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Year-End Festivals of the Athenian Acropolis Anita Hart

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Year-End Festivals of the Athenian Acropolis Anita Hart The mythology of the Athenian Acropolis begins with the quarrel between Athene and Poseidon. The rest of Athenian mythological history, it seems, is dedicated to patching up this little squabble. The cult of Poseidon is housed within the very same building as Athene’s own cult on the Acropolis. Important festivals involve, even require, the cooperation of both gods and their priests for the good of the city. But why should the mortal inhabitants of Athens have held such a vested interest in the ancient and decisively-settled contest of two gods? Why worry so much about honoring Poseidon, the loser of the contest? Given Athens’ importance as a seaport, I propose that the Greeks were intent upon facilitating a business partnership between the two divinities, despite their personal animosity, in order that the city’s maritime industry might flourish. Citizens of Athens played out their efforts to promote reconciliation between Athena and Poseidon through year-end festivals on the Acropolis. Athens had four important year-end festivals which took place on the Acropolis. In this paper I shall discuss the Arrephoria, Plynteria, and Skiraphoria festivals. The first, the Arrephoria, was a night-time ritual of carrying objects to a sacred cave. The Plynteria was a purification ritual in which the cult statue of Athene was taken down to the ocean to be washed. The Skiraphoria was a more complex and secretive ritual, in which the priestess of Athene and the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus proceeded out of the Erechtheion to Skiron, between Athens and Eleusis. As a counterpoint to these, I shall look at the Dipolieia, a festival to Zeus, which takes place two days after the Skiraphoria. The Dipolieia, as a ritual killing, symbolizes an attack on Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs, College of Charleston Volume 8 (2009): 56-76 © 2009 by the College of Charleston, Charleston SC 29424, USA. All rights to be retained by the author. 56 Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 57 the Acropolis, and possibly on the king of Attica himself, and shows the dangers of what can happen when the city’s protectress is absent. I shall begin with the mythological “history” of Athens as told by ancient authors, describing the relationship of Athene and Poseidon, and outline the reasons why the Classical Athenians felt it necessary to include Poseidon in their year-end rituals. From there, I shall move to the rituals themselves as revealed through literary sources and archaeology, looking at both their actions and locations to see where reconciliation seems to be promoted. An effort to decode the meaning of these ancient festivals to the people who enacted them faces some difficult obstacles. Problems which arise include the possibility of other divinities being honored in association with these festivals, which might deflect the focus of rituals from reconciliation to other matters; the lack of first-person sources (especially in the case of the festivals), giving us no insider’s account; and the method itself of working from myth to ritual. As mythology is often added by later generations to explain preexisting rituals, working backwards is risky at best. To overcome these obstacles, I will rely on textual and physical evidence. By the Classical period, the Athenian Acropolis had been rebuilt, shaped, and sculpted in a way that provides us with clues about what the Athenians of this period thought of the meaning of their festivals. The meaning and placement of symbolic facades, statues, and numerous buildings help to determine connections between certain areas of the Acropolis and the myths that structured the culture of the period. Poseidon and Athene were important gods in ancient Greece, and in Athens in particular. The one controlled the seas and tides, caused earthquakes, and gave men the horse; the other protected the city, resided in its citadel, and stimulated its economy. As an important seaport and commercial center, Athens found both divinities indispensable. In the second century A.D., Pausanias “stated that the Athenians are far more devoted to religion than other men” (Pausanias 1.24.31).1 Statuary, shrines, and monuments littered the roads. Many cults besides those of Athene or Poseidon were housed even on the very Acropolis of Athens. In the context of this inclusive polytheism, in a spot where so many gods are welcomed without a hitch, the feud between Athene and Poseidon represents an interesting problem. But 58 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 the mythology on the subject is clear: these two deities irritated the ever-living daylights out of each other. In the