Tag Archives: graeco-roman

Boeotian Theoi: Hekate

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[Please note: I want to apologise for skipping over Demeter and Kore at the time I had allotted for Them. Sometimes I think I'll feel up for doing something, and then allergies or carpal tunnel syndrome, or whatever else goes wrong. I also must confess that I'm not the best at managing the time I have, in part cos I'm just too easily distracted.]

Hesiod, Theogony 404 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
“Hekate whom Zeus the son of Kronos honoured above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honour also in starry heaven, and is honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods . . . For as many as were born of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven) [the Titanes] amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Kronos [Zeus] did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea. Also, because she is an only child, the goddess receives not less honour, but much more still, for Zeus honours her.”

I’ve found little about Hekate’s shrines specific to Boeotian traditions, but Hesiod apparently considered Her of great importance, and there is evidence that She was a widespread household goddess, with a a shrine at household gates, and at crossroads. At the deipnon (dark moon), the ancients left Her a meal, outdoors, as an offering. In Popular Wicca, She’s often cast as the “crone” aspect of the uniquely modern archetype on the “triple goddess”, while Demetre and Persephone occupy the “Mother” and “Maiden” faces. Indeed, in Hellenic art, Hekate is consistently maiden, young woman, and Hekate Trimorphis is simply all Hekate. According to Pausanius, Hekate Trimorphis was first depicted in art as triple-headed or triple-bodied by the Attic artist Alkamenes, and came much later than the Triplicate imagery of Hekate that’s incredibly popular with Pop Wicca. I don’t reject Hekate Trimorphis images because they are “newer” and thus somehow not “proper recon”1. Indeed, if the only “correct” way to see Hekate is the oldest way, then She should be an invisible Goddess, appearing only as a glimpse of light from the corner of one’s eye, rather than the single-bodied maiden bearing torches. I don’t reject any image of Hekate, and though I see a more spiritual meaning of the epithet, I can see the value in portraying it literally.

She also had an important role in the cult of the Elusinian mysteries. She assisted Demetre in Her search for Persephone after Persephone was taken away to the kingdom of Hades. I’ve never had much interest in the Elusinian mysteries, so unless this changes, I’m going to leave any discussion of them to people who know more about it and have a better understanding of it than I do.

One of the proposed etymologies of Her name is either giving origin to or coming from an obscure Lesbian epithet of Apollon, Hekatos, meaning “one that removes or drives off” or “far-darting one”. The most common offerings to Hekate in ancient times were to ward off evil spirits, as Hekate is the goddess of magic, witches, ghosts, and necromancy; She also is given messages to deceased loved ones. The pharmakis, or witch, Gale, was cursed by Hekate for moral incontinence and became the polecat, which some Hellenes kept as housepets for their vermin-catching abilities. There really needs to be more imagery of Hekate with a lion and / or ferret.

The most common animal associated with Her is dogs, but I’ve always thought of lions when envisioning Hekate, and Theoi Project maintains a very brief sourced passage that one of Her forms is that of a lion, so I assume this personal association as Confirmed Gnosis, though probably not without help of cultural influences, including the English and U$ custom of statues of lions at the gates and doorways of important buildings and stately homes (or even just homes and estates that aspire toward stateliness).

1: …and for the record, it’s been AGES since I’ve seen some-one actually make such a ridiculous claim for rejecting a certain image or aspect or even deity, I even forget the name of the person who did it, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if other people continue to say it, and I just haven’t noticed.

Πανδημος: Aphrodite the Red

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I often see reconstructionists of various tribe advocating a political persuasion that’s neo-conservative or outright Fascist (for the record, though, I’m not counting “radical traditionalism” as either, since the bare bones of that philosophy is social and can easily be applied to just about any political creed1). While the most discussed interpretation of Aphrodite Pandemos, “Aphrodite of All People”, is that of one in contrast to Aphrodite Urania, “Heavenly Aphrodite”, with implications (if not outright statements) that the Divine and the Material are two sides of a coin, always separate faces, never intermingling. I say this is a false dichotomy, for if the Heavenly does not regularly insert itself into the material, then what right do human beings even have to worship deities in the ancient way? Why don’t Hellenists just disregard the material world as so irreparably wicked that we must prostrate ourselves before bitter Deities and beg Their salvation? This is where I tend to see Platonism as “like Christianity, only not”, cos it lends itself too well to that sort of “logic”, and as a priest of Eros, I see no real separation between the Divine and the Material, it’s all interwoven together in the great tapestry, so positing a dichotomous Aphrodite Pandemos/Urania will ultimately fall apart because of a third side called reality, and then you realise that reality isn’t sided like a coin or a die, but faceted, like a crystal or cut gemstone.

