb-nail sketch of representations of Greek religion in this period. Rather, I
wanted to use the theme of ‘nature’ to avoid as far as possible the usual descriptions
of long-dead theories by high-lighting four issues that seemed to me fundamental.
First, the role played by neo-humanism in the German university landscape in re-
forming the old Gelehrtenstand, and the inevitable politico-cultural tensions as the
Germanic past and ‘modern subjects’ became an increasingly important factor in
school and university education, especially in the Prussian territories, already in the
1840s, with a stand-off reached by the 1850s. Secondly, to suggest how the associ-
ations of ‘Naturreligion’ shifted under the impact of new ethnographic information,
from which the Greeks, as ideal or exemplary Germans, needed to be protected. I
wanted, thirdly, to down-play the philological obsession with re-describing named
divinities as pseudo-people (as practised above all by Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker)
in favour of conceptions of Greek religion as an ‘organic’ or socio-cultural system.
Finally it seemed important to frame the entire discussion by briefly recalling the
wider socio-economic context of the ‘taming of Nature’ and early industrialisation,
within which these shifts of representation took place, even though, in my view,
no direct causal connection can be traced. My original intention was to continue
beyond 1860 up to the agitation for school-reform after 1880 and the decline in
university enrolments for Classics, on the one hand, and the revival of interest spe-
cifically in Greek religion from the late 1880s under the influence of neo-Roman-
ticism, the establishment of Religionswissenschaft as an international project, the
(re-) discovery of mysteries and Erlösung, Usener’s Götternamen (1894), and, not
1 I am most grateful to Tanja Scheer for the invitation to attend the conference in Göttingen,
which gave me the opportunity to absorb the atmosphere of one of the centres of German
neo-humanism: the University (founded by Baron Münchhausen in 1734) was, after Halle, the
first self-consciously ‘modern’ German university, with an emphasis on modern history and a
minimal place for theology: McClelland 1980: 35–57. I have chosen to suppose that potential
readers are capable of reading German. Linguistically, I confess to a certain schizophrenia: on
the one hand, I employ the German form of place names in Germany, while I retain Eng-
lish-style inverted commas, which may irritate native German readers.
50 Richard Gordon
least, Erwin Rohde’s Psyche (1890–94), the most widely read book on the ancient
world up to and beyond the Great War, which placed the individual and ‘das Un-
ergründliche’ in the centre of interest.2 To have done so, however, would not only
have lengthened the paper unwarrantably but also outrun my reading.
1. AESTHETIC GRAECOPHILIA
Schiller’s Die Götter Griechenlands, from his Philosophische Dichtungen (1788),

offers a convenient starting-point.3 The first strophe starts with an address to the
imagined gods of Hellas:
“Da ihr noch die schöne Welt regiertet, / An der Freude leichtem Gängelband / Glücklichere
Menschenalter führtet, / Schöne Wesen aus dem Fabelland! / Ach! Da euer Wonnedienst noch
glänzte, / Wie ganz anders, anders war es da!”4
The reference to Greece as “Fabelland” is a clear indication that the image is ba-
sically that of the innumerable handbooks of mythology, which J. B. Krebs’ great
bibliography of 1822–1823 indicates as the predominant mode in which Greek re-
ligion was conveyed to German audiences in the eighteenth century.5 As for the
insistence upon “schöne”, the very existence of the pagan gods, beautiful as they
were (“schöne Wesen”), guaranteed a better world (“schöne Welt”) than the mod-
ern, and their rule – by implication quite unlike that of modern Christianity – was
unrepressive (“leichtem Gängelband”) and full of joy.6 The last two lines of the
second strophe: “Alles wies den eingeweihten Blicken, / Alles eines Gottes Spur”
(ll.14–15), suggest that in ancient Greece the world was suffused with divinity, at
least for those who truly understood (“den eingeweihten Blicken”). The contrast
between ancient ‘naïveté’ and modern sentimentality is then in the third strophe
2 See e. g. Marchand 2003; Kippenberg 1997: 143–162; Schöll 1907.

3 Berghahn 1991 offers a good account of Schiller’s use of Greek myth.
4 Version 1, Teutscher Merkur, repr. Sämtliche Werke (eds. G. Fricke & H. G. Göpfert) vol. 1:
163–169.
5 Krebs 1823: 374–397 (§ 26: ‘Mythologie und Symbolik’). One of the most competent of these
Mythologies was Hederich 1741, re-issued as a facsimile as recently as 2006. The stream of
such compilations (e. g. Herrmann 1801–1802; Kanne 1805; Gruner 1810–1814; Nitsch 1821;
Jacobi 1835…) continued unabated well into the 1830s but then slackened off under the influ-
ence of K. O. Müller’s Dorier (1820–1824) and Prolegomena (1825) as ‘mythology’ ceased to
convince as a central term of analysis (Williamson 2004: 17). Wilhelm Rinck (1855: xi–xii)
complained about the ‘Götzendiener der Autorität’ who churned out these repetitive compila-
tions. It was the vogue for ‘wissenschaftliche Mythologie’ promoted by O. Gruppe (1887, cf.
1906) and W. Roscher’s Lexikon (1884–1937) that revived the genre, a vogue that was itself at
bottom a ‘scientific’ revival of Orientalism (Marchand 2009: 53–74), under the influence of the
‘new (German) anthropology’ (Smith 1991: 100–114, 162–173).
6 Cf. Schiller’s remarks on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Über das Studium des Altertums und des
Griechischen insbesondere (written in 1793 but first published only in 1896). Von Humboldt
wrote of Greek religion (page 12): “Sie war ganz sinnlich …”, on which Schiller commented:
“nicht bloß sinnlich, sondern die freieste Tochter der Phantasie. Es war kein Kanon vorhanden,
der der Dichtungskraft Fesseln anlegte”: Sämtliche Werke (eds. G. Fricke & H. G. Göpfert)
vol. 5: 1045 with their notes: 1250–1251.
The Greeks, Religion and Nature in German Neo-humanist Discourse 51
extended to encompass the discourse of natural science, for which the natural world
is by definition ‘soulless’. In ancient Greece, by contrast, people saw Helios’ golden
chariot, hills and mountains were inhabited by Oreads, to fell a tree was to kill a
Dryad, springs and fountains were the gift of Naiads.7
Such a view of Greek religion is obviously more heavily indebted to a liter-
ary text such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses than to any descriptive account of ancient
Greek belief and practice.8 There are perhaps three points to note. The first is that
this view of the relation between nature and divinity deliberately occludes an earlier
Humanist topos, based on ancient antecedents, that the, or at least some, gods ‘are’
elements of nature, e. g. Zeus = heaven, Demeter = grain, Dionysos = wine, viewed
elliptically as a natural product.9 Moreover, it is congruent with three currents in
contemporary thought. One is the attempt by the Jena circle (i. e. F. W. Schelling
and Goethe) to escape from Kant’s mechanistic philosophy of life by viewing Na-
ture monistically as a true ‘cosmos’, an harmoniously unified network of congruent
parts, in which Materie (matter) and Geist are just two aspects of the same Ur-
stoff,10 an idea that forms the inspiration of Alexander von Humboldt’s monumen-
tal Kosmos.11 Schiller’s familiarity with this type of Naturphilosophie is clear from
numerous odd remarks, e. g. in Anmuth und Würde (1793), where he claims that
in the Greeks’ view of nature, matter and spirit were fused together.12 The second
theme is J. G. Herder’s conception of Greece as suffused with its own characteristic
mythology, which in turn underwrote its own unique cultural value.13 Such a view,
loosely indebted to Winckelmann, led directly to an implicit (in Schiller’s poem ex-
plicit) hostility to organised Judaeo-Christianity, which he later regretted and took
7 “Wo jetzt nur, wie unsre Weisen sagen, / Seelenlos ein Feuerball sich dreht, / Lenkte damals
seinen goldnen Wagen / Helios in stiller Majestät. / Diese Höhen füllten Oreaden, / Eine Dryas
starb mit jedem Baum, / Aus den Urnen lieblicher Najaden / Sprang der Ströme Silberschaum”
(ll.16–24). On Schiller’s use of allegory, see e. g. Alt 1995: 599–621.
8 We might here recall another of Schiller’s effusions, this time from his distych ‘Griechheit’:
“Griechheit, was war sie? Verstand und Maß und Klarheit!” (from Goethe & Schiller’s Musen-
almanach 1797, repr. Sämtliche Werke [eds. G. Fricke & H. G. Göpfert] vol. 1: 292, no. 321).
Admittedly this xenion was directed at Fr. Schlegel’s essay Die Griechen und Römer (Neustre-
litz: Michaelis, 1797).
9 Physicalist interpretations of Greek gods, which, as I have pointed out, were dominant in the
humanist and early neo-humanist periods, were in the nineteenth century in my view a largely
irrelevant relic, if not an embarrassment. Contra: Konaris 2016, esp. 33–65 (on the minor figure
of P. W. Forchhammer).
10 Richards 2002: 9–13.
11 A. von Humboldt 2004 (first published 1845–1862).
12 “Dem Griechen ist die Natur nie bloß Natur … Natur und Sittlichkeit, Materie und Geist, Erde
und Himmel fließen wunderbar schön in seinen Dichtungen zusammen”: Sämtliche Werke (eds.
G. Fricke & H. G. Göpfert) vol. 5: 437. On J. A. Kanne’s attempt to find a ‘Lebensphilosophie’
in Greek myth (1805) under the influence of Romantic theory and his later rejection of all his-
torical analysis of such stories, see Schrey 1969: 42–76.
13 “Kein Volk des Altertums konnte also die Kunst der Griechen haben, das nicht auch griechische
Mythologie und Dichtkunst gehabt hatte, zugleich aber auch auf griechische Weise zu ihrer
Kunst gelangt war. Ein solches hat es in der Geschichte nicht gegeben, und so stehen die
Griechen mit ihrer homerischen Kunst allein da”: Herder 1787: 158.
52 Richard Gordon
pains to modulate in the second version, published in 1800.14 Here we encounter

one of the enduring neuralgic points of neo-humanism, how to reconcile its claim
to be able to provide a new national identity for the German Bildungsbürgertum,
when its basic thrust was anti-confessional and indeed secular. As we shall see, this
was one of the anxieties underlying the neo-humanist responses to Creuzer’s Sym-
bolik.15 The third theme is the point, merely implicit here, that “it is natural scenes
and landscapes that can produce a longing for a lost natural state”, a longing that
for Schiller distinguishes ‘modernity’ and can perhaps guide it to a return to nature
at a higher level.16
2. NATURE IN LATE HUMANISM
If we go back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, to the end of the Humanist
tradition in Germany, we find that things were much simpler. The integration of the
natural world into religious practice was taken to be a universal phenomenon, start-
ing with Adam and Eve. The familiar passages in the Old Testament, such as Noah
in Armenia, Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac, the Burning Bush, and Moses
meeting God on Mt. Sinai, were incorporated into a narrative about a widely-con-
ceived paganism that sometimes continued to Assyria and Egypt, but invariably
through ancient Greece and Rome17 to the ancient Germans and their forests, this
last topic more or less invented by Philipp Cluver in his Germania antiqua.18 Na-
ture-cult thus served as an ideological bridge between ancient Jews and Germans,
implicitly denying the classification of the latter as barbarians. Johann Christian
Blum (1669–1712) actually extended his survey of trees in religious practice to
include Acosta’s account of the worship of trees in Peru.19 The Humanist discus-
sion however was highly selective, concentrating on woods and trees on the one
hand, and mountains on the other, though Blum, who introduced the invented word
δενδροσεβεία into his title, is once again original in suggesting that we need new
words for different practices, such as λιθοσεβεία, ἀνθοσεβεία and ὀρνιθοσεβεία.20
14 Gedichte, Teil 1, containing only 14 of the original 25 verses, with two new ones (nos. 6 and
16); repr. Sämtliche Werke (eds. G. Fricke & H. G. Göpfert) vol. 1: 169–173 with their note:
873–874.
15 See Williamson 2004: 14, who (rather one-sidedly) views early neo-humanism as a defensive
response to the Oriental roots of Judaism and Christianity. I defer my remarks on the social role
of neo-humanism to later.
16 Citation from Güthenke 2008, 30–31 in relation to Schiller’s ‘Über naïve und sentimentalische
Dichtung’ (1795).
17 On sacred trees and groves treated thus, see e. g. the Nürnberg dissertation (1686) by A. C. Eschen-
bach (1663–1722) or Dietrich Dres(s)ler’s slight Leipzig essay (1720); as usual, Lakermacher
provides an admirable summary of the humanist discourse on the topic, complete with the
supposed Hebrew etymology of ἄλσος, citing the reference to the tamarisk-tree (‫ )לשא‬at Gene-
sis 21:33 (1734: 134–154). Fr. Gotthilf Freitag (1687–1761) wrote his slim Leipzig dissertation
on sacred or holy mountains (1719).
18 Cluver 1616, 16312, 16633.
19 Blum 1711: 3.
20 Ibid: 23.
This suggestion fell on stony ground however and his coinages never entered any
lexicon. The universality of nature-cult – it is never clear whether nature is itself
the object of worship, or natural objects symbolise deities, or whether Nature serves
merely as a prop or background for cultic activity – is taken as a reason not to prob-
lematise such practices but simply to record instances under various headings, types
of trees, known sacred groves, epithets derived from mountains, statues of gods
on mountains and so on. The list – and of course the sheer availability of classical
sources ensured that Greek and Roman sources supply almost all the material –
takes the place of reflection. Where a higher-level category is required, all such
practices fall simply under the heading ‘Örtlichkeit’.
As far as I know, however, this flurry of late-Humanist interest in Greek reli-
gious investment in the natural world was understood to have no future and was
simply dropped, its sole value for later writers being the references assembled,
above all to texts such as Pliny the Elder, Apuleius, Lucian and numerous pas-
sages of Pausanias, which are invariably cited for fundamental claims.21 Despite
Johann Gottfried Lakemacher’s construction (1743) of Greek religion as a practice
co-terminous with a people on the model of Judaism,22 ‘paganism’ and ‘idolatry’
were only effectively replaced by the more neutral ‘religion’ in the later French
Enlightenment.23 And it was only with the Graecophilic invention of ‘the Greeks’
as a uniquely privileged people that the relation between their religion and Nature
came to seem to pose a problem.
3. THE TOPOS OF THE ‘NATURAL GREEKS’
Under the influence of Rousseau and of course Winckelmann, the concept of Na-
ture ceased in the second half of the eighteenth century to have anything to do with
concrete features of the landscape and reverted to an earlier value as the opposite of
convention.24 Hellas – above all its literature and art – became the repository of the
Natural. For Winckelmann this was essentially a matter of the body beautiful in the
gymnasium and the dance-floor.25 With the Romantic invention of ‘die Griechen’,
21 Plin. HN 12.2; Apul. Flor. 1.1; Lucian. sacr. 10.

22 Lakemacher (1695–1736), who was professor both of Greek and of oriental languages at the
Lutheran Academia Julia in Helmstedt, and wrote an Arabic grammar, specifically states (1734:
Praef. 5–6) that he took the Utrecht Hebraist Adriaan Reland’s Antiquitates sacrae veterum
Hebraeorum (1708, 17122) as his model for the organisation of his account of Greek religion.
He also believed that the Greeks had supplied some religious practices both to the Jews and to
Christianity. Since he also occasionally uses the word ‘religio’ of Greek practice, it seems likely
that the choice of the title Antiquitates sacrae was a deliberate attempt to distance himself from
orthodox Christian condemnation of ‘paganism’.
23 On the late-Enlightenment creation of ‘Greek religion’ as a specific topic of enquiry in France,
esp. in the work of Le Clerc de Septchênes (1787), see Borgeaud 2017: 22–29.
24 On Winckelmann’s influence, see Marchand 1996: 7–16.
25 “Also war auch ein jedes Fest bey den Griechen eine Gelegenheit für Künstler, sich mit der
schönen Natur aufs genaueste bekannt zu machen” (Winckelmann 1756: 9). The passage of
course cannot resist mentioning Phryne’s bath at Eleusis, “das Urbild einer Venus Anadyo-
54 Richard Gordon
and above all their (Classical) literature and art (in Roman copies), became a figure
for the naïve, the instinct-driven, the natural, the simple.26 This topos runs right
through the neo-humanist reception of the Greeks. The young Herder claimed:
“Auch die Griechen waren einst, wenn wir so wollen, Wilde, und selbst in den Blüthen ihrer
schönsten Zeit ist weit mehr Natur, als das blinzende (sic!) Auge der Scholiasten und Klassiker
findet”.27
In 1843, we find the speaker at a Gymnasiumsfeier in Prussian Liegnitz (now Leg-

nica in Poland) reminding the pupils that the Greeks lived in the open air: “auf
das Innigste woben sich Natur und Menschenleben in einander”.28 A year or two
later Friedrich Theodor von Vischer (1807–1887) exclaimed, “die Bildung der al-
ten Völker war Naturbildung”.29 And in 1901, at the height of the rearguard ac-
tion in defence of neo-humanist education, the Gymnasium-professor Christian
Muff (1841–1911) could still invoke: “die schlichte Natürlichkeit des Daseins, das
naturgemäße, jeder Künstelei … bare Sichgeben”.30
4. AVOIDANCE TACTICS
Yet, for all this, there seems to have been a clear reluctance to refer to Greek religion
as itself ‘natural’. In this context it seems relevant to note the gradual replacement
during the early nineteenth century of the traditional term for ‘savages’, die Wilden,
which still has a crucial place in Schiller’s aesthetics, by the idea of Naturvölker,
so that it became natural to call their religious beliefs Naturreligion.31 For Hegel,
attacking Enlightenment Deism, Naturreligion or ‘unmittelbare Religion’ could
still in the 1820s mean, in thoroughly Platonist spirit, “die Vorstellung, daß sie es
seyn müße, welche die wahrhafte, vortrefflichste, göttliche Religion sey, und daß
sie ferner geschichtlich habe die erste seyn müssen”.32 However, Johan Christian
mene”, and imagines (“und man weis (sic!)”) young maidens in Sparta dancing naked under the
eyes of the young men.
26 I have found Billeter 1912: 215–234 very useful here.
27 Herder 1777: 65. Herder liked to revert to the topos of the Greeks as “Jugendblüte des mensch-
lichen Geschlechts”.
28 E. Müller 1843: 11.
29 Vischer 1847: 249. In 1839–1840 Vischer travelled to Italy and Greece and thereafter lectured
extensively on ancient art, heavily influenced by Goethe. The sentiment, however, is taken di-
rectly from August von Schlegel’s famous dictum from ‘Antike und moderne oder classische
und romantische Poesie’, in his Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, 1: Drama-
turgische Vorlesungen, Abschn. I.1: “Die Bildung der Griechen war vollendete Naturerzie-
hung” (cited from the reprint in Kletke 1845: 361).
30 Muff 1901: 58–59. On the background to such claims in the period after the Prussian Schulkon-
ferenz (1900), see Preuße 1988: 43–57, though she makes no mention of Muff’s essay.
31 Note esp. Johann Gottlieb Lindemann’s (1757–1829) extensive ‘Religionsgeschichte’ ancient
and modern, including ‘d[ie] Religion der wilden Völker, als: Brasilianer, Mexicaner, Peruaner
etc.’ (Lindemann 1784–1795).
32 Hegel 1840: 263–339 at 264. So far as I can make out, this passage exists only in the version of
the lectures held in 1831.
Adelung’s entry s. v. Das Naturvolk, in the first edition of his Versuch eines voll-
ständigen grammatisch-kritischen Wörterbuches, illustrates the conscious shift
from Wilde(r) to the much more specific idea of living in a state of nature without
any of the characteristic marks of civil society.33 If the Greeks were by definition
a Kulturvolk, their religion could not have much in common with the religion of
illiterate, tribal peoples. It may have had numerous points of contact with Nature,
but these cannot have been of major importance for the system as a whole.
It was, I think, this wider semantic shift that prompted the neo-humanist avoid-
ance of the term Naturreligion in relation to Greek religion. Thus we find the con-
servative historian Heinrich Leo (1799–1878) writing in 1835, under the influence
of Karl Otfried Müller’s Dorier, of the shifting relation between mythology, nature
and the religious system:
“Wenn die griechische Götterlehre nun ursprünglich den Sinn hatte, geistige Richtungen und,
insofern die Natur in das Reich des Geistes hereingezogen war, auch die Natur durch Per-
sonification zu individualisieren, – so muß doch bemerkt werden, daß sie später vielfach von
dieser Weise abwich. Einmal nämlich waren diese Personificationen und Göttergestalten, wenn
auch im Ganzen gleichmäßig, doch im Einzelnen wieder von den einzelnen Stämmen und in
den einzelnen Landschaften (besonders da, wo altpelasgische Auffassungen sich an hellenische
Götternamen anschmiegten …) sehr verschieden aufgefaßt worden.”34
Again, in his Berlin lectures, given continuously from 1809 until his death and
published posthumously as the Encyklopädie, August Boeckh (1785–1867) never
uses the term Naturreligion in his account of Greek religious institutions, though it
certainly was in the back of his mind, for he casually uses the word elsewhere in a
completely different context, that of ‘sentimentality’:
“Aber auch durch die alte Naturreligion geht ein sentimentaler Zug, der in der Musik und
Poesie seinen Ausdruck findet; indes sind die Griechen selbst in der Sentimentalität natürlich,
ja sinnlich”.35
A similar return of the repressed seems to occur elsewhere in these lectures: in his
well-known set of contrasts between Hellas and the modern world, Boeckh’s very
first opposition is between the ‘Herrschaft der Natur’ in antiquity, the primacy of
nature, versus the ‘Herrschaft des Geistes’ in his own day.36 In his own brief ac-
count of Greek religion, Boeckh mentions nature just once, as the source not of
freedom or innocence but of constraint, to which even the gods are subject:
33 “Das Naturvolk … ein im Stande der Natur, ohne merkliche bürgerliche Verfassung lebendes
Volk, dergleichen Völker und Menschen gemeiniglich Wilde genannt werden”: Adelung 1777:
752; this entry is unchanged in the second edition (1798: 449).
34 Leo 1835: 156. Though mainly a medieval historian, Leo had studied briefly under B. G. Niebuhr
in Göttingen (1819–1820).
35 Boeckh 1877: 274. The one context in which the idea of ‘Naturreligion’ continued to be use-
ful (e. g. for Ludwig Preller) was in attacking the theory of Urmonotheismus: Konaris 2016:
92–93.
36 Ibid. 266, printed in a fine Aristotelian list of oppositions, which we can assume is loosely
based on Goethe’s famous list of characteristics of ‘antik und modern’ in ‘Shakespeare und kein
Ende, 2’ (1813).
56 Richard Gordon
“Der Glaube an Zeichen und Wunder hängt an der Vorstellung, dass in der Natur übernatür-
liche Kräfte wirksam sind. Diese Vorstellung ist im Alterthum durch die Idee des Schicksals
eigenthümlich bestimmt … Auch die Götter sind der Naturnothwendigkeit unterworfen, in-
wiefern sie als einzelne, mit freiem Willen begabte Wesen angesehen werden.”37
In all these instances, we find Sachphilologie and historical realism – in a word,

positivism – remodelling, straitening, compromising the enthusiasm of an earlier
philhellenist generation epitomised by Herder, Schiller, von Schlegel and W. von
Humboldt.38 I can find nothing in the period after 1830 that remotely resembles the
apperception of the place of the natural world in Greek religion that we discover
in what seems at first sight to be a mere rehearsal of humanist learning in the fa-
miliar tradition of descriptive Antiquitates, namely Martin Gottfried Herrmann’s
Die Feste von Hellas (1803), who ends his section on the Karneia as follows:
“Ja, die ganze Natur änderte sich mit der Ankunft des Gottes zu seinem Tempel. Unter seinen
Füßen sproßten Gras und Blumen und Blüthen: denn es war der Frühling gekommen. Der Wald
säuselte und rauschte Orakel, er hatte jetzt neue Blätter gewonnen. Die Erde bebte, und mit ihr
der Tempel des Gottes, besonders an den Küsten Athens, die häufige Erdbeben erfuhren. Die
Schlangen wurden unschädlich: denn die heiligen Tempelschlangen waren unschädlich, und
zu allerlei Gaukeleien abgerichtet. Sie wurden über die Fruchtbarkeit des Jahres befragt, und
erprobten daneben zugleich die Reinheit und Keuschheit der schönen jungfräulichen Prieste-
rinnen.”39
5. THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF NEO-HUMANISM
At this point, I need to say something about the wider context within which neo-
humanism established itself as a key player on the German cultural front. By the
third quarter of the eighteenth century, the humanistic Allgemeiner Gelehrtenstand
had become more or less extinct, a casualty of the rise of new specialised, espe-
cially technical, professions, a new ‘intelligentsia’ and the various strains of the
new pedagogy.40 At the same time, utilitarian reformers wanted to modernise the
universities, in order to provide the personnel required for the service of the modern
state.41 These developments posed a special threat to the place of Latin and Greek
in education. Neo-humanism, the earliest foreshadowings of which can be found in
37 Boeckh 1877: 412–446 at 436–437. As we would expect of Boeckh the Sachphilologe, religion
here is conceived as ‘Cultus, oder äussere Religion’, in the tradition of Humanist Antiquitates.
38 “Die Wissenschaftskonzeption des Historismus bildet sich aus der Interessenlage der gebilde-
ten bürgerlichen Mittelschichten vor der Entfaltung der kapitalistisch organisierten Indus-
triegesellschaft” (Jaeger/Rüsen 1992: 50).
39 Herrmann 1803: 1, 201. Herrmann (1754–1822), not to be confused with the Leipzig Wort-
philologe J. Gottfried Hermann (1772–1848), was a student of C. G. Heyne at Göttingen and,
after periods spent in Hamburg and Berlin, later became the professor of Roman history at the
University of Kasan in Russia.
40 Turner 1974; Marchand 1996: 36–40.
41 On the dismal state of German universities in the eighteenth century and early attempts at re-
form, see the excellent account by McClelland 1980: 34–98.
Germany already in the 1740–1760s,42 and was quite widely influential in Prussian
schools and universities by the 1780s, can be seen from one point of view as an
attempt to recreate a more professional version of the old Gelehrtenstand by dimin-
ishing the role of theology, establishing clearer criteria of membership, advocating
explicit critical ‘methods’ (first in Wortphilologie, from the 1820s also in Sachphi-
lologie),43 and invoking new forms of legitimation by finding external allies, above
all among the Philhellenists and the Weimar circle (‘aesthetic Graecophilia’).44 On
the other hand, the utilitarian drive to reform could suppress the old abuses of the
school and university system, but it could provide no specific content: this is what
neohumanism, relying on the prestige of the old Gelehrtenstand, claimed to be able
to provide.45 But neo-humanism, especially in its Graecophilic form, would never
have been able to establish itself as the dominant influence within the Gymnasien
and (up to a point) the universities in Germany had it not been for key officials in
Prussia, beginning in 1809/1810 with Wilhelm von Humboldt as head of the Kul-
tussektion of the Ministry of the Interior, and then, after the victory over France,
the co-operation between vom Stein zum Altenstein, the long-standing head of the
new ministry of of education in Berlin,46 and Johannes Schulze, the Referent for
Gymnasien and universities. Several factors here converged: the predominant ha-
tred of ‘Roman’ France, the move to strengthen the grip of the state upon universi-
ties by closure and reform, the drive towards professionalising university education
through the creation of the Seminar (the first of which were in Altertumswissen-
schaft), the elective affinity with Lutheran protestantism (‘Kulturprotestantismus’),
and the insistence on research conducted according to critical standards and meth-
ods imposed through the formation of ‘schools’ and learned reviews.47
42 E.g J. A. Ernesti (1707–1781), who was a. o. Professor of ancient literature at Leipzig from
1742. In his standard history of Classical education in Germany, Paulsen began his account of
neo-humanism c.1750 (1896–1897: 2, 9–98). The Classical Abitur (including mathematics)
was first created in 1788.
43 Here C. G. Heyne (from the 1770s director of the Philological Seminar in Göttingen) played an
important role, for example by developing critical methods for the study of myth and including
archaeology among his topics, cf. Scheer 2014.
44 See e. g. Turner 1983: 459–461; ‘aesthetic Graecophilia’: Marchand 1996: 29; 2003: 131.
45 McClelland 1980: 109–110. Cf. ibid.: 114: “In important respects, neohumanism was an elite
bourgeois ideology directed against a common bourgeois system”.
46 Karl Sigmund Franz, Freiherr vom Stein zum Altenstein (1770–1840). From 1817–1838, head
of the new Ministerium für Kultus, Unterricht und Medizinalwesen in Berlin under Staatskanz-
ler von Hardenburg. Reform of Prussian education system; 1834: obligatory curriculum for
Gymnasien stressing political conservatism; support for neo-humanism and the Humanis-
tisches Gymnasium school-type; expansion of Prussian universities, esp. Berlin, Bonn, Bres-
lau, Halle.
47 Cf. Turner 1980; for ‘schools’ note Vogt 1979 on J. G. Hermann’s (initial) rejection of Boeckh’s
Sachphilogie. We should however remember that when the University of Berlin opened in
1810, the greatest number of students were enrolled in medicine, followed by law, then theol-
ogy; and in 1830 44 % of all students in German universities were enrolled for theology (Mac-
Clelland 1980: 119; 148). The neo-humanist élite was tiny.
58 Richard Gordon
6. THE ABANDONMENT OF COMPARATIVISM
The cultural-political role of which neo-humanism was both the beneficiary and
victim demanded a price, which was a narrowing view of what constituted Hellenic
culture, in order to protect its unique value uncontaminated. The simplest and most
widespread pragmatic answer, above all in the Gymnasien, was an extreme empha-
sis on Greek grammar and the parsing of literary texts, and at latest by the 1830s,
during the intense debates over the Realschule, we find increasing complaints about
monotonous drilling, particularly since classes were generally conducted in Latin.48
Another answer, ultimately deriving from Herder’s view that every people had its
own unique mythology that inspired its literature, religion and customs (‘cultural
nationalism’), was to claim that the culture of Hellas was autochthonous and unre-
lated to that of the wider Mediterranean world. As regards religion, this meant do-
ing what one could to divest Hellas of oriental, and particularly, in view of Herodo-
tus Book II, Egyptian influences. Although C. G. Heyne (1729–1812), as a famous
professor at Göttingen, could argue that some features at least of Greek mythology
were derived from the Phrygians in Asia Minor and the Phoenicians,49 orientalist
leanings were generally suspect to neo-humanists, since they explicitly threatened
the dogma of Hellenic cultural autochthony. The issue came to a head over Friedrich
Creuzer’s claims about Greek religion first in his Dionysus (1808–1809) and more
fully still in his extravagantly repetitive Symbolik und Mythologie (1810–1812).
In setting out to describe Greek mythology Creuzer (1771–1858) was respond-
ing on the one hand to a wider call by the Romantics for ‘new’, especially German,
mythology, and on the other to William Jones’ recognition of the linguistic rela-
tionship between Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit and Celtic, and Charles Wilkins’
translation of the Bhagavad Gita in 1785. He was also influenced by Heyne’s view
that myth was a specific form of communication by which abstract ideas were re-
presented as acts of named individuals, and Joseph Görres’ theories about the or-
giastic/Dionysiac character of Asian mythology.50 To cut an extremely convoluted
story very short, Creuzer imagined Brahmin priests (whom he terms ‘die Weiter-
sehenden’) developing in India a sort of anticipation of Christianity, which they
expressed initially only in symbols but later in narratives, which gave rise in turn
to mythology (‘Theomythien’). In the course of time these priests travelled across
Asia to Asia Minor and Egypt, where they taught the inhabitants their religion and
culture, eventually crossing to Samothrace, then inhabited by the Pelasgians. The
Cabiric mysteries, whose deities represent the sequence Chaos, creative male po-
tency, begetting female potency and their saving synthesis, are one expression of
this Brahmanic wisdom. The dialectic between these forces is played out in ithy-
phallicism, ritual sexual intercourse and orgiastic sex. This praxis spread to Eleu-
48 Cf. Landfester 1988: 68–72.

49 On Heyne see the recent volume edited by Bäbler/Nesselrath 2014. For his rejection of narrow
Graecophilia with regard to the origins of Greek myth, see e. g. Heyne (1808) with Scheer
2014: 8, 24–25.
50 See esp. Blok 1994: 29–31 (contesting a debt to Heyne); Williamson 2004: 121–150; Schwinge
2008: 73–88.
sis, where it came to form the basis of the true religion of Greece, the mysteries.
Demeter is Gaia, the symbol of Nature as a whole, “der Realgrund der Welt”.51
The Dionysus of the Dionysiac mysteries, on the other hand, is the demiurge who
supervises the creation of the material world and is present in all the manifestations
of nature – air, water, earth, plants and animals. It was the coming of the Dorians
that put an end to all such oriental influences, which could continue to exist only in
secret, precisely in mystery-cults.
Creuzer, a product of the Lutheran Philipps-Universität in Marburg, was at
once accused by other Lutheran scholars of crypto-Catholicism. Of the many criti-
cal responses by neo-humanists, we may take just three as manifesting the range
of possible tactics. The first is Johann Heinrich Voß’ Antisymbolik (1824–1826).
Voß’(1751–1826) main concern was to rehabilitate Homer as the teacher of the
Greeks, his main weapon mockery. A couple of specimens will suffice:
“Wahrlich, nichts Geringeres, als wenn jemand den eichelessenden Pelasgern durch die Luft
einen mit geheimnißvollen Hieroglyfen bezeichneten Mondstein zukommen ließe, und ein
Paar Orfiker darauf zum Dolmetschen”; or “aus [Heynes] modernder Symbolik erwuchs das
Ungeziefer der Creuzerischen Symbolik an der Religionssonne von Indien, ein holdseliges
Gewimmel. Alles aus Faulung”.52
Christian August Lobeck (1781–1860), erstwhile pupil of J. G. Hermann in Leipzig

and from 1814–1857 professor in Königsberg, preferred to prove the indigenous
Greek character of the Eleusinian mysteries by showing that they were not sub-
stantially different from the rest of Greek religion. In his reviews of Creuzer, and
especially in his massive Aglaophamus, Lobeck sought to demonstrate that Greek
priests had no special claim to religious expertise, and assembled the first more or
less complete collection of texts on Orphism in order to show that they too required
no extraneous oriental or mystical ideas for their comprehension.53
7. PSEUDO-HISTORICISM TO THE RESCUE
In the longer run, however, it was Karl Otfried Müller’s (1797–1840) Prolegomena
(1825), published immediately after the two volumes of Städte und Stämme devoted
to the Dorians, that proved to provide the best answer as far as the neo-humanists
were concerned, by fitting some of the Romantic claims into a historicist framework
and so rendering them irrelevant to the major topos of autochthony. Priests, mystic
lore and theogonies formed just a minor part of Greek myth and religion,54 whose
51 Creuzer 1810–12,2: 419.

52 Resp. Voß 1824–1826: 2, 2–3 and 2, 268.
53 Lobeck 1810–12; 1811–1812; 1829. Borgeaud 2017: 13 sees Herrmann’s massive Orphica
(1805) as an early shot across the bows of ‘mystic’ readings of e. g. the Orphic Hymns.
54 Müller 1825: 61: “Die lebengehenden [sic] Ströme, von denen die Fruchtbarkeit des Landes
und die Ernährung des Menschengeschlechts abhängt, erscheinen als die ersten Voreltern, mit
ihnen die Festen des Landes, die Bergrücken und Gipfel, und dann treten Land und Stadt und
Volk ein, und mancherlei Bezeichnungen der äußeren Natur, und die Götter selbst oft unter
dunklen und schwer zu enträthselnden Namen …”
60 Richard Gordon
origins are anyway to be placed much later than Creuzer imagined, and tended
constantly to fracture into a myriad local but long-enduring phenomena, as we see
from Pausanias. Herodotus’ claims were simply his own speculations; allegory is
not a valid means of establishing the true meaning of myths – the true method is
by means of detailed historical and topographical knowledge.55 Creuzer may have
been right about the orgiastic nature-religion of the Pelasgians (and the Amazons),
but he was also right in saying that such phenomena had been suppressed by the
Dorians, so that in the historical period they were of no real significance, surviving,
if anywhere, in the Bacchic and other mysteries.56
By the 1840s this pseudo-historicisation of nature-worship had, in one form or
another, become the standard means of dealing with the place of nature in Greek
religion: insofar as the element of nature played a role in Greek religious culture,
its roots were Pelasgian. For example, whereas in his early work of the 1820s
F. G. Welcker (1784–1868) still believed that priestly speculation in the remote past
may have developed a “pantheistischer Hymnus”, an hierarchical system of nature,
which could in principle be reconstructed by slow philological means,57 in his late
Griechische Götterlehre 1 (1857) he saw the Pelasgians as just an early phase of
Hellenic ‘Nationalität’ such that it is impossible to say that the major Greek gods,
insofar as they were elements of nature, were not Pelasgian or worshipped in the
Pelasgian period.58 The wider context of this resort to (pseudo-)historicisation was
the quiet shelving of the anti-Christian implications of neo-humanism, under in-
creasing pressure from conservative religious circles, especially after the accession
of the pious Friedrich Wilhelm IV to the Prussian throne (1840–1858). After 1848
official suspicion of Athenian democracy increased, on the grounds that it led di-
rectly to the loss of Sittlichkeit und Religiosität. This is the period in which the
figure of Pericles was advanced as the true i. e. quasi-monarchical representative of
democracy. The search for a usable mythology came increasingly to be transferred
to the indigenous ‘Germanic’ past.
8. ABANDONING MYTHOLOGY AS THE REFERENCE-POINT
After the failure of liberalism in 1848, with few exceptions, the study of Greek
religion, insofar as it remained on the agenda at all in a positivist era, shifted to the
sphere of Staatsaltert(h)ümer, where the aim was to describe the institutions and
55 Ibid., vol. 1: 102–145; cf. the school-text for Gymnasium-pupils by Eckermann (1845) in the
same sense.
56 Cf. Blok 1994: 32–43; Williamson 2004: 145–148. On Müller’s commitment to re-creating
‘das geistige Leben des Alterthums’ as revealed by language, religion, art and literature, which
together he thought of as ‘das Nervensystem dieses Organismus’, see e. g. Rüpke 1998: 395.
57 E. g. Welcker 1824.
58 Cf. Schömann’s account of proto-Greek history, which allows for pluriform Pelasgian peoples,
several different Greek peoples, a mass of obscure historical traditions commemorated by
Homer, Pausanias’ accounts of the Minyae of Orchomenos and the walls of Tiryns, oriental
(sp. Philistine and Phoenician) influences, such as Aphrodite Urania and the Kabeiroi, and a
great deal more (1855: 1–18).
practices not to explore myths or meanings.59 Such a move corresponds to a wider

shift whereby neo-humanists in étatiste spirit preferred to view antiquity chiefly un-
der its socio-political aspect.60 It was widely affirmed that though nature – i. e. the
natural environment, mountains, hills, woods, rivers and caves – was the original
locus of primitive cult, it was replaced, albeit not completely, in historical, i. e.
interesting and graspable times, by what we would call monumental structures.
Thus even the most learned of these books, which in many ways go back to the
tradition of humanist Antiquitates, by the indefatigable Karl Friedrich Hermann
(1804–1855), K. O. Müller’s successor in the chair of philology and archaeology at
Göttingen, devotes just a page or two to natural phenomena under the heading of
cult-sites.61 Yet paradoxically it is here that he waxes lyrical over such emotional
investment in nature. In the same measure as cult retreated into built structures, he
claims, so pantheistic feelings increased. Imputation of divinity, we may infer, is
the Greek equivalent of our German feeling for Nature, an expression of “das ästhe-
tische Gefühl der unverdorbenen Menschenbrust, [das sich] von selbst in religiösen
Formen Luft machte”.62
The tone is undeniably defensive: the ancient Greeks have ceased to be the
ideal for German culture, at best they were rather like cultivated urban Germans.
For political reaction was not the sole factor influencing neo-humanism. Perhaps
even more important was the end of the old economico-social order in Germany, the
advent of industrialisation, what has been variously called “the Great Transition”,
“the Great Transformation”.63 Population increase, rapid urbanisation, new for-
tunes made in banking, publishing, chemicals and dyes, industrial food processing,
all began ineluctably to change the face of Germany. Paradigmatic is the story of
the work of the Zentralkommission für die Rheinschifffahrt.64 The hydraulic engi-
neer Johann Tulla drew up an ambitious plan to rectify the course of the river, which
began to be implemented in 1817. Just in the stretch between Basel and Worms,
59 So already Wachsmuth 1846: 433–625; the deliberate rejection of an ‘internal’ in favour of an

‘external’ perspective is thematised on page 434. Later examples include Duncker 1856: 3,
27–195 and Schömann 1902 (orig. 1859) 2, 133–607 (in the first ed., 115–515). Given that
Herrmann, Schömann and Duncker continued to be accorded fat new editions into the 1890s
and even beyond, we may assume that this remained the standard form in which Greek religion
was mediated in Gymnasien and universities long after the advent of neo-Romantic compara-
tivism from the late 1880s. It is telling that Nägelsbach’s excellent Nachhomerische Theologie
(1857), which, despite its Christian Tendenz, is resolutely analytical and begriffsorientiert, was
never re-published, though his earlier book on Homer [1840] was enlarged by Authenrieth in
1861. I cannot say when the genre of Staatsaltertümer ceased to contain substantial amounts of
material on religion. At any rate, even the first edition of what became Busolt’s Griechische
Staatskunde (Busolt 1887) contained nothing on the topic.
60 Landfester 1988: 119–164.
61 Hermann 1858: 66–72. In the 55 sections of his two main parts, ‘Übersicht des griechischen
Cultus in den Einzelheiten seiner Äusserung’ (pp. 62–311) and ‘Die hauptsächlichsten Feste
und Festgebräuche’ (pp. 312–484), Hermann relied almost exclusively on Humanist publica-
tions of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
62 Hermann 1858: 72.
63 See e. g. Brophy 2011; Torp 2011.
64 Blackbourn 2006: 77–119 (in the US edition).
62 Richard Gordon
dozens of cuts were made to get rid of meanders, reducing the length of the river
from 354 to 273 km; by 1876, over the entire stretch between Basel and Strasbourg,
1000 million m3 of soil and mud had been removed from islands or meanders, rocks
blasted, rapids deepened and dozens of minor hindrances removed.65 Steam traffic
took off: in 1842 the Preußisch-Rheinische Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft carried
700,000 passengers, 20 years later more than 1 million. Most people in Germany
saw Nature an adversary, to be “manacled, tamed, subjugated, conquered and so
on through a dozen variations”.66 Mastery of Nature came itself to be seen as nat-
ural.67 As for German forests, the massive extension of scientific forestry from the
late eighteenth century and through the nineteenth, which included the privatisation
of what had been common woodland, the planting on a grandiose scale of Nor-
way spruce and Scots pine, and the Schlagwald policy, caused enormous ecological
damage for the sake of much higher production.68 It was these ecological changes
driven by private profit in the context of early industrialisation that stimulated the
creation of an elegiac late-Romantic forest topography by writers such as Josef von
Eichendorff (1788–1857), whose poetry entered bourgeois drawing-rooms via set-
tings by Schubert, Schumann and others.69 Wilhelm Mannhardt, the author of Wald
und Feldkulte (1875–1877), was heavily influenced even as a student by Jacob
Grimm and Ernst Moritz Arndt.70 The Greeks and their religion had little to offer in
the face of such changes – they were simply too far away.
9. WHICH WAY TO GO?
The onset of large-scale industrialisation is conventionally dated to c.1850. It was

precisely in the mid-1850s that two books were published that in their different
ways mark the limit of ‘high’ neo-humanist engagement with nature in Greek re-
ligion.71 The author of the first, Wilhelm Rinck (1793–1854), who had studied in
Heidelberg under Creuzer, bravely continued to locate Greek religion in a grand
65 See the excellent account by Cioc 2002: 47–59.

66 Blackbourn 2006: 5.
67 Blackbourn calls the period 1848–1870 the ‘Golden Age’ of industrial progress at the expense
of nature (2006: 121–187). It is at this period that the word ‘Heimat’, which sprang to life dur-
ing the Napoleonic occupation, massively increased its frequency of use, as measured by the
Digitales Wörterbuch (www.dwds.de/wb/Heimat).
68 Imort 2005.
69 “Schon war die Rauchschlange des Bahnzuges weit hinter mir in den versinkenden Tälern
verschlüpft, statt der Lokomotive pfiffen die Waldvögel grade ebenso wie vor vielen, vielen
Jahren, da ich mir als Student zum erstenmal die Welt besehen, als wollten sie fragen, wo ich
dann so lange gewesen?”: von Eichendorff 1996: 187.
70 On J. W. E. Mannhardt (1831–1880), who wrote his Habilschrift (1858) on Germanic myth and
based his later folkloric work on the outcome of a questionnaire addressed to ‘alle Freunde des
Volkslebens’ (1865), see e. g. Tybjerg 1993; Baudy 1995: 241–244; Kippenberg 1997: 120–128.
71 It is worth noting, too, that Th. Mommsen’s immensely popular Römische Geschichte appeared
precisely in the years 1854–56, modelling Roman Republican history on contemporary (post
1848) longings for German unity (Landfester 1988: 136). Nothing similar was on offer from
Greek history.
scheme of things, viewing Greek mythology as allegory and the Olympian gods as
“Schattenbilder und Ahnungen des wahren persönlichen Gottes, an den wir Chris-
ten glauben”.72 Granted that he had worked for twenty years on the book before
his death, Rinck attests to a persisting undercurrent of anti-positivism, in which
allegory and naturalism still had their place.73 Hesiod sings of the natural electricity
(‘Naturelektricität’) generated “aus der ehelichen Berührung oder Reibung Him-
mels (sic!) und der Erde”.74 Zeus is “die heitere Luft, erquickender Regen”; Pro-
teus the “urfängliche Feuchte, die Grundlage aller Schöpfungen”; Hephaistos “der
göttliche Odem, der den Erdenklos mit Lebensfeuer beseelte”, Apollo’s lyre plays
the harmony of the spheres, its three strings revolving the cycle of seasons, Artemis
the Night-goddess, who loves the shady woods and mountains, is “die Freundin
der freien Natur … beständige Jungfrau”; originally there were only two Horai,
Thallo “die Sprossende” and Karpo, “die Fruchtbringende”.75 Yet the device of
pseudo-historicisation allowed Rinck to insulate these and many other claims about
natura naturata by placing them in two very early periods, ‘Graeco-Phoenician’
and ‘Egypto-Hellenic’, between the Pelasgians and Homer, so that their relation to
Classical religion, what he calls ‘die Kirche’, remains wholly opaque.76
The second text, Karl Bötticher’s Baumkultus, by contrast, combined detailed
positivist description with an appreciation of the extent and value of nature, in this
case specifically trees and plants, in the religious consciousness and practice of the
Greeks.77 In such a context, mere aesthetic appreciation was irrelevant. In order to
stress the parallelism between cult in man-made structures and the gods’ dwellings
(Wohnsitze) in nature, Bötticher had in an earlier essay invented the word ‘Natur-
mal’ as a calque on ‘Denkmal’.78 Springs, caves, ravines, stones, trees – these were
the first visible signs of divinity, naturally appropriate, enduring signs inasmuch as
they were things actually created by the gods. It was indeed this plurality of signs
that brought about the end of the original Urmonotheismus, the worship of an invis-
ible deity, and so the production of images in human form. Yet at the end of the day,
such changeless Naturmale long survived the Christianisation of the pagan world.
Although Bötticher stresses his own originality in creating the topic, he inevitably
72 Rinck 1855: 2,1, xv. He also believed the oriental divinities were the models or templates (Vor-
bilder) of the Greek gods, albeit in altered form. He was satisfied by F. C. Movers’ claim in Die
Phönizier (1841: 520) that the culture-hero Kadmos of Tyre reached Boeotia after stops on
Rhodes, Samothrace and Thrace (1855: 1, 167, citing only Hdt. 2.49.3; cf. 2.1: 378, 519). This
avowal did not prevent the aged Creuzer from criticising his failure to take the newest Orien-
talist discoveries into account.
73 It may not be irrelevant that Rinck was, from 1835, the Lutheran pastor of Grenzach, on the
Swiss border, so his intellectual contacts were Swiss, and his later work was published in Basel
and Zürich.
74 Rinck 1855: 1, 67 (§ 14). This may be a reminiscence of a passage in G. T. Fechner’s translation
(Fechner 1829) of Jean-Baptiste Biot’s chapter on atmospheric electricity (Biot 1817: 517–526).
75 Rinck 1855: 1, 221, 66, 67, 218–219, 220.
76 Rinck 1855: 1, xiii–xxvii; ‘Kirche’: 2, xx; 1. On O. Gruppe’s criticism of Rinck’s Creuzerian
comparativism, cf. Borgeaud 2017: 30.
77 Bötticher 1856. Bötticher (1806–1889) was trained as an architect, but became the (rather un-
successful) director of the sculpture collection of the Altes Museum (1868–1876).
78 Bötticher 1856: 1–5.
64 Richard Gordon
drew much of his textual material from Humanist dissertations.79 His real origi-
nality lay in his provision of 63 of his own drawings of sacrificial reliefs and other
scenes that include trees, thus intimating the indispensability of the new methods of
classificatory analysis in Classical Archaeology in reconstructing Greek religion.80
Fig. 1: Three lithograph-prints by Bohn based on drawings by Karl Bötticher.

On left: ‘pine of Attis’, with musical instruments; centre: ‘tree of Artemis’, with hunting
equipment; on right: hunting-trophy dedicated to Artemis on a base: deer-cape, frontal,
fitted onto a pole, adorned with a swag and fillets. A votive plaque on the ground.
From Bötticher 1856, figs. 9, 10, 11.
The role of the new Classical archaeologist was to provide a never-ending series of
new facts, by means of which both the hegemony of philology could be challenged
and the status of archaeological (and epigraphic) evidence enhanced.
Despite LeRoy’s Ruines (1758), Choiseul-Gouffier’s Voyage pittoresque
(1782–1822) and some increase in personal expeditions to Greece after the acces-
sion of the Wittelsbacher Otto to the Greek throne in 1832,81 the realities of the
Greek landscape were almost wholly unfamiliar to these scholars: they viewed an-
cient Greece aesthetically, as a literary figment, or an idealising painting by Lud-
wig Lange or Wilhelm Ahlhorn.82 As the frame-conditions in Germany, political
and socio-economic, changed during the short nineteenth century studied here,
79 See n. 17 above.
80 “Ebensowenig konnte mich auch die Kenntnis der Quellen zur Sache führen … Wer aber weiss
wie blosse Notizengelehrsamkeit gewiss nie zur Erforschung sondern höchstens zur Ausstat-
tung des Erforschten führt, wird mir gewiss beipflichten” (1856: 6).
81 Cf. e. g. the accounts selected by Stoll/Löwe 1979. Ernst Curtius, for example, the tireless ad-
vocate of grand-scale excavations at Olympia, went to Athens in 1837 as tutor to the family of
Georg Brandis, King Otto’s adviser (Marchand 1996: 79). The four volumes of Ludwig Ross’
travelogues in the Greek islands are still an enjoyable read (Ross 1840–52: cf. 1863). Note also
the succinct survey by Fittschen 1999.
82 See e. g. Baumstark 1999: 530–534, Cat. nos. 397–400.
neo-humanists, the main beneficiaries of the Prussian educational reforms, found

themselves increasingly on the defensive, threatened structurally by new avenues
of social advancement, politically by Germanophilia, and intellectually by loss of
faith in Greek uniqueness and the introduction of modern cultural sciences.83 One
main casualty of this defensiveness was religion, which, in reaction to the excesses
of aesthetic Graecophilia, became simply another institution to be anatomised for
rote-learning. Rinck and Bötticher can be thought of here as mid-century T-junction
sign-posts, one pointing back to Creuzerian orientalism, the other forward to the
brave new world of new archaeological facts exemplified by ‘big archaeology’.
Both however need to be seen against the background of the ‘conquest of nature’,
that grand real-world transformation which was the root of their legitimacy as op-
tions in the 1850s. Ironically enough, however, when the neo-Romantics of the
1890s revived the study of Greek religion, it was thanks less to the archaeologists
than to the impact on Altertumswissenschaft of the ‘second oriental Renaissance’
and the turn to ‘Erlösung’.84
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NATURE GODS, NYMPHS AND
THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION
Jennifer Larson, Kent State University
Given that virtually every Greek god had the ability to influence the natural world,
who are the ‘nature gods’ of my title? They are the ones whose identities closely
corresponded to specific features of the natural environment. Thus, although Zeus
‘rained’ and sat on mountaintops, he was rarely thought of as the rain itself or
the mountain peak. Yes, there is the myth of Semele, which speculates that his
‘true form’ is the thunderbolt, but this does not seem to have been a recurrent idea
either in cult or in his other myths. Instead Zeus is the agent who causes thunder
by throwing the thunderbolt weapon, just as Poseidon was the agent who caused
earthquakes.
Therefore I am speaking of deities who themselves correspond to specific en-
vironmental features or phenomena, such as the earth, the sun, and the rivers. In
this paper, I will focus on nymphs, the most ubiquitous and pervasive of nature
deities in both myth and cult. Right away we must ask in what sense the nymphs
correspond to specific natural features. In our earliest sources we most often hear of
them ‘inhabiting’ a wide variety of wild spaces such as mountains, glens, springs,
caves, and meadows, yet they are somehow bonded to these natural features. In
myth as well as cult, however, the focus sometimes narrows. Individual nymphs
like Aganippe, Kyane, or Kallirhoë may have the names of springs or fountains, or
a plurality of nymphs may be tied to a specific spring. Already in the Iliad we have
‘naiad’ nymphs, the flowing ones.1 The case of trees is similar. Hesiod speaks of the
nymphs called meliai, the ash trees.2 The locus classicus for tree nymphs is the Ho-
meric Hymn to Aphrodite, which describes how the life of a nymph is co-extensive
with that of an individual fir tree or oak:3
1 Nymphs ‘inhabit’ wild spaces: Hom. Il. 20.7–9; cf. Hom. Od. 6.123–124. Naiad nymphs in
Homer: e. g. Il. 6.20–26, 14.442–445; Od. 13.102–112, 12.356–360. For named nymphs and
their relationships with springs see Larson 2001: 127–128, 138–139, 213–215.
2 Hes. Theog. 183–187; cf. Hes. Op. 143–145.
3 H. Hom. Aph. 257–272: Νύμφαι μιν θρέψουσιν ὀρεσκῷοι βαθύκολποι, / αἳ τόδε ναιετάουσιν
ὄρος μέγα τε ζάθεόν τε: / αἵ ῥ᾽ οὔτε θνητοῖς οὔτ᾽ ἀθανάτοισιν ἕπονται. / δηρὸν μὲν ζώουσι καὶ
ἄμβροτον εἶδαρ ἔδουσι / καί τε μετ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι καλὸν χορὸν ἐρρώσαντο. / τῇσι δὲ Σειληνοὶ καὶ
ἐύσκοπος Ἀργειφόντης / μίσγοντ᾽ ἐν φιλότητι μυχῷ σπείων ἐροέντων. / τῇσι δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ ἢ ἐλάται ἠὲ
δρύες ὑψικάρηνοι / γεινομένῃσιν ἔφυσαν ἐπὶ χθονὶ βωτιανείρῃ, / καλαί, τηλεθάουσαι, ἐν
οὔρεσιν ὑψηλοῖσιν. / ἑστᾶσ᾽ ἠλίβατοι, τεμένη δέ ἑ κικλήσκουσιν / ἀθανάτων: τὰς δ᾽ οὔ τι
βροτοὶ κείρουσι σιδήρῳ: / ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε κεν δὴ μοῖρα παρεστήκῃ θανάτοιο, / ἀζάνεται μὲν πρῶτον
ἐπὶ χθονὶ δένδρεα καλά, / φλοιὸς δ᾽ ἀμφιπεριφθινύθει, πίπτουσι δ᾽ ἄπ᾽ ὄζοι, / τῶν δέ θ᾽ ὁμοῦ
ψυχὴ λείπει φάος ἠελίοιο.
72 Jennifer Larson
“The deep-breasted mountain nymphs will rear him, / They who inhabit this great and holy
mountain. / They belong neither with mortals nor immortals. / Indeed they live long, and eat
immortal food / And perform lovely dance among the immortals, / And with them silens and
watchful Argeiphontes / Mingle in love in the depths of pleasant caves. / But at their birth firs or
high-topped oaks / Spring up with them upon the man-feeding earth, / Beautiful and flourishing
on the lofty mountains, / Tall they stand and are called precincts (temenē) of the immortals; /
Them no mortal men cut with iron; / But when the fate of death is near at hand, / First the lovely
trees wither upon the land, / The bark shrivels about them, the twigs fall away, / And the soul
(psuchē) of them together leaves the sunlight.”
The concept of the individual tree-spirit, the tree with a mind, is widespread in
world folklore, as the studies of Mannhardt, Tylor and Frazer reveal (their findings
are evaluated by Albert Henrichs in his 1979 paper ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill A Tree’).4
Thus alongside the more generalized accounts of nymphs haunting wild places,
there seem to exist springs and trees which either house or are identical with deities.
This brings us to the question of animism, a word Tylor popularized, and de-
fined quite broadly as belief in spiritual beings. He described as ‘animism’ the at-
tribution, in so-called primitive cultures, of soul or spirit to animals, plants and
inanimate objects.5 In order to avoid the complications of what he meant by soul
or spirit, I will define animism as the attribution of mind to what we today consider
mindless physical entities in the environment, including the idea that a spring or
tree is the dwelling place for a mind. The question I am interested in is this: did
the Greeks look at a sacred spring or tree and believe that it possessed awareness,
desires, emotions and/or intentions? Did they, on the other hand, believe in anthro-
pomorphic goddesses, physically separate from the natural objects in question, yet
somehow tied to them? There is another alternative, which seems to best reflect the
actual state of affairs: could an individual simultaneously hold both beliefs, some-
how mingling them, or focusing now on one and now on the other, even though they
are logically contradictory?
The cognitive science of religion promises to shed some light on questions like
this, but before I delve further into what help it may offer, I will say a few words
about what it is.6 ‘Cognitive science’ is the interdisciplinary study of the mind and
what we may call its software, as opposed to neuroscience, which deals with the
hardware of the brain and nervous system. The cognitive science of religion (or
CSR) is a subfield which studies religion as a set of beliefs and behaviors rooted
in the evolutionary development of the mind. I hasten to add that there is no ‘god
gene’, and we are not ‘hard-wired’ to be religious. Rather, mental tools which have
evolved for other purposes produce a tendency to favor and transmit the beliefs and
behaviors we call ‘religious’. Despite the variation which has led some theorists
to consider religions incommensurable, striking cross-cultural patterns exist in the
ways we humans mentally represent gods, spirits, and the dead, how we behave to-
ward them, the things we expect from them, and how they affect our moral thought.
4 See especially Mannhardt 1875–1877; Frazer 1911, vol. 2: 7–58; Henrichs 1979.
5 Tylor 1871, vol. 1: 384–385.
6 The discussions of CSR which follow are adapted from Larson 2016.xi: 1–5, 19–21.
Nature Gods, Nymphs and the Cognitive Science of Religion 73
‘Religion’ is by no means limited to interactions with these superhuman beings, yet

such interactions are a hallmark of religion.
CSR is not one theory but a large collection of theories about the mental tools
that comprise our cognitive architecture and how they affect religion. Thirty years
down the road from its inception, it is clear that CSR has much to tell us about
cross-cultural patterns in religion, but it becomes more challenging to apply cogni-
tivist methods as we focus on the details of specific cultures and traditions; exactly
where the limits lie remains to be seen. From the voluminous literature on CSR, I
propose to apply three points of theory to our problem of the nymphs. First, I will
discuss ‘natural ontologies’ and the way violations of category expectations are
used by people the world over to construct religious representations; second, Scott
Atran’s description of folk biology as it regards trees; and third, the distinction long
drawn in cognitive psychology between intuitive and reflective cognition.
In his 1994 book The Naturalness of Religious Ideas, Pascal Boyer described
“natural ontologies,” that is, the spontaneous, extracultural assumptions humans
make about categories of things in the world, and he compared these with a vari-
ety of religious representations which include supernatural or unnatural elements.7
That all humans develop implicit, extracultural expectations about categories is
supported by a large body of empirical research on young children.8 For example,
infants less than a year old expect a solid object, like a toy ball, to move from point
A to point B continuously, rather than teleporting. They expect a solid object they
can see to be tangible. If they grasp one end of a toy, they expect the other end to
follow. This set of expectations is sometimes called folk physics. (A subcategory of
solid objects is artifacts, objects perceived to possess a teleology or function.) Like-
wise, children from three to five years of age expect that living things exhibit devel-
opment or growth, take nourishment, and are vulnerable to injury. They expect dogs
to give birth to puppies rather than kittens, attribute ‘life’ to a vital substance or
force which is not present in non-living things, and so forth; this set of expectations
is sometimes called folk biology.9 Before they reach their first birthday, babies pos-
sess a concept of animacy, the ability to distinguish between inanimate and animate
things based on perceptions of goal-directed movement. Finally, babies in their first
year observe their parents’ eye direction and follow it; they also point and expect
others to look in the direction of the gesture. This reveals that they possess basic
folk psychology or theory of mind, the inference that other people have minds and
are intentional agents. None of this information needs to be taught, and it appears
self-evident to most people. Based on this developmental research, Justin Barrett
has proposed five intuitive ontological categories and described the expectation sets
associated with them (see Table 1).10
7 Boyer 1994: 91–124.

8 For a summary of folksciences see Keil 2010: 826–828.
9 Some scholars distinguish between naïve biology, the inferences shared by children regarding
living kinds, and folk biology, which describes the non-scientific construction and organization
of biological knowledge in a culture.
10 Ontological categories: Barrett 2011: 58–72. ‘Ontological’ here refers only to intuitive beliefs,
not to broader philosophical conceptions of ontology.
74 Jennifer Larson
Table 1: Some ontological categories and their expectation sets. With certain exceptions, a cat-
egory on the right subsumes all the expectations for categories to its left (for example, a Living
Thing has Spatiality and Physicality but not Animacy). Adapted from Barrett 2011: 67.
Intuitive Expectations About Some Ontological Categories

Spatial Solid Object Living Thing Animate Person
Entity
Spatiality Physicality Biology Animacy Mentality
Specific Cohesion Development/growth Self-gen- Mental states (beliefs,
location in Contact Like begets like erated emotions, etc.) which
space and Continuity Takes nourishment motion with motivate actions
time Solidity Vulnerable to injury/ non-random (= intentional agency)
Tangibility death goals Self-awareness
Visibility Vitalism Understands language
Kind-specific essence
cloud rock oak tree grasshopper woman
fire bone oyster rabbit god
Many of the world’s myths and religious representations are constructed upon vi-
olations of the expectation sets for these intuitive categories. For example, in the
Fang culture of Cameroon, bekong or ghosts are Persons who possess Spatiality,
Animacy and Mentality, but limited Biology and no Physicality. They are invisible,
intangible, and can move through walls.11 Religious representations can be con-
structed by breaching the expectations for any category (e. g. a person who takes
no nourishment) or by transferring properties among categories (e. g. a tree that can
talk). More examples of counterintuitive concepts, some attested in world religions
and some fictional, are given in Table 2.
Table 2: Examples of counterintuitive concepts: each concept violates an ontological category

by attributing to it contradictory properties from a domain of intuitive knowledge.
Adapted from Barrett 2008: 410.
Ontological Category Folk Psychology Folk Biology Folk Physics

Person a person who knows a person born from a person who exists in
the future a tree two places at once
Animate a horse that talks a bird with bronze an invisible cat
feathers
Living thing a tree that answers a flower that bleeds an herb that grows in
questions the air
Artifact a ship’s prow that a statue that walks a bag that encloses
gives advice the winds
Spatial entity / a hearing mountain a stone that sheds a river that flows
solid object tears uphill
11 Fang culture: Boyer 1994: 92–95, 97–99.

Pascal Boyer’s discussion of the minimally counterintuitive concept (MCI) is a

seminal idea in the cognitive science of religion. According to his theory, violations
of intuitive categories are especially attention-grabbing and memorable to us, a
circumstance which favors their cultural transmission. In order to be remembered
well and orally transmitted without special memory aids such as writing, a con-
cept should be minimally counterintuitive. Too many category violations (a statue
that walks, grows, flies, moves through solid objects, and solves algebraic equa-
tions) will make the concept more difficult to remember. Transferred properties
yield good MCIs: the mountain has hearing, a property we intuitively attribute to
animals and people, but not to natural objects. If, however, we also stipulate that
the mountain hears everything being said anywhere in the world, we have violated
our intuitive beliefs about how hearing works. A pan-auditory mountain is a more
difficult concept than a simple hearing one, and less readily transmitted.12
Not all MCIs are equally likely to become widely distributed. Which is more
interesting, a person who disappears when you speak to him, or a person who grants
wishes? Consider an invisible tree. Clearly it is an MCI, but it is far less interesting
than a talking tree or a tree that eats people. This is because having the ability to
hold a conversation or eat people makes the tree an intentional agent.13 The more
intentional agency it possesses, the more an MCI lends itself to storytelling and
the more widely distributed it can become. Cognitivists speak of the inferential
potential of a given concept, that is, its ability to generate stories and its explanatory
power: if a tree can talk, it may divulge secrets, make accusations, or even prophe-
sy.14 Perhaps a person’s disappearance is attributable to a certain carnivorous tree in
the forest. When MCIs are perceived as real rather than fictional, their agency may
be felt outside of the narrative context, in everyday life.
How do Greco-Roman mythopoetic descriptions of sacred trees fit into this
discussion? Interestingly, they are endowed with certain attributes of Personhood,
but in a very selective manner. The trees in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite are
said to possess psuchē (a property which in Greek culture is expected in persons
and occasionally in animates), yet it is not clear whether they possess mental states.
Instead, Animacy and Personhood are attributed to their co-eval nymphs, who have
separate, anthropomorphic bodies. Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter proceeds a step
further by attributing mental states to sacred trees. He describes a tree in Demeter’s
sacred grove which was cut by the evil Erysichthon:15
12 My explanation of MCIs is adapted from those of Boyer 2001: 51–91 and Barrett 2004: 22–30.
Cf. Atran 2002: 95–107.
13 On the representation of intentional agency as an important factor in the selection of counterin-
tuitive concepts for transmission, see Barrett, Burdett and Porter 2009: 273. They found that
98 % of counterintuitive objects in a sample of world folktales were agents.
14 For inferential potential see Boyer 1996: 93–94.
15 Callim. H. 6.37–40: ἦς δέ τις αἴγειρος, μέγα δένδρεον αἰθέρι κῦρον, / τῷ ἔπι ταὶ νύμφαι ποτὶ
τὤνδιον ἐψιόωντο / ἁ πράτα πλαγεῖσα κακὸν μέλος ἴαχεν ἄλλαις. / ᾄσθετο Δαμάτηρ, ὅτι ὁ
ζύλον ἱερὸν ἄλγει …
76 Jennifer Larson
“There was a certain poplar, a great tree reaching to the sky; / Near this, the nymphs used to
play around noontime. / When it was first struck, it cried out an ill note to the others. / Demeter
sensed that the holy tree was suffering …”
The tree clearly possesses a mental state as well as an inarticulate voice, but be-
cause of its ‘treeness’, it does not possess language (a property of Personhood)
or Animacy, the ability to translate its mental state into movement. Its intentional
agency is very limited. Here the nymphs haunt the grove, but Demeter takes their
place as the guardian/owner of the trees.
At first glance, Ovid’s version of the story seems to increase the counterintu-
itiveness of the tree still further. When cut with the axe, the tree bleeds, displaying
a biological property transferred from Animates. It also curses its attacker:16 “I, the
nymph beneath this wood, most pleasing to Ceres, / Die prophesying the coming
punishment / Of your deeds, the consolation for my death.”
Ovid’s tree possesses the Personlike attributes of emotion, self-awareness and
language, but it lacks the power of movement or any other power by which to ex-
ercise intentional agency. Like the tree in Callimachus’ hymn, it must rely on the
goddess to administer punishment. There is a catch, however. Ovid attributes the
tree’s desires and linguistic capacities to a nymph (that is, a person) located ‘under
the surface of the wood’. A tree with a person talking from inside the trunk is more
consistent with intuitive expectations than an articulate tree which vocalizes a curse
in its own right.17 In all three of the cases we have examined, trees are counterintu-
itively endowed with certain properties of Personhood, yet they lack Animacy, the
capacity for intentional movement which is usually subsumed under Personhood.
Why didn’t the Greeks represent trees with the power of voluntary locomotion,
like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Ents, which could wreak their own vengeance on the wielders
of axes?18 It was not simply because, empirically speaking, people were unlikely to
witness their local trees walking about; neither were they likely to witness centaurs.
It looks as though there are cognitive constraints on the type of counterintuitive
properties we humans are collectively likely to attribute to trees. Specifically (if I
am correct), we are reluctant to grant them Animacy, which is defined by self-pro-
pelled, goal-directed movement, but more willing to grant them mental states and
some degree of ability to communicate. Perhaps, too, we are more likely to assign
them counterintuitive guardians or alter egos (who are, at any rate, Persons) than
to contradict their essential ‘treeness’ by endowing them with Animacy. Lack of
Animacy seems to be linked to an inference of limited ability to exercise intentional
16 Ov. Met. 8.774–776: Nympha sub hoc ego sum Cereri gratissima ligno, / quae tibi factorum
poenas instare tuorum / vaticinor moriens, nostri solacia leti.
17 Ovid’s dying nymph inside the tree has been described as his own literary invention, rather than
a borrowing from Greek myth: Henrichs 1979: 88.
18 J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional race of Ents (described in The Lord of the Rings) belong to a spec-
trum of tree-ish beings with various counterintuitive properties. The Ents are talking treelike
anthropomorphs and guardians of trees, while the Huorns are somewhere between Ent and tree
but possess locomotion. Old Man Willow (a tree described in The Hobbit) possesses limited
self-awareness and can engulf people with ‘his’ trunk. I suggest that Old Man Willow is a type
more likely to be found in world folklore than the Ents or Huorns.
agency (hence the need for a person, a nymph or goddess, to act in their stead).19 All
of which is to suggest that counterintuitive representations of the kind that populate
world religions and mythologies are neither assembled randomly, nor wholly deter-
mined by cultural factors, but are influenced by extracultural cognitive tendencies
which are still largely unexplored.
But there is more to be said regarding trees, which have a special place in the
human mental organization of the natural environment. Scott Atran is a pioneer in
the discipline of ethnobiology or folk biology. He and others have shown that hu-
man cultures follow highly predictable patterns in the classification of living things
around them. All possess a conceptual distinction between plants and animals
roughly analogous to the scientific concept of the kingdom (the highest taxonomic
order), even if not all possess lexical terms for these two categories. The next taxon
down in folk biology is what Atran calls the Life Form, and one of the most con-
sistent Life Forms across all cultures and languages is the tree, defined as a woody
plant that is at least as tall as an adult human. Notice that man is the measure of
all things, and the category, predictably, is defined by its size in relation to us. The
existence of the concept ‘tree’ also implies a category of non-trees or herbaceous
plants. Other common botanical Life Forms worldwide include vine and grass, both
distinguished by stem habit.20
Note that if these taxa approximate a scientific understanding of plants, it is
only by coincidence. The category of ‘tree’, for example, encompasses both co-
nifers and oaks, which are as distantly related to each other as we are to sharks.
Both conifers and oaks happen to have evolved rigid woody stems in the race to
compete for sunlight, which makes them superficially similar from our perspective.
The most dominant folk taxon, however, roughly corresponds to what we call the
genus, or in some cases, the species (for example ‘oak tree’ and ‘dog’ are both folk
taxa). The organisms in this category, organisms like large vertebrates and trees, are
the most perceptually salient to human beings because of their size, abundance, and
mode of life. Earthworms, lichens and nocturnal shrews are simply less salient, for
example, than deer and the mighty oak. The latter are far more likely to play roles
in religion than the former.
Cultural salience also comes into play, of course, and thus the usefulness of a
given organism.21 In this connection it is interesting that the species of trees earliest
and most often tied to nymphs are those yielding the most useful raw materials: the
ash was famed for good spears, while fir and holm oak were employed in shipbuild-
ing and for many other uses. In spite of the usefulness of olives, quinces and other
19 In Greek culture, at any rate, even sentient trees require substitute avengers. The case is similar
for the dead, whose lack of physicality and animacy means that their agency is limited. They
must rely either on the living or on superhuman agents like the Erinyes to avenge their murders
(Larson 2016: 142, 253).
20 On Life Forms and other folk taxa see Atran 1990: 25–41; Atran 1999: 122–124. Cf. the other
papers collected in Atran and Medin eds. 2008.
21 Atran 1990: 33–34 stresses that usefulness in itself does not contribute to the cognitive forma-
tion of the Life Form taxon ‘tree’, which functions as a way to broadly distinguish groups of
plants (trees from herbaceous plants) and is derived from basic perception of dimensional con-
cepts such as height in relation to the human body.
78 Jennifer Larson
fruits and nuts, however, we hear less about the nymphs of these trees, and what we
do hear is later than the eighth century. I wonder if this is because the use of trees
for lumber and fuel involves cutting, whereas the use of fruit and nut trees involves
protection and cultivation. (Frazer’s cross-cultural parallels for trees endowed with
mind do include fruit trees, but a typical tale type has the owner threatening to cut
the tree if it should fail to bear fruit; the tree sometimes answers that it will com-
ply.)22 The Greek folklore of trees, both ancient and modern, seems to focus on the
impact of cutting, which is sensed either by the trees themselves and/or by guard-
ians who have the properties of animacy and personhood. The ‘sentient tree plus
guardian’ model has greater inferential potential (that is, explanatory power and
ability to generate stories) than the purely animistic one, for a misfortune encoun-
tered after cutting a tree could easily be attributed to a superhuman agent/guardian,
but less easily to the tree itself.23 The pattern of offense followed by punishment
and appeasement is widespread in Greek myths, and was surely a causal factor in
the genesis of many real-life cult behaviors, such as the cordoning off of a particular
grove of trees as sacred and inviolable.24
Atran’s discussion of folk biology and his real-world studies of agroforestry
by traditional populations in South America suggest that the attribution of mind,
awareness and agency to aspects of the physical world has a significant impact
on how people interact with the environment. For example, groups may observe
restrictions on the use of certain resources out of respect for plants or animals them-
selves, or spirits deemed to be their guardians. Among the peoples Atran and his
colleagues studied, cultural restrictions of this type, including the belief that forest
spirits act as ‘spokesmen’ for the trees themselves, and the fear of their displeasure,
contribute to a sustainable lifestyle, while the absence of these beliefs results in
deforestation and significant ecological change.25
The case of springs is in some ways quite different from that of trees. Water
and other liquids fall somewhere between Barrett’s Spatial Entity and Solid Object
categories (they are Spatial but lack boundedness, solidity and cohesiveness).26 In-
22 Frazer 1911, vol. 2: 20–22. Compare Henrichs 1979: 93, citing a Manichaean tale of a date
palm (for the Greek text see Henrichs and Koenen 1978: 119, 196–199).
23 I have argued above that intuitive representations of the ability to exercise intentional agency
are linked not to sentience per se, but to the possession of animacy (a testable hypothesis, but
not one which has been tested so far as I am aware). I also hypothesize that this remains true
regardless of whether the agency is physical. In other words, either Demeter or a sentient tree
might theoretically punish Erysichthon through a mental act of will, but an (animate) goddess
is more likely to be represented with this type of agency than a sentient tree is.
24 Prohibitions on cutting trees in sanctuaries (presumably because they were the property of the
deity): Dillon 1997: 115–120.
25 Atran and Medin 2008: 161–208. Compare Mannhardt 1875–1877, vol. 1: 26 on the punish-
ment of those who peeled bark from sacred trees in premodern Germany. Such restrictions are
typically not observed by newcomers settling an area who do not share the same religious tra-
ditions as longtime residents. Whether this phenomenon of sustainability is simply a fortuitous
byproduct of religion, or has historically contributed to the survival of given populations and
thus perpetuated their religious beliefs, is one of the questions that cognitivists like to debate.
26 Justin Barrett (pers. comm. 3/22/2016) states that he is aware of no developmental research on
pre-schoolers’ expectations about liquids. He expresses doubt as to whether liquids meet the
tuitively speaking, liquids seem at first glance to be far removed from the Person
category, and so we might assume that things which lack Animacy, Biology and
even true Solidity are least likely to be represented as possessing mental attributes.
But one of the commonest forms of counterintuitive belief is the separation of mind
from its ontological moorings in spatial, physical, biological, animate persons. In
world cultures, mind is often attributed to animals, trees, statues, even fires. Fur-
thermore, a growing body of research suggests that children at least are intuitive
dualists, meaning that they distinguish between the properties relevant to mind and
those relevant to physical entities, not assuming that the former requires the latter.27
If it turns out that everyone has a native cognitive bias toward intuitive dualism, this
would help to explain not only the extremely wide distribution of belief in disem-
bodied ghosts and spirits, but also the common attribution of mind to non-Animate,
non-Biological things. Which things receive this treatment must depend on multi-
ple factors both cultural and cognitive, but one factor is likely their salience in the
environment, as we saw with trees. Sources of fresh water are often perceptually
salient, but fresh water also has a unique status as a necessity of life, which means
that it will always claim more human attention than virtually any other feature of
the environment. More speculatively, we might ask whether the movement of water
in rivers and springs evokes intuitions of goal-directed self-propelledness (the prin-
cipal criterion for Animacy).
Having noted the salient and memorable qualities of the conscious tree and
spring, let us turn to the anthropomorphic versions of the nymphs. Numphai are
persons whose minds work much like ours do: they have desires, intentions, mem-
ories, and feel emotions like pleasure and anger. Their bodies are physical, and
resemble those of alluring young women, yet like the other gods they are almost
always invisible to humans. They also have special powers, the ability to strike peo-
ple with illness, for example, or to possess their minds. These properties contradict
our intuitions about what other people are capable of, and thus the numphai, like all
Greek deities, are counterintuitive. The anthropomorphic numphai are also, like the
other gods, social beings. They oscillate between domesticity and untamed wild-
ness. Sometimes they are tidy housekeepers, tending their caves full of stone fur-
niture and their pleasant gardens, while at other times they run unfettered through
the woods and consort with silens. The name numphai seems to allude more to
their nubile bodies than to their actual status as brides, for they sometimes accept
marriage and sometimes reject it. According to the social expectations for ancient
Greek women, they behave bizarrely, which is memorable in its own way, but there
is nothing counterintuitive about their social behavior in the sense of violating on-
tological categories.
Next I will turn to a third point of cognitive theory, one which has been exten-
sively developed and tested starting in the 1980s: the dual-process model of cog-
criteria for spatiality, but given that liquids have a specifiable location in space and time (not
unlike flames) this seems possible. Pyysiäinen 2009: 24 ascribes physicality to liquids.
27 Intuitive dualism: Bloom 2004: 189–205, 222–227; Barrett 2011: 66–67 with bibliography.
80 Jennifer Larson
nition.28 According to this model of the mind, concepts and beliefs are processed
through two cognitively distinct pathways. The intuitive pathway is fast, effortless
and implicit; the reflective pathway is relatively slow, effortful and explicit (Ta-
ble 3). People do not need to expend mental effort learning concepts and beliefs
of the first type; they arise naturally from a set of ‘first order’ mental tools and
categories, many of which are established in early childhood as we interact with the
environment. Intuitive inferences and the resulting beliefs seem self-evident and
therefore need not be represented explicitly.
Table 3: Examples of intuitive and reflective beliefs.
Intuitive Belief (implicit) Reflective Belief (explicit)

Animals move about and plants stay put. Even though sponges and corals don’t move,
they are animals.
If I toss this stone in the air, it will come down. A pound of feathers weighs the same as a
pound of lead.
Other people feel emotions and form inten- Some people are malicious witches.
tions.
Beliefs of the intuitive type are usually not taught because there is no need to teach
them. Children figure them out without help. Reflective beliefs, on the other hand,
do not develop spontaneously; they must be taught or arrived at through conscious
effort. Concepts and beliefs processed at these two levels may be held in the mind
simultaneously, and they may conflict. For example, most people know that the
earth revolves around the sun. But when watching a beautiful sunset, even scientists
may remark on the sun’s ‘movement’. That the sun moves is understood intuitively;
that it is stationary is a conclusion resulting from a more complex process of learn-
ing and reflection.29 Even though we have been taught that the earth is not flat, we
tend to visualize the path of an airplane crossing the Atlantic as a straight line rather
than an arc. We still use ‘tree’ as a taxonomic category, even if we know that an oak
is more closely related to a daisy than to a conifer.
With respect to religious thought, we can draw a distinction between intuitive
mental representations and inferences, particularly as experienced through religion
in practice; and reflective propositions, particularly as experienced through myths,
theology, and other forms of explicit discourse about the gods (Table 4). Again,
people are not necessarily conscious of intuitive religious beliefs; they remain un-
spoken because they seem so obvious. Reflective religious beliefs, on the other
hand, are conscious thoughts which we are more likely to formulate explicitly.30
28 Dual-process cognition: for overviews see Chaiken and Trope eds. 1999; Tremlin 2005: 69–83;
Evans and Frankish eds. 2009; Kahnemann 2011: 19–105; Larson 2016: 11–14.
29 The sun’s movement: Barrett 1999: 324.
30 For explanatory purposes, I have simplified the distinction between ‘intuitive’ and ‘reflective’
beliefs. In practice, many beliefs combine intuitive and reflective content. A reflective belief is
by definition consciously held and explicit, but it may incorporate intuitive elements which are
unconscious and implicit. Intuitive beliefs are implicit and usually not examined consciously,
Table 4: Examples of intuitive and reflective religious beliefs.
Intuitive (implicit) Reflective (explicit)

When I pray, Allah understands the language Allah is omniscient.
I speak.
God feels emotions (for example, anger or When people have sex outside marriage,
gladness). God is angry.
Apollo must be called to the sacrifice (i. e. he Apollo is the son of Zeus and he carries a
needs to be physically present). silver bow.
World religions consistently exhibit a gap between what Justin Barrett calls ‘theo-
logically correct’ doctrine, which is highly reflective, and real-world practice, which
favors the concrete and intuitive.31 The dual process structure of the human mind
allowed the Greeks simultaneously to hold mental representations of the gods both
as occupants of Olympos and as residents of nearby temples. Similarly, the Atheni-
ans might think of Zeus Polieus and Zeus Herkeios as distinct deities, especially in
cult contexts, or they might think of them more reflectively and mythologically as a
single deity with different cult titles. As Henk Versnel has pointed out, we too often
attempt to explain away such logical inconsistencies, rather than simply allowing
them to stand.32
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that cultures do not evolve
from intuitive to reflective modes of cognition, even if reflective thought becomes
more complex and elaborate with the advent of writing. Instead, both intuitive and
reflective processes are always at work, and intuition is the default process. In Jus-
tin Barrett’s experiments, modern-day theists who professed theologically correct
beliefs in a non-material, omniscient and omnipotent God were nevertheless quite
likely in certain circumstances to represent God as an anthropomorphic being who
needs sensory input, who must do one thing at a time, and who occupies one place
at a time. This happened when subjects were struggling with a cognitively demand-
ing task, whereas if they had leisure to reflect, they were less likely to fall back
on intuition.33 Let us look at a few more examples of Greek religious beliefs with
respect to their intuitive and reflective content (Table 5).
but people may hold intuitive beliefs about subjects which have been established reflectively
(e. g. Allah or Apollo).
31 ‘Theological correctness’: Barrett 1999.
32 Inconsistency: Versnel 2011: 60–87, 83–86, 517–525. The example of the Zeuses comes from
Mikalson 1989: 70–73 (cf. Mikalson 1991: 3–5), who discusses the paradox that the Athenian
Zeuses were “treated, particularly in cult, as different, independent, deities.” As Boyer (1994:
41) notes, it is fallacious to assume that the religious representations in a given culture are in-
tegrated and logically consistent.
33 Experiments: Barrett 1999.
82 Jennifer Larson
Table 5: Contrasting examples of intuitive and reflective religious beliefs.
Religious beliefs which incorporate strong Religious beliefs which are mostly
INTUITIVE elements REFLECTIVE
The dead are at/in their tombs The dead are in Hades/the aether/stars
The goddess lives in her temple The goddess lives on Olympos
The goddess wears the kosmos dedicated by The goddess is distinct from her statue, which
worshipers wears the kosmos
Apollo knows who did the crime Apollo knows the number of grains of sand in
the world (i. e. is omniscient)
As we have seen, most if not all religious beliefs involve a counterintuitive compo-
nent. After all, religion deals in the extraordinary. The intuitive components, how-
ever, increase intelligibility and therefore gut-level plausibility, as well as emotional
resonance. For example, the belief that a deity is present at a specific place such as
a temple seems to be more intelligible, likely to be remembered, and emotionally
appealing than the belief that the deity is equally present at all places including the
planet Jupiter, the city dump and under the bed. In the examples above, the intuitive
elements are concrete and/or specific, while the reflective elements require more
mental simulation of unseen, half-understood places and beings.
Now let me try to apply the intuitive/reflective distinction to the nymphs. What
I have just said about the importance of the concrete points to a way in which the
worship of nature deities may be cognitively distinct from other types of cult: the
object of worship is visibly and often tangibly present. Furthermore, each Greek
cult of a spring or tree or grove was unique and tied to a specific place. This sug-
gests that the animistic model is especially reliant on intuitive thinking. In this
model, worship will involve direct contact with the sacred object, such as tying
fillets around trees or hanging them with votive tablets. In the case of a spring, of-
ferings will be placed directly into it, or around it. Animals may be drowned in the
water or sacrificed so that their blood flows into the stream.34 On the other hand,
special protections may be put in place to protect sacred water from defilement by
unauthorized use or by anything cast into it.35
According to this animistic model, the worshiper perceives a spring or tree or
grove which is endowed with mind. Once we move outside the moment of actual
engagement with the physical spring or tree, however, we are in a much more mytho-
logical world of reflective cognition where the anthropomorphism of the nymphs
goes beyond the possession of human-like minds to the possession of physical
humanlike bodies (which are nevertheless invisible to the worshiper). It is also
34 Drowning: Diod. Sic. 5.4.2 (in the spring Kyane; cf. Diod. Sic. 4.23.4 and Paus. 8.7.2 on horse
sacrifice to Poseidon in a freshwater spring). For sphagia performed so that blood flows di-
rectly into rivers, see the sources in Jameson 2014: 103–105 (note the difference in sacrificial
practice when crossing land borders and water borders). For Roman blood sacrifice in a spring
compare Hor. Carm. 3.13.
35 Prohibition on use of or defilement of sacred springs and streams: Dillon 1997: 122, 124–126
passim.
through the reflective process that the nymphs of a specific spring or grove become
generalizable into explicit theology: there is a whole class of goddesses of this type
and they all share certain properties. Then too, they are gendered in a way the tree
or spring cannot be, and this vastly increases their potential as agents, especially
with regard to their sexuality. Now they can be the brides of gods and mortal men,
and they can tie populations to the land by giving birth to founding heroes. In early
poetry, this anthropomorphic, agentive concept of the nymph is dominant because
of its superior narrative possibilities. Reflection also permits the possibility that the
logical conflict between animism and anthropomorphism will be recognized. How
can the nymphs be both trees and beautiful women at the same time? The composer
of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite attempts a solution to the problem by making
tree and nymph co-evals with separate bodies who nevertheless share one psuchē.
This is a remarkable instance of theological reflection, but it did not necessarily
have an impact on the experience of the average worshiper in a sacred grove.
At this point I should emphasize again that I do not see the animistic model as a
stage through which the Greeks passed. Rather it was available to Greek worshipers
at all times and places. So was a more reflective, mythological model, but which
model an individual relied upon at any given moment must have varied. In general,
intuitive thinking is highly correlated with ritual contexts and reflective thinking
is highly correlated with narrative and mythological contexts, but of course these
can be quite tricky to separate, particularly when it comes to the role of anthropo-
morphism. For a god to possess a human-like body opens up plenty of narrative
possibilities, and this is the very much the realm of reflective thought.
But anthropomorphism also appeals to intuitive beliefs that are powerfully ac-
tivated in the context of cult. Consider the situation of Greeks standing before the
Samian statue of Hera, which they invariably refer to as “the goddess,” not as “the
statue of the goddess,” and which they dress in a lavish wardrobe and house in a
lavish temple.36 Like the worshiper beside the spring or tree, they have a concrete
object with which to interact, but this object can be treated in ways analogous to a
human body. Most importantly, it has a face, which triggers a great many intuitive
inferences, such as the idea that it can see you and return your gaze. Is the goddess
this tangible statue right here, or is the goddess the invisible entity the Samians
know of from Homer’s descriptions of Hera? Cognitive science offers us a way to
explain how the goddess can be both, and how people can switch between these
concepts as needed. When a cult of the nymphs uses anthropomorphic images,
however, the worshiper faces an even more complex set of conceptual options,
each in logical conflict with the others. Are the nymphs present in the spring, are
they present in the form of the cult images, or are they invisibly present in anthro-
pomorphic form (Table 6)?
36 On Samian Hera as “the goddess” see Romano 1980: 250–271.

