DIONYSIAN CULT
REFLECTIONS IN ATTIC FESTIVALS
a term paper for Classics
165
by Delia Morgan
The relation between myth and cult
practice in religion is intimate and ambiguous. Some think that ritual actions
came first, and only later did the myths evolve to explain them; others hold
that ritual actions were instituted to commemorate events, real or imagined,
that had transpired in myth. It is a sort of chicken-and-egg question, and
probably unanswerable except in a few isolated cases. With regard to Dionysos,
the Greek god of wine, ecstasy, theater and divine possession, there is an
overabundance of myth, and a paucity of evidence for actual cult practice. Part
of this is to be expected; Dionysos was a deity intimately associated with
several mystery cults, and initiates to the mysteries were sworn to secrecy.
There is some evidence of Dionysian mystery cult beliefs from funerary
practices – grave inscriptions and tablets of instructions for the afterlife
left with the deceased. Most of the evidence for cult practice, however, comes
from the festivals which were a regular feature of the Attic calendar.
The Athenian year consisted of twelve months, with
the first month, Hecatombaion, beginning around midsummer at the new moon
before the summer solstice. (Parke, 29)
The festivals pertaining to Dionysos were held primarily in the winter
and early spring. The first of these, the Rural Dionysia, was held locally, in
various places around
The next month, Gamelion, brought the
festival of the Lenaia, held on the 12th. Not much is known about it; some
regard it as originally the Athenian version of the Rural Dionysia. (Parke,
104) It was an old festival, organized
by the Basileus, the original authority for religious rites. The name may be
connected with the fact that there was a sanctuary of Dionysus Lenaios, in an
large enclosure within Athens, which had been perhaps the earliest center of
his cult in Athens. Supposedly dramatic contests were held there before the
later theater to Dionysos was built. After the introduction into Athens of the
cult of Dionysus Eleuthereus in the mid-sixth century, and after the City
Dionysia were established, the Lenaia lost some of its prestige. (Parke,
104) The Lenaia did still include a
procession, tragedies and comedies; unlike the City Dionysia, no foreigners
were allowed at the Lenaia. (Parke, 105)
There seems to have been some connection to the Eleusinian mystery cult;
at the contests there was a torch-bearer who urged the audience to “call on the
god” and the audience responded with cries of “Son of Semele, Iacchos, giver of
wealth.” Iacchos was a deity associated
with the Eleusinian mysteries, and was also the ritual shout of the initiates;
he had long been equated with Bacchus.
The Anthesteria was held around
February, a time when plants began to blossom with new growth; the name is
derived from the word for flowers. (Parke 107)
The festival was dedicated to Dionysos, who has often been regarded as
the god of all birth and growth, not merely the vine. The main themes of
Anthesteria were wine and the spirits of the dead, a curious juxtaposition, but
one in keeping with the nature of the deity. Dionysos had a long association,
strengthened by the mystery cults, with the realm of death and the underworld;
indeed some regard him as more of a chthonic deity, and some ancient authors
went so far as to equate him with Hades. This association of Dionysos with the
powers and spirits of the dead, along with his nature as a deity of burgeoning
life and growth, may help explain the paradoxical contrasts of the Anthesteria.
The festival lasted three days, the 11th, 12th and 13th of the month of
Anthesterion. The first day was the tasting of the new wine, which had been
left to ferment in large ceramic jars since the harvest of the previous summer.
At the Pithoigia, the “jar-opening,” the farmers of Attica brought a portion of
the wine to the shrine of Dionysos in the Marshes, an old sanctuary near the
Acropolis in Athens. The wine was mixed with water before drinking, as was
standard Greek practice; undiluted wine was considered far too dangerous for
mortals to consume, and even then there was a prayer said at the libation, that
the wine vintage would do no harm. As Parke notes, “the phrase uttered implies
that wine had a potent, even a magical power, which only Dionysus could
control.” (Parke, 108) The drinking was followed by celebration, song and
dancing. Dionysos was called upon as “Flowery, Dithyrambos, the Frenzied One,
and the Roarer.” (Bremmer, 47)
The rest of the first day was probably
given over to drinking, but the ritual activities resumed the following day at
the Feast of the Choes – the wine jugs. On this day, the spirits of the dead
were free to roam the land, and precautions were taken against their doing
harm. People chewed the leaves of buckthorn and smeared the doorways with pitch
in an attempt to ward off unfriendly spirits. (Bremmer, 47) The sanctuary to
Dionysos in the marshes was opened only one day a year, at the Feast of Choes;
simultaneously, all other temples and shrines were closed to prevent unwanted
intrusions by the spirits. A state ceremony was conducted at a site near the
Olympieion, where a chasm in the ground was considered to be an entrance to the
underworld. Here on the day of Choes, Pausanias said that offerings of wheat
flour and honey were thrown into the chasm, probably as an atonement to the
spirits of the dead.