But I don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, either, and I see another interpretation of Aphrodite of All People: She is the uniter, the community organiser, charismatic leader, and the radical. She’s the Populist, not the Individualist, and so is very easily at home with Socialism, Democracy, and other Populist parties — including Right Wing Populism.

The Πανδημος/Pandemos epithet is also shared with Eros, and so I suppose it would be hard to find a dedicated Aphroditian who is also a dedicated Libertarian, if not impossible. These are unselfish deities with Their gifts, and so the appeal of individualism and elitism would not lend easily to Their lessons. Though not exactly in a pro-Marxist light, populism and anti-aristocracy themes were prominent in the founding of The Church of Aphrodite.

1: And for the record, I don’t identify as RadTrad, either, oh no, I’m far too much of a modernist, but I’m just saying that after careful examination from the outside for the last few years, I’ve been able to see that philosophy for what it is: a benign far-fringe social movement endorsed by some decent people, and some not so much. As a Derek Jarman fan, I’d encountered the term long before I was aware that it had anything to do with modern polytheist movements, though he’d never personally self-applied the term. In fact, I find it bizarre that critics and fans of Jarman apply the term to him at all, since while I suppose his penchant for re-claiming history is certainly “radical”, and one could argue that his clear British identity is “traditional”, his family had a holiday property in the Mediterranean, growing up, and he also identified with the Mediterranean, and his methods of reclaiming history and tradition was anything but traditional. He was a complex hodge-podge of traditional and modernist, if anything.

Ακιδαλια

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ACIDA′LIA, a surname of Venus (Virg. Aen. i. 720), which according to Servius was derived from the well Acidalius near Orchomenos, in which Venus used to bathe with the Graces; others connect the name with the Greek akides, i. e. cares or troubles.

I was looking through epithets for this post, to see if there was something specific to Boeotia that hasn’t been touched on a thousand times before, and this really struck me. It struck me in the same way that the famous Praxitelian Eros of Thespiai described centuries after it ceased drawing crows from all over the Hellenosphere as “Love as Suffering”.

How often is it that love leaves us troubled and shattered? Conflicted? Paranoid?

This is further why I reject the modern syncretisation of Aphrodite with Eirene, as love seldom brings peace on even a personal level, so whoever first assumed it could bring peace on a global level clearly doesn’t strike me as one who has ever been in love.

Even requited love is not without its heartache, and the Moirai have left us with no shortage of evidence of lovers who die young, lovers who fall out of love with us, lovers who hurt us in all sorts of ways.

…and if not directly, trouble comes indirectly: Relationships with friends are all too often forever changed, the approval or disproval of family members has been the subject of many a thesis, for some of us our work suffers, and for others our art suffers. Love can be a distraction, and some have suggested that a key element to intellectual brilliance is to remain unloved, or to never fall in love.

To far too many people I’ve known, there appears no real evolutionary advantage to our wide range of emotions, and if not for other traits, they imagine our emotions would’ve been so distracting that we’d at least be further down on the food chain. I reject this notion, and suggest that for as troublesome as our emotions are, they have saved us just as much. The only other species that comes close to displaying near the range of emotion as human beings is the elephant, so advanced in its emotional development that it’s the only creature aside from humans that has rituals for its dead, and it will extend this ritual to humans who have lived around them for years — but I digress. Without this wide scope of feeling, our pre-historic ancestors would’ve been less inclined to look out for our young and familial adults, reducing the power and safety of numbers, whereas a lion is no more likely to protect members of her pride than she is to just let them go to a larger animal on the attack. Pigs are lauded as fairly intelligent, but even if in packs, are pretty much out for only their own hides. Even whales don’t go to the lengths to protect their young and others of their species that human beings do. It’s our emotions which save us from outside threats, from each-other, and from ourselves, so clearly the trouble is worth it.

