Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781032357485, 9781032357492, 9781003328360, 1032357487

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Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND MATERIALITY IN GREEK RELIGION K.A. Rask

Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion

Employing frameworks of lived religion and materiality, this book provides the first full-length study of personal religious experience in the Greek Archaic and Classical periods. Rask analyzes archeological, epigraphic, and textual evidence to highlight the role of individuals as vital actors and makers of Greek religion. A range of perspectives, such as those of Archaic mariners and Late Classical weaving women, show that religion infused the daily lives of ancient Greeks. Chapters visit the many spaces where people engaged in religious activities, from household kitchens to international emporia, as well as shrines both large and small. The book also interrogates devotional activities such as making votives and engaging in lifelong relationships with divinities, arguing for the emotionally rich character of Greek lived religion. Not only do these considerations demonstrate underexplored ways for reconstructing aspects of Greek religion, but also allow us to rethink familiar subjects such as votive portraits and epiphany from new angles. Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion is of interest to students and scholars working on ancient Greek religion and archeology, as well as anyone interested in daily life and lived experience in the ancient world. K.A. Rask is an assistant professor of Classics at The Ohio State University. She is a historian of religion whose research focuses on Greek religion and archeology and Etruscan religion. She engages in archeological fieldwork in both Greece and Italy.

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Recent titles include: Production, Trade, and Connectivity in Pre-Roman Italy Edited by Jeremy Armstrong and Sheira Cohen Taxation, Economy, and Revolt in Ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt Edited by Thomas R. Blanton IV, Agnes Choi, and Jinyu Liu Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome Realities and Discourses Edited by Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet, and Carlos Machado Politics in the Monuments of Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar Eleonora Zampieri Power and Rhetoric in the Ecclesiastical Correspondence of Constantine the Great Andrew J. Pottenger The War Cry in the Graeco-Roman World James Gersbach Religion and Apuleius’ Golden Ass The Sacred Ass Warren S. Smith Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy In Honor of Professor Anthony Preus Edited by D. M. Spitzer Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion K.A. Rask For more information on this series, visit: https://www.routledge.com/RoutledgeMonographs-in-Classical-Studies/book-series/RMCS

Personal Experience and Materiality in Greek Religion

K.A. Rask

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 K.A. Rask The right of K.A. Rask to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-35748-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-35749-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32836-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360 Typeset in Times New Roman by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Contents

List of Figures List of Maps Acknowledgments Conventions & Abbreviations

vi ix x xii

1

Introduction

2

From the Hands of Votaries: Self-made Offerings and Personal Devotion

23

“We Placed Our Offerings Side by Side with His”: Personal History, Childhood, and Religious Materiality

52

Experiencing Supernatural Presence: From Bodily Blessings to Ghostly Visitors

83

3

4

1

5

Media of Presence: Keeping Gods and Humans Close

112

6

Bringing It All Together: Religion and the Seafaring Life

147

Epilogue: Going Forward

168

Bibliography Index

171 201

Figures

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Black-figure pinax, signed by Milonidas. 575–550 BCE. From Penteskouphia. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY Painted text on black-figure pinax with quadriga, dedicated to Poseidon. From Penteskouphia. Drawing by Y. Nakas, after Hasaki 2021, 4.66 (a) Collage with pencil drawing, given at the shrine of Señor de Chalma, Mexico (after Graziano 2016, p. 200). (b) Novena booklet with prayer card image showing the shrine of Señor de Chalma A woman performs a libation at the altar of a wreath-laden herm. By the Nikon Painter. 470–460 BCE. © Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Attic white-ground lekythos depicting a seated woman constructing a wreath near a kalathos basket, found in Athens, 460 BCE. © State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, photograph by Renate Kühling Roughly cut bowl from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 33.2 Small votive relief from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 27.1 Wood kore from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 21 Three boats from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Top and middle: Inv. H92; Bottom: Inv. H 90. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 20 Relief from Echinos, showing presentation of child and sacrificial procession to Artemis, 4th century BCE. © Lamia Archeological Museum. Photo: author Detail of child reaching out to Artemis on Echinos relief, 4th century BCE. Photo: author Attic grave relief dating to 420–400 BCE. © National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

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Figures vii 3.4

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Marble relief with family performing a sacrifice; the boy holds a spit of meat and the girl holds a wreath. Dedicated to the sanctuary of Pankrates in Athens, late 4th century. Photo: DAIATH-1993–1213 Attic white-ground lekythos showing visitors at tomb of athlete. Attributed to the Vouni Painter, 460 BCE. Photo: © Metropolitan Museum of Art Woman and girl leaving offerings at a grave. Attic whiteground lekythos by the Thanatos Painter, ca. 440 BCE. Photo: After Oakley 2004, Fig. 131–132 Reconstruction of the Kokkinovrysi roadside shrine of the Nymphs, with figurines at the base of a stele. After Kopestonsky 2016, Fig. 7 Terracotta plaque montage showing a dancing Nymph with Pan, from Sant’Angelo Vecchio. Examples from mold series are also present at Pantanello Sanctuary. After Ammerman 2018, Fig. 45.9 Terracotta banqueting plaque montage of male and female couple, with infant. Same type as found at the Pantanello Sanctuary. After Ammerman, Fig. 45.34 Location of dancing Nymph plaques in the area of Metapontion. Map adapted by author from Ammerman 2018, Fig. 45.49 Horse-and-rider figurine, from the Circular South Shrine in the Potter’s Quarter at Corinth. 5th century BCE. Photo: author Fragment of a Classical terracotta altar with a man riding a horse, from Corinth. © American School of Classical Studies, Corinth Excavations Attic red-figure calyx krater from Sicily, showing Athena in a potter’s workshop. 500–450 BCE. © Caltagirone, Museo Regionale della Ceramica Votive relief showing an incubation, with Asklepios healing his follower using his hands. From the Piraeus Asklepeion, 4th century BCE. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Piraeus-0092. Photographer: Gabriel Welter Gold intaglio ring showing a seated Athena with the name Anaxiles in reverse. Tomb 66, from Polis (Agios Demetrios) on Cyprus. 5th century BCE. © Trustees of the British Museum Gold ring with carnelian scarab showing Herakles fighting a lion, with two Egyptian wadjet eyes. Mid-6th century BCE, found in the early 5th-century grave, Amathous, Cyprus. © Trustees of the British Museum Gold ring showing Artemis riding a stag, carrying a torch, surrounded by stars and a wreath. Late 5th century BCE. After LIMC, s.v., “Artemis,” no. 901 Silver medallion showing Aphrodite Epitragia, crowned with a wreath, from the Kerameikos, Building Z. Early 4th century BCE. © Athens, Kerameikos Museum

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Figures Painted wood pinax showing a sacrificial procession, with three figures named in the nominative. From the Saftulis Cave, near Sikyon, ca. 540 BCE. © Athens, National Archeological Museum Lead curse statuette representing Theophrastos and buried in the Vitsi cemetery, Paros. Early 4th century. Photo: Jessica Lamont, with permission Marble portrait of Ornithe, part of a family group. By Geneleos, mid-6th century BCE, Samos. Her name is inscribed on the fabric edge below her right hand. Photo: Egisto Sani, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 (a) The inscription naming Theophrastos on the figurine’s leg. Photo: Jessica Lamont, with permission. (b) The inscription “Ornithe” on the leg of her sculpted representation. Photo: Closeup from photo by Egisto Sani, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Terracotta girl with piglet and bird from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth, early 5th century BCE. © American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations Relief dedicated by Xenokrateia to Kephissos at the sanctuary of Echelidai at New Phaleron, late 5th century BCE. © Athens, National Archeological Museum Reconstruction of statue base dedicated by Pallene, dedicated at Delphi. Archaic period. After Courby 1927, Fig. 228 Plan of Etruscan shrine cluster (santuario settentrionale) and Greek shrine cluster (santuario meridionale), at Gravisca. Based on Fiorini 2014, 43 A reconstruction of the Aphrodite shrine at Gravisca, during the early 6th century. After Fiorini 2014, 34 Chian mesomphalos phiale in the Simple Animal Style, prepainted with a dedication from Zoi(i)los. From Naukratis, around 570–560 BCE. © Trustees of the British Museum Plan of Naukratis. Based on Villing 2019, Fig. 10 Priest’s Letter incised on a pottery sherd. Vessel dating to 550–530 BCE, texted added around 500 BCE. Olbia. After Dana 2021, Pl. 28 Panel of various stone-carved graffiti, including a warship with dolphin at the prow (A). 6th century BCE. Mt. Hymettos, Attica. After Van de Moortel and Langdon 2017, Fig. 5 Wooden model in the shape of a merchant vessel, dedicated at the sanctuary of Hera on Samos, mid-7th century. Keel attached to hull by dowels. After Ohly 1953, Fig. 31 Ceramic fragment incised with a ship, found at the Cape Beikuš Achilles shrine. 6th century BCE. After Bujskich 2006, Plate 34.17 Ceramic disc made from broken pottery, incised with a hoplite and dedication to Achilles. From Complex N.2 at the Achilles shrine at Cape Beikuš. 6th century BCE. After Bujskich 2006, Pl. 36.1

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Maps

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Central & Eastern Mediterranean Greece & the Aegean

xiii xiv

Acknowledgments

This book has gone through several iterations as my thinking about the personal religious experience has developed over the years. My thanks are owed to everyone who helped make it possible. Credit goes to the team at Routledge for their support and dedication, who helped bring this book to life: Amy Davis-Poynter, Marcia Adams, and Urvi Sharma. My arguments greatly benefited from the constructive input shared by the anonymous readers appointed by the press. So, too, conference audiences and colleagues have seen various sections presented over the years and provided helpful feedback. Portions of Chapter 3 grew out of an article published in Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, and I thank those reviewers as well. The original kernel of this study began as a dissertation, and my gratitude goes to my committee for their guidance and support on that initial project as well as its final form as a book: Mark Fullerton, Tim McNiven, Sarah Johnston, and Hugh Urban. Graduate school friends also contributed to my early thoughts on this topic. Beth Shively’s long chats and guidance were transformative. Matt Baumann has been a sounding board during many conversations and debates, both during graduate school and over the life of this project. The final form of this book owes much to Carolina López-Ruiz and Tim McNiven, both of whom read large sections of it and who were generous with their time and encouragement. Carolina provided insight and comparanda, as well as a helping hand for polishing my arguments. Tim was ever-willing to assist, and his detailed memory for artifacts, museums, and catalogs has improved these pages and several of my examples. I extend my gratitude also for his generous bibliographic and copyediting support. This book likewise benefited from the many colleagues who read over portions and engaged in helpful conversation, including Rebecca Ammerman, Mat Carbon, David Frankfurter, Laura Gawlinski, Fritz Graf, Philip Katz, Dan Leon, and Chris Parmenter. I thank the Corinth Excavations team for their generosity and for providing access to several of the items discussed here, especially Ioulia Tzonou, Chris Pfaff, James Herbst, and Guy Sanders. Discussions with Sue Langdon in the apotheke, as well as her subsequent

Acknowledgments

xi

comments on a chapter, were especially constructive. As has been the case for many archeologists, my time at the American School of Classical Studies was energizing, and I will always be indebted to my friends and colleagues there. The religious studies community at The Ohio State University has provided significant inspiration over the years and has done much to sharpen my thinking. My dean, Greg Rose, my assistant dean, Bishun Pandey, and my chair, Anthony Kaldellis, provided financial support during the completion of this manuscript. Ben John served as an extraordinary editing assistant and indexer during the final homestretch and he saved me on more than one occasion. Wendy Watkins at the OSU Epigraphy Center went above and beyond to help with sources on short notice. For advice and suggestions over many lunches, I also thank Steve Newmyer. Ian Mladjov created the beautiful maps. As any archeologist knows, acquiring image rights and high-resolution photographs is a perpetual challenge. For their help in making the process as painless as possible, I thank Jessica Lamont, Aleydis Van der Moortel, Merle Langdon, as well as my colleagues at the various institutes and museums: Argiro Karaberidi at the Athens Ephorate of Antiquities; Efthymia Karadzali at the Ephorate of Phthiotis and Efrytania; Evangelos Vivliodetis and Evridiki Leka at the National Archeological Museum in Athens; Manolis Papadakis at the Corinth Excavations and Museum; Eleni Tzimi at the German Archeological Institute in Athens; Andrea Patanè at Caltagirone’s Museo Regionale della Ceramica; Robbert Jan Looman from the Rijksmuseum in Leiden; Eva Käppel at the State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich; Lucia Rinolfi and the photographers at the British Museum; Grace Garcia and the team at Art Resource; Carolyn Cruthirds at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and, Shannan Stewart at the University of Cincinnati Classics Library. And finally, endless gratitude goes to my parents Terry Blackshear and Art Rask, Jr., and my brother Art, for getting me to this point and for their endless patience. Recognition also goes to my aunts, uncles, and cousins who cheered me on during Family Zooms (“is it done yet?”). So, too, my cat Mayhem, who managed not to eviscerate me when I ignored her to write this book.

Conventions & Abbreviations

Ancient names and places in English follow Greek spellings, except for those cases when deviation from common Latinized spellings would be jarring, such as Plato or Corinth. Greek terms are provided initially using the Greek alphabet but, if appearing frequently in the text, thereafter appear in transliterated format. Ancient abbreviations for author names follow the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition. Abbreviations for epigraphical sources and image encyclopediae follow the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, with the addition of ThesCra (Thesaurus cultus et rituum antiquorum: Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum). Translations are derived from the Loeb Classical Library, except where otherwise noted in the endnotes.

1

Introduction

Sometime at the beginning of the 6th century BCE, Greek merchants and sailors developed strong ties to Gravisca, the port area of Etruscan Tarquinia. Tarquinia itself was growing in prosperity at the time, and the visiting Greeks, some of whom settled at the port permanently, seem to have been drawn there for economic opportunities, especially natural resources, the goods produced in and around the urban center on the plateau, and of course the market there for Greek products. The Greeks who populated the trading port (emporion) may have hailed from the Ionian city of Phokaia, a seafaring town whose inhabitants traversed the Mediterranean and became familiar visitors along shorelines from Egypt to Spain. We know about the Greek presence in Gravisca, not only from the goods that they imported to the region, such as Ionian and Corinthian pottery, but also because they established a local sanctuary at the lagoon edge. Excavation suggests that the first building at the shrine was a small temple constructed around 600 BCE. Part of a bronze figurine representing an armed goddess hints at the divine recipient of worship, and a mid-6th-century inscription affirms the goddess’ identity as Aphrodite, frequently worshiped at harbor sanctuaries during this period. By the midcentury, the shrine seems to have been improved under newly prominent Samian influence.1 The Greek visitors to the sanctuary had traveled far from Greek-controlled territories; they were sailors and settlers engaged in inherently risky work and surrounded by non-Greeks. In fact, while their peripatetic life of seafaring adventure may have been marked by new sights and wonders, it was also one of extreme dangers, two themes eminently expressed in Homer’s Odyssey first composed in the previous few centuries. What was it like to visit the Gravisca shrine for these Phokaians, Samians, and other Greeks in the 6th century? Can we reconstruct the religious lives of worshippers like Zoilos, named on a votive fragment, from the archeological and textual evidence? What of their relationships with Aphrodite, and the embodied experience of individuals standing before her small temple? Can we get at the inner emotions of these visitors, safely descending from the ship’s deck to the shore? These are the sorts of questions that this study hopes to answer. DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-1

2 Introduction This book addresses religious experience in the lives of Greek individuals and their communities, as explored using evidence spanning the 8th century through the late 4th century BCE. Specifically, I argue for the importance of personal religious experience in both daily life and during more formalized religious situations, and I do so by engaging with corpora of materials that have been under-utilized in scholarship. These include, among others, self-made votives, literary and archeological remains attesting to life-long religious practices, evidence for supernatural manifestations in personal settings, and the ways both human and divine presences could be found in physical artifacts. Scholars studying Greek religion have increasingly underscored the importance of individual religious activity, those activities undertaken by ancient peoples as they engaged the gods and other suprahuman agents, all amidst life’s rhythms, successes, and crises.2 In part, this shift in focus developed as a reaction to the prominent emphasis previously afforded public, civic, and institutional aspects of Greek religion. From 19th-century interest in religion’s impact on civic institutions to the shadow of polis-religion at the end of the 20th century, civic and public aspects of religion have long been a major topic of interest in structuralist, functionalist, and sociological approaches to the Greek past.3 Interest in private and personal concerns during the Archaic and Classical periods has become more common in the last decade or so, however.4 Julia Kindt, for example, championed the concept of “personal religion” in 2015 as something that “coexisted with other manifestations of the religious including those of ‘polis religion.’”5 She stressed the variety in responses that individuals might have to the same religious ideas or actions, the variability in religious ideas evident in theological writings, and the way individuals negotiated their own religious needs within the wider public milieu. Although Kindt presents the “personal” as an alternative to polis religion frameworks prominent in Greek studies, she draws on over a century’s work on “personal religion” amongst scholars of Egyptian religion. Other work on the period emphasizes the role of individuals’ emotions, following especially the influential publications of Angelos Chaniotis about emotion and religious feeling.6 Alexander Rubel, in his study of Athenian religious anxiety during the plague and Peloponnesian War, stresses that religion “always finds a place in each individual’s life” and that “the sphere of private piety and the fear of the gods, as individual emotional reactions to an outside danger, held a special position within a religion dominated by collective cult practice.”7 Also concerned with the traumatic results of late 5th-century events in Athens, Esther Eidinow in turn examines the essential role of one emotion—envy—in social worlds and interpersonal relationships, in magical practices, and in interactions with, and among, supernatural powers.8 While both Rubel and Eidinow’s projects address emotions that are inherently personal, they both also ground those emotions indelibly within historical and social contexts. Together these examples illustrate

Introduction

3

scholars’ growing attention to individuals and their viewpoints, and the sorts of topics that further illuminate people’s activities in the religious sphere. The scholarly efforts to move beyond public and institutional facets of Greek religion likewise follow trends in religious and cultural studies from disciplinary fields outside the ancient Mediterranean context. A major body of such research in religious studies highlights modern “lived religion” and the religion of the everyday, and this paradigm will be an important component of this book. The study of lived religion investigates individuals’ religious experiences, practices, and interpretations as they navigate daily life and its dynamic social interactions and situations.9 Often focused on ordinary people rather than religious institutions, and on practices in contrast to dogma, scholarship on lived religion has explored a wide range of activities, such as female spiritualists wearing Neopagan charms and jewelry, volunteers at a non-sectarian religious charity cooking for patients with AIDS, and a father reciting lines from the Qur’an over his children at bedtime to protect them during the night.10 As a sort of “religion-in-themaking,” lived religion is “something that is continuously being made and remade by individuals engaging in religious activities and using religious idioms—laymen, religious specialists, and policy-makers alike.”11 The lived religion paradigm has been especially influential in the study of Roman religion during the late Republic and Empire, thanks to a research group hosted by the Max Weber Center of Erfurt University and originally concerned with the role of individuals in Roman religion.12 Janico Albrecht and his co-authors, however, have argued that some of the methods employed in studies of modern lived religion do not map well onto ancient contexts, given the limited source materials available for the study of ancient religious practices and daily life. For example, interviews with study subjects—an essential research method in the study of contemporary lived religions—allow researchers more effectively to access “subjective experience,” but Albrect et al. suggest that subjective experience “is anyway hardly represented in the available evidence” from antiquity.13 The documentation of rituals permitted by contemporary evidence, not to mention the researcher’s ability to observe rituals personally, allows a degree of access impossible for antiquity.14 The group has instead proposed its own modified approach, grounded on a definition of religion that places “communication with the gods” at its core. Labeling their specific model “Lived Ancient Religion” (LAR), they stress especially the individual’s appropriation of “prefabricated meanings,” individuals’ religious agency, the diverse and situationally constituted nature of religious meanings (e.g., objects), and communication as inseparable from mediality and materiality.15 Other research groups, however, have argued that historical research can well address the themes and interests of contemporary lived religion studies, and have applied the paradigm to European history from the Medieval period and after.16 While our evidence from antiquity makes it difficult to access the thoughts of most lay individuals, we can count on the available

4 Introduction literature, epigraphy, and archeology to allow us to reconstruct particular and important aspects of lived religion in Archaic and Classical Greece. Certainly, reconstructing the religious activities of individuals through archeological means is itself a laudable goal. Rethinking the available data through a variety of scholarly approaches and source material, as I aim to do in this book, encourages new insights about how Greeks engaged supernatural figures and, especially, how they interacted with material culture while they did so. As Helena Kupari emphasizes, however, it is not only religious practices as they are experienced and expressed that scholars of lived religion study, but also the “practices ‘about’ religion”—discussions, opinions, interpretations, discourses, and so on.17 In fact, it has recently been argued that grappling with these sources and social processes is crucial for studying lived religion in all historical contexts: “records reveal the negotiations of interpretation, a possible explanation and validation which are the core of experience.”18 The sometimes conflicting interpretations, discourses, and reactions of ancient peoples can be partially accessed through material culture and written sources and will be an important part of this study.

Personal experience in Greek religion: My approach in this book First and foremost, this book argues for the importance of personal religious experience in ancient Greece. Religious life in ancient Greece was not confined only to communal rituals, or to civic institutions, sanctuaries, and priesthoods, or literary and artistic discourses. While people could not help but respond to the social expectations and behaviors of others around them, individuals making their way in the world served as Greek religion’s main actors. Currently, there is little agreement about how best to define “experience,” especially in studies of Greek antiquity and religion.19 For the purposes of this discussion, personal experience includes an individual’s bodily engagement, mental and emotional perspectives, and first-person point-of-view as they engage the gods and the supernatural during major religious events, personally significant moments, and the occurrences of daily life. As such, religious experience herein encompasses a range of possibilities, including everything from an overwhelming impression of divine presence to the sensory experiences associated with making wreaths to adorn a shrine. Not only will this book show that objects, spaces, and actions impacted experience, but also how people’s personal concerns relating to their lived and imagined situations in turn influenced their ritual practices and interactions with supernatural powers. Because recent developments in the study of lived religion, both ancient and modern, inform my approach to personal religious experience, daily life occupies a special place in the pages that follow. By “daily life” I mean practices and ways of engaging supernatural powers outside the times of

Introduction

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major festivals, public rituals, or other major structured events. Daily life happens in domestic spaces and at meals, along roads and crossroads, in the shops of the agora, at gravesides, on ships and at the port, and so forth. Indeed, as will become clear over the following chapters, a focus on lived experiences helps move us away from reifying religious categories generally (“Mystery religion” or “personal religion”) but also those centered on location, such as “domestic religion” or “maritime religion.” At the same time, visits to a shrine or a god’s statue could be part of one’s day-to-day activities. We can think of shepherds passing by Laches’ 6th-century herm, described in its inscription as an “overseer of the herds;” shepherds encountered Hermes’ efficacious manifestation frequently as they went about the quotidian tasks of animal husbandry.20 The bride-to-be in Menander’s Dyskolos often visited a shrine to the nymphs in order to give the goddesses crowns, and we can imagine her devotional activity as a series of small-scale visits important to her, but not a major event for her family or community. It behooves us to remember, however, that “daily life” need not be mundane or banally routine, as day-to-day life could be particularly fraught, traumatic, and beleaguered by innumerable crises. In addition to wars, violence, plagues, and the dangers of the natural environment, as Jacco Dieleman succinctly describes the ancient experience, “life was hard, unfair, and often short.”21 Practices traditionally dubbed “magic” provided ancient Greeks with a powerful tool for dealing with such difficulties. These more private, secret, and individually centered ritual activities also fall within my field of interest. The societal role of magical experts and the alterity (sometimes even “illegal” nature) of their undertakings reinforce that magic cannot be divorced from its use within community settings, but much of the evidence for magic tends to be highly personal in nature, inseparable from the intimate concerns of people and their responses to various crises, needs, and desires. In his discussion of the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, Dieleman considers them a facet of “private ritual,” that is ritual practices “aimed at acquiring assistance from deities, demons, and the dead for overcoming uncertainty, misfortune, illness, and conflict in everyday life.”22 He finds that formularies like the PGM sometimes set themselves apart from (while also appropriating aspects of) “temple cult.” In the earlier Greek period, magic likewise involved ritualized actions, objects, and presences that drew from, transformed, or provided an alternative to the public practices that occurred in sanctuaries and shrines, as others have noted.23 I take a similar approach in this book, understanding magical practices as an aspect of Greek religious life, involving ritualized activities that people used to address their personal concerns, sometimes in necessarily private settings. Furthermore, as we will see in the following chapters, certain magical practices can prove useful for rethinking sanctuary practices. As much as an interest in lived experience directs our gaze towards the day-to-day activities of people—working at tasks, interacting with family

6 Introduction members, seeing to household affairs, traveling out and about, responding to personal crises—we cannot neglect major religious events: the bustle and hubbub in advance of a festival, initiations into mysteries, family sacrifices of thanksgiving, or first-fruits dedications after a particularly prosperous year. Reconstructing people’s experience of Greek religion requires accounting for institutionally structured practices (in sanctuaries or religious matters controlled by civic powers), social pressures and expectations related to personal religious affairs, and religious dissent and innovation, as well as all kinds of intersections among them. As much as lived religion has been associated strongly with a focus on the everyday and mundane, Robert Orsi’s The Madonna of 115th Street, arguably one of the most important studies during the early development of the lived religion approach, explores Catholicism in kitchens, living rooms, and streets, but also at major festivals, processions, and within church interiors. The BritAix research group, while interested in “the creativity, inventiveness and agency of believers in ordinary places and domestic settings: in the bedchamber, the closet or the barn,” also recognizes the importance of “the interactions of people of faith with both formal and informal structures of religion.”24 Communal worship, institutional regulation, and priestly control of sanctuaries were major factors in ancient peoples’ lives. Moreover, individual religiosity was very much incorporated, even institutionalized, within Greek sanctuary systems, marked as they were by vibrant cultures of votive giving or individually centered divinatory procedures. Even the use and location of private offerings could be prescribed by sanctuary authorities, or strongly dictated by social norms and expectations.25 In the ancient Greek world, too, surviving evidence indicates that some religious activities included those which can be described as “devotional,” marked by a desire for close relationships with sacred figures and a high degree of personal religious agency outside sanctuaries and civic power.26 Studies of devotionalism and related traditions from a variety of historical and religious contexts have demonstrated a wide diversity of practices. June McDaniel, for example, examines bhakti (“devotion”) in West Bengalese worship of goddesses.27 She stresses the “intense love of the deity,” the frequency of a “long and exclusive relationship” between devotees and goddess, and the importance of attentive worship by individuals.28 In many cases, though, the close relationship between mortal and divine figures was exceptionally pragmatic with the expectation that the goddess would reward her special followers or threaten them should they not meet her needs, leading McDaniel to identify several different forms of bhakti in West Bengal, including “folk bhakti” and “emotional bhakti.” For other scholars, the essence of bhakti transcends historical and regional boundaries, with the agency of the bhakta (practitioner) one of its defining features. Karen Pechilis argues that bhakti is less about “devotion” than “participation,” “committed engagement,” and “active self-involvement.”29 Whether in Medieval Tamil literature or modern

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South Indian performances, Pechilis sees bhakti as fundamentally an “interpretative, emotional, and relational mode of engagement” for worshippers.30 The long history of bhakti and its geographical range suggest that, as McDaniel shows in only one region, the meaning of the term and the role of the practitioner (bhakta) is historically and culturally specific.31 It is my sense that the Greeks of various communities throughout the Archaic and Classical periods likewise engaged devotionally with favored divinities in rather varied ways, with the “devotional” being only one—and not universal—aspect of lived religious experiences. Jennifer Larson, for example, differentiates “devotion” in the Greek world from standard modes of religious being, and she stresses that devotion can be found in personal preference for special divinities.32 It is clear that as pragmatic as some Greek practitioners may have been, and as terrifying as supernatural forces could be, there were many who did build emotionally resonant personal relationships with their local gods and heroes, even if the nature of those relationships does not correspond to non-Mediterranean devotional models (such as the various forms of bhakti or 20th century Christian devotionalisms). In fact, Theodora Suk Fong Jim has shown that charis, the term used to describe ongoing “reciprocal” interactions between gods and worshippers, included emotionally fulfilling facets, such as “elements of voluntariness, pleasure, and delight” and “mutual goodwill.”33 When it came to divine honors and offerings, Jim argues, “the essence of charis lies less in the magnitude of the gift reciprocated than in the emotional charge it carried and the kindly feeling it evoked between its giver and recipient.”34 Ties marked by goodwill can be observed in texts from the Archaic period, such as Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite,35 or seen at Classical-era shrines founded by individuals, such as Pantalkes in Thessaly.36 Especially strong religious fervor and attachment occurred in mystery cults (Eleusis, Great Mother),37 the Adonia,38 or even in cases when “Soter” deities saved a person in crisis.39 This book accounts for devotional activity as one of many ways that Greeks experienced religion in their lives, with close personal relationships with divinities and a strong degree of individual agency a factor in those relationships. As my discussion will show, these personally meaningful relationships were more common than have been generally acknowledged, and they could develop in a variety of ways.40 Visits to shrines for personal reasons seem to have been a major part of Greek religious activity, as suggested by the vast quantities of offerings uncovered in excavations, as well as the motives referenced in epigraphic and literary sources. Dedications made at popular shrines or at important spots in the landscape were closely tied to the concerns of individuals and their circles. I use the term “offering” to refer to various material items that were presented in shrines as people built relationships with sacred beings, and which could take the form of gifts to the gods, related forms of adornment, or even items for sanctuary use, such as ritual objects.

8 Introduction Referred to by a variety of Greek terms, such as ἀνάθημα (“something set up”) or ἄγαλμα (“pleasing thing”), they have received extensive study in the secondary literature.41 As much as their use cannot be divorced from the social and political dynamics of Greek communities, they still offer an invaluable glimpse at personal religious action and the concerns of individuals, and provide many avenues for analysis and interpretation. Given the centrality of offerings in Greek personal religious activity, and because their considerable surviving numbers provide valuable bodies of data, dedications will be a major discussion topic throughout this volume. In what follows, I address four specific aspects of personal experience in Greek religion: (a) haptics and self-made votives, (b) lifelong religious practices and ubiquitous material culture, (c) divine/supernatural presences in daily life, and (d) materiality and media of presence. I have chosen these four topics because they are of particular interest to me, but I should make clear that other studies of lived personal experience might follow a multitude of other paths. For example, in this book, I only occasionally refer to the practices of people engaged in what has been called “mystery cults.” In part, this is because the mysteries and initiates’ experiences historically have received pride of place in studies of religious individuation and devotional relationships with divinities.42 Additionally, by and large my focus is directed at daily life rather than specific formalized rituals and events, such as initiatory processes. On the other hand, the varied sensorial aspects of religious practice were not confined to rituals and festivals and they have garnered increased attention in a number of recent studies; nevertheless, they will receive only limited attention in the following chapters in order to allow for extended discussions of materiality, corporeality, and haptics.43

Phenomenology and personal experience The archeological and textual evidence for Greek individuals’ religious experience proves especially fruitful when examined using phenomenological approaches. Phenomenology is the study of how we perceive the world around us and how phenomena appear to our consciousness. Stephen Melville aptly notes that it is “less a method than a commitment to the careful description of things as they show themselves in our experience of them.”44 Originally developed by Edmond Husserl from 1900 to 1931, phenomenology as a frame grew out of the work of earlier thinkers whose influence remains today, such as those from the German intellectual tradition. For example, a major influence on phenomenological thought was Friedrich Schleiermacher, who wrote a polemical reaction to Descartes and the Enlightenment principle of Reason, in which he declared that the essential elements of religious being were feeling and intuition.45 In keeping with the Romantic appreciation for emotion and feeling, phenomenologists argued that one of the ways human consciousness experiences the world is through affect, a topic which will reoccur throughout this book. Indeed,

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Angelos Chaniotis has argued for the study of experience by specifically highlighting Greek practitioners’ emotions.46 Some phenomenologists, dissatisfied with the Cartesian mind–body dualism as well as Kant’s immanence–transcendence dualism, wanted to move away from metaphysical and epistemological treatments of human understanding and instead focus on “experience.” In 1969, Calvin Schrag argued that the way to avoid mind–body dualism was to create an “ontology of experience” based on embodied encounters and perception. He argued that a person’s “common center … is the experience contextualized by virtue of his [or her] embodiment, speech, and sociality.”47 Schrag highlighted “lived experience,” what he called “the vitalistic and vibrant resonance of experience, with experience as that which man lives through.”48 Phenomenology and its concerns, including emotion and the first-person point-of-view, inform my approach to religion as it was lived in Greek antiquity. While phenomenologists and others have since further developed the concept of “experience,”49 it was phenomenology’s focus on lived experience which would establish a foundation for the later scholarship on lived religion; the connection between the two carries over into this book.

Materiality in religion and material religion As a study concerned with personal religious experience, this book is rooted in a materialist viewpoint. Potent amulets hung around the neck, wooden figures carefully carved by hand, bodies confronting their votive counterparts in stone—this study is informed by artifacts, substances, spaces, and bodies. As they have for phenomenologists, materiality and bodily encounters have long occupied writers on theological and artistic matters. In this struggle to account for the religious uses and agencies of objects and images, earlier studies and conversations often exhibited an underlying dualist metaphysics, in which the immaterial, transcendental and intellectual stood in contrast to materials and bodies. Earlier approaches employed in academic studies of religion invariably reproduced dualist frameworks and traditionally de-emphasized the material aspect of religious experience in order to elevate immaterial aspects, such as faith, inwardness, and the biblical Word. Colleen McDannell ties the intellectual roots of this framework to the influence of the Greek and Roman world: “Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy asserted that the highest form of truth and beauty is spiritual and therefore disconnected from the earthly and the material. There is a cosmic hierarchy that proceeds from the mind and soul downward to matter.”50 The body itself too became an important part in the discussion, already prominent in the work of thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty.51 The development of a philosophy of the body also grew out of feminist critiques of Western thought’s Cartesian mind/body dualism, which generally characterized women as more corporeal and natural in contrast to intellectual,

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cultured men.52 Thereafter the body as an object of study entered religious studies given that, Lawrence Sullivan explains, “the body lies at the center of the cultural worldview, especially at the heart of religious experience and practice.”53 McDannell warns, “to shy away from discussing the role of the body … is to neglect the primary mediator of religious experience.”54 Personal religious experience, then, cannot be reconstructed without taking into account the sensory, emotional, and corporeal practices of embodied actors.55 The supposed “cosmic hierarchy that proceeds from the mind and soul downward to matter” described by McDannell also was echoed in a similar hierarchy exhibited in religious historians’ source material. Traditionally texts held a privileged position as the chief historical object of concern, in part because practitioners’ engagement with religious texts was associated with ideas about religious interiority. From a methodological point of view, this convention stemmed from the history of religion’s origins in theology, biblical exegesis, and linguistics. Gregory Schopen has argued that the emphasis on text over objects (and images) can be directly traced to the theological arguments of 16th-century Protestant reformers who championed the “primacy of the Word” over, as John Calvin put it, “images and like things” that he called “innumerable mockeries … which pervert religion.”56 Certain Protestant value-systems thus intentionally rejected material manifestations of religious practice in order to prioritize inner feeling and the spiritual.57 Once the various academic disciplines were established and institutionalized, the dualist frameworks which privileged texts and the immaterial reinforced the categorical divisions between disciplines, with the result that areas such as archeology became peripheral to the way scholarship and theology conceptualized religion. Within the study of ancient religion, the disciplinary conflicts over where proper evidence for ancient religion should derive—philology or material culture—were made plain in skirmishes such as the so-called Creuzer Affair. The German Classicist and historian of religion Friedrich Creuzer’s 1810–1812 Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker instigated something of an academic furor; “a cause célèbre that left its mark on the intellectual life of the 19th century.”58 Creuzer argued that religion developed out of symbolic thinking. He believed that the most primitive form of human thought and communication was the symbol, which expressed things which were otherwise inexpressible. In his reconstruction of history, the pre-rational symbol grew into myth, and myths into natural religion, and so on, with each stage progressively more rational.59 Creuzer believed that symbols had two competing elements: the material, visible, human, and the immaterial, invisible, ineffable; certain artistic forms, such as Greek sculpture, distilled the two elements into one.60 Because symbols were not confined to language, but were also expressed in visual form, he studied the images preserved on archeological artifacts, such as sculptural reliefs, vase paintings, and so forth.61 Classical philologists vehemently attacked Creuzer’s method, challenging the

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appropriateness of artistic and archeological material as historical sources. Suzanne Marchand notes, following the “Creuzer Affair” of the 1820s, the internationally influential field of Classics in Germany experienced a “philological narrowing.”62 More recently, following the development of material culture and visual culture studies in the 1980s, many treatments of religion integrate artifacts and imagery directly into their conceptions and descriptions of forms of religiosity. David Morgan, for example, has described “visual piety” and the “sacred gaze,” religious ways of being that center on “seeing” and visual culture.63 Robert Orsi considers material items and images to be integral to the devotional practices that he studies—“statues, medals, blessed liquids, car and bicycle medallions, kitchen shrines …”64 That is, for Orsi, religion is not just belief, or faith, or ritual—it also exists as things. Schopen satisfactorily notes, “it is possible, finally, that the old and ongoing debate between archeology and textual studies is not—as is frequently assumed—a debate about sources. It may rather be a debate about where religion as an object of investigation is to be located.”65 David Frankfurter reminds us, however, that “simply studying materials that relate to religion, or conceptualizing religion in terms of material media”66 does not go far enough. Instead, the various substances, liquids, vessels and liturgical items, clothing, images and infrastructure—all the myriad things and stuff that people encounter, fabricate, and think with—actively shape and drive religious experience, just as they embody supernatural forces, sacred powers, and agency.67 Studies of Mediterranean religions increasingly center materialist phenomenologies and artifact agencies.68 As Emma-Jayne Graham emphasizes in her study of Roman practices, religious objects do more than carry meanings or embody beliefs, and ignoring their “materialness” means that we inevitably miss “what those material things did to people.”69 My own book adds to this expanding body of work, by querying aspects of lived experience and personal religion using phenomenologically oriented approaches: materiality, the body as the arbiter of perception, first-person experiences of the world, and, among other concerns, the centrality of personal biography and emotion. Although some of these topics have been addressed in shorter studies, my project is one of the first book-length projects to explore these aspects of Greek religion in the Archaic and Classical periods. As we will see, these varied topics have wide-ranging benefits for apprehending and describing ancient religious experiences and ancient people’s daily interactions with their material worlds.

Iconography and visual culture Given my interest in materiality, archeological evidence, and images, I employ Greek iconography throughout the following chapters.70 There is some flexibility in my own use of the terms “iconography,” “image,” and “artifact,” which in certain situations I use interchangeably to designate not only discrete

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symbols in an overall composition, but also to encompass an entire piece or object. I do so because discrete iconographic symbols, as well as other nonmimetic but meaningful aspects of pictures and objects in their entirety, are often inextricably bound together. When standing before a votive statue, for example, viewers can engage the object and its iconographic details as an irreducible whole. In other words, in those instances when making strict distinctions between “iconography” and a complete artifact is not appropriate, I treat the part (iconography) and the whole (image or artifact) in combination, as a sort of “image-object.”71 In my analysis, I draw on a variety of iconographic methodologies and theoretical frameworks, in order to contextualize ancient images within their historical and cultural surroundings, reconstruct ancient practices through representations, and explore images’ role in visual discourse. In what follows, however, I do not limit iconographic evaluations to the interpretive methods of iconology and semiotics. For example, frameworks from anthropology and the history of religions prove essential, given that there is abundant evidence from antiquity attesting to iconographies and artifacts imbued with supernatural power, divine force, and inherent efficacies, not to mention various substances from the natural world likewise empowered.72 Especially of interest are Greek people’s lived experiences of religious iconography, images, and objects. Their interactions with visual and material culture reveal underexplored aspects of ancient religion. Iconography’s relationship to individual experiences, emotional responses, and personal biography appears throughout the following chapters, in keeping with my focus on phenomenology and materiality. As we will see, phenomenological treatments of iconographies and artifacts provide fresh insights about Greek religious life, and also raise unexpected questions about ancient iconographies. Phenomenology has often been described as a framework eschewing interpretation and meaning, being preinterpretative or anti-interpretative. As a result, experiential and phenomenological treatments of iconography have only become widespread in the last few decades.73 It should be noted, however, that, while non-interpretative aspects of iconography will appear in the following pages as I investigate devotees’ encounters with imagery, treating phenomenology as anti-interpretative or pre-interpretative rests on a Cartesian dualist notion—that “the thinking thing … does not need material reality to exist,” as Manuel Vaquez explains.74 Hard distinctions made between the hermeneutic and the phenomenological reflect a perceived dualism between a thinking intellect and a feeling, responding body. In reality, these elements should not be treated as separate from one another. After all, the phenomenology of exegesis and contemplation is a major aspect of religious practice, encountered in textual and visual meditation undertaken by users of illustrated manuscripts, the meaningful and impactful role of visual narratives in the liturgical process (such as at Buddhist stupa friezes and Christian stations of the cross), or the transformative power of visual revelations in initiation

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rituals. The hermeneutic process can have important phenomenological aspects itself. Raymond Prier, for example, asserts that phenomenology, signs, and their interpretation are inseparable in Homeric poems. He demonstrates the significance of characters’ feelings of wonder and shock, given that in the poem people’s emotional and physical responses are often tied to moments of new understanding and clarity. Homeric semiotics, he indicates, is tied to the phenomenology of vision and recognition.75 This study of Greek personal religious experience draws heavily on archeological artifacts, and thus grapples with iconographic concerns. It is not just what information that iconography provides, but how people engaged with and experienced iconography and artifacts. For example, as mentioned in the outline below, Chapter 2 addresses devotees as makers of votives, and thus also as makers of iconographic representations. Chapter 3 explores the role of images and artifacts over the course of a person’s life; encounters with religious iconography are part of that life-long experience. Chapter 5 explores material presence, with iconographic representations sometimes crucial to the experience of presence.

Comparison, ancient and modern As a final note, this project is by nature interdisciplinary. Not only is it, at heart, based in Greek archeology, history of religions, and visual studies, but it also draws on other disciplines, such as cultural studies. Likewise, in the following pages, comparative explorations highlight some compelling and novel approaches to religious practice and material culture. As a natural result of such an interdisciplinary survey, I therefore employ analytical methods and comparative material from other religious contexts and fields, including the study of contemporary Christianity. Many of these studies provide exciting models that shed light on experiences of Greek religion which have been otherwise overlooked; people’s material engagement with images and artifacts receives special emphasis in the studies that I reference. Nevertheless, scholars of antiquity have been understandably wary of inappropriately applied modern frameworks and Christianizing concepts. Scott Scullion, for example, objected when the term “pilgrimage” was employed in Greek contexts,76 and Simon Price explicitly argued that Christian paradigms distorted reconstructions of Roman Imperial cults. He noted the “pitfalls” inherent in applying “Christianizing assumptions” to antiquity, a danger that “may be generally acknowledged, but … rarely avoided.77 For Price, the warnings were especially pertinent given his particular object of study and the history of scholarship surrounding Imperial cult.78 The full-scale rejection of comparative analysis for all periods of Greek history, however, seems a mistake.79 Comparison, carefully undertaken, does have value. Jonathan Z. Smith and Bruce Lincoln argued for the importance of the comparative method in religious studies, where it serves as a frequent tool. Rather than simply noting similarities, the description and

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comparison of two separate objects of study (e.g., a Babylonian festival and a Hawaiian myth) allow one to highlight particular elements in useful and interesting ways.80 While this book does not feature sustained and highly detailed comparative analysis, I do draw on studies of other religious and historical contexts, sometimes non-Greek and even modern, to showcase stimulating and inventive ways for thinking about Greek religion. *******

The organization of this book This book is arranged thematically, with discussion centering on self-made offerings, life-long religious experience, and presence, both supernatural and human. Several of the methodological and theoretical topics mentioned in this introduction receive more sustained discussion in the relevant chapters. Chapter 2 explores worshippers’ efforts to make their own offerings before presenting them to the gods, as well as worshippers’ physical experiences of the objects during the making process. These self-made votives are devotional artifacts that have been undertheorized in studies of Greek dedicatory practices. Making an offering by hand honored sacred figures through one’s labor, time, and commitment, and may have generated an especially effective petitionary endeavor. Through the process of making and through the efforts of their labor, Greek devotees engaged physical artifacts over extended periods within the spaces of daily life, and also undertook a religious pursuit that was inherently creative and productive. As such, studying the creation of these items from the perspective of embodiment, touch, and phenomenology is particularly fruitful. The study of selfmade devotional artifacts also underlines the personal experience of Greek religious iconography, through the fashioning of images and people’s embodied, tactile encounters with that iconography. This chapter makes the case for four types of self-made religious dedications: vegetal wreaths, figural cakes, woven votives, and wooden artifacts. Wreaths were a commonplace form of religious material culture, easily created from branches and leaves. Worn during rituals but also dedicated in sanctuaries, iconographic evidence indicates that they could be made in homes. So too were votive cakes, made by women in the household. Cakes came in a variety of shapes, some of which were figural, and their creation involved a messy, domestic labor that in this case cannot be separated from religion. In the making of cakes for the gods’ altars, a sensuous, tactile, corporeally rich devotional process began well before stepping into the sanctuary. Weaving was another creative activity that resulted in dedicated objects, with production work being part of a much longer process that could be both physically taxing and sometimes requiring highly skilled labor. Weavers seem to have felt pride in their efforts for the gods, with a sincere desire for the gods’ appreciation and gratitude. The importance of

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storytelling and singing about gods and heroes while at the loom suggests weavers may have been very mindful of the intended recipient as they worked at making their gift. Wooden artifacts were hand-carved before dedication at sanctuaries such as those of Artemis at Brauron and Hera at Samos. Such dedicated items include wooden figurines and models, weaving implements, vessels, and various utensils, among others. Because many of these artifacts could be carved with a simple set of tools (often just a knife), and because wood carving is a skill taught to young children around the world, I suggest that some being self-made is a likely possibility. In the case of these four votive types, devotees engaged the gods through the work of their hands. Such creative and tactile pursuits forged a connection between divinities, objects, and dedicators that could hold emotional resonance and which was devotionally meaningful. Chapter 3 turns to personal biography, life-long religious practices, and the affective role of material culture therein. Drawing on scholarship concerned with religion as lived over the course of one’s life, including the work of Kupari and Orsi, this chapter addresses Greek religion as a lifelong, ongoing experience. My special focus will be the way material culture impacts those experiences, as well as material culture’s emotional resonance. Additionally, a major topic in this chapter is the incorporation of children into religious communities, as well as childhood experiences as a component of personal biography. Drawing on treatments of sentimental and comforting devotional material culture, I suggest that lifelong encounters with familiar Greek objects imbued them with sentimentality, memories, and a sense of “rightness.” This chapter is divided into two parts. In order to explore personal biography, I turn to the evidence for childhood religious experience in Attica. Textual and archeological remains show that children’s religious learning shaped future adults, and that adult recollections of religious participation with one’s family often reveal a considerable measure of approval, sentiment, and pride. Children were trained in bodily comportment, an important aspect of which included corporeal engagement with objects, images, and other materials. Visual culture depicting children as they participated in such religious activities reinforces how they learned to imitate adults in their lives: moving in processions, presenting offerings, handling ritual materials, and engaging the gods in their sanctuaries. Many artifacts in sanctuaries and shrines, such as terracotta figurines, exhibit repetitive, ubiquitous forms and iconographies, used over generations, meaning that Greeks repeatedly engaged these same images over the course of their lives, from childhood on. Indeed, adult encounters with such artifacts in urban spaces and sanctuaries reinforce the importance of visual and material culture in connecting lifelong religious experiences. I also consider these repeatedly encountered objects in terms of ancestral tradition (ta patria). The Greek discourses on ta patria, used to control shrine activities but also perceptions of “right” behavior, showcases the

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process of religion-in-the-making emphasized in studies of lived religion, while also coinciding with “personal experience” in interesting ways. I show that considering ta patria in terms of personal biography, lived experience, and familiar material culture provides a compelling way to align the Greeks’ “right way” to do things and “how things have always been done” to people’s own life stories, their emotionally powerful memories, and their perceptions of past religious activities. Chapter 4 addresses the experience of supernatural presence in the Greek world. Although a number of studies have focused on Greek epiphany during the 8th through 4th centuries, this chapter employs the paradigm of “presence,” more often applied in studies of Hellenistic and Roman-era Greek religion. Based on Orsi’s treatment of presence, and drawing on the work of Chaniotis and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, this chapter explores “presence” in the personal lives of the ancient Greeks. By presence, I mean the ways that supernatural beings and powers were understood to be close and imminent, apparent to the senses, affectively experienced, or known to be tangibly at work in people’s lives. Gods, heroes, and daimones were often powerfully felt as close by, working in the world, even when direct epiphanic encounters did not occur. While ancient sources record discourses on elsewhere (rather than a paradigm of absence), generally Greek sources reflect the very real possibility of divine presence and power in the lives of individuals, rather than a world noteworthy for absent gods who did not make themselves felt to their followers. Textual and iconographic sources indicate that supernatural beings were there in the successes, victories, and blessings passed on to devotees, and very much present in mortal bodies and minds, mortal strengths and sufferings, dreams and even souls. Gods and heroes possessed the limbs and thoughts of prophets, poets, devotees, and those who received divine punishments. Miraculously healed body parts, diseases and convulsions, physical suffering, and even fertile bodies cannot be separated from embodied divine works in the Greek world. In keeping with this project’s interest in materiality and lived experience, this chapter includes a focus on embodiment and affect in the experience of divine presence. Although studies of epiphany generally address gods, heroes, and various sacred figures, in this chapter I argue that a reconstruction of presence in ancient Greece must include the souls of the dead and other “demonic” agents. Ghosts and demons are more often than not confined to studies of the monstrous and magical, but as this chapter shows, the impact of these supernatural beings on the world overlapped with ancient experiences of divine presence in surprising ways. These beings were experienced as very real, found in cemeteries and homes, dreams and bodies, and there in people’s successes and failures. Chapter 5 continues the discussion of presence during the Archaic and Classical periods, but focuses more closely on media of presence, the various materials and substances which were thought to hold the powers and

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presences of supernatural beings. In addition to once more drawing on phenomenological approaches and employing theories derived especially from studies on ancient magic, I also draw on Egbert Bakker’s work on memory in Greek culture and poetry. This chapter addresses three groups of materials as media of presence: objects from everyday life (rings and seals), dedicated objects (rings/seals, hair, votary portraits), and items employed in magical rites (figurines, ousia, katadesmoi, visual historiolae). Taken together, this chapter also utilizes these various approaches and bodies of evidence to theorize mortal presences and how they were materially experienced. Miniature images on rings and seals, as well as amulets, possessed the ability to embody divine presence and power. Rings and seals served as testimonials and reminders of the gods, but also haptically reinforced the relationship between sacred beings and their worshippers, allowing people to keep the gods close during daily life. Because seals were markers of personhood and authority, when an individual dedicated their seal in a sanctuary, the votive bore extraordinary weight as, I argue, media of mortal presence. Other examples include hair presented in shrines, which left a remnant of the person’s physical essence near the god. The correlation between hair and its dedicator meant that it too was a location of mortal presence, a connection supported by the use of hair in magical rituals. This chapter also makes the case that the magical role of figurines provides a useful paradigm for theorizing votary images during the Archaic and Classical period, and supports the identification of dedicated portraits as potential media of presence. Textual sources often employ the language of memory when describing these monuments, but in fact Bakker’s treatment of memory in Greek poetry reinforces votary portraits’ ability to evoke physically absent mortal bodies. The phenomenological aspects of votary portraiture are further amplified in the case of life-size images, which in their size and placement often purposefully replicated real-life religious encounters between worshippers, and worshippers and gods. I also propose that dedications showing scenes of reciprocal presence (when holy beings and their worshippers encounter one another) may function somewhat like visual historiolae, (re)enacting human-divine engagement. Chapter 6 returns to the sanctuary of Gravisca, where this introduction began, and examines the archeological remains from the sanctuary together with other port shrines, particularly Naukratis. Combining this evidence with epigraphic and literary sources, the chapter reconstructs the religious experience of mariners during the 6th century. This chapter demonstrates the flexibility of the lived religion approach and its usefulness for studying a mobile community engaged in highly dangerous work. It serves as an opportunity to synthesize the book’s major arguments into a single case study; as such, the themes from the four preceding chapters are considered in the context of maritime experience.

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I show that divine presence was very much a concern in the lives of sailors and traders; the gods enabled economic successes but also were instrumental in ensuring human safety at sea, which was an especially perilous place where storms, slavers, and other dangers constantly threatened. Sanctuaries provided familiar places where people could find comfort in familiar material culture, while thanking the gods for their protection. Their offerings could include purchased items but also self-made ones, such as carefully carved wooden boat models or haphazardly scratched graffiti on pottery sherds. In addition to reconstructing the general religious experiences of maritime religious practices, I also highlight several historic individuals who can be documented at emporia sanctuaries. A final short Epilogue provides thoughts on going forward, and articulates some of the implications of this study.

