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CHAPTER II. THE SANCTUARIES IN THE CITADEL.
τὰ γὰρ ἱερὰ ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἀκροπόλει καὶ ἄλλων θεῶν ἐστί.
"There are sanctuaries in the citadel itself, those of other deities as well (as The Goddess)."
Needless
difficulties have been raised about this sentence, and, quite
unnecessarily, a lacuna in the text has been supposed [1]. Though the
form of the sentence is compressed, the plain literal meaning is clear.
The first piece of evidence that Thucydides states is that in
the citadel itself other divinities 'as well' have sanctuaries. To
what does this 'as well' refer? Obviously to 'The Goddess' mentioned in
the clause next but one before as presiding over the Synoikia, 'The
Goddess' who was so well known that to name her was needless.
It
has been proposed to read the sentence thus: 'There are (ancient)
sanctuaries in the citadel itself both “of the goddess Athena” and of
other deities as well.’ This is true, but it is not what Thucydides
says and not what he means. He does not desire to make any statement
whatever about the sanctuaries of Athene or their antiquity; both
propositions are for the moment irrelevant; he wishes to say what he
does say, that "there are sanctuaries in the Acropolis itself, those of
other deities as well (as The Goddess)." It is the 'other deities' not
'The Goddess' who are the point. But Thucydides always leaves perhaps
rather much to the intelligence of his readers. It may fairly be asked,
why is the existence of these sanctuaries of ‘other deities’ an
argument in support of the statement that the Acropolis was the ancient
city?
Fig.16: Plan of Acropolis in Athens.
Once
(p.39) fairly asked, the question answers itself. The Acropolis in the
time of Thucydides was a hill sacred to Athena, it was almost her temenos;
the other gods, Apollo, Zeus, Aphrodite, had their most important
sanctuaries down below, all over the great ‘wheel-shaped’ city. Athena
had from time immemorial, it was believed, dwelt on the hill; any
statement about her shrines would prove nothing one way or the other.
But in the old days, before there was any ‘down below,’ any
‘wheel-shaped’ city, if the ‘other gods’ . were to be city gods at all
they must have their shrines up above. Such shrines there were on the
Acropolis itself; this made it additionally probable that the Acropolis
was the ancient city. The reasoning is quite clear and relevant, and
the argument is just the sort that an Athenian of the time of
Thucydides, with his head full of the dominant Athena, and apt to
forget the ‘other gods,’ would need to have recalled to his mind.
The
citadel of classical days, with its ‘old Athena temple,’ Parthenon and
its Erechtheion lies before us in fig.16. The ‘old Athena temple’ and
the Parthenon belong to ‘The Goddess,' where then are the ‘sanctuaries
in the citadel itself which belong to other deities’ of which
Thucydides is thinking ?
For such we naturally look to the
north side of the Acropolis, where lay the ancient king’s palace (Fig.
2,C). About that old palace westward there lay clustered a number of
early altars, ‘tokens’ (σημεῖα), sacred places and things (ἱερά).
Later these were enclosed in the complex building known to us as the
Erechtheion. It is by studying the plan of this later temple that we
can best understand the grouping and significance of the earlier
sanctuaries.
The Erechtheion as we have it now is shown in
fig.17. Its plan is obviously anomalous, and has puzzled generations of
architects. It was reserved for Professor Dorpfeld, with his
imaginative insight, to divine that the temple, as we have it, is
incomplete; and, further, to reconstruct conjecturally the complete
design. In the light of this reconstruction the Erechtheion, as we now
possess it, became for the first time intelligible.
Fig.18: Plan of reconstruction of Erechtheion.
This
reconstruction is shown in fig.18. The temple in the original plan was
intended to consist of two cellas, each furnished with a pronaos; the
east cella is marked on the plan ‘Athena (p.41) Polias Tempel,’ the
west cella is marked ‘opisthodom,.’ i.e. opistho-domos or back chamber.
Between these two cellas is a building divided into three chambers,
marked in the plan ‘ Poseidon- Erechth(eus)-Tempel.’ The middle chamber
of the three is entered by two porches, a large one to the north, a
smaller one—the famous Karyatid porch—to the south. This middle chamber
alone of the three was probably provided with a low roof .as shown in
the sketch in Fig. 19. A building so complex cries aloud for
explanation. It has become symmetrical, but what is its
significance? What is for us its connection with the ‘sanctuaries of
‘other deities as well’?
Fig.19: Elevation of Erechtheion.
To understand the new
temple we must go back to the times before it was built [2]. It was
intended—though ultimately this intention was not fully accomplished—to
replace other existing sanctuaries, and these were first the old temple
of Athena, and second the old temple of Erechtheus. The ‘old temple of
Athena’ appears on the plan (fig.18) to the south of the Erechtheion;
the very scanty remains of the old temple of Poseidon-Erechtheus are
seen running diagonally under the western part of the new Erechtheion.
The
‘old temple of Athena’ consisted, it is clear, of two parts: to the
east the actual cella of the goddess; to the west, divided into three
chambers, the opisthodomos or treasure-house. We are concerned wholly,
it must be noted, with the ‘other deities, not with Athena; for from
the consideration of Athena and her sanctuaries Thucydides has
dispensed us; but the arrangement of the new Erechtheion cannot. be
understood without some reference to the disposition of the old temple
of Athena.
Perikles intended to demolish not only the old
Erechtheion but also the old temple of Athena, and to supplant them by
a common sanctuary. The east cella in the old Athena temple was to
be replaced by an east cella for the goddess in the new; the
opisthodomos to the west of the old temple by an opisthodomos to the
west of the new. Between these parts of the old Athena (p.42)
temple three chambers were to be devoted to replacing the old
Erechtheion. It is difficult by help of ground-plans to realize the
different levels of the temple, but those who have been on the spot
will remember that the new cella of Athena is on the same level as the
old. The Erechtheion with its different levels is a striking contrast
to the Parthenon, where, as we have already seen, the slope of the
ground was levelled up and that at enormous expense. This preservation
of different levels in the Erechtheion is in itself sufficient evidence
of the sanctity of the different cults to be enshrined. The longer
complex structure, with its different levels and its five chambers, was
intended, as Perikles planned it, to be entered by the two porches,
north and south. Structurally these would reduce the effect of undue
length, but they had also another purpose—the north porch contained the
trident mark of Poseidon, the south the grave of Kekrops.
The
plan of Perikles was never completed. By some one’s machinations,
whether of architect, priest, or politician we do not know, he was—as
before in the building of the Propylaea— frustrated, and obliged to be
content with a truncated scheme. The new Erechtheion almost certainly
had been begun before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. When
Perikles found that his plan was not accepted in full, he did not
design a new temple but made a compromise obviously intended to be
provisional. He was again frustrated in the execution even of this
modified scheme, which was not completed till much later. The
Erechtheion that we know has the east cella for Athena complete and the
two porches, but two only of the three intended midway chambers were
built, and the westernmost one, as appears on the plan, is slightly
reduced in size. The west cella was never even begun. It is probable
that Perikles never succeeded in trans-ferring the image of Athena from
her old temple to the new cella, but this question [3] it is not
necessary we should here decide.