There was something of a sense of dread and
foreboding, a somber aspect to Choes; this was contrasted, however, with more
typically Dionysian celebratory elements. There was a Dionysian procession,
with people riding in carts and engaging in ribald mockery of those they passed on the road, as well as the
usual items of basket-bearers, sacrificial animals and the carrying of ritual
implements. (Parke, 109) The main event of the procession was the arrival of
Dionysos himself, who probably came in the form of a masked actor riding in a
ship mounted on wheels, and accompanied by flute-players costumed as satyrs.
Dionysos was associated with the sea and sailing, and the procession route may
have reflected the idea that he arrived by sea, heading toward his shrine in
the Marshes. (Parke 109) There seems to
be a carnivalesque spirit in all this juxtaposition of spookiness and
intoxicated revelry, something like the mood of Halloween today.
Themes of reversal are often associated
with Dionysos, as he can be seen as a subversive influence, one that undermines
or even overturns the established order of things. At Choes this kind of
reversal was in evidence with regard to the feast customs. At a usual Greek
party or symposium, the host provided the meal and the wine; the wine for all
the guests was mixed into a large common bowl, and there was plenty of shared
conversation and song. At Choes, by contrast, the host provided only garlands
and dessert; each guest brought their own food and wine, and did not share.
(Parke, 113) Even more oddly, the drinking was to be done in silence, each
guest consuming a standard portion of mixed wine (about three quarts);
sometimes there was a drinking contest with a prize awarded to the one who finished
first. (Parke, 116) The start of the contest was signaled by the sounding of a
trumpet, an instrument of Dionysos, and one with connotations of the eerie and
uncanny. (Bremmer, 47) After the feast
and wine-drinking, the garlands the guests had worn were placed around the
empty wine jugs and carried to the shrine of Dionysus; there they were offered
to the priestess. (Parke, 116)
There were myths to explain the odd customs of
Anthesteria, having to do with Orestes and his blood-guilt (miasma) from killing
his mother; the precautions of closing the temples and only drinking one’s own
wine were said to protect others from being contaminated by the miasma. (Parke,
114) However, the later Greeks were fond
of trying to devise their own rational explanations for long-standing ritual
customs, so this must be taken with a grain of salt. More likely, the customs
had to do with the belief that the spirits of the dead were on the loose for
that one day, and precautions needed to be taken against that. That basic idea
of a day in which ghosts wander about dangerously is a common theme in
religion, in Europe and the world, and one more likely to account for both the
customs and the Dionysian emphasis.
Perhaps the most dramatic custom associated with
Anthesteria was that of the hieros gamos,
the sacred marriage. The Basileus, or King Archon, who had the responsibility
of older religious ceremonies, shared some of this responsibility with his
wife, the Basilinna. She must have been a virgin at marriage, and on Choes when
the sanctuary of Dionysos was opened, she alone entered the sacred precinct and
“offered secret offerings on behalf of the city.” (Parke, 111) There were fourteen women, called the
Gerarai, who performed ritual functions under her direction, making offerings
to Dionysos. She administered an oath that they swore: “I sanctify myself and
am pure and holy, from all things which are not purifying and particularly from
intercourse with a man, and shall act as Gerara at the Theoinia and the Iobaccheia
in the ancestral fashion...” (Parke, 111)
The two festivals named were obscure, but were rites dedicated to
Dionysos.
Following this, the Basilinna was to be married to
the god, and joined to him in sexual union. Details are scant regarding this
sacred mystery, but it was known to have taken place at the Boukoleion, a
building in the civic center of the city. Some have speculated that the
Basileus himself, masked and robed to impersonate the god, would have acted the
part of Dionysos, but this is not certain. (Parke, 112) This sort of sacred marriage is not common in
Greek religion, and Herodotus considered the basic conception, that the
priestess was the consort of a male god, to be an oriental practice. The rite
may reflect fertility magic, or it may echo the idea that Dionysos, as an
exotic god who arrived by sea, was united with the community through the person
of the priestess. Parke considers this ritual, and the entire festival to be
quite ‘primitive’ and early in Greek religion. (Parke, 113)
The third day of the Anthesteria was the day of the
Pots (Chytrai). A mixture of
vegetables was cooked and offered to Hermes of the Underworld; it was offered
on behalf of the dead, probably in appeasement of their spirits. Also on this
day, there was a custom of swinging: young girls and maidens were set into
seats hung from trees to swing, and
Dionysian masks and other charms were also hung from trees, and set swinging.
