THE SANCTUARIES IN THE CITADEL.
τὰ γὰρ ἱερὰ ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἀκροπόλει καὶ ἄλλων θεῶν ἐστί.
_There are sanctuaries in the citadel itself, those of other deities as
well (as The Goddess)._
Needless difficulties have been raised about this sentence, and, quite
unnecessarily, a lacuna in the text has been supposed[65]. Though the
form of the sentence is compressed, the plain literal meaning is clear.
The first piece of evidence that Thucydides states is that in the
‘citadel itself other divinities “as well” have sanctuaries.’ To what
does this ‘as well’ refer? Obviously to ‘The Goddess’ mentioned in the
clause next but one before as presiding over the Synoikia, ‘The Goddess’
who was so well known that to name her was needless.
It has been proposed to read the sentence thus: ‘There are (ancient)
sanctuaries in the citadel itself both “of the goddess Athena” and of
other deities as well.’ This is true, but it is not what Thucydides says
and not what he means. He does not desire to make any statement whatever
about the sanctuaries of Athene or their antiquity; both propositions are
for the moment irrelevant; he _wishes_ to say what he _does_ say, that
‘there are sanctuaries in the Acropolis itself, those of other deities as
well (as The Goddess).’ It is the ‘other deities’ not ‘The Goddess’ who
are the point.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
But Thucydides always leaves perhaps rather much to the intelligence
of his readers. It may fairly be asked, why is the existence of these
sanctuaries of ‘other deities’ an argument in support of the statement
that the Acropolis was the ancient city? Once fairly asked, the question
answers itself. The Acropolis in the time of Thucydides was a hill sacred
to Athena, it was almost her _temenos_; the other gods, Apollo, Zeus,
Aphrodite, had their most important sanctuaries down below, all over
the great ‘wheel-shaped’ city. Athena had from time immemorial, it was
believed, dwelt on the hill; any statement about her shrines would prove
nothing one way or the other. But in the old days, before there was any
‘down below,’ any ‘wheel-shaped’ city, if the ‘other gods’ were to be
city gods at all they must have their shrines up above. Such shrines
there were on the Acropolis itself; this made it additionally probable
that the Acropolis _was_ the ancient city. The reasoning is quite clear
and relevant, and the argument is just the sort that an Athenian of the
time of Thucydides, with his head full of the dominant Athena, and apt to
forget the ‘other gods,’ would need to have recalled to his mind.
The citadel of classical days, with its ‘old Athena temple,’ Parthenon
and its Erechtheion lies before us in Fig. 16. The ‘old Athena
temple’ and the Parthenon belong to ‘The Goddess,’ where then are the
‘sanctuaries in the citadel itself which belong to other deities’ of
which Thucydides is thinking?
For such we naturally look to the north side of the Acropolis, where lay
the ancient king’s palace (Fig. 2, C). About that old palace westward
there lay clustered a number of early altars, ‘tokens’ (σημεῖα), sacred
places and things (ἱερά). Later these were enclosed in the complex
building known to us as the Erechtheion. It is by studying the plan
of this later temple that we can best understand the grouping and
significance of the earlier sanctuaries.
The Erechtheion as we have it now is shown in Fig. 17. Its plan is
obviously anomalous, and has puzzled generations of architects. It
was reserved for Professor Dörpfeld, with his imaginative insight, to
divine that the temple, as we have it, is incomplete; and, further, to
reconstruct conjecturally the complete design. In the light of this
reconstruction the Erechtheion, as we now possess it, became for the
first time intelligible.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.]
[Illustration: FIG. 18.]
This reconstruction is shown in Fig. 18. The temple in the original plan
was intended to consist of two cellas, each furnished with a pronaos; the
east cella is marked on the plan ‘Athena-Polias Tempel,’ the west cella
is marked ‘opisthodom,’ _i.e._ opisthodomos or back chamber. Between
these two cellas is a building divided into three chambers, marked in
the plan ‘Poseidon-Erechth(eus)-Tempel.’ The middle chamber of the three
is entered by two porches, a large one to the north, a smaller one—the
famous Karyatid porch—to the south. This middle chamber alone of the
three was probably provided with a low roof as shown in the sketch in
Fig. 19. A building so complex cries aloud for explanation. It has become
symmetrical, but what is its significance? What for us its connection
with the sanctuaries of ‘other deities as well’?
[Illustration: FIG. 19.]
To understand the new temple we must go back to the times before it was
built[66]. It was intended—though ultimately this intention was not
fully accomplished—to replace other existing sanctuaries, and these were
first the old temple of Athena, and second the old temple of Erechtheus.
The ‘old temple of Athena’ appears on the plan (Fig. 18) to the south
of the Erechtheion; the very scanty remains of the old temple of
Poseidon-Erechtheus are seen running diagonally under the western part of
the new Erechtheion.
The ‘old temple of Athena’ consisted, it is clear, of two parts: to the
east the actual cella of the goddess; to the west, divided into three
chambers, the opisthodomos or treasure-house. We are concerned wholly, it
must be noted, with the ‘other deities,’ not with Athena; for from the
consideration of Athena and her sanctuaries Thucydides has dispensed us;
but the arrangement of the new Erechtheion cannot be understood without
some reference to the disposition of the old temple of Athena.
Perikles intended to demolish not only the old Erechtheion but also the
old temple of Athena, and to supplant them by a common sanctuary. The
east cella in the old Athena temple was to be replaced by an east cella
for the goddess in the new; the opisthodomos to the west of the old
temple by an opisthodomos to the west of the new. Between these parts of
the old Athena temple three chambers were to be devoted to replacing
the old Erechtheion. It is difficult by help of ground-plans to realize
the different levels of the temple, but those who have been on the spot
will remember that the new cella of Athena is on the same level as the
old. The Erechtheion with its different levels is a striking contrast to
the Parthenon, where, as we have already seen, the slope of the ground
was levelled up and that at enormous expense. This preservation of
different levels in the Erechtheion is in itself sufficient evidence of
the sanctity of the different cults to be enshrined. The longer complex
structure, with its different levels and its five chambers, was intended,
as Perikles planned it, to be entered by the two porches, north and
south. Structurally these would reduce the effect of undue length, but
they had also another purpose—the north porch contained the trident mark
of Poseidon, the south the grave of Kekrops.
