It is true that at the Eleusinian mysteries the Hierophant and Torchbearer publicly exhorted the Greeks in general, as distinguished from the Athenians and their allies, to offer the first-fruits in accordance with ancestral custom and the bidding of the Delphic oracle.199 But there is nothing to shew that the offerings were made immediately after the exhortation. Nor does any ancient authority support the view of a modern scholar that the offering of the first-fruits, or a portion of them, took place at the Festival before Ploughing (Proerosia),200 though that festival would no doubt be an eminently appropriate occasion for propitiating with such offerings the goddess on whose bounty the next year's crop was believed to depend.
The Festival of the Threshing-floor (Haloa) at Eleusis.
On the other hand, we are positively told that the first-fruits were carried to Eleusis to be used at the Festival of the Threshing-floor (Haloa).201 But the statement, cursorily reported by writers of no very high authority, cannot be implicitly relied upon; and even if it could, we should hardly be justified in inferring from it that all the first-fruits of the corn were offered to Demeter and Persephone at this festival. Be that as it may, the Festival of the Threshing-floor was intimately connected with the worship both of Demeter and of Dionysus, and accordingly it deserves our attention. It is said to have been sacred to both these deities;202 and while the name seems to connect it rather with the Corn Goddess than with the Wine God, we are yet informed that it was held by the Athenians on the occasion of the pruning of the vines and the tasting of the stored-up wine.203 The festival is frequently mentioned in Eleusinian inscriptions, from some of which we gather that it included sacrifices to the two goddesses and a so-called Ancestral Contest, as to the nature of which we have no information.204 We may suppose that the festival or some part of it was celebrated on the Sacred Threshing-floor of Triptolemus at Eleusis;205 for as Triptolemus was the hero who is said to have diffused the knowledge of the corn all over the world, nothing could be more natural than that the Festival of the Threshing-floor should be held on the sacred threshing-floor which bore his name. As for Demeter, we have already seen how intimate was her association with the threshing-floor and the operation of threshing; according to Homer, she is the yellow goddess who parts the yellow grain from the white chaff at the threshing, and in Cos her image with the corn-stalks and the poppies in her hands stood on the threshing-floor.206 The festival lasted one day, and no victims might be sacrificed at it;207 but special use was made, as we have seen, of the first-fruits of the corn. With regard to the dating of the festival we are informed that it fell in the month Poseideon, which corresponds roughly to our December, and as the date rests on the high authority of the ancient Athenian antiquary Philochorus,208 and is, moreover, indirectly confirmed by inscriptional evidence,209 we are bound to accept it. But it is certainly surprising to find a Festival of the Threshing-floor held so late in the year, long after the threshing, which in Greece usually takes place not later than midsummer, though on high ground in Crete it is sometimes prolonged till near the end of August.210 We seem bound to conclude that the Festival of the Threshing-floor was quite distinct from the actual threshing of the corn.211 It is said to have included certain mystic rites performed by women alone, who feasted and quaffed wine, while they broke filthy jests on each other and exhibited cakes baked in the form of the male and female organs of generation.212 If the latter particulars are correctly reported we may suppose that these indecencies, like certain obscenities which seem to have formed part of the Great Mysteries at Eleusis,213 were no mere wanton outbursts of licentious passion, but were deliberately practised as rites calculated to promote the fertility of the ground by means of homoeopathic or imitative magic. A like association of what we might call indecency with rites intended to promote the growth of the crops meets us in the Thesmophoria, a festival of Demeter celebrated by women alone, at which the character of the goddess as a source of fertility comes out clearly in the custom of mixing the remains of the sacrificial pigs with the seed-corn in order to obtain a plentiful crop. We shall return to this festival later on.214
The Green Festival and the Festival of the Cornstalks at Eleusis. Epithets of Demeter referring to the corn.
Other festivals held at Eleusis in honour of Demeter and Persephone were known as the Green Festival and the Festival of the Cornstalks.215 Of the manner of their celebration we know nothing except that they comprised sacrifices, which were offered to Demeter and Persephone. But their names suffice to connect the two festivals with the green and the standing corn. We have seen that Demeter herself bore the title of Green, and that sacrifices were offered to her under that title which plainly aimed at promoting fertility.216 Among the many epithets applied to Demeter which mark her relation to the corn may further be mentioned “Wheat-lover,”217 “She of the Corn,”218 “Sheaf-bearer,”219 “She of the Threshing-floor,”220 “She of the Winnowing-fan,”221 “Nurse of the Corn-ears,”222 “Crowned with Ears of Corn,”223 “She of the Seed,”224 “She of the Green Fruits,”225 “Heavy with Summer Fruits,”226 “Fruit-bearer,”227 “She of the Great Loaf,” and “She of the Great Barley Loaf.”228 Of these epithets it may be remarked that though all of them are quite appropriate to a Corn Goddess, some of them would scarcely be applicable to an Earth Goddess and therefore they add weight to the other arguments which turn the scale in favour of the corn as the fundamental attribute of Demeter.
