CHAPTER IV.

THE WOMEN’S FESTIVALS.

THESMOPHORIA, ARREPHORIA, SKIROPHORIA, STENIA, HALOA.

‘τὰ θεσμοφόρι’ ἄγουσιν ὥσπερ καὶ πρὸ τοῦ.’

_The Thesmophoria._

With the autumn festival of the Thesmophoria[304] we come to a class of

rites of capital interest. They were practised by women only and were

of immemorial antiquity. Although, for reasons explained at the outset,

they are considered after the Anthesteria and Thargelia, their character

was even more primitive, and, owing to the conservative character of

women and the mixed contempt and superstition with which such rites were

regarded by men, they were preserved in pristine purity down to late

days. Unlike the Diasia, Anthesteria, Thargelia, they were left almost

uncontaminated by Olympian usage, and—a point of supreme interest—under

the influence of a new religious impulse, they issued at last in the most

widely influential of all Greek ceremonials, the Eleusinian Mysteries.

To the primitive character and racial origin of these rites we have the

witness of Herodotus[305], though unhappily piety sealed his lips as

to details. He says, ‘Concerning the feast of Demeter which the Greeks

call Thesmophoria I must preserve an auspicious silence, excepting in

so far as every one may speak of it. It was the daughters of Danaus who

introduced this rite from Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women;

but after the upset of the whole of Peloponnesos by the Dorians the rite

died down completely, and it was only those of the Peloponnesians who

were left, and the Arcadians who did not leave their seats who kept it

up.’ Herodotus oddly enough does not mention the Athenians, who were as

stable and as untouched as the Arcadians, but his notice is invaluable as

fixing the pre-Dorian character of the rites. Knowing that they were of

immemorial antiquity, _more suo_ he attributes them to the Egyptians, and

as will later be seen (p. 128) there may be some element of probability

in his supposition.

The Thesmophoria, like the Anthesteria, was a three days’ festival. It

was held from the 11th-13th of Pyanepsion (October-November); the first

day, the 11th, was called both _Kathodos_ and _Anodos_, Downgoing and

Uprising, the second _Nesteia_, Fasting, and the third _Kalligeneia_,

Fair-Born or Fair-Birth[306]. The meaning of the name Thesmophoria and

the significance of the three several days will appear later: at present

it is sufficient to note that the Thesmophoria collectively was a late

autumn festival and certainly connected with sowing. Cornutus[307] says,

‘they fast in honour of Demeter ... when they celebrate her feast at

the season of sowing.’ Of a portion of the ritual of the Thesmophoria

we have an unusually detailed account preserved to us by a scholiast on

the _Hetairae_ of Lucian; and as this portion is, for the understanding

of the whole festival, of capital importance it must at the outset be

examined in detail. In the dialogue of Lucian, Myrto is reproaching

Pamphilos for deserting her; ‘the girl,’ says Myrto, ‘you are going to

marry is not good-looking; I saw her close at hand at the Thesmophoria

with her mother.’ The notice is important as it has been asserted that

the Thesmophoria was a festival of married women only, which, in Lucian’s

time, was clearly not the case.

The scholiast[308] on the passage comments as follows, and ancient

commentators have left us few commentaries more instructive: ‘The

Thesmophoria, a festival of the Greeks, including mysteries, and these

are called also Skirrophoria.’ According to the more mythological

explanation they are celebrated in that Kore when she was gathering

flowers was carried off by Plouton. At the time a certain Eubouleus, a

swineherd, was feeding his swine on the spot and they were swallowed down

with her in the chasm of Kore. Hence in honour of Eubouleus the swine

are thrown into the chasms of Demeter and Kore. Certain women who have

purified themselves for three days[309] and who bear the name of ‘Drawers

up’ bring up the rotten portions of the swine that have been cast into

the _megara_. And they descend into the inner sanctuaries and having

brought up (the remains) they place them on the altars, and they hold

that whoever takes of the remains and mixes it with his seed will have

a good crop. And they say that in and about the chasms are snakes which

consume the most part of what is thrown in; hence a rattling din is made

when the women draw up the remains and when they replace the remains by

those well-known (ἐκεῖνα) images, in order that the snakes which they

hold to be the guardians of the sanctuaries may go away.

‘The same rites are called Arretophoria (carrying of things unnamed) and

are performed with the same intent concerning the growth of crops and

of human offspring. In the case of the Arretophoria, too, sacred things

that may not be named and that are made of cereal paste, are carried

about, i.e. images of snakes and of the forms of men[310]. They employ

also fir-cones on account of the fertility of the tree, and into the

sanctuaries called _megara_ these are cast and also, as we have already

said, swine—the swine, too, on account of their prolific character—in

token of the growth of fruits and human beings, as a thank-offering to

Demeter, inasmuch as she, by providing the grain called by her name,

civilized the human race. The interpretation then of the festival given

above is mythological, but the one we give now is physical. The name

Thesmophoria is given because Demeter bears the title Thesmophoros, since

she laid down a law or Thesmos in accordance with which it was incumbent

on men to obtain and provide by labour their nurture.’

The main outline of the ritual, in spite of certain obscurities in the

scholiast’s account, is clear. At some time not specified, but during

the Thesmophoria, women, carefully purified for the purpose, let down

pigs into clefts or chasms called μέγαρα or chambers. At some other time

not precisely specified they descended into the _megara_, brought up the

rotten flesh and placed it on certain altars, whence it was taken and

mixed with seed to serve as a fertility charm. As the first day of the

festival was called both _Kathodos_ and _Anodos_ it seems likely that the

women went down and came up the same day, but as the flesh of the pigs

was rotten some time must have elapsed. It is therefore conjectured that

the flesh was left to rot for a whole year, and that the women on the

first day took down the new pigs and brought up last year’s pigs.

How long the pigs were left to rot does not affect the general content

of the festival. It is of more importance to note that the flesh seems

to have been regarded as in some sort the due of the powers of the

earth as represented by the guardian snakes. The flesh was wanted by

men as a fertility charm, but the snakes it was thought might demand

part of it; they were scared away, but to compensate for what they did

not get, surrogates made of cereal paste had to be taken down. These

paste surrogates were in the form of things specially fertile. It is not

quite clear whether the pine-cones etc. or only the pigs were let down

at the Thesmophoria as well as the Arrephoria, but as the scholiast is

contending for the close analogy of both festivals this seems probable.

It does not indeed much matter what the exact form of the _sacra_ was:

all were fertility charms.

The remarks of the scholiast about the double λόγος, i.e. the double

_rationale_ of the festival, are specially instructive. By his time, and

indeed probably long before, educated people had ceased to believe that

by burying a fertile animal or a fir-cone in the earth you could induce

the earth to be fertile; they had advanced beyond the primitive logic

of ‘sympathetic magic.’ But the Thesmophoria was still carried on by

conservative womanhood:

‘They keep the Thesmophoria as they always used to do.’

An origin less crude and revolting to common sense is required and

promptly supplied by mythology[311]. Kore had been carried down into

a cleft by Plouton: therefore in her memory the women went down and

came up. Pigs had been swallowed down at the same time: therefore they

took pigs with them. Such a mythological _rationale_ was respectable if

preposterous. The myth of the rape of Persephone of course really arose

from the ritual, not the ritual from the myth. In the back of his mind

the scholiast knows that the content of the ritual was ‘physical,’ the

object the impulsion of nature. But even after he has given the true

content his mind clouds over with modern associations. The festival, he

says, is a ‘thank-offering’ to Demeter. But in the sympathetic magic of

the Thesmophoria man attempts direct compulsion, he admits no mediator

between himself and nature, and he thanks no god for what no god has

done. A thank-offering is later even than a prayer, and prayer as yet

is not. To mark the transition from rites of compulsion to rites of

supplication and consequent thanksgiving is to read the whole religious

history of primitive man.

Some details of the rites of the Thesmophoria remain to be noted. The

Thesmophoria, though, thanks to Aristophanes, we know them best at

Athens, were widespread throughout Greece. The ceremony of the pigs went

on at Potniae in Boeotia. The passage in which Pausanias[312] describes

it is most unfortunately corrupt; but he adds one certain detail,

that the pigs there used were new-born, sucking pigs (ὗς τῶν νεογνῶν).

Among nations more savage than the Greeks a real Kore took the place of

the Greek sucking pig or rather reinforced it. Among the Khonds, as Mr

Andrew Lang[313] has pointed out, pigs and a woman are sacrificed that

the land may be fertilized by their blood; the Pawnees of North America,

down to the middle of the present century, sacrificed a girl obtained by

preference from the alien tribe of the Sioux, but among the Greeks there

is no evidence that the pigs were surrogates.

The _megara_ themselves are of some importance; the name still survives

in the modern Greek form Megara. _Megara_ appear to have been natural

clefts or chasms helped out later by art. As such they were at first the

natural places for rites intended to compel the earth; later they became

definite sanctuaries of earth divinities. In America, according to Mr

Lang’s account, Gypsies, Pawnees, and Shawnees bury the sacrifices they

make to the Earth Goddess in the earth, in natural crevices or artificial

crypts. In the sanctuary of Demeter, at Cnidos, Sir Charles Newton[314]

found a crypt which had originally been circular and later had been

compressed by earthquake. Among the contents were bones of pigs and other

animals, and the marble pigs which now stand near the Demeter of Cnidos

in the British Museum. It is of importance to note that Porphyry[315],

in his _Cave of the Nymphs_, says, that for the Olympian gods are set

up temples and images and altars (βωμούς), for the chthonic gods and

heroes hearths (ἐσχάραι), for those below the earth (ὑποχθονίοις) there

are trenches and _megara_. Philostratos[316], in his Life of Apollonius,

says, ‘The chthonic gods welcome trenches and ceremonies done in the

hollow earth.’

