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Ritual and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World

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Eftychia Stavrianopoulou

Greek Sanctuaries as Places of Communication through Rituals: An Archaeological Perspective

Joannis Mylonopoulos

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  • 1 My thanks for many fruitful discussions are due especially to Dr. Fritz Blakolmer (Vienna), Prof. A (...)

1In the year 479 BC, shortly before the decisive battle of Plataiai, the Greek and Persian armies were occupying the southern and the northern banks of the Asopos, respectively, and were preparing for the impending battle. An absolutely necessary part of the preparations consisted of the sacrifices and the prophecies to be made in this connection by the seers. Mardonios, the commander of the Persians, would have liked to cross the river and attack the Greeks, but the sacrifices which he had carried out in the Greek manner (ἑλληνιϰοῖσι ἱροῖσι ἐχρᾶτο) showed unfavourable omens for his intention (οὐϰ ἐπιτήδεα ἐγἰνετο τὰ ἱρά). The sacrifices on the part of the Greeks led to similar results. For ten days the sacrifices were repeated, but the results remained negative, despite the sacrifices having been carried out correctly. On the eleventh day Mardonios decided to ignore the prophecies and attack the Greek army, a decision which was to have the well-known disastrous consequences for the Persian army.1

  • 2 Xenophon, Anabasis VI, 4, 12-27.
  • 3 Xenophon, Anabasis VI, 5, 2.

2About 80 years later, the Greek mercenary army under the leadership of Xenophon was confronted with a similar situation near the Pontic harbour town of Kalpe. At that time it had already been decided that the army should continue by land, as there were no ships available. In order to give to the continuation of their march religious legitimacy, sacrifices were carried out; these proved unfavourable, however (θυομένοις δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ ἐϕόδῳ οὐϰ ἐγίγνετοτὰ ἱερά). The situation was a precarious one for the Greeks; they lacked the necessary provisions for a longer stay. Sacrifices were repeated over a period of three days, without the prophecies for the march being improved. Neon, a young commander, then decided to go into the surrounding countryside with 2000 men and commandeer provisions in the villages, despite the unfavourable omens. These men were thereupon attacked by Persians and Bithynians; 500 Greeks were killed.2 Not until the fourth day, and following a favourable sacrifice (γίγνεται τὰ ἱερά), which was in addition accompanied by a lucky omen (αἰετον αἴσιον), did the Greeks march off.3

  • 4 A ritual which is very much dependent on communication, and which has been investigated relatively (...)

3In neither of the examples is there any mention, in any of the relevant sources, of an error in ritual which could have led to the unfavourable results of the sacrifices and predictions. The communication between the human and the divine spheres miscarried without any doubt, which makes clear that successful rituals were more than just rituals correctly carried out. A necessary prerequisite for a ritual to be characterised as successful was, apparently, successful communication.4

  • 5 For a special form of sacrificial meal, which cannot be discussed here, see: M.H. Jameson, “Theoxe (...)

4Greek rituals, even those belonging more to the scope of magic, aimed at creating a communication link at different levels. By means of ritual sacrifices, man created a pathway of contact to the divine, through the subsequent communal meal, the common identity of the community was confirmed.5 Via the act of dedication, several levels were addressed at once: man attempted to reach the gods, but also addressed other mortals by means of the dedicatory gift, and, in a further step, placed just this dedicatory gift in an interactive context, frequently a competitive one, with other, earlier dedicatory gifts. Sacred actions (δρώμενα) attained the desired communication through increased performance; the connection was not created by an active interaction on the part of both communicating partners, but rather by an almost theatrical communication, immanent within the very act and proceeding from above downward. Finally, processions, with their strongly performative aspects, created communication between sacred spaces, by which means a ritual topography was constituted.

5In the following, the areas of Greek ritual practice mentioned above are to be more closely investigated with regard to their communicative possibilities, for the most part through a discussion of archaeological remains.

The sacrifice and the sacrificial meal: Ritual communication and the construction of identity

  • 6 On structuralism, cf. inter alia: M. Detienne, J.-P. Vernant, The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the G (...)
  • 7 W. Burkert, “Glaube und Verhalten: Zeichengehalt und Wirkungsmacht von Opferritualen”, in Vernant (...)

6Sacrificial rituals, in particular animal sacrifices, occupy a central position in Greek ritual practice. The significance of the blood sacrifice for understanding Greek religion was recognised by researchers early on and explained through varying methodological approaches. In this, two main directions can be seen: the structuralist approach, which looks at the sacrificial ritual and its significance as part of a system of symbols, and the evolutionist approach, which asks questions about its origin and uses inter alia ethnology or even psychology.6 Another direction, that of functionalism, investigates ritual action with particular regard to its meaning for, and effect within, society.7

  • 8 A. Henrichs, “Dromena und Legomena. Zum rituellen Selbstverständnis der Griechen”, in F. Graf (ed. (...)

7Literary and epigraphic sources – especially cult laws – and imagery form the sources which give us valuable information on the regulations, course, and appearance of the participants or the cult paraphernalia used; but these sources do not even attempt to make the sacrificial happenings intellectually comprehensible. In ancient Greece there was no theoretically based need for explanation in connection with sacrificial rituals, despite a marked preference for discussing everything otherwise; the abstract religious ideas behind the complicated rituals are not explained in any detail at all.8 In daily cult life as described in most sources we meet instead with aitiological myths, which serve as explanations for the origins of the different rituals and frequently leave no room for abstraction.

  • 9 F. van Straten, “The God’s Portion in Greek Sacrificial Representations: Is the Tail Doing Nicely? (...)
  • 10 J. Forsèn et al., “The Sanctuary of Agios Elias. Its Significance, and Its Relations to Surroundin (...)
  • 11 J. Boessneck, Die Tierknochenfunde aus dem Kahirenheiligtum bei Theben (Böotien), Munich, 1973.
  • 12 J. Boessneck, Knochenabfall von Opfermahlen und Weihgaben aus dem Heraion von Samos (7. Jh. v.Chr. (...)
  • 13 A. Bammer et al., “Das Tieropfer am Artemisaltar von Ephesos”, in S. Şahin et al. (eds), Studien z (...)
  • 14 R. Hägg, “Osteology and Greek Sacrificial Practice”, in id. (ed.), Ancient Cult Practice from the (...)

8The majority of sacrifices, as they have been transmitted to us, follows a typical scheme, according to which the sacrificial animal lets itself be led willingly to the altar, has water and barleycorns thrown at it, gives its permission for the killing to follow and is then slaughtered. After this the offal (σπλάγγνα) is arranged on spits, roasted at the altar and eaten. The participants in the sacrifice are permitted to consume the flesh, while the divinity received the ankle bones, the tail and the fat. F. van Straten and K.W. Berger rightly recognised that the odd looking objects on the altar in the numerous depictions of sacrifices are just these animal parts, intended for the divinity.9 Precise osteological examinations of the bony remains in some sanctuaries, among them the sanctuary on the Aseatian mountain of Agios Elias,10 the Theban Kabirion,11 the Heraion of Samos,12 and the Artemision of Ephesos,13 have confirmed the literary and iconographic sources. In older excavations often just the type of sacrificial animal, rather than the exact bodily parts, was determined.14

  • 15 For a general discussion of this issue, cf. J.N. Bremmer, “Modi di comunicazione con il divino: la (...)
  • 16 F. Bömer, s.v. “Pompa”, RE XXI 2 (1952), col. 1908.
  • 17 Detailed depictions of processions which permit statements about the possible order within the par (...)
  • 18 Thucydides, VI, 57.
  • 19 IG V 1, 1390. 28-34. (= LSCG 65, 92/91 BC). On the γυναιϰονόμοι see inter alia C. Wehrli, “Les gyn (...)

9The communicative function of the Greek sacrificial ritual15 emerges already in the preparatory phase, for here the collective gathered for a festive procession in order to lead the sacrificial animals to the altar. Although the general statement made by F. Bömer to the effect that there were no ‘hard and fast rules’16 with regard to the sequence of participants in the procession is true in its generality – there were quite certainly no universally valid rules for setting up a sacrificial procession –, it may be assumed that each sacrificial procession was constructed according to its own inner logic. Interestingly, literary and epigraphical sources, as well as depictions on Attic black figure vases of the 6th c. BC,17 show that such sacrificial processions took place in an orderly manner, in which specific groups were to appear as subunits of the complete procession. According to Thucydides, Hipparchos was murdered just as he was attempting to arrange the Panathenaic procession.18 The great inscription from Messenian Andania contains a section that exactly prescribes the arrangement of the sacrificial procession and also names the leader of it; the existence of a γυναιϰονόμος, was even planned, who was to supervise the clothing worn by and very probably the arrangement within the women’s group.19 The privilege, documented in inscriptions, of the προπομπεία shows that the first position within a sacrificial procession was often an important part of the internal organisation of processions; it may refer, in fact, to the role of the leader of the procession.

  • 20 H. Laxander, Individuum und Gemeinschaft im Fest. Untersuchungen zu attischen Darstellungen von Fe (...)

10In this context the detailed depiction of a sacrificial procession on an Attic black figure band cup of the mid-6th century in the Niarchos Collection in Paris (fig. 1) is particularly informative. At the far left, Athena is shown in the type of the Promachos, although it is not clear whether this is supposed to be a statue or an epiphany of the goddess. Directly in front of the divinity is a female figure, unanimously interpreted as a priestess, and an altar, on which a fire is already burning. Towards this group the many-figured procession is moving, led by a bearded male figure. One detail appears interesting here, which illustrates the communication between the divine and human levels by gesture, for the leader of the procession is greeted with a handshake by the priestess, the representative of the divinity and guardian of the sanctuary, and led into the sacral area. Behind the leader of the procession there follow the kanephoros, the group of altar servants with the sacrificial animals, the musicians, a group of three men in long robes and carrying twigs in their hands, three hoplites and a youthful rider.20 The entire procession is striding towards the altar. A single exception between the second and the third hoplite disturbs this image: a single bearded man in a long robe and with a twig in his right hand is looking the other way toward the end of the procession. That he is not simply looking back, but rather has turned his entire body in this direction, is made clear by the direction his legs are taking. This interruption of the image’s symmetry is clearly not accidental; we see here, I think, not just any participant in the procession, but the one who is in the process of arranging the concluding part of the procession.

Fig. 1: Attic black figure band cup (ca. 560/50 BC, Niarchos Collection, Paris)

  • 21 W. Burkert, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart, 1977, p. 157.
  • 22 R. Garland, “Priests and Power in Classical Athens”, in M. Beard, J. North (eds), Pagan Priests. R (...)

11The vase depiction mentioned not only has as its subject the communicative interaction between the participants in the procession and the divinity, but also clearly shows the role of the priestess as mediator, who receives the sacrificial procession with the handshake immediately above the altar, and who conjoins the human sphere with the divine. Although the statement that Greek religion was a religion without priests,21 compared to a theocratic system such as the Egyptian, is certainly not wrong per se, one should not assume that the office of priest in Greek religion was merely a routine matter to be taken care of by a state official with more or less mechanical tasks in carrying out rituals.22 Greek priests and priestesses did not necessarily control the sacral knowledge of cults and rituals, but the entire administration of the places where these sacred actions occurred was in their hands. In this manner they also watched over the communication between men and gods, as mediators.

Fig. 2: Late Corinthian crater (ca. 570 BC, Astarita Collection no. 565, Vatican)

  • 23 Homer, Iliad VI, 293-299.
  • 24 J.D. Beazley, “‘EΛENHΣ AΠAITHΣIΣ”, PBA 43 (1957), p. 233-244; M.I. Davies, “The Reclamation of Hel (...)
  • 25 A.G. Mantis, Προβλήματα της ειϰονογραϕίας των ιερειών ϰαι των ιερέων στην αρχαία ελληνιϰή τἐχνη, A (...)
  • 26 I.Delos 1891; 1892; 2081.
  • 27 Mantis, o.c. (n. 25), p. 82-96.

12In the iconography the mediating role of priests and priestesses receives a gender-specific definition only partially corresponding to everyday ritual practice. Theano, one of the most famous priestesses in Greek mythology, is described in the Iliad receiving a procession of Trojan women – led by Hekabe – and opening the door of the sanctuary of Athena to them.23 On a late Corinthian crater in the Vatican, however, Theano, identified by name in writing, appears as a spinning woman in a procession of women to receive the Greek ambassadors, thus doing something quite typical for her role as a priestess of Athena: preparing the Peplos of Athena (fig. 2).24 The priestess as the guardian of the temple with a key in her hand, as kleidouchos, only becomes a general form of depicting a priestess from the 5th century BC on ward.25 Although priests also fulfilled this function,26 it becomes a main charateristic of priestesses in visual depictions. Priests, on the other hand, are usually attributively declared as such in the images by holding the sacrificial knife.27

  • 28 M. Detienne, “The Violence of Wellborn Ladies: Women in the Thesmophoria”, in De-TIENNE, Vernant, (...)
  • 29 R. Lindner, “Priesterinnen. Bildzeugnisse zum griechischen Gotterkult”, in E. Klinger et al. (eds) (...)
  • 30 For the possibility of having a mageiros carry out the sacrifice, cf. G. Berthiaume, Les rôles du (...)

13The question of whether women were at all permitted to sacrifice has been under discussion for a long time. Women could very probably carry out slaughter of sacrificial animals in a specific ritual context such as the Thesmophoria.28 It would appear that two of the most important communicative tasks of the position of Greek priest, guarding the temple and carrying out the bloody sacrifice, were distributed in the iconography according to gender.29 Priestesses, as guardians of the divine house, took over the more passive task and permitted entry into the sanctuary, which enabled communication to take place to start with. The more active role was then taken on by the priests, who prepared the next level of communication between men and gods by means of the bloody sacrifice.30

  • 31 S. Eitrem, Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Römer, Hildesheim, rep. 1977 [19151, p. 76-77; (...)

14For the correct execution of the sacrificial ritual, the communicative interaction between animals and man also seems to have been a necessary prerequisite, since the sacrificial animal was supposed to indicate its ‘agreement’ to the impending sacrifice. In ancient times there were certain ways of arranging this kind of pseudo-communication. Prior to the sacrifice, the sacrificial animal was sprinkled with water. The animal jerked its head in a natural reaction to this, and this ‘nodding’ was then taken to mean ‘agreement’. A variant of this method consisted of giving the animal water to drink. The animal’s sinking of the head in order to drink could also be interpreted as an ‘agreement’ to be sacrificed.31

  • 32 W. Burkert, too, who ascribes a communicative significance to the animal sacrifice in particular, (...)
  • 33 P.schmitt Pantel, F. Lissarrague, s.v. “Le banquet en Grèce II. Les hommes au banquet D. Banquet d (...)
  • 34 E. Trinkl, Die Rolle des Splanchnoptes beim griechischen Opfer, unpubl. master’s thesis, Vienna, 1 (...)

15The concluding part of the Greek sacrificial ritual, which reached its culmination in the spilling of blood on the altar, consisted of the communal feast, at which the communicative climax took place, as the members of the sacrificial community communicated most intensively with each other during this phase.32 At this point a clear discrepancy between the everyday ritual and the pictorial transmission of the same can be discerned, as in contrast to the numerous depictions of sacrificial processions the depiction of the sacrificial feast are rare.33 The communal feast, however, is implied associatively by the depiction of the splanchnopts, who roast the offal on the fire at the altar for the participants in the sacrifice. These depictions become increasingly frequent from the beginning of the 5th century BC, until they almost become a medial abstraction standing for the entire sacrificial ritual.34

  • 35 L. Cerchiai, “II programma figurativo dell’hydria Ricci”, AK 38 (1995), p. 81-91; Gebauer, o.c. (n (...)
  • 36 Himmelmann,o.c. (n. 20), p. 26 cautiously speaks of an “Opferherr”.
  • 37 G.C. Nordquist, “Some Notes on Musicians in Greek Art”, in HÄGG (ed.), o.c. (n. 5), p. 87. On the (...)
  • 38 van Straten, o.c. (n. 9), p. 148-149.

