Year-End Festivals of the Athenian Acropolis Anita Hart The mythology of the Athenian Acropolis begins with the quarrel between Athene and Poseidon. The rest of Athenian mythological history, it seems, is dedicated to patching up this little squabble. The cult of Poseidon is housed within the very same building as Athene’s own cult on the Acropolis. Important festivals involve, even require, the cooperation of both gods and their priests for the good of the city. But why should the mortal inhabitants of Athens have held such a vested interest in the ancient and decisively-settled contest of two gods? Why worry so much about honoring Poseidon, the loser of the contest? Given Athens’ importance as a seaport, I propose that the Greeks were intent upon facilitating a business partnership between the two divinities, despite their personal animosity, in order that the city’s maritime industry might flourish. Citizens of Athens played out their efforts to promote reconciliation between Athena and Poseidon through year-end festivals on the Acropolis. Athens had four important year-end festivals which took place on the Acropolis. In this paper I shall discuss the Arrephoria, Plynteria, and Skiraphoria festivals. The first, the Arrephoria, was a night-time ritual of carrying objects to a sacred cave. The Plynteria was a purification ritual in which the cult statue of Athene was taken down to the ocean to be washed. The Skiraphoria was a more complex and secretive ritual, in which the priestess of Athene and the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus proceeded out of the Erechtheion to Skiron, between Athens and Eleusis. As a counterpoint to these, I shall look at the Dipolieia, a festival to Zeus, which takes place two days after the Skiraphoria. The Dipolieia, as a ritual killing, symbolizes an attack on Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs, College of Charleston Volume 8 (2009): 56-76 © 2009 by the College of Charleston, Charleston SC 29424, USA. All rights to be retained by the author. 56 Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 57 the Acropolis, and possibly on the king of Attica himself, and shows the dangers of what can happen when the city’s protectress is absent. I shall begin with the mythological “history” of Athens as told by ancient authors, describing the relationship of Athene and Poseidon, and outline the reasons why the Classical Athenians felt it necessary to include Poseidon in their year-end rituals. From there, I shall move to the rituals themselves as revealed through literary sources and archaeology, looking at both their actions and locations to see where reconciliation seems to be promoted. An effort to decode the meaning of these ancient festivals to the people who enacted them faces some difficult obstacles. Problems which arise include the possibility of other divinities being honored in association with these festivals, which might deflect the focus of rituals from reconciliation to other matters; the lack of first-person sources (especially in the case of the festivals), giving us no insider’s account; and the method itself of working from myth to ritual. As mythology is often added by later generations to explain preexisting rituals, working backwards is risky at best. To overcome these obstacles, I will rely on textual and physical evidence. By the Classical period, the Athenian Acropolis had been rebuilt, shaped, and sculpted in a way that provides us with clues about what the Athenians of this period thought of the meaning of their festivals. The meaning and placement of symbolic facades, statues, and numerous buildings help to determine connections between certain areas of the Acropolis and the myths that structured the culture of the period. Poseidon and Athene were important gods in ancient Greece, and in Athens in particular. The one controlled the seas and tides, caused earthquakes, and gave men the horse; the other protected the city, resided in its citadel, and stimulated its economy. As an important seaport and commercial center, Athens found both divinities indispensable. In the second century A.D., Pausanias “stated that the Athenians are far more devoted to religion than other men” (Pausanias 1.24.31).1 Statuary, shrines, and monuments littered the roads. Many cults besides those of Athene or Poseidon were housed even on the very Acropolis of Athens. In the context of this inclusive polytheism, in a spot where so many gods are welcomed without a hitch, the feud between Athene and Poseidon represents an interesting problem. But 58 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 the mythology on the subject is clear: these two deities irritated the ever-living daylights out of each other. In the complex, snaky coil that is Athenian mythology, five main story arcs stand