84 Jennifer Larson
Table 6: Logically conflicting mental representations of the nymphs.
Who are the numphai?

more intuitive more reflective
sentient spring/grove/tree sentient, anthropomorphic invisible anthropomorphic
cult image(s) entity/entities
Considering how ubiquitous cults of the nymphs were, we have surprisingly little
evidence about how often anthropomorphic images were used as the focus of wor-
ship. In particular, the use of cult images forces the worshiper to limit and define
the number of nymphs, which does not seem to be the case with either of the other
options. The number three was typically used to suggest a plurality, and sometimes
the depiction was only partially anthropomorphic, as in the case of the triple herms
from the Caruso cave in Lokri.37 Menander’s play Dyscolus mentions statues of the
nymphs which are garlanded by the daughter of the house, and Longus’ Daphnis
and Chloe features cult statues inside a cave, though we are not told how many.38
The many terracotta figurines, painted plaques and other kinds of votive objects
from excavated shrines reveal that the anthropomorphic assumptions so dominant
in Greek religion were fully active in the worship of the nymphs.39
To sum up, CSR offers us a number of tools to apply to the relationship between
religion and the natural environment. The enhanced salience and memorability of
minimally counterintuitive concepts helps to explain how certain mythic and cultic
motifs gain traction in a given culture, or keep recurring in different ones. Among
MCIs, those with strong inferential potential, that is, those perceived as intentional
agents, will emerge as stronger candidates for recognition in religious contexts.
Folk biology reveals predictable patterns in the way we, as humans, organize in-
formation about the natural world, with implications for which natural features
and organisms receive attention in the context of religion. Finally, the dual process
theory shows how animist beliefs can comfortably co-exist with anthropomorphism
despite the logical conflicts between these two ways of representing the natural
world as divine.
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Tremlin, T. 2005: ‘Divergent Religion: A Dual-process Model of Religious Thought, Behavior and
Morphology’, in H. Whitehouse and R. N. McCauley (eds.) Mind and Religion: Psychological
and Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity, Walnut Creek/CA and Lanham/MD: 69–83.
Tylor, E. B. 1871: Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy,
Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols., London.
Versnel, H. 2011: Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology, Leiden.
II
DIE VEREHRUNG DER ‚NATUR‘ BEI DEN GRIECHEN?

RIVERS AND RIVER GODS IN ANCIENT GREEK
RELIGION AND CULTURE
Jan N. Bremmer, University of Groningen
In his fine book Imaginary Greece, Richard Buxton dedicates a chapter to land-
scape, noting it was a world “to be exploited, avoided, revered”.1 In the relevant
chapter, he particularly analyses mountains.2 The innovative character of his analy-
sis is that he looks at ‘real’ mountains and the role they played in Greek life as well
as at the perceptions of these mountains and their function in mythology. Although
he includes briefer sections on caves and springs, he does not discuss rivers, al-
though they were a defining feature for the ancient Greeks. As Horden and Purcell
note in The Corrupting Sea, there still is no account of the “conceptual hydrology”
of the Mediterranean.3 It is not my intention to fill this lacuna,4 but instead to con-
tribute to that desired hydrology by looking at the ways in which rivers occur in
Greek cult, culture, and mythology.
The subject of rivers was more popular at the turn of the twentieth century,5 but
has not attracted much attention since Nilsson’s great handbook of Greek religion:6
there is not even a lemma ‘rivers’ in the index of the new Oxford Handbook of An-
cient Greek Religion.7 The place of rivers in Greek religion, however, raises some
interesting questions. For example, what does it mean that Jason crossed a river
before he started his Argonautic adventure?8 And is the birth of heroes and gods
near a river considered to be ‘chance’ or did this happen there so that the mother
immediately could wash herself for purification purposes,9 as people did after a
menacing dream?10 And how often did the Greeks dream of rivers?11 This study
cannot answer all of these questions, but will start by looking primarily at river
1 Buxton 1994: 80–113 at 80 (quotation); see also idem 2009: 196–198.

2 See now also Létoublon 2008: 151–158.
3 Horden and Purcell 2000: 625.
4 However, for Roman rivers and river gods, see Campbell 2012: 128–159; Naerebout and Pen-
ders 2013: 243–258; Santi 2014: 103–111; Haupt 2014: 44–50; Burroughs 2015/2016. For
modern ideas, see Holl and Kloft 2017.
5 Gardner 1878: 173–219; Preller and Robert 1894: 545–551; Waser 1909: 2774–2815; Farnell
1909: 420–424.
6 Nilsson 1967: 236–240; Burkert 1985: 175; Graf 1985: 104–106, 358–360 and idem 1998:
576–578; Parker 2011: 75–76; Givigliano 2016.
7 Eidinow and Kindt 2015.
8 Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 105 = fr. 105 Fowler.
9 Hom. Il. 4.474–477, 16.151; H. Hom. Dion. 4 West;?Hes. fr. 343; Stesich. fr. 9 Finglass.
10 Aesch. Pers. 200–201; Aristoph. Ran. 1338–1340; TrGF Adesp. 626.39–40 Kannicht and
Snell.
11 Artem. 2.27.
90 Jan N. Bremmer
gods to illuminate important aspects of rivers in ancient Greece. We will begin with
the divine nature of rivers (§ 1), proceed with their animal representation (§ 2) and
human nature (§ 3), then look at various aspects and functions (§ 4), and end with a
few concluding thoughts (§ 5).12
1. THE DIVINE NATURE OF RIVERS
The Homeric epics assume the divine nature of the rivers, although the poet
calls them “divine” only once.13 When Zeus gathered the gods for council “none
of the rivers was absent, except for Okeanos”.14 In the enumeration of the gods
taking sides with the Greeks or Trojans, we find opposite Hephaestus “the great
deep-whirling river, whom the gods call Xanthos, but mortals Skamandros”.15 And
when Xanthos supplicated Hera to stop the fire of Hephaestus, she addressed her
son with the words: “it is not seemly to jostle an immortal god in this way for the
sake of mortals”.16 In fact, Xanthos is called the offspring of Zeus several times.17
Not surprisingly, he is a “great god”,18 who even has a priest.19 This river god re-
ceives sacrifices of bulls and horses, the latter of which are drowned alive,20 just as
the Spercheios had received a “sanctuary and smoking altar” from Peleus.21
The honour shown to rivers is not limited to Xanthos but seems to be a general
practice at rivers. Odysseus prays to an unknown river he is trying to swim into,22
and Hesiod enjoins the reader never to cross a river without praying, “unwashed in
evil and in hands”.23 Agamemnon too invokes river gods, along with Zeus, Helios,
and the earth as part of an oath formula.24 In later literature people sometimes swear
by their local river, like Helen does when she swears by the Spartan Eurotas.25
Similarly, Aeetes, who appears in Callimachus’ Aetia in the context of the Argo-
nauts, swears by Helios and the local Phasis, “the king of our rivers”.26 Oaths by
rivers were known to Sophocles, and rivers were included in an old Attic oath paro-
12 For the rivers of mainland Greece mentioned here, see the nicely illustrated Brewster 1997.
13 Theios: Hom. Od. 11.238.
14 Hom. Il. 20.7.
15 Hom. Il. 20.73–74. For the idea of a separate language of the gods, which goes back to Indo-
European times, see de Lamberterie 1988: 129–138; Bader 1989; West 2007: 160–162; Willi
2008: 247–249.
16 Hom. Il. 21.379–380.
17 Hom. Il. 14.433–434 = 21.1–2 = 24.692–693.
18 Hom. Il. 21.248.
19 Hom. Il. 5.77–78.
20 Hom. Il. 21.131–132.
21 Hom. Il. 23.148.
22 Hom. Od. 5.445.
23 Hes. Op. 737–741. For Hesiod, see Parker 1983: 293–294.
24 Hom. Il. 3.278.
25 Eur. Hel. 349–350.
26 Callim. Fr. 7.34 Pfeiffer = 7c.16 Harder. For the Phasis, see Lordkipanidzé 1999: 129–141; add
Val. Fl. 6.294–295: Aquites, sacerdos Phasisis. For other oaths by the local river, see Callim.
Ia. 194.106, 201 Pfeiffer.
Rivers and River Gods in Ancient Greek Religion and Culture 91
died by Aristophanes.27 Moreover, river gods were among the deities invoked in the
famous ephebic oath of Dreros of ca. 220 BC and in the treaty between Philip V of
Macedonia and Hannibal in 215 BC.28 In Bithynia, there even existed a river called
‘Oath’, which was considered to be the most dreadful of the local oaths: a perjurer
would be violently drawn into its swirls unless he had jumped out fast.29
Despite the acknowledged divinity of rivers in the extant literature, evidence
for an active cult of the rivers on the Greek mainland is rather elusive. The last sur-
vey of river cults was by Otto Waser (1870–1952) at the beginning of the twentieth
century. There is, therefore, space for a new investigation, and we can start with
the Peloponnese where we have the most evidence. In Elis, the Alpheios must have
been so important that, rather uniquely, the Eleans had a month called Alphioios.30
Olympia had a cult of the Kladeos and the Alpheios,31 the latter having two al-
tars, one together with Artemis,32 and still receiving gifts in his water at the time
of Achilles Tatius.33 As the altar is already mentioned by the early mythographer
Herodorus,34 the combined worship must be old. And indeed, at various places
Artemis had the epithets Alpheiaia, Alpheionia, Alpheioia or Alpheiousa.35 The epi-
thets are an interesting indication for a less well known aspect of Artemis, namely
her connection with lakes, springs and marshes, although the second-century rhetor
Maximus Tyrius had already noted that “fountains of water, hollow thickets and
flowery meadows are sacred to Artemis”.36 The epithet is also an indication of the
status disparity between Artemis and Alpheios, who clearly is less important. This
also appears from one of the few myths we have of river gods, which is related by
Pausanias.37 When Alpheios realised that he could not persuade Artemis for a mar-
riage through persuasion and beseeching words, he decided to rape the goddess. He
went to a nocturnal feast in Letrini that was celebrated by Artemis and her nymphs.
However, the goddess had her suspicions about Alpheios and daubed their faces
with mud.38 When Alpheios came, he could not distinguish the goddess from the
others, and so he went away without success. The initiatory myth clearly reflects the
superiority of Artemis above the outwitted river god.39
27 Soph. fr. 957.1 Radt; Aristoph. Av. 194; Antiphanes fr. 288 K/A; Timocles fr. 41 K/A; Plut.
Dem. 9.4, cf. Fraenkel 1962: 71–75.
28 Dreros: Syll3 527 = I. Cret. I IX 1 = Chaniotis 1996: 195–201. Philip: Pol. 7.9.2–3.
29 Arr. FGrH 156 fr. 94. For the Oriental influence behind swearing by rivers, see Krieter-Spiro
2009 on Hom. Il. 3.276–279.
30 Trümpy 1997: 199–201; Minon 2007: no. 25.
31 Bacchyl. fr. 5 Maehler; Str. 6.2.9; Paus. 5.10.6, 5.13.11, 5.14.6, 5.15.7 (Kladeos).
32 Herodorus FGrH 31 fr. 34 = fr. 34a Fowler; Paus. 5.14.6.
33 Ach. Tat. 1.18.
34 For his time, first decades of the fourth century BC, see Fowler 2013: 696.
35 Str. 8.3.12; Paus. 6.22.8, 10; Ath. 346b; Schol. Pind. Pyth. 2.12a.
36 Max. Tyr. 8.1. For this aspect of Artemis, see Jost 1985: 412.
37 Telesilla 717 PMG; Paus. 6.22.9, cf. Fowler 2013: 284.
38 Burkert (1983: 170) persuasively compares the daubing with the eczema of the Proitids, an-
other initiatory myth.
39 For rivers as marginal spaces in initiatory rituals, see Calame 1997: 103–104, 110–111; Currie
2002: 30–34.
92 Jan N. Bremmer
A recently published bronze pinax from the Lykaion, dating to about 500 BC,
gives us one of the earliest testimonies of the Arcadian cult of the Alpheios, as he
receives sacrifices of a piglet at various festivals together with other divinities,40
who receive a sheep.41 More or less contemporaneous is the inscription ΑΛΦΙΟΣ
on a small bronze vessel found in the imputed spring of the river near Tegea.42 The
Arcadian Psophidians, according to Pausanias, had a temple with a statue for the
local river Erymanthos,43 and Aelian notes that the statue had the form of a man,
just like in Arcadian Heraia.44 Acheloos had a sanctuary in Mantinea,45 from which
probably derives a small bronze bull votive of about 400 BC with the dedication
“Charilaos to Acheloos”.46 Pausanias reports the Arcadian myth about Leukippos
who kept his hair long for Alpheios and also relates that the Phigalian boys cut their
hair in honour of the local river Neda.47 Elsewhere on the Peloponnese we hear
that the Messenian king had to sacrifice to the river Pamisos,48 that the Sicyonians
and Phliasians worshipped the Asopos, and that Argos had a sanctuary of the Ke-
phisos,49 in this case a small tributary of Argos’ main river, the Inachos.
From the Argolid, we have an early fifth-century BC dedication to the Argive
river god Erasinos.50 The river started at the Stymphalian lake, and the Stym-
phalians also worshipped this river god as well as the river Metope.51 Herodotus
mentions that ca. 500 BC the Spartan king Cleomenes sacrificed to Erasinos.52 In
this case, Herodotus uses the verb sphagiazesthai, which suggests that the sacrifice
consisted of the cutting of the throat of the sacrificial victim and letting the blood
pour into the river instead of onto the earth. The verb also suggests the close prox-
imity of this sacrifice to the sphagia, the sacrifice before the start of a battle,53 as
we find the same verb used by Xenophon when he describes how seers sacrificed
40 For sacrifices of piglets, see, with bibliography, Gebauer 2016: 475–482.

41 Cf. Heinrichs 2015: 1–89 (lines 1–2, 4 and 12 of the inscription), whose text has been improved
by Carbon and Clackson 2016. The text is often uncertain and hard to read, but in the first two
cases piglets seem certain, in the third case the text has ‘ram’ but this probably is a case of
dittography.
42 Rhomaios 1904: 139–52; Lazzarini 1976: 238, no. 444; Dubois 1988: 89–90; Jost 1985: 525.
43 Paus. 8.24.12.
44 Ael. VH 2.33. Jost 1985: 73.
45 Jost 1985: 524–525.
46 IG V 2.284.
47 Leukippos: Paus. 8.20.3; Phigalian boys: Paus. 8.41.3. Bruit 1986: 71–96.
48 Paus. 4.3.10. See also Weiss 1984: 99–100.
49 Asopos: Paus. 5.22.6; Ael. VH 2.33. Kephisos: Paus. 2.20.6; Ael. VH 2.33.
50 SEG 11.329, 59.362, cf. Nieto Izquierdo 2009: 9–14; note also the first-century AD dedication:
SEG 53.305; Kritzas 2010: 239. In early Byzantine times the name Erasinos is still found in
Iasos (SEG 45.1522), which claimed Argive descent, cf. Thuc. 8.27.6 with Hornblower ad loc.;
Guizzi and Nocita 2015: 42.
51 Ael. VH 2.33.
52 Hdt. 6.76.1. Cleomenes was of course used to a river cult, as Sparta itself worshipped the river
god Eurotas: Str. 6.2.9; Paus. 3.12.8; Ael. VH 2.33; Gisler 2014.
53 Jouan 1990–1991: 25–42 (also on rites of crossing water); Parker 2000: 299–314; Gebauer
2002: 280–285; Dillery 2005: 200–209; Jameson 2014: 98–126 (‘Sacrifice before Battle’, first
published in 1991).
to the river Kentrites.54 The passage is interesting, as seers performed the killing
of a victim only during the already mentioned battle sacrifice, the sphagia.55 The
military sacrifices before crossing seem to have been performed across Greece and
lasted longest in Macedonia, where they are well attested in the era of Alexander
the Great.56 These sacrifices were rare, and when they occurred, we may suppose
that the crossing was dangerous, as the Greeks would hardly have sacrificed when
crossing a nearly dry river. Moreover, the victim might well have been small: in
Mykonos, they sacrificed a lamb to Acheloos and in Arcadia a piglet (above),57
although in Erythrai a sheep to the river god Aleon (below).
To the north of the Peloponnese, the Acarnanians organised a race for Ache-
loos,58 and already in the fifth century BC his prominent position is well attested
by many a local coin, as is the case on those of the Ambracians.59 In fact, the
Acheloos was the only river with a supra-local importance, as the first-century AD
grammarian Seleukos tells us: “many people sacrifice to Acheloos before sacrific-
ing to Demeter, since Acheloos is the name of all rivers [§ 4] and the crop comes
from water”.60 The explanation clearly derives from post-Sophistic times, but the
worship of Acheloos was old, as is shown by its occurrence on Sicily, in Athens,
on Chios, Rhodos61 and in Didyma (below). At Delphi, the people worshipped the
river Pleistos,62 and, further north, in Thessaly, we have the Pheneos and, espe-
cially, the mighty Peneios, which received many burnt-offerings, and Homer al-
ready mentions a sacrifice to the Spercheios.63 In Thrace we meet the Nestos,64 but
also a fourth-century BC mention of a sanctuary of the Thracian river god Strymon
in Amphipolis, who together with Apollo received a tenth of confiscated goods,65 as
well as a cult of Alpheios in Thracian Heraion.66
To the east, the late seventh-century BC Megarian tyrant Theagenes also had an
altar built for Acheloos,67 and the Athenian river Kephisos had a shrine at Echelidai,
about half way between Piraeus and Phaleron. The shrine itself has not yet been
discovered, but we have a fine, ca. 400 BC, relief from a mother who presents her
son to the river god “Kephisos and his altar-sharing gods”, among whom Acheloos
54 Xen. An. 4.3.18.

55 See Henrichs 1981: (discussion included) 213; Diggle 1994: 221–224 (seers, sphagia, spha-
giazesthai); Gebauer 2002: 256.
56 Arr. Anab. 1.4.5, 4.4.3, 5.8.2, 5.29.5, 6.3.1;Arr. Ind. 18.11; Ptol. Lag. FGrH 138 fr. 23.
57 LSCG 96.34–37. Given the small size, the suggestion of Parker 2011: 146, n. 85, that the meat
of the victim was subsequently eaten seems doubtful.
58 Schol. Il. 24.616b.
59 For these coins, see BMC Thessaly 95 (Ambracia), 168–169; SNG Copenhagen 405 (Acarna-
nia).
60 P Oxy. 2.221 (transl. d’Alessio).
61 Schol. Il. 24.616b.
62 Aesch. Eum. 27; Apoll. Rhod. 2.711; onomastic evidence, Knoepfler 2000: 92.
63 Pheneos: Knoepfler 2000: 92. Peneios: Ael. VH 3.1. Spercheios: Hom. Il. 23.143–144, cf.
Moustaka 1983: 52–53.
64 Knoepfler 2000: 92.
65 Syll.3 194 (sanctuary); CIG 2008 (goods).
66 Ael. VH 2.33.
67 Paus. 1.41.2.
94 Jan N. Bremmer
is clearly visible.68 The latter’s Athenian worship is also mentioned by Plato,69 but
specific details about the cult are lacking. In Boeotia, the homonymous local Ke-
phisos, a frequent name for rivers, had an altar in common with Pan, the Nymphs,
and Acheloos in the temple of Amphiaraos near Oropos.70
The Greeks also took the river cults with them during their colonising period,
and they were especially popular on Sicily. Here they seem to have lost their nur-
turing function and to be mainly worshipped as the representation of a city.71 Con-
sequently, we have very little evidence of them: there is only one river in Sicily of
which the cult is epigraphically documented.72 Fortunately, we do know that the
Sicilians sacrificed to Acheloos,73 that the Syracusans worshipped the river Anapos
as a man, as did the inhabitants of Segesta with the rivers Porpax, Krimesos and
Telmessos, and that those of Akragas sacrificed to their homonymous river-god as
an attractive youth;74 indeed, representations of river gods as youths can be found
on many Sicilian coins starting in the middle of the fifth century BC,75 just like
sacrificing river gods.76
We are lucky to have a better idea of the popularity of these cults from Cice-
ro’s account of the notorious art predator Verres. Having already stolen various
cult statues,77 he charged two thugs with the stealing of the “distinguished marble
image” of the local river god Chrysas in Assoros, a small town just northeast of
Henna. When these bandits together with other armed men came at night and broke
the door of the country sanctuary in order to carry off the image, the guards sounded
the alarm and the nearby farmers managed to foil the nefarious plan.78 The incident
suggests that there might have been many more such sanctuaries in Sicily, but we
do not have any supporting epigraphical and archaeological evidence.
The Greeks also took the custom of worshipping river gods to the north. A late
sixth-century ostrakon found in Olbia in 1969 mentions that “again altars are dam-
aged […] of the Mother of the Gods and Borysthenes [= Dnieper] and Heracles”.79
Moving to the east, to the Aegean islands, we already noted a river cult at
Mykonos and the worship of Acheloos at Rhodos, but we also learn of a priest and
68 For discussion of the relief and a related stele, see Parker 2005: 430–431. According to Ael.
VH 2.33, the Athenian Kephisos looked like a man but with small horns. However, this is not
the case on this relief.
69 Pl. Phdr. 230B; Schol. Il. 24.616b.
70 Paus. 1.34.2.
71 Curbera 1998: 52–60; Frisone 2012.
72 Dubois 1989: no. 101: ’Έλώρωι και Τιμάσσαι.
73 Schol. Il. 24.616b.
74 Ael. VH. 2.33. For Krimesos, note also Verg. Aen. 5.38.
75 Mirone 1917–1918: 1–24; Jenkins 1970: 170–175, pl. 26, nos. 454–456, pl. 28, no. 489, pl. 30,
pl. 38, no. 8.
76 Günther 2009: 81–95.
77 For such thefts by Verres, see now, with excellent bibliography, Van Haeperen 2016: 191–202.
78 Cic. Verr. 2.4.96.
79 Rusjaeva and Vinogradov 1999: 201–203. Chiekova (2008: 268) notes that in this area no theo-
phoric names of rivers are found, just as is the case in Sicily.
sacrifices in Hellenistic times to the Chian river Aleon, although he had to share his
priest with four other gods.80
In Asia Minor, the existence of an original river cult in Phocaea remains dis-
puted,81 but a fourth-century BC lex sacra from Thebai on Mt Mykale prescribes a
cheese offering to Maiandros,82 the Didymaeans worshipped Acheloos, the Knidian
Chersonnesos Alpheios,83 and Aeschylus mentions a priest of the Kaikos, the most
important river of Mysia, whose name recurs in several personal names testifying
to this worship,84 and inscriptions attest to priests of the Lycian Xanthos.85 Chal-
cedon had a month called Potamos, but we know nothing about the cult that must
have been in the background of the month name.86 Finally, Maximus Tyrius has a
fantastic story about the sacrifice of thigh-bones to the Phrygian rivers Maiandros
and Marsyas.87
Moreover, also from Asia Minor,88 we have much evidence of dedications to
river gods such as to the Mysian Skamandros and Enbeilos,89 Smyrnaean Meles
and Hermos, Carian Timeles and Harpasos, the Phrygian Hermos, Sangarios and
a god simply called ‘River’ (probably the Tembris).90 We also have the hitherto
unknown Pamphylian “river M(e)izoares”; Pisidian Eurymedon, the only river god
with an uncovered sanctuary, and Euros.91 Finally, in Cilicia we find Oresibelos,92
80 I. Ery 201 c 42, 207.51.

81 Collin-Bouffier 2000: 69–80.
82 I. Priene 362.11 = LSAM 39, cf. Thonemann 2011: 196–197. For the river/god Maiandros, see
the fine study by Thonemann 2006: 11–43; see also Högemann and Oettinger 2006: 55–63 (on
Str. 12.8.19).
83 Acheloos: Schol. Il. 24.616b; Kaikos: Ael. VH 2.33.
84 Aesch. fr. 144 Radt. Cf. Habicht 2000: 126.
85 TAM 2.293–296; SEG 59.1577.
86 I. Kalchedon 6.2.
87 Max. Tyr. 2.8.
88 See now the detailed discussion, to which I am much indebted, by Parker 2016, to which I also
refer for further details. I am most grateful to Robert Parker for sending me a copy of his article
before its publication.
89 Skamandros: § 3; I. Alexandreia Troas 77; Enbeilos: CIG 3700; Hasluck 1905: 60, no. 22.
90 Meles: I. Smyrna 766; Smyrnean Hermos: I. Smyrna 767; Timeles: SEG 31.933, cf. Robert and
Robert 1954: 46–50; Harpasos: Malay and Ertuğrul 2014: 13–15. Phrygian Hermos: SEG 6.80;
Sangarios: SEG 32.1273–1274; Tembris(?): RECAM II.1–10, 55–56.
91 M(e)iozares: SEG 52.1440–1444); Pisidian Eurymedon: Parker 2016: 4–5; Euros: Milner
1998: no. 150.
92 SEG 54.1488. For a dedication to the, apparently, identical river Arasibelos, see Ehling, Pohl
and Sayar 2004: 243, no. 49 = LIMC 4.1 1988: 146, no. 48. Regarding the names of this river,
Norbert Oettinger (per email 28-10-2015) informs me: “There is a rule concerning the relation-
ship of Anatolian words or proper names and their Greek counterparts: if not in word initial or
final position, the Greek vowel e very often corresponds to the Luwian or Hittite vowel a,
cf. for instance the names Luwian Tatinani- versus Greek (Cilicia) Tedine:nis and Armatati-
versus Greek (Lycia) Ermendadis, Greek Alexandros versus Hittite Alaksandu-, Greek *Ete-
woklewe:s versus Hittite (Luwian) Tawak(a)lawa-. Therefore, in case there was a Luvian river
name *Arasibala-, we expect a Greek corresponding form *Aresibelos or *Arasibelos, of
which the latter exists. The first part of the Greek ethnonym Arasizeus (Pisidia), noted by
L. Zgusta, Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen (Heidelberg, 1984) 88, probably contains the same ele-
96 Jan N. Bremmer
Pyramos, Kalykadnos and Aneonos.93 These dedications seem to have been long
popular, as the most recent dated one, to the Lydian river god Hermos, dates from
AD 212/213.94 Personified rivers also often feature on Anatolian coins,95 but, as
Parker convincingly argues,
“it would at all events be rash to draw an inference from the prominence of river gods on the
coinage of Anatolia (or indeed in other parts of the Greek world, such as Sicily [see below § 4])
to their role in civic cult: they are highly conspicuous on the coinage but probably had a lesser,
though not insignificant, role in religious life”.96
Finally, the Greeks even took along this type of worship to far-away Bactria, where
several dedications have been found to the Oxus, and even the homonymous an-
throponym Ochos.97
Our survey shows that the cult of rivers was widespread and lasted certainly
into the third century AD in some places. Its occurrence in Homer and its Indo-
European background suggests a cult that lasted more than a millennium in the
Greek world, possibly even two millennia.98 Despite the fact that they are regularly
called ‘holy’ in Greek literature,99 the divine character of the rivers did not neces-
sarily make them as important as the Olympian gods. This lower position in the
divine pecking order is clear from their limited role in early epic, but also from their
exclusion from the canonical Twelve Gods (below). We may even wonder if this
position was not a subject of debate at an early stage of Greek religion as suggested
in Book 21 of the Iliad. In his speech of triumph, Achilles contemptuously refers to
the rivers and confronts them with his own descent of Zeus.100 Not even the Ache-
loos, the most important river of mainland Greece, not even the Okeanos, the source
of all the waters of the world, is a match for this son of Zeus as he boasts. And when
he cannot win from Skamandros, he complains: “O father Zeus, that not one of the
gods has undertaken to rescue me from the river, pitiful as I am”.101 Here too we
find a contrast of the gods with the river. Admittedly, these passages are highly rhe-
ment *arasi- of a river name. The variant Oresibelos is probably a folk etymology after Greek
compounds like oresi-dromos, oresi-trophos, etc.”.
93 Pyramos: SEG 54.1491; Kalykadnos: SEG 44.1228; Aneonos: I. Anazarbos 53.
94 SEG 57.1230, see also 1229.
95 Imhoof-Blumer 1923: 173–421; Falter 2009.
96 Parker 2016: 3–4.
97 I. EstremoOriente 311–312; SEG 58.1686; Abdullaev 2013: 173–192; Boardman 2014; Parker
2016: 10–11.
98 For the Indo-European background, see Dowden 2000: 51–55; West 2007: 274–279. Add to
West’s Persian evidence: Hdt. 1.138.2, 1.189, 5.52.5, 7.35.1; Str. 15.3.14, 16; Arnob. 6.11;
Anth. Pal. 7.162; Dan 2015: 191–235.
99 See West 1966 on Hes. Theog. 788; add Aesch. fr. 155 (ὅ θ’ ἁγνὸς Φᾶσις); Aesch. Pers. 497;
Aesch. Supp. 254, PV 434; Eur. Med. 846; Aristoph. Nub. 283; Democr. T 155b DK; Hippoc.
Morb. sacr. 13; Pl. Leg. 824a. The combination lasted into Roman times, cf. Dionys. Per. 298
(Danube), 747 (Oxus); Merkelbach and Stauber 2004: 27, no. 24/11 = TAM V.3, 1914: ἱερὰ
ῥεῖθρα τὰ Ἕρμου; note also Braswell on Pind. Nem. 1.1.
100 Hom. Il. 21.185–193.
101 Hom. Il. 21.273–275. For Achilles’ battle against Skamandros, see Salowey 2017: 163–171.
torical, but they could hardly have been written if there had not been an underlying
feeling of a disparity in status between the Skamandros and the other gods.
A difference in the status of river gods also appears in fifth-century BC litera-
ture. In Sophocles’ Ajax the chorus asks “who among the Olympian goddesses or
the flowing streams of the Bosporus could call out to me that he can see the fierce-
hearted man wandering somewhere?”102 Similarly, in the cosmogony of Aristo-
phanes’ Birds we hear of the coming-to-be of “gods and rivers and Erebus and
Chaos”.103 Such a disparity might also appear from the fact that Alpheios and Ke-
phisos had to share their altar, as altar sharing often seems to point to a subordinate
position.104 From about 600 BC we can note a development in which the Greeks
started to distinguish their major gods, twelve in number, from others. This devel-
opment, which accelerated in the late sixth century, must also have contributed to
lesser esteem for the river gods.105
2. ANIMALS AND RIVER GODS
How did the Greeks represent their river gods? Robert Parker nicely quotes a pas-
sage from a poem by T. S. Eliot that describes the rivers as “sullen, untamed and
intractable […]. Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder of what men
choose to forget” and comments that “they were not for the Greeks, unlike winds,
the grim and dangerous powers that Eliot imagines”. His argument is that “the
many votive reliefs with Pan and the Nymphs associate him [Acheloos] with wild
nature, but wild nature in its cheerful, sportive aspect”.106 This can hardly be true.
As was noted long ago, the Greek rivers are nearly always male, and they regularly
have a name that suggests their forceful, even dangerous nature: Taur(i)os (bull),
Lykos (wolf), Sys (boar), Kapros (wild boar),107 and Tragos (he-goat).108 Later Si-
cilian myths also mentioned that the river Krimisos mated with Egesta, the daughter
of Laomedon, in the shape of a bear or a dog, but this seems to be a specific local
development, if not a purely literary invention.109
As we can already see in Homer, the Greeks were much impressed by the raging
force of rivers in the winter. That is why the onslaught of warriors, such as Hector,
Achilles and Diomedes, is compared to a wintery torrent.110 Later authors, such as
Theognis, Sophocles and Isocrates, also use the comparison for the impulsive mass
102 Soph. Aj. 882–897 (transl. Finglass).

103 Aristoph. Av. 691.
104 Cf. Nock 1972: 237–238.
105 Bremmer 2010: 6; Rutherford 2010: 43–54; Fowler 2013: 284.
106 Parker 2011: 75.
107 For the term, see Briand 1997: 91–115.
108 Kretschmer 1937: 79–80. For the various rivers, see RE s. v.
109 Bear: Serv. Aen. 5.20 (Myth. Vat. 1.137, 2.193). Dog: Tzetzes on Lycophron 953 (Serv. Aen.
1.550, 5.30, 5.37; Myth. Vat. ibid.), 962.
110 Hom. Il. 4.452–456, 5.87–92, 11.492–496, 13.136–142, 17.263–265, cf. Adrados 1965: 7–14.
For the force of rivers, also note Hom. Il. 5.598 (fast flowing), 12.18, 17.749, 18.607 (Ocean);
for the Maiandros, see the interesting coin discussed by Nollé 2009: 44–47.
98 Jan N. Bremmer
of the people.111 Given that from the various animals mentioned as river names, the
bull is the largest one, it is perhaps not surprising that the Greeks tended to represent
the rivers on their coins, vases and votive reliefs as a bull or as a man with horns or
with a bull face. Indeed, Cornutus explains the bull shape of the river gods because
rivers have “something violent and roaring”.112 This association of rivers with the
bull must be pretty old, as in the Iliad the river Xanthos roars as a bull, as does the
Skamandros, even though rivers can also operate in human form.113 The idea of the
bull shape seems to have appealed in particular to Euripides in whose plays we find
the bull-headed Okeanos, the bull-eyed Kephisos and the bull-footed Alpheios.114
The tradition of river gods as bulls may well go back to the early first millen-
nium, as the Greek colonies on Sicily and Southern Italy, which were founded in
the eighth and seventh centuries, often had bull-like river gods on their coins.115
According to Timaeus, Akragas had a bull-like image of the river Gelas, which was
the symbol of its founding city Gela.116 The notice is much debated,117 but in Locri
Epizephyrii there was a bull-man statue of the hero Euthymos who was closely
connected to the local river Kaikinos.118 As will be discussed below, Archilochus
already knows of the bull-like Acheloos.119 The artistic representation as bull-man,
starting with Acheloos, seems to derive from the Orient and to have originated in
Ionia, from where it spread all over Greece.120
The negative valuation of the violent rivers also appears from the myth about
the struggle between Acheloos and Heracles which, with the myth about the Alphei-
os (§ 1), is one of the few more developed myths about river gods, even though
we hardly have any early full account. The most detailed one is given by Sopho-
cles and Apollodorus, in which Acheloos was a suitor of Deianira, but she was not
enamoured of him.121 In Sophocles’ drama, she depicts him in as bad a light as
possible as a shape-changer: “as a bull, at other times as a darting, coiling serpent,
and again at others with a man’s trunk and a bull’s head, and from his shaggy beard
there poured streams of water from his springs”.122 Fortunately, Heracles turns up
and vanquishes the bull by breaking off one of his horns. Winner takes all, and he
marries Deianira. It is clear that the myth is old, as it was already related by Archilo-
chus, and the vases demonstrate its great popularity.123 The struggle fits a series of
Heraclean myths in which the hero domesticates wild animals and kills bandits. Yet
111 Thgn. 347–348; Soph. Ant. 712–713; Isoc. Or. 15.172.

112 Cornutus 22; similarly, Schol. Eur. Or. 1378.
113 Xanthos: Hom. Il. 21.237; Skamandros: Hom. Il. 20.503; human form: Hom. Il. 21.212–213.
114 Okeanos: Eur. Or. 1377; Kephisos: Eur. Ion 1261; Alpheios: Eur. IA 275–276.
115 Mirone 1917–1918; Imhoof-Blumer 1923; Lacroix 1953: 5–21; Weiss 1984: 50–101 and 1988:
139–148; Ostrowski 1991.
116 Timaeus FGrH 566 fr. 28c.
117 See, most recently, Dudziński 2013: 70–87.
118 Currie 2002: 30–31.
119 See also Molinari and Sisci 2016.
120 Isler 1970: 92–108; West 1997: 452.
121 Soph. Trach. 9–21, 497–530; Apollod. 2.7.5; Salowey 2017: 171–176.
122 Soph. Trach. 11–14 (transl. Lloyd-Jones).
123 Archil. fr. 286–287 West2. Isler 1970; Isler 1981: 12–36; Salskov Roberts 2000: 63–75.
in the later fifth century BC, probably through the discussions of the Sophists about
the place of law and civilised behaviour, the anomalous aspects of hybrid beings
such as the Centaurs had come to be perceived as a kind of threat to civilised man-
kind: they were monsters that had to be completely eradicated.124 It may therefore
well be that the early versions of the myth did not display the same abhorrence of
Acheloos as we can perceive in Sophocles.
In any case, later times had some problems with the myth and tried to upgrade
it. Thus, from the fifth century onwards, mythographers, starting with Pherecydes,
identified the broken horn with the so-called horn of Amaltheia, a horn of plenty,
thus giving the struggle a different meaning.125 Much later, Strabo informs us that
people call the Acheloos and other rivers “bull-like” because of their roaring and
bends, which were also called “horns”,126 and that Heracles made a considerable
part of the Paracheloitis into a polder in order to please Deianira’s father Oineus.
The resulting land was the horn of Amaltheia. In this rationalising account we can
still perceive something of the force of the rivers that must have given them their
zoomorphic representation.
3. RIVERS AS HUMANS
As we saw above (§ 2), rivers can also adopt human forms, and a human shape is
also presupposed in the myth about Alpheios and Artemis (§ 1). Unfortunately, we
hear nothing about a human or animal shape in the case of the fatherhood of river
gods, but it seems a reasonable guess that those myths presupposed a human shape
somehow. In the course of time, many people and peoples derived their ancestry
from a river. A few of the oldest examples will demonstrate that the idea is pretty
early and goes back to the oldest layer of Greek religion that we can confidently
reconstruct. I will limit my catalogue to human descendants and not list the many
nymphs that descended from the river gods, as the nymphs are still of a divine na-
ture and, moreover, their divine ancestry has been amply analysed in an informative
study by Jennifer Larson.127
Let us start with Homer. In the Iliad, we find Diokles, one of the Danai, whose
sons are killed by Aeneas. From his detailed genealogy we learn that his father
Orsilochos was the son of Alpheios. The family clearly belonged to the local aris-
tocracy and seems to have been in some ways dependent on Agamemnon and
Menelaos.128 Spercheios, a very important river as we have already discussed (§ 2)
and will see again later (§ 4), is the father of Achilles’ sister’s son Menesthios: “the
daughter of Peleus, the fair Polydore, bore him for the untiring Spercheios, a mortal
woman having slept with a god”.129 Menesthios is the commander of one line of
124 Bremmer 2012: 25–54.

125 Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 42 = fr. 42 Fowler. Fowler 2013: 323–324.
126 Str. 10.2.19; see West 1966 on Hes. Theog. 789.
127 Larson 2001.
128 Hom. Il. 5.541–553.
129 Hom. Il. 16.175–176.
100 Jan N. Bremmer
Achilles’ ships, and his position as sister’s son shows him to be a favourite of Achil-
les.130 Among the latter’s victims is also Asteropaios, the son of Pelegon, the son of
the river god Axios (modern Vardar).131 His father’s name suggests that he was the
ancestor of the inhabitants of Pelagonia, north of Thessaly. Interestingly, in a later
altercation with Asteropaios we again (§ 1) find a slighting of the divine position of
the river when Achilles says to him:
“It is difficult to vie with the sons of Zeus, even when you are born from a river. You said
that you were the offspring of a wide flowing river, but I boast to be of the family of the great
Zeus”.132
In the Odyssey we find Antiope, the mother of Amphion and Zethos, the builders
of the walls of Thebes, as daughter of Asopos, even though her genealogy is dif-
ferent in other traditions.133 According to Pherecydes, the Dryopes live close to
the Spercheios and descend from Dryops, the son of the river god.134 More to the
north, Rhesus is the son of the Thracian river Strymon in Euripides’ homonymous
drama,135 and the first Scythian, Targitaos, is the son of Zeus and the daughter of
the river Borysthenes.136 This kind of genealogy can also be found in Asia Minor
at a fairly early stage as the later fifth-century Antimachus of Colophon mentions
a “daughter of Pydes [a river in Pisidia], the far-famed river”, who seems to have
been the mother of Solymos, the ancestor of the Pisidian Solymians.137 More strik-
ingly, both the fifth-century Critias and the Samian Euagon relate that Homer de-
scended from the river Meles, and there are strong indications that this legend goes
back to ca. 600 BC.138
Given the upper-class nature of our early evidence, it is hardly chance that
our examples are limited to ancestors of royal families or races of people. In later
time, we find many examples that state that the bearer of a name was a gift of the
gods, such as Diodoros (gift of Zeus), Athenodoros (of Athena) or Apollonodotos
(of Apollo). We have also a number of such names regarding the rivers. Limiting
ourselves to those from the most important rivers, we note an Adranodoros, Aisepo-
doros, Alphiodoros, Asopodoros, Acheloiodoros (one was the father of the poetess
Corinna),139 Kaikodoros, Kaystrodoros, Kephisodotos/doros, Hermodoros/dotos,
Ismenodoros/a, Istrodoros,140 Lykodoros, Potamodoros and Strymodoros. These
names, except for Kephisodotos/doros and Hermodoros/dotos, were not very popu-
lar, and the name of the latter may even have been compromised by that of Hermes
130 Cf. Bremmer 1983.

131 Hom. Il. 21.141–142.
132 Hom. Il. 21.184–187.
133 Hom. Od. 11.260; Asius, fr. 1 Bernabé. Fowler 2013: 361–365.
134 Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 8 = fr. 8 Fowler.
135 Eur. Rhes. 346, 351–354, 393–394.
136 Hdt. 4.5.1.
137 Antimachus of Colophon fr. 83 Matthews; Matthews 1996: 239.
138 Critias: B 50 DK; Euagon: BNJ 535 fr. 2 = fr. 2 Fowler. See also ‘Hdt.’, Vit. Hom. 3; ‘Alcaeus’,
Anth. Pal. 7.5.3; Graziosi 2002: 74–75; Fowler 2013: 609.
139 Suda κ 2087.
140 Dana and Dana 2009.
and the Anatolian god Erm-/Arm.141 The names could well have been given after a
votive or a prayer to the river god, but their lack of frequency suggests that the main
cultic importance of rivers was not so much connected to conception and birth, but
rather to nurturing.
Let us conclude this section with two fine examples of the themes of anthropo-
morphism and nurture. The first is the already mentioned Athenian votive relief to
Kephisos. On this relief, the presented son is very small, the mother of course taller,
but still smaller than Kephisos, who bends over towards her in a unique expression
of divine interest and care for the little boy.142 Our second example is a scurrilous
anecdote from an early imperial author who relates that it was customary for brides-
to-be in the Troad to bathe in the river Skamandros and to pray to the god, “take my
virginity”. One day a lower-class scoundrel dressed up like the god and answered
Kallirhoe’s prayer with “gladly”. Some days later the bride recognised him among
the bystanders of the procession of the newly-weds to the temple of Aphrodite.143
The perhaps somewhat embellished story, which was even taken over by Jean de la
Fontaine in his famous Fables,144 has an archaic ritual background in which girls
bathed in a river at the time of their getting married, and the apparent collective
wedding in the story also points to an archaic background.145 In any case, the story
certainly shows that people thought of river gods as being anthropomorphic.
4. ASPECTS AND FUNCTIONS
Which functions in Greek religion and culture did the river gods occupy? But be-
fore we come to the religious function of rivers, let us briefly look at two aspects
of rivers in Greek religion and mythology, which will also contribute to a better
understanding of the conceptual hydrology mentioned in our introduction. First,
most of us will not immediately think of the sea when we talk about rivers. Yet
it is a striking fact of early Greek cosmology that the sea and the rivers are often
combined, presumably together constituting water as against earth. We find this
combination already in Hesiod’s Theogony when he sings:146 “tell how first gods
and earth were born and rivers and the boundless sea”. From then on, we can often
find the combination in archaic poetry, philosophers, and drama. In the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter, Hades’ horses cannot be stopped by “the sea or the water of the
rivers”, and Pindar mentions the grains of sand beaten “in the rivers and the sea”.147
Like Homer, the fifth-century Hippon called “all rivers and the whole sea” offspring
141 Colvin 2004: 61–62, improved upon by Balzat 2014.

142 Kloeckner 2002: 325–327.
143 Ps.-Aeschin. Ep. 10.3–5, cf. Puiggali 2003.
144 Nollé 2009: 45–46.
145 Background: Schol. Eur. Phoen. 347; Currie 2002: 31–33; the river name Parthenios: Hdt.
2.104.3. Collective weddings: see the suggestive observations by Gernet 1968: 39–45.
146 Hes. Theog.108–110.
147 Hom. Hymn Dem. 380–381; Pind. Pyth. 9.47.
102 Jan N. Bremmer
from Okeanos,148 a view to which we will return momentarily, whereas Plato com-
bines “the noise of the rivers and the roar of the sea”, argues that the angler goes
“to the seashore and the rivers” and notes that those people who live “by the rivers
or on the seashore” are less threatened by the great conflagration.149 In Aeschy-
lus’ Prometheus Bound, Prometheus’ laments are supported by “the waves of the
sea […] and the streams of pure-flowing rivers”.150 Euripides mentions that Hera-
cles complains that one day “the sea and the river-springs will refuse me a cross-
ing”, that the Nereids are “dancing in the sea and the swirl of ever-flowing rivers”
and that the Mother journeys “through the flowing river waters and the deep-roaring
wave of the sea”.151 Finally, like Plato, Aristophanes combines “the rushing sounds
of holy rivers and the deep-booming sea”.152 Given this frequent juxtaposition, it
is hardly surprising that “a map of the whole world and the whole sea and all the
rivers” was engraved on the bronze tablet which Aristagoras carried to Sparta to
win the support of King Cleomenes.153 The map shows that the combination of sea
and rivers was considered a natural one around 500 BC, as we would indeed have
expected from our evidence.
Having seen the close combination of the sea and rivers, of salt and fresh water,
we can now proceed to the first aspect of the river gods, namely their cosmogonical
aspect. In Book 21 of the Iliad, in the passage in which he claims the superiority
of the descendants of Zeus over the rivers, Achilles states: “not even Acheloos is
a match for him, nor the great strength of deep-flowing Okeanos, from whom all
rivers and the whole sea and all springs and the great wells flow”.154 In a great ar-
ticle, G. B. d’Alessio has shown that in all likelihood the line mentioning Okeanos
was a later addition,155 which means that originally Acheloos was the origin of all
water, both sea and rivers. Hesiod dropped Acheloos in favour of Okeanos and Te-
thys as the ancestral couple of all rivers, the “silver-swirling Acheloos” included,156
following other passages in the Iliad where Okeanos is the begetter of the gods with
Tethys or even “origin of all”.157
Comparing the beginning of Enuma elish, Burkert has plausibly argued that the
couple Okeanos-Tethys derives from the Mesopotamian Apsu-Tiamat.158 It would
seem, then, that, originally, Acheloos was the origin of all water, sea and rivers,
until an archaic poet introduced the new couple Okeanos-Tethys. This poet was
148 Hom. Il. 21.196; Hippon 38 B 1 DK.

149 Pl. Resp. 396b; Pl. Soph. 222a; Pl. Ti. 22d.
150 Aesch. PV 430–434.
151 Eur. HF 1296–1297; Eur. Ion 1082–1084; Eur. Hel. 1304–1305. Note also Eur. fr. 1059 Kan-
nicht, although the text is disputed.
152 Aristoph. Nub. 283–284.
153 Hdt. 5.49.1.
154 Hom. Il. 194–197 (transl. d’Alessio).
155 D’Alessio 2004; similarly already, Bergk 1886: 688.
156 Hes. Theog. 337–338.
157 Begetter: Hom. Il. 14.201, 302; origin: Hom. Il. 14.246.
158 Burkert 1992: 92–93 and idem 2004: 30–31. Burkert has been doubted by West 1997: 147,
n. 20, but accepted by Janko on Hom. Il. 14.200–207; Bremmer 2008: 2–4 and Fowler 2013:
11–13.
very successful in literature, but Okeanos never became the object of a cult where
Acheloos remained supreme (§ 1). The original tradition must have originated in
Northwest Greece where the Acheloos is the mightiest river, and it therefore can
hardly be chance that his cosmogonical role was preserved in Dodona.159 Akousi-
laos seems to have tried to reconcile the two traditions by stating that, as in Hesiod,
Okeanos and Tethys were the parents of 3000 rivers, but that “Acheloos is the eldest
and most honoured of them”.160 However, the Orphic Theogony in the Derveni Pa-
pyrus mentions that Zeus “contrived the great might of wide flowing Okeanos and
within he placed the sinews of Acheloos with its silver swirls from whom the whole
sea”.161 The Theogony, then, preserved the cosmic role of Acheloos,162 which role
is further supported by the fact that at least from the fifth century onwards Acheloos
was used for water in general.163 His cosmic role may well have influenced Thales
when thinking of water as the origin or maintaining principle of the earth.164
Having looked at the mightiest river on earth, let us now turn to subterranean
rivers, which are a consistent part of the underworld, although I need not say much
about these, as that has recently been well done by Julie Baleriaux.165 In the Odys-
sey there are four of such rivers: the Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, Kokytos and the
Styx.166 As Baleriaux has persuasively argued, the phenomenon of subterranean
rivers can be easily explained by the karst landscape of Greece which lets rivers
disappear and appear at various places. From these rivers, to swear by the infernal
Styx was the “great oath of the gods”.167 Yet, unlike the infernal Kokytos, which
on earth was only a “most joyless stream”, the earthly Styx was reputed to break
all vessels except those made of horn and to kill the people who drank from it.168
Like the Styx in Arcadia, the Acheron was not only an infernal river, but also a
river in Thesprotia, constituting one of its borders,169 and one near Heraclea Pon-
159 D’Alessio 2004: 32–33.

160 Akousilaos FGrH 1 fr. 1 = fr. 1 Fowler; Hes. Theog. 367.
161 Derveni Papyrus, col. 23, ed. Kouremenos = OF 16.2–4 Bernabé: μήσατο δ’ Ὠκεανοῖο μέγα
σθένος εὐρὺ ῥέοντος / ἶνας δ’ ἐγκατέλεξ’ ᾿Αχελωίου ἀργυροδίνεω / ἐξ οὗ πᾶσα θάλασ[σα. For
the epithet ἀργυροδίνεω, see Lightfoot on Dionys. Per. 433.
162 For the passage, see now the detailed discussion by Kotwick 2017: 320–323.
163 Soph. fr. 5 Radt; Aristoph. Lys. 381 (with Sommerstein ad loc.), fr. 365 K/A; Eur. Andr. 167;
Eur. Hyps. fr. 752 Kannicht; Eur. Bacch. 625; Achaeus 20 fr. 9 Snell; Ephoros FGrH 70 fr. 20a;
OF 154; Schol. Il. 21.195, 24.616b.
164 Thales A 12 DK.
165 Baleriaux 2016: 103–121, who rightly draws attention to the importance of subterranean rivers
for Plato’s Tartarus in the Phaedo.
166 Hom. Od. 10.513–136.
167 Hes. Theog. 400. See also Hom. Il. 14.271–279 with Janko ad loc.; for its archaic character, see
Nikolaev 2012/2013: 182–239, who at 196–197 also gives the bibliography for the Indo-Euro-
pean background of an oath by waters. Note also the cosmic interpretation of this oath by Aris-
tot. Metaph. A 983b.28–32.
168 ‘Joyless’: Paus. 1.17.5; Antigonos of Carystus, Paradoxa 30, excerpted from Callim.
Fr. 407.110–112, cf. Callim. Fr. 413 Pfeiffer, who owed his material to Theophrastus’ On Wa-
ters (fr. 213B Fortenbaugh). For its nature, see also Henrichs 1989: 1–29; Lye 2009: 3–31.
169 Thuc. 1.46.4 with Gomme ad loc.; Hdt. 8.47. For these earthly rivers, see Knauss 2009:
119–140.
104 Jan N. Bremmer
tica: in both cases these rivers were once situated at the edges of the known civilised
world.170 Their border situation fits the descriptions of the underworld in Homer
and Hesiod, where one way of getting to the underworld was by crossing a river.171
But why would a river constitute a border between the land of the living and the
dead, and not, for example, a mountain range? The answer, I suggest, is the fact that
for the Greeks rivers were typical borders between two areas. We have many exam-
ples, starting perhaps with the famous case of the Halys as the border of the Lydian
empire, but also the Phasis or the Bosporus as the border between Asia and Europe,
the Istros as the border between Greeks and Celts, the Euphrates between Cilicia
and Armenia, the Thyamis between Thesprotia and Kestrine (modern Filiates) and
the Tanaus dividing the Argolid from Spartan territory, to mention just the more
important border rivers.172 These examples suggest that the everyday experience of
the Greeks reflected itself in their map of the land of the living and the dead.
Let us now turn to the functions of the rivers in Greek culture. We have seen
that the rivers were often worshipped as gods, but what did they mean to the
Greeks? It is rather striking that many cities, especially in Western Greece, were
named after their local rivers. The Samian historian and tyrant Duris (340–260 BC)
noted that the majority of the Sicilian cities were named after their river,173 such
as Syracuse, Gela,174 Himera,175 Selinus, and Phoenicus, but also Camicus, Eryx,
Halykiae, Thermos and Camarina, to which we can add Akragas and Adranos,176
whereas in Italy we find Sybaris, Velia and Ariminion (Rimini).177 The situation in
Crete is similar with Amnisos as it is in Tripolitania where the region Cinyps took
its name from the river Cinyps (= wadi Khaam) and in the town, or area, of Azilis
from the homonymous river.178
The combination of polis and river must have been an early phenomenon, as
Egypt is the name for both the land and the river in Homer.179 Pindar was conscious
170 For the Acheron near Heraclea, see Blakely on Herodoros BNJ 31 fr. 8 = fr. 8 Fowler.
171 Hom. Il. 23.73; Od. 10.503–532; Hes. Theog. 730.
172 Halys: Aesch. Pers. 866; Hdt. 1.6.2, 1.72.3, 1.75; Phasis: Aesch. fr. 191 Radt; Bosporus:
Aesch. PV 729–735. Istros: Hdt. 2.33, cf. Dan 2011: 25–56. Euphrates: Hdt. 5.52; Thyamis:
Thuc. 1.46.4; Tanaus: Eur. El. 410–411. Note also Hdt. 7.123 (Axios between Mygdonia and
Bottiaiis); Xen. An. 4.3.1 (Kentrites between Armenia and the Carduchi), 4.8.1 (river between
Makroni and Skytheni); Str. 7.15 (Peneios between Macedonia and Thessaly), 9.5.19 (Larisos
between Elis and Dyme); Scheliha 1931: 34–42, with more examples. For Roman examples,
see Braund 1996.
173 Duris FGrH 76 fr. 59.
174 Hellanicus FGrH 4 fr. 199 = fr. 199 Fowler; Thuc. 6.4.3; Timaeus FGrH 566 fr. 28c.
175 Aesch. fr. 25a Radt; Hecat. FGrH 1 fr. 78; Schol. Pind. Pyth. 1.153.
176 Akragas: Thuc. 6.4.4; Steph. Byz. s. v.; Adranos (Steph. Byz. s. v.).
177 Sybaris: Th. 7.35.1; Velia: Steph. Byz. s. v.; Ariminion: Steph. Byz. s. v.
178 Amnisos: Schol. Od. 19.188; Cinyps: Hdt. 4.198.1; Ps.-Scyl. 109.4; Azilis: Steph. Byz. s. v.
Further afield, we have Hispanic Belon (Steph. Byz. s. v.), Paphlagonian Aiginetes (Steph. Byz.
s. v.), Carian Harpasa (Steph. Byz. s. v.), Pamphylian Idyros (Hecat. FGrH 1 fr. 260) and Cili-
cian Anchiale (Steph. Byz. s. v.). For a much fuller list, although without the corresponding
evidence, see Grassl 2014 (2016; see also Bucciantini 2014 (2016).
179 Hom. Od. 4.477, 581, 14.258, 17.426–427; Steph. Byz. s. v.; for its etymology, see now Janda
2008: 369–376.
of the importance of rivers for the local identity. When he celebrated the achieve-
ments of victors from Akragas at Delphi or Olympia, he singled out for mention the
river Akragas by calling the city potamios or detailing the victor’s origin as coming
from “the banks of the Akragas where the sheep feed” or “the hallowed home be-
side the river”.180 In fact, the combination was still felt natural in Plato’s time. In
Plato’s Laws, the Athenian advises to choose as a name, amongst other possibilities,
that “of a river or a spring” when founding a new polis.181
This toponymic evidence, which could of course be further expanded, calls for
an explanation. Why did the Greek colonists so often opt for a river name for their
town, whereas we do not find that situation in the Greek mainland? The answer will
be that in their homeland they had their own rivers which were symbolic of their
polis for them. Whatever might change, they were always there, always flowing
in the same direction, summer and winter, year after year. In fact, “backwards the
rivers” was a popular proverbial expression for adynata, impossible things.182 It
is this continuity which was called into question by Heraclitus when he stated that
it is impossible to step twice into the same river, a pronouncement that must have
sounded much stranger to the ancient Greeks than it does to us.183
It is thus not surprising that Philoctetes will greet his fatherland when returning
home with “O River Spercheios”,184 and that Castor and Pollux live “in glorious
Lacedaemon by the fair-flowing river Eurotas”.185 In Aeschylus’ Suppliants, the
chorus calls upon the Danaids and their father to go home and glorify “the gods,
both those protecting the city and those who dwell around the ancient stream of
Erasinos” as well as to sing in honour “of the rivers that pour their tranquil waters
through this land, to drink for health and for fertility”, thus nicely illustrating im-
portant functions of these rivers in daily life.186 When responding to the chorus,
Sophocles’ Antigone, calls upon “the fountains of Dirce” as witnesses of her mis-
ery.187 Similarly, Dionysos lives “in the mother-city of the Bacchants by the watery
flow of Ismenus”188 and, having spent so many years at Troy, Sophocles’ Ajax even
says good-bye to the “neighboring stream of the Skamandros, well disposed to
the Argives”.189 In Euripides’ Medea, Athens is a “city of holy rivers” that is of
the Kephisos and the Ilissos,190 and in the Bacchae Dionysos describes his arrival
in Thebes, the “two-river city”, as “I am here at the streams of Dirce and the wa-
ter of Ismenos”.191 An anonymous dramatic fragment calls Argos “the city of the
180 Pind. Pyth. 6.6, 12.2–3; Pind. Ol. 2.9; Cf. Rutter 2000: 73–83.
181 Pl. Leg. 704a.
182 Aesch. fr. 335 with Radt ad loc., cf. Dutoit 1936.
183 Heracl. B 91 DK.
184 Aesch. fr. 249 Radt = Aristoph. Ran. 1383.
185 Thgn. 1088.
186 Aesch. Supp. 1019–1021, 1025–1028. For the fertility brought by the Maiandros through its
clay, see Plin. HN 5.113; Dion. Chrys. 35.13.
187 Soph. Ant. 844.
188 Soph. Ant. 1122–1124.
189 Soph. Aj. 419a–420.
190 Eur. Med. 846–847.
191 Eur. Bacch. 5; two-river city: Eur. Supp. 621.
106 Jan N. Bremmer
Inachos”, and another uses the Phasis to denote Colchis.192 Given this importance
of the rivers for the local identity – and in this connection we might be allowed to
think of London and the Thames, Paris and the Seine or Vienna and the Danube – it
is hardly surprising that many cities had the river gods on their coins and that sev-
eral people were named after a river (§ 3).193
Such a civic and political role for the rivers must be old. In the cases of Pelegon
of Pelagonia and Dryops of the Dryopes we noted that these sons of rivers were the
ancestors of peoples (§ 3). To these we may add that in Argos the main river Inachos
was the ancestor of the Argives and their royal family.194 Departing from this con-
nection between royal family or aristocracy and river gods, it becomes understand-
able that the Temenids sacrificed to a river as “Saviour”,195 that ancient Messenian
kings sacrificed to the Pamisos (§ 1) and that the Theban hipparch introduced his
successor at the grave of Dirce, the eponym of the local river.196 After the demise of
the kings, this political role of rivers was sometimes taken over by tribal organisa-
tions, such as by the already mentioned Acarnanians and Ambracians (§ 1), but also
by phyle-like organisations such as the Presbonoi from Chios, whose sanctuary of
Acheloos dates from about 400 BC. The latter god was also connected with a race
in fifth-century BC Metapontum, which once again points to a more civic role.197
It is this civic and political role that suggests why boys dedicated their hair to
local rivers when they came of age. This, at least, is what the ancient commentators
tell us,198 although we actually do not have that many examples. Still, the custom
is clearly old, as in the Iliad Achilles mentions that he had promised to cut off his
locks for the Spercheios on a safe return to his homeland.199 Orestes had grown
his hair for the river Inachos,200 and Pausanias saw a votive offering representing
a certain Mnesimache’s son shearing his hair for Kephisos.201 He also reports that
Leukippos kept his hair long for Alpheios and that the Phigalian boys cut their hair
in honour of the local river Neda (§ 1). The custom was still known to Nonnos who
twice mentions it in his Dionysiac epic.202 Posh boys, though, travelled to Delphi
and dedicated their hair to Apollo,203 who, together with the nymphs and the rivers,
is already connected with the coming of age by Hesiod.204
192 Inachos: TrGF Adesp. 563; Phasis: TrGF Adesp. 559.

193 For many such names, see Robert 1989: 293.
194 For the various Argive stemmata, see Fowler 2013: 125–139.
195 Hdt. 8.138.1; the same epithet can be found for the Sicilian Himera (CIG 5747).
196 Plut. Mor. 578B.
197 Isler 1981: no. 75 = Rutter 2001: 132, no. 1491.
198 Schol. Il. 23.142; Schol. Pind. Pyth. 4.145 (just the hair); Eust. on Hom. Il. 21141.
199 Hom. Il. 23.141–149; Stat. Silv. 3.4.85.
200 Aesch. Cho. 6.
201 Paus. 1.37.3.
202 Nonnus Dion. 3.346, 4.145.
203 Theophr. Char. 21.3; Theopomp. FGrH 115 fr. 248. For hair for Apollo, note also Anth.
Pal. 6.155, 278–279.
204 Hes. Theog. 347. Cf. Leitao 2003: 109–129.
5. CONCLUSION
With these hair cuttings we have arrived at the end of my study. When we now look
back to previous studies, we note that Nilsson saw the main function of rivers as
nurturers, that Burkert stresses their local character and Parker their role as source
of life.205 What I have tried to show is that for the Greeks the rivers played a bigger
and more varied political, religious and emotional role than these studies suggest.
Obviously, rivers were important because of their indispensable life-giving nature,
but their ever-flowing water could also become a source of affection and the symbol
of the local town, used by the local elite. On the other hand, rivers could equally
become menacing powers of nature, especially in the winter. It is this combination
of affective and symbolic function, menacing power and life-giving fertility that
produced the worship of the river gods in the form that we have sketched. There
can be no doubt that these rivers and their gods had importance in local religion,
but their shrines were rarely, if ever, in the political centre of a community, and their
local nature made them less suitable for Pan-Hellenic myth-making by the Greek
poets. In the end, these river gods remain rather shadowy figures compared with the
gods of the canonical pantheon. Evidently, all gods were equal but some were less
equal than others.206
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“THEY BLOW NOW ONE WAY,
NOW ANOTHER” (HES. THEOG. 875):
WINDS IN THE ANCIENT GREEK IMAGINARY
Esther Eidinow, University of Bristol
1. INTRODUCTION: A LACK OF MYTH
In 487 BC, Herodotus tells us, the Athenians instituted a cult of the north wind, Bo-
reas, on the banks of the Ilissos.1 This was in response to that wind’s perceived role
in the wrecking of the Persian fleet at Cape Sepias near Artemision. The Athenians
explained the support of Boreas with a myth: he was, in effect, their son-in-law,
since his wife was Oreithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus. Herodotus does not ex-
plain the myth that underpins this relationship, in which Boreas snatches Oreithyia
and carries her off to Thrace: he assumed that the myth was known to his audience.
And well he might: much insightful work has been done to explain how this myth
was claimed and shaped by the Athenians in the year following the victory, using
evidence from a variety of media. As well as the poem The Sea Battle, by Simo-
nides (which Wilamowitz suggested was performed at the foundation of the sanc-
tuary);2 we know of plays (by Aeschylus and Sophocles);3 and images on around
77 whole or fragmentary vases, as well as depictions on the acroteria of temples.4
Across these ancient sources, the details of the myth seem to have changed,
perhaps to reflect the ritual enactment of the myth that involved the new sanctuary.
To begin with, it appears, Oreithyia was snatched from the Acropolis, where she
was serving as a kanephoros (according to the sixth century prose account by Akou-
silaos of Argos, and seemingly in a number of the vase images).5 In the later ver-
sions of the myth she is snatched from a verdant setting, where she is playing, pick-
ing flowers and dancing. The location of that setting varies, but gradually comes to
rest on Ilissos.6 Simonides and Khoirilos of Samos (in his Persika) appear to have
been using a similar source for their version, because the former suggests Brilessos
1 Hdt. 7.189.
2 Simonides IEG2 fr. 3; PMG 534 (= Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 1.211–215); but cf. Rutherford 2001:
35 suggesting that this could be also have been included in the Xerxou Naumachia (on the
different poems by Simonides see Suda Σ 439 [iv 361 Adler]). On its performance, see Wila-
mowitz 1913: 206–208, and see discussion Molyneaux 1992: 159–163.
3 Aesch. Oreithyia fr. 280–281b Radt; Soph. fr. 956 Radt.
4 See Neuser 1982: 35. Finkelberg 2014: 94 identifies forty-two surviving vases (thirty-four of
which date to between 475–450 BC) from the Beazley Archive.
5 Akousilaos: Schol. Hom. Od. 14.533 (Fowler no. 30; acropolis), and see discussion Brulé
1987: 296.
6 Ilissos: Pl. Phdr. 229b, Apoll. Rhod. 1.215, Paus. 1.19.5, Apollod. 3.199.
114 Esther Eidinow
and the other the river Kephisos, and the one is the source of the other.7 Reflecting
on the apparent dancing movements of the Oreithyia and Boreas in visual imagery,
Margalit Finkelberg suggests that these indicate that the myth was being ritually en-
acted at the sanctuary in the course of the Panathenaia, and this was one of the ways
in which this location “gradually replaced the traditional site of the abduction”.8 As
she has argued, this myth offers a good example of how
“in the case of the local myths we should speak, therefore, of multichannel transmission, in
which cult, performance, landscape, storytelling, literature and visual arts interlocked in creat-
ing a nexus of cultural practices that kept the myths alive among the members of the commu-
nity to which they belonged”.9
Finkelberg’s apposite analysis of the ways in which local myths were shaped and
maintained by means of many different routes of transmission and relating media,
and the crucial interaction between community and events is helpful.10 However, in
addition, this focus on the nature of the north wind and the variety of depictions in
our sources, both literary and visual, of its relation to Athens highlights a further in-
teresting aspect of the presence of winds in Greek myth: that is, that while we may
often find winds personified, there are remarkably few surviving myths (described
in written or visual sources) that portray winds as actors embedded in a complex
narrative. This absence is particularly striking when we consider how winds must
have helped to generate the “hazardscape” of ancient lived experience, recognis-
ing how “physical hazard exposure and social susceptibility to hazards must be
understood within a geographic framework, that is, the hazardousness of a specific
place”.11 In this sense, the wind regime of the Mediterranean was crucial for creat-
ing both opportunities and hazards: winds helped to determine settlement patterns
(which places could be easily reached, the precise placement of harbours and there-
7 As Finkelberg 2014: 92 observes. Brilessos: PMG 534 (= Schol Apoll. Rhod. 1.211–215). Ke-
phisos: Khoirilos SH 321.
8 Finkelberg 2014: 98.
9 Ibid. Other winds do not seem to have received similar narrative or cult attention, at least dur-
ing the Classical period. It has been suggested (Webb 2015) that Andronikos’ Tower of the
Winds, now argued to be late Hellenistic in date (Kienast 2014) was in fact a cult building for
the winds.
10 This mythic family retained its meaning for the Athenians in other ways. Just as the story of
Oreithyia seems to have been adapted to fit current needs, in the same way, we find changes in
the story of her grandchild, Eumolpos the Thracian, child of Poseidon and Khione (the daughter
of Oreithyia and Boreas). In Euripides Erechtheus (test. ii; TrGF 24 fr. ii = Lycurg. 98 p. 67, 13
Conomis), this Eumolpos becomes conflated with the Eleusinian prince, Eumolpos, ancestor of
the Eumolpidae, founder of the Mysteries, and, of course, in the course of founding those mys-
teries, invader of Athens. Thus, the Eleusinian Prince becomes a Thracian invader of Athens,
and this becomes a theme of Athenian patriotic rhetoric (see Pl. Menex. 239a–b. Isoc. Or. 4.68).
It is certainly the case that this change made the Eumolpids “the descendants of a barbarian
war-lord” (Parker 1987: 203; he does not mention the connection between Khione and Orei-
thyia, but only notes in his discussion of Eumolpos that she was “a Thracian princess who, at
least in later tradition, was born of an Athenian mother”). But what seems to get less attention
is that it also made those historically independent Eleusinians the descendants of an Athenian
princess.
11 Cutter, Mitchell and Scott 2000: 731.
“They Blow Now One Way, Now Another” (Hes. Theog. 875) 115
fore of cities); the ease of fishing; the course of agricultural activity throughout the
year.12
What shapes the external world usually plays a key role in populating our inter-
nal world, by which I mean the elements of the cultural imaginary. Cognitive theo-
ries explain the universal instinct for humans to attribute agency to the elements of
their surroundings.13 But there is, in turn, great variety in the ways in which differ-
ent communities develop that initial attribution of agency, including the contexts
in which those imagined agents acquire personality, the relationships developed
with those personalities, and the network of interactions that result. Thus, while it
is far from unusual, across cultures, for winds to be perceived as animate beings
with consciousness and character, and, in turn, to be allocated divine status,14 this
is not always the case; a range of types of relationships may emerge. For example,
a detailed study of the Foehn wind in Leukerbad, Switzerland, notes that there are
certain predictable winds
“that visit or inhabit certain locales, intruding deeply into personal space and becoming a part
of the identities of the residents, while at the same time asserting their status as entities unto
themselves”.15
In this community, the winds, while attaining specific power, gaining certain char-
acteristics and developing certain relationships with the locals, nevertheless have
remained as abstract forces.
With this potential variety in mind, this essay examines evidence for the nature
of the winds and for the relations between winds and mortals in ancient Greek
culture. It focuses on identifying, on the one hand, visual or written stories about
winds, and, on the other, evidence for cult, without assuming that visual imagery is
necessarily a depiction of a divinity, and acknowledging the difficulties of distin-
guishing between personification and deity.16 The essay draws attention to the local
nature of cultural responses to the winds, and, in this context, suggests that the role
of selective personification is an important element of this response. By this I mean
that our sources, while not apparently depicting fully personified versions of these
entities, nevertheless emphasise specific features about them – which also, in turn,
appear as key aspects of their cults.
2. WIND AND THE ANCIENT CULTURAL IMAGINARY
Across mundane and mythic narratives, ancient Greek winds were depicted as
sources of both benefit and harm. As the title of this essay recalls, our earliest writ-
ten evidence is explicit about their ambivalent nature. Hesiod, in the Theogony,
12 Murray 1987: 139.

13 Hyper-Active Agent Detection (HAAD) is a term developed by Justin Barrett (2000) to de-
scribe how our cognitive systems pick up on traces of activities in the world around us, leading
us to attribute agency in situations that are unclear.
14 Indo-European wind gods are described in West 2007: 263–265.
15 Strauss 2007: 166.
16 See Reinhardt 1960: 33 on the concept of “reine Personifikation”.
116 Esther Eidinow
reports the existence of two different kinds of wind: some are “a great boon to
mortals”; but others are “a great woe for mortals, they rage with an evil blast; they
blow now one way, now another, and scatter the boats and destroy the sailors”.17
But other sources provide evidence for a huge variety of winds – their number and
nature were legion – some named and others remaining anonymous.18 In modern
cultures, in which relationships to weather are heavily mediated, it is easy to forget
the local and even personal nature of people’s relationships to the winds, to which
this evidence attests.19 The regularity of a wind’s manifestation, especially its di-
rection, could be one aspect that might lead to it being given a name.20 However, it
was not just direction that was important in the identification of winds, but also the
way they felt.21 Theophrastos distinguishes between the manifestations of the west
wind, and notes that one of its key characteristics is that it can be “the most gentle
of all the winds”, “moderate” and “soft”.22 The particular “feel” of the south wind,
Notos, is found in its cognates, noteros, noteo and notizo, and notia and notis, all
terms that relate to the sticky, damp or moist feelings associated with this wind.23
Winds shaped sea and land, and, in Greek eyes, they also shaped the land’s
inhabitants: their body, their health, and, as a result, their character. A number of
treatises in the Hippocratic corpus identify the ways in which a particular wind may
exert such effects. Not all of them go as far as the writer of the treatise On Breaths,
who saw wind as the key to all disease: “For what can take place without it? In what
is it not present? What does it not accompany? For everything between earth and
heaven is full of wind.”24 Rather they see the wind as part of the nosogenic envi-
ronment. In general, the north wind was depicted as a source of health, while the
south wind was thought to cause illness: the writer of Epidemics I offers a detailed
exposition of the weather in Thasos before describing the health of its inhabitants,
17 Hes. Theog. 871–875 (transl. G. W. Most): θνητοῖς μέγ᾿ ὄνειαρ and πῆμα μέγα θνητοῖσι, κακῇ
θυίουσιν ἀέλλῃ | ἄλλοτε δ᾽ἄλλαι ἄεισι διασκιδνᾶσί τε νῆας | ναύτας τε φθείρουσι.
18 A few examples: ἄελλα (stormy wind), ἄημα (blast), ἀήτης (blast), ἀμνεύς (SE wind), ἀντανεμία
(contrary wind); ἀντίπνοια (conflicting wind), ἀπαρκτίας, ἄρκτος (N wind); γνοφίας (name of
a wind), δυσαυρία (stormy wind), ἐγκολπίας ἄνεμος (local wind blowing from a bay),
εὐρακύλων (name of a NE wind), εὐρόνοτος (wind between Εὖρος and Νότος, SSE wind);
Εὖρος (E wind), Θηβάνας (the NE wind [καικίας] in Lesbos, Θρασκίας (the wind from NNW),
Κάρβας (name in Kyrene for the wind Εὖρος), καταπορθμίας (an E wind, blowing down the
Straits of Messina), Καυνίας (a wind blowing from Kaunos in Karia to Rhodes,) κέγχρων (a
local wind on the river Phasis), λιβόνοτος (a wind between SW and S).
19 Vannini and Mccright 2007.
20 Morton 2001: 217, who also argues for the importance of this aspect in the development of
more detailed wind roses.
21 Murray 1987.
22 Theophr. De Ventis 38–48 (see transl. Symons and Wood 1894), esp. 38 (= Philoxenos of
Kythera fr. 835).
23 Morton 2001: 218.
24 Hippoc. Flat. 3 (all transl. from the Loeb edition): τί γὰρ ἄνευ τούτου γένοιτ᾿ ἄν; ἢ τίνος οὗτος
ἄπεστιν; ἢ τίνι οὐ συμπάρεστιν; ἅπαν γὰρ τὸ μεταξὺ γῆς τε καὶ οὐρανοῦ πνεύματος ἔμπλεόν
ἐστιν.
and clearly associates particular environment with certain kinds of disease.25 The
Aphorisms offers the following:
“South winds cause deafness dimness of vision, heaviness of the head, torpor, and are relaxing.
When such winds prevail, their characteristics extend to sufferers from illnesses. A north wind
causes coughs, sore throats, constipation, difficult micturition accompanied by shivering, pains
in the sides and chest; such are the symptoms one must expect in illnesses when this wind
prevails.”26
In On the Sacred Disease, the north wind is seen as the source of health, while the
south wind causes everything to “become dull instead of bright, hot instead of cold,
wet instead of dry”; “by necessity, a south wind relaxes and moistens the brain and
enlarges the veins, while north winds press together the healthiest part of the brain,
separating the most diseased and moist, and washing it out.”27 Regimen II goes
beyond north and south to offer a somewhat more detailed account of the ways in
which different winds coming from different locations offer living creatures more
or less of a healthy environment.28 Finally, for the writer of Airs Waters and Places,
although he notes the winds’ effects on specific aspects of the environment, it is the
contrast between seasons that is important.29 In general, he applauds the tougher
meteorological effects of distinct seasons: it toughens you up “for it is changes of
all things that rouse the temper of man and prevent its stagnation.” Those who dwell
on the Phasis, for example, are mostly moist; there “the north wind” rarely blows,
and when it does it is weak and gentle.”30 And while the Scythians live in the harsh
environment of the north wind – and certainly exhibit a harsh character – neverthe-
less, because there is no change in their environment, “their physiques are gross,
fleshy, showing no joints, moist and flabby, and the lower bowels are as moist as
bowels can be.”31
25 Hippoc. Epid. I (4).

26 Hippoc. Aph. 3.5: Νότοι βαρυήκοοι, ἀχλυώδεες, καρηβαρικοί, νωθροί, διαλυτικοί· ὁκόταν
οὗτος δυναστεύῃ, τοιαῦτα ἐν τῇσιν ἀρρωστίῃσι πάσχουσιν. ἢν δὲ βόρειον ᾖ, βῆχες, φάρυγγες,
κοιλίαι σκληραί, δυσουρίαι φρικώδεες, ὀδύναι πλευρέων, στηθέων· ὁκόταν οὗτος δυναστεύῃ,
τοιαῦτα ἐν τῇσιν ἀρρωστίῃσι προσδέχεσθαι χρή; see also Hippoc. Hum. 14.
27 Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 14: ἔκ τε λαμπρῶν δνοφώδεα γίνεται, καὶ ἐκ ψυχρῶν θερμά, καὶ ἐκ ξηρῶν
νοτώδεα· and ἀνάγκη τοῖσι μὲν νοτίοισι λύεσθαί τε καὶ φλυδᾶν τὸν ἐγκέφαλον καὶ τὰς φλέβας
χαλαρωτέρας γίνεσθαι, τοῖσι δὲ βορείοισι συνίστασθαι τὸ ὑγιηρότατον τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου, τὸ δὲ
νοσηλότατον 40καὶ ὑγρότατον ἐκκρίνεσθαι καὶ περικλύζειν ἔξωθεν.
28 Hippoc. Vict. 2.38.
29 Specific aspects of the environment: Hippoc. Aer. 9 and 10.
30 Hippoc. Aer. 15: αἱ γὰρ μεταβολαί εἰσι τῶν πάντων αἱ ἐπεγείρουσαι τὴν γνώμην τῶν ἀνθρώπων
καὶ οὐκ ἐῶσαι ἀτρεμίζειν.
31 Scythians: Hippoc. Aer. 19: διὰ ταύτας τὰς ἀνάγκας τὰ εἴδεα αὐτῶν παχέα ἐστὶ καὶ σαρκώδεα
καὶ ἄναρθρα καὶ ὑγρὰ καὶ ἄτονα, αἵ τε κοιλίαι ὑγρόταται πασέων κοιλιῶν αἱ κάτω. A similar set
of associations between good and bad health and the north and south wind emerges from
Strauss’ study (2007) of the Foehn (a south wind) and Gemmiwind (a north wind) in Leukerbad,
Switzerland. She argues that this is a way in which the local people help to generate a sense of
their (local) identity (p. 178): “Recognition of the ferocity of the Gemmiwind and the ill effects
of the Foehn are two other ways in which Leukerbadners demonstrate that they, too, have been
formed by nature. The winds, ephemeral but ever-returning, also offer a resource for building
118 Esther Eidinow
2.1 “Furious Boreas”
Returning to the wind with which this essay started, these examples all suggest
that the north wind, Boreas, was perceived as particularly culturally significant,
and this may be explained, perhaps, by its pronounced physical effects. It can be
most closely identified with what is nowadays called “the Bora”. This is a very
cold wind, which draws air from over the continental interior of Europe, and blows
down across the Adriatic Sea, sometimes with great violence; it can be very dry,
since its passage over the Alps removes the humidity. The ancient Boreas (along
with the winds called Thraskias and Hellespontias) was similar: from the high-pres-
sure areas over the continental interior of southeastern Europe, it appears to have
blown down through the coastal plains of Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly onto the
warmer, moist, low pressure air of the Aegean.32 The fearsome effects of Boreas on
land – both animate and inanimate aspects – are detailed for us by Hesiod:
“The month of Lenaion, evil days, ox-flayers all of them – avoid it, and the frosts that are deadly
upon the earth when Boreas blows, which stirs up the broad sea through horse-raising Thrace
when it blows upon it, and the earth and the forest bellow. It falls upon many lofty-leaved oaks
and sturdy firs in the mountain’s dales and bends them down to the bounteous earth, and the
whole immense forest groans aloud. The wild animals shiver and stick their tails under their
genitals, even those whose skin is shadowed by fur; but, chilly as it is, it blows through them
although their breasts are shaggy, and it goes through the hide of an ox, and this does not stop
it, and it blows through the long-haired goat – but not at all through sheep does the force of the
wind Boreas blow, for their fleece is plentiful. It makes the old man curved like a wheel, but it
does not blow through the soft-skinned maiden who stays at the side of her dear mother inside
the house, still ignorant of the works of golden Aphrodite; after washing her tender skin well
and anointing herself richly with oil she lies down in the innermost recess inside the house – on
a wintry day, when the boneless one gnaws its foot in its fireless house and dismal abodes, for
the sun does not show it a rangeland towards which it can set out but instead roams to the dark
men’s people and city, and shines more tardily for all the Greeks. And that is when the forest
dwellers, horned and hornless alike, gnash their teeth miserably and flee through the wooded
thickets, caring in their spirit only for searching for shelter and finding sturdy hiding-places
down in the hollow of a stone; that is when they avoid the white snow and stalk about like a
three-footed mortal whose back is broken and whose head looks down to the ground.”33
Swiss identity, making even (or especially) city-dwellers in the flatlands a part of the locally
produced landscape.”
32 I am indebted to Morton 2001 (here esp. 49–50) for my understanding of the topography of the
winds.
33 Hes. Op. 504–535, (transl. G. W. Most): μῆνα δὲ Ληναιῶνα, κάκ᾿ ἤματα, βουδόρα πάντα, /
τοῦτον ἀλεύασθαι, καὶ πηγάδας, αἵ τ᾿ ἐπὶ γαῖαν / πνεύσαντος Βορέαο δυσηλεγέες τελέθουσιν, /
ὅς τε διὰ Θρῄκης ἱπποτρόφου εὐρέι πόντῳ / ἐμπνεύσας ὤρινε· μέμυκε δὲ γαῖα καὶ ὕλη·/ πολλὰς
δὲ δρῦς ὑψικόμους ἐλάτας τε παχείας / οὔρεος ἐν βήσσῃς πιλνᾷ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ / ἐμπίπτων,
καὶ πᾶσα βοᾷ τότε νήριτος ὕλη· / θῆρες δὲ φρίσσουσ᾿, οὐρὰς δ᾿ ὑπὸ μέζε᾿ ἔθεντο, / τῶν καὶ
λάχνῃ δέρμα κατάσκιον· ἀλλά νυ καὶ τῶν / ψυχρὸς ἐὼν διάησι δασυστέρνων περ ἐόντων. / καί
τε διὰ ῥινοῦ βοὸς ἔρχεται οὐδέ μιν ἴσχει, / καί τε δι᾿ αἶγα ἄησι τανύτριχα· πώεα δ᾿ οὔ τι, /
οὕνεκ᾿ ἐπηεταναὶ τρίχες αὐτῶν, οὐ διάησιν / ἲς ἀνέμου Βορέω· τροχαλὸν δὲ γέροντα τίθησιν /
καὶ διὰ παρθενικῆς ἁπαλόχροος οὐ διάησιν, / ἥ τε δόμων ἔντοσθε φίλῃ παρὰ μητέρι μίμνει / οὔ
πω ἔργ᾿ εἰδυῖα πολυχρύσου Ἀφροδίτης· / εὖ τε λοεσσαμένη τέρενα χρόα καὶ λίπ᾿ ἐλαίῳ /
χρισαμένη μυχίη καταλέξεται ἔνδοθι οἴκου,/ ἤματι χειμερίῳ, ὅτ᾿ ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει / ἔν
τ᾿ ἀπύρῳ οἴκῳ καὶ ἤθεσι λευγαλέοισιν· / οὐ γάρ οἱ ἠέλιος δείκνυ νομὸν ὁρμηθῆναι, / ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ
But, as a winter wind (although it can be stirred in summer), Boreas is, and was,
particularly associated with storms at sea. It is, according to Herodotus, Boreas that
causes the shipwreck of the Persian fleet near Mount Athos in 492.34 This histori-
cal event is reinforced by the numerous epigrams that mention individual deaths
caused by Boreas’ activities: for example, one that records the shipwreck of a sailor
near the Mykale promontory near Samos recounts how,
“this is not the tomb of poor Satyros; Satyros sleeps not, as they tell, under the ashes of this
pyre. But perchance you have heard of a sea somewhere, the bitter sea that beats on the shore
near Mykale where the wild-goats feed, and in that eddying and desert water yet I lie, reproach-
ing furious Boreas.”35
In later literature the association continues: in the Fall of Troy, when Quintus Smyr-
naeus is evoking a storm as a metaphor for the exploits that took place during the
Trojan War, he uses a description that specifically evokes this wind.
“Recoiling back they fell, as waves onrolled by Boreas foaming from the deep to the strand, are
caught by another blast that whirlwind-like leaps, in a short lull of Boreas, forth, smites them
full-face, and hurls them back from the shore.”36
It is not hard to see why the Greek imagination conjured an entire race – the Hyper-
boreans – that lived beyond the north wind, and thus inhabited a balmy, paradisiacal
realm.37
Boreas’ widespread reputation for violence may perhaps be why it is he, of
all the winds, who attracts the most elaborate mythic narratives. But this is not to
claim that the other winds have no mythic presence at all. Literary sources provide
glimpses of some stories: Boreas, Zephyros and Notos all feature briefly in He-
siod’s Theogony, and reference is made to all four winds in the Homeric epics.38 In
the Iliad, Zephyros is given as the sire of Achilles’ horses; and Iris finds Zephyros
and Boreas feasting together at Zephyros’ palace when she carries Achilles’ prayer
κυανέων ἀνδρῶν δῆμόν τε πόλιν τε / στρωφᾶται, βράδιον δὲ Πανελλήνεσσι φαείνει. / καὶ τότε
δὴ κεραοὶ καὶ νήκεροι ὑληκοῖται / λυγρὸν μυλιόωντες ἀνὰ δρία βησσήεντα / φεύγουσιν, καὶ
πᾶσιν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ τοῦτο μέμηλεν, / οἳ σκέπα μαιόμενοι πυκινοὺς κευθμῶνας ἔχουσιν / κὰκ γλάφυ
πετρῆεν. τότε δὴ τρίποδι βροτῷ ἶσοι, / οὗ τ᾿ ἐπὶ νῶτα ἔαγε, κάρη δ᾿ εἰς οὖδας ὁρᾶται· / τῷ
ἴκελοι φοιτῶσιν ἀλευόμενοι νίφα λευκήν.
34 Hdt. 6.44.
35 AP 7.397 (= Gow-Page, GP 2244–2249) Erycius of Thessaly: Οὐχ ὅδε δειλαίου Σατύρου
τάφος, οὐδ᾿ ὑπὸ ταύτῃ, ὡς λόγος, εὔνηται πυρκαϊῇ Σάτυρος· ἀλλ᾿ εἴ που τινὰ πόντον ἀκούετε,
πικρὸν ἐκεῖνον, τὸν πέλας αἰγονόμου κλυζόμενον Μυκάλας, 5κείνῳ δινήεντι καὶ ἀτρυγέτῳ ἔτι
κεῖμαι ὕδατι, μαινομένῳ μεμφόμενος Βορέῃ. See also AP 7.303 (= Gow-Page, HE 350–355),
and AP 7.495(= Gow-Page, HE 90–95).
36 Quint. Smyrn. 11.227–232: οἱ δ᾿ ἀπιόντες χάζοντ᾿, ἠΰτε κύμαθ᾿, ἅ τ᾿ ἐκ βορέαο θυέλλης πόλλ᾿
ἐπιπαφλάζοντα κυλίνδεται αἰγιαλοῖσιν ὀρνύμεν᾿ ἐκ πόντοιο, τὰ δ᾿ ἔκποθεν ἄλλος ἀήτης ἀντίον
ἀΐξας μεγάλῃ περὶ λαίλαπι θύων ὤσῃ ἀπ᾿ ἠιόνων Βορέω ἔτι βαιὸν ἀέντος·. See also 1.625,
4.552, 8.205.
37 Hdt. 4.36, Diod. Sic. 2.47.1–6, Str. 1.3.22.
38 Hes. Theog. 378–380: Astraios weds Eos and produces the three winds Zephyros, Boreas, and
Notos; see also Hom. Od. 5.295. I am not including here those passages where the winds’ ac-
tivities are simply described.
120 Esther Eidinow
for their help in kindling Patroklos’ pyre.39 A fragment of Alkaios preserves a story
in which this wind fathered Eros with Iris.40 But the narrative types do not venture
beyond these largely genealogical accounts. There is one exception: the myth that
Zephyros was Apollo’s rival for Hyakinthos, and responsible for the misdirection
of the discus that kills the young man. This is first found in literary evidence in
Palaephatus;41 the more popular, and earlier, versions attribute this death simply to
the impact of Apollo’s discus, which looks as if it was also a familiar story pattern.42
However, some surviving imagery suggests that perhaps these stories were more
well-known: Neuser has argued that ten vase images can be identified as showing
the Zephyros-Hyakinthos story; most of these date to the early fifth century.43
3. GREEK WIND AND RITUAL
It is not surprising that there were attempts to tame such potentially destructive
forces and keep them under some kind of control, but the balance of the nature of
the evidence is intriguing. On the one hand, although there are relatively frequent
examples in the Homeric epics of gods controlling winds, there is relatively little
evidence for the cult of specific divinities whose epikleseis suggest that they were
invoked for this purpose.44 In contrast, while Boreas and Zephyros are the only
winds named in Homer as appearing to receive cult, there is extensive evidence for
cults relating to winds – both general and specific.45
As we might expect, there were a number of other cities that paid homage to
the north wind, for similar reasons to those of Athens: there was a cult in Mega-
lopolis in thanks for the way, during the siege of Megalopolis by the Spartans, it
blew “violently and continuously, and broke up the engine of Agis, scattering it
to utter destruction”.46 And it is possible that the Thurians also had a cult: we are
told by Aelian that when a headwind prevented Dionysius from attacking Thurii,
39 Sire: Hom. Il. 16.149–151; feasting: Hom. Il. 23.193–202. (Zephyros appears alongside Boreas
at Hom. Il. 9.5 and Od. 5.295).
40 Alc. 327 LP.
41 Palaephatus 46 (Stern 1996: 78–79). Then in Paus. 3.19.4–5; Lucian. Dial. D. 16 (14); Nonnus
Dion. 10.253–255. Tzetz. Chil. 1.241–266. Zephyros becomes Boreas in Serv. ad Buc. 3.63 and
the Second Vatican Mythographer 181.
42 Hes. fr. 171 MW; Eur. Hel. 1469–1475 (no mention of Apollo’s love); Nic. Ther. 902–906;
Ov. Met. 10.162–219; Apollod. 1.3.3, 3.10.3. Rohde (1925: 112, n. 43) notes the popularity of
the story pattern of being killed by a blow from a discus.
43 Neuser 1982: 120–121; eight of the ten vases are from the first half of the fifth century BC.
44 Paus. 3.13.8: Zeus of the Fair Winds in Sparta; Paus. 4.35.8: Athena of the Winds in Mothone,
Messenia. In the Homeric epics, sacrifices for fair winds are made to Poseidon or the other
gods: Od. 3.178 and 159; Il. 2.306, as Stengel 1900: 627. And the gods are described as con-
trolling the winds: Athena Od. 2.420, 5.382; Apollo Il. 1.479; Hera Il. 15.26 and Poseidon
Od. 5.293; also Kirke and Kalypso, see Od. 5.268, 11.6.
45 Hom. Il. 23.192–198: when the pyre of Patroklos will not burn, Achilles offers a libation to the
gods Boreas and Zephyros, and promises them many fair offerings.
46 Paus. 8.27.14: κατέλυσέ τε γὰρ τὸ μηχάνημα τοῦ Ἄγιδος καὶ διεφόρησεν ἐς ἀπώλειαν παντελῆ
βιαίῳ τῷ πνεύματι ὁμοῦ καὶ συνεχεῖ; see also 8.36.6.
and, indeed, wrecked his fleet, they “offered sacrifices to Boreas, decreed rights of
citizenship to the wind, allocated to him a house and a plot of land, and established
an annual festival.”47 These honours are particularly striking since they are, as Pa-
pazarkadas has observed, secular awards to a divine entity; he draws a parallel with
the award by the Athenians of a golden crown to the hero, Amphiaraos.48
Other specific winds are rarely mentioned in a cult context, although apparently
the Athenians also had an altar to Zephyros.49 In general, other cults are to “the
winds” as a group, and the nature of their worship varies. For example, before the
Athenians claim the help of their particular relative Boreas, Herodotus tells us that
the Delphians had been advised by the oracle, “to pray to winds, because winds
would be great allies to Greece.”50 Once they have received the good news, they es-
tablish an altar for the winds at the sanctuary at Thyia (which Herodotus describes
as the present location of the precinct of Thyia, the daughter of Kephisos).51 Pausa-
nias notes that in Boiotia, “on the market-place of Koroneia I found two remarkable
things, an altar of Hermes Epimelios (Keeper of flocks) and an altar of the winds.”52
Later literary and epigraphic sources also provide more details about the local
rites involved. A second century BC calendar from Kyrene begins with a sacrifice
of a goat to the winds.53 In a first century AD cult calendar from Athens, probably
for a private association, a number of different deities are provided for with the
sacrifice of a cake with twelve knobs, with no wine in it:54 among the recipients
47 Ael. VH 12.61: οἱ Θούριοι τῷ Βορρᾷ ἔθυσαν καὶ ἐψηφίσαντο εἶναι τὸν ἄνεμον πολίτην καὶ
οἰκίαν αὐτῷ καὶ κλῆρον ἀπεκλήρωσαν καὶ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον ἔτος ἐπετέλουν αὐτῷ.. Noel Robert-
son (2009: 182) observes that Aelian’s assertion of kinship between Boreas and Thurii should
not be trusted (he suggests that the source is Timaeus, who “had a habit of romancing and could
say what he liked of Thurii, then a very dejected place” [his grounds for calling Thurii dejected
are unclear], and was most likely writing at Athens); this is no doubt an exaggeration of the
relationship by Aelian – but Robertson does not comment on the honours apparently awarded,
or the implied status of the god.
48 See discussion Papazarkadas 2011: 47, n. 127, concerning the secular award, with comparison
to Amphiaraos’ award in I. Oropos 296, 332/1 (see Parker 1996: 247).
49 Paus. 1.37.1.
50 Hdt. 7.178: καί σφι ἐχρήσθη ἀνέμοισι εὔχεσθαι· μεγάλους γὰρ τούτους ἔσεσθαι τῇ Ἑλλάδι
συμμάχους.
51 McInerney (1999: 307–308) notes that the site of this sanctuary may be identified by the altar
of the winds seen by the Greek geographer Kremmos (citing Kremmos 1876: 87 [non vidit];
see Dasios 1992: 1969), at modern Arachova. This is likely to mark the settlement of Anemoreia,
where ancient sources note the winds (see Schol. ad Hom. Il. 2.521 and Str. 9.3.15). The name
Anemoreia also recalls the name of the priestess of the winds found at Knossos (A-ne-mo-i-je-
re-ja).
52 Paus. 9.34.3, in Boeotia: Κορώνεια δὲ παρείχετο μὲν ἐς μνήμην ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς Ἑρμοῦ βωμὸν
Ἐπιμηλίου, τὸν δὲ ἀνέμων.
53 SEG 20.719.
54 Sokolowski 1969: no. 52, ll. 19–20 = IG II2 1367. The cake is χοινικιαῖον ὀρθόνφαλον
δωδεκόνφαλον νηφάλιον. Brumfield (1997: 150) suggests that this may be the same as
ὀρθοστατής (see Porph. Abst. 2.7, Poll. 6.74 and Hsch. s. v.); and that this type of cake may be
represented resting on the head of a figurine from the Athenian Eleusinion (citing Thompson
1954: 94, 105 and pl. 20: 8).
122 Esther Eidinow
in the month of Posideon (December–January) are Poseidon Khamaizelos and the

winds.55 As Sokolowski has observed:
“Nous y voyons un mélange de divinités, semblable à celui qu’on rencontre dans les hymnes
orphiques avec la prepondérance des dieux de l’agriculture, du beau temps et de la Nature.”56
The orphic elements are arguable, but the focus on agricultural divinities is mani-
fest. Similar observations have been made about the cult of the Tritopatreis, found
chiefly in Attica (although there is also evidence for the cult in Delos, Kyrene and
Selinus).57 The nature of these entities is much debated, and scholars have argued
that they were spirits of the dead, a point to which we will return below.58 The
evidence here, meanwhile, draws attention to another aspect of their role, namely,
their connection to fertility: their sacrificial rites were linked, at least temporally, to
other agrarian deities.59
A greater range of victims appears in other evidence. For example, Hesychius
(s. v. anemotas) tells us that among the Tarentines, a donkey was sacrificed to the
winds;60 while Festus (s. v. October Equus) reports that the Spartans killed horses
on Taygetos, immolating them and spreading their ashes “per fines”.61 In calendars
from Erchia and Marathon, a full-grown sheep is sacrificed for the Tritopatreis,
while the Lex Sacra from Selinus describes different sacrificial rites and offerings
for “the foul” and the “pure” types of Tritopatreis.62 The inscription likens these
rites to those for heroes and gods, respectively, and, as Robertson has suggested, it
looks as if they take place in a pit.63 Both the division of rites and even the use of
a pit may help to explain another set of wind-related rituals that Pausanias reports
from a sanctuary in Sikyon:
“In Titane there is also a sanctuary of Athena, into which they bring up the image of Koronis.
In it is an old wooden figure of Athena, and I was told that it, too, was struck by lightning. The
sanctuary is built upon a hill, at the bottom of which is an Altar of the Winds, and on it the priest
sacrifices to the winds one night in every year. He also performs other secret rites at four pits,
taming the fierceness of the blasts, and he is said to chant as well charms of Medea”.64
55 Sokolowski 1969: no. 52, ll. 19–20.