16In this regard, an Ionic black figure hydria from Cerveteri in the Villa Giulia in Rome (the so-called ‘Ricci’ hydria, 530/520 BC) forms a welcome exception, for the zone of the vessel’s shoulder displays nearly all the phases from the animal sacrifice to the preparation of the communal feast (fig. 3).35 The entire composition, crowned by ivy and grape-vine tendrils, is divided into small groups which do not necessarily have anything to do with each other, so that upon no account can we say that parts of the sacrificial ritual are being depicted here in a chronological sequence. At the far left two men are butchering a dead pig. Directly beside them, a group of three men is attempting to cut open a goat. Between the two groups, the forequarters of a ram and an animal limb on the tendrils indicate the work already done by these sacrificial servants. The group of persons next to this has a special position within the composition as a whole, for here are the only two clothed men in the entire scene, accompanied by a sacrificial servant. A bearded man in a long robe leads the group; in his right hand he is holding a kantharos, while his left hand is raised in a gesture of adoration. Perhaps this is a priest who is just performing a libation.36 Behind him a young aulos player, also wearing a robe, is seen, and the naked sacrificial servant already mentioned. The musician could perhaps be interpreted as a spondaulos.37 The central part of the total scene is the altar, where three splanchnopts are roasting offal on spits over the fire. To the right of this centre group there are two men busy ladling wine from an amphora and pieces of meat out of a large cauldron. What the next two male figures are doing remains uncertain, as their lower arms disappear within a high, but flattish basin. F. van Straten conjectures that the men are kneading dough.38 Beside them, two men are putting offal on spits. The business of the last two figures also remains unclear, for the object held by the man at the far right cannot be identified. The so-called Ricci hydria does not treat directly of the actual blood sacrifice in this part of its decoration, but rather of the preparation of the communal sacrificial feast with its function of creating identity, so that the animal sacrifice is placed within its proper ritual and (most particularly) social context, and does not appear as an isolated ritual procedure.

Fig. 3: The so-called Ricci hydria (ca. 530/20 BC, Villa Giulia, Rome)

  • 39 C. Morgan, “Ritual and Society in the Early Iron Age Corinthia”, in Hägg (ed.), o.c. (n. 14), p. 7 (...)
  • 40 H. Kyrieleis, “Zu den Anfangen des Heiligtums in Olympia”, in H. Kyrieleis (ed.), Olympia 1875-200 (...)

17In contrast to the pictorial transmission, sacrificial feasts can be established archaeologically in the rest of the material culture with a fair degree of certainty. Finds from the sanctuary of Poseidon near the Isthmus of Corinth -dishes, drinking vessels, ash, and animal bones – make it clear that the earliest cult activity in the 11th century BC consisted of animal sacrifices and communal meals.39 Comparable findings are also known from other Greek sanctuaries of similarly ancient date, which makes clear that early cult places played the role of central meeting places, in which the communal sacrifice and subsequent feast created a sense of identity for the cult participants, who were topographically scattered among many small settlements, although ethnically homogeneous.40

  • 41 Chr. Börker, Festbankett und griechische Architektur, Konstanz, 1983 (Xenia, 4); P. schmitt Pantel(...)
  • 42 L. Robert, “Un édifice du sanctuaire de l’Isthme dans une inscription de Corinthe”, Helleni-ca 1 ( (...)
  • 43 J.J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa, Oxford, 1976, p. 85-89.
  • 44 H.A. Thompson, “Activity in the Athenian Agora: 1966-1967, Hesperia 37 (1968), p. 43-56.
  • 45 J. Mylonopoulos, F. Bubenheimer, “Beiträge zur Topographie des Artemision von Brau-ron”, AA (1996) (...)
  • 46 A. frickenhaus, “Griechische Banketthäuser”, JDAI 32 (1917), p. 121-130; P. amandry, “Observations (...)
  • 47 E.R. Gebhard, “Caves and Cults at the Isthmian Sanctuary of Poseidon”, in R. HÄGG (ed.), Peloponne (...)
  • 48 Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 184-186. For an extensive discussion on the cult of Meliker-tes/Pal (...)

18The significance of the ritual feast can be grasped most clearly in the form of its architectural background, the banqueting hall with its characteristic rooms for setting up couches and tables, which demonstrates the interaction between ritual practice and architecture in a visible manner.41 Frequently the banquet rooms are combined with colonnades. This combination is the type of building known from inscriptions as the στοὰ ϰαὶ οἶϰοι42, which occupies a special place in the historical development of the Greek colonnaded hall.43 Among the oldest buildings of this kind are the south Stoa I in the Athenian agora44 and the Π-shaped hall at the sanctuary of Artemis in Attic Brauron.45 The so-called West Building in the Argive Heraion is certainly a banqueting hall consisting of a large peristyle and three banqueting rooms, but its dating remains controversial. The suggestions vary from the late 6th to the late 5th century BC46 If the earlier date is correct, then this Argive building would be the oldest banqueting hall – in the architectural form mentioned – anywhere in a Greek sanctuary. With regard to this type of building, the cult caves in the Isthmian sanctuary of Poseidon47 provide a special architectural feature. These are natural caves, but equipped with couches carved out of the rock, making them into banqueting rooms for the communal feasts of a cult group dedicated to the child hero Melikertes/Palaimon and to Dionysos in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.48

19The ritual sacrificial meal was one of the phases of the sacrificial ritual, exactly as were the procession or the actual slaughter of the sacrificial animal on the altar. At the sanctuary of Demeter and the Kore on the Akrokorinth the communal meal apparently outshone all other ritual actions at this site, for the architectural design of the cult area is impressively dominated by numerous banqueting rooms (fig. 4). For this reason, a closer look at this cult complex is indicated.

  • 49 Pausanias, II, 4, 7.
  • 50 N. Bookidis, R.S. Stroud, Corinth XVIII, 3: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Topography and Arch (...)

20The cult area lies within the city of Corinth, on the north slope of the acropolis, and extends across three artificial terraces. Despite the great significance of the cult complex for Corinth, and the fact that Pausanias visited it in the 2nd century AD,49 the information available from epigraphic or literary sources is extremely scanty. We know of no foundation myths, and the site does not display any special topographical peculiarities which could explain the construction of the sanctuary in such an inaccessible place. Obviously the Corinthians must have believed in the holiness of this site, for reasons unknown to us, for even the smallest building required considerable terracing measures. Perhaps the existence of a spring, known today as the Haji Mustafa, played a role.50 Although the earliest finds date to Mycenaean times, the religious use of the site cannot be confirmed until the mid-8th century BC, when the first small dedications appear.

  • 51 P. Reichert-Südbeck, Kulte von Korinth und Syrakus. Vergleich zwischen einer Metropolis und ihrer (...)
  • 52 E.G. Pemberton, Corinth XVIII, 1: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. The Greek Pottery, Princeton, (...)

21An indirect pointer to a cult of Demeter and the Kore in Corinth of the century BC is perhaps given by the date of foundation of the Corinthian colony Syracuse in Sicily in the year 734 BC. As is well-known, Greek colonies generally took over most of the cults of the mother city, and in the case of Syracuse a cult of Demeter and the Kore was already in existence at the time of the second generation of colonists.51 A deposit in the Corinthian sanctuary, consisting of 49 small votive vases and found on the upper terrace, can be dated to the first half of the 7th century BC 34 of these vases are kalathoi. The extreme popularity of this type of vessel remained until the city of Corinth was destroyed by the Romans. Kalathoi must, then, have played a very special role in the rituals honouring Demeter and the Kore.52

Fig. 4: The sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on the Akrokorinth. Plan (ca. 400 BC)

  • 53 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 22-49.

22The earliest architectural remains stem from the first half of the 6th century BC, and are limited to a wall, appearing rather isolated, and the remains of a building with a continuous bench around it, abandoned some time prior to 550 BC. To the west of this there was an open space, that can be interpreted as a place of sacrifice, on the evidence of ash remains and animal bones found there. The bones reveal that piglets were the most frequent sacrifice. Around the mid-6th century BC at the latest an architectural and probably also functional separation of the middle terrace from the lower was carried out, by means of a wall serving simultaneously as a separating and a supporting wall. In the late 6th century BC the lower terrace became the centre of construction activity in the sanctuary. From this point in time onward the lower terrace was the scene of communal feasting. At least 16 small buildings have been excavated, and the excavators assume that more must have existed. These are small, modest units with an entry on the north side and continuous low benches running around them, which gave six to seven people room to lie on them.53

23Although it must be assumed that communal meals had taken place prior to this, the finds indicate that the communal meal following the sacrifice attained enormous importance in the course of the waning 6th century, displaying an almost institutional character. However, in contrast to other sanctuaries where all participants dined together, the rituals in the sanctuary of Demeter evidently required meals in smaller groups. No kitchen of any kind was found in any of these small rooms. The excavators think that the course of the ritual will have been as follows: first, small groups sacrificed on the middle terrace and prepared the ritual meal there. Only then did the groups go to the dining areas on the lower terrace, where the actual sacrificial feasting took place. On the middle terrace there are absolutely no indications of sacrificial feasts, whereas no remains of victims or of votive deposits have hitherto been discovered on the lower terrace.

  • 54 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 86-94, 98-150.

24In the 5th century BC the sanctuary seems to have gained even more importance. The number of votive offerings increases considerably, and further banqueting rooms were erected. Probably changes in the course of the rituals led to an alteration in the architectural design of the banqueting rooms. These are no longer one-roomed buildings, but buildings with a dining room and auxiliary rooms. Some of these annexes functioned quite certainly as a kind of kitchen for the preparation of the meals, others display installations for ritual washing or a low bench along the wall. Based upon the buildings excavated, one can assume that around 400 BC some 200 participants could dine at the same time on the lower terrace.54

  • 55 N. Bookidis, “The Sanctuaries of Corinth”, in C.K. Williams II, N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth XX: Cor (...)
  • 56 Pausanias, II, 4, 7: ό δέ των Μοιρών και <ό> Δήμητρος και Κόρης οΰ ϕανερά εχουσι τα αγάλματα.

25A catastrophic earthquake in the final years of the 4th century BC destroyed all of the banqueting buildings completely. The sanctuary did recover from this destruction very rapidly, however. New and sometimes larger banqueting buildings were erected on the lower terrace, which remained the centre of ritual feasting. Following this extensive rebuilding, the sanctuary remained for the most part unchanged until the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC. It appears that the sanctuary of Demeter was spared the destructive rage of the Romans, in contrast to the city itself. But the cult came suddenly to an end, nevertheless, and the sanctuary was abandoned, as was Corinth, for an entire century. It is not clear exactly when the sanctuary was put into use again following the foundation of the Roman Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis in the year 44 BC. The Roman coins from the area of the sanctuary make it probable that this happened quite soon after the founding of the colony. During this time, however, both the religious topography of the sanctuary and the character of the cult changed. Communal cult feasting clearly no longer plays a role. Only one of the Hellenistic banqueting halls survived, whose function was changed, however, following building alterations during the Empire. On the upper terrace three small temples with identical floor-plans were built during the second half of the 1st century AD.55 In each case there is a small tetrastyle prostylos with a one-room cella. Very probably the three cult buildings are identical with the temples of Demeter, Kore and the Fates seen by Pausanias in the 2nd century AD.rn56 It is conspicuous that not until this period – after centuries during which the sanctuary had no need of a temple complex -does the altered sociocultural and certainly, too, religious context lead to the construction of the first temples in the Corinthian sanctuary of Demeter and the Kore.

  • 57 N. Bookidis, “Ritual Dining at Corinth”, in N. Marinatos, R. HÄgg (eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New Ap (...)
  • 58 S.G. Cole, “Demeter in the Ancient Greek City and Its Countryside”, in S.E. Alcock, R. Osborne (ed (...)
  • 59 Chr. M. Thomas, “The Sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon: Cultic Space for Women and Its Eclipse”, in (...)

26It cannot be established with any certainty who exactly celebrated the communal sacrificial meal in the banqueting rooms mentioned up to the Hellenistic period, but everything points to women being here by themselves.57 Although the sanctuary lies within the city walls, the area does offer a sort of privacy, which was apparently necessary for practising the cult, dominated by females. This can be observed at other sanctuaries of Demeter in Eretria, Pergamon or Priene too.58 The sanctuaries of Demeter generally show more evidence of frequent use by women, and the finds from the Corinthian sanctuary surely tend in this direction too. Perhaps not until the Roman Empire can one reckon with a stronger male presence, after the disappearance of the banqueting rooms as a constitutive element of the sanctuary. A similar development has been described as probable by Chr. Thomas for the sanctuary of Demeter in Pergamon.59

  • 60 Schmitt Pantel o.c. (n. 41), p. 49-52, 415-418. She does not limit herself just to sacrificial mea (...)
  • 61 M.H. jameson, “The Spectacular and the Obscure in Athenian Religion”, in S. Goldhill, R. Osborne ( (...)
  • 62 A. Brumfield, “Aporreta: Verbal and Ritual Obscenity in the Cults of Ancient Women”, in R. Hagg (e (...)
  • 63 P.A. Butz, “Prohibitionary Inscriptions, Ξένοι, and the Influence of the Early Greek Polis”, in (...)
  • 64 S. Krauter, Bürgerrecht und Kultteilnahme. Politische und kultische Rechte und Pflichten in griech (...)

27Following the collective experience of the slaughter of the sacrificial victim at the altar and the preparation of the sacrificial feast, as depicted on the so-called Ricci hydria, the communal banquet – whether outdoors or in the banqueting rooms – represents the communicative culmination of the Greek ritual of sacrifice.60 The extraordinary significance of the communal meal on sacred ground is confirmed by cult regulations which explicitly prescribe the consumption of the flesh of sacrificial animals within the boundaries of the sanctuary.61 The common identity of a group was continually reaffirmed anew at the sacrificial feast. Women, as at the sanctuary of Demeter in Corinth, strengthened their specific sexual identity and significance, by means of the exclusion of the male sphere; this was achieved by ignoring social norms and boundaries among other things, without any consequences.62 A cult group, kept small, such as the participants in the meals of the combined cults of Melikertes/Palaimon and Dionysos in Isthmia, emphasised its exclusiveness and thus its special position. But also in the case of a larger circle of participants taking part in a sacrificial meal as a collective, the identity of the group was confirmed by the exclusion of strictly defined outsiders, for nothing serves better to define a self-image than comparison with and exclusion of the ξένοι. In this regard the epigraphic and literary testimonies are interesting, which document an exclusion of groups understood as ‘the others’ (women, men, slaves, foreigners, the non-initiated) – sometimes even ethnically legitimised.63 Regulations of this kind make Greek cult practice appear to often – though not always64 – be a very exclusive matter until the Hellenistic period; the inside view of the matter with regard to the group of cult participants should, however, be considered as a necessary parameter for the creation of identity.

Votive offerings: piety and communicative competition

  • 65 F. Graf, “Zeichenkonzeption in der Religion der griechischen und römischen Antike”, in R. Posner e (...)
  • 66 For a general survey of the manifold nature of Greek dedications cf. j. Boardman et al., s.v. “Gre (...)
  • 67 On the communicative aspects of Greek dedicatory reliefs cf. most recently A. KlÖckner, “Menschlic (...)
  • 68 For the Archaic period cf. the exemplary study by B. Wagner-Hasel, Der Stoff der Gaben. Kultur und (...)

28Visiting a sanctuary generally meant the dedication of a votive object, the form of which was by no means prescribed in any way.65 Greek votive offerings display a diversity that comprises everything from offerings made of perishable materials such as wood or textiles through simple statuettes of clay, marble or bronze statues even, to entire buildings.66 To represent the offerer’s own piety in some durable form was the primary purpose. Dedications, in addition, were a polyvalent medium for displaying wealth and political power and, by means of the subtlety of the symbolic content, a versatile instrument of communication.67 Gifts and presents for hosts seem to have functioned in a similar way in the ancient world.68

  • 69 On this issue in general cf. H. v. Hesberg, W. Thiel (eds), Medien in der Antike. Kommu-nikative Q (...)

