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Worship Your Enemy: Aspects of the Cult of Heroes in Ancient Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Margaret Visser
Margaret Visser
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Toronto, Canada
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Extract

Herodotus, in the course of his account of the customs of the Scythians, describes the treatment which the inhabitants of the Tauric peninsula reserve for their enemies: after consecration to Iphigeneia, they are struck on the head with a club and decapitated; their bodies are either buried or precipitated from the temple rock, and their heads are impaled on stakes. The head of a prisoner of war is stuck on a long pole which is hoisted over his victor's house. These heads of their enemies, the Taurians say, now watch over their captors' houses, guarding them from their high vantage-point (Herodotus 4.103).

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 75 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 403 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982

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References

1 The Gauls, says Diodorus Siculus, treasure the heads of their enemies, tying them to their horses' necks or keeping them embalmed in a chest (5.29.4).

2 For the Scythians as a reflection, in their “oppositeness”, of the Greeks themselves, see Hartog, Francois, Le Miroir d'Hērodote: Essai sur la représentation de l'autre (Paris: Gallimard, 1980).Google Scholar

3 The subject of specifically enemy heroes has not, to my knowledge, been closely examined. How, W. W. and Wells, J. (A Commentary on Herodotus [Oxford: Clarendon, 1928])Google Scholar draw the reader's attention to “honours to a dead enemy” at 5.37 and 114. Festugière, A. J. (“Tragédie et tombes sacrées”, RHR 184 [1973] 1–24)CrossRefGoogle Scholar describes hero cults in tragedy. Fontenrose, J. (“The Hero as Athlete”, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 1 [1968] 73–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar) describes the careers of several athletes who later received hero worship and discerns common features in them. Some of the characters in Fontenrose 's list will be dealt with in this article. Fundamental works of scholarship on Greek heroes include: Pfister, F., Der Reliquienkult im Altertum (RGW; Giessen, 1909)Google Scholar; Foucart, P., Le Culte des héros chez les grecs (Paris: Klincksieck, 1918)Google Scholar; Farnell, Lewis Richard, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford: Clarendon, 1921)Google Scholar; Nock, Arthur Darby, “The Cult of Heroes”, HTR 37 (1944) 141–73; A.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrelich, , Gli Eroi Greci (Rome: Ateneo, 1958)Google Scholar.

4 Heraclidae 966–72, 1009–11; Polybius 2.58.4–7. See further, Ducrey, Pierre, Le Traitement des prisonniers de guerre dans la Grèce antique, des origines à la conquete romaine (Paris: de Boccard, 1968) esp. 289–95.Google Scholar

5 On stoning In ancient Greece, see Pease, A. S., “Notes on Stoning among the Greeks and Romans”, TAPA 38 (1907) 5–18Google Scholar; Hlrzel, R., Die Strafe der Steinigung (Abhandlung der sächsischen Akademle der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl. 27; Leipzig, 1909)Google Scholar; Fehling, D., Ethologische Überlegungen auf dem Gebiet der Altertumskunde (Munich: Beck, 1974) 59–82.Google Scholar

6 See Demosthenes On the False Embassy 66. The children of Condylea near Caphyae tied a rope round the statue of Artemis and said she was hanged. Convinced of their sacrilege, the Caphyans stoned them to death. Plague followed, until Delphi ordered that the children should be worshiped, because they had died unjustly. The Caphyans also worshiped hanged Artemis after this event (Pausanias 8.23.6; Callimachus Aetia frg. 187P).

7 Cyprus was far too valuably placed, strategically, for the Greeks to leave it to the Persians; there were further attempts at liberating the island in 478 B.C. (Thucydides 1.94), 459 B.C. (Thucydides 1.104), and 449 B.C. (Thucydides 1.112). It is possible that the heroic honors paid to Onesilus should be seen in the context of the politics of continued resistance to Persia: the friends of Onesilus, even in Amathus, might have succeeded in promoting his worship after defeat.