56 Sokolowski 1969: 103.
57 Robertson 2009: 169.
58 On Tritopatreis as “the souls of ancestors who have become wind-spirits” see originally Rohde
1925: 204, n. 124; cf. Robertson 2009: ch. 10–11.
59 Robertson 2009: 172–174.
60 See Nenci 1995 for the argument that this sacrifice was influenced by Spartan sacrificial prac-
tice.
61 The Roman October horse was connected to war: see Beard, North and Price 1998: 47–48 with
n. 144. The sacrifice of donkeys and horses in order to be eaten was also not unknown, see
Ekroth 2007: 259–260, and Georgoudi 2005 on horse sacrifices in ancient Greek evidence.
62 Erchia: SEG 21.541; see Daux 1963: 606–610 (Δ 41–46); Marathon, IG II2 1358 (SEG 50.168)
A col. 2, l. 32; for the Lex Sacra from Selinus, see Jameson, Jordan and Kotansky 1993.
63 Robertson 2009: 157–158 (discussing col. A, ll. 9–17 of the Lex Sacra from Selinus).
64 Paus. 2.12.1 [Sicyon]: Ἐν δὲ Τιτάνῃ καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερόν ἐστιν, ἐς ὃ τὴν Κορωνίδα ἀνάγουσιν· ἐν
δὲ αὐτῷ ξόανον Ἀθηνᾶς ἐστιν ἀρχαῖον, κεραυνωθῆναι δὲ καὶ τοῦτο ἐλέγετο· ἐκ τούτου τοῦ
λόφου καταβᾶσιν – ᾠκοδόμηται γὰρ ἐπὶ λόφῳ τὸ ἱερὸν – βωμός ἐστιν ἀνέμων, ἐφ᾿ οὗ τοῖς
ἀνέμοις ὁ ἱερεὺς μιᾷ νυκτὶ ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος θύει. δρᾷ δὲ καὶ ἄλλα ἀπόρρητα ἐς βόθρους τέσσαρας,
The types of rites and kinds of sacrifices that are offered have some implications for
the perceived nature of their recipients. The winds at Athens are not distinguished
from the other divinities by receiving gifts of cakes: the private nature of the calen-
dar suggests that this choice of offering may have been a matter of economy.65 The
horses and perhaps the donkey are more striking: these are less common choices
of sacrificial animal. Nevertheless, sacrifice of horses is found elsewhere for other
divinities: specifically Pausanias reports a particular cult of Poseidon, in which a
horse was thrown into water, and also describes rites on Mount Taygetos (this time
in honour of Helios), in which horses were among other animals that appear to
have been sacrificed more usually.66 In the case of each of these gods, their connec-
tion with horses makes sense of the choice of sacrificial animal. Similarly, in the
case of the winds, the sacrifice of these animals could in each case be an allusion
to the winds’ close association with horses. In myth, both Zephyros and Boreas
breed with horses: Zephyros fathered Achilles’ horses Xanthos and Balios with the
harpy Podarge; Boreas, who is described by Hesiod as coming from “horse-breed-
ing Thrace”, takes on a horse shape to mate with Erichthonios’ mares.67 Resonating
with this imagery, in Book 10 of the Odyssey, the figure who controls the winds is
called Aiolos Hippotades (the Horse-reiner).68
Pausanias uses the regular language of sacrifice, thuo, in his descriptions of
these sacrifices; however, their nature does include elements of what has been
called “high-intensity” ritual, in the sense that horses were far from commonplace
ἡμερούμενος τῶν πνευμάτων τὸ ἄγριον, καὶ δὴ καὶ Μηδείας ὡς λέγουσιν ἐπῳδὰς ἐπᾴδει. Pau-
sanias (8.29.2) also notes the cult of other weather events: the Arkadians, for example, offer
sacrifices to lightnings, hurricanes and thunders at a place called Bathos: the locals claimed that
the battle between giants and gods took place there.
65 The specific ingredients for the cakes are given in each case (χοινικιαῖον, made from a choe-
nix-measure of flour); the same is true of other calendars that list cakes (see LSCG 135, with
Kearns 1994: 67). Kearns (1994: 69) suggests that the specifics of a sacrificial cake may have
indicated the “individuality of the cult”, and this seems likely in particular with regard to the
shape of the cake. Here, as Kearns observes (ibid), the 12-knobbed cake may have been a dis-
tinguishing mark of the thiasos. In addition, when it is also possible that when the offering is,
as it were, only a cake it would also make ritual sense to ensure that it was prepared “properly”
both in terms of ritual (stricto sensu) and with regard to sufficient expenditure (Kearns 2011:
102 notes the growing interest in a worshipper’s intentions in 5th–4th century Greek literature,
and the rejection of ostentatious offerings on grounds of piety). The calendar does not explicitly
mention “bloodless” sacrifice (see Eckhardt 2014), but it may be that there is a clear ideology
behind the choice of offerings.
66 See Paus. 8.7.2, for Poseidon (as Georgoudi (2005: 140) points out this is a similar action to
that of a holocaust since it abandons the whole animal to its fate: “on lui en fait une offrande
‘totale’”). For Helios: Paus. 3.20.4 notes that sacrifices of horses on Taygetos are to Helios, and
note Georgoudi’s argument (2005: 139) that the Rhodian Hippokathesia may have been in
honour of Helios rather than Poseidon Hippios. Herodotus reports that the Massagetai sacri-
ficed horses to the sun (1.216.4): their reasoning (that this is the swiftest of mortal beings sac-
rificed to the swiftest of gods) seems better to fit a cult of the winds.
67 Zephyros: Hom. Il. 16.149–151 and see 19.415; Boreas: Hom. Il. 20.223–225; Hes. Op. 504
(the imagery is found elsewhere, e. g., Eur. Phoen. 212).
68 Aiolos Hippotades: Hom. Od. 10.1–54.
124 Esther Eidinow
choices for sacrifice, and were used in moments of particular need.69 In support
of this idea, we also find more explicit references to moments of crisis associated
with wind and sacrifices to placate their destructive power. For example, Dionysos’
expostulation in Frogs: “A lamb, boys, bring out a black lamb! Here’s a hurricane
hurtling our way!”70 And the language used of the sacrifice to the wind offered in
Xenophon’s Anabasis provides another instance:
“Then it was that one of the soothsayers bade them offer sacrifice to the wind, and sacrifice was
offered; and it seemed quite clear to everybody that the violence of the wind abated. But the
depth of the snow was a fathom, so that many of the baggage animals and slaves perished, and
about 30 of the soldiers.”71
Elements of high-intensity ritual are also apparent in other rites performed to propi-
tiate winds, as recorded by Pausanias. For example, the division of the cock used to
try to control the Lips (a SW wind) at Methana, in Corinth is puzzling. The action
recalls the division of animals in rites of oaths, but this does not quite align, since
the oath there is sworn on the pieces.72 More appropriate is Herodotus’ description
of Xerxes’ division of Pythius’s son, when the army was made to march out be-
tween the two halves of the boy.73
However unusual these rites appear, nevertheless, they were all institution-
alised rituals. Indeed, the priest at Titane may perhaps have been a member of a
particular clan: at Corinth there was a genos who claimed to be able to control the
winds.74 Similarly, from Athens, the name of a lawsuit attributed to Deinarchos
indicates another genos whose name, Heudanemoi, suggests some kind of role in
propitiating winds.75 But alongside these communal rites, there is also evidence for
individuals who claimed the power to control the winds. We must treat with caution
those literary figures such as Aiolos in Book 10 of the Odyssey who sends off Odys-
69 For high- and low-intensity rituals with regard to sacrifice, see Ekroth 2008: 90. On sacrificing
horses as at best an exorbitant choice, at worst a non-Greek or barbarian action, see Georgoudi
2005: 138–140, with Hom. Il. 23.170–175, Eur. Hel. 1258, Xen. Cyr. 8.3, 11–12, 24.
70 Aristoph. Ran. 847: ἄρν᾿ ἄρνα μέλανα, παῖδες, ἐξενέγκατε· / τυφὼς γὰρ ἐκβαίνειν
παρασκευάζεται …
71 Xen. An. 4.5.4: ἔνθα δὴ τῶν μάντεών τις εἶπε σφαγιάσασθαι τῷ ἀνέμῳ, καὶ σφαγιάζεται: καὶ
πᾶσι δὴ περιφανῶς ἔδοξεν λῆξαι τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦ πνεύματος. ἦν δὲ τῆς χιόνος τὸ βάθος ὀργυιά:
ὥστε καὶ τῶν ὑποζυγίων καὶ τῶν ἀνδραπόδων πολλὰ ἀπώλετο καὶ τῶν στρατιωτῶν ὡς
τριάκοντα.
72 See Dem. Or. 23.67–68. Similarly, the oath requested by Tyndareos, Helen’s father, Stesich.
fr. 14 (and Paus. 3.20.9); Paus. 5.24.11, and cf. Dem. Or. 49.10.
73 Hdt. 7.39. Howe and Wells (ad loc.) cite evidence suggesting that it was “a Persian custom to
make those one wished to preserve from harm pass between two parts of a sacrificed animal”.
Thomas (2012: 238) cites Hittite evidence, but rightly asks if this can be taken to indicate his-
torical Persian custom.
74 See Eust. Od. p. 1645, 41–42 and Hsch. s. v. Anemokoitai; also mentioned without reference to
the genos in Suda s. v. Ἀνεμοκοῖται (= α 2257 Adler).
75 Dion. Hal. de Dinarch. 11 (= Baiter and Sauppe 1850: ii.323b 9 f.). The case “Concerning the
Basket” is a diadikasia: the speech vs. the Kerykes indicates involvement in the Eleusinian
ritual.
seus and his men with Zephyros as guide, and provides a curious gift of winds in
a bag – which, when released by his disobedient men, blow the ships off course.76
A similar bag was apparently used by Empedokles, who claimed the power
to allay and raise winds, and who acquired either the name Alexanemas (“Averter
of Winds”), or Kolusanemas (“Wind-stayer”), because he controlled the winds
(at Akragas).77 The method described there involves flaying asses, making bags
and then setting these out around hills to catch the winds. Plutarch tells the story
twice, substituting a wall of skins for the bag.78 Empedokles, he reveals there, car-
ried out these aversive actions because the winds were bringing pestilence, and
sterility and plague, respectively; Clement of Alexandria also describes this dis-
ease-carrying wind as causing barrenness in women.79
4. WINDS AND DEATH
A number of the elements already mentioned, including the wineless sacrifices of

the Athenian calendar, Dionysos’ plea for a black lamb, and the possible nature of
the Tritopatreis, suggest that the cult of the winds, indeed, the winds themselves,
had chthonian characteristics; indeed, some scholars have argued that they were
originally conceived as spirits of the dead.80 Certainly, the most elaborate of the
rituals described by Pausanias – the night-time sacrifices at Titane involving four
pits or bothroi – reminded Stengel of Odysseus’ activities to raise and control the
spirits of the dead, and he associated it with hero-cult.81 But the variety of sacrifices
tends to nuance that interpretation;82 it suggests rather that these were powers that
76 Hom. Od. 10.1–54.

77 Empedokles (B 111 DK) notes to his pupil Pausanias that παύσεις δ᾽ ἀκαμάτων ἀνέμων μένος
οἵ τ᾽ἐπὶ γαῖαν | ὀρνύμενοι πνοιαῖσι καταφθινύθουσιν ἀρούρας·| καὶ πάλιν, ἢν ἐθέλῃσθα,
παλίντιτα πνεύματ(α) ἐπαξεις· Wind bags: FGrH 566 Timaios fr. 30a (ap. DL 8.60:
Κωλυσάνεμαν); Suda s. v. Ἀμύκλαι, and s. v. Ἄπνους (Κωλυσάνεμον) (= α 1671 and 3242 Ad-
ler); Clem. Al. Strom. 6.3 (Akragas). “Averter of Winds” Alexanemos: Porph. Pyth. 29 = Iambl.
Pyth. 136.
78 Wind barrier: Plut. de curiositate. 1; Adv. Col. 32.
79 Pestilence: Plut. de curiositate 1; pestilence and sterility: Plut. Adv. Col. 32; barrenness: Cl. Al.
Strom. 6.3.
80 See Sacconi 1964: 139. Hampe 1967: 11: “Aber die eigentlichen Windgötter waren chthoni-
sche Wesen und empfingen Ehren wie chthonische Gottheiten oder heroisierte Tote.” This
raises interesting questions for Robertson’s interpretation of the Tritopatreis (in the lex sacra
from Selinus; see Robertson 2009: ch. 10–11) as wind gods rather than ancestral spirits.
81 Stengel 1900: 633; the spirits of the dead: Hom. Od. 11.36. Although Ekroth (2002: esp. ch. 4,
http://books.openedition.org/pulg/504) has established that this particular connection does not
occur before the Roman period; nevertheless, she does emphasise that “the use of bothroi for
the purpose of calling and contacting a figure of the underworld is apparent from most contexts
in which the term is found, no matter what the date or the recipient.” Sacconi (1964: 139) ar-
gues that all the evidence for the cult of the winds suggests similar rites, but here cites only
Aristophanes and Xenophon.
82 See Parker 2011: 80–84 and 283–286. Scullion who defends the distinction (1994: 116) distin-
guishes between chthonian gods and weather gods.
126 Esther Eidinow
required active and ongoing propitiation, because their activities could in a variety
of ways – directly or indirectly – lead to death.83
These associations are brought out by some explicit links made in literary texts
between winds and human sacrifice; they draw attention again to the rapacity of
the north wind. The first is the description of Iphigenia’s sacrifice from Aeschylus’
Agamemnon. Although the reason for Iphigenia’s sacrifice lies in Artemis’ anger,
the act of sacrifice is described by the chorus, explicitly, as calming the winds, and
then, more specifically by Clytemnestra as soothing the north wind.84 The Trojan
war remains the focus in a story told by Herodotus about Menelaus, who, stranded
in Egypt, sacrificed two children.85 The idea of human sacrifice also appears to be
alluded to in Herodotus’ story of the Persian soldiers obediently jumping overboard
in order to save Xerxes’ ship from the Strymonian wind, although this story is also
part of the theme of inhumane violence that is associated with the Great King. Later
sources tell us that Themistocles made human sacrifices before the battle of Sala-
mis, although their recipient was Dionysos Omestes.86
Some scholars have seen in these stories evidence for the winds demanding
human sacrifices.87 Although there is no epigraphic or material evidence to support
these ideas, the narratives can perhaps be argued to resonate with the story pat-
tern illustrated by the myth with which this essay started: that is, of people being
snatched away by the wind. To begin with, it may be possible to forge such an in-
terpretation from the Boreas and Oreithyia myth, reading it as a myth to propitiate
the dangers posed by an angry wind god. One of the fragments of Aeschylus’ play
Oreithyia seems to allude to threats that Boreas is making against the city if he does
not get his way.88
Boreas is not the only wind to commit such an act; our sources indicate that
another set of wind entities were also associated with this behaviour: the harpies.
We hear about their activities in the Odyssey from Penelope who, in a moment of
despair, wishes that she might be either killed by Artemis, or snatched away by the
harpies, like the daughters of Pandareos.89 She makes clear the windy nature of
these creatures, calling them first thuellai, and then in her second description of the
83 In this respect at least, resembling the “heilige Handlungen” of Nock (1972: 590), “intended to
exercise direct and efficacious influence upon divine powers or upon forces of nature”.
84 First by the chorus (214–217): παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας / παρθενίου θ᾽ αἵματος ὀρ- / γᾷ
περιόργως ἐπιθυ- / μεῖν θέμις. εὖ γὰρ εἴη; then, by Clytemnestra (1417–1418): ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ
παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ / ὠδῖν᾽, ἐπῳδὸν Θρῃκίων ἀημάτων.
85 Hdt. 2.119.2; the wind is not named, but it is likely to be northerly, see Murray 1995: 40–42.
86 See Plut. Vit. Them. 13.2 and Vit. Pel. 21.3. Hampe (1967: 8–9) makes a link between this
Dionysos and the wind, tracing a Lesbian tradition of stories of sacrifice to the winds by the
Atreidai during the Trojan War (Sappho fr. 17 and Alc. fr. 129–134); he supports this with
arguments for Dionysos receiving human sacrifice on the islands of Chios and Tenedos (but
cf. Georgoudi 2011 on the Tenedos cult).
87 As Hampe (1967: 9), who compares the winds to the wind and weather gods of the Near East.
88 Boreas: Aesch. fr. 281 Sommerstein. The earliest version of the Oreithyia story indicates that
she was snatched from the Acropolis; this is reminiscent of the story pattern of Aglauros jump-
ing from the Acropolis in order to save the city (Philochoros FGrH 328 fr. 105).
89 Hom. Od. 20.63–78.
abduction, harpuiai.90 If we have any doubts, their nature is also manifest in the
names that Hesiod gives them in his Theogony: Aello (Stormwind) and Okupete
(Swift-foot).91
In trying to understand this passage, Sarah Iles Johnston focuses on the Erinyes,
and suggests that Penelope’s narrative should be set within the context of ancient
demonological beliefs: she argues that Penelope is expressing the desire to become
a reproductive demon, because “it might be easier to become one of them than to
carry on in her own situation”.92 In turn, using the same example, Emily Vermeule
has suggested that being carried off by a winged creature may have been a par-
ticularly attractive type of death for women – the desire for it prompted by feeling
“stupid or uncertain.”93
Neither of these explanations is convincing in terms of the specific literary
context, or for more general interpretative aims. Vermeule’s conflations of winged
and wind divinities, and the nature of love and death, underplay the evidence for the
ways in which the winds would have been perceived to pose real dangers, especially
for men at sea. In turn, Iles Johnston herself admits the Pandareids are “never […]
mentioned in connection with attacks on babies and parturient women”;94 although
she provides an ingenious argument for associating the Erinyes with obstructing
a woman’s progression into marriage and child-bearing, in the epic poems, the
Erinyes are primarily depicted as ensuring cosmological order, usually by punish-
ing wrongdoing.95 And, indeed, examination of other appearances of the Erinyes
elsewhere in the poem (which are also associated with Penelope’s fate), suggest that
this is their primary characteristic in this passage as well.
The first of these occurs as part of Telemachos’ response to Antinoos’ plea that
he punish his mother for her deceit towards them. Telemachos describes how, if
he were to send his mother from the house, she would invoke these creatures upon
him.96 The second, again in relation to Antinoos, recalls this idea. Odysseus has
returned to Ithaca in disguise and Antinoos has thrown a footstool at “the beggar”.
Odysseus replies: “Ah, if for beggars there are gods and Erinyes, may the doom of
90 Hom. Od. 20.63 and 66 (thuellai) and 77 (harpuiai).

91 Hom. Od. 20.63–78. See Hes. Theog. 267 for the original names of the harpies, and see Apol-
lod. 1.9.21 for variations. Roman authors add a third harpy Kelaino (see Verg. Aen. 3.211 and
Hyg. Fab. 14).
92 Johnston 1994: 150.
93 Vermeule 1981: 169: “Greek women had for centuries wished to die in such an embrace, espe-
cially when they felt stupid or uncertain.”
94 Johnston 1994: 149.
95 E. g., Hom. Il. 9.454 and 541, 15.204, 19.87, 259; Od. 2.135, 11.280. The meaning of Eusta-
thius’ comment that the Pandareids acquired an “Erinyes-like character” because they were
orphaned and suffered does not, in itself, support the idea that they became reproductive de-
mons (contra Levianouk [2008: 26–27], who confuses matters by adding to her summary that
the Pandareids are “barren and horrible” which is not part of Eustathius’ description of them).
Importantly, Eustathius describes them as handed over to the Erinyes, which suggests that they
are their victims rather than becoming like them.
96 Hom. Od. 2.135.
128 Esther Eidinow
death come upon Antinoos before his marriage”.97 His speech, replete with a de-
scription of the pain of losing one’s possessions, is a moment of succinct dramatic
irony – and, again, it relates the idea of vengeance to the loss of Penelope. Return-
ing to Penelope’s account of the myth of the snatched Pandareids, we find this idea
is neatly expressed once more. Whether or not Penelope has in fact recognised her
husband is much debated; in this speech she talks of him as if she has not, as if the
situation she now faces is unbearable. She, like the Pandareids, could have had
a happy married life, but now she would rather be snatched by the Harpies. The
parallel suggests that then she, like the mythic girls, will serve the Erinyes. The
preceding passages clarify the meaning: Penelope is no reproductive demon; rather,
she will become the servant of vengeance.98
But this is to focus on the Erinyes: when we turn our attention back to the
role of winds, we have to wonder about the selection of this particular parallel. An
answer lies within the poem, and the set of associations that have been developed
around the role of the Harpies or thuellai. Repeatedly, they are used to convey the
loss of one or other of Odysseus’ family: Telemachos, talking about Odysseus to the
disguised goddess Athena, describes how the Harpies have snatched his father;99
similarly, Eumaios uses it to a disguised Odysseus, again about Odysseus’ fate;100
and, finally, Penelope employs a similar phrase to describe Telemachos sailing off
to Pylos.101 These references suggest that the Harpies were generally assumed to
threaten those who put to sea, which aligns with the other evidence for the risks
posed by the winds examined above. When Penelope wishes to be snatched, she is
wishing for a death that echoes her husband’s presumed fate.
5. CONCLUSION: GREEK WINDS AND HAZARDS
It may be the case that “Winds fertilize nature year by year, bringing rain or shine,
coolness or warmth, producing flowers and foliage and crops”, but as we might ex-
pect, this is not the aspect that we see most prominently exercised in ritual practice
or explored in literary or visual narratives.102 Rather, these present a strong sense of
the risks posed by the winds, and their part in the local hazardscape of ancient lived
experience. In the case of the narratives, the evidence ranges from direct informa-
tion about the real-life dangers of the winds, especially, but not only, for those at
97 Hom. Od. 17.475–476: ἀλλ᾿ εἴ που πτωχῶν γε θεοὶ καὶ Ἐρινύες εἰσίν, Ἀντίνοον πρὸ γάμοιο
τέλος θανάτοιο κιχείη.
98 This use of the Pandareid myth to evoke her difficult situation is foreshadowed by her earlier
account of the myth of Aedon, daughter of Pandareos in Book 19. Her telling of this story leads
into Penelope’s concerns about her son’s behaviour towards her. Olga Levianouk (2008: 12–
13) has argued convincingly that the telling of this myth to Odysseus, whom she has recog-
nised, is a way of letting him know her situation, and conveys her fear that she will accidentally
cause the death of her son.
99 Hom. Od. 1.241.
100 Hom. Od. 14.371.
101 Hom. Od. 4.727–728.
102 Robertson 2009: 183.
sea; to the myth stories that indirectly suggest that hideous sacrifices were required
to keep the threats of the winds at bay. The evidence of the medical writers suggests
a further dimension of this relationship, in which the winds shape not only the
external landscape, but even the physiognomy of local people. The evidence for
wind cults is in many cases puzzling, but by its propitiatory nature, also appears to
confirm this sense of threat. To describe wind cult as “chthonian” is too broad a cat-
egorisation (although the rituals at Titane raise questions, Pausanias’ description is
not sufficiently detailed to allow this judgement). Rather, there seems to be a variety
of different cultic approaches across communities, including specialisation of ritual
practice among individuals or families.
This localised aspect may help to develop an answer to the question with which
this essay began: that is, why do Greek myths so rarely develop extensive narratives
about winds, given that the relationship between human beings and winds was so
variously important? The evidence for cults of the winds suggests the importance
for local communities of maintaining relationships with the winds, sometimes, spe-
cific winds. In this context, it appears to have been, in general, less important to por-
tray these relationships in terms of figuration, as with, for example, river gods.103
If those depictions were part of a narrative of local identity, in which a community
evoked a sense of place and its role within it, then relationships with winds were
concerned more immediately with less controllable, potentially more dangerous
powers.
In line with this, the material examined above suggests that although extended
personification and related narratives are, for the most part, not available, never-
theless, there are numerous examples of the selective personification of winds. In
these instances, the written and visual evidence tends to highlight those personified
features of the winds that resonate with their threatening characters, for example,
their activities, emotions or appetites. Indeed, many of these examples are con-
cerned with behaviours that are excessive or simply monstrous, so that the particu-
lar personification is endowed with characteristics that are beyond human or even
non-human.
These observations about winds and wind gods may contribute to current ana-
lyses of the possible routes of development identified for deified abstractions. Staf-
ford has observed how, with the exception of Eleos, these cults were “facilitated
by the figure’s appearances in literature and the visual arts, appearances for which,
in turn, the demonstrable existence of a cult has implications.”104 Winds seldom
appeared in literature and the visual arts with any kind of developed personality;
however, the features highlighted by selective personification appear to be the key
focus of propitiatory cult activity, and vice versa.
It may be argued that Boreas in Athens provides an exception: the evidence for
stories about this wind, along with the surviving visual imagery, indicates a more
complete process of personification and the development of an accompanying cult.
But this exception is, in turn, one that reinforces the larger argument of this essay:
103 See for example, the discussion in Huskinson 2005.

104 Stafford 2000: 227.
130 Esther Eidinow
Boreas’ anthropomorphic evolution largely occurs on a local stage, within the com-
munity of Athens, and is concerned with specific local dangers. On the broader
stage, in contrast, his presence is one not of strong personality, but of dangerous
power.105
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SAPPHOS APHRODISISCHE FAUNA UND FLORA*
Renate Schlesier, Freie Universität Berlin
Wer hat den maßgeblichen Beitrag zur panhellenischen Ausbildung der antiken
griechischen Religion geleistet? Spätestens seit Herodot hat in der Antike niemand
daran gezweifelt, dass dies die Dichter waren, angefangen mit Homer und Hesiod.
Sie sind es, schreibt er,
„die für die Hellenen die Lehre von der Götterentstehung (theogonia) gemacht haben, den
Göttern die Beinamen (eponymiai) gegeben, ihre Ehrenämter (timai) und Kunstfertigkeiten
(technai) unterschieden und ihre Gestalten (eidea) gekennzeichnet haben.“1
Dass diese Leistungen der Poeten schon in der Antike Anlass für normativ theologi-
sierende und moralisierende Kritik waren, zeigt sich nicht erst bei Herodot, sondern
bereits im 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bei einem der ersten griechischen Philosophen,
Xenophanes. Er wirft den Dichtern vor, dass sie die Götter nicht scharf von den
Menschen abgrenzen und ihnen sogar menschliche Laster nachsagen:
„Alles das haben Homer und Hesiod den Göttern zugeschrieben (anethekan), was bei den
Menschen [Anlass für] Vorwurf (oneidea) und Tadel (psogos) ist, stehlen (kleptein) und zur
Sexualität verführen (moicheuein) und einander betrügen (apateuein).“2
Und er prangert zudem die – auf die Dichter zurückzuführende – Annahme an, dass
die Götter generell menschenförmig seien, physisch wie habituell: „Aber die Sterb-
lichen meinen, dass die Götter geboren wurden, dass sie eigene Kleidung (estheta)
besitzen und Stimme (phone) und Körper (demas).“3
Tatsächlich ist seit Homer der Anthropomorphismus der griechischen Götter
ihr wichtigstes Merkmal, neben und in Spannung zu ihrer Unsterblichkeit, ihrer
Alterslosigkeit und ihrer übermenschlichen Macht (wobei letztere nicht grenzen-
los ist, sondern situativ durch andere Gottheiten eingeschränkt werden kann). Die
von den Dichtern anthropomorph gestalteten Götter sind keine außerweltlichen,
transzendenten Wesen, sondern sie bewohnen Welt und Natur gemeinsam mit den
Menschen. Daher überrascht es nicht, dass ihr kommunikatives Handeln in diesem
* Für kritische Bemerkungen zu einer früheren Fassung dieses Aufsatzes danke ich Emrys Bell-
Schlatter, Susanne Gödde, Albert Henrichs und Sebastian Zerhoch.
1 Hdt. 2.53.2. Dieses und alle folgenden Zitate sind von der Verfasserin übersetzt.
2 Xenophan. fr. B11 DK.
3 Xenophan. fr. B14 DK. Diese göttliche Menschenförmigkeit ist jedoch traditionell mit den
Merkmalen Unsterblichkeit, Alterslosigkeit und übermenschliche Macht kombiniert, wodurch
gerade die Differenz der Götter im Vergleich zu den Menschen betont wird. Vgl. auch Henrichs
2010. Die Verbindung von Unsterblichkeit und Alterslosigkeit definiert seit Homer die Göt-
ter, dies heißt jedoch nicht, dass beides untrennbar ist: siehe Strauss Clay 1981/1982: 113; zu
Sappho: vgl. Schlesier 2011b.
134 Renate Schlesier
irdischen Raum im Schlimmen wie im Guten dem der Menschen ähnelt. Das Ver-
hältnis der Götter zur Natur wird jedoch in der Dichtung doppelt bestimmt, sowohl
im Gegensatz zu dem der Menschen als auch in Analogie dazu. Einerseits besteht
eine grundlegende Asymmetrie: Naturgewalten wie das Meer und die Erdbeben
oder die Sturmwinde mit Regen, Blitz und Donner sind menschlicher Kontrolle ent-
zogen. Diese Naturgewalten werden uneingeschränkt von Göttern beherrscht, deren
Menschenförmigkeit dabei allerdings eher in den Hintergrund tritt. Andererseits ist
das Verhältnis der Götter und der Menschen zur Natur geradezu symmetrisch, und
zwar hinsichtlich der Pflanzen und der Tiere. Mit diesen beiden anderen Kategorien
organischer Lebewesen, die aber im Gegensatz zu den Göttern ebenso vergänglich
sind wie die Menschen, haben Götter wie Menschen zu tun, und dabei kommt be-
merkenswerterweise der göttliche Anthropomorphismus wie auch die menschliche
Götternähe besonders deutlich zum Ausdruck.
Über die Beziehung der Menschen und Götter zu Tieren und Pflanzen haben
die griechischen Dichter seit Homer und Hesiod intensiv nachgedacht. Sie haben
diese Reflexionen in die unterschiedlichsten Kontexte integriert und dabei die
Spannweite zwischen Realität und Imagination, zwischen Physischem und Meta-
phorischem detailliert und nuanciert ausgemessen. Von den darauf bezogenen Dar-
stellungsstrategien und Reflexionsmöglichkeiten hat unter den frühgriechischen
Lyrikern, nach der fragmentarischen Überlieferungslage zu urteilen, zuerst Sappho
(eine Generation vor Xenophanes) am intensivsten und spezifischsten Gebrauch ge-
macht. Im Folgenden werde ich nun zu zeigen versuchen, worin die Besonderheiten
des Umgangs mit Tieren und Pflanzen in ihrer Lyrik bestehen.
1. TIERE
Zunächst fällt auf, dass im überlieferten Werk der Sappho nur relativ wenige derje-
nigen Tiere vorkommen, die sicherlich zur alltäglichen Erfahrungswelt ihrer Zeit,
des späten 7. bis frühen 6. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., gehörten und vielfach schon die
homerischen Epen bevölkerten. Unter den Haustieren fehlen nicht allein die Hunde
und das Geflügel, sondern auch die wichtigsten Opfertiere, Rinder, Schafe und
Schweine. Das Rind erscheint nur im zu Schuhen verarbeiteten Zustand als Rin-
derfell.4 Von welchem Tier (oder pflanzlichem Material?) die prächtigen Wollstoffe
oder Pelze5 stammen, mit denen eine Person laut einem einzeiligen Fragment zuge-
4 Siehe Sappho, fr. 110a.2: „Sandalen aus fünf Rinderfellen“ (σάμβαλα πεμπεβόηα), für „Füße
von sieben Klaftern Länge“ (πόδες ἐπτορόγυιοι): in einem hyperbolischen Spottlied über den
Türwächter eines Brautgemachs (wohl eine Anspielung auf den Schild des Ajax „aus sieben
Rinderfellen“, σάκος ἑπταβόειον, Hom. Il. 7.219–222). Vgl. fr. 39.2 (elegante lydische Leder-
schuhe). Hier und im Folgenden entsprechen die Nummerierungen der Sappho-Fragmente den
Editionen von Lobel und Page 1955 und Voigt 1971, wenn nicht anders angegeben. Die Text-
fassungen sind reproduziert nach Thesaurus Linguae Graecae online. Fragmentnummern ohne
Autorname beziehen sich immer auf Sappho. Vgl. auch die griechisch-englische Edition von
Campbell 1982.
5 Fr. 100: ἄβρα λάσια.
Sapphos aphrodisische Fauna und Flora 135
deckt wird, bleibt unklar. Wildtiere sind fast vollständig abwesend, mit Ausnahme
der Rehkälber,6 mit denen das gealterte Ich sein jugendliches Tanzen retrospektiv
vergleicht. Das einzige erwähnte Insekt ist die Biene,7 und unter den Vögeln sind
nur vier Arten – die Spatzen, die Tauben, die Schwalbe und die Nachtigall8 – anzu-
treffen. Fische und andere Süßwasser- oder Meeresbewohner fehlen fast ausnahms-
los; nur auf die Purpurschnecke wird indirekt verwiesen, allerdings sechs Mal, also
besonders oft, und zwar wegen des kostbaren, aus dieser Molluske gewonnenen
Sekrets, das zum Färben von Kleidungsstücken verwendet wurde9 und von dem das
Farbwort ‚purpurrot‘ abgeleitet ist. Einmal wird sogar ein exotisches Tier erwähnt,
der Elefant, allerdings allein wegen der Funktion seiner Stoßzähne für Luxusgegen-
stände aus Elfenbein.10 Das einzig genannte Reptil ist die Schildkröte, doch auch
sie erscheint in Sapphos Lyrik in zwei Fragmenten11 nicht als solche, sondern weil
ihre Bezeichnung im Griechischen schon früh zum Synonym für die Lyra geworden
ist, die aus dem Panzer der Schildkröte hergestellte und mit mehreren Saiten aus
Tierdarm bespannte Leier,12 das emblematische Musikinstrument der Lyrik, mit
dem auch die Sängerin Sappho ihre Lieder begleitet hat.
Die einzigen Haustiere, die sich bei Sappho finden, sind das Pferd und die
Ziege. Die Pferde dienen Sappho in zwei Fragmenten dazu, einmal generell die
Sphäre des Krieges zu markieren („eine Armee von Reitern“),13 ein andermal einen
spezifischen friedlichen Zug zu illustrieren, bei dem „Männer Pferde vor Wagen
6 Fr. 58.16: νέβρια.

7 Fr. 146: μέλισσα (siehe auch unten, Anm. 46). Ob Sappho ein weiteres Insekt, die Zikade, er-
wähnt, ist ungewiss: Ein Fragment, in dem die Zikade durch ein „hellklingendes Lied“ (λίγυρα
ἀοίδα) charakterisiert ist, wurde von Editoren entweder Alkaios (fr. 347b Lobel und Page) oder
Sappho (fr. 101A Voigt) zugeschrieben. Vgl. λιγύφωνος, unten, Anm. 22.
8 Spatzen: fr. 1.10; Tauben: fr. 42; Schwalbe: fr. 135; Nachtigall: fr. 136, siehe auch fr. 30.8. Zur
Stellung dieser Vögel in der antiken griechischen Tradition vgl. e. g. Pollard 1977 passim und
lexikalisch Arnott 2007.
9 „Purpurn“, πορφύρ(ι)ος, als Bezeichnung für Kleidungsstücke: fr. 44.9; fr. 54; fr. 92.8 und 13;
fr. 98a.4; fr. 101.2. Vgl. dazu Stulz 1990: 126–128. Siehe auch, als Bezeichnung für eine
Blume: fr. 105c.2 Lobel und Page (= fr. 105b.2 Voigt).
10 Fr. 44.10: ἐλέφαις.
11 Fr. 118.1: χέλυς, als Anrede der Lyra durch die poetische Persona; vgl. fr. 58.12: χελύννα. Mit
dem Allgemeinbegriff für ein Reptil, „Kriechtier“ (ἑρπετόν = äol. ὄρπετον), wird in fr. 130.2
der Gott Eros bezeichnet, siehe auch unten Anm. 47. Zur Schildkröte als Attribut der Aphrodite
vgl. e. g. Keller 1913: 249–250; Pirenne-Delforge 1994: 232–236.
12 Plastisch dargestellt in Hom. h. Herm. 24–56; Hermes redet seinen Fund, die von ihm zur Lyra
bestimmte Schildkröte, zunächst (Vers 31) persuasiv u. a. als „des Gastmahls Gefährtin“
(δαιτὸς ἑταίρη) an. Zu mit Lesbos (und Ägypten) verbundenen und auf Orpheus und den lesbi-
schen Dichter Terpander bezogenen Erzählungen von der Erfindung der Leier siehe Power
2010: 350–355. Zu der bis in die Bronzezeit zurückreichenden Geschichte der Lyra und ihrer
frühen Verbindung mit dem zyprischen Aphroditekult siehe Franklin 2015.
13 Fr. 16.1: ἰππήων στρότον. Zur emblematischen (und insbesondere erotisch konnotierten) Be-
deutung des Pferdes (oft spezifiziert als Hengste, Stuten, Fohlen) in der antiken griechischen
Kultur siehe die materialreiche Studie von Griffith 2006, in der zwar u. a. gründlich auf viele
andere frühgriechische Dichter, aber nicht ausführlich auf Sappho eingegangen wird.
gespannt haben“,14 nämlich anlässlich der Hochzeit von Hektor und Andromache in
Troja vor dem Ausbruch des Krieges. Während der Wirklichkeitsbezug der Pferde
in diesen beiden Fragmenten unproblematisch erscheint, ist dies in einem dritten
Fragment, in dem von einer „pferdenährenden Wiese“15 die Rede ist, zwar auf den
ersten Blick ebenfalls der Fall, doch der auf die Göttin Aphrodite bezogene Kontext
suggeriert, dass die Pferde hier vielleicht zugleich auf anderes hindeuten sollen.
Ebenfalls dreimal wird die Ziege in Sapphos Lyrik genannt. Dabei ist der Aus-
druck „Ziege“16 in einem von Strabon bezeugten Fragment, das nur aus diesem
einen Wort besteht, allerdings nichts anderes als der Name eines Vorgebirges im
kleinasiatischen Lydien (einer bei Sappho mit Verweis auf ihre luxuriösen Produkte
besonders häufig erwähnten Landschaft) gegenüber der Insel Lesbos. In zwei ande-
ren Fragmenten handelt es sich aber offenbar um eine reale Ziege: In einem zwei-
zeiligen Fragment17 heißt es, dass die Ziege vom göttlichen Abendstern (Hesperos)
gebracht wird, der alles zurückbringt, was Eos, die Göttin der Morgenröte, zerstreut
hat. Hier legt der Kontext ein abendliches Gastmahl nahe, denn der Abendstern
bringt nicht allein die Ziege, sondern, wie davor und danach im selben Vers be-
tont wird, auch Wein18 und ein pais (Knabe? Mädchen?). Ein weiteres, einzeiliges
und zudem schlecht erhaltenes Fragment (ein Satz mit fehlendem Verb) lautet: „dir
aber ich … von einer weißen Ziege“.19 Hier ist wahrscheinlich ein Ziegenopfer20
gemeint, und falls dies so ist, wäre dies die einzige Stelle bei Sappho, an der von
einem Opfertier die Rede ist.
14 Fr. 44.17: ἴππ[οις] δ’ ἄνδρες ὔπαγον ὐπ’ ἄρ[̣ματα. Vgl. auch fr. 44.13–15: Zuvor werden Maul-
tiere (αἰμίονοι, „Halbesel“) vor Karren (σάτιναι) gespannt, auf denen Frauen und Mädchen sich
niederlassen.
15 Fr. 2.9: λείμων ἰππόβοτος. Bemerkenswerterweise wird die Geschlechtszugehörigkeit der
Pferde weder hier noch an den anderen beiden Textstellen bei Sappho spezifiziert. Siehe dazu
unten Abschnitt 2 (in Relation zu den im fr. 2 besonders prominenten Pflanzen), mit Anm. 107
und 108.
16 Fr. 170: Αἴγα.
17 Fr. 104a: „Hesperos, alles bringst du, was als erscheinende zerstreut hat Eos, / du bringst den
Wein, du bringst die Ziege, du bringst weg von der Mutter das Kind.“ (Ἔσπερε, πάντα φέρεις
ὄσα φαίνολις ἐσκέδασ’ Αὔως, / φέρεις οἶνον, φέρεις αἶγα, φέρεις ἄπυ μάτερι παῖδα.) Vgl. zu
anderen Lesarten von fr. 104a: Voigt 1971 ad loc.
18 Überliefert ist das Akkusativobjekt οἶνον, „Wein“, direkt vor αἶγα, „Ziege“. Statt dessen findet
sich in den gängigen Sappho-Ausgaben das Wort ὄιν, „Schaf“, mit Rekurs auf eine aus der
Renaissance stammende Textveränderung; die Erwähnung von Wein – als einer zum Gastmahl
bestimmten Substanz, die bei den frühgriechischen männlichen Dichtern häufig vorkommt –
entspricht offenbar nicht dem, was Editoren bei Sappho erwarten. Ein sonstiger Grund dafür,
der Überlieferung nicht zu folgen, besteht soweit ich sehe nicht. Bisher nicht beachtet wurde
meines Wissens die rhetorisch-stilistische Nähe von Sappho fr. 104a zu modellhaften sympo-
siastischen Trinkliedern, e. g. Anakreon fr. 396.1 PMG (= Anakreontea no. 60B.1), mit dreifa-
cher Wiederholung des Verbs φέρειν (hier im Imperativ).
19 Fr. 40 (angeredet wird wohl eine Gottheit): σοὶ δ’ ἔγω λεύκας †επιδωμον† αἶγος … Vgl. dazu
u. a. Keller 1909: 306 (weiße weibliche Ziege als Opfer von Hetären und ihren Liebhabern für
Aphrodite). Zu Aphrodites Beinamen Epitragia („die auf dem Ziegenbock“) und dem attischen
Kult der Aphrodite Pandemos siehe Pirenne-Delforge 1994: 35–40.
20 Vgl. unten, Anm. 43.
Vier Vogelarten (zwei davon im Plural: Tauben und Spatzen, zwei im Singular:
Nachtigall und Schwalbe) sind in je einem Fragment überliefert. Drei dieser Frag-
mente sind allerdings extrem knappe Zitate antiker Scholiasten oder Grammatiker
und erlauben daher nicht, ihren weiteren Kontext zu rekonstruieren. Ein Pindar-
Scholion gibt an, dass Sappho Folgendes über Tauben (peristerai) gesagt hat: „ih-
nen … ist kalt geworden Herz und Sinn / und herabhängen die Flügel“.21 Einem
Sophokles-Scholion zufolge hat Sappho die Nachtigall wie folgt charakterisiert:
„der Frühlingsbote, die begierdestimmige Nachtigall“.22 Dabei ist zu bedenken,
dass das griechische Wort für Nachtigall, aedon, wörtlich „die Sängerin“ bedeutet
und also der Vogel metonymisch ein anthropomorphes Modell repräsentiert, auf das
selbstreferentiell verwiesen werden kann: die singende Dichterin. Die Schwalbe
wiederum findet sich in einem vom Grammatiker Hephaistion unvollständig zitier-
ten, in Frageform gesetzten Sappho-Vers: „warum mich Pandions Tochter, o Eirana,
die Schwalbe, …?“23 Dies ist die einzige Stelle in Sapphos überliefertem Werk,
an der ein Tier mit einer Mythenfigur gleichgesetzt wird.24 Die Schwalbe als Pan-
dions Tochter ist erstmals bei Hesiod belegt, der ebensowenig wie Sappho ihren
Menschennamen Philomela (oder Prokne) nennt oder von dem traurigen Schicksal
erzählt, das mit dieser Frau und ihrer Vogelmetamorphose bei späteren Autoren
verbunden wird. Aber anders als bei Sappho ist es bei Hesiod die „frühmorgendlich
klagende“25 Schwalbe und nicht die betörend „singende“ Nachtigall, die den Früh-
ling verkündet.
Die vierte sapphische Vogelart, der Spatz, ist nun zwar im Unterschied zu den
drei anderen (allesamt grammatisch weiblich bestimmten) Vogelarten auf einen
ausführlich dargestellten Zusammenhang bezogen, noch dazu in dem einzigen voll-
ständig überlieferten Lied der Dichterin. Doch in diesem Kontext, einer Anrufung
der Göttin Aphrodite, wird den Spatzen eine ganz unerwartete, seltsam kontrafak-
tische Rolle zugesprochen:26
21 Fr. 42: ταῖσι … ψῦχρος μὲν ἔγεντ’ ὀ θῦμος / πὰρ δ’ ἴεισι τὰ πτέρα. Siehe dazu u. a. Hehn 1877:
299. Zu poetischen und kultischen Aspekten der Taube, bes. im Aphrodite-Kult, vgl. ebd. 294–
306; Keller 1913: 122–131; Pollard 1977: 146; Pirenne-Delforge 1994: 415–417; Arnott 2007:
177–180.
22 Fr. 136: ἦρος ἄγγελος ἰμερόφωνος ἀήδων. Vgl. auch fr. 30.8: der Ausdruck „die hellstimmige“
(ἀ λιγύφω[νος) verweist hier wohl auf die Nachtigall.
23 Fr. 135: τί με Πανδίονις, Ὤιρανα, χελίδων …; Vorausgesetzt ist hier die Geschichte der kinds-
mörderischen Schwestern Prokne und Philomela, die in eine Schwalbe bzw. in eine Nachtigall
verwandelt werden. Zu den in der griechischen und lateinischen Überlieferung schwankenden
Vogel-Zuordnungen dieser Namen siehe e. g. Arnott 2007: 29. Zum Bezug der klagenden
Nachtigall auf die Adonis-Klage: Keller 1913: 75. Siehe auch unten, Anm. 49.
24 Vgl. aber fr. 166: das von Leda gefundene Ei (aus dem Helena schlüpfen wird); zum Ei siehe
auch fr. 167.
25 Hes. erg. 568: ὀρθρογόη. Siehe dazu West 1978 ad loc. Zu traditionell zentralen semantischen
Bezügen der Schwalbe (Frühling, Aphrodite-Kult, Geschwätzigkeit) vgl. Keller 1913: 114–118.
26 Fr. 1.9–13: […] κάλοι δέ σ’ ἆγον / ὤκεες στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας / πύκνα δίννεντες πτέρ’
ἀπ’ ὠράνωἴθε-/ρος διὰ μέσσω· / αἶψα δ’ ἐξίκοντο·[…]. Siehe dazu u. a. Keller 1913: 89, im
Kontext anderer antiker Darstellungen des Spatzen bzw. des Sperlings (gr. στρουθός, lat. pas-
ser): ebd. 88–90. Vgl. die Deutung der zitierten Verse als „humorous hyperbole concerning
„[…] Und schöne dich führten,

schnelle Sperlinge über der schwarzen Erde
die straffen Flügel drehend herab vom Himmel
mitten durch die Luft,
und rasch sind sie angekommen. […]“
Die Sperlinge haben hier keine Stimme und werden als „schöne“ (kaloi) männliche
Wesen präsentiert, die als Zugtiere für den Wagen dienen, den Aphrodite ange-
spannt hat. Mit diesem Wagen, so betont die lyrische Persona dieses Gedichts, die
von der Göttin mit dem Namen „Psappho“ angeredet wird, sei Aphrodite schon
öfter epiphanisch zu ihr geeilt. Klar ist nur, dass die Sperlinge dabei keine kultische
Funktion besitzen, sondern allenfalls eine mythische. Letzteres wäre allerdings ein
Unikum, denn nirgends sonst in der antiken griechischen Literatur oder Bildkunst
fährt meines Wissens Aphrodite oder irgendeine andere Gottheit auf einem von
Spatzen gezogenen Wagen. Vielmehr entsprechen die auf Wagen fahrenden Göt-
ter gewöhnlich einem anthropomorphen Modell, und auch die Zugtiere behalten
ihre natürliche Größe. In der homerischen Ilias etwa sind vor den Wagen, auf dem
die im Schlachtengetümmel vor Troja verletzte Aphrodite zum Olymp gelangt, die
Pferde des Kriegsgottes Ares gespannt.27 Bei Sappho jedoch müssen entweder die
Spatzen als überdimensioniert vorgestellt werden oder die Göttin als unterdimen-
sioniert, was deutlich signalisiert, dass Realismus nicht beabsichtigt ist. So ist es
nicht verwunderlich, dass schon antike Kenner dieses Gedichts die Funktion sol-
cher unedlen Tiere ironisch verstanden haben und daraus eine Anspielung auf Sexu-
elles herauslesen wollten,28 das die Spatzen in der späteren Literatur und noch bei
den römischen Dichtern geradezu emblematisch verkörpern.
Was ergibt sich aus dieser Skizze sämtlicher Erwähnungen von Tieren in
Sapphos überliefertem Werk? Angesichts der Tatsache, dass heute nicht mehr als
maximal 10 % ihrer Verse bekannt sind, muss ungewiss bleiben, ob hieraus Grund-
sätzliches über ihren lyrischen Umgang mit Tieren abzuleiten ist. Auffällig ist je-
denfalls, dass fast keines der von Sappho erwähnten Tiere explizit mit einer Gottheit
in Verbindung gebracht wird. Dies ist nur bei einer Tierart, den Spatzen, der Fall,
und hier ist es eindeutig Aphrodite, der diese Vögel zugeordnet sind.29 Bei näherer
Betrachtung ist jedoch nicht zu übersehen, dass Sappho auch andere Tiere in den
Wirkungsbereich dieser Göttin integriert. Die Stimme der Nachtigall ist dem Hime-
ros assoziiert,30 dem Gott der Liebesbegierde, einem der traditionell konstantesten
Begleiter der Aphrodite. Die mit dem roten Sekret der Purpurschnecke gefärbten,
kostbaren Kleidungsstücke31 dienen als Weihgaben an die Liebesgöttin,32 machen
dunkelhaarige Frauen besonders attraktiv33 und gehören zur üppigen Aussteuer von
incongruous size“ bei Zellner 2008: 435 passim, ein Stilmittel, das sich auch anderswo bei
Sappho findet.
27 Hom. Il. 5.359–367.
28 Vgl. Athen. 9.391F; zur Prominenz von Sappho bei Athenaios siehe Schlesier (im Druck).
29 Siehe oben, Anm. 26.
31 Vgl. oben, Anm. 9.
32 Fr. 101.2.
33 Fr. 98a.4.
Hektors Braut Andromache,34 ja, der Gott Eros selbst trägt einen purpurnen Man-
tel, als er vom Himmel herabkommt.35 Aus der Verarbeitung von Tieren herge-
stellte Gegenstände unterstreichen auch in anderen Sappho-Gedichten die erotische
Attraktivität insbesondere von Frauen, so Andromaches Elfenbeinschmuck36 oder
der luxuriöse lydische Lederschuh37 einer namenlos überlieferten Person. Dies gilt
auch für die wolligen Pelze,38 mit denen eine andere, gleichfalls namenlos blei-
bende Person zugedeckt wird und die mit demselben Adjektiv abros („prächtig“,
„delikat“) bezeichnet werden, das Sappho sonst für das Handeln der Liebesgöttin39
und für verführerisch schöne Menschen beiderlei Geschlechts, sowohl Frauen als
auch Aphrodites Geliebten Adonis,40 verwendet. Die Pferde haben ebenfalls Teil an
dieser erotischen Atmosphäre, denn das Faktum, dass manche Männer eine Streit-
macht von Reitern für das Schönste halten, wird von Sappho als argumentativer
Beleg für ihre geradezu philosophische These benutzt, jeder Mensch halte das für
das Schönste, was er liebt.41
Ob die Tauben, die in der späteren Überlieferung zu den häufigsten attributiven
Tieren der Aphrodite gehören, schon bei Sappho diese Funktion besitzen, lässt sich
nicht beweisen, doch das Kaltwerden ihres anthropomorph vorgestellten thymos
(„Herz und Sinn“)42 wirkt wie die Umschreibung eines Liebesentzugs. Ein weite-
res Tier, die Ziege, das später als ein der Aphrodite besonders genehmes Opfertier
dokumentiert ist,43 könnte bereits bei Sappho diesen Zweck erfüllt haben.44 Die
Schwalbe wiederum wird als ein Signal aufgefasst, das das Ich zu einer Frage an
eine Frau, Eirana, reizt,45 und fungiert offenbar als Anlass eines dialogischen Lie-
besszenarios. Dies trifft vielleicht auch auf die Biene zu, die in einem einzeiligen
Fragment dem Honig gegenübergestellt wird.46 Dass dort beides, der Honig wie die
Biene, vom Ich wohl metaphorisch zurückgewiesen wird, wirkt so, als würde die
poetische Persona hier versuchen, sich beiden widersprüchlichen Charakteristika
des Eros zu entziehen, für den Sappho in einem anderen Fragment die sprichwört-
34 Fr. 44.9.
35 Fr. 54.
36 Fr. 44.10.
37 Fr. 39.2.
39 Fr. 2.14: ἄβρως.
40 Beiwort des Adonis: fr. 140.1; Beiwort für Andromache: fr. 44.7; auch für die wichtigsten gött-
lichen Begleiterinnen der Aphrodite: Chariten ἄβραι, fr. 128.
41 Siehe fr. 16.1–4. Vgl. auch oben, Anm. 13.
43 Vgl. Pirenne-Delforge 1994: 210. Die Ziege (bzw. der Ziegenbock oder das Zicklein) ist aller-
dings auch in anderen Kulten eines der „regelmäßigsten Opfertiere“, vgl. Keller 1909: 304.
44 Siehe oben, Anm. 19. Auch die Ziege in fr. 104a, die wie der Wein (vgl. oben, Anm. 17 und 18)
vom Abendstern ‚zurückgebracht‘ wird, wäre als Verweis auf ein Opfertier (für ein Gastmahl)
denkbar.
46 Fr. 146: „weder mir Honig noch Biene“ (μήτε μοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα). Zum traditionellen Be-
zug von Honig und Biene auf dichterische Selbstreflexionen: e. g. Waszink 1974; zu weiteren
Kontexten vgl. Keller 1913: 421–431; Davies und Kathirithamby 1986: 47–83.
lich werdende Formel „bittersüß“ geprägt hat und dabei den Gott zugleich als „un-
bezwingbares Kriechtier“ bezeichnet, analog zu einem lebensgefährlichen Reptil.47
Es zeigt sich also, dass es speziell die Erotik-affinen und oft ambivalenten,
sinnlichen Komponenten der bei Sappho genannten Tiere sind, auf die sie die Auf-
merksamkeit lenkt. Dabei wird durch die Schönheit der aus Tieren oder Tierproduk-
ten hergestellten Gegenstände neben dem Sehsinn vor allem der Tastsinn stimuliert,
während der Hörsinn direkt durch Vögel wie die Nachtigall und die Schwalbe, aber
nicht zuletzt durch den in eine Leier umfunktionierten Schildkrötenpanzer in Erre-
gung versetzt wird. Bemerkenswerterweise bleiben in Sapphos Tierdarstellungen
die beiden anderen Sinne, der Geruchssinn und der Geschmackssinn, ausgespart.
Dies aber ergibt sich bereits daraus, dass Tiere in Sapphos überliefertem Werk, an-
ders als in der früheren poetischen Tradition, kaum zum Essen da sind, sondern auf
die Sphäre der Liebesgöttin und insbesondere auf erotische Expertise verweisen.
2. PFLANZEN
Durch Pflanzen und ihre Produkte jedoch werden der Geruchssinn und auch der Ge-
schmackssinn in Sapphos Lyrik in höchstem Maße aktiviert, gemeinsam mit dem
Sehsinn wie dem Tastsinn, und sogar am Hörsinn können sie beteiligt sein. Was im
Unterschied zu den Tierdarstellungen frappiert, ist die Fülle der Pflanzen und die
Häufigkeit, in der sie für Vergleiche, Metaphern und Komposita gebraucht werden,
und alle von ihnen sind explizit oder implizit erotisch konnotiert.48 Dies gilt sogar
für das Gras, das Sappho einmal für einen hyperbolischen Vergleich verwendet: Das
Aussehen der von ihrer Liebeskrankheit sprechenden lyrischen Persona, so heißt es
in einem ihrer berühmtesten Gedichte, ist sogar „grüner als Gras“.49 Blumen jedoch
nehmen in Sapphos Flora die privilegierteste Position ein und dienen dazu, die
Verführungskraft und zugleich die Vergänglichkeit der synästhetischen Reize des
Sehsinns, des Geruchssinns und des Tastsinns zu verkörpern. Der Allgemeinbegriff
47 Fr. 130.1–2: „Eros schon wieder, der gliederlösende, treibt mich um, / süß-bitteres unbezwing-
bares Kriechtier.“ (Ἔρος δηὖτέ μ’ ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει, / γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον.).
48 Dass bei Sappho Pflanzen, bes. Blumen, oft direkt oder indirekt auf die Liebesgöttin bezogen
sind, schließt allusiv und transformierend an die epische Tradition an (v. a. Kypria fr. 4 und 5:
Krokus, Hyazinthe, Veilchen, Rose, vgl. auch e. g. Hom. Il. 14.347–351). Das Ausmaß dieser
Anknüpfungen wird in der Forschung oft unterschätzt; siehe z. B. die umfangreiche Aufzäh-
lung von Parallelstellen zu den Kypria-Fragmenten in Bernabé 1996 ad loc. wobei Sappho fast
vollständig ausgespart bleibt.
49 Fr. 31.14–15: […] χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας / ἔμμι […]. Im Anschluss an Irwin 1974: 65–67 wird das
Adjektiv χλωρός hier gewöhnlich im Sinne von „blass“ („pale“) verstanden; dies lässt sich je-
doch nicht beweisen und setzt wohl eine zu rigide Klassifizierbarkeit des Farbbegriffs voraus.
Zum funktionalen Bedeutungsfeld von χλωρός siehe Blech 1982: 324–325. Zum weiten Spek-
trum der Farbnuance, die von grün bis gelb und hellgrau zu reichen scheint, vgl. auch Hom.
Od. 19.518: Beiname χλωρηΐς für die inmitten von Frühlingsblättern Klagelieder singende
Nachtigall (ἀηδών), die Tochter des Pandareos. Spielt Sappho vielleicht in fr. 31.14 auf diese
Homer-Stelle an? Zur Schwalbe (der Schwester der Nachtigall) als Pandions Tochter vgl. oben,
Anm. 23.
anthos („Blume“)50 ist bei Sappho in neun Fragmenten überliefert.51 Dazu gehören
auch poetische Wortbildungen wie „wohlblumig“52 oder „vielblumig“,53 die dazu
dienen, einen landschaftlichen oder dekorativen Zusammenhang auf synthetisie-
rende Weise zu charakterisieren. Nicht zuletzt aber kommen darüber hinaus kon-
krete Blumen in zahlreichen Fragmenten vor, werden oft mit anderen Blumenarten
kombiniert oder dazu verwendet, die Farbe von Gegenständen durch den Verweis
auf eine spezifische Blume zu verbildlichen: Ein Kleid wird „krokosfarbig“54 ge-
nannt, ein Ei „hyazinthenfarbig“.55 Ein spezifisches Kompositum, das aus einem
Blumennamen und dem Begriff für einen besonders attraktiven weiblichen Kör-
perteil besteht, ist nur bei Sappho belegt: „veilchenbusig“ (iokolpos). Dreimal wird
Aphrodite mit diesem Beiwort synonymisch als „die Veilchenbusige“56 gekenn-
zeichnet, und einmal wird auch eine Braut (nymphe)57 auf diese Weise charakteri-
siert, so als würde die weiß schimmernde, duftige Zartheit ihrer Brüste derjenigen
der Göttin gleichen.
Eine bestimmte Blume ist es nun, die vor allen anderen im Zentrum von Sap-
phos poetischem Kosmos lokalisiert ist: die Rose.58 Wo immer Sappho ein eroti-
sches Ambiente entwirft, darf diese Blume nicht fehlen. Dabei fällt auf, dass reale
Rosen nur an einer Stelle direkt mit der Sphäre der Aphrodite assoziiert werden.59
An einer anderen Stelle ist es allein der verführerische Zweck, der den Rosen als
Bestandteil von Blumenkränzen zukommt,60 welcher auf die Sphäre der Liebes-
göttin verweist. In einem weiteren Fragment ist es die Mondgöttin, in deren Licht
auf phantastische Weise „Rosen erblühen“,61 wobei Sappho auf diese Göttin das
Beiwort „rosenfingrig“62 überträgt, das seit Homer emblematisch die Göttin der
50 Zum Problem des Allgemeinbegriffs ἄνθος (der im Griechischen eher auf dynamisch-prozes-
suale als auf gegenständlich-florale Eigenschaften verweist) vgl. Stanford 1936: 111–114;
Clarke 2005.
51 Meist im Plural: fr. 2.10; fr. 94.17; fr. 98a.9; fr. 122; fr. 132.1; einmal im Singular: fr. 105c.2
Lobel und Page (= fr. 105b.2 Voigt). Vgl. „blumig duftend“, ἀνθεμώδης, fr. 96.14; zwei weitere
Komposita: unten, Anm. 52 und 53.
52 Fr. 81.6: εὐάνθεα.
53 Fr. 96.11: πολυανθέμοις.
54 Fr. 92.7: κροκοεντα (in den Editionen nicht akzentuiert, wegen lückenhafter Überlieferung).
55 Fr. 166.1: ὑακίνθινον. Ob hier eine spezifische Farbnuance gemeint ist, bleibt unklar.
56 Aphrodite ἰόκολπος: fr. 103[3] und [4]; fr. 21.13.
57 Fr. 30.5: nymphe ἰόκολπος.
58 Siehe dazu v. a. unten, Anm. 59–67. Zur kleinasiatischen Herkunft der Rose (ῥόδον = äol.
βρόδον) als Gartenblume und zu ihrem Bezug auf Aphrodite vgl. Hehn 1877: 214–224; Murr
1890: 78–83; siehe auch Waern 1972: 4 und Blech 1982: 251–252. Die Darstellung der Rose
und anderer Pflanzen bei Baumann 1986 passim ist wegen meist mangelnder Belege wenig
nützlich.
59 Fr. 2.6–7: „[…] durch Rosen ist der ganze Ort / beschattet […]“ ([…] βρόδοισι δὲ παῖς ὀ
χῶρος / ἐσκίαστ’ […]), heißt es hier über den Garten eines Aphrodite-Heiligtums (zum Wort-
laut des gesamten Fragments siehe unten, Anm. 101). Zum athenischen Heiligtum der Aphro-
dite in den Gärten siehe Langlotz 1954. Zur Verbindung der Rose (und der Myrte) mit dem
Aphrodite-Geliebten Adonis im elischen Kult der Chariten vgl. Paus. 6.24.7.
60 Fr. 94.12–14. Siehe dazu und zum Kontext auch unten, Anm. 92.
61 Fr. 96.13: τεθάλαισι δὲ βρόδα.
62 Fr. 96.8: βροδοδάκτυλος. Zum Kontext siehe auch unten, Anm. 84.
Morgenröte, Eos, bezeichnet. Letztere Göttin wiederum wird bei Sappho mit einem
verwandten Beiwort, „rosenarmig“,63 ausgestattet, das Hesiod in seiner Theogonie
für zwei Meeresgöttinnen (die Nereiden Eunike und Hipponoe) gebraucht hatte64
und das Sappho selbst den Chariten,65 den traditionell prominentesten Begleiterin-
nen der Aphrodite, beilegt, in einem Fragment, in dem die poetische Persona diese
Göttinnen der Anmut und des erotischen Reizes zu sich herbeiruft.
Bemerkenswerterweise steht jedoch die mit Rosen assoziierte Mondgöttin bei
Sappho nur deshalb im Fokus, weil sie als Modell für eine Frau dient, die den
Umkreis der poetischen Persona, die Insel Lesbos, verlassen hat und „jetzt unter
lydischen Frauen hervorragt, / so wie nach Sonnenuntergang die rosenfingrige
Mondgöttin / alle Sterne übertrifft“.66 Die Analogie dieser Frau mit einer Göttin des
nächtlichen Kosmos ist es also, die ihre überragende erotische Ausstrahlung unter-
streicht und die die doppelt konnotierte Präsenz der Rosen – als göttliches Attribut
(„rosenfingrig“) und als wunderbare göttliche Wirkung (sie bringt Rosen bei Nacht
zum Erblühen) – ermöglicht.
In einem weiteren Fragment, das antike Autoren besonders fasziniert haben
muss und mehrfach zitiert wurde, sind die Rosen weder physisch präsent noch in ei-
nen Vergleich integriert, sondern werden eindeutig metaphorisch verwendet. Diese
Funktion kommt ihnen hier jedoch nicht deshalb zu, weil sie explizit mit Aphrodite
oder anderen traditionell auf sie bezogenen Göttinen wie den Chariten oder der Eos
verbunden sind:
„Als Gestorbene aber wirst du liegen und nicht einmal Erinnerung an dich
wird sein noch Sehnsucht später. Denn nicht bist du mitbeteiligt an den Rosen
aus Pieria. Sondern unscheinbar auch in Hades’ Haus
wirst du umherschweifen, eine mit glanzlosen Toten Weggeflogene.“67
Diese Verse richten sich gegen eine bewusst anonym belassene Frau, denn sie ent-
halten die Prophezeiung, dass ihr nach dem Tod keine Erinnerung zuteil werden
wird. Ihr wird also etwas vorenthalten, das in der antiken griechischen Tradition die
notwendige Bedingung für Nachruhm ist: der Name. Der Grund dafür wird signi-
fikanterweise nicht direkt artikuliert, sondern mit Hilfe der Rosen-Metapher und in
63 Eos βροδόπαχυς als Liebhaberin des Tithonos: fr. 58.19; als Beiwort für Eos auch in Hom.
h. Hel. 6.
64 Hes. theog. 246 und 251.
65 Fr. 53: „rosenarmige heilig-reine Chariten hierher, Zeus’ Töchter“ (βροδοπάχεες ἄγναι Χάριτες
δεῦτε Δίος κόραι).
66 Fr. 96.6–9. Siehe dazu auch unten (mit Anm. 84). Die Mondgöttin Selene (vgl. Schubarts
Emendation σελάννα in Vers 8, siehe Lobel und Page 1955 und Voigt 1971 ad loc.) wurde an-
derswo von Sappho nach dem Zeugnis eines Scholiasten (fr. 199) als Liebhaberin des Endy-
mion behandelt. Selene gehört damit zu den bei Sappho bemerkenswert häufig vorkommenden
Göttinnen, die sich einen sterblichen Mann als Geliebten wählen (insbesondere Aphrodite mit
Adonis, Eos mit Tithonos). Vgl. auch σελάννα („Mond“) in fr. 34.1 und fr. 154.1.
67 Fr. 55: κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσηι οὐδέ ποτα μναμοσύνα σέθεν / ἔσσετ’ οὐδὲ †ποκ’†ὔστερον· οὐ γὰρ
πεδέχηις βρόδων / τὼν ἐκ Πιερίας· ἀλλ’ ἀφάνης κἀν Ἀίδα δόμωι / φοιτάσηις πεδ’ ἀμαύρων
νεκύων ἐκπεποταμένα. Meine Übersetzung folgt der in Vers 2 abweichenden, auf eine Emen-
dation von Bucherer zurückgehenden Textfassung (πόθα εἰς ὔστερον) bei Campbell 1982, vgl.
Voigt 1971 ad loc.; so auch bei Wilamowitz 1913: 88 n. 2, vgl. Lobel und Page 1955 ad loc.
Kombination mit einem markanten geographischen Verweis poetisch umschrieben:

„nicht bist du mitbeteiligt an den Rosen aus Pieria“. Da Pieria nun literarisch die
Landschaft der Musen par excellence ist, wird also der hier geschmähten – um
nicht zu sagen verfluchten – Frau jeglicher Anteil an den Göttinnen der Dichtkunst
abgesprochen. Durch die metaphorischen Rosen jedoch sind die Musen und die für
sie kennzeichnende thrakische Landschaft Pieria unmerklich zum Teil einer weiter
gefassten Sphäre geworden, die nicht auf ihre poetisch traditionelle Geographie be-
grenzt ist. Weil zudem die Musen ebensowenig mit Namen benannt werden wie die
angeredete Frau und weil allein metaphorisch von poetischen Produkten die Rede
ist, den „Rosen“, wird eine Sphäre aufgerufen, die bei Sappho sonst ausschließlich
mit erotischen Vorzeichen versehen ist und exklusiv zu Aphrodite oder mit ihr as-
soziierten Göttinnen gehört. Dank des Kunstgriffs der metaphorischen Rosen ist
hier also das Musisch-Poetische mit dem Aphrodisischen überschrieben,68 so als
sei postumer Ruhm, den die sprechende poetische Persona hier ex negativo für sich
beansprucht, am ehesten durch Liebesdichtung zu erwerben.
Sappho begnügt sich aber nicht damit, die aphrodisische Rose dazu zu benut-
zen, um Göttinnen wie Eos oder Selene noch stärker erotisch zu akzentuieren oder
sie, wie die Musen, sogar erotisch umzuinterpretieren. Auch andere Pflanzen oder
Pflanzenprodukte dienen diesem poetisch-religiösen Programm. Dies zeigt sich
etwa an der Art und Weise, wie Sappho eine Laubbaum-Gattung, die Eichen, be-
handelt. Sie erscheinen bei Sappho im Rahmen eines Vergleichs des Eros mit einem
gewaltigen Wind: „Und Eros hat durchgeschüttelt mir / die Sinne, wie Wind, der
vom Berg hinab in Eichen fällt.“69 Das liebende Ich ist es also, das hier mit einer
besonders starken Baumsorte, den Eichen, verglichen wird, die dennoch unter den
kräftigen Stößen eines Sturmwinds hin- und hergerüttelt werden. Dies klingt so, als
übernehme der Gott Eros hier die Funktion einer spezifischen Naturgewalt, die in
der antiken griechischen Tradition sonst am häufigsten dem Wirkungsbereich des
Zeus zugeordnet wird, ja, das Ich gehört hier diesem dem Eros überantworteten
Bereich ebenfalls an, denn es vertritt Zeus’ heilige Bäume, die Eichen. Auch die
Wirkungsbereiche anderer männlicher Götter scheint Sappho erotisch überformt
zu haben. Allerdings ist ein anderes Fragment zu schlecht erhalten, ein weiteres
aus nur einem Wort bestehendes zu knapp, um dies mit Sicherheit annehmen zu
können. Dies betrifft Apollons heilige Pflanze, den Lorbeerbaum, unter dem sich
mehrere angeredete weibliche oder männliche Personen „geduckt“ haben.70 Und
dies betrifft auch Dionysos’ heilige Pflanze, den Weinstock, den Sappho als „baum-
68 Zur generellen Verbindung von Erotik und poetischer Kreativität bei Sappho (und daran an-
knüpfend bei der hellenistischen Dichterin Nossis) vgl. Skinner 1991 passim; bezogen auf
fr. 55: ebd. 82–83. Vgl. auch Winkler 1981. Das Postulat einer ausschließlich auf Frauen bezo-
genen Erotik, das von Winkler und Skinner wie von zahlreichen anderen vertreten wird, ist je-
doch zu einseitig und lässt sich meines Erachtens an den überlieferten Sappho-Fragmenten
nicht belegen (und auch nicht, wie etwa explizit bei Winkler [ebd. 85 n. 3], durch Berufung auf
den hellenistischen Rhetor Demetrios [= test. 45 Campbell]).
69 Fr. 47: Ἔρος δ’ ἐτίναξέ μοι / φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος κὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων.
70 Fr. 62.1–2: „Ihr habt euch geduckt … / des Lorbeerbaums, als … / […]“ (ἐπτάξατε[/ δάφνας
ὄτα[/ […]). Dies sind die ersten zwei Verse eines sehr schlecht erhaltenen Papyrusfragments
aus zwölf Versen, bei dem jeweils nur die vier bis fünf Anfangssilben lesbar sind.
berankende Rebe“71 bezeichnet, ein seltenes Wort, das der hellenistische Parodist
Matron mit einem Gelage assoziieren wird, bei dem lesbischer Wein getrunken und
Trauben, „die Ammen“72 des Dionysos, serviert werden. Doch schon bei Sappho
selbst verweisen die in ihrer Lyrik häufigen Termini für Trinkgefäße (z. B. kylikes)73
auf gemeinsames Weintrinken. Der Weingott Dionysos selbst aber wird an einer
Stelle ausschließlich erotisch, als „Liebesbegierde (himeros) erzeugend“,74 defi-
niert.
Ein anderes Wort, das ein Baumreis, einen Schössling bezeichnet (orpax), ist
wiederum eindeutig aphrodisisch konnotiert. In einem Fragment, das wohl zu den
wenigen von Sappho überlieferten Hochzeitsliedern gehört, heißt es: „Womit, o
lieber Bräutigam, soll ich dich auf schöne Weise vergleichen? / Mit einem Baum-
schössling, einem biegsamen, soll ich dich am ehesten vergleichen“.75 Der junge
Baum, der hier dem reflektierenden poetischen Ich als am besten geeignetes Ver-
gleichsobjekt für einen attraktiven jungen Mann erscheint, wird durch das Adjektiv
„biegsam“ (bradinos) charakterisiert, das jugendliche Beweglichkeit konnotiert, in
pflanzlichem wie gleichermaßen in anthropomorphem Zusammenhang, und so ist
es nur konsequent, dass Sappho an anderer Stelle die Göttin Aphrodite selbst durch
diese Qualität bestimmt und ebenfalls als „biegsam“ bezeichnet.76
Die letzte Kategorie von Bäumen, die bei Sappho vorkommen, sind die Ap-
felbäume. Sie gehören zu einem der Aphrodite heiligen Hain und erscheinen in
einem Fragment,77 in dem auch viele weitere Pflanzen vorkommen, auf das schon
im Zusammenhang mit den Rosen und den Pferden verwiesen wurde und von dem
noch abschließend die Rede sein wird. Ein antiker Philosoph aus dem 5. Jahrhun-
dert n. Chr. (Syrianos), der eine Stilabhandlung eines anderen Rhetors aus dem
2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Hermogenes) kommentiert, zitiert die den Apfelbäumen
gewidmete Passage dieses Gedichts als repräsentatives Beispiel für die markante,
synästhetische Sinnlichkeit von Sapphos Stil, die das Sehen, Hören, Riechen,
Schmecken und Berühren umfasst, und fügt ein weiteres Fragment hinzu, in dem
71 Fr. 173: ἀμάμαξυς.