29The dedicator – an individual or a collective – instigated a communicative process with the dedication, a process comprising an interaction that unfolded on various levels of existence and time. One communicated with the gods, but also with one’s fellows, reference was made to the past, present and future. The character, too, of this interaction could vary: mediative in the dealings with the divine sphere, usually competitive on the human level. A dedication appealed to the visual senses through its formal structure and its external form, while it appealed to the linguistic-cognitive abilities through the inscriptions accompanying it.69

  • 70 Thucydides, II, 13, 2-5.
  • 71 D.B. Thompson, “The Golden Nikai Reconsidered”, Hesperia 13 (1944), p. 173-208; W.E. Thompson, “Th (...)
  • 72 T. Linders, “Gods, Gifts, Society”, in T. Linders, G. Nordquist (eds), Gifts to the Gods. Proceedi (...)

30The wealth of votive offerings in a sanctuary not only bears witness to the significance of the divinity there honoured, but in addition to the greatness of the supervising community. The Athenian acropolis in the second half of the 5th century BC must have appeared to be the omnipresent proof of Athens’ position in the Greek world. The inventory lists that have been preserved give us an impression of the numerous votive gifts of precious metals, which certainly must have formed an important part of the image of the acropolis and its effect on the Athenians and foreign visitors, and which Thukydides also sees fit to mention.70 The Peloponnesian War changed this image once and for all: the countless cult vessels of gold and silver (pompeia) which were carried along in the Panathenaic procession, found their way into the smelting ovens, and of the eight known statues of Nike in gold, only one survived the confusion of war.71 In the course of the 4th century BC, particularly under Lycourgos, the majority of these objects were, however, replaced. As T. Linders was able to show so convincingly, Lycourgos did not act solely on grounds of piety; the Athenian politician was obviously strongly oriented towards the glorious period of Athenian history under Pericles and attempted to propagate power by means of the specific demonstration of wealth, although no power was there.72 The new votive offerings of gold and silver were thus used as a medium of communication, in order to strengthen the shaken feeling of identity among the Athenians and to define it anew in the age of Alexander, while they were intended to evoke the impression of a power based on wealth on non-Athenians. At the same time, virtual communication between the Athens of Lycourgos and that of Pericles took place by means of the recollection of the time before the Peloponnesian War, a communication which was supposed to declare an apparently unbroken tradition as reality.

Fig. 5: Reconstruction of the sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi. Detail

  • 73 I. Morris, “Circulation, Deposition, and the Formation of the Greek Iron Age”, Man 24 (1989), p. 5 (...)
  • 74 S. Hansen, “Weihegaben zwischen System und Lebenswelt” in H.-J. Gehrke, A. möller (eds), Vergangen (...)
  • 75 J.W. Day, “Interactive Offerings: Early Greek Dedicatory Epigrams and Ritual”, HSPh 96 (1994), p. (...)

31In the microcosm of a Greek sanctuary countless votive gifts seem to have competed with each other for attention. Cult sanctuaries as places of competitive communication with the help of votive objects crystalised during the course of the 8th century BC, after replacing tombs as sacred places for the deposition of valuables as well as for the demonstration of wealth and power.73 From this point onward there was a downright ‘war of monuments’ in the sanctuaries of the Greek world, as S. Hansen has put it.74 In this ‘war’ the connection between image and language created the desired communication between the votive offering and the observer quickly and efficiently. Especially the early Greek votive epigrams, which, in contrast to the dedicatory inscriptions, do not yet contain the formula ‘he/she has dedicated this to the god X’ treating the offering strictly as an object; rather, they clearly personalise the votive object – ‘he/she has dedicated me to the god X’, or ‘I am the dedication of X’ – and thus let it communicate with the visitor. These epigrams give us an impressive idea of the communicative possibilities of Greek votive gifts. J.W. Day was able to show that early Greek epigrams actually invited the visitor in a sanctuary to read the text out loud and thus to interact directly with the dedication, by this means repeating the original ritual of dedication of the votive object.75 Later dedicatory inscriptions have hardly any interactive character; instead, they inform the visitors about the one dedicating or the reason for the dedication, among other things. The visitor is thus no longer an actor, but rather a passive recipient of a written communication.

  • 76 A. Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World. A Social and Cultural History, Oxford, 2005, p. 143-14 (...)
  • 77 A. Jacquemin, Guerre et religion dans le monde grec (490-322 av.J.-C), Paris, 2000, p. 154-170.
  • 78 A.H. Jackson, “Hoplites and the Gods: The Dedication of Captured Arms and Armour”, in V.D. Hanson (...)
  • 79 A. Jackson, “Arms and Armour at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia”, in W. Coulson, (...)
  • 80 P. Siewert, “Votivbarren und das Ende der Waffen- und Geräteweihungen in Olympia” MDAI(A) 111 (199 (...)
  • 81 Pausanias, X, 11, 6.
  • 82 F. Felten, “Weihungen in Olympia und Delphi”, MDAI(A) 97 (1982), p. 79-97.

32A quasi ‘aggressive’ form of communication is documented by the dedications in Greek sanctuaries following wars. These anathemata primarily express the gratitude of the victor to the assumedly helpful divinity, of course, but they are at the same time a demonstration of the victor’s might on the one hand, and a durable reminder of the shame of the vanquished on the other.76 The forms of dedication following wars are manifold and include, among other things, statues or even smaller buildings.77 A directly associative votive offering is represented by captured weapons, for these imply the lost existence of the opponent killed, and they present the raw, unfiltered violence of battle – in contrast to a statue of Nike. Any sanctuary could become a recipient of dedicated weapons; however, the Panhellenic sanctuaries occupy a special position in this regard.78 Especially in Olympia, Delphi and Isthmia, dedications of captured weapons from internal Greek wars were particularly popular in the 6th century BC. During the 5th century BC a change of mentality becomes noticeable, which can be archaeologically detected first in Isthmia: no dedications of weapons can be established in the sanctuary of Poseidon after 470/460 BC.79 A similar situation appears to obtain in Olympia in the period around 440 BC. With regard to Olympia, P. Siewert has even conjectured the existence of cult regulations forbidding the consecration of captured weapons.80 The situation in Delphi is different, for in the hall of the Athenians, according to Pausanias, dedicated weapons captured in the battles of the Peloponnesian War were on display.81 In a comparative study of votive practices in Delphi and Olympia, F. Felten has established that ‘all Greeks could express themselves as they wished’ in the sanctuary of Apollon, whereas in the sanctuary of Zeus (and, in this sense, in the sanctuary of Poseidon too) ‘an idea uniting all Greeks’ was to be realised.82 In accordance with these developments, the communicative, but very direct and revealing possibilities of the dedication of weapons were either excluded perhaps by means of prohibition (Olympia, Isthmia) or continued to be applied by permitting the display of captured weapons (Delphi).

  • 83 A. Jacquemin, Offrandes monumentales à Delphes, Paris, 1999 (BEFAR, 304), p. 258-259. A discussion (...)
  • 84 Chr. Ioakimidou, Die Statuenreihen griechischer Poleis und Bünde aus spätarcbaischer und klassisch (...)

33Dedications are, however, not just a medium for interaction between the dedicator and the divinity or the dedicator and the observer; they also communicate more subtly and more effectively as a result, sometimes competing greatly with each other. The positioning of larger votive offerings in a sanctuary was never accidental, so that the original position of a votive gift, if known, frequently contributes to a better understanding of it. The great monuments of victory at Delphi make it clear that they refer to one another and compete with each other.83 It can hardly be a coincidence that, at the south-eastern entrance to the sanctuary, in direct contiguity to the Athenian monument to Marathon, the great Spartan Nauarchoi-Monument (also known as the Lysander Votive Monument) was built to commemorate the total victory of the Spartans over the Athenians at Aigospotamoi in the year 405 BC. The Spartan votive offering enters into rivalising communication with the Athenian monument near it. Through the ritual of dedication and with the help of visual communication the Spartans, it seems, wished to quite consciously further the ideal and symbolic destruction of their hated opponents and of their glorious past. About 40 years later, the Arcadian Federation imitated the Lacedaimonians. Following the succesful campaign against Sparta which had been prosecuted by the Arcadians together with the Thebans of Epameinon-das in the winter of 370/369 BC, the Arcadians consecrated a row of statues directly opposite to the Spartan monument, intended to immortalise just this success (fig. 5, cf. supra, p. 86).84

  • 85 T. HÖlscher, “Die Nike der Messenier und Naupaktier in Olympia. Kunst und Geschichte im späten 5. (...)

34Spatial contiguity was not always necessary for the communicative interaction between votive gifts, as is shown by the example of the Nike of Paionios in Olympia, which was consecrated to Zeus by the Messenians and the Naupactians following their victory over the Spartans at Sphakteria in the year 425 BC. As T. Hölscher has made clear, the Nike of Paionios is a retort to the golden shield dedicated by the Spartans and their allies after the battle of Tanagra in 457 BC, and which served as the ridge akroterion of the temple of Zeus. The Spartans for their part answered this provocation by dedicating two victory monuments in their own sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos on the Acropolis of Sparta following the victories of Ephesos and Aigospotamoi, monuments which probably took over the motifs of the Nike of Paionios.85 Space and time do not seem to have been of importance for this ‘war of images’.

  • 86 G. Roux, Fouilles de Delphes II: La terrasse d’Attale I, Paris, 1987.

35Those dedicating interact with one another with their votive offerings not only in a competitive manner. Frequently the attempt was quite consciously made to create a connection in content to a previous donor with the help of a dedication, and in this way to present oneself as the successor in ideals. This type of procedure can be observed in the dedication of buildings by Attalos I at the sanctuary of Apollon in Delphi (fig. 6).86

  • 87 G. roux, “La terrasse d’Attale I à Delphes”, BCH 76 (1952), p. 185-195 interprets the ca. 27 m lon (...)
  • 88 H.-J. Schalles, Untersuchungen zur Kulturpolitik der pergamenischen Herrscher im dritten Jahrhunde (...)

36The Pergamean complex is located at the east side of the sanctuary and, in its present state of preservation, consists of a simple Doric hall, a long foundation in front of this, the interpretation of which is problematic,87 a minor building in the south-east and two column monuments. H.-J. Schalles has pointed out, in exemplary fashion, the manifold connections in content of the Attalid foundation with older dedications that refer to the glorious struggles of the Greeks against the Persians and Galatians, among others the hall of the Athenians, the captured shields of Persians and Galatians at the temple of Apollon, and the great hall of the Aitolians.88

Fig. 6: The sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi. Plan

  • 89 Pausanias, I, 4, 4.

37At the same time, the complex was located close to the area dedicated in honour of the hero Pyrrhos-Neoptolemos, the father of the eponym of Pergamon and ancestor of the Attalid dynasty. By means of a subtle communication between the Attalid votive offering to Apollon and older, symbolically important and prestigious votive gifts, the Pergameans could present themselves as the legitimate successors to the Athenians and Aitolians in defending Greek culture against the barbarians. The spatial interaction with the area of Pyrrhus-Neoptolemos, too, contributed to the support of the Pergamean intention, since the hero, according to mythology, had fought on the side of the Aitolians against the Galatians.89

  • 90 W. Hoepfner, Zwei Ptolemaierbauten. Das Ptolemaier-Weihgeschenk in Olympia und ein Bauvorhaben in (...)
  • 91 Schmidt-Dounas, o.c. (n. 78), p. 203-204.

38A leap in the communicative uses of votive offerings is represented by the so-called votive offering of the Ptolemies in Olympia, which was dedicated by the Nauarchos Kallikrates of Samos to Zeus Olympios in honour of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II. The monument is located directly before the Hall of Echoes and consisted of a 20 m long bathron with one Ionic column at each end and an exedra in the middle. The columns originally carried bronze statues of those honoured.90 The statues are a conscious reference to the southeastern corner column of the temple of Hera and the northeastern one of the temple of Zeus (fig. 7). By means of the spatial and visual communication between the statues and the temples, a connection in content between the divine and the royal sibling spouses was created,91 which may have been meant to imply divinity or quasi-divinity of the Ptolemaic couple already during their lifetimes.

  • 92 On the integration of the observer in the action represented, and who almost becomes a part of the (...)
  • 93 CM. Keesling, The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (...)
  • 94 M. Stieber, The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai, Austin, 2004, p. 135-140.

39Greek votive offerings and the ritual act of dedication were more than just a means to express one’s own piety through a material form of honouring. With the aid of the visual and the linguistic-cognitive levels of communication they created subtle forms of interaction with the divinity, the observer92 and, most particularly, with past and current dedications. No votive offering contained just one message, nor had just one purpose; depending upon the level of education and interest and upon the origins of the visitor, the communicative exchange between votive offering and observer was altered too. It is enough, perhaps, to imagine what kind of impression the innumerable statues of the Korai on the Athenian acropolis, with their grace and especially their colourfulness, must have made on the visitors to the sanctuary. They were quite certainly not only addressed to Athena, but rivalled to each other and referred to each other. The question of the exact naming of those depicted is unimportant, for whether these were depictions of Athena93 or of brides-to-be,94 the purpose of pleasing the divinity and, rather more importantly, of representing the dedicators worthily in this ‘war of images’, was certainly fulfilled by each and every Kore.

Fig. 7: The Ptolemaean votive offering at Olympia

Δρώμενα: ritual performance and communication

  • 95 J.-L. Durand, “Ritual as Instrumentality”, in Detienne, Vernant, o.c. (n. 6), p. 119: “To celebrat (...)
  • 96 E. Lupu, Greek Sacred Law. A Collection of New Documents (NGSL), Leiden, 2005 (RGRW, 152), p. 96-1 (...)
  • 97 A. Henrichs, “Drama and Dromena: Bloodshed, Violence, and Sacrificial Metaphor in Euripides”, HSPh (...)
  • 98 On ritual drama in Eleusis cf. K. Clinton, Myth and Cult. The Iconography of the Eleusinian Myster (...)
  • 99 C. Calame, Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social (...)
  • 100 Jameson, l.c. (n. 61), p. 321-340.
  • 101 D. Wiles, Tragedy in Athens-. Performance, Space, and Theatrical Meaning, Cambridge, 1997 [p. 111: (...)

40Greek religion represents a view of the interaction between the human and divine levels, which is oriented towards action and practice and not necessarily toward reflection.95 It is thus not particularly surprising that the performative aspect of ritual possessed an enormous significance. Many cult regulations establish, for instance, the correct clothing to be worn by the cult participants and limit the wearing of jewellery by women, prescribe the exact ornamentation of the sacrificial animals, or organise the course of processions.96 Behind all this there is the intention of heightening the impression of the ritual actions, especially their audiovisual experientiality, on the passive or active cult participants, for religious ‘action’ by no means signifies exclusively active participation, but also comprises passive listening to a message, as in the case of the oral revelation of the ἀπόρρητα in the mystery cults or the viewing of a ritual action in the sense of a cult ‘play’,97 as in the case of the Δρώμενα in the framework of the τελεταί in the cult of Demeter98 or the choral presentations in various cults (Apollon, Artemis, Hera etc.)-99 Participation in ritual procedures by observation, their visual absorption by the spectator, is becoming more and more a central point of research.100 The interaction between the actors and audience in Attic tragedy has been placed in its religious context and explained by D. Wiles.101

  • 102 On pictures and their possibilities or limitations as communicative carriers of ‘religious’ though (...)
  • 103 G. Bakir, Sophilos. Ein Beitrag zu seinem Stil, Mainz, 1981.
  • 104 The fact that the Greek agones were no sports competition in the modern sense, but rather an integ (...)

41Apart from literary sources, which, owing to their nature, at least provide us with a descriptive idea of the total audiovisual effect of ritual actions, ancient pictorial representations,102 but also architectural remains, allow a rather ‘haptic’ experience of the visual in religion. Already the first vase painter known to us in Greek antiquity, Sophilos,103 analysed, in his imagery, the participant in ritual as a spectator. On a fragmentarily preserved dinos in the National Museum at Athens (Inv. n° 15499) from around 580/70 BC the funerary games in honour of Patroklos provide the subject and are identified as such by a caption. This is an excellent example of the combination of word and image to enable a better understanding and immediate recognition of mythical episodes. An interesting detail is the reproduction of a spectator’s stand with several seated men, among whom some are depicted with raised arms, showing their especial emotional participation (fig. 8). The spectators are, of course, not active participants in the funerary games, but have nevertheless become a part of the ritual actions104 in honour of Patroklos through their very presence, and particularly through the visual experience of this ritual: participation in the cult by means of sight.