8 Plutarch hotly denies that Pericles executed the captured Samians by hitting them over the head, as Duris of Samos had reported (Pericles 28.2–3). It is clear from his words that the accusation of Duris was extremely grave as well as otherwise unattested. Cf. Eumenides 186–87. See Gernet, L., “Sur l'exécution capitale”, REG 37 (1924) 261–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Even the Gauls understood the principle; see Diodorus 5.29.5.

10 Thucydides (1.112) says it was famine that forced the Greeks to retire.

11 The Oracle of Ammon had perhaps indicated Cimon's divine status when it told the messengers, even before they could put their question, “Go back-for Cimon is already with me” (αύΤòν γàρ ήδη Τòν Κίεωνα παρ ώαυΤ Τυγχάνєιν óνΤα). Certainly the interpretation was that the words referred to Cimon's status close to the gods, although the Oracle was typically ambiguous, because the Greek fleet, presumably believed to be bearing Cimon's body, was in fact near Egypt when the response was given.

12 See Foucart, Le Culte des héros, 61–63, and Pfister, Reliquienkult, 445–65 The dead were buried outside the city walls, but heroes could inhabit their tombs within the city, even in the agora or inside the gods' shrines, without pollution. See Herodotus 4.34–35; Pausanias 3.19.3; Thucydides 5.11; and the case of Neoptolemus (below).

13 Should we perhaps compare the story of Archias, as told by Herodotus, witthat of Pyrrhus? Archias the Spartan took part in the siege of Samos ca. 530 B.C. Archias and Lycopas alone got into the city of Samos, and once within the walls they were killed. Herodotus says that Archias was honored with a tomb by the Samians (3.55). The usual explanation is that the tomb was granted much later, after Polycrates' fall, by the Samian aristocrats; and this is the reading Plutarch gives of the affair (Malice of Herodotus 860C). But Herodotus himself does not put it this way. We shall notice several cases of enemy heroes which could be explained by various or changing political allegiances. Compare the burial of Mardonlus by the Greeks, Herodotus 9.84.

14 Scholiast on Oedipus at Colonus 91.

15 See further Fontenrose, “Hero as Athlete”, n. 3; Martin, R., “Un nouveau reglement de culte thasien”, BCH 64/65 (1940/1941) 163–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pouilloux, J., Recherches sur 1'histoire et les cultes de Thasos (Paris: de Boccard,1954) chap. 2Google Scholar. A comparable case in some respects is that of the Locrian Euthycles, an Olympic champion granted a statue after his death. Euthycles had died in prison, having been charged with accepting a bribe. An enemy mutilated his statue, whereupon Apollo sent a plague to Locris, which was only lifted when the Locrians asked for a remedy and were told to worship Euthycles: Έν Τίµ άΤίµον έχων ΤόΤє γααν άρώσєις (Diegesis in Callimachus Aetia 3, frg. 84–85P).

16 See Mylonas, G., Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton: Princeton University, 1961) 140–41Google Scholar; Pease, “Notes on Stoning”, n. 5; Farnell, L. R., Cults of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907) 3. 93–94Google Scholar. Fontenrose (“Hero as Athlete”, 78 n. 3) says that the hero-athletes always “had something to do with rock and stone”.

17 See Burkert, W., Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California, 1979) chap. 3Google Scholar. Burkert says that stoning and whipping are “contact and separation simultaneously” (p. 67).

18 “Pharmakos”, says Harpocration (s.v.), was a temple robber. See the cases of Neoptolemus and of Aesop, nn. 23 and 24.

19 Cf. Pausanias 8.25.4–7; 8.5.8; 8.42.1–6; and the foundation myth of the Proerosia, the festival of Demeter in Athens (Parke, H. W., Festivals of the Athenians [London: Thames and Hudson, 1977] 73Google Scholar). Cf. also Fontenrose's conclusion that Neoptolemus was a pre-Apollonian fertility god.