72 Siehe Matron apud Athen. 4.137B: τιθῆναι (mit einer Anspielung auf den locus classicus zu
Dionysos’ Ammen, Hom. Il. 6.132).
73 Fr. 2.14. Zu diesen und anderen (goldenen) Trinkgefäßen bei Sappho siehe Schlesier 2014b:
268–269.
74 Fr. 17.10: ἰμερόεντα. Vgl. dazu und generell zum erotischen Dionysos Schlesier 2011a: 197
passim.
75 Fr. 115: τίωι σ’, ὦ φίλε γάμβρε, κάλως ἐικάσδω; / ὄρπακι βραδίνωι σε μάλιστ’ ἐικάσδω.
76 Fr. 102: „Süße Mutter, gar nicht kann ich spinnen das Gewebe, / durch Sehnsucht überwältigt
[fem.] nach einem Jüngling wegen der biegsamen Aphrodite.“ (γλύκηα μᾶτερ, οὔτοι δύναμαι
κρέκην τὸν ἴστον / πόθωι δάμεισα παῖδος βραδίναν δι’ Ἀφροδίταν.).
77 Fr. 2.3 und 6 (zum Kontext siehe unten, Anm. 101). Siehe auch die Qualifikation des Hains als
„liebreizend“ (χάριεν, fr. 2.2), ein Adjektiv, das bei Sappho sonst v. a. für Personen belegt ist
(vgl. fr. 68a.10; fr. 108; fr. 112.3) und auf die Chariten (wörtlich: „die Liebreizenden“) als mo-
dellhafte Göttinnen verweist. Zum Apfel als Attribut der Aphrodite vgl. Pirenne-Delforge 1994:
410–412. Zur Klassifikation auch anderer Früchte (z. B. der Quitte, μῆλον κυδώνιον) unter der
Rubrik ‚Apfel‘ vgl. Murr 1890: 55–62; Trumpf 1960.
der sich rötende „Süßapfel“78 auf dem höchsten Ast eines Baumes metaphorisch
eine Frau vertritt. Die anschließende Aussage aber, dass die Apfelpflücker diesen
Apfel vergessen haben, wird sogleich im nächsten Vers sarkastisch korrigiert – er
sei ihnen nur unerreichbar geblieben.79
Auch Blumen können bei Sappho Frauen vertreten. In einem Preisgedicht auf
eine schöne junge Frau mit dem redenden, androgynen Namen Kleis („Schlüssel“,
„Bolzen“) rühmt das Ich ihr nach, dass ihre „Form“ (morpha) „goldenen Blumen“
gleicht.80 Ein anderes Fragment scheint zu implizieren, dass eine Frau oder mehrere
Frauen mit der Hyazinthe und mit einer „purpurroten Blume“ verglichen werden,
wobei allerdings unklar bleibt, was genau damit gemeint ist, dass männliche Hir-
ten sie zertreten.81 Zu Sapphos Hochzeitsliedern, zu denen viele heutige Forscher
dieses Fragment gerne zählen möchten, kann es jedenfalls kaum gehört haben, und
auch die den „Apfelpflückern“ unerreichbare Süßapfel-Frau in dem eben zitierten
Fragment ist mit einem Hochzeitskontext nur schwer zu vereinbaren.
Fast ausnahmslos dominiert also dort, wo bei Sappho Blumen, Früchte, Kräuter
und Gewürze zur Sprache kommen, eine uneingeschränkt positive, exaltierte Sinn-
lichkeit. Dies gilt ebenso für die „goldenen Kichererbsen“,82 die in einer Strand-
landschaft wachsen, und auch für die Lotospflanzen (lotinoi), die sogar an den tau-
igen Ufern des Acheron, des Flusses an der Grenze zur Unterwelt, sprießen und
die mit der Begierde (himeros), zu sterben und diese Blumen zu sehen, verbunden
sind.83 Blumiger „Honiglotus“ (melilotos), bewässert vom Tau, wächst auch neben
Rosen und Kerbel in der abendlichen Landschaft der rosenfingrigen Mondgöttin,
die als göttliches Modell der von Lesbos nach Lydien versetzten Frau fungiert:84
78 Fr. 105a.1: τὸ γλυκύμαλον. Vgl. auch Theokr. 11.39, wo der Kyklop die von ihm umworbene
Galatea mit diesem Ausdruck anredet.
79 Fr. 105a: „So wie der süße Apfel sich rötet auf dem höchsten Zweig, / der höchste auf dem
allerhöchsten, vergessen aber haben ihn die Apfelpflücker, / nicht wirklich völlig vergessen
haben sie ihn, doch konnten sie ihn nicht erreichen.“ (οἶον τὸ γλυκύμαλον ἐρεύθεται ἄκρωι ἐπ’
ὔσδωι, / ἄκρον ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτωι, λελάθοντο δὲ μαλοδρόπηες, / οὐ μὰν ἐκλελάθοντ’, ἀλλ’ οὐκ
ἐδύναντ’ ἐπίκεσθαι.) Zu den häufigen spekulativen Versuchen, für dieses Fragment (mit Rekurs
auf den Rhetor Himerios aus dem 4. Jahrhundert n. Chr., siehe fr. 218) einen Hochzeitskontext
zu postulieren, vgl. e. g. Drew Griffith 1989.
80 Fr. 132: „Es ist mir ein schönes Kind, eine goldenen Blumen / ähnliche Gestalt habend, Kleis
geliebte, / gegen die würde ich aber weder ganz Lydien noch die liebliche …“ (ἔστι μοι κάλα
πάις χρυσίοισιν ἀνθέμοισιν / ἐμφέρην ἔχοισα μόρφαν Κλέις ἀγαπάτα / ἀντὶ τᾶς ἔγωὐδὲ Λυδίαν
παῖσαν οὐδ’ ἐράνναν …). Antike Biographen, gefolgt von der Mehrheit moderner Forscher,
deuten Kleis als Sapphos Tochter. Vgl. dagegen, im Zusammenhang mit einer Analyse sämtli-
cher weiblicher Personennamen bei Sappho, Schlesier 2013 passim.
81 Fr. 105c Lobel und Page = fr. 105b Voigt (ohne Autorname überliefert, siehe Lobel und Page
und Voigt ad loc.): „So wie die Hyazinthe in den Bergen Hirtenmänner / mit Füßen zertreten,
und auf dem Boden eine purpurne Blume …“ (οἴαν τὰν ὐάκινθον ἐν ὤρεσι ποίμενες ἄνδρες /
πόσσι καταστείβοισι, χάμαι δέ τε πόρφυρον ἄνθος …).
82 Fr. 143: χρύσειοι δ’ ἐρέβινθοι.
83 Siehe fr. 95.12.
84 Fr. 96.6–14: νῦν δὲ Λύδαισιν ἐμπρέπεται γυναί-/κεσσιν ὤς ποτ’ ἀελίω / δύντος ἀ βροδοδάκτυλος
†μήνα† / πάντα περ[ρ]έχοισ’ ἄστρα· φάος δ’ ἐπί-/σχει θάλασσαν ἐπ’ ἀλμύραν / ἴσως καὶ
πολυανθέμοις ἀρούραις· / ἀ δ’ [ἐ]έρσα κάλα κέχυται τεθά-/λαισι δὲ βρόδα κἄπαλ’ ἄν-/θρυσκα
καὶ μελίλωτος ἀνθεμώδης·. Siehe auch oben, Anm. 66 (zur Emendation σελάννα in V. 8).
„Und jetzt unter lydischen Frauen ragt sie hervor,

so wie nach Sonnen-
untergang der rosenfingrige Mond,
alle Sterne übertreffend. Und das Licht
überstrahlt das Meer, das salzige,
ebenso auch die vielblumigen Felder.
Und der Tau, der schöne, hat sich ergossen, und es sind
erblüht Rosen und zarter
Kerbel, auch Honiglotus, blumig duftender.“
In anderen Zusammenhängen hat Sappho den von Bienen aus Blumensekreten ge-
sammelten Honig sogar mit einer akustischen, musikalischen Qualität kombiniert
und daraus das Adjektiv „honigstimmig“ komponiert.85 Auch die nach Lydien über-
gesiedelte Frau wird zunächst durch die Freude an der Musik charakterisiert, an
einem Tanzlied, mit dem eine andere göttergleiche Frau sie auf Lesbos unterhalten
hatte.86 Nun aber in Lydien, wo sie selbst mit der Mondgöttin vergleichbar gewor-
den ist, gewinnen auch die mit ihr dort assoziierten Frauen kosmische Dimensio-
nen. In der poetischen Imagination dieses Szenarios87 werden die von dieser Frau
übertroffenen anderen Frauen jedoch nicht allein mit Sternen analogisiert, sondern
zugleich mit den hier genannten irdischen Blumen, die allerdings kontrafaktisch zu
Nachtschattengewächsen werden, da sie erst in der Abenddämmerung „erblühen“.88
Die allusive Referenz dieses Szenarios ist kein Kultfest und keine Hochzeit, son-
dern eine intimere Gemeinschaft, in der solche blumigen weiblichen ‚Stars‘ im
Umkreis einer göttergleichen Protagonistin ihre strahlende Schönheit und duftige
Anziehungskraft nur in nächtlichem Ambiente entfalten. Die Bestimmung dieser
Frauen kann nun nicht darin bestehen, von rustikalen Hirten wie eine Hyazinthe
oder eine purpurne Blume in den Bergen mit Füßen getreten zu werden, und für ge-
wöhnliche „Apfelpflücker“ bleiben sie unerreichbar. Solche Frauen scheinen eher
dazu da zu sein, zum Schmuck und zum Genuss bei luxuriösen urbanen Vergnügun-
gen mit multiplen Liebespartnern beiderlei Geschlechts zu dienen.89
85 Vgl. fr. 71.6 μελλιχόφωνος und fr. 185 μελίφωνος.

86 Siehe fr. 96.4–5.
87 Am Beispiel des fr. 96 und des fr. 94 hat Schmitz 2002: 71 und passim überzeugend die weiter-
hin in der Forschung dominierende, sogenannte ‚pragmatische‘ Deutung kritisiert, der zufolge
Sapphos Dichtung in einem zeitlich, örtlich und sozial begrenzten, normativen Kontext einer
Mädchenerziehung zur Vorbereitung auf die Ehe zu verorten sei. Er weist dagegen darauf hin,
dass Sappho eine „poetische Welt“ entwirft, die auf postume Wirkung zielt.
88 Siehe fr. 96.12–13; zum Kontext: oben, Anm. 84. Die meisten Sappho-Interpreten vermuten,
dass die Protagonistin des Gedichts als Ehefrau zu verstehen sei, da sie unter lydischen
„Frauen“ (gynaikes) lokalisiert wird; so e. g. Hutchinson 2001: 178–179: „The most obvious
assumption is that she has married a Lydian.“ Der Ausdruck γυναῖκες (fr. 96.6) bezeichnet al-
lerdings im Griechischen grundsätzlich sexuell erfahrene Frauen und ist nicht auf Ehefrauen
beschränkt.
89 Zum Verhältnis von Sapphos Dichtung zum Symposion und zur Interpretation von Sapphos –
auf verführerische, erotisch wie musisch virtuose Frauen fokussierte – Szenarien als Poetisie-
rung einer Hetären-Welt, die Männer nicht ausschließt: siehe Schlesier 2013; 2014a; 2015. Vgl.
auch Schmitz 2002: 71 n. 61.
Wie sehr eine solche Bestimmung nicht zuletzt dem Modell der Aphrodite
folgt, zeigt sich in einem weiteren ausführlichen, aus der Spätantike überliefer-
ten Fragment.90 Dort redet eine ebenfalls gegenüber anderen Frauen privilegierte
Frau die poetische Persona als „Psappho“ an und wird von dieser beim Abschied in
eine diesmal unspezifische Ferne an die „auch schönen Dinge“ erinnert, die sie zu-
vor immer wieder im Haus der Sappho mit ihr und anderen gemeinsam „erfahren“
hat.91 Dieses Szenario wird ebenfalls von Blumen dominiert, aber diese wachsen
hier nicht in freier Natur und sind auch nicht imaginär Teil eines poetischen Ver-
gleichs, sondern reale Ingredienzien eines Vorgangs verführerischer Schmückung,
der in sexueller Befriedigung mehrerer Partner kulminiert, wobei angesichts des
schlechten Erhaltungszustands des Gedichts allenfalls deren Mehrzahl, kaum aber
deren Geschlechtszugehörigkeit rekonstruierbar ist:92
„Denn viele Kränze von Veilchen,
auch von Rosen und Krokussen zugleich
[ ] bei mir hast du dir umgelegt,
auch viele Duftgirlanden,
geflochtene, rings um den zarten Hals,
von Blumen [ ] gemachte,
auch (viel) [ ] mit Myrrhenöl,
kostbarem, [
hast du dich völlig eingesalbt, auch königlichem,
auch auf Bettdecken, weichen,
zarten [
hast du völlig gestillt das Verlangen von den [“
Die Veilchen, Rosen und Krokusse sind hier also zu Kränzen gebunden und mit wei-
teren aus Blumen geflochtenen Duftgirlanden sowie mit parfümierten pflanzlichen
Salben kombiniert. Mit der Formulierung „rings um den zarten Hals“ zitiert Sappho
direkt aus dem kurz vor ihrer Lebenszeit entstandenen Homerischen Hymnos an
Aphrodite,93 und dort ist dies Teil der listigen Verführung des trojanischen Prin-
zen Anchises durch die inkognito auftretende Göttin persönlich. Durch dieses Zitat
wird unmissverständlich unterstrichen, dass das Ziel einer solchen verführerischen
Schmückung mit um den Hals gelegten Duftgirlanden die sexuelle Vereinigung ist,
was ja auch die folgenden Verse bei Sappho nahelegen. Die Frau hatte also in Sap-
phos Haus die Rolle der Aphrodite gespielt und ihre luxuriöse Attraktivität noch
90 Fr. 94; vgl. zur Gesamtinterpretation dieses Fragments Schlesier 2015: 301–319.
91 Fr. 94.11: καὶ κάλ’ ἐπάσχομεν.
92 Fr. 94.12–23 : πό̣[λλοις γὰρ στεφάν]οις ἴων / καὶ βρ[όδων …] κ̣ίων τ’ ὔμοι / κα.. [ ] πὰρ ἔμοι
περεθήκαο / καὶ πό̣λλαις ὐπαθύμιδας / πλέκταις ἀμφ’ ἀπάλαι δέραι / ἀνθέων ἐ̣[ ] πεποημμέναις /
καὶ π. … [ ] . μύρωι / βρενθείωι ̣. [ ]ρ̣υ[. .]ν / ἐξαλείψαο κα[ὶ] βασι̣ληίωι / καὶ στρώμν[αν ἐ]
πὶ μολθάκαν / ἀπάλαν παρ[ ]ο̣ν̣ων / ἐξίης πόθο[ν ].νίδων. Zur Diskussion von Lesarten des
Verses 23 siehe Schlesier 2015: 311 n. 26.
93 Fr. 94.16 = Hom. h. Aphrod. 88. Die wörtliche Anspielung auf diese Textstelle impliziert, dass
die im homerischen Aphrodite-Hymnos wie bei Sappho dargestellten ephemeren sinnlichen
Genüsse erst durch die memoriale Kraft der Dichtung zu etwas Dauerhaftem werden können
(und damit virtuell der Sterblichkeit enthoben sind).
dadurch verstärkt, dass sie ihren ganzen Körper mit kostbarem, aus Myrrhe und
anderen wohlriechenden Pflanzen hergestelltem, königlichem Öl eingesalbt hat.94
Dass Kränze bei Sappho nicht allein hier definitorisch zum Bereich der Liebes-
göttin gehören, wird auch in anderen Fragmenten betont. Die poetische Persona ruft
sie eponymisch als „golden bekränzte Aphrodite“95 an und erinnert sich im Alter,
dass sie selbst in ihrer Jugend Kränze geflochten hat.96 Auch wo krokosfarbige
und purpurne Kleider erwähnt werden, dürfen Kränze nicht fehlen.97 Eine mit dem
Namen Dika angeredete Frau wird aufgefordert, die Haare mit lieblichen Kränzen
zu umwinden, die aus „Baumreisern von Anis“98 zusammengebunden sind, denn
nur eine „schönblumige“ Frau, so heißt es weiter, und überhaupt nur bekränzte
Menschen sind den Chariten, den göttlichen Begleiterinnen der Aphrodite, ge-
nehm. Von dem Dichter Anakreon aus Teos in Westkleinasien, der eine Generation
nach Sappho lebte und dessen Lyrik – wie von zahlreichen antiken Autoren betont
wurde – viele Gemeinsamkeiten mit der ihren aufweist, wird berichtet, dass er sich
auch selbst mit Anis bekränzte, und ebenso gehört der Sellerie bei Sappho, wie bei
ihrem Landsmann und Zeitgenossen, dem Dichter Alkaios, zu den stark duftenden
Pflanzen, die für Kränze verwendet werden.99
Bei den männlichen Lyrikern wie bei Sappho werden die Kränze grundsätzlich
einem erotisch konnotierten Ambiente zugeordnet und zugleich einer Institution,
die dieses Ambiente in sich schließt und die als der zentrale soziale Ort dieser Lyrik
betrachtet werden muss: dem Trinkgelage, dem Symposion. Moderne philiströse
Bemühungen um eine ‚Ehrenrettung‘ der Sappho – als angebliche Erzieherin künf-
tiger ehrbarer Gattinnen (wofür es in ihrem überlieferten Werk keinerlei Belege
gibt) – haben den Blick dafür verstellt, dass auch viele von Sapphos Dichtungen
in den Kontext des Symposions gehören (was für antike Rezipienten unübersehbar
war), ja dass sie eine poetisch hochreflektierte Stellung dazu beziehen. Dabei ist
die partikular weibliche Perspektive, aus der das Gelage bei Sappho konzipiert ist,
emblematisch durch die für die Liebesgöttin vorgesehene Rolle repräsentiert. Die
94 Siehe auch Myrrhe, Zimt und Weihrauch beim Hochzeitsfest von Hektor und Andromache,
fr. 44.30. Zur poetischen Verwendung von Parfüms und Duftsalben in der frühgriechischen
Dichtung: Briand 2008; zu weiteren antiken Kontexten von Aromastoffen: e. g. Detienne 1972;
Faure 1987. Zur Bildkunst siehe auch Verbanck-Piérard und Massar 2008; seltsamerweise feh-
len jedoch in den Aufsätzen dieses opulenten Kataloges zu antiken Parfüms Hinweise auf
Sappho und andere frühgriechische Lyriker.
95 Fr. 33.1: χρυσοστέφαν’ Ἀφρόδιτα.
96 Siehe fr. 125: „ich selbst als junge flocht Kränze“ (†αυταόρα† ἐστεφαναπλόκην).
97 Siehe fr. 92.7 sowie 8 und 10.
98 Fr. 81.5: ὄρπακας ἀνήτω. Das Wort ὄρπαξ („Baumreis“, „Schössling“): auch in fr. 115 (als
Analogon zu einem schlanken jungen Mann), siehe oben, Anm. 75. Zu ἄνητον vgl. auch Waern
1972: 8 (eher Dill als Anis?).
99 Vgl. das Testimonium aus Pollux’ Lexikon (zu Kränzen aus Anis und Sellerie bei Anakreon,
Sappho und Alkaios): σέλιννα, „Sellerie“ (fr. 191). Zur Verwendung stark riechender Kränze
beim Trinkgelage (auch als Schutz gegen Kopfschmerzen?) siehe Athen. 15.674C–E, u. a. mit
Anakr. fr. 410 PMG (Sellerie) sowie Alk. fr. 362 und Sappho fr. 81 (Anis) als Belegen. Siehe
auch Blech 1982: 72 (hypothymis = Girlande der Zecher bei Symposion und Komos, mit Hin-
weis u. a. auf Sappho, fr. 94.15); vgl. ebd. 315 und 359–360 (sporadische Auswahl von Belegen
zu Kränzen bei Sappho).
so konfigurierte symposiastische Atmosphäre kommt besonders evokativ in einem

Fragment zur Sprache, von dem schon mehrfach die Rede war und mit dem ich nun
meinen Parcours durch die gesamte bei Sappho vorkommende Flora und Fauna
abschließen kann. In ihm werden nicht allein viele verschiedene Pflanzen genannt,
sondern damit wird auch zum einzigen Mal eine Tiergattung kombiniert, die Pferde.
Dieses Fragment, aus dem einige antike Schriftsteller anerkennend zitiert ha-
ben, ist relativ ausführlich auf einer im 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. beschriebenen, doch
erst im 20. Jahrhundert gefundenen Tonscherbe überliefert, und es handelt sich
dabei um eines der ältesten aus der Antike stammenden Zeugnisse von Sapphos
Werk.100 Die Göttin, die in dem Gedicht mit ihrem schon in der Ilias belegten Bei-
namen, Kypris, angerufen wird, ist Aphrodite. Sie soll aber nicht von der Insel
Zypern kommen, auf die sich dieses Epithet bezieht und die ihr vielleicht frühester
und wichtigster, bis ins 2. vorchristliche Jahrtausend zurückreichender Kultort war,
sondern wohl von einer anderen Insel, Kreta. Sappho definiert nun den geogra-
phisch unbestimmt bleibenden Bestimmungsort dieser Göttin als ein Heiligtum,
dessen verlockendes Naturambiente suggestiv ausgemalt wird:101
„Her für mich aus Kreta zum [ ] Tempel,
einem heilig-reinen, wo [] ein liebreizender Hain
von Apfelbäumen, und darin Altäre, dampfend
mit Weihrauch.
Und darin Wasser, kühles, tönt zwischen Zweigen
von Äpfeln, und durch Rosen der ganze Ort
beschattet ist, und von bebenden Blättern
Benommenheit herabkommt.
Und darin eine Wiese, eine pferdenährende, blüht
mit Frühlingsblumen, und die Lüfte
sanft blasen [
[ ]
Dort nun du, [ ] nehmend, Kypris,
in goldene Schalen auf prächtige Weise
Festfreuden beigemischten Nektar
als Wein gieße ein.“
An diesem Kultort, der der Göttin für ihre Epiphanie angeboten wird, steht wohl
auch ein Tempel. Doch die weiteren Bestandteile des Heiligtums sind alle im na-
türlichen Draußen lokalisiert, einschließlich der Altäre, auf denen Weihrauch ver-
100 Zum meines Wissens ältesten Zeugnis für ein Sappho-Fragment – fr. 36: „sowohl ersehne ich
als auch verfolge ich“ (καὶ ποθήω καὶ μάομαι) –, der inschriftlichen Überlieferung (als Ge-
sangstext eines Lyraspielers) auf einer rotfigurigen attischen Amphore des Euphronios aus dem
späten 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr., siehe Schlesier 2014a: 98 n. 60.
101 Fr. 2.1–16: δευρυμ†μ̣εκρητα̣σ.̣ π[ ] ναῦον / ἄγνον ὄππ[αι ] χάριεν μὲν ἄλσος / μαλί[αν], βῶμοι
†δεμιθυμιάμε-/νοι [λι]βανώτωι· / ἐν δ’ ὔδωρ ψῦχρον κελάδει δι’ ὔσδων / μαλίνων, βρόδοισι δὲ
παῖς ὀ χῶρος / ἐσκίαστ’, αἰθυσσομένων δὲ φύλλων / κῶμα †καταιριον· / ἐν δὲ λείμων ἰππόβοτος
τέθαλε / †τω̣τ … ι̣ριννοις† ἄνθεσιν, αἰ δ’ ἄηται / μέλλιχα πνέοισιν [/ [ ] / ἔνθα δὴ σὺ [ ] ἔλοισα
Κύπρι / χρυσίαισιν ἐν κυλίκεσσιν ἄβρως / ὀμ[με]μείχμενον θαλίαισι νέκταρ / οἰνοχόαισον.
Vgl. auch die davon leicht abweichende Textfassung bei Voigt 1971.
brannt wird. Das griechische Wort für Weihrauch, libanos (und libanotos) ist zum
ersten Mal in der antiken Tradition bei Sappho belegt102 und verweist auf die nah-
östliche, orientalische Herkunft der Pflanze, aus der dieses Räucherwerk gewonnen
wird. Sapphos Gedicht ist eines der ersten Zeugnisse für das erotisch-poetische
Naturambiente eines locus amoenus, zu dem hier ganz real ein Hain, Apfelbäume,
sprudelndes Wasser, Rosen, bebende Blätter und eine blumige Wiese gehören. Die
betäubend duftende, alle Sinne reizende Atmosphäre dieses aphrodisischen Ortes
evoziert hier nicht die Nacht, sondern einen der Liebe günstigen Sommertag, des-
sen Hitze durch den Schatten der Rosenbüsche, kühles Wasser und sanfte Winde
temperiert wird. Die Traumverlorenheit des Ortes wird nicht allein durch die von
ihm erzeugte „Benommenheit“103 zum Ausdruck gebracht, sondern auch durch das
Faktum, dass zwar Pflanzen sowie eine Tiergattung, die Pferde, und sogar die Göttin
selbst erwähnt werden, aber keine Menschen, auf die nur implizit verwiesen wird –
durch architektonische Strukturen, die menschliche Bautätigkeit voraussetzen, und
durch Spuren menschlicher Kulthandlungen wie das Verbrennen von Weihrauch.
Dennoch ist evident, dass durch die Konfiguration, in der dieses Gedicht kul-
miniert, eben jene Institution aufgerufen wird, die den wichtigsten pragmatischen
Rahmen für die frühgriechische Lyrik gebildet hat und an der Männer wie freizü-
gige Frauen beteiligt waren: das Symposion. Indem nun Aphrodite hier die Rolle
der dabei üblichen Mundschenke, der schönen Knaben und Hetären, übernimmt
und „mit Festfreuden gemischten Nektar als Wein“ serviert,104 werden mittels des
für Götter reservierten Tranks der Unsterblichkeit, des Nektars, die Grenzen der
menschlichen Sphäre eines Kultortes gesprengt. In dieser Formulierung kommt
aber zugleich auch dasjenige pflanzliche Rauschmittel zur Sprache, das den sym-
potischen Genuss wie kein anderes repräsentiert: der Wein.105 Der kaiserzeitliche
Autor Athenaios, der die letzte heute bekannte Strophe des Gedichts zitiert,106 wird
dies zum Anlass nehmen, um die Symposionsgefährten (hetairoi) aufzufordern,
dem Modell eines solchen unter freiem Himmel gefeierten Trinkgelages zu folgen.
Doch der Wein steht hier bei Sappho nicht im Zentrum, wie dies häufig in der Ly-
rik der mit ihr zeitgenössischen männlichen Dichter geschieht. Die Mundschenkin
Aphrodite scheint vielmehr rückwirkend die Pflanzen und Pflanzenprodukte dieses
Gedichts allesamt, ja auch die einzigen hier vorkommenden Tiere, die sich von
Wiesenpflanzen ernährenden Pferde,107 zu Bestandteilen eines Symposions zu ma-
102 Siehe fr. 2.4 und fr. 44.30.

103 Fr. 2.8: κῶμα.
104 Vgl. auch fr. 141.1–3: Dort wird von Hermes aus einem „Mischgefäß“ (κράτηρ) die Götter-
speise Ambrosia „als Wein eingegossen“ (ὠινοχόαισε). Zu metaphorischen Aspekten des Wein-
mischens siehe Schlesier 2016b, mit Detail-Interpretationen von Textstellen bei Homer, Sap-
pho und den Anakreontea. Die in fr. 2 betonte Mundschenk-Rolle der Aphrodite wird bei Fer-
rari 2010: 151–155 durch spekulative Textergänzungen in V. 13 zum Verschwinden gebracht.
105 Zum Wein bei Sappho siehe auch fr. 104a (oben, Anm. 17 und 18). Vgl. das Testimonium bei
Comes Natalis, dass Sappho zufolge der Flussgott Acheloos die – für das griechische Trinkge-
lage grundlegende – Prozedur des Weinmischens erfunden habe (fr. 212).
106 Siehe Athen. 11.463E.
107 Der erhaltene Kontext von fr. 2.9 erlaubt nicht zu entscheiden, ob damit reale Pferde gemeint
sind oder (bzw. zugleich?) auf Menschen (männlichen und/oder weiblichen Geschlechts)
chen, bei dem der erotische Genuss das Zentrum bildet. Dies wirkt so, als seien es
diesmal nicht oder nicht nur die Blumen und Früchte, wie sonst oft bei Sappho,
sondern auch die Pferde, die menschliche Liebespartner repräsentieren.108 Dass der
göttliche Anthropomorphismus und die menschliche Götternähe sich gerade in der
gemeinsamen Relation zu Pflanzen und Tieren manifestieren, hat Sappho hier viel-
leicht am eindrucksvollsten demonstriert. Und bei dieser Dichterin steht dies, wie
ich an der gesamten Überlieferung der von ihr poetisch umspielten Flora und Fauna
zu zeigen versucht habe, vordergründig wie untergründig immer im Zeichen ihres
alter ego, der Göttin Aphrodite.109
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Poetry‘, in A. Bierl und A. Lardinois (Hrsg.): The Newest Sappho (P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC
inv. 105, Frs. 1–4), Leiden: 368–395.
Schlesier, R. 2016b: ‚KRATER: The Mixing-Vessel as Metaphorical Space in Ancient Greek Tradi-
tion‘, in F. Horn und C. Breytenbach (Hrsg.): Spatial Metaphors: Ancient Texts and Transfor-
mations, Berlin: 69–84.
Schlesier, R. im Druck: ‚A Sophisticated Hetaira at Table: Athenaios’ Sappho‘, in B. Currie und
I. Rutherford (Hrsg.): The Reception of Greek Lyric Poetry, 600 BC–400 AD, Leiden.
Schmitz, T. A. 2002: ‚Die ‹pragmatische› Deutung der frühgriechischen Lyrik: Eine Überprüfung
anhand von Sapphos Abschiedsliedern frg. 94 und 96‘, in J. P. Schwindt (Hrsg.): Klassische
Philologie inter disciplinas: Aktuelle Konzepte zu Gegenstand und Methode eines Grundlagen-
faches, Heidelberg: 51–72.
Skinner, M. B. 1991: ‚Aphrodite Garlanded: Erôs and Poetic Creativity in Sappho and Nossis‘, in
F. De Martino (Hrsg.): Rose di Pieria, Bari: 79–96.
Stanford, W. B. 1936: Greek Metaphor: Studies in Theory and Practice, Oxford.
Stehle Stigers, E. 1977: ‚Retreat from the Male: Catullus 62 and Sappho’s Erotic Flowers‘, Ramus 6:
83–102.
Strauss Clay, J. 1981/1982: ‚Immortal and Ageless Forever‘, CJ 77: 112–117.
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ANIMALS IN ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION:
DIVINE ZOOMORPHISM AND THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC
DIVINE BODY
Julia Kindt, University of Sydney
1. INTRODUCTION
In ancient Greece, as in many other religious traditions, the natural and the super-
natural are intricately bound up with each other. As religion is a way of ‘making
sense’ of the world, nature as an aspect of world features prominently in Greek
religious beliefs and practices.1 Indeed, this link is particularly strong in a religious
tradition like that of the ancient Greeks which, on the whole, reflected life in a pre-
dominantly rural society based on agriculture and farming.2
Numerous aspects of the natural environment feature in ancient Greek ritual
practices. Spices, herbs, and incense brought colour, flavour, and scent to the reli-
gious experience.3 Flowers were used as garlands and decorations. Fruit and vege-
tables served as vegetarian offerings on the altars of the Greek gods and goddesses
complementing the more common form of animal sacrifice. In addition to plants
and plant-based products, the immovable features of the physical environment were
used to map the religious onto the physical landscape. Trees, in particular, served as
markers of religious space. Together with caves, springs, rivers, mountaintops and
other outstanding features of nature (lightning, thunderbolts, earthquakes, eclipses
of the sun or moon), they conveyed the sense that the gods variously made their
presence felt through aspects of the physical environment. As Georgia Petridou
succinctly put it,
“the whole nature, the earth, and the sky become the canvass where the divine ‘paints’ his or
her presence in culturally meaningful terms using a variety of natural elements and forces.”4
Animals, then, are just one aspect among many in which the natural and the su-
pernatural relate to each other in ancient Greece. Yet animals stand out from the
way in which religion draws on nature in that they share with humans a physical
existence as living, thinking and feeling beings. As a result, they also show many
of our basic corporeal functions: birth and death, the need to eat, sleep, the impulse
to reproduce. In their physical and behavioural like-ness to humans, animals thus
1 Religion as a way of ‘making sense’: Gould 2001 with Kindt 2012: 69–82.
2 Nature as a location for divine epiphany: Petridou 2015: 98–105.
3 See e. g. Baumann 1982: in particular 44–92.
4 Petridou 2015: 99. See Petridou 2015: 196–198 on the quality of what she refers to as “epi-
phanic landscapes”: physical environments that favour the revelation of divinity.
156 Julia Kindt
lend themselves to act as complex symbols of the way in which humanity sought to
negotiate relationships with the supernatural.
Animals feature in many of the major rituals of ancient Greek religion, serving
as sacrificial victims in the central ritual practice of ancient Greek blood sacri-
fice, and providing divine signs in various forms of technical divination such as
haruspicy and ornithomancy. Animals also provided potent ‘ingredients’ to ‘magi-
cal’ rituals. The Greek magical papyri abound in examples in which animals or
animal parts were used in ritual procedures for such diverse issues as magical ini-
tiation, inducing insomnia, or attracting the love of another person with the help of
the supernatural.5 In addition, animals and animal imagery featured in numerous
local and regional cults, such as the arkteia at the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron
in Attica where young girls dressed up as bears in preparation for marriage.6
This chapter explores the role of animals in a particular area of the ancient
Greek religious experience: the imagination and representation of the divine in the
human realm. Recent research on divine epiphany in the ancient Greek world has
reminded us that even though the Greeks had a strong preference for anthropo-
morphic gods, fully- and partly zoomorphic representations of divinity were by no
means unknown.7 This research has pointed to a diverse body of evidence that gives
insight into the principles and practices of divine zoomorphism in ancient Greece,
including iconographic representations on pots, statues, reliefs, and in hymns and
epic, and other literary texts. In making sense of this evidence, we must distin-
guish among different representational strategies featuring animals, paying special
attention to the context of representation as well as to the particulars of how divine
zoomorphism and the more common anthropomorphism intersect in each case.
With his discussion of divine corporality, Jean-Pierre Vernant has offered us a
powerful framework for researching the theological issues paraded in the physical
appearance of the Greek gods and goddesses in the human realm. Unfortunately,
despite the recent interest in divine epiphany and representation, the possibility of
divine zoomorphism remains an underappreciated aspect of the ancient Greek re-
ligious experience. Extending Vernant’s conception of the anthropomorphic divine
body to the possibility of divine zoomorphism, I illustrate how the animal body
provides a supplementary code to the more widespread anthropomorphism of the
Greek gods.8 I argue that animals served as a third point of reference by which both
the order of gods and the order of men come into focus. The possibility of full or
partial divine zoomorphism, I conclude, ultimately remains closely tied up with the
principles and practices of divine anthropomophism: it brings out the theological
issues paraded in the more prominent anthropomorphic form of the gods.
5 See e. g. PGM VII. 652–660 (an insomnia-inducing spell featuring a bat as well as the blood of
a black ox, or a goat or Typhon); PGM VII. 300a–310 (a love charm making use of the blood
of a black donkey).
6 See in detail Osborne 1985: 154–172.
7 On the anthropomorphism of the Greek gods see also Henrichs 2010. On the possibility of di-
vine zoomorphism see Aston 2011; Petridou 2015: 87–98.
8 Vernant’s conception of the divine body is first mentioned in the context of divine zoomor-
phism in Petridou 2015: 7, 42–43.
Animals in Ancient Greek Religion 157
2. ANIMALS AND RELIGION IN CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP
A quick look at how animals have figured in classical scholarship in the past sets the
scene for the subsequent discussion of the role of animals in divine representation.
It sketches the intellectual milieu in which Vernant’s conception of the divine body
emerged and explains why the Paris School’s tripartite conception of the universe
featuring gods, humans, and animals has not yet been applied to the study of ancient
Greek religion at large.
The interest in nature, and in animals as part of nature, is by no means new. Yet
the way in which animals have come into focus in classical scholarship on ancient
Greek religion changed radically over the past century reflecting larger shifts of
method and approach. Older classical scholarship has discussed the way in which
the religions of the ancient world drew on the natural environment as an example of
‘animism’.9 Animism entails the belief that all natural phenomena are enchanted,
animated and expressive of the spirits that inhabit them. The term goes back to Sir
Edward Tylor’s influential study Primitive Culture (1871) in which he used it to
describe the beliefs and practices of tribal peoples he thought to represent a simpler
(more ‘primitive’) stage in the history of religious evolution.10
Animism soon gained currency beyond the contexts to which it was originally
applied by Tylor and others, becoming a paradigmatic concept in the anthropology
of religion during the nineteenth century. Together with ‘totemism’ – the belief in
a particular animal or plant having supernatural power – animism features promi-
nently in Emile Durkheim’s seminal Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912),
a foundational work in the sociology of religion as an emerging field of study.11
Like Tylor, Durkheim considered animism to be representative of an earlier stage
in the history of religious evolution.12 Tylor and Durkheim both had great impact
on classical scholarship: it comes as no surprise that concepts such as ‘animism’
and ‘totemism’ were also common currency in older classical scholarship.13 In par-
ticular, works on divine representation used these concepts to describe what they
regarded to be remnants of an earlier and more primitive stage in the religion of the
ancient Greeks.14
Eventually, however, as notions of the primitive and religious evolution fell out
of fashion, so did the interest in totemism and animism, and in the nexus between
nature and religion in general and particularly in divine zoomorphism. Classical
scholarship on ancient Greek religion turned to other questions and models with
the result that, until recently, animals no longer featured in any conceptual way in
scholarship on ancient Greek religion.15 Society, not nature, became the main focus
9 Animism in classical scholarship, see e. g. Harrison 1912: 471–473.

10 See e. g. Tylor 1871/1873. On primitive religion see also Frazer 1906–1915.
11 On totemism see also Levi-Strauss 1962.
12 Durkheim 1912.
13 On totemism see e. g. Harrison 1912: 118–157.
14 See in more detail Aston 2011: 11–12 (with further literature).
15 The key studies in the field mention animals only in passing. See e. g. Burkert 1985: 64–66
(“animal and god”).
158 Julia Kindt
of scholarly interest in the study of the religions of the ancient world.16 It dominated
debates from the 1960s to the early 1990s, when it was superseded (at least in part),
by an even broader interest in culture.17
One line of enquiry in classical scholarship, however, always retained an inter-
est in animals. The group of scholars around Vernant set out to explore the struc-
tures of Greek thought and literature and the cultural practices inspired by them
(sacrifice, divination). The way nature, culture, and society intersect in the religious
beliefs and practices of the ancient Greeks comes into focus variously in their work:
the distinction between nature on the one hand and culture/society on the other pro-
vides some of the fundamental oppositions and analogies explored by Vernant and
other adherents of French structuralism.18
In his essay Between beasts and gods, for example, Marcel Detienne advanced a
reading of animal sacrifice as making a complex symbolic connection among gods,
humans, and animals. The relationship between different forms of life is also at the
core of the influential collection of essays entitled La cuisine du sacrifice en pays
grec published by members of the ‘Paris School’.19 However, here as elsewhere, the
symbolic conception of animals is not developed explicitly as an underlying theme
of the book, despite its significant role in several chapters. The question of its gen-
eral application to the study of ancient Greek religion remains unasked, let alone
answered. As a result, the ‘triangle of life’ did not enter mainstream classical schol-
arship as one of the wider insights emerging from the works of the ‘Paris School’,
despite the success of French structuralism in the study of Greek mythology.
The study of divine zoomorphism can serve as a case in point. Once the in-
terest in animism and religious evolution subsided, for a long time there was little
conceptual space for the study of divine zoomorphism. The power of the symbolic
approach towards divine zoomorphism was not recognised, in particular as Ver-
nant’s own discussion of divine corporality remained firmly focused on anthropo-
morphism.20 As a result, animals did not feature much in ‘the history’ written on the
divine body (to use Robin Osborne’s term), just as nature more generally no longer
played a significant role in the study of Greek religion.21
With Ingvild Saelid Gilhus’ study Animals, Gods, and Humans: Changing At-
titudes to Animals in Greek, Roman and Early Christian Ideas (2006), animals and
their symbolic role in religion returned strongly to classical scholarship. Gilhus
explores early Christian attitudes to animals in the light of earlier Greek and Roman
views. With a particular focus on sacrifice, she shows that early Christianity rede-
fined and replaced the existing tripartite conception of gods, humans, and animals
16 See Kindt 2012 for a detailed discussion and critical evaluation of the history of scholarship on
ancient Greek religion in light of current approaches and methods.
17 See Kindt 2009 for a succinct discussion of different trends in scholarship of ancient Greek
religion over time.
18 See e. g. Marcel Detienne’s influential work The Gardens of Adonis. Spices in Greek Mythol-
ogy, first published in French in 1972 (2nd English edn. 1994).
19 Detienne and Vernant 1979.
20 Vernant 1991a; Vernant 1991b.
21 The “history of godsbodies”: Osborne 2011: 185–215, in particular 194–202.
that had prevailed in the ancient world for centuries. Instead of the body of the sac-
rificed animal, the human body of Christ now took centre stage as preferred location
of religious discourse, with the result that animals were seen as lowly creatures to
be dominated by man.22
Gilhus’ study contributes a significant chapter to the history of religions. By
focussing in particular on sacrifice-related religious symbols of the old religions
of Greece and Rome and the new Christian faith, she sheds light on the complex
processes that accompany religious transformation. Yet, due to that focus on early
Christianity, her account of the role of animals in the traditional religions of Greece
and Rome remains necessarily partial.
Since the publication of Gilhus’ study, several scholars have set out to explore
in more detail the role of animals in certain areas of the Greek religious experience.
While a general and comprehensive account of the role of animals in ancient Greek
religion is still wanting, we now have a much better understanding of the signifi-
cant role of animals.23 The recent surge of interest in divine epiphany, for example,
highlights the possibilities divine zoomorphism provided to the more widespread
anthropomorphism of the Greek gods and goddesses.24 This research has shown
that even though fully or partly zoomorphic divine bodies originated during the
Archaic period, they continued to co-exist in later times.
To understand the place of divine zoomorphism in the ancient Greek imagina-
tion and representation of the supernatural is thus to ask what the animal body con-
tributes to the principles and practices of divine representation. If “the issue of what
the gods are like is implicit in every actual representation of a god”, as Osborne
has argued, we must wonder: What is the symbolic significance of the divine body
imagined fully or partially as an animal body?25 What aspects of the nature of di-
vinity does it bring to the fore? These questions require us to revisit Vernant’s con-
ception of divine corporality, extending it to the possibility of divine zoomorphism
as a complementary and competing form of divine representation and imagination.
3. ZOOMORPHISM AND THE ‘PROBLEM’

OF THE DIVINE BODY
In his influential essay Mortals and Immortals. The Body of the Divine, first pub-
lished as Corps obscur, corps éclatant in 1986, Vernant flagged the question of what
he referred to as the ‘problem’ of the divine body: whether the supernatural status
of gods and goddesses should not by definition exclude a physical existence that is
22 Gilhus 2006.
23 See e. g. Ogden 2014; Struck 2014; Ekroth 2014. For an area review concerning human-animal
studies and the classics see Kindt 2017 (with further literature).
24 See n. 7 above. On epiphany and divine representation see also Donohue 1988; Gaifman 2012;
Platt 2011; Steiner 2000.
25 Osborne 2011: 192.
160 Julia Kindt
subject to the laws of nature and whether divine immortality should not a priori
exclude a bodily form that is fundamentally mortal.26
Vernant does not address zoomorphic representations of the gods: he focusses
entirely on the compromises struck by anthropomorphic divine epiphanies featuring
in Greek thought and literature in order to do justice to both sides of the equation:
the mortal and the immortal, the natural and the supernatural.27 Whenever Greek
gods and goddesses physically appear to mortals in human form, there is always
some hint, clue, or sign – Vernant refers to it as “quelque chose parfois cloche”
(“something off”) – that gives away their divine quality:28 the surplus weight of a
seemingly weightless body; a degree of physical beauty and bodily radiance that
exceeds the natural; a gait which, in its particular swiftness, indicates the presence
of the supernatural.29 By such clues, the divine body reaffirms its membership in an
order of being transcending its physical (bodily) manifestation in the human sphere.
This compromise extends almost seamlessly from literary representation of the
supernatural into material religion. Statues of the Greek gods and goddesses vari-
ously represent the opposing principles of divine transcendence (otherworldliness)
and immanence (this-worldliness). From the fifth century BC onwards, the choice
was between fully anthropomorphic (iconic) representations of the Greek gods and
goddesses on the one hand, and semi- or aniconic divine representations on the
other. The former group of statues emphasizes a fundamental likeness between
gods’ and human bodies. The famous anthropomorphic statues of the fifth- and
fourth centuries BC – including Phidias’ Zeus and Praxiteles’ Aphrodite – express
this alterity by surpassing the human body in youth, brilliance and perfection – in
effect fitting the gods with a kind of “sur-corps” (“superbody”).30 By contrast, the
semi- or aniconic form of divine representation, expressed divine alterity through
the partial or complete absence of a human body. Either way, the ‘problem of the
divine body’ remained a constant, defining presence in the shaping (and viewing) of
all forms of divine representation, in literary or physical images of the gods.
The introduction of the animal to ‘the problem’ complicates the picture. First,
it turns the theoretical question of whether gods can (or should) have a body at all
into an issue of the suitability of different kinds of bodies for the purpose of di-
vine representation. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the possibility of divine
zoomorphism increases the spectrum of ways in which a particular divine body can
26 See in detail Vernant 1991a. The problem of the divine body is not specific to ancient Greek
religion: The solution proposed by a particular religious culture, however, is. With the emer-
gence of Christianity this contradiction found at least a preliminary solution in the separation
between a fully transcendent God and his incarnate son Christ who acted as his placeholder,
legate and representative in the human realm. See also Kindt 2012: 155–189 (with further lit-
erature).
27 Vernant 1991a.
28 Vernant 1986: 1324 (French); Vernant 1991a: 43 (English).
29 Vernant’s examples. See Vernant 1991a, in particular 41–45. It is worth noting that the clues
Vernant refers to are all derived from the literary evidence, presumably because it is much more
difficult to see that divine beauty exceeds the natural in pictorial representation of the gods. I
would like to thank Robin Osborne for pointing this out to me.
30 Vernant 1986: 1311 (“sur-corps”), 1991a: 31 (“superbody”). See also Vernant 1991b.
navigate the compromise between divine immanence on the one hand and divine
transcendence on the other, through relationships of likeness and difference to the
human body.
We will return to the second point in the next section of this chapter. Mean-
while, it remains to be said that the first point is by no means merely an academic
problem. The ancients themselves variously commented on the question whether
the animal form was suitable for representing the supernatural. In particular the
literature of Roman Greece includes various examples of the Greeks themselves
flagging divine zoomorphism as a problem.31
In his account of Arcadia, for example, Pausanias comments on a statue of
Eurynome which was on view in her sanctuary during her festival.32 The peculiar
features of this statue – she combined the upper torso of a woman with the tail of a
fish – inspired Pausanias to speculate about the meaning of the imagery:
“If she is a daughter of Ocean, and lives with Thetis in the depth of the sea, the fish may be
regarded as a kind of emblem (gnōrisma) of her.”33
The use of the word gnōrisma here (“that by which a thing is made known”) to de-
note the link between divinity and her image is revealing: it acknowledges the role
of the statue in pointing to the essence of the goddess, thus confirming the point that
the ancients themselves perceived the divine body as making a statement about the
nature of the supernatural.
The hybrid body of Eurynome was not the only case to inspire such specula-
tion. The zoomorphic divine form also posed a problem in the case of Dionysos.
In his Greek Questions, Plutarch wonders why the women of Elis, when they sing
hymns to Dionysos, ask the god to appear “with the foot of a bull” (βοέῳ ποδί)34:
“Is it because some address the god as ‘kine-born’ or as ‘bull’? Or by ‘ox-foot’ do they mean
‘with thy mighty foot’, even as the Poet used ‘ox-eyed’ to signify ‘large-eyed’, and ‘bully’ for
‘loud-mouthed’?
Or is it rather because the foot of the bull is harmless, but the part that bears horns is harm-
ful, and thus they call upon the god to come in a gentle and painless manner?
Or is it because many believe that the god was the pioneer in both ploughing and sow-
ing?”35
The point of this list of possibilities is, of course, that it is neither comprehensive
nor exclusive. As elsewhere in the Greek Questions, the proposed answers comple-
ment one other, laying out a broader field of possible interpretations and making the
31 See e. g. Philostr. VA 6.18–22; Lucian. Deor. Conc. 10; Diod. Sic. 1.87.1–9; Plut. De Is. et Os.
368E.
32 Paus. 8.41.6.
33 Paus. 8.41.6 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): θυγατρὶ μὲν δὴ Ὠκεανοῦ καὶ ἐν βυθῷ τῆς θαλάσσης ὁμοῦ
Θέτιδι οἰκούσῃ παρέχοιτο ἄν τι ἐς γνώρισμα αὐτῆς ὁ ἰχθύς.
34 Plut. Quaest. Graec. 299a.
35 Plut. Quaest. Graec. 299b (transl. F. C. Babbitt): Πότερον ὅτι καὶ βουγενῆ προσαγορεύουσι καὶ
ταῦρον ἔνιοι τὸν θεόν ἢ τῷ μεγάλῳ ποδί ‘βοέῳ’ λέγουσιν, ὡς ‘βοῶπιν’ ὁ ποιητὴς τὴν
μεγαλόφθαλμον καὶ ‘βουγάιον’ τὸν μεγάλαυχον; ἢ μᾶλλον, ὅτι τοῦ βοὸς ὁ ποὺς ἀβλαβής ἐστι
τὸ δὲ κερασφόρον ἐπιβλαβές, οὕτω τὸν θεὸν παρακαλοῦσι πρᾶον ἐλθεῖν καὶ ἄλυπον; ἢ ὅτι καὶ
ἀρότου καὶ σπόρου πολλοὶ τὸν θεὸν ἀρχηγὸν γεγονέναι νομίζουσι.
162 Julia Kindt
image appear as ambiguous and over-determined as the Greek gods and goddesses
themselves.
Various other authors add to the list of possible explanations for Dionysos’
partial zoomorphism. For Athenaeus, for example, the theriomorphic form merely
compares the behaviour of his human worshippers to that of certain animals. He
states: “They compare Dionysos to a bull because of the condition drunks are in,
and to a leopard because those who consume too much wine are prone to vio-
lence.”36 This sentiment is echoed later on in the Deipnosophistae, when Athenaeus
considers the origins of certain cultural practices:
“It is said that first men drank from the horns of oxen; hence Dionysos is represented as grow-
ing horns, and he is still called a bull by many poets. So in Cyzicus there is set up a bull-shaped
statue of him.”37
For Athenaeus at least, the divine form seems to reflect either the simplicity or,
indeed, the animality of certain humans and not the divinity itself.
Of course we should not read too much into the example of Dionysos: like no
other member of the Greek pantheon, his character represents the capacity of ex-
cess and the breakdown of barriers and boundaries.38 Yet this example shows that
Ancient Greek religion drew upon the animal body to represent the Greek gods and
goddesses in a number of ways. The ram-horned Zeus Ammon or Pan with his goat
feet and horns, or the river god Acheloos who features both as a man-faced bull and
as a merman or a minotaur challenge the view that the Greeks had no interest in
the possibility of divine zoomorphism.39 They also raise the question of the place
of this form of divine representation in ancient Greek religion: How does divine
zoomorphism stand in relation to the much more widespread anthropomorphism of
the Greek gods?
4. ZOOMORPHISM AS A TEMPORARY OR PARTIAL DEVIATION

FROM ANTHROPOMORPHISM
A closer look at the so-called ‘shape-shifters’ among the Greek gods helps us to
home in on an answer to this question.40 Both Richard Buxton and Petridou have
explored the reasons certain divinities feel inclined to abandon the human form
temporarily, only to reveal themselves in another mode of existence.41 They have
shown that the Greek gods and goddesses take on animal form for a number of rea-
36 Ath. 2.38e.
37 Ath. 11.476a: τοὺς πρώτους λέγεται τοῖς κέρασι τῶν βοῶν πίνειν ἀφ᾽ οὗ τὸν Διόνυσον
κερατοφυῆ πλάττεσθαι ἔτι τε ταῦρον καλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ πολλῶν ποιητῶν. ἐν δὲ Κυζίκῳ καὶ
ταυρόμορφος ἵδρυται.
38 See Seaford 2006.
39 Zeus Ammon: Aston 2011: 139–141, 237 (with references). Pan: Aston 2011: 109–120, 175–
188, 207–214 (with references). Acheloos: Aston 2011: 78–89, 296–297 (with references).
40 On the ‘shape shifters’: Buxton 2009: 157–190. On metamorphosis in Greek thought and litera-
ture see e. g. Forbes Irving 1990.
41 Buxton 2009: 157–190; Petridou 2015.
sons. As Buxton succinctly put it, “the pursuit of ēros, the wish to escape, the desire
to conceal, the will to punish: these are the gods’ principal motives in self-transfor-
mation.”42
A quick look at the literary evidence confirms that these are indeed the primary
reasons for gods taking on animal form. Zoomorphism serves as a form of divine
camouflage when Athena turns into a swallow in Book 22 of the Odyssey to watch
the slaying of suitors from the rooftop of Odysseus’ palace;43 Demeter seeks to es-
cape erotic pursuit changing into a mare to elude Poseidon’s advances (only to run
into new troubles when he changes into a stallion).44 Zoomorphism mitigates the
full force of an unmediated divine epiphany on the human observer, when Apollo
takes on the shape of a dolphin to rock the boat of Cretan religious officials in the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo.45 Zoomorphism demonstrates the divine power to trans-
form not only the human realm but the divine body itself when Dionysos, in Euri-
pides’ Bacchae, goes through multiple changes of form including a metamorpho-
sis into a bull (tauros), prompting this laconic comment from the Chorus: “What
heaven sends has many shapes, and many things the gods accomplish against our
expectation.”46 As this last example shows, there is not always a simple corollary
between a particular god and a particular animal form. The situation is more com-
plicated.
In contrast to other religious traditions, most notably perhaps that of ancient
Egypt, no animal species was worshipped as such in ancient Greece (despite the
Greek fascination with the physical features of the Egyptian Apis, for example).47
Whenever the Greek gods and goddesses shift into the shape of an animal, our
sources indicate that this is merely a temporary transformation of the divine form,
the ‘home base’ of which (Buxton’s term) remained quintessentially anthropomor-
phic48 In Apollodorus’ account Thetis transforms herself into various shapes, in-
cluding fire, water, and a beast (θηρίον) to evade the advances of Peleus, only to
revert to her “former shape” (ἀρχαίαν μορφήν) in the end when she marries him.49
In these examples, the animal form does not exhaust the ‘essence’ of that particular
divinity but rather brings out one particular aspect of it – or no aspect at all, such
as when transformations merely demonstrate the divine capacity to change shape.
In this shape-shifting and transformation, it is striking that the animal form
seems reserved for those aspects of divinity that lie beyond the human realm. If
anthropomorphism is a way of familiarising divinity, theriomorphism is the oppo-
site. While the human form emphasises the culturally valuable aspects of divinity,
42 Buxton 2009: 164.

43 Hom. Od. 22.239–240.
44 Paus. 8.25.5 with Buxton 2009: 161.
45 H. Hom. Aph. 389–400 with Buxton 2010: 83–84.
46 Eur. Bacch. 1388–1389 with Buxton 2010: 85–86: πολλαὶ μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων, / πολλὰ δ'
ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοί.
47 Apis: e. g. Hdt. 3.27–29.
48 Buxton 2009: 189–190.
49 Apollod. 3.13.5.
164 Julia Kindt
temporary zoomorphism constitutes a deviation (or opening). In short: divine zoo-

morphism defamiliarises.
The animal form can thus help bring out the uncanny and threatening aspects
of a divinity, as with Dionysos whose very portfolio includes the transgression of
boundaries. According to the Homeric Hymn in his name, he punishes some unruly
pirates by appearing to them in animal form:
“But the god became a lion in the ship, a terrible lion in the bows, and he roared loud; and
amidships he made a shaggy-maned bear, to signal his power. Up it reared in fury, while the
lion at the top of the deck stood glaring fearsomely.”50
In this example, Dionysos’ temporary animal form showcases those aspects of the
deity which are non-human, animistic, and wild. The god here represents an un-
controllable, threatening force with the power to transcend a single order of being.
And it is not just the boundary between gods, humans, and animals at stake in this
impressive display of divine powers to strike awe in those witnessing it.51 Prior to
changing into a lion, Dionysos appeared as wine, flowing freely around the ship,
then twining around the pole and sails of the ship:
“First of all, wine gushed out over the dark swift ship, sweet-tasting and fragrant, and there rose
a smell ambrosial, and the sailors were all seized with astonishment as they saw it. Then along
the top of the sail there spread vine in both directions, hung with many grape clusters. About
the mast dark ivy was winding, all flowering, and pretty berries were out on it; and all the tholes
were decorated with garlands.”52
Different natural boundaries are crossed here, in the capacity of the god to change
from liquid to solid form, to move seamlessly from fauna to flora, including Dio-
nysos’ signature plant, the ivy.
Dionysos’ temporary assumption of plant and animal forms represents just two
strategies of a much wider field of possibilities.53 Others include the temporary
transformation into the physical likeness of a particular mortal. There is Aphrodite
as a beautiful maiden approaching Anchises.54 Another possibility: the Old Man
of the Sea in Book 4 of the Odyssey turns himself not only into a bearded lion, a
serpent, a leopard and a huge boar but also into “flowing water” (ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ) and
“a high and leafy tree” (δένδρεον ὑψιπέτηλον).55 So the place of animals in ancient
50 H. Hom. Dion. 44–48 (here and below, transl. M. L. West): ὃ δ᾽ ἄρα σφι λέων γένετ᾽ ἔνδοθι
νηὸς / δεινὸς ἐπ᾽ ἀκροτάτης, μέγα δ᾽ ἔβραχεν· ἐν δ᾽ ἄρα μέσσῃ / ἄρκτον ἐποίησεν λασιαύχενα,
σήματα φαίνων· / ἂν δ᾽ ἔστη μεμαυῖα, λέων δ᾽ ἐπὶ σέλματος ἄκρου / δεινὸν ὑπόδρα ἰδών.
51 On astonishment as a response to the epiphanic experience see Buxton 2009: 164–168.
52 H. Hom. Dion. 35–42: οἶνος μὲν πρώτιστα θοὴν ἀνὰ νῆα μέλαιναν / ἡδύποτος κελάρυζ᾽
εὐώδης, ὤρνυτο δ᾽ ὀδμὴ / ἀμβροσίη· ναύτας δὲ τάφος λάβε πάντας ἰδόντας. / αὐτίκα δ᾽
ἀκρότατον παρὰ ἱστίον ἐξετανύσθη / ἄμπελος ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα, κατεκρημνῶντο δὲ πολλοὶ /
βότρυες· ἀμφ᾽ ἱστὸν δὲ μέλας εἱλίσσετο κισσός, / ἄνθεσι τηλεθάων, χαρίεις δ᾽ ἐπὶ καρπὸς
ὀρώρει· / πάντες δὲ σκαλμοὶ στεφάνους ἔχον.
53 The different modes of divine epiphanic appearances are described in detail in her chapter on
“Divine morphology” in Petridou 2015: 29–105.
54 H. Hom. Aph. 81–83 with Buxton 2009: 159. The example is complicated by the fact that the
passage leaves it unclear whether this is or is not the form of the goddess herself.
55 Hom. Od. 4.455–458.
Greek representations of divinity is defined also with regard to the symbolic use
of other aspects of nature: trees, water, stones, and other objects which expand the
semantic spectrum by introducing further dualities (e. g. animate and inanimate) the
divine body can appropriate, master, and incorporate – sometimes literally.
Zoomorphism stands out within this spectrum of possibilities. It occupies the
space between a complete absence of any bodily form on the one hand and complete
anthropomorphism on the other. By temporarily adopting the body of an animal, the
gods retain a physical stake in the realm of nature. In their zoomorphic bodies,
they remain available for physical interaction. They can still be seen and heard and
touched. They still have bodily needs. They eat and sleep and move about. Yet, at
the same time, their physical presence in animal form does not permit human-to-hu-
man interaction. This is why Peleus, in Apollodorus’ account, has to wait for Thetis
to change back into human form before he can marry her and beget offspring.56
This is also why Dionysos, in the Bacchae, changes from bull into human to fight
the Thebans, should they forcefully remove the bacchants from the mountain. He
explicitly states: “That is why I have taken on mortal form and changed my appear-
ance to that of a man”.57 He favors human over animal form because it allows him
direct engagement with the Thebans and the chance to show his physical power on
the human rather than the animal scale.
The effect of divine zoomorphism is not only to de-familiarise: Zoomorphism
also depersonalises. Whenever the Greek gods and goddesses adopt the ‘guise’ of a
particular human being they also temporarily adopt his or her persona including the
relevant histories and networks of relationships.58 Think of the passage in Book 22
of the Odyssey in which Odysseus appeals to who he takes to be Mentor but is really
Athena: “Mentor, ward off ruin, and remember me, your staunch comrade, who of-
ten stood you in good stead. You are of like age with myself.”59 As Mentor, Athena
enjoys a level of intimacy with Odysseus that would otherwise be impossible.
Not so in the case of divine zoomorphism. What gets lost in the process of
transformation from anthropomorphic to zoomorphic divinity is not just the essen-
tial humanity of the gods in their human bodies (to the extent it ever existed) – that
is: the view that the gods are essentially like humans – but their individuality. In
their animal bodies, the Greek gods and goddesses no longer represent a particular
body or person: they feature merely as member of a certain species – as a bull, a
serpent or a swallow. This is not to say that the gods do not retain their essential
(human-like) character even when they take on the physical likeness of an animal;
but the point is that this character is no longer accessible to humans. In Homeric
epic, for example, we cease to hear about the thoughts and motivations of a god or
goddess – usually a popular theme throughout both poems – as soon as the divinity
56 See above and Apollod. 3.13.5.

57 Eur. Bacch. 53–54: ὧν οὕνεκ' εἶδος θνητὸν ἀλλάξας ἔχω / μορφήν τ' ἐμὴν μετέβαλον εἰς ἀνδρὸς
φύσιν.
58 To speak of the gods in animal form being in disguise obscures the fact that, as this article ar-
gues, these representations work as a form of divine revelation.
59 Hom. Od. 22.208–209 (transl. A. T. Murray and G. E. Dimock): Μέντορ, ἄμυνον ἀρήν, μνῆσαι
δ' ἐτάροιο φίλοιο, / ὅς σ' ἀγαθὰ ῥέζεσκον·έὁμηλικίην δέ μοί ἐσσι.
166 Julia Kindt
in question changes out of human form and thus joins (at least temporarily) the
realm of the animal as another order of being.
At the same time, we should be careful not to overstate the sense in which
divine zoomorphism constitutes a departure from the more common anthropomor-
phism of the divine form. As the examples discussed in this section have shown,
divine zoomorphism remained a temporary or partial departure from the more
prevalent anthropomorphic form, providing a supplementary set of symbols that
qualified (or indeed interrupted) those divine qualities articulated through the more
prominent anthropomorphic.
Temporary divine zoomorphism, then, mediates between the otherworldliness
of the supernatural and the need to make the gods and goddesses tangible and avail-
able to human interaction and knowledge, but it does so in a way different from di-
vine anthropomorphism. It presents the ultimately insurmountable ontological gap
separating humanity from divinity by way of the ultimately equally insurmountable
ontological boundary between humanity and animality.
Against this background the particular symbolic power of human-animal hybrid
deities becomes tangible.60 Mixanthropes bring together two ontological orders –
human and animal – that usually remain strictly separate, and they do so to bring
out the features of a third: the supernatural. In contrast to the temporary departure
from the human form just discussed, here the animal body is a permanent part of a
divinity’s home base and not just a temporary feature or disguise – although there
are instances in which mixanthropy also occurs as a temporary possibility. The river
god Acheloos transforms himself into a bull, a serpent and a hybrid creature with
a man’s trunk and a bull’s head in Deianeira’s account in Sophocles’ Trachiniai:
“For I had as a wooer a river, I mean Achelous, who came in three shapes to ask my father for
me, at some times manifest as a bull, at others as a darting, coiling serpent, and again at others
with a man’s trunk and a bull’s head; and from his shaggy beard there poured streams of water
from his springs.”61
For Acheloos, the Chimaera, and Pan – to name just three prominent mixanthropes –
their animal nature is part of their divine ‘essence’ in a much more profound way
than in the case of the so-called shape-shifters.62
60 Divine hybridity: Aston 2008; 2011; 2014.

61 Soph. Trach. 9–14 (transl. H. Lloyd-Jones 1994): Μνηστὴρ γὰρ ἦν μοι ποταμός, Ἀχελῷον
λέγω, / ὅς μ' ἐν τρισὶν μορφαῖσιν ἐξῄτει πατρός, / φοιτῶν ἐναργὴς ταῦρος, ἄλλοτ' αἰόλος /
δράκων ἑλικτός, ἄλλοτ' ἀνδρείῳ κύτει / βούπρῳρος, ἐκ δὲ δασκίου γενειάδος / κρουνοὶ
διερραίνοντο κρηναίου ποτοῦ.
62 The Chimaera: e. g. Krauskopf 1986: s. v. Chimaira nos. 21, 25, 26, 56, 60, 62. Acheloos: e. g.
Isler 1981 s. v. Acheloos nos. 214, 215, 218, 245, 247, 248. For a critical appreciation of the
category of the shape-shifters see Buxton 2009: 168–177.
Fig. 1: Heracles fighting the hybrid river god Acheloos Attic red figure krater, fifth century BC63.
Source: Wikimedia.
Yet what essence? What do these hybrid bodies stand for? If as Buxton has argued
the fully-fledged temporary zoomorphism of Greek gods and goddesses implies
that “… some aspects of divinity cannot fully be captured by an exclusively human
model of what a god looks like”, then divine mixanthropy points to the fact that
divine essence cannot be reduced to one single shape or form.64 The ontological
ambiguity of these creatures (are these humans? Animals? Something different al-
together?) is frequently conveyed in human uncertainty as to how to handle these
beings. The birth of baby Pan, for example, brings about the following scene:
“He [Hermes] accomplished the fruitful coupling; and she bore Hermes a dear son in the house
at once a prodigy to behold, goat-footed, two-horned rowdy, merry laughter. She jumped up
and ran away, nurse abandoning child, for she was frightened when she saw his unprepossess-
ing face with its full beard.”65
Mixanthropic divinities like Pan or Dionysos combine in one single body the op-
posing principles of divine similarity and alterity.
The astonishment and unease surrounding these representations springs di-
rectly from the fact that they represent an impossible union, an ontological mon-
strosity embodying the act of transgression implicit in human attempts to mingle
with the supernatural. Our sources inevitably focus on a physical description of
these hybrids, highlighting their contradictions. In the Theogony, Hesiod describes
the offspring of Ceto:
63 Paris, Louvre, inv. no. G 365.

64 Buxton 2009: 184.
65 H. Hom. Pan 35–39: ἐκ δ' ἐτέλεσσε γάμον θαλερόν, τέκε δ' ἐν μεγάροισιν / Ἑρμείῃ φίλον υἱὸν
ἄφαρ τερατωπὸν ἰδέσθαι, / αἰγιπόδην δικέρωτα πολύκροτον ἡδυγέλωτα. / φεῦγε δ' ἀναΐξασα,
λίπεν δ' ἄρα παῖδα τιθήνη· / δεῖσε γὰρ, ὡς ἴδεν ὄψιν ἀμείλιχον ἠϋγένειον.
168 Julia Kindt
“She bore in a hollow cave another monster, intractable, not at all similar to mortal human
beings or to the immortal gods: divine, strong-hearted Echidna, half a quick-eyed beauti-
ful-cheeked nymph, but half a monstrous snake, terrible and great, shimmering, eating raw
flesh, under the hidden places of the holy earth.”66
The hybrid deity, it seems, does not commit fully to the form of either kind, human
or animal and in this sense stands distinctly outside the order of nature, which does
not provide for the possibility of mixanthropy in real life. Divine transcendence
once again expresses itself as the transcendence of the order of nature.
5. CONCLUSION
This chapter set out to investigate the place of the animal body in the ancient Greek
conception of divine form. To this end, I proposed we extend Vernant’s conception
of divine corporality to include the representational strategies afforded by full or
partial divine zoomorphism. I suggested that the contribution of animals as a mode
of divine representation supplementary to the more widespread anthropomorphism
can best be understood in the context of what Vernant’s conception of divine cor-
porality: all representations of divinity, be they literary or material, convey a sense
of what the gods are like.
A look at different strategies of divine representation and imagination then il-
lustrated how the animal body was used to mediate these opposing principles. The
possibility of full or partial divine zoomorphism, I argued, allows for the articula-
tion of divine similarity and difference between the order of gods and the order of
men in an altogether different sense, extending the scale provided by more or less
anthropomorphic gods. The possibility of giving the gods a full or partial, perma-
nent or temporary animal body affords a more differentiated answer to the question
of what a god is than the prevailing divine anthropomorphism could provide.
Indeed, the examples discussed in this chapter show that divine zoomorphism
helps to bring out the theological choices in the dominant anthropomorphic model
of divine corporality. While in divine representation of the Greek gods, zoomor-
phism always remained an exception rather than the norm, the animal body in ef-
fect complicates the interplay of divine similarity and difference by introducing a
third point of reference. The order of gods comes firmly into focus in relationships
of similarity and difference with regard to both the order of man and the order of
animals.
Even though the relationship between the Greek gods and goddesses and their
full or partial zoomorphic appearances and representations is as complex and
over-determined as the relationship between the supernatural and its various physi-
cal manifestations in the human realm, several general insights emerge from this
perspective. These include the capacity of the divine body to transcend the normal
66 Hes. Theog. 295–300: ἡ δ᾿ ἔτεκ᾿ ἄλλο πέλωρον ἀμήχανον, οὐδὲν ἐοικὸς / θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις
οὐδ᾿ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι, / σπῆι ἔνι γλαφυρῷ, θείην κρατερόφρον᾿ Ἔχιδναν, / ἥμισυ μὲν νύμφην
ἑλικώπιδα καλλιπάρηον, / ἥμισυ δ᾿ αὖτε πέλωρον ὄφιν δεινόν τε μέγαν τε / αἰόλον ὠμηστήν,
ζαθέης ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης.
rules of nature; the way in which full or partial zoomorphism presents the ulti-
mately insurmountable gap between gods and humans as one between different
animal species; and the insight that the divine essence cannot be reduced to a single
shape or form – or indeed a single order of being, as in the case of divine mixan-
thropes. These insights make a strong case for the need to consider supernatural
bodies in all their different manifestations and to write divine zoomorphism more
firmly into our accounts of divine corporality in ancient Greece.
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VON DELPHINEN UND IHREN REITERN:
DELPHINE IN MYTHOS UND KULT
Dorit Engster, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
1. DAS MEER ALS ORT DER GEFAHREN
Die See ist für den Menschen der Antike ein Ort, an dem vielgestaltige Gefah-
ren lauern. Seereisen gelten nicht als angenehm, sondern werden als risikoreiches
Abenteuer angesehen, das man unternimmt, um eine wichtige Aufgabe zu erledi-
gen – sei es, um eine Stadt oder einen Stützpunkt zu gründen, Waren zu handeln,
Verhandlungen anzuknüpfen oder Krieg zu führen. Dabei waren Stürme und Pi-
raten die allgegenwärtigen Bedrohungen, die Gefahr eines Schiffbruchs war stets
präsent. Die See selbst wurde als dem Menschen feindlicher Raum angesehen – wie
bereits bei Homer1 und Hesiod deutlich wird.2
Nicht nur reale Bedrohungen werden in den antiken Quellen erwähnt. Die
Weiten des Meeres werden von gefährlichen Monstern wie Skylla oder Charybdis
bewohnt. In der griechischen Vorstellungswelt lebten an den Grenzen der bekann-
ten Welt monströse Wesen. Ähnliches wurde bezüglich der Regionen unterhalb
der Wasseroberfläche angenommen. Nach griechischer Auffassung lauerten in der
Tiefe gefährliche Kreaturen, die Menschen unter Wasser zu ziehen drohten. Die
Vorstellung von den Wesen, die unter der Oberfläche lebten, ähnelt dabei der von
Gestalten aus modernen Science Fiction-Romanen bzw. ‚Aliens‘. In den antiken
Vasenbildern sind die vielgestaltigen Ungeheuer aus dem Meer ein beliebtes The-
ma.3 In diesem Kontext ist auch die besondere griechische Furcht vor dem Tod auf
dem Meer zu sehen; diese war mit der Angst verbunden, kein angemessenes und
den religiösen Vorstellungen entsprechendes Begräbnis zu erhalten und stattdessen
von den Meerestieren gefressen zu werden.4
Bereits in verschiedenen Passagen der Odyssee wird deutlich, welche Ängste
mit dem Meer und Seereisen verbunden wurden.5 Im Wasser wurden bedrohliche
1 S. z. B. die Passage Hom. Od. 12.36–110 (die Warnungen der Kirke).

2 Vgl. die Beschreibung der Gefahren der Seefahrt bei Hes. erg. 618–694, insbes. 673–677. Zu
den Vorstellungen von der See bzw. den mit Meer und Ozean verbundenen Konzepten s. grund-
legend Lesky 1947, außerdem die ausführlichen Darlegungen von Beaulieu 2016: 21–58;
Lindenlauf 2003: 416–433. Vgl. auch Schulz 2005: 207–223. S. zu den Gefahren des Meeres
Prop. 3.7.5; Secundus Sent. 17.
3 S. für die zahlreichen Beispiele der Darstellung von Seeungeheuern Boardman 1997: 7–48. Zu
den Ungeheuern aus der Tiefe des Meeres s. schon Hom. Od. 5.421–440; Il. 13.27–39.
4 Vgl. Hes. erg. 687; s. auch die drastische Beschreibung bei Heges. Anth. Gr. 7.276; vgl. auch
13.12.
5 Vgl. Hom. Od. 5.308–332: Homer beschreibt in eindringlichen Bildern den gegen das Ertrin-
ken ankämpfenden Odysseus. Dabei wird eingehend die Gewalt des Meeres beschrieben und
172 Dorit Engster
Wesen vermutet, die drohten, hilflose Seeleute hinabzuziehen und ihre Leichen
zu verschlingen.6 Diese Vorstellung war für Griechen wie Römer mit besonderem
Schrecken verbunden.
Im Meer wurden allerdings nicht nur gefährliche Wesen verortet. Auch freundli-
che, dem Menschen wohlgesonnene Tiere lebten dort, an die man sich in Gefahren-
situationen wenden konnte. Eine prominente Rolle spielte in dieser Hinsicht der Del-
phin, der bereits seit frühester Zeit mit der freundlichen Seite des Meeres verbunden
wurde. Ein Beispiel für eine entsprechende Wertung sind bereits die Wandmalereien
aus Akrotiri auf Santorin.7 Diese belegen, dass schon im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. der
Delphin positiv konnotiert war. Im Bildkontext werden die Schiffe von zahlreichen
Delphinen begleitet. Da sich diese nur bei ruhiger See zeigen, wird das Bild eines
friedlichen Meeres vermittelt, das Seefahrt und Handel ermöglicht.8 Generell wa-
ren die Delphine in der Antike dafür bekannt, dass sie die Seefahrer eskortierten.9
Dies beobachtet z. B. auch Plutarch – dieser konstatiert, dass „neben dem Schiff der
Delphin dahineile“.10 Der Delphin wird also als eines der Tiere charakterisiert, die
bewusst die Nähe der Menschen suchen. Auch zeichnet ihn, wie von vielen Autoren
vermerkt wird, eine besondere Liebe zu Musik aus.11 Der Delphin begleitet daher
nicht nur die Schiffe, sondern führt sogar – an menschliches Verhalten erinnernde –
Tänze auf.12 Neben seiner freundlichen Natur und seiner Intelligenz werden in den
antiken Schilderungen weitere besondere Fähigkeiten hervorgehoben, so auch seine
Stärke und Aggressivität.13 Eine Reihe von antiken Autoren betont, dass der Delphin
einer der mächtigsten Meeresbewohner sei. So übertreffe seine Geschwindigkeit die
aller anderen Fische. Dahingehend äußert sich bereits Pindar, der einen Wagenlen-
ker lobt, dass er schnell wie ein Delphin sei.14 Aristoteles berichtet in seiner Historia
Animalium, dass der Delphin das schnellste aller Tiere und sogar fähig sei, über die
Masten großer Schiffe zu springen.15 Auch bei Plinius, in seiner Naturgeschichte,
ausdrücklich auf die Furcht vor einem ehrlosen Tod verwiesen. S. auch Opp. hal. 5.342–349.
Ein illustratives Beispiel für die Sicht des Todes zur See ist der Grabstein des Demokleides
aus dem 4. Jh. – eines Soldaten, der in einem Seegefecht ums Leben kam (Nationalmuseum
Athen 752); vgl. Nenninger 2007: 379–412.
6 Aischyl. Choeph. 585–592.
7 Vgl. Pöhlmann 1999 29–44; Doumas 1983. Für Delphindarstellungen in der minoischen und
mykenischen Kunst s. Kitchell 2011, 56; s. auch Lang 1999: 335–38. Zu den frühen Delphin-
darstellungen s. auch Stebbins 1929: 19–58; Czernohaus 1988; Somville 1984.
8 Vgl. z. B. auch Hes. scut. 209–12; s. auch Opp. hal. 1.383–385.
9 Plut. De soll. an. 36; Athen. 13.606d–e; Opp. hal. 2.533–538; Stob. Ecl. 1.49; Stob. Phys.
41.44.24.
10 Plut. de tranq. anim. 13 (παρὰ ναῦν δ᾽ ἰθύει τάχιστα δελφίς). Vgl. auch Lukian. D. Mar. 8.
11 Pind. P. 2.51; Aristoph. Ran. 1317; Eur. El. 434–441; Hel. 1454–56; Ail. nat. 2.6, 11.12, 12.6
und 12,45; Manil. 5.444; Ov. epist. 18.131; Verg. Aen. 9.118–122 f.; Sen. Oed. 446; Plut. De
soll. an. 36; Conv. sept. sap. 36; Luk. D. Mar. 8; Solin. 12.6–7; Cassiod. var. 3.51.8; Mart. Cap.
9.927; Archias Anth. Pal. 7.214.
12 Eur. El. 434–441; Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 18; De soll. an. 36; symp. 7.5; Opp. hal. 1.670–685.
13 Hom. h. Apoll. 3.401; Hes. scut. 211–213; Ail. nat. 15.23; Athen. 7.18; Opp. hal. 2.533–614.
14 Pind. N. 6.64–66; vgl. Pind. P. 2.50–51.
15 Aristot. hist. an. 631a.
Von Delphinen und ihren Reitern: Delphine in Mythos und Kult 173
findet sich ein ähnliches Urteil.16 Beide Aspekte – der grundsätzlich soziale Cha-
rakter und die Stärke des Tieres – sind auch relevant für die Charakterisierung des
Delphins im Mythos – insbesondere in Traditionen über Apollon, Poseidon und
Dionysos. Zahlreiche Geschichten berichten zudem von Hilfeleistungen für Men-
schen, die in Not geraten sind. Dabei verbinden sich in unterschiedlicher Weise die
Vorstellungen von den Gewalten und Gefahren des Meeres mit den spezifischen
Eigenschaften, die dem Delphin zugesprochen werden.
2. DELPHINE UND DELPHINREITER IM MYTHOS
Delphine spielen seit frühester Zeit auch in den Traditionen über Götter und Heroen
eine Rolle – wobei es sich allerdings nicht nur oder primär um Meeresgottheiten
oder Meereswesen handelt.
2.1. Apollon – der Gott in Gestalt des Delphins
Im Homerischen Hymnos wird das Nahverhältnis des Apollon zu den Delphinen

mit einer spezifischen Episode verknüpft. Der Gott selbst nahm die Gestalt eines
Delphins an und ‚kaperte‘ das Schiff kretischer Seeleute.17 Diese wurden von ihm
zu Priestern seines neuen Heiligtums in Delphi ernannt.18 Der Gott bedient sich in
diesem Mythos nicht nur des Tieres sondern dieses ist eine seiner Inkarnationen.
Apollon in seiner Manifestation als Delphin wird im Hymnos als riesiges Unge-
heuer beschrieben und damit auf die Stärke und Aggressivität des Tieres verwie-
sen.19 In späteren Mythen über Delphi wird auf dieses Element der Gründungs-
geschichte allerdings nicht mehr Bezug genommen.20 Stattdessen erscheint der
Delphin als heiliges Tier des Gottes und von diesem unterschieden. So wird in der
Kunst der Delphin häufig mit Apollon verbunden – ein berühmtes Beispiel ist eine
rotfigurige Hydria des Berliner Malers, die Apollon auf dem geflügelten Dreifuß
zeigt.21 Der Gott reist bzw. fliegt über das Meer, begleitet von aus dem Meer sprin-
genden Delphinen.
16 Plin. nat. 9.20. Entsprechend werden die Delphine in Vasenbildern mit Flügeln dargestellt.
S. zu entsprechenden Beispielen Vidali 1998: 53–54. Vgl. auch Pind. N. 6.64–66; P. 2.50–51;
Aristot. hist. an. 631a; Ail. nat. 12.12; Opp. hal. 2.535; hierzu passt auch die Angabe bei Paus.
6.20.10,12, dass Delphin und Adler als Startzeichen für Wettrennen verwendet wurden.
17 Hom. h. Apoll. Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 77–80. Eine abweichende Version bietet Plutarch (De soll.
an. 36) – er betont, dass der Gott nicht die Gestalt eines Delphins angenommen habe. Vielmehr
hätte er das Tier als seinen Boten geschickt.
18 Vgl. auch die Geschichte des Sohnes des Apollon, Eikadios, der von einem Delphin gerettet
wurde und danach einen Tempel am Parnass errichtete; s. Serv. Aen. 3.332; dazu Ridgway
1970: 89.
19 Vgl. Redondo 2015: 68.
20 S. u. a. Eur. Iph. T. 1230–1284; Apollod. 1.22; Apoll. Rhod. 2.703–719; Strab. 9.3.12; Paus.
10.6.5; Hyg. fab. 140; Ov. met. 1.434–437.
21 Lambrinudakis 1984: Nr. 382. (Vatikanische Museen 16568).
174 Dorit Engster
Die Grundlage für die Verbindung der Delphine mit Apollon dürfte neben ihrer
Menschenfreundlichkeit und Stärke vor allem die ihnen zugeschriebene Musikali-
tät bzw. ihre besondere Beziehung zu Liedern und Musik bilden.22 Diese Charak-
terzüge des Delphins spielen auch bei seiner Verbindung mit Dionysos eine Rolle.
2.2. Dionysos – Tierverwandlung als Machtdemonstration
Besonders berühmt ist die in verschiedenen Versionen überlieferte Erzählung der

Gefangennahme des Dionysos durch die tyrrhenischen Piraten.23 Der Gott ver-
wandelte die Angreifer zur Strafe in Delphine. Auch hier liegt der Focus auf einer
Machtdemonstration des Gottes, der zwar nicht selbst zum Delphin wird, aber an-
dere in einen solchen verwandeln kann. Diese Tradition findet sich ebenfalls bereits
in der Archaik – zum ersten Mal im Homerischen Hymnos auf Dionysos – und
wurde in der Folgezeit vielfach aufgegriffen. Meist wird bei den späteren Autoren
nur kurz auf den Mythos Bezug genommen, der offenbar als bekannt vorausgesetzt
werden konnte.
Eine ausführliche Schilderung findet sich allerdings bei Ovid in den Metamor-
phosen – wobei entsprechend seinem Thema der Schwerpunkt auf den wunderba-
ren Ereignissen an Bord und der sukzessiven Verwandlung der Menschen in Mee-
reswesen liegt. Bei Ovid, Seneca und Nonnos spielt zudem die Fruchtbarkeitssym-
bolik eine große Rolle – Weinranken und Efeu umschlingen das Schiff, wodurch
der Gott seine Macht über die Natur demonstriert.24
In der kaiserzeitlichen Version des Hyginus ist die Schwerpunktsetzung partiell
eine andere – Dionysos ist noch ein Kind, die Tyrrhenier werden durch den Ge-
sang seiner Gefährten so verzaubert, dass sie sich ins Meer stürzen. Hervorgehoben
wird die Ekstase, in die die Piraten getrieben werden – sie werden, wie Kowalzig
herausstellt, zu einer Art dionysischem Chor.25 Der Gott habe dann, wie Hyginus
berichtet, zur Erinnerung an diese Episode den Delphin als Sternbild an den Him-
mel gesetzt. Dieses Element ist, wie noch zu zeigen sein wird, für spätere Varianten
von Mythen typisch und findet sich seit hellenistischer Zeit auch in den Traditionen
über andere Gottheiten.26
22 Vgl. auch Séchan 1955: 22–23, die darüber hinaus die Fürsorge des Gottes gerade im Zusam-
menhang mit Kolonisationsunternehmen herausstellt. Die Delphine seien in diesem Zusam-
menhang „agents de la divinité et instruments de sa providence“.
23 Hom. h. Dion.; Ov. met. 3.580–693; 4.22–23; 4.422–423; Sen. Herc. f. 904; Sen. Oed. 449–
665; Sen. Ag. 451; Apollod. 3.5; Philostr. imag. 1.19; Hyg. fab. 134; Hyg. astr. 2.17; Nonn.
Dion. 45.105–68. Vgl. auch Lukian. D. Mar. 8 – eine Klage des Delphins über seine Verwand-
lung. Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 60–62; Somville 1984: 19–20. S. für die Zeugnisse bzw. die Überlie-
ferung die Zusammenstellung bei Forbes Irving 1990.
24 Beaulieu 2016: 171 sieht hier „a funerary connotation“ – wahrscheinlicher ist, dass die Frucht-
barkeitssymbolik die spezifische Machtsphäre des Gottes hervorheben soll.
25 Kowalzig 2013: 34–35. S. auch die Angaben bei Nonnos, passim; vgl. Beaulieu 2016: 177.
26 Hyg. astr. 2.17; allerdings beruft sich Hyginus für seine Darstellung auch auf den griechischen
Dichter Aglaosthenes (7. Jh., FGrH 499 fr. 3). Eine andere, traditionellere Version findet sich
in Hyg. fab. 134.
Auch in der Kunst wurde der Mythos rezipiert. Eine Darstellung dieser Epi-
sode findet sich um 540/530 auf der berühmten Schale des Exekias.27 Zudem bietet
Philostrat in seinen Imagines eine ausführliche Beschreibung eines – verlorenen –
Gemäldes, das die Verwandlungsszene zeigt. Bei diesem lag der Focus offenbar auf
der schrittweisen Verwandlung der Piraten in Delphine, die in drastischer Weise
gezeigt wurde.28 Im Unterschied zu den anderen Darstellungen befindet sich Dio-
nysos allerdings nicht auf dem Piratenschiff sondern auf einem eigenen Gefährt –
es handelt sich in dieser Version also um einen Überfall der Piraten.
Bezeichnend ist auch hier die Thematisierung der mit einer Seereise verbunde-
nen, auch von Menschen ausgehenden Gefahren. Dionysos gerät in eine Situation,
die potentiell jedem Seereisenden zustoßen konnte. Dem Gott ist es allerdings mög-
lich, die Piraten zu strafen. Untypisch scheint allerdings zunächst, dass die Del-
phine hier nicht als Retter erscheinen sondern mit negativen Charakteren verknüpft
werden.
Dieser Widerspruch wird – bei späteren Autoren – dadurch aufgelöst, dass ge-
rade die positiven, menschenähnlichen Verhaltensweisen der Delphine dadurch er-
klärt werden, dass diese früher einmal Menschen gewesen seien.29 Philostrat betont
sogar, dass die Delphine mit ihrer Verwandlung auch ihren Charakter ins Gegenteil
gewandelt hätten – sie seien nun Schützer der Seefahrer und Feinde der Piraten.30
Ähnlich wie die kretischen Seeleute im Apollonhymnus werden sie nun zu Dienern
des Gottes.
2.3 Poseidon – der Delphin als Götterbote
Poseidon wird bereits in archaischer Zeit mit dem Delphin als Attribut gezeigt.31
Dabei ist das Tier neben Poseidon oder auch in der Hand des Gottes abgebildet. In
der Verbindung mit Poseidon besitzt der Delphin zusätzlich eine andere Funktion.
Er fungiert als Instrument bzw. als Bote des Gottes. Zentral in diesem Zusammen-
27 Gasperini 1986: Nr. 788. (München, Staatliche Antikensammlung). S. Seelinger 1998: 280 zur
Verbindung des Dionysos mit dem Delphin. Möglicherweise ist auch die Darstellung auf dem
Lysikrates-Monument entsprechend zu deuten – zu sehen ist dort u. a. ein Wesen, das halb-
menschlich, halbfischartig dargestellt ist. S. zu dieser Deutung auch Ridgway 1970: 88. Vgl.
auch die Darstellung auf einer schwarzfigurigen etruskischen Hydria (Micali Painter, 510–500;
Toledo 1982.134), bei der die stufenweise Verwandlung eines Piraten in einen Delphin gezeigt
wird. Weitere mögliche Zeugnisse sind eine Scherbe mit einem Schildzeichen, das einen Del-
phin mit Beinen zeigt sowie eine Schale mit einem Randfries aus halbmenschlichen Delphinen:
dazu Vidali 1997: 58 und 97.
28 Philostr. imag. 1.19.
29 Opp. hal. 1.646–53. S. auch Porph. Abst. 3.16 und Lukian. D. Mar. 8. Vgl. Beaulieu 2016:
139–42.
30 Philostr. imag. 1.19; er verweist in diesem Zusammenhang auch auf Palaimon und Arion; vgl.
Beaulieu 2016: 172–174, 178.
31 S. zu entsprechenden Darstellungen Vidali 1998: 25, 63, 68, 73, 89; insbes. 101–104, 149–50,
157, 159.
176 Dorit Engster
hang ist seine Rolle bei der Hochzeit von Poseidon und Amphitrite.32 Als der ver-
liebte Gott seine Braut nicht finden konnte, schickte er Boten in alle Welt. Nur der
Delphin war jedoch in der Lage, Amphitrite zu finden und zu Poseidon zu bringen.
Als Belohnung versetzte der Gott daraufhin – nach Aussage römischer Autoren –
das Tier an den Himmel bzw. schuf das Sternbild des Delphins.33
Die früheste Erwähnung dieses Mythos findet sich erst in der römischen Kai-
serzeit. Zwar wird Amphitrite bereits bei Homer und Hesiod genannt – jedoch ohne
Bezugnahme auf die Rolle des Delphins bei der Götterhochzeit. Einzelne Ele-
mente – so die Verstirnung des Delphins – dürften frühestens in hellenistischer Zeit
hinzugefügt worden sein.
In der Kaiserzeit wurde die Tradition bezüglich der Rolle des Delphins, wie
die Darstellung z. B. bei Hyginus zeigt, zunehmend populär. Poseidon konnte nun
auch selbst die Gestalt des Tieres annehmen.34 Meistens jedoch agierte der Delphin
als sein Abgesandter.35 In den bildlichen Darstellungen aus dieser Zeit wird seine
Funktion als Liebesbote dadurch unterstrichen, dass ein Eros auf seinem Rücken
zu sehen ist.36
2.4. Heroengestalten und Delphine
Neben Gottheiten werden auch lokale Heroen mit Delphinen verbunden. Typisch ist
in diesem Zusammenhang die Darstellung des jeweiligen Heros als Delphinreiter.
Dem Bereich der mythischen Heroen ist z. B. Telemachos, der Sohn des Odys-
seus, zuzuordnen. Die diesbezügliche Tradition ist allerdings unsicher. So wird
diese Episode aus dem Leben des Telemachos zuerst bei Stesichoros erwähnt, nicht
aber bei Homer oder Autoren der klassischen Zeit. Plutarch, der sich auf Stesi-
choros beruft, berichtet, dass Telemachos als kleiner Junge ins Meer fiel und zu
ertrinken drohte.37 Ein Delphin soll ihn gerettet haben und danach als Wappentier
bzw. Schildzeichen der Familie gewählt worden sein.38 Plutarch verweist also auf
32 Für Erwähnungen der Amphitrite s. Hom. Od. 3.91; 5.422; 12.60; Hes. theog. 243, 930–932;
Apollod. 1.2.2; 1.2.7; 1.4.5; Verg. georg. 1.29–42; Paus. 1.17.3. Für die Traditionen über Posei-
don und Amphitrite s. Hyg. astr. 2.17; Opp. hal. 385–93. Vgl. auch Séchan 1955: 32–34;
Stebbins 1929: 84–86.
33 Für Erwähnungen des Sternbildes vgl. Cic. nat. deor. 2.113.5; German. Arat. 321–23; Varro
rust. 2.5.13; Vitr. 9.4.3 und 5; Ov. fast. 1.457–458, 2.79, 117, 6.471–472,720; Manil. 1.346–
347; 5.416–418; 713; 5.25; Plin. nat. 18.234–5, 18.255; Colum. 11.2.5, 2.45, 2.57; Nonn. Dion.
23.297; Avien. 700–715, 1117, 1260.
34 Ov. met. 6.120.
35 Opp. hal. 2.628; er bezeichnet den Delphin als den „heiligen Boten des Erderschütterers“. Vgl.
auch 2.634 und 1.385.
36 Cassamatis/Hermary/Vollkommer 1986: Nr. 159, 163, 163–188. S. zu entsprechenden Darstel-
lungen Vidali 1998: 101–102.
37 Stesich. PMGF 225; Euphorion fr. 87 (Lightfoot). Plut. De soll. an. 36: Plutarch meldet aller-
dings selbst Zweifel an dieser Geschichte an.
38 Generell ist der Delphin als Schildzeichen durchaus belegt. Vgl. Vidali 1998: 29, 38 und 56–59
zu entsprechenden archaischen Vasendarstellungen; vgl. auch Stebbins 1929: 95–96, 101–102.
S. zudem Hes. scut. 209–12; Verg. Aen. 8.673–674.
eine ältere Tradition, deren Verbreitung und Popularität jedoch unklar bleiben. Bei
Lykophron findet sich immerhin der Hinweis auf den Delphin als Schildzeichen des
Odysseus.39 In jedem Fall ist zu konstatieren, dass in der Geschichte ein typischer
Charakterzug des Delphins erscheint – er zeigt sich menschenfreundlich und hilft
insbesondere bei Gefahr auf See.
Ähnlich strukturiert, aber besser belegt sind zwei Traditionen über Heroen der
Stadt Tarent. Dort werden zwei Gestalten mit der Rettung durch einen Delphin ver-
bunden: Phalanthos und Taras. Die frühesten diesbezüglichen Zeugnisse sind lokale
Münzprägungen. Auf diesen erscheint das Motiv eines delphinreitenden Mannes
ab dem 5. Jahrhundert. Die Kontinuität der Prägungen bis in römische Zeit belegt
die Bedeutung dieser Figur für die Polis. Die Identifizierung des Münzbildes ist
allerdings problematisch – die Beischrift „Taras“ ist als Name des Delphinreiters
gedeutet worden, verwies aber wohl eigentlich, wie die Beispiele anderer Poleis
zeigen, auf die Stadt selbst. Bei dem Reiter muss es sich entsprechend nicht um Ta-
ras handeln; es könnte auch Phalanthos dargestellt sein, wie u. a. von Bowra hervor-
gehoben worden ist.40 Rein ikonographisch ist eine gesicherte Deutung ebenfalls
nicht möglich, da beide Heroen von Delphinen gerettet worden sein sollen.
Der mythische Gründer der Stadt, Phalanthos, soll – auf dem Weg nach Del-
phi – in Seenot geraten und von dem Tier an Land gebracht worden sein.41 Ähnli-
ches wird über Taras, den Sohn des Poseidon berichtet, der ebenfalls als Gründer
der Stadt geehrt wurde.42 Dieser geriet auf seiner Fahrt von Sparta in den westli-
chen Mittelmeerraum in einen Sturm. Als sein Schiff sank, rettete ihn ein Delphin.
Taras soll nach seiner Rettung die nach ihm benannte Stadt gegründet haben und
wurde dort nach seinem Tod als Heros verehrt.43 Die ersten Traditionen über die
beiden Heroen datieren in das 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v.Chr., wobei diejenige über
Phalanthos die ältere zu sein scheint, an der sich die Mehrzahl der Autoren orien-
tierte.44 In jedem Fall war, wie die Quellen und die Münzprägung zeigen, die Ge-
39 Lykophr. 658. Vgl. Hornblower 2015: 276–277.