Notes 1 Krämer 2016; Brown and Smith 2019; Torelli 2019; Fiorini 2005; Fiorini and Torelli 2010; Demetriou 2017. Further bibliography is included in Chapter 6. 2 See Kindt (2015a) for extensive bibliography prior to 2015. 3 On scholarly interest in the public and civic aspects of Greek religion, including the Copenhagen Polis Project, see Note 2, and further Sourvinou-Inwood 1990; Burkert 1995; Cole 1995; Hansen 2003. More nuanced efforts to reconstruct how and when exactly the polis exerted religious authority include Aleshire (1994) and Mikalson (2016, 189–241). On civic identity’s relationship to religion, see Graninger (2011). For Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges’s early influence on treatments of Greek civic structures and religion, see Fustel de Coulanges (1864); Finley (1977); Segal (1976); and Prendergast (1983). For sustained critiques of the polis-religion model, see Kindt (2009); Kindt (2012); Bremmer (2010); Rüpke (2011); Garland (1984); and Demetriou (2017). 4 Jim 2014, Kindt 2015a; Graf 2013; Rüpke 2013; Waldner 2013; Rask 2016; Lemos and Tsingarida 2019. A bibliography for more targeted case studies appears below and in the subsequent chapters. 5 Kindt 2015a, 46. 6 Nock 1942; Chaniotis 2011; 2012a; 2012b; 2021; Chaniotis and Ducrey 2013. On emotion and lived religion: Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo 2022, 9–10. 7 Rubel 2014. The first quote from p. 10 and the second from p. 13. 8 Eidinow 2018, 5–10, 80–101. 9 Hall 1997; Orsi 1997; Orsi 2002; Nancy Ammerman 2007; Kupari 2016; Ammerman 2016; Knibbe and Kupari 2020 and the other articles in the special volume of the Journal of Contemporary Religion (2020, vol. 35); KatajalaPeltomaa and Toivo (2022). 10 Aune 2015; Bender 2003; Jeldtoft 2011. 11 Kupari 2016, 10. Religion-in-the-making: p. 19. 12 See Gasparini et al. (2020) and the extensive bibliography therein, including Rüpke (2011, 2016). In addition to Fuchs and Rüpke (2015), see the additional articles included in the special volume of Religion (vol. 45.3). The journal Religion of the Roman Empire commonly includes articles working from the “Lived Ancient Religion” perspective. Studies of Greek lived religion have, for the most part, been shorter studies and individual articles. Jim’s studies of offerings (2014) and soteria (2021) do touch on lived religion but emphasize

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14 15

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17 18 19

19

“religious mentalities” and belief as related to dedicatory practices (see especially 2014, 59–96). Albrecht et al. 2018, 570. Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2022, 25) note, however, that accessing “immediate experience” is impossible regardless of the time period: “While we strive for a profound empirical analysis of the chosen topics, we acknowledge that all the source materials, albeit of a varied degree and nature, face this same methodological problem. Therefore, medieval or early modern sources are not more partial than sources from the twentieth century for the study of experiences; all source material calls for a nuanced comprehension of its nature and conceptual finesse in the analysis.” On problems accessing certain data from antiquity; Rüpke 2011, 197. “Prefabricated meanings”: Raja and Rüpke 2015, 13; Albrecht et al. 2018; Gasparini et al. 2020; Raja and Weiss 2015. Rüpke (2016), for example, stresses these elements (e.g., individual appropriation) throughout. While my project shares much with these other approaches, my own work on religious experience draws instead from the larger field of “lived religion” in religious studies. While the various authors working in the LAR group exhibit a variety of interests in their own work, LAR’s methodological and theoretical stance shows some underlying assumptions that I do not adopt in this book. For example, they commonly make communication central to their definition of religion, to the extent that religion and interactions with the supernatural world seem to be reduced to communication between mortal “senders” and “divine communicators,” the sacralization of spaces becomes the construction of “sites particularly appropriate for religious communication,” and sanctuaries are described as “institutional spaces designed for religious communication” ( Albrecht et al. 2018, 569; Raja and Rüpke 2015). The ‘Lived Religion’ study group at the Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA, UR 853) and the Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English (Queen Mary University of London). See Dunan-Page, Lux-Sterritt, and Whitehouse 2020, as well as the other articles in the same special issue of E-rea. Related studies include Katajala-Peltomaa (2020); Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2020); Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2022). Kupari 2016, 30–33. Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo, 2022, 9. For more on the interpretative aspects of experience, see their quote in note 19. For academic and theological treatments of “religious experience,” see Taves (2005, 2009). For “experiences” as “consciousness,” “embodied behaviors,” and “interactions,” see especially Taves (2009, 56–87). Various understandings of “religious experiences” differentiate them from non-religious experiences, emphasizing, for example, sensory encounters with the divine or experiences of the “ineffable,” for example, Webb (2017). In their treatment of experience and lived religion, Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2021, 7) argue that experience is both individual and communal: “experience is not something that happens to people but something that they do – and they do it not alone but within the community and its rules of interpretation … our experiences are not just ours – they have one foot in cultural conventions and social interaction. The same holds true for people in the past.” Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo (2022) provide an extensive theoretical and historiographic analysis of “experience” and lived religion; they identify three levels: experience as immediate everyday encounter, as social process, and as social structure and cultural category. A number of studies addressing Greek and Roman antiquity do not account for what, exactly, “experience” entails, while others more clearly explain their topic of study. Julia Kindt, in a discussion of the experience of oracular shrines simply, but concisely,

20

20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Introduction seeks to uncover “what it was like to visit such a shrine” ( Kindt 2015b, 269). Marlis Arnhold describes religious experience as one in which there is a “awareness of a transcendent otherness” ( Arnhold 2013, 155). Chaniotis (2018) stresses the importance of emotion as a facet of “religious experience” during the Hellenistic and Imperial period; his interest lies in the way ritual shapes emotional experience. Irene Salvo is more explicit in a discussion of Roman Imperial curse tablets, wherein she calls experience “the process of being the protagonist of an event that has an impact on feelings and existence” ( Salvo 2020, 158). Gasparini et al. (2020, 4) describe “religious experience” as “the product of a wide range of sensory stimuli, effects, and inner feelings that are articulated by subjects or interpreted by observers as religious experience.” On the importance of the senses in ancient religious experience (see, e.g., Day 2013; Promey 2014; Harvey and Hughes 2018; Alvar Nuño, Alvar Ezquerra, and Woolf 2021). Further bibliography and discussion can be found in Chapter 2. SEG 41:20. See below, Chapter 5. Dieleman 2012, 337. Dieleman 2019, 284. For the extensive secondary literature on ancient magic, including sometimes quite disparate definitions of what it constitutes, see the articles collected in Frankfurter (2019a); see also Frankfurter (2019b) as well as Edmonds III (2019); Wilburn (2013). Dunan-Page, Lux-Sterritt, and Whitehouse 2020, §7 and §5. For more on the importance of studying lived religion and experience among the people and places of religious institutions, see Ammerman (2016). Rask 2020, 140–41. See Chapter 3 for further discussion. Rask 2016; Larson 2001. McDaniel 2004, 11–13, 145–208. These quotes are from McDaniel (2004, 11). Pechilis 1999, quotes from p. 24, 20, and 23, respectively. The different forms and contexts can be seen, for example, in McDaniel’s (2004) study of Shakti worship and the collected articles in the Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 12. Pechilis 2019, 163. I thank Hugh Urban for his conversations on this issue. Larson 2001, 134. Jim 2014, 67. Jim 2014, 67. Swift 2021. See also Chapters 4 and 6. Wagman 2015. Dillon 2003, 162–69. See below, note 42. Reitzammer 2016. Jim 2022. See Chapter 6 for divinities saving travelers at sea. Larson (2001, 134) stresses the role of devotion in worship of the Nymphs and more generally in mystery cults (see below), but my book makes the case that it appear in the worship of a variety of gods. Although I recognize the value of Mat Carbon’s critique when he wonders “whether ‘offrir’ or ‘offrandes’ are themselves problematic terms. ‘Are these useful categories of thought?’” ( Carbon 2013), given the flexibility of the Greek terminology, I use a variety of English terms to refer to them (dedication, offering, votive, etc.). I use more specific Greek terms where appropriate. For overviews and theoretical approaches to offerings, see, for example, Rouse (1902); Alroth (1988, 1998); Van Straten (1992); Osborne (2004); ThesCra I (2005, 269–318); Gaifman (2008); Patera (2012); Nordquist (2013); Jim (2014); Brøns (2015); Petsalis-Diomidis (2016); Hughes (2017); and Rüpke (2018).

Introduction

21

42 Further bibliography can be found in Burkert (1987); Cosmopoulos (2005); Bowden (2010); and Waldner (2013). 43 Treatments of the senses in religious experience include, for example, Day (2013); Promey (2014); Harvey and Hughes (2018); Alvar Nuño (2021); and Rogers (2021). Bibliography related to sight and touch can be found in later chapters. 44 Melville 1998, 146. The bibliography on phenomenology is immense. For an introduction and bibliography, see Vásquez (2011). Generally, phenomenology is based on the study of perception and the ontology of experience, but a remarkable array of treatments and subfields exist in the literature. This is particularly true regarding the phenomenology of religion. Traditionally the phenomenology of religion has viewed “religion” as irreducible and sui generis, reflecting the essentializing view that the core of religious being is the “numinous.” Proponents have maintained that the study of religion therefore requires its own set of methods. Rudolf Otto asserted, for example, that religion should only be studied by those who were religious themselves, because only they could understand religious modes of thinking ( Cox 2006, 55–57). Following Weberian traditions, the phenomenology of religion has been greatly concerned with morphologies and the creation of typologies, reflecting a desire to align the framework with scientific modes of analysis. The comparison of types has led the phenomenology of religion to be closely associated with the comparative study of religions. Combined with its extreme emphasis on morphologies and typologies, the “phenomenology of religion” approach will not be used in this project. 45 Cox 2006, 35. 46 Chaniotis 2018. Rubel comments, “religion is without doubt an emotional and psychological phenomenon that can be classified in the category of ‘religious experience’” (2014, 10). On religious experience, see note 19. 47 Schrag 1969, 257. 48 Schrag 1969, 9. 49 See note 19 for some of these definitions. 50 McDannell 1998, 9. On the Protestant genealogy associated with the “mentalist approach” to religion, in which “religion was framed primarily as an ‘inward’ domain of religious ideas, feelings, and inner convictions” (p. 9), see also Meyer (2012). 51 Merleau-Ponty 1968; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Boetzkes 2009. For the body (and its sensory experiences) in the study of Greek religion, see Chapter 2, “pp. 28–29”. 52 Lennon 2010. 53 Sullivan 1990, 99. 54 McDannell 1998, 14. 55 For embodiment and materialist approaches to Greek antiquity, especially as regards touch, see Chapter 2. 56 Quoted from Schopen (1991, 20). 57 For Protestant influence on approaches to religion and art (especially via Pietism), see Morgan (2009). 58 Barasch 1990, 233. For Creuzer’s work on the history of Greek religion, including discussions of the Eleusinian Mysteries, see Williamson (2004, 121–150). 59 Marchand 2003, 45. 60 On Creuzer’s approach to the symbol, see Barasch (1990, 233–238). 61 Williamson 2004, 129. 62 Marchand 2003, 47. 63 Morgan 1999; Morgan 2005; Morgan 2012; Morgan 2014. For more on religious viewing, see Chapter 2. 64 Orsi 2005, 8. 65 Schopen 1991, 23.

22

Introduction

66 Frankfurter 2017c, 149; 2019c. 67 Walker Bynum 2011; Meyer 2012; Morgan 2016. 68 For example, since 2018, the Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion at The Open University has aimed to investigate ancient religion, material culture, and materiality ( Harvey and Hughes 2018; Graham 2021). 69 Graham 2021, 5. 70 For trends in iconographic analyses of Greek religion, see Tanner (2006). For recent approaches to both religious and non-religious imagery, see Barringer and Lissarrague (2022). The bibliography for iconographic methodologies is extensive and will be referenced where appropriate in the following chapters. 71 On the “image-object” and the study of religious iconography, see Veymiers (2018, 35). 72 See Chapter 5. 73 Treatments of phenomenology and iconography include, for example, Melville (1998); Paskow (2004); Freedberg (2011); and Holly (2014). For further bibliography, see Chapter 2. 74 Vásquez 2011, 38. 75 Prier 1989. 76 Scullion 2005. 77 Price 1984, 10–14. For personal piety, the study of Egyptian antiquity, and efforts to avoid Christianizing paradigms, see Bussmann (2017). 78 For an analysis of Price’s comments on “personal piety” and its application to antiquity, see Kindt (2015a, 2016). See also Jim (2014, 21–23). 79 Compelling analyses of ancient data in terms of Christian or other religious contexts have become more common. On the comparison of ancient practices and modern Christianity; Versnel 2011, 539–559. Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (2010, 5–6) makes the important argument that ancient Christianity and Greco-Roman religious traditions during the Second Sophistic arose in the same regions and cultural contexts, with shared features. 80 For example, Smith (1982). For a more detailed discussion of comparative methodologies, see his chapter “In comparison a magic dwells” from the same volume ( Lincoln 2018).

2

From the Hands of Votaries: Self-made Offerings and Personal Devotion

Sometime in the 6th century BCE, a man named Milonidas visited a shrine near Penteskouphia, west of Akrocorinth, and left an offering there. The shrine, near an ancient road, seems to have been dedicated to Poseidon.1 Milonidas’ offering consisted of a terracotta pinax, today broken but still preserving an image of four chariot horses in profile (Fig. 2.1). The painted text informs us that Milonidas both painted and dedicated the item.2 Together this information suggests that he was a craftsman working in the ceramics industry. We can assume that when he painted it, he chose iconography that he thought would be appropriate and pleasing to the god. For this maker of a votive and its attendant imagery, the encounter with religious imagery was haptic and creative, although, given that Milonidas was a ceramicist, it may have had a rote everyday element as well. There survives a fair bit of evidence relating to Greek self-made votives that worshipers created for divine powers. I use the term “self-made” to refer to artifacts that were not made to be sold, but rather objects made by worshipers for their use or presentation in shrines or other religious situa­ tions, as well as objects made to express some religious sentiment.3 Although many surviving artifacts presented to holy beings were produced by artisans and sold to worshipers near shrines, worshipers did fashion their own dedications.4 These items took on a wide variety of forms, ranging from standard types familiar from votive media and genres, to more personal items directly related to an individual’s life and symbolic of the deity’s benefaction. Sometimes these personal offerings poignantly attest to a per­ son’s pride in their own abilities and the belief that holy figures would find them pleasing. This may be why a tablet bearing the alphabet was dedicated to Poseidon at Penteskouphia.5 Diogenes Laertius recounts the story of the 6th-century philosopher Herakleitos who dedicated his book in the Artemision at Ephesus.6 A number of potters and painters presented the work of their own hands to various gods and heroes;7 like Milonidas at Penteskouphia, Timonidas also made and presented a plaque to Poseidon there.8 Three other plaques dedicated at the shrine specify that the items were the painters’ “own work” (αὐτοποιεία) in order to, as Eleni Hasaki argues, “denote an even more intimate connection” with the plaque.9 One DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-2

24

From the Hands of Votaries

Figure 2.1 Black-figure pinax, signed by Milonidas. 575–550 BCE. From Penteskouphia. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

depicting a quadriga directly mentions Poseidon as the recipient of the offering (Fig. 2.2).10 Phrases related to αὐτοποιεία, though uncommon, convey well the sense of what I am describing as “self-made.” The dedication of one’s own creative work is strikingly illustrated by Archedamos, a Parian immigrant living in Attica, who set up a shrine to the Nymphs, carving his own portrait with other reliefs in a cave. Andrea Purvis comments, “the carving of Archedamos and the repetition of his name beside it, together with the inscriptions claiming that he was re­ sponsible for the work, give the immediate impression that he was proud of the physical labor of his accomplishment.”11 In fact, the man’s choice to depict himself holding carving tools—in his own self-made portrait—emphasized the role of his personal labor and skill in the adorn­ ment of the shrine. The creation of one’s own votive, I argue, serves as a sort of devotional labor, with the process allowing votaries to demonstrate their respect through the efforts of their bodies.12 The results of such work and labor ultimately please the gods and heroes, and include activities such as maintaining shrines

From the Hands of Votaries 25

Figure 2.2 Painted text on black-figure pinax with quadriga, dedicated to Poseidon. From Penteskouphia. Drawing by Y. Nakas, after Hasaki 2021, 4.66.

in good order, adorning sacred spaces with garlands or other signs of atten­ tion, or growing and caring for a garden at the shrine. It has been argued that the Greeks generally looked down upon toil or associated it with the lower classes, especially expressed as ponos (πόνος).13 Occasionally, though, the Greeks expressly used the term ponos in their descriptions of religious work. In the Iliad, warriors undertake the “toil” (ponos) of war, but on two occasions they perform ponos tied to ritual: butchering the sacrificial animal, roasting the flesh, etc. (2.420, 7.319); in all probability this idea reflects a class or social division in religious “work.” Still, illustrative is the Classical portrait statue base set up on the Athenian Acropolis by Syeris, the “helper” (διάκονος) of the priestess Lysimache. The inscription related the following: “a reverend fate led me to the most beautiful temple of holy Pallas, where I performed this labor (πόνον) not without glory (οὐκ ἀκλεᾶ) for the goddess.”14 It has been argued that ponos was conceptually linked with glory (κλέος) in some ancient authors, and as others have demonstrated, “ponos (pain, trouble, toil) was the price of greatness.”15 In Syeris’ case, the woman’s work itself transferred glory to the goddess instead of to her own mortal self. As for the “devotional labor” addressed in this chapter, the work honors the gods through hard work, through one’s time, effort, and perseverance. One’s own body—the acts it accomplishes and the things it transforms—delights the gods. As such, a votary-made offering transforms the work of the hands into an ἄγαλμα, a pleasing thing.

26

From the Hands of Votaries

Votary-made religious objects often function as powerful components in personal devotion and individual-oriented ritual. Self-made votives provide a compelling case study for considering the haptic, sensual, embodied, and infinitely personal ways Greeks engaged religious material culture. In what follows, I will explore the evidence for homemade votives in the Greek world, focusing on four types of offerings: vegetal wreaths, figural cakes, woven votives, and wooden artifacts. By considering figurative media—objects that carry figural designs and meaningful forms—I also il­ lustrate devotees’ roles as iconographers and makers of religious imagery. Before turning to self-made votives in Greece, however, let me first situate this chapter within treatments of religious imagery and discuss the theore­ tical frameworks that inform my discussion.

Engaging with votive objects and images Over the last two decades, the study of “viewing” and the “gaze” has been a major topic in art historical conversations about religious images and en­ counters with sanctuary material culture. Diana Eck’s seminal 1998 book Darśan laid important groundwork for an awareness of visually centered religious activities. She defines darśan as a religious seeing that plays a major role in Hindu piety and occurs when worshipers behold sacred figures or objects and when religious figures reciprocally observe devotees. Eck asserts that, by seeing and being seen, visitors engage with divine presence: “be­ holding the image is an act of worship, and through the eyes one gains the blessing of the divine.”16 David Morgan calls such religious ways of seeing a “sacred gaze,” “the particular configuration of ideas, attitudes, and cus­ toms that informs a religious act of seeing as it occurs within a given cultural and historical setting. A sacred gaze is the manner in which a way of seeing invests an image, a viewer, or an act of viewing with spiritual significance.”17 In Greece, literary sources describe numerous religious situations that were visually focused and meaningful. Epiphany, for example, was intimately tied to sight and the act of seeing.18 Visual encounters with objects and spaces played a considerable role in mysteries and other initiatory practices. The moment of epopteia, “divine vision,” was the highest level of mystic revelation at Eleusis. Consequently, Addey argues, Plato and later Neoplatonists fre­ quently described “philosophical vision” as akin to the revelatory sight that occurred during the Mysteries.19 A major facet of pilgrimage, theoria, involved watching and witnessing spectacles, sacred objects, and images.20 Many of these treatments emphasize the way viewing is structured by ritual processes and requirements, by movement through the topographic space of shrines, and by anticipated confrontations with the divine through their statue. Jaś Elsner, for example, interprets Pausanias’ 2nd century CE description of the altars at Olympia in terms of what he calls “ritual-centered visuality,” in which ritual processes, expectations, and infrastructure frame the experience of “seeing” material artifacts in sanctuaries.21 The centrality

From the Hands of Votaries 27 of the body in culturally grounded viewing experiences, especially in the context of medical pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Asklepios at Pergamon, receives extensive handling by Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis. Although ritualized situations appear throughout her study, her treatment of viewing amidst highly fraught and emotionally charged health crises also highlights re­ ligiously momentous viewing encounters outside the boundaries of ritual time, both within the sanctuary and well beyond it.22 As recent studies now recognize, interactions with material culture involve more than “seeing,” since the beholder is not confined to a “disembodied eye.” Instead, “viewers” are embodied, sensuous, and material creatures. Vision makes up only one part of the dynamic experiences Greeks under­ went when they engaged sacred figures. The other senses powerfully came into play, such as smell, the feeling of movement in space, and touch.23 Classical Greek textual representations, for example, suggest that enga­ ging religious images and the process of visual contemplation could be an exciting or emotional experience rooted in corporeal interactions. In Euripides’ Ion, for example, the chorus members approach the temple of Apollo at Delphi and exclaim enthusiastically when they see the narratives on the various monuments:24 Chorus: See, look here! – The hydra of Lerna he slays with a sickle of gold, does Zeus’s son. Friend, look over here!—I see him. And near him another raises the blazing torch …—But see here the man upon the winged horse …—My eyes dart in all directions. Look at the rout of the Giants carved on the stonework!—I see them, my friends!—Do you see her, shaking over Enceladus her fierce-visaged shield? I see Pallas, my goddess.—And do you see the thunderbolt with flame on either end?25 Euripides’ scene reenacts visitors at a sanctuary identifying iconographic attributes, characters, and narrative episodes. The repeated phrases denoting “oh, look!” make clear the excitement that infuses the chorus members; it is not hard to imagine them running from one picture to another, calling back to their friends once they identify the subject. The process of iconographic recognition that Euripides describes is here shared among friends; working out the identity of the figures does not entail silent visual contemplation, but rather a back-and-forth, chatty discussion between women about the var­ ious iconographic components and vignettes.26 The chorus members in­ dicate that they are able to recognize the iconography given their familiarity with the narratives from other storytelling contexts. The specific attributes and visual clues with which they establish the identity of the figures are otherwise well-attested in Greek visual culture long before the performance of the Ion: the Lernaean Hydra, the winged Pegasus, Zeus’ lightning bolt, Dionysos’ thyrsus, etc. Exposure to common visual culture and storytelling turns the sanctuary’s iconographic representations into an opportunity to see mythical “old friends” together with one’s current companions.

28

From the Hands of Votaries

The Ion chorus wanders about, exploring the monuments and artifacts in the sanctuary, as moving bodies with the earth beneath their feet, surrounded by the sights, smells, and material world of the sanctuary. Because they look to the sculpture decorating the temple, they are at some remove from the elevated imagery in the entablature and pediments. Vital for my discussion below, however, are tactile experiences of religious artifacts and images. Some discussions of touch and visual culture, espe­ cially that tied to art historical concerns, emphasize “haptic viewing” or a kind of seeing that “cultivate[s] haptic responses.”27 Rather than physical touch, this type of visual engagement induces a material awareness in the viewer, and the seen object can engender in the viewer’s body a sort of embodied echo. Cordelia War argues this idea in her discussion of Renaissance representations of the rough, patched, and frayed habit of St. Francis of Assisi, which encouraged the visceral impression of wearing a similar garment on one’s own body. She argues, “the sight of the roughly textured and patched habit encouraged the viewer to an imagination of the sensation of touching and being touched by it.”28 In a treatment of Hellenistic clothing offerings for Artemis, Petsalis-Diomidis argues along similar lines; when inventory records allude to the dedicated clothing having been worn previously by the votary, the dedications “therefore could be imagined enveloping the body of the named dedicant, thus evoking visual, haptic and olfactory senses of the reader.”29 Although these images and offerings inspire an embodied response in the viewer, my concern lies instead with the act of touching itself, so important in religious practices both ancient and contemporary.30 As is wellrecognized, Greek sacred images and ritual objects were touched by wor­ shipers in a variety of religious situations. This tactile engagement included, for example, washing and clothing sacred statues, carrying ritual items and baskets in procession, tilting libation bowls and the liquids inside them, handing over offerings to the gods, tying protective amulets onto cords that rest against the skin, hanging up the skull of a recently butchered sacrificial animal, and numerous other activities.31 Whether through the hand or other parts of the body, the immediacy and intimacy of touch kindled corporeal experiences of religious life. Recent discussions of touch’s affective properties can add to our re­ constructions of ancient tactile experiences in religious contexts. Scientists have discovered the biological links between haptics and the brain’s “emo­ tional touch centers;” interpersonal touch, for example, fosters feelings of trust and loyalty, and research shows that touch is neurologically tied to a variety of different emotions.32 Greek and Roman sources suggest an an­ cient perception of the relationship between touch and affect as well.33 In fact, based on the way some Greek texts describe hands possessing the ability to feel sentiment, Anne-Sophie Noel proposes a “poetics of touch.” She describes, for example, textual references to “loving hands” (φίλων χειρῶν) and “mourning hands” (χερσὶν ὀϊζυραῖς).34

From the Hands of Votaries 29 Greek votive practice, too, underscores ancient people’s phenomen­ ological, embodied, and personal engagement with religious media. Evidence suggests that worshipers frequently made their own votive ma­ terial culture, from which we can conclude that encounters with religious objects and imagery could be haptic, creative, and occurred in times and places outside sacralized settings. In these instances, giving gifts to the gods and adorning their shrines became an extended process encompassing work, craft, and time set aside. These engagements provide an alternative to “ritual-centered” visuality and embodiment within sanctuary spaces, because the creation of such items overlaps with religious ways of being during the spaces and times of daily life. It is to this subject which I will turn for the remainder of the chapter. This homemade aspect of Greek religious experience has received little attention in the secondary literature to date. Exploring this topic from the perspective of materiality, devo­ tionalism, and self-made iconography introduces new perspectives to the study of Greek dedicatory practices. Self-made votives Through an exploration of Greek offering production, I argue that selfmade votives and religious imagery functioned as a meaningful component of personal religious activity during the Archaic and Classical periods. Outside of the Greek context, there is ample evidence indicating the im­ portance of self-made religious artifacts. Recent studies of modern devo­ tional materials underscore that worshipers themselves exerted some control over that imagery and, in fact, homemade materials played a significant part in the physical experience of various religious groups. There are a number of modern examples that show how individuals in­ serted themselves into the creation of material religion and how they ac­ tually managed and imagined the resulting iconography and ideology.35 Let me begin with a few examples of self-made religious items derived from contexts other than the ancient Mediterranean. I do this in order to demonstrate not only the ubiquity of this sort of activity, and the variety of forms it can take, but also to introduce certain trends that will be relevant in my discussion of the Greek cases. At an Andean pilgrimage shrine in Peru dedicated to the Señor de Qoyullur Rit’i and visited by the indigenous community, a small grotto to the Virgin of Fátima sits just outside the sanctuary. Because she is thought to bless young women with weaving skills, when girls complete their first weaving projects, they sometimes dedicate the project to the Virgin there.36 We will see examples of Greek women weaving offerings at home, before presenting them in shrines. In the Andean case, not only are the girls proud of their achievement, they directly associate their success at the loom with the sacred figure. Their presented craftwork is palpable testimony of their gratitude, but also tangibly manifests their care and effort; the

30

From the Hands of Votaries

Virgin’s guidance is responsible for the success of the weaving process and its final result, and she in turn accepts it as a votive. At the Mexican shrine to the Virgen de Juquila, a different tradition of selfmade votives dominates. Rather than a labor-intensive effort presented as thanks, in this practice votaries make crude clay figures that are presented to the Virgin at the shrine’s pedimentio (“asking place”). The miniature models represent the devotees’ hoped-for outcome, leading Frank Graziano to call them “petitionary objects.” The clay models take a limited number of forms, but they are always contingent on the very personal concerns of the devotees: human figures (including children and pregnant women), cars, houses, ani­ mals, whole ranches with outbuildings, or simply slabs with inscribed texts. As I will argue momentarily (and also in Chapter 6), Greek worshipers dedicated self-made models in shrines as well. At the pedimentio, in addition to the sacred clay, votaries augment their miniatures with things they find nearby, such as sticks, rocks, bottle caps, bits of trash, and so forth. Their chosen iconographic motifs and votive shapes are often inspired by the displayed models made by previous visitors, but they can also be adapted, such as a female figurine with a baby drawn on its belly, representing a desired preg­ nancy. This corporeally rich votive process involves muddy hands and knees, the packing, daubing, and sculpting of wet clay, spur-of-the-moment im­ provisation, all while working under the hot sun on a dusty hillside. Graziano emphasizes that, when it comes to one of these ephemeral clay models, “the act of making it is more important than the object itself.”37 Not all self-made offerings at Juquila follow this loose, slapdash method, however. Some carefully constructed images attest to more meticulous creative endeavors: for example, someone left a votive figure of the Virgin built from shells, whose hair had derived from the dedicator.38 A highly personalized use of iconography can be seen in the many col­ lages, retablos, and other images dedicated in Mexican shrines, the imagery of which can be idiosyncratic and tied to extraordinary lived experiences. Collages combine drawings, photographs, texts, or attached items such as hair or clothing. That the imagery is exceedingly personal and related to individual narratives is exemplified by a dedication from 2002; a thankful circus trapezist, who had been “trampled by an elephant” created a selfmade collage that included a circus-tent drawing. In another example, a hand-made embroidery showed the female votary shooting her cheating husband outside a bar, with the grateful explanatory text, “I killed my husband and they didn’t do anything to me.” Retablos, painted plaques offered in thanks, were created by local artists but sometimes the dedicants themselves; they usually narrate divine interventions during life crises, often with that divine intervention taking the form of the sacred statue from the shrine, recognizable by its own distinctive iconography.39 A similar treat­ ment of standardized iconography can be seen in a collage given to the Señor de Chalma, on which the votary sketched a crucified Christ looming over the church situated in the background (Fig. 2.3a).40

From the Hands of Votaries 31

Figure 2.3 (a) Collage with pencil drawing, given at the shrine of Señor de Chalma, Mexico (after Graziano 2016, p. 200). (b) Novena booklet with prayer card image showing the shrine of Señor de Chalma.

The crucified figure represents the shrine’s miraculous statue, with the head turned to the left, long drape of hair, and colorful waist wrap. The iconographic schema, consisting of the larger Christ with the Chalma church below him, derives from prayer cards and other imagery associated with the shrine (Fig. 2.3b). In the votive collage, however, the pencil drawing of the familiar shrine imagery was augmented with a hand-written note and attached personal items (baby socks and a hair clipping). The embroidered votives, retablos, and collages show, then, a mixture of personally significant iconography and objects, as well as standardized religious iconography ea­ sily recognizable by the community, all creatively adapted into a meaningful whole by the votaries. Self-made religious material culture does not always derive from votive situations, however, and has been employed in divinatory contexts as well. For example, Daniel Wojcik documented an urban shrine in New York City, where “miraculous photography” served as the main divinatory idiom. Devotees used Polaroid cameras to reveal “allegorical and apocalyptic symbols [which] are interpreted as divine communications offering insights of prophetic and personal relevance.”41 As Wojcik recognizes, “miraculous photography also allows for a degree of religious autonomy, personaliza­ tion, and creativity. Based in personal perception and confirmation, folk

32

From the Hands of Votaries

religious practices such as miraculous photography may be modified and creatively adapted to express specific needs and concerns.”42 The icono­ graphy and its interpretation were key to these successful endeavors. In these modern examples, we find self-made objects and iconography taking on a variety of roles, resulting in votive offerings and divinatory images. Some of that imagery was already eminently familiar to devotees, borrowed from traditional pictures known at nearby shrines or otherwise used among community members. Many cases demonstrate votaries tweaking or adapting regularized imagery based on their own personal experience or creative impulse. Others are wholly inventive, visually dis­ tinctive, or purposefully obscure in their forms and iconography. The multiplicity of expressions in these self-made religious endeavors come about through the extended processes of making, of time spent, and of haptic occupation. They involve worshipers’ agency in the creation and use of religious votives, and therefore serve as a useful stepping-off point for our discussion of antiquity.

Greek self-made votives Let us return to the topic of Greece in antiquity. Although my study em­ phasizes dedications, it should be noted that, much as in the cases I just described, other self-made items appear in Greek religious contexts. For example, in Greek magical practices during the Archaic and Classical per­ iods, individuals and ritual experts engaged in the creation of magical ob­ jects, composites, and ritual assemblages. Due to our sparse evidence and lost organic remains, the exact role of individuals and independent magical experts in the creation of magical iconography and objects is unclear. For example, whereas we can be fairly confident that craftspeople made the lead figurines used in binding spells starting perhaps in the 7th century BCE, Plato notes that figurines were likewise made in wax. He remarks that people “view one another with dark suspicion if they happen to see images of molded wax at doorways, or at points where three ways meet, or it may be at the tomb of some ancestor.”43 While this “dark suspicion” may arise from people’s fear that others had hired specialists to make the wax figurines and enact spells, it is within the realm of feasibility that anyone could mold the dolls themselves, just as the Theran colonists made their own wax figurines for use during the oath swearing ritual before the foundation of Cyrene.44 Most likely, figurines of wax or other substances were used in parallel with the earlier lead figurines known from the Archaic period. Other types of artifacts, such as the stitched leather bearing the Ephesia grammata de­ scribed in a 4th-century comic fragment of Anaxilas, might be created or copied by non-specialists.45 It is extremely difficult to determine who in the Archaic and Classical periods was crafting amulets with iconographic components (lunettes, hands, double axes, shells, etc.) such as those re­ presented on statues and vase paintings. Most likely they would be

From the Hands of Votaries 33 purchased ready-made from jewelers or other craftspeople. Still, as Faraone has noted, homemade amulets, comprising leaves, pouches of herbs, or other substances, were often created by the people who used them,46 and we might speculate that small amuletic images may have been made in such a manner, too. Presumably, efficacious imagery of the sort could also be worked out in wood or fabric by anyone with the know-how, who wished to harness protective powers or other apotropaic forces. In these cases, not only were the materials themselves efficacious, but the processes of mixing, shaping, and inscribing imbued the items with power.47 The warming wax, the scent-heavy herbs cut, dried, and wiped from hands, the knotted cords weighted with amulets, the stitching needle and twisted scraps of leather, the stylus pressed into soft lead: all of these sensuous activities and materials infused a ritual process acted out by makers and inseparable from the corporeality of touch. Most of the magical items just mentioned played active roles in ritua­ lized and transformative processes and would not be considered part of offering practices. They were usually meant to act upon the world in some way or to harness power, whereas the votive objects I will discuss helped people build relationships with the gods and frequently served a peti­ tionary function related to requests or thanks for divine aid. In what follows, then, I will turn to offerings and will confine the discussion to four types of self-made religious dedications: vegetal wreaths, figural cakes, woven votives, and wooden artifacts.

Wreaths In Menander’s 4th-century Dyskolos, the gods reward Sostratos’ beloved for “crowning (στεφ[ανο]ῦσαν) the Nymphs” in their shrines; despite her terrible poverty, her frequent, loyal devotion to holy figures results in a divine reward.48 “To crown” (στεφανοῦν) was a term employed in the lan­ guage of honors, used especially in public and civic honors in the 4th century and after,49 but στεφανοῦν also refers to the religious presentation of simple vegetal wreaths. Wreaths, the elements of which could be freely acquired, were exceptionally accessible forms of votive media. Their dedication must have been extraordinarily commonplace in Greek shrines and at festival occasions.50 For example, on a red-figure neck amphora by the Nikon Painter (Fig. 2.4),51 a woman performs a libation at a herm’s small shrine. Wreaths have been left on the altar before the god, others have been hung from his body parts, and the god was “crowned” with one atop his head. Leafy sprays also adorn the herm. From the image, one gets the impression that bringing wreaths to the herm was a simple but ubiquitous activity. Wreaths were worn by participants during rituals, but during the Anthesteria, Athenians donated the wreaths worn during the festival, as well as their drinking cups.52 Shrines and sanctuaries must have been strewn with stacks of wreaths in various states of freshness and decay. Vases show many

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From the Hands of Votaries

Figure 2.4 A woman performs a libation at the altar of a wreath-laden herm. By the Nikon Painter. 470–460 BCE. © Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

also deposited at tombs, and the labor of their creation attests to pious activity undertaken in the spaces of everyday life. In the visual rhetoric of domesticity appearing on 5th-century Attic vase painting, the collection of leaves and branches and the meticulous braiding of stems and bark comprised a way that women engaged religious media in the home (Fig. 2.5).53 Vases show women weaving wreaths as part of their domestic activities, or prior to selling them (e.g., Euboulos, GarlandVendors/Stephanopolides). After collection, the fresh-smelling stalks would need to be braided while still pliable; the process was sensorially rich, with the leaves, bark, and any flowers emanating fragrance and leaching sticki­ ness.54 It is here, too, that we see the inadequacies of the “domestic religion” model, which reifies a specific “type” of religion as one that happens within domestic space.55 Making a wreath in anticipation of a visit to a shrine can occur anywhere, but even if the construction takes place in the home, the collection of plant materials extends beyond its boundaries. We will return to the household realm at several points throughout this book. The accessibility of wreath materials, as well as the item’s importance across genders, suggests that creating them might have been accomplished by men, women, and children. Given that the unnamed daughter in Menander’s Dyskolos was terribly poor, her frequent visits to crown the Nymphs imply that she collected the leafy branches and braided the wreaths herself. Her attentiveness and devotion to the Nymphs succeeded in pleasing

From the Hands of Votaries 35

Figure 2.5 Attic white ground lekythos depicting a seated woman constructing a wreath near a kalathos basket, found in Athens, 460 BCE. © State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, photograph by Renate Kühling.

the goddesses and their companions. Pan tells the audience, “she’s diligent in the care and respect she gives the Nymphs who share the shrine with me, and this has persuaded us to take some care of her.”56 The girl’s stopovers in the shrine and her presentation of homemade vegetal wreaths endear her to the holy figures she honors, and who honor her in turn. The religious feeling behind this sort of humble activity is articulated unequivocally by Hippolytos in Euripides’ 428 BCE play. The young man says to Artemis’s statue, “Mistress, I bring you this woven crown which I have fashioned from an unravaged meadow … Mistress of mine, receive from a pious hand (χειρὸς εὐσεβοῦς) a wreath to bind your golden hair.”57 The play centers on the man’s devotion to the goddess, and here he handmakes and gives a vegetal garland much like the one crowning the herm above (Fig. 2.3). His description of the meadow conjures the sensations of gathering green plants and flowers in a wild verdant space, with the goddess in mind. While Hippolytos’ singular allegiance to the goddess means that he rejects (and even disparages) other divinities, the picture he presents of an

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From the Hands of Votaries

otherwise attentive follower exercising personal agency as he honors a special divinity is one that we can recognize from texts such as the Dyskolos as well as Attic vase paintings.

Making cakes A type of votive likewise created in the home included a vital religious item, the cake. Cakes were associated with specific rituals and festivals, were presented on offering tables, and played an important role in the dedicatory and ritual system. Epigraphic sources indicate that in some places the in­ gredients and the shapes that cakes took could be regulated by the sanctuary and community.58 The iconography of Greek cakes was quite varied, ran­ ging from typical bread and cake forms such as the πόπανον or ναστός, to figural representations of animals or body parts.59 The ἕβδομος βοῦς (“se­ venth cow”), attested epigraphically, took the shape of crescent moons and might reach rather epic proportions: a multi-tiered construction, with six crescent cakes on the bottom, topped by another in the shape of an ox.60 According to later 2nd century CE sources, worshipers gave Artemis deershaped cakes,61 Demeter and Kore on Delos received one in the shape of a goat,62 and elsewhere the goddesses’ worshipers employed cakes formed into female and male genitals.63 Most cakes in the home were probably made by women, but figurines also show men working with grinding basins (grating cheese), so they may have been involved in similar domestic food preparation. The dehusking of grain at the pounding trough (ὅλμος), however, was performed by women and had close associations with the female worship of Demeter and was perhaps used ritually.64 We should imagine, then, individual households and groups of women and girls laboring in courtyards, per­ haps pounding grain at the holmos, kneading dough at the kneading basin (κάρδοπος), sweating at ovens, with sticky fingers and hands, shaping dough into visual and material symbols. Because sacrificial inscriptions denote that often the required cakes were small in number, in individual households their preparation may have taken place as food was simulta­ neously being prepared for the family.65 This is an entirely different ex­ perience of religious iconography than what scholarship usually describes. No doubt some visual contemplation and a back-and-forth dialogue about the imagery did occur during the baking, consumption, and dedication of the cakes—a bit of sticky, real-world hermeneutics. More importantly for our purposes, this was a messy, fragrant, physical, and sensuous aspect of iconography’s creation. This activity also attests to a bustling, chaotic, and corporeally rich votive process, with religion taking place in kitchens and courtyards, at work surfaces and ovens. This effort on behalf of the gods and heroes brought human relationships with the divine into the spaces and tasks of daily life, as women’s work built those relationships via their grain-flecked hands and laboring bodies.

From the Hands of Votaries 37

Woven votives Perhaps less constrained by ritual regulations, textile weaving was a delib­ erate, precise, and time-consuming process. By the Classical period, fabric production in wool and linen occurred in households and textile factories. Some households made their own textiles or produced surplus fabrics to sell, while others purchased all their textiles pre-made.66 The significance of textiles within religious contexts, including the process of weaving, is becoming better understood.67 We know that weaving occurred at a few shrines across the Mediterranean, thanks to archeological evidence for the presence of actual looms, such as in situ loom weights and charred loom timbers.68 Literary and epigraphic sources indicate that the labor of weaving, in addition to the presentation of the final product, was integral to several major festivals in classical antiquity, including those for Hera at Argos and Olympia, Athena at Athens, and Apollo at Amyklai. Textiles and clothing were likewise important votive items in the Greek world, as can be seen in a 4th-century votive relief showing dedicated gar­ ments and shoes (Fig. 3.1).69 The 4th century BCE Artemis Brauronia in­ ventories indicate that some of the dedicants gave incomplete votive garments, described as “half woven” (ἡμιυφῆ), or they presented them with some of the left-over threads used in the weaving process.70 PetsalisDiomidis proposes that in those treasury inventories which mention “halfwoven” garments, the “text suggests the physical process of production of the garment …”71 I suggest that, rather than only the inscribed inventory text, the visual impact of the incomplete garment itself was similar, in that it overtly referenced the work of the garment’s creator. These texts show, then, that women dedicated their own woven work as offerings to the goddess, sometimes in a form that visually emphasized the weaving process itself, not simply the finished product. Although from the Hellenistic period, a dedicatory epigram credited to Leonidas of Tarentum (early 3rd century BCE), provides a literary portrait OF the sort of devotional weaving that we might imagine for earlier periods. He describes a votive textile thus: “The right end of the border, measuring a span and a whole palm, is the work of Bitto; the other extremity was added by Antianeira, while Bitie worked the girls (τὰς παρθενικὰς) and the Maeander [river] in the middle. Artemis, fairest of the daughters of Zeus, take to your heart (πρὸς ψυχῆς θείης) this piece of woven work which the three vied in making.”72 The three girls together created a textile gift for the goddess, perhaps working on the same loom or combining their in­ dividual sections into a whole. The poem credits each girl with her respective portion, implying her pride in her efforts. As Petsalis-Diomidis observes, the poem also alludes to “intimate physical contact with the garment during the process of weaving.”73 Moreover, the intimacy of the self-made votive is magnified by the poem’s request for Artemis to accept the gift “into her heart” (ψυχή), the goddess’ emotional interior. The girls’ hard work and

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From the Hands of Votaries

their beautiful, finished textile forges a special connection between them and the goddess, who the poet imagines cherishing their gift in return. The self-weaving of patterned fabric ribbons and garlands used to adorn sanctuaries, statues, and cemeteries was likely very common.74 It should be noted that time at the loom was also intimately tied to the work of familial bonds and fidelity, given that many women were expected to weave, and took pride in weaving, the funerary textiles of their kin. Already the Homeric poems illustrate the cultural significance of shroud weaving, a time-intensive activity that had to be undertaken in advance, as women prepared funerary material culture for that most inexorable of eventualities. Representations show patterned fabrics at various stages of the funerary process, and arche­ ologically attested examples have been found enwrapping vessels, cinerary remains, and other funerary artifacts.75 Painted representations on stelai from Demetrias (Volos) show Hermes presented with tainiai and in another case wearing a fabric ribbon as a crown.76 Just as Bitie worked female figures and a river into her Hellenistic weaving for Artemis, Classical-era fabrics were decorated with colors, patterns, applied details, and figures woven into or embroidered onto the cloth.77 Attic vase painting illustrates mythological figures and animals rendered on tex­ tiles,78 while a preserved fragment from Koropi dating to the 5th century shows a parading lion.79 Literary sources attest to women weaving icono­ graphic details from mythology and religion, such as Creusa in Euripides’ Ion (1417–1429), who as a girl wove the Gorgon and snakes into her fabric. In the 4th century, Nikoboule dedicated a mantle to Artemis Brauronia, deco­ rated with “Dionysos pouring a libation, and a woman pouring wine for drinking.”80 Likewise, divine narratives covered the textiles ritually woven for the gods, even if the iconography was sometimes regulated by various authorities or custom. Athena’s peplos, for example, was decorated with a variety of images over time:81 Plato mentions divine battles (Euthyphro 6b-c), whereas Aristophanes relates that the deeds of the forefathers were woven into the fabric (Knights 565–566). Euripides describes iconographic depictions of the Titanomachy on the peplos, specifically divine chariots and lightning bolts, ever familiar images from artistic representations of the time: Perhaps I shall come to live in Athena’s city, and there on the saffron peplos of Pallas, weaving bright threads in a flowery pattern, yoke the horses to her glorious chariot; or depict the race of raging Titans quelled by Zeus, son of Kronos, with the flame of his lightning.82 Plutarch states that later the Athenians decreed that portraits of Demetrius and Antigonus should be woven into the peplos (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 10.4, 12.3), marking a break with Classical traditions. The old peploi may have been stored in the peplotheke; one wonders if the arrephoroi and priestesses, who wove the new garment, had access to the older iconography.83

From the Hands of Votaries 39 While they worked imagery into fabrics, women engaged in visual and narrative storytelling.84 At various points in the Greek and Roman world, poets and authors recognized that women’s iconographic abilities played out through the powerful medium of weaving. Already we find discussion of such woven images in the Iliad, when Helen depicts the Trojan War. Helen “was weaving a great purple web of double fold on which she was embroidering many battles of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-clad Achaeans, which for her sake they had endured at the hands of Ares.”85 Homer’s portrayal remarkably demonstrates a woman weaving topics directly related to her own life and experience. In the late 5th century, Euripides too connects weaving at the loom, storytelling, and the recognition of religious iconography. In his Ion (196–197), members of the chorus exclaim, upon seeing images of Iolaus around the temple at Delphi, “is it him whose story I heard at my loom? (ὃς ἐμαῖσι μυθεύεται παρὰ πήναις).”86 The power of weaving and woven imagery as a feature of women’s (and men’s) storytelling was so common that it became a metaphor closely connected to poetic genres, as has been wellestablished elsewhere.87 As these examples demonstrate, storytelling, popular characters, and visual symbols made their way into religious fabrics created by worshipers. As votive makers, devotees had a certain degree of agency when it came to choosing color, form, and imagery, in the hopes of pleasing the gods. Similar to the Señor de Chalma pencil drawing, though, Greek women seemed to have worked with well-established motifs which they could then adapt as desired. Given that women orally told mythical stories and sang songs about the gods while wool-working, one cannot help but speculate that they might have sung songs about the divinity for whom they in­ tended a woven offering.88 We should not lose sight of the personal experience coloring this labor that honored gods, sometimes performed by a single individual, but often undertaken by groups or multiple members of a household. Still, for an­ cient devotees, the carding of wool, spinning it into thread, and the in­ terweaving of strings on a loom haptically expressed personal piety, there inside weaving rooms or in the shade of home courtyards. Similarly, the weaving of the shroud to cover the deceased was a procedure that con­ tinuously reinforced the relationship between a woman and the dead, just as it did with the divine. A phenomenological treatment of religious textiles and votive offerings must account for creation: the production of dyed threads to match a chosen color scheme, the selection of icono­ graphic motifs, the advance planning and laying out of threads row by row, the addition of designs through embroidery. This meticulous, sometimes highly skilled activity was part of an extended, multistage progression, long before the work was ever presented to the gods and heroes in their shrines.

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From the Hands of Votaries

Wood carving Another votive material conducive to self-made artifacts was wood, parti­ cularly wood carving.89 Two Greek sanctuaries are well-known in the lit­ erature for their wooden dedications, the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron in Attica and the sanctuary of Hera on Samos. Due to the water-logged conditions at both sanctuaries, organic remains are well-preserved. Excavations at Brauron have uncovered wooden votives from three locations within the sanctuary:90 the Spring,91 the Archaic Eastern Building,92 and a votive pit west of the Stoa. The Spring deposit contained offerings dated from the 8th through 5th century BCE, including terracotta votives, bronze mirrors, jewelry, seal stones and rings, carved bone instruments, and so on. The wooden artifacts included boxes and vases. The Eastern Building, excavated the following year, revealed items dating from the 7th to 5th centuries, such as seal stones, glass, jewelry, and terracotta figurines. A female statuette was among the preserved wooden objects. In 2011, an infrastructure project uncovered a 5th century BCE votive pit, with a variety of offering types, such as figurines, bronze mirrors, and wood items. The most remarkable of these last was a wooden statuette wearing a peplos, with red pigment still visible.93 Additionally, excavators retrieved the carved soles of wooden sandals. Several of the wooden pieces from Brauron are relatively simple in form, such as spindles, spindle whorls, and pinakes, requiring limited skill or technique to carve. Others feature highly ornate decoration with geometric patterning; although not technically complex, carving these pieces would have been time-consuming, requiring precision and careful attention to detail.94 The Heraion on Samos, located on the seashore, began its life as a sanctuary by the 8th century. It would grow to be an internationally and politically important sanctuary, where dedicators left offerings originating in far distant locales. So, too, visitors left behind wooden objects of various forms. Excavators uncovered numerous wooden objects from the waterlogged area in and around three wells; the material seems to have been deposited in the late 7th century.95 The wooden artifacts took a variety of forms, such as utensils, vessels and containers, furniture, little stands or stools, and figurative sculptures.96 Some of the artifacts required a fairly high level of skill, such as the wooden hinges, but others were more crudely constructed. A wooden bowl (Fig. 2.6),97 for example, bears the obvious signs of its carving from a tree stump, with little effort made to smooth out the bowl’s interior (which nevertheless can be rather time-consuming). The bowl’s function in the sanctuary is unclear, and it may have had a practical function or served as a ritual vessel. There is no way to determine if it had been carved for sanctuary use originally, or if it had been brought from another location or nonreligious setting.

From the Hands of Votaries 41

Figure 2.6 Roughly cut bowl from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 33.2.

Some of the sculpture was quite simplistic.98 A small votive relief (Fig. 2.7), though typologically related to reliefs from Sardis, was basic in its details;99 its carving required no specialist cuts or tools. Kyrieleis remarks, “here the impression is that it was manufactured by the dedicator him­ self.”100 The same can be said of a small female figure, although it is of higher quality and contains greater detail (Fig. 2.8).101 The wooden kore is stylistically similar to Ionian sculpture, including stone figures from the Cycladic islands. Simple and without added ornament, the carving of this figurine required no more than a sharp knife. Of special interest are the simple wooden boats with narrow hulls found at the sanctuary, averaging around 40 cm in length, with few added details and only the hull carved out (Fig. 2.9).102 Excavators recovered some 40 such boats and speculate that they may be related to Hera’s local ri­ tuals or to the concerns of visiting sailors.103 In fact, as we will see in Chapter 6, ship models or other representations of ships were common offerings presented by mariners. As with the other examples I have noted, carving small boats like those at Samos required no specialized skills, cuts, or tools. In 1988, Kyrieleis suggested that the wooden artifacts at the Heraion could be divided by their quality: technically skilled works of art and handmade dedications carved by the “common man.”104 I agree that many of the items seem to have been self-made by dedicators or other hobbyists and amateur artisans. Identifying whether the more sophisti­ cated wooden items were self-made or workshop-made is notoriously difficult, however. Small carved sculptures, such as the Samos kore and relief, can be accomplished with knives; the Samos boats, a chisel or a

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From the Hands of Votaries

Figure 2.7 Small votive relief from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 27.1.

knife; the decorative chip carving on the Brauron sandal could be ac­ complished with a knife and a v-parting tool. Children in many parts of the world learn whittling and small sculpture carving at a young age, as early as 5–6 years old. Woodworking—the more complicated construction and carving associated with the Samos furniture, aryballoi, and other containers—requires a slightly different set of tools.105 Today, even the detailed ornamentation of the Brauron sandal rests completely within the skill set of hobbyist wood carvers, while hobbyist wood workers are capable of producing quite accomplished furniture pieces and con­ tainers.106 After all, one of the first woodworking projects that young children today learn at summer camp or in shop class is the wooden box. Larger or more complex pieces of wood carving and wood working do require a stationary woodshop, or at least a space to work and store tools.