  • 105 U. Kenzler, Studien zur Entwicklung und Struktur der griechischen Agora in archaischer und klassis (...)

42The stand on the dinos of Sophilos is clearly a matter of provisional seating made of wood, such as we know of in early Greek theatres. For understandable reasons, ephemeral constructions of this kind have not been preserved; their existence can be deduced from postholes. Thus, as far as can be established, provisional stands of this type existed along the Panathenaic Way. The ancient orchestra for playing the dramatic agon in honour of Dionysos, prior to the erection of the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens, was localised in the northern area of the Agora, in the region between the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the Stoa Poikile, by means of postholes for spectators’ stands.105

  • 106 I. Nielsen, Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama. A Study in Regional Development and Religious Interc (...)

43The theatres or tiered constructions in sanctuaries appear to be much more important for understanding the communicative possibilities of ritual performance, as they do not only have to do with the observation of the ritual procedure at the altar, but are perhaps to be connected even more intensively with the visual experience of myths in a framework of mimetic representation. The architectural forms mentioned have been dealt with recently in the monographs by I. Nielsen and T. Becker, who illuminate the subject from different points of view, and whose statements in my opinion are complementary.106 Nielsen’s interdisciplinary work is holistic in nature and goes further in interpretation, while the purely archaeological thoughts expressed by Becker are much more reliable, although his interpretations make a very guarded impression. In many cases (e.g. the stairways in the Heraion of Argos or the trapezoid stairway in Morgantina) the authors are indeed of two contrary opinions.

Fig. 8: Spectator’s stand on a dinos by Sophilos. Drawing (ca. 570 BC, National Museum no. 15499. Athens)

  • 107 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 433.
  • 108 Bookidis, l.c. (n. 57), p. 50.
  • 109 Becker, o.c. (n. 106), p. 237.

44Stairways or tiers can by no means be connected to any particular divinity, although they are especially frequent in sanctuaries of Dionysos. Demeter also appears to have been a divinity in whose cult stairways or tiers for display played an important role. At least three of her most important sanctuaries, in Corinth, in Lykosoura and in Pergamon, possess such stairways. The theatre stairs in the south of the Telesterion in Eleusis is difficult to date; they may have been built in the time of Hadrian. At the Corinthian sanctuary of Demeter and the Kore the rock to the southwest of the cult house in the eastern part of the upper terrace was removed to form a sort of theatre of six tiers (fig. 4). From this point onward the upper terrace also became an important site in the ritual life of the sanctuary. The excavators assume that at least 85 persons could sit here.107 Compared with the room offered by the banqueting rooms and buildings on the lower terrace, 85 does not seem to be a very large number. If one regards the display tiers in connection with the mysteries (which cannot, however, be proven for the Corinthian sanctuary), then the number can be explained by the character of such ritual actions within the larger framework of the mysteries, which were not intended for the majority of cult participants.108 In contrast to the excavators, one should assume with Becker that the place for carrying out the mimetic cult actions was directly in front of the tiers, and not on the middle terrace.109 This would also correspond to the entire layout of the cult complex, which was intended to provide a strict division both spatially and functionally: on the upper terrace the mimetic cult actions took place, quite possibly the representation of myths of Demeter and the Kore; the middle terrace was the location of the sacrifice; and the lower terrace provided the architectural surroundings for the communal meal.

  • 110 M. Jost, Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie, Paris, 1985, p. 172-179.
  • 111 Nielsen, o.c. (n. 106), p. 108. The author even supposes – ignoring the archaeological evidence -, (...)
  • 112 Becker, o.c. (n. 106), p. 234.
  • 113 The assumption that the door in the south wall of the cult building “diente unter Umstän-den nur z (...)
  • 114 On the cult and mythical connections of Demeter with Poseidon in the Peloponnessos cf. Mylonopoulo (...)
  • 115 Pausanias, VIII, 37, 9.
  • 116 M. jost, “Mystery Cults in Arcadia”, in M.B. Cosmopoulos (ed.), Greek Mysteries. The Archaeology a (...)

45At the sanctuary of Demeter and Despoina at Lykosoura there is a stairway which is most interesting from the point of view of interpretation (fig. 9). The small prostyle temple of the sanctuary is dated to the 2nd century BC. Barely one metre south of the temple is the stairway, consisting of ten completely preserved steps.110 Nielsen assumes that the stairway was meant for spectators watching sacred actions carried out in front of the temple;111 there are, however, indications that the stairway was built before the temple. Furthermore, the spectators on the lower steps of the western part would not have been able to see the area in front of the temple, owing to the temple blocking the view. All indications are that the mimetic cult actions originally took place in the area later covered by the temple.112 Its construction entailed either their abandonment, rebuilding or partial displacement. The side door in the south wall of the temple indicates, in my opinion, that the ritual actions were extended and took place partly in front of the stairway, partly in the area in front of the temple.113 The mimetic actions, possibly Poseidon’s chasing of Demeter – as is known, both divinities took the form of horse114 – and the birth of Despoina, were moved to the area in front of the temple, in the region of the altars. The cult participants would have watched from the north hall. The spectators on the stairway were shown sacred objects, perhaps accompanied by music or recitations. One may possibly assume a procedure on two levels, for the group of participants in the north hall was certainly larger than that on the stairway. Such a visual, cultic and initiatory experience is known from other venues for mysteries, and the concept of τελετή, used by Pausanias to describe the ritual actions in the sanctuary of Lykosoura,115 clearly indicates a mystery cult.116

Fig. 9: The sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosoura. Plan

  • 117 C.H. Bohtz, Das Demeterheiligtum, Berlin, 1981 (Altertiimer von Pergamon, XIII), p. 36-38. The exc (...)
  • 118 Thomas, l.c. (n. 59), p. 283-289.

46A much larger, monumental stairway with a length of nearly 40 m was built in the second third of the 3rd century BC in the Pergamean sanctuary of Demeter (fig. 10). The stairway looked out over the eastern half of the central area of the temenos, in whose western half is located the small prostylos. It belongs to the Philetairic extension of the sanctuary, which was, however, very probably only completed under Eumenes I.117 In a very interesting essay, Chr. Thomas has attempted to reconstruct the functional development of the sanctuary between the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire, with the aid of the architectural remains and epigraphical evidence. She assumes that the Hellenistic cult complex functioned as the Thesmophorion of the city and was frequented almost exclusively by women.118

Fig. 10: The sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon. Plan (first half of the 2nd cent. BC)

  • 119 H. Hepding, “Die Arbeiten zu Pergamon 1908-1909: II. Die Inschriften”, MDAI(A) 35 (1910), p. 437-4 (...)
  • 120 Hepding, l.c. (n. 119), p. 439-442, n° 24: Βαςίλισσα Ἀπολλωνὶς Δήμηπρι ϰ[α]ὶ Κόρηι Θεσμοϕόροις | χ (...)
  • 121 Thomas, l.c. (n. 59), p. 289-295.

47In fact the inscriptions preserved from this period do indicate a particularly strong female presence; the dedicatory inscriptions on the architrave of the eastern temple facade and on the east side of the great altar A name Philetairos and Eumenes as founders, but the dedication is for the sake of their mother Boa.119 The building foundation on the part of Queen Apollonis, too, honours Demeter and Kore as Thesmophoroi.120 Not until the Roman Empire, probably in Antonine times, does a male presence becomes dominant, and the dedicatory inscriptions name priestly offices such as hiero-phantes or dadouchos, while many of the dedicators call themselves mystes.121 The sanctuary was obviously no longer a pure Thesmophorion from this time on, but functioned also as a location for a mystery cult modelled on Eleusis, and thus was increasingly open to men. In all probability the functions of the great stairway were accordingly extended: originally serving as seating for the female participants in the Thesmophoria, with the δρώμενα in the open area in front referring to these celebrations, from Antonine times onward the mimetic actions referred more strongly to the Eleusinian mysteries.

  • 122 K. lehmann, D. spittle, Samothrace 4, II: The Altar Court, New York, 1964.
  • 123 On the controversial issue whether Arrhidaios was indeed the financier of the ‘altar court’ or rat (...)

48At the famous sanctuary of the Kabiroi in the north part of the island of Samothrake there is a further interesting example of communication by means of visual experience of ritual procedures (fig. 11). In the western part of the cult complex a rectangular construction was erected between 340 and 330 BC, on top of an older rock altar. Researchers know this structure as the ‘altar court’.122 On three sides were very high walls; only the west side was accessible and permitted a view of the inside of the structure, seen through four Doric columns with an extended intercolumnium. Apparently the inside was not roofed over. In front of the east wall of the court was the altar. The fragmentarily preserved dedicatory inscription on the architrave of the west side refers to the founder. According to some researchers, the structure was financed by Arrhidaios, the half-brother of Alexander the Great, who was later to succeed his brother to the Macedonian throne as Philip III. This hypothesis was not accepted generally, though.123

Fig. 11: Altar court’ and theatre at the sanctuary of the Kabiroi on Samothrake. Plan

  • 124 F. Chapouthier et.al, “Le theatre de Samothrace”, BCH 80 (1956), p. 118-146.
  • 125 Dymas: IG XII 8, p. 38. Herodes: F. Hiller von Gaertringen (ed.), Inschriften von Priene, Berlin, (...)
  • 126 Nielsen, o.c. (n. 106), p. 134-136. Something similar is assumed for the so-called. Hall of Choral (...)

49The hillside directly across from the ‘altar court’ served as an audience area for the pilgrims participating in the great sacrifices during the public celebrations in honour of the Kabiroi; this was already the case at the time when only the ancient rock altar existed. Following the construction of the ‘altar court’, the hillside was left for a short time in its natural form. Not until the 2nd century BC was a stone theatre very hastily built.124 In the case of the Kabiroi sanctuary on Samothrake we may assume that the theatre complex was used also at other times, and not only during the sacrificial rituals at the altar in the altar courtyard. Decrees of the 2nd century BC honour two dramatists, Dymas of Iasos and Herodes of Priene, for their works, which had been played on Samothrake and had close connections to the mythical traditions of the cult complex through their subject.125 It may be conjectured, with Nielsen, that these works were ritual dramas that were played in the theatre of the Kabiroi sanctuary, with the ‘altar court’ as a cult background.126

  • 127 Ch. Bouras, Ἡἀναστήλωσις τῆς Στοᾶς τῆς Βραυρῶνος. Τὰ ἀρχιτεϰτονιϰά της προβλήματα, Athens, 1967 (A (...)

50A congenial solution in the 5th century BC for providing room for spectators, who were to communicate with the level of the divine by means of the visual experience of mimetic ritual, can be found at the sanctuary of Artemis already mentioned, in Brauron in Attica (fig. 12). During the Classical period the cult complex was dominated architecturally by a great ∏-shaped hall to the north of the temple.127 On the north side there are six larger rooms and one smaller, all behind the colonnade. The west side of the hall also had four rooms, which were separated by a propylon leading to the interior of the courtyard. There were no rooms on the east side. In each of the large rooms inlets for eleven couches were found, as well as inlets in the floor for setting up tables. Quite clearly these rooms with their couches and tables are banqueting rooms. All appearances point to the ritual meals following the sacrifice at the altar having taken place here.

Fig. 12: The sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron. Plan

  • 128 F. Bubenheimer, J. Mylonopoulos, “Die Stoa von Brauron. Gestalt und Funktion der altesten n-förmig (...)
  • 129 Ergon 1958, p. 37.

51Some indications exist, which can not be discussed here, that most probably the hall had a second storey in the area of the rear rooms, containing bedrooms.128 The examination of the construction history of this building has shown that the hall was erected in the second half of the 5th century BC and never finished; prior to the construction of the rooms on the west side there had been problems due to ground erosion. At the east side of the hall an inscription was found, which dates to the year of the Archon Arimnestos (416/5 BC);129 this inscription mentions the stoa for the first time. The hall was not used for long, at any rate; towards the end of the 4th century BC its northern part must have been destroyed.

  • 130 On the inexhaustible subject of the Brauronic Arkteia cf. inter alia P. Brulé, La fille d’Athenes. (...)
  • 131 Souda, s.v Ἄρϰτος ἤ Βραυρωνίοις (ed. ADLER I [1928], p. 361)

52To the most important aspects of ritual life at the sanctuary of Artemis in Brauron belongs the initiation rite of the Arkteia, for which Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata yields valuable information, Supplémented by ancient commentaries on this work and the depictions on vessels, the so-called krateriskoi.130 The Souda tells of a bear at Brauron, which was tamed and lived in the sanctuary. One day a small girl was playing with the bear and irritated it, whereupon the animal scratched the face of the girl, whose angry brothers then killed it. Artemis, enraged at the death of the bear, punished the Athenians; an illness befell them and they sought advice at the oracle of Apollon in Delphi. The god commanded that all girls between the ages of 5 and 10 years were to serve the goddess, disguised as bears.131

  • 132 The interpretation of the marble statues of girls from Brauron (4th cent.) as arktoi is not such a (...)
  • 133 L. Kahil, “Autour de lArtémis attique”, AK 8 (1965), p. 20-33.

53The most important information about the Arkteia has been obtained from the archaeological findings themselves, namely from the krateriskoi.,132 These are small black and red figure vessels with a high conical foot; their form is reminiscent of the monumental krateres of the Late Geometric Period. They are datable to the late 6th and the 5th centuries BC; the majority can be dated to the first half of the 5th century. These vessels can be divided into three categories according to their ornamentation: a) krateriskoi with linear ornamentation, b) krateriskoi with animal friezes and c) krateriskoi with depictions of the various phases of the Arkteia (fig. 13a-b). On the last mentioned girls running naked or clothed are depicted near an altar and a palm tree, as well as the ritual dance of small girls with short chitons near an altar and a palm tree.133 In all depictions only small girls or women are shown, and this shows that men remained away from these ritual actions. The depictions also offer us indications of the location of the rituals: the altar indicates a sanctuary, while the palm tree characterises the sanctuary as belonging to Artemis, for this tree is the symbol of the birth of the goddess on Delos.

Fig. 13: Krateriskoi found at Brauron. Drawing:

  • 134 Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 645.
  • 135 Miller, o.c. (n. 104), p. 158.

54Researchers have interpreted the Arkteia as a kind of initiation rite for girls, a preparation for adolescence. The depictions on the krateriskoi show the various phases of initiation. The girls dance at the beginning around the altar; then they prepare for the run. At a certain point they strip and run naked from then on. Our sources give us no indication of the nakedness of the girls, if we except a hint given in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, where a woman tells in an autobiographical way of celebrating the Arkteia ‘by throwing off the saffron-coloured clothing’ (ϰᾆτ’ ἔχουσα τὸν ϰροϰωτὸν ἄρϰτος ἦ Βραυρωνίοις).134 Under no circumstances should the ritual race at Brauron be considered as a kind of sports competition in which a victory was to be won. S. Miller goes too far indeed when he interprets the nakedness of the Arktoi as ‘clear evidence from Brauron of a women’s gymnikos agon’.135

  • 136 L. Palaiokrassa, Tὸ ἱερὸ τῆς Ἀρτέμιρος Μουνιχίας, Athens, 1991.
  • 137 E. Simon, Festivals of Attica. An Archaeological Commentary, Madison Wisc, 1983, p. 87-88; Th.F. S (...)
  • 138 l. Kahil, “l’Artémis de Brauron: rites et mystère”, AK 20 (1977), 92-93; Brulé o.c. (n. 130), p. 2 (...)
  • 139 One could even imagine that such a mimetic action was not only a part of the Arkteia, but also of (...)
  • 140 L. Kahil, “Quelques exemples de vases de mariage a Brauron”, in v. Ch. Petrakos (ed.), Ἔπαινος Ἰωά (...)