The plan of Perikles was never completed. By some one’s machinations,
whether of architect, priest, or politician we do not know, he was—as
before in the building of the Propylaea—frustrated, and obliged to be
content with a truncated scheme. The new Erechtheion almost certainly had
been begun before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. When Perikles
found that his plan was not accepted in full, he did not design a new
temple but made a compromise obviously intended to be provisional. He was
again frustrated in the execution even of this modified scheme, which was
not completed till much later. The Erechtheion that we know has the east
cella for Athena complete and the two porches, but two only of the three
intended midway chambers were built, and the westernmost one, as appears
on the plan, is slightly reduced in size. The west cella was never even
begun. It is probable that Perikles never succeeded in transferring
the image of Athena from her old temple to the new cella, but this
question[67] it is not necessary we should here decide.
* * * * *
Setting aside those portions of the Erechtheion which were intended to
supply the place of the old temple of Athena, namely the east cella and
the proposed opisthodomos to the west, we have now to consider what
were the ancient sanctities (ἱερά) of ‘other deities’ which the three
central chambers and the two porches were planned to enshrine. They are
as follows:—
1. The hero-tomb of Kekrops.
2. The Pandroseion.
3. Three ‘tokens’ (σημεῖα).
_a._ A sacred olive tree.
_b._ A ‘sea’ called after Erechtheus.
_c._ A trident mark sacred to Poseidon.
1. _The hero-tomb of Kekrops._
We begin with Kekrops because, by almost uniform tradition, with Kekrops
Athens began. The _Parian Chronicle_[68] sets him at the head of the
kings of Athens, and the date assigned to him is 1582 B.C., before
Kranaus, before Amphictyon, before Erechtheus. Thucydides[69] names
him as the typical early Athenian king. ‘Under Kekrops and the first
kings,’ he writes; Apollodorus[70] says definitely, ‘the indigenous
Kekrops, whose body was compounded of man and snake, first reigned over
Attica, and the country which before was called Attica was from him named
Kekropia.’ Herodotus[71] looked back to a day before Athens was Athens
and when there were no Athenians at all: ‘The Athenians,’ he says, ‘at
the time when the Pelasgians held that which is now called Hellas, were
Pelasgians and they were called Kranai; under the rule of Kekrops they
were called Kekropidae; but when Erechtheus succeeded they changed their
name for that of Athenians, and when Ion, son of Xuthus, became general,
they took from him the name of Ionians.’
Herodotus touches the truth. Kekrops was not the first king of _Athens_,
he was king before there was any Athens, long before. He was the ancestor
of the clan of the Kekropidae. At some very early date—the Parian marble
may very likely be roughly right—the Kekropidae got possession of the
Acropolis and called it Kekropia. Kekropis was the name not only of one
of the four original Attic tribes but also of one of the later ten[72].
But though the clan kept its old name it lost the headship of Kekropia.
Kekrops had only one son, Erysichthon[73], and he died childless; that
is the mythological way of saying that the kingship changed families.
Then came the time when the leading clan were Erechtheidae, descendants
not of Kekrops, but of Erechtheus. These are Homer’s days. He knows
nothing of Kekrops and Kekropia, only of ‘the people of Erechtheus[74].’
Then still later came another change; those who once were the people
of Erechtheus became the people of Athena, Athenians. But Kekrops and
Kekropia were first, probably long first. Kekrops is the hero-founder,
the typical old-world king. It is Kekrops whom Bdelycleon[75], tormented
by modernity, invokes:
‘Kekrops, oh my king and hero, thou that hast the dragon’s feet.’
Kekrops was half man, half snake. His ‘double nature’ gave logographers
and even philosophers much trouble. Was it because he had the
understanding of a man and the strength of a dragon, was it because,
at first a good king, he later became a tyrant, or because he knew two
languages (Egyptian and Greek), or because he instituted marriage? The
curious will find it all in Tzetzes[76]. Eager anthropologists have
seized on Kekrops as a totem-snake, but the average orthodox mythologist
is content to see in his snake-tail the symbol of the ‘earth-born’
Athenians. This interpretation grazes the truth, but just misses the
point. The hybrid form is of course transitional. Kekrops is sloughing
off his snake form[77] in deference to the inveterate anthropomorphism
of the Greek. He was once a complete snake, not because he was a
totem-snake, not because he was an ‘autochthonous hero,’ but because he
was a dead man and all dead persons of importance, all heroes, become
snakes.
No one has done so much to obscure the early history of Athenian religion
as Athena herself, by her constant habit of taking over the attributes
of other divinities[78]. The eponymous hero of each victorious tribe,
Kekrops and Erechtheus in turn, is a home-keeping, home-guarding snake
(οἰκουρὸς ὄφις). But by the time of Herodotus[79] the sacred snake
supposed to live on and guard the Acropolis lives in the sanctuary of
Athena, and is almost the embodiment of the goddess herself; when the
snake refused the honey-cake it was taken as an omen that ‘the goddess
had deserted the Acropolis.’ By the time of Pheidias the snake is just
an attribute of the Parthenos, and was set to crouch beneath her shield.