Setting aside those portions of
the Erechtheion which were intended to supply the place of the old
temple of Athena, namely the east cella and the proposed opisthodomos
to the west, we have now to consider what were the ancient sanctities (iepa)
of (p.43) ‘other deities’ which the three central chambers and
the two porches were planned -to enshrine. They are as follows:—
1. The hero-tomb of Kekrops.
2. The Pandroseion.
3. Three ‘tokens’ (σημεῖα).
a. A sacred olive tree.
b. A ‘sea’ called after Erechtheus.
c. A trident mark sacred to Poseidon.
1. The hero-tomb of Kekrops.
We begin with Kekrops because, by almost uniform tradition, with Kekrops Athens began. The Parian Chronicle
[4] sets him at the head of the kings of Athens, and the date assigned
to him is 1582 BC., before Kranaus, before Amphictyon, before
Erechtheus. Thucydides [5] names him as the typical early Athenian
king. ‘Under Kekrops and the first kings,’ he writes ; Apollodorus [6]
says definitely, ‘the indigenous Kekrops, whose body was compounded of
man and snake, first reigned over Attica, and the country which before
was called Attica was from him named Kekropia.’ Herodotus [7] looked
back to a day before Athens was Athens and when there were no Athenians
at all: ‘The Athenians,’ he says, ‘at the time when the Pelasgians held
that which is now called Hellas, were Pelasgians and they were called
Kranai; under the rule of Kekrops they were called Kekropidae; but when
Erech-theus succeeded they changed their name for that of Athenians,
and when Ion, son of Xuthus, became general, they took from him the
name of Ionians.’
Herodotus touches the truth. Kekrops was not
the first king of Athens, he was king before there was any Athens, long
before. He was the ancestor of the clan of the Kekropidae. At some very
early date—the Parian marble may very likely be roughly right—the
Kekropidae got possession of the Acropolis and called it Kekropia.
Kekropis was the name not only of one of the four original Attic tribes
but also of one of the later ten [8]. But though the clan kept its old
name it lost the headship of Kekropia. Kekrops had only one son, (p.44)
Erysichthon [9], and he died childless; that is the mythological way of
saying that the kingship changed families. Then came the time when the
leading clan were Erechtheidae, descendants not of Kekrops, but of
Erechtheus. These are Homer’s days. He knows nothing of Kekrops and
Kekropia, only of ‘the people of Erechtheus.” [10] Then still later
came another change; those who once were the people of Erechtheus
became the people of Athena, Athenians. But Kekrops and Kekropia were
first, probably long first. Kekrops is the hero-founder, the typical
old-world king. It is Kekrops whom Bdelycleon [11], tormented by
modernity, invokes : ‘Kekrops, oh my king and hero, thou that hast the
dragon’s feet.’ Kekrops was half man, half snake. His ‘double nature’
gave logographers and even philosophers much trouble. Was it because he
had the understanding of a man and the strength of a dragon, was it
because, at first a good king, he later became a tyrant, or because he
knew two languages (Egyptian and Greek), or because he instituted
marriage? The curious will find it all in Tzetzes [12]. Eager
anthropologists have seized on Kekrops as a totem-snake, but the
average orthodox mythologist is content to see in his snake-tail the
symbol of the ‘earth-born’ Athenians. This interpretation grazes the
truth, but just misses the point. The hybrid form is of course
transitional. Kekrops is sloughing off his snake form [13] in deference
to the inveterate anthropomorphism of the Greek. He was once a complete
snake, not because he was a totem-snake, not because he was an
‘autochthonous hero, but because he was a dead man and all dead persons
of importance, all heroes, become snakes.
No
one has done so
much to obscure the early history of Athenian religion as Athena
herself, by her constant habit of taking over the attributes of other
divinities [14]. The eponymous (p.45) hero of each victorious
tribe, Kekrops and Erechtheus in turn, is a home-keeping, home-guarding
snake (οἰκουρὸς ὄφις).
But by the time of Herodotus [15] the sacred snake supposed to live on
and guard the Acropolis lives in the sanctuary of Athena, and is almost
the embodiment of the goddess herself; when the snake refused the
honey-cake it was taken as an omen that ‘the goddess had deserted the
Acropolis.’ By the time of Pheidias the snake is just an attribute of
the Parthenos, and was set to crouch beneath her shield. But Pausanias
[16] has an inkling of the truth; he says, ‘close beside the spear is a
snake: -this snake is probably Erichthonios.’ The real relation of
goddess and snake was simply this: the original pair of divinities
worshipped in many local cults were a matriarchal goddess, a local form
of earth-goddess, and the local hero of the place in snake form as her
male correlative; such a pair were Demeter and the snake-king Kenchreus
at Eleusis [17], such were Chryse and her home-keeping nameless
guardian snake on Lemnos [18], such were Eileithyia and Sosipolis at
Olympia [19], such were ‘the goddess’ and her successive heroes Kekrops
and Erichthonios or Erechtheus; only, as will later be seen, in this
last pair another goddess preceded Athena.
Kekrops then was a
dead, divinized hero embodied as a snake; the natural place for his
worship was his tomb, probably the earliest sanctuary of the Acropolis.
Clement [20] of Alexandria says, ‘the tomb of Kekrops is at Athens on
the Acropolis, and Theodoretus [21], quoting Antiochos, adds that it is
‘by the Poliouchos
herself, the goddess of the city. We might safely
assume that a hero-tomb was a sanctuary, but we have express evidence:
in an honorary decree [22] respecting the ‘ephebi’ of the deme of
Kekrops it is ordered that the decree shall be set up ‘in the (p.46) sanctuary of Kekrops,’ and from another decree [23] we learn the name of a ‘priest of Kekrops.’
But
our most definite evidence as to where the tomb of Kekrops lay comes
from the famous Chandler inscription [24] now in the British
Museum. This inscription is exactly dated by the archonship of Diokles
(409-408 B.c.). It is a statement of the exact condition in which the
overseers of the unfinished temple took over the work, what part was
half finished, what unwrought and unchannelled (7.e. columns), and what
were completely finished but not set up in their place. The various
parts of the temple are described as near or opposite to such and such
an ancient shrine, and fortunately among these descriptions occur more
than one mention of the Kekropion. The following [25] is decisive:
‘Concerning the porch beside the Kekropion the roof stones above the
Korae must be....’. The porch of the Karyatids, or to call it by its
ancient [26] name, the porch of the Korae, the Maidens, was beside,
close to, the Kekropion.
So far all is certain. The tomb of
Kekrops was close to the porch of the Maidens; but in which direction?
We should expect it to be north-west, because in that direction, as
will be immediately (p.48) shown, lay the precinct of Pandrosos,
daughter of Kekrops. Professor Dorpfeld [27] places it conjecturally at
D (fig.16), and the site is almost certain. It has been already noted
that the west wall of the present Erechtheion was set back a short
distance within its original plan. It may have been to avoid trenching
on the tomb of Kekrops. Moreover, at the south end of this wall there
is a great gap in the ancient masonry of about 10 ft. long by 10 high.
The gap is evident, though it was filled up by modern masonry. It is
spanned by an enormous ancient block of stone, 15 ft. by 5. Here
probably was buried the serpent king.
(p.47)
With the serpent king and his prophylactic tomb clearly in our minds,
we turn with new eyes to examine certain fragments of sculpture
discovered in the recent excavations. Nothing perhaps caused more
surprise when these fragments came to light than the size and splendour
of the snake-figures, We have already seen (p. 27) that the western
pediment of the Hecatompedon held two sea-monsters, a Triton and
Typhon; the eastern pediment held two land-snakes of even greater
magnificence. The design of this pediment as restored by Dr. Wiegand
[28] is as follows (fig.19b). In the apex is seated Athena; to her right
hand a figure seated and crowned, and therefore a king or a god; this
figure survives, but the figure which must have balanced him to the
left of the goddess is lost for ever. Athena is supreme; the surviving
figure is usually called Zeus, but from his subordinate place it seems
to me that it is more likely he is either a subordinate god, Poseidon,
or a local king, Erechtheus. Possibly Athena is seated between Poseidon
and Erechtheus.
It is, after all, not the seated protagonists
of the pediment, be they Olympians or local kings, who most interest
us, but the two great (p.48) snakes who in the
angles keep watch and ward. These snakes are often described as
‘decorative’ or ‘space-filling’ But surely they are too alive, too
large, too dominant to be mere accessories. One of them is shown in
Fig. 19*in detail, so far as he can be represented by an uncoloured
reproduction. In the original he is blue and orange, and his companion
in the other angle is a vivid emerald green.
Herodotus [29],
it is true, speaks of one snake only as guardian of the Acropolis, the
snake who when the land was beset by the Persians, would not eat its
honey-cake; but then Herodotus writes as if he had no personal
knowledge: ‘the Athenians say there is a great snake.[30] In the story of Erichthonios tradition, and good Attic tradition, knew of two. Hermes in the Ion of Euripides [31] says, referring to Erichthonios,
"To him
What time she gave him to the Agraulid maids
Athena bound for watch two guardian snakes;
In memory whereof Erechtheus’ sons
In Athens still upon their nursing babes
Put serpents wrought of gold;"
and
on the well-known vase in the British museum [31] depicting the scene,
two snakes appear. We need not say that the two snakes of the pediment
are a duplicated Kekrops, but we may and do say that they are two
hero-snakes, guardians of the city, and we may further conjecture that
they were an old pair, male and female. This conjecture brings us to
the woman counterpart of Kekrops, the snake king, his ‘daughter’
Pandrosos.
2. The Pandroseion.
Kekrops
and his faithful daughter Pandrosos were not far sundered. The
situation of the Pandroseion is, within narrow limits, certain. It was
an enclosure to the west of the present (p.49)
Erechtheion. The invaluable Chandler inscription [32] speaks of ‘the
pillars on the wall towards the Pandroseion.’ This must refer to the
west wall, on which were four engaged pillars at a height of about 12
feet from the ground. In another inscription [33], found during the
pulling down of the ‘Odysseus’ Bastion, mention is made of two
pediments, one towards the east and the other ‘towards the
Pandroseion.’
We know, then, certainly that the Pandroseion
was west of the present Erechtheion. We know also that it was close to
the ‘old temple of Athena.’ Pausanias [34], in passing from the one to
the other, distinctly says: ‘The temple of Pandrosos adjoins the temple
of Athena.’ As Pausanias distinctly says there was a temple (ναός), not merely a temenos or sanctuary (ἱερόν), it is disappointing that excavations have yielded no trace.
In
actual cultus and topography we have found Kekrops side by side with
one woman figure, Pandrosos. In current mythology he has three
daughters, of whom is told the thrice familiar story of the child and
the chest [35], It will repay examination.
The child
Erichthonios is born from the Earth in the presence of Kekrops. His
real mother, Earth, gives him up to the tendance of Athena; such is the
scene familiar on terra-cottas and vase-paintings. Athena places him in
a chest or wicker-basket, and gives him to the three daughters of
Kekrops, Pandrosos, Herse, Aglauros, with strict orders not to open the
chest. The two sisters, Herse and Aglauros (or according to some
versions all three), overcome by curiosity open the chest, and see the
child with a snake or snakes coiled about him. In terror at the snake,
who pursues them, and fearing the anger of Athena, they cast themselves
down from the Acropolis.
The story is manifestly absurd, and in some of the elements plainly aetiological.
The suicide of the disobedient sisters is easily explicable. (p.50)
Half way down the Acropolis, below the steepest portion of the rock,
were a number of shrines and tombs. Why were they there ? Clearly
because the persons after whom they were named had thrown themselves
down, or been thrown down, from the top. Such a shrine was the tomb of
Talos [36], near the Asklepieion. Daedalos was jealous of Talos, and
threw him down from the rock. Such was also the shrine of Aegeus [37],
below the temple of Nike Apteros, where Aegeus in despair at the sight
of the black sail cast himself down. Such was the sanctuary of Aglauros
[38] on the north side of the Acropolis. Somebody must have cast
herself down to account for the situation. When one sister only is
mentioned she is naturally Aglauros, but all three are often allowed to
commit suicide for completeness sake.
Of the three sisters,
Herse was not a real person [39]; she has no shrine, she is only a
heroine invented to account for the ceremony of the Hersephoria. The
cult of Aglauros is below the Acropolis and manifestly separate from
that of Pandrosos, and Pandrosos alone for the present need be
considered.
Pausanias, after stating that the temple of
Pandrosos adjoins that of Athena, says that she was ‘the only one of
the sisters who was blameless in the affair of the chest intrusted to
them, As Pandrosos had a shrine so revered it would have been awkward
to make her out guilty. He then, without telling us whether or no he
perceives any connection, proceeds to describe ‘a thing which caused me
the greatest astonishment and is not generally known.’ The thing that
so astonished Pausanias was the ceremony of the Arrephoria [40].
Maidens called Arrephoroi bore upon their heads certain sacred things
covered up; these they carried by night by a natural underground
passage to a precinct near to that of Aphrodite in the Gardens. There
they left what they had been carrying, and brought back other things
also wrapped up and unknown. From the analogy of other mystery cults we
may be sure that the objects carried were (p.51)
some sort of fertility-charms, and they would be carried in a chest or
wicker basket, a cista or a liknon, veiled that the sacred thing might
not be seen. The girl-Arrephoroi might not look into the sacred chests.
Why? The answer was ready, the goddess they served, Pandrosos, had also
her sacred chest into which she and she only had not looked.
The
personality of Pandrosos is hard to seize and fix. One thing is clear;
‘Pandrosos’ is not a mere ‘title of Athena.’ She manifestly, as
daughter of Kekrops, belongs to that earlier stratum before the
dominance of The Goddess. Later Athena absorbed her as she absorbed
everything else. In official inscriptions she usually comes after
Athena, and is clearly a separate personality. Thus the epheboi [41]
offered their ‘sacrifices at departure (ἐξιτήρια) on the Acropolis to
Athena Polias and to Kourotrophos and to Pandrosos, and women swore by
her, though not so often as by Aglauros. We have one ritual particular
that looked as though between her and Athene there was at some time
friction. Harpocration [42] in explaining the rare word 'ἐπίβοιον, ‘that
which is after the ox, says, quoting from Philochoros, that it was the
name given to a sacrifice to Pandrosos. If any one sacrificed an ox to
Athena it was necessary to sacrifice a sheep to Pandrosos. Pandrosos
was in danger of being effaced by Athena, and some one was determined
this should not be; all that ‘The Goddess’ could secure was precedence.
We
have found, then, a maiden goddess who was there before ‘The Goddess,’
nay, who may have herself been ‘The Goddess’ before Athena claimed the
title. Pandrosos belongs to the early order of the Kekropidae, before
the dwellers on the hill became Athenians. It is possible that her
presence throws some light on the beautiful, but as yet enigmatic
figures of the ‘ Maidens’ who have been restored to us by the recent
excavations. Who and what are they?
The
‘Maiden’ whose
figure is chosen for the frontispiece of this book (fig.19c) was found
alone,
somewhat later than the rest, in October, 1888, not like the others
(p.16) North of the Erechtheion, but near the wall of Kimon to the
South,
between the precinct of Artemis-Brauronia and the West front of the
Parthenon. There
(p.52)
is a certain fitness in this, because though in dress, adornments,
colouring, general type, she is like the rest, her great beauty will
always make her a thing apart. The torso and head were found separate,
and about the torso there is nothing specially noteworthy. The unique
loveliness is all of the face, and it escapes analysis. There are,
however, peculiarities worth noting. The right eye is set much more
obliquely than the left. This gives an irregular charm and
individuality; the unusually high forehead emphasizes the austere
virginal air, and the same may be said of the straight chest and long
thin throat. But the secret of her beauty is still kept; standing as
she does now among the other ‘Maidens, she is a creature from another
world, and for all their beauty the rest look but a kindly mob of robust mothers and genial housewives.
Maid of
the Mere, Timareté here brings
Before she weds, her cymbals, her dear
ball
To thee a Maid, her maiden offerings,
Her snood, her maiden dolls their clothes and all.
Fig.19c: statue of koré or "maiden" found in 1888.
Here
the korae are actual dolls, but in Attic inscriptions we find the word
koré used of a statue [45], thus, ‘a koré of gold on a pillar’; or
again in
a dedication to Poseidon, ‘he dedicated as firstfruits this
koré.’ A
koré is one form of an agalma, a thing of delight. The statues, then,
may be called ‘Maidens', but the word is too vague to help us much as
to their significance, and it is their (p.53) significance, who
and what they are, not their value in the history of art that here
concerns us.
The
question is generally put thus, Are they statues of Athena, or are they
statues of mortal women dedicated to her? Priestesses or merely
worshippers? Statues of Athena they are, I think, certainly not; they
have neither helmet, spear, shield, nor even aegis. Athena may appear
sporadically without characteristic attributes, but that a series of
fifty statues of Athena should be dedicated without a single hint of
anything that made Athena to be Athena is scarcely possible.
Are
they, then, mortal maidens? For priestesses their number, restricted as
they are by style to a short period of years, is too many. If they are
mere mortal worshippers, it is at least strange that in the only two
cases where we have inscribed bases they are dedicated by men. In one
case we have the simple statement: ‘Euthydikos son of Thalearchus
dedicated’[46]; on the other, Antenor, it is stated, makes the statue,
Nearchos dedicates it as ‘firstfruits of his works.’[47] Would Nearchos
dedicate a statue of mortal woman as ‘firstfruits of his works’? We
seem to be at an impasse.
But there is surely a third solution
open to us. The maidens need not be mortal because they are not Athena.
There was a time before the armed maiden with spear and shield and
aegis came from Libya or the East, a time when another maiden ruled
upon the hill and was ‘The Goddess.’ Is it not at least possible that
the maidens are made in her image, and that when the armed goddess took
possession of the hill, when the ancient Kekropidae and Erechtheidae
became Athenaioi, the maidens of the old order passed into the service
of the maiden of the new ? that we must think of their type as shaped
at least for the worship of Pandrosos rather than Athena? ‘The type of
the warlike goddess was not fashionable in Greece. The Greeks, if any
people, held firmly the doctrine that
" A woman armed makes war upon
herself."
The
woman armed and disarmed, the Amazon in defeat, they made beautiful and
poignantly human, but the woman armed (p.54)
and triumphant, Athena Nikephoros, remained a cold unreality. The koré
of Eleusis is not armed, but at Corinth and at Sparta there was that
strangest of all sights—the image of Aphrodite: armed.[48] Whence she
came
is, as will later be seen (p. 109), not doubtful. In Cythera,[49]
Pausanias tells us, "the sanctuary of the Heavenly Goddess is most
holy, and of all Greek sanctuaries of Aphrodite this is most ancient.
The goddess is represented by a wooden image armed." The Cythereans
called their armed Oriental goddess Cytherea. Did the Athenians call
the same armed goddess ‘Athenaia’? Be that as it may, before her coming
they worshipped the unarmed maiden.
Before
we pass from Kekrops and Pandrosos to the later order under Erechtheus,
the traditional events reputed of the reign of Kekrops must be noted.
There are three :—
1. The contest between Athena and Poseidon, of which Kekrops acted as judge.
2. The introduction of the worship of Zeus.
3. The institution of marriage.
The
discussion of the contest between Athena and Poseidon really belongs to
the Erechtheid period, and must stand over till then. The introduction
of the worship of Zeus and the institution of marriage are probably but
the religious and social forces of the same advance, and may be taken
together.
In
front of the Erechtheion, Pausanias [50] tells us, was an
altar dedicated to Zeus Hypatos, on which no living thing was
sacrificed, but only cakes (πέλανοι). Pausanias does not here say that
the altar was dedicated by Kekrops, but, in his discussion of Arcadia
[51]and the human sacrifice of Lycaon, he says, ‘ Kekrops was the first
who
gave to Zeus the title of Supreme, and he would not sacrifice anything
that had life, but he burned on the altar the local cakes which the
Athenians to this day call pelanot.’ What probably happened was just
the reverse of what Pausanias describes: there was an old altar to ‘the
Supreme, the Hypatos ; at some time or other this was taken over by the
immigrant Zeus; the shift was attributed to Kekrops.
(p.55)
Zeus was essentially of the patriarchal order, i.e. of a condition of
things in which the father rather than the mother is the head of the
family, gives his name to the children, and holds the family property
and conducts the family worship. Nothing could be more patriarchal than
the constitution of the Homeric Olympus. Such a condition of things is
necessarily connected with some form of the social institution known to
us as marriage. Accordingly we learn from Athenaeus,[52] quoting from
Clearchus the pupil of Aristotle, that ‘At Athens Kekrops was the first
to join one woman to one man: before connections had taken place at
random and marriages were in common—hence as some think Kekrops. was
called “Twyformed” (διφυής), since before his day people did not know
who their fathers were on account of the number’ (of possible parents).