55A scene is depicted on a fragmentarily preserved red figure krateriskos, which very probably reveals the character of the initiation ritual as a mimetic representation of the aitiological myth of the origin of the Arkteia: beside the Apollonic triad are shown a male and a female figure obviously wearing bear masks (fig. 13c). E. Simon thought these to be Arkas and Kallisto, being changed into bears; but the question of why a scene from the Arcadian myths of Artemis should be depicted on a ritual vessel typical for the Attic sanctuary at Brauron – and at Mounichia136 – remains unanswered.137 L. Kahil’s interpretation seems much more probable, namely that here a priest and priestess dressed as bears are dramatically imitating the myth of the Arkteia in the presence of the gods,138 in other words a mimesis in Aristotle’s sense. The running girls on the other krateriskoi are, in analogy, showing the single girl of the myth, who is trying to flee from the bear. This means that the mimesis of the myth constituted an important part of the initiation.139 The final and decisive phase of the initation is unknown to us. Certainly it will have been the mystery of mysteries, following the ritual undressing of the girls and the ritual chase by the bear.140 Being a mystery, it could not be depicted and could not be told. We do not know its content, and we will probably never know. Probably it had a sexually connotative character.

56The generously planned hall complex apparently formed an experimental attempt by a truly innovative architect to serve as many areas of ritual in the sanctuary of Artemis as possible. In the banqueting rooms the communication through the communal sacrificial feast took place after the sacrifices at the altar, while in the upper storey the little arktoi could stay; furthermore, the colonnaded halls offered room on the one hand for the cult participants who witnessed the sacrifice at the altar, on the other for the young participants in the Arkteia, who could not take active part in the ritual race to escape the bear, but could become a communicative part of the ritual by means of the visual experience of the δρώμενον on the open courtyard formed by the hall. In this fashion the brauronic hall was transformed into a theatre with the open courtyard in front as the orchestra during the mimetic representation of the myth of the small girl and the sacred animal of Artemis.

  • 141 It would, for example, be extremely interesting to investigate the question of whether the represe (...)

57Ritual mimetic actions are a communicative medium in Greek religion that have hardly been researched.141 Δρώμενα of this kind permitted every cult participant, no matter what level of education he or she had, to experience religious content in a type of passive communication without the ‘burden’ of an intellectual, theological and theoretical superstructure. Greek sanctuaries in this regard offered many opportunities for carrying out such cult dramas, in the form of the architectural design of the buildings involved and their surroundings. From simple stairways or tiers, as in the sanctuary of Demeter at Corinth, through theatre complexes such as that at the Amphiareion of Oropos or at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia, to experimental buildings such as the colonnaded hall at Brauron, anything seemed possible: the need for communication with the divine rendered the Greek will to form limitless.

Processions: Communicative interaction between sacred spaces

  • 142 Bomer, l.c. (n. 16), col. 1886.
  • 143 Ch. Tsochos, Πομπὰς πέμπειν. Prozessionen von der minoischen bis zur klassischen Zeit in Griechenl (...)
  • 144 J. Bremmer, “Ritual”, in S.I. Johnston (ed.), Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, Cambridge M (...)
  • 145 Kuhn, l.c. (n. 42), p. 287-307.

58In his fundamental work on the phenomenon of pompé, F. Bömer declared, with an almost apodeictic formulation, that a procession is ‘not an independent ritual action; it is only the movement toward one’.142 Although the first part of this statement is certainly correct, as processions as independent ritual actions are indeed not documented, a semantic limitation of the procession to a simple movement towards the actual ritual action, towards the sacrifice, is at the same time a hermeneutic barrier which would hinder the proper understanding of this very significant ritual action, significant throughout the entire ancient world in its heightened performance, as a medium of ritual communication.143 It is just the markedly performative aspect of ancient processions and the concern for their correct execution which underscore their religious significance, and sometimes lead to the modern impression that they were even ‘shows’.144 The construction of colonnaded halls along some procession routes, in order to give the spectators an adequate place of viewing, emphasises the significance of processions as ritual actions with heightened performances.145

  • 146 G.C. Nordquist, “Instrumental Music in Representations of Greek Cult”, in R. HÄGG (ed.), The Icono (...)
  • 147 Polyainos, V, 5: νόμῳ πομπῆς βαδίζοντες.
  • 148 A. Kavoulaki, “Processional Performance and the Democratic Polis” in Goldhill -Osborne (eds), o.c. (...)
  • 149 E.E. Rice, The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Oxford, 1983; Ch. Wikander, “Pomp and Cir (...)
  • 150 D. Wiles, A Short History of Western Performance Space, Cambridge, 2003, p. 69-71.
  • 151 Athenaios, V, 196-203.
  • 152 A. Chaniotis, “Sich selbst feiern? Städtische Feste des Hellenismus im Spannungsfeld von Religion (...)

59Examine the written and pictorial evidence on Greek processions, and they probably would appear to be an audiovisual total work of art in the sense of Wagner. The omnipresence of music,146 the ritual kinesis, so different from the everyday walk,147 and the festive self-presentation of the participants contribute to a heightening of the interaction between ritual action and spectator, who were simultaneously listeners.148 Just how important the integration of the performance of a procession was to ritual communication becomes clear with the example of the great Dionysian procession of the Ptolemies in Alexandria,149 which was intended primarily and skilfully to impart the divine (through Dionysos) and dynastic (through Alexander) legitimation of the Ptolemies in Egypt, using symbols and mimetic actions, although the purely ritual conclusion of the procession was a sacrifice.150 When reading the detailed description of the Alexandrian procession given by Athenaios,151 one has the impression that in this case not the concluding sacrificial feast, but rather the procession itself represented the performative culmination152, clearly overshadowing the ritual act of sacrifice and taking on the role of the actual communicative mediator between the Hellenistic rulers of Egypt and the population of Alexandria.

  • 153 F. Graf, “Pompai in Greece. Some Considerations about Space and Ritual in the Greek Polis”, in Häg (...)
  • 154 M. Dillon, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece, London, 1997.
  • 155 Graf, l.c. (n. 153), p. 61-64; N.D. Robertson, “The Two Processions to Eleusis and the Program of (...)
  • 156 D. Peppa-Delmousou, “The Theoria of Brauron”, in Hägg et al. (eds), o.c. (n. 9), p. 255-258.
  • 157 J.M. Hall, “How Argive Was the “Argive” Heraion? The Political and Cultic Geography of the Argive (...)
  • 158 Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 221, 314-315.
  • 159 A. Herda, “Von Milet nach Didyma. Eine griechische Prozessionsstraße in archaischer Zeit”, in Bube (...)

60However, processions fulfilled another purpose, one exceeding the interaction between action and spectator. They enabled the ritual communication between sacred sites. From such topographical points of view, F. Graf attempted to distinguish between centripetal and centrifugal processions. The decisive differentiating characteristic in this categorisation would be the direction of the procession, whether towards the religious and political centre of a polis, or away from this centre.153 For a useful categorisation of Greek processions, I see the definition of sacral points of culmination, in communication with one another, as significant too; one would have to distinguish, of course, between processions and pilgrimages.154 Many processions seem to conjoin two sacral rooms with each other, in that they enable a polis and its periphery to enter into communication via many stations in between. Processions of this type are, among others, the Attic processions to Eleusis155 and Brauron,156 the procession to the Heraion157 organized by Mycenae and, later, by Argos, the Spartan procession to Tainaron158 or the Milesian procession to Didyma.159 All of these pompai also express a territorial claim, which is legitimised by means of the ritual creation of a cult topography. In the case of the Eleusinian, Brauronian or Tainaric processions, a ‘branch foundation’ at a central place in the polis is even connected to the ‘mother sanctuary’.

  • 160 S. Müller, “Der Ausgangspunkt der panathenäischen Prozession”, in Bubenheimer et al. (eds), o.c. ( (...)
  • 161 On the various reconstructions of the course of this procession cf. inter alia H. Engelmann, “Phil (...)
  • 162 T. Hölscher, Öffentliche Räume in frühen griechischen Städten, Heidelberg, 1998.

61Many processions, again, have a more limited radius of influence, and appear to have a single point of culmination, such as the Panathenaic procession at Athens with its linear orientation towards the Acropolis,160 or one of the Ephesian processions, which took on a more circular appearance, having the Artemision as starting point and end.161 The significance of a particular divinity and his or her normative role for the celebrating city, ritually seen, was confirmed by such processions, for the pompé is also the means of ritual communication among important points of crystalisation within the city, which interact with each other and lead step by step to the most important sanctuary of the city. In Athens the Panathenaic procession began at the city wall, at the Pompeion, between the Sacred Gate and the Dipylon, continued through the middle of the Agora and ended at the Acropolis. In this way the procession connected the three most important topographical, but also ideal fixed points in the spatial system of the Greek polis: city wall – agora – acropolis.162

  • 163 Pausanias, V, 13-15.
  • 164 Holscher, o.c. (n. 83), p. 336-338; Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 136-140, 331-332.
  • 165 Pindar, Olympia V, 10; Schol. Pind. Ol. V, 10c.
  • 166 The arrangement of the divine couples does in fact seem nearly random. The only couple that makes (...)

62A very special form of the Greek procession was that documented for the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia by Pausanias.163 Once a month, a sacrificial procession went through the entire sanctuary according to a prescribed ceremony (fig. 14).164 A bloodless sacrifice was to be held at some 70 altars within and also outside the Altis. Together with frankincense, wheatflour, kneaded with honey, was burned upon the altar, which was decorated with olive branches. Libations of wine were an integral part of the sacrificial offerings, according to Pausanias. Prayers and hymns accompanied the sacrificial procession and the burning of the sacrificial offerings. The sacrificial ritual was not carried out by one individual priest, but by a theokolos, accompanied by seers, spondophoroi, an aulos player, an exegetes and a xyleus. The sacrificial procession began at the altar of Hestia in the Prytaneion in the northwestern part of the temenos and led then to the altar of Zeus Olympios. Among the most important facilities visited by the cult officials were six double altars, which obviously belonged to the oldest points of crystalisation in the Altis; their existence is vouched for already by Pindar.165 These were the altars for Zeus Laoitas and Poseidon Laoitas, for Hera and Athena, for Apollon and Hermes, for Dionysos and the Charites, for Artemis and Alpheios, and for Kronos and Rhea.166 Pindar documents their function within the framework of the Olympic celebrations following the games: the victors were to sacrifice bulls at these altars. In mythology the sanctuary of Zeus, the Olympic Games and the double altars came into being simultaneously. In the further course of things the monthly procession reached even the most southerly area of the sanctuary, the area of the Hippodrome, not yet excavated.

63Pausanias himself described the course of the monthly procession with some uneasiness, for in his eyes there existed a pronounced discrepancy between the architectural topography of the sanctuary of Zeus and the sacral space created by the procession’s ritual actions at the ‘randomly’ scattered altars. This incomprehension did, however, result from the view, often to be found in modern archaeological research too, that sacred space is primarily defined through architecture. But it is the rituals carried out, and not their architectural background, which are necessary for the mental and, at the same time, spatial comprehension of the sacred space. The Olympic procession is the best example of this. By means of the communicative connection of the most important cult facilities within the sanctuary with the aid of a sacrificial ritual at each individual altar, a ritual which remained identical in all its elements, the sacred topography of the sanctuary of Zeus was confirmed again and again, once every month. The sequence of altars visited defined, at the same time, a local cult hierarchy.

Fig. 14: Reconstruction of the course of the “altar procession” at Olympia. After T. Hölscher

  • 167 Maurizio, o.c. (n. 160), p. 309-313.

64Greek processions appear as a communications medium effective at several levels. The active participants define their own identities and their position within the collective by their hierarchical rank in a procession, by no means free of competitive aspects, as L. Maurizio was able to show,167 and by their interaction with other participants. The spectators repeatedly experience the structure of their polis and the significance of the divinity honoured for the consolidation of the collective affiliation through their passive audiovisual participation. On a different level, the participants themselves become a living medium of communication, when they connect points of crystalisation of the cult by means of the ritual kinesis, in order to confirm the religious topography of a city, a region or even a sanctuary.

  • 168 V. Rosenberger, “Orakelsprüche und Weihgeschenke: Delphi als Kristallisationspunkt griechischer Id (...)
  • 169 W.R. Connor, “Tribes, Festivals and Processions; Civic Ceremonial and Political Manipulation in Ar (...)
  • 170 Xenophon Ephesios, ephesiac. I, 2, 2-3. cf. also Calame o.c. (n. 99), p. 93-96.

65Greek sanctuaries did not possess any monopoly on ritual communication, although a few important ones – the most significant being the sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi168 – played a very special communicative role in the panhellenic sense. Many of the ritual actions, such as prayer, libation, rites of initiation could take place equally well outside of the cult site. The sacrifices prior to battle did not require a sanctuary either. Nevertheless, the rituals could only fully unfold their almost limitless possibilities of communication within a cult place. Here, surrounded by numerous dedications and often with a very impressive architectural background, the cult community could interact with the divine with the help of the sacrifice and it could, again and again, confirm its collective identity in the communication of the members among one another during the communal sacrificial meals. Rich votive offerings enabled communication between the dedicator and the divinity, through the visible expression of piety, and invited the observer to a dialogue on a further semantic level by means of both their visual effect and the dedicatory inscriptions, a dialogue in which possibly the polemic or connecting relation of the votive offerings among one another could be perceived. Mimetic cult actions represented a further possibility of ritual communication and offered all participants an audiovisual experience of the divine and its world of mythology. This theatricality in presentation, but also in the reception of rituals, required and furthered active interaction between actors and spectators, who did not at all forget that it all had to do with a mimesis, a performance. The statement by W.R. Connor (in connection with the ‘theatralic’ entry of Peisistratos into Athens accompanied by Athena, acted by Phye) is pithy in this regard: “The citizens are not naive bumpkins but participants in a theatricality whose rules and roles they understand and enjoy. These are alert, even sophisticated, actors in a ritual drama…”.169 Processions, too, were ritual dramas with mimetic elements, as the example of the young Anteia, dressed as Artemis, and her lover Habrokomes in the Ephesian procession clearly shows.170 Processions, however, did not only enable the active participants to interact with each other and with the passive spectators; they also enabled the communication among different sacred points of culmination, by means of a re-semanticisation of the group of participants, who themselves became a medium of communication. Every dynamic development or alteration of the ritual actions, as the example of the Corinthian sanctuary of Demeter best demonstrates, also changed the image of every cult place in addition, in a never-ending process, for sacred space and ritual found themselves in continuous interactive communication, too.

List of illustrations

66Fig. 1 after F.T. van Straten, Hierà kalà: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Leiden, 1995 ‘RGRW, 127), fig. 2.

67Fig. 2 after M.L Davies, “The Reclamation of Helen”, AK 20 (1977), pl. 17.2.

68Fig. 3 after L. Cerchiai, “Il programma figurativo dell’ hydria Ricci”, AK 38 (1995), pl. 22.

69Fig. 4 after N. Bookidis, “Ritual Dining at Corinth”, in N. Marinatos, R. Hägg (eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New Approaches, London, 1993, p. 46, fig. 3.1.

70Fig. 5 after N.D. Papachatzis, Παυσανίου Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις 5. Βοιωτιϰὰ ϰαὶ Φωϰιϰά, Athen, 1981, p. 318, fig. 365.

71Fig. 6 after M. Maass, Das antike Delphi. Orakel, Schätze und Monumente, Stuttgart, 1997, plan 2.

72Fig. 7 after B. Schmidt-Dounas, Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft. Politik und Selbst-darstellung im Spiegel der Monumente, Berlin, 2000, p. 204-205, fig. 65 and 66.

73Fig. 8 after I. Nielsen, Cultic Theatre and Ritual Drama. A Study in Regional Development and Religious Interchange Between East and West in Antiquity, Aarhus, 2002, p. 117, fig. 49.

74Fig. 9 after N.D. Papachatzis, λλάδος Περιήγησις Περιήλησις 4. Ἀχαϊϰά Ἀρϰαδιϰά, Athen, 1980, p. 332 fig. 323.

75Fig. 10 after CH. Bohtz, Das Demeterheiligtum, Berlin, 1981 (Altertümer von Pergamon XIII), Taf. 43.1.

76Fig. 11 after I. Nielsen, Cultic Theatre and Ritual Drama. A Study in Regional Development and Religious Interchange Between East and West in Antiquity, Aarhus, 2002, p. 136, fig. 62.

77Fig. 12 after J. Mylonopoulos, F. Bubenheimer, “Beiträge zur Topographie des Artemision von Brauron”, AA (1996), p. 9, fig. 1.

78Fig. 13 after L. Kahil, “L’Artémis de Brauron : rites et mystère”, AK 20 (1977), p. 86, fig. A-C.