But Pausanias[80] has an inkling of the truth; he says, ‘close beside
the spear is a snake: this snake is probably Erichthonios.’ The real
relation of goddess and snake was simply this: the original pair of
divinities worshipped in many local cults were a matriarchal goddess, a
local form of earth-goddess, and the local hero of the place in snake
form as her male correlative; such a pair were Demeter and the snake-king
Kenchreus at Eleusis[81], such were Chryse and her home-keeping nameless
guardian snake on Lemnos[82], such were Eileithyia and Sosipolis at
Olympia[83], such were ‘the goddess’ and her successive heroes Kekrops
and Erichthonios or Erechtheus; only, as will later be seen, in this last
pair another goddess preceded Athena.
* * * * *
Kekrops then was a dead, divinized hero embodied as a snake; the natural
place for his worship was his tomb, probably the earliest sanctuary of
the Acropolis. Clement[84] of Alexandria says, ‘the tomb of Kekrops is
at Athens on the Acropolis,’ and Theodoretus[85], quoting Antiochos,
adds that it is ‘by the Poliouchos herself,’ the goddess of the city. We
might safely assume that a hero-tomb was a sanctuary, but we have express
evidence: in an honorary decree[86] respecting the ‘ephebi’ of the
deme of Kekrops it is ordered that the decree shall be set up ‘in the
sanctuary of Kekrops,’ and from another decree[87] we learn the name of a
‘priest of Kekrops.’
But our most definite evidence as to where the tomb of Kekrops lay comes
from the famous Chandler inscription[88] now in the British Museum. This
inscription is exactly dated by the archonship of Diokles (409-408 B.C.).
It is a statement of the exact condition in which the overseers of the
unfinished temple took over the work, what part was half finished, what
unwrought and unchannelled (_i.e._ columns), and what were completely
finished but not set up in their place. The various parts of the temple
are described as near or opposite to such and such an ancient shrine, and
fortunately among these descriptions occur more than one mention of the
Kekropion. The following[89] is decisive: ‘Concerning the porch beside
the Kekropion the roof stones above the Korae must be....’ The porch of
the Karyatids, or to call it by its ancient[90] name, the porch of the
Korae, the Maidens, was beside, close to, the Kekropion.
So far all is certain. The tomb of Kekrops was close to the porch of the
Maidens; but in which direction? We should expect it to be north-west,
because in that direction, as will be immediately (p. 48) shown, lay the
precinct of Pandrosos, daughter of Kekrops. Professor Dörpfeld[91] places
it conjecturally at D (Fig. 16), and the site is almost certain. It has
been already noted that the west wall of the present Erechtheion was set
back a short distance within its original plan. It may have been to avoid
trenching on the tomb of Kekrops. Moreover, at the south end of this
wall there is a great gap in the ancient masonry of about 10 ft. long by
10 high. The gap is evident, though it was filled up by modern masonry.
It is spanned by an enormous ancient block of stone, 15 ft. by 5. Here
probably was buried the serpent king.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.*]
With the serpent king and his prophylactic tomb clearly in our minds, we
turn with new eyes to examine certain fragments of sculpture discovered
in the recent excavations. Nothing perhaps caused more surprise when
these fragments came to light than the size and splendour of the
snake-figures. We have already seen (p. 27) that the western pediment of
the Hecatompedon held two sea-monsters, a Triton and Typhon; the eastern
pediment held two land-snakes of even greater magnificence. The design of
this pediment as restored by Dr. Wiegand[92] is as follows (Fig. 19*). In
the apex is seated Athena; to her right hand a figure seated and crowned,
and therefore a king or a god; this figure survives, but the figure which
must have balanced him to the left of the goddess is lost for ever.
Athena is supreme; the surviving figure is usually called Zeus, but from
his subordinate place it seems to me that it is more likely he is either
a subordinate god, Poseidon, or a local king, Erechtheus. Possibly Athena
is seated between Poseidon and Erechtheus.
It is, after all, not the seated protagonists of the pediment, be they
Olympians or local kings, who most interest us, but the two great snakes
who in the angles keep watch and ward. These snakes are often described
as ‘decorative’ or ‘space-filling.’ But surely they are too alive, too
large, too dominant to be mere accessories. One of them is shown in
Fig. 19* in detail, so far as he can be represented by an uncoloured
reproduction. In the original he is blue and orange, and his companion in
the other angle is a vivid emerald green.
Herodotus[93], it is true, speaks of one snake only as guardian of
the Acropolis, the snake who when the land was beset by the Persians,
would not eat its honey-cake; but then Herodotus writes as if he had no
personal knowledge: ‘the Athenians _say_ there is a great snake.’ In the
story of Erichthonios tradition, and good Attic tradition, knew of two.
Hermes in the _Ion_ of Euripides[94] says, referring to Erichthonios,
‘To him
What time she gave him to the Agraulid maids
Athena bound for watch two guardian snakes;
In memory whereof Erechtheus’ sons
In Athens still upon their nursing babes
Put serpents wrought of gold’;
and on the well-known vase in the British museum[95] depicting the scene,
two snakes appear. We need not say that the two snakes of the pediment
are a duplicated Kekrops, but we may and do say that they are two
hero-snakes, guardians of the city, and we may further _conjecture_ that
they were an old pair, male and female. This conjecture brings us to the
woman counterpart of Kekrops, the snake king, his ‘daughter’ Pandrosos.
2. _The Pandroseion._
Kekrops and his faithful daughter Pandrosos were not far sundered. The
situation of the Pandroseion is, within narrow limits, certain. It was
an enclosure to the west of the present Erechtheion. The invaluable
Chandler inscription[96] speaks of ‘the pillars on the wall towards
the Pandroseion.’ This must refer to the west wall, on which were four
engaged pillars at a height of about 12 feet from the ground. In another
inscription[97], found during the pulling down of the ‘Odysseus’ Bastion,
mention is made of two pediments, one towards the east and the other
‘towards the Pandroseion.’
