tober1988 W. R. CONNOR rformance while (by colonizing ne of the

rf Chicago Seizedby the : Nympholepsyand Symbolic Expressionin ClassicalGreece

. . . or do menbecome happy in noneof theseways, but either-like thosepos- sessedby nymphsor deities-througha sort of divineinfluence, being as it were inspired. . . AristotleEudemian Ethiis LL.5.L2l4a23 ff, trans.J. Solomon

Sr..u E. R. DoDDS'Sather lectures, published in 1951under the title The Greeksand the lrrational, classicistshave increasinglyrecognized that possession and inspiration pose questionsof great significancefor the interpretationof ancient Greek civilization. Dodds' insistencethat many works by Euripides, , and other classicalauthors cannot properly be understoodwithout atten- tion to thesephenomena and to the role of the seeminglyirrational hasproved highlyproductive. Classicists have also studied the role of ,prophecy, and other practicesin waysthat make possiblea far richer understandingof Greek culturethan has hitherto been achieved.These movements in classicalscholar- ship have paralleledand sometimesbenefited from work in ,psy- chology,and other fieldsthat shednew light on the phenomenonof possession andits relationshipto socialstructures.

This study beganin 1977-1978when I wasa researchfellow at the American Schoolof Classical Studiesin Athens. Much of the writing was done on sabbaticalat Stanford University and the University of Melbourne; the work walfinally completed at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. I am indebted to these institutions for their hospitality and assistance.I am especially gratefulto the Australian-AmericanEducational Foundation for a Fulbright Fellowshipto Australia, and to Nora Laos for the plan. But my greatestobligation is to many colleaguesat theseand other institutionsfor their help and criticism.

O 1988BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CONNON: J Volume7/No. 2/October1988 156 cLASSICALANTIQUTTY nor dismil but still neglectedphenomenon among the This essayinvestigates a related "seized ern terms certain individualswere by the Greeks_nymphotepsi, or the belief that but we nt surveyof the often allusive or playful nymphs.,,lThe invesiigationinvolves a_ without a literary texts. In addition epigraphical, treatment of nymptroi'epsyin Greek approach upon the phenomenon'as doescom- mythological,and medicuit"*t' shedlight diagnosis caves dedicatedto the nymphs parative material from widely divergenicultures. the iArchedamos' cave" near Vari in Attica for Pattet are especiallyrevealing, not l"utt DesP whichthelastsectionofthisessayproposesaninterpretation.Fromthismaterial comment nympholepsycan be.pieced together' a consistentand intelligibtedescriition of of how tl of Greek civilization and at the This picture contributei to a richer understanding the so-ca sametimeposesimportantmethodologicalquestionsaboutthestudyofthat a satisfac culture. If th side NYMPHOLEPSY and of pass cannotbe separatedfrom the understanding The study of nympholepsy the I wiitrin Greek culture, and these, despiteimprove- I other forms of possession that mentsintheunderstandingofsuchstates,areStilloftenmisunderstood.2Tobe I Are "a degreeand species of epilepsy"' sure,the view that pora"ra[n is no more than and almost entirely aban- as Meric c"ruuuon pirused it, is now discredited The asa symptomof psychosisor doned.3Nor is porr".rion anylonger to be regarded be read as we shall might act very dr severepersonality disorder'n A nympholept' -see' "crazy" most neitherregarded as simply t strangelyand displaya kind of mania,but was totallY occurTe tion of ' l.E.R.DoddsinTheGreeksandthelrrational(BerkeleyandLosAngelesl95l)paidlittle basisfo attentiontothisphenom"non.e*ongtheusefuldiscussionsofnympholepsyseeespeciallyN.w' caveat (Marburg-Lahn 1957),and E' Rohde, Psvcfte,trans' Himmelmann-wildschtitz, THEoLEpros Thr g-"naon 1925)esp' 314 n'58, 316n'63' 567.n'105' n. ffoffit 'u." 1971) and N' K' I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion(Harmondsworth firmed 2. Especially ur"tui in the (c^ tslzl' em-ong the discussionsof possession Chadwick, Poetry and i,A"y aiii byaPe pfister, in RE s.B. 7 (Stuttgart1940) 100-114; A' ancientworld seeespecially: F. s.v. daimonismos philosophes_prAsoc11til1tes(Paris 1934)esp' Conceptio^'a, f rirnoiinsme chez les Delatte, Les w. Burkert's review in on p. ,r proconessus.(oxfoidlg6i) l37ff ., with 2lff.; J.D. Botton, irirri 't7f' E' R' lair Os-eA' On'possessionin-later antiquity' Gnomon35 (1963) Zzs-in;itias (supran't; Greek seeJ. C' Lawton, Modern lifi JRS 37 (Ig41)Oi, l.n'o* u^iu"tl"..On modern farallels Dodds, tre GreekFolkloreandAncientGreekReligion(Cambridge1910)142ff.- Thomas, Relj. concerningEntiusiasm (|655) 95, quoted in K. 3. Meric Casaubon,A Treatise "shamanist to wl ct. Max weber, ecstasyis linked gion and the Decline "iii"ci (G"aon 1971)t+s. hit representsa charismaticqualification'': epilepsy,the progressionand testing.ofwhich constitutional W. Mills and H' H' Gerth atl ,.Sociology iutlnorlty,,' in From Max Weber, irans. C. of ChansmatJ was as an (supra n.z) 64 long ago showedhow inadequateepilepsy (London Lg48)246. Ch;;;i;k (supra n 2) ioriclusions are confirmed by Lewis explanation of ,"flgiorrJ porr",!on. Cf,ua*i"k's l80f.,whoshowsthatmanyshamansareinperfectphysicalandP:y:llologi.calhealth,andbythe 5. eds. spirit Mediumshipand societyin Africa materialcollecteo in rono-n"uttie and John tuiaoteton, ' 6. (NewYork 1969)esP. xxiv' Deverli 4. Chadwick (suPran'2) 64'

I t tober 1988 coNNoR:Seized by the Nymphs 157 rmong the nor dismissedas incapableof functioningwithin ancientGreek society.In mod- zed by the ern termswe might saythat his conditionwas that of a "dissociatedpersonality" "carrying or playful but we now know that in some societiessuch personsare capable of graphical, without a falter immenseburdens of responsibilityand leadership."5We canbest doescom- approachthese individuals not through attemptsat medical or psychological re nymphs diagnosisbut by studyinghow they actedand askinghow thoseactions fit into Attica for the patternof life in their society. ismaterial Despite these advancesin our understandingof statesof possession,the l together. commentsin the fourth chapter of the Hippocratic SacredDisease, a discussion and at the of how the charlatansand -healersof the day put blamefor eachform of Jy of that the so-calledSacred Disease on a particulardivinity, arestill sometimestaken as a satisfactorydescription of suchstates in the classicalGreek world: If the patient imitate a goat, if he roar or sufferconvulsions on the right sidethey say the Mother of the Gods is to blame.If he utter a piercing and loud cry, they liken him to a horseand blamePoseidon. Should he tanding of passsome excrement, as often happensunder the stressof the disease, improve- the surnameEnodia is applied.If it be more frequentand thinner, like rd.2To be that of birds, it is Nomius. If he foam at the mouth and kick, epilepsy," hasthe blame.6 rely aban- part polemical of possessionand need to iychosisor Thesecomments are of a treatment one aspectof possession-the t act very be readwith somecaution. To be sure,they reflect ,ly "crazy" most dramatic and memorableaspect, the momentswhen the individual goes totally out of control and entersa stateof frenzy. Suchmoments undoubtedly occurredfrom time to time and cameto be the basisfor the literary representa- l) paid little tion of possession,for they readilyseized the imaginationand could providethe :speciallyN. basisfor a sceneof greatpower, asin Vergil'sdescription of the Sibylbefore her he,trans. W. caveat Cumae(Aeneid6.47-5t). t and N. K. That ancientGreek societyassociated such behavior with posessionis con- :ssion in the firmed by Plutarch'sdescription of a carefullycontrived imitation of possession 100-114;A. by a personwho had blasphemedthe Mother of the Gods: s 1934)esp. t's review in on a suddenhe threw himself upon the ground . . . and after having iquity,E. R. lain there sometime without speaking,as if he had beenin a trance,he ton, Modern lifted up his head, and turning it round, beganto speakwith a feeble homas,ReI- trembling voice, which he raised by degrees:and when he saw the r is linked to whole assemblystruck dumb with horror, he threw off his mantle,tore ralification": his vest in pieces,and ran half-nakedto one of the doors of the the- :I. H. Gerth atre, crying out that he was driven by the Mothers.. . . He ran toward sy was as an (supra n.2) , and by the iety in Africa 5. M. J. Field, Searchfor Security(London 1960)55. 6. HippocratesSacred Disease 4, trans. W. H. S. Jones.Cf. Luctatius PlacidusGlossae, ed. A. Deverling(Leipzig 1885) 62. 158 cLAssrcALANTIeurrY Volume7/No. 2/October1988 CONNOR:

the city gates,omitting neithersound nor gesturebefitting one that was Atl heaven-struckand distracted.T nympho hexamel Possession,real or feigned,was often good theater.Xenophon remarked, ing the I "all who are under the influenceof any of the godsseem well worth gazingat," what do and went on to note that in comparisonto thosepossessed by chasteLove those enthousi possessedby other divinities "have a tendencyto be sterner of countenance, Socl more terrifying of voice, and more vehement."EFrenzy, however, was neither possess€ the constantnor the inevitablemark of suchstates. Less sensational, but no less frenzy is characteristic,were momentsof silence,followed by heightenedfluency and instead: awareness,a concentrationof faculties,an elevationof expression,and ulti- sinceit r mately the reorganizationof personalityinto a new identity and a new social take awi role.eThe inspiration of the at Delphi, we are coming to recognize, thanev( normally resulted,not in hysteriaor delirium, but in elevatedexpression and a howmu feelingof insight.lo If we turn from other forms of possessionto nympholepsy,the situationis The even clearer. One could be a nympholeptwithout experiencingsuch frenzy. dialogur Plato'sevidence in this respectis especiallyrevealing. In severaldialogues he has left his r Socratesallude to nympholepsyin a way that presentsit asquite unrelatedto the and-ans tearing of clothes, the biting of lips, or convulsionsand frenzies. In Plato, may so nympholepsybetokens heightened awareness and eloquence. In the Phaedrus,for prominr example,Socrates interrupts his speech on the reasonsfor yieldingto the nonlover the setti rather than the lover to ask Phaedrus,"does it seemto you asit doesto me that To somethingsupernatural is happeningto me?" Phaedrusreplies that he believesa "quite pOSSeSSt unusualrhetorical fluency hasseized" Socrates. To whichSocrates feuroial sion, S< replies,"Hear me thenin silence,for I reallybelieve there is somethingsupernatu- Prospal ral aboutthis place.So if asthe speechgoes on I oftenbecome nympholept, do not (3e6D) be surprised,for I am alreadynot far from speakingin dithyrambs."ll nymphr of a cul 7. PlutarchMarcellw 20, trans.Langhorne as modifiedby J. D. P. Bolton (supran.2) 137f. that mi Bolton's discussionin the adjoining pagesis very valuable, especiallyfor the distinction between parison possessionand cataleptic states. tl 8. XenophonSymposium 1.9.10, trans. O. J. Todd. urges 9. There are also similaritiesto the patternsin theurgy noted by Dodds (supra n.1) Appendix acquire II, 283-311(reprinted with minor changesfrom Dodds[supra n.2] 67). but tot 10. Cf. J. Fontenrose,The Delphic (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978)204-12. Fonten- ourselv rose, in my opinion, goestoo far in deemphasizingthe Pythia'soccasional excitement and the use of ambiguity and meter and in his rejection of many oraclesreported in Herodotus and other sources, skilled but his views are a healthy corrective to those who imagine the Pythia as uncontrollably frenzied. Comparative material suggeststhat frenzy, convulsions,etc., are often the result of resistanceto possession,while the personwho acceptspossession is lessviolently affected. 12. 11. Plato Phaedrus238C f. Cf. the discussionof Strabo 675C on Diogenes of Tarsus apud 13. Bolton (supran.7) 136.Possessed persons in antiquity were often saidto expressthemselves through Rosenstr verse:Plutarch Themistocles26.2on Olbios; PlutarchMoralia39TC on the prophetessat Delphi, etc. 14. The verse is often in hexameters,but dithyrambic verse is also associatedwith divine enthusiasm; alludedI ProclusCftrestomathy sec.52f. Alternatively, they may add to preparedmaterial additional portions be dispo not originallyintended: Aelius Aristides 21 (SmyrnaeanOration) 15. the expe coNNoR: lerzed by the Nymphs 159

