This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Echoes of the Underworld: Manifestations of Death-Related Gods in Early Greek Cult and Literature MacKin, Ellie Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Echoes of the Underworld Manifestations of Death-Related Gods in Early Greek Cult and Literature Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics at King’s College London Ellie Mackin, BA(Hons.), MA. τίς δ’ οἶδεν εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν / τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῆν κάτω νομίζεται Who knows if life is death, and if in the Underworld death is considered life? -Eur. fr. 638 (Kannicht) trans. Collard and Cropp 2 Abstract This thesis examines mythic representations of death- and Underworld-related divinities in light of contemporary archaic and early classical Greek associated cultic practice. Current scholarly approaches to these so-called ‘chthonic’ divinities generally adopt a view of the divine framework of the Underworld which places death-related concerns as the primary focus of the divinities concerned. In this project I have looked at Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Hekate and the Moirai and Keres for analysis of this framework. This thesis demonstrates that the death-related functions of these divinities were not the principle factor in their characterisations, but were rather only one aspect of a more nuanced identity. More generally, this thesis demonstrates that the ways that the Greeks viewed death and utilised death- related gods in cultic and literary representations support the idea that the association with death was not the primary aspect of any of these divinities. By investigating the mythic characterisations and cultic realities of these divinities, utilising the methodological approach of thin-coherence, this thesis shows that a more nuanced picture emerges. This thesis contributes a new approach to the death-related divine, demonstrating primarily that their death-related function is not the primary source of cultic dedication. In cases where a death-related divinity does not receive cultic dedication, or significant cultic dedication, the death-related function found in their mythic profile remains their primary function. I show that death-related gods who receive cultic dedication do so within the remit of other areas of interest, and this is most usually demonstrated in the contrasting tropes death/fertility, death/agriculture, and death/marriage. These tropes are demonstrated in various ritual activities throughout this thesis. Therefore, this project shows that death is an area of concern that permeates the world of the living and is not separate from it. 3 Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Structure of the Thesis .................................................................................................... 9 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Eleusis ............................................................ 11 Review of Relevant Literature ..................................................................................... 15 1: Methodological Considerations ........................................................................................... 41 Greek Religion.................................................................................................................. 41 Belief in Greek Religion? .............................................................................................. 46 Thinly-Coherent Communities................................................................................... 49 Greek Gods and Greek Mythology ............................................................................ 53 Myth and Ritual .............................................................................................................. 64 Divine Personifications .................................................................................................. 69 2: Chthonism and Being Chthonic .......................................................................................... 72 Definition(s) of ‘Chthonic’? ........................................................................................... 73 ‘Chthonic’ Epithets .......................................................................................................... 82 Literally Chthonic: Agriculture and the Chthonic .................................................. 86 Personifications of Death: Chthonic-as-Underworld divinities ......................... 87 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 95 3: Hades, Lord of the Dead? ..................................................................................................... 98 Hades in Modern Scholarship ..................................................................................... 99 Hades in Homer and Hesiod ..................................................................................... 100 4 Hades, Plouton, Ploutos and Theos ........................................................................ 103 Hades’ Role in Greek Eschatology ........................................................................... 108 Hades in Greek cult(s)?.................................................................................................110 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................116 4: Persephone, Queen of the Underworld ..........................................................................118 Persephone in Modern Scholarship .........................................................................118 Persephone in Homer and Hesiod .......................................................................... 123 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter ............................................................................... 125 The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Thesophoria ....................................................131 Pindar and ‘Orphic’ Persephone .............................................................................. 136 Persephone Cult in Lokroi .......................................................................................... 141 Brides of Hades ............................................................................................................. 149 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 156 5: Demeter, Giver of Life .......................................................................................................... 159 Demeter in Modern Scholarship .............................................................................. 160 Demeter in Homer and Hesiod ................................................................................ 162 Demeter in the Homeric Hymn and at Eleusis .................................................... 164 Cults of Demeter Χθόνια............................................................................................ 169 Other ‘Chthonic’ Cults of Demeter(s) ......................................................................181 The Erinyes and Demeter Erinys .............................................................................. 188 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 200 6: Hekate, Queen of Restless Ghosts? ................................................................................. 202 Hekate in Hesiod’s Theogony ................................................................................... 205 Hekate as Mediator ...................................................................................................... 210 5 Hekate, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Eleusis .......................................... 212 Hekate in Cult