out: the birth of Athene, the contest for Attica, the reign and line of Cecrops, the war with Eleusis, and the life and reign of Theseus. Because these stories outline the origins both of Athens itself and of the feud between Athene and Poseidon, from their own direct confrontations to the wars of their descendents, they offer crucial background information for the argument I develop below. They often interlink, and there is no hard chronological order to most of them. For the sake of clarity I will treat them as a linear narrative that flows from the least to most complex arc. The story of Athene’s birth, naturally, predates the direct confrontation between her and Poseidon. It does, however, seem to have connections to the Dipolieae, a festival that responds to their feud. After the Titanomachy, Zeus consorted with the Titaness Metis, daughter of Ocean, and wisest of all beings (Hesiod 885). After a while, however, Zeus began to worry about the offspring two such powerful entities—the strongest and wisest beings in the cosmos— would produce. Patricide, after all, ran in the family (Hesiod 170- 180, 685-730).2 Rather than waiting and swallowing the child as his own father had, he did Chronos one better and swallowed his pregnant wife. Apollodoros gives the full account: Zeus had intercourse with Metis, who turned into many shapes to avoid his embraces. When she was with child, Zeus, taking time by the forelock, swallowed her, because Earth said that, after giving birth to the maiden who was then in her womb, Metis would bear a son who should be the lord of heaven. From fear of that, Zeus swallowed her. (Apollodoros 1.3.6) Still, wife and child continued to grow and live inside Zeus. Some time passed after the swallowing of Metis until Athene burst out of her father’s head. Two versions of this event exist. The first, according to Hesiod, indicates that Zeus had no help in bringing forth his daughter (Hesiod 929). The second version, as told by Apollodoros, says that “when the time came for the birth to take place, Prometheus, or, as Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 59 others say, Hephaestus, smote the head of Zeus with an axe, and Athene, fully armed, leaped up from the top of his head at the river Triton,” (Apollodoros 1.3.6). Although Apollodoros is the later of the two authors, and Hesiod would usually be considered the more reliable, artistic representation affirms the story of the axe-blow.3 In addition, Apollodoros’ version is more helpful in interpreting the year- end festivals of the Classical Athenians. This story will be discussed in greater detail along with the Dipolieia festival. The next myth, the contest for Attica, introduces characters important in later myths, and first touches on the hostilities between Athene and Poseidon. In the time when King Cecrops was ruling Attica, the gods began dividing up the world; each began to “stake out” his or her own territories, as it were, claiming the cities in which he or she would be worshipped. Attica, destined to become both a major seaport and a center of civilization, attracted both Athene and Poseidon. Poseidon produced a salt spring on the Acropolis as a gift to the people. After him, Athene arrived at the same spot with the king of the region and there before him produced the olive tree. When the two gods fought over the region, Zeus intervened, and put the matter to a vote of the other gods. Athene was awarded Attica, and its capital was named for her (Apollodoros 3.14.1). Their descendents continued the tradition of warring over territory. The mortal lines of Poseidon and Athene both sprung, indirectly, from Cecrops himself. The infighting of his descendents added to the animosity of the two gods. Cecrops was the first king of “Athens” proper. His son, Erysichthon, died before his father and never became king (Kastor qtd. in Harding 14). It was his adopted grandson, and Athene’s adopted son, who later became king of Athens (Pausanias 1.2.6). The story goes that Athene went to Hephaestus’ forge to commission a new suit of armor. For Hephaestus, being married to the beautiful yet faithless Aphrodite, ‘twas lust at first sight. He attempted to rape Athene, who resisted him successfully, but not before he left evidence of his excitement on her thigh. Disgusted, she wiped herself off with a piece of wool, and threw it down to earth. From this wool emerged Erichthonius, Cecrops’ adopted grandson and Athene’s adopted son (Apollodoros 3.14.6). Back on earth, although his son died, Cecrops was also father to 60 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 three daughters, Herse, Aglaurus, and Pandrosus (Amelesagoras F1 qtd. in 28). When Athene adopted Erichthonius, she wished to hide him from the other gods and make him immortal. She gave the basket containing him to the three sisters with instructions not to look inside. Pandrosus obeyed, but her sisters opened the basket, where they found Erichthonius, either wrapped within the coils of a snake guardian, or a half-snake creature himself (Apollodoros 3.14.6; Amelesagoras F1, qtd. in Harding 28; Pausanias 1.18.2). Aglaurus and Herse, in a fit of madness, threw themselves off of the Acropolis (Pausanias 1.18.2; Euripides 267-74). Once Erichthonius became king, Athene secured the loyalty of the royal line and the people of Attica. It was not to stay that way, however. Athene raised Erichthonius inside her precinct (Amelesagoras F1, qtd. in Harding 28). His grandson Erectheus received the kingship in his turn.