The Akragas Dialogue

New investigations on sanctuaries in Sicily

Monica De Cesare, Elisa Chiara Portale, Natascha Sojc, Monica De Cesare, Elisa Chiara Portale, Natascha Sojc

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9783110497687
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art
• Index: Social Sciences

The papers of this volume focus on the sacred landscapes of ancient Sicily. Religious and cultural dimensions of Greek sanctuaries are assessed in light of the results of recent exacavations and new readings of literary sources. The material dimension of cult practices in ancient sanctuaries is the central issue of all contributions, with a focus on the findings from ancient Akragas. Great attention is also paid to past ritual activities, which are framed in three complementary areas of enquiry. Firstly, the architectural setting of sanctuaries is examined beyond temple buildings to assess the wider context of their structural and spatial complexity. Secondly, the material culture of votive deposition and religious feasting is analysed in terms of performative characteristics and through the lens of anthropological approaches. Thirdly, the significance of gender in cultic practice is investigated in light of the fresh data retrieved from the field. The new findings presented in this volume contribute to close the existing research gaps in the study of sanctuaries in Sicily, as well as the wider practice of Greek religion.

1 Closing in on the Gods. Indirect Communication Between Mortals and Immortals

Jenny Wallensten

Note: I wish to warmly thank the organizers for the invitation to participate in the Akragas Dialogues, for their hospitality, the wonderful program and their patience with my contribution.

Abstract

The Greeks perceived a great divide between humans and gods. Intentional ritual celebrations (e.g. sacrifice, dedications, prayers) formed constant and direct interactions that could bridge this gap. This paper discusses other ways of communicating with the gods. The first case study examines a secondary stage in the habit of offering portrait sculptures to the gods. The second case study concerns the habit of giving humans divine names. Thus, the two studies explore ways in which humans could interact indirectly with the divine: on a more personal level and through individual initiatives.

Keywords: Dedications, Votive sculpture, Theonyms, Kalaureia, Ritual communication,

Introduction

The ancient Greeks perceived a great divide between humans and gods: the abyss between beings of mortal and immortal nature. The gods did not suffer ageing, that sad lot of men, nor sickness. They did not have to eat and drink for survival and they did not depend on the physical surroundings for sustenance. Both myth and sanctuary regulations make clear that those moments that define the human mortal condition, death and birth, brought pollution to their sanctuaries.¹ And yet, in spite of this deadly difference, gods were so like the men and women who worshiped them! Gods had (or rather could take) a human body, albeit a bigger, more beautiful and delightfully scented one. They spoke human tongues and felt sexual desire for humans, a desire provoked by the same physical traits that mortal men and women found attractive among themselves.²