We know, then, certainly that the Pandroseion was west of the present
Erechtheion. We know also that it was close to the ‘old temple of
Athena.’ Pausanias[98], in passing from the one to the other, distinctly
says: ‘The temple of Pandrosos adjoins the temple of Athena.’ As
Pausanias distinctly says there was a temple (ναός), not merely a temenos
or sanctuary (ἱερόν), it is disappointing that excavations have yielded
no trace.
In actual cultus and topography we have found Kekrops side by side with
one woman figure, Pandrosos. In current mythology he has three daughters,
of whom is told the thrice familiar story of the child and the chest[99].
It will repay examination.
The child Erichthonios is born from the Earth in the presence of Kekrops.
His real mother, Earth, gives him up to the tendance of Athena; such is
the scene familiar on terra-cottas and vase-paintings. Athena places him
in a chest or wicker-basket, and gives him to the three daughters of
Kekrops, Pandrosos, Herse, Aglauros, with strict orders not to open the
chest. The two sisters, Herse and Aglauros (or according to some versions
all three), overcome by curiosity open the chest, and see the child with
a snake or snakes coiled about him. In terror at the snake, who pursues
them, and fearing the anger of Athena, they cast themselves down from the
Acropolis.
The story is manifestly absurd, and in some of the elements plainly
aetiological.
The suicide of the disobedient sisters is easily explicable. Half way
down the Acropolis, below the steepest portion of the rock, were a number
of shrines and tombs. Why were they there? Clearly because the persons
after whom they were named had thrown themselves down, or been thrown
down, from the top. Such a shrine was the tomb of Talos[100], near the
Asklepieion. Daedalos was jealous of Talos, and threw him down from the
rock. Such was also the shrine of Aegeus[101], below the temple of Nike
Apteros, where Aegeus in despair at the sight of the black sail cast
himself down. Such was the sanctuary of Aglauros[102] on the north side
of the Acropolis. Somebody must have cast herself down to account for the
situation. When one sister only is mentioned she is naturally Aglauros,
but all three are often allowed to commit suicide for completeness sake.
Of the three sisters, Herse was not a real person[103]; she has no
shrine, she is only a heroine invented to account for the ceremony of the
Hersephoria. The cult of Aglauros is below the Acropolis and manifestly
separate from that of Pandrosos, and Pandrosos alone for the present need
be considered.
* * * * *
Pausanias, after stating that the temple of Pandrosos adjoins that of
Athena, says that she was ‘the only one of the sisters who was blameless
in the affair of the chest intrusted to them.’ As Pandrosos had a shrine
so revered it would have been awkward to make her out guilty. He then,
without telling us whether or no he perceives any connection, proceeds
to describe ‘a thing which caused me the greatest astonishment and is
not generally known.’ The thing that so astonished Pausanias was the
ceremony of the Arrephoria[104]. Maidens called Arrephoroi bore upon
their heads certain sacred things covered up; these they carried by night
by a natural underground passage to a precinct near to that of Aphrodite
in the Gardens. There they left what they had been carrying, and brought
back other things also wrapped up and unknown. From the analogy of other
mystery cults we may be sure that the objects carried were some sort of
fertility-charms, and they would be carried in a chest or wicker basket,
a _cista_ or a _liknon_, veiled that the sacred thing might not be seen.
The girl-Arrephoroi might not look into the sacred chests. Why? The
answer was ready, the goddess they served, Pandrosos, had also her sacred
chest into which she and she only had not looked.
The personality of Pandrosos is hard to seize and fix. One thing is
clear; ‘Pandrosos’ is not a mere ‘title of Athena.’ She manifestly, as
daughter of Kekrops, belongs to that earlier stratum before the dominance
of The Goddess. Later Athena absorbed her as she absorbed everything
else. In official inscriptions she usually comes after Athena, and is
clearly a separate personality. Thus the epheboi[105] offered their
‘sacrifices at departure (ἐξιτήρια) on the Acropolis to Athena Polias and
to Kourotrophos and to Pandrosos,’ and women swore by her, though not so
often as by Aglauros. We have one ritual particular that looked as though
between her and Athene there was at some time friction. Harpocration[106]
in explaining the rare word ‘ἐπίβοιον,’ ‘that which is after the ox,’
says, quoting from Philochoros, that it was the name given to a sacrifice
to Pandrosos. If any one sacrificed an ox to Athena it was necessary to
sacrifice a sheep to Pandrosos. Pandrosos was in danger of being effaced
by Athena, and some one was determined this should not be; all that ‘The
Goddess’ could secure was precedence.
* * * * *
We have found, then, a maiden goddess who was there before ‘The Goddess,’
nay, who may have herself been ‘The Goddess’ before Athena claimed the
title. Pandrosos belongs to the early order of the Kekropidae, before the
dwellers on the hill became Athenians. It is possible that her presence
throws some light on the beautiful, but as yet enigmatic figures of the
‘Maidens’ who have been restored to us by the recent excavations. Who and
what are they?
The ‘Maiden’ whose figure is chosen for the frontispiece of this book
was found alone, somewhat later than the rest, in October, 1888, not
like the others (p. 16) North of the Erechtheion, but near the wall of
Kimon to the South, between the precinct of Artemis-Brauronia and the
West front of the Parthenon. There is a certain fitness in this, because
though in dress, adornments, colouring, general type, she is like the
rest, her great beauty will always make her a thing apart. The torso and
head were found separate, and about the torso there is nothing specially
noteworthy. The unique loveliness is all of the face, and it escapes
analysis. There are, however, peculiarities worth noting. The right eye
is set much more obliquely than the left. This gives an irregular charm
and individuality; the unusually high forehead emphasizes the austere
virginal air, and the same may be said of the straight chest and long
thin throat. But the secret of her beauty is still kept; standing as she
does now among the other ‘Maidens,’ she is a creature from another world,
and for all their beauty the rest look but a kindly mob of robust mothers
and genial housewives.