(Kastor, qtd. in Harding 42). The reign of Erechtheus marks the point at which the royal line split in two. Erechtheus’ granddaughter had a son by Poseidon named Eumolpus. Once he was grown, this Eumolpus lived in Eleusis. When the Eleusinians and the Athenians fought, Erechtheus and Eumolpus met in battle, the former killing the latter (Philokhoros F13, qtd. in Harding 44). Pausanias, however, holds that Erechtheus did not kill Eumolpus but rather his son Immadarus (Pausanias 1.38.3). Either way, the fighting between these branches of the family intensified the fight between the two gods. According to Euripides, Poseidon goes so far as to kill Athene’s adopted great-grandson in vengeance for Eumolpus (Euripides 281). Athene and Poseidon’s feud actually begins before the contest for Athens and extends well beyond it. Athene outdoes her uncle at every turn, creating a ship for his sea, a rein for his horse (Apollonius Rhodius 1.18; Pausanias 2.4.1). In his passage on the contest for Attica, Apollodoros goes so far as to say Zeus found it necessary to “dialusas” —literally, to part or sunder—them to keep them from quarreling (Apollodoros 3.14.1). As gods, the two were not allowed to battle one another due to the collateral damage and political chaos a fight between two such powerful entities would cause. There was nothing, however, to prevent one of the two from taking his or her frustrations out in a more roundabout way. Poseidon’s first act as official runner- up in the contest for Attica was to flood the Thriasian plain Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 61 (Apollodoros 3.14.1). Thus, while probably not running around in fear of imminent tsunami, the Athenians still had a very real reason to promote harmony. What better way for Poseidon to get revenge than by flooding Athene’s favorite city? Athenians sought to overcome this feud by their rituals. In particular the year-end festivals on the Acropolis sought to reconcile the two gods. Yet before the people of Athens could begin trying to promote harmony between two gods, they first had to make sure that they themselves were in harmony with their goddess. This solidifying of bonds between Athene and her city was the focus of the first of the festivals, the Arrephoria. While the exact time of the ritual is unknown,4 it seems to fit in well with the other year-end rites, and the actions of its participants play out pieces of myth otherwise missing from the mythic cycle (Robertson 250; Simon 39). Pausanias is our main source for information about the festival. He describes the Arrephoria thus: Two maidens dwell not far from the temple of Athena Polias, called by the Athenians Bearers of the Sacred Offerings (arrephoroi). For a time they live with the goddess, but when the festival comes round they perform at night the following rites. Having placed on their heads what the priestess of Athena gives them to carry—neither she who gives nor they who carry have any knowledge what it is—the maidens descend by the natural underground passage that goes across the adjacent precincts, within the city, of Aphrodite in the Gardens. They leave down below what they carry and receive something else which they bring back covered up. These maidens they henceforth let go free, and take up to the Acropolis others in their place. (Pausanias 1.27.3) This one paragraph is the lengthiest account we have of the festival, but from its few lines have sprung numerous interpretations. The Arrephoria has been read as an agricultural fertility rite, a coming-of- age ceremony, a symbolic self-sacrifice, and even a feeding of divine snakes (Simon 46; Larson 39; Burkert 1985: 229; Burkert 1983: 150- 154; Larson 40-41; Robertston 243-44; Lefkowitz 82-83). What we 62 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 know of the Arrephoria is thus: two noble girls, aged seven to eleven, were chosen, possibly by the archon basileus (Simon 39, 41-42; Aristophanes 641-2). These girls would live on the Acropolis for about a year, playing and lending their presence to the weaving of the Panathenaic peplos (Simon 39).5 At the end of