This custom has sometimes been seen as having an aspect of purification (Parke,
119) or fertility charm (Nilsson, 33). A myth explains it as a custom related
to the introduction of wine. Dionysos had given wine to Icariaus, a chieftain
in Icaria; but when he give it to others, they were overcome with confusion
and, thinking they had been poisoned, murdered their host. His daughter,
Erigone, hanged herself in grief, and a plague was on the land. The Delphic
oracle instructed, as a cure, to install the worship of Dionysus and to
accompany this with the swinging of maidens and charms in trees. (Parke, 118) Here again, what may be an old folk custom
has been given a ‘rational’ explanation, but there is evidence from
anthropology that swinging has been used for purification (Parke, 119); also
the possible folk magic associations of swinging with fertility are perhaps
obvious.
This suggests a possible connection between
purification and fertility aspects; to get rid of ghosts and the taint of death
is an act of purification, but perhaps one way to do this is by an exuberant
display of the powers of life. The apotropaic use of phalluses has been widely
noted in folk magic, and one possible connotation of the carrying of the giant
phallus might be to ward off the spirits of death, by means of a potent symbol
of fertility and life. In that case, one might say that the aspects of
purification and fertility become intertwined, allies against the forces of
decay and death. Given the cathartic effects of both revelry and ritual
activities, it is easy to imagine that one of the psychological benefits of all
this was to come to grips with the fear of ghosts, and dispel that fear. When
the third day was over, the spirits were chased out of the city, as the people
went around shouting “Get out, Goblins, the Anthesteria is over!” (Parke 117)
The huge artificial phallus which had been carried around Athens in the
procession was ritually burned, and the Anthesteria was ended. (Bremmer,
49) The brief reign of the Dionysian had
given way once again to normality.
The next month of the Attic calendar, Elaphebolion,
was dominated by the great theatrical performances of the City Dionysia, which
started on the 9th day. It was associated with a new form of the cult of
Dionysus arriving from Eleutherai, and had been introduced as a popular
festival under the tyrant Peisistratus in the mid-sixth century, possibly as a
means of shifting emphasis away from the aristocracy and toward the masses.
While the Anthesteria had been under the control of the Basileus, the older
religious official, the City Dionysia were under the control of the archon as
political leader, who in turn was appointed by Peisistratus. (Parke, 129) The
Eleutherian cult had brought to Athens a primitive wooden image of Dionysos;
this statue was normally housed in a temple in the city, but a few days before
the Dionysia it was taken to a small shrine outside the city walls, at the
sanctuary of the Academy, situated on the road to Eleutherai and to Boeotia,
where it was offered sacrifices. (Parke, 126-127) It was returned to the temple just before the
festival began; this carrying of the statue was apart from the main ritual
procession of the Dionysia.
The larger procession was phallic in nature, and
various Greek colonies were required to send phalloi to Athens for this
purpose. Participants in the procession were sorted by social group and
function, the resident aliens wearing purple robes carrying trays of offerings,
and citizens wearing regular dress and carrying leather bottles of wine to be
offered to the god as first fruits. There were also a number of sacrificial
bulls; it was calculated that in 333 BC, 240 bulls were offered at one ritual.
(Parke, 127). An aristocratic maiden led the procession, carrying a golden
basket of fruits, and special long thin loaves of bread were carried on the
shoulders. The procession paused at various places for the performance of
dances, and proceeded to the altar near the theater of Dionysos for the
sacrifice of bulls, which was followed by a feast of the meat. The day ended
with a komos, a revel, in which men
with torches roamed the streets after dark, singing and dancing to the
accompaniment of flutes and harps. (Parke, 128) The procession and the komos
were the older parts of the City Dionysia, and resembled the rural version.