20 See Reinach, S., “Hippolyte”, ARW 10 (1907) 47–60Google Scholar. Reinach gives Hippolytus and Pentheus as further instances.

21 By dogs: Apollodorus 3.4.4; Ovid Met. 3.138–252. By the Corinthian Bacchiads: Plutarch Moralia 773A; Diodorus 8.10; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius 4.1212.

22 See Onians, R. B., The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1951) 96–115Google Scholar; Renard, M., “Sphinx ravisseuses et tês coupées”, Latomus 9 (1950) 303–10.Google Scholar

23 Andromache 49–55, and scholiast 1086, 1127–65; Orestes 1655–57, and scholiast; Pindar Paean 6 110–20; scholiast on Nemean 7.40; Apollodorus Ep. 6.14; Pausanias 1.13.9; 10.24.4; Strabo 9.3.9, 421. Fontenrose, J. (“The Cult and Myth of Pyrros at Delphi”, University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology 4 [1960] 191–266)Google Scholar concludes that Neoptolemus was a fertility god who preceded Apollo at Delphi. Nagy, G. (The Best of the Achaeans [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1979] chap. 7)Google Scholar treats Pyrrhus as Apollo's ritual antagonist, fulfilling “the ritual requirements of symbiosis between hero and god in cult” (p. 121), See further, n. 24 below.

24 Aesop, who like Drimacus (below) was a slave and a foreigner, was stoned or thrown over a cliff by the Delphians for insulting them or for quarreling with the keepers of the shrine. Later they worshiped him as a hero. Aesop had in fact been framed by the citizens so that his death could resemble a righteous execution (Plutarch On Divine Vengeance 557A-B; Herodotus 2.134; scholiast on Wasps 1446; P. Oxy. 1800 frg. 2.C.II, 32 = Berry, B. E., “Testimonia 25”, Aesopica 1 [Urbana: University of Illinois, 1952])Google Scholar. Wiechers, A. (Aesop in Delphi [Meisenheim: Glan, 1959])Google Scholar shows that the legends of both Aesop and Neoptolemus were foundation-myths for pharmakos rites. Cf. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, chap. 16 n. 20; Androgeos (n. 47 below) and the complex rite of the Bouphonia at Athens (Pausanias 1.24.4; 1.28.10; and Porphyry De abstinentia 2.29). Plutarch tells us of two more pilgrims to Delphi who were falsely accused of sacrilege and then killed (Political Precepts 825B).

25 The Segestans were Elymoi, not Greeks, but by the date of their alliance with the Phoenicians against the invading Spartans, they had become considerably hellenized, writing their language in Greek characters, building Doric temples and claiming Trojan descent. See Dunbabin, T. J., The Western Greeks (Oxford: Clarendon, 1948) 335–36.Google Scholar

26 “No doubt the well-made Persian road was a precious possession to the inhabitants” (How and Wells, Commentary on Herodotus, 7.115). But Herodotus' word σέβοΤαι implies more than a recognition of the utility of the road.

27 A hero was often venerated because he was a city founder: perhaps the Acanthians worshiped Artachaees also as canal builder (cf. Herodotus 7.116–17). Cf. also the case of Brasidas, the adopted “founder” and soter of Amphipolis which had surrendered to him without a battle (Thucydides 5.11), and the heroization of Aratus as founder (Plutarch Aratus 53).

28 The Greeks were impressed also by the beauty and the size of the dead Persian Masistius, whom they carried about on a chariot to show to the troops (Herodotus 9.24–25), although they did not go so far as to worship him.

29 For the controversy concerning the integrity of the end of the Heraclidae, see von Wilamowitz, U., “Excurse zu Euripides Herakliden”, Hermes 17 (1882) 337–64Google Scholar; Zuntz, G., “Is the Heraclidae Mutilated?” CQ 41 (1947) 46–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conacher, D. J., Euripidean Drama (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1967) 118–20.Google Scholar

30 ΚραΤοŭνΤα has been found suspect by various editors.

