Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World

Jan N. Bremmer

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9783110376999
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Altertum

The ancient Mysteries have long attracted the interest of scholars, an interest that goes back at least to the time of the Reformation. After a period of interest around the turn of the twentieth century, recent decades have seen an important study of Walter Burkert (1987). Yet his thematic approach makes it hard to see how the actual initiation into the Mysteries took place. To do precisely that is the aim of this book.

It gives a 'thick description' of the major Mysteries, not only of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, but also those located at the interface of Greece and Anatolia: the Mysteries of Samothrace, Imbros and Lemnos as well as those of the Corybants. It then proceeds to look at the Orphic-Bacchic Mysteries, which have become increasingly better understood due to the many discoveries of new texts in the recent times. Having looked at classical Greece we move on to the Roman Empire, where we study not only the lesser Mysteries, which we know especially from Pausanias, but also the new ones of Isis and Mithras. We conclude our book with a discussion of the possible influence of the Mysteries on emerging Christianity.

Its detailed references and up-to-date bibliography will make this book indispensable for any scholar interested in the Mysteries and ancient religion, but also for those scholars who work on initiation or esoteric rituals, which were often inspired by the ancient Mysteries.

Appendix 1: Demeter and Eleusis in Megara

For Giulia Sfameni Gasparro

Robert Parker has demonstrated the importance of focussing on local cults in his impressive studies of Athenian religion,⁹¹⁵ so it may be useful to look at the place and the function of the goddess Demeter in a city close to Athens: Megara. The last time that Megarian Demeter was analysed at any length was by the Swedish ancient historian Krister Hanell (1904–1970).⁹¹⁶ Our material has hardly increased since, but the flourishing of the study of Greek religion in recent decades does enable us to look at the existing evidence with new eyes, and this may perhaps lead to some new insights. As always, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

1 The temples of Demeter

At one time Demeter was the most important divinity of Megara. This is clear from the fact that Demeter was closely connected with the foundation of Megara. Pausanias, our most informative source of Megarian religious and mythological traditions, relates: ‘they say that the city received its present name in the time of Car, the son of Phoroneus, who was the king in this land. It was then, for the first time, that the people erected sanctuaries for Demeter, then that the mortals called them Megara. This is what the Megarians say about themselves’ (1.39.5). The notice is interesting for more than one reason.

First, Pausanias himself had been to Megara several times and was evidently interested in the city. He even mentions ‘our guide (exegêtês) to local matters’ (1.41.2).⁹¹⁷ Second, it is striking that Megara does not seem to have had a proper first king of its own stock. Phoroneus was always closely associated with Argos, where he was the first king, if not first human, and recently an epigram mentioning his grave, which Pausanias (2.20.3) could still see, has emerged during local construction work.⁹¹⁸ His presence in Megara is therefore an additional argument for the early cultic and mythological influence of Argos on Megara.⁹¹⁹ Third, the connection between Car and the temples of Demeter fits a characteristic of Pausanias in that he regularly ascribes surviving buildings to heroic or legendary figures.⁹²⁰ Car himself must have been the hêros eponymos of Caria, the name of the eastern Megarian acropolis.⁹²¹ His name can hardly be separated from the unique epithet Carinus of Apollo, who was the most important male god of Megara. Unfortunately, we cannot say anything about the epithet, even though in Roman times the pyramidal statue of the god appeared on Megarian coins.⁹²²

As frequently in Greek mythology, for example, serpentine Cecrops in Athens, the first king is still not wholly on the side of civilisation.⁹²³ It seems as if, in the thoughts of the Greeks, civilisation could not emerge suddenly but only gradually. The same idea can be observed among the Romans where civilised life, so to speak, starts with Numa rather than Romulus. In Megara civilisation started with the erection of temples of Demeter. In other words, we find here once again the connection of Demeter to civilised life which we also find elsewhere in Greece, even if not explicitly stated – which is often the case.⁹²⁴

Hanell argues that we should not combine the figures of Demeter and Car, as the latter is only a Schattengestalt.⁹²⁵ This seems contestable. Although it is true that Car is only a shadowy figure, Pausanias was told that this king and Demeter were closely connected. We know much too little about the early history of Megara to reject this notice. Moreover, the connection of Demeter with political power is well attested. Herodotus (7.153) mentions the fact that the Sicilian Deinomenids were hierophants of Demeter and Persephone,⁹²⁶ and Strabo (14.1.3) reports a special connection of the royal family of Ephesus with Demeter: the Thebans told Pausanias (9.16.5) that the temple of Demeter Thesmophoros once had been the house of Kadmos, and in Boeotia we find the epithets Achaia and Amphiktionis of Demeter. ⁹²⁷ There is, then, no reason to reject the combination of Car and Demeter as at least testifying to an old connection of Demeter with political power.