.atwas At the end of his speechsocrates again compareshis state to that of a "Did nympholept: you not notice, my friend, that I am already speakingin remarked, hexameters,not mere dithyrambs, even though I am delivering a speechcriticiz- ing '>azingat," the lover? But if I begin to deliver a speechof praiseabout the non-lover, what do you think I will -ove those do? Do you not think I will surelybe possessed[saphos lntenance, enthousiaso)by the nymphs to whom you have deliberately exposed me?,,12 'as neither Socrates'language is a useful correctiveto the widespreadidea that those possessed but no less by the nymphswere characterizedby convulsions or incoherence.Such uency and frenzyis not a significantpart of Socrates'allusions to possession.He emphasizes insteada heightened , and ulti- fluencythat might be representedas frightening or upsetting, since new social it markeda departurefrom normalpatterns. The nymphs,in hisview, do not recognize, takeaway articulate speech. on the contrary,they are more skilled,technik1teras, than "oh sion and a evena greatlyadmired orator. As Socratesexclaims in phaedrus263D, howmuch more skilledare the nymphs,the daughtersof Achelousand , son of ituation is Hermes,in the art of speechthan Lysias, Cephalus,son.,' ch frenzy. The risk of nympholepsyis linked in the phaedrusto the setting of the dialogue ueshe has on the banksof the llissos,outside the city walls.Socrates has already left Ited to the his city haunts,started delivering long speechesinstead of his usualquestion- In Plato, and-answerexchanges, and risen to a loftier, almostpoetic style. He fearsthat he rcidrus,for may soon be carried even further away from his customarypatterns. More prominent, : nonlover however, is Socrates'recognition that his physicaldeparture from to me that the settingof city life makeshim vulnerableto this form of possession. believesa To be sure, this is not the only way, he thinks, in which one might become possessed. h Socrates In the Cratylus,in the midst of a very technicaland difficult discus- ,upernatu- sion, Socratesagain speaks of himselfas possessed-thistime by Euthyphrothe "took :pt, do not Prospaltianwho possessionof my soul within his supernaturalwisdom,, "possession,' (396D).tr rhe discussionof this form of is similar to that of nympholepsy-playful, allusive,self-parodying, but at the sametime indicative of a culturalparadigm that recognizedin possessionan insightand understanding :a n.2) L37f.. that might not otherwisereadily be attained.Socrates continues ion between his playfulcom- parison betweenhis feelingsfor Euthyphro and the state of possessionas he urgesthe participantsin the conversationto take advantageof the wisdomhe has "today t) Appendix acquiredfrom this possesionand . . . finish the investigationof names, but tomorrow, if the rest you -12.Fonten- of agree, we will conjure it away and purify td the use of ourselves,when we have found someone,whether priest or sophist,who is her sources, skilledin that kind of purifying."u Theseare playful commentsbut they utilize rly frenzied. 'esistanceto 12. PlatoPhaedrus24IE,trans. H. N. Fowler,modified. farsus apud 13. The passagesin the Cratylus are quoted in the translation of H. N. Fowler. Bruce lvesthrough Rosenstockcalled them to my attention. Delphi, etc. 14. It is unusualto find possessionassociated with pollution or with purificatoryrites of the sort enthusiasm; alluded to in the Cratylus.Yet a personwho experiencedan episodethat iesembledpossession might nal portions be disposed to undertakea purificatory in order to avoid a lastingrestructuring of his life about the experience. 160 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume7 lNo. 2lOctober1988

an acceptedparadigm about the nature of possessionin the society.This para- of a singlei digm presentsthe possessedperson, not as mindless,but as someonewhose may be thot understandingmay be of greatvalue, even if his exceptionalstate is at the same associatedv time strangeor frightening. name as a Another form of possessionis alludedto in the Ion wherePlato refers to hexameterr those who are possessedby Homer and others by the , , or arewell knc Mousaios.Again the result is not frenzy but elevation,claims of wisdom,elo- perhapsnol "your quence,and a kind of statelyinward rhythm: soul dances,',Socrates says expectation to lon.ls Although the dialoguecontains no allusionto nympholepsy,socrates' the oracles comment calls to mind the stately dancesoften representedon Attic that Bakis r reliefs in which a male, often drawn in slightty smallerscale to representhis have claimt mortal status, holds hands with and seemsto be dancing with a group of Nympholep nymphs.r6As one surveysthe important study of these reliefs by Nikolaus tion of Peisi Himmelmann-Wildschtitzit is hard to resistthe conclusionthat the reliefsare to think of : tokensof the gratitudeof thosewho felt that they had benefitedfrom a special with the ot contactwith the nymphs.we neednot insistthat eachof them representsa case picture of r of nympholepsyto recognizein them expressionsof gratitudeand of a stately possession elevationof spirit.17 There is nc Thesereliefs, then, are not far removedfrom the tone of plato'sallusions to realm;in th possessionand especiallyto nympholepsy,which identify the essentialmark of The col thesestates as an elevatedsensibility.and power of expression.If they involvea reportin Pa kind of mania, it must be one of the divine madnessesdiscussed in the Phaedrus sied inside (244A ff , 265D). Thus, if confronted by a personin a stateof mania the supersti- caveto who tiousman might spit in his clothesas an apotropaicgesture, and ordinary persons the cavr might shudderand hope neverto be so torn from familiar patterns.l8But some facing t who had felt the power of the nymphs might be pleasedand thankful, even days,at dedicatingreliefs in their gratitude. In possessionresides a great if ambiguous power, power, one that includesthe potentialfor heightenedunderstanding. A person who said he had been seizedby the nymphsmight, for example,be thought sophosby divine providence-th eiai -as the author of a history of Attica, 20.On E Melesagoras(or Amelesagoras)of Eleusisclaimed to be.1e Hb. 35850f.;, darc Melasagorasmade a further Religion claim: he was not only sophos. wise, but n.1) establishI mantikos,prophetic. Prophecywas expected from nympholepts,who seemoften nes Peace lfill to have claimed accessto special understanding.The prophetic power of and 10.12.11, personalnamt nympholeptstakes a specialform in the storiesabout Bakis.The nameis not that n.1)88 n.45. 27. T\e' 15. Plato Ion536B-C. tent with the ( 16. on the nymphsand dancingsee Himmelmann-wildschtitz (supra n.l) 1g and nn. 43, 44. correct it sets 17. Himmelmann-Wildschtitz(supra n.1) 13-25. The Attic nymph reliefs are also discussedby poem of the re RenateFeubel, Die attischenNymphenreliefs (Heidelberg 1935). delivered thes 18. "The Theophrastus Characters16.35. Dodds' chapter on Blessingsof Madness" in Ifte deservesrecor Greeks and thelrrational (supran.l) is especiallyapporit". Note alsoHerodotus 9.93f. 22. This 19' FGrH , 330, esp. T 3' The ancient sourcesquite clearly imply a classicaldate for the work, Iippika: FGrH but see Jacoby's arguments for a date around 300 s.c. The work was in prose; the three extant 23. Plut: fragmentsall concernthe mythic period. Pausanias9.3. 161 : 1988 coNNoR: Seized bY the NYmPhs

propheticpowers. It of a singleindividual, but of variouspersons who claimed para- andclosely may beihought of asa role or identity adoptedby certainindividuals vhose the useof the associatedwith possessionby the nymphs.This doesnot exclude same to collections of name as a literary persona and hence as a way of referring Although these hexameteroracles that circulatedthrough much of antiquity.20 ers to significancehas arewell known from citationsin Herodotusand Pausanias,their ls, or point to the perhapsnot been fully appreciated.Not only doestheir circulation r, elo- of that nympholeptswould have propheticpowers' but the nature ,S S?YS expectation a public role for this varietyof nympholepsy.The tradition :rates' the oraclespoints to a by-name,for peisistratosmay be correct:he may rymph that Bakis was an epitieton, acquired specialwisdom by this form of possession'2l nt his have claimed to have 'up of Nympholepsyinthiscasewouldhavebeenasupportandperhapsalegitimiza- public role.zzltmay be surprisingand initially difficult for us solaus tion of Peisistratos's politicianin this way, but the tradition is consistentboth :fs are to think of an Athenian of Peisistratidexploitation of oraclesand with the ipecial with the other indications a case pictureofnympholepsythatisemergingfromourinvestigation:thisformof possessionwas thoughi to lead to heightenedeloquence and understanding' Itately to the private There is no good ,"u.on to think that it was alwaysrestricted period it might provevery helpfulin politicallife. .onsto realm;in the Archaic .ark of Theconnectionbetweennympholepsyandprophecyisalsoreflectedinthe pausanias on Mount Cithaeronthe Sphragiticnymphs prophe- 'olve a reportin 9.3.9that presumablythey spoke through the nympholeptsof that aedrus sied inside a cavern; caveto whom Plutarchrefers: Persti- 'ersons the caveof the Sphragiticnymphs was on one of the peaksof Cithaeron' in former t some facingthe summersu--nsets, and in it there was alsoan oracle of the oracular , gven days,as they say,and manyof the nativeswere possessed iguous power,anditreie werecallld nympholEptoi,or nymph-possessed'23 person hought f. andLatte, s'v' orakel, RE 20. on Bakissee Kern, s.v. Bakis,RE Hb. 4 (stuttgart1896) 2802 Attica, (Paris lI' 105ff'; R'Pettazzoni, La Hb. 35 850f.; A. Bouch€-Leclercq, Hisioirede Ia 1879) The passagesin Rohde (supra Religion dansIa Grcce o"tiqii, t#ns. l. Gouillard (Paris 1952)109f. ancientpassages are Aristopha- ;e, but n. t) establishthe connectr,onwith nympholepsy._Themost important FGrH 115F 77), Pausanias4'27'4 nespeace 1070 f. and the scholiaai toc. linctuaingTheopompos n often arguedthat Bakiswas not a and 10.L2.11,Herodotus 8.20,77,96, and 9.43.Rohde,314 n'58, challengedby Dodds (supra wer of personalname but the nameof a classof possessedpersons. This was rot that n.1)88 n.45. 1071,but it is consis- 21. Thetradition is reported only in the scholionon AristophanesPeace 1'62,5'93' 7'6' If the storyis tent with the emphasison oraclesamong the Peisistratids;Herodotus madnesswhen he delivered his correct it sets in a new light the traditi;n that Solon was feigning r. 43,M. to be possessedwhen he poemof the recoveryof Silamis(Plutarch So/on 8 et alibi). Washe claiming :ussedby in early Greek politics delivered these elegiacs?The entire question of the role of inspiration reconsideration. " in The deserves 22..|hisisperhapswhyTheopompospaidspecialattentiontoBakidesinbook9ofthePfti Iippika:FGrH ll5F7'7. he work, 628f' and Fraseron 23. Plutarch Aristides1l, trans. B. Perrin. See also PlutarchMoralia :e extant Pausanias9.3.9. 162 cLAssrcALANrIeuIrY Volume74.{o. 2/October 1988 coNNOR:sei

RecentlyPierre Amandry hasmade a strongcase that anotherfamous cave and in a sacred siteof worshipof the nymphsin this area,the Coryciangrotto aboveDelphi, was remind us o alsoused for prophecy.2a nympholePt Placesthought to be inhabitedby nymphswere often regardedas sitesfor inscription t prophecy,and some of the dedicationsassociated with the nymphsmay be expres- sionsof gratitudefor propheciesthey had received.2s The nymphsthemselves, like the closelyrelated figuresof the Muses,could be describedas prophetesses,as Erato wassaid to be in a shrinenear Lykosoura.26 Nympholepts could be defined Welcor men ar asprophets and possessed ones, manteis . . . kai epitheiastikoi.2TBut their mantic to this powersseem to be localizedin a particularsite, where, as Socratessaid on the to Lort "there aboutthis place.So if asthe banksof the Ilissos, is somethingsupernatural This is speechgoes on I oftenbecome nympholept, do not be surprised."28 To the The closelink betweenthe nympholeptand a specificlocation is especially those t evidentin the caseof Archedamosof Thera, whosecave on Mount Hymettos The ny will be discussedin later sectionsof this essay.But it has its analogiesin other The n1 circumstancesas well. For example,the name of a certain Pantalkeswas in- He hel scribed,probably in the fourth centuryB.c., on two inscriptionsin a cavenot far they in from Pharsalusin Thessaly.2eOne of these,if Werner Peek'sinterpretation is Herakl correct,reads: with w Apollc Pantalkesdedicated this work to the goddesses; health but Anthippa made the laurel rise up. Pan gi Chirot probably the goddessesmentioned in the Anthippa is a nymph, singledout from Now g first line of the inscriptionfor specialveneration. The laurel presumablygrew say yo is hert

"Le 24. PierceAmandry, Culte des Nympheset de Pan," L'Antre Corycien{ BCFI Suppl. IX The prese: (1985)esp. 378 and 411. On a possiblecase of nympholepsyattested at the cavesee.9EG 3.406. tone of th place 25. The Nymphaion at Apollonia in Illyria must have been an especiallydramatic of may well prophecy:Cassius Dio 10.41.45.See also L. Farnell, Cults of the Greek StatesV (Oxford 1909)459 n.99.On the Sibyllinegrotto at Erythraesee K. Boresch,, ltMitt. l7 (1892)17,20,36. again dra 26. Pausanias8.37.11. See also Pausanias 10.5.5 on the nymphDaphnis at Delphi and Bloch's "generous -1902) discussionin Roscher /ru. Lexikon lll (Leipzig L897 5l3tf . and the g 27. Hesychius,s.v. vupQ6)'qntor(Latte Nu 724). 28. Plato Phaedrus 238D. The inspiration seemslocalized, just as nymphs themselvesare aoidos, closelybound to a specificsetting: a Hamadryad,for example,will perish if the tree with which sheis The t associatedis destroyed. pointed h 29. SEG 1.247 and 248,2.357,3.4'76,16.377 and 378; A. S- McDevitt, Inscriptionsfrom Thessaly(Hildesheim 1970) nos. 166and 171.Pantalkes' inscriptions are discussed by WernerPeek, in Greek, "Metrische Inschriften," MnemosynonTheodor Wiegand, ed. J. F. Crome et al. (Munich 1938),esp. lateT. B. "Theraeische II, "Die Inschriftender Grotte bei Pharsalos,"18-27. See also Hiller von Gaertringen, in the latt Studien,"Archaeologike Ephemeris (1931)1,57f. Both authorsnote parallels to Archedamos'cave. Himmelmann-Wildschtitz(supra n.1) 10followed the text by Comparetti,but later, inthe Marburger Winckelmann-Programmfor 1957 (17), cited Peek's work on the inscriptions. Himmelmann- 30.T. are the work of later followers 30.1608.o Wildschtitzcontended that as in Archedamos'scave, the inscriptions '' and admirersof the nympholept. Seealso the discussionby F. T. van Straten, "Gifts for the Gods," Pouilloux, in H. S. Versnel, ed., Faith, Hope and Worship(Leiden l98l)79 and 95, and the commentsby Pleket and L. Rot in the same volume, 162. I am grateful to Christian Habicht for assistanceon these inscriptions. Ronald Str< ,ber1988 coNNoR:Seized by the Nymphs r63 caveand in a sacredgrove, an alsosor kEpos,near the cave. Although these details lphi, was remindus of Archedamos'cave at Vari, one of the most importantexamples of nympholepsy,Pantalkes' cave was shared by many divinities, as the second sites for inscriptionmakes clear: e expres- GOD lves,like FORTUNE :esses,as e defined Welcomeall visitors,each female and male, girls, ir mantic men and women, alike boYsand placesacred to Nymphs, Pan and Hermes, id on the to this to Lord Apollo and Heraklesand followers. r if asthe This is the caveof Chiron and Asklepiosand . To them belongthis whole place,and the most sacredthings within it, :specially thosethat grow and the tabletsand dedicationsand the numerousgifts. {ymettos The nymphsmade Pantalkesa distinguishedman- , in other The nymphswho tread upon this land, they madehim their overseer. s was in- He helpedthese plants grow and shapedthings with his hands; re not far they in turn gavehim a generousliving for all his days' :tation is Heraklesgave him strengthand aretd and power, with which he struck thesestones and built them up. Apollo and his son Hermesgive health and a good living through all the age. Pan giveshim laughterand fun and a justifiedhybris; Chiron grantedhim to be wise and a poet. redin the Now go on up with good fortune; sacrifice,all of you; rbly grew say your prayers;enjoy yourself.For forgetfulnessof all cares is here and your shareof good things, and victory in strife.

