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Homer's Great Epic Poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Composed

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Homer's Great Epic Poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Composed GODS AND HUMANS I. GODS AND HUMANS: THE NEW CONTRACT WITH NATURE Homer’s great epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, reverse was true in the case of its principal festival, composed probably in the eighth century B.C.E., reveal the Panathenaia, these processions took the people to us a confident civilization of youthful promise, at from the city into the exurban landscape, where many a time when it was fashioning for itself a glorious nar- of the important religious sanctuaries were located, rative of its history as a diverse but culturally united thereby affirming the territorial dominance of the people. Valor in war, accomplished horsemanship, and polis over its surrounding agrarian countryside. These the consoling power of a well-developed sense of ritual festivals held in nature also served as initiatory beauty are intrinsic to this worldview. The worship of rites for adolescents as they became participants in trees and aniconic stones—nonrepresentational, non- civic life. In ancient Sparta, where the city-state played symbolical forms—had been superseded by the per- an especially strong role in the education of children sonification of divinity. Although the powers and and adolescents, the festivals were connected with the personalities of the gods and goddesses were still in worship of Artemis Orthia. the process of formation, it is clear that they popu- The increasing power of the aristocracy spurred lated the collective imagination not as representatives the creation of the arts and the organization of ath- of an ethical system or figures commanding wor- letic competitions. The festivals were characterized shipful love, but rather as projections of the human by communal procession and sacrifice performed psyche and personifications of various aspects of before the sanctuaries of the gods, as well as by danc- human life. As such, they acted as the idealized and ing and athletic and dramatic competition performed worthy guardians of human society and served as in the gods’ honor. Dionysus became the patron deity socializing forces, bonding disparate peoples into of the theatrical arts, and when the plays of Aeschy- larger territorial groups through common worship. lus, Sophocles, and Euripides were performed, it was at the Great Dionysia, the important dramatic festi- GREEK MYTH, RELIGION, val competition held every four years at Athens. At AND CULTURE Olympia, the Panhellenic (all-Greek) festival of games In fashioning their myths, the Greeks took their native sacred to Zeus was begun in 776 B.C.E. and continued inheritance, Minoan and Mycenaean religions— at four-year intervals for the next thousand years. Zeus which are believed to have been centered upon wor- also presided over the Nemean Games, while Apollo ship of a Great Goddess or Earth Mother—and was honored in the athletic festival held at Delphi and added to them divinities derived from Asia Minor. Poseidon in the contests that took place at the Isth- Thus, Athena, the majestic patron of the arts and the mus of Corinth. Truces among warring city-states goddess of reason and justice, probably traced her ori- were maintained to allow the contestants and spec- gin to the Earth Mother in Minoan and Mycenaean tators to arrive safely at these Panhellenic celebrations. cultures. However, Apollo, the god of light, order, and People also made pilgrimages to important inspiration, was perhaps the descendant of a god wor- shrines, particularly the one at Delphi, to find spiri- shiped in the region formerly called Anatolia, the large tual guidance. The desire to chart a safe course, peninsula now occupied principally by Turkey. These whether through the perils of statecraft or one’s own gods can be seen as archetypes of emerging aspects of lifetime, made oracular consultation a popular reli- civilization at a period when primal beliefs were grad- gious exercise in a society that saw human activity as ually being replaced by a more rational, ethical, and drama directed from on high, the plot of which could scientific outlook. Greek religion was nevertheless be discerned by the spirit forces of the earth. still firmly embedded in the matrix of nature. On the The Greek political system, with its isolated city- Athenian Acropolis, a shrine for the worship of the states, accounted for the many festivals of various rustic god Pan is evidence of the duality implicit in kinds held throughout the mainland and the Pelo- Greek religion, which acknowledged the wild, irra- ponnese, the large peninsula below the Gulf of tional impulses associated with human sexuality Corinth that consitutes the southern part of Greece. alongside the civilized values personified by Athena. Altars studded both the rural and urban landscapes, There were numerous holidays in which pro- as animal sacrifice, an essential and integral part of cession, worshipful slaughter, and feasting helped every festival including those featuring