40 Bowra 1963: 132. Aristoteles, der bezüglich der Münzen von Tarent vermerkt, dass auf diesen
der Heros Taras abgebildet sei (fr. 590 Rose), irre sich – die Münzlegende beziehe sich nicht,
wie er annehme, auf die dargestellte Figur sondern auf den Ort. Der auf den Prägungen erschei-
nende Delphinreiter sei wahrscheinlich Phalanthos. Zur Problematik einer Deutung der Prä-
gungen s. allerdings bereits Birch 1845: 107–109; vgl. auch Philippides 1979: 79–82; Beaulieu
2016: 137–39.
41 Aristot. fr. 590 (Rose); s. zu Phalanthos die Angaben bei Antiochos von Syrakus (FGrH 555
fr. 13); vgl. auch Paus. 10.13.3; Strab. 6.3.2 f.; vgl. Redondo 2015: 78.
42 Zu Taras als Namensgeber von Tarent s. Paus. 10.10.8–10 basierend auf der Darstellung des
Antiochos von Syrakus aus dem 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (FGrH 555 fr. 13); vgl. Redondo 2015:
78; Corsano: 1979: 133–140; Gasperini 1998: 155–159.
43 Dion. Hal. ant. 19.1; Strab. 6.3.2; Paus. 10.10.8–10; Serv. Aen. 3.551; Serv. georg. 4.125; Isid.
Etym. 15.1.62; Prob. Ad Georg. 2.197; Aristot. bei Poll. 9.80. Aristoteles erwähnt zudem allge-
mein die Freundschaft zwischen Delphinen und Jungen in Tarent und Karien (Aristot. hist. an.
631a); ebenso im 3. Jh. v. Chr. Antigonos von Karystos (Antig. Car. 60); s. auch Paus. 10.13.10.
Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 65–66.
44 Bei Strabo (6.3.2), der die Angaben des Antiochos, der frühesten Quelle, referiert, wird Phalan-
thos als Gründer genannt. Auch bei Pausanias (10.10.8–10) wird die eigentliche Stadtgründung
auf ihn zurückgeführt.
178 Dorit Engster
schichte des delphinreitenden Stadtgründers für das Selbstverständnis von Tarent

von großer Bedeutung.
Ähnliche Bezüge finden sich in einer weiteren Geschichte, die ebenfalls in die
Zeit der Kolonisation datiert. Es handelt sich um die des Enalos, der ebenfalls Sohn
des Poseidon war.45 Als von den Siedlern auf Lesbos ein Stieropfer für diesen Gott
und die Opferung einer Jungfrau für Amphitrite gefordert wurde, traf das Los die
Geliebte des Enalos. Dieser sprang daraufhin mit ihr in die Tiefe; beide wurden
von Delphinen gerettet und nach Lesbos gebracht.46 Enalos wird zwar nicht als
Koloniegründer angesprochen, doch rettete er der Überlieferung zufolge später –
durch ein Opfer an Poseidon – die Einwohner, als eine gewaltige Flutwelle vor
der Insel erschien und sie zu überschwemmen drohte. Er erscheint damit wie die
anderen Delphinreiter als Person, die durch besondere Nähe und Gunst der Götter
ausgezeichnet ist.47 Ein weiteres Beispiel für einen mythischen Delphinreiter ist der
Heros Melikertes.48 Diese Gestalt gehört in den boiotischen Sagenkreis, und die
Überlieferung ist weitaus komplexer als in den erstgenannten Fällen. Melikertes
war Sohn der Ino, welche mit Athamas, dem König von Boiotien verheiratet und
Amme des Dionysos war.49 Als dieser von Hera mit Wahnsinn geschlagen wurde
und versuchte, seine Frau zu töten, floh diese.50 In ihrer Verzweiflung stürzte sie
sich schließlich, den kleinen Melikertes im Arm, ins Meer. Sowohl Ino als auch ihr
Sohn kamen ums Leben bzw. wurden nicht im eigentlichen Sinn gerettet – dies stellt
einen wesentlichen Unterschied zu den bereits genannten Erzählungen dar. Jedoch
wurden beide zu Göttern erhoben. Verbunden damit war ein Namenswechsel: Ino
wurde zur Meeresgöttin Leukothea, Melikertes wurde zum Meeresgott Palaimon.
45 Die Geschichte des Enalos von Lesbos ist erstmals in hellenistischer Zeit bzw. im 3. Jh. v. Chr.
belegt, und zwar bei Myrsilos von Lesbos (FGrH 477 fr. 45) und Antikleides (FGrH 140 fr. 4);
vgl. die ausführliche Version der Geschichte bei Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 20; De soll. an. 36, dazu
Stebbins 1929: 661; Beaulieu 2016: 135–137.
46 So die Version bei Myrsilos und Plutarch; nach Antikleides wurde Enalos durch eine große
Welle an Land gebracht.
47 S. in diesem Sinne auch Beaulieu 2016: 136.
48 Hom. Od. 5.333–353; s. auch Pind. O. 2.28–34; Pind. I. passim; zum Hintergrund von Leuko-
thea und Palaimon und möglichen Traditionen s. Farnell 1916: 36–44. Zur literarischen Über-
lieferung s. auch Seelinger 1998: 275–279.
49 Eine kurze Erwähnung der Ino findet sich bei Eur. Med. 1284–1292, dieser erwähnt auch, Iph.
T. 270, Leukothea und Palaimon als Schützer der Seefahrt; s. hierzu auch Verg. georg. 1.436–
437; Ov. fast. 6.485–550; met. 4.506–542; Hyg. fab. 2.4 und 239; Apollod. 3.4; Plut. qu. R. 16;
symp. 5,3; Conv. sept. sap. 19; Paus. 1.44.7–9; 3.1.3 und 8; Aristeid. 46.39–42 ; Nonn. Dion.
47.354; Orph. h. 74. Bei Lukian (D. Mar. 8), spielt Poseidon selbst im Gespräch mit dem Del-
phin auf die Rettung des Melikertes an. Dabei ist impliziert, dass er den Sturz ins Meer über-
lebte. S. auch Philostr. imag. 2.16; Pind. I. fr. 5 (Maehler); Paus. 2.3.4 – zur Darstellung des
Poseidon, der Leukothea und des Palaimon in Korinth. Vgl. Stebbins 1929; 63–65; Broneer
1971: 175–176; Pache 2004: 135–180; Beaulieu 2016: 129–34. S. auch die Zusammenstellung
der Quellen bei Caballero Gonzales 2017.
50 Zu Ino als Amme des Dionysos vgl. Nonn. Dion. 5.556–561.; die Halbgeschwister des Meli-
kertes, Phrixos und Helle, sind eng mit dem Meer bzw. dem Schwarzmeerraum verbunden
(u. a. Hes. cat. 38; Hdt. 7.58.1; Apollod. 1.80; Apoll. Rhod. 1.255–260.
Beide wurden, gerade auch aufgrund ihres persönlichen Schicksals, als Schützer
der Seefahrt und der Seeleute betrachtet.51
Die Angaben zu Melikertes/Palaimon nehmen in den verschiedenen Varianten
des Mythos unterschiedlichen Raum ein – und dies wirkt sich auch auf die Rolle
aus, die der Delphin in diesem Kontext spielt. Der Heros ist kein ‚Delphinreiter‘ im
Sinne eines Taras; sein Leben wird nicht durch das Tier gerettet. In frühen Versio-
nen spielen Delphine zudem nur eine untergeordnete Rolle.52 Erst bei den später zu
datierenden Autoren wie Pausanias, Lukian oder Philostrat ist es ein Delphin, der
den Körper des toten Melikertes in der Nähe von Korinth ans Ufer bringt. Die Ge-
schichte des Melikertes gleicht jedoch im Prinzip der der anderen Delphinreiter –
das Tier erscheint, um einem Menschen in Gefahr beizustehen; tragischerweise
kommt der Delphin in diesem Fall allerdings zu spät, um den Jungen zu retten. Der
Akt an sich ist für die Heroisierung des Jungen relevant, beweist er doch die Gunst
der Götter, insbesondere des Poseidon.53
Die Geschichte von Athamas, Ino und Melikertes findet sich auch bei römi-
schen Autoren – wenn auch in unterschiedlicher Ausführlichkeit.54 Im Hintergrund
steht die Identifikation des Palaimon mit dem römischen Gott Portunus, die sich
zum ersten Mal bei Plautus findet.55 In der Folge erscheint Palaimon als Schützer
der Seefahrt u. a. bei Horaz, Vergil, Ovid und Varro.56 Die Rolle des Delphins wird
dabei ebenfalls, wenn auch meist nur am Rande thematisiert und offenbar als be-
kanntes Element der Tradition vorausgesetzt.
51 Vgl. eine entsprechende Danksagung an Melikertes und Ino sowie andere Meeresgottheiten –
Anth. Gr. 164. S. z. B. auch Ov. epist. 18.136–166.
52 Bei Seneca (Oed. 444–448) und Statius (Theb. 9.401–403) sind es keine Delphine sondern
die – häufig auf diesen reitenden – Nereiden, die sich um den ins Meer gestürzten Palaimon
kümmern.
53 Zu den typischen Elementen der Heroisierung im Mythos des Palaimon s. Pache 2004: 138
54 S. im Einzelnen zu unterschiedlichen Versionen des Mythos: Paus. 2.1.3–4 (zur Einrichtung der
Spiele, zum Ort des Altars bzw. seiner Lokalisierung beim Ankunftsort); 2.1.7–8; und 1.44.7–9
(zum Ort, an dem Ino ins Meer stürzte); Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 19; Apollod 1.9.1–2 und 3.4.3;
Paus. 2.2.1 (zum Tempel des Palaimon und den dort aufgestellten Statuen – Poseidon, Leuko-
thea und Palaimon – sowie dem unterirdischen Allerheiligsten); s. auch 2.3.4; Sen. Oed. 445–
448 (zum Tempel im Korinth und dem Grab des Palaimon sowie zur Verbindung mit Bacchus).
Vgl. Pache 2004: 146–147.
55 Plaut. Rud. 160. Vgl. Hawthorne 1958: 93, der auf die Verbindung mit Herakles verweist. Zur
Identifikation des Palaimon mit Portunus s. Piérart 1998: 104.
56 Hor. ars 123; Verg. Aen. 5.239–241 und 821–822 und georg. 1.436; Ov. fast. 6.481–550; Ov.
met. 4.416–562 und 506–542 – dazu Hawthorne 1958: 94–95. S. außerdem Sen. Oed. 445–448;
Varro ling. 6.3; Varro Schol. Veron. zu Verg. Aen. 5.241; Apul. met. 4.31; Claud. Epithalanium
156 (zu Leukothea und Palaimon auf dem Delphin); Stat. Theb. passim. Vgl. Hawthorne 1958:
94. Vgl. auch Hyg. fab. 2 zur Einrichtung der Spiele. S. auch Hyg. fab. 4 und 239 zu den Tra-
ditionen bezüglich der Ino. S. auch Plut. symp. 5.3. Vgl. zum Kult Halberstadt 1934; Pache
2004: 143.
180 Dorit Engster
3. DER DELPHIN ALS RETTER
3.1 Berichte über berühmte historische Persönlichkeiten
Neben mythischen Gestalten werden auch legendäre Persönlichkeiten aus histori-

scher Zeit mit Delphinen in Verbindung gebracht. Es ist auffällig, dass es sich dabei
häufig um berühmte Dichter handelt. Unter diesen Poeten ist zum Beispiel auch He-
siod zu nennen.57 Dieser soll ermordet und sein Leichnam ins Meer geworfen wor-
den sein. Ein mitleidiger Delphin soll den Körper ans Ufer gebracht haben, so dass
der Dichter ein regelkonformes Begräbnis erhalten konnte.58 Der Delphin rettete –
ähnlich wie im Fall des Melikertes – also nicht das Leben eines Menschen, schützte
diesen aber immerhin vor dem Schicksal, von Fischen oder Seeungeheuern gefres-
sen zu werden und keinen Grabstein zu erhalten. Zwar wird die Ermordung des
Hesiod bereits bei Thukydides angesprochen. Die besondere Rolle des Delphins
wird jedoch erst in der römischen Kaiserzeit, bei Plutarch, erwähnt.59
Eine andere Erzählung findet ein positiveres Ende. Die wohl berühmteste Ge-
schichte eines Delphinreiters ist die des Sängers Arion von Lesbos. Die früheste
und bekannteste Version findet sich bei Herodot:60 Der Dichter und Musiker Arion
lebte und wirkte im 7. Jahrhundert v.Chr. und zwar am Hof des Tyrannen Periander
in Korinth.61 Gestützt auf seinen Ruhm als Künstler unternahm Arion eine Reise
in den westlichen Mittelmeerraum, um auf Sizilien und in Italien aufzutreten – und
mit seiner Kunst Geld zu verdienen. Nach einer erfolgreichen Tournee durch Süd-
italien schiffte er sich in Tarent mit Schätzen beladen nach Griechenland ein. Die
Schiffsbesatzung wollte die Reichtümer an sich bringen und überfiel ihn während
57 S. Thuk. 3.96; Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi 215–242; das Gedicht wird dem Alkidamas
(4. Jahrhundert v. Chr.) zugeschrieben; die Abfassung bzw. Bearbeitung der vorliegenden Form
wird in hadrianische Zeit datiert.
58 Eine in vielen Aspekten parallele Überlieferung ist diejenige über den Dichter Ibykos, dessen
Ermordung von Kranichen aufgedeckt wurde; vgl. Suda s. v. Ibykos. Dieser war auf dem Weg zu
den Isthmischen Spielen und erhielt nach seinem Tod und der Bestrafung der Mörder in Korinth
ein ehrenvolles Begräbnis – in ähnlicher Weise konnte auch Nemea auf Basis der Geschichte des
hilfreichen Delphins mit dem als fromm erachteten Dichter Hesiod verbunden werden.
59 Plut. De soll. an. 19 und 36; er vergleicht den Delphin mit dem Hund als ein Tier, das Verbre-
chen aufdecken kann. Als Beispiel nennt er die Delphine, die den Leichnam des Hesiod ans
Ufer gebracht und dadurch den Mord publik gemacht hätten. Eine ausführliche Darstellung
findet sich bei Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 19, wobei einleitend betont wird: ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μέν, ὦ
Διόκλεις, ἐγγὺς θεῶν ἔστω καὶ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς ἀνθρώπινον δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸ τοῦ Ἡσιόδου πάθος.
Der Körper des toten Hesiod sei von einer Gruppe Delphine nach Rhion am Golf von Korinth
gebracht worden. Dort sei gerade ein Fest gefeiert worden. Man habe Hesiod nahe dem Tempel
des Nemeischen Zeus bestattet, die Mörder aber im Meer ertränkt. Vgl. Séchan 1955: 24–25;
Heldmann 1982: 28–31.
60 Zur Überlieferung der Geschichte von Arion s. Hdt. 1.23–25; Ov. fast. 2.79–118; Prop.
2.26.17–18; Hyg. fab. 194; astr. 2.17; Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 18; De soll. an.19; Paus. 3.35.7 und
9.30.3; Lukian. D. Mar. 8; Ail. nat. 12.45; Opp. hal. 5.448–451; S. auch die Anspielung bei Cic.
Tusc. 2.27.67 – dazu Canter 1936: 41. Vgl. zu den jeweiligen Darstellungen bei Strabon Peru-
telli 2003: 12–63, außerdem allgemein Stebbins 1929: 66–70; Séchan 1955: 22–26. Zu textkri-
tischen Anmerkungen zu Frontos Arion s. Hauler 1988: 133–138.
61 Zur hier durchaus positiven Bewertung Perianders s. Stahl 1983: 205–206.
der Reise. Angesichts seiner aussichtslosen Lage bat der Sänger darum, ein letztes
Mal singen zu dürfen. Nachdem ihm diese Bitte gewährt worden war, sprang er
freiwillig in die See. Er wurde von einem Delphin gerettet und gelangte auf dessen
Rücken nach Tainaron. Dort stiftete er – als Dank für seine Rettung – eine bronzene
Statue, die ihn auf dem Delphin zeigte. Der Schwerpunkt der Darstellung liegt bei
Herodot allerdings – anders als bei späteren Autoren – noch nicht auf der wunderba-
ren Rettung Arions durch den Delphin sondern auf dem Verhalten des Arion selbst.
Im Focus steht eine moralisierende Deutung der Geschichte.62 Herodots Version
war die Grundlage aller weiteren Rezeptionen dieser Geschichte, die in der Folge
vielfach aufgegriffen wurde.63 So finden sich verschiedene Versionen auch bei
römischen Autoren, so z. B. bei Ovid.64 Dieser orientiert sich grundsätzlich an der
herodoteischen Darstellung, wandelt diese allerdings in einigen Punkten ab.65 Be-
reits sein Ansatzpunkt ist ein anderer – er verknüpft seine Darstellung mit Ausfüh-
rungen zum Sternbild des Delphins. Die Kunst des Arion wird ausführlich geschil-
dert – er erscheint dabei als eine Art zweiter Orpheus, der imstande ist, die Tiere
zu besänftigen.66 Die Geschichte seiner wundersamen Rettung beinhaltet dieselben
Grundelemente wie bei Herodot, jedoch wird die Bedrohung durch die Seeleute
dramatisiert und ausgemalt. Dabei wird die – letztendlich unbegründete – Furcht
des Arion vor dem Meer mit der echten Gefahr durch die Mitmenschen kontrastiert.
Das Erscheinen des Delphins wird als wunderbares Eingreifen Jupiters gekenn-
zeichnet, der den Delphin zum Sternbild macht.67 Arion wird in dieser Version der
mythischen Gestalt des Orpheus angeglichen – er ist in der Lage, durch seinen
wunderbaren Gesang das Meer selbst friedlich zu stimmen.68
Weitere Schilderungen stammen aus dem 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr., so z. B. von
dem Mythographen Hyginus, der zur Verifikation seiner Angaben auf das zu Ehren
des Delphins errichtete Monument verweist.69 Plutarch zitiert für die Geschichte
62 Vgl. Flory 1969: 411–421; Hooker 1989: 141–146. Zur Vorbildfunktion des Arion s. auch Soa-
res 2002: 159–164; Packman 1991: 399–414; Demont 2009: 179–205; Gray 2001: 11–28; Mun-
son 2001: 93–104; Milden 1923: 211–212; Theobald 1999: 28–32; Beaulieu 2016: 120–124.
63 Vgl. auch Schamp 1976: 96–120, zu Herodot und den anderen Berichten über Arion und den
zugrundeliegenden Traditionen. Vgl. Plin. nat. 9.8, der die Geschichte in den Kontext von Be-
richten über reale Delphinreiter in Iasos, Naupaktos und anderen Städte einbettet.
64 Vgl. Ov. fast. 2.79–118 (zum 3. Februar), dabei verweist er sowohl auf den Delphin als Boten
Poseidons, als auch auf die Rettung des Arion durch ihn. Allerdings wird auch die Verbindung
mit Apollon deutlich – Arion setzt den Sängerkranz auf, der diesem zugeordnet wird. Vgl. zu
den Versen Ovids auch Spitzbarth 1985: 61–63.
65 Zu den Abwandlungen der Version Herodots – besonders bei den römischen Dichtern (so bei
Hyginus) s. Hosek 1955: 63–74.
66 Ov. fast. 2.83–90.
67 Ov. fast. 2.113–118.
68 Gesztelyi 1974/75: 66–72. Er konstatiert zudem insgesamt eine stärkere Dramatisierung der
Darstellung und eine Konzentration auf die Hauptfigur. Diese werde auch an Apollon angegli-
chen; Gesztelyi sieht sogar eine Angleichung an Ovid selbst.
69 Hyg. fab. 194. Seine Version weicht in mehrfacher Hinsicht von den übrigen Schilderungen ab.
So erscheint dem Arion der Gott Apollon im Traum, fordert ihn auf zu singen und sich denen
anzuvertrauen, die ihm dann zur Hilfe kommen werden. Als Arion dann später die Delphine
erblickt, springt er ins Meer und wird von ihnen gerettet. Jedoch vergisst Arion, den Delphin
182 Dorit Engster
von Arion die Worte eines angeblichen Zeugen.70 Er bindet den Bericht über Arion
in die Erzählung des Gorgus ein, der als Augenzeuge den Sänger gesehen haben will.
Delphine hätten diesen an Land gebracht und Arion habe dann seine Geschichte er-
zählt – die allen unglaublich erscheinen müsse, die ihn nicht gesehen hätten. Eine
besonders unterhaltsame Version bietet zudem Lukian in seinen Meergöttergesprä-
chen, wo die Geschichte in der Form eines Dialoges zwischen dem Delphin und
seinem Herren Poseidon präsentiert wird.71 Poseidon fragt den Delphin über die
Rettung des Arion aus und dieser referiert knapp die Ereignisse – er selbst habe
Arion wegen seines wunderbaren Gesangs gerettet – der Delphin kann also, so wird
impliziert, einen gelungenen künstlerischen Vortrag erkennen und würdigen.
In der Geschichte des Arion verbinden sich eine Reihe von Motiven – die
Liebe der Delphine zur Musik, die Gefahren der Seereise und das besondere Nah-
verhältnis zwischen Delphinen und Jungen bzw. jungen Männern. Arion galt als
größter Sänger seiner Zeit, zudem als Erfinder des Dithyrambos, des dionysischen
Kultliedes,72 und war deshalb in besonderer Weise mit Apollon, aber auch mit
Dionysos verbunden – also genau den beiden Gottheiten, in deren Mythos Del-
phine eine besondere Rolle spielen. Die Traditionen wurden, betrachtet man die
Entwicklung vom Bericht des Herodot bis zu Plutarch, variiert und um weitere
Elemente ergänzt, wobei die wunderbare Rettung durch den Delphin immer stärker
in den Focus rückte.
Ebenfalls in die Zeit der Archaik bzw. der Kolonisation datiert die Geschichte
des Koeranos, die zum ersten Mal bei Archilochos bezeugt ist und später von kai-
serzeitlichen Autoren aufgegriffen wird.73 So erwähnt Plutarch die Geschichte des
Koeranos aus Byzantion, der eine Gruppe gefangener Delphine freikaufte.74 Die
Rollen sind in diesem Fall also zunächst vertauscht – der Mensch rettete hier die
Delphine. Die Tat des Koeranos zahlte sich für ihn jedoch später aus. Als er selbst
auf einer Schiffsreise in Gefahr geriet, soll ihn ein Delphin gerettet und an Land
gebracht haben. Die Delphine brachten ihre Dankbarkeit auch nach dem Tod des
Koeranos zum Ausdruck, als sie sich am Ufer bei seinem Scheiterhaufen versam-
nach seiner Ankunft wieder ins Meer zu stoßen, so dass dieser stirbt. Das Tier wird bestattet
und ein Monument zu seinen Ehren errichtet. Der Delphin wird dann von Apollon unter die
Sternbilder aufgenommen.
70 Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 18–20: Arion erzählt dann von seiner wundersamen Rettung, diese führt
er letztendlich auf die Gunst der Götter zurück. Es schließen sich Verweise auf andere Delphin-
reiter, Melikertes, Hesiod und Enalos, an, wobei Zweifel an der Glaubwürdigkeit dieser Tradi-
tionen ausgesprochen werden. Für eine vergleichende Analyse der Darstellung bei Herodot und
der – ausgeschmückten – Fassung bei Plutarch s. Durán Mañas 2010: 67–79.
71 Lukian. D. Mar 8. Weitere Bezugnahmen auf Arion und seine Rettung finden sich auch bei
Strabo 13.2 und Aelian nat. 12.45.
72 Zur Verbindung Arions mit der Einführung des Dithyrambos bei Solon vgl. Yorke 1931: 144–
145; s. auch Zimmermann 2000: 15–20; Privitera 1957: 95–110; Ieranò 1992: 39–52. Vgl. auch
Privitera 1957: 184–195.
73 Archilochos soll Verse zu seinen Ehren verfasst haben; s. Archil. fr. 117 D. Vgl. auch Ail.
nat. 8.3;
74 Plut. De soll. an. 36. S. auch Ail. nat. 8.3 – der hervorhebt, dass die Tiere, anders als Menschen,
ihre Dankesschuld begleichen. Vgl. Athen. 13.85d (basierend auf dem Bericht des Phylarchos
(FGrH II A) aus dem 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr.). Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 62–63
melten.75 Den Delphinen, die als eine Art Trauergesellschaft beschrieben werden,
wird erneut eine idealisierte menschliche Verhaltensweise, in diesem Fall Respekt
vor den Toten, zugeschrieben. Ihr Eingreifen und Handeln beruht hier nicht auf
göttlichem Auftrag sondern auf der den Delphinen zugeschriebenen menschenähn-
lichen Moral.
3.2. Verbindende Merkmale und Elemente der Traditionen
Die Mythen und Berichte über Delphinreiter weisen eine Reihe bemerkenswerter
Parallelen auf. So handelt es sich bei den in den Erzählungen erwähnten Poleis
um Städte, die in der Zeit der griechischen Kolonisation eine bedeutende Rolle
spielten.76 So stammte Taras aus Korinth, reiste von dort nach Westen und wurde
zum Gründer von Tarent. In umgekehrter Richtung verlief die Reise des Arion, der
von seiner Reise in Unteritalien nach Korinth zurückkehren wollte und auf diesem
Weg attackiert wurde. Korinth ist auch der Ort, an dem der Körper des Melikertes
an Land gebracht und ihm zu Ehren ein Kult begründet wurde. Von Bedeutung
ist zudem der kleinasiatische Raum, insbesondere das Gebiet um Lesbos, das in
Traditionen über Arion und Enalos eine Rolle spielt77
Ein weiteres verbindendes Merkmal der verschiedenen Geschichten ist das Auf-
tauchen bestimmter Gottheiten. Arion ist als Sänger ein Schützling des Apollon,
gleichzeitig aber auch Erfinder des Kultliedes des Dionysos.78 Von zentraler Bedeu-
tung ist jedoch auch Arions Verbindung zu Poseidon. So soll Arion nach Herodot
als Dank für seine Rettung bei Tainaron eine Weihung gestiftet haben.79 Eben dort
befand sich aber ein bedeutendes Heiligtum des Poseidon, den Arion offenbar als sei-
nen Retter bzw. den Entsender des Delphins ansah.80 Vielfältig sind auch die göttli-
chen Bezüge im Fall des Melikertes/Palaimon. Er genießt kultische Ehren in Korinth,
gehört aber gleichzeitig in den Umkreis des Dionysos, der von seiner Mutter aufge-
zogen wurde.81 Nach seinem Tod wird er selbst zur Meeresgottheit. Taras wiederum
75 Plut. De soll. an. 36. Plutarch schließt die entsprechende Darstellung an die Berichte über Del-
phinreiter aus Iasos etc. an. Ähnlich wie im Falle anderer Delphinreiter wird die Örtlichkeit, bei
der er an Land (bei Sikynthos) gebracht wird, nach ihm benannt.
76 S. auch Beaulieu 2016: 140–141, die auf die verschiedenen Rollen des Apollon verweist – als
Gott der Kolonisation, aber auch als Schützer der Epheben.
77 S. zu der Verbindung der Mythen mit Reisen und Handel Kowalzig 2013: 33, 48–58. Vgl. Re-
dondo 2015: 70–71.
78 Zu Parallelen der Geschichten von Dionysos und Arion s. Beaulieu 2016: 123; zu Arion und
Poseidon oder Apollon s. ebd. 123–124. Zu Dionysos, der die Piraten durch die Verwandlung
in Delphine bestraft, zur Rettung des Arion vor Piraten aber einen Delphin schickt, s. Roch
2004: 142.
79 Hdt. 1.24.8.
80 S. Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 17. Vgl. Gray 2001: 13–14; außerdem Bowra 1963: 121–134 – sie argu-
mentiert, dass Arion wahrscheinlich auf Poseidon hofft, da dieser der Gott des offenen Meeres
sei, und Arion in dem – ebenfalls mit diesem Gott verbundenen – Tarent aufgebrochen sei. Der
Delphin habe ihn dann folgerichtig zu einem Heiligtum des Gottes gebracht. Allerdings wird
Tainaron auch im Apollonhymnus erwähnt. Vgl. zur Stiftungspraxis McCartney 1933: 17–22.
81 Zur Fürsprache von Dionysos und Poseidon für Melikertes s. Beaulieu 2016: 130.
184 Dorit Engster
ist Sohn des Poseidon,82 zudem aber auch – als Koloniegründer – mit Apollon und
seinem Orakel in Delphi verbunden. Auch die Verifikationsstrategien der Geschich-
ten weisen Parallelen auf – so sollen den Delphinreitern zu Ehren jeweils Denkmäler
gestiftet worden seien, die auch in späteren Zeiten noch zu sehen waren.83 In diesem
Kontext ist auch die Heroisierung der menschlichen Akteure zu sehen; der Delphin
wird hingegen – als Belohnung – als Sternbild an den Himmel versetzt.
Vergleicht man die Delphin-Traditionen über die Götter mit den Heroenmy-
then, so ist eine zeitliche wie inhaltliche Entwicklung erkennbar. Die frühen Quel-
len kennen den Delphin im Zusammenhang mit der Epiphanie von Gottheiten. Der
Gott wird zum Delphin oder bedient sich seiner. Ab dem 5. Jahrhundert sind es
dann Heroen, die von Delphinen gerettet werden bzw. deren Körper von einem
Delphin getragen wird. Seit hellenistischer Zeit rückt der Delphin weiter in die
menschliche Sphäre. Thema wird jetzt die enge, sogar zu enge Beziehung zwischen
Mensch und Tier.
4. DELPHINE UND DELPHINREITER IN DER KULTPRAXIS
In einem zweiten Schritt soll nun die Kultpraxis untersucht werden. Dabei werden
archäologische Zeugnisse bezüglich der Praktiken berücksichtigt, die auf den ange-
führten Mythen und Traditionen basieren.
4.1 Apollon Delphinios
Die Verehrung des Apollon Delphinios und entsprechende Feste sind in zahlreichen
Städten – insbesondere Küsten- bzw. Kolonialstädten und Inselpoleis – belegt.84
Die Hintergründe dieses Kultes sind in der Forschung umstritten. Dumont sah in
Apollon Delphinios eine ursprünglich kretische Gottheit.85 Ein älterer Delphingott
sei in besonderer Weise Schützer der Seereisenden gewesen. In späterer Zeit sei er
mit Apollon verbunden bzw. in dessen Kult integriert worden. In ähnliche Rich-
tung argumentiert Bowra, der in den Delphinreitern insgesamt Stellvertreterfiguren
für einen Poseidon oder einen – unspezifischen – Meeresgott sieht.86 Auch Séchan
vermutet, dass der Delphin auf Kreta als zoomorphe Gottheit verehrt, dann von
Apollon (Delphinios) verdrängt und zu dessen Begleiter wurde.87
82 Paus. 10.10.8–10.
83 S. die diesbezüglichen Angaben zu Arion (Ail. nat. 12.45; Dion Chrys. 37.1–4; Hdt. 1.24.8;
Paus. 3.25.7 und 30.2; Gell. 16.19.23), zu Melikertes (Paus. 2.1.8, Philostr. soph. 2.1 – zu den
Stiftungen des Herodes Atticus), zu Taras/Phalanthos (Paus. 10.13.10) und zu dem Jungen aus
Iasos (Ail. nat. 6.15). Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 115.
84 S. Strab. 4.174; Plut. De soll. an. 36. Vgl. Stebbins 1929: 77–80; Graf 1979: 3–13.
85 Dumont 1975: 57–85.
86 Bowra 1963: 121–34.
87 Séchan 1955: 23.
Diese Verbindung des Apollon Delphinios mit dem Meer ist von Graf proble-
matisiert worden.88 Er unterstreicht den engen Zusammenhang des Kults mit der
staatlichen Sphäre – insbesondere auch der Ephebie – und geht von einem vordori-
schen Delphinios aus, der mit dem dorischen Apollon verbunden worden sei. Dabei
habe es sich jedoch nicht primär um einen Meeres- oder Delphingott gehandelt.
Eine differenzierte und beide Aspekte kombinierende Analyse ist von Herda vorge-
nommen worden, der ebenfalls den politischen Charakter des Apollon Delphinios
betont.89 Gleichzeitig sieht er in ihm aber auch einen Schützer der Seefahrt bzw. der
Kolonisation. Der im Homerischen Apollonhymnos geschilderte Mythos erinnere
an die Verschmelzung zweier Gottheiten. Konkretere Belege hierfür lassen sich
jedoch nicht finden – auch nicht in der Ikonographie des Apollon Delphinios, so
dass die Annahme des synkretistischen Charakters theoretisch bleiben muss. Mit
Sicherheit feststellen lässt sich nur, dass Apollon – wie andere Götter auch – häufig
mit dem Delphin als beigeordnetem Tier erscheint.90
4.2 Dionysos
Im Kult des Dionysos spielt der Delphin ebenfalls keine direkte Rolle – abgesehen
von Darstellungen des oben genannten Mythos wird der Gott vergleichsweise sel-
ten zusammen mit Delphinen abgebildet. Im weiteren Sinne lässt sich immerhin
eine Verbindung von Delphindarstellungen und Dionysoskult herstellen. Bemer-
kenswert ist in diesem Zusammenhang besonders eine Reihe von Darstellungen,
die jeweils eine Gruppe von – teilweise gerüsteten – Delphinreitern zeigen. Diese
Personen reiten auf Tieren bzw. auf als Tiere verkleideten Menschen.91 Teilweise
sind die Reiter gerüstet und tragen Speere. Die Darstellungen sind allgemein als
Abbildung von Chören gedeutet worden.92 Sie könnten auf – heute verlorene – Ko-
88 Graf 1979: 3–13.

89 Herda 2006.
90 Zur Delphinsymbolik im Apollonkult bzw. zur Abbildung von „dolphin-pillars“ s. Carbon
2013: 27–34.
91 Dabei kann es sich um Pferde handeln (vgl. Berliner Maler 1686, ABV 297.17 – Antikensamm-
lung Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz F 1697, Green 1985: Nr. 3, fig. 6;
vgl. außerdem Rusten: 2006: 45), aber auch um Strauße oder Delphine (vgl. einen Skyphos aus
dem Boston Museum of Fine Arts – 20.18, Green 1985: Nr. 17; vgl. außerdem Rusten 2006:
46–49). S. auch die Darstellung auf einem Psykter des Oltos (Green 1985, Nr. 6, fig. 9, Metro-
politan Museum) – dort sind sechs Reiter mit Helmen, Schilden und Speeren auf Delphinen zu
sehen; vor jedem Reiter finden sich die Worte epi delphinos, die wohl auf den Gesang der
Personen zu beziehen sind; vgl. Rusten 2006: 49 f. S. auch eine schwarzfigurige Vase aus dem
Louvre (CA 1924) mit acht gerüsteten Delphinreitern sowie zwei schwarzfigurige Lekythoi,
eine vom Theseus-Maler, eine vom Athena-Maler, mit zwei Delphinreitern, vgl. Rusten 2006:
49. S. auch Vidali 1998: 23, zu Delphinen auf einer Schale mit Dickbauchtänzern – von Vidali
als Hinweis auf die Liebe des Delphins interpretiert.
92 Vgl. Kowalzig 2013: 35–45. S. außerdem z. B. Sifakis 1967: 36–37, zu einem Exemplar aus der
Sammlung Norbert Schimmel in New York, auf dem in den Beischriften möglicherweise sogar
Teile des Gesangs angegeben sind. Vgl. Rusten 2006: 44–54; Ridgway 1970: 91, mit Verweis
auf eine etruskische Amphora (Conservation Museum Rom). Rusten 2006: 51–54, sieht in den
186 Dorit Engster
mödien oder Dithyramben verweisen.93 Die den Delphinen zugeschriebene Liebe

zur Musik sowie ihre Verbindung mit berühmten Dichtern lässt eine derartige Inter-
pretation naheliegend erscheinen. Damit wäre zumindest indirekt eine Verbindung
zu Dionysos gegeben. Die Darstellung der Delphinreiter gerade auf Trinkgefäßen,
die beim Symposion verwendet werden, verortet das Motiv zwar nicht unmittelbar
im Kult, aber doch im Bereich des Weingottes Dionysos.94
4.3 Poseidon
Konkreter fassbar ist die Verbindung des Poseidon mit dem Delphin. Dieser ist dem
Gott als charakteristisches Tier zugeordnet. Bereits auf Vasenbildern aus archaischer
Zeit erscheint der Delphin neben Poseidon oder in dessen Hand.95 Typisch ist auch
die Darstellung des Gottes, der einen Fuß auf einen Delphin aufstützt oder neben
dem Tier steht.96 Besonders traditionsprägend scheint hier die Poseidondarstellung
des Lysipp gewesen zu sein – zu Füßen des Gottes befindet sich ein Delphin. Auch
auf Münzen wird Poseidon mit dem Delphin dargestellt. Dies ist insbesondere – bis
in die römische Kaiserzeit – auf Münzen aus Korinth der Fall.97 Diese verweisen
auf das zentrale Heiligtum des Gottes bzw. auf die dort befindliche Kultstatue.
4.4 Taras/Phalanthos
Eine direktere Form der Einbindung des Delphins in den Kult ist auf der Ebene der
Heroen sichtbar. Der Delphin ist in diesen Fällen Akteur bzw. zentrales Element des
Mythos, durch den die Heroisierung erst ermöglicht bzw. manifest wird.
Typisch ist die Darstellung des Heros auf dem Delphin bzw. als Delphinrei-
ter – so auch im Fall von Taras/Phalanthos, dessen Darstellung auf den Münzen
von Tarent zu finden ist.98 Dieses Motiv spielte für die Identitätsstiftung wie für die
Darstellungen die Abbildung von Chören, die er allerdings nicht zwangsläufig in Verbindung
mit der älteren Komödie sehen will. Vielmehr stellt er eine Verbindung mit den frühen Dithy-
rambenchören her, die in der Entstehungszeit der Gefäße populär wurden.
93 S. z. B. Bowra 1963: 121–34. Er geht von Dithyrambenchören bzw. einem Einzelsänger aus,
der umringt von einem Chor sein Lied vorträgt. Vgl. Beaulieu 2016: 177.
94 Beaulieu 2016: 177 geht allerdings etwas weit, wenn sie in den Delphinen die Symbole der
Verbindung der Symposion-Teilnehmer zu Dionysos sieht, die wie die Piraten durch den Wein
verwandelt werden.
95 S. z. B. Heimberg 1968: 110 Nr. 19. Vgl. z. B. auch die Angaben zur Darstellung des Poseidon
auf dem Delphin in Korinth bei Pausanias (2.18). Zur Darstellung des Poseidon mit Delphin
s. Stebbins 1929: 117–118. Zum Delphin als Attribut von Meeresgöttinnen s. auch Benton
1970: 193–94. s. Ridgway 1970: 90.
96 S. z. B. Bagdad Iraq Museum IM 73005. Zur Darstellung im Hellenismus s. Walter-Karydi
1991: 243–259.
97 Vgl. Hoskins Walbank 2003: 338–340 (zu Prägungen aus der Zeit des Domitian). Zu Prägun-
gen des Poseidon mit dem Delphin vgl. z. B. auch Münzen aus Panormus – dazu Manganaro
2000: 11.
98 Zu den Münzprägungen s. o. Fußnote 40.
Außendarstellung der Polis offensichtlich eine bedeutende Rolle. Der Delphinreiter

erscheint ab der zweiten Hälfte des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Pausanias erwähnt zu-
dem eine Stiftung in Delphi, die u. a. Taras und einen Delphin zeige.99 Allerdings
erscheint Taras bei Pausanias nicht als Delphinreiter. Vielmehr berichtet dieser,
dass die Tarentiner eine Reihe von Statuen nach Delphi stifteten. Darunter sei u. a.
ein Bild des Taras gewesen, aber auch eine Statue des Phalanthos. Letzterer werde
zusammen mit dem Delphin abgebildet und ist damit wohl als der ursprüngliche
Delphinreiter anzusehen. Bei dem Monument handelt es sich um ein Weihgeschenk
der Tarentiner aus dem 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. anlässlich eines militärischen Sieges.
Dieser sollte in Delphi propagiert und die Macht Tarents demonstriert werden. Der
dargestellte Delphin dürfte dabei gerade in Delphi eine besondere Symbolwirkung
gehabt haben, da er den Heros der stiftenden Stadt mit dem Gott des Orakels direkt
verband. Apollon hatte seinerzeit schließlich selbst die Gestalt eines Delphins ange-
nommen. Der eigentliche Kult des Taras bzw. Phalanthos in Tarent selbst lässt sich
anhand der archäologischen Funde fassen. Insbesondere Terrakottaweihungen bele-
gen die Popularität der beiden Heroen, wobei die Votivstatuetten diese jedoch nicht
auf dem Delphin sondern als Symposion-Teilnehmer zeigen.100 Insgesamt blieb die
Bedeutung ihres Kultes allerdings lokal begrenzt.
4.5 Melikertes/Palaimon
Detailliertere Informationen liegen über die Verehrung des Palaimon in Korinth

vor. Zu Ehren des Melikertes bzw. nun Palaimon sollen an diesem Ort die Isthmi-
schen Spiele etabliert worden sein.101 Anders als bezüglich der Riten für Poseidon
ist allerdings über die Opferfeiern für Palaimon kaum etwas bekannt.102 Aus den
Angaben bei den kaiserzeitlichen Autoren lässt sich schließen, dass er in Korinth im
Rahmen eines Mysterienkultes verehrt wurde.103 So werden nächtliche Trauerriten
und geheime Initiationen erwähnt. Auch wurde sein Kult, wie sich aus dem Bericht
99 Paus. 10.10.8. Vgl. Beaulieu 2016: 139; außerdem Lacroix 1954: 11–23 – seiner Meinung nach
wurde die Geschichte über die Rettung in Delphi erfunden, um die Gestalt des Monuments zu
erklären.
100 Carter 1975; Kingsley 1979: 201–220.
101 Paus. 2.1; Apollod. 3.4; Hyg. fab. 2 und 273.
102 Bei Pindar, N. 6.39–44, wird ein Stieropfer an den Isthmien erwähnt, allerdings wird dieses für
Poseidon vollzogen. Pache 2004: 140 sieht dagegen in den Spielen im Ursprung „funeral
games for the dead boy“. Dieser Wandel der Zuschreibung ist nicht ohne Parallele und lässt
sich z. B. auch bei den Spielen von Olympia und Nemea feststellen, die sich ebenfalls aus To-
tenspielen für andere Personen zu Spielen des Zeus entwickelten.
103 Zu den nächtlichen Kultfeiern s. Plut. symp. 5.3; Aristeid. 46.39–42; Pausanias (passim) und
Philostr. imag. 2.16; vgl. auch Hawthorne 1958: 97. Pausanias erwähnt das Adyton im Tempel
des Palaimon, in das der Kultanhänger hinabsteige (Paus. 2.2.1) – die Athleten schwören dort
ihren Eid. Statius (Theb. 6.10–14) spricht bezüglich des Kultes des Palaimon von der nigra
superstitio und den Klagen der Leukothea, die bei den Isthmien zu hören seien; Aristides
(46.40) spricht von Initiation (telete) und heimlichen Riten (orgiasmos), Plutarch (Theseus
25.3–5) von telete und orgia. Vgl. Pache 2004: 144–53; Seelinger 1998: 271; Rupp 1979: 93–
94; Beaulieu 2016: 130–132.
188 Dorit Engster
des Pausanias schließen lässt – in die Verehrung von Poseidon und Amphitrite in-
tegriert.104 Der Beginn der kultischen Verehrung des Palaimon ist in der Forschung
allerdings umstritten und wird teilweise erst in die Phase nach der römischen Pro-
vinzialisierung gesetzt.105 So verweist Hawthorne darauf, dass die Verbindung mit
dem Isthmos von Korinth als Schauplatz der Ereignisse erst bei Ovid hergestellt
werde und sich keine archäologischen Zeugnisse für einen Kult des Palaimon vor
der Zeit des Augustus fänden.106 Die Blüte des Kultes wird allgemein in die römi-
sche Kaiserzeit gesetzt.107
Eingehende Informationen zur kultischen Verehrung des Delphinreiters Palai-
mon bietet Pausanias.108 Die ausführlichsten Darlegungen finden sich im Kontext
seiner Beschreibung der Monumente und Feste von Korinth. Er berichtet u. a., dass
man an dem Ort, an dem Melikertes/Palaimon von dem Delphin an Land gebracht
wurde, für ihn einen Altar errichtet habe.109 Dieser Ort scheint – neben dem eigent-
lichen Heiligtum – eine besondere Rolle gespielt zu haben. Dort existierte die erste
Kultstätte für Palaimon, die später ausgebaut wurde. So geht der Bau des Palaimo-
nions auf Hadrian zurück. Aus der Kaiserzeit liegen auch vermehrt Zeugnisse für
die Kultfeiern und für Stiftungen vor.110
Wichtige Quelle für den Kult in Korinth sind die kaiserzeitlichen lokalen
Münzprägungen. Auf diesen ist der in hadrianische Zeit zu datierende Tempel, das
Palaimonion, zu sehen – es handelte sich um einen Rundbau, in dessen Inneren
104 Vgl. Paus. 2.1.7–9. Zum Palaimonion auch IG IV.203, wo die Spenden des Publius Licinius
Priscus Iuventianus aufgezählt werden, der aus eigenen Mitteln das Palaimonion und dessen
Ausstattung stiftete sowie den Opferplatz und weitere Weihungen und Bauten. S. Broneer
1971: 177–78; Rupp 1997: 97–100; Seelinger 1998: 274; Frey 2016: 439. Zum Kultort s. auch
Piérart 1998: 105–106.
105 S. zu den Ausgrabungen in Korinth Gebhard et al. 1989: 405–456. Sie gehen von einer Wieder-
belebung der Spiele im 1. Jh. n. Chr. aus. Erste Zeugnisse für Kult des Melikertes/Palaimon,
d. h. eine Opfergrube und einen größeren Ausbau bzw. den Wiederaufbau des Poseidontempels
datieren sie in die Zeit der Flavier, die Errichtung des Tempels in hadrianische Zeit. Vgl. Bro-
neer 1971: 176–177. Dieser sieht im Palaimonion ebenfalls „a purely Roman creation“. S. auch
Seelinger 1998: 273–274; Piérart 1998: 107–108.
106 S. Hawthorne 1958: 92–98, hier 95–96. Piérart 1998: 104–105, verweist darauf, dass zwar an-
geblich die Isthmien für den Heros Melikertes gestiftet wurden, es für die Zeit vor der Grün-
dung der Kolonie allerdings keine Zeugnisse für die Riten gebe. So auch Hoskins Walbank
2003: 346–347, die betont, dass die archäologischen Zeugnisse in die römische Zeit datierten
und die wenigen literarischen Erwähnungen darauf hindeuteten, dass Palaimon „was worship-
ped only on a minor capacity at the Isthmus during the Archaic and Classical periods“. Vgl.
auch ähnlich Rupp 1979: 92–94.
107 Zum Gesang Neros zu Ehren von Leukothea und Palaimon s. Lukian. Nero 3; vgl. Rupp 1979:
90–92 zur Anspielung auf Palaimon im Poseidonhymnos des Aelius Aristides (46.40–41). Pié-
rart 1998: 106 sieht dagegen in Portunus-Palaimon keine „divinité populaire“.
108 Paus. 2.1.3–4 (zur Einrichtung der Spiele, zum Ort des Altars bzw. seiner Lokalisierung beim
Ankunftsort), 2.1.7 (zu den Statuen) und 1.44.7–9. S. auch seine Ausführungen, 1.44, zu dem
Ort, an dem Ino und Melikertes ins Meer stürzten; vgl. Pache 2004: 151.
109 Paus. 2.1.
110 Zu Stiftungen des Herodes Atticus und des Iuventianus vgl. Packard 1980: 333; Broneer 1971:
173.
ein Junge auf einem Delphin zu sehen ist.111 Palaimon war jedoch nicht nur in
seinem eigenen Heiligtum präsent sondern auch im Poseidontempel. Pausanias be-
richtet, dass in der Vorhalle zwei Poseidonstatuen, Amphitrite und Thalassa, im
Inneren u. a. Poseidon und Amphitrite auf einem Wagen sowie Palaimon auf dem
Delphin zu sehen seien.112 Der sakrale Kontext ist in diesem Fall eindeutig und
bedeutsam. Palaimon ist somit Teil der Kultbildgruppe und entsprechend auch als
Adressat kultischer Verehrung zu sehen. Ähnlich wie Taras soll Palaimon auf einem
Delphin reitend dargestellt worden sein. Gestützt wird diese Angabe bezüglich der
Ikonographie durch die erwähnten korinthischen Münzprägungen.113 Darüber hi-
naus finden sich in Bilddarstellungen und Kultpraxis auch typischerweise mit dem
Dionysoskult verbundene Elemente.114 So erscheinen auf den Münzen von Korinth
neben der Darstellung des Heiligtums des Palaimon Pinie und Thyrsosstab.
4.6 Arion
Kultische Verehrung des Arion ist nicht belegt. Wie oben bereits erwähnt, existierte
aber eine Statue, die angeblich von Arion selbst gestiftet worden sein soll.115 Diese
war offenbar auch noch in der römischen Kaiserzeit zu sehen. Es ist wahrscheinlich,
dass das Bildnis einen Delphin und evtl. auch einen Delphinreiter darstellte. Das
Denkmal war zudem mit Inschriften versehen, die von Aelian zitiert werden. Nach
seinem Bericht handelte es sich um eine Weihinschrift und einen Hymnos, den
Arion für Poseidon und den Delphin ausdrücklich als Dank für seine Rettung durch
den Gott verfasste.116 In der Weihung wird der Anlass für die Stiftung genannt bzw.
auf die Rettung durch den gottgesandten Delphin verwiesen.117 Der angeblich von
Arion verfasste Hymnos thematisiert die Rettung des Sängers durch Poseidon und
111 Gebhard et al. 1989: 405–456. Pache 2004: 164–170.

112 Vgl. Paus. 2.1.7–9; Strab. 8.6.22. Broneer 1971: 174, zu den bei Pausanias beschriebenen Sta-
tuen.
113 Seelinger 1998: 279, zu der Abbildung des Palaimon auf dem Delphin und Opferszenen auf
kaiserzeitlichen Münzen, Imhoof–Blumer 1885: B XV, XVI, XVII, IX, XI, XIII, XI, XII – auch
zu Palaimon mit Thyrsus und Pinie.
114 Paus. 1.44.7–9, 2.1.3, 2.3–4, 2.1.7–8, 2.2.1–2. Pausanias (2.1.3) erwähnt, dass Sisyphus Meli-
kertes gefunden und ihm zu Ehren die Isthmischen Spiele eingerichtet habe; Plutarch (The-
seus 25) vermerkt, dass Theseus die Isthmien begründet habe, Spiele für Melikertes aber bereits
existiert hätten. Vgl. Pache 2004: 148; Beaulieu 2016: 130; Rupp 1979: 92–93.
S. Broneer 1971: 179. Vgl. insgesamt Gonzáles 2017. Zum dionysischen Aspekt bzw. zur fami-
liären Beziehung zu Dionysos und der entsprechenden Symbolik s. auch Seelinger 1998: 271,
277–79; Beaulieu 2016: 133–134.
115 S. zu dem Monument Ail. nat. 12.45; Hyg. fab. 2.17; Paus. 3.25.7 – der die Statue offenbar
noch gesehen hat. Zur Deutung und Problematik dieser Angabe s. u. a. Gray 2001: 24.
116 Ail. nat. 12.45. Wie Bowra 1963: 121–134 überzeugend dargelegt hat, weisen die Formulierun-
gen des Epigramms und des Hymnus eher in die spätklassische Zeit und das Lied dürfte Arion
nachträglich zugeschrieben worden sein. Vgl. in diesem Sinne auch Gesztelyi 1974/75: 66.
117 Ail. nat. 12.45: ἀθανάτων πομπαῖσιν Ἀρίονα Κυκλέος υἱὸν / ἐκ Σικελοῦ πελάγους σῶσεν
ὄχημα τόδε.
190 Dorit Engster
den „musikliebenden“ Delphin zusammen.118 Letzterer wird als Abgesandter des

Meeresherrschers angesprochen. Das Weihgeschenk zeigt Arion somit als dankba-
ren Verehrer des delphinsendenden Poseidon.119 Es ist zugleich Indiz dafür, dass in
Tainaron die lokale Erinnerung an Arion gepflegt wurde.
5. AKTUALISIERUNGEN DER MYTHEN UND TRADITIONEN
Die antiken Delphine retteten jedoch nicht nur Heroen und legendäre Berühmthei-
ten. Aus historischer Zeit ist eine Reihe von Fällen überliefert, in denen Poseidon
seinen Boten auch zur Rettung Normalsterblicher ausgesandt haben soll. Diese
werden von Plinius dem Älteren in seiner Naturgeschichte referiert und belegen die
ungebrochene Popularität des Motivs Junge/Delphin. Gleichzeitig können sie als
Aktualisierungen der mythischen Traditionen angesehen werden. Das Grundmuster
dieser Geschichten ähnelt sich – wie im Falle der mythischen Vorbilder zeigt sich
der Delphin besonders menschenfreundlich.
Berichte, die das Verhältnis zwischen Menschen und Delphinen thematisie-
ren, kursierten seit der Zeit des Hellenismus und insbesondere in der Kaiserzeit.
Die Protagonisten sind in diesen Fällen normale Bürger, die eine besondere Bezie-
hung zu den Tieren hatten. Häufiges Thema ist die Freundschaft zwischen Jungen
und Delphinen – insbesondere in Traditionen aus den Städten der kleinasiatischen
und griechischen Küste. Besonders berühmt sind die mit der Stadt Iasos in Karien
verbundenen Geschichten.120 In der Zeit Alexanders des Großen soll sich dort ein
Junge mit einem Delphin angefreundet haben. Das Tier soll ihm angeblich so eifrig
gefolgt sein, dass es schließlich am Ufer strandete.121 Diese Geschichte habe, so
Plinius, sogar die Aufmerksamkeit Alexanders erregt, der den Jungen zum Priester
des Poseidon in Babylon ernannte, weil er das Geschehen als Zeichen der göttli-
118 Ail. nat. 12.45: ὕψιστε θεῶν, /πόντιε, χρυσοτρίαινε Πόσειδον, / γαιήοχ᾽, ἐγκύμον᾽ ἀν᾽ ἅλμαν:
/βραγχίοις περὶ δὲ σὲ πλωτοὶ / θῆρες χορεύουσι κύκλῳ, κούφοισι ποδῶν / ῥίμμασιν ἐλάφρ᾽
ἀναπαλλόμενοι σιμοὶ / φριξαύχενες ὠκυδρόμοι / σκύλακες, φιλόμουσοι / δελφῖνες, ἔναλα
θρέμματα κουρᾶν Νηρεΐδων θεᾶν, / ἃς ἐγείνατ᾽ Ἀμφιτρίτα: οἵ μ᾽ εἰς Πέλοπος γᾶν ἐπὶ Ταιναρίαν /
ἀκτὰν ἐπορεύσατε πλαζόμενον Σικελῷ ἐνὶ πόντῳ, / κυρτοῖσι νώτοις ὀχέοντες, / ἄλοκα Νηρεΐας
πλακὸς τέμνοντες, ἀστιβῆ πόρον, φῶτες δόλιοι / ὥς μ᾽ ἀφ᾽ ἁλιπλόου γλαφυρᾶς νεὼς / εἰς οἶδμ᾽
ἁλιπόρφυρον λίμνας ἔριψαν.
119 Eine Anspielung auf die Geschichte des Arion findet sich auch in einem Epigramm des Posei-
dipp aus hellenistischer Zeit. In diesem ist die Rede von einem Weihgeschenk, das der Königin
Arsinoe von „Arions Delphin“ gebracht wird. S. dazu Puelma 2006: 60–74. Vgl. auch Puelma
2006b: 29–31. Bei der Weihegabe handelt es sich offenbar um die Darstellung des Sängers auf
dem Delphin.
120 Aristot. hist. an. 631a; Antig. Car. 60; Plin. nat. 9.27; Plut. De soll. an. 36; Ail. nat. 6.15; Athen.
13.85; Poll. 9.84; Solin. 12.10.
121 Athen. 13.85. Er spricht davon, dass sich der Delphin in den Jungen, der bezeichnenderweise
den Namen Dionysios getragen habe und in der Palaistra trainierte, regelrecht verliebt habe.
chen Gunst interpretierte.122 Es bleibt allerdings unklar, in welcher Form der Kult
des Poseidon in Babylon praktiziert wurde.123
Aus der Polis Iasos ist noch ein weiterer Delphinreiter bekannt. Ein Junge na-
mens Hermias soll ebenfalls eine enge Freundschaft mit einem Delphin eingegan-
gen sein – die allerdings tragisch endete. Der Junge pflegte auf dem Rücken des
Tieres zu reiten, in einem Sturm kam er jedoch ums Leben, woraufhin der Delphin
aus Schuldbewusstsein auf den Strand schwamm und damit Selbstmord beging.124
Eine ausführliche Version der Ereignisse bietet Aelian, der die erotischen Aspekte
der Geschichte betont – der Delphin habe sich in den schönen Jungen verliebt, der
nach dem Training im Gymnasion im Meer zu baden pflegte. Die Freundschaft
wird als eine Art Liebesbeziehung beschrieben.125 Der Unfall, der zum Tod des
Jungen führt, wird als Resultat eines zu intensiven (Liebes-)Spiels gewertet.126 Bei
Plinius, der Geschichte ebenfalls referiert, findet sich der Verweis, dass ähnliche
Geschichten aus Naupaktos, Amphilochia und Tarent bekannt seien und dadurch
auch die weit zurückliegende Geschichte des Arion eine gewisse Glaubwürdigkeit
besitze.127
In Iasos finden sich keine Hinweise auf die kultische Verehrung eines Delphin-
reiters. Allerdings ist dort inschriftlich der Kult des Apollon belegt – zwar nicht
der des Apollon Delphinios, aber immerhin der des Apollon von Didyma.128 Auf
den Münzen der Stadt erscheint ebenfalls Apollon auf dem Avers. Die Rückseiten
zeigen – seit hellenistischer Zeit bzw. ab dem 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. – einen Del-
phinreiter. Dieser wird mit dem Delphinreiter Hermias identifiziert. Diesbezügliche
inschriftliche Quellen fehlen allerdings. Eine mögliche überregionale Bedeutung
der Erinnerung an Hermias könnte die Statue eines Delphinreiters belegen, die in
Nysa gefunden wurde.129 Sie zeigt einen auf einem Delphin in geradezu halsbre-
cherischer Weise reitenden Jungen. Die Popularität dieses Motivs macht eine si-
chere Zuschreibung allerdings schwierig. Wie die zahlreichen Berichte auch aus
122 Plin. nat. 9.27.

123 S. Williams 2013: 208–209, der auf die Aussage Aelians (nat. 8.3) verweist, dass die Ge-
schichte seit langem bekannt sei „and on this point there is no reason to doubt him“.
124 Plin. nat. 9.27; nach Aelian (nat. 5.15), wurde von den Bürgern von Iasos dem Paar eine ge-
meinsame Grabstätte und ein Denkmal errichtet. Zur Vorliebe der Delphine, mit Kindern zu
schwimmen und zu tauchen s. auch Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 19 – er sieht darin den Grund für die
besondere Schonung der Delphine durch die Fischer.
125 Vgl. dagegen Plutarch (De soll. an. 36), der etwas vorsichtiger formuliert.
126 Bemerkenswert ist der von Aelian gezogene Vergleich mit Laios, dem Vater des Ödipus, der
zugunsten des Delphins ausfällt. S. Williams 2013: 209–210: er sieht auch bei Aelian eine stark
erotische Aufladung der Erzählung mit dem Delphin in der Rolle des Erastes. In diesem Sinne
deutet er auch die Erwähnung der Rückenflosse, die den Jungen durchbohre und sieht die Dar-
stellung verankert „firmly within pederastic discourse … blending the language of eros and
philia“. Vgl. allgemein Smith 2013: 73–90; Hindermann 2011.
127 Vgl. Plin. nat. 9.25, der auf den nicht weiter bekannten Hegesidemos als Quelle (für Iasos)
verweist und den Vergleich mit einer von Theophrast überlieferten Geschichte zieht. Vgl. auch
Aristot. hist. an. 631a.
128 S. Reinach 1893: 186 zu einer Weihung an Apollon Didymaios aus Iasos.
129 Turgut 2010: 407–409.
192 Dorit Engster
historischer Zeit belegen, waren Kinder, die sich mit Delphinen anfreundeten, ein
weit verbreitetes Phänomen.
Dies gilt auch für die römische Kaiserzeit. In die Zeit des Augustus datiert die
Geschichte eines Delphins, der im Lukriner See bei Neapel lebte und eine enge
Freundschaft mit einem Jungen schloss.130 Der Delphin – namens Simo („Stumpf-
nase“) soll ihm erlaubt haben, auf seinem Rücken zu reiten. Nach einiger Zeit sei
der Junge jedoch an einer Krankheit verstorben. Das Tier habe noch länger den
alten Treffpunkt aufgesucht, sei dann aber selbst aus Trauer gestorben.131
Die Beziehung zwischen Tier und Jungen konnte, wie diese Berichte zeigen,
sehr eng werden und Züge eines Liebesverhältnisses annehmen.132 In den realen
Geschichten führt die Begegnung zwischen Mensch und Tier jedoch meist zu ei-
nem tragischen Ausgang. Die Reproduzierbarkeit des aus früheren Epochen be-
kannten Geschehens ist nur bedingt gegeben. Entweder aufgrund des Wetters oder
eines Missverständnisses zwischen Mensch und Tier endeten die realen Beziehun-
gen mit dem Tod eines oder beider Protagonisten. Auch das zu große Interesse der
Öffentlichkeit konnte hierfür verantwortlich ein.
Besonders deutlich wird dies in einer weiteren Geschichte, die Plinius der Äl-
tere und Plinius der Jüngere berichten – diesmal ein Beispiel aus ihrer eigenen
Zeit:133 In Hippo Diarrhytos soll ein zahmer Delphin erschienen sein, der Menschen
auf sich reiten ließ.134 Dies zog sogar die Aufmerksamkeit des Statthalters auf sich.
Dieser wollte das Wunder selbst sehen und führte, so die Auskunft des jüngeren
Plinius, sogar eine Zeremonie an diesem durch, indem er ihn mit Öl übergoss.
Dies hatte allerdings die Konsequenz, dass das verschreckte Tier eine Zeit lang die
menschliche Gesellschaft mied. Plinius spricht von „religione prava“ und deutet den
Vorgang somit wohl als fehlgeschlagenes Ritual.135 Tatsächlich weist die Salbung
mit Öl auf eine kultische Verehrung des Tieres hin.136 Aus römischer Perspektive
130 S. Plin. nat. 9.25 – die Geschichte scheint relativ verbreitet gewesen zu, denn Plinius beruft
sich auf eine Reihe von Gewährsmännern (pigeret referre ni res Maecenatis et Fabiani et Flavi
Alfii multorumque esset litteris mandata). Plinius betont die Zutraulichkeit des Delphins (miro
amore dilexit).
131 Plin. nat. 9.25 (desiderio expiravit).
132 Diese Fälle von Liebesbeziehungen erinnern an seit der Zeit des Hellenismus typische Liebes-
geschichten zwischen Menschen und Tieren; vergleichbar wären Erzählungen über die Liebe
eines Hundes zu einem Jungen in Soloi und die eines Elephanten zu einem Gelehrten in Ale-
xandria; vgl. Plut. De soll. an. 18.
133 Plin. nat. 9.26; Plin. epist. 9.33.
134 Zu den Unterschieden zwischen den Berichten und der besonderen Akzentsetzung von Plinius
dem Jüngeren s. Hindermann 2011: 345–354.
135 Hindermann 2011: 351 vermutet, dass der Legat in dem Delphin die Inkarnation eines Gottes
sah.
136 Vgl. Theophrast (char. 16), der den „Abergläubischen“ u. a. dadurch charakterisiert, dass die-
ser Öl über die Steine an Wegkreuzungen ausgieße; vgl. auch Lukian (deor. conc. 12), der ei-
nen Teilnehmer der „Götterversammlung“ darüber spotten lässt, dass nunmehr jeder mit Öl
begossene Altar als Orakelstätte gelte. Vgl. auch die Salbung Jesu durch Maria Magdalena
(Mk 14.3–9; Mt 26.6–13; Lk 7.36–50; Jo 12.1–8.
musste diese Form der religiösen Praxis jedoch als suspekt und fehlgeleitet erschei-
nen.137
Das Verhalten des Statthalters scheint in jedem Fall das Tier nur kurzzeitig
abgeschreckt zu haben. Als es zurückkehrte, sollen wieder große Besucherströme
die Stadt aufgesucht haben. Die Einwohner waren, so der jüngere Plinius, mit die-
sem Andrang überfordert; insbesondere die Kosten für die Unterbringung hochran-
giger Funktionäre strapazierten die Kasse. Zum Selbstschutz sollen sie dann das
Tier heimlich getötet haben.138 Diese Reaktion stellt jedoch eine Ausnahme dar. In
den meisten Städten, die mit mythischen oder realen Delphinreitern in Verbindung
gebracht werden konnten, wurde die Erinnerung gepflegt und auch propagiert. Ge-
rade die zeitgenössischen Delphinreiter erregten großes Aufsehen, denn in ihnen
konnten Vergegenwärtigungen legendärer Ereignisse gesehen werden. Für die Po-
leis war und blieb es prestigeträchtig, Schauplatz eines solchen Ereignisses zu sein.
6. RESUMÉ
Aus der Analyse der Quellen ergeben sich eine Reihe von Beobachtungen bezüg-
lich des Delphins und seiner Rolle. Zunächst ist festzuhalten, dass keine Funde
existieren, die eine direkte Verehrung des Delphins an sich belegen. Auch als Op-
fertier sind die Tiere nicht bezeugt – im Gegenteil, die Tötung eines Delphins ist
tabuisiert.139 Wie auch Fische generell war der Delphin für das Tieropfer nicht ge-
eignet, vielmehr galt derjenige, der ihn tötete, als verflucht.140
Den Delphin umgab zudem eine gewisse Aura.141 Von besonderer Bedeutung
sind diesbezüglich seine Musikalität und seine Menschenähnlichkeit bzw. Men-
137 Für die skeptische Haltung der Römer bezüglich der Verehrung von Tieren s. Verg. Aen. 8.698;
Iuv. 15; Luk. deor. conc. 11. Im griechischen Bereich wurde die Einbeziehung von Tieren in
den Kult bis zu einem gewissen Grad toleriert – vgl. z. B. Larsen 2017: 48–62 für die Einbezie-
hung von Hirschen bzw. Hirschkühen in den Kult der Artemis.
138 Betont wird, dass das Ereignis zahlreiche Schaulustige anzog. Vgl. Ail. nat. 6.15.
139 Beleg für die Jagd auf Delphine sind die Angaben des Xenophon (an. 5.4.28), dass die Grie-
chen bei den Mossynoikern, einem Stamm an der Schwarzmeerküste, auf Delphinfleisch stie-
ßen. Der Volksstamm galt in der Antike als barbarisch und unzivilisiert. Zur Kritik an der
Tötung von Delphinen s. u. a. Strab. 12.549; Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 19 und 36; Athen. 7.282e.
Ausnahme ist ein Opfer in Thera an Zeus, Apollon und Poseidon, das aus einem Adler, einem
Löwen und einem Delphin besteht (IG XII 3,1347); vgl. Redondo 2015: 84. Es ist allerdings
wahrscheinlich, dass es sich hier nicht um ein regelrechtes Tieropfer sondern eher um die Stif-
tung von Bildnissen handelt.
140 Vgl. Opp. hal. 5.416–424. Die Jagd auf Delphine wird verurteilt; da der Delphin vernunftbe-
gabt ist, wird die Tötung mit dem Mord an einem Menschen gleichgesetzt, der Mörder gilt als
befleckt und soll vom Opfer ausgeschlossen werden.
141 Zur Heiligkeit bzw. Gottesnähe der Delphine s. Plut. De soll. an. 36 (θεοφιλὲς), Plut. Conv.
sept. sap. 19 (zur „Immunität“ der Delphine); Athen. 7.18; Opp. hal. 5.416–19; teilweise wer-
den den Delphinen prophetische Fähigkeiten zugeschrieben, insbesondere, was die Wettervor-
hersage betrifft – s. Cic. div. 2.145; Sen. nat. 233–34,152; Alki. 1.10.1; Athen. 7.282e; Cassiod.
var. 3.48; vgl. dazu Stebbins 1929: 91. Etwas inkonsequent sind allerdings die ebenfalls zu
findenden Hinweise, wie Delphinfleisch zu verwenden sei. Dessen Sonderstellung wird immer-
194 Dorit Engster
schenfreundlichkeit. Seine Kraft und Schnelligkeit sind ebenfalls von Wichtigkeit –

insbesondere, wenn es darum geht, Personen zu retten bzw. als Reittier zu dienen.
Insgesamt lässt sich feststellen, dass dem Delphin eine besondere Rolle unter den
Seetieren zuerkannt wurde. Er steht für Stärke und die Kontrolle über das Meer.
Außerdem gilt er als bester Freund des Menschen zur See.
Die Verknüpfung des Tieres mit bestimmten Gottheiten und Menschen geht auf
diese ihm zugeschriebenen Eigenschaften – Menschenfreundlichkeit, Musikalität
und Macht – zurück. Der Delphin kann hierbei unterschiedliche Rollen einnehmen
und als Manifestation einer Gottheit, als Werkzeug des Gottes oder als ihm zuge-
ordnetes Tier erscheinen. Im Falle der Menschen sind es besonders Sänger- oder
Dichterpersönlichkeiten, die mit dem Tier in Verbindung gebracht werden. Diesen
wurde ein besonderes Nahverhältnis zu dem musikliebenden Delphin zugeschrie-
ben. Auch Städtegründer, die weite und gefährliche Reisen über das Meer riskieren,
stehen unter dem Schutz des Delphins.
Diese Personen bedienen sich nicht des Delphins, sondern ihr Leben wird
durch ihn gerettet bzw. – im ungünstigeren Fall – ihre regelkonforme Bestattung
wird sichergestellt. Es lassen sich bei den Mythen und Erzählungen darüber hinaus
gewisse Grundmuster ausmachen. So spielen bestimmte Poleis bzw. Seewege eine
prominente Rolle. Auch eine Reihe von Motiven sind für die Erzählungen typisch –
so die Gefahren der Seereise, die Furcht vor Piraten, das wunderbare Eingreifen
eines Gottes.
Zum anderen lassen sich bestimmte chronologische Entwicklungsstufen ab-
grenzen. Für die archaische Zeit sind Mythen typisch, in denen der Delphin als
Begleiter oder Bote von Gottheiten erscheint. Im eigentlichen Kult dieser Götter
spielt der Delphin jedoch nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Eine Einbindung des Del-
phins in konkrete Kulthandlungen ist nicht belegt. Typisch für die klassische Zeit
sind Erzählungen über Menschen, die von Delphinen gerettet oder bewahrt wer-
den – wie Taras oder Palaimon. Bei diesen handelt es sich häufig um Personen, die
mit den genannten Göttern in Verbindung stehen. Sie werden als Heroen kultisch
verehrt wie auch entsprechende Münzbilder und archäologische Befunde zeigen.
Ab der hellenistischen Zeit werden neue Elemente in den Erzählungen wichtig.
So findet sich nun häufig das Motiv der Verstirnung des Delphins als Belohnung
für seine Menschenfreundlichkeit. Im Hellenismus wie in der römischen Kaiserzeit
sind zudem Tendenzen zu beobachten, den Delphin immer stärker zu vermenschli-
chen bzw. ihm menschenähnliche Eigenschaften zuzuschreiben. Zur bloßen Men-
schenfreundlichkeit hinzu kommt die Zuschreibung menschlicher Emotionsfähig-
keit: die Fähigkeit, sich in schöne Knaben zu verlieben. Insgesamt ist in der römi-
schen Kaiserzeit die Tendenz zu beobachten, die idealisierenden und idyllischen
Elemente der Beziehung Mensch–Tier zu betonen. Es lässt sich eine Entwicklung
hin zur Betonung des Wunderbaren wie auch des Emotionalen feststellen.
Eine besondere Faszination scheint nun von realen Delphinreitern ausgegangen
zu sein, als historischen Persönlichkeiten, die von Delphinen gerettet wurden, oder
hin dadurch deutlich, dass mit ihm teilweise magische Wirkungen verbunden wurden. Zum
medizinischen Nutzen s. Plin. nat. 32.83, 113, 117, 129, 137. Vgl. Ridgway 1970: 89.
Jungen, die sozusagen als Neuauflage mythischer oder legendärer Gestalten, als
‚Neos Arion‘ oder ‚Neos Taras‘, auf Delphinen ritten. Eine kultische Verehrung ist
bezüglich der realen Delphinreiter nicht nachweisbar. Jedoch wurde die Erinnerung
besonders auf lokaler Ebene bewahrt bzw. war in Literatur und Kunst populär. So
zeigen die von Plinius geschilderten Ereignisse in Hippo Diarrhytos beispielhaft
die Popularität des Delphinreiters – wenn auch mit unglücklichem Ausgang für das
Tier.
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Sanctuary of Poseidon‘, Maia 50,2: 271–280.
Sifakis, G. M. 1967: ‚Singing Dolphin Riders‘, BICS 14: 36–37.
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III
NATUR ALS SCHAUPLATZ MYTHISCHEN GESCHEHENS

UND RELIGIÖSEN HANDELNS
APOLLO’S SERVANTS – CLEANING THE SANCTUARY
AND KEEPING THINGS IN ORDER
Marietta Horster, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
1. INTRODUCTION
In Greek sanctuaries, the demand for purity was a characteristic for the sacred.
Albeit often stated otherwise, cleanliness and purity were not indispensable mark-
ers separating the sacred from the profane.1 Accordingly, there existed priestly
dwellings in sanctuaries and temporary housing during festivals was sometimes
addressed in ‘sacred laws’ as needing regulation.2 However, it was widely acknowl-
edged that man’s ‘normal’ life would bring impurity into the sacred stainlessness of
the place.3 This paper will argue that neither purity nor pollution divided the sacred
from the profane, or demarcated the human and the divine spheres. The concepts of
pollution and purity, including their physical aspects, were parts of both ‘spheres’,
the sacred and the profane, but were sometimes addressed and characterised by
different terms and with specific notions. After a short introduction into aspects of
purity and cleanliness in communal life, a second part focuses on Athenian trage-
dies of the fifth centuries and their treatment of cleanliness in sacred and mundane
places. The final part addresses aspects of purity and cleanliness in sanctuaries as
one way of establishing or restoring kosmos or eukosmia – either as part of a slave’s
rather mundane duty or as one part of the priests’ and other overseers’ services and
tasks.
1 It will be argued against Burkert’s claim that the “demand for purity draws attention to the
boundary which separates the sacred from the profane; the more scrupulously and intensively
purification is pursued, the greater the difference in order appears”, Burkert 1985: 77. For other
approaches connected to nature and natural features in sanctuaries, see Mylonopoulos 2008 and
Horster 2015.
2 E. g. Deshours 2006: 91–92 for accommodation (skenai) and bathing facilities in the sanctuary
of Andania, first century BC., cf. with text and translation of § 7–8 (tents) and § 21–22 (water,
bath and ointments) Gawlinski 2012: 142–148; 219–225. Euripides’ Ion 1128–1166 describes
the richly decorated tent in the sanctuary of Delphi, which Ion had put up for a banquet of his
presumed father. In the absence of a better denomination for the format and presentation of
these ritual norms and regulations, the established modern term ‘sacred law’, leges sacrae will
be used in the following text. For the discussion of the term, see Parker 2004; Gagarin 2011 and
Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge 2012.
3 Burkert 1985: 94.
202 Marietta Horster
2. PURITY AND CLEANLINESS IN COMMUNAL (RELIGIOUS) LIFE
Since the late 1960s, the interpretation of dirt and pollution as ‘matters out of place’
and ‘inappropriate elements’ in a given culture being in contrast to things ‘in or-
der’ has become a rather widespread notion.4 Individuals and groups permanently
produced pollution in all aspects of social life like childbirth, family life, sexuality,
illness, death, and all kinds of labour. Food, rubbish of production and of com-
merce, street dust, debris, blood and sweat – these are but a few very common
physical objects that contaminate man, places and buildings in cities and villages.5
Dirt and therewith pollution is thus a ‘natural’ consequence of human life. The
amount of waste and dirt, its location and deposit, and all other aspects of its con-
text, place, and time are influenced by individual and communal decisions and be-
haviour. These rather banal and uncontested claims concern the ‘real’ world (not
only) of ancient Greece.
These omnipresent subjects of dirt and cleanliness, of purity and pollution
therefore intruded into the literary world of comedies and tragedies. The characters’
behaviour and the ambiguous consequences of many decisions and actions in the
sacred and profane contexts are obvious and constitute the core of many narra-
tives.6 Dirt and even more often pollution was one of the dramatic and paramount
consequences of such decisions and actions. As a consequence, deliberate as well
as unintended contamination was at the very heart of Greek tragedies. This specific
kind of physical, but more often of moral and mental pollution was supposed to be
frightening and disturbing for the spectators; it was “ubiquitous and central”.7 In the
context of the current debate on the various dramatic strategies, pollution is most
often connected with prominent tragic subjects such as murder, human sacrifice,
and incest. Such horrid but – in real life – rather rare incidents are central to most
of the plays’ content and their negotiation of the tragic crisis. As a consequence,
pollution and its counterpart purification were strong compositional points of refer-
ence. Fabian Meinel (2015) therefore conceives the concept of pollution as a ritual
4 The anthropologist Mary Douglas 1966 was the first to be that explicit, cf. Bradley 2012: 11–23
for an overview of the development of the concept of culturally defined categories of social
control, order, purity and their antipodes in anthropological studies, literary theory, sociology,
the humanities and especially classical studies. The creation and destruction of value as one
aspect of waste is not considered in Bradley’s résumé, on this subject see Hawkins and Muecke
2003. Religiously based concepts of purity and pollution in antiquity are discussed by Mouli-
nier 1952; Parker 1983; Bendlin 2007 and Mullin 1996 with a comparism of ancient philosoph-
ical, Judaic, and early Christian traditions.
5 For waste in ancient cities see Bradley 2012: 22–25 with further literature.
6 For the eminent role of inconsiderate decisions and their consequences, but also unforeseeable
consequences of rational and prudent decisions, see with different arguments and emphasis the
overviews with further literature in Hall 2010: 52–58 and 85–94 for the physical settings in-
cluding shrines; for intergenerational conflicts and interactions producing pollution ib.: 139–
148, for violence, social distinction and other markers of tragic inclusiveness ib.: 148–155, and
Scodel 2010: 16–17 for revenge and other misguided reactions; for probability argumentation
of the characters’ innocence or guilt very similar to the rhetoric of an Athenian law suite ib.:
63–64.
7 Meinel 2015: 1.
Apollo’s Servants – Cleaning the Sanctuary and Keeping Things in Order 203
nexus to the tragic crisis. He convincingly argues that for understanding the con-
cept of pollution in fifth-century Athenian literature, the structural anthropologists’
reduction of pollution to a ‘matter out of place’ does not go far enough.8 But even
in some of the tragedies, the more basic ‘matter out of place’-aspect and, matching
with it, the reordering and cleaning up of things as well as of human relation plays
an important role. The often very simple objects and features of gnorismata that
facilitate the recognition of a woman’s or a man’s identity have a similar function
and helped to reorder an upside down situation. This anagnoresis often gives a play
a dramatic (not always, but often positive) turn, facilitating family reunions.9 One
of the settings where these basic aspects of the ancient drama were put on stage was
the sanctuary. Physical purity concerned all parts involved in a religious setting: the
worshipper with his or her body, clothing and shoes, the priests and cult personnel,
their bodies and clothes; the colour, texture and patterns of the skin and fur of the
sacrificial animal, its healthy complexion, the sanctuary with its altar, cult statue,
buildings and facilities as well all its trees and plants, and even the large number
and variety of the votives.
Even if some tragedies are rather ‘tame’ and do not treat these ‘dramatic’ sub-
jects: the above mentioned moral pollution provoked by severe transgressions of
human laws like murder, incest, assault on suppliants in sanctuaries, or the violation
of the deities’ properties are of greatest importance for the dramaturgy of a mythical
plot by tragic poets. Compared to such dramatic settings, the subject of the clean
and pure environment and of the physical orderliness in human dealings with the
deities and their sanctuaries seems to have been of less or even no importance at
all. But it is just this unassuming subject that may be traced in drama and supports
the events in the foreground. This literary background of physical order and purity
as complementary to social and to divine order has not yet received the attention it
deserves.
3. PURITY AND CLEANLINESS IN THE REAL AND

LITERARY WORLD OF THE SANCTUARIES
From the first written Greek literary compositions onwards, the physical aspects of
purity and order in sanctuaries were explicitly addressed as part of the respective
contemporary concept of pollution and purification.
“Never pour a libation of sparkling wine to Zeus after dawn with unwashen hands, nor to the
other deathless gods; else they do not hear your prayers, but spit them back.”10
8 Meinel 2015: 1 and passim. An insight into the sophisticated development of Mary Douglas’
arguments not covered by Meinel’s critique is given by Bradley 2012: 11–17 with further lit-
erature.
9 For the anagnoresis as one of the main features of a dramatic plot according to Aristotle, see
e. g. Hall 2010: 39 and 52.
10 Hes. Op. 724–726 (text and transl. H.-G. Evelyn-White): μηδέ ποτ᾽ ἐξ ἠοῦς Διὶ λειβέμεν αἴθοπα
οἶνον / χερσὶν ἀνίπτοισιν μηδ᾽ ἄλλοις ἀθανάτοισιν: / οὐ γὰρ τοί γε κλύουσιν, ἀποπτύουσι δέ τ᾽
ἀράς.
These Hesiodic verses put into writing the basic rule of cleanliness and purity of
all things and acts related to the Gods that was observed until the end of pagan
sacrifices. Washing hands and sprinkling water around oneself before entering the
sanctuary11 and before any other ritual cult activity (e. g. inside a private dwelling or
at the meeting place of the demos) were sufficient for mechanically cleaning away
the usual dirt of everyday life.
For ritual cleaning of all kinds of pollution produced by quite common, daily
physical human contaminations, like certain food, sexual activities, birth and death,
water was sufficient. Although some of these ‘simple’ pollutions required a specific
amount of time to go by before purity could be regained, small amounts of water
were sufficient for the following ritual.12 Often, small basins, perirrhanteria, were
placed at the entrance to a sanctuary, which made it easy to perform a ritual of pu-
rification in an adequate manner. In addition, if ritual requirements of mystery and
healing cults demanded a bath, a lustral basin inside the temenos would be ready for
the visitor.13 Such transitional cleaning rituals at the beginning of the cult procedure
could be combined with a ritual changing of clothes after initiation or healing, to
mark the end of the religious transformation process.14
A rather late regulation, diagramma, from the first century BC, concerns the
Andania mysteries of the Great Gods: Sacred men, hieroi, were chosen to organise
all that was connected to the upcoming mystery festival with its fair. In line 37 it is
specified that:
“they shall write and post things which require purification and whatever one ought not to have
when entering the sanctuary.”15
Despite the eternal validity and lasting authority of the inscribed law,16 the purifica-
tion regulations were significant and relevant for a specific period of time only. The
Andania sanctuary of the Great Gods probably received no pilgrims from outside
over the year. During the mysteries with its fair, people of a larger catchment area
were attracted. However, because those interested in becoming initiated were not
11 Sprinkling water: Ps.-Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 4.55–60.