complex, snaky coil that is Athenian mythology, five main story arcs stand out: the birth of Athene, the contest for Attica, the reign and line of Cecrops, the war with Eleusis, and the life and reign of Theseus. Because these stories outline the origins both of Athens itself and of the feud between Athene and Poseidon, from their own direct confrontations to the wars of their descendents, they offer crucial background information for the argument I develop below. They often interlink, and there is no hard chronological order to most of them. For the sake of clarity I will treat them as a linear narrative that flows from the least to most complex arc. The story of Athene’s birth, naturally, predates the direct confrontation between her and Poseidon. It does, however, seem to have connections to the Dipolieae, a festival that responds to their feud. After the Titanomachy, Zeus consorted with the Titaness Metis, daughter of Ocean, and wisest of all beings (Hesiod 885). After a while, however, Zeus began to worry about the offspring two such powerful entities—the strongest and wisest beings in the cosmos— would produce. Patricide, after all, ran in the family (Hesiod 170- 180, 685-730).2 Rather than waiting and swallowing the child as his own father had, he did Chronos one better and swallowed his pregnant wife. Apollodoros gives the full account: Zeus had intercourse with Metis, who turned into many shapes to avoid his embraces. When she was with child, Zeus, taking time by the forelock, swallowed her, because Earth said that, after giving birth to the maiden who was then in her womb, Metis would bear a son who should be the lord of heaven. From fear of that, Zeus swallowed her. (Apollodoros 1.3.6) Still, wife and child continued to grow and live inside Zeus. Some time passed after the swallowing of Metis until Athene burst out of her father’s head. Two versions of this event exist. The first, according to Hesiod, indicates that Zeus had no help in bringing forth his daughter (Hesiod 929). The second version, as told by Apollodoros, says that “when the time came for the birth to take place, Prometheus, or, as Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 59 others say, Hephaestus, smote the head of Zeus with an axe, and Athene, fully armed, leaped up from the top of his head at the river Triton,” (Apollodoros 1.3.6). Although Apollodoros is the later of the two authors, and Hesiod would usually be considered the more reliable, artistic representation affirms the story of the axe-blow.3 In addition, Apollodoros’ version is more helpful in interpreting the year- end festivals of the Classical Athenians. This story will be discussed in greater detail along with the Dipolieia festival. The next myth, the contest for Attica, introduces characters important in later myths, and first touches on the hostilities between Athene and Poseidon. In the time when King Cecrops was ruling Attica, the gods began dividing up the world; each began to “stake out” his or her own territories, as it were, claiming the cities in which he or she would be worshipped. Attica, destined to become both a major seaport and a center of civilization, attracted both Athene and Poseidon. Poseidon produced a salt spring on the Acropolis as a gift to the people. After him, Athene arrived at the same spot with the king of the region and there before him produced the olive tree. When the two gods fought over the region, Zeus intervened, and put the matter to a vote of the other gods. Athene was awarded Attica, and its capital was named for her (Apollodoros 3.14.1). Their descendents continued the tradition of warring over territory. The mortal lines of Poseidon and Athene both sprung, indirectly, from Cecrops himself. The infighting of his descendents added to the animosity of the two gods. Cecrops was the first king of “Athens” proper. His son, Erysichthon, died before his father and never became king (Kastor qtd. in Harding 14). It was his adopted grandson, and Athene’s adopted son, who later became king of Athens (Pausanias 1.2.6). The story goes that Athene went to Hephaestus’ forge to commission a new suit of armor. For Hephaestus, being married to the beautiful yet faithless Aphrodite, ‘twas lust at first sight. He attempted to rape Athene, who resisted him successfully, but not before he left evidence of his excitement on her thigh. Disgusted, she wiped herself off with a piece of wool, and threw it down to earth. From this wool emerged Erichthonius, Cecrops’ adopted grandson and Athene’s adopted son (Apollodoros 3.14.6). Back on earth, although his son died, Cecrops was also father to 60 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 three daughters, Herse, Aglaurus, and Pandrosus (Amelesagoras F1 qtd. in 28). When Athene adopted Erichthonius, she wished to hide him from the other gods and make him immortal.
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