Boeotian Theoi: Aphrodite

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CULT IN BOIOTIA (CENTRAL GREECE)

I) THEBES Chief City of Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 16. 3 :
“At Thebes [in Boiotia] are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of [the mythical queen] Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figure-heads on the ships of Kadmos. They call the first Ourania (Heavenly), the second Pandemos (Common), and the third Apostrophia (Rejecter). Harmoina gave to Aphrodite the surname of Ourania (Heavenly) to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of Pandemos (Common), to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Apostrophia (Rejecter), that mankind might reject unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among foreigners but even by Greeks, similar to those attributed later by legend to the mother of Adonis, to Phaidra, the daughter of Minos, and to the Thrakian Tereus.”

II) TANAGRA Village in Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 2. 1 :
“Beside the sanctuary of Dionysos at Tanagra [in Boiotia] are three temples, one of Themis, another of Aphrodite, and the third of Apollon.”

III) THESPIAI Village in Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 27. 5 :
“Here [at Thespiai, Boiotia] too are statues made by Praxiteles himself, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne [historic lover of Praxiteles], both Phryne and the goddess being of stone. Elsewhere too is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Melainis (Black), with a theater and a market-place, well worth seeing.”

Aphrodite, as per Hesiod, is not the mother of Eros. This seems pretty consistent with other Boiotian writers. This seems to be of Attic origin, and Attika certainly ensured that myth’s popularity.

Like Adonis’ cult, Aphrodite’s was most likely a Near Eastern import via the island of Kypris, and Aphrodite’s Roxk is still a prominent attraction off the coast of the island, as it’s regarded as the Goddess’ legendary birthplace, formed from the sea-foam created of the castrated loins of Ouranos. Her conception is sort of the opposite of parthenogenesis, which is the conception of a baby without a male counterpart — indeed, She was created of three males: The seed of Ouranos, the skin of Okeanos, and the hand of Zeus. This is probably what lends well to the Second Wave Anti-sex Feminist dismissal of Aphrodite as “every man’s fantasy”, but I posit that She is something deeper than that.

Even in science, parthenogenic birth makes sense, either as a design of the species or in cloning, because females possess a womb, and/or the ability to lay eggs. It is thus that Aphrodite is an impossible thing: Even the ancient Hellenes, in spite of their faulty understanding of how conception actually works, formed mythology that has no shortage of parthenogenesis, and displays at least a squintable understanding that infants need to be nourished by the human body —thus Zeus had to swallow Metis to birth Athene, and had to sew Dionysos into His thigh (which my house-mate insists is code for weiner, but that’s another story for another time). Aphrodite, even by the internal logic of mythology, is thus an impossible thing, and yet She was born as fully-formed as Athene, and exists as plainly as Dionysos; by all reasoning, She shouldn’t be, and yet She is.

Boeotian Theoi: Kharites

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Alright, a bit tired, but I’m going to have something more to write of this later today. For now, so C&P so that I won’t let myself forget.

GENERAL CULT

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 35. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
“The Boiotians say that Eteokles [mythical king of Orkhomenos, Boiotia] was the first man to sacrifice to the Kharites. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Kharites, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them.
The Lakedaimonians, however, say that the Kharites are two, and that they were instituted by Lakedaimon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names Kleta and Phaenna. These are appropriate names for the Kharites, as are those given by the Athenians, who from of old have worshipped two Kharites, Auxo and Hegemone. Karpo (Fruit) is the name, not of a Kharis, but of a Hora ) . . .
It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we learned the custom of praying to three Kharites.
And Angelion and Tekatios, sons of Dionysos, who made the image of Apollon for Athens, set three Kharites in his hand.
Again, at Athens, before the entrance to the Akropolis, the Kharites are three in number; by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many.
Pamphos [legendary poet] was the first we know of to sing about the Kharites, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names.
Homer (he too referes to the Kharites) makes one the wife of Hephaistos, giving her the name Kharis. He also says that Hypnos was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Hypnos there is this verse:–`Verily that he would give me one of the younger Kharites.’ Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Kharites as well.
Hesiod in the Theogony says that the Kharites are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia. The poem of Onomakritos [poet C6th B.C.] agrees with this account.
Antimakhos [poet C5th B.C.], while giving neither the number of the Kharites nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aigle and Helios.
The elegaic poet Hermesianax [poet C4th B.C.] disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Peitho one of the Kharites.
Who it was who first represented the Kharites naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped.
At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Kharites of gold, the work of Boupalos; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Kharis, painted by Apelles.
At Pergamon likewise, in the chamber of Attalos, are other images of the Kharites made by Boupalos; and near what is called the Pythion there is a portrait of Kharites, painted by Pythagoras the Parian.
Sokrates too, son of Sophroniskos, made images of Kharites for the Athenians, which are before the entrance to the Akropolis.
All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly today sculptors and painters represent Kharites naked.”