12 See e. g. the law of Cyrene, LSS 115 (re?)inscribed in the late fourth century or the regulation
for the entry to the sanctuary of Isis and Sarapis in Megalopolis (Arcadia), SEG 28.421, dated
to ca. 200 BC, cf. translation and commentary by Lupu 2005: 205–213. In Megalopolis purity
was e. g. recovered after nine days for childbirth, after 44 days for abortion: the cleaning-period
after menstruation took six days, the one after eating goat meat three days, whereas sexual in-
tercourse needed no time but a simple washing. Robertson 2013 focuses first on terms and then
on the presentation of the laws and regulations for individual deities. The rites of purification
with water and sacrifices prescribed after homicide in the laws and rules of Selinous (SEG
XLIII 630 and Lupu 2015: 359–387 = NGSL 27) and Cyrene (LSS 115) are discussed by Salvo
2012.
13 For such basins at the entrance of sanctuaries, see Pimpl 1997 and the discussion of the use of
water in sanctuaries by Ginouvès 1962: 229–310.
14 Deshours 2006: 102–106 and Gawlinski 2012: 113–133 present examples for ritual clothes and
clothing: differences in colour and material are supposed to depend on the ritual (e. g. mys-
teries, sacrifice, procession) and the social context.
15 Transl. Lupu 2005: 14.
16 Gawlinski 2012: 242 with her commentary on the final clause (ll. 192–194) of the inscription.
yet accustomed to the rites of the sanctuary and its mystery ritual, the Andanians
thought it reasonable to publish all the detailed purity-rules for the three or four
days of the festival. More detailed rules of that kind are known from other sanctu-
aries, as for example the regulation from Ialysos, around 300 BC.17 It lists “pack
animals, footwear and anything made from pigs … as sources of pollution” which
should not be taken into the sanctuary.18 More importantly, the objective of the
decree is explicitly “to keep the sanctuary and precinct of Aléktrona pure according
to ancestral customs.”19
Similar to high quantities of dirt and dust, extreme impureness caused by un-
social behaviour and transgression of human laws including sacred norms and cult
rules demanded more than a little water – a subject which was carefully treated by
Robert Parker in 1983 for the archaic and classical period and by Georg Petzl, An-
gelos Chaniotis and others for the Hellenistic and Roman imperial period.20 Those
extraordinary purification rituals were required in addition to regular purification
rites of many sanctuaries and specific objects within a sanctuary. Parker assumes
that such rites were meant neither to avert danger nor to ensure that no pollution
remained unnoticed and adhered to the sacred site, but rather “to create value”
and “to impart a touch of sanctity, a state of purity above the average”.21 For such
purposes, pig’s blood was used every month in the fourth century BC to cleanse
Apollo’s temple at Delos, to purge the Eleusinian temple and the priestess’ house,
and in the first century BC to clean the theatre of Andania as part of the preparation
for the festival and initiation rituals for the mysteries.22
The architectonic and natural setting of a sanctuary was expected to provide the
necessary resources. In some of the sanctuaries, a spring, ritual baths and/or flowing
water or artificial water channels were needed for healing purposes, in others they
were part of a specific cult ritual. Water was needed at all times so that the priests,
priestesses and the cult personnel were able to ensure that everything taking place
in the sanctuary and during cult rituals was done in an unsoiled context.23
In some cults, the necessary cleaning of cult objects and parts of the sanctuary
were transformed into a coherent narrative and an attractive ritual as part of a fes-
tival. This for example is the case in Samos. The myth of Admete, first priestess
of Hera at Samos, concerns the cleaning of a cult statue and is told by the Samian
Menodotos (late third or early second century BC):24
17 LSCG 136.
18 Lupu 2005: 15.
19 Lupu 2005: 15, ll. 3–5 of LSCG 136, first decree, followed by the sacred law.
20 Parker 1983; Petzl 1994 presents the “Beichtinschriften” of the imperial period; Chaniotis
1997; Lupu 2005: 17–18.
21 Parker 1983: 31.
22 Dyer 1969 and Parker 1983: 30 with references.
23 Specific purity rules concerning priests and priestesses are rather rare, see Lupu 2005: 42 with
a focus on the Coan laws concerning the priesthood of Zeus Polieus and the priestess of De-
meter (LSCG 154 of ca. 240 BC = IG XII 4/1.72; LSCG 156 of the mid fourth century BC = I.
Cos 55 = IG XII 4/1. 332).
24 Menodotos, FGrH 541 (Athen. 15.672, transl. Ch. B. Gulick).
“He says that Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus, went in flight from Argos to Samos, and
after seeing Hera in a vision she wished to render a thank-offering for her escape from home,
and so undertook the care of the temple (ἀποδοῦναι ἐπιμεληθῆναι τοῦ ἱεροῦ) which is there
today, founded earlier by the Leleges and the Nymphs”.
The enraged Argives hire (non-Greek) Tyrrhenians as pirates to carry off the statue
of Hera at Samos, because, as Athenaeus says following Menodotos, “the Argives
believed that if that happened, Admete would surely suffer some harm at the hands
of the people of Samos.” The pirates stole the statue and put it on board of their
vessel, but could not row away as the ship would not move. Thinking that this was
the result of divine intervention, “they carried the image out of the ship again and
deposited it on the shore; and setting barley-cakes beside it they departed in great
fear.“25 The Samians found the statue at the shore and tied it to some branches be-
cause these simple-minded men thought it had run away on its own. But Admete re-
leased the statue from these bonds, “purified it and set it once more on its pedestal,
just as it had stood before.”26 Since then, every year the statue was carried down to
the shore and was hidden. Then sacred cakes were offered, the statue was searched
and found, then bound, finally freed, cleaned and brought back to the sanctuary.27
The role of the Hera-priestess or female epimeletes – in any case a young
woman who takes care of the proper treatment and cleaning of the Samian statue –
is decisive to the story. This purificatory ritual connected to Hera’s sacred image,
contributed to the festival’s positive outcome. Likewise, the Hera-festival at Argos
included the ritual cleaning of the cult statue in the source of the Kanathos near
Nauplia;28 quite similar, two young girls ritually washed the old wooden statue of
Athena Polias at the beach of Phaleron as the ritual core of the Athenian Plynteria
festival.29
However, the background of cleansing activities before and during a festival
is not always known to have been connected to a specific myth. Most such rituals
probably were based upon the general understanding of the proper and tidy physi-
cal basis of every communal activity and cult related rituals. Another very basic
physical cleaning is the limewashing of the altar of Aphrodite Pandemos and the
purifying of Aphrodite’s statue before the procession starts as we are told by an
Athenian inscription of the early third century BC.30 These and many other texts
25 Ibid. 672a: Ἀδμήτην γάρ φησιν τὴν Εὐρυσθέως ἐξ Ἄργους φυγοῦσαν ἐλθεῖν εἰς Σάμον,
θεασαμένην δὲ τὴν τῆς Ἥρας ἐπιφάνειαν καὶ τῆς οἴκοθεν σωτηρίας χαριστήριον βουλομένην
ἀποδοῦναι ἐπιμεληθῆναι τοῦ ἱεροῦ τοῦ καὶ νῦν ὑπάρχοντος, πρότερον δὲ ὑπὸ Λελέγων καὶ
Νυμφῶν καθιδρυμένου: … .
26 Ibid. 672b: τὴν δὲ Ἀδμήτην λύσασαν αὐτὸ ἁγνίσαι καὶ στῆσαι πάλιν ἐπὶ τοῦ βάθρου, καθάπερ
πρότερον ἵδρυτο. διόπερ ἐξ ἐκείνου καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἔτος ἀποκομίζεσθαι τὸ βρέτας εἰς τὴν ᾐόνα
καὶ ἀφαγνίζεσθαι ψαιστά τε αὐτῷ παρατίθεσθαι … .
27 Cf. Scheer 2000: 58 with note 327.
28 Paus. 2.58.
29 For washing and cleaning statues of deities see Scheer 2000: 57–60: e. g. Pausanias 5.14.4 re-
fers to the descendants of Phidias who take care of Zeus’s cult image in Elis. According to
Scheer, taking care might include a treatment with a perfumed ointment for wood (like in Paus.
9.41.7) or with an oil and wax mixture for marble statues (Vitr. De arch. 7.9.3).
30 LSCG 39 (287/286 BC).
hint to a very specific ritual on a given day, and not to the standard ritual cleaning
of the altar before the fire is lit. In addition, if water is part of the ritual, the priestess
or the magistrate sprinkles the altar, the surrounding worshipers, the cult personal,
sacrificial items, and animals with water. Ritual cleaning with water by worshippers
and cult personnel is thus fundamental in the Greek ritual.
Many other methods of cleaning were needed to keep a sanctuary neat and tidy,
a duty sometimes assigned to slaves. Dust, the ashes on and next to the altar, the
sacrificial blood and the leftovers of the sacrificial meal could be cleaned with water
and were probably the smallest problem. Troublesome and difficult to deal with was
what humans and animals left in or took away from the sanctuary. Pilgrims brought
their food, their pack animals, their families and their slaves. Some of them were al-
lowed to camp in the temenos and to make fire for heating and eating. Some visitors
even left their waste in the sacred enclosure.31 Animals entered the sacred grounds
seeking the young delicious shoots, feeding on the bark of the trees, and leaving
their excrements all over the place.32 Even ‘pure’ nature might have disturbed the
well-ordered setting of sacred and public places with falling leaves, fading flowers,
rotting fruit and with birds leaving their droppings on the roofs of buildings, the top
of statues etc.33 The presence of birds causing serious detriments was a problem
already in the fifth century BC as to be seen in Euripides’ description of the Del-
phian sanctuary in his Ion. Wiping, furbishing, and sweeping should therefore have
been a regular necessity, but probably was not taken care of on a regular basis and
always in the same way, at least not in all Greek sanctuaries and over the course of
the centuries.34
In the fourth century BC, the inventories of Delos mention preparatory costs for
the sanctuary before the Delia, and in the second century BC, the Delphian inven-
tories tell us that the cleaning and reconstruction works before the Pythia festival
were a very costly investment.35 Cleaning up sanctuaries was a purificatory act be-
ing part of all kinds of preparations, so that the individual visitors as well as the of-
ficial theoroi would find the sanctuary proper and at its best. Pilgrims visiting such
a sanctuary would perhaps be willing to invest gifts, money and votives into this
distinguished place of worship, international diplomacy and supra-regional busi-
ness. However, it is far from clear what kind of property management the Delphian
sanctuary had in the fifth-century – the period in which Euripides wrote his dramas.
In any case, cult personnel and sacred slaves looked after its condition, similar to a
good housekeeper. The Athenian audience was confronted with a very special one
in Euripides’ Cyclops.
31 Waste and camping: Feyel and Prost 1998; camping: Gawlinski 2012: 143–150 for the festival
at Andania and other such events; fire and firewood: Gauthier 1977; Descat 2001 concerning
carbon production, cf. Horster 2015: 182.
32 E. g. Dillon 1997 and Chandezon 2003: 248–251, 298 and passim.
33 Horster 2015 on regulations concerning disordered nature (wood, branches and leaves) in sanc-
tuaries; with a focus on the ecological aspect see Dillon 1997.
34 Feyel 2006 has only few examples for a professional and paid for cleanup of parts of the sanc-
tuaries of Delphi, Delos and Epidauros.
35 E. g. IDélos 98, ll. 68–70 (377/376–374/373 BC) concerns the reconstruction of a wall, the
reparation of an epistasion and an oikos.
4. ‘TRAGIC’ DIRT IN SACRED AND MUNDANE PLACES
Euripides’ Cyclops was perhaps part of a tetralogy, characterised by the escapes of

their respective heroes.36 The satyr-play starts with a scene presenting Silenos with
a rake in his hand in front of Polyphemos’ cave.37 He talks about the consequences
Dionysos’ adventures had for himself and his sons. Finally, while searching for
Dionysos, he and his sons were caught by the one-eyed Polyphemos.
“And so my sons, being young, are shepherding the young sheep on the distant slopes, while
my orders are to remain behind, fill the watering-troughs, and sweep this house, assisting this
godless Cyclops at his unholy meals. And now – duty is duty – I must sweep the house with this
iron rake so that I may receive my absent master, the Cyclops, and his sheep in a clean cave.“38
The play’s first 80 lines present a world upside down: Silenos tells the audience that
Dionysos was driven mad by Hera and has been taken captive by some pirates; that
he, Silenos, and his sons have been enslaved by a monster. Finally, it is the chorus
that speaks to animals as if they were humans.39 In this absurdity, two things keep
up the order. The conclusions one may draw of this introduction are firstly, that
Silenos is well aware that whatever the circumstances and whoever the master, he
has to follow instructions (prostachthenta), and secondly, that these instructions
are to prepare and clean the location, of which the reader and spectator knows that
all that follows in the play will take place. Silenos styles himself a Homeric hero.
In the sub-literary context, his story seems comparable to the ones of Odysseus; fi-
nally, similar to Odysseus in the setting of the cave and the animals, but different in
detail and consequence, the satyr-chorus talks to the leader buck in a highly styled
speech.40
Compared to Silenos’ starting point, in Ion’s world everything seems to be in
the right place in a perfect location, Delphi, a famous sanctuary.41 But this is a fal-
lacy – Ion is in a similar position as Silenos, he has to clean the location where all
36 This has been convincingly argued by Wright 2006: 31–42. Wright underlines the “resem-
blances of themes and treatment between satyr-play and escape-tragedies like the Cyclops.” He
proposes the set of Cyclops, Helen, Andromeda, Iphigenia among the Taurians as an “escape”
tetralogy.
37 For Euripides’ Cyclops as a satyr-play see e. g. Seaford’s Introduction 1984 and Lange 2002:
192.
38 Eur. Cycl. 27–35 (transl. D. Kovacz): παῖδες μὲν οὖν μοι κλειτύων ἐν ἐσχάτοις / νέμουσι μῆλα
νέα νέοι πεφυκότες, / ἐγὼ δὲ πληροῦν πίστρα καὶ σαίρειν στέγας / μένων τέταγμαι τάσδε, τῷδε
δυσσεβεῖ / Κύκλωπι δείπνων ἀνοσίων διάκονος. / καὶ νῦν, τὰ προσταχθέντ᾽, ἀναγκαίως ἔχει /
σαίρειν σιδηρᾷ τῇδέ μ᾽ ἁρπάγῃ δόμους, / ὡς τόν τ᾽ ἀπόντα δεσπότην Κύκλωπ᾽ ἐμὸν /
καθαροῖσιν ἄντροις μῆλά τ᾽ ἐσδεχώμεθα. Cf. Commentary Seaford 1984: 101–102.
39 Only then, a pretended ‘normal’ world with a Greek ship, with Greek humans, with sailors and
their commander Odysseus enter the scene and the main plot starts. Cf. Lange 2002: 191–196
and Seaford’s 1984 translation and commentary, e. g. ad Eur. Cycl. 34 and 709.
40 Homeric allusions: Seaford 1984: 51–59 and Lange 2002: 192–193; Lange 2002: 196 for the
satyr-chorus and his ridiculous, blown up style.
41 By reasons of language and style, Ion is likely to have been written around 415 BC. Good ar-
guments for the political context hint to the year 412 BC, cf. Zacharia 2003: 3–5. The dates of
both plays, Ion and Cyclops are in any case later than 415 and probably earlier than 410. For
Cyclops see Seaford’s 1984: 48 arguments for 411 BC and Wright’s 2006 for 412 BC.
that follows will take place, so that at least the setting is tidy. Cleaning the scenery
at the beginning of the play might have been an excellent signal to the spectator
indicating that the owner of the place might keep a dark secret and that pollution
may be one important subject below the surface of the plot. Soon, the spectator is
well aware that both owners of the respective places, Apollo and Polyphemos have
brought disorder into the world of gods and humans: one is a rapist, the other a
cannibal.42
At the beginning of Euripides’ play Ion, Hermes is on stage (in his back the
temple of Apollo at Delphi) and starts to expose the story and its context to the
Athenian audience: Creusa, the daughter of Erechtheus, former king of Attica, was
raped by Apollo and secretly gave birth to a son, who she exposed and deposited in
a cave. The boy was saved by Apollo’s intervention, and he, Hermes, brought the
baby to Delphi where he grew up as a servant to the god.43 Now, many years later,
Creusa and her husband Xythos, a foreigner from Boeotia, had come from Athens
to Delphi to ask if they are going to have children. Hermes informs the audience
that Apollo will give the boy (later called Ion) to Xythos, as if he were his father.
Xythos would then take Ion home to Athens, where he would be recognized by his
mother, Creusa – at least this is Apollo’s plan at the beginning of the drama.
Hermes says:44
“The boy will have what is his due. Apollo will bring it about that he is called all over Greece
by the name Ion, founder of the settlement in Asia. But I shall go into this dell of bay trees
in order to learn fully what is accomplished in regard to the boy, for I see the child of Loxias
[Apollo] coming out here to brighten up the temple porticoes with branches of bay. I first of the
gods call <him> by the name which is going to be his, Ion.”
Ion introduces himself as an adolescent with a sunny disposition. He loves order,

cleanliness and ritual purity, and takes his duties in the sanctuary very seriously.45
42 Gauger 1977: 96–99 analyses the dramatis personae’s different perceptions and evaluation of
Apollo and his actions: a) Creusa changes her negative view (based more on having lost a son
than the rape as the origin of the tragedy) into an appreciation of Apollo’s caring for Ion’s future
(ll. 1609–1610); b) Ion starts as a loving servant of his god, but criticises Apollo for breaking
the laws he himself has given (ll. 436–451). He seems to be irritated as concerns the value and
truth of Apollonian oracles (ll. 1532–1533, 1537–1538, 1546–1548), but at least he accepts
Athena’s explanations and council and therewith seems to gain a neutral (or even positive)
stance on Apollo as his father (ll. 1606–1608).
43 Similar, in Euripides Phoenissae 202–225, the Phoenician women (chorus) were sent by their
hometown as a gift to Apollo in Delphi, looking forward to be his servants in the temple. But
instead, they were trapped in Thebes. They express their lost future and perspective as maidens
of Apollo and for his service, cf. Lamari 2010: 41–42. For the parallel story of the Kekropides,
see Goff 2004: 323–327. Another aspect of the female personae Pythia, Creusa and Athena are
the interplay of virginity, maternity and autochthony, Goff 2004: 331–333, but see already
Loraux 1993: 184–236.
44 Eur. Ion 74–80 (transl. K. H. Lee): παῖς τ᾽ ἔχηι τὰ πρόσφορα. Ἴωνα δ᾽ αὐτόν, κτίστορ᾽ Ἀσιάδος
χθονός, ὄνομα κεκλῆσθαι θήσεται καθ᾽ Ἑλλάδα. ἀλλ᾽ ἐς δαφνώδη γύαλα βήσομαι τάδε, τὸ
κρανθὲν ὡς ἂν ἐκμάθω παιδὸς πέρι. ὁρῶ γὰρ ἐκβαίνοντα Λοξίου γόνον τόνδ᾽, ὡς πρὸ ναοῦ
λαμπρὰ θῆι πυλώματα δάφνης κλάδοισιν. ὄνομα δ᾽, οὗ μέλλει τυχεῖν, Ἴων᾽ ἐγώ <νιν> πρῶτος
ὀνομάζω θεῶν.
45 Eur. Ion 82–182 (transl. K. H. Lee).
He says:46
“Meanwhile, busy with tasks which I have performed since I was a boy, I shall clean the
entrance of Phoebus’ temple with branches of bay tied with sacred bands, and shall dampen
the ground with sprinkled water. As for the flocks of birds which foul the holy offerings, with
my bow I shall drive them away. For motherless and fatherless as I am, I serve the temple of
Phoebus which reared me.”
The stage instruction specifies that Ion busies himself before the temple and con-
tinues to sing:
“Come, new-grown shoot of fairest bay, instrument of my task, you who sweep the steps be-
neath the temple of Phoebus. You come from gardens always green where sacred springs,
sending forth [the] ever-flowing stream, drench the sacred leaves of myrtle. With this I sweep
the god’s ground, performing all the day long my daily toil in company with the sun’s speedy
wing. O Paian! O Paian! Blessed, blessed may you be. O child of Leto.”
Finally, in ll. 128–152 he praises his duty as noble, glorious, and pious and finishes
his song by singing:47 “May I never cease serving Phoebus in this way, or may I
stop with good fortune!”
The proper story starts with Creusa who meets Ion in the sanctuary and intro-
duces herself as the daughter of Erechtheus. Her husband Xythos enters the scene,
receives his oracle, and exits the temple. He embraces Ion whom he explains that he
was told that the first person he would encounter coming out of the shrine would be
his natural son. Ion is irritated, asks who his mother might be, and Xythos confesses
that it might have been a girl he met at a Bacchic festival – whether this indicates
another rape or at least an inappropriate behaviour of an Athenian girl is uncom-
mented. Ion accepts Xythos as his father, but is asked to keep it as a secret until their
departure from Delphi.
Creusa’s maid had noticed the incident and informs her lady Creusa, and con-
cludes, as her husband has a son, Creusa will remain childless, so that no-one of
Erechtheus blood would inherit the throne of Athens. Creusa is ready to poison
the presumed son of her husband, who would be the wrong heir on the Athenian
throne,48 but the conspiracy is discovered and Creusa is pursued by the Delphians.
Finally, Creusa meets Ion in this tense situation of danger, but the Pythia turns
everything into a happy ending. She brings the necessary gnorisma, the basket Ion
was found in, which Creusa recognises as the one she had abandoned her child in.
46 Eur. Ion 101–127 (transl. K. H. Lee): τοῖς ἐθέλουσιν μαντεύεσθαι γλώσσης ἰδίας ἀποφαίνειν.
ἡμεῖς δέ, πόνους οὓς ἐκ παιδὸς μοχθοῦμεν ἀεί, πτόρθοισι δάφνης στέφεσίν θ᾽ ἱεροῖς ἐσόδους
Φοίβου καθαρὰς θήσομεν, ὑγραῖς τε πέδον ῥανίσιν νοτερόν: πτηνῶν τ᾽ ἀγέλας, αἳ βλάπτουσιν
σέμν᾽ ἀναθήματα, τόξοισιν ἐμοῖς φυγάδας θήσομεν˙ ὡς γὰρ ἀμήτωρ ἀπάτωρ τε γεγὼς τοὺς
θρέψαντας Φοίβου ναοὺς θεραπεύω. … ἄγ᾽, ὦ νεηθαλὲς ὦ καλλίστας προπόλευμα δάφνας, ἃ
τὰν Φοίβου θυμέλαν σαίρεις ὑπὸ ναοῖς, κάπων ἐξ ἀθανάτων, ἵνα δρόσοι τέγγουσ᾽ ἱεραί, †τὰν†
ἀέναον παγὰν ἐκπροϊεῖσαι, μυρσίνας ἱερὰν φόβαν˙ ἇι σαίρω δάπεδον θεοῦ παναμέριος ἅμ᾽
ἁλίου πτέρυγι θοᾶι λατρεύων τὸ κατ᾽ ἦμαρ. ὦ Παιὰν ὦ Παιάν, εὐαίων εὐαίων εἴης, ὦ Λατοῦς
παῖ.
47 Eur. Ion 128–152 (transl. K. H. Lee): εἴθ᾽ οὕτως αἰεὶ Φοίβωι λατρεύων μὴ παυσαίμαν, ἢ
παυσαίμαν ἀγαθᾶι μοίραι.
48 Cf. Loraux 1993: 204; Origa 2007: 21: Xuthos’ son would be the son of a stranger (for the
Athenians) and in this specific case a bastard as well, a difficult basis to become a king.
However, the intervention of Athena is needed to make Ion believe that Apollo had
planned all for his best.49 Athena persuades Ion to treat Xythos as his father, and
convinces Creusa that the gods had planned all for her best. She recognises the ex-
cellent plan and praises Apollo for having given back her son. The goddess Athena
has the last long speech in the play. She observes that sometimes gods make ‘de-
tours’ and may take their time, but in the end they decide rightfully and act fair and
just: Apollo supports his offspring and both, Apollo and Athena promise a brilliant
future to the Athenians. The drama culminates in the political autochthony of the
Athenians and negotiates Athenian identity.50 This last aspect is indeed a serious
and important subject, but in Ion it is treated in a way similar to antique and modern
comedies of errors: mistaken identities structure its plot.51
Euripides’ main character Ion is not unhappy. He leads a satisfying life without
knowing where he comes from. He is happy with his duty to serve Apollo and is oc-
cupied with profane activities as well as ritual cleaning. Ion, future king of Athens,
is one of the few literary figures in Greek poetry whose duty to clean up something,
in this case the sanctuary, becomes one of the central motives of a play. Although
the order of things, of men, and of deities maps the background of the Antigone
tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides as well, it is rather unusual that the main char-
acters of plays are engaged in cleaning or physically arranging and ordering things.
In addition, neither author uses the words nomos, kosmos or eukosmia, good
order, in the context of physical cleanliness and purity. It is the loss of the nomos,
the law that is the basis of order that dominates all the plays. Therefore, the disrup-
tion of order at all levels, the social and the physical one, is fundamental in these
tragedies. The material aspects of the setting and the practical actions of the heroes
sometimes mirror that disorder, sometimes counterbalance it. Euripides’ Ion and
his Cyclops are two obvious examples for the latter. More light-footed than other
characters in Euripides’ plays, the protagonists Silenos and Ion do not commit any
crimes. Keeping up an exterior cleanliness and order is therefore a rather simple
duty, as the inner disposition and the history of the protagonists do not trouble di-
vine or human order at all. In Ion, it is Apollo, who has not behaved properly. One
of the consequences is confusion of identities and some murder plots. But the god
49 For more examples of Apollo’s unwise decisions and oracles in Euripides’ Electra, see Hose
2016: 27.
50 Loraux 1993: 184–236; Zacharia 2003: 44–149.
51 More general, Hose (2016: 21) speaks of Euripides as a poet of “irritations” for either his char-
acters or his audience (and sometimes both). Zeitlin 1996: 285–338 for the various mysteries
of identity in Ion. Hall 2010: 277–278 characterises Ion as a “deeply private, personal drama”
in which “even the happy ending is compromised” by the knowledge of a cheated father and a
clandestine mother. But she concludes that in this play, Euripides has experimented with plots
and with mistaken identities and comic potential; for the resemblance of Ion and the plot of
Menander’s comedy Epitrepontes, see Loraux 1993: 185–186. According to Zacharia 2003:
150–185 Euripides has experimented and expanded the boundaries of an existing genre by the
co-existence of comic and tragic elements in Ion. Another aspect in Ion and other plays is the
duality of a second meaning, a double language, a subversion and a mirror. For a general dis-
cussion of this kind of merging elements and the subject of innovation within the genres, see
Wright 2006: 42–46 and id. 2013.
is neither accused, nor criticised, not even by his victim, Creusa.52 Rather similar,
Xythos’ confession that he, a stranger, had sexual intercourse with one or more
unmarried Athenian girls during the Dionysia is of minor relevance and has no
consequences for his reputation in the play’s context.
The play is set in Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi, which should per se be an eu-
kosmia, a sacred place, well-ordered and pure. In such a place, there should be no
interferences and disturbances from outside, at least not on purpose. All those who
enter the sanctuary should and would have a pure body, and (though not checked)
a pure mind as well.
Silenos and Ion embody intermediaries between the human and the divine
world. Ion is the son of a god and a human woman. Even for them, tyche as a fate
and a clear defined and fixed future does not seem to exist. Apollo changes his mind
and adopts arrangements for Ion according to the development of the play, devel-
opments for which humans (and heroes) are responsible and not the gods.53 Ion is
cleaning the sanctuary because it is his duty as a sacred slave, but sweeping dirt
and trouble away has become part of his disposition and state of mind. He seems
to be a tranquil young man with a positive aura. Even the chorus speaks of him as
a devoted and concentrated sweeper and servant.54 These activities constitute his
main characteristics.55 He does not represent Apollo in the sanctuary, but in contrast
to Apollo’s official mediator, he is an active character. The Pythia, however, seems
passive as she only repeats Apollo’s will and reacts to humans’ actions. Ion is the
one who decides in this play about life and death – he is to hunt the birds which
pollute the sanctuaries buildings with their excrements, but decides to keep them
alive. He could have killed his mother when he learns about her deadly plans, but
he does not.
5. ORDER AND EUKOSMIA IN SANCTUARIES
The restitution of the undisturbed, the well-ordered, and tidy situation of a sacred
place is the subject of many regulations and rituals. In none of the epigraphic docu-
ments of the so-called sacred laws, the duty of cleaning is linked with a specific
office. Priests, magistrates and various other sacred officials and cult personnel are
52 Rape or sexual intercourse outside marriage is a moral disaster, even a crime in Athens and
elsewhere in Greece. However, it is often treated with a rather euphemistic language in litera-
ture and drama, cf. e. g. Omitowoju 2002 for oratory, Ogden 2002: 30–32 for ‘laws’ in drama,
and Harrison 2002 for Herodotus.
53 Aesch. Ag. 717–735 with the story of the lion cup that finally slaughters the family that had
adopted it, cf. Nagy 2013: 466–467.
54 For the conflicting identity (Athenians as well as members of the family of Erechtheus) of the
Euripidean chorus of Ion, see Swift 2013.
55 Eur. Ion 794–795 (transl. K. H. Lee): οἶσθ᾽, ὦ φίλη δέσποινα, τὸν νεανίαν / ὃς τόνδ᾽ ἔσαιρε
ναόν; οὗτος ἔσθ᾽ ὁ παῖς.
connected with supervising the place and keeping things in order, including the
tidiness of the location and the condition of buildings and equipment.56
However, later lexicographers discuss these subjects under the heading of neo-
koros, like Hesychos in the fifth/sixth century AD, s. v.:
“Greek, corresponding to the Latin aedituus; a sacred servant who is in charge of a temple and
its objects, whose duty it was to attend to the sweeping and cleaning of the same. Hence the in-
habitants of the Greek towns often styled themselves the νεωκόροι of their patron divinity …”
or in the Suda-lexicon of the 10th century s. v. K 2078 (kore):57 “… And the temple
custodian neokoros is not the one sweeping clean the temple, but the one having
supervision of it.” Or ibid. N 228 (neokoros): (Meaning) “he who adorns the temple
and keeps it in good repair. But not he who sweeps” it.
These late examples that reflect earlier traditions do not allow identifying a
standard kind of responsibility for cleaning sanctuaries. There were no clear-cut
tasks what cult servants of various social standing were supposed to do in the many
sanctuaries of the Greek world. However, because those sweeping and cleaning
up are not mentioned in the sacrificial laws, they were probably most often slaves.
But the many different local traditions concerning activities and responsibilities in
the sanctuaries do not allow for general conclusions. Sacred laws for example in
Arkesine, Halasarna, Oropos etc. and inventories of Delphi and Delos, all dated be-
tween the fourth and early first century BC, mention duties and activities of priests
or cult personnel related to the physical propriety and appearance of the respective
sanctuaries.58 Such a local tradition is also known by a decree of Korope/Demetrias
in Thessaly. In this case, the warranty of eukosmia, of good order in a sanctuary
concerns the oracle of Apollo Koropaios and the protection of his sacred grove. It
was enacted around 100 BC:59
“because it conforms to divine and human law, and because the oracle is venerable and of old
age, and because many pilgrims from outside come to consult it, the citizens consider it neces-
sary to fix more severe rules, so that the good order will be maintained.”
The Demetrians defined that the grove was to be entered only in white clothes, with
a laurel wreath, in ritual purity and without having drunk wine. A second decree
published on the same stele concerns the bad state of the trees in the grove and
settles that trees should not be cut, wood not be used, animals not be taken into the
sanctuary, and pilgrims not stay overnight. These are pragmatic aspects of an ideo-
logical concept of what good order, eukosmia, in a sanctuary is about. The outward
appearance of the visitors should match the beautiful disposition of the grove. If the
56 For the sophisticated use of hyperetes (servant) in Euripides, by which a king may be the ser-
vant of a deity, compared to the uses of terms for slaves and ‘real’ servants, see Wildberg 2002:
99–102.
57 Transl. N. Nicholas, http://www.stoa.org/N/228: Νεωκόρος: ὁ τὸν ναὸν κοσμῶν καὶ εὐτρεπίζων.
ἀλλ' οὐχ ὁ σαρῶν.
58 See Horster 2013, and esp. Georgoudi 1998: 358–361 and id. 2005: 56–60 with more examples.
59 Syll.3 1157 = IG IX 2. 1109 = LGS II 80 = LCSG 83: … ποιήσασθαί τινα πρόνοιαν
ἐπιμελεστέραν / τὴν πόλιν περὶ τῆς κατὰ τὸ μαντῆον εὐκοσμίας· / … προνοείσθωσαν τῆς
εὐκοσμίας.
grove’s beauty is disturbed, then everything should be done to keep trees alive, the
grass green, the plants growing etc. In addition, ecological aspects and economic
needs of timber and firewood for the sanctuary might have supported those in the
civic body who opted for radical measures and high penalties.
The natural disposition of sacred places like groves and the monumentalised
sanctuaries with their integration of natural elements were different realisations of
how human perceptions of divine order should be arranged. Nature was cultur-
ally defined and was integrated in a social environment conceived by humans in
different ways, but never lost its religious and cultic relevance.60 Mylonopoulos
(2008) convincingly concludes that in the contexts of sanctuaries, nature and art,
natural and artificial manifestations were no contrasts, and could be combined and
integrated in sacred places. In most ‘sacred laws’ and in the physical arrangements
in sanctuaries as the one of Hellenistic Hephaistion on the Athenian Agora with its
plants in pots,61 nature is a man-made concept of divine order. It is conceived as a
well-ordered and beautiful human arrangement. Quite similarly, in the sixth book of
his Laws, Plato describes the duties of the agoranomoi in an ideal city who should
take care of all things connected to infrastructure.62 Inter alia he says:63
“As to spring-waters, be they streams or fountains, they shall beautify and embellish them by
means of plantations and buildings, and by connecting the pools by hewn tunnels they shall
make them all abundant, and by using water-pipes they shall beautify at all seasons of the year
any sacred glebe or grove that may be close at hand, by directing the streams right into the
temples of the gods. … They shall carry on these, and all similar operations, in the country dis-
tricts, by way of ornament as well as use, and to furnish recreation also of no ungraceful kind.”
The noun kosmos and forms of the verb kosméo are mentioned several times in
the text. Though subordinated to function and usefulness, to establish beauty is
part of their duty. They were to increase the beauty of the whole city by plants and
buildings, and augment the beauty of monumental sanctuaries and natural groves
by a good water management and artificial irrigation. These platonic ideals became
manifest in the notion of euergetism; they were adopted on the level of investments
in the embellishment of cities and sanctuaries by magistrates, liturgists, and bene-
factors during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, at least in some cities and some
of their sanctuaries.

61 Hephaistion: Thompson 1937: 415–416; cf. Mylonopoulos 2008 and Bumke 2015 with more
such examples.
62 Pl. Leg. 760e–761c.
63 Pl. Leg. 761bd (transl. R. G. Bury): … καὶ τοὺς αὐχμηροτάτους τόπους πολυύδρους τε καὶ
εὐύδρους ἀπεργάζωνται: τά τε πηγαῖα ὕδατα, ἐάντε τὶς ποταμὸς ἐάντε καὶ κρήνη ᾖ, κοσμοῦντες
φυτεύμασί τε καὶ οἰκοδομήμασιν εὐπρεπέστερα, καὶ συνάγοντες μεταλλείαις νάματα, πάντα
ἄφθονα ποιῶσιν, ὑδρείαις τε καθ᾽ ἑκάστας τὰς ὥρας, εἴ τί που ἄλσος ἢ τέμενος περὶ ταῦτα
ἀφειμένον ᾖ, τὰ ῥεύματα ἀφιέντες εἰς αὐτὰ τὰ τῶν θεῶν ἱερά, κοσμῶσι. … καὶ ξηρὰν ἄφθονον,
ἐπ᾽ ὀνήσει καμνόντων τε νόσοις καὶ πόνοις τετρυμένα γεωργικοῖς σώματα δεχομένους
εὐμενῶς, ἰατροῦ δέξιν μὴ πάνυ σοφοῦ βελτίονα συχνῷ. ταῦτα μὲν οὖν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πάντα
κόσμος τε καὶ ὠφελία τοῖς τόποις γίγνοιτ᾽ ἂν μετὰ παιδιᾶς οὐδαμῇ ἀχαρίτου …
6. FINAL REMARKS
To the innumerable interpretations of single plays and the literary genre as such
with its long scholarly tradition, this paper has only little to offer. However, fur-
ther investigation into the socio-religious context of dramas and their connection
to ideas of disturbed kosmos, of a disregarded nomos, and of pollution might be
stimulated by it. The connection of the ideas of world order to the narrative of the
physical settings, especially the monumentalised cities and palaces, the sanctuaries
and the groves, would be one such way. Another and more important one would be
to inquire into the tragic heroes’ practical actions and their relation to rather banal
and material attempts to re-establish a well-ordered world – similar to what Euripi-
des’ Silenos is devoted to, Euripides’ chorus of the Phoenician maidens would like
to do, and what Ion does with such verve over many lines.64
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MT. LYKAION AS THE ARCADIAN
BIRTHPLACE OF ZEUS
David Gilman Romano, The University of Arizona
1. INTRODUCTION
The Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion is located high in the western Arcadian
mountains near the ancient and modern borders with Elis and Messenia.1 To the east
of Mt. Lykaion is the plain of Megalopolis that includes a section of the Alpheios
river that originates nearby, and to the west of Mt. Lykaion is the lush Neda river
valley, the source of which is on the western slopes of the mountain itself.2 From
ancient literature we know about the ancient topography of the site; the place where
Zeus was said to have been reared, the Cretea ridge of Mt. Lykaion, and the literal
birthplace of Zeus is described as a cave on this mountainside. The famous ash altar
of Zeus has been discovered at the southern peak of the mountain and the site of the
ancient festival in a lower mountain meadow.
The major Peloponnesian mountains of Erymanthos, Aroania, Kyllene, Parnon
and Taygetos, among others, are visible from the ash altar of Zeus at the southern
peak as are aspects of the Ionian Sea to the southwest towards Kyparissia, and
towards the northwest across the plain of Elis, as far as the Ionian island of Zakyn-
thos. There is also a clear view to the Gulf of Kalamata to the south. The location
of Mt. Lykaion and its relationship to these mountains are highlighted in this map
of the Peloponnesos (fig. 1).
1 I was delighted to be a part of the Althistorisches Seminar ‘Nature – Myth – Religion in Ancient
Greece’ conference at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen during November 12–14, 2015.
I thank the organizers Professor Dr. Tanja S. Scheer and Anna C. Neff for their invitation to
participate and their many kindnesses during the conference.
2 Our work at Mt. Lykaion is, and has been, a synergasia between the Ephorate of Antiquities of
Arcadia in Tripolis and the University of Arizona under the auspices of the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens. Our co-directors are Dr. Anna Karapanagiotou of the Ephoreia of
Antiquities of Arcadia, Dr. Mary Voyatzis and myself from the University of Arizona. We have
been working at the site since 2004 and we have undertaken architectural, topographical, geo-
logical and geophysical work as well as excavation and survey at the Arcadian mountaintop
sanctuary. Our years of excavation were 2006–2010 when our Ephor and Co-Director was
Michalis Petropoulos, and now, following 5 years of study, 2011–2015, we have returned to
excavation 2016–2020. Related to our work at Mt. Lykaion, and certainly related to the theme
of this meeting, is our initiative to create Greece’s first cultural heritage park, the Parrhasian
Heritage Park of the Peloponnesos. Our websites are http://lykaionexcavation.org and http://
parrhasianheritagepark.org.
220 David Gilman Romano
Fig. 1: Map of the Peloponnesos (D. G. Romano, M. Pihokker and A. Mayer

after a map by E. Gaba, Wikimedia Commons).
Mt. Lykaion is not the tallest mountain in Arcadia; this title belongs to Mt. Maina-
lon to the east (1986 masl), but Mt. Lykaion is one of the most prominent. In fact,
there are two peaks to Mt. Lykaion, the northern peak, that is higher at 1421 masl,
and the southern peak at 1382 masl where the ash altar and temenos of the Sanc-
tuary of Zeus were discovered. Between the two peaks is a lush mountain plateau.
Location and visibility were key aspects of the situation of the ash altar of Zeus
as it is a conspicuous peak and there are good views of it from great distances away
in virtually all directions. There are a number of ancient sanctuaries in the neighbor-
hood of Mt. Lykaion and at least one of which provides a clear line of sight – from
the ash altar of Zeus to the Temple of Apollo Epikourios on Mt. Kotilion, only
12 km. away to the southwest. The Sanctuary of Pan at Berekla (near modern Neda)
is only 3 km. away on the western side of the mountain. The Sanctuary of Demeter
and Despoina at Lykosoura is located on a southern ridge of Mt. Lykaion 7 km. to
the southeast and the Sanctuary of Parrhasian Apollo is only 3 km. away to the east
on the Cretea ridge. The Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion is 35 km., as the eagle
flies, from its more famous neighbor to the northwest, the Sanctuary of Zeus at
Olympia, located in the plain of Elis, and I will return to this relationship.3
3 The sanctuaries at Berekla, Lykosoura, Cretea and Olympia are not visible from the southern
peak of the mountain.
Mt. Lykaion as the Arcadian Birthplace of Zeus 221
The Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion was no doubt the great Parrhasian sanc-
tuary of Zeus Lykaios that eventually became the major cult center of the Arcadian
Federation.4 It was known from the historical period as the site of athletic contests,
and the sanctuary included a stadium and a hippodrome constructed in a lower
mountain meadow towards the east, and also for its open-air ash altar at the south-
ern peak of the mountain, where some ancient sources recorded that human sacri-
fice took place.5 There were also numerous stories from antiquity that concerned
werewolves being known from the site. Both suggest that the traditions at the sanc-
tuary are very old and that the religious practices were very primitive.6
It is Callimachus and Pausanias who tell us that Zeus was born on Mt. Lykaion.
In the third century BC, the Greek poet Callimachus wrote a Hymn to Zeus asking
the ancient and most powerful Greek god whether he was born in Arcadia on Mt.
Lykaion or in Crete on Mt. Ida:7
“My heart is in doubt for the birth is contested. Zeus, some say that you were born in the Idaean
mountains; Zeus, others say in Arcadia. Which of them is telling falsehoods, father? ‘Cretans
always lie’. And indeed, Lord, the Cretans built a tomb for you; but you are not dead, you live
forever.”
Pausanias, in his Description of Greece talks about a cave on Mt. Lykaion where
Rhea gave birth to Zeus:8
“They allow that she gave birth to her son on some part of Mount Lycaeüs, but they claim that
here Cronus was deceived, and here took place the substitution of a stone for the child that is
spoken of in the Greek legend. On the summit of the mountain is Rhea’s Cave, into which no
human beings may enter save only the women who are sacred to the goddess.”
There are many caves located on Mt. Lykaion and some are better known than
others. For instance there is the so-called “Refuge Cave” near the village of Ano
Karyes where villagers took refuge during the Greek War of Independence. Later,
Pausanias describes where on the mountain Zeus was reared:9
4 Jost 1985: 183–185; Romano and Voyatzis 2015: 216–217.

5 Paus. 8.38.5–7; Theophr. in Porph. Abst. 2.27; Pl. Resp. 565d; (Pseudo-) Pl. Min. 315c.
6 Mylonas 1943: 132. G. Mylonas predicted that from an examination of Mycenaean and Minoan
iconography that “in the Lykaion altar, therefore, we have a primitive, perhaps even a pre-My-
cenaean shrine, which survived into the historic period.” He also believed that the altar was the
site of human sacrifice based on the ancient sources.
7 Callim. H. 1.5–9 (transl. S. Stephens): ἐν δοιῇ μάλα θυμός, ἐπεὶ γένος ἀμφήριστον. Ζεῦ, δὲ μὲν
Ἰδαίοισιν ἐν οὐρεσί φασι γενέσθαι, Ζεῦ, δὲ δ᾽ἐν Αρκαδιῇ · πότεροι, πάτερ, ἐψεύσαντο; Κρῆτες
ἀεὶ ψεῦσται · καὶ γὰρ τάφον, ὦ ἄνα, σεῖο Κρῆτες ἐτεκτήναντο · σὺ δ᾽ οὐ θάνες, εσσὶ γὰρ αἰεί.
8 Paus. 8.36.3 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): καὶ τεκεῖν μὲν συγχωροῦσιν αὐτὴν ἐν μοίρᾳ τινὶ τοῦ
Λυκαίου, τὴν δὲ ἐς τὸν Κρόνον ἀπάτην καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ παιδὸς τὴν λεγομένην ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων
ἀντίδοσιν τοῦ λίθου γενέσθαι φασὶν ἐνταῦθα. ἔστι δὲ πρὸς τῇ κορυφῇ τοῦ ὄρους σπήλαιον τῆς
Ῥέας, καὶ ἐς αὐτὸ ὅτι μὴ γυναιξὶ μόναις ἱεραῖς τῆς Θεοῦ ἀνθρώπων γε οὐδενὶ ἐσελθεῖν ἔστι τῶν
ἄλλων.
9 Paus. 8.38.2 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): ἐν ἀριστερᾷ δὲ τοῦ ἱεροῦ τῆς Δεσποίνης τὸ ὄρος ἐστὶ τὸ
Λύκαιον: καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτὸ καὶ Ὂλυμπον καὶ Ἱεράν γε ἕτεροι τῶν Ἀρκάδων κορυφήν. τραφῆναι
δὲ τὸν Δία φασὶν ἐν τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ: καὶ χώρα τέ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ Λυκαίῳ Κρητέα καλουμένη – αὕτη
δὲ ἡ Κρητέα ἐστὶν ἐξ ἀριστερᾶς Ἀπόλλωνος ἄλσους ἐπίκλησιν Παρρασίου – καὶ τὴν Κρήτην,
“On the left of the Sanctuary of the Mistress is Mt. Lycaeüs. Some Arcadians call it Olympus
and others Sacred Peak. On it, they say, Zeus was reared. There is a place on Mt. Lykaeüs called
Cretea, on the left of the grove of Apollo, surnamed Parrhasian. The Arcadians claim that the
Crete, where the Cretan story has it that Zeus was reared, was this place and not the island.”
Pausanias also tells us that Lykaon who was the son of Pelasgos, founded the city
of Lykosoura on Mt. Lykaion, named Lykaion Zeus and established both the cult
of Zeus Lykaios and also the Lykaion Games.10 The athletic festival known as the
Lykaia became well known and was mentioned by Pindar, Pliny and Plutarch, as
well as by Pausanias.11 Lykaon’s many sons founded other cities in the region but
his grandson Arkas, son of his daughter Callisto and Zeus, introduced agriculture,
the preparation of bread, the weaving of clothes and gave his name to the region of
Arcadia and to its inhabitants.12
When we began our research at the Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion in 2004,
the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, we were aware of the Callimachus
and Pausanias passages and the concern of Callimachus about the dispute over the
location of the birthplace of Zeus.13 At that time, based on the previous excavations
at the site, principally of Konstantinos Kourouniotis, of the Archaeological Society
of Athens in the early 20th century, the very earliest material found at the site of the
altar at Mt. Lykaion was dated to the seventh century BC based on two miniature
bronze tripod-cauldrons and, although we had hoped to find some earlier Geometric
material, we were not thinking then about the birthplace story of Zeus as anything
but a story.
A little later on, Pausanias describes the impressive ash altar:14
“On the highest point of the mountain is a mound of earth forming an altar of Zeus Lykaios and
from it most of the Peloponnesos can be seen. Before the altar on the east stand two pillars on
which there were of old gilded eagles. On this altar they sacrifice in secret to Lykaion Zeus. I
was reluctant to pry into the details of the sacrifice, let them be as they are and were from the
beginning.”
Kourouniotis excavated in numerous areas of the site: in the ash altar, which he
found as a mound of ash and stones, pottery and dedications; in the temenos on the
ἔνθα ὁ Κρητῶν ἔχει λόγος τραφῆναι Δία, τὸ χωρίον τοῦτο εἴναι καὶ οὐ διὰ τὴν νῆσον
ἀμφισβητοῦσιν οἱ Ἀρκάδες.
10 Paus. 8.2.1. T. S. Scheer (cf. in this volume) has described the multiple locations around the
Greek world where Pelasgos has been associated with Greek mythology and early peoples. The
mention of Pelasgos in Arcadia is interesting since the mythology of the region suggests that
Pelasgos was autochthonos.
11 Pind. Nem. 10.45, Ol. 7.84; Plin. HN 7.205; Plut. Caes. 61; Paus. 8.2.1.
12 Paus. 8.4.1.
13 The account of the early years (2003–2010) working at the ‘Birthplace of Zeus’ at Mt. Lykaion
is found in Romano and Voyatzis 2010.
14 Paus. 8.38.7 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): ἔστι δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ ἄκρᾳ τῇ ἀνωτάτω τοῦ ὄρους γῆς χῶμα, Διὸς
τοῦ Λυκαίου βωμός, ἔστι καὶ ἡ Πελοπόννησος τὰ πολλά ἐστιν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ σύνοπτος: πρὸ δὲ τοῦ
βωμοῦ κίονες δύο ὡς ἐπὶ ἀνίσχοντα ἐστήκασιν ἥλιον, ἀετοὶ δὲ ἐπ᾽αὐτοῖς ἐπίχρυσοι τά γε ἔτι
παλαιότερα ἐπεποίηντο. ἐπὶ τούτου τοῦ βωμοῦ τῷ Λυκαίῳ Διὶ θύουσιν ἐν ἀπορρήτῳ:
πολυπραγμονῆσαι δὲ οὔ μοι τὰ ἐς τὴν θυσίαν ἡδὺ ἦν, ἐχέτω δὲ ὡς ἔχει καὶ ὡς ἔσχεν ἐξ ἀρχῆς.
southern summit of the mountain, approximately 24 m lower; and in multiple loca-

tions within the lower sanctuary, approximately 200 m lower, including the fountain
house, stoa, xenon, seats or steps, stadium, hippodrome and bath facility (fig. 2).
Fig 2: Map of the Peloponnesos (D. G. Romano, M. Pihokker and A. Mayer)

He also discovered the location of the Agno Fountain approximately half way be-
tween the Altar of Zeus and the lower mountain plateau where the lower sanctuary
is situated (fig. 3).
Fig. 3: Photograph of the Lower Sanctuary and the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion as the site
of the Upper Sanctuary (D. G. Romano).
He published his findings promptly over one hundred years ago.15
2. UPPER LEVEL OF THE SANCTUARY
Kourouniotis discovered several bronze figurines in the vicinity of the temenos in-
cluding several bronze figurines of Zeus (fig. 4).16
Pausanias tells us the following about the temenos:17
“Among the marvels of Mt. Lykaion the most wonderful is this: On it is a precinct of Lykaion
Zeus into which people are not allowed to enter. If anyone takes no notice of the rule and enters,
he must inevitably live no longer than a year. A legend moreover was current that everything
alike within the precinct, whether beast or man, cast no shadow.”
15 Kourouniotis 1904; Kourouniotis 1909.

16 Kourouniotis found nine complete bronze statuettes, and a portion of a tenth, in front of the
temenos, to the west of the column bases, as well as the bases from other similar statuettes and
a bronze eagle. Kourouniotis 1904: cols. 199–203, figs. 20–22, pl. 9; Lamb: 133–148.
17 Paus. 8.38.6 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): τὸ δὲ ὄρος παρέχεται τὸ Λύκαιον καὶ ἄλλα ἐς θαῦμα καὶ
μάλιστα τόδε. τέμενός ἐστιν ἐν αὐτῷ Λυκαίου Διός, ἔσοδος δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐς αὐτὸ ἀνθρώποις:
ὑπεριδόντα δὲ τοῦ νόμου καὶ ἐσελθόντα ἀνάγκη πᾶσα αὐτὸν ἐνιαυτοῦ πρόσω μὴ βιῶναι. καὶ
τάδε ἔτι ἐλέγετο, τὰ ἐντὸς τοῦ τέμενους γενόμενα ὁμοίως πάντα καὶ θηρία καὶ ἀνθρώπους οὐ
παρέχεσθαι σκιάν.
Fig. 4: Photograph of the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion with the temenos in the foreground
with the column bases, and the ash altar in the background (D. G. Romano).
We dug a number of trenches in the temenos, a total area of 56 m2, but found virtu-
ally nothing other than a few roof tiles. When Kourouniotis had excavated in this
area he uncovered what he believed to be a pre-sacrificial area to the west of the
column bases characterized by dark earth. In connection with our own work at the
site, Dr. Apostolos Sarris and his team conducted geophysical remote sensing in the
area with some promising results, and we dug a number of trenches based on this
work, but these areas of interest turned out to be very regular bands of bedrock and,
unfortunately, not monuments or structures.18
Between 2007–2010 we dug two trenches in the altar, Trench Z, 14 m × 2 m
with extensions, and another 4 m × 2 m as Trench ZZ. Like Kourouniotis, we also
found bone ash, stones, pottery and dedications, but, in addition we discovered
Prehistoric and Neolithic pottery, in many levels of the altar including on the bed-
rock itself. We also discovered evidence of a Mycenaean shrine dating from the
16th century BC (fig. 5) characterized by hundreds of Mycenaean kylikes found in
the deepest part of the altar, as well as a few terracotta quadrupeds, terracotta askoi
and fragments of human terracotta figurines. There is ceramic evidence that the My-
cenaean use of the altar continued from LH II through LH IIIC Late with the period
LH IIIA2-B being the period of greatest activity.19 Some of the most important My-
cenaean material was discovered toward the high point of the mountaintop where
we have discovered what appears to be the edge of an architectural foundation, as a
manmade line of blocks, due north-south, that was selected for further exploration
18 Sarris 2014: Appendix 1, ‘Geophysical Prospection’: 635–637.

19 Romano and Voyatzis 2014: 589–614.
Fig. 5: Excavation of Mycenaean kylikes in the ash altar

(D. G. Romano and Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project).
Fig. 6: Crystal lentoid seal stone depicting a bull in profile with a frontal head
that is likely to be LM IB-LM II in date and is probably from Crete
(D. G. Romano and Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project).
in future seasons.20 It was here that one of the terracotta animal quadrupeds was
found. Mary Voyatzis has been studying the Mycenaean and Iron Age pottery and
the pottery identification, analysis and the dating is her work.21 We uncovered a
20 During the 2016 excavation season we expanded the altar trench to the west of the architectural
foundation and discovered a human burial. Situated close to the center of the ash altar the su-
pine human burial was found within a border of field-stones, intact except for the missing cra-
nium, and was lying in a generally east-west orientation. This burial is awaiting scientific
analysis before publication. See Burkert 1983: 84–93 for a summary of mythological and liter-
ary references to human sacrifice at Mt. Lykaion.
crystal lentoid seal stone depicting a bull in profile with a frontal head that is likely
to be LMIB-LM II in date and is probably from Crete (fig. 6).
Found in an unstratified context in a burrow hole, it could represent the begin-
ning of sustained ritual activity at the altar since we also have found LH II pottery
at the altar.22
The faunal analysis of the animal bones found in the altar by Dr. Britt Starko-
vich, indicates that 94–98 % of the bone from the altar trench was from sheep and
goat; that 98 % was burned and that 98 % represented the femur, patella and tailbone
of the animals. She also showed that 85 % of the bone was exposed to direct or pro-
longed high temperatures over 650 °C causing a change in the crystalline structure
of the bone.23 Samples of the burned bone, have been dated by Carbon 14 testing,
together with charcoal and seeds, from several lower levels in the altar, and the ear-
liest burned bone dates from the 16th century BC which suggests that the tradition
of burning specific bones of the dedicated animal to a deity, as thysia, goes back to
at least this early date.24
Zeus is known from the Linear B tablets from Knossos, Pylos and Thebes as
a deity, and one who can receive dedications of olive oil.25 Since Zeus exists in
the Greek world at least as far back as ca. 1400 BC from the presence of Linear B
tablets and since at Mt. Lykaion we have good evidence of a Zeus sanctuary from
a historical period from our literary accounts, and Kourouniotis found numerous
Zeus bronze figurines in the area of the temenos, one, holding a thunderbolt in his
right hand and an eagle perched on his left, as early as the early sixth century BC,
we can fairly confidently suggest that it was Zeus being worshipped here in the
Mycenaean period from the 16th century BC.26
In a related micromorphological study, Dr. Susan Mentzer, has shown that the
fill of the altar (not including the stones, dedications and pottery) is almost entirely
an anthropogenic deposit of burned offerings.27
Dr. Evi Margaritis’ study of our paleobotanical remains has produced very
interesting results. From the earliest Mycenaean levels at the altar she has found
evidence of barley and she suggests that the burning of the animal bones and the
burning of the plant remains could have been different episodes of ritual based on
the likely temperatures of burning.28 She found many other things as well.
In a few areas of the altar there is an Early Iron Age layer that lies directly on
top of the latest Mycenaean layer. We discovered what we have termed a ‘burn
center’ that was initiated in the Early Iron Age and was found directly above the
Mycenaean level where we found the largest concentration of kylikes. The area
was characterized by fire-cracked rock, pottery, votive offerings and a few minia-

23 Starkovich 2014: Appendix 5, ‘Preliminary Faunal Report’: 645.
24 Starkovich, Hodgins, Voyatzis and Romano 2013: 501–513; Starkovich, Appendix 5, ‘Prelimi-
nary Faunal Report’, in Romano and Voyatzis 2014: 644–648.
25 Palaima 2004: 439–443.
26 Romano and Voyatzis 2014: 578; Kourouniotes 1904: cols. 180–184.
27 Mentzer, Romano and Voyatzis 2017.
28 Margaritis 2014.
ture bronze tripods. All together we have found approximately 40 bronze miniature
tripod cauldrons from different areas of our trenches on the altar.29 The pottery se-
quence together with the evidence of the burned bone contribute to our suggestion
that we have at Mt. Lykaion the likelihood of continuity of cult from the 16th cen-
tury BC through the Iron Age and as far as the Hellenistic period.
In addition, we have identified earlier material from the site of the altar.
Dr. Gullög Nordquist has been studying the Middle Helladic pottery that is charac-
terized by sherds from coarse ware open mouthed vessels, goblets, cups and cook-
ing jars, with only a few fine ware sherds discovered;30 Dr. Jeannette Forsen has
been studying the Early Helladic pottery that consists of several dozen sherds, half
of which are coarse ware and of the remaining, two may be from sauceboats.31
Dr. Susan Petrakis has been studying the Neolithic pottery from the altar and this
group, by far the largest number of sherds stands at about 400. She has also identi-
fied one quadruped figurine as Neolithic. Of the 20 rims that are identified as Neo-
lithic many are from small bowls, collared bowls or flaring carinated bowls.32 All of
the Neolithic, EH and MH groups of pottery would be characteristic of household
assemblages although it is unlikely that anyone would have been living on this
mountaintop. It is not yet clear if there was a continuous use of the area of the altar
from the Neolithic through to the Late Helladic and it is still uncertain what the use
of the southern summit was in the FN-MH periods.
We are reminded here of the local story of Pelasgos. Pausanias writes, the Ar-
cadians say that Pelasgos was the first inhabitant of this land.33 Then he quotes the
archaic poet Asios of Samos who says:34
“The godlike Pelasgos on the wooded mountains / Black earth gave up, that the race of mortals
might exist.”
This passage suggests that Pelasgos was thought to be autochthonous, born from
the earth. It was Pelasgos who introduced huts to live in and sheep skin tunics to
wear as clothing.35 He discovered that the fruit of certain oak trees was a food.
Pelasgos’ son was Lykaon who founded the city of Lykosoura as the first city that
the sun saw, and the sanctuary of Lykaion Zeus and instituted the Lykaion games.
As Thomas Heine Nielsen has written, “Pelasgos as king, developed rudimentary
forms of civilization”.36
Pausanias tells us that Lykaon first offered a child sacrifice on the altar of
Lykaion Zeus, poured his blood on the altar and was subsequently turned into a
wolf.37 Lykaon had many sons and each of them founded a city in the country.

33 Paus. 8.1.4: φασὶ δὲ Ἀρκάδες ὡς Πελασγὸς γἐνοιτο ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ πρῶτος.
34 Paus. 8.1.5: Ἀντἰθεον δὲ Πελασγὸν ἐν ὑψικὀμοισιν ὄρεσσι γαῖα μέλαιν᾽ ἀνέδωκεν, ἵνα θνητῶν
γένος εἴη.
35 Paus. 8.1.5.
36 Nielsen 1998: 32.
37 Paus. 8.2.3.
Lykaon’s only daughter was Kallisto with whom Zeus fell in love. Hera caught
Zeus as he slept with her and she turned Kallisto into a bear. Artemis subsequently
shot her dead to please Hera, but Zeus sent Hermes to rescue his son who had been
conceived in the union. He turned Kallisto into the constellation, ‘the Great Bear’.
The son of Kallisto and Zeus was named Arkas and Pausanias tells us that he in-
troduced cultivated crops, he showed people how to make bread and weave cloth,
and he learned wool spinning. He gave his name to the country replacing the name
of Pelasgos and the Pelasgians. A little later on Pausanias mentions that the first
funeral games were held for Azan, son of Arkas, in which there were equestrian
events and other contests. All of this mythology, from the time of Pelasgos until the
time of Arkas, revolves around Mt. Lykaion.38
3. LOWER LEVEL OF THE SANCTUARY
We have also worked in the Lower Sanctuary of the Sanctuary of Zeus where we
have excavated in the areas of the stoa, fountain house, administrative building
(Kourouniotis’ xenona), corridor, seats or steps, hippodrome, stadium and bath fa-
cility (fig. 3). It appears that the Lower Sanctuary was built during the second quar-
ter of the fourth century BC following the foundation of Megalopolis in 369. But in
fact it may have been a major building program that replaced a more modest earlier
sanctuary during this period as we have found several areas of seventh century BC
activity in the Lower Sanctuary, in an area beneath the area of the seats or steps, and
in a separate area in the middle of the hippodrome, both at very deep levels.
Pausanias mentions that there is a Sanctuary of Pan in the area of the Lower
Sanctuary since he mentions it in the same sentence that he talks about the hippo-
drome and stadium:39
“There is on Mt. Lykaion a Sanctuary of Pan, and a grove of trees around it, with a hippodrome
in front of which is a stadium. Of old they used to hold here the Lykaion Games. Here there are
also bases of statues, with now no statues on them. On one of the bases an elegiac inscription
declares that the statue was a portrait of Astyanax, and that Astyanax was of the race of Arceas
(sic).”
Kourouniotis was unable to locate the Sanctuary of Pan, nor were we in our first
five years of excavation. Our newest Google Earth image of the site has given us
some hope that we may find the sanctuary near the stoa, administrative building
38 Bremmer 1999: 56–57, defines myth as “traditional tales relevant to society” and similar to
Burkert’s definition as “something of collective importance” and “traditional tales of special
‘significance.’” See Burkert 1982: 1–5. See also Nielsen 1998: 18 who describes the “myth of
common descent” as “to explain similarity among the members of the ethnic group and to ce-
ment the coherence of the group.”
39 Paus. 8.38.5 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): ἔστι δὲ ἐν τῷ Λυκαίῳ Πανός τε ἱερὸν καὶ περὶ αὐτὸ ἄλσος
δένδρων καὶ ἱππόδρομός τε καὶ πρὸ αὐτοῦ στάδιον: τὸ δὲ ἀρχαῖον τῶν Λυκαίον ἦγον τὸν ἀγῶνα
ἐνταῦθα. ἔστι δὲ αὐτόθι καὶ ἀνδριάντων βάθρα, οὐκ ἐπόντων ἀνδριάντων βάθρα, οὐκ ἐπόντων
ἔτι ἀνδριάντων: ἐλεγεῖον δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν βάθρων ἑνὶ Ἀστυάνακτός φησιν εἴναι τὴν είκόνα, τὸν δὲ
Ἀστυάνακτα εἴναι γένος τῶν ἀπὸ Ἀρκάδος.
and fountain. The high-resolution satellite image reveals a visible circular shape,
approximately 22 m in diameter.40
We have successfully located the stadium and the hippodrome that Kourounio-
tis originally discovered and in fact the hippodrome is the only example in the entire
Greek world that can be seen and measured although there are many others that are
known from literary or epigraphical sources. The hippodrome measures 250 m long
and 50 m wide and next to it is found the dromos of the stadium. Kourouniotis found
a series of stone starting line blocks from the stadium as well as the stone turning
posts for the hippodrome within the area. We have uncovered evidence for the clay
floor of both the stadium and the hippodrome.
Kourouniotis unearthed two victor inscriptions, IG V2 549 and IG V2 550 from
the late fourth century BC in the building he identified as a xenona, and what we
now call the administrative building.41 These inscriptions point to a flourishing fes-
tival including athletic and equestrian contests.
Approximately mid-way between the southern summit of the mountain and the
mountain meadow where the athletic festival ground was located, there is a foun-
tain once having a great volume of water that Pausanias describes:42
“The Nymphs by whom they say that Zeus was reared, they call Theisoa, Neda and Hagno.
After Theisoa was named a city in Parrhasia, Theisoa today is a village in the district of Mega-
lopolis. From Neda, the river Neda takes its name; from Hagno a spring on Mt. Lykaion, which
like the Danube, flows with an equal volume of water in winter just as in the season of summer.”
Pausanias goes on to describe:43

“Should a drought persist for a long time, and the seeds in the earth and the trees wither, then
the priest of Lycaean Zeus, after praying towards the water and making the usual sacrifices,
lowers an oak branch to the surface of the spring, not letting it sink deep. When the water has
been stirred up there rises a vapor, like mist; after a time the mist becomes cloud, gathers to
itself other clouds, and makes rain fall on the land of the Arcadians.”
40 During the excavation season of 2016 a trench was dug within the area of the circle that was
highlighted by the Google Earth image. We found several terracotta water channels, a stone
basin and what may be aspects of a low stone enclosure wall. Excavation is planned to continue
in this area in the years to come, 2017–2020.
41 These inscriptions as well as the other inscriptions from the site are being restudied by K. Ma-
honey and will appear in Mt. Lykaion Studies, Vol. 1.
42 Paus. 8.38.3 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): ταῖς Νῦμφαις δὲ ὀνόματα, ὑφ᾽ ὧν τὸν Δία τραφῆναι
λέγουσι, τίθενται Θεισόαν καὶ Νέδαν καὶ Ἁγνώ: καὶ ἀπὸ μὲν τῆς Θεισόας πόλις ῷκεῖτο ἐν τῇ
Παρρασία, τὰ δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἐμοῦ μοίρας τἦς Μεγαλοπολίτιδός ἐστιν ἡ Θεισόα κώμη: τῆς Νέδας δὲ ὁ
ποταμὸς τὸ ὄνομα ἔσχηκε: τῆς δὲ Ἁγνοῦς, ἥ ἐν τῷ ὄρει τῷ Λυκαίῳ πηγὴ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ποταμῷ
τῷ Ἴστρῳ πέφυκεν ἴσον παρέχεσθαι τὸ ὕδωρ ἐν χειμῶνι ὁμοίος καὶ ἐν ὥρα θέρους.
43 Paus. 8.38.4 (transl, W. H. S. Jones): ἤν δὲ αὐχμὸς χρόνον ἐπέχη πολὺν καὶ ἤδη σφίσι τὰ
σπέρματα ἐν τῇ γᾖ καὶ τὰ δένδρα αὐαίνηται, τηνικαῦτα ὁ ἱερεὺς τοῦ Λυκαίου Διὸς
προσευγξάμενος ἐς τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ θύσας ὁπόσα ἐστὶν αὐτῷ νόμος καθίησι δρυὸς κλάδον ἐπιπολῆς
καὶ οὐκ ἐς βάθος τῆς πηγῆς: ἀνακινηθέντος δὲ τοῦ ὕδατος ἄνεισιν ἀχλὺς ἐοικυῖα ὁμίχλη,
διαλιποῦσα δὲ ὀλίγον γίνεται νέφος ἡ ἀχλὺς καὶ ἐς αὑτὴν ἄλλα ἐπαγομένη τῶν νεφῶν ὑετὸν
τοῖς Ἀρκάσιν ἐς τὴν γῆν κατιέναι ποιεῖ.
We have uncovered some of the architectural remains of the Agno Fountain, which
must have been an important part of the Sanctuary of Zeus because of the volume
of the water and its location. The source of the spring is now only a trickle of water.
4. SIGNIFICANCE OF LOCATION
The combination of nature, mythology and cult is certainly present at the Sanctuary
of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion. The obvious question to ask is why here? Why Mt. Lykaion?
I have noted earlier that in antiquity there was thought to be a specific place on
Mt. Lykaion, Rhea’s cave, which was known as the place where Zeus was born
although this cave has yet to be identified in the modern day. There are of course
many caves in the area. Furthermore there is another place on Mt. Lykaion where
Zeus was believed to be reared, Cretea, an outlying eastern ridge of the mountain,
much lower than the site of the altar and closer to the plain of Megalopolis. Finally
the ash altar of Zeus Lykaios is located in a third location at the southern summit
and the festival grounds for the Lykaia in a fourth location. Why are these places
to be identified with the ‘Birthplace of Zeus?’ There were probably many related
reasons.
The first factor must be connected to the earliest people who began coming to
this part of Greece and to this windswept mountaintop that would become the ash
altar of Zeus. We now know from archaeological discoveries that as early as the
fourth millennium BC during the Final Neolithic period, people began frequenting
the southern peak of the mountain – and they were bringing coarse ware pottery. It
is likely that there were Neolithic settlements nearby although they have yet to be
discovered. Since Cretea is visible from the east, and the southern summit is also
visible from the east, it may be that the earliest communities were situated in the
same direction near the much later city of Megalopolis, although this is only specu-
lation. It is unlikely that there ever was a settlement on the southern peak of the
mountain, as the summit is extremely vulnerable to the elements. Lightning, thun-
der, clouds and rain are all associated with this mountaintop in the modern day and,
of course, all are epithets of Zeus. It may be, however, that these early settlements
were visible from the altar, and vice versa.
But there may have been other reasons why early people would have come to
the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion in particular. There was the spring that Pausanias
described as Agno that had a large volume of water and flowed like the Danube
River, summer and winter alike, at least during the time of Pausanias. The Spring
was only 145 m lower than the altar on the slope of the southern peak at an eleva-
tion of ca.1234 masl and would have been an attractive place for pilgrims to stop
on the way to the southern summit from the lower mountain meadow. It also pro-
vided a plentitude of water to the area of the lower sanctuary, as we know from the
historical period. This would have been a primary reason to approach the southern
summit as opposed to the northern summit of Mt. Lykaion that lacked such a source
of water.
In the modern day, there are seven springs that emanate from different sides of
the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion whereas there are none from the northern peak.
Another factor that likely attracted people to the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion was
the fact that there was a geological fault that surrounded the southern peak and the
altar on three sides. And in the area of the lower sanctuary there was also a fault
running right through the middle of the area of the fourth century buildings and
immediately behind the stoa. These faults would have attracted people by nature of
the physical expression of the shaking and opening of the earth. There was a second
fountain in the lower sanctuary, close to the stoa and the administrative building,
some distance from the more famous Agno Fountain. It is known that the geological
faults are related to the fountains as the sources of spring water on the mountain.
This second fountain would also have supplied the buildings and monuments of the
athletic festival grounds with water from a spring on the mountain side.
Another factor attracting people to this place may have been that there was a
spectacular view from the southern summit of the mountain, but this could also
have been said for the northern peak, that was equally good, and perhaps even
better in some ways, as well as it could be said for a number of other peaks in
the neighborhood. But the northern peak of Mt. Lykaion, in comparison, was an
unwelcoming place, characterized by rough limestone beddings, sink holes and a
precipitous north face. The southern summit on the other hand was characterized
by a ‘soft peak’ with a large flat area 24 m below used as the temenos, and another
adjacent area, 24 m lower that may have been the location for the early Lykaion
Games.44 This possible ‘protostadium’ is a flat area 155–160 m long with natural
embankments on both sides.
The south peak was more inviting since it was easier to ascend, there was flat
space available on top that would become the temenos and also possibly including
a place for the early athletic contests, as well as a major fountain half way up the
slope. Courtesy of the same Google Earth image we now know that the southern
peak of the mountain has a very characteristic shape of a circle that is not obvious
when one approaches the summit from virtually any direction.
One might also ask the question why Arcadia and why Mt. Lykaion in particular
was considered to be the ‘birthplace of Zeus’ in antiquity. Although Arcadia is often
said to have been remote and difficult to get to, and the Arcadians were known to
have been primitive and isolated, in antiquity Arcadia was actually at the center of a
type of ‘interstate highway’ that extended through the Peloponnesos from the south-
east to the northwest.45 It consists of the network of river valleys of the Alpheios
and the Eurotas. There were also the river valleys of the Pamisos running south into
Messenia and the Neda running to the west to the Ionian Sea. Mt. Lykaion was in a
place near where these four rivers came closest to one another (fig. 6).
44 Romano and Voyatzis 2014: 629–630. The geological information is from personal communi-
cation with G. Davis.
45 This idea was first articulated in a talk by M. E. Voyatzis and D. G. Romano, “Ancient High-
ways Through Arcadia: What the recent evidence from Mt. Lykaion tells us about mobility in
the Late Bronze Age”, in the colloquium “From Dispersal to Diaspora” a part of the Centennial
Celebration of the School of Anthropology of the University of Arizona, February 27, 2015.
In antiquity, communication and transportation would have been made by

means of these river valleys that connected southern Laconia and Messenia through
Arcadia and with Elis in the northwest. So as a result of this kind of thinking,
Mt. Lykaion was actually near a center of a communications and transportation
network, and Arcadia was not such an isolated province after all. This would have
meant that there were roads and paths that ran along each of these river valleys
and these roads would have provided the shortest and fastest land routes across
the Peloponnese. This may have resulted in people passing by Mt. Lykaion as they
travelled through the area and some of them certainly would have made the effort
to go towards the peaks. The river valleys of the Alpheios and Eurotas also literally
divided the Peloponnesos diagonally into two halves, the eastern and the western.
Mt. Lykaion was on the western side.
5. MEANING OF ‘BIRTHPLACE OF ZEUS’
What exactly does the connotation ‘birthplace of Zeus’ mean? What did the phrase
mean to those who came there in antiquity? How do we reconcile the stories of
Pelasgos, Lykaon, Kallisto and Arkas with the location of Mt. Lykaion and Arcadia
and with our archaeological discoveries on the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion?
It was the Neolithic period, probably the sixth millennium BC when farming
was introduced into Greece, and communities were settled. This was the time of
the Indo-European migrations from the north and east and when sheep and goats as
well as agriculture were introduced to Greece. Of course earlier populations inhab-
ited Greece as it is known for instance that the Franchthi Cave in the Argolid was
inhabited from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic through the Final Neolithic.
There are also Upper Paleolithic remains from near Megalopolis.
Could the phrase ‘birthplace of Zeus’ have more significant meaning that might
relate to a broader picture than just the mythology? Could the concept have to do
with the beginnings of Greek culture and perhaps Greek language and could the
phrase ‘birthplace of Zeus’ be a metaphor for the beginnings of Greek civilization
as a whole?
The question of the introduction of Greek speakers to Greece has been an im-
portant one for many years with now several different theories current.46 The first
theory has the Greek speakers arriving at the end of EH II around 2200 BC. This
earlier was the theory of Haley and Blegen, who postulated in 1928 that the Greek
Speakers arrived at the beginning of the Middle Helladic period, ca. 2000 BC. The
theory was later modified by Caskey, who suggested that the Greek speakers arrived
at the end of EH II based on his archaeological discoveries at Lerna.47 The second
theory has the Greek speakers arriving at the transition between the Neolithic and
Early Helladic periods around 3100 BC This is the theory of Michael Cosmopou-
los and John Coleman who utilized different forms of evidence in their separate
46 These theories are conveniently summarized by Pullen 2008: 38–41.

47 Caskey 1960.
arguments. Cosmopoulos used the historical evidence from Herodotus,48 as well

as the mythological evidence dealing with Pelasgos and the Pelasgoi, represent-
ing the Neolithic period, to suggest a peaceful infiltration of mainland Greece by
Indo-European speakers from Anatolia.49 Coleman, suggests that an initial group of
Indo-Europeans speaking a “pre-Greek substrate language” arrived in Greece ca.
4500/4400 BC and that “Proto-Greeks” arrived ca. 3200–3100 BC.50 According to
this theory, the “Proto-Greeks” came to dominate much of mainland Greece and the
Greek language of the Linear B texts developed from the language spoken by these
people. Another theory, that of Colin Renfrew, suggests that the Indo-European
speakers arrived in Greece from Anatolia simultaneously with the arrival of agri-
culture in the Aegean at the beginning of the Neolithic period, ca. 6500 BC.51 This
migration was seen by Renfrew not as an event but as a process and in this scheme,
the Greek language would have developed in Greece itself.
At Mt. Lykaion we have a more or less continuous sequence of ceramic evi-
dence from the Late Neolithic, fourth millennium BC, to the Late Helladic period
and, rather than seeing a break at ca. 3100 BC or a break around 2200 BC, it appears
that the site of the mountain top may have been utilized from the Final Neolithic
through to the Mycenaean period and then continuously to the Hellenistic period,
although we are not yet certain about the type of activity that was going on at the
southern peak between the Final Neolithic and the Late Helladic periods. Obvi-
ously we need to be very cautious about any such generalization like this, since
we have excavated less than 10 % of the surface of the altar at the southern peak
of the mountain and there may be additional evidence to be found that will bear
on this issue. In fact one of our objectives for our continuing years of excavation
at the altar is to look for concentrations of the Neolithic, Early Helladic or Middle
Helladic material.
My own current thought on this matter, although admittedly speculative, based
on the literary and mythological tradition, together with the emerging archaeologi-
cal evidence from Mt. Lykaion, is that we may have evidence here for the earliest
Greeks who may have arrived on the southern summit of the mountain during the
Final Neolithic period. The first customs and traditions, and perhaps language, may
have begun at that time, and these memories were remembered later as the stories
relating to Pelasgos, Lykaon, Kallisto and Arkas. The altar became in the historical
period the famous Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion and was also known in antiq-
uity as the ‘birthplace of Zeus’.
There is another related point that should be made with respect to the Greek
language and the Arcadians. It has long been known that the Arcadian dialect is the
oldest of all the Greek dialects from mainland Greece and it most closely resembles,
Mycenaean Greek of Linear B.52 It is a part of the Arcado-Cypriot dialect as there
48 Hdt. 1.57.
49 Cosmopoulos 1999: 249–254.
50 Coleman 2000: 142–144. The idea of the “Proto-Greeks” arrival in 3200/3100 BC fits well with
the migration theories of M. Gimbutas (Coleman 2000, Table 2, 111). See Gimbutas 1997: 305.
51 Renfrew 1987: 262–273.
52 Woodard 2008: 52, 70.
are strong similarities between the dialects found in Arcadia and Cyprus. It has
been argued that the cause of the early date of the Arcadian dialect is the fact that
the Arcadians were remote and isolated and that an early form of Greek once estab-
lished in Arcadia was not transformed, as were neighboring areas, because of the
isolation of the region.53 But in the context of the mythological stories that revolve
around Mt. Lykaion and Arcadia, and now the archaeological discoveries that have
come to light in the past ten years at Mt. Lykaion, it should also be considered that
Mt. Lykaion specifically, and Arcadia generally, may have been the place where the
Indo-European ‘Proto-Greeks’ from 3200–3100 BC developed the earliest form of
the Greek language that ended up being spoken before Linear B was introduced ca.
1400 BC. Could it be that the Arcado-Cypriot dialect that is closest to Mycenaean
Greek in the first millennium BC has to do with the fact that Arcadia is the place
where this linguistic development originally occurred two millennia previously?54
There is a further matter that relates to the likely diffusion of the cult of Zeus
from Mt. Lykaion to the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia only 35 km. to the northwest.
The two Zeus sanctuaries share a number of common features including an ash al-
tar, athletic contests, and major buildings of an athletic festival complex. Of course
the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia eventually became much more famous than the
Arcadian site but that was not the case in the beginning. It now appears that the
ash altar of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion with dedications to Zeus was in existence from
at least the 16th century BC55 whereas the ceramic evidence from the ash altar of
Zeus at Olympia dates only from ca. 1050 BC.56 Mary Voyatzis and I have argued
elsewhere that it is very likely that the Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion was the
early model that was adopted at Olympia at a later date.57 The ash altar at Olympia
was built in a sanctuary near sea level and near the Ionian coast and was described
by Pausanias as being a cone of earth that appears very much like the peak of a
mountain.
Remains of the ash altar at Olympia have been excavated by the Deutsches
Archäologisches Institut at different times, and it is now clear that in the beginning
it was originally situated on top of the EH II tumulus and near EH apsidal buildings
that have been discovered within the altis, and then later moved to the northeast
when the Temple of Hera was built nearby. Of course we don’t have a description of
what the altar at Olympia looked like from its beginning but we may assume that it
was similar to the description of Pausanias in the second century AD. The German
excavators have found hundreds of miniature bronze tripod cauldrons and terracotta
figurines associated with the ash altar.
53 Palmer 1980: 64.

54 Paus. 8.5.2: This could mean that the earliest Greek language was developed in Arcadia that
then was transformed into its written form of the Linear B script and thereafter the oral tradition
was transferred to Cyprus when Agapenor and the Arcadians landed there, according to literary
tradition, following the Trojan War.
56 Kyrieleis 2016: 216–220, Abb. 8.
57 M. E. Voyatzis and D. G. Romano, “Sanctuaries of Zeus: Mt. Lykaion and Olympia in the Early
Iron Age,” AIA General Meeting, New Orleans, 2015.
It now appears that the ash altar of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion was in use hundreds
of years before the cult of Zeus was introduced at Olympia. Another understanding
of the ‘birthplace of Zeus’ story might be that Zeus was born at Mt. Lykaion and
then transposed to Olympia. Mt. Lykaion is sometimes referred to in antiquity as
the ‘Arcadian Olympos’ and according to myth Zeus chose the site of Olympia with
a thunderbolt.58
The mythological, historical, literary and archaeological evidence all point to
the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion as the site of early human presence and activ-
ity. Although it is not yet known for sure what the earliest people were doing on
the southern peak of Mt. Lykaion in the Final Neolithic, Early Helladic and Mid-
dle Helladic periods, by the Late Helladic it is known that there was an important
Mycenaean shrine in this location and it is very possible that the deity worshiped
there was Zeus. The continuity of the cult through to the Hellenistic period and the
historical references to the Lykaia in honor of Zeus are important in support of this
idea. The phrase ‘birthplace of Zeus’, associated with Mt. Lykaion from antiquity,
may be more than just a story, but a metaphor to mean the earliest human activity in
mainland Greece that relates to the origins of Zeus in Greek mythology, the father
of the pantheon of gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and its relation to the
beginnings of what we know as Greek culture, civilization and perhaps – language.
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1875–2000: 125 Jahre Deutsche Ausgrabungen, Mainz am Rhein: 213–220.
Lamb, W. 1925–1926: ‘Arcadian Bronze Statuettes’, ABSA 27: 133–148.
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‘Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, Part 1, The Upper Sanctuary: Preliminary Report
2004–2010’, Hesperia, 83: 642–643.
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cred Places’, Archeological and Anthropological Sciences 9.6 (September 2017): 1017–1043.
58 Pausanias (8.38.2) refers to Mt. Lykaion as the ‘Arcadian Olympos’.