The statues in question, which now number upwards of fifty, have been
called by the name ‘Maidens,’ a name current among archaeologists. It
is open to objection, because ‘maidens’ (κόραι) meant in the official
language of the inscription already quoted[107] the ‘Caryatid’ figures of
the Erechtheion. The word has, however, one great advantage, it is vague
and commits the user of it to no theory as to the significance of the
statues. The word _korè_ meant to the Greek not only maiden, but doll or
puppet or statue of a maiden. We need only recall the familiar epigram
with the dedication to Artemis[108]:
Maid of the Mere, Timaretè here brings
Before she weds, her cymbals, her dear ball
To thee a Maid, her maiden offerings,
Her snood, her maiden dolls their clothes and all.
Here the _korai_ are actual _dolls_, but in Attic inscriptions we
find the word _korè_ used of a statue[109], thus, ‘a korè of gold on
a pillar’; or again in a dedication to Poseidon, ‘he dedicated as
firstfruits this _korè_.’ A _korè_ is one form of an _agalma_, a thing of
delight.
The statues, then, may be called ‘Maidens,’ but the word is too vague to
help us much as to their significance, and it is their significance,
who and what they are, not their value in the history of art that here
concerns us.
The question is generally put thus, Are they statues of Athena, or are
they statues of mortal women dedicated to her? priestesses or merely
worshippers? Statues of Athena they are, I think, certainly _not_; they
have neither helmet, spear, shield, nor even aegis. Athena may appear
sporadically without characteristic attributes, but that a series of
fifty statues of Athena should be dedicated without a single hint of
anything that made Athena to be Athena is scarcely possible.
Are they, then, mortal maidens? For priestesses their number, restricted
as they are by style to a short period of years, is too many. If they
are mere mortal worshippers, it is at least strange that in the only
two cases where we have inscribed bases they are dedicated by men. In
one case we have the simple statement: ‘Euthydikos son of Thalearchus
dedicated[110]’; on the other, Antenor, it is stated, makes the statue,
Nearchos dedicates it as ‘firstfruits of his works[111].’ Would Nearchos
dedicate a statue of mortal woman as ‘firstfruits of his works’? We seem
to be at an _impasse_.
But there is surely a third solution open to us. The maidens need not be
mortal because they are not Athena. There was a time before the armed
maiden with spear and shield and aegis came from Libya or the East, a
time when another maiden ruled upon the hill and was ‘The Goddess.’
Is it not at least possible that the maidens are made in her image,
and that when the armed goddess took possession of the hill, when the
ancient Kekropidae and Erechtheidae became Athenaioi, the maidens of
the old order passed into the service of the maiden of the new? that we
must think of their type as shaped at least for the worship of Pandrosos
rather than Athena? The type of the warlike goddess was not fashionable
in Greece. The Greeks, if any people, held firmly the doctrine that
A woman armed makes war upon herself.
The woman armed and disarmed, the Amazon in defeat, they made beautiful
and poignantly human, but the woman armed and triumphant, Athena
Nikephoros, remained a cold unreality. The _korè_ of Eleusis is not
armed, but at Corinth and at Sparta there was that strangest of all
sights—the image of Aphrodite armed[112]. Whence she came is, as will
later be seen (p. 109), not doubtful. In Cythera[113], Pausanias tells
us, ‘the sanctuary of the Heavenly Goddess is most holy, and of all
Greek sanctuaries of Aphrodite this is most ancient. The goddess is
represented by a wooden image armed.’ The Cythereans called their armed
Oriental goddess Cytherea. Did the Athenians call the same armed goddess
‘Athenaia’? Be that as it may, before her coming they worshipped the
_un_armed maiden.
* * * * *
Before we pass from Kekrops and Pandrosos to the later order under
Erechtheus, the traditional events reputed of the reign of Kekrops must
be noted. There are three:—
1. The contest between Athena and Poseidon, of which Kekrops
acted as judge.
2. The introduction of the worship of Zeus.
3. The institution of marriage.
The discussion of the contest between Athena and Poseidon really belongs
to the Erechtheid period, and must stand over till then. The introduction
of the worship of Zeus and the institution of marriage are probably but
the religious and social forces of the same advance, and may be taken
together.
In front of the Erechtheion, Pausanias[114] tells us, was an altar
dedicated to Zeus Hypatos, on which no living thing was sacrificed, but
only cakes (πέλανοι). Pausanias does not here say that the altar was
dedicated by Kekrops, but, in his discussion of Arcadia[115] and the
human sacrifice of Lycaon, he says, ‘Kekrops was the first who gave to
Zeus the title of Supreme, and he would not sacrifice anything that had
life, but he burned on the altar the local cakes which the Athenians to
this day call _pelanoi_.’ What probably happened was just the reverse of
what Pausanias describes: there was an old altar to ‘the Supreme,’ the
_Hypatos_; at some time or other this was taken over by the immigrant
Zeus; the shift was attributed to Kekrops.
Zeus was essentially of the patriarchal order, _i.e._ of a condition of
things in which the father rather than the mother is the head of the
family, gives his name to the children, and holds the family property
and conducts the family worship. Nothing could be more patriarchal than
the constitution of the Homeric Olympus. Such a condition of things is
necessarily connected with some form of the social institution known
to us as marriage. Accordingly we learn from Athenaeus[116], quoting
from Clearchus the pupil of Aristotle, that ‘At Athens Kekrops was the
first to join one woman to one man: before connections had taken place
at random and marriages were in common—hence as some think Kekrops was
called “Twyformed” (διφυής) since before his day people did not know
who their fathers were on account of the number’ (of possible parents).