this time, the girls would go one night, having been given a secret package by the priestess of Athene, down the side of the Acropolis to a sanctuary, where they would receive other secret packages and return to the Acropolis. After this, the girls would be discharged of duty, and others would take their places. Many scholars connect this ritual to the myth of the daughters of Cecrops, the mythical king of Athens. The two arrephoroi represent his daughters, and the receiving of the wrapped objects mimics the “gift” of Erichthonius hidden in his basket. Beyond this, theories vary. Burkert’s interpretation of the festival as a coming-of-age rite was held as the standard for a while. Taking Pausanias’ mention of the garden of Aphrodite to mean that this, a sacred area of the goddess of love, is the ultimate destination of the two girls, Burkert says the ritual “hint[s] at a drama of sexuality and incest in which the king’s daughters become the victims” (1983: 150). Burkert’s interpretation, however, is problematic. The ritual itself does not follow the pattern of a coming of age rite. Only two girls are chosen at a time, at the age of seven, not an age of majority even in the ancient world. In fact, the only reason for interpreting the Arrephoria as a fertility rite is in connection to Aphrodite, a connection which probably does not even exist. In his own analysis of Pausanias, Simms translates the line, “There is a precinct in the city of the Aphrodite called ‘In the Gardens’ not far off, and through this is a natural underground descent the maidens go down.” According to this understanding of the Greek, the precinct of Aphrodite, therefore, is not the girls’ destination; they merely pass by her sanctuary referred to as “In the Gardens.” Further light was shed on the subject when, in 1980, in a cave on the east side of the Acropolis, an inscribed stele was found, nearly in situ, identifying the cave as the sanctuary of Aglauros. This refuted earlier scholarship, which claimed that the sanctuary was located on the north slope of the Acropolis, despite the fact that no ancient source Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 63 ever indicated this (Donatas 57-8). The main reason for this assumption is the presence of a sanctuary to Aphrodite in this location. Following the path the girls would have taken down the Acropolis, the two girls would be required to make something of a u-turn in order to get to this sanctuary of Aphrodite. To reach the cave sanctuary, however, the path simply follows the curve of the mountain base. Being that the girls are acting under the guidance of the priestess of Athene, it would be very strange if they were to incorporate Aphrodite into their rites in such a way. It seems more likely that they would go to the sanctuary of one of the girls whose myth they are enacting. If we accept the interpretation that two young girls carry items from the Acropolis to the sanctuary of Aglauros and back, we can pursue a line of inquiry. Much has been made both of the end of the arrephoroi’s term of service after their nocturnal sojourn, as well as the possible contents of their baskets. The expulsion of the girls has been used as support for the idea of a coming-of-age ceremony, yet this reading only works with the interpretation as a fertility ritual, which has already been refuted (Simon 41-42). I tend to agree with Erika Simon, who parallels the end of the girls’ service to the ending of the present year, after which there would be a new archon basileus and new arrephoroi (Simon 41). Understanding the Arrephoria in this way works well in context with the other end of the year festivals. The contents of the basket are more controversial. The secret items the girls carry have been said to be anything from oil and wool, to live snakes, or phallus-shaped cakes (Burkert 1985: 229; Robertson 241). The contents have been used to justify fertility rites, the dedication of childhood toys, or the feeding of sacred snakes (Burkert 1985: 229; Burkert 1983: 151-52; Simon 42; Robertson 257). If the story of the daughters of Cecrops is the origin of this ritual, then, I say that the important part of the ritual is not what is carried, but the fact that the participants themselves do not know what it is. If the ignorance of the girls is the crucial factor, as it seems to be according to Pausanias, the content of the packages then becomes inconsequential; and if the priestess who gave the basket to the girls did not even know herself, I hold no hope for modern scholars to know definitively. On a practical note, how much weight is reasonable for two small girls, possibly unaccompanied, to carry down a steep 64 Chrestomathy: Volume 8, 2009 descent? Even empty baskets, or baskets weighted with a few stones, could suffice. In the myth, two of the