Somewhat later in his description Pausanias returns to Car and he adds: ‘After the sanctuary of Zeus we ascend the acropolis, which to the present day is still called Caria, after Car, the son of Phoroneus … Here, too, is what is called the hall (megaron) of Demeter: they said it was made by King Car’ (1.40.6, tr. Frazer).⁹²⁸ This notice has clearly to be connected with the previous one, as the two together indicate a local folk etymology of Megara. It is indeed true that the Eleusinian anaktoron was sometimes called megaron or magaron, the term for subterranean cultic buildings of Demeter and Persephone, but also of the pits in which sacrifice was deposited during the Thesmophoria (§ 2).⁹²⁹ In this case, the name of the city was connected with a customary term for the sanctuary of Demeter. Yet the custom to call the Eleusinian anaktoron a megaron is fairly late,⁹³⁰ and the notice may well be one more testimony to the fame of Demeter and Persephone’s Eleusinian sanctuary.

François Chamoux opts for a different etymology in his Budé commentary and connects the name of Megara with the verb megarizein, ‘performing the chamber rite’, as Parker translates it.⁹³¹ The rite is best known from an aition of the Thesmophoria in a passage of Clement of Alexandria and a scholion on Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, both of which go back to the same source.⁹³² As the latter is rather more detailed, we will present its version:

The Thesmophoria was performed according to the more mythical account because, when Kore was carried off by Plouton while picking flowers, one Eubouleus, a swineherd, was pasturing pigs on that spot, and they were swallowed up in the pit of Kore. So in honour of Eubouleus the piglets are thrown into the pits of Demeter and Kore. The rotten remains of the items thrown into the chambers (megara) are brought up by women called bailers who have kept themselves pure for three days: they go down into the secret places (adyta) and bring up the remains and put them on the altars. They think that anyone who takes some of this and mixes it in when sowing will have good crops. And they say that there are also snakes underground in the pits, which eat most of what is thrown in. And so they make noises when the women bail out and when they deposit those figures again, to make the snakes which they regard as guardians of the secret places withdraw. The same rites are also called Arretophoria. They are conducted on the basis of the same rationale concerning the birth of crops and the sowing of men. Here too secret sacred objects are brought up made of wheat-dough – imitations of snakes and male genitals. They also take pine branches because of the plant’s fertility. Into the secret places known as chambers (megara) are thrown these objects and piglets, as we have said already, these too chosen because of their abundant offspring as a token of the birth of crops and of men as a kind of thank-offering to Demeter, since she by providing Demetrian crops civilised the human race. The earlier account of the festival was mythical, but the one under consideration is physical. It is called Thesmophoria because Demeter is called Thesmophoros because she established laws or thesmoi by which men were to acquire and work for their food.⁹³³

The source of this aition was an Attic antiquarian, as appears both from the mention of the Attic Skirophoria and Arretophoria in the scholion and Clement, as well as from Clement calling Kore (the name in Lucian’s scholion) Pherephatta, the Attic version of her name in inscriptions, comedy and other non-tragic literature (Ch. III.2). Clement thus has preserved the older, if more abbreviated layer. As he enumerated the mysteries in alphabetical order, his source does not predate the third century BC when Alexandrian philologists introduced this way of enumeration. ⁹³⁴ The eventual source of the aition, though, will have been an Attic Orphic poem, as Fritz Graf demonstrated nearly four decades ago; the stress on the civilising aspect of Demeter perfectly fits this origin.⁹³⁵ This makes it also probable that the scholion combines several data. As Clement does not give any information about the ritual, the scholiast or his source will have taken that part of his aition from a different source.

When we now return to Chamoux’s etymology of Megara, we can see that the chambers indeed existed: they are archaeologically attested and may well have existed in Megara too.⁹³⁶ Yet it seems that the Megarians themselves did not connect the etymology of their city with these particular megara. It would have been strange indeed, if they had preferred an etymology based on ritual pits, which were mainly used in...