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William Abbott Oldfather, Urbana/IL: 122–133.
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T. H. Nielsen and J. Roy (eds.) Defining Ancient Arcadia, Copenhagen: 16–79.
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S. Brunet (eds.), Anthology in Classical Myth. Primary Sources in Translation, Indianapolis:
439–454.
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IV
NATUR, MYTHOS UND RELIGION

IN DER KONSTRUKTION VON VERGANGENHEIT
ENCODING ASTY AND CHORA:
THEBAN POLIS IDENTITY BETWEEN NATURE
AND RELIGION
Angela Ganter, Universität Regensburg
1. INTRODUCTION
“Auch ist Boeotien im Ganzen ein tiefes Marschland, die Binnengegend durch die Umhegung
hoher Bergruecken wie vom Meere ausgeschlossen, die Suempfe, die sich in der Tiefe sam-
meln, unterhalten bestaendigen Nebel; die Luft ist kaelter, der Boden fetter; alle Fruechte und
Fruchtkoerner schwerer, und so auch der Boeoter im Allgemeinen nach Temperament und Cha-
rakter schwerer, kaelter, beschraenkter, minder beweglich und aufgeweckt, als der Attiker.”1
This description of Boeotia, equating the character of the landscape with the one
of its inhabitants, is typical of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thinking. In
his work Orchomenos und die Minyer, first published in Göttingen in 1820, Karl
Otfried Müller does not reflect upon the link between landscape, or nature, and eth-
nicity. Quite the contrary, the author follows the common conviction that ethne are
biological entities, which are defined by certain characteristics – as the Boeotians
were by their rural, or rustic, habits. To cite Pindar in his quotation of an old swear-
word: the Boeotians were said to be swine.2
After decades of discussing ethnicity, we no longer believe that such prejudices
are interwoven with the essential character of an ethnos. Rather, the majority of
scholars today is convinced that ethne do not possess a ‘biological core’, but that
they come into being through ascriptions from inside and outside the group over a
long period. In fact, ethne are seen as subject to constant formation and change.3 It
is the historian’s task to define the members of an ethnos for a specific time as well
as to analyse, how ascriptions applying to the ethnos have changed.
In the short passage cited above, it is easy to identify the matrix for the com-
parison: Athens. Pitted against the one and only polis, which was considered the
cradle of European culture representing the Greek model per se, Boeotia had to
come off badly. From the 5th century onwards, the Athenians themselves reinforced
this tendency by using Boeotia and especially Thebes as an exemplum malum in
1 Müller 1844: 24–25. In the same way, Müller joins the choir of antique authors, who qualify
Lake Kopais as a source of dullness; cf. Oberhummer 1897: 638.
2 Pind. Ol. 6.89–90: ἀρχαῖον ὄνειδος ἀλαθέσιν λόγοις εἰ φεύγομεν, Βοιωτίαν ὗν. “If by our
truthful words we escape the old swearword ‘Boeotian swine’”; cf. Pind. Dithyr. F 83 Maehler:
ἦν ὅτε σύας Βοιοώτιον ἔθνος ἔνεπον. “There was a time the Boeotian ethnos was called swine”.
3 Cf. only the inventory by McInerney 2014.
242 Angela Ganter
every aspect, as an ‘anti-Athens’.4 Scholarly notions like the one by Müller echoed
this point of view according to what they read in Athenian drama.5
One might be tempted to apply the same problematic assumptions, which have
dominated the conception of ethnicity, to religion – more precisely: to the relation
between nature and religion. Natural environment changes, if at all, very slowly.
Therefore, it seems reasonable that the relation of man to his natural habitat and
the religious features inspired by nature are the subject of a longue durée. Do the
sources allow us at all to investigate changing habits towards nature and religion?
If not, we should nevertheless assume that the human view of the relation between
nature, or landscape, and religion varied over time. The expectation of change is
one of the most important hypotheses to which historians are bound.
In this chapter, I will approach the matter focussing on examples from Boeo-
tian Thebes.6 The Theban tradition abounds with material encoding polis identity:
Demeter as a poliadic deity, myths related to wells, plains, and rivers, and espe-
cially the story of Kadmos, who besieges a wild beast at the Spring of Ares before
founding the city. All these myths have a lot to tell us about the relation between
asty and chora, nature and culture, nature and religion. The following analysis will
not set out from a theoretical discussion of these highly debated terms. Instead, I
aim to demonstrate what answers Theban myths may provide to the general ques-
tions of this volume. The example of Thebes allows us to observe how these cate-
gories were applied under specific historical circumstances. While we have to hope
that we are not simply imposing our own concepts of interrelation between asty and
chora on our sources, the Theban example stands for much more than just Theban
polis identity. We are hardly ever provided with an emic point of view – quite the
opposite: most of our sources reflect the panhellenic importance Theban myth had
since the Archaic period. Thebes is much more than a mere local example for con-
cepts of the interdependency of nature and religion in Greek culture.
2. THE EVENTS AT THE SPRING OF ARES: WATER AS THE

NATURAL AND SYMBOLIC SOURCE OF CULTURE
“Once in Phoenicia, Europe was seduced by Zeus. Kadmos, her brother, began to search for
her, crossing big parts of the Mediterranean until he came to Delphi where he asked how to
find his sister. The oracle advised him to stop this project and to follow a cow instead. Where
the animal would lie down, he should found a city. Coming to the place he was shown, he sent
comrades to a spring in order to get water for a sacrifice to Athena. But the spring was guarded
by a dragon, who killed all of them. Kadmos in turn killed the beast and sowed its teeth. Sub-
sequently (?), warriors grew out of the earth, the so-called Spartoi, who began to fight against
4 Zeitlin 1990 (already published in: Burian 1986): 131, 144, 148–149; cf. Vidal-Naquet 1988:
119; Zimmermann 1993: 192.
5 The prejudices may largely have stemmed from the difference between Athenian city culture
and the dominance of agrarian culture in Boeotia, cf. Roberts 1895/1974: 13; Guillon 1948:
79–95; Van Effenterre 1989: 5.
6 For a more detailed discussion of the problems alluded to in this chapter, see my book on polis
and ethnos in Boeotia in the mirror of Theban foundation myths, Kühr 2006.
Encoding asty and chora: Theban Polis Identity Between Nature and Religion 243
each other. Only five of them survived, becoming the first citizens of Thebes. Later, Kadmos
married Harmonia, and the wedding was celebrated on the Kadmeia (the Theban citadel, A. G.)
in presence of the Olympian gods.”7
The scholiast’s narrative, a late version of the well-known foundation myth of The-
bes, tells a rather complex story. For our purposes, I will focus on the episode that
takes place at the Spring of Ares: the killing of the dragon8 and the growing of the
Spartoi.
According to this tradition, Kadmos encounters a land untouched by human be-
ings, uninfluenced by anyone who was capable of organising, civilising, and domi-
nating the designated space. The arrival of the hero marks the beginning of history
in the region. According to Sostratos, the main river of Thebes was originally called
Κάδμου πούς. Kadmos was said to have made water erupt by kicking the ground
where the most important spring of the polis would be.9 It remains unclear whether
this tradition was rooted in folk-tale, or whether it was a rationalised invention
by scholiasts. In any case, the story illustrates perfectly the ascribed functions of
mythically charged springs in the region: first, as a natural necessity for the settle-
ment,10 and second, as a symbol for the beginnings of culture which Kadmos was
about to establish there.11 Natural features enable settlements and human beings act
in order to cultivate waste and empty land. Culture depends on nature, and nature
has to be overcome for the establishment of culture.
Boeotia was a fertile country, famous for plains full of crops and for the eels
of lake Kopais. It is obvious that myths reflect the role of water as the beginning of
life and culture. The region and the area of the polis of Thebes were full of mythi-
cally encoded springs and rivers. There were – to name but a few – the rivers Dirke
and Ismenos (at the same time local river deities),12 the springs called Dirke, and
Oedipus. Unlike Dirke, the Spring of Ares cannot be located with certainty. The
name might never have denoted a single point of commemoration, as ancient wri-
ters mention different geographical sites.13
However, by symbolizing the transition from wild, untamed nature to polis
culture, the Spring of Ares was the nucleus of everything else. Its water formed
7 Schol. Hom. Il. 2.494, largely identical with Apollod. 3.4.1–2, both of them relying on Hellani-
cus FGrH 4 fr. 51 and Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 22.88 = BNJ 3 fr. 22.88. Cf. Kühr 2006: 83–118.
8 For an overview over the sources on the dragon in Theban myths cf. Ogden 2013: 48–54.
9 Sostratos FGrH 23 fr. 5 = BNJ 23 fr. 5.
10 Vian 1963: 104–105, 110 and Burkert 1999: 21 see in Kadmos, who first of all looks for a water
vein, the prototype of a ktistes, because the foremost responsibility of a colonist was to ensure
that the new place of settlement provided the element most important for survival. For springs
as components of ideal landscapes and as a symbol for ordered (and peaceful) life cf. Hom.
Il. 22.153–156; Buxton 1994: 109–112.
11 Cf. Crielaard 2009: 354: “The founding of a city thus embodies the transition from wild nature
to culture.”
12 The divinised springs and rivers are important in many myths of Thebes: Dirke is said to have
nourished baby Dionysos (Eur. Bacch. 519–525), and Hera supposedly breastfed Heracles at
the riverbank (Paus. 9.25.1–2).
13 Cf. Eur. Supp. 651–660; Eur. Phoen. 638–666, 932; Paus. 9.10.5 with the discussion in Schober
1934: 1425–1426, 1451; Vian 1963: 84 and Symeonoglou 1985: 180–185.
244 Angela Ganter
the natural and symbolic source of Theban culture that – according to myth – was
established in a dialectic process between nature and culture, between barbarian
and civilised behaviour. Only by killing the monster can Kadmos sow its teeth,
and thereby performs the first and most important act of agrarian societies. After-
wards, the Spartoi, the fruit sprung from the dragon’s teeth, behave like savages
in killing each other. By overcoming this phase of confrontation, cohabitation in a
civilised society becomes possible. Five appeased fighters move to the Kadmeia, to
the centre of town, and refrain from further conflict. They become the first citizens,
accompanying Kadmos, who goes on to complete the foundation of a new human
order by his marriage to Harmonia. Not merely the wedding, but the whole chain of
events takes place in the presence of the gods and with divine blessing, as literary
and iconographic sources demonstrate alike.14 Human, divinely sanctioned culture
or civilisation is initiated by overcoming the wild and dangerous aspects of nature –
and by using its fruits to survive and prosper.
3. CHRONOLOGICAL ANNOTATIONS
This interpretation of the scene at the Spring of Ares may stem from a fifth cen-
tury tradition; at least, it was prominent in Euripidean drama.15 The motif itself,
however, is certainly older. Although Aeschylus is the first to explicitly mention
the fight against the dragon,16 the lack of contextualisation of the relevant verses
leads us to assume that they were easily understandable, and that the story was thus
well known. Generally speaking, the fight against a monster is a common mythical
feature in many Indo-European cultures.17 What is more, Stesichorus already pro-
vides an allusion to the sowing of the teeth,18 and Pindar refers specifically to the
Spartoi.19
The iconographic sources strengthen the impression given by the literary ones.
The oldest vases showing Kadmos date from the end of the 6th century and depict
14 E. g. Athena is prominent in the foundation scene at the Spring of Ares, cf. Eur. Phoen. 666–
675, 1062–1064; Apoll. Rhod. 3.1183–1187; Apollod. 3.4.1; Schol. Hom. Il. 2.494; Hyg.
fab. 178; Ov. Met. 3.101–105; Nonnus Dion. 4.400–405, 421–463; Schol. Eur. Phoen. 1062.
Sometimes, the gods themselves initiate the sowing of the teeth, or they sow them, e. g. Ares in
Hellanicus FGrH 4 fr. 1 and Eur. HF 251–252, Ares and Athena in Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 22a.
Different gods flank Kadmos on vase paintings, e. g. Thebe, or a personified spring, Ares, and
Athena on Tiverios 1990: 867 no. 15; Athena, Nike, Thebe, Harmonia, Demeter, Kore, Apol-
lon, Artemis, Poseidon, Hermes, and further gods difficult to identify on Tiverios 1990: 867–
868 no. 19.
15 Eur. Phoen. 821, 913, 1009–1011.
16 Aesch. Sept. 412–414: σπαρτῶν δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἀνδρῶν, ὧν Ἄρης ἐφείσατο, ῥίζωμ᾽ ἀνεῖται, κάρτα δ᾽
ἔστ᾽ ἐγχώριος, Μελάνιππος. “From the Heroes of the Dragon’s blood whom Ares spared, his
stock is sprung, and a true scion of our soil is Melanippus”, (transl. H. W. Smyth). See the com-
mentary by Gantz 1993: 469.
17 Cf. Trumpf 1958: 140–141, 150; Vian 1963: 94–114; Clay 1989: 94; Burkert 1999: 21.
18 Stesichorus fr.195 PMG: ὁ μὲν Στησίχορος ἐν Εὐρωπείαι τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν ἐσπαρκέναι τοὺς ὀδόντας
φησίν (with Schachter 1985:146, reprinted in Schachter 2016: 25–35); Gantz 1993: 467.
19 Pind. Pyth. 9.82–83; Isthm. 1.30; 7.10; Hymn. 1.2 fr. 29 Maehler passim.
the wedding with Harmonia.20 The fight against the dragon and the sowing of the
teeth become very prominent from the middle of the 5th century onwards.21 To give
just one example: a Boeotian skyphos from the sanctuary of the Kabiroi near The-
bes, dating from 420–400 B. C., shows the bearded, ityphallic hero Kadmos holding
a stick or whip in his right hand and facing a dragon that emerges from the reed.22
Down until the 6th century, evidence regarding the myth of Kadmos emphasises
his role as the ancestor of the Theban ruling dynasty. From the middle of the fifth
century onwards, he becomes a civilisation hero. Kadmos appeases and cultivates
the wild elements of nature, and he imports the alphabet to Greece from the East.
4. MYTHS LINKING ASTY AND CHORA: AN OVERVIEW
Significantly, Thebes had a poliadic deity one would not usually expect to reside in
the centre of a town: Demeter. The goddess of growing crops and the agrarian year
had a precinct close to the palace of Kadmos, right in the middle of the Kadmeia,
the Theban citadel. There, she was a Thesmophoros, responsible for the setting and
fixing of man-made order and laws.23 The old goddess, who can be traced back to
the period of the Mycenean palaces, linked asty and chora like her neighbour, the
foundation hero Kadmos. Close to the temple of Demeter Thesmophoros lay the
ruins of the Mycenean palaces. They were called the ‘House of Kadmos’, and they
could be visited in Antiquity as one might do today. Both Kadmos and Demeter
stood for the dialectical growing and dying of nature. In this, both combined the
characteristics of someone representing as well as overcoming the forces of nature.
Kadmos and Demeter stood for major achievements of culture and civilisation: the
establishment of human order.
Interestingly, there are many more myths elaborating the dialectics between
asty and chora, centre and periphery. According to their functions and mythical
connotations, the area of the polis was divided into different zones.24 At the very
core of the Kadmeia lay the ‘House of Kadmos’, the palace of the foundation hero
and the ruling dynasty, a building attached to the ruins of the Mycenean palaces.
Here, the gods had indicated their consent by attending the wedding of Kadmos.
Here, Zeus had engendered Dionysos with Semele, the daughter of Kadmos. The
presence of these gods was still commemorated when Pausanias visited the place:
20 Tiverios 1990: 872 no. 43 = Paus. 3.18.12; Tiverios 1990: 872 no. 44. Cf. Tiverios 1990: 866
no. 11.
21 E. g. Tiverios 1990: 867 no. 15; Tiverios 1990: 867–868 no. 19 with Vian 1963: 44–47; Tiverios
1990: 875 s. v. Kadmos (1); Gantz 1993: 470–471. Krauskopf 1988: 301 no. 167, dating to the
6th century B. C., probably does not depict Kadmos, see the discussion in Vian 1963: 44–45;
Tiverios 1990: 877 s. v. Kadmos (1); differently Gantz 1993: 470.
22 Tiverios 1990: 868 no. 20.
23 Paus. 9.16.5; cf. Pind. Isthm. 7.3; Paus. 9.6.5; Ael. VH 12.57 with Ziehen 1934: 1506–1507;
Symeonoglou 1985: 124; Schachter 1981–1994, vol. 1: 165–166.
24 For a detailed discussion, cf. Kühr 2006: 199–246, and now Berman 2015. Already in the Ho-
meric Epics, the awareness of different zones constituting a polis is omnipresent, cf. Hom.
Il. 18.478–608 with Audring 1981; Dowden 1992: 123–133; Scholten 2004.
246 Angela Ganter
“The Thebans assert that on the part of their citadel, where today stands their market-place,
was in ancient times the house of Cadmus. They point out the ruins of the bridal-chamber of
Harmonia, and of one which they say was Semele’s; into the latter they allow no man to step
even now.”25
In the middle of town, the Thebans pointed to a holy place not to be entered, abaton.
It was said to be the very spot Zeus had burnt with his thunderbolt when visiting
Semele.26 Archaeologically, this may correspond to the layer of charcoal, about
one meter thick, the result of a fire that destroyed the first Mycenaean palace.27 So
in the city, which had to suffer many destructions – by invaders and earthquakes
alike – over the last three millennia and subsequently needed to be rebuilt on nu-
merous occasions, there was conserved a spot of commemoration that was not to
be touched. Our explanation differs from the ancient one, and the people inhabiting
Thebes during the Archaic and Classical period did not know about the existence of
Mycenean culture. Nevertheless, their explanation fits well into a general vision of
Theban polis identity: the gods had played their part in Theban history, supporting,
but also menacing Theban culture. Dionysos, the god born in the very centre of the
citadel, incorporates a conflict also visible in other myths of the region: the tension
between a civilisation linked to its central places and the breaking of rules a civi-
lised society had established.
This second part of action is situated at the periphery of the region, in the
mountains. Excesses by maenads take place on mount Kithairon, and the Sphinx
has her home at mount Sphingion. On the other hand, young people like Oedipus
were imagined to have grown up in the same landscape. So do the twins Amphion
and Zethos, who one day – coming from the periphery – would change the fate of
the centre. This takes us back to the dialectics mentioned above: the civilised asty
was unthinkable without influences from the wildest parts of the chora.28
Located between the citadel and the mountains, the suburban area provided
sanctuaries and commemorative places of Heracles, another son of the city and
most prominent defender of Thebes against enemies from outside,29 as well as
tombs from the Bronze Age thought to belong to the Seven against Thebes.30 In
myth, this was the sphere of war and glory, corresponding to the most important
monument Thebes was known for: the famous wall.
25 Paus. 9.12.3 (transl. W. H. S. Jones): φασὶ δὲ οἱ Θηβαῖοι, καθότι τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ἀγορά σφισιν
ἐφ᾿ ἡμῶν πεποίηται, Κάδμου τὸ ἀρχαῖον οἰκίαν εἶναι· θαλάμων δὲ ἀποφαίνουσι τοῦ μὲν
Ἁρμονίας ἐρείπια καὶ ὃν Σεμέλης φασὶν εἶναι, τοῦτον δὲ καὶ ἐς ἡμᾶς ἔτι ἄβατον φυλάσσουσιν
ἀνθρώποις.
26 For the story, cf. Pind. Ol. 2.25–27; Eur. Bacch. 1–9; Apollod. 3.4.3; Diod. 3.64.3–4; 4.2.2–3;
Ov. Met. 3.256–315; Hyg. fab. 167. 179.
27 The ‘First Palace’ (Site 1, Kadmeia I 11) with the description by Symeonoglou 1985: 41–47.
56–57. 213–225.
28 Cf. Buxton 1994: 64–66, 81–96, 105 on the significance of mountainous regions for polis iden-
tity; Kühr 2006: 254–255 for a résumé of how the contrast between centre and periphery, cul-
ture and wildness was encoded in Theban myths.
29 Kühr 2006: 190–198.
30 Kühr 2006: 209–220.
5. GRANDCHILDREN OF A RIVER AND EARTH-GROWN MEN:

DIFFERENT MODES OF AUTOCHTHONY
In the Archaic period, the wall certainly was the striking feature of the city, defin-
ing polis identity. As a strong fortification, it defined the inner area of the asty, the
pacified and well-defended space for social life without dangers from the outside.31
Accordingly, the Homeric epics celebrate the god-like constructors of the walls as
the founders of the town:
“And after her I saw Antiope, the daughter of Asopos [a river in southern Boeotia, A. G.],
who boasted that she had slept even in the arms of Zeus, and she bore two sons, Amphion and
Zethos, who first established the seat of seven-gated Thebe, and fenced it in with walls, for they
could not dwell in spacious Thebe unfenced, how mighty soever they were.”32
Thus, we come back to the question of change. Thebes seems to have had two foun-
dation myths: on the one hand, the stories related to Kadmos, on the other, those
concerning the twins Amphion and Zethos as in the passage from the Odyssey cited
above. How do the two foundation myths come together?
An analysis of the chronological development of the stories shows that around
700 B. C., about the same time the Homeric epics were put into writing, Amphion
and Zethos were thought to have founded the city by constructing its walls. Kad-
mos, by contrast, is the head of the Theban royal house – nothing is said about his
relations to Phoenicia, Europe or Delphi.
The story of Amphion and Zethos underwent little change and was bound to lo-
cal traditions. The myth of Kadmos, however, began to develop in an extraordinary
way by including new elements and expanding its influence all over the Mediterra-
nean. From the fifth century onwards, Kadmos is a Phoenician coming from the east
in search of his sister. After consulting Delphi, he establishes a city famous among
the Greeks, because its founding hero was said to have been one of the very first
human beings in the region, and supposedly brought the alphabet from Phoenicia to
Greece. Kadmos is a civilisation hero, who fights the monster, ploughs the ground,
installs the cults and sows the first citizens.
Yet, Amphion and Zethos are civilisation heroes as well, just in a different way.
Obviously, the most important cultural achievement in 700 B. C. was to fortify a
settlement with a strong wall against outside dangers. 250 years later, the percep-
tion of civilisation and cultural merits had changed. A wall was no longer consid-
ered an achievement of primordial importance. Accordingly, it had lost its capacity
as a symbol for organised space, i. e. the state. By then, ‘the state’ meant something
other than security and well-constructed public buildings. Kadmos was now the
31 On the importance walls had for concepts of poleis especially in Archaic times, see e. g. Scully
1990; Crielaard 1995: 270–271.
32 Hom. Od. 11.260–265 (transl. A. T. Murray): τὴν δὲ μέτ΄ Ἀντιόπην ἴδον, Ἀσωποῖο θύγατρα, ἥ
δὴ καὶ Διὸς εὔχετ΄ ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἰαῦσαι, καί ῤ΄ἔτεκεν δύο παῖδ΄, Ἀμφίονά τε Ζῆθόν τε, οἳ
πρῶτοι Θήβης ἕδος ἔκτισαν πταπύλοιο πύργωσάν τ΄, ἐπεὶ οὐ μὲν ἀπύργωτόν γ΄ ἐδύναντο
ναιέμεν εὐρύχορον Θήβην, κρατερώ περ ἐόντε. For the background of the following discus-
sion, cf. Kühr 2006: 118–132.
248 Angela Ganter
cultural hero, who overcame the threatening beast and imported the alphabet from
the east.
Nevertheless, Amphion and Zethos had one big advantage: they were children
of a river and thus stood for autochthony. Kadmos, the hero of the Kadmeia, was
said to have come from foreign lands and offered no competition in this regard. As
autochthony implied original rights to the land, and as the oldest rights were re-
garded to be most significant, the claim could be understood as expressing a higher
legitimacy. Politically, this might be problematic, because the river Asopos was
situated further south. It defined the southern realms of the Theban chora, but it
was not linked to the asty like Kadmos was. That way, Amphion and Zethos also
were – although in a different mode – founders from the outside, the periphery. That
might be the reason why Pindar was so keen on referring to the Spartoi, the earth-
grown men, who were autochthonoi in a double sense: they were the offspring of
the dragon, himself said to be a gegenes (γηγενής),33 and of course, they were lit-
erally sprung from the earth. With the Spartoi, the myth of Kadmos combined both
elements. It had a hero arriving from distant shores as well as ancestors stemming
directly from the Theban earth. The chthonic element, represented by the dragon
and mediated by the Spartoi, is curtailed by the civilisation hero Kadmos and thus
integrated into the cosmos of the polis.
6. CONCLUSION
Do Theban myths encoding asty and chora indicate changing perceptions of the
relation between nature – or landscape – and religion? Although the sources are
problematic, insofar as the versions known to us from the fifth century onwards
mainly follow Athenian interpretations, we can still observe some essential shifts:
The Theban foundation heroes of the Homeric epics are the twins Amphion and
Zethos, who were said to have constructed the impressive walls of seven-gated
Thebes. In the fifth century, however, their merits were considered less important,
because a wall no longer stood metonymically for the city as a whole.
Kadmos, the progenitor of the ruling dynasty, now transformed into a cultural
hero by overcoming the menacing monster and introducing the alphabet. With the
Spartoi, finally, the myth of Kadmos had everything: a hero coming from far away,
and ancestors stemming directly from the Theban earth. The civilisation hero Kad-
mos appeases the chthonic element, represented by the dragon and mediated by the
Spartoi, and thus integrates them into the cosmos of the polis.
As a symbol for the transition from wild, untamed nature to polis culture,
from the fifth century onwards, the Spring of Ares was considered the nucleus of
everything that came afterwards. Its water was the natural and symbolic source of
Theban culture that, according to myth, was established in a mutual process be-
tween nature and culture, barbarian and civilised behaviour. The tension between
civilisation and the breaking of its rules is also present in other Theban myths: the
33 Eur. Phoen. 931. 935; cf. Schol. Eur. Phoen. 930–937.

birth of the god Dionysos in the location of the former Mycenean palaces, the later
marketplace, left behind a numinous location, a spot of charcoal not to be entered.
The birth of the god Dionysos occurred in the centre of town, whereas the maenads
performed the wild rites of his cults in the mountainous areas of the south. Fur-
thermore, many important heroes like Oedipus and the twins Amphion and Zethos
grew up in the mountains, i. e. outside the city, before they changed the fate of the
polis community forever. The dialectics between centre and periphery continued.
The civilised asty was unthinkable without influences from the wildest parts of the
chora.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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VON DEN AZANIA KAKA ZUR EUHYDROS ARKADIA:
WASSER IN ARKADIEN
Anna Christina Neff, Göttingen
1. EINLEITUNG
„Wasser ist nämlich ganz unentbehrlich für das Leben, die Freuden des Lebens und
den täglichen Gebrauch“, formulierte Vitruv1 und rechtfertigt damit, das gesamte
achte Buch von De Architectura ausschließlich diesem Element zu widmen. Wäh-
rend Wasser im antiken Alltag für die erfolgreiche Ausgestaltung menschlichen Le-
bens keinen grundsätzlichen Vorrang vor den anderen Elementen – Feuer, Luft und
Erde – besaß, scheint eine besondere Verbindung zwischen Mensch und Wasser
doch angedeutet zu sein. Dies spiegelt sich wider in der Vorstellung vom Wasser
als Urstoff, die sich bereits bei Homer findet („… des Okeanos Fluten, welcher der
Ahn und Schöpfer doch ist von den Lebenden allen“)2 und philosophisch erstmals
durch Thales ausgestaltet wurde:
„Thales, der Urheber solcher Philosophie, nennt es Wasser (weshalb er auch erklärte, dass die
Erde auf dem Wasser sei), wobei er vielleicht zu dieser Annahme kam, weil er sah, dass die
Nahrung aller Dinge feucht ist und das Warme selbst aus dem Feuchten entsteht und durch das-
selbe lebt (das aber, woraus alles wird, ist das Prinzip von allem); hierdurch also kam er wohl
auf diese Annahme und außerdem dadurch, dass die Samen aller Dinge feucht sind, das Wasser
aber dem Feuchten Prinzip seiner Natur ist.“3
Die Beziehung des Menschen zum Wasser war jedoch hochgradig ambivalent:
Auf der einen Seite handelte es sich um eine lebensnotwendige Ressource, auf der
anderen um eine lebensbedrohliche Naturgewalt. Dementsprechend schwankt die
Wahrnehmung hier immer zwischen den beiden Extremen von ‚zu wenig‘ und ‚zu
viel‘, zwischen Dürre und Überschwemmung. Beide präsentieren eine existenzielle
1 Vitr. 8.1.1 (übers. C. Fensterbusch): Est enim maxime necessaria et ad vitam et ad delectationes
et ad usum cotidianum.
2 Hom. Il. 14.245–246 (übers. H. Rupé): καὶ ἂν ποταμοῖο ῥέεθρα / Ὠκεανοῦ, ὅς περ γένεσις
πάντεσσι τέτυκται.
3 Aristot. metaph. 983b 20–27 (übers. H. Bonitz): ἀλλὰ Θαλῆς μὲν ὁ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχηγὸς
φιλοσοφίας ὕδωρ φησὶν εἶναι (διὸ καὶ τὴν γῆν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατος ἀπεφήνατο εἶναι), λαβὼν ἴσως τὴν
ὑπόληψιν ταύτην ἐκ τοῦ πάντων ὁρᾶν τὴν τροφὴν ὑγρὰν οὖσαν καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ θερμὸν ἐκ τούτου
γιγνόμενον καὶ τούτῳ ζῶν (τὸ δ᾽ ἐξ οὗ γίγνεται, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἀρχὴ πάντων) – διά τε δὴ τοῦτο τὴν
ὑπόληψιν λαβὼν ταύτην καὶ διὰ τὸ πάντων τὰ σπέρματα τὴν φύσιν ὑγρὰν ἔχειν, τὸ δ᾽ ὕδωρ
ἀρχὴν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι τοῖς ὑγροῖς. Vgl. dazu auch Detel 1988. Diese Ansicht war jedoch nicht
unumstritten: Anaximenes beispielsweise hielt Luft für den Urstoff des Universums (DK 13 A5
und A7), während Heraklit dies dem Feuer zuschrieb (DK 22 B31). Empedokles schließlich,
als Begründer der Vier-Elemente-Lehre, nennt Wasser, Feuer, Luft und Erde als gleichrangige
Ursprungselemente des Kosmos (Peri Physeos, DK 31 B6–10).
252 Anna Christina Neff
Bedrohung gerade in agrarisch geprägten Gesellschaften. So erscheint es folgerich-

tig, anzunehmen, dass Wasser in der Imagination der Griechen ein Kommunika-
tionsmittel zwischen Göttern und Menschen darstellte, eingesetzt jeweils entweder
als Strafe oder als Gunstbeweis.4
Das Verständnis von und die Kenntnis über Landschaften und im speziellen
über Wasser innerhalb einer Landschaft entsteht aus der Interaktion des Menschen
mit der ihn umgebenden Umwelt. Die Formen dieser Interaktion sowie das daraus
resultierende Verständnis von Natur und Umwelt verändern sich im Wandel der
Zeit abhängig vom jeweiligen sozialen und kulturellen Kontext. In der griechischen
Antike wird ein Teil dieses Wissens im kulturellen Verständigungsraum des My-
thos verhandelt: Da Landschaften die natürliche Kulisse für mythische Erzählun-
gen bieten, werden ihnen kulturelle Ideen gewissermaßen eingeschrieben. Die reale
geographische Landschaft wird dabei überlagert von Schauplätzen mythischen Ge-
schehens oder von Erinnerungsorten, die auf Mythen verweisen.
Unter diesen Voraussetzungen untersucht der vorliegende Aufsatz am Beispiel
Arkadiens das Verhältnis der Bewohner dieser Landschaft zur Ressource Wasser.
Dabei geht es vor allem um ihre Wahrnehmung im Wechselspiel der oben bereits
skizzierten Prinzipien von Mangel und Überfluss.
2. NATUR IM MYTHOS – DER URSPRUNG

ARKADISCHER FLÜSSE
Literarisch sind beide Vorstellungen mit Arkadien verbunden: Kallimachos benutzt

im Hymnos an Zeus das Attribut euhydros zur Kennzeichnung der Landschaft und
charakterisiert sie somit als „mit guten Wassern“ gesegnet.5 Die Wendung von den
Azania kaka, also von den „azanischen Übeln“, zeichnet ein anderes Bild.6 Die
Region Azania, im Nordwesten Arkadiens gelegen, scheint bekannt gewesen zu
sein für ihr sprichwörtlich harsches und unwirtliches Klima. Die trockenen Böden
brachten kaum Ertrag und galten als unfruchtbar. Abgesehen von der Beschreibung
und Interpretation des Ausdruckes Ἀζάνια κακά, in der explizit von Trockenheit
(σκληρὸς) und Unfruchtbarkeit (ἄκαρπος) gesprochen wird, ist auch die Regions-
bezeichnung selbst mit der Vorstellung von Wassermangel in Verbindung zu brin-
gen. Der Name Azania mag zwar nicht unbedingt etymologisch mit dem Verb
ἀζάνω verknüpft sein, welches in der Übersetzung „austrocknen“ oder „vertrock-
nen“ bedeutet. Die klangliche Analogie beider Worte kann trotzdem ausreichend
gewesen sein, um einen assoziativen Kontext zwischen der Region Azania und
Dürre herzustellen.
Der hier gezeichnete Gegensatz wird von Kallimachos im Zeus-Hymnos be-
wusst bei der aitiologischen Erklärung des Ursprungs arkadischer Flüsse thema-
tisiert. Der Hymnos, der vermutlich aus Anlass der alexandrinischen Basileia und
4 Vgl. hierzu Cole 1988: 161, sowie die Aussage Platons zur Wasserversorgung Attikas im Kri-
tias (111b–d).
5 Kall. h. 1.20 (übers. M. Asper): μέλλεν δὲ μάλ᾽ εὔυδρος καλέεσθαι αὖτις.
6 Diogenianus 1.24; Zenob. 2.54.
Von den Azania kaka zur euhydros Arkadia: Wasser in Arkadien 253
zu Ehren des Geburtstages und des Beginns der Mitregentschaft des Ptolemaios II.
Philadelphos im Jahr 285/284 v. Chr. verfasst wurde7, schildert die Geburt des Zeus
in Arkadien, sein Heranwachsen auf Kreta und schlussendlich den Sieg über seinen
Vater Kronos und damit den Beginn seiner Herrschaft.
Interessanterweise leitet Kallimachos seinen Hymnos mit der Frage nach dem
angemessenen Epitheton für Zeus ein: „Wie sollen wir ihn denn besingen, als Zeus
Diktaios oder als Zeus Lykaios?“8 Es geht hier, so wird weiter ausgeführt, um den
Geburtsort des Göttervaters, den sowohl die Kreter für den Berg Ida als auch die
Arkader für den Berg Lykaion beanspruchen.9 Kallimachos als poeta doctus wägt
verschiedene Mythenvarianten gegeneinander ab und entscheidet sich gegen den
allgemeinen Konsens10, indem er Arkadien den Vorzug gegenüber der Insel Kreta
gibt. Sein Argument ist dabei denkbar lapidar: „Kreter sind immer Lügner!“11 Hier-
bei handelt es sich jedoch lediglich um eine Einleitung zur Erklärung der Herkunft
arkadischer Gewässer. Nachdem Rhea in Parrhasia, also im Süden Arkadiens, ent-
bunden hatte, benötigte sie Wasser, um sich selbst und das Neugeborene zu wa-
schen. Ihre Suche nach einem Fluss blieb jedoch erfolglos, denn „noch strömte
nicht der große Ladon dahin und auch nicht der Erymanthos, klarster der Flüsse,
noch war ganz Azenis wasserlos“.12 Erst die inständige Bitte Rheas an Gaia und der
daran anschließende Schlag mit einem Stab gegen den Berg lassen die Quelle Neda
emporsprudeln, in der Mutter und Kind sich reinigen können. Diese ist benannt
nach der Nymphe, die den Zeus im Geheimen nach Kreta transportieren sollte.13
Auf zwei Passagen soll im Folgenden kurz eingegangen werden: Kallimachos
benutzt einfallsreiche Wortspielereien für die Eigennamen Rhea und Azenis. Die
Schreibweise des Namens der Göttin wechselt von Ρέᾶ14 hin zu Ρείη15. Damit lotet
der Dichter den Spielraum unterschiedlicher Namensetymologien aus. Einerseits
bezieht er sich auf ῥεῖα, was leicht oder einfach bedeutet, und andererseits verweist
er auf das Verb ῥεω mit der Übersetzung fließen.16 Diese zweite Variante wird aus-
gerechnet dort eingesetzt, wo davon die Rede ist, dass Rhea an der Oberfläche kein
Wasser finden kann, weil die arkadischen Flüsse noch unterirdisch verlaufen. Die
daraus resultierende Gegensätzlichkeit von Wunsch und Realität verstärkt den Ein-
druck der Notsituation, in der sich die Göttin befindet.
7 Vgl. Clauss 1986: 159.

8 Kall. h. 1.4 (übers. M. Asper): πῶς καί μιν, Δικταῖον ἀείσομεν ἠὲ Λυκαῖον.
9 Kall. h. 1.5–7. Neben den beiden in V. 4 genannten Optionen des Dikte-Gebirges auf Kreta und
des Lykaion in Arkadien treten hier die Berge namens Ida. Damit kann auf den zweiten mögli-
chen Ort der Geburt des Zeus auf Kreta angespielt werden, es kann sich jedoch auch um einen
Verweis auf das Ida-Gebirge in der Troas handeln. Vgl. dazu Cuypers 2004: 103.
10 Vor allem Hes. theog. 453–491.
11 Kall. h. 1.8 (übers. M. Asper): ‚Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται‘. Zitiert wird hier der Kreter Epimenides
(DK 3 B1).
12 Kall. h. 1.18–20 (übers. M. Asper): Λάδων ἀλλ᾽ οὔπω μέγας ἔρρεεν οὐδ᾽ Ἐρύμανθος, /
λευκότατος ποταμῶν, ἔτι δ᾽ ἄβροχος ἦεν ἅπασα / Ἀζηνίς.
13 Kall. h. 1.29–41; dazu auch Brewster 1997: 95–98.
14 Kall. h. 1.10, 1.13, 1.28.
15 Kall. h. 1.21.
16 Vgl. Stephens 2015: 58.
Die rhetorische Verwendung der Landschaftsbezeichnung Ἀζηνίς ist noch ein

wenig geschickter. Während die Handschriftentradition in Vers 21 von Kallimachos’
Zeus-Hymnos Ἀρκαδίη liest, handelt es sich dabei mit sehr großer Wahrscheinlich-
keit um eine Glosse zu Ἀζηνίς. Diese sehr viel akkuratere Variante findet sich in
einem Scholium zu Dionysios Periegetes 415. Will man also dieser lectio difficilior
folgen, so wird man sofort auf den oben beschriebenen Zusammenhang zwischen
Azania und Trockenheit zurückverwiesen. Der Dichter treibt das Spiel jedoch noch
einen Schritt weiter. Der Text der Verse 19 und 20 lautet folgendermaßen: ἄβροχος
ἦεν ἅπασα / Ἀζηνίς. Daraus ergibt sich folgende Gleichung: ἄβροχος, also „ohne
Regen“, wird gleichgesetzt mit Ἀζηνίς, welches sowohl als Ἀ-Ζήν, „ohne Zeus“, als
auch als Ἀ-ζῆν, „ohne Leben“ verstanden werden kann.17 Die intendierte Bedeu-
tung ist klar. Vor der Geburt des Zeus gab es kein Wasser in Arkadien. Darüber hi-
naus kann es ohne Zeus auch kein Wasser und keinen Regen geben, was das Leben
dort erheblich schwieriger, wenn nicht gar unmöglich macht. Erst nach der Geburt
des Göttervaters, so Kallimachos, soll Arkadien „das Land des guten Wassers“,
εὔυδρος, genannt werden.18
Ist Azania und darüber hinaus die gesamte Landschaft Arkadien jedoch so
ausgedörrt und lebensfeindlich, wie im Wortspiel des alexandrinischen Gelehrten
suggeriert wird? Augenscheinlich kann Rhea in der Region Parrhasia kein Oberflä-
chenwasser finden. Dabei handelt es sich aber gerade nicht um eine jahreszeitlich
oder klimatisch bedingte Abwesenheit von Wasser in der Landschaft. Vielmehr ima-
giniert Kallimachos die lokalen Flüsse – Ladon, Erymanthos, Iaon, Melas, Karion,
Krathis und Metope – als unterirdisch.19 Die dazu verwendete Schilderung zeichnet
lebhaft, wenn auch anachronistisch, das Bild eines grünen und blühenden Land-
striches. Die Flüsse bieten Lebensraum für Eichen und Kriechtiere sowie Wege für
Wagen und Wanderer.20 Es handelt sich bei der Region also keineswegs um eine
lebensfeindliche Wüste – das vorhandene Wasser, das Flora und Fauna speist, ist
lediglich von der Oberfläche aus nicht zugänglich. Dieser Kontrast zwischen dem
oberirdischen Wassermangel und dem Überfluss an unterirdischen Gewässern ist
es, der die Not Rheas charakterisiert und erst durch die Hilfe ihrer Mutter Gaia
aufgelöst werden kann.
Die hier besprochenen Passagen aus dem Zeus-Hymnos mögen für Kallima-
chos selbst wohl hauptsächlich einen Beweis der eigenen Gelehrsamkeit dargestellt
haben. Es gelingt ihm, als poeta doctus die wesentlich weniger geläufige Version
der Geburt des Göttervaters mit der Lokalisierung in Arkadien auszugestalten und
aitiologisch mit der Entstehung der dortigen Flüsse zu verknüpfen. Dem Leser je-
doch gewähren sie überdies einen Einblick in den weiteren Kontext von Wassernut-
zung und Wasserbedarf und machen dabei sehr genau deutlich, warum Wasserman-
gel problematische Konsequenzen nach sich ziehen kann. Ganz offensichtlich ist
Wasser als Lebensmittel für den Menschen unabdingbar – ohne Flüssigkeitszufuhr
verdurstet er innerhalb weniger Tage. Auch die Nahrungsproduktion ist unter Ver-
17 Vgl. Stephens 2015: 58.

18 Kall. h. 1.20.
19 Kall. h. 1.21–27.
20 Kall. h. 1.22–27.
zicht auf Wasser kaum vorstellbar. Darüber hinaus aber wird es auch zum Zwecke
der Reinigung dringendst benötigt und zwar sowohl in profanen wie auch in sakra-
len Kontexten.
3. GEBURT UND REINIGUNG – WASSER IM RITUAL
Während der reinigende Effekt von Wasser auf den ersten Blick deutlich erschei-
nen mag, ergeben sich doch zwischen der säkularen und religiösen Anwendung
gewisse Unterschiede. Es mag einleuchten, für beide Zwecke reines Quellwasser
zu verwenden, insofern dies möglich ist. In kultischer Hinsicht kann es jedoch – je
nach Verunreinigungsgrad – notwendig werden, Wasser mehrerer Quellen zu kom-
binieren. Der höchste kathartische Wirkungsgrad wird Meerwasser zugeschrie-
ben. Möglicherweise sollte genau dieser Effekt imitiert werden, wenn normalem
Süßwasser Salz hinzugefügt wurde.21 Außer der Qualität bildet auch die benötigte
Quantität ein Unterscheidungsmerkmal. Bereits geringste Dosen konnten genügen,
um rituelle Verunreinigungen zu beseitigen. In der Sache stellte es also nur einen
graduellen Unterschied dar, ob man vollständig untertauchte oder nur mit wenigen
Tropfen Wassers besprengt wurde.22
Die bei Kallimachos präsentierte Geburtsgeschichte bietet ein Beispiel, um so-
wohl die hygienische als auch die rituelle Notwendigkeit einer Waschung nachzu-
vollziehen. Tatsächlich scheint ja der Bedarf an Wasser, und vor allem an heißem
Wasser, einer der am häufigsten mit dem Vorgang des Gebärens in Verbindung ge-
brachten Allgemeinplätze zu sein. Liest man Plutarchs Beschreibung des Geburts-
prozesses, so verwundert dies kaum: „Nehmen wir als Beispiel gleich die Vorgänge
um unsere Geburt; sie sind nicht schön anzusehen, sie sind umgeben von Blut und
Wehen.“23
Aber auch im religiösen Kontext wurde alles, was mit der Geburt in Verbindung
gebracht wurde, als Verunreinigung angesehen. Schwangere Frauen galten dagegen
nicht grundsätzlich als verunreinigt. Vielmehr scheint es, als seien sie gegenüber
den miasmata anderer besonders anfällig.24 Es ist also tatsächlich der Vorgang der
Geburt, der die Notwendigkeit auch einer kultischen Reinigung hervorruft. Dies
galt allerdings nicht nur für Mutter und Kind, vielmehr wurde durch die Entbin-
dung die gesamte oikia, also der gesamte Haushalt, verunreinigt. Unmittelbar nach
der Geburt erfolgte das erste Bad der Mutter mit ihrem Neugeborenen. Dass dieser
Praxis mehr als nur oberflächlich reinigende Wirkung beigemessen wurde, lässt
die regelmäßige Erwähnung dieses Bades in den Erzählungen von Göttergeburten
vermuten.
Daran angeschlossen waren die Amphidromia am fünften und die Namensge-
bung am zehnten Tag nach der Geburt. Im Rahmen der Amphidromia wurde das
21 Vgl. Parker 1983: 226–227.

22 Vgl. Bettini 2013: 51–54.
23 Plut. am. 14.758 (übers. H. Görgemanns): ὥσπερ εὐθὺς ἡ περὶ τὴν γένεσιν ἡμῶν, οὐκ εὐπρεπὴς
οὖσα δι᾿ αἵματος καὶ ὠδίνων.
24 Z. B. Eur. Iph. T. 1226–1229; vgl. dazu auch Parker 1983: 49.
Baby um den Herd getragen und so mit dem sakralen Zentrum des Hauses in Berüh-
rung gebracht. Teil dieser Zeremonie war vermutlich auch die Reinigung aller am
Geburtsprozess beteiligten Personen.25 Die Mutter des Neugeborenen musste sich
nach dem Ende der Wochenbettblutungen, der sogenannten Lochien, selbst einem
Reinigungsritual unterziehen.26
Über Reinigungsriten, die in Arkadien im Zusammenhang mit Schwanger-
schaft und Geburt standen, oder auch allgemeiner über den regionalen Umgang
mit Befleckung im rituellen Sinne, erfahren wir aus den Quellen wenig. Kallima-
chos berichtet aber, dass schwangeren Frauen und trächtigen Tieren bestimmte Ein-
schränkungen auferlegt waren. Der Bezirk am Lykaion, in dem Rhea Zeus zur Welt
gebracht hatte, durfte von ihnen nicht betreten werden, damit die Heiligkeit des
Ortes gewahrt bliebe.27
Dafür spielt der Zusammenhang zwischen Schwangerschaft, Geburt, Was-
ser und Reinigung in den arkadischen Mythen eine umso prominentere Rolle. So
wurde der Fluss Gortynios laut Pausanias „von den Leuten an den Quellen Lousios
genannt […], wegen des Bades des Zeus, als er geboren worden war“28. Und ge-
mäß einer lokalen Tradition hatte Rhea Arkadien nicht nur als Geburtsort für Zeus
ausgewählt, sondern bereits ihren älteren Sohn Poseidon hier zur Welt gebracht.
„Auch dies wird von den Arkadern erzählt: Als Rhea den Poseidon gebar, habe
sie ihn in eine Herde gelegt, damit er mit den Widdern lebe, und danach sei auch
die Quelle genannt, weil die Widder um sie weideten.“29 Auch hier diente also die
Geburtsgeschichte eines olympischen Gottes als aitiologische Erklärung für den
Namen der Quelle Arne in der Nähe der Ortschaft Nestane. In Thelpousa sollen die
beiden Beinamen Erinys und Lousia für Demeter daran erinnern, dass die Göttin
rasend vor Wut gewesen sei, nachdem Poseidon mit ihr geschlafen hatte. Erst das
Bad im Fluss Ladon habe Demeter wieder besänftigen können. Aus der Verbindung
der beiden gingen eine Tochter und der Hengst Arion hervor.30 Und schließlich be-
schreibt Pausanias drei Brunnen im Hinterland von Pheneos: „in diesen sollen die
Bergnymphen Hermes nach seiner Geburt gewaschen haben, und deshalb hält man
diese Quellen für dem Hermes heilig.“31
Vielleicht die deutlichste Erzählung über die Notwendigkeit von Reinigungs-
ritualen ist eine Episode über Kallisto, die in den Metamorphosen Ovids wiederge-
geben wird.32 Kallisto, eine Geliebte des Zeus, war von Juno (= Hera) aus Rache
in eine Bärin verwandelt worden. In dieser Gestalt hatte sie versucht, sich ihrem
25 Parker 1983: 50–51.

26 Dazu Parker 1983: 54–66, sowie Föllinger 2007: 12.
27 Kall. h. 1.10–15. Paus. 8.36.3 besagt jedoch, dass das Betreten des Ortes allen Menschen un-
tersagt war, mit Ausnahme derjenigen Frauen, die der Göttin geweiht waren.
28 Paus. 8.28.2 (übers. E. Meyer): ὀνομαζόμενος Λούσιος, ἐπὶ λουτροῖς δὴ τοῖς Διὸς τεχθέντος.
29 Paus. 8.8.2 (übers. E. Meyer): λέγεται δὲ καὶ τοιάδε ὑπὸ Ἀρκάδων, Ῥέα ἡνίκα Ποσειδῶνα
ἔτεκε, τὸν μὲν ἐς ποίμνην καταθέσθαι δίαιταν ἐνταῦθα ἕξοντα μετὰ τῶν ἀρνῶν, ἐπὶ τούτῳ δὲ
ὀνομασθῆναι καὶ τὴν πηγήν, ὅτι περὶ αὐτὴν ἐποιμαίνοντο οἱ ἄρνες.
30 Paus. 8.25.5–7.
31 Paus. 8.16.1 (übers. E. Meyer): ἐν ταύταις λοῦσαι τεχθέντα Ἑρμῆν αἱ περὶ τὸ ὄρος λέγονται
νύμφαι, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ τὰς πηγὰς ἱερὰς Ἑρμοῦ νομίζουσιν.
32 Ov. met. 2.401–678.
eigenen Sohn Arkas zu nähern. Weil er seine Mutter im Tier nicht erkennen konnte,
entschied sich der junge Mann, die Bärin zu töten. Um diesen drohenden Mut-
termord zu verhindern, verwandelte Zeus beide, Kallisto und Arkas, in einander
benachbarte Sternbilder. Hera sieht sich durch diesen Akt in ihrer Ehre verletzt und
bittet, in einem Anfall von Eifersucht, die Meeresgötter Tethys und Okeanos um
Hilfe: „Doch wenn euch die Schmach eurer beleidigten Pflegetochter rührt, dann
verwehrt den sieben Sternen der Bärin die blaue Tiefe und stoßt das Gestirn hinweg,
das zum Lohn für Unzucht an den Himmel versetzt wurde, damit eure heilige Flut
nie eine Hure benetze!“33
Ganz offensichtlich hält Hera es für eine angemessene Strafe, ihrer Rivalin
das reinigende Meerwasser vorzuenthalten und ihr damit jegliche Möglichkeit zu
nehmen, sich von ihren als Verbrechen wahrgenommenen Taten zu entsühnen. Es
scheint fast so, als hätten die Meeresfluten die Schande und die Schuld Kallistos
tatsächlich wegspülen können. Berücksichtigt man dies, so wirkt Heras Rache un-
angemessen harsch, da sie die andere Frau auf ewig daran hindert, die mit Eid- und
Ehebruch verbundene Befleckung aufzulösen.34
Die generelle Beschäftigung arkadischer Mythen mit den Themen von Reini-
gung und Geburt und die Verbindung dieser Erzählungen mit ihren Schauplätzen
verstärken den Eindruck der Gefahr, die mit diesem speziellen Lebensabschnitt so-
wohl für die Mutter als auch für das Kind verbunden ist. Gleichzeitig verweisen
sie auf die Notwendigkeit des Bades in hygienischer wie auch in ritueller Hinsicht,
um genau diese Gefährdung zu reduzieren. Die Einschreibung dieser Mythen in
die reale Landschaft Arkadiens macht sie für die lokale Bevölkerung erfahrbar und
somit zu einem Teil des kulturellen Gedächtnisses.35
4. NATURKATASTROPHEN I:
WASSER ALS MYTHOLOGISCHE STRAFE
Bestrafungsaktionen machen einen weiteren großen Themenkomplex aus, mit dem

Wasser in einer engen Verbindung steht. Von den Göttern und Göttinnen des antiken
Griechenlands wurde angenommen, dass sie den Regen zurückhalten oder eine Flut
entsenden können, falls sie unzufrieden mit ihren menschlichen Untertanen waren.
Das prominenteste Beispiel dafür innerhalb der hellenischen Mythen war wohl
jene Flut, die nur Deukalion und Pyrrha überlebten. Diese Naturkatastrophe sollte
dazu dienen, das bronzene – oder, wenn man der Narration bei Ovid folgen will,
das eiserne – Zeitalter der Menschen zu beenden.36 Es existieren zwar unterschied-
liche Varianten des Mythos innerhalb der griechischen Tradition, allerdings sind
33 Ov. met. 2.527–530 (übers. G. Fink): At vos si laesae tangit contemptus alumnae, / gurgite
caeruleo septem prohibete triones / sideraque in caelo, stupri mercede, recepta / pellite, ne
puro tingatur in aequore paelex.
34 Vgl. zur Unreinheit auf Grund von Ehebruch Parker 1983: 75 n. 4.
35 Zum Begriff des kulturellen Gedächtnisses: Assmann 2013.
36 Apollod. 1.46–48, sowie Ov. met. 1.260–415. Vgl. zu antiken Sintfluterzählungen auch Caduff
1986.
detailliertere Versionen erst aus relativ später Zeit überliefert. Als Auslöser für die
Flut werden verschiedene Faktoren angegeben. Steht sie jedoch mit Arkadien in
Verbindung, so sind es die generelle Gottlosigkeit und die Brutalität des ehernen
Geschlechtes ebenso wie der Frevel des Lykaon. Nach dem Bericht Ovids schlach-
tete, kochte und servierte dieser König Arkadiens dem Jupiter (= Zeus) eine mo-
lossische Geißel.37 Während das Motiv des Frevels des Lykaon wahrscheinlich
erst sekundär mit der Flut des Deukalion verbunden wurde38, weist eine Passage
aus Apollodor in eine interessante Richtung. „Nachdem aber Nyktimos das Kö-
nigtum übernommen hatte, geschah die Überschwemmung unter Deukalion; von
dieser haben einige gesagt, sie sei wegen der Unfrömmigkeit der Söhne des Ly-
kaon geschehen.“39 Die einfache temporale Koinzidenz beider Ereignisse, Flut und
Unfrömmigkeit, gibt Anlass dazu, auch einen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen
beidem sehen zu wollen. Dementsprechend wirkt die Darstellung der Überschwem-
mungen als Konsequenz und Strafe für die Frevelhaftigkeit auf die Rezipienten
glaubwürdig und überzeugend. Nebenbei befriedigt sie vielleicht auch das Bedürf-
nis nach einer Erklärung für die Naturkatastrophe, die über Zeus Willen zur Zerstö-
rung des bronzenen Geschlechtes40 hinausging.
5. NATURKATASTROPHEN II:
ÜBERSCHWEMMUNGEN
Überschwemmungskatastrophen sind aber jenseits der mythologischen Narrative

eine sehr reale Bedrohung. Sie ereignen sich relativ häufig und können, je nach
Ausmaß der Flut, in einem großflächigen Radius erheblichen Schaden verursachen.
Selbst wenn es hierbei nicht zu Verlust an Leib und Leben kommt, so sind doch die
psychologischen und auch die ökonomischen Auswirkungen enorm. Nachwirkun-
gen und Spuren solcher Ereignisse lassen sich teilweise sogar noch lange nach der
Katastrophe nachweisen. Für Pheneos bezeugt Pausanias in diesem Zusammen-
hang Folgendes: „Die Ebene von Pheneos liegt unter Karyai, und als darin das
Wasser einmal überhandnahm, sei auch das alte Pheneos überflutet worden, so dass
noch zu meiner Zeit Spuren an den Bergen sichtbar waren, bis wohin das Wasser
gestiegen sein soll.“41 Diese Spuren sind auch heute noch in Form einer ‚Wasser-
linie‘ am Südrand der Ebene von Pheneos zu sehen.42
Auch wenn die Einwohner von Pheneos diese Landmarke nicht notwendiger-
weise mit einer identifizierbaren Überschwemmung in Verbindung bringen konn-
37 Ov. met. 1.225–230. Vgl. zu Lykaon auch Paus. 8.2.3–4 und Apollod. 3.98–99.
38 Vgl. Caduff 1986: 114–115.
39 Apollod. 3.99 (übers. P. Dräger): Νυκτίμου δὲ. τὴν βασιλείαν παραλαβόντος ὁ ἐπὶ Δευκαλίωνος
κατακλυσμὸς ἐγένετο. τοῦτον ἔνιοι διὰ τὴν τῶν Λυκάονος παίδων δυσσέβειαν εἶπον γεγενῆσθαι.
40 Apollod. 1.47.
41 Paus. 8.14.1 (übers. E. Meyer): Φενεατῶν δὲ τὸ πεδίον κεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ ταῖς Καρυαῖς,
πλεονάσαντος δέ ποτε αὐτῷ τοῦ ὕδατος κατακλυσθῆναί φασι τὴν ἀρχαίαν Φενεόν, ὥστε καὶ
ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν σημεῖα ἐλείπετο ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρῶν ἐς ἃ ἐπαναβῆναι τὸ ὕδωρ λέγουσι.
42 Baker-Penoyre 1902: 231–234; Kalcyk und Heinrich 1986: 10–12; Knauss 1990: 36–40.
ten, hatten sie für interessierte Besucher doch eine schlüssige Erklärung des Phä-
nomens parat:
„Am Fuß beider Gebirge ist ein Schlund, der das Wasser aus der Ebene aufnimmt. Die Phenea-
ten behaupten, dass diese Katavothren künstlich gemacht seien, und Herakles soll sie gemacht
haben. […] Mitten durch die Ebene von Pheneos grub Herakles einen Graben als Abfluss für
den Fluss Olbios. […] Die Länge des Grabens beträgt fünfzig Stadien; die Tiefe reicht, soweit
er nicht eingefallen ist, bis dreißig Fuß. Der Fluss nämlich fließt nicht mehr hier, sondern ist
wieder in sein altes Bett zurückgekehrt, indem er das Herakleswerk verließ.“43
Allem Anschein nach nutzte man in Pheneos die kuriose Wasserlinie, um damit
zu prahlen, dass der in ganz Hellas bekannte Heros Herakles das recht offensicht-
liche und immense frühere Überschwemmungsproblem durch die Anlage zweier
Katavothren und eines Kanals gelöst hätte, so dass überschüssiges Wasser dann in
kontrollierter Weise abgeleitet werden konnte. Dass diese Arbeit keinen Bestand
hatte und in der Zeit des Pausanias nur noch in Ruinen vorlag, dürfte dem Prestige
der Polis Pheneos keinen großen Abbruch getan haben.44
Erdspalten oder Katavothren, wie Pausanias sie hier beschreibt, bilden einen
typischen Bestandteil der regionalen Geologie, der sogenannten Karstlandschaft.
Die Gebirgsregion Arkadien basiert auf Kalkstein, der anfällig ist für die durch koh-
lensäurehaltiges Wasser in Gang gesetzten Verwitterungs- und Lösungsprozesse
der Verkarstung. Daraus entsteht das für Karstlandschaften so charakteristische
System der Katavothren genannten Schlucklöcher in Verbindung mit unterirdischer
Wasserführung, die oftmals die einzige Entwässerungsmöglichkeit für die Ebenen
in den ostarkadischen Becken darstellen.45
Da es sich um ein in ganz Griechenland weit verbreitetes geologisches Phä-
nomen handelt, mussten Strategien gefunden werden, um mit dem Karst und den
daraus resultierenden Konsequenzen für die Wasserversorgung umzugehen. Spuren
dieses Umgangs lassen sich erstmals in der Bronzezeit nachweisen. In Arkadien
zählen dazu die bereits angesprochenen Anlagen zum Hochwasserschutz in Phe-
neos sowie in Stymphalos.46 Neben die Bemühungen, die durch den Karst verur-
sachten Überschwemmungen unter Kontrolle zu bringen, treten die Versuche, das
Prinzip der unterirdischen Flüsse zu verstehen. So schreibt Aristoteles:
43 Paus. 8.14.1–3 (übers. E. Meyer): ὑφ᾽ ἑκατέρῳ δέ ἐστι τῷ ὄρει βάραθρον τὸ ὕδωρ καταδεχόμενον
τὸ ἐκ τοῦ πεδίου. τὰ δὲ βάραθρα οἱ Φενεᾶται ταῦτά φασιν εἶναι χειροποίητα, ποιῆσαι δὲ αὐτὰ
Ἡρακλέα τηνικαῦτα ἐν Φενεῷ. […] διὰ μέσου δὲ ὤρυξεν Ἡρακλῆς τοῦ Φενεατῶν πεδίου
ἔλυτρον, ῥεῦμα εἶναι τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ Ὀλβίῳ […] μῆκος μὲν τοῦ ὀρύγματος στάδιοι πεντήκοντά
εἰσι, βάθος δέ, ὅσον μὴ πεπτωκός ἐστιν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐς τριάκοντα καθήκει πόδας. οὐ μὴν ταύτῃ
γε ἔτι κάτεισιν ὁ ποταμός, ἀλλὰ ἐς τὸ ῥεῦμα ἀπεχώρησεν αὖθις τὸ ἀρχαῖον, καταλιπὼν ἔλυτρον
τοῦ Ἡρακλέους τὸ ἔργον.
44 Zum Kanal und den Katavothren in der Pheneatike s. Salowey 1994: 80, 87–88. Plut. de sera
12.10 gibt an, dass Apollon der Verursacher einer massiven Überflutung des pheneatischen
Beckens gewesen sei, weil Herakles den gestohlenen delphischen Dreifuß in Pheneos versteckt
habe.
45 Higgins und Higgins 1996: 13–14, sowie Baleriaux 2016: 103–105.
46 Knaus 1990: 40–49; Saloway 1994.
„Dass es auch solche Schlünde und Öffnungen der Erde gibt, beweisen vor allem die ver-
schluckten Flüsse, die es allenthalben auf der Erde gibt, zum Beispiel auf dem Peloponnes und
besonders in Arkadien. Der Grund liegt darin, dass es trotz seiner gebirgigen Gestaltung keinen
Abfluss aus seinen Höhlungen zum Meer hin hat. Wenn nun die Plätze vollgelaufen sind ohne
einen Ausfluss zu finden, dann suchen sie sich selber einen Weg in die Tiefe unter dem Druck
des nachströmenden Wassers.“47
Aristoteles vereint in dieser Erklärung die beiden wichtigsten landschaftlichen

Eigenschaften Arkadiens, die Lage im Landesinneren der Peloponnes sowie den
gebirgigen Charakter der Region. Die ostarkadischen Becken bieten den Flüssen
auf der Oberfläche keinen Abfluss zum Meer hin, so dass sich das Wasser unter der
Erde selbst seinen Weg bahnen muss.
Das Phänomen der in Erdspalten verschwindenden Flüsse übte eine regelrechte
Faszination auf Beobachter aus. So konnte ihr Verlauf durch das Hineinwerfen von
Gegenständen experimentell untersucht werden.48 Die tatsächlichen Kenntnisse
über unterirdische Wasserläufe variierten allerdings. Der von Pausanias detailreich
überlieferte Verlauf des arkadischen Flusses Alpheios bis hin zur Quelle Ortygia
in Syrakus gehört eindeutig in den Bereich der Mythen, die davon berichten, dass
der Flussgott Alpheios einer Nymphe nachgestellt und sie bis nach Sizilien verfolgt
habe.49 Bereits Strabon spricht sich gegen die Annahme einer unterirdischen Ver-
bindung aus, mit dem Hinweis auf die offensichtliche Mündung des Alpheios ins
Meer.50 Pausanias berichtet jedoch ebenfalls von einer Verbindung zwischen dem
stymphalischen See und der Argolis:
„Bei Stymphalos bildet die Quelle zur Winterzeit einen kleinen See und daraus einen Fluss
Stymphalos, im Sommer bildet sich vorher kein See mehr, sondern der Fluss entsteht sofort
bei der Quelle. Dieser Fluss verschwindet in einem Erdspalt und ändert nach seinem Wiederer-
scheinen in der Argolis seinen Namen und heißt statt Stymphalos Erasinos.“51
Diese subterranen Karstwasserverbindungen zwischen den Ebenen von Stympha-

lia, Skotini und Alea in Arkadien und den Quellen von Lerni und Kiveri in der
Argolis konnten moderne Untersuchungen tatsächlich nachweisen.52
Am Beispiel von Stymphalos lässt sich auch der Umgang der lokalen Bevölke-
rung mit den wechselnden Umweltbedingungen der Karstlandschaft untersuchen.
47 Aristot. meteor. 1.350b–351a (übers. P. Gohlke): ὅτι δ' εἰσὶν τοιαῦται φάραγγες καὶ διαστάσεις
τῆς γῆς, δηλοῦσιν οἱ καταπινόμενοι τῶν ποταμῶν. συμβαίνει δὲ τοῦτο πολλαχοῦ τῆς γῆς, οἷον
τῆς μὲν Πελοποννήσου πλεῖστα τοιαῦτα περὶ τὴν Ἀρκαδίαν ἐστίν. αἴτιον δὲ διὰ τὸ ὀρεινὴν
οὖσαν μὴ ἔχειν ἐκροὰς ἐκ τῶν κοίλων εἰς θάλατταν· πληρούμενοι γὰρ οἱ τόποι καὶ οὐκ ἔχοντες
ἔκρυσιν αὑτοῖς εὑρίσκονται τὴν δίοδον εἰς βάθος, ἀποβιαζομένου τοῦ ἄνωθεν ἐπιόντος ὕδατος.
48 Strab. 6.2.4 für Alpheios und 6.2.9 für Eurotas und Alpheios.
49 Paus. 8.44.4; Pind. N. 1.1; Verg. Aen. 3.629–697; Ov. met. 5.572–641.
50 Strab. 6.2.4. Dazu auch Clendenon 2010: 468–469.
51 Paus. 8.22.3 (übers. E. Meyer): ἐν δὲ τῇ Στυμφάλῳ χειμῶνος μὲν ὥρᾳ λίμνην τε οὐ μεγάλην ἡ
πηγὴ καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς ποταμὸν ποιεῖ τὸν Στύμφαλον: ἐν θέρει δὲ προλιμνάζει μὲν οὐδὲν ἔτι,
ποταμὸς δὲ αὐτίκα ἐστὶν ἀπὸ τῆς πηγῆς. οὗτος ἐς χάσμα γῆς κάτεισιν ὁ ποταμός, ἀναφαινόμενος
δὲ αὖθις ἐν τῇ Ἀργολίδι μεταβάλλει τὸ ὄνομα, καὶ αὐτὸν ἀντὶ Στυμφάλου καλοῦσιν Ἐρασῖνον.
Vgl. dazu außerdem Strab. 6.2.9 und Hdt. 6.76.1.
52 Gospodarič und Leibundgut 1986: 278; Higgins und Higgins 1996: 70–72; Clendenon 2009:
151.
Die Polis ist bekannt als Schauplatz der sechsten Aufgabe des Herakles, die darin
bestand, die am See beheimateten menschenfressenden stymphalischen Vögel zu
vertreiben oder zu töten.53 Während die Lage des frühen Stymphalos unbekannt ist,
liegen die Ruinen der klassischen Polis heute am Nordufer des Sees.54 Allerdings
deutet bereits die oben zitierte Passage aus Pausanias Reisebericht an, dass dieses
Gewässer ein dynamisches System darstellt. Der See speist sich aus einer Reihe
von Karstquellen an seiner Nordseite und die natürliche Entwässerung erfolgt über
eine Katavothre im Süden. Der Wasserstand wurde sowohl durch natürliche und
jahreszeitlich bedingte Prozesse als auch durch das von Kaiser Hadrian erbaute
Aquädukt reguliert, mit dem die Wasserversorgung Korinths verbessert werden
sollte. Dementsprechend ist anzunehmen, dass es sich beim Seeufer in der Antike
um eine fluktuierende Linie handelte.55
Trotz aller Bemühungen, das Wasserniveau zu kontrollieren, ereigneten sich
auch in römischer Zeit massive Überschwemmungen in der Ebene von Stymphalos:
„Zu unserer Zeit soll sich auch folgendes Wunder abgespielt haben. Man feierte in Stymphalos
das Fest der stymphalischen Artemis nicht mehr sorgfältig und vernachlässigte auch sonst gro-
ßenteils die herkömmlichen Bräuche ihr gegenüber. Daher geriet Material in die Mündung der
Katavothre, wo der Fluss Stymphalos hineinfließt, und verhinderte das Wasser am Abfluss, so
dass die Ebene auf vierhundert Stadien weit zu einem See geworden sein soll.“56
Die Auswirkungen dieses Hochwassers müssen für die Polis, die direkt an das
Ufer des Sees grenzte, katastrophal gewesen sein. Neben den unmittelbar durch
die Wassermassen verursachten Schäden mussten erhebliche Ernteausfälle in Folge
der Überflutung der landwirtschaftlich nutzbaren Flächen erwartet werden. Erst das
bereits angekündigte Wunder konnte die Situation auflösen:
„Ein Jäger sei, so erzählen sie, einem Hirsch gefolgt, der habe sich in den Sumpf gestürzt, und
der Jäger sei bei der Verfolgung vor Begier hinter dem Hirsch hergeschwommen; und so ver-
schlang die Katavothre den Hirsch und mit ihm den Mann. Diesen soll das Wasser des Flusses
gefolgt sein, so dass an einem Tage der ganze See der Ebene austrocknete. Und danach begehen
sie das Fest der Artemis mit mehr Eifer.“57
53 Paus. 8.22.4. Knauss 1990: 10–14 und Châtelain 2007: 211–215 verstehen diese Aufgabe als
die metaphorische Beschreibung wasserbaulicher Maßnahmen, für die der Heros verantwort-
lich gemacht wurde.
54 Paus. 8.22.1–2. Zu Stymphalos: Schaus 2014: 6–11.
55 Unkel u. a. 2011: 75–77.
56 Paus. 8.22.8 (übers. E. Meyer): λέγεται δὲ καὶ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν γενέσθαι θαῦμα τοιόνδε. ἐν Στυμφάλῳ
τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος τῆς Στυμφαλίας τὴν ἑορτὴν κατά τε ἄλλα ἦγον οὐ σπουδῇ καὶ τὰ ἐς αὐτὴν
καθεστηκότα ὑπερέβαινον τὰ πολλά. ἐσπεσοῦσα οὖν ὕλη κατὰ τοῦ βαράθρου τὸ στόμα, ᾗ
κάτεισιν ὁ ποταμός ὅς ἐστιν ὁ Στύμφαλος, ἀνεῖργε μὴ καταδύεσθαι τὸ ὕδωρ, λίμνην τε ὅσον ἐπὶ
τετρακοσίους σταδίους τὸ πεδίον σφίσι γενέσθαι λέγουσι. Laut Habicht 1985: 176 deutet der
Ausdruck „zu unserer Zeit“ auf Ereignisse nach 120 n. Chr. hin, allerdings ist es möglich, dass
Stymphalos bereits verlassen war, als Pausanias es besuchte (Pretzler 2005: 524).
57 Paus. 8.22.9 (übers. E. Meyer): φασὶ δὲ ἕπεσθαι θηρευτὴν ἄνδρα ἐλάφῳ φευγούσῃ, καὶ τὴν μὲν
ἐς τὸ τέλμα ἵεσθαι, τὸν δὲ ἄνδρα τὸν θηρευτὴν ἐπακολουθοῦντα ὑπὸ τοῦ θυμοῦ κατόπιν τῆς
ἐλάφου νήχεσθαι: καὶ οὕτω τὸ βάραθρον τήν τε ἔλαφον καὶ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ τὸν ἄνδρα ὑπεδέξατο.
τούτοις δὲ τοῦ ποταμοῦ τὸ ὕδωρ ἐπακολουθῆσαί φασιν, ὥστε ἐς ἡμέραν Στυμφαλίοις ἐξήραντο
ἅπαν τοῦ πεδίου τὸ λιμνάζον: καὶ ἀπὸ τούτου τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι τὴν ἑορτὴν φιλοτιμίᾳ πλέονι ἄγουσι.
Auf den ersten Blick scheint das Narrativ in dieser Episode einer relativ einfachen
Formel zu folgen: Die Vernachlässigung eines Kultes wird rasch und effektiv be-
straft, woraufhin der Kult ein Revival erfährt. Hier sollte jedoch eine weitere Kom-
ponente erwogen werden. Während wenig über den Kult der Artemis in Stymphalos
bekannt ist, wird sie im Allgemeinen mit den Grenzbereichen des Polisterritoriums,
also mit Bergen, Marschen und Sümpfen in Verbindung gebracht.58 Die Darstellung
der stymphalischen Vögel am Dach des Tempels der Artemis59 legt zumindest nahe,
die Funktion der Göttin als Potnia Theron oder als Artemis Limnatis zu vermuten.60
In diesem Fall läge es in ihrem natürlichen Interesse, die Feuchtbiotope rund um
den See als Lebensraum für ihre Tiere zu erhalten und zu beschützen. Dies stand
den Interessen der stymphalischen Bevölkerung diametral entgegen, die darauf be-
dacht sein musste, eben dieses Land zu kultivieren und landwirtschaftlich nutzbar
zu machen. Die Vernachlässigung der etablierten Riten für Artemis kann also als
doppelter Affront verstanden werden – zum einen griff die Polis auf die der Göttin
vorbehaltenen Feuchtgebiete aus, zum zweiten unterließen es die Bewohner, der
Göttin im Kult eine angemessene Entschädigung dafür zu offerieren.61
Am Beispiel von Stymphalos zeigt sich, dass umweltrelevantes Wissen in un-
terschiedlichen Medien transportiert werden kann. Die Episoden zur Überschwem-
mung und zu den stymphalischen Vögeln betten Umwelterfahrungen in einen wei-
teren mythologischen Kontext ein, in dem einerseits Gewässer als Protagonisten
auftreten und andererseits Feuchtbiotope als problematische und gefährliche Orte
in Erscheinung treten können.62 In Stymphalos, wo der wechselnde Wasserpegel
eine konstante Bedrohung darstellt, hilft der mythisch-kultische Kommunikations-
raum dabei, Umwelterfahrungen zu tradieren und mögliche Handlungsspielräume
zwischen Mensch und Natur aufzuzeigen.
6. NATURKATASTROPHEN III:
WASSERMANGEL UND HUNGERSNOT
Während nun also gezeigt wurde, dass ein ‚zu viel‘ an Wasser als Strafe für die
Missachtung oder den Ungehorsam gegenüber einer Göttin oder einem Gott auf-
gefasst werden konnte, soll im Umkehrschluss untersucht werden, ob auch das ‚zu
wenig‘ in Arkadien mit der Vernachlässigung von Kulten in Verbindung gebracht
wurde.
Die Zeugnisse hierzu sind nicht ganz eindeutig, allerdings weist ein Bericht des
Pausanias über Phigalia in diese Richtung. Nachdem das hölzerne Kultbild der De-
meter Melaina durch ein Feuer zerstört worden sei, hätten die Phigalier weder eine
neue Statue aufgestellt, noch die Feste und Opfer für die Göttin weiter fortgeführt.
58 Cole 2000: 472–473.

59 Paus. 8.22.1.
60 Bevan 1985: 31–33; Jost 1996: 220.
61 Walsh 2014: 111.
62 Brewster 1997: 2–3; Walsh 2014: 110.
Konsequenterweise sei daraufhin das Land unfruchtbar geworden und die Polis
habe aus Delphi folgendes bedrohliches Orakel erhalten:
„Eichelessende azanische Arkader, die ihr Phigalia / bewohnt, die bergende Grotte der pferde-
beiwohnenden Deo, / ihr kommt zu fragen nach der Lösung des schmerzlichen Hungers, / allein
zweimal Hirten, allein nochmals Wildesser. / Deo entwöhnte Euch der Weide, Deo machte
Euch wieder zu Hirten / aus Traubenerntern und Brotessern, / beraubt der Geschenke früherer
Zeiten und alter Ehren. / Bald wird sie euch einander fressen und die Kinder verzehren lassen, /
wenn ihr nicht ihren Zorn versöhnt mit Opferspenden aller / und den Winkel der Schlucht ziert
mit göttlichen Ehren.“63
Nachdem sie dieses Orakel erhalten hatten, so geht die Geschichte weiter, hätten
die Phigalier ein neues Kultbild anfertigen und die Riten für Demeter wiederauf-
leben lassen. Pausanias berichtet bedauerlicherweise nicht, ob diese Maßnahmen
tatsächlich zum Ende der Hungersnot führten, die Leser dürften jedoch angenom-
men haben, dass sich die Göttin besänftigt zeigte. Interessant ist, dass es sich laut
lokaler Tradition bei der Kultstätte um die Höhle handelt, in die sich Demeter aus
Zorn und Trauer zurückgezogen hatte, nachdem sie während der Suche nach ihrer
Tochter Persephone von Poseidon vergewaltigt worden war. Auch in dieser Zeit,
so der Mythos, habe eine Hungersnot geherrscht, bis Demeter besänftigt wurde.64
Diese Episode scheint also darauf hinzuweisen, was passiert, wenn Kultorte und
-traditionen nicht gepflegt werden und somit der Verlust von Kulturwissen droht.
Unglücklicherweise gibt die Passage aber keine befriedigende Antwort, da die
Ursachen der Unfruchtbarkeit des Landes bei Pausanias nicht ausgeführt werden.
Der Perieget spricht lediglich von ἀκαρπία, was wörtlich übersetzt die Abwesenheit
von Ernte bedeutet. Das kann jedoch grundsätzlich eine ganze Reihe von Grün-
den haben. Auch die verwendete Bildsprache des Orakelspruches spricht nur ganz
generell vom Entzug der Geschenke der Göttin, also vom Entzug agrikultureller
Kenntnisse, und vom daraus resultierenden Rückfall in eine weniger zivilisierte
Zeit. Ob unmittelbarer Wassermangel der Grund für die Missernten war, muss offen
bleiben.
Vielleicht wurden also mangelnder Niederschlag und die Gefahr einer Dürre in
Arkadien nicht auf die gleiche Weise wahrgenommen wie die Risiken von Hoch-
wassern. Eine mögliche Erklärung dafür ist, dass es sich bei Überflutungen um
kurzfristige Ereignisse handelt, während sich Dürreperioden über einen längeren
Zeitraum hin anbahnen. Diese Unterschiede könnten eine Erklärung für die ver-
schiedenen Reaktionen bieten.
Wie aber begegneten die Arkader drohender oder anhaltender Trockenheit? Bei
Pausanias findet sich die Beschreibung eines Rituals, das der Zeuspriester an der
Quelle Hagno auf dem Lykaion durchführt.
63 Paus. 8.42.6 (übers. E. Meyer): Ἀρκάδες Ἀζᾶνες βαλανηφάγοι, οἳ Φιγάλειαν / νάσσασθ᾽,

ἱππολεχοῦς Δῃοῦς κρυπτήριον ἄντρον, / ἥκετε πευσόμενοι λιμοῦ λύσιν ἀλγινόεντος, / μοῦνοι
δὶς νομάδες, μοῦνοι πάλιν ἀγριοδαῖται. / Δῃὼ μέν σε ἔπαυσε νομῆς, Δῃὼ δὲ νομῆας / ἐκ
δησισταχύων καὶ ἀναστοφάγων πάλι θῆκε, / νοσφισθεῖσα γέρα προτέρων τιμάς τε παλαιάς. /
καί σ᾽ ἀλληλοφάγον θήσει τάχα καὶ τεκνοδαίτην, / εἰ μὴ πανδήμοις λοιβαῖς χόλον ἱλάσσεσθε /
σήραγγός τε μυχὸν θείαις κοσμήσετε τιμαῖς.
64 Paus. 8.42.1–3.
„Wenn die Dürre lange Zeit dauert und ihnen die Saat in der Erde und die Bäume zu vertrock-
nen anfangen, dann betet der Priester des Zeus Lykaios zu dem Wasser, opfert die vorgeschrie-
benen Opfer und taucht einen Eichenzweig in die Quelle, nur oberflächlich und nicht tief; wenn
das Wasser bewegt worden ist, steigt ein Dunst wie Nebel auf; nach einiger Zeit wird aus dem
Dunst eine Wolke, die andere Wolken an sich zieht und es in Arkadien regnen lässt.“65
Das Ritual, das in der Forschung im Allgemeinen als ‚Regenzauber‘ bezeichnet

wird,66 scheint sich an Zeus in seiner Funktion als Wettergott zu richten. Zwar
könnte der Ausdruck προσευξάμενος ἐς τὸ ὕδωρ grundsätzlich auch bedeuten, dass
Opfer und Gebet an die Quelle und somit an die namensgebende Nymphe Hagno
gerichtet waren. Die Tatsache, dass der Zeuspriester den Ritus vollzieht, deutet je-
doch klar auf den Adressaten hin. Da Pausanias darüber hinaus nicht persönlich am
‚Regenzauber‘ teilgenommen hat, lässt sich der genaue Kontext des Rituals nicht
rekonstruieren. Unklar muss also bleiben, wann es stattgefunden hat und ob es sich
um eine einmalige Maßnahme aus konkretem Anlass oder eine Standardreaktion
auf anhaltende Trockenheit handelte. Ebenso offen ist der geographische Bezug:
Pausanias spricht zwar von Regen für die gesamte Landschaft, dies lässt sich je-
doch vermutlich eher aus seiner eigenen zeitlichen Perspektive verstehen, in der
der Kult des Zeus Lykaios für Arkadien als zentral galt. Ursprünglich könnten die
Auswirkungen des ‚Regenzaubers‘ jedoch regional wesentlich begrenzter gedacht
gewesen sein.
7. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Abschließend sollen die Beobachtungen zusammengefasst werden. Mythologische

Erzählungen bezüglich der Verbindung zwischen arkadischen Wasserläufen und
Reinigung scheinen in ganz Arkadien weit verbreitet zu sein. Das gleiche kann
für Berichte über mit Wasser verbundene Naturkatastrophen jedoch nicht gesagt
werden. Stattdessen ergibt sich eine bezeichnende geographische Verteilung. Über-
schwemmungen und Geschichten über Hochwasser sind eher im Nordosten der
Landschaft, Trockenheitsmythen jedoch eher im Südwesten Arkadiens vertreten.
Dies spiegelt die tatsächliche geologische Zweiteilung der Region wider, die lo-
kalen Narrative gehen auf die jeweiligen Besonderheiten vor Ort ein. Da die für
den Osten Arkadiens so typischen Karst-Becken im Westen nicht auftauchen, ist
die Gefährdung durch eine Überschwemmung ungleich geringer. Naturerfahrun-
gen und Umweltkenntnisse werden eingebettet in den Kommunikationsraum des
Mythos. Dies geschieht jedoch auf Basis regionaler Relevanz: Nur diejenigen
65 Paus. 8.38.4 (übers. E.Meyer): ἢν δὲ αὐχμὸς χρόνον ἐπέχῃ πολὺν καὶ ἤδη σφίσι τὰ σπέρματα
ἐν τῇ γῇ καὶ τὰ δένδρα αὐαίνηται, τηνικαῦτα ὁ ἱερεὺς τοῦ Λυκαίου Διὸς προσευξάμενος ἐς τὸ
ὕδωρ καὶ θύσας ὁπόσα ἐστὶν αὐτῷ νόμος, καθίησι δρυὸς κλάδον ἐπιπολῆς καὶ οὐκ ἐς βάθος τῆς
πηγῆς: ἀνακινηθέντος δὲ τοῦ ὕδατος ἄνεισιν ἀχλὺς ἐοικυῖα ὁμίχλῃ, διαλιποῦσα δὲ ὀλίγον
γίνεται νέφος ἡ ἀχλὺς καὶ ἐς αὑτὴν ἄλλα ἐπαγομένη τῶν νεφῶν ὑετὸν τοῖς Ἀρκάσιν ἐς τὴν γῆν
κατιέναι ποιεῖ.
66 Nilsson 1967: 400.
Erzählungen, die vor Ort Bedeutung für die Bevölkerung haben, gehen tatsächlich
in das kulturelle Gedächtnis ein, um hier Wissen zu tradieren, das im Extremfall
als Handlungsempfehlung abgerufen und in ein konkretes Ritual umgesetzt werden
kann. Das Beispiel von der Hungersnot in Phigalia zeigt jedoch, dass die Mythen
keinen absoluten Wissensspeicher darstellen. Die in der Erzählung von Demeters
Trauer und der daraus resultierenden Vernachlässigung ihrer Aufgaben abgelegte
Information zur Bedrohung der Menschen durch Dürre und unfruchtbare Böden ge-
riet in Vergessenheit. Erst das Hinzuziehen externer Experten durch die Anfrage in
Delphi aus Anlass der aktuellen Hungersnot konnte das traditionelle Wissen wieder
aktivieren. Im Bericht bei Pausanias lässt sich ein Echo dieses Vorganges erkennen:
Der ursprünglichen Erzählung über die Entstehung des Demeter-Kultes in Phigalia
waren die erneute Bedrohung, der Orakelspruch und somit auch die Abwendung
der Katastrophe durch die Erneuerung des Kultes angefügt worden. Der alte My-
thos bekam damit neue Relevanz.
Im Kontrast dazu sind die Wasser-Mythen, die sich auf Reinigungsrituale be-
ziehen, wesentlich universeller in ihrer Anwendung – während das Setting und der
Protagonist hierin auswechselbar sind, bleibt die Aussage der Mythen prinzipiell
dieselbe. Verdeutlicht wird darin die Bedrohung, die von ritueller Verunreinigung
ausgehen kann, und gleichzeitig wird angedeutet, welche Maßnahmen in diesem
Fall zu treffen sind.
Dies leitet über zur zweiten Beobachtung. Im Kontext von Befleckung und
Purifikation stellt das Wasser in den Mythen lediglich ein Mittel zum Zweck dar,
es besitzt keine eigene Signifikanz. Während es auf Grund seiner Eigenschaften
als Reinigungsmittel in säkularer Hinsicht zwar eine logische Wahl als Medium
für Reinigungsriten darstellt, so ist Wasser doch keinesfalls die einzige Option und
darüber hinaus in rein hygienischer Anwendung meist nicht ausreichend, um den
Status der Reinheit wieder zu erlangen.67
Dasselbe kann jedoch nicht gesagt werden, wo von Überflutung oder Dürre die
Rede ist. Hier ist es gerade das Wasser oder der Wassermangel, durch die die exis-
tentielle Bedrohung für menschliches Leben erzeugt wird. Die genannten Natur-
katastrophen erfordern eine unmittelbare Reaktion, die dann in der Regel aus Ge-
beten und Opfern an die verantwortlichen Götter besteht. Diese werden gebeten,
die Naturgewalten wieder unter Kontrolle zu bringen, die meist erst als Strafe für
menschliches Fehlverhalten entfesselt wurden. Natur und Umwelt werden als Be-
drohung wahrgenommen: Sind sie nicht durch technologischen Fortschritt zu regu-
lieren und zu steuern, so wird versucht, sie mittels der Verehrung der Götter zu
überwinden.
67 Parker 1996: 56–66.

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Dieser Beitrag entstand im Rahmen des von der DFG geförderten Göttinger Projekts Sche 421/3
„Wo liegt Arkadien? Arkadienbilder in der klassischen Antike“ (“Where is Arcadia? Images of
Arcadia in Classical Antiquity”).
THE AMBIVALENCE OF MOTHER EARTH:
CONCEPTS OF AUTOCHTHONY IN ANCIENT ARCADIA
Tanja S. Scheer, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
1. INTRODUCTION
People are influenced by the natural habitat in which they live. What seems obvious
to us has already been pointed out by authors of classical times.1 Climate and en-
vironment determine the character of its inhabitants, their customs and behaviour.2
Among Greeks, Arcadians are said to love the mountains, as Dionysios of Hali-
carnassus remarks.3 Correspondingly, through the centuries the Greek imaginaire
has been influenced by discourses on the relationship between environment and
inhabitants, be it from an emic perspective, which reflects the self-perception of
specific Greek cities and regions, or from an etic perspective, i. e. how other Greeks
saw these groups.
This contribution sets out to investigate discourses about the Earth in myth and
cult, where they can be observed extremely well: in Arcadia.4 The Arcadians were
the only Greek tribe without a harbour. Arcadian cities were traditionally situated
in the interior, oriented towards the inland, not to the sea. Furthermore, the Arca-
dians were said to be strongly linked to their land, their soil. How this stereotype
developed, how it found its way into Arcadian identity, and what consequences it
had – this will be the subject of this contribution.
In 369/68 B. C., the so-called ‘ex-voto of the Arcadians’ was dedicated in the
sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.5 It is located near the entrance of the sacred pre-
cinct and consists of an oblong base carved from black limestone, which served
for supporting a complex of nine under-lifesize bronze statues.6 The statues of the
“epichorian heroes” – as Pausanias calls them in his description of the monument –
are lost today, but what still can be read is the dedicatory inscription, which runs
1 See for example Hippoc. Aer. 3; Hdt. 2.77.3.