31 Euripides Heraclidae 924–25; 931–34; 945–48. The hybristic Capaneus was buried apart after he had been struck down by Zeus: he was a ίєρòν νєϰρóν (Euripides Suppliants 934–36).

32 The Persians looked after the Greek Pytheas, who had fought with amazing bravery against them: they anointed and bound his wounds, took him back to their camp, “showed him to the entire army with admiration and took great care of him” (Herodotus 7.181). Amazement and honor combine, in this example, to explain the Persians' attitude.

33 This could be an explanation of the word ϰρατοŭντα (884, and n. 30): despite Alcmene's triumph over Eurystheus' fall from power, it is the power he once had, and which still shows in him, which provides some of the savor of her victory.

34 Isocrates Panegyricus 60; cf. Panathenaecus 194; Strabo 8.6.19.

35 The sons of Aegyptus, also the victims of righteous yet mistaken female vengeance, were beheaded and the heads interred separately from the bodies at Argos (Pausanias 2.24.3). But here the heads are said to have been cut off “by the women, to show their father a proof of the crime”. The heads have a memorial near the Acropolis, but nothing is said of hero-worship; the bodies were buried at Lema. (Apollodorus says the heads were at Lerna and the trunks “in front of” [πρò] Argos [Bib. 2.1.5]). Max Pohlenz, however, believed that the dead husbands of the Danaids might have been given propitiatory rites in the last play of Aeschylus' trilogy (Die Griechische Tragodie: Erlaüterungen [Leipzig: Teubner, 1930] 21).Google Scholar

36 Pausanias 6.9.6–8; Plutarch Romulus 28.4–6 (έσχατος for ὕστατος). Plutarch also relates, as an event which is similar to the vanishing of Cleomedes and of Romulus, the disappearance of Alcmene, leaving only a stone on her ϰλίνη. See n. 16 above.

37 For the mixture of sentiments which a suppliant aroused, see Gould, J., “HIKETEIA”, JHS 93 (1973) 74–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Thucydides 1.126–27, 134, 139; Herodotus 5.71; 9.120; Pausanias 7.25.1; Plutarch Solon 12; Diogenes 1.10–11; 109–15.

39 Euripides Heracles. For the propensity of heroes to go mad, see Brelich, Eroi Greci, 264. I do not propose to survey the immensely complicated career of Heracles, but in at least one other place he was a clear-cut example of an enemy hero. Heracles had made war on Elis. When that country was suffering from plague, Iphltus found the cure by restoring the Olympic Games —and instituting sacrifice in Elis to Heracles “whom the Eleans had considered an enemy” (Pausanias 5.4.6).

40 E.g., Antigone 1005–11; Euripides Suppliants 387; cf. 524; Alcestis 98–100; cf. 22–23; and Hippolytus 1437–39.

41 Pausanias 1.5.1–2; 1.35.2–3; Herodotus 5.66 (Aias is ξєίνον έóντα; Herodotus compares his adoption in Athens with that of the Theban Melanippus who displaced Adrastus in Sicyon (5.68).

42 Herodotus 8.64, 121; Pindar Nemean 4.48.

43 Agamemnon 636–80; Troades 77–97.

44 Plague or barrenness, inciting the citizens to ask an oracle (usually Delphi) for an explanation, is at the source of many religious cults in Greece, in addition to those discussed in this article. Examples include: Herodotus 5.82; Pausanias 10.11.4; 10.9.2; 8.28.4–6; Aristotle Ath. 54.7; Pausanias 3.13.3–4; Callimachus Aetia frg. 187P; Pausanias 2.7.7; 2.29.6–7; 7.17.6–7, 13–14; 6.3.8; 8.53.1–3; 6.20.7; Plutarch Bravery of Women 244E-F. 45

45 See Plutarch Divine Vengeance 558E-F. An Alastor, or ‘avenging deity,’ refuses to allow a crime to be forgotten, keeping it ἄλάοεαος (Persians 354; Agamemnon 1501; Oedipus at Colonus 788; etc.). See Chantraine, Dictionnaire Etymologique, s.v. Chrysippus (Stoicus 2.47) relates it also to ἀλάoμαι, for vengeance commonly induces error, wandering from the right way, and also exile and madness.