The story of the contest between Athene and Poseidon was later mixed up
with the same tradition of the shift from patriarchy to matriarchy. St
Augustine[53] says that the women voted for Athena, and their punishment
was to be, among other. things, that ‘no one was hereafter to be called
by his mother’s name.’
We pass to the three tokens (σημεῖα), the first of which is
a. The sacred olive-tree.
The holy bloom of the olive, whose hoar leaf
High in the shadowy shrine of Pandrosos
Hath honour of us all.
Apollodorus[54]
says, ‘After him (Poseidon) came Athena, and having made Kekrops
witness of her seizure, she planted the olive which is now shown in the
Pandroseion.’ A ‘seizure’ indeed, and not from Poseidon but from the
elder goddess Pandrosos, Athena is manifestly an interloper; why should
Pandrosos have other people’s olive trees planted in her precinct? The
olive is but one of the many ‘tokens’ or attributes that Athena wrested
to herself. It was there before her, Kekrops quite rightly holds it in
his hand.
The
olive-tree grew in the Pandroseion, it also grew in the older
Erechtheion. Herodotus[55] says, ‘There is on this
Acropolis (p.56) a temple of
Erechtheus, who is called earth-born, and in it are an olive-tree and a
sea which, according to the current tradition among the Athenians,
Poseidon and Athenaia planted as tokens when they contended for the
country.’ There is no discrepancy, the Pandroseion must have been
included in the older Erechtheion.
By a most happy chance, among the
fragments of decorative sculpture left us is one on which is carved
‘the holy bloom of the olive,’ in three delicate sprays. The real
sacred olive was old and stunted and crooked [56], but the artist went his
own way. The fragments are grouped together in a conjectural
restoration [57] in fig.20.
Fig.20: Reliefs on Temple of Erechtheus.
All that is certain is that we have a
Doric building and adjacent to it the wall of a precinct over which the
olive is growing. Against the wall of the building is the figure of a
woman in purple, wearing peplos and himation. Against the wall of the
precinct once stood a man. Only one leg of him is left. The two figures
might be part of a procession. The woman, standing full face, may
belong to the same composition, but this is not certain. She wears a
red chiton and bluish-green himation. On her head is a pad (τύλη), for
she is carrying some burden. One of her arms is lifted to support it.
We think instinctively of the Arrephoroi. The figure, though very
rudely hewn, has something of the lovely seriousness of the other
‘maidens.’ The whole composition may have belonged to a pediment of the
earlier Erechtheion, but its pictorial character makes it more probably
a votive relief for dedication there, and representing some scene of
worship at the ancient shrine.
Within the older Erechtheion we have further:
(b) A cistern or ‘sea,’ called after Erechtheus. With it may be taken
(c) A trident-mark, sacred to Poseidon.
Fortunately
about the position of these two sacred things there is no doubt.
Underneath the pavement of the westernmost chamber (c) of the present
Erechtheion is a large cistern[58] hewn (p.58) in the rock, and at A in the North porch are the marks of the trident.
The
two things together, the sea-water in the cistern and the trident-mark,
were both associated with Poseidon. Pausanias[59] says they were said to
be ‘the evidence produced by Poseidon in support of his claim to the
country.’ Apollodorus[60] says, ‘ Poseidon came first to Attica and smote
with his trident in the middle of the Acropolis and produced the sea
which they now call Erechtheis.’
Athena produced the olive-tree,
Poseidon the salt well and the trident-mark as ‘tokens’ or evidence of
their claim. This is manifest aetiology. There had been on the
Acropolis from time immemorial certain things reputed sacred, a gnarled
olive-tree, a brackish well, three holes in a rock. It was the obvious
policy of any divinity who wished to be worshipped at Athens to annex
these tokens. Pandrosos had the olive-tree before Athena. The name of
the well Erechtheis shows that it was a ‘token’ of Erechtheus rather
than of Poseidon.
Such sacred trees, such ‘seas, such curious
marks existed elsewhere; Pausanias[61] himself notes in another inland
place, Aphrodisias in Caria, there was a sea-well. What impressed him
as noteworthy about the well at Athens was that when the South wind was
blowing it gave forth the sound of waves, but then as he does not say
if he waited for a South wind, the ‘sound of waves’ may have been a
detail supplied by the guides.
The trident-mark belongs to a class of
sacred things that will repay somewhat closer attention. Fresh light
has been thrown upon it by a recent discovery. In examining the roof of
the North Porch, with a view to repairs, it was observed that
immediately above the trident-mark an opening in the roof had been
purposely left. The object is clear; the sacred token had to be left (p.59) open to the sky; it had to be sub divo. This is manifestly more appropriate to a sky-god than to a sea-god.
Our
best analogies are drawn from Roman sources. Ovid[62] tells us that when
the new Capitol was being built a whole multitude of divinities were
consulted by augury as to whether they would withdraw to make place for
Jupiter. They tactfully consented, all but old Terminus. He stood fast,
remaining in his shrine, and still possesses a temple in common with
mighty Jupiter :
"And still, that he may see only heaven’s signs
In the roof above him is a little hole."
When
place was wanted for an Olympian, be he Zeus or Poseidon or Athena, the
elder divinities were not always so courteously consulted. We do not
even know whose open air token Poseidon seized.
Servius[63], commenting on
‘the steadfast stone of the Capitol, tells the same story. There was a
time when there was no temple of Jupiter, that is there was no
Jupiter. Augury said that the Tarpeian mount was the place to build
one, but on it were already a number of shrines of other divinities.
Ceremonies were — performed to ‘call out’ by means of sacrifice the
other divinities to other temples. They all willingly migrated, only
Terminus declined to move: this was taken as a sign that the Roman
empire would be for all eternity, and hence in the Capitoline temple
the part of the roof immediately above, which looks down on the very
stone of Terminus, was open, "for to Terminus τέ is not allowable to
sacrifice save in the open air." Terminus was just a sacred stone or
herm, incidentally to the practical Romans a boundary god. Another
Roman god, Fidius[64], had in his temple a roof with a hole in it
(perforatum tectum),
and Fulgur, Caelum, Sol and Luna had all to dwell
in hypaethral temples[65]. Wherever the lightning struck was in Greece
holy ground, to be fenced in but open always above to the god who had
sanctified it, to the ‘descender, Kataibates[66]. Kataibates became
Zeus
Kataibates, Fulgur Jupiter Fulgur, but the lightning and the
‘descender’ (p.60) were there before the coming of the Olympian,
and the threefold mark preceded Poseidon.
In
picturing to ourselves therefore the ancient sanctities of the
Acropolis, we have to begin with certain natural holy things that were
there from time immemorial, that were holy in themselves, not because
they were consecrated to this or that divinity. Such were the
olive-tree, the salt sea-well, the trident-mark—we are back in a time
rather of holy things than divine persons. Successive heroic families,
in possessing themselves of the kingship, take possession of these
sanctities ; they are as it were the regalia. In the time of the
Kekropidae, Pandrosos, daughter and paredros of Kekrops, owns the
olive-tree; in the time of the Erechtheidae the well is called
Erechtheis, and all the sacred things are included in an Erechtheion.