I Suppl.IX The presenceof sucha large number of divinities,the relaxedand evenplayful sEG 3.406. tone of the verse,the avoidanceof the languageof possessionand domination tic place of Pantalkeswas a nympholept.But his verse d 1909)4s9 may well make us doubt whether again draws attention to the blessingsof the nymphs and their associates:a "justified and Bloch's "generousliving," strength,laughter, fun, the indeterminate hybris," and the gifts that let Pantalkesclaim to be an aner agathos,sophos, and an nselves are aoidos. which sheis The blessingsof the nymphs were also affirmed in a cave on a sharply pointedhill in Cyprus.There, near Kafizin, hundredsof inscribedsherds, some otionsfrom publishedby the ernerPeek, in Greek, somein a local syllabary,have been recoveredand 1938),esp. late T. B. Mitford.3oMany of theseare from pots dedicatedby one Onesagoras "the Iheraeische in the late third century B.c. to a nymph variouslydescribed as one on the amos'cave. zMarburger mmelmann- 30. T. B. Mitford, TheNymphaeum of Kafizin,Kadmos Suppl. II (Berlin 1980).See also sEG er followers 30.1608.O. Masson,."A proposdes inscriptions... de Kafizin,"BCH 105(1981) 623-49; J. ..Le the Gods," Pouilloux, DernierLivre de T. B. Mitford," Revuede Philologie 56 (1982) 99-103, and J. Robert rtsby Pleket and L. Robert, Bulletin Epigraphique[1981] no. 636 (REG 94 [1981])474-76. I am indebtedto .nscriptions. RonaldStroud for assistancewith this material. 164 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume7AIo. 2/October1988 coNxon:Sei;

sharplypointed hill" (e.g., nos.62, 104)or as "his sister"(e.g., "daughter" no. 26) or The shift to' (nos. 253and 259)and perhapsas one who,.hearkensto her suitor" gods, so Pr, (no. 251). There are frequent referencesto Agathe Tyche, but few to other divinitiesth divinities. would be E Mitford believed that most of the dedicationscame from.businessmen in_ specialritua volvedin the flax and linseedtrade who dedicatedto the nymphtithes reflecting If we dr their gratitudefor her help. onesagoras,a leaderof this group, may actuallybe sitesand pe portrayedon someof the vases,those with beardedheads upon them (nos.262- tent. The n1 66), as Archedamos was in his caveat vari. onesagorasaiparently had a pro- specialinsPi phetic role, or such seemsthe most prausibleinference from the unusualword the creator manziarchEsas(slc), "performing that is, the function of.a msntiarchos,,,i.e., city. But thr makingpredictions basedon the examinationof the intestinesof sacrificialani- ecy and pel mals.3rAlthough he is never describedas nymphol€ptos,the intensity of his not be unde devotionand the occurrenceof the languageof subordinationto the nymph(nos. This co 9,29r) make such an inferencevery likely.32If so, his possessionseems not to deed, some haveinterfered with business;indeed onesagoras probably thought his relation contactwitl with the nymph helped him in his career (nos.266 and267). This should not himselfsacl appear surprisingif we rememberthat nympholepsyis not an illnessor form of madness,but a stateof heightenedawareness and expression. A nym is nc Many featuresof onesagoras'sdedications correspond closely to what we No lon know of nympholeptsand the formsof their devotion.The adaptationof family and Will wr erotic terminologyto describethe relationwith the nymph, the useof self_ portraiture, the link to prophecy,and the hints of heightenedskill and under- Astakides standing, not to mention the choiceof a rural cavefor the dedications,are all term for rt featuresthat canclaim special significance in the understandingof nympholepsy. profanewc Shrinessuch as that developedby pantalkesare rarerythe work of people This st mentionedin our literary sources.Literature, however,does provide u *gglr- lepts.Thel tive analogy to the cavesthat seemoften to havebeen the locusof venerationof changingc' the nymphs.The semi-mythologizedstories about Epimenidesof crete assert that he disappearedfor many years-fifty-seven, in most versions-while he slept in a cave. on his return, accordingto Theopompus,he beganto build a shrine nympholept. to the nymphs.Although the sourcesdo not make it "*pli.it, it seems likely that the shrine was in nympholePt. the cavewhere he had once disappeared.Then a Epimen voice "Epimenides, from heaventold him, not for the Nymphs,tut for .,,33 Blastaor Bal that circulate 34. NYt 31. Cf. Robert and Robert (supran.30) 4j4_76. and in Thera 32. on subordinationto_th-e.nymph see the epigram of chrysogonosof cos in R. Herzog, Demesof Atl Kois.cheForschungen (Leipzig 1899) no. 163,pp. 103fi.and the retiei(s.It.p.) found near Halicarnas- 35. On sus.in which one Apelles alludes to himself as a hypourgosof the gods, probably including three 36. Cal Naiadsin that number.G. E. Bean and J. M. coo( rsa so 119ssfol una pt. tz and van Straten 37. It it Bull.A.Beschaving1,5 (1976) t9 andfig. 28. he arrives at 33. In addition to TheopomposFGrH 115 F pausanias 67 see 1.14.4,Diogenes Laertius into a divine 1'10' 109 ff' , PlutarchSolon 12,and the other sources collectedin VS3. The storyalluded to in these dayslikens h textsseems to me a thinly veiledrepresentation of a case of nympholepsyand a movementbeyond it. just before t The yearsin the caveare an externalview of a disappearancefrom theiamity analogousto that of a 't5. i., Do. 26) or The shift toward Zeus may reflect to her suitor" a tensionbetween the cult of the olympian gods, so prominent in urbanized few to other civic religion, and the venerationof lesser divinitiesthat played a specialrole in rural and private religion.r+Its analogue would be Epimenides'role as a traveling ;inessmenin- purifier brought in by cities when specialrituals were needed.35 hesreflecting If we draw togetherthe diversematerial ty actuallybe which we have found from many sitesand periodsof the m(nos.262- Greek world we find a patternthat is remarkablyconsis_ tent' The nympholeptemerges not ly had a pro- as an epilepticor madmanbut as a personof specialinspiration and of a distinct rnusualword statuswithin society.often the nympholeptis the creatoror embellisherof a cult place, vchos,"i.e., usuallya rusticone, remotefrom the city' But the siteis not a placefor purely acrificialani- . privateor individualreligiosity. proph- ecy and perhapshealing or purification ensity of his can be found there. Its benefitsshould not be underestimated. nymph(nos. This confersupon the nympholept ieemsllot to a specialstatus within the society.In- deed,some evidence suggests I his relation that not only did the nympholepthave a special contactwith what washory and with ; should not the powerthat camefiom tire divine,he was himselfsacre d, hieros.An epigram ,sor form of of cailimachusmakes this expricit: A nymph has seizedAstakides the cretan from the mountain.Astakides to what we is now sacred. on of family No-longer,my shepherds,no longer in the Dictaeanwoods useof self- Will we sing Daphnis, but alwaysAstakides.36 and under- Astakidesis not called pious (easebis),ritually pure (hagnos), .ons,are all or some other term for religiousdevotion. He has become mpholepsy. hieros,that is, removedfrom the profaneworld and madepart of the sacred.37 k of people This suggestsan important changein perspective le a sugges- in our view of nympho- lepts.They can be understoodas part of a long line of holy :nerationof men, a diverseand changingcompany that reachesback to the seersand lrete assert cathariicspecialists of early -while he r to build a it, it seems nympholept'The shrineis not explicitlyidentified with the cave,but suchwork wouldbe typicalofa :d. Then a nympholept. Epimenides'link to the nymphsis also or Zeus."33 reflectedin the storiesthat makehim the sonof a nymph Blastaor Balte: prutarchsoton 12,srda, s.v. Epimenides(Epsilon zan xrcij-.on an oracrebook that circulatedunder his namesee J. Toepffer, ,Airrsche Geneaiogieln"rrin issef iazi. 34. Nymphs,to be sure,were sometimes veneratedin the city, ", on th"'A.roporis at Athens and in Thera, and wereincluded t R. Herzog, in the sacralcalendars of severalAttic demes.See D. whitehead, rr Halicarnas- Demesof Attica(Princeton l9g5) 193n.91. Bakides cludingthree 1: 9r as purifiers seeTheopomp os FGrH ll5 F 77. I van Straten 36. CallimachosEpigramXXU ea\; Ani. pal. 7.5t8. 37' It is unusualto call a human being hieros. oedipus usesthis word to describehimself when he arrives at colonus in Sophoclesoc nes Laertius 28i , perhapsin inticipation of rrisoisappearance and entry into a divine world' Are the sameconnotations :d to in these presentbelow the surfacewhen socratesin his last dayslikens his propheticpowers to those nt beyondit. of the swans,wlo asservants or apoiroliig beautifursongs just before their death: s to that of a Plato Phaedo858? see also AristophanesFrogs 652 andEuripides 75. Alcestis 1988 CONNOR: 166 cLASSIcALANTIQUITY Volume7A{o. 2/October

cavene8 stagesof Greek civilizationand down to the saintsof Orthodox '38 allude tc The nympholeptshares with them a direct participationin the sacred,in all its informa u*" "nd po*"i. Yet individualholy men differ in manyimportant respects. For one'sri1 this reasonit is essentialto turn to an individualwe may now be better able to 1) (/G 1 understand.Archedamos from Thera, and the cavehe frequentedon the slopes of Mount Hymettos' ,AP qQo 6lrtt ARCHEDAMOS cio Richard Chandler,traveling in the 1760sunder the sponsorshipof the Soci- &m "a ety of Dilettanti, visitedVari, metochior farm belongingto a Greek monas- dEc from the town of Athens. He spentthe tery . . . and distant about four hours" Art road and ascendedearly in the morningto night underthe starsnear the Sounion wo: ..a three quartersof an hour, inland, in the cave or grotto . . . distant about Tw to the goatherdsin winter and is frequentedat mountain. . . . It affordsshelter loose b who havetheir occupationon the mountain' Our all seasonsfor water by those no. 17) purify the air and we tarried all day, dining againon a sheep men madea fire to 'Ar roastedwhole."3e "singular Chandlerfound the site a curiosity. . . of a species' . . not de- crl< p9 scribedby any traveller." A natural cavernwith stalactitesand a springhad in part the work antiquity been elaboratelyembellished and inscribed.eIn large Ar times in the had been done by one Archedamos,whose name is inscribedsix Th holding stoneworking cave.Twice it appearsnext to a carvedfigure of a man Weller one of the earliestGreek examplesof self-portraiture'Another tools-perhaps 'A occurrence(IC tz 786)is the nameand [h]a ThEraioscarved into the rock of the aI xE "The Late 3g. Seepeter Brown, Rise and Function of the Holy Man," Societyand the Holy in oc "The Antique Antiquity(Berkeley and Los Angeles 1982),and G. Fowden, PaganHoly Man in Late Society,"JIIS 102(L982) 33-59. The vr "Chandler." his 3-9.Richard Chandler, Travelsin Greece(Oxford 1776) I48; hereafter On Descrip- below career seew[arwick] w[roth] in Dictionary of NationalBiography IV (London 1908)40f. "The AlAT crucia tionsof the caveby ottt"r ""tty travelersare listed in C. H. Welleret al', Caveat Yari"' ,.Weiler (lg15)Ze n.4; heieafter et al." Sir William Gell visitedthe cavein 1805;his sketches are in a northt notebook in the British School at Athens; Finley P 4:L no. 4534; reproduced in P. Amandry, chaml ,.ManuscritsdeGell,"L'AntreCorycien,BCIISuppl.?(1981)68).Gell'sessay"onSomesacred his friend cave, caverns of the Greeks" is now in tire GennadiosLibrary in Athens. L. F' S' Fauvel and published no Foucherot visited the cave in 1780 and left their names inscribed in the rock but the fir account. A 40. The cave can be found on the map printed as fig. 3 in C. W. J. Eliot, CoastalDemes of and effort Attika ('foronto 1962)(Phoenix suppl. 5) and in the map on p. 357of J. E J9nes,L. H. Sackett, A. J. Graham, "An Attic country^Houie below the cave of Pan at Vari," BsA 68 (1973)355-452' The see also E. curtius and J. A. iaupert, von Athen (Berlin 1878) Blatt VIII' 2' 30f' the 4'. inscriptionsare publishedin IG l' 778-800 and will appearas IG 13977ff ' Useful-photographsof W' inscrip "un" ur" to be found in Weller et al., and in F. Muthmann, Mutter u. Quelle(Basel1975) Tafel 16; Himmelmann-Wildschiitz(supra n.1) Abb' 1' The demein graphi, Wrede,Attika (Athens 193a)pl. 10; and q. which the cave is located has usually been identified as Anagyros, but Lower Lamptrai also seems ,,Zwei that tl possible:H. Lauter, Horos-Inschriftenbei Vari," ArchaeologischerAnzeiger (1982)299-315. coNNoR: Seized by the Nymphs hristianity.:a cavenear the first landingas one descends(T in Fig. 1). ed, in all its Three other inscriptions alludeto the work Archedamosdid to developthe espects.For caveand providea little more informationabout the man. one of theseis found a few )tter able to feetlrom the landingon one'sright as one descendsthrough the northern n the slopes chamberof the cave(p in iig. l) (IG 12788,Weller et al. no. 20): 'Ap166npog 6 @- 4gcrlog6 vupg- 6l,qnrogqQcE- of the Soci- clor, NuppOv r- eek monas- d,vtgov tsEqqy- dlaro. e spentthe morningto Archedemosof rhera, the nympholept,at the instructionsof the nymphs and, in the workedout this cavern. :quentedat Two further inscriptionsbearing his nameoccur on oppositesides of a single tntain. Our loose block found in the southernchamber of the cave(id p 7g4,weller et al. on a sheep no. 17): 'Ap166apog . . not de- ho @eg- crlogxd:rov ring had in Nri- pgcnEEgrireuoev. t the work mes in the Archedamosof Thera cultivateda gardenfor the Nymphs. neworking The other side of this inscriptionis also of great signlficance:(IG lz 7g5, :. Another weller et al. no. 16).weller et al. reportedthis inscriptionas follows:ar :ock of the 'A9166[c]pog ho @ep- clog xcri lolovo6 Holy in Late 1eEr{rl vdvgcrr,€[- -ateAntique oor,x[o66]peoev ler." The On his varied restorationsand interpretationsof this inscriptionwill be discussed l0f. Descrip- below. At the moment it is sufficient ttari," to note the recurrentuse of the name, at AJAT crucial places :chesare in a in the cave, on the right as one beginsthe descentthrough the '. northern Amandry, chamber, twice on one's left as one beginsto ascendthe southern iome Sacred chamber,and once closeto the point at which one rd his entersor departsfrom the friend cave,and on both ,ublishedno sidesof the block whoseoriginal location will be discussedin the final sectionof this paper. al Demes of Archedamos'workon the caveis likely to havetaken a long time and much iackett, and effort.a2Even the preparation '3)3ss^4s2. of the groundand the haulingof t-hewater for the 2,30f. The raphsof the 41' The illustrationon p.297 tafel 16;W. of Weller et al. makeit clearthat the first iota in line threeof the inscription is a restoration. Jre deme in Their iext, however, prints the letter without brackets-a mere graphical typo- also seems error, I believe. 42' The variation between 2)299-3rs. Attic and Doric forms aswell asthe variation in letter forms suggests that the inscriptions were carved over a considerableperiod of time. Himmelmann-Wildschiitz CONNOR: I