From the Hands of Votaries 43

Figure 2.8 Wood kore from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 21.

Figure 2.9 Three boats from the Heraion on Samos. 7th century BCE. Top and middle: Inv. H92; Bottom: Inv. H 90. Photo: After Kyrieleis 1980, Plate 20.

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From the Hands of Votaries

Implications: The hand as apprehender and creator The self-made votives that I have addressed illustrate several phenomen­ ological considerations, including the embodied, first-person perspective as lived experience. In the 1960s, Calvin Schrag described “the body as lived, as lodged in the world as a base of operations from which attitudes are as­ sumed and projects deployed.”107 It is the body that comprehends the world and, in Schrag’s formulation, “the hand achieves a privileged role in this bodily comprehension.”108 Ancient authors too explored haptic means for ascertaining the world and recognizing truth; one thinks, for example, of Eurykleia recognizing Odysseus only after touching his scar.109 Schrag comments, “it is through the use of my hand that I project meanings by pointing and touching, by writing and counting, by striking and stroking, by giving and taking. It is through the use of the hand that I create new worlds and refashion the old. The hand makes man a creator.”110 Women and men experienced religious media in this tactile context: their hands and fingers were intimately familiar with offerings, with memories of planning out rows of figures at the loom and knotting colorful threads; shaping dough into animal forms; hand carving a kore’s hair or cutting its decorative detail. Andromache Karanika’s observation that “objects have their own life, which is interwoven with that of their makers,”111 I suggest, finds special applicability in religious contexts, when worshipers create items for powerful beings. The hand be­ comes tied to the final object, just as Homer calls Helen’s woven gift to Telemachus a μνῆμ’ Ἑλένης χειρῶν “a reminder of Helen’s hands.”112 Handmade objects held vitality, emotional conviction, and pride. Anyone who has ever hand-crafted a gift for another person no doubt recognizes the attachment created for the maker during the long quiet moments as they work on the gift. While sometimes mindless work, quite frequently the very act of making brings the other person hovering into the maker’s mind and heart, just as Bitie’s woven gift will draw the girl into Artemis’ heart (ψυχή) when she accepts it. Making a gift is a particularly intimate activity, the process of which continually reinforces one’s connec­ tion to another. In a religious context, the maker demonstrates their piety through their labor, but in many cases, this work also seems to attest to reverence and even affection for the sacred recipient. As such, the process of making an offering is rendered personally and emotionally significant. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, in antiquity there seems to have been a sense that emotions and touch might go hand and hand, as it were. Anne-Sophie Noel notes that some dedicatory epigrams emphasize the votary’s “loving hands” when the gift is presented to the god, seen, for example, in a 6th-century inscription from Halai which reports, “Euandros dedicated me, a beautifully-made (?) kouros, he gave it with his loving hands to Athena the city protector.”113 So, too, as we have seen, Hippolytus crafted and handed over a wreath to Artemis with his pious hands. Noel argues, “it is certainly a mark of piety and faith toward the

From the Hands of Votaries 45 god who receives the offering, but it may also hint at an affective re­ lationship with the object itself: the object which has been held and ma­ nipulated by these very hands …”114 Her observation, I think, likewise applies in the context of hand-made dedications, imbued with affect during the making process. In addition to all the varied emotions felt during the lived days and nights of fabrication, affection for and commitment to the intended divinities become inseparable from the finished gift. Materialist and phenomenological approaches to votives, then, provide important new perspectives as we continue to reconstruct aspects of Greek religion. Similarly, an exploration of self-made artifacts draws our attention to the personal experience of Greek religious iconography: the personal creation of images, and embodied encounters with that iconography. Like the clay-molded cars and houses at Juquila, Greek votaries generally created recognizable imagery rooted in common ico­ nographic motifs and conventional imagery, employing “iconographic knowledge” and “visual memory.”115 Nevertheless, we should not com­ pletely discount the “autonomy, personalization, and creativity”116 found in modern retablos, collages, and divinatory Polaroids. Self-made offer­ ings attest to individual, haptic experience of votives and close encounters with the imagery. This supports Schrag’s phenomenological under­ standing; the hand of the dedicator creates and experiences iconography in a way different from the standard visitor to the shrine. Such iconography is grounded in touch, in labor, and in the creative process. It allows us to complicate reconstructions of iconographic encounters, so often sim­ plified as optically grounded interpretative practices related to “viewing.” The embroidered peploi and leafy crowns created by Greek worshipers remind us that votive iconography was experienced not only through the eyes, but also through fingertips and hands, through bodies and memories, in maker spaces and shrines. Self-made offerings were symbols of pride and success, but also far more; they were an especially intimate connection between god and worshiper, a physical manifestation of respect, effort, and time spent. Because self-made offerings enabled ancient Greeks to engage their dedication over sometimes extended periods and outside the confines of sacred space, their study allows us to open up new questions and considerations about religious material culture. Thinking more closely about how ancient Greeks made their votives underscores that experiencing religious offerings comprised more than dis­ embodied viewers “looking” and “seeing”; this haptic engagement involved the learning, encoding, sensing, and contemplation of images and artifacts through the hands. Additionally, the very creation of images and symbols could be a religiously meaningful part of the votive process. In this way, selfmade offerings enmesh us, here, at the intersection of major theoretical concerns and debates across a number of disciplines related to the study of antiquity. As such, the worshiper becomes creator, maker, iconographer, and only then, finally, dedicator.

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Notes 1 Hasaki 2021; Tzonou and Herbst 2021. 2 Berlin F511-Louvre MNB 2856. Stissi 2002, Cat. D1, 484; Hasaki 2021, 218–222. Μιλονίδας ἔγραψε κ᾿ἀνέθεκε. On egraphein and epoiesen signatures on Greek pottery, see Stissi (2002, 104–111). There has been some debate about the meaning of epoieson in dedicatory inscriptions. For many, the term indicates that the named individual made the object themself; for others, that the votary “caused it to be made.” Keesling (2003, 71–74) provides an overview. In what follows, I take epoieson as indicative of the artifact’s maker. Because my main examples in this chapter concern items often found without accompanying in­ scriptions (wreaths, cakes, textiles, and wood carvings), alternative readings of epoieson do not negatively impact the arguments put forth below. 3 I do sometimes use the phrases “handmade” and “homemade,” with the un­ derstanding that they are imprecise terms; in a world with limited massproduction, many artifacts were handmade (and homemade), even when made to sell for profit. 4 Gina Salapata (2018, 99) only briefly mentions these sorts of offerings, but does note that they “could simply be an inexpensive alternative to a commercial item but could also indicate greater personal effort and involvement, with dedicants leaving their personal mark.” Additionally, Jessica Hughes argues for personally and emotionally significant votives that had been repurposed, that is, previously used by the dedicator. She says (2017, 196–197) “these metonymic votive objects would have had rich biographies involving different people, places and events, and the act of leaving these objects behind in the sanctuary may have been an emotionally-charged experience – an experience which created a permanent link between the worshiper and the sanctuary, and which left the person materially lacking in some way, almost like a landscape or monument from which a piece of rock has been hewn away.” 5 Hasaki 2021, 75 and Fig. 3.37; LSAG 117, pl. 20.16. For more on abecedaria, some of which have been found in sanctuaries, see West (2014). 6 Plutarch, Moralia, “Quaestiones Convivales,” 5.2, 675B; Diogenes Laertius ix, 6. Rouse 1902, 64. 7 See Stissi 2002, Appendix II.D, 484–86. On other craftspeople who dedicated their own work, n. 485. 8 Berlin F 846, Hasaki 2021, B42. Stissi 2002, Cat. C63, 469. One side shows a hunter with dog and the other shows a firing kiln. According to Hasaki (2021, 143), the outline of Poseidon behind the kiln seems to have been an unfinished and abandoned sketch. 9 Hasaki 2021, 220. Either this term or a closely related phrase. Hasaki (2021, 220) suggests “this type of proclamation must have been a phenomenon limited chronologically to the Archaic period, and geographically mainly to Corinth …” See also her Note 118 for discussion of a single example from Athens (Athens, National Museum Akr. 1.2134). 10 Berlin, Antikensammlung F 524 + F 694. Hasaki 2021, B53, fig. 4.66 (originally AntDenk II, pl. 29.10). 11 Purvis 2003, 43; Connor 1998; Larson 2001, 14–16, 242–245. The inscriptions: IG I3 977, 980, 981. On nympholepsy, see Chapter 4. 12 Rask 2016. On domestic work and ritual, see Karanika (2014, 133–159) and Frankfurter (2021). 13 Alan Boegehold (1982) shows, however, that the tenor of ponos (whether “good” or “bad”) shifted based on local historical factors, and it could be considered a virtue. Other specialists, such as craftspeople, referred to their work as ergon (ἔργον) but also ponos: Jim 2014, 149–150.

From the Hands of Votaries 47 14 IG II2 3464: [σε]μνὴ δέ με μοῖρα/ [ἤ]γαγεν εἰς ναὸν περικαλλέ[α] Παλλάδας ἁγνῆς,/ [οὗ] πόνον οὐκ ἀκλεᾶ τόνδε/ ἐλάτρευσα θεᾶι. Trans. Keesling 2017, 76. 15 Boegehold 1982, 48. On the pairing of ponos and glory ( Mares 2016), although this too changed over time, see Shapiro (1984). 16 Eck 1998, 3. 17 Morgan 2012, 3. 18 Verity Platt also addresses the way artists and visual culture explored the possibilities of sight. She refers to votive reliefs as “visual theology,” arguing that visual representations participated in a sophisticated discourse on re­ presentation and divine manifestation. She argues that votives “testify to the metaphysical reality of the sacred and the potential for its visible manifesta­ tion to mortal eyes, but they also exhibit an awareness of the difficulties of interpreting, recording, and responding to such contact with the divine” ( Platt 2011, 49). 19 Addey 2014, 51–56. 20 Nightingale 2004; Rutherford 2013. Rutherford (2000) provides a comparative study of theoria and darśan. 21 Elsner 2007, 11–48. Other treatments of movement and ritual viewing include, for example, Osborne (1987). 22 Petsalis-Diomidis 2010. 23 Hamilakis 2014; Hamilakis 2017; Harvey and Hughes 2018; Friese, Handberg, and Myrup Kristensen 2019; Alvar Nuño, Alvar Ezquerra, and Woolf 2021; Gunderson 2021. 24 Donald Mastronarde (1975) suggests that the iconography and images ap­ pearing in the play relate to the larger themes that Euripides dwells upon in the Ion: chaos and order, animal and man, earthly and celestial natures. 25 Trans., David Kovacs. Eur. Ion, 190–212. 26 The happy chatting and discussion of imagery and offerings likewise appears in the fourth mime of Herodas (3rd century BCE), in which Kynno and Kokkale visit the sanctuary of Asklepios on Kos. In that case, however, the speakers emphasize the realistic nature of the sculpture, the beautiful craftsmanship, and the precious materials comprising the offerings. The two women identify the figures and artists by the accompanying inscriptions, rather than by the ico­ nography. On this scene, see Petsalis-Diomidis (2006, 214). 27 Slaney 2018, 119. See also Boetzkes (2009) (“tactile eye”); Squire and Platt (2018) (who also use the evocative phrase “haptic imagination”). Further bib­ liography below. 28 Warr 2019, 228. For neurological simulation during the viewing process, see Freedberg (2011). 29 Petsalis-Diomidis 2018, 446. 30 On “touch,” see Linden (2015) and Classen (2012). Purves 2018a; Purves 2018b (and articles in the same volume). Gaifman and Platt (2018, 404) note, “hands constitute a critical site of engagement between human bodies and the worlds that they inhabit.” 31 Handling statues: Steiner 2001, 105–120; Montel 2014; Rask 2011; Chaniotis 2017. On dressing sacred statues, see Brøns (2015); Brøns (2017, 144–235). Baskets and ritual items: Hamilton 2009; Rask 2016, 31–32. Phialai: Gaifman 2018b. Offerings given by hand: Noel 2016. Amulets, touch, and the body: Dasen 2011, 2018; Faraone 2018. Manipulating and partitioning sacrificial bodies: Rask Forthcoming. 32 Linden 2015. 33 Purves 2018a, 3–4. 34 Noel 2016. See further below and Chapter 6, especially p. 166, Note 39.

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35 For some of the forces that influence iconographic choices in antiquity, see Chapter 3. Orsi (2005, 49) argues that devotional activity allowed individuals to control their own encounters with Mary and the saints, but many images were fully sanctioned by the Catholic Church, even if they were not always employed in perfect harmony with the Church’s ideals. In fact, rather than being a means for individuals to engage divine figures “on their own terms,” A. Stevens-Arroyo (1998) describes devotional images and artifacts as vehicles for the dissemina­ tion of religious ideas and orthodoxy by the Church, what he calls “material theology.” 36 Sallnow 1987, 192. 37 Graziano 2016, 210. 38 On religion at Juquila and further description of the votive offerings mentioned here, see Graziano (2016, 68, 101–111). 39 Much like the retablos, visitors to the Asklepieion at Epidauros in the late 1st century BCE could see pinakes dedicated by those who had been mir­ aculously cured by the god and which documented the miraculous events (Strabo 8.6.15). Because none have survived in the archeological record, Gil Renberg (2017, 168, n. 11) suggests that they were made of wood. Given the personal specifics of the miracle, the wooden plaque would have to be commissioned (perhaps at a shop within the sanctuary or just outside), al­ though conceivably a person could write their own description on a blank. Whether any of these may have also been illustrated is unknown, although they were possibly similar to the written personal testimonials dedicated in the sanctuary at Lebadeia after visitors encountered -os in the 2nd century CE (Paus. 9.39.14). Greek examples from earlier periods will be addressed below. 40 Trapezist votive: Graziano 2016, 91. Embroidered killing: Graziano 2016, 98. Señor de Chalma collage: Graziano 2016, 200. 41 Wojcik 1996, 130. 42 Wojcik 1996, 141. Sally Promey (1993) provided a similar example in the form of Shaker gift images, homemade drawings that illustrated the spiritual re­ velations given to visionaries by celestial beings, often in the mode of complex, intricate, and locally significant iconography. Alternately, other religious con­ texts involve items created by worshipers which played no divinatory role nor inhabited a central place in votive interactions. The making of these ancillary creations still served as heartfelt, sincere, and pious demonstrations of affection for invisible beings. Colleen McDannell (1998, 46–48) observed the meaningful nature of handmade objects exchanged among Protestant community members as well as the Christian mottoes hand-stitched in wool on cardboard and hung up in living rooms. 43 Plato, Laws XI 933b. Trans. Bury. On magical figurines, see Wilburn 2019. And below, Chapter 5. 44 SEG IX 3. See Chapter 5 for further discussion. For wax figures and ritual manipulation, see Faraone (1993). So, too, the late 4th-century cathartic law from Cyrene instructs those in need to construct a figurine from either earth or wood, two eminently accessible materials (CGRN 99 § 17). 45 Anaxilas fr. 18 K.-A. 46 Faraone (2018) addresses the various forms that amulets might take (40–46, 54–78). For examples of homemade amulets: 5–6, 27–28. 47 See Chapter 5 for further discussion of these issues, as well as bibliography. 48 Menander, Dyskolos 51, τὰς πλησίον Νύμφας στεφ[ανο]ῦσαν. 49 Ma 2013, 32–34. 50 For wreaths in religious practices, see Blech (1982) and Baker (2021).

From the Hands of Votaries 49 51 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 68.163. BAPD #275790. Vermeule 1970, 627–628, Fig. 97 and Fig. 99. 52 According to a later 4th century CE Atthidographer (Phanodemos, FGrHist 325.F), boys dedicated their wreath and chous in the Limnaion sanctuary after the Choes festival. These wreathed vessels appear in 5th century BCE Attic vase painting, perhaps attesting to similar dedications during the earlier period: Smith 2007. Wreaths were worn in rituals during later periods as well, such as in the Mysteries of Andania: Gawlinski 2012, 110–13. 53 By the Villa Giulia Painter. Munich, Antikensammlungen SS 75. BAPD #207242. 54 For sensory experience, scent, and flowers in Roman religious contexts, see Baker (2021). 55 General treatments of religion in the house: Morgan 2007; Bodel and Olyan 2008; Dillon 2015; Sofroniew 2015. 56 Menander, Dyskolos 37–39. Trans. Ireland. τὰς δὲ συντρόφους ἐμοὶ Νύμφας κολακεύουσ’ ἐπιμελῶς τιμῶσά τε πέπεικεν αὐτῆς ἐπιμέλειαν σκεῖν τινα ἡμᾶς. 57 Eur. Hipp. 73–74, 82–83. σοὶ τόνδε πλεκτὸν στέφανον ἐξ ἀκηράτου λειμῶνος, ὦ δέσποινα, κοσμήσας φέρω … ἀλλ᾽, ὦ φίλη δέσποινα, χρυσέας κόμης ἀνάδημα δέξαι χειρὸς εὐσεβοῦς ἄπο. Trans. Hunter 2014, with slight alterations. As Hunter shows, the garland has often been treated as an allegory, with the complete passage situated well within the 5th-century cultural discourse on Orphism occurring in Athens. While the allegorical reading is appealing, the allegory functions best if the hand-weaving of a wreath by worshipers was a task re­ cognizable to the play’s audience. 58 Kearns 1994. 59 Brumfield 1997; Pautasso 2020. 60 Attested, for example, on a 4th-century sacrificial inscription from the area of the Athenian Asklepeion: IG II2 4987 and Pollux Onomasticon 6.76. Kearns 1994, 68. 61 During the Elaphebolia: Athenaios 14.646e. 62 Athenaios 3.109e-f. 63 Athenaios 14.647a; Schol. Lucian, DMeretr. (Rabe), 276, 15–17; Brumfield 1997, 157. 64 Wilkins 2000. Villing (2009) explores holmoi and whether men may have used them with women in certain ritual situations. Men using mortaria: Villing and Pemberton 2010, fig. 27b, 618–620. Villing and Pemberton suggest that mortaria were not used for making barley cakes or flat cakes, as others have suggested (613). 65 I thank Laura Gawlinkski for this observation. 66 Although women usually made textiles in domestic settings, there is evidence for men’s involvement in commercial production. On home production of textiles, as well as textile professions, see Tsakirgis (2016); Harris (2002); and Gawlinski (2021). 67 For an overview of textiles in Greek religious contexts, including the garbing of the cult statue, see Brøns (2017). For magical agency and ritualized domestic tasks, including weaving, see Frankfurter (2021). 68 Gleba 2008; Meyers 2013; Brøns and Nosch 2017. Gawlinksi (forthcoming) cautions, however, that weaving tool assemblages in sanctuaries must be carefully evaluated, since they can be votive offerings on their own, and not indicative of in-sanctuary weaving. 69 Brøns 2015; Brøns 2017, 24–142. 70 IG II2 1514.53–54. For further examples: Linders 1972, 17–19. 71 Her discussion centers on the sensory experience communicated by inscriptions, in this case pertaining to the weaving process: Petsalis-Diomidis 2018, 445 and

50

72

73 74

75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

89

90 91 92

From the Hands of Votaries n. 81. On worn, frayed, and damaged objects dedicated as votives, see Hughes (2017, 186–188). Anth. Gr. 6.286, Leonidas of Tarentum 40HE. Trans. Paton. Τῆς πέζης τὰ μὲν ἄκρα τὰ δεξιὰ μέχρι παλαιστῆσκαὶ σπιθαμῆς οὔλης Βίττιον εἰργάσατο· θάτερα δ᾿ Ἀντιάνειρα προσήρμοσε· τὸν δὲ μεταξὺ Μαίανδρον καὶ τὰς παρθενικὰς Βιτίη. κουρᾶν καλλίστη Διός, Ἄρτεμι, τοῦτο τὸ νῆμα πρὸς ψυχῆς θείης, τὴν τριπόνητον ἔριν. Antipater revisited the epigram during the following century (AP 6.287). Petsalis-Diomidis 2018, 423. Rask 2016. Sometimes stemmata may refer to fabric wreaths, fillets, and gar­ lands of unworked wool. ThesCRA 5, 396–399, s.v. stemma. Gawlinski (2012, 146) notes that fabric stemmata might have been used for creating temporary boundaries during the Andania Mysteries. It may be that sanctuaries possessed a variety of fillets and fabric ribbons/garlands to be used for various events, much as dedicated tents and textiles were used during the banquet in Euripides’ Ion. Margariti et al. 2011; Andrianou 2012. Andrianou 2012, 47–48. On the religious significance of tainiai and their role in hand-woven votive labor, see Rask (2016, 29–34). Dross-Krüpe and Paetz 2014; Spantidaki 2016, 78–85; Mangieri 2019. For speculation on “ritual textiles full of important iconography,” see Barber (1991, 365–372). Euripides’ Ion (1140–1162) describes the sort of mythical iconography that decorated dedications. Barber 1991, 363–365. The skyphos by the Penelope Painter (Chiusi Museum 1831, BAPD #216789), for example, shows mythological creatures on the shroud of Laertes. Victoria and Albert Museum T.220 to B-1953. Andrianou 2012, 45. IG II2 1514, 30–32; Petsalis-Diomidis 2018, n. 70. Brøns 2017, Appendix 1; for representations of textiles and cult statues, 183–237. Euripides, Hecuba 465–74. Trans., Philip Vellacott, 1954. See also Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 222–224. The peplotheke: Brøns 2017, 387. On the viewing of past textile dedications during later events, such as feasts, see Day (2010, 68). On women’s storytelling and labor at the loom, see Heath (2011) and Karanika (2014). On Homeric poetics and weaving, Bergren (2008). Iliad 3.125–128. Trans., A.T. Murray, revised by William F. Wyatt. Tuck 2009. Karanika 2014; Hunter 2014. Heath (2011, 78–79) stresses that many of the songs and stories told by women during weaving spotlighted the gods and heroes. Tuck (2009) suggests that weaving songs about certain mythical episodes may have been employed to weave those exact scenes in the cloth; if this is the case, then the explicit con­ nection between stories of the gods and woven dedications may very well have been a feature of this activity. On wooden sculpture, see Donohue (1988, 206–218). Wooden offerings are recorded in some treasury records. For example, the Hekatompedon records from the Athenian Akropolis list a number of wooden artifacts (ξύλινοι): Harris 1995. Gunnel Ekroth (2003) has reevaluated the finds and their stratigraphic contexts. For recently published material from Brauron, see Papalexandrou (2012). Papadimitriou 1961, 32–33, and figs. 26–26 and 34–35. Papadimitriou 1962, 30–31, figs. 38–39.

From the Hands of Votaries 51 93 “Rare Wooden Votives Found at Brauron Sanctuary,” Archaeology News Network, October 19, 2011. The original press release by the Greek Ministry of Culture (October 3, 2011) is no longer available. 94 My analysis of the carving techniques and necessary tools in what follows de­ rives from my own experience as a hobbyist wood-carver. 95 Kyrieleis 1993. For votives at the sanctuary, see Baumbach (2004, 152–173). 96 Ohly 1953; Kyrieleis 1980; Kopcke 1983. 97 Samos, Vathy Archeological Museum, Inv. H 123. Kyrieleis 1980, cat. 34. 98 For the Heraion’s sculpture, see also Donohue (1988, 216–218). 99 Samos, Vathy Archeological Museum, Inv. H 106. Kyrieleis 1980, 105–106, cat. 17, Plate 27.1. 100 Kyrieleis 1988, 216. 101 Samos, Vathy Archeological Museum, Inv. H 100. Kyrieleis 1980, 94–103, cat. 11, Plate 21–22. 102 Samos, Vathy Archeological Museum, Inv. H 90 and Inv. H 92: Kyrieleis 1980, 89, cat. 1 and 3, Plate 18.1–2, 20.3 and Plate. 20.1–2. Philip Katz (2020) de­ scribes the importance of ships and seafaring to Samos and the Heraion; the sanctuary preserves the largest number of ship model dedications of any site pre-dating the Hellenistic period. See, too, his comments on the relationship between the small models and the full-scale ships set up at the shrine: 147–159. 103 Kyrieleis 1993, 141–143. Wooden ship models from previous seasons of ex­ cavation at Samos: Ohly 1953. 104 Kyrieleis 1998. 105 The Hekatompedon records from the Athenian Akropolis, for example, refer to a wooden artifact “turned on a lathe” (ξύλινον τετορνευμένον): IG II2 1456, lines 53–54; Harris 1995, 148. 106 I use the term “hobbyist” rather than “amateur,” in order to avoid the sense that an “amateur” possesses less skill than a “professional.” Hobbyists (and “ama­ teurs”) create exceptionally skilled works of sculptural art and woodwork, and historically supplied their own domestic wooden necessities. For example, I possess hand-crafted furniture from both maternal and paternal sides of my family: a hope-chest made by my paternal great-grandfather in the 1920s, and a large dresser constructed by my maternal grandfather in the 1950s. Although neither contains decorative styling, both are solid, well-constructed pieces that were made for use within the family by non-professionals. 107 Schrag 1969, 130. 108 Schrag 1969, 135. On the hand in phenomenologists’ theories of touch, and criticism of its overemphasis, see Purves (2018a, 4). Because of my focus on “making,” I target the role of the hand. 109 Montiglio 2018; Purves 2018a, 5–7. On touch and perception, including dis­ cerning reality by breaking down artistic illusionism, see Squire and Platt (2018). 110 Schrag 1962, 110–111. 111 Karanika 2014, 86. Karanika also argues that ritual offerings are “material records” of past work. 112 Homer, Odyssey 15.125–127. Karanika 2014, 39. On the connection between an artifact and its history, or making, in Homeric poetics, see Becker (1995, 51–77). 113 SEG xv, 352. Εὔϝανδρος μʹἀνέθεκε [κόρ]ον περι[κ]αλέα πο[ιϝο͂]ν / Χερσὶ φίλαισιν ἔδο[κεν τἀθά]ναι [πολ]ιόχ[οι]. Because πο[ιϝο͂]ν has been restored, Noel cautions against assuming that the statue was a self-made offering: Noel 2016, §12. See Chapter 6 for further discussion, especially p. 166, Note 39. 114 Noel 2016, §14. 115 Phrases borrowed from Veymiers (2018, 41). 116 For this quote, see above, Note 42.

3

“We Placed Our Offerings Side by Side with His”: Personal History, Childhood, and Religious Materiality

On a stone votive relief discovered in Echinos in northeastern Greece (Fig. 3.1), a sacrificial procession meets a torch-wielding goddess, possibly Artemis, in her sanctuary.1 To the left, a straight-backed woman wrapped in a veil gestures towards the goddess, while servants carved at smaller scales carry ritual items and lead the sacrificial animal to the altar. In the center, another woman lifts an infant, presenting them to the goddess. The baby reaches out as if to touch the divinity, or perhaps hoping to be cradled by her (Fig. 3.2). The tiny gesture emphasizes the intimate relationship between goddess and child, given that the child’s gesture parallels babies reaching out for their mortal parents’ arms in Attic vase-painting and grave reliefs (Fig. 3.3).2 Like Xeniades’ tugging on Kephissos’ cloak in the relief dedi­ cated by his own mother in Athens (Fig. 5.10), the gesture vividly evokes the infant’s affection for their divine patroness. Given that the infant’s reaching gesture is rare for votive reliefs, re­ constructing the situation behind the relief’s dedication poses considerable challenges. The background shows clothing offerings on display, which were dedicated to Artemis on various occasions, sometimes after childbirth.3 Based on the centrality of the infant and their age, it may be that the sacrifice and relief were presented to the goddess after a successful pregnancy and the child’s survival. Thanks to the baby’s position at the center of the composition, it is hard not to see the relief as one which especially documents the coming to­ gether of goddess and child in the sanctuary (perhaps for the first time?). The Echinos relief visually evokes the web of memory and interchange that links the divine figure, mother, child, servants, and religious items to­ gether. Although we cannot know what became of the child, we can assume that the mother hoped for a long life and continued protection from the goddess. If the baby grew to adulthood, every time they returned to the sanctuary they would have seen this very relief, with its record of their childhood bond with Artemis. The relief served as visible proof of the be­ ginning of a life-long relationship with her. In the scenario I have outlined, the relief and the family’s future en­ counters with it in the shrine remind us of the role of religion and religious artifacts in a person’s life history. In the Greek world, I will suggest, DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-3

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Figure 3.1 Relief from Echinos, showing presentation of a child and sacrificial procession to Artemis, 4th century BCE. © Lamia Archeological Museum. Photo: author.

Figure 3.2 Detail of child reaching out to Artemis on Echinos relief, 4th century BCE. Photo: author.

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Figure 3.3 Attic grave relief dating to 420–400 BCE. © National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden.

engagement with gods, heroes, and other supernatural powers cannot be separated from personal biographies, nor can the material culture repeatedly met throughout those lives. In this chapter, I approach Greek religion and personal biography using the framework of “lifelong” religious practice and treat it from two directions: childhood religious experience, and re­ peated encounters with votive material culture.4 Ancient Greeks learned what it meant to be religious and how to honor the gods from an early age, via their family members and communities. The objects that populated those experiences and the memories that resulted were strongly resonant of family and tradition. At times childhood religious events were fondly remembered and created a powerful aura of “rightness.” In order to support these claims, in what follows, I will discuss evidence from Classical Attica that illustrates three major points: (1) religious learning was a significant part of childhood and the shaping of future adults; (2) participation in religious events in the company of one’s family was re­ membered with a strong degree of affection, pride, and gravity; and (3) the comportment of the body, an essential part of learning religious behavior, included childhood interaction with objects, images, and other materials.

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Athenian childhood experience of dedications and ritual artifacts, I argue, could arouse positive feelings in later adulthood, which led individuals to consider familiar material culture as comforting. Furthermore, I show that situating personal biography and lived experience in terms of ancestral tradition (τὰ πάτρια) helps to connect individuals’ own life histories to the keenly regarded framework and rhetoric of Greek ancestral tradition. I thereafter turn to reoccurring and pervasive votive types at Metapontion and Corinth in order to explore the affective power of familiar votive media during the diverse social and religious circumstances through which ancient people lived. Archeological excavation in Greece persis­ tently demonstrates the widespread and enduring appeal of particular images and votive types. In countless Greek communities, people chose to reuse the same votives and iconographies year after year, and there was likely something emotionally pleasing about that habitual usage. The second part of this chapter explores the phenomenological impact of this type of imagery during lifelong worship, addresses how these recognizable artifacts might impact people’s responses during religious occasions, and interrogates whether prevalent votive types may have been a facet of the material continuation of ta patria.

Personal biography and lifelong religious activity I begin by returning briefly to Calvin Schrag’s formulation of experience, mentioned in this book’s Introduction. In 1969, Schrag described experi­ ence as something that a person “lives through,” and his work on ex­ perience often emphasized such a temporal aspect.5 The temporal component has been emphasized in more recent studies of experience, for example, as people (and communities) process past events, reflect on them, and interpret them.6 When thinking about religion as something a person does, undergoes, and lives through, that temporal aspect becomes mapped atop life histories. Helena Kupari has stressed the “lifelong” aspect of religious experience, with people socialized into their religious tradition when children, but then adapting or maintaining those practices over the course of their lives and in response to their changing situations.7 In her study of Karelian Orthodox women’s “enduring” religiosity, she docu­ mented “both actual continuums of customs reaching from the women’s childhood to the present day, and the women’s more or less conscious, rhetorical, and embodied performance of such continuums.”8 She found that, not only do the embodied, material experiences of childhood impact adult engagement with religious artifacts and places, but over the course of their lives women developed a strong sense of what was “proper” religious activity. In Greek studies, the way religion was lived out over an extended time has most frequently been framed in terms of “rites of passage.”9 Not only did certain rituals mark important moments and transitions from one social or

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theological state to the next, but some practices and places became open to individuals only after certain conditions were met, boys in the ephebic system, for example, or married women at rites of Demeter. The “rites of passage” model inevitably segments religious activities into discrete stages in a person’s life. It therefore emphasizes not only religious and social dif­ ferences as the rituals separate portions of a person’s life one from the other, but in the rites-of-passage model the passing of time likewise becomes broken into disconnected phases. In this chapter, in contrast, I prefer to examine lived experience as a “continuum.” Childhood and the sometimes emotionally charged responses to material culture play an important role in that personal religious history.

The religious experience of Attic children Religious practices across the world often place a strong emphasis on family relations and the integration of multiple generations, with festivals and ri­ tuals “the occasion for a joining of generations in a celebration of memory and place.”10 Greek children, too, were incorporated into the family’s re­ ligious life from infancy onwards; their religious education was provided by parents, siblings, relatives, nurses, servants, and other community members. The shaping of children’s religious lives through their physical participation and experience in Greek practice is well documented both textually and visually. Several publications have emphasized the many ways children played essential roles in the religious world of 5th- and 4th-century Attic communities: they took part in sacrificial rituals, festival processions, and gender- and age-specific ceremonies.11 The religious life of children in Attica seems to have been rich and varied; many of our sources indicate that parents and adults in the community felt that it was important for children to be actively included in religious events. Several decrees inscribed in stone expressly mention children. That young people were recognized participants in the activities arranged by the orgeones of Ekhelos, for example, is clear from a decree stipulating that both sons and daughters of the orgeones were to receive a half-share during the feast.12 A decree from nearby Eretria concerned a festival of Asklepios and explicitly addressed the role of children in the musical contests and procession.13 To be sure, many of the inscribed decrees are of a bureaucratic, financial, and organizational nature; yet their attention to matters of social maintenance—situating different genders, ages, classes, and political standings—indicate that relationships between humans also had religious import. As such, the numerous re­ ferences to children in the decrees suggest that the inclusion of the youngest generation in religious activities was a serious public matter. This reality is further strengthened by evidence from votive reliefs which often emphasize the family unit.14 Children regularly appear in them, visibly included as household members forming relationships with

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Figure 3.4 Marble relief with family performing a sacrifice; the boy holds a spit of meat and the girl holds a wreath. Dedicated to the sanctuary of Pankrates in Athens, late 4th century. Photo: DAI-ATH-1993-1213.

divinities, as I will discuss momentarily (Fig. 3.4). On some occasions, the images specifically singled out children, as the Athenian Xenokrateia ar­ ranged on a votive relief dedicated on behalf of her child (Fig. 5.10).15 Such visual arts specifically depict the incorporation and even centrality of children in ritual encounters. “The spectacle of our parents, addressing the gods”: The oikos and religious education The importance of the community at large in the creation of ancient re­ ligious experience has been explored in great depth elsewhere, as has the social role of initiation, so I will not dwell on them here at any length.16 Instead, I would like to stress the way children learned about religion from their parents. Jan Bremmer has emphasized the fundamental role of the oikos in the formation of children’s religious experiences. He argues that, through

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their family, “… Greek children were socialised into religious practice by participation and imitation.”17 He shows that the 4th-century oration by Isaios is particularly revealing: For, as was natural, seeing that we were the sons of his own daughter, Kiron never offered a sacrifice without our presence; whether he was performing a great or small sacrifice, we were always there and took part in the ceremony. And not only were we invited to such rites but he also always took us into the country for the festival of the Dionysia, and we always went with him to public spectacles and sat at his side, and we went to his house to keep all the festivals; and when he sacrificed to Zeus Ktesios – a festival to which he attached a special importance, to which he admitted neither slaves nor free men outside his own family, at which he personally performed all the rites – we participated in this celebration and laid our hands with his upon the victims and placed our offerings side by side with his, and took part in all the other rites, and he prayed for our health and wealth, as he naturally would, being our grandfather.18 In the Isaios passage, the speaker (the unnamed grandson of Kiron) espe­ cially stresses familial relationships, as to be expected given that an issue of inheritance was at stake in court. The judicial motive behind the recollection need not decrease the text’s legitimacy as a source, since Isaios’ use of tra­ ditionalism seems designed to appeal to the similar experiences of his jury. Notably, Kiron’s grandson exhibits a distinct sense of approval and sa­ tisfaction in his religious upbringing—all was done properly and as it should be, since his grandfather behaved appropriately, not just towards the gods, but also towards his own family members and descendants. The grandfather made sure that the boys were there with him at sacrifices, at festivals, on public occasions, and within the home. The connection between grandfather and grandsons is in fact emphasized by the physical mirroring that Kiron’s grandson describes—the boys “placed our hands with his and placed our offerings side by side with his,” verbally illustrated as smaller versions of their elder.19 Kiron’s grandson gives a good idea of how boys were incorporated but sheds little light on the experience of girls, who also attended family sa­ crifices.20 Nevertheless, Aristophanes’ portrayal of a family’s private fes­ tival in Acharnians hints that parents instructed both sons and daughters on ritual performance. To the audience’s amusement, in this Aristophanic parody, Dikaiopolis daughter gets a far different sort of parental guidance than the grandsons of Kiron. In this case, the father leads his household during a celebration of the rural Dionysia, at which they perform a sacrifice and prayer. Before singing a particularly lewd rendition of a hymn in keeping with the tenor of ribald phallophoric processions and

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carousing, Dikaiopolis explains “proper” comportment to his daughter, the kanephoros: Put down the basket, dear, and I’ll begin … You did that very well … Come, daughter, bear your basket prettily but make a vinegar face. Ah, lucky the man who marries you and begets a litter of pups as good as you at farting in the morning! Set forth, and in the crowd hold on to your jewels, so no one tries to finger you for a snatch.21 Dikaiopolis and his bawdy comments to his daughter operate as a comedic inverse of Kiron’s grandfather.22 That there was a gendered element to the process of religious education is clear enough. Grandfathers and fathers taught their offspring by including them in public and private rituals, while Plato (Republic 2.377–2.378) tells us that old women were gregarious founts of mythic knowledge, which they often shared as nurses or passed from mother to daughter.23 Women also took up the role of Kiron, leading their children in sacrificial procedures, such as that depicted on the Echinos relief discussed at the opening of this chapter.24 Sentiment and Athenian memory Kiron’s grandson, in Isaios’ telling, reflects on his religious upbringing with approval; he stresses (no doubt because of the issue of inheritance) the familial concord that allowed him to learn the proper behavior ex­ pected of him at sacrifices and festivals. He seems grateful, well-satisfied with the treatment he received from his grandfather. In Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (641–647), the female chorus speaks with obvious pride about their own role in festivals as a child. In the Laws, Plato vividly describes the way adults remember their experiences as children. Myths and stories are … heard again in prayers offered over sacrifices, in conjunction with the spectacle which gives such intense delight to the eye and ear of children, as it is enacted at a sacrifice, the spectacle of our parents addressing their gods, with assured belief in their existence, in earnest prayer and supplication for themselves and their children.25 In Plato’s portrayal, the familiar, but still thrilling, sight of one’s parents performing religious acts and communicating with the gods was funda­ mental to the event. Parents were the center around which children orbited at religious events, a monumental presence during religious moments. Parents and their actions inhabited a focal point in adult recollections of their childhood religious upbringing.

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“We laid our hands with his”: Embodiment in children’s devotion From an early age, Attic children observed and learned the proper way to physically move and act when approaching religious figures. Despite the regular visual depiction of gestures of prayer and ritual, children were usually not the main performers.26 Instead, they frequently stand and watch the adults enact the appropriate physical movements. Parents and other grown-ups were envisioned as the physical intercessor between sacred figures and young children, a relationship clearly articulated on painted plaques and sculpted votive reliefs; indeed, children watched their parents dedicate votive portraits and reliefs representing their own childhood bodies at Brauron or Pankrates’ shrine in Athens, and they held small choes illustrated with tiny children during the Anthesteria. Additionally, processions were an important way a child’s body was manipulated and acted upon; the simple deed of walking (or being carried along) became somatically instilled as a part of worship.27 Visual representations especially stress the role of children as phoroi and “helpers,” one of the most important and tactile roles that children per­ formed.28 Adult relatives and older siblings became models that children learned to copy. On a late Archaic votive relief from Athens showing a family undertaking a sacrificial procession, a boy pours a libation at an altar, in much the manner of countless similarly illustrated adults.29 A 4thcentury votive dedicated at the sanctuary of Pankrates along the Ilissos River evocatively demonstrates the material experience of children in this context (Fig. 3.4).30 Surrounded by adults at an altar, the young girl holds a wreath and the boy acts as the splanchnoptes, roasting meat on two spits.31 Carol Lawton underscores that in this “unusually intimate” portrayal, “the focus of the relief is squarely on the children, who are intently preparing the feast to come.”32 Not only are the girl and boy a visual and symbolic focus in the relief, the image stresses the phenomenologically central role of their hands; the children materially and physically learn as they do ritual. When young people looked at such votives, they saw iconography representing their (well-behaved) bodies and (idealized) memories. Both girls and boys enacted important carrying duties at festivals and private rituals, serving as kanephoroi, arrephoroi, and bearers of eiresione, among others. Some of these extremely visible roles, however, were not open to the vast majority of children in Attica, only to the upper class. As such, class and gender differences were reconstituted through the hands and arms of children, reflecting wider adult anxieties about appropriate behavior and the strategies for maintaining divine approval.33 Participation and imitation could take many forms, such as walking or watching sacrificial processions as they passed through the streets and around the fields of Attica. In Menander’s Dyskolos (260–263), Sostratos describes his own mother’s everyday habit of circling through the deme sa­ crificing to this god or that. Much in this way, not only did one learn

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what interaction between the divine and people should look and feel like, but children also discovered the sacred, civic, and natural topography of their home. They understood what it felt like to be in the monumental, structured sanctuaries of the Akropolis as well as the cool, slippery, and dark caves sacred to Nymphs. Trips to Eleusis, Brauron, and Delphi involved extended hikes and camping trips—no doubt combined with sore feet, exhausted limbs, and strange countrysides. Children encountered the locations, consequences, and power of the countless shrines dotting the city and chora. It was through these walks and processions that children observed the sacred landscape that they inhabited, at the same time that they absorbed the political and social symbolism of the landscape as well. As a result of these experiences, children no doubt acquired many memories of votive-laden temple walls and stelaifilled sanctuaries. Their religious knowledge was marked by watching their parents and siblings hold small dedications in their hands and place them in shrines, and learning to do so themselves. Media for maintaining relationships with the dead Another group of objects, Attic lekythoi, provides evidence for the in­ volvement of children in another vital religious activity: adornment and presentation of offerings at graves.34 The lekythoi, especially the whiteground series from the 5th century, depict children engaged in a religious world no doubt as familiar to them as the festivals surrounding gods. John Oakley notes the similarity between the depictions of grown-ups and the younger generations at grave monuments; not only were they shown en­ gaged in the same types of movements, but they were “shown leaving the types of objects that are found in tombs or that adults are depicted as offering.”35 It is reasonable to say, in fact, that the mirroring of adult and child on the lekythoi serves as a clear and evocative representation of the ways that imitation encodes meaningful religious behaviors into the bodies, hands, and eyes of children. Several activities were represented, including the carrying of offerings, the presentation and deposition of items, and ritualized movements. On a le­ kythos attributed to the Vouni Painter (Fig. 3.5),36 a boy stands across from an adult woman by the tumulus and stelai at an athlete’s grave (suggested by the jumping weights at the tomb’s base). The youth hangs a wreath on one of the stone markers, while the woman prepares to tie a tainia around the neighboring stele; the visual mirroring of the two figures and their small actions demonstrate, in microcosm, the inter-generational nature of material religion. The visual echo on the lekythos reenacts the literary mirroring described by Isaios, when the boys “placed our offerings side by side with his.” Each time that the boy returns to hang a wreath or tie a fabric strip, he renews the connection between himself, his mother, the spirit of the deceased, and all those who also adorned the tomb.

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Figure 3.5 Attic white-ground lekythos showing visitors at tomb of athlete. Attributed to the Vouni Painter, 460 BCE. Photo: © Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It is here in the cemetery that we also see children handling small figurines and presenting them to the dead, much like adults must have done in sanctuaries. This idea was articulated by the Thanatos Painter, who, on a white lekythos from about 440 BCE (Fig. 3.6),37 painted an adult woman and a young girl at a grave monument. The adult woman carries the basket

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Figure 3.6 Woman and girl leaving offerings at a grave. Attic white-ground lekythos by the Thanatos Painter, ca. 440 BCE. Photo: After Oakley 2004, Figs. 131–132.

and gestures toward the girl, who holds up a female doll or figurine. Figurines were appropriate offerings to bring to a grave, given that they are sometimes visually associated with children on sculpted grave stelai, and they have been found within both adult and children’s graves, deposited at the time of burial.38 The child’s presentation of the object seems careful and solemn, even exaggeratedly so. She holds the figurine up at eye level; she looks directly at it, and it looks back.39 The painter also emphasized the tactile quality of the act, with both the girl’s hands firmly clasping the figurine as she holds her arms raised before her. Stephanie Langin-Hooper argues that miniaturized terracotta figurines of this sort draw in and enchant people; figurines’ “small details demand close visual and tactile inspection.”40 The girl seems fascinated with the tiny object, which the painter depicted as an echo of her and the other woman’s larger forms, having similar clothing and dark hair pulled back and up. The Thanatos Painter made prominent the act of “tactile-visual examination,”41 thanks to the child’s intent stare and her holding of the figurine at eye level with both hands. The viewer of this lekythos, of course, would be interacting with the girl’s represented form in a similar manner, holding close the vase in order to study the tiny girl and her tinier figurine. Additionally, one cannot help but wonder if the Thanatos Painter is de­ picting a “teaching moment,” with the adult woman imparting appropriate

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religious activity to her daughter, just as she herself learned when a girl. Not only do viewers witness the child’s rapt attention, but the lekythos’ icono­ graphy illustrates the child engaging haptically and visually with offerings in the context of religious practice. The painter transmits the captivated and absorbed gaze of children, ever recognizable to adults, and so like Plato’s description of “the spectacle which gives such intense delight to the eye and ear of children.”42

Explaining enduring forms and iconography in religious material culture Greek adults first learned about religious artifacts as children, and they continued to engage the items throughout their lives. Already at a young age, their hands and bodies became accustomed to wreaths, fillets, and baskets during festivals, rituals, and shrine visits. The Thanatos Painter shows us this process on his lekythos, with the young girl engrossed with a female figurine during religious activity. As archeological excavations attest, figurines must have been one of the more physically abundant types of material culture that children encountered, not just during visits to sanc­ tuaries, but even when passing down the road.43 At the Classical shrine of the Kokkinovrysi Nymphs at Corinth, for example, anyone entering the city on their day-to-day business would have caught a glance of the ringdancers, birds, dogs, and korai placed at the foot of a stele, there at the edge of road (Fig. 3.7).44 With each trip passed, the figurines would have slowly disappeared amongst other deposited offerings, growing grasses, and accumulating dirt.

Figure 3.7 Reconstruction of the Kokkinovrysi roadside shrine of the Nymphs, with figurines at the base of a stele. After Kopestonsky 2016, Fig. 7.

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Archeological discoveries demonstrate that thousands of these offerings exhibited significant uniformity in their types, with their iconographic motifs maintaining popularity over multiple generations. Terracotta figurines—whether anatomical votives, depictions of divinities and votaries or animals—were made in enormous quantities. Because they were massproduced, they were often closely duplicated.45 Coroplasts used the same molds to make hundreds of copies, and the molds themselves found reuse for decades.46 The shrinkage and degeneration that occurred due to recurrent casting allows archeologists to create family trees documenting the sequences of figurines derived from the same original mold; through them, figurines made from the same mold can be given a relative chronology of casting sometimes stretching over hundreds of years.47 In what follows, I’d like to turn to two different sites—Metapontion and Corinth—to discuss people’s encounters with persistent imagery and terracotta figurines around the landscape. Metapontion in Southern Italy We turn now from the Greek mainland to a colonial context. The chora surrounding Metapontion in southern Italy provides an excellent case for examining long-lasting figurine motifs because the area has been extensively studied, through targeted excavation and field survey. A colony established in the Archaic period, the city is situated along the gulf of Tarentum. One of several Greek cities in the region, the polis and its people had strong connections—and also rivalries—with nearby Greek communities at places such as Tarentum and Herakleia. Archeologists have noted that votive material culture circulated among these sites, but Metapontion’s coroplasts also created products that were only used in the immediate chora. Terracotta figurines have been found at Metapontion’s sanctuaries, as well as at ce­ meteries, kiln sites, and domestic shrines. Thanks to a robust publication history, the mold series in the area are well documented.48 Of special interest for us is the shrine at Pantanello, centered on a spring thought to be sacred to a female divinity and a Nymph. Starting in the 6th century BCE, worshipers deposited a variety of ceramic vessels, ritual items, and votives in the vicinity of the spring and directly in the waters. These in­ cluded not only miniature vessels and female terracotta figurines, but animal bones from sacrificial activity, among other remains.49 After a gap in use, the shrine saw a revival in the early 4th century. Many of the offerings took the form of molded terracotta pinakes.50 By the latter part of the 4th century, their imagery highlighted a dancing nymph with Pan or Silenos (Fig. 3.8),51 as well as a banqueting couple of unknown identity with a child (Fig. 3.9).52 While the imagery of the banqueting couple may represent the Nymph as the mother of a locally significant hero, Rebecca Ammerman speculates that these terra­ cottas may simultaneously show feasting worshippers with their mortal chil­ dren. If, as Ammerman suggests, they were dedicated by worshippers who participated in banqueting at the shrine, then we find a visual emphasis on the

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Figure 3.8 Terracotta plaque montage showing a dancing Nymph with Pan, from Sant’Angelo Vecchio. Examples from mold series are also present at Pantanello Sanctuary. After Ammerman 2018, Fig. 45.9.

Figure 3.9 Terracotta banqueting plaque montage of male and female couple, with infant. Same type as found at the Pantanello Sanctuary. After Ammerman, Fig. 45.34.

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incorporation of children into the shrine’s religious sphere, in keeping with the role of Attic children addressed above.53 In order to discuss the ubiquitous quality of the religious imagery at Metapontion, I would like to turn to the set of molded nymph plaques from the shrine, dating to the 4th century BCE. About 300 fragmentary molded terracotta pinakes show the motif of the Nymph dancing with her male companion (Fig. 3.8). They are part of a mold series well documented at nearby sites at Metapontion (Postrioti A)54 and the genealogy of the mold series and its successive variants have been the subject of detailed study. For example, in a series showing the Nymph and Pan (Postrioti AI), coroplasts over time adjusted the plaques’ main motif with the addition of details, such as a rocky cave or musical instruments, or the substitution of Silenos for Pan.55 Rebecca Ammerman traced the distribution of these mold types to mul­ tiple sites across the area (Fig. 3.10).56 The largest number comes from Metapontion’s major urban sanctuary at Temple E. There, in the mid-4th

Figure 3.10 Location of dancing Nymph plaques in the area of Metapontion. Map adapted by author from Ammerman 2018, Fig. 45.49.