2 Pl. Ti. 24 cd.
3 Dion Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.13: Ἀρκαδικὸν γὰρ τὸ φιλοχωρεῖν <εν> ὄρεσιν. “Ιt is characteristic of
the Arcadians to be fond of the mountains”, (transl. E. Cary).
4 See also Scheer 2012: 534–35.
5 For the date of the monument cf. Bourguet 1911: 5; Pomtow 1888: 19; Pomtow 1906: 461;
Vatin 1981: 459; Jost 1985: 25, 448; Borgeaud 1988: 29; Hansen 1989: 231; Kopp 1992: 171;
Pretzler 1999: 112; Nielsen 2002: 21; Scheer 2010 a: 153 footnote 3; Jacquemin et al. 2012: 71,
No. 33; Roy 2014: 247; Bommelaer 2015: 128.
6 Bulle 1906 with bibliographical references. For the individual heroes of the monument see
Scheer 2010 a, 167–174.
270 Tanja S. Scheer
along the front side of the base.7 The “autochthonous people from holy Arcadia”
have honored Apollo the Pythian with these statues, in memory of having plundered
Lacedaimonia.8
One might ask why the donors of this monument, erected in such a promi-
nent location, passed by and seen by visitors from all over Greece, refer to them-
selves quite extraordinarily as “autochthonous people” from Arcadia. Chthon is
the Greek term for ‘earth’ or ‘soil’.9 According to ancient sources, the sense of the
term autochthon ranges between ‘springing from the earth (i. e. being born from the
earth)’ and ‘in possession of their own soil’, ‘local inhabitants, who have been ever
there’.10 When the term autochthon is used at Delphi, the context indicates that the
Arcadians understood it as a positive category – and a quite exclusive one too: Not
every Greek could boast of such an origin.11
2. MOTHER EARTH AND RELIGION IN ARCADIA:

THE WORSHIP OF ‘EARTH’ IN ARCADIAN CULTS
Is this ‘special relationship’ to Mother Earth – as it seems emphasised by the use of

the term autochthon – also to be observed in the religious realm? If the Arcadians
understood themselves as autochthonous people, did they pay particular respect to
Mother Earth at home in Arcadia? In an article on autochthony, Ch. Pelling happens
to mention that “in some autochthony-claiming locations, especially Arcadia, there
are prominent cults of chthonic deities; which go comfortably with the notion of
‘coming from the ground’.”12 This statement remains without proof. On the one
hand, ‘chthonic deities’ cannot be equated with the Earth as a deity, while on the
other hand, quite different groups of gods might be designated ‘chthonic’ – accord-
ing to the context.13
When investigating sources on Arcadian cults, proof for a special attention to
chthonic cults can hardly be found. It is only in Pausanias’ description of Greece
7 Paus. 10.9.5–6: ἐφεξῆς δὲ Τεγεατῶν ἀναθήματα ἀπὸ Λακεδαιμονίων Ἀπόλλων ἐστὶ καὶ Νίκη
καὶ οἱ ἐπιχώριοι τῶν ἡρώων … “Next to this are offerings of the Tegeans from spoils of the
Lacedaemonians: an Apollo, a Victory, the heroes of the country …”, (transl. W. H. S. Jones).
8 Hansen 1989: 231–233, No. 824; Bourguet 1911: No. 3; Jacquemin et. al. 2012: No. 33: Πύθι´
Ἄπολλον [ἄ]ναξ, τά[δ´ ἀγάλματ᾿ ἔ]δω[κεν ἀπαρχὰς / αὐτόχθων ἱερᾶς λαòς [ἀπ´ Ἀρκαδί]ας· /
Νίκηγ Καλλιστώ τε Λυκα(ν)[ίδ]α, τῆι πο[τ´ ἐμίχθη] / Ζεύς, ἱεροῦ δὲ γένους Ἀρκ[άδ´] ἔφυσε
κόρ[ον]· / (5) ἐκ τοῦδ´ ἦν Ἔλατος καì Ἀφε[ίδ]ας ἠδὲ κα[ì Ἀζάν], / Τοὺς δ´ Ἐρατὼ νύμφα
γείνα[τ´ ἐ]ν Ἀρκαδί[αι]· / Λαοδάμεια δ´ ἔτικτε Τρίφυλον, παῖς Ἀ[μύκλαντος]· / Γογγύλου ἐκ
κούρας δ´ ἦν Ἀμιλοῦς Ἔρα[σος]· / τῶνδε σοì ἐκγενέται Λακεδαίμονα δη[ιὼσαντες] / (10)
Ἀρκάδες ἔστησαν μνῆμ´ επιγινομένοις.
9 See Schlesier 1997: 1186 for chthon als “Oberfläche der Unterwelt” (surface of the under-
world) or “Erdentiefe” (depth of the earth); cf. also Loraux 2000: 4.
10 Cf. Walter 2013: 979; Rosivach 1987: 297; Luginbühl 1992: 130; Blok 2009 a: 256; Loraux
2000: 4; Roy 2014: 242.
11 Blok 2009 a: 252 characterises autochthony as “quality of the happy few”.
12 Pelling 2009: 474.
13 Schlesier 1997: 1186–1190; Parker 2011: 80–84.
The Ambivalence of Mother Earth 271
that in the agora of Tegea, among other sanctuaries, an altar of the goddess Earth
can be found.14 It is said to be situated between the sanctuary (hieron) of the god-
dess of childbirth, Eileithyia, and two reliefs depicting local bigwigs. One of them
is the mythical hero Elatos, son of the eponymous hero Arkas.15 Since Pausanias
does not mention a specific relation between the altar and the relief, their prox-
imity seems to be coincidence. The altar of the goddess Earth is the only known
example of such kind in Arcadia.16 Even if one argues that there might have been
more ‘chthonic cult places’ not mentioned in sources, one has to face the fact that
Pausanias lists hundreds of cults in Arcadia, but only one for the Earth. Apparently,
at least in the second century AD the Earth was not presented as important goddess,
fervently venerated by the Arcadians. Nor was it by other Greek cities. Yet in 1927,
Albrecht Dieterich saw in the Mother Earth a basic principle of Greek religion;
this view was later rejected by Martin P. Nilsson, who pointed to a very limited
diffusion of the cult of Gaia/Ge.17 Other terms for earth such as aroura or chthon
are hardly personified and thus not referred to as addressees of cults.18 In only one
known case, Gaia carries the epithet Chthonia.19
The evidence in Arcadia is in no way different from the overall picture in
Greece. When the Arcadians refer to themselves as autochthonous people, as it is
manifest in the sanctuary of Delphi, this is not based on a long-standing intensive
veneration of the Earth – and it did not cause such a veneration in subsequent cen-
turies.
14 Paus. 8.48.8: πρὸς δὲ τῷ ἱερῷ τῆς Εἰλειθυίας ἐστὶ Γῆς βωμός, ἔχεται δὲ τοῦ βωμοῦ λίθου
λευκοῦ στήλη· ἐπὶ δὲ αὐτῆς Πολύβιος ὁ Λυκόρτα καὶ ἐπὶ ἑτέρᾳ στήλῃ τῶν παίδων τῶν Ἀρκάδος
Ἔλατός ἐστιν εἰργασμένος. “Close to the sanctuary of Eileithyia is an altar of Earth, next to
which is a slab of white marble. On this is carved Polybius, the son of Lycortas, while on an-
other slab is Elatus, one of the sons of Arcas”, (transl. W. H. S. Jones). Jost 1985: 147.
15 The second stele near the altar of Earth was dedicated to the historiographer Polybius, son of
Lycortas.
16 Jost 1985: 523.
17 Dieterich 1925; Nilsson 1967: esp. 457–459: Nilsson’s list (with an explicit claim to complete-
ness and covering the whole of Greece) contains only a very low number of cults for Gaia/Ge:
the total is about a dozen. More than half of Nilson’s examples are mentioned only by Pausa-
nias: in comparison Pausanias’ interest in cults of Earth seems above average. Since Nilsson’s
days the state of affairs has not been fundamentally altered by recent findings. Cf. also Burkert
2011: 270: “in der hergebrachten Religion ist die Rolle der Gaia überaus bescheiden”; for Ge
in Attic deme calendars see Parker 2005: 416, 426.
18 Opelt 1962: 1125 observes that chthon is hardly ever the goddess of earth. For one of the rare
exceptions see Aesch. PV 207, who has the Titans as Οὐρανοῦ τε καὶ Χθονὸς τέκνα. Balty
1984: 614 includes the unique case of an Antiochene late antique mosaic, representing the
personification of Aroura.
19 IG II2 1358 = LSCG 96 (mentioning sacrifices for Zeus Chthonios and Ge Chthonia in the
month Lenaion); cf. Schlesier 1997: 1188.
272 Tanja S. Scheer
3. MOTHER EARTH AND ARCADIAN MYTHS:

PELASGOS AS SON OF THE EARTH AND PROGENITOR
OF THE ARCADIANS
Whoever read the inscription on the ex-voto at Delphi would not have associated
the term autochthon with Arcadian cults. What else might have been guessed? Did
they know about the mythical discourses on the Arcadians and the Earth, which
explained the self-designation of being autochthonous?
Mythical traditions linking Arcadians to their land and to the earth are harder to
find than one might guess. It is only Pausanias’ periegesis from the second century
AD in which a possibly older tradition can be found:20 “The Arcadians say that
Pelasgos was the first inhabitant of this land.” This is confirmed – as Pausanias
lets us know – by a quotation of the archaic poet Asios: “And godlike Pelasgos
the dark earth put forth in the wooded mountains, so that there might be a mor-
tal race”.21 Apart from that, the earthborn Pelasgos can hardly be traced back as
mythical ancestor of Arcadia. And even in Asios’ fragment things remain a little
unclear, since he mentions “mountains” but not specifically Arcadian mountains.
We need to trust Pausanias who must have chosen this quotation deliberately for
verifying his report on Arcadian prehistory.22 On the other hand, the altogether tra-
dition on Pelasgos leaves no doubt that this mythical hero was by no means exclu-
sively linked to Arcadia. In his article on the name “Pelasgos”, Krischan lists no
less than 18 mythical persons of this name, who were claimed by various regions.23
Argive sources locate Pelasgos in the Argolis: Akousilaos is said to have integrated
Pelasgos as son of Zeus and Niobe into the myths of Argive origin.24 According
20 Paus. 8.1.4: φασὶ δὲ Ἀρκάδες ὡς Πελασγὸς γένοιτο ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ πρῶτος, (transl.

W. H. S. Jones).
21 Asios fr. 8 Davies = fr. 8 West: Ἀντίθεον δὲ Πελασγὸν ἐν ὑψικόμοισιν ὄρεσσι / γαῖα μέλαιν᾽
ἀνέδωκεν, ἵνα θνητῶν γένος εἴη, (transl. M. L. West).
22 For Asios as a source of Arcadian genealogies cf. also Asios fr. 9 West. Apollod. 3.8.2 quotes
him for the ancestry of the Arcadian heroine Kallisto, who was Pelasgos’ great-granddaughter.
But Asios had Kallisto as the daughter of Nykteus – in contrast to the Arcadian monument in
Delphi, where another tradition prevailed. The authors of the Delphic inscription said she was
the daughter of Lycaon. Nielsen 2002: 68 suggests an archaic tradition for the placing of Pelas-
gos in Arcadia.
23 Krischan 1937: 256–261; Weizsäcker 1897–1909: 1817–1821 lists seventeen different heroes
with the name Pelasgos.
24 Akousilaos FGrH 2 F 25 (= Apollod. 2.1.1): Νιόβης δὲ καὶ Διός (ᾗ πρώτῃ γυναικὶ Ζεὺς θνητῇ
ἐμίγη) παῖς Ἄργος ἐγένετο, ὡς δὲ Ἀκουσίλαός φησι, καὶ Πελασγός, ἀφ᾽ οὗ κληθῆναι τοὺς τὴν
Πελοπόννησον οἰκοῦντας Πελασγούς. “But Niobe had by Zeus (and she was the first mortal
woman with whom Zeus cohabitated) a son Argus, and also, so says Acusilaus, a son Pelasgus,
after whom the inhabitants of the Peloponnese were called Pelasgians”, (transl. J. G. Frazer); cf.
also Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.17.2–3: τὴν δὲ ἐπωνυμίαν ἔλαβον ἐξ ἀρχῆς ταύτην ἐπὶ τοῦ [3]
Πελασγοῦ βασιλέως. ἦν δὲ ὁ Πελασγὸς ἐκ Διὸς, ὡς λέγεται, καὶ Νιόβης τῆς Φορωνέως, ᾗ
πρώτῃ γυναικὶ θνητῇ μίσγεται ὁ Ζεὺς ὡς ὁ μῦθος ἔχει. “They received their name originally
from Pelasgus, their king. Pelasgus was the son of Zeus, it is said, and of Niobe, the daughter
of Phoroneus, who, as the legend goes, was the first mortal woman Zeus had knowledge of”,
(transl. E. Cary). Cf. below footnote 32.
to other traditions, it was above all Thessaly where Pelasgos was considered as a
foundation hero.25
Surprisingly, Pelasgos’ earthbound origin is not a common motif in all the
mythical traditions mentioning this hero. Except for Asios, quoted by Pausanias,
only few early authors refer to this subject. According to Apollodorus, Hesiod
called Pelasgos an autochthonous.26 Strabo quotes Ephoros who claims that Hesiod
mentioned Pelasgos as “father” of a certain Lykaon, a hero of undoubted Arca-
dian origin.27 Both mentions combined seem to testify that the tradition of Pelasgos
as autochthonous progenitor of the Arcadian royal dynasty reaches back as far as
Hesiod.28 However, Rosivach doubts this. If Hesiod recognized the Arcadians as
offspring of earthborn Pelasgos, “no one in our extant sources seems to have taken
notice of it before Ephorus”.29 Be this as it may, among the scattered early records,
no further information on his being born of the earth or any deeds of Arcadian Pe-
lasgos, as founder of civilization, are given. It is only Pausanias’ outline of Arcadian
history in which these can be found.30
Literary sources do not clearly characterise Pelasgos as ‘the’ earthbound personi-
fication of Arcadia.31 And he remains pale within the realm of cults and mnemata
too, where he could have been promoted as a role model. The memory of Pelasgos
was not cultivated. Neither the place of his birth or death was known, nor does any
source refer to a cult in honor of this hero in Arcadia. While Pausanias shows vivid
interest in tombs of Arcadian heroes, he remains silent about an eventual tomb
of Pelasgos in Arcadia.32 Even though the Arcadians of Pausanias’ time stress the
25 For Thessaly see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.17: Pelasgos as city founder. Cf. also Schol. Apoll.
Rhod. 1.580.
26 Apollod. 2.1.1–2: Ἡσίοδος δὲ τὸν Πελασγὸν αὐτόχθονά φησιν εἶναι. “But Hesiod says that
Pelasgus was autochthonous”, and Apollod. 3.8.1: ἐπανάγωμεν δὲ νῦν πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸν Πελασγόν,
ὃν Ἀκουσίλαος μὲν Διὸς λέγει καὶ Νιόβης, καθάπερ ὑπέθεμεν, Ἡσίοδος δὲ αὐτόχθονα. “Let us
now return to Pelasgus, who, Acusilaus says, was a son of Zeus and Niobe, as we have supposed,
but Hesiod declares him to have been a son of the soil”, (transl. J. G. Frazer). Finally see Serv.
Aen. 2.84: ‘Pelasgi’: a Pelasgo Terrae filio, qui in Arcadia genitus dicitur, ut Hesiodus tradit.
27 Cf. Hes. fr. 161 MW = Ephor. FGrH 70 fr. 113 bei Str. 5.2.4: τῷ δ᾽ Ἐφόρῳ τοῦ ἐξ Ἀρκαδίας
εἶναι τὸ φῦλον τοῦτο ἦρξεν Ἡσίοδος. φησὶ γάρ ‘υἱεῖς ἐξεγένοντο Λυκάονος ἀντιθέοιο, ὅν ποτε
τίκτε Πελασγός.’ “Ephorus, when he supposes that they were a tribe of Arcadians, follows
Hesiod, who says, ‘The sons born of the divine Lycaon, whom formerly Pelasgus begot’”,
(transl. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer).
28 Hes. fr. 160 MW. Pelasgos as father of Lycaon also in Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 156 (= Dion Hal.
Ant. Rom. 1.13.1) but without mentioning the subject of autochthony.
29 Rosivach 1987: 306. Rosivach 1987: 305 also doubts Hesiod using the term autochthon: “[it]
would appear to be a paraphrase rather than Hesiod’s own language; cf. also below footnote 72.
Much later sources explicitly connect Pelasgos’ autochthony and his Arcadian ethnicity: Cf.
Nikolaos of Damaskos, FGrH 90 F 23, who points out that in times of the autochthonous Pelas-
gos the whole Peloponnese was called Pelasgia. For Clemens Alexandrinus, Protr. 1.21. (102),
Arcadian history starts with Pelasgos, the autochthonous hero. Cf. also Serv. Aen. 2.84.
30 Paus. 8.1.4–8.5.13.
31 Cf. also Nielsen 2002: 70; Nielsen 1999: 34; Kopp 1992: 143–144. Fowler 2003: 7 characterises
Pelasgos as “primeval man”, but not as the first Arcadian.
32 Tomb of Aipytos: Hom. Il. 2.604; Paus. 8.16.3. Tomb of Arkas: Paus. 8.9.3; Tomb of Kallisto:
Paus. 8.3.7. Surprisingly Pausanias (Paus. 2.22.2) knows a tomb of Pelasgos. But he is a son of
274 Tanja S. Scheer
importance of Pelasgos as forefather and first king of Arcadia, he does not show
up in Arcadian cities. And he does not show up on the ex-voto of the Arcadians
at Delphi either. The dedicatory inscription lists the genealogic relations between
the heroes, but Pelasgos is neither mentioned, nor was he honoured by a statue.33
Instead, as Pausanias remarks, the “autochthonous people of Arcadia” dedicated
this monument to their “epichoric” heroes.34 This term shows clearly that Pausanias
understood the strong connection between the heroes on the base to their land, the
chora. To sum up: In the fourth century BC, Pelasgos was not considered as expo-
nent of autochthonous Arcadian identity, as an indispensable link to their ‘Mother
Earth’. A commonly known mythical narrative of Arcadian autochthony did not
exist or was not promoted.35 Nevertheless one might ask, why, at this spot, the Ar-
cadians did expressively refer to themselves as “autochthonous people”.
4. AN ARCADIAN MONOPOLY ON AUTOCHTHONY?
Was autochthony a positive quality which was only claimed by Arcadians? A source
from the fourth century BC seems to confirm this assumption. In 343 BC, the Attic
orator Demosthenes casually mentions the Arcadians. He blames them for having
decided to honour Philip II of Macedon:36 “… and now many of that nation (i. e.
the Arcadians), who ought to pride themselves as highly as you (i. e. the Athenians)
upon their independence – for you and they are the only indigenous peoples in
Greece – admire Philip”. From an Athenian perspective of the fourth century BC,
autochthony is something to be proud of, something that could be claimed only by
Athenians and Arcadians.
However, if one examines the whole range of mythical traditions on an earth-
bound prehistory, it immediately becomes clear that such motifs of a constructed
Triopas (meaning not earthborn) and his tomb is located in Argos instead of Arcadia. The Ar-
give ambition to claim a heroic figure, named Pelasgos, for their own polis, is shown for the first
time by Akousilaos (see above footnote 24), but this ambition resounds in Athenian sources: In
Aeschylus’ drama Supplices (Aesch. Supp. 250) it is an Argive king Pelasgos, introducing
himself as the son of earthborn (gegenes) Palaichthon, who greets Danaos and his daughters:
τοῦ γηγενοῦς γάρ εἰμ᾽ ἐγὼ Παλαίχθονος / ἶνις Πελασγός, τῆσδε γῆς ἀρχηγέτης. / ἐμοῦ δ᾽
ἄνακτος εὐλόγως ἐπώνυμον / γένος Πελασγῶν τήνδε καρποῦται χθόνα. “For I am Pelasgus,
offspring of Palaechthon, whom the earth brought forth, and lord of this land; and after me,
their king, is rightly named the race of the Pelasgi, who harvest the land”, (transl. H. W. Smyth).
33 Concerning Arcadian genealogies it becomes clear that the text of the Delphic inscription nei-
ther followed Asios’ version (cf. above footnote 22 the different ancestry of Kallisto) nor the
constructions described by Eumelos (fr. 32 West) and Apollodorus (3.9.1). The latter present
different names for Arkas’ wives.
34 Paus. 10.9.5: καὶ οἱ ἐπιχώριοι τῶν ἡρώων. For a similar terminology see e. g. Hdt. 5.66.2 and
Thuc. 2.74.2.
35 Vs. Nielsen 2002: 68, who wants to emphasise the importance of the Arcadian tradition about
Pelasgos’ autochthony.
36 Dem. Or. 19.261 (On the Embassy): καὶ νῦν Ἀρκάδων πολλοί, προσῆκον αὐτοῖς ἐπ᾽ ἐλευθερίᾳ
μέγιστον φρονεῖν ὁμοίως ὑμῖν (μόνοι γὰρ πάντων αὐτόχθονες ὑμεῖς ἐστε κἀκεῖνοι Φίλιππον
θαυμάζουσι, (transl. C. A. Vince).
past are not limited to Athens or Arcadia. True, among all claims to special links to
the Earth, the Athenian one seems to outrank all others. In the Homeric Catalogue
of Ships it is already pretended that Erechtheus, to whom the Athenian chora be-
longed, was born from the fertile ground (aroura).37 From then on, various tales
about earthborn kings of prehistoric Athens flourished. We find corresponding illus-
trations on Attic vase-painting, and we can trace this motif in the literary tradition
up to late-antiquity, when it was part of standard knowledge on mythology.38 On
the one hand, early Athenian kings are often labelled as gegenes or autochthon:
According to Apollodorus, the Attic king Kekrops was “a son of the soil, with a
body compounded of man and serpent”.39 On the other hand, earthen origins play a
prominent role in local traditions beyond Athens or Arcadia – more than one might
conjecture in view of Demosthenes’ statement.
At first, the claim that the Argive Phoroneus was the first man on earth should
be mentioned. This was narrated by a non-extant archaic epic called Phoronis, to
which Akousilaos of Argos refers.40 Significantly enough, at the latest it was this
very Akousilaos in his Argive genealogies who integrated the Arcadian Pelasgos in
a quite subordinated position to the Argive Phoroneus. Furthermore, Argos claimed
to house the tomb of a hero named Pelasgos.41 The Rhodians, too, claimed earthen
birth in a very direct sense: Zenon of Rhodos, an elder contemporary of Polybios,
reports his people to have risen with the help of the sun god from the dry soil
of their island.42 There must have been far more claims of such kind, connected
37 Hom. Il. 2.546–549: οἳ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀθήνας εἶχον ἐϋκτίμενον πτολίεθρον / δῆμον Ἐρεχθῆος
μεγαλήτορος, ὅν ποτ᾽ Ἀθήνη / θρέψε Διὸς θυγάτηρ, τέκε δὲ ζείδωρος ἄρουρα, / κὰδ δ᾽ ἐν
Ἀθήνῃς εἷσεν ἑῷ ἐν πίονι νηῷ. “And they that held Athens, the well-built citadel, the land of
great-hearted Erechtheus, whom of old Athene, daughter of Zeus, fostered, when the earth, the
giver of grain, had borne him; and she made him to dwell in Athens, in her own rich sanctuary”,
(transl. A. T. Murray).
38 Eur. fr. 925 Kannicht = Eratosth. Catast. 13 = Hyg. Astr. 2.13; FGrH 323a fr. 27 = Harpocr. s. v.
αὐτόχθονες. See the collection of sources in Ermatinger 1897; Moore 1988: 173, No.13–18;
Parker 1988: 193; Shapiro 1998: 138; Blok 2009 a: 259–260.
39 Apollod. 3.14.1: Κέκροψ αὐτόχθων, συμφυὲς ἔχων σῶμα ἀνδρὸς καὶ δράκοντος, (transl.
J. G. Frazer). For the discussion of the mythic kings of Athens and the concept of autochthony
see Rosivach 1987: 297; Shapiro 1998: 132–134; Blok 2009 a: 261. Roy 2014: 243 notes “it is
hard to tell whether interest in autochthony developed in the archaic period”, and points out that
“widespread interest” is only attested since the fifth century BC.
40 Phoronis F 1 Davies; Akousilaos FGrH 2 fr. 23 a. Fowler 2013: 88.
41 See above footnote 26; Paus. 2.22.1 and Uhl 1963: 73, 140. Argos and Athens as competitors
for the most ancient past: Paus. 1.14.2.
42 Zenon of Rhodos FGrH 523 fr. 1 = Diod. Sic. 5.56.3–4: ὁ δ᾽ ἀληθὴς λόγος ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ἐξ
ἀρχῆς σύστασιν τῆς νήσου πηλώδους οὔσης ἔτι καὶ μαλακῆς, τὸν ἥλιον ἀναξηράναντα τὴν
πολλὴν ὑγρότητα ζωογονῆσαι τὴν γῆν, καὶ γενέσθαι τοὺς κληθέντας ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ Ἡλιάδας, ἑπτὰ
τὸν ἀριθμόν, καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ὁμοίως λαοὺς αὐτόχθονας. [4] ἀκολούθως δὲ τούτοις νομισθῆναι
τὴν νῆσον ἱερὰν Ἡλίου καὶ τοὺς μετὰ ταῦτα γενομένους Ῥοδίους διατελέσαι περιττότερον τῶν
ἄλλων θεῶν τιμῶντας τὸν Ἥλιον ὡς ἀρχηγὸν τοῦ γένους αὐτῶν. “But the true explanation is
that while in the first forming of the world the island was still like mud and soft, the sun dried
up the larger part of its wetness and filled the land with living creatures, and there came into
being the Heliadai [Children of the Sun], who were named after him seven in number and other
peoples who were, like them, sprung from the land itself. In consequence of these events the
276 Tanja S. Scheer
with some sort of competition among Greek cities of who could boast of highest
age. This is suggested by an anonymous fragment, previously attributed to Pindar,
which is handed down by the Christian author Hippolytos:43
“Now earth, say the Greeks, gave forth man, (earth) first bearing a goodly gift, wishing to be-
come mother not of plants devoid of sense, nor beasts without reason, but of a gentle and highly
favoured creature. It, however, is difficult to ascertain … whether Alalcomeneus, first of men,
rose upon the Boeotians over Lake Cephisus;44 or whether it were the Idaean Curetes, a divine
race;45 or the Phrygian Corybantes, whom first the sun beheld springing up after the manner
of the growth of trees;46 or whether Arcadia brought forth Pelasgus, of greater antiquity than
the moon;47 or Rharia (produced) Dysaules the first inhabitant of Eleusis;48 or Lemnus begot
Cabirus, fair child of secret orgies; or Pallene (brought forth) the Phlegraean Alcyoneus, oldest
of the giants.49 But the Libyans affirm that Iarbas, first born, on emerging from arid plains,
commenced eating the sweet acorn of Jupiter.50 But the Nile of the Egyptians …, up to this day
fertilizing mud, (and therefore) generating animals, renders up living bodies, which acquire
flesh from moist vapour.”
This anonymous and undated list, in which Pelasgos is not attributed to the Argives
but said to be born from Arcadian earth in earliest times, “of greater antiquity than
the moon”, is supplemented by other sources, which mention many autochthonous
heroes51 (and a few heroines52).
However, the connection of man’s origin and earth can be found not only in
local traditions; in epic poetry, too, the important role of earth is emphasised. In
island was considered to be sacred to Helios and the Rhodians of later times made it their prac-
tice to honour Helios above all other gods as the ancestor and founder from whom they were
descended”, (transl. C. H. Oldfather).
43 Hippolytos, Haer. 5.17 p. 134 = PMG 985, fr. adespota 67 Page: Γῆ δὲ, φασὶν οἱ Ἕλληνες,
ἄνθρωπον ἀνέδωκε πρώτη καλὸν ἐνεγκαμένη γέρας, μὴ φυτῶν ἀναισθήτων μηδὲ θηρίων
ἀλόγων, ἀλλὰ ἡμέρου ζωιοῦ καὶ θεοφιλοῦς ἐθέλουσα μήτηρ γενέσθαι. Χαλεπὸν δέ, φησίν,
ἐξευρεῖν, εἴτε Βοιωτοῖς Ἀλαλκομενεὺς ὑπὲρ λίμνης Κηφισίδος ἀνέσχε πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων, εἴτε
Κουρῆτες ἦσαν Ἰδαῖοι, θεῖον γένος, ἤ Φρύγιοι Κορύβαντες, οὕς πρώτους ἥλιος ἔπιδε
δενδροφυεῖς ἀναβλαστάνοντας, εἴτε προσεληναῖον Ἀρκαδία Πελασγόν, ἢ ᾿Ραρίας οἰκήτορα
Δύσαυλον Ἐλευσίν, ἢ Λῆμνος καλλίπαιδα Κάβιρον ἀρρήτον ἐτέκνωσεν ὀργιασμῶν, εἴτε
Πελλήνε Φλεγραῖον Ἀλκυονέα πρεσβύτατον γιγάντων. Λίβυες δέ Ἰάρβαντά φασι πρωτόγονον
αὐχμηρῶν ἀναδύντα πεδίων γλυκέιας ἀπάρξασθαι Διὸς βαλάνου. Αἰγυπτίων δὲ Νεῖλος ἰλὺν
ἐπιλιπάινων μέχρι σήμερον ζωιογόνων, φησίν, ὑγρᾶι σαρκούμενα θερμότητι ζωιὰ σώματα
ἀναδίδωσιν, (transl. J. H. MacMahon with modifications). See also Luginbühl 1992: 137–138.
44 Alalkomeneus’ autochthony: Plut. fr.157.6 Sandbach = Plut. FGrH 388 fr. 1.31; Paus. 9.33.5.
45 Idaean Curetes as γηγενεῖς: Diod. Sic. 5.65 and Str. 10.3.19. Cf. Bremmer 2009.
46 Phrygian Corybantes: Str. 10.3.19. For primordial Phrygia see Hdt. 2.2; Paus. 1.14.2; Apul.
Met. 11.5: primigenii Phryges. Cf. Scheer 2010 b: 290.
47 Cf. Apoll. Rhod. 4.273–64 a; Callim. fr. 151.56 (= 191.56 Pfeiffer); Lycoph. 482 with Schol.;
Ov. Fast. 2.289–290; Plut. mor. 282 ab = Quaest. Rom. 76; Clem. Al. Protr. 1.6.4. See also
Nielsen 2002: 72.
48 First inhabitants of Attica: for Dysaules see Asklepiades of Tragilos FGrH 12 fr. 4; Paus. 1.14.2;
Clem. Al. Protrept. 2.20.2. Cf. Luginbühl 1992: 113.
49 Pellene: Alkyoneus as the most ancient giant cf. Apollod. 1.6.1, as gegenes: Diod. Sic. 4.15.
50 Cf. Hdt. 4.97.
51 E. g. Kastalios: Paus. 10.6.4; Ledon: Paus. 10.33.1; Aigialeus: Paus. 2.5.6, 2.7.1; Koressos:
Paus. 7.2.7.
52 See the autochthonous oak-nymph Melia from Mount Helicon: Callim. H. 4. 79–80.
Hesiod’s Works and Days, the humans do not grow from the soil – as is the case in
the above quoted anonymous fragment –, but, according to Hesiod, the first woman
Pandora, was formed from earth by the gods.53 When Prometheus in later narratives
is referred to as creator of both men and women, he is said to have formed clay on
a potter’s wheel.54 The idea of man created from earth was so common that in the
second century AD Pausanias could witness the very spot close to the Parnassus
in Phokis where Prometheus was said to have taken the clay for creating the first
humans.55
Aside from these narratives about humans growing from the soil or being
created from earthen material, Hesiod reports the tale of the resettlement of the
earth after Deucalion’s flood.56 According to this, Zeus eradicated mankind except
one couple, Deucalion and Pyrrha. They got the order to re-populate the world by
throwing the bones of their mother behind them. While the mother was equated
with the earth, the stones were identified as her bones.57
The notion of age-old rocks or oaks, from which humans might originate, can
be found in the Homeric epics. Penelope asks Odysseus, just returned home unrec-
ognized, about his origin:58 “Yet even so tell me of thy stock from whence thou art;
for thou art not sprung from an oak of ancient story, or from a stone.” Even though
Penelope clearly refuses to apply this concept of origin for her own present she was
obviously familiar with this mythical concept.59
Ideas about the emergence of human life from the earth were thus commonplace
and not a unique feature: Pelasgos, if he was produced by Arcadian earth, was only
one of many offspring.60 In addition, traditions of earthly origin could also open up
very negative associations. Gaia’s activity, as described in Hesiod’s Theogony, is
53 Hes. Op. 60–63; Loraux 2000, 2–3.

54 Cf. also Aristoph. Av. 685–686: ἄγε δὴ φύσιν ἄνδρες ἀμαυρόβιοι, φύλλων γενεᾷ προσόμοιοι, /
ὀλιγοδρανέες, πλάσματα πηλοῦ, σκιοειδέα φῦλ᾽ ἀμενηνά. “Weak mortals, chained to the earth,
creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods”, (transl. E. O’Neill); Apollod. 1.7.1; for
the creation of man out of clay in Phrygia see FGrH 800 F 3 = EM s. v. Ikonion. Cf. Gruppe
1906: 440 f.
55 Paus. 10.4.4: Panopeus.
56 Hes. fr. 234 MW = ad Str. 7.7.2: μάλιστα δ᾽ ἄν τις Ἡσιόδῳ πιστεύσειεν οὕτως περὶ αὐτῶν
εἰπόντι ἤτοι γὰρ Λοκρὸς Λελέγων ἡγήσατο λαῶν, / τούς ῥά ποτε Κρονίδης, Ζεὺς ἄφθιτα μήδεα
εἰδώς, λεκτοὺς ἐκ γαίης λάους πόρε Δευκαλίωνι. “But we should chiefly rely upon Hesiod, who
thus speaks of them: ‘For Locrus was the leader of the nation of the Leleges, whom Jupiter, the
son of Saturn, in his infinite wisdom, once gave as subjects to Deucalion, a people gathered
from the earth’”, (transl. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer). Cf. Pind. Ol. 9.41; Akousilaos FGrH
2 fr. 35; Ov. Met. 1.382–415; Hyg. Fab. 153; Apollod. 1.7.2. Cf. Caduff 1986: 225; Loraux
2000: 3, 11.
57 Gruppe 1906: 441: “Fast der gesamte Adel in der lokrischen Kulturwelt wollte von Deukalion
abstammen.“
58 Hom. Od. 19.162: ἀλλὰ καὶ ὥς μοι εἰπὲ τεὸν γένος, ὁππόθεν ἐσσί. / οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ δρυός ἐσσι
παλαιφάτου οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ πέτρης, (transl. A. T. Murray).
59 Cf. Dieterich 1925: 64; Gatz 1967: 42.
60 See Dio’s Olympic Oration as an example from Imperial times: Dio Chrys. Or.12.30: τοῖς
πρώτοις καὶ αὐτόχθοσι τὴν γεώδη, μαλακῆς ἔτι καὶ πίονος τῆς ἰλύος τότε οὔσης, ὥσπερ ἀπὸ
μητρὸς τῆς γῆς λιχμωμένοις καὶ, καθάπερ τὰ φυτὰ νῦν, ἕλκουσι τὴν ἐξ αὐτῆς ἰκμάδα … “As a
first nourishment the first men, being the very children of the soil, had the earthy food – the
278 Tanja S. Scheer
the most striking example for this: The more positive part of her progeny includes
the sky, the mountains, the sea, and the waters.61 But already the generation of gods
called the ‘Titans’, which includes figures like Phoibe, Hyperion and Rhea, but also
Kronos and Prometheus, proves to be ambivalent.62 In addition, Gaia is responsible
for various kinds of monsters and their progeny. The hundred-headed Typhaon and
the giants and dragons63 threatening divine and human order are Gaia’s children.64
For this reason, the earth’s power of birth can appear threatening, reaching
potentially into the present. With the reign of the Olympian gods and with their
victory against the giants, this power of giving birth is not extinguished: even in the
age of the heroes, Gaia raises hulking warriors out of dragon’s teeth, with whom
Kadmos, the founder of Thebes, has to deal.65 Gaia is still to be reckoned with: in
Pseudo-Pindar’s anonymous fragment it is assumed that creatures originate from
the mud of the Nile “to this day”.66 For the negatively connoted part of Gaia’s
progeny, the sources tend to use the term gegenes at least since the classical period.
The associations that can (but do not have to67) go along with the term gegenes are
pointed out by the chorus of Euripides’ Bacchae. Armed justice is to take its course
and is to overtake the Theban Spartiate called Echion – “this godless, lawless, un-
just, earthborn offspring”.68 In contrast, the term autochthon is not used by the
sources to characterise the giants who have rebelled against the gods or monsters
such as Typhaon. That the Arcadians refer to themselves as autochthonous on the
Delphic monument and not as gegenes should not be a coincidence.
The exclusiveness of autochthony, emphasised by Demosthenes – Athenians
and Arkadians only – is, however, limited by another aspect: the term autochthon
was also used for tribes and peoples who lived beyond the Greek motherland and
moist loam at that time being soft and rich – which they licked up from the earth, their mother
as it were, even as plants now draw the moisture therefrom”, (transl. J. W. Cohoon).
61 Heaven: Hes. Theog. 127; mountains: Hes. Theog. 129; sea: Hes. Theog. 131–132; waters in
general: Gaia as Okeanos’ mother: Hes. Theog. 133.
62 Titans: Hes. Theog. 134–138.
63 Erinyes and giants: Hes. Theog. 185; Opelt 1962: 1127; Rosivach 1987: 296.
64 Typhaon: Hesiod, Theog. 821–838; Cyclopes: Hes. Theog. 139; Cottus, Briareos and Gyes with
one hundred arms: Hes. Theog. 148–152. It comes as no surprise that later sources have Apol-
lo’s enemy, the dragon Pytho, as Gaia’s offspring: Ov. Met. 1.438; Hyg. Fab. 140.
65 E. g. Aesch. Sept. 412; Aesch. fr. 488 Radt: one of the Spartoi is significantly named ‘Chtho-
nios’ (see also Paus. 9.5.3); Eur. Phoen. 638–644; Schol. Eur. Phoen. 670 = Stesich. fr. 195
(Page and Davies); Pherecydes FGrH 3 fr. 22. On this subject see in detail Kühr 2006, 109–12
and in this volume.
66 See above footnote 43: Hippolytos Haer. 5.17 p.134 = PMG 985, fr. adespota No. 67.
67 See above footnote 32 for an early example: Aeschylus (Aesch. Supp. 250, approximately
466 BC) has Palaichthon as gegenes without any negative connotation.
68 Eur. Bacch. 995: ἴτω δίκα φανερός, ἴτω ξιφηφόρος / φονεύουσα λαιμῶν διαμπὰξ / 995 τὸν
ἄθεον ἄνομον ἄδικον Ἐχίονος / γόνον γηγενῆ. Cf. also Eur. Bacch. 541–544: chthonios bears a
clear negative connotation: οἵαν οἵαν ὀργὰν / ἀναφαίνει χθόνιον / γένος ἐκφύς τε δράκοντός /
ποτε Πενθεύς, ὃν Ἐχίων / ἐφύτευσε χθόνιος, / ἀγριωπὸν τέρας, οὐ φῶ- / τα βρότειον, φόνιον δ᾽
ὥσ- / τε γίγαντ᾽ ἀντίπαλον θεοῖς. “What rage, what rage does the earth-born race show, and
Pentheus, once descended from a serpent – Pentheus, whom earth-born Echion bore, a fierce
monster, not a mortal man, but like a bloody giant, hostile to the gods”, transl. T. A. Buckley.
For the ambivalent characterisation of the gegeneis cf. also Blok 2009 a: 257.
beyond the Greek cultural sphere. Herodotus reports the Carians’ claim for auto-
chthony (which he rejects) and, in turn, attributes autochthony to the Caunians (a
quality that they themselves do not want to acknowledge, since they understand
themselves as Cretans).69 In Africa, where according to Herodotus there are only
four tribes, only the Libyans and Aithiopes are autochthonous, whereas the Phoeni-
cians and local Greeks are not.70
So we can state as a rather curious intermediate result: being born of the earth is
rather the norm in Greek thinking. At least in the conceptions of the primeval past of
Greece, the origin of (local) mankind from or with the help of the earth, depending
on local tradition, seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Two problematic
aspects should be added: instead of being exclusively and clearly positively labe-
led, stories about being born from the earth allow the possibility of very negative
associations. Are those who are too close to Earth, in line with either inhuman and
lawless beings or with nomadic barbarians outside the Greek world? Even if the
terminology could indicate whether the connection with the earth is characterised
as threatening primeval (gegenes) or positive (autochthon), the question remains if
this concept is exclusive: if ultimately all people emerge from the Earth, why did
the Arcadians at Delphi emphasise this feature?
5. WHAT IS AUTOCHTHONY?
Vincent Rosivach has emphasised that the term autochthon appears in the sources
only comparatively late and did possibly originate in Athens.71 If one rejects with
Rosivach the literal use of the term already by Hesiod,72 then the word autochthon
is attested first in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus 458 BC.73 According to this source,
Paris has brought eternal death to his autochthonous fatherly house (αὐτόχθονον
πατρῷον … δόμον).
In the sources Athenians and Arcadians were characterised with the word auto-
chthon approximately simultaneously, i. e. since the second half of the fifth cen-
tury BC. Aristophanes and Euripides, for example, used the rather rare word as a
positive characterization in relation to the Athenians.74 Since then, the term found
69 Carians: Hdt. 1.171; Caunians: Hdt. 1.172.

70 Libyans and Aethiopians: Hdt. 4.197; for the Libyans’ autochthonous origins cf. Hdt. 4.45; the
autochthony of the Budines, a nomadic tribe near the Tanais in Hdt. 4.109. Briquel 1993: 90–94
accordingly wants to restrict the positive meaning of autochthony to Greek ethne.
71 See Rosivach 1987: 299, who thinks it “probable that the source of the word was Attic … that
it was Attic drama which was responsible”; cf. ibid. 305.
72 See above footnote 29: Rosivach 1987: 305; Roy 2014: 242.
73 Aesch. Ag. 536: καὶ πανώλεθρον / αὐτόχθονον πατρῷον ἔθρισεν δόμον. “And has razed in utter
destruction the autochthonous house of his father’s”; Aeschylus possibly as the inventor of the
term: Blok 2009 a: 253; for a difference between autochthon and autochthonos see Pelling
2009: 473–474.
74 Aristoph. Vesp. 1076 (performed 422 BC); Eur. Erechtheus fr. 360.8 Kannicht. For the date of
the Erechtheus between 438/437 BC and 411 BC see Kannicht 2004: 394; Austin favors approx-
imately 422 BC: Austin 1968: 187; Parker (1988: 212, footnote 64) suggests 421–410 BC.
280 Tanja S. Scheer
its way into the vocabulary of Attic speakers from the fourth century BC and es-
tablished itself until the end of antiquity.75 Autochthonous Arcadians are first men-
tioned by Herodotus,76 followed by Hellanikos in his work Peri Arkadias.77
Interestingly enough, the early passages for autochthonous Athenians and
Arcadians hardly ever directly refer to the narrative mythological context. Being
autochthonous appears to be a quality for which the narration of detailed mytho-
logical stories about the circumstances of a birth is not necessary. That appropriate
mythological local traditions are known to the audience is possible, but they do not
have to be reported every time.78
Thus, in the fifth and fourth century BC, the term autochthonos is not used
primarily in detailed mythological narratives, but rather characterises present day
ethnic groups and social entities.79 This is also the case with the ex-voto of the
Arcadians at Delphi: The earthborn Pelasgos is not mentioned; the mere adjective
autochthon is sufficient for a short characteristic of the Arcadians. Herodotus’ ex-
planation of the Peloponnesian tribes described as autochthonous appears to be in-
structive. They are still “settled in the land, where they lived in the old days.”80 Cor-
respondingly, Rosivach has rightly emphasised that a particularly important aspect
of the concept of autochthony does not lie in the narration of mythological stories
about being born of the earth, but in what has happened since then:81 The respective
ethnic group claims to be or is said to have always remained ‘on the same earth’.
Under these circumstances, autochthony can actually become a highly loca-
tion-specific and thus again earth-related unique feature, since the past in Greek
75 Orators: Hyp. 6.7; Lys. 2.17; Pl. Menex. 237 b; cf. Isoc. Or. 4.24–25, 12.124–125; Dem. Or.
19.261; Lycurg. 1.100; see also Roy 2014: 250–251.
76 Hdt. 8.73.1: οἰκέει δὲ τὴν Πελοπόννησον ἔθνεα ἑπτά. τούτων δὲ τὰ μὲν δύοαὐτόχθονα ἐόντα
κατὰ χώρην ἵδρυται νῦν τε καὶ τὸ πάλαι οἴκεον, Ἀρκάδες τε καὶ Κυνούριοι. “Seven nations
inhabit the Peloponnese. Two of these are aboriginal and are now settled in the land where they
lived in the old days, the Arcadians and Cynurians”, (transl. A. D. Godley). Similarly Thuc 1.2.3:
μάλιστα δὲ τῆς γῆς ἡ ἀρίστη αἰεὶ τὰς μεταβολὰς τῶν οἰκητόρων εἶχεν, ἥ τε νῦν Θεσσαλία
καλουμένη καὶ Βοιωτία Πελοποννήσου τε τὰ πολλὰ πλὴν Ἀρκαδίας, τῆς τε ἄλλης ὅσα ἦν
κράτιστα. “The richest districts were most constantly changing their inhabitants; for example,
the countries which are now called Thessaly and Boeotia, the greater part of the Peloponnesus
with the exception of Arcadia, and all the best parts of Hellas”, (transl. B. Jowett).
77 Hellanicus FGrH 4 fr. 161 = Περὶ Ἀρκαδίας fr. 37 = Harpocr. s. v. αὐτόχθονες· οἱ Αθηναῖοι …
αὐτόχθονες δὲ καὶ οἱ Ἀρκάδες ἦσαν, ὡς Ἑλλάνικός φησι, καὶ Αἰγινῆται καὶ Θηβαῖοι. Cf. also
Nielsen 1999: 17 and Nielsen 2002: 46.
78 Pelling 2009: 472 observes that sometimes to submerge the mythical register would be “a way
of bringing autochthony up to date … yet at Athens … the myths are never, I think, far away.”
79 Cf. Parker 1996: 138; see recently Roy 2014: 251.
80 See above footnote 76. Neither Thucydides (Thuc. 2.36.1) nor Herodotus (Hdt. 7.161) use the
term autochthon to characterise the Athenians although both authors believe in the local stabil-
ity of the Attic population. Cf. Borgeaud 1988: 14.
81 See Rosivach 1987; cf. already Luginbühl 1992: 130 f. and Parker 1988: 195: “In ordinary
language ‘autochthonous’ meant little more than ‘native’ as opposed to ‘immigrant’: the myth
interprets the idea of ‘nativeness’ with drastic if logical literalism, as physical birth from the
native soil.” Similarly Blok 2009 a: 254. Nielsen 2002: 70, footnote 136 argues against a
one-dimensional interpretation of the term: “It is thus hard to agree with Rosivach … that the
term as applied to the Arcadians means simply indigenous.”
sources is constructed predominantly as a sequence of mythically narrated migra-

tions.82 Autochthonous people were not only born from the earth, they have since
been able to remain against any possible resistance in their original country. No-
body can claim an older right to this land. Those who did not migrate, be it in mythi-
cal times or during the colonization, are the autochthonous exceptions.
6. BEING AUTOCHTHONOUS IN ATHENS
The sources suggest that the concept of autochthony developed into an important
factor of identity in fifth century BC Athens. Which statements could be derived
from this mythologically founded concept of the past for the Athenian present of
classical time in domestic and foreign policy has been discussed extensively in
recent research and can only briefly be outlined here.83 The privilege of the auto-
chthons as opposed to immigrants could contribute, for example, to justify the law
of citizenship from the middle of the fifth century BC: since 451/450 only those
who came from citizen families on the maternal and paternal side enjoyed full citi-
zenship.84 Children from marriages with foreigners, “bad pegs, fixed in the wood of
better quality”, were excluded.85 Thus, concerning domestic politics the concept of
patriotically charged autochthony, as it had been visible since the 420s, may indeed
have contributed to strengthening a consciousness of equal rank among Athenian
citizens. At the same time, it legitimized the democratic system, based on “breth-
ren” defending their Mother Earth.86 Also the external representation of the Athe-
nians was marked by the emphasis on autochthony.87 In contrast to the great rival
and enemy Sparta, whose tradition included the interruption of continuity and the
‘return’ of the Heraclids, the autochthonous Athenians could see themselves as the
never-expelled Greeks with the oldest ‘natural’ right to their own land.88 It is not
surprising that this concept gained importance in the course of the Peloponnesian
82 Thuc. 1.2; Malkin 1998, 3–5; Pelling 2009: 476; Scheer 2018: 71.
83 E. g. Rosivach 1987; Thomas 1989: 217–219; Loraux 2000; Blok 2009 a; cf. the survey in Roy
2014: 244–246.
84 Aristot. Ath. Pol. 26.4; Plut. Pericles 37.3. Loraux 2000: 20; Isaac 2004: 116; Blok 2009 b;
Pelling 2009: 474.
85 Eur. Erechtheus fr. 360, 12 Kannicht = Lycurgus 1 adv. Leocrates, 100 p.68,3: ᾗ πρῶτα μὲν
λεὼς οὐκ ἐπακτὸς ἄλλοθεν, / αὐτόχθονες δ᾽ ἔφυμεν· αἱ δ᾽ ἄλλαι πόλεις / πεσσῶν ὁμοίαις
διαφοραῖς ἐκτισμέναι / ἄλλαι παρ᾽ ἄλλων εἰσὶν εἰσαγώγιμοι. / ὅστις δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἄλλης πόλεος
οἰκήσῃ πόλιν, / ἁρμὸς πονηρὸς ὥσπερ ἐν ξύλῳ παγείς, / λόγῳ πολίτης ἐστί, τοῖς δ᾽ ἔργοισιν οὔ.
“For we are of this soil, while other towns, / Formed as by hazard in a game of draughts, / Take
their inhabitants from diverse parts. / He who adopts a city, having left / Some other town, re-
sembles a bad peg / Fixed into wood of better quality, / A citizen in name but not in fact”,
(transl. J. O. Burtt). Cf. Blok 2009 a: 261, 263; van der Kolf 1954: 1809–1810.
86 See e. g. Pl. Resp. 414 de; Pl. Menex. 238e–239a; cf. Rosivach 1987: 303; Thomas 1989: 218;
Luginbühl 1992: 194; Kopp 1992: 172; Parker 1996: 139; Loraux 2000: 18; Blok 2009 a:
253–254; Pelling 2009: 473.
87 Rosivach 1987: 302; Walter 1993: 181.
88 Return of the Heraclids (however see the use of the concept of ‘return’ as opposed to ‘immigra-
tion’): Walter 1993: 181; see also Prinz 1979: 206–313, esp. 223, 261; Luraghi 2008: 46–49.
282 Tanja S. Scheer
War and was even connected with demands for supremacy over others in the fourth
century BC.89
7. BEING AUTOCHTHONOUS IN ARCADIA
Against the backdrop of the Athenian concept of autochthony, the self-characteri-

zation of the Arcadians as autochthon laos on the ex-voto at Delphi becomes easier
to understand. While in Attica the citizens of the Mega-Polis Athens could perceive
themselves as ‘the autochthonous Athenians’, the situation in Arcadia was different.
According to Homer’s Catalogue of Ships, an independent Arcadian contingent had
set sails to Troy, but de facto Arcadia was a landscape with numerous independent
poleis or tribes (ethne).90 These had maintained their local traditions for many gen-
erations.
Only the political situation after the historical defeat of Sparta at Leuktra
371 BC made the emphasis on Arcadian autochthony attractive:91 The Arcadian
League, founded as a result of this Spartan defeat, is considered to be the dedicant
of the Delphic ex-voto. The monument coincides with the short historical period in
which the Arcadian poleis and tribes were united under a political superstructure.
This particular situation created new problems: In the face of old internal rivalries
the enthusiasm of the individual Arcadian poleis for the new union was of varying
intensity.92 In foreign policy, opposition to the Arcadian League was immediately
shown by the old rival Sparta. Sparta had tried to prevent the new Arcadian ‘big
city’ Megalopolis.93
In this situation, in the early fourth century BC, the emphasis on Arcadian
autochthony opened up opportunities for constructive influence, both internally and
externally.94 If the Arcadians derived from this concept the idea of being related and
of equal origin, a common basis was created for the citizens of the different Arca-
dian poleis, which were thus committed to fraternal cohesion. Although in Athens
the concept of autochthony had an exclusive effect on citizenship law, in Arcadia it
turned out to be inclusive, because it could be propagated as the basis for a common
federal citizenship of all members of the Arcadian league.95
Territorrial claims: cf. Luginbühl 1992: 133; Scheer 2012: 534–535; Calame 1988: 175. The
autochthonous Athenians ‘rightfully’ claiming their land: Saxonhouse 1986: 255–56.
89 Athenian claim to hegemony: Isocr. Or. 4.20–24; 4.63; Ps.Dem. Or. 59 =Apollodorus Orat. in
Neaeram 74. Loraux 2000: 15; Parker 1988: 195 observes: “The ideal of autochthony was a
form of collective snobbery.”
90 See Nielsen 2002: 160–215; Borgeaud 1988: 13.
91 Cf. above footnote 5.
92 See Trampedach 1994: 24; Ruggeri 2009: 59–60.
93 Paus. 8.27.9–10.
94 Roy (2014: 247) points out the absence of fifth century BC sources for the concept of auto-
chthony in Arcadia.
95 Cf. Trampedach 1994: 25: The large number of Arcadian poleis voluntarily joining the league
shows that “die panarkadische Idee den weitverbreiteten Autonomievorstellungen nicht wider-
sprach.”
In setting the boundaries to the outside world, an analogous function of Arca-

dian and Athenian autochthony becomes clear. In both cases, Sparta was the old
enemy. Her aggression or claim to supremacy in the Peloponnese could be rejected
by the Arcadians with their autochthonous identity. Those who had possessed their
land since the time when humans first appeared on earth had a special right to this
land and, as Demosthenes put it in the second half of the fourth century, had a right
to unite and administrate this land by themselves.96
Autochthony – as Athens and Arcadia argued – was not a coincidence after
all: autochthonous and unmixed descent showed itself in special physical strength
and valor. The Chorus of the old Athenians in Aristophanes’ Wasps boasted being
autochthonous and therefore the most courageous male tribe in the world:97 “We
are the true Attic men, who alone are noble and native to the soil, the bravest of all
people”. This, the wasps boasted, was demonstrated above all in the battles of the
Persian wars. The Persian Wars appear here as the most recent opportunity when
opponents have tried in vain to subjugate the Attic autochthonous or even expel
them from their land. Herodotus reports that the Arcadians were aware of a similar
merit for their country in a far distant past. They claimed to have defended their
own country and even the entire Peloponnese successfully against the invading
Heraclids by their special bravery: in mythical times the Arcadian King Echemos
had postponed the return of the Heraclids for another at least 100 or 50 years, by
personally killing Hyllos, the son of Heracles in a duel.98 This mythological deed
and this decisive success against Sparta was remembered even in the imperial era:
Pausanias could see a monument to Echemos on the agora of Tegea.99
Not only the Athenian wasps boasted their autochthonous masculinity: in the
case of the Arcadians, literary sources give a similar statement, which is almost
contemporary with the ex-voto of the Arcadians. The Athenian historian Xenophon,
himself familiar with Peloponnesian politics, makes the influential and ambitious
Arcadian Lycomedes from Mantineia address the assembly of the Arcadians in the
year 368 BC.100 Lycomedes, according to Xenophon,
“filled the Arcadians with self-confidence, saying that it was to them alone that Peloponnesus
was a fatherland, since they were the only autochthonous stock that dwelt therein, and that the
Arcadian people was the most numerous of all the Greek peoples and had the strongest bodies.
He also declared that they were the bravest, offering as evidence the fact that whenever men
needed mercenaries, there were none whom they chose in preference to Arcadians.”
96 See above footnote 36; Dem. Or. 19.261. Loraux 2000: 15.
97 Aristoph. Vesp. 1075: ἐσμὲν ἡμεῖς … Ἀττικοὶ μόνοι δικαίως ἐγγενεῖς αὐτόχθονες, /ἀνδρικώτατον
γένος, (transl. E. O’Neill). See Loraux 2000: 26.
98 Hdt. 9.26.1–5: the postponement of the Heraclids’ return for 100 years; Diod. Sic. 4.58.1–5 (50
years); Paus. 1.41.2, 1.44.10; Paus. 8.5.1, 8.45.3; see also Thuc. 1.12.3. Prinz 1979: 245–251.
99 Paus. 8.53.10.
100 Xen. Hell. 7.1.23: οὗτος ἐνέπλησε φρονήματος τοὺς Ἀρκάδας, λέγων ὡς μόνοις μὲν αὐτοῖς
πατρὶς Πελοπόννησος εἴη, μόνοι γὰρ αὐτόχθονες ἐν αὐτῇ οἰκοῖεν, πλεῖστον δὲ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν
φύλων τὸ Ἀρκαδικὸν εἴη καὶ σώματα ἐγκρατέστατα ἔχοι. καὶ ἀλκιμωτάτους δὲ αὐτοὺς
ἀπεδείκνυε,τεκμήρια παρεχόμενος ὡς ἐπικούρων ὁπότε δεηθεῖέν τινες, οὐδένας ᾑροῦντο ἀντ᾽
Ἀρκάδων, (transl. C. L. Brownson). Cf. Roy 2014: 247; Nielsen 2002: 65.
284 Tanja S. Scheer
Xenophon’s Lycomedes, too, does not require any explicit recourse to mythological
narrative. The particular connection of the Arcadians with the ‘Mother Earth’ is
already evident in their strong bodies that have been nourished by this earth. They
have successfully adapted to their harsh natural environment, so that since ancient
times they could not be separated and expelled from their land.101
Xenophon has scarcely transmitted the speech of Lycomedes verbatim. But
in connection with the first-hand testimony of the Arcadian dedicatory inscription
in Delphi his message shows the importance of the concept of autochthony in the
discourses on the new Arcadian unity. It had been successfully activated by senior
politicians of the Arcadian League.
But how did the advocates of Arcadia’s political unity come up with the idea of
promoting this comparatively new concept? If the term autochthon first appeared
in the second half of the fifth century BC and was probably filled with meaning in
Athens, it is quite surprising to find this term already in the first half of the fourth
century BC in the Delphic inscription of the Arcadian League.
As is so often the case, there is no direct evidence to show how the concept of
autochthony, which was highly relevant in Athens, found its way to Arcadia. After
all, an inscription from Athens (which dates back to the years after Mantineia’s
forced dioikismos in 385 BC by Sparta) states that at that time Arcadian refugees
from Mantineia were in Athens.102 Because of their friendly attitude towards the
Athenians, their attikismos, they were tax-exempt. Whether the later strategos
of the Arcadian League, Lycomedes of Mantineia, has been among these exiles,
as S. Dusanic has postulated, taking up an old conjecture of Fougères, cannot be
proved.103
If Dusanic is right, Lycomedes would be a promising candidate for the transfer
of the Athenian concept of autochthony to Arcadia: he is the one whom Xenophon
reports as bringing forward autochthony as a central theme in his speech to the
Arcadians years later. In any case, fundamental links become clear: groups of Arca-
dians from Mantineia, the city which later played an important role in the founding
of the Arcadian League, can be proved to be present in Athens at a time when the
concept of autochthony was crucial for the shaping of identity. The Attic orators in
the first decades of the fourth century BC never tire to pick up this issue again and
again. An example of this is the fictional funeral speech from the Platonic Dialogue
Menexenos from ca. 380 BC, which seems to be connected with Isocrates’ Pane-
gyrikos.104 Here the advantages of autochthonous descent and the close connection
of the Athenians to their Mother Earth are praised:105
101 Cf. below footnote 105. See Pl. Menex. 237 b.

102 IG II2 33. Trampedach 1994: 25 and Dusanic 1970: 286 for a date of approximately 382.
103 Fougères 1898: 434, footnote 2; Dusanic 1970: 289, 301. Cf. also Dusanic 1991: 84, who ima-
gines the Arcadian exiles as being in close contact with Plato and Isocrates and thinks both
contributed significantly to the idea and design of the Arcadian league. See differently Trampe-
dach 1994: 26; see also Roy 2000: 311.
104 Cf. Tsitsiridis 1998: 21, 44–48; Eucken 2010:131–145; Isaac 2004: 122–124.
105 Pl. Menex. 237 bc: ἐπὶ δὲ τούτοις τὴν τῶν ἔργων πρᾶξιν ἐπιδείξωμεν, ὡς καλὴν καὶ ἀξίαν
τούτων ἀπεφήναντο. τῆς δ᾽εὐγενείας πρῶτον ὑπῆρξε τοῖσδε ἡ τῶν προγόνων γένεσις οὐκ
ἔπηλυς οὖσα, οὐδὲ τοὺς ἐκγόνους τούτους ἀποφηναμένη μετοικοῦντας ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ ἄλλοθεν
“Now as regards nobility of birth, their first claim thereto is this – that the forefathers of these
men were not of immigrant stock, nor were these their sons declared by their origin to be
strangers in the land sprung from immigrants, but natives sprung from the soil living and dwell-
ing in their own true fatherland; and nurtured also by no stepmother, like other folk, but by that
mother-country wherein they dwelt, which bare them and reared them and now at their death
receives them again to rest in their own abodes.”106
It is perfectly conceivable that the Arcadians had become acquainted with the politi-
cal value of autochthony in Athens, where they could directly observe its effective-
ness. When after Sparta’s defeat at Leuktra 371 a common basis for the Arcadian
League had to be found, this concept proved promising: apparently in Greece it was
agreed that the Arcadians had been living in their homeland in the Peloponnese for
ages. This most likely gave the self-statement in Delphi special weight.107
How promising the concept of autochthony seemed is shown by the fact that it
was taken up in the Peloponnese beyond Arcadia: in the second half of the fourth
century BC Ephorus knew of an inscription, which the Eleans, neighbours and ri-
vals to the Arcadian League, had erected in the agora of their city.108 They appar-
ently tried to present themselves as autochthonous people, but in the long run –
compared to the Arcadians – they were not equally convincing. Neither Herodotus
nor Isocrates or Demosthenes, to name just a few examples, counted the Eleans
among the autochthonous.
σφῶν ἡκόντων, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτόχθονας καὶ τῷ ὄντι ἐν πατρίδι οἰκοῦντας καὶ ζῶντας, καὶ τρεφομένους
οὐχ ὑπὸ μητρυιᾶς ὡς οἱ ἄλλοι, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ μητρὸς τῆς χώρας ἐν ᾗ ᾤκουν, καὶ νῦν κεῖσθαι
τελευτήσαντας ἐν οἰκείοις τόποις τῆς τεκούσης καὶ θρεψάσης καὶ ὑποδεξαμένης, (transl.
H. North Fowler and W. R. M. Lamb).
106 Saxonhouse and Blok point out the ironical undertones in the text: Saxonhouse 1986: 258 and
Blok 2009 a: 261. But nonetheless the text illustrates the importance of autochthony in the
fourth century BC.
107 See above footnote 76: Hdt. 8.73.1 and Hdt. 2.171: μετὰ δὲ ἐξαναστάσης πάσης Πελοποννήσου
ὑπὸ Δωριέων ἐξαπώλετο ἡ τελετή, οἱ δὲ ὑπολειφθέντες Πελοποννησίων καὶ οὐκ ἐξαναστάντες
Ἀρκάδες διέσωζον αὐτὴν μοῦνοι. “… Afterwards, when the people of the Peloponnese were
driven out by the Dorians, it (sc. the rite of the Thesmophoria) was lost, except in so far as it
was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in
its home”, (transl. A. D. Godley); Hellanicus FGrH 4 fr. 161; Nielsen 1999: 35.
108 Ephor. FrGrHist 70 fr. 122 a = Str. 10.3.2: τὸ δ᾽ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ τῶν Ἠλείων ἐπὶ τῷ Ὀξύλου
ἀνδριάντι· / ’Αἰτωλός ποτε τόνδε λιπὼν αὐτόχθονα δῆμον / κτήσατο Κουρῆτιν γῆν δορὶ πολλὰ
καμών· / τῆς δ᾽ αὐτῆς γενεᾶς δεκατόσπορος Αἵμονος υἱός / Ὄξυλος ἀρχαίην ἔκτισε τήνδε
πόλιν. “… And the other inscription in the marketplace of the Eleians on the statue of Oxylus:
‘Aetolus once left this autochthonous people, and through many a toil with the spear took pos-
session of the land of Curetis; but the tenth scion of the same stock, Oxylus, the son of Haemon,
founded this city in early times’”, (transl. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer). See also Roy 2014:
248–249.
286 Tanja S. Scheer
8. MOTHER EARTH AND ARCADIAN AUTOCHTHONY:

CONCLUSION
Literary and epigraphic sources characterise the Arcadians as ‘autochthon’: earth-

born and rooted in their land since time immemorial. In Arcadian religion, this
attribution is not immediately reflected. The geography of Arcadia, a landscape
without access to the sea, did not lead her inhabitants to a significant religious or
mythological turn towards the earth. Cults of the ‘Mother Earth’ played no promi-
nent role. Gaia as a deity was not one of the central addressees of ritual worship in
Greece, and Arcadia was no exception.
Even mythological traditions of being born of the earth could be perceived
ambivalently: the goddess Gaia was a parent of dubious character. Gaia’s offspring
were often too distant from divine and human orders: monsters and giants, often re-
ferred to as gegeneis, did not constitute eugeneia – and they were also on the losing
side when fighting against the Olympian gods. Accordingly, the Arcadians did not
refer to themselves as gegeneis, although their shadowy ancestor Pelasgos should
have been the earth’s offspring. But being the earth’s offspring in a distant past was,
as Greek and Latin sources prove, something common to all people in the world. As
a unique selling point, this claim became important when the Athenians in classical
times propagated that still being present on their own ‘Mother Earth’, was proof
of special qualities and resulted in special legal claims of the inhabitants. Then the
extension of the mythologically founded concept of autochthony could also become
attractive for other Greeks. For some of them the idea seemed plausible to have
lived in their own country since time immemorial. These included the Arcadians
in the mountainous interior of the central Peloponnese. However, as the example
of the sea-oriented Athenians shows, an inland location was not a precondition for
autochthony, but only a characteristic of the Arcadian example. In contrast to the
Athenians, who propagated their autochthony exclusively as Attic, for the Arca-
dians and especially for the Arcadian League in the fourth century BC the same
concept had an inclusive function: It was autochthony as a permanent connection
to their own mother earth that the inhabitants of the innermost Peloponnese had in
common, even if they had settled in various independent city states and groups with
own traditions for centuries.
The ex-voto of the Arcadians in Delphi underlines this on several levels: On the
one hand, the dedicants fashioned themselves as the autochthonous people of Ar-
cadia and thanked Apollo for helping them against the (later immigrated) Spartans.
On the other hand, the ‘epichoric’ heroes were seen as statues standing on the base
of the monument. Thus, the ex-voto literally became the common basis of all the
Arcadians and the testimony of the close link to their ‘Mother Earth’.
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Dieser Beitrag entstand im Rahmen des von der DFG geförderten Göttinger Projekts Sche 421/3
„Wo liegt Arkadien? Arkadienbilder in der klassischen Antike“ (“Where is Arcadia? Images of
Arcadia in Classical Antiquity”).
REGISTER
A Amnisos 104
Abai 36 Amphiaraos 94, 121
Abraham 52 Amphiareion 36, 94
Acheloiodoros 100 Amphilochia 191
Acheloos 34, 92–99, 102, 104, 150, 162, 166, Amphion 24, 100, 246–249
167 Amphipolis 93
Acheron 103, 145 Amphitrite 176, 178, 188, 189
Achilleus 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 106, 119, 123 Anapos 94
Admete 205, 206 Anchesmos 32
Adonis 137, 139, 141, 142 Anchiale 104
Adranodoros 100 Anchises 13, 14, 147, 164
Adranos 104 Andania 201, 204, 205, 207
Aedon 128 Andromache 136, 139, 148
Aello 127 Anemoreia 121
Agamemnon 90, 99 Aneonos 96
Aganippe 71 Antigone 105
Agapenor 235 Antigonos 33
Agis 120 Antikyra 38
Aglauros 39, 44, 126 Antinoos 126, 128
Agno s. Hagno Antiope 100, 247
Agrai 34 Aphrodite 13, 14, 22, 34, 39, 44, 118,
Ägypten 22, 52, 58, 104, 126, 135, 163, 276 135–144, 147–151, 160, 164, 206
Aias 105, 134 – Aphrodite Epitragia 136
Aietes 90 – Aphrodite in den Gärten 39, 101, 141
Aigialeus 276 – Aphrodite Pandemos 136, 206
Aiginetes 104 – Aphrodite Urania 60
Aineias 99 Apis 163
Aiolos 123, 124 Apollon 23, 35, 36, 38, 63, 82, 93, 106, 120,
Aipytos 273 143, 163, 173, 181–185, 187, 191, 193,
Aisepodoros 100 201, 205, 209, 211, 212, 259, 269, 270, 286
Aithiopier 279 – Apollon Delphinios 184, 185
Akarnanien, Akarnanen 93 – Apollon Didymaios 191
Akragas 94, 98, 104, 105, 125 – Apollon Epikourios 220
Akrotiri 172 – Apollon Hypoakraios 38, 44
Alalkomeneus 276 – Apollon Koropaios 213
Alea 260 – Apollon Parrhasios 220
Alektrona 205 – Apollon Proopsios 32
Aleon 93, 94 – Apollon Pythios 38, 39, 270
Alexander d. Gr. 190 Apsu 102
Alexandria 192 Ares 24, 39, 138, 242–244, 248
Alkyoneus 276 Argolis 104, 260, 272
Alpheios 35, 91, 92, 93, 95, 97–99, 106, 219, Argos, Argiver 92, 105, 106, 206, 274–276
232, 233, 260 Ariminion 104
Alphiodoros 100 Arion (Hengst) 256
Amaltheia 99 Arion (Sänger) 175, 180, 181–183, 189, 190,
Ambrakia, Ambrakioten 93 191
292 Register
Aristagoras 102 Briareos 278

Arkadien, Arkader 23–25, 93, 103, 123, 161, Brilessos 113
220–222, 230, 232, 233, 235, 251–254, Byzantion 182
256–260, 262–264, 269, 271–276,
278–280, 282–286 C
Arkas 222, 229, 233, 234, 257, 271, 273, 274 Chalkedon 95
Arkesine 213 Chariten 139, 141, 142, 144, 148
Armenien 104 Charybdis 171
Arne 256 Chimaira 166
Aroania 219 Chione 114
Aroura 271 Chios 93, 95, 106
Arsinoe 190 Chrysas 94
Artemis 63, 64, 91, 99, 126, 156, 229, 261, Chthonios 278
262
– Artemis Limnatis 262 D
– Artemis Soteira 35 Danaiden 105
Artemision 113 Danaos 274
Asopodoros 100 Deianeira 98, 99, 166
Asopos 24, 92, 100, 247, 248 Delos 122, 205, 207, 213
Assoros 94 Delphi 23, 25, 36, 93, 104, 106, 173, 177, 184,
Asteropeios 100 187, 201, 207–210, 212, 213, 242, 247,
Astraios 118 263, 265, 269, 270–272, 274, 278–280,
Astyanax 229 282, 284–286
Athamas 178, 179 Demeter 24, 59, 75, 76, 78, 93, 163, 205, 220,
Athen, Athener 9, 25, 29, 30, 32, 34, 36–40, 242, 245, 263, 265
44, 45, 56, 105, 113, 114, 120–124, 126, – Demeter Erinys 256
129, 130, 209–212, 241, 242, 275, 279–286 – Demeter Lousia 256
Athena 32, 34, 36, 120, 122, 163, 165, 209, – Demeter Melaina 262, 263
211, 242, 244 – Demeter Thesmophoros 245
– Athena Areia 39 Demetrias 213
– Athena Polias 206 Demokleides 172
Athos 119 Didyma 36, 93, 95
Attis 64 Dika 148
Axios 100, 104 Dikte 253
Azan 229 Diokles 99
Azania 252, 254 Diomedes 97
Azilis 104 Dionysios 120
Dionysios von Iasos 190
B Dionysos 59, 105, 124–126, 143, 144,
Babylon 190, 191 161–165, 167, 173–175, 178, 182, 183,
Baktrien 96 185, 186, 189, 208, 243, 245, 246, 249
Balios 123 – Dionysos Omestes 126
Belon 104 Dirke 105, 243
Berekla 220 Deukalion 24, 44, 257, 258, 277
Bithynien 91 Dodona 103
Boiotien, Boiotier 24, 36, 63, 94, 209, Donau 230, 231
241–243, 276, 280 Dreros 91
Boreas 21, 113, 114, 118–121, 123, 126, 129, Dryaden 51
130 Dryops 100, 106
Borysthenes 94, 100 Dyme 104
Bosporos 97, 104 Dysaules 276
Brauron 156
Register 293
E H
Echelidai 93 Hades 101
Echemos 283 Hadrian 188, 261
Echidna 168 Hagno 230, 231, 232, 263, 264
Echion 278 Halasarna 213
Egesta 97 Halykiai 104
Eikadios 173 Halys 104
Eileithyia 271 Hannibal 91
Eirana 137, 139 Harmonia 243–246
Elatos 271 Harpasa 104
Eleos 129 Harpasos 95
Eleusis 39, 53, 58, 59, 205, 276 Harpyien 127, 128
Elis, Eleer 91, 104, 161, 206, 219, 220, 233, Hekate 42
285 Hektor 97, 136, 139, 148
Empedokles 125 Helena 90, 124, 137
Enalos 178, 182, 183 Helikon 276
Enbeilos 95 Helios 51, 90, 123
Eos 118, 136, 142, 143 Helle 178
Ephesos 29 Hellespontias 118
Erasinos 92, 105, 260 Hephaistos 15, 63, 90
Erechtheus 37, 38, 113, 210, 212, 275 Hera 34, 83, 90, 120, 178, 205, 206, 208, 229,
Erichthonios 123 235, 243, 256, 257
Eridanos 34 Heraia 92
Erinyen 77, 127, 128, 278 Heraion, Thrakien 93
Eros 39, 44, 120, 135, 139, 140, 143, 176 Herakleia Pontika 103, 104
Erymanthos 92, 219, 253, 254 Herakles 93, 98, 99, 102, 167, 179, 243, 246,
Erysichthon 75, 78 259, 261, 283
Erythrai 93 – Herakles Pankrates 35, 43
Eryx 104 Herakliden 281, 283
Eumolpos 114 Hermes 14, 100, 135, 150, 167, 209, 229, 256
Eunike 142 – Hermes Epimelios 121
Euphrat 104 Hermias 191
Europa 242 Hermodoros 100
Euros 95 Hermos 95, 96
Eurotas 90, 92, 104, 232, 233, 260 Herodes Atticus 188
Eurymedon 95 Himera 104, 106
Eurynome 161 Himeros 138
Eurystheus 206 Hippo Diarrhytos 192, 195
Euthymos 98 Hipponoe 142
Horen 63
G Hyakinthos 120
Gaia/Ge 24, 36, 44, 59, 253, 254, 271, 277, Hyllos 283
278, 286 Hymettos 32, 34
– Ge Chthonia 271 Hyperion 278
– Ge Karpophoros 37
– Ge Olympia 44 I
Gela 98, 104 Ialysos 205
Gelas 98 Iaon 254
Gortynios 256 Iarbas 276
Göttermutter s. Meter Iason 89
Große Götter 204 Iasos 92, 181, 183, 184, 190, 191
Gyes 278 Ida, Kreta 221, 253
Ida, Troas 253
294 Register
Idyros 104 Kithairon 246

Ilissos 34, 35, 105, 113 Kladeos 91
Inachos 92, 106 Klaros 36
Ino 178, 179 Kleinasien 29, 30, 45, 58
Ion 23, 38, 201, 208–212, 215 Kleis 145
Iphigenie 126 Kleomenes 92, 102
Iris 119, 120 Klytaimnestra 126
Isaak 52 Knossos 227
Isis 204 Koeranos 182
Ismenodoros 100 Kokytos 103
Ismenos 105, 243 Kolchis 106
Isokrates 284 Koressos 276
Istrodoros 100 Korinna 100
Istros 104 Korinth 124, 180, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189,
Ithaka 127 261
Iuppiter s. Zeus Koroneia 121
Iuventianus 188 Koronis 122
Korope 213
K Korybanten 276
Kabeiroi 60, 245 Kotilion 220
Kabeiros 276 Kottos 278
Kadmos 24, 63, 242–248, 278 Krathis 254
Kaikinos 98 Kreousa 38, 209, 209–212
Kaikos 95 Kreta, Kreter 23, 106, 149, 221, 253, 279
Kaikodoros 100 Kretea 219, 220, 231
Kallirhoe 43, 71, 101 Krimisos 94, 97
Kallisto 222, 229, 233, 256, 257, 272–274 Kronos 253, 278
Kalykadnos 96 Kureten 276
Kalypso 120 Kyane 71, 82
Kamarina 104 Kybele 29
Kamerun 74 Kyklops, Kyklopen 145, 208, 278
Kamikos 104 Kyllene 219
Kanathos 206 Kyparissia 219
Karien, Karer 95, 177, 279 Kyrene 116, 121, 122, 204
Karion 254 Kyzikos 162
Karpo 63
Karyai 258 L
Kastalios 276 Ladon 253, 254, 256
Kastor 104 Lakedaimon s. Sparta
Kaunos, Kaunier 116, 279 Lakonien 233
Kaystrodoros 100 Laomedon 97
Kekrops 275 Larisos 104
Kelaino 127 Leda 137
Kentrites 93, 104 Ledon 276
Kephisodotos 100 Lemnos 276
Kephisos, Attika 34, 35, 92–94, 98, 101, 105, Lesbos 116, 135, 142, 145, 146, 178, 180, 183
106, 114, 121 Letrini 91
Kephisos, Boiotien 276 Leukerbad 115, 117
Kestrine 104 Leukippos 92, 106
Keto 167 Leukothea 178, 187, 188
Kilikien, Kilikier 95, 104 Leuktra 282, 285
Kinyps 104 Libyen, Libyer 276, 279
Kirke 120, 171 Lokri 84
Register 295
Lokroi Epizephyrioi 98 Nestane 256

Lokros 277 Nestos 93
Lousios 256 Nil 276, 278
Lydien 96, 104, 145, 146 Niobe 272
Lykabettos 33–35 Notos 116, 119
Lykaion 23, 24, 92, 219, 220–222, 225, 226, Nykteus 272
227, 229–236, 253, 256, 263 Nyktimos 258
Lykaon 222, 228, 229, 234, 258, 272, 273 Nymphen 13, 14, 20, 21, 32, 34, 35, 38, 40,
Lykien, Lykier 95 41, 44, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 82–84, 91, 94,
Lykodoros 100 97, 106, 256
Lykomedes 283, 284 Nysa 191
Lykosoura 222, 228
O
M Ochos 96
Maiandros 95, 97, 105 Odysseus 90, 124–126, 128, 163, 165, 171,
Mainalon 220 176, 177, 208, 277
Makedonien, Makedonier 93, 118 Oidipous 243, 246, 249
Mantineia 92, 283 Oineus 99
Marsyas 95 Okeanos 90, 96, 101, 103, 251, 257, 278
Medeia 122 Okupete 126
Megalopolis 120, 204, 219, 230, 231, 233, 282 Olbia 94
M(e)iozares 95 Olbios 259
Melanippos 244 Olympia 35, 64, 91, 104, 220, 235, 236
Melas 254 Olympos 81, 82, 138
Meles 95, 100 Olympos, Arkadien 222, 236, 237, 238
Melia 276 Orchomenos 60
Meliai 71 Oreaden 51
Melikertes 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 187–189 Oreithyia 113, 114, 126
Men 35 Oresibelos 95
Menelaos 99, 126 Orestes 39, 106
Menesthios 99 Oropos 94, 213
Mentor 165 Orpheus 135, 181
Messenien, Messenier 219, 232, 233 Orsilochos 99
Metapont 106 Ortygia 260
Meter 42, 94, 102 Oxus 96
Methana 124 Oxylos 285
Metope 92, 254
Mnesimache 106 P
Moses 52 Palaichthon 274, 278
Mothone 120 Palaimon 175, 178, 179, 183, 187–189, 194
Musen 143 Pallene 276
Mykale 119 Pamisos 92, 106, 232
Mykonos 93, 94 Pan 35, 38, 43, 44, 94, 97, 162, 166, 167, 220,
Mysien 95 229
Pandareos 126, 128, 140
N – Töchter des Pandareos 127, 128, 140
Naiaden 51, 71 Pandion 137, 140
Naupaktos 181, 191 Pandora 277
Nauplia 206 Panopeus 277
Neapolis 192 Paris 279
Neda 92, 106, 219, 230, 232, 253 Parrhasia 253, 254
Nereiden 102, 142 Parnass 173, 277
Nero 188 Parnes 32
296 Register
Parnon 219 Prokne 137

Patroklos 120 Prometheus 277, 278
Pelagonia 100, 106 Psophis 92
Pelasgos 25, 222, 228, 229, 233, 234, Ptolemaios II. Philadelphos 253
272–277, 280, 286 Pydes 100
Pelegon 100, 106 Pylos 128, 227
Peleus 90, 99, 163, 165 Pyramos 96
Peneios 93, 104 Pyriphlegeton 103
Penelope 126–128, 277 Pyrrha 257, 277
Pentelikon 32, 34 Pythios 124
Pentheus 278 Pytho, Drache 278
Pergamon 29
Periander 180 R
Perikles 60 Rharisches Feld 276
Persephone 263 Rhea 24, 221, 231, 253–256, 278
Phalanthos 177, 186, 187 Rhesos 100
Phaleron 34, 206 Rhion 180
Phasis 90, 104, 106, 116, 117 Rhodos 63, 93, 94, 275
Pheneos 93, 256, 258, 259 Rom 30, 52
Pheidias 160, 206
Phigaleia 92, 106, 262, 263, 265 S
Philipp II. 274 Samos 29, 118, 205, 206
Philipp V. 90 Samothrake 58, 63
Philomela 137 Sangarios 95
Phleius 92 Sappho 22, 133–138, 140–151
Phoibe 278 Sarapis 204
Phoinikien, Phoinikier 247, 279 Segesta 94
Phoinikous 104 Selene 142, 143
Phokaia 95 Selinus 104, 122, 204
Phoroneus 275 Semele 71, 245, 246
Phrixos 178 Sepias, Kap 113
Phrygien, Phrygier 95, 276, 277 Sikyon 92, 122
Phryne 53 Silenos 208, 211, 212, 215
Pisidien, Pisidier 95, 100 Sisyphos 189
Platon 284 Sizilien, Sizilier 93, 94, 180, 260
Pleistos 93 Skamandros 90, 95–98, 101, 105
Pnyx 32, 42 Skylla 171
Podarge 123 Smyrna 95
Pollux 104 Sokrates 13, 26
Polybios 271 Soloi 192
Polydora 99 Solymos 100
Polyphem 208, 209 Sparta, Spartaner 25, 54, 92, 104, 105, 120,
Portunus 179, 188 270, 281–286
Poseidon 33, 36, 37, 71, 82, 114, 120, 123, Spercheios 93, 99, 100, 105, 106
163, 173, 175–178, 181–184, 186–188, Sphingion 246
190, 191, 193, 256, 263 Sphinx 246
– Poseidon Hippios 33 Strymodoros 100
– Poseidon Khamaizelos 122 Strymon 93, 100
Potamodoros 100 Stymphalos 92, 259, 260–262
Praxiteles 160 Styx 103
Priene 29 Sybaris 104
Proitiden 91 Syrakus 94, 104, 260
Register 297
T Troja 105, 136, 138, 282

Tainaron 181, 183, 190 Tyndareos 124
Tanaus 104 Typhaon 278
Taras 177, 179, 183, 186, 187, 189, 194
Tarent 122, 177, 178, 180, 187, 191 V
Targitaos 100 Velia, Sizilien 104
Taygetos 122, 123, 219 Verres 94
Tegea 92, 271, 283
Telemachos 127, 176 X
Telmessos 94 Xanthos 90, 95, 98
Tembris 95 Xanthos, Pferd des Achilleus 123
Tethys 102, 103, 257 Xenokrateia 35
Thalassa 189 Xerxes 124, 126
Thales 103 Xythos 209, 210–212
Thallo 63
Thasos 116 Z
Theagenes 93 Zakynthos 219
Theben, Boiotien 24, 100, 105, 209, 227, Zephyros 119–121, 123, 125
241–243, 245–248, 278 Zethos 24, 100, 103, 246–249
Theben, Mykale 95 Zeus 23, 24, 37, 38, 42, 44, 63, 71, 90, 96,
Theisoa 230 100, 102, 120, 160, 193, 203, 206,
Thelphousa 256 219–222, 224, 227, 229, 231–236, 242,
Themistokles 126 245, 247, 253–257, 263, 264, 272, 276, 277
Thera 193 – Zeus Ammon 162
Thermos, Sizilien 104 – Zeus Anchesmios 32
Theseus 189 – Zeus Apemios 32
Thesprotien, Thesprotier 103, 104 – Zeus Astrapaios 38
Thessalien, Thessalier 93, 118, 273, 280 – Zeus Chthonios 271
Thetis 161, 163, 165 – Zeus Diktaios 253
Thrakien, Thraker 63, 93, 113, 118, 123 – Zeus Herkeios 81
Thraskias 118 – Zeus Hikesios 32
Thurioi 120, 121 – Zeus Hymettos 30
Thyamis 104 – Zeus Hypsistos 42
Thyia 121 – Zeus Kataibates 37
Tiamat 102 – Zeus Lykaios 221, 222, 224, 228, 231,
Timeles 95 253, 264
Tiryns 60 – Zeus Meilichios 42
Titane 122, 124, 125, 129 – Zeus Ombrios 30
Titanen 271, 278 – Zeus Parnethios 30
Tithonos 142 – Zeus Polieus 38, 81, 205
Triopas 274 – Zeus Semaleos 32
Tripolitanien 104 Zypern 149, 235
Tritopatreis 122, 125
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Properz
Die natürliche Umwelt begegnet den an- ösen Handelns in Griechenland besonders
tiken Griechen als segensreich, aber auch wichtig? Welche Funktion erfüllten mythi-
bedrohlich. Traditionelle Überlieferungen sche Erzählung und religiöses Ritual für
des Mythos führen dieses dynamische Po- die Konstruktion lokaler Identitäten im
tential der konkreten Lebenswelt auf das spezifischen naturräumlichen Umfeld? In
Wirken göttlicher Mächte in der Natur zu- einer neuen Perspektive auf das vielschich-
rück – und sie geben Veranlassung, mittels tige Verhältnis von Natur, Mythos und Re-
religiöser Rituale auf diese göttlichen Ge- ligion zeigen die Autorinnen und Autoren,
genüber einzuwirken. auf welche Weise Mythos und Ritual in
Althistoriker, Archäologen und Philologen der griechischen Kultur Vorstellungen und
fragen in diesem Band nach den Elementen Handlungsstrategien für Individuum und
des Naturraums, die in Griechenland un- Polis bereitstellten, um den Herausforde-
mittelbare religiöse Verehrung erfuhren. rungen der natürlichen Umwelt aktiv und
Welche Orte in der Natur waren als Schau- erfolgreich zu begegnen.
plätze mythischen Geschehens und religi-
www.steiner-verlag.de
Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN 978-3-515-12208-5
9 7 83 5 1 5 1 2 2085

Nature - Myth - Religion in Ancient Greece: Natur - Mythos - Religion Im Antiken Griechenland

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Natur – Mythos – Religion

Herausgegeben von Tanja Susanne Scheer

Herausgegeben von Tanja Susanne Scheer

Franz Steiner Verlag

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Göttingen, Althistorisches Seminar, im November 2018

1 DFG GZ SCHE 421/3-1

Allgemeines Abkürzungsverzeichnis ................................................................. 9

I BEGRIFFE, KONZEPTE, METHODEN

II DIE VEREHRUNG DER ‚NATUR‘ BEI DEN GRIECHEN?

III NATUR ALS SCHAUPLATZ MYTHISCHEN GESCHEHENS

David Gilman Romano

IV NATUR, MYTHOS UND RELIGION IN DER KONSTRUKTION

Anna Christina Neff

Register .............................................................................................................. 291

BMC Thessaly P. Gardner (Hrsg.), A Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Brit-

I. Smyrna G. von Petzl (Hrsg.), Die Inschriften von Smyrna, 2 Bde.,

BEGRIFFE, KONZEPTE, METHODEN

Der Dichter des homerischen Hymnus an Aphrodite beschreibt die Elemente

34 Polinskaya 2013: 21.

agency zuschreiben, sie als verehrungswürdige Mächte personifizieren oder aber in

39 Riesebrodt 2007: 39.

wahrgenommen – eine animistische Vorstellung. Außerhalb dieses Zeitpunktes do-

Aufmerksamkeit gerückt hatten. Könnte mythische Erzählung in diesem Fall viel-

menschliche Strategie, möglichst aktiv Einfluss auf Unwägbares zu nehmen und es

42 Vgl. oben Anm. 1.

1 Filges 2015, referring to further examples for comparable sanctuaries.

2. THE NATURAL SETTING OF ATHENS

2.1. Mountains and Hills

The plain on which Athens is located covers an area of 22 by 12 kilometres and is

Fig. 1: The Setting of Athens in Attica, adapted by author, graphics by H. Birk.

direction. A famous passage from Pausanias8 mentions a number of single statues

2.2. Rivers and Springs

3. THE HEART OF ATHENS: THE AKROPOLIS

4. THE SLOPES OF THE ACROPOLIS

5. AREOPAGUS: ARES AND ATHENA AREIA

6. THE CIVIC AND POLITICAL CORE OF ATHENS: THE AGORA

7. SOUTHWEST AREA: HILL OF THE NYMPHS/PNYX

Fig. 4: Pan at Ilissos; D-DAI-ATH-Athen-Varia-0311 (photographer: unknown).

70 Compare Larson 2001.

72 Ekroth 2010: 160; Greco 2014a: 981–986 (R. Di Cesare).

Sideris, A. 2014: Αντίκυρα, Athens.

Richard Gordon, Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt

Schiller’s Die Götter Griechenlands, from his Philosophische Dichtungen (1788),

2 See e. g. Marchand 2003; Kippenberg 1997: 143–162; Schöll 1907.

pains to modulate in the second version, published in 1800.14 Here we encounter

2. NATURE IN LATE HUMANISM

3. THE TOPOS OF THE ‘NATURAL GREEKS’

21 Plin. HN 12.2; Apul. Flor. 1.1; Lucian. sacr. 10.

In 1843, we find the speaker at a Gymnasiumsfeier in Prussian Liegnitz (now Leg-

In all these instances, we find Sachphilologie and historical realism – in a word,

5. THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF NEO-HUMANISM

6. THE ABANDONMENT OF COMPARATIVISM

48 Cf. Landfester 1988: 68–72.

Christian August Lobeck (1781–1860), erstwhile pupil of J. G. Hermann in Leipzig

7. PSEUDO-HISTORICISM TO THE RESCUE

51 Creuzer 1810–12,2: 419.

8. ABANDONING MYTHOLOGY AS THE REFERENCE-POINT

practices not to explore myths or meanings.59 Such a move corresponds to a wider

59 So already Wachsmuth 1846: 433–625; the deliberate rejection of an ‘internal’ in favour of an

9. WHICH WAY TO GO?

The onset of large-scale industrialisation is conventionally dated to c.1850. It was

65 See the excellent account by Cioc 2002: 47–59.