The story of the contest between Athene and Poseidon was later mixed up
with the same tradition of the shift from patriarchy to matriarchy. St
Augustine[117] says that the women voted for Athena, and their punishment
was to be, among other things, that ‘no one was hereafter to be called by
his mother’s name.’
* * * * *
We pass to the three tokens (σημεῖα), the first of which is
_a._ The sacred olive-tree.
The holy bloom of the olive, whose hoar leaf
High in the shadowy shrine of Pandrosos
Hath honour of us all.
Apollodorus[118] says, ‘After him (Poseidon) came Athena, and having
made Kekrops witness of her seizure, she planted the olive which is now
shown in the Pandroseion.’ A ‘seizure’ indeed, and not from Poseidon but
from the elder goddess Pandrosos. Athena is manifestly an interloper;
why should Pandrosos have other people’s olive trees planted in _her_
precinct? The olive is but one of the many ‘tokens’ or attributes that
Athena wrested to herself. It was there before her, Kekrops quite rightly
holds it in his hand.
The olive-tree grew in the Pandroseion, it also grew in the older
Erechtheion. Herodotus[119] says, ‘There is on this Acropolis a temple
of Erechtheus, who is called earth-born, and in it are an olive-tree and
a sea which, according to the current tradition among the Athenians,
Poseidon and Athenaia planted as tokens when they contended for the
country.’ There is no discrepancy, the Pandroseion must have been
included in the older Erechtheion.
By a most happy chance, among the fragments of decorative sculpture
left us is one on which is carved ‘the holy bloom of the olive,’ in
three delicate sprays. The real sacred olive was old and stunted and
crooked[120], but the artist went his own way. The fragments are grouped
together in a conjectural restoration[121] in Fig. 20. All that is
certain is that we have a Doric building and adjacent to it the wall
of a precinct over which the olive is growing. Against the wall of the
building is the figure of a woman in purple, wearing peplos and himation.
Against the wall of the precinct once stood a man. Only one leg of him is
left. The two figures might be part of a procession. The woman, standing
full face, _may_ belong to the same composition, but this is not certain.
She wears a red chiton and bluish-green himation. On her head is a pad
(τύλη), for she is carrying some burden. One of her arms is lifted to
support it. We think instinctively of the Arrephoroi. The figure, though
very rudely hewn, has something of the lovely seriousness of the other
‘maidens.’ The whole composition may have belonged to a pediment of the
earlier Erechtheion, but its pictorial character makes it more probably
a votive relief for dedication there, and representing some scene of
worship at the ancient shrine.
* * * * *
Within the older Erechtheion we have further
(_b_) A cistern or ‘sea,’ called after Erechtheus. With it may
be taken
(_c_) A trident-mark, sacred to Poseidon.
Fortunately about the position of these two sacred things there is no
doubt. Underneath the pavement of the westernmost chamber (_c_) of the
present Erechtheion is a large cistern[122] hewn in the rock, and at A in
the North porch are the marks of the trident.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
The two things together, the sea-water in the cistern and the
trident-mark, were both associated with Poseidon. Pausanias[123] says
they were said to be ‘the evidence produced by Poseidon in support of
his claim to the country.’ Apollodorus[124] says, ‘Poseidon came first
to Attica and smote with his trident in the middle of the Acropolis and
produced the sea which they now call Erechtheïs.’
Athena produced the olive-tree, Poseidon the salt well and the
trident-mark as ‘tokens’ or evidence of their claim. This is manifest
aetiology. There had been on the Acropolis from time immemorial certain
things reputed sacred, a gnarled olive-tree, a brackish well, three holes
in a rock. It was the obvious policy of any divinity who wished to be
worshipped at Athens to annex these tokens. Pandrosos had the olive-tree
before Athena. The name of the well Erechtheïs shows that it was a
‘token’ of Erechtheus rather than of Poseidon.
Such sacred trees, such ‘seas,’ such curious marks existed elsewhere;
Pausanias[125] himself notes in another inland place, Aphrodisias in
Caria, there was a sea-well. What impressed him as noteworthy about the
well at Athens was that when the South wind was blowing it gave forth
the sound of waves, but then as he does not say if he waited for a South
wind, the ‘sound of waves’ may have been a detail supplied by the guides.
* * * * *
The trident-mark belongs to a class of sacred things that will repay
somewhat closer attention. Fresh light has been thrown upon it by a
recent discovery. In examining the roof of the North Porch, with a view
to repairs, it was observed that immediately above the trident-mark an
opening in the roof had been purposely left. The object is clear; the
sacred token had to be left open to the sky; it had to be _sub divo_.
This is manifestly more appropriate to a sky-god than to a sea-god.
Our best analogies are drawn from Roman sources. Ovid[126] tells us that
when the new Capitol was being built a whole multitude of divinities were
consulted by augury as to whether they would withdraw to make place for
Jupiter. They tactfully consented, all but old Terminus. He stood fast,
remaining in his shrine, and still possesses a temple in common with
mighty Jupiter:
And still, that he may see only heaven’s signs
In the roof above him is a little hole.
When place was wanted for an Olympian, be he Zeus or Poseidon or Athena,
the elder divinities were not always so courteously consulted. We do not
even know whose open air token Poseidon seized.
Servius[127], commenting on ‘the steadfast stone of the Capitol,’ tells
the same story. There was a time when there was no temple of Jupiter,
that is there was no Jupiter. Augury said that the Tarpeian mount was
the place to build one, but on it were already a number of shrines of
other divinities. Ceremonies were performed to ‘call out’ by means of
sacrifice the other divinities to other temples. They all willingly
migrated, only Terminus declined to move: this was taken as a sign that
the Roman empire would be for all eternity, and hence in the Capitoline
temple the part of the roof immediately above, which looks down on the
very stone of Terminus, was open, _for to Terminus it is not allowable
to sacrifice save in the open air_. Terminus was just a sacred stone or
herm, incidentally to the practical Romans a boundary god. Another Roman
god, Fidius[128], had in his temple a roof with a hole in it (perforatum
tectum), and Fulgur, Caelum, Sol and Luna had all to dwell in hypaethral
temples[129]. Wherever the lightning struck was in Greece holy ground,
to be fenced in but open always above to the god who had sanctified it,
to the ‘descender,’ Kataibates[130]. Kataibates became Zeus Kataibates,
Fulgur Jupiter Fulgur, but the lightning and the ‘descender’ were there
before the coming of the Olympian, and the threefold mark preceded
Poseidon.
