Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:39:38.597Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Nyktophylaxia of Delos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

A. Schachter
Affiliation:
McGill University

Extract

In 426/425 BC the Athenians purified the island of Delos: they removed all the graves, and for the future forbade either dying or giving birth there; those involved were to be removed to Rheneia. They also instituted the penteteric Delia after the purification. Whatever the Athenians' initial motivation, the interdiction on burial seems to have been taken seriously, for there were few if any licit burials on the island for the rest of antiquity. It must have been very difficult for the people of Delos to conform to this law, as it affected both the burial of the dead, and the performance of the regular, customary, rites of tendance of family tombs. This paper suggests how they may have found a way to adapt normal Greek practice to fit the circumstances peculiar to Delos.

Type
Shorter Contributions
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barber, R., Blue Guide: Greece (London & New York 1988).Google Scholar
Bruck, E.H., Totenteil und Seelgerät im griechischen Recht = Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 9 (Munich 1970).Google Scholar
Bruneau, Ph., Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l'époque hellénistique et à l'époque impériale–BEFAR 217 (Paris 1970).Google Scholar
Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin 1932).Google Scholar
Georgoudi, S., ‘Commémoration et célébration des morts dans les cités grecques: les rites anuuels’, in Gignoux, P., ed., La Commémoration = Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences Religieuses 91 (Louvain-Paris 1988) 7389.Google Scholar
Guide de Délos (Paris 1983).Google Scholar
Henderson, J., ed., Aristophanes: Lysistrata (Oxford 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides 1 (Oxford 1991).Google Scholar
Humphreys, S.C., ‘Family tombs and tomb cult in ancient Athens’, JHS 100 (1980) 96126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacoby, F., ‘ΓΕΝΕΣΙΑ: a forgotten festival of the dead’, CQ 38 (1944) 6575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mediterranean Pilot 4 (Taunton 1968).Google Scholar
Nilsson, M.P., Griechische Feste (Leipzig 1906).Google Scholar
Reger, G., ‘Apollodorus of Cyzicus and his Delian garden’, GRBS 32 (1991) 229–37.Google Scholar
Reger, G., Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos 314-167BC (Berkeley 1994).Google Scholar
Robertson, N., ‘The festival Proerosia’, GRBS 37 (1996) 319–79.Google Scholar
Roesch, P., Études Béotiennes (Paris 1982).Google Scholar
Roux, G., ‘Le devis de Livadie et le temple de Zeus Basileus’, Museum Helveticum 17 (1960) 175–84.Google Scholar
Schachter, A., Cults of Boiotia 1 (London 1981); 2 (1986); 3 (1994).Google Scholar
Sokolowski, F., ‘Note sur les ΝΥΚΤΟΦΥΛΑΞΙΑ à Délos’, BCH 59 (1935) 382–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tréheux, J., ‘Les hiéropes déliens de 171 avant J.-C.’, BCH 109 (1985) 485–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tréheux, J., ‘Un document nouveau sur le Néôrion et le Thesmophorion de Délos’, REG 99 (1986) 309–17.Google Scholar
Vallois, R., ‘Les strophes mutilées du Péan de Philodamos’; BCH 55 (1931) 241-64, esp. 285–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallois, R., L'architecture hellénique et hellénistique à Délos 1 (Paris 1966).Google Scholar
Wyse, W., The Speeches of Isaeus (Cambridge (1904).Google Scholar