79Fig. 14 after T. Hölscher, “Rituelle Räume und politische Denkmäler im Heiligtum von Olympia”, in H. Kyrieleis (ed.), Olympia 1875-2000. 125 Jahre Deutsche Ausgrabun-gen, Internationales Symposion, Berlin 9.-11. November 2000, Mainz, 2002, p. 337, fig- 3.

Notes

1 My thanks for many fruitful discussions are due especially to Dr. Fritz Blakolmer (Vienna), Prof. Angelos Chaniotis (Heidelberg), Dr. Bettina Kratzmüller (Vienna), Dr. Eftychia Stavrianopoulou (Heidelberg) and Dr. Elisabeth Trinkl (Vienna). I am very grateful indeed to Andrea Sulzgruber and Edith Hütter, the photographers at the Institute for Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna, for their revision of the illustrations.

Herodotus, IX, 36-41.

2 Xenophon, Anabasis VI, 4, 12-27.

3 Xenophon, Anabasis VI, 5, 2.

4 A ritual which is very much dependent on communication, and which has been investigated relatively intensively by researchers, is that of prayer, cf. FT. van Straten, “Did the Greeks Kneel Before Their Gods?”, BABesch 49 (1974), p. 159-189; H.S. Versnel, “Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer”, in id. (ed.), Faith, Hope, and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, Leiden, 1981 (Studies in Greek and Roman Religion, 2), p. 1-64; S. Pulleyn, Prayer in Greek Religion, Oxford, 1997; T.S. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild. Untersucbungen zur Funktion griechischer Kultbilder in Religion und Politik, Munich, 2000 (Zetemata, 105), p. 70-75; S. Bettinetti, La statua di culto nella pratica rituale greca, Bari, 2001, p. 161-174; T.S. Scheer, “Die Götter anrufen. Die Kontaktaufnahme zwischen Mensch und Gottheit in der griechischen Antike”, in K. Brodersen (ed.), Gebet und Fluch, Zeichen und Traum. Aspekte religioser Kommunikation in der Antike, Munster, 2001, p. 31-56; P. Lenant de Bfllefonds, s.v. “Rites et activités relatifs aux images de culte V. L’image de culte objet de vénération, lieu de prière, de supplication et de refuge”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 456-463.

5 For a special form of sacrificial meal, which cannot be discussed here, see: M.H. Jameson, “Theoxenia”, in R. Hägg (ed.), Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence. Proceedings of the 2r Intern. Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22-24 November 1991, Stockholm, 1994, p. 35-57; G. Ekroth, The Sacrificial Rituals of Greek Hero-Cults, Liège, 2002 (Kernos, suppl. 12), p. 276-286; L. bruit, F. LlSSARRAGUE, s.v. “Le banquet en Grèce I. Banquets des dieux C. Les Theoxenies”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 225-229.

6 On structuralism, cf. inter alia: M. Detienne, J.-P. Vernant, The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks, Chicago, 1989 (English transl. of La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, Paris, 1979); J.-P. Vernant, “Théorie générale du sacrifice et mise à mort dans la θυςία grecque”, in J.-P. Vernant (ed.), Le sacrifice dans lantiquité, Genève, 1981 (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 27), p. 1-21; J. Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique, Paris, 19922 [1958]. On evolutionism cf. inter alia: W. Burkert, Homo Necans: Interpretationen altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen, Berlin, 1972; R. Girard, La violence et le sacré, Paris, 1972; W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley, 1979; id., Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Cambridge, Mass., 1996.

7 W. Burkert, “Glaube und Verhalten: Zeichengehalt und Wirkungsmacht von Opferritualen”, in Vernant (ed.), o.c. (n. 6), p. 96: “doch bleibt er [i.e. functionalism] zumindest als heuristisches Prinzip gerade fur antike Gesellschaften wichtig.”

8 A. Henrichs, “Dromena und Legomena. Zum rituellen Selbstverständnis der Griechen”, in F. Graf (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Festschrift Walter Burkert, Stuttgart, 1998, p. 33-71. S.C. Humphreys, The Strangeness of Gods. Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion, Oxford, 2004, p. 223-275, following a long diachronic consideration of the Attic Anthesteria, maintains that dogmas did indeed exist in Greek religion; however, the author does not give us any clear evidence for this: “Jane Harrison and her contemporaries distinguished Greek religion from the religions of the book by claiming that it consisted of ritual without dogma. This dichotomy now seems totally misleading, being blind to the rich development in Greece of speculative theology” (p. 275).

9 F. van Straten, “The God’s Portion in Greek Sacrificial Representations: Is the Tail Doing Nicely?”, in R. Hägg et al. (eds), Early Greek Cult Practice. Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26-29 June 1986, Stockholm, 1988, p. 57-60; id., Hierà kalá. Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Leiden, 1995 (RGRW, 127), p. 118-144; K.W. Berger, Tieropfer auf griechischen Vasen, Würzburg, 1998, p. 125-140. See also: J. Gebauer, Pompe und Thysia. Attische Tieropferdarstellungen auf schwarz- und rotfigurigen Vasen, Münster, 2002 (EIKON 7), p. 352-354.

10 J. Forsèn et al., “The Sanctuary of Agios Elias. Its Significance, and Its Relations to Surrounding Sanctuaries and Settlements”, in T.H. Nielsen, J. Roy (eds), Defining Ancient Arkadia. Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 6, Copenhagen, 1999, p. 179.

11 J. Boessneck, Die Tierknochenfunde aus dem Kahirenheiligtum bei Theben (Böotien), Munich, 1973.

12 J. Boessneck, Knochenabfall von Opfermahlen und Weihgaben aus dem Heraion von Samos (7. Jh. v.Chr.), Munich, 1988.

13 A. Bammer et al., “Das Tieropfer am Artemisaltar von Ephesos”, in S. Şahin et al. (eds), Studien zur Religion und Kultur Kleinasiens I. Festschrift für K. Dörner, Leiden, 1978 (EPRO 66), p. 107-115; G. Forstenpointner et al, “Archäozoologische Untersuchungen zu den Formen des Tieropfers im Artemision von Ephesos”, in H. Friesinger, F. Krinzinger (eds), 100 Jahre Österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions Wien 1995. Vienna, 1999, p. 225-232.

14 R. Hägg, “Osteology and Greek Sacrificial Practice”, in id. (ed.), Ancient Cult Practice from the Archaeological Evidence. Proceedings of the 4th Intern. Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22-24 October 1993, Stockholm, 1998, p. 49-56.

15 For a general discussion of this issue, cf. J.N. Bremmer, “Modi di comunicazione con il divino: la preghiera, la divinazione ed il sacrificio nella civiltà greca”, in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci. Storia, Cultura, Arte, Societá I. Noi e i Greci, Turin, 1996, p. 248-279; F. Graf, “What is New About Greek Sacrifice”, in H.F.J. Horstmanshoff et al. (eds), Kykeon. Studies in Honour of H.S. Versnel, Leiden, 2002 (RGRW, 142), p. 113-125.

16 F. Bömer, s.v. “Pompa”, RE XXI 2 (1952), col. 1908.

17 Detailed depictions of processions which permit statements about the possible order within the participating groups are rare in red figure vase painting. A general discussion of representations of processions in M. True et al., s.v. “Greek Processions”, ThesCRA I (2004), p. 1-20.

18 Thucydides, VI, 57.

19 IG V 1, 1390. 28-34. (= LSCG 65, 92/91 BC). On the γυναιϰονόμοι see inter alia C. Wehrli, “Les gynéconomes”, MH 19 (1962), p. 33-38; B.J. Garland, Gynaikonomoi: An Investigation of Greek Censors of Women, Baltimore, 1981; M. Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, London, 2003, p. 290-291.

20 H. Laxander, Individuum und Gemeinschaft im Fest. Untersuchungen zu attischen Darstellungen von Festgeschehen im 6. und frühen 5. Jahrhundert v.Chr., Münster, 2000, p. 7-10; Gebauer, o.c. (n. 9), p. 28-34; True et al., l.c. (n. 17), p. 12, n° 67. Irrelevant in this context, and most probably quite misleading, is the assumption that the band cup in Paris has as a topic the Panathenaic procession, an assumption made by N. Himmelmann and others (N. Himmelmann, Tieropfer in der griechischen Kunst, Opladen, 1997, p. 22) as a matter of course.

21 W. Burkert, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart, 1977, p. 157.

22 R. Garland, “Priests and Power in Classical Athens”, in M. Beard, J. North (eds), Pagan Priests. Religion and Power in the Ancient World, London, 1990, p. 81. A differentiated idea of Greek priests as ritual experts is given by the following: E. Stavrianopoulou, “Priester gesucht, Erfahrung erwünscht!”, in C. Ambos et al. (eds), Die Welt der Rituale. Von der Antike bis heute, Darmstadt, 2005, p. 90-95; A. Chaniotis, “Priests as Ritual Experts in the Greek World”, in B. Dignas, K. Trampedach (eds), Practitioners of the Sacred: Greek Priests from Homer to Julian, Cambridge, Mass. (forthcoming).

23 Homer, Iliad VI, 293-299.

24 J.D. Beazley, “‘EΛENHΣ AΠAITHΣIΣ”, PBA 43 (1957), p. 233-244; M.I. Davies, “The Reclamation of Helen”, AK 20 (1977), p. 73-85.

25 A.G. Mantis, Προβλήματα της ειϰονογραϕίας των ιερειών ϰαι των ιερέων στην αρχαία ελληνιϰή τἐχνη, Athens, 1990, p. 40-65.

26 I.Delos 1891; 1892; 2081.

27 Mantis, o.c. (n. 25), p. 82-96.

28 M. Detienne, “The Violence of Wellborn Ladies: Women in the Thesmophoria”, in De-TIENNE, Vernant, o.c. (a. 6), p. 129-147; U. Kron, “Frauenfeste in Demeterheiligtumern. Das Thesmophorion von Bitalemi. Eine archaologische Fallstudie”, AA (1992), p. 611-650; R. Osborne, “Women and Sacrifice in Classical Greece”, CIQ 43 (1993), p. 392-405; H.S. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion II. Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual, Leiden, 1993, p. 235-274, 284-288. Interesting and unusual in this regard is the depiction on a red figure hydria from Nola (Berlin, Antikensammlung, Inv.-N° F 2386, ca. 440 BC), which shows two women sacrificing at a rock altar. The woman at the left is holding a sacrificial knife in her hand. Cf. E. Bohr, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Deutschland vol. 74. Berlin, Antikensammlung vol. 9: Attisch rotfigurige Hydrien- Attische Fimis-Hydrien, Munich, 2002, p. 45-47, pi. 23.

29 R. Lindner, “Priesterinnen. Bildzeugnisse zum griechischen Gotterkult”, in E. Klinger et al. (eds), Geschlechterdifferenz, Ritual und Religion, Würzburg, 2003, p. 61.

30 For the possibility of having a mageiros carry out the sacrifice, cf. G. Berthiaume, Les rôles du mágeiros. Étude sur la boucherie, la cuisine et le sacrifice dans la Grèce ancienne, Leiden, 1982 (Mnemosyne, suppl. 70), p. 17-40.

31 S. Eitrem, Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Römer, Hildesheim, rep. 1977 [19151, p. 76-77; Burkert, o.c. (n. 21), p. 102; S. Hotz, “Delphi – eine störrische Ziege und Priester unter Druck”, in Ambos et al. (eds), o.c. (n. 22), p. 102-105.

32 W. Burkert, too, who ascribes a communicative significance to the animal sacrifice in particular, because of collective guilt, acknowledges the identity forging characteristics of the sacrificial feast, cf. Burkert, o.c. (n. 21), p. 105: “Ist für mythische wie für begriffliche Reflexion problematisch, was solch ein Opfer den Gott angeht, so ist doch immer klar, was es für die Menschen bedeutet: Gemeinschaft, koinônia. Schon mit dem ‘Händewaschen’ ist die Zugehörig-keit markiert, dem Umkreisen, dem gemeinsamen Werfen; enger noch ist die Verbindung durch das ‘Kosten der splánchna’.”

33 P.schmitt Pantel, F. Lissarrague, s.v. “Le banquet en Grèce II. Les hommes au banquet D. Banquet des cites”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 239-247. cf also Ch. Orfanos, J.-C. Carriére (eds), Symposium. Banquet et représentations en Grèce et à Rome, Colloque international – Université de Toulouse-LeMirail, mars 2002, CRATA, Toulouse, 2003 (Pallas, 61).

34 E. Trinkl, Die Rolle des Splanchnoptes beim griechischen Opfer, unpubl. master’s thesis, Vienna, 1990; Laxander, o.c. (n. 20), p. 39-48.

35 L. Cerchiai, “II programma figurativo dell’hydria Ricci”, AK 38 (1995), p. 81-91; Gebauer, o.c. (n. 9), p. 324-330; A. Hermary et al., s.v. “Les sacrifices dans le monde grec I. Les sacrifices d’animaux H. Découpe, répartition des parts, modes de cuisson”, ThesCRA I (2004), p. 124, n° 535.

36 Himmelmann,o.c. (n. 20), p. 26 cautiously speaks of an “Opferherr”.

37 G.C. Nordquist, “Some Notes on Musicians in Greek Art”, in HÄGG (ed.), o.c. (n. 5), p. 87. On the function of musicians in Greek cult practice in general, cf. most recently H. Brand, Griechische Musikanten im Kult: von der Frühzeit bis zum Beginn der Spätklassik, Dettelbach, 2000; Z.D. Papadopoulou, s.v. “Greek Music II. Musicians in Cult”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 355-365; A. Goulaki-Voutira, Z.D. Papadopoulou, s.v. “Greek Music V. Kultische Anlässe mit Musik”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 371-382.

38 van Straten, o.c. (n. 9), p. 148-149.

39 C. Morgan, “Ritual and Society in the Early Iron Age Corinthia”, in Hägg (ed.), o.c. (n. 14), p. 77-80; ead., Isthmia VIII: The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary, Princeton, 1999, p. 373-377; J. Mylonopoulos, Πελοπόννησος οἰϰητήριον Ποσειδῶνος. Heiligtümer und Kulte des Poseidon aufder Peloponnes, Liege, 2003 (Kemos, suppl. 13), p. 162, 195.

40 H. Kyrieleis, “Zu den Anfangen des Heiligtums in Olympia”, in H. Kyrieleis (ed.), Olympia 1875-2000. 125 Jahre Deutsche Ausgrabungen, Internationales Symposion, Berlin 9.-11. November 2000, Mainz, 2002, p. 213-220; C. Morgan, Early Greek States Beyond the Polis, London, 2003, p. 107-134.

41 Chr. Börker, Festbankett und griechische Architektur, Konstanz, 1983 (Xenia, 4); P. schmitt Pantel, La cité au banquet. Histoire du repas publics dans les cites grecques, Rome, 1992 (Coll. de l’École française de Rome 157), p. 304-313. On the banquet room in Hellenistic times, more in private function, cf. K.M.D. Dunbabin, “Ut Graeco More Biberetur: Greeks and Romans on the Dining Couch”, in I. Nielsen, H.S. Nielsen (eds), Meals in a Social Context. Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World, Aarhus, 1998 (Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity, 1), p. 82-89.

42 L. Robert, “Un édifice du sanctuaire de l’Isthme dans une inscription de Corinthe”, Helleni-ca 1 (1940), p. 43-53; G. Kuhn, “Untersuchungen zur Funktion der Saulenhalle in archaischer und klassischer Zeit”, JDAI100 (1985), p. 171-172 with footnote 6.

43 J.J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa, Oxford, 1976, p. 85-89.

44 H.A. Thompson, “Activity in the Athenian Agora: 1966-1967, Hesperia 37 (1968), p. 43-56.

45 J. Mylonopoulos, F. Bubenheimer, “Beiträge zur Topographie des Artemision von Brau-ron”, AA (1996), p. 16-19; eid., “Die Stoa von Brauron. Gestalt und Funktion der altesten ri-förmigen Säulenhalle in Griechenland”, in F. Bubenheimer et al. (eds), Kult und Funktion griechischer Heiligtümer in archaischer und klassischer Zeit, Mainz, 1996, p. 45-60; P. Themelis, “Contribution to the Topography of the Sanctuary at Brauron”, in B. Gentili, F. Perusino (eds), Le orse di Brauron. Un rituale di iniziazione femminile nel santuario di Artemide, Pisa, 2002, p. 104-115; G. Ekroth, “Inventing Iphigeneia? On Euripides and the Cultic Construction of Brauron”, Kernos 16 (2003), p. 108-110.

46 A. frickenhaus, “Griechische Banketthäuser”, JDAI 32 (1917), p. 121-130; P. amandry, “Observations sur les monuments de l’Héraion dArgos”, Hesperia 21 (1952), p. 239-254; S. Miller, “The Date of the West Building at the Argive Heraion”, AJA 77 (1973), p. 9-18; Coulton, o.c. (n. 43), 103-104, 217.

47 E.R. Gebhard, “Caves and Cults at the Isthmian Sanctuary of Poseidon”, in R. HÄGG (ed.), Peloponnesian Sanctuaries and Cults, Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June 1994, Stockholm, 2002, p. 63-74.

48 Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 184-186. For an extensive discussion on the cult of Meliker-tes/Palaimon see CO. Pache, Baby and Child Heroes in Ancient Greece, Urbana/Chicago, 2004, p. 135-180.

49 Pausanias, II, 4, 7.

50 N. Bookidis, R.S. Stroud, Corinth XVIII, 3: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Topography and Architecture, Princeton, 1997, p. 8

51 P. Reichert-Südbeck, Kulte von Korinth und Syrakus. Vergleich zwischen einer Metropolis und ihrer Apoikia, Dettelbach, 2000, p. 219-258.

52 E.G. Pemberton, Corinth XVIII, 1: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. The Greek Pottery, Princeton, 1989, p. 19-25.

53 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 22-49.

54 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 86-94, 98-150.

55 N. Bookidis, “The Sanctuaries of Corinth”, in C.K. Williams II, N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth XX: Corinth, The Centenary 1896-1996, Princeton, 2003, p. 257.

56 Pausanias, II, 4, 7: ό δέ των Μοιρών και <ό> Δήμητρος και Κόρης οΰ ϕανερά εχουσι τα αγάλματα.

57 N. Bookidis, “Ritual Dining at Corinth”, in N. Marinatos, R. HÄgg (eds), Greek Sanctuaries. New Approaches, London, 1993, p. 50-51.

58 S.G. Cole, “Demeter in the Ancient Greek City and Its Countryside”, in S.E. Alcock, R. Osborne (eds), Placing the Gods. Sanctuaries and Space in Ancient Greece, Oxford, 1994, p. 213-214.

59 Chr. M. Thomas, “The Sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon: Cultic Space for Women and Its Eclipse”, in H. Koester (ed.), Pergamon, Citadel of the Gods. Archaeological Record, Literary Description, and Religious Development, Harrisburg, 1998, p. 277-298.

60 Schmitt Pantel o.c. (n. 41), p. 49-52, 415-418. She does not limit herself just to sacrificial meals, but also examines the mater of communal feasting in general. Nevertheless, many of her statements also describe the role of the sacrificial meal: “créer les conditions de la communauté, tisser le lien social” (p. 252).

61 M.H. jameson, “The Spectacular and the Obscure in Athenian Religion”, in S. Goldhill, R. Osborne (eds), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, Cambridge, 1999, p. 327-328.

62 A. Brumfield, “Aporreta: Verbal and Ritual Obscenity in the Cults of Ancient Women”, in R. Hagg (ed.), The Role of Religion in the Early Greek Polis, Proceedings of the 3nd Intern. Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 16-18 October 1992, Stockholm, 1996, p. 68-74; Dillon, o.c. (n. 19), p. 109-138.

63 P.A. Butz, “Prohibitionary Inscriptions, Ξένοι, and the Influence of the Early Greek Polis”, in Hägg (ed.), o.c. (n. 62), p. 75-95.

64 S. Krauter, Bürgerrecht und Kultteilnahme. Politische und kultische Rechte und Pflichten in griechischen Poleis, Rom und antikem Judentum, Berlin, 2004, p. 56-113. Krauter draws a very differentiated and profound picture of the exclusivity of Greek religion, showing that Greek religion was indeed not so exclusive as we assume.

65 F. Graf, “Zeichenkonzeption in der Religion der griechischen und römischen Antike”, in R. Posner et al. (eds), Semiotik. Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Naturund Kultur 1, Berlin, 1997, p. 943-944.

66 For a general survey of the manifold nature of Greek dedications cf. j. Boardman et al., s.v. “Greek Dedications II. Greek Votive Objects”, ThesCRA I (2004), p. 281-318.

67 On the communicative aspects of Greek dedicatory reliefs cf. most recently A. KlÖckner, “Menschlicher Gott und göttlicher Mensch? Zu einigen Weihreliefs fur Asklepios und die Nymphen”, in R. von den Hoff, S. Schmidt (eds), Konstruktionen von Wirklichkeit. Bilder im Griechenland des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., Stuttgart, 2001, p. 121-136; ead., “Votive als Gegenstände des Rituals – Votive als Bilder von Ritualen. Das Beispiel der griechischen Weihreliefs”, in J. Mylonopoulos, H. Roeder (eds), Archäologie und Ritual. Auf der Suche nach der rituellen Handlung in den antiken Kulturen Ägyptens und Griechenlands, Wien, 2006, p. 139-152.

68 For the Archaic period cf. the exemplary study by B. Wagner-Hasel, Der Stoff der Gaben. Kultur und Politik des Schenkens und Tauschens im arcbaischen Griechenland, Frankfurt, 2000.

69 On this issue in general cf. H. v. Hesberg, W. Thiel (eds), Medien in der Antike. Kommu-nikative Qualität und normative Wirkung, Köln, 2003.

70 Thucydides, II, 13, 2-5.

71 D.B. Thompson, “The Golden Nikai Reconsidered”, Hesperia 13 (1944), p. 173-208; W.E. Thompson, “The Golden Nikai and the Coinage of Athens”, NC 10 (1970), p. 1-6.

72 T. Linders, “Gods, Gifts, Society”, in T. Linders, G. Nordquist (eds), Gifts to the Gods. Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1985, Uppsala, 1987 (Boreas, 15), p. 115-122; ead., “Ritual Display and the Loss of Power”, in P. Hellström, B. Alroth (eds), Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World. Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1993, Uppsala, 1996 (Boreas, 24), p. 121-124. In general on Athens in the 4th century BC from the archaeological perspective cf. H. Knell, Athen im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. – Eine Stadt verändert ihr Gesicht. Archäologisch-kulturgeschichtliche Betrachtungen, Darmstadt, 2000.

73 I. Morris, “Circulation, Deposition, and the Formation of the Greek Iron Age”, Man 24 (1989), p. 502-519.

74 S. Hansen, “Weihegaben zwischen System und Lebenswelt” in H.-J. Gehrke, A. möller (eds), Vergangenheit und Lebenswelt. Soziale Kommunikation, Traditionsbildung und historisches Bewusstsein, Tübingen, 1996, p. 257-276.

75 J.W. Day, “Interactive Offerings: Early Greek Dedicatory Epigrams and Ritual”, HSPh 96 (1994), p. 37-74 (p. 72: “Then, the inscribed narrative of Mantiklos’ act is spoken aloud by our visitor, who is thus drawn more deeply into the interaction, becoming part of the dedication by lending a voice to the deferred utterance on it”).

76 A. Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World. A Social and Cultural History, Oxford, 2005, p. 143-148.

77 A. Jacquemin, Guerre et religion dans le monde grec (490-322 av.J.-C), Paris, 2000, p. 154-170.

78 A.H. Jackson, “Hoplites and the Gods: The Dedication of Captured Arms and Armour”, in V.D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience, London, 1991, p. 228-249. With particular reference to Hellenistic dedications of captured weapons cf. B. Schmidt-Dounas, Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft. Politik und Selbstdarstellung im Spiegel der Monumente, Berlin, 2000, p. 79-97.

79 A. Jackson, “Arms and Armour at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia”, in W. Coulson, H. Kyrieleis (eds), Proceedings of an International Symposium on the Olympic Games, 5-9 September 1988, Athens, 1992, p. 141-144.

80 P. Siewert, “Votivbarren und das Ende der Waffen- und Geräteweihungen in Olympia” MDAI(A) 111 (1996), p. 141-148.

81 Pausanias, X, 11, 6.

82 F. Felten, “Weihungen in Olympia und Delphi”, MDAI(A) 97 (1982), p. 79-97.

83 A. Jacquemin, Offrandes monumentales à Delphes, Paris, 1999 (BEFAR, 304), p. 258-259. A discussion of the dedications of victorious athletes in the great panhellenic sanctuaries, which likewise communicated with one another in a competitive sense (competition after the competition) would quite certainly exceed the limits of the present examination; for this cf. inter alia O. Peim, “Die Siegerstatuen von Schwerathleten in Olympia und ihre Zusammenstellung durch Pausanias”, Nikepboros 13 (2000), p. 95-109; T. Holscher, “Rituelle Räume und politische Denkmäler im Heiligtum von Olympia”, in Kyrieleis (ed.), o.c. (n. 40), p. 339-340.

84 Chr. Ioakimidou, Die Statuenreihen griechischer Poleis und Bünde aus spätarcbaischer und klassischer Zeit, München, 1997, p. 322-335.

85 T. HÖlscher, “Die Nike der Messenier und Naupaktier in Olympia. Kunst und Geschichte im späten 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, JDAI 89 (1974), p. 72-84; C. ThÖne, Ikonographische Studien zu Nike im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Untersuchungen zur Wirkungsweise und Wesensart, Heidelberg, 1999, p. 117-118.

86 G. Roux, Fouilles de Delphes II: La terrasse d’Attale I, Paris, 1987.

87 G. roux, “La terrasse d’Attale I à Delphes”, BCH 76 (1952), p. 185-195 interprets the ca. 27 m long foundation as the base of a statue. Against this, A. Jacquemin, D. Laroche, “La terrasse dAttale F revisitée”, BCH 116 (1992), p. 234-236/248-250 and Schmidt-Dounas, o.c. (n. 78), p. 192-193 see a long altar here, which they very cautiously link with the great sacrifice at the grave of the hero Neoptolemos (Heliodoros, Aithiop. III, 1-5).

88 H.-J. Schalles, Untersuchungen zur Kulturpolitik der pergamenischen Herrscher im dritten Jahrhundert vor Christus, Tübingen, 1985 (Istanbuler Forschungen 36), p. 106-116.

89 Pausanias, I, 4, 4.

90 W. Hoepfner, Zwei Ptolemaierbauten. Das Ptolemaier-Weihgeschenk in Olympia und ein Bauvorhaben in Alexandria, Berlin, 1971 (MDAI/AJ, Beiheft 1), p. 11-54. 91schmidt-dounas, o.c. (n. 78), p. 203-204.

91 Schmidt-Dounas, o.c. (n. 78), p. 203-204.

92 On the integration of the observer in the action represented, and who almost becomes a part of the action in his imagination – with particular reference to the art of Hellenism – cf. most recently G. Zanker, Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art, Madison Wisc, 2004.

93 CM. Keesling, The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 97-161.

94 M. Stieber, The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai, Austin, 2004, p. 135-140.

95 J.-L. Durand, “Ritual as Instrumentality”, in Detienne, Vernant, o.c. (n. 6), p. 119: “To celebrate a rite is to do something. … The spatial distribution of actors and actions, the layout of the space itself, the unfolding and organization of the series of movements, the atmosphere and geography of the rite – all are critical.”

96 E. Lupu, Greek Sacred Law. A Collection of New Documents (NGSL), Leiden, 2005 (RGRW, 152), p. 96-100.

97 A. Henrichs, “Drama and Dromena: Bloodshed, Violence, and Sacrificial Metaphor in Euripides”, HSPh 100 (2000), p. 176 writes, with regard to the representation of rituals in the tragedies: “Rituals chiefly supported by words and gestures such as lament, supplication, or solemn curses were easy to represent and were frequently reenacted in the theater”. He defines rituals such as animal sacrifices or libations, however, as “predominantly non-verbal and action- oriented”. It should rather be assumed that all rituals were a mixture of gesture and verbal communication, and that δρώμενον and λεγόμενον are not antithetic, but complementary.

98 On ritual drama in Eleusis cf. K. Clinton, Myth and Cult. The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Stockholm, 1992, p. 84-90. An exciting parallel occurs in Egypt: Herodotus refers in his Histories (II, 171) to Osirian mysteries at the Egyptian city of Saïs as being actually performed by night, most probably in the sense of a ritual drama: τὰ δείϰηλα τῶν παθέων αὐτοῦ νυϰτὸς ποιεῦσι, τὰ ϰαλέουσι μυστήρια Αἰγύπτιοι.

99 C. Calame, Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions, Lanham, 1997, p. 90-206 (Engl, transl. of Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque, Rome, 1977).

100 Jameson, l.c. (n. 61), p. 321-340.

101 D. Wiles, Tragedy in Athens-. Performance, Space, and Theatrical Meaning, Cambridge, 1997 [p. 111: “There was no sharp dividing line between reality on the one hand, myth and ritual on the other. The men who acted before the audience were also co-celebrants with the audience”].

102 On pictures and their possibilities or limitations as communicative carriers of ‘religious’ thought content via the pictorial transmission of myths cf. inter alia M.D. Stansbury -O’Donnell, Pictorial Narrative in Ancient Greek Art, Cambridge, 1999; N. Marinatos, “The Life Cycle of the Archaic Greek Warrior and Hero. The Interplay of Myth and Genre in Imagery”, in S. des Bouvrie. (ed.), Myth and Symbol I. Symbolic Phenomena in Ancient Greek Culture, Papers from the First International Symposium on Symbolism at the University of Tromsø, June 4-7, 1998, Bergen, 2002, p. 153-170; L. Giuuani, Bild und Mythos. Geschichte der Bilderzählung in der griechischen Kunst, München, 2003; S. Woodford, Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge, 2003- On depictions (in the context of the grave, the wedding, the Anthesteria, and the world of women) on Attic vases and their communicative reach cf. most recently S. Schmidt, Rhetorische Bilder auf attischen Vasen. Visuelle Kommunikation im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Berlin, 2005.

103 G. Bakir, Sophilos. Ein Beitrag zu seinem Stil, Mainz, 1981.

104 The fact that the Greek agones were no sports competition in the modern sense, but rather an integral part of religious action, need not be gone into at this point; for this, cf. inter alia E. Pemberton, “Agones Hieroi. Greek Athletic Contests in Their Religious Context”, Nikephoros 13 (2000), p. 111-123; S.G. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics, New Haven, 2004.

105 U. Kenzler, Studien zur Entwicklung und Struktur der griechischen Agora in archaischer und klassischer Zeit, Frankfurt, 1999, p. 219-224.

106 I. Nielsen, Cultic Theatres and Ritual Drama. A Study in Regional Development and Religious Interchange between East and West in Antiquity, Aarhus, 2002 (Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity, 4); Th. Becker, Griechische Stufenanlagen. Untersuchungen zur Architektur, Entwicklungsgeschichte, Funktion und Repräsentation, Münster, 2003, p. 217-259.

107 Bookidis, Stroud, o.c. (n. 50), p. 433.

108 Bookidis, l.c. (n. 57), p. 50.

109 Becker, o.c. (n. 106), p. 237.

110 M. Jost, Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie, Paris, 1985, p. 172-179.

111 Nielsen, o.c. (n. 106), p. 108. The author even supposes – ignoring the archaeological evidence -, that the steps originally continued to the east.

112 Becker, o.c. (n. 106), p. 234.

113 The assumption that the door in the south wall of the cult building “diente unter Umstän-den nur zum Verlassen des Tempels” (Becker, o.c. [n. 106], p. 235 with note 1151) does appear rather simplistic.

114 On the cult and mythical connections of Demeter with Poseidon in the Peloponnessos cf. Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 407-408.

115 Pausanias, VIII, 37, 9.

116 M. jost, “Mystery Cults in Arcadia”, in M.B. Cosmopoulos (ed.), Greek Mysteries. The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults, London, 2003, p. 143-168.