It is worth noting that though Poseidon claimed the well and the
trident-mark he never gave his name to either, and though Athena
boasted of the olive-tree and snake, neither was ever called after her.
The
name of Erechtheus or Erechthonios marks a stage definitely later than
that of Kekrops. In the reign of Kekrops we hear nothing of foreign
policy. He is engaged in civilizing his people, in marrying them, in
teaching them to offer bloodless sacrifice. But the reign of Erechtheus
is marked by a great war. He fought with and conquered Eumolpos, king
of the neighbouring burgh Eleusis. Kekropia has taken the first step
towards that hegemony she was to obtain under Theseus.
Erechtheus, not
Kekrops, is the king-hero known to Homer; the two passages in which he
and his city are mentioned are significant. In the Odyssey[67], Athena,
having counselled Odysseus, leaves him to make his entrance alone into
the house of Alkinoés, while she betakes herself home. "Therewith
grey-eyed Athene departed over the unharvested seas and left pleasant
Scheria and came to Marathon and wide-wayed Athens, and entered the
good house of Erechtheus." Here manifestly Athena has no temple, she
has to shelter herself in the good house of Erechtheus (Eρεχθῆος πυκινὸν
δόμον). That is how it used to be in the old kingly days, the king was
divine, his palace a sanctuary.
But in the Catalogue of the
Ships[68]—allowed on all hands to (p.
61) be a later document—things are quite otherwise. Among the captains
of the ships were "they that possessed the goodly citadel of Athens,
the domain of Erechtheus the high-hearted, whom erst Athene, daughter
of Zeus, fostered, when Earth, the grain-giver, brought him to
birth;—and she gave him a resting-place in Athens, in her own rich
sanctuary; and there the sons of the Athenians worship him with
bulls and rams as the years turn in their courses."
The passage
is a notable one. The singer is manifestly in some difficulty. Athena
by his time is supreme ; she has a goodly temple: it is she who offers
hospitality to Erechtheus, not Erechtheus to her. Yet the singer knows
the early tradition that the goodly citadel belongs to the king
Erechtheus, he also knows the ritual fact that annual sacrifice was
offered to him. This ritual fact of the sacrifice to Erechtheus is
attested by Herodotus[69]. He tells us that the Epidaurians were allowed
to cut down sacred olive-trees to make statues from, on the express condition
that they annually sacrificed victims to Athena Polias and Erechtheus.
Here the goddess joins in the honours, a fact not expressly stated in
Homer, though probably understood.
So far we have Erechtheus,
hero-king, snake-king, like the earlier Kekrops and Athena. Athena, it
is evident, is the later intruder, but we have had no evidence of
Poseidon. Poseidon’s position at Athens is a very peculiar one. Unlike
Erechtheus, he has no temple called after him, he cannot give his
name even to a salt sea-well, his trident-mark is probably to begin
with a thundersmitten rock; unlike Athena he never gets the people
called after him, and yet, spite of all this, his worship is ancient
and deeprooted, and from him rather than from Zeus or Athena the old
nobility of Athens claimed to be descended.
We are so accustomed
to regard Athena as the Alpha and well-nigh the Omega of Athenian
religion that the priority of Poseidon, one of the ‘ other gods,’ needs
emphasis. The Athenians themselves, however, at least the more
conservative[70] among them, recognized it. Poseidon they knew was son of
Kronos, and Athena
daughter only of the younger Zeus.
“Ὁ Sea-Poseidon and ye elderly gods"
(p.62)
exclaims the youth in the Plutus when he holds the torch to the
wrinkles in the old woman’s withered face. When, in the Frogs,
Euripides is made to utter what is taken to be a fine old conservative
sentiment, Dionysos answers "Good by Poseidon, that!" When in the
Knights Nicias the household slave—conservative
after the manner of his class—hears that the new demagogue is a black-pudding chandler, he exclaims in horror,
"A
black-pudding chandler, Poseidon what a trade !"
The choice of Poseidon
by the conservative party was no mere chance; they believed in him,
they swore by him, because they thought they were descended from him.
In the case of one noble family, the Butadae, this descent was no mere
chance tradition ; their family tree was written up in the Erechtheion
itself, and they claimed to be descended from a certain Butes, son of
Poseidon and
brother of Erechtheus. When Pausanias[71] entered the
later Erechtheion he saw in the first chamber three altars, "one sacred
to. Poseidon on which sacrifices are offered to Erechtheus in
accordance with the command of an oracle, one to the hero Butes, and
one to Hephaestos; the paintings on the wall represent the family of
the Butadae." It is often said that Erechtheus is merely a ‘title’ of
Poseidon; this was the view of the lexicographers. Hesychius[72]
explains Erechtheus as ‘ Poseidon at Athens. But the statement about
the altar shows that they were not originally the same, the command of
an oracle was needed to affiliate them. It is a noticeable point
moreover that Poseidon has no temple of his own, only an altar in the
‘dwelling’ (οἴκημα) called the Erechtheion. This sanctuary bearing the
kingly name, remains his ‘steadfast house’ and is an eternal
remembrance of the days when the king was priest and the god’s
vicegerent on earth.
But there came a time when kings ceased to
be in the old full sense incarnate gods, and then the kingly function
was split into two offices, secular and spiritual. Of this at. Athens
we have traces in the narrative of Apollodorus [73]. He says on the death
of Pandion his sons divided the paternal estate and Erechtheus took
the kingship, but Butes took the priesthood of Athena and of Poseidon
the son of Erechthonios. It was the family tree of the (p.63) royal priest Butes that was religiously preserved in the
Erechtheion. The ‘paintings’ on the wall could of course only go back
to the rebuilding of those walls in 409 BC, but the genealogical tree
would go back to time immemorial. In the Lives of the Ten Orators[74] we
hear of Lycurgus, the Eteobutad, as follows. His ancestors derived from
Erechtheus, son of Ge and Hephaestos, but his immediate ancestors were
Lycomedes and Lycurgus, whom the people had honoured with a public
funeral. And the descent of his family from those who held office as
priests of Poseidon is on a complete tablet in the Erechtheion written
up by Ismenios son of Chalcideus and there are wooden images of
Lycurgos and his sons, of Habron, Lycurgos and Lycophron made by
Timarchos and Cephisodotos the son of Praxiteles. And Habron dedicated
the tablet to his son, and coming in succession to the priesthood he
resigned in favour of his brother Lycophron. Hence Habron is
represented handing over the trident to him.
By such family
trees, by the genealogies and successive priesthoods of royal priestly
families, was ancient chronology kept. Argive chronology it will be
remembered was reckoned by the years of the consecration of the
successive priestesses of Hera[75]. The record was kept in the ancient
sanctuary of the Heraion and the statues of the priestesses were set up
in front of the temple[76].
With the question of the cult of Athena we
have not to deal, but as Poseidon is emphatically one of the ‘other
gods’ a word must be said about the subordinate position he comes to
occupy. This position is remarkable. To the conservative party as we
have seen he was a god of the first importance; it is very noticeable
that the chorus of Knights[77] sing first to ‘ Poseidon lord of horses’
and only second to ‘ Pallas, She of the Citadel.’ Their normal orthodox
relation, Athena first, Poseidon second, is reflected in the hymn at
Colonos. Yet when we come to examine the ritual of the two divinities
we find that their priesthood was conjoint; the Butadae held the
priesthood not only of Poseidon but of Athena[78].
These difficulties,
these incongruities in tradition, would no (p.64)
doubt be easily solved did we fully know the origin of the cults of
Poseidon and Athena. This at present is hidden from our eyes. Kekrops,
Pandrosos, Erechtheus, are obviously local. Their worship never spread
beyond the hill of Athens, but Poseidon and Athena were worshipped over
the whole of Hellas, and whether in Athens they were indigenous or
imported cannot at present be certainly said. Herodotus [79] emphatically
states that Poseidon originated in Libya, "for none except the Libyans
originally possessed the name of Poseidon and they have always
worshipped him." It is in Libya also that this same Herodotus[80] notes
that the dwellers round lake Tritonis sacrifice principally to Athena
and next to Triton and Poseidon, and from the Libyan women the Greeks
obtained the dress and the aegis of the statues of Athena.
If we
may hazard a glimpse into things remote or dark, it may be conjectured
that the worship of Poseidon and Athena came from Libya to Attica from
a people geographically remote, but with racial affinities [81]. That in
Libya Athena was, as Herodotus notes, the more important of the two. An
old matriarchal goddess, transplanted to Athens in the days of king
Erechtheus, she fell when social conditions were patriarchal rather
than matriarchal to a subordinate place. Poseidon rather than
Athena stood at the head of the Athenian family trees. He headed the
conservative aristocratic party. But at some time of political
upheaval, possibly even as late as the time of Peisistratos[82], the tide
turned, and the ancient matriarchal goddess, as patron of the tyrants
and the democracy, reasserted herself. It is Athena not Poseidon who
brings Peisistratos back in her chariot to Athens. All this, the prior
supremacy of Poseidon, the resurgence of Athena, is reflected in the
myth of the Eris, the rivalry, the contest of the two divinities for
the land, in the aetiological myth of the planting of the olive-tree
and the smiting of the rock with the trident.
To resume, among
the ‘other deities’ are first and foremost Kekrops and Erechtheus,
ancient eponymous kings, Pandrosos the daughter and paredros of Kekrops
and later affiliated to these the (p.65)
immigrant Poseidon. ‘Their ‘sacred things’ are the tomb of Kekrops, the
olive, the ‘sea, the trident-mark. The list does not exhaust the ‘other
deities’ worshipped on the Acropolis; Zeus had altars, Artemis perhaps
from early days a precinct. Herakles, though probably an oriental
immigrant, was worshipped on the Acropolis at a very early date. It has
been one of the sudden corrections sometimes so sharply administered by
archaeology to our prejudice that, among the ancient poros
sculptures of which so many remains have come to light, Herakles is
prominent, Theseus conspicuously absent. But the group of deities and
sanctities that cluster round the Erechtheion are sufficient for our
purpose, and for that of Thucydides. They show that the Acropolis was
the polis for the simple reason that "there are sanctuaries in the
citadel itself, those of other deities as well" (as the Goddess).
1. See Critical Note.
2. See throughout Prof. Dorpfeld, ‘Der urspriingliche Plan des Erechtheion,’ A. Mitt. 1904, p. 101, Taf. VI.
3. See Dorpfeld, A. Mitt. XXVIII, 1903, p. 468.
4. οἶντος Αθηνων Kexporos, ἐτη XHHA.
5. Thucyd. 1. 15.
6. Apollod. mr. 14,
7. Herod. yi. 44.
8. Harp. in voc.; Poll. On. rx. 109.
9. Paus, 1. 3. 6.
10. Hom. Iliad. 11. 547 δῆμον ᾿Ερεχθῆος μεγαλητόρος.
11. Aristoph. Vesp. 438 ὦ Κέκροψ ἥρως ἄναξ τὰ πρὸς ποδῶν δρακοντίδη.
12. Tzetzes, Chil. v. 19.
13. Only once so far as I know is Kekrops definitely called a snake, in the Hekale
of Callimachus; speaking of the decision in favour of Athene as against
Poseidon he says (v. 9) τήν pa νέον ψήφῳ (r)e Διὸς δύο καὶ δέκα τ᾽
ἄλλων ἀθανάτων ὄφιός τε κατέλλαβε μαρτυρίῃσιν. See Gomperz, Rainer
Papyrus v1. 1897, p. 9.
14. Prof. Dorpfeld kindly suggests to me
that the type of the Cretan Snake- Goddess recently brought to light by
Dr Evans and Miss Boyd may have had its influence on the goddess of
Athens. I agree (see my Prolegomena, p. 307 note 3) and hope to return to this question on another occasion.
15. Herod. vim. 41. The snake was of course at first imaginary and Herodotus seems to doubt its existence.
16. Paus. 1. 24. 7.
17. Hesiod. ap. Strab. 1x. 9. § 393.
18. Soph. Philoct. 1327.
19. Paus. vi. 20. 2—4.
20. Clem. Al. Protr. 111. 45, p. 39.
21. Theod. Graec. affect. cur. vit. 30, p. 908 καὶ yap ᾿Αθήνησιν, ὡς ᾿Αντίοχος ἐν τῇ ἐνάτῃ γέγραφεν ἱστορίᾳ ἄνω γε ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλει Κέκροπός ἐστι τάφος παρὰ
22. [&&&& missing notes here]
23. C.I.A. 11. 1276 ἱε[ρ]εὺς Κέκρο[πἼΊος ᾿Αρίστων Σωσιστράτου ᾿Αθμονεύς.
24.. Brit. Mus. 1, xxxv.; C.I.A. 1.322. The inscription is engraved on two slabs of
Pentelic marble.
25. loc, cit. line 83 ἐπὶ τέι προστάσει TEL πρὸς τό[ι}
Κεκροπίοι ἔδει τὸς λίθος τὸς ὀροφιαίος τὸς
ἐπὶ τὸν Kopov...
26. For the name Caryatid as explained by Vitruvius see my Mon. and Myth, Ane. Athens, p. 489. .
27. Dorpfeld, ‘Der urspriingliche Plan des Erechtheion,’ A. Mitt. xxrx. p.104,
1904.