46 See Pindar's epinikian odes, passim. Honor denied may issue in a curse: it is the hero's weapon against threatened oblivion. Cf. the Achaean hero sprinter Oibotas (Pausanias 6.3.8; 7.17.6–7, 13–14) and the wording of the oracle on the athlete Euthycles (n. 15 above).

47 Examples: Polites and Euthymus (Pausanias 6.6.7–11; Callimachus Aetia frg. 98–99P and diegesis); Poine and Koroibos (Pausanias 1.43.7–8; Callimachus Aetia frgs. 26–31P; and Fontenrose, Python [Berkeley: University of California, 1959] 104–15)Google Scholar; Thanatos and Heracles (Alcestis). The Locrians were not so lucky: they had to wait for a time-limit of one thousand years to elapse before their suffering ended (Plutarch Divine Vengeance 557D; Lycophron 1141–73 and scholiast; Strabo 13.1.40; Aellan frg. 47; Iamblichus De vita pythagorica 8.42). Androgeus' murder resulted in a plague in Athens until “the god” said Minos should be appeased. Seven boys and seven girls were regularly sent as sacrifices, until Theseus lifted the curse by killing the Minotaur. But Androgeus continued to be worshiped at Phaleron as a hero. His cult was connected with the prevention of plague by means of a pharmakos or scapegoat (Pausanias 1.1.2, 4; Diodorus 4.60.5–61.3; Plutarch Theseus 15). Cf. n. 24 above.

48 Orestes was honored also as the origin of the name “Oresteion” in Arcadia (Euripides Electra 1273; Orestes 1647), and the Spartans found his bones in Tegea (Herodotus 1.67–68), and appropriated them for their own benefit. The appalling actions and sufferings of Orestes did not disqualify him as a hero — quite the contrary.

49 The river Lophis in Haliartos was a blessing arising directly out of kinmurder. The inhabitants had no water: they were suffering a form of plague. They sent their king to ask Delphi for help and he was told to kill the first person he met when he returned home. His son Lophis met him when he arrived. Murdered by his father, the son became the source of the river which answered the Haliartians' prayer (Pausanias 9.33.3).

50 Other heroes more partially reminiscent of Oedipus as innocent “enemy hero” include the three following: Euenius of Apollonia, guardian of the sheep of Helios, who had his eyes put out by the people because he allowed wolves to eat sixty of their sheep; but sterility followed and Delphi and Dodona said that the gods had caused the theft, so that Euenius had been unjustly punished: he was eventually given the gift of divination in recompense for his blindness (Herodotus 9.92–94). Another is Theseus, who cursed Athens at the place called Araterion at Gargettos and left for Scyros: his corpse was brought home by Cimon to Athens' great benefit (Plutarch Theseus 35–36; Pausanias 3.3.7). Yet another is Oineus, exiled king of Aetolia, who took refuge in Argos: Diomedes fought on his behalf in Calydonia and buried him at the place called Oinoe when he died (Pausanias 2.25.2).

51 It seems to have been typical of heroes that they suddenly “appeared” from nowhere and “wandered” (see n. 45 above) as ghosts do still. They were arbitrary and demanding creatures, often aged and frightful to look at, like the uninvited guest at Meles' wedding described by Asius:

χωλóς, στιγµατίης, πολυγήραος, ισος άλήτņ ήλϑєν ϰνισοϰóλαξ єúτє Μέλης έγάµєι, ἄϰλητος, Ζωµοũ ϰєχοηµάνος έν δν µέσοισιν ήρως єστήϰєι βορβóροω έξαναδύς.