CULT IN BOIOTIA (CENTRAL GREECE)

I) ORKHOMENOS Town in Boiotia

Pindar, Olympian Ode 14. 1 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.) :
“Whose haunts are by Kephissos’ river, you queens beloved of poets’ song, ruling Orkhomenos, that sunlit city and land of lovely steeds, watch and ward of the ancient Minyan race, hear now my prayer, you Kharites three.”

Pindar, Pythian Ode 12. 26 ff:
“The Kharites’s city [Orkhomenos], home of lovely dances.”

Strabo, Geography 9. 2. 40 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.):
“Eteokles, one of those who reigned as king at Orkhomenos, who founded a temple of the Kharites, was the first to display both wealth and power; for he honored these goddesses either because he was successful in receiving graces, or in giving them, or both. For necessarily, when he had become naturally inclined to kindly deeds, he began doing honor to these goddesses; and therefore he already possessed this power.”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 35. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.):
“The Boiotians say that Eteokles [king of Orkhomenos, Boiotia] was the first man to sacrifice to the Kharites. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Kharites, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them . . .
It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we learned the custom of praying to three Kharites.”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 38. 1 :
“At Orkhomenos [in Boiotia] is a sanctuary of Dionysos, but the oldest is one of the Kharites. They worship the stones most, and say that they fell for Eteokles out of heaven. The artistic images were dedicated in my time, and they too are of stone.”

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13. 94 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
“The dancebeaten precinct of the Erotes (Loves), Orkhomenos city of Minyas, which the Kharites never leave.”

Goal for today: Write something more substantial than a C&P.

As an aside, I really wanted to say more about Artemis than I did, simply for the personal challenge. Frankly, as I’ve said before, Artemis doesn’t like me, and it’s really not from a lack of effort on my part, but I’ve pretty much been told that the best way for myself to worship Artemis to to leave Her alone, so I’m kind of dropping Her “week” out of respect to the Goddess in question.

Artemis Eukleia

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“Fair Fame” kept coming back to me as something to focus on this syncretic conundrum — for starters, what is this supposed to mean, “fair fame”? I’m surprised that it didn’t occur to me earlier, since I fancy myself a buff of archaic English.

An archaic definition of “fair” is “a beautiful or beloved woman“, and though the word itself is of Germanic origin, this particular use probably comes from the French “belle” and the time of the English ruling and leisure classes being predominantly French.

Kharis Eukleia would therefore have domain over the fame of women, or of women famous for being especially beautiful. This could therefore easily tie in to Artemis’ role as a protector of women, even if it may be at odds with modern sensibilities that Artemis is a rugged, boyish, feminist goddess who doesn’t need to worry about society’s notion of beauty.

Still, this syncretism of Artemis and Eukleia is not the only face of Artemis in Boeotia, but at a glance seems to be one unique to Boeotia.

A Note On Virgin Goddesses

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Originally from a comment on The House of Vines, but one I think truly deserves its own post from me, with some minor revisions:

For Eros, there really is no difference between Creation, Procreation, and Life, only nuances of definition. So yes, to deny the gods a sort of sexuality is to deny Them a thirst for life. After all, Hestia (in the mythos) only chose a chaste life because of so many proposals from others gods and, not wanting to disappoint anybody, chose no husband. It may be said that even these chaste goddesses are still so filled with a life essence that your typical mortals simply cannot comprehend it in the same way.

As a species, human beings need to engage in sexual reproduction for the survival of the species. The Deathless Ones don’t need that, so reproduction means something different to Them, it is a unity of force and a spreading of life rather than continuation. The chaste among the Deathless are still possessing of a great life essence, but one which I feel those who’ve taken a vow of free love or child-free may understand slightly better than those married and with many children, but only those who have chosen a chaste and celibate life have the potential to understand best.