Eustathius[317] says that _megara_ are ‘underground dwellings of the two

goddesses,’ i.e. Demeter and Persephone, and he adds that ‘Aelian says

the word is μάγαρον not μέγαρον and that it is the place in which the

mystical sacred objects are placed.’ Unless this suggestion is adopted

the etymology of the word remains obscure[318]. The word itself, meaning

at first a cave-dwelling, lived on in the _megaron_ of kings’ palaces

and the temples of Olympian gods, and the shift of meaning marks the

transition from under to upper-world rites.

[Illustration: FIG. 11.]

Art has left us no certain representation of the Thesmophoria; but in the

charming little vase-painting from a lekythos in the National Museum at

Athens[319], a woman is represented sacrificing a pig. He is obviously

held over a trench and the three planted torches indicate an underworld

service. In her left hand the woman holds a basket, no doubt containing

_sacra_. There seems a reminiscence of the rites of the Thesmophoria,

though we cannot say that they are actually represented.

* * * * *

It is practically certain that the ceremonies of the burying and

resurrection of the pigs took place on the first day of the Thesmophoria

called variously the _Kathodos_ and the _Anodos_. It is further probable

from the name _Kalligeneia_, Fairborn, that on the third day took place

the strewing of the rotten flesh on the fields. The second, intervening

day, also called μέση, the middle day, was a solemn fast, _Nesteia_;

probably on this day the magical _sacra_ lay upon the altars where the

women placed them. The strictness of this fast made it proverbial. On

this day prisoners were released, the law courts were closed, the Boule

could not meet[320]. Athenaeus mentions the fast when he is discussing

different kinds of fish. One of the Cynics comes in and says: ‘My

friends too are keeping a fast as if this were the middle day of the

Thesmophoria since we are feasting like _cestreis_’; the _cestreus_ being

non-carnivorous.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.]

The women fasted sitting on the ground, and hence arose the aetiological

myth that Demeter herself, the desolate mother, fasted sitting on the

‘Smileless Stone.’ Apollodorus[321], in recounting the sorrows of

Demeter, says: ‘and first she sat down on the stone that is called after

her “Smileless” by the side of the “Well of Fair Dances.”’ The ‘Well of

Fair Dances’ has come to light at Eleusis, and there, too, was found a

curious monument[322] which shows how the Eleusinians made the goddess in

their own image. In fig. 12 we have a votive relief of the usual type,

a procession of worshippers bearing offerings to a seated goddess. But

the goddess is not seated goddess-fashion on a throne; she is the Earth

mother, and she crouches as the fasting women crouched on her own earth.

A passage in which Plutarch speaks of the women fasting is of great

importance for the understanding of the general gist of the festival.

In the discourse on Isis and Osiris[323] he is struck by the general

analogy of certain agricultural ceremonies in Egypt and Greece, and makes

the following instructive remarks: ‘How are we to deal with sacrifices

of a gloomy, joyless and melancholy character if it be not well either

to omit traditional ceremonies, or to upset our views about the gods or

confuse them by preposterous conjectures? And among the Greeks also many

analogous things take place about the same time of the year as that in

which the Egyptians perform their sacred ceremonies, e.g. at Athens _the

women fast at the Thesmophoria seated on the ground_, and the Boeotians

stir up the _megara_ of _Achaia_, calling that festival grievous

(ἐπαχθῆ), inasmuch as Demeter was in grief (ἐν ἄχει), on account of the

descent of her daughter. And that month about the rising of the Pleiades

is the month of sowing which the Egyptians call Athor, and the Athenians

Pyanepsion (bean month), and the Boeotians Damatrion. And Theopompos

relates that those who dwell towards the West account and call the Winter

Kronos, and the Summer Aphrodite, and the Spring Persephone, and from

Kronos and Aphrodite all things take their birth. And the Phrygians think

that in the Winter the god is asleep, and that in the Summer he is awake,

and they celebrate to him revels which in winter are Goings-to-sleep and

in summer Wakings-up. And the Paphlagonians allege that in winter the god

_is bound down_ and imprisoned, and in spring aroused and set free again.’

Whatever be the meaning of the difficult _Achaia_[324] Plutarch has hit

upon the truth. Common to all the peoples bordering on the Aegean and,

had he known it, to many another primitive race, were ceremonies of which

the gist was pantomime, the mimicking of nature’s processes, in a word

the ritual of sympathetic magic. The women fasted seated on the ground

because the earth was desolate; they rose and revelled, they stirred the

_megara_ to mimic the impulse of spring. Then when they knew no longer

why they did these things they made a goddess their protagonist.

Plutarch[325] has made for himself in his own image his ‘ideal’ Greek

gods, serene, cheerful, beneficent; but he is a close observer of facts,

and he sees there are ceremonies—‘sacrifices’ (θυσίαι) in his late

fashion he calls them—which are ‘mournful,’ ‘gloomy,’ ‘smileless.’ Who

and what are these gods who demand fasting and lamentation? He must

either blink the facts of acknowledged authorized ritual—this he cannot

and will not do, for he is an honest man—or he must confuse and confound

his conceptions of godhead. Caught on the horns of this dilemma he

betakes himself to comparative anthropology and notes analogies among

adjacent and more primitive peoples.

Of two other elements in the Thesmophoria we have brief notice from

the lexicographers. Hesychius[326] says of the word δίωγμα (pursuit),

‘a sacrifice at Athens, performed in secret by the women at the

Thesmophoria. The same was later called ἀποδίωγμα.’ From Suidas[327]

we learn that it was also called Χαλκιδικὸν δίωγμα, the ‘Chalcidian

pursuit,’ and Suidas of course gives a historical explanation. Only one

thing is clear, that the ceremony must have belonged to the general class

of ‘pursuit’ rituals which have already been discussed in relation to the

Thargelia.

The remaining ceremony is known to us only from Hesychius[328]. He says,

‘ζημία (penalty), a sacrifice offered on account of the things done at

the Thesmophoria.’

Of the Thesmophoria as celebrated at Eretria we are told two

characteristic particulars. Plutarch, in his _Greek Questions_[329],

asks, ‘Why in the Thesmophoria do the Eretrian women cook their meat

not by fire but by the sun, and why do they not invoke Kalligeneia?’ The

solutions suggested by Plutarch for these difficulties are not happy.

The use of the sun in place of fire is probably a primitive trait; in

Greece to-day it is not difficult to cook a piece of meat to a palatable

point on a stone by the rays of the burning midday sun, and in early days

the practice was probably common enough; it might easily be retained in

an archaic ritual. Kalligeneia also presents no serious difficulty, the

word means ‘fair-born’ or ‘fair-birth.’ It may be conjectured that the

reference was at first to the good crop produced by the rotten pigs’

flesh. With the growth of anthropomorphism the ‘good crop’ would take

shape as Kore the ‘fair-born,’ daughter of earth. Of such developments

more will be said when we discuss (p. 276) the general question of ‘the

making of a goddess.’ A conservative people such as the Eretrians seem to

have been would be slow to adopt any such anthropomorphic development.

Another particular as regards the Thesmophoria generally is preserved

for us by Aelian in his _History of Animals_[330]; speaking of the plant

_Agnos_ (the _Agnus castus_), he says, ‘In the Thesmophoria the Attic

women used to strew it on their couches and it (the _Agnos_) is accounted

hostile to reptiles.’ He goes on to say that the plant was primarily used

to keep off snakes, to the attacks of which the women in their temporary

booths would be specially exposed. Then as it was an actual preventive of

one evil it became a magical purity charm. Hence its name.

The pollution of death, like marriage, was sufficient to exclude the

women of the house from keeping the Thesmophoria. Athenaeus[331] tells us

that Democritus of Abdera, wearied of his extreme old age, was minded to

put an end to himself by refusing all food; but the women of his house

implored him to live on till the Thesmophoria was over in order that they

might be able to keep the festival; so he obligingly kept himself alive

on a pot of honey.

An important and easily intelligible particular is noted by Isaeus[332]

in his oration About the Estate of Pyrrhos. The question comes up, ‘Was

Pyrrhos lawfully married?’ Isaeus asks, ‘If he were married, would he not

have been obliged, on behalf of his lawful wife, to feast the women at

the Thesmophoria and to perform all the other customary dues in his deme

on behalf of his wife, his property being what it was?’ This is one of

the passages on which the theory has been based that the Thesmophoria was

a rite performed by married women only. It really points the other way;

a man when he married by thus obtaining exclusive rights over one woman

violated the old matriarchal usages and may have had to make his peace

with the community by paying the expenses of the Thesmophoria feast.

Before passing to the consideration of the etymology and precise meaning

of the word Thesmophoria, the other women festivals must be briefly

noted, i.e. the Arrephoria or Arretophoria, the Skirophoria or Skira, and

the Stenia.