This fundamental ontological difference between momentary and eternal beings was thus a line that seems meant to be crossed. The abyss of immortality did not hinder frequent, varied, and often intimate interaction between gods and humans. Literature tells us how gods frequently took the initiative to leave Olympus in order to enter the world of humans. Divinities entered the mortal realm to help or harm humans, or simply to enjoy their company, sometimes to the point of procreating children. From another angle and in different words epigraphy tells us a similar story: a narrative of human – divine communication through dreams, or sudden awesome epiphanies.³ Humans for their part also initiated contact, of course. They approached their gods with sacrifices and gifts, with questions and appeal for cures. In response the gods, from their mightier position, could choose to reciprocate or not, to reveal themselves in full epiphany, or not answer at all. Human-divine interaction was never a relationship between equal partners. But in spite of their power, gods were arguably still dependent on attention from their worshippers. Poetry illustrates the influence of human ritual acts on the wellbeing of the gods; for example, they were not well when Demeter’s anger over the rape of her daughter caused men to starve and thereby became unable to present the gods with proper honours.⁴ Poseidon leaves Ilion when the city has fallen, expecting that his worship will wane.⁵ It even seems that attention from humans enhanced the status of the gods amongst their clan. Hermes is prepared to steal the gifts men have bestowed on Apollo, in order to establish and increase his own honour. He angrily asks his mother Maia why they of all gods should go “unfeed with offerings and prayers”:⁶ Kallimachos’ Artemis, on the lap of her father Zeus, asks to be a goddess of many names: her worshippers will thus be all the more numerous and Apollo will not vie with her.⁷ Again the material record corroborates literature: the archaeological sources also indicate that human activity affected the gods. Our records show no evidence of private dedication to Athena Hygieia after 420/419 B.C., which is when Epidaurian Asklepios enters the Athenian pantheon.⁸ Another Athenian South slope cult, the prenuptial worship of Nymphe, attested since the 7^th cent. B.C., ceases or relocates in the 2^nd or 1^st cent. B.C., and we subsequently find a Roman house constructed on top of her previously popular sanctuary.⁹ Did prenuptial worshipers turn towards Aphrodite Pandemos slightly higher up on the southwest Acropolis,¹⁰ or to Aphrodite Ourania, recipient of a proteleia for marriage from at least the early 4^th cent. B.C.?¹¹ Moreover, several recent studies show how worshipers, through their apparel and votive material, i.e., inanimate objects brought to a sanctuary by votaries, have the power to affect the character of a god. Cécile Durvye has shown how a small private sanctuary, where Aphrodite initially was honoured as a protectress of magistrates, changes into the cult of an Aphrodite to whom one turns for issues regarding family and private matters.¹² As Athens takes control of Delos, the change in status of the sanctuary is accompanied by a change in the makeup of the worshipping community. Dedicants arrive with no understanding of the family, nor family history that initially had shaped the sanctuary. So the gifts they now brought to the sacred space mirrored their own previous ideas of Aphrodite. The new offerings that began to crowd the sanctuary soon illustrated this conception instead of the old one. In the same vein, Robin Osborne has highlighted the way the dress and appearance of the worshipers influence the understanding of the god celebrated.¹³

Many kinds of interaction, then, bridged the gap between mortals and immortals, entangled them in a flow that went both ways and affected both sides albeit in various ways. To a large extent, this interaction mortals – immortals took the form of ritual celebration-communication defined in a broad sense: sacrifice, dedications, prayers, singing and dancing for the gods, etc. Thereby an obvious topographical focal point in this relationship were sanctuaries, temples and altars, where men and women sought out the divine, and gods came ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Note from the Editors
• Introduction
• 1 Closing in on the Gods. Indirect Communication Between Mortals and Immortals
• 2 Identifier Déméter Thesmophoros et son culte en Sicile à partir des données matérielles
• 3 Dedicants, Offerings, and Sacrifice The Value of the Images
• 4 Introduction to the Study of Sacred Spaces in Ancient Agrigento
• 5 Il santuario di Zeus Olympios ad Agrigento: al di là del tempio monumentale
• 6 Sacelli dimenticati nell’area urbana di Akragas
• 7 Nuove considerazioni sul tempietto tripartito ad Est di Porta V
• 8 Investigating the Terracotta Roofs of Akragas
• 9 The ‘Upper Sanctuary of Demeter’ at S. Biagio in Akragas: A Review
• 10 Le offerte di manufatti bronzei nella pratica votiva agrigentina
• 11 Depositions of Sacrificial Material and Feasting Remains from the Extra-Urban Sanctuary of S. Anna (Agrigento) Appendix: A Note on Characteristic Finds by Linda Adorno
• 12 Sometimes Pigs Fly S. Anna Zooarch Project – Preliminary Results (Seasons 2015–2016)
• 13 Depositional Practices in the Bitalemi Sanctuary in the Archaic Period: Form and Interpretation
• 14 Il santuario di Zeus Meilichios a Selinunte: Dati e materiali inediti per la rilettura del contesto
• 15 I santuari di Demetra Malophoros e Zeus Meilichios a Selinunte: Le nuove indagini
• 16 The New Investigations of the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU in the Main Urban Sanctuary of Selinunte
• 17 New Evidence for Sacred Structures and Ritual Practices in Himera, Piano del Tamburino – Urbanistic Considerations
• 18 A Typology of Votive Offerings: Observations Regarding a Sacred Area on the Piano del Tamburino, Himera
• 19 Rites and Mysteries on the Acropolis of Akrai: Preliminary Remarks on a New Sanctuary Dedicated to the Cult of Demeter and Kore
• Index