kepos-*a gardenot and marl If we guide:

Only the it bene, love l Theseve flowers a flowers" The plan poplar tt might als Aigisthor be expect As Il sometimr flowers a s.23-2s) literature tion of a'

(supran.1) commemol within the I L. H. Jeffe .j .-.: convenient must be us, c..t c.) i Fifth Cent -Qa 4 o Hansen,G (.) F- .F E f a o 0) 43. C E a i 9*" q { Adonis, ac :9 |.2 A:= X:l k c) M. Detient o rr E* ...: (Berkeley ;,s8 -!{E :=E 33Rsef = o Modern Gr u* o C) Q E e 3-E-?rdE -: n ifi e; ,j ,14. Il () () o ;EgE#it i ;'; 6 Z V EE'EA edition est: 45. S b0 o B \.l m rl n r,r r- /h H 46. C Frri\J t-.1Erll F< \J A *,- V ..1 > Z O U Q & O ? o Hesperider Staehlin-T 47. C tions of Wc 169 coNNoR: Seized bY the NYmPhs

kepos_probablyfromthespringinsidethecave---cannothavebeeneasy.Yeta loved untrodden gardenor grovewas an upp-priut" settingfor the nymphs' who trees and flowers'43 InA -u.ginul land Urrt atro ielighted in the pleasuresof perhapsour best If we try to envisionthe setting,the lines of Ibykos are guide: streamsin Only in Spring grow quinces and pomegranateswatered in thrive the inviolategurd"n of the Maidens,and swellinggrape-blossoms seasonwhen beneaththe shadeof the vine shoots:but for me thereis no lovelies quiet.4 trees as well as These versesremind us that such a garden might well include the "groves full of flowers and resemble a sacred grove (atsos)such as one of of the Alpheios'45 flowers,,that and the nymphs sharednear the mouth Theplantsincludequinces,grapes'pomegranatgs.floButothertreessuchasthe 17.205-1D poplar that grew near the cave of the nymphs on lthaca ( the nymphswhere might alsobe found there. Myrtle, which grewin the groveof 774 ff ' could also Rilisthos made his sacrifice,is describedin Euripides Elektra , be expected. Aslbykos,lineshint,suchgardenswereoftenamorousplaces: sometimessharesthemwiththenymphs,andtheyareoftenfilledwiththe Pindar (Pythian flowers and fruits associatedwith love. Sappho(fr . 2 L&P) and 5.23_25)alsoremindusoftheeroticaspectofsuchasetting.dllnlaterGreek asLongos' descrip- literaturethe gardensof the nymphsare evenmore romantic, tion of a caveof the nymphsreminds us:

of Archedamoswho thereby *rl u.rieved that theseinscriptions were the work of followers t."p." however,to.accommodate them all commemoratedhis work in the cave.It seemsquite possible, rather than the first person' Cf' within the lifetime of a singleperson who choseto.p"uk in the third 319.The evidenceof the letter forms is L. H. Jeffery, torot Srripi, oi iLrchaic Greece(Oxford 1961) a1.,300.The analogyto letter forms.onpublic inscriptions convenientlysummarized in'Weller et "Criteria J of M. Walbank, for the Dating of must be usedwith great caution, as the salutaryremarks phoro, Merritt) 164, remind us. See also P' Fifth Century Attic Inscripioi,,, (SiudiesB. D. 6 Hansen,Carmina Epigraphica (Berlin 1983)no'321' might be one of the quickly withering gardensof r 43. Chandler, rsr, suglestedthat thegarden of suchgardens are to be found in <( Adonis, actuallyplanted *iiiin tt " caveitself. Recenidiscussions M.Detienne,GardensofAclonls(AtlanticHighlands'N'J'1977);W'Burkert'S.tructureandHistory "The of Adonis in SerresToday"' -.: (Berkeleyand Los Angeles1979i 110;and G. Pilitsis, Gardens 6 M odern GreekStudies 3 (1985)145-66' o the Loeb puc "i"d Athenaeus13.601b, trans. Gulick. Gulick's note in o 44. Ibykos, i6i, "Maidens" nymphs.cf . M. L. West on Hesiod Theogony346' q) edition establishesthat the are indeed 45. Strabo8.3.12,343C, as emended' the nymphsnote the myth of the o 46. on the u..o"iution_otquinces and similar fruit, mela, with Protrepticus14' 13 (pp' 302f' Hesperides,Apollonios 4.1395fi. and scholiato Clementof Alexandria Staehlin-Treu). 4?.onSapphoseeespeciallyJ.Winkler,..GardensofNymphs,',inH.P.Fo|ey,ed.,Reflec. tionsof Womenin Antiquity (New York i981) 63-90' 170 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 7/No. 2/October19gg CONNOR

a hqgerock, hollow and vaultedwithin, but round without. The statues possibil of the Nymphswere cut mostcuriously in stone;their feet unshod,their importe arms bare to the shoulder,their hair looseover their necks,their eyes nymphr sweetlysmiling. . . . the mouth of the cavewas in the midstof that great ment t( rock; and from it gushedup a strongcrystal fountain, and runningJff in a fair current or brook, made before the holy cavea fresh, greenand Yet the flowery mead. There were hanging up and consecratedtherJ milking- ThEraic pails, pipes, and hautboys,whistles and reeds,the offerinssof the an- on the t cient shepherds.+a Thr probler Archedamos'cave was perhapsa lessromantic setting; indeed we may wonder notion t whether such an isolatedplace, so far from the sociability,matchmaking, and tion of ' love affairsof the city, could havea strongassociation with love. yet paradoxes are ,A6 never lacking near this cave. Culture and civilization are left far behind, but in thesewilds one encountersa placeof painstakingcultivation. It seemsto leave alc no room for human affection but to be a place for a more than human devotion. X€S The other side of the inscription that refers to the garden for the nymphs oot containsone of the most difficult texts from the cave.Although chandler and The be othersthought it containedthe demotic Kholleides,the excavators'examination Thera . of the text showedthat this was in error. The only geographicalterm on the sists c inscriptions is the epithet ThEraios,which occursfour times on the inscriptions xoAo and strongly affirms his ties with the island of rhera.aerhus he was not an 1o)'d(g Athenian citizen but a residentalien, a metic. This doesnot, however,answer taken I the questionof what he was doing in this remote location. Metics performed inward many servicesin classicalAthens; they varied widely in wealth, socialstanding, Attic c' and occupation.s'we may imagine perhafs Archedamosin any of severalroles. cealed he wasan itinerantmerchant whose busineisbrought him down the coastalplain Th' and then led him to crossthe saddle of Hymettosto reachthe inlandsettlements tors of to the east.or he may havebeen a worker in a Hymettosquarry (certainlynot a dance" skilledsculptor, to judge from the quality of the carvingin itre cave;.srBut these cave.55