In picturing to ourselves therefore the ancient sanctities of the
Acropolis, we have to begin with certain natural holy things that were
there from time immemorial, that were holy in themselves, not because
they were consecrated to this or that divinity. Such were the olive-tree,
the salt sea-well, the trident-mark—we are back in a time rather of holy
things than divine persons. Successive heroic families, in possessing
themselves of the kingship, take possession of these sanctities; they
are as it were the regalia. In the time of the Kekropidae, Pandrosos,
daughter and _paredros_ of Kekrops, owns the olive-tree; in the time of
the Erechtheidae the well is called Erechtheïs, and all the sacred things
are included in an Erechtheion. It is worth noting that though Poseidon
claimed the well and the trident-mark he never gave his name to either,
and though Athena boasted of the olive-tree and snake, neither was ever
called after her.
* * * * *
The name of Erechtheus or Erechthonios marks a stage definitely later
than that of Kekrops. In the reign of Kekrops we hear nothing of foreign
policy. He is engaged in civilizing his people, in marrying them, in
teaching them to offer bloodless sacrifice. But the reign of Erechtheus
is marked by a great war. He fought with and conquered Eumolpos, king of
the neighbouring burgh Eleusis. Kekropia has taken the first step towards
that hegemony she was to obtain under Theseus.
Erechtheus, not Kekrops, is the king-hero known to Homer; the two
passages in which he and his city are mentioned are significant. In the
_Odyssey_[131], Athena, having counselled Odysseus, leaves him to make
his entrance alone into the house of Alkinoös, while she betakes herself
home. ‘Therewith grey-eyed Athene departed over the unharvested seas
and left pleasant Scheria and came to Marathon and wide-wayed Athens,
and entered the good house of Erechtheus.’ Here manifestly Athena has
no temple, she has to shelter herself in the good house of Erechtheus
(Ἐρεχθῆος πυκινὸν δόμον). That is how it used to be in the old kingly
days, the king was divine, his palace a sanctuary.
But in the Catalogue of the Ships[132]—allowed on all hands to be a
later document—things are quite otherwise. Among the captains of the
ships were ‘they that possessed the goodly citadel of Athens, the domain
of Erechtheus the high-hearted, whom erst Athene, daughter of Zeus,
fostered, when Earth, the grain-giver, brought him to birth;—and she gave
him a resting-place in Athens, in her own rich sanctuary; and there the
sons of the Athenians worship him with bulls and rams as the years turn
in their courses.’
The passage is a notable one. The singer is manifestly in some
difficulty. Athena by his time is supreme; she has a goodly temple: it
is she who offers hospitality to Erechtheus, not Erechtheus to her. Yet
the singer knows the early tradition that the goodly citadel belongs to
the king Erechtheus, he also knows the ritual fact that annual sacrifice
was offered to him. This ritual fact of the sacrifice to Erechtheus is
attested by Herodotus[133]. He tells us that the Epidaurians were allowed
to cut down sacred olive-trees to make statues from, on the express
condition that they annually sacrificed victims to Athena Polias and
Erechtheus. Here the goddess joins in the honours, a fact not expressly
stated in Homer, though probably understood.
* * * * *
So far we have Erechtheus, hero-king, snake-king, like the earlier
Kekrops and Athena. Athena, it is evident, is the later intruder, but
we have had no evidence of Poseidon. Poseidon’s position at Athens is
a very peculiar one. Unlike Erechtheus, he has no temple called after
him, he cannot give his name even to a salt sea-well, his trident-mark
is probably to begin with a thunder-smitten rock; unlike Athena he never
gets the people called after him, and yet, spite of all this, his worship
is ancient and deep-rooted, and from him rather than from Zeus or Athena
the old nobility of Athens claimed to be descended.
We are so accustomed to regard Athena as the Alpha and well-nigh the
Omega of Athenian religion that the priority of Poseidon, one of the
‘other gods,’ needs emphasis. The Athenians themselves, however, at least
the more conservative[134] among them, recognized it. Poseidon they knew
was son of Kronos, and Athena daughter only of the younger Zeus.
‘O Sea-Poseidon and ye elderly gods’
exclaims the youth in the _Plutus_ when he holds the torch to the
wrinkles in the old woman’s withered face. When, in the _Frogs_,
Euripides is made to utter what is taken to be a fine old conservative
sentiment, Dionysos answers ‘Good by Poseidon, that!’ When in the
_Knights_ Nicias the household slave—conservative after the manner of
his class—hears that the new demagogue is a black-pudding chandler, he
exclaims in horror,
‘A black-pudding chandler, Poseidon what a trade!’
The choice of Poseidon by the conservative party was no mere chance;
they believed in him, they swore by him, because they thought they were
descended from him. In the case of one noble family, the Butadae, this
descent was no mere chance tradition; their family tree was written up in
the Erechtheion itself, and they claimed to be descended from a certain
Butes, son of Poseidon and brother of Erechtheus. When Pausanias[135]
entered the later Erechtheion he saw in the first chamber three altars,
‘one sacred to Poseidon on which sacrifices are offered to Erechtheus
in accordance with the command of an oracle, one to the hero Butes,
and one to Hephaestos; the paintings on the wall represent the family
of the Butadae.’ It is often said that Erechtheus is merely a ‘title’
of Poseidon; this was the view of the lexicographers. Hesychius[136]
explains Erechtheus as ‘Poseidon at Athens.’ But the statement about the
altar shows that they were _not_ originally the same, the command of an
oracle was needed to affiliate them. It is a noticeable point moreover
that Poseidon has no temple of his own, only an altar in the ‘dwelling’
(οἴκημα) called the Erechtheion. This sanctuary bearing the kingly name,
remains his ‘steadfast house’ and is an eternal remembrance of the days
when the king was priest and the god’s vicegerent on earth.