(apud Athenaeus 3.125D). To compare this creature with Oedipus is to sink from the sublime to the ridiculous—but not, I believe, to leave the field of reference altogether. The Prometheus of Prometheus Bound is an example of what a tragedian could create out of the materials of folklore.

52 Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 228–40; 252–54; 267–73; 523–25; 539–40; 548; 969–73; 983–87; 997–99.

53 µοι is ethical dative. See the edition of the play by D. Pieraccioni (Florence, 1956) 151, note on this line.

54 Further references to his polluted state are 212, 516, and 939–49.

55 Aristotle has something similar in mind when he says that true tragedy shows ὁ µήτє άρєτ διαϕέρων ϰαί δικαιοσύνη µήτє δήτє διά ϰαϰίαν ϰαί µοχϑηρίαν µєταβάλλων єίς τίν δυστυχίαν άλλà ςί άµαρτίαν τινά (Poetics 13. 5,1453A). Oedipus in this play, however, claims that there was no reproach of άµαρτία which could have caused him to commit the offenses, the innocent offenses, against himself and his family — and all of human law (966–68).

56 Cf. the function of knowing and keeping secret the whereabouts of Dirke's body in Plutarch De genio Socratis 578B-C.

57 Odyssey 11.271–80; Pindar Olympian Odes 2.31–42; Septem 69–70; 975–77; Phoenician Women 350–53; 624; Euphorion apud scholiast on Oedipus at Colonus 681; Ptolemy in Photius 247.

58 On the Areopagus of Athens: Pausanias 1.28.6; at Sparta: Herodotus 4.149; at Thera: Herodotus 4.149.

59 Orestes will be eumenesteroi (Eumenides 774), and Eurystheus eunous (Eur. Heracl. 1032); Drimacus was called Eumenos (Athenaeus 6.266D). For the blessingand curses a hero could provide, and the punishments (madness, dehydration, and disease), all of them so similar to the powers of the chthonian Erinyes/Eumenides, see Merkelbach, R., “Die Heroen als Geber des Guten und Bosen (P. Mich, inv. 3690)”, ZPE 1 (1967) 97–99.Google Scholar

60 See Headlam, W., “The Last Scene of the Eumenides”, JHS 26 (1906) 268–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The suppliants of Aeschylus, received as metics (609) into Argos, pour blessingupon the city, in terms very like those of the Eumenides (εὐχὰς άγαϑάς, άγαῶν ποινάς), Aeschylus Suppliants 625–709.

61 Cf. Eur. Heracl. 1032 and n. 27 above; Oedipus at Colonus 1522–25.

62 Cf. the Byzantine subtlety attributed by Leahy, D. H. (“The Bones of Tisamenus”, Historia 4 [1955] 26–38)Google Scholar to the Spartans in their dealings with Helice involving the hero's relics. “That [the story of Orestes' bones at Tegea] represents the true history of the affair will probably be believed by few”, writes Leahy (p. 36). Yet the camouflaging tale must have been plausible when it was told.

63 The Mysians, for instance, sacrificed to Thersander son of Polyneices, who was killed by their king Telephus when Agamemnon's armies invaded the country on their way to Troy. The reason given was that Thersander was “the bravest of the Greeks” (Pausanias 9.5.7–8). It seems unlikely that by Pausanias' day the Greek citizens of Elaia could have felt very ambivalent about Thersander—but perhaps the continued sacrifice to him kept alive his foreign, hostile character for the worshipers.

64 Cf. Choephoroi 684–85: buried abroad, Orestes would be µέτοιϰον, єίς τò πãν άєί ξένον. Hector, in the Rhesus, says that the Trojans' allies, even though they were dead and lying in their heaped-up graves, were “no small security to the city” (413–15), if this is the meaning of πίστις ού σειϰρά πó λєι. These are not the enemies of Troy, but it is interesting that once again the foreign dead may have been thought to continue to provide protection.

65 Douglas, Mary discusses this religious strategy in Purity and Danger (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar