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Feasts, Citizens, and Cultic Democracy in Classical Athens

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Feasts, Citizens, and Cultic Democracy in Classical Athens FEASTS, CITIZENS, AND CULTIC DEMOCRACY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS INTRODUCTION The impact of religious customs in the lives of human beings is difficult to measure fully. Religious experience is in many ways subjective, and access to that subjective experience is severely limited for anyone who wishes to study the customs of classical antiquity. Fortunately, religious customs also create larger social consequences that are easier for schol- ars to trace, although the meanings of these customs and their conse- quences are a matter of debate. Above all, the study of religious practices during classical antiquity is raising questions for modern scholars about the boundaries between public and private, domestic and political. A recent disagreement about the experience of women in classical Greece illustrates well how scholars have been unable to reach a con- sensus about the larger social meaning of one religious custom, the cus- tom of thusia. An impasse has arisen, despite several decades of copious research into Greek religion and its role in Greek society1. The signifi- cant point of contention that has arisen between British and French schol- ars concerns the role that gender played in the distribution of, and access 1 More general studies of Greek religion: J. MIKALSON, Athenian Popular Religion, Chapel Hill 1983; W. BURKERT, Greek Religion (trans. John Raffan), Cambridge 1985 (German edition Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart 1977),with an updated supplement by J. BREMMER, Greek Religion, Oxford 1999; S. PRICE, Religions of the Ancient Greeks, Cambridge 1999. Religion in the polis: Louise BRUIT ZAIDMAN – Pauline SCHMITT-PANTEL, Religion in the Ancient Greek City (trans. P. Car- tledge), Cambridge 1992 (French edition La religion grecque, Paris 1989); Christiane SOURVINOU-INWOOD, Further Aspects of Polis Religion, AION(archeol) 10 (1988), p. 259- 274, and What is Polis Religion?, In O. MURRAY – S. PRICE (eds.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, Oxford 1988, p. 295-322; W.R. CONNOR, ‘Hiera and Hosia’: Sacred and Secular and the Classical Athenian Concept of the State, AncSoc 19 (1988), p. 161- 188; H.S. VERSNEL, Religion and Democracy, in W. EDER, (ed.), Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jahrhundert v.Chr, Stuttgart 1995, p. 367-387; W. BURKERT, Isonomia und Polisreligion im Kleisthenischen Athen, in M. SAKELLARIOU (ed.), Démocratie athéni- enne et culture, Athens 1996, p. 51-65; M.H. JAMESON, Religion in the Athenian Democ- racy, in I. MORRIS – K. RAAFLAUB (eds.), Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges (Archaeological Institute of America Colloquia and Conference Papers, 2), Dubuque (IA) 1998, p. 171-195; Deborah BOEDEKER, Athenian Religion and Democracy (unpublished paper delivered at the Brown Seminar on Culture & Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean 2 N.A. EVANS to, meat2. The French side argues that women and non-citizens are seen to be on the outside of the politico-religious community with little access to the meat consumed at public feasts; men feared the loss of political power that could follow if women were allowed access to the tools of sac- rifice3. On the British side of the debate, the presence of women is not so categorically excluded, and the «theology of sacrifice» is seen as «a domestic understanding of the world and not a political one.»4 In some ways the ground of this debate reflects continuing interest in one aspect of the study of ancient religion that re-emerged in the 1970s, namely sacrifice and the importance of ëortaí (heortai), or feasts5. World, 3 December 2002). For book length studies on Athenian religion with a historical focus see H.W. PARKE, Festivals of the Athenians, Ithaca (NY) 1977; R. PARKER, Athen- ian Religion: a History, Oxford 1996; R. GARLAND, Introducing New Gods: the Politics of Greek Religion, Ithaca 1992. For scholars working in the field of ancient magic see the work of Fritz Graf, John Gager, Christopher Faraone, and most recently Naomi JANOWITZ, Magic in the Greco-Roman World, London–New York 2001. R. BUXTON (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, Oxford 2000, is a collection of essays by different authors and includes archaeological contributions. Book length studies on Greek religion and women: M. DILLON, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, London–New York 2002; Jennifer LARSON, Greek Heroine Cults, Madison 1995, and Greek nymphs: myth, cult, lore, Oxford–New York 2001; R. KRAEMER, Her Share of the Blessings, New York 1992. Susan COLE also has some excellent essays on gender differences in Greek cult practices, e.g. The Social Function of Rituals of Maturation: the Koureion and the Arkteia, ZPE 55 (1984), p. 233-244; Gunaiki ou Themis: Gender Differences in the Greek ‘Leges Sacrae’, Helios 19 (1992), p. 104-118; Women, Dogs and Flies, AncW 26 (1995), p. 182-191. In this essay I draw from all of the above scholarship, with the exception of ancient magic. 