But there came a time when kings ceased to be in the old full sense
incarnate gods, and then the kingly function was split into two offices,
secular and spiritual. Of this at Athens we have traces in the narrative
of Apollodorus[137]. He says ‘on the death of Pandion his sons divided
the paternal estate and Erechtheus took the kingship, but Butes took the
priesthood of Athena and of Poseidon the son of Erechthonios.’ It was the
family tree of the royal priest Butes that was religiously preserved in
the Erechtheion. The ‘paintings’ on the wall could of course only go back
to the rebuilding of those walls in 409 B.C., but the genealogical tree
would go back to time immemorial. In the _Lives of the Ten Orators_[138]
we hear of Lycurgus, the Eteobutad, as follows. His ancestors derived
from Erechtheus, son of Ge and Hephaestos, but his immediate ancestors
were Lycomedes and Lycurgus, whom the people had honoured with a public
funeral. And the descent of his family from those who held office as
priests of Poseidon is on a complete tablet in the Erechtheion written
up by Ismenios son of Chalcideus and there are wooden images of Lycurgos
and his sons, of Habron, Lycurgos and Lycophron made by Timarchos and
Cephisodotos the son of Praxiteles. And Habron dedicated the tablet to
his son, and coming in succession to the priesthood he resigned in favour
of his brother Lycophron. Hence Habron is represented handing over the
trident to him.
By such family trees, by the genealogies and successive priesthoods of
royal priestly families, was ancient chronology kept. Argive chronology
it will be remembered was reckoned by the years of the consecration of
the successive priestesses of Hera[139]. The record was kept in the
ancient sanctuary of the Heraion and the statues of the priestesses were
set up in front of the temple[140].
* * * * *
With the question of the cult of Athena we have not to deal, but as
Poseidon is emphatically one of the ‘other gods’ a word must be said
about the subordinate position he comes to occupy. This position is
remarkable. To the conservative party as we have seen he was a god of the
first importance; it is very noticeable that the chorus of Knights[141]
sing first to ‘Poseidon lord of horses’ and only second to ‘Pallas, She
of the Citadel.’ Their normal orthodox relation, Athena first, Poseidon
second, is reflected in the hymn at Colonos. Yet when we come to examine
the ritual of the two divinities we find that their priesthood was
conjoint; the Butadae held the priesthood not only of Poseidon but of
Athena[142].
These difficulties, these incongruities in tradition, would no doubt
be easily solved did we fully know the origin of the cults of Poseidon
and Athena. This at present is hidden from our eyes. Kekrops, Pandrosos,
Erechtheus, are obviously local. Their worship never spread beyond the
hill of Athens, but Poseidon and Athena were worshipped over the whole
of Hellas, and whether in Athens they were indigenous or imported cannot
at present be certainly said. Herodotus[143] emphatically states that
Poseidon originated in Libya, ‘for none except the Libyans originally
possessed the name of Poseidon and they have always worshipped him.’ It
is in Libya also that this same Herodotus[144] notes that the dwellers
round lake Tritonis sacrifice principally to Athena and next to Triton
and Poseidon, and from the Libyan women the Greeks obtained the dress and
the aegis of the statues of Athena.
If we may hazard a glimpse into things remote or dark, it may be
conjectured that the worship of Poseidon and Athena came from Libya
to Attica from a people geographically remote, but with racial
affinities[145]. That in Libya Athena was, as Herodotus notes, the more
important of the two. An old matriarchal goddess, transplanted to Athens
in the days of king Erechtheus, she fell when social conditions were
patriarchal rather than matriarchal to a subordinate place. Poseidon
rather than Athena stood at the head of the Athenian family trees. He
headed the conservative aristocratic party. But at some time of political
upheaval, possibly even as late as the time of Peisistratos[146], the
tide turned, and the ancient matriarchal goddess, as patron of the
tyrants and the democracy, reasserted herself. It is Athena not Poseidon
who brings Peisistratos back in her chariot to Athens. All this, the
prior supremacy of Poseidon, the resurgence of Athena, is reflected in
the myth of the _Eris_, the rivalry, the contest of the two divinities
for the land, in the aetiological myth of the planting of the olive-tree
and the smiting of the rock with the trident.
* * * * *
To resume, among the ‘other deities’ are first and foremost Kekrops
and Erechtheus, ancient eponymous kings, Pandrosos the daughter and
_paredros_ of Kekrops and later affiliated to these the immigrant
Poseidon. Their ‘sacred things’ are the tomb of Kekrops, the olive, the
‘sea,’ the trident-mark. The list does not exhaust the ‘other deities’
worshipped on the Acropolis; Zeus had altars, Artemis perhaps from early
days a precinct. Herakles, though probably an oriental immigrant, was
worshipped on the Acropolis at a very early date. It has been one of the
sudden corrections sometimes so sharply administered by archaeology to
our prejudice that, among the ancient poros sculptures of which so many
remains have come to light, Herakles is prominent, Theseus conspicuously
absent. But the group of deities and sanctities that cluster round the
Erechtheion are sufficient for our purpose, and for that of Thucydides.
They show that the Acropolis was the _polis_ for the simple reason that
‘_there are sanctuaries in the citadel itself, those of other deities as
well_’ (as the Goddess).