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century, the local inhabitants built an altar with a small oikos temple added thereafter. At the end of the 4th century, perhaps around 330 BCE or after, a large deposit of material built up around the altar, a good portion of which consisted of terracotta figurines.57 According to Ammerman, 67% of the 900 terracotta figurines recovered there show the Nymph dancing with her male companion. About 8 km from the urban center of Metapontion, some 80 molded pinakes of the Nymph series were excavated at the Sant’Angelo Vecchio kiln site. There, two or three kilns were built in the later 4th century BCE, together with what may have been an open production shed.58 These kilns furnish important evidence for the production of the region’s terracottas. The workshop at Sant’Angelo Vecchio employed the same mold series as that used to construct approximately 200 of the Pantanello shrine Nymph terracottas, as well as the banqueting plaques also found at Pantanello.59 The nymph-and-companion terracottas have likewise been documented at multiple sanctuaries, including the Favale sanctuary and the Castellaneta spring shrine. They also found use at domestic shrines in the city and at least 19 farmhouse shrines in the chora.60 What does this geographic distribution tell us about Metapontine en­ counters with this imagery? First, it indicates that in the area around this Greek city very similar religious imagery was produced over several decades at the end of the Classical and into the Hellenistic period. Due to the nature of the production process, the composition and iconographic details of the terracotta offerings were nearly identical for many years, although the process also allowed craftsmen to tweak, update, and enliven some of the imagery while keeping the motifs otherwise recognizable. Second, the plaques’ imagery was quite familiar to the local population, for whom it was ubiquitous across the urban and rural landscape. Members of the Metapontine community in the 4th century repeatedly saw representations of the Nymph dancing with her companion in the very heart of their city, but also at rural sites, water sources, and within their own homes. Not only were the offerings seen on trips around the region or in town, but for some people, the figurines were directly linked to their own past activities in shrines when they had approached the gods in thanks or supplication. Corinth’s horse-and-rider figurines Returning to the Greek mainland, I should note that long-lasting figurine motifs did not always result from mold series, as work at Corinth demon­ strates. Agnes Newhall Stillwell showed that, while mold-made figurines were mass-produced in great numbers, handmade figurines also continued to be manufactured over a coterminous time span.61 The horse-and-rider type, uncovered in significant numbers, remained especially pervasive (Fig. 3.11).62 They were easy to make, which may explain their continuous production, but Stillwell aptly speculates that the popularity of the handmade type, in contrast to mold-made, might also have resulted from their visual charm.63 The earliest

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Figure 3.11 Horse-and-rider figurine, from the Circular South Shrine in the Potter’s Quarter at Corinth. 5th century BCE. Photo: author.

known Corinthian horse-and-rider figurines had been deposited above a series of Geometric graves in the Heroon of the Crossroads around 625 BCE, and other Archaic examples were dedicated in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore.64 Manufactured in the Potter’s Quarter and at other sites around the city, their production continued until the mid-4th century BCE.65 A review of their excavated findspots shows that pedestrians repeatedly came across horse-and-rider terracottas in and around Corinth. The little figurines were visible for sale in the Potter’s Quarter, mixed into construc­ tion fills and dumped into wells with other trash, and displayed in shrines and sanctuaries. A list demonstrates just how widespread the imagery was in Corinth, where they have been documented at the Heroon of the Crossroads, the South Stoa Stele Shrine, the Sacred Spring, the Double Stele Shrine, Stele Shrine A, the Circular South Shrine, the Aphrodite Deposit, the area of the Erosa Shrine, the Asklepeion, the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, the Odeion, the Theater, and so forth. Renewed examination of miniature domestic altars reinforces that Corinthians also encountered horse-and-rider imagery in the domestic sphere. Hannah Smagh has identified 10 examples of the small terracotta altars which feature painted mold-made reliefs showing horsemen (Fig. 3.12).66 They date predominately to the 5th and 4th centuries, and Smagh’s analysis of their findspots indicates that several come from structures with domestic or private purposes, including Classical Buildings II and IV. Building IV, dating

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Figure 3.12 Fragment of a Classical terracotta altar with a man riding a horse, from Corinth. © American School of Classical Studies, Corinth Excavations.

to the early 4th century, contained fragments from several different specimens, with four of the altars bearing horsemen. In addition to varied spots around town as well as Corinth’s many shrines, the horse-and-rider imagery was present in private spaces and homes where people performed small rites on the terracotta altars. In all likelihood, the horse-and-rider iconography appeared on media now mostly lost to us, such as wooden figurines, textiles, and other painted surfaces. Even if a Corinthian had not dedicated an object with the horse-and-rider iconography herself, or used such an adorned altar in her home, she would have encountered the motif repeatedly as she went about her days. The repetition of forms and votive types over extended periods of time had real consequences in the religious experience of individuals, as people encountered the same artifact types throughout the course of their lives. They were evocative reminders of past religious activity, but also the sus­ tained relationship built between devotees and the sacred figures they re­ turned to again and again. At Corinth’s Demeter and Kore sanctuary in the early 6th century, for example, female figurines were made with molded heads and imaginatively applied hair and jewelry.67 An elderly Corinthian woman, visiting the shrine at the end of her life, would see a figurine made from the same mold as one she dedicated during a visit as a girl, but with different necklaces or other ornaments. The very longevity of terracotta mold types at Corinth ensured the concomitant persistence of the resulting figurines, all thanks to the production process. We might speculate that a man occupying House IV in Corinth might very well have used the exact same miniature altar with the horseback rider that his family had used when he was a boy in the 5th century. Another man walking past the wares on display at the workshop at Sant’Angelo Vecchio, outside Metapontion, would see family-banqueting figurines made from the same mold as the

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offering he placed by the Pantanello spring shrine in the 4th century. From the perspective of lived experience, votive longevity was an affectively powerful feature of life-long religious activity. Material culture visually and materially linked one’s reminiscences about past efforts to engage the gods—long ago successes and old crises—to one’s present circumstances. The vast number of votives excavated at shrines such as the Korykian Cave near Delphi, where 50,000 terracotta figurines were deposited over approximately 400 years, serves as a potent reminder that visual repetition was an inescapable feature of devotees’ experience at many shrines.68 Massproduction and workshop practices contributed to visual repetition, but on their own production processes do not sufficiently account for the enduring popularity of some of these religious images. Other explanations for the continuous production and use of votive forms and iconography also exist, of course. A complex variety of factors must have impacted votive con­ tinuity at sacred sites.69 The selection of pervasive iconographies and forms might be, for example: related to narratives, hymns, and other literary tra­ ditions associated with a cult-place;70 incorporated into ritual and liturgical processes, the repetition of which helps to solidify the meaning;71 reinforced through permanent features at sacred places, such as cult-statues;72 or, tied to the concerns and personal situations of worshippers.73 In a study of Late Antique Egypt, David Frankfurter argues that, in addition to the conventions of nearby workshops, the repetitive use of dedication forms and artifacts is shaped by the particular traditions and habitus of individual shrines.74 In other words, people’s behaviors and dispositions among a particular religious community or in a shrine are acquired through socialization and imitation and ingrained during life experience.75 The proper way to do things in a particular religious com­ munity or space, the local habitus, is “knowledge that has been learned by the body” during a person’s life experience.76 Dedicatory practices per­ formed by others influence later worshippers, and what other devotees leave behind in a shrine helps make local activities into habits and tradi­ tion. Frankfurter’s observations likewise apply to earlier periods of Greek history. Figurines placed in a Corinthian stele shrine, Theodora Kopestonsky argues, perpetuated future offerings of a similar nature be­ cause imitation plays a significant role in shaping worship.77 Repetition of votive types in one locale, such as ring-dancers or horse-and-riders, builds habitus and thus the persistence of those particular offering forms. Frankfurter reiterates, “these symbols and practices have become cus­ tomary, creating traditions of what one ought to leave as appropriate.”78 Ubiquitous votives, tradition, and ta patria Greek texts preserve an emic concept that we might consider in this dis­ cussion of habitus and local custom. Starting in the 5th century BCE, we find literature and inscriptions that characterize certain religious activities as

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ancestral tradition—τὰ πάτρια.79 Coming to terms with exactly what ta patria entailed is a difficult business. On a pragmatic level, the phrase was used to describe religious matters in recorded ritual norms and literature.80 In preserved inscriptions, references to ta patria occurred in decrees of a procedural nature, usually in the construction κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, and found in decrees shared by all levels of religious authority, from regional amphictyons to families.81 Most of these ritual norms provided instructions for the proper implementation of specific practices; the undefined nature of ta patria often directly contrasted with more specific instructions that, for whatever reason, needed to be explicitly stated.82 It has been assumed that the relevant community members already knew what ta patria entailed, so it did not need to be clearly specified in inscriptions. It may even be that the vagueness of ta patria inadvertently allowed for exegesis, change, and adaptation. More recently, the choice to use the descriptor “ancestral custom” has been analyzed as a rhetorical device.83 Given that most recorded decrees and many instructions thought to be divinely handed-down did not pre­ cisely explain the details of every religious practice, ta patria no doubt functioned as a reassuring, all-encompassing alternative.84 Regardless of ta patria’s specific content, Robert Parker posits that ta patria often covered a range of ideas which “appear constantly in contexts of strong patriotic emotion or other charged appeal …”85 Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston call ta patria and τα νόμιμα (“the customary practices”) “the watchwords of authenticity.”86 In literature, ancestral tradition was a formidable concept, which allowed authors to establish a distinction be­ tween what was venerable and what was new, a distinction which exercised serious rhetorical weight through appeals to authority and propriety. The emotional force of this sort of appeal to the past and to religious traditions would have been quite effective; as Andreas Serafim has shown, the use of religious discourse by Attic orators purposefully engendered emotional and cognitive reactions in the audience and thus molded their responses towards the orators’ opponents.87 But how does life-long religious experience, habitus, and repetitive ma­ terial culture relate to Greek conceptualizations of ta patria?

“Ubiquity and sameness”: Continuity in votives and personal biography Thinking about the affective power of religious material culture provides a perspective with which we might consider Greek religious material culture, such as the Metapontine and Corinthian figurines we have been discussing. As we have seen, Greeks responded emotionally to their religious visual and material culture.88 Likewise, affective responses to religious material culture have been documented across disciplines and in other historical and cultural situations,89 although over the years scholars have had mixed reactions about how the religious arts exercised emotional power.

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David Morgan maintains that in the past scholars’ analyses of religious visual culture often missed the mark because philosophical and academic treatments of art were founded on the 18th-century idea of “disinterested­ ness.” Discourses influenced by this paradigm contended that acts of visual contemplation should be entirely free of “desire” for the object; accordingly any social concerns, intellectual reasonings, personal reflections, or base emotional responses ought not intrude upon “proper” esthetic judgment.90 Proponents of disinterestedness considered it the preferred stance for con­ sidering artworks. Morgan argues that, in practice, very few people actually experience images in this manner. That is, most visual culture does not exist “for its own sake” and instead is meant to cause affective responses and desire.91 This is especially the case with devotional arts, which can cause extremely personal and emotional reactions in devotees. In the 20th century, art critics responded to imagery intended to trigger viewers emotionally—including religious art—by labeling it “kitsch,” describing it in particularly vitriolic terms.92 On one side, “kitsch” was unrefined and the epitome of bad taste; on the other it was actually evil and dangerous.93 It was considered “sentimental,” a damning label “connoting superficiality, saccharine sweetness and the manipulations of mawkish emotion.”94 Robert Solomon notes that criticism of kitsch frequently contains political and economic overtones, reflecting class distinctions as well as manufacturing ideologies (i.e., disdain for the mass produced). Criticism of the sentimentality it evokes has been used, for example, to demonize the uneducated and the perceived “emotionality of women.” Solomon rises to defend sentimental reactions, however; he says, “is it not one of the essential features of social existence that we can be moved by children and puppies and a happiness not our own, that we can have affections that are superficial … in which [we] have nothing at stake, nothing invested? That is what kitsch provides for us.”95 While labeling pictures of kittens and mass-produced tourist items as “kitsch” may seem innocuous, its application to religious art has had more wideranging and damaging effects. Critics have applied the label kitsch to stylistic and formal qualities, such as the painted features of French Catholic statuary or the “frilly” aspects of Catholic altar decorations,96 but the term likewise vilifies subject matter and iconography. Designations of kitsch and “bad” art denigrate overly conventional subjects, easily recognizable iconography, and appealing content that invokes emotions. Inspired by defenses of sentimentality in the visual arts, however, Morgan has endorsed the central place of sentiment and personal involvement in practices of visual piety. Significant for our discussion, he finds that repetition and the pervasiveness of certain images make them particularly resonant in religious contexts. For example, he asserts that Warner Sallman’s 20thcentury paintings of Jesus: enjoyed a special power by virtue of [their] ubiquity … The image marked the sites of familial and communal life, transmitted institutional

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Personal History and Religious Materiality knowledge, and visually articulated the public rituals conducted at church or in the home … This ubiquity and sameness, this pervasive familiarity, will seem militantly boring to those for whom the imagery signifies an alien world, but it is deeply reassuring for the image’s adherents. Believers return to the same imagery over and over precisely because it reaffirms what they want to take for granted about the world.97

Morgan’s analysis has much to offer us. As we have seen, archeological evidence attests to the widespread use of repetitive artifacts and images in Greek religious life and ritual behavior. While textual and epigraphic sources from Greece reflect the desire on the part of some devotees for their votive to stand out from others,98 a strong degree of formal and icono­ graphic uniformity exists in the hundreds of thousands of votives preserved for us. Accounting for the phenomenological impact of repetitive visual culture better helps us understand ancient religious media. Visual sameness can engender feelings of comfort during encounters with ubiquitous images, such as the Nymph terracottas disseminated across the Metapontine land­ scape. Votive imagery satisfied divinities, but it also gave sentimental plea­ sure, reassurance, and a sense of stability to devotees, a topic that we will return to in Chapter 6 in a discussion of mariners’ practices. Also relevant to my discussion here, it has been argued that childhood participation in festivals and rituals acted as a major vehicle for the creation of sentimental and nostalgic feelings.99 The role of childhood experience in the transmission of religious and social norms is a certainty in many modern (and ancient) contexts, where adults in the community were intensely concerned with the religious formation of their children.100 Robert Orsi argues that participation in religious services and related activities ensured that children’s religious lives were shaped through their own bodies. In 20th-century Catholic communities, children were constantly admonished on how they should carry themselves in religious times and spaces, how to kneel, how not to fidget, the proper way to touch sacred items, etc. Young people were scolded about restless behavior and other perceived corporeal transgressions. They physi­ cally and materially encountered sacred images and objects. As Orsi says, whether children dreaded or resented this or were proud of their physical abilities in church – and many children not only did not find all this onerous but actually delighted in their capacity to maintain the discipline and posture demanded of them, and many children loved going to mass, their imaginations captured by its mystery and splendor and pleased to share in the community’s distinguishing sign of recognizing God’s real presence on the altar – it was in their bodies that children were made to know the realness of God.101 Religious practice in ancient Attica does not seem to have involved such rigorous structuring and shaping of the human body as described

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in Orsi’s example. Our ancient sources do not accentuate extreme, formalist approaches to adult bodies during most religious occasions, suggesting that the body itself occupied a more relaxed place in Greek practice.102 This is not to say that particular symbolic and repeated movements did not occur. Visual culture attests to specific hand gestures associated with prayer, and kneeling was an aspect of supplication.103 We can be sure, however, that children learned a wide variety of corporeal ways to conduct themselves: how to walk properly in processions, how to approach altars and sacred statues, how to hang wreaths and carry wool-wrapped branches, or how best to hold a spit with splanchna at the sacrificial fire, among many others. As Isaios recounts, Kiron’s grandsons “placed our offerings side by side with his.”104 Such embodied practices and materially experienced objects and substances, Kupari says, “molded … bodies into trained bodies that had the capacity to do religion.”105 Personal history as ta patria: the way I have always done things As I showed earlier in this chapter, children were active members in Athenian religious life, both on a civic and private level. We can point to a number of phenomenologically significant moments in the religious activ­ ities of children: the physical experience of touching, holding, and dedicating objects, witnessing others handling objects, being instructed by one’s parents or siblings in the proper way to behave, visual contemplation of endless displays of figurines and reliefs in their ubiquitous types and motifs. All these encounters had a normative effect, encoding in children’s hands and eyes the way things ought to be done. It later became important to do these things, not simply because it was how they had always been done according to the rhetoric of tradition (κατὰ τὰ πάτρια), but because that was what an individual’s parents and aunts and uncles and siblings did. Frankfurter envisions a person figuring out suitable religious behavior by asking: “What did my grandmother leave at this shrine? What are those women doing?”106 Rather than being an external set of practices or “traditions,” ta patria was very much wrapped up in “the way things ought to be.” My suggestion is that the emotional resonance that made ta patria such a powerful dis­ cursive strategy was at least in part rooted in individuals’ own biographies, a sense developed out of how things had been done in an individual’s past experience, and how that person continued to do things since their earliest memory. In Kupari’s study of lifelong religious practice, the women who described their childhood experience invariably “also outlined their view of proper religiosity,”107 even as they adopted new practices while clinging to older ones from their youth. We can imagine something similar in Greece. Indeed, Graf and Johnston imply that children aid in the future preservation of ta patria, since “people grew up witnessing the rituals that they would someday perform themselves.”108 Plato’s romanticized depiction of an adult’s profound memories of childhood religious activity attests to the

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importance that past religious experience maintained in the minds of adults, who themselves ensured that the way they learned to do things continued in the present. Athenian appeals to the past became emotionally powerful strategies because ta patria entailed far more than references to distant an­ cestors. Ta patria also encompassed one’s own personal history, one’s (nostalgic or even wildly inaccurate) memories of childhood religion, and thus one’s sense of what was right. The emotional tenor of adult memories must have also been activated by past encounters with religious material culture, including votives. While I have made the case for the visual power of familiar religious imagery at Metapontion, Corinth, Athens, and elsewhere, direct evidence that links the concept of ta patria to religious arts is absent. Certainly, texts preserve the idea that some venerable-looking images might be perceived as more pow­ erful, sacred, and authentic, even as artistic innovations simultaneously grew in popularity.109 Some older visual forms, or at least contemporary im­ pressions of older forms and symbolism, were used rhetorically to evince a sense of ancestral authority, nostalgia, and sacred tradition. It is perhaps the juxtaposition of the traditional alongside the novel that made appeals to the past so effective, as change was tempered with a sense of stability. While these coded artifacts may have been employed for rhetorical purposes, the forms and iconographies of many votive types were truly long-lasting; some continue to be part of religious activity in the Mediterranean today.110 I suggest that, thanks to their prevalence and long-lasting utilization, re­ petitive motifs and image types acquired powerful affective resonance over the course of a person’s lifelong religious experience. Through personal biographies, votives “represent personal links to other times, locations and individuals.”111 One’s life history and memories ensured that religious practices and objects became linked to past and present moments, and in­ evitably became tied to “the right way to do things.”

Conclusion During the Archaic through the Classical period, Greeks grew up corporeally engaging all the various “stuff” of ancient religion, in the presence of their parents, families, and neighbors, to say nothing of the sacred powers. Material objects, images, and substances played an important role within those per­ sonal biographies, serving as affective reminders of past occasions. Not only did childhood experience shape adult feeling about religious practices and material culture, but long-lasting votive forms connected individuals to their own religious history and also that of other worshippers at sites such as Athens, Metapontion, and Corinth. Taking into consideration the visually and physically determined memories of adults suggests that past experience may have encouraged the continued popularity of some iconography because continuity gave a reassuring and familiar quality to that imagery. An elderly woman presenting a mold-made female bust in the Demeter and Kore

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sanctuary at Corinth, or a mature man teaching his little son to dedicate a horse-and-rider figurine at a stele shrine in the Potter’s Quarter, sustained the practices that they themselves had undertaken throughout their lives even while other practices changed around them. Both in sanctuaries and outside them, Greeks grew up corporeally en­ gaging the varied material culture of ancient religion in the presence of their families and neighbors, and that engagement continued throughout their adult lives. Reinterpreting dedications in terms of lifelong practices, ances­ tral tradition, and personal biography underlines the “lived” aspect of Greek religion for both individuals and their neighbors. An important point must be stressed, however: lifelong experiences involved more than material and sensory aspects, or the involvement of parents, family, and neighbors. The gods, too, were there year after year, when people began relationships and maintained (or failed to maintain) them over the course of their lives. From Artemis greeting a new baby in her sanctuary to an old man invoking sacred figures at his home altar, the gods and their worshippers encountered one another over a lifelong continuum. It is to the subject of divine and super­ natural presences that we turn in the next chapter.

Notes 1 Lamia, Archeological Museum AE 1041. For bibliography, Neils 2003, 145, Fig. 6, n. 20; Dillon 2003; Brøns 2017, 24–25; Petsalis-Diomidis 2018, 453–454. The goddess is rendered as if standing before her altar, although one could argue that her representation visually evokes a sacred statue as well; see Platt (2011, 36–37). 2 Leiden, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden I 1903/2.1 ( Oakley 2004, Fig. 174.). On babies making this gesture, as if asking to be picked up, see McNiven (2007, 87–88) and Margariti (2019, 73–75). Margariti (2016, 94) remarks that, on grave reliefs, the gesture turns tragic because the mother and child can never embrace again. She documents 15 Attic grave reliefs that show a child reaching out both arms for a parent, and dates them to 400–375 BCE. For a vasepainting showing a child reaching for its mortal mother, see Achilles Painter, Berlin Staatliche Museum, Antikensammlung F 2443 ( Oakley 2004, Fig. 21). Coinage from Tarentum, dating to about 340 BCE, shows the child Taras reaching both arms up to Poseidon: Ammerman 2007, 147, Fig. 7.20. 3 Neils 2003, 145. Euripides (IT, 1462–1467) reports that the clothing of women who died in childbirth was dedicated to Iphigenia at Brauron, but Gunnel Ekroth has deconstructed this passage in terms of archeological evidence: Ekroth 2003. 4 This chapter builds on and further develops some of the arguments first pre­ sented in Rask (2020). I would like to thank the anonymous readers who commented on past versions of this chapter and article. 5 Schrag 1969. 6 Burch 1990; Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo 2022. 7 Paraphrased from Kupari (2016, 7). She notes that lifelong adherence to a specific church or religious denomination (such as Orthodox Christianity) is only one alternative, whereas others might seek out another religious commu­ nity or way of being that fits better for them.

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8 Kupari 2016, 157. 9 Van Gennep 1909; Sourvinou-Inwood 1988; Hatzopoulos 1994; Dodd and Faraone 2003; Hitch 2015; Kravaritou 2018. 10 Orsi 2002, 170. 11 Neils 2003; Beaumont 2012; Oakley 2003. 12 LSS 20, 17-23; Ustinova 1996, 232. 13 LSCG 93; CGRN 91; Lupu 2005, 96 n. 505. A number of decrees from the postClassical centuries also mention the role of children in processions but also other rituals and religious contests. For example, CGRN 147.52–55; CGRN 167.37–38; CGRN 168.17–18; CGRN 194.13–21, 38–29; CGRN 202.62; CGRN 205.13; CGRN 222 (Mysteries of Andania). I thank Mat Carbon for his sug­ gestions and for bringing these sources to my attention. 14 For children, see especially Lawton (2007). 15 Athens, National Archeological Museum 2756. Purvis 2002, 15–32. See Chapter 5 for further discussion. 16 On initiation rites and what Lesley Beaumont calls “ritual as marker of child­ hood life stage”: Beaumont 2012, 169–186. Cf., Dodd and Faraone 2003. 17 Bremmer 1995, 33. 18 Isaios 8.15ff. Trans., E.S. Forster. 19 This sort of ritual collaboration can be seen in later periods as well, for example, in a 3rd century BCE inscription from Mykonos (CGRN 156.29–37): during a festival for Apollo, some of the animals sacrificed were done so by adult men, and others by boys and marriageable young men (νυμφίοι). Thanks to Mat Carbon for his comments on this inscription. 20 Bremmer 1995, 33. 21 Aristophanes, Acharnians 244–258. Trans., Jeffery Henderson 1992 (Focus). 22 I thank Dan Leon for suggesting this source. On ritual, comedy, and phallo­ phoric traditions, see Bierl (2009). 23 Bremmer 1987, 200–201. Bremmer 1994, 34. 24 A number of votive reliefs dedicated by females show women in the more tra­ ditionally male role, at the head of the sacrificial procession and followed by children of both genders. I thank Carol Lawton for this observation. Lawton 2017, 113–115. 25 Plato, Laws X 887d. Trans., A.E. Taylor. 26 On childhood gestures and their depictions on Attic vases, see McNiven (2007). 27 Dancing and singing were obvious activities that engaged the physical forms of young people. Whether it was the Spartan bibasis, Attic geranos (crane-dance), or the Ionian choruses at Delos, physical movement, singing and performance were intimately tied to religious activities. Neils 2003, 152–156; Beaumont 2012, 165–169. 28 Neils 2003, 157; Beaumont 2012, 156–165. At times it is difficult to identify any difference between servants and the children of the family; both carry the im­ plements and trappings needed by adults for the rituals. On haptic engagement with visual and material culture in antiquity, see Chapter 2. 29 Athens, Akropolis Museum 581. Libations and those who pour them: Gaifman 2018a. 30 Athens, Fethiye Camii P 68 A. Vikela 1994, 54–55, pl. 32. Lawton (2007) notes the unusual iconography of the relief, which does not include a representation of any divinity. 31 The splanchnoptes was often a role performed by slaves during this period in Athens: Aristophanes, Peace 1039–1045; the 5th-century sculptor Stypax was known for his statue of Perikles’ slave acting as a splanchnoptes (Plin. HN 34.19.81); in Classical Attic vase-painting, the splanchnoptes’ servile position is often indicated by nudity.

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32 Lawton 2007, 53–54. 33 A telling example involves the daughters of metics: they could aspire to a role in the Panathenaic processions, but never to the role of kanephoros; instead, they were diphrophoroi, carrying the parasol and stool used by their more honored civilian counterparts. Dillon 2003, 38. 34 Rask 2016. 35 Oakley 2003, 168. 36 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 35.11.5. BAPD # 209194. 37 By the Thanatos Painter. Private Collection. Oakley 2004, Figs. 131–132; List 18, no. 2. BAPD # 216386. 38 See the articles gathered in the “Mobilier funéraire” section in Muller and Lafli 2015. 39 On Greek objects that look back at viewers: Bielfeldt 2016; Grethlein 2015. On sight in religious contexts: Platt 2015b. 40 Langin-Hooper 2015, 6. 41 Squire and Platt 2018, 97. 42 Plato, Laws X 887d. 43 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015; Muller and Lafli 2016. 44 Kopestonsky 2016, 722–731; 2015. 45 In some locations, though, similar figurines could be tweaked with varied de­ tails, such as added hair and jewelry. See Langdon (Forthcoming). 46 On mass-production, see Biers (1994). For derivative mold production, see Ammerman (2018, 1092); Muller (1994); and Muller (1996, 27–47). On recent approaches to artists’ agency and innovation, see Seaman and Schultz (2017). 47 Thompson 1952. 48 In addition to Rebecca Ammerman’s many studies of the area’s terracottas (2015, 2018, 2019), see, for example, Postrioti (1996) and Signore (1996). 49 Carter 2018. 50 Ammerman 2018. 51 Drawing and photomontage of Mold Series Postrioti AIB, using fragments from Sant’Angelo Vecchio: SA79.0407 and SA80.0010. The examples from the Pantanello shrine are fragmentary. 52 Reconstruction based on National Archeological Museum of Metaponto 134576. For the Pantanello banqueting plaques, see Ammerman 2018, 1127–1141, 1321–1371. 53 Ammerman 2018, 1135–1141. 54 Ammerman 2018, 1099–1121, 184–308; Postrioti 1996. 55 Ammerman 2018, 1100–1112. 56 Ammerman 2018, 1154–1162; 2015. Ammerman (2019) also provides distribu­ tion analyses of other types of terracotta figurines, such as a torch-bearing female and the couple-with-child banqueting pinakes. 57 The coins indicate a date around 330–270 BCE. Postrioti 1996. 58 Ammerman 2019. 59 Ammerman 2019, 297, 299. 60 Ammerman 2015, 366–367. Catti and Swift 2014. 61 Newhall 1931, 26–27. 62 Corinth Archeological Museum KT 28–98. Stillwell 1952, 164; Merker 2000, 235; Merker 2003. Horse-and-rider figurines are frequently described as heroic offerings. For divine horse-and-riders, see LIMC 6 (1992), s.v. “Heros Equitans” (Cermanović-Kuzmanović et al.), 1019–1081. 63 Stillwell 1952, 8. Stillwell organized the Potter’s Quarter horse-and-rider types as a subset of horse figurines; horse-and-riders made up approximately 80% of the total, numbered at approximately 400. It should be noted that riders do

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67 68 69

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Personal History and Religious Materiality become detached (Stillwell documented 29 horseless riders). Stillwell 1952, 11, 164–176. Langdon Forthcoming. Painted pinakes showing horse-and-riders dated to the first half of the 6th century were also dedicated at Penteskoupia, outside Corinth. Ninety-eight examples survive: Hasaki 2021, 69–70. Merker 2000, 131. From the Potter’s Quarter, 4th-century cut-out reliefs ( Stillwell 1952, 154–155.); mold-made horse-and-rider reliefs from a Hellenistic assemblage near the South Stoa: Davidson 1942, 110–113. Corinth Museum MF 8587. Smagh 2022. Further conclusions from this on­ going project will be presented in an in-progress article: “Private Religion in Corinth: Aesthetics and Functions of Miniature Altars.” I thank Hannah Smagh for making this information available prior to publication. Langin-Hooper 2015. Amandry 1984. For terracotta offerings at cave shrines: Sporn 2020. For the popularity of long-lasting figurine types in Hellenistic Babylonia as a feature of their miniaturization and social context, see Langin-Hooper (2015). The scholarship connecting religious imagery to specific practices is enormous. For associated bibliography, see, for example, Gordon (1979); Prêtre and Huysecom-Haxhi (2009); Karoglou (2010); Mylonopoulos (2010); HuysecomHaxhi and Muller (2015). On change in votive practice and motifs: Alroth 1998. For the connection between the Homeric Hymns and local cult, Parker 1991. Gordon 1980. For the reproduction of cult-statue imagery, Gaifman 2006. “Votive choice and practice” as it relates to identity and personal situations of dedicants: Salapata 2015. Frankfurter 2017a. The role of workshops in innovation is discussed in his Chapter 5. Bourdieu 1977. On habitus and religious practice, see Kupari (2016, 10–33). Kupari 2016, 21. Kopestonsky 2015, 413. See also, for example, Gaifman (2008, 99). Frankfurter 2017a, 128. ta patria was sometimes interchangeable with ta nomizomena (τὰ νομιζόμενα) and hoi nomoi (οἱ νόμοι): Chaniotis 2009b; Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge 2017. Parker 2005a; Cole 2008; Harris 2015; Mikalson 2016, 110–119; Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge 2017. Harris 2015: References to τὰ πάτρια frequently concern (1) the foundations of cults, (2) the reinstitution of disrupted cults (LSS 19, arbitration between Salaminians), and (3) the reorganization of cults among political entities (LSS 45, Acarnanian confederacy’s celebration of the Actias). In Attica, at least, Jon Mikalson (2016, 110–119) has identified a number of rituals qualified as κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, including sacrifices, the distributing of bread, the dedication of garments, processions, and even the wearing of crowns. Stavrianopoulou 2011. Bremmer 1994, 8. Parker 2005b, 21. Graf and Johnston 2007, 180. Serafim 2021, 95–110. See Chapter 1 (2-9) on emotion, and Chaniotis 2011a, 2012a, 2018. The classic study of image agency and affective power is Freedberg (1989). According to Van Schepen (2009, 52), Kant’s adoption of Moritz’s disin­ terestedness in particular established normative rules for appropriate viewer response. Karl Philip Moritz furthered the almost spiritualized relationship

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93 94 95 96

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109

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between the beholder and the beautiful. Disinterested captivation and trans­ cendence caused a “forgetfulness of self.” Much like Winckelmann, Moritz described viewers and artworks in the same terms as worshipers and God. Van Schepen notes that “Moritz’s identification of theology with esthetic experience brought the epiphanic language of ardent religious fervor to the experience of the materially present object.” (2009, 59). For more on this topic: Belting 1997. See also Morgan (2004, 31). Morgan 1999, 21–58. Paskow (2004, 9) argues, “because we do take esthetic objects to be more than mere appearances of our own subjectivity and thus as in some way ‘real’, and because they often ‘speak to’ us as individuals, to the very significance and direction of our lives, to refer to our ideal responses as ‘disinterested’ is altogether mistaken.” On kitsch, taste, and modern Christian religious art, see McDannell (1998, 163–197). She highlights the gendered element in 19th- and 20th-century dis­ cussions of “good” and “bad” religious art. For a vigorous and influential example of kitsch criticism, see Greenberg (1939). Higgins 1992. Solomon 1991, 12. Solomon 1991, 9. McDannell (1998, 177) relates that “realistic” statues of the Virgin Mary, which could represent any normal human woman, “could not create a bond with the divine world because they rooted the viewer too much in the mundane world.” Here both art and the divine should be separated from normal human experi­ ence. Further discussion of the formal aspects of religious art and kitsch: McDannell 1998, 163–197. Morgan 1999, 17. A defense of sentimental reactions to visual culture, as con­ trasted with Kantian disinterestedness, can be found in Solomon (1991). Jim 2014, 63. For a cultural analysis of Greek interest in novelty: D’ Angour 2011. On inexpensive dedications and routine shrine visits, see Salapata (2018). Orsi 2005, 73–109. See, for example, ( Orsi 2005, 73–109; 2016, 113–161; Kupari 2016). Orsi 2005, 99. Although note Jeremy Tanner’s emphasis on bodily comportment and rigorous training for ephebes: Tanner 2016, 21–23. McNiven 2009; Naiden 2006. Above, p. X. Kupari 2016, 63. Frankfurter 2017a, 127. In a discussion of dedicatory practices, Jim (2014, 90) says “how did ancient worshippers know that presenting a first offering in a particular situation was an appropriate way of honoring and communicating with the gods? It was obviously not by instruction in school or by enforcement by religious officials, but by following the same custom as one’s parents and grandparents, and by seeing other members of the community making such offerings.” Kupari 2016, 80. Graf and Johnston 2007, 181. Examples include the visually and iconographically distinctive Panathenaic amphorae ( Peters 1942; Beazley 1943; Neils 1992; Tiverios 2007), or certain stylistic and formal qualities, such as archaistic sculpture and representations of xoana. For example, J. J. Pollitt (1986, 182) describes what he calls “emblematic archaism,” an archaistic style resulting from “the desire to preserve an Archaic form because it is a badge or emblem of an object which one wishes to make recognizable, familiar, and traditional-looking in the eyes of later generations.”

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Mark Fullerton (1986) has demonstrated that stylistic and formal features in sculpture served a similar function: on the statue of Hekate Epipyrgidia, which stood within the Nike temenos on the Athenian Akropolis, they acted as a symbolic component and represented the antiquarian interests at play in the late 5th-century reconstruction program of the Nike temenos. On an alternative reading of archaistic style, as well as the role of religious conservatism, see Hölscher 2010. Xoanon: Donohue 1988. For the strategic use of xoanon representations by artists: Platt 2011, 92–100. For a general approach to the Greek use of visual and material culture to represent the past, see Boardman (2002). On the rhetorical aspect of religious art, including its “persuasive” component, see Faraone (1992, 113–124). 110 See, for example, the continued use of anatomical votives: Handaka 2006. 111 González 1993, 82.

4

Experiencing Supernatural Presence: From Bodily Blessings to Ghostly Visitors

In 414 BCE, Aristophanes staged his comedy Birds, a play in which a set of rebellious avians take on the traditional gods and compete for mortal worshipers. When the bird chorus attempts to convince humans to choose them over the Olympians, they promise: “if you acknowledge us as gods … we won’t run off and sit with our noses in the air, high in the clouds like Zeus, but being present nearby (παρόντες) we will give you health and wealth, long life, peace, happiness, youth, laughter and dancing, feasts and birds’ milk.”1 The play was performed during a tumultuous period of re­ ligious anxiety in Athens, when accusations of impiety and atheism led to prosecutions, exile, and political upheaval.2 Aristophanes satirized what was actually a deadly point of conflict; in this particular passage, the impious birds aim to replace the gods in the hearts and rituals of human followers, distinguishing themselves from the other gods as being more present. Their statement makes clear that, for the Athenians, divinities who were close and detectable had a great consequence in the lives of mortals. In this chapter, we turn to the issue of divine presence in the Archaic through the Classical period. Our discussion here serves as a companion chapter to the one that follows, in which my attention turns to material and visual culture. Given the centrality of “presence” to the relationships Greeks formed with their gods, it is worth interrogating the topic for the purposes of definition and theorization. In part, theorizing “presence” has perhaps seemed less imperative for the study of an ancient culture with an already robust vocabulary and narrative tradition about epiphany. As a result, studies of divine presence in Archaic and Classical Greece more often than not prioritize epiphany, those moments when mortal witnesses encounter and recognize sacred powers. Scholarly interest in Greek epi­ phanies continues to grow, thanks in part to two recent volumes on the topic.3 Verity Platt describes epiphany—the face-to-face “manifestation of deities to mortals”—as primarily related to human perception of the divine and its representation.4 For Georgia Petridou, an epiphany is “the man­ ifestation of a deity to an individual or a group of people, in sleep or in waking reality, in a crisis or cult context.”5 Oftentimes scholarship on DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-4

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epiphanies underscores that the gods and heroes are apparent to human senses, especially via sight, sound, and smell.6 It is not uncommon for presence (parousia, παρουσία) to be subsumed under treatments of Greek epiphany; in what follows, I reverse that re­ lationship, with epiphany a component of parousia.7 Interest in Greek epi­ phany has meant that other aspects of divine presence during the Archaic and Classical periods and how Greeks experienced it have perhaps received less attention than they have for later periods. For example, Angelos Chaniotis contends that Hellenistic and Imperial-era Greeks demonstrated a strong interest in “presence”; preserved texts show them hoping for gods who attend to human prayers, gods who exercise their power on the behalf of worshipers, and gods who are physically close (παρουσία); in other words, later Greeks sought “the tangible, continuous and effectual presence of the gods in the world of the mortals.”8 Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis offers a major treatment of presence in her work on healing sites during the Second Sophistic; implicit in her work is that presence includes divine powers op­ erating in the world, the works and miracles of the gods, and divine “will” and divine intentions brought to fruition.9 As we will see, these approaches to “presence” provide a versatile and comprehensive way to consider how Greek individuals experienced supernatural powers earlier in the Archaic and Classical periods as well. In this chapter, I address divine presence as it was found in the deeds and powers of the gods, experienced within human bodies and behaviors, and felt in encounters with other supernatural beings, in­ cluding ghosts and demons. While others before me have touched upon these topics, my aim here is to combine several themes apparent in Archaic and Classical evidence in order to reinforce how pervasive su­ pernatural presences were in the lived experience of Greek women and men. Not everyone witnessed epiphanies of the gods, heroes, or daimones, but supernatural presences were very much a concern for Archaic and Classical Greek people. Before laying out these arguments, however, let me first address presence from a theoretical perspective, explain my working definition, and follow up on three associated topics: materiality, iconography and symbolism, and divine absence. The following section, explores some of the ways gods, heroes, and daimones were felt in the lived experiences of individuals. These include the benefits and successes provided by the gods to their followers, as well as their direct impact on human bodies. These last included physical strength, miraculous healings, devastating illnesses, inspiration, and possession. Thereafter, I turn to some of the other supernatural presences that Greeks encountered, such as the souls of the dead, hostile spirits, and demonic agents, felt to be genuinely entangled in Greek lives. This section considers where and how these presences were experienced: in homes and cemeteries, within the various parts of the body and its failure or successes, and during rituals, initiations, and future thanatological journeys.

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Divine presence and its study In 2016, historian of religion Robert Orsi devoted a monograph to the phenomenon of presence. He describes present holy figures as close and manifest; rather than distant beings separated from the world and the people in it, people experience presences as “really real,” palpable and imminent. The many ways that people experience presence include epiphanies in the countryside, within potent water carried home from shrines, sacred dirt given to the sick, mass-produced but personally meaningful holy cards traded between friends, and even the dead appearing to those they have left behind, among others.10 Orsi also shows that intense conflicts arise over divine presence in past and contemporary communities, and these debates often question whether the gods are truly there to worshipers, who controls their presence, and how that control relates to larger power struggles and social conflicts. Such disputes have been quite prevalent in both history and historiography, especially following the Protestant Reformation. The politics and rhetoric of divine presence have had a profound impact on the modern world, Orsi argues, evident at work in the attitudes of colonializing missionaries and powers, religious communities as they demonize one another, today’s medical per­ sonnel and policymakers, modern thinkers and academics from numerous fields (including anthropologists, art historians, sociologists), and, especially important for our purposes, historians of religion.11 “Modern theories of religion,” Orsi contends, “were written over accounts of the gods really present, submerging them in a theoretical underworld, while on the surface the gods were reborn as symbols, signs, metaphors, functions, and ab­ stractions.”12 He argues that modern critical theorists have subsumed the centrality of presence in peoples’ religious experience; instead they treat the “really realness of the divine” as discourse, products of power relations, sociological constructs, and so on. As an example, Clifford Geertz’s ex­ tremely influential definition of religion makes no mention of the gods or any supernatural powers, but rather treats religion as a series of symbols.13 A similar critique can be aimed at histories of Greek religion, which until recently, rather than examining a Greek world marked by extremely meaningful divine presences, instead characterize the gods as discourses, strategies, cultural inventions, civic and social forces, and so on.14 Orsi’s study explores the history of the modern Western world rather than the ancient one addressed in this chapter, but quarrels about where divine presence could be found and who benefited from close interactions with the gods and heroes were likewise a feature of ancient discourse. On a topic we will address momentarily, one of Plutarch’s characters exclaimed, “it is utterly simplistic and childish to believe that the god himself would slip into the bodies of the prophets … and that he would speak using their mouths and vocal chords as his instruments.”15 Petsalis-Diomidis argues that 2nd century CE authors contested access to the divine and in which cult

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images, oracles, and holy men (theois aner) it truly could be found.16 These debates did not necessarily grapple with whether the gods existed, but rather where they could be experienced, who encountered them, and who possessed the authority to discern whether the gods were truly present. Such dis­ agreements likewise arose in earlier periods.17 For example, the 5th-century Hippocratic author of On the Sacred Disease sharply criticized those who saw illness and maladies as the gods at work within human bodies, as we will discuss further.18 Plato spurned those who claimed to access divine powers (some of whom he thought were swindlers and exploitative atheists), but he also fretted over the unsanctioned establishment of shrines and altars set up in response to (false) supernatural encounters. He says “through terrors caused by waking visions (φάσμασιν ἐγρηγορότας) or by dreams (ἐν ὀνείροις) … they are wont to found altars and shrines … [in] every spot which was the scene of such experiences.”19 Plato’s extended passage rebuffs the overenthusiastic personal religious responses of women and other im­ prudent community members. He makes clear that people who engaged in this sort of activity willy-nilly were rather foolish (ἀνόητος), with the im­ plication being that many of them had not seen real supernatural beings in their visions and dreams. In other words, ultimately he passes judgment on which divine encounters were authentic and on who had truly encountered the gods. Plato’s attempts to restrict shrine and altar foundation to priests and religious authorities rather than dream-addled lay worshipers suggests an interest in controlling access to divine forces and keeping that access in the hands of those who would go about it “properly.”20 The 4th-century author Theophrastos, in turn, caricatures the “superstitious” person, who straightaway establishes a hero-shrine where he sees a “sacred snake” in his house. He also bemoans, “if an owl is surprised by him during a walk, he will exclaim ‘Athena the mighty!’” (Ἀθηνᾶ κρείττων). Sometimes an owl is just an owl, Theophrastos implies, but the superstitious man fails to discern correctly when a divine force is actually there or not. This suggests that Athenians might disagree about where and when (and to whom) the gods appeared; meanwhile, according to Theophrastos, some poor schmucks thought the gods might lurk around every corner.21 Although a fuller precis on contested presence in the Archaic and Classical periods is beyond the scope of this study, these few examples may hint that certain theological debates and accusations about improper re­ ligious behavior were irrevocably tied to the gods as present—or not – in the mortal realm. Following Orsi, I use the term “presence” to refer to the ways that su­ pernatural beings and powers were experienced as close, imminent, and right here, perceived with the senses, affectively felt, or understood to be tangibly at work in the world. Before moving on to my specific cases, I would like to engage with three theoretical and methodological themes drawn out by the gods’ interactions with humans, and which pertain to current work on Greek religion: materiality, symbols and iconography, and absence.

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 87 Materiality In many treatments of Greek religious materiality, the physical manifes­ tation of divine presence par excellence has been the cult statue, commonly distinguished from others by an image’s centrality to various rituals and religious encounters. Such images were usually located in shrines or at significant locations in the natural and constructed landscape (e.g., en­ trances to homes, etc.). Because this topic has been thoroughly discussed in the literature, I will not address it here.22 An interesting alternative to sacred images includes the bones of heroes, which physically embodied heroic power.23 Accordingly, the worship of heroes and heroines some­ times focused on tombs, many of which had been incorporated into larger sanctuaries or received independent shrines of their own. Literary sources suggest that the bodies of these deceased figures were particularly pow­ erful. Herodotos, for example, recounts the following story about the bones of Orestes: the Spartans, unable to gain the upper hand in their ongoing conflict with Tegea, sought guidance from Apollo at Delphi. Told by the Pythia to acquire the hero’s bones from Tegea, the Spartans dis­ covered Orestes’ tomb and carried the remains back home. Thereafter, Sparta defeated their longtime enemy, who no longer held the bones themselves.24 While the gods and heroes often interceded on the battle­ field, in this case, possession of the hero’s physical remains, and thus his tomb, effectively employed the hero’s material presence for the war effort. As Corrine Pache contends, “the Greeks do not distinguish between the power of a hero’s bones and the power of the hero.”25 The bones function here as talismans, protecting the interests of the Spartans rather than the Tegeans’ and materially concentrating the hero’s power. While heroes and heroines also might be rendered in ontologically significant sacred images, their bones were a special repository of their presence. Many animated images, or those bearing a “numinous” power, able to independently act and do in the world, functioned as “talismans,” “apotropaia,” and so forth. From gorgoneia displayed above kilns to the phylax (guardian) statue set up at Priene, such images protect, guard, heal, damage, and otherwise act in the world.26 Chris Faraone contends that their true importance in ancient contexts lay in the way they harnessed super­ natural forces. Although he describes many of these images as items pos­ sessing efficacious force, he calls them prescriptive, meant to persuade or influence other supernatural powers.27 In some cases, he makes a distinction between images’ apotropaic efficaciousness and the ways they otherwise embody divinity.28 In the Greek world, objects and ritual actions exerted power through other means, not merely deriving it from the embodied presence of a su­ pernatural being. Scholars of efficacious materials have shown that many items, images, and materials possessed an invisible force of some sort, including amulets, talismans, relics, etc. David Frankfurter argues that

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material things may derive potency (1) from the material’s intrinsic natural features, (2) through ritual means, and (3) from a supernatural power.29 Let me address these three points. First, it has been shown that material features from the natural world contained an inherent force, such as lapis lazuli and other stones used for amulets30 or the powerful plants commonly mixed in pharmaka. Frankfurter explains that they exhibit an “agency active in things in the world: that stones, plants, and other substances could act on us.”31 The Greeks inhabited a world “pulsating with various agencies,” with “efficacies inherent in nature and natural substances.”32 These natural efficacies do not perforce derive from supernatural beings, but they can be directed towards religious, talismanic, and magical ends. In addition to the naturally occurring agency that the Greeks utilized, materials and things also developed agency and power through ritualized activities or human manipulation and reconceptualization. Through ges­ tures, speech, or other means, ritual experts such as priests and magic workers transformed everyday items into potent substances, amulets, images, and so on.33 Frankfurter, for example, has argued that animal sacrifices transform animal bodies into efficacious substances.34 This is not to say that these materials and items could not also derive their efficaciousness from the supernatural realm for some communities, as we saw with the bones of heroes.35 By the 3rd century CE, the connection between material things and cosmic forces was explicated in theories of σύμβολα, which, it was argued, contained elements from the gods, and thus linked the material world with various cosmic planes and divine essence: “they derive their power from an indwelling presence of the higher orders within them.”36 For theurgists and Hermeticists of the Late Roman world, Crystal Addey explains, material σύμβολα or συνθήματα—plants, stones, utterances, or artifacts—carried “an ontological link with the thing they symbolized.”37 In other cases, close encounters with sacred power might transfer that power to material items. Peter Brown articulated the connec­ tion between sacred presence and material culture in his study of early Christian saints in the Roman world. A saint’s presence (praesentia) resided in his or her corpse, in the portions of the corpse distributed as relics, and in objects otherwise associated with the holy figure. The saint’s presence could be transferred: Brown described the small cloths lowered to the tomb of St. Peter, which became imbued with the saint’s presence and were thereafter carried in all directions by pilgrims.38 In Chapter 5, I will address divine sources and material agency in the Archaic and Classical Greece. Orsi describes such material culture as “media of presence … used to act upon the world, upon others and upon oneself … These objects are be­ lieved to hold the power of the holy figure … and to make it present.”39 He describes them as “points of encounter” and declares that “such objects cannot be understood apart from the phenomenology of presence.”40 Based on these considerations, then, material things can manifest the power of a supernatural figure, while at the same time they can be imbued

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 89 with potency through ritualized action or otherwise possess it naturally, a topic that we will return to in the next chapter. I highlight these distinc­ tions here to reinforce that material efficaciousness and agency in the Greek world need not derive from supernatural beings. Our focus in this chapter, however, will be the experience of supernatural presences and their powers in the material world. Absence Another important point that must be addressed pertains to divine absence. For Orsi, absence can be defined as a belief that the gods are not here in the world, accessible and manifold in places, things, sights, sounds, tastes, and smells. Absent gods are distant, non-responsive, and not present in the world. He argues that rather than being a particularly prominent aspect of most re­ ligious traditions, “absence” more often than not is a critique used by groups against others, or “imposed and enforced by authorities and powers of various sorts that are made anxious by presence.”41 By this he refers to disputes about when, where, in what manner, and to whom the gods might respond. We have already seen quarrels about identifying the divine presence and controlling it in the writings of Plato and Theophrastos, who attempted to qualify the dream visions and momentous owls of those whom they disapproved. We can also find the discourse of absence at work in the 5th-century comedy that opened this chapter. In Aristophanes’ Birds, the birds who hope to receive worship from humans claim that they themselves will be more present than the Olympian deities precisely because they will interact with and respond to humans. “So if you acknowledge us as gods... we won’t run off and sit with our noses in the air, high in the clouds like Zeus, but being present close by we will give you (παρόντες δώσομεν) health and wealth, long life, peace, happiness, youth, laughter and dancing, feasts and birds’ milk. As such, it will be possible (παρέσται) for you to be wearied by good things, you will all be so well off.”42 This fascinating passage is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it uses the term πάρειμι, meaning “to be” (εἰμι) “near or beside” (παρά). Often translated as “to be present,” it more accurately includes the connotation “to be nearby or alongside.” For Chaniotis, this indicates being physically present,43 but we ought to soften that definition to account for immaterial or invisible closeness; as we will observe later in this chapter, in some situations the gods were un­ derstood to be present despite humans’ inability to visibly or materially re­ cognize them. In any case, Aristophanes’ birds directly contrast the gods up in the heavens and those closer to humans. Second, the birds seem to equate presence with the role of the gods’ (or birds) in human life. The gods that are here, nearby, are the ones who give gifts and blessings to their worshipers: health and happiness, feasts and good living, etc. The avian speaker implies that those other gods, up in the clouds far away from humans, choose not to make a difference in the lives of their followers.