By the sixth century, dramatic performance had
become incorporated, Thespis being said to have led the first tragedy
performance in 534 BC, by dressing in a mask and robes and engaging in a
dialogue with the chorus. (Park, 128) The origins of tragedy and comedy are obscure,
with some authors of the opinion that their roots were in primitive religious
elements associated with Dionysos; masked performances relating the tales of
gods and spirits are a common element of shamanic kinds of religious practice.
Parke, however, holds that it was at Eleutherai that the choral singing and
dancing first evolved into dramatic performance, and from there was taken to
Athens along with the Eleutherian cult of Dionysos. There it underwent further
refinements and perhaps in turn influenced the widespread local celebrations of
the Rural Dionysia. (Parke, 128) Satyr
plays were later added to the dramatic performances, by around the end of the
sixth century; also around this time there was also added choral singing of
dithyrambs, hymns to Dionysos which were first invented in Corinth. Shortly
thereafter, comedies with a chorus and actors were also added to the program.
(Parke, 129) These performances were
held at the shrine of Dionysus Eleutherai, on the southern slope below the
Acropolis. By 330 BC Lycurgus had built a stone theater seating several
thousand people, open to citizens and foreigners alike, and probably also to
women. There were four days of performances, with three dramas, one satyr play
and one comedy each day, all accompanied by a copious flow of wine. The priest
of Dionysos had a special chair from which he presided over the festivities;
some sources suggest that the wooden statue of the god was also present for the
event. (Parke 130)
Other Attic festivals also had Dionysian aspects.
The Oschophoria, held around September, consisted mainly in the carrying of
vine-branches laden with grapes. The procession started from a sanctuary of
Dionysos in Athens and proceeded to a shrine of Athena Skiras at Phaleron. The
procession was led by two young men of noble standing, who were dressed in
female garb and were followed by a chorus singing hymns. (Parke, 71) The aspect
of transvestitism is found in other references to Dionysos, and the god himself
was sometimes dressed as a female in comedies. The Oschophoria were supposedly
concerned with the adventures of Theseus, who went to Crete to defeat the
Minotaur; here is a possible connection to Dionysos, since Theseus was aided by
Cretan princess Ariadne, whom he later abandoned, and who was taken as a bride
by Dionysos.
Around December, shortly before the Rural Dionysia,
there was a festival known as Haloa, a word which may be connected with a
threshing floor, or with a garden. It was held in honor of Demeter and
Dionysos, and seems to be an agricultural festival centered on the secret rites
of women. There was a feast, which excluded those foods forbidden in the
mysteries at Eleusis; there were cakes in the shape of male and female sexual
organs, and women also carried clay models of the same, and engaged in ribald
jesting. (Parke, 98) It seems to have been a fertility festival in origin,
perhaps connected with the growth of grain from seed. A vase which may
illustrate the ritual shows stalks of wheat springing up in a field, with four
phalli in their midst, and a girl sprinkling them with something, perhaps to
magically help them grow. (Parke, 99)
Dionysos also had a part in the Apaturia, a feast
held around October to celebrate the transition of young men to manhood and to
initiate them into the phratries, communities linked by ancestry. While the
feast was dedicated to Zeus and Athena, there was a tradition linking it
etymologically to the word ‘deceit’ and in origin to a myth involving Dionysos.
Supposedly two early kings were faced off in single combat, Athenian Melanthus
(“dark”) against Boeotian Xanthus (fair”). Melanthus saw a figure wearing a
black goatskin appear behind Xanthus, and by drawing attention to this, gained
the advantage and slew his opponent. Later it was explained that the apparition
had been the god Dionysos, who thereafter gained the epithet Melainaigis – he
of the black goat skin. It was supposedly in honor of this mythic battle that
the Apaturia was instituted. (Parke, 90)
It is typical of the pervasiveness of Dionysian elements in Greek
religion that the god was able to insinuate himself into such an seemingly
non-Dionysian activity.
These various examples of cult practice during
festivals obviously represent only a tiny sliver of what must have been a large
body of ritual practice associated with Dionysos. Nevertheless, even in this
sliver it is possible to discern those paradoxical themes - fertility, ecstasy, death, theater and
celebration - which combine to make Dionysos such a unique and compelling deity. That a god who was thought of as so exotic,
and so foreign to such deeply-held Greek values as rationality and moderation
in all things, was able to work his way so thoroughly into the regular Athenian
festival calendar might be taken as evidence of undercurrents of reversal and
subversion, a rebellion against normality, deep within the collective psyche of
Attica at large.
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