Belief in ancient and modern times that the corn-crops depend on possession of an image of Demeter.
How deeply implanted in the mind of the ancient Greeks was this faith in Demeter as goddess of the corn may be judged by the circumstance that the faith actually persisted among their Christian descendants at her old sanctuary of Eleusis down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. For when the English traveller Dodwell revisited Eleusis, the inhabitants lamented to him the loss of a colossal image of Demeter, which was carried off by Clarke in 1802 and presented to the University of Cambridge, where it still remains. “In my first journey to Greece,” says Dodwell, “this protecting deity was in its full glory, situated in the centre of a threshing-floor, amongst the ruins of her temple. The villagers were impressed with a persuasion that their rich harvests were the effect of her bounty, and since her removal, their abundance, as they assured me, has disappeared.”229 Thus we see the Corn Goddess Demeter standing on the threshing-floor of Eleusis and dispensing corn to her worshippers in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, precisely as her image stood and dispensed corn to her worshippers on the threshing-floor of Cos in the days of Theocritus. And just as the people of Eleusis last century attributed the diminution of their harvests to the loss of the image of Demeter, so in antiquity the Sicilians, a corn-growing people devoted to the worship of the two Corn Goddesses, lamented that the crops of many towns had perished
СКАЧАТЬ
<p>199</p>
Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 20, lines 25 sqq.; E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, ii. (Cambridge, 1905) No. 9, lines 25 sqq., κελευέτω δὲ καί ὁ ἱεροφάντης καὶ ὁ δᾳδοῦχος μυστηρίοις ἀπάρχεσθαι τοὺς Ἔλληνας τοῦ καρποῦ κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ τὴν μαντείαν τὴν ἐγ Δελφῶν. By coupling μυστηρίοις with ἀπάρχεσθαι instead of with κελεύετω, Miss J. E. Harrison understands the offering instead of the exhortation to have been made at the mysteries (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Second Edition, p. 155, “Let the Hierophant and the Torchbearer command that at the mysteries the Hellenes should offer first-fruits of their crops,” etc.). This interpretation is no doubt grammatically permissible, but the context seems to plead strongly, if not to be absolutely decisive, in favour of the other. It is to be observed that the exhortation was addressed not to the Athenians and their allies (who were compelled to make the offering) but only to the other Greeks, who might make it or not as they pleased; and the amount of such voluntary contributions was probably small compared to that of the compulsory contributions, as to the date of which nothing is said. That the proclamation to the Greeks in general was an exhortation (κελευέτω), not a command, is clearly shewn by the words of the decree a few lines lower down, where commissioners are directed to go to all Greek states exhorting but not commanding them to offer the first-fruits (ἐκείνοις δὲ μὴ ἐπιτάττοντας, κελεύοντας δὲ ἀπάρχεσθαι ἐὰν βούλωνται κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ τὴν μαντείαν ἐγ Δελφῶν). The Athenians could not command free and independent states to make such offerings, still less could they prescribe the exact date when the offerings were to be made. All that they could and did do was, taking advantage of the great assembly of Greeks from all quarters at the mysteries, to invite or exhort, by the mouth of the great priestly functionaries, the foreigners to contribute.
<p>200</p>
August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 192 sqq.
<p>201</p>
Eustathius on Homer, Iliad, ix. 534, p. 772; Im. Bekker, Anecdota Graeca, i. 384 sq., s. v. Ἁλῶα. Compare O. Rubensohn, Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake (Berlin, 1892), p. 116.
<p>202</p>
Eustathius on Homer, Iliad, ix. 534, p. 772; Im. Bekker, Anecdota Graeca, i. 384 sq., s. v. Ἁλῶα.
<p>203</p>
Scholia in Lucianum, ed. H. Rabe (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 279 sq. (scholium on Dialog. Meretr. vii. 4).
<p>204</p>
Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 Nos. 192, 246, 587, 640; Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολογική, 1884, coll. 135 sq. The passages of inscriptions and of ancient authors which refer to the festival are collected by Dr. L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 315 sq. For a discussion of the evidence see August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 359 sqq.; Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Second Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 145 sqq.