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It seems to me that Aristophanes plays with the same theme—the gods there contrasted with those here—in his Wealth of the late 5th century BCE. When Hermes sneaks away from the other gods in an attempt to follow tasty offerings to Chremylos’ house, a human servant asks, “leaving the gods, you would stay here (ἐνθάδε)?”44 Hermes indeed chooses ἐνθάδε, dwelling among the humans, with all the comic results it entails.45 The theological concept of absence is relevant for our discussion given that the term has been applied with some variability in the secondary lit­ erature. Petridou, for example, uses the term “absence” to refer to epipha­ neia’s opposite aphaneia; various gods and heroes suddenly disappear, becoming no longer perceptible to human senses.46 Persephone and Trophonios vanish, for example, with their disappearance crucial to their narratives, their cultic calendars, and the sanctuaries that celebrate them. Despite Petridou’s use of the language of absence, however, these stories say more about the miraculous nature of divine visibility and human perception, rather than a world in which human followers were unable to feel the clo­ seness of the gods and heroes; gods may be “visible at particular times, but this does not mean that at other times [they are] not there.”47 It should be noted, of course, that for the Greeks, the gods did have a tendency to be more readily present or immanent in some locations at certain times. Petsalis-Diomidis, in a study of pilgrimage to the Amphiareon in Oropos, argues that at pilgrimage destinations, “the god was thought to be more immediately and powerfully present in these sanctuaries, and therefore more directly efficacious.”48 No doubt the many tales of successful encounters with the gods at these sites reinforced the sense that the god or hero was accessible there. About the Amphiareion at Oropos, PetsalisDiomidis argues, “the whole sanctuary landscape was implicated in the process of evoking Amphiaraos because the god was intimately linked to this landscape through myth.”49 It was at the sanctuary’s spring where Amphiaraos first emerged as a hero-god; the sacred quality of the space continued to resonate long after his original emergence.50 This perceived connection between natural places in the landscape and divine presence appears at other sanctuaries with sacred springs as well. For example, at Metapontion’s Pantanello Sanctuary in the Archaic and Classical period (Chapter 3), visitors deposited their offerings within and alongside the spring, as if this would bring them closer to divine presence.51 That visitors to the Amphiareion attempted to do the same is supported by the prohi­ bition against sacrificing (θύοντες) into the spring later reported by Pausanias.52 Traditions that the gods were more present in some places did not mean that they were absent from others. To be sure, claims to locally powerful sites provided a strategy for those whose prayers had not yet been answered, and one amply deployed by the authorities at competing sanctuaries. One of the 4th-century BCE iamata from Epidauros declared that a sick woman named Aristagora unsuccessfully sought healing from Asklepios in Troezen

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 91 before successfully acquiring it at his Epidaurian sanctuary.53 Her story reiterates that, if direct presence could not be found in one place, the needy could seek it in another. In a world with competitive claims to the gods’ presence, authorities at a site like Epidaurus alleged that Asklepios was more epiphanic here rather than anywhere else. Aristagora’s story also emphasizes that people experienced presence differently, with one Asklepios being closer to an individual follower than another, just as one healing sanctuary might offer a more meaningful divine encounter than another. We will return to the notion of one city’s Hera being preferable to another city’s in a later chapter. Some of the Greek gods and heroes were quite peripatetic, traveling from place to place throughout the festival year. In early Greek literature, the gods are sometimes described as being elsewhere, before they arrive in glory at their sanctuary. For example, the early 6th-century lyric poet Alkaios described the Delphic inhabitants calling on Apollo to come to the sanc­ tuary for the first time.54 While theophania festivals might celebrate such past epiphanies and divine advents, it is unclear how often earlier Greek communities believed that their gods were genuinely gone from the sanc­ tuary (and unreachable) for part of the year. Meanwhile, access to the god’s presence through their cult statue could be dictated by both space and time: the god’s statue would be locked away into an inaccessible space, and only revealed on certain days throughout the year. The opening of the temple doors has been described as a “sign of divine presence in the city”55 and Aynur-Michèle-Sara Karatas, in a study of temple key holders, suggests that the naos door became a physical boundary that only allowed “access to the presence of the god” at certain times.56 As such, divine encounters were only permitted through the authority of the key holder, while the peripatetic travels of the gods was actualized by the closing and opening door. In a world filled with many supernatural beings, elaborate ritual ca­ lendars, and regional sanctuaries, divine comings and goings helped to order a crowded festival calendar and regulated access to the gods in their shrines. It has not been uncommon for certain literary passages and sanctuary ca­ lendars to be taken for evidence that “an immortal can only be in one place at a time.”57 Nevertheless, I want to stress that these cultic considerations did not control when and how the gods appeared to people in dreams, or to whom the spirits gave instructions, or when they sent omens and signs, or when the gods responded to prayers with “good things,” or when they seized the bodies of their followers. There existed a constant tension between the places and times when the gods in their sanctuaries were ritually available, and when they were felt by their followers outside those constraints. This is a crucial distinction, and one that must be considered in studies of Greek lived religious experience.58 As we will see below, supernatural beings be­ came present irrespective of the cultic calendar and in a variety of nonsanctuary situations. In terms of a paradigm of presence, generally Greek polytheism acknowledged the very real possibility of divine epiphany and

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power at work in the world, rather than a world in which absent gods (or ritually absent gods) did not tangibly make themselves known to their followers.

Present gods in Greek lives In Xenophon’s 4th-century Memorabilia, Socrates expounds on the many ways the gods provide for humans. The gods’ benefits include elements in the natural landscape, such as day, night, water, and food.59 He tells his companion Euthydemos: you will realize the truth of what I say if instead of waiting for the gods to appear to you in bodily form (τὰς μορφὰς τῶν θεῶν ἴδῃς), you are content to praise and worship them because you see their works (τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν ὁρῶντι). Note that the gods themselves give the reason for doing so; for when they bestow on us their good gifts (τἀγαθὰ διδόντες), not one of them ever appears before us gift in hand (ἐμφανὲς ἰόντες διδόασι); and especially the one who co-ordinates and holds together the universe … is manifest in his supreme works, and yet is unseen by us in the ordering of them … And the winds are themselves invisible, yet their effects are manifest (ἃ δὲ ποιοῦσι φανερὰ) to us, and we perceive their approach. Moreover, the human soul, which more than all else that is human partakes of the divine, reigns manifestly within us (βασιλεύει ἐν ἡμῖν, φανερόν), and yet is itself unseen.60 As Socrates contends, divine presence was understood and felt, even if not directly observed: “For these reasons it behooves us not to despise the things that are unseen, but, realizing their power in their manifestations (ἐκ τῶν γιγνομένων τὴν δύναμιν αὐτῶν καταμανθάνοντα), to honor the godhead.” For many Greeks, even when unseen, the gods of traditional cult were here populating a physical landscape roiling with the sacred.61 Xenophon’s Socrates makes a rhetorical distinction between visible gods and those that are manifest or otherwise apparent (φανερόν). His argument addresses several points about presence with which I will engage in this section: (1) the gods are present in their powers, works, and gifts, and (2) the gods can exist within humans. Because studies of epiphany often emphasize face-to-face encounters or moments in which the gods are perceptible to the senses, I would like to address these two topics in more detail, in order to demonstrate some of the other ways that Greeks experienced the gods and heroes as close and present.62 On an Attic krater from about 460 BCE (Fig. 4.1),63 two potters build a large vessel on a wheel. Athena stands with them in the workshop, what must have been a hot, stuffy, dirty, and impure place. While images and talismans were set up at kilns to protect the integrity of the oven and the goods processed within it, we have here the goddess directly overseeing

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Figure 4.1 Attic red-figure calyx krater from Sicily, showing Athena in a potter’s workshop. 500–450 BCE. © Caltagirone, Museo Regionale della Ceramica.

and protecting her followers, their works, and thus their economic success. The votives and inscriptions presented to Athena on the Akropolis suggest that for Athenian craftspeople, the close connection between successful craft production and Athena’s blessings were very real.64 In the case of this vase, the potters do not see Athena, but her presence is nevertheless undeniable. The krater’s depiction conveys the sense that the goddess protects the potters, perceives their artisanal skills, and guards their suc­ cess, just as she must have done for the real craftsmen as they made this very pot in a similar workshop. Did the vessel’s painter think Athena was really there looking over his shoulder while he worked away? We cannot know, but he certainly imagined (and imaged) a world in which it was so. The protective role of Athena at potter’s kilns is explicitly stated in a

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Greek poem that may date to the late 6th century; Athena is implored, “hold your hand above the kiln.”65 The gods were responsible for the success of others as well. Greek victors felt strongly that gods and heroes had directly gifted them victories. Although Pindar’s early 5th-century poems make strong parallels between humans and heroes for rhetorical and narrative purposes, in some cases the poems explicate that the god or hero’s favor can be found in the athletic victory itself. “To the Emmenidai and Theron glory has come as a gift from Tyndareos’ horsemen sons,” Pindar tells us, “because of all mortals they attend them with most numerous feasts of welcome, as with pious minds they preserve the rites of the blessed gods.”66 In this case, the Dioskouroi blessed Theron with a victory in the chariot race at Olympia (476 BCE), following a long history of theoxenia and offerings given to the heroes by Theron’s family. The very real sense that the gods were unambiguously felt in one’s life was explicated by Pantalkes’ poem inscribed at a cave-shrine near Pharsalus in Thessaly.67 He had been a devotee of the Nymphs, and two inscriptions celebrate the man’s commitment at the shrine on Karapla Hill, where he made several improvements.68 The inscriptions date from the first half of the 5th century and the 4th century, respectively, suggesting that the second inscrip­ tion (discussed next) was written after Pantalkes’ death, although it could be a copy of an older text perhaps written in a lost form or material (e.g., wood).69 Most interesting for us is the 4th-century poem carved along the staircase at the entrance70 that lists various benefits the man received from specific gods and goddesses, all of which enabled him in turn to improve the shrine: Good Fortune. Welcome all visitors, each female and male, men and women, alike boys and girls, to this place sacred to Nymphs, Pan and Hermes, to Lord Apollo and Herakles and the fellow deities. This is the cave of Chiron and Asklepios and Hygieia. To them belong this whole place, and the most sacred things within it, those that grow and the tablets and dedications and the numerous gifts. The nymphs made Pantalkes a distinguished man. The nymphs who tread upon this land, they made him their overseer. He helped these plants grow and shaped things with his hands; they in turn gave him a generous living for all his days. Herakles gave him strength and arete and power, with which he struck these stones and built them up. Apollo and his son Hermes give health and a good living through all the age. Pan gives him laughter and fun and a justified hybris; Chiron granted him to be wise and a poet. Now go on up with good fortune; sacrifice, all of you; say your prayers; enjoy yourself. For forgetfulness of all cares is here and your share of good things, and victory in strife.71 Like Xenophon’s gods invisibly “giving” good things (τἀγαθὰ διδόντες), so too Pantalkes’ gods “give” (δίδωσι, δῶκε) him several gifts. The various

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 95 spirits worshiped at the cave each impacted Pantalkes’ life and his abilities, so that his many blessings included a good living (βίον ἄφθονον), health, physical strength, laughter, and wisdom. Like the unseen gods who Socrates claims are manifest in the ἀγαθὰ they bring to humans, so Pantalkes’ sacred figures are present in his laughter, his healthy, strong body, and his life of plenty. These references to “present” gods who give gifts and the good life is quite reminiscent of the passage from Aristophanes’ Birds that opened this chapter, with “divine” birds who give “health and wealth, long life, peace, happiness, youth, laughter and dancing, feasts and birds’ milk.” The bird chorus directly links divine presences and the giving of gifts (παρόντες δώσομεν), including health and long life. A few lines later, they use the same verb in connection with divine blessings, but this time in a common idiom using the impersonal form: παρέσται κοπιᾶν ὑμῖν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀγαθῶν (“it will be possible for you to be wearied by good things”). While we translate the idiomatic usage in a manner that reduces any sense of presence, the resonance in the double usage of πάρειμι may have been apparent to ancient listeners. In any case, the birds make clear that the gods are felt in their works and in the ways they impact human lives, just as Pantalkes claims for his own special gods and the blessings they provided him. Similarly, in Sappho’s 6th-century Hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess listens to her worshipers and responds, with the result that she seems especially attentive to their needs. A hymn, of course, is meant to invoke the gods and draw their attention. As Platt argues, hymns “are designed to make epiphany happen, calling upon the god to be present.”72 Aphrodite had previously responded quickly to her follower, leaving Olympos and coming directly to the dejected poet. The goddess fondly asks the equivalent of “what do you want this time, Sappho?” Various points in the poem indicate their long personal history; Aphrodite has helped Sappho more than once, and hopefully will do so again.73 Their closeness is reinforced by the fact that the goddess comes as a confidant when she is called, unlike those un­ responsive gods in Aristophanes’ Birds.74 Sappho envisions a goddess pre­ sent during her time of need, during her past heartbreaks, and there also in her successful love affairs. The divine inside humans? Xenophon’s Socrates told us, “the soul (ψυχή) of man, which more than all else that is human partakes of the divine (τοῦ θείου μετέχει), reigns mani­ festly within us, and yet is itself unseen.” Here he beautifully and simply expresses the connection between the human soul and the divine; within his larger discussion of the gods’ good works in the world, he seems to imply that the divine soul is yet another blessing from the gods. Although it is not clear how widespread the idea of a “divine” soul may have been in Archaic and Classical Greece, several religious communities as well as early Greek

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thinkers grappled with the notion of the soul as immortal or containing a spark of the divine. For Herakleitos in the 6th century BCE, the soul lives after the body dies,75 and in the 5th century BCE Empedokles considered the soul immortal.76 For those buried with the Gold Tablets, the initiate comes from the “heavenly race” (γένος οὐράνιον)77 and joins the divinities in the afterlife: a 4th-century gold tablet from Thurii explains “you have become a god (θεός) instead of a mortal,”78 while another from the 4th century proclaims that the deceased will become a hero in the afterlife (μεθ’ ήρώεσσιν ανάξει[ς]).79 As Gábor Betegh observed, several Archaic and Classical authors “consider[ed] the stuff of the soul, or the purest form of it, as something ‘divine.’”80 Now, the belief in souls that share with a cosmic substance or divinity does not necessarily indicate that for these communities the divine spark was actualized in all humans while still living. Nevertheless, we can observe a genuine interest in the bond between mortal selves and divine forces, with some thinkers and communities striving towards a sort of connection, if not in life then in the afterlife. At the same time, the gods themselves entered living people, impacting their bodies, emotions, and behavior. Our evidence clearly indicates that Greeks felt or experienced the gods’ presence in the human body.81 A number of cases show the gods existing inside a person or working through the body, and a rich vocabulary expressed these related concepts. Terms such as entheos (ἔνθεος, ἐνθουσιάσμος), sometimes translated “divi­ nely inspired” but also “possessed” or “engodded,” appear in Greek lit­ erature by the 5th century.82 The god’s influence usually altered a person’s behavior, personality, or countenance.83 Having spirits control one had both positive and negative results: the Muses might inspire poetry through the mind and skills of the poet, but spirits might also make a person do terrible things. The behavior of Euripides’ Phaedra, for example, is credited to a god’s possession84 and the term κακοδαίμων can refer to possession by an evil spirit.85 In these cases, the behavioral cause was external, coming from the supernatural, a presence that came into the body. A divinity whose presence seems to have been frequently felt was Dionysos. The god inflicted madness on those who angered him, just as he himself had suffered madness, according to some Archaic narratives.86 For his followers, Dionysian presence manifested itself at Bacchic revelries and mysteries, where they felt him in their receptive bodies, uncontainable emotions, and roiling minds. In visual culture and stories, Dionysos was invariably accompanied by crowds and thiasoi; his Bacchic followers sought, and perhaps expected, that the god would also accompany them and inspire their bakcheia. Yulia Ustinova suggests, “the experience of the thrilling unity within the thiasos was perceived as unity with the god.”87 While worship of Dionysos felt freeing and purifying, participation in thiasoi often encouraged visions and hallucinations, a resounding soundscape with clashing cymbals and loud roaring, and generally

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 97 worshipers’ bodies overcome with tumult.88 The divine madness and frenzy induced in the human psyche and body had a strong material and somatic component. Some tragedians even impart Dionysian presence into the landscape. According to the 1st-century CE Longinus, in Aeschylus’ lost Edonians the palace becomes possessed (θεοφορεῖται) when the god appears; the building experiences entheos and engages in bakcheia (ἐνθουσιᾷ δὴ δῶμα, βακχεύει στέγη).89 Longinus compares this poetic de­ scription to Euripides’ lyrical presentation of the mountains themselves overcome by bakcheia in the Bacchae.90 The sense of the god inside—the god’s power and presence suffusing and acting upon the mortal—was inseparable from worshipers’ affective and embodied experience. Euripides’ Bacchae, a play very concerned with all the ways that a god can take over a human, expresses the concept quite clearly when Tiresias re­ marks about prophets, “when the god enters into the body [ὁ θεὸς ἐς τὸ σῶμ᾽ ἔλθῃ], he makes it frantic to speak the future.”91 In fact, divine beings reg­ ularly manipulated, guided, and possessed their prophets, as Fritz Graf has shown with regard to the Pythia.92 The Archaic and Classical Greeks em­ ployed varied terminology to express ideas about gods’ infusing mortal bodies or steering mortal actions, oftentimes to positive and meaningful ends for those so impacted. Terms such as katochos and variations of theoleptos indicate that the god controlled or “seized” a person; Aristotle suggests that happiness is the experience of theoleptoi and nympholeptoi.93 Although a somewhat rare term, nympholepsy has received a fair amount of attention in scholarship.94 This form of divine control results in “an elevated sensibility and power of expression”95 that seems to manifest in poetic ex­ pression, as well as “an insight and understanding that might not otherwise readily be attained”96 and in some cases may be tied to prophecy. Plato’s Socrates shows that such possession can overtake one simply by being at a location where the nymphs are especially present (τῷ ὄντι γὰρ θεῖος ἔοικεν ὁ τόπος εἶναι), in his case the shrine of the Nymphs and Acheloos along the Ilissos River.97 Archedamos of Thera refers to himself as a nympholept, and he improved the cave at Vari on the instructions of the goddesses; this al­ ludes to some sort of previous interaction between Archedamos and his nymphs.98 Although the term nympholeptos conveys a sense of a humanimmortal encounter, scholars have perhaps too readily applied it to any follower of the Nymphs who acts particularly devoted.99 Regardless, it seems clear that, for nympholepts and katochoi, the gods were very real and powerfully present in their followers’ concrete, lived experiences. We have already seen with Pantalkes and athletic victors that bodily strength and skill resulted from divine works, but the closeness of super­ natural beings was felt in the body in many other instances, particularly during moments of healing.100 In my view, this is markedly articulated by the incubation reliefs that show the god’s hand resting on the body of the sick person.101 On one such example, a 4th-century relief from the Piraeus Asklepeion, a woman sleeps on a couch while Asklepios places his hands on

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Figure 4.2 Votive relief showing an incubation, with Asklepios healing his follower using his hands. From the Piraeus Asklepeion, 4th century BCE. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Piraeus-0092. Photographer: Gabriel Welter.

her shoulder; another divine woman, probably Hygeia, attends him, and a family of worshipers watch the events (Fig. 4.2).102 Anja Klöckner comments that “the closeness of the human–divine en­ counter finds its clearest expression when a god touches humans.”103 Not only does touch show the emotionally intimate relationship between the two, but the god’s physical body is immediately there soothing the suffering person; healing force passes into the desperate worshiper through the god’s hand itself. Divine power becomes materially manifest as touch, and pre­ sence fills and transforms the mortal’s tissues and bones. Conversely, the gods’ power is likewise felt in the physical agonies inflicted on human bodies. Apollo and other gods were there in plagues and diseases, according to evidence from surviving ancient oracles, as well as literary de­ scriptions such as the Iliad, in which Apollo and his arrows struck down the Greek army.104 In an oft-quoted passage, the Hippocratic author mentions that a number of physical maladies could be tied to individual gods: If the patient imitates a goat, if he roars, or suffers convulsions on the right side, they say that the Mother of the Gods is to blame. If he utters a piercing and loud cry, they liken him to a horse and blame Poseidon. Should he pass some excrement, as often happens under the stress of the disease, the surname Enodia is applied. If it is more frequent and thinner, like that of birds, it is Apollo Nomios. If he foams at the mouth and kicks, Ares has the blame. When at night fears and terrors occur, delirium, jumpings from the bed and rushings out of doors, they say that Hekate is attacking or that heroes are assaulting.105

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 99 As Graf notes, the author does not here use the vocabulary of possession, although it is implied.106 A preserved comedic fragment of Aristophanes articulates the same idea, when the heroes say they “send diseases against [thieves] – spleen and cough and dropsy and runny nose and mange and gout and madness and fungus and glands and colds and fevers.”107 As we have previously seen, the gods’ impacts on a person’s body, whether through miraculous healing, frenzied limbs, or prophetic voice, cannot be separated from the phenomenology of divine presence; the gods and heroes are here directly affecting the world and the people in it. These divinities may not have been called with hymns or praised for their gifts of health and long life, but they are here nevertheless. For those who were criticized by the Hippocratic author and satirized by Aristophanes, foam and flux and convulsions—among other symptoms—demonstrated the gods and heroes physically at work in the patient. In addition to the ways that supernatural powers were experienced in the body and mind, a major theme in Greek literature and cultic documents included the powerful divinities who could disguise themselves as humans. From Athena in the Odyssey to the masquerading divine guest at the feast in theoxenia narratives and rituals, every stranger had the potential to be a god or hero.108 How much this reflected beliefs about veiled gods in everyday life is difficult to discern, but certainly some of these stories were reinforced and given genuine credence through festivals and rituals, when they were repeated during authoritative sanctuary contexts: the Homeric Hymns to Demeter and Aphrodite, for example, represent the goddesses’ revelatory transformation from mortal disguises to formidable epiphanic presences, and the disguised Dioskouroi punished those who gave them poor hospi­ tality but rewarded those who appropriately feasted them.109

Ghosts and daimones Studies of Greek epiphany from the Archaic to Classical periods typically investigate heroes and the gods, but there were a number of other super­ natural presences in the Greek religious landscape. These included the souls of the dead, hostile spirits, and demonic agents. Belief in the existence of these ghosts and other beings is not in doubt; I wish instead to address the reality of their concrete presence, which was experienced in ways similar to the other supernatural encounters that we have already observed. Sarah Iles Johnston argues that textual sources attest to changing beliefs about the efficacy of ghosts in the world of the living from the early Archaic through the Classical period: in earlier times souls needed aid from other supernatural beings, such as the underworld gods or Erinyes, in order to interact with or impact the living, but gradually they gained the ability to avenge themselves or engage with those left behind.110 In other words, as far as we can tell they always existed, but their agency and potential presence in the daily lives and ritual experiences of Greeks increased over a period of

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about three centuries. While texts and visual representations show that psychopomps led souls across thanatological landscapes and into Hades, by the 5th century the presence of the deceased was also experienced in various locations by the living. Greek festival calendars indicate that the dead were addressed in community festivals; at Athens, it seems they were thought to come to the world of the living during the Anthesteria.111 Most notably, the dead frequently appear at burial sites. Athenian vase painters dwell re­ peatedly on the souls manifesting at tombs, a popular topic, especially on lekythoi of the 5th century.112 Socrates explains in Plato’s Phaedo that visible souls hover “about the monuments and the tombs, where shadowy shapes of souls have been seen, figures of those souls which were not set free in purity but retain something of the visible.”113 Plato makes no mention that these specters were fantasies seen by the superstitious, despite his ease pointing out fallacies in other contexts; rather, he accepts the certainty of souls in cemeteries, an established truth that he states had been witnessed by other observers. The notion that, for the living, ghosts can be contacted at tombs finds further support in the deposition of binding spells (κατάδεσμοι) at graves during the late Archaic and Classical period.114 Excavations have found the lead tablets dug into the soil of graves, with some burials receiving more than one tablet. The texts themselves call on the dead or deities who in turn may have commanded the souls of the dead to action.115 On a 4th-century BCE Attic tablet, the inscription makes a persuasive analogy between the spell’s target Theodora and the corpse: “just as this man lies here powerless [or incomplete] …” It also binds Theodora “in the presence” of the gods and “in the presence of the powerless [or incomplete] dead.”116 In fact, as with the Theodora tablet, a number of Greek spells bind the target using the phrase πρός + the gods, spirits, or dead, with the connotation “before” or “in the presence of.” The preposition παρά (“near, alongside”) likewise occurs.117 Such terminology is thought to be one of many indicators that link contemporary binding spells to legal contexts, with the spell’s request registered to the domain and attention of the named supernatural powers. On the other hand, based on a binding spell that combines πρός + gods with the phrase “or anywhere else” (ἤ ἄλλοθί που), Curbera and Jordan instead emphasize the tablet’s physical location, translating πρός as an indicator of “places of deposit.”118 Both of these interpretations reinforce that the spell’s practitioner aims to interact with the gods and the souls of the dead. Athanassia Zografou argues that tombs were “a place of intense ritual ac­ tion” and that the katadesmoi created “a close link between the gods invoked and the visible and material structure of the grave.”119 It is through the summoned attention and presence of the supernatural that the request will be fulfilled, with the grave an especially potent place and location for con­ nection with those spirits. Binding tablets also show that ghosts were not always confined to the grave. Greek eschatology recognized that souls of the unburied, the violently

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 101 killed, and the untimely dead, among others, wandered the earth, in some cases seeking vengeance.120 The 5th-century Attic sophist Antiphon warns that unavenged ghosts and avenging spirits (ἀλιτήριοι) will attack prosecu­ tors, jurors, and the city at large, bringing pollution, crop failure, and si­ milar ills.121 While Antiphon’s speeches undoubtedly employ avenging spirits for rhetorical effect, their usefulness must rely on the fact that, for Antiphon’s community, these ghostly agents were very real, with the po­ tential to be quite threatening.122 As the curse tablets show, ghosts and other supernatural beings were sent against others, with the power of the spirits experienced in athletes’ unresponding limbs, in the tripping tongues of orators in the law courts, and in men and women’s lost sexual desire. Spells also manipulate victims’ bodies using bound figurines and figurines with pierced body parts.123 By the 6th century BCE, ritual specialists employed bronze figurines sculpted with their arms or legs tied behind them, and I suspect they must have also made them in other materials not preserved in the archeological record. On Paros in the 4th century, a figurine labeled Theophrastos (Fig. 5.6) was bound and pierced by multiple nails, including one through his mouth (i.e., his tongue).124 The nails and bindings targeted parts of Theophrastos’ physiognomy as the specialists worked to remove his agency and probably his ability to speak. The effects of the spell were ritually perpetrated through the mechanical processes enacted on the image, as we will discuss further in Chapter 5. Binding figurines were often used in conjunction with written (and presumably spoken) spells, however, so it is more than likely that supernatural powers also facilitated the goals en­ acted on the figurine. The victim’s body, then, becomes a locus of the supernatural’s power and agency in the world. An elasteros could be either a ghost, underworld spirit, or an avenging agent sent by a person.125 That elasteroi were real forces who made their presence felt is proved by a ritual text inscribed on a lead tablet at Selinunte, dating to the mid-5th century BCE.126 The inscription on Side B provides instructions for those pursued by an elasteros. Among several actions, in­ cluding purifications and sacrifices, the threatened person must welcome the elasteros as a guest and offer food, water, and salt. The ritual and the inscription would not have been deemed necessary if elasteroi were not a real and present danger, as it were, genuinely alarming to members of the community. A 4th-century marble pillar inscribed with purification rules and ex­ cavated in the sanctuary of Apollo at Cyrene also points to invoked pre­ sences at work within the home. Credited to the Oracle at Delphi, the text provides ritual instructions for dealing with a “hostile visitant” sent against a person’s house.127 It is often assumed that the visitant is either a ghost or a dangerous spirit of some sort.128 Visitant sent [by spells] from afar (ἱκέσιος ἐπακτός). If a visitant is sent against the house [and] if [the householder] knows from whom it

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Experiencing Supernatural Presence attacks, he shall name him by proclamation for three days. If he [the visitant or the sender?] is dead and buried in the earth or has in some other manner perished, if he [the householder] knows his name, he shall make a proclamation by name. But if he does not know his name [he shall address him]: ‘O ἄνθρωπε, whether you are a man or a woman,’ and having made a male and female figurine (κολοσὸς) either from earth or from wood he shall entertain them and set beside them a portion of everything. When you have done the customary things, take the κολοσὸς and [their] portions and deposit them in an unworked glen.129

Not only is the visitant ritually appeased or redirected, the removal and burial of the figurine in a wooded location physically remove the presence from the house, perhaps anchoring it in the woods via the hand-sculpted medium and the food offerings. As others have noted, the Cyrene ritual instructions had been inscribed as part of a larger public document and set up in a sanctuary; we should therefore assume that unwanted presences were legitimate concerns for the local population, and ones that were feared in earnest. Their presence was a matter of public concern. While we have touched to some extent on the topic of divinely caused mania, madness and frenzy were also thought to be induced by the angry dead or their agents, which included elasteroi and the Erinyes.130 Although this mania is not usually described using the rich language of possession that we have seen in representations of the gods, these powers nevertheless infused mortals with madness and terrors, and they even invaded dreams. Like the other presences experienced within the minds and bodies of humans, ghosts sent their “attacks against the interior spaces of their victims.”131 As we saw earlier, ghosts were also there at work in the re­ strained bodies targeted by spells. Johnston has also suggested that the law from Selinunte may link ancestral spirits (Tritopatores) to the con­ tinued fecundity of the family;132 if so, then these souls and spirits shape the lived experience of their descendants within their very bodies: in their barren or fruitful loins and in the small bodies of their living children. Like the health and long life given to Pantalkes by his locally present gods, so these ancestral spirits maintained family health in a physically intimate manner. Oftentimes the infernal presences that we have mentioned, including ghosts, were dealt with by ritual experts whose proliferation attests to the reality of people’s encounters with spirits and other beings. By the 5th century, specialists in the dead included psychagōgoi (ψυχαγωγοί, “leaders of souls”) and goētes (experts in the dead); for those troubled by ghosts or in need of their powers, such experts could call up souls or send them to rest. Empedocles claimed the ability to “lead from Hades the strength of a dead man” (καταφθιμένου μένος ἀνδρός).133 Plato in the Republic refers to wan­ dering ritual experts who use “sendings” (ἐπαγωγοί) and binding tablets

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 103 (κατάδεσμοι) to persuade the gods;134 by the 4th century BCE, katadesmoi call upon both underworld gods and the deceased. Religious and technical overlap existed between the professional psy­ chagōgoi and the ritual experts and priests involved in mystery initiations. As Johnston demonstrates, “each was essentially an expert in the care and control of the disembodied soul.”135 Experiencing divine presences seems to have been a powerful and memorable feature for initiates; their rituals, narratives, and associated communities fostered extraordinarily intense feelings of closeness with the divine participants.136 In mystery cults, Graf explains, “the initiates meet the divinities almost face to face.”137 Our sources indicate that in addition to the gods and heroes, dangerous spirits and ghosts also appeared in the sometimes frightening rituals and narrative traditions employed by these groups.138 Initiates seem to have encountered impeding spirits and daimones, such as Empousa; she was a being who blocked and hindered. Empousa was described as a terrifying demonic figure encountered by initiates and those on their way to the underworld.139 Similarly, the author of the 4th century BCE Derveni Papyrus describes impeding daimones (δαίμονες ἐμποδών) as a ritual threat to initiates, ex­ plaining that “daimones get in the way” of souls.140 Although the papyrus is damaged, several editors reconstruct text that defines the daimones as “re­ venging” or “hostile to souls,” and thus necessitating the directed spells of a magos.141 This particular passage also explains that the Eumenides, to whom the mystai make sacrifices, were themselves souls of the dead (Εὐμενίδες γὰρ ψυχαί ε ̣ἰσι). Ultimately, while the details vary depending on ̣ the community and the preserved— though sometimes opaque—evidence, it seems that several mystery communities encountered their gods, the souls of the dead, and daimones during rituals, with an expectation that they would likely encounter them again after death.142 Encounters with supernatural and sacred beings—and the promise of future encounters with them, and those mystai who had already died and gone before—was central to the experience. Although discussions about presence and epiphany invariably focus on the gods and heroes and the myriad beings that receive worship, super­ natural presences were more varied and wide-ranging. The material cov­ ered in this section illustrates that ghosts and other supernatural entities made themselves felt by humans, in a variety of sites, such as bodies, dreams, cemeteries, and homes. These beings also impacted human lives in a variety of situations, including initiations, the casting of spells and in­ vocations of magical experts, and, not least of all, in everyday life. When it comes to reconstructing the experience of supernatural presence in Greece, we must add to the epiphanic gods and heroes the ghosts and hostile spirits that were also present. Just like the gods and heroes, these dangerous entities were, as Orsi describes it, “really real,” present and there in the lives of ancient Greeks.

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Conclusion In the Archaic and Classical periods, Greeks of all sorts experienced su­ pernatural beings and their powers in the world around them. These powers made a palpable impact on the senses, emotions, and material worlds of the Greeks. Although the phenomenon of divine absence needs much greater attention than could be provided in this chapter, in our very brief discussion we saw that accusations of absence or mistaken presence might be used to criticize the religious practices of others or even to make a distinction between helpful deities and those who were not. There was a very real chance, in Greek minds, that the gods could remain distant and unmindful of pleas for help, but at any moment they might choose to make themselves felt. A landscape full of sanctuaries and potent spaces meant that people in need could seek out the gods at numerous locations and times of the year, in the hopes of having their prayers answered. Yet, while sanctuary authorities, infrastructure, and festival calendars might attempt to control access to the gods and heroes, divine presence could never be completely controlled.143 The gods and heroes gave instructions in dreams to whomever they chose, they startled travelers with their owls and omens at the roadside, they “seized” their followers along hillsides and “engodded” the minds and voices of prophets. As several of the texts discussed in this chapter attest, the gods’ presence was felt and experienced in the successes, victories, and blessings that they provided. Holy figures watched over their devotees in the workshop, on the race-track, in successful romantic relationships, and throughout the course of long and fruitful lives. Our sources indicate with great emotional elo­ quence that gods and spirits were felt as present even when the formidable intensity of epiphany was lacking. While studies of epiphany often treat the gods as external to those who encountered them, in fact supernatural beings were very much present in mortal bodies and minds, mortal strengths and sufferings, and dreams. Gods and heroes possessed the thoughts, tongues, and limbs of prophets, poets, devotees, and the targets of their punishments. The gods were right there in miraculously healed body parts, in diseases and convulsions, in painful suffering and fertile wombs. Finally, a diverse set of supernatural beings made themselves perceptible in the experiences of Archaic and Classical Greeks. Harmful spirits and demonic forces, ghosts both kind and dangerous, all were a going concern for ancient communities. The souls of the dead hovered at tombs, wandered the earth, and acted upon the world. Those ghosts, or their agents, could harm or hinder the living, causing madness, nightmares, and affecting a person’s very bodily integrity. These ghostly figures were also sent against others; the detrimental results of these sendings, and the very real fear that they might be directed towards one, meant that public rituals like that at Cyrene, together with ritual experts such as the psychagōgoi, aided those in need during these difficult circumstances.

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 105 My aim in this chapter has been to demonstrate how much “presence” has to offer our inquiries, and how important it was to the personal ex­ perience of Greek individuals. A flexible theoretical concept to be sure, it was likewise an inescapable feature of Greek religious experience. In Chapter 5, the discussion of presence continues, but with a focus on mate­ riality. As we will see, people employed a variety of strategies—and media of presence—in order to keep themselves and the gods close.

Notes 1 Aristophanes Birds, 723–735. Trans. Versnel 2011. 2 Romer 1994; Rubel 2014. 3 For epiphanies and extensive secondary bibliographies, see Platt (2011) and Petridou (2016). Others include Platt (2015a, 2015b, 2018) and Gunderson (2021). Additional footnotes below. 4 Platt 2011, 7. She additionally defines epiphany: “direct, unmediated manifes­ tation of divine presence, epiphany might be understood as the purest form of contact between mortals and immortals, whereby the gods reveal themselves ‘face to face’ rather than communicating through oracles or divinatory signs that must be decoded by religious personnel” (2015: 493). It should be noted, however, that Platt does qualify this definition further in her subsequent dis­ cussion. 5 Petridou 2016, 2. On the ancient terminology, see her 3–4. 6 Both Petridou (2016, 2) and Versnel (1987) do indicate that the gods need not be perceived with the senses, although this aspect of human-mortal encounters receives limited attention in their discussions. Koch Piettre (2001) hints that a divergence between epiphany, as it is described in the field of religious studies, and ancient Greek epiphany, which emphasizes direct sense perception, may partially be tied to the philological attention placed on the Greek term itself. For Stevens (2002, 71), epiphany is “a relational process operating across the play of absence and presence and the perception of them.” On the problem of applying an epiphanic model that highlights “manifestation” and “making the invisible visible” to the Roman context, see Ando (2010). 7 As an example, Versnel (1987, 50) states “the immediate presence of gods could be perceived and experienced without their personal appearance in vi­ sual form. Such manifestations could nonetheless be referred to as epipha­ neiai.” Platt (2011, 144, fn. 64) describes parousia as an “epiphanic term.” On the other hand, in 2002 Stevens (2002, 92–93) noted: “too great a distinction has been maintained between divine epiphany and other modes of char­ acterising the intersection of gods and humans in the world; that, in more positive terms, ‘divine epiphany’ should be regarded as part of a continuum of ways of realising divine absence and presence that also encompasses the in­ terpretation of signs and omens, as well as contexts such as those where power is breathed into mortals by gods, and also the forms of ritual practice and speech, such as prayer, through which the presence and absence of gods are mediated and realised. In this respect, ‘divine epiphany’ is not a recurrent class of event, but a loose label applied to a process that is variously in­ stantiated in an unstable interplay of presence and perception at particular moments of interface between mortals and gods.” 8 Chaniotis 2018, 410; Chaniotis 2011, 175, 74–78. Dietrich (1990, 162): “close physical proximity.”

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9 Petsalis-Diomidis 2010. For her treatment of presence and votive imagery, see below and especially Chapter 5. 10 Orsi 2016. For additional treatments of presence, see Orsi’s extensive biblio­ graphy, as well as Freedberg 1989, (27–40); Maniura and Shepherd 2006; Luhrmann 2020. 11 Orsi 2016: colonialism and missionaries (33–37), competing religious commu­ nities (12–33), medicine and public policy (40, 72–112). Anthropologists: Gell, for example, transfers any inherent powers within fetishes and idols onto the social relationships around them ( Arnaut 2001, 204–205). Art Historians: Freedberg 1989. Sociologists: Max Weber’s theory of enchantment/disen­ chantment sees absence as a feature of modernity ( Sara 2014). Historians of religion: Orsi 2016, 37–42. For discusion of disenchantment, see JosephsonStorm (2017). I thank Ben John for bringing this source to my attention. 12 Orsi 2016, 4. Following Jonathan Z. Smith, Orsi sees a common scholarly “understanding of religious practice and imagination as being about something other than what they are about to practitioners” (38). 13 Geertz 1966. Orsi (2016, 38) argues, “the symbol is not an experience of something, but a sign or representation of it.” For the use of Geertz’s model in the study of Greek religion, see Kindt (2009b, 2012). 14 On the (sometimes surprisingly minor) role of gods in modern theories of Greek religion, see Henrichs (2010) and Bremmer (2010a). For further ex­ amples in the recent scholarship on epiphany: Herman (2011) considers epiphanic experiences to be a feature of neurological processes; Ustinova’s (2017, 70) study describes encounters with the gods as hallucinations brought on by altered states of consciousness, sometimes “obviously in a state of delusion.” Given the chronological and cultural distance between us and the ancient Greeks, many scholars suggest we cannot study epiphany itself: Platt’s (2011) masterful account of epiphany in the ancient world is con­ cerned with representations of epiphany, as part of “epiphanic discourse” and “epiphanic strategies.” Platt (2015a, 500–501) says, “because epiphany is inevitably transformed in the process of its verbal or visual mediation, it is impossible to recover what ancient worshippers might have ‘actually’ ex­ perienced … for the modern scholar, epiphany can only exist at the level of discourse: the challenge is thus to identify, contextualize, and elucidate dis­ cursive trends in the cultural treatment of epiphany without losing sight of either the phenomenon’s validity for Greek worshippers or its propensity to resist straightforward categorization and interpretation.” So too Alexander Stevens (2002), who remarks “it is at least a pervasive complication—and perhaps a telling pointer—that instances of divine epiphany in archaic and classical Greek contexts come to us in narrative guises, be they historical, epic, dramatic, epigraphic, pictorial, whose form complicates any access to ‘actual events.’” 15 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum 9.414 D–E. Trans. Graf 2009a, see 593–594 for discussion. 16 Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 9, also her Chapter 1. 17 On the authority that divine presence lent, see, for instance, Platt (2011) and Platt (2015a). She addresses the “strategic appropriation of epiphany at the state level” (2015a, 497) and how epiphany serves “as a means of claiming divine authority” (2015a, 499). See also Stevens (2002). 18 As van der Eijk (1990, 110) argues, “there can be no doubt about the [Hippocratic] author’s sincerity here: the belief that a god should pollute a man with a disease is obviously blasphemous to him.” See also Kindt (2015b, 45–46).

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 107 19 Plato Laws, 10.909e–910b. Trans. Bury. As Platt notes (2011, 55–56), a variety of evidence confirms that Greeks often felt the need to establish altars, monu­ ments, or rituals at the site of epiphany, or theophanic ruptures. 20 See Graf (2013, 116) where Plato’s passage is discussed as a commentary on private religious activities which might offend the gods. I thank Ben John for his insights on this passage. 21 Theophrastos, Characters: snake, 16.4–5; owl, 16.8. For our purposes, these passages are also interesting because they demonstrate that Athenians could experience an owl as a reminder that Athena was very much at work in the world, while others considered certain snakes to be epiphanic manifestations. Petridou (2016, 86–98) addresses such zoomorphic epiphanies. 22 Gordon 1979; Donohue 1997; Bettinetti 2001; Steiner 2001, 79–134; PirenneDelforge 2010 Platt 2011, 77–123; Mylonopoulos 2011; Petridou 2016, 49–64; Chaniotis 2017. On formal animation rituals, a late development associated with theurgy: Johnston 2008; 2019, 713–716. Struck (2004, 174–192) finds traces of animation rituals in Middle Platonic contexts. For Roman examples, see the bibliography in Elsner (2012) and Kiernan (2020). 23 On heroes’ bones as sources of power: McCauley 1999; Osborne 2010; Pavlides 2021. The literature on the worship of heroes is extensive, and fuller discussion of the bibliography can be found in Ekroth (2002); Albersmeier (2009); Bravo (2018) and Delacruz (2021). 24 Hdt 1.67.2–4. On Orestes’ bones and also the bones of his son: Pavlides 2021, 29–43. 25 Pache 2000. 26 Faraone 1992, 55–56 (kilns), 8 (Priene phylax). 27 Faraone 1992, 120. 28 Faraone 2018, 135–136, 78. 29 Frankfurter 2017c and 2019c. 30 Frankfurter 2019c, 662–663; Faraone 2011; Faraone 2018, 79–101. 31 Frankfurter 2019c, 662. 32 Frankfurter 2019c, 663. 33 Jacco Dieleman (2019) describes those items and materials that gain power during or after rituals as “activated materials.” 34 Frankfurter 2004. See also Rask Forthcoming. 35 Frankfurter 2019c, 674. 36 Struck 2004, 187. On σύμβολα and the “chains” linking these things, sounds, and words to the divine sphere, see also Johnston 2019, 713–716. 37 Addey 2014, 30. 38 Brown 2014, 87–88. Brown contends that the presence of the saint was one of the most fundamental values in early Christian belief and practice. 39 Orsi 2005, 49. Birgit Meyer (2012) argues that religious media “mediate” be­ tween humans and the supernatural world “beyond,” and such media can in­ clude the human body. 40 Orsi 2005, 60. 41 Orsi 2016, 8. 42 Aristophanes Birds, 723–735. Trans. Versnel 2011, with my modifications. The following paragraph builds upon Chaniotis’ (2011b) discussion of the Hymn to Demetrios Poliorketes. See also Versnel’s treatment of this passage: Versnel 2011, 480–486. 43 Chaniotis 2011b, 173–176. 44 Aristophanes, Wealth 1148: ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπολιπὼν τοὺς θεοὺς ἐνθάδε μενεῖς. 45 For discussion of the Hymn of Demetrios Poliorketes and the representation of “presence” within it, see Chaniotis (2011b); Platt (2011, 143–146); and Versnel (2011, 444–456).

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46 Petridou 2016. See also Stevens 2002. 47 Orsi 2016, 69. 48 Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 205. She also notes that the god’s presence may be experienced differently at various points in the sanctuary (216). For the im­ portance of space and landscape in divine encounters during the Severan period, see also Petsalis-Diomidis (2016). 49 Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 216. 50 Orsi (2016, 48–71) describes epiphanic encounters as “abundant events,” where divine appearances “resonate” over time. 51 Ammerman 2018, 1090–1092. See also the Sacred Spring at Brauron. Just so the people of Hellenistic Mykonos directed the blood of sacrificed animals into Acheloos’ river itself: CGRN #156. 3rd century BCE. 52 Pausanias 1.34.4. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 217. 53 LiDonnici 1995, 102–3, B3; 30–37, 70–74. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 217. 54 Alkaios fr. 307cl. Summarized in Himerius, Orations 48. In this case, Apollo travels to the Hyperboreans before turning towards the Delphians who an­ xiously await him. At the end of Himerius’ summary, the landscape itself seems to be numinous with the god’s presence: Ἀλκαῖος ὁμοίως Ὁμήρῳ ποιῆσαι καὶ ὕδωρ θεῶν ἐπιδημίαν αἰσθέσθαι δυνάμενον, “Alkaios is compelled just like Homer to give even water the power to sense the presence of gods.” Trans. Campbell. 55 Chaniotis 2011b, 167. 56 Karatas 2019. 57 Chaniotis 2018, 407. See also Chaniotis 2009a, 199–200. 58 For other examples of a kind of logical conflict, see Versnel 1990. 59 Xenophon Memorabilia 4.3.2-17. Jim 2014, 70–73. 60 Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.3.13–14. Trans. Marchant/ Todd/ Henderson, with slight modifications. 61 Versnel (1987, 51) also concludes that people knew the gods were present thanks to “a mere awareness that the god is close by. One simply knows that he is there.” The dead can be near as well, and also unrecognized; Arrington (2014, 257) explains: “The mourner, however, is not always aware of the deceased’s presence; the dead can be present without being perceived.” On the dead, see below. 62 Versnel (1987, 50–51) briefly addresses proof of divine presence manifested in their deeds, although his focus lies on what he calls “parousia-miracles,” when a god saves mortals in need and their actions are marked by flashes of lightning, earthquakes, destroyed enemies, and so forth. He remarks, “the gods were neither seen nor perceived by any other senses, but their presence was proven by their performance” (51). In what follows, I emphasize other ways in which the works and deeds of the gods were experienced, or “proven” by their works. 63 Caltagirone, Museo Regionale della Ceramica 1120. From the San Luigi ne­ cropolis, Sicily. Beazley Archive #4355; Hasaki 2021, Fig. 5.16. Unattributed. 64 On dedications by banausoi, see Keesling (2003). Athena may be shown beside the kiln on several 6th-century BCE painted pinakes from Penteskouphia. A related idea can probably be inferred from the site’s two-sided painted plaques, some of which show potters at work on one face and Poseidon on the other: for example, Hasaki (2021, B19–B40; for Athena 193–194). On or near several Penteskouphia plaque kilns the painters or dedicators wrote the name Poseidon, which Hasaki calls “invocations to Poseidon,” “most likely emphasizing the need for divine protection of the firing, a critical stage of the manufacturing process” (212). On craftspeople who make their own offerings, see Chapter 2. 65 For discussion of the text and its date, as well as bibliography, see Hasaki (2021, 214–218), see esp. n. 97. Trans. Hasaki (2021).

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 109 66 Pindar, Olympian 3.38–41. Trans. Race. Petridou 2016, 295. 67 Connor 1988; Larson 2001, 16–19; Pache 2011; Wagman 2015. 68 The excavated finds suggest the shrine was in use in the late 6th century, and possibly even the Geometric period: Wagman 2015, 55. 69 Wagman 2015, 57–95. Larson (2001, 18) suggests that both inscriptions may have been inscribed by Pantalkes, but over the course of a long life spent attending the shrine. 70 Wagman 2015, 19. 71 Trans. Connor 1988, with minor adjustments. 72 Platt 2011, 62, 60–72. 73 Swift 2021. See Chapter 6 for further discussion of this poem and Aphrodite’s presence in the lives of her followers. 74 On the “affability” of the gods and their efficaciousness in mortal lives, see Chaniotis (2011b). 75 Finkelberg 2017, 126–145; Graham 2019. 76 Betegh 2006. 77 Graf and Johnston 2007, no. 2, line 7. Possibly from Petelia. British Museum, 3155. 78 Graf and Johnston 2007, no. 3, line 4. Naples, Museo Nazionale, 11463. 79 Graf and Johnston 2007, no. 2, line 11. Possibly from Petelia. British Museum, 3155. 80 Betegh 2006, 37. 81 Versnel (1987) discusses possession and theolepsy (on which more below) as a feature of epiphany. 82 Dietrich 1990, 1992; Ustinova 2018. Graf (2009a, 592–593) defines entheos: “a superhuman (divine or demonic) personality has taken over the body of a human and is using it instead of his own divine body.” 83 Xenophon, Symposium 1.9.10. 84 Euripides, Hippolytos 141– 147, 161–164. 85 Ustinova 2018, 8. For supernatural beings that instilled terror, see Johnston (1999) and Patera (2014). 86 Eumelus, Europia. Graf 2009, 179–180. 87 Ustinova 2018, 188. 88 Yerucham 2016; Ustinova 2018, 169–216. 89 Longinus, On the Sublime, 15.6. Ustinova 2018, 175. 90 Euripides Bacchae 726. 91 Euripides, Bacchae 298–301. 92 Graf 2009a. Much of the preserved literary elaboration on the Pythia’s experience of Apollo’s power dates to later periods. On prophetic and poetic inspiration, see Dietrich (1990). 93 Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 1.1.5.1214a23. 94 Connor 1988; Larson 2001, 11–20; Pache 2011; Jim 2012; Graf 2013. 95 Connor 1988, 160. 96 Connor 1988, 159. 97 Plato, Phaedrus 230b–c. Connor 1998; Pache 2011. Larson (2001, 19) argues similarly with respect to the Sphragidion shrine of the Nymphs near Plateia, where “nympholepsy occurs as a result of the supernatural influence that emanates from a specific site (p. 19). 98 IG I3 980; Purvis 2003, 33–64. 99 Pantalkes and Onesagoras especially, who do not describe themselves as nym­ pholepts. 100 Petsalis-Diomidis 2006; Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 134–150; Petsalis-Diomidis 2016. Likewise, in 2002 (p. 172) Stevens argued that divine presence was at

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Experiencing Supernatural Presence work in the healed body: “What could be more immediate than this (potentially ongoing) bodily realisation of the efficacious presence of the god as manifest in the absence of illness?” On incubation reliefs, touch, and healing, see Petsalis-Diomidis (2006); Platt (2011, 44–47); Renberg (2017, 218–221); and Hughes (2018, 95–97). Piraeus Archeological Museum 405. Lamont 2015. For a similar relief depicted on the Telemachos Monument from the Athenian Asklepeion, see Renberg (2017, 187–188, Fig. 11). Klöckner 2010, 112. Faraone 1992, 57–66; Graf 2007. Hippocrates, Morb. Sacr. 4.21-32. Trans. Jones, with minor adjustments. Graf 2009a, 595, fn. 43. For the treatment of the divine evident in On the Sacred Disease, see Van der Eijk 1990. Fr. 322. Trans. Johnston 1999, with discussion on 153–154. Petridou (2016, 38) suggests that the gods often disguise themselves because it “enables them to interact with their devotees without endangering their physical or mental health.” On divine disguise and morphology, see Petridou (2016, 29–105). I have not dedicated much attention to theoxenia in an effort to focus instead on experiences outside of formalized ritual and festival events. On theoxenia: Jameson 1991; Ekroth 2011; Petridou 2016, 289–312. Paus. 3.16.2–3. Petridou 2016, 296. Johnston 1999, 3–35. The following section owes much to Sarah Iles Johnston’s The Restless Dead. For additional treatments of ghosts and the souls of the dead, see Bremmer (1983) and further below. Parker 2005b, 294–297. Arrington 2014a, 239–274; Arrington 2014b. Shapiro 1991, 650–55; Oakley 2004. LIMC 8 (1997) s.v. “Eidōla” (R. Vollkommer), 566–570. My emphasis. Plato, Phaedo 81c10-d6. Trans., Fowler. The earliest preserved spell dates to the late 6th or early 5th century BCE: Eidinow 2019, 357. See below for further references. Gager 1992, 71–80; Johnston 1999, 71–75; Zografou 2021. DT 68. Eidinow 2019, 358, with further bibliography; Johnston 1999, 73–74. Gager 1992, #22. On πρός (and sometimes παρά), see Eidinow 2019, 372–373; Curbera and Jordan 1998; Johnston 1999, 73–74. Curbera and Jordan 1998, 215; Jordan 1999, 116. The tablet has an unknown provenance, although Jordan suggests that it originally came from Attica. Zografou 2021, 206. Johnston 1999. Antiphon, Tetralogies. For example, the dead seeks vengeance (προστρόπαιος): 2.3.10; avenging spirits: 4.1.3. Parker 1983, 104–109. Wilburn 2019; Frankfurter 2019c. Further bibliography is included in Chapter 5. Lamont 2021. See Chapter 5 for further discussion of the figurine, as well as the ritual mechanics associated with binding figurines. Johnston 1999, 47; Parker 1983; Lupu 2005, 382: “harmful netherworld divi­ nities.” SEG 43, 630. CGRN 13. Jameson et al. 1993; Clinton 1996; Johnston 1999, 47–58; Lupu 2005, 359–387. SEG 9.72.111-21; LSS no. 115; CGRN 99, §17. Parker 1983, 332–51; Faraone 1992, 81–84; Johnston 1999, 58–60.

Experiencing Supernatural Presence 111 128 Lupu (2005, 383) describes it as a “visitant of an unclear divine status purpo­ sefully sent by one person against another.” That it might be a god or goddess is suggested by Theophrastos’ Superstitious Man, which refers to Hekate haunting the house. 129 Trans. Faraone 1992, 82. 130 Padel (2016, 78–98) discusses bodily interiority (innards), physiology, madness, and the forces of the Underworld in Greek tragedy. See also Padel 1995. 131 Johnston 1999, 148. 132 Johnston 1999, 51–52. Aeschylus (Eum. 909) credits the Furies (in the form of the Eumenides) with “preservation of the seeds of humans,” see Jim 2022, 32, n. 47. 133 Empedocles, fr. 101 Wr. Quoted in Diogenes Laertius 8.59. Johnston 1999, 19–20. 134 Plato, Republic 364b5-c5. 135 Johnston 1999, 108. 136 Petridou 2016. 137 Graf 2009b, 178. 138 Graf 2009b, 178–179; Johnston 1999, 131–139; Brown 1991. 139 Aristophanes, Frogs 293. On the terrifying qualities of Empousa, see Patera (2014). 140 Derveni Papyrus vi. 2–4. 141 Derveni Papyrus Col. vi.4. Betegh 2004, 14: ψ[υχαὶ τιμω]ροί; Tsantsanoglou 1997, 113: ψ[υχαῖς ἐχθ]ροί; ̣ Ferrari 2012: ψ[υχὰϲ δει]ν ̣οί. Graf 2009b, 176–177; Johnston 1999, 131–139. 142 On visualizing divine encounters after death, see also Platt (2011, 335–371), although her focus primarily addresses Roman sarcophagi. 143 See Orsi (2016) for the notion that divine presence cannot be “controlled” by authorities.