three girls, Herse and Aglauros, opened the basket containing Erichthonius, thereby disobeying the goddess. As punishment, they died by falling or flinging themselves off of the steepest part of the Acropolis—which accurately describes the eastern side, where the cave of Aglauros is situated. Descending into the earth in ritual is symbolic of death, and the placement of the cave sanctuary is particularly relevant if the girls threw themselves to their deaths on the eastern side. The third sister remained obedient and lived. It is worth noting that only two girls are involved in the ceremony. The reconciliation in the Arrephoria, therefore, is not between Athene and Poseidon, but between Athene and the disobedient girls, and as an extension the city-state as a whole. The arrephoroi receive the secret objects and do not look at their contents, following the goddess’ orders. They still must make the journey to the bottom of the mountain, to the cave of their predecessor, reenacting the death of the girls by their journey under the earth, but returning once more to the Acropolis, signifying a rebirth, and a happier ending than the myth. The symbolic death and rebirth is important in year-end festivals, which celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. Having straightened out old discrepancies between the goddess and her people, and allowing for a more suitable outcome to the myth, both are now ready to move into the year-end reconciliations with other gods. The first of these divinely reconciling festivals, the Plynteria, was held on the twenty-fifth of the month of Thargelion, and was the day on which the goddess herself received her bath (Parke 152). According to Parke, this festival probably began in earlier times when the cult statue would have been a relatively light wooden construction, human- sized or smaller. Even after the building of the huge chryselephantine statue of Athene by Pheidias, the ritual was continued with the smaller image (Parke 152-53; Nagy 276). Within the temple, the women of the Praxiergidai family would undress the statue and wrap it for its journey in procession to the sea for a purification bath (Plutarch 34.1; Hesyckhios; Parke 152-53). At first glance, the Plynteria appears to be a simple interaction between the goddess and her attendants for a little congenial hygiene. The very intimate act of bathing and the Hart: Year-End Festivals of the Acropolis 65 mundane act of laundry are taken up together by the goddess and the people. One can even envision a quaint day at the seaside, with the procession to the ocean led by a woman carrying the goddess’ very own basket of fig candies (Parke 152-53; Hesyckhios). It might not even appear that Poseidon is present. Looking slightly deeper, however, actions begin to take meaning. Soap and water baths were unknown to the Greeks. Running water, and most of all salt water, was regarded as a purifier in ancient Greek thought (Parke 153). The greatest source of saltwater was the sea. The sea was the domain, if not the very embodiment, of Poseidon. By including the god in this ceremony, the Athenians attempted to physically unite the two in a purification rite. The bringing of the statue, the avatar of the goddess and a “piece of the Acropolis,” down to the sea functions as a mirror image of the pool of saltwater, the “piece of the sea,” which Poseidon had supposedly placed on the Acropolis. If the statue was in fact made of olive wood—Athene’s gift—the metaphorical exchange would be strengthened. Not everything about the Plynteria was celebratory, however. During her procession to the sea Athene was absent, her city unprotected, and the day was considered unlucky. Sanctuaries closed, businesses were put on hold, and even the entrances to the city were roped off (Parke 154). That day of the Plynteria was considered inauspicious is evident in story involving the general Alcibiades, who dared to enter the city from his exile on the day of the Plynteria (Xenophon 1.4.12). According to Xenophon, who probably witnessed this act of hubris, within just a few months Alcibiades lost his good fortune and position. They did not return to him (Xenophon 1.4.12). This is a rather overblown example, but it illustrates the extent to which Athens depended on its patron goddess. Thus on the day of her absence, everything had to cease, lest it not have her blessing and oversight (Pausanias 1.26.6). This absence left the city open and vulnerable. Should Poseidon decide to ignore the Athenians’ reconciliation efforts, there was nothing in the citadel to keep him from attacking the city. Just in case any member of the procession might forget this, the Acropolis itself reminded them. Participants passed by the northern side of the Parthenon, the metopes of which depicted the Fall of Troy. The most