ARREPHORIA, SKIROPHORIA, STENIA.

The scholiast on Lucian, as we have already seen, expressly notes that

the Arretophoria and Skirophoria were of similar content with the

Thesmophoria. Clement of Alexandria[333], a dispassionate witness,

confirms this view. ‘Do you wish,’ he asks, ‘that I should recount for

you the Flower-gatherings of Pherephatta and the basket, and the rape

by Aïdoneus, and the cleft of the earth, and the swine of Eubouleus,

swallowed down with the goddesses, on which account in the Thesmophoria

they cast down living swine in the _megara_? This piece of mythology

the women in their festivals celebrate in diverse fashion in the

city, dramatizing the rape of Pherephatta in diverse fashion in the

Thesmophoria, the Skirophoria, the Arretophoria.’

The Arretophoria or Arrephoria was apparently the Thesmophoria of the

unmarried girl. Its particular ritual is fairly well known to us from the

account of Pausanias. Immediately after his examination of the temple

of Athene Polias on the Athenian Acropolis, Pausanias[334] comes to the

temple of Pandrosos, ‘who alone of the sisters was blameless in regard

to the trust committed to them’: he then adds, ‘what surprised me very

much, but is not generally known, I will describe as it takes place. Two

maidens dwell not far from the temple of Polias: the Athenians call them

Arrephoroi, they are lodged for a time with the goddess, but when the

festival comes round they perform the following ceremony by night. They

put on their heads the things which the priestess of Athena gives them to

carry, but what it is she gives is known neither to her who gives nor to

them who carry. Now there is in the city an enclosure not far from the

sanctuary of Aphrodite, called Aphrodite in the Gardens, and there is a

natural underground descent through it. Down this way the maidens go.

Below they leave their burdens, and getting something else which is wrapt

up, they bring it back. These maidens are then discharged and others

brought to the Acropolis in their stead[335].’

From other sources some further details, for the most part insignificant,

are known. The girls were of noble family, they were four in number

and had to be between the ages of seven and eleven, and were chosen by

the Archon Basileus. They wore white robes and gold ornaments. To two

of their number was entrusted the task of beginning the weaving of the

peplos of Athene. Special cakes called ἀνάστατοι were provided for them,

but whether to eat or to carry as _sacra_ does not appear. It is more

important to note that the service of the Arrephoroi was not confined to

Athene and Pandrosos[336]. There was an Errephoros (_sic_) to Demeter

and Proserpine[337], and there were Hersephoroi (_sic_) of ‘Earth with

the title of Themis’ and of ‘Eileithyia in Agrae[338].’ Probably any

primitive woman goddess could have Arrephoria.

Much is obscure in the account of Pausanias; we do not know what the

precinct was to which the maidens went, nor where it was. It is possible

that Pausanias confused the later sanctuary of Aphrodite (in the gardens)

with the earlier sanctuary of the goddess close to the entrance of

the Acropolis. One thing, however, emerges clearly, the main gist of

the ceremonial was the carrying of unknown _sacra_. In this respect

we are justified in holding with Clement that the Arrephoria (held in

Skirophorion, June-July) was a parallel to the Thesmophoria.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.]

It is possible, I think, to go a step further. A rite frequently throws

light on the myth made to explain it. Occasionally the rite itself is

elucidated by the myth to which it gave birth. The maidens who carried

the sacred _cista_ were too young to know its holy contents, but they

might be curious, so a scare story was invented for their safeguarding,

the story of the disobedient sisters who opened the chest, and in horror

at the great snake they found there, threw themselves headlong from the

Acropolis. The myth is prettily represented on an amphora in the British

Museum[339], reproduced in fig. 13. The sacred chest stands on rude

piled stones that represent the rock of the Acropolis, the child rises

up with outstretched hand, Athene looks on in dismay and anger, and the

bad sisters hurry away. Erichthonios is here a human child with two great

snakes for guardians, but what the sisters really found, what the maidens

really carried, was a snake[340] and symbols like a snake. Snake and

child to the primitive mind are not far asunder; the Greek peasant of

to-day has his child quickly baptized, for till baptized he may at any

moment disappear in the form of a snake. The natural form for a human

hero to assume is, as will later be seen, a snake.

The little girl-Arrephoroi in ignorance, as became their age, carried the

same _sacra_ as the full-grown women in the Thesmophoria. The perfect

seemliness and reverence of the rite is shown by the careful precautions

taken. When goddesses began to take shape the _sacra_ were regarded, not

as mere magical charms, but as offerings as was meet to Ge, to Themis,

to Aphrodite, to Eileithyia, but always the carrying was a reverent

‘mystery.’

* * * * *

The Skira or Skirophoria[341] presents more difficulties. It was

specially closely associated with the Thesmophoria of which it may have

formed part. The chorus in the _Thesmophoriazusae_ of Aristophanes[342]

says, ‘If any of us bear a good citizen to the state, a taxiarch or

strategos, she ought to be rewarded by some honourable office, the

presidency ought to be given her at the Stenia and the Skira and at any

other of the feasts which we (women) celebrate.’ The scholiast remarks,

‘both were feasts of women; the Stenia took place before the two days of

the Thesmophoria on the 7th of Pyanepsion, and the Skira, some say, are

the sacred rites that took place on this feast (i.e. the Thesmophoria)

to Demeter and Kore. But others say that sacrifice was made ἐπὶ Σκίρῳ to

Athene.’ On the other hand in an inscription, usually a most trustworthy

authority, the two ceremonies are noted as separate though apparently

analogous. In the inscription in question[343] which is of the 4th

century B.C., certain regulations are enforced ‘when the feast of the

Thesmophoria takes place, and at the Plerosia, and at the Kalamaia and

the Skira, and if there is any other day on which the women congregate by

ancestral usage.’

The ancients themselves had raised the question whether the Skira were

sacred to Athene or to Demeter and Kore. This question is not really

relevant to our enquiry; Athene, as will be seen later, when the ‘making

of a goddess’ is discussed, is simply ἡ Ἀθηναία κόρη, the κόρη, the

_maiden of Athens_, and any festival of any Kore—any maiden—would early

attach itself to her.

More important is the question, What does the word σκίρα mean? Two

solutions are offered. The scholiast on Aristophanes[344] says σκίρον

means the same as σκιάδειον, umbrella, and the feast and the month took

that name from the fact that at a festival of Demeter and Kore on the

12th of Skirophorion, the priest of Erechtheus carried a white umbrella.

A white umbrella is a slender foundation for a festival, but the element

of white points in the right direction. The scholiast on the _Wasps_ of

Aristophanes[345] commenting on σκῖρον has a happier thought: he says a

certain sort of white earth, like gypsum, is called σκιρράς, and Athene

is called Σκιρράς inasmuch as she is daubed with white, from a similarity

in the name.

The same notion of white earth appears in the notice of the _Etymologicon

Magnum_ on the month _Skirophorion_, ‘the name of a month among the

Athenians; it is so called from the fact that in it Theseus carried

σκίραν by which is meant gypsum. For Theseus, coming from the Minotaur,

made an Athene of gypsum, and carried it and as he made it in this month

it is called Skirophorion.’

But, it will be asked, supposing it be granted that Skira means things

made of gypsum and Skirophoria the carrying of such things, what, in

the name of common sense, has this to do with a festival of women

analogous to the Thesmophoria? Dr A. Mommsen[346], who first emphasized

this etymology, proposes that the white earth was used as manure; this,

though possible and ingenious, seems scarcely satisfactory. I would

suggest another connection. The scholiast on Lucian has told us that

the surrogates deposited in the _megara_ were shaped out of paste made

of grain. Is it not possible that the Σκίρα were such surrogates made

of gypsum alone or part gypsum, part flour-paste? That such a mixture

was manufactured for food we learn from Pliny[347]. In discussing

the preparation of _alica_ from _zea_ (spelt) he says, ‘astonishing

statement, it is mixed with chalk.’ In the case of a coarse sort of _zea_

from Africa, the mixture was made in the proportion of a quarter of

gypsum to three of _zea_. If this suggestion be correct, the Skirophoria

is simply a summer Thesmophoria.

If the Skirophoria must, all said, remain conjectural, the gist of the

Stenia is clear and was understood by the ancients themselves. Photius

remarks on _Stenia_—‘a festival at Athens in which the Anodos of Demeter

is held to take place. At this festival, according to Euboulos, the women

abuse each other by night.’ Hesychius[348] explains in like fashion and

adds: στηνιῶσαι, ‘to use bad language,’ ‘to abuse.’ According to him

they not only abused each other but ‘made scurrilous jests.’ Such abuse,

we know from Aristophanes[349], was a regular element of the licence of

the Thesmophoria. The _Gephyrismoi_, the jokes at the bridge, of the

Eleusinian Mysteries, will occur to every one: similar in content is the

stone-throwing, the Lithobolia of Damia and Auxesia.

It is interesting to note that in the primitive festivals of the Romans,

the same scurrility contests appear. At the ancient feast of the _Nonae

Capratinae_, Plutarch[350] tells us, ‘the women are feasted in the fields

in booths made of fig-tree branches, and the servant-maids run about and

play; afterwards they come to blows and throw stones at one another.’

The servant-maids represent here as elsewhere a primitive subject

population; they live during the festival in booths as the women did at

the Thesmophoria. How precisely this fight and this scurrility serve the

end proposed, the promotion of fertility, is not wholly clear, but the

throwing of stones, the beating and fighting, all look like the expulsion

of evil influences. The scurrilous and sometimes to our modern thinking

unseemly gestures savour of sympathetic magic, an intent that comes out

clearly in the festival of the Haloa, the discussion of which must be

reserved to the end.

* * * * *

We come next to the all-absorbing question, What is the derivation,

the real root-meaning of the term _Thesmophoria_ and the title

_Thesmophoros_? The orthodox explanation of the Thesmophoria is that it

was the festival of Demeter Thesmophoros, the law-carrier or law-giver.

With Demeter, it is said, came in agriculture, settled life, marriage

and the beginnings of civilized law. This is the view held by the

scholiast on Theocritus[351]. In commenting on various sacred plants,

which promoted chastity, he adds, ‘It was a law among the Athenians that

they should celebrate the Thesmophoria yearly, and the Thesmophoria is

this: women who are virgins and have lived a holy life, on the day of

the feast, place certain customary and holy books on their heads, and as

though to perform a liturgy they go to Eleusis.’

The scholiast gives himself away by the mention of Eleusis. He confuses

the two festivals in instructive fashion, and clearly is reconstructing a

ritual out of a cultus epithet. Happily we know from the other and better

informed scholiast[352] that the women carried at the Thesmophoria not

books but pigs. How then came the pigs and other _sacra_ to be Thesmoi?

Dr Frazer proposes a solution. He suggests that the _sacra_, including

the pigs, were called θεσμοί, because they were ‘the things laid down.’

The women were called Thesmophoroi because they carried ‘the things laid

down’; the goddess took her name from her ministrants.

This interpretation is a great advance on the derivation from

Thesmophoros, Law-giver. Thesmophoros is scarcely the natural form for

law-_giver_, which in ordinary Greek appears as Thesmothetes. Moreover

the form Thesmophoros _must_ be connected with actual _carrying_

and must also be connected with what we know _was_ carried at the

Thesmophoria. But Thesmoi in Greek did certainly mean _laws_, and Demeter

_Thesmophoros_ was in common parlance supposed to be Law-giver. What we

want is a derivation that will combine both factors, the notion of law as

well as the carrying of pigs.

In the light of Dr Verrall’s new explanation of Anthesteria (p. 48) such

a derivation may be found. If the Anthesteria be the festival of the

charming up, the magical revocation of souls, may not the Thesmophoria

be the festival of the carrying of the _magical sacra_? To regard the

θεσμοί, whether they are pigs or laws, as simply ‘things laid down,’

deriving them from the root θε, has always seemed to me somewhat frigid.

The root θεσ is more vivid and has the blood of religion, or rather

magic, in its veins. Although it came, when man entered into orderly and

civilized relations with his god, to mean ‘pray,’ in earlier days it

carried a wider connotation, and meant, I think, to perform any kind of

magical ceremonies. Is not θέσκελος alive with magic?

THE CURSE AND THE LAW.

But what has law, sober law, to do with magic? To primitive man, it

seems, everything. Magic is for cursing or for blessing, and in primitive

codes it would seem there was no commandment without cursing. The curse,

the ἀρά, is of the essence of the law. The breaker of the law is laid

under a ban. ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ was the first commandment

‘with promise.’ Law in fact began at a time long before the schism of

Church and State, or even of Religion and Morality. There was then no

such thing as ‘civil’ law. Nay more, it began in the dim days when

religion itself had not yet emerged from magic, in the days when, without

invoking the wrath of a righteous divinity, you could yet ‘put a curse’

upon a man, bind him to do his duty by magic and spells.

Primitive man, who thought he could constrain the earth to be fertile by

burying in it fertile objects, by ‘sympathetic magic,’ was sure to think

he could in like fashion compel his fellow. Curse tablets deposited in

graves and sanctuaries have come to light in thousands; but before man

learnt to write his curse, to spell out the formulary καταδῶ, ‘I bind you

down,’ he had a simpler and more certain plan. In a grave in Attica was

found a little lead figure[353] which tells its own tale. It is too ugly

for needless reproduction, but it takes us into the very heart of ancient

malignant magic. The head of the figure has been wrenched off, both

arms are tightly swathed behind the back, and the legs in like fashion;

right through the centre of the body has been driven a great nail. Dr

Wünsch[354], in publishing the figure, compares the story recorded of a

certain St Theophilos[355] ‘who had his feet and hands bound by magic.’

The saint sought relief in vain, till he was told in a dream to go out

fishing, and what the fishermen drew up would cure him of his malady.

They let down the net and drew up a bronze figure, bound hand and foot

and with a nail driven through the hand: they drew out the nail and the

saint immediately recovered.

The _locus classicus_ on ancient magic and spells is of course the

second Idyll of Theocritus[356], on Simaetha the magician. Part of her

incantation may be quoted here because a poet’s insight has divined the

strange fierce loveliness that lurks in rites of ignorance and fear,

rites stark and desperate and non-moral as the passion that prompts them.

Delphis has forsaken her, and in the moonlight by the sea Simaetha makes

ready her magic gear:

‘Lo! Now the barley smoulders in the flame.

Thestylis, wretch! thy wits are woolgathering!

Am I a laughing-stock to thee, a Shame?

Scatter the grain, I say, the while we sing,

“The bones of Delphis I am scattering.”

_Bird[357], magic Bird, draw the man home to me._

Delphis sore troubled me. I, in my turn,

This laurel against Delphis will I burn.

It crackles loud, and sudden down doth die,

So may the bones of Delphis liquefy.

_Wheel, magic Wheel, draw the man home to me._

Next do I burn this wax, God helping me,

So may the heart of Delphis melted be.

This brazen wheel I whirl, so, as before

Restless may he be whirled about my door.

_Bird, magic Bird, draw the man home to me._

Next will I burn these husks. O Artemis,

Hast power hell’s adamant to shatter down

And every stubborn thing. Hark! Thestylis,

Hecate’s hounds are baying up the town,

The goddess at the crossways. Clash the gong.

...

Lo, now the sea is still. The winds are still.

The ache within my heart is never still.’

The incantations of Simaetha are of course a private rite to an

individual end. That the practice of such rites was very frequent long

before the decadent days of Theocritus is clear from the fact that

Plato[358] in the _Laws_ regards it as just as necessary that his ideal

state should make enactments against the man who tries to slay or injure

another by magic, as against him who actually does definite physical

damage. His discussion of the two kinds of evil-doing is curious and

instructive, both as indicating the prevalence of sorcery in his days,

and as expressing the rather dubious attitude of his own mind towards

such practices. ‘There are two kinds of poisoning in use among men, the

nature of which forbids any clear distinction between them. There is the

kind of which we have just now spoken, and which is the injury of one

body by another in a natural and normal way, but the other kind injures

by sorceries and incantations and magical bindings as they are called

(καταδέσεσι), and this class induces the aggressors to injure others as

much as is possible, and persuades the sufferers that they more than any

other are liable to be damaged by this power of magic. Now it is not easy

to know the whole truth about such matters, nor if one knows it is one

likely to be able lightly to persuade others. When therefore men secretly

suspect each other at the sight of, say, waxen images fixed either at

their doors or at the crossways or at the tombs of their parents, it

is no good telling them to make light of such things because they know

nothing certain about them.’ Evidently Plato is not quite certain as

to whether there _is_ something in witchcraft or not: a diviner or a

prophet, he goes on to admit, may really know something about these

secret arts. Anyhow, he is clear that they are deleterious and should be

stamped out if possible, and accordingly, any one who injures another

either by magical bindings (καταδέσεσιν) or by magical inductions

(ἐπαγωγαῖς) or by incantations (ἐπῳδαῖς) or by another form of magic is

to die.

The scholiast[359] on the Idyll of Theocritus just quoted knows that one

at least of the magical practices of Simaetha was also part of public

ritual:

‘The goddess at the crossways. Clash the gong.’

Hecate is magically _induced_, yet her coming is feared. The clash of

the bronze gong is apotropaic. The scholiast says that ‘they sound the

bronze at eclipses of the moon ... because it has power to purify and

to drive off pollutions. Hence, as Apollodorus states in his treatise

_Concerning the Gods_, bronze was used for all purposes of consecration

and purgation.’ Apollodorus also stated that ‘at Athens, the Hierophant

of her who had the title of Kore sounded what was called a gong.’ It was

also the custom ‘to beat on a cauldron when the king of the Spartans

died.’ All the ceremonies noted, relating to eclipses, to Kore and to

the death of the Spartan king, are on _public_ occasions, and all are

apotropaic, directed against ghosts and sprites. Metal in early days,

when it is a novelty, is apt to be magical. The _din_ (κρότος) made by

the women when they took down the _sacra_, whether it was a clapping of

hands or of metal, is of the same order. The snakes are feared as hostile

demons. These apotropaic rites are not practised against the Olympians,

against Zeus and Apollo, but against sprites and ghosts and the

divinities of the underworld, against Kore and Hecate. These underworld

beings were at first dreaded and exorcised, then as a gentler theology

prevailed, men thought better of their gods, and ceased to exorcise

them as demons, and erected them into a class of ‘spiritual beings who

preside over curses.’ Pollux[360] has a brief notice of such divinities.

He says ‘those who resolve curses are called “Protectors from evil

spirits,” Who-send-away, Averters, Loosers, Putters-to-flight; those who

impose curses are called gods or goddesses of Vengeance, Gods of Appeal,

Exactors.’ The many adjectival titles are but so many descriptive names

for the ghost that cries for vengeance.

The ‘curse that binds,’ the κατάδεσμος, throws light on another element

that went to the making of the ancient notion of sacrifice. The

formula[361] in cursing was sometimes καταδῶ ‘I bind down,’ but it was

also sometimes παραδίδωμι ‘I give over.’ The person cursed or bound

down was in some sense a gift or sacrifice to the gods of cursing, the

underworld gods: the man stained by blood is ‘consecrate’ (καθιερωμένος)

to the Erinyes. In the little sanctuary of Demeter at Cnidos[362] the

curse takes even more religious form. He or she dedicates (ἀνιεροῖ),

or offers as a votive offering (ἀνατίθημι, for ἀνατίθησι), and finally

we have the familiar ἀνάθεμα of St Paul. Here the services of cursing,

the rites of magic and the underworld are half way to the service of

‘tendance,’ the service of the Olympians, and we begin to understand why,

in later writers, the pharmakos and other ‘purifications’ are spoken of

as θυσίαι. It is one of those shifts so unhappily common to the religious

mind. Man wants to gain his own ends, to gratify his own malign passion,

but he would like to kill two birds with one stone, and as the gods are

made in his own image, the feat presents no great difficulty. Later as

he grows gentler himself, he learns to pray only ‘good prayers,’ _bonas

preces_[363].

The curse (ἀρά) on its religious side developed into the vow[364] and

the prayer (εὐχή), on its social side into the ordinance (θεσμός) and

ultimately into the regular law (νόμος); hence the language of early

legal formularies still maintains as necessary and integral the sanction

of the curse. The formula is not ‘do this’ or ‘do not do that,’ but

‘cursed be he who does this, or does not do that.’

One instance may be selected, the inscription characteristically known as

‘the Dirae of Teos[365].’ The whole is too long to be transcribed, a few

lines must suffice.

‘Whosoever maketh baneful drugs against the Teans, whether against

individuals or the whole people:

‘_May he perish, both he and his offspring._

‘Whosoever hinders corn from being brought into the land of the Teans,

either by art or machination, whether by land or sea, and whosoever

drives out what has been brought in:

‘_May he perish, both he and his offspring._’

So clause after clause comes the refrain of cursing, like the tolling of

a bell, and at last as though they could not have their fill, comes the

curse on the magistrate who fails to curse:

‘Whosoever of them that hold office doth not make this cursing, what time

he presides over the contest at the Anthesteria and the Herakleia and the

Dia, let him be bound by an overcurse (ἐν τῇ ἐπάρῃ ἔχεσθαι), and whoever

either breaks the stelae on which the cursing is written, or cuts out the

letters or makes them illegible:

‘_May he perish, both he and his offspring._’

It is interesting to find here that the curses were recited at the

Anthesteria, a festival of ghosts, and the Herakleia, an obvious hero

festival, and at the Dia—this last surely a festival of imprecation like

the Diasia.

On the strength of these _Dirae_ of Teos, recited at public and primitive

festivals, it might not be rash to conjecture that at the Thesmophoria

some form of θεσμοί or binding spells was recited as well as carried.

This conjecture becomes almost a certainty when we examine an important

inscription[366] found near Pergamos and dealing with the regulations

for mourning in the city of Gambreion in Mysia. The mourning laws of

the ancients bore harder on women than on men, a fact explicable not by

the general lugubriousness of women, nor even by their supposed keener

sense of convention, but by those early matriarchal conditions in which

relationship naturally counted through the mother rather than the father.

Women, the law in question enacts, are to wear dark garments; men if

they ‘did not wish to do this’ might relax into white; the period of

mourning is longer for women than for men. Next follows the important

clause: ‘the official who superintends the affairs of women, who has

been chosen by the people at the purifications that take place _before

the Thesmophoria_, is to invoke blessings on the men who abide by the

law and the women who obey the law that they may happily enjoy the goods

they possess, but on the men who do not obey and the women who do not

abide therein he is to invoke the contrary, and such women are to be

accounted impious, and it is not lawful for them to make any sacrifice

to the gods for the space of ten years, and the steward is to write up

this law on two stelae and set them up, the one _before the doors of the

Thesmophorion_, the other before the temple of Artemis Lochia.’

From the _Thesmophoriazusae_ of Aristophanes we learn almost nothing

of the ritual of the Thesmophoria, save the fact that the feast was

celebrated on the Pnyx[367]: but the fashion in which the woman-herald

prays is worth noting; she begins by a real prayer[368]:

‘I bid you pray to Gods and Goddesses

That in Olympus and in Pytho dwell

And Delos, and to all the other gods.’

But when she comes to what she really cares about, she breaks into the

old habitual curse formularies:

‘If any plots against the cause of Woman

Or peace proposes to Euripides

Or to the Medes, or plots a tyranny,

Or if a female slave in her master’s ear

Tells tales, or male or female publican

Scants the full measure of our legal pint—

_Curse him that he may miserably perish,_

_He and his house_,—but for the rest of you

Pray that the gods may give you all good things.’

It is of interest to find that not only were official curses written

up at the doors of a Thesmophorion, but, at Syracuse, an oath of

special sanctity ‘the great oath’ was taken there. Plutarch[369] tells

us that when Callippus was conspiring against his friend Dion, the

wife and sister of Dion became suspicious. To allay their suspicions,

Callippus offered to give any pledge of his sincerity they might desire.

They demanded that he should take ‘the great oath’ (ὀμόσαι τὸν μέγαν

ὅρκον). ‘Now the great oath was after this wise. The man who gives this

pledge has to go to _the temenos of the Thesmophoroi_, and after the

performance of certain sacred ceremonies, he puts on him the purple

robe of the goddess, and taking a burning torch he denies the charge

on oath’ (ἀπόμνυσι). It is clear that this ‘great oath’ was some form

of imprecation on the oath-taker, who probably by putting on the robe,

dedicated himself in case of perjury to the goddess of the underworld.

That the goddess was Kore we know from the fact that Callippus eventually

forswore himself in sacrilegious fashion by sacrificing his victim on the

feast of the _Koreia_, ‘the feast of the goddess by whom he had sworn.’

The curse is the dedication or devotion of others; the oath, like its

more concrete form the ordeal, is the dedication of the curser himself.

The connection between primitive law and agriculture seems to have been

very close. The name of the earliest laws recorded—they are rather

precepts than in our sense laws—the ‘Ploughman’s Curses’ speaks for

itself. Some of these Ploughman’s Curses are recorded. We are told by

one of the ‘Writers of Proverbs[370]’ that ‘the Bouzyges at Athens, who

performs the sacred ploughing, utters many other curses and also curses

those who do not share water and fire as a means of subsistence and

those who do not show the way to those who have lost it.’ Other similar

precepts, no doubt sanctioned by similar curses, have come down to us

under the name of the Thrice-Plougher _Triptolemos_[371], the first

lawgiver of the Athenians. He bade men ‘honour their parents, rejoice the

gods with the fruits of the earth and not injure animals.’ Perhaps these

were to the Greeks the first commandments ‘with promise.’

Such are the primitive precepts that grow up in a community which

agriculture has begun to bind together with the ties of civilized life.

In the days before curses were graven in stone and perhaps for long

after, it was well that when the people were gathered together for sowing

or for harvest, these salutary curses should be recited. Amid the decay

of so much that is robust and primitive, it is pleasant to remember that

in the Commination Service of our own Anglican Church with its string of

holy curses annually recited

‘_They keep the Thesmophoria as they always used to do._’

THE HALOA.

The consideration of the _Haloa_ has been purposely reserved to the

end for this reason. The rites of the Thesmophoria, Skirophoria and

Arrephoria are carried on by women only, and when they come to be

associated with divinities at all, they are regarded as ‘sacred to’

Demeter and Kore or to analogous women goddesses Ge, Aphrodite,

Eileithyia and Athene. Moreover the _sacra_ carried are cereal cakes and

nephalia: but the rites of the _Haloa_, though indeed mainly conducted

by women, and sacred in part to Demeter, contain a new element, that of

wine, and are therefore in mythological days regarded as ‘sacred to’ not

only Demeter but Dionysos.

On this point an important scholion[372] to Lucian is explicit. The

Haloa is ‘a feast at Athens containing mysteries of Demeter and Kore and

Dionysos on the occasion of the cutting of the vines and the tasting of

the wine made from them.’ Eustathius[373] states the same fact. ‘There

is celebrated, according to Pausanias, a feast of Demeter and Dionysos

called the Haloa.’ He adds, in explaining the name, that at it they were

wont to carry first-fruits from Athens to Eleusis and to sport upon

the threshing-floors, and that at the feast there was a procession of

Poseidon. At Eleusis, Poseidon was not yet specialized into a sea-god

only; he was _Phytalmios_, god of plants, and as such, it will be later

seen (p. 427), his worship was easily affiliated to that of Dionysos.

The affiliation of the worship of the corn-goddess to that of the

wine-god is of the first importance. The coming of Dionysos brought a new

spiritual impulse to the religion of Greece, an impulse the nature of

which will later be considered in full, and it was to this new impulse

that the Eleusinian mysteries owed, apart from political considerations

which do not concern us, their ultimate dominance. Of these mysteries the

Haloa is, I think, the primitive prototype.

As to the primitive gist of the Haloa, there is no shadow of doubt:

the name speaks for itself. Harpocration[374] rightly explains the

festival, ‘the Haloa gets its name, according to Philochorus, from

the fact that people hold sports at the _threshing-floors_, and he

says it is celebrated in the month Poseideon.’ The sports held were of

course incidental to the business of threshing, but it was these sports

that constituted the actual festival. To this day the great round

threshing-floor that is found in most Greek villages is the scene of the

harvest festival. Near it a booth (σκηνή) is to this day erected, and

in it the performers rest and eat and drink in the intervals of their

pantomimic dancing.

The Haloa was celebrated in the month Poseideon (December-January), a

fact as surprising as it is ultimately significant. What has a threshing

festival to do with mid-winter, when all the grain should be safely

housed in the barns? Normally, now as in ancient days, the threshing

follows as soon as may be after the cutting of the corn; it is threshed

and afterwards winnowed in the _open_ threshing-floor, and mid-winter is

no time even in Greece for an open-air operation.

The answer is simple. The shift of date is due to Dionysos. The rival

festivals of Dionysos were in mid-winter. He possessed himself of the

festivals of Demeter, took over her threshing-floor and compelled the

anomaly of a winter threshing festival. The latest time that a real

threshing festival could take place is Pyanepsion, but by Poseideon it is

just possible to have an early _Pithoigia_ and to revel with Dionysos.

There could be no clearer witness to the might of the incoming god.

As to the nature of the Haloa we learn two important facts from

Demosthenes. It was a festival in which the priestess, not the

Hierophant, presented the offerings, a festival under the presidency of

women; and these offerings were bloodless, no animal victim (ἱερεῖον)

was allowed. Demosthenes[375] records how a Hierophant, Archias by name,

‘was cursed because at the Haloa he offered on the _eschara_ in the court

of Eleusis burnt sacrifice of an animal victim brought by the courtezan

Sinope.’ His condemnation was on a double count, ‘it was not lawful on

that day to sacrifice an animal victim, and the sacrifice was not his

business but that of the priestess.’ The epheboi[376] offered bulls at

Eleusis, and, it would appear, engaged in some sort of ‘bull fight[377],’

but this must have been in honour either of Dionysos or of Poseidon who

preceded him: the _vehicle_ of both these divinities was the bull. It

was the boast of the archon at the Haloa that Demeter had given to men

‘gentle foods.’

Our fullest details of the Haloa, as of the Thesmophoria, come to us from

the newly discovered scholia on Lucian[378]. From the scholiast’s account

it is clear that by his day the festival was regarded as connected with

Dionysos as much as, or possibly more than, with Demeter. He definitely

states that it was instituted in memory of the death of Ikarios after

his introduction of the vine into Attica. The women he says celebrated

it alone, in order that they might have perfect freedom of speech. The

sacred symbols of both sexes were handled, the priestesses secretly

whispered into the ears of the women present words that might not be

uttered aloud, and the women themselves uttered all manner of what seemed

to him unseemly quips and jests. The _sacra_ handled are, it is clear,

the same as those of the Thesmophoria: that their use and exhibition were

carefully guarded is also clear from the exclusion of the other sex. The

climax of the festival, it appears, was a great banquet. ‘Much wine was

set out and the tables were full of all the foods that are yielded by

land and sea, save only those that are prohibited in the mysteries, I

mean the pomegranate and the apple and domestic fowls, and eggs and red

sea-mullet and black-tail and crayfish and shark. The archons prepare the

tables and leave the women inside and themselves withdraw and remain

outside, making a public statement to the visitors present that the

“gentle foods” were discovered by them (i.e. the people of Eleusis) and

by them shared with the rest of mankind. And there are upon the tables

cakes shaped like the symbols of sex. And the name Haloa is given to the

feast on account of the fruit of Dionysos—for the growths of the vine are

called _Aloai_.’

The materials of the women’s feast are interesting. The diet prescribed

is of cereals and of fish and possibly fowl, but clearly not of flesh.

As such it is characteristic of the old Pelasgian population before

the coming of the flesh-eating Achaeans. Moreover—a second point of

interest—it is hedged in with all manner of primitive taboos. The precise

_reason_ of the taboo on pomegranates, red mullet and the like, is lost

beyond recall, but some of the particular taboos are important because

they are strictly paralleled in the Eleusinian mysteries. That the

pomegranate was ‘taboo’ at the Eleusinian mysteries is clear from the

aetiological myth in the Homeric hymn to Demeter[379]. Hades consents to

let Persephone return to the upper air.

‘So spake he, and Persephone the prudent up did rise

Glad in her heart and swift to go. But he in crafty wise

Looked round and gave her stealthily a sweet pomegranate seed

To eat, that not for all her days with Her of sable-weed,

Demeter, should she tarry.’

The pomegranate was dead men’s food, and once tasted drew Persephone back

to the shades. Demeter admits it; she says[380] to Persephone:

‘If thou hast tasted food below, thou canst not tarry here,

Below the hollow earth must dwell the third part of the year.’

Porphyry[381] in his treatise on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, notes

the reason and the rigour of the Eleusinian taboos. Demeter, he says,

is a goddess of the lower world and they consecrate the cock to her.

The word he uses, ἀφιέρωσαν, really means put under a _taboo_. We are

apt to associate the cock with daylight and his early morning crowing,

but the Greeks for some reason regarded the bird as chthonic. It is a

cock, Socrates remembers, that he owes to Asklepios, and Asklepios, it

will be seen when we come to the subject of hero-worship, was but a

half-deified hero. The cock was laid under a taboo, reserved, and then

came to be considered as a sacrifice. Porphyry goes on ‘It is because of

this that the mystics abstain from barndoor fowls. And at Eleusis public

proclamation is made that men must abstain from barndoor fowls, from fish

and from beans, and from the pomegranate and from apples, and to touch

these defiles as much as to touch a woman in child-birth or a dead body.’

The Eleusinian Mysteries were in their enactments the very counterpart of

the Haloa.

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES.

The Eleusinian Mysteries[382] are usually treated as if they were a thing

by themselves, a ceremony so significant, so august, as to stand apart

from the rest of Greek Ritual. If my view be correct, they are primarily

but the Eleusinian _Haloa_: all their ultimate splendour and spiritual as

well as social prestige are due to two things, first the fact that Athens

for political purposes made them her own, second that at some date we

cannot exactly fix, they became affiliated to the mysteries of Dionysos.

To Athens the mysteries owe their external magnificence, to Dionysos

and Orpheus their deep inward content. The external magnificence, being

non-religious, does not concern us; the deep inward content, the hope

of immortality and the like are matters of cardinal import, but must

stand over till a later chapter, after the incoming of Dionysos has

been discussed. For the present what concerns us is, setting aside all

vague statements and opinions as to the meaning and spiritual influence

attributed by various authors, ancient and modern, to the mysteries, to

examine the actual ritual facts of which evidence remains.

Mysteries were by no means confined to the religion of Demeter and

Kore. There were mysteries of Hermes, of Iasion, of Ino, of Archemoros,

of Agraulos, of Hecate. In general mysteries seem to occur more

usually in relation to the cult of women divinities[383], of heroines

and earth-goddesses; from the worship of the Olympians in Homer they

are markedly absent. In general, by a mystery is meant _a rite in

which certain sacra are exhibited, which cannot be safely seen by the

worshipper till he has undergone certain purifications_.

The date of the mysteries at Eleusis is fortunately certain. The

ceremonies began on the 13th of Boedromion, i.e. about the end of

September, an appropriate date for any harvest festival which was

to include the later fruits and notably the grape. Our evidence for

this date is an imperial Roman inscription[384], but this inscription

expressly states that its enactments are ‘according to ancient

usage.’ ‘The people has decided to order the Kosmeter of the Epheboi

in accordance with ancient usage to send them to Eleusis on the 13th

day of Boedromion, in their customary dress, for the procession that

accompanies the _sacra_, in order that on the 14th they may escort them

to the Eleusinion which is at the foot of the Acropolis. Also to order

the Kosmeter of the Epheboi to conduct them on the 19th to Eleusis in

the same dress, escorting the _sacra_.’ The inscription is of great

importance, as it is clear evidence that _sacra_ were part of the regular

ritual. What precisely these _sacra_ were we do not know; presumably they

were objects like those in use at the Thesmophoria. The going to and

fro from Eleusis to Athens is purely political. The _sacra_ were really

resident at Eleusis, but Athens liked to think she brought them there.

The Epheboi _escorted_ the _sacra_, but, as was fitting, they were really

in charge of, and actually carried by, _priestesses_[385].

On the 15th of Boedromion took place the ἀγυρμός or assembling of the

candidates for initiation, and the proclamation by the Hierophant in

the Stoa Poikile interdicting those whose hands were defiled and those

whose lips spoke unintelligible words[386]. Some such interdiction,

some ‘fencing of the tables,’ took place in all probability before

all mysteries. It is this _prorrhesis_ of course that is parodied by

Aristophanes in the _Frogs_[387], who actually dares to put his burlesque

into the mouth of the Hierophant himself.

The 16th of Boedromion saw the accomplishment of a rite of cardinal

importance. The day was called in popular parlance ‘ἅλαδε μύσται,’ ‘To

the sea ye mystics,’ from the cry that heralded the act of purification.

Hesychius[388] in commenting on the expression says ‘a certain day of the

Mysteries at Athens.’ Polyaenus[389] is precise as to the date. He says

‘Chabrias won the sea-fight at Naxos on the 16th of Boedromion. He had

felt that this was a good day for a battle, because it was one of the

days of the Great Mysteries. The same thing happened with Themistocles

against the Persians at Salamis. But Themistocles and his troops had

the “Iacchos” for their call, while Chabrias and his troops had “To

the sea ye mystics.”’ The victory of Chabrias was won, as we know from

Plutarch[390], at the full moon, and at the full moon the Mysteries were

celebrated.

The procession to the sea was called by the somewhat singular name

ἔλασις, ‘driving’ or ‘banishing[391],’ and the word is instructive. The

procession was not a mere procession, it was a driving out, a banishing.

This primary sense seems to lurk in the Greek word πομπή[392], which in

primitive days seems to have mainly meant a conducting out, a sending

away of evil. The bathing in the sea was a purification, a conducting

out, a banishing of evil, and each man took with him his own pharmakos, a

young pig. The ἔλασις, the driving, may have been literally the driving

of the pig, which, as the goal was some 6 miles distant, must have

been a lengthy and troublesome business. Arrived at the sea, each man

bathed with his pig—the pig of purification was itself purified. When

in the days of Phocion[393] the Athenians were compelled to receive a

Macedonian garrison, terrible portents appeared. When the ribbons with

which the mystic beds were wound came to be dyed, instead of taking

a purple colour they came out of a sallow death-like hue, which was

the more remarkable as when it was the ribbons belonging to private

persons that were dyed, they came out all right. And more portentous

still—‘when a mystic was bathing his pig in the harbour called Kantharos,

a sea-monster ate off the lower part of his body, by which the god made

clear beforehand that they would be deprived of the lower parts of the

city that lay near the sea, but keep the upper portion.’

[Illustration: FIG. 14.]

The pig of purification was a ritual element, so important that when

Eleusis was permitted (B.C. 350-327) to issue her autonomous coinage[394]

it is the pig that she chooses as the sign and symbol of her mysteries.

The bronze coin in fig. 14 shows the pig standing on the torch: in

the _exergue_ an ivy spray. The pig was the cheapest and commonest of

sacrificial animals, one that each and every citizen could afford.

Socrates in the _Republic_[395] says ‘if people are to hear shameful and

monstrous stories about the gods it should be only rarely and to a select

few in a mystery, and they should have to sacrifice not a (mere) pig but

some huge and unprocurable victim.’

Purification, it is clear, was an essential feature of the mysteries, and

this brings us to the consideration of the meaning of the word mystery.

The usual derivation of the word is from μύω, I close the apertures

whether of eyes or mouth. The _mystes_, it is supposed, is the person

vowed to secrecy who has not seen and will not speak of the things

revealed. As such he is distinguished from the _epoptes_ who has seen,

but equally may not speak; the two words indicate successive grades of

initiation. It will later be seen (p. 480) that in the Orphic Mysteries

the word _mystes_ is applied, without any reference to seeing or not

seeing, to a person who has fulfilled the rite of eating the raw flesh

of a bull. It will also be seen that in Crete, which is probably the

home of the mysteries, the mysteries were open to all, they were not

mysterious. The derivation of mystery from μύω, though possible, is not

satisfactory. I would suggest another and a simple origin.

The ancients themselves were not quite comfortable about the connection

with μύω. They knew and felt that _mystery_, secrecy, was not the main

gist of ‘a mystery’: the essence of it all primarily was purification

in order that you might safely eat and handle certain _sacra_. There

was no revelation, no secret to be kept, only a mysterious _taboo_ to

be prepared for and finally overcome. It might be a _taboo_ on eating

first-fruits, it might be a taboo on handling magical _sacra_. In the

Thesmophoria, the women fast before they touch the _sacra_; in the

Eleusinian mysteries you sacrifice a pig before you offer and partake of

the first-fruits. The gist of it all is purification. Clement[396] says

significantly, ‘Not unreasonably among the Greeks in their mysteries do

ceremonies of purification hold the initial place, as with barbarians

the bath.’ Merely as an insulting conjecture Clement[397] in his

irresponsible abusive fashion throws out what I believe to be the real

origin of the word _mystery_. ‘I think,’ he says, ‘that these orgies and

mysteries of yours ought to be derived, the one from the wrath (ὀργή) of

Demeter against Zeus, the other from the pollution (μύσος) relating to

Dionysos.’ Of course Clement is formally quite incorrect, but he hits on

what seems a possible origin of the word _mystery_, that it is the doing

of what relates to a μύσος, a pollution, it is primarily a ceremony of

purification. Lydus[398] makes the same suggestion, ‘Mysteries,’ he says,

‘are from the separating away of a pollution (μύσος) as equivalent to

sanctification.’

The bathing with the pig was not the only rite of purification in

the mysteries, though it is the one of which we have most definite

detail. From the aetiology[399] of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, we may

conjecture that there were, at least for children, rites of purification

by passing through fire, and ceremonies of a mock fight or stone-throwing

(λιθοβολία, βαλλητύς). All have the same intent and need not here be

examined in detail.

On the night of the 19-20th[400] the procession of purified mystics,

carrying with them the image of Iacchos, left Athens for Eleusis, and

after that we have no evidence of the exact order of the various rites

of initiation. The exact order is indeed of little importance. Instead

we have recorded what is of immeasurably more importance, the precise

formularies in which the mystics avowed the rites in which they had taken

part, rites which we are bound to suppose constituted the primitive

ceremony of initiation.

Before these are examined it is necessary to state definitely what

already has been implied, i.e. the fact that at the mysteries there was

an offering of first-fruits; the mysteries were in fact the _Thargelia_

of Eleusis. An inscription[401] of the 5th century B.C. found at Eleusis

is our best evidence. ‘Let the Hierophant and the Torch-bearer command

that at the mysteries the Hellenes should offer first-fruits of their

crops in accordance with ancestral usage.... To those who do these things

there shall be many good things, both good and abundant crops, whoever

of them do not injure the Athenians, nor the city of Athens, nor the two

goddesses.’ The order of precedence is amusing and characteristic. Here

we have indeed a commandment with promise.

The ‘token’ or formulary by which the mystic made confession is preserved

for us by Clement[402] as follows: ‘_I fasted, I drank the kykeon, I took

from the chest, (having tasted?) I put back into the basket and from the

basket into the chest_.’ The statement involves, in the main, two acts

besides the preliminary fast, i.e. the drinking of the kykeon and the

handling of certain unnamed _sacra_.

It is significant of the whole attitude of Greek religion that the

confession is not a confession of dogma or even faith, but an avowal of

ritual acts performed. This is the measure of the gulf between ancient

and modern. The Greeks in their greater wisdom saw that uniformity in

ritual was desirable and possible; they left a man practically free

in the only sphere where freedom is of real importance, i.e. in the

matter of thought. So long as you fasted, drank the _kykeon_, handled

the _sacra_, no one asked what were your opinions or your sentiments in

the performance of those acts; you were left to find in every sacrament

the only thing you could find—what you brought. Our own creed is mainly

a _Credo_, an utterance of dogma, formulated by the few for the many,

but it has traces of the more ancient conception of _Confiteor_, the

avowal of ritual acts performed. _Credo in unam sanctam catholicam

et apostolicam ecclesiam_ is immediately followed by _Confiteor unum

baptismum_, though the instinct of dogma surges up again in the final

words _in remissionem peccatorum_.

The preliminary fast before the eating of sacred things is common to most

primitive peoples; it is the simplest negative form of purification:

among the more logical savages it is often accompanied by the taking

of a powerful emetic. The _kykeon_ requires a word of explanation. The

first-fruits at Eleusis were presented in the form of a _pelanos_[403].

The nature of a _pelanos_ has already been discussed, and the fact noted

that the word _pelanos_ was used only of the half-fluid mixture offered

to the gods. Its equivalent for mortals was called _alphita_ or sometimes

_kykeon_. Eustathius in commenting on the drink prepared by Hekamede

for Nestor, a drink made of barley and cheese and pale honey and onion

and Pramnian wine, says that the word _kykeon_ meant something between

meat and drink, but inclining to be like a sort of soup that you could

sup. Such a drink it was that in the Homeric Hymn Metaneira prepared for

Demeter, only with no wine, for Demeter, as an underworld goddess ‘might

not drink red wine’: and such a wineless drink, made in all probability

from the _pelanos_ and only differing from it in name, was set before the

mystae.

Some ceremony like the drinking of the _kykeon_ is represented in the

vase-painting[404] in fig. 15. Two worshippers, a man and a woman, are

seated side by side; before them a table piled with food, beneath it a

basket of loaves. They are inscribed _Mystae_ (Μυστα). A priest holding

in the left hand twigs and standing by a little shrine, offers to them a

cylix containing some form of drink. The presence of the little shrine

has made some commentators see in the priest an itinerant quack priest

(ἀγύρτης), but it is quite possible that shrines of this kind containing

sacra were carried at the Eleusinian mysteries. Anyhow the scene depicted

is analogous.