117 C.H. Bohtz, Das Demeterheiligtum, Berlin, 1981 (Altertiimer von Pergamon, XIII), p. 36-38. The excavator classifies the monumental stairway as belonging to his “Baustufe 3” [p. 57-58), which he regards as purely philetairic.

118 Thomas, l.c. (n. 59), p. 283-289.

119 H. Hepding, “Die Arbeiten zu Pergamon 1908-1909: II. Die Inschriften”, MDAI(A) 35 (1910), p. 437-438, n° 22: Φιλέταιρς ϰαὶ Ε]ὐμένης ὑπὲρ τῆς μη[τρὸ]ς Δήμητρι; p. 438, n° 23: Φιλέ | ταιρος ϰαὶ Εὐμέ | νης ὑπὲρ τῆς μητ |ρ]ὸς Δήμη | τρι.

120 Hepding, l.c. (n. 119), p. 439-442, n° 24: Βαςίλισσα Ἀπολλωνὶς Δήμηπρι ϰ[α]ὶ Κόρηι Θεσμοϕόροις | χαρισιήριον τὰς στοὰς ϰαὶ τοὺς οἴϰους.

121 Thomas, l.c. (n. 59), p. 289-295.

122 K. lehmann, D. spittle, Samothrace 4, II: The Altar Court, New York, 1964.

123 On the controversial issue whether Arrhidaios was indeed the financier of the ‘altar court’ or rather an unknown person under the name of Adaios see the recapitulatory remarks in K. Bkingmann, H. v. Steuben (eds), Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer. Teil I: Zeugnisse und Kommentare, Berlin, 1995, p. 261 KNr 233 [E].

124 F. Chapouthier et.al, “Le theatre de Samothrace”, BCH 80 (1956), p. 118-146.

125 Dymas: IG XII 8, p. 38. Herodes: F. Hiller von Gaertringen (ed.), Inschriften von Priene, Berlin, 1906, p. 66-68, n°s 68-70. A. Chaniotis, Historie und Historiker in den griechischen Inschriften. Epigraphische Beiträge zur griechischen Historiographie, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 342-343 (Herodes), 345-346 (Dymas).

126 Nielsen, o.c. (n. 106), p. 134-136. Something similar is assumed for the so-called. Hall of Choral Dancers (presumably the Telesterion). Very probably the wedding of Kadmos and Harmonia was shown to the mystai in this building in the form of a ritual drama, cf. K. Clinton, “Stages of Initiation in the Eleusinian and Samothracian Mysteries”, in Cosmopoulos (ed.), o.c. (n. 116), p. 67-70.

127 Ch. Bouras, Ἡἀναστήλωσις τῆς Στοᾶς τῆς Βραυρῶνος. Τὰ ἀρχιτεϰτονιϰά της προβλήματα, Athens, 1967 (AD, suppl. 11).

128 F. Bubenheimer, J. Mylonopoulos, “Die Stoa von Brauron. Gestalt und Funktion der altesten n-förmigen Saulenhalle in Griechenland”, in Bubenheimer et al., o.c. (n. 45), p. 45-60.

129 Ergon 1958, p. 37.

130 On the inexhaustible subject of the Brauronic Arkteia cf. inter alia P. Brulé, La fille d’Athenes. La religion desfilles a Athènes à I’époque classique. Mythes, cultes et société, Paris, 1987, p. 225-261; Chr. Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls’ Transitions. Aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic Iconography, Athens, 1988; K. Waldner, “Kulträume von Frauen in der Antike: Das Beispiel der Artemis Brauronia”, in Th. SpAth, B. Wagner-Hasel (eds), Frauenwelten in der Antike. Geschlechterordnung und weibliche Lebenspraxis, Darmstadt, 2000, p. 53-81; Gentili Perusino, o.c. (n. 45).

131 Souda, s.v Ἄρϰτος ἤ Βραυρωνίοις (ed. ADLER I [1928], p. 361)

132 The interpretation of the marble statues of girls from Brauron (4th cent.) as arktoi is not such a matter of course as is frequently assumed, cf. most recently W. Burkert, s.v. “Initiation V. Pubertätsweihen B. Brauron und Verwandtes”, ThesCRA II (2004), p. 121, n° 255), for there are also statues of boys and small children which cannot be connected to the Arkteia, cf. P.G. Themelis, Brauron. Führer durch das Heiligtum und das Museum, Athen, 1971, p. 67-71.

133 L. Kahil, “Autour de lArtémis attique”, AK 8 (1965), p. 20-33.

134 Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 645.

135 Miller, o.c. (n. 104), p. 158.

136 L. Palaiokrassa, Tὸ ἱερὸ τῆς Ἀρτέμιρος Μουνιχίας, Athens, 1991.

137 E. Simon, Festivals of Attica. An Archaeological Commentary, Madison Wisc, 1983, p. 87-88; Th.F. Scanlon, Eros and Greek Athletics, Oxford, 2002, p.139-174 also assumes a ritual mimesis of the aitiological myth of the Arkteia, but sees Kallisto and Arkas in the figures on the vase fragments mentioned (p. 154).

138 l. Kahil, “l’Artémis de Brauron: rites et mystère”, AK 20 (1977), 92-93; Brulé o.c. (n. 130), p. 254.

139 One could even imagine that such a mimetic action was not only a part of the Arkteia, but also of the Brauronia, so that the aitiological myth of the Arkteia would additionally have been better shown to the male visitors of the sanctuary in a quasi-dramatic performance.

140 L. Kahil, “Quelques exemples de vases de mariage a Brauron”, in v. Ch. Petrakos (ed.), Ἔπαινος Ἰωάννου Κ. Παπαδημτρίου, Athens, 1997, p. 390-404 perceives, in the depictions on a fragmentarily preserved lebes gamikos from Brauron (4th cent., perhaps from the Stoa), the final phase of the initiation ritual, the festival prior to leaving the sanctuary, which, to judge from the scenes depicted, may have consisted at least partly of a ritual dance: on the foot of the vessel two young girls are shown dancing around a tripod (p. 393, fig. 21).

141 It would, for example, be extremely interesting to investigate the question of whether the representations of myths on Greek vases do not have – at least partly – their source of inspiration in such mimetic cult actions, cf. D. Metzler, “Einfluss der Pantomime auf die Vasenbilder des 6. und 5. Jhds. v. Chr.”, in C. BÉrard et al. (eds), Images et société en Grèce ancienne. L’icono-graphie comme méthode d’analyse. Actes du colloque international de Lausanne, 8-11 février 1984, Lausanne, 1987 (Cahiers d’archéol. romande, 36), p. 73-77. Most examinations of intermediality (e.g. Giuliani, o. c. [n. 102]) concentrate on the mutual effect of the literary ‘model’ and visual media.

142 Bomer, l.c. (n. 16), col. 1886.

143 Ch. Tsochos, Πομπὰς πέμπειν. Prozessionen von der minoischen bis zur klassischen Zeit in Griechenland, Thessaloniki, 2002 [non vidi].

144 J. Bremmer, “Ritual”, in S.I. Johnston (ed.), Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, Cambridge Mass., 2004, p. 39-41 [p. 39: “as pure show the procession of a Roman triumph was evidently far superior to a procession for a Greek sacrifice”].

145 Kuhn, l.c. (n. 42), p. 287-307.

146 G.C. Nordquist, “Instrumental Music in Representations of Greek Cult”, in R. HÄGG (ed.), The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Period, Liege, 1992 (Kernos, suppl. 1), p. 143-168. See also footnote 37.

147 Polyainos, V, 5: νόμῳ πομπῆς βαδίζοντες.

148 A. Kavoulaki, “Processional Performance and the Democratic Polis” in Goldhill -Osborne (eds), o.c. (n. 61), p. 293-320; ead., “The Ritual Performance of a Pompê: Aspects and Perspectives”, in A. Serghidou (ed.), Δώρημα. A Tribute to the A.G. Leventis Foundation on the Occasion of Its 20th Anniversary, Nicosia, 2000, p. 145-158.

149 E.E. Rice, The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Oxford, 1983; Ch. Wikander, “Pomp and Circumstance. The Procession of Ptolemaios II”, OpAth 19 (1992), p. 143-150. Especially Wikander emphasises the importance of communication between the king, the crowd and the deities during the procession of Ptolemy II Philadelphos.

150 D. Wiles, A Short History of Western Performance Space, Cambridge, 2003, p. 69-71.

151 Athenaios, V, 196-203.

152 A. Chaniotis, “Sich selbst feiern? Städtische Feste des Hellenismus im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik”, in M. Wörrle, P. Zänker (eds), Stadtbild und Bürgerbild im Hellenismu, München, 1995 (Vestigia, 47) , p. 162; id., “Theatricality beyond the Theater: Staging Public Life in the Hellenistic World”, in B. Le Guen (ed.), De la scène aux gradins. Théâtre et représentations dramatiques après Alexandre le Grand dans les cités hellénistiques. Actes du Colloque de Toulouse 1997, Toulouse, 1998 (Pallas, 47) , p. 247 with older literature.

153 F. Graf, “Pompai in Greece. Some Considerations about Space and Ritual in the Greek Polis”, in Hägg (ed.), o.c. (n. 62 ) , p. 55-65.

154 M. Dillon, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece, London, 1997.

155 Graf, l.c. (n. 153), p. 61-64; N.D. Robertson, “The Two Processions to Eleusis and the Program of the Mysteries”, AJPh 119 (1998) , p. 547-575.

156 D. Peppa-Delmousou, “The Theoria of Brauron”, in Hägg et al. (eds), o.c. (n. 9), p. 255-258.

157 J.M. Hall, “How Argive Was the “Argive” Heraion? The Political and Cultic Geography of the Argive Plain, 900-400 B.C.”, AJA 99 (1995), p. 592-606.

158 Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 221, 314-315.

159 A. Herda, “Von Milet nach Didyma. Eine griechische Prozessionsstraße in archaischer Zeit”, in Bubenheimer et al. (eds), o.c. (n. 4 5 ) , p. 133-152; S. Georgoudi, “La procession chantante des Molpes de Milet”, in P. Brulé, Chr. Vendries (eds), Chanter les dieux. Musique et religion dans l’antiquité grecque et romaine. Actes du colloque des 16, 17 et 18 décembre 1999,

Rennes, 2001, p. 153-171.

160 S. Müller, “Der Ausgangspunkt der panathenäischen Prozession”, in Bubenheimer et al. (eds), o.c. (n. 45), p. 153-164; J. Neils (ed.), Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon, Madison Wisc, 1996; L. Maurizio, “The Panathenaic Procession: Athens’ Participatory Democracy on Display?”, in D. Boedeker, K.A. Raaflaub (eds), Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens, Cambridge Mass., 1998, p. 297-317. M.E. de la Nuez Pérez, “Las Panateneas: topografía de una fiesta”, Gerión 22 (2004), p. 101-120 has most recently argued quite persuasively that the Panathenaic procession fulfilled, among other things, the important function of conjoining all symbolically significant points in the topography of Athens.

161 On the various reconstructions of the course of this procession cf. inter alia H. Engelmann, “Philostrat und Ephesos”, ZPE 108 (1995), p. 77-85; D. Knibbe, “Via Sacra Ephesiaca: New Aspects of the Cult of Artemis Ephesia”, in H. Koester (ed.), Ephesos Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture, Valley Forge, 1995, p. 141-155; id., “Topographica Ephesiaca. Damianosstoa, Androklosgrab – Olympieion und Koressos”, JÖAI 71 (2002), p. 207-219.

162 T. Hölscher, Öffentliche Räume in frühen griechischen Städten, Heidelberg, 1998.

163 Pausanias, V, 13-15.

164 Holscher, o.c. (n. 83), p. 336-338; Mylonopoulos, o.c. (n. 39), p. 136-140, 331-332.

165 Pindar, Olympia V, 10; Schol. Pind. Ol. V, 10c.

166 The arrangement of the divine couples does in fact seem nearly random. The only couple that makes sense with regard to an inner connection is Kronos and Rhea. Connecting Zeus and Hera, Poseidon and Athena, or Apollon and Artemis would certainly be more understandable. Clearly the Olympic double altars reveal a local Elean view of the divinities honoured, which is very different from the Panhellenic normative idea of these divine figures. Hölscher, o.c. (n. 83), p. 338 attempts to explain these pairings somewhat too confidently: “Zeus als Herrn des Heiligtums mit Poseidon, beide mit Beinamen Laoitas, Beschützer des männlichen (Krieger-) Volkes; Hera als Herrin der Altis mit Athena, die weiblichen Pendants der beiden männlichen Götter; Apollon und Hermes als Götter der athletischen männlichen Jugend; Dionysos und Chariten als Gottheiten der Festesfreude; Artemis und Alpheios als Mächte der naturhaften Umwelt; Kronos und Rhea als urtümliche Vorbesitzer des Ortes”. But Zeus cannot be separated from his epiklesis (P. Brulé, “Le langage des épiclèses dans le polythéisme hellénique (l’exemple de quelques divinités féminines)”, Kernos 11 (1998), p. 19], and Zeus Laoitas was certainly not the major divinity of the sanctuary in Olympia. The question seems pertinent as to why Athena of all goddesses should have been assigned to Poseidon, for, despite their close mythological relationship, these two divinities occur together in the Peloponnesos only in Arkadian Asea and in the Agora of Sparta. Demeter would be far more suitable for Poseidon on Peloponnesian soil. If one were to look for the protectors of athletic youth, Herakles and Hermes would occur to one far sooner than Apollon and Hermes. It would appear to be extremely unlikely that in the case of the Olympic double altars any sort of general statement (Dionysos = the joy of the festival, Artemis = nature) could help, as we must assume that here Pausanias mentions a kind of local ‘theogony’ which we cannot fully grasp, owing to the fragmentary situation of our sources. In my opinion, Strabo (VIII, 3, 12) indicates something of this, when he says that there had been a sacred grove of Artemis Alpheiona or Alpheiousa where the Alpheios enters the Sicilian sea.

167 Maurizio, o.c. (n. 160), p. 309-313.

168 V. Rosenberger, “Orakelsprüche und Weihgeschenke: Delphi als Kristallisationspunkt griechischer Identitäten”, in von den Hoff, Schmidt (eds), o.c. (n. 67), p. 107-119.

169 W.R. Connor, “Tribes, Festivals and Processions; Civic Ceremonial and Political Manipulation in Archaic Greece”, JHS 107 (1987), p. 46.

170 Xenophon Ephesios, ephesiac. I, 2, 2-3. cf. also Calame o.c. (n. 99), p. 93-96.

List of illustrations

Caption Fig. 1: Attic black figure band cup (ca. 560/50 BC, Niarchos Collection, Paris)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-1.jpg
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Caption Fig. 2: Late Corinthian crater (ca. 570 BC, Astarita Collection no. 565, Vatican)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-2.jpg
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Caption Fig. 3: The so-called Ricci hydria (ca. 530/20 BC, Villa Giulia, Rome)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-3.jpg
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Caption Fig. 4: The sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on the Akrokorinth. Plan (ca. 400 BC)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-4.jpg
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Caption Fig. 5: Reconstruction of the sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi. Detail
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-5.jpg
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Caption Fig. 6: The sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi. Plan
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-6.jpg
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Caption Fig. 7: The Ptolemaean votive offering at Olympia
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-7.jpg
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Caption Fig. 8: Spectator’s stand on a dinos by Sophilos. Drawing (ca. 570 BC, National Museum no. 15499. Athens)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-8.jpg
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Caption Fig. 9: The sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosoura. Plan
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-9.jpg
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Caption Fig. 10: The sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon. Plan (first half of the 2nd cent. BC)
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-10.jpg
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Caption Fig. 11: Altar court’ and theatre at the sanctuary of the Kabiroi on Samothrake. Plan
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-11.jpg
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Caption Fig. 12: The sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron. Plan
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-12.jpg
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Caption Fig. 13: Krateriskoi found at Brauron. Drawing:
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-13.jpg
File image/jpeg, 182k
Caption Fig. 14: Reconstruction of the course of the “altar procession” at Olympia. After T. Hölscher
URL http://books.openedition.org/pulg/docannexe/image/1135/img-14.jpg
File image/jpeg, 200k

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