<p>205</p>
The threshing-floor of Triptolemus at Eleusis (Pausanias, i. 38. 6) is no doubt identical with the Sacred Threshing-floor mentioned in the great Eleusinian inscription of 329 b. c. (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 587, line 234). We read of a hierophant who, contrary to ancestral custom, sacrificed a victim on the hearth in the Hall at Eleusis during the Festival of the Threshing-floor, “it being unlawful to sacrifice victims on that day” (Demosthenes, Contra Neaeram, 116, pp. 1384 sq.), but from such an unlawful act no inference can be drawn as to the place where the festival was held. That the festival probably had special reference to the threshing-floor of Triptolemus has already been pointed out by O. Rubensohn (Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake, Berlin, 1892, p. 118).
<p>206</p>
See above, pp. 41sq., 43. Maximus Tyrius observes (Dissertat. xxx. 5) that husbandmen were the first to celebrate sacred rites in honour of Demeter at the threshing-floor.
<p>207</p>
See above, p. , note 4.
<p>208</p>
Harpocration, s. v. Ἁλῶα (vol. i. p. 24, ed. G. Dindorf).
<p>209</p>
Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 587, lines 124, 144, with the editor's notes; August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum, p. 360.
<p>210</p>
So I am informed by my friend Professor J. L. Myres, who speaks from personal observation.
<p>211</p>
This is recognised by Professor M. P. Nilsson. See his Studia de Dionysiis Atticis (Lund, 1900), pp. 95 sqq., and his Griechische Feste, p. 329. To explain the lateness of the festival, Miss J. E. Harrison suggests that “the shift of date is due to Dionysos. The rival festivals of Dionysos were in mid-winter. He possessed himself of the festivals of Demeter, took over her threshing-floor and compelled the anomaly of a winter threshing festival” (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Second Edition, p. 147).
<p>212</p>
Scholiast on Lucian, Dial. Meretr. vii. 4 (Scholia in Lucianum, ed. H. Rabe, Leipsic, 1906, pp. 279-281).
<p>213</p>
Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 15 and 20, pp. 13 and 17 ed. Potter; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, v. 25-27, 35, 39.
Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 640; Ch. Michel, Recueil d'Inscriptions Grecques (Brussels, 1900), No. 135, p. 145. To be exact, while the inscription definitely mentions the sacrifices to Demeter and Persephone at the Green Festival, it does not record the deities to whom the sacrifice at the Festival of the Cornstalks (τὴν τῶν Καλαμαίων θυσίαν) was offered. But mentioned as it is in immediate connexion with the sacrifices to Demeter and Persephone at the Green Festival, we may fairly suppose that the sacrifice at the Festival of the Cornstalks was also offered to these goddesses.
Nonnus, Dionys. xvii. 153. The Athenians sacrificed to her under this title (Eustathius, on Homer, Iliad, xviii. 553, p. 1162).
<p>220</p>
Theocritus, Idyl. vii. 155; Orphica, xl. 5.
<p>221</p>
Anthologia Palatina, vi. 98. 1.
<p>222</p>
Orphica, xl. 3.
<p>223</p>
Anthologia Palatina, vi. 104. 8.
<p>224</p>
Orphica, xl. 5.
<p>225</p>
Ibid.
<p>226</p>
Orphica, xl. 18.
<p>227</p>
This title she shared with Persephone at Tegea (Pausanias, viii. 53. 7), and under it she received annual sacrifices at Ephesus (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 655). It was applied to her also at Epidaurus (Ἐφημ. Ἀρχ., 1883, col. 153) and at Athens (Aristophanes, Frogs, 382), and appears to have been a common title of the goddess. See L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, iii. 318 note 30.
<p>228</p>
Polemo, cited by Athenaeus, iii. 73, p. 109 a b, x. 9. p. 416 c.
<p>229</p>
E. Dodwell, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece (London, 1819), i. 583. E. D. Clarke found the image “on the side of the road, immediately before entering the village, and in the midst of a heap of dung, buried as high as the neck, a little beyond the farther extremity of the pavement of the temple. Yet even this degrading situation had not been assigned to it wholly independent of its antient history. The inhabitants of the small village which is now situated among the ruins of Eleusis still regarded this statue with a very high degree of superstitious veneration. They attributed to its presence the fertility of their land; and it was for this reason that they heaped around it the manure intended for their fields. They believed that the loss of it would be followed by no less a calamity than the failure of their annual harvests; and they pointed to the ears of bearded wheat, upon the sculptured ornaments upon the head of the figure, as a never-failing indication of the produce of the soil.” When the statue was about to be removed, a general murmur ran among the people, the women joining in the clamour. “They had been always,” they said, “famous for their corn; and the fertility of the land would cease when the statue was removed.” See E. D. Clarke, Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, iii. (London, 1814) pp. 772-774, 787 sq. Compare J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge, 1910), p. 80, who tells us that “the statue was regularly crowned with flowers in the avowed hope of obtaining good harvests.”