48. Longos Daphnis tains tt - and chtoe I sec. 4, trans. G. Thornley, rev. J. M. Edmonds.cf. the descriptionof the shrineof attracti the nymphsin [HippokrateslEpist. 17 .30 (Lu,re l.sloj, arethere hints in this passagethat Demokritos's madnessis iinked to nympholepsy? stoodc 49' Chandler'sview was basedon a misinterpritation of the crux in inscription 16,IG lz 7g5. lambda His view wasrefuted by Weller et al. 50' anothe. On metics see Davrd_Whitehe ad ldeotogy of the Athenian Metic, Cambndgephilological SocietySuppr. 4 (r97j), and Hommer, s.v. Metoiioi, RE 30 Hb. (Stuugari rg32) r42rtt.There is a to choi useful list of the known occupations of metics in P. Gerhardt, bie altirrh" Mitoikir, (diss. Koe- 1933)' Although ry**g on IG 22 l}b georgosis the most commonlylisted occupationfor metics, Michael Jameson(CJ 73 11977-19781134t.) has shown reasonto believethat theseindividuals were freedmenratherthan foreign we know immigrantsto Attica. The debateon the inscriptioncontinues; see most recently .,Metics: possibilit P. Harding, Foreignersor Slaves?"ZpE 67 (Ig1lS)176_g2. 51' We assumeth^t Archedamos 52. had somewealth or employmentthat enabledhim to sustaina relatively ambitious project a short c over a long period of time. cr. tn" ""r" of onesagoras,who is known to havebeen a trader. 53. But thereis anotheipossibility:that the siteitselfsustainJd him, at leastin part, throughits garden,perhaps 54. through somesheep oi goats,but eventuallyfrom the gifts and assistance of dqleoreI thosewho came to his shrine and may lave hetpid him find the wherewithal for his work. In fact 55. r 1988 coNNoR: Seized by the Nymphs l7l es possibilitieswere left in silence,as bestwe can tell, by Archedamos'Of greater )ir importance to him was his connection to Thera and the central fact of his es nympholepsy.His marginality,both in the civic life of Athens and in his move- at ment to the uncultivatedland on the slopesof the mountain, is unmistakable. in Yet there is perhapsa hint of pride in the inscriptionswith their repeatedepithet rd ThEraios,the affirmation that he was nymphol€ptos,and the claim that his work g- guidedby the instructionsof the nymphs's2 n- on the cavewas The inscriptionthat is beforeus (no. 16), however,poses some very difficult problems.The excavatorsof the cave, as we have seen, rejected Chandler's onder notionthat the text concealedthe demoticKholleides but proposedno interpreta- ;, and tion of the unintelligiblesequence of lettersclearly visible on the stone: rdoxes 'Aq166[c]poE d, but ho @eg- ,leave o0ogxci Xoilovob tqr] vrlvgcr 6l- otion. XsE oor,x[o66]peoev rmphs "Archedamos :r and The beginningand end of the text make satisfactorysense: of ration Thera . . . perfecteda dwelling for the Nymph." But the middle portion con- rn the sists of an unintelligible, indeed impossible, combination of letters, ptions xo^oNoalxE>. various suggestionshave been proposed:Hiller proposed "the lot an 1oi'd(E)6(qxe6r![E], lame dancer," a restorationencouraged by the mis- nswer taken belief that the representationof Archedamosshowed his feet turned rrmed inward in a way that might suggestlameness.s3 Later, in the editio minor of the rding, Attic corpushe printed logdv 6qleotb[g], apparentlythinking the letters con- :rhaps cealedan allusionto a dancingplace.sa lplain The associationof the nymphswith dancingis well known and the excava- "a ments tors of the cave suspectedthat they had found suitableplace for the stately 'not a dance"in a small platform of firmly packedyellow dirt in the lower part of the these cave.55This restorationprovides a direct object for the verb and therebymain- tains the parallelismwith the inscriptionon the other side of the stone.These Cf. the attractionsshould not be overestimated,for one caneasily extrapolate an under- hints in stoodobject ("dwelling place") from the root of the verb. Since,moreover' the 12785. lambdaseems secure, and the word order in Hiller's restoredtext is very harsh, anotherpossibility demands consideration-that the letterscontain an allusion rlogical to cholos, bile, a substancesometimes associated with states of.mania ot of ere is a s. Koe- metics, Llswere we know very little about suchprivate cult placesand their economicsand shouldremain open to the 3emost possibilitythat the nymiholept wassupported in part by thosewho cameto visit the cave. 52. He also seemsproud of being a worker. In his self-portraithe representshimself dressedin rstain a a shortchiton, tools in hand,at work on the cave.There is no tracehere of a fear of the banausic. "IG rown to 53. Hiller von Gaertringen, I 424," Hermes39 (1904) 472f' in part, 54. IG 12785. If this is the sense,o. Hoffmann'ssuggestion in sGDl IV, 4 p. 796n.70, 16pov ;istance 6pXemepl,is preferable. In fact 55. Welleret al. 281. T72 cLASSICALANTIQUITY Volume7/No. 2/October1988 CONNOR possessionin the ancientwriters. The Aristotelian Problems,for example,in Thir discussingthe belief that thosemen who are outstandingin philosophy,poetry, But wh: or the arts tend to melancholyproposes the theory that black bile containsa inescapi mixture of cold and hot (95aa1"4)and that languag his desc thosewith whom it is excessiveand hot becomemanic (manikoi), clever q (euphueis)or amorous(erotikoi). . . . Becauseof the propinquityof this mere heat to the seatof intellectionmany are afflictedwith manicsicknesses, kosmed or those having to do with inspiration;that is the origin of Sibylsand and exo Bakidesand all who arepossessed.56 suchas givesat We should not, then, be surprisedif the inscription alluded in some way to elevatic Archedamosas a personwho experiencedsome disorder in his bile. The word The chol1des,bilious, might be possible,but in the light of Archedamos'penchant the revt for exoticlanguage a more phrase convoluted is not impossible.A metathesisof no. 16( the omicron and the delta at the of end the secondline and the use of epsilon the fina sigmato represent-IE asan -eug alternativeformation for would yield the phrase recogni cholondocheus, that is, "the receptacleof biles."s?Such a useof docheusis not somesi entirelysurprising; the metaphorrepresenting inspiration as the divine filling of that Sor a humanvessel, well attestedin later antiquity,is already (Phae- in usein Plato Thr drus 235C,D).sa 15" phrase,while extraordinary,is perhaps not too exotic for of the c this exceptionalman.se in the l: chambt 56. Aristotle Problemata30.954a32-34, trans. W. S. Hett. The passageis similar in important various respectsto Plato Timqeus71C and to the description of an illness in the Hippocratic treatise on 1). To internal illnesses,chap. 48. This illnessderives from the bile and its effect on the liver and thencethe head.The symptomsare headache,fever, darkeningof the vision,and delirium. After describing Archec "This theseand other symptomsthe author remarks, illnessafflicts people especiallywhen they are carvinS traveling and if someonemakes a journey along a desertedroad when fear takeshold of him from an devoter apparition." The passagemay be an attempt to relate the illnessto nympholepsyand related forms of possession. likely t Among the ancientpassages that are relevantto a discussionof the role of bile are Hippocrates SacredDisease 18, AnaxagorasyS 59A105(cf. PhilolaosVS 44A27and pseudo-DemokritosyS 68C3 and C 6 and Aristotle Partsof Animals 4.2.6'77a30,Galen 8.177Kiihn). A link betweenprophecy and bile may alsohelp explainMetrodorus's elaborate system (VS 61 no. 4; cf. no. 6) in whichApollo is Archeda equatedwith bile, apparentlyas part of an allegoricalinterpretation of Trojan war myths. On the use whom St of bile in the treatment of epilepsy,etc., seePlutarch Moralia 552Fff. Cf. P. R( -es -eus; 57. In someGreek dialects is used lor seeC. D. Btck, Greek Dialects(Chicago 1955) 60. sec.111, and L. Threatte, Grammar of Attic Inscriptions(Phonology) (Berlin 1980)346f. great tei 58. In later Greek, dochew and its cognatesare frequently used to refer to inspiration or Birds to = : possession:Hermias on Plato Phaedrus245A p. 111Ast. P. Couvreur, BibliothCquede I'Ecole 61. desHautes Etudes 133(Paris 1901);cf. Hermias, p. 87 Couvreur; Procluson Plato's Republic,2. p. Epigrapl = 246Kroll 3,p.203, Festugidre,and Proclus's commentary onthe Cratylussec. 176 : Pasqualipp. in IG 12 = 100.21ff. Note alsoEusebius Pr.Evangel.5.8.1l sec.194 ad fin., p. 239Mras, citing Porphyry's 576ff.,n, : explicationof an oracularverse. Cf. Pr.Evangel.3.16.1 sec.126and 5.9.6 = sec.196. On the idea 62. that a god might temporarily be incarnatedin a human beingsee Dodds (supran.2) 65. fice. See 59. If the phrase were securely attested we would have an interesting combination of two the nym different modes of understandingpossession: one a material or medical one emphasizingbile; the fice is al psychic other a or theologicalone, presentingthe personas a recipientof someforce outsidehimself. Mitford The combination of two such attitudes in a single sensibilityis not entirely surprising,especially if al.278. ber 1988 coNNoR: Seized by the Nymphs 173 mple, in This crux is perhapsbest recognizedas a tantalizingbut insolubleproblem. , poetry, But whateverapproach to it we adopt, certain featuresof this inscriptionare rntainsa inescapable.It reflects,for example,his characteristicpreference for elevated language,which can be seenin severalof the inscriptions.We havenoticed that his descriptionsoften use resonant,even exotic phraseology.The caveis not a ever 'this mere sp€laion, but an qntron, a poetic word. The verbs he choosesare not ises, kosmeO,kallopizo, ekpone6, or kataskeuazl, but in the resonant exergazomai and andexoikodome|, a rare word in classicalGreek.tr Combined with a poeticism suchas phradaisi NumphOn, "by the instructionsof the nymphs,"the vocabulary givesan elevated,quasi-poetic tone to his inscriptions,the counterpartof the : way to elevationof styleand tone we havefound associatedwith nympholepts.6l he word Thereis alsoa tendencytowards the hexameterin this inscriptionand that on lenchant the reverseside. The phraset{t] vrivqcu,61oor.x[o66]peoev found on inscription thesisof no. 16(IC tz 785),could be a roughcompletion to a dactylichexameter. Similarly : epsilon the final wordson the other sideof the block, xdrtovNripqcr,g Bgtteuoev, have a e phrase recognizablehexameter cadence. For all their crudeness,these inscriptions show us is not somesigns of the elevationof languageand the tendencytowards hexameter verse filling of that Socratesalluded to in hisdiscussions of nympholepsy. o (Phae- There remainmany difficultiesin the interpretationof theseinscriptions and xotic for of the cavein which Archedamosworked. Especiallyinteresting are two carvings in the living rock of the cave,one of a seatedfigure that dominatesthe southern chamber,and a strangeobject nearit, now hard to make out but in earliertimes rmportant variouslyreferred to as a phallo,sor an omphalosby visitors to the cave(C in Fig. :reatiseon 1). To these objects we must return, for there is more to be learned about thencethe describing Archedamosand his cave. Yet even at this point the inscriptionsand other n they are carvingsin the cave,for all their difficulties,give somepicture of this proud and m from an devotedman.62 Later in this essaywe shallreturn to the caveand arguethat it is ,d forms of likely to havebeen a placeof prophecy,but first it may be helpful to look more ippocrates n VS68C3 ,phecyand r Apollo is Archedamoswere a person of some intellectual pretensions,perhaps not entirely unlike Teiresias, Jn the use whom Sophoclescould plausibly representas theorizing in a sophisticated,even "enlightened" way. Cf. P. Roth, "Teiresiasas Manrr.r and Intellectual," TAPA ll4 (1984)esp. 68. :ago 1955) 60. Among the fifth-century writers I have found it only in Herodotus' descriptionsof Amasis' greattemple of Isis (2.176.2)and of the Alcmeonidtemple at Delphi (5.62.2),and in Aristophanes ,iration or Birds to describethe six-hundred-foot-highwall usedto blockadethe gods(1124). dc I'Ecole 61. The inscriptionsare not in anyregular metrical form;see, however, P. A. Hansen,Carmina rblic,2.p. Epigraphica(Berlin1983)no.321.Phrad€iscertainlyunusualandpoetic.Inclassicalproseitoccurs squali pp. in IG 12685 and the lex sacrafrom Mantinea,IG 5 (2) 26I,line 15. G. Fougdres,BCH 16 (1982) lorphyry's 576ff.,noted the pardllelto the Archedamosinscription. tn the idea 62. There is no sign of an altar. The nymphs were often worshipped without animal sacri- fice. See H. Herter, s.v. Nymphai, RE 34 Hb. (Stuttgart 1937) 1556f. (On winelessofferings to on of two "The the nymphssee A. Henrichs, Sobrietyof Oedipus," HSCP87 [1983]97.) But animalsacri- g bile; the fice is also attested: Euripides Elektra 785ff., Nonnos Dionysiaka M.97-102, Plutarch Mor. 628F. le himself. Mitford (supra n.30) no. 285. On the archaeologicalevidence from the cave at Vari see Weller et ;peciallyif al.278. 174 cLASSIcALANTIQUITY Volume7/No. 2/October1988 widely at nympholepsy,especially through a comparativeapproach based on prophets materialfrom other cultures. their soci statecan agitated: POSSESSIONIN OTHERCULTURES thereis g Much of what we have seenabout the role of the nympholeptin ancient ulties tht Greek culture has parallelsin accountsof possessionin other cultures.Such conclusic parallelism,however, needs to be usedwith cautionand constantawareness of ing the e, the differencesbetween ancient Greek civilizationand the settingsfrom which eyes,he the comparativematerial is drawn. Yet from time to time parallelsto other Horl culturesmake vivid and crediblewhat may seemvague or difficultto graspin our sessed,ir ancientsources. The studiesof possessionin other cultures,moreover, alert us to sessedpt a set of questionsand relationshipsthat might otherwisebe neglectedor under- Rasmuss emphasized.Chief amongthese is the relationshipbetween the possessedperson shamant andsociety. melanch Let us beginwith a recurrentobservation about the natureof possessionas it for r appearsin somebetter-documented societies. M. J. Field'sdiscussion of posses- inex sion amongthe Ashanti in Ghana,for example,provides a vivid picture and an brea important observationabout the elementof socialcontrol that operateseven at And "few the height of possession.63She notes that possessionis precededby a such minutesof dreamyinaccessibility," usually followed by not and intensemotor excitement.The medium leapsto his feet with flailing "proph- shar arms,quivering, dancing, leaping, singing, shouting and perhaps esying"with wordsregarded as not his own. Great featsof strengthand The pro endurancemay be performed under this excitement.. . ' More often the bust the performanceis quieter, but never is the medium quite still. He is He. always in a quivering vibration. The end of the excitementis soul abrupt. The medium flings himself againsta wall, on the ground,on a hon seator into someone'sarms and becomeslimp' A genuinelybewildered "shi expressionoverspreads his face-that of someoneawaking from sleepin unfamiliar surroundings.The exhaustionthat follows is appropriateto Such de the amountofphysical energy expended. persona of t The fit is "usually of short duration, not often more than two or three hours, tion though a whole day's possessionhas sometimesbeen reported." An untrained He observermight easily mistake this performancefor an epileptic fit or other con seizure.But Field stressesthe elementof restraint,even at the most intense higl momentsof possession:"Often he throws off his clothes,but never outrages "becomes decency."Among professionalmediums, at least,behavior modified 65. differenti andcontrolled according to traditionalritual."s "possess€ The shamansof the remote North differ in numerousrespects from these between 105(1962 63. Field (supra n.5) 56ff. 6. 64. Field (supran.5) 57. 67. 175 :r 1988 coNNoR: Seized by the NYmPhs

is integratedinto the structureof sed on prophetsof the Ashanti,but their possessiontoo their societyand regularized:there is a recognizedprocess by which a prophetic statecan be inducedmore or lessat will; within this statebehavior may be greatly agitatedand to our eyesout of control,but, asN. K. Chadwicklong agoshowed, "in thereis goodreason to believethat the shamanis full possessionof all his fac- support this rncient ulties throughoutthe entire performance."65Many considerations pointsout that "dur- ;. Such conclusion,at leastas a generalrule. For example,Chadwick himself about with closed nessof ing the ecstasyof the Kazak batcshawhilehe is flinging happento require." , which eyes,he can neverthelesslay his hand on anythinghe may "from is to the personpos- r other How such a state might appear within," that and other pos- l in our sessed,is lesseasily conjectured, but the literatureon shamans givento the Danishexplorer rt us to sessedpersons is rich with suggestions.An account becominga under- Rasmussenby an Eskimo shamanis especiallyrevealing. Before He became person shamanthe Eskimo had wanderedoff seekinginspiration in solitude. melancholy,would weepfor no apparentreason' and then on as it for no reason at all would suddenlybe changed,and I felt a great, posses- inexplicablejoy, a joy so powerfulthat I couldnot restrainit, but had to and an breal into song, a mighty songwith room for only one word, joy' joy! even at And I had to usethe full strengthof my voice.And then in the midst of a "few such a fit of mysteriousand overwhelmingdelight I becamea shaman, not knowingmyself how it cameabout. But I wasa shaman.I could see and hear in a totally differentway. I had gainedmy enlightenment,the mg shaman'slight of brain andbodY.6 ph- rnd The prophetsof the Ashanti alsooften receivetheir callingafter withdrawingto ten the bush,sometimes for terrifyinglylong periods,sometimes more briefly: :is He had beenout in the bushall day, hunting,and in the eveningheard a tis soundof whistlingand someonerepeatedly calling his name. He came na home frightened and trembling, and when he reached home was red "shaken"still more. lin :to Such descriptionsmay encourageus to think of the phenomenonas a purely personalor psychologicalone. But there is a further dimension,as the continua- : hours, tion of the accountmakes clear: rtrained He soughtadvice at an old shrineand was told that an obosomwanted to ,r other come.He setup a shrineon the siteof his old huntingcamp and became intense highlyprosperous and respected.6T rutrageS rodified 65. Chadwick(supra n.2) 17f. M. Eliade, (New York 1964)4 et passim,sharply differentiatesspirit possessionfrom shamanismand insiststhat shamansare not to be considered .,possessed."For a ielling criticismof Eliade'sview seeLewis (supran.2) 49-57.On the analogy "GOES" m these betweenshamans and figuresin Greek societysee W. Burkqrt, RheinischesMuseum n.s. ros(1962) 36-ss. 66. Rasmussencited in Lewis(supra n'2) 37. Seealso Chadwick (supra n'2) 60' 67. Field (supran.5) 65. 176 cLAssrcALANTreurrY Volume7/No. 2/October1988 CONNOI