[Illustration: FIG. 15.]

Of the actual _sacra_ which the initiated had to take from the chest,

place in the basket, and replace in the chest, we know nothing. The

_sacra_ of the Thesmophoria are known, those of the Dionysiac mysteries

were of trivial character, a ball, a mirror, a cone, and the like: there

is no reason to suppose that the _sacra_ of the Eleusinian mysteries were

of any greater intrinsic significance.

Clement[405] in a passage preceding that already quoted gives the

Eleusinian ‘tokens,’ with slightly different wording and with two

additional clauses: he says ‘the symbols of this initiation are, I ate

from the timbrel, I drank from the cymbal, I carried the _kernos_, I

passed beneath the _pastos_.’ The scholiast[406] on Plato’s _Gorgias_

makes a similar statement. He says ‘at the lesser mysteries many

disgraceful things were done, and these words were said by those who

were being initiated: I ate from the timbrel, I drank from the cymbal,

I carried the _kernos_’; he further adds by way of explanation ‘the

_kernos_ is the _liknon_ or _ptuon_,’ i.e. it is some form of winnowing

fan.

There has been much and, I think, needless controversy as to whether this

form of the tokens belongs to the mysteries at Eleusis or not. From the

words that precede Clement’s statement, a mention of Attis, Kybele and

the Korybants, it is quite clear that he has in his mind the mysteries

of the Great Mother of Asia Minor, but from his mentioning Demeter also,

it is also clear that he does not exactly distinguish between the two.

The mention of the ‘tokens’ by the scholiast on Plato is expressly made

with reference to the Lesser Mysteries, and these, it will later (Chap.

X) be seen, are related especially to Kore and Dionysos. The whole

confusion rests on the simple mythological fact that Demeter and Cybele

were but local forms of the Great Mother worshipped under diverse names

all over Greece. Wherever she was worshipped she had mysteries, the

timbrel and the cymbal came to be characteristic of the wilder Asiatic

Mother, but the Mother at Eleusis also clashed the brazen cymbals. In her

‘tokens’ however her mystics ate from the _cista_ and the basket, but the

distinction is a slight one.

The question of the _kernos_ is of some interest. The scholiast states

that the _kernos_ was a winnowing fan, and the winnowing fan we shall

later see (p. 548) was, at least in Alexandrine days, used in the

mysteries of Eleusis. It was a simple agricultural instrument taken

over and mysticized by the religion of Dionysos. From Athenaeus[407]

however we learn of another kind of _kernos_. In his discussion of the

various kinds of cups and their uses he says: ‘_Kernos_, a vessel made

of earthenware, having in it many little cups fastened to it, in which

are white poppies, wheat, barley, pulse, vetch, ochroi, lentils; and he

who carries it after the fashion of the carrier of the _liknon_, tastes

of these things, as Ammonius relates in his third book On Altars and

Sacrifices.’ A second and rather fuller notice of the _kernos_ is given

by Athenaeus[408] a little later in discussing the _kotylos_. ‘Polemon

in his treatise “On the Dian Fleece” says, “And after this he performs

the rite and takes it from the chamber and distributes it to those who

have borne the _kernos_ aloft.”’ Then follows an amplified list of

the contents of the _kernos_. The additions are italicized: ‘_sage_,

white poppies, wheat, barley, pulse, vetch, ochroi, lentils, _beans_,

_spelt_, _oats_, _a cake_, _honey_, _oil_, _wine_, _milk_, _sheep’s wool

unwashed_.’

The list of the παγκαρπία, the offering of all fruits and natural

products, is in some respects a primitive one: the unwashed wool reminds

us of the simple offering made by Pausanias at the cave of Demeter at

Phigalia; but there are late additions, the manufactured olive oil and

wine. Demeter in early days would assuredly never have accepted wine.

The _kernos_, like the offerings it contained, is comparatively late

and complex. Vessels exactly corresponding to the description given by

Athenaeus have been found in considerable numbers in the precinct at

Eleusis, both vessels meant for use and others obviously votive. In

the accounts[409] of the officials at Eleusis for the year 408-7 B.C.

there is mention of a vessel called κέρχνος, which in all probability is

identical with the _kernos_ of Athenaeus. The shape and purport of the

vessel are clearly seen in the very perfect specimen[410] in fig. 16.

Such a vessel might well be called a _separator_; each of the little

_kotyliskoi_ attached would contain a sample of the various grains and

products. It is easy to see how the scholiast might explain it as a

_liknon_. The _liknon_ was an implement for winnowing, _separating_

grain from chaff, the _kernos_ a vessel in which various sorts of grain

could be kept _separate_. The _Kernophoria_ was nothing but a late and

elaborate form of the offering of first-fruits. In the simple primaeval

form of the Mysteries as certified by the tokens, we have but two

elements, the presentation and tasting of first-fruits and the handling

of _sacra_. All later accretions will be discussed in the chapter on

Orphic Mysteries.

[Illustration: FIG. 16.]

In discussing the Anthesteria (p. 42) mention has already been made of

a rite which, according to Athenaeus[411], took place on the final day

of the Mysteries. On this day, which took its name from the rite, two

vessels called _plemochoae_ are emptied, one towards the east, the other

towards the west, and at the moment of outpouring a mystic formulary was

pronounced. Athenaeus explains that a _plemochoè_ was an earthenware

vessel ‘shaped like a top but standing secure on its basis’: it seems to

have been a vessel in general use for the service of the underworld, for

he quotes a play called _Peirithous_ in which one of the characters said:

‘That these _plemochoai_ with well-omened words

We may pour down into the chthonian chasm.’

What the mystic formulary was we cannot certainly say, but it is tempting

to connect the libation of the _plemochoè_ with a formulary recorded

by Proclus[412]. He says ‘In the Eleusinian mysteries, looking up to

the sky they cried aloud “Rain,” and looking down to earth they cried

“Be fruitful.”’ The simplicity of the solemn little prayer cannot be

reproduced in English. It was a fitting close to rites so primitive.

Last of all, over those who had been initiated were uttered, if we may

trust Hesychius[413], the mysterious words Κὸγξ ὄμπαξ.

* * * * *

It remains to resume the results of the last four chapters. It has been

seen in examining four of the great public festivals of Athens, the

Diasia, the Anthesteria, the Thargelia, the Thesmophoria, that neither

their names, nor primarily their ritual, were concerned with the worship

of the Olympian gods to whom the festivals were ostensibly dedicated.

When the nature of that ritual was examined, it was seen to consist not

in sacrifice like that paid to the Olympians, which was of the nature of

_tendance_ and might be embodied in the formula _do ut des_, but rather

of ceremonies of _aversion_ based on ignorance and fear. Its formula was

_do ut abeas_. In the Anthesteria the ceremonies known as ἐναγισμοί were

seen to be purifications (καθαρμοί), and by purifications were meant

placations of Keres, of ghosts and sprites. In the Thargelia the ceremony

of the pharmakos was seen to be also a purification, but in the sense

not of the placation or riddance of ghosts and sprites but of a magical

cleansing from physical evil. In the Thesmophoria the ceremony with the

pigs was preceded by ceremonies of purification, and was in itself of

magical intent. Moreover the element of cursing and _devotion_ was seen

to lie at the root of the later notion of _consecration_. To these three

festivals, taken from the three seasons of the agricultural year, has

now been added the rite of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the gist of which

has been shown to be purification as preliminary to the handling of

magical _sacra_ and to the partaking of first-fruits.

The only just way of understanding the religious notions of a particular

race is to examine the terminology of the language of that race. Our

modern notion of ancient religion is largely summed up by the word

‘sacrifice.’ We are too apt to ask ‘what was the nature of sacrifice

among the Greeks?’ If we follow the lead of their language instead of

imposing our language on them, it is abundantly clear that sacrifice,

with all our modern connotations of vicarious expiation and of mystical

communion, they had not. All the ancient ceremonies, so far considered,

point to a thought simpler and nowise less beautiful or less deeply

religious, and that thought is _purification_. Purification practically

unknown to Olympian worship is the keynote of the lower stratum.

It is all important that this should be clearly and emphatically stated

at this point in order that the sequel may be intelligible. When the

new impulse connected with the names of Dionysos and Orpheus entered

Greece, it left aside the great and popular Olympian system embodied in

the formula _do ut des_, and, by a true instinct, fastened on an element

which, if in some respects it was lower, was truer to fact and had in it

higher possibilities, a religion that recognized evil, though mainly in

physical form, and that sought for purification.

The essence of that new religion was, as will later be shown, the belief

that man could become god: the new ritual feature it introduced, a

feature wholly lacking in the old uneaten ‘sacrifices,’ was mystical

communion by the eating of the body of the god. But, because man was

mortal, there was mortality to be purged away; and hence, although with a

new faith and hope, men reverted to the old ritual of purification.

So much by anticipation; but before we come to the study of the new

impulse it is necessary to leave ritual and turn to theology, which is

in fact mythology: the rites have been considered, and now in the next

three chapters something must be said of the beings worshipped,—at first

in vague shifting outlines as ghosts and sprites,—later crystallized into

clear shapes as goddesses and gods.