5

Media of Presence: Keeping Gods and Humans Close

Sometime in the late 5th century BCE on Cyprus, diggers carved out a chamber tomb in one of the necropoleis outside Polis (Agios Demetrios). The tomb they made included a carved bed niche where the dead man would be laid to rest and enclosed behind stone slabs. When his family buried him, they filled his tomb with an array of grave goods, including pottery vessels, lamps, bronze vessels, a bronze mirror, an iron strigil, and among other items, weaponry. When excavators opened the unplundered tomb in 1890, it was so well preserved that the iron spearheads and bronze arrowheads still had wood attached.1 One additional artifact has drawn attention since the tomb’s discovery: a gold intaglio ring showing the goddess Athena (Fig. 5.1). She sits next to her shield, wears a triple-crested helmet, and holds an owl in her hand. Running down the side of the bezel is the name Anaxiles, written in reverse.2 When the ring was pressed into clay, wax, or other malleable materials, it left behind an impression of the goddess with Anaxiles’ name right-way-round. That the deceased man had actually worn and used the ring is suggested by the faint lines scratched across the gold. Greek individuals and officials used seals and seal-rings to verify or “lock” a wide range of items, from vessels and doors to letters and contracts. The seal and its attendant imagery were closely tied to the identity and selfpresentation of its owner. In this case, the man buried in the tomb sought to link himself to the goddess Athena.3 His grave goods connected him to a warrior ethos, and in life the armored divinity carried on his finger re­ inforced that cultural symbolism. What is more, every sealing that Anaxiles left behind overtly signified his bond with Athena: his name was there to be read alongside the goddess herself. When the man died, he took that relationship to the grave rather than pass his ring on to someone else. Anaxiles’ gold Athena ring encourages us to further explore a theme addressed in the previous chapter, namely the attested desire on the part of many Greeks to keep the gods close. It seems that one strategy was to foster physical proximity during daily life. Sealings and rings with divine representations, well attested in the Archaic and Classical periods, provide a valuable case for considering portable media of divine presence. At the same time, thousands of seals and engraved rings that produced imprints DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-5

Media of Presence 113

Figure 5.1 Gold intaglio ring showing a seated Athena with the name Anaxiles in reverse. Tomb 66, from Polis (Agios Demetrios) on Cyprus. 5th century BCE. © Trustees of the British Museum.

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like Anaxiles’ ring were dedicated in sanctuaries across the Greek world in earlier centuries. Rings and seals, as potential sites of divine presence, tra­ veled with devotees throughout their lives; conversely, as manifestations of mortal identity, their dedication in sanctuaries makes a powerful argument for the objects’ ties to mortal personhood. As such, they provide a useful stepping-off point for a consideration of “mortal presence.” This chapter takes up material manifestations of presence and how visual representations helped to foster a sense of their immediacy for Greek in­ dividuals. In addition to the personal choice to keep the gods and their powers nearby through objects like rings and seals, people also employed strategies for keeping themselves close and present alongside the gods. Reframing the various images, objects, and substances employed in this way as “media of presence” allows us to consider their similar functions and how they did the important work of reinforcing relationships between people and sacred beings. Although they are often treated as discrete artistic types or religious artifacts with separate ritual mechanics—for example, votive portraits, seals, or amulets—this chapter uses them to explore how presences might be experienced visually and materially by Greek practitioners. As such, exploring media of presence will lead us also to reconsider certain art historical treatments of religious material culture. My discussion will be divided into two parts and employs a variety of emic and etic perspectives. The first portion treats seals and rings engraved with holy figures as media of presence, addresses their overlapping function as amulets and protective devices, and argues that they allowed their ancient wearers to keep the gods in physical proximity while publicly reinforcing the relationship between wearers and the divinities depicted. These small objects had the capacity to be intimate portable presences,4 in keeping with the desire that sacred beings remain close, as addressed in the previous chapter.5 Nevertheless, many rings and seals, with assorted iconographic themes, found their way into sanctuaries as dedications; given their practical func­ tion as markers of mortal identity, it bears considering that dedicated rings served as potential sites of mortal presence. In the second half of the chapter, I turn to other anchors of mortal presence, including offerings and dedicated portraits, as I further outline the ways gods and people kept each other close. In many modern contexts, the ability of offerings to function as instruments of presence is wellaccepted. For example, Frank Graziano describes self-made clay votives at Juquila as “an extension of oneself or one’s family left behind” for the sacred power.6 In his study of Mexican Catholicism, he contends that “many offerings that are metonymies (closely associated with the votary) or synecdoches (a part of the votary that represents the whole) perpetuate one’s presence at the shrine.”7 The topic of mortal presence in ancient Greece has received less attention, with the concept relatively under­ theorized. One exception is the work of Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, which has treated material manifestations of both mortal and immortal presence

Media of Presence 115 in somewhat comparable terms, particularly in several explorations of votive culture in Greek healing sanctuaries. Votive images, she argues “contain the presence of god or pilgrim” and make human worshipers “visually present.”8 My work treats mortal presence in a similar manner but adds to the conversation in several ways. This chapter argues for the evocation of “absent” worshipers in the space of the sanctuary by addressing mortal presence from three angles: (a) phenomenological factors which allow mortal presences to be experienced materially by other mortals (and gods), (b) by employing Egbert Bakker’s treatment of memory in Greek poetry and culture, and (c) by drawing on studies of Greek magic, especially the use of substances and images to make connections between material things and corporeal people. Of special interest in my analysis of mortal presence will be remnants of the human body (namely hair) and portrait offerings. These latter were vitally important objects in Greek religious culture, and my focus on worshipers’ images considers them from the perspective of religious theory. A discussion of human worshipers’ images inevitably requires dealing with certain methodological obstacles clinging to portraits generally and votary portraits more specifically. Additionally, we will see that in the visual culture of Greek sanctuaries, divinities and mortals often stood together in what I describe as “mutual presence” or reciprocal presence, a major devotional theme in iconographic representations, also articulated in the physical placement and configuration of groups of images in shrines. The desire for, and the conviction of, gods and mortals present to one another—so important in Greek religious experience, as we have seen—became further articulated through Greek dedicatory practices, iconographies, and physical matter. ***

Visual content and symbols: Material culture and presence Robert Orsi’s work on “real presence” and “media of presence” grapples with the “distinction between the symbolic and the real,” and “between representation and reality,”9 a distinction evident in debates about pre­ sence that he identifies in Reformation-era discourses and after. By this Orsi means that many religious disputes dwelt on whether something was a sign pointing to the divine or the divine itself, symbolic or immanent. Similarly, the relationship between an object and what it represented—or the power that it embodied—was concomitant to some religious and es­ thetic disputes in the ancient world. For example, at the very root of iconoclastic conflicts lay the conceptual link envisioned between a thing or image and its prototype.10 Critics accused others of worshiping images rather than divinities, based on the perceived separation of the crafted image from the divine. The serious nature of the argument took shape in

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violent outbreaks during the Late Roman period, the Byzantine era, and subsequent iterations throughout history. Jaś Elsner argues that these events are rooted in even older discourses on representation and presence evident in the work of Greek philosophers.11 In Christian history, this disagreement was made explicit in the prolonged theological discourse on the human and/or divine natures of Jesus and his representations in art. For Orsi, Christian conflicts about the “symbolic and real” invariably infused approaches to the Eucharist and whether the bread really was Jesus. Even Martin Luther weighed in on the sign and signifier issue, siding with the “Catholic” approach when he said, “who in the world ever read in the Scriptures that ‘body’ means ‘sign of the body’?”12 As we saw in our discussion of materiality in Chapter 4, it was not un­ common for material objects in antiquity to embody a spiritual force, conceived as a specific divinity or as a special sort of agency. These objects included statues, powerful artifacts, and substances, but were also icono­ graphic symbols and related representations; for example, Dionysos was there in representations of phalloi depicted in two- and three-dimensional form, Demeter was present in the sacred items, ta hiera, carried to Eleusis during the Mysteries.13 These diverse items can be described as “media of presence,” a term I borrow from Orsi, to refer to material things which acquire agency through their connection to gods, heroes, daimones, and other supernatural forces. They “are believed to hold the power of the holy figure … and to make it present,” and “they serve as points of encounter – between humans … and between humans and sacred figures.”14 As for religious visual culture, I would like to stress that people who encountered divine images or dedicated offerings experienced them in a multiplicity of ways. Ancient texts stress that viewers appreciated their esthetic qualities and engaged in plentiful discourse about them. The ideological politics and social worlds underlying their use have been fa­ vorite points of discussion in the secondary literature. While recognizing the rich diversity of experiences surrounding these artifacts, as well as their ambiguity even in antiquity, in what follows I turn primarily to their use by people as they interacted with supernatural beings and powers. Divine presence on the human body: finger rings, seals, and amulets In Chapter 4, we established that divine encounters were physically ex­ perienced; although people experienced sensory and affective responses to epiphanies during the Archaic and Classical periods, the divine was also experienced as present in the body, or at work in the body. The very real sense that the gods could be physically close but unseen should not be un­ derestimated. Archeological remains also indicate that individuals could purposefully keep holy figures close and present through various material and visual means. One tool for maintaining that closeness, I argue, can be found in the illustrated ivories, stones, and metals that were carried as seals

Media of Presence 117 (σφραγίς) or worn as rings (δακτύλιος). Known already in the Greek Geometric period (and in some locations continuing in use from the LBA through the Iron Age), individuals employed seals to secure items, record intent, mark identity, and aid in recognizing others.15 Classical Athenian comedies by Aristophanes and Antiphanes show that some rings contained protective “magical” qualities, although these authors do not explicitly describe them as bearing figural images.16 Divinities were common subjects illustrated on seals and finger rings, as we have seen with Anaxiles’ gold Athena.17 Such tiny images of the gods had the potential to be instruments of presence, exceedingly intimate and mobile. In fact, Michael Squire and Verity Platt argue that when a ring engraved with a divine name was stamped into clay or wax, “the manual transfer of the text constitutes a form of summoning or activation, stamping the deity into pliable material in a verbal–visual speech-act that makes the deity’s power present and accessible to the practitioner.”18 It has been suggested that the “divine aura” associated with an image on a seal or ring increased when it replicated well-known cult statues, such as the Athena Parthenos.19 Most ring and seal imagery did not make direct reference to specific cult statues, although there was iconographic overlap. Chris Faraone remarks that even though they might be miniaturized and portable, divine images continue to have an efficacious quality regardless of their size or origin: the shift “from household statuette to pendant or finger ring was not a quali­ tative transformation of an originally ‘religious’ image, but rather a change in the size of the image (a pendant) and the extent of its protective or other powers (a single person).”20 By the 5th century BCE in Greece, images worn on the body could act with agency, with the image’s potency channeled in part by its iconography. For example, amulets and similar apotropaic images carried protective powers and general overtones of good fortune. These artifacts safeguarded and conveyed benefits to, the people and things upon which they had been placed.21 In many cases, talismanic iconography directly referenced divine figures otherwise worshiped in cultic contexts. A popular image was the club of Herakles, appearing as an amulet in the 4th century BCE and after;22 the weapon of the great hero, used to defeat an array of monsters and enemies, directed the power of Herakles against potential dangers to the wearer.23 The efficacy and power of some objects and images, however, did not derive solely from gods and spirits, but from the object’s materiality or from other features fostered by ritual and narrative mechanics.24 Árpád Nagy calls scenes of such mythical events “coercive parallels” that acted as visual historiolae, or, as these tales have been dubbed, “stories that narrate power” and “narratives that do things.”25 Sarah Iles Johnston says of spoken his­ toriolae, “what is described as happening in the mythic realm will also happen within our own, quotidian realm” and it “in effect conjoins the mythic and quotidian realms.”26 Although visual historiolae become easier to identify in the post-Classical periods, they are difficult to pinpoint in

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Figure 5.2 Gold ring with carnelian scarab showing Herakles fighting a lion, with two Egyptian wadjet eyes. Mid-6th century BCE, found in the early 5th-century grave, Amathous, Cyprus. © Trustees of the British Museum.

earlier centuries due to the lack of corroborative texts. Still, it is likely that some earlier imagery functioned in a similar way, as Faraone suggests for carved gems of certain stone types which show Herakles in combat with an upright lion. In the case of a 5th-century BCE carnelian scarab ring, he links later sources to the earlier iconographic motif and stone material/color (Fig. 5.2).27 Other imagery from the Archaic period may function in similar ways. For example, representations of Potnia Theron subduing animals decorated many artifact types, and also adorned jewelry or accessories worn on the body, an important use for amuletic imagery that I will address momentarily.28 Unfortunately, we lack Greek texts which might otherwise illuminate this particular motif. Whether the goddess conquering animals did the same work as Herakles with the lion must remain an open question for now. I will return to historiolae below. Perhaps clearer in its use of efficacious divine imagery is a gold ring dated to the late 5th century and reflecting the iconographic changes in amulets at the time. It shows Artemis riding a deer “sidesaddle,” carrying a torch, and sur­ rounded by stars (Fig. 5.3).29 Although we lack stratigraphic context for this item, I suggest an amuletic use for it because it shares iconographic features

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Figure 5.3 Gold ring showing Artemis riding a stag, carrying a torch, surrounded by stars and a wreath. Late 5th century BCE. After LIMC, s.v., “Artemis,” no. 901.

with a 4th-century silver medallion that, it has been argued, more securely functioned as an amulet. The circular disc shows Aphrodite Epitragia (“on the goat”) surrounded by stars and a crescent moon, with a small ring at the top for hanging. Excavators discovered the silver medallion in the Athenian Kerameikos’ Building Z3 (Fig. 5.4).30 This large, multiroomed structure pre­ served a number of artifact assemblages in its third phase that point to a group of women occupying it (during the end of the Classical period). At that time, the building most likely functioned as an inn or a brothel.31 In addition to typical household items and signs of entertaining, a number of amuletic de­ vices were documented in the building, as well as a statuette of Cybele and the remains of other religious actions (e.g., floor deposits). Here in a mixed-use habitation, we find media of presence; these representations of divinities and related visual motifs reinforced the gods’ existence in daily life, but also the ritual and talismanic character of images. In Chapter 4’s discussion, I showed that keeping the gods close was an important concern for some Greeks in both the Archaic and Classical periods, just as conversely one might need to protect oneself from harmful forces in the home. At Building Z3, media of presence and other signs of religious activity demonstrate the various strate­ gies for engaging the supernatural in one’s dwelling or place of work.

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Figure 5.4 Silver medallion showing Aphrodite Epitragia, crowned with a wreath, from the Kerameikos, Building Z. Early 4th century BCE. © Athens, Kerameikos Museum.

Let me return to the silver Aphrodite Epitragia medallion and the gold Artemis ring. The crescent moon and stars functioned as efficacious symbols on many amulets throughout the Mediterranean; Faraone emphasizes the importance of lunar and astral imagery in Greek amuletic iconography beginning already in the Archaic period.32 In the case of these gold and silver examples, stars and moons are combined with representations of goddesses whose power and presence the objects also invoked. Both items show a goddess riding an animal sidesaddle together with the inclusion of nighttime imagery (stars, moon, or torch). In other words, an amuletic function for the gold ring is not an unreasonable conjecture, given Artemis’ popularity on later examples, the presence of astral and lunar components on the ring, and the similarities with the Aphrodite Epitragia medallion. Still, if the amuletic theory cannot be proven for the gold ring, the device kept the goddess in close proximity, touching the hand of the ring’s owner. Like other amulets and seal-rings worn on the body, the gold Artemis and the Aphrodite medallion called the goddesses’ power to those who wore them.

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Bodily contact Having outlined the efficacious qualities of rings/seals in the Classical period, let me make two points. First, Véronique Dasen has stressed that, with amulets, “physical contact was essential in order to transmit the properties of the charm to its wearer.”33 I want to reiterate the significance of physical contact, particularly given the corporeal experience of divine presence and ἐνθουσιάσμος (“being engodded”) discussed in the previous chapter. In a world where cult statues and shrines have been so closely tied to the authority of divine presence by scholars, an individual’s ability to carry a favored god with them is something we should not overlook. Athena’s gold image traveled everywhere that Anaxiles went. He carried the tiny deity in direct contact with his body, which created a physical and haptic link between goddess and man.34 This physical contact further substantiates the vital role of materiality and embodied religious experiences in Greek religious practices. Some material encounters were, for example, centered on the hand—the point of contact in healing images or in the religious crafts made by worshipers addressed in earlier chapters. In Chapter 4, we saw that individuals and communities felt comforted when the gods were close and present. As Angelos Chaniotis stressed, the most valued god was one who exhibited parousia (παρουσία), being alongside. Aristophanes’ birds claimed that, rather than those other uninterested, distant gods, “we’ll be present close by.”35 The seal-ring that opened this chapter and which would have left behind a clay impression of Artemis physically rearticulated the relationship between the wearer and the goddess by providing a material marker; when you wore her ring, the goddess really was present, right here with you (ἐνθάδε), even if in miniature form. Perhaps for those uncomforted by Socrates’ assertion that the gods were near even when they could not be seen,36 an illustrated ring served as a visible and substantive reminder of the gods and the benefits and protections they brought. Secondly, we should not rule out that these items also acted as religious testimonials, closely linking divine figures with one’s self-presentation, as I suggested for Anaxiles. Association with a particular god could be an important aspect in the declaration of an individual’s personal identity. After all, theophoric names and theonyms connected a person or their fa­ mily lineage to sacred powers via that most basic identifying tool, the name.37 Some religious communities stressed their connections to special beings; the worshipers of Cybele, Orpheus’ followers, and the Pythagoreans are all good examples traceable to the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. These communities differentiated themselves from others through certain beha­ viors, such as body modifications, food prohibitions, access to secret knowledge, or specific burial traditions. Participation in the Eleusinian mysteries became something to be declared, a personal religious history that could be tied into one’s public identity.38 Indeed, the chance to testify may

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have been quite important in the polytheistic world of the Archaic and Classical periods, just as it was in the Hellenistic and after.39 Thanks to portable rings and seals, images of divinities and sacred topics populated the day-to-day lives of Greek individuals, aiding in the formation of religious and personal identity, as well as the re-activation of devotional relationships for those that desired it. It seems to me that Platt’s observation that later rings which would act as love tokens “played an important role in con­ firming personal relationships”40 is especially applicable here: gods-on-seals reaffirmed the relationship between god and human in an intimate way, for the benefit of both sides of the relationship but also in the sight of others. Putting your own special deity Athena or Artemis on your seal stone manifestly linked the goddess to one’s construction of self-identity and personhood through the seal itself and also the sealing left behind every time it was used. Each time the seal was stamped, the action reasserted the re­ lationship and also presented tangible evidence of that relationship to others. Rather than simple ornamental images on secular objects, for some people seals bearing divine imagery may have possessed notable significance already in the Archaic and Classical periods.

The votive role of seals and rings We have shown that seals and rings strengthened the relationship between gods and mortals, keeping the gods, their power, and their favor physically close. But seals also allow us to examine an intriguing twist thanks to their use as offerings marking mortal presence in the shrines of sacred figures. Whereas Anaxiles was buried with his Athena ring, seals were used as votive gifts in large numbers from the 8th century and after. At the Argive Heraion, for example, worshipers deposited ca. 60 stone seals already in the 8th and early 7th century. The numbers increase over the centuries: at the Korykian cave near Delphi, worshipers left over a thousand rings and seal-rings, especially in the 4th century. A seal stone with an eagle device and another with a bull, as well as six others dedicated to Asklepios in Athens, rested in the outstretched hand of the cult statue, a fascinating re­ versal of the way people wore the gods on the rings on their own hands.41 There is little doubt that seals and seal-rings, whether stones, ivories, or rings, had internal value as precious objects and artworks, which may ex­ plain part of their popularity as dedications. Nevertheless, many dedicated seals were not of especially high monetary or artistic merit, and in some cases, the votive seals seem to have functioned sphragistically before de­ position. Certain Late Bronze Age seals dedicated in sanctuaries had been heavily used,42 and the practice continued when seal dedications became common again after the Iron Age; at the sanctuary of Hera at Perachora, some of the seals displayed signs of use, with wear marks or repairs.43 We may suspect that in later periods similar practices linked votive seals to their previous use as markers and makers of identity, transforming older seals

Media of Presence 123 into exceedingly personal gifts, since votive seals were conceptually bound to an individual’s identity, authority, and presence. As Platt notes, “the seal’s primary function is to act as a sign of ratification and authority, to proclaim ‘I was here, and I assented to this.”44 This function carried over powerfully into the votive sphere. Presumably, for the gods, these symbolically laden seal-rings, were im­ bued with the agency and personhood of the worshiper, and also helped to keep the absent mortal παρῶν (present). In Athens, Asklepios held a votary’s seal stone in his hand; the gift of the seal from one hand to another mani­ fested the haptic connection between them. It cannot be denied that seals themselves already bore the heavy weight of personhood and individual identity, before ever they were dedicated. They should therefore qualify as what Graziano described as “metonymies (closely associated with the vo­ tary) … [that] perpetuate one’s presence at the shrine.”45 As I argued in the previous chapter, a strict separation between divine representations and divine presences does not fully characterize lived human experience and the realities of religious phenomenology. The notion of “mortal presence,” then, deserves further consideration; I will turn to this subject for the remainder of the chapter. Mortal presence and material culture In the previous chapter, we noted some of the ways the gods’ powers and presences were experienced working within the human body, intimately felt in illness but also in bodies miraculously restored. In the early Christian period at healing shrines, effluvia and tumors and other parts of the sick and healed body were dedicated at shrines as proof of divine power. These were unmistakable demonstrations of holy figures’ intervention and favor, but materially they derived from the body of the worshiper. At a time when relics—body parts of saints—were gaining in theological and cultic sig­ nificance as markers of saints’ power and presence, the bodily matter from sick humans were displayed in shrines in an about-face that dramatically emphasized human corporeality.46 As far as we know, during the previous centuries Greeks did not offer up the physical substances of their illnesses or similar bodily remnants; rather, they dedicated narratives about their healing events in literary and visual form, or they set up models of their afflicted and miraculously healed body parts.47

Material essence: Ousia One type of bodily matter that was particularly resonant with a sense of a worshiper’s presence, however, was the offering of hair.48 Several Archaic and Classical texts refer to Greeks—whether adult, adolescent, or child—cutting and then offering it. This activity was often described as a rite of mourning, with locks of hair removed from the head and laid upon the grave.49 Both

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young men and women similarly presented their hair at the tombs of heroes and heroines; in the 5th century BCE, Herodotos described them wrapping their hair around a green stalk and a spindle respectively and laying the items atop the Delian tomb of the Hyperborean Maidens.50 Presumably the locks of hair remained visible in the tomb-shrine enclosure, until disappearing under debris and other shrine accumulations, or blowing away. This Delian activity overlapped with adolescent hair-cutting rituals featuring the dedication of said hair, an activity known from a number of religious situations, particularly those involving kourotrophic divinities such as rivers.51 In the Iliad, Achilles claims that his father vowed a segment of his son’s hair as an offering to the Spercheios river, in hopes for his son’s safe return.52 Not only was the hair promised by a family member, but Achilles recounts how he carefully maintained a section of his growing hair throughout the war in anticipation of his return home. In essence, carrying out the vow was an ex­ tended process, with part of the warrior’s living body itself given over to the river god as thanks for his protection. The growing out of the hair—not just the offering of it—was part of the devotional act, with the young man’s body being a locus that encapsulated his vow, the god’s “property,” and a material symbol of the god’s protection.53 Interestingly, Achilles refers to this vow when he cuts his hair instead for Patroklos, so that it might accompany his friend on the pyre (ὀπάσαιμι).54 Sometimes funerary hair offerings were de­ scribed using the verb aparchesthai (ἀπάρχεσθαι) by the 5th century BCE, also applied to the hair of the sacrificial animal presented at the preliminary stages of an animal sacrifice.55 These fascinating examples allude to the ‘person’ being dedicated to the shades of the deceased (or conversely, the gods). Jim suggests that human hair is “a token offering, symbolizing or replacing the offering of the whole person.”56 If so, in the context of the funeral the act seems reminiscent of “funerary accompaniment” sacrifices, when humans, animals, and objects escorted the deceased into the grave.57 For the Greeks, even when no longer attached to the person, hair was not ontologically separate. For this reason, human hair serves as a fasci­ nating material for exploring bodily presence when the rest of the body is somewhere else. In fact, the connection between hair and mortal presence appears in other ritual uses of bodily substances, such as fingernails. In Euripides’ 5th century play Hippolytus, Phaedra’s nurse contrives a love spell using a lock of hair and bit of clothing.58 Well attested in later magic spells, these items came to be called ousia, “essences” or “materials.”59 Some interpretations have treated ousia in semiotic terms, as “pointers” and “signifiers,” but this model recalls the same theoretical problems tied to the “symbolic and the real” that Orsi identified in conflicts over divine presence.60 The “paradigm shift from representation to presence” that we discussed in the previous chapter pertains in this case as well; semiotic readings here fail to adequately account for the efficacious power and agency of material things. The use of hair in love spells and binding rituals is particularly interesting: the hair may no longer be physically attached

Media of Presence 125 to the spell’s target, but the two remain correlated, corporeally joined. Ontologically and ritually speaking, they are the person. Other ritual practices often described as “magic” provide additional fodder for considering connections between mortals and their material representations. In 2016, while investigating a 4th century BCE well in the Athenian Kerameikos, excavators recovered approximately 30 curse tablets. Also found was a lead figurine enclosed in a box with a hinged lid. The small human statuette had been coarsely modeled, with limited de­ tails. Clear, however, was its male sex and, perhaps most importantly, its bound wrists and ankles. In fact, the lack of interest in physiognomic detailing or identifying characteristics comes as no surprise. Creators of curse figurines gave little attention to iconographic specificity or mimesis; such artistic details had negligible impact on the statuettes’ efficacy. Andrew Wilburn argues that close visual resemblance between an image and its antecedent was unnecessary for establishing successful connections between them. Instead, ritual specialists made those connections using spoken spells and performative speech, inscribed names, the inclusion of ousia, or simply the practitioner’s intent while performing the ritual. These actions allowed the ritual practitioner to enact their will—“mime a new reality into being”61—onto the target through mechanical gestures and other manipulations, such as burying, binding, or destroying. Wilburn asserts, “linkages are created through metaphor and metonymy, under­ taken and reified through the will of the practitioner.”62 Such is the case with the much-discussed Cyrene Foundation Oath, a text inscribed in the 4th century BCE but probably replicating a 7th-century decree at the time of Cyrene’s colonization.63 The text documents an oath sworn by a group of Therans and the departing colonists, during which they threw self-made wax figurines into a fire, saying, “may he, who does not abide by this agreement but transgresses it, melt away and dissolve like the images, himself, his seed and his property.”64 In this case, rather than a hostile ritual specialist, the various community members forged the con­ nection between themselves and the image, by means of their intent, their spoken oath, and their gestures as they swore and burned the wax figurines. Because the curse was a conditional self-imprecation,65 the full link between the oath-makers and the wax kolossoi was delayed, only to be fully activated in the case of a future violation of the oath. Sometimes termed “persuasive analogies,” such spoken, performative, and material metaphors acted upon the world, in this case, the target of the spells and subject of the oath.66 We should be cautious of overstating any clear-cut separation between “presence” and the links enacted by potent (and persuasive) metaphors, however. For example, in another 4th-century inscription from Cyrene discussed in the previous chapter, the ritual in­ volved statuettes (kolossoi) meant to appease an aggressive spirit or ghost.67 The performer presented the images with offerings and addressed them, took them out to a wooded area, and possibly buried them. Wilburn

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remarks on the resemblance to mortuary practices; the practitioners “mimed funerary rites, complete with food offerings.”68 The figurines acted, then, as embodiments of the spirit or the ghost, a sort of funerary ritual statue, or perhaps a stand-in for the bodily remains that might have otherwise been the focus of certain funerary actions. The small statuettes invoked divine pre­ sence and were manipulated in a variety of ways, used to compel the su­ pernatural powers, draw the physical proximity of the supernatural closer, or present them with offerings.69 In these cases just mentioned—the Euripidean ousia, the wax figurines of oath swearers, and the kolossoi embodying the threatening souls of the dead—the material objects manifest a correspondence between images and people. The correspondence is not simply indexical, but a ritually activated equivalence. For the ritual practitioners, there is no rupture between “the represented and the real.” Just so is the essence contained within the hair for whoever uses it in a spell. The actions directed at the hair were effectively enacted upon the target; they were present there in their hair and also in their own body. Just so was hair growing on Achilles’ head for future dedication, hair employed in the rituals for the Hyperborean Maidens or hair burned on a loved one’s pyre. They all forged intimate physical links between supernatural beings and the bodily presence of humans.

Mortal presence, portraits, and memory The possibility of mortal presence and religious material is further compli­ cated when we turn to images representing humans that are set up in shrines, or given as gifts to the gods, usually labeled portraiture. I take “portrait” to mean a representation of an actual person, following Catherine Keesling, who argues that “any representation of a historical personage, living or dead, qualifies as a portrait, regardless of its style or appearance.”70 This definition allows us to emphasize function and intent, rather than distin­ guishing physical features and naturalistic renderings. Much attention has been given to the epigraphic trends related to statue labels and what they mean for the many different functions and semantics of such “bodyreplicas,” as Keesling calls them. According to ancient Greek examples collected in Keesling’s study, in the Archaic and Classical periods, inscrip­ tions described portrait statues as pleasing gifts, objects of wonder, and evidence of divine intervention in the human world. Texts also call them memorials for the living and the dead, using the vocabulary of memory. In the early 4th century on the Akropolis, Polystratos commissioned the following votive inscription for a portrait:71 εἰκόνα τήνδ’ ἀνέθηκε Πολύστρατος αὑτοῦ ἀδελφόν, μνημοσύνην θνητοῦ σώματος ἀθάνατον. “Polystratos dedicated an image, his own brother, the immortal remembrance of a mortal body.”

Media of Presence 127 In the 4th century BCE in Myrrhinous, the Attic deme, one Xenophon dedicated two votive portrait statues, also using the language of memory (to Apollo Pythios and Zeus Phratrios).72 The accompanying inscriptions describe both statues as μνημεῖον ἑαυτοῦ (a memorial of himself), although one is designated ἀθάνατον, “deathless” or “undying.” ἀθάνατον is, of course, a common adjective describing a god’s divine nature, as well as descriptor for important events and monuments of the past.73 At first glance, these 4th-century “reminders” seems to function symbo­ lically to point to something that is absent, but for the Greeks, memory functioned in a historically and culturally specific set of ways, some of which can be identified in earlier centuries. Jean-Pierre Vernant theorized that for poets memory was an “‘evocation’ of the past,” but one with important religious connotations associated with unveiled truths, immortality, and eschatology.74 More recent studies of memory in the Greek Archaic and Classical periods indicate that memory and remembering invoked and re­ activated past events and people.75 Bakker argues that in Greek thought, memory “provides access to a reality that is ontologically prior; it also makes that reality present.”76 He says for poets, “the act of remembering will perform and make present the thing remembered.”77 As the decades passed, memory would lay at the heart of certain Greek eschatological be­ liefs as well. In the Bacchic Gold Tablets, forgetfulness seems to be a major consequence of death, against which the initiate must strive in the under­ world. The tablets themselves help the deceased to remember, as does the water of Memory drunk by the dead. Recalling one’s initiation rites aids the soul in reaching a special status in the hereafter.78 To return to the living, from a phenomenological perspective, the act of remembering things that one has experienced not only recalls those people, places, and events to mind, but often can impact one’s present state. As Bakker stresses, in epic poetry memories become embodied within the one who remembers, as their memories of past events or awareness of past in­ dividuals are activated within the body.79 Achilles remembers his conflict with Agamemnon, but he also seems to experience it in a way that impacts him physically and emotionally: “but my heart swells with wrath when I think of this, how the son of Atreus has worked an indignity on me among the Argives, as though I were some refugee who had no rights.”80 Remembering fills the mind and body with the emotions, senses, and, as we know now, even chemical signatures associated with another person’s pre­ sence or past events. From a physical perspective, standing in front of a statue “memory” corporeally grounds a person-like bulk within the shared space of the viewer and the remembered. Mentally, emotionally, and phy­ sically, remembering can make it seem that another person is really there and present, just beside you. For the Greeks, then, memory served not simply to point indexically to another, but in certain contexts evoked them. It is worth thinking about how that played out phenomenologically for those encountering images of people in sanctuaries.

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To return to the topic of portrait statues and votives, a topic that has received extensive attention is the speaking formula found in inscriptions. Objects, ranging from vessels to anthropomorphic statues, speak with their own voices, in words that express their personhood: “I, ἐγώ,” “I am, εἰμί,” “me, με,” etc.81 A stone herm set up near Rhamnous in the 6th century charmingly says: “Laches set me up as an overseer of the herds.”82 Not only does the herm speak as if a living being, but it also has a job to do and a purpose, just like a human. In the context of votive objects deposited in sanctuaries, it has been suggested that inscriptions “permitted the object, as surrogate for the donor, to speak continuously before the god.”83 Joseph Day approaches these texts using pragmatics, arguing that votive epigrams, spoken aloud, “generate force.” Reading the inscriptions, he argues, reactivated the original ceremonial moment and charis-context, and thus drew the god’s presence: “the god was spoken into existence.”84 I would like to push Day’s conclusion a step further. The personhood of speaking offerings was dramatically enhanced when the inscribed object took human form—a portrait—so that the inscription spoke in the guise of its mortal subject. When passersby read aloud a statue’s inscription, they themselves gave voice to the person depicted: “readers lent their voices to the ‘ego’ of the dedication,” as Day says of votive epigrams.85 Speaking for the portrait vivified the image, gave it life and a borrowed voice, and thus reactivated mortal presence thanks to another mortal’s flesh. It is to the possibilities of mortal presence in votary portraits to which I will turn for the remainder of this chapter. Not all votive objects spoke, but their role as mortal worshipers could be made overt in other ways. Representations of historical individuals per­ forming specific rituals have a long tradition in Greek shrines; for example, images of sacrificial processions were dedicated to gods already in the 6th century.86 Such processional images appear on painted pinakes, in freestanding statues representing people performing sacrifices, and on abundant carved votive reliefs, which appear to represent the dedicators and their families. As an example, the frequently replicated painted wooden tablets known as the Pitsa plaques, dedicated in the Saftulis Cave near Sikyon around 540 BCE, depicted named individuals in various religious activities. One of the four preserved plaques (Fig. 5.5)87 shows a sacrificial procession, with Euthydika, Eukolis, and Ethelonche labeled in the nominative, while another illustrates named female dancers.88 Here we have labeled images of people involved in religious activity, which were subsequently presented to the nymphs and hung up in their cave abode. In keeping with the ritual subject matter, the earlier 6th-century Moscophoros from the Athenian Akropolis must represent its dedicator Rhombos bringing a sacrificial offering to the sanctuary, although many other 6th-century sculptural offerings do not obviously illustrate ritual scenes even if they do represent mortals. The Akropolis’ seated scribes,

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Figure 5.5 Painted wood pinax showing a sacrificial procession, with three figures named in the nominative. From the Saftulis Cave, near Sikyon, ca. 540 BCE. © Athens, National Archeological Museum.

equestrian statues, the Potter Relief, and Epicharinos’ victor statue, for example, all fall within this category—dedications representing mortals who were not engaged in ritual activity.89 The issue of votary portraits highlights a methodological tripping hazard associated with portrait definition, identification, and analysis. The vast majority of images representing worshipers, whether expensive works or cheap terracotta figures, do not bear inscriptions, or, if they do, those in­ scriptions often give the name of the dedicator without clarifying the votive subject’s theme. Studies often privilege inscriptions as the means to cate­ gorize an image as a “portrait,” with unlabeled images otherwise dismissed as anonymous or generic types. One of Keesling’s major premises is that early Greek portraiture purposefully highlights the heroic or godlike qua­ lities of depicted individuals, with, in many cases, portrait and non-portrait depictions virtually interchangeable (e.g., mortal warriors and divinized heroes).90 This correspondence of types and iconographic identifiers high­ lights that, without an accompanying inscription, it becomes exceedingly difficult to recognize an early portrait as a representation of a human in contrast to a hero or a god.91 An artifact from the Vitsi cemetery outside Paroikia on Paros highlights the challenges posed by attempts to identify portraits when no physiological or other identifying features are apparent in the formal qualities of the image. In 1983, while removing a small tile-covered grave in the cemetery, excavators uncovered the remnants of a lead figurine (Fig. 5.6).92 In the late 5th or early 4th century BCE, a ritual specialist had commissioned the male statuette for use in a binding spell: the figure’s arms were bound behind him, his body was pierced by seven iron nails, and his neck was shackled. The specialist then deposited the figurine in what may have been a child’s grave.

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Figure 5.6 Lead curse statuette representing Theophrastos and buried in the Vitsi cemetery, Paros. Early 4th century. Photo: Jessica Lamont, with permission.

The excavators found no accompanying preserved tablet which might have otherwise explained the social conflict hiding behind the ritual act, or details about the spell’s target. The back left leg of the figurine, however, as well as his back and probably his head, bore the repeated name Theophrastos (ΘΕΩΦΡΑΣΤΩ) (Fig. 5.8). The ritual actions and intent of the specialist, the binding, piercing, and shackling of the figurine, and the inscribed names all made Theophrastos’ living body accessible via the lead object. Much as we saw with the hair and the wax figurines discussed earlier, ritually speaking, Theophrastos was present there in the figurine, held in the hands of the practitioner. If we follow Keesling’s definition of portraits as a representation of a historical person, and other scholars’ emphasis on an inscribed name, then the Theophrastos statuette begins to appear disturbingly similar to a por­ trait. Undoubtedly there was a historical, social, and functional difference between the Theophrastos figurine and a dedicated portrait, such as the marble statue of Ornithe, carved by Geneleos and set up for Hera on Samos (Fig. 5.7, 5.8b).93

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Figure 5.7 Marble portrait of Ornithe, part of a family group. By Geneleos, mid-6th century BCE, Samos. Her name is inscribed on the fabric edge below her right hand. Photo: Egisto Sani, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Most notably, the lead statuette was not meant to be put on display for immortal viewers, nor was the large statue of Ornithe ritually ma­ nipulated to the same degree, for the purposes of a binding action and its related outcome. Yet, both are “portraits” employed in the religious sphere by humans interacting with supernatural forces: Ornithe and her companions as they maintained a relationship with Hera, and Theophrastos’ attacker as he called upon gods, ghosts, or spirits during the casting of the spell. We have already seen that in the realm of ritual practices, specialists joined statuettes with their targets through symbolic gestures and actions, spoken incantations, performative speech, and the manipulation of ousia. Archeologists have found that only some of the curse figurines bear in­ scriptions, and most of them did not bear other physiognomic or mimetic identifiers. An inscribed name might foster that connection, but it was not necessary for the doll to function. The statuette remained potent re­ gardless. The same can be said for votary portraits, many of which seem generic, lack identifying physical details, and bear no inscription.

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Figure 5.8 (a) The inscription naming Theophrastos on the figurine’s leg. Photo: Jessica Lamont, with permission. (b) The inscription “Ornithe” on the leg of her sculpted representation. Photo: Close-up from photo by Egisto Sani, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Most importantly, denying the portrait features of otherwise unidentifi­ able worshiper images fails to account for the ontological and experiential aspects of images and statues, especially in the religious realm. We cannot ignore the fact that, in the mind of devotees, votive images were inextricably linked to oneself, and were often meant to represent oneself, even if the image’s creator-craftsman did not set out to depict a specific person. That was the very purpose of such pre-made votives, after all: they embodied a single devotee and also many possible devotees, anyone and everyone.94 By selecting a specific votive image, the devotee instigated a portrait’s process of becoming. Take, as an example, an early 5th-century BCE terracotta fig­ urine from the Demeter and Kore sanctuary at Corinth, depicting a wor­ shiper carrying a piglet and bird (Fig. 5.9).95 Descriptions of piglet-carrying worshipers of Demeter appear in literary sources, and usually it is assumed that the craftsman, familiar with such worshipers in real life, intended the figurine to be a generic representation.96 Yet, after purchase, this terracotta figurine became analogous with the female dedicant, and a “portrait” that the goddess recognized as soon as she received it. The one person who most needed to know the identity of this dedicated image was divine and did not

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Figure 5.9 Terracotta girl with piglet and bird from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth, early 5th century BCE. © American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations.

actually need a text label to do so. Ignoring the personal link between a dedicant and their votary image misses the strong religious correlation be­ tween portraits and dedications.

Mutual presence: Humans to gods, and humans to humans? Although the gods do not appear on the Pitsa plaques, the Greeks often created rich visual imaginaries in which mutual presence was a feature of the ritual experience. Methods for invoking mutual presence in visual re­ presentations varied. Votive reliefs depicting rituals created narrative spaces in which gods and humans come face-to-face during religious activities.97 As we saw with the relief from Echinos (Fig. 3.1), a group of women presented a child to Artemis in the physical space of a sanctuary; the appearance of ritual infrastructure and votive items, as well as the formulaic processional scheme, indicate that this mutual encounter occurred within the context of some sort of ritualized activity. Similar is the early 4th-century relief carved near the entrance of the Cave of the Nymphs at Marathi, Paros.98 Set up by

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Adamas the Odrysian, the image shows a group of 20 gods in a cavern, visited by a cluster of eleven human adults and children depicted in a smaller scale. Although no ritual infrastructure appears, we recognize the specialized gestures—raised arms and kneeling positions—as ones meant to honor the spirits. The mortals have joined the gods in their own cave in order to worship them. In other votive reliefs, the intimate communion between divinity and worshiper is crucial, with humans engaging holy beings outside of ritual times or ritual locales. A famous relief dedicated to Kephissos outside Athens is illustrative (Fig. 5.10).99 The inscription relates that Xenokrateia dedicated it on behalf of her son, Xeniades. The image shows Xenokrateia in the midst of the family of gods, her small child reaching up to the river deity, Kephissos. In the image, the two families, mortal and divine, intermingle. What is especially important is that this image shows human devotees and the beings that they worshiped together in the same, nonspecific space. They do not occupy different realms, nor are they separated by an altar, although they are of different scales. Instead of replicating the formal, transitory performance of a ritual, the image instead testifies to a close relationship, both intimate and casual. Most of the gods in the relief do not notice Xenokrateia, but Kephissos certainly does, and he bends down to talk with her. The two look directly into each other’s eyes, while the little boy tugs on Kephissos’ garment in an always recognizable childhood bid to grab grown-up attention. Xenokrateia, her son Xeniades, and Kephissos see each other, hear each

Figure 5.10 Relief dedicated by Xenokrateia to Kephissos at the sanctuary of Echelidai at New Phaleron, late 5th century BCE. © Athens, National Archeological Museum.

Media of Presence 135 other, and touch each other: they truly exist for one another.100 Dismissing such an image as a genre-scene, or one that does not illustrate a “true” historical epiphany, overlooks the many ways that human worshipers came together with the gods. It is in this context that iconographic and semiotic readings can miss the devotional experience of Xenokrateia herself, for whom Kephissos was really there and attentive to her. This relief adamantly depicts Kephissos as a god who is παρών (present), there for his mortal worshiper and engaged in a warm and comfortable relationship with her and her son. In turn, Xenokrateia and Xeniades are present for Kephissos.

Mortal-to-mortal presence Xenokrateia’s votive likewise served as a testimonial for other visitors, who were able to see that god and mortal were present to each other. Despite its lack of obvious narrative components, the image tells the simplest story of all: the god and humans stand together, they are para­ statai (παραστάται), standing beside one another. Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis has argued that Classical votive reliefs set up in the Amphiareion at Oropos convey their “sense of the manifold presence of Amphiaraos” to later visitors.101 Of special note here, she also suggests that thanks to re­ liefs showing Amphiaraos and mortals meeting, “both past pilgrims and god are made present to later pilgrims.”102 It has often been assumed that these images of votaries functioned like later sculpted and inscribed portraits, preserving memory (μνῆμα), nar­ rating religious events of the past, and pleasing the gods. Effectively they do more than look to the past, however. As some votive historians have argued, the Pitsa plaques, stone votive reliefs, and votary statues record a ritual—and worshipers engaging in their supplications—eternally.103 As Jenny Wallensten says, “come rain, come shine, they can stand in a sacrificial pose, pouring an eternal libation in a way a human body cannot.”104 The ritual and worship never end, the devotees honor their gods forever, and the devotees are always present for the gods they honor. Later visitors can help to facilitate this reality: the stories such dedications tell are retold yet again with every viewing, just as votive epigrams were enlivened every time they were read aloud.105 But is this simply a romantic view of votives, imagined as they are to perform “eternal” ritual? I suggest otherwise, especially given Bakker’s ar­ gument about memory’s function in the mentality of poets. He claims that in Greek poetry, and via poetry, “memory is a matter of enactment, of making present what is absent.”106 Based on linguistic and grammatical readings of poetic language’s treatment of memory, Bakker argues that the act of re­ membering through poetry awakened past events anew. While the cultural and performative context of the early Archaic epics should not be confused with the world of Xenokrateia’s relief, I think a case can be made for the role of visual and narratological evocation in both. If we consider votive images

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as visual memorializations of past ritual encounters with the gods, much as the Greeks conceptualized their poetic memorialization of past divine ap­ pearances, then likewise these votive reliefs make present both gods and mortals to each other and to other mortals. As Bakker says of poetry, “remembering an event from the past is bringing it to the mind’s eye, seeing it, and describing it as if it were happening before one’s eyes.”107 Votive reliefs do much the same, enacting and making present, bringing the humandivine encounter visually before the (mind’s) eye, much like the words and performances of poets. Furthermore, we might consider again historiolae, stories employed in ritual or other circumstances to bring about some parallel event. Found in texts and a variety of performative situations, these “little tales” also ap­ peared in visual forms, such as Herakles’ fight with the lion on an Archaic gem already discussed (Fig. 5.2). Daniel James Waller explains historiolae in a way that recalls Bakker’s work on poetic memory and the invocation of the past: “mythical events are understood to be archetypical: they retain for all time their power or force, and this force may be tapped into at any time simply by recounting them.”108 Focus on the religious practitioner’s re­ citation of a narrative (much like the poet’s) ties its power to the perfor­ mative context, while a visual representation of an efficacious narrative—for example109—ensures that the historiola is continuously “performed,” a looping story-moment set on repeat. Frankfurter argues that texts, in­ cantations, and various sorts of performances transfer efficacious stories about supernatural powers and events into present situations.110 Visual historiolae, efficacious stories-in-action, provide a compelling way to re­ frame the votive images I have addressed, although I am not suggesting that votive reliefs truly were coercive parallels or persuasive analogies. Painted plaques and sculpted reliefs displayed ritualized narratives about the gods, if without the same “weight” of the traditional myths and ancestral tales. As personally significant stories narrating the coming together of devotees and sacred figures, however, they were in many cases seen by hundreds, if not thousands, of other visitors to shrines over the course of generations. Like the “narratives that do things,”111 these visual encounters made gods and humans present to one another, and to later viewers, through an ongoing material “performance.”

Free-standing and life size: The phenomenology of portrait statues Unlike small terracottas or portraits on votive panels like the Pitsa plaque, from a phenomenological standpoint, confronting a free-standing statue became much more like encountering another person, especially if the portrait was similar in size to a person and not separated from passersby by architectural boundaries or excessively high bases; they become “markers of corporeal presence.”112 Such sculptures had mass and weight, and they

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Figure 5.11 Reconstruction of statue base dedicated by Pallene, dedicated at Delphi. Archaic period. After Courby 1927, Fig. 228.

occupied the same space as the viewer, much like another person. Not only did the visitor interact with an object of human size, it was one that looked like another human. Walking amongst such monuments no doubt felt akin to witnessing other worshipers in action or passing through a crowd at a festival. Pausanias saw free-standing sculptural monuments at Delphi that enacted processions (which had been set up in earlier periods). One of these, dedicated by the Orneaians after their victory over Sikyon (possibly in the 5th century BCE), consisted of a “constructed bronze sacrifice and proces­ sion,”113 a scene eminently familiar to visitors to the sanctuary from past festivals and sacrifices. Archeologically attested at Delphi is a similar free-standing monument from the Archaic period and dedicated by Pallene (near Athens), the statuebases of which survive (Fig. 5.11).114 The cuttings on the blocks indicate that a leader at the front of the pro­ cession with two four-footed victims was followed by eight other individuals. For flesh-and-blood worshipers walking alongside them, the phenomen­ ological power of such life-size images—occupying space in a shrine, marching in procession, exhibiting sun-warmed bronze skin and expressive long-lashed eyes—meant that it seemed as if the Pallenians were still there engaging in ritual activity, worshiping the gods beside later viewers. For other visiting humans, standing before the sculpture replicated theoria, the witnessing of ritual spectacle.115 A visitor near this life-size sculptural group became a spectator contemplating yet another sacrificial procession, moving amongst the monuments much as they moved in and out of festival crowds. In part, visitors to the shrine were already primed to encounter other people there, as well as others performing rituals or going about their business. It was accepted that when one visited a sanctuary, one might be part of a wider community of worshipers, as we saw with dedicators presenting terracottas or learning the proper way to do things in Chapter 3. In this case, votary statues and largescale ritual replicas enfolded flesh-and-blood visitors into a crowd of other

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(sculptural) followers of the divinity. Monuments like the Pallenian group blurred the lines between religious communities in sanctuaries, mortalpresence-in-sculpture, and μνῆμα (evocative reminders).

Conclusion To sum up, this chapter considered material presences from a variety of theoretical perspectives and drew on several methodologies: the experiential, the corporeal and material, the ontological, and the ritually articulated. My goal has been to show, not just how Greeks might experience or imagine supernatural presence in physical artifacts, but also how natural and manmade artifacts could be interpreted, affectively experienced, and purpose­ fully manipulated to evoke mortal presence. From the 8th to the 4th century, we see changes in devotional idioms, dedicatory practices, and visual styles, as well as cultural ideas of memory; nevertheless, thinking with both emic and etic concepts, as we have done here, showcases how varied the uses were for media of presence in daily life. For many people, the gods were phenomenologically and ontologically present in their images, just as they might be present in other materials and visual objects. Orsi has noted that, in many modern theoretical and meth­ odological frameworks, “material objects are taken as symbols or re­ presentations rather than the gods really present.”116 For ancient worshipers, this modern distinction took the form of a much more fluid reality, in which personal and communal beliefs about invisible powers, and the experiences of powerful iconographies and objects, linked together the material and the immaterial, the present (παρουσία) and what was right here (ἐνθάδε). In the Archaic and Classical periods, portable images on rings, seal stones, and amulets were capable of manifesting divine presences and forces of several types. Through physical contact with the wearer, they materially articulated the relationship between supernatural beings and people, a strategy for keeping the gods operating in one’s life. The choice to use a seal with a god’s image inextricably linked that god to one’s very identity and authority within the community, just as Anaxiles’ written name and his use of his gold ring clearly denoted a connection to Athena. Conversely, when a person visited a shrine and dedicated their own previously employed seal/ ring (whatever its imagery may have been), the votive bore extraordinary weight thanks to its customary significance as a marker of that individual’s personhood and authority. Hair, taken from the devotee’s body and dedicated in a shrine, left a remnant of the person’s physical essence near the god. The ontological correlation between hair and the person made it an especially suitable re­ pository for mortal presence in the sanctuary, a correlation that we also find substantiated by the use of hair in magical rituals such as love spells or katadesmoi.

Media of Presence 139 The magical use of figurines during the Archaic and Classical periods supports the identification of dedicatory images as potential media of presence, as well. Wax, lead, and images made from other substances were ritually equated with specific individuals. As such, they bore some simi­ larity to votary portraits, used by worshipers to keep themselves materially situated for the gods, heroes, and other daimones in their sanctuaries. Physical resemblance was not necessary to make the votive efficacious; instead, the devotee’s intent, ritualized actions, and sometimes added in­ scription religiously enacted the correlation. While epigraphic and literary sources often described these monuments as memorials, the cultural role of memory in the Archaic and Classical periods, evident especially in poetry, serves as a plausible rationale for conceiving votive portraits as evocations of physically absent mortal bodies. Additionally, votary portraits which were close in size to those mortal bodies and situated near to visitors’ own physical space would have felt particularly “real” for other visitors. These later visitors kinesthetically engaged with the portraits, and the images in turn took up space, performed rituals, and stood before the gods, even when the images were not rendered in especially naturalistic forms. Phenomenologically, they continued to manifest the presence of the dedicator long after they were gone. As such, images of votaries kept the intended humans present for the gods, as well as for other humans. The import of this sort of reciprocal presence is supported by its frequency in votive imagery in general, in which encounters between gods and their devotees manifested a socially and per­ sonally meaningful reality. Just as poetry enacted and made present past events and physically absent bodies, so too the stories told on votives ma­ terially expressed the relationship between worshipers and divinities, close by one another here in the mortal realm. Much like persuasive analogies, these personal narratives and testimonials became “narratives that do things,” keeping gods and mortals present, together.