Descriptionssuch as these,despite all the differencesin social,economic, L6vi-St and cultural circumstances,help us imaginemore clearlythe nature of posses- shamal sion. But of even greatersignificance are the persistentindications that posses- person sionis subjectto certainsocial norms and hencehas to be understoodnot solely and co as a phenomenonin "personalreligion" but also as a relationshipbetween the comple possessedperson and othersin a society.6eIn Africa, as R. Firth hasemphasized tant, a in his summaryof anthropologicalresearch on this phenomenon,"what stands much t out . . . is that spirit mediumship,and in many cases,spirit possessionalso, is andret not an isolatedindividual phenomenon but a cult."6e Th The nature of thesecults containsimplications that are potentiallyof great the det significancefor the study of possessionin the ancientworld, and especiallyof easeal nympholepsy.Consider the pattern amongthe Ashanti, for example,where a psycho "a priest, tall, lean, dignifiedfigure without anypompous self-consciousness . hasar austerelyclad," becomespossessed through a familiarritual. In his agitation"he that so standsupright on one spot with folded arms but with his head shakingunceas- AI ingly from sideto sidein furiousagitation." After a further ceremonyhe turnsto anthro thosewho havecome to consulthim and recognizesone of them, who then "tells of mar his tale. From time to time the possessedpriest, his headin perpetualmotion, Muchc asksquestions. He speaksin a low muttering monotoneand only the nearest abilitie spokesmanby bendingintently towardshim can pick up what he says."Gradu- co ally thereunfold the priest'sadvice and response.?o mi The practicevaries from shrine to shrine and from time to time, but the tic essentialpattern of possession,consultation, and advice remainsremarkable hit constant.To us the mostsurprising feature may be the ability to enterinto a state te) of possessionalmost at will. L6vi-Strauss'comments on the performancespre- th: sentedby shamansto their audiencessuggest an underlyingmechanism: Turne: it [the performance]always involves the shaman'senactment of the reven[ "call," or the initial crisiswhich broughthim the revelationof his condi- circle, tion. But we must not be deceivedby the word performance.The sha- This v man doesnot limit himselfto reproducingor mimingcertain events. He sulted actuallyrelives them in all their vividness,originality and violence.And Ar sincehe returnsto his normalstate at the end of the seance,we may say, generu borrowinga key term from psychoanalysis,that he abreacts.In psycho- analysis,abreaction refers to the decisivemoment in the treatmentwhen M the patientintensively relives the initial situationfrom which his distur- be bancestems, before he ultimatelyovercomes it. In this sensethe shaman ar is a professionalabreactor.Tl b( be

68. Seein generalFestugidre, Personal Religion among the Greeksand Romans(Berkeley and Los Angeles1954). 72 69. R. Firth in Beattieand Middleton (supra n.3) xr. tions, tl 70. The descriptionis drawnfrom Field (supran.5) 99-101. terms." "The 71. C. Ldvi-Strauss, Sorcererand His Magic," inhis StructuralAnthropology, trans. C. t5 Jacobsonand B. G. Schoepf(New York 1963)180f. edge of ber 1988 coNNoR:Seized by the Nymphs t77 onomlc, L6vi-Straussrdiscussion of possessiongoes on to suggestthat the actionsof the posses- shamanmay induce a further abreaction in the individual consulting him: the : posses- person who has come to consult the nympholept confronts his own disturbance "curing," "adjustment," ot solely and comesto terms with it. The result need not be or "working leen the completesocial reintegration; out" the stressesis perhapsmore impor- rhasized tant, as in the caseof Archedamoshimself, who seemsto have soughtnot so rt stands much releasefrom his nympholepsyas waysof comingto termswith that state r also, is andresponding to its demands.T2 The possessionfit itself may be highly dramaticand comeclose to matching of great the descriptionsof possessionthat we have seenin the Hippocratic Sacred Dis- cially of easeand other sources.Yet possessionamong the Ashanti is regardednot as where a psychosisor illnessbut as a sourceof insightand advice.The possessedperson less . hasa recognizedsocial role; we might evencall him a quasi-professionalwithin tion "he that society,for possessioncan be a sourceboth of statusand of income. unceas- After studyingGreek nympholeptsit will come as no surprisethat modern turnsto anthropologicalinvestigations show that the individualwho is possessedis often en "tells of marginalstatus in society., for example,describes the diviner "marginal motion, Muchona as a man" in Ndembu societyand notes that his special nearest abilities,even his mentalbrilliance, 'Gradu- couldnot overcomethe handicapsof his socialmarginality and psychical maladjustment.But he found some kind of integrationthrough initia- but the tion into curativeritual and especiallyinto divinatorystatus. For these rarkable his outsidercharacteristics were positivequalifications. In a ritual con- o a state text he could set himself apart from the battlesfor prestigeand power LceSpr€- that bedevilkinship and villagerelationships in Ndembusociety.T3

Turner goeson to suggestthat there may even be an elementof unconscious the revengeagainst the socialorder in suchdivination: "Forever outside the village ndi- circle,he couldsee the villagers'weakspots and foibles more clearlythan most." sha- This vision of societyis reflectedin the divinationsoffered to those who con- .He sultedhim. And As we becomemore familiarwith this material,the validityof PeterBrown's saY' generalizationbecomes more evident:. cho- rhen Modern anthropologicalstudies . . . haverecently stressed the relation ;tur- betweenthe possessedand the community. . . . In this relationshipthe man anthropologistshave tended to singleout the aspectthtdtral that links both parties.Highly individualthough the experienceof possessionmay be, its handlingtends to be actedout as a duet betweenthe possessed rkeley and 72. Cf. Firth in Beattie and Middleton (supran.3) xi: "Under pressureof the socialconven- tions, the medium in ftrs spirit terms works out the stresseswhich the patient displaysin &Lsspirit terms." , trans.C. 73. V. Turner, The Forestof Symbols(Ithaca 1967)146; cf. pp. 372f. on the diviner's knowl- edgeof thosewho consulthim. 7/No. 2/October1988 CONNOR: f78 cLAssIcAL ANTIQUITY Volume

andthenon-possessed.Insuchadueteachsidehasarole,eachuncon- ment of sciouslyfollows a score.Ta possibili theolePs doesnot existin isolationbut needsto be The possessedperson, in other words, integratt society.It is preciselythis point that bringsus understoodin the contextof the societyi in the contextof ancientGreek society'As back to the studyof the nympholept marking a comparativeperspective we recognizenot we look at the Greek materialfrom nymph t Greek societyabout statesof mania- only the deep ambiguitywithin classical were m( other abusescombined with eagernessfor the distrust of charlatanismand on the I confirmation-but also the possibilitythat sourcesof extrarationaladvice and who sha socialrole and statusand related to society the nympholepthad a significant frontatir that included an emphaticseverance through a mutually understoodpattern No kin, village, and polis, followed by a with- from the normal world of family, civilizat associatedwith a sharpeningof percep- drawalinto the wild. That withdrawalwas pologisl andguidance: action phradaisi tion, andthe expectationof specialunderstanding possessi nymphs.Under thosecircumstances we Numph6n, under the instructionof the tion of r of personality,a reorganizationof psy- might sometimesexpect a reorientation Arched of a new iden- chl energy,perhaps including sexual energy, and the acceptance cultures, tity and sociat rote. The nympholept,like his counterpartsin other a quasi- establishesa smallcult. we shouldnot be surprisedif he wereto become from thosewho cometo consulthim' professional,deriving part of his livelihood Tht often a marginalman within his society, But, more important,ihe nympholept, contain social role and gains a certain takes on ttrrougtr his possessiona recognized represe status. Arched Wecanbegintorecognize,then,howfartheGreeknympholeptwasfrom cave in a specialassociation with existingin totaiisolation. He wasrecognized as having jumble and powers.TsThus, even if he was a the divine, and hence specialinsights approa' have been treatedwith someawe. He was mainomenos,the nympholeptmust sitesan but a personin a powerful,if highly not a caseto be treatedor institutionalized ence ol of insight and advice,a personto be ambiguous,state. He might be a source that in in song' consulted,respected, and evencommemorated quence we haveexamined encourages the develop- The comparativematerial which hypoth conver ", Testimonies"'occa- 74. Brown (supran.38) 88f.; J. W. Fernandez, confessions, nature Durban, 1967);Firth in sionalpapers of thi Instituie for SocialResearch no. 9, (Univ. of Natal, of Victor Turner' further Beattieand Middleton (supra n.3) xxvi-xxviii; andof coursethe writings femaleswere thought forms t ?5. I refer to nylnpholeptsas mal"s becauseit seemsunlikely that many contendsthat a female to be possesseOby ifre,nymphs.Himmelmann-Wildschiitz (supra n.1) 17 Th Sincethere are such nympholept is representei on a relief in Naples, but this is far from certain' undere bride and clitoris: seeLS'I strong sexualconnotations to the word ny^ph| (the sameword is usedfor divinities' Thus the jects c s.v.),-casesof female possessioncould be expectedto be associatedwith other to nympholepts' tythia is possessedby Apollo. sibyls are in many respectsthe female counterparts what t "singularly is as a meansof l-ewis (supra n.Z) SO nttes how appropriate the idiom of marriage haveb element in the state is also .*pr"r.inj the shamanisticrelationship." Among the Greeks the sexual Rhoikos in the implicit taboo againstiexual relaiions with humans,as in the story about stressedby 76. Charonof LamPsakos,FHG I fr. 12. rber 1988 coNNoR:Seized by the Nymphs 179 lcon- ment of a new perspectiveon the Greek material.It invitesconsideration of the possibilitythat nympholepsyand associatedconditions such as metrolepsy,and whichthe marginalityof certainindividuals was redsto be theolepsyin general,are ways by of the ancientpolis. The withdrawalfrom the brings us integratedinto the socialstructure mountainwas in effecta symbolicact, a rciety. As societyinto the wild territory of hill and marginality.But seizureby the ,gnizenot marking and acceptanceof psychicand social of a shrineor placefor the divinity, . mania- nymphand its equivalent,the establishment might remain, to be sure, ,rnessfor were meansof partial reintegration.The nympholept spot he had chosenmight be visitedby those rility that on the fringesof society,but the nymphsand, from suchconsultations or con- to society who sharedhis venerationfor the recognitionand respect. ;everance frontations,receive from time to time the similaritiesbetween ancient Greek ry a with- No one would wish to exaggerate by Turner, L6vi-Strauss,and other anthro- rf percep- civilizationand the societiesstudied the phenomenonof phradaisi pologists.Yet their work not only helps us understand a new approachto the interpreta- tanceswe possessionmore adequatelybut alsosuggests connectedwith nympholepsy,the caveof rn of psy- tion of one of the mostsignificant sites new iden- Archedamosat Vari in Attika. cultures, rea quasi- THE CAVE OF ARCHEDAMOS nsulthim. Hymettos overlookingthe town of Vari is society, The cave on the spur of Mount carvings,dedications, the namesand a certain containsa bewilderingarray of material: representationsof godsand humans,and the inscriptionsdescribing the efforts sectionof this essayreturns to this was from Archedamosundertook at this site. The final now be recognizedin the apparent ation with cavein an effort to seeif a deeperorder can jumble classicalperiod in this cave. The he was a of material deriving from the early commonlyadopted in studiesof classical :. He was approachis more hypotheticalthan is nature and possiblesymbolic coher- ,, if highly sitesand more insistentupon the symbolic upon which the investigationproceeds is son to be enceof this material. The hypothesis that individual items can best be understoodif they are approachedin a se- to the cave. The confirmationof such a l develop- quence, as stagesin a progression hypothesiscomes not from conventionalforms of inductiveproof but from the convergencebetween the resultinginterpretation and our understandingof the 'nies,"Occa- natureof nympholepsyamong the ancientGreeks. The approachmay hope for 67); Firth in ir, further corroborationif other Greek sitesultimately prove amenableto similar vere thought formsof interpretation. rat a female The difficulties of such an approachto the cave at Vari should not be ere are such of someob- oris: seeLSJ underestimated:the chronologyis difficult;zethe original locations es. Thus the jects cannot be determined;and sorting out what belongsto Archedamosand rympholepts. what to others cannot alwaysbe done with certainty.His role, however,must of ; a means great asthe inscriptionsattesting that he cultivateda gardenfor j state is also havebeen a one, rt Rhoikos in 76. Seesuora n. 42 7/No. 2/October1988 coxNOn:s 180 CLASSICALANTIQUITY Volume

of the work At th the nymphsand developeda dwellingfor them indicate.Since much from that greatchal in the caveshows stroni individualityand differsin significantrespect one individ- Fig. 1).Jt in other cavesdevoted to Pan and the nymphs,it seemslikely that In enter- 1) is anot Archedamos,was responsible for many of its distinctivefeatures' "Arc ual, 788) we enter the realm of personalreligion-not a civic or deme cult- ing the cave perfected place,not the communalreligiosity of. a genosor a formally constitutedthiasos' 1: were ;i:f southern If some of what we seeis unparalleledin other caveswhere the nymphs the the nortb venerated,we should not be surprisedbut should attempt to understand nympho- (M on th relationshipbetween the work in the caveand the patternsof ancient of another t Let us, then, revisit the site of the cave, focusingon the sequence lepsy. oncea sP symbolicrepresentations within it' plan) is wild plac The entranceto the cave(the dotted areabetween T and A on the be carvedir bestpicked out by the tracesof rubblefrom the excavationthat canstill now amid suc SeenontheslopesofHymettos.Inantiquitythepicturewassurelyquile is indicated nymphol different-a groveor gardenmarked the spot.As we haveseen, this lay insidethe andperh by a loosestone, insciibedon both sides,that in Chandler'sday the enthroned It wr cave ..nearthe image of Isis" (150), that is, on the floor before beenthrown ancientr figurein the southernchamber of the cave.It had probablyfallen or one side is the two c into the cave after originallyhaving been set up near the entrance. "Archedamos garden some dil inscribed(no. 17,IG i;784) of Theraplanted a lk1poslf"ot crux discussed forth in t the nymphs.,,The other (no. 16,IG i2785)is the inscriptionwith a the inscription suggests earlier in this essay.whatever the solution to that problem, nymph' The tions an, clearlyrefers to the effortsto developa suitabledwelling place for a Arche- two sidesof the in\cription reflect two functions;one side emphasizes the building damos'sefforts in the naturalworld of the kEpos,'the other stresses 78.' ofahouse,anoikos,andshiftsattentiontoasinglenymph'Ifwehavebeen prefix eks we casebut v justifiedin suggestingthat there were erotic connotationsto such gardens, sidesof the stone, to nYmPhr may go one stepfurther and recognizea sequencein the two 79. : of a bride- from motifs of romanceand erotic encounterin the gardento hints Travels in lc groom'sconstruction of a housefor hisbride, the nymphE' is what Parossee Thepleasuresofsuchagardenquicklydisappearasonelowersoneselfinto 85(1983) thepassagethatleadsdownintothecave.Afewstairs,roughlycutintothe 80. aresoon lost in bediock,provide little assistance.All signsof growthand fertility El. and culture, that the c the dim light; it is asif one had entereda world beyondboth nature draw water for on Travl almostbeyond human society.Yet maidensvisited the caveto Hogarth terra- ritual ablutions before marriage and left there dedicatory loutrophoroi; (1899/19( t lamps and marble reliefs of familiar kinds were set up and wasnot cottas and small on do This familiar apparatusof the sis cuttingsmade for reliefsto honor Panor a Grace. are two ( yet it masks ancientgrotto may facilitatethe transitioninto this strangesetting, ways in i tl for a momentthe distinctivenessof this cave'17 Notus, gods.Th 82. 77,T\ecavecanmostprofitablybecomparedtootherAtticcaveswithdedicationstothe Frangais nymphs.ThereisausefullistinginHerter(supran.62)1558-6l,andinAmandry(supran.24)404_ Aeschin, g. pictori;I Dictionary oj Ancient Athens (London 1971)s.v. Nymph6, 361ff ' See also J. Travlos, Parker,. 417f.Note alsothe caveon Ithaka,J. Benton,BS'4 39 (1938-1939) 33' 181 r 1988 coNNoR: Seized bY the NYmPhs