28. Wiegand, Die archiiische
Poros-Architektur der Akropolis zw Athen (1904), p. 106; and see also
M. H. Lechat, La sculpture Attique avant Pheidias, p. 53. Fic.
10."Wiegand.Poro sarchi tektur PLY
29. Herod. VII. 41 λέγουσι ᾿Αθηναῖοι ὄφιν μέγαν φύλακα τῆς ἀκροπόλιος ἐνδιαιτᾶσθαι ἐν τῷ ἱρῷ.
30. Eur. Ion 21—26, trans. Dr Verrall.
31. Brit. Mus. Cat. E 418, See my Myth. and Mon. Anc. Athens,
p.xxxi. Two snakes also appear as Dr Wiegand op. cit. points out in the
Atthis attributed to Amelesagoras; see Westermann Paradoxogr. x11. 63
᾿Αμελησαγόρας δὲ ὁ ᾿Αθηναῖος. ὁ τὴν ᾿Ατθίδα συγγράφων.. «φησὶ τὰς δὲ
Κέκροπος θυγατέρας τὰς δύω" ΑὙραυλον καὶ Πάνδροσον τὴν κίστην ἀνοῖξαι
καὶ ἰδεῖν δράκοντας δύω περὶ τὸν ᾿Εριχθόνιον. Hesychius 8.0. οἰκουρὸς
ὄφις Says... οἱ μὲν ἕνα φασὶν ot δὲ δύο ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ Tod’ Ἐρεχθέως.
32.
C.I.A. τ. 322, line 44 Tov κιόνον Tov ἐπὶ τὸ Tolxo τὸ πρὸς τὸ
Πανδροσείο, and in C.I.A. 1v. 321, 11. line 32 τὰ μετακιόνια τέτταρα
ὄντα τὰ πρὸς τοῦ ἸΠανδροσείου.
33. Δελτ. Apx. 1888, p. 87, fig. 1 Β, lines 27 and 41 ὁ πρὸς τοῦ ἸΠανδροσείου. 8. .
34. Paus.1.18.2. For the vase-paintings that illustrate the story see my Myth. and Mon. Anc. Athens, p. xxiii.
35. P. I, 27, 2 τῷ ναῷ δὲ τῆς ᾿Αθηνᾶς Πανδρόσου ναὸς συνεχής ἐστι
36. Paus. 1. 21. 4 see Myth. and Mon. Anc, Athens, p. 299.
37 P. I, 22. 5.
38. P. 1. 18, 2.
39. See my ‘Mythological Studies—the three daughters of Kekrops,’ Journ. Hell. Soc. xu. p. 351, 1891.
40. For a fuller discussion of the Arrephoria in relation to the Theamophoria, see my Prolegomena, p. 131; and for the child in the mystery liknon, p. 525, -
41. C.I.A. II 481, 58.
42. s.v. ἐπίβοιον.
43. C.I.A. τ. 322 (Brit. Mus. 1, 35, 571), 1, 83 ἐπὶ ré προστάσει Te πρὸς ro[c]
Κεκροπίοι ἔδει τὸς λίθος τὸς ὀροφιαίος τὸς ἐπὶ τὸν Kopov ἐπεργάσασθαι ἄνοθεν, see p. 46.
44. Anth. Pal. νι. 280 τάς τε κόρας Λιμνᾶτι Κόρα κόρα, ws ἐπιεικὲς ἄνθετο"
see my Prolegomena, p. 301.
45. C.I.A. 141 κορὴ χρυσῆ ἐπὶ στήλης, v. Lolling, Cat. des inscr. de l'Acropole,
No. 267 τήνδε κόρην ἀνέθηκεν ἀπαρχήν.
46. Jahrbuch d. Inst. 11. 1887, p. 219:
47. C.I.A. IV. suppl. 373 and Eph. Arch. 1886, p. 81, 1. 6.
48. Paus, II 5. 1, m1. 15. 10.
49. Paus. III. 21. 10,
50. Paus. I. 26. 5.
51. Paus. VIII. 2. 3.
52. Athen, XIII. 2. ἃ 555 and Tzetzes, Chil. v. 19. v. 650.
53. Aug. de civitat. Dei, 18. 9 ut nullus nascentium maternum nomen acciperet. .
54. Apollod. III, 14. 2 nerd δὲ τοῦτον ἧκεν ᾿Αθηνᾶ, καὶ ποιησαμένη τῆς
καταλήψεως Κέκροπα μάρτυρα ἐφύτευσεν ἐλαίαν ἣ νῦν ἐν τῷ
ἸΠανδροσείῳ δείκνυται.
55. Herod. VIII. 55.
56. Hesych, Fig. 146 dort ἐλαία, ἡ ἐν ἀκροπόλει ἡ καλουμένη παγκύφος διὰ χθαμαλότητα.
57. For full discussion of the fragments see Dr Th. Wiegand, Die archiiische Poros-
Architektur der Akropolis zu Athen, p. 97; Das alteste Erechtheion und der heilige
Oelbaum, Taf. xv. on which the restoration in Fig. 20 is based. The door really at
the end of the building is, perhaps by a not uncommon convention, brought into
view at the side. Cf. the temple of Janus on a coin of Nero.
58. Unfortunately the site of the ‘sea’ has never been systematically excavated and examined. Professor Dorpfeld tells me that the cistern now visible
is of mediaeval date. Until the mediaeval masonry is removed the
precise character of the ‘sea’ cannot be determined. There was
certainly no spring, the geological character of the Acropolis plateau
forbids that, but a well may exist.
59. Paus. I. 26. 5 ταῦτα δὲ λέγεται Ποσειδῶνι μαρτύρια és τὴν ἀμφισβήτησιν τῆς χώρας φανῆναι.
60. Apollod. III. 14, 1.
61. Paus. I. 26.5. The sea well at Caria was sacred to a foreign god called
Osogoa, see Paus. VIII 10. 4. It is worth noting that Semitic gods have
‘seas’ in their sanctuaries; Solomon’s temple had a brazen ‘sea’ and
Marduk at Babylon had a tamtu or sea, and curiously enough it was
associated with the great serpent. See King, Babylonian Religion, p.
105.
62. Ovid Fasti, II. 667: Nune quoque, se supra ne quid nisi sidera cernat Exiguum templi tecta foramen habent.
63. Serv. ad Aen. IX. 448.
64. Varro L. L. v. 66.
65. Vitr. I. 2, 5.
66. Paus. V. 14. 10.
67. Odyssey VII. 80—81, trans. Butcher and Lang.
68. Iliad II. 646.
69. Herod. V. 82.
70. For Poseidon as the Tory-god I am indebted to Mr R. A. Neil’s edition of the
Knights; see lines 144 and 551.
71. Paus, I. 26. 5.
72. s.v.᾿Eρέχθευς, but the scholiast
in Lycophron, Al, 431, says ᾿Βρέχθευς ὁ Ζεὺς ἐν ᾿Αθήναις καὶ ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ
τιμᾶται; see Mr A. B. Cook, Classical Review, 1904, p. 85.
73. Apollod. III. 15. 1.
74. Vit. X. Orat. p. 843.
75. Thucyd. II. 2.
76. Paus. II 17. 8. For. the whole subject of ths importance of these priestly
genealogies, see Professor Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, p. 102.
77. Aristoph, Eq. 551. See Mr R. A. Neil, ad loc.
78. Apollod. III. 15.1. See supra, p. 62.
79. Herod. II. 50. See R. Brown, Poseidon, 1872, p.66.
80. Herod. IV. 188—189.
81. See Prof. Ridgeway, The Early Age of Greece, p. 226.
82. Herod. I. 59. To the question of the origin and development of the cult of
Athena and to the examination of certain Oriental factors in it I hope to return
on another occasion.
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