Notes 1 Munro 1891, 320–323. 2 London, British Museum 1891.8–6.86. LIMC 2 (1984), s.v. “Athena” (P. Demargne), no. 203; Childs et al. 2012, 152, no. 49. 3 It is thought in some cases that religious officials used their divine imagery to signal their religious authority, but enough gods and heroes appear on rings and seals that lay people must have used the representations as well. An interesting case from Selinunte is a cache of 3rd century BCE sealings from an archive that was destroyed in a fire at Temple C. Some of the seals were likely owned by officials (such as one labeled with “Zeus Soter” and thought to refer to his local cult), while others representing sacred figures probably relate to personal seal use: Manganaro 1992, 207; Plantzos 1999, 23–24; Zoppi 1996. 4 For the physical intimacy of rings and engraved seals, see Platt and Squire (2018). My focus here specifically concerns rings and seals decorated with divine representations.

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Media of Presence See Chapter 4. Graziano 2016, 103. Graziano 2016, 204. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 205 and 212; 2010; 2016. Additional bibliography on this topic is noted below. Orsi 2016, 2–3. On the representation-presence dichotomy in the ancient world, see, for example, Platt (2011); Elsner (2012). See above, Chapter 4. Belting and Freedberg provide overviews of iconoclasm and idolatry: Belting 1997, 144–163; Freedberg 1989, 378–428. Elsner 2012. Orsi 2016, 19. On the Eucharist and sacred presence, see also Walker Bynum 2011, 139–145. Petridou 2016, 63–64 and 74. Orsi 2005, 49. See also Orsi 2016, 72–112, 113–161. Boardman 2001; Krzyszkowska 2005; Moreno 2008. Platt (2006) addresses the cultural significance and semiotics of seals and sealings in the Classical period and after, with some discussion of divine representations (including the “moral authority” they give to seals). See more recently, Platt and Squire (2018). Aristophanes’ Plutos (883–885) seems to reference inscriptions that avert harm, cf. Nagy 2012, 91–96. For Nagy’s discussion of the iconography of potent rings and seals, see 102–106; Edmonds 2019, 116–148. Of note is the ring worn by the god Asklepios, described in the Epidaurian iamata: the god pressed the ring to a patient’s eye and cured him of epilepsy, and in later centuries some rings were thought to have healing properties. Nagy 2012, 97; LiDonnici 1995, 127, C 19 (62). For seals and their connection to healing events in later periods, see Dasen (2011). Roman-era authors claimed that Pythagoras (ca. 570–480 BCE) espoused a cultic injunction regarding miniaturized deities on rings and seals: “do not wear a god’s image engraved on a ring.” It may be that this injunction was passed down around 400 BCE by Anaximander the Younger, who had collected Pythagorean prohibitions and was followed in this work not long after by Aristotle. Both Porphyry and Iamblichus would interpret the injunction dif­ ferently by the 3rd century CE. The former claimed that doing so revealed one’s thoughts on the gods to the ignorant (Porphyry, VP 42.18–21 Nauck). Iamblichus stressed, in contrast, that wearing a picture of a god on a ring risked defiling it (Iamblichus, VP 18.84). If the injunction legitimately derived from the Pythagorean tradition of the 5th century, then divine imagery was thought, for whatever reason, to be inappropriate for public, daily adornment amongst that community. For how views of Pythagorean practices changed over time, and whether they had much to do with the historical Pythagoras and his contemporary cohort, see Zhmud (2012). Platt and Squire 2018, 99. Platt 2006, 235: the image “appropriates the sacred power of the original cult image within the Athenian Parthenon,” given that it draws “upon the authority of religious tradition.” Petsalis-Diomidis (2006, 216) likewise sees the “evoca­ tion” of a cult statue’s “divine aura” when referenced on mass-produced en­ trance tickets like those found at the Amphiareion at Oropos: “they did not evoke the god’s presence in the same way, but acted as visual pointers towards the cult image and benefited from a reflected aura of divine presence within the sanctuary.” Graziano (2016, 104) observes that at a Mexican shrine the priests blocked access to the miraculous statue of the Virgin in the church, with the result that a replica was set up nearby which devotees approach and touch, kiss, etc. He says, “In its sacred essence the replica is also indistinguishable from the

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25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

original for the purposes of petitionary devotion.” For self-made votives in the Juquila Pedimento, see my Chapter 2. Related are the artifacts carried home from sanctuaries in later periods, which bore the sacred power of the god or which replicated imagery associated with a sanctuary. In many cases, these items were powerful precisely because of their origin at or near the shrine and its sacred power. Such examples include Late Antique tokens, ampullae, and other artifacts linked to saint’s shrines. Frankfurter 2004; Brown 2014, 86–105; Orsi 2016, 48–71; Boero 2020. See also my Chapter 4. Faraone 2018, 130. Faraone 2011; Dasen 2015, 2018; Faraone 2018, 5; Dasen and Nagy 2019; Kotansky 2019. In addition to discs, trefoils, and other geometric forms, ima­ gery included crescent moons, seashells, dolphins, cicadas, double axes, and open hands, among others. Faraone 2018, 61–63. Faraone 2009, 233; Faraone 2018, 115–127. Frontally facing Gorgons’ heads, for example, directed their terrifying gazes aggressively outwards towards potential dangers, and are well known from a variety of ancient artifacts, such as terracotta antefixes or shield devices. In Euripides’ Ion (1417–1425), Creusa describes weaving the Gorgon into a textile, and one wonders if this iconography had an apotropaic function on the gar­ ment, or a narrative role (or both). Rather than being solely a feature of the gorgons’ presence, Faraone argues (2018, 40–41), the apotropaic force of its face partly derived from the mechanics of its formal position – frontal gaze, glaring visage, and circular shape. Additionally, Fullerton (1990) suggested that archaism as a formal, stylistic feature of sculpture may have seemed appropriate for certain affective objects, apotropaia. Noting that apotropaic images tend to represent unrealistic and unnatural subjects such as sphinxes, griffins, and triplebodied goddesses, he suggests that “they are objects which in order to function properly must be ever-lasting and absolutely immobile, without even the slightest suggestion that they are able to abandon their posts” ( Fullerton 1990, 201). Frankfurter 1995; Nagy 2012; Johnston 2018, 68–75. Faraone (2018, 105–128) describes them as “persuasive analogies,” following Stanley Tambiah. Waller (2015) theorizes them as “echoes.” Johnston 2018, 71. London, British Museum, GR 1894,1101.458. In this case, the stone’s material and color aided in its efficaciousness. Faraone 2011, 52–54, pl. 10. For example, see the 7th-century gold pendants (LIMC 2 (1984), s.v. “Artemis,” (L. Kahil) no. 40) or a 6th-century steatite scarab (LIMC 2 (1984), s.v. “Artemis,” (L. Kahil), no. 36). Private collection; LIMC 2 (1984), s.v. “Artemis” (L. Kahil), no. 901; Boardman 2001, no. 712, pl. 1053. Athens, Kerameikos Museum M374. After Knigge 1982, fig. 86. Faraone 2018, 41–42. Ault 2016. Lunulae also appear as ornaments in the Greek Bronze Age, Faraone 2018, 44–46. Dasen 2018, 128. For haptic engagement with engraved rings during the Greek and Roman period, see Platt and Squire (2018). In a number of non-Greek contexts, personal items of adornment did carry complex devotional significations, such as tattoos showing the protective Egyptian deity Bes, whose figure was inked onto the thighs of women in the New Kingdom ( Koltsida 2006, 168); more recently, female mummies have been

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Media of Presence found adorned with tattooed imagery connected to the goddess Hathor ( Austin and Gobeil 2016). Although the Greeks considered tattooing to be a mark of degradation and punishment, some of the people with whom they came into contact used tattooing for religious purposes, especially to show one’s devotion to the gods ( Jones 1987). Herodotos in the 5th century referenced Egyptian tattoos like those just mentioned, noting that sacred tattoos made one inviol­ able, and he equated it with “giving [oneself] to the god” (ἑωυτὸν διδοὺς τῶι θεῶι; Herodotos 2.113.2; Jones 1987, 145). In addition to the Egyptians, the biblical text Isaiah predicted that at the End of Days Jewish people would tattoo their hands with the phrase “To the Lord” as a form of “self-dedication” (Isaiah 44:5; Jones 1987, 145). In the 2nd-century CE Eastern Mediterranean, PetsalisDiomidis suggests (2010, 146–147), “the marking of the body with sacred symbols may be interpreted as a way in which to locate religious charisma in the person, or a way in which to communicate with the divine through the medium of the body.” Aristophanes, Birds, 723–735. See Chapter 4. See p. 92 above. Wallensten 2020; Jim 2022, e.g., 4 (n.10), 85, 103. By the Roman period, if not earlier, initiates at Samothrace may have received iron rings and sashes to mark their inclusion in the community ( Cole 1984, 29–30; Blakely 2011). Apuleius (Apologia 55) explains that many initiates treasured extremely meaningful mementos acquired during their rites, although he noted that such objects were not always accessible to the public (e.g., kept in home shrines). Rather than public testimonials, these would only be recogniz­ able to others in the initiate community. Platt (2006, 251) suggests that during the Hellenistic period a seal-ring could express “religious, political and personal allegiances” and notes that by Clement of Alexandria’s time Christians could be advised (Paedagogus 3.12), “to choose an emblem which acted as a statement of faith.” (254, n. 33). On the “desire to display one’s religious identity, to proclaim one’s cultic commitment” through the use of visual markers in the worship of Isis, see Veymiers 2018, 43–46, quote on 44. Platt 2006, 248. Seals (σφραγίδες) as dedications based on temple archives: Plantzos 1999, 12–17. Argive Heraion: Coldstream 2003, 151. Korykian Cave: Zagdoun 1984; Larson 2001, 20; Volioti 2011. Athenian Asklepeion: IG II3 1 898; Inventory IV.125–127 (274/3 BCE); Aleshire 1989, 220; Aleshire 1991, 45; Petsalis-Diomidis 2016, 52. At Aegina’s Aphaia sanctuary site, 25 Mainland Popular Group seals showed signs of use before deposition during the LH IIIA2-B. On seals in sanctuaries at the end of the Bronze Age, see Krzyszkowska (2005, 275–327). Dunbabin and Payne 1962, 410. Platt 2006, 241. In later periods, she demonstrates, seals were “bound to the self, and, by extension, to the soul” (248). See also Platt 2020. We can assume that the dedication of one’s own seal during the Geometric and Archaic periods (prior to the epigraphic turn and after) possessed a similar semantic weight to an inscribed votive. Why bother with “Mantiklos gave me” when it was obvious already in the seal’s graphic? (The Mantiklos Apollo, early 7th-century bronze figurine with inscription: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.997; ThesCra I, 277, no. 30.) Graziano 2016, 204. On relics and the presence of saints: Frankfurter 2004; Walker Bynum 2011, 125–176; Brown 2014, 172–178; Graziano 2016. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 2010, 2016.

Media of Presence 143 48 On hair offerings in general, see Leitao 2003; Jim 2011, 45–46; Stoner 2017, 17–21. There seems to have been a tradition involving hair grooming and cut­ ting before battle, according to some illustrated pottery (e.g., Cleveland Museum of Art, lekythos, inv. 1928.660) and in traditions involving the Seven Against Thebes. 49 Iliad 23.134–153; Eur. El. 91–92; cf. 510–523; Eur. Supp., 97. 50 Herodotos 4.34.2. Theophrastos may be referring to this particular tomb tra­ dition when he says: “For the ceremony of cutting his son’s hair, he takes him to Delphi,” καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἀποκεῖραι ἀγαγὼν εἰς Δελφούς, Characters 21.3, trans., Jeffrey Rusten). See also Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 4.278; Pausanias 1.43.4. 51 On the difference between funerary and kourotrophic hair-cutting, see Leitao 2003, 113. 52 Iliad 23.140–153. 53 Leitao (2003, 111, 118) also stresses the process of hair growing as an “ongoing activity,” “no less sacred an undertaking than the act of cutting it and of­ fering it.” 54 Iliad 23.151. Aeschylus, perhaps following this parallel, has Orestes link the two types of hair offering, one for the Argive river Inakhos, and the other for Agamemnon’s tomb: “ a lock of hair to Inachus in recompense for my nurture, and this second lock as a mourning-tribute .” (Aeschylus Libation Bearers, 6–7, trans., Alan H. Sommerstein). Euripides in the Hippolytus instead merges mourning and maturation, when Artemis refers to Hippolytus’ tomb cult in Troezon: “Unmarried girls before their marriage will cut their hair for you, and over the length of ages you will harvest the deep mourning of their tears” (1425–1427, trans., David Kovacs). 55 Human hair described with the term aparchesthai: Eur. El. 91. See Jim 2011 and 2014, 34–35. 56 Jim 2011, 46. On other interpretations of hair-cutting, see Leitao 2003. Later on, during the Hellenistic and Roman period, epigraphic and literary testimony mention the dedication and display of actual hair in sanctuaries, and votives that replicated hair in stone and terracotta were also used. For example, in the 2nd century CE Pausanias (2.11.6–7) saw a statue of Hygeia near Sikyon completely covered in locks of dedicated hair; as Petsalis-Diomidis (2016, 52) stresses, “an actual part of the pilgrim’s body was left touching the cult statue.” See also Draycott 2017, 82–86. There is no clear evidence for the practice of draping cult statues with hair in earlier periods, however. 57 For funerary accompaniment sacrifices, see Schwartz 2012. 58 Euripides, Hippolytus 513–515. δεῖ δ᾽ ἐξ ἐκείνου δή τι τοῦ ποθουμένου σημεῖον, ἢ πλόκον τιν᾽ ἢ πέπλων ἄπο, λαβεῖν, συνάψαι τ᾽ ἐκ δυοῖν μίαν χάριν. “We must get some token from the man you love, a lock of hair or a piece of clothing, then compound from the twain a single blessing,” trans., David Kovacs. 59 Faraone 1999, 8; Wilburn 2019, 463. Although functioning as a later technical term, ousia derives from the verb ‘to be;’ the overlap between these human es­ sences and the concept of parousia is suggestive. Archeological remains provide further evidence about the use of hair in Greek magical activities. In a re­ markable case dating to the 3rd century CE in Athens, a lead katadesmos was rolled around a mass of dark hair belonging to the intended victim Tyche; impressions of the hair and several actual strands were preserved ( Jordan 1985, 251). 60 Semiotic treatments include Graf (1997, 140) and Haluszka (2008, 487–488). 61 Wilburn 2019, 461. 62 Wilburn 2019, 462.

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Media of Presence For fuller bibliographies, see Faraone (1993) and Wilburn (2019). SEG IX 3. Trans. A. J. Graham 1983, 226. Edmonds 2019, 66–68. See above, p. 117 and n. 25. Pages from the previous chapter 4, pp. 101-102. Wilburn 2019, 481. Faraone 2017, 2019a, 2019b. In the PGM, much greater attention is often given to iconography, divine form, and motif than we often see in the earlier magical figurines. Keesling 2017, 1. On portraiture during the 4th century and earlier, and for extended bibliography, see Dillon 2006; Schultz and von den Hoff 2007; Arrington 2014, 180–196. On honorary portraits, see Ma (2013) and Tanner (2016). IG II2 3838 = CEG 2 780. For Archaic funerary examples, see Estrin (2016). SEG LIII 210, SEG LVII 197. Bultrighini 2013; Keesling 2017, 78 and n. 79. On “deathless memorials”: Habicht 1998; Castagnoli and Ceccarelli 2019, 21. Vernant 1983, 75–104. Castagnoli and Ceccarelli 2019. Bakker 2002, 68. Bakker 2007, 67. Graf and Johnston 2007, 94–136. In the Odyssey, Tiresias is the rare dead person who can reason and remember his life, thanks to the favor of Persephone (Od. 10.491–495; Bakker 2007, 74–75). The other shades cannot recognize Odysseus without the sacrificial blood (Odysseus’ mother does not know him: Od. 11.138–152). This may allude to a connection between ritual and re­ membering in Archaic eschatology. In an albeit later inscription from Knidos (1st century BCE), the dead Atthis tells her living husband, “I did not drink of the Lethe, daughter of Hades, the final water, so that I might have the con­ solation of you, even among the dead” (trans., Hanink). Accordingly, Atthis, although dead, remembers her life among her loved ones: Hanink 2010. On the difference between Memory in the Gold Tablets and Atthis’ inscription, see especially pp. 29–32. Bakker 2007, 68–73. Iliad 9.646–648. Trans., A.T. Murray (revised by Wyatt). Bakker 2002, 69–70. Burzachechi 1962; Svenbro 1993. Who or what the “I” represents has been a matter of debate, with the “I” often interpreted as a narrator’s voice or a selfrepresentation coded with the force of genre: Day 2000, 44–45. In some ex­ amples, the speaking “object specifies what it consists of,” such as a statue ( Bultrighini 2013, 144 and n. 15) Although Keesling (2003, 16–21) makes a distinction between disjunctive and conjunctive representation and inscriptions when it comes to puzzling out who a statue depicts, for our purposes this distinction has minimal bearing on the agency and personhood afforded the statue by the inscription’s first-person formula. SEG 41, 20. [ ] καὶ βοτõ ν ἐπίσκοπον/[] Λάχες μ᾿ ἱδρύσατο. Parker 1996, 82, n. 61; Petrakos 1993, 30, no. 13. Robb 1994, 59; Svenbro 1993. Day 2000, 52. Day 2000, 44. Kroll 1979. On votive reliefs and divine presence (banqueting heroes), see Klöckner 2010. Saftulis Cave: Orlandos 1965; Kopestonsky 2016, 761–763. Belting (1994, 78–101), in his discussion of painted icons and presence, argues that later icons grew out of older Roman funerary portraits employed in ritual actions.

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His discussion features painted panel portraits. Although his treatment does consider representations of “physical reality” in contrast to idealized re­ presentations, his interest in panel paintings as locations of (deceased) mortal presence in antiquity provides an interesting parallel. Sacrificial procession, Plaque A: Athens, National Archeological Museum 16464. Dancers, Plaque D: Athens, National Archeological Museum 16465. On Epicharinos’ portrait statue, which he dedicated himself on the Akropolis and which is attested epigraphically and in Pausanias, see Keesling (2003, 29). On this point, see also Fullerton (2016, 60–62). Sheila Dillon (2006, 1) problematized this issue in a chapter that she entitled “Facing up to anonymity.” Of a portrait in Naples, she remarks, “the head lacks the one feature most prized by scholars of ancient portraiture: a name … this lack of identity has made this portrait mostly invisible to modern scholars.” Paros, Archeological Museum B 5984. After Lamont 2021, Figs. 2 and 4. Berlin, Altes Museum, Inv. No. SK 1739. Fullerton 2016, 34–35. Keesling (2003, 19) notes that the inscription for the Geneleos votive group follows the “speaking statue” formula, although we see the “speaking object” formula on other votives as well (e.g., the Mantiklos Apollo). Muller (2022, 342) argues that many of the Archaic terracotta figurines found in sanctuaries have been misidentified as divinities, when they instead represent the donor. He argues that these terracottas are “conventional and generic re­ presentations of a particular social identity and familial status.” He briefly de­ scribes them as “substitutes, like avatars, that take the place of the votary in perpetual presence near the divinity and under its direct protection” (342). For terracottas’ emphasis on familial status, see also Salapata (2015). Corinth Museum, MF 11882. Merker 2000, 82, C1. On figurines carrying piglets from the sanctuary, 117–124. This aspect of religious images confounds definitions of portraiture that focus on artistic intent. Arrington (2014a, 181, n. 10), for example, defines portraits as “representations of individuals where the image’s patron or artist intended to signify a specific person.” Peter Schultz and Ralf Von den Hoff’s (2007, 3) definition of portraiture rests foremost on intentionality: “it is the intention on the part of the ancient artist or patron to create a recognizable image of an individual that is of fundamental importance for the identification of a portrait as such.” It should be noted that, for Schultz and Von den Hoff, a portrait “might include a name inscribed on its base, as is the case for many Archaic kouroi and korai” (3). Milette Gaifman (2008, 99) describes them as “visualized rituals.” PetsalisDiomidis (2006, 213) comments that, at pilgrimage sanctuaries, this sort of votive relief “thus evoked not the presence of the god or pilgrim in isolation, but the moment of their miraculous interaction—the climax of the pilgrimage.” Berranger 1983; Larson 2001, 179–181. Athens, National Museum 2756. Ragghianti 1979, 116–118; Purvis 2003, 15–32. The frontal facing, sculptural aspect of the female figure to the right might mimic a topographic monument of some sort. On children reaching for gods and parents, but not making contact, see Chapter 3. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 210. At the same time, she notes “the viewer’s knowl­ edge of the purpose of votive dedications, then, and the multiplicity of images of the god on these offerings, suggests that it was the presence of individual mir­ aculous pilgrimages of the past, rather than the direct presence of the god, that was evoked by this genre of offering.” She also argues for various “levels” of divine presence in sanctuaries, partially articulated by ritual. While genre

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Media of Presence expectations and ritual use certainly impacted viewer responses to votives and cult statues, I consider personal devotional experience to be rather varied. Petsalis-Diomidis 2006, 209. Gaifman (2008, 100), for example, speculates that votive reliefs “asserted the impossibility to perform such rituals constantly and in perpetuity.” Wallensten 2020, 17. As Graziano (2016, 77) says of Mexican images that depict moments of divine intervention and benefaction, there is an “intent to objectify the miracle so that it will endure and be reactivated, in effect, by the perception of devotees who view its representation.” Bakker 2002, 74. Bakker 2002, 74. Indeed, Estrin (2016) makes a similar argument for Archaic funerary “memorials” that invoke physical and emotional responses in viewers. As Elsner (2007, 42–44) emphasizes, in Pausanias’ description, the Orneaians could no longer perform their promised daily sacrifices to Apollo, and set up the sculpture to perform the sacrifices for them. He argues, “so far as the god was concerned—it was the sacrifice and procession” (43). Unfortunately, despite Pausanias’ fascinating story, we do not have evidence contemporary with the dedication to explain the Orneaians rationale in presenting it. Waller 2015, 267. Faraone 2018, Fig. 4.8. Frankfurter 2017b. See above, p. 117. As Gaifman and Platt (2018, 13) describe the Phrasikleia Kore. PetsalisDiomidis (2018, 456) notes that at Brauron “both reliefs and statues of children memorialized and therefore recalled the physical presence of absent dedicants.” Paus.10.18.5: ἀναθεῖναι τῷ θεῷ θυσίαν τε καὶ πομπὴν χαλκᾶ ποιήματα. The date of this monument is not clear, given that it is not extant. Michael Scott (2010, 139–140), following Anne Jacquemin, follows the later Hellenistic pos­ sibility, suggesting that the Hellenistic monument was archaizing in style. Gaifman (2008, 100) mentions this example when considering votives’ ability to continually enact ritual. See also Elsner (2007, 42–44) for further discussion. Courby 1927, 284–286; Kroll 1979, 351. Rutherford 2000. Orsi 2016, 43.

6

Bringing It All Together: Religion and the Seafaring Life

With their wooden oars and woven sails, Archaic Greek ships bore people and cargo along the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, putting into port at distant towns and natural waypoints. During the 9th and 8th centuries, Phoenician, and then Greek, maritime interactions evolved at colonies, trading centers, and with smaller groups who settled amid local populations. The late 7th and 6th century BCE saw robust Greek sea travel and the increased establishment of international emporia and harbor towns, as well as the monumentalization of many multiethnic, hybrid centers.1 It is at this time, as we will see, that far-flung communities were linked not only by economic and political networks, but also by social and religious bonds. In this chapter, we turn to the Archaic Greek maritime community, but rather than outlining the large-scale patterns and historical developments common to the period, my target is the assorted experiences of individuals, whenever possible to reconstruct and in keeping with my approach throughout this book. Personal experience can be especially highlighted by looking to lived religious practices in daily life. Greek mariners, traders, and travelers lived quite differently from the other personalities that we have discussed so far; this was a community whose days were particularly marked by mobility, uncertainty, and vulnerability. The significance of religion in such a milieu cannot be overstated. This book began with the Archaic shrines at Gravisca, a settlement on the coastal lagoon just down from the Etruscan hilltop town of Tarquinia. In this final chapter, we return to that Greek emporion and others like it, in an effort to probe the lived religious experience of sailors and merchants. Today the study of maritime religion is undergoing something of a re­ naissance, and over the last two decades, the topic and its many ancient communities and sites have garnered increased scholarly attention.2 This chapter adds to the literature by reconstructing how some mariners and traders engaged with religious ideas and practices in their daily lives. As such, I show how inquiry into seafarers can contribute to the study of lived religious experience in Greek communities. Rather than an exhaustive overview, I draw together examples that parallel some of the points dis­ cussed previously; this allows us to reflect more holistically on several of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-6

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themes already addressed: the divine in everyday life, media of presence within the sanctuary and outside it, lifelong religious practice and the con­ ditioning impact of material culture, and self-made, accessible offerings. Although we begin with Gravisca and Naukratis, l branch out to other areas as necessary, such as the Black Sea and Ionia; much of the evidence dis­ cussed will cluster in the 6th century BCE, although I occasionally make forays into the decades just before and after.

Gravisca When Greek visitors established the shrine to Aphrodite not long after 600 BCE, the spot on the lagoon’s shore had little else occupying it.3 It was an ideal location for sea traders to access the Tarquinian population who lived further inland and who had permitted the visitors to establish a trading port there. This emporion (ἐμπόριον), or commercial settlement meant to foster cross-cultural trade,4 also met the religious needs of the Greeks stopping there; these included Samians, Aeginitans, and Ionians (Fig. 6.1).5 In the early part of the 6th century the Greeks constructed a small shrine to Aphrodite (Fig. 6.2). Excavators found inscriptions referring to the goddess clustered at this building and its successor (Fig. 6.1: edificio gamma, room I). The numerous stone anchors deposited there allude to her role as a navigational goddess, and Aphrodite’s protection of seafarers is otherwise well-attested.6 By the mid-6th century, the Greeks at Gravisca had built additional shrines for Hera, Apollo, and Demeter. The local Etruscans were also active at the site, making offerings to Turan (their equivalent to Aphrodite) and some of the other gods, as well as setting up their own shrines to the north. Sometime around 550 BCE, a man named Zoilos dedicated a ceramic of­ fering at Gravisca. He inscribed his name in the Ionian alphabet on an Attic vessel type produced between 550 and 530 BCE, the Little Master cup.7 We can say little about Zoilos, other than that he was Greek and, assuming he inscribed the vessel himself, he had learned to write using an Ionian script. Archeologists working at the emporion of Naukratis in Egypt found offerings there also marked with Zoilos’ name dating to around 570–560 BCE (Fig. 6.3),8 including several from the temenos of Aphrodite. In all likelihood these belonged to the same trader, making successive offerings in two im­ portant emporia; this possibility is supported by other personal names shared between the sites, such as one Hyblesios, who made offerings to Hera at both Gravisca and Naukratis.9 At Naukratis Zoilos’ name appears pre-painted on pottery made on Chios, allowing us to trace this trader to a third location.10 Assuming he purchased the vessels himself on the island, and presented the ceramic gifts to the goddess himself at both shrines, then we can follow him from Chios to Naukratis, and a few years later to Gravisca. Zoilos and Hyblesios’ offerings reinforce the mobility of early seafarers and the material mark they left across landscapes and seascapes; these fragmentary vessels provide a glimpse at their religious practices undertaken

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Figure 6.1 Plan of Etruscan shrine cluster (santuario settentrionale) and Greek shrine cluster (santuario meridionale), at Gravisca. Based on Fiorini 2014, 43.

while in port and their visits to sanctuaries in different parts of the Mediterranean. In fact, by looking to other sites and sources, we can po­ tentially learn more about these individuals, together with their fellow mariners.

Naukratis Archeologists have long noted the connections between Gravisca and the shrine foundation which occurred at Naukratis in Egypt (Fig. 6.4), an

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Figure 6.2 A reconstruction of the Aphrodite shrine at Gravisca, during the early 6th century. After Fiorini 2014, 34.

Figure 6.3 Chian mesomphalos phiale in the Simple Animal Style, pre-painted with a dedication from Zoi(i)los. From Naukratis, around 570–560 BCE. © Trustees of the British Museum.

emporion and polis settled in the late 7th century, thanks to the permission of a pharaoh during the Early Saite period.11 As far as we know at the mo­ ment, one of its earliest Greek shrines was a small structure similar in size and shape to Gravisca’s earliest temple, although its footprint near the Nile is poorly preserved; the votives indicate it was a shrine to Aphrodite and was

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Figure 6.4 Plan of Naukratis. Based on Villing 2019, Fig. 10.

in use by 600 BCE.12 Greeks from a number of city-states used this com­ mercial settlement, as verified by Greek and Egyptian textual sources and a rich archeological record. Carolina López-Ruiz characterizes the site as one of several Mediterranean “ethnically mixed settlements dominated by [the]

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local culture.” Indeed, recent research supports the major Egyptian presence at Naukratis.13 Of particular interest are the numerous shrines established by Greek traders from the different poleis who had a hand in the Naukratis emporion. According to Herodotos, the Pharaoh Amasis permitted a joint shrine for use by Greeks from nine city-states whose people were present in the em­ porion, called the Hellenion.14 The name suggests that the temenos was os­ tensibly intended for Greek use, as opposed to the local Egyptians. That the Greeks too felt a civic component in their own religious affiliations can be seen by the other shrines dedicated there by three major trading commu­ nities in the late 7th century—Aegina for Zeus, Samos for Hera, and Miletos for Apollo.15

Lived religion at sea and port Greek diversity at trading centers such as Gravisca and Naukratis is well documented, with merchants, sailors, and settlers coming from different poleis and regions all interacting in a local setting.16 Denise Demetriou has argued that at such emporia the dedicatory practices of Greeks abroad expressed civic identity within a cosmopolitan environment, amidst nonGreek populations or Greeks from other poleis.17 This revision of the polis-religion model accounts for the importance of civic identity among Greeks who saw their primary identity as tied to their city rather than an overarching concept of Hellenicity. That the concept of “Greekness” si­ multaneously could be associated with religious cults, however, may be attested by the Hellenion, although it is difficult to determine how wor­ shippers on the ground felt about the issue.18 One can imagine that shared language and familiar gods would have eased Greeks visiting non-Greek territories, despite tensions that might otherwise exist between Hellenic city-states. People’s interactions with the gods would have been shaped by these matters of identity in foreign lands.19 An argument that I presented in Chapter 3 holds true at these sites as well: past religious behavior strongly influenced one’s lifelong practices and fa­ miliarity tendered affective force. For example, Hyblesios, possibly from Samos where that name was especially popular, dedicated pottery to Hera at both Naukratis and Gravisca.20 Demetriou says “giving offerings to Hera, the most prominent divinity on Samos, both in Naukratis and Gravisca, was probably a way for Samian traders, such as Hyblesios, to express their civic identity.”21 While I agree on this point, there was another consequence to finding a far-distant shrine set up for the goddess of one’s home city. Hyblesios, as a (probable) Samian, no doubt worshiped the goddess back at the Samian Heraion, with its hand-carved wooden offerings discussed in Chapter 2.22 Because the Samians had built a shrine for Hera at Naukratis, Hyblesios was able to continue his relationship with her in this non-Greek territory. The shrine became a little slice of home—of Samos—beside the

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Egyptian Nile. Sanctuaries such as Perachora abundantly show that Hera was important in the lives of sailors and traders around the Greek world, but establishing a Samian shrine in non-Samian (and non-Greek) territory added an additional layer to the religious context. There was, in effect, a religious bond between Samos and Naukratis, and Hera’s space was re­ affirmed at both places. Before embarking on ship from their island, these men already recognized their particular Hera, the Samian Hera. Whether Hyblesios settled in the Naukratite emporion permanently or simply made periodic stops during the sailing season, worshiping the goddess there strengthened his lifelong connection to her.23 Her shrine in Egypt would have provided comfort for a trader far from home. Not all meaningful shrines need be visited, however. For many mar­ iners, seaward sanctuaries and religious spots also served as navigational aides and waypoints, visible from the water. Christopher Parmenter notes the importance of the “tightly-knit series of sacred landmarks along the prevailing sea routes that guided merchants on voyages.”24 We will touch on shrines of this sort momentarily, including some in the Olbian region.25 Lana Radloff has stressed the role of shrines as navigational guides for ships approaching Miletos, including the prominent archaic sanctuary of Aphrodite along the strait towards the harbor.26 The goddess’ temenoi and temples were important visual markers and waypoints throughout the Archaic period and across the Mediterranean, as recent research shows.27 The function of this navigational aspect was distinct from that of those gods and heroes who might disperse storms, calm waves, or deliver people from dangers of both human and monstrous origin. Many sacred figures, however, shared these protective and navigational features, Aphrodite included. That the gods might contribute to both human safety and economic prosperity comes as no surprise, given how closely these facets were in­ tertwined for Archaic mariners.28 In Herodotos’ telling, cult foundations were central to Greek Naukratis’ earliest history. Sanctuaries un­ questionably served an economic function in home territories, and Robinson Kramer argues that the foundation of shrines was a crucial aspect of trade policy for Greeks in foreign lands.29 López-Ruiz, in an analysis of Mediterranean connectivity and Phoenician and Greek en­ tanglement abroad, stresses that “the basic link between sanctuaries and trading routes was a constant in all periods.”30 As was frequent practice in poleis around the Mediterranean, traders and mariners made aparche (ἀπαρχή) and dekate (δεκάτη) offerings (first-fruits and tithes) after suc­ cessful endeavors and voyages.31 It is likely that some of the offerings at Gravisca and Naukratis were gifts of the sort. It must have seemed doubly important given the opportunities for misfortune indelible to sea travel and trade, when disaster could absolutely destroy one’s economic stability and literally sink a person’s wealth. For example, Herodotos recounts that after a Samian ship was blown off course (but landed safely), the captain

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and sailors offered a dekate from that journey’s profit.32 Failed ventures due to natural disasters or human intervention such as piracy were always a risk, and there was a very real possibility that one could be sold into slavery after an accident in distant territories, as the 6th-century poet Hipponax imagines for an unfortunate Greek sailor enslaved after washing ashore.33 Concomitant with the extreme uncertainty of life at sea, the reversal of one’s fortunes could be both sudden and absolute, a fact was made abundantly clear throughout Homer’s Odyssey. Esther Eidinow has argued that ancient Greeks “focus[ed] their anxiety about the uncertain future on specific situations in their lives, situations that were felt to present significant potential for great danger or opportunity.”34 This pairing of potential disaster (even death) on the one hand, and ad­ venture and economic triumph on the other, fits well with the anxieties evident in the interactions that Archaic mariners and sea travelers had with divine forces. The upheaval caused by shipwrecks could have surprising results for those on land, however. In a letter scratched onto a sherd around 500 BCE, a priest at Borysthenes on the north coast of the Black Sea wrote to another at nearby Olbia describing misfortunes that had befallen the adjacent sanctuaries and properties after a disaster of unspecified nature (Fig. 6.5).35

Figure 6.5 Priest’s Letter incised on a pottery sherd. Vessel dating to 550–530 BCE, text added around 500 BCE. Olbia. After Dana 2021, Pl. 28.

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I am sending to the agonothetes honey and a ram … as you request … (I have inspected?) all the places made by the gods … because, following an excessive fasting, Hirophos was ill … rightly so. In the Chalkeie the women (are in great?) … Thence (I moved) towards Hylaie … the altars have again been damaged … of the Mother of the Gods and Borysthenes and Herakles … after the shipwreck the slaves have run away (?) … (only) the sacred slave of Metrophanes was left in the religious service … of the pines and (?) of the (?other) trees two hundred (had been damaged?) the hunters of the horses have found with many dangers … Provided that this cautious translation is correct, then the letter presents an absolutely fascinating look at lived religion in the region of Olbia: overzealous fasting, the inspection of shrines after a disaster, and the ordeals of the en­ slaved.36 We also learn that, according to the official from Borysthenes, the sanctuaries’ recovery and the maintenance of rituals was not helped by a shipwreck. The details of the wreck are unknown, but it seems that among the survivors were a group of enslaved people who saw the disaster as a lucky chance to make a run for it. The only one left behind was Metrophanes’ sacred slave [ἱρὸς], thereafter able to continue his religious duties (τῇ ἱρουργίηι). It may be that the religious services at these shrines, already interrupted by damage, underwent further disruption due to the flight of the other slaves. For the ones who escaped, however, the shipwreck was a blessing. Historically, slaves were bought and sold at Borysthenes, including a man named Phaylles who, after being sold there, was sent by ship down the coast to Phanagoria.37 Whether the enslaved people onboard ship in the Priest’s Letter were under­ going something similar is unclear. Their reversal of fortune stands in oppo­ sition to that described by Hipponax, when a sea disaster led to a forlorn sailor becoming enslaved (fr. 115 W); rather than a poetic fall into slavery, during this historical moment at Borysthenes, the survivors moved from slavery into freedom. For most, however, shipwrecks were terrifying possibilities, and thus di­ vine protection was especially important. The 6th-century poet Aristeas, whom Herodotos (4.11) cites as one of his major sources for the Black Sea region, evocatively describes in his Arimaspeia the way mariners might be imagined seeking divine favor on the dangerous waters:38 They have their eyes on the stars, but heart in the sea. Often holding their hands up to the gods, they pray for their churning guts. In this evocative, nearly sublime, picture of mariners, Aristeas conveys the helplessness that men could feel on ship, caught between the stars and the deep.39 The sailors’ terrifying situation is a moment of high emotion, and the poem’s description accentuates the role of the hands as a link between heavenly gods and the plight of mortals. We have had occasion to comment

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on the symbolic and haptic significance of hands throughout earlier chap­ ters; because the full poem no longer survives, however, we will never know if Aristeas’ gods reached back. I take the last phrase to refer to sea sickness (σπλάγχνοισι κακῶς ἀναβαλλομένοισι): unquestionably unpleasant, but also life-threatening if it prevented sailors from seeing to their ships. In these lines, the desperate mariners seek a sort of healing: the calming of stomachs and the alleviation of physical distress. Once more, we find the works of the gods potentially made manifest in the bodies of their followers, as elaborated in Chapter 4. Though not stated, the implication is that the gods’ aid not only ended extreme discomfort but consequently saved lives. This interpretation of the phrase is supported by a story told by Polycharmos, a historian of probable Hellenistic date who relates a tradition about the city’s early cults. While the original source for the story is un­ known (if one existed), Polycharmos describes Aphrodite’s presence at sea and her curing of sea sickness:40 Our fellow-citizen Herostratus, who was involved in trade and sailed to various places, put in at one point to Paphos on Cyprus, where he purchased a small statue of Aphrodite that was less than a foot tall and of archaic workmanship, and headed off to Naukratis with it. As he was approaching Egypt, a sudden storm hit; since it was impossible to tell where they were, they all fled to the statue of Aphrodite and begged her to protect them. The goddess—who was well-disposed to the inhabi­ tants of Naukratis—immediately filled all the vessels that had been set before her with fresh myrtle, and the entire ship with a delicious scent, even though everyone on board had given up any hope of surviving, because they were so seasick (διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ναυτίαν), and there was a great deal of vomiting (γενομένου τε ἐμέτου πολλοῦ). The sun came out, and they spotted the harbor basin and arrived in Naukratis. Here Aphrodite exerts her power in the storm itself (namely, its clearing), but also in the very bodies of her followers whose sickness abates thanks to a heavenly smell. Her presence, too, was epiphanically revealed by the portable statue. Both Aristeas’ and Polycharmos’ stories show mariners’ supplicating divine powers during moments of extreme vulnerability: one group prays to the gods in the heavens, which contrasts with the supplica­ tion of a physically present statuette. Indeed, the actions of Herostratos’ crew in many ways mimicked the supplication of a divinity’s cult statue in a temple.41 In both these literary depictions, too, the people on board ship were bound by harrowing incidents and a mutual seeking for the gods. While we have encountered people at sanctuaries linked to others through worship, either while physically present or embodied by the dedications they had left behind, these shipboard moments of terror and deliverance were especially powerful shared experiences.

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Without doubt gods in the Archaic period could be quite terrifying and unsympathetic, ignoring appeals and unleashing their destructive powers on hapless mortals.42 For some lucky individuals, as we have seen, supernatural forces might provide a shield during moments of crisis. We also know that close relationships between worshippers and their gods already existed in the Archaic period.43 The works of Homer and Pindar, for example, illustrate the fondness possible between gods, heroes, and singular mortals. Sappho, too, constructs a highly affectionate and easy relationship between herself and Aphrodite; the goddess is conspicuously present for Sappho on repeated occasions. As Laura Swift observes, the 6th-century poet “styles herself as Aphrodite’s favorite,” Aphrodite “acts as a confidante” and there is a re­ markable “sense of alliance” between them.44 Much as we observed in earlier chapters, the gods were present to their sea-faring followers in suc­ cesses (or failures), corporally within mortal bodies, discernable in epiphanic encounters and within the natural elements, and, of course, in lifelong re­ lationships. Supernatural forces could also be manifest for mariners in the form of protective imagery. Chris Faraone has suggested that some amuletic ico­ nography and historiolae documented in later textual sources probably functioned in a similar way during the Archaic period, such as scenes of Herakles fighting a lion (Fig. 5.2).45 Later texts indicate that amulets pro­ tected mariners, and some drew on Poseidon’s power to prevent storms and disaster on the water, but our evidence is scanty for similar Greek maritime strategies in the 6th century.46 Animals associated with sea powers, such as hippocamps and dolphins, did illustrate carved gems in the Archaic period and after, though it is not apparent whether the sea creatures referred to specific divinities or independently possessed any amuletic efficacy.47 In the 4th century, however, dolphins were indeed attached to amulet strings; several such strings were buried with the deceased in the 4th century and were illustrated on Attic pottery.48 For our purposes, a 6th century BCE graffito from Attica provides more pertinent evidence for mariners’ prac­ tices: carved into a stone outcropping, the grafitto shows a warship with a dolphin device illustrated near its prow, where sometimes the apotropaic eye is located (Fig. 6.6, A).49 Given the dolphin’s position, we can be fairly confident that the dolphin indeed functioned apotropaically, meant to protect the ship from a variety of disasters on the water; the device is also charmingly tongue-in-cheek, given that dolphins in the Mediterranean often leapt along at the prows of ships and, as another safeguard, the animals were thought to be saviors of drowning sailors.50 If some of these hull designs were painted on, not simply attached (as was the case with marble eyes), there was a haptic component for any sailor tasked with updating the paint. For them, “making” religion included the creation of efficacious re­ presentations. Although the visual evidence is sparse, we can infer that imagery associated with sea powers might protect ships, and therefore sailors, from harm at sea during the 6th century.

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Figure 6.6 Panel of various stone-carved graffiti, including a warship with dolphin at the prow (A). 6th century BCE. Mt. Hymettos, Attica. After Van de Moortel and Langdon 2017, Fig. 5.

Sanctuary space and offerings The ship deck, of course, could also be the site of ritual performances and offerings. We have already mentioned prayer and the supplication of a goddess’ figurine. Although captains might ask for divine oversight before departure or give thanks immediately when stepping on land (as Odysseus does), Pindar portrays Jason as a ship’s captain making a libation at the stern and praying for good favor, calm weather, and success.51 Archeological evidence may confirm this habit: isolated assemblages of cups unaffiliated with wrecks have been found by underwater archeologists.52 Although they date to the Hellenistic period, their use must reflect the kind of activity found in Pindar’s early Classical poem. If these cups were indeed used for libations and prayers, rather than leaving the ceramic vessel in a god or hero’s temenos, in this case the ritual item and offering were consigned to the sea itself. These examples indicate that, in the 6th and 5th centuries, sailors and captains could appropriate and modify rituals and religious ideas away from land as needed. Let us move from the ship back to sanctuaries on solid ground, and the items presented there. Evidently, offerings could be purchased or commis­ sioned at one location in anticipation of their dedication in a far-distant sanctuary. Zoilos, for example, commissioned dedicatory dipinti on Chian cups to be dedicated at Naukratis (Fig. 6.3). While we cannot fully reconstruct his reasons for doing so, we might assume that in part he hoped to honor the gods after a safe and successful endeavor. Dyfri Williams comments that, when it came to votives commissioned prior to departure, “by reason of the unpredictability of travel, especially by sea, their offerings serv[ed] as relatively inexpensive insurance policies.”53 In addition to pottery and other standard

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Figure 6.7 Wooden model in the shape of a merchant vessel, dedicated at the sanctuary of Hera on Samos, mid-7th century. Keel attached to hull by dowels. After Ohly 1953, Fig. 31.

votive types, seafarers and traders also dedicated artifacts that specifically referenced the sea, such as anchors or model ships. In some cases, grateful travelers could easily make model ships themselves, especially when carved out of wood into the shape of simple boats. Such was likely the case, as I argued in Chapter 2, at Hera’s sanctuary on Samos, where the damp soil preserved modest, narrow boat models carved from single blocks of wood (fig. 2.9).54 Paul Johnston documented 30 total preserved ship models found in Archaic votive contexts, but the vast majority represented warships, perhaps dedicated by sailors or marines.55 He identifies a single wooden example from the Heraion on Samos as a merchant vessel due to the shape of the hull (Fig. 6.7),56 although in my view it is likely that other wooden merchant ship models dedicated across the Mediterranean and Black Sea simply do not survive.57 It is also probable that the form of the vessel need not always visually replicate the dedicator’s own ship. More rudimentary ship representations have been found in the area of Olbia on the northern coast of the Black Sea, where discs made from pottery fragments were dedicated to Achilles at Borysthenes and Cape Beikuš; the hero is known to have protected ships and sea travelers in the region. The dedicators scratched a number of images onto the ceramic surfaces, such as snakes, branches, hoplites, and, of course, ships (Fig. 6.8).58 Excavators have found this sort of offering, made from reused material and simple incised graffiti, at other sites in Greece, including Athens.59 Like the carved wooden boats or vegetal wreaths that we touched on in Chapter 2, these graffiti fragments were easy to create on one’s own and were made using an abundant and readily available material. As basic as these little sketches were, they were intimately tied to the hands of their dedicators. They attest to the real desire to leave some self-made mark for the gods and heroes in their shrines, but also the intent to join companions (and predecessors) in a shared experience: the distinctive, creative graffitimaking tradition at the sanctuary. A visitor could copy the branches and arrows scratched by his friends or be a bit more inspired, as was the person who sketched a hoplite on an offering for Achilles (Fig. 6.9).60

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Figure 6.8 Ceramic fragment incised with a ship, found at the Cape Beikuš Achilles shrine. 6th century BCE. After Bujskich 2006, Plate 34.17.

Figure 6.9 Ceramic disc made from broken pottery, incised with a hoplite and dedication to Achilles. From Complex N.2 at the Achilles shrine at Cape Beikuš. 6th century BCE. After Bujskich 2006, Pl. 36.1.

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Although some traders and sea travelers may have undertaken only oc­ casional forays to distant sites and sacred spaces, for ship captains, traders, sailors, and other travelers, life at sea and visits to harbor towns and sanctuaries were a regular aspect of daily life. Undoubtedly some people made extensive stays or settled and intermarried permanently, but, for active traders, the visits would have been relatively short. According to a customs account dating to 475 BCE, Greek (and Phoenician) ships arriving in an unnamed Egyptian port often spent less than two weeks onshore before departing for their next port of call. According to the papyrus, Iokles’ vessel, which spent less than 8 days in port, was one of several to arrive from East Greece. Glaphyros and his ship managed to arrive twice in the same sailing season, before departing again with a hold full of natron.61 Visits to shrines to thank divinities for safety and success, and to leave offerings like those just mentioned, would have occurred within this brief window of time. During their short visits onshore, it is likely mariners felt emotional re­ sponses thanks to familiar images, objects, and sanctuary settings, which likely possessed reassuring qualities for them. Like a woman walking past the shrines in Corinth or a father visiting locales around Metapontion, mariners must have been heartened by regular stops at familiar harbor shrines and sacred locales. Perhaps the ship captains Iokles and Glaphyros only went to harbor shrines as part of a pragmatic search for safety and success, and because they were expected by others to do so. Our evidence shows that a more personally consequential justification was also possible. The affective quality of these visits and the phenomenological impact of the spaces would have been amplified because of the highly dangerous nature of sea travel and the probability of close calls along the way. Furthermore, it would not be amiss to speculate that the eminently recognizable features of these sanctuaries’ buildings and artifacts would have had something of the comfort of home for Samians or Aeginitans far from their poleis. The small mudbrick building dedicated to Aphrodite at Gravisca must have had more in common with its mudbrick compatriot at Naukratis than with Tarquinia’s podium temple up the hill (Ara della Regina)62 or the Egyptian temenos of the ram-headed Amun-Ra next door at Naukratis.63 In fact, both of these Greek Aphrodite shrines stood close by to non-Greek religious spaces (the Great Temenos of Amun-Ra and Gravisca’s northern shrines), with the result that physical proximity could not help but highlight the differences in religious practices, artifacts, and visiting worshipers. In these cases, the religious idioms and votive types became meaningful, not simply through regular and repeated visits to those shrines, but also due to the cultural awareness that must have been more starkly underscored by the non-Greek character of the surrounding area. In 1994, Christopher Tilley described the phenomenological relationship between landscape, constructed monuments, and lived experience: “the ex­ perience of space is always shot through with temporalities, as spaces are always created, reproduced and transformed in relation to previously

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constructed spaces provided and established from the past. Spaces are in­ timately related to the formation of biographies and social relationships.”64 Tilley’s observations apply here as well: they underline the movement from one shrine to the next, both within the same emporion, but also at multiple stopping points along a sea voyage, or simply while watching from the deck. It should be remembered, too, that the “social relationships” Tilley mentions in our case included those built between deities and their worshippers (to­ gether with other worshippers). For Hyblesios or Glaphyros, their days were conditioned by their surroundings when they periodically visited crowded ports, customs buildings, storage facilities to acquire their next haul, shops to purchase votives, and, of course, shrines to offer thanks or pray for un­ certain futures.65 The natural and built environment of sanctuaries and the repeated journeys that ended there influenced memories and perceptions of religious events over the course of life. Wrapping up Archeological, epigraphical, and literary evidence preserves remarkable details about the personal religious experience of Archaic maritime com­ munities. Here in the late 7th, 6th, and early 5th centuries, we see how the realities of daily life shaped interactions with the gods and the supernatural. Researchers’ emphasis on polis institutions, social groups, or guidelines for sacred spaces on their own cannot fully account for the religious worlds of these seafarers. Religion was more than a cultural system of symbols or a series of ritual performances, only to be found at community festivals or standing before a god’s altar. Instead, for our mariners, it was the nervous prayers on deck when the wind began to whip, scrabbling about to find pottery fragments for sketching a picture of Achilles, dutifully maintaining the painted dolphin near the ship’s ram or checking on the marble eyes nailed to the prow. It was the sick relief and gratitude after being delivered from a brush with slavers, or the financial triumph shared with Hera thanks to a hold emptied of its natron. It ran the gamut from routine and mundane to heightened and extraordinary, solitary or shared. This was religion-inaction, religion as lived day in and day out. The distinctive circumstances of mariners meant that their religious ex­ perience in some ways differed from those of the people that we have pre­ viously encountered. As noted in the first chapter, for most people in the ancient world, “life was hard, unfair, and often short.”66 But for sailors and sea travelers, life held a special degree of danger and risk. In addition to the very real possibility of injury, enslavement, and economic catastrophe, natural disasters and death were constant hazards at sea. Although not a major part of my discussion, the Greeks likewise associated the sea with monsters, angry spirits and deities, and a variety of existential crises.67 Back on land, multiethnic ports and trading towns were filled with languages, peoples, and customs, and in many such locations, visiting sailors would not

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be part of the dominant population. Being a stranger and surrounded by strangers—yet another theme driven home by the Odyssey. For a sailor or trader, it may have been a life of adventure and possibility, but it was also a life of extreme peril. This meant that the religious strategies and experiences of daily life were particular to the maritime environment. Given their mobility and the uneven archeological records along the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, tracing the life histories of traders and travelers-by-sea has not been without its challenges. If we can track people at multiple sites, however, we can begin to reconstruct their visits to particular built environments, their engagement with local cultural situations, and, of course, their histories in specific cults. In some cases, prosopography makes it possible to investigate places of origin, and thus to speculate about a person’s religious background in their home territory, as I did with Hyblesios. Considering the particulars of crossing the land- and seascape, and drawing on what we know about maritime practices, allows us to reconstitute some of the temporal and spatial facets of personal biography. Most details of the first-person-point of view may be lost, but it is nevertheless possible to get a bit closer to these real individuals. Seafarers did not engage with the gods on their own, of course. Religious practices and imaginaries may have helped them navigate daily life, but in so doing people also reacted to their shipmates, their harbor communities, and religious officials at the various sanctuaries. Yet, like many of the in­ dividuals that we have met throughout this book, mariners were capable of acting with agency, appropriating, selectively engaging, or discarding specific religious strategies and expectations. In the living religion that we have observed over the course of this book, one might choose to: visit the Samian Hera in Naukratis rather than the Milesian Apollo next door, em­ ploy the most-convincing ritual means to scare off an elasteros, leave at the corner shrine a generic terracotta portrait the same as grandma’s, or pur­ chase a ring carved with Herakles to keep the favorite hero physically close. While religious behavior was strongly dictated by family, friends, and fellow worshipers, people still found room to interpret, challenge, or creatively apply religious ideas and alternatives to their own situations. In this last chapter, I purposefully selected examples that paralleled the situations analyzed earlier in this book. As such, it was not possible to provide a more sweeping overview of Archaic maritime religious practices. Instead, some of the tendencies in Greek lived religion found at other times and places can be observed here in 7th- and 6th-century nautical contexts. Making a reappearance in this chapter were self-made offerings, the role of personal biography in conditioning religious experience, the many ways gods and supernatural forces permeated daily life, and how people might prefer, interpret, or arrange media of presence. In the brief epilogue that follows, I will outline some of the implications of this study and proposals for going forward.