one noticesthat the caveis divided into two : work At the bottom of the descent, rock running approximatelyeast to west (see m that greatchambers by a wall of living outerwall of the northernchamber (P in Fig. rdivid- ng. r). Justa few stepsaway, on the presence,the inscription(no. 20, IG 12 enter- 1)1s anotherreminder of Archedamos' ,,Archedamos the nympholept,at the injunctionof the nymphs e cult 7gg) from Thera, on descendingone can turn directly to the hiasos. perfectedthis cavern."78Although most naturalpattern of movementis through s were southernchamber of the cave,the encountersa nichededicated to a Grace nd the the northernchamber. There one soon 'mpho- (M on the plan; inscriptionno. L1, IG 12780),a basin(L), and, at the foot of stalactite(J) and the site of what was :nC€ Of anotherset of crude steps,an impressive a oncea spring(I). The growinggloom , the chill, the stalactitesmake this chamber of the early visitorssaw a lion's head rlan) is wild place; it is not surprisingthat some no longerto be seen,but totally credible still be carvedinto the rock nearby-a figure To move throughthis chamberis to replicatesome of the 1 quile amid suchwildness.Te of sun,growing things, dry air, breezes, dicated nympholept'swithdrawal from the world ordinaryhuman existence. ide the andperhaps as well from the conventionsof found all the movable .hroned It was in the southernchamber that the excavators The contrastsbetween thrown ancientremains that wererevealed by their excavations.e explained.slBut surelythere was : side is the two chambersare more easily paralleled than the concentrationof votives and so aosl for some differentiation of function to explain of the springand the smallbasin (L) scussed forth in the southernchamber. The presence the ordinaryworld and for purifica- ;ription suggestsa placefor further separationfrom chamberof the cave'82 ph. The tions and cleansingsbefore one approachedthe southern Arche- ruilding of the 78. The languageechoes in part that of inscription no. 16. Note especiallythe repetition in each ve been prefix eks- in the verbs and the pattern of double identificationof Archedamos,as Theran instancean allusion ens,we casebut with another phrasewhich, if our exegesisof no. 16 is correct, is in each to nympholePsY. e stone, '79. Broughton, See, ior example,the cautiouscomments of [John Cam Hobhouse].Lord "immediatelyon the left hand going downwards a bride- Travelsin Albania . . . i 1Zaed.London 1855)331: an allegedparallel on is what looks like a lion's head, but carved very rudely and disfigured"' On "tr dan les carridresde Paros"' REA self into Parossee D. Berranger, Relief inscrit in honneurdes Nymphes (1983)23s-3e. the 85 into 80. Weller etal.,282. rnlost in g1. It is not easyto determine how often other cavesshow a similar division. Note, however, A-ZandZ-H that the cavenear Daphni (J. Travlos, Arch. Eph. [1937]391-408) is divided by-walls culture, Dictaeancave, M' on Travlos'splan (pinak. A). In the Psychrogrotto in Lasithi, the so-called later for "temenos'i off by a wall: BSA Hogarth found what upp"ur"d to be a in the north of the cave,marked areas ri,' terra- (1gt9/1900)g4-LI6. These lead me to suspectthat a distinctionbetween sacral and nonsacral way the empha- up and wasnot uncommon in ancientcave shrines. Whether this distinctionparallels in any that thete sis on doubling in literary descriptionsof cavesis quite uncertain.It is striking, however, us of the had "two are tlvo exits to the cavein Aeniid 6 and that the cavern describedby Quintus of Smyrna other faces it masks ways in it for going up and down. one is turned toward the blastsof noisy Boreas, the cavernof the Noius, the bringer of rain. The latter is the way by which mortals go under the broad gods.The other is the way of the blessedones'" Ginouvis, BalaneutikA,Bibliothdque des Ecoles ions to the 82. On such lustral arrangementssee Ren6 perirrhanteria, e.g., around the Athenian agora: n.24) 404- Frangaisesno. 200 (paris 196i). Cf. the use ol Sacr.12.f.; Pseudol.23;Pollux 1.8. See also R' rh€,361ff., AeschinesI.Zl,3.I76and the siholiaad loc.;Lucian Parker,Miasma (Oxford 1983). 182 cLAssIcALANrIeuIrY Volume7/No. 2/October1988

"cut speculat€ At the extremeend of the northern chamberthere is a threshold(H) the myth betweenthe dividing massof rock . . . and the partial partition (about 2 m. suggestt high)."siThis working sharpensthe divisionbetween the two parts of the cave religiosit and remindsus that we are steppinginto a highly sacredarea, as Agamemnon identitier did when consultingApollo's oracle,e or Aeneaswhen he enteredthe Sibyl's Archeda cave(Aeneid 6.45 f.). allowed t We are now unquestionablyamong ta hiera.On the left (F) is the figureof the prep Archedamos.His name, so frequent in the cave, appearstwice next to the allusion, image, now in Attic rather than Doric form: Archedemos, Archedemos-an nymPhs. emphaticassertion of his presenceand, as in the other chamber,a reminder company upon enteringof his efforts. Slightlyhigher in the cave(E) is a shrinewith two dancean depressions,perhaps for offeringsor libations.8sSome early travelerssaw here lesseasil an inscription, perhapsApollonos : Erso.K If ERSO were securewe might of souls, ariesof n 83. Weller et al.,274. opp 84. Odyssey8.?9-81. On the threshold as a sacredmarker the material from comparative anthropologyis very rich: see,for example,,(New York 1966)114. platform Among the Greeksnote especiallyAeschylts Choephoroi571 ; Hesiod Theogony749. to a smal 85. The most common offeringsto the nymphsseem to havebeen agricultural products, such as of the flo cheese,milk, and honey;see Herter (supran.62) 1556f.Note the useof honeyin the hypogaeum "TAS a associatedwith a nymphd in Paestum:B. Neutsch, NUNPHAS EMI HIARON," Abhand' is now lungen d.. HeidelbergerAkadernie der Wiss., Ph.-Hist. Kl. (1957) II, 11. Wineless offerings are excavato specifiedin somecults of the nymphs:Henrichs (supran.62) 97. But animalsacrifice is also attested: water, tc Moralia 628; Mitford (supran.30) no' Euripides ElectraTS5ff.; Nonnus Dion. 44.97-102;Plutarch beenver 285. On the archaeologicalevidence from the caveat Vari seeWeller et al.' 278. 86. The reports are inconsistentand tantalizing, all the more so becausethe letters have now sectiono disappeared.Even the earliestreports leave room for doubt and disagreement.Chandler, 150, did day-as: "Of not report the Greek but offered the translation Apollo. Offer." In his edition of the inscriptions The (InscriptionesAntiquae [Oxford 17?41ll.iii, 76) he printed AnO^ ONO>. EP>@. Further evi- dencecomes from a sketchin a notebook of Sir William Gell's (1777-1836)concerning a visit to the nymphol cave in 1805.This shows the inscription as AIIOAAQNO: i EPE> plus traces of another letter, vulgo me possiblyO. The notebook is in the British Schoolat Athens (Finley P 4:1 no. 4534)and the sketchis "Manuscrits reproducedas fig. 7 in Amandry'sarticle, de Gell" (supran.39) 68. Belowthe sketchis "On thi note "W. saysEP:O." Gell's treatise SomeSacred Caverns of the Greeks"(supra n.39) "which describeshis visit to the cave. On 16v he reports the inscription as AIIOAAQNOI i EPEX 1888it had may denote that he himself was the priest of Apollo. . . . The word tpeEis probably put for Ereios excavators which is interpreted Attendant, on or Priest, Servusvel Minister, of Apollo." This view is [sic] 2e6). probably based on the reading dpeloi in a few manuscriptsof Theocritus Id. 15.50, where Gow, 'EpeL6g 87. C Dover, et al. print Warton's emendationdqc?or. (accursed). is not elsewheresecurely at- III (Cambr tested. (I am indebted to the librarians of the British School and the Gennadeionfor their help in (Pausanias consultingthese unpublished works by Gell.) On tt The readingEPXO is supportedby other earlier travelers,cited in Boeckh'scorpus (1828) (CIA discussions 456h) and by Christopher Wordsworth's account of a visit to the cave in 1832-1833,Athens and "w. N. Roberts Attica (2d ed. London 1837\195-2M. (The comrnentin Gell's notebook, saysEP>O" may be a 88. T later addition to the page, after Wordsworth'sreport. Cf. the allusionsto Wordsworth on pp. 7 and 8 inscription: of the notebook.) Boeckh's corpus offered AflOAAONO> EP>O without interpunctuation, 89. V (expressedfor example by Bloch in Roscher (supra n.26), s.v' thereby encouragingthe notion 90.c Nymphen, 531)that Ersoswas an epithet of Apollo. The interpunctuationis correctly shownin IG 12 ihre Symbc 783. HSCP 15 | In 1878 Curtius and Kaupert (supra n.40) Bl. viii (reproduced in Weller et al., 27L frg. 6) n.82)361-, showedthe inscription asAIIOAAQNO: i EP>C. By the time Milchhoefervisited the cavein 1887- tctober1988 coNNoR: Seized by the Nymphs 183 rld (H) "cut speculatethat the name is a masculinecounterpart to the Herse, prominentin about 2 m. the myth associatedwith the Arrhephoria ritual on the Acropolis.sTThis would of the cave suggestthe adaptation of official cult from the center of the city to the private r$8ln€mOOD religiosityof the cave and hint at a potentially significantreversal of sexual . the Sibyl's identities. But since the reading is not entirely secureand the ascriptionto Archedamosquite problematic,caution is essential.tsThe possibilitymust be he flgure of allowedthat the sigmain ERSOwas simply mu misreador carvedat an angleas next to the the preparedspace ran out. In this casewe would have a more conventional zdemos-an allusion, to Hermes, a figure who, like Apollo, is often associatedwith the a reminder nymphs.These are the two male Olympianswho are most often admittedto the ne with two companyof the nymphs.Apollo is sometimesshown as their companionin the rs saw here danceand identified as nymphagetes,the leader of the nymphs. Hermes' role is : we might lesseasily defined but is perhapslinked to his role aspsychopompos, the leader of souls,often into the underworld,but perhapsanywhere beyond the bound- ariesof normallife. n comparative Oppositethe relief depictingArchedamos the excavatorsfound a low wall or ork 1966)114. platform that led in irregularfashion to the southernside of the caveand thence "consists to a smallshrine (S) which of two simpleshelves cut in the slopingrock as >ducts,such of the floor. just re hypogaeum . . . the uppercutting is at the outlet of a naturalchannel, which )N," Abhand- is now alwaysdry, but which must once have had flowing water."8eHere, the offerings are excavatorsconcluded, may havebeen "the veritableretreat of the nymphs."This i also attested: water,to judge from other placeswhere the nymphswere upran.30) no. venerated,must have beenvery important in the cult.soThe low wall that the excavatorsfound in this ters have now sectionof the cavemay thus havebeen built-perhaps well after Archedamos's rdler, 150,did day-as a pathwayto this importantshrine. heinscriptions . Further evi The link between water and nympholepsyis also a strong one. That g a visit to the nympholepsymight be causedby looking into a fountain is assertedby Varro: nother letter, vulgo memoriaeproditum est,quicunque speciem quandam e id esteffigiem d the sketchis fonte, v the sketchis '' (supran.39) EPEE "which "frevelhaft put for Ereios 1888it had been verstummelt": Karten von AttikaText, Heft iii-vi (Berlin 1889)16f. The ' This view is excavatorsreported that the inscriptionshad disappearedby the time of their work (Weller et al., , where Gow, 2e6). 'e securelyat- 87. On Hersossee Jessen, s.v. Hersos,RE 15Hb. (Stuttgartl9L2) 1149f.;cf. A. B. Cook,Zeus r their help in III (Cambridge 1940)26lff. Such parallelismin namescan also be noted in Ganymedes/Ganymeda (Pausanias2.13.3) and Stesichoreas a muse on the Frangoisvase compared with "stesichoros." rs(1828) (CIA On the Arrhephoriasee Pausanias1.18.2 and 1.27.3with Frazer'snotes. Among the recent l, Athens and discussionsseeespeciallyw.Burkert,Hermes94(1966)7-29;E.Kadletz, AJA86(1982)445f.;and XO" may be a N. Robertson,HSCP 87 (1983) 241-88. on pp. 7 and8 88. The letterforms, as Chandler (supra n.86) xxxi, noted,appear to be laterthan those on the ;rpunctuation, inscriptionsmost plausiblyassociated with Archedamos. ra n.26), s.v. 89. Weller et al..273. ,hownin /G 12 90. On the connectionbetween water and the nymphssee A. Kambylis,Die Dichterweiheu. "Some ihreSymbolik (Heidelberg 1965) 38-a6; F.,G. Ballentine, Phasesof the Cult of the Nymphs," 1.,271 fig. 6) HSCP 15 (1904)77-11,9;and Bloch in Roscher(supra n.26) 512t. I havefound Ginouvds(supra cavein 1887- n.82)361-66 especially helpful. 1988 f84 cLASSICALANTIQUITY Volume7A{o. 2/October

vocant' contalns nymphaeviderint, furendi non fecissefinem: quos GraceivupQ6)'qntoL rather th Latini lymphaticosappellant.sl we neednot dependon varro's authority:Greek have incl mythssuch as the story that 'companion Hylas was drawn into a foun- totally di tain by a nymphsuggest the samepattern.e2 Wei water is often linked in Greek antiquity to inspirationand prophecyand cave.As sometimesto healing.e3Its powers seem all the strongerwhen localizedin a the natut cave.eaLepers could be cured by praying in the cave of the Anigrian nymphs seento I near Elis and then swimmingin the nearbyriver (Pausanias5.5'11). Prophetic natural ( sitessuch as the Ptoon in Boeotia, Ortygia, Claros,and probablyBranchidai as it. The f well often had both caveand flowingwater.es Perhaps most powerful of all was lated as the associationof earth and water in the famousoracle of Trophonios'where, ship is a after bathing and the drinking of the waters of Forgetfulnessand of gas) facilitate Memory und ,o forth, the inquirer entersinto a chasmin the earth (chasma "just Milchho and then is drawn in asthe largestand mostrapid river will catcha man in Cook a< itseddy and carry him under"(Pausanias 9.39.11)' uncertai Earlier partsof this investigationhave discussed the evidencethat suggestsa that the strong link betweennympholepsy and prophecy;this is perhapsa clue to the field for likely function of this spring in Archedamos'sday. As at Delphi and other prophetic sites, one drank water before becominginspired.% This is not to nymphs, for well- "*"iua" other possibleroles for the springin this cave,especially that of healing' One Curesare often associatedwith cavesand the nymphs;yet Archedamos'scave

97. I the Latin evidence t 91. Varro De lingualatinaT.87. See also Festus 120M. For a differentview among power at I authorssee Isidore of SevilleOrig. l0.16l. cf' Roscher,r 92. The most famous statementof the myth is in Apollonios Argonautika1.1228-39; n'3' In the 1r{l KallimachosEp.22and Theokritos13. Seealso w. Burkert, Gnomon 35 (1963)238 agencyof 98. . Narkissosstory the motif of seeingis transferredto the victim'sself-observation' but the Ballentine basisof tl the nymph remainsin Echo'srole. On the nymphsas deitiesassociated with water see the argun (supran.90) 77-90. the connec- would no 93. The castalianspring is the most conspicuousexample in Greek antiquityof rather sentedart tion betweenwater and proph".y; its function, however,seems to have been purification | (Oxford $.t than direct inspiration.SLe h. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle Pliny NIl 100. 1,966)27f.. Divination by drinking water was practicedat Klaros (TacitusAnn. 2.54; water 101. 2.103.232),and at Hysiai in Boeotia (Pausanias9.2.1). on the use of bronze phialai in "The BSA 46 donl8l9) divinationat perachorasee T. J. Dunbabin, Oracleof Akraia at Perachora," havea tu2. (lg5l\ 6l-74. Aelius Aristides (Panath.46.17ID as emended) also notes that manticwaters They arc direct effect on insPiration. chap T' majesty.t water is extremelyimportant in healing,even in Hippocraticmedical theory, e'g., Adr. "bilious." water, on the K. Tuche Note that stagnantwater is here describedas cholodea, Steadilyrunning the opposite 103. other hand, shelteredfrom the summersun, as in Archedamos'scave, should have he might devoted I effect.If, aswas suggested above, Archedamos thought bile wasinvolved in his condition, At the time of the excavationthe spring Classicac expectthat the watersin the cavewould be restorative. "Mytholc Weller et al', within the cavewas reportedby local inhabitantsto havemedicinal properties; see ison 1983 274f. HymnAr 94. SeeEuripides Bacchae2T4-85 and Dodds ad loc' n.64; 104. 95. SeeW. R. Halliday, GreekDivinarron (London l9l3) 124f.;Dodds (supran.1) 73f. (supra n' Artemis' V. Scully The Earth, the Templeand the Gods (rev. ed. New Haven 1969)107; Ginouvds demande 82)chap. 3. human li 96. PlutarchMoralia 433D f.;Pausanias10.24.7. See also Fontenrose (supra n.10) 198,204' rber 1988 coNNoR: Seized by the Nymphs lE5

,L VOCAnt, containsno unambiguousevidence of a healing activity.eTYet even if prophecy, ty: Greek rather than medicine,was its principalfunction, the consultationsare likely to .o a foun- haveincluded medical matters from time to time. curative powerswere rarely totally distinguishedfrom propheticones in settingssuch as this. hecy and we are now readyto approachthe areathat dominatesthis chamberof the ized in a cave.As we moveslightly higher in the cave,towards an areabetter illumined by r nymphs the naturallight that filtersdown from the entranceway,two largeobjects can be Prophetic seento the left of the fissurefrom which the water onceflowed. Theseare the rchidaias naturalcenters of attentionin this chamberand crucialfor our understandingof cf all was it. The first is a seatedfigure, carvedout of the living rock, headlessand muti- s, where, lated as it was even in chandler's day, yet powerful to behold.The worksman- ;s and of ship is again crude, quite in Archedamos'rough-hewn style: detailsthat might zsmag4s) facilitate an identificationare absent.Chandler (150) called the figure 'Isis"; a man in Milchhoefer,who hasbeen widely followed,suggested , and then cybele.es cook advocatedGe, Earth.s rhe American excavatorswere more hesitant. ruggests a uncertaineven of the sexof the figure.tmMost observers,however, have agreed ue to the that the figure is female.101But the absenceof iconographicdetail leavesa wide ind other field for conjecture.l02Artemis, for example,the frequent companionof the is not to nymphs,would not be surprisingin suchn says.r03Her preference,however, is f healing. for well-wateredsites, near streams or the shore.toa ros'scave one further observationmay prove helpful. [n general the cave is well

97. S. M. Sherwin-White,Ancient Cos (Gcittingen1978 = Hypomneman 5l) 328discusses the tg the Latin evidencefor the spring of the nymphsin the sanctuaryat Kos. On a tradition of a nymph with healing power at the klepsydrain Athens seeA. w. Parsons,Hesperia 12 (1943\ 203,232.see also Bloch in 228-39; ct. Roscher,(supra n.26) 512t On cavesas medicinal sites see Ginouvds (supra n.82) 342, andpausanias n.3. In the 3.25.8. e agencyof "Nymphenrelief 98. A. Milchhoefer, aus Athen," AthMiu. 5 (1880)2L7. He arguedon the : Ballentine basisof the presenceof the lion's head in the northern chamberof the cave. I am not persuadedby the argument that its presencewould help identify a figure in the other chamber. Even if it did, it the connec- would not establishthat the seatedfigure was Cybele;in Ephesus,for example,lions were repre- rtion rather sentedaround the headof Artemis, probably in recognitionof her role asporn ia ther,n. z I (Oxford 99. Cook (supran.87) 261f. ; Pliny NH 100. Weller et al., 268f. ai in water 101. See, for example, Chandler, 150;E. Dodwell, Classicaland TopographicalTour | (l-nn- a," BSA 46 don 1819)553; Frazer on Pausanias1.32 @. A2\; Curtiusand Kaupert (supra n.40) 30f. lters have a 102. Thrones are not an iconographicalmark of a single divinity or small group of divinities. They are, rather, a way of presenting an aspect of many divinities, reflecting thiir power and .tr. chap.7. majesty.On thronesand seatedfigures see H. Jung, Thronendeu. sitzendeGoener (Bonn'1982), and rter, on the K. Tuchelt, Die archaischenSkulpturen von Didyma, IstambulerForschungen no. 2? (Berlin 1970). :re opposite 103.L.Kahil'sworkonArtemis,forexample,revealsmanyanalogiesbetweenthecaveandsites n, he might devoted to the worship of Artemis. See Kahil, s.v. Artemis, Lexicon lconographicumMythologiae r the spring ClassicaeII (Zurich 1984)618-753 and the items in the bibliographyon p. 621of that entry, and now eller et al., "Mythological Repertoireof Brauron" in w. G. Moon, ed., A ncientGreekArtand lconography(Mad- ison1983) 231-44. Among the ancientpassages associating Artemis with the nymphsare Kallimachos HymnArt. 170r.,266f..;Apollonios Rhodios Argon,1.1225 ff.; sophoclesTrachiniae2l4. 73f. n.64; "Artemis ) 194. is frequently associatedwith water, coasts,and marshes.. . . The placing of )s (supran. _ Artemis' sanctuarieson the edge of cultivation, on the coast or the wild margins of rivers, is demandedby the associationwith younghuman life, green,flourishing, and indeteiminate,with the human life cycle" R. Osborne, Demos: The Discovery of ClassicalAttika (Cambridge 1985) 157. Volume7A{o' 2/OctoberL988 CONNOR: 186 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Befr frequent inscriptions' If its divinities in particular are noted with labeled; we should and con is indeedresionsibte for carvingthis enthroned,figure, Archedamos a sugges- the exp( madeits identificationclear' Clearit was' if ""f"", that he would have and soc tionadvancedearlierinthispaperiscorrect.Theinscriptionthatreferstothe nymphc tn its other side an allusion to a single nymph' garden for the nymphs has momen' Althoughtheinscriptionwasfoundinsidethecave,notfarfromtheenthroned enthron stood outside' near the entrance'Its text figure, it is likely that it originally encouri preparesthevisitorforwhatwillbeencounteredwithin,therepresentationofa drawal, figurewhodominatesthesouthernchamber.Standingbeforethisstatuewecanen- but surt nymph herself in her most awesomeaspect' recognizethe presenceof the experie thronedasamightydivinity,t,o.,tabe.l05Heridentityiseasilyconjectured, margin; althoughsheremainsunnamed;asintheinscription,sheissimply..nymph',100 identitl Torepresentthisnymphasenthronedisanaturalexpressionofherpower. perhaps even one of the Fo: We readily think of "ntt"on"A Olympian divinities' betweenolympian awesor of on the Acropolis. The interplay representations impor- from w andbetween civic andpersonal elements are andnon-olympian elements of the of this cave'107 tant partsoi thl rehgioussymbolism shared AI walking' often accompaniedby most often representedin groupsdancing or sion th 105. Nymphs are J' Huelsen in T' nymphs are not-uncomton; i""' for example' Pan, Hermes, or Apollo. Seated 7' and o' just to r, BcH 5 (1881)353' no' wiegand, ed.,Miletr, s ts.tiJrgis-)'"bu' P'15.1^G'Pottier' 2 (Berlin1e2e) of the "symbolikd* K";;i,'; iriAi

ll2.SeeRoscher,omphalos(supran.111)passim..SeealsoW..].1u.''u'''..Inscriptionscenturyn.c' concerningthe setting-up 2261t.,.n an inscriptionofihe third d,Argos,,, BCH2.1 irso:l anomphalos at the Pythion Pythiosat Argos.(There was also of an omphalosin tn. t"r,1pt"oi Rpotto between rs"8tlzb.l Vollgraffnotes the connection simon. *'rin"i "ih-,iitu ituuai.on in Arhens:E. sluchas.Aeschylus Eumenides 166; omphalos,a. renect"a,in*iu.rlg"t the earth and the Delphic 'on- aroundthe omphalos .,e"r,pii.rlJr'i2i rh_e^g.o;siuilitior ai.u* consultation SophoclesoT 897 1262-61and 12'17 ' i ssarr., citineEuripides IT at Detphis"e E. Drugou'nir:iiu ttsuzl 9 in the cave(Weller et al' centers.that ".it? i" ti.tiption no The circleswith strongly marked of the omphalos' weller e '--^l''iiltuy L"'"p'"'"ntations f.) andon a pottery;;;';";t (no' 7' JHS 19 293 i"; also J' Iiarrison"'Delphika"' ompialos(supra n'111) 113. Roscher, to:-ii 1982)65; Jefferv (supra n'42)Ir3' (r89s)22s-51';p.s**"I,'p;' iii'i"' 4tl'1i(Munich 1.14.SeeHerrmann(supran.111)89f.andTafel9,no.r.rr'"reliefisinAthensNMno.4.T6|. t*"1|;:Hffffil;ffi'Ii:i,:i:'ilTn;, (supran.111) 8err. Forthe combination oraseated Wide ii Ath' Mitt' 26 (1901) Boeotian pi"i" pturltr*O by S female figure uno un o.it,utos seethe alsothe rrrn'J*' 6fy!:tZ''.\:Y1i:tl) 70f'Note 150ff.(with rur"r vui,Pu'rlo"jti'"'"lJ n'1) 22-24 andTafel 11' in Himmelman-wildschiitz (supra Ninnion tablet, illustrai"Juno oi..ur..d rcr 1988 coNNoR:Seized by the Nymphs 189 nous of Archedamos'pride in his statusas a nympholeptand in his work on the cave too was cannow be better understood.The cavehas become an elaborateand individual- 5ff. But ized synthesisof symbolseach of which is readily recognizedand highly es- her cult teemedin the culture.Here personalreligiosity and elementsfrom public, often on with aristocratic,cults are brought together. Earth and water, public and private, navelof sacred and profane find their places in a unity created by the worker- re earth nympholept.His claimsare proud ones, no lessso for being symbolicand im- dwasa plicit. Behind the identity reflectedin the cave,moreover, we havebeen able to Eleusis, detecta cryptic,incomplete, but powerfulsequence-a reenactment of a process of withdrawal frdm society, cultivation of the wild, confrontation with the ;. On an strangepowers represented in the nymph, a restructuringof personalityand, ssets off perhaps,an eventualpartial reintegrationinto a community. rolept- n plausi- PrincetonUniversity rjectsor m is not nwerof ized and ed as to ielation- we have :riencea ion. Just t group, nd share point of or frag- runtsfor

rscriptions setting-up he Pythion 'n between 'nides L66; , omphalos

/elleret al. omphalos. ," tHs t9

I no. 4'161. of a seated . 26 (1e01) ie also the d Tafel 11.