athletic games, forge the bonds of community and civic pride among was necessarily performed out-of-doors. Ritual sacri- all the inhabitants of the polis and sometimes between fice was only one manifestation of the interrelation- neighboring city-states (poleis), while placating the ship of the human, animal, and divine in ancient divinities that were believed to ensure cosmic order. Greece. There was considerable overlap between With the notable exception of Athens, where the urban and agrarian spheres, and objects in nature 63 NATURE, ART, AND REASON GODS AND HUMANS completing the romantic scene. In their ascendant colonnades, roofed and with walls and often a series 2.1. The Athenian Acropolis centuries, the temples were brightly painted, and pil- of rooms on the back side, provided shelter from the with the olive tree planted to grimages to them were not those of tourists, but of sun and an opportunity for the placement of more commemorate the presence in antiquity of Athena’s sacred religious supplicants. Nature and divinity were inex- sanctified objects. Wealthy individuals contributed to tree. It stands in the courtyard tricably fused; landscape was experienced religiously the construction of stadiums and the many monu- of the Erechtheion where it is believed that a charred olive rather than aesthetically. ments that adorned the site. In this manner, impor- tree managed to sprout leaves, The visible echoes of previous ceremony and tant sanctuaries became crowded with a host of bringing hope of renewal and custom only deepened the sanctity and fame of cer- structures, numerous memorial gifts, and votive offer- rebirth of the Athenian polis after the Persians had burned tain sacred sites. Bloodstains on the altar, oil-anointed ings. Nowhere was this more evident than at Delphi. and razed the buildings of the stones, accumulations of ash, bone, horns, and Acropolis in 480 B.C.E. The skulls—these signs of others’ piety provided the DELPHI Erechtheion housed a xoanon, the ancient cult statue of weight of tradition. Votive offerings (the source of The most dramatic synthesis of site and sanctuary is Athena. The caryatids that lively local industry), valuables of all kinds, including to be found at Delphi, the spiritual center sacred to form the columns of its south but not limited to the paraphernalia of sacrifice (ves- all Greeks and a place where rivalries among poleis porch overlook the fire- scarred foundation stones of sels, axes, roasting spits, and especially, tripod caul- were superseded by bonds of Panhellenic identity (fig. the Old Temple of Athena. drons of metal) were contributed to the sanctuaries. 2.2). Some of the architectural forms found here have Although the Acropolis was 2.2. Reconstructed Plan of rebuilt later in the fifth century Grateful victors donated shields and weapons of war. served as frequently imitated prototypes throughout Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi. B.C.E. by Pericles, and the The victorious erected monuments and inscribed the history of landscape design. The circular tholos in c. 400 B.C.E. Parthenon became the majes- tablets proclaiming acts of glory. Various poleis built the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia at Delphi in the site Ạ Treasury of the Athenians tic replacement of the ạ Rock of the Sibyl destroyed temple, its site was treasuries in the form of miniature temples, notably called Marmaria (the Marbles) along the pilgrimage Sphinx of the Naxians always considered by Atheni- at Olympia and Delphi, to house valuable offerings route to Apollo’s sanctuary, is the model for innu- ả Temple of Apollo ans to be hallowed ground. and as further gifts to the presiding gods. Stoas, long merable later garden temples (fig. 2.3). The various Ấ Theater were everywhere charged with magical meaning. By that made that site holy. From a social and political roadsides, sacred stones glistened with oil where perspective, the sacral landscape provided a means of passersby offered libations. Caves and springs, often asserting territorial dominance by a particular polis, the sites of votive shrines, served as places of human which is why the destruction of important exurban purification. Frequently sanctuaries encompassed sanctuaries in wartime was tantamount to destroy- sacred springs, and often there were sacred groves ing a city itself. nearby as well. Certain trees became identified with The sanctification of a particular spot was sub- particular divinities: the olive tree was sacred to ject to various political considerations. At some sites, Ấ Athena, and a revered specimen grew on the Acrop- votaries of existing gods were reluctant to admit com- olis; at Samos, a willow’s branches hung over Hera’s petition from a new deity. On the other hand, there sanctuary; on Delos, a palm tree commemorated a were economic benefits to the communities where similar tree upon which Leto had leaned when giv- major deities were given residence, for pilgrims ing birth to Artemis and Apollo; at Dodona, the ora- brought fees and a brisk production and sale of votive cle imparted wisdom through the rustling branches objects.
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