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Notes 1 For international interactions in the Iron Age and Archaic Mediterranean, see especially López-Ruiz (2021), with additional bibliography below. Malkin (2011) considers similar networks in the Greek world, but with a special interest in re­ ligion. I thank Christopher Parmenter for discussions and insights related to the material in this chapter. 2 Romero Recio 2000; Neilson 2003; Brody 2008; Fenet 2016; Jim 2022, 86–93. Further bibliography included below. See also the abstracts from the 2022 con­ ference Sailing with the Gods: Religion and Maritime Mobility in the Ancient World (Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions), which will appear later in publication. 3 The literature on Gravisca is extensive, so I offer only limited sources here. Additional references are listed below when relevant. Torelli 1977; 1982; Fiorini 2005; Haack 2007; Fiorini and Torelli 2010; Bagnasco Gianni and Fiorini 2018, 385; Demetriou 2012, 64–104. 4 Following Demetriou’s definition (2012, 19). 5 Torelli (2019) also argues that the Phokaians played a major role in the early history of the site because of the appearance of the appropriate ceramic styles, but its Phokaian presence is not completely assured. 6 Stone anchors: Demetriou 2017, 57–59. Aphrodite as a goddess of sea-faring and navigation: Demetriou 2010; Papadopoulou 2010; Eckert 2016; Daniels 2018; Brown and Smith 2019; Nigro 2019; Oliveri 2019; Torelli 2019. 7 Tarquinia, Archeological Museum, inv. II.15335. Johnston 2000, no. 83 and p. 21, 26; Demetriou 2012, 81. 8 London, British Museum 1888,0601.159 and 1924,1201.863. 9 Whether the Zoilos at Gravisca is the same as the one at Naukratis is a matter of some debate. The name is fairly common and can be linked to a variety of locations but especially Samos. Johnston (2000, 21, no. 83) suggests that the Graviscan Zoilos may be a generation later. Given the dates, Demetriou (2012, 81) considers it within the realm of feasibility that they are the same man making dedications over an extended period. Hyblesios: Torelli 1982; Johnston 2013, 50–51; Demetriou 2017, 56. See below for more on Hyblesios. 10 Zoilos’ name appears on 14 pre-painted Chian ware vessels at Naukratis, and incised on four other vessels: Johnston 2013, 42. See also Demetriou 2012, n. 78. Typically, pre-painted names on this sort of Chian ware were dedicatory in nature. One of the incised vessels is an East Greek Little Master cup (1888,0601.247). Chian pottery found at Naukratis: Williams 2013. 11 Summary of the recent field seasons which have worked to understand the early chronology of the site: Thomas 2015; Villing 2017. Restudy of the previously dedicated material has also helped to pinpoint the dates of early artifacts: Villing et al. 2013–2020. Villing (2019) discusses lived religious experience at Naukratis; she focuses on the economic position of sanctuaries and religious interactions between Greeks, Egyptians, and other groups. 12 Recent research and conclusions about the sanctuaries can be found in Villing (2019, 226–228). Torelli (2019) discusses the relationship between Naukratis’ and Gravisca’s Aphrodite shrines. Dedications to Aphrodite at Naukratis: Williams 2015. 13 López-Ruiz 2021, 34, 35. On Naukratis as an Egyptian town, see the sources in n. 11 above. 14 Herodotos 2.178. Although a structure at Naukratis had been tentatively iden­ tified as the Hellenion, there has been some debate about its function: Höckmann and Möller 2006; Polinskaya 2010, 53–5; Villing 2017, 228–230.

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15 On the history of these shrines, and what may have been fairly strong connections with their home cities and/or sanctuaries, see Villing 2019, 221–225. Based on the finds, Villing (225–228) suggests that the sanctuary of the Dioskouroi may have had special significance for Lesbian visitors, and the shrine of Aphrodite a relationship with North Ionian/Chian visitors. Earlier discussions include Polinskaya 2010; Demetriou 2017. 16 Demetriou 2012, 54. 17 Demetriou 2017. 18 Malkin (2011, 87–93) argues firmly for the concept of Hellenicity at Naukratis. Hall (2002, 90–124) treats Hellenicity in the international Mediterranean and at Naukratis as well. See also Demetriou (2017) and Villing (2019, 228–234). 19 Villing (2019, 233) remarks, “the evidence known to us at present from the major sanctuaries at Naukratis points less towards integration or the development of hybrid religious practices, and more towards patterns of differentiation and the communication of visible difference; as focal points for group identities, sanc­ tuaries were thus able to provide a stable social and economic framework for interaction between diverse communities.” 20 Samos and the name Hyblesios: Demetriou 2012, 79–80. 21 Demetriou 2012, 80. 22 In fact, Hyblesios may very well have seen the distinctive Hera-cups, found ex­ clusively at these two sanctuaries. The Hera-cups at Naukratis may predate Hyblesios’ dedication there by 20 years on stylistic grounds, although their stratigraphic contexts are not well documented. Avramidou (2016) argues that the Hera-pottery was used for eating and drinking in the two shrines, but spe­ cifically associates them with workers. 23 Chapter 3 above discusses lifelong relationships with divinities. 24 Parmenter 2020, 66. 25 Parmenter 2020, 70. See the sanctuaries of Achilles discussed below. 26 Radloff (2019, 110) argues that these sanctuaries and monuments marked the city’s maritime chora; the shrine, visible from sea, “recalled Miletos’ auto­ chthonous and colonial past and its tradition of seafaring, and strengthened social memory of the city’s connection with Aphrodite.” 27 Aphrodite’s shrines continued as navigational markers in later periods as well: Demetriou 2010; Eckert 2016; Brown and Smith 2019. Radloff’s study of Miletos (2019) focuses on the Hellenistic period. 28 On the economic and administrative roles of the sanctuaries at Naukratis, see Villing (2019) and Möller (2000) (although written prior to the newest discoveries and renewed research on the site). 29 Krämer 2016. 30 López-Ruiz 2021, 42. 31 Jim 2014, 143–144, 153–154, 254–255. For tithe dedications documented through ceramic inscriptions, see Johnston (2013, 35–36). 32 Herodotos 4.152; Jim 2014, 153–154. For more on financial success, sea trade, and divine favor, see Demetriou (2010). 33 Hipponax fr. 115 W. Parmenter 2020, 75. 34 Eidinow 2007, 13. 35 SEG 42.710; SEG 51.970. Trans. Ceccarelli 2013, 339, no. A6, with slight mod­ ification. Dana (2021, no. 28, 142–150) provides a new commentary, re­ construction, and photographs. Further discussion in Parmenter (2020, 65–66). The complicated nature of this letter has resulted in a variety of translations and interpretations. I thank Chris Parmenter for his comments on the letter. τῶι ἀγω]νοθέτῃ μέλι καὶ κριὸ[ν … ν]ῦν ὡς ἐπιτέλλεις πέμπ ̣[ω … παντ]ὸ ̣ς τόπους θεοποιήτους περιε ̣[ … διὰ γὰ]ρ ἄκρην λίη〈ν ἔ〉καμε Ἱρόφως νησ[τείην καὶ] …

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36 37 38

39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

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δικαίως. ἐν τῇ Χαλκηῄῃ αἱ γυ[ναῖκές εἰσι] … πολ]λῆι. ἐνθεῦθεν ἐς τὴν Ὑλαίη[ν ̣ διέβην] … αὖτις οἱ βωμοὶ βεβλαμμένο[ι εἰσί] … Μ]ητρὸς Θεῶν καὶ Βορυσθέ〈νεος〉 καὶ Ἡρακλ[έους … μ]ετὰ τὸ ναυάγιον οἱ δοῦλοι καταδρα ̣[μόντες … τ]ῇ ̣ ἱρουργίηι Μητροφάνεος ἱρὸς ἐλίπετ[ο … τ]ῶν πιτύων κακαὶ τῶν δένδρων διηκόσια ̣ … ο]ἱ θηρευταὶ τῶν ἵππων ηὑρήκασι μετὰ κινδύνων πο ̣λ ̣[λῶν (Ceccarelli). Line 4’s reference to fasting is disputed, as the text is extremely difficult to de­ cipher. Dana (2021, no. 28, 146) reads Hirophos instead as a mention of torches. She also translates ἱρὸς (here “sacred slave”) as a “sacred object.” Parmenter 2020. Aristeas fr. 11. ὄμματ’ ἐν ἄστροισι, ψυχὴν δ’ ἐνὶ πόντῳ ἔχουσιν. ἦ που πολλὰ θεοῖσι φίλας ἀνὰ χεῖρας ἔχοντες εὔχονται σπλάγχνοισι κακῶς ἀναβαλλομένοισι. My translation. See Parmenter (2020, 80) for discussion. In this case, Aristeas refers to a non-Greek community that dwells at sea. I owe thanks to Carolina LópezRuiz for her insights into this passage. We have seen the phrase φίλας χεῖρας in Chapter 2, but in the Homeric poems philos (φίλος) often denotes possession and closeness. Anne-Sophie Noel (2016) has argued that in the Classical period and after hands can act affectively, em­ bodying emotions in a Greek “poetics of touch;” she hypothesizes that a 6thcentury votive inscription may exhibit this sense as well (χερσὶ φίλαισιν ἔδο[κεν). On the 6th-century votive epigram of Euandros: SEG 15, 352; Noel 2016. On “loving hands,” see above, Chapter 2. FGrHist 640F 1= Athenaios 15, 675f–676c, trans. S. Douglas Olson. Stronk (2010) addresses the date and whether Polycharmos was Naukratite, as Athenaios claims. See also Demetriou (2010). This seems appropriate given Polycharmos’ purpose, explaining the origin of early epiphanic images of the goddess in the Naukratite sanctuary. Athena in the Iliad; Poseidon in the Odyssey. Destructive powers of Poseidon: Jim 2022, 152–154. See Chapter 4, especially p. 95. Swift 2021, 203–206, quotes on 205 and 206. Faraone 2018; Chapter 4. Skuse (2021) argues that the aegyptica from Perachora are likely not amuletic. In a Late Antique lapidary, the instructions indicate that carving a gem with specific iconography protected travelers at sea from rough waves, that is, Poseidon holding a dolphin with trident and a ship’s prow: Orphic Lithika kerygmata 27. See Edmonds (2019, 126 and Fig. 13) for an example of one such gem. This longlasting motif and ones nearly identical were used in a votive capacity during the Archaic period. Images showing Poseidon carrying dolphins were deposited in Poseidon’s sanctuaries, such as a bronze plaque at Isthmia and painted pinakes at Penteskouphia ( Hasaki 2021, 134, no. B32; 295, Fig. 7.11). In some of the Penteskouphia plaques Poseidon stands next to a dolphin, rather than holding it (e.g., Hasaki 2021, no. B21). In one example he holds a dolphin with his foot on a prow, much like the Late Antique amulet. On Poseidon as a god who could protect seafarers but also destroy them: Jim 2022, 86–89, 152–154. A similar theme is of course stressed in the Odyssey. For example, Therpsis’s Archaic seal depicted a dolphin and included the inscrip­ tion: “I am the seal of Therpsis, do not break [i.e., open] me” (Agate scarab,: Θέρσιός ἐμι σᾶμα μέ με ἄνοιγε, IG 4.179). Formerly in Breslau. Boardman 1968, 73–74. Boardman (2001) contains rings and gems with hippocamps and dolphins dating to the Archaic and Classical periods. As examples: two dolphins, Archaic, green steatite, Pl. 258; dolphin, Classical, yellow jasper, Pl. 506. In this case the dolphin need not embody Poseidon’s power. Many gods and heroes were visually associated with the sea animals during the Archaic and Classical periods: Ridgway 1970.

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48 Faraone 2018, 55–57. Later sources suggest that not all dolphins need be asso­ ciated with safety at sea; for example, dolphins on amulets might help protect from colic. See ibid., 64, fn. 57. 49 Van de Moortel and Langdon 2017, Fig. 5. On archeologically attested ships’ eyes: Carlson 2009. Romero Recio (2000, 18–22) discusses ship graffiti. 50 Herodotus (1.24) describes the poet Arion being saved by a dolphin, when it carried him safely to shore. It is thought that Archilochus (frg. 192 W) referenced the story of Koiranos, who was saved by dolphins near Paros after he had himself saved the dolphins from a fishing net. 51 Pindar, Pythian 4.191–196, ca. 462 BCE. 52 Kapitän 1989, 147–148. Later evidence also points to the use of small altars, in­ cense, and louteria in maritime religious activities, but I have chosen not to address them here because most cannot be securely tied to Archaic contexts. For more details, see Kapitän (1989). Archeological evidence for shipboard ritual is known from earlier (and contemporary) Mediterranean cultures as well, including the Phoenicians. See Brody (2008, 448–451) and López-Ruiz (2021, 156 and 209). 53 Williams 2013, 44. 54 For ships’ models, Romero Recio 2000, 5–18. The Samos Heraion ships: Ohly 1953, 111–118; Kyrieleis 1980; Kyrieleis 1988. See Chapter 2 for further dis­ cussion. 55 Johnston 1985, 45–74. 56 Johnston 1985, 59–60, Arch. 14; Ohly 1953, 118, no. 29. 57 For example, Van de Moortel and Langdon (2017) identify 36 merchantmen and 6 merchant galleys among the 200 graffiti ships carved on Mt. Hymettos in the 6th century BCE. 58 Bujskich 2006; Burton 2016, 22–23. 59 Hedreen 1991. 60 Bujskich 2006, 140–141 and Pl. 35.1 and 36.1. The fragment was found in a cavity beneath Complex 2. The deposit included ashy material, and several of the sur­ rounding deposits included vessels indicating dining. Bujskich considers the in­ scription to feature the name of Achilles following the name of the dedicant. He notes that similar graffiti of warriors (but without inscriptions) are also found in Borysthenes and Olbia. 61 Written in Aramaic and found in Elephantine. Glaphyros departed port on August 16 and October 20, only two months apart. Porten and Yardeni 1993, #C3.7 and xx-xxi. See also Yardeni (1994); Briant and Descat (1998, 65–66); and Tal (2009). 62 Potts (2015, 40–42) argues that the podium was an exceptionally distinctive feature of central Italian religious architecture, and that Tarquinia’s Ara della Regina was Etruria’s earliest known podium temple. 63 Thomas and Villing 2013; Masson-Berghoff 2019. The stratigraphy of the Great Temenos is complex; while a pylon was added to the enclosure wall during the Ptolemaic period, offerings and other materials from the Temenos indicate Egyptian religious activity occurred here in the late 7th or early 6th century BCE, at the founding of the port. Spencer (2011) discusses the likelihood that a port for foreign traders would have been established at an already existing Egyptian town. 64 Tilley 1994, 11. 65 For “situations where experiences were heavily conditioned by the surround­ ings”: Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo 2022, 23. 66 Dieleman 2012, 337. 67 Lindenlauf (2003) calls the sea an “away-place,” a “place of no return,” but also an “ambiguous place” whose significance as a place for disposal of unwanted or dangerous things was quite variable, with “many different guises.”

Epilogue: Going Forward

During this examination of personal experience and materiality, we have visited individuals dwelling across the Greek world, from the Western Mediterranean to the Black Sea, spanning approximately 400 years. This book argues that these individuals stood at the heart of Greek religion, making their way in the world and navigating everyday concerns. Religious life in ancient Greece was not confined only to the communal rituals, civic institutions, and sacred spaces that so often received emphasis in the past. While people could not help but respond to the social expectations and behaviors of others around them, individual agency has too often been overlooked as a crucial aspect of ancient religion. People found ways to engage the gods and supernatural powers according to their needs: they might choose to hire a magical specialist, create a votive at home rather than buy one, or visit shrines as part of their daily rounds. Although religion has often been described as ‘embedded’ in Greek culture, in fact it grew from the many decisions of people responding to their communities and to the realities of daily life. We cannot do Greek religion without its individuals. In this book, I have made the case for a flexible approach to Greek religious activity that allows for significant regional variation, chronological change, and the various historical situations on the ground for different communities. The multiplicity of personal responses and small-scale adaptions remind us that “Greek religion” was not a straightforward unity, but something that allowed marked diversity and individual resourcefulness even within the same community at the same time. Instead, Greek religion was something continuously in-process, as real people went about their real lives. It is this perspective that I have brought to the ancient Greek context. Now that we come to the end of this book, I would like to address some of the methodological and theoretical implications of its arguments and make some suggestions for going forward. •

Materiality was fundamental to Greek religious experience and should be an important consideration in our reconstructions. If we center individuals acting on their own and as part of wider communities, than we must also account for the bodily and sensorial aspects of their

DOI: 10.4324/9781003328360-7

Epilogue: Going Forward

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religious engagement. As a growing number of scholars show, the materiality of substances, objects, landscapes, and built environments cannot be separated from the many ways that people interacted with the gods and created religious worlds. In this book, I have argued that materiality and corporeality shaped personal religious experiences in everyday life. These ranged from experiences large and small: shaping offerings cakes at the work surface, feeling the gods at work in one’s body, or standing among older votary portraits in the sanctuary. Phenomenological approaches and materiality studies both provide essential perspectives for furthering our investigations of these aspects in antiquity. Indeed, phenomenology is a crucial tool for enlivening the Greek religious past. It is especially useful for those studies targeting daily life and the first-person point of view. Through it, inscribed names, illustrated votaries, and otherwise forgotten individuals become transformed into sensing, feeling, and reacting beings. In Greek religious communities, which often lacked strong doctrinal systems, lifelong practices influenced (ideas about) religious traditions over time. People’s present encounters with divine figures, their conceptions of special places, and their connections to other people were strongly influenced by past religious moments. Going forward, studies of Greek religion would benefit from greater attention given to the personal biographies of people like Xeniades, Zoilos, and the other ancient people we have discussed. Although the rites-of-passage model has been useful for studying specific rituals, social groups, and life stages, it has also inevitably encouraged an artificially divided view of people’s religious experience. Treating ancient lives as longer continuums more truthfully captures actual experience. Frameworks of lived religion (as opposed to Lived Ancient Religion) can effectively be applied to Greek antiquity, although our methodologies must be tweaked depending on the historical period and context, of course. For example, it might be more difficult to access the firstperson point-of-view in the Archaic period when fewer texts survive, but careful archaeological analysis can help offset that to a certain degree. This perspective encourages us to examine the various options open to ancient peoples as they reacted to their own circumstances, hopes, and fears. A major fact of Greek life was the terrifying and even capricious nature of the gods and supernatural, as is well-illustrated in our Archaic literary sources. Other texts show some rather pragmatic approaches to divine powers, including the rote quality that their worship might take. At the same time, our sources in both periods also reveal that some worshippers sought emotionally rich, affectionate, and even devotional relationships with these powers. The gods and heroes were very present in daily life and some people actively sought a greater sense of closeness with those presences. The relationships that people developed with the

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Epilogue: Going Forward gods were varied, and those interactions found different expressions moving from the Archaic to the Classical period. It behooves us to investigate the different forms that these relationships could take. The evidence for magical activities, including curse tablets and amulets, must be more fully—and seamlessly—incorporated into studies of Greek religion. Several historians of Greek magic now argue that ancient “magic” is not fundamentally different from other aspects of ancient practice; rather, it is part of the overall religious and ritual world of the Greeks. As I hope to have demonstrated in this book, the frameworks developed in “magic” studies offer exciting insights when we apply them to traditional practices and modes of religiosity (for example, the efficacy and agency of materials, strategies for dealing with uncertainty, etc.). Focusing on individuals and smaller groups while also foregrounding personal experience helps to break down the religious typologies that have been a longtime feature in our discipline. Polis-religion, mystery religion, magic, and the like are often treated as parallel but distinct forms of Greek religion. Conversely, it is not uncommon to find one type privileged over the others. As an example, throughout this book, I have avoided the term “domestic religion,” despite making many visits to Greek households. Up to now, “domestic religion” has been used to single out rituals, objects, and occasions that take place in the space of the home: in front of the house and its entrances, within the courtyards, under the roof, and at the hearth. A major focus of these studies has been lifecycle rituals, while other aspects of religion in the home tend to be clustered theoretically elsewhere (funerary practices, pollution concerns, etc.). Instead, many of these aspects of Greek religion were intertwined: interactions with the gods and the supernatural occurred at home, in the workshop, and at sea; ritual efficacy permeated all the spaces of Greek life, including the house; and so on. A focus on personal experience reveals the richness of the Greek religious tapestry and reminds us that sometimes artificial typologies end up obscuring our view.

In this book, I have deliberately employed a flexible theoretical framework. One of the pleasures of asking questions about people’s religious experiences has been that both the questions and their potential answers were enormously varied. In my own discussion, several topics were given special focus: (a) haptics and self-made votives, (b) lifelong religion and ubiquitous material culture, (c) divine/supernatural presences in daily life, and d) materiality and media of presence. I urge my colleagues studying lived experience to take their future studies in equally exciting directions, as the evidence promotes a wide array of investigation topics. As topics of inquiry, personal religious experience and religion in daily life have the potential to dramatically broaden our journeys through Greek antiquity.

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Index

abecedarium 23 absence: divine 84, 86, 89–92, 104, 106n11 Acheloos 97, 108n51 Achilles 124, 127; at Cape Beikuš 159 Adamas the Odrysian 134 Adonia 7 Aegina 148, 152, 161 Akropolis: at Athens 25, 61, 82n109, 93; sculpture 128–129 Aeschylus 97, 111n132, 143n54 affect see emotion agalma (ἄγαλμα) 8, 25; see also cult statue; figurines; sculpture Agamemnon 127 agency: of artists 23–24, 39, 79n46; of ghosts 99; of images 80n89, 117, 144n81; and magic 49n67, 101; of materials 11, 88–89, 116–117, 124–125, 170; of worshippers 3, 6–7, 32, 36, 48n35, 123, 163, 168; see also media of presence; ousia Akrocorinth 23 Alkaios 91, 108n54 altars 14, 26, 33, 34, 68, 73–75, 77, 77n1, 80n66, 134, 155, 162; and Plato 86; maritime 167n52; in the home 11, 69–70; and sacrifice 52, 60 Amasis (pharaoh) 152 Amphiaraos 90, 135; at Oropos 90, 135, 140n19 amphictyon 72 amulets 9, 17, 28, 47n31, 87–88; and supernatural presence 114, 117–121, 138; and mariners 157, 166n46, 167n48; self-made 32–33, 48n46 anathēma (ἀνάθημα) 8 anatomical models 123 Anaxilas 32, 48n45

Anaxiles 112–114, 117, 121–122, 138 ancestral spirits see Tritopatores ancestral tradition see ta patria anchors: as dedications 148, 159 animals 36, 86, 118, 122, 157; see also dolphins; sacrifice (animal) Anthesteria 33, 60, 100 anthropology 12, 85, 106n11 Antianeira 37 Antigonus 38 Antiphanes 117 Antiphon 101, 110n121 aparche (ἀπαρχή) 153 aphaneia 90; see also epiphany; presence Aphrodite 119–120, 165n15; Epitragia amulets 119–120; at Corinth 69; at Gravisca 1, 148, 150, 161; and mariners 148, 153, 156–157, 164n6; at Miletos 153, 165n26–27; at Naukratis 161, 164n12; statuettes of 1, 156; see also Homeric Hymns; Sappho Apollo: at Amyklai 37; at Cyrene 101; at Delphi 27, 87, 91, 109n92, 127, 137; at Gravisca 148; Mantiklos Apollo 142n44, 145n93; at Miletos 152; at Mykonos 78n19; at Naukratis 163; and plague 98; in Thessaly 94; see also festivals; sacrifice (animal) apotropaia 87, 141n24 archaeological data: as evidence for religion 10–11; interpretation without textual sources 118; see also material culture Archedemos of Thera 24, 97 Ares 39, 98 arete 94 Argos 37 Aristagora 90–91 Aristeas, Arimaspeia 155–156

202

Index

Aristophanes 99, 117; Acharnians 58–59; Birds 83, 89, 95, 121; Frogs 111n139; Knights 38; Lysistrata 59; Peace 78n31; Plutos 140n16; Wealth 90 arrephoroi 38, 60 Artemis 35, 77, 143n54; amulets of 118–122; at Brauron 15, 40; and deershaped cakes 36; at Ephesos 23; relief from Echinos 52–54, 59, 133; and woven dedications 28, 37–38, 44, 52 Asklepios 140n16; at Athens 122–123; at Cos 47n26; at Epidauros 90–91; at Eretria 56; in Pantalkes’ inscription 94; at Pergamon 27; at Piraeus 97–98; at Troezen 90 atheism 83, 86 Athena 37, 92–94; and Anaxiles’ gold ring 112, 113, 117, 122, 138; Parthenon statue 117; see also Akropolis; peplos Athens 2, 76, 78n31, 83, 137, 159; festival for Athena 37; katadesmos 143n59; and Orphism 49n57; painted pinax 129; relief dedication 52, 57, 60, 134; see also Akropolis; cemeteries and graves; Kerameikos Attica 15, 54, 74, 80n82, 110n118; childhood religious experience in 56–61; ship graffito 157–158 autopoieia (αὐτοποιεία) 23–24 avenging spirits (ἀλιτήριοι) 101, 110n121 bakcheia 96–97 binding spells (katadesmoi/κατάδεσμοι) 17, 32, 100–101, 102–103, 124, 138, 170; figurines as portraits 129–132 biography 11, 12, 15–16, 54–55, 72, 77, 162–163, 169; see also lifelong religion Bitie 37–38, 44 Bitto 37 Black Sea 148, 154–155, 159, 168 body 123, 126–127, 130, 141n34, 143n56, 156; and amulets 121; and divine presence 84, 86, 91, 96–99; and ghosts and hostile spirits 101, 102, 104; ousia 123–126; strength 16, 84, 94–95, 102, 104; see also embodiment; hair; haptics; relics Borysthenes 154–155, 159 Brauron 15, 40, 42, 50n90, 51n93, 60, 61, 77n3, 108n51, 146n112; Artemis Brauronia 37–38; see also Artemis

cakes 14, 26, 33, 36, 46n2, 49n64, 169 Calvin, John 10 Catholicism 6, 48n35, 73–74, 114, 116 cave 24, 61, 67, 80n68; Korykian near Delphi 71, 122, 142n41; at Marathi on Paros 133–134; and Pantalkes’ poem 94–95; and Pitsa plaques 128–129, 144n87; at Vari 24, 97 cemeteries and graves 5, 61–64; of Anaxiles 112–114; and binding spells 32, 100, 129–130; grave goods and offerings 5, 34, 38, 61–64, 112, 113, 118, 123–124; of heroes 87, 124, 126; Heroon of the Crossroads 69; of the Hyperborean Maidens 124, 126; Kerameikos 125; at Paroikia 129; of Saint Peter 88; see also souls of the dead charis 7, 128 children 15, 30, 34, 42, 52–82, 102, 123, 129, 133–135, 145n100, 146n112 Chios 148, 158 Chiron 94 choes 60; festival of 49n52 Chremylos 90 Christianity 7, 12, 9–10, 30–31, 55, 73–74, 81n96, 85, 123, 142n39; and the comparative method 13–14; saints 88, 107n38, 116, 123, 141n19; Virgin of Fátima 29; Virgin of Juquila 30, 114; see also Jesus clothing: as dedications 37, 38, 40; see also weaving collages 30–31, 45, 48n40 colony 32, 65, 85, 106n11, 125, 147, 165n26 community and the public 2–3, 4, 6, 8, 19n19, 36, 162, 168–169; and children 15, 54, 56–57, 74; and civic identity 152–153; and hostile spirits 101–102; and magic 5; of mariners 17, 147–153, 162–163; and oaths 125; religious identity of 121–122; and tradition 71–74 comparative method 13–14, 21n44, 22nn79–80, 47n20 Corinth 1, 23, 46n9, 55, 64, 65, 68, 69–72, 76–77, 80n64, 80n66, 132, 133, 161 coroplast 65, 67 Creusa 38, 141n24 Creuzer, Friedrich 10–11

Index 203 crossroads 5; see also Heroon of the Crossroads cult statue 49n67, 50n81, 71, 80n72, 87, 91, 117, 121, 122, 143n56, 146n101, 156 Cybele 119, 121; see also Mother of the Gods Cyprus 112, 156 Cyrene 32, 48n44, 101–102, 104; Foundation Oath 125; and hostile spirits 102–103, 125 daily life 8, 14, 17, 29, 36, 112, 119, 138, 147, 161, 162–163, 168–170; defined 4–6 daimones 16, 84, 99, 103, 116, 139; see also ‘demonic’ agents and hostile spirits darśan 26 δακτύλιος see seals and rings dedications 6–8, 14–15, 20n41, 94, 168; childhood experience of 55, 61; epigrams 128; first-fruits 6, 153; of food for elasteroi 101; and habitus 71–72; long-lasting motifs 65–77; from mariners 148–153, 156, 158–163; premade dipinti on pottery 148, 158; and divine and mortal presence 17, 122–139, 145n101; self-made 23–45, 114, 148, 159–160, 163, 170; tithes 153–154; see also agalma (ἄγαλμα); anathēma (ἀνάθημα) dekate (δεκάτη) 153–154 Delos 36, 78n27, 124, 126, 143n50 Delphi 27, 39, 61, 71, 87, 91, 101, 108n54, 122, 137, 143n50 deme 60, 127 Demeter 56; at Corinth 69, 70, 76–77, 132; at Delos 36; at Eleusis 116; at Gravisca 148; Homeric Hymn to Demeter 99 Demetrias (Volos) 38 Demetrius 38 demonic agents and hostile spirits 5, 16, 84, 96, 99, 101–102, 103, 104; see also elasteros Derveni Papyrus 103, 111nn140–141 Descartes, René 8–9 devotion 97; bhakti 6–7; devotionalism 6–7, 20n20, 29, 135, 169; devotional labor 24–25, 33–45, 94–95; see also relationships with divine/ supernatural beings Dikaiopolis 58–59

Diogenes Laertius 23 Dionysia 58 Dionysos 27, 38, 96; and phalloi 116 Dioskouroi 94, 99, 165n15 disinterestedness 73 divination 31, 97, 104; at Delphi 101–102; and divine presence 85–86 dolphins 141n21, 157, 162 dreams 16, 86, 89, 91, 102, 103, 104 dualism 8–10, 12 Echinos 52–53, 59, 133 economic prosperity: and the divine 93–95, 153–154, 162 Egypt 1, 2, 22n77, 71, 148, 149–152, 153, 156, 161, 164n11, 164n13 eiresione 60 elasteros 101, 163 Elephantine trade register 161 Eleusis 7, 26, 61, 121; see also initiates and initiation; mystery cults embodiment 1, 9–10, 14, 16, 21n55, 27–29, 97, 168–169; and children 54, 60–64, 74–76, 78n27; see also body; haptics; senses emic and etic 71, 114, 138 Emmenidai 94 emotion 28, 44–45, 96, 99, 127, 152, 156–157, 162; affection 44–45, 95, 157; affective role of material culture 15, 55, 71, 72–77, 141; comfort 121, 153, 161; and devotionalism 6–7; and divine possession 97; distress and fear 104, 154–156, 169; happiness 94–95, 97; love 95; and phenomenology 8–9; study of 2–3; see also relationships with divine/supernatural beings; sentimentality Empedokles 96, 102 emporion 1, 147–152, 153, 161, 162 Empousa 103, 111n139 Enlightenment 8 Enodia 98 entheos, enthousiasmos (ἔνθεος, ἐνθουσιάσμος) 96–97, 121 epagōgoi (ἐπαγωγοί) 102–103 Ephesia grammata 32 Epicharinos 128 epilepsy 98, 140n16 epistemology 9 epiphany 16, 26, 83–84, 85, 91, 92, 95, 99, 103, 104, 105n7, 106n14, 116, 135, 156; see also presence

204

Index

epopteia 26 Eretria 56 Erinyes 99, 102 eschatology 84, 99–103, 127, 144n78 esthetic judgment 73 Ethelonche 128 Etruria and the Etruscans 1, 147, 148, 149, 167n62 Eukolis 128 Euripides: Bacchae 97; Hippolytos 35, 96, 124; Ion 27, 38, 39 Euthydika 128 Euthydemus 92 Eurykleia 44 experience: defined 4, 19n19; childhood 15, 55, 74–76; lived 5, 9, 11–12, 16, 30, 44, 55, 56, 71, 84, 102, 161, 170; personal religious experience 2, 4, 7, 9–10, 13, 147, 162–163, 169–170; see also embodiment; haptics; material culture Euandros 44, 166n39 Euboulos, Garland Vendors/ Stephanopolides 34 Eumenides 103, 111n132 festivals 6, 8, 14, 33, 36, 37, 56, 58, 91, 99, 104, 110n108, 137, 162; and children 59–60, 64, 74; and the dead 100; theophania 91 figurines 1, 30, 36, 40, 62–63, 64, 75, 80n69, 158; hand-formed 69–70; horse-and-rider 69–71, 77, 79n63; and magic 17, 32, 48n43, 101–102, 110n124, 125–126, 129–139, 144n69; mold series 65–69; and oaths 102, 125; terracottas 64–65, 132; wooden 15, 41, 48n44; see also sculpture funeral shroud 38, 39 garland 25, 33–35, 38 gaze see vision and viewing gender 34, 56, 58–59, 60, 73, 81n92 Geneleos 130 gestures: and children 52–54, 63, 77n2, 78n26; and ritual 52, 60, 75, 88, 155–56 ghosts see souls of the dead gifts: from the gods 89, 92–95, 99; making of 44–45; see also dedications Glaphyros 161, 162, 167n61 goētes 102 Gold Tablets 96, 127, 144n78

Gorgon 38, 141n24; gorgoneia 87 graffiti 18, 157, 158, 159–160, 167n49, 167n57, 167n60 grave see cemeteries and graves Gravisca 1, 17, 147–149, 150–153, 161, 164n3, 164n9, 164n12 Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri (PGM) 5, 144n69 habitus 71–72, 80n75 Hades 100, 102 hair: religious use of 17, 30–31, 35, 44, 70, 63, 79n45, 115, 123–126, 130, 138, 143n59 hand 142n34, 155–156; of divinities 94, 97–98; and experience 58, 60–64, 69, 75; and rings 120–123; work of the hands 9, 14, 23–45, 94, 159; see also haptics; senses haptics 8, 17, 23–45, 63–64, 156–157, 170; haptic viewing 28; poetics of touch 29, 166n39; and rings 121, 123, 141n33; see also embodiment; senses harbor towns see emporion healing 84, 90–91, 97–98, 110n101, 115, 121, 123, 140n16, 156 health 94–95, 99 hebdomos bous (ἕβδομος βοῦς) see cake Hekate 98 Helen 39, 44 Hellenicity/Greek identity 152, 165n18 Hera 15, 91, 130–131, 148, 162; at Argos 37, 122, 142n41; at Gravisca 148; at Naukratis 152; at Perachora 122, 153; at Samos 40–43, 51n98, 51n102, 130, 152, 159, 163, 165n22, 164n5 Heraion see Samos Herakleia 65 Herakleitos 23, 96 Herakles 94, 155, 163; and amulets 117–118, 136, 157 Herodotos 87, 124, 152, 153, 155 herm 5, 33–34, 35, 128 hermeneutics 12–13, 36 Hermes 5, 38, 90, 94 Herostratus 156 heroes 16, 169; and amulets 117; bones of 87, 107n23; and hair 124; horseand-rider offerings for 79n62, 69; illness 84, 98–99; and mariners 153, 158–159; and portraiture 129; unidentified hero near Metapontion 65

Index 205 hippocamp 157, 166n47 “Hippocrates,” On the Sacred Disease 86, 98–99 Hippolytos 35, 44, 124, 143n54 Hipponax 154, 155 historiolae 17, 117–118, 136, 157 holmos (ὅλμος) 36 holy man (theios aner) 86 Homer 38, 157; and phenomenology 13; Iliad 25, 39, 98, 124; Odyssey 1, 44, 99, 154, 163 Homeric Hymns 80n70, 99 Hyblesios 148, 152–153, 162, 163, 164n9, 165n20; and Hera-cups 165n22 hybris 94 Hygeia 94 Hyperborean Maidens 124, 126 iamata from Epidauros 90, 140n16 iconoclasm 115–116, 140n10 iconography 11–13, 14, 135; created by dedicators 23, 26, 29, 30–33, 38–39, 45, 159; and magical figurines 125, 144n69; problems of identification 129, 133; repetitive and long-lasting imagery 15, 55, 65–77, 81n109; and supernatural agency 115–120, 138, 140n16, 141n24, 157, 166n46; and the viewing experience 27, 63; see also portraiture iconology see iconography Ilissos River 60, 97 illness 5, 84, 86, 97–99, 110n100, 123, 156; plague 2, 5, 98; see also healing impiety 83; see also atheism incubation 97–98 initiation and initiates 6, 8, 12, 96; and the Gold Tablets 96, 127; social role of 57, 121; and souls 84, 103; and vision 26; see also Eleusis; mystery cults; interiority 10 interpretation see hermeneutics Iokles 161 Iolaus 39 Ionia 1, 41; alphabet of 148; and dance 78n27 Isaios 58, 59, 61, 75 Italy 65–69, 167n62 Jason 158 Jesus 116; Señor de Chalma 30–31, 39; Señor de Qoyullur Rit’i 29; Warner Sallman’s paintings of 73–74

kakodaimon (κακοδαίμων) 96 kanephoros 58–59, 60, 79n33 Karapla Hill 94 Kant, Immanuel 9, 80n90, 81n97 kardopos (κάρδοπος) 36 katadesmoi (κατάδεσμοι) see binding spells katochos 97 Kephissos 52, 134–135 Kerameikos 125; Building Z 119–120; see also cemeteries and graves kiln 46n8, 65; and protective powers 87, 92–94, 108n64; at Sant’Angelo Vecchio 68 Kiron 58–59, 75 kitsch 73 kleos (κλέος) 25 kolossoi (κολοσσός) 102, 125 Kore see Persephone Koropi 38 Korykian Cave see cave kourotrophic divinities 124, 133 Kronos 38 Laches 5, 128 landscape 7, 61, 65, 69, 87, 161–162, 163, 169; and divine presence 90–91, 92, 97, 104, 109n97 Leonidas of Tarentum 37 libations 28, 33–34, 38, 60, 135, 158 lifelong religion see lived religion lived religion 2–4, 6, 9, 16, 17, 169; lifelong practices 52–77, 148, 152, 169, 170; Lived Ancient Religion (LAR) 3–4, 18n12, 19n15, 169 Longinus 97 Luther, Martin 116 magic 5, 16–17, 168, 170; and divine presence 87–89; and ghosts 99–103, 125; love spells 124–125; and makers 32–33; and materiality 32–33, 84, 86, 115, 117–122, 123–126, 129–133, 138–139; see also amulets; binding spells; ritual experts magos 103 material culture 4, 10–13, 76–77; and emotion 18, 54–56, 72–77; impact on lived experience 4, 15–16, 55–56, 60–71, 81n106, 148; and presence 88, 115–116, 123; and ubiquity 8, 72–75, 170; see also dedications; media of presence materiality 9–11, 12, 16,

206

Index

52–82, 116, 121, 168–170; and presence 87–88; see also magic; media of presence Mayhem xi madness (mania) 96–97, 99; sent by the dead 102, 104 media of presence 8, 13, 16–17, 88–89, 112–146, 148, 163, 170; see also presence memory 17, 52, 56, 59, 115, 126–127, 135–136, 138–139 Menander, Dyskolos 5, 33–34, 60 merchants 1, 148–154, 156, 158–159, 161, 163 Metapontion 55, 65–69, 90, 161 Metrophanes 154 Mexico 30–31, 114, 140n19, 146n105 Miletos 152, 153 Milonidas 23–24 miniaturization 63; of divine images 117, 121 mobility 121, 147–149, 152–154, 161–163 Mother of the Gods 98, 155; see also Cybele Mount Hymettos 158 Murillo-Huhn, Payton xi Muses 96 Myrrhinous (Attic deme) 127 mystery cults 5, 6, 8, 26, 96, 103, 116, 121, 170 mystai see initiation and initiates myth see narrative narrative 71, 87, 94, 99, 123, 139; and divine presence 83, 90–91, 103, 156; visual 12, 27, 38–39, 133, 135–136; see also historiolae; storytelling nastos (ναστός) see cake natron 161, 162 Naukratis 17, 148–153, 156, 158, 161, 163 Nikoboule 38 Nymphs 5, 20n40, 24, 33, 34–35, 94; and caves 61, 128, 133; at Corinth 64; at Metapontion 65–69, 74; nympolepsy and nympholeptoi 97, 109n97 oaths 32, 125–126 Odysseus 44, 144n78, 158 Olbia 153–154; and nearby shrines 155, 159–160 Olympia 26, 37, 94 Olympos 95 Orestes 87, 143n54

orgeones: of Ekhelos 56 Orpheus 121 Orneaians 137 Ornithe 130–132 ousia 17, 123–126, 131 Pallene 137 Pan 35, 65–67, 94 Pankrates 57, 60 Pantalkes 7, 94–95, 97, 102 Paphos 156 Paros 101, 129–130, 133, 167n50 parousia (παρουσία) see presence patria see ta patria Patroklos 124 Pausanias 26, 90, 137, 143n50, 143n56, 146n107 Peloponnesian War 2 Penteskouphia see Pitsa plaques peplos 40; of Athena 38; at Brauron 42; peplotheke 38 Perachora 122, 153 Persephone 36, 69, 70, 76, 90, 132 personal religion see religion Peru 29 Phanagoria 155 pharmaka 88 Pharsalus 94 Phaylles 155 phenomenology 8–9, 11–14, 55, 60, 75, 115, 161–162, 169; and presence 88, 99, 123, 127, 136, 139; of religion 21n44; and self-made votives 29, 39, 44–45 philosophy 9, 26, 107n22; see also Plato; Socrates Phoenicians 147, 153, 161 Phokaia 1, 164n5 phoroi 60 pilgrimage 13, 26–27, 29, 90, 145n97, 145n101 pinax: 48n39, 94, 108n64; of mold-made terracotta 65–69; painted 128, 166n46; and portraiture 128–129, 133, 135, 136; terracotta 23–24, 25; wooden 40; see also Pitsa tablets Pindar 94, 157, 158 Piraeus 97–98 Pitsa tablets 128–129, 133, 135, 136, 144n87 plague see illness Plato 26, 32, 75–76, 86, 89; Euthyphro 38; Laws 32, 59, 64, 86; Phaedo 100; Phaedrus 97; Republic 59, 102

Index 207 Plutarch 46n6, 85; Life of Demetrius 38 polis 65, 162; emporion as polis 150 Polis (Agios Demetrios on Cyprus) 112 polis-religion see religion Polycharmos 156 Polystratos 126 ponos (πόνος) 25, 46n13 popanon (πόπανον) see cake portraiture 9, 114–115, 131–133; defined 126, 130; and dedications 126–146, 163, 169; problems of identification 129–139; see also Pitsa tablets; sculpture Poseidon 23–24, 25, 77n2, 98, 108n64, 157 possession 84, 87, 96–97, 104; see also madness Potnia Theron 118 pottery 18, 38, 112, 128, 154; and the dead 61–64, 100; as dedications 1, 49n52, 65, 148, 152, 159–160; production and workshops 23–24, 46n2, 87, 92–94, 108n64; thrown overboard during ritual 158; see also figurines Potter’s Quarter at Corinth 68–69, 77 pragmatics 128 prayer and supplication 31, 58, 59, 75; by mariners 156, 158, 162; and presence 84, 90, 91, 94, 104 presence 8, 16–18, 87–105, 105n7, 156, 170; defined 84, 85–86; disputed 85–86, 89, 106n17; of the divine 83, 87–105, 138; of ghosts and hostile spirts 99–103; in human bodies 96–99, 104, 116, 121, 123, 156, 169; of mortals 114–115, 123–139; mortal-tomortal 135–138, 139; mutual or reciprocal 115, 133–135; symbolic vs. real 115; see also epiphany; media of presence Priene 87 priests and priestess see religious officials prophets 16, 31, 97, 99, 104; see also divination; Pythia prosopography 163; and Hyblesios 148, 152–153; and Zoilos 148, 164n9 Protestant Reformation 10, 85, 115; see also Calvin, John psyche (ψυχή) see soul psychagogoi (ψυχαγωγοί) 102–103, 104 psychopomp 100

Pythagoras 140n17; Pythagoreans 121, 140n17 Pythia 87, 97 relationships between worshippers 135–138; and families 52–64; shared experiences 71, 81n106, 156, 159 relationships with divine/supernatural beings 162, 169; benefits and ‘good things’ 83, 84, 89, 92–95, 97, 99, 104; and close personal connections 34–36, 37–38, 44–45, 95, 97, 112–114, 119–122, 134–135, 139, 157, 161, 169–170; during distress or fear 98, 109n85, 101–103, 111n139, 155–157, 169; and ghosts 99–103; with god of one’s home territory 152–153; and lifelong connections 52–77, 152–153; in non-Greek locations 152–153, 161; and physical proximity 84, 89, 97–98, 112, 116, 120–121, 138, 163; and punishment 99, 104; at sea 148, 153, 155–157, 159; during sickness 97–99, 109n100, 123, 156; see also presence; economic prosperity relics: bones of heroes 87, 107n23; saints 87–88, 123 religion 85, 106n14; and archaeological evidence 10–11; and civic affiliation 152–153; in the home 5, 3, 6, 11, 29, 34, 36–37, 69–70, 101–102, 170; and magic 5, 170; personal religion 2; polis-religion model 2, 152, 162, 170; visual piety and theology 11, 47n18; see also lived religion; mystery cults; ritual religious officials 4, 6, 25, 38, 86, 88, 104, 139n3, 154–155, 163; see also prophets; ritual specialists; retablos 30–31, 45 Rhamnous 128 Rhombos 128 rings see seals rites of passage 55–56, 169–170 ritual 55–56, 84, 87, 88, 104, 155, 162, 163, 168; and divine presence 91, 92; and ghosts 125; and hair cutting 124; for hostile spirits 101–102, 125; reactivation of 128, 135–136, 146n105; representations of 52–54, 56–57, 60–64, 65–67, 97–98, 128–129, 133–134, 135–136, 137; shipboard 158;

208

Index

theoxenia 94, 99; at tombs 123–125; visuality 12; see also binding spells; incubation; initiation; libation; prayer; magic; oaths; sacrifice (animal) ritual specialists 88, 101, 102–103, 125, 129–131, 168 roads 5, 23, 64–65, 104 Roman religion 3, 20n20, 88; and the Imperial cult 13 sacrifice (animal) 6, 25, 28, 88, 90, 101, 124; and children 52–53, 56, 58–60, 65, 75; images of 53, 128–129, 135, 137 Samos 1, 15, 40–43, 130–131, 148, 152, 153, 159, 161 sanctuaries: adornment of 24–25; along roadsides 64; and daily life 5, 60, 64, 70; and divine presence 86, 87, 90–91, 97, 104; local shrine networks 65–71; as navigational aids 153; repeated visits 65–71, 152–153; at trade centers 1, 147–153, 153, 156, 158, 161–163; see also caves; Christianity Sappho 7, 95, 157 Sardis 41 sculpture 1, 10, 117, 126–127, 130–133, 156; grave reliefs 52, 54; guardian statue at Priene 87; and phenomenology 136–139; votive reliefs 41, 52–53, 56–57, 60, 128, 133; see also cult statue; dedications; figurines; media of presence; portraiture sea travel 18, 51n102, 147, 161–163; danger and misfortune at sea 1, 147, 153–156, 161–162; sea-sickness 156 seals and rings 17, 112–114, 113, 116–120; as dedications 122–123, 138, 163; as testimonials 114 seascape 148, 153, 163 self-made votives see dedications Selinunte 101, 102 semiotics 12–13, 85, 124, 135, 140n15 senses 8, 27–28, 33, 84, 92, 96–97, 104, 105n6, 127, 168–169; and divine presence 16, 86; hearing 134; smell 34, 156; touch 14, 44–45, 75, 97–98, 120, 134, 166n39; see also haptics; vision and viewing sentimentality 15, 73–74 σφραγίς see seals and rings ships 5, 41, 147, 156, 158; and captains 153, 158, 161; graffiti of 157–158,

159–160; and hull imagery 157, 162; merchant vessels 159; models as dedications 41–42, 43, 51n102, 159; shipwrecks 154, 155; warships 157–159 shrines see sanctuaries Sikyon 128, 137 Silenos 65–67 slavery and the enslaved 18, 58, 78n31, 154–155, 162 sleep 83, 97; see also dreams; incubation sociology 2, 85 Socrates 92, 95, 97, 100, 121 Sostratos (character in Menander) 33 Sostratos (merchant) 60 soteria 153; Soter deities 7; see also relationships with divine/ supernatural beings soul (ψυχή) 9–10, 16, 44, 92, 95–96, 142n44 souls of the dead 5, 61, 84, 96, 99–103, 104, 126, 127; and rituals at Cyrene 101–102, 125 Sparta 78n27, 87 Spercheios River 124 splanchna 75, 78n31; splanchnoptes 60 stele shrines 69, 71, 77 stephanoun (στεφανοῦν) “to crown” 33–35 storytelling 15, 27, 59; at the loom 39, 50n88; see also narrative sumbola (σύμβολα) see theurgy sunthēmata (συνθήματα) see theurgy Syeris, helper (διάκονος) of Lysimache 25 tainiai 61, 64 ta nomima (τὰ νόμιμα) 72 ta patria (τὰ πάτρια) 15, 55, 77; and visual culture 71–72, 75–76 Tarentum 37, 65, 77n2 Tarquinia 1, 147, 161; see also Gravisca Tegea 87 Telemachos 44 temple 1, 5, 25, 27, 28, 39, 61, 67–68, 91, 148, 150, 153, 161 testimonials and religious identity 121–122 Theodora 100 theoleptos see possession theology 10, 81n90; “material theology” 48n35; “visual theology” 47n18 theophoric names 121 Theophrastos 86, 89

Index 209 Theophrastos (target of binding spell) 101, 129–132 theoria 137 Thera 32, 125; see also Archedemos of Thera Theron 94 Thessaly 7, 94 theurgy 88, 107n22 thiasos 96; see also madness Thurii 96 Timonidas 23 tomb see cemeteries and graves trade 1, 18, 148, 152–153, 161, 162; and sanctuary foundations 153; see also merchants; ships Tritopatores 102 Trophonios 48n39, 90

viewing 11–12, 47n18, 73–74, 134, 135–138, 141n24 votive reliefs see sculpture weaving 37–40, 141n24; as dedications 14–15, 28, 29–30, 37, 38, 40; looms 37; spindles and spindle whorls 40, 124 wood: woodcarving 9, 15, 40–43, 44, 152, 159; other wooden objects 18, 26, 33, 44, 48n44, 50n89, 51n105, 70, 128–129; woodworking 14–15, 40–43, 159 wreaths 33–36, 49n52, 61, 64 Xeniades 52, 134–135, 169 Xenokrateia 57, 134–135 Xenophon 92, 94 Xenophon of Myrrhinous 127

underworld journey see eschatology vision and viewing 13, 26–28, 29, 45, 63–64, 69–71, 76; and religious

Zeus 27, 37, 38, 58, 83, 89, 127, 139n3, 152 Zoilos 1, 148, 150, 158, 164n9, 169