2 R. OSBORNE, Women and Sacrifice in Classical Greece, CQ 43 (1993), p. 392-405 (reprinted in R. BUXTON, op. cit., p. 294-313, but all references below are to the 1993 CQ publication), frames his direct response to M. DETIENNE, The Violence of Wellborn Ladies, in M. DETIENNE – J.-P. VERNANT (eds.), The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks (trans. Paula Wissing), Chicago 1989, p. 129-147 (French edition La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grecs, Paris 1979); Nicole LORAUX, Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the Division between the Sexes (trans. Caroline Levine), Princeton 1993 (French edi- tion Les enfants d'Athena, Paris 1981); and L.BRUIT ZAIDMAN – P. SCHMITT-PANTEL, op. cit. One of Osborne’s main criticisms (p. 395) is that the view proposed by the French has recently become accepted without question. This debate about gender (and, to a lesser extent, class differences) is indicative of larger differences in the contemporary study of classics, differences that arise from methodological preferences and responses to struc- turalism and post-structuralism. 3 M. DETIENNE, art. cit., p. 147; N. LORAUX, op. cit. 4 R. OSBORNE, art. cit. (n. 2), p. 404. 5 W. BURKERT, Homo Necans, Berlin 1972 (Homo Necans: the Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth [trans. P. Bing], Berkeley 1983); ID., op. cit. (n. 1); and the collection of essays in M. Detienne – J.-P. Vernant, op. cit. (n. 2). Specialized book length studies of different aspects of thusia have appeared more recently, e.g. V. ROSIVACH, The System of Public Sacrifice in Fourth Century Athens, Atlanta 1994, and F.T. VAN STRATEN, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Leiden FEASTS, CITIZENS, AND CULTIC DEMOCRACY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS 3 The work of philologists was augmented by epigraphists, who studied Athenian inscriptions and documented how festivals, especially civic fes- tivals which featured the central act of qusía (thusia) or blood sacrifice, played a significant role in the Athenian culture of the classical period. Other academic specialists have likewise conducted research into the sub- ject of food and food supply in classical antiquity. These epigraphists, art historians, sociologists and economic historians can continue to offer clas- sicists new insights6. Food has multiple meanings, and some of the mean- ings that food had for the ancient Greeks may not be immediately rec- ognizable to a modern classical scholar. Unlike us, the Athenians lived at a time when the superabundance of food resources was not the norm7. Familiarity with the multiple meanings of food and feasting can help flesh out our understanding of social practices and their impact in the ancient world. In this essay I will examine the role of specific cultic activities, using classical Athens (with its abundance of literary and phys- ical evidence) as my example8. I will explore the question of what and who constituted the political community in classical Athens by examin- ing the place and function of feasts in Athenian society. I hope to show that public feasts were as central for the formation of citizen identity as they were for the constitution of the polis community9. I would suggest that most of us have not yet fully appreciated this fact as we continue to study the extant ancient record. While those who study religion are com- fortable discussing the political aspects of cult practice, those who study politics and history are not quite as comfortable discussing the impact of cult practice10. 1995. These late 20th-century scholars were in many ways building on the work begun by early 20th-century scholars like Deubner, Nilsson, and Harrison. 6 P. GARNSEY, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge 1988, and Food and Society in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge 1999; V. ROSIVACH, op. cit.; J. MIKALSON, The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year, Princeton 1985. 7 P. GARNSEY, Food and Society, discusses the «multiple meanings» best in his intro- duction, p. 1-11. 8 Athens is not typical of all ancient poleis, but it is where a good deal of our sources come from. I will supplement literary evidence from 5th and 4th-century Athens with physical evidence, when it can be found. 9 Issues of inclusion in (and exclusion from) the polis community applied to both men and women, although women were sometimes excluded for different reasons than were men. General differences in the terms of exclusion have been best discussed by S. COLE, artt. citt. (n. 1) 1992 & 1995. See Part Five below. 10 Thusia and the distribution of meat afterwards had a public and political face; this can no longer be overlooked or brushed aside as «domestic», as done most recently in 2000 (in the reprinted 1993 Osborne essay [n. 2]). Recently some scholars have begun looking 4 N.A. EVANS In the course of reviewing the classical Athenian evidence I will also bring current scholarship to bear, and explore why scholars have not been properly listening to or directly addressing each other when discussing the